Slowly he reached out for the banister, felt it creak and give under his weight, and suddenly he saw a world where nothing existed in abundance except want, hunger, illness, and need. Unable at the moment to go on, he sat heavily on the bottom step, briefly resting his head in his hands, and saw one surprising but clear image of the little nurse who had tended him so loyally at Eden, who had cooked, cleaned, and washed for him, alone and unaided.
Susan.
Yes, that was her name.
Then he moved slowly up the narrow staircase again, heading toward the chattering females in the kitchen. Halfway up, he noticed they didn't seem to be chattering as much as they had been at midafternoon when he had gone — on Rob's instructions — to fetch two mugs of tea and plain biscuits.
Now, as he reached the top, he saw no one was minding the steaming kettles, boiling away quite merrily all by themselves. The bulk of the kitchen staff seemed to be huddled around a low chair, from which emanated deep sobs.
He slowed his pace as he approached the women and considered offering whatever help he could. But, not knowing the nature of the problem or the grief, and sensing perhaps the females were better able to handle it, he bowed his head and was in the process of circumventing them on his way back up to the second-floor infirmary, when suddenly a voice called to him.
“Oh, sir, you really shouldn’t be up. They said you were, but...”
At the sound of the broken voice, he stopped, looked back and, to his surprise, saw plump little Cassie sitting at the center of that knot of hovering women, her eyes red and swollen, tears still seeping out, despite her continuous dabbing at them.
At first he was baffled by the look of such unbearable grief. Then he remembered. Of course. This was a delayed reaction to her terrible ordeal of the morning, when the man had attempted to assault her.
He walked slowly into the congregation of women, to stop a few feet from where Cassie sat. “Are you all right?” He smiled down on her. “I’m very sorry for what happened this morning. I should have been quicker, but...”
A slowly gathering look of puzzlement on her face halted his words. “This morning...” he prompted, equally puzzled. Then what was she crying about?
“Oh...” At last an enfeebled light crossed her face. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said nervously. “Besides, it’s over and no harm done.”
He nodded, still bewildered. Then why was she crying one moment and speaking so clearly the next? “Then you’re all right?” he asked, backing away from the staring women.
“No,” she murmured. Fresh tears came to take the place of the ones she’d just wiped away.
He looked around at the women with a questioning expression. One, a heavy old auntie with gray hair and a red kerchief tied about her throat, obliged with a brief answer. “It’s our friend, don’t you know. Dying, that’s what she is. God just standing by and lettin’ her die.” In her crackling voice was a distinct tone of condemnation pointed at God.
“He’s the one,” Cassie said, over and around fresh sobs. “Remember I told you how he rescued me this morning, how he took that man’s hand that had been raised in violence and brought him low with love?”
The explanation was a bit melodramatic, and John sensed the story might grow even more before it blessedly died. Now he felt the combined weight of all their eyes.
Even Cassie stopped weeping and sat sniffling upon her chair. “I thank you, sir.” She smiled.
“No need for thanks, Cassie, and I'm sorry your friend is - ”
“Would you come with me, sir, and see her?” Cassie asked suddenly, a new light of hope on her face.
All about him he heard the females buzzing, discussing the possibilities inherent in such a visitation.
“He may have the touch,” one whispered. “I think he does...”
“General Booth says all kind can possess it...”
“...when you least expect it.”
He stepped back from the discord of their rising voices. “I... possess nothing, I'm afraid,” he said quietly, and started back toward the staircase.
“No, please, sir.” This voice, so urgent, cut through all the others and summoned his attention. “Just come with me and we'll share a prayer, that's all,” Cassie murmured, dabbing at her eyes again. “Dr. Mercer says it's too late for anything else.”
“No.” His protest was weak and ignored. As he struggled against the voices and what they were saying, he felt himself succumbing to them, some ancient, misplaced hunger for power, to be more than he was and all things to all men, to be beloved, like the ill friend was beloved, to be mourned and missed.
“Will you, sir? It will take only a minute.”
Though the wiser voice of reason said no, the child-voice of his heart said: Yes, if you wish... He extended his hand to Cassie. “Come,” he said.
“Oh, thank you, sir,” she said shyly, and led the way to the stairs, cutting a path through the females, who went along as far as the stairs, then held back, though they continued to look longingly after them, as though they wished they might accompany them.
With mounting dread, John followed after Cassie's ample black skirts, assuming a single-file position as they entered the crowded London street which led from the Whitechapel Infirmary to the main building of the Salvation Mission. Twice he started to call out to her that he'd changed his mind and had best return to the male infirmary but her step seemed to gather momentum and he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. Silently he vowed to see the ill friend, speak a brief prayer — if he could even remember one from his childhood — and hurriedly depart and leave the ill woman to the doctor and to God.
“This way, sir.” Cassie smiled back at him, leading the way through the double doors of the Salvation Mission, where hundreds had already gathered for the free evening meal of black bread and vegetable soup.
