This Other Eden (4 page)

The
women hovered, the men refilled their mugs, and there was no sound in the small
hot cottage but the unendurable sobs coming from the man with his face pressed
against the table. It could not be borne, the weight of memory and guilt.
Without warning, like a madman, he rose from the table with such force that the
chair clattered backward. Jenny screamed, "Stop him! He's left his
senses!"

Upon
this command all the men fell upon him, a screaming, spewing turmoil of
violence, the strength of the six seemingly inadequate to the outrage of the
one, a caldron of oaths and shouts and curses, boots upended, fists flailing.
Jenny grabbed the lantern before the table was pushed over in a crescendo of
rising fury, Hartlow dragging all of them to the floor in one screaming,
writhing body of frustration and pain. Foaming at the mouth, his eyes resembled
those of a frightened stallion.

A
male voice shouted for rope. Jenny went flying out of the low rear door,
returning a moment later with a long thick piece of hemp, dragging it awkwardly
behind her, her sharp eyes taking in at once the damage that had been done to
the cottage and the worse damage done to the man himself.

Hardow
lay pinned upon the floor, a man on each limb, his mouth still working,
pleading with God to place His hands on her. He lay quite placidly as the men
bound him, as though he wanted to be restrained. Starting at his massive
shoulders, they wound the thick hemp around and around, weaving in an arm
there, another here, the full length of his body, twisting and knotting it
finally about his ankles until he was trussed at last, unable to move.

He
strained now and again against his bondage, but they were efforts of no great
magnitude. At last his physical agony matched his inner agony, all the
trappings of his soul and personality bound with misery.

Jenny
made an attempt to communicate with the suffering man. She placed the lantern
beside her and knelt down. "Hartlow," she whispered, "you
mustn't do this. Marianne will need your strength tomorrow."

At
the sound of the name his eyes grew wide and rolled upward, leaving two white
ovals as though he were examining something inside his skull. His lips moved.
"Be quick, child," he whispered. "It's late. Time you were
abed."

Jenny
shook her head sadly. "He's gone," she murmured. The men stared,
horrified, down at the man mumbling bedtime instructions to a nonexistent
child. He was speaking aloud now, a firm voice of command. "Marianne, I
want my tea," his face suddenly and mysteriously at peace. Then
incongruously he smiled. "Holy Mother of Mercy." His eyes fluttered
as though a spectacularly dazzling vision had just appeared before him.

Jenny
and the others watched and listened for as long as they could stand it. Drying
her tears roughly with the back of her hand, Jenny ordered one of the women to
fetch the small pillow from off Hartlow's bed. She gently lifted the small head
and slipped the pillow beneath it. Slowly, as though moving in a trance, the
men went about setting the cottage to rights, restoring the chairs and table,
picking up a piece of tinware here, straightening a candlestick there.

Activity
seemed to take their minds off the man lying in the center of the floor,
although once or twice he laughed crazily and sang a little melody, drawing all
eyes fearfully back to him.

They
all seemed to be trying very hard to keep busy, reaching out again and again
for tasks that had been completed. So busy were they in their mock duties that
they failed to hear the footstep on the stoop. Jenny looked up first.
"Ragland!" she gasped and rushed to embrace the old man who stood in
the doorway, taking all in, his boots covered with dust from his rapid descent
down the cliff walk.

"What's
happened here?" he demanded, seeing his friend trussed and mumbling on the
floor.

When
no one seemed inclined to speak, he demanded again, "What happened?"
and rushed to the man lying on the floor.

Jenny
followed after him. "It's no use," she whispered.

As
though to make a liar out of her, Hardow raised up. His eyes opened, focused,
seemed for a moment to respond to Ragland's presence. "Did I show
you," he began with a weak smile, "the embroidery that Marianne
completed yesterday?" He seemed to warm to his subject and again tried to
raise up. Weakly he fell back, but continued to speak. "The image of a
unicorn it is, as elegant as any you would ever want to see, with a garland of
roses wrapped about his horn." The large man pushed his head backward
against the floor, laughing heartily. "Roses wrapped around his horn! Can
you imagine, Ragland?" Now he motioned with his head for Ragland to come
closer as though to share a secret. "Don't make sport of it in front of
her, my friend. She has a man's temper and a woman's wiles." Now he wagged
his head back and forth. "Can you imagine? Roses wrapped around a man's
horn?" Then again spasms of silent laughter seized him. He rolled his head
rapidly from side to side, then finally was still, although his lips moved
continuously, silently forming the words "Marianne, Marianne." Through
it all, Ragland stared, disbelieving. "Dear God," he whispered.

Jenny
tried to soften the realization. "Do you have news, Ragland?" she
implored. "Good news might bring him to his senses."

Ragland
brought the palms of his hands together, his expression that of a man gazing
into a fresh grave. "My God," he whispered again, the full horror
dawning on him. He stepped around the fallen man without a sound. He looked
angrily at Jenny. "Could you not have prevented it?"

And
she in turn displayed a small temper of her own. "Oh, yes," she
snapped. "As soon as I stopped the tide, it was my intention to stem his madness."

Ragland
shook his head as though to tell her he was sorry, then something tightened in
his face. "Perhaps it's just as well," he said, turning his back on
the fallen man. There was an air of authority about him now, like the bearer of
bad tidings. He wasn't responsible for the content of the message. "It
will
take place," he announced, moving toward the door. "My plea went
unheeded."

