Then it was settled, and with dispatch he turned back to shake hands on it — would Charley Spade even know what a gentleman's handshake meant? — but instead found himself confronting Miss Mantle, who now stood between him and his new employee, a questioning look on her face, as though she'd asked a question and he had not heard.
“I'm... sorry...” he murmured.
“Charley's wage, sir. What did you say you would pay him?”
Clever! John stepped back from the direct question to the waiting Charley, who looked eagerly at him, the grin on his face the size of a half-moon at harvesttime.
“I... didn't say,” John muttered.
“Well, I think you should, don't you?” Miss Mantle went on undaunted. “After all, you are asking Charley to leave his home...”
“Don't mind none, miss,” came a very sensible reply from behind.
John turned about, thinking that this repudiation would silence her. But it didn't. Instead she took Charley by the arm and led him out of the group until he was standing separate and apart, his grand qualifications clear now for all to see. John studied him in this angle and decided quite simply that there probably was nothing the man could not do that required physical prowess.
Still, almost plaintively, he argued with Miss Mantle. “I'll see to all his needs,” he said. “That should be enough.”
“Come now, Mr. Eden,” she chided gently. “Everyone here knows that a man must have more than his needs taken care of!”
Did they all know that? John didn't, and from the puzzled look on the faces of the men, particularly Charley Spade, they didn't know it either.
Damn! Hemmed in! Nothing to do but make a pittance of an offer for this ox. He would be of invaluable service, of that John was certain.
“Fifteen shillings,” John offered, doing nothing to conceal the anger in his voice. What business was it of hers? “Per month,” he added pointedly, delighted to see the initial look of approval fade from her face. As for Charley Spade, he looked stunned, as though someone had just delivered a blow to his midsection.
“Per week,” she countered.
“Out of the question,” John said.
“Then I must advise Mr. Spade to say no to your... offer, which in truth is not an offer at all but the very worst form of exploitation, as you so well know.”
John stared down on her and wondered what Alex Aldwell had offered her as a wage for caring for a half-dead man.
“No,” John said, unable to believe the words that were forming in his head. “I offer Mr. Spade fifteen shillings... per... week.”
He had intended to say more, but the stunned gasps coming from the workmen precluded speech as they gathered about Charley Spade and slapped him on the back and dared to ruffle his close-cropped hair.
John waited out the men's excitement, all the while concentrating on her eyes, the color of the channel on a sunny day. There was his reward, that simple look of gratitude. As though the expression was not reward enough, she stepped closer, away from the chattering men. “Thank you, Mr. Eden,” she said. “You won't miss the money and it will provide Charley with his first sense of self-respect. Besides,” she went on, “he will defend you with his life now, and that will mean a great deal to those of us who... care for you.”
Strange, that hesitancy in her words.
Then his new employee was coming forward.
“Mr. Eden,” Charley began, and with those two words he appeared to have moved himself beyond his ability to speak.
“No need,” John said gruffly, hoisting his walking stick into the air, a clear signal the interview was over. He increased his speed away from the still-gaping men and proceeded beneath the arch and out onto the headlands, thinking that Miss Mantle was directly behind him, only to look back from a distance of about forty feet to see her in close conference with Charley Spade, the large man nodding to whatever she was saying.
Ah, here she was, approaching slowly, head down, checking each step.
“Everything settled?” John called out, knowing that it was, seeing beyond Miss Mantle's slim shoulders to where Charley Spade stood, his great cow eyes watching both of them.
“Oh, yes.” She smiled, stepping up alongside him, her arms crossed as though she were chilled. “I just wanted to be certain that he fully understood what had transpired and what would be expected of him.”
“And did he?”
“Yes,” she replied. “It was a good idea to hire Charley Spade. I shall feel...” Abruptly she stopped and glanced back to where he trailed a step or two behind.
“Miss Mantle, wait!” he called out.
“What is it?” she asked, looking back.
“You started to say something but checked yourself. What was it?”
“I don't remember.”
“Of course you do.”
“Yes,” she agreed with a suddenness which suggested she knew as well as he that they were playing a game. She walked slowly away again, head down. “You've been seriously ill, Mr. Eden,” she began.
“I’m not even certain that you should be undertaking such a difficult journey - ”
“It will be - ”
“But since you are, and since Fm quite certain there is nothing anyone can say to dissuade you, then I will feel better knowing you have competent assistance.”
The way the wind was blowing the fringes of her hair was fascinating, lifting individual strands in a gentle pulling motion away from her face, which was suddenly so earnest. He found himself wondering what it was about her he found so appealing.
Be attentive! a voice inside his head sternly counseled.
“And you feel that Charley Spade and old Bates are... competent, as you put it?”
She smiled. “Competent? For a man in your condition? No. Better than nothing? Yes...”
“What precisely is my condition?” he asked, leading the way out across the headlands, but at a more prudent pace. Also the brief interim had given him a chance to plot a route for this afternoon's excursion, one which might be of interest to her, though the first leg of the trip took them over well-trod territory back across at least a part of the headlands.
