The English Descendants

25

With Edith's death, there is no reason to stay in the house in Brush Park other than the heart, but even Anne's heart cannot justify staying there when the house needs so much work and the neighbourhood is falling apart. She calls a family conference and they do not take long to decide that they should find another home. Something with far fewer stairs as she and May age. May also wants to bring her mother into the household and she uses a wheelchair. Daisy and Maria Edith volunteer to take on the task of looking for something suitable.

When they cannot find a house, Anne suggests the next best thing- they build one. There is money still coming from England, from a company she has never heard of that they somehow hold stock in. Edith's accounts, split between her grandchildren, are far more than adequate to build any house they imagine. They purchase property far from the city- so far that they are in farm country in the little village of Stockbridge- and build a large single story house on a former farmstead with a big red barn. When they move, they take most of the items in the Brush Park house with them. The old furniture, the books, the trunk in the attic and the watchmaker's cabinet and tool box. Rose also makes sure they take Thomas.

Maria Lee, May Ellen's mother, Eliot's widow, dies happily surrounded by her family in the house in the country with a soft grey cat nestled on her lap. May is glad to have given this little peace to her mother.

Rose is four when Daisy gives birth to Edith Aster. Once again, Thomas greets her in her crib. She is awake and giggling as he kisses her forehead.

"Why hello, little one. You are a lively one."

Rose skips over to look in the crib, "It's OK, Eddie. I'll share my imaginary friend with you. You can play with Thomas, too."

"I'm happy to hear you will share me. It would make me quite sad to not be able to play with her."

"It'll be fun. Like having a little sister. Maybe we can dress her up and take her out for walks in pretty fluffy things. I have a dolly pram she'd fit in. Mom says that's not what it's for, but she's just the right size."

"You'd best listen to your mother, dear Rose. I would not want to see you scolded. But dressing her up, that would be quite lovely. A little princess of your own."

"That would make me the queen!"

"That it would, my dear."

"I would be an awesome queen."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Everyone gets desert first every night. Pudding pie. That would be my first decree."

"I think that would be quite a worthy first decree for a queen."

"Mom thinks so, too. Though she thinks there should be ice cream."

"Well perhaps that could be your second decree."

She grins, "I like the way you think."

This life with the children is so vastly different than the one he led before their move. After Maria Lee's death, he realized that there was no one in the house who had not seen him since childhood. Anne, Daisy, and Eddie, May Ellen, Maria, Nellie and Rose, were all infants he greeted in their cribs and none of them know the darker parts of his story. Because of this, he shows himself regularly, playing with Rose and Eddie, appearing to speak to the adult women as they work around the house, and even slipping in for evening storytelling when they gather together. This is his little family. He wishes he were alive so he could be an even greater part of it. But he also realizes that had he survived Allerdale Hall, he would have long since died. His restless death and his need for atonement is what has given him this chance. In a way, he is grateful for his mistakes.

Anne dies in 1987, just days after her brother, Dixon, passes away. Everything she owns falls to Daisy. Dixon's widow, Harriet, asks for help with his things. After the siblings rest in Elmwood, Daisy leaves Eddie with the family so she can go through Harriet's house. In exchange, Harriet gives her what she has of Charlotte's papers- letters, mostly, but also stock certificates. There is plenty for her to live on, no matter how long her life. With no children of her own, Daisy is her closest family.

Two years later, Daisy once again goes through Harriet's estate, but this time she is by herself and Harriet has joined Dixon in Elmwood.

Eddie does not like that her mother is gone for so long. She is seven, but she is a far more sensitive child than she thinks she should be. She cries easily, and Thomas frequently sits with her in the evenings when she is afraid of the dark or the sounds the house makes as it settles.

One night, while Daisy is still in Detroit, she hears a shrieking alarm that hurts her ears. She covers them and cries for Thomas. He appears to her briefly before going to investigate the sound. What he finds is in the kitchen. Fire. He returns to her as fast as he can and pushes her out the bedroom window. She sits, crying, in the flowerbed while he rouses the others. Rose grabs her hand and tries to drag her farther from the house. When she can't, she calls for help. Nellie and Maria grab the girls and move them to a safe distance. Nellie wants to run back in the house for May Ellen. Maria stops her. The fire truck pulls into the driveway and the firefighters enter the house. May Ellen emerges shortly after, leaning on one of the men. She is delirious, muttering about an angel leading her out of her bed, and they give her oxygen. Maria runs to sit with her while Nellie stays with the girls. They douse the fire in only a few minutes.

Frightened, Eddie tells Rose, "I wish Thomas were here."

"I am." He appears beside a tree.

"Is Granny May OK?"

"She will be. They are tending to her. It was a trick to rouse her and we had to go a round-about way to avoid the kitchen."

"Are we going to have to move?"

Thomas shakes his head, "I don't think so. It was only in the kitchen and the back hallway."

Nellie sits beside the children, "Thank god we built that fireproof room in the basement for all the really important."

Thomas nods, "I will be back in a moment. The fire brigade has left the house and I want to be sure it is entirely out. While I have sat through a rather spectacular house fire, I was already dead. It is not something I recommend for the living." He tours the house. It is safe. The kitchen is ruined, yes, and the hallway to the mudroom as well, but the bedrooms are intact and he cannot see any reason why the house will not be repairable. He checks on May and Maria. May is quiet and tired, leaning on her daughter, but she does not need to go to the hospital. The firefighters pack their gear. One asks where they can stay the night. Maria mentions that they have a camper and while it is not ideal, it will work. In the morning, they will start to clean and rebuild.

Nellie and Thomas take the children to the camper and they curl up together. Thomas sits beside them. Eddie is restless, Rose already in a deep sleep. Nellie makes coffee. May and Maria soon join them. May tucks into bed beside the children. Thomas kisses foreheads, even hers, and tucks them in to bed before joining Maria and Nellie at the tiny dining table.

"How did it start?" Nellie asks.

"They said someone left a towel on the stove- likely one of the kids. One of the burners was on 'warm'- it just took that long to go up in flames."

"We're lucky the alarm worked."

"No, we're lucky Thomas came around to all of us. You know May wouldn't have woken up at all if she hadn't have had him there to get her up.

Nellie sighs, "Yeah." She turns to him, "We owe you our lives."

"You owe me nothing. It is part of my debt, gladly repaid."

"You've said that a few times," Maria says, "that you have a debt. What does that mean?"

"When you find my diary, you will know."

Neither of them searches for it over the course of the next few months. They repair the kitchen, scrub the walls, and replace what was lost. But they do not think of the things in the room made of concrete and steel in the basement. The world of the living seems far more important than the possessions of the dead, at least for the present.