Subj: Out of the Past, 7
Date: 11/13/01 11:03:55 PM Central Standard Time
From: R J Jamison

“I don’t want you to do that any longer.” Elizabeth stood inside the foyer awaiting as Barnabas removed his coat. “I’ve said many times that it is unnecessary.”

“Dear cousin, it is my upbringing.” Barnabas smiled at Elizabeth’s edict that he never knock again but merely come through the front door as if Collinwood were his own home.

“While I can not argue that you have the most excellent manners, however I insist that you come through that front door at anytime.” Elizabeth’s mood was uncharacteristically light and giddy. “Now, I do not expect the same courtesy mind you. We will always knock so as not to disturb your research.”

“Elizabeth, Julia rarely knocks so why should you?”

Elizabeth winked. “Yes, but her privileges are a bit different than mine, I believe.”

Barnabas’s startled reaction was not allowed to linger as Elizabeth pulled him into the dining room.

Nearly an hour later, the entire family made their way into the Drawing Room to enjoy coffee. The evening had been unusually jovial with Elizabeth telling stories of her youth, in particular amusing tales of one Louisa Roussin. After nervous glances were exchanged between Roger and Barnabas, they all listened attentively. Louisa had apparently been the one who had told Elizabeth the facts of life and ensured Elizabeth fully understood all implications of such knowledge. Elizabeth had delicately covered the amusing story since David was present. But many other amusing anecdotes about Louisa made Carolyn laugh raucously, Roger frown and Barnabas flush. Nothing about the woman sounded too familiar to Barnabas. He assumed it was no coincidence that Elizabeth was talking of this woman and earlier in the day a stranger with the same last name had announced his wife’s presence in Collinsport. But Elizabeth could not recall exactly what she looked like, sounded like or where she was from. “European is all I can say. . but maybe South Africa. . I really can’t recall, there was a distinct accent though.”

After David had tired of the adults and disappeared into the hollows of Collinwood in search of a working television, Elizabeth continued with her stories of Louisa. “And she gave me my first driving lesson.”

“Now, really, Liz you were but ten years old!” Roger found this tale too incredible.

“Dear Brother, 1929 was not like today, ten year olds were driving all over back then. I was the last ten year old to not drive in all of Collinsport!” Elizabeth waved a hand to display the mortification she had experienced. “A Collins in Collinsport with a fleet of cars and I was the last one to drive in my entire class!”

“Mother, you barely drive now!” Carolyn stood aside refreshing her evening nightcap.

“Well it was all because Louisa scared me to death. It was pitch black, over at Tanner’s field—“

“Pitch black? Why was she teaching you to drive in the dark?” Barnabas asked.

Elizabeth batted her eyes as it occurred to her that a nighttime driving lesson for a ten year old was absurd. “ I really don’t know, that is rather extraordinary.”

“It’s rather stupid!” Roger added.

“Louisa was a night owl, just like Barnabas, Quentin and Julia. Up all hours of the night, sleeping away the entire day. You never saw her before dinner, never!” Elizabeth smiled broadly as she remembered Louisa’s love of sleep. She did not note Barnabas’s look of interest.

“She slept all day so that is why she decided to teach you to drive at night?” Barnabas disguised his query as gently ribbing.

“Oh, I am sure I was just whining about it and she pulled over at that moment. It was purely coincidental that it was at night.”

“She sounds like a very intriguing woman.” Barnabas rose.

“Yes, Mother believes she may have even been into tarot card reading.” Carolyn took the aged tarot cards from the table where she had laid them earlier in the day. “We found these in the desk that you borrowed Barnabas. They are very, very old.” Carolyn unwrapped the cards for Barnabas to see. “At first we had thought they came here with Josette Collins but Mother decided that the jewelry and these must’ve belonged to her.”

Elizabeth nodded vigorously. “Yes it was these cards that caused this flood of memories. I hadn’t thought of her in nearly thirty years.”

Carolyn began laying out the cards without thought. “The cards are so fragile. I think I’ll give them to Professor Stokes for preservation now that we know they aren’t tied to Josette Collins.”

