This Other Eden (3 page)

He
turned back into his bedchamber and stared for a long moment at the lantern
left by Ragland on the table. He disliked venting his anger on the old man. He
sat stiffly on the edge of the mussed bed and returned to his instincts, the
enormous gamble he was taking. If he were ever discovered in his smuggling
pursuits, his friends at court would do him no good. He could be ruined,
stripped of his lands and titles, and led away to Plymouth to stand trial like
a commoner. Yet it was these very risks that increased his appetite for the
sport.

He
was on the verge of becoming a smuggler, and only that thought was capable of
bringing him a sense of life. No small operation, his. No waiting for
unfortunate ships to run aground, then scavenging what was left of the booty.
His would be organized, contracts signed with French vessels, night runs into
Mortemouth Cove, transferring the goods to the mouth of the tunnel that led
directly into the security of Eden itself. Who would suspect?

Again
he closed his eyes, almost delirious with anticipation. What was he doing that
was so wrong? Merely providing the overburdened and overtaxed Englishmen in his
community with simple, duty-free pleasures; tobacco for their pipes, good
brandy for their mugs. The King was wrong with his never-ending weight of
taxes. Hadn't the recent follies in the colonies proven that? Yet still George
persisted, as all men of vision could see, preparing for a prolonged engagement
with the troublesome French across the Channel. Well, Thomas didn't give a damn
about the French, or the rabble-rousers in the colonies. England was his one
concern, his only concern, and since his island country had reached the last
pinnacle of civilization, since every frontier of human endeavor had now been
approached and conquered, what was a man of action to do to keep from dying of
boredom?

A
look of anger, intense and hurried, shadowed his face and drew his mouth down.
It was his tragedy to have been bom when the world was finished, when a sturdy
coach could take a man from Exeter to London in less than three days, when a
few shillings would buy the finest meal in London, when salons and drawing
rooms could be made spectacles of warmth and comfort with imported tapestries
and the finest silks, when the heavens had been charted, the movements of the
tide marked down to the last degree, when the circlings of the sun itself were
common knowledge, all mysteries solved, all Gods dead, reason in the saddle,
spirit buried with superstition.

Such
ease of living was its own reward, and punishment. What was there left to do?
Then slowly a quiet joy radiated from his eyes. His first ship had landed. The
booty, probably at this very moment was being carefully stashed in the mouth of
the tunnel. Tomorrow, first thing, he would go down and take a look at it,
calculate the profit, urge the men to greater speed in completion of the secret
passageway. Distribution would not be easy. He needed specially trained horses.
He would have to see to it. So much to do.

As
his excitement grew, he started walking in the narrow room, stopping now and
then to glance out the window down into the inner courtyard.

The
night was interminable. He cursed aloud. There was work to be done, yet here he
stood, confined by night.

Without
warning he remembered the girl again. He stopped abruptly by the window and
stared bleakly down at the massive door of the Keep.

Perhaps
he had been harsh, but discovering her staring down the stone staircase,
looking for all the world as though she had perceived the cause and purpose of
such an excavation, turning toward him not with frightened eyes, but with
accusatory ones, resisting first his offers of bribes, then his advances,
finally striking his very person, a stupid, ignorant, lowborn female,
disorderly in heart and head, with a brother whom he knew was in the pay of the
revenue men in Exeter-No! This "child" as Ragland had falsely called
her was capable and perhaps eager to do him damage. Thomas knew all too well
that his safety lay in secrecy. He would on the morrow order all servants to
stay away from the lower floor. There was absolutely no reason for any of them
to go near the excavation site, which made him even more suspect of the girl's
prying.

She
had been in service less than three weeks. Perhaps the revenue men had gotten
wind of his new enterprise.

The
punishment would be carried out. If she survived the night, she would endure
the whipping oak. And if she endured the whipping oak, she would be exiled. Her
father and brother could come and take away what was left of her, a good object
lesson for all who planned in the future to spy on him in his own castle. He
was a peer of the realm, surrounded by senseless creatures who would do his
bidding at all times, in all matters.

All
matters.
All
matters. She could have obliged him, could have spared
herself her present predicament. He looked quickly about; the room gave back
evidence of his occupancy, looked as mauled as his present agony. It was close,
hot, so hot.

Undoubtedly
she was a virgin.

He
threw off the dressing gown altogether, exposing his body. The night was a long
journey and he was ill-prepared to make it. He extinguished the lantern and two
candles beside his bed, then watched his hand in shadow, still poised from
snuffing out the flame.

He
would not humble himself, and he had no appetite for force. Let her be. She
would learn her lesson come morning, and that would be the end of it.

Now
he stretched out on the bed, perspiring heavily. He would not sleep. He could
not sleep.

But
at least in the dark, he was the sole proprietor of an unknown land.

Hartlow
Locke was a widower, a middle-aged man who had been married three times. Each
wife had pushed forth a child and then died. He had been like a squirrel racing
a wheel day and night in an endeavor to make the three children survive. Now he
was tired.

He
had a small head which was going bald and was covered with only a rim of
coarse, gray-black hair. His body, large, fleshy and robust, somehow made one
associate him with a giant. The head and body did not go together. Only severed
could any part of him be called "right." There was an occasional
palsy in his wrists and fingers, the result of the inhuman strength required to
hold sheep when they were in the process of being sheared. He also suffered
from body vapors, excruciating pain rolling constantly in his gut, but ask him
for help or assistance of any kind and he would be there with muslin shirt,
handmade shoes, a loaf of bread, a ready ear.

