She was silent. Had she run dry so soon? He'd expected several more minutes of cliches and homilies.
Now... nothing. The chill damp air inside the cottage hung heavily about him. He reached down for his walking stick where he'd let it drop to the floor. He retrieved it and stood immediately, struggling for balance, determined not to let her see any single aspect of his weakness.
He said nothing until he had reached the door and stepped through it, pleased to see the rain over — scarcely a mist now, but icy cold. “I think I'll return now, Miss Mantle,” he said, allowing his voice to fall with all its natural imperiousness.
“Stay here, if you wish,” he added with an indifferent wave of his hand. “Accept it, if you wish. Do anything you bloody well wish, but please never again give me the insight of your... superior wisdom.”
Good Lord, he'd not expected it to sound so harsh and condemning. He looked back into the room, although he'd vowed not to. She sat unmoving on her end of the bench, head down, resembling a chastised child. The sight of her hurt cut with unexpected sharpness.
“I'm...” He started to say “sorry,” but at the last minute he grew hard and sensible. He really wasn't sorry. At least he'd relieved her of that damnable air of superiority. “...going back now, Miss Mantle,” he called out, weary of the sight of her.
Once down the stairs, he had to sidestep a large puddle, and in the process, listened closely in an attempt to pick up any sound at all that might be coming from inside the cottage. Then he heard the telltale scraping of the one-hinged door; someone, restored enough to close it gently and follow after him.
“Mr. Eden?”
Damn! Hadn't she said everything there was to be said? Apparently not!
“I'm sorry for any offense I might have caused you — “
“No need,” he interrupted airily, marching straight ahead and setting a fast pace that he hoped she couldn't match.
She had to hurry to keep up, which she did without objection, as though she knew he couldn't maintain it for long either.
“And I do wish you the very best,” she went on, pulling the dirtiest trick of all on him. Elizabeth used to do this to him as well, return his harsh remarks, which were designed only to hurt, with kindness. It was one of the deadliest of female tricks.
“I hope that your journey to Paris is uneventful and totally successful and that you find Elizabeth and ask her to return with you to Eden. I know how important it is to you,” she went on with uncanny accuracy. “Sometimes I think it's easier not to have a family, like me, than to have a large and loving one and lose them.”
True, he thought, pleased that she'd returned to her senses.
For the rest of the way, nothing was said. By either. She seemed to walk with increasing energy, while he suffered a persistent and painful shortness of breath and a growing chill that on occasion caused his teeth to chatter. If she was at all aware of his discomfort, she gave no indication of it. She continued to walk ahead of him, lifting her face now and then to the still-boiling clouds, a new energy in every step, as though he'd said nothing at all to her that was hurtful.
Eden Castle October 23, 1874
For all the rain and gloom of the day before, the morning of the departure dawned rosy and gold, as mild as an April mom, as though nature knew it would be difficult enough without adding the extra burden of unpleasant weather.
Susan stood at the top of the Great-Hall steps, waiting for Mr. Eden's carriage to depart. As soon as they had left, it was her intention to go directly down into Mortemouth, fetch her landau, and put as much distance as possible between herself and Eden by nightfall.
A rattling confusion coming from the direction of the stables caused her to look up. The six enormous horses were being led into place. At the same time, she saw a sudden movement emerge from the dark shadowy stairwell leading up from the kitchen court. She looked more closely at the shape shrouded in a black hooded cape.
Rose O’Donnell.
Susan started to call to her, wanting to say both good-bye and thank you, but at that moment the approaching horses intersected her line of vision, and when the animals had been led past the kitchen-court stairs, Rose O'Donnell was gone.
Susan blinked at the mysterious disappearance. Where could she have gone? Back down the steps was the only possible answer. Good, then Susan would have an opportunity to say good-bye after Mr. Eden's departure.
