Beloved (37 page)

"
At least we know that Phillip
'
s the marrying kind,
"
Jane quipped, and immediately she blushed.

Bing never even noticed. It was so obvious he was relieved about his sister. For once, Cissy was involved with someone responsible. That left Bing off the hook for other distractions, and Jane clearly was one of them.

Smiling, he
'
slipped his hands under her heavy auburn hair, drew her toward him, and kissed her. It was a bantering caress, filled with sweetness and light. Jane loved that about him, that his kisses were like nectar; she could hover there forever, sipping and tasting.

A low sound of poignant yearning escaped her throat. Bing
'
s response was instantaneous: his kisses became harder, deeper, an elemental reply to an elemental sound. He murmured her name, and other endearments, as he kissed her. His hands circled the back of her head, holding her lips close to his, making her need him.

It was hard not to. She
'
d gone so long, had been so disappointed, in other sexual encounters. Bing would be an exciting lover, attentive and considerate
—
Apollo himself. She was certain of it. They had everything in common, everything. .

"
Jane?
"

"
Hmmm?
"
She half opened her eyes, still dazed, when he held her a little away from him.
"
Yes?
"

His brows were drawn together in a disappointed frown.
"
It
'
s not really
'
yes,
'
is it?
"
he said in a husky voice.

"
I
...
why do you say that?
"

"
Because you
'
re hesitating; I can feel it in you. Jane, I won
'
t push you into this,
"
he whispered, caressing her cheek with his fingertips.
"
You mean
too much."

"
But that
'
s why I
'm, okay,
hesitating,
"
she admitted, putting her arms around his neck.
"
Because
you
mean too much.
"

"
Oh, great,
"
he said in a groan.
"
What a team.
"

She smiled wanly.
"
I don
'
t want to rush into this, Bing. Men have come and then they
'
ve gone, throughout my life.
"
She looked away, her forehead creased by pain.
"
I
'
m not sure I want you to be one of them.
"

"
I know. I know,
"
he said softly, drawing her head to his shoulder, stroking her hair.
"
I
'
m not sure I want to be one of them, either.
"
He laughed softly in her hair.
"
God. I never thought I
'
d say that to any woman.
"

He cradled her chin in his hand and lowered his face to hers in a kiss. Then he stood up.
"
Yep. Gotta go,
"
he said, tight-lipped.

She looked up at him, surprised, but then she understood. She
'
d been pushing his self-control to the limit.
"
I
'
m sorry, Bing,
"
she whispered.
"
I never meant to play games over this.
"

He stood over her, sad, pensive, resigned.
"
I know, darling. Good night.
"

He let himself out and Jane was left alone, wondering whether she should seek psychiatric help.

What is
wrong
with me? The man rates a ten on any desirability scale. He
'
s even hinting that maybe, just maybe, he
'
s finally ready for a meaningful relationship. He
'
s rich, well educated, charming, handsome, interested. So, I send him packing. Why did I do that? Mother would have a conniption if she knew.

Ah.

Could that be it? She was being perverse to spite her mother? It wouldn
'
t be the first time. She remembered, almost with affection, the times her mother had tried to pair her with someone
"
suitable
"
—
from James in dancing school (no spark) to Paul at the country club (something missing). Jane used to say that her mother was pushy; Gwendolyn used to say that her daughter was picky. The standoff had lasted most of her life, and now Jane was still single and thinking maybe her mother was right.

With a sigh, Jane picked up the two half-empty glasses and walked across the room to turn off the wrought-iron floor lamp with its muslin shade. She peered through the darkness in the direction of Bing
'
s house. The side that faced her was unlit. She was about to turn away when she caught a movement near some towering shrubs across the drive, just to the north. Someone was standing in the shadows.

She sucked in her breath. Bing had no reason to be lurking there; it wasn
'
t on the way to his house.
No one
had a reason to be lurking there. She pulled back from the open window and flattened herself against the wall with a silent shudder. It was both terrifying and infuriating not to know what to expect, not to know who the enemy was.

This is stupid—stupid,
she told herself over the pounding of her heart. She felt a wave of regret for having refused to let Billy B. put locks on the windows. Mac had been right about that, just as he
'
d
obviously
been right about there being a stalker. But whoever this was couldn
'
t be from the mainland. She had no enemies on the mainland. This terror was island-based. But she had no enemies on the island, either. Maybe it had nothing to do with her at all, but with Lilac Cottage. .

