On Renfrew Street, Day One

Ellen had plans. Plans that she hadn’t shared with anyone, intending to reveal them after the wedding

Her friend whirled around. “What do you think of this one, Ellen?” she asked. Ellen Copley watched as Louisa Hopper turned to see her reflection in the mirror, the confection of lace, ribbons, and a feather or two that was the latest fashion in millinery perched jauntily on top of her head.

“It’s lovely,” she replied. “Quite big, though. I imagine your neck will start to ache.”

“Oh, Ellen.” With a smile Louisa took the hat off and tossed it on the bed.

Ellen reached for it, admiring the violet-dyed feathers before putting it back in the box.

She’d never worn anything so fine; she’d never had a need to. Louisa intended it to be part of her trousseau for her honeymoon in Toronto next week.

Even though Ellen had had months to get used to the idea of Louisa marrying Jed Lyman, she still felt a pang of sorrow.

She’d been in love with Jed for years, though no one knew. At least, she hoped no one knew.

She’d never told anyone, not even Jed’s brother Lucas, who had admitted he loved her last May, when she’d been miserably unable to reciprocate his feelings.

It would have been much easier, Ellen mused now, if she’d fallen in love with Lucas. Thoughtful

Lucas, shy and thoughtful, was surely more her type than Jed, who had never left Amherst Island or his father’s farm, and whose taciturn ways bordered on surliness.

Yet it was Jed, with the sudden glint in his grey eyes, his mouth kicking up in a surprising smile, that had made her heart race and her hopes soar.

Sighing, Ellen rose from Louisa’s bed and began to pick up the clothes tossed all over the room, despite the fact that they were newly bought from New York’s best boutiques.

Louisa was the only daughter of a banker and his wife, and Ellen had met her when they’d both lived in Seaton, Vermont, and gone to school together.

For a while Louisa had made her life a misery, and Ellen had suffered through her days living with her genial uncle Hamish and stern aunt Ruth, neither of whom had seemed to know what to do with her.

Ellen’s mother had died in Glasgow when she was 12 years old, and she and her father had emigrated to Vermont to join Hamish in running the town’s general store.

Da hadn’t warmed to country life, so set out west, leaving Ellen behind.

He was now laying rails all the way to New Mexico, and Ellen had only seen him once in seven years.

Not long after, she was sent to live with her aunt Rose and uncle Dyle on Amherst Island, Ontario. The couple, with their brood of children, had welcomed her with open arms.

One summer, Louisa had invited herself to the island. The island was home, and when Louisa had finagled an invitation, Ellen had realised she wasn’t sure she wanted to share it with her temperamental friend.

Yet Louisa had come on her own insistence, and Jed had fallen in love with her, and now, in two days’ time, they would marry.

She’d accepted all that, Ellen told herself firmly as she hung up a nightdress of gossamer silk.

She couldn’t be jealous now; it wasn’t fair to Louisa or Jed, or even to herself. Discontented

She had plans. Plans that she hadn’t shared with anyone, intending to reveal them after the wedding.

Louisa tried on another hat, this one with a bunch of grapes on the brim.

She stared at her reflection, her lips pursed, before she took it off and tossed it aside like the others.

“I don’t suppose I’ll wear it more than once,” she said with a sigh. “No one on the island has any sense of fashion.”

“They’ve no need to. Hats like these are hardly practical for a farming life.”

“Exactly,” Louisa replied, and Ellen watched as her friend’s face settled into discontented lines, just as it had so often when they were children.

She’d hoped Louisa had outgrown such sulks, but perhaps not.

“You knew you’d live on Amherst Island when you agreed to marry Jed,” Ellen pointed out. “You’ve always loved it here, Louisa.”

“It’s pretty,” Louisa agreed, “but I don’t intend to moulder away here for ever.

She tossed her head, her hair bouncing against her shoulders, eyes glinting with sudden defiance.

Ellen stared at her in confusion. “But Louisa,” she cried, “the farm is on the island; Jed’s life is on the island. What can you mean?”

Louisa rose from her stool and prowled restlessly around the bedroom she’d always used in the McCaffertys’ farmhouse.

“I can’t imagine being a farmer’s wife for ever,” she said. “There’s no reason why Jed should shut himself up that way,” she added, turning from Ellen to stare sulkily out the window.

The sun was beginning to sink in a deep-blue sky, setting the rolling fields and pastures ablaze.

In the distance Lake Ontario twinkled, and Ellen could hear the baleful lowing of the cows in the pasture and her seven-year-old cousin Andrew’s distant laughter.

It was a beautiful view, and they were comforting sounds, all of it together making the dearest home Ellen had ever known. She’d be sorry to leave it.

“Have you spoken to Jed about this?” she asked her friend gently. Defiance

The spark of defiance that had lit Louisa’s eyes went out suddenly and she sagged on to the bed.

“Not yet. But my father’s prepared to offer him a job at the bank in Seaton.”

“In Seaton!” Jed as a banker! It was an impossible idea.

When Jed had proposed, Louisa had been full of plans about making her home on the island. What had changed?

Had the reality of life here sunk in enough to make Louisa realise she wasn’t as enamoured with the island as she’d once believed?

“Louisa,” she said gently, laying a hand on her friend’s arm. “Can you really see Jed as a banker? He didn’t even go to high school.” Louisa shrugged. “You’ve always been a snob about that.” “That’s not fair,” Ellen answered quietly, but her cheeks burned. More tomorrow. On Renfrew Street was previously a serial in The People’s Friend. For more great fiction, get The People’s Friend every week, £1.30 from newsagents and supermarkets.