The Prince of Eden (9 page)

"I do not live in other societies."

"No, but does that mean you cannot benefit from their wisdom?"

The voice, coming so steadily across the darkness, began to have a strangely soothing effect. Edward felt the tears subsiding, the muddle and mystery of William's last words no longer a care.

He started to lift himself up and saw the man's hand outstretched, offering support. "Come, Mr. Eden," he invited. "Our business is finished here. As my host, Mr. Dickens, has elected to remain, I find myself quite without transportation. Would it be an imposition if I—"

"My aunt has requested that I stay," said Edward quickly, brushing the bits of clinging earth from his trousers. In spite of the man's brief comfort, now Edward found his intimacy embarrassing, in poor taste.

Abruptly De Quincey laughed, a strange sound in a sea of grief "Your aunt is having a glorious time, Mr. Eden. Would you rob her of a single moment of her pleasure?"

Edward moved away. "I should stay," he announced.

But the man merely followed after him, objecting. "A rare personality is gone, Mr. Eden. Come, let's toast his life and ignore his death. This earth holds us down. I have the means by which we can fly after him. No pain, no grief, floating in the arms of angels—"

Edward listened carefully. Oh God, how the prescription appealed! And what the man had said was true. Even Edward had doubted Jane's need of him. Then, too, it would be rude of him to ignore the man's request for transportation. "For an hour, De Quincey," he said finally. "Then I must return."

The man smiled. "If you want to return in an hour, I shall deliver you myself. Come—"

As they entered the front walk, Edward saw the increase of traffic passing in and out of the red brick house, lamps ablaze in every window. God, the thought of human intercourse was appalling. As the two men started hurriedly down the pavement toward Edward's carriage, De Quincey leaned close. "The fragile frame is of no interest to us, Mr. Eden. It is the strong spirit we're after. Are you game?"

Feeling the unbearable weight of grief slip from his shoulders, Edward could only nod. The night air seemed to revive him, the presence of the man beside him assisting with that revival.

As they drew near the carriage, Edward saw old John Murrey dozing atop the high seat. He shouted up to the man. But before Edward could convey a destination, De Quincey spoke. "May I? I know a pleasant place."

Edward nodded, heard the man call up the name of a street near the Embankment. A moment later both men crawled inside the carriage and the horses started forward. In the passing lamplight Edward studied the face opposite him, a most strange face.

He seemed now to be aware of Edward's close scrutiny. "I've not visited Heaven for several years, Mr, Eden," he began, as though aware that some explanation was necessary. "I've trod a straight course in Edinburgh. I've been productive both professionally and maritally." He smiled broadly. "I have a loving wife and a family of eight.

"The straight course," De Quincey repeated, "unerringly, for years." He leaned backward against the cushions, his eyes closed, on his face a dazzling smile. "But, oh God, how I have missed that cloudland, that gorgeous land which only opens to the sleep-closed eyes—" The ecstasy was fixed on his face. Edward felt the excitement spreading as, leaning forward, De Quincey revealed the object in his hand, a small glass vial filled with a red-brown liquid.

"Laudanum," De Quincey said softly. "The only passage a man needs to get from here to Heaven. Will you be so kind as to accompany me, Mr. Eden?"

Edward turned away and gazed out the window. The streets were dark and silent with the exception of a passing cab. What was there for him back at the house on Great Russell Street save a corpse? What was there waiting for him on Oxford Street save Daniel's purpose, Daniel's students, Daniel's conviction? What was there awaiting him at Newgate except the young woman whose future agony was his responsibility?

"Come, Edward," De Quincy whispered intimately. He took Edward's hand and placed the vial in his opened palm. "Let me tell you what it was that in reality made me an opium eater. Pain, was it? No, but misery. Casual overcasting of sunshine, was it? No, but black desolation. Gloom, was it, that might have departed? No, but settled and abiding darkness."

Edward looked at the vial. It was inviting, the thought of closing his tired eyes from that total eclipse without all hope of day. He knew what he held in his hand. Though he'd never indulged, still he knew the risks, the benefits.

"Well?" De Quincey prodded gently.

Edward nodded.

>^^^

German tutors, French dressmakers, Spanish equestrian masters, eighty-seven thousand pounds per annum, and four hundred years of arrogant breeding had gone into the making of Harriet Powels. On other occasions, in aristocratic households, those same ingredients had produced entire generations of shy, vapid, noncommittal young women who tended to hysteria. But in this instance, for reasons unknown except to nature, these same ingredients had produced Harriet.

Hadley Park was the ancestral home of the Powelses, had been since the early fourteen hundreds when a land-rich Englishman named Hadley Powels had raided the Welsh border and brought back a ravishing red-haired Welsh beauty. It was not a kidnapping. In fact her father was grateful to the Englishman for taking the creature off his hands and in a show of gratitude had sent along as dowry one of the largest sheep herds in all of Wales, over ten thousand head, or so it was estimated. Legend had it that the continuous procession of sheep crossing the narrow wooden bridge that spanned the border had lasted for three days.

A direct descendant of this union, Harriet's father, like all his ancestors, had known precisely what to do with the profitable combination of sheep and grazing land, and now the Powelses were one of the richest worsted manufacturing families in England, and had lately added ingeniously to their already burgeoning fortunes by using steam power in the manufacture of woolens.

Harriet was a beloved, pampered, only daughter, only child as well since the death of her older brother three years earlier in a senseless hunting accident. Now the entire future of the Powelses rested on her slim, straight shoulders. At twenty-five and well into spinsterhood, her parents had acted for her, and had entered into a tentative agreement with Lady Eden, the Countess Dowager of Eden Point, whose younger son. Lord James Eden, seemed as hesitant as Harriet herself.