She looked again at the vacuum at the top of the kitchen steps. The area was still cast in changing morning shadow. Perhaps she'd imagined Rose O'Donnell. It wouldn't be too difficult. She was exhausted this morning, having stayed up late last night gathering together her belongings, hoping that the meeting in the library between Bates and Mr. Eden and Charley Spade would end early so that she might have a chance to speak with him once again in private.
But the meeting had not broken up early and she had spent most of the evening packing and listening for sounds that had never come.
What had gone wrong yesterday? she now wondered.
At that precise moment Bates appeared, looking very dapper and smart in checked waistcoat, black trousers, and black snug-fitting coat, all of which made him resemble an exclamation point.
“Good morning, Miss Mantle,” he called out cheerily, balancing a hatbox in one hand and a black leather case in the other. “It's going to be a beautiful day, I believe,” he exclaimed, stopping at the top of the stairs and surveying the morning sky in the manner of a proprietor. “Good for a journey.”
“I'd say so, yes, Mr. Bates.” She smiled and drew her shawl more closely about her shoulders. “Is Mr. Eden...?”
“Shortly,” he said, hurrying past her down the steps, handing the black leather case as well as the hatbox to one of the young men harnessing the horses, where, with a wave of his hand, he signaled that they were to be stored inside the carriage.
At that moment, just emerging from the long staircase which led up from the kitchen court, she saw Charley Spade. If old Bates looked dapper, Charley Spade looked incredible. Now she grinned, along with Charley Spade and all his mates, who clustered about in clear admiration. A few even dared to touch the elegant though ill-fitting suit, and all were envious of the shiny gold buttons and black leather boots which fit Charley's bulging calves like second skin. In one hand he carried quite awkwardly a pair of heavy leather gloves — obviously Eden carriage drivers always wore gloves — while in the other he dragged a well-battered valise which from this distance appeared to be bulging as much as Charley himself.
Good, she thought, eyeing the valise. Soon, she predicted, he could shed the pretentious finery and slip comfortably into his own clothes. And if John Murrey Eden were truly wise, he'd say not a word.
As they stood waiting, she heard a tap-tap-tap on the landing above them. She looked back up at the top of the stairs and was stunned.
It was the young lion she'd first seen in the army hospital in Scutari. Not precisely the same, of course. The hair was streaked with gray near the temples, and the face itself bore new lines and hollows of illness. But for the rest of it, in almost all respects, from the proud attitude of his stance, to the cut of his new garments which clung to his new lean frame in a most becoming manner, to the almost blinding brilliance of his highly polished boots, this was Miss Nightingale's “young lion,” Punch’s “most remarkable man,” the London Times’s “genius,” and, sadly, his own worst enemy.
For some reason known only to God, Susan suffered an embarrassing burning which felt ominously like tears. While he posed a moment longer, she took advantage of this last second's privacy to withdraw her handkerchief from the sleeve of her dress and wipe at her eyes.
“I trust you didn't catch cold yesterday, Miss Mantle.”
As she heard the familiar voice approaching, she breathed a quick prayer for control. For both their sakes. “No.” She smiled, looking up at the man who now stood even with her on the step, though separated by about ten feet.
“I hope not,” he s
aid. “How ungrateful I would be to allow you to cure me, then fall ill yourself.”
“I'm not ill, Mr. Eden, and neither did I cure you. You did that, with God's help.”
She saw a familiar weariness on his face, as though he found few things more tedious than talk of God. She was sorry for that.
“Well,” he said expansively, and looked about mid-step as though he'd dropped something, “a good day for travel, wouldn't you say?”
“I would indeed,” she agreed, wondering which man she preferred, the weak and angry and uncertain one which she'd glimpsed in the cottage yesterday, or this arrogant, self-confident, and strutting peacock. It wasn't too difficult to discern which one he preferred.
“And you're leaving, as well?” he inquired now, carefully, meticulously drawing on gray kid gloves, while below in the courtyard over thirty-five men waited as each finger was being carefully angled into each opening.
