The Orchid Hunter

by Jill Marie Landis

  The only shock she had been dealt today had come from finding out she had a twin sister, whereas Joya had just learned that her entire life had been built upon a lie. It was impossible for Janelle to put herself in her sister’s place. She could not even begin to fathom the emotional upheaval that Joya must be going through.

  The glorious color had drained out of Joya’s face, leaving her tanned skin a pale, jaundiced shade. Her eyes were stark, filled with confusion, reddened by tears.

  “Should you go to him?” Janelle stared at the open doorway. There was no sight of Dustin Penn on the veranda.

  Joya shook her head. “I can’t.”

  An awkward stillness lengthened. Janelle was just debating whether to sit on the floor beside Joya and comfort her when Trevor suddenly stood.

  “Do you need some time alone?” he asked Joya. Janelle saw that while Trevor stared into Joya Penn’s eyes, his face was filled with an expression of deep concern.

  Joya turned to her and asked, “What did you mean when you said, this explains so much?”

  When she hesitated to answer, Trevor began, “My sister has had terrible nightmares since she was a child. Dreams in which she found herself alone and abandoned in the jungle, wandering, helplessly lost.”

  Janelle added, “Trevor was always the first one there and would try to comfort me. Father, that is, James, tried to understand, but our grandmother, Adelaide, believed I was just demanding attention.” She looked at her hands. “As I grew older, the dreams became less terrifying, but they always confused and sometimes frightened me. I took up painting at an early age, committing to canvas the scenes I saw in my dreams. I thought it might help me understand.”

  Janelle could see that Joya now had a death grip on the fabric of her trousers. Her hands were clenching the rough woven material so tightly that her knuckles were white.

  “But it did not help you, did it?” Joya was staring up at her intently.

  She frowned, shook her head. “Only a little. I became more and more compelled to paint, almost as if I were being drawn into the work itself.”

  Trevor added, “We thought perhaps the stories she had heard about Osmond Oates’s death, stories told when she was a child, might have frightened her enough to inspire her nightmares. It did not help when I began going on orchid-hunting expeditions myself. She began to worry that I would meet the same end.”

  “I began to believe the dreams might be prophesies of Trevor’s fate,” Janelle added. “When he planned this expedition, I told him that I wanted to come to Africa because I hoped that seeing the jungles I have dreamed of might put my mind at rest.”

  “I finally agreed to let her come along with me.”

  “Only after I begged him unmercifully,” Janelle quickly added.

  Trevor went on. “I had hoped that a tour of Africa would bring her nightmares to an end.”

  “Instead, the dreams only intensified,” Janelle quickly added.

  “You didn’t tell me,” Trevor said.

  Joya whispered something neither of them heard.

  “I beg your pardon,” Janelle turned to her twin. “What did you say?”

  “He died here,” Joya said softly. “Osmond Oates died here, on Matarenga. He is buried near my…my mother…” She shuddered and corrected herself. “Clara Penn.”

  “Osmond Oates…my father? Buried here?”

  “Our father. I will take you to his grave,” Joya told them. “But not today. There has been enough for one day.”

  She rose, pausing as if uncomfortable in her own home. She looked around as if seeing the room through the eyes of a stranger. This was, indeed, Janelle thought, the first few moments of a whole new life for her twin.

  “Wait here…please.” Joya quickly walked to the far side of the room and exited through a narrow doorway.

  * * *

  Trevor watched Joya disappear. Then he looked down at Janelle. “Are you all right?”

  “As right as anyone can be who just came face to face with herself.” She tried to laugh, managing a smile, at least. “She is so very brave,” she added. “Trevor, can you imagine what she must be feeling right now?”

  “Penn should be strung up.”

  By stealing Joya, the man and his wife had robbed the girl of everything his own father would have given her. She would have grown up with Janelle, been raised at Mandeville House. She would have been taught how to walk and dress and act the part of a lady. Like Janelle, Joya would have been no more than a sister to him.

  And as such, she might not have fascinated him with her every move, not triggered such gut-wrenching confusion each time he looked at her.

  “I have a sister,” Janelle said softly. “Can you believe it, Trevor? I not only have a sister, but a twin. Of course, she can’t stay here now. We’ll simply have to take her home with us.”

  He had walked over to look out the window. Penn was nowhere in sight. Suddenly, he realized what Janelle had just said and turned around.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Joya, of course. We have to take her home.”

  He had not even thought about taking Joya Penn back to England. Hell, he had not anticipated any of this. He ran his hand through his already tousled hair, disturbed by the hopeful look in his sister’s eyes.

  There was barely manageable uneasiness building inside him. He was certain, without knowing how, that the ramifications of Joya’s existence would surely spread like ripples on a pond.

  For a man who valued planning and order, it was hard to imagine what to expect from such a major upheaval.

  As his father’s heir, he had assumed responsibility for Janelle. He had always acted as her older brother and guardian. His father had promised to see to Osmond Oates’s offspring. Was he now responsible for Joya, for seeing her taken care of and settled, too?

  So many questions only intensified his unease. He did not enjoy being out of control of any situation. He prided himself on being a man who took great pains not to let anything of the kind happen.

