The Protégé

by Charlotte Armstrong

  “Very well,” she said briskly.

  But Zan grinned to herself. She had looked at Nicky Pomerance with different eyes this time, and was even now taking note of all she could see of this place, this city, with the same difference. How would everything seem if she were not a visitor? What if she lived here?

  And ah so!… Nicky had looked at her with a difference, too. Why else would it have crossed his mind to “set a tone”?

  When they arrived, Nicky begged off any part of the meeting and greeting. He pleaded his working day and his abhorrence of sherry, carried her bags as far as the front door, kissed her with definite relish, and ducked away.

  “Oh, Miss Zan!” cried Polly. “You’re here!”

  So Alexandra Terry Moffat drew in her breath and entered the old house that would someday belong to her. Not that she could ever live here. It was too—well—buried and muffled over. Zan thought in terms of some high place—glass and vistas. The dim square hall with the white balustered staircase was just the same. Zan put her bags at the bottom of the stairs, forbade Polly to touch them, kissed that old cheek lightly, and went on to the sitting room to find the old lady of the house, who was just the same.

  Zan embraced Mrs. Moffat with tender gusto, exclaimed over the room, which was just the same and always both amused and subtly annoyed her. Then she flew up the stairs, bags and all, and dumped them in the bedroom at the back, which was always hers. She fished out shorts and shirt and returned, bare-legged, to sit down, take the inevitable sherry (the proper prescription for the reviving of travelers) and began to ask the same fond questions.

  “Have you been well, Gran? You’re looking awfully darned healthy, seems to me.”

  The old lady, of course, had not gotten any younger. But the year just past did not seem to have touched her very much. Her color was good; her eyes were bright. Her white hair was twisted up into the same comical little knot; Zan had to admit the style became the tilt of the old lady’s nose.

  The only name she had for Mrs. Moffat was Gran. Alexandra Terry could have called herself a Mrs. Moffat, but she had taken to her maiden name when she had re-entered college. And had kept it. It suited her. It was, for one thing, her own name.

  “Tell me what you’ve been up to,” she said. “How are Crystal and Claire? And the Keatings?” Zan felt intimations of mortality to be mentioning these old, old people. One day she’d ask and one of them would have died.

  Mrs. Moffat said that she hadn’t seen Crystal and Claire for some time now. She hadn’t seen a great deal of Joe and Flo either. Zan caught a flicker of guilt. The fact was, Mrs. Moffat confessed, she had been preoccupied with the garden.

  “The garden!”

  The fact was, Mrs. Moffat went on gaily, she had a young man staying in the old cottage, and he and she had been quite busy working out some improvements in the landscaping.

  “Hi ho, what’s all this?” Zan teased. “You’ve got a young man on the premises? Who is he?”

  Zan felt her face become more and more bland as she listened to Mrs. Moffat’s tale of a young man who had lived next door when a child, who had come by to revisit old familiar places, who was at a bit of a loose end personally, who was taking such an interest.

  “How long has he been here?”

  “Oh, a few weeks. Not long. Now Zan, I do hope you are not going to try to boss him around.”

  “Why, Gran! Whatever are you saying!”

  But Zan was thinking to herself: A few weeks, but not long? What kind of statement is that?

  “You know very well,” said Mrs. Moffat severely, “that it’s your tendency to boss people around. I don’t mind. I’m old and tougher than you are. But I wish … Just let him be, will you please, dear? Don’t go asking him a great long list of questions.”

  “But why not?” said Zan lightly. “And haven’t you?”

  “I simply think,” said Mrs. Moffat, “that the boy has been through some very bitter experience, and he is better off not thinking about it. He has to start again. If he finds it a steadying thing to be here and be quiet—”

  Zan said indulgently, “You’re fond of him?”

  “Yes—yes—he’s a nice boy.”

  “Where is he now?” (Where have you got him stashed away, sly puss, while you warn me what I mustn’t do, Zan thought, to this nice boy?)

  “He’s on the grounds somewhere,” said Mrs. Moffat. “Will you go find him and ask him to come take a cup of tea?”

