Hold Back the Night (10 page)

Monsieur D'Allard, Papa's dealer, had continued to take a benign interest in Domini over the months. There had been no problem arranging for a personal appointment: Le Basque was not the only well-known artist in D'Allard's stable, but he was by far the most important. On the telephone Domini had not explained the reason for her request.

His gallery was discreet and exclusive, the kind of establishment where the clientele seldom asked the price until after the decision to purchase had been made. Domini was ushered into an inner office with no waiting. D'Allard, a bald, beaming man who had made himself prosperous by knowing exactly what wealthy people would pay for, gave her the warmest of receptions. His eyes narrowed fractionally when Domini explained her purpose, but he made no objection when she began to lay out her offerings for his inspection. He regarded them intently, pursing his lips and stroking his chin, giving them serious thought.

'Mmm,' he said at last. 'Yes, I think these would be of interest to some collectors. You'd have to sign them, of course. You can do that right here. And then we shall see...'

When she started to scrawl a signature over the first painting, he instructed her suavely: 'No, no. Print it, please, as your father does, nice round printing so people can read with ease. What collector will buy if he cannot see the name? A simple D. Le Basque, I think, will do. Or Didi might be better ... it is more memorable, hmm? For who is not familiar with your portrait in the Louvre?'

Domini had been too naive in those days to know of the importance of trivia to collectors. Delighted with her instant success, and not realizing that D'Allard would have willingly accepted Le Basque's palette or Picasso's old paint brushes, she signed as she was told. And then, with buoyed confidence, she asked for a large advance and got it, mostly because she was her father's daughter and D'Allard knew better than to say no; he would more than make it up on the sale of his next real Le Basque. The transfer of money to Sander's dealer was also smoothly arranged. D'Allard agreed to negotiate with the man, a friendly rival among the exclusive galleries of the Right Bank, and if he raised his brows slightly at the oddity of the request he was too polite, or too urbane, to probe.

A short time later she heard that Sander was soon to be transferred to the clinic in Germany. 'Such a nice man,' the landlady beamed to the supper table at large. 'It will be good when he comes back, with his sight restored.'

'What luck he made those sales,' someone commented.

'Yes,' said the landlady. 'And just in time. Today a man came to take out his telephone, and I was able to send him away. Monsieur Williams sent me enough money to pay all his bills. And three months' rent in advance!'

'In that case I shouldn't wonder to see Nicole back too,' laughed one of the boarders. 'When she hears of his new success, there'll be no keeping her away!'

The landlady sniffed. 'Well, I for one would not be glad to see her. Scum of scum! And why would he take her back? In two months she has not been to the hospital.'

'Excuse me, I'm not feeling too well,' Domini said and left the table although the meal had barely begun. She needed desperately to be alone with her thoughts. Too driven by self-recrimination since Sander's accident, she had not been able to examine her own situation or her feelings with any degree of rationality. But now, with the relief of knowing that she could start putting guilt behind her, it was time to come to grips with herself. In her room she sat down at her dressing-table and stared into her mirror, suddenly realizing how pinched and pale her face had become. It was not the first time she had had to leave the meal table recently, although usually the excuses were made at breakfast.

Pregnant. The suspicion that there was a life growing inside herself, and then the confirmation of it, had shaken her more than she had allowed herself to acknowledge until this moment. But through all the worry about Sander, there had been that undercurrent of concern, a river running deep through her days.

Pregnant! And by a man who didn't love her! But what did she feel for him? Clearing guilt away had helped clear her eyes in other ways, and she began to explore her feelings for Sander, starting from the first moment they had met. First there had been sexual attraction; that had been real enough. Then infatuation, not so real and probably induced in large part by his rejection. Had it ever been love? No, she decided; she had grown up enough to know that.

And hate. That had been very real, an emotion that had choked her with its strength. He had hurt her, humiliated her, taken her without compassion for her youth and inexperience. He had destroyed a part of her ... a trusting, special part that Domini knew would never exist again, except on the sunlit canvas of a painting in the Louvre.

She was mature enough now to recognize that his cruelties had not been rape; she had encouraged him too much for that harsh word to be applied. Considering his feelings for Nicole and her own forwardness, perhaps there were even excuses for his behaviour. But then, when she remembered that awful moment when she had whispered with her heart and he had answered with his hate, it was very hard to excuse ...

