When the Splendor Falls

by Laurie McBain

  Leigh slowed her step to admire one of Solange’s earlier oil paintings of a bazaar, which she’d painted when she and her late husband, Henri, Comte de Beaudecoeur, had lived in Algeria, the exotic setting rich in detail and vibrant jewel-like color, the figure cloaked in a burnoose in the foreground looking as if he could step right out of the painting and into the room. Another painting was from a vantage point high above the streets of Paris, with the panorama of the city spreading out to the edges of the canvas. Next to it was a painting of the Thames wending through London, the waterway crowded with ships and barges, the banks teeming with life. And there were other paintings of Edinburgh, Venice, Florence, Rome, Madrid, Amsterdam, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Budapest, Stockholm, and countless picturesque villages and rural scenes from across Europe—all the places Solange had visited during her colorful life as the wife of a French diplomat.

  Some of the paintings had been painted in delicate, painstaking detail, the brushstrokes bringing the images into sharp, clear focus. Others, however, showed less realism, with broad strokes of the brush that swirled and splashed in brilliant, luminous color, capturing movement across the canvas in boldly contrasting light and shadow. Landscapes and portraits seemed to dominate the room, and the more recent additions to the collection were of the life Solange now found around her: the desolate landscape, wildlife, and people caught forever on canvas.

  A kachina figure, arrayed in all its splendor, with a terrifying, hideous mask, stood surrounded by several young male figures. Wearing flannel breechcloths and beaded soft leather leggings, with pelts of gray fox hanging down in back, the men danced across the canvas to the beating of drums, shaking gourd rattles for rain and waving sprigs of evergreen for long life in the ceremonial ritual of the Green Corn Dance. Other paintings showed Deer Dancers and Buffalo Dancers, the women gowned in white cotton dresses, embroidered with colorful woolen yarn worked into geometric designs, feathers decorating their long, unbound hair as they swayed and chanted.

  A portrait of Pedro and Soldado occupied a place of honor in the center of the wall, the shepherd’s wizened face full of wisdom staring down at her, while Soldado’s alert eyes followed her every step as if a sheep had strayed from the flock and was trying to sneak past.

  An old Pueblo woman knelt in front of a metate, a sandstone slab in a shallow bin, her arms stretched forward, gnarled hands grasping a stone muller as she ground maize into meal day after day. She was dressed in a manta of dark brown woolen cloth tied over the right shoulder, part of a white moccasin showing beneath the blue-bordered skirt enclosed around her waist with a red, green, and black sash. The painting next to it portrayed a middle-aged man who was dressed in a colorful cotton shirt and short white trousers. He wore a leather belt studded with silver conchas around his waist and a necklace of turquoise stones dangled from his neck. He was sitting on a stool before a loom, his fingers busily weaving cloth into the same somber, narrow-striped pattern his ancestors, The Ancient Ones, had from the time of Christ.

  A young Indian girl, of the Hopi tribe, Solange had told her, stared wistfully back from another painting, the thick butterfly twists of black hair over her ears a sign of her maidenhood, the chubby-faced baby she stood watch over not hers. But the perfectly formed corncob, placed next to the bundled-up baby strapped to the wooden cradle board, was her gift to the newborn child for a life of strength and health.

  There were many more paintings: Taos Pueblo, the five-storied structure looking like a squat, sprawling pyramid rising from the earth with the help of the wooden ladders propped against the buckskin-hued walls; a carreta with big wooden wheels being pulled by oxen prodded by a small boy precariously balanced in the unsteady cart; a scrawny burro half-buried beneath a load piled high on its back; a small church, with its cross, bell tower, and cemetery baking beneath the sun; and the burnished ruins of a mission long abandoned. Mountain and desert came alive as hawks and eagles, wings outspread, flew toward the beamed ceiling of the studio, soaring through painted skies. A rattlesnake was captured coiled by a mound of rocks, while a kangaroo mouse hopped safely out of striking distance beneath a cactus adorned with a solitary pink bloom.

