The Women of Eden (27 page)

She'd smelled a proper bargain right enough, and when they had faltered, she'd always been there to make them strong.

No, she would perform admirably for Richard, would provide him with children, a male heir specifically, keeping the line intact. And, in addition, she would be a pretty bauble to add to Eden, a healthy specimen to take the place of those sulking females who now plagued his Hfe.

He stood a moment longer in the hot sun, his eyes fixed on a heat wave dancing across the inner courtyard. Briefly one specific memory engulfed him, transported him back to another May morning quite different from this one, cold, raining, the sixteen-year-old boy with the mud from his father's fresh grave on his boots.

My name is John Murrey Eden. My father was Edward Eden. I have come home. . . .

In spite of the warm morning and all those intervening years of tragedy and accomplishments, John realized that he was as alone now as he had been then.

But a man must be stronger than his own solitude, and he was master of Eden in every sense of the word. The point was to take rejection and turn it into an exalted act, the supreme expression of a life beyond rejection. It could be done. He'd done it many times before.

As he turned about, already sorting through in his head his immediate course of action, he saw standing in the shade of the Great Hall arch a familiar and well-beloved figure.

Aslam.

From the bottom of the steps he continued to gaze up, making direct contact with those dark eyes, as aristocratic as any Englishman's. What a treasure the boy was, and how tall he was growing, and how straight, not a trace of the frightened little boy who'd fled India with him years ago.

"Aslam . . ." John smiled, starting up the steps, grateful for the young man's presence. "Come," he added, placing his arm about the boy's shoulders. "Let's steal a moment, shall we? Two, if need be."

The boy responded with a smile and followed John into the shade of the Great Hall, where together they stood and watched the dismantling process, the chairs, which had stood empty for the last few days, being carried away by the stewards, the footmen lowering the banners bearing the coats of arms of all the guests who had not appeared.

"A grand fiasco, wasn't it?" Aslam said with a bluntness which caused John to laugh.

"It was indeed/' he conceded, deriving comfort from Aslam's honesty. No one else was that honest with him anymore.

"Come," John urged, "let's see if we can't find a quiet haven somewhere. I've neglected you long enough. In here." He smiled, standing back at the Library door and letting Aslam pass before him. Of course there were a hundred problems which needed his attention elsewhere: the physician, who at this moment was with Lila, and Mary, whom he'd not seen for three days.

Looking up from his thoughts, he saw Aslam at the far end of the Library in close study of Alma-Tadema's painting, "The Women of Eden."

The boy possessed possibly the keenest intelligence that John had ever known, and he found himself awaiting his opinion with as much anticipation as earlier he'd waited the opinion of the Royal Academy.

"Well?" John prompted, seeing on that young face a sedate smile, like one who knows the stakes but is safely out of the game.

Slowly Aslam lifted a finger to his lips. His brow knit as though he were not quite satisfied with his own opinion. "They all," he commenced, "look sick to their stomachs."

"They—what?" John stammered.

"They look sick to their stomachs," Aslam repeated with conviction. "Come! See for yourself."

Stunned, John followed the boy's command, standing directly in front of the painting and seeing that he was right, all four women poised in angles of waiting, and on all four faces pained smiles of some unidentified discomfort.

John stared closer, trying to repress the urge to laugh. But the need was too great and, as he felt the compulsion grow, he made a peculiar sound like a strangling chicken. As the juxtaposition of Aslam's brutally honest critique echoed in ridiculous counterpoint to the pedants from the Academy—"excessively emotional, lacking dramatic restraint, vehemently romantic"—]o\m gave in to the long-needed release of unrestrained laughter, reaching out for the support of a near table, his eyes filling under the duress of his hilarity, the whole spasm lasting several minutes and leaving him gasping for breath.

"John, I-"

The bewildered voice came from behind. Fishing blindly in his waistcoat for his handkerchief, John tried again to stifle his laughter. "I'm sorry," he gasped, attempting to straighten himself for the boy's sake, who looked mildly hurt.

Restoring the handkerchief to his pocket, he stepped forward and unashamedly enclosed the boy in an embrace. "My God, how grateful I am to you!"

