Bitter Eden (40 page)

"Yes, ma'am, I am like him. But he committed no murder," Stephen said, driving the head of the axe down on the wedge and splitting the woocL

"Wh/s he locked up then, eh?"

Stephen said nothing. He continued with his work.

"Not very talkative, are you? Guess you wouldn't be with a brother like that" To his relief she returned to the house.

It was very late in the afternoon when she came back. He was nearly finished with the wood.

"Well now, looks like you do know how to put in a day's work. I didn't think you would. Didn't think any Berean would know how to do much of anything, from what I hear. Your family's got money, don't they? How come you're out here workin' like this?"

"I like to earn my own way/' he said shortly. His back hurt and he was tired, too tired to listen dispassionately to any more of her suggestive talk.

"Wouldn't let you throw good money after bad, more'n likely. Cant say I blame them much. It isn't just your brother they talk about, you know. I heard about you as well. I heard about you sendin' that young girl into that murderer s cell an leavin them there all alone. God knows what the brute's done to her. You men are all alike. I shouldn't have let you near my place. Just shows what a soft touch I am for a handsome face, just like most women. I can't help feel-in sorry for that girl though." She moved a little closer to him, her head thrust forward. "Or maybe I'm wastin' my sympathy, am I? They say she's been chasin after him for years. That so? She just like the rest of you? Don't care?"

Stephen placed the last of the wood into the pile and put the axe down. He straightened and asked to be paid.

"You cryin ?" she guffawed.

"No, ma'am." He immediately put his hand to'the side of his eye, digging his thumbnail into the flesh. "A wood chip caught the side of my eye."

She glanced at the angry reddened mark and took the coiils from her apron pocket and placed them in his hand.

"You can wash up over there. Best be more cautious. A bit more and it would have hurt your eye. You may be a fool, young man, and maybe a lot worse, but you're a good worker. You can tell your mother Joan Burke said so, and I don't say it often."

"Ill tell her, Mrs. Burke. Will you have any more work for me?"

"You come by tomorrow. I'll have something for you. I got some fences needin mending, and the barn

needs some attention/' She guffawed again. "You keep workup like this young man, and you'll end up rich."

Stephen felt the meager shillings growing hot in his hand. 'Tfes, ma'am."

He slept in her field that night so he could be at her door with the rising sun. He worked for her all that day. By the time he returned home, he had the money. Peter would see Callie at least one more time.

Chapter 29

Time was growing short and all three of them sensed it. Before Stephen and Callie made the last trip to London, she was certain they wouldn't be able to visit Peter again. It seemed of the utmost importance that she and Stephen be there when he was moved to the hulks. For days she tried to think of some way to accomplish it.

"Stephen, could we stay in London overnight this timer

He looked at her questioningly. "Why?"

"It's only a feeling, but I don't think we will be able to see Peter again. It's probably foolish, but it is such a strong feeling."

"It would also be expensive ... I don't know, Callie. We haven't the money."

"But couldn't we use our passage money? Would it really matter if we have to stay here a little longer? Jack will be sending money soon ... as soon as another packet ship arrives. Couldn't we?"

Stephen looked down at his feet, then directly at her. "I've been using it right along. There wasn't any

other way ... I couldn't earn what the turnkey was asking."

"Oh . . . well, then. . . * Flustered, she looked away, then turned to him again; her eyes pleading. "Perhaps we wouldn't need money. Mrs. Pettibone once told me if I ever needed her to come to her for help. I'm sure she would let us stay with her one night I lived there an awfully long time. Oh, Stephen, surely she'd see I'm never likely to need help more than I do now."

"Suppose this isn't the day hell be transf erred?"

"I don't know. We'll have to think of that when it comes, if it comes. But I feel . . ." Her voice trailed off. "I'm being ridiculous, aren't I?"

Stephen had little doubt that she was accurate in her feeling. He had heard talk of a ship that would be leaving for Van Diemen's Land later in the month. But he didn't like what he saw happening to Callie. With amazing speed she was committing herself to Peter. She was associating herself with him in every thought she had, every word she spoke. Not only was Stephen jealous of that single-minded devotion, he hated what it would do to her. And to him.

