The Eden Passion (8 page)

She nodded.

He took one step toward the door, then returned to her side and gathered the notes. "Put these in your pocket," he urged. "They were hard-earned and intended for you alone."

Passively she obeyed, viewing events around her now as an endurance test. From where she sat, she heard a man's voice coming from the stoop.

"Only a moment of your time. That's all. I'd be most grateful. . ."

She tried to stand and failed. As she sank back into the chair, she told Mr. Willmot to, "Let him in. It's clear he won't go away until you do."

Still reluctant, at last Jack Willmot stepped back from the door, and in the next minute a gentleman appeared, with rosy cheeks and plain clothes. His dark eyes darted over all aspects of the front parlor, then moved to Elizabeth, where they held fast.

No one spoke. Seldom had she been the object of such close scrutiny. His eyes left her face and moved down to her maimed hand. She thought she saw him smile, but she couldn't be certain. When he continued to stare at her hand, she felt a wave of old embarrassment and hurriedly hid it in her pocket, where her fingers found the pound notes which Mr. Willmot had given her.

Then the inspection was over and the gentleman bowed. "I'm sorry for this . . . intrusion, miss," he began. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Morley Johnson. I am solicitor to the Eden family."

Beyond the man's shoulder she saw Jack Willmot still waiting. In a way she wished he would leave. Perhaps the nature of the business was private. Sternly she scolded herself for her pride and invited, "Mr. Willmot, close the door please and take a seat. . ."

Assuming that the two men had met at the door, she dispensed with introductions and waited until both were settled, Mr. Willmot opposite her, Mr. Johnson in a straight-backed chair to her right.

She made an effort at ease. "Would you care for tea, Mr. Johnson?"

"No, don't bother, miss."

"The nature of your business, then, Mr. Johnson, if you will."

The tall man nodded, and he too seemed to sit more erect in his chair, as though ready to approach the heart of the matter. Only Jack Willmot sprawled comfortably opposite her with the ease of a witness.

Then Mr. Johnson was speaking again. "A few questions, miss. That's all. Did you remain at Eden for any period of time?"

A peculiar question. "No," she replied, "though I was invited, by her ladyship . . ."

"A most gracious lady."

"But I declined," Elizabeth added.

"Of course," Mr. Johnson murmured.

Silence. Jack Willmot shifted in his chair, crossed his legs and turned at an angle facing Johnson, as though suddenly interested in the conversation.

Elizabeth closed her eyes, her fatigue increasing.

"Miss?" It was Johnson again, leaning closer. "Some of the questions that I'm required to ask of you may be . . . awkward. I apologize in advance . . ."

"Ask what you like, Mr. Johnson," she replied.

"How long did you know Mr. Edward Eden?"

A harmless question. She was tempted to reply, "All my life," as before Edward Eden she'd had no life. But she didn't. Instead she counted up the years between 1836 and 1851. "About fifteen," she replied, and felt astonished at the figure. Had that been all? A mere fifteen?

"And you met him where?" Johnson persisted.

What now? It would be imprudent of her to say, "As a prostitute in the Common Cell at Newgate," so she lied. A small white one. "In his Ragged School on Oxford Street," she murmured, and looked away toward the small window on her left.

"You were a . . . pupil?"

"At first, yes," she said, looking back. "But I took to my books right enough and later I became a full volunteer, teaching the young ones . . ." Her voice fell as her mind darted back to those blissfully happy days.

Then Mr. Johnson was there again, his manner still apologetic.

"Forgive me, miss." He smiled. "But if I may ask, what was your . . . relationship to Mr. Eden?"

Quickly she glanced at Jack Willmot. No white lie here, not when she'd spoken the truth earlier.

Apparently Jack Willmot saw her discomfort and turned to Johnson with a question of his own. "In what capacity are you here, Johnson, and where are your questions leading?"

As though annoyed by the intrusion, Johnson looked toward Willmot. "Forgive me, sir, but I was about to ask you the same question."

Elizabeth saw Jack Willmot's confidence falter. He seemed to look to her for an answer. And in spite of her weariness, she rallied. Jack Willmot had been far too kind to let him struggle thus. Now to Johnson she said, "Edward had been employed by Mr. Willmot. He was with him the night he died, and without his support I doubt if any of us would have survived from that night to now."

