Subj: The Letter, Part 21
Date: 8/30/01 12:46:51 AM Central Daylight Time
From: R J Jamison

The rickety plane again defied logic and landed safely along the banks of the Xingu River. The same group of boys and men circled the plane and the men disembarking the plane. Helio facilitated the introductions with few problems and the men began toward the village. Helio pointed out an area to Quentin and Charles, “You can erect the tents there.” He then motioned for Douglas to follow him.

“I’m not going to be ordered around by that wop!” Charles yelled.

Quentin looked at him angrily. “Why don’t you go around the village then and try to endear yourself to them with your kind words.” Quentin looked about the area that would serve as their base camp. “You and I insisted on coming out here, now put some sweat and effort into your work for once.” Quentin threw him a bag containing one of their tents. He disregarded Charles grumbling and began to erect their camp.

Douglas followed Helio to the largest hut in the village. Outside it sat an Indian woman, she tended a fire and a boiling pot. She smiled at Helio and exchanged a few words. She then disappeared inside the hut and Professor Stokes soon appeared.

“Helio!” Stokes looked past the two men to see Quentin and another man. Helio had disregarded his orders, Stokes did not appreciate it. “Who are all these people you’ve brought into the middle of nowhere?”

“Professor Stokes, I am Douglas Blaylock.” Douglas held out his hand and was grateful Eliot shook it enthusiastically.

“Taylor’s father, yes.” Eliot looked back in the doorway, the darkness inside prevented Douglas from seeing anything. “You son has improved remarkably since last night, he is now speaking with Julia. I was just leaving to give them some privacy.” Eliot motioned to the new camp area. “Julia will fetch us when they are finished.” Douglas’s small smiled faded with the realization that he had to wait longer to see his son.

“He is all right?”

Eliot nodded. “Julia is an excellent physician. She was able to treat him and expects that he will recover in a fashion after some extended rest.”

“In a fashion?” Douglas’s voice betrayed his underlying fragile emotional state.

“Julia will explain, apparently Taylor has some latent virus that can not be completely eradicated but can be controlled.” Eliot patted Douglas’s back and directed him away from the hut.

Within the hut, Taylor reclined against a mud wall and watched his wife nervously put several things into their proper place. The proper places had been determined by her in the last few days. She realized it was a silly and futile exercise but it kept her occupied while Taylor had slept and now while he waited for her to talk.

“So you’ve flown half way to nowhere to tend to me, Julia,” Taylor said calmly.

Julia stopped her nervous movements, turned to face him and smiled when she saw his friendly smile. “It’s the least I could do.” She said dryly.

“Humor, that is a good thing to bring with you, especially here.” Taylor motioned to the hut and village beyond them. “I might not have made it had Eliot not sought outside medical care.” Taylor moved to adjust his sitting position. “I didn’t expect him to call all the way to the States for my wife. A doctor from Brasilia or San Palao would’ve been just as well.”

“Perhaps he thought it was time to effect a reconciliation.” Julia sat next to him and moved a cup of water closer. “I had no idea that Eliot knew of you and I.”

Taylor chuckled. “He only learned during this trip. Oh, he knew I had an American wife somewhere but I only volunteered on this trip that my wife was also a doctor.”

“There are other female doctors in the States.” Julia raised the cup to his lips. Taylor accepted it gracefully and took a long drink.

“Yes, but not all of them have red hair and a specialty in blood diseases.” Taylor took the cup from Julia’s hands. “He asked a few pointed questions and I realized he knew of whom I was speaking. He’s a great admirer of yours.”,

Julia managed a small smile. “As I am of his.”

“You brought this friend of yours and Eliot’s, this Barnabas fellow.”

Julia’s smiled faded. “He insisted on coming when he thought Eliot or Hallie was possibly ill.”

“And how does he feel being here with your husband now taking up your precious time?”

Julia searched Taylor’s eyes, what did he know or think he knew? “He is here to support me as a friend, I do not think your presence matters one way or another to him.” She said this as calmly as she could, she knew she was a more skillful liar than the last time she had seen Taylor. “I’m sure he is surprised as am I but nothing more than that.”

Taylor shook his head. “Listen Julia, a few things on the table all right. First, I did not expect you to live the life of a nun while I toiled away down here doing my own ‘thing’ as I hear they call it in the States now. Second, I’ve seen many strange and unbelievable things in this land, and Stokes and I have shared a great deal with one another. I know of your ‘adventures’ with this Barnabas Collins.” Taylor reached out and took her hand. “You’ve changed very much from the proper Philadelphia mainline girl I married. You’ve finally become an adventurer.” Julia stared at him without expression. Just what had Eliot shared with Taylor. “Eliot also shared his own personal observations of your relationship with Barnabas, it’s rather intimate, I take it.”

