“Edward,” she whispered once more before she saw the butt of a rifle raised directly over her forehead and knew it would render her senseless.
In the last moment of consciousness she thanked God for this one blessing.
Monsieur DuCamp’s Lodging House, Paris November 15, 1874. Nine A.M.
“Damn you!” Mr. Eden shouted.
Bates knew if the man attacked him he was a dead man, for fury and rage had given to Mr. Eden an awesome strength, and while the previous illness had taken a toll, there was not one sign of weakness visible now. Like an injured bull, he had come raging up out of his predawn stupor long enough to discover Charley Spade had not returned and the hour of the day was approaching nine o'clock, two and one-half hours beyond the time of Elizabeth Eden's execution.
Bates attempted a weak defense. “Sir, you said to wait - ”
“God, no!” Mr. Eden whispered to no one in particular, and was out of the front door. He'd lost his walking stick someplace and was limping visibly, stumbling once halfway down the stairs in his haste and fear, grappling at the banister until he could right himself.
Bates moved right behind him, seeing his direction, the black rented carriage waiting at the edge of the pavement. “Wait, sir, and I'll...”
But Mr. Eden, despite his apparent fatigue, wasn't in a waiting mood. With difficulty he swung himself up onto the high seat and had already taken the reins when Bates joined him, breathless from the sprint but grateful Mr. Eden's fury had at least diminished to the point it was no longer aimed at Bates.
John slapped the reins down across the horses. The animals, startled by the sound and the sudden sting, bolted away from the pavement, and for a few moments the carriage ran out of control across the intersection, narrowly avoiding a collision with a large hay wagon.
“Sir, let me...”
But as Bates reached for the reins, Mr. Eden held them fast and with effort brought the carriage under control, though never at any point did he attempt to reduce their speed. Once beyond the intersection, Bates opened his eyes long enough to determine Mr. Eden was on the proper route which ultimately would lead them to La Rochelle.
As the brilliant colors of the autumn morning blurred on either side of the high carriage seat, Bates sent his heart in search of blessings and could find only one — and that was a poor one — the realization his ploy had worked, that no matter how painful this moment was, it was nothing compared to what Mr. Eden would have suffered if he had arrived at La Rochelle in time for the execution.
A quarter past nine, his pocket watch said. Long since over. Elizabeth Eden was with God and at peace. Now all that remained to be done was to find just a small portion of earthly peace for John Murrey Eden.
La Rochelle House of Detention, Paris November 15, 1874. Nine-fifteen A.M.
She regained consciousness in a small cell off the courtyard and thought at first in her stunned state it was already over. She felt little or no pain, save for the dull throbbing on the left side of her forehead. Other than that, she felt a strange peace, a feeling of passage, of something having occurred that had somehow removed her from all earthly struggle.
Yet here she was, sprawled facedown in a most indecorous position on a meager bed of smelly straw, all similar to her cell downstairs. But there was one thing different about this that made it paradise compared to the cell in the dungeon.
Sun! There was a sun somewhere close by. Not shining directly on her, but close enough for her to see, despite her blurred vision, the miracle of blue shadows, the manner in which golden light met, then receded from certain objects.
“Ah, our pretty is awake!”
Still lying facedown on straw, she heard the male voice, knew who it was, and considered turning to confront him, but changed her mind. That too required energy she didn't have. She was a corpse whose heart inconveniently continued to half-beat. But not for long.
“Madame, I spoke to you. Your countrymen are renowned for their courtesy. Where is yours?”
She heard the heavy tread of additional boots in the cell now.
“Lift her!” came the stern voice who earlier had wanted her courtesy.
She heard the boots come closer, felt hands grasp her beneath her arms, and suddenly she was lifted.
Once standing, all support left her and for a second she wobbled unsteadily before them. She would have fallen altogether had it not been for another set of hands which took her by the arm and led her to a low three-legged stool, sat her down, and hovered long enough to see she could manage on her own.
“Now, madame, look at me,” came the arrogant male command.
“Sir,” she murmured, her eyes at last meeting the small watery eyes of General Jules Montaud. He was elegantly garbed this morning in full uniform, a pair of highly polished black boots replacing the bedroom slippers, his small chest laden with ribbons and medals, gold epaulets glittering in the morning sun. Something important was taking place in La Rochelle this morning, she thought, to warrant such official and pompous splendor. Then she remembered. Her execution. That's what was taking place.
For several moments the general seemed content merely to stare at her, his brow furrowed, his thin black curls in disarray below his bald pate.
“Madame, how difficult you make everything for yourself,” he softly mourned.
She nodded once and reached one hand up in an attempt to contain the throbbing pain in her head. “I'm afraid I always have, sir,” she admitted with a smile. “A friend once said of me - ”
“You have no friends now,” the voice cut in, suddenly angry.
How could she have angered him? She'd not been given a chance to speak. She looked up and saw the pacing had stopped, the general confronting her directly.
