Jamintha (6 page)

“I don't know what to expect,” I replied.

“You have been brought here as my niece, and you shall be treated as such. You shall dine with my son and me. You shall be shown every courtesy. Anything that you might require—new clothes, pin money—I shall readily provide. Your true parentage is our secret, Jane. No one else knows, not even my son.”

“I see.”

“I am not quite the arch-villain you imagine me to be.”

“No?”

“I am a hard man, true, and many call me unscrupulous. I consider that a compliment. We live in an age where weakness is glorified, hypocrisy is rampant. I am not weak, and I am not a hypocrite. I own one of the finest textile mills in the country. When I inherited it, it was a shambles, producing only a token amount of fabric, and that of inferior quality. I made it what it is today, through strength, through determination. If my employees fear me, if my competitors call me a cutthroat upstart, so much the better. I am interested only in results.”

“I'm sure you have reason to be proud,” I said acidly, “but I fail to see what that has to do with me.”

“If I have been brutal with you, it was because I felt it necessary. The results have been most satisfactory. I wanted you to be fully aware of your position in my house. I believe you are.”

“Very much so.”

Charles Danver sighed, relieved. He strolled over to the windows and stood peering out at the rain, a large, powerful figure silhouetted against the light. He had explained everything, but I had the feeling that something had been omitted. He had another motive for bringing me to Danver Hall, a motive he had failed to mention. I could not explain why I felt this way, yet the certainty was there.

“I shall, of course, settle a dowry on you,” he said, his back to me. “It will be generous enough to induce some chap to marry you. You'll not capture a prize, Jane, but I'll see to it that you eventually find a suitable husband.”

He turned around to face me. “Have you nothing to say?”

“I don't imagine anything I might say would make the slightest difference, Mr. Danver.”

“Quite true,” he said, the sensuous mouth turning up at the corners. “You're an intelligent girl, Jane.”

He thrust his large hands into the pockets of his trousers and sauntered over to me. He stood with his legs spread wide apart. His jacket hung open, the plum colored vest stretching tightly across the expanse of chest. I was intensely aware of his brute strength, his potent virility. For all his ruthlessness, Charles Danver was an impressive figure of a man. I had to concede this, no matter what I might think of him. Remarkably well preserved, ruggedly handsome, he had an aura of aggressive force that was almost tangible.

“I know a great deal about you,” he said. “Although you never received any direct communication from me, I had a thorough report on your progress each month from the head mistress of your school.”

“Indeed?”

“Your marks were excellent from the very first. You showed a remarkable aptitude for intellectual pursuits. Scholastically, your record was above reproach. However, you were seriously lacking in other departments. You were neurotic, sickly, anti-social. You did not get along with the other girls, nor did you make any effort to do so.”

That was true enough, I thought, remembering the taunts of my classmates and their frivolities.

“You were subject to severe headaches,” he continued. “You were frequently too ill to attend classes. You complained of weariness and lethargy, although there was no apparent reason for it. The doctors were unable to explain it. They finally agreed it was merely another sign of a neurosis. You were unhappy, and you chose this way to express it.”

He paused, waiting for me to make some comment, but none was forthcoming. I remembered those dreadful days when I stayed in bed, my bones aching with fatigue, my head throbbing painfully. The exhaustion, the pain had been quite real, but I did not intend to try and justify it to Charles Danver. He could believe whatever he chose to believe.

“I understand, too, that you have no recollection of the first seven years of your life. Partial amnesia, I think they call it.”

“That's true,” I replied.

“You don't remember this house? You don't remember anything that took place here?”

“I remember nothing whatsoever.”

Charles Danver frowned, a deep crease over the bridge of his nose. He found my amnesia puzzling, as did everyone who learned of it. The doctors had been bewildered. My teachers had considered it merely another sign of instability.

