Edie's Home for Orphans

by Gracie Taylor

  ‘Well, maybe it’s just that I’m viewing you through the eyes of true love.’ He crooked his arm for her to slip hers through. ‘Come on, I’ll walk you home.’

  ‘I’ve got my bike.’

  ‘All right, then you can ride home and I’ll sit in the basket.’

  Edie smiled and stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. ‘Alf, I’ve missed you to bits. You and your daft bloody jokes.’

  ‘The feeling’s mutual, sweetheart.’

  ‘Come on then. I’ll push the thing home and we can have a nice stroll.’

  She wheeled her bike along, Alfie walking at her side.

  ‘I mean it, Ede,’ he said as they walked. ‘You look like a film star. You always did to me, of course, but now you’re all rosy and plump.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Plump?’

  ‘Oh, in all of the right places, believe me,’ he said, giving her bottom a cheeky pat.

  ‘Will you ever stop being such an incorrigible flirt?’

  ‘Course I will. When I get married, I promise I’ll retire.’

  Edie smiled. ‘And until then no girl is safe from your charms.’

  ‘Well, you certainly aren’t.’ He cast another sly sideways look at her. ‘I like you in uniform. I bet you’ve got loads of lads after you here, haven’t you?’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Alf,’ she said, blushing as she thought about Sam.

  ‘Well, have you?’

  ‘Now, you mustn’t tease me this weekend. I’ve been dying to see you both for ages.’

  ‘All right, for you I’ll behave.’

  Applefield Manor was coming into focus and Edie pointed it out to him.

  ‘That’s where I live,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’

  Alfie blinked. ‘Bloody hell! You didn’t tell me you’d moved into a castle.’

  ‘I know, I feel like Rapunzel. Here, come back with me and I’ll make you a cuppa.’

  The rag and bone man was approaching on his cart, and Alfie took Edie’s arm to guide her to the side of the road. When the cart had passed she was about to set off walking again, but Alfie held her back.

  ‘Hang on, Ede. Before you go home, there’s something important I want to talk to you about.’

  He looked serious, which was a novelty in itself, and she frowned. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Here. Come down this road a bit.’ He took her bike and rested it against a wall, then guided her a little way down the leafy, secluded lane that led into Applefield. When they reached the old packhorse bridge, he stopped.

  ‘What’s the matter, love?’ she asked. ‘Nothing’s wrong, is it?’

  ‘Don’t know yet.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Ede, there was another reason I came to meet you. I wanted to see you alone before we met up with Sue.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I’ve got something I need to ask you.’

  ‘All right, go ahead,’ she said, blinking.

  He took something from his tunic pocket, and the next thing she knew he was down on one knee in the mud, holding it up to her.

  ‘I told you it was important,’ he said quietly.

  Edie stared at the ring, glinting in the sunshine. It was a real engagement ring, with a diamond in the middle and everything.

  This wasn’t the first time Alfie had asked her to marry him – he’d been throwing joke proposals at her since he was fourteen years old, and Edie had been laughing them off for just as long. But he’d never had a ring before, nor that earnest expression on his face …

  ‘Not again, Alf?’ she said with a smile, hoping she could make a joke of it. But her friend shook his head.

  ‘I mean it this time, Edie,’ he said softly. ‘Thing about going to war: it makes you realise what’s really important. Hang it, I’ll be kicking myself for evermore if I don’t ask you properly before someone else does. You’re too smashing a girl to be single long.’

  ‘Alfie, please don’t –’ Edie began, but he held up a hand to silence her.

  ‘Let me say what I’ve got to say before you make up your mind.’ He took another deep breath. ‘Edie Cartwright, I love you to bits. I’ve loved you since I was in short trousers, and now I’m risking my life every day in long ones I think it’s about time I finally stopped making a game out of it and told you how I really feel. There’s no other girl for me, Ede – there never has been. And if you’d do me the honour of becoming Mrs Hume, I’d count myself the luckiest lad who ever drew breath. That’s all.’

  ‘Alfie, love, do please stand up.’

  ‘Give me an answer first.’

  His face, so dear to her always, was filled with earnestness and love. Edie couldn’t help hesitating, even though she knew perfectly well what answer she had to give.

