"No," he replied, "although there are times when I truly feel like one." A small smile played about his beautifully shaped lips. He was wearing a white silk blouse and tight black trousers, but in the darkness, with the tiny flame flickering, the white blouse took on a yellowish tint.
"I don't understand. What happened? What is happening?" I heard the hint of hysteria in my voice. He heard it, too, for he slipped his hand into mine and gently took hold of my palm.
"Let's return to the cottage," he said softly, "and I will tell you all."
I followed him through the dark passageways, feeling as though I had descended into some land of the dead and rescued him from the grips of eternal sleep.
Together we were ascending, returning to the world of light and life. As we walked in silence our footsteps echoed behind us and fell back into the spongy blackness that absorbed all sound and quickly stifled it. My heart thumped so hard I was sure he felt the reverberations through my fingers. To me it was as if I were pumping life back into him, resurrecting him with every passing moment. Soon we were in the cottage cellar. He stepped back to permit me to walk up the stairway first. I looked back, hesitating, afraid I would lose him, afraid that the powers of darkness, once I released his hand from mine, would suck him back into the tunnels and into the past. But he remained right behind me, closing the door after we entered the cottage.
"Just before you arrived I was about to have a cup of tea," he said in a casual tone of voice. It was as if all the past two years had evaporated and this was just another one of my amorous visits. "Would you care for one?"
"Yes, please," I said. I sat down at the table quickly, my legs feeling wobbly. He went to the stove and started the flame under the kettle again. I watched him take out the cups and saucers and then get the teabags, not looking at me until he brought it all to the table. I shivered and my expression of pain and confusion must have troubled him.
"Poor Heaven," he said, shaking his head, "how I hoped to avoid this moment and how I longed for it at the same time."
"Oh, Troy," I said, "why?"
"You know why, Heaven," he said hoarsely, "in your heart you've always known. But I shall tell you anyway."
He sighed and sat at the table just across from me.
The collar of his white silk shirt was open so that I could see the faint sprinkling of dark hair on his chest. For a long moment he simply stared down at the tabletop, his head lowered. Then he sighed deeply, raked his long fingers through his mass of waving hair, and lifted his heavy, troubled eyes to me. Although he didn't look sickly, he was thinner and paler than I remembered him. His hair was somewhat longer, the ends in the back still curling up. He looked as though he had been shut away from sunlight and life for ages. My heart cried out for him and I had the urge to reach out to comfort and embrace him.
"It was right here, right on this tabletop that I wrote that last letter to you," he began, "telling you how Jillian had come to me and told me that you were Tony's daughter and my niece, telling you how I realized then our love could never be. I told you I was going away to learn to live without you. I thought I could do that and eventually return to Farthinggale to go on with my life as it was before you arrived, as dreary as that life was."
The kettle whistled as if to punctuate his opening statement. We both remained silent as he took the kettle from the stove and poured the hot water. I dipped my teabag quickly, eager to get the liquid warmth into my system to battle away the icicles that had formed within. After a moment Troy sat down and continued.
"As it was probably told to you, I did return to Farthinggale while you were away on that trip to Maine right after your college graduation. I thought I had reached the point where I could return to Farthy and bury myself in the work once again, waiting patiently for my twenty-ninth birthday and what I believed would be my inevitable death before I reached thirty, a death," he said, raising his tired, tormented eyes to me, "I must confess, I now wanted. For to me, Death had become a doorway to a new world, an escape from the misery of living without you. For when I lost you so much of me died. I no longer lived in fear of death, just in quiet expectation."
He paused to sip his tea and looked off for a moment, a quaint, quiet smile coming to his face.
"As usual, Tony thought he could buy away my depression. I don't blame him for that. In fact, I feel sorry for him, knowing the frustration he must have always felt. He made this great party, just to cheer me up and keep me from thinking about my upcoming birthday. He promised he would see to it that I wasn't left alone for a moment." He laughed. "I must say, he had found this girl . . . she must have been part leech. I had to sneak away to go to the bathroom.
"Anyway," he continued, "she couldn't stand my indifference. Apparently, she had always been successful with men and I was proving to be a very annoying frustration. She became rather insulting. It doesn't matter what she said. I wasn't really listening to her anymore and I just wanted to get away from everything and everyone. I had realized that returning to Farthy was a mistake; I couldn't live here being close to you and never having you. I was already being hounded by the memories of your voice. I saw you everywhere around me. It was as if every girl at the party were nothing because she wasn't you. It was maddening, and Jillian knew it. Every time I looked at her she wore a sadistic smile of satisfaction.
"I had no plan; I never intended to do what I did. I think I went for the horses because I was driven by the happy memory of our horseback rides, but when I got to the stables, there was Jillian's horse, looking as defiant and as tormenting to me as Jillian. Impulsively, I decided to ride Abdulla Bar and show that horse it could be handled by someone other than Jillian.
"I know it was a silly, immature thing to do, but I was angry, infuriated at my destiny, enraged at a world that would permit such things to happen. Why was I singled out for such misery? I thought. Why, when I had finally found love and hope, was it ripped away from me and why had fate and destiny put it into Jillian's power to do it? The unfairness of it all was too overwhelming. I didn't care about anything anymore, least of all my own well-being.
