The Eden Passion (54 page)

While he was still gazing upon it in disbelief, it was gone, slipped stealthily back into the leather pouch, the pouch itself shoved protectively inside Aldwell's robe.

"And that's it," Alex pronounced in a strong voice, moving away from John as though intent on putting distance between them. "Come on, lad, let's eat now. I've worked up quite an appetite, I have."

But food was not paramount in John's mind. "Wait," he called out, wanting to hear more. "Was it . . . really that simple?" he asked, following after the retreating man.

"Simpler." Alex grinned. "You see, everyone inside the palace walls trusted us. We just crawled up out of that mole's hole and left through the gate, and walked out of Delhi and kept walking to Bombay. There we bought ourselves passage on a troop ship leaving for Portsmouth." Here his voice fell. "And we almost made it, we did, 'cept for the sickness that sent us sailing here instead of home."

Still John pursued him. "And there's more?" he asked, frantically trying to bring the man back. "In the treasure house, I mean?"

"Lord! More?" Alex threw back his head, laughing. "This here dangling from me neck is modest compared to what we left. You see, we had to be mobile, we did, but Rod said he'd give his right arm for a good packhorse."

Again as he started toward the door, John called after him. "And what next?"

With the length of the room between them, he saw Alex grin. "Back to England, what else? I've sealed me fate in India, I have. Can't go back there, now, can I?" The grin widened. "But with this" —and he clutched at the pouch about his neck—"I can fix meself up right proper anyplace. Wouldn't you say?"

Then he'd at last exhausted himself. "Dammit, come along, lad. Me ribs are playing a tune on each other."

But John had no appetite. The mood and meaning of the story hung heavy on the air. He wanted to ponder it and think again on the contents of that soiled leather pouch. "You go on, Alex," he called out. "I'll be along later." He turned back to the settee and had sat in thoughtful silence for almost five minutes when suddenly he had the sensation of eyes upon him and looked up, and to his surprise saw Alex Aldwell still standing in the door watching him.

Startled, he was in the process of standing again when he saw the man smile at him and lift his hand in salute. Then he was gone.

What was that all about? Had the man wanted to say something else? No matter. John would rejoin him shortly in the ward. Whatever it was would keep until then. For now he meant what he had said. He needed a brief interim alone to deal with the memory of that amazing gem and his keen awareness of how it could serve a man.

He stared out across the waters of the Bosporus. No matter how hard he tried to discount the story, no matter how numerous the

loopholes and how incredible the specifics, one unalterable fact remained : the diamond itself.

How theatrical, he thought, sinking into a near chair. He sat crumpled over and watched night fall, the room behind him growing dim. Yet paradoxically, as the light diminished, his vision grew clearer, his sense of purpose and direction sharper. It was what he had wanted, what he had always wanted, access to that rich land.

My God, Alex Aldwell was an oaf, a lovable oaf. Yet look what he carried about his neck. If he could do it, why not John? In that moment was contained the shock and forewarnings of enormous possibilities, and most gratifying of all, the sense of a future, and ultimately he saw a dazzling scene, a triumphant processional to Eden, an entourage of elegant carriages thundering across the moors, the gates thrown wide, a hundred voices shouting welcome, and in the lead, moving toward the steps where Harriet was waiting to greet him, John himself, clothed in rich fabric of fashionable cut, his carriages laden with gifts for Richard, for Mary, and tucked in his pocket in folds of blue velvet, a diamond resembling Alex Aldwell's.

He bent lower, overcome by the vision.

For two hours he sat thus, his mind working first in one direction, then in another, weighing all aspects, trying to temper the scheme with reason and prudence. In broad outline, the plan seemed foolproof. What he desperately needed was more specific information.

Then what was he sitting here for? Perhaps fortified with dinner and a pot of tea, Alex would be willing to talk the night away. All John wanted was harmless information; the cost of passage from Constantinople to Bombay, the length of the overland route from Bombay to Delhi, the supplies he might need, small questions requiring only small answers, no reason why either of them should even mention the now shared knowledge of the fortune which hung about Alex's neck.