As they entered the large room filled with long rows of wooden tables, John was struck by the silence. There must have been over three hundred people — men mostly — seated at the wooden benches, and yet the room was silent, except for an occasional cough. Those who had already finished eating continued to sit before their empty bowls, as though, despite the recent nourishment, they were incapable of movement. Either that, or it made no sense to move because they had no place to go.
Observing the vast theater of despair, he allowed Cassie to draw far ahead of him in her own impatience. He looked up to see her waiting less than patiently at the top of the stairs which obviously led up to a second-floor dormitory similar to the one in Whitechapel.
He nodded to say he knew he must hurry, and approached the steps with dread and a growing fatigue, the result of the day's labor. Halfway up, trying to maintain a goodly pace for appearance's sake, he saw Cassie in a close huddle with a short round man with eye spectacles perched on the top of his nose at an angle which defied gravity. Taking advantage of the respite to clear his head and catch his breath, John watched the man speaking, his hands moving constantly for several moments, then abruptly lifting into a shrug and falling to his sides.
Cassie nodded with suspect vigor, as though she wanted to convince the man she understood. Paradoxically, at the same time, she started weeping again.
Too late? He prayed not, but hoped so, for he knew better than anyone he possessed no “touch.”
“Oh, please hurry, sir,” Cassie sobbed openly, not even making an attempt to disguise her tears. “Dr. Mercer says she's...”
John obliged, doubling his speed, not pressing the woman for specifics. He'd find out for himself soon enough.
A few moments later Cassie called out, “In here, sir.” She entered a door which led to a large dormitory, the beds of slightly better quality than those in the male infirmary. All were empty — save one. Near the far end of the second aisle he saw a slight figure abed, attended by two women, both garbed in the mission's standard black, both on their knees, one on either side of the bed.
At their approach, one woman looked up, her worn
though kind face registering surprise at John's presence. Cassie attempted an incoherent explanation. “It's him, Mrs. Booth, the one what came to me rescue this morning. He has the touch, and I asked if he could...” Without a word, the woman rose from her knees with a smile, thus clearing the way for him.
The other, a younger woman whose face remained obscured by her bowed head, held her position, all her concentration focused on the black beads of a rosary which slipped slowly through her fingers. Catholic? He knew nothing of Catholic ritual save that which Lord Harrington had brought with him when he and Lila had moved into Eden Castle.
He shook his head, bewildered why the past wouldn't remain in the past where it belonged, and approached the foot of the bed and slowly looked down upon the small female form, which scarcely made an indentation beneath the cover, her arms pitifully thin atop the blanket, her head pressed back against the pillow, lips dry and cracked, eyes...
He blinked. No!
Almost in anger he shook his head again, ordering the past to remain in the past, as for one terrifying moment he'd seen the face of the nurse who'd cared for him with such skill. He opened his eyes again and looked into the face again.
No stray fragment from memory this time. The same brow, the same smooth angle of jaw, the same dark brown hair — though instead of being neatly groomed and drawn back, this hair lay spread, mussed upon the pillow — the entire face pale and wasted, save for two fiery fever spots on each cheek.
“Susan...?” he whispered, and heard a gasp coming from behind him, but paid no attention to anything until he could be certain the exact duplication of features was not a cruel trick, an optical illusion, perhaps brought on by the dim evening light which filtered through the high coal-dust-covered windows, or perhaps by his own state of mind and fatigue, the rapid, confusing chain of events which had led him to this place.
“Susan?” he repeated, wanting the woman to either confirm or deny.
Behind him he was aware of soft weeping and Cassie's voice, awed and reverent. “I swear, I never told him her name.”
It was she, that miraculous “she” who had lifted the dead Harriet from his arms, who had descended to the unspeakable depths with him, and when she felt they'd gone far enough and it was time to rise, had set a new pace, a new direction, enduring his sullen impatience and arrogance, protecting him against outsiders until he was capable of meeting them on almost equal ground. All this and so much more...
Why was she here? What was she doing in this place of illness and disease? He'd left her safely in the West Country off on her circuits. What had drawn her to foul London and this state?
“Susan?” He spoke her name with sad confidence. How the name fit, but the woman who lay before him so still was unaware someone was calling her, that others were already mourning her, that the fever that had ravaged her body would shortly reach her heart and...
After the splintered, difficult day, after the hard labor and a despairing glance at how a large percentage of the world passed its hours upon this earth, after all the unwanted yet painfully vivid excursions into the dead past, after the unexpected peace and joy of the morning — after all this, he felt only a benumbing sensation and a strong need to hold her as she had held him on so many occasions.
Without a word, aware of nothing but the searing heat of her hand as he touched it, he reached down with both arms and enclosed her, felt her head wobble bonelessly against his chin, and held her in a cradling embrace, despite the doctor's brief protest.
“He shouldn't. She's contagious...”
But no one made a move to stop him. He eased up to the edge of the bed, tightened his grasp on her, and rocked with her gently back and forth, thinking he'd felt her hand lifting.
