Jamintha (29 page)

He took a deep breath. With great caution, he turned around until he was facing me, his right shoulder touching the wall. He came toward me, each step causing the floor to wobble vigorously. His mouth was spread in a tight line. His brows were lowered. His eyes were like dark burning coals. He came nearer, and nearer, ignoring the danger now, oblivious to it.

I stared at him, and suddenly the dream-like trance was broken, that curious objectivity shattering. The look in his eyes jolted me into reality, a terrifying, incredible reality. He intended to kill me. I tried to cry out, but no sound would come. I stepped back, my legs so weak that I almost fell. He smiled, relishing my fear, enjoying it.

“No—” I whispered hoarsely.

“You're going to die,” he promised.

“No—Jamintha! Jamintha!” I cried. “Help me. Help me!”

I closed my eyes, sobbing. I trembled, my body seized by a strange convulsion. Blood and bone and muscle were frozen in the darkness, and then warmth came, and I opened my eyes. Dropping the necklace into the pocket of my dress, I removed the pins from my hair and shook the braids loose. Jane was gone. Jane was asleep. Rich chestnut locks tumbled to my shoulders, and I smiled at him, my eyes full of mockery.

“My God!” he whispered. “My God in Heaven—”

I took the necklace from my pocket and held it out, dangling it in front of him.

“You want it, Charles? Take it.”

In one part of my mind I was aware of the shouts below, aware of the loud footsteps ringing on the tower staircase, but I paid no attention to the noise. I swung the necklace to and fro, watching the incredulous expression on his face. He was stunned, shocked into immobility, but only for a moment. He reached for the necklace. I dangled it over the railing. He leaned forward, seizing it. He cried out as the weight of his body caused him to topple against the rotten wooden railing. The railing snapped with a brittle popping sound, and his scream seemed to last for a long time before the dull thud terminated it.

I leaned back against the shelves, staring at that gaping hole in the railing. Someone was calling my name. I turned to see Brence edging toward me. Gavin stood just inside the tower, and I could see Susie behind him.

“Brence—” I moaned.

“Easy,” he said, “easy. We've done this before. There's no need to be afraid. Reach your hand out, Jane. Be calm. Be very calm. Don't look down.”

“What happened? Brence, what
happened?
”

And then he took my hand.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The August sun was hot, but shimmering heat waves could not deter the vacationers who waited all year round for their two weeks by the water. Children played gaily on the beach, rushing to splash in the foamy waves, and women in light colored dresses reclined under the shade of enormous umbrellas. Men in conservative suits and tight collars watched with proud, self-satisfied expressions. The water was a vivid blue, purple on the horizon, and beyond the esplanade ornate hotels and grand shops glittered in the direct sunlight. I had been here in Brighton for over eight months, but this was the first time I had taken a stroll by myself.

Gavin had always been with me before.

I loved the beach. I loved the salty spray and the screaming children and the festive atmosphere. I watched as a large brown dog loped after the ball tossed by a grubby little boy in a blue sailor suit. I smiled as the ball bounced in the water and the dog leaped after it. How beautiful life could be, how pleasant and uncomplicated. Simple things could bring great joy. Life itself was a wondrous miracle, a gift we must cherish and savor to the full. It was wonderful to be alive, to be attune to life, to respond to it without fear.

Gavin had accomplished wonders during these eight months, eight months of “therapy”—a new word—of long, long talks and memory sessions in the white frame clinic with blue shutters and spacious, sun-filled rooms. I was a willing patient, and now … and now I was cured. The blind boy could see again. Prim, thorny Jane Danver was gone forever, and so was Jamintha, her other extreme.

Who remained?

A third me, the me I might have been had I not suffered the shock of that night eleven—almost twelve—years ago. I had neither Jane's stiff demeanor nor Jamintha's flamboyant verve, Jane's timidity nor Jamintha's boldness. I was still Jane, but new, a new person. It was a glorious sensation, like waking up after a long sleep to find a room full of presents. I understood it all now. I had discovered it for myself. Gavin had guided me, but he had never explained.

