The Protégé Read online

  “No,” he said, “I can’t do that. Alexandra said we ought not to be rude”—he watched her slyly—“because rudeness doesn’t please you. She said she would try to mend her manners. So when she wanted me to be her guest—”

  “You accepted, of course. The only gracious thing to do. Yes, I’ll be her guest, too. We should all enjoy ourselves.” His head was bent. She didn’t want him sad. “Your manners have always pleased me, Simon,” she said.

  “It’s funny, though.” He ran his fingers through the tight bright curls on his head. “That’s twice she mentioned manners. I haven’t been thinking about them at all. The last thing—”

  “Somebody caught you young and taught you well,” she said fondly.

  He looked up. “Oh, my mother used to pound on manners, just pound them into me. But you know … I got to be ashamed of them, for a while. Ma’am?”

  Mrs. Moffat had choked, and he was alert to her distress.

  “I must have swallowed … Excuse—” She began to cough.

  “Shall I bring some water?”

  “Please.”

  He went into the kitchen where he almost never went. (He almost never came beyond a six-foot margin on the porch under her roof. He never touched her or her possessions. He never was that kind of bother.)

  She heard his voice and Polly’s. He came back with the glass, and Polly came fussing.

  Mrs. Moffat drank. Polly soon departed, satisfied. But Simon kept watching anxiously.

  Well, then, she must say something to blunt or turn aside his intuition. She wasn’t ready for it. “Do you know what would please me very much?” she croaked feebly. “If you were to drive us to church tomorrow.”

  Simon sat down. “Yes,” he said, as if he were thinking about something else.

  She cleared her throat a time or two. Mrs. Moffat faked this aftermath of coughing.

  “You always go to church, ma’am,” he said, in a moment. “Do you believe that people never really die? Good people, I mean?”

  “I can’t explain that,” she said gently.

  “But do you think, for instance, if somebody killed himself, that would fix it so there wouldn’t be a chance? I’m thinking of a person who went to church quite a lot and didn’t think that you ought to be afraid.”

  Mrs. Moffat took hold of her nerves and sighed artfully. “There’s no use being afraid,” she said, “but these things are mysterious. Simon, I thought I told you once that I’m not wise.”

  “To me,” he said gravely. “I don’t care what you call it. What if I want to think about what you think?”

  “Then you may be foolish,” she said affectionately. “I’ll never understand a suicide, never. I have to say to myself, ‘Well, God knows’—and let it go at that.” She was trying to be honest, but trying to be helpful, too, and painfully confused in her mind, obligated by her heart …

  “I’ll tell you this,” she rallied and blurted forth. “To think on your own death too much—especially when young—seems very rude to me. What are you saying to God? ‘Okay, You put me here alive on this earth, didn’t You? But You won’t catch me having any fun out of it. Oh, no, I’m going to gloom around and fret myself into misery and woe, because You’re not telling me all Your secrets. I won’t play unless You do!’” She pursed up her mouth and held her chin high.

  Simon’s eyes rounded. Then he burst into laughter, uncontrollably delighted. Then he said, bent over and holding his middle, “Oh, Mrs. Moffat, I just love you! I really do!”

  “Now that sort of thing is more to my taste,” she said, rocking and nodding. “Ah, well—I’m afraid I’m getting to be a regular old sundial, Simon, counting only the sunny hours.”

  “I know!” he cried, dashing his mirthful tears from his eye corners with a bent knuckle.

  She could not bear it. She began to act like a very old lady, which was her privilege, fussing about her sleep, the fatigues of today, the ideals of tomorrow, dredging up aches and pains she hadn’t used in weeks.

  She got away.

  Upstairs, the rituals of preparation for sleep seemed too formidable at the moment, and Mrs. Moffat sat down in her flowered boudoir chair to pull herself together.

  She and the bearded boy were in some delicate entanglement. He expecting her to heal him somehow? And she too tempted by the fun (oh, yes, the fun of that) to resist trying?

