The Protégé

by Charlotte Armstrong

  Mrs. Moffat dealt briefly with the stirrings of temptation, and having skillfully dismissed them, she slipped easily into a catnap.

  She woke when she heard Polly exclaiming, “Well! Simon Warren! Well! Come in, come in.”

  The boy said, “Mrs. Moffat asked me to come back,” as if he weren’t sure he ought to believe it.

  Mrs. Moffat brought her chair upright, wiggled out of it, instantly alert, by no means disheveled. Her pink dress was a “miracle” fabric. It couldn’t wrinkle. She wore her scant gray hair in a knot on the top of her head (which was neat and stayed neat and got it out of her way). Cosmetics had failed her long ago. She walked on her small neat feet, in the pink but sensible flats, out to the porch. “Come in,” she said to the boy, who hesitated. “You’ve remembered Polly? Hasn’t he grown, eh, Polly? Sit down, Simon. Well? What did you think? I’m sorry you won’t get to see the inside. But they’ve made changes, you know. It wouldn’t be the same.”

  “No,” he said serenely. “Nothing’s going to be the same. I don’t mind not getting to see the inside.”

  Mrs. Moffat sat down, noticing that he was not going to do so until she was settled. This pleased her. “Would you like something cold to drink now? Beer, for instance?” (Boys like beer.) “We have some beer, don’t we, Polly?” Mrs. Moffat kept it for Joe when Joe and Flo came.

  “Oh, yes, Mrs. Moffat.”

  “I’m going to have some beer,” said Mrs. Moffat firmly. “Sit down, sit down.”

  “Then I’d sure like some,” her guest said promptly. Polly beamed and bustled away. The boy chose one of the rockers and surrendered to it. He was gazing out at the many greens, the green-gold where the sun bounced, the deep-green in the low shadow, and a hundred greens in between. “It’s just like a park,” he said softly. “Your own park—and hidden all around.”

  “I suppose it is,” she said. “Everything’s grown so high. And it’s all mine, that’s true. My husband—Mr. Moffat—died”—Mrs. Moffat would not say “passed away”—“ten years ago, Simon. You may have heard.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said gravely.

  She went on. “It must be forty-five years ago that he built this house.” (Thomas, the son, had been seven.) “So,” she said, “all this is mine, as he arranged for it to be. And so long as I have Polly to look after me, here I stay. The fact is,” she added, as she had not meant to add aloud, “I really wouldn’t know where in the whole world else to go.”

  The boy had set his rocking chair to moving slightly. Why isn’t he either too young or not young enough, she asked herself suddenly, to fall so easily into a cradle rhythm? But she went on chattering, since she seemed to know her voice was soothing to him. Perhaps it was only that as long as she kept talking he need not? “You may conclude that I am lonely,” she said, betraying herself blithely to this not necessarily attentive but patient listener. “The few of my old friends who still survive are enough. Enough. I can’t take crowds anymore. And big social doings. I expect I’ve ‘dropped out,’ if the truth were known. Oh, I have young Alexandra, that’s my granddaughter. We call her Zan. She comes every summer to visit, and while she’s here, she bosses me around, and that’s amusing while it lasts. You don’t want to hear the story of my life,” Mrs. Moffat said cheerfully. (Simon could have been dozing with his eyes open.) “Still—when you’ve got to the last chapter,” she went on, “and there’s not going to be much plot to the rest of it, you tend to keep on summing up. My life was interesting to me”—she smiled—“and maybe, when I get to heaven, they’ll supply some angel who’ll be dying to hear all about it. I can wait,” she added merrily. “Ah, the beer.”

  He thanked Polly in the nice shy way he had. He lifted the glass and sipped. Mrs. Moffat kept still, feeling foolish. Ah, well, she thought crossly, let him listen to the old lady. It’s like singing for his supper in reverse. That’s fair enough, surely.

  The cold liquid seemed to be bringing his brown eyes to life. He said, “I’ll tell you what it seems like here to me, Mrs. Moffat. It seems to me like you’ve already got to heaven.”

  She was so touched that her eyes swam. Her hand trembled. Her glass tilted. She set it down quickly and dabbed at the bosom of her dress.

