important story of her life.
"I don't suppose you would have any wine, would you?" Peyton turned to stare out the window at the narrow, dirty alley.
"I can send for some. The mercantile might have a bottle."
"It's no matter. I just thought we both could use a drop of something strong." He looked over his shoulder. "You ought to take a seat. I'm not sure I should be saying anything at all, but you have more suspicions than I have answers, and we need to sort through them."
Evie obediently dropped to the edge of one of the beds. "What did you mean about my eyes and hair?"
"You have eyes like mine, like the children's, like my mother's—your grandmother's. Rosita Peyton was a lovely woman, but you look nothing like her except for the eyes. My father used to call them Spanish eyes. I never met Angelina's husband, but I suppose he had dark eyes, too, and the same coloring as my mother. That's why the children look Mexican, I guess. My sister Angelina was a lot like our mother, too. I was the different one; I looked more like my father. He was an Irish-American with a big laugh and a talent for trouble. He wasn't tall, but his hair was auburn and he never could stay out in the sun much. Neither can I. Do you find you have the same problem?" He turned to look at her.
Evie nodded. "I turn red quickly, but I try to wear a hat and carry a parasol. There's not much call for me to be out in the sun."
He nodded and turned back to the window. "I hated farming. My father claimed his father felt the same way and that he died a terrible death in a barroom after he lost his farm while frittering his time painting silly pictures."
Silence fell, and not knowing what else to say to get him speaking again, Evie said, "Carmen tells me you are a famous artist."
Peyton's smile twisted. "I once sold a portrait for two thousand dollars. Money was plentiful back then. I made a lot of it. I don't know if that makes me famous. Anyway, fame—like money—is fleeting. My eyesight is going bad, and my hand is developing a tremble. I can't do as well as you have done there anymore." He jerked his head toward the easel. "I can teach you a few techniques, I suppose, but it looks like you've had some professional training."
"An artist from Paris stayed in St. Louis one year. Nanny insisted that I study with him. He said my work was too feminine, not strong enough. I asked if he thought a woman ought to paint like a man, and we had a terrible fight, but I tried to learn everything he knew."
Peyton chuckled and turned around, leaning back against the windowsill and crossing his arms over his chest. "You sound just like your mother. She once told her father that she wasn't a man, she didn't want to be a man, and if he wanted her to think like a man, then he'd better find her a man's head. Until then, she was doing things like a woman, which was a hundred times better than any man could do."
Evie managed a smile. Her mother had said something like that. Those words were music to her ears. Her mother existed somewhere besides in her imagination. This man knew her mother. She looked up at him expectantly, waiting for more. "My mother and I must think alike, then."
His smile disappeared. "Let us hope not. Tell me about this Nanny of yours. How did you know your parents came from here if you grew up in St. Louis?"
Evie explained about the arrangement with the lawyer that she had learned about after Nanny's death. Peyton began to shake his head in dismay halfway through her tale.
"Elizabeth had too much of her father in her. She thought money would take care of the problems of the world. Maybe it does. Who am I to say? But if she had just written to me, told me, I could have come and found you. Maybe that's why she didn't. She wanted you to grow up a lady, and not an itinerant artist's daughter without a penny to her name."
Tears stung Evie's eyes as she gazed at this bearded stranger who seemed to be saying he was her father. It was too frightening to take in all at once. What did he want from her?