Bitter Eden (61 page)

At dawn of the second day there was finally a change in Peter's condition. The fever broke, and for hours Stephen changed bedsheets and mopped at his brothers wet body. When it was over, and Peter's forehead was cool, he slept, a natural sleep for the first time.

In the morning Peter opened his eyes without the fevered haze of distortion. He glanced furtively around the room; then he saw Stephen sitting in the chair beside the bed. Quickly he glanced at his brother, then lowered his eyes as he had been brutally trained to do, not daring to look Stephen in the eye. Stephen spoke softly, his voice cheerful. 'Welcome back."

Peter glanced up again, a look no longer than a blink. The gnawing pain was deep in his vitals, and his throat was thick. "Stephen?" "Yeah. You look better . . . you feeling better?" Peter nodded, still looking perplexed and frightened. He examined every part of his brother, daring to raise his eyes as far as Stephen's chest, but not to his face. Then he looked about the room. The pain grew stronger, tightening around his chest. His clothes hung in the cupboard as they always had. The clock on the mantel was there. It looked as though it hadn't been touched in the entire time he had been gone, but it was strange to him. He could no longer tell reality from dream. Many times he wasn't even sure if he was alive or dead. Nothing made sense any longer, and he

hadn't the strength or the courage to examine anything very closely. He startled at the sound of Stephens voice although he spoke softly and with an overtone of love that Peter hadn't remembered a mans voice could hold.

"You gave us quite a scare for a while."

Peter longed to ask him if that meant he was really here, and it wasn't another phantom of a tortured imagination; but he dared not. He kept his eyes down.

Watching him, Stephen felt his own stomach tighten, but he forced an easy-sounding laugh. "You don't remember? Well, believe me, big brother, you gave Callie the battle of her life."

For the first time Peter looked up and met Stephen's eyes for a moment. "Callie? I thought . . ."

"She was a dream?" Stephen smiled. "Well, I don't blame you. Waking up and seeing Callie is most likely to make any man think he is dreaming. But she was no dream. She was with you day and night."

Peter's face twisted; he laid back against the pillows, his eyes closed holding in the tears that burned.

'Would you like to see her? She's waited a long time for this moment."

Peter remained still with his eyes closed, the tears slowly trickling from his eyes.

Stephen went to Callie's room, knocking gently on the door. She opened it immediately, looking anxiously at him. "You shouldn't have let me sleep like that, Stephen! All day and . . ."

"He's going to be all right," Stephen said quickly. "He's clear-minded and awake—I think he'd like to see you."

Callie ran from the room only to be halted by Stephen's voice. "Callie . . . don't expect too much from him. Not yet."

She shook her head. "I won't." She ran the rest of the way to Peter's room.

Daring something he had not dared in over a year, and risking what he didn't know, Peter watched her as she walked toward him, never taking his eyes from her. She meant everything good to him. She had meant hope when there was none. Somehow when everything else became terrifying Callie had remained the one safe harbor in his mind. He had lost his courage, his sanity, his faith in everything but her. He had clung to the thought of her through everything, and he couldn't, no matter what it cost him in pain or punishment, take his eyes from her now. Slowly he moved his hand up to his chest to cover the brand.

"You look better today," she said, suddenly shy, faced with him awake and looking at her in naked wonderment.

"You were here? All the time?"

"Always," she smiled.

It was like seeing the sun come out. It blinded him. He looked down at her hand, remembering her touch, but not moving his own from the brand.

"There's nothing to hide, Peter. Give me your hand," she said softly as she put her hand out to him. "I have washed you and cared for you. There is nothing on the outside that I don't know about. Don't hide from me."

He took her hand without looking at her and brought it back against his chest. Callie sat on the edge of his bed as near to him as she could. Moving his hand slightly, she touched the brand. "Do you know what it stands for?"

He turned away from her, roughly putting his hand back in place over it. Again his muscles drew up involuntarily, his stomach taut and hard and hurting. She was so full of softness and forgiveness. Would she

remain so if she knew the brand was a symbol of truth now? What would she do if she knew about Walter Wheeler and John the Pocket? Would she then hate him as others did, as he sometimes did himself?

