Curse of Black Tor (5 page)

“Do you feel ill?” Martha asked.

“Martha—” Josephine stepped back and motioned her in, closing and, yes, locking the door behind her. “Oh, Martha, I wish I could trust you.”

“Trust me?”

“But you'll tell Jules, won't you? Like those others reported everything to Aunt Natalie. And Jules is against me like all the rest.”

“I might not have to tell Jules. However, I am going to talk to your doctor, and I don't think I should keep anything from him.”

To her surprise, Josephine gave a sigh of relief. “Oh, Dr. Marston. I don't think you'd need to tell him, not at all. It's not—not about the time I was so—so sick. This is from before. But I'm afraid, I don't understand and there's no one I can trust. Except—” Her large yellow eyes stared at Martha. “They
told you, didn't they? That I was somewhere else when I was seventeen. And eighteen. I was there two years. And I—just don't remember about that time. The two years are all blurred, fogged over.”

“But that's not what frightens you now?”

Josephine shook her head. “You saw that note at the table, didn't you? Did you tell?”

Martha remembered the green writing. “'Dear Jo,
” she said aloud. “No, I didn't say anything about it. Why should I?”

“You're here as a spy, you know. Didn't Jules tell you?”

“I'm here as a companion. I'm a nurse, not a spy, Josephine.”

“The note is from someone. Oh, Martha, he's dead. How can he write me a letter? Am I going mad, really mad? I'm so afraid.”

“Where did the note come from? The mail?”

“I never get mail—they'd open it if I did. No, Sarah motioned me out of the parlor before dinner and slipped the note into my hand. I asked her where she got it, and she said that Bill Wong—he's one of the gardeners—gave the envelope to her when she was playing outside and told her it was for Miss Josephine.”

“It's not from this—Bill Wong?”

“Oh, no.”

“Would you let me read it?”

Josephine opened a book lying on her bedside stand and extracted a crumpled piece of paper.

“Dear Jo,” Martha read in the bold green handwriting. “I haven't forgotten. Love, Diego.”

“Diego?” she
asked Josephine.

“I called him that. He called me 'Jo.' I never knew his name. He didn't know mine.” Josephine sat on her bed, staring down at the paper Martha had returned to her. “I was sixteen, but he didn't know that, either, because I told him I was older. We truly loved each other, but he died— he drowned when the boat foundered. How can he write me now?”

“He drowned when you were sixteen?”

Tears filled Josephine's eyes. “Yes. I went to the docks to see him, and I found out his boat—he worked on a salmon boat.” She began to cry.

Martha sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. Johann's dead, too, she thought, but my tears are all shed... they were shed long before his death.

“You don't know,” Josephine sobbed. “No one knows.”

“My—my husband died,” Martha told her softly. “I can understand.” She handed tissues to Josephine.

Josephine mopped at her face and sat up straighter. Martha dropped her arm but continued to sit next to her.

“I didn't know you'd been married.”

“Now you have a secret to keep,” Martha said. “I didn't tell your brother. I use my maiden name now, so I didn't think it mattered.”

“I only knew Diego three days,” Josephine said.

“Here in Victoria?”

“Oh, no. Aunt Natalie was too strict. I—there was a friend from school whose family moved to Seattle, and she invited three of her girlfriends from Victoria to a weekend birthday party. I was one of the girls. We went over on the evening ferry and were to come back by plane. Her parents were meeting us at the dock.” Josephine smiled faintly. “I was very excited, because I had so many restrictions that a trip unchaperoned was an event. Not alone, really, but girls my age didn't count.”

“This was when you were sixteen?
”

Josephine nodded. “The other two girls were what we called best friends, and I was the third wheel, rather. So I went onto the deck even though it was foggy and cold. Wanting to savor my freedom, I imagine. And—he was there. Diego.”

“Was he Spanish?”

“I don't know. We met in the fog and we didn't talk about who we were. I found out he worked the salmon boats out of Seattle and had been to the island for a day of sightseeing. He liked Victoria. He found out I was going to visit a friend in Seattle. I lied and said I was through school because I thought he might think I was just a kid otherwise. We knew there was something between us and he kissed me, and nothing like that had ever happened to me before.” Josephine gently touched the note that lay beside her on the bed. “Nothing has since.”

“You never saw him again?”

“Only twice more. His boat was in because of the nets— something wrong with the nets. He was from San Diego. He'd worked on the tuna seiners down there. I remember every word he ever said to me.
”

“He met me in a park near the house where I was staying. He told me what time he'd be there, and I sneaked out and met him. We fell in love. He said he'd come and see me in Victoria, but I wouldn't tell him who I was—I couldn't. He'd find out I was sixteen, and anyway, Aunt Natalie would never let us be together. He was older—he said he was twenty-one—and he worked on the boats. She'd have been horrified.”

Josephine looked at Martha. “I didn't know what to do and I couldn't stand it. So that night I—I waited until everyone was asleep and I crept out of the house and took a bus to the docks. I knew Diego was staying on the boat, so I went to find him. But other men were there with him, and they were having a party and drinking wine, and they laughed when I came by and they teased Diego, and I had some of the wine because it was foggy and cold—” Josephine looked away from Martha and gripped her hands in her lap.

“Did your friend's parents find you were missing?”

“No. But the next morning I was too sick to fly home and a doctor had to come to their house and give me shots for three days. Then he said maybe I should take the ferry back with a stateroom to rest instead of flying, because of the danger of middle-ear infection.

“So I managed to get to the dock once more, and that's when I heard about Diego's boat sinking. I ran away from the—from my friend's parents—and I found where I'd been the night with Diego, and one of the men from the party was there working on another boat, and when he saw me he came down and told me Diego had been drowned. I guess he must've taken me back to the ferry, only I don't remember. Because I did get back to Victoria, but I had a relapse and had to go to St. Joe's with pneumonia. I know I came home from the hospital, but after that things go dimmer and dimmer until I don't remember anything
.”

