Beloved (59 page)

It was implicit that Phillip
'
s relations were putting up the money in some capacity. So there it was: no broker
'
s fee, an easy transaction, good neighbors for everyone else, and Phillip would be able to do someone a great kindness besides. Jane could hardly do better than this sale.

And yet she hated the thought of it. She didn
'
t want
any
stranger in Aunt Sylvia
'
s room, sweet or not. She didn
'
t want anyone else digging around in Aunt Sylvia
'
s crocuses, or building a fire in her fireplace, or chopping down the holly trees because they blocked the light. Even worse: Mac
'
s prediction about Phillip going after Lilac Cottage was coming true. Of course, Phillip
'
s interest in it seemed perfectly logical, but who was to say there wasn
'
t some grand design, some ulterior motive.

Phillip could see the
anguish in her face.
"
Jane, you don
'
t look ready to sell,
"
he said in a kindly voice.
"
Obviously you love this place. Is this going too fast for you?
"

When she sighed and nodded, he said,
"
I have a confession to make. My aunt and uncle fell
irrationally
in love with Lilac Cottage. The price they
'
re offering is too much, but I told them you were on the fence about selling, and I thi
nk they were hoping to just ..
. dazzle you into it.
Clearly
their ploy didn
'
t work.
"
He stood up to leave.
"
Thanks for listening to the offer.
"

"
I
am
dazzled,
"
she blurted, since he himself was being so candid.
"
But I just don
'
t
—
can you give me a couple of weeks to think it over, Phillip?
"

"
Of course. If they become enchanted with something else in the meantime, I
'
ll let you know. Or would you prefer a written agreement?
"

"Well ..
. maybe a written agreement
'
s not a bad idea,
"
she said as she saw him to the door.

They agreed that he
'
d have his attorney put something simple together, then shook hands on it and Phillip left. Jane wandered around Lilac Cottage adrift for the rest of the day, the wind taken compl
etely out of her sails by Phil
lip
'
s unexpected offer. It was over, then. Her work here was done.

And yet it wasn
'
t
all
done. What about Judith? Somewhere along the line Jane had accepted responsibility for Judith Brightman
'
s spiritual destiny. Now Jane had two choices: She could jump back into that nightmare, or she could sell Lilac Cottage and sneak off the island, leaving Judith to fend for herself. That would mean handing over a probably haunted house to an aging, ailing couple.
Not a nice thing to do, unless I reduce the price drastically,
she decided with grim humor.

But she still had two weeks.
Anything
could happen in two weeks. It was Thursday night and the Atheneum was open late. The rain had retreated and left behind a layer of sulky fog. Jane needed to think things out, so she put on a jacket and headed downtown on foot, careful to step out of the way of the occasional car that passed her.

She missed Cissy. Cissy had the kind of blind faith that gave Jane the confidence she needed to work through her theories about Judith. Right now, in fact, Jane happened to be working on a doozie. She was remembering that the two times that Judith had appeared in the bedroom, the first time when Buster saw her and the second time when Jane did
—
those two times came after moments when she and Mac had connected in a very elemental, very physical way.

The theory wasn
'
t perfect (it didn
'
t explain Judith
'
s appearance, if that
'
s what it was, on the videotape) and there were other possible combinations than Mac and Jane (Celeste McKenzie had been around, dammit, before both apparitions). But it did seem as if Judith
'
s spirit was able to draw some kind of strength from the sexual intensity between a man and a woman.

Jane thought about it and shook her head.
If that
'
s what you
'
re looking for, Judith Brightman, then you
'
re in bi
g
big trouble.
The only thing intense about Mac McKenzie lately was his desire to keep his distance from her.

Jane went into the Atheneum, waved to the librarian,
nipped a Fig Newton, and headed downstairs for the microfilm viewer. Back to 1852 she went, scanning through the classified ads. Judith Brightman had been a merchant, and merchants advertised in the
Inquirer.
It was worth a shot.

She scrolled her way through the ads hawking everything from white beans to dress si
lks, looking for Judith Bright
man
'
s name. The big advertisements were taken out by
— who else?
—
the Macy and Starbuck and
Gardner
folk
. But there were little two-liners by small-time merchants for everything from crushed sugar to cheap gaiter boots; those were the ones Jane read carefully. Some had names, some addresses. The most promising one, the one that made the hair on the back of Jane
'
s neck tingle, was the following one:

Long Shawls. Just received a new lot

of fine quality black shawls to be sold

low. Also, tasteful muslin and cambric

trimmings.

There was no proprietor
'
s name, only an address on
Pine Street
.

