The Prince of Eden (5 page)

"And I will do nothing to alter that." The smile broadened. "It's not Eden I'm selling. Sir Claudius. Just a parcel of the twenty thousand acres deeded to me as an infant."

Considerably reduced now, Sir Claudius commented, "James informs me that-"

Again rage surfaced on the once smiling face. "My brother has nothing to do with it," Edward pronounced again, leaning over the desk. "His hounds and horses will always have a place. I'll see to it."

"It will take time," Sir Claudius muttered, lowering his head, knowing that now he would be detained in these chambers for the better part of the morning. There were letters to write. The Countess Dowager had insisted upon being informed when another portion of the Eden estates crumbled beneath her.

"Take all the time you need," smiled Edward graciously. "For now, give me a note in the required amount. Then when the sale is consummated, you may reimburse the account plus a generous interest for yourself."

Sir Claudius protested. "I am not a bank clerk or a lending agent, Eden. I'm a solicitor."

"And a rich solicitor," Edward concurred, "your private account well lined with Eden coin."

Indignant, Sir Claudii|^ rose. The man had never been this coarse before. And he was perspiring like a hunting dog. And what was that over his eye? A wound, no doubt the result of public brawling.

Sir Claudius turned away and stared gloomily out of the window.

Behind him, Edward prodded gently. "The money. Sir Claudius, if you will. Do you doubt my collateral?"

Sir Claudius tried a final time. "I beg you, remember your mother."

"She is never out of my mind or heart."

"If you do anything to bring additional pain down on her, I swear I will abandon you."

Edward gazed at him with delighted astonishment.,"The abandonment would be twofold. Sir Claudius. You would have to go to work for a living in order to make up for the cream you skim off the top of the Eden fortune."

Sir Claudius had heard enough. Now he straightened his shoulders under his fatigue and hurried to the door. "Johnson!" he shouted.

The man materialized from behind a filing cabinet. Quickly Sir Claudius gave him instructions to fetch five thousand pounds from the safe and make a careful note of it in the debit ledger complete with interest. Then he turned back into the chamber and with disgust saw Edward gazing down on the sleeping female as though he were meditating on something grand.

Slyly, still feeling a need to strike some sort of blow. Sir Claudius asked, "And what do you intend to do with that bit of soiled goods?"

Edward raised his head. His voice came softly from across the room. "I may wed her. Sir Claudius," he smiled, "a very public ceremony in Westminster, with you as my best man."

"You do that!" Sir Claudius snapped and hurriedly took refuge behind his desk as though to put that massive barrier between himself and the contamination.

He watched carefully, the revulsion showing on his face as Edward gently roused the child. "Come, Elizabeth," he heard him whisper. "You can finish your nap in another place."

The girl opened her eyes. For a moment there was terror in them as though she had not the slightest idea where she was. Looking up, she spied Edward and pressed close to him, her chin quivering, the mutilated hand clinging to his waistcoat.

"It's all right," he soothed. "No need to be afraid."

Sir Claudius watched the whole maudlin little scene, and wondered how long it would take to clear his chambers of the awful stench. Finally, with the girl clinging to him as the vine clings to the wall, Edward glanced in his direction. "I apologize. Sir Claudius," he began, "for this early-morning encounter. And I apologize for our harsh words and cross-purposes. The night was long and^m out of sorts." He was on the verge of saying something else when Johnson appeared, a large brown packet in his hand. Timidly he glanced about the room, started toward Sir Claudius, who instructed him to give it to Edward.

"You now hold in your hand several acres of Eden land," Sir Claudius mused. "And prior to that, there were the thirty acres to the north of Exmoor, and prior to that the sixty acres west of Exeter—" He could have gone on, but something in Edward's face suggested he'd made his point. Satisfied, Sir Claudius leaned back in his chair.

It was quiet in the room. The girl still clung to Edward while he fingered the packet of money, head down. When he lifted his face again, the smile was back in place.