  But Sally Warren, her neighbor—a good woman for all Mrs. Moffat knew to the contrary, a sound-enough citizen—was a raw-boned Western farm girl, with a horseface and a raucous voice and a habit of pounding her thigh while bent in a fit of booming—not to say vulgar—laughter. Was she the mother to pound into a small son the sweet old-fashioned courtesies that a gentleman should show a gentlewoman?

  It really did not—and the brain knew it—seem probable.

  But then, who was he?

  It must have been half an hour later, that Saturday night, when Mrs. Moffat went into the bathroom across the hall from Zan’s room. She began to close the blind and saw a light in the upper story of the green stucco house next door.

  When she had her nerves under control, she went to the phone in her bedroom and called the police. Mrs. Moffat then bethought herself of certain people who need not suffer grievous shock, by night, in the event of noise or gunfire, and she went downstairs, through the lighted hall and the darkened other silences, to Polly’s room.

  That done, there was still Simon.

  “Oh, don’t—don’t—don’t go out, Mrs. Moffat. No, no, no, no—I’ll go.”

  “You are not dressed,” said Mrs. Moffat, who was, and made for the back porch.

  The moon was on the wane; there was still enough light so that she could proceed without the beam of the kitchen flashlight and be sure that there was no one in the open on her lawns. Anything could be crouching in the borders. It was remarkable, she thought, how being abroad at so unfamiliar a time could change the aspect of so familiar a place. It was exhilarating. She had to use the flash down the shrub-enclosed way to the cottage door. She tapped with her cane and called, “Simon!”

  “Ma’am!” His response was quick.

  “There’s somebody in the Halloran house. I’ve called the police. I didn’t want you wondering.”

  She heard the springs of the bed, feet thump the floor.

  “Wait,” he said angrily. “You shouldn’t be out in the dark alone.”

  Then he came, wearing his sneakers and his work pants. He went beside her, walking between her and the far menace, one arm extended horizontally from the elbow, so that there was something Egyptian in her progress.

  Polly was on the porch. Simon opened the door, thrust Mrs. Moffat within, told her to lock the screen and stay there in the dark. Then he went, swiftly running and bending from shadow to shadow, toward the north boundary. So the two old ladies, with the house dark behind them, waited on the dark porch, straining to see and hear.

  After a while narrow fans of light began to spring up on the property next door. They played like hoses over the shrubbery. They seemed to split and multiply. Very soon Mrs. Moffat’s lawns, as well as the grounds of the houses on the next street over, were being washed and probed by light. It seemed that not a leaf could tremble unseen. The display was beautiful, fantastic, beautiful. It seemed that the lights had caught something. There was shouting.

  When at last a policeman came toward the house, Mrs. Moffat saw he had Simon in tow.

  “Mrs. Moffat, is it? You know this man?”

  “Well, of course,” she said.

  “Staying in the room off your garage, is he?”

  “Yes. Certainly.”

  “He says you woke him.”

  “Well, of course I did. After I had called you.”

  “Why was that, Mrs. Moffat?”

  “Really, officer,” she said. “We are two old women, and he is a strong young man. He went to protect us, officer. Did you see anyone, Simon?”

  “I couldn’t say, ma’am.”

  Another
policeman came and said, “Somebody’s been in the bed out there. Checks out.”

  “Okay.”

  “I didn’t call you to come and search my guest room,” Mrs. Moffat said sternly. “What’s happened next door?”

  “Somebody got in there all right. Looks like it may have been a vagrant looking for a place to—uh—bed down and maybe something he could hock. Could you tell if anything was taken, Mrs. Moffat?”

  “I could not,” she said. “I don’t know the house well. What will you do now?”

  “We’ll leave a watch, but he’s skedaddled. Very unlikely that he’ll come back.”

  Mrs. Moffat felt the weight of known statistics hanging on the sentence.

  After a while there were no more lights, no noise. The men had gone.

  “Everything’s quiet now, Mrs. Moffat, so will you excuse me?”

  “Thank you, Simon,” she said.

  The man had climbed out of the compost pit and was sitting on the edge of it. He was laughing, as if to himself, not very loud.

  “They left somebody watching,” said the red-bearded boy. “You can’t go.”