  “Of course I will.” Zan went across the back porch, moving silently on her lithe legs, and out into the deep shade of the big acacia. If this “nice boy” had been scrounging off the old lady on the strength of some sob story, Zan would soon see about that.

  She caught sight of a figure, crouched with a bent back toward her, deep into her grandmother’s plot, all the way to the end. So Zan ambled on the grass over patterns of sun and shade, sniffing the unfamiliar perfume in this air, peering on all sides, and thinking of many things. She must make some phone calls, set up appointments, go talk to people, see how available was her grandmother’s car, rent one perhaps, and (one day) find out how the zoning laws read for this street and what might be done with so large, so deep a piece of ground, so hidden, and somehow so out of it, so drowsy and drenched in green and golden silence.

  She had come within a few yards of the figure when her feet stabbed the ground and stopped her. Wait! What was this!

  He had turned and was in profile to her. He was kneeling now; his hands were busy in some bare soil at the base of the hedge. His head was bent. He was absorbed. It was as if Zan were staring at a painting, a complex of greens for background, and the soft faded blue of the trousers, the flesh tones of the naked torso, flushed a pinky brown, and then that bright copper—no—bronze, but bronze that twinkled with gold … the blaze of that head and face … all light caught in those tight and shining coils. It would have been a picture conceived by some Renaissance fellow who, having the church for his patron, must paint a young saint in a monastery garden. But his model … his model he had snatched off some ancient street corner, one of the boys—who, nevertheless, in pagan innocence could worship earth.

  Breath cannot be held forever. He heard her gasp and turned his face. He rose to his feet easily. Zan, coolly recovered, went close enough to hold out her right hand in the forthright manner of a career girl. “Hi. You must be Simon Warren. I’m Alexandra Terry.”

  “Hi,” he said. “Excuse me, Miss Terry.” He turned up his palms, all encrusted with dark soil. “Mrs. Moffat said you were coming today.”

  His voice was soft. What he said was innocuous.

  “She’s sent me to ask you to come have some tea,” said Zan, sticking to one-syllable words herself. “I think she wants us to meet.”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” He smiled. “I’ll have to get cleaned up.” He moved and she turned to walk beside him.

  “Were you making mud pies or what?” she asked saucily.

  “Your grandmother said you were a city girl.”

  “Oh, she did? Well, that’s just because she’s scared I’m going to mess up your glorious plans. Don’t worry, I won’t.”

  “I don’t know how glorious they are. We’re just doing it for fun. I’m only learning.”

  All this was amiable.

  But now their steps were marching and matching exactly. This was in some way uncontrollable. Compulsive. Hypnotic. They were moving in exactly the same rhythm. It was embarrassing. He must have felt it, too. He broke his stride, but in the very same second of time so did she, and it seemed they had done a little dance step together as perfectly as if they had practiced it for days. Zan could feel her face flushing. But this was ridiculous! So she stopped in her tracks. He took one step more. He turned.

  “We should go on the stage,” she said flippantly.

  He was only an inch or two taller than she. Their eyes met easily. He seemed amused. But now a current, a wave of such animal warmth, began to flow that Zan braced herself against
tottering. He must have felt it, too. His eyes turned wary and sad. He took two quick steps backward. And now she knew her open face was saying, What’s the matter? I don’t necessarily mind.

  He said, “Will you please say I’ll be right there, Miss Alexandra?” As if he were what? A servant?

  “Why, sure enough,” said Zan with a shrug. She struck off on a tangent, alone, in a strong, swinging gait.

  She was distressed, not to say alarmed. Perhaps she was angry. Oh, he had it (whatever “it” was). Oh, he had it, all right. Now did it (whatever it was) operate on a female aged seventy-four? Zan wasn’t sure. But the whole idea was making her definitely furious now.

  Mrs. Moffat was on the porch, ensconced in the padded rocking chair. Zan let the door bang as much as it would behind her and let out her breath in a gusty half whistle. “Whew! What in the world kind of exotic bird have you got out there, Gran?”

  “You mean his beard?” said Mrs. Moffat flatly. “I should have warned you. I forgot.”

  “Forgot!” Zan gasped. She plopped herself down in the bentwood rocker. “Gran, are you trotting around this town with him and his beard in tow? I’ll betcha Crystal and Claire are scandalized. Have they met him?”

