Subj: Out of the Past, 8
Date: 11/13/01 11:26:36 PM Central Standard Time
From: R J Jamison

An unusual late afternoon mist settled over Collinwood. Within the interiors of the Great House, Elizabeth reread the early morning letter that had been delivered. It beckoned her to town. She smiled pensively at the thought of an unexpected reunion. There *was* no such thing as coincidences. Joyful memories continued to occupy her mind. It had been a lovely winter. Spring had been eventful due to Julia’s revelations but peace of mind still remained with most residents of Collinwood. The arrival of the letter symbolized a blissful summer with evenings of laughter, days of exploration and journeys inward. Elizabeth took her purse and car keys and left the house without a word to anyone.

Roger hung up the phone. He jotted down a few more notes and then appraised what he had learned. He shook his head in disgust. He had learned very little. The Roussins hailed from New York City. He had learned from the owner of the Collinsport Inn. A few calls to contacts in New York revealed that they had a brownstone in the Turtle Bay district of Manhattan. They had lived there for nearly twenty-five years. They appeared to neighbors a happy, if not eccentric, European couple. There was little else to learn in such a short time. Neither held jobs but were investors in various theatrical productions and real estate. Roger shook his head. They certainly didn’t appear to be in need of money. What then were they doing here?

Roger stood and walked to the window that gave him a view of the cannery operations. Below belts were operating, a hundred people moving about their well-timed occupations. Fish cut, fish stuffed and fish packaged. It was a boring thing to watch and an atrocious thing to smell but it was the backbone of his daily life. He had other business interests but the shipyards had never fascinated him as they had his father, Jamison Collins. Roger regretted that he had never been close to his own father. They had shared little of their lives after Roger entered adolescence. He had thought much of that relationship over the years, especially since he became a father. His relationship with David was turning into something too familiar. He seemed destined to repeat the same mistakes of his father. At least there were no bastard children in my past, of this Roger was certain.

Jeannot Roussin opened the door when he heard a light knock. He smiled at the lovely woman who stood before him. She was attired in an appealing sleeveless spring gown. Her hair and makeup were carefully arranged. Her smile indicated great anticipation in the next few moments. “Mrs. Stoddard, please do come in.”

Elizabeth followed him into the sitting room. “I received letter today from. . .” Elizabeth gazed at the man and made a guess at his relationship to the letter writer. “your Mother, I presume.”

Jeannot nodded. “I am glad you received the letter and consented to visit us. May I offer you some tea?” Elizabeth declined. She surreptitiously looked about the room. She could not hide her curiosity. “It has been so many years since I’ve seen Louisa. I found some things of hers recently and the memories flooded back.”

“She is very fond of you and has spoken of you often.” Jeannot invited Elizabeth to a chair.

“Will she be coming out soon, I admit I am quite anxious and nervous to see her.” The smile was childlike and infectious.

“You know I like to keep people waiting.” A rich timbered voice echoed from a room out of Elizabeth’s view. “An entrance must always be well-timed.”

Elizabeth reacted to its familiarity. She knew it well and yet it was too familiar. It reminded her of another woman but its peculiar accent was Louisa’s. “Louisa?” Elizabeth stood and turned toward the voice. Out of the shadows of the adjacent bedroom a tall woman emerged. Elizabeth gasped. “Louisa?!” Her voice rang with disbelief and fear.

The woman, elegantly attired in black slacks and a black silk blouse, moved in a liquid manner toward Elizabeth. She nodded her head to acknowledge Elizabeth and also to comfort her. “My dear, it is I.”

“How? How can you .. “ Elizabeth stumbled for words to address the unbelievable being before her. “I don’t believe it—“

Louisa shook her head and laughed. It was the laugh Elizabeth recalled. It was filled with secret knowledge and understanding. “Elizabeth, how long do you have to live at Collinwood before you accept that there are many things in this world that are unbelievable.”

“But how can it be you? You don’t look—“

“I don’t look my age?” Louisa stood directly before Elizabeth. Elizabeth stared closely disregarding all etiquette. There were fine lines about Louisa’s eyes and mouth but they had been there forty years before. There was not a gray hair in her beautiful mane cut in the latest style. Elizabeth’s eyes widen in disbelief. Louisa had not aged a day in forty years, not one day. “Elizabeth,” Louisa’s warm hands took Elizabeth’s shaking ones and chucked again. “I know I don’t look my age, thank god! You have no idea how horrid that would be.”