“You can't be serious,” she said, coming up alongside him.
“Oh, but I am,” he said, and liked the way she walked beside him, her attention his.
My God, he really didn't want to leave her.
“...and beyond that it is impossible to tell precisely what and how much damage has been done.”
Damn! Why did his mind insist upon drifting?
“I'm sorry, Miss Mantle. My mind...”
She looked up at him. “I know,” she said. “That too is the result of the seizure. I wish when you feel up to it that you would go to London and see Miss Nightingale. She has become the leading authority on - ”
“No,” he said, cutting in. “London has little appeal - ”
“Are you warm enough, Mr. Eden?”
He responded to the soft inquiry with a scant nod and wondered why he felt so self-conscious around this woman. He couldn't remember when in his life he'd wanted so terribly to say the right words, to make the right responses.
“Tell me about yourself, Miss Mantle.”
“No need to worry about - ”
Unfortunately their voices came simultaneously, one blurring the other.
“I'm sorry - ”
“No, I - ”
“It's damn chilly. Are you warm enough?” As he tried to hide his embarrassment, he took refuge in the weak subject of her thin shawl.
“I'm fine,” she said, though both seemed to have increased their pace against the chill and accelerating wind.
“You know, it might help,” she said, her voice raised in competition with the giant breakers which were beginning to crash on the rocks far below the cliff, “if we turned inland.”
He nodded and struggled to maintain the pace which he had set. The numb leg did not work well under pressure and seemed to him at times to belong to someone else.
/>
“We'll cut in up ahead,” he said, and realized with a start that he was shouting, that the wind within minutes had risen to gale force. “Not through the woods, though,” he added, smiling. “We've seen the woods. Today I want to show you something else.”
Now he looked ahead, hoping he'd remembered correctly at which point the castle wall gave way to the hidden door and access to the overgrown terrain beyond the family graveyard.
“Will you be off tomorrow as well?” he asked abruptly.
She nodded. “Oh, yes. I have several long weeks of work to catch up with - ”
“There it is,” he cried out now, spying the rusted black hinges where he remembered them and reaching out for her arm in order to redirect her.
“Where are we?”
“You'll see,” he said, and drew her close and smelled that lovely scent of soap and lavender which it had been his privilege to waken to every morning for the past several months.
He sensed her interest as they drew near to the door, and was pleased to see her launch forth into a removal of clinging ivy that obscured the latch.
“There's one just like it in the south wall.” She smiled. “How long have you known about this one?”
“All my life,” he said, pleased that the wind seemed to have subsided.
She looked up, surprised. “Then you were born here?”
“No.”
“London?”
“No”
“Where?”
“Shropshire,” he said. “I'm a Shropshire man.”
The news seemed to puzzle more than illuminate. “How did Elizabeth happen to be in Shropshire during her confinement?”
For a moment he looked down on her as she stooped to remove the last of the ivy. Was she seeking? So many others had in the past.
“Elizabeth is not my mother,” he said, recalling unhappy times against his will.
“She raised you. At least, that’s what Reverend Christopher - ”
“She is not my mother,” John repeated, and heard the edge in his voice and decided to do nothing to soften it, and reached out and pushed against the rusty door with all his limited strength and was pleased to hear it give with first effort.
Briefly they stood a distance apart, each assessing this gray and gloomy place where jagged stumps raised distorted faces out of moss and leaf-scattered earth, where full-grown dead trees had fallen and over the years had been allowed to remain fallen in fixed positions, their limbs rotting into macabre angles, like men undergoing torture.
He saw her shiver. “Of course, you know what it is,” he said, leading the way through the least obstructed part, heading toward the clearing beyond the graveyard and the cobblestone path which led to their ultimate destination.
“No. I’m sorry, I don’t know...” she stammered.
“Over there,” he said. “That will be cleared and smoothed for all those Edens not yet born.” He walked ahead, aware that straight up was that implacable fortress, four stories high, the exact point in the crenellation where he had stood with Harriet in his arms entreating Heaven to take them both.
“Mr. Eden, why don’t you sit for a moment? Here, here’s a dry...”
Apparently she had seen him stumble and, in a flurry of half-sentences, had caught up with him and had established a firm grip on his arm and was leading him now with surprising strength toward a smooth fallen tree trunk which seemed to have formed a natural bench. He did not resist.
“Come,” she urged, gently continuing to lead him over the uncertain footing, and once changing her mind. “Perhaps we should return to the castle. This dampness...”
“No, just... sit... minute...”
“But you have a long journey ahead of you tomorrow...”
“Hours of... confinement. Let me... move...”
His tongue had grown sluggish again. Damn! What was the matter with him? What in the hell was the nature of his illness, one minute well and functioning, and the next weak and helpless?
“Here,” she urged, angling him about as though he were a cripple and guiding him down onto the fallen log.
