by
Elaine Kehoe

He seemed ever so slightly, uncharacteristically, uncomfortable. "Good afternoon, Carolyn. I am sorry to bother you again. I just stopped by to drop this off... for Julia." He held out an envelope.

She smiled. "It's no bother at all. But I'm afraid you've just missed her. She may have gone down to the Old House. You might catch her there."

Was she imagining that his expression clouded over briefly? "No, no, it's all right. In truth, it's probably better that she isn't here. I believe I've troubled her enough for one day." He smiled rather wanly. "I'm afraid I must impose on you. Would you be so kind as to see that she gets this as soon as she returns?"

"Of course." She took the envelope from his extended hand.

As Carolyn closed the door behind the professor, she felt a sense of melancholy come over her. She had never before thought of Professor Stokes as a man one would ever need to feel sorry for, but she felt sorry for him now. There was something particularly poignant in seeing a man of so much dignity and self-possession become vulnerable to the pain of unrequited love. Yet he carried the burden so well, refusing to allow any break in his well-cultivated air of cerebral sophistication. "'Even as you and I,'" she thought with a tinge of bitterness. For no one was immune. And didn't we all do what we could, call upon all of our good breeding, our civility, all the grace we could muster, to make sure the cracks didn't show. Carry on as though the pain weren't there; don't embarrass oneself or others. The professor did it; Julia did it; she herself did it. Such fine models of restraint they all were. No one would ever guess the hollowness that lay under the veneer of social courtesy. With angry defiance she forced away the image of Chris Jennings' face that kept insinuating itself into her mind.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Exhausted and emotionally deadened, Julia trudged back through the woods toward the great oak doors of Collinwood, perhaps for the last time. Tomorrow she would get ready to leave Collinsport, to return to Windcliff, and the past four years would dissolve into the dust of memory and loss. Finally the maelstrom she had been caught in since the day she met Barnabas Collins would cease. She would be able to regain some stability in her life, in her mind; she would start life over again. Except that the thought of stability gave her no comfort, and the prospect of a life away from Collinwood looked to her for all the world like death.

As she came to the huge door, she fervently hoped that she could enter unnoticed. All she wanted was to go up to her room, to be alone, to try to rest and keep from thinking for a little while. As she started up the stairs, however, the drawing room doors opened.

"Julia!" Carolyn came toward her. "Have you been at the Old House?"

"Yes," she said flatly, her eyes downcast as she pulled off her gloves. She was in no mood for conversation.

"Professor Stokes was here again," Carolyn said in a slightly teasing tone, tossing her hair back. "I told him I thought you might be down there, but he just left this for me to give you." She picked up the envelope from the foyer table. "You've made quite a conquest there, Dr. Hoffman. That man is positively smitten." Noticing Julia's mood, she deliberately tried to make her voice light, but she was immediately ashamed of having seemed to mock him. Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears, and her last few words took on a slightly mournful tinge.

Julia turned the envelope over in her hands, wondering if she had the strength right now to read whatever Eliot wanted to say to her. It was the last thing she wanted to think about, but since she would most likely never see him again after tomorrow, she owed him at least that much. She would of course have to respond, to tell him of her intention to leave. She tore the envelope open and took out several handwritten pages.

"My dearest Julia,

"I must apologize for my approach to you this morning. It is obvious that the roses I sent you did not have the effect I had intended. I had hoped that they might induce you to see me differently; but that was a vain hope, as I should have realized it would be. However, my purpose in sending them to you was actually twofold. The first one admittedly has failed; perhaps with some luck the second might succeed.

"I told you that the roses were very rare and special. What I shall tell you now is exactly how they are so. This particular breed of rose has grown for many centuries in an area on the African continent so remote that only in the last two hundred years has it been accessible to outsiders, and then only with great difficulty. My maternal ancestor, Nathaniel Barstow, was an explorer and cartographer who was in the first expedition to explore the region in the latter part of the 18th century. He discovered the rosebush, and was so fascinated by the beauty and uniqueness of the flowers that he was driven to find out all he could about them. Unfortunately, he was unable to learn anything except an ancient legend. But he was determined to bring one of the bushes back to his home in Collinsport and try to cultivate it. He succeeded; and he also brought back the legend, which he wrote down in his journal.