Julia pulled her hand from his. “What do you expect to glean from this line of questioning? Have I remained pure during your absence, heavens no. I’ve committed all manner of ill deeds. Do I wish to reiterate them here for you as my confessor, also, no.” Julia stood and moved toward the door. “I did not know you were here, I did not even know you were still alive—“

“What do you mean still alive? ” Taylor asked.

“Neither your Father or I have heard from you since 1960. .twelve years ago. Your Father has sent detectives all over the world and nothing, not one thing. I’ve long lived as a widow.”

“Julia, what you are saying is preposterous!” Taylor tried to get up and Julia rushed in to stop him. “Eliot said you never mentioned me but you were no widow! Were you writing a dead man?”

“What?” Julia could not follow what Taylor was meaning.

“Your letters Julia, sure they’ve been infrequent. The last one is three years old but—“

“Taylor I haven’t written you any letters in ten years! I haven’t received any letters from you since before then.”

“Julia, I’ve written letters to you and Father,” Taylor desperately grabbed onto her. “I would’ve never just fallen off the face of the earth. I’ve written letters, not a lot I admit but enough for you to know I was well and I’ve continually asked you about our marriage. You wrote that there was no need for a divorce, you remained committed to your work and your hospital.”

Julia shook her head. “Taylor I’ve not received one letter from you since you wrote to me in 1959. You then came home for your Mother’s funeral and I never received anything from you since. I know you wrote your father a few times in 1960 but that was it.”

Taylor attempted to stand.

“Taylor, don’t stand, don’t become too emotional, you are still very weak.” Julia settled him back down into a laying position.

Taylor stared at her in confusion. “But I wrote Julia, I always wrote and I have letters from you--”

Several minutes later, Julia motioned to the Indian woman to return to the tent and watch Taylor. She glared at the newly erected tent city 100 yards ahead of her. She fixed an icy stare on the camp and began a slow, methodical walk to it. Her fists were balled up and banging against her thighs. In one hand were several crumbled pieces of paper. Her anger was evident to the villagers she passed, they lowered their eyes in the wake of it.

Douglas saw Julia coming forward. Her clothes were dirty and torn. She appeared tired and ill tempered. He met her as she entered the inner circle of their camp where she found all the American men who were now in the jungle. They sat on logs around a fire sipping coffee from tin mugs.

“Julia, I want to see Taylor.” Douglas touched her arm. She turned her icy glare upon him. She held up a hand to fend him and his words away.

“In just a minute.” Julia marched to stand before Charles Llewellyn. She lowered her glare of intense anger directly at him. “Isn’t there something you’d like the share with Douglas before he sees his son?”

Charles met her gaze. “Whatever do you mean Julia?”

“I’ll give you one more opportunity to be honest with Douglas, and me.” Charles looked beyond her to Douglas.

Douglas moved to stand before Julia. “Julia, what is it? Tell me directly.”

Julia faced her father-in-law. “Taylor has been writing us regularly for the last twelve years in care of your attorney.” The response on Douglas’s face was a mixture of confusion, rage, and pain at suspecting betrayal. Julia stepped away from Charles and stood with her back to Barnabas and Quentin.

“Charles,” Douglas advanced on him.

Charles calmly faced his employer. “I do not know what she is talking about. I’ve not heard from Taylor since he left after your wife’s funeral, over a decade ago!” Charles looked about the group with an innocent expression. He frowned at trying to understand and control the situation. “Your son is very ill, he is delirious and guilty over the pain he has caused you and obviously the inconveniences he has caused Julia.”

Julia interjected. “He has written both Douglas and me, and he has written you directly and I am sure an examination of Blaylock accounts, as you’ve laundered them, will show that you’ve advanced Taylor a great deal of money over the years to continue his research.” Finally, she held up the crumbled pieces of paper. “And someone has been writing to my husband on my behalf for a number of years.”

“Of course I’ve supported Taylor’s organization over the years, as his Father instructed me to do.”

Charles lied coolly in the sultry environment. “I was not directed to stop supporting the important work Taylor undertook.”

Julia threw up her arms and audibly expressed her disgust. “Liar!”

