Curse of Black Tor (9 page)

Martha saw that he'd closed his eyes. Without the intent gaze of his brown eyes, he looked dead. She resisted the inclination to feel his pulse, which she knew would be weak and thready. Chronic congestive heart disease, she decided.

“Goodbye, Mr. Garrard,” she said softly. “I'm glad we've met.”

“Talking tires him,” Natalie offered. “He's eighty-five, after all, and he should know better than to exert himself. What did you say to him?”

“Nothing of any importance. He wondered how I liked my job.”

At the head of the stairs, Natalie held out the book. “He insisted on you reading this. Frankly, I don't think you'll be interested. I didn't want to argue with him and upset him. Of course, you don't have to take the book at all. As long as he thinks—”

“I'd like to read the Garrard family history,” Martha cut in. “I know so little of this area.” She took the book from Natalie. “Thank you.”

Natalie shrugged and went down the stairs.

Martha hesitated, then decided to put the book in her room before finding Josephine but Josephine was waiting in Martha's room. Her eyes glistened with excitement. “Oh, everything's so much better since you came!” Josephine exclaimed. “You're lucky. I knew you were when I touched the coral necklace. And now Cathleen's home and there'll be a party!”

“Your cousin's very pretty,” Martha said.

“Oh—Cathleen? Yes. Men like her.” Josephine giggled. “Only Jules holds out—she can't get Jules.”

“I thought he seemed quite--interested.”

“Maybe. But he’s never going to get married again and that’s what Cathleen wants. Because of the money.”

“I thought you liked Cathleen.”

“I do. She's fun. But the money's mine. And Jules's, too. When daddy dies.” She got up from the chair by the window and came toward Martha. “You saw him just now, didn't you? He's going to die soon, isn't he?”

Martha turned away, her skin prickling uneasily. Norman Garrard had said his daughter wasn't mad. Perhaps not, but could this be called normal, this—this ghoulish waiting for death?

“He has a serious heart condition,” she said.

“That man came,” Josephine said.

“What man?” This jumping from topic to topic could merely be restlessness, but many patients at Camarillo had done the same, flitting from one subject to another, like hummingbirds at a blossoming shrub.

“Why, the man who knows you, the one you met on the boat.” Josephine's eyes glinted with mischief.

Where had she heard about that? Still, Martha had been warned that Josephine listened at doors.

“If you mean Branwell Lowrey,” Martha told her, “he has business with your brother.”

“I know. What’s he look like? Is he short and red-haired like the Bronte Bramwell? I never heard of anyone else being named that.”

Martha shook her head. “He has brown hair--and a beard. I can't remember if
Bronte Branwell sported a beard.”

Josephine was silent for a moment. “I didn't get to see him, but I'll watch when he leaves,” she said at last.

“Do you like to read?” Martha asked, wanting to change the subject. “You mentioned the Brontes.”

“Yes. I've read everything about them—the girls mostly, not their beastly little brother. I hated him. He couldn't even paint, much less write, but the fuss was always about him and not Charlotte or Emily. Imagine being able to write something like Wuthering Heights.”

“Catherine's love was an obsession,” Martha said.

“But isn't love always if you can't have the man you want?” Josephine asked. “And for the man, too—Heathcliff was equally obsessed.”

“He was strange from the beginning,” Martha argued, “while Catherine could have led a normal enough life if she hadn't encountered him. I've always felt so.”

“Like me?” Josephine said. “Would I have been 'normal' if I hadn't met Diego?”

“You're not—abnormal,” Martha said.

“Yes, I am, and you know it. But I'm not crazy.'' She came close to Martha. “Let's go on a picnic tomorrow. I haven't been on a picnic since—for a long time. We can ask Sarah. She says I never do anything with her, so she can come, too.”

Martha hesitated, remembering what Jules had said
.
,

“Oh, we won't go off the grounds—I know Jules won't let us. But there're nice places here, places where we can be alone.”

“All right. I haven't been on a picnic since I was a little girl,
”
“
Martha said. “I'll tell Elsa to fix us a basket with hot chocolate to drink. Do you want to choose the food or be surprised?” Josephine asked.

“
I’d prefer coffee, sugar only,” Martha told her. “Otherwise I like surprises.”

Josephine narrowed her eyes. “I don't think you do, not really. You're a Capricorn, and they always like to know exactly where they are.
”
''

“How did you know I was a Capricorn?”

“You act like one. I can usually tell. Cathleen's a Gemini—very charming. Of course, you can't trust her. But, then, I don't trust people much, anyway. And Sarah's a Sagittarius, arrow straight.”

“What are you?” Martha asked.

“A Scorpio. That's why I have secret knowledge of things. Scorpios do.”

“Then your birthday is soon.
”
''

“Oh, yes. Soon. And daddy promised me he wouldn't change his
W
w
ill like Jules wants. So I'll have money, and then I'll leave. Diego will come and get me, he'll take me away from Black Tor and I'll be safe forever.”

“Does—does Diego know about the money?”

Josephine shook her head and laughed. “I know what you're thinking. But he doesn't know—how could he? It's me—he loves me, and he's come back for me.”

Then why doesn't he come to the house? Martha thought. Why doesn't he meet your brother and ask to see you here? But she remained silent.

“Daddy gave you the history—are you really going to read it?” Josephine pointed to the book Martha still held.

“Yes.”

“There've been others like me—you'll find out. That's when I knew I wasn't mad at all—when daddy gave me the book to read.” Josephine sat on the bed. “You expect me to be sorry about him dying, don't you? But it was too late when he started paying attention to me. I couldn't pretend to love him. He never loved me or my mother. Only Jules's mother. He even named me after her. That's why I won't let anyone use a nickname for me. No one called her Josephine, even if it was her real name. She was always Josie.”