  The man said, “She moved the sundial. So it could be we’re going to dig up Gran’s pearls just like we figured in the first place. Don’t blame yourself, Al. How could you know?”

  “You can’t dig them up now. There’s a cop someplace.”

  “Sitting in a car. So the pearls can wait.” The man turned over and, belly to the ground, began a slow crawl. “I’ve got an urge to see what my relations look like after all this time.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just around. I’ll be back.”

  He vanished.

  About 2 A.M., when Nicky brought Zan home at last, the house was silent, its inhabitants abed; no trace remained to be seen of the excitement.

  Zan and Nicky kissed and murmured; he walked her up to the stoop. Her key worked. She held the door ajar and watched him go.

  Then standing in the wedge of light that escaped from the hall, Zan was suddenly overcome by genuine panic. She was afraid of the night, the trees, the leaves, the sky, the dark, the earth, the air, the smell, some sly and evil rottenness, reminder of decay.

  She jumped over the threshold and closed the door, with a wild heart shaking her whole body.

  Chapter 10

  On Sunday morning Simon, in his brown suit, shone with cleanliness. Every bit of honest soil had been banished from the crevices of his hands.

  Zan had heard what had happened last night. It didn’t seem to mean much. When she heard what was going to happen this morning, she said she hoped it was safe to life and limb, but she gamboled out to the apron before the garage looking smart and pretty, in a green-blue costume, showing no signs of anxiety. Mrs. Moffat, in her pink, climbed into the back seat, and Zan got in beside her. Simon was the chauffeur.

  The moment the car began to move Mrs. Moffat relaxed. Obviously he could handle a car. She was touched (and a little dismayed, too) to notice that he drove exactly as she did. He turned as she always did to go out the long driveway forward instead of backward. He took the quiet Sunday morning streets at the pace she took them. He parked in the church lot as near as he could to her usual place.

  It was her instinct, as they disembarked, to accept his performance as nothing surprising, not even worthy of mention.

  Crystal and Claire were waiting on the church steps. There were greetings for Zan and Sunday nods for Simon. It interested Mrs. Moffat to watch Zan take over and by her deportment indicate that she was not in the least perturbed over Simon, but accepted his presence as nothing surprising, not even worth the lifting of an eyebrow.

  Crystal and Claire had their favorite spot. The other three were ushered to Mrs. Moffat’s favorite pew, halfway down the left side. The old lady went in first, then Zan, and finally Simon, as was proper.

  The organ was playing. One was supposed to meditate. Or glance at the order of worship that the usher supplied. Mrs. Moffat began to compose herself toward worship. Zan, she knew, although perhaps nobody else could tell, was casting curious glances all around, seeing how the other half lived.

  Then suddenly, Zan twisted and touched Mrs. Moffat’s arm and then drew herself out of the way as Simon leaned around to whisper, “Please, may I go and wait outside, Mrs. Moffat? Please, may I be excused?” She could see his face, his eyes frantic—a dampness on his brow …

  “Are you ill?” she whispered. “Shall we all leave?”

  “No, no,” he said. “No, I don’t want that. No, please.”

  “Why, of course, my dear,” she said. “You must do whatever you need to do.”

  He scrambled out of the pew, past a couple on the aisle side, and went so swiftly away that he might as well have broken into a run.

  Mrs. Moffat met Zan’s querying eye, shook her own head slightly, settled her shoulders, ignoring the rippling of curiosity all around her, and looked down at the paper in her hand. She noted the anthem for today, noted the text—Matthew 8:2. “And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him:” Her mind began to go on from old habit to imagine what the minister was going to make out of that. (Sometimes she guessed right, and sometimes he fooled her.)

  But Zan leaned to whisper in her ear, “Nervous reaction to having driven the car, do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Moffat.

  She didn’t. So she began to pray.

  Crystal and Claire, who had seen him leave the church so precipitously, were consumed with curiosity. When the services ended, they almost battled a way to Zan and her grandmother. It was Zan who turned them off coolly, saying “Oh, he’ll be all right,” and then she went on to coo, as Zan knew how to do, of course, and before Mrs. Moffat realized what was up, she heard Zan promising to bring her by during the afternoon, because Zan would so enjoy a chat and Mrs. Moffat had been saying the other day she hadn’t seen them for much too long and she’d love to.

