The year of the Lucy

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE DEPRESSION evoked by the nightmare stayed with her, intruding with uneasy flashbacks through the business of getting breakfast and shooing the children off to school.

Steve had come down in fine spirits, all set up after the previous night's passion. He called her a sleepyhead, cheerfully leered at her, and failed to notice her subdued mood. He kissed her a lingering goodbye, bopping her jaw tenderly, and left her, emitting an irritatingly gay whistle.

It hadn't been lack of satisfaction in sex last night, Mirelle thought, trying to counteract her depression. Steve had made rather inspired love and she had responded gladly. In fact, Mirelle told herself, she ought to be reassured by his passionate embraces, particularly on a day when he'd heard from his mother. Maybe, and it was just possible, this time he would align himself with his wife.

No, Mirelle decided, her depression stemmed from those damned nightmarish hands. Maybe she ought to get a book on dream interpretations, particularly since she had ones that played back all the time. She sighed and poured herself another cup of coffee.

Why couldn't Steve have been an orphan, too? In the early days of their marriage, before they'd made that disastrous move to Allentown, they'd been so happy and she'd be able to kid with him the way she could with Jamie.

Mirelle smiled to herself, remembering those courting days. She'd been doing display figures, models of Broadway stars for a music store window, advertising record albums of the popular hit shows. Scarcely the sculpting she'd intended to do, but, after Murph had died, there hadn't been any more money for training. She'd taken whatever work she could get, and was at least lucky to be doing some form of sculpting.

Wouldn't Murph have made mincemeat of Mother Martin? Mirelle snickered, imagining such a confrontation. Wow! would the sparks have flown! Mary Murphy, to quote herself, was 'knee high to a whiskey bottle and weaned on one.' She and Mary Margaret LeBoyne had been born and raised in Naas, had loved each other as only kindred souls could. They were as opposite as the supple birch and the hardy gorse, but they understood each other perfectly. When Mary Margaret LeBoyne had been launched in her music career, she'd sent for Mary Murphy to join her. Murph had stayed with Mary until they'd quarreled over Mary's marriage to Edward Barthan-More.

"Your mother made more than one mistake, m'dearie," Murph had once told Mirelle. "But she'd her heart that set on security! She'd seen the desperate mess others made of spending while the money rolled in, and dying in the gutter when the career vanished. Oh, I grant you, Edward was in love with her… like he was with all the things he owned. A greedy man was Edward and desperate greedy for Mary Margaret. He bound her to him in bands of his gold and respectability, you might say.

"Now mind, your mother wasn't the gilded cage sort. I think that's why your own father attracted her so. The free artistic spirit, I believe he would say," and while Murph had not approved of Edward Barthan-More, she was even more opposed to Lajos Neagu. "Still, Lou had that about him would have kept your mother free, and like as not, she'd've been singing till she died. Real singing, not that forced social stuff. The Red Lark of Ireland she was, darlin', and when she was happy, oh, how her voice would soar."

The oasis of calm and contentment with Murph had been shattered by Mary LeBoyne's death in an air raid. The news had come in a very curt note from Barthan-More's secretary, with a request that, as soon as Mary LeBoyne Barthan-More's personal estate had been settled, no further communication would be tolerated between the house of Barthan-More and his wife's irregular relation.

Murph had not been one for hiding from life's more callous blows and she had not shielded the teen-aged Mirelle from this one. Her indignation had been scathing and she had written a scorching reply to Barthan-More, announcing her intention of legally adopting Mary Ellen LeBoyne. A small packet of jewels and a bank draft eventually arrived with no accompanying note. After much deliberation and considerable thought, Murph and Mirelle decided to sell the more valuable pieces of jewelry, using the funds to put Mirelle through a good art school. And, when the war was over, perhaps additional training abroad.

Murph's terminal illness took the remainder of those savings. Mirelle was only sorry that she had spent so carelessly during her school days.

