“Yes, it is.” Bayard squeezed Simone’s hand and nodded. “I can do that because it’s the truth.”
Chapter fifteen
As soon as Louis heard the door open, he leaped up and ran out of the parlor. He was closely followed by Renee, and when the two of them saw Bayard, they rushed to him, crying out his name.
Bayard was nearly knocked off balance when his parents grabbed him. Something about the way his father and mother clung to him struck him hard, almost as hard as the snake itself ! His mother was weeping, and Bayard could see tears in his father’s eyes.
“We’ve almost been out of our minds, Bayard,” Louis whispered hoarsely.
“Yes, we thought the most dreadful things, son.”
“All of you come into the parlor. Bayard needs to sit down,” Simone said. She noted that neither of her parents let go of Bayard but held him as they moved out of the foyer, down the hall, and into the parlor. They sat down on the sofa, and Simone stood back, watching them. Something about the scene made her want to weep herself. She did not speak as she watched her parents, their arms around Bayard as though he would rise and flee away from them.
“What happened, son?” Renee whispered. “Tell us everything.”
Bayard took a deep breath and then began at the very begin-ning, not sparing himself. He spoke about how he had awakened after a night of carousing and left his boardinghouse, then told how he had, in order to raise money, gone to the swamp to paint. His relating how the snake had struck him caused Renee’s face to go pale, and his father shook his head in disbelief. “It’s a miracle you’re alive, son.”
“That’s what Fleur and Gabrielle both said,” Bayard answered.
“Who are they? How did they find you?” Louis asked.
Simone listened to the story, and she saw her parents drinking it in. When Bayard told about calling on God just before he passed out, she saw her mother’s face grow radiant. Renee and Louis shared a faith in God, and it had been a grievance to them that their children prac-ticed no faith at all.
“And so that’s the way it was. I want you to meet them,” he said, “both of them. Gabrielle, unfortunately, is dying.”
“Dying!” Louis said. “Surely not.”
“I’m afraid she’s very ill. Both of them are convinced that God has told them He will call her out of this world very soon.”
“The poor child!” Renee exclaimed. “She will be left all alone.”
“We’ll have to do something to help,” Simone said. “They’re such wonderful people. So different from anyone I’ve ever met.”
“They are wonderful,” Bayard agreed quietly. “We will have to find a way to help them.” He took his parents’ hands and said, “I’ll find a way to say this better later on, but right now I want to tell you both: just before I passed out I realized what a rotten life I’ve led, and I thought of you two. I’ve been a terrible son.” He paused and bowed his head for a moment, then lifted it and looked at his mother. “Mother, I hope you believe me when I say I’m going to be a differ-ent kind of man.”
“Of course I believe you, son!”
Looking at his father, Bayard swallowed hard. “You did exactly right in putting me out of the house. It took all this to wake me up. But if you’ll give me a chance, Father, I hope to show you something in my life—something more than just talk.”
Louis d’Or was overcome. He put his arm around his son’s shoulder and squeezed him. “Of course,” he said quietly. “We’ll see great things.”
“And now you must go to bed,” Simone said. The three stood up.
Simone stood on tiptoe to kiss Bayard’s face. “I believe what Fleur and Gabrielle said. God’s given you back to us, and now we’ll see a differ-ent man.”
They all climbed the stairs, and Bayard went into his room and closed the door. Simone said, “He’s going to be all right.” She felt the tears in her eyes and suddenly threw her arms around her mother. “He’s going to be all right, Mother. I know he is.”
“Yes, he is. I believe it,” Louis said. He patted her shoulder and said, “I guess we’d all better try to get some sleep.”
Simone went to her room and made ready for bed, but even after she lay down, she could not sleep. What had transpired had shaken her more than anything else ever had. As she lay in the darkness under the mosquito netting, she began to think of her own life. Somehow it was a rebuke to her.
All this time Bayard has been drinking and running with a low crowd, but I’ve been no better. I haven’t paid any more attention to God than Bayard did. I may have looked better to the world, but I’m not.
On impulse she swung her feet over the bed and walked over to the bookshelf. She found the Bible there that she had rarely read and sat down beside the lamp. She thumbed through the New Testament for a time. She looked for something, and finally her eyes fell on a passage in the seventh chapter of Luke’s Gospel. She read it aloud: “And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an ala-baster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.”
Suddenly the words struck Simone with power and force. She seemed to see the fallen woman as she wept and knelt and wiped the tears that fell on the feet of Jesus. It was so vivid that she sat stock-still, closing her eyes, and thinking of what it all implied. Simone was a woman of great emotional potential, but she rarely wept, and never had anything from the Bible touched her like this. She bowed her head and tears came to her eyes. They ran down her cheeks, and she wiped them away with her hands. “That poor woman!” she whis-pered. “How she loved Jesus!”