  Zan put her young arm under Mrs. Moffat’s wing to help her down the six stone steps. Ah, well … Once on the level the old lady’s eyes were searching, searching. She walked as fast as she could into the parking lot.

  His bronze head shone like a torch to guide them to the car. As they approached, he opened the door of the tonneau.

  “Do you feel better?” said Mrs. Moffat breathlessly.

  “I’m all right, ma’am,” he said gravely. “I was just afraid I might embarrass you.”

  “Shall Zan drive?”

  “I’d like to, ma’am, if that’s all right?”

  Zan got in after Mrs. Moffat, in a thunderous mood. “Embarrass you?” she muttered.

  “What did you think of the sermon?” said Mrs. Moffat, speaking up. She wouldn’t have hostile mutterings.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Zan. “I’ve never been able to buy all that about only believe and you don’t have to do another thing to be saved.”

  “That’s because you can’t imagine,” said Mrs. Moffat crossly, “what it might be like if you did believe.”

  “Yes, but miracles, Gran. Only believe and you don’t get leprosy.”

  “They can cure leprosy.”

  “No. They can arrest it.”

  “Well, He cured it, and if you could explain a miracle, it wouldn’t be one,” snapped her grandmother. “Why did you commit me to calling on Crystal and Claire, pray tell?”

  “Well, they asked, and I ought to call on them myself. I certainly thought you’d like to go, too,” said Zan, all innocence. “We needn’t stay but about thirty minutes,” she soothed. “We can say we’re having company for supper.”

  “I can’t imagine why you think you ought to call on Crystal and Claire when you really don’t want to at all.” Mrs. Moffat was cross and upset.

  “But I do want to,” said Zan plaintively. “I may be a heathen, Gran, but I don’t have to act like a stinker and hurt their feelings, do I?”

  “I’m sorry, dear,” said Mrs. Moffat.

  Simon drove the ca
r into the garage exactly in the center, as Mrs. Moffat always did. He opened the door for them, stood in decorum. But Mrs. Moffat saw, on his forehead, the beads of sweat, returned.

  “Simon,” she said, “let Polly give you a plain cup of soup, please do, and then … will you rest this afternoon?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Zan said, “You don’t want to spoil my party, Simon.”

  “No,” he said.

  When Zan backed the car out at two thirty that afternoon, she saw no sign of Simon Warren. He was not visible anywhere on the grounds in or out of his working clothes. Who could tell if he was or was not inside the cottage? Zan made a small wager with herself. She bet he wouldn’t show up at the supper table.

  Mrs. Moffat emerged from the house and got into the front seat. Zan backed the car out swiftly all the way, arrogantly sure that she could steer backward. She said, while her neck was craned, “I’ll bet Simon is going to beg off. What do you bet?”

  Mrs. Moffat said, “If he doesn’t feel perfectly well in the morning, I’ll send him to Dr. Sebastian.”

  Only believe, Zan thought to herself. She’ll believe anything he tells her. Zan doubted that an unnamed illness had sent Simon out of the church. She couldn’t give her uneasiness a name.

  She had been going these last few days on the premise that she herself just might become the catalyst here, so she had gone about her business, carefully keeping a friendly insulation between herself and Simon Warren and, unbeknown to Mrs. Moffat, leaving with Polly every day a list of numbers where she could be reached. Of course, not yesterday; they had no telephone at sea.

  Nothing had happened. Oh, something, perhaps. She had made Polly very nervous.

  Zan’s object today was to bring her grandmother back into touch with her own friends, the people of her own generation.

  It couldn’t be good for Mrs. Moffat to have no other companion but a young man, twenty-eight years old. Not that Simon seemed that old. What a child he was compared to Nicky. Zan found herself already leaning on Nicky’s judgment. Perhaps a man could sense in a man what a woman couldn’t. Then she remembered Ben Guest and his venom. Yes, but he was jealous. Zan wasn’t feeling easy.