She walked slowly, head down, her eyes fixed on cold marble, as though she were following a wounded animal, by the droppings of his blood.
Sophia Cranford, garbed in her lavender best in honor of James's wedding day, paced restlessly in the cluttered confines of her private apartments. In the room beyond she heard Caleb putting the finishing touches to his grooming. Dear God, how weary she was of weak, spineless, vacillating men. And in a way, Caleb was no better than James. Indeed he'd sided with him in his stupid suggestion that they postpone the event scheduled to take place this day.
Postpone? Angrily she slapped her hands against the rustling lavender taffeta as though it too had offended her. Merciful heavens, they had come close to drowning in postponements during the last few years. First there had been the young Harriet's mysterious illness, then the King's death and the year of national mourning. Then another death. Lady Powels, Harriet's mother, and more mourning, more postponement until at last Sophia had taken matters into her own hands, had written to Lord Powels, supposedly on behalf of the senseless old Countess Dowager. And in this letter Sophia had informed Lord Powels that if a marriage did not take place by early spring. Lord James Eden would consider himself free of the promise and would look elsewhere for a wife.
Predictably that had provoked a response quick enough. Apparently the old widower, sick to death of his burdensome daughter, had laid down the law. And only yesterday morning the young woman had arrived in a single carriage, looking more a prisoner than a bride in the
company of two strapping male servants who had rudely deposited her with her trunks on the steps of the Great Hall.
Now merely thinking on all the circumstances gave Sophia an urge for haste. "Are you ready?" she called to the tardy Caleb. "It's approaching two. You should be down to greet the priest."
"In a moment," came the distant reply.
Merciful heavens, would he leave everything to her? Well, it would be done, she would see to it, James honorably wed to a good English name. And she didn't give a damn whether either of them desired it or not. Once they were wed, she was certain that nature would take its course. And hopefully, within the year, an heir would arrive, and hopefully also within the year, death, which had been so generously visiting others, would deign to pay a visit to Eden and take away that senseless old woman lying upstairs, the last stumbling block between Sophia and control of the Eden fortune.
Feeling a chill, she withdrew a gray shawl from the top of the cupboard—the old chapel would be cold with March dampness—and again cast a sideward glance toward the bedroom door. As she started out into the passage, on her way to greet the priest, it occurred to her that one of the first things she and Caleb should do when they came into their money was to purchase a fine carriage, finer horses, and pay a final visit to that bleak village in Yorkshire which had spawned them. Just a brief visit, of no real duration, to let the weak-spirited bastards see what had become of Parson Cranford's offspring.
As she walked down the corridor she felt something swelling in her throat and for the first time in her life felt herself on the verge of tears for no reason, no reason in the world, save happiness.
James Eden, Fourteenth Baron and Sixth Earl of Eden Point, felt completely baffled by the strange goings-on in which he was to play such an important part. Generally speaking, he disliked complications and understood them only in terms of livestock or a good racing horse.
Now as the steward began brushing back his hair, coated with oil, James felt a peculiar heaviness in his head. Quite frankly, he'd never expected to see the young woman again. It had been almost four years. What kind of love could be kept alive in that space and at that distance?
Seated in the chair before the glass, James closed his eyes to the fluttering hands of the steward. The most incongruous ideas were running through his mind. Once he had had a fierce desire to mount that cold lady. Once, four years ago at the engagement party, he'd been willing to play the husband. But not now. She'd arrived yesterday
like a corpse loosed from its coffin, so heavily veiled that he'd failed to get even one clear look at her.
From behind him, he heard the steward murmuring, "There, sir, quite elegant looking if you ask me."
James opened his eyes. Elegant looking? He looked as though he'd fallen head first into a bucket of lard.
"Anything else, my Lord?" the steward inquired, wiping the excess oil off his hands.
Unable to look at himself in the glass, he lowered his head. "Go along with you. You've done quite enough."
The man bowed low. "Then I shall return in half an hour and escort you to the chapel."