Josephine got up with a sudden movement and brushed past Martha. “I'm going to my room. I'll leave the door open, though, so you can come in if you want later on.
”
''

After Josephine went out, Martha lay on the bed and began thinking of Simon, the man who took care of Norman Garrard. Could Simon have been the one in her room the night before? She hadn't liked the way he'd looked at her—not at all.

She picked up the history of the Garrard family.

“If Abel Garrard had been in the right place at the right time, he would have, without question, become a pirate and a very capable one,” the book began.

Martha read of how he'd made a fortune in sealing and built Black Tor in 1880, when he tired of rented quarters. Norman, his first child, was born ten years later. Old Abel had turned up his nose at building on the fashionable streets in Victoria. Not for him a mansion along Rockland Avenue next to Robert Irving's or Rout Harvey's. He wouldn't have a Stoneyhurst, but he'd have Black Tor, built where he wanted his home. Apart from others as he felt himself apart from the common run of humanity. The prominent of Victoria be damned. With mounting horror, Martha read of the cruelties of the sealing industry. When so many of the breeding females had been killed off that the seal population declined, Abel Garrard, foreseeing the death of the industry, sold his boats and got out before the market plummeted. He then managed to latch on to the very profitable market for outfitting eager gold seekers on their way to the Klondike. He
still
made
still
more money. Victoria boomed with the Canadian-Alaskan gold rush.

Norman's mother had died only a few years after his birth, and Abel raised the boy as best he could with a succession of Indian and Scottish housekeepers. He didn't marry for years. Then, when Norman was eighteen, Abel surprised everyone by his marriage to a young woman. This second wife in due time produced Natalie, but then she succumbed to “galloping consumption.” So much death among the Garrard women—

So Norman had been raised without a mother—as Josephine had been, Martha thought sleepily. And how about Sarah? What had become of her mother, whoever she was? Had Jules bought her off, or was she dead, too?

Martha jerked herself awake.
/
I
shouldn't sleep, she thought. Rising, she made her way to Josephine's room.

Josephine was lying face down on the bed. She sat up and glared at Martha. “What are you doing in here?”

Martha stepped backward. “I thought you didn't mind if I came in.”

Josephine's eyes were red rimmed, as though she'd been crying. “Why can't you leave me alone? I don't care what Dr. Marston told you—I won't try to kill myself. Stop watching me!”

“I'll be next door if you want me,” Martha told her as she left.

What was wrong with Josephine now?

After an uneventful dinner, Martha returned to her room and locked the door. Then, recalling Dr. Marston's words, she turned off her light, lifted the lithograph from the wall and peered into Josephine's room. It's no worse than looking through the window slit at a psychotic patient behind the locked doors at Camarillo, she told herself. Still, Josephine wasn't psychotic. Or was she? Martha shifted from one foot to the other as she watched Josephine, then turned away as the girl began to undress.
I
/
don't like spying, Martha thought, and got into her bed.

The next she knew, the room was bright with morning.  Her eyes flew to the clock beside her bed. Eight! She hurried to the peephole and saw that Josephine's bed was empty, but she could hear water running and thought the girl might be taking a shower. Martha hung the lithograph back in place and hurried to dress herself. She wore khaki denim pants with a rust-colored buttoned shirt that she left open at the neck. Would Josephine still plan on the picnic, or would she have a new whim that day?

She unlocked her door and knocked at Josephine's.

Josephine's eyes were clear when she came out of her room—no sign of the previous day's tears. “You haven't forgotten about the picnic?” she asked.

“No, I dressed purposely for it.”

“We can leave about ten-thirty—Sarah will be through with her morning lessons by then.”

Lessons? Oh, yes, with Louella Gallion, the cousin who had retired from school teaching. Louella, who never spoke at the table.

“Where are we going?” Martha asked.

Josephine glanced at her sideways. “You said you liked surprises.”

Martha frowned at something odd in Josephine's voice. She looked at her, but Josephine's face was averted.

They ate breakfast with Cathleen.

“A wonderful day for painting,” Cathleen said. “Look at that sky. I'm going down to the cove and paint corny water scenes until I drop.”

“What do you do in Seattle?” Martha asked. “Do you have a gallery?”

“I should be so fortunate.” Cathleen's voice was rueful. “No, I'm in commercial art. Tiresome, but a living.”

“Where's my picture?” Josephine asked.

“Oh, it's still in the car—I forgot to bring it in last night. Hold on—I’ll get it now.” Cathleen put down her coffee cup and went out. The canvas was large—at least three feet by four.

“You got it right,” Josephine said, her eyes shining. “How did you know, Cathleen?”

“A fishing boat you asked for, a fishing boat you got,” Cathleen answered. She smiled,
seemingly gratified by Josephine's pleasure.

“Look, Martha, see how the nets go up here like this? Have you ever seen a salmon boat?”

“Not that I paid attention to,” Martha replied.

She gazed at the painting. The boat stood by a wooden dock at sunset. The fishermen were gone, only a few gulls remained, not flying but perched on the posts of the pier. Like mourners, Martha thought unexpectedly. The work was skillfully done, but the picture depressed Martha. Was it the color? Red with the sun setting? No, not exactly, though the red was disquieting—a bloody red.

I don't like it, she thought. I feel as though everyone isn't just home having supper but permanently gone. Dead. The boat will rot and the gulls fly away. She shivered involuntarily and tried to mask it by rising and pouring herself more coffee.

At ten-thirty Sarah skipped into the foyer, where Martha and Josephine waited for her, and the three of them went out into the woods. Martha wondered where they were in relation to what she'd seen from the tower windows. She turned around and tried to tell. Although she could see the tower rising white, the windows glittering in the sun, there were too many trees between them and the house to pinpoint their position.