As though moved by her tribute, she saw Willmot lower his head.

Again a feeling of quiet stole over the room. And in that quiet she found the courage to answer Morley Johnson's last question. "The relationship I shared with Edward Eden," she commenced, "was a simple one. I kept his house, and in the later years, his books as well."

Johnson seemed to be listening with interest and at this point withdrew from the inner pocket of his plain jacket a small notepad and point. While he was still in the process of recording something, he asked bluntly, "But you were not his. . .wife?"

"No."

"Did you share his bed?" Johnson asked, still not looking at her, apparently unaware of her embarrassment.

Again Willmot interrupted. "I protest, Johnson. I can't see what—"

"I'm not here to question you, Mr. Willmot," Johnson snapped, all traces of kindness gone from his voice. "Though I may in time," he added.

But still Willmot moved forward in his chair. "I don't give a damn who you've come to question. I'm saying that in certain areas, you've got no right—"

As Johnson turned in his chair to meet the angry challenge, Elizabeth sat up. "Please, Mr. Willmot," she soothed. Then to Johnson she said, "No, I never shared his bed."

He looked at her, clearly disbelieving. "If I may be so bold," he

said. "What was your . . . profession . . . before you went into the Ragged School?"

She gazed at him without speaking. There was something arrogant in his manner now, which suggested that he already knew the answers to the questions he was asking.

"I was a prostitute, Mr. Johnson," she whispered, feeling battered.

He smiled at her. "And yet, you are asking me to believe that you never knew Edward Eden in a carnal way?"

"I didn't," she protested, leaving her chair, her anger dragging her to her feet in spite of her fatigue.

Within the instant Willmot was beside her, the full force of his fury aimed downward on the still-grinning Johnson. "I'm asking you to leave now, sir," he said, his voice taut, as though he were exerting massive self-control.

Sensing an ally, Elizabeth felt strength returning. "No," she said, settling back into the chair. "Let him ask all his questions now and never return."

Apparently Jack Willmot gave in to her judgment, though he did not return to his chair, but instead took up a protective stance directly behind her.

"As I said," Johnson commenced again, a new conciliatory tone in his voice, "some of the questions might be awkward. But you must know that I'm acting under explicit instructions from Lord and Lady Eden."

Baffled, Elizabeth looked closely at him. "What possible interest would Lord and Lady Eden have in me?" she asked quietly.

"Oh, not you directly," Johnson hastened to explain. "It's the boy."

Suddenly everything became clear. Of course. John. Obviously Lord and Lady Eden thought that she was John's mother.

In a way relieved, she leaned back in the chair. "I'm not the boy's mother, Mr. Johnson," she said, "if that's what you want to know, though I raised him and feel a kinship with him as close as flesh."

He nodded as though at last he believed something she had said. "Then would you be so kind, miss, as to shed some light on his origins? Lord and Lady Eden will make it worth your while, I promise."

A flair of leftover anger surfaced. "I want nothing from Lord and Lady Eden," she said sharply, "and I can shed little light on the boy's . . . origins, as you put it."

"Well, he surely didn't appear like Moses in a basket," Johnson

countered, laying his pad and point aside as though there were nothing worthwhile to write at the moment.

"No," she murmured, and tried to turn her mind to that distant day when Edward had reappeared after a prolonged absence, babe in arms. His son, or at least that's what he had told one and alL

"He'd been away . . ." she began hesitantly.

"Where?"

"I don't remember. All I know is that Daniel Spade was quite worried. . ."

"Spade?"

"Edward's good friend who ran the school."

Johnson nodded as though he too were putting pieces of the puzzle together. "And where is this Spade?"

"Dead," Elizabeth whispered, "of the fever. Many years ago."

"Go on." He reached for his notepad again.

"I can't go on, Mr. Johnson," she said. "I don't know the answers to the questions you're asking."

"Well, you must know more," he badgered. "You were there. Think!"

Behind her she was aware of Jack Willmot, ready at the first word from her to toss the man out. Yet in a way the puzzle fascinated Elizabeth as well, that mysterious and unidentified woman who had been the fortunate recipient of Edward's love.

She leaned forward and covered her face with her hands, trying to clear the cobwebs of fatigue and grief from her brain. Then suddenly she had an idea. "St. Dunstan's," she exclaimed. "The little parish church near Oxford Street. We took John there for baptism. Surely . . ."

