The Eden Passion (9 page)

Too late, he obviously caught himself up, cast an apologetic look at Elizabeth and now beat a hasty retreat to the door, with Jack Willmot following directly behind him.

There he stopped and looked back. "I thank you for your time," he said stiffly, "and I apologize for any offense . . ."

Willmot stepped closer.

But Johnson held his ground, his parting words something of a

threat. "And I fear I must return, for Lord and Lady Eden are determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. If you think of anything that you feel might be pertinent to tie subject, I'll leave my card."

He placed a small white card on the near table. "The sooner the mystery is solved," he added ominously, "the better for all concerned."

At that moment Elizabeth moved toward the door, a new fear pressing against her. "John," she began, "is John well? Will this in any way affect . . . ?" Suddenly the thought that John might be exposed to abuse was more than she could bear. Again the circumstances of the morning and her incredible fatigue took a tremendous toll. Fighting back tears, she asked again, "Is John—"

"Well," Johnson interrupted, "or so I hear. Of course he won't enjoy total access to the bosom of the family until we can prove his identity beyond a shadow of a—"

"Who else could it be?" she cried now, stepping closer to the door. "Tell them if there's any doubt just to open their eyes and look! They'll see Edward standing before them, in all aspects, Edward . . ." Striving to hold back her tears, she clutched at the open door and watched the man retreat down the steps.

Embarrassed, she knew she must make one last effort at control. But it was useless. The tears could not be stanched. The questions, Morley Johnson's insinuations, the thought of John alone, perhaps suffering, was too much. As she inclined her head forward, giving in to her grief, she was aware of Mr. Willmot's arm about her, supporting her into the back room, Edward's room, and placing her gently on the bed.

"Don't, please," he soothed, kneeling beside her.

She was grateful for his kindness and tried to thank him. But there was no more strength. She covered her face with her hands in an attempt to blot out his concerned expression, and had no choice but to weep herself dry.

Her last awareness was of Jack Willmot lifting her into his arms, holding her as though she were a child, as though confident that his strength would be equal to her disintegration.

Although doubtful at first, to her surprise, a few moments later a feeling of quiet stole over her. The light of noon sun gradually sank from her vision. And even though now and then she still felt racked by sobs, she saw the approaching darkness and welcomed it and bid it come closer.

What he'd done had been more for the memory of Edward Eden than for the young woman. Yet now, holding her close, he confessed quietly to himself that she moved him deeply.

Jack Willmot continued to cradle her until he felt her small frame go limp against his chest, then gently he lowered her to the pillow, wiped the residue of tears from her face and drew the light coverlet over her.

He stepped back, feeling awkward and out of place. Oh, not that he hadn't had plenty of experience with women. But nothing important, and certainly nothing lasting or permanent. As a professional foreman, his jobs took him everywhere. And he liked it that way and he definitely preferred male company, the simpler the better, like his crew on the Exhibition site. What a collection of navvies those had been. First-class, and top among them had been Edward Eden and his boy.

Again he felt an uncharacteristic moment of weakness, haunted, as he'd been every night since it had happened, by the remembered image of that power loom slipping the winch, the explosion, the sparks, the shouts of the men, the smoke clearing to reveal. . .

God! Would he ever rid his mind of it? Now, as though to move away from the remembered horror, he adjusted the coverlet over the sleeping Elizabeth and moved back to the door.

Briefly he paused at the door, staring down at the small opened trunk belonging to Edward Eden. Slowly he lowered the lid, as though to put the man and his memory behind him.

He'd leave her for now, but he'd be back. He had an appointment later this week with Mr. Thomas Brassey, and he suspected that the great contractor had a new job for him. If it was local, he'd take it. If not, he'd pass it by.

For a period of time he must remain in London, keep an eye on her, as it were, until she'd settled safely into a new life. That was the least he could do for her, for Edward Eden, for the boy. Also he had a feeling that the offensive solicitor would be back.

The thought enraged him, and he vowed at that moment to place a watch on the house. He was certain there would be no shortage of volunteers, and he'd pay them out of his own pocket.

