“Rubbish.”
“It seems wasteful...”
He moved into the center of the room, took one of the crumbling chairs, placed his good right leg against the back legs, and with only slight pressure leaned against it once and it collapsed. A short time later, with the added bonus of a tin of dry lucifers they found behind a brick in the fireplace, a fairly decent fire was crackling in the fire well, the warmth banishing the chill — at least in one small corner of the room, which was really parlor, lounge, and kitchen together.
The chairs destroyed for firewood, she found a bench against the kitchen wall and laboriously dragged it into place, twice commanding him not to help, and finally they settled somewhat stiffly on opposite ends of the bench, while the fire blazed and warmed the center section.
“It could be quite comfortable,” she said, still looking about, her hands smoothing the rain from her face.
Outside, the storm had increased. Through the smudged front window it resembled night instead of afternoon. “We may be here awhile,” he said, not really objecting to the idea and hoping she didn't either.
She looked up as though she was about to say something, then changed her mind. “Bates will be worried.” A smile crossed her face as she braced herself with both hands on the bench and began gently to swing her feet. “I don't think I've ever seen a man change so much.”
Alert, he looked up from his own persistent woolgathering. Where had he gone this time? No particular destination, just a soft velvet drifting, the mind charting its own course independent of the will. “Yes,” he agreed, not certain what it was he was agreeing to but seeing an expression on her face which seemed to require a yes.
“Bates,” she chided gently. “I said I'd never seen a man change so much. You've won him over, completely. A few weeks ago he wanted only to transport you to Exeter and prison - ”
“I know,” John interrupted, back on track, fascinated with the reddish play of the fire on her face. “I don't think that anything has really changed,” he added, looking away. “By accompanying me on this journey, he can still keep me in sight.”
“Oh, I don't think that's why he's going,” she objected.
It really didn't matter to him why Bates was going, or what, if any, were his ulterior motives. There was something that did matter to him.
“You,” he began awkwardly, wishing he could talk to her without looking at her. There were soft curls of hair still plastered against her forehead and cheek. “Where will you go? Tomorrow, I mean, when the castle is closed.”
“On my rounds,” she said without hesitation, still swinging her feet, the faint rocking motion apparently soothing her. “I’m so late as it is, I scarcely know where to start.”
“Where do you generally start?”
“Exeter. That's home base, a good place to refurbish medical supplies, bandages, you know.”
“And then?”
“Usually down the coast, starting with Mortemouth or concluding there.”
“How far?”
“A little beyond Clovelly, though not far. Depends on how busy I've been, if there is a fever or - ”
“Who pays you?”
“No one pays me.”
“How do you live?”
She smiled at the question. “I must confess, I wonder that myself sometimes. But in all the years Fve been a circuit nurse, God has provided.”
“God?” he asked, doing nothing to mask a certain archness in his voice.
“Yes, through His instruments of men. I have never lacked for a warm bed or a dry room or a bowl of hot soup.” Suddenly she lifted her head upward toward the rain-leaking roof. “Except now,” she laughed, and moved a short distance down the bench toward the center.
“Charity, then,” he said, curious about this woman who apparently made it a practice to give herself away, expecting nothing in return.
“Charity, Mr. Eden? No, I don't think so. I try to the limits of my ability and training to give the very best service I know how to give. When I'm on the circuit I go where God directs me and where people need me — as God brought me to Eden when your needs were so apparent and desperate.”
Abruptly he looked away. He disliked hearing about his needs for some reason, particularly from a circuit nurse who lived mainly on the generosity of others. Since she was still gazing at him and causing him to feel uncomfortable, he stood, and felt a sharp pain run the length of his spine. He wavered for a moment and leaned heavily on the walking stick.
Instead of rushing to his side as he'd expected her to do, she held her position and quietly advised, “You might want to sit a moment longer.”
“No, I don't,” he said, more to cross her than anything else. “Where do you stay in Mortemouth?” he asked, making his way slowly across the puddle which had already formed on the floor.
“Reverend Christopher lets me stay in the small room behind the church.”
“And how do you eat?”
She laughed at his persistent line of questioning. “I told you, Mr. Eden. God always provides. Look how He's provided of late. I don't know when I've eaten so well. Rose O'Donnell is a jewel, and she claims she taught herself.”
Newly interested, John hobbled back to the bench, crossed in front of where she sat, and paused before the fire to warm his hands. “What do you know of her, this O'Donnell woman?”
“Nothing, as I've told you, except that she presented herself at the gates when you were so ill, and the men brought her to me, and I asked if she could cook and she said it was what she did best, and that was that.” There was a pause. Then softly: “Why? Has she offended...?”
“Oh, no, I was just curious. She doesn't strike me as an itinerant.”
“I don't believe she is.”
He looked back at her. “She claims to be.”
“I know, but still I see...”
“What?”
She shrugged. “Sorrow, loss, a need for a new life...”
“Not a transient?”
She paused for a moment before answering. “She's transient now, obviously. No home...”
