The white glove expanded into a black-clad arm and shoulder, and suddenly the old scarecrow was staring out at her like she was a lesser thing.
“You!” he called out in his horrible British voice.
She drew herself up to her full five feet, two inches. “Me name is not You. Me name is Rose O'Donnell.”
“I know your name,” the old man shouted back, stooping on his way out of the carriage; then, while she was still trying to peer inside, he closed the door behind him and stepped gingerly down to the soggy tundra of moorland, doing a funny little jig in the process, searching for a patch of dry moss.
Rose did nothing to hide her smile. The old man looked like a stiff black grasshopper.
Apparently he saw the smile and snapped angrily, “Leave that!” and pointed at the portmanteau. “Step inside. Mr. Eden desires a word with you.”
Before he had finished speaking, she was already shaking her head. “No, sir, I ain't gonna do that.”
“I... don't... What do you mean?” the old man stammered, balancing precariously on one small square patch which he'd thought dry. Unfortunately he couldn't see the moisture creeping up on both sides of his once highly polished black boots.
“I mean what I says,” she repeated. “I won't leave me portmanteau.”
“I'll watch it for you,” he snapped, and gestured toward the carriage door.
She started to argue some more, then changed her mind. Get it over with. Shyly she went forward, plunging her hands into the inner pockets of her cloak in an attempt to warm them, and as she did, she felt of her rosary with her left hand.
Before the carriage door, she briefly faltered. If he was the devil...
“Madam, do you require assistance?” It was the old scarecrow again.
“No, just getting me footing,” she replied breezily.
Her first impression was one of night. How dark the interior of the carriage was after the bright sun of morning.
“Mr. Eden?” she called out tentatively, still clutching the crucifix. As she crouched inside the door, her second impression was how cramped a place it was, this gentleman's carriage. She wouldn't care to take a prolonged journey in it. Not half as big or as grand as Mr. Charles Parnell's carriage, the one in which he had transported her from Dublin to Lord Harrington's estate north of Dublin. Now, that had been a carriage, as grand as the man who owned it. But this one...
“Have a seat, madam,” came a voice from the dark recess, and as her vision began to adjust to the shadows, she saw a shape slumped against the far window, all swathed in a dark cloak. Well, she knew who it was, and eased carefully down into the far seat opposite him. Didn't need a road map, not Rose O'Donnell.
“Your name, please,” this weary voice now requested. And it had been a request, very softly spoken, a slight nervousness audible in certain words.
“Rose O’Donnell,” she said, and sat up straight to look again around the cramped interior. “I looked for you, I did, the last few days.” She smiled, turning on the charm which Denis Bourke O’Donnell said she had considerable.
The shape nodded, and she sensed a smile. “I wanted to thank you for giving me employ, taking me in, as it were.”
“May I ask your destination?” came the voice opposite her, apparently not given to niceties.
“My destination, sir, is Dub...”
Oh, Christy Holy Mother... She almost spoiled the pudding then, she did! She’d told the little nurse back at Eden that she was on her way to London in search of honest employment. She’d better remember her own deceptions or she’d get herself into plenty of hot water.
“My destination, sir, is London,” she said, smiling at the shape, confident he didn’t catch the near-mistake.
“And where is your home, Mrs. O’Donnell?” he asked.
“Dublin, sir. Born and raised there, married and widowed there, sir.”
“Why are you leaving it?”
She glanced down at her lap and feigned grief. Or at least she hoped it looked like grief. “I need... a fresh world, yes, I do, sir, altogether fresh from first to last. You see, me husband, God rest his soul, passed on last year.”
“Would you object to returning to Dublin, Mrs. O’Donnell?”
Shocked at first, she cocked her head toward the faltering voice. “I thought you asked me if I wanted to return to Dublin.” She grinned.
“I did,” came the quiet confirmation. “Of course, there will be more than fair payment for your troubles.”
“I... don’t understand...”
“Mrs. O’Donnell,” the shape began, and straightened.