She had said often enough that she would do anything in her power to help Peter, but Callie was an idealist with the strength to carry out those ideals no matter what it cost her. And Peter was a disillusioned man, stunned and hurt, grasping for anything he could believe in. He. had found Callie. Stephen's Callie.

Stephen had no idea what to do about it. But there was Callie, young, beautiful, and loving, wanting only to give her strength to a man who needed it, and that man was his brother. He couldn't tell her she was wrong. Nor could he deny Peter the one remaining person who seemed to give him hope. And yet some-

how it still seemed wrong. He could not say why, except that he knew he needed Callie as much as he loved her. He felt guilty and selfish; but there were times when he thought he couldn't bear anymore to watch her chain her life to Peter s just as Peter had chained her life to his. He pushed down his own feelings once more, but he couldn't look at her as he said, "Well talk to Mrs. Pettibone."

"You don't want to do it," she said slowly. "Why, Stephen?"

"I want to," he said.

"Something is wrong."

"No, it isn't. I'm just tired."

"Are you sure?"

He looked at her then. Her look of concern was entirely for him. She w r ould go back to Kent as they always did at the end of the day, never seeing Mrs. Petti-bone if he asked it of her now. She trusted him completely. It was her blind faith in him that defeated him for he would never be certain his decision hadn't been based on his own wanting her, and not on what was right

"I'm sure," he said and knew he had made a decision far more important than the words indicated.

Peter was nervous and tense that day when she saw him. She caijie into the cell as she always did, but he was not as always. He couldn't sit still. He paced the cell looking everywhere but at her. He couldn't keep his concentration on anything she said. She sat quietly, her hands folded on her lap, watching him. "Peter, what is it? Would you rather I hadn't come today?"

He walked to the wall with the tiny grated window at the top, looking up at the dull trace of light coming through. Both his hands were braced against the wall.

He put his forehead on the cold stone between his hands.

She came up behind him, her arms locking around his waist, her head resting on his back. 'Tell me what you are thinking."

He raised his head, once more looking toward the weak light of the window. "I cant stand being locked in here any longer," he said more to the window than to her. "Do you know what it is to be haunted by a breeze on a summer's evening and never be able to feel one?"

"No."

"There's nothing here. Nothing but time, endless, empty time. I can't breathe anymore. I can't think. I can't . . . stay here any longer."

"You won't be here forever, Peter. It will be better." * "Will it?'

"It must be."

"There is nothing that says anything must be," he said harshly.

"Oh, Peter, don't talk like that. I hate to see you this way. If you don't keep believing and hoping then nothing can happen. You must believe that everything will be good again. You must."

He touched his head against the stone of the wall again, then turned, taking her in his arms. He kissed the top of her head. "You've never given up, have you, Callie? No matter what they said to you, or what they did to you, you never gave up."

"No."

"That counts for something." He smiled, holding her away from him so he could look at her face. "It is what I love best about you, little one. You believe in the impossible, and somehow make it so."

"Peter, someday you will be free again. I know they say no appeal can be made, and I'm not very knowl-

edgeable about these things, but you will be free. Something will happen."

"You are very young and very innocent, Callie. Sometimes it happens that nothing will change. And this time, it isn't likely that anything will happen no matter how hard you and I wish it. It will be too bad when the day comes that you face that, and this belief of yours will stop."

"I would never stop! And neither will you, Peter Be-rean! You 11 keep right on believing, and so will I. Stephen and Jamie and I will be waiting for you just like always when you come home. Well keep the hop yard going, and the brewery will be built. And those apple trees that you planted will be bearing fruit, Peter. Everything will happen as you planned it."

"But I'll never see it."

"Oh, but you will. Peter, do you remember the May house you and Stephen built for me?"

He laughed. "I remember it far better than you d ever guess."

