In Search of Serenity, page 9
“What are you doing?” a man’s deep voice suddenly boomed. “Get your hands off my wife!” Eric turned to see a tall and husky, silver-haired gentleman hurry into the parlor. The man stopped suddenly at the sight of his face. “No. It can’t be—it’s impossible.”
“What’s impossible, Papa?” The young woman moved to her father, grabbing his arm as if she might try to stop him from throwing a punch at Eric, though the man appeared paralyzed in his tracks as if he’d forgotten his earlier angst. She looked back and forth between them. “Do you know this man?” she whispered. “He said his name is Eric Fontaine.”
Her father’s eyes widened farther as if he’d seen a ghost. “Impossible. . .you, you haven’t aged in all this time?”
Eric instantly understood. “My father is Eric Fontaine Sr. I’m his son.” And he understood in an instant the identity of the unconscious woman, recalling the redhead his father told them he had wronged.
Hannah came into the parlor, her expression puzzled. “Clemmie?” Her welcoming smile faltered when she noticed the woman on the sofa. “What happened to your mother?” She looked up. “Eric?”
“A case of mistaken identity.”
“Is it?” Josiah suddenly appeared through the door. “Or maybe she sensed the evil of your father in you.”
Mrs. Thomas hurried past her son, as if she’d been privy to the whole incident, a small jar in her hand. “Stand aside, please.”
Eric stood up from kneeling beside the sofa and watched her lift the woman’s head, bringing the jar under her nose. The woman recoiled as she got a whiff of the smelling salts, and her eyes fluttered open. They latched onto Eric. “You. . .how?” she said hoarsely as her husband came to her side and she leaned against him in support.
“Non, madame,” he said quickly. “I’m not who you think.”
“You. . .you said you’re Eric F–Fontaine.”
“Oui. Named for my father. I’m his son.”
“But. . .” She pulled her brows together in confusion. “You look so much like. . .like he did. On the Titanic. You could be him. Looking at you, it’s as if. . .” Her breath came tense. “As if you never aged. As if you’ve. . .come back. . . .”
“Charleigh, sweetheart.” Her husband took her hand in his and patted it. “It’s not Eric.” He directed an uncertain glance his way. “At least not the Eric we knew.”
“I think we should go.” Hannah came to stand beside Eric.
“Yes, I think that would be wise.”
Charleigh cast a rapid glance back and forth between daughter and mother. “You don’t mean. . . Sarah, tell me you’re not actually letting him take Hannah out?”
“Mother.” Josiah took Charleigh’s side. “Are you crazy? You can’t let Hannah go with him!”
Eric felt weary of the entire situation, tired of being judged for his father’s past sins, especially by veritable strangers. “Despite what you remember about my father, he is a changed man. The man I’ve heard about since I’ve come to your town is a stranger to me. He’s nothing like the person who raised me, I assure you, and I’m nothing like the person he was.”
“We really should go or we’ll be late.” Hannah looked from Eric to the young woman. “We’ll talk later.”
Taking hold of Eric’s arm, she walked with him out of the parlor, ignoring Josiah, who scowled at them both.
Nine
Outside, Hannah vented her anger.
“They have no right to judge you!”
Taken aback by the vehemence of her low words and how her eyes flashed like hard steel, he shook his head, still stunned. “That’s the woman my father abused on the Titanic, isn’t it? The one he wronged in so many ways.”
Hannah winced. “Yes. I heard about the awful things he did to Aunt Charleigh, and I’m not excusing any of it. But I happen to know that every one of those people inside have done terrible things for which they have good reason to be ashamed.”
“My father warned me this might happen. That though your father and the others had visited the mission that day, over a decade ago, and made an uneasy sort of peace, they’d been wary of him. He thought they might later have questioned if his conversion were only a trick, another con, since he’d been a master of deception. Of course he had no idea when he asked me to come to Connecticut that I would run into your aunt and uncle here.” He sighed. “And I’m sure they never thought they would see a Fontaine again. Especially outside of New York.”
