“Dear Ellen. Douglas has written about what you’ve been through. Such a help to your mother and father. A credit to them, and us, to be sure.” There was a pause as she touched Ellen’s hair with one fingertip. “No doubt your hair is so dirty and tangled from the journey. The trains are frightful.”
Ellen’s face turned red and she struggled to murmur an appropriate response. “Yes, ma’am. I apologize for my hair, ma’am.” She wouldn’t humiliate Da or herself.
“Listen to that!” Aunt Ruth laughed, the sound a bit sharp. “You’ll have to get rid of that burr, my girl. No one in Seaton will understand you. Now, why don’t you go upstairs and clean yourself? I’m sure you wish to make yourself presentable to us.”
Recognizing she was dismissed, Ellen walked woodenly to the stairs. She felt rebuked, ashamed, and defiant all at once. She turned once, trying to keep her expression neutral. “Which way to my room, ma’am?”
“The little box room, at the back,” Ruth replied. “I’m sure you’ll like it and be glad.”
Ellen nodded her acceptance and gave one fleeting look to her father, who was staring at his feet. She walked slowly upstairs.
Her room was small, but to Ellen, who had slept on a cot in the kitchen, it seemed like heaven. There was a pine bed frame with a feather mattress and a white and blue patchwork quilt. A small bureau with a wash basin and pitcher stood across from the bed, and a little mirror hung above it. Above the bed was an embroidered Bible verse, Proverbs 11:29.
“He who brings trouble on his family will inherit only wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise,” Ellen read aloud. She’d heard the verse in kirk before, but somehow now it felt like a warning. She thought of Ruth’s dismissal of her, and the coldness she was afraid she’d seen in her eyes. Why didn’t her aunt like her?
Ellen turned to the window. At least she had her own window, the blue checked curtains ruffling in the breeze. It looked out onto a scrubby barnyard with an orderly kitchen garden and a hen house behind, and no trees. A barn blocked her view of the countryside, although she could see the tops of the trees, full and green, in the distance.
Perhaps she would plant a tree, right there in the yard, among the hens. An apple tree, or maybe a plum. She
tried to picture it growing, to see herself sitting beneath its shade, picking its ripe fruit, as if she could conjure a future for herself right then and there. It felt as insubstantial as smoke, as going on the ship had all those years ago. Yet they had gone, and they were here now, so why did she still feel like the old dreams were out of reach?
Ellen turned away from the window and took her brush from the carpetbag which Uncle Hamish had left by the bed. She drew it fiercely through her hair, which tended towards unruliness, till it lay flat against her head, her eyes stinging from the pain. She set her mouth in a determined line.
Now was not the time to feel sorry for herself, simply because her aunt and uncle had not welcomed her with loving arms flung open wide. They had to get used to her, just as she and Da did to them. It was silly to dream of fairy tales, of long lost reunions that belonged in the Treasury of Much Loved Stories she’d read once, in school.
Ellen put the brush on her bureau, and then decided to unpack the rest of her belongings. It didn’t take long. Her two dresses went on the clothing pole by the door, and her second set of undergarments and stockings in the drawer. She put her mother’s Bible in the bureau as well, and her rag doll, Celia, on the bed.
Mam had sewn her in her better days, and Ellen had made several dresses for Celia with scraps of cloth. Now she looked far too worn, the red stitching of her mouth half undone, one button eye gone, but Ellen loved her.
For a moment her eyes stung again, this time from memory, as she remembered Mam lying propped up in bed, her pale face glowing, as she handed Celia to Ellen.
“It’s not much, but I know you’ll take care of her.”
Ellen fingered her doll now, wishing she’d taken better care of the one thing Mam had given her. She’d almost forgotten how Mam had spent many days sewing so laboriously, but always with a quick, tired smile. Sometimes it was hard to remember the good days her mother had had. They had stopped so long ago.
There was the sound of footsteps in the hall, and then Aunt Ruth opened the door. Ellen looked up guiltily, Celia still in her hands.
“Now you look a bit more presentable.” Aunt Ruth’s eyes narrowed. “What is that dirty thing you’re holding?”
Ellen clutched the doll. “It’s my rag doll, Celia. Mam—”
Ruth plucked Celia from her hands. “It’s dirty, and most likely contaminated from the ship. I suppose all manner of dirty little immigrants held it?”
“No, only me—”
“We’d best burn it, just in case.” Ruth’s face softened slightly, and her lips curved in a smile Ellen didn’t trust. “You can pick a new doll from the store. We’ve got some lovely ones, with porcelain faces and glass eyes. They put this old thing to shame.”
Ellen drew herself up. Rage was coursing through her, and she fought to keep her voice steady. “Thank you very much, Aunt Ruth, but I’d like to keep my doll all the same. My mam made it for me and I don’t have much left from her.”
There was a moment of silence that seemed to Ellen worse than any rebuke. She could hear the breeze blowing the curtains against the wall, a small, pleasant sound so at odds with the way Ruth smiled coolly at her, her eyes like flint.
“Very well, Ellen, since you feel so strongly about it. But the doll will have to be boiled in the washing, in any case. I won’t suffer dirty things in my house. And I don’t countenance disrespect in a child.” Ruth turned, her skirts swishing across the floor. “Come downstairs when you’ve composed yourself. I’m showing your father the store.”
Ellen counted to ten before following her aunt. Her heart was still beating fiercely, and she strove to keep her face as pleasantly expressionless as possible. At least now she knew where she stood.
The Seaton General Store was a two story building, a large sign in painted red letters out front, with a wide porch underneath that displayed barrels and bins of fresh fruits and vegetables along with a few wooden rocking chairs now rocking slightly in the summer breeze.
Inside was just as impressive. A long, polished counter ran along the back, behind which were shelves stacked straight to the ceiling.