Part 2: Red Rover
Chapter 18
Barnabas sat on the fallen log in the woods between Collinwood and the Old House.
After Julia had departed the room earlier this morning, leaving him with Roxanne, he had finally stumbled away also and gone down the staircase of Collinwood, trying to hold in his distress in case he met a member of the family. He even covered his face with one hand. But he saw no one. Feeling as though he had been struck by a train, he staggered from Collinwood, intent upon reaching the Old House, but then he had collapsed. He had sat down abruptly on the fallen log and tried to catch his breath.
He lifted shaking hands to his head; his face was flaming, his hands deadly cold.
Roxanne and David were very firmly in his mind. Yes, he must see to them. But first he had to somehow absorb this sickening blow, this horrible development of losing Julia.
He was still bewildered and shocked, but he thought he understood the situation. He could follow Julia's thinking—just. Of course he could. But she was wrong!
Wasn't she?
Barnabas wound his arms tightly about his midsection. With tears on his cheeks, he pressed his eyes shut and examined his conscience.
Did he want Roxanne? Oh, yes, yes! But not the way Julia thought he did; it was as simple as that.
Did he want Julia? Yes! He could no longer imagine living without her. She was vital to his survival. At one time, that phrase had meant his survival as a creature of the dark—he needed her to guard his sleep, to try her cures on him, to inform him in the evening what had happened during the daylight hours he was forced to shun. But now! Now it was her love he craved. He had thought very carefully before giving his engagement ring to Julia, for she had loved him unswervingly, unstintingly, for a long time. He had recognized in himself a burgeoning desire to share his life with her. He had let the feelings grow on their own until he was certain.
It was not as though he had forgotten the other women he had loved. That would never happen. But Roxanne—that affair had been the worst. To begin with, he had loved her from the first second he saw her trapped in forced sleep in Stokes' cottage. And the moment she'd opened her eyes, she had loved him in return.
He had lost her violently. First, they had been swept apart by a fire that decimated the secret room which had been his accessway into parallel time. Later, when he'd found her yet again in a different setting, in a different age, in 1840, she had been a different person—but still Roxanne. And she had, once again, looked upon him and loved him.
And he hadn't been able to stand it. At the time himself a vampire, Barnabas had led her into that dark life, purposely led her into death—killed her—saw her rise from the grave, only to have her destroyed by her mourning brother. Randall had forced her away from her sanctuary grave as the sun rose, by holding up the holy cross that Roxanne could no longer endure to look upon.
Barnabas had found her again and again, and lost her repeatedly, just as he had Josette.
But if a man's first love could be called unforgettably powerful, there was also something primal, devastating, about his last.
He held himself tightly and rocked in the cool air of the woods. He tried to think back and analyze exactly how he'd felt about Roxanne then, before he had fallen in love with Julia, and how his feelings differed now. How could he make it clear to Julia that her interpretation of all she had witnessed this morning was wrong? His urgency, his weeping, his begging Julia to bring Roxanne to life again—what woman wouldn't have translated his behavior as backsliding, a willing return to a love affair that he had never really relinquished? Of course Julia would think that the evidence of his passion for this girl blotted herself out. Yet, still he felt a little injured that Julia had refused to hear him.
Well, whether he caught Julia at the Old House or had to follow her all the way to Windcliff, he was going to articulate everything for her and explain all of it.
Barnabas bowed his head and prayed as he had done in childhood.
"God," he whispered, "You know how I feel, and I know, but Julia doesn't understand. Please give me the words to tell her, to clearly illustrate that no matter how she saw me behaving earlier, my feelings for Roxanne are now vitally changed from what they were before. Help me illuminate this for Julia. Help me to speak the truth to her so that she will understand it and come back to me, for it is she whom I love! Please, God. … Thank You. In Christ's holy name. Amen."
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At Collinwood, in the room where they'd discovered her, as Elliot watched, Roxanne Drew slowly opened her eyes.
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This is the end of Part 2