All That Glitters

  columns set on pilastered bases a little out from the

  edge of the gallery. It had fourteen rooms and a large

  drawing room. Gladys Tate was proud of the decor in

  her home and her art, and until Paul had built the

  mansion for me, she had the finest house in our area. By the time we drove up, the sky had turned

  ashen and the air was so thick with humidity, I

  thought I could see droplets forming before my eyes.

  The bayou was still, almost as still as it could be in

  the eye of a storm. Leaves hung limply on the

  branches of trees, and even the birds were depressed

  and settled in some shadowy corners.

  The windows were bleak with their curtains drawn closed or their shades down. The glass reflected the oppressive darkness that loomed over the swamps. Nothing stirred. It was a house draped in mourning, its inhabitants well cloistered in their private misery. My heart felt so heavy; my fingers trembled as I opened the car door. Beau reached over

  to squeeze my arm with reassurance.

  "Let's be calm," he advised. I nodded and tried

  to swallow, but a lump stuck in my throat like swamp

  mud on a shoe. We walked up the stairs and Beau

  dropped the brass knocker against the plate. The

  hollow thump seemed to be directed into my chest

  rather than into the house. A few moments later, the

  door was thrust open with such an angry force, it was

  as if a wind had blown it. Toby stood before us. She

  was dressed in black and had her hair pinned back

  severely. Her face was wan and pale.

  "What do you want?" she demanded.

  "We've come to speak with your mother and

  father," Beau said.

  "They're not exactly in the mood to talk to

  you," she spit back at us. "In the midst of our

  mourning, you two had to make problems."

  "There are some terrible misunderstandings we

  must try to fix," Beau insisted, and then added, "for

  the sake of the baby more than anyone."

  Toby gazed at me. Something in my face

  confused her and she relaxed her shoulders. "How's Pearl?" I asked quickly.

  "Fine. She's doing just fine. She's with Jeanne,"

  she added.

  "She's not here?"

  "No, but she will be here," she said firmly. "Please," Beau pleaded. "We must have a few

  minutes with your parents."

  Toby considered a moment and then stepped

  back. "I'll go see if they want to talk to you. Wait in

  the study," she ordered, and marched down the

  hallway to the stairs.

  Beau and I entered the study. There was only a

  single lamp lit in a corner, and with the dismal sky,

  the room reeked of gloom. I snapped on a Tiffany

  lamp beside the settee and sat quickly, for fear my

  legs would give out from under me.

  "Let me begin our conversation with Madame

  Tate," Beau advised. He stood to the side, his hands

  behind his back, and we both waited and listened, our

  eyes glued to the entrance. Nothing happened for so

  long, I let my eyes wander and my gaze stopped dead

  on the portrait above the mantel. It was a portrait I had done of Paul some time ago. Gladys Tate had hung it in place of the portrait of herself and Octavious. I had done too good a job, I thought. Paul looked so lifelike, his blue eyes animated, that soft smile captured around his mouth. Now he looked like he was smiling with impish satisfaction, defiant, vengeful. I couldn't

  look at the picture without my heart pounding. We heard footsteps and a moment later Toby

  appeared alone. My hope sunk. Gladys wasn't going

  to give us an audience.

  "Mother will be down," she said, "but my father

  is not able to see anyone at the moment. You might as

  well sit," she told Beau. "It will be a while. She's not

  exactly prepared for visitors right now," she added

  bitterly. Beau took a seat beside me obediently. Toby

  stared at us a moment.

  "Why were you so obstinate? If there was ever

  a time my mother needed the baby around her, it was

  now. How cruel of you two to make it difficult and

  force us to go to a judge." She glared at me and then

  turned directly to Beau. "I might have expected

  something like this from her, but I thought you were

  more compassionate, more mature."

  "Toby," I said. "I'm not who you think I am." She smirked. "I know exactly who you are. Don't you think we have people like you here, selfish, vain people who couldn't care less about anyone

  else?"

  "But . . ."

  Beau put his hand on my arm. I looked at him

  and saw him plead for silence with his eyes. I

  swallowed back my words and closed my eyes. Toby

  turned and left us.

  "She'll understand afterward," Beau said softly.

  A good ten minutes later, we heard Gladys Tate's

  heels clicking down the stairway, each click like a

  gunshot aimed at my heart. Our eyes fixed with

  anticipation on the doorway until she appeared. She

  loomed before us, taller, darker in her black mourning

  dress, her hair pinned back as severely as Toby's. Her

  lips were pale, her cheeks pallid, but her eyes were

  bright and feverish.

  "What do you want?" she demanded, shooting

  me a stabbing glance.

  Beau rose. "Madame Tate, we've come to try to

  reason with you, to get you to understand why we did

  what we did," he said.

  "Humph," she retorted. "Understand?" She

  smiled coldly with ridicule. "It's simple to understand.