I sat down on a white wooden bench to watch the rushing blue waves and the children playing and the gulls fluttering like bits of white confetti against the sky. I allowed myself to think about that afternoon eight months ago.

Had it not been for Susie, I might not be here today. She had gone to my room that afternoon to check on me. She found it empty. (I was Jamintha then. I was at the cottage, serving brandy to Charles Danver, listening to his confession of murder.) Alarmed, Susie searched the house, growing more and more frantic. Finally she rushed out to saddle one of the horses and rode to the mill to tell Brence. He was in his father's office talking to Gavin, who had just returned from London and was trying to convince him how imperative it was that I be given immediate care. Suspecting the truth, Gavin had gone to the city to interview the staff of my school, to track down and question all the doctors who had examined me during those years. He was convinced that I was schizophrenic, that I was in grave danger of a complete mental collapse. Brence thought the man was out of his mind. And then Susie had burst in on them and they had come racing back to the house, arriving just in time to hear the shrill tearing noises in the library.

Charles Danver was dead. He had fallen to his death, his hand clutching the necklace that had obsessed him for eleven years. How ironic it all was, I thought. The diamonds, those glittering stars, were fake, an exquisite imitation. The necklace was a copy of the original that one of the de Soissons had probably sold a century before, and there was no proof that it wasn't a copy of some other necklace. Marie Antoinette's diamonds had disappeared. The mystery would never be solved.

When Brence agreed that it would be best if I left Danver Hall immediately, Gavin brought me here to Brighton, to the unpretentious little clinic run by one of his friends. Eight months of mending, eight months of anguish and frustration and rebellion and tears, and finally that light breaking over the horizon of my mind, awareness, understanding, rebirth.

“Jamintha, my little Jamintha.” That was her pet name for me. I was her little Jane, her Jamintha. I had loved her so. I had wanted to be exactly like her. Witnessing her death had been a brutal shock. That shock had created the schism inside of me. Jamintha, the bright, merry, irrepressible little girl had vanished, and a stunned, uncomprehending, almost catatonic Jane had been sent away to school. But Jamintha wasn't gone. During times of stress, she took over, she left dull Jane in her bed and slipped over the wall to meet the delivery boy. She led a gay, frivolous, existence while Jane suffered from headaches and inexplicable exhaustion. Jane
knew
about Jamintha, but Jamintha was a separate personality, completely disassociated from Jane. Jamintha was like my mother, like
her
mother. During those long years at school, Jamintha appeared, not often, perhaps, but always when the unhappiness and the dreary brown atmosphere and the taunts and ridicule became too much for Jane to bear.

And then I had come to Danver Hall …

The stress had been even greater than it had been at school, and the blow on the head I had received in the ruined west wing had released Jamintha, giving her a freedom she had never had before. She was fully alive, overjoyed at the release. She needed money, so she stole Madame DuBois' carefully saved pin money, and that enabled her to rent the cottage and buy new clothes. Jane's drab dresses would never do. She kept her finery in the huge old wardrobe in the back hall, carefully locked away, the key hidden under a stack of linen handkerchiefs in Jane's room. During the afternoons when Jane was closed up in her room, asleep, Jamintha lived the life Jane would never have dared. Later, when she returned, she sat at Jane's desk and composed her letters.

I knew it was all true. The key had been in my drawer, the dresses in the wardrobe, and the stationery Jamintha had used was hidden in the bottom drawer of the bureau. I accepted it all, but there were still so many questions that had needed to be answered.

The handwriting? Why hadn't I recognized it?

“
Jamintha
wrote those letters,” Gavin said, “Jane didn't. A person's handwriting reveals a great deal about her personality. Yours—Jane's—is small, neat, compact, stiff and formal. Jamintha's is—was—dashing and gay, embellished with loops and curliques and dashes.
You
didn't write those letters, Jane. She did.”

“How could I—how could Jamintha have gotten in and out of the house without anyone seeing her? Most of the time it was broad daylight. Someone
must
have seen her.”

“I'll let you figure that one out,” Gavin replied.