"The story is this: Many centuries ago a young man offended a very powerful wizard of his tribe by falling in love with the wizard's daughter and by allegedly trying to steal some of his magic. As punishment, the wizard banished the young man to another time, far in the past. The young man mourned for his lost love, and as he had in fact stolen some magic from the wizard, began to try to use it to find a way to reach her. He set out to develop a flower like no other, one that might live and grow through the ages, carrying his love to her across the centuries into her own time.

"In that time the young woman, disconsolate over his loss, found solace in visiting the place where they had always met, an isolated glen near the bend in a river. She went there every day to pray that he might return to her. One day in early summer she noticed a rosebush on which grew twelve large buds. One rose was open, a startlingly beautiful vermilion-colored flower. Each day she returned to the spot, and each day another flower had opened, as big and beautiful as those that had preceded it. On the twelfth day the last rose opened, and she was so overcome with its beauty and fragrance that she sat before it in wonder. As she watched, before her eyes eleven of the roses began to wither, but the twelfth grew even larger and more dazzling. Its unearthly scent enveloped her. As she gazed into the rose her lover's face appeared before her and she heard his voice calling to her. His image grew clearer until she could see him just as he was. She spoke to him, calling his name, calling him to her. A moment later he appeared before her, drawn back into his own time. The couple ran away from their tribe and married, and to this day the roses continue to grow in that one spot by the bend in the river.

"So the story persists among the native people that these roses give one the power to transcend space and time, to bridge eras wherever they grow continuously, to bring lovers together.

"There, Julia, is all I know about the legend of the roses. I thought the story might be of some interest to you. Since Nathaniel Barstow brought them to his greenhouse in Collinsport in the 1790s, they have continued to be cultivated by my forebears, as I cultivate them now. I cannot testify to the truth of the story; I have never had occasion to test it, nor, as far as I know, did any of my ancestors. It is possible that you may have such occasion. If so, I sincerely hope it may prove to be true, and bring you all the happiness you so deserve.

"Happy Valentine's Day, my dear.

"Yours always,
Eliot."

Julia looked up from the letter, for a brief moment feeling the world stop. Then her heart began to race. Now her breath was coming faster; she felt the blood throbbing through her veins, felt life begin to come back into her body and her mind. God bless you, Eliot Stokes, she said to herself. He knew; somehow he had guessed, and he had given her a lifeline, a fragile one to be sure, but it was there.

Carolyn watched the changing expression on Julia's face with some alarm. "Julia, are you all right? What is it? Is it bad news?"

"No... no," she replied, startled. She had completely forgotten Carolyn's presence. She turned to her, and Carolyn saw a light in her eyes that hadn't been there in a long time. "Carolyn, I have to go back to the Old House, right now." She folded the letter and put it in her coat pocket. "It's just possible...this may be the best news I've ever received in my life."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This was the one place that never changed, no matter where the swirling currents carried him. He had learned the way here long before and retained the memory deep in his mind. He came out of the trees into the clearing that overlooked the vast dark sea. He was utterly alone, on this cliff whose edge dropped perilously to the rocks far below. Yet oddly he felt less alone here than anywhere else. The stars, the sound of the ocean nearly invisible in the black night, the dense woods around him, all seemed to connect him to eternity in a way that healed the fragmentation of his life. Only here could he feel what it might be like to be whole again.

There was something else that compelled him to come. It was a hope that here, in this quiet and serenity, he might able to hear the voice that pulled at his soul. It had begun to come more often, that faint whisper, barely a breath moving across his heart, fleeting, always just eluding him. It had no substance, yet somehow he knew it was real. And he knew that if he could find it and grasp it, he would find himself.

He knew the sounds of the night so well by now. The changing cadences of the waves hitting the rocks, sometimes savage, sometimes gentle and caressing. The movement of the leaves in the wind. The soft chirping of insects, night-birds, the small creatures of the forest. They were all familiar. So when it came he knew this sound was different.

It seemed to come like the faint call of a bird across the water, drifting on the gentle night air. Where are you, my love? Can't you hear me calling to you? Come back to me. As he became aware of it, as he tried to answer, it vanished, melding with the sea's song, the murmur of the leaves. Only the wind, he thought despairingly, and dropped his face into his hands.

But he had heard it. And in that brief moment he had felt love. He had felt his heart open, light and warmth touch it. The barely heard voice was gone, she was gone, and he didn't know her, couldn't reach her; but he'd heard it, and there, in that voice, lay his salvation, the other half of his soul.

TO BE CONTINUED

Part Four

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