Then it was her turn for drifting. He heard it clearly and looked back at her. But her head was bowed, face obscured, and he saw nothing of the expression which had accompanied such a mournful phrase as “No home...”
In the silent interim he looked about at the ruin which surrounded him. Dear God, how could anyone ever live in such a place? No room, no scope, no space, everything crude and narrow and limited.
“It's charming, isn't it?” came a soft voice close to his elbow, and, surprised, he looked up to see her on her feet passing this odd judgment on the same surroundings which recently he'd dismissed as dismal.
He looked with surprised good humor at her. “Hardly.”
“I don't mean as it is,” she explained, “but as it could be.”
He'd heard that before, too. “Elizabeth used to proclaim and preach optimism as well. ‘We can fix it, a little scrubbing, a little paint...’” Even as he quoted her, he could hear her voice, that same voice that had called to him all through his boyhood. Now, for the first time, he felt the pain of memory eased by the realization that they would be reunited soon.
“You love her very much, don't you?” Miss Mantle commented quietly, leading him back to the fire as though she didn't approve of him standing chilled and apart.
“She raised me.” He nodded, settling back onto the bench.
“When you find her, you'll bring her back to Eden, of course.”
At the image of an Elizabeth so easily manipulated, he had to laugh. “One does not transport Elizabeth anywhere without her express permission, but, yes, I hope to... persuade her that I need her.” His voice drifted again, but this time with purpose. He really didn't feel capable of sharing the tragic past with anyone.
In an abrupt change of subject, he looked up. “Do you really like this place?” he asked, amazed.
She nodded. “I think it's a lovely cottage that has just been neglected and needs only car
e and patience to restore it.”
He looked away first. A thought had just formed, persistent, clear, with a feeling of rightness about it. “Would you accept it — this cottage, I mean — as payment for services rendered during the last difficult weeks?”
He did not look at her, but waited patiently for her response, which he felt certain would be in the affirmative. People who relied on the generosity of God rarely turned down any gift. Then, too, he had ulterior motives. By making her a gift of this crumbling dust-filled cottage, he was guaranteeing in a way that he would see her again, and somehow that was important to him.
She bowed her head and looked intently at the floor, studiously aligning her feet with the cracks. “We really should - ”
“Go back,” was what he was afraid she was going to say, but at that moment several volleys of thunder cut through the steady rain. The rain seemed to increase, and the thought of leaving even this questionable shelter was absurd.
“Will you?” he asked.
“Will I what?”
“Accept the cottage as payment...”
“I couldn't do that, Mr. Eden.”
He started forward. Had she understood? Suddenly angry that he wasn’t being taken seriously, he leaned forward and demanded, “Why in the devil won’t you take it? It certainly would make it easier on you. Instead of staying in churches, here you would have your own home, let your patients come to you — and they would, from all over the West Country.”
“You wouldn’t have come,” she reminded him.
“Yes, I would have. Not in the beginning, perhaps, but later.”
There was another feature about her that he didn’t care for, her damnable insistence that she knew precisely what he was thinking and feeling.
“How could you have?” she demanded. “You were unconscious for several days, lacking in the ability to make certain judgments.”
“I’ve improved,” he grumbled.
“Of course you have,” she agreed, smiling, “and will continue to do so — but not unless we get you back where it’s warm and dry and...” As she talked, she moved past the two front windows, leaning over to check on the gray, boiling clouds. Nothing had changed, and though he was cold to the bone, he was momentarily grateful for the enforced confinement.
“Please,” he said quietly, now altering his approach. Anger seemed to be wasted on her. She simply didn’t respond to it. Too bad. His anger used to bring Mary to tears in less than ten minutes. It was a harmless tyranny and frequently very useful. But not here, not with this woman.
“Come, Miss Mantle,” he invited, a different voice and attitude catching her attention, and drew her back to the fire. He smiled. “If I’m cold, you must be...”
“I am,” she confessed, “but I’m not just recovering from - ”
“Please accept it,” he interrupted as she returned to the fire and settled on the edge of the bench. “It’s doing no one any good as it is,” he went on. “Consider it your home. Do what you will with it - ”
“Mr. Eden, please,” she protested, her voice low, as though embarrassed. “I cannot accept a gift as grand - ”
“Grand?” he repeated, laughing. He looked around at the ruined interior, small waterfalls cascading in from the failing roof. From where he sat — and even if he looked in all directions — he could see nothing which, under any circumstances, could ever be called grand. Confronted with such diverse visions, he feigned retreat. “Well, I had wanted to give you something...”
“No need...”
“I obviously felt that there was a need,” he said, peeved, and caught himself in time. “Consider for a moment if our positions were reversed, if I had been largely instrumental in rescuing you. Wouldn't you feel a debt of gratitude that begged to be repaid?”
She appeared to be seriously considering the question, perched on the end of the bench so far away. “I would have been most grateful, of course,” she said, staring into the fire as though her response was coming from the flames. “Still, I don't think I would have thought in terms of a gift. Instead I would have to assume that God, using you as His servant, had rescued me for a purpose, and that the best way I could repay you would be to find out what that purpose was as soon as possible and try to meet it.''
