THE RAGE OF INNOCENCE
Epilogue
May, twenty-eight years later
Paris, an avenue off the Place des Invalides
Neville lowered himself to a bench, in a small park just across the street from the building. He had told his son, Austin, he would meet him outside the port-cochère, but this was close enough. He checked his watch: a quarter to four. That was good. He needed the fifteen minutes to ready himself. He set his walking stick in front of him, steadying his hands upon it. Fifteen minutes to go over a lifetime, and set the course for the rest of it.
He had always known that sooner or later he would find himself here. That even when he assured April he’d never go back to Paris without her, comforting her two years earlier as she lay dying from infectious influenza, the same disease she had successfully nursed their younger son through, she knew it was a promise he’d never keep. And here he was, proving her right. He sighed, wincing. But then she was usually right, he knew.
She had been right about so many things, that he, like she, should follow his passions. Her passion being the need to dive into everything, her athletic nature never working at half-measures. She brought that zeal to her work with the hospital, the new music academy, the women’s settlement house. He had let his passion for architecture take them and their two boys, their middle girl, to Spain, Egypt, Rome, Greece, India and beyond, Neville, himself, designing the new free hospital in the Lower East Side, just that past fall, and named after his wife.
Now his son had taken him on a trip of his own. Not content to go into the law as Neville had, Austin had learned early to follow his own path, even though, much to Neville’s pride, that path had been his own. As a junior architect in and up-and-coming firm, he had been sent to France to study a certain style of château a client had come across while visiting.
“Just you and me, Dad, bashing about France,” Austin had said on long-distance from Chicago. “And Paris! What do you say? It’ll be my last hurrah as a free man.”
Neville laughed to himself. Free man. When he was his age, that euphemism held some weight among his fellows, but that hardly fit the times, and definitely not the woman he was marrying. Sally Beaumont, his intended, had showed up in New York five years earlier, eighteen years old, and late of Paris. After his first wife had successfully divorced her father, James Beaumont, he had married her mother, his latest mistress, the notorious Mrs. Stratford. Hoping to rebuild his holdings, this time through an insurance venture in South America, the Beaumonts left New York and sailed for Buenos Aires, sending their now-legitimate thirteen-year-old child to a progressive girls’ boarding school in Paris, founded by an eclectic Polish count and his wife. And when her parents had died in a carriage accident five years later, near-broke and in obscurity, it was the same Polish count who set up a trust fund for her under the direction of Letterman and Archland, Esqs., with the spinster Miss Jeanne Archland, appointed as guardian. It was a position Miss Jeanne dove into with relish, whirling her new ward about a society the gregarious young woman took to with effusive abandon, her new Archland cousins her most enthusiastic guides. So it came as no surprise when the equally independent-minded Austin announced their intentions.
“Paris, you say?” Neville shouted into the telephone. “I don’t know, son. You know your sister’s baby has la grippe, and now…”
“Dad! I just spoke to Anne—she’s well over it. No excuses. It’ll only be three weeks. Call Cunard as soon as you ring off. By Jove—I’ll not take no for an answer!”
He had hung up. And soon they were off to France, touring the countryside. But three days ago, they had arrived in Paris, and with one more day left, that morning, Austin declared they could put it off no longer.
“Now Dad,” Austin said, straightening his tie, “I promised Sally I would go visit the Countess, and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. She said she’s been dashedly lonely since the Count died last year, even though her six boys keep her jumping through hoops.” He came up to his father as he stood by the window. “You must come with me.”
Paris spread its glorious landscape outside his hotel window. Somewhere out there was the Countess. “I don’t think so, son.”
“Dad.” He put his hand on his shoulder. “Mother would want you to.”
He turned; Austin was so like his mother, blond and fair, and just as steely. “Why would you say that?”
Austin paused for a moment. “Remember the day before she died, she called me in to see her alone? She told me never to tell you this, but I don’t think it would matter now. She told me you’d always take care of us because there was nothing more important to you than your family. She knew this because once she asked you to give up something that meant the world to you, and you did, just because she asked you to.”
He stared at his son, half in shock. “She never asked me that.”
“Maybe she never did. But it was something she never forgot. She said you were once in love with the Countess. Was she quite beautiful?”
Neville turned back to the cityscape. If she was, he was long past remembering. “She was different.”
“And now you’re both alone and Dad?” He touched his arm again. “I can’t think there’s anything worse than being lonely. Come with me. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
He shook his head tightly, never more confused. “I don’t know. Maybe. In any event, I’d like to go to the Louvre today. Perhaps if I have time.”
“Make the time.” He went to a table, jotting the address on a slip of paper. “Here’s the address,” he said, shoving it into his father’s pocket. “Meet me outside the building at four o’clock sharp. She expecting both of us for tea.”
And six hours later, there he was, leaning on his walking stick, staring up at the building. He could see a window, high up at the top of it, the fifth floor, it seemed. There was a window, the shutters thrown wide, soft music emanating from it, a string quartet, perhaps. He closed his eyes, listening. Yes, that must be her apartment, she always loved anything artistic. He imagined her awash in it: painters, writers, poets. Actors, even. He imagined her laughing, smoking her tiny cigarettes, holding everyone who came near her enthralled. He imagined the line of her neck, her lips slightly parted, her deep azure eyes, burning into…him.
He kept his gaze on the window; he was only fifty-seven! Plenty of time to enjoy life. He had his health, he was still trim. He smiled. And everything still worked. Although…he thought a bit mournfully, he still missed his wife terribly. And yet…
There was still time for happiness. And no time to be lonely. I am only fifty-seven. I can still have—
“There you are, Dad!” said Austin trotting up. “I just checked with the concierge—she’s on the fifth floor.” He pointed to the window with the shutters opened. “See that? It’s right there.”
Neville looked up at the window, the music still playing. He heard the clink of glasses. Claret, maybe. Or perhaps champagne… He thought a moment. He couldn’t remember what she liked.
“Dad! Come on! We’re already late. We can take the elevator.”
“Elevator?” Neville said. “This building has one?”
“Yes, just installed. Or if you’re too old-fashioned, you can take the stairs.”
The sun was coming around behind him; he could feel it on his neck. “You go ahead, Austin. I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
Austin sighed. “You’re not coming, are you? But what’ll I tell the Countess?”
“Tell her…” Roses. He had sent her yellow roses once. “Just tell her I’m old-fashioned.”
“Old-fashioned.” He laughed. “Old-fashioned it is.”
As Neville sat he imagined his son ascending in the elevator, being let in the flat, greeting the Countess. Would she be surprised or dismayed he hadn’t come? Or would she simply shake her head and go on? Inside that room walked a part of him, a part of him that would be touching her, and he’d come away with her image in his eyes. Neville craned his neck, looking up at the window, the sun burning down on him. Would she care that he hadn’t come? Should he perhaps reconsider? He didn’t know, and then all at once the shutters slowly closed, and out came a hand, pulling them back into the frame.
There was his answer, and with that he rose, walking back to his hotel.
THE END
Copyright 2010 Trudy Doyle – All Rights Reserved
