The Moment of Tenderness

by Madeleine L'engle

  And what the hell has Nancy said?

  “Come on,” Deirdre said. “I’ll show you the way. Am I doing this all right? The madame says my manners are deplorable. I suppose they are. She thought it would do me good to take the door today, though there haven’t been too many people. She says swinging the hips isn’t the answer to all questions and I suppose she’s quite right, though anytime I’m stuck it’s stood me in good stead. I’m reading The Red and the Black now. The madame thought it would do me good. Oh. That’s a non sequitur, isn’t it? The madame says I make them all the time. She’ll make me over yet. Don’t look so nervous, Walter, love, I told you she wouldn’t bite.”

  He followed her down a long, dark corridor, a sepulchral darkness that lemon-yellow satin and sunlight had not managed to dissipate. Deirdre giggled and turned back to look at him. “Golly, it’s dark, isn’t it? One of the bulbs has gone out.” And he shook himself, thinking—See, it’s only in my imagination, it’s because of Nancy, it isn’t so at all.

  Deirdre knocked on a door and opened it with a flourish.

  “Walter Burton, please; Madame Septmoncel,” she said, and gave Walter a little shove, so that he had, whether he would or no, to advance a few steps into the room.

  It was a study, and Madame Septmoncel was sitting in a blue velvet chair at a Regency desk. There was a fire burning in the fireplace against the autumn chill, and one or two lamps were already lit. A different cat, a tiger-striped one, lay on a sheaf of papers on the desk. Firelight and lamplight flickered against the backs of books, pictures, rose brocade curtains, mahogany, and Madame Septmoncel’s silver hair. Walter took a few more steps towards the desk, and Madame Septmoncel came towards him, holding out her hand.

  Walter took it and was astonished at the power of the grip, for she was a tiny, exquisite woman, delicate-boned, fragilely appointed. “Good afternoon, Mr. Burton.” Her voice was low and cultured, the voice Deirdre O’Hara emulated. “Deirdre said you wished to see me?”

  “Well I—that is—” Walter stammered.

  Madame Septmoncel returned to her blue velvet chair. “Please do be seated,” she said, gesturing to a straight chair opposite hers.

  Walter sat and looked across the desk at Madame Septmoncel. Gray eyes, their lucidity only slightly clouded by years, looked with amusement into his; he had never felt so young. “I’m Nancy Burton’s brother,” he said, “and I wondered if it would be all right if I took her out to dinner.”

  “Her brother?” Madame Septmoncel raised amused eyebrows.

  “Well—yes.”

  Madame Septmoncel sighed. “Your sister has already made a place for herself here,” she said. “We’re all very fond of her, the girls and the staff and I. Yes, I can see that you are her brother. You have the honey-colored hair, and there is the same look of innocence between the eyes, and the timid line of jaw is similar. Yes, there is a definite sibling resemblance.”

  “Why—” Walter asked, “why shouldn’t I be her brother?”

  Madame Septmoncel offered Walter a cigarette, pushed matches and a cloisonné ashtray towards him, and then leaned back in her chair, one hand reaching up to touch the pearls at her neck. “You were not present when your father brought Nancy to me.”

  “No,” Walter said.

  “He told me that sometimes—sometimes her imagination runs away with her.”

  Walter looked unhappy. “Yes. You see, our mother died three years ago and there’s really been no one to—to understand Nancy since. Father’s a terribly busy man—”

  “Yes,” Madame Septmoncel said. “And you, I believe, started in the business with him this autumn?”

  Walter nodded. Madame Septmoncel laughed. It was, Walter thought, Deirdre’s laugh with a foreign accent; so Deirdre had gotten her laugh as well as her speech from the madame. But not her walk; Deirdre’s walk, he was certain, was her own, and he did not want it changed. But then again, if Nancy was right, perhaps Deirdre’s walk was as assumed as her accent and her laugh. He looked across the desk at Madame Septmoncel. Her face was half in shadow, but he could see the delicate modeling of her bones; the arch of her brows, still dark under the silver hair; the thin, patrician line of her nose; the delicate, compassionate mouth.