He did as he was told, for he had no choice. His knees were trembling as though palsied, as were his hands.
“We really should go back, Mr. Eden,” she said, kneeling before him on the damp earth, her face slanted into angles of concern. Suddenly he felt an irresistible compulsion to touch — merely to touch — that good strong face, and so he did, very gently, his right hand cupped in sincere gratitude about the firm jaw, his fingers extending over her cheek in one direction and down her slender neck in the other.
“You know that I will never be able to repay you,” he said, his voice husky under the duress of the moment.
“I require... no pay,” she answered, obviously startled by the small intimacy but doing nothing to move away from it.
“What do you require?” he asked, thinking surely there would be something he could do to ease her life, as she had eased his.
“Nothing. I swear it.” She smiled, blushing slightly. “Your good health is reward enough. I pray for it nightly.”
Again he felt a shuddering weakness which seemed to commence at the top of his head and move slowly but steadily the full length of his body, like a devastating wave, that left him weak and sweating. “I'm... not certain,” he murmured, “that your God is paying the closest of attention - ”
“Don't say that,” she interrupted sternly. “He is always here, with you as well as with me.”
At that precise moment John felt the first drop of telltale moisture, the gray and swollen clouds about to release a cold rain. To run back to the castle was out of the question. To remain here in this future burial ground for the yet unborn was equally out of the question.
At that moment she felt those first drops as well, and the worried look on her face suggested a distinct though temporary loss of faith.
“Come, there's shelter not far.” He thought she was going to protest as he led her in a direction away from the castle. But as the rain had increased in those few short moments, she ducked her head, took a firm grip on his arm, and followed after him through the overgrown jungle.
At the extreme south edge of the graveyard he found the beginning of the crumbling path which led, as nearly as he could remember, back into the far eastern edge of the castle grounds proper, past the large sheds and outbuildings where, when he'd first arrived at Eden, he'd served time as an odd boy while everyone tried to determine the authenticity of his parentage. Beyond the scattering of outbuildings, beyond what once had been the monstrous and mountainous compost heap, beyond the livestock pens — empty now and likely to remain so — on the very edge of the green woods was Eden Rising, the place where the fields and meadows and pastures of Eden commenced.
And there it was, precisely as he'd remembered it, the comfortable cottage which in the past had served as shelter for various wardens important to the functioning of Eden Castle.
“Up ahead.'' He pointed, gazing through solid sheets of rain at the questionable shelter which nestled into autumn-brilliant trees at the end of the heavily rutted road.
She looked up. “Thank heavens!” She shivered. “I hope there's firewood.”
John hoped there was more than that — a reliable roof, for starters, or better still, a reliable floor. To the best of his knowledge, the cottage hadn't been occupied since his youth.
“Almost there,” she called out as though to encourage new strength within him.
Then a few minutes later there it was before them, looking terribly small and plain and ugly when compared with the enormous castle in the distance.
“Watch your step,” he called out, seeing the bottom plank rotted.
She gave him a grateful look and moved to the extreme edge and clung to the banister, which looked none too steady itself. Still, it held, and with her in the lead they made their way up the four precarious steps to the questionable shelter of the overhang through which gushed numerous small waterfalls, an om
inous omen of what they might find inside.
“Do you have a key?” she asked, trying to brush the wet hair out of her eyes.
“No, but I don't think we'll need one,” he pointed out, indicating the door, which, from the top of the steps, he could see was attached by one hinge only.
She saw it as well and stepped gingerly around the main cascade coming through the overhang and pushed open the door. Even above the music of the rain he heard the single hinge squeal in objec-tion to sudden use.
“Come, please,” she called to him from just inside the door, where she'd gone ahead on an inspection tour and apparently found the interior, if not better, at least no worse than the exterior. “Mr. Eden, please,” she called again with fresh urgency. “The last thing you need is a damp chill. Hurry...”
There it was again, that remarkable tone of concern in her voice. He started forward, leaning heavily on the walking stick in an attempt to avoid slippery places, and at last reached for her extended hand, when she took him the rest of the way into the semidarkness of the old cottage. Once they were through the door, she closed it quickly behind them. Though it possessed only the one hinge, it seemed to hang better closed than opened.
'That might keep some of the chill out,” she murmured, “though I doubt it,” and brushed past him in her usual efficient manner. From the continuously changing angles of her head, he knew she was taking it all in, every cobweb-filled corner and every inch of the debris-littered floor.
For a moment neither spoke as she walked slowly about the large room, still shivering now and then, for he could see the clear contours of her back through her rain-soaked dress. Of greatest interest to her was the large fieldstone fireplace, which looked as though it had been dead and cold and empty forever. Quickly she bent over, apparently to study the flue. “If we had wood...”
“We have wood,” he said, pointing out two wooden chairs and a decrepit table.
She looked surprised at the suggestion. “We couldn't burn... furniture.”
“It's not furniture,” he said, feeling remarkably good, all things considered.
“What is it?”
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 18