Edie's Home for Orphans

by Gracie Taylor

  Chapter 36

  Sally Constance was in the stable when Prue arrived to fetch the milk that hadn’t been delivered that morning. From the way the girl turned away and wiped her eyes with her sleeve, Prue would swear she had just been crying.

  ‘Oh. Mrs Hewitt,’ Sally said, smiling weakly. ‘I’m sorry, you’ve caught me here with my curlers in and housecoat on, all at sixes and sevens. We weren’t expecting no one to call round.’

  ‘That’s all right, Sally.’ Prue held up her milk jug. ‘I think you forgot us today, didn’t you?’

  Sally groaned. ‘Oh gracious, however did I manage to do that? I’m sorry, Mrs Hewitt. I’ve been having one of them days.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, dear.’ Prue handed over the jug and went to stroke Betty, the Constances’ ancient shire horse. ‘And how are you, old girl? The children missed giving you your handful of oats this morning.’

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Hewitt,’ Sally said again. ‘That’s how come you got missed off. You see, Betty, she … she had a bit of a turn this morning and couldn’t finish her round. I had to do the rest on foot.’

  To Prue’s amazement, Sally burst into tears.

  ‘My dear, what on earth is the matter?’

  ‘Miss, I been making my rounds with Betty for twenty-five year, ever since I were a little lass. I never thought I’d see the day she’d have to give it up, but vet says she mun. He says she’s too old now to be in harness.’

  ‘We all have to retire sometime,’ Prue said gently. ‘Perhaps at her age, it is best that Betty be put out to pasture.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Mrs Hewitt.’ Sally mopped her eyes. ‘She isn’t being put out to pasture. Dad says … he says he can’t afford to give board to an animal that can’t earn its keep, not when there’s a war on, and Betty’ll have to go to make way for a new horse.’

  ‘Sally, what are you saying?’

  ‘She … she … the knacker man’s coming for her tomorrow,’ Sally managed to say through choking sobs. ‘They’re going to shoot our Betty, Mrs Hewitt.’

  ‘Oh, my love. Come here.’

  Prue pulled Sally into a hug.

  ‘You know, I used to think you was such a scary lady,’ Sally said with a wet laugh. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean no offence by that. I just mean, you’re not scary at all really, are you? You’re lovely. Everyone’s talking about how kind you’ve been to them little mites from London.’

  Prue didn’t quite know what to say to that, so she only patted Sally’s back in what she hoped was a comforting manner.

  Betty surveyed the devastating scene calmly, her wise old eyes seeming to accept her inevitable fate. She let out a low whinny as Prue met her gaze.

  ‘Sally …’ She let the girl go. ‘Suppose another home could be found for Betty? Would your father agree to that?’

  ‘I reckon so, long as her board wasn’t coming out of his pocket.’ Sally’s eyes lit up. ‘Mrs Hewitt, you aren’t saying you know someone who’d take my Betty, are you?’

  ‘Yes, I believe I am.’

  ‘Oh, Mrs Hewitt, if you knew someone who’d do that, I’d think they were sent from Heaven! But who round here wants a horse that can’t work? Betty’s no good to anyone now, she’s too old.’

  ‘Well, I know of a place where she can live out her last years in peace, and you’d be welcome to visit her anytime, Sally.’

  ‘Do not say a word,’ Prue muttered as she led the old horse through the gardens while Jack looked on in amazement.

  ‘I see you forgot the milk, Cheg.’

  ‘Yes, yes, all right, I’m as soft as the young ones. But we had the stables sitting empty, and … well, it seemed rather hard on the old girl to get a bullet in the head as a reward for a lifetime of service.’

  Jack threw down his pitchfork and followed her to the stables. ‘The Constances weren’t going to shoot old Betty?’

  ‘They were, and break poor Sally’s heart into the bargain. Not only that, they had the cheek to demand five pounds from me to “buy” her. Compensation for what they would’ve got from the knacker man for her remains.’ Prue shook her head darkly. ‘It makes for some hard people, this war.’

  ‘Evenin’!’ Pepper greeted them. She swooped down to Jack’s shoulder and nibbled his ear, then cocked her head to appraise her new stablemate. Prue guided the old horse backwards into one of the stalls, and Betty surveyed them calmly over her half-door.

