“No need,” he said with mock brusqueness.
She waited a moment, giving him a chance to speak further if he wished to speak. Obviously he didn't. “May I ask a question?” she went on with new hesitation. She didn't want to pry, but somehow she wanted very much to start filling in some of the empty places of the last few months.
He nodded.
“How did... you come to be here? In London. At General Booth's.”
He shook his head, smiling, as though what she was asking for was far too much. “It would take forever...”
“I'm not going anyplace.”
The expression with which he viewed her changed, grew more sober. The smile faded. “I'm not certain I can...”
She understood both the tone and the hesitancy and moved them quickly past both. “You've changed,” she began, thinking it a safe comment, only to realize she had thrust him right back into the spotlight.
Abruptly he strode to the beds on the opposite side, in several determined steps. “I don't understand what goes on here,” he said from this distant point. “Sometimes I find it all very moving, then at other times it seems small and bitter, feuding and unnatural...”
As his voice drifted off, he gave a helpless shrug.
The silence held. From her bed Susan found herself continuously moved by all aspects of him. “I'm not certain,” she began quietly, “that we do ourselves a service when we try rationally to understand the workings of the heart. Everyone here,” she went on, “is here because they want to be. No one has been pressed or forced into service. As you've observed, there are workers from all walks of life. The only common bond between them is a... need to serve.”
“A need?”
“Yes, a need.”
“Doesn't that imply that the act of service is more self serving?”
She smiled at the ancient dilemma. It had bothered her in the past, the selfish nature of selflessness. “I don't know,” she confessed, “why the act of easing pain should bring pleasure, but it does, doesn't it?”
Still maintaining the distance between them, he said a peculiar thing. “You were so kind to me last year at Eden.”
“You were very ill,” she said, masking her surprise. Conversing with him was like chasing a ball of mercury.
“And very difficult.”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“Susan, I have committed crimes...”
“We all have.”
“Mine are worse.”
“Perhaps.” She listened carefully, feeling her pulse quicken. She found herself incapable of taking her eyes off him, as though he were the last man on earth and she had to record everything, every feature, commit it to memory against the day when he would be gone from her.
“Elizabeth is dead.”
The simple words simply delivered moved across the room and struck her with painful accuracy.
Could she withstand it? She had to.
For never again would she ever back off from this awesome man.
He was moving slowly toward her now.
God, give me strength, she prayed quickly.
“How? Please tell me about it.”
*
And John did, until the room was completely dark, save for the mysterious light source that is always visible in early darkness, and until she felt bruised upon the pillow.
Incredibly, once he started speaking, he never moved, never even once changed positions from the slumped one he'd initially assumed in the chair. His voice throughout most of the tale was a monotone, as though a dead man were speaking, his head never lifting, the only visible manifestation of the ordeal in his hands, which seemed to contain and exhibit energy for the whole body, clasping and unclasping, clenching, unclenching, restless as birds in flight.
So real had been his words that she felt as though she recently had been a lodger at Monsieur DuCamp's, felt outrage that men like General Montaud were permitted to draw breath upon this earth, felt she would have liked Madame Charvin very much and was grateful to her, as was John, for providing him with that final hope. A chance had been taken and the gamble had failed. At stake had been Elizabeth's life...
She looked up at him where he sat in the chair as though the prolonged, detailed account had left him drained. What could she say? What could she possibly say? It was a miracle he hadn't taken safe refuge in madness or death. As far as his family was concerned, apparently they did indeed think him dead, a judgment which seemed to suit John for a while. And why not?
Old Bates had undoubtedly launched a search. Briefly she saw an image of the grasshopperlike old man who last year had begrudgingly been kind to her. And Charley Spade. What had become of the hulking young man who'd been selected to assist Mr. Eden?
She looked at him through the lengthening shadows and saw, not “Mr. Eden,” saw instead a frightened, lonely, and confused man. Elizabeth would have known and recognized that expression on his face. It was a lost-child look and must have visited him repeatedly as a child.
She tried again to conceive of adequate words, again failed, and settled for the most eloquent of all, extending her hand to his, where it rested upon his knee.
The trembling was over, the fingers still and cold. It might have been the hand of a dead man, except as she touched him, covered the coldness with her own hand, she felt it stir, felt the fingers flex and intertwine with hers until the link was complete.
With no words spoken, the past had been defeated, the present accepted, the future plotted.
East London Salvation Mission, London May 1, 1875
“I won't have it!” General Booth thundered, slamming down his Bible upon his bureau with such force Catherine heard the spine crack and saw several pages break loose from their bindings and slide across the surface of his desk.
Quickly she placed her mending on the floor and went to the door and closed it, not wanting General Booth's irrational voice to carry beyond the four walls of their private flat near the rear of the mission on Whitechapel. She leaned against the closed door for a moment, wishing the laws of matrimony did not require she shut herself in with her husband's rage. She'd much rather be downstairs where the “offense” was going on, where two people — when they least expected it and most needed it — were falling hopelessly, shamelessly in love.