She began to pray, “Lord, I am worse than that woman. I have been proud and arrogant, and I have been unfeeling and thoughtless. I would love, if I could, to do what she has done: embrace Your feet and wet them with my tears and then wipe them with my hair. Since I cannot do that, I want, dear Lord, to be like her. I want to be humble in spirit. I want my heart to be soft and receptive. Take away this stony heart of mine, and give me a heart of flesh.”
Finally she stopped praying and just sat, her face in her hands. After a long time she went back to bed. She lay down and closed her eyes. A strange sense of peace enveloped her. She didn’t understand it, but she knew it was of God. She remembered suddenly the peace that was in the eyes of the dying woman, Gabrielle Avenall. She had not been able to understand how a woman facing death could be so calm and so filled with contentment and even joy. But she felt now, in the silent darkness, that she had touched on the secret of God. “It’s all in giving up what we are and letting Him do what He wants,” she whis-pered, and then she drifted off to sleep.
As Bayard worked in his studio, he thought about how strange the past week had been. He had regained his strength almost com-pletely, although he still had some numbness in his arm. It might always be there, the doctor had said. But aside from that, every-thing else was different. He got up each day and read the Scripture and then had breakfast. There was a change in his family that they could all sense.
As he stood painting, he heard the door open and turned to see his father.
“Can I come in, or am I disturbing you?”
“Certainly. Come on in, Father, and see what I’m doing.”
Louis d’Or walked over and looked at the canvas. He gasped and said, “Why, Bayard, it’s your mother!”
“I thought for a while,” Bayard said, “of doing one of the two of you together. Maybe I will, but I wanted one of her and then one of you and then one of Simone.”
“I can’t believe it. It’s her to the letter!” He stood admiring the painting, a glow on his face. He shook his head. “I said some pretty hard things about your career as a painter. I take them all back now. If you can do this, you can do anything!”
Bayard laughed and shook his head. “It’s not really that good, Fathe
r.”
“Certainly it is!”
“Well, it is for you, but the real aficionados would see a lot of faults in it. I have a long way to go, but I’m going to make you proud of me.”
“I’m already proud of you, son. This week has been wonderful for our family.”
“It’s been that way for me.”
“Let me ask you: have you felt any temptation to go out and do the things you used to do?”
“Oh, once or twice it’s come to me, but I wouldn’t go back to what I was for anything in the world.”
“That’s good to hear, son.”
“I have been thinking about the Avenalls, though.”
“So have I,” Louis said. “We have to do something for them.”
“Well, I suppose they could use some financial help, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem with them. What I need to do is go back and spend some time with them. Maybe take them a gift—not money.”
“Why don’t you do a painting for them?”
“Why, that’s a great idea! Why didn’t I think of it?”
“Paint a picture of that girl. From all you’ve said, I’d like to see her. I may make a trip in that little boat, but I don’t think your mother is up to that.”
“Perhaps we can get her to come in. No, I don’t suppose so. She can’t leave her mother. But I will do the painting if she will pose for me.”
Louis d’Or smiled. “I have an idea that she will. Anyway,” he said, “we’re all going out tonight.”
“Going out to eat?”
“Yes. We’re going to the opera afterward.”
“I hear it’s taken New Orleans by storm. The most successful opera they ever had.”
“So I’m told. Simone has already been to see it three or four times. She’s fascinated by it, so she persuaded your mother and me to go, and we want you to go along.”
“All right. We’ll see what all the fuss is about.”
The opera was everything Simone had told her parents it would be. Louis d’Or was not a fan of that style of music, but he was enthralled. He leaned over once and said, “It helps to know the story. He’s fol-lowed Shakespeare pretty closely. I can’t understand a word of what they say, but I know what’s happening.”
“Yes, it is wonderful,” Renee whispered. “I never heard such a voice as Mr. Seymour has—or should I call him Lord Beaufort?”
“I don’t think he takes a great deal of pleasure in his title,” Simone said.
“That’s strange,” Bayard said. “Most men would.”
The four of them spoke no more, but after the final curtain and many curtain calls, they made their way backstage. Admirers sur-rounded Colin, but when he saw them, he excused himself and came over. “It’s good to see you, Miss d’Or,” he said.
“My parents and my brother had to come. I’ve told them so much about it.” She introduced them, and Louis said, “Indeed, I am not knowledgeable in music, but I was strongly moved by this opera.”
“The credit goes to my father. He’s the one who created it.”
“But it takes you and the others to make it come to life,” Simone said, smiling, “and it always does.”
“I insist that you have dinner with us. You don’t perform on Sunday, do you?”
“No, we do not.”
“Sunday night then. Will you come?”
Colin hesitated, but Bayard urged warmly, “It would be a great pleasure to all of us, sir. I remember what you did for me, and I hope you will come.”
“Then I will. I will see you Sunday night.”
Colin arrived early at the d’Or house, and Simone greeted him and took him at once away from her parents. “You’ve got to see Bayard’s work. Come along.” Bayard followed the pair up to the third floor to his study, and Simone stood back as the two men looked at the paint-ings. She could tell that Colin was impressed. Indeed, he said so most enthusiastically.
“Why, these are very fine, Bayard,” he said. “I had no idea that you had such talent.”
