71 Love Comes West Page 10

  He kissed the tip of her nose, smiled as if he thought that what she was saying was nonsense and, rising to his feet, walked towards his easel.

  Slowly Roberta followed him.

  “I must – go and – cook the luncheon,” she said in a voice that did not sound like her own.

  Then, as she reached his side, she looked down at what he had painted and saw that it was what she had expected, but even better and lovelier.

  It was very Impressionistic and she was part of the sunshine coming through the branches of the trees. Half her body seemed to have no form of its own, but was merged with the flowers, the trees and the background.

  Only her eyes and her mouth were positive and individualistic and Roberta thought that the painting made her look far more beautiful than she could ever really be.

  “What do you think of it?” Adam asked.

  “It’s – wonderful!”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “I only wish that my father could see it! I know he would appreciate your work and say that you were going to be a famous artist.”

  “That is what I want to be,” Adam said. “I have to prove myself.”

  He said the last words as if it was a vow, that somehow he would achieve what he was seeking, however many obstacles there might be in his way.

  As if he suddenly realised that she was beside him, he said,

  “Go back! I have a great deal more to do to your face and your hair is wrong.”

  “Before you do any more, you must eat,” Roberta insisted, “and, if you are not hungry, I am quite certain Danny will be!”

  “You are bullying me!” Adam complained.

  “You said you disliked women messing you about,” Roberta replied. “So if you don’t want us, we can always leave after luncheon.”

  “Now you are definitely blackmailing me! What are you? An angel disguised as a cook or a fantasy of my mind which has no real existence?”

  Roberta walked away from him and said over her shoulder,

  “I am a cook, housekeeper and nursemaid and I will call you when luncheon is ready!”

  He stood looking at her and she had the feeling that he was debating whether he should run after her, pick her up in his arms and make her obey him.

  Then, with a little sigh, he sat down again at his easel.

  Roberta had already planned that they would have a cold luncheon, but there was the chicken to be cut up, the mayonnaise to be made and a salad to be tossed in a wooden bowl.

  Then there was fruit to be peeled and covered with a sweet syrup.

  When it was ready, she took it all out onto the veranda and, when she called, Danny came running up from the sea, Columbus beside him.

  A few minutes later Adam walked reluctantly away from his easel.

  As they ate they laughed and talked. It was only when Roberta’s eyes met Adam’s that what she was saying flew out of her mind and there was a sudden silence when she felt as if her heart spoke to his.

  “I want to swim when I’ve finished,” Danny announced.

  “And so do I,” Roberta said firmly.

  “Very well,” Adam agreed, “but you have to promise to give me at least two hours later in the afternoon.”

  “Unless I prefer to rest,” Roberta countered provocatively.

  “Then I will rest with you.”

  Realising that that would be a mistake, she said quickly,

  “No, I will sit for you. After all Danny and I must not interrupt your work.”

  “You have done that already,” Adam said. “I thought until you came that it was the most important thing in my life. Now I know I was mistaken!”

  The way he spoke made Roberta blush.

  Danny, however, paid no attention to them and jumped up from the table.

  “I’m going to put on my swimming suit,” he said. “Will you give me another swimming lesson, Uncle Adam?”

  There was a little pause as if Adam had to think about what Danny had said to him before he replied,

  “Yes, of course, but we have to wait, as your mother has said, for an hour, otherwise we will all have tummy ache.”

  “Then I’ll build a big sandcastle,” Danny said and ran off to change.

  “I think I too will go for a swim,” Adam said quietly.

  “The exercise will be good for you,” Roberta remarked.

  Because he was looking at her in a way that made her feel shy, she went on,

  “You will grow fat if you just sit about all day and I am sure that before we came you used to swim a long way out to sea. I have always been told that swimming exercises all the muscles.”

  There was silence.

  Then Adam said,

  “I adore you! I love everything about you, but there is one thing I don’t understand.”

  “What is that?” Roberta asked.

  “How you can look so absurdly young. You must be twenty-five for Danny to be your son and yet you look and behave like a young girl who has just emerged from the schoolroom to find the world a very strange and bewildering place.”

  “I-I am older than I – look!”

  “Obviously!” Adam agreed. “At the same time women will think that you have found the secret of eternal youth, which they have all sought since the beginning of time!”

  “You are very complimentary.”

  “I am simply in love! And I find it incredible that it has happened to me so quickly!”

  “What you are saying is that in your numerous love affairs it has taken a little longer than an hour or so before you said all those pretty things to whoever has taken your fancy!” Roberta teased.

  She gave a sudden cry because Adam stood up and swept her off her feet and into his arms so roughly that it hurt her.

  “Do you really believe that I have ever loved anybody before in the way I love you?” he asked.

  He did not wait for her answer. His mouth held her captive and he kissed her until she was breathless.

  Then, as they heard Danny coming back through the sitting room, they moved apart.

  Because of the emotions he had aroused in her, Roberta felt unsteady on her feet.

  “Please come with me, Uncle Adam!” Danny pleaded. “I’m sure it’s time for us to swim.”