Despite her excellent intentions and repeated promises, Murph never did set in train the legal formalities of adoption. Mirelle was twenty-three when Steve Martin happened down Madison Avenue as she was arranging the display in the windows. He had stood watching her until his interested stare got on her nerves. His expression was a combination of hopeful boyishness and cynical pessimism. As he was a tall, attractive young man, she'd been flattered despite her annoyance. His attempts to attract her attention had also drawn the typical New York crowd of the bored curious.

When she had finally arranged the display according to the draft layout, he'd applauded loudly, and pressed his face against the glass, inviting her to coffee at the top of his lungs. She'd shaken her head disdainfully, all too aware of the delighted spectators. Steve had made a pantomine of a breaking heart, much like the male figure which she had just edged into a slightly more esthetic angle. Then Steve had dropped to one knee, in full sight of the amused audience. Horrified, Mirelle had motioned him frantically to get up and go away. To her surprise he did so, shoulders drooping, expression lugubrious with rejection. He'd been so funny. However, as she stepped out of the window in the store proper, there was Steve, leaning against the wall, grinning at his deceit.

She had absolutely no intention of doing more than drink a cup of coffee with him, but he'd left with her name and phone number. She had had no idea, either, of getting serious about anyone. She'd planned her life. She was going to amount to something. Marriage had stifled her mother's career. Marriage was not going to have a chance to ruin hers. Yes, Mirelle had had many plans, and not one of them included a phenomenon like Steven Martin. A year later they were married. While Steve went to college, Mirelle worked. She was five months pregnant with Roman when Steve, overwhelmed by his new responsibilities, took a job in his home-town.

Then things started to fall apart, reflected Mirelle. All in the name of mother-love.

Her previous contacts with Steve's family had been mercifully short, confined to long weekends when everyone had been delighted to meet Steve's stunning, if foreign-looking, wife who was so good about working to help Steve get his degree. There had been slight doubts whether or not Mirelle should have got pregnant so soon, 'with so many modern theories about', as Mother Martin sweetly put it. The crowning blow had been her inheritance and that had torn down the veil of hypocrisy. Mirelle was sourly informed that she had 'stolen' Steve away from Nancy Lou Randolph, (whose father owned the largest hardware store in town), who was everything a wife for a young up-and-coming salesman could be (particularly one who would work in papa's store).

Steve, insecure enough and wanting his parents' approval, had not known how to deal with his mother's un expected reversals and accusations. He had been proud of Mirelle: viewed his imminent fatherhood as the outward display of his other achievements, and now Mirelle had brought shame on him and his family. He had tried to defend his wife at first, but his mother's strong personality, her infallible belief in her own judgments, and a long habit of obedience made him a poor advocate for Mirelle.

The estrangement that followed had not been all Steve's fault. Mirelle could see that now. Because of the guilt which she'd always been made to feel over her irregular birth in the Barthan-More nursery, Mirelle had acquiesced at just the time when she should have continued to fight. In the first place, she'd been stunned by the bequest, since she'd never had any communication with Lajos Neagu, though Mary Murphy had told her that he knew of her birth. She was sick with her first pregnancy and bitterly hurt by her parents-in-law's violent reaction to the 'notoriety'. Mirelle never did think that there'd been any more than the natural curiosity of people when they heard of someone inheriting money. The way Mother Martin had carried on suggested that Mirelle was going to be forced to wear a scarlet letter, or run out of Allentown on a rail.

Well, such thoughts were not clearing the breakfast table. Mirelle ruefully reflected that yesterday's lovely mood was completely dissipated. "Had I felt like that today, I'd've overthrown the shadows of five mothers-in-law," she muttered as she rose.

"Mothers-in-law?" asked Sylvia, whirling in the door. "Oh, you are lazy today. I expected to find you elbow deep in someone's head."

"No, I'm recovering from the shock of hearing that my in-laws arrive on the 10th."

"Eeek! What vile timing. And if your mother-in-law is anything like my mother… Really, I can't blame G.F.," Sylvia rattled on as she helped Mirelle stack the dishes. "Oh, dear," and she nearly dropped the cups she had just nested. "She's the one who doesn't want you artistic?"

Mirelle nodded, grimacing.