“Well, I’m really a beginner, and I’ve wasted a lot of years,” Bayard shrugged. “You’ve heard about what happened to me.”
“Only the outline of it. I want to hear the rest.”
“It’s a wonderful story, my lord,” Simone said with evident pride in her younger brother.
“Please don’t call me that. Colin is fine.”
“All right then. Colin,” Simone said, “I think you would like the young woman who saved Bayard’s life. She and her mother are extra-ordinary people.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, fervent Christians, both of them. I’ve never seen two people closer to God,” Bayard said.
Colin’s thoughts immediately returned to his promise to the mar-quis. He felt a tugging at his soul that he could not ignore.
The three stood talking until Agnes appeared and said, “Please, it’s time for dinner.”
“We’ll be right there, Agnes.”
Simone led the way out, and the two men followed. When they entered the dining room, Colin said, “I’m sorry you had to call us, but it was interesting to see the work your son is doing.”
“Isn’t he talented?” Renee smiled.
“You have to forgive Mother. She gets overenthusiastic about my humble abilities.”
“I’m not sure that’s true, Bayard,” Colin said with a smile.
“Well, come sit down. I’m starved. And you can tell us about your opera. I know very little.”
The evening was a tremendous success. Colin, after much prompting, talked a great deal about the music and the opera—not just the one he was performing in, but others. All of them were impressed at how much work went into the production.
“Why don’t they translate it into English, Colin?” Louis asked. “It would make it easier to understand.”
“Well, they do translate some, but the translations are almost always bad.”
“Why is that?” Simone asked.
“Well, you see, it’s very difficult to translate a thought from one language to another, especially if the language doesn’t have a word for the thought you want to express. And in opera, every syllable is matched with a musical note. What might take twenty syllables in one language might take forty in another, and that would upset all of the music.”
They went to the parlor, where Colin played the piano and sang several songs. They all felt the power of his voice. Finally Louis and his wife stood to retire. He said, “I haven’t expressed my thanks to you, Colin, for what you did for my daughter and son.”
“Why, it was nothing.”
“That’s not so,” Simone said at once. And Bayard chimed in, “It certainly wasn’t. I was in bad shape, and I’ll never forget it.”
“None of us ever will, Colin,” Renee said. She put her hand out. He took it, and she squeezed his with both of hers. “Thank you so much for what you’ve done for our family.”
Bayard said, “I’m turning in. Good night, Colin.”
After they had left, Colin was left alone with Simone, and both of them felt some constraint. “I must be going,” he said.
“I thank you for coming. It meant a great deal to Bayard and to my parents and to me.”
“It was my pleasure.” Colin looked at her. He had borne a resent-ment for the woman for so long, but now as he looked at her, he felt as a man feels who looks on beauty and knows that it will never be for him. He saw that quick breathing disturbed her breast, and color ran freshly across her cheeks. “Is something wrong?” he asked.
“I’ve been trying to think of some way to say something to you, and I’ve been afraid.”
“Why, there’s no need of that, Simone.”
“All right. I’ll say it then.” She took a deep breath and said qui-etly, “I treated you abominably and—and Armand even worse! I’m so ashamed, Colin, of the way I acted!”
It was the sort of statement that Colin never thought he would hear from Simone d’Or. He knew her temperament could swing to extrem
es of laughter and softness and anger, and he knew there was a tremendous capacity for emotion in her. He had not thought that she would be able to overcome her pride and admit what she had done.
“I must confess I had uncharitable thoughts toward you, Simone.”
“I should not blame you.”
As he looked into her eyes, Colin saw something he had never seen before. An emotion strongly worked in her and left its fugitive expression on her face. He saw it in her eyes and on her lips, and then something happened that he could never explain to himself or to any-one else. All of the anger and bitterness he felt for the woman left, and he was aware only of a vulnerability he had never dreamed of. He saw grief in her eyes and knew that her words were not empty, and with this knowledge came something entirely different. A vague, restless desire that had been in him suddenly stirred, and he knew what it was to long for her in a way that shocked him.
She held his glance, and he studied her beauty. She was near enough to be touched, and he wanted to touch her, for her nearness sharpened a long-felt hunger. She had a woman’s fire and spirit, and he saw a sweetness in her that had not been destroyed, and somehow it gave her a faint fragrance and a powerful desirability.
Recklessness came over him, and knowing he was doing the wrong thing, he reached out and pulled her to him. To his surprise, she did not pull away. He lowered his head and kissed her, and her lips were soft beneath his own, and he felt a rush of inexpressive things. This is not right, he thought. He was still waiting for her to pull away, but she did not, and when she put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, a shock ran through him.
As for Simone, she had seen desire in his eyes, and when he had pulled her into his arms, she had gone to him, not knowing why. And then when he kissed her, she thought, Something old and something new has come! A wild sweetness was there and immense shock and the feel-ing of a deep need satisfied. She felt it pass between them, and some-how it took a loneliness out of her and incompleteness out of him.
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