  For a moment Adam hesitated.

  Then he walked with the small boy down the steps of the veranda and they set off hand in hand in the direction of the beach.

  Roberta watched them go, then, sitting down, she wondered frantically what she could do about Adam.

  She might be innocent, but she was well aware of how much she excited him and she knew because he excited her that it was going to be very difficult to resist him.

  ‘He thinks I have been a married woman,’ she reasoned, ‘and therefore would not be so shocked at what he is suggesting as a girl would be.’

  Because her cheeks were glowing and her heart was beating tumultuously it was difficult to think –

  She wondered whether it would be best for her to tell him the truth about herself, then she knew that it could be dangerous for Danny.

  However kind and loving Adam might be, she knew nothing about him and, as an American, he might argue that it was completely wrong for an American boy to be brought up in England.

  She tried to think of what her father would have felt if the same thing happened to him, but her brain would not function and all she could think of was Adam’s lips on hers and the strength of his arms.

  ‘I love him! I love him!’ she told herself, but that was no answer to the problem.

  She swam with Adam and Danny in the sea. Then, as she had promised, she put on her white muslin gown and sat again under the tree.

  “Now the light is different from what it was this morning,” Adam grumbled, “and, because you look even lovelier than you did a few hours ago, I want to start all over again!”

  Roberta gave a cry of protest.

  “You cannot do that! Finish this picture because I like it and I am sure it is one o
f the best you have ever done!”

  “Of course it is!” Adam answered. “It is painted with love and the love that inspired the great artists, the great composers and the great sculptors all through the centuries!”

  “Perhaps I shall hang in the Royal Academy and be very proud.”

  He laughed.

  “That is extremely unlikely! Can you see the Royal Academy, or the Salon for that matter, accepting an Impressionist and an American at that?”

  “Then I will hang it on the wall of my bedroom and look at it every day,” Roberta said unthinkingly.

  “We will look at it!” Adam corrected.

  She felt the colour rise in her cheeks and wondered if this was the moment when she should tell him that she was not the widow he imagined, but somebody with very little experience who was both shocked and frightened by what he was suggesting.

  Then her eyes went to Danny who had returned to his sandcastle on the beach and she knew that she dare not take risks with him.

  ‘What can I do? What can I do?’ she asked.

  She was repeating the same question in her mind when the sun began to lose its heat and she started to cook the supper.

  “I am very hungry, Mama!” Danny called from the sitting room.

  “You are eating me out of house and home, young man!” she heard Adam say.

  It made her realise that they were in fact spending quite a lot of Adam’s money.

  Since he had insisted on buying the food for her, she had not been to the shops, but she was aware that the excellent meat he brought back was not cheap.

  She was sure, however, that the fruit and vegetables cost very little.

  Yet because she wanted to feed Danny well, she had put down on her shopping list meat, chicken and fish, all of which for three people could come to quite a considerable sum.

  ‘I must offer to pay for our food,’ Roberta thought, ‘or else I must go to the shops and pay for it myself, as I managed to do when we were in Blue River.’

  At the same time she wondered, because Adam was so insistent that she should not tire herself by going shopping, whether he did not want his neighbours to be aware that he had a woman and a child staying with him.

  ‘Perhaps he is ashamed that I am here un-chaperoned,’ she thought.

  It made her feel more guilty than she was feeling already.

  The supper was delicious and by the time it was over Danny was yawning.

  “Go to bed, darling,” Roberta said. “I will come in a moment to kiss you goodnight.”

  “Uncle Adam said I could sleep on the veranda,” Danny said. “I’d like that.”

  “I think it is still too chilly at night for you to be out of doors,” Roberta said firmly.

  She looked at Adam defiantly as she spoke and he smiled as if he knew that she was trying to give him her answer through the child.

  “Goodnight, Uncle Adam!”

  Danny put his arms around Adam’s neck where he was sitting at the table and kissed his cheek.

  Then, with Columbus following him, he ran into the bedroom.

  “So you have chosen to come to me!” Adam said softly.

  Roberta did not pretend to misunderstand what he was saying.

  “I am telling you ‘no’. It is something I cannot do.”

  “Why not, my precious?” he asked. “What is the point of mourning your husband, if that is what you are doing? And quite frankly, I don’t believe you loved him very much or that he taught you anything about love.”

  Because she felt that he was being uncomfortably perceptive, Roberta picked up the food that was left on the table and carried it into the house.

  Adam followed her with the salad bowl and another dish.

  He put them down on the kitchen table and said,

  “Why are you being so difficult?”

  “I am not – I promise you I am not,” Roberta replied. “It’s just that I feel that what you are suggesting is – very wrong.”

  He raised his eyebrows and she knew that he was genuinely surprised.

  “How can it be wrong?” he asked. “We are both free to love each other, at least I am! I promise you I have no wife hidden away in my past or even a permanent mistress for that matter.”

  It flashed through Roberta’s mind that that was what he was asking her to be and she could see the procession of women who had been her father’s mistresses since she had been with him.

