She appeared to be listening closely, watching John's face. “I... had no idea... she murmured.”
“What? I don't - ”
“He can walk,” she said, a tone of marvel in her voice.
“And speak,” Alex contributed.
“Yes.” And for the first time she smiled up at him. “Do you know what that means, Mr. Aldwell?” she asked further, and the smile broadened. “It means that his recovery is almost a certainty, depending on...”
“What?”
She shrugged and with one hand gently smoothed back a strand of John's hair that had fallen across his forehead.
“It depends on what?” Alex asked again, pleased, though still skeptical, that total recovery was with the grasp of this terribly ill man in his arms.
“His will,” she said simply, “his determination, his spirit.”
Now, and for the last time, he urged again, “Will you? Stay, I mean. At least a fortnight.”
“I... shouldn't...”
“You must. He obviously trusts you. Believe me when I say there is no one in London...”
For the first time in several minutes she looked up. “You will write to Elizabeth?”
He nodded broadly and dared to hope. “Consider it done.”
“And the others?”
“Yes, I give you my word.”
“I’ll need help.”
“Hire as many as you like.”
He thought she might say more, but instead she stood with slight effort from her kneeling position and, without a word, started off across the Great Hall, heading toward the arched doors.
Surprised, he watched her for a few moments, thinking foolishly that she was merely confused, that she'd lost her sense of direction, that the library was back in the other...
“Where are you going?” he called after her, still bewildered by her rapid move in the wrong direction.
She was just this side of the Great-Hall door approaching her portmanteau when... Of course. She'd simply retraced her steps to retrieve her luggage.
Now, without turning about, he heard her issue a spate of commands. “Please carry Mr. Eden back to his couch in the library, Mr. Aldwell, and be so good as to sit with him until I return. I must make a brief trip down into Mortemouth...”
She stopped talking and appeared to look down at the luggage in her hands as though not absolutely certain how it got there.
“And... this,” she said. “Would you be so good as to return this to-”
“Certainly,” he interrupted, working hard to conceal a smile of relief. He came up quickly before her and took the luggage, as though he viewed it as collateral. This would assure her return. In an attempt to further conceal his pleasure at this turn of events, he asked quietly, “You really have hope for John, then?”
“Of course,” she said, straightening her cape and reknotting the tie at her throat. As she started off once again toward the Great-Hall door, she called back another instruction. “There is limited food down in the kitchen court, Mr. Aldwell. Help yourself and see that Mr. Eden gets as much as he wants. I'll return as soon as I can.”
Alex postponed John's transfer back to bed and hurried toward the door through which she had recently disappeared. A few seconds later he lifted his hand to his eyes and squinted toward the gatehouse. The home guard was no longer marching in that ragtag fashion. Now they stood closely grouped around someone who occupied the core. Also in rapt attention was the stick figure, Mr. Bates.
Suddenly Alex looked back at John. Maybe, just maybe, he should take him back to London. For everyone's sake. He now recalled Aslam's one fear where John was concerned, that in a diminished and uncaring state he would be a likely victim for kidnappers, who could hold the John Murrey firm to ransom. And of course the scandal sheets would poison public opinion and the firm would be forced to pay the outrageous sum.
Then, staring outward again, Alex saw an interesting development, old Bates and the woman walking slowly and very privately away from the others, both heads down, as though deep in plans or conversation.
A very real threat there as well, one which the magistrate in Exeter might find rather fascinating, to say nothing of a bored and restless populace. John Murrey Eden arrested for the murder of Lady Harriet Eden. It could prove the grandest theatrical of all the recent Eden dramas.
Gawd! What to do?
For a moment longer he stood indecisively, caught between the mysterious and prolonged conversation going on beyond the gatehouse and the vulnerable silence coming from the far end of the Great Hall. That once-powerful man could be used for anyone's purposes now, and Alex found that realization unbearably sad.
By midnight that same night Susan looked around her surroundings, impressed anew with the power of money. Though she had pleaded for assistance from old Bates for over an hour on her way down into the village, it had been Mr, Aldwell who had accomplished the feat of pressing the old man and his home guard into service. And how had he done it? By the simple waving of a sizable purse and the promise of several gold pieces if they got all accomplished in the course of this night.
Susan had never seen such industry’. Immediately following her return from the village, Mr. Aldwell had shown her this pleasant apartment tucked away at the top of the grand staircase on the second floor, only a deceptively small and unobtrusive door marking it. She had seen it before and had assumed that it was a storage closet of some sort.
Thus her surprise when Mr. Aldwell had unlocked the door to reveal a cozy three-room flat, self-contained in the heart of the castle, with a small, doll-sized kitchen and a cozy sitting room furnished more simply than the other chambers she'd seen in the castle. To one side of the sitting room was a bedchamber into which the men had moved one of the four-posters from the third floor, and to the left a second, smaller bedchamber into which they had moved her few belongings. By leaving the door open, she could hear Mr. Eden at all times, and these smaller rooms were so much easier to tend and to heat than the cavernous library.
Now, as Susan sat on the settee, feet propped up before a crackling fire, she realized that for the first time since she had been pressed into service at Eden, she was almost warm.
