Down Jasper Lane (Amherst Island Trilogy)

One more week of harvesting, and then everyone would be going their separate ways. Ellen thrilled to think of it, even as she felt a shudder of trepidation reverberate through her very bones.

In the spring she’d been accepted to Kingston General Hospital’s nursing school, which had been no small feat. The hospital had received, Ellen had been told, ninety-nine applications for a mere six positions. When she’d decided to aim for Kingston General’s training scheme three years ago, she’d had no idea of how competitive a program it was. Yet thanks to her Year Eight Certificate and Dr. Bandler’s tutelage, she had been accepted and would be leaving on Captain Jonah’s ferry that Tuesday. Peter would be joining her in Kingston to go to Glebe Collegiate, and Lucas would be on that boat as well, as he was about to start his first year at Queen’s University.

It seemed incredible that it was all about to begin, the adventure she’d been waiting for the last three years to start.

Not, Ellen acknowledged wryly, that those three years had been just a waiting period. No, they’d been wonderful years, filled with their own joys and a few sorrows. She’d stayed in Seaton as she had intended, and the year with Ruth and Hamish had been bittersweet. She’d helped in the store and also at home, and while both her aunt and uncle had seemed glad of her, nothing had really changed between the three of them. Even so Ellen felt as if something had shifted in her. Perhaps she was simply growing older, or maybe a little wiser, but she felt more charitably towards her aunt and uncle, and her farewell to them in the following May had been tinged with sorrow.

She’d returned to the island that May, nearly sixteen years old and ready to work. Lucas had just returned from his first year at Glebe, and at eighteen years old Jed was fully a man, working on the farm with his father, with few words for Ellen or anyone, for that matter. But then Jed had always been a boy, and now a man, of few words.

A few days after her arrival Ellen had started with Dr. Bandler. On her very first day a farmhand from up near Emerald had stumbled into the surgery with an arm that had a broken bone sticking right out of it.

Ellen had swayed on her feet at the sight—Dr. Bandler had warned her about blood, bruises, and bones, and in one swoop she’d seen all three. Dr. Bandler barked at her not to stand there like a dolt, and Ellen hurried to fetch bandages and carbolic soap. She held the man steady while Dr. Bandler reset the bone, the poor farmhand passing out before he’d finished, but by March the man was nearly as good as n

ew. “Just a little stiffness, doc,” he said with a grin, stopping by to give Dr. Bandler a quart of maple syrup in thanks. Many of the doctor’s patients, Ellen soon learned, paid this way; actual money was scarce.

Ellen’s days were full helping Dr. Bandler and she was grateful for the medical knowledge he’d given her; from how to dress a wound to instructing someone on preparing a mustard plaster, to soothing an anxious father as his wife prepared to give birth.

Her evenings were spent with the McCaffertys, chatting or sewing by the fire, and pitching in when she could with the chores of farm life, whether it was gathering eggs or tapping trees for syrup in the early spring. She saw little of Lucas, up at Glebe, and not much more of Jed, who was busy managing the Lyman farm with his father. Yet when she did see Jed, in church or at a social gathering, she felt as if he’d softened towards her a bit, or perhaps they’d both just grown up. He didn’t call her Miss Bossy anymore, and the way he smiled at her made Ellen feel a bit funny inside.

Louisa returned the summer after Ellen came back, sixteen years old and as pretty as ever, with a proud tilt to her chin and a valise full of silk and satin dresses. Rose embraced her like a long lost daughter, and Ellen tried to suppress the stab of jealousy she felt at their joyful reunion. She wanted to feel compassion for Louisa, and maybe even affection, yet she found both emotions difficult when it came to her erstwhile friend.

Louisa had softened somewhat too, and seemed more amenable to trying to fit into island life. She helped Rose in the kitchen, and went raspberry picking with Ellen and the children, and generally did not expect to be waited on hand and foot. Yet despite these concessions, Ellen knew she still didn’t trust her.

Every once in a while she saw the same glitter of determination in her friend’s eyes, and she knew that some things about Louisa hadn’t changed. She also watched her with the Lyman brothers, and it was quite clear that Louisa had set her cap for Jed. Whenever he was around Louisa dropped a glove or handkerchief, and smiled so charmingly when Jed stooped to retrieve it. She tilted her pretty head and batted her eyelashes at him, irritating Ellen no end with her simpering.

Ellen didn’t think Jed would be taken in by Louisa’s pretty, silly ways, but her heart constricted every time she saw them together, and she didn’t dare ask herself why—or what Jed might mean to her. Jed was a friend, and she was quite sure someone like Louisa Hopper could only cause him trouble, and maybe even break his heart.

The following summer Louisa went to the Adirondacks with her parents, and the summer after that they took her to Europe. Islanders asked after her, for they had, after all this time, accepted her and her fancy ways, and while Ellen was glad to give them Louisa’s news, she was also glad Louisa hadn’t returned to the island—her island.

As those years passed the islanders had experienced their own share of tragedies—a bad harvest, a blizzard that killed two people who had got lost in the snow, a long illness of Sarah’s which had left her breathless and easily tired, unable to go to high school.

Perhaps saddest for Ellen in the last three years had been the death of her beloved dog, Patch, the winter before last. She’d caught cold and simply hadn’t recovered. For her seventeenth birthday, Jed had got her another puppy, this one buttery yellow with long silky ears. She called him Pat, because curled up in front of the coal stove he looked just like a pat of golden butter.

Yet despite these sorrows and cares, the last three years on Amherst Island had been the happiest Ellen had ever known. When she was on the island she was home, and she knew that would never change.

“Penny for your thoughts, lazybones.”

Ellen looked up in surprise to see Jed striding in his easy, long-limbed way towards her. His hat was in his hand and he raked his fingers through his sweaty hair.

“I’m having a well-earned rest,” Ellen replied tartly. “I’ve been in the kitchen all morning canning tomatoes, and Rose practically chased me out. What’s your excuse?”

“It’s almost dinner, or hadn’t you noticed? How long have you been out here, Ellen Copley?”

There was something about the way Jed said her name, how it rolled off his tongue with such laughing ease, that made Ellen feel as if she wanted to shiver.

She looked at him, saw his usual smile that was teasing and friendly and just a tiny bit mocking, and smiled back.

“When I draw, I lose track of time,” she confessed.

Jed stretched out next to her and before Ellen could say a word, he reached for her sketchbook. “Let’s have a look, then.”

“Jed!” Ellen tried to grab the book back. “They’re private.”

He looked at her, his gaze speculative. “You let Lucas look at them.”

“That’s different...”

“Oh? How so?”