The Prince of Eden by Marilyn Harris Read Free Book Online Page B

I've seen them scattered about your desk. And give your volunteers something, and hire that man you want to teach the boys tailoring and shoemaking."
    For a moment, their eyes held. Still Daniel seemed hesitant. "I've no right to take it," he began.
    "Nonsense," Edward scoffed. "You've no right not to take it. Now,

    here." And with that he thrust the sum at Daniel and started up the stairs to his second-floor chambers. Over his shoulder he called back good-naturedly, "You're a schoolteacher, Daniel, with absolutely no business sense. It takes money to fill empty heads and bellies." At the top of the landing, he looked back on his friend, the warm features which brought him such pleasure. His fatigue was beginning to take a tremendous toll. When he spoke, his voice was low. "You serve me well, Daniel. Your good works compensate for my sins. Don't shut me out."
    From the bottom of the steps came the reply, soft, earnest. "Never, Edward. Surely you know that."
    The expression of friendship, instead of buttressing him, seemed to have the opposite effect. A feeling of loneliness, keener than any he had ever experienced before, suddenly held him in its grip. To break its spell, he tried to alter his mood. "Tell John Murrey to wait for me," he called down. "I need to call on William Pitch later. I'll be down shortly."
    Then hurriedly he escaped into his chambers and closed the door behind him. His fingers gripped the knob as though to strangle the echo of his last words to Daniel, the tone of voice he loathed, clearly that of master to servant. If indeed that despicable division existed between them, then he, Edward, was the servant and Daniel the master.
    In despair he turned away from the door and faced the spartan room, simply furnished with a pallet on the floor, one chair, one table, one washstand, one wardrobe. There was an enormous division between the two of them, one consisting of thousands of acres of rich Devon land, and an annual income of over one hundred thousand pounds and an incredible weight of personal debt and guilt. Peculiar, Edward had not felt the separation as acutely when they both had been boys. But of late it seemed to be growing stronger.
    Wearily he shed his clothes and drew on a dressing robe. Carefully he inserted the fifteen hundred pounds in a fresh packet and placed it on the table. And finally he stretched out on the pallet, his mind crowded with disjointed, fleeting memories of trifling episodes of home. North Devon, mother, father. And yet, with all that poignancy of feeling which a man is capable of experiencing, he sensed an intense love and tenderness for the old ghosts. They were all dead, or living in the past, which was as good as dead. What mattered now? None of it.
    A few moments' rest and he would go and pay his respects to William Pitch. His mother would want news. Indeed, he too hungered for an audience with the old man, realized with a start the number of times within the last twenty-four hours that William Pitch had entered his thoughts, as though he were calling to Edward, or Edward to him.

    He relaxed upon the pallet as images of William Pitch settled over him, his white flowing hair, the features strong and resolute even under the assault of illness and age. The particular worth of William Pitch to Edward, indeed to the entire reading public of London who had so profited from his keen intellectual powers and compassionate wit, was the simple ability of the man to put everything into perspective. If the rest of the world chose to drown in the flood of the present, Pitch stood high up on the dry ground of wisdom.
    In memory, Edward could hear the old man's voice, counseling patience, counseling compassion, counseling love for all, and most important, for oneself.
    Then he was incapable of thinking any more. He closed his eyes. In the beginning of the dream, he saw himself just going through a door. What was on the other side, he could not say. But a feeling of quiet stole over him,