Yet at the very moment when she'd invited the old man to speak, he fell silent and looked as though he were on the verge of moving away.
Reverend Christopher lightly touched his arm and drew him back and tendered the introduction. “This is Mr. Bates, Susan,” he said, stepping closer between them and looking simultaneously up at the top of the castle. “He served as butler to the Edens for... oh, how many years was it, Mr. Bates?”
Butler! Here was a stroke of fortune, her first.
“For the better part of my productive life,” Bates said solemnly, head still lifted. The deep hollows of his gaunt cheeks caught and held pools of shadows from the surrounding torchlights.
“I was brought up from Chatsworth, from the noble Duke of Devonshire, by that man himself,” and with a moving degree of reflection he nodded toward the distant man.
“He paid me a king's ransom, he did,” Mr. Bates went on, a new and discomforting bitterness creeping into his recall. “In those days his money could buy anything, though I was warned it was tainted. But you see, I was young and had no conception of the darkness into which I was stepping...”
He seemed in turn loath to speak and then eager to do so, and Susan felt the conflict of the moment, and didn't want to add to it but felt such an urgent need for information. “Is there anyone in the castle with him, Mr. Bates? Please, if you know...”
But now Bates was looking down on her as though seeing her for the first time.
“My name is Susan Mantle, Mr. Bates,” she said, doing nothing to disguise or soften the impatience in her voice. “I'm a traveling nurse out of Exeter and was in Mortemouth when Reverend Christopher summoned me here tonight. I assume we all want the same thing, to try to bring them both down alive and intact - ”
“Too late for that,” Bates said bluntly. “One is already dead.”
“One...” she tried to repeat, and couldn't, for suddenly it seemed to her that the wind as well as the surrounding voices had fallen silent, listening.
Bates nodded, a grim, economical confirmation. “Her,” he said. “Lady Harriet. I suspected it last...”
Abruptly he broke off as though aware he'd said too much. In his lean, enclosed face she saw the code of all successful butlers who always were hired not for their knowledgeable ways in managing a great house but rather for their inhuman ability to see everything and reveal nothing.
“Please, Mr. Bates,” she urged, trying to draw both men a distance away from the crowd, which continued to grow in numbers. “Please tell me what you know. It might help to - ”
“They both are beyond help,'' he interrupted, his voice topping hers. “Don't you see? One is dead, and one wants to be dead. Leave them to heaven, or in the case of Mr. Eden, to the hottest fires in the lowest hell.”
She looked away at this harsh sentence and wished that she could anchor the old man in the present, as opposed to slipping in and out of what apparently was an awesome and destructive past.
“Do you still reside at Eden, Mr. Bates?” she asked politely, though with new directness and greater urgency, for she'd heard an angry swell from the audience, had heard one drunken male voice shout, “Why don't you jump, you bastard?”
Quickly she prayed that the voice had not carried to the top of the crenellation. “Do you, Mr. Bates, still live within the castle?”
“Miss,” he said archly, “do I look capable of inhabiting a pigsty? No, I left the castle years ago, as did all men of reason and civility.”
“Who cared for...?”
“He cared for himself.”
“And the Lady Harriet?”
“The same, though it was harder on her in her blindness.”
Blind. Only then did Susan remember the stories that had circulated around Lady Harriet Eden, how she'd tried to mutilate herself and had succeeded in blinding herself. Susan hadn't believed them. “How do you know this, Bates, if you no longer reside in the castle?”
“I have access, miss, and certain orders from a London firm.”
“What London firm?”
“Mr. Eden's. Who else?”
“Who in the London firm directs you?” she asked, remembering that this man was more accustomed to interrogation than polite inquiry.
“Alex Aldwell.”
“Mr. Bates, will you come with me and show me the fastest way up there? Please...?” she asked, already starting off, confident that he couldn't refuse so sensible and humane a request.
“For what purpose?” he demanded imperiously, and even before Susan could reply, Reverend Christopher sputtered indignantly.
“For... what... purpose? Look for yourself and discern the purpose. This circus must be brought to an end, and soon.”
“It will be, sir, I assure you, so long as no one interferes. I was told by London to watch but not to interfere.”
“Whoever told you that was a barbarian and a fool,” Reverend Christopher snapped. “I cannot stand by with a clear Christian conscience and watch...”
Susan had heard enough, and now heard more in the wailing wind, heard a lamentable sob, the fearful sound coming from the top of the castle. Whatever the nature of Mr. Eden's offenses against man or God, no punishment in heaven or on earth should be capable of producing such a wretched sound.
So while the two men engaged in useless argument, she stepped out of the triangle and hurried toward the castle's north wall, hoping to find a path which would lead her around to the gatehouse, across the grille into the inner courtyard and ultimately into the castle itself.
“Miss, I must firmly request that you not interfere,” Bates called out after her.
“Take it up with me, Bates,” the Reverend Christopher sputtered. “I'm the one who fetched Miss Mantle. She has a way with the hurt.”
Bates laughed, a dry, bone-rattling sound. “She'll need more than that to deal with Mr. Eden,” he said acidly. “He has destroyed everyone else. Let him destroy himself.”