  ‘You know I love you, Alf,’ she said gently. ‘Always have, always will.’

  ‘Oh … God.’ He groaned, pressing his eyes closed. ‘The words “like a brother” aren’t about to follow that sentence, are they?’

  ‘Please stand up.’

  He sighed and got to his feet. A damp patch of mud stained one knee of his uniform, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  Edie put her arms around him. She felt him convulse with a sob as she held him.

  ‘Won’t you, Ede?’ he whispered. ‘I’d make you so happy, sweetheart, if you’d let me.’

  ‘I wish I could.’ Edie felt a tear escape and slide down her cheek. ‘You know you’re every girl’s dream man. You’re handsome and charming and funny and … and just perfect, really you are, Alf. You could sweep any woman off her feet.’

  ‘Except the one I want,’ he said in a toneless voice. ‘Because I’m not your dream man, am I?’

  ‘We’ve just been brother and sister for too long. I’m sorry, but I can’t change one kind of love into another. It isn’t possible.’ She let him go. ‘Alfie, darling, I never believed you really … that you had those feelings for me. If I caused you pain, I’m sorry.’

  Alfie scuffed at the ground with his boot. ‘I don’t think I realised it fully myself, until my call-up papers dropped through the letterbox. Makes you think about things, Ede, knowing your days might be numbered.’ He looked up at her with damp eyes. ‘Couldn’t you perhaps learn to love me, in time?’ he asked quietly. ‘I can wait.’

  That tone of tender entreaty, those irresistible green eyes … if Edie had been any other woman, she knew she’d be melting into Alfie’s arms now. The pain in her old friend’s face was like a knife in her chest. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t love Alfie, not in that way … and not when she’d already given her heart to someone else.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘You know I’ll love you forever, as a friend and brother. But I can’t love you the way you want me to, no matter how long you wait.’

  ‘Is there someone else you care for, is that it?’

  ‘That … wouldn’t matter. I couldn’t love you as a wife ought to love a husband, not if I tried for twenty years. I love you far too much in the other way.’ She took his hands. ‘Do you hate me very much, darling?’ she asked softly.

  He summoned a wan smile and kissed her cheek. ‘You know I could never do that. You’ll always be my best girl, Ede. No matter what.’

  Prue hummed to herself as she got the evening meal ready. Tilly had prepared lunch, determined she was ready to start earning her keep again, but she had looked tired this evening so Prue had sent her into the sitting room with Samantha to be fussed over by the children while Jack kept order. She well remembered how exhausted she had felt nursing Bertie twenty years ago.

  She was looking forward to joining the little group after dinner for a night at the fireside. The evenings they spent together as a family – reading to the children, playing with the kittens, helping Jimmy try to teach his little birds to speak – had become the high point of her days. Prue couldn’t bear to remember, now, all the time she had spent alone in her room before the young people had come. All it wanted was for Bertie to be at home and everything would be perfect.
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br />   They wouldn’t have Edie with them tonight, of course. She was going out to the dance hall with that pretty ATS friend of hers, Susan, and her soldier brother. Prue had given Edie special permission to stay out until midnight if she liked. The child so rarely got to see her friends, she ought to make the most of it.

  ‘Oh, Edie,’ she said when that young woman herself came in through the porch door. ‘You’re just in time to join us for dinner. I must say, it’s nice having you home earlier now the lambing is done.’

  Edie didn’t say anything. She just stood there, looking pale.

  ‘Is anything the matter, dear?’ Prue asked, frowning.

  To her great surprise, the girl burst into tears.

  ‘Why, Edie!’ Prue came forward to embrace her. ‘What on earth is wrong, my love?’

  ‘I’ve … broken the heart of one of the people I love most in the world, that’s all,’ she sobbed. ‘Prue, I feel just awful. I am awful – I’m an awful, awful person.’

  ‘Now, now. Come and sit down.’ Prue guided Edie into a chair and pulled up one beside her. ‘I can’t believe the big-hearted girl who managed to get through even my thick old hide could have done anything so very terrible. Why don’t you tell me all about it?’

  Edie took out her handkerchief to blow her nose.

  ‘I’m in such a deal of trouble, Prue,’ she whispered.