He moved rapidly through the front parlor, stopping by the table and pocketing the small white card left by the solicitor. If she was forced to have any further dealings with Mr. Morley Johnson, he intended to be present.

In some amazement he stopped at the door. What had happened

to his predictable personality of forty years, the hard-bitten foreman with the reputation for working men until they dropped, of braving foreign countries and foreign climes, of caring for nothing and no one save the successful execution of the job of the moment? What had happened to that iron man?

He chided himself for his own foolishness. Nothing had happened to him, nothing at all, though he closed the door softly behind him, checked the latch, tested the knob and started off down the narrow lane, feeling the difference in all aspects of his being.

Later that afternoon, Morley Johnson sat at his cluttered desk with the afternoon sun falling through the smudged windows, the raucous shouts of his children above causing a fine rain of plaster to filter down upon him and the smell of Minnie's dinner haddock causing his stomach to turn. He thought bleakly, "Fruitless! All of it!"

He leaned back in his chair and caught himself as the weakened left rear leg creaked ominously. My God! What had he gained for himself and his future this day? Exactly nothing except aching feet and an aching head from tramping through the slum of Bermondsey. Again he arranged the blank sheet of stationery before him, preparatory to writing to Lord and Lady Eden. Another fruitless gesture, for what did he have to tell them?

Abruptly he flipped open the notepad and studied his scribbled notes. For a moment his eyes blurred, his mind no longer thinking about clues. Interesting, the honesty with which she'd admitted to prostitution, yet in the next breath had asked him to believe that she had never, not once, accommodated Edward Eden.

He made a curious noise, half-grunt, half-chuckle. Did she take him for a fool? And who was that watchdog in constant attendance? No, Morley Johnson was wiser than that and knew a whore and whore's bully when he met them straight on.

Now again he leaned back in his chair with caution, fascinated by his present train of thought. With a wave of humor it occurred to him that perhaps he should contact that high-minded gentleman, Mr. William Gladstone, who, according to coffeehouse gossip, suffered two insatiable hungers: one, to wear the mantle of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and two, to satisfy himself between the legs of every whore in London. Gossip further had it that he would achieve the latter long before he acquired the former. Together with his wife, Catherine, he'd founded the House of Charity

for Prostitutes at Nine Rose Street, Soho. Again Morley smiled. Clearly Gladstone had his priorities in order. First he'd rape, then he'd redeem. For that matter, perhaps he'd already come in contact with the whore Elizabeth. She was fetching, in a soiled way.

Abruptly Morley bent forward and rested his head in his hands. What would it be like to go where many men had gone before?

Overhead, he heard his children racing back and forth through the narrow rooms. And looking up, he saw his office door ajar, a habitual custom at Minnie's request so that she could effortlessly call to him if there was need.

Suddenly angry at the imprisonment and lack of privacy, he stood up with such force that the chair clattered backward. It was like working in a goddamned nursery or Common Kitchen with tradesmen tramping through at all hours of the day delivering cabbages and spuds.

In rising despair he went to the window and tried to see beyond the streaked coal dust to the street. He thought longingly of Sir Claudius Potter's elegant chambers in the Temple, the handsome marble mantelpiece, oriental carpet, vast mahogany desk, and most important, the small chamber at the rear containing a low comfortable couch where at any given hour of the day or night Sir Claudius might disappear, a ravishing beauty in tow, with the brief order that he was not to be disturbed.

Thinking on such remote delights, Morley grasped the sill and pressed his forehead against the window. Why not him? It had been the Eden fortune which had supplied Sir Claudius with those luxuries. Why not him as well?

By God, there was no reason in the world, and suddenly he slammed his fist down against the sill and turned to the desk with renewed purpose. He knew what to do. He would not be imprisoned in this smelly hole for the rest of his life, weighted down by children and an ever-pregnant wife. He knew precisely what Lord and Lady Eden wanted to hear, and he'd tell them, if not the truth, then a harmless deviation from it.

As the ideas came faster than he could deal with them, he reached for his pad to jot them down, to be fully developed later. At that moment, the bulbous Minnie appeared in the door, her face flushed from cooking heat. "Tea, luv." She smiled, one hand rubbing her protuberance in an obscene fashion.