  Before he could comment to Janelle, Joya had reappeared, but paused instead of coming forward into the room. She watched intently from the doorway. The color had not yet returned to her face. If anything, she looked even more pale and forlorn. In one hand she held what appeared to be various-sized pieces of paper.

  Without thinking, he crossed the room and found himself beside her, compelled to try to help, to be near her. To catch her should she fall.

  It took a moment, but she finally managed the barest hint of a smile. One corner of her mouth lifted and the dimple in her cheek appeared.

  “I have something to show you,” she said. “Both of you.”

  Then she walked over to where Janelle sat on the day-bed.

  Joya held the pages out to Janelle, who took them and lowered them to her lap. She lifted the top page, staring down at it.

  Trevor viewed the page upside down. It appeared to be a somewhat smudged charcoal rendering of the Tower of London with a female figure standing in the foreground.

  Janelle stared at the drawing, then quickly began to leaf through the others. “You did these?” she asked without looking up.

  “Yes.”

  “All scenes of London.”

  “Yes.”

  Trevor saw Janelle’s hand tremble.

  “What is it?” He saw no reason mere drawings should upset her. “It’s not surprising she can draw, is it? You are an artist. Osmond Oates painted beautiful water-colors of many botanical species. You both inherited artistic talents.”

  “It’s not that,” Janelle told him. Joya stood there mute, as if she expected Janelle to make some further discovery.

  “You have never been to London, have you?” Janelle asked.

  “No.” Joya shook her head. “I have only seen drawings in my mother’s books.”

  “Some of the details in these scenes are missing or misplaced, but overall, these scenes are quite good. Very recognizable.” Janelle slowly looked thro
ugh each page again.

  Trevor sensed some form of silent communication taking place between the twins. He was a bystander watching an exchange he couldn’t fathom, a discourse between two individuals speaking another language. He felt not only left out, but highly uncomfortable.

  “You drew yourself in each scene,” Janelle mused.

  “No. That is not me. It was never me in the drawings. It was another girl, one who looked like me. I knew it in my heart each time I drew her and every time I looked at the drawings afterward. That is not me.”

  “Then it must be me,” Janelle whispered.

  “Yes,” Joya agreed. “I know now that it was you.”

  Trevor shifted, beyond uncomfortable with the direction of their talk. He was not one to believe in such esoteric nonsense. He could not acknowledge anything beyond the concrete, physical everyday world. He believed in a world of order, of genera and species, of classification.

  What the twins were hinting at, what Janelle obviously accepted so easily, was beyond explanation, beyond anything he could define. Seeing was believing. He wanted no part of such talk.

  Still he lingered, feeling shut out, yet unwilling to leave either of them.

  Janelle stared at the drawings spread over her lap and then looked at Joya. “While I was in London painting the jungle, wandering in dreams of the terrifying, wild darkness of this place, you were here, half a world away, drawing scenes of London. Drawing me.”

  Then Janelle looked at Trevor. “It’s incredible, isn’t it? We may have been separated on the night of our birth, but we have been seeking each other without even having knowledge of what we were searching for.”

  “Incredible? It’s impossible.” He folded his arms and thought about helping himself to Penn’s whiskey.

  “Then how do you explain these?” Janelle picked up some of the drawings and waved them at him.

  “I have no explanation.”

  * * *

  Joya was arrested, listening to their exchange, marveling at the way the deep sound of Trevor’s voice seemed to slide along her backbone. Whenever their eyes met, she experienced sensations as intimate as a touch.

  As Trevor and Janelle spoke quickly, in such a clipped, fast exchange, she found it hard to understand everything they were saying as they talked of taking her with them to London, of Mandeville House and their grandmother, Adelaide.

  Suddenly Umbaba appeared in the doorway, calling her back to reality, to Matarenga. Trevor and Janelle both stopped talking at once.

  “What is it?” Joya spoke in Matarengi as she crossed the room.

  “Your father.”

  “Where is he?”

  “At the place where your mother lies in the ground.”

  There was no Matarengi word for grave. She had been right in guessing that Dustin Penn would have gone to her mother’s grave.

  She assured Umbaba that she would leave immediately. He did not move off the porch, but waited to walk with her. She turned back to the Mandevilles.

  “I must go to my father. He needs me.”

  She had to tell her father what was in her heart, and this was something that she must do alone. She quickly explained to Umbaba and asked him to have his wives bring food to the strangers.

  “Is she a jimbwa?” He pointed to Janelle.

  “She is no ghost. She is my sister.” The reality of the statement startled Joya as much as it did Umbaba. The truth had barely begun to seep into her. She had a sister. She had family other than her father—and Trevor Mandeville was a part of that family now.

  “When are they leaving?” Umbaba continued to eye both whites with suspicion.

  “Soon.” Mixed emotions swept through her. Chilled her. She looked through the open door, across the lagoon, the reef, the open sea. Was she really ready to leave this place, this island that had been her paradise and her prison?

  She tried to hide her hesitation when she told Janelle and Trevor, “Umbaba’s wives will bring you food. Our house is yours. Be at ease.”

