“Nothing.” Claudine broke the twig into small pieces, and dropped them, black and sharp, onto the snow.
Michel Valdahon watched her a little longer, then started for the door. He left it open, and Claudine could hear Gilberte still working at the piano. The notes stood out as sharply and clearly against the snow as the black whiskers of the cat or the specks of the twig. For a moment Claudine listened quietly. Then she followed Michel Valdahon into the house.
The Mountains Shall Stand Forever
Ellen stood in the middle school common room with her nose pressed against the window pane and wept. When she unscrewed her eyes enough to look out for a moment all she saw was grey fog and the branches of the plane trees, thick and furry through it. The lake and the mountains across the lake were as invisible as though they weren’t there at all. Ellen’s stomach jerked as she thought how strange it would be if the fog lifted suddenly and the lake and mountains were gone, and there was nothing but a great gaping hole with space showing through, all empty and black. The idea was so startling that she stopped crying and tried to imagine what it would be like without the lake and the mountains. The older girls listening to “Goodnight, Sweetheart” on a tinny gramophone would all scream with terror, but Ellen would just stand there quietly by the window and watch. Maybe no one would notice her, and they would all run out of the room and she would be there, all by herself. She would be really alone, and she could break the record of “Goodnight, Sweetheart” and just sit there quietly with no one to bother her. They would all run out and fall into the space and she would stand by the window and watch them disappear and smile.
“Ellen.”
Ellen pressed her nose harder against the window pane. “What.”
“Come away for a minute. I’ve got something to tell you. Oh, you ass, you’ve been crying again.”
“No I haven’t, Gloria.”
“Hunh,” the other child said. “Come along.”
“What do you want?” Ellen stared out of the window.
“I said I wanted to tell you something. Something awful interesting. If you don’t come along I won’t tell you. I thought you’d like to know.”
“All right,” Ellen said. Gloria took her arm and led her out of the common room and up the back stairs. “Where are you going?” Ellen asked.
“To my room. It’s the only place we can be alone.”
“But we aren’t allowed—” Ellen began.
“To hell with rules.” Gloria shook her head violently, and her dull brown hair with the frizzy permanent clung about her face. She pushed it away and took Ellen firmly by the hand so that she couldn’t escape. “Are you shocked because I swore?” she asked.
“No,” Ellen said. “What do you want to tell me?”
“Wait till we get to the room.” Gloria led her along the corridor and into one of the dormitories.
“Well?” Ellen sat on one of the beds and held the tip of a dark brown plait firmly in each hand.
“Good Lord, you’d think you were doing me a favor in listening,” Gloria said. “Not many people would tell you things, Ellen Peterson. Nobody likes you.”
Ellen flushed and kicked her feet against the edge of the bed. “Do many people tell you things?”
“I wouldn’t listen.” Gloria tossed her head again. “I’m getting out. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“What do you mean?” Ellen looked up quickly, and Gloria walked self-consciously over to one of the white bureaus between the beds and sat down by it.
“Just what I said.” She opened the bottom drawer and began rummaging around in it. “I’m leaving next Saturday. Just one week.”
“But how can you?” Ellen watched, fascinated, while Gloria pulled a compact out of the drawer and powdered her nose, and then smeared a little lipstick onto her lips. “You’ll get into an awful row if they find that stuff.”
“I should care.” Gloria rouged her cheeks liberally. “I’ve only got another week of this dump. You’ve got to promise not to tell.”
“All right.”
“I just wrote home, as Mother says she’d come and get me.” Gloria rolled her makeup in a uniform blouse and put it back in the drawer. Then she pulled out a pink lace brassiere and held it up. “Do you have any of these?”
“No.”
“Gosh, you’re young.” Gloria sat back on her heels. “I’ll tell you why I told you about my getting out.”
“Why?” Ellen asked, wishing that Gloria would hurry.
“I think you ought to leave, too.”
“But this is just the beginning of the term.”
“You’re awfully silly,” Gloria said, beginning to file her fingernails. She looked at Ellen’s, which were cut short. “You’re always paying attention to rules and accepting things. You didn’t like it here last term, did you?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t lie. You know you hated it. You are always crying. You won’t like it any better this term. Why don’t you write your mother?”
“She’s dead.”
“Your father, then,” said Gloria, looking away, a little embarrassed.
“I don’t want to bother him.”
“Gosh, you are queer,” Gloria said. “I should think your being unhappy would bother him.”
“He doesn’t know I’m unhappy.”
“But didn’t you tell him?”
“No.” Ellen wandered over to the window and stared out. It had never occurred to her that it might be possible to leave the school.
“Wouldn’t you like to leave school?” Gloria persisted.
“Of course.”
“Then I think you’re an ass if you don’t write your father. Where is he?”
“New York.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s an artist.”
“Gosh, I’d think you’d want to be with him.”
“I do.” Ellen turned away from the window and walked between the beds to Gloria. “Is your mother really going to take you away?”
“Of course. I don’t tell lies, even if you do.”
Ellen didn’t get angry. It wasn’t worth it to get angry with Gloria. “You mean all you did was write her and she said she’d come get you?”
