Danielle Steel - Echoes

“I'm not sure how useful I'd be at either these days.” She glanced down at the wheelchair, and then back at him. “They might push me off a cliff if they don't like what I said.”

“They're really good kids,” he said, sounding serious finally. She could see that he meant what he had said. It was also easy to see that he loved them, but he was right. He had no wife, and a seventy-six-year-old housekeeper was no match for twelve lively young children, with no parent at hand. Rupert was away much of the time, on missions, or at work in London. He only got down to East Sussex on the weekends. On the other hand, she was anxious to get back to the convent. She had been out in the world long enough, and done all she was meant to. It was time for her to go back, and she said as much to him, as gently as she could. “Don't you suppose they could manage without you for a few more months?” he asked hopefully. “It's part of the war effort, after all. These children are victims of the Nazis, as you are. And it's going to be hard on them after the war, when a lot of them find out what happened to their parents. It could be very rough.” He tore at her heartstrings, and she hesitated as she looked at him. The fates constantly seemed to conspire to keep her from the convent. She wanted to ask God what he wanted of her. But as she looked at the expression in Rupert's eyes, she knew. She was meant to take care of these children. Maybe that was why God had sent Rupert to her. It was endless. But after three years out of the convent now, she supposed she could wait a while longer. She was beginning to think she'd be ninety when she took her final vows. But she knew that eventually she would. Of that she was sure.

“I hadn't actually written to the Mother Superior yet,” Amadea said, looking at him ruefully. “I was going to sometime this week. Are you sure I would be useful to you? I'm pretty useless in this thing.” At times, in spite of her best efforts, she felt a little sorry for herself. But if it was God's will, she could live with it. She had been blessed in so many ways, so many times.

“I'm very glad to hear you haven't reenlisted yet. I was afraid you would before I got to you. And of course, you're perfectly useful the way you are now. Don't be silly. All you have to do is shout at them, and I'll give you a big stick. You can prod them along if you need to.” He was teasing, and she laughed at him.

“When do you want me?” As she asked him, she already looked hopeful and excited. She couldn't wait to meet them. Taking care of them would give her life new purpose, particularly with Rupert gone so much. As they talked about it, she nearly felt married to him again, as she had in Paris and on the trip to Germany in December. They had a very odd relationship. In some ways they were strangers, in others they felt like best friends. And she was happy about helping him with his kinders. The convent could wait for a little bit. The war would be over before long. And once they found their parents and left him … her mind was racing as she sat in the wheelchair talking to him, and suddenly she sat up straighter. She wanted him to write down all their names on a piece of paper before he left that afternoon, and he promised that he would.

He knew he had done a good thing for her morale, and he sat smiling at her as they talked for hours that afternoon, about the children, his estate, the two days they had spent in Paris, the five in Germany. They seemed to have a lot to talk about, and she looked happy and young and was laughing when he wheeled her back to her room. They had agreed that she would come straight to his estate in East Sussex as soon as the doctors released her in four weeks. But he told her he would see her several times before then. He wanted to make sure she was doing well, and besides he enjoyed her company.

He kissed her on the cheek when he left. And after he was gone, she said prayers for his kinders , and for him.

26

THE TRIP DOWN TO EAST SUSSEX FROM THE HOSPITAL WAS uncomfortable for her. She still had some sensation in her lower spine and her legs, though very little. It was more of a tingling sensation than anything, but it was just enough to give her pain if she stayed in one position for too long. She had no control over her lower limbs. She felt completely numb from the waist down when the chauffeur gently sat her in her wheelchair when she got out of the car. Rupert was waiting for her when she arrived. He had come down the day before, to speak to the children. He wanted them to be nice to her, and not give her a hard time. He told them how brave she had been, and that she had even been in a concentration camp for five months, two years before.

“Did she meet my mummy?” a little girl with freckles and no front teeth asked him with interest.

“I don't think so,” he said kindly, as the twins threw bread balls at each other and he told them to stop. “You're going to have to do better than that when she's here,” he told them, scowling and trying to look fierce. But they knew him better than that and paid no attention to him. When he was at the estate in Sussex, they crawled all over him like puppies. And Rebekka, the little redhead, always wanted to sit on his lap and have him read her stories. She spoke no German, only English since she'd been six months old when she arrived. She was now six. But several of the others, who had been older when they got to England, still spoke German. He had told Amadea he thought she should speak German to them at least some of the time. When their parents came back, if they did, some of them would be unable to speak to their own children. He thought that keeping up their German would be a good thing. He had tried it himself, but he always got distracted and wound up speaking to them in English, although his German was as good as Amadea's, for the same reason, their mothers. “She's a lovely young woman, and she's very beautiful. You're going to love her,” he had told the children almost proudly.

“Are you going to marry her, Papa Rupert?” twelve-year-old Marta inquired. She was fair and long and gangly and looked like a young colt.

“No, I'm not,” he said respectfully. “Actually, before the war, she was a nun. And she's planning to go back to the convent after the war.” He knew he had only waylaid her temporarily to help with his kinders. And he really did need her help. But he couldn't think of anything more pleasant now than coming home to the children and her.

“She was a nun?” Ten-year-old Friedrich stared at him, looking worried. “Is she going to wear one of those big dresses and the funny hat?”

“No, she's not. She's not a nun right now, but she used to be. And she's going to be again.” Rupert didn't like it, and thought it a waste, but he respected it, and expected them to do the same.

“Tell me how she broke her back again?” Rebekka asked with a worried frown. “I forgot.”

“She blew up a train,” he said as though it were something sensible people did every day, like throw out the trash or walk the dog.

“She must be very brave,” Hermann, the oldest boy, said in a hushed tone. He had just turned sixteen and had begun to look like a man and not a boy.

“She is. She's been in the Resistance in France for the last two years.” They nodded. They all knew what that meant.

“Will she bring a gun?” a studious-looking eight-year-old boy named Ernst asked with interest. He was fascinated by guns, and Rupert had taken him hunting. They all called him Papa Rupert.

“I hope not,” Rupert said, laughing at the image. And a few minutes later Amadea arrived. Rupert went out to greet her, as she looked around the grounds in awe. The ancestral house and grounds looked very much like her father's family's château in Dordogne. It was less formal than she had feared it would be, but impressive nonetheless.