  Then the boy was asking softly where he could go to wash.

  So Mrs. Moffat sent him to Polly to be shown to the downstairs lavatory. She was a little upset. It didn’t do to be pierced so suddenly by something akin to sadness, yet akin to joy.

  When he came back, shining, she embarked on an analysis of the sermon; this was, after all, an experience in the present tense that they had had in common. He didn’t contribute. He hadn’t really paid that much attention, he now confessed, but she made him laugh a time or two … and Mrs. Moffat had again to curb her tongue and dampen down her spirits and remember what she would probably have to pay for having so much fun as this.

  But after they had eaten the cold and tasty fare and Polly had whisked away the dishes, Mrs. Moffat felt herself begin to droop. She hunted for a kindly way to indicate that the festivities were over. She asked if Simon would like to walk around the grounds with her, a tour she was accustomed to take at least once a day, for the air and the delicate exercise. She often walked, she told him, just before she took her afternoon rest.

  So she led him through the house, through the big sitting room, to the little square hall from which the stairs went up, past the arch to the parlor (never used), and Gerard’s den opposite, and out the front and around to the right, and down the side path on the north side along which the camellias grew—now ten feet high—and then to the oval of lawn in which the sundial was centered nowadays.

  Simon was again bemused to see it.

  “It counts only sunny hours,” Mrs. Moffat said somewhat derisively. “And that’s right, Simon. It won’t give you the time of night, I can tell you that. It’s obsolete. It can’t cope, anyhow. Daylight saving has addled its wits, poor ancient thing.”

  He said, “Didn’t it used to have a ring of flowers?”

  “Why, yes,” she said, startled for some reason. “Now … here,” she went on, rounding the peninsula of shrubs and coming to the second bay of lawn on this side, “is where my son used to have his playground when he was a little boy. Oh, you never knew my son. He had gone away from here before you were born. You would have been only three years old when Thomas died. I only had the one child. He was never—robust.”

  There she went again, telling the story of her life. She looked at him sharply.

  He was gazing at the ground. He said, “I guess people die.”

  And again he had pleased her. She said, feeling released, “He was only twenty-nine. Only a year older than you are now. You wouldn’t think that was much of a life. But I guess we shouldn’t be so sure. Time”—she was thinking aloud again—“is not the same for different people. For me, time’s been slow, flowing along, you know … but on the whole more like a lake than a river. For some, I suppose, it’s wild and deep and they live twice as fast—or twice as much.” She swayed with momentary dizziness.

  He did not step to steady her. He said, “Mrs. Moffat, I might have had my life, for all I know.”

  Mrs. Moffat thought, I don’t want to hear about his troubles.

  “Look!” she said. “There! See? Where the branch is bouncing? Look at him watching us, the rascal! A squirrel!”

  “I see.”

  The sun shone on the bright color of Simon’s beard. She was beginning to be able to see his face in spite of it. He seemed rapt. He seemed very, very young.

  “What do you suppose a squirrel makes of human beings?” said Mrs. Moffat. “I often wonder. Does he know we are watching him? Can he conceive of eyes?”

  “I never thought of that,” the boy said, as if he were delighted. “But he knows! He’s got to know, ma’am. Maybe he can’t conceive of eyes, but he knows he’s being seen.” His eyebrows drew together and knotted. “Isn’t that wonderful?” he said, rather dully.

  �
��Yes, it is,” said Mrs. Moffat in a matter-of-fact way. She was somewhat surprised by his response, but willing to accept it. “Come along,” she continued, “I always go all the way up to the end, and then we’ll turn down the other side.”

  But she was tired now and fell silent. Gerard had instituted this patrol. Mornings and evenings he had gone this way, to see what the flowers were up to. But the flowers were gone, and so was he; only the habit remained.

  “What is that, ma’am?” Simon stopped to stare at the wing that angled away from the garage.