"No, Peter, not what you think. Look at me." He couldn't do it. He was suffocating from the need to have her near, and terrified her nearness would somehow tell her of his own hideous depravity. Somehow she'd begin to sense what he was. He moaned with a physical ache as he thought of keeping her near only to watch her turn from him as everyone else did, or of putting her away from him now and never knowing her touch again. He was so tired he couldn't think any more.

He closed his eyes, shivering as she ran her sweet-smelling hand down the side of his face. "Look at me, Peter," she repeated softly. As he turned, she smiled, and again it hurt him deep inside. "Mine," she said, again tracing the scar of the brand. "That's all it means now. Welcome home, Peter." Before he could move or react, she leaned down to kiss him. Peter lay still for a moment, his chest tight, unable to breathe. Then her lips touched his eyes, and he put his arm around her, sobbing. He tangled his fingers deep in her hair as again he smelled the fresh scents of the lemon and herbs she used. "Callie," he murmured over and over. "Touch me . . . just keep your hand on me," he breathed, his face rubbing against hers until he found her mouth. "You won't ever . . ."

"HI never leave you. As long as we both live, you'll never be alone again," she whispered, then sat up, kissing him quickly. She looked down at the brand again, drawing his attention to it once more. He tightened, flinching away from her gaze. "No, Peter, don't," she said so softly he wasn't sure he heard. She traced the outline of the letter. "Now, my own, I want you to

sleep, and get well. Soon it will be time for you to think of Jamie and your hop yards. There's a whole world waiting for you, Peter."

He listened to her, and when he heard her words he wondered if perhaps there was such a thing as the world he 50 vaguely remembered and so poignantly distrusted. He watched her carefully as she stood, straightening her hair and dress.

She gave him a look of dismay, smiling and shaking her head. "You have no faith, silly. I'm not going anywhere, m be right here," she said, sitting down and taking his hand again.

Peter closed his eyes as she wanted him to, but he didn't sleep. He'd do nothing to displease her, nothing to make him lose the treasure of her hand in his, but as soon as he was sure she was no longer watching him, he opened his eyes, looking at her with naked longing. How he wanted the touch of her hand against his chest again, to feel her hand soothe his face, to feel her breath on him, to kiss her.

To Peter a regulated day had no reality. He lived in a limbo where no new pains were inflicted on him except those of longing and the fear of loss, and unknowingly he put enormous demands on Callie. He had once thought, the first time he had been sent to the triangles, that he knew what it was to want to die. He hadn't known then, but he did know now. All that represented life to him was bound up in Callie and his fantasy of her. She was his door to living, and without her he knew he not only did not want to live, but would no longer know how. He began to exist in desperate fear of losing her. If she wasn't by his side when he was awake, he felt closed in and terrified. If he awoke from sleep and she was gone, he was certain she had only been a dream. He wanted her with him

day and night. He longed for her touch with a passion that went far beyond the mere needs of sex. To him she had become life. She was the only person in whom he believed; where she was, he was safe.

Callie responded to his need of her with amazing constancy. She was exhausted, but she refused to compromise or try in any way to lessen the time she spent with him. Though Stephen begged her to think of herself at least part of the time, he didn't pressure her, for he knew as well as she did why Peter clung to her. And Callie had slowly begun to learn certain ways of easing the pain and the nightmares that still racked him. In the middle of the night when he'd awaken the entire household with frightened, agonized screams of being closed in on the Rock and left alone, she had learned that all she need do was to move as close to him as she could, to warm his shivering cold body with hers, and slowly he'd awaken, understand where he was, and quiet again.

