Everytime
Thomas saw the old palace he felt a surge of admiration. True, Eden Castle, with
its craggy roughhewn lines rising like a specter out of the cliff walls, suited
his personality. Still, it was pleasant to have within one's temporal
boundaries the grand classical style of Fonthill.
Immediately
upon their arrival, Marianne, clearly fatigued, requested that she be taken to
her chambers. As Billy's large staff scurried about making everyone
comfortable, the head butler, a stiff-backed, arrogant old man who poignantly
reminded Thomas of his beloved Ragland, announced, "Lord Eden, Mr. Beckford
will receive you in the library."
As
the clock was striking half past one, Thomas found himself being ushered into
the large familiar room which he'd known as a boy as a place where the men
gathered, relieved of all females. In spite of his own fatigue, he was feeling
rather nostalgic. All had gone well thus far, his total conquest of his
"bride" only hours away.
He
paused in the doorway, assessing the room—the familiar volumes, a wall map
charting the course of the sun and moon and stars, an inviting fire in the
large marble well, the ornately carved fourteenth-century screen behind which
he and Billy had hidden as boys, listening to their fathers solve the problems
of Empire.
On
the large table at the center of the room, he saw a scattering of blueprints,
and behind the table, just emerging from a position of intense concentration,
he saw his friend Billy, clad in a luxuriant emerald-green dressing gown, his
face changed, a portion of his boyishness gone, his eyes still gleaming with
the obsession of his tower, but controlled now, the look of a man who has
accepted his madness and is not to be trifled with.
In
all sincerity and true affection, Thomas opened his arms. The two men met in
warm embrace. Thomas held him at arm's length, amazed at the new maturity he
saw before him, realizing all too well the hard-earned nature of that maturity.
Remembering
too much and his own heinous involvement in the wicked plot, Thomas again
clasped the young man to his heart. "Billy," he murmured. "How
well you look!"
Beckford
seemed equally moved by the double embrace. He smiled. "So! You're to be a
bogus bridegroom, Thomas."
Thomas
nodded. "With your help."
"You
have it," Beckford assured him. "You will always have it. When my
heart feels feeble and fluctuating, I think of you and our friendship, and am
immediately made strong."
Thomas
felt overcome by the declaration of love. His emotions were brimming. Apparently
Billy saw his unease and moved to dispel it. "Brandy, Thomas? It's a long
ride from London, and I know you made it unbroken by intervals."
Grateful,
Thomas nodded. As Billy moved to the sideboard, Thomas fell into a close
examination of the blueprints; one looked down on a monumental cross-shaped
structure, its parts clearly marked in neat draftsman hand; "A, The Great
Western Hall; B, Marbled Corridor, C, Sanctuary. "
Billy
drew even with him, extending a glass. "To wedded bliss." He smiled.
Thomas
held up a blueprint. "And to your dream as well."
Both
men sipped. "Have you broken ground yet?" Thomas inquired, gesturing
toward the blueprints.
Lovingly
Billy stroked the large sheets of paper. "Just that. It's difficult to
keep Wyatt sober. He works one day, drinks two, and requires three in which to
recover."
Thomas
laughed. "Well, stay with it, Billy. From what I see here, it will be the
most imposing structure in all of England."
"I
intend to, Thomas," he replied calmly. "It's my life." Warmly he
invited, "Come, sit by the fire. Tell me of your passion."
Thomas
followed after him, seeing mysteriously her face before him, the beautiful
contrast he'd witnessed all day between the small bouquets of violets purchased
for a ransom on a crowded street comer of London, and the whiteness of her
skin.
As
they took seats in the chairs flanking the fireplace, Billy asked, "Is
your prey secured for the night? Are my servants her jailers?"
Thomas
objected to his choice of words. "She's not my prey, Billy, and she
requires no jailer."
"Is
it true you bought her from her sister?"
The
voice and attitude behind the question seemed impudent. "A transaction was
made," Thomas snapped. "But that was a long time ago. She's come
around."
"Then
why the deception?"
Annoyed
at the interrogation, Thomas sat up in the chair. "My God, man, what am I
to do? Marry her publicly? In Westminster?"
Slowly
Billy shook his head. "No, of course not. You can't do that. But why
deceive her, Thomas? A woman of her birth should have no objections to becoming
a mistress."
Wearily
Thomas sank back in his chair. "You don't know the lady, Billy. Believe
me. I've passed through hell for her." He lifted his glass and drained it.
As he dabbled at the moisture at the comers of his eyes, he muttered, "She
has brought my life to a halt. Five years ago I would have said that nothing,
and certainly not a woman, would be capable of doing that." He placed the
glass on a near table, and smiled wanly. "But there you are. Half a man
sits before you. The other half is with her."
A
look of honest commiseration crossed Billy's face, followed rapidly by
condemnation. "They are tools of the Devil, women. He uses them to
distract us and drive us to madness."
The
two men stared, unspeaking, into the lire. Softly Billy asked, "What do
you expect to find when you mount her?"
"Heaven,"
Thomas murmured without hesitation.
"And
after heaven, when you come down?"
Thomas
thought, then closed his eyes. "Does a man have a right to ask for more
than heaven?" Sympathetically Billy shook his head. "Poor Thomas. You
are imprisoned."
