“Would you care to hold your son?” Eleanor asked, observing his close scrutiny.
Richard nodded, grateful to her for not pursuing the unpleasant subject of the past.
“Come, then,” she urged. “I believe he's finished dinner and would appreciate a little stroll.”
He did love her. He would be willing to swear to anyone he did...
As he bent over her chair, he caught her unique fragrance of hyacinths and allowed his eyes to rest briefly on that one lovely exposed white breast and wondered what it would be like to suckle on that nipple, to taste the warm sweet milk, too.
“Hold him steady, Richard. You're trembling.” She laughed as she placed the baby in his outstretched hands.
Then he felt the feather-light weight in his hands, felt it shift and kick, as though it were impatient to move.
“Walk with him,” she urged, “he likes that. Mrs. Eunice will be here soon and he won't be ours any longer.”
He nodded and lifted his son partially free of the blanket. “He's beautiful,” he murmured to no one in particular, unless it was to the babe himself.
John dead.
The thought entered his consciousness like a clever thief, stealing a portion of his sanity with each entrance. John's sons. Would they contest Geoffrey for right to the title of Eden Castle? Of course not. Lord Harrington, their grandfather and apparently now permanent guardian, knew better than that. No, there would be no challenge, he was certain of it.
“What are you thinking?” Eleanor asked quietly, apparently seeing the distant look on his face as he studied his son.
He looked back at her where she sat, legs curled to one side, in the large chair, the side of her face resting against the wing, a lovely oval of a face with dark hair, white skin, and violet eyes. They had never really fallen in love. Their marriage had been arranged between her aging and financially destitute parents and John, who knew, first of all, what Richard was and would quite likely always be...
“Richard?” Eleanor called again, concerned. “Are you...?”
“I'm fine,” he said quickly, coming back to himself and his awareness of the baby, who was beginning to whimper.
“Put him on your shoulder,” Eleanor suggested, “and lightly rub his back.”
Carefully Richard followed her instructions and observed that his spread palm covered the entirety of the baby's back. “He's so small.” He smiled, rubbing the babe and anchoring the wobbling head with his own cheek. He closed his eyes briefly and thought with the strictest of disciplines that he had literally everything, a lovely wife who probably would forgive him one day for missing the birth of their son, a perfect son who would proudly take his place in the long line of Edens, and now — with John's death — Eden Castle as well.
He had all this and more, and yet a deep sense of sorrow was the prevailing emotion as his son grew more restless in his arms. He missed Aslam, had not seen him since the news of John's death had arrived at mid-January.
“Don't crush him, Richard. You're holding him too...”
He nodded quickly and paced off the length of the chamber.
“He likes that.” Eleanor smiled. “Movement, any movement pleases him. What do you suppose that means?”
Just then a knock sounded at the door and Eleanor took the baby from him. It was Mrs. Eunice.
At some point he shut out the soft babbling music of the woman's voice and allowed his son to be taken from him, and stood, ghostlike, by the far window. It couldn't go on much longer. He needed Aslam, needed his calm, his warmth, his love.
“Richard?” It was Eleanor. He thought she'd left. “You look... ill.”
“I'm not.”
“What's the matter?”
He shrugged and sorted through his mind for a safe explanation. “John...”
“...is dead,” she completed for him.
“No...”
“I don't understand you, Richard. He did terrible things to you, to all of you. Why should you mourn him and — worse — miss him?”
He heard the harsh indictment and did not try to answer it.
“If ever,” Eleanor went on, “you were justified to feel relief at another's death, this is the time.” She stood very close to him now. Where was the babe? Then he heard the door close and knew Mrs. Eunice had taken him away and they were alone.
“I can't celebrate the death of any man,” he said, trying to move away from her before she placed demands on him he could not meet.
“Of course not,” she readily agreed, “but neither should you subject yourself and those around you to this senseless mourning.”
“I loved him once as a brother.”
“Did you love him when you vowed never to return to Eden as long as he was there?”
“No,” he replied, and succeeded in putting a short distance between them, which she instantly canceled by following after him.
“Richard, what is it? You're trembling.”
Suddenly, on hearing the love and kindness and concern in her voice, knowing he was as entrapped as he'd ever been in his life, and baffled by his inability to hate the dead man as he had hated the living man, Richard turned away, enduring a sorrow which extended well beyond the cross-purposes of this room.
“What is it?” Eleanor asked with undoing consideration, and put her arms around him, led him to the bed.
“Come,” she invited. “I'll ask nothing of you. Just hold me and allow me to comfort you.”
Because she was so beautiful and because in those few words she had confirmed she knew what he was and still she desired him, and because — despite the warring factions in his mind and heart — Richard preferred peace and harmony, and because the longer he focused on that full white breast the more desperately he wanted it, at last he stretched out beside her, leaned over her, kissed her nipple and tasted the sweetness of her milk, and prayed he could satisfy her.
As for himself, he wanted nothing so greedy as satisfaction, just a diminution of the mysterious forces that were on the verge of tearing him apart.
