The Prince of Eden (73 page)

At that moment the baby whimpered, demanding to be the center of attention. Harriet watched as Jennifer scooped him quickly up into her arms and sat crosslegged before the fire, cradling him, whispering over and over again, "Baby, baby."

Harriet retrieved her needlepoint, smiling. "Not for long, I fear. He's growing. Before we know it, he'll be a man and gone from us."

Her eyes wide with worry, Jennifer asked, "Can Daniel see him when he comes? I've told him all about him. He mustn't grow too fast."

Harriet nodded. She'd long since adopted the policy that as long as Daniel was still alive for Jennifer, he'd be alive for her as well. She'd had long and bitter arguments with Sophia Cranford over the matter, Sophia believing that Jennifer would never heal so long as they permitted her to live in her fantasies. But Harriet had other theories. The world had taken a dreadful toll of Jennifer. Why not retreat into fantasies? They were by far the safest.

Deftly Harriet tied a knot, clipped it with scissors, and looked up to see Jennifer walking slowly about the sitting room, the cherubic infant gurgling placidly at the movement. The clock on the mantel said two-thirty. Time to go. Jane would be expecting them, looking forward to them.

"You'd better fetch your cloak and scarf, Jennifer," Harriet suggested now, laying the needlepoint aside. "Your mother expects us, remember?" she smiled. "The pretty room with the ill woman? Maybe Aunt Jane will have raisin cakes again today."

With childlike impetuousness, Jennifer handed the baby over to Harriet and rushed from the room.

As the hem of the white dress disappeared around the corner, Harriet hugged her son, then hurried with him into her bedchamber. No need to ring for assistance. She'd waited too long to care for a son.

As she placed the baby on the bed, she gathered up the blanket and carried it to the fire. Warming it, she looked back at her child and for a moment she felt bent with loneliness for that lost son.

She closed her eyes. She could have insisted upon keeping him. No, she'd done the right thing and now it was incumbent upon her to put that child out of her mind.

Hurrying now, she reached for her cloak, drew the hood over her head, wrapped Richard in his blanket, and made her way out into the corridor where the first blast of icy air greeted her.

Estelle was there, fussing over Jennifer as Harriet had fussed with Richard. As Harriet drew near, she thought that perhaps it was a blessing that Jennifer did not recognize the ill woman as her mother. If she did recognize her, she'd never given any indication of it.

"Well, are we ready?" Harriet smiled as she approached the waiting women.

Estelle nodded, though she appeared worried. "She seems more excited than usual. Lady Eden. Best if one of us go with you."

But Harriet shook her head. "No, it won't be necessary," she soothed.

Looking as though she was not quite convinced, Estelle shook her head. "She has something in her pocket. Lady Eden," she softly warned. "I don't know what it is and she won't show me. But you might be on the watch."

Harriet nodded. "It's nothing. I'm certain." And so. saying, she took Jennifer by the arm and turned her about in the proper direction and commenced walking slowly beside her down the long corridor.

"Do you know where we're going, Jennifer?" Harriet asked softly, as they turned the corridor into another passage.

To this Jennifer nodded. "The sick woman," she murmured.

"Yes, we're going to see your mother."

"Mother," Jennifer repeated. And it seemed to Harriet that Jennifer's step increased.

Jane glanced over the once lovely tea table, then glared at the piggish old Mrs. Greenbell who'd been unable to wait. Making no attempt to disguise her anger, she scolded, "Well, it's ruined now, simply ruined."

"T'isn't," snapped Mrs. Greenbell. The old woman cast her eyes up at the scowling Jane, then lifted her cup, sipped noisily, and calmly reached for another raisin cake. Her third!

"That is enough," shouted Jane. "They will be here soon and I'll only have garbage to give them." Reaching out, she forcibly took the cake out of Mrs. Greenbell's hand and replaced it on the silver tray which earlier had held a beautiful symmetrical arrangement.

This once, just this once, Jane would have Hked to have had everything pretty and proper for young Harriet. How much their visits meant to her! Even the poor senseless Jennifer was a reHef, an improvement over the weeping woman who sat before the fire and the senseless drooling one behind her on the bed.

In the very next instant, Jane was ashamed of herself. Certainly no one was to blame, not old Mrs. Greenbell, who apparently viewed raisin cakes as the high point of the week, and certainly not poor Marianne, who had long since passed the limit of suffering which could be asked of any human being.

