You know me better than that, Louisa. I’ve been your friend for seven years.

When Ellen had discovered Jed loved Louisa and not her, she’d said some unkind things about Jed she’d fiercely regretted – things he’d overheard.

Even though she’d long since apologised and he’d forgiven her, the cruelty of her words – calling him an uneducated farmer – still cut deep, mostly because she hadn’t meant them at all. She’d only been speaking out of her own humiliation and heartache.

“I meant he loves the land,” she continued now, “and the Lyman farm has been in the family for decades. How could he leave it to work in a bank?” Louisa lifted her chin, her eyes sparking once more. “He would if he loved me.”

“I think you should talk to Jed, Louisa,” Ellen said firmly, rising from the bed and beginning to tidy up Louisa’s discarded hats and fripperies.

“Before the wedding. You need to be honest with each other –”

“Are you hoping he’ll break it off?” Louisa interrupted. “So you can have him for yourself? You’re perfectly content to stay on this poky island, aren’t you, Ellen?”

Ellen didn’t answer. She didn’t want to lose her temper with Louisa, not with the wedding so close and her own future shining brightly ahead of her.

“You know me better than that, Louisa,” she said quietly. “I’ve been your friend for seven years. Of course I want you both to be happy.”

“I know you do.” As changeable as ever, Louisa reached for Ellen’s hand, tugging her down on to the bed. “I’m sorry. I’m being awful, but I’m so afraid.”

She bit her lip, a tear sparkling like a diamond on one lash.

Even in her obvious misery Louisa looked lovely, Ellen thought, and always would. No wonder Jed had fallen in love with her.

“Dear Louisa.” Ellen patted her friend’s hand. “What are you afraid of?”

“I can’t even bake bread,” Louisa blurted out. “Bake bread? What on earth . . .”

“Or sew, or darn socks, or bottle fruit or anything. I’m useless, Ellen.” Louisa rose from the bed and began to pace the room.

“How can I be a good wife to Jed if we live here? I can’t do the things the farmers’ wives do round here, and I won’t be able to learn.”

She whirled to face Ellen, her tears replaced by a blaze of defiance.

Ellen suppressed a sigh. Sometimes she forgot how exhausting Louisa could be.

While she recognised that Louisa was afraid, she suspected she didn’t want to learn the dull things farmers’ wives had to do.

“You need to talk to Jed,” she repeated wearily. “He knew what you were like when he asked you to marry him, Louisa.”

“I don’t think he’s even realised, and why should he? He’s a man, after all. The bread just appears on the table, the socks darned in his drawer.”

“Jed’s mother died four years ago,” Ellen answered quietly. “He’s been darning his own socks for a while.”

She heard Rose calling her from downstairs, and with relief she slipped from the room.

Tumultuous

“How is dear Louisa?” Rose asked, humour lighting her blue eyes as Ellen came into the comfortable room with its scrubbed table and blackened range. “Panicking a bit, I think.”

“I imagine poor Jed’s having a bit of a panic, too!” Ellen smiled weakly.

“How are you, Ellen?” Rose asked, laying a hand on her arm. “It hasn’t been long since Ruth died.” “I’m all right.”

The last few months had been tumultuous, with her aunt’s sudden death back in Seaton. Aunt Ruth had been stern and even cold, and for years Ellen had felt her aunt didn’t like her, but the reconciliation on her death bed made her see life was too short to allow such misunderstandings to continue.

She’d ended up travelling to New Mexico to visit her father, to attempt to mend the hurt his abrupt departure from her life had caused.

She’d succeeded, although in truth Ellen didn’t know what kind of relationship she could have with her father now.

But she wasn’t angry or hurt by his abandonment, simply sad at the way things had turned out.

Smiling, Ellen turned from her aunt, her mind full of what was to come, and all she hoped for.

Impossible

Two days later Ellen sat in the second pew of Stella’s Presbyterian church and watched Louisa process down the aisle on the arm of her father.

The Hoppers had wanted to have the wedding at their own church back in Seaton, but Jed’s ties to the farm made such a thing impossible.

The Hoppers had conceded the location, and would be hosting the reception afterwards, to take place on the Lymans’ property.

Ellen’s gaze slid from Louisa to Jed, her heart constricting. A montage of memories tumbled through her mind: the first time she’d met Jed, when she’d been thirteen, uncertain and afraid as she stepped from Captain Jonah’s boat on to this unfamiliar shore.

And yet how dear Amherst Island and the McCaffertys had become – far more of a home than Seaton or Springburn ever had been.

She recalled lazy days spent in the meadow between the Lyman and McCafferty properties, and a poignant afternoon when Jed had seen her drawings for the first time.

He’d teased her, of course; that’s what Jed always did. But when he’d told her that he thought they were good, Ellen’s heart had sung.

Then the most poignant memory of all, when she’d thought that Jed might kiss her. Everything between them had felt suspended, transfixed in a moment of breathless yearning.

But he hadn’t kissed her, and the moment had broken, both of them acting as if it hadn’t happened at all. Later she’d found him kissing Louisa instead, and a few months later they’d become engaged.

She didn’t know why Jed had pulled back from her, or if that moment was all in her mind. They’d never talked of it, though Jed had, with painful awkwardness, attempted an apology after he and Louisa had become engaged.

“There are things that should have been said between us, Ellen . . .”

She’d turned away from him then, unable to bear the thought of hearing them when it was too late.

She forced herself to focus on the ceremony. That chapter of her life was over, she reminded herself. A new chapter was beginning for her, as well as for Louisa and Jed.

More on Monday. 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.

Artwork: Dave Young