For the first time she saw his face close at hand. In the past she’d seen it only blurred and at a distance — across the Great Hall or making his tortuous way across the courtyard with the scarecrow Bates at his side.
Now he sat fully erect and pushed back the voluminous cape that had so successfully encased him, at the same time slightly dislodging one of the heavy drawn drapes at his elbow. A beam of bright morning sun instantly illuminated the interior of the carriage and revealed fine appointments- — which she vowed to inspect more closely later.
Then she heard his voice again and discovered the voice matched the face, belonged with it, as it were. Soft, gently entreating. And false.
“I need your help, Mrs. O'Donnell,” he was saying, his clasped hands folded tightly before him, his eyes down, as though he was praying.
“Me, sir?” Rose gasped, still stunned by that face. “I'm sure I don't know how - ”
“Oh, you can be of immense service” — he smiled — “but what I have to ask of you is an enormous task. I don't know what prompts me to ask it of you, a stranger, except I sense a trust. I sense a good heart and, most important, I sense a past of deep grief and pain. Is that true, Mrs. O'Donnell?”
She nodded and bowed her head. Perhaps, just perhaps, there was a remote possibility, just a possibility, this wasn't altogether the devil hisself.
“Correct, sir, Mr. Eden.” She nodded and fished through her pockets for the handkerchief she knew she didn't have. “I'm... so...” she began, and never finished, for suddenly an elegant linen handkerchief appeared within her downward line of vision.
“Please take it, Mrs. O'Donnell,” the quiet voice urged.
“I... don't know when I can return it, sir,” she murmured, eyeing the lovely linen square complete with inlaid lace monogram of three letters — JME.
“I'm not asking that you return it, Mrs. O'Donnell. In fact, please keep it.”
There was a pause while she took the lovely hyacinth-scented linen-and-lace square and lightly dabbed at her eyes. “Now, sir, please tell me how I can serve you.”
“How well do you know Dublin?” he asked.
“Dublin, sir?” She grinned. “I know it just about as well as I know the back of me hand. No, better! You see I was born there, I was, and raised there.”
The news seemed to please him enormously. “Good.” He smiled. “There is, close by...” he began, and suddenly faltered. “At least I've been told there is close by to Dublin an estate known as Avondale. Are you familiar with it?”
Suddenly she wished he'd draw the drapes again before her blush gave her away. Did she know it? She'd been in service there right after Denis Bourke O'Donnell had been deported, taken in along with the nine other “widows” who had nothing to do and no place to go, by that grandest of all gentlemen Mr. Charles Parnell.
“Avondale?” she repeated. “No, sir, can't say as I've heard of it. But if it's near to Dublin, I can promise you I can - ”
“What I would like for you to do, Mrs. O'Donnell, is this.” With sudden urgency and matching secrecy he leaned forward. “I would like for you — for a very handsome fee, of course — to return immediately to Dublin...
Not bad, that, since it was her direction anyway.
“...and once there, I want you to launch a very quiet search for Avondale. It shouldn't be too difficult,” he went on, his voice exhibiting duress, �
��for it belongs to a criminal named Charles Parnell.”
For just a moment her Irish heart turned with righteous indignation. “May I ask, sir, what I'm looking for in this place... What was the name, sir? Avon - ”
“Avondale,” he said, quick to supply her with the right name. And he was equally quick with the rest of his reply. “Because I have reason to believe that an archfiend named Lord Harrington is in residence there.”
Well, now. An interesting turn of events. Lord Harrington and Mr. Parnell had sent her in search of “the English devil,” who in turn was sending her back in search of “the criminal” and the “archfiend.”
“I... don't understand, sir,” she puzzled, understanding perfectly well.
“Please,” he begged, “hear me out and say yes, for you are my only hope...”
Oh, she liked that part!
“...to regain my two sons, who were stolen from me over four years ago by Lord Harrington and his cohort.”
Holy Mother, it was like hearing the same script from two actors who were merely inserting different names.