When
his announcement brought no audible response from the others in the room, he
turned back almost angry, quite defensive, "Her offense warrants it. I can
assure you of that," he added. "She was given every opportunity to
apologize and she refused."

The
disbelief and condemnation of every eye in the room was on him now, an
intolerable burden. He stepped quickly through the doorway as though to end the
distasteful encounter. Then slowly he came back, a portion of his authority
gone, replaced now by decent compassion. "I'm sorry, Jenny," he
muttered. "I tried to convince him it would serve no purpose." He
shook his head, recalling the futile encounter with Lord Eden. "I tried to
tell him that Dolly Wisdom could—" He broke off and concluded simply with,
"He refused. Everything."

A
bleak silence fell over the room. In an attempt to lighten their burden as well
as his own, he added, "It will be only ten strokes." He lowered his
head, eyes closed. "She won't like it, but she'll survive it"

One
woman mourned, "Sweet Jesus, she's only sixteen."

Ragland
countered, "Her youth will be in her favor."

One
of the men asked, "Who is to administer the punishment?"

Ragland
looked sharply in the direction of the question. "The same as
always," he said, annoyed. "Who else?"

Still
there was no end to their misery. "The same as always" was as good as
saying Satan himself. Indeed Satan was another word for Jack Spade, head
overseer for the Eden estates, the man whose power outside the castle walls was
equivalent to that which Ragland held inside the fortress, a highly trusted man
known for his blind obedience to Lord Eden, with brute force in the breadth of
his shoulders and a slightly vacant look in his red face, red eyebrows, long
red hair, and thick red-splotched bull neck. The news that Jack Spade was to
administer the punishment plunged them even deeper into gloom, until every
occupant of the room looked as distracted and unseeing as Hartlow himself.

Jenny
murmured, "He'll kill her."

"No,"
Ragland promised. "I'll be there."

It
was a small comfort, but the best he could offer. Now it was clear that he'd
had enough of the grim gathering. He retreated over the threshold. A clear look
of pain crossed his face, as though this last message was perhaps the hardest.
"Remember," he added in a weak voice, "it is to be public."
He faltered, then went on. "It will go easier on her if you climb the cliff
tomorrow. At seven."

All
eyes in the room were on him, a new resistance in their expressions, something
akin to hate, as though Ragland were not merely the emissary from the source of
all authority, but the authority himself.

One
man standing in shadows muttered angrily, "Has he gone yet? There is a
stench in the room."

Ragland
looked toward the voice, sorrow creasing his eyes, but still resolved through a
total lack of options. His hands were trembling as he reached out through the
opened doorway as though for support. "Hartlow, too," he called back,
his voice breaking. "It's important that her father witness, and her
brother—"

Apparently
he could not finish. He muttered something and stumbled out into the hot night.

A
dog barked somewhere in the distance. There was the continuous hum of the surf.
Then, as though their constitutions had no more strength for endurance, the men
began to drift toward the door. Jenny urged them on with considerate tones.
"You go," she suggested, "all of you. I'll sit with him. He may
come around."

One
woman passing by the fallen Hartlow prayed, "Please God that he does
not"

All
understood the terse prayer. One by one Jenny bade them goodnight. No one offered
to stay with her. They merely took their apprehension out into the night, the
last one closing the door behind him as though in an effort to contain the
misfortune which had this night descended upon one of the citizens of
Mortemouth.

Alone,
Jenny looked helplessly about. It was impossible to catalogue the precise fury
in her brain. A good man had been run to ground. In the morning a young girl
would have to endure suffering and humiliation that would test a saint, a son
had been sent off on a wild-goose chase over black moors rife with highwaymen
to plead a lost cause to deaf ears. And there was nothing she could do, nothing
she could do about any of it.

Her
body gave slightly, a mere bowing of the head at first, then the softest of
collapses at the side of the still grinning Hardow. In his face was the tense
expression of a man surviving in an alien element. For a moment she wished to
join him. But unfortunately her own mind felt solid, specialized, and as
polished as oak.

She
remained bent over him for a moment, rebounding with waves of hope. But when he
looked up at her with haunted eyes, spittle drooling in an uncontrollable
stream down the side of his chin, and begged in childlike tones, "Fetch
Marianne," all hope vanished. She pressed her head against his heaving
chest and gave release to the grief within her.

Staring
sideways through a residue of tears, she spied on the floor, in the shadows of
the room, something white.

She
tried to look more closely with failing vision made doubly weak by her weeping.
What was it? She couldn't tell, although it lay only a few feet distant. Then
she saw. It was the small stuffed elephant, Marianne's calico pet, its back
broken open in the recent melee, spilling white cotton stuffing from the split
seam of its back.

She
rose laboriously to her feet and scooped up the injured toy. Quickly she found
Marianne's sewing box. Drawing a chair close to the table, she bent over the
lantern light, surveying the damage. It could be mended. It must be mended.

Seeing
that Hardow dozed, Jenny drew the chair even closer to the lantern. Like
something once dormant, but now moved out of death's way, she carefully
restored the stuffing through the crack in the spine.

At
twenty-five, Russell Locke was normally a reliable eldest son. He was tall and
lean, displaying the small head and potentially large frame of his father. He
lacked only filling out and that would come in the middle years, and then he
would be an exact duplication of Hartlow Locke—in every respect save one.