  “Your father told me Nancy had an older brother but somehow I did not connect to Nancy’s Walter—it was stupid of me.”

  “Nancy’s Walter?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Don’t judge her harshly. She knows no one here and she hasn’t had time yet to make outside friends. Several of the girls, particularly the ones who were here last year or who already have friends in the city, have had young men come to see them, or to take them out to dinner or to the theatre. So Nancy had her picture of Walter. Walter who just happened to be a Burton, too, who was a musician, a violinist.”

  “I do play the violin,” Walter said rather stiffly.

  “But not nearly as well as our Natalia, unless I’m very much mistaken.”

  “No.” Walter grinned. “I play abominably.”

  “And you are Nancy’s brother, aren’t you?”

  “Oh. I see,” he said.

  “Now, please. Don’t say anything to Nancy if you can help it. It will spoil her evening. Did she expect you to come so soon?”

  “I don’t suppose she expected me at all,” Walter said unwillingly. “Dad just happened to have some unimportant business to be done here in the city and I managed to talk him into letting me do it. It is all right if I take Nan out to dinner, isn’t it?”

  “But of course. And you won’t say anything about what I just told you, will you?”

  “Not if I can help it,” Walter said.

  “But you can help it, if you choose. Nancy is more sensitive than she would like us to know. That is why she had to make up a second Walter for us who is not her brother, and that is why you will bruise her most unnecessarily if you uncover her little deception.”

  “Surely you don’t approve?” Walter demanded.

  “Is this a matter for approval or disapproval? This lack of discipline of the imagination is something that can do Nancy a great deal of harm and we will try to help her control it. But gently, Mr. Burton, and with care. I would be very grateful if you’d leave it up to me. You can hardly accomplish anything except damage if you take her to task for it over the dinner table.”

  Walter felt that the interview was over, but instead of rising he leaned back in his chair. “Do you take this much interest in all the girls?”

  Madame Septmoncel smiled again. “But of course. That is what I am for. That is what the school is for.” She reached towards a silver tray on her desk on which was a slender silver coffee pot and a cup and saucer. “I was about to have a cup of coffee. Will you join me?”

  “Well—” Walter looked at the single cup. “Yes, please.”

  Madame Septmoncel touched a bell on her desk, and almost immediately there came a knock at the door and in answer to her call there entered a tall blond girl in a blue satin cocktail dress.

  “All ready to go out, Barbara?” Madame Septmoncel asked.

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “And who is it this time?”

  “Harry. I’ve written it down in the book. We’re going to the opera and then if it’s all right with you, we’d like to go somewhere and have something to eat.”

  “Of course, Barbara. You’re a senior this year and you have proved yourself worthy of my trust. Don’t forget to sign in the book when you come in, and leave the key in the blue Canton bowl.”

  “Yes, Madame, thank you.”

  “Would you be good enough to get me another cup and saucer for Mr. Burton? Mr. Burton, this is Barbara Greene. This is her fourth year here and I can’t imagine what it will be like next year without her.”

  From a mahogany cabinet Barbara brought a second delicate cup and saucer and set it on the silver tray. “Is there anything else, Madame?”

  “No, thank you, dear. Aggie says she feels much better this afternoon and wi
ll be up and about again tomorrow. Have a pleasant time at the opera.”

  “Thank you, Madame. Good night. Good night, Mr. Burton.”

  Barbara left, moving with a gliding grace completely unlike Deirdre’s bounce, but in its cool way equally effective. Madame Septmoncel smiled across the desk at Walter as she poured coffee and handed him a cup. “You would never believe, seeing Barbara now, that four years ago she was so clumsy she could hardly enter a room without knocking into something.”

  “Good heavens, no!” Walter exclaimed.

  “She is a brilliant girl,” Madame Septmoncel said. “In the four years she has been with me she has done her last two years of school and four years of college. Four years ago you might have been aware that she has brains, but her beauty was not yet visible.”

  “It is now,” Walter said, dutifully and truthfully.