"And she'll be here during the Bazaar?" Sylvia made an unhappy sound against her teeth. "Well, coffee is indicated and we'll kick this around a little."

"I know what I'd like to kick around."

"Naughty, naughty. Respect for the aged and decrepit, please. We will take steps. Yes. We will plan a campaign. Say, what was Steve's reaction to the impending invasion?"

"Well," and Mirelle could feel herself blushing as memories of the previous night's bedgames came to mind.

"That's using your head, gal," Sylvia said with a bawdy laugh. "You're one up on his mother right there."

"Sylvia, don't be so earthy."

"Why not? It gets me somewhere. At any rate, Mirelle, what was his reaction? To his mother's coming, I mean."

Mirelle explained.

"You said 'in-laws'. What about papa?"

"Oh, Dad Martin is very nice but he gave up struggling against Marian years ago."

"Course of least resistance? Did he take part in holding the bar sinister over your head?"

"No," Mirelle grudgingly admitted. On the other hand, Dad Martin hadn't said anything or done anything, just stood there in the dining room on the night of the worst vituperation, listening to his wife and daughter-in-law.

"This will be my Cause for December," said Sylvia, rubbing her hands together. "I've given up putting Christ back into Christmas. They were displaying Christmas wrappings in the drug store before Hallowe'en. That's the end!"

"Sylvia, I don't want you to do anything…" Mirelle stopped abruptly.

"Now, my dear, have you ever known me to do anything?" Sylvia began, all charm and guile.

"Yes."

"All right, all right. Look, I promise I'll be very circumspect but play along with me."

"Only if you tell me what you plan to do."

Sylvia regarded her with a deceptively innocent expression. " 'There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, and every single one of them is right.' If I may quote Kipling?"

"Not in front of my mother-in-law. She's reactionary."

"I don't doubt it. Look, I can't stay any longer this morning. I've got an endless boring organizational meeting. Are you going to get in any work at all today?"

"No, I think I'll take the day off and get squared away for the coming invasion."

Sylvia dashed off, leaving Mirelle feeling not only slightly breathless but considerably dubious about any confrontation between her good friend and her bad mother-in-law. However, Sylvia's visit had dispelled the last of the nightmare's gloom, and Mirelle finished the necessary tidying. She took down the curtains in the boys' rooms to be cleaned for the state visit. She dropped them off in the dry cleaners on her way into town to the one fish market that she trusted and ran into a traffic jam. She took the first side street and drove back ways until she got out to the highway again.

Seeing that her route would not take her near Jamie's, she deflected to swing by and see how effective the sickpig was. She turned into a wooded area on a short leg of the triangle to Howell's house when she noticed a white Cadillac parked in a turn-off. She got a flash of two heads through the back window, kissing close. It wasn't until she was in Howell's driveway that she realized why the car had been familiar. It had been G.F. in that car, and the woman's head had not been Sylvia's. Mirelle slammed on the brakes in unaccustomed violence.

"Something your best friend doesn't tell you," she muttered, cursing whatever had prompted her to take that particular road at that particular time.

"Hi, Mrs. Martin, come join us for lunch," Margaret said in greeting.

"Oh, good heavens. I'd forgotten all about lunch. I'll come back later."

"Please don't do anything of the kind," Margaret said, quickly drawing her in. "I'm just setting the table."

"I'll help."

"You could tell Dad that his five minutes are up now. He's under the sun lamp. He wants to get rid of that pasty pig expression."

Mirelle stopped abruptly on the threshold of Jamie's bedroom. Howell was stripped to the waist, lying on his back under the glare of the sunlamp, pads protecting his eyes. His face, bleached further by the bright light, was in complete repose and the line of his mouth was sad. His hands, one across his waist, the other palm up on the pillow behind his head, looked strangely strengthless and lax. In contrast, the well developed pectoral muscles, the rounding of the bicep and forearm, the arch of his chest were those of an athlete, not a musician. His body looked considerably younger than his face. Mirelle experienced a curious disorientation looking at him. Quickly and quietly, she retreated a few steps from the door.

