"How come you lost your English accent?" Sylvia asked in the silence.
"Why should I keep it?" Mirelle replied sourly. "I promised myself a completely new start in the new world, and I assumed my mother's name as a beginning."
"Then what's with the in-laws?" asked Sylvia exasperated.
"My father left me money."
"Father? Neagu, then, not Barthan-More. And what's wrong with money?"
"The Times which reported the terms of the will had me named as his 'natural daughter by the late opera singer, Mary LeBoyne.' "
Sylvia groaned. "Reporters! Anything to spice up copy. I can imagine how middleclass morality accepted that choice bit of news coverage."
Mirelle sighed at the memory of those distressing days of scenes and recriminations.
"Steve knew about my birth…"
"We are such idealists in the blush of love," Sylvia commented ruefully.
"There'd been no occasion to mention it to his parents."
"Until it was all over the local rag which probably elaborated on the story from the Times. So the in-laws were suitably shocked, shamed, appalled and acted in the best tradition of outraged middleclassery."
"I can't blame them. It was an awful shock to me, too. I didn't think that Neagu knew or cared about me."
"Well, he'd've known not to inquire of Barthan-More. What did Steve do?"
Mirelle flushed, not willing to discuss that.
"He didn't side with Mommie and Daddy, did he?"
"That isn't fair."
"Who to? You? His precious prude parents?" Sylvia flounced up out of the chair, furious. "And, for that kind of…" words failed her so she waved her arms about eloquently, "you've deliberately neglected your talents?"
"I haven't neglected them."
"Well, you sure haven't cultivated them."
"I don't want any notoriety, Sylvia. It makes my life too difficult."
"I'd never have taken you for a coward, Mirelle Martin." Sylvia flared up, the accusation flung out and then instantly retracted. "No, Mirelle Martin isn't but Mary LeBoyne sure isn't pushing. And I think it's downright asinine for you to stifle the contribution you could make because of an anachronistic irregularity of birth. Why must you be saddled with your parents' sin? Particularly in today's permissive society? For God's sake, as an artist, any sort of deviation is permitted. Encouraged!"
"That's part of it, too," Mirelle said, doggedly resisting.
Sylvia regarded her scornfully. "You mean, your dear in-laws are afraid that immersion in the artistic world would result in your descent into promiscuity? Hah! I got news for them. Most women don't need parental example to stray from the marital bed. It's so fashionable to be unfaithful." Sylvia fumed silently, waiting for Mirelle's response. "Well, are you going to wait until all the dear in-laws are six feet under before you walk out into the light of day? Or is it Steve you're afraid of?"
Mirelle eyed her levelly. "No, it's not Steve."
"Yourself, then? Do you fear your inherited tendencies?" Sylvia flung the sarcasm as a challenge.
Mirelle turned back to the little pig, needlessly smoothing the spine with her thumb. "No, it's a question of timing, Sylvia. I don't think this is the right time for me to start."
"Not the right time to start?" Sylvia gestured expansively from the Lucy to the Howell head and then the sick pig. "You've already started. You, inside you, is telling you to start with these! I'm disgusted with you, Mirelle. Lucy Farnoll would be, too. You don't deserve the right to sculpt her, not if that's your attitude. 'It's not the right time!' Ha!" Sylvia's acid scorn seared Mirelle.
"It's not that I wouldn't like to… particularly for Lucy," Mirelle began tentatively, "but I've children now. What if that story got repeated?"
"What story? Oh! That you're a bastard? Kids use that word so much on the playgrounds it's lost its original connotation. One of your in-laws' arguments no doubt." When Mirelle looked up troubled, Sylvia went on. "Thought so. Just what a petty narrow mind would spew out. Look, Mirelle," and Sylvia's manner changed abruptly to entreaty, "you've got a talent that I'd give my eyeteeth to possess. A genuine talent with a sensitivity and perception far superior to contemporary plaster hacks. Part of that sensitivity and perceptiveness is a result of that irregularity in birth, the drek you suffered as a child at Barthan-More's hands, even your arrival here in the States. I'll bet your father made that bequest to dare you to do something!"
"He never knew…"
Sylvia raised her eyebrows. "Want to bet on that? After all, he knew he had a daughter, and he must have known where you lived to have left you money in the will. Figure it out. And you have no right, do you understand, no right, to deny that gift. Besides, I doubt anyone in this decadent age would bother with a triviality like bastardy. If they do, make it work for you!" Sylvia chuckled maliciously, then returned to exhortations. "Look, Mirelle, I'll bug you until you do get work shown if only to get me off your back. Until you finish the Lucy and… hey, hey, what're the tears for?"
Bewildered by her own reaction, Mirelle felt the tears spilling onto her cheeks, her throat too tight for speech. Instantly Sylvia knelt beside her, a comforting arm across her shoulders.
"Honey, don't you see? If you were a half-baked pot thrower, it wouldn't matter. But when you can create a tribute like the Lucy, with so much love, you can't just ignore it. You can't. Not when you loved Lucy so much and when she wanted so much for you. Because that's what she said in that note to me. That she'd come across a really fine woman sculptor who needed to be cossetted and encouraged."
That made Mirelle cry harder into Sylvia's shoulder. She wept for her lonely mother, for the father she had never known, for all her early aspirations sublimated in childbearing and husband care, for all the terrible lonely hours when she had wished for success to compensate for scorn and neglect, for the emptiness and betrayal. Sylvia made no attempt to stop her crying until Mirelle looked up apologetically and saw, with amazement and surprise, that Sylvia had tears in her eyes.
"Why are you crying?"
"For you, you loon," and Sylvia smiled at Mirelle with great and fond affection, taking her by the shoulders and giving her a little shake. "And to think you've been squirming all this time on a bed of in-law nails!"
The vision projected made Mirelle laugh and she dried her eyes resolutely on a clay rag.
"You're a real sight now," was Sylvia's comment. "You wash your face and I'll hot up the coffee."
Mirelle washed her face in the laundry room, recalling that last time she'd done so.
"Confession is so good for the soul," said Sylvia, returning with the steaming pot. "I'd left the kettle on low so it didn't take long. Now, there's another minor detail which I feel I should impart to you as the ultimate in reassurances.
"As you may have noticed, G.F. is a great one for the skirts… however, we won't go into any detail today," and Sylvia took a long breath. "Suffice it to say, he is. However, tomcat though he may be, he also knows when not to press his luck with a gal. He also knows who's screwing whom, for he belongs to all the best clubs. If you think women are gossips, you should hear men!" Sylvia rolled her eyes. "It's G.F.'s informed opinion that you not only haven't, but won't. He heard all about it from Bill Townshend, Ed Eberhardt and Red Cargill."
Aghast, Mirelle stared at Sylvia. "I never told a soul…"
"Of course you didn't. But they did. When I told G.F. that you sculpted, well, guess what he said?" Dutifully Mirelle shook her head. "Well, he said, 'so that's where the fire goes?' " Sylvia's smile broadened as she watched the effect of her words on Mirelle. "Ah, honey, you got sold a lousy bill of goods. You're a big girl now. You're not minor, middleclass league. You can be big time stuff. You always were, so get with it. Show the Lucy and… show Lucy."