“Douglas, you’ve seen the files, interrogated the private detectives, made trips down here with me. He was not to be found. I do not know what these accusations are about.” Charles observed in his peripheral vision Taylor Blaylock coming toward them, being assisted by two men. His observation caused Douglas and Julia to turn and see Taylor’s slow progress.

“Son!” Douglas rushed forward to support Taylor. He wrapped his arms around the desiccated husk of a man that was his child. He held him and cried like a small child. Taylor fell into the embrace of his father gratefully.

“I am so sorry you have suffered, Father,” Taylor breathlessly said. “I had no idea Charles was lying to you and Julia.”

After several minutes of forgiveness sought and granted, Taylor was returned to his hut and given sleeping medication, courtesy of Helio’s recently provided supplies. Charles and Douglas’s discussion did not further an understanding of what had occurred over the last decade. Charles maintained his innocence by pointing to the shared investigations over the years and Julia’s letters, which were in her handwriting.

“I don’t know why Julia would want us to believe she did not know where Taylor was when she obviously has known.” Charles’s well articulated arguments over the last hour were infiltrating Douglas’s previous unshakable faith in Julia.

“Be that as I may be. I still will want to investigate this thoroughly. Until my questions are satisfactorily resolved, I am suspending you from all operations of my company and its holdings.” Douglas walked away from Charles and found Helio getting ready for tomorrow’s return to Brasilia. Douglas directed Helio to send telegrams to his offices to ensure that Charles’s access to his family’s accounts were cut off and to begin an official investigation into his management practices. Douglas then returned to his son watching while he slept.

Several hours later Eliot appeared and directed Douglas to find food and sleep. After eating the meal that Quentin had prepared he walked away from the camp and found Julia sitting alone along the bank of the river. He joined her quietly. “Quite a week.”

Julia did not respond for several minutes. She flipped her feet in the cool water. “In Maine the water is so cold you never put your feet in it.”

“You’ve been happy there?”

Julia considered the question. “Not really, no.”

Outside of their vision and tucked away downriver, Barnabas listened to their conversation. Etiquette told him to leave but his recent vision about Julia and his intense desire to understand what it meant and who Julia was, told him to stay.

“I am sorry that you have not been happy.” Douglas reached for her hand. “I am sorry you felt it necessary to flee Baltimore.”

“Let’s not rummage through that again.” Julia allowed her hand to stay in Douglas’s. “I put it aside a long time ago.”

“You stuffed it down deep inside but I do not think you put it ‘aside’ as you say.”

“Why do you make the distinction?” She was curious as to what he thought he saw and knew.

“When I saw you in Collinsport, Julia, your whole manner was greatly altered. You were always professional, don’t misunderstand me, but you used to be much more comfortable with yourself. You had a natural sway and gait; you are now very tightly controlled. You dress like a nun.”

Julia frowned. “An expensively dressed nun.”

“A designer suit nun, nonetheless.” He laughed at the thought and his pun.

Julia shook her head. “A few days after our little. . . ‘tryst’ I came upon a few colleagues discussing the cut of my blouses and skirts, it was a bit unsettling. Here I had tempted my own father-in-law, with what I didn’t know, and then the other doctors only seemed interested in what was beneath my clothes.” Julia threw a rock into the river. “I’ve always known I was no great beauty, I have a few nice assets. Honestly, I really have never known how to use them properly anyway. But it was just another excuse by the men I worked with to not take me seriously. So I adopted the ‘armor’ as you called it. I became the sexless nun who has always been taken seriously.”

“So it was the Johns Hopkins doctors and not my inability to control myself that Christmas?”

“No you did plenty of damage there, I’m not going to lie to you or let you off the hook. Douglas,” Julia turned to face him, “I had never felt what I felt that night. I . . .” Julia stumbled for the right choice of words.

“Just spit it out girl, throw propriety aside just this once. I’ll absolve you.”

Julia tried to put the words together in a fashion that would not embarrass her or him but then she stopped. ‘Damn, I’m a doctor, just spit it out. It was a biological response, there was no shame in what she felt just with whom’. “I never wanted Taylor that way. Our lovemaking was awkward and unfamiliar, even after years of marriage, I never wanted him, I never ached for –” Julia stopped as she felt her face blushing in the darkness.

“I never felt that way about my wife either.” Douglas bent to pick up another rock which he handed to Julia. “I had countless affairs, Julia, searching for that feeling. Men are different, I don’t think it’s too hard to turn over our engine but Theresa never did. She was the right girl, proper, kind and I did love her but I never desired her in that way. I never kept myself awake at night thinking of her, even before we were married.” Julia did not accept the rock so Douglas tossed it far out himself. “Have you felt it since?”