  You're the type who care only about themselves, and if you inflict terrible pain and suffering on someone in your pursuit of happiness, so what?" She whipped her eyes to me and flared them with hate before she turned to sit in the high-back chair like a queen, her

  hands clasped on her lap, her neck and shoulders stiff. "Much of this is my fault, not Ruby's," Beau

  continued. "You see," he said, turning to me, "a few

  years ago we. . . I made Ruby pregnant with Pearl, but

  I was cowardly and permitted my parents to send me

  to Europe. Ruby's stepmother tried to have the baby

  aborted in a run-down clinic so it would all be kept

  secret, but Ruby ran off and returned to the bayou." "How I wish she hadn't," Gladys Tate spit, her

  hating eyes trying to wish me into extinction. "Yes, but she did," Beau continued, undaunted

  by her venom. "For better or for worse, your son

  offered to make a home for Ruby and Pearl." "It was for worse. Look at where he is now,"

  she said. Ice water trickled down my spine.

  "As you know," Beau said softly, patiently,

  "theirs was not a true marriage. Time passed. I grew

  up and realized my errors, but it was too late. In the

  interim, I renewed my relationship with Ruby's twin

  sister, who I thought had matured, too. I was mistaken

  about that, but that's another story."

  Gladys smirked.

  "Your son knew how much Ruby and I still

  eared for each other, and he knew Pearl was our child,

  my child. He was a good man and he wanted Ruby to

  be happy."

  "And she took advantage of that goodness,"

  Gladys accused, stabbing the air between us with her

  long forefinger.

  "No, Mother Tate, I--"

  "Don't sit
there and try to deny what you did to

  my son." Her lips trembled. "My son," she moaned.

  "Once, I was the apple of his eye. The sun rose and

  fell on my happiness, not yours. Even when you were

  enchanting him here in the bayou, he would love to sit

  and talk with me, love to be with me. We had a

  remarkable relationship and a remarkable love

  between us," she said. "But you were relentless and

  you charmed him away from me," she charged, and I

  realized there was no hate such as that born out of

  love betrayed. This was why her brain was screaming

  out for revenge.

  "I didn't do those things, Mother Tate," I said

  quietly. "I tried to discourage our relationship. I even

  told him the truth about us," I said.

  "Yes, you did and viciously drove a wedge between him and me. He knew that I wasn't his real

  mother. Don't you think that changed things?" "I didn't want to tell him. It wasn't my place to

  tell him," I cried, recalling Grandmere Catherine's

  warnings about causing any sort of split between a

  Cajun mother and her child. "But you can't build a

  house of love on a foundation of lies. You and your

  husband should have been the ones to tell him the

  truth."

  She winced. "What truth? I was his mother until

  you came along. He loved me," she whined. "That

  was all the truth we needed . . . love."

  A pall fell among us for a moment. Gladys

  sucked in her anger and closed her eyes.

  Beau decided to proceed. "Your son, realizing

  the love between Ruby and myself, agreed to help us

  be together. When Gisselle became seriously ill, he

  volunteered to take her in and pretend she was Ruby

  so that Ruby could become Gisselle and we could be

  man and wife."

  She opened her eyes and laughed in a way that

  chilled my blood. "I know all that, but I also know he

  had little choice. She probably threatened to tell the

  world he wasn't my son," she said, her flinty eyes

  aimed at me.

  "I would never. . ."

  "You'd say anything now, so don't try," she

  advised.

  "Madame," Beau said, stepping forward.

  "What's done is done. Paul did help. He intended for

  us to live with our daughter and be happy. What

  you're doing now is defeating what Paul himself tried

  to accomplish."

  She stared up at Beau for a moment, and as she

  did so, the gossamer strands of sanity seemed to shred

  before they snapped behind her eyes. "My poor

  granddaughter has no parents now. Her mother was

  buried and her father will be interred beside her." "Madame Tate, why force us to go to court over

  this and put everyone through the misery again?

  Surely you want peace and quiet at this point, and

  your family--"

  She turned her dark, blistering eyes toward

  Paul's portrait, and those eyes softened. "I'm doing

  this for my son," she said, gazing up at him with more

  than a mother's love. "Look how he smiles, how

  beautiful he is and how happy he is. Pearl will grow

  up here, under that portrait. At least he'll have that.

  You," she said, pointing her long, thin finger at me

  again, "took everything else from him, even his life." Beau looked at me desperately and then turned

  back to her. "Madame Tate," he said, "if it's a matter

  of the inheritance, we're prepared to sign any

  document."

  "What?" She sprang up. "You think this is all a

  matter of money? Money? My son is dead." She

  pulled up her shoulders and pursed her lips. "This

  discussion is over. I want you out" of my house and

  out of our lives."

  "You won't succeed with this. A judge--" "I have lawyers. Talk to them." She smiled at

  me so coldly, it made my blood curdle. "You put on

  your sister's face and body and you crawled into her

  heart. Now live there," she cursed, and left the room. Right down to my feet, I ached, and my heart

  became a hollow ball shooting pains through my

  chest. "Beau!"

