She remembered her promise to Jamie and stifled an unworthy thought. In the bathroom mirror, she took a long look at her vivid face and then scrubbed until her skin tingled. She couldn't remove that well-loved look with soap or cold cream. Again, she suppressed a fleeting thought and then smiled at her reflection. She slipped into her nightgown, still smiling, and got in between the cold sheets, regretting the warm bed she had left.
Fatigue claimed her before she had had a chance to review any of the evening's unexpected developments. She was roused the next morning by Tonia's shriek of protest from the gameroom. She heard both Nick and Roman trying to shush their sister but the shrieks turned to wails and she knew that she'd have to referee the quarrel.
She had coffee started before the phone rang.
"My God, you sound alert," Jamie Howell said, disgusted.
"I can't be. I haven't had coffee yet."
"Mirelle?" His voice turned plaintively tender.
"I'm glad you called, Jamie," she said, answering as best she could the unspoken appeal.
"Then 1 may come on Monday?"
She giggled. He sounded like a boy expecting to be deprived of a promised treat. "Yes, of course."
"Good." His voice was brisk again as he said goodbye and hung up.
Mirelle was sipping her third cup of coffee and reading the newspaper for the second time when Roman hobbled upstairs.
"Did you have a good time, Mom?"
Mirelle swallowed, remembered her promise, and said that she had.
"Concert good?"
"Yes, it was, and the paper thinks so, too. Here's the review."
Roman rejected the offer. "Did you like Mr. Howell?"
Mirelle thought for one moment that she would burst into hysterical laughter but she caught herself and altered her thoughts. "He is a superb accompanist."
"What was the singer like?"
Mirelle regarded her son thoughtfully for a moment. He was being so grown-up in his questions, so polite. She must simply ignore the other interpretations that sprang to her mind. No, it was not a guilty mind. She shouldn't read suspicion into a very natural question. Roman had wanted her to have a pleasant evening out; he had taken pains to see that she would; he was now inquiring politely for details.
"To be honest, the singer sounded a great deal like my mother, your grandmother LeBoyne. In fact, some of the songs were ones that my mother sang in the last concert she gave."
"Your mother was a singer?"
"I'm sure I've mentioned that." Mirelle was ashamed of the sharpness in her voice.
"You don't talk about your mother much," Roman said a little wistfully.
"No, I guess I haven't, have I?"
"Oh, that's all right," Roman said more briskly. "I figured it made you sad to talk about her."
"Yes, it did. But last night… well, sometimes you have to talk the sadness out." Now there was a fancy bit of rationalization, thought Mirelle.
"Sadness out? Of what?" Nick demanded, arriving just then.
"Shut up! " Roman said affably.
"Why? What did I say?" Nick regarded his brother with total innocence.
"Roman! Nick! No bickering!" Then Mirelle called Tonia upstairs and began to tell all three about the concert, the memories that it had evoked of her mother, of the tours in Germany, even of that last war-time concert. She had tears in her eyes when she finished, and Roman's uninjured hand crept into hers.
"Why'd you never tell us we had a nice grandmother?" Tonia asked into the silence that fell when Mirelle's reminiscing ceased.
"Do I slap your face the way your father did?" Mirelle asked sharply.
Tonia's hand crept to her cheek and her eyes widened with fear. She shook her head vehemently.
"Then don't say such things," Mirelle advised. "Grandmother Martin is a fine woman. And I don't know that my mother wouldn't be just as annoyed with you children. You can be selfish, mannerless creatures sometimes."
"Is my other grandfather alive?" Nick wanted to know.
"No. He died just before Roman was born."
"What was he like?"
"I never knew him."
"Why not?" Nick was shocked. Then he looked up at his mother from under his brows, his voice dropping to a whisper. "You mean, your parents were… divorced… like the Bellows kids'?"
Mirelle nodded. This small untruth was surely permissible.
"What was he like? Did you ever find out?"
"He was a portrait painter."
Nick was skeptical about the merits of that occupation but Tonia perked up noticeably.
"Was he as good as Mr. Robinson?" She had been impressed by a neighbor's landscape paintings.
"Well, some of his portraits hang in European museums."
"In museums?" Nick and Tonia were awestruck.
"Gosh, Mom, how come you never told us you have famous parents?" Nick asked.
"Because our other grandmother wouldn't have liked it," replied Tonia, setting her mouth just the way that Marian Martin did when stating an unpleasant truth.
"Antonia!" Mirelle felt obliged to reprimand her but then, with three pairs of rebellious eyes on her, she had to temper that rebuke. "My parents are both dead. No one in America ever heard of them, so there didn't seem much point in… well…" Mirelle shrugged.
"You got a picture of your mother. D'you have one of your father, too?" Roman asked.
Mirelle could no longer deny the presence of that unopened package in the attic. She might as well make a clean sweep of her ghosts. Hiding them had done no good.
The package was not only dusty but exceedingly well wrapped. It took time and patience to penetrate the protective coverings. No one was more surprised than Nick when his grandfather's face was finally revealed.
"Hey, he looks just like me!"
"You mean, you look like him!" Roman corrected his brother, but he was staring at Mirelle.
The portrait wasn't large, 24" by 24", but the handsome Slavic face would have dominated any room. Nothing modest about Lajos Neagu, thought Mirelle, and nothing ordinary. He'd not flattered himself, certainly. The lines of dissipation and disillusion were carefully limned, the crook in the nose which marred its aristocratic length, the pits in the skin. But there was sardonic humor in the quirk of the lips, echoed in the intensely blue eyes, as if Lajos were amused at the notion of painting a portrait for the daughter he would never meet.
Mirelle liked the directness of that gaze, the strength of the face that overcame the dissolution. As she admired the honesty and the artistic technique, she realized that she had also forgiven her father the sin of begetting her. In fact, she experienced profound regret that she'd never met him. Deeper ran a secondary impression: Lajos Neagu with Mary LeBoyne beside him. They'd have made a magnificent couple! Why had her mother returned to colorless, autocratic, vindictive Edward Barthan-More?
"Gee, Ma, he's great," Roman said softly.
"Yeah, he sure is," Nick echoed with a shy grin.
"Can I tell people he's my other grandfather?" Tonia asked, glaring resentfully at Nick because she obviously didn't share his resemblance to this magnificent man.
Mirelle had intended to wrap the portrait up again and put it safely back in the attic. Now she knew that was impossible.
"Yes, you can, Tonia. You can say that he painted it for me, and for you, his grandchildren, to have. So you'd know what he looked like."
"I'll get the hammer and nails," Roman said.
"No, I will!" Nick was adamant. "He looks like me!"
Mirelle caught Roman's eyes and held them. He made a face but he let Nick run the errand.
"How come he didn't paint a picture of your mother?" Tonia wanted to know, eyeing her newfound grandfather thoughtfully.
"As a matter of fact, he did. But I think the painting was destroyed during the bombing in London."
"Gee whiz," Tonia was crushed. "All you got of her is just that tiny little picture on your dresser?"