Julia paused a moment, how much did she really need or want to tell Douglas. Realizing that he knew most of her intimate secrets, those prior to her life in Maine anyway, she plunged ahead. “Yes, I successfully pushed away all thoughts of that kind for many years but it arrived again most unexpectedly a few years ago. It was the strangest of circumstances; I still can not completely fathom it. I’m certain its not he healthiest thing I could have fallen into. But I’ve done nothing about it. It just sits there, percolating every day.”

“Desire, love, it rarely arrives on time or as expected.” Douglas stood and pulled her up with him. “And now what about your husband?”

Julia grimaced. “We haven’t even discussed it. I don’t think there is much to discuss except what grounds one of us will cite in the divorce hearing.”

Douglas looked to the distant firelight of their camp. “Julia, there is nothing else that might have interfered with things?”

Julia looked at him. “What do you mean?”

Douglas took up another rock and tossed it into the river. “You did not keep Taylor’s whereabouts from me out of some spite or anger?”

Julia frowned. “I was only angry at myself Douglas not you or Taylor.” She stood and began kicking things into the river. “I don’t know what Charles has told you but Taylor is being truthful not Charles. I wouldn’t have kept both our lives in limbo for so long.”

“Limbo?”

“My predicament, I have not done anything about it because inside I knew that I really couldn’t. I wasn’t free to do anything. At least I tell myself that, when in truth I haven’t really known what to do.”

Douglas stood. “I’m going to relieve Eliot so he can eat. I will sleep in the hut tonight, you can sleep in the camp on the cots we brought.”

Julia dissented. “No, I should stay near him—“ Douglas stopped her words with his hand.

“You’ve been taking care of him for over thirty six hours straight, you look a fright. I’ll go fetch some of the fresh clothes we brought you. I also understand this river is safe for a quick dip. I suggest you take one.” Douglas dashed back to the camp and collected the bags they had brought Julia and a torch lamp. He returned to her and set them down. He said nothing but motioned for her to get into the water and relax.

Julia bathed in the cool water of the river and relaxed for nearly thirty minutes. When she returned to the bank and changed into the clean ‘safari-style’ clothes, she smiled. Oh to be clean and in clean clothes. She rested on the log and dried her hair with her soon to be discarded skirt. A small noise caused her to turn and see Barnabas approaching. “I recommend the water. Its wonderfully refreshing.” She smiled. Barnabas sat next to her. “Taylor is doing well today. I think that strange little ceremony might have truly worked.”

Barnabas looked at Julia. They had not spoken all day of the ceremony. He has spent most of the day walking
and contemplating what he had seen. He had also rued the incompleteness of it. He had known about Miranda Du Val from Angelique herself and Amadeus Collins, he also knew of Braden and Althia from the family history. He knew the particulars but not the motivations and what, if anything, happened between Braden and Miranda. He wanted to know more, he wanted to take more of the drug and he wanted Julia to join him in the experience. “Julia,” he began.

“I don’t know if we’re supposed to talk about it.” Julia cautioned with childlike glee. “I certainly don’t want to share my visions.”

“I saw my grandfather, Julia, and grandmother.” This bit of information intrigued Julia. She became serious. “I saw my grandfather Braden and his wife, Althia. I briefly saw my father as a very young child. He was a happy child. It is hard to believe that child with such loving parents became my father.”

“What was happening?”

“There are no portraits of Braden or Althia. My Father spoke of them very little. His mother died when he was young and my grandfather soon after Naomi married my Father. In the vision, I saw that my Grandfather loved his wife very much. They had been children together. She married him against social conventions of the day.” Barnabas smiled to see Julia’s interest in the story. He had important but disturbing news to provide. “Braden very much resembled me in my youth, I was startled. My Grandfather married Althia in England and then came to America with Amadeus to start a trade and whaling enterprise. My Grandmother was to join him but she was mistakenly believed to have been killed in a shipwreck.”

“She obviously survived.” Julia volunteered.

“Yes. While watching the vision I forgot that. I accepted her as dead as everyone believed. Braden argued with Amadeus and his wife and moved into the house he built for Althia. He hired a local girl to be his housekeeper and cook.”

Julia laughed. “And the local girl was Angelique.” Julia had meant to mock but she saw that Barnabas did not share her merriment.

“The girl was Miranda Du Val.”

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.