The Orchid Hunter

by Jill Marie Landis

  He could not believe he had ever wasted a moment worrying about how his sister might fare if left alone. “And a bit more, I’m afraid.”

  Before he could tell her about Joya, Dustin Penn walked up to them and stared at Janelle, his expression deeply grave.

  Janelle smiled at Penn and held out her hand without waiting for Trevor to introduce them.

  “You must be the famous orchid hunter my brother has spent the better part of two years talking about. I’m Janelle Mandeville.”

  When Dustin Penn did not even acknowledge her introduction, Janelle turned to Trevor. He was still furious at his sister for putting her safety at risk, but in a way, he was also relieved that she was here. Seeing her removed all doubt about Joya’s likeness to her.

  Instant concern for his sister came over him when he suddenly realized that he had no idea how she would react to seeing Joya. Or how Joya would react to her.

  How would he feel, were he to suddenly come face to face with a man who was his double in almost every way?

  He took his sister’s hand, giving it a squeeze before he looked out over the garden, searching for Joya again. He spotted her nearly hidden in the midst of the bearers. Like the others, she was staring at Janelle in silent wonder, but tears glistened on her cheeks.

  Beside him, Dustin Penn turned. Trevor realized that he, too, was searching the crowd for Joya.

  “Trevor?” Janelle whispered. “What’s wrong?”

  Trevor turned to his sister, squeezing her hand again. Staring down into her upturned face, he felt none of the attraction he had for Joya. Although Janelle’s features were the same, although he cared for her because he thought of her as a sister, Joya emanated a radiance, a sense of being and an essence that moved him in a far different way.

  “I have someone to introduce you to. I have no explanation as to who she really is or how she came to be here. I don’t even know how to tell you about her.”

  “You are scaring me.” Janelle glanced at the crowd.

  Trevor followed her gaze. His sister was watching a well-fed man wearing an ornately woven headdress adorned with orange sunbird feathers as he stepped out of the crowd. The man’s regal bearing gave away his status as chief of the tribe. He carried a polished turtle shield and tall spear.

  A murmur went through the crowd as the man walked past Janelle. He did not take his eyes off her as he went directly to Dustin Penn and said something in Matarengi, but the orchid hunter did not look up.

  As Trevor led Janelle down the steps, the crowd parted. The Matarengi spoke among themselves, falling back as they passed by. Joya was now standing at the edge of the crowd. She was no longer crying, but staring intently, motionless. His sister, who was studying each of the Matarengi in turn, had not yet noticed her likeness among the others.

  Trevor suddenly wished he could take Janelle home and leave whatever secrets were buried here on Matarenga alone, but it was too late now.

  Too late for all of them.

  * * *

  Joya could not swallow the lump in her throat. She had been trembling ever since she had been close enough to the veranda to see Janelle Mandeville clearly.

  Everything Trevor had said about his sister was true, but there was so much he had not told her. In feature and form, Janelle Mandeville was exactly like her, but Joya marveled most at her skin, for it was as creamy white as a delicate frangipani blossom and appeared to be just as soft and fragile.

  Joya ran her dirty hands over the rough material of her trousers as she took in every detail of Janelle’s clothing, the intricate design sewn into the deep violet fabric, the touch of lace at her collar and cuffs. Small, golden earbobs dangled from her ears. Ribbons that matched her gown held perfectly wound curls beside her face, where they bounced prettily. Round, silver-framed spectacles perched upon the end of her nose.

  Never had Joya dreamed what it would be like to see a real English lady come to life. Looking at Janelle was even more curious, for it was like seeing herself transformed.

  Suddenly, Trevor’s sister looked directly at her. Joya heard her gasp, saw her face drain of color. Janelle quickly turned to Trevor, but before he could say a word, she let go of his hand and walked away.

  Joya held her breath. Janelle Mandeville did not stop until she stood directly in front of her, then reached out and touched Joya’s cheek.

  “How can this be?” Janelle whispered. “How can this be?”