“But. . .” Elizabeth’s mind was trying to ascertain something else about Louisa. She was familiar, again too familiar but Elizabeth didn’t understand it. Her ability to recognize Louisa’s familiarity seemed short-circuited. She knew there was something else about Louisa that she should immediately be responding to but she could not isolate what that was. “but—“

Louisa made soothing quiet sounds and waved an elegant hand before Elizabeth’s face. “Shush my dear. It will all be explained very soon.”

“Yes, there is much to explain, isn’t there?” Elizabeth responded to Louisa gentle prodding for them to be seated.

“Elizabeth, I have always been so found of you. I am sorry that I could not return to visit you. But you remember our time together in 1929, do you not?” Elizabeth nodded. “You remember it fondly?” Again she nodded. “I have returned Elizabeth because several months ago my life changed dramatically.” Jeannot moved to stand behind Louisa. He rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Our lives have been dramatically changed and I must know why.”

“But what do you mean and why come to Collinsport?”

“Because it was here that I became something very different than you or any other person. I was changed here a long time ago.”

“Changed, changed how?”

Louisa’s physical response signaled a refusal to respond. “It is best for me to figure out how our change was undone and why.”

“Louisa you are being oblique, I can not help you if you do not tell me anything. I assume you are wanting my help.”

Louisa nodded. “Jeannot has been with me for a very long time, even before I was last with you. I would like him to see Collinwood and I would like to meet your family, your entire family.”

Confused, Elizabeth questioned this request. “You want to visit Collinwood, that’s it?”

“Yes. I want to visit the houses, the grounds, visit with you and your family. I understand you have a cousin who has restored the Old House.” Louisa smiled cleverly. “I’d like to see that very much.”

From within, Elizabeth’s alarm sounded. Louisa’s smile was too cunning. “Louisa, I want to visit with you, I want to know how it is you can appear before me as if the last forty years have not passed but. . .” Elizabeth looked up at the man who stood solidly behind Louisa. His eyes were filled with compassion and love for Louisa. But Elizabeth sensed an icy determination in him as well. Elizabeth decided to match his sternness. “I must know more of what you are and what you want before I introduce you to my family.”

“I am a woman who was abused and wronged many years ago in this town. I accepted what I was dealt and even thrived. Did you find me an unhappy or unkind person?”

“No, you were generous, inspiring even.”

“Thank you. You, Jeannot and others like you have helped me endure my existence.” Louisa smiled warmly and batted her long lashes. “But I ask you one favor based upon the friendship we once had and that is to invite me to your home for dinner with your entire family. I ask nothing more than that.”

“You do not intend –“

“I intend to talk with your family and learn something about my life. Members of your family have always had knowledge that was secret even to themselves.”

While Elizabeth did not understand Louisa’s unusual talk and tried for the better part of two hours to learn something, little progress was made. In the end, Elizabeth did extend an invitation, it was accepted. Elizabeth stood to take leave of her childhood friend and the quiet man who never left her side. “I look forward to introducing you to my daughter, Carolyn.”

“You named her after your Mother, is she much like her?” Louisa had managed to be friendly with Elizabeth’s mother in spite of the obviousness of Jamison Collin’s affection for her. And while Elizabeth had heard her Mother cry over Louisa’s presence in her home, she also knew her Mother had not thrown her out in anger. Elizabeth now regarded Louisa and knew there was something terribly disarming about her. She seemed in control of everything about her.

Jeannot shook Elizabeth’s hand. “Remember, we are Louisa’s children.” Elizabeth nodded at the story she would relate to everyone at Collinwood.

Elizabeth extended her hand to Louisa, who pushed it away and gathered Elizabeth into her arms instead. She held her tightly. Elizabeth had remembered how unusual this embrace had been when she had first been pulled into it as a child. No one in the Collins family hugged for such an extended period of time. Collins hugs were quick and light. “Elizabeth,” Louisa pulled back a bit to look into Elizabeth’s eyes. “you may learn things about people you love and you may think these things are unspeakably horrible but I beg you to remember; love and kindness still exists even in the most depraved of circumstances. Sometimes we do what we must in order to survive.”

“Louisa, I don’t understand” Elizabeth’s skin prickled in anxiety over the statement and the grave tone in Louisa’s voice.

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.