Curse of Black Tor (2 page)

“Oh, yes. They're lovely.”

“We call Victoria the Garden City. September is almost the end of the hanging baskets, though. You ought to see them in the spring.”

“Have you lived here long?”

“Ten years now, miss.”

Ten years ago I was still in Flagstaff, Martha thought. Still at home, just getting ready to go away for nurse's training.

“Did you see the house from the ferry?” Henry asked.

“The house?”

“Black Tor, the Garrard place. On your left before you enter the harbor.”

“I don't know. I might have.”

“There's a rocky point, like. Used to be able to see a black cliff in the early days, I've been told. That's where the house got its name. But the trees and bushes have grown over the black rock.”

“I saw one place I thought was a church at first,” Martha said. “It had a tower with a figure of a porpoise on a rod at the roof tip.”

“Then you did see the house, miss. Only that's a killer whale. Mr. Abel Garrard, who built Black Tor in 1880, had the whale put up there as his little joke. He was an eccentric man by all accounts.” As he spoke, Henry turned left off the main road. “The Garrards don't live in Victoria proper, or in Equimalt, either—that's this suburb we've passed through. Black Tor isn't near anything. Isolated, that's what it is.”

Martha felt his eyes on her in the rearview mirror.

“I like the country,” she said.

“Good for you, miss. Some people don't.”

Had Henry driven other applicants to Black Tor? Out and back again when the interviews weren't “mutually satisfactory”?

The car passed between stone pillars, and she caught a glimpse of open iron gates, half hidden by shrubbery.

“We're inside the grounds now,” Henry told her. “The family owns forty acres. Like a park it is, mostly.”

The drive meandered among old trees that overhung the road, past shrubs and flower beds and came at last to the white house Martha had seen from the boat. Close up, it was a confusing arrangement of wings, ells and additions that had been added in what seemed a completely haphazard fashion. The building was huge, and the effect was not so much amusing as almost frightening, as though a mad architect had executed an insane masterpiece.

Out of the car, Martha craned her neck to stare at the octagonal tower that rose from the center at least four stories high, its steep roof crowned with what Henry had said was a killer whale. An odd choice.

As she gazed upward there came a loud crash, as of glass breaking, and Henry caught her arm, pulling her off balance as an object struck the ground beside her. Martha stifled a scream as she looked down at a cat's mangled body by her feet, slivers of glass stuck in its matted fur. Then she glanced back at the tower in horror.

“Don't be so upset, miss,” Henry said. “That's just Miss Josephine's way.”

Chapter Two

Martha pulled away from Henry and watched him stoop to gather up the cat. She saw now that there was no blood; in fact, there was sawdust like material on the ground where the cat's body had lain.

“It's only a stuffed animal, miss,” Henry said. “Miss Josephine sometimes tears them up.”

“'Them'?”

“Black Tor has many stuffed animals. All the pets the family ever owned have been preserved this way. And then Mr. Abel was quite a sportsman, so--”

“But she threw the cat from the tower at me!” Martha exclaimed.

“Well, now, not at you exactly, miss. Near you, yes. Miss Josephine doesn't want a nurse here, I'm afraid.”

Martha stared at Henry. At, near—what was the difference? She felt like getting back in the car and demanding to be driven into Victoria immediately. Why bother with—

“You must be Miss Jamison. Won't you come in?”

Martha whirled to see who'd spoken.

“We've just arrived, sir,” Henry said.

The man nodded. His black hair had a white streak on the left side. He was tall, darkly handsome, and he gave her a quick smile that failed to light his eyes. “I'm Jules Garrard,” he said to Martha.

“How do you do?” she answered, feeling half hypnotized by his dramatic appearance as she allowed him to show her through the open front door.
“
I believe your letter mentioned you hadn’t been to Canada before,” Jules said.

“This is my first visit.” They entered a paneled entry hall. Then the brightness of the day was shut away when
Henry
came in behind them and closed the door. The dark wood and the stained-glass windows suddenly changed the day into a tinted twilight. Martha’s breath quickened as though the dimness deprived her of air.

Henry stepped ahead of them to open an inner door leading to a foyer with a massive copper chandelier hanging from a cathedral ceiling. Martha looked to her left and gasped, astonished at the huge black and white animal displayed on a pedestal. What was it? Then she remembered L.A.’s Marineland’s featured killer whale and realized what she saw was a stuffed one, arranged as though leaping from the ocean. It looked inappropriately happy, seeming to grin at her as she passed. Other sea trophies were mounted along the oak-paneled walls--sailfish and salmon--but the killer whale dwarfed them to insignificance.

Henry disappeared down a hall to the left, going through yet another door. Jules indicated a passage to her right and then ushered her into a half-paneled room, its upper walls papered with a gold and green hunting scene. More trophies crowded the walls, except for one, where books filled the shelves from floor to ceiling.

“Grandfather Abel was more of a sportsman than a reader,” Jules said. “This was his library. I find that too much exposure to this room gives me claustrophobia.” He spread his hands and smiled.

Martha smiled, too, sharing the same feeling and already liking Jules Garrard with his black and white hair and his oddly sad eyes.

“Did your grandfather harpoon the killer whale I saw?”

“No. Actually, the family legend is that he tried to save the whale, which had been wounded somehow. But it died, and so he had it hauled to the taxidermist. Grandpa saw himself and the orca as blood brothers.”

“Orca?”

“Scientific name. I've done some research on killer whales—-a family interest, you might say.”

Martha thought of the mounted animal in the foyer. Black and white, a striking contrast, like Jules's hair. Jules was young—not over forty, certainly. She remembered white streaks in the hair as being hereditary. Had Abel Garrard had the trait, as well? Is that why the orca had fascinated him?