Quickly he pocketed the money and placed a protective arm about the girl. "When you write to my mother, Sir Claudius," he began, moving toward the door, "tell her that as soon as this business is over here, I intend to come home for a while." His manner lightened even more. "Tell her I'll bring her a London bonnet and news of her old friend, William Pitch." At the door, he stopped and looked back. His manner had changed again, his voice low. "And tell her I beg for forgiveness for any pain I have caused her."

Then they were gone, the both of them, leaving the stench of their presence, leaving Sir Claudius to ponder those last words. His brow furrowed. What was it the street garbage called Edward? He'd heard it before, something silly. Then he remembered. "The Prince of Eden," that was it.

Again he considered his earlier prophecy, that by the time the century reached its midpoint, the Eden family would have torn itself apart.

He called to Johnson. "Bring the writing pad," he shouted. "We'll work in the sitting room. This place is unbearable."

Situated down the corridor from his smelly chambers, he dictated two letters, one to the Countess Dowager, a letter bearing unhappy news, and the second to his land agent in Exeter, containing what was becoming a perennial and standing order: "Sell Eden Land to the first bidder."

Business over, he prepared to take his leave. The glorious Saturday was half over. The beautiful ladies in Hyde Park were waiting. He needed loveliness as an antidote to the ugliness of the morning. As he was leaving his chambers, he commanded Johnson to "Air it! Fumigate all weekend if necessary." As he passed through the door, he spied the chair where the filth had sat. "And destroy that chair," he ordered. "I don't want to see it here on Monday morning."

As he started down the steps and across the courtyard he reviewed the events of the last f^ hours. If the Edens were about to destroy themselves, it would behoove him to increase his fee. There was fruit enough for all on the tree as long as it stood. But in the event it fell to ground, a wise man would gather as much as he could.

Along the elegant linen and drapery establishments of Oxford Street now passed Edward Eden's private coach, long past its prime but well enough suited to Edward's purposes. Atop the high seat was John Murrey, an old friend whom Edward had plucked from the jaws of starvation beneath Westminster Bridge.

Inside the carriage, pressed against the worn velvet cushions, rode a very wide-eyed Elizabeth, and Edward himself, who felt more at peace than at any time during the last forty-eight hours.

The girl leaned forward, her head bobbing in one direction, then the other. "Where is it, sir, you're takin' me to?" she whispered.

"Home," Edward replied, finding pleasure in the small pale face who seemed to wonder continuously at the world and its strange ways.

The pronouncement seemed to increase her agitation. "Home, sir?" she asked, clearly bewildered. "Ain't no place around here that looks right-"

Edward laughed. "Not yours, Elizabeth. Mine."

She seemed to digest this for a minute, her one good hand continuously stroking her damaged one. "And what am I to be doing there, sir?"

"Whatever you wish," he said, then added quickly, "after a wash-up and a hot meal, that is."

At length she went back to gaping, the fear in her face beginning to relax a bit. She giggled prettily. "I feel like a grand lady," she murmured, eyeing the interior of the carriage. "I ain't never been carried about so before."

"You are a grand lady," Edward graciously replied and saw the becoming blush on her face and looked hurriedly out the window to relieve her of further embarrassment.

It always pained him to see how Oxford Street had changed. Once an avenue of private dwellings, now it was an unbroken row of commercial shops. His house alone was the only remaining private establishment, and he knew it was only a matter of time before he'd have to sell and go somewhere else. Curiously, this was the one piece of property he had no desire to sell.

He looked up from his thoughts and now saw it just coming into view, wedged tightly between plate-glass museums of capricious fashion, looking rather stodgy and stubborn in its sixteenth-century lines and angles. He leaned forward as the carriage drew up alongside the pavement, the shadow of the impressive structure devouring all, horses, carriage, and occupants. No, he would postpone as long as possible the sale of the grand old house which had been in his family for over three hundred years. He felt peculiarly at home with the ghosts who resided within.

Then old John Murrey was there, opening the door. And he saw his friend, Daniel Spade, just coming through the arched doorway and down the steps, his face creased with concern.

"Edward," he shouted, still coming forward. "Are you well? Did John Murrey wait all night for you? I sent a cab to Newgate this morning, but they said you had already left." Then the man was upon him and love was in full possession of Edward as he clasped Daniel to him and reassured him that he was well.