“Yes,” she said with abrupt sharpness.
“Where?” he asked, drawing a step nearer, shortening the distance between them.
“Clovelly first,” she replied. “Reverend Christopher tells me there is fever — “
“A disgusting place” — he frowned — ‘built for mountain goats rather than human beings.”
She saw effortlessly in her mind's eye the perpendicular little fishing village that did indeed cling to the side of a steep cliff and where the most beautiful climbing geraniums in all of England grew.
“Is that wise?” he went on, stepping closer.
“I... don't understand,” she said, not having the vaguest idea what he had reference to.
“Going where there is fever.”
“There are precautions one can take,” she said, trying to reassure him. “I promise I will take them.”
“The best precaution would be not to go at all,” he said, scolding.
“It is my work,” she said, equally stern.
For a moment the impasse held. She thought she saw additional questions forming on his face, and waited patiently to see if they would be forthcoming.
He too seemed to be waiting, his eyes fixed on some aspect of her face. “About the cottage...” he began.
“No.”
“Will you-?”
“I said-”
“Then will you take care?”
“And you, too...”
In the almost rapid-fire exchange she tried to memorize all aspects of his face and at the same time tried to be coherent, and, she suspected, failed at both. “You'd better hurry,” she scolded lightly, turning away to hide her various weaknesses. “Salisbury by night...”
“Easy.”
“On good roads...”
“Charley will get us there.”
“I'm sure he will.”
“Fifteen shillings per week,” he grumbled, though with a smile.
“You'll sleep better.” She smiled back.
He started to say something else — she was certain of it — even drew nearer. Then all of a sudden he changed his mind and started down the stairs, and in his eagerness to depart, he failed to rely upon the support of the walking stick and, as his left leg buckled beneath him, he went heavily and painfully down on his knees, striking his shins in the process, his right hand clawing for something to cling to in an attempt to prevent a more serious fall all the way to the bottom of the steep stairs.
Instinctively she reached out. And missed. And reached again, and felt his hand grasp at hers with a death grip.
“Mr. Eden!”
An excited parade, led by Bates, with a shocked and concerned Charley Spade following behind, hurried up the steps. Bates cast a suspicious glance at her, as though she were responsible for this embarrassment before going down with an offer of assistance to Mr. Eden, who continued to cling to her hand as though certain if he let go he would surely fall the rest of the way.
“Mr. Eden, may I... please let me...”
As Bates hovered, Susan gently but firmly withdrew her hand, thus making it available for Bates, who took it readily.
Leaning heavily on Bates and resembling a man twice his age, Mr. Eden made it down the stairs and into the carnage, where within the instant he settled back into the far comer and released the small purple velvet curtains, and the interior of the carriage and its unhappy cargo were sealed from view.
Again she'd wanted it to be so much more, but like the ill-fated walk of the day before, something had happened. Yesterday it had been the rain and her own foolishness. And today? She had no idea.
Without warning, she suffered a severe sense of deprivation.
“God go with him, please, and keep him safe,” she prayed quickly, and realized it was perhaps the most urgent prayer she'd ever uttered in her life.
Exmoor Road October 23, 1874
Rose O'Donnell stood beside the road about two miles from Eden Castle and watched the lingering, shapeless ground fog brush against her skirts and stared down the long rutted road and wondered how long the scarecrow man expected her to stand here catching her death, when she had pressing errands to be about.
Though dawn had broken, there still was a chill, and carefully she rested her portmanteau against her legs. With both hands she tightened the collar of her cloak and heard the wind whistling over Exmoor and looked in all directions and saw only fog and space and emptiness and desolation.
Like the devil Englishman hisself, she thought vindictively, and the sense of sin brought her comfort, God forgive her, and warmed her bones against the early-morning chill.