"Margaret says you've baked long enough on that side," she called as if making a first approach. "You'll be tasty for lunch." I'm as bad as an old lady, she told herself and was further dismayed to see that he only turned out the lamp at her warning. As she entered his room, he was removing the eye pads.

"I'm trying to approximate the coy shade of pink my sickpig wears," he said, reaching for his pajama top. Fascinated, Mirelle watched the play of muscles across the top of his arm as he slipped into a shirt.

"Anything is better than that underdone pasty effect you've been sporting," she said blithely. For heavens' sake, Steve has a better physique. Why should she get palpitations over Jamie's?

Jamie eyed her. "Actually I do feel better today. Your lemon-honey is a lot more effective than that $15.00 glue Martin prescribed. I slept all night." He shrugged into a dressing robe. "As a reward, Margaret is allowing me downstairs for lunch. Also to keep peace and support the legend that I am recovering." He slipped his hand under Mirelle's elbow and guided her downstairs. "You seem subdued this morning, not your usual caustic self."

Mirelle wrinkled her nose. "My mother-in-law is visiting us."

"Why didn't you marry an orphan? You did as much for him. But I can see how it would dampen even the most normally merry temperament."

"Implying I am dour by nature?"

"Soured by nature, at any rate."

"Takes one to know one."

"Margaret," said Jamie very sweetly as he seated Mirelle at the table, "do serve Mirelle some of those mushrooms that killed the dog."

"You mean the ones you like so much?" asked his daughter in the same saccharine tone, as she placed a steaming pot roast on the table.

"You are all against me," Jamie said and then sniffed deeply. "So this is what has been tantalizing me all morning. The size of it I'll be eating pot roast for days."

"Exactly my plan," Margaret replied sunnily. "I've got to get back to college Sunday, Mrs. Martin, with midterms coming up. I've arranged for the cleaning lady to come in twice this week."

"You mean I've got to eat pot roast for a week?" Jamie was outraged.

"I'll supply you with calf s foot jelly."

"Thank you so much!"

Mirelle caught the unspoken request in Margaret's eyes and nodded reassuringly.

"Such devotion ought to please your egocentric soul, James Howell. Instead of which, you complain," she said, and took a bite. "Whereas you have no legitimate ones. This is very good and will be hot, cold or nine days old." Mirelle bowed elaborately to the cook.

Jamie had tentatively placed a morsel in his mouth and his expression altered to one of pleasure. "I haven't been favored with anything like this the whole time I've been ill."

"An invalid requires a suitable diet. How could you have tasted anything through that bronchitis," Mirelle said.

"I used a Family Circle recipe, Mrs. Martin, to be sure it would come out all right. I'm not a very good cook."

"Nonsense," Mirelle said in a tone to discourage further disclaimers. "I think the cook needs a raise."

Jamie choked on his mouthful and Margaret giggled, hiding her face in her napkin.

"I suspect collusion," Jamie said. "Nursing an ailing parent comes under the dutiful daughter clause in our relationship, Margaret, and this is the first time I've had occasion to exercise it."

However, he found it impossible to maintain his pretense of indignation with the two women smiling at him, so he changed the subject completely by asking Mirelle if he could still register to vote in next year's senatorial election.

"They've started early," Margaret told Mirelle. "We've already heard two sides of the story…"

"Both sounding remarkably similar to my apolitical ears," Jamie said cynically.

"Sylvia's involved in politics on the local level," Mirelle said and mentioned the referendum coming up in the Brandywine Hundred.

Time passed so quickly that it was half-past two before Mirelle realized it and hurriedly excused herself. Jamie saw her to the door as Margaret started to clear the table.

"Something else is bothering you, Mirelle, and I don't think it's the mother-in-law."

"Am I so transparent?"

Jamie eyed her keenly for a long moment. "I shouldn't have said 'bother'. 'Changed' is accurate. For the better."

"Just the other side of the worm." She ducked away before he could delay her. She waved as she backed out of the driveway but the sight of his Thunderbird reminded her of the white Cadillac and G.F. Esterhazy.

Mr. Howell is far too acute, Mirelle said to herself. I must remember to keep him away from my mother-in-law.