Foreshadowed - by Jean Graham
 

The Island Queen hugged Collinsport's dock like a huge, timbered cat, wood rubbing wood with each new swell of the tide. A feathery snow had begun to fall, out of season in October, but falling, for all its lack of reverence for the calendar, with no less rigor than its January counterpart. There were no anxious families waiting to meet the ship, for she had blown three days off her course in the rain and snow and had arrived in Collinsport's harbor with the late evening tide. Most of the tiny village slumbered behind closed doors, unaware of the masted giant that floated beyond them.

Having disembarked soon after the docking, Barnabas Collins was headed through the town en route to his family's hilltop estate. Even from this distance he could see, through the defoliating trees, a flicker of candlelight glowing in a window of the tall white house. That would probably be his mother, lost in the pages of a French romance, oblivious to the hour. Or perhaps she had been waiting for him.

The moon was full and bright enough to have afforded anyone in the house a view of the Queen's billowed sails as she came over the horizon. He silently hoped that the awaiting party was not his father. Their last parting had not been particularly pleasant and he wanted time to rest and compose his thoughts before they spoke again. And Jeremiah...

What if his uncle were the one awaiting him? Would he know what to say, after all these months, to the one whose dark act of familial treason had banished him from home to begin with?

Conflicting thoughts plagued him and slowed his pace. He did not know whether to damn Jeremiah for permitting the grim shadow of his sexual aberration to fall upon his nephew, or to commend the man for inadvertently bringing about the happiest months of that nephew's life.

Would the village tongues still wag that Joshua Collins' young son Barnabas was not a 'proper' man? He doubted it. Not when they had seen his bride-to-be. Not after he had brought Josette to live at Collinwood. Surely the gossip, as his father had hoped, had been forgotten in his wake.

And of the man who _was_ guilty of the unspoken sin? Did the village residents, upholders of all that was true, chaste and pure, know the truth about Jeremiah? He shuddered and without knowing why, prayed that they did not. In spite of his feelings of betrayal, he could harbor no hatred for Jeremiah. It was almost as though there were two of him. The loyally protective blood brother with whom Barnabas had grown to adulthood, and the pale, weak-willed figure that had cowered in the shadows on the eve of his departure, were a world apart. He wondered which Jeremiah he would now find at Collinwood.

When at last he reached the house, he did not knock. (Was one expected, after so long an absence, to behave as a stranger in one's own home? He dismissed the question as absurd, but felt nonetheless like an intruder for admittinq himself so casually.

He hung his cloak by the door, where the warmth of the room had already begun to melt the ice crystals upon it. When he looked up, his mother had come through the draperied doors into the drawing room to meet him with a welcoming embrace.

"You're up so very late," he said. "You must have seen the ship arrive."

"I did," she said into his ear. "I've watched for it these three days. Come." She guided him to the settee and they sat down together. "You've grown so thin," she worried. "And we heard from you so seldom. I was afraid you'd fallen ill."

He smiled. "Hardly that. But the mails between Collinsport and Martinique are scarcely what they could be. You must tell me... how is Sarah? And Father?"

"Both well, and both soundly sleeping. And I am not unhappy to report that sister Abigail and her maidservant are away for the season on some holy pilgrimage or other."

He waited to see if she would mention the only other member of the family, and when she did not, said simply, "And Jeremiah?"

Naomi's mood changed and a sadness seemed to overcome her. "Poor Jeremiah. He's different, Barnabas. Since the fire..."

"Perhaps," Barnabas ventured, though he knew it was not true, "he still grieves at the loss of his wife."

"Perhaps. But he never mentions her name. And if any of us should do so, he grows so agitated that we've come to avoid speaking of her at all, the poor dear child."

Barnabas was silent, but reflected to himself that nothing about the late Laura Stockbridge Collins had ever been poor, dear or childlike. His mother's naivete, on that topic at least, was unchanged.

"I'm impatient to hear every detail of your journey and your stay in Martinique," she was saying, "but I promise to contain myself until tomorrow. I know you are tired."

"A bit," he admitted. "I shall have to call for my things at the dock in the morning and then I would prefer to tell all of you about the journey together. One time in the telling, as it were."

