"You're an adult," she began in defense of her stricture.
"Yes, and don't forget that your sons are, too. So I think, Marian, you'd better stop interfering with the way Steve is raising his kids."
Mother Martin looked in astonishment at her husband, for once unsure of herself. Then, as he started to fix himself a stiff drink, she lapsed into grieved and disapproving silence.
Mirelle overheard the whole conversation as she quietly reset her table, redistributing the serving pieces by the hot pads and gathering up the plates to put them to warm. She checked the roast. Then she noticed the expression on Roman's face and realized that he had also heard the exchange.
"Now, listen to me, Robert Marion," she said quietly, "habits in child-raising have changed since Mother Martin's day, but she brought your father up to be a fine man. It's the end result that matters, pal. So you just close your big ears and your big mouth."
"Aw, Mom, as if I'd go blabbing…"
"Especially not to Nick."
Roman started to shake the popcorn pan furiously.
Mirelle tested the roast and decided that dinner was going to be a good hour and a half late. She fixed the salad quickly and got the dressing out to chambre. She turned on the small broiler for heating the canapes. Just on the dot of 7:00, she heard the doorbell.
"I'll get it. I'll get it," roared Nick, charging up from the gameroom, scrambling to get to the door first. "Who're you?" he demanded in surprise.
"Nick!" Steve gave him a shocked reprimand. "Ann, Red, good evening. This young gangster is Nicholas. Nick, do you think you could prove to Mr. and Mrs. Blackburn that you have some manners?"
"Sure," Nick replied, unabashed. "Very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Blackburn. Let me have your coat. I'll take yours, too, sir. Isn't it a lovely evening?"
"That's better."
"Shoulda tol' me who was coming. I thought it was Aunt Sylvia," said Nick, charging upstairs with hats and coats.
Mirelle saw the back of him as she came into the hall to be presented to Steve's boss and his wife.
Red Blackburn was a tall, heavy-set man, in his mid-forties, with red, attractively greying hair. His wife, Ann, was a very handsome woman with frosted blonde hair, nearly as tall as her husband, and dressed simply but with great style. They greeted Mirelle with conventional warmth and guarded appraisal.
Mirelle knew then that she was on review and wished she'd realized this possibility before she had invited them on what was surely going to be a trying evening.
No sooner had the Blackburns been introduced to the senior Martins than Sylvia and G.F. arrived. G.F. did his usual courtly bow over Marian Martin's hand and lingered a noticeable pause longer over Ann Blackburn's. Roman arrived with the first of the hot canapes and passed them deftly around.
"The next time I need a butler, are you for hire?" Ann asked, smiling up at Roman.
"My rates are low and I guarantee satisfaction," Roman replied in the accent affected by well-trained English butlers.
"Well," Ann exclaimed, delighted, "here's a live one!"
"Robert, don't be saucy," Mother Martin admonished.
"He's not the least bit saucy, Mrs. Martin, he's charming," Ann said. "I only wish my teenager could make an original statement to an adult without stuttering and blushing."
Roman flushed and barely saved himself from stumbling over his feet as he presented the tray to Sylvia.
"Why don't you ever flirt with me?" she asked in a loud stage whisper.
"Roman!" Steve's quiet word held a warning.
"That's an interesting nickname," Ann said.
"He was christened Robert Marion," Steve explained, handing Ann her drink. "But he couldn't say it and it came out 'Roman' which Mirelle preferred to the usual Bob or Rob."
"What's Mirelle short for?" asked Ann.
"Mary Ellen but my…" Mirelle hesitated because she caught Mother Martin's disapproving glance. The woman disliked any mention of Mirelle's past and particularly her European childhood. "… my tongue tripped, too, and it was contracted into Mirelle," and she damned herself for a coward, allowing Marion Martin's petty grievance to inhibit the truth.
"I always thought it was your French nursemaid who gave you that nickname," Steve said, and all Mirelle could do was smile.
"Oh, were you raised abroad, too?" Ann asked with real interest.
Mirelle saw Sylvia's raised eyebrows. "You were?"
"My father was in the diplomatic corps. As a child, I went all around the world."
"Ann's even been in prison," her husband added with a sly grin.
Mirelle saw Ann flush and was quick to note that, although Red might make a joke of it now, it had been no joke to Ann, then or now.
"Yes," she explained swiftly in a bright voice, "in China during the Japanese war in the late thirties. But we weren't held as long as some of our friends."
"Was your father ever posted in Vienna?" G.F. asked, into the brief silence.
"In a Japanese prison camp?" Mother Martin asked, startled into overriding G.F.'s tactful change.
"Yes." Ann replied in a flat voice that would have told anyone the least perceptive that she didn't wish to continue talking about the experience.
"You're Viennese, aren't you, G.F., and your family often entertained the diplomatic corps," Mirelle said brightly.
"But you must have been just a child," Marian Martin persisted.
Ann smiled with thin courtesy. "I was."
"It's such a mercy how easily children forget their unpleasant experiences and remember only the nice ones," Mother Martin said fatuously.
Mirelle saw the tightening of Ann's mouth and knew that she hadn't at all forgotten her unpleasant experiences.
"Yes, Mr. Esterhazy, my father was posted to Vienna," she said, determinedly looking beyond Mother Martin. "As a matter of fact, we were there when Hitler marched in. I remember that Mother was particularly furious because we had barely had time to get settled in the schloss before we had to leave," Ann's face darkened, "for the second time in rather a rush, leaving everything behind us."
"So many experiences are just wasted in children," Mother Martin went on, "when all you can remember about Vienna is being angry at leaving it. Now, Steve was there during and after the war and he's told us so much about Vienna. Of course, he was a grown man then and could appreciate the finer things."
G.F. turned to Steve. "You served in Austria?"
"Yes, with the occupation. I really love that city, even though the Viennese I met kept telling me that this wasn't the real Vienna, that the real Vienna would take years to bloom again. Then, just when I didn't want to, I was transferred home in '46. My points made me eligible for discharge."
"Steve had a brilliant war career," Mother Martin said, still fatuous. "Both my sons did and I'm sure Ralph would have been decorated, too, if he hadn't been wounded so terribly."
Mirelle looked sideways at Steve and saw the telltale jerk of his mouth at the mention of Ralph's wound. Something had happened then that Steve knew and his parents did not, something that still rankled deeply. In their early courtship days, Steve had drunk his army experiences out of his mind and his dreams. When they had first married, she'd often had to wake him out of 'killing nightmares' but, with time, the deep scars had healed.
"Steve was awarded the Bronze Star," his mother rambled on, directing her remarks to Red. "But he never would say why."
Red made a suitable rejoinder and then looked inquiringly at Steve who shrugged diffidently.
"Steve always says that they were handing them out with the C-rations that morning," Mirelle remarked when patently Steve remained silent.
"Mary Ellen, you shouldn't be so flippant about Steve's heroism."