Expecting anything from gunfire to baseballs, she peeked through the window again. Nothing. She dropped to all fours and came up alongside the next window. Yes: definitely someone was still there. It seemed to her that his arms were folded across his chest; that he
'
d been there for a while. She resented it thoroughly and somehow that gave her a crazy kind of courage. She stepped boldly in front of the window, then reached over to the nearby lamp and switched it on, throwing herself into full illumination.

Here I am,
she thought.
Who the hell are
you?

The light from the lamp affected her night vision, but she was able to make out that the figure had stepped almost casually away from the shrubs and was sauntering down the lane toward Mac
'
s place.

Mac.
It had to be. She raced for the phone and dialed his number. It rang a dozen times without an answer. Hardly conclusive proof, but it was good enough for her. What was he up to? Trying to scare her into installing window locks? Or had he happened to pause during a stroll for a little late-night voyeurism? She shivered, then closed up the inside shutters and left a light on in that room and every other room in the house. In a few minutes she tried Mac
'
s number again. This time he answered the phone.

She placed the receiver carefully in its cradle.

****

The dream came again,
more frightening than before. She was back on the edge of the precipice, but this time there was no driving rain
—
only fog, thick and damp and cold, wrapping itself around her long gray skirts. She could scarcely see five feet in front of her. If it was to be today, he would surely perish. She never should have let him go. The money wasn
'
t worth it.

She gripped the splintery wood railing with both hands and leaned into the fog, furious that she did not have it in her power to dispel its thickness once and for all. The sharp sea air, once so pleasing to her, smelled rank and insidious. Somewhere above her was a nearly full moon, but it was of no more use tonight than a lighthouse without a lamp.

She hated this place, this desolate island. She hated everyone on it. How could they be so fatalistic, so accepting? They had wealth enough to live anywhere they chose, and yet they chose this rock. Worse, their women gave up their
lovers and husbands with hardly a murmur, because that
'
s the way their mothers did it, and
their
mothers, and their mothers before that.

But she was not from
Nantucket
. She would
not
give up her man, not without a fight. She loved him more than life itself.

"
Damn thy traditions!
"
she cried.
"
Damn thy hidebound ways!
"

She pushed furiously at the wooden rail, spurning everything it stood for. Suddenly the rail gave way and plunged over the precipice while in the same split second she herself went lurching forward.

"
No!
"
Jane screamed, waking herself from the dream.

She lay in bed supporting herself on one elbow, half in and half out of sleep, breathing heavily, her heart thundering.
"
No,
"
she murmured in her muddled state.
No.
She did not want to die. More than that, she did not want
him
to die.

Whoever he was.

****

The dream stayed with her all through the next morning. To call it a dream seemed completely inadequate. It was closer to a possession. This one was not like the first dream, where Jane kept part of herself sitting in the front row, watching the drama. This time the woman
'
s agony was completely her own, and so was the near-plunge over the precipice. If Jane hadn
'
t awakened herself from the dream, she was certain that she
'
d be dead now.

It was an intensely disturbing experience and it left her shaken
.  S
haken, and deeply intrigued. After all, she herself was nothing like the woman in gray. Jane
loved
Nantucket
; clearly the woman in gray hated it. On the other hand, the woman in gray loved someone with a depth and fury that left Jane with an aching hole where her heart should be.

Was
the woman in her dream the one in Aunt Sylvia
'
s sketch? Jane wandered over to the drawing of the young woman in the coal-skuttle bonnet and stared at it while she plaited her auburn hair into a single braid. Jane had had the usual number of weird dreams in her life, but she
'
d never used the word
"
thy
"
in any of them. Obviously the woman in her dream was a Quaker. Was she
this
Quaker?

And was
this
Quaker Judith Brightman?

Jane wanted so badly to believe it was. It made a certain amount of sense. Maybe Aunt Sylvia had scratched herself on the rugosa rose and suffered the same troubling symptoms as Jane; maybe the sketch was as close as her aunt had ever got to identifying Judith Brightman. If only her aunt had said something about it during those last two years in the nursing home.

Maybe she had. She did tend to ramble, and sometimes she didn
'
t make sense. Jane hadn
'
t wanted to accept that her aunt
'
s mind was failing, and so she used to interrupt, or change the subject.

The metallic thunk of the brass door knocker sent her to the front door. It was Billy B., with a grin on his face and a box in his arms.

"
Window locks,
"
he explained when she gave him a puzzled look.
"
Mac says you changed your mind.
"

"
Did
he. Well, you tell Mac—
"

Tell him what? That she preferred cowering under windows and running up her electric bill?

"
You tell Mac
'
thank you
'
when you see him,
"
she said with a tight smile.