"Get outl" Morley shouted, seized suddenly by incomprehensible anger at her ugliness.

"But, luv, all I said was—"

"Get out!" he shouted again, and started up from his desk as though to bodily assist her with her exit. He heard her waddling up the stairs, weeping softly. A wave of remorse swept over him. He'd have to mend bridges later, but that presented no problem. She was like the dough she kneaded each night—perfectly malleable to his touch.

But for now he had other goals in mind, greater ones, which hopefully would lead him out of this grim office and into chambers as elegant as Sir Claudius', with his own private nook for relaxation, for escape, for. . .

Why couldn't he rid the whore from his mind?

But she continued to cling like lint, and it was with the greatest of efforts that he forced his attention down onto his desk, and the letter to Lord and Lady Eden. As he'd taken great pains with that first letter he'd written years ago, so too this one must strike just the right tone, an earnest report bespeaking earnest effort, certainly to include mention of the scar on the babe's chest and perhaps suggesting an immediate inspection to see if the young boy's chest bore the same. Then too he would apprise them of his dead end at the Baptismal Registry, but counter that dead end with the new clue concerning the Lakes, even going so far as to suggest that, in spite of the hardship of leaving his family, he'd be more than willing to undertake a journey to said district in the hope that a personal investigation would yield more than a written one.

Then too, and with this thought his excitement vaulted, if her ladyship was still desirous of such an action, he'd be most willing to stop back by her ancestral home of Hadley Park in Shropshire, where after the death of her father, Lord Powels, an untrustworthy uncle had moved in and was apparently running the rich sheep and grazing land with an unrestrained hand. She had complained to him several times before that she longed for a firsthand account. Then he would supply her with one, and perhaps another firm block would be cemented into place in the relationship between Morley Johnson and the Edens.

Yes, by God, that last was a stroke of genius, binding one mission to another. And now with what eagerness he reached for his stationery, dipped his pen, shook it twice and commenced the letter which might, with luck, lead him out of this pit of stifling domesticity.

Eden Castle, June 1851

As his wife entered the small library, James looked up from Mor-ley Johnson's interesting letter. Peculiar, he thought, lowering the pages. In daylight she looked alive. At night he'd swear he was mounting a corpse.

"Sorry to disturb you," he said.

"You didn't disturb me," she replied quietly, closing the door, then leaning against it. "I was told," she began, "that you wanted to see me."

He nodded and pushed back in his chair at the writing bureau. He felt mysteriously exhausted, as though the appearance of this "wife" had suddenly fatigued him. Wife, he thought, annoyed. Oh, she had borne him children and permitted him access to her bed. But she always carried with her that damnable air of a condemned and passive prisoner. He saw it now in the rigid manner in which she was standing at attention before him. He wondered briefly what he would have to require of her before that cold mask splintered and fell away.

Now, to his surprise, he found that he could no longer stand the sight of her, and merely tossed the letter toward her across the bureau and turned away.

"What—" she began.

"Read it for yourself," he snapped. "You may find it interesting."

Slowly he turned back in his chair. She was devouring the letter, her eyes skimming rapidly over the lines. Well, he was glad she found the letter of such interest. As for himself, it was his opinion that Morley Johnson had launched a fruitless first investigation, and

was now proposing a very expensive and fruitless second investigation. What was the point? He knew that ultimately his wife would do with the boy what she wished, depending upon her whim of the day. The only paragraph of Morley Johnson's letter which had made any sense was the one in which he had pointed out that the boy, whoever he might be, posed no real threat to the Eden fortune. The Eden purse strings would remain firmly in James's hands, where he fully intended to keep them until it was time to hand them over to young Richard.

Still reading? "My God, Harriet, shall I read it for you?" The sound of his voice raised in irritation echoed around the quiet room. His annoyance mounting, he stood and lightly paced before the fireplace. His eyes lifted to his mother's portrait. Abruptly he stopped, his hands laced behind his back, his head tilted up at the sight of that breathtaking beauty.