Chapter 19

CHAPTER19

"Edward! Edward!" He heard Leah call out his name in a manner that made her voice ring throughout the mansion. "Edward, are you here?"

Usually, he did not like noise. It distracted him. It made him nervous. He preferred peace and quiet. But with Leah, he would take the sound of her voice over silence any day. He stood up from his chair in his study and went to the door to open it.

"In here!" he shouted in the doorway, listening to the sound of her footsteps climbing up the stairs hastily. Then, he saw her running down the corridor, carrying a big cardboard box in her hands, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes filled with hope. Never had she appeared more beautiful than at this very moment.

"I found something!" she exclaimed, rushing into his study past him and placing the box on his writing table, not caring that there were items on it, which she carelessly pushed to the side. Strangely, he also did not seem to mind. He was too curious regarding the mysterious box.

"Well, that makes one of us," he smiled. "I spent the whole day going through business documents and more books. I’m sorry to say that I have nothing to show for it."

He walked over to the box and eyed it intriguingly. It looked like just an ordinary box, but from the way she talked, he was certain that it contained something special, something that made Leah shout his name and run up to him.

"What did you find?" he wondered eagerly.

"This box contains my mother’s old stuff," she explained. "Most of which you wouldn’t be interested in. But... there is one thing that is bound to capture your attention."

She opened the box and extracted what appeared to be a leather notebook. Immediately, his interest piqued.

"Is that what I think it is?" he asked, pointing at the notebook.

"Yes," she nodded, her eyes wide and beaming. "This is my mother’s diary. I found it with her old stuff in the attic. I brought it here so we can go over it together. I figured, maybe some things might make sense to you if they don’t make sense to me."

He had to admit that he wasn’t expecting her to do this. He wondered how she didn’t succumb to the temptation to read through the whole thing right then and there. He knew that he would be tempted to do so. He wasn’t sure if he would have been able to wait for so long to discover what answers might be hiding inside the covers of that diary.

"We need to go through the whole thing," she told him, as she took a seat on the sofa by the window. "Slowly and patiently."

He was more than ready to make that sacrifice. "I have been meaning to take care of some correspondence, but this is far too important." He got comfortable close to her on the sofa, then gazed at her. "Since this is your mother’s diary, you may do the honor of reading the first pages aloud."

He could see how important this was to her, to them both. When he noticed that her hands were trembling as she held the diary, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer to himself. She looked up. He could see a glimmer of tears in her eyes.

"It will be all right, Leah, I promise," he smiled. "Even if there is nothing inside this diary but words of your mother how much she loved you and your father, it is still something to rejoice over."

Two stray tears rolled down her cheeks. "Thank you... " her voice was on the verge of breaking, "thank you for always knowing what to say."

He smiled, watching her wipe those tears with her sleeves, almost like a little street urchin, not caring the least bit about manners and propriety. This was just one of the things he loved about her. She did what felt good and right. She wasn’t concerned about others’ opinion of her. This helped him get out of his shell as well, and now he found himself on this path, along with her.

She opened the first page and read the date. It was two years before her untimely death. Leah started to read. "Today, I helped someone. That in itself should be enough to make me feel good, but I always feel that there is more we can do. There are so many people in dire distress and need, and we should never turn our heads away from them, because we never know when we might find ourselves in that same situation." Leah stopped reading. She seemed to be pondering her mother’s words. She turned to Edward. "Do you think she already knew she was in trouble, and this was her way of silently asking for help?"

"I doubt your mother did anything silently," he assured her. "If she needed help, she would not hesitate to ask for it."

"You are right," she nodded.

Then, she continued to read. The next several pages went along the same lines, where her mother kept mentioning the people she had helped, mostly women with abusive husbands who thought it was all right to raise one’s hands to a woman. Edward could never understand that. Even listening to such stories made him angry. Still, he tried to remain calm.

Page after page was read, and still there was nothing new, nothing regarding her connection with Edward’s parents or the mysterious man. Then, finally, while it was Edward’s turn to read, they stumbled onto something interesting.

"Listen to this," he said, with his index finger pointing at the lines in question, which he was about to read. "I have stumbled onto this man’s name several times already, in my dealings with those who are considered to be unworthy of mention by the high society." Edward knew who those might be. The gamblers, the drunkards, sometimes even just being poor was enough to put one on this undesirable list. Heck, even he was on it now. Fortunately, he did not care about it one bit.