  She did not cry, but stared back intently, touching Joya’s face and then her hair. She ran her hand down Joya’s arm.

  In an impulsive gesture, Joya threw her arms about Janelle’s neck and cried, “You are my lost spirit, the likeness of myself I’ve seen only in dreams! I knew one day I would find you, but you have found me first.”

  She loosened her hold on Janelle and stepped back, anxious to hear what her likeness had to say.

  Janelle Mandeville fainted dead away at her feet.

  Chapter Six

  Joya knelt beside Janelle, demanding that the Matarengi step back while she chafed the girl’s wrist. Trevor hovered over his sister with a dark scowl on his face, as if it were Joya’s fault that Janelle had fainted.

  “Take her inside,” Joya ordered.

  He immediately scooped up Janelle as if she weighed next to nothing and started back toward the house.

  Joya reached the veranda first. Her father was there, staring over the garden toward the open sea, his rugged face devoid of color. He looked like an old, old man.

  Joya turned to Trevor and bade him take Janelle inside again.

  Before she could talk to her father, Faruki, the Matarengi chieftain, was there demanding explanations. He wanted to know why, since his people had always been good to Dustin Penn, had the white hunter summoned a ghost into their midst? When her father did not answer, she tried to tell Faruki that Janelle was no jimbwa, but she had no idea how to appease the chief, for she had no explanation. If anyone knew the truth, it had to be her father.

  “Papa, send these people home and come inside with me.”

  Her father shook himself out of his stupor and quickly tried to reassure the chief that the strange woman was no jimbwa, but flesh and blood.

  Hadn’t she just fainted? her father asked Faruki. What ghost fainted in the noonday sun? He told the man to take his people back to the village. Finally, grudgingly, Faruki left the porch and the others followed. Then her father turned around and walked inside.

  When they crossed the threshold, the cool, comfortable room settled around her like a familiar, worn shirt. Her mother’s touches were everywhere: in vases of bamboo where Joya still placed cut flowers, in the way the furnishings, all made of island woods and woven coverings, were arranged.

  The shutters were open to the breeze off the sea. An ancient ylang-ylang tree grew just outside the window. Its heady perfume scented the air.

  Trevor laid his sister on a low platform daybed built against the wall beneath a bank of windows. He fussed over her, smoothing out her full skirt, and then threw a worried glance Joya’s way.

  She had an odd twinge, envying their closeness. She looked to her father across the room. He was pouring himself a whiskey.

  Joya crossed the room and felt a distinct sensation of familiarity as she knelt down beside Janelle and took her hand again.

  “Has she stirred?” she asked Trevor.

  “No.” The word was clipped by his tension and worry.

  “She had no warning.”

  “I should have planned this better.”

  “You did not even know she was here.”

  “But I should have warned her the moment I saw her.”

  Joya let go of Janelle’s hand.

  Her father was staring at them. “Drink, Mandeville?”

  At Trevor’s nod, Joya felt safe enough to leave them alone and scooted quickly out of the room to get Janelle some water. When she came back a few minutes later, she was relieved to find Janelle somewhat dazed, but sitting up.

  J
oya paused on the threshold between the two rooms.

  “I am all right,” Janelle said to her with a weak smile. ‘Trevor can vouch for me when I say that I have never succumbed to the vapors before.”

  Joya had no idea what succumbing to vapors meant. She smiled anyway, just thankful that Janelle Mandeville had not died of fright.

  “Here,” she said, thrusting the water glass at Janelle. The liquid splashed over the rim. Joya watched the moisture splat and fan out into a dark stain on Janelle’s skirt. “Oh, no,” Joya whispered.

  Janelle graciously accepted the glass. “Please, don’t worry about a little water. It will dry.”

  Janelle’s gaze, filled with bewildered curiosity, swept her from the tip of her muddy toes to her tangled hair. When she stared at Joya’s pants, a smile lifted the corner of her lips and a dimple exactly like Joya’s own appeared in her cheek.

  Janelle was so perfect, so clean and lovely, that Joya wanted to crawl beneath the woven floor covering.