“How long have you known about it?” General Booth demanded, turning on her in his fury — again a husband's right and prerogative.
“Since the beginning,” she admitted calmly.
“They told you?”
“They told me nothing, my dearest.” She smiled and went back to her mending, hoping, praying he not interfere in any way. The man John Murrey Eden had gained a considerable foothold in the past month in the affections of the workers, as well as the men who frequented the mission. “It's been there all along for anyone with eyes to see,” she said, settling again in her armless rocker and retrieving the basket of mending. With the first stitch she instantly regretted her previous claim.
“I have eyes,” he bellowed, really quite out of sorts, annoyed such a miracle had taken place within his mission that he'd had nothing to do with, had indeed expressly forbidden to happen.
“Of course you do.” She nodded quickly, still fearful his voice was carrying despite the closed door.
“Then why didn't I see?”
“Because, my darling, as you have eloquently pointed out so often in the past, we tend to hear only what we want to hear and see only what we want to see.”
He seemed to think of this for a moment, his bruised ego temporarily assuaged with her diplomatic use of the word “eloquently.”
She watched, needle poised, fearful of another outburst. There had been several observations he'd failed to make in the last few weeks, not only the growing, irresistible affection that was blossoming between John Murrey Eden and Susan Mantle, but also the developing — and more dangerous — loss of staff loyalty. Almost imperceptibly — and certainly without seeking it — John Murrey Eden was gamering that to himself, along wi
th Susan Mantle's affection.
“Well, I won't have it,” General Booth repeated, gathering up the scattered pages of his Bible and looking at them for a moment with a bewildered expression as though he wasn't quite certain how it had happened.
“Please, my dear,” she entreated softly, “let them alone. It's for the best. I've heard kitchen gossip. I don't think they plan to remain — “
“I won't let Susan go.”
“I don't think you have much choice.”
“It is my mission,” he shouted angrily at her. “Have you forgotten that as well?”
A curious “as well,” she thought, bowing her head over her mending, a mild refuge from the storm of his anger. Obviously he too had witnessed the shifting of loyalty. Even Lord Simmons, who used to come to this very flat daily for afternoon tea, had preferred of late to sit communally at the long board table with John Murrey Eden and Susan Mantle and the several hundreds of others who wandered in off the street for a mug of tea and a plain biscuit.
“I have forgotten nothing, dearest,” Catherine soothed, resuming her mending, thinking a demeanor of calm would help with the difficult moment. “It's just that - ”
But she was never given a chance to finish, as fresh outrage erupted from the man crouched before his bureau, still clutching the loose pages from his Bible as though he didn't quite know what to do with them.
“No!” he exclaimed, filling the single word with Old Testament fury. “Obedience to me is essential,” he pronounced, leaving his bureau to pace rapidly back and forth in the limited area of their sitting room.
She looked up, astonished. Surely he didn't know what he was saying — and if he did know, did he mean it?
“William,” she cautioned, glancing toward the door, wishing there was another one she might close, at least until he regained his senses. “William, I must argue - ”
“Don't... argue, Catherine,” he exploded, turning on her and pointing his finger directly at her. “Argument never opened the eyes of the blind. Do not argue, but pray.”
With a suddenness that startled her, he dropped to his knees as if he'd been felled, lifted his face to the ceiling, shut his eyes, and commenced to pray, not speaking clearly enough for her to hear — which was just as well, for she had no desire to hear, had only one clear desire, and that was to leave the room and take refuge elsewhere — at least until he'd regained his senses. But of course she couldn't do that. Sometimes it seemed to her that her only function as a wife and a woman was to bear captive witness to the mercurial moods of this irrational and brilliant man.
She placed her mending to one side, knelt by her chair, and joined him in prayer, though she was wise enough to know their divine entreaties were probably very different in nature. General Booth prayed those who had strayed be returned to his fold and his good sense, while she was praying that for the sake of future peace within General Booth's Salvation Mission, it would be best if two of his most effective and dedicated workers moved on, found a haven somewhere else, for she could not stand idly by and watch William Booth be destroyed by any man, not even so effective a convert as John Murrey Eden.
She closed her eyes and tried to dismiss the persistent and pleasing image of the two who now moved through the mission like two wanning rays of light. To the best of her knowledge, it had been three days since anyone had sought out General Booth for counsel or prayer.
And this was the cause of his fury, though he would not admit it, not to her and — more importantly — never to himself.
London May 5, 1875
Several weeks ago Lord Richard had made the suggestion and had asked Alex not to say anything about it to Aslam, but simply to put on an appropriate disguise and visit the mission on Whitechapel Street to see if...
But there had been no time until now for such a massive waste of time, and reviewing the absurd command in his mind as he made his way through the crowded East End, Alex tried not to breathe the obnoxious fumes of his “costume” and wondered if he himself hadn't gone a little balmy to be engaged in such a dubious activity.
John alive? Living in a mission in the East End?