  ‘Trouble?’ Prue felt a stab of worry. ‘You haven’t done anything foolish, I hope. You’ve always been such a sensible girl.’

  ‘No, nothing of that nature.’ Edie laughed through her tears. ‘It seems that sometime in my sleep on Wednesday night, I became the most desirable woman in Cumberland. I’m really not sure how, since I’m positive I’m exactly the same scarecrow I was before. I’ve had two proposals in two days.’

  ‘Proposals! Goodness me! I didn’t know you had a young man.’

  ‘Nor did I.’ She dabbed at her eyes. ‘Yesterday Sam Nicholson managed to ask me for my hand without ever so much as mentioning the word marriage.’

  ‘Did you accept?’

  ‘I told him I’d think it over, but then I must have conjured up some sort of curse. Afterwards, in the pub, I was telling Sue about my dream proposal – a man in uniform, on one knee with a diamond ring, telling me I was the only girl for him. The very next day, the last person I could ever marry was doing exactly that.’

  ‘Your friend who’s here on leave,’ Prue said slowly. ‘The soldier you knit socks for.’

  Edie nodded miserably. ‘Alfie Hume, the best man I know. And I had to be the one to break his dear little heart.’

  She gave in to another wave of tears, and Prue stretched an arm around her.

  ‘Edie, I never had a daughter,’ she said softly. ‘When Bertie was born, I was almost grateful he was a boy and not a girl, knowing how hard it would have been to guide her through the tricky business of love affairs. But if I had been blessed with a daughter, I would have told her she was under no obligation to marry any man, no matter how strong his attachment or how much she might admire him. I would have advised her, with the strongest language I could summon, never to give her hand where she couldn’t give her heart.’

  Edie smiled weakly. ‘Thank you.’ She sighed. ‘Still, Prue, if you’d seen his face …’

  ‘He’s hurt now, but think how much more pain it would have caused him – caused both of you – if you had married him without love.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I know. I just feel so guilty.’

  ‘You will for a while, I suppose. But I firmly believe you did the right thing, Edie. I think this friend of yours will realise that too, eventually.’

  ‘I do hope so. He wasn’t very happy when I told him he was like a brother to me, but he really is as precious as any brother. I’d be devastated if this drove a wedge between us.’

  ‘Well, well, let us hope it won’t come to that,’ Prue said, giving her a squeeze.

  Edie smiled. ‘Prue, if you’d had a daughter, she’d have been very lucky to have you as her mother.’

  ‘If I’d had a daughter, Edie, I hope I’d have raised her to care as much for people’s feelings as you do.’ Prue waited for Edie to blow her nose again. ‘Now, tell me about young Sam. I didn’t know he’d been courting you.’

  ‘He hadn’t, really. He asked me to go to the pictures with him once and for a silly reason of my own I said no – that was all the hint of romance there had ever been between us. Then yesterday we were talking and … there it was. I think he was as surprised by his proposal as I was, to be honest.’ She looked up. ‘Would you approve?’

  Prue blinked. ‘Why, would you like me to?’

  ‘I’d like to know you’d be happy to see me with him. I know he’s not well thought of around here, and … well, it matters to me what you think.’

  ‘He’s not liked down in the village, perhaps.’ Prue scowled. ‘A bunch of idle gossips with nothing better to do than paint their neighbours’ souls black. But Applefield’s opinions have never been any rule for mine. I’ve usually been on the wrong side of them myself.’

  ‘So you approve of him?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve always liked Sam. He’s done me and mine a few kindnesses over the years.’ She leaned around to look into Edie’s face. ‘But it’s not me he wants to marry, is it? What are your feelings towards him, Edie?’

  ‘It’s his feelings towards me that I’m worried about,’ Edie murmured. ‘When he asked me to marry him, he said he wanted a companion; he never mentioned anything about love.’

  ‘Well, never mind his feelings for the moment. Let’s work out what yours are first.’

  ‘I think …’ Edie took a deep breath. ‘No. No, I don’t think, I know. I’ve fallen in love with him.’

  Chapter 35

  It was Wednesday evening and Sam was in the farmhouse, trying to read. But he couldn’t concentrate. His mind was too full of dark thoughts.