  “Solange?” Leigh called out.

  “Over here,” a voice answered from behind a silk screen that partitioned off a private corner of the studio, where Solange kept a change of clothing, and other necessities for making herself decent before returning to the house each day. She claimed she didn’t wish to offend, especially overly sensitive guests who might have arrived during her prolonged absence in her studio. But Leigh knew she did it for her sister’s sake, although, she declared with a mischievous grin, she didn’t know who was more easily offended, Jolie or her aunts.

  Leigh walked to the windows, waiting politely for Solange. A small-boned, thin-chested woman suddenly appeared from behind the screen, a lock of dark brown hair falling over her cheek as she struggled with the last hooks of her gown. “Spilled turpentine all over myself,” Solange said with a grimace as she quickly shrugged into her duster and pushed up the sleeves, ready to work. “It was one of my better gowns too, but I was in such a hurry to begin, I forgot to put on my smock. A good thing Henri left me well provided for,” she said and sighed. “I have ruined six gowns this year,” she added in self-disgust, throwing up her hands with Gallic emphasis.

  Leigh, perched on the edge of a bench in front of the windows, glanced over at Solange and smiled, for although Solange seemed very extravagant at times in her eccentricity, she was just very French, and very practical, and Leigh suspected she knew exactly how much money she could afford to waste.

  “Ma petite,” Solange said, coming over and kissing Leigh on the cheek. “What brings you here so early?” she asked, feigning a scandalized expression. “Mon Dieu! Did I not see your husband, just returned from the war, arrive last evening? And what a kiss! Ooh, lah! Were I so young again.” She sighed dramatically, her dark gray eyes alight with joy.

  “He was already gone when I awoke,” Leigh said, unable to hide the slight note of disappointment in her voice.

  “Ah, men! Why do we put up with them?” she asked, patting Leigh’s cheek affectionately. “You should have found a way of keeping him in bed with you longer,” she said, watching in amusement as Leigh’s face pinkened with embarrassment. “Attendez-moi, ma petite,” she warned, shaking her finger at her to get her to listen carefully. “A married woman should never blush, not if she is truly married. If not, then I think she is married to a hen instead of a rooster. Ah, that is better,” Solange said, hearing Leigh’s laughter. “So, it is never as we wish, eh? He rides all through the night to be by your side, ma petite, looking forward to holding you close and making love to you the whole night long. And what does he find? His wife has vanished! He is beside himself when he arrives at Royal Rivers and finds his loving wife had not yet returned from her ride of early morning. I feared for the safety of my young, foolish nephew. I am afraid Gilbert does not think clearly when he is around you, ma petite. You have enchanted him, which is good for a boy his age, he needs to have a passion for more than horses and cows, as long as he remembers you are his brother’s wife. Alas, had you not arrived when you did, and had Gilbert not been so sad-looking, I fear Neil would have skinned him and hung him up next to that buffalo skin. Never have I seen Neil so taken aback by something that has happened. What a homecoming for him, eh?” she said, not going on to mention her own disgust with Nathaniel’s cool reception for his eldest son safely home from the war. Had he been her son, she would have hugged him until he had died from loss of breath. “You make life hard for this lover of yours, eh?” She laughed, but her gray eyes were narrowed as she watched Leigh nervously play with one of her dangling golden earrings.

  “You do not smile, ma petite. So, what is wrong? I can tell there is something. But it is too soon for there to be trouble between you and Neil, and how can that be when there is so much love between you?” Solange said, going to stand before the canvas, her hands plac
ed on her slender hips as she stared at it.

  “I was wondering,” Leigh began slowly, “if you could draw a sketch of a face if I described it to you.”

  Solange glanced over her shoulder curiously. “What is this? I do not understand. This is a face that belongs to whom?”

  “I’m not certain who he is,” Leigh said with a thoughtful expression.

  “He? You dream of this man? It is good Neil returns to Royal Rivers, then.”

