"Trying to keep that commission alive?" was Steve's query.
"I could hardly have left him alone in the condition he was in," Mirelle said. "He might not have lived to pay up."
"You aren't smart about charge accounts but you know how to handle your own art business," Steve said. "Speaking of which, is it absolutely necessary to buy seven pairs of underpants for Tonia at one time? Why did we buy that dryer?"
"The pants are special ones, each labelled with the day of the week…" Mirelle began to explain.
"Oh, for God's sake…"
"… and Susan Harper has them and Susie Miller and Karen Arnold…"
"So Antonia Martin, of course, has to have them?"
"Of course!"
CHAPTER TEN
THE NEXT morning when Mirelle called Margaret Howell, she was told that the invalid had been very restless during the night, constantly plagued by the racking cough. The vaporizer had had little noticeable effect and Jamie claimed the cough syrup was worthless. Mirelle told Margaret to confer with Will Martin.
Then she went down to the studio and finished Sylvia's pig. On inspiration, and because Howell was much on her mind, she took down the long-covered head.
The flaws in her execution were startlingly apparent and she spent nearly an hour making minute precise alterations.
"What? Not brewing calf' s foot jelly?" was Sylvia's greeting. "Say, when did you do that?" she asked as she recognized the head. "Mirelle, how long HAVE you known James Howell?"
"I met him last May," Mirelle replied, hoping that a casual answer would inhibit Sylvia's curiosity.
"That's a mighty… ah… close study for a casual acquaintance."
"Is it?" Mirelle stared at the head as if seeing it objectively for the first time. "Not really. It's not at all finished."
"No, it isn't."
Exasperated by that droll remark, Mirelle turned on Sylvia. "What are you not saying?"
Sylvia returned the look with a sardonic expression and then, suddenly relenting, sighed, and headed for the stairs.
"Sylvia!"
"Well, it is an awfully perceptive study, until I remember that you worked the Lucy from a memory seven years dead, so forget about the sordid innuendo. Any idea how the invalid and his nurse are faring?"
"He had a restless night."
"Will she be able to cope?"
"I think so."
"Interesting type, Howell. I can see why his face caught your artistic eye."
"Go thou and make coffee."
Sylvia went with a show of alacrity. Mirelle stood back and eyed the plasticene model critically, beginning to experience some satisfaction in the result. The phone rang and Sylvia picked up the kitchen extension.
"It's Margaret," she called down to Mirelle. "He insists on beef tea and all but threw the boullion she made him in her face. Ha!"
Mirelle joined the conversation on the studio phone.
"There isn't any more beef in the house to make the tea. We can pick some up and be right over. D'you need anything else?"
"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Martin. Fruit juice. He drinks like there's no tomorrow. And Dr. Martin was calling Eckerd's to make up a new prescription for that cough. It's awful. My throat hurts just listening to him hack."
Mirelle and Sylvia entered by the kitchen door to prevent disturbing Howell. Sylvia started the beef tea while Mirelle took up the cough medicine. Margaret was sitting on her father's bed, reading letters to him. He looked, if anything, worse this morning. She still didn't have the dimensions of the forehead right. That would account for faulty positioning of the eye socket. No, she'd have to wait until he recovered from his illness. The bones in his skull were abnormally pronounced, his face drawn by fever and fatigue.
"Hi, Mrs. Martin."
Jamie opened his eyes slightly.
"There are females cackling in my kitchen again," he complained.
"Nonsense. You're hearing the rale in your chest."
"And another thing," Jamie opened one eye wider, "couldn't you at least have recommended a physician affluent enough to use sharp hypodermic needles? I've a bruise the size of a dinner plate on my butt."
"Couldn't get through the calluses on your tail bones from sitting on all those unpadded piano benches."
Margaret let out a whoop of laughter and Jamie kicked her off the bed, glaring at Mirelle.
"Will you kindly instruct this infant of mine in the proper recipe for that beef tea? She fed me a substitute, poured no doubt from last night's dishwater."
"Thy wish is our command, Effendi." Mirelle salaamed, and gave the necessary instructions.
"You see, I told you it was an essentially simple decoction," Jamie said with weary patience.
Margaret rolled her eyes expressively heavenwards. "You're saving my life."
Then Jamie caught sight of the bottle in Mirelle's hand. "Cackling females! Here I am, with a throat like a sandstorm, relief in sight," he pointed at the bottle, "and you two stand there exchanging inanities."
"Oh, dad," said Margaret contritely.
"Never mind him, Margaret. Here's the syrup and I hope it's more vile than yesterday's. I've got to go. The beef tea will be ready in half an hour. Don't forget." She gave Jamie a jaunty salute and left.
As she and Sylvia left, they could both hear Margaret upbraiding her father for resisting the new medicine "that Mrs. Martin was kind enough to collect."
"We're going to have to rescue that child," said Sylvia. "Once he's over the fever, he'll be impossible."
"Just like my Nick who was a terror," Mirelle said.
"Mirelle," began Sylvia, edging sideways into the Sprite's bucket seat, "where did you meet Howell?"
Mirelle chuckled.
"Now don't give me that bit about a flat tire. And the day that man steps into a Food Fair short of starvation…"
"To tell the truth and shame the devil…"
"By all means…"
"I won't say another word if you keep interrupting…"
"I'll behave…"
"I got tossed from a horse last spring and as I turned onto the highway, the tire blew. He saw it and played Good Samaritan."
"I wouldn't have thought that piece was in his repertoire."
Mirelle gave Sylvia a stern look and she made a show of remorse.
"I'd wrenched my ankle in the toss and he said he decided to stop because he saw me limping."
"Where did the steak juice drop in?"
"That was later, in October."
"All right, if you insist on being coy…"
"Now, look, Sylvia," Mirelle began with a touch of anger in her voice, "don't go imagining a situation when one doesn't exist."
"I'm the slave of my romantic soul. That's a lot of good man going to waste."
"Howell? I doubt he allows any waste, the way he talks."
"It's so easy to talk a good game," and Sylvia's voice took on a caustic edge, "but when the time comes to produce…" She shrugged eloquently about such failures.
Though the words were glib, Mirelle began to wonder about the basis for such a cynical retort. She was reasonably certain that G.F. Esterhazy was the sort of man to take favors whenever offered them. It occurred to Mirelle that Sylvia would retaliate by finding extra-marital solace if the mood struck her. Mirelle had good reason to regard infidelity as a minor offense.
"Have you fallen silent in respect for my shrewd insights?" Sylvia asked Mirelle as she turned the Sprite into her development.
"I'm speechless, but only because I'm trying to figure out how to turn the wrath of El Howell from doting daughter."
"Shall we throw a wake?"
"And ask the corpse to play for it? That isn't done."
"I should like to hear him perform," and Sylvia's laugh was wicked with double entendre.