Circle of Love (16 page)

Peg greeted Eddie quickly, then flew into her sister's arms. "Why are you here, Frances? Where have you been? Tell me! TeU me everything!" she cried.

Frances settled into one of the comfortable overstuffed chairs in the living room and told Ma and Peg why she had gone to New York and about the orphan train children and their trip to Missouri.

"The building we lived in is gone, you say," Ma murmured, and Frances could see memories pile like tears in her mother's eyes.

"But the church was still there," Frances told her, "and it looked exactly as it did when we lived on Sixteenth Street."

Ma's fijngers plucked at the edge of the tablecloth, "That seems like such a long time ago."

Frances grirmed, leaning forward. "I saw Mr. Lo-max," she said, and went on to tell how she had puzzled him by speaking to him.

Ma laughed with delight. "So your journey both ways was uneventful," she said. "I'm glad of that."

Eddie smothered a noise, and Frances glanced at him, her eyes twinkling. There was a flash of humor in Eddie's eyes, but it was obvious that he was a very tired boy.

"Ma, can we make up a bed for Eddie?" Frances asked.

"After a good hot bath," Ma suggested, but Frances shook her head.

"Sleep first, bath tomorrow. Eddie's had a very tiring day."

Peg jumped to her feet. "Ill put sheets on the bed in the spare room for Ekldie," she said. "Frances can sleep with me."

As Peg and Eddie left the room, Ma said, "Frances, Fd like to hear more about the children you brought to new homes."

"I wrote about all thirty children in the last few pages of my journal," Frances said. She put the blue cloth-bound book on the table and said, "Wait until I make us some tea Then 111 use the journal to refresh my memory."

She found some gingerbread in the pantry and arranged pieces on a plate while she waited for the water in the kettle to come to a boil. Finally the tea had steeped in the pot long enough to have body, and Frances carried the tray with the teapot, cups, plates, and gingerbread into the living room.

Ma waited until Frances had poured the tea, then said, "I was impatient. I glanced through the journal."

"Ma!" Frances said.

"You didn't tell me it was a private journal," Ma said. "I thought you had written about the children in your care."

"I did."

Ma shrugged. "A little." She looked stem. "You didn't tell me about that man named Seth and what happened on the train. Just who was this Seth?"

Frances sighed. "As you probably read, 1 met Seth on the orphan train in the New Jersey depot. He was disguised as a preacher to escape the police, but he is a former Confederate soldier. A poor, mixed-up man who's filled with hatred and bitterness about the war, like ... Uke . . ."

"Like Johnny? You wrote quite a bit about Johnny."

"Oh, Ma!" Frances said. "Johnny is never going to ask me to marry him. He even refuses to discuss marriage. He broods about the Confederate prison camp and what the Rebs did, and he's shut me out completely." She rested her head in her hands and said, "I thought I could forget about him, but I can't. I love him too much."

"Then don't give up," Ma said.

Frances looked down, blushing. "We had a terrible argument. There were things I said . . ."

"There are words to undo the harm. Try."

"How?"

"Send Johnny a letter. Tell him when you'll return to Maxville. Tell him you missed him."

"What if I don't hear from him?"

"You'll never know if you don't try."

Frances thought a moment. "But I don't know when I'll go back. I'll have to find a good home for Eddie first. He's a special boy. Ma I care very much what happens to him."

Ma smiled and reached over to squeeze Frances's hand. "Oh, Frances, love," she said, "I thought you would have figured out the answer to that one by this time."

The next morning Frances wrote to Johnny. Then, with Eddie at her side, she walked to town to mail the letter. "Let's take a side trip on our way to the post offlce," she said. "I want you to get a glimpse of the Missouri River in sunlight"

The path FYances chose cut through a wooded area When she and Eddie were deep in the shadow of the trees she thought she heard footsteps and the clip'Clop of a horse's hooves. She stopped and listened, but there were no sounds at all, not even the usual trills of the birds.

Was it my imagination? she asked herself. Eddie was laughing and scurrying after a rabbit Surely he would have heard the footsteps, if they had been real. Frances walked on, Eddie darting here and there to examine new things.

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Again she heard the footsteps and the hoofbeats. She stopped and turned. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she said, "Come out, Seth. Talk to me. I won't harm you."