She was not beautiful in the conventional, fashionable sense of the word. Men had never responded to her presence in a courtly manner. But for anyone who cared to look, there was a striking quality about her, as though her beauty were of another age. Her hair, fair with tints of her ancestor's reddish tinge, was long, and while it refused to curl in contemporary fashion, it gave itself quite admirably to chignons and French knots. The eyes were Welsh blue and deep, the nose, straight though small, giving the appearance of an afterthought on the part of her Creator. The mouth alone was well defined, though even that was a bit too dignified, scarcely opening for laughter or for words.

Her entire face had a stillness about it, an introspection which on certain occasions could chill to the marrow. The appearance she gave was one of aloofness and hauteur. But in fact she was neither. She was something worse. She was bright, extremely intelligent, quick to the point that she had realized at an early age that her one clear asset, her native intelligence, was neither necessary nor negotiable. In fact, under certain circumstances, it could be and was a downright liability.

Thus the stillness was accountable, the need to hold herself very rigid lest the mind commence working, then naturally the tongue. According to her mother, Harriet would have been married long ago if she hadn't casued all her suitors to feel like empty packing cases. James Eden, again as her mother had pointed out, was perhaps her last chance to avoid the curse of spinsterhood. On her parents' strong advice, she'd better take the step as soon as possible lest this last poor fish slip away as effortlessly as all the rest.

It was a dilemma to which she had yet to address herself. And on this morning in early May, she was thinking about neither James Eden nor the dreaded party at the end of June. Now she had an appointment, with herself, and with her magnificent brown-splotched stallion to whom she had lovingly given the name of Falstaff.

Quite simply she adored him and once a week they had a private appointment, just the two of them, a secret which Harriet would die before she would tell anyone.

Now she took a quick final glimpse in her pier glass and for a moment stared steadily back at the reflection, prim, sober in her black silk riding habit with high-buttoned jacket, long buttoned sleeves,

longer flowing skirt, her hair done tightly up and secured beneath the black hat with dark veil. All that remained were the black gloves in her hand, then not an inch of flesh would show save that of her face.

There! Gloves were secured, everything hidden. It was quiet in her private apartments. Even the furnishings seemed to possess a slow pulse. She twisted her head in a peculiar position as though trying to get a glimpse of herself without looking directly into the glass. Her excitement was increasing, but she must not let it show.

Again she looked about her. She must remember everything. Once she had gone, it would be too late. On the near table she spied the clean linen. That must go with her. That was part of it. Hurriedly she folded the linen into a small square and tucked it deftly inside her jacket. And the comb, that too must accompany her, and the small vial of lavender water. Now both items were scooped up and carefully plunged into the deep pocket of her riding skirt. What else? Last time, it had occurred to her to take a brush. But now she couldn't find it, and no matter. She'd managed in the past without one.

She must hurry. She still had to make her way through the vast corridors of the grand old estate, from her private apartments on the second floor to the small ground-floor exit where the old groom would be waiting with her horse. Pray God she did not encounter anyone. Not that she owed a soul an explanation. Not even her parents. This was her riding day. She was dressed appropriately. No need to account to anyone, unless of course the tinge of red on her cheeks which spoke of excitement betrayed her.

She glanced back at the mirror. The red was there as well as something diflferent about her eyes. Then she must obscure her face as well and this she did, drawing the dark veil forward from the back of her hat and allowing it to fall freely over her face.

Better! Now nothing was visible. Through the black veil she saw only a black figure, safe, unrevealing, proper, most proper.

Fourteen steps to the door. She counted them off", then she was out in the corridor, increasing her speed, one gloved hand shoved into her pocket, trying to still the slight jingle the comb made as it bounced against the bottle of lavender water.

A few minutes later as she was approaching the Morning Room, she stopped. Coming from inside she heard her parents' voices. She mustn't encounter them now. She had talked with them at breakfast about James Eden. And undoubtedly the subject would be the same at dinner. But for now she prayed silently. Let me pass unimpeded, please let me pass unnoticed.

The prayer was granted by one sympathetic deity or another, and a short time later, speed increasing, she approached the broad main

corridor of the first floor, looking neither to the right nor left at the occasional servant who stood deferentially to one side and bowed low at her passage.

Then she saw him, through the arched door at the end of the passage, standing in full morning sun, his great head lifting in annoyance at the tight grip of the groom on his reins.

Trembling with anticipation, she deliberately broke her speed and paused a moment just this side of the door. She closed her eyes. Patienty be patient. Her heart was now a drumming sound, surely audible to all. Be silentj please. Don't betray me—

Slowly she opened her eyes and proceeded through the door at a deliberate pace. Then she was standing at his side, the groom stepping forward at her appearance and wordlessly arranging the small step near the animal's massive side so that she might effortlessly mount him and settle into the demure side-saddle position.

Her legs beneath the long black skirts seemed no longer subject to her will and just in time she settled into the saddle. Quickly certain adjustments were made, both by her and the groom, the stirrup shortened, foot inserted, reins drawn over the horse's head and placed in her gloved hands. Beneath her, she could feel the impatience of the animal. He knew. Old Falstaff knew as well as she where they were going. Neither she nor he had need of rein at all. Still, the charade must be played out.

The toothless old groom stepped back now, sniiling. "Have a pleasant ride, milady. Him there is rarin' to go, so you'd best keep a tight rein—"

Patiently Harriet nodded. The lecture was always the same. "I will, Rudy," she smiled. "Thank you."