He found himself watching her, his mind drifting.
“Are you listening, Mr. Eden?”
No, of course he hadn't been listening. He looked away from her into the fire. “Well, while I respect your wishes, I must repeat my own as well. I shall give Alex Aldwell all the particulars he needs, and he, in turn, shall instruct Aslam to see to it that a new deed of property is drawn up for this game warden's cottage that is located behind Eden Castle on the lands known as Eden Rising - ”
“Please, no,” she protested.
Suddenly a terrible thought occurred to him. “You're not a married woman, are you?”
She shook her head and looked genuinely distressed. “No, but - ”
“Good,” he said with renewed energy. “As a wife I'm afraid you couldn't own property. As a spinster - ”
“It will be a waste of time.”
“So be it. It's yours and it will always be here.”
“I did not seek it, and I don't want it.”
“I know.”
“And I do not now accept it.”
“But it accepts you.” He smiled, wishing she wouldn't get so agitated. As a gift it was nothing, would perhaps be considered worthless and an insult in certain circles.
Abruptly she stood and walked toward the door, pushed it open, and peered out. From where he sat he could see that the rain had subsided.
“I think we can make it,” she said without looking at him. “I must get back.”
“I didn't mean to offend you.”
“You didn't,” she said, still looking out at the chill gray day.
“I'm afraid I did!” He wanted another refutation. Instead he got only silence. “Miss Mantle, please come back for just a moment.”
At last she looked at him. He had offended her. “Tell me what I should do,” he asked, pretending a weakness, both spiritual and physical, that he did not feel. “All my life my generosity has gotten me into trouble. I try to give to those I care for what I think will please them, and always I drive them farther away.” Near the end the pose broke, as did his voice. When had he started speaking the truth? He bowed his head and felt a chill the fire could not dissipate. In the silence of the room, with only the diminished rhythm of the rain, he closed his eyes and felt a soul-deep loneliness. “I... don't understand,” he muttered.
At first there was no response. Then, just when he'd given up waiting for a response, he heard an inquiry. “What is it that you don't understand?”
He looked up and wondered where to start. “I created an empire and have no one to share it with. I nurtured and treasured and adored those fragments of my life and tried to bring them together as my family, and I only drove them from me, possibly forever. After India and Scutari I wanted only peace — there had been so much death — and yet it followed me here to England and inhabits me and all those I love.”
No pose, this. It was the confessional of his heart, and the mystery.
Then: “Mr. Eden, the death you speak of is a natural part of all life.”
“No, not this-”
“It visits all, every day in some form or another.”
“No-”
“Yes. What you have reference to is something else”
“Death - ”
“ — but not natural death. Not the blessed conclusion of life, but death of the spirit and — the worst of all — death of love.”
He started to protest again but changed his mind. Death of love. That was precisely what had happened. He had killed the love of all those who had mattered most to him.
“You employ your will like a weapon, Mr. Eden. Did you know that? It's an incredible will.”
Now he looked up, stunned by her criticism.
She sa
w the expression on his face. “Would you prefer that I didn't speak?” she asked.
Of course he would prefer it, particularly if she was going to criticize.
“Tell me if you don't wish me to speak, and I will refrain from doing so.”
Why couldn't he tell her? The desire was certainly there, the words formed.
“Very well, then.” He heard the soft rustle of movement as obviously she took up her position at the end of the bench.
“I've watched you for several months now,” she began, her voice still so musical, masking the unpleasant nature of what she was doing, “and I must confess that on that night we... brought you down from the parapet, I prayed for your soul, for I felt certain you would not live to see dawn.”
There! Wrong! Dying had been the farthest thing from his mind that night. Since then there had been moments when to close one's eyes and never have to open them again would have been highly desirable. But not that night. His rage had been so great that Death would not have dared to approach.
“Then your illness,” the voice went on, seeming to retreat as though she'd expected resistance and longed for it. “I felt again as though at any time you could withdraw that incredible will and go effortlessly.”
Will had had nothing to do with it. Didn't she know that?
“Then, in all ways and every day, I watched not you but your will at work. In those first tentative efforts to speak, then to stand, then to walk. It was almost as if you were defying your body not to cooperate.”
He heard a curious sound, as though she'd started to laugh, then changed her mind. ‘The will, used in that manner and for that purpose, is right, and, in your case, awesome.”
Safe behind the blinders of his hands, he considered looking up then changed his mind. He suspected she wasn't finished.
“But, Mr. Eden...”
Aha! There was that tone of transition he'd been waiting for, the all-encompassing “but.”
“...you can't — not successfully, at any rate — use that will for the purpose of manipulating other lives. You can suggest, point out, and in many cases warn, but beyond that, more harm is done than good. And of course in the end what generally happens is precisely what did happen. You only succeed in destroying the very relationships you are trying to secure.”
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 19
