The Eden Passion (44 page)

Willmot stared at him. What could he say? Nothing, and in silence the two of them turned their backs on number seven and walked steadily through the cold night, the streets devoid of all traffic.

During that long walk back to Warwick Lane, neither of them spoke, except once, when unexpectedly John reached out and placed his arm around Willmot's shoulders and drew him close and said softly, "What would I do without you, my friend? What in the name of God would I do without you?"

"No need," Willmot whispered huskily, embarrassed by the expression of affection, suffering acutely from the cold now, the chilling wind stinging his face, leaving a rim of salt moisture about his eyes.

Eden Castle, December 24,1854

Clara Jenkins could hardly make herself heard over the weeping servants, yet someone had to take charge. "It will serve no purpose," she scolded, "no purpose at all." Then she turned away, weeping.

The word had only just come down. Having received no answer to their morning call, the two guards had entered the chamber and had found his lordship dead, lying in a pool of vomit.

Clara pressed her apron tightly against her lips, striving for control. What were they to do now? Surely there was ritual involved. But what? The word should go out, shouldn't it, that Lord James Eden, fourteenth Baron and sixth Earl of Eden Point, was dead. Though she'd only been a girl at the time, Clara remembered vividly the pomp connected with the death of Lord Thomas Eden.

Sweet Jesus, she groaned, the thoughts distracting her from her grief. How could they be expected to perform all those rituals? And who would even pen the obituary? With Herr Snyder gone, only two of them, herself and Mrs. Swan, could even write.

As the wailing about her increased, she glanced up the stairs, hoping to catch sight of Aggie Fletcher, who bravely had offered to go up and confirm the death. Feeling sick, Clara reached out for the banister.

Craning her neck upward, she peered through the railings and saw the white soiled gown of Miss Jennifer.

Angrily Clara started up the stairs. Someone had to be concerned for the dignity of this disintegrating family.

"Here, now," she scolded gently, taking one thin arm and trying to

turn her about. "Look at you, wandering about these cold corridors without your cloak. Come, Clara will walk with you back to your chambers. I'm sure your maid has laid a lovely fire for. . ."

Abruptly her thoughts stopped. There was no maid. The woman assigned to Miss Jennifer had been let go only last month, along with forty-three others. All that remained of what once had been the largest staff of domestics in the West Country were those weeping creatures below, scarcely more than ten in number.

At that moment, coming from the third floor, she heard a determined step, someone marching rigidly through the chaos. A second later, Aggie appeared on the upper landing.

"He's dead, right enough," Aggie announced, full-voiced. "Been dead the better part of the night is my guess," she added. "Stiffening already. We best move quick or we'll never get him in a box."

As the wailing increased, Clara saw a tinge of red rising on the old cook's face. "Well, we bloody well can't keep it a secret," she snapped. "Now, can we? As for them weak sisters down there, I'll take care of them right enough."

Brushing past Clara and Jennifer where they stood mid-step, she sent her voice ahead in a barrage of abuse, shouting orders, yelling at one to fetch her boiling water, commanding another to fetch the coffinmakers from Mortemouth, and yet another to see to the beef joint she'd left boiling on the cook stove in the kitchen court.

Shielding Miss Jennifer, Clara watched as Aggie sent the weeping servants running, dispatching everyone save old Dana, the footman, who since Mr. Rexroat's departure several months ago now served as senior adviser to the crumbling household.

Oh, lord, Clara couldn't even think on all the tragedies, and there was no time anyway, for she looked down to see Aggie and Dana climbing the steps.

Then Aggie caught sight of Miss Jennifer. "What's she doing here?" she demanded.

Clara explained. "I found her wandering about. Quite chilled, she is. I had thought to . . ."

Aggie stepped forward, her eyes fixed on Jennifer. "Run along, child," she commanded. "Go to your chambers and keep warm."

Suddenly Jennifer wrenched free from Clara's grasp and cowered against the banister, her eyes distended with fear. "I want Daniel," she whispered, tears beginning.