Jane forced herself to keep reading through the classifieds until the Atheneum closed its doors for the night; but nothing moved her as the shawl ad did.
It has to be her ad,
Jane decided, almost out of desperation.
I don
'
t have time for it not to be.

Pine Street was not
Main Street
; obviously the dry goods shop had been operated out of a private home, which wasn
'
t uncommon back then. Jane hurried along the glistening cobbled streets, anxious to see what the establishment looked like. One thing she could count on in
Nantucket
: The house would still be there. She walked away from the town
'
s center down the dark and empty street, listening to the sound of her own footsteps. The houses on Pine were typically
Nantucket
: plain, solid structures built originally for mariners and tradesmen.

The fog was thick, the numbers hard to read. Jane passed the house right by, then had to back up to it.
Not a good sign; I feel nothing at al
l
she decided, reacting like some latter-day psychic.

It was no captain
'
s mansion. The little frame cottage was built on a high brick basement and, like so many
Nantucket
houses, fronted directly on the street. It had very little land, just a twelve-foot strip alongside to accommodate a car that no doubt wouldn
'
t be showing up until July.
Yet another pied-
à
-terre,
Jane thought, feeling some of the distaste that Mac felt for the hit-and-run
resident
.

She tiptoed into the drive, wincing at the noisy crunching of crushed white shells underfoot, to see what she could see. Each of the house
'
s side windows, like the front door, was shuttered tight. There was a small back yard with what might have been a large lilac overspreading it; it was too dark there to tell. Squeezed between the drive and the house were a mix of shrubs and rosebushes, all of them pruned back severely to allow room for the owner
'
s car.

Once, this was a garden,
Jane realized with sadness; but the parking shortage was a fact of life in town. She remembered reading that when cars were still a newfangled thing, people had tried and failed to get them banned on the island. Now there were fewer cabbages, fewer tomato plants as a result of their failure.
Ah, well; the owners wouldn
'
t be around to tend them anyway.

She went back out in front and stood under a street lantern, trying to pick up some sense of Judith in or out of the house.

Is that the house where she waited for Ben? Is that where she defied Jabez Coffin and the Elders? What about the gray shawl, the only gray one in the lot
—
did she fold it over a rocking chair inside
that
house?

The dream.
It began to come back. Jane stood very still, willing the forgotten dream of Jabez Coffin and the Elders to return. She remembered it all now. She remembered the rocking chair, the gray shawl, the little framed silhouette of Ben Brightman on the mantel. She remembered every word of Judith
'
s final confrontation with the relentless and unyielding Overseer. It was
as clear in her mind as a big-
screen film.

And now she knew something else: It was Judith
'
s rocking chair that was sitting in the corner of Jane
'
s bedroom. Not that it was surprising:
Nantucket
recycled its furniture the way some communities did their milk bottles.

How odd, Jane thought, that there was no pain in her shoulder this time, no psychic whispers of
"
Warmer! Warmer!
"
from Judith. Jane felt nothing, nothing but a bedrock certainty that this was the house where Judith had lived with
—
and without
—
the man she had loved more than life itself.

****

When Bing returned from
Europe
he looked a little thinner, a little older, and a lot wiser. He no longer had the sparkle of a man who believes that life
'
s a cabaret, and most of the good-natured mischief was gone from his eyes. But his embrace was as warm and comfortable as ever; and when he let her go, Jane felt as if someone had taken away her favorite bathrobe.

They were sitting in the fireplace room of Lilac Cottage, watching a whimpering Duraf
l
ame log do its thing. Despite the chimney sweep
'
s reassurances, Jane hadn
'
t had the courage to crank up a good wood fire since the night she nearly burned the house down.

"
You
'
ve had the damndest luck since you moved into this place,
"
Bing mused after she explained that to him. He swirled the brandy in his snifter, no doubt remembering the one who
'
d had the worst luck of all.
"
Any more mysteries since I
'
ve been gone?
"

"
Things have been quiet.
"

"
Mmmn
—
for me too. Every other time I
'
ve been in
Rome
—
well, I
'
ve enjoyed doing what the Romans do. It
'
s a great city, a great place to party. I love
Rome
. It has breadth. It has depth. It has the most heartbreaking sunsets I
'
ve ever seen. It has everything,
"
he said, staring into the snifter.

He put the glass down on the little gaming table and said,
"
But it didn
'
t have you.
"

"
Rome
knows how to party without me,
"
Jane said, smiling.

"
Hear me out, Jane,
"
Bing said edgily.
"
This is brand new territory for me. I don
'
t want to get lost. What I
'
m trying to say is, losing Cissy left a big hole in my life, right where loved ones and commitment should be. If all of
Rome
couldn
'
t fill that hole, then I
'm doomed, unless ...
.