The Women of Eden (44 page)

Safe in the delirium of anticipation, confident that in the blessed security of his embrace all problems, all obstacles, would be surmounted, she moved toward her pitcher and bowl, stripped off the dressing gown, plunged the fresh linen into cold water and pressed its coolness against her breasts, as though to temper the fever of her happiness. . . .

The old stablemaster handed Mary the note along with the reins of her horse. At first she thought there had been some mistake, but then she saw her name printed in broad strokes on the envelope and, fearful that Jason, waiting at the stable door, would see the letter

and inquire into its nature, she quickly slipped it into the pocket of her riding habit and led her horse forward.

Now well beyond the watchful eye of both Doris and Jason, she guided her horse to one side of Rotten Row beneath a bower of autumn trees and retrieved the note, knowing before she opened it that something had happened.

She tore the envelope and withdrew the single page and read the message at one glance:

Dearest,

I will be unavoidably delayed today. But wait for me, I beg you, in our appointed place. I have important news.

B. Stanhope

She read it three times and even turned the page over, thinking there might be something of greater illumination on the back. But there was nothing and, as her horse grazed on the dying grass, she read it yet a fourth time.

I have important news.

There was a cause for hope and, in a moment of loving inspection, she realized that she had never seen his penmanship before. How broad and strong it was, faltering a bit on the closing letters as though he were trying to write well.

In the cool shade of the trees, she shivered. She needed him now, not hours from now. And what would she do with the abyss of time which gaped before her? He had not said how late he would be. Obviously something had happened. Perhaps his mother had taken a turn for the worse. She was ill. Burke had told her so repeatedly.

Yes, that was it, and a man of Burke's loving consideration would not leave a mother's sickroom. And how else was he to contact her except through the old stablemaster, the one place where he knew she would be alone and thus able to receive his note?

Carefully and with love, as though the letter were the man, she ran the tip of her finger over that bold signature and returned it to its envelope and secured it inside her pocket.

He would come. That was the important thing to remember, and she would wait for him. That was important as well. The thought of returning to that unhappy house in St. George Street without the healing balm of his love was unthinkable. . .

The crowds had gone.

Mary watched the last of the strollers until, turning to the left^ they were lost to sight. The sun was setting behind the ridge to the west and the twilight began to weave shapes in the secluded garden.

By her conservative estimate she'd been waiting over five hours.

"Burke-"

She whispered his name in an attempt to dispel her rising anxiety. How much longer could she wait before Jason came in search of her? True, she'd been late the night before, but then Burke had been with her and she'd taken no notice of how shadowy and isolated the garden was at this time of night.

It was so quiet. Hard to believe that all of London lay just beyond that distant fringe of trees. What would she tell them tonight? Another broken stirrup? Not likely, but perhaps Burke would have a solution.

I have important news.

"Oh, please come," she prayed quietly, wrapping her arms about her in protection against the chill.

For over three-quarters of an hour longer she sat in the gathering shadows listening, watching the small path which led down into the garden.

What was that?

She turned quickly toward the indistinct sounds. In the effort of listening, she was aware of her eyes growing blurred. All were shadows, impossible to distinguish anything. Perhaps it was her imagination.

But it was not her imagination. Around her now, coming from three sides, she was aware of movement, the surrounding bushes rustling as though they had a life of their own.

Suddenly she rose and tried to move away from the animate bushes, and at her first step the sound of gravel crunching beneath her feet made an indistinct noise.

"Burke," she whispered, trying to deal with her rising fear, the sense that she'd waited too long, the certainty that whatever was moving through the bushes-She commenced backing away from the stone bench, still clinging to the possibility that all was well, that it was only a matter of finding her way out of this place and returning to the path where assistance would be available.

Then, too late, a single form emerged from the bushes, massive.

faceless in the shadows, not approaching her yet but inquiring^ almost politely, "Mary, is it?"

Out of the turmoil of her terror, a hope flickered. Another message? From Burke. Otherwise, how could he have known her name?

"Yes," she murmured, confirming her identity. Eager to make contact with her love, she stepped toward the specter. "Did he send you?"

Without warning she heard movement behind her too late, heavy boots stepping aggressively across the gravel path, and she'd no more than turned on the noise when she felt herself overpowered, her arms wrenched behind her, a monster with many hands twisting her head to one side, binding her eyes with a heavy, foul-smelling cloth, though the last image her eyes recorded was a fearful one, the specter from the bushes stepping free.

Futilely she struggled. A violent trembling seized her and, mustering all the strength at her command, she issued one single cry, and for her effort felt a knotted cloth forced into her mouth, the tethered ends bound tightly around the back of her head, her lips distorted, her tongue useless.

Thus silenced and blinded, she felt herself being forced down onto the gravel path, something heavy pressing against her back, her wrists being tightly bound over each other. As the rough gravel cut into the side of her face, she tried to cry out around the gag in her mouth, but all she heard was her own inarticulate moaning, and she closed her eyes beneath the blindfold and felt her heart stop.

Blessedly, she lost consciousness, but less blessedly she revived too soon. As the awareness of what was happening pushed back the safe blackness, she realized that she was lying on her back, her arms twisted and bound beneath her, though she was no longer lying on gravel but rather she felt the softness of dirt beneath her. In an act of discipline she tried to control her terror, at least long enough to determine what was ahead for her next.

Listening carefully over the thunder of her own heart, she realized that she heard nothing. Had they gone?

Laboriously she tried to lift herself. But at her first movement she felt hands on her shoulders, forcing her back down, and heard as well a guttural laugh.

"The pretty's awake now."

"Then let's do it and get out of here."

"Her hair, we was told, remember."