"My God," Daniel muttered, seeing the small dried wound over Edward's eye. As Daniel examined the insignificant cut, Edward gave in to his small attentions and focused on the face of this dearest of friends. At times like now, in moments of fatigue and confusion, Edward had difficulty even remembering when this long relationship had started. They had played together as boys at Eden Point. Daniel's father, Jack Spade, had been Edward's father's loyal overseer, a mountainous, untutored man who had performed all the unpleasant tasks inherent in an estate the size of Eden. A mere two weeks had separated the boys' births, Daniel the older. But nothing had separated them since. They had grown up together, and they had been joined in 1810 by Edward's adored younger sister, Jennifer, who as soon as she was capable of steps had trailed mindlessly behind the two boys, dogging their every movement.

At some point—Edward could not say exactly when—Daniel had fallen in love with Jennifer. Now one of Edward's fondest hopes was for a union between the two, thus legally binding Daniel to him forever,

this friend who was more of a brother to him than his real one.

While Daniel continued to examine the bruised flesh above Edward's eye, Edward found himself thinking briefly, sadly, on poor Jennifer, exiled to some school in the Midlands, a teacher of pianoforte. And he remembered as well the endless arguments that had raged between his mother and father on his choice of companions. But his father had been no match for the persuasive Marianne. And when the time had come for Edward to go up to Oxford, Daniel had gone with him, accepted on the strength of the Eden name and purse, not as servant, but as an equal. Unlike Edward, who had barely muddled through, Daniel had taken to his books like a thirsty man discovering a spring. He had come down with honors and a few radical and peculiar notions such as every human being had a right to enough to eat and a place to sleep, and dignity as a human being. He'd wanted to be a schoolteacher, but the public schools had not been interested in a man, no matter how brilliant, with such radical ideas. Edward had off"ered to share the house on Oxford Street, and had given Daniel permission to turn part of it into a Ragged School, a tuition-free establishment for abandoned children.

Now Edward looked gratefully at this friend who was asking him endless questions about his well-being. And Edward saw again the one quality that had attracted him to the man from the beginning. It was his habitually caring spirit, his deep and genuine concern, not for mankind in the abstract, but for the smallest child,, the most insignificant wound.

At last Daniel shook his head, his long unruly red hair graying slightly at the temples. "The last I saw of you yesterday evening were the bottoms of your boots as they carried you out of the Blue Bell and Crown." He shook his head as though reliving the sight. "Is it always so diflficult to gain admittance to Newgate?"

Again Edward tried to make light of the event. "A drunken row was a small price to pay."

Daniel leaned closer. "Did you see her? How is she faring?"

"I saw her, but did not speak with her."

Daniel looked across the street toward the Longford linen establishment. "I've not seen movement all morning."

Edward followed his gaze. In the process, he saw the young prostitute, Elizabeth, still in the carriage, apparently frozen in fear and indecision. Edward reached back and extended her his hand. "Come," he urged, "I want you to meet my friend."

Following without protest, the girl came, as always hiding her damaged hand behind her. Edward noticed Daniel's face. Nothing

brought him greater delight than raw material. "Her name is Elizabeth," Edward said quietly.

Smiling, Daniel bobbed his head. "Elizabeth," he repeated.

Now as they started up the stairs, Edward noticed the vast entrance hall was deserted, yet the welcoming spirit of the old house was enough to satisfy him. With Daniel leading the way, talking quietly to the girl, they passed along until they reached what once had been the grand banqueting hall. Edward stopped at the door and admired the view before him; approximately forty children were sitting upright at desks, four volunteer teachers in attendance while the children recited their figures. In spite of the crowded room, everything seemed quiet with purpose.

He waited and watched while Daniel handed the girl over to one of the volunteers, saw the fleeting fear in her eyes as she turned a final time and looked in his direction. He smiled his reassurance at her. Then she was led off to the kitchen below, where the staff would bathe her, give her fresh garments and a hot meal. If she chose to return to her home at nightfall, she was free to do so. But based on past experience, Edward knew she wouldn't.