  "Let's go," he said, shaking his head. "She's

  gone mad. The judge will realize that. Come on,

  Ruby." He reached for me. I felt like I floated to my

  feet.

  Just before we left the room, I gazed back at

  Paul's portrait. His expression of satisfaction put a

  darkness in my heart that a thousand days of sunshine

  couldn't nudge away.

  After the funeral drive back to New Orleans, I

  collapsed with emotional exhaustion and slept into the

  late morning. Beau woke me to tell me Monsieur Polk

  had just called.

  "And?" I sat up quickly, my heart pounding. "I'm afraid it's not good news. The experts tell

  him everything is identical with identical twins, blood

  type, even organ size. The doctor who treated Gisselle

  doesn't think anything would show in an X ray. We

  can't rely on the medical data to clearly establish

  identities.

  "As far as my being the father of Pearl . . . a

  blood group test will only confirm that I couldn't be,

  not that I could. As Monsieur Polk said, those sorts of

  tests aren't perfected yet."

  "What will we do?" I moaned.

  "He has already petitioned for a hearing and we

  have a court date," Beau said. "We'll tell our story, use

  the handwriting samples. He wants to also make use

  of your art talent. Monsieur Polk has documents

  prepared for us to sign so that we willingly surrender

  any claim to Paul's estate, thus eliminating a motive.

  Maybe it will be enough."

  "Beau, what if it isn't?"

  "Let's not think of the worst," he urged. The worst was the waiting. Beau tried to

  occupy himself with work, but I could do nothing but

  sleep and wander from room to room, sometimes

  spending hours just sitting in Pearl's nursery, staring

  at her stuffed animals and dolls. Not more than fortyeight hours after Monsieur Polk had filed our petition

  with the court, we began to get phone calls from

  newspaper reporters. None would reveal his or her

  sources, but it seemed obvious to both Beau and me

  that Gladys Tate's thirst for vengeance was insatiable

  and she had deliberately had the story leaked to the

  press. It made headlines.

  TWIN CLAIMS SISTER BURIED IN HER

  GRAVE! CUSTODY BATTLE LOOMS.

  Aubrey was given instructions to say we were

  unavailable to anyone who called. We would see no

  visitors, answer no questions. Until the court hearing,

  I was a virtual prisoner in my own home.

  On that day, my legs trembling, I clung to

  Beau's arm as we descended the stairway to get into

  our car and drive to the Terrebone Parish courthouse.

  It was one of those mostly cloudy days when the sun

  plays peekaboo, teasing us with a few bright rays and

  then sliding behind a wall of clouds to leave the world

  dark and dreary. It reflected my mood swings, which went from hopeful and optimistic to depressed and

  pessimistic.

  Monsieur Polk was already at the courthouse,


  waiting, when we arrived. The story had stirred the

  curious in the bayou as well as in New Orleans. I

  gazed quickly at the crowd of observers and saw some

  of Grandmere Catherine's friends. I smiled at them,

  but they were confused and unsure and afraid to smile

  back. I felt like a stranger. How would I ever explain

  to them why I had switched identities with Gisselle?

  How would they ever understand?

  We took our seats first, and then, with obvious

  fanfare, milking the situation as much as she could,

  Gladys Tate entered. She still wore her clothes of

  mourning. She hung on Octavious's arm, stepping

  with great difficulty to show the world we had

  dragged her into this horrible hearing at a most

  unfortunate time. She wore no makeup, so she looked

  pale and sick, the weaker of the two of us in the

  judge's eyes. Octavious kept his gaze down, his head

  bowed, and didn't look our way once.

  Toby and Jeanne and her husband, James,

  walked behind Gladys and Octavious Tate, scowling

  at us. Their attorneys, William Rogers and Martin

  Bell, led them to their seats. They looked formidable with their heavy briefcases and dark suits. The judge

  entered and every-one took his seat.

  The judge's name was Hilliard Barrow, and

  Monsieur Polk had found out that he had a reputation

  for being caustic, impatient, and firm. He was a tall,

  lean man with hard facial features: deep-set dark eyes,

  thick eyebrows, a long, bony nose, and a thin mouth

  that looked like a slash when he pressed his lips

  together. He had gray and dark brown hair with a

  deeply receding hairline so that the top of his skull

  shone under the courtroom lights. Two long hands

  with bony fingers jutted out from the sleeves of his

  black judicial robe.

  "Normally," he began, "this courtroom is

  relatively empty during such proceedings. I want to

  warn those observing that I won't tolerate any talking,

  any sounds displaying approval or disapproval. A

  child's welfare is at stake here, and not the selling of

  newspapers and gossip magazines to the society

  people in New Orleans." He paused to scour the

  crowd to see if there was even the hint of

  insubordination in anyone's eyes. My heart sunk. He

  seemed a man void of any emotion, except prejudices

  against rich New Orleans people.

  The clerk read our petition and then Judge

  Barrow turned his sharp, hard gaze on Monsieur Polk. "You have a case to make," he said.