“I don’t care. It’s still not right. They expect mercy, but they won’t give your father the same benefit, believing he can change, too? That’s just. . .wrong! And why in the world should they take all this out on you? You weren’t even alive when any of it happened. Just because you look like your father? That’s a pathetic excuse. You’ve never done anything to warrant such treatment. Aunt Charleigh—okay, yes, I can understand her shocked reaction, but Josiah’s hostility, I can’t. He barely knows you and hasn’t even met your father—”
“Hannah.” Eric grasped her shoulders to get her to look at him and try to calm her. “It’s all right.” He smiled. “You’re a sweet young woman to care, but don’t get yourself so upset over this. I don’t want to be the cause of anything that would alienate you from your family.”
The fire left her eyes, her expression almost sad, making him curious, but she nodded.
On the drive to town, she didn’t say much, and he found himself frequently glancing her way to make sure she was okay. What had caused such a change?
The movie house was in need of repairs like so many places, but tickets weren’t expensive, the seats were comfortable, and he wore a coat so he didn’t feel the chill inside the massive theater. Once the curtain opened, a short newsreel played onscreen, optimistic human-interest stories set amid the nation’s suffering along with a short reel of President Roosevelt waving to a crowd while the voice-over mentioned the war in Europe and the munitions being made in Connecticut to aid the Allies. At this, a few young men in the audience gave a loud hurrah, instantly hushed by the people with them. Eric smiled at their enthusiasm, now understanding how Hannah had come by the information. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the war in general, though what the power-hungry Hitler did was clearly wrong. But Eric was amazed that such an informative reel, however short, would be shown in a theater.
Another short, this time a slapstick reel, had many men gasping in laughter, followed by the main feature that brought the women to tears. Toward the end, Hannah sniffled with regularity, and Eric offered her his handkerchief, though his vision had become a bit blurred, too.
“Thank you,” she whispered, taking it and dabbing at her eyes.
The picture, about a spoiled, wealthy socialite with an incurable brain disease, who sacrificed her last living minutes with her husband to send him off on his preplanned trip that would boost his career as a doctor, her first truly selfless act and her last, surprised Eric. For one, the content matter didn’t seem like something Hannah might choose. He had thought she would prefer something silly or flighty, though from what he’d read of it, Gone with the Wind couldn’t be classified as either, and he remembered her mentioning that being her favorite novel. The subject matter of the current movie drama could even be considered moralistic, the woman changing for the better due to the love of one good man who had faith in her and saw something in her others didn’t. The “victory” perhaps wasn’t so “dark” as the title suggested.
“Bette Davis is just so amazing,” Hannah gushed once they left the theater. “I could feel her sorrow and angst at the end, couldn’t you? Though she covered up her feelings with a smile so her husband wouldn’t suspect she’d gone blind and the end was near. Oh, I hope I can write a novel like that. It’s my fondest dream, though of course first I had hoped to go to Hollywood and be an actress—or even Broadway—but Mother and Daddy didn’t approve and have never let me even visit New York.”
She stopped for a breath, and he used the opportunity to speak. “It’s a nice afternoon. Would you like to take a walk?” He hoped to avoid the Lyons company and felt if he drew out his and Hannah’s time together, chances were strong the family wouldn’t be present upon their return.
Her eyes twinkled. “I’d love to walk with you.”
The town green was only a few blocks’ distant, and they reached the area in less than five minutes. Towering cedars and maples provided some shade, though soon the leaves of the maples would fall to the ground in a shower of color.
“See that old building?” She pointed to a colonial house in the distance. “That’s where we’ll be holding the play. Oh, I hope you’ll still be here. And there’s our church.”
He followed her gaze toward the familiar white steeple on the far side of the green, nestled amid clusters of trees.
“My best friend, Clemmie, married there. One day I hope to have my wedding there, too.”