  She walked away, lost in thought as she tried to find the words that would help ease not only the pain inside her own soul, but the sadness she had seen in her father’s eyes. He, too, was suffering.

  “Joya?”

  She heard Trevor say her name and paused at the bottom of the porch steps.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to go along?” he asked.

  “I am sure.” Silently, she blessed him for showing his concern. She wished that she did not have to confront her father at all, but things could not be left the way they were.

  She walked away from her house clutching her small charm pouch, headed toward the low hill where her mother and Osmond Oates lay buried. No matter what happened between her and her father, she now had a sister who would be awaiting her return.

  And Trevor Mandeville would be waiting as well.

  Chapter Eight

  Joya found her father alone on the hillside, his back pressed against the trunk of the flame tree, his legs stretched out before him. The muddied, trail-worn soles of his shoes faced the sea. The Kusi wind lifted his hair. He was staring at her mother’s grave and had not seen her yet.

  Joya looked over at her mother’s grave and thought, I know now, Mama. I know what you did and my heart is breaking for it.

  Her mother’s grave lay near that of Osmond Oates. Joya realized the irony of it all, how she had grown up unaware that her true father lay buried on the hill behind her home. She had often stared at the mound of earth with the crooked cross made of two sticks lashed together at one end.

  She stepped toward the tulip tree. “Papa?”

  He slowly turned and looked at her. She crossed the clearing and waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, she asked, “May I sit with you?”

  She would have never thought to ask before. Doing so broke her heart even more. Such a little thing, and yet it showed just how great the tear in the fabric of their lives had become.

  “Sit.” He patted the dirt beside him.

  Help me, Mama, she prayed. Let me know the right words to say.

  They sat in strained silence as her father continued to stare over at Clara’s grave. Joya took a deep breath. She began to smooth down her hair, but when she saw that her hand was trembling, she dropped it into her lap.

  “Can you understand, girl? Can you understand at all?”

  She nodded, fought not to cry. “I’m trying. I know you didn’t want Mama to be punished for…for taking me. I can understand your not wanting to take me to England when I was little. But when I grew older, when you made me put aside the Matarengi ways, you should have told me then. You should have given me a choice.”

  “It’s too late now,” he said sadly.

  “Yes. Too late. With or without your permission, I will go with them to London.”

  He sat up straight, pushing away from the weathered tree trunk.

  “I would give you the moon, girl, if I thought it would put the stars back in your eyes.” Her father’s expression hardened. “Mandeville came here to talk business. I’ll listen to what he has to say and see if he will be willing to have you in London— for a time.” He cleared his throat.

  “Thank you, Papa.” She got to her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her papa enfolded her in his embrace, rocked back and forth and held her as he had not done since she had been a child.

  “Can you forgive me, Joya? Can you forgive your mother and me for what we did?”

  “I love you, Papa. What would I be forgiving you for? For loving Mama enough to let her keep me? For loving me too much to let me go?”

  Joya gazed over his shoulder at her mother’s grave. Thank you, Mama. Thank you for your help.

  * * *

  The cooling breeze wafted through the house, carrying the sensual scent of ylang-ylang blossoms. The pungent, heady fragrance stirred Trevor’s blood, made him feel restless and unsettled. He had no idea what had gone on between Joya and her father, but Penn had come to him and s
eemed ready to listen to what he had to say. Janelle had asked Joya to show her where to freshen up so that he and Dustin Penn could have some privacy.

  Now, alone with the orchid hunter, Trevor quickly put Joya out of his mind and gathered his thoughts. For the first time since he had been rocked by the sight of Joya Penn, he felt back in control. To him, running Mandeville Imports was as simple as breathing. He prided himself on his business success—it was a job he had been trained to do. He bore the responsibility of generations.

  His grandmother had groomed him to guide the family-owned concerns in a way that his own father had never wanted to do. She had instilled in him a deep responsibility to the family import company that his paternal great-great-grandfather had established. The daughter of an impoverished, once-wealthy and titled family, his grandmother had married into the Mandevilles with little hesitation.

  Her own son, James, had been an endless disappointment to her. A widower from his young wife’s death until the day he died, his father had cared for his orchid collection, his designs for glass conservatories in which to house them, and little else. He had left the overseeing of the business as well as Trevor’s upbringing to Adelaide.

  A woman unlike any he had ever known, Trevor’s grandmother had assured him that she saw her own business acumen in him. Not only had she agreed with this plan to persuade Penn to go into partnership with them, but she had encouraged him to travel to Matarenga to seek out the man in person.

  Now had come the moment he had been planning for two years.

  “Another drink, Mandeville?” Penn had already refilled his own glass.

  “No. Thank you.” Trevor shook his head, wanting to keep a clear mind.

  “Sit down.” Penn indicated a chair directly across from his own.

  Trevor sat. Afraid Penn might suddenly change his mind and refuse to hear him out, he began without preamble. “It took me two years to discover your whereabouts, Mr. Penn. When I began my search, I had only one proposition to put to you. Now I have two. I’ve come to solicit your business for Mandeville Imports. We want exclusive rights to broker your orchids in London and around the world.”