  “You see, that is part of what we are for,” Madame Septmoncel said. “Barbara could have shared an apartment with another girl, or lived in a dormitory, or in one of those residence clubs that are solely for the purpose of chaperonage. We try to give our girls much more than that.”

  “Yes,” Walter agreed. “I can see that you do.”

  “There is no longer any such thing as a finishing school in the old sense, and in any case I am not interested in girls who do not wish to use their brains as well as their bodies. A truly cultured woman is charming both mentally and physically. Some of my girls come from wealthy families but have gone to school in the middle west where English is an unknown language. They have to learn to speak it almost as though it were French. Your sister, of course, had none of the obvious problems. She’s considered very highly at her dramatic school, and I don’t think she will need her imaginary Walter for very long. But the fact that she does need him right now shows that she has her own particular needs that we hope to fill. I limit my girls to fifteen in number, so that I am able to give each one the personal counsel she demands. As well as their regular courses the girls are given lessons here in music and art appreciation, in French, in diction, and in deportment, if that is needed. We go to the theatre, to the opera, to museums. What we aim for is a rounded, integrated personality.”

  “I see,” Walter said. Now the violin was playing a melody, its tone lush like velvet, like firelight. Natalia’s violin was quite a different instrument from the one Walter had dutifully sawed at—and not touched in six months.

  “We tend to forget,” Madame Septmoncel was saying, “in our feministic and emancipated world, that a woman is more than a voter, a stockholder, a highly paid executive. She should also be a work of art. She must have the ability to excite and surprise, to give pleasure and to exert over us a charm that has both sweetness and strength. Otherwise, regardless of her position or bank account, she has failed as a woman.”

  “I see,” Walter said again.

  Madame Septmoncel looked up, as though she, too, was listening to the winding notes of the violin. “Natalia,” she said softly. “If you know anything about music, Mr. Burton, you can hear that Natalia is one of the very special artists. I believe that she will be one of the great artists of our time. But more than that, Mr. Burton, she is also becoming a woman and she has the wisdom to realize that that, too, is an art, and that it takes as much work as does her violin.”

  She stood up and Walter had perforce to rise, too. The interview could be prolonged no longer. He took Madame Septmoncel’s hand and again was surprised at the strength in the delicate, ringed fingers, and yet he felt that he should not be shaking these fingers but raising them to his lips and breathing in the subtle fragrance that came from the—what was she, the headmistress? Of this—school?

  Deirdre was waiting with Nancy in the lemon satin room, a Nancy somehow less gauche and coltish than the child he had waved goodbye to a few months ago. She wore a dark wool dress he did not recognize that gave her a new assurance, and he felt a sudden pride as he saw that her childish prettiness was maturing into beauty. She flung her arms about his neck in spontaneous affection, then looked at him imploringly.

  “Walter, it was so terribly sweet of you to come. Deirdre says you’re as nice as your picture but I told her you’re really ever so much nicer. Have you seen Madame?”

  “Yes,” Walter said.

  “Isn’t she gorgeous? I mean isn’t she the most beautiful woman you’ve ever met in the world?”

  “Well,” Walter said shortsightedly, “I suppose for an elderly lady she’s quite good-looking. Have you signed in the book or whatever it was you’re supposed to do?”

  “How did you know about signing in the book?”

  “A girl came in while I was talking to your—to Madame Septmoncel, and said something about it.”

  “Who was it?” Deirdre asked eagerly.

  “I think she was called Barbara. Quite a looker.”

  “Oh,” Deirdre said. “One of the madame’s pets. Of course, if you like that ice cold sort of look—”

  “Oh, she’s gorgeous, all right, even if she is a snob,” Nancy said impatiently, “and I guess she was pretty much a slob before Madame got hold of her. Fifty pounds heavier at least. Come on, Walter, let’s go. I haven’t got Barbara’s privileges and I’m supposed to be in at a reasonable hour unless I get very special permission.”

  Walter held out his hands to Deirdre. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Miss O’Hara.”

  “Oh, just call me Deirdre. I’ve been calling you Walter. Anytime you’re in New York and you don’t feel like seeing Nancy, just give me a buzz.” She took his hand and smiled up at him, batting the long lashes he had earlier remarked on.