As she tucked her gloveless hands inside her cloak, she shivered, unseeing, and thought back on her early-morning escape. Not escape, really. Her job in that chilly grave was well over, and she had an earful for Lord Harrington — for which she'd get paid handsome, and every pence and pound of it would go into the tobacco tin which she kept buried under the large rubbish barrel in the back. And one day soon she'd have enough to purchase passage aboard one of them grand ships sailing for America, where she would be reunited with the most gorgeous man God ever created, her very own Denis Bourke O'Donnell, deported from Ireland along with nine others as a result of their revolutionary activities. Four years she'd existed without Denis' comfort. Oh, she told everyone she was a widow. It was easier and saved her the embarrassment of questions. But the day that Denis Bourke O'Donnell died would be the day that Rose O'Donnell contrived to crawl into her grave as well, God forbid.
She shivered again. The chill was penetrating. Winter coming. She hoped this was her first and last trip for Lord Harrington. She didn't like coming down to the devil's country. Of course, she guessed she wouldn't mind if the price were right, but she preferred to do his spying for him on home territory, as it were, and there were plenty of English bastards swarming over Dublin to keep her busy for a long time — at least long enough to get her that one-way passage to America, to New York City.
Abruptly she heard a distant rattling sound that disrupted the silence of the moors. She looked fearfully down the road to the end of the world, or so it seemed, and saw it, that grand carriage made small by distance — which was all right, for she'd like to prissy herself up a bit so she'd look her best and perhaps beguile the devil into thinking she was harmless company and he'd tell her more than she already knew.
Inside her voluminous cloak she felt for and found the silver mug bearing the Eden coat of arms she'd stolen from the Grand Dining Hall so that Lord Harrington would know she'd penetrated the enemy fortress. Of course, the more hard-and-fast information she had, the better, at least for the tobacco tin buried in the back, though she couldn't for the life of her understand why Lord Harrington gave a damn, God forgive her, about the madhouse that was Eden Castle. Of course, she believed children needed both a mother and a father, but Lord Harrington was doing a good job with the boys — with her help, of course. Frederick, the little one, seemed to grow more shy and uncertain every day, but Stephen bore an astonishing resemblance to the devil hisself. Anyway, both were getting along ver
y well, thank you, without a father, and would continue to do so. Then what in the name of God had Lord Harrington sent her down here for — under cover, as it were — to “see what she could see and hear what she could hear”?
The noise from the rattling carriage was growing louder, though it was still a distance away. Oh, she wished it would hurry and get here and she could learn why the scarecrow named Bates had given her strict instructions to be waiting on this road at this time, “because Mr. Eden himself wants a word with you.”
Gawd! Suddenly a terrifying thought occurred. What if he'd found her out, discovered that she was in the employ of Lord Harrington, and asked her to wait so one of his minions could do her in?
Fearfully she eyed the approaching carriage and crossed herself, started to flee, and was smart enough to realize that if she could see the carriage, the carriage could see her. No, she must hold her ground like a good soldier, like Denis Bourke O'Donnell would want her to, and meet the enemy face to face for the cause of Ireland and all those glorious men unjustly deported.
The rattling grew louder, a thunderous approach, a sound which could come only from hell. She reached quickly down and grabbed her portmanteau and flattened her hand atop her black bonnet, for accompanying the devil there was always a wind, and, as she saw the six enormous animals draw nearer, she was prepared to swear she saw fire coming from their nostrils.
Apparently the devil had spoken, for suddenly the horses broke speed, yet passed her by and came to a halt thirty feet on the other side. For several minutes no one moved in or around the grand carriage, and the only sound was the breathless and impatient snorting of the horses, which pawed at the ground and shook their huge heads as though angered by the sudden halting.
Slowly the carnage door started to open. One white-gloved hand was the only thing visible, and she kept it in her sights as though it alone was the symbol of all evil. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the giant on the high seat adjust the collar of his too-tight jacket, draw it up around his throat as though he too were feeling the chill, and she thought it strange that a minion from hell should carry such a chill within him.
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 20