Abruptly James's anger surfaced. "Damn it, I know the way to the chapel."
"My apologies, sir, it's just that Miss Cranford—"
"Damn Miss Cranford," James shouted further, then caught himself, as though he'd uttered pure heresy. "I'll be there," he muttered again. "Leave me alone now."
As soon as the door had closed, he reached for a square of linen and frantically commenced wiping the oil from his hair. He shifted slightly in the chair—something was pinching his neck. The fool had tied the neck scarf too tightly. The linen in his hand fell to the floor as the blank gaze took on an expression of self-pity. If his father had lived, that might have made a difference. And as for his mother—
"Oh God," he groaned audibly and found himself wishing for his sister, Jennifer. On occasion she had soothed him.
Suddenly he lifted his face from his hands as though possessed of a healing idea. Of all three children, wasn't he, James, the only one on the straight and narrow? Wasn't he the only one content to stay at Eden, where they all belonged? The thought did bring comfort, though it was short-lived, for the truth was that the worst was yet to come.
Marriage! A life commitment. Abruptly he turned away from the glass as though to turn his back on both the image and the future.
She didn't love him, he knew that. And he did not love her. Then why? Why? The momentum of the unanswered question lifted him to his feet and carried him halfway to the door. Where was he going? It wasn't time yet. But still the momentum carried him forward until his hand was on the knob and there he stopped, consciously aware for the first time of his destination.
A small revolution, that's what it was. Sophia and Caleb would be furious if they found out. Perhaps he could go and come without being seen.
Now with a determined step, he opened the door and moved out into the corridor. It had been months since he'd seen her. At first they all had been kept out, on strict orders from the doctors. But now the doctors had departed and no one attended her but his old Aunt Jane and the decrepit Mrs. Greenbell.
His step increasing, he realized that he wanted to see her more than life itself. If Sophia found out and was furious, let her fury rage. A son had rights of access and perhaps during the time that he had stayed away from her chambers, God had intervened, had lifted the deadly seizure and had given her back her tongue.
In his anticipation of her presence, his hands were already outreach-ing, his mouth already whispering the name of the one person who might be able to answer some of his questions, to hold him and comfort him, to cover his forehead with cool kisses as she'd done when he was a child.
Even as he thought the name, his own painful sense of helplessness seemed to diminish. So he spoke it aloud now as he approached the door, the word evolving out of a long tortured breath, a simple word,
"Mother."
Poor Jane, Jane thought, as she sat before the fire in the sickroom. Look at her! Was this the woman who once had run one of the most notorious salons in all of London, who had served tea to Thomas Carlyle and Charles Dickens and a brilliant little man named Benjamin Disraeli?
Now? Look at her! Her gown was black, three days worn, and splattered with the remains of luncheon porridge. No more cerise. The spirit that required and supported cerise was gone. And her hair was ungroomed for a lost number of days. And her teeth pained her constantly.
Look at all of them for that matter. There opposite her at the fire, the rotund, dozing Mrs. Greenbell. Dear God, the only way they would ever know that the old woman was dead would be when her snores stopped. Well, she wasn't dead yet. The wheezing vibrations rose like minor thunder from her slack-jawed mouth. And limp in her lap was that damnable needlepoint. If she didn't die soon, the old hag would cover the entire world in needlepoint, carpet the headlands with it, drape it over the sides of Eden Point, and hang it from the dome of St. Paul's to Tower Hill.
Still Jane felt magnanimous. The old woman was company, could talk, unlike— Slowly her head lifted toward the grand rosewood bed.
There was the most terrible of all, her sister, her head sunken upon
the pillow, her fair hair cut short for the first time in Jane's memory, butchered by the old nurse who bathed her and who suggested the alteration to keep down lice and fleas. Her eyes were open, though unseeing, fixed, as they always were, on a spot on the canopy.