Merciful God, take her, Jane prayed as she saw the body beneath the coverlet. The once beautiful face appeared cadaverous, and on the side of the bed, she saw the ugly straps which now stretched across that frail body and held it rigidly though safely on the high bed.

The last attending physician, a young man from Exeter, said bluntly that he saw no medical reason why she should persist in living. But neither, he'd added ominously, could he find any medical reason that might cause her to die.

Looking down on her sister, Jane felt depression beginning to build. Oh, how often she had considered the kindness of the act of murder.

Still, she hadn't committed murder, and wouldn't commit this murder for one reason alone. Behind those blank eyes was an intelligence which still worked. Jane knew it in a way that no one else knew it.

As she turned away from the bed, she saw Mrs. Greenbell reaching for another raisin cake. At the same time she heard a soft knock at the door. In an attempt to control her splintering emotions, she called out a bit too harshly, "Come in, please," and looked up to see Harriet, her face baffled by the sharpness of the greeting.

"It's nothing," Jane soothed, hugging her lightly and leading her immediately to the fire for the comfort of the baby, then returning to the door where Jennifer stood waiting, her blank eyes curiously fixed on the high bed. "Come, child," Jane urged.

Quickly she relieved them of their capes and spread a thick fur rug before the fire, the baby's customary spot where all could admire him.

As Jane settled from this activity, Harriet asked softly, as though fearful of being overheard, "How is she today?"

Jane took the baby in her arms and answered briefly, almost curtly, "Same as ever." She didn't want to think about it now, not with new life in her arms.

Then to her extreme annoyance, she heard Mrs. Greenbell scolding her, "Put him on the rug. It's not fair for you to hold him."

"Old bitch," muttered Jane beneath her breath, placing the child on

the rug. As she glanced over her shoulder toward the bed, she saw Jennifer standing a distance away, her eyes focused on Marianne. "Come, child," Jane called out. "Look! Raisin cakes." Her voice fell into mild sarcasm. "A few left at any rate."

The toothless old woman sitting to one side of the fire made a harrumphing noise and leaned forward and commenced waving in idiot fashion at the baby.

At that moment the child cried and Harriet smiled, "He's hungry." Quickly Jane drew up a chair close to the fire, as though to secure a good seat for this ritual. It was a poem to life, and Jane was hungry for the spectacle.

Fascinated, she watched as Harriet gently massaged her breast, the beads of rich white milk forming on her nipple, and was still watching as she lifted her son in her arms and guided his mouth to the dripping milk and heard the hungry sucking commence, his eyes closing in satisfaction.

"I wish I'd had a dozen," Jane murmured, her eyes misting over with old regret.

"Why didn't you?" Harriet asked softly.

Jane shrugged. "Ask God, for Fm sure I don't know."

"Well, they're grand, that's what they are," contributed Mrs. Greenbell. "I had two, though they're both dead now. Still, I've known mother love."

To Jane it seemed that the old woman had said this with undue meanness. Now she felt compelled to take the edge off the boast. "They're pretty enough at that age," she commented, "but when they grow up, that's a different matter. I've seen poor Marianne reduced to tears by—"

At this she looked over her shoulder and fell silent. "What in the—" Slowly she started up. She saw Jennifer bending over Marianne, placing something on her breast. As Jane hurried toward the bed, she was aware of Harriet behind her, still carrying her nursing son.

At their rapid approach, Jennifer glanced up with frightened eyes and quickly withdrew to the far side of the bed.

"What is it?" Harriet inquired.

Carefully Jane retrieved the object from Marianne's breast and examined it. "It's a small book," she murmured, bewildered.

Harriet smiled and nodded knowingly. "Just one of her most prized possessions. Read the inscription."

Still baffled, Jane opened the slender red volume—sonnets of Mr. Shakespeare, she noticed, and read the spidery handwriting on the flyleaf:

To Miss Jennifer Eden, on the occasion of her wedding to Mr. Daniel Spade—with loving best wishes from

Miss Wooler

Roe Head, Yorks, 1842

"She meant no harm," Harriet smiled. "She just wanted to give her mother a gift, that's all." She raised her voice. "Come, Jennifer, no need to hide in the corner. How thoughtful of you."

Jane watched with mixed feelings as the senseless Jennifer re-emerged into the light of the room and took her place again beside the bed. Without a word, she reached for the book in Jane's hand and returned it to its intended place on Marianne's breast.