At the wistful quality of her voice, Eric felt a little awkward.
“Clemmie. . .the woman who came to visit?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have taken you away. We could have done this another time.”
“Are you serious?” She laughed wryly. “I wanted out of there as much as you did. Though Clemmie didn’t say anything, she might have, and I didn’t want to hear it. Her mother wasn’t the only victim of. . .” She hesitated.
“My father,” Eric put in steadily.
“Yes, well. . .Joel, Clemmie’s husband, he was a victim, too.”
Eric pondered her words. “I don’t remember Father talking about a Joel. Charleigh and Stewart and a woman named Darcy are the ones I heard the most about.”
She brightened. “Oh, you would love Aunt Darcy. Everyone does. Now there’s a woman who’s not afraid to speak her mind, regardless of what people think.” Eric wondered if she wished she could classify herself in the same mold. “Joel was a boy when he ran across your father at a carnival. Your father wanted to make him an accomplice, since Joel was very good at cons and worked for his father, who died in prison—but I’m rambling again. Sorry.” She offered a penitent smile. “Joel was, I think, twelve when your father used him to gain admittance to Lyons Refuge. His plan was to gain revenge on everyone there, and he held a gun on Aunt Charleigh and Aunt Darcy, threatening Joel if he wouldn’t help.”
“He wanted the diamonds, too,” Eric put in, having heard the story many times.
“Yes.” Hannah looked at him in surprise, as if amazed he would know that. “I didn’t learn everything until Clemmie told me years ago, but he and Aunt Charleigh worked together to steal an heirloom diamond necklace from Lady Annabelle when they sailed the Titanic.”
“And your aunt Charleigh, then known as Charlotte, changed her name to Myra, hoping to evade my father,” Eric continued solemnly. “He found her and demanded she give him the necklace and come back to him, but your uncle Stewart saved her. So he bided his time and returned to the Refuge when the opportunity arose and your uncle was out of town. But Darcy’s husband surprised him, and it ended with my father getting shot and later going to prison.”
She stopped walking and looked at him. “You know the story well.”
“I spent my lifetime being raised on it. Father spoke of the boy, but I didn’t know his name was Joel. I also didn’t know who the Lyonses actually were until they and their friends came to the mission that day and I overheard them talking. I was eight at the time.”
Hannah hesitated, as if unsure she should speak. “How do you feel about all of it? About him?”
Eric thought about how to answer. “When I grew old enough to realize the enormity of my father’s crimes and that he’d lied to Charleigh about them being married for three years—arranging a fake ceremony—then on that last night, hours before the Titanic sank, abusing her in his jealousy and leaving her to die. . .when I understood all that, I hated him.” He shook his head in remembered confusion. “But I loved him, too. I loved the man I knew, not the monster he described. It was difficult to equate the two conflicting parts of one man, and I couldn’t understand how he could love my mother so deeply yet hurt a woman so horribly as he had Charleigh. It’s no wonder she fainted upon seeing me. People often tell me I look just like my father when he was younger.”
“I never saw him, but I still say they shouldn’t take his past out on you.”
“It’s been difficult, I won’t lie to you. But I better understand their hesitance to trust me when it seems to them that my father has come to life before their eyes, the way he used to look at the time of his cons.”
She considered that. “I see your point. At least your parents share the truth with you and don’t hide things you ought to know.”
At her bitter words, he regarded her somberly. “Sometimes it’s better not knowing the past, mon amie. It took me a long time to be able to look at my father without loathing him once I fully began to understand all he’d done. I marveled that they let him out of prison at all! They couldn’t prove many of his early crimes, so he didn’t receive the long sentence he deserved. Perhaps also that his father was a comte had some bearing on the matter. Now he has the title.”
She blinked in clear shock. “Your father is a French count? I had no idea. So that makes you a vicomte?”