Eddie, eyes frightened, dashed to Frances's side.

For a long moment there was nothing but silence. Then a horse whinnied, and Seth walked out from behind a thick stand of trees and brush, leading his horse. He wore his flat-brimmed black hat and Confederate jacket.

"Oh, Seth," Frances said sadly, "why did you come after me?"

He came closer, one hand on the butt of the gun he had stuck into his belt. His face was hard, his mouth pressed into a thin, angry line as he glared at her. "I wanted you to know what it felt like to be tracked ... to be hunted, as if you were no better than an animal. I told you I'd find you, wherever you were, didn't I?"

Afraid of choosing the wrong words, Frances didn't answer.

Finally Seth said, "You turned in my brothers and me. I didn't think you'd do that. I never would have believed you could do a thing like that. You're going to have to pay, Frances."

Frances clutched the reins, pressing her trembling fingers into the folds of her skirt as she fought to stay calm. "You robbed those people on the train," she answered. "And you were going to rob a bank. You planned to steal money from innocent people. Some of them wouldn't be able to replace their savings."

Seth shrugged. "Why should I worry about people I don't even know? When I was in trouble did they do anythin' for me?"

"How could they?" Frances asked. *They had no control over what our armies did." Eddie squirmed, and Frances pressed one hand against his shoulder, warning him to be silent.

"Someone has to give instead of take. Someone has to care," Frances told Seth. "You want someone to care about you."

"Nobody car^s about me, except my brothers," Seth grumbled. "And that's the way I like it." His face twisted in pain. "I had hopes about you, but ..."

His eyes on Frances, Seth slowly pulled his gun from his belt. "You turned me in," he said. "You shouldn't have done it I got away, but my brothers are in jail."

Frances, terrified, tried not to stare at the gun. "Seth," she asked, "what good will it do to kill me?"

"You know," he said. "It's justice. It's my way of gettin' justice."

"Lawlessness isn't justice. Getting even doesn't solve anything."

Seth didn't answer, so Frances—desperately hoping that he'd listen to reason—went on. "You told me you wanted to get revenge for what happened to your parents. Suppose your mother and father were standing here with us. They loved you. They cared about you. Do you think they'd want to see you shoot me because of some mixed-up notion you have about making things come out even?"

"You've got no right to talk about my parents!" Seth shouted.

"Sometimes I think about my own parents and the hopes they might have had for me. You'll go to jail if you kill me. Your parents wouldn't have wanted to see you in jail. Your parents wouldn't have wanted

you to become a murderer just to get revenge," Frances told him.

"Be quiet," Seth ordered. But there was a catch in his voice.

"I know you were good to your mother, and she was proud of you. And your father respected your courage in going off to fight for what you believed in, and—"

Seth, his eyes wet with tears, jabbed his handgun into his belt and yelled, "I wish I'd never met you, Frances Kelly!"

He leaped onto his horse, jerked at the reins, and kicked with his spurs. The horse leaped forward, eyes rolling, and shot off through the trees.

As Seth disappeared from sight, Eddie leaned against Frances and said, "I thought we were done for."

"So did I," Frances admitted.

"Do you think he'll come back?"

"No," Frances said. "I don't think he wiU." She hugged Eddie in relief, then gave in to her tears as she shook with fear at what might have happened.

Finally Frances himted through the pockets of her skirt and came up with the wrinkled lace-trimmed handkerchief Mrs. Sebring had given her.

"You were great," Eddie told her. "You said Seth had courage, but so do you."

Frances thought about the children who had just been placed, who had walked away, hand in hand with strangers, to begin new lives. "So do we aM," she said, and managed to smile at Eddie.

Frances and Eddie walked rapidly the rest of the way to town, stopping first at the post office to buy a stamp and mail Frances's letter to Johnny. Frances

allowed a three-day wait until her arrival. That would give him time to think ... to decide. . . . Her letter had been short and to the point:

Dearest Johnny . . . Fm sorry for what I said and the hurt I caused you. Pve missed you terribly, I want to see you, and Fm hoping you'll want to see me, FU arrive by train in MaocviUe at two in the aftemoorCon Thursday, August tenth. . . .

With my love, Frances

Was Ma right? Would these be healing words?