  “Yes, yes, in the market one day.”

  “He takes you to market?”

  “I do the driving,” said Mrs. Moffat.

  Zan made her chair fall forward and doubled over, forearms on her thighs. “You’re not telling me that he can’t drive a car?” (Could a saint? Could a satyr?)

  “He prefers not to,” said Mrs. Moffat.

  Zan lifted both arms and rocked backward. “For God’s sake, Gran! Why!”

  “I don’t inquire—” said the old lady. “Zan, dear, do you mind sitting somewhere else?”

  “What?”

  “That’s Simon’s chair.”

  Zan got up; her heart was sinking (or else it was the pit of her stomach). She thought, Oh, God, has she been this lonely? She sat down on the settee and ran her right hand over her forehead, pushing hard at the bone. “I can’t help wondering what he’s doing here,” she said. “Don’t ask me to help that.”

  “He is being my guest,” the old lady said emphatically, “and I may say Simon is very much the gentleman, in spite of his appearance. I shouldn’t have supposed that, of all things in the world, a beard would have scandalized you.”

  “Just say I didn’t expect one in your backyard,” said Zan.

  The little old lady in the big old chair seemed to Zan suddenly very fragile, very precious. All the weight fell on the California side of the balance. “Speaking of guests,” Zan said, “I might as well break some news. Just as soon as I can get things whacked around, I’m moving out here. To live, Gran. So you’ll have to put up with me in and out all year round. How’s that?”

  “Well!” said her grandmother, bringing her little hands together as if to applaud. “But what about your business?”

  Zan was still talking about her business when Simon came to the screen door, opened it gently, and entered. He was immaculate, in a pale-yellow sports shirt, and as startling as before.

  Zan saw the old lady’s face soften. “Alexandra, this is Simon Warren.”

  “We’ve met,” drawled Zan.

  “We introduced ourselves, ma’am,” Simon nodded cheerfully and sat down in the bentwood rocker.

  “Polly is going to give us a company tea,” said Mrs. Moffat happily. “Simon isn’t joining us for dinner tonight,” she told Zan. “Sometimes, you know, he is absolutely compelled to go off in quest of one of his beloved hamburgers. That used to be his single dish, gourmet that he was.”

  “I’ve tried to convince her,” said Simon to Zan, “that hamburgers are actually food, but she still thinks they are treats for children, like ice-cream cones.”

  Mrs. Moffat was rocking in deep and satisfying arcs. “Nonsense. The truth is,” she said to Zan, “he was addicted. He still suffers withdrawal symptoms.”

  They were not talking to Zan. No. They were so close that they had a code going; they had old jokes not funny to an outsider.

  It was not long before Zan, who was sensitive to rhythms, perceived the young man’s art by which he never set his chair into a contrary or disruptive motion.

  He has got to be phony, Zan thought furiously. What goes on here!

  What seemed to be going on was a tea party, with real tea. Polly came with silver pot and plate of dainty cakes, to fuss over the “company.” This was Zan, who could do nothing but go along with the ceremonies, taking care that she did not seem either shocked or disapproving. What was there to disapprove of? A cup of tea, a cake or two? A summer porch, on a soft afternoon, everything genteel, everything kind, a party out-of-time, away from trade. No snaps, no tensions, no witty barbs, no sparks. Any electricity such as may flow between male and female was turned off as if it had never been.

  Yet when Simon made polite farewells and went away, it became plain that there must have been a potential—a possibility of arcing—because the atmosphere went flat and stale so suddenly.

  Later on Zan and Mrs. Moffat dined in the dining room. “My goodness,” said Polly innocently, as she bustled in with the platter, “we haven’t used this room all summer.”

  “If this formality is in my honor, forget it,” said Zan, who had put on a dress. “It can’t be too chilly to eat on the porch.”

  “Tomorrow,” promised Mrs. Moffat. “Simon will be eating with us tomorrow night.”

  “He always likes for me to set the table on the porch,” said Polly happily.

  Are they both enchanted? Or what? Zan wondered.

  When the meal was over, she insisted on carrying the last of the dishes out to Polly and tackled that old lady fiercely.