Then he was moving across the now darkened room. As his thoughts increased, he broke into a run, and a few minutes later he spied the broad double doors of the ward up ahead, and he was already calling out the man's name, "Alex!" scarcely aware of the men on either side who raised feeble heads at his rapid passage, aware of nothing but the curious congregation of nurses in the area around his bed.

They appeared to be talking together in an excited manner, at least a dozen, their full dark skirts obscuring both his bed and Alex's.

Behind them in the broad aisle, he noticed the abandoned dinner trolley.

Whatever the nature of their distress, it did not concern him. All he wanted was the attention of one man, and accordingly, while he was still about thirty feet away, he called again, "Alex!"

As one, the huddled nurses turned, varying degrees of surprise and worry on their faces. One, a tall stern-faced woman, confronted him. "He's with you, isn't he?" she asked, glancing beyond him as though he were being followed.

As she leaned to one side, he looked toward Alex's bed, thinking that perhaps the man had taken a turn for the worse. But he saw nothing except a stripped bed, a neat pile of used linen on the foot and a pillow which had been neatly rolled and placed at the head.

John took a step forward. "Where is he?"

The old nurse cut in. "We were hoping you might tell us." She cleared the nurses with a wave of her hand and pointed downward as though the bed itself were the culprit. "Look," she ordered.

"I. . . don't understand," he faltered.

"Neither do we," the nurse snapped. "But as you can clearly see, Mr. Aldwell is gone."

A nurse nearby murmured, "Even his things. Look. His valise is gone as well."

As the female voices buzzed around him, John continued to stare down on the empty bed. The old nurse moved closer. "If you can shed any light on the matter, Mr. Eden, we'd be most appreciative. We frown on patients simply packing their belongings and walking away."

Then all at once he began to understand. Of course. He should have known. The moment Alex had loosened that leather pouch about his neck, he must have known that he would have to flee. The contents of that pouch prohibited trust in any man. Besides, he had the tragic lesson of his friend to live with, the man called Rod who'd trusted someone and who now lay in a grave in Malta.

As understanding continued to illuminate his disappointment, John massaged his right shoulder in a thoughtless way, the bulk of his concentration aimed on his earlier scheme. Was it still negotiable? Did he really need Alex's experience in such simple matters? Routes to India were open to all. Still, he would miss the man.

Behind him he heard a soft step and looked over his shoulder to see the old nurse drawing near. "I'm sorry, Mr. Eden, that you've lost a new friend. This might lift your spirits, however."

She reached beneath her apron and withdrew several envelopes. "Mail." She smiled, then added, "A bit worse for wear, I'm afraid." She tossed the letters onto the bed. "They arrived from Balaklava this morning and were hand-delivered by a gent along with that large envelope there."

He stared down at the scattered envelopes and from that distance recognized on several the delicate penmanship of Lila Harrington.

"Thank you." He smiled, then turned to the window and the night beyond. Somehow, after the excitement of the afternoon, he wasn't ready to step into the cloistered existence of the young girl on the Wiltshire downs. Again he picked up the thread of that earlier inspiration. Why not? Why not India? Admittedly it was a gamble, but it was better than England, an ancient dream waiting to be fulfilled.

Then it was settled, at that precise moment and in that tortured manner. And it remained settled for all of about three minutes until his head, moderately cleared of all drama and romance, started moving in another direction, along the bleak path of pragmatism.

He was penniless, his trunks were gone, his purse with his first month's wages from Brassey gone, everything destroyed in the massacre at Section Three.

He leaned forward until his forehead was resting against the stone windowsill. How briefly the gleam of hope had lighted his thoughts. How black now was the reality of his situation. What was he to do? Stay in this damnable hospital, shuffling about with the other invalids? Suddenly he brought his fist down against the stone sill, with an accompanying curse of violence. "Damn Thomas Brassey!"

It was several minutes before he was even aware of the hand on his shoulder, a soft voice urging, "Mr. Eden, come. I think you've been up and about long enough."

He looked over his shoulder and saw a young nurse balancing a dinner tray in one hand while she tried to turn him about with the other.

"Come . . ." She smiled. "A bit of food and a good night's sleep will put you in fine fettle again."