"I don't understand," Aslam confessed.

"I know you don't and I'm sorry," John murmured.

"Well, it's true," Aslam persisted. "Look at them. The only time I've seen that expression on my mother's face is after she has consumed too much ginger and cream."

"Oh, God, don't!" John begged, still gasping for breath, more than willing to concede the accuracy of Aslam's judgment. How effortlessly the boy had punctured the hot-air balloon of pretense which only last week had permeated this Library.

Still wiping at the corners of his eyes, John circled the foolish painting and sank in pleasurable exhaustion into a chair. Without thinking, he murmured the first words that came into his head.

"When are you going to join me in London, Aslam? I have reason to suspect that I am in sore need of your leavening presence."

Not until he saw the expression on Aslam's face did he realize that unwittingly he'd spoken the words that were closest to the boy's heart.

"I'll return with you tonight," Aslam said without hesitation.

Sitting up, John altered his initial statement. "No, you're not ready yet. But soon. A year. Two at the most."

"In what way am I not ready?" Aslam protested. "I'm reading far in advance of most of my tutors now. And what I lack, Andrew Rhoades can teach me."

"I run a complex firm, Aslam," John gently reminded him. "My solicitors need to be fully prepared."

"But I'm accomphshing nothing at Cambridge," Aslam replied with conviction. "It's a stupid place, the students more interested in rowing than—"

As he sank despondently into a chair, John watched him, aware of what the young man must be forced to endure in that English bastion of learning.

As the brooding silence persisted, John felt regret that he needed the assistance of anyone. But his own formal schooling had been

merely adequate, and where the baroque complexities of English law were concerned, he needed trustworthy and reliable aides. Andrew Rhoades had served him well, but one day Aslam would serve him better. Andrew owed him nothing but friendship; Aslam owed him his life, and on a debt of that proportion, what an allegiance could be built!

"Patience," John counseled, reaching forward to ruflfle the boy's hair, though he knew it annoyed Aslam.

Predictably, Aslam pulled away and continued to glare unseeing into the space before him. Impressed by his gloom, John asked, "Is it so bad, Aslam? Cambridge, I mean. From what I've seen of the place it looks idyllic, the little Cam flowing placidly through the green meadows—"

"It's hell."

"How so?"

Abruptly the young man looked up, as though aware that he'd said too much. "It's just that—"

As he faltered again, John sat up straighter. "Just what, Aslam? Tell me."

The young man sat with his hands clasped before him. "There are rituals—disgusting rituals—"

"Of what nature?" John asked, his mind moving to Richard and to the private investigator he'd recently turned loose on Professor Nichols.

When Aslam either couldn't or wouldn't speak further, John suggested the unthinkable. "Sodomy?"

That was all he said, but it was enough. An expression of bereavement crossed Aslam's face, as though he knew he'd said too much.

A noble impulse, John thought, though in the next moment the nobility was shattered by Aslam's forceful suggestion, "Let me return to London with you, John, and I'll tell you all!"

John gaped at the boy. Disappointment was there, combined with a desire to "hear all." But the bargain itself reeked of self-interest, blackmail almost.

In an attempt to digest his disappointment, John turned away, increasing the distance between them. A sudden knock at the Library door eliminated the need for him to make a decision.

"Who is it?" he shouted angrily over his shoulder.

"It's Bates, sir. I was sent to inform you that the physician has requested a brief conference with you."

Damn! he thought. But perhaps it is just as well. When did it happen? When did Aslam change from that honorable little boy to —

"John?"

As Aslam called to him, John dismissed him with an edict which he knew would hurt. "Leave me now," he said coldly, "and prepare to return to Cambridge. I believe Richard is planning to depart—"

"No!"

By God, am I surrounded by disloyalty? "No, what?" he demanded, facing the young man down.

Aslam retreated first, colliding with Bates, who stood poised on the other side.

"Aslam?" John called after him, feeling the need to explain something.

But the young man was gone and John was left with a feeling of heaviness. He turned away from Bates, though he was aware of the man waiting patiently at the door.