Bates continued protesting as though Eden Castle was his private domain.
“You'll only be doing more harm than good, I swear it,” and she heard his old voice crack under the duress of speed and emotion.
“How so?” challenged Reverend Christopher. “I was a frequent visitor at Eden - ”
“When? Not recently.”
“No, I concede, not recently...”
“No, of course not. No one has visited Eden since...”
She broke speed, listening, curious for a date. It might be helpful for her to know how long the disintegration had been taking place.
“Since when, Mr. Bates?” she called over her shoulder, hoping the man did not resent her so much that he ceased talking to her altogether.
When, after several moments, she heard no response, she increased her speed and left the two men stumbling after her.
“If it wouldn't be asking too much/' she heard a breathless Reverend Christopher entreat, “the man might speak if we would only break our pace...”
“Can't.” she replied bluntly. “No time. Fall back if you must, but...”
“You'd best be falling back yourself/' she heard Bates warn. Even his pious old voice was beginning to suffer under the duress of speed. “The gatehouse is locked and barred. No one has passed in or out since I left several...”
Abruptly she stopped. “Why didn't you tell me?” she demanded. Apparently he'd known from the beginning that there would be no access in this direction.
“You didn't ask, miss,” he replied tersely, “or give me a chance to inform you. You simply took off into the night and...”
“Then where?” she demanded. At that moment she heard the distant voices of the crowd. Something had happened to excite them further.
“Where?” she demanded again. “Surely there is an access route inside the castle somewhere.”
In the dark she couldn't see the old man’s face, and for that she was grateful. “There is a way in,” he replied with a maddeningly calm voice.
“Where? Hurry! Will you show me
?”
“I must ask first...”
“What?”
“What is your intention once in?”
“To find a way up,” she said, doing nothing to hide the incredulity in her voice. “To find a way to avert that tragedy that is now being witnessed by most of Mortemouth.”
“Impossible.”
“Why?” she demanded, her incredulity growing rapidly to outrage.
“Because Mr. Eden wants nothing more in this world than to die, and in all matters, Mr. Eden accomplishes what he wants, what he sets out to accomplish.”
“Then he will have to say that to me before - ”
Bates laughed. “Mr. Eden does nothing but what pleases him. What fails to please him or gets in his way gets snuffed out like a burned-down candle.”
She was aware of Reverend Christopher leaning heavily against the castle wall, still drawing tortured breaths.
“Then why did you come for me?” she asked him, remembering the rude pounding on the door, her harsh awakening.
In an attempt to answer her question, Reverend Christopher tapped on his chest with one fist as though to aid the passage of air through his lungs. “I came for you because you are needed,” he said simply, “and because I strongly disagree with this... gentleman and because life is sacred and must be maintained and preserved at all cost.”
As he launched into a small tedious sermon, she thought bleakly that she could have argued the point with him, about life, that is, though perhaps not effectively, for she was undecided in her own mind.
Then it was up to her to find an alternative route. If the gatehouse was bolted, surely there was a passage or a gate left carelessly open on the east wall, the place where a low scattering of outbuildings huddled against the fortress of the castle, the place where horses once were shod and sheep sheared, farm implements stored, though she knew for a fact that the farm equipment had not been used for several years, the rich fertile land on Eden Rising going to weed and ruin.
“Miss! I must ask again, where do you think you’re going?” demanded Bates.
“To find for myself what you apparently refuse to show me.”
“I assure you that you will find nothing that way except a full meadow of Eden dead and a crumbling path that leads the length of the headland to... nothing.”
A full meadow of Eden dead. A curious phrase; and then she realized. The Eden graveyard. What else? Was he telling the truth? Was the castle impenetrable? Perhaps so, but for the sake of her own conscience she had to find out for herself, and on this conviction she’d just started off again when she heard his voice, more practical, certainly more resigned, as though in her persistent determination she’d proved something to him.
“Very well,” he said, a weariness of resignation in his voice. “Come with me,” and now saw him push aside his long black coat and reached into an inner pocket, fish blindly for a moment, head raised, body angled away from the search. And at last apparently he found what he was looking for, tucked it inside the palm of his left hand, restored his coat, and walked on.
By way of showing her gratitude, she kept silent and purposefully fell a step or two behind the thin old man and felt very much in her “woman's place” and recognized his resentment. She encountered it daily, even from those who benefited most from her nursing skills.
Of course she was almost beyond caring now, and stumbled along the mud-soft border, feeling her shoes grow heavy with caked mud, feeling the weight of male superiority, hearing a new and ominous silence in the night, no more shouts or jeers coming from the distant crowd. Something had stunned or shocked or frightened them into a new and disturbing silence.
Hurry! the voice dictated again from inside her head.
He's not a man, but the Devil.
That judgment would have to be left to God.
Coming from behind, she heard Reverend Christopher fretting out loud, voicing her fears. “Why are they suddenly so quiet?” he asked of anyone who cared to answer.
Bates had a ready answer. “Not many of them have ever seen the Devil in the flesh. It must be an impressive sight for them.”