East London Salvation Mission, London March 25, 1875
Susan felt first hot, then cold, and though she'd been hungry when she'd come down from the second-floor dormitory, now the sight of the farthing breakfast — the sausage lying in a reflecting pool of its own grease and the single yellow eye of the overcooked egg — caused an upheaval in the pit of her stomach which forced her to reach out for the nearest support, which, fortunately, was Cassie Helms's ample arm. Cassie held still and supplied the support but allowed her tongue to move at the speed of an express train.
“You're working too hard. Yes, you are,” Cassie scolded. “Even General Booth concedes it can't all be done by one person, and the one who tries is guilty of pride, which works against both God and His will and-”
“I'm... fine,” Susan murmured.
“Well, you do work too hard, you know,” Cassie persisted, guiding Susan to a seat at one of the long tables, where already at six in the morning there were several hundred hungry men and women, all eagerly devouring their breakfast.
Susan tried to shut out the sounds as well as the odor of food. Both were conspiring against her this morning. As dizziness joined the nausea, she clung to the low bench with both hands for fear of falling. She waited out the storm and hoped it would pass soon, for she was desperately needed at the Whitechapel Night Refuge.
Though the job was a hazardous one, exposed all day to various fevers and infections, nonetheless it suited her. Since few of the other workers wanted to go near the sickly outcasts, the refuge was always understaffed, which meant she could serve on consecutive duty shifts. She was certain then to be tired enough to sleep and did not have to pass through that interval of no-man's-land — neither asleep nor awake — when the mind eased slyly backward to Eden, to John.
The name alone was capable of causing new weakness, and she might have toppled from the bench had Cassie not looked up from her own breakfast and seen Susan begin to weaken again
.
“Here, now,” she said quickly, abandoning her fork with a clatter. She reached out with both hands to steady Susan, who had realized too late she could not stem the encroaching blackness.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered, grateful for the firm brace across her back which was Cassie's arm.
“Don't apologize,” Cassie comforted. “Anyone can get sick, even you.” Then she was standing. “Come on, let's get you back to bed.”
“No.” The strength in Susan's voice was motivated mostly by fear. She would never survive an idle day in bed with nothing to distract...
“N-no,” she repeated to the stunned Cassie. “I'm fine. A cup of tea would be — “
“You look terrible,” Cassie said bluntly.
“Where I'm going, the men don't seem to mind.”
“In my opinion, you shouldn't be going anyplace but — “
“May I join you, sisters?” The male voice, so close and unexpected, came from directly above Susan.
She tried to look up, but there was no need, for Cassie had made the identification, not in so many words but in the hushed tone of voice that all the female workers adopted when the sadly melancholy Lord Simmons came around.
“Oh, of course, sir,” Cassie crooned. “I'm afraid Sister Susan is somewhat under the weather. I've been trying to talk her back up the stairs and into bed. Perhaps you can have more luck.”
Susan was aware of someone settling on the bench next to her. From her downward vision she saw a single piece of black bread and a mug of tea. Strange fare for a peer of the realm, and once a very rich one, or so she had heard.
Now the deep, quiet male voice that had testified endlessly to the redemptive powers of Jesus Christ asked, “Is this true, Susan? You don't look well.”
“I’m... fine.”
“No, she isn't, sir. She would have just gone all flat twice if I hadn't been there.”
“God does not expect us to serve Him beyond our capacity.”
“I haven't even approached my capacity yet,” Susan said, trying to fill her voice with at least the illusion of strength.
“Oh, I'd say you had,” Lord Simmons contradicted. “In fact, you, more than any of us, have probably come the closest to realizing your full - ”
“No!” She was the nurse. It was she who must take care of others. And she'd left several old gentlemen — so ill — only the night before. She'd promised them she'd return come morning and help them to bathe...
John.
Was he well? Where was he? Would she ever see him again? As the questions exploded in her head, she was capable of answering only one with any degree of certainty, the last one. Would she ever see him again?
Of course not. Get to work. You can't sit here all morning...
Following the advice of this wise voice inside her head, she started up from the bench, only to discover she was entrapped by Cassie on one side and by Lord Simmons on the other. It really didn't make any difference, anyway, for the sudden movement to her feet had mysteriously caused all the blood to drain from her head. Suddenly the floor turned to liquid and there was nothing solid on which to stand. As she felt twin fires erupt on her face, as though she had fallen into a fire well, she thought: How strange. She'd never been sick before. Was this sickness? Or was it punishment? God's punishment for her hypocrisy, for surely God knew — even if no one else knew — the motivation behind her great labors was not love for Him, but rather the need to annihilate her pointless love for John Murrey Eden.
Catherine Booth, wife of General William Booth and a woman accustomed to fanaticism in the name of God, stood in her customary place of greeting at the door of the Food and Shelter Mission and saw the policeman point the man toward the mission. She smiled. No public recognition for their works as yet, but at least the police were recognizing them, using them as tools for getting the homeless off the London streets.
She continued to watch as the man started across the street at a halting gait. That he was hungry, there was no doubt. And perhaps ill as well. He appeared to walk with a limp, and what limited strength he did possess seemed to be channeled into grasping that worn wicker case to him, which he held with both arms as though it were a shield against all vicissitudes.