“Perhaps your memory will return,” he said. “Perhaps being here will help you remember. At any rate, there's nothing so unusual about forgetting one's childhood. I'd be hard pressed to answer many questions about my own early years.” He glanced at the windows. “The rain seems to be slacking up. I must go to the mill this morning. There are some important disciplinary measures I have to attend to.”

He straightened the lapels of his jacket and adjusted the folds of the buff colored stock, and then he moved over to a desk and picked up a thin leather portfolio. When he turned around, he seemed surprised to see me still standing there. His mind was already on other things.

“I am dismissed?” I inquired.

“You're dismissed,” he said irritably. “And … one other thing, I'm a busy man. I don't like to be bothered. I've devoted a considerable amount of time to you this morning because it was necessary to get things clear, but don't expect it in the future. If you have any requests to make you are to go through Madame DuBois, my housekeeper. You're free to do as you please, but stay out of the way. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Perfectly.”

“Very good,” he said brusquely. “Now get out of here.”

I left the room far more composed than I had been when I entered. Considering what I had been through, the icy calm was remarkable, but my mind was clearer than it had been for some time. The nervous apprehension, the mental anguish was gone. I was no longer plagued with doubts and fears. The worst had happened, and now I must try to adjust to it. As I moved through the main hall, I saw Madame DuBois standing by the mail table. There was a guileless expression on her face. I knew she had been eavesdropping.

CHAPTER FOUR

I couldn't stay in my room any longer. Yesterday, after the interview with Charles Danver, I had gone directly to my room, staying there until Susie came to announce dinner. My guardian and I dined alone in the lofty, baronial dining room, neither of us making an attempt at conversation. A long, miserable night had passed, and now it was after noon. The room was a haven, but I realized I couldn't stay shut in any longer. The walls were beginning to press in on me. I had to get out. I had to walk and think and come to terms with all that had happened.

Moving down the back hall, I followed the servants' stairs down to the kitchen. It was empty, al though there were bustling sounds coming from the pantry. A fire burned in the enormous rough stone fireplace, flames reflecting on the varnished surface of the tall golden oak cupboards and the dark red tile floor. Pots and pans were piled up on the zinc drain board. There was a delicious spicy smell and the fragrance of apples. Cook's sleepy marmalade cat was curled up on a rag rug in front of the hearth, and he peered at me indifferently as I moved across the room. I followed a dark, narrow hallway to the back door and stepped outside.

No one had told me how to reach the back door. I had come instinctively, without directions, without even thinking about it. Realizing this, I paused on the back steps, bewildered. How had I known the way? Was I beginning to remember? Would the rest of my memory return? My head began to throb, and there was a sensation much like fear. Why? Was I
afraid
to remember? I pushed these thoughts out of my mind and moved on down the steps to the gardens.

The sky was a deep pearl color with the faintest touch of blue, strong white sunlight gleaming brightly. The gardens were tattered, dark green shrubs drooping, flowerbeds ragged. The rain had stripped the rose bushes, petals like shreds of pink and red silk scattered over the damp brown soil. To my left, beyond the vegetable gardens, stood the carriage house and the stables, a crushed shell drive in front of them leading around the side of the house. To my right, far away and sheltered by oak trees, Dower House looked neat and serene with sunlight gilding the roof.

I followed the winding flagstone path toward the line of trees in back of the property, passing the lily pond, passing the arbor where honeysuckle grew thickly on weathered white latticework trellises. I was going to the moors. I would find solace there. I sensed that, and I did not question my instincts. The moors seemed to call to me.

Pausing at the trees, I turned to look back at Danver Hall. It was a solid bulk of towering gray walls, heavily leaded windows like dark eyes staring back at me. Stout black smokestacks and sooty red brick chimneys studded the multi-leveled roof, and I could see the twin towers rearing up in front, their rounded stone turrets casting long shadows over the green slate. Bathed in bright sunlight, the west wing looked even more desolate. Why had it never been torn down? Why had it never been closed off? I found this extremely puzzling.