Of course he hadn't, for it was clear she was dying. Yet he closed his eyes against her fevered brow and vowed to remain with her, to be vigilant, constantly on the lookout for Death. If Death appeared to challenge him, he would make it as clear as possible that Death would have to look elsewhere for his daily quota of the living, that this remarkable woman would be staying on for a while in a world that needed her much more than Death did.
“Remember the headlands at Eden, Susan, how we walked them back and forth and tried to count the seagulls?”
The weeping that surrounded him ceased. He sensed the women on their knees, sensed as well a solid and impenetrable fortress of prayer.
If Death did show up, it would be a memorable battle.
*
For a lost amount of time she had passed in and out of consciousness like the sun on a May Devon day. There were no real sensations of discomfort, save for the burning heat on her face and in her throat. Other than that, she merely felt as though she were in a fitful sleep, the kind she'd suffered often when she had allowed herself to get overfatigued.
She knew she was dying, and at first that terrified her. But then she remembered she'd worked all her life with the promise of heaven, of unity with God. Now that she was approaching that threshold, why should she be frightened of it?
Clinically speaking — for she was a good professional — the only thing that truly astounded her was that it was taking her so long to die.
Then someone was whispering to her, a deep male voice vaguely reminiscent of...
But it couldn't be. What would so grand a man be doing in General Booth's mission? And there was a gentleness, a tone of bereavement in his voice she had never heard in...
John?...
The thought was so absurd that for one terrifying moment she was afraid her powers of reasoning were slipping as well. Sometimes it happened in a high fever. No, she had no idea who this man was who was speaking her name over and over again, as though he too were struggling for identification.
There it was again, that face and voice that bore a striking resemblance to...
Was she dreaming?
If so, this dream was of a different nature than the others. In this one she could see him clearly now, his face, that same strong arrangement of features, yet altered somehow, tempered by something. Suddenly, in addition to being able to see and hear this hallucination, she felt him, felt clearly the press of his arms as they lifted her into his embrace, one broad hand supporting her head, guiding it to a place of safety and comfort beneath his chin.
She closed her eyes and did not attempt to open them again. In this safe fortress, vision was not necessary. Nothing was necessary, no effort of will or discipline on her part. She knew — without knowing how she knew, without caring how she knew — just knew that someone was holding her, that it wasn't a hallucination. This was some-
one of substance who hurt very much, was not ill in the sense she was but nonetheless bore new and deep wounds.
Three times he spoke her name, and as he continued to hold her, she relaxed and pressed deeper into his arms and thought, with a pleasant mix of seriousness and humor, that perhaps she was dead, that perhaps to be held thus by such a man was prelude to heaven.
For three days and two nights Catherine Booth, like all the other workers in General Booth's Salvation Mission, watched the drama taking place in the second-floor infirmary, watched Susan Mantle enter crisis after crisis, the fever raging out of control to the extent blisters formed on her face and body and portions of her hair fell out, her lips cracked and bled.
Early this morning General Booth had visited the sickbed and had suggested softly that God put an end to her suffering and claim her.
A short-lived request that had been, for the man — John, they called him, for he'd said that was his name — rose on unsteady legs from the low chair he had inhabited for three days and two nights and turned on General Booth with such anger that several workers had had to come between the two, placating John while the General made a hasty exit.
Now, as they were approaching the third night, Catherine sensed resolve in the cool April evening, and feared, despite John's obvious devotion and “touch,” the laws of nature would be more powerful than the “touch” of a l
ost soul and Death would claim her. Catherine feared a despondency of spirit within the mission that would have to be dealt with, for the two active participants in this drama had worked their ways into the hearts and souls of everyone.
Convinced it could not go on much longer, and as there were only a few remaining in the common kitchen after the evening meal, she decided to climb the steps to the second-floor infirmary and see for herself what a large portion of the staff was already witnessing. Most had disappeared at discreet intervals throughout the evening. Catherine had known where they were going and had let them go, though it had angered General Booth, who had left the mission after dinner without a word.
“Be patient,” she had counseled him before he left. “Don't give him more power than he already possesses.”
Still angry at his usurpation of his authority, he had stomped out into the night. Where he had gone, she had no idea. But in a way, she was glad he would not be in the building when Death came tonight. She feared that John, weary from the battle, would turn on General Booth, who earlier had worked against him. It was best the two men not meet — at least until John had been able to digest his grief.
Suddenly she heard a rush of footsteps from behind, and looked back in time to see two of the youngest kitchen maids hurrying toward the stairs, their faces flushed with exertion, a patina of sweat on their foreheads which suggested they had recently been bending over caldrons of steaming water.
“Oh, ma'am, I'm sorry. We didn't mean...”
They had rushed right past her, not recognizing Catherine standing in her indecision at the bottom of the stairs.
“It's all right.” She smiled, following the guidelines she set forth for everyone else. There was no stratification of work or workers here. They all were servants in Christ; therefore, one and all would be treated with the same dignity and respect. “You've finished your chores, of course?” Catherine asked, fascinated by the light of excitement in their eyes, as though they were going to a theatrical or a marionette show.
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 47