But all the time she spoke, Johnson merely wagged his head. "Nothing," he broke in. "I was there first thing this morning. The entry is listed, to be sure. But it's a useless document, covered with scrolls and angels. According to that foolish parchment, God was his maker, both father and mother."

She detected the derision in his voice and hated it, his cynicism somehow soiling her memory of that glorious morning. Still she tried to speak civilly to him. "The priest said nothing?" she asked, remembering the kind old man well.

"In his dotage," Johnson muttered. "He remembered Mr. Eden more for his generous donations to the church than for the baptism of his son. Try to remember," he urged. "After Mr. Eden's long

absence, when he first appeared with the babe, did he say where he had come from?"

She shook her head. Then: "I do remember overhearing Edward talking to Daniel Spade," she said slowly.

Johnson sat up.

"He said something about. . .the Lakes."

"The Lakes?" Johnson parroted.

She nodded. "For some reason I had the feeling he'd come from there."

"The . . . Lakes?" Johnson repeated. "Anything more?"

She shook her head. "We were all just glad to see him, Mr. Johnson. I don't think it would have mattered to any of us where he'd come from."

"The . . . Lakes," he repeated a third time.

Abruptly Johnson sat up as though burdened with another idea. "And you're certain," he asked, rising, "that the lad now at Eden and the babe which mysteriously appeared in Mr. Eden's arms are one and the same?"

To this foolish question she laughed softly. "Now, who else would it be?"

"Oh, substitution would be quite possible," Johnson interjected, "that babe disappearing and another taking its place."

"Mr. Johnson," she began, rising to face him, "I washed that babe when all of him fit easily into my two hands. I dressed him, cleansed him, cared for him every minute of every day until now. . ."

Strange, how the sensation of loneliness descended without warning. She'd been missing Edward. Now she longed for John. "No," she concluded in an attempt to banish the sensations. "The young man at Eden is the babe grown up, I'd swear to it. And I'd swear further that he is Edward Eden's son."

Johnson stared at her as though still not quite convinced. "Were there any distinguishing marks on the babe that we could look for in the young man?" he asked, closing his notepad as though expecting her usual unsatisfactory response.

"Distinguishing—"

"A birthmark," he interrupted, clearly annoyed by the fruitlessness of his search.

"No," she replied. "The babe was flawless, as is the young man." Then she remembered. "On his chest, there's a small scar."

His interest renewed, Johnson stepped closer. "A scar? What kind of-"

"Oh, it was raw and red-looking when Edward first brought him home. Like he had been cut."

Again the notepad was flipped open. "Did he say—"

She shook her head, recalling Edward's reluctance to talk about it. "He said nothing," she replied, "and it healed right enough, and lately when I scrubbed his back for him, I noticed that it was beginning to stretch out altogether. Like the letter B, it was."

"B?" Johnson repeated. He scribbled something more in his notepad, then again flipped it closed.

Now she saw him glance up at the still-impatient Jack Willmot. "Before I take my leave, sir," he commenced, as though on good behavior before that man of massive strength, "you say you employed Mr. Eden and his son for a period of time leading up to his death?"

Willmot nodded. "Aye, they were part of my crew at the Exhibition site. Worked with them both night and day on that undertaking."

Johnson seemed pleased by the man's apparent willingness to cooperate. "Then could you, sir, shed any light on the mystery at hand?"

"I'm not certain I understand what the mystery at hand is."

"We're seeking," Johnson began wearily, "documentation of the legitimacy of John Murrey Eden."

Willmot stepped forward, coming between Elizabeth and the man. "If Mr. Eden said the boy was his son," he pronounced in clear tones, "then it's fact. The man's word was gold, sir. If you'd known him at all, you'd know that to be true."

In the face of this declaration, Johnson merely smiled. "Oh, I knew the man right enough, Mr. Willmot. But apparently I knew a different side of him. The Edward Eden I knew was the one I found repeatedly drunk and senseless in the Common Cell at Newgate after a night's brawling and wenching. That's the Edward Eden I knew, the same one charged once with attempted murder for attacking the night warden, the same Prince of Eden who cohorted with pimps and thieves and whores . . ."