John stood motionless in the center of the room, a need still strong within him. If only he might see her for one last time. He did not want to cause her additional pain, and still remembered the manner in which she had lifted her hands to his approach in the Great Hall.
Slowly he reached for his satchel, amazed that the love which he
felt for her was still intact. If only she might have lived with the message, the knowledge that he was. . .
He hurried to the door and stopped for a final look at his elegant chambers, and felt again a slow rising hate for his father. His judgment of the man had always been that he was foolish and weak. Now he must add deception and dishonor to that list of epithets. How would it have hurt him to tell John the truth, that the beautiful lady who had given him life was not dead, but living at Eden?
But he hadn't, and now the events of this day were his father's burdens as well as John's, his fault, his guilt.
Weakened by his hate, he stepped rapidly out into the corridor, his eyes moving immediately toward the confusion outside her chambers. From that distance he observed that the crowd had diminished, only Harriet's most loyal and trusted maids remaining.
He held his position, still debating with himself whether or not to invade their grief, when suddenly the door to her chambers opened and he saw Aggie Fletcher step out. She appeared exhausted, her face even from that distance reflecting the horror of the room she'd recently departed.
Once Aggie had been an ally. Surely she would grant him a moment's access to the chamber, permit him to look upon her one last time.
On this note of hope he started forward, but after three steps he stopped. She'd been in the process of wiping her brow with the hem of her apron when she saw him. At first a look of sad pleasure had crossed her face.
But it was the expression immediately following that caused him to halt his progress, a peculiar expression, as though defying him to come closer, the angles of her stern face cast downward in condemnation, as though she knew.
Before such a wall of suspicion, he had no defense. Then he was running, determined to put as much distance as possible between himself and the nightmare that was now Eden Castle, not consciously knowing where he was going, where he might safely pass the last few remaining hours of daylight before his departure from Eden.
But his steps took him there, through the blur of the castle, out through the narrow gate in the east wall, across the headlands, his breath catching in his throat as he plunged into woods, then at last seeing it up ahead, their temple of love.
Breathless, he dropped his jacket and satchel and fell to ground,
his face buried in cool grasses, both hands outreaching as though to gather only the good memories to him.
But after a time of fruitless effort, when he had gathered nothing but shame and remorse and new grief, he tried to ease his agony with thoughts of London and Elizabeth, good Elizabeth. Might he tell her? Would God be so merciless as to deny him the relief of one confession?
No! How shocked she would be, Elizabeth more than anyone, delicate Elizabeth who in her great love for his father had denied herself all companionship, all intimacy. How could he plead a case of love and need to her?
His punishment was clear. There would be no willing shoulders strong enough to share his burden. How unique his suffering, to lose a mother and lover in the same moment.
Eden Castle, June 21, 1852
She knew little in her newfound darkness and preferred it that way. Three weeks after she'd denied herself the world, she sat in her chamber, in a straight-backed chair, in her dressing gown, her eyes still bandaged, awaiting the knock on the door, and realized with pleasure that she'd lost even the diffident pride in her own suffering, which was a human being's last resource in misfortune.
Frequently throughout her ordeal, she had thought on Christ, had wondered if He, crucified on the cross, had been aware of Himself as spectacle. In the beginning, she had been, had carefully recorded the sound of each footstep moving across her bedchamber floor, knew intimately the sound of the surgeon who had dressed her wounds, removing all the damaged tissue, muttering over and over again, as though she were deaf as well as blind, "Christ, Jesus Christ. . ."
Abruptly she sat straighter in the chair. Her initial impulse had been for death, suicide by the quickest, surest means possible. But since she'd first come to Eden, years ago, she'd thought so often on death that it had been almost as though she were contemplating a reunion with an old friend. Far too easy. Not at all negotiable when placed beside that mountainous debt she had to pay.
Sharply she bent her head over. She'd discovered days ago that she could control the pain by adjusting the angle of her head. With her head erect, the nerve ends seemed more alive. Bowed, the pain subsided.
The chamber was quiet about her, the emptiness heavy. Good. It must become more so, and as the pain diminished, she thought
calmly on the next step of her penance. There was this to be said for her plight. No one seemed to have the will to cross her. That she'd requested audiences this afternoon with first the surgeon, then the master carpenter seemed not at all unusual to anyone. And all her other requests had been granted as well.
Though bewildered, only yesterday Peggy and Aggie Fletcher had directed the stewards in the removal of all furnishings save her bed and this chair. How fearfully they had moved about her, rolling the carpets, removing the fine old Brussels tapestries, all the expensive luxuries that once had pleased her and supported her in her false role as Lady Eden.
Slowly she stood, her hands outreaching, her sense of balance still off. Yet in spite of everything, how comforting it was, that safe blackness. Her bare feet felt the absence of sun, and the sensation informed her that she was moving into the shadows of the chamber, the stone floors cool beneath her feet.
A few steps later, she felt the weakness increasing. Softly she fell to her knees, the sudden jarring motion causing new fires to erupt beneath the bandages. Supporting herself on one arm, she welcomed the pain and waited it out, her head filled with a thousand voices, some ancient, some recent.