  “How long has Simon been living out there, Polly?”

  “Oh, let me see. It’s more than a month, I know that. Oh, five or maybe it’s six weeks, Miss Zan, dear.”

  “Any rumors about when he’s moving out?”

  “No, no,” said Polly. “Oh, there’s a lot to be done, and he’s a worker, Miss Zan.”

  “He is, eh?”

  “Oh, yes, and no bother at all. Why, he takes all the care of the cottage and his own laundry. He won’t let me touch it. And he’s so good to her! Why, they talk and they talk. She hasn’t had time at all to think of her aches and pains.”

  “How old is he?” Zan demanded in a minute.

  “Why, he’s just exactly young Tommy’s age,” said Polly, her eyes sliding. “They used to play—two little boys together. Real chums. Good friends.”

  Oh, no, thought Zan to herself in shock. Oh, no. Oh, no!

  Bedtime was early by the clock; normal enough on New York time. But once in negligee, Zan, with hairbrush whacking her skull, crossed the upstairs hall and tapped on Mrs. Moffat’s door. The old lady was abed, propped up with a book, snug and immaculate in rosy light.

  “Gran, I have to tell you something else. I hope it won’t upset you. I went home, because we were married there, to get a divorce. But instead, I’ve had Tommy declared legally dead. You see, it could be not only that I’ll want to marry again, but other legal things.”

  “I know, dear,” said her grandmother, who had looked stricken for a moment but rallied. “You should marry, I think. You should.”

  “And I had to get it clear, you see …”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Gran, this Simon of yours is supposed to have known Tommy?”

  “Yes. When they were children.”

  “Do you think he may have seen Tommy—since?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Moffat. “We have a kind of understanding.”

  “So I see,” said Zan softly.

  “I don’t pry into his sorrows, whatever they may be. Sometimes I think he may have blanked them out, Zan. The other side of the bargain is—he hasn’t mentioned Tommy since the first day. I asked him not to.”

  “Ah, so?” said Zan thoughtfully. “That’s why he didn’
t mention Tommy to me.”

  The old lady pulled down her chin and pressed her head deeper into the pillow behind it. “I don’t suppose he realizes that you were Tommy’s wife,” she said. “No one has said so. He wouldn’t ask—or even wonder in what way you are my granddaughter. Why should he?”

  Zan thought, Well, then, if he ever has run into Tommy grown up, Tommy didn’t bother to say, “Oh, by the way, I have a wife, and for all I know, a child.”

  The old lady closed her eyes. Zan’s old bitterness must be showing. The lines on the old lady’s forehead were spelling pain.

  So Zan said, “You are right, Gran. It’s better not to pry into old sorrows.”

  The old lady opened her eyes, and Zan received the glow of her affection. “Zan, dear, I am glad to see you. I always am. I’ll be very glad when you move and are nearer to me.”

  Zan melted. She kissed the old lady’s hairline and said, “Me, too, luv,” and waltzed away.

  Mrs. Moffat put her book aside, but lay in the lamplight remembering. This always had to happen when Zan came. Just once, or at least once, Mrs. Moffat had to review it. Odd, but each year the story seemed to change, just a little.

  Begin with the week that Cynthia (suddenly in the hospital in Chicago) had roused herself a little late to let her in-laws know she was dying. Go on to the consultations after her funeral with social workers and psychological counselors and the police. Tommy Moffat, aged fourteen, was hostile, sly, charming, shrewd, and totally slippery. Already a hardened delinquent, he had a long list of offenses on record.

  His grandparents had taken expert advice. Tommy went into a special institution for special help. They paid his bills. It had been the right thing to do.

  When he turned sixteen, the recommendation was that he go to a foster family—trained to this sort of thing—and a public high school. His grandparents had gone to see him at that time and had found him much subdued and (on the surface) one who had seen the light and was resolved to enter into the straight and narrow and “work hard” and “be a success” within society’s rules.

  He had indeed rushed through high school at a fast rate (Tommy wasn’t stupid) and had entered a small college in southern Wisconsin. The Moffats, of course, paid his tuition and his living expenses. All had seemed well.