This Other Eden (27 page)

Apparently
Jane saw her discomfort and tried to soothe her. "No need. The past is
over, no matter what you've done."

The
words, in reality softly spoken, seemed to thunder and echo about the pavement.
No matter what you've done.

The
strange man in the artist's smock was upon them, warmly grasping William's arm.
Surely he had heard the words
No matter what you've done
.

Marianne
pulled away from the encounter. Taking Jane with her, she whispered,
"Let's walk ahead." She stumbled going up the steps, and the only
warmth she felt was her hand where Jane grasped it.

Pushing
his way through the throngs of people and carriages outside the Pantheon,
Thomas Eden, his mask dangling uselessly from his finger, prayed to his God
that he should not see anyone he knew.

Unfortunately,
at that moment a sharp "Thomas, Thomas Eden!" cut through the din of
voices. He stopped, cursing his God and himself for not adjusting his mask
before he'd left his house.

Trapped!
He turned slowly and saw over the bobbing wigs a young man rushing excitedly
toward him. Unhappily, the fellow had the advantage. He was masked and wearing
an artist's smock, a beret perched aside his head, wigless, like Thomas,
revealing a luxuriant head of flowing black hair.

"Thomas
Eden?" he shouted again as though uncertain of the identification. He was
standing directly before Thomas, his hand extended, grinning. "It is!"
he exclaimed. "How good to see you!"

Thomas
wished that he could return the sentiment, but he was at a loss.

The
young man continued to grin. "Would it help if I removed the mask?"
he offered.

Thomas
nodded, keeping his annoyance in admirable check. "It might," he
conceded. "As it is, you have the clear advantage."

The
black eyes sparkled, but the mask remained in place. "You took me to the
cliff at Eden Point once and threatened to push me over if I didn't give you
the blue agate you so desperately wanted."

The
fog in Thomas' brain, caused partly by brandy and his own unhappy state,
lifted. Smiling in spite of himself, he announced, "Beckford. Billy
Beckford."

Apparently
right on the nose. As the young man stripped off his mask, Thomas saw the fair
skin, slightly protruding nose, and almost feminine eyes of the little boy who
had visited Eden Castle many times in the company of his father, the former
Lord Mayor of London and one of Thomas' father's closest friends and hunting
companions. As he returned the handshake, both men made their way out of the
push of traffic to a relatively quiet place, close to one of the outlying
colonnades.

Billy,
still looking boyish, shook his head continuously in disbelief. "I thought
it was you. But I wasn't certain. My God, it's been years."

With
no choice but to be reasonably pleasant, Thomas obliged. "Not that many,
please. And I wouldn't have pushed you over the cliff. I hope you know
that."

Billy
smiled. "I know it now, but I didn't then. You were an imposing figure to
a boy of six."

"A
fake, I can assure you," Thomas said, with proper repentance, his mind
still sorting out the memory, the almost twelve years' difference between them,
his father's insistence that he be nice to the little boy. Thomas looked more
closely at the face out of the past. Billy still looked the little boy,
although by rapid calculation Thomas estimated his age as approaching thirty.

There
was that awkward silence, that painful interval when old friends meet and find
the passage of years unbridgeable.

Billy
spoke first, slightly subdued as though he too were suddenly aware of all that
had happened. "Those were good days," he commented nostalgically. "Our
fathers the best of friends."

"Indeed,"
Thomas concurred.

"Have
you married?" Billy asked.

"No.
And you?"

"Good
heavens, no." Billy looked out over the crowd of faces, all masked, his
normally high spirits still intact. "I'm to meet someone." He
laughed. "Quite a challenge, wouldn't you say?"

Thomas
agreed, then added, "Well, you recognized me."

"Only
because you were unmasked," Billy said with a smile.

As
again Billy searched the crowds, Thomas continued to search through the past.
He remembered that after Billy's father had died, Billy had inherited a fine
house and estate called Fonthill in a particularly beautiful part of Wiltshire.
On trips with his father from London back to North Devon, Thomas had always
viewed Fonthill as a kind of halfway house, a lovely classical estate situated
close by a little L-shaped lake, a pleasant place to spend a fortnight. Their
fathers used to say laughingly that between Beckford land and Eden land they
could hunt almost uninterrupted on their private estates all the way from
London to the Bristol Channel.

Now
they
were the inheritors, the two of them, and although the land mass
had dwindled under the unbearable pressure of taxation, Thomas knew that Billy
had inherited nearly a million guineas per year, derived mainly from sugar
plantations in Jamaica. Nothing to compare to Thomas' wealth, but adequate
nonetheless.

Peculiarly,
Thomas now warmed to the chance encounter. Perhaps it might be profitable after
all. Surely Billy knew people. As the young man continued to search the crowd,
Thomas offered his assistance. "Who is it that you're looking for?"
he inquired. "Perhaps I can help. I'm afraid that Eden does not enjoy the
same close proximity to London as Fonthill, but still I know a few
people."

Billy
turned his attention away from the crowd and back to Thomas, something sparking
his enthusiasm anew. His fingers moved rapidly in and out of the little empty
hollows of the palette which he held in his hand. "Thomas," he began,
leaning close, as though to share a secret, "you wouldn't believe what I'm
doing at Fonthill. I'm leveling the whole thing and starting again, more than a
house this time, an abbey with a tower higher than Salisbury, higher than
Antwerp even." The more he talked, the more excited he became and the
faster went the fingers in and out of the empty palette.