Clara scolded Aggie. "Look what you've done now." She started toward the hysterical woman. "Miss Jennifer, you must . . ." The

weeping only increased. She was on the verge of trying again when she heard a voice coming from the top of the landing.

"Please leave her alone. All of you."

The voice was young, quiet, slightly cracking, midway between boyhood and manhood. Clara looked up to see Richard, his face drawn. "All of you," he repeated gently. "Please move away from her. She'll be fine if you give her her freedom."

As he started down the steps, Mary in hand, Clara wondered mournfully where her two lovely "children" had gone. Though Richard was twelve and Mary almost seven, still they were no longer children. Of all the various tragedies which had descended upon the Eden family, here Clara thought, were the two most pitiful victims.

Below her on the steps, she saw Aggie and Dana retreat, as though contained in this frail and brooding twelve-year-old boy was the only true voice of authority at Eden. Suffering a shock of recognition, Clara realized that the assessment was true. It was not merely Richard kneeling beside his aunt Jennifer. He was now the fifteenth Baron and seventh Earl of Eden Point. Clara wondered if those shoulders could support such a weight.

She watched as Richard knelt beside Jennifer, his voice soothing, telling her precisely what she wanted to hear, that all was well, that he'd seen Daniel himself only a few hours earlier.

As the quiet monologue persisted, Clara reached inside her sleeve for her handkerchief. As embarrassing tears clouded her eyes, she found it impossible to believe that those three, the boy, the child and the madwoman, were all that was left of what once had been one of England's noblest families.

Fortunately she was not given a chance to pursue that bleak thought, for Richard, having soothed and joined Mary and Jennifer, now stepped toward the center of the staircase.

He ran a hand through his long black hair and seemed to straighten his shoulders. "My father," he began. "Is he . . . dead?"

Dana stepped forward. "Yes, my lord. With your permission, my lord," Dana went on, "I recall the ritual of your grandfather's passing, and while I'm afraid that circumstances prohibit us from duplicating all tradition, there are certain steps which could be taken."

Richard nodded. "I'd be most grateful, Dana, for all your assistance."

The old man drew a step closer. "Well, my lord, I know where the mourning banners are stored. Folded them myself, I did, after your

grandfather's passing. There's three good guardsmen left. With then-help, I think we can get the banners flying."

'Then do so, Dana."

"And further, my lord," Dana went on, "someone must pen the obituary. I recall last time, it went out to dozens of newspapers, all the London ones, of course."

Richard appeared to glance about him. With reluctance he said, "I'll do it."

"I'll help, my lord," Clara offered. "Tonight, the two of us will—"

"I'll do it, Clara."

Before she had time to fully understand why her offer of assistance had been turned down, Dana went on. "And Mr. Morley Johnson should be notified as well," he said, his voice cold, reflecting his feelings for the London solicitor, who kept sending them smaller and smaller monthly allotments.

But if Richard had any opinions on the subject, he kept them to himself, and again simply stated, "I'll write to him. Anything else?"

Dana paused, indecision on his face. "I was . . . wondering, my lord," he began, "if Mr. John Murrey Eden shouldn't be notified as well."

Clara saw the taut expression on Richard's face. She knew better than anyone how much Richard missed his cousin, how bewildered he still was by his myterious departure from Eden so long ago. "If I knew where to write, Dana, I would have written long ago," he said simply.

The old man nodded. From where Clara stood, it wasn't difficult to follow the progress of his thoughts. How much Eden Castle needed that firm, confident hand of John Murrey Eden. Yet, in a curious way, it seemed to her that the present disintegration had commenced with his arrival, on that rainy May evening.

"Anything else?" he asked of Dana, glancing over his shoulder to where Jennifer and Mary were patiently waiting.

The old man lowered his head. "Well, of course, there's the preparation of the . . . body, but Aggie and I will see to that."

"I'd be most grateful."

"Any particular location in the graveyard, my lord?"

"No, no, of course not."

Clara heard a slight edge to the boy's voice, as though the new burdens were beginning to take a toll.

"A simple service, then?"

"Yes, simple."

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow."

"If the gravediggers can break ground . . ."

Clara saw the boy's head lift. "Yes," he whispered.

