"I guess it proves that opposites attract," Jane mused. "Were we the last ones to figure it out?"
"'Mistress of Edgehill,'" Bing murmured with a wry smile as he led Jane back to the sofa. "It does have a certain ring to it."
"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. Shaken, 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.
"That I will. I'll install 'em right after I finish flashing the chimney. That's first; we don't get May mornings in April very often."
Billy was right; it was a fabulous morning. Mild, seductive air wafted into the room from outside, promising bliss. Jane decided on the spot to rake up the grounds and perk up the cottage's "curb appeal," as the realtors so quaintly put it. By the time she changed into her heavy shoes, Billy was up on the roof, pounding away. Jane rummaged through the potting shed and came out with a couple of rakes and some trash bags. Her heart felt light and eager; right now, right here, she was utterly happy.
She began by raking the border in front of the house. The wet leaves were old, rotted, well on their way to being compost. She stuffed them into the bag. Panicking earthworms scrambled in every direction. Flowers — surely those green straps were flowers and not weeds popping through the earth — flowers were bursting out all over. She raked away more leaves, gently now, and found hundreds of little white pendant bells. And tiny violet crocuses; she recognized those. And blue scilla! She had her own! Jane fell to her knees for a closer look, awed by the very old, very predictable, very astonishing rite of spring.
"Thank you, Aunt Sylvia," she whispered with her head bowed. "I wish you were here to teach me."
"Hey! Jane! Up here!"
Billy was hailing her from the rooftop. Jane backed away from the house to see him better.
"Ever see the view from up here?" he shouted down to her. "Come on up."
She eyed the two-story-high roof with its steep pitch. "I don't think so. I'm not big on heights. Besides, your wood ladder looks like it's seen better years."
"Don't be silly; you're lighter than I am. Keep to the side of the rungs if you're worried about it. Once you get up here, it's easy. Someone's nailed in toeholds, probably for the chimney sweep." He added the clincher: "You'll never know what a great view you have, otherwise."
"I don't know if my insurance policy has a clause for Stupid Homeowner Tricks," she called up with a nervous laugh.
But she ended up giving it a try. The house was a small house, after all, on a low foundation. Climbing the ladder was easy. Getting onto the roof and inching up the wood slats toward the chimney was not. Just because Billy had suction cups for feet didn't mean everyone else was blessed that way. But the prospect of being at the peak was strangely compelling; and besides, she didn't dare turn around to enjoy the view until she had something solid, like bricks, to hold on to.
Billy's steady grip was there for her as she inched her way into an upright position alongside the chimney. Jane had absolutely no desire to look out at the ocean or anywhere else. How the hell do I get back down? was the only thing on her mind.
"Well? What do you think?"
Jane forced herself to lift her gaze from the bowels of the chimney. "Oh."
The view was spectacular. From their spot on the hill, the island tumbled gradually to a long white strip of beach that in turn was washed by the no-nonsense blue of New England water, as far as the eye could see. She could see the harbor entrance, and the long, low jetty, and Brant Point Light, and fishing trawlers on the distant horizon. The whole scene was washed in brilliant, shimmering sunlight. It took her breath away.
Billy was babbling happily on, pointing out the local landmarks, trying hard to nail down more work. "So I'm thinking, how about a deck? It don't have to be a big deal. A few steps in the attic and you're right there."
"A deck ... you mean, a widow's walk?" She remembered reading that the wives of whalers used such banistered platforms as lookout posts, to watch for their husbands' ships to make landfall. Something lurched in Jane's breast, a sickening sense of unease.
Billy chuckled and said, "Well, technically they're roof walks, not widows' walks. Like they say, the women wouldn't be up there if they were widows."
The dream came roaring back, like a river that's burst its dam, overwhelming Jane. The woman in gray, the Quaker: she was a whaler's wife, watching for her husband's ship from the roof walk of his captain's house. The ship was overdue. A small mail packet from the Vineyard had sailed in with the news that the Chelsea had been sighted at sea over forty-eight hours earlier. Oh, God. After three years at sea, the Chelsea was overdue.
Everyone knows that Nantucket is the Siren of the Atlantic ... that she wrecks her own ships, and drowns her own men. Humane Houses! What good are they in December? If the Chelsea strikes a bar ... and Ben has to swim ashore ... he will perish, he will surely perish ... in this, the most joyous of seasons ... and my life shall have no meaning. Oh, God, Thou art a cruel Thing, and Nantucket is Thy handmaid in evil.
"Whoa there, miss!" Billy's voice was alarmed as he grabbed Jane by her arm to steady her. "You got a touch of vertigo, it looks like. Just stand still a moment. Focus on something that's off in the distance. It'll pass."
Jane held on to the chimney for dear life, trembling from the shock of her experience. The woman in gray ... the Quaker ... Judith ... whoever it was, was here — here, in full possession of Jane, as she stood on this roof-walk-to-be. Testing the view had triggered the dream, and triggering the dream had somehow called the Quaker woman forth.
Oh God, this is new misery, Jane thought. What will I do? What will I do?
"You okay now?"
"I'm ... not sure."
How could I know all those things? That a ship was named Chelsea; that it was overdue?
"Billy," she said in a faint and tremulous voice. "What's a 'Humane House'?"
"Geez, I dunno," he said, startled by the question. "An animal shelter, maybe?"
"No ... no, that can't be it," Jane said distractedly. "Billy — I can't do it. I can't climb down. I can't."
"Sure you can," he said nervously. "You got to. I can't throw you over my shoulder like a bundle of roof shingles. You ain't that light," he said, trying to make a joke of it all. "Just take it one step at a time."
But like a swimmer frozen on the high dive, Jane just stood there, clutching the chimney. Was it mere coincidence that she wa
s up here, on a roof, the morning after the dream? She'd never been on a roof in her life.
In her dream she'd been standing on the edge of a roof walk; not the edge of a precipice. How had she not known? When the banister gave way in her dream, she'd saved herself by waking herself up. But there was no banister now, and Jane could hardly be more fully awake. What if the dream was a premonition? Worse, what if she herself was some sort of instrument — if some hideous fate had to be played out every so often, and she just happened to be the one caught in the wrong place at the wrong time?
She'd been looking out at the sea, at the straight blue horizon, struggling to calm her turmoil. Apparently Billy had been making small talk. She hadn't heard a word of it. The impulse to hysteria had passed, but the immobility remained.
"Pray for a high tide, Billy," she said with an edgy laugh. "Maybe I can swim off."
"Y'see, your problem is you're thinking too much about it. You have to think about something else —"
"Ahoy up there! Is that a private party, or can anyone join in?"
It was Mac, standing on the front lawn, hands on his hips. Even from the rooftop she could see that he was amused. More than amused; he actually looked impressed. How could he know that she was clinging to the chimney like a barn swallow?
"Good morning," she called down in a falsely casual voice. "I was just coming down. You don't have to come up."
Even if you can leap over tall buildings, she thought.
She took a deep breath and began assessing the best way down. Maybe she'd fall on her head and maybe she wouldn't. One thing she knew: If she didn't go down now, she'd have to be airlifted by helicopter. The damnable sea breeze had started to pick up and the air felt thirty degrees colder. Her hands were already white-knuckled; she didn't need frostbite to boot.
She waved away Billy's offer to assist. Very, very gingerly she lowered herself into a totally undignified squatting position and began picking her way backward down the roof. Each little toehold comprised a new and separate battle in her war of nerves. All she could think of — besides the fact that Mac was judging her both on style and technical merit — was that she was there to reenact some horrible, ghostly event.
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