Still watching, he saw the carefully balanced tray begin to slip to one side. Quickly she righted it and placed it on the bed, brushing the letters to one side. As the various envelopes slipped to the floor, she caught the last one in time, a large brown packet whose weight had held it steady.

"I'm sorry " she murmured. "Here, you take this one and I'll retrieve the others for you."

He took the brown envelope and stared down at it, his name printed in a neat familiar penmanship on the front, and in the upper-left-hand corner in broad block letters an equally familiar name: thomas brassey, contractor.

He continued to stare down on it as he moved slowly back to the window, reaching for the candle as he passed by the table, arranging both candle and letter on the sill, and with his good hand he ran his fingers beneath the seal, lifting the flap, seeing only the thickness of several pieces of stationery at first, then seeing more, the thick curled edges of. . . banknotes.

Quickly he stripped off the stationery, in the process releasing the contents, amazing contents, one, two, three, four, five, six fifty-pound notes, three hundred pounds altogether now scattered across the sill, and as though to make certain that his eyes had not deceived him, he thrust the candle forward and counted again.

His hand was trembling as he shook open the pieces of stationery, searching for a clue. But he found them mysteriously blank, not a sentence, not a word penned in explanation.

He stared at the pages, seeing no written word, but sensing volumes of unwritten ones. Those blank pages fairly reeked of confession, of guilt.

Three hundred pounds! His full salary for four months plus a bonus of one hundred pounds. A fortune, at least a limited one, funds enough to purchase a most comfortable passage to India, with enough left over to see him well into the Muhammad's treasure room.

"Mr. Eden, here's the rest of your mail. Now, come along and eat your dinner." The thin voice came from behind, the little nurse again, unaware of the miracle that earlier she'd placed in his hands.

Suddenly he felt beside himself, and grinning, he reached forward with his good arm and encircled her waist, lifting her off her feet, whirling, her startled screams filling his ear.

"Mr. Eden, please. . ." she gasped.

At the end of the whirl, he released her. A most becoming blush covered her face as she stepped a safe distance away. "Mail is . . . generally medicinal," she stammered. "I'm afraid I've dropped the rest of it again." She pointed to the envelopes which had scattered during his mad whirl. Still backing away, she gained the center aisle. "I do believe I'll let you retrieve them this time." She smiled.

He grinned back at her, then returned to the bed and the dinner before him, the other letters still ignored. All he could think of was Alex Aldwell and his tales of the afternoon. For a period of time, both the living and the dead would have to be put behind him.

All that mattered was that he'd found his future, and more important, had found the means to take advantage of it.

It was all he had ever asked of life. Why up until now had it been denied him?

Three weeks later he stood on the poop deck of the elegant French sailing frigate Belle Poule, listening to the grumblings of the equally elegant Captain Romain Desfosses. For four days the beautiful sailing vessel had sat in the becalmed waters of Constantinople harbor, encircled and threatened by a flotilla of squat steam tugs.

"Horrible, aren't they?" the dapper little captain pronounced stiffly, glowering out at the tugs. "What could be more dreadful than the belching black smoke from those monsters?"

John nodded, concealing a smile, trying to appear sympathetic, yet enjoying literally everything. The delay of four days was nothing to him. He was comfortable enough in his spacious accommodations below deck. And he was certainly more than comfortable in his new fashionable wardrobe, courtesy of the sole English tailor who resided in Constantinople, who had provided him with a gentleman's wardrobe at half of what it would have cost him in London.

And he was greatly enjoying the semideserted French ship, which had been commissioned by the British War Council to make way for Malta, where it would pick up one hundred and seventy British dependents and take them on the prolonged journey to India. And he was even enjoying the constant company of the little French captain, who for four days, over magnificent port served in French crystal, had talked almost constantly on every subject imaginable.

And all the time that the captain talked, the uncooperative wind remained becalmed, and the steam tugs continued to circle, threatening. The harbor master had served notice. If the Belle Poule had not vacated the crowded harbor by the end of the week, he would be forced to attach a towline and let the steam tugs drag her out in a humiliating spectacle. Of course, John was pulling for the wind and for Captain Desfosses.