"When you took me to see the'May house, I knew it couldn't be real. It was beautiful, and I had just learned that the world was an ugly cruel place to be. It was filled with people like Mrs. Peach and those men who stole and lied and did terrible things to get what they wanted. I didn't believe anyone could be trusted, and I thought never to see beauty or joy again. Then Uncle James took me away from London, and you and Stephen built the May house and you brought me to it. I knew then that the awful time I had lived through was just a time, and not the whole world. Peter, write to me about the May house. Just put it in one special letter, and then I'll know you are coming home to Poughkeepsie where you belong. Promise me that. I want to know the day you see that this is a bad time, and not the world."

"I promise you that, should it happen."

"It will. You'll see."

He laughed, tolerant and wanting to believe it was more than childish wistfulness. "Will you be writing to me then?"

"Always," she said.

With her standing so near to him, looking like a fresh-picked flower with her golden hair and milk-white skin, everything took on a clean brightness that he knew would disappear as soon as she walked out of the door. With her leaving all the gray dirtiness of the prison would close in on him again. "Oh, God, Callie, why did it all happen?" he asked, his arms wrapped tightly around her. His breath caught. He shuddered and trembled against her. "Don't ever stop believing, Callie. I need you." He buried his face in her neck, kissed her on the cheek as he always did. Then he looked into her eyes and gently sought her mouth.

Except for the night Peter had thought she was Rosalind, Callie had never been kissed like this. His mouth was both soft and hard. His beard was rough, making her skin tingle. But most important of all, this time, she knew it was her he kissed and she could feel the lonely hunger that was inside her. He needed her as no one had ever needed her before. Within his arms in the space of a kiss, Peter Berean changed from a man Callie had idolized from afar, to a man she cared deeply about and who sought in her all the love and devotion she so wanted to give the right man.

He stepped away from her, breathing rapidly. His expression was soft and loving. "My little dreamer of dreams." He smiled down on her. "Never stop dreaming for me, Callie. As long as you believe, perhaps I can too."

"Then you'll always believe, Peter, for 1*11 never stop." * * *

Stephen had sent Callie's note to Mrs. Pettibone while Callie went to see Peter. Then he went to the Old Bailey Boiled Beef House to wait for her as usual. She wasn't there at the regular time. He went outside, looking anxiously down the street for her. When finally he saw her, he felt irrationally angry. A bitter jealousy stirred inside him, and he didn't know how to deal with it for he had never felt that way before.

She was radiant when she came up to his side. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkling.

"How was Peter?" he asked brusquely, but she didn't even notice the strained tone of his voice.

"He was distraught at first, but he seemed better when I left. Did you send the note to Mrs. Pettibone?"

He looked at her oddly. Jealousy was not a nice feeling; it curled him up inside and made him think things that should never be thought. The seeds of ideas that Joan Burke had placed in his mind with her insinuating talk haunted him. Nothing had happened in that cell in Newgate. Nothing could, he told himself, and remembered his own trips through those bleak corridors, past those cells, and knew that anything could and did happen within the walls of Newgate, and no one cared. He looked over at Callie. She was so different today. She was always so talkative, telling him everything she and Peter had said without his having to ask. Today she was reticent, and he didn't know why. He just knew something had happened, because she was different. "I sent the message," he said finally. "Did Peter say anything about the hulks?"

"He doesn't know when it will be, but he thinks it is soon too. Perhaps tomorrow. One of the other prisoners told him that in line. We will come—just to be sure?"

"We'll come, but you know I have nothing to give to the turnkey. We can't see him in Newgate tomorrow."

"I know. We'd better hurry, Stephen. Mrs. Pettibone will be expecting us. What time is it?"

It's four o'clock. Callie . . . r

"Oh dear, that's the time I said we'd be there. Now we're going to be late."

"Callie!"

"What is it, Stephen? What is wrong with you? We're late."

"How . . . how completely are you promised to Peter?"

She avoided his eyes. "Promised? I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't see why we have to talk about everything right now. We have to hurry."