Barnabas’s heart stilled as he saw the cards and the fashion with which Carolyn laid them out. The card were familiar and now so was the jewelry. The recent sereneness of his soul was now gone, in its place the anxiety and dread that were his constant companions. He reached out to touch one card in particular.

“That’s the—“ Carolyn and Barnabas together identified the card. “the wicked woman.”

“Barnabas, how did you know?” Carolyn looked up.

Barnabas contemplated his response. Deny or brace the family for another upheaval? He decided that if something wicked was on its way to them, they would need one another. But revealing anything of what he now suspected would lead to too many questions about him and his painful secrets. “I recognize the style of the deck. I knew someone once who used similar cards. The wicked woman is not a good omen.”

“But she wasn’t laying them out in any fashion or for anyone in particular.” Elizabeth laughed quietly.

Barnabas’s gaze centered on Carolyn. Her worried expression caused another alarm to go off within his mind. She had been asking a question, she knew the cards were saying something.

“No, its just a game.” Barnabas stood and bade his cousins good night. At the door Roger called out. Barnabas turned to acknowledge questions he knew where coming.

“You did not mention that fellow we met in town, the name can not be a coincidence.”

Barnabas nodded. “Roger, I also do not think it is a coincidence particularly based on what he said.”

“So he is some relative of this Louisa Roussins’?”

“Assuredly.”

Roger turned to look back at his sister who continued too display an unusual animated nature. She was telling another story about Louisa to Carolyn. “I think we should find him tomorrow and head off whatever sort of scene he might be planning.”

“Roger, we should proceed carefully, cautiously I have a sense that there may be some danger—“

Roger turned to look at Barnabas with an exasperated expression. “Barnabas, there is nothing dangerous at all about this, it’s as plain as anything—“

Barnabas jerked his head backward. There is no way Roger could know what Barnabas suspected, he could not have arrived at a similar conclusion. Barnabas knew his suspicions were based on his own innate association with a horror beyond comprehension. “Roger, I’ve asked you to indulge my suspicions before, they have never been unfounded.”

Roger’s brows raised in a well-known expression of conceit. “I don’t see how paying off this Jeannot Roussin can be dangerous, certainly the threat of blackmail will follow me for the remainder of my days but I am willing to deal with that.”

Barnabas leaned in closer. “Blackmail?”

It dawned on Roger that Barnabas was entertaining some other-worldly plot involving the Roussins. Typical, he said to himself. The real issue was plain as day and here Barnabas ever caught up in the supernatural was ready to take a very real and common problem and turn it into a riddle for the ages. True, the family did face unusual aspects of reality that others did not comprehend nor acknowledge. But this incident, it was so common, almost laughably normal. “Barnabas, how old was the Roussin man?”

“Old?” Barnabas reflected for a moment. He knew the man appeared to be a certain age but he suspected he was much older. “He seems to be in his late thirties or early forties.”

Roger nodded. “Yes, and my Father had an affair with a Louisa Roussin about forty years ago.”

Barnabas smiled at the simplicity of this explanation. “But Jeannot said . . . his wife. . .”

Roger quickly checked that no one had left the Drawing Room. “Yes, she could be the reason he needs money. Who knows why he said what he did but the fact remains, Roussin obviously is here to collect money because he believes he is a Collins.”

“Yes, perhaps that is it.” Barnabas thought back over what had caused the alarm bells to go off. Louisa Roussin was a night owl. Julia and Quentin are a night owls and neither one of them was a vampire. And neither one of their sleeping patterns changed much because they had known one. They both apparently had always kept unusual hours. Louisa Roussin did not show up in one photograph but that could have been a technological glitch rather than her casting no reflection. The tarot cards and jewelry, they were found in an old desk in an unused room. Yes, he had jumped to conclusions. He internally expressed gratitude for the simplicity of men and their desires. “I shall accompany you to town tomorrow in search of him.”

“I think I shall try and get some information on him and his mother, Louisa. Let’s meet at the cannery after closing time and go in search of him.”

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.