As I stood looking at the house, I saw a curtain move at one of the windows in the east wing, a long, thin face peering out. Although I was too far away to discern features, I knew it was Madame DuBois spying on me. She had been hovering in the hall again last night when Charles Danver and I left the dining room, her face as guileless as it had been on that earlier occasion. She was worried about something. I presented a threat to her, and I knew it wasn't because she was afraid I would discover her relationship with my guardian. No, there was some other reason … The curtain fell back in place.

I turned toward the moors, trying to forget the incident.

The land was flat, barren, without a single tree, without a single sign of life, and there was an atmosphere of great age and great mystery. In the distance I could see patches of tarry black bog, stakes driven in the ground at intervals around them to warn one of danger. Those treacherous bogs could swallow a man without leaving a trace. Age old, they probably contained the bones of primeval creatures, I thought, walking slowly up the gradually sloping hill. The wind swept over the land, fierce, swirling into cracks and crevices, speaking in its own harsh voice, but I found it almost comforting. Serenity came, a curious calm induced by this rugged terrain that seemed to welcome me as an old friend. I felt safe, protected, and I knew not why.

At the crest of the hill, I turned around again. Danver Hall was far away now, a tiny gray toy house that some child had broken on one side. I felt as though I had been released from prison, and the feeling was a familiar one. I had felt this way before many years ago. I knew that without actually remembering. I wanted to run, bursting with elation, free again from dreary routine. No piano practice, no governess in starched blue dress, no boring afternoon nap. I stood there with the wind tearing at the skirt of my dark brown dress, concentrating, trying to make these vague impressions take solid shape in my mind.

I couldn't remember. Conscious effort only made it worse.

I moved down the hill. Enormous boulders began to surge up all around me, and I could hear the water. The ground was spongy now, and there were a few stunted trees with twisted limbs and dark green leaves. I moved on, boulders on either side studded with mica that glittered in the strong sunlight. Turning, walking along a well worn pathway, I could see the stream splashing over a rocky bed, and soon I began to see the waterfalls spilling over the boulders in savage cascades, the bank covered with moss. The wind was far away now, but the sound of water filled the valley with music, fierce, discordant music that I knew and loved.

It was fifteen minutes before I found the place. It was waiting, as I had known it would be. Moving through a wide crevice, I stepped into the small clearing surrounded on three sides by tall boulders. A waterfall fell in noisy silver sprays into the pool, mist glittering in the sunlight, and dark green moss covered the ragged sloping bank. There was my flat boulder, my seat at the edge of the water, and there were the delicate purple flowers growing in the cracks of the gray stone walls. It was my secret place, and I saw a bright, merry child with curly brown hair perched on the rock, dangling her bare legs into the cool water. The impression flashed into my mind and disappeared with lightning speed, but in that instant it had been vividly real.

Spreading my skirt out carefully, I sat down on the rough, flat rock and stared into the pool. I could see my reflection in the water, blurred, shimmering, like one of those new impressionist paintings they were doing in Paris. I listened to the water, and soon the sound vanished and became a mere background, and I heard only those sounds I created in my own mind. Sitting very still, a fine mist from the waterfall spraying over my skirt, I let my mind go, attuned to the place, picking up impressions that seemed to fill the air.

I was a bastard. “Illegitimate” was a more polite way to put it, but Charles Danver had wanted to make his point strongly. Although George Danver had given me his name, I was the daughter of a French trollop and an unidentified military man. I had no reason to believe that my guardian was lying, and yet … and yet that child who had sat on this rock had been a happy child. I sensed that. Rebellious, yes, always getting into scrapes as Johnny had put it, yet happy. There had been much love. I could not remember my mother, but I had a distinct impression of someone bright and lovely and gay. I knew that she had loved me. I could almost hear her voice, crooning. What was it she said? “Jane, my little Jane.” No, something else, something similar. The memory refused to come, but it was so near, the thinnest veil obscuring it. I had been loved, and happy.