As long as words were once again the order of the day, Susan spent a few for herself. “Did you always view Mr. Eden as such?” she asked. “One wonders why you spent your entire lifetime in his em-ploy.”
“Always,” came the terse reply. “Always!” came an even more emphatic repetition. “The first time I ever saw him at Chatsworth, I knew I would weaken before him.”
Despite the darkness, she heard the bitterness of regret, yet was puzzled that he would blame Mr. Eden for his own succumbing to material temptation.
“How, precisely,” she asked, “did he corrupt you? Mr. Eden, I mean. Surely you were capable of resisting - ”
“No, I was not,” he snapped, “nor would any man, when faced with that Lucifer.”
“Then he offered you money?”
“More money than I'd ever seen before, or dreamed of.”
“Still, you could have resisted - ”
“No!”
Well, she could understand that, too. Existence and the conditions of existence were not always compatible to the “theory” of goodness. Parts of her own past were bleak testaments to that.
She looked ahead to see the vast expanse of the north fortress wall coming to an end. In the dark it resembled a mammoth extension of the cliff wall itself.
“Mr. Bates, where...?”
“Straight ahead,” he commanded, lowering his head into the powerful convergence of sea and channel wind. “Beyond the gatehouse there's a small door in the south wall.” He paused and held up his left clenched fist. “I have the key.”
There was such self-satisfaction in this claim that for a moment his voice lightened and she wouldn't have been too surprised to see a grin upon his bony features.
“Miss,” Bates demanded suddenly, breaking his speed, the force of the converging winds lessening as well, “what is your precise interest in all this, besides good works and a clear Christian conscience?”
The direct question caught her off guard, preoccupied as she was with the castle itself. She faltered, then managed, “As I said, Reverend Christopher - ”
“I did, indeed,” Reverend Christopher blustered as though he too were annoyed by the impudent question. “Miss Mantle has a miraculously soft touch with the ill and wounded, and I thought - ”
“Mr. Eden is neither ill nor wounded,” Bates cut in, increasing his pace and simultaneously throwing back his voice.
“I would argue that, and suggest that he is both,” Susan contradicted.
“Then he's been thus all his life, for the theatrical which you have just witnessed from the headlands has been his sign and signature for as long as I can remember. He ‘performs’ everything. Everything in his life is a lie.” Bates shook his head. “He missed his natural calling, don't you see? He should have gone on the stage.”
She listened, though she found what she was hearing hard to believe. No one could artificially produce that sound of human distress and misery which at intervals punctured the already restless night.
But before she could argue the point, she heard him call out, “Over here,” and followed the imperious wave of his hand to a spot near the crumbling gatehouse. One grille, she observed, had fallen altogether and now rested at a sideward angle. The other was only half-raised, giving the impression of a large open mouth on the verge of devouring anyone foolish enough to pass beneath it.
But apparently Mr. Bates had no intention of entering the gatehouse, for she saw him march straight past it, taking care to step over and around the accumulated debris which had blown against the grille, both from inside and out, under the force of the perennial wind. Inside the gate, pressed against it in various positions of crucifixion, she saw weeds, straggly bits of bracken and newsprint clinging to the bars like prisoners wanting out.
“Over here!” she heard Bates shout, and looked up, and in the dark at first couldn’t see him
and then saw the elongated shadow moving across the high stone wall, a short distance from the substance of the man who was bent over a small arched door which appeared to have been constructed in the wall itself of weathered wood and remnants of wood carving in both the upper and lower panels. It had been a very handsome and very secret door at one time. For what purpose, she had no idea, but it was her estimate that they would come out on the other side near the central staircase, having walked the length of the courtyard on the outside.
“Please hurry,” she urged softly as Bates bent over the low lock and fumbled for the key. Behind, she heard Reverend Christopher, just catching up, whispering a humorous but heartfelt entreaty for God to “lighten the weight, Lord, just for a moment.”
“Light would help,” Bates complained in a terse voice, and belatedly it occurred to Susan they should have brought a torch. But surely, once inside the castle, they would find all the torches and lamps they required.
In an attempt to soothe, she voiced this conviction. “Inside, I'm sure we can find sufficient illumination for - ”
“You are consistent, Miss, only in your erring judgment,” Bates pronounced. “There has been no real illumination inside that tomb for months, years. Does a burial ground have need of light? On the express orders of the monster himself, all wall torches, all fixed standards, were removed and disposed of in a bonfire truly worthy of Lucifer himself.”
Caught between this bizarre announcement and the projection of a darker passage up to the top of the castle, Susan foundered. “W-why? I... don't understand...”
“Of course you don't,” Bates snapped.
Angered at the delay, she reached forward and felt the heavy brass key still in the lock. She stepped closer, grasped the stubborn key and gave it one vigorous turn, and to her surprise felt no resistance, in fact felt the door give and creak slowly open on hinges as rusty and neglected as the lock itself.
Susan was convinced that all along he'd been capable of opening the door but had feigned difficulty. She saw a new acquiescence on Bates's face, a new truce as it were.
“Follow me,” he commanded. “I am the only person in the world, save one, who does not need illumination in order to navigate through the twists and turns of Eden.”
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 3