"Well, then," Clara said, interrupting the male counsel for the first time, "I think that everything has been covered." Belatedly she looked back to where Richard stood, afraid that she might have spoken out of turn. "Is there anything else, my lord?"

He gave her a strange look. "Please come with me to the nursery and stay with Jennifer and Mary." He closed his eyes as though a thought even more unbearable than all they had discussed had just entered his mind. "Someone. . . must tell my mother."

The three of them, Clara, Aggie and Dana, protested simultaneously. "No, my lord," Aggie begged. "It isn't necessary."

But he merely topped their protest. "She must be told," he said, then, with wavering conviction added, "It . . . might make a difference."

A difference, Clara thought angrily. If the clear abandonment of her children had not made a difference to that selfish woman, why would the death of a husband whom she had never loved affect her?

Lost in the depths of her own censure of Lady Eden, Clara was not at first aware of the meeting breaking up. Proceeding up the stairs ahead of her, she saw Richard, one hand grasping Jennifer, the other, Mary, leading both his frail charges toward the warmth of the nursery fire.

"Wait, my lord," Clara called out.

But he led the way to the nursery door without speaking, and gently guided Jennifer to a chair near the fire, while Mary sat cross-legged on the floor at her feet. Clara watched as he kissed them both and whispered, "I'll only be a moment. Warm yourselves, and upon my return I'll read to you."

Richard watched a moment longer, as though to make certain that they were placid, then without a word to Clara he started toward the door, apparently determined to carry out his grim errand.

Well, lordship or no, Clara had wiped his nose and rocked him to sleep, and on the basis of that investment, she caught up with him at the door, eager to speak her mind.

"Richard, wait." She stepped closer. "Why put yourself through more pain? She won't hear, you know that, and if she hears, she won't respond."

He appeared to be listening. "We must continue to try," he said.

Before such a plea, she had no choice. Wearily she shook her head and stepped back to the nursery door, as though to demonstrate that she would do anything he asked of her. "Of course, my lord," she murmured.

She was just turning back into the door when she heard his voice again. "One thing more, Clara/' he said. "Please don't call me that."

She looked back, puzzled. "Call you. . .what?"

"My lord."

"But. . . that's what you are."

"No, I'm not. I dislike it intensely. Please don't call me that again."

Before she had a chance to reply, he turned and started off down the corridor, a small figure growing smaller in the gloom.

Suddenly Clara shivered, partly from cold, partly from premonition. If the fifteenth Baron and seventh Earl of Eden Point refused to accept his new mantle, then there was no future at all for Eden Castle.

Shivering again from the bleak vision, she stepped inside the nursery, closed the door firmly behind her, and saw the two at the fire, gazing back at her, their faces identical, eyes wide and staring, as though they too had suffered the same vision.

London, January 1855

"This way," Morley Johnson called out to the workmen following behind him. "This way, I say, and be careful!"

He looked down the arcade in the encroaching dusk at the two workmen, relics really, far too old to have been entrusted with Mor-ley's new treasures. Yet what was a man to do? With the Crimean conflict draining off all the able labor, Morley had paid a pretty penny for these two ancients.

As they drew nearer, huffing under the weight of Morley's new mahogany desk, he cautioned again, "Do be careful. One scratch and I'll dock your wages. In there. Right through those doors."

As the two passed him by, Morley sent his eyes heavenward, then looked about him, still unable to believe where he was and how far he'd come.

The Temple! By God, he still couldn't believe it. Morley Johnson, solicitor, with chambers in the Temple.

He shivered from the cold and glanced in either direction, regretful that he had chosen nighttime to move from that smelly office on High Holborn Street. The Inns were practically deserted, and it would have been pleasant to have executed the move in daylight when the courts were bustling so that students and barristers alike could have taken note, could have whispered among themselves, "Isn't that Morley Johnson?"

Quickly he removed his top hat and gloves and placed them on one of the desks and approached the door to his inner chambers. For a moment he stood in the doorway, saddened by the realization that

the chamber did not quite live up to his expectations. Empty, it had appeared so large.