  Several of them had been French, beautiful, alluring and, she thought, extremely attractive.

  And yet he had tired of them so quickly that, looking back, it seemed to her that one moment they were there in her father’s life and the next they had vanished.

  Then there had been the Contessa from Italy and her dark eloquent eyes were to Roberta mingled with the Churches and Temples of Rome, the candles in St. Peter’s and the barges moving up the Tiber.

  But the Contessa too had vanished on the ebb tide with the arrival of Francine.

  She, at least, had lasted for two years until she died, but Roberta with a new perception, born of what she felt for Adam, knew that, while Francine had attracted, aroused and amused her father, what he felt for her had not been the love he had given her mother.

  Looking back into her childhood, she could remember that when her father and mother were together they had seemed to be enveloped with light.

  She had always believed it was sunshine that filled the house. Now she knew it was the light of love, the light that Adam was trying to paint in his pictures.

  It was the light she had felt last night when he had first kissed her and which had been part of the moonlight, part of her soul.

  ‘That is real love!’ she told herself. ‘The rest is only a transitory passion like the leaping flames of the fire that are extinguished and die down quickly leaving behind only dust and ashes.’

  Replying to his pleading, she said again,

  “I-I cannot explain – but I cannot do what you ask.”

  “I just don’t understand. You love me!”

  “How can you be – sure of – that?”

  “I knew when I kissed you last night,” Adam answered, “that it was not only the most wonderful kiss I had ever given and received, but that when our lips touched you became part of me and I was no longer complete without you.”

  It was exactly what she had felt herself and it was almost impossible to resist him when he spoke in that deep voice that seemed to vibrate through her body.

  Because she was afraid that she would throw herself into his arms and tell him that she would do anything he wished, she said quickly,

  “I must – go to – Danny!”

  Before he could stop her, she had run from the kitchen across the sitting room and into Danny’s room.

  He had undressed, got into bed and was nearly asleep.

  “I’m tired!” he said as Roberta tucked him in and knelt down beside the couch to kiss him.

  “You have enjoyed yourself today,” she said softly.

  “It was scrumptious!”

  “That’s another new word!”

  “Uncle Adam said it was scrumptious having you and me with him.”

  “It’s very kind of him,” Roberta said with a little throb on the words.

  “I love Uncle Adam,” Danny said. “I love Columbus, but most of all, I love you!”

  “Thank you, darling.”

  She kissed him and knew, as his eyes closed, that he was already asleep.

  She pulled the curtains across the window to shut out the last rays of the setting sun, then slowly, because she was nervous, went back into the sitting room.

  Adam was already there and she knew that he had put the dishes in the sink for her and what was left of the food in the larder.

  He was sitting on the sofa, but did not get up. He only put out his hand towards her.

  “Come and sit close to me.”

  “Not if you are – going to – argue with – me.”

  “I will not do that. I love yo
u too much to want you to do anything you do not wish to do and I will wait until you are ready. But for God’s sake, my precious, don’t make me wait too long.”

  Relieved to think that she had won the battle, Roberta sat down beside him and, because he obviously expected it, she put her head on his shoulder.

  “I feel – safe here,” she said in a low voice.

  It was the first thought that came into her mind.

  Then, when his arm tightened but he did not say anything, she went on,

  “At the same time, if I stay, you will have to let me contribute towards Danny’s and my keep. I can afford it, I promise you I can, but you know that the money you obtained for your pictures will not last for ever.”

  “I have been thinking of that,” Adam said, “and, because there are so many things I want to give you, I am going to finish a picture I have already started that has been ordered by an elderly woman.”

  The way he spoke made Roberta ask,

  “Is it the sort of picture that would be recognised by the Royal Academy?”

  “Exactly! Flowers! Flowers as stiff as possible in a nice china vase!”

  He spoke derisively and Roberta commented,

  “I am sure you could paint a de Heem if you wanted to.”

  She thought that he would take this as a compliment. Her father had always said in his opinion the Flemish artist, Jan Davidsz de Heem painted the first flower pictures ever known.

  “I have no wish to paint like de Heem,” Adam said sharply. “I want to paint like Renoir, Sisley or Monet, the sort of pictures that you and I enjoy but which are apparently unsaleable.”

  Roberta laughed.

  “And your de Heem will fetch – what?”

  “Quite a number of dollars.”

  “Then hurry up and finish it for her,” Roberta urged him. “Then I can feed you on beefsteaks every day, however expensive they may be!”

  Adam laughed and kissed her forehead.

  “You are tempting me from my appointed path!”

  “It will be very rocky if you are hungry and it would be far easier for you to accept what I have offered.”

  “Although I would not accept money from you or from any other woman,” Adam said seriously, “I would rather paint you than go looking for gold in the Rocky Mountains.”

  “It sounds exciting! Perhaps I could go with you and cook for the other gold-diggers, who the books tell me are fleeced of their nuggets by dishonest tavern keepers amid dancing girls.”