Jane retreated along with Harriet back to the warmth of the fire. "Do you think she knows her?" Harriet asked, readjusting her son in her arms.

"No," Jane said flatly.

"Perhaps not," Harriet agreed. And again all three women turned their attention to the beauty of the nursing infant.

Jane thought she heard a new disturbance coming from the bed, and she intended to make a check, but the baby was fretting with an air bubble and she loved to watch Harriet gently pat the tiny back. Oh yes, she should have had a dozen of them.

For some time, old Jane leaned forward in her chair, facing the fire, absolutely absorbed in the process. The joyful sound of the baby sucking was broken only by the rising snores of Mrs. Greenbell, who apparently had eaten her way into a state of complete satiation and now, warmed by the fire, had fallen instantly into a deep sleep.

Jane glanced at the old woman, then said to Harriet. "You can hear for yourself what I endure."

As Harriet wiped her breast, she smiled. "Still, she's very dear and I suspect if the truth were known, you'd be heartbroken without her."

Jane started to reply, but again fell into an adoring vigil as Harriet placed the baby, fat and filled, on the fur rug.

Jane heard her say lovingly to her son, "You wait here and be a good boy while I see your Grandmama."

Jane sighed. The pleasant part of the visit was over. Now she would be forced to endure while Harriet gave the unresponding Marianne a complete account of the baby's progress, speaking in perfectly normal tones, as though the old Countess Dowager were capable of response. In the beginning, Harriet's kind attention to Marianne had pleased Jane. Now it merely embarrassed her.

Well, nothing to do but get it over with.

As, laboriously, she turned to leave the comfort of her chair, she saw Jennifer, still beside the bed, leaning over Marianne in a peculiar position.

"Jennifer, what are-She stopped. "Jennifer, what—** Her voice rose, then fell, and finally she screamed, "Jennifer—'*

Still not certain what she was seeing, she took one step toward the bed. Oh dear God, it was the abundance of white more than anything, Jennifer's white dress blending with the white linen of the pillow, the white sheet, and Jennifer bent over at that macabre angle, leaning with all her weight against the pillow, and beneath the press of white pillow and white dress, Marianne's face.

Jane flew directly at the outrage, knowing in advance its significance, yet feeling the need to stop it if she could.

But she seemed incapable of rapid movement. She could never reach the bed.

Then she was aware of Harriet running past her, both hands extended.

They reached the bed simultaneously, Harriet going immediately to the far side and bodily lifting Jennifer upward, tearing the pillow from her grip and hurling it toward the foot of the bed.

"Is she—" Jane tried to ask the question, but couldn't. In the pressing crush of the pillow, the lavender lace cap had been pushed back, revealing the stiff* shorn gray hair. The head itself was lying at a rigid angle, eyes open, fixed and staring. The lips were blue. Slowly Jane leaned over and pressed her cheek against the lips. Nothing.

As she lifted her eyes to Harriet she saw the young woman look toward Jennifer with an inquisitive expression. "Why?" Harriet whispered, drawing the senseless creature closer to the bed as though to display her own handiwork.

Without speaking, Jennifer tore loose from Harriet's grasp and again leaned over her dead mother. With infinite tenderness she replaced the small volume of sonnets upon her breast, then with one hand lovingly caressed the stubbly gray hair. "No more pain," she said, solemnly, shaking her head in childlike fashion. "No—more—pain," she repeated. And she repeated it still a third time, then a fourth, until it became a soft, mindless chant.

From across the bed, Harriet and Jane exchanged a glance. Murder had beeh done, but something else had been done as well, an act of mercy so complete that Jane could almost feel the absence of pain.

Slowly she looked back down on Marianne. Even the drawn face seemed to be acquiring new life. She heard Harriet whispering fearfully from across the bed. "What are we to do? Ob God, what are—"

Abruptly she stopped speaking as, at that moment, Jennifer leaned over the dead face and lightly kissed the lips. Then as though her work were done, she raised up and stretched; her eyes moved beyond the bed toward the tea table. The soft smile blazed into a broad one as she announced, "Raisin cakes." Both Harriet and Jane continued to watch as Jennifer left the side of the bed and v/ent to the tea table, lifted the silver tray with half a dozen cakes on it, and took it to the fire where she knelt beside the baby and commenced to eat.