He shook his head and instantly regretted it, as the sudden gesture seemed only to release fresh fumes from the disreputable trousers and coat he had purchased from a ragman for a king's ransom. He cut a tentative path through the jostling street traffic and tried not to think on the rationality of what he was doing, for of rationality there was none. Still, Lord Richard had requested it — several times — and Alex did owe the Eden family a great deal...
John alive?
The astonishing suggestion continued to cartwheel through his mind. Where had Lord Richard acquired even the seed for such an unfounded suspicion?
Bates's last communication from France had claimed the decomposed remains of a man had been pulled from the Seine last month. Though identification had been impossible, the height had matched and the police had raised next to the body a partially decayed wicker basket. For some reason, Bates felt certain that was the identifying factor.
Puzzling, all of it. Why would John be carrying about a wicker basket?
Hurry! Check on Lord Richard's madness and then...
And why was it all so secretive? And why didn't he want Aslam to know?
As mystery compounded mystery, Alex hurried down the pavement, still not certain what he hoped to find in the Whitechapel mission. At that moment he glanced up to find himself approaching the mission, a large three-story building painted in horizontal stripes of blue and white, a large sign proclaiming “Salvation Mission-Food and Shelter.”
He paused — not through choice, but because, as well as he could determine, a long queue was beginning to form, unruly here at the outer edges, all men, or at least as far as he could tell, but up close to the mission door perfectly formed and well organized.
Well, then, if what he needed to find out resided behind that large blue-and-white-painted door, then he'd best fall in line with the other lost souls and bring this absurd excursion to its conclusion.
Two hours later Alex was seated at the far end of one of the low long tables, the bowl of thin vegetable soup still before him. It wasn't bad, for he'd tasted it and he had consumed almost all the large chunk of freshly baked dark bread, constantly searching every face for one that bore even a slight resemblance to the man he once had known and loved.
Suddenly intercepting his thoughts as well as his line of vision was a vaguely familiar face — not male, but female.
All at once one of the women on the serving line spied her as well and hurried to her side in a solicitous manner, appearing to be insisting upon something which the woman resisted with equal determination, until the two females joined the entreaties of the second woman. At last the three determined wenches guided her to a stool against the far wall, insisting she sit; and finally — with a surrendering laugh — she sat, still mopping at her brow with the hem of her apron.
Where had he seen her?
Frustrated, Alex tore off another piece of brown bread and munched. If he could just clear his head, he could place the woman in memory, or at least...
What now?
All at once there seemed to be a similar gathering coming down the stairs at the far end of the large hall, a moving knot of people — mostly men this time — laughing and talking with some irresistible force at the center. From this distance Alex couldn't see it all and decided it didn't matter. He'd seen enough. This clearly was a preaching place, and preaching never had appealed to him, had appealed less to John, who had reserved certain choice epithets for —
My God!
Halfway up from the low table he remembered where he'd seen the woman. Of course, he could be mistaken — probably was — but if he wasn't, it was the nurse, the same one who had cared for John after Harriet's death. But was it? And how could it be? That woman had been a circuit nurse in the West Country, a dedicated and stubborn soul, as he remembered.
There was nothing more to stay for
or to hope for. Lord Richard's whimsical suspicion had proven groundless. Now perhaps he'd tell Alex precisely what had given him such an absurd notion in the first place.
These thoughts took him to within a few feet of the front door, where two young female workers hurried past, chattering, their tongues moving as fast as their feet, fragments of their gentle debate floating back as they hurried past:
“Well, how do you know?”
“I just know, that's all. He doesn't like that sort of thing.”
“Then I'll ask Susan to ask him. She's the only one who can get him to do anything.”
Susan!
That was her name, the nurse's name. Susan Something-or-other. Baffled that the puzzle pieces seemed to be falling into place without his efforts, Alex stopped to watch the two young nurses as they hurried toward the kitchen. Still watching the distant drama, Alex decided there probably were thousands of Susans in London and again started toward the door and the rapidly falling dusk.
He stopped for one last backward look and saw the ever-growing crowd at the end of the hall. Then he heard one clear female voice rise, lifting above the confusion of voices.
“Susan, he's here.” With that the group appeared to move toward the stairs, leaving the young woman sitting alone.
Frustrated by the distance, Alex moved closer until only fifty feet and the barrier of two tables separated him from the kitchen. There he sat slowly down, drew low the flat worn shapeless hat, thinking at that moment he did not choose to be recognized. Then he saw clearly it was her, though she had changed. She looked thin and pale, as though she'd recently been ill.
All at once the chattering fell silent. Something at the center had commanded their attentiq on and willingly they had given it. Even the young nurse looked up.
Alex shifted his attention back to the steps and at last caught a partial glimpse of the core, a tall gaunt man with scattered gray in his fair hair and beard. Suddenly this man turned his back on the crowd and in a curious movement started to back his way through his supplicants, once, twice shaking his head, as though he were rejecting their adoration as gently as possible.
Eden Rising (The Eden Saga Book 5) Page 49