“But why not? It sounds much more interesting than stuffy old Seaton.”
“It is, in its own way,” Ellen said quietly. Suddenly she didn’t want to talk of the island anymore, or of all the people she missed. “However,” she added, her tone final, “Seaton is where I live.” Even if the island felt far more welcoming. She belonged here, by Ruth and Hamish’s decision, and so here she would stay.
It was inevitable, once Louisa and Ellen’s friendship was established, that Aunt Ruth would take a hand in matters. The fact that she approved of Ellen’s friendship with Seaton’s newest prominent member of society was shown with a supercilious sniff one morning at breakfast, and her aunt’s curt announcement that she’d invited the Hoppers to tea that afternoon.
“Tea?” Ellen looked up from her oatmeal. For a brief moment she pictured the old, dented kettle in the flat at Springburn, the strong black tea Da liked in one of the chipped enamel mugs, and felt a sharp pang of homesickness for that old, familiar life, stifling as it had been. These flashes of longing for the past were rare, yet they still assailed her with a sharp and unexpected pain. Ellen wondered if they would ever stop. Did you ever stop missing your mother or father, or longing for their return?
“Yes, tea,” Aunt Ruth replied. “Earl Grey, scones, and lemon tart. I’ll make some cucumber sandwiches as well.”
Ellen nodded in understanding. A fancy tea, then, to impress the Hoppers. The lemon tart had come from the Pyle farm only yesterday, and Ruth had laid it on the pantry shelf, her forbidding expression daring anyone to cut into its pristine surface without permission.
“I’m sure that will be lovely,” Ellen said in the cool, polite voice she found she instinctively reserved for her aunt. “May I help?”
“You can lay the table,” Ruth replied, “and keep your pinafore clean! Louisa might have chosen you for a friend, but I don’t know what her mother or father think on the matter.”
This barb seemed most unjust, as Ellen had been careful to be both polite and mild-mannered in the weeks since she’d been home. In truth half her mind—and her whole heart—was back on the island, so she felt as if she were only half-listening, half-existing in this place. Yet now she wondered if it really mattered how she acted; she suspected that for Aunt Ruth, as well as many others in Seaton, the stink and coal dust of Springburn hadn’t washed off her completely, nor ever would, even though she’d been in America for almost a year.
“I will do my best, Aunt Ruth,” Ellen said as meekly as she could, and was somewhat gratified to see Uncle Hamish wink at her.
Louisa was delighted to be invited for tea, and as the days passed Ellen realized she was not quite as delighted herself. At first, she’d been bemused and perhaps even a little pleased by Louisa’s attention. She’d been a solitary presence in Seaton’s schoolyard for so long that it made a pleasant change to have someone to eat lunch with, and a bench mate in the classroom.
It didn’t take long, however, for Ellen to realize that Louisa seemed to have only one true friend, and that was herself. Ellen she merely saw as a prop, or perhaps a mirror, to reflect her own beauty and wit.
That wit, Ellen found too soon, could also be unkind. A week after Louisa had decided to be Ellen’s best friend, her eye turned to the unlucky Hope Cardle. Hope hadn’t changed much during Ellen’s time away; her face was still scrubbed pink, her hair kept in two stiff, yellow plaits, and the choice of color for her dresses unfortunate.
Worse still, she was habitually clumsy, and even the gentle Miss Evans had trouble keeping hold of her patience when Hope tripped on someone’s bench or dropped her slate in the middle of lessons.
They were out in the schoolyard one afternoon after lunch, and Louisa was, as had become usual, holding court among the girls of Miss Evans’ class. Ellen stood to her side, bemused and silent. Tentatively Hope joined the group; she’d been kept inside cleaning the blackboards. Louisa’s gaze flicked to her and Ellen had a sudden wave of foreboding as her new friend’s eyes brightened with obvious malice.
“Just look at the state of your pinafore, Hope Cardle!” Louisa clucked, and several girls followed suit. Ellen glanced at Hope; there was a long chalk streak down the front of her already dirty pinafore. “You look worse than a skivvy,” Louisa continued with a malicious satisfaction. “We might as well use you as an eraser, since you attract all the dirt!” Leaning forward, Louisa picked at one stiff plait as if she meant to use it as a scrub brush.
Hope’s already pink face had turned scarlet, and tears of mortification brightened her eyes as the rest of the girls giggled, albeit some of them uneasily.
“Don’t, Louisa,” Ellen said in a low voice. She knew too well what it felt like to be in Hope’s place. “It’s not her fault her pinafore’s dirty.
I dare say any of us would look the same if we’d been cleaning the blackboard.”
Louisa turned, and Ellen steeled herself to be the new target of teasing, but after a moment she only smiled and tossed her head.
“The only reason Hope was cleaning blackboards is because she broke all of Miss Evans’ chalk! I wonder, is there a dish left in your house, Hope? Or have you broken them all?”
“Louisa...” Ellen tried again, and was cut off.
“And you, Ellen Copley, shut your mouth,” she hissed. “I thought you were my friend.”
Ellen opened her mouth, but nothing came out for Louisa had already flounced away.
Ellen thought and even hoped that might be the end of her association with Louisa. She thought she preferred her own company to that of the spoiled girl’s, but Louisa, it seemed, had other ideas, and was cloyingly sweet to her that afternoon, insisting on braiding Ellen’s hair with her best silk ribbon. Yet even Louisa’s kindness made her uneasy.
The day Louisa was to come to tea she kept up a steady stream of questions and observations throughout lunch in the schoolyard, so much so that Ellen was not able to get a word in edgewise.
“Seaton is so much smaller and drearier than Rutland,” Louisa said as they washed their lunch pails in the creek that flowed behind the schoolhouse. “I aim to ask your aunt if I can go with you to your lovely little island this summer.”
“What!” Ellen sat back on her heels, her hands red and numb from the creek water. “But I don’t know if I’m going back myself!”
“Well, I said I wanted to go, and your aunt said maybe she could see a way for us to go together.”
Ellen’s mind was a jumble of confused thoughts. Delight at the thought of returning to Amherst Island so soon, and deep foreboding that Louisa Hopper might be going with her. “Louisa,” she began carefully. “I don’t know if you’d want to come to Amherst Island for the whole summer.”