  ‘Dignified old lady, aren’t you?’ Prue said, stroking the horse’s nose. ‘Deserving of a dignified end. You’ll be happy here, sweetheart, and your friend Sally can come to visit whenever she wants.’

  ‘She’ll earn her keep, any road.’ Jack gave the horse a pat. ‘Between us we’ll have them roses looking lovely, eh, old girl?’ He turned to smile at Prue. ‘You’ve a golden heart, Cheg, for all that you try to hide it.’

  ‘We’ll need fodder for her, and grooming equipment. I’ll go into town tomorrow. It’s so long since we kept a horse, I can’t remember what they need.’

  Prue fell silent, looking around the stables. She so rarely came in here. The building contained too many memories, both happy and painful – or perhaps not painful but bittersweet, since the good Lord had seen fit to take Albert from her.

  ‘You’re thinking about Captain, aren’t you?’ Jack said softly.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘This was his stall, next to Betty’s. Dear little beast. Albert loved him so.’

  Captain, a grey pony just the perfect height for a nine-year-old boy to ride, was the only horse who had ever lived at Applefield Manor in Prue’s time. He had been given to Albert by a kindly uncle who was fond of him – Albert’s parents, practising the parsimony of the truly rich, very rarely bought the boy presents.

  As with everything he had, Albert had generously shared Captain with his two best friends, and the little horse had bounced these inexpert cavaliers merrily along without complaint until they were too big to ride him comfortably. He had lived long enough to bounce an infant Bertie too, but eventually the placid little animal had died in his sleep at the ripe old age of twenty-five. It was one of only two occasions when Prue could remember seeing her husband cry. The other was the day the armistice had been signed.

  ‘That’s how an animal like Betty ought to die, Jack,’ she murmured. ‘Painlessly, after a lifetime of being useful and loved, as our Captain did.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right. You’ve done a good turn today, Cheggy. I’m proud of you.’

  Prue wasn’t sure what made her do it – the shadow, perhaps, of the boy who had been her childhood friend in his eyes. Suddenly she was seized with the desire to give Jack a hug, so she did.

  ‘Well!’ Jack said, blinking at the arms he found around him. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

  ‘You mean a lot to me, old man. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Reckon so.’ Jack took off his cap and rubbed his hair awkwardly. ‘You’re in a queer sort of mood today, lass.’

  ‘I suppose I’ve been letting myself get sentimental. Remembering the old days.’

  ‘You miss Bert,’ he said softly. ‘Well, I do too.’

  ‘Every day.’ Prue gave him a squeeze before she let him go. ‘But at least I’ve still got you.’

  ‘Cheg, I … there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. I wasn’t going to, but since the bairns have come, I reckon it’s now or never for me.’

  He twisted his cloth cap in his hands, his cheeks flushed.

  ‘What is it?’ Prue asked.

  ‘Well, you know I never got around to the fathering business. I’d have liked children of my own, but … I mean, you need a wife for that, and I hadn’t got one. I wanted one, but she … but I …’ He trailed off.

  ‘Jack, what are you on about?’

  ‘Give us a clue here, Pep,’ he said to the crow on his shoulder.

  ‘Blimey!’

  ‘Aye, very helpful. Useless ruddy bird. Go on, bugger off then.’

  Prue could swear the an
imal grinned before she sailed back to the rafters.

  ‘Cheg, what I’m trying to say … what I want to tell you …’ Jack groaned. ‘You know, I’m starting to understand how it is I never married.’

  ‘What did you mean about the bairns?’

  ‘Well, you did say they had no home to go back to, and it’d be a crying shame, if you ask me, to pack a couple of little smashers like them off to some orphanage. As to breaking them up, it can’t be allowed to happen. So I was wondering if, um … if I could keep them.’

  ‘Keep them?’ Prue said, blinking. ‘Jack, these are children, not kittens or orphaned crows. You can’t make pets of them.’

  He smiled. ‘I don’t mean that. We’d do it all official, like. Adopt them, properly, with all the right legal papers. I’ve come to care for them as if they were my own, these few months. Life’s been a different beast since they’ve lived here – I’ve been a different man.’

  Prue had noticed that too: the change in Jack since the children had arrived. His nightmares were less frequent now, and his eyes had lost a little of their hunted look.