Thomas
indulged him with a smile, although in truth he thought the project absurd and
a waste. Fonthill was elegant, grand enough to entertain over five hundred
guests. He couldn't imagine why Billy wanted more. He said as much. "I
remember Fonthill with pleasure. I hate to think of its destruction."

But
Billy's excitement could not be subdued. "That old palace with tertian
fevers, with its small doors and mean casements," he said, shuddering
dismally. "No, it's no longer adequate. A man must have a tower, don't you
think, Thomas?" Not waiting for a reply, he rushed on. "And I intend
to have one, the grandest in all of England." Without pausing for breath,
he inquired earnestly, "Have you read my book, Thomas?"

Book?
Did the romantic dabbler write as well? Thomas murmured his apologies.
"The pleasure has not been mine."

"Then
I shall send a copy around," Billy offered. "It's quite a good
story," he added immodestly, "an Arabian tale called Vathek in which
the hero builds for himself an immense tower of fifteen hundred steps. You see,
Thomas"—and he leaned close, clearly instructing—"a tower is something
special, not only to be viewed with awe from below, but also to provide the
widest possible outlook from the top."

Thomas
saw something in the slightly glazed yet boyish eyes that alarmed him. He'd
heard rumors that the boy was mad.

Billy
rushed on, undaunted, his eyes fixed on some indefinite spot on the pavement, a
peculiar downward vision for a man obsessed by towers. "On the Grand Tour,
Thomas, I found much that excited my mind. Have you ever seen the tower of
Antwerp Cathedral at night, rising in a huge mass above the lower galleries
while the light of heaven twinkles through the interstices of the
pinnacles?" As he talked, he raised his arms upward, upward, re-creating
at least for himself the impressive edifice, his face aglow with memory. With his
arms still extended straight up into the air, he looked back at Thomas, a soft
smile on his face. "That's what I intend to replace Fonthill with, just
the grandest abbey in all of England."

Faced
with such passion, deranged or not, Thomas had no choice but to concur. He
asked hesitantly, "An abbey, Billy? A practicing abbey?"

"Oh,
no, of course not," Billy corrected. "Only the appearance of an
abbey, like those of Alcobaca and Batalha in Portugal."

"Then
a Folly," Thomas commented meanly, but feeling that he must do something
to bring the young man to his senses. He thought of the fashionable Follies
springing up all over England, those spurious insincerities, reproductions of
Greek and Chinese temples, Gothic ruins where no building had ever stood before,
artificial grottoes and waterfalls in the most unlikely places, expensive and
foolish vanities.

But
apparently this description did not apply to Billy. In fact, quite the
contrary, for now he bragged, "Yes, exactly, but the greatest Folly of
them all."

Thomas
looked closely at the face from his youth. Inside he heard the strains of the
first minuet. He'd come on business. Now for the first time he slipped the mask
over his face, clearly taking refuge behind it, hoping to signal to Billy that
they must push on. He'd heard enough about towers, real or imagined. Perhaps
the young man wasn't truly mad. Some smuggled, others built towers. Ultimately
both received and gave pleasure.

He
took the young man's arm, almost a paternal gesture. "Shall we join the
festivities?" he invited.

But
Billy declined. "I must wait here for Mr. Wyatt," he said. Then, as
though fearful that Thomas had missed the name, Billy repeated it with
elaboration. "Jamie Wyatt, the premier architect, you know." He stood
back and opened his arms to encompass the Pantheon. "This is his. Just
think, Thomas, Jamie Wyatt building my tower. There will be nothing like it,
nothing like it in all the world."

Thomas
felt a compulsion to separate himself from the young man. If he wasn't deranged,
he was on the verge of it, and Thomas didn't know how to respond. But as he
tried to move away, Billy blocked his path. "Stay with me, Thomas,"
he begged softly. "I need your good judgment and companionship. We were
lost and now found. Let us nourish our friendship."

There
was romantic melancholy in his face, his pleading. For the first time Thomas
saw clearly the little six-year-old boy standing on the edge of Eden Cliff,
handing over his blue agate in return for the gift of acceptance.

Apparently
Billy saw the hesitancy on Thomas' face. "I know people," he offered
slyly. "Whatever has brought you out of your isolation on Eden Point, I
know people who can satisfy you, amuse you, serve you."

In
a way Thomas felt sorry for him. How many blue agates had he given away in
search of acceptance?

As
though to make good his word, Billy began glancing feverishly at the dwindling
crowd. A late carriage pulled up at the curb. As the footman swomg open the
door, a man and two ladies alighted. Only the man was unmasked. As Billy rushed
forward in a burst of recognition, Thomas assumed that the great architect,
James Wyatt, had arrived. Planning to make his escape in the rush of greetings,
Thomas adjusted his mask and started slowly toward the brightly lit central arch.
The constant din of voices, the pressure of an old acquaintance turned slightly
batty, had left him mildly undone. He was not a talking man, and as always
London required of a man that he be able and willing to talk.

He
looked back at the party gathered at the edge of the pavement. The man—James
Wyatt, he assumed—who had fallen into the clutches of Billy Beckford wore the
masquerade of a Scottish Highlander, his kilts hanging Foolishly over white
knee stockings. The ladies with him were simply disguised, one as a haymaid
wielding her delicate rake as though she intended to use it on present company,
and the other, slight, looking timid in her serving girl garb, done up in
ridiculous flounces with flowers attached to the hem of her skirt.