Your horse is dead, Harriet. We had to put him down.
You're speaking foolishness. One cannot chart passion.
Slowly she reached one hand up, her fingers touching her butchered hair.
You must cut it. Beneath the bandages, lice will breed.
Suddenly she lifted her head to the door, thinking she'd heard footsteps. The door still bothered her, her vulnerability to curiosity seekers who came to stare at her. At first she'd thought that she must endure that as well, but later she'd changed her mind. She had detected a quality in certain voices, Peggy's for one, and Aggie's and Clara Jenkins', a texture of love, a willingness to forgive her anything, a warmth that she knew she could very easily come to rely upon, and worse, to need.
While still confined to her bed, she'd formulated the last step in her plan, the step which would be executed today. Then true penance would begin.
Now she drew herself up onto her hands and knees and crawled the rest of the way to her bed, one hand reaching ahead, until at last she was kneeling beside the bed, her mind moving easily into prayer.
Only in prayer could she confess to the specific nature of her sin.
Only in prayer could she think on what she had done, asking God to share her burden, which still was a mix of remorse and longing.
I will not perish under the will of God unless I myself will it.
How thoroughly over the last few days she'd been cursed with total consciousness. How she'd listened for John's step, hearing many others, but never his. She'd thought that he might try to see her, and had prayed that he wouldn't, and ultimately she'd taken her grief to prayer, where on her knees she had found relief.
Again she tried to adjust herself to prayer, to make her mind silent and submissive.
"My Father in heaven, hear. . ."
Listen!
She lifted her head, a wobbling, unhinged movement She
heard something, a step, movement near the door.
"Who is it?" she whispered, hearing the pleading in her voice. "Please," she begged, and again as small fires ignited in the ruined tissue about her eyes, she collapsed against the side of the bed, her arms wrapped about her as the footsteps drew nearer.
Then someone turned away, as though shocked. It was while he was still moving away that she at last heard a voice, scarcely recognizable. "Your. . . husband. I trust I'm not. . .intruding."
In spite of her new apprehension, she was conscious of a silent thankfulness. It was not John. They both had been spared. "James?" she asked, scanning the room with sightless eyes. When at first he did not reply, she considered raising herself to a position of greater dignity, perhaps to the edge of the bed, or better, to the chair.
But she changed her mind. That short journey to the chair from where she crouched was a distance of indescribable hazards, and the greatest hazard of all was herself as spectacle, the awkward jerking motions of her head, her butchered hair.
Without warning a new fear entered her mind. Had she been so busy concentrating on his heavy step that she'd failed to discern other lighter ones? Rapidly she started forward, clutching at the side of the bed. "The. . . children?" she whispered.
"They're not here," she heard him say from the window.
Weakened with relief, she slipped back to the floor and tried to deal with the man standing by the window. What was his purpose in coming here?
She was on the verge of asking when suddenly he stepped forward until, by her best estimate, he was standing directly over her. "I did
not bring the children, but they have been asking for you. What am I to tell them?"
"Tell them I am dead."
"They know better."
"Tell them they mustn't come."
"I would not permit them entrance to this chamber," he replied, no pity in his voice, only a heavy condemnation. How soothing was condemnation.
"Then the matter is closed."
From the area near the foot of the bed she heard him again, softer this time. "I pity you," he murmured.
"I do not ask for your pity."
"Still I offer it, as any husband would to any wife—"
"I am not your wife."
"No. And you never have been."
On her knees, she clasped her hands before her. She needed prayer.
But as the soothing sound of "Our Father" was forming on her lips, he commenced pacing again, directly behind her, so close she could feel the displacement of air caused by his movement. His voice had grown harsh again, mocking.
"I wish you could see me, madam," he said. "Quite a transformation, I'm sure you would agree. I've shaved and bathed and am standing upright. Not a drop of brandy has passed my lips today. How curious that we derive our strengths from each other's weakness."
She listened, head down.
"You see, I felt compelled," he went on, "to come and see for myself if the tales circulating through this castle from servant to servant were true, or simply figments of their imagination."
Poor James, she thought, how consistent he was in his inability to understand her. What her soul desired more than anything in the world was to hear someone speak her sin aloud. What a balm that would be, what a foundation on which to build a lifetime of penance.
Knowing that he would not speak it as long as she appeared docile before him, she gathered what strength she had left and struggled upward.
Predictably a hand tightened on her arm. "No, Harriet, we will have this one last conversation. Then you'll be dead to me."
A prisoner now, she waited.
"Answer yes or no," he persisted, his voice close. "Did you bear my brother's child?" he whispered, as though fearful that other ears might be listening.
She nodded. What blessed relief.
"And was that infant the boy who has lived in this castle for the past year?"
Again she nodded.
The hand on her arm tightened. "And did you take that boy to your bed as lover?"
"Yes."
She had only a dim foreboding that he was going to strike her, and when the blow came, a sharp slap with his left hand, she fell backward at his feet.