  ‘Any road, I don’t think we’re too old to start again, me and thee, are we, lass?’ Jack said with a nervous smile.

  ‘We?’

  ‘Aye, well, I do think it’s best for bairns if they’ve got a mam and a dad. And I suppose the authorities expect you to have a wife to do an adoption, don’t they, so I wondered … I did think …’

  ‘You’re not talking about me?’

  He twisted his cap awkwardly. ‘If you’ve got room for one more broken old shire horse in your stables, Cheg, I’d be honoured to set up home in them. Would you have me, love?’

  Prue felt as if she was in a bizarre dream. ‘Jack, are you saying you want me to marry you so we can adopt Aggie and Jimmy?’

  ‘No.’ He stepped forward so he could cup her cheek. ‘I want you to marry me because I’ve been in love with you since bloody 1906, you daft mare.’

  Prue gripped the door of Betty’s stall.

  ‘But Jack, this is … I never had any idea that you …’

  He silenced her fumbling speech with a kiss, and Prue’s eyes widened before falling closed. What a revelation there was in that kiss! What a world of feelings – unexpressed, unexplored and unacknowledged, but simmering, always, just below the surface. Had she really not realised what he felt – what she felt herself, all this time?

  ‘Well!’ she gasped when he drew back. ‘There really is no fool like an old fool. Or a pair of them, in this case.’

  They sprang apart as the stable door opened and Edie came in with the children.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ she said. ‘Prue, I’ve been looking all over the house for you.’ She frowned at the horse. ‘Surely that isn’t Betty?’

  ‘Er, yes,’ Prue said, feeling horribly flustered. ‘She’s going to be spending her retirement with us.’

  ‘Oh.’ Edie blinked at the old horse for a moment, then drew the two children forward. ‘Aggie and Jimmy have something they need to say to you.’

  It was only then that Prue noticed how dirty they were, and that Aggie appeared to be wearing her brother’s clothes. What had they been up to? They’d been clean enough when they’d arrived home from school.

  ‘We’re sorry, Aunty Prue, that we tried to run away,’ Aggie whispered. ‘We didn’t mean to frighten you after you been so nice to us. We was scared, that’s all.’

  Jack frowned. ‘Run away?’

  Edie nodded. ‘Sam found them at the farm, trying to hide a letter for me.’

  ‘But, my dears, whyever would you do that?’ Prue said. ‘You’re not unhappy at Applefield Manor, are you?’

  Aggie shook her head, her eyes fixed on the ground.

  ‘Here,’ Edie said, handing Prue a letter. ‘This explains everything.’

  Prue read it through, feeling a tear rise in her eye when she reached the end. She handed it to Jack.

  ‘Aggie. Jimmy,’ she said earnestly. ‘I’m sorry you had to hear us talking. But if you’d come to me, we could have discussed it instead of you running away and putting yourselves in all sorts of danger. We don’t want you to be sent to separate orphanages any more than you do.’

  ‘You couldn’t stop them though,’ Jimmy muttered. ‘If they said we had to, you couldn’t do nothing about it.’

  Prue drew them to her, one in the crook of each arm.

  ‘There is one thing I could do,’ she said softly. ‘Children, how would you like to stay at Applefield Manor? Not just while the war’s on. Forever.’

  Aggie stared at her. ‘You really mean it, Aunty Prue?’

  ‘I do.’ She glanced up at Jack. ‘Your Uncle Jack and I have been talking and we’ve agreed we’d like to adopt you, legally. Then you could live at Applefield Manor forever and no one could take you away.’

  ‘And you’d be like … our mum and dad then?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Aggie threw her arms around Prue with a squeal of joy, and Jimmy ran to Jack to be swung up into his arms.

  ‘We’d like that the best of everything in the world, wouldn’t we, Jim?’ Aggie said breathlessly. ‘Thank you, Aunty Prue. We’ll be so good forever, promise we will.’

  Prue laughed. ‘Knowing children as I do, I suspect that will turn out to be a bare-faced fib, but never mind.’ She hugged the little girl tightly. ‘I’m glad you’re safe, sweetheart. Now no more running away, please. This is your home and there’ll never be any reason for you to have to leave it.’

  Edie looked at Jack, who had tears in his eyes as he hugged Jimmy to him.

  ‘I told you so,’ she whispered, and he smiled.