Weeks went by, a month, then two. Stephen and Callie watched as his body began to heal. The fever was a thing of the past; the infected lacerations were healing; his general state of debilitation was abating. Daily they expected him to become restless and take up his old life again. That there were some problems, they understood. Peter was a wanted man and would remain so all of his life. Any man escaping from a British penal colony was under the death penalty. Should he ever be seen or sought by a British officer, he would be taken back to England and hanged, so they would always have to be careful. But Stephen felt that Peter was safe in Poughkeepsie, and he would do all the traveling so that Peter could remain in the background as much as he thought advisable. In a few years, Stephen was sure, it would all be forgotten.

Peter listened to him and spoke agreement with whatever Stephen suggested, but the running of a brewery and a hop yard and a business were so far removed from Peter as to have no meaning. Stephen spoke in terms of years, while it required all of Peter s concentration and courage to live through hours.

What Peter wanted was for everything to stop long enough for him to rest. He didn't want to "get on" with his life. He didn't yet know what his life was, and he was too tired and too frightened to challenge anything. He just wanted to stay where he was for a time. For the first time since his arrest, Peter felt safe and comforted in Callie's care. For these past few weeks there had been no decision to make or problem to face, no punishment to come from looking her or Stephen in the eye or from speaking to them without first being granted permission. These were the things neither Stephen nor Callie thought about or would ever truly understand; but for Peter, breaking down the fear of flogging and isolation in order to do the simple things the rest of the world took for granted was a monumental undertaking. Most of the time he felt too weak and too confused to try to be "normal."

But Peter was aware that this interlude would have to end whether he was ready for it or not. It would last only as long as the healthy people accepted him as being ill. And when that time was over—and it was nearly so now—he would have to try to enter life as he had once known it. He saw it narrowly, as though there were only twaohoices; being what Stephen told him he should be, or going back to Van Diemen's Land. He never thought in terms of what he wanted, only in terms of what others might demand of him. He began to listen carefully to the noises of the household.

Stephen was like a fresh spring colt, romping

through the house with Jamie, teasing the servants, and playfully loving with Callie. But Peter was aware of more than that. Stephen was the central core around which the rest of the household moved. Mornings began when Stephen opened his eyes. The quiet broke as he strode from his room and then into Peter s room, tousled, hair wet from washing, and more often tlian not laughing as Callie ran behind, scolding his abominable habits.

Peter waited this morning as he did every morning for Stephens appearance at the bedroom door.

"Good morning!" Stephen said, and then with only a towel wrapped around his loins, he sat in the chair near his brothers bed and told him of what was to be done that day in the yard and the brewery, and at what point the harvest was. Then he stood up, a smile on his face full of life and deviltry. He roared at Callie as he left the room, barely able to suppress his laughter. "Where'd you hide my shirt?"

"In your drawer."

"Not so!"

"It is—have you looked?"

"Drawer's empty!"

He held the shirt behind his back as she ran up the stairs, then followed her down the hall putting it on. He laughed as she turned around, scowling and hitting him.

Peter couldn't imagine being like that again. He could stay as he was, receptive and wanting, but to be able to sing and laugh as Stephen did for sheer good humor was something locked tight inside Peter. Van Diemen's Land was thousands of miles away, but it didn't matter because the prison was inside him, and that made everything else unimportant.

As Peter continued to stay in his room upstairs, Cal-lie and Stephen worried, knowing that he didn't want to be well. "He can't lie up there tucked away from everything but us forever," Stephen said firmly one evening at dinner.

Callie ate slowly. This was something she didn't like to talk about, because she didn't like thinking about it. There seemed to be no answer. She finally said, "He needs more time."

"He's had time. It's only going to get worse the longer he puts it off. I'm going to tell him to come to dinner tomorrow."

"And if he refuses?"

"He won't refuse. Peter does what he is ordered. It is all that he does. God, Callie, he must have lived through hell, but if ordering him is the only way I have of bringing him back, I'll order him. I'll order him to laugh if I must."

"Stephen, that's cruel!"

"What choice have I got, Callie? Those scars he carries aren't only on the outside. What else can I do?"

"I don't know, but ... oh, Stephen, he still has those awful nightmares. I know he has to get over them before he's better. I don't know what they mean exactly, but . . ."