Even thinking about that moment, with remorse no longer chilling her to the bone, she felt waves of hatred flowing through her. Domini closed her eyes, faint with returning remembrance of the fear and despair she had felt, of the savagery she had been subjected to, of the desire to kill that had followed. That night of brutality had initiated her in all those terrible emotions, and nothing in her life had prepared her to feel them. She no longer wanted revenge; fate had exacted that too horribly already. But the hate was still there, and it was still very real.

No, she would not tell Sander that she was expecting his child. Nor would she tell her father whose child she was expecting.

As to the child itself . . . what did she feel for that beginning life, growing hidden from the world? Could she bear to carry the child of a nun she hated? She laid a hand on the still-smooth curve of her stomach and with a small sense of surprise felt the hatred begin to flow away and a great warmth steal through her to replace it. Still quick to follow her instincts, Domini knew in that moment that love was only as far away as the first kicking in her womb.

How extraordinary that she should conceive so easily, in the first encounter! Sander's virility, she supposed; even now Domini had to concede that it was a quality he didn't lack. And as for herself, Domini knew full well that the contact had taken place during a time favourable to conception. In her young life there had been no shortage of information about matters like that.

She felt no apprehension or shame at the prospect of telling her father t possibly because she herself had been born of an unsanctioned union. She was absolutely sure he would accept the idea of a grandchild; in fact, it never occurred to her to question that he would be anything but proud and delighted. It all seemed quite straightforward to Domini. With Sander soon to be off her conscience forever, she would cease to attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at once and leave for the Pyrenees long before the pregnancy began to show. When enough time had lapsed, she would phone Paris to assure herself that Sander's operation had been a success.

And he would never have to know that she had borne the seed of his anger.

Oh, how she longed to be home again, where life still followed a simple, beautiful pattern, where a child could be raised with love and warmth and laughter and the pure joy of living, where horrible emotions like rage and hatred had no part...

❧

She arrived home without warning, her face shining with eagerness to impart her news. In the very early morning she had caught a train to Pau, still in Beam territory but at the gateway to the Pyrenees, with the majestic crown of the Pic d'Anie standing sentinel in the distance. As the little local train was not running on that particular day from Pau, she indulged in the extravagance of a taxi to take her the last thirty miles or so into the mountains, because to ask for Georges the chauffeur to meet her would be to ruin the element of surprise. Anticipation grew to excitement as she tasted once again the crisp wintry air of the Pyrenees and fed her soul on the clean snow-capped vistas she loved so well. How good it would be to live at home again!

The gates through the high stone walls were never locked, nor was the front door. Domini dismissed the taxi and entered with singing spirits, shedding her coat almost before she was through the great ironclad front door, secure in knowing that here, within these strong stone walls, was love.

Her arrival had been witnessed through the window, and Berenice materialized at once in the huge front hall, waving the servants away. Her dark, usually serene eyes were marked with an anxiety that did not at first pierce Domini's exhilaration. For half of Domini's life Berenice had been the mother she had not had, and she knocked her suitcase over in the rush to fling her arms impetuously around the older woman.

Her eyes danced as the hug came to an end. 'Oh, Berenice! I have such wonderful news. But you'll have to wait until I've told Papa. Where is he? In his studio?'

Berenice's face was pale and she didn't answer the question at once. 'He's been trying all day to reach you in Paris. What are you doing at home? Why didn't you phone to say you were coming? We didn't expect you.'

'I didn't phone because I didn't want you to ask questions! I knew you'd wonder why I was coming home mid-term, and this is the kind of news that ought to be told in person. Oh, Berenice, you'll be so thrilled! Where's Papa?'

'In his studio,' Berenice said, her dark, expressive eyes troubled. The doubt in them at last penetrated Domini's consciousness, and she paused on the verge of dashing away to find her father.

'What is it, Berenice? Is something the matter?'

'Oh, my foolish little child,' Berenice murmured, shaking her head sadly. 'He already knows your news; he had a phone call from Paris this morning. Perhaps you will find him less pleased than you think.'

Domini knew Berenice was genuinely fond of her and would not say such things lightly. Like a house of cards tumbling, her spirits collapsed. Papa not pleased! How could that be? He had taught her to be natural, had told her that love-making was natural. And he loved children. That she knew for a certainty, just as she knew he loved her. And if he loved her, would he not also love her child?

And how could Papa have heard? Had someone suspected? Was it those dashes from the breakfast table?

'How did he find out?' Domini asked, unnerved to think that if Papa had learned, Sander might also learn: The time in Paris had taught her that wagging tongues were one of the natural conditions of life in a pension.