"Of course." She placed her small, timid hand over his. "Melinda has made up your room and lit the fire. Would you care for hot tea or coffee before you retire?"

"Thank you, no. We'll speak again in the morning."

She took him in her arms once more, a warm and affectionate gesture. To his embarrassment, he found it brought to his mind the last time he had embraced a woman at such close quarter. She had been a maidservant in the house of Andre duPres in Martinique, and a far cry indeed from the stately, matriarchal Naomi Collins. The very indecency of the comparison -- and the fact that his mother's touch should remind him of such things -- brought crimson to his cheeks, and he was compelled to make a timely retreat to the promised bed chamber.

It felt better than he'd dreamed to enter that room once again. There was a sanctity about it that he felt for no other part of the house, for this was his domain, marked out with objects which were solely his own. His artfully chosen volumes were here, crowding the bookcases, and on the mantel sat the glass-domed clock he had purchased in New York, its fine brass movement catching the firelight as it whirled to and fro in precisely measured cycles. On the west wall hung the painting of an alluring young woman, the product of an artistic friend's rather lusty imagination, and the cause of no little righteous indignation on the part of Aunt Abigail. Below that was the oversized trunk made of black Moroccan leather that had been a part of this room from as long ago as memory served him. As small boys, he and Jeremiah had hidden together inside it, fleeing from the clutches of Mathilda, their overbearing (and over-large) governess.

The thought of his uncle rekindled his turmoil. There were so many questions left unanswered; so many things he had wanted to tell Jeremiah and be told in return. Yet the wedges of fate had been driven inexorably between them; first by the haughty manner of Laura Collins, and then by his father's immovable decision to send him abroad. And both of these things had come about for the same reason. Jeremiah himself. Barnabas moved to the casement windows, and looked down upon the darkened woodland east of the estate. The stand of trees, nearly leafless in the early cold, were thin enough to see through to the sea beyond, although the lights of the town and the Island Queen were obscured by the cliffs of Widow's Hill. The snow had ceased to fall.

Abruptly, something moved in the shadows beneath the window. It was a human figure; a man in a black cloak and hat, walking out toward the woods above Widow's Hill. Before it was swallowed in darkness, Barnabas recognized the figure's gait. Though a distinct sadness had pervaded that posture, he knew the walk was Jeremiah's.

In the ivory light of the descending moon, the shadow of the house was elongated. Barnabas, lacking a cloak and hat, came back out into the night from a rear stairway and proceeded quietly in the wake of the figure he had seen from the window moments ago.

The new-fallen snow left a clear impression, simple to trace even in the failing light. The boot prints meandered down a craggy path to the edge of an inlet. There, the man in the cloak stood astride a jutting rock, watching the foaming water, his hat held in his hands.

They had often played here as children, he and Jeremiah. But Barnabas was taken aback by the appearance of this gaunt and moody stranger. Was this the uncle he had spent his boyhood beside? The companion with whom he had once shared every secret?

Not even the gravely troubled Jeremiah he had 1eft behind a year ago had in any way resembled this figure of pathetic countenance. Yet it was he.

Something hidden under the snow grated on the rock beneath Barnabas' feet, and the sound brought the eyes of the other to bear on him. Barnabas wasn't certain whether they were more frightening or frightened, those eyes, for he had never seen them so drawn and hollow.

Softly, he said, "Jeremiah..." There was at first no response. "Jeremiah, please don't turn away. I want to speak with you."

"Indeed." The voice was as hollow as the eyes. "I should have thought you would do that with a pistol in your hand."

The image of such a thing chilled him. "Would you believe that of me? To break the oath I swore to you?"

"We were children then. And the Fates pay no heed to oath or promise. You will have to break it, one day."

Barnabas came nearer. "On my sacred honor, Jeremiah, that day will never come!"

The eyes fixed on him again, a vacant scrutiny. "Why did you come after me?"

"I told you, to speak with you. I wanted to tell you that... well, that I bear no ill will. And that no matter what has happened between us, my... friendship for you remains steadfast." He had found himself suddenly reluctant to use the word "love," and so at the last moment had substituted "friendship." The pain in Jeremiah's face told him that the faux pas had been obvious. "Only a fool would be steadfast to such as I."