Eddie tugged at her arm, pulling her back, as she attempted to step off the wooden sidewalk. "Miss Kelly!" he shouted. "Watch where you're going! You nearly stepped in front of that dray!"

Shaken, Frances said, "Fm sorry, Eddie. My mind's not on what Fm doing."

He nodded, solenm for a change. "You're worried about me, aren't you? Well, don't be. Whatever hs^)-pens to me, I can handle it I always have. I always wiU."

Frances rested a hand on his shoulder. "Don't look so unhappy. You'll have a home. Didn't I promise you?" she said. "Right now I want ybu to meet the Children's Aid Society agent, Andrew MacNair."

As soon as there was a break in the traffic, Frances said, "Come on, Eddie. Hurry!" She lifted her skirts from the dust and strode across the street, nimbly avoiding the horse and ox droppings. Once on the sidewalk she said, "Andrew has an office in the back of his wife's general store. We'll see if he's there."

Katherine MacNair had seen Frances coming and waited for her inside the store. Wrapped in Kather-ine's hug, Frances reveled in the mixed fragrances of

cinnamon sticks and peppermint, newly picked peaches piled in a display, and tart dill pickles, bobbing in a barrel of tangy brine.

Holding Frances at arm's length so that she could study her face, Katherine asked, "You're looking well Prettier than ever. How was the trip? Did the children behave? Did all of them find homes?"

Andrew MacNair stepped up behind his wife and laughed. "I'm the one to be asking those questions, Katherine. Frances came not just to see your smiling face, but to give me her report."

Frances turned to see Eddie wandering among the counters, studying the array of merchandise for sale. It was just as well he wasn't within earshot. Frances didn't like talking about children over their heads, as though they couldn't hear.

She handed a thick folder of papers to Andrew. All the children were taken, except one," she said. "Eddie—^the young man browsing two counters away. The one with the red hair. I'll call him over and introduce him in just a few minutes."

"My! That's a real mop of red," Katherine said with a smile. "It makes me think of Mike."

Frances nodded. "And, like Mike, Eddie has a lot of the roughness of the New York City streets in him."

Andrew frowned. "Then he'll be hard to place. Offhand, I don't know of anyone who—"

Frances sighed. "I'll find him a good home. He's a wonderful boy, so much like Mike was at his age. Eddie's funny and lovable and smart—"

Katherine interrupted with a laugh. "It sounds as though you're pretty much taken with him yourself."

Shaking her head, Frances said, "You don't need to remind me. No single-parent adoptions." She

glanced again at Eddie. "Until a home is found for Eddie, he can stay with Ma and her husband. "Will that be all right with you?"

"Of course," Andrew said. "But 111 need to know as soon as possible if you find a good home for Eddie."

Frances smiled. "Believe me, I'll rush to tell you."

E>ven though'Frances loved the time spent with Ma and Peg and Eddie and John Murphy, the days passed slowly. She couldn't help wondering if Johnny had got her letter, and if so, how he'd received it He'd been angry, and so had she. Maybe he wouldn't come. . . . Frances shook her head. She wouldn't allow herself to become frightened by what she had done.

But on the train ride to Maxville she couldn't fight the worry any longer. As she thought about arriving at the station, alone, without Johnny there to greet her, her neck and back ached, and the palms of her hands grew damp and clammy.

When the train pulled into the station and came to a stop, Frances peered eagerly from the windows, but there was no sign of Johnny.

Wearily she picked up her carpetbag and carried it down the steps to the depot platform.

"Frances!"

Johnny spoke again from the shadows at the east side of the building. "Frances!"

She ran into his arms and, heedless of the undisguised interest of other passengers, threw her arms around his neck.

"1 brought you flowers," he said without loosening his hold, "rm afraid the nudday sun was hard on them, but they're from my heart"

*I love them/' Frances said. "Oh, Johnny, I love

youV

"And I love you."

She was reluctant to leave his embrace, but people were watching and smiling.

"The wagon's over here," Johnny said. He hoisted her carpetbag into the back and helped Frances climb to the wagon seat.

They were silent as they rode through town, but when they reached the open road toward the school-house, Frances said, "There's so much bottled up inside me. There's so much I need to say. To begin with, Tm sorry."