“Of course. Isn’t that what your father would do?”
“I don’t know. You’d better wash that stuff off your face, Gloria. If anyone sees you you’ll get in an awful row.”
“I’ll take it off with cold cream,” Gloria said, unrolling a jar from her gym bloomers. “It’s awful bad for your face to use soap and water.” She began to smear cold cream on her face, unconscious of the door opening and the stern stare of the matron. Ellen saw her first and backed towards the window.
“Well, Gloria!” the matron said, ignoring Ellen.
Gloria clutched the cold cream to her and glared at the matron. Ellen stood with her back to the window and looked apprehensively at the gold pince-nez perched on the matron’s nose, and dropped her eyes down the white starched uniform to the floor.
“Go wash that stuff off your face immediately, Gloria,” the matron said, then turned to Ellen. When she spoke her voice was softer. “What are you doing here, Ellen?”
“I was—I was just with Gloria, Miss Banks,” Ellen said, tears rising quickly to her eyes at the note of kindness in the matron’s voice.
“Well, run along to the infirmary sitting room and wait for me there. I want to have a talk with you.”
Ellen left obediently and walked slowly down the corridor, stepping carefully into the centers of the diamond patterns on the carpet. She timidly turned the handle of the door to the infirmary, but there was no one at the desk, and she slipped into the tiny sitting room unseen.
The fire was lit, but she went over to one of the windows and stared out into the fog. It was beginning to lift a little, and she could see the plane trees more clearly. Their bare branches looked ugly to her, and she stared beyond them, trying to see down the mountainside. But the lake and the m
ountains across were still invisible. She wondered if they were really still there. Was it possible for them to just disappear? People died and were never seen again. She did not hear the door open and she jumped when she heard Miss Banks’s voice.
“What are you thinking of, Ellen?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, but you must have been thinking of something.” Miss Banks sat on the couch in front of the fire.
“Just that it looks cold and you can’t see the lake.”
“Come over and sit down,” Miss Banks said.
Ellen walked slowly over to the couch and sat stiffly on the edge. “Is Gloria a very good friend of yours?” Miss Banks asked.
“No.”
“You seem to see rather a lot of her.”
Ellen shrugged her shoulders. She couldn’t tell Miss Banks she didn’t talk to Gloria from choice. “She’s all right.”
“I don’t think she’s very good for you,” Miss Banks said. “Why don’t you play more with the other girls in your form?”
“I don’t know.” Ellen looked down at her feet. Miss Banks put an arm around her tenderly.
“Why are you so stiff and distant, Ellen?” Miss Banks asked. “People would like you if you’d only let them.”
Ellen pressed her lips together. Miss Banks’s arm held heavy about her and she wanted to jerk away. The matron held her arm around the stiff little body for moments, then stood up wearily. “All right, Ellen. Run along back to the common room.”
Ellen left without speaking and went downstairs. In the common room there was still a group around the gramophone and some of them were singing the words…“Goodnight, sweetheart”…Gloria wasn’t there and Ellen was glad. She went over to her locker, not speaking or spoken to by the groups of girls she passed, and pulled out her writing paper. She sat cross-legged on a table near one of the windows and began writing a letter to her father.
She didn’t have a chance to speak to Gloria again until after supper. Then she drew her aside and whispered, “I wrote my father this afternoon.”
“Gosh, that’s swell,” Gloria said. “Do you want me to tell you a joke?”
“No.” Ellen turned away in disgust.
In the common room a group of girls was playing jacks on the floor. Ellen stood and watched them for a moment. They were four of the most popular girls in her form, and she was half-afraid of them, even while she scorned them. She looked at them and wondered what there was about them that wasn’t like her, why they should like each other and not like her. One of them looked up and noticed her. “What are you doing, Ellen?”
“Nothing.”
She started to move away but the girl stopped her. “Your father’s an artist, isn’t he?”
“Yes, Violet.” Ellen stared at the girl, avoiding the close-set brown eyes and watching the rather prim little mouth.
“She doesn’t look like her father is a painter, does she, Ginny?”
“I don’t know.” Ginny looked up at Ellen a little impatiently. “I don’t think you look like a lawyer’s daughter. She’s funny looking enough.”
“What does your father paint?” Violet asked Ellen, an impish look coming into her eyes.
“All kinds of things.”
“Well, our house needs repainting. I ’spect he’d do it cheap for my father, wouldn’t he?”
Ellen flushed and didn’t answer, and all four of the girls burst into loud laughter. She started to leave but Ginny leaned out and tripped her up, and she fell. As she scrambled up she began to cry, and she couldn’t see whether they were laughing or not as she ran from the room. It would be four days before she could hear from her father.
On Wednesday there was no letter for her. But there would be one the next day. Surely there would be one the next day. On Thursday morning she stood by the mail table fifteen minutes before the earliest possible moment when she could expect the students’ mail to be brought out. Violet walked by her and said, “Don’t forget about that paid job on our house.” Ellen didn’t answer, but when she saw Miss Banks she wanted to leave, but she saw that the matron was coming straight to her, so she slid down from the table and waited.