He chuckled. “It’s not such a big thing as it was in the nineteenth century, but oui. Before my father changed his name, it was Fontaneau.”
It was a moment before she spoke again. “So what changed your mind about him?”
“My mother.” He smiled sadly.
“You miss them.”
“At times, yes. I would look at my mother, who seemed the closest thing to a saint I’d known, and wonder how she could love such a man. But she does. It’s in every word she says to him, every look she gives, every time she touches him. She saw the worth no one else tried to, with the exception of her family, and he became a better man because of their faith in him.”
“Something like Judith in Dark Victory.”
He grinned in resignation. “Something like that. Mother pulled me aside one day, questioning why I would no longer speak to my father. Once I told her, she looked at me sternly and asked, ‘Eric Joseph, do you consider yourself better than God?’ I was thirteen and had just read about Lucifer, who thought himself better than God and waged a war against Him. So I was naturally appalled, thinking my dear sainted mother must think I was as bad as the devil.” He chuckled wryly. “She said something that stuck with me through the years and helped me learn to judge no man as a lost cause, which can be very helpful when your family runs a mission. She said, ‘Paul was a murderer, David an adulterer, Jacob a thief, and Peter a liar. If God could forgive every one of those men their sins and raise them to be mighty men of God, who are you to say He shouldn’t or couldn’t? He’s a God of lost causes and is glorified when people watch the impossible accomplished right before their eyes.’ ”
Hannah smiled. “Your mother sounds a lot like mine.” She tilted her head in curiosity. “How did your parents meet, anyhow?”
“The guard who kept watch over the cell block at the prison where my father stayed quoted scripture to him, even read from it. My father never forgot how Charleigh came to him before the police arrived and forgave him and how Darcy gave him money to buy a coat. No one had ever done anything nice for him, and their actions helped to soften his heart, so that he was open to hear the message of the gospel. His enemies repaid him with kindness, and he couldn’t fathom it. Eventually, the guard led my father to Christ, and the two became friends. That guard was my uncle Joseph. After my father was released, my uncle invited him to a family dinner, and my mother was there.”
“Weren’t her parents upset or worried when your father took an interest in her?”
“Oh yes. Father had to prove himself before they would let him be alone in the same room with her, but they gave him that chance. They didn’t just assume he could never change and treat him badly, as many had done, no matter how he tried to make amends. He came to work for my grandfather when the mission was hardly as big or as productive as it is now. My father had ideas that made it that way. Soon my grandfather saw he wasn’t only brilliant, but also trustworthy. He gave the management of the mission over to my father a year after meeting him. Shortly after that, he gave his blessing for him and Mother to marry.”
“That’s just so. . .romantic.”
At her dreamy sigh, he lifted his brows. “Romantic?”
“Oh yes. How she stuck by his side, how she had faith in him despite the odds and the mind-sets of those around them. . .”
Before she could go off into one of her dream-world soliloquies, he felt a sharp tug at the back of his coat. He turned, Hannah also stopping to look, and noticed a little girl in a drab blue dress and shabby coat, both which looked as if they could do with a washing. Her brown hair appeared clean though straggled, her face heartbreakingly thin.
“Please, mister, can you spare a dime?”
He took into account how snugly her dress fit, her ribs poking through the folds.
“When have you eaten last?”
She looked startled by his gentle question and wrinkled her brow. “We found some food in the bin behind the coffee shop yesterday.”
“We?”
“My little brother and me.” She looked at the shrubbery and waved in signal for someone to join her. The bushes rustled, and a small boy, possibly five, came out. His eyes, the same shade of brown as the girl’s, seemed to take up most of his freckled face. “My mama got real bad sick,” the girl went on to explain. “She lost her job at the mercantile. She’s sick now.”
“And your father?”
“He left when things got bad.”
A strong twinge of sympathy made Eric hunch down and put his hands to her shoulders. “How would you like a hot meal from that coffee shop over there?” He pointed down the street.