  Chapter 37

  Edie pushed her bike across the gardens, heading for the stables. There was something in her basket she needed to deposit there.

  Inside she cast a quick look around to make sure she was alone, then took her bundled headscarf from the basket.

  A little black face blinked up at her, trembling with fear, and Edie made soft cooing noises over it as she stroked its fur. Pepper looked on curiously from the top of Betty’s head, her new favourite perch. The mild-mannered old carthorse didn’t seem to mind the crow taking up residence between her ears – in fact, she seemed to enjoy the company.

  ‘Poor pup,’ Edie whispered to the tiny mongrel. ‘Where’s your master, eh? Did you ever have one?’

  Edie had found the ragamuffin little stray peeping at her with hungry eyes from behind a dustbin down in the village. The poor thing looked to be half-starved. She was tame enough, though, and hadn’t objected to Edie picking her up.

  She was very tiny, and Edie suspected she couldn’t have been weaned for long. Perhaps her mother had been a stray too, and the puppy orphaned before she was really old enough to care for herself – another victim, perhaps, of the recent air raid.

  Edie took the dog into the stall next to Betty’s and settled her in one corner.

  ‘Here you are, my love.’ She unwrapped a corned beef sandwich she hadn’t eaten at lunchtime and put it down in front of the puppy, who fell on it gratefully. ‘It’s all I’ve got for now, but I’ll bring you more in a little while. I just need to prepare the ground with Prue before I break the news you’ll be joining the menagerie.’ She fancied she saw a worried look in the dog’s eye and smiled. ‘Oh, don’t worry, she’s an old softy. She wouldn’t throw you out.’

  Once she’d put away her bike, Edie headed for the kitchen. Tilly was in there, cooking dinner while Samantha watched from her baby basket.

  ‘Hello, beautiful,’ Edie said, leaning down to give Samantha a kiss. ‘Have you been good for your mummy today?’

  ‘She’s been a little monkey,’ Tilly said. ‘You’d think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, wouldn’t you? This is the first time she’s been quiet since she woke up.’ She gestured to a chair. ‘Sit down and I’ll fetch you a tea. There’s a pot just mashed.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So?’ Tilly said as Edie sat down.
‘How was Sam today?’

  Edie sighed. ‘Cold again. He barely speaks to me now except about work. Till, I just don’t know what’s going on.’

  ‘Did you talk to him about it?’

  ‘I didn’t get the chance. He’s going out of his way to avoid me. The only time I see him is in the morning when he gives us our jobs.’ She shook her head angrily. ‘Honestly, is this some sort of game? He nearly kisses me, then spends weeks avoiding me. He asks me to marry him, then glowers at me whenever he sees me. I was an ass to ever let myself fall for him.’

  ‘There must be something behind his behaviour. He’s a good man, Edie. He wouldn’t toy with you.’

  ‘Then why is he acting this way? I’m sure I did nothing to deserve it.’

  ‘Can’t you find an opportunity to speak to him?’

  She sighed. ‘I don’t know whether I want to, now. I just feel so humiliated by the whole affair.’

  Tilly put a cup of tea down in front of her. ‘Don’t give up on him. Perhaps he’s had some bad news or something.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Edie said non-committally. ‘Where’s Prue?’

  ‘In the sitting room with Jack and the little ones, listening to Children’s Hour. They’re practising happy families for after the wedding.’

  Edie smiled. ‘At least that’s one piece of good news. Imagine Jack speaking up after all this time. She’ll have written to Bertie, I suppose.’

  ‘I should think so.’

  ‘How will he take it? Do you think he’ll object to his mum marrying the gardener?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll be delighted, I’m sure. Bertie’s no snob, and he adores Jack. He’s been the closest thing the lad’s had to a father since his own passed away.’

  ‘I’m glad. Everything’s worked out wonderfully, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Thanks to you,’ Tilly said, smiling.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I don’t think you realise what a difference you’ve made here, Edie. I never would’ve believed crumbling old Applefield Manor could be like this, bursting with life and happiness. Prue’s a new woman.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘Rubbish. You made her care again – about people, and about life. And just look what an effect that’s had on everyone around her. Jack’s happy for perhaps the first time in his life, Aggie and Jimmy are part of a loving family, the village has its treat day back. Not to mention all the animals who have a home now.’