“Miss Hubert wants to see you in her office, Ellen.” Miss Banks looked at the child strangely.
“Oh. All right,” Ellen said, turning away under the matron’s stare. She felt Miss Banks’s eyes following her as she went along the passage and knocked at the headmistress’s door.
Miss Hubert was sitting at her desk with a letter in her hands. Ellen’s heart jumped as she recognized her father’s handwriting.
“Good morning, Ellen,” Miss Hubert said. “Sit down.”
Ellen sat in a straight chair by the desk and stared at the letter.
“I have a letter from your father here. He says you are unhappy. What’s the matter?” Miss Hubert looked at Ellen’s thin face and watched the small jaw set stubbornly. “He says that you don’t like the girls. Are they unkind to you?”
Ellen said nothing and stared at Miss Hubert, but the headmistress felt that the gaze did not stop at her eyes or meet them but went on and on into space.
“There must be some reason for your being unhappy,” she persisted. Ellen’s jaw set more firmly and her eyes became more distant. “Gloria Ingle is a good friend of yours, isn’t she?” Miss Hubert asked.
“No.” Ellen bit the word off and clasped her fingers tightly around the polished arms of the chair the way she did at the dentist when she was afraid he was going to hurt.
“Who is your friend, then? Isn’t there someone you like especially?”
“No.” Her mouth began to tremble no matter how tightly she pressed her lips together.
This wasn’t fair. It had never occurred to her that her father might write to Miss Hubert.
The headmistress watched the child’s eyes fill and wanted to take Ellen in her arms, but she remembered what Miss Banks had told her, and was afraid. “Who is unkind to you, Ellen?” she asked.
Ellen shook her head. But Miss Hubert persisted with questions until the child’s brain felt heavy and dizzy. “But surely there must be some who tease you more than the others. Your letter made your father very unhappy. He wants you to stay here and have fun with other children your own age. And how can I help you if you don’t help me a little? Who is the one who teases you most?”
Ellen looked down at the floor and felt worn out. “Violet, I guess.”
“What did she do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is she the only one? Isn’t there someone else?”
“Maybe Ginny.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Do you really want to leave, Ellen? It would make your father very unhappy.”
Ellen shook her head and stared down at her feet. She wished she’d never written the letter, and that she’d done what she’d wanted to do and stayed in the common room on Saturday afternoon instead of going with Gloria.
Miss Hubert watched her and again wanted to gather the thin little figure up, and again remembered Miss Banks. “You’ll try to stay and be happy, won’t you, dear?”
“Yes.”
“Run along, then, or you’ll be late to your class.”
Ellen turned and left the office, then ran to the mail table. She read the letter from her father quickly, and then turned and ran into the bathroom, choking with sobs. She did not understand why he was unhappy because she had asked to leave, but he was, and she hated Gloria violently for having made her write the letter. She tried to cry quietly but every once in a while a great sob would come out. She was desperately afraid that someone would come in. When she stopped crying the first class had already begun, and she stayed in the bathroom for the full half hour, washing her face with cold water. She could not bear the thought of going into the class late with her face all streaked with tears. She went up as the bell rang and slipped into her seat.
After supper she went into the common room and tried to read, but she
had turned only a few pages before Gloria came up to her and tugged on one of her long plaits. “Come on up to my room. I want to tell you something.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to, that’s all.”
“Don’t you want to hear?” Gloria stared at Ellen with astonishment in her little pop eyes.
“I don’t care.”
“Well, okay. It doesn’t make any difference to me. I don’t particularly want to tell you. I just thought you’d like to know.”
“I want to read,” Ellen said.
Gloria put her hand over the page. “Well, wait a minute. Can’t you talk like a decent human being for a while? Listen, what do you suppose Ginny and Violet were doing in Hubert’s room all afternoon?”
Ellen’s stomach turned over. Oh, God, why did I write that letter, she thought. “I don’t know. Were they there?”
“All afternoon,” Gloria said. “I expect they’re going to be expelled.”
“Oh, no!”
“Yeah. They were crying awful hard, and they aren’t here now. Oh, there they come. Gosh, I bet Hubert gave it to them. They still look blobby.”
Ellen stared at the pair with terrified eyes. They stood in the door and looked over the room until they saw her. Then they came straight towards her, without pausing at the group by the gramophone. Ellen dropped her eyes to her book, jerked away from Gloria, and tried to read. Her heart was pounding violently.
“Well, Ellen Peterson,” Violet said. Ellen looked up and they were staring at her with hostility. Gloria’s mouth was open and her little eyes were filled with curiosity. Ellen didn’t say anything. She looked up from Violet to Ginny and she felt cold all over.
“So you’re a tattletale, too,” Ginny said.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.” Violet’s prim little mouth was hard. “You got us into one beastly mess with your sniveling to old Hubert.”
“Are you—are you going to be expelled?” Ellen whispered.
“Oh, so you thought you could expel us, did you?” Violet laughed. “Well, you were mistaken there, Miss Sneak. We are still here, and will make things pretty unpleasant for you from now on, I can tell you.”
The Moment of Tenderness Page 4