  The English girl took a long drink and then settled against the bank of pillows along the wall. “I can’t stop staring at you,” she said when she was comfortable.

  “Nor I you,” Joya admitted, relieved that the color had returned to Janelle’s cheeks.

  “It is incredible,” Trevor added, looking back and forth between the two girls. “Unbelievable.”

  “Trevor told me that your name is Joya. It’s a beautiful name,” Janelle said softly.

  “My mother always said I was her joy,” Joya whispered.

  Trevor downed the whiskey in his hand, then looked over at her father. “Mr. Penn, now that you have seen my sister, now that she and your daughter are side by side, you can’t deny that I was right about their likeness. Janelle and Joya are nearly identical. I have every right to hear everything you can tell us that will shed light on this situation.”

  “We have a right to hear,” Janelle added.

  After all her years of strange dreams and doubts, Joya was suddenly afraid to hear what her father might say. An intense pain squeezed her heart when she realized that anyone else in his position would have been questioning Trevor and Janelle, hounding them for answers. Unless, of course, he already knew the answers.

  Her father’s eyes were suspiciously bright. Unable to stand, Joya sank down and sat cross-legged on the floor beside Janelle Mandeville’s feet, careful not to let her dirty clothing touch the lovely fabric of the girl’s gown.

  Her father sighed, ran his hand through his hair. Then he cleared his throat, setting the whiskey glass down on a bamboo table beside his favorite chair.

  Joya looked at Trevor, who was watching both her and Janelle intently. Long, silent seconds passed. Her gaze caught and held his. She could not tell what he was thinking behind his rich, dark eyes.

  Joya jumped, startled when Janelle suddenly took her hand. She found the gesture comforting. When her father began to speak, his voice was low and husky. The deep timbre easily drifted to them on the Kusi trade wind.

  “It began almost nineteen years ago on the night of a terrible storm in London. I was twenty-five then, about your age, Mandeville. I had been in London a week, having gone there on some unpleasant business.

  “Professor Osmond Oates was a young botanist who had died while on expedition with me here in Africa. When I went back to England to break the terrible news of his death to Oates’s widow, she was about to give birth to their first child. She hadn’t been having an easy time of it anyway, and the shock of her husband’s death proved to be too much for her. When she heard he was dead, she went to bed with grief and never recovered.”

  “My mother,” Janelle said. Her hand tightened on Joya’s.

  Penn nodded. “That’s right. Her name was Stephanie Oates.”

  Joya bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling. She closed her eyes, terrified to hear what he was going to say next.

  “The weather was so bad the night she delivered that the doctor did not arrive in time for the birth. My Clara was the Oates’s housekeeper back then.” He looked off, focused on something distant. “She was lovely. Young, buxom, had the most beautiful, thick russet hair.” He brought himself back, looked at each of them in turn.

  “She delivered you,” Penn told Janelle. “And then, it was obvious Stephanie Oates was going to die. In accordance with your mother’s dying wish, Clara handed you over to an amateur orchidologist, a very close friend of Osmond Oates.” He looked at Trevor. “That man was your father, James Mandeville.”

  Joya could not imagine her mother, who had never lived without servants here on Matarenga, working in an Englishman’s household. She glanced over at Trevor again. His handsome features were set in an intense scowl. Her father continued.

  “Clara said that after she gave Mandeville the newborn and went back into the room, Stephanie was delirious. Clara tried to comfort her, told her she had given birth to a lovely girl, that the infant was safe with the Mandeville’s. A few minutes later, Clara realized there was another babe on the way.”

  Janelle gasped. Joya, numb, watched her father through a wash of tears. His image wavered like a mirage. If he was not really her father, did he really exist at all?

  “Clara sent the upstairs maid to get me, told me to wait for her in the kitchen. When she came downstairs, she spoke to me alone, begging me to take her with me to Africa, to ask no questions.”