"Then a fool I will be. What you are, or what you have done is of no consequence to me. We are of one blood, and that is all I recognize."

"One blood," Jeremiah echoed sadly. "My cowardice was responsible for sending you away."

"The circumstances of my departure are best forgotten. What matters is that Father was right. Whatever his reason for sending me, I'm very glad that he did. The days I spent in Martinique are without question the happiest of my life."

Dare he mention Josette? Or the sweet, carnal pleasure he had shared with the supple Angelique? His joy in having discovered both seemed sorely out of place just now.

"I regret nothing that has happened," he said. "And though it's true I did resent your... weakness... at the start, I assure you I do so no longer. I may not understand the life you've chosen, but I know now that I've no right to condemn you for it."

The distorted imitation of laughter broke from Jeremiah's lips. "Barnabas, you are innocence personified." His tone became suddenly bitter. "Would that I'd. been given to choose."

Lost for a reply to this, Barnabas was tellingly silent. Could Jeremiah possibly be claiming that an act of unnatural love was anything other than chosen by its practitioners?

His expression must have made his thoughts evident, for Jeremiah, that hint of unexplained misery still in his eyes, slowly shook his head. "Have you judged me guilty of the sin as well? The village, my late lamented wife, Aunt Abigail, and now you. It appears my stolid brother Joshua is alone in refusing to hear ill of me."

Barnabas' confusion was visible even without his words. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"No. I should not have expected that you would. It was, after all, a 'logical conclusion' for suspicious minds to reach." Jeremiah's voice quavered oddly, with a timbre Barnabas had never heard him use. "You may find it a matter of some alarming consequence that I should pray to God the tale were true."

An overzealous wave smashed into the rock, spraying foamy water at their feet. Barnabas, still uncomprehending, stared at his uncle. "Jeremiah, what are you saying?"

"That I have not denied their lurid tales because I would sooner they think as they do than know the truth. But you... I will not have you believe it of me as well." His voice broke, and he fell silent. A new drift of snowflakes wafted down upon them, clinging to their hair and clothing.

Barnabas said, "If I have judged you unfairly, you have my sincerest apology." But the words did not sound sincere at all. They were empty, begging explanation.

"It's been said that the Collinses are cursed. Have you ever heard that?"

"You are not cursed, Jeremiah."

That piteous, derisive laughter came again. "But I am. I am a mockery set here before you, cursed to walk the Earth with the outward appearance of a man. But I am not a man." The voice became more tremulous, and Barnabas realized with concern that tears were constricting the words. He stared dumbly, helpless to offer any comfort against an agony he did not understand.

"Don't be absurd," he blurted. "Of course you are a man."

Jeremiah averted his gaze. "No," he said. "Jeremiah Collins is but an imitation of humanity. A poppet, condemned to sit idly by while the men after which it is fashioned father heirs. And from that simple act he is unrelentingly barred. For you see, he does not function as a man. Not with a wife. Not with a tavern whore. Not even -- may God forgive me -- with the proponents of Abigail's 'abhorrent sin'!"

The snow became a flurry, enveloping them in its icy swirl. Barnabas' tongue had grown as numb as the rest of him, and his profound embarrassment at having pushed Jeremiah to this painful confession forbade him further words.

Jeremiah moved behind him as though to leave, then paused and spoke quietly to his back. "For my cowardice in permitting the village gossip to descend upon you, I will ask your forgiveness. I shall endeavor not to be seen with you publicly, nor to supply them with any further fuel for slander."

He was gone then, his boots making soft crunching sounds in the pathway's pockets of snow.

Moments later, frail sunlight broke over the horizon, painting tenuous serpents of gold across the black water. It was a tableau of serenity in rude contrast to the tortured indignity of Jeremiah's plight, and Barnabas, who had always before found dawn a time of quiet, meditative beauty, now saw it as an intrusive thing, shattering the little tranquility that had, with the fragile night, been theirs.

He turned his back on it, and followed Jeremiah's vanishing footprints back up the path to the white-pillared house that was Collinwood.
 

The End