Watching closely as she was, Catherine was the first to see him lose his footing on the uneven cobbles, slip to one knee, a painful descent since he refused to relinquish his hold on the wicker case to break his fall. Alarmed, seeing a large hansom cab bearing down on him from the right, Catherine started forward.
Didn't the driver see him?
Dear God! Looking quickly back into the crowded mission for help, she spied Lord Simmons. He seemed to be carrying a woman, quite an unconscious woman from the limp nature of her hand, the distorted angle of her head.
“Lord Simmons!” she called out, glancing back out into the street, relieved to see the cab had stopped short, but now quite a crowd was gathering around the old man, who had fallen completely, facedown, the wicker case caught beneath him.
Dead? Quite possibly. But he was a child of God and therefore must be loved and tended even in death.
“Lord Simmons!” she called again, finding it difficult to address the man, as he had requested, by simply his given name of Laurence. He looked up, concern on his face for the woman in his arms. He was a good and tireless worker, one of the best, though she doubted if the General fully appreciated him.
Can a leopard change his spots? he’d asked her once regarding Lord Simmons. A curious question, she’d thought, for a man who preached daily on the faith and power of God.
“Who...?” she asked incompletely, referring to the woman in Lord Simmons’ arms. Then she saw for herself.
“She... just... collapsed,” was Cassie’s tearful response as Catherine drew near.
Susan. Dear Susan. Catherine felt a deep, genuine affection for the selfless, though driven, little nurse. She felt Susan’s forehead with increasing alarm, knew the woman was terribly ill, and called forward two workers who were standing nearby awaiting assignments.
“Will you help Cassie get her to bed?” she asked.
At first she thought Lord Simmons would object. The inclination was there. But the General always preached long and hard on obedience. So he handed Susan over to the receiving arms of others and allowed Catherine to lead him to the door. “Out there.” She pointed toward the place where all traffic had come to a halt before the collapsed man.
“Hurry!” she called out to Lord Simmons, who had perceived the crisis and was already on his way across the street.
Catherine watched with held breath. Why these lost souls — old men mostly — moved her so, she couldn't say. But they did. Of course, everyone in need was the responsibility of General Booth's Christian Army, but for Catherine the most poignant of all were the old men, ill, abandoned by their families, to whom they had often dedicated their lives.
“Mrs. Booth, Cassie wants to know if you have summoned the doctor for Susan. She's awful sick.”
Catherine looked over her shoulder at the timid voice and saw Flossie, a young girl just in from Cornwall. “Would you fetch him for me, Flossie?” she asked kindly. “He is just around the corner — and please request he see me before he departs. We may have another...” Her voice drifted off as she gazed out into the street, where Lord Simmons was bent over the fallen man.
“Mrs. Booth, may I ask what the fascination of the street is this morning?” At the sound of that deep, familiar, and beloved voice, she turned immediately, suffering a moment of guilt for what must appear to be an idle waste of time.
“My dearest,” she murmured, touching her husband's arm, impressed anew, as she was every time she saw him after even so short a separation as a few hours, of the magnificence of his face. There were those who thought this man a saint, and others with matching conviction thought him the devil. As far as Catherine was concerned, he was a beloved husband and a true and gifted servant of God.
“It's an old man,” she expla
ined. “I saw him start across the street a few minutes ago. He appeared to be heading toward the mission, and halfway across, he collapsed. Lord Simmons went to fetch him - ”
“Not ‘Lord,’ my dear,” he corrected. “Laurence. There is but one Lord.”
“Of course. I'm sorry,” she murmured. “Laurence went to fetch him, and...”
But she never had a chance to finish, for suddenly he strode away from her across the sidewalk, heading toward the pavement, an impressive figure in his black coat.
Catherine could see her husband's face clearly as he leaned over the invalid, picked up the man, and carried him out of the street. Lord Simmons followed, carrying the abandoned wicker case.
A peculiar portmanteau, she thought. Then they were upon her, General Booth striding directly past. Why was he taking the old man in here? The infirmary for ill males was around the corner in Whitechapel.
Then, with belated insight, she understood. The sign above the mission was enormous and highly visible. Let the entire traffic of the street see precisely where the fallen man was being carried, as well as who was carrying him. In one highly public act of charity, General Booth was making converts on all sides.
For several moments Catherine stared after her husband, as mesmerized as everyone else on the street. She disliked it, the posturing, and she'd lost count of the number of times General Booth had tried to explain it to her. It made no difference.
Still, there he was, though the door was pushed open and held steady by other staff members. Before passing through, he turned back for yet another tableau, a very moving one, proof this small, struggling mission was following both the letter and the spirit of God's word better and more humanely than all the expensive churches which dotted the city. Last year those churches had allocated two hundred thousand pounds of their income to restore buildings, but had designated nothing toward the nation's poor.
As Lord Simmons approached, she observed he too held back, apparently aware of the significance of the tableau being performed at the door. If the man in General Booth's arms was dead, it made no difference. Let him pose. But if the man in his arms was still alive and in need of medical attention, then the delay in seeking treatment could be more costly than...
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 43