  Leigh shook her head. “No, no, it is not that at all!” she said quickly, the savage’s face was still too real to her. Unconsciously, she put her hand to her breast, remembering the sound of her blouse being ripped apart and the rough touch of the man’s hand against her breast. “No, it is a face I have seen, but I hope never to see it again.”

  Solange stared at Leigh as if she had become crazed. “You wish that I draw a face that you never want to see again?”

  “Yes,” Leigh answered, not meeting Solange’s direct look.

  Solange shrugged. “As you wish, ma petite. So, we shall see. You tell me about this face,” she said, bending down to grab a wooden board with a large piece of thick vellum paper pinned to it. From the pocket of her duster, she produced a short stub of charcoal, the burnt sienna shade beginning to appear on the sheet of paper as Leigh began to describe the Comanche brave.

  More than once Solange glanced up, her eyes wide as she listened, for lost in remembering, Leigh wasn’t aware of how much she was revealing about the incident until she heard Solange suck in her breath.

  “So, that is what happened. That is why you and Gil almost did not return to Royal Rivers. Mon Dieu,” she whispered, thinking of the tragedy that had almost befallen them. Then she thought of her sister, and sent a prayer of thanks heavenward, for Camilla had already lost one of her beloved sons.

  Solange glanced down at the face she had created with her charcoal on the page. “So beautiful,” she murmured, “but so arrogant, and so savage,” she added, looking up at Leigh, the pale sunlight bathing her in such a pure light she could have graced any Renaissance painting, and Solange realized how close they had come to losing her to that heathen devil.

  “Will you paint the eyes blue?” Leigh suddenly asked. “And the same blue as the sky, Solange.”

  “Blue? Mon Dieu! Blue? A savage does not have blue eyes,” she argued, but it also went against her artistic conscience to ruin her lovely earth-toned sketch by painting the eyes blue.

  “This one did,” Leigh said in such a strange tone that Solange frowned, but she found several shades of blue, holding each up for Leigh’s opinion, but only after the fourth did she nod her acceptance, and Solange delicately shaded in the eyes—and even she had to admit the effect was quite startling.

  “Voila!” she exclaimed, holding the sketch up to the light.

  Leigh couldn’t control her shudder of both repulsion and fascination as she stared at the bronzed face of the Comanche brave with the sky blue eyes.

  “Thank you, Solange. And, Solange?”

  “Hmmm, yes,” she said, already busy mixing paints as she stared at the canvas on the easel with a critical eye.

  “Please say nothing of this. I promised Gil, and now that Neil is home, I—”

  “Do not worry. You and Gil returned safely, so—” she said with a Gallic shrug. “What is there to say, and certainly not for me to decide. It will be up to you if you wish to speak of this with Neil.”

  “Perhaps someday, Solange,” Leigh said, knowing she could never speak of her suspicions to anyone.

  Leigh glanced back at Solange, but she was already dabbing paint on the canvas, a paintbrush sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she stared at her work, and Leigh knew she needn’t fear an indiscreet remark from Solange.

  On her way back to the house, Leigh stopped when she heard a familiar bleating cry. Following the sound, she was led to one of the corrals, but by the time she reached it, the frightened crying had ceased. Peering over the railing, Leigh was amazed to see her orphaned lamb. It looked twice as big, but that was because it had been wrapped in the skin of another newborn that hadn’t survived, the scent of the dead lamb clinging to its skin and fooling the ewe into believing that this one was hers, allowing it to nurse—and it was suckling contentedly, drawing all of the nourishment it needed to survive.

  Leigh rested her arms on the top rail, frowning slightly as she watched the pair. She found herself thinking of a motherless eight-year-old boy and what he’d had to do to survive—and how, eventually, he’d come to accept the people who had kidnapped him as his family. And what of that boy’s sister? What had she done to survive? And, had she, like the young boy, come to accept the people as her family?

  Leigh closed her eyes tight, but the image on the rolled-up sheet of vellum could not be erased from her mind. Turning away from the corral, her lamb now safe, Leigh hurried back to the house, hoping she wouldn’t see anyone. She had something she had to do: she had to prove to herself it couldn’t be true.