“It seems impossible,” I said. “Unless—”

“Yes?”

“She used the secret passage.”

He had nodded, pleased with me. Now, sitting on the sun-warmed bench and watching the waves rushing over the sand, I thought about Gavin Clark. From the very beginning, he had suspected Jamintha. At first he thought she was merely a figment of my imagination, like the imaginary friends lonely children often create for playmates. Later, in the village, he had actually seen her, and she looked very familiar. This puzzled him, and he began to suspect the truth. Cases of double personality were rare, extremely rare, but they were not unheard of. Stevenson had based his
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
on such a case. Gavin began to ask me leading questions, and then when I had told him about the secret passage and shown him the bruises on my forearms—the bruises Brence had given me—he was almost certain. He had left for London immediately to talk to the school staff and the doctors, and although none of them had been aware of the truth, their statements and comments about me had verified it for Gavin.

He had been so wonderful during these past eight months, so patient. I thought about that quiet, firm voice, those remarkable brown eyes in the lined, weary face. Every day we had talked. Every day he had taken valuable time away from his book in order to work with me. I sat in the comfortable old leather chair, and Gavin usually paced the room, pausing now and then to jot something down in his notebook, his rich, melodious voice soothing me. He made me see. He made me understand. The schism was mended, and Jamintha would never return. Neither would Jane, the Jane who had found life so frightening and bleak.

The thing that had puzzled me more than anything else was how Jamintha could have deceived both Brence and Charles Danver. Why hadn't they recognized her? Why hadn't they known immediately that Jamintha was really Jane? Gavin had an answer for that, too.

“There were great external differences, of course. Jane was pale, her hair worn in tight severe braids. Jamintha's complexion glowed with health, her hair falling loose in rich waves. Jane wore drab, simple dresses that made her look even plainer. Jamintha wore bright silks that heightened her color, dresses cut to reveal her figure. That in itself might not have been enough to deceive most people, but there was an even greater difference. Jane was quiet, withdrawing, meek. Jamintha was animated, vivacious, dazzling. The physical features were the same, true, but only in the essentials of shape and form. Jane's face was unremarkable, the beauty dimmed, almost effaced by pallor and a prim expression, eyes downcast, mouth tight. Jamintha was lit by an inner glow, her eyes sparkling, her checks flushed a vivid pink, her mouth smiling. She looked different because she
was
different.”

And what remained? Jamintha's dazzling beauty was gone, but so were Jane's severe braids and prim expression. My hair fell in long waves, fastened behind each temple with a white ribbon. I wore a white muslin dress sprigged with tiny blue and green flowers, the square neckline cut low because of the summer heat, the short sleeves puffed. I was a pretty girl, neither beautiful nor plain, a girl like any other, nineteen years old, sitting on a bench by the seashore. I was Jane, and Jamintha, and someone new—serene, calm, slightly pensive.

Lost in thought, I had been unaware of the passage of time. The beach was deserted, laughing children vanished, languid ladies and proud fathers long since retired to the hotels. The tall umbrellas cast long shadows over the wet sand, and already a cool evening breeze had sprung up. It would be dark before long. I should get back to the clinic. Gavin would be worried about me … for entirely different reasons now.

He was in love with me. I knew that instinctively. He looked at me with tender eyes, and he smiled in a new way, and his manner was protective and gentle and … and he loved me. He would ask me to marry him soon. I knew that, too. He would be a wonderful husband. He was handsome and intelligent and kind. He would cherish me. He would always be there, always dependable, always thoughtful, sharing himself, his work, his ambition, his emotions. With Gavin, life would be comfortable. It would be satisfying, rich with intimacy and warmth. He was everything a woman could want, more than most women could ever hope for. Why, then, did I dread that question I knew would come?

I was fond of him. I admired him. I was grateful to him, but … but I didn't love him. I couldn't marry him. He deserved a love as rare and unselfish as his own, and I couldn't provide that. There was room in my heart for only one …
No, Jane, don't start thinking about that. You've accepted it. You've resigned yourself to it. There's no need to think about him, to wonder, to nourish this foolish hope
.