On the floor, half-senseless with pain, she was vaguely aware of him standing over her. She knew that he was angry and stupid enough to kill her, and waited for the death blow.
But instead, at that moment she heard a confusion at the door, Peggy's voice raised in a horrified scream at the tableau before her.
Then she heard another voice, the old surgeon's who'd attended her for the last three weeks. "I say," she heard him sputter. "What is the meaning—"
But he did not finish, for at that moment she heard heavy boots rushing toward her, heard James's protest, heard Peggy's weeping. "He escaped the guards, my lady. I had no idea that he'd come here."
Then the confusion of sounds became too great in her ear, matching her disappointment that the ill-timed intrusion had altered James's course of action. She was aware of him being escorted out, the guards, once remiss in their duties, now performing with greater determination. She was tempted to call after them, to instruct them to give him all the brandy he wanted, for now he sorely needed it.
Then she felt the sensation of many hands lifting her, the broad familiar hand of the surgeon cradling her head, and in the next instant she felt the security of the bed beneath her and heard again Peggy's tearful voice. "Is she hurt? I really had no idea that he . . . Why would he want to harm her further?"
On the opposite side of the bed was the surgeon, Dr. Addley, a man she had never looked upon, but one she knew intimately, his huffing manner bespeaking a large portly man, his rough, smelly fingers bespeaking a third-rate surgeon.
As his hands hovered about her bandaged head, she tried to draw
a deep breath, the better to digest what had just happened, the better to face what was yet ahead.
To that end, she mustered enough energy to push away the fluttering hands, to silence Peggy's voice. "I'm well," she said, turning her head from one side to the other, the habit of sight still strong within her.
"You must let me see for myself, my lady," Dr. Addley contradicted sternly. "If there are repetitions of this domestic warfare, I must warn you that your injuries will never heal."
"I am healed, Dr. Addley," she said, "as much as I will ever be."
"I beg your pardon, my lady, but—"
"And I summoned you here today to remove the bandages."
"Oh, I'm afraid I can't do that."
"You can and will," she went on, allowing the classic petulance of the invalid to invade her manner. Now she gave in to self-pity, always effective where Peggy was concerned. "I have few pleasures left, Doctor," she said softly. "One to which I look forward with anticipation is the ability to sit in the sun and feel its warmth on my face. Will you now deny me that simple pleasure?"
She heard Peggy sniffling, heard as well the reluctant silence of the surgeon. "I had . . . thought to remove them next week," he commenced hesitantly.
"Remove them now."
"There is the risk of infection."
"The wounds are healed. I have felt with my fingers beneath the bandages."
At last she felt the surgeon's hand gently lift her head, his fingers carefully unwinding the layered bandages, her head growing lighter with each turn until the last fell away.
She heard a gasp, Peggy's, and realized for the first time that the mask of bandages had protected others as well as herself. One hand moved tentatively up to the rough scar tissue, to the useless folds of dead skin about her eyes, the ridges of torn flesh moving out in all directions.
Slowly Harriet lifted her hand toward the surgeon. "I . . . thank you, sir"—she smiled—"for your diligent attendance."
"I wish, my lady, that I might have done more."
"No need." She smiled. "I have given Mrs. Swan instructions as to the size of your purse. I think you will be amply rewarded for your ma
ny trips up the cliff walk during these last few weeks."
"The purse means nothing to me, my lady, if only I could restore—"
"Peggy! See the surgeon out," she commanded, "and send the master carpenter to me immediately."
"Yes, my lady," came the tearful voice.
Harriet waited until they were gone, then commenced a slow inspection of her face with her hands. There was one small band of smooth flesh that covered her forehead, then the damage commenced, the rough script clear, extending to the cavities that once had been her eyes, on down over her cheeks where the last few perforations of the forks had cut into her skin.
Suddenly a cry surfaced, a soft wail which broke into sobs as continuously she cast her head about, thinking that with the bandages removed, she might see light, but seeing nothing.
In the last spasm of grief, she divined without fear that in the bleak stretches of her past life, what she had interpreted as loneliness had been nothing compared to what was ahead of her, that from this time on she was a force enclosed within herself. Each day, each hour, each moment would be an obstacle course through which she must successfully make her way in order to face another.
And when God felt that she had served her penance, and not a moment before, He would mercifully stop her heart from beating and draw the breath from her lungs, and the thought of that blessed state swept over her now like a cool chaste caress.
God, what a madhouse, Morley Johnson thought upon opening his eyes after a sleepless night, hearing constant hammering, as he'd heard it all night long, coming from the upper regions of the castle.
He shifted upon the stiff couch in one of the lower-floor guest chambers, still musty-smelling, though he'd inhabited it for three weeks.
Again he turned uncomfortably over, appalled at how his stay at Eden had stretched on. Twice he'd tried to depart, only to be restrained by pleading servants who sensed the rudderless ship that now was Eden Castle.
His first attempted departure had been almost three weeks ago to the day, after he had successfully resolved the embarrassment of the corpse in the small library. Now he rolled onto his back and stared upward at the elaborate plasterwork ceiling, rather pleased with his expertise in that awkward affair.
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