  “Oh, you remember,” she said, cross with fatigue. “We call it the cottage, although it’s no such thing. Just a room and bath and a teensy kitchenette. Mr. McGregor used to live there, in the old days. Had he gone when you were living next door? I don’t think so. You must have known old Mr. McGregor, who took care of the gardens then? We had such flowers. My husband liked to watch them bud and bloom and fade, but he hadn’t the slightest idea how to grow them. Mr. McGregor had a very green thumb. He used to grow tomatoes for the table. Nobody else could, for miles around. Now, of course, I just have Ben Guest, who comes once a week and mows and clips and keeps the jungle from swallowing me up. Oh, don’t look in!” Simon was peering in at the dirty window. “I’m ashamed,” she said. “It’s not used anymore, and we’ve let it go. Ben never does find the time to clean it out, you see, and it’s too much for Polly and me. Come along,” she said, distressed for some reason.

  He turned his head. She had not seen his eyes lit from the inside except once—in connection with the squirrel.

  “I’ll clean it for you,” he said. “Let me do it.”

  “No, no. It’s a terrible job! You don’t want—”

  “Yes, I do,” he insisted. “If I could find a broom … and if there’s water and soap, and a mop, or something. Please?”

  “You don’t mean now?”

  “Could I? Please!”

  “Well,” she said, “it’s not that I think there’s anything wrong about cleaning up on Sunday … but … I don’t know what I could pay … and you’d get yourself so messy.” (He doesn’t like that, she thought shrewdly, bent on dissuading him.)

  “Oh, not for pay!” he cried. “Not for pay. I’ve got some work clothes with me.” He was very tense. “You’d rather it was clean, wouldn’t you? Please?”

  Mrs. Moffat knew that she ought to say a very firm No and walk on. But she couldn’t at the moment think why this was so. She took refuge in as much of the truth as she was sure of and said, “Oh, I would rather it was clean. No doubt of that, but—”

  He took this for consent. His teeth flashed. He began to run. He ran around to the garage … ran to find his work pants.

  Somewhat ruffled and dismayed, Mrs. Moffat made her way to the cottage door. It wasn’t locked. The key had been lost years ago. She opened the door and looked in with loathing at the layers of dust, the gardener’s muddy tracks across the worn old rug, the sagging bedstead, the limp and dirty curtains. “Well,” she said, as the boy came racing in, his bag in his hand, “this is a disgrace! The plumbing is all right. The bathroom’s in operation. Ben uses it, I’m happy to see. But there’s no hot water. The gas was turned off long ago.”

  The boy, scarcely listening, was bristling with energy, only wanting to get on with it. So Mrs. Moffat who could have even now said No did not. She could not. It seemed too cruel.

  “I’ll see whether Polly can find you some things to use,” she promised, and walked slowly on the hot green grass back to the house.

  Chapter 2

  All Sunday afternoon Mrs. Moffat sat on the porch, reaping the whirlwind. She couldn’t go up to her room in the front of the house to rest, with all this going on. Polly, armed with pails and mops and brooms and rags and brushes, had joined the fray. Her mistress had no doubt but that Polly was having the time of her life.

  Mrs. Moffat was and was not enjoying what she could see of the battle. Sometimes she felt just a trifle hurt to have been left out of it. But she was cast as audience, spectator, patron-to-be-pleased, goddess, or victim. She sat in her favorite rocker; sometimes she had to chuckle. She was watching, as it were, an explosion that was taking place just out of sight. The clump of shrubs hid the cottage door. Even so she seemed to see things bursting out of that door. The raggedy curtains sailed over the flowering pomegranate bush. Then Simon, naked to the waist (tan, but so thin), came out of the path’s tunnel, dragging the old rug to the driveway, where he beat it and shook it, and the clouds that rose were mortifying. But the scene was funny in a way. Oh, the furious two-legged creature against the dust that was immortal!

  Another time the mattress walked into view, the boy invisible behind it. He dropped the mattress on the grass; he swept it and beat it on both sides. When he left it healing in the sun, this pleased her.

  Then he had the garden hose. What was he doing with the garden hose? She heard the roar of water fanning hard into a pail. So Mrs. Moffat was both entertained and uneasy. All the while, over her head, she knew (she knew!) a hand was writing on a wall.

  Polly came to the porch at last, streaked and panting. “Oh, look at me,” she cried. “Oh, I got to get cleaned up! Oh, he’s not missing a thing, Mrs. Moffat. Wait till you see. But he don’t want you coming out there till he’s got hisself cleaned up. So you just wait. You wait!” Polly went joyously staggering off to her first-floor room.