Outside in the corridor she heard Mr. Aldwell settling up with the home guard. A clever man, Mr. Aldwell. He'd promised the men regular wages if for the next few weeks they continued their watchful vigil outside the gatehouse, not for the purpose of absconding with Mr. Eden, but rather of keeping him safe.
The male voices outside in the corridor continued to hum. More exchanges? More bargains? More money? Mr. Aldwell seemed to have an endless supply of it. But she was grateful to him for having found this comfortable little comer. According to Mr. Aldwell, it had been constructed and furnished to accommodate the tutor for Lady Harriet's children, Lord Richard and Lady Mary, when they had been young, a mean-spirited Yorkshire gentleman named Caleb Cranford and his equally mean-spirited sister Sophia, both of whom had run the household with a harsh and unloving hand.
Well, no matter. It was Susan's intent to make the narrow confines of these rooms a safe harbor. Just then she heard footsteps passing by the door of the apartment and rose to see who was there.
“Mr. Aldwell, what is it?” she inquired, hurrying down the steps, then stopping short of the one where he sat.
Then an idea occurred. Perhaps Bates had proven too contrary, had refused to agree to Mr. Aldwell's requests, preferring to pursue his pointless game of revenge.
“Don't worry, Mr. Aldwell,” she soothed. “I suspect that in reality Mr. Bates is a great deal more bark than bite. At least that's what Reverend Christopher tells me, and he's known him for - ”
Abruptly he shook his head, though still he didn't look up at her. “Bates gave me his word that he would bring no charges until John was well enough to know what he was being charged with.”
She was pleased but surprised by the generous concession,
“Furthermore.” Mr. Aldwell went on, “he and his men will
stand guard on the castle until my return, for the sole purpose of protecting you and Mr. Eden.”
“I'm grateful, though I don't think that was necess - ”
“It was necessary,” he said bluntly, swiveling around and glaring at her for the first time. “Of course, they all will be handsomely paid, a fact which should ensure both their loyalty and their zeal. Besides,” he muttered, voice falling as he contemplated the step on which his feet were resting, “I don't think you realize how many enemies a man like John has collected over the years.”
“Surely if enemies do exist,” she said, “they exist in London and not here.”
“They are everywhere,” he said patly, “and they are highly mobile — or can be- — and may have waited for years for the first breach in the wall. Now they fully intend to close in, as old Bates did, with a pocketful of ancient grievances.”
“If you felt there was real danger, Mr. Aldwell, why didn't you take him back to London?”
“No!” The reply was lightning-fast and final.
She started to pursue it further, then changed her mind. “Then will you be more specific?” she asked in a businesslike manner. “If I alone am to be responsible for Mr. Eden until the arrival of the family, I must know more about these threats. How will they come? Who will they be? Is there protection — -?”
Suddenly he stood up. “I wish I could tell you more. There is considerable dissension within this family. His half-brother Lord Richard Eden was, at last word, living in a house in Kent. John had arranged a union between Richard and a young woman named Lady Eleanor Forbes, good family but impoverished. But first there was a stumbling block that had to be removed, a man named Herbert Nichols, a colleague of Lord Eden's at Cambridge. Rumor had it that the two men were sodomites. John met with Professor Nichols in private and threatened to reveal all to the authorities unless the man immigrated to Australia and vowed never to set foot in England again. Lord Richard found him in his attic room some hours later, dead, hanging by the neck.”
She closed her eyes, “Then it is Lord Richard who has threatened...?”
“Not in so many words.”
Mr. Aldwell began to range in a limited area back and forth on the broad step, hands shoved into his pockets, his shoulders lifted high in protection, either against the chill in the air or the chilling nature of his words.
“Aslam saw Lord Richard last year,” he went on. “They were very close once, Aslam and Richard, and Richard told him then that he wanted very much to come forward and reclaim both his inheritance and his castle, but would not, could not, as long as John inhabited it.”
“And you believe his own brother would harm him?”
“Half-brother. And blood makes no difference where vast amounts of money and property are concerned.”
“And what else?” she asked. “I had thought that my only responsibility would be to nurture him in his illness. I had no idea that there were others, besides God, who had designs on his life.”
He looked sharply up, interrupting his pacing as though she'd said something that had interested him. For a moment she thought he would reply, but he didn't, and at last spoke when he was the farthest distance from her, with his back turned, his words muffled.
Surely she had misunderstood. She could have sworn he had said, “John's sons...”
“I... beg your pardon?”
“I said his sons,” he repeated, looking directly at her.
Sweet Lord. He was being overtheatrical. “His... sons? Surely you can't mean that. They are mere babes - ”
“ — traveling in the custody of their maternal grandfather, Lord Harrington of Wiltshire, who is convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was John's selfishness that killed Lila, Lord Harrington's only child, John's wife.”
“Still, two young boys and an old man,” she murmured, finding no real threat there, only tragedy.
“Yes, merely two young boys and an old man, living in the house at Avondale of one Charles Stewart Parnell...”
She blinked up at the name. “The Irish revolutionary?”