  She’d be here again tomorrow, and he didn’t know how he was going to react when he saw her. A lifetime of keeping his cards close to his chest hadn’t prepared him for the moment he’d have to see the woman he loved again when he knew she’d given her heart to someone else.

  One of the framed watercolours he’d bought last market day caught his eye. He jumped to his feet and ripped it from the wall.

  God, but he’d been a fool! Of course Edie would have a sweetheart. Of course she could never be interested in having someone like him for a husband: a rough country farmer who could barely keep up a conversation if it wasn’t about sodding sheep. A man reviled as a scrimshank and a seducer by his neighbours, emasculated by rejection for war service, who spent his evenings reading alone by the light of a paraffin lamp and got his water from a pump in the yard. What could he have to offer a bonny, glittering thing like Edie Cartwright?

  Not as much as her handsome soldier, clearly. Nothing in his life had prepared Sam for the pain of seeing her in another man’s arms – nothing. When he’d kissed her at the reservoir, when she’d cried on his shoulder and he’d confided in her things not even his few friends knew, he’d honestly believed there was something between them – that his attentions at least weren’t unwanted. The deluded ass that he was!

  That had all been shattered when he’d glanced out of the farmhouse window on Friday and seen Edie there with her lover. Sam wasn’t given to violence, but he had only barely restrained himself from running out and swinging his fist into the young soldier’s face.

  All these weeks he’d been preparing to make Edie what he hoped was an attractive offer of marriage; keeping her at a distance so he wouldn’t be tempted to speak before everything was ready. He’d done his best to transform the farmhouse from a crude bachelor dwelling into the sort of nest a young lady might like to call home, investing a portion of his small savings on home comforts – chintz covers for the furniture, a carpet, fresh paint, pictures for the walls. Sam hadn’t believed he had much vanity, but what little he had must have been whispering treacherously in his ear these l
ast few months, abusing him into thinking that a bright, sophisticated woman like Edie might actually consider throwing her lot in with someone like him.

  The only bit of advice he could remember his Uncle Pete ever giving him that wasn’t about sheep had been about women. ‘Don’t fall for girls, son,’ the old man had grunted. ‘They’ll make a chump of you in the end.’

  And yet Sam hadn’t been able to help himself. Edie had walked into his life, and suddenly his world was a different place; a place that shone and sparkled like the noon sun on the lake. No longer had he seen every day as a burden. The days when Edie worked at Larkstone were his favourite of the week, even if he only saw her for ten minutes. Just knowing she was here on the farm filled him with a sense of warm contentment, as if God was in his heaven and all was right with the world.

  Lord help him, he thought with a wry smile. It’s a sorry state of affairs when a woman has a man quoting Robert bloody Browning to himself.

  When the girl had first arrived – this skinny, Walt Disney-eyed slip of a townie, with her posh way of talking, her soft heart and her lily-white skin – she’d ended up costing Sam half a crown. He’d made a bet with Luca that the new Land Girl would be on a train back to London within the month. But the tiny redhead from down south, it turned out, had a fighting Spitfire spirit he’d never have suspected. Sam had never seen such a grand little worker, and she’d soon earned his respect – and his liking, too. Edie seemed to him to be the perfect blend of toughness and tenderness: skilled with the animals, intelligent, kind, courageous, yet with a disarming innocence that made Sam feel he wanted to protect her.

  New, unfamiliar, at first unwelcome feelings had stirred in his breast: feelings strange to him, that he had no idea how to put into words. After a lifetime of pushing people away, refusing to allow himself to get close to anyone after the losses of his early youth, Sam had found that here, at last, was someone he longed to keep by his side.

  Then Luca’s baby had arrived, that little, gurgling miracle, and Sam had started to ponder … to dream.

  Sam’s only experience of marriage had been witnessing his parents’ disaster of one in the days before his father had walked out. Dad had been a vicious, brutal bully in the Fred Braithwaite mould, not averse to knocking his wife and sons about when he was in his cups. But a marriage like Tilly and Luca’s, where there was love, respect, companionship … suddenly a whole new world had opened up in Sam’s imagination, a world with a cosy fireside, a bouncing bairn or three, and a loved and loving wife he could share it all with.