She had also assumed that Steve's broad-mindedness was deeper and that his cultural base had been firmer. His sophistication turned out to be a thin veneer, actually little more than contempt for every aspect of his small-town upbringing whose limitations he had realized during two years in the occupation forces in Vienna. Close brushes with death as an infantry officer had sent him in desperate search for an anodyne to the horrors of war. He'd found this in Vienna in the beautiful works of art, the opera, classical music, all removed from the ugliness that he had to erase from his mind. After his Army discharge, a return to the pattern of his youth had been abhorrent to Steve, and he had welcomed a job that took him to new places constantly. It didn't matter to him where he lived geographically, nor how often he moved. His job was the constant, and his family the anchor: or so he thought. Mirelle had painfully come to accept that: she had no alternative. But if they could and did stay in Wilmington…
What could be, would be, Mirelle told herself. But Steve's announcement thoroughly dampened her spirits. The sense of marking time all summer now developed the cadence of uneasy anticipation, off-beat, agitated. The prospect of fall assumed a gloomy aspect.
CHAPTER THREE
ONCE THEY WERE HOME, Mirelle had to clean the dusty house thoroughly. The yard required considerable work after a month's neglect. That done, she found the kitchen had to be painted and was consequently able to push aside the tentative desire to coax Jacob Overby's lined features from the plasticene head. Of course, by then, it was time to get the children's school clothes ready and that chore made it necessary for her to reorganize the attic storage space.
When Steve mentioned a Labor Day weekend jaunt up to Cape Cod, she enthusiastically agreed, physically tiring herself so thoroughly that she had no time left over to upbraid her sane observer.
Then, abruptly, she was left in the quiet of a childless house, ordered, clean, painted, without a single excuse for further procrastination. Steve departed on the first of the fall business trips and the accusing anonymity of the un-worked head drew her to the studio.
Stolidly she took out her mass of sketches of Jacob Overby and arranged them on the wallclips. She stared at them. Thoroughly disgusted with her perversity, she forced her hands to the tools, digging out the eye sockets, shaping the brows above them, excavating the jawline from the material. Dutifully she worked all morning, covering the still impersonal head with unexpected relief when she heard her next door neighbor calling her children in for lunch.
The next morning, once the house was picked up, she took herself firmly in hand and resolutely strode into the studio. Critically she reviewed yesterday's effort. Somehow, it was easier to start today and she hopefully assumed that it had been simply a matter of getting back into a routine which included studio time after the casual living of the summer.
Suddenly she realized that the face which was emerging was not Jacob Overby's at all. Surprised, she flipped through the rest of the summer's sketches. The features were familiar but she couldn't identify the face which was emerging from the clay. She sat, hands idle in her lap, staring at the head, entreating the resemblance to assume identity. Until she knew who the man was, how could she continue? Disgusted with herself and the recalcitrant plasticene, she left her stool so abruptly that it clattered to the linoleum. She'd put some wash on, and if that head didn't cooperate then, she'd…
Her jodhpurs, hanging on the door of the laundry room since the previous spring, for she'd worn jeans like everyone else in the valley, slapped about her face as she jerked the door open. The sight of them provided her with an excuse. What she really needed right now was an outlet for her pent-up physical energy. She'd go riding, and show Boots she'd learned a thing or two over the summer on the willing, eager quarter horses of Wyoming.
"Besides," she told herself as she collected car keys and enough money for the ride, "I'll want to do a horse for Jake Overby to ride. So this is study."
The first fifteen minutes on Boots' back made her laugh for her balance had been subtly shifted by the weeks of western saddle riding and she had to reseat herself, legs in a proper position for the English saddle. She stopped slouching and sat straight, repositioned her hands and took up more contact on Boots' bridle. No more sloppy riding now! Or Boots would dump her.
At her favorite long stretch on the bridle path, she gave Boots the aids to canter and, settling her hips into his smooth rhythm, she allowed him to slowly increase his pace until he was at a hard gallop. Then she eased him back to a walk, with him snorting and having a bit of a blow, tossing his head. She patted his neck, soothing him to the slow pace, feeling the shift of muscle tissue as he tossed his head. Then she smelled her palm for the marvelous pungent odor of 'horse' lingering on her skin.
As she rode on, the dissatisfactions of the morning faded. When they reached the crest of the hill and the natural opening in the trees, she reined him in. She looked down into the dip between the hills where the trees were still sparklingly green after the rainy weekend. The russet of the sourwood trees and the yellow of the ground honeysuckle emphasized the different tones of greens: the whole scene was composed and serene to her artist's eye.
"If I were a painter," she told Boots, "this scene would be a nice change to the mossy millstone school. But… that brilliance would be so hard to capture. Maybe some pure research egghead will find a way to put odors in paint and you'll have to sniff paintings, too."
Dissatisfaction returned. Broodingly, she turned Boots away from the view and down the hill. He minced his way, snapping his feet into place, crunching the pebbled surface under his rear hooves. He tried, once, to break into a run again. It gave her distinct pleasure to rein him in smartly and feel that she had the strength to control something so strong and massive. She took perverse delight in the resentment she felt through the reins. With his hocks under him, he was almost bucking, to have a run up the next slope. When she did let him out, clapping her heels to his ribs, she seemed to sink into the ground as he surged forward. They were both breathless when she pulled him up.
"And I take it all out on you." She stroked his now moist shoulder. He snorted companionably, jiggling his bit.
The feeling of loneliness - alienation, rather, since she was used to being lonely - and depression seemed to intensify. The immediate future, with Max Corli's retirement approaching, held no prospect which might lift her spirits. If she could only get down to some solid work on that damned head. Then she remembered her chevalier. Boots' ears wigwagged at her chuckle. "I'll call it a tribute to a flathead cavalier." She laughed again, wishing there were someone, anyone whom she could laugh with, and talk to. Someone like Lucy.