  He looked down at his hands—scarred, rough, timeworn, strong. The hands of a man unafraid of hard work. Then he met Joya’s eyes, looking directly into them. “She was holding a basket full of linens tight in both arms, as if it held a great treasure. I wondered why a woman who had already rebuffed my obvious attention had changed her mind and was suddenly begging me to take her to Africa.” His voice lowered. “She said she would do anything if I took her away. Then a soft cry came from the basket. Before Clara could stop me, I pulled back the covering and there...” He paused, cleared his throat, and looked at Joya. “There you were. So tiny. So helpless.”

  Joya felt the pressure of Janelle’s hand tighten. Trevor sat apart from them, listening intently.

  As her father told the terrible, astounding, shocking truth of her birth, it seemed as if she and this man she knew only as Papa, this man who had raised her, were the only two people on earth. With her free hand, Joya wiped away her tears as he continued.

  “Clara had already told me that James Mandeville had taken the first twin. Things became very clear to me the minute I laid eyes on you, Joya. Clara was going to keep you no matter what I said or did. I wanted her desperately, and I could see that she would never leave you behind. I took you both, and found a ship that sailed the next morning. We made our way to Africa and then, after I made certain no one was tracking us, I brought you both here to Matarenga. You have been my daughter ever since that night.”

  “Is that why you would never take me to England?” Joya’s voice broke. She buried her face in her hands.

  “Yes. Knowing you had a twin in England, we feared discovery. If we had returned and met with any of my contacts in the Orchid Society—to which James Mandeville also belonged—we feared someone might recognize that you looked like the Mandevilles’ adopted child.”

  Joya could not raise her head. She heard him approach, and knew that her father was kneeling before her. When he took her hand, she choked down a sob.

  * * *

  Trevor watched Penn with mixed emotions. The man was broken, on the verge of tears. Brought low, humbled on bended knee before the girl he had raised as a daughter, the man knelt with his shoulders bent, his expression mournful. The orchid hunter looked as if he had just lost everything he held dear.

  “I’m begging you, Joya, look at me, girl,” Penn said softly. “Look at your papa.”

  Trevor realized he was holding his own breath, waiting for Joya to take pity on the man. How would he feel right now if his entire world had just been torn apart?

  “Please, Joya,” Penn whispered.

  Finally, she
raised her head and looked into Penn’s eyes.

  “How can it be that you are not really my father? That you never were?”

  Penn seemed to fold in on himself. Trevor could see that Joya was in shock, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “That Mama…Clara…was not my mother? How can it be that she stole me from my home and family?”

  “You were orphaned. She had to keep you. She said she had given James Mandeville enough. We loved you, girl,” Penn said, threading hope and apology in his tone. “We gave up our pasts for you. We loved you more than anything else in this world. In my heart you are, and always will be, mine.”

  Trevor watched as Joya turned to Janelle. Were they seeing each other as sisters, as twins? He wondered how different their lives might have been if they had all grown up together at Mandeville House.

  Then Joya looked at her father.

  “Papa, I had a sister. A twin! Why didn’t you at least tell me that much? If I had known the truth, then perhaps I wouldn’t have been so haunted by my dreams. I would have understood why I have always felt as if a part of me were missing.”

  Janelle suddenly turned to Trevor. Her eyes were red from crying, too. She had slipped off her spectacles and was drying her tears with the hem of her skirt.

  “Oh, Trevor, this explains so much, doesn’t it?” she cried.

  He nodded. It did, indeed, explain so very much.

  Chapter Seven

  Janelle Mandeville watched Dustin Penn rise and leave the room. Sometime during his revelation, she had stopped shaking. Shock, initiated by her first sight of Joya Penn, had quickly been replaced by astonishment, wonder, and an odd sense of inner peace.

  Unlike Joya, she had always known that she had been born an Oates, even though she had been legally adopted by James Mandeville. Even without blood ties, she always considered Trevor her brother and Adelaide Mandeville her grandmother. When James died, she had mourned him as a daughter would a father, but in the back of her mind, there had always been that underlying, defining truth—she was Janelle Oates Mandeville.