"Who is this man?" Leah immediately jumped.

"It doesn’t say," he replied. "At least, not here. She continues to say, this man is the dark overlord pulling all the strings of the London underground crime life. He is the Devil in disguise, for those who know him, think him something completely other than what he truly is. A wolf in sheep’s clothing." Edward paused to look at Leah, but he was certain that just like to him, these words made very little sense. "Do you know who she could be talking about?" he wondered, his finger still lingering on the paper, as if afraid that if he stopped touching it, the ink might somehow disappear, and the secrets of the diary would be lost to them forever.

"No," Leah shook her head, with a look of deep pondering on her face. "I couldn’t possibly imagine who she might be referring to. We need to keep reading to find out if she says his name somewhere."

"If she wanted to reveal who he was, she would have written down his name the first time she mentioned him," he pointed out.

"You’re right," Leah nodded with a sigh. "But we’re only halfway through the diary. Perhaps she gives a clue or a hint to his identity," she added hopefully.

To be quite honest, he doubted it. Her mother was a cautious woman. If she were on the trail of some important criminal who was desperate to keep his identity hidden, she wouldn’t reveal it in her diary. She was far too clever for that. She would find some other way to reveal his identity, like Leah said, or she would plan on doing it herself at someone point publicly. Unfortunately, those plans would never come to fruition. But he did not want to tell Lean any of this, so he would not discourage her.

"Yes, we should keep on reading," he said instead.

The following two hours were spent in careful reading of the leftover entries of the diary, but apart from the man being mentioned a few more time, again very hazily, there was absolutely no indication as to who he was. However, there was something they could go on.

"This is an address," Edward said, after having it read out loud. "An address just outside of London."

"Do you know who it belongs to?" Leah wondered.

"No," he had to admit. "But I know that it is a rather posh part to be living in."

"Perhaps it is someone who knows the identity of this man," Leah jumped again, filled with hope that they did not stumble onto a dead end once again, but a new path that might lead them toward their desired destination. "We must go there at once!" she exclaimed.

"We shall," he agreed, but he was thinking about this much more logically than she was. "But not at once."

"Why not?" she frowned, not liking his response.

"I think we should visit the footman’s family first," he suggested. "We could ask them some questions about the footman, about that night and even about my parents. Now that we know that the death of my parents and your mother are connected, we mustn’t omit a single part of this puzzle. Everything must come into its rightful place. I feel like we need to get some answers before reaching that address and find out who it belongs to."

Leah sighed. "You are right." Still, she did not seem particularly pleased.

"I know you are eager to bring this to an end, Leah," he said softly, closing the diary which he was still holding in his hand and offering it to her. "Trust me, so am I. But we have to be very careful. We do not know what your mother knew, and judging from what happened to her, this man she was tracking own was very dangerous. We mustn’t underestimate him. In fact, we must find out everything your mother knew, or at least a large portion of it, so we can be well prepared and know what to expect. But one thing is certain. We should expect danger, and that is why we mustn’t rush in like fools."

He expected her to argue again, that she was too impatient to wait, but surprisingly, she agreed once again.

"Everything you say makes perfect sense," she agreed. "I am just too eager, too impatient."

"I know you are," he commented. "That is perfectly understandable, but we must be cautious. You understand this, don’t you?"

"Yes," she smiled, taking the diary and pressing it to her chest lovingly. "I think I shall stay here a little while longer, and just read the diary again. It makes me feel closer to her, reading her words aloud."

"All right," he smiled. He wanted to offer to stay with her, but this was something personal, something she wanted to experience on her own. She had already come to him with the diary itself, which was something he appreciated more than he could explain in mere words. "I shall be here in my study if you need me for anything," he told her.

For a moment, they lingered so close to each other that he considered kissing her, but he decided against it. It didn’t seem like the time was right for that, regardless of the way he himself felt. He didn’t want to distract her from what she was holding in her arms, a past connection to her mother.

She smiled at him, then left the room, closing the door behind her. She only left a lingering scent of lilacs behind her, to titillate him. Only, he did not need her perfume to do that. His mind was perfectly capable of doing that to himself, to make him think of her in the most inopportune moment and imagine her in all sorts of scenarios he did not dare say out loud.

He tried to focus on work and correspondence, but it was hard knowing she was so close. Perhaps night and sleep would bring forth some much-needed rest.