  “Quite a girl, your friend Deirdre,” he said to Nancy as they went down the brownstone steps.

  Nancy looked a little sulky. “Yes, and she was all ready to snatch you right out from under my nose.”

  “Why shouldn’t she?” Walter asked pointedly. “After all, I’m your brother, and I do have dates with girls, you know. As a matter of fact I’d like to have one sometime with your friend Deirdre.”

  Nancy looked deflated. “Okay,” she said vaguely. “I’ll see if I can arrange it sometime.”

  “Will you? But you don’t have to arrange it for me, do you, Nancy? I can just call or write Deirdre myself, can’t I?”

  She stopped still on the darkening street, looked up at him with an anxious expression. “Walter, are you mad at me or something?”

  Walter hailed a taxi and said nothing until it had drawn up. Nancy ducked into it, and as he sat beside her all he said was “Where do you want to go?”

  “Oh, I don’t care.”

  “Well, think of someplace, quick. You know I don’t know this place too well.”

  “Oh, well, the Penthouse Club, then. Barbara is there all the time.”

  “Will she be there tonight?”

  “No. Harry is going to take her to Cavanagh’s before they go to the opera. It’s Pagliacci tonight. Barbara loves it.”

  “Who’s Harry?”

  “Her elderly beau. He’s loaded, though. Walter, you’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

  The taxi jerked its way through the crowded street, stopped behind a truck at a red light. “I don’t know whether I’m mad at you or not,” Walter said at last. “I just want to know what this is all about.”

  “I tried to tell you in my letters,” Nancy said. “But it’s such a difficult thing to explain. You didn’t say anything to Father, did you?”

  “No. I would have, but then I got this chance to come down on business, and knowing you I thought I’d come see for myself.”

  “What do you mean, knowing me?”

  “Well, I didn’t want Father after you with a cordon of police unless there was a real reason.”

  Nancy laughed, but it wasn’t an anxious laugh. “That’s silly about the police, Walter. After all, it’s not like white slavery or anything.”

  The last of the daylight was disappearing behind the buildings and lights were going on in streetlamps, shops, off
ices. In the gloom of the taxi Walter tried to read Nancy’s expression. Finally he said irritably, “Nancy, you’re my sister, and I’ve known you all my life, and this autumn is the first time you’ve ever been away from home, but I’m damned if I know anything about you.”

  “You said damn!” Nancy exclaimed.

  “So?”

  “It just sounded so grown-up, coming from you.” She leaned back in the cab, crossing her legs so that they showed, long and slender, under the dark skirt.

  Walter closed his mouth tight to keep from shouting back an angry retort, to keep from fighting as though they were brother and sister in the nursery again. “Nancy,” he said, “did you really expect me to believe that cock-and-bull story?”

  Nancy lowered her head and all she responded was a whisper. “Yes.”

  “Well, I don’t believe it.”

  “Okay, Walter,” Nancy said softly, “don’t, then. It makes it easier.”

  Now Walter shouted. “It makes what easier?”

  “Oh, everything. You see, it was all such a surprise to me when I first wrote to you, but now I’m more used to the idea, and it doesn’t shock me anymore, and if you don’t believe me then I don’t have to worry about shocking you.”

  “Nancy, you haven’t—”

  “Haven’t what?”

  “You know.”

  “Then you do believe me!” Nancy exclaimed triumphantly.

  “I don’t!”

  The taxi stopped and this time it wasn’t a red light but the restaurant. Walter paid the driver, then opened the door for Nancy. She stood there in the light of a streetlamp, wearing a dark coat with a little fur collar and a hat with feathers, and he thought that she was much prettier than he had remembered. He took her arm as they went to the lobby and then up in the elevator, and now he had lost the sense of excitement and pleasure that had come to him talking with Deirdre, and wished that Nancy had never written him, or that he had had the sense to show the letter to his father.

  He turned to her in the elevator and saw that she was staring with a serious, considering expression at her reflection in the long mirror. “Nancy,” he said, “Father hasn’t shown me any of your letters to him, but I know you’ve written. What have you said to him?”