The voices seemed to come from all around her, flat coarse voices. Repeatedly she twisted her head, trying to see. But it was useless, and equally as useless was any attempt to scream. The sounds of her moans were amplified in her ears, her saliva choking her.

"Get on with it," a voice commanded, and then they were upon her, foul-smelling hands moving about her head, loosening her hair, one hand lifting her to an upright position with a painful jerk of her hair.

Inside her head a woman was screaming, begging them to release her. She could hear it so clearly. Why couldn't they?

Then she heard a new sound, metal teeth biting together, her head jerked first one way then the other, growing lighter, the sharpness of a cutting edge once nicking her ear.

Held rigid by the grasp of a single hand on her throat, she had no choice but to endure everything.

God help me! the voice inside her head was whimpering as they continued to jerk her head, the iron blades eating closer and closer to her scalp.

Mother-Then they were lowering her again to the dirt, where she felt the customary cushion of hair gone, the coolness of dirt against her ear.

They seemed to retreat and she heard their voices in muttering dispute a short distance away and tried to hear what they were saying. But the listening part of her was dying; even the voice inside her head was silenced. No longer whispering or praying or entreating, it was merely sobbing at how ugly the world had become, and how terrifying.

The voices returned and stood over her.

"No marks, Mr. Eden said—"

"No marks'll show-"

"She's fair-"

"Better than whores—"

"Then be quick—"

"And we all git a turn—"

As hands commenced pulling back the layers of her garments, as she felt the coolness of dirt beneath her bare legs, as a head with grizzled beard and whiskers lowered itself over her, as something of indiscriminate size and force wedged itself between her legs, as the double pressure on her body crushed her arms bound beneath her, she calmly gathered the few remaining fragments of her soul and

took them to a deeper level. In the last moments of consciousness she was aware only of the rhythmic rocking motions of her body, the fire burning deeper inside her, the awareness of what was happening rendering her brain useless.

Her last clear image was of a little girl with long hair running across the headlands of Eden, gathering wild flowers.

With strict instructions, she ordered her soul to stay with the child in that bright and safe world. . . .

In her first moment of privacy in the tragic bedchamber, Elizabeth sank to her knees beside Mary's bed and felt all life forces deserting her.

Morley Johnson. . . .

The name came like the assault itself, without warning, reminding her of her own ordeal of rape years ago. Had she ever truly recovered from it?

"Oh, Mary," she mourned, unable to look on the still face, though the only visible marks besides her butchered hair were two small rope burns on her wrists, suggesting more than one assailant, more than one assault.

In her grief, Elizabeth saw herself as she had been a scant two hours ago, beside herself with worry as the clock had devoured the minutes, then the hours. But not until the chime of ten had she taken matters into her own hands, had aflSxed her bonnet and started down the darkened stoop alone, prepared to flag a hired chaise in Jason's absence, to journey to Hyde Park alone and not to return until she'd found the lot of them and most of all, thoughtless Mary, for she'd still been angry with her then.

How disastrous, that postponement of time! If only she had launched her search at eight o'clock or, better, seven, when Charlie Bradlaugh had offered to go for her. But no, she'd permitted Charlie to leave and had sat alone for three more hours, the very interval no doubt when Mary had been enduring—

But the thought could not be borne, and almost angrily she pushed away from the side of the bed and took her grief to the darkness near the window where below on the pavement she saw Jason, still trying to answer the questions of the police inspector, three bobbies standing at attention, as though guarding the house.

As she wiped away her tears, fresh ones took their place and, aware that she must regain her composure, that as the alarm spread she

would be forced to answer questions from the police inspector, from the physician, if he ever arrived, and ultimately from John himself, she sat stiffly in a near chair, withdrew her handkerchief and held it flat against her face.

From behind this barrier, with the bed blodced from her view, she forced her thoughts back to a scant hour ago, to that moment when she'd just descended to the pavement and, hearing the rattle of a carriage and thinking it might be a hired chaise, had lifted her arm in an attempt to catch the driver's attention, and had seen and recognized Jason and had felt a surge of relief.

It had only been on second glance that she'd seen the look of disaster on his face, one policeman riding on the high seat with him, another opening the carriage door even before Jason had brought it to a halt, running alongside for a few steps, then reaching back and assisting an hysterical Doris to the pavement.

Elizabeth recalled thinking, Something has happened to poor Doris. It was not until a moment later that Elizabeth had looked back toward the carriage and had seen a policeman emerge awkwardly with a lifeless form in his arms, a familiar figure with the exception of the head, which resembled a young boy more than—

Breathless with the horror of memory, she stood and stumbled over something on the floor, the ripped and soiled garments which she had stripped from Mary, a foul odor still emanating from them. She kicked at them, then lifted them gingerly and carried them to a seldom-used cabinet behind the screen at the end of the room. There she stuffed them as far back in the darkness as she could. Later, when there was more time, she would personally bum them.

She closed the low storage cupboard and raised up, thinking she'd heard something from the bed. But it was nothing. Mary was still unconscious, her hair damp where Elizabeth had tried to wash it, the horribly butchered ends plastered softly against her skull, her head turned to one side.

What in the name of God is taking the physician so long^

She'd sent one of the policemen to fetch him and she'd sent another for John. It was approaching midnight, the traffic of the city eased. They both should have returned by now.

In growing alarm at the still face on the pillow, Elizabeth wiped away what she hoped was the last of her tears and thought how mysteriously empty her house had been on this night—Lord Harrington still not returned from his day with Mr. Parnell, Andrew and Dhari

among the missing as well, Doris finally released to weep herself dry in the privacy of her rooms below stairs, everyone missing or absent, as though they had sensed impending tragedy and had wanted no part of it

Tenderly she caressed Mar/s forehead, baffled by the specific mutilation of her butchered hair, as though someone knew that rape would not show except on the soul and there must be something visible.