Now she repeated the name. “Lord... Harrington, you say?”
He nodded and sat up even straighter. “The very one,” he confirmed, “who four years ago, while I was in London and unable to stand guard, returned to the castle, where I had left my two sons in the safekeeping of a nursemaid, and after having talked his way past the guards, he took my sons, mere infants, their mother recently deceased, and spirited them out of the castle and out of England, and I've not seen them since.”
Oh Gawd! She’d not heard that. According to Lord Harrington the two tykes had been abandoned by their mother, who had died, and by their father, whose sole purpose in life now seemed to be to drink himself into oblivion. No, Lord Harrington had never said anything about stealing children.
“Two... lads, you say?” she asked quietly.
“Mere babes they were,” he murmured. “One is named Stephen. The last time I saw him, he was four. The other is Frederick.”
Frederick, oh yes, she could give him a more complete physical description than he could give her, having washed and scrubbed them, dressed and fed them, comforted and cuddled them, and, on occasion, even instructed them. For one incredible moment she felt a strong urge to tell him that the lads were doing well, though they were no longer babes. But she held her tongue and concentrated instead on this new dilemma.
“...and this would be merely first payment,” Mr. Eden was saying.
She looked up out of her confusion to see a large parchment envelope being extended toward her. A rather plump envelope, she observed, and as the gentleman was still talking, she merely eyed the envelope and listened carefully.
“...and if you agree to what I’ve asked of you, Mrs. O’Donnell,” he went on, “then we will take you as far as Exeter, where you can catch the train to the Midlands and depart on the St. George’s ferry for Dublin. As soon as you arrive, I want you to take decent rooms, purchase a decent wardrobe, and hire a carriage and a competent coachman. Then from this secure and comfortable base you are to launch your search. When you are in need of additional funds, contact this man.” He handed her a small card neatly engraved, bearing the name of one Alex Aldwell.
Yes, she remembered the gentleman from his brief stay at Eden. He’d seemed pleasant enough...
“...and Mr. Aldwell will see to it that a bank draft is placed in your name in a Dublin bank. Do you understand?”
Oh, Gawd, yes, she understood! Everything. A plot, a plan made in heaven, where for an unlimited period of time and with little effort and less risk she could play both sides against the middle and in the process reap a harvest far richer than anything she might ever have dreamed of.
“Mrs. O’Donnell, are you well?”
The thoughtful inquiry came from that grand gentleman across from her — not the devil, surely not the devil — and besides, who was a child-stealer to be calling another man “the devil”?
“Aye, Mr. Eden.” She smiled meekly, taking the large parchment envelope and estimating fairly accurately the number of notes inside. All that remained to be seen was the amount of each. A bit of quick multiplication and...
But she couldn't quite bring herself to do that yet. In fact, it would best serve her purpose to appear hesitant and doubtful. “Aye, of course I understand, Mr. Eden, and me heart breaks for them wee babes who was spirited away from you... but still I hesitates to serve you, because... She broke off at the timely moment and saw the dark clouds of disappointment already gathering on his fine brow and tried to estimate the value of those dark clouds of disappointment.
“Why?” he asked urgently. “I am capable of making your life very comfortable. All I ask in return is your assistance and your loyalty.”
“Oh, you have my loyalty, sir,” she said quickly, “as you've always had it. No, my only hesitation is... fear of letting you down.”
“I'm not bargaining for results,” he said reassuringly. “I'm only bargaining that you will try to help me find my sons. If you do, you will be amply rewarded. If not” — he shrugged — “you are free to keep what you will have already earned.”
Pleased that no results would be expected of her, she lifted the large envelope again to peel the edge only high enough to slip the business card into it, though in the process she caught sight of a number...
Ten!
Not possible. This lovely envelope could not possibly be filled with ten-pound notes. The thickness indicated...
“There are one hundred pounds there, Mrs. O'Donnell,” he said thoughtfully, confirming what she did not think possible.