Then he remembered. The physician, another incompetent, a stammering old charlatan named Dr. Cockbum whom John had brought out several years ago from Exeter and had ensconced in comfortable quarters in the Servants Hall to tend to the daily disasters that plagued Eden's over-large staff: fingers chopped off with butcher knives, broken limbs, vapors. The mewling and complaining had been endless, and Dr. Cockburn's job had been to quiet this chorus of lamentations.

It had never been John's intention to have the old man attend the family, but seeing Lila's weakened condition the night before, aware that at some point during intercourse she had lost consciousness, and determining that she could not await the more professional examination of a London physician, John had summoned the old man early this morning and had sent him to Lila's private chambers.

A futile exercise, he realized now. She'd been examined repeatedly by men more skilled than Cockburn, A prime specimen, all had pronounced, healthy and equipped to bear a sizable brood. Then what?

"Mr. Eden?"

"Show him in," John snapped and strode away from Bates' inquiry, his eye, in the process, falling on the ridiculous painting, finding it impossible to believe that only a short time ago he'd enjoyed a soothing merriment.

He heard a faltering step at the door and knew without looking that his patience was about to be sorely tried.

"Cockburn," he called out, and at last brought the old man into focus where he stood in the doorway, a stout gentleman with shaggy white hair and brows.

"That will be all, Bates," he added, amazed at the rising anger he felt.

"Well, come in, Cockbum, and close the door. You requested a conference and here I am."

"N-not a conference, Mr. Eden—"

"Then what in the hell?"

Seeing an expression of fear on the old man's face, and realizing that shouting was accomplishing nothing, he closed his eyes and tried to rein in his mysterious anger.

"Then if not a conference, your—report, sir, if you will," he invited with admirable calm.

The man drew himself up, as though aware of his lack of professionalism. "A d-difEcult undertaking it was, sir, b-but I give it my best, I did-"

"And your diagnosis?" John snapped, finding that he was unable to even look at the man.

"Simple, r-really," the man stammered, unaware of his own contradiction. "It's j-just a matter of poisonous blood." He smiled down on John. "It h-happens most often to f-females—"

"Poisonous blood?" John repeated, repulsed by the man.

"Aye, sir. S-spotted it early on. Color of the face, if you know what I m-mean—"

No, John didn't, and experienced a deeper regret for having subjected Lila to—

"But n-not to worry, sir," the old man added. "Cure's under way."

"What cure?"

"Bleedin', sir, what e-else? On my life, it's the only solution. We'll let the little dears suck on her for a few hours. Then—"

On his feet, John reached across the table and grabbed the man by his throat and dragged him halfway across the table. "Have you lost your mind?" he shouted. "She's weakened as it is. What possible good will come from—"

"P-please, sir," the man gasped, his veined and smelly hands flailing in the air, "it w-will serve, I swear it, and it'll do the babe no harm either—"

John was on the verge of throwing Dr. Cockburn across the room

when one word caught his ear. "B-babe?" he stammered, only half aware that he sounded like the doctor.

"Aye, sir." The old man nodded. "Bleedin's normal course for p-pregnancy. It benefits both mother and—"

"Babe?" John repeated, relaxing his grip on the man's throat.

Old Cockburn laughed with relief. "I'd s-stake me life on it, sir. I'm the f-first to admit I ain't proper and skilled, but I do know a swelling woman when I sees one—"

Confronted with such conviction, John continued to stare, his mind reeling. A babe, if it was true, had been his most urgent wish. But there was something else. Lila. For the last few months she had begged a week of privacy for herself each month, claiming painful cycles. If she were truly pregnant then there would have been no cycles.

"Are you certain?" John demanded, coming around the table.

"N-never been more certain, sir. There's a growin' thing in y-your wife's belly. I'll s-stake my life on it."

For a moment longer John stared down at the flabby face. Then he was running, scarcely hearing the old man calling after him, "I h-had to restrain her, sir, for the leeches to do their work. But she and the b-babe will be the better for it."

The babe. That one word he clearly heard and took it with him all the way up the steps.