“And you never told anyone about Diego?”

“No.”

“Not even Dr. Marston?”

“It wasn't his business. He wouldn't understand.”

Martha looked at Josephine's bent head. She felt an ache in her throat for the teenage romance that had somehow led the girl into a mental breakdown. Had she been unstable prior to meeting Diego? Diego, who evidently wasn't dead. Why had it taken him so long to get in touch?

“Is the note in his handwriting?” she asked Josephine.

“I—I don't know. I never saw his handwriting. But who else would know?”

“If the letter's from Diego, obviously he's alive, Josephine. The dead don't write notes.”

“I know, but I'm afraid.” Josephine glanced wildly around the room, and Martha thought of a caged bird suddenly offered a way out but too frightened to leave the well-known cage.

“If this isn't a hoax, he'll get in touch with you again. You were right to share the note with me.”

“You won't tell. You promised me.”

“Well, for now, no. But we don't know enough yet, not even if this really is from Diego.” Or what he wants after all these years if it is, Martha finished, but she didn't say it aloud. Another thought crept in: could Josephine have written the note to herself? I'll have to talk to Sarah, Martha decided, and this Bill Wong.

Later, in her own bed, Martha went over what Josephine had told her. The note seemed quite odd. If this was the long-lost Diego who had finally found his love, why wouldn't he march up to the door and ask for Josephine?

Martha drifted into sleep, her mind a confused jumble of thoughts. She awakened with a start, opening her eyes to darkness. Had someone called her name? Did Josephine need her?

She had started to swing her legs over the edge of the bed when someone sat down next to her. “Josephine?” she asked.

To her horror, a hand slid across her breast, caught at her shoulder and pushed her back down on the bed. She struggled to free herself, knowing this was a man, for she felt a man's strength in the hands.

“Let me go!” she managed, before a mouth came down on hers, stopping her words, her breath.

She moaned in fright and desperation.

Chapter Five

“I know who you are, Marty Collier. Don't fight, no use to fight.” The man spoke in a husky whisper directly into her ear. “Don't pretend with me,” he said.

Martha froze. Then, as his hand slid the length of her body, she jerked her head away and screamed. His grip loosened, and she sat upright to reach for the bedside lamp, but even as she did so her door opened and closed so swiftly she barely saw a dark outline. She switched on the light. Her room was empty.

She stared at the closed door. She hadn’t imagined it. There’d been a man in her room who’d called her Marty Collier and tried to--expected her to--

The doorknob turned and Martha gasped, shrinking back on the bed. The door opened slowly and Josephine's face appeared. “Did you call me?”

“Oh, Josephine, someone was in here!”

Josephine came into the room and shut the door. “Who?”

Belatedly Martha wondered at the wisdom of telling her.

“Who was in your room?” Josephine repeated.

“I—I don't know. A man. He—threatened me.”

“What did he do?”

Was Josephine's glance too knowing, her eyes too bright?

“Did he try to rape you?” Josephine demanded. “Is that why you screamed? I heard you, but I wasn't sure. I thought maybe I'd been the one to call out, like I do when I have nightmares, but it didn't seem as if I had.”

“I screamed,” Martha acknowledged. “He—frightened me.”

“Who was it?”

“I told you—I don't know. A man.”

Josephine came over and sat on the edge of the bed. “Well, then it was either Charn or Jules. Unless it was one of the servants. But I can't see Henry or Francis — ” She giggled. “And Simon stays with daddy all the time.”

“Could some stranger have gotten into the house?” Martha asked, remembering the whisper that told her he knew she was Marty... no use to pretend. Who knew of her past?

Josephine shrugged. “I don't know who you might have following you around,” she said. “In fact, I don't know anything about you.” Her tone was accusing. “I told you all about me, but you hardly said one word about yourself.”

“No one's following me,” Martha said. But would Charn or Jules come into her room as the man had?

“Have you been a nurse all your life?” Josephine asked. “You're pretty....”

Martha had no intention of talking about her past. “It's late,” she said. “Thanks for coming in. I was frightened, but I'll lock the door now. I should have before, but I didn't think....”

“I always do,” Josephine said. “You'd better too, in this house.”

Martha locked the door after letting Josephine out. She lay awake afterward, thinking of Johann Collier. There'd been headlines in the California papers. After all, Johann was famous in his way. He'd written the script for and then directed The Unmasking of Hell, which had turned out to be the most controversial film of that year. “Genius or madman?” the papers had asked afterward. Neither, she thought sadly. A man driven beyond his own limits by circumstance and by his own frightening urges. Marty Collier. She'd been in the headlines at the end. Who in Victoria knew that Martha Jamison was Marty Collier?

She wasn't the woman Johann had pictured so vividly in the movie script and who had been played so sensuously by Maria Canyon, unknown before her starring role as Nida in The Unmasking of Hell. Johann had come to confuse Maria with his creation, and Maria was anything but a woman driven to sexual excess by her own neuroses. Maria was, instead, a capable actress.

Poor Johann. For she, his wife, hadn't been Nida, either. No woman could have been. After he'd seen his creation take flesh, so to speak, in the movie, he'd been forced past his limits into the trackless realm that lies beyond. Not really insanity—just uncharted space that frightened him into destruction.

Latent schizophrenia, the doctor had said. She remembered Johann laughing when he told her. The psychiatrist, Dr. Towers, the very eminent Frederic Towers. Shrink, Johann had called him. Headshrinker—no better than a witch doctor, Johann had insisted. Was it because Johann was afraid of discovering what dwelt in his own mind? Of course the newspapers quoted Dr. Towers at great length afterward.