  Mrs. Moffat rocked and contemplated the moment that was coming, a moment she had never thought to live through again. The moment known to all women who have ever born a child. The moment one’s child will say, “Mother, Mother, come see what I did!” And Mother goes, to crown achievement with justice and mercy, goddess and slave.

  In a while the boy came, calm and immaculate, all eagerness invisible. So Mrs. Moffat went, walking in as much dignity as she could, at five feet two and round in the middle.

  It was a squarish room, and fair-sized, with opposite sides to the weather. Its furnishings were shabby, of course. They were the castoffs of years. But all fabrics had been brushed, brightened. All wood surfaces polished. The windowpanes were bare, but bright. He seemed to have actually washed the walls down. The floor had been scrubbed. The old rug had had the decency to revive and show some color. The bed was spread; he had squared it and braced it.

  Mrs. Moffat was able to exclaim in genuine wonder, and she was glad, because she didn’t think she could have fooled him. Not about cleanliness. (He was somewhat obsessed by that, was he not? Was this a good sign?) But truly she had not remembered that the cottage could be so—well—attractive. She said so. Proudly (he was proud, wasn’t that it?) he showed her the inside of the tiny clothes closet, which was spotless. He showed her the very small bath at the end of the room. It had no tub, only a shower. All the fixtures were shining. He had brushed down and somehow polished the bamboo curtain that hung as a partition before the alcove kitchenette next to the bath. But now he apologized. He had not got around to the kitchen. There was an awful lot to do in there. “The stove is rusty, and that’s going to take hard scraping. Could I come back and do it tomorrow?” he asked her in eager innocence.

  Yes—innocence. Mrs. Moffat was shocked. He wasn’t hinting. He wasn’t being sly. He wasn’t even imagining? No, she was sure of it. But how was it possible that the inevitable had not even crossed his mind, the thing that was written on the wall?

  She said slowly, “Simon, where do you plan to spend the night?”

  “Oh,” he said indifferently, “I don’t know, ma’am. I’ll find some room. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Would you like to stay here, in the cottage?”

  The lines on the lower half of his face remained masked. But she watched in his eyes the dawning intelligence. He said, “That’s why I just had to do this? Do you think so?”

  “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “Is it?”

  He stood in the middle of the floor. He had lowered his head, that odd astrakhan head. He said, “I made you ask me?”

/>   “The fact is,” she said, her sharp old voice dispelling mists, “I have asked you, so if you’re willing to risk the presence of some uprooted spider who’s bound to resent that, you are welcome. Now rest,” she cried. “For heaven’s sake, lie down a little bit before it’s suppertime.”

  He raised his head and said, “I sure would like to stay here, Mrs. Moffat. To me, it’s perfect. But I’ll go and get me a hamburger somewhere, if you don’t mind. I don’t want you to feed me again. At least, not now.”

  Mrs. Moffat thought she could understand how he felt. It didn’t do to take too much. It didn’t do. There was always a turning against too much to be grateful for. It put you off your balance, and that doesn’t do—unless you cannot help it.

  “Just as you’d rather,” she said kindly. “Go and find yourself some supper then. Not that Polly doesn’t always fix too much for me. Will you try to believe that before breakfast?”

  She would have touched him lightly, to indicate, as it was her impulse to do, that her bounty was lightly given. But he swayed away. He was looking at her with an odd glow in his eyes. She could scarcely believe her intuition that it was a genuine curiosity, a look that wondered. Now what kind of person is this I am seeing before me?

  She smiled and cocked her head and said, “You’re welcome,” as if he’d thanked her, as perhaps he had. She walked out of the cottage and slowly back to the house.

  What have I done? she wondered.

  She told Polly what she had done. Polly began to beam and talk about what bedding they could spare.

  “Take him what he needs,” said Mrs. Moffat wearily. “There’s plenty.” She went to her sitting room, turned on her TV, and sat down. Well, Polly’s an old fool, too, she thought grimly. How do we know he’s not going off to summon a gang, now that he’s sure we are two old crones, alone here?