"I saddled the horse and we burst out of the stables toward the beach. My fury found its way into the horse. He galloped as though he, too, were running from life, as if he were chosen to be the vehicle to carry me from this existence into the next. Don't you see," he said, some excitement in his eyes as he leaned toward me, "a& I was riding that horse, feeling the wind through my hair, sensing the terror in its wide, wild eyes, I became convinced that the horse was meant to carry me out of this world, out of my miserable life. So I deliberately turned him toward the sea, and the horse defiantly charged forward as if it, too, were suicidal.
"We rode into the ocean until the waves lifted us and tossed both horse and man into the deep. I saw the horse struggling behind me, its eyes still angry, defiant, now accusing me of bringing it to this horrible death, and for a moment I did feel pity for it and hated myself. I could touch nothing without destroying or harming it, I thought. I was meant to be swept out to sea.
"I closed my eyes," he said, sitting back in his chair and closing his eyes as he spoke, "willing and ready to accept my inevitable death."
He opened his eyes, now cloudy with foreboding.
"But the ocean cannot be controlled or made to serve any man's desires. It is a slave to no one, even one as desperate and as determined as I was to use it as an instrument of death. Every time I went under, the waves lifted me up and out. I bobbed and floated. I was tossed and carried. I lost my boots. I saw Abdulla Bar lifted and washed back toward shore until he could touch the bottom and bring himself out and onto the beach.
"I closed my eyes and waited for the mighty ocean, the great waves I had often listened to and stared at alone at night, fascinated with their beauty and their strength, to take me down into their cold darkness.
"But instead I was cast about until I lost consciousness. When I awoke, I was some distance down shore, sprawled on the beach, alive, my a
ppeal for a quick, painless death rejected. As I lay there feeling sorry for myself, I suddenly realized that the ocean had at least provided some relief--it had given me the opportunity to be considered dead. I could truly leave my identity and my life at Farthy behind. In a real sense I had effected an escape from some of my misery.
"So I gathered myself up and without permitting anyone to know what had happened to me, not even Tony, especially Tony, I returned
surreptitiously to my cottage for what I thought would be the last time, and I took some of the things I wanted and needed and then went off to disappear into the night."
He sat back again, as if that had explained it all. My feelings of shock and amazement were quickly replaced with feelings of anger. Oh, oh, oh! All the pain he had caused--letting me think he was dead. And now it was too late. Too late for us to be together! How could he let me suffer so when he was alive? Alive all this time!
"But what about the pain you caused in permitting us all to think you had died? Don't you know what it did to me?"
"I believed it was nothing compared to the pain you would have had to endure living your life knowing I was nearby, knowing we could never be lovers; nothing compared to the pain you would have knowing the torment I was going to endure as well. I realized it was selfish in a way, but I thought it was better.
"It was better," he added, nodding. "Don't you see, Heaven, you've pulled your life together and done significant things. Perhaps if you thought I was still alive, if I had continued to live here in the cottage, you would never have left Farthy. Perhaps you would be like Jillian. I don't know. I thought I was doing what was best for both of us. I hope you will come to believe that. It would be too painful for me to have you hate me now," he said. His dark eyes were filled with the fear of just this happening.
"I don't hate you, Troy," I said. "I can't hate you. I hate only what has happened. What did you do after you left that beach?"
"I traveled about." He sat back and tucked his hands behind his head as he spoke, remembering and reciting his secret existence. "I went to Italy and studied the great masters of art and architecture. I went to Spain and France. I sought relief in travel and in distractions. For a while that worked. I tired myself out moving about from one place to the next, and then"--he paused and straightened up in his chair again, again leaning toward me--"suddenly, I woke up one night in England. I was staying in an inn near Dover Beach. I had gone there because I couldn't stop thinking about that poem by Matthew Arnold. Remember it? I once read it to you. Some of the lines haunted me.
.
"Ah, love, let us be true
To one another!
for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain . . . .
"It seemed so true, especially for us. I lay there in my down-quilted bed listening to the sound of the sea and I thought I heard your voice; I thought I heard you calling to me from the ocean and I thought there was no longer any point in running away. I couldn't run away. Not from you, not from the memory of your face and your voice and your touch.
"I made up my mind that night to return to defy nature and the gods if need be. I was coming back to you, to beg you to come back to me. I was willing to live as an outcast, to give up anything and everything if we could only be together, even if it was just to hold you in my arms while the winds of winter blew around the cottage. That would be enough, I thought, for if I were to die before my thirtieth birthday, as I had always feared, I would die in your arms. That was where I belonged."
"Oh, Troy, dear, dear Troy. Why didn't you write? Why didn't you try to contact me?" I cried.
"It didn't matter. By the time I had made up my mind to do this, you had already become engaged to Logan."
"But how did you know?" I asked. He smiled and finished the tea in his cup.
"I was in Winnerow just before your wedding. I came in disguise and actually was in Logan's parents' drugstore. I heard the conversations and learned of your engagement. So I turned around and left, but instead of returning to a life spent incognito, traveling abroad, I decided to return to the cottage to end my days and I've been here ever since.