He
sat at the scarred table in his low-ceilinged cottage in a swelter of close
air, surrounded by a half a dozen of his best fellows and three village women,
with tears running down his face, hands clasped though trembling before him on
the table.

No
one spoke. What was there to say? Earlier, a few of the men, made brave by the
light of day and several pints of ale, had talked of forming a militia, of
taking the castle by storm and freeing the girl, the youngest and most beloved
daughter of the wretched man.

But
night had fallen and caused a judicious rise in their common sense. Hartlow had
stumbled into the girl's bedroom and returned with a stuffed calico elephant,
her favorite toy as a child. Now the sight of this giant of a man rocking back
and forth in the chair, caressing a small stuffed elephant, had plunged all
into silence.

The
toy now lay beside the lantern, its small trunk limp from years of childhood
stroking. Now and then, Hartlow's eyes fell on it and the tears increased.
There seemed to be one horror predominant in his mind and he voiced it over and
over again. "She won't last it. They'll kill her. She's too frail. She
won't last it."

The
other fellows, all strong, strapping, and hardy, looked embarrassed and turned
away to dark comers where there were no eyes to stare back at them.

The
women hovered, hands extended, ready to relieve the burgeoning agony. Jenny
Toppinger, who had known all three dead wives and who had helped Hartlow raise
the three children, spoke most often although her words were little more than
angry expulsions of air.

All
during the evening, Hartlow was not truly aware of what was going on around
him. His mind was fixed on one horrible image, that of his daughter locked in
the Keep, enduring the charnel well, facing worse. And of course the most
agonizing question of all. Why? What for? What had been her crime? What
possible mischief could a sixteen-year-old child cause to warrant a public
whipping, a form of punishment usually reserved for thieves and poachers?

But
there were no answers to his questions, only the horror itself. He pulled
himself forward on the table, grasping the far edge with his long powerful
hands as though he intended to lift it and hurl it through space.

Quickly
Jenny stepped forward and stroked his arms, until at last he relaxed and drew
back, touching the stuffed elephant in passing as though deriving strength from
it.

He
lay limp on the table, his eyes staring sideways at the sparsely furnished
cottage, a place where until three weeks ago Marianne had been both his light
and his life, preparing his meals, reading to him in the evening. Reading was a
talent which Jenny Toppinger herself had passed on to all three of his
children. Marianne had been the most insatiable of all, reading her way through
Jenny's books, treasures brought years ago from Bath where Jenny had served as
tutor to the children of the aristocracy who came to take the warm medicinal
waters.

Hartlow
remembered, as though seeing it in the flesh, his daughter's beautiful face. He
scowled through his tears. She had had no discipline, that was the trouble.
She'd driven her sister, Jane, away to a life of God knew what in London. Jane
was a practical girl who might have taught her some practical lessons. Then
with Jane gone, four years ago, Marianne had ruled supreme over both her father
and her brother.

Abruptly
Hartlow raised his head. "Where's Russell?" he demanded. "Russell
should be here. He can stop it. He knows—"

Then
Jenny was there again, scolding him. "You sent Russell to Exeter, Hartlow.
Remember? This afternoon you sent Russell to Exeter on Dan Trigg's fastest
horse."

He
remembered and sank back into the chair, relieved now by a thread of hope.
Russell was a smart lad with well-heeled friends in Exeter. Perhaps he could
manage a reprieve, if only he could get there and back in time. It was a thin
hope, but it was all he had. That, and old Ragland's promise to try to
intervene with Lord Eden.

"Ale,
Jenny," he said weakly. "I'm dry."

The
woman obliged, quickly filled a mug from the cask on the far wall, and
delivered it to him with a loving scolding. "No wonder," she murmured
vwith mock sternness. "You've shed enough tears to fill the estuary."
She hugged him gently. "Drink, so you can shed more."

He
took the mug and drained it to the bottom, looking as though he'd fallen into a
trance. Memory, that fearful monster, was punishing him dreadfully. Slumped in
his chair, he remembered the argument three weeks ago which had led to him
forcing Marianne into service at Eden Castle. Impudent always, but more
impudent on this particular evening, she had scorned the suit of Bobby Fishly,
a decent lad, son of a good friend. He had come calling with a bouquet of
posies, and Marianne had laughed at his earnest ardor and taunted him cruelly,
calling him Fishly the Fishmonger. She had embarrassed the boy by accepting his
posies with her fingers pressed against her nostrils, and had ultimately
reduced him to complete mortification, causing him to flee the cottage with the
echo of her laughter ringing in his ears.

Hartlow
had exploded in a rage, smacking the insensitive girl twice across her face—the
first time in his life he had ever lifted a hand to her. But she had merely
smiled back at him, had reminded him that Bobby's suit had been his idea, not
hers, an unbearable smile of arrogance that no father in his right mind could endure.
The very next morning he had bundled her clothes together and dragged her up
the cliff and deposited her in the stem, capable hands of Dolly Wisdom with the
instructions that Dolly was to bring her to her senses through whatever means
she saw fit.

Oh,
God, how deeply those words cut now. He groaned and fell forward again,
covering his head with his hands as though to ward off the blows of an
assailant.