“I will admit you did have one,” he said, his voice low and ominous, “but she will be dealt with, I can assure you, and when we're finished, let her see how kind the world is to an ugly old woman with no funds, no kinsmen, no place to go.”
Madame Charvin? Was he speaking of Madame Charvin?
“Jules Montaud can abide many things,” the general went on, leaning close over her, “but what he cannot abide is disloyalty.”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Elizabeth said suddenly, knowing it was the wrong thing to say even as she formed the words, but saying it anyway.
“Yes, you do,” General Montaud snapped, then reached out and grasped her face with fingers of steel and held her fast. “We have both Madame Charvin's cloak and her satchel - ”
“She did not give them to me; I stole them.”
“Liar!” screamed General Montaud, exploding with fury, still grasping her face with bruising strength.
She tried to pull away, but two of the young soldiers behind her, each grasping an arm, held her tight. As she groaned, she saw the rage on Montaud's face subdue into a smile.
Though her eyes were closed, she heard someone open the cell door. She didn't bother to look because she didn't care, though she did overhear a brittle exchange.
“Too late, Father. She's compounded her sins of murder and thievery with the sin of a lie.”
“All her sins are redeemable in God's eyes.”
“Then God is more generous than any of us ever dreamed.”
Although she'd vowed not to look on the man again in this life, the soft, repentant, almost graceful voice drew her attention upward despite her avowed intention.
The first thing she saw was the black hem of a priest's garment, delicate lace at cuffs and collar, a rotund, globular man of average height who stood before General Montaud with soft and sympathetic eyes, an elegant Bible in hand, open, a black rosary dividing the pages.
She had asked for no priest, was not Catholic, and therefore was not entitled to their ritual of death. She was about to say all this when suddenly General Montaud dropped to his knees before the priest. His head fell forward on his chest and he appeared to be in great pain, spiritual if not physical, though it was difficult to tell, so consummate was his
mournful posture.
“Father, forgive me,” he begged in a voice which in no way resembled the imperious, arrogant voice of a few moments earlier.
Stunned by this rapid change, she watched and listened. And did not understand.
“Does God believe I enjoy my most difficult task?” General Montaud whined. He had found the priest's hand and was now kissing it over and over again, halting only long enough to press it to his forehead now and again.
“God understands everything,” the priest interrupted in a high-pitched voice, which startled Elizabeth. Because of the man's girth, she had expected a larger voice.
“Does He, Father?” General Montaud asked, lifting his head for the first time, those soft white features arranged into angles of sad remorse. “But then, of course He must,” he went on, answering his own question. “It is His unpleasant task to administer divine justice. It is mine to administer earthly justice.”
The priest nodded vigorously. “True, my son. He knows...”
“Everything?” General Montaud prodded. “Does He know that public executions of prisoners make me physically ill? That it requires a full week for me to recover from one?”
“I am certain He does.”
“But He also knows that it must be done, doesn't He?”
“Of course. And He sends to you a particularly rich blessing because you are among the chosen. You are His intermediary here on earth to see His commandments are carried out.”
The male voices droned on for several minutes. “God help me!” Elizabeth prayed, surprising even herself with her unexpected failure of nerve. Death was obliging her, was standing in her very presence, and now she didn't want it, wanted nothing to do with it, wanted to strike any bargain possible. Let her spend the remainder of her natural days here in this cell, with only that one ray of sun and those miraculous shadows, let her —
“Madame, it is time to repent,” the priest said, moving away from the kneeling figure of General Montaud. “Your time on this earth and in this life is limited. God is preparing to receive you, and you, in turn, must prepare to receive God.”
He was standing directly over her. From her downward vision she could see beneath the black hem the tops of gold slippers. Ornately embroidered on the toe of each, in gold-and-black thread, was the symbol of the cross. So fascinated was she by finding the cross in such an unlikely place, she missed the next few minutes, focusing on the tiny crosses which perched just to one side of the priest's big toes.
“Are you, my child?”
At the sound of the high-pitched and insistent voice, she tried to clear her mind and vision of toe crosses, tried to lift her head in search of the full question. “I'm... sorry. I didn't... hear...
“Are you ready to receive God?” the priest repeated.
“I wasn't aware I had become separated from Him.”
Outside the door and beyond in the courtyard she heard voices, manv voices, a crowd gathering.
Edward.
“Are you frightened?” the priest asked with unexpected bluntness. “Yes,” she replied with matching honesty.
“That is because your soul is not at peace. You must confess all your sins. Then death will be effortless.”
Slowly she glanced around at the semicircle of male faces, knew what they thought of her and what she was, and knew what they wanted to hear in a confessional.
“I... have nothing to confess,” she murmured, and bowed her head, suddenly embarrassed. Men had approached her in the throes of love and desire all her life, and she'd never once been humiliated. But these men, each passing moral judgment on her, embarrassed her to the quick.
“God will never receive you with blasphemies such as that,” the priest scolded sternly. “Kneel before me and confess your crimes, your sins, your...”
Suddenly she felt his hand on her shoulder. She tried to stand in an attempt to put the limited distance of the cell between them, but her knees were weak.