The paralysis was now complete. The festering bedsores mingling with the ancient scars on her back attested to that. She was incapable of movement save with the aid of two others. She now spent her days and nights lying flat on her bed, her hands lightly clasped upon her breast, no response save for some hand signals which Jane had perfected, a tender communication in which she lifted Marianne's hand, fingers extended, and placed it in the palm of her own hand. If Marianne lifted her index finger, it meant yes. If she raised her thumb, it meant no.
Slowly, now, Jane tried to rise up from the confines of her chair, choosing to think on the few good moments. Marianne clearly enjoyed her daily treat of tea and honey. And early of a morning when Jane's eyes were rested, she would read to Marianne and there too was a source of enjoyment, her sister's face glowing when fictional worlds worked out well, her eyes filling with tears when the heroine of the moment fell on hard times.
Her thoughts were wearing her out. A sharp pain lodged itself in her upper gums and cut a path through to the center of her brain. She needed brandy, though she'd never started this early in the day, and again she was on the verge of pulling herself laboriously out of her chair when suddenly the door burst open and in the dim light she saw the figure of a man.
"Who—is—" she stammered. But then she saw him clearly and recognized him in spite of his dandified clothes and his peculiar hair arrangement. "James?"
She detected a look of apprehension in his face. He seemed incapable of looking her straight in the eye. But then even as a child he'd been unable to accomplish that simple feat. "James?" she murmured, thinking how long it had been since he'd climbed the steps to this chamber. "What a pleasant surprise," she added, smiling, "and how thoughtful of you to come on such a—busy day."
She saw a vivid flush spread over his face. Effortlessly she slipped into her old manners of hospitality. "Come," she smiled, taking his arm. "It's a chill day and bridegrooms must be warm. Here, sit," she invited, offering him her own comfortable chair, and to her surprise, he did, although his position was more a nervous perch on the edge. Quickly she drew forward a straight-backed chair and placed it before him, shutting off the snoring Mrs. Greenbell.
Thus settled, the tension between them seemed to increase. "Well now," she smiled, "tell me of your plans. The wedding is today, I believe, this afternoon."
He nodded, his fingers in his lap lacing back and forth. "Yes," he repeated dully. "Rather soon now."
She nodded. "And the bride? Is Lady Harriet well? We all remember her illness." Abruptly she smiled and lifted an imaginary glass in toast. "To your persistence, James," she smiled. "How fortunate the young woman is to be so zealously loved."
She saw an angry look pass over his face. "I don't love her," he muttered.
Jane leaned forward, not shocked but pretending it. "Then why—"
"It's for the best," he said quickly, staring with dead eyes into the fire. Then mechanically, as though he were quoting someone else, he added, "Love is not necessary and may come in time."
She considered arguing and would have if she thought it would have done a particle of good. She recognized the words and even the intonation, Sophia Cranford speaking behind James's mouth. In spite of the bleak nature of her thoughts, she looked back at James and managed a smile. "I wish you well," she said, "and only regret that I won't be in attendance. Our hearts, though, go with you and your bride."
He seemed not to hear and again looked nervously a.bout.
"Would you like to see your mother?" she asked quietly.
He glanced at her with a simple expression as though she'd just expressed the deepest desire of his heart.
"Over here," she whispered, taking his arm, already fearful for him. "Talk to her," she advised. "She does understand more than anyone knows, I think."
Leaving him to his own initiative, she watched as he moved falteringly forward.
"Take her hand," Jane urged softly. "On occasions her fingers speak."
In response to this, he glanced sharply over his shoulder as though she'd spoken nonsense.
"Her hand," she urged again. "Take it in your own." Lord have mercy, she silently prayed. Would he endure?
Then to her surprise she saw him doing as she had urged, his hand finally making contact and lifting that small dead one into his own.
Although Jane stood a distance of about ten feet from the bed, she knew she should turn away and did so at the last minute to face the fireplace and the now gaping Mrs. Greenbell, who had somehow
managed to drag herself out of the depths of her noisy slumber in time to witness the encounter.