"I saw your wedding reception at Farthy, watched it from behind one of the hedges in the maze You looked so beautiful and Tony looked so happy. I even followed you and Logan about the grounds during your honeymoon, spied on you from afar, dreaming it was I who held you in his arms; it was I whom you kissed. For a while there, my imagination worked so well, I actually felt you beside me.
"It was wrong to do that; I know," he said quickly. "But forgive me. I couldn't help myself."
"Of course I forgive you. I understand how hard it must have been for you to watch without my seeing you." Oh, my own Troy, having to watch me marrying Logan! I couldn't bear to imagine it. Why hadn't he stepped forward, why?
"It was haid, painfully hard." His dark eyes flashed with life and light for the first time. "I wanted you to see me; I was working up the courage for that," he said. "Last night, knowing Logan wasn't here, I went to your room after you returned from wherever you had gone with Tony."
"I sensed something last night, although I didn't know it was you. I awoke and called out because I saw a body silhouetted in the darkness."
He stared at me for a moment.
"Why did you come here today?" he asked softly. "Because you thought it might be me?"
"No. I felt like someone under hypnosis, but I didn't know I would find you. When I realized someone was here, I thought it was someone Tony hired to work here. I thought he had lied to me and I wanted to confront this person, and then I suddenly had the feeling I was in the presence of something spiritual, maybe in the presence of a ghost."
"I am not a ghost, Heaven. Not anymore." He sat back and stared at me. "You've changed, grown older, wiser looking. Your beauty has matured. It makes me tremble to be this close to you, to actually hear your voice now."
He leaned forward and reached out to touch my face. I didn't move away, but I didn't feel his fingers on my skin. He sat back slowly.
"I feel like a little boy fascinated with a fire, wanting to touch it, even though I know to do so will only bring me pain."
"Oh, Troy," I said. The warm tears emerged from the corners of my eyes and zigzagged over my cheeks. He reached out again and this time I felt his fingertips caress my skin. I closed my eyes.
"How many times can I lose you, Heaven? Is this just another way for fate to torment me?"
I sat back in my chair, unable to speak. He handed me a handkerchief and I dabbed at my face. My sniffing brought a smile to his lips and then a small, gentle laugh. I shook my head, realizing what all this meant.
"Come into the living room," he said, "where it is more comfortable."
I nodded and went to the couch. Just like in the old days he sprawled on the carpet and looked up at me, his hands tucked behind his head.
"Troy," I said, shaking my head. "I can't believe that this isn't all a dream, that you're actually there looking up at me the way you used to."
"I know."
"When did Tony know you were still alive?" I asked.
"Actually, not until very recently. I was surprised when I returned to find the cottage just the way I had left it. I realized that Tony refused to accept my death. How ironic, I thought, and, of course, I realized what sort of pain I must have brought him. It made it all the more difficult to go to him to confess my ruse. I tried unsuccessfully a number of times."
"You wandered the house at night," I said, realizing now what the servants meant, that Rye Whiskey hadn't been imagining things when he thought there were spirits of the dead haunting the dark hails of Farthy.
"Yes. I even sat at the piano, hoping he would simply find me there, but when he didn't come upon me quickly, I lost my nerve. I thought I was recognized by the servants, but I imagine the sight of m
y darkened visage and body floating through those dimly lit hallways terrified them."
"You don't know just how much," I said, shaking my head.
"And theff, one night, while you were away in Winnerow, I came upon Jillian just outside her suite. Apparently, her nurse had fallen asleep and she was free to wander about alone. I'll never forget that look on her face." He sat up, recalling the moment. "Her face seemed to age right before my eyes. She lost whatever semblance of youth she had managed to hold on to in her madness.
"No,' she said, 'it wasn't my fault. You can't blame me. I did what I had to do.' "
He turned to me, his eyes filled with pain and sorrow. He was compassionate and sensitive about hurting other people, even those who deliberately set out to hurt him. Oh, Troy, I thought, you are too good for this world. No wonder you were always haunted by fears of death.
"I reached out for her and called to her. `Jillian, it's all right,' I said, but she was terrified and ran from me. One time after that I think she saw me from her bedroom window as I passed through the maze."
"But still Tony didn't know?"
"Shortly after that he came to the cottage. I imagine Jillian said something to him or to the nurse and it made him think of me and of coming here. Even though he had kept up the cottage, he apparently couldn't bring himself to come to it that often."
"He kept it as a shrine," I whispered and he nodded.
"But this day he came. I heard him
approaching. I couldn't get myself to greet him at the door. Like a coward I hovered in that closet. I watched him come in and look about, his strong, dignified face weakening. He went to the rocker by the fireplace and stood by it, his hand on the back, rocking it gently and looking down at it, imagining me in it, I'm sure. Then he turned about and started to leave.
"But you see, all the while I was here, I couldn't help myself . . . I had started new work. It just seemed to be a natural thing for me to do. I was in the cottage. The tools were there; the materials were there. I had ideas, so I worked. He saw the new things and went to them. For a few moments he handled everything, looking like a gold panner who had finally discovered nuggets. Then he raised his head and spun about.