  Leigh let out her breath when she found the great hall empty, and running quickly across the room, she entered the corridor, pausing by the first door she came to. Knocking lightly, she waited, hoping no one would respond. When only silence answered her summons, she glanced around, assuring herself no one lingered nearby, then let herself into Nathaniel’s study.

  The room was as quiet as before.

  Leigh walked over to the fireplace, where the gold-framed portrait of Fionnuala Darcy Braedon and her young daughter, Shannon Malveen, hung above the mantel. Slowly, Leigh unrolled the sketch Solange had drawn of the Comanche brave.

  Holding it up to the portrait, Leigh stared at the three faces, comparing them, her breath becoming ragged as she saw the stunning resemblance.

  How can it be? she wondered, glancing between the brilliant sky blue eyes in Solange’s sketch of the Comanche brave and the identical blue eyes of mother and daughter in the portrait, the chins, all indented so perfectly.

  It couldn’t be true, she thought. Shannon died when she was only fourteen. Neil told his father Shannon had died. As Leigh stood there staring up at the portrait, she heard again the conversation of the night before, remembering the shock and bitterness of a woman who’d thought her husband had died, leaving her and her children to grieve, to live an empty life without him—but he had not died. He had chosen another life instead. And they had never been able to forgive him for that betrayal of their love.

  “My God,” Leigh murmured, then her heart missed a beat when she heard a step behind her, then an apologetic cough.

  Spinning around, Leigh found herself staring at a stranger. The man, who was in his mid- to late thirties, was of medium height, and rather slight of build, although there was a wiriness about him, a tightly coiled quality that was evident in the light-footed way he moved, and Leigh remembered Guy saying little men were sometimes the toughest to beat when in a fight—and harder to catch and quicker to fight dirty, he’d laughed.

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” the man said, removing his hat, a weathered gray slouch hat, his hair thick and a sandy brown shade. “I didn’t mean to intrude, but I was told I’d find the master up at the big house. A little Mexican girl let me in. I was waiting in the hall, when a couple of white-haired ladies told me to come back here. They seemed rather offended that I was waiting in the hall while they were trying to sew. I’m looking for work,” the man explained.

  Leigh stared at the man in surprise. “You’re Southern?”

  The man’s mouth thinned slightly. “Does that matter, ma’am? The war is over,” he told her. “Or are only Yankees being hired?”

  Leigh flushed slightly, her fingers fumbling as she rerolled the sketch. “You’ll have to speak with Nathaniel Braedon about that. He owns Royal Rivers. But I don’t think you need concern yourself about your former allegiance to the Confederacy. Nathaniel Braedon lost one of his sons, and a couple of nephews in the war, and they all wore gray.”

  “My pardon, m
a’am,” the man said contritely.

  “I believe you will find Nathaniel Braedon in the north pasture. It’s spring, and shearing time. Although we’re expecting a number of shearers up from Mexico this year, you may be able to find work, ah, Mr.—?”

  “Sebastian. Michael Sebastian,” the man introduced himself.

  “Yes, I believe Nathaniel might be able to find you work. You’ve missed the lambing by a couple of days, but after the shearing, we still have the dipping to take care of, then the docking, that is, cutting off lambs’ tails, and then the wethering. And you’ll forgive me for not explaining in more detail about that. Do you think you might be interested, Mr. Sebastian?” Leigh asked doubtfully, for she had taken a strange dislike to Michael Sebastian.

  A slight smile flickered across Michael Sebastian’s hard face as he felt her antagonism. “I think I might be able to handle that. I look at everything as having a purpose in life. Castrating lambs, distasteful as it may be to all concerned, improves the herd for better breeding and tastier mutton,” he said, his brown eyes humorless. “Often, we have to take harsh measures to reach a sought-after goal.”

  Leigh stared at Michael Sebastian uneasily, sensing this would be a man who would be relentless in achieving a goal he had set for himself. “If you will come with me, I’ll show you to the pasture.”