In response to the enormous question mark which was forming on Mrs. Greenbell's fleshy face, Jane merely placed a solitary finger to her lips, indicating silence. The old woman obeyed, though Jane saw her pull herself awkwardly forward in the chair, the better to see the bed.
A waste of effort, Jane thought, because a glance in that direction told her that absolutely nothing was happening by the bed. James still held her hand, but there were no words, no sounds of comfort.
Again Jane silently prayed. She was tempted to reproach him and was on the verge of doing so when suddenly from some mysterious and faraway need, James broke. The strained cord snapped, tears which perhaps had lain dormant from his youth rose up with such violence that his whole body shook. He fell on his knees beside the bed, and without warning Jane saw Marianne's body suddenly turn at a distorted angle.
Behind her, Jane heard Mrs. Greenbell utter a sharp cry as James, still clasping his mother's hand, took it with him in his collapse, clearly unmindful of her helpless state, unaware of the macabre fact that the entire paralyzed body was in the process of falling over on him.
Jane couldn't tell whether James looked up first and saw what he was doing, or whether Mrs. Greenbell arrived in time to wrest Marianne's hand from him. All she knew was that with remarkable gentleness, her old companion separated the two, and concentrated her attention on drawing Marianne back to the safe center of the bed.
As for poor James, the ordeal was clearly too much. Whatever urgent need had persuaded him to climb the stairs to his mother's chambers, now that need abandoned him, and as quickly he abandoned the room, staggering to his feet, his head bowed.
Behind her at the bed, she saw Mrs. Greenbell still fussing over Marianne, saw her lean forward and clutch at her heart, as though feeling a delayed reaction to her recent exertion.
"Here now," Jane soothed, coming up beside her. "You go back to the fire. I'll stay with her."
Carefully and sadly Jane studied the face on the pillow. How much did she know? Had the paralysis extended to the brain? Did those dead, staring eyes signal total death, yet death of the worst kind, for the heart still pumped persistent life?
There were no answers, only a new and heavier silence in the room, the soft crackling of fire, the gentle beginnings of Mrs. Greenbell's snores, the sad realization that somewhere in that cold tomb of a castle, a loveless pair were being bound together for
life.
Oh God, no answers to anything, and in her deepening despair she was only vaguely aware of Marianne's face with moisture seeping from the corners of her eyes, and that one small index finger of her left hand working furiously, futilely against the cover.
On March 28, a cold, gray, snow-spitting Thursday, at three-thirty in the afternoon. Lord James Eden wed Lady Harriet Powels.
It was a grim ceremony which took place in the little fourteenth-century chapel on the second floor of Eden Castle. Sterling silver candelabra bearing twenty candles each flanked the pulpit and cast a soft rose glow over the twelve pews. Windowless, in the heart of the castle, the room was damp and smelled of old books and burned-down candles. For this occasion, no particular decoration was added, not even flowers. It was not the season for flowers.
The ceremony was performed by a young Anglican priest from Exeter, a Father Whitehead, who seemed more impressed by his surroundings than anything else. He pronounced the simple ceremony with a low voice and wandering eye, as though he were attempting to record everything so that he might report it later to his associates in Exeter.
It was all over in less than fifteen minutes, including the signing of the marriage document. There had been no nuptial kiss and the two had repeated their vows in voices so low as to be inaudible to anyone save the priest.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, when all the signing was over, the bride, her heavy veil still in place, left the chapel quickly, her lady's maid scurrying after her, and the other actors in the drama were left alone in the chapel, gazing at the empty doorway.
Then because their presence was no longer needed as witnesses, Sophia sent the servants back to their duties. She paid the young priest a handsome sum and likewise sent him on his way, uncaring that the snowstorm outside had increased.
She turned then and bestowed a loving kiss on James and urged that he look to his bride. But the groom merely shook his head and ran from the chapel, turning in the direction opposite to which his bride had disappeared, the stone floor sending back in echo the rapid clacking of his boots.
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