Quickly
he stood up, fetched the bottle of brandy, and brought it back with him to the
fire. "I'm sure you want to know the arrangements I've made."
Thomas
looked up, eagerness replacing his melancholy. "I'm grateful, Billy."
"As
though God were moving on your side, He sent to the door of my overseer last
week an Italian itinerant, a strange fellow, not unschooled, though hungry and
wearing the clothes of a beggar." Billy smiled. "With an eye trained
for such things, I sensed a rascal. I fed him, stuck a nightcap on his head,
put him to bed, and the next morning made a proposition." He lifted his
glass as though in toast. "This knave will play your priest for you in the
morning. Then my men will escort him to the channel, and on his word, he has
promised never to set foot in England again."
Thomas
sat up, immensely pleased. "No records then at all?" he asked.
Billy
shook his head. "Pray your lady does not require to see them."
Thomas
frowned. He'd not thought of that. "It must all be accomplished with great
haste," he said. "At her request we'll be proceeding on to Eden
Castle immediately following the ceremony."
In
mock sorrow, Billy mourned, "Then I shall be robbed of the pleasure of
providing you with a conjugal bed?"
"It's
her desire," Thomas explained. "She's hungry for home."
"How
do you plan to introduce her?"
"We've
discussed that as well. As Miss Locke. She knows it cannot be otherwise."
As
though confounded, Billy shook his head. "In some matters, she's the
spirit of cooperation. In others, the spirit of obstinacy." Again he shook
his head. "I fear you've set for yourself a hazardous course,
Thomas."
Feeling
helpless, Thomas shrugged. "It's the only course, so hazardous or not, I
must attempt it."
"Has
she forgiven you the whipping oak?"
Soberly
Thomas bowed his head. "I don't know. I haven't forgiven myself."
Billy
stared at him. Softly he laughed. "You should ally yourself with me,
Thomas, and build an impossible tower defying gravity. Believe me, it's much
simpler."
Feeling
a weariness approaching illness, Thomas pulled himself laboriously from the
chair. He looked down on his friend. "If only we were given a choice in
our various madnesses." Feeling twice his age, he started toward the door.
There he stopped and called back, "I'm grateful for your Italian priest,
Billy. But I trust the ritual will be Anglican and not Popish."
Billy
laughed. "What difference? It will all be a lie."
He
followed after Thomas to the door. "Your customary quarters have been
prepared for you. Get a good night's rest. There's red meat waiting for you, to
thicken your blood. Perhaps the lady has merely out-schemed you, in which case
you must be able to perform like the most ardent of bridegrooms."
Thomas
laughed heartily in spite of fatigue at the preposterous idea of a scheming
Marianne. "She is innocence itself, Billy."
"And
shortly, at least in her own mind, she will become Lady Eden."
An
intense look passed between the two men. Thomas disengaged himself and
proceeded on through the door. "Seven o'clock, Billy," he called
back. "You shall be my only attendant."
"I'm
honored," Billy replied with a slight bow.
A
servant was waiting beyond the door with a lamp to escort Thomas to his
chambers. At the end of the corridor, Thomas looked back, surprised to find
Billy still watching him. In a flare of resentment he realized that he'd
allowed his good friend to cast a shadow of depression over him. It was really
so unimportant, the whole thing. Surely he wasn't the first man to deceive a
woman, and neither would he be the last. Then what was the fuss, the veiled
threats, and hints of threats? On the morning she would be his.
Legally,
or illegally, it mattered little.
At
a quarter past seven on the morning of October the second, 1794, Marianne
Locke, dressed in a pale yellow gown with embroidered veil, walked alone
through the vast corridors of Fonthill Splendons, following behind the steward
who'd been sent to fetch her, coming at last to the small thirteenth-century
chapel off the Great Hall. There she was greeted by a priest who spoke broken
English and who joined her hand to Thomas Eden's, and under the witnessing eye
of William Beckford, a wedding ceremony of some kind took place.
It
was not as she had imagined it would be. The chapel was very cold and dark and
flowerless, the priest's words scarcely audible, Thomas shy to the point of
discomfort, the chapel doors, during the brief ceremony, closed and bolted. Mr.
Beckford refused to look at her even, not shy, like Thomas, but somehow
discomfited.
Nonetheless,
at the conclusion of the dreary fifteen-minute ritual, Marianne believed
herself to be Lord Eden's legal wife.
Scarcely
had the final words been pronounced than Thomas again turned her over to the
custody of the steward, with the stern command that within the hour her luggage
was to be packed and loaded on the carriage parked at the front of Fonthill
Splendons.
In
a way, she was grateful for the frenzied rush. It prevented her from thinking,
from coming to any real awareness of what had been done. It wasn't until the
trunks had been loaded, she in her traveling clothes sitting in the corner of
the carriage, watching Thomas bid Mr. Beckford a hasty but warm farewell, that
the magnitude of her situation swept over her. Lady Eden! In secret at least
for a while, to be sure. Still, Lady Eden! She shivered in the chill of the
cold sunless October morning.
Then
Thomas was seated opposite her, apparently incapable of looking directly at
her, his head out the window, shouting something to the coachman driving the
second carriage. Their entourage had been reduced to two carriages, the
remaining three having traveled through the night ahead of his Lordship in
order to ready the preparation for their arrival at Eden Castle.