Easy, Rose, close your mouth. Keep your wits on a short leash.
“...and there's more,” Mr. Eden said, apparently unmindful of the miracle he'd placed in her hands. “All I want is news of my sons.” Suddenly he pushed even farther back into the cushions, his face livid with anger. “My God,” he exclaimed, “why should I have to bargain for my sons? My sons, Mrs. O'Donnell...”
And in his fervor she found herself agreeing with him. A man's sons were his most sacred possession. They were, in effect, his tomorrow.
“Please, Mrs. O’Donnell, say you’ll help me. I promise you will never regret it.”
“And where, Mr. Eden, do I contact you when I have... news?” Suddenly the face brooding opposite her broke into a smile. “Thank you, Mrs. O’Donnell...”
He pushed open the carriage door and issued a soft command. “Bates, load the lady’s luggage and direct Charley Spade to stop at the Coach Inn in Exeter. It will delay us, but no matter. Mrs. O’Donnell will accompany us to that point.”
Without waiting to see his command had been followed, he settled back in the seat and gave her a most grateful smile. “We have about two hours to talk and chart a plan, Mrs. O’Donnell. So make yourself comfortable...”
She grinned and nodded. Gawd! Who’d have thought it? Rose O’Donnell riding in this fancy carriage with the devil himself.
Haunch of Venison Public House, Salisbury, England October 24, 1874
Whenever possible, the young man preferred to sit in shadows. Alex had observed it too often not to take notice of it now and wonder at it and fear for it.
Alex pushed close to the crowded bar in the Haunch of Venison and glanced over his shoulder at the shadowed man who now ran the John Murrey firm with a most efficient and profitable hand. The way the fixed wall lamp cast its illumination, it looked as though someone had painted a line diagonally across his chest, casting the lower portion in clear concise light and the upper into the muddled darkness of night.
“Same, mate?” The barkeep grinned.
Alex nodded.
As the barkeep slid the filled mug across the bar, Alex caught it, sipped, and vowed to make it the last. After a long and satisfying swallow, he wiped the excess from around his mouth with the back of his hand and felt again a pronounced anxiety over this unscheduled meeting. Why Aslam had insisted upon coming at the last minute, Alex had not
been able to discern. He and John would have to say what they wanted to say to each other quickly and transfer the large portfolio of funds; then Alex and Aslam had to be on their way back to London — a night's journey that would leave both of them exhausted for the stockholders' meeting tomorrow.
Why had Aslam insisted on this unscheduled meeting with John?
He looked up at the young man at the far comer table, his dark head bowed over a thick sheaf of papers.
What was it? Alex tried to guess and couldn't — which of course was why Aslam was head of the John Murrey firm and Alex considerably lower. Still, he had done battle for Aslam, had stood by him, had defended him in those first tentative days when John had abandoned the reins of leadership and all of financial London had waited gleefully to see the John Murrey empire topple.
But of course it hadn't toppled at all, had it? Lord, no, it was stronger than ever, and all due to the brilliant foresight of that young man who preferred shadows, who with apparent ease had taken a good hard look at his adopted country four years ago and had determined — long before anyone else — that the fortunes of England would be changing in this decade. From 1815 until now, England had still measured her wealth largely in land and its products, and except in years of bad harvests, her food had been grown at home.
But, as Aslam had determined, the population by 1870 had more than doubled, and to feed these new millions, more and more food would have to be purchased abroad. Exports to pay for these purchases and for the purchase of raw materials would become the lifeblood of the nation.
Happily for the John Murrey firm, Aslam had figured right. He had taken the millions of pounds in profits from the company and created a monstrous import/export corporation with vast offices in St. Katherine's Dock and a fleet of twenty-eight seaworthy vessels, all of which flew the Union Jack but which, interestingly enough, bore the name the Star of India.
Across the aisle, a noisy dart game grew more so, everyone talking and laughing, shouting at full pitch. Someone shouted, “Shut the bloody door!”
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 21