“One last chance, my child,” the priest intoned, his voice calm, as though he hadn't been too surprised by her refusal of his dubious services. “Kneel and confess.”
“No.”
“Kneel and confess.”
“I have nothing to confess.”
“You murdered a man.”
“In self-defense.”
“In God's eyes that makes no difference.”
“It should.”
“Do you presume to instruct God?”
“When I think He warrants it.”
“God forgive her, for she knows not...”
Suddenly the absurdity vaulted. How foolish, all of it, herself included, a lifetime of effort, the petty fears of trifling anxieties which at the time had loomed mountainous before her. And most absurd of all, the energy, the incredible energy required in order to wage the battle with life.
From her vantage point she saw too clearly. There had been less than half a dozen moments in her entire life that had been capable of transcending the smallness of inconsequential action. There had been fewer than three people — only one, really — who had enabled her to glimpse the shore of that extraordinary spiritual country that lay beyond the confines of this reality.
New movement, new noise drew her attention. She looked up to see the six young soldiers in formation, two by two. Her head turned in all directions. Was it time?
Too soon!
She tried to ignore the woman crying within her and concentrated on the folds of her blue silk gown, which, despite the dried bloodstains, was still lovely.
Poor Madame Charvin...
Now the soldiers passed before her where she sat on the low stool, each managing to look her straight in the eye before he quickly crossed himself and moved on.
The fourth, an incredibly young-looking boy with bright red hair and brighter cheeks, stopped before her, crossed himself, and whispered, “Forgive me...”
“You've not offended me.” She smiled, wanting to touch his hand, which was so close, but she dared not. She watched him as far as the cell door, wishing he'd look back so she might give him a last reassuring smile, but he never lifted his eyes from the floor.
“One last chance, my child...”
She looked up to see the two remaining in her cell: General Montaud, and, of course, the priest, who had pocketed his rosary and was now thumbing through his elegant new Bible. Again she was struck by the realization nothing on this priest looked worn, not even the man himself, though he was clearly well past middle age. His brow was unlined, no telltale track marks of time around his eyes or mouth. Even the black cassock looked new, as did the delicate lace which Elizabeth was certain had never been laundered. Everything new, unused, untested.
“God gives one and all, from the mightiest king to the lowliest sinner, a second chance,” he pronounced, not arrogantly or unkindly, merely a statement of fact to which he had dedicated his life.
“Did you hear, my child?”
Why did he persist in calling her that? She was not his child.
“Kneel and confess.”
She tried to speak and couldn't, and managed only to shake her head.
“Leave her alone, Father. She's beyond redemption,” snapped General Montaud. “Come...”
She looked up, not at the indictment but rather at the command. Did he mean for her to come? Was it to be now?
But he ushered the priest out of the door, then followed after him, closing the cell door with a sudden slamming. A second later she heard the bolt sliding, then silence.
Slowly she turned upon the stool, thinking someone had been left. But no one had. She was quite alone in the cell, hearing only the thunderous beat of her pulse, aware of her hands folded and trembling in her lap, her mouth dry with fear.
Hurry, Death.
Someplace, somewhere, she would find a future for herself. That's what she'd told John on that morning over four years ago when she'd turned her back on Eden as well as on...
John.
Thank God she would not have
to see him again, though she loved him with all her heart. If she were granted one last wish from that angry God who wanted only to hear her confession, it would be that somehow John could make amends to the family he so desperately needed and had so grievously offended.
A slow-moving ray of morning sun crept over the high coal-dust-stained window and somehow managed to filter down on her. There was so much she would miss, so many faces she would never see again, so many voices she would never hear.
She heard the cell door open but lacked the will, energy, and desire to look up. Of far greater comfort and fascination to her was the pattern of light and shadow warming her hand.
His only coherent thought as he stood in the low doorway of the small cell was that — miracle of miracles — he was enduring the unendurable. The palms of his hands still ached from the death grip he'd maintained on the reins during the high-speed trip to La Rochelle. He remembered praying twice — God forgive him — that old Bates's ploy had worked and that the execution had already taken place.
But upon their arrival at La Rochelle a short while ago they'd heard that the Englishwoman had attempted an escape and that the execution had been postponed until nine-thirty.
“Fifteen minutes,” the guard barked as he drew open the heavy cell door, “not a second more. That one has thrown off the entire prison schedule,” he muttered, bobbing his head toward the woman who sat slumped on the small stool, staring intently at the back of her hand. She didn't even look up as the cell door was closed behind him.
Courage, he begged himself. Remember, she is the one in need of comfort, as she has comforted you since you were a child.
“Elizabeth?”
As he spoke her name, all his good intentions fled, and as she looked up, frightened, and he saw the wound on her forehead, he found himself incapable of further speech. He took one step forward and opened his arms. She appeared to hesitate for a moment as though she wasn't certain if the offer of shelter could be trusted. Then she got up and reached out to him. He held her close and felt dull and senseless with grief he could not, for her sake, display.
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 35