He nodded, apparently pleased with the look of shock on her face. She was beginning to understand.
She started to inquire about the bizarre nature of that relationship. How had two young aristocratic English boys fallen into the suspect hands of a lunatic who wanted to put the torch to the whole world?
“And then,” Mr. Aldwell continued, “we should mention a few competitors who have been driven out of business by - ”
She held up a staying hand. “No, please,” she murmured, and walked a few steps up toward the top of the staircase. “I will simply trust no one who appears at the gate, and I hope you gave no one orders to repair the fallen grille. While it's unsightly, it does provide us with a margin of safety. The inner courtyard can be approached only by foot, thus diminishing - ”
He nodded. “In fact, I have expressly ordered Bates to leave the grille as it is.”
“Good.” She reached the top of the stairs and looked back on the man who stood at mid-step. “Anything else, Mr. Aldwell?”
He hesitated. “I have left sizable purses with both Bates and Reverend Christopher. Anything that you request is to be delivered to you as soon as possible.”
She looked down on him. How quaint. She was capable of taking full responsibility for Mr. Eden's life, but she was not capable of spending a few English pounds. She started to protest and changed her mind. She lacked the energy to articulate her feelings.
“One more thing,” she asked. “Please give me a tentative length of time before the family arrives.” Good Lord, if they came, would they come to cure or kill him?
He faltered. “I will write to Elizabeth first, in Paris...”
“Does she have cause to want to harm him?”
Slowly he shook his head. “No. She loved Mary and Richard and John's two sons and Lila. They were her family as well as his. His offenses against them hurt her - ”
“And you think she'll come?”
“Oh, yes. If she's able.”
That was an ominous “if,” and Susan realized for the first time how much she dreaded this confinement that hadn't even begun. “Please write to them all, Mr. Aldwell, as soon as possible, and inform them of the serious nature of Mr. Eden's illness, remind them of Christ's forgiveness and, unless they consider themselves greater than Christ, urge them to return to Eden as soon as possible.”
“I'll do it.” He nodded and added encouragingly, “By this time tomorrow, messages will be going in four different directions. In the meantime...”
“I'll do my best. Please go now, Mr. Aldwell. I'm counting on you as heavily as you are counting on me. In a way, we are the only two in Mr. Eden's world who are still capable of helping him.”
He rubbed his hands together and withdrew a pair of well-worn leather gloves from his coat pocket. “I was... thinking. Should I tell him good-bye?”
“He's asleep now,” she said.
He nodded too quickly, thus confirming her suspicion that duty and obligation, more than desire, had prompted the need for a goodbye scene.
Alex bowed from the waist; withdrew the shapeless hat from a back pocket, stuffed it into his left hand along with the worn gloves, touched his free right hand to his forehead in salute, then with almost military precision he turned about and walked smartly down the grand staircase and did not once look back.
She stood on the top step and watched him go with painfully mixed emotions. His words had disturbed her, his initial unwillingness to take any responsibility for “his good and beloved friend” had disturbed her. Yet, on the other hand, perhaps this was for the best. Where Mr. Eden was concerned, she was a clean slate, thus enabling her to be as objective as a good nurse ought to be.
She stood a moment longer and felt her heart accelerate. It was so vast, this castle. What human being or scores of human beings required this much space?
Still she stood, hearing the curious illusion of a voice talking quietly to hims
elf — or so it seemed.
There! She heard it again.
She glanced over her shoulder toward the apartment door, which she'd left ajar for the express purpose of overhearing.
“Mr. Eden?”
Through the door she felt the first warming of the small but effective fire. Then she saw the door leading to Mr. Eden's bedchamber open, the soft glow of a lamp coming from within. Quickly she gained the door, pushed it silently open, her eyes falling on Mr. Eden, his head resting awkwardly on the pillow at the distorted position of either sleep or unconsciousness, his mouth reflexively open, hands lying at his side, his entire body beneath the coverlet bespeaking lack of consciousness.
Then who had been speaking?
Just as she was in the process of turning away from the bed, she felt her heart accelerate, and looked back, startled.
Then, with relief, she saw that she had been mistaken, for in the shadowy half-light of one burned-down lamp, she thought — no, she could have sworn — that she had seen Mr. Eden's eyes open...
Close call, that.
What had happened was that his mind had wandered away from this disreputable bed in the Cranfords' musty old apartment and had taken flight back to his father's Ragged School on Oxford Street, the two of them sharing a second-floor bedchamber — like father, like son — playing endless games of possum beneath the covers of their communal bed while Elizabeth shouted like a fishmonger from the bottom of the stairs for John to come and attend to his studies.
And how his father had held him, in the closeness of a playful embrace at first, then something altering between the two of them, something transforming both, the child — for John couldn't have been more than three or four — and the father clinging to each other beneath the coverlet as though good, simple Elizabeth represented all the threats and hazards in the world.
That's where his mind had slipped, and he had been talking with his father, and so vivid had been the memory, and so moving, that he'd forgotten the woman in the room and had carelessly opened his eyes, thinking her gone.
But there she was, staring intently down on him, as for one split second he had stared with equal intensity up at her.
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 12