Berenice laid light fingers on Domini's arm, a gesture of reassurance. 'It's best if you talk about this with your father,' she said quietly. 'It's a serious matter, Didi, and I'm afraid you will find him very angry, far angrier than you've ever seen him. Now go to him at once; we heard the taxi arrive, so he already knows you're here.'

Normally Domini would have run to her father and the news would have come out in a burst of uncontained ebullience. But the graveness of Berenice's tone slowed her as she walked through the rooms she loved so well, footsteps sounding on pegged wooden floors that were more than two centuries old. Her joy had been dampened, but her confidence had not. Papa might be angry about her pregnancy, but surely he would relent after giving her a stormy lecture!

Le Basque was in his studio but for once he was not painting. He was sitting at his easel, though, and on it was a finished portrait of Domini ... a pensive study done in the courtyard some months before, prior to her departure for Paris. She sensed that it had been put there for a purpose, perhaps in the moments since her arrival had been noted. Her father's back was turned to the door and something in the rigidity of his posture warned Domini that Berenice had not been exaggerating about his frame of mind. She came to a standstill, entering the room no farther.

He turned to the door slowly, swivelling his stool without rising to greet her. On his face there was a great contempt. Unsteadied, Domini halted while his eyes moved over her as if he were inspecting a stranger he had strong reason to dislike.

'Papa,' she whispered.

'Don't call me that.' His voice shook with fury. 'I acknowledge you no more. What you and D'AlIard have done...'

A lack of instant comprehension prevented Domini from making the right connections in her mind. Completely engrossed by her pregnancy, she thought at first that her father believed she had been intimate with D'AlIard. She shook her head, bewildered that he should even consider such an unlikely happenstance. 'But he's not responsible,' she said.

Her father's voice, once so warm, had changed to a hiss of hate. 'Do you think it matters to me whose idea it was? I've already told him he'll handle my work no more. Yes, I consider him responsible … as responsible for showing the work as you are for signing it with my name!'

Partial comprehension dawned, but to some extent Domini was as bewildered as before. 'But it's my name too,'she said.

'Is it? Is it? I bled to earn that name! I starved for it! I painted for it! I struggled to print it when I was a young man, when I could not even read or write! I died a thousand deaths for that name! I suffered to make it great!'

There was no forgiveness in the strong seamed lines of his peasant face, no compassion for the way the colour drained from Domini's cheeks. She had never seen her father like this before and it chilled her to the marrow.

'I allowed you to borrow my name because I loved you once,' he said, trembling in the grip of his strong emotions. 'But to borrow is not to own. My name has never belonged to you. Your name is the name of your mother. The name of a woman I never loved! If you must submit your bad paintings to be bought by bad collectors, use the only name you have a right to use! Your mother's name! Now get out of my sight and out of my life; I am sick with the disgust of speaking to you. But before you go . . .' He turned and picked up his palette and a large palette knife, placed at the ready on a small table beside his right hand. 'Do you know what you are in my heart? Nothing and less than nothing!'

For shocked moments Domini stood rooted in the doorway as great slashes of black paint expunged her image from the canvas. And then, with her heart in a deep freeze, she turned and walked away without a word.

Berenice was in the front hall, her eyes sympathetic. She took both of Domini's hands in hers and said simply, 'I told Georges he would be taking you back to the train. I knew, you see. Perhaps it is best if you return to Paris for a time.'

Domini nodded, too numb to thank Berenice or discuss what Papa had done. It was only too clear that she had been written out of his heart and out of his life, and Domini was still in shock, her face fixed into a terrible rigidity and her feelings temporarily suspended.

Berenice saw and understood and didn't expect Domini to answer. 'Try not to despair, little one,' she murmured. 'Try to remember that where there has been much love, there can also be much hate ... for a time, at least. For your father this is a very serious thing. Perhaps if you knew of his youth you would understand.'

There were more words, comforting words, but for Domini there was little comfort that could be offered. Nothing that Berenice said penetrated the glacier her heart had become until the very end, when Georges and the Mercedes limousine pulled up at the front door.

Berenice embraced her briefly. 'Go back to Paris and wait, and if he starts to soften I will let you know. The pension is paid for the year, and if he will not pay your allowance I will pay it myself. And when summer comes again, who knows, perhaps there will be a melt...'

It was not until the car was twisting downward on the road to Pau, putting the snow-gripped mountains behind, that Domini remembered the news she had come home to tell. Suddenly fearful, she buried her face in her hands. She ached for the release of tears, but they remained in her heart, unshed even for the child she would be bringing into a life that was too bitter to bear.