Jules offered her a lyre back chair near a rosewood desk. He then sat behind the desk, and she was reminded that this was an interview. For a few moments Jules had made her forget that he was her prospective employer.

“May I call you Martha?” he asked.

“Please.”

“You certainly seem to have every qualification to be Josephine's companion,” he said.

“I haven't worked in four years,” she said. “I—”

He waved his hand. “I'm pleased to have someone closer to her age applying. Aunt Natalie composed the advertisement, hoping, no doubt, for another of the elderly retirees we've had lately. I've tried to tell Natalie she's wrong—” Jules broke off and shrugged.

“The ad did say 'mature,” Martha began. “But as I am twenty-eight, I thought—”

“I have no doubt you’re sufficiently mature,” Jules told her, smiling. For the first time his eyes seemed to lighten.

Does he find me attractive? Martha wondered. She was very aware of his gaze. She was also aware of him as a man. Surprised and disconcerted at her response to him, she looked down at her hands.

“It's only fair that you meet Josephine before you decide to stay with us,” Jules said.

The repetition of Josephine's name brought back the crash of breaking glass and the stuffed cat landing at her feet. Martha straightened and met Jules's eyes. “Why do you need a psychiatric nurse as her companion?” she asked bluntly.

“Josephine is...unusual,” Jules said slowly. “I prefer to have you meet her before I say more.” He glanced at his watch.
“
Have you had lunch?”

“I ate on the boat.”

He nodded and got up. As Martha started to rise to her feet, he motioned for her to stay seated. Then he went to the door and opened it.

A tall slender girl stood there, her curly dark hair falling past her shoulders. She had no streak of white. As she came into the room, Martha saw that her eyes were sherry yellow. She wore jeans and a gray sweat shirt. Except that she was prettier, she looked much like the backpackers Martha had seen on the ferry.

“This is Josephine,” Jules said. “She's fond of listening outside closed doors.”

The girl made a face at him. Then her eyes flicked back to Martha.

“This is Martha Jamison, Josephine,” Jules said. “As you can see, you were quite wrong in throwing the cat from the tower to frighten her.”

“I thought you'd be old,” Josephine told Martha. “You're little, so I thought you were one of the tiny wizened kind, and they're even worse than the fat jolly ones.”

“How old are you, Josephine?” Martha asked, deciding to ignore the tower episode.

“I’ll be twenty-three next month,” Josephine replied. “Then I get half—don't I, Jules?”

“Not until your father dies,” a man's voice interjected. As he spoke, he came into the room and bowed slightly toward Martha. “Good afternoon, Miss Jamison,” he said, then turned to Josephine. “If you'd wear your glasses, you'd know a pretty woman from an old lady, Josie my girl.”

“I don't need glasses,” Josephine said. “And don't call me 'Josie.' I was at the top of the tower, looking down. How could I tell? Besides, nobody young ever came before.” She smiled at Martha, and her smile was engaging. “If I have to have someone stay with me, I'd just as soon it was you.”

“This intruder is our cousin, Charn Wexler,” Jules said.

Both Josephine and Jules had disregarded Charn's entering words. Had he meant them as a joke? If so, it was a joke in very bad taste.

“Hello,” Martha said. If Charn was “our” cousin, were Jules and Josephine brother and sister? She glanced from one to the other.

“Josephine is my half sister,” Jules said, as if reading her mind.

“Daddy wore out two wives,” Josephine explained.

Martha blinked, trying to assimilate all the information. Her quick assessment of Josephine revealed no evidence of mental illness. Still, such evidence was often concealed, only to emerge when least expected.

“Why don't you two get out so Martha and I can discuss her staying here,” Jules suggested.

“I'll bet you were scared, weren't you?” Josephine said to Martha. “You didn't scream or faint or anything, but—”

“I was startled,” Martha admitted. “And horrified, since I thought the cat was alive.”  

“Oh, I wouldn't hurt a real cat,” Josephine said, instantly sounding shocked.

“Come on, Josephine,” Charn Wexler began, shepherding her toward the door. “You'll frighten Martha off yet.”

“We've a rather informal household,” Jules commented when the door was shut once more. “Except for Aunt Natalie, of course. She disapproves of us all, including father.”

“Your cousin doesn't resemble you or Josephine,” Martha noted.

“Charn belongs to the Wexler branch--heavy on Teutonic fairness, with no suggestion of Indian blood such as the Garrards carry. You'd never think Charn was one-sixteenth Indian. As for you, Martha, based on your name and your strawberry-blond hair—”

He broke off, and she thought for a moment he was going to finger a curl that had drifted out of her chignon. Martha quivered as though he had actually touched her. “I'd say you were a Scot,” Jules finished.

She nodded. His irises were so dark a brown they appeared black. She could hardly see the pupils. She wondered irrelevantly if the orca had black eyes.

“Victoria will like that,” Jules went on. “Most of the original settlers here were Scots. Many took Indian wives, as did my ancestor, who happened to be French. I'll show you the old graveyard sometime. The names are interesting.”

Martha closed her eyes momentarily and turned away from Jules. She'd tried to have Johann cremated, but that had precipitated even more publicity, and at last she'd given up his body to the others, as she should have given up Johann earlier. The funeral had been a public horror.

“You do intend to stay?” Jules asked. “Obviously Josephine accepts you. She liked none of the others.”

“Others?”

Jules sighed. “I'm afraid there's been a parade of companions and would-be companions in and out of the house for the past few years. Aunt Natalie would insist on older women, and Josephine—well, you heard her.”

“You've never had a younger woman apply?”

Jules hesitated. “You see, Natalie did the interviewing until her illness. She... eliminated anyone under fifty.”