The Tender Night

by Lilian Peake

  ‘Mm.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘I’m taking Janine out.’

  ‘I know.’

  An eyebrow lifted. ‘You don’t approve?’ She pressed her lips together. ‘No, you don’t. Too bad. This is between Janine and myself.’

  She stood up. He forced her down. ‘When will you concede that your sister’s a big girl now?’ He consulted his watch. ‘Look, if you get stuck, leave spaces and I’ll fill in when I return.’ At the door he said, ‘Shelley? Thanks.’

  Next morning Craig phoned Shelley to ask how long she had stayed. ‘Two and a half hours,’ she told him.

  ‘From the amount you accomplished I wouldn’t have been surprised if you had stayed until midnight.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have known if I had, would you?’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me,’ his voice was abrasive, ‘that I kept your sister out too late?’ The voice softened menacingly. ‘Do you know, Miss Jenner, you get under my skin so much sometimes that if you were a man I’d have knocked you flying long ago. Just take warning from that, will you?’ She slammed down the phone and hid her face in her hands.

  A few days later Muriel Allard went away. ‘I need a holiday,’ she told Shelley. ‘I booked some time ago to go on a cruise. I didn’t tell anyone, not even Craig. I thought if I did, something would be sure to crop up to stop me! You can manage without me for a fortnight, can’t you? I have every confidence in you, you know.’

  Shelley was silently appalled at what her employer seemed to be expecting of her. But she was determined to rise to the challenge. She had nothing else to occupy her time, only Craig’s typing which filled two or three evenings every week. He never remained in his apartment while she worked. He seemed to make a point of going out, sometimes with Janine and sometimes, Shelley believed, he even went for walks. It was almost as if he could not stay in his own flat while she was in any part of it...

  But that evening he was waiting for her. ‘So my mother’s going away yet again?’ he greeted her. ‘Who’s doing her job in her absence?’

  Shelley, who had just pushed her spectacles into place on her nose, snapped the case shut. She did not answer. ‘Forgive me if I’m wrong, but is it you?’

  His tone worried her. ‘It’s little more than I usually do, Mr. Allard. Even when your mother’s here, I speak to parents on her behalf, placate when necessary, remind them gently that their fees are due, tell them when their little ones are misbehaving.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘And how much is my mother paying you?’ She hesitated. ‘Tell me, please. I happen to be the owner of the premises, if not the school. Look upon me as the landlord, if you like, a landlord with a financial stake in the establishment. I have a right to know.’

  Shelley told him. ‘Slave labour,’ he muttered. ‘When my mother returns, I shall have a talk with her on the subject of your pay.’

  ‘I’m not complaining.’

  ‘Maybe you aren’t. I am. Now, these notes I’ve made. A little more illegible than usual, unfortunately—written in the small hours. If you want me, I’ll be around, if not in my flat then somewhere in the school. It’s time I did a bit of checking up on this place of learning. Some of the teachers live in. I’ll call on them socially, chat them up, find out if the standards are slipping.’

  By the time he returned, Shelley had removed her spectacles and was preparing to leave. He swept in and motioned her to the other end of the room, putting a drink into her hand. He walked up and down, then threw himself into a chair. He was silent and something stopped Shelley from interrupting his thoughts. He was not communicating, yet he did not appear to want to be alone.

  At last he said, in a tone tinged with disgust, ‘To listen to some of those teachers,’ he motioned outside towards the living quarters, ‘you would think the technological revolution just hasn’t happened.’ He leaned forward and turned up the gas fire fitted into the closed-in fireplace. Then he warmed his palms against the heat. ‘It’s their attitude that gets me. They’re up to their necks in the past, like someone sucked into a bog, and they won’t use their brains as a last resort to get themselves out of it and into the twentieth century.’

  Shelley watched his profile and somewhere inside her something stirred into life. She did not give herself the chance to analyse and speculate. Instead she tore her eyes away and dwelt on the hissing incandescent source of heat which shed its warmth on them both.

  ‘I think,’ he reflected, ‘it’s the cloistered atmosphere, the cosy, snug, insulated conditions under which they teach.’ He looked at her and she felt a flick of pleasure that he remembered she was there. ‘I don’t like fee-paying schools. As an educationalist, I find they go against my grain.’

  ‘And yet you gave this house to your mother so that she could open one?’

  He laughed and leaned back. ‘Yes, I see the irony of it. But it was a case of filial affection overcoming my personal prejudices. Which is also why I help her with the school financially. No other reason. How could it be otherwise? My professional side shrinks from the idea of an educated elite, which is what this school is helping to produce.’ He closed his eyes. ‘If I had my way I’d close it down.’

  Shelley watched his quiet features and felt ice finger her spine. Close the school? That would mean the end of her job and make her and Janine homeless. He couldn’t mean it? It would be the end of—so many things...

  He said reflectively, ‘I can’t stand kids in the mass.’

  ‘But—but you’re a teacher.’

  He opened his eyes. ‘Ah, yes, but I’m a teacher of teachers. A big difference.’

  ‘So,’ with an odd twinge of disappointment, ‘you don’t like children.’

  ‘Other people’s children, not particularly. My own? Well,’ with a twinkle, ‘to my knowledge I haven’t any.’

  She coloured and leaned back in the chair. And if he had, if he’d been around, gathering experience in other women’s arms, what did it matter to her? It did! The realisation came like an incendiary device hitting the ground at her feet and enveloping her in flame. No reason could put out the fire, no attempt to rationalise could stop the truth burning up her heart.

  ‘Tell me,’ his half-closed eyes surveyed her, ‘you’re an intelligent woman—a contradiction in terms, of course; it isn’t possible to be both intelligent and a woman—’ He watched her colour deepen and the angry words move her lips then he held up his hand. ‘All right, I only said it to provoke. I enjoy teasing you. You look so much more attractive when there’s red in your cheeks and your eyes try to burn me up. Much less of the schoolmarm and much more of the beautiful creature you are underneath all that surliness and hate.’ Again she flushed, this time with a strange mixture of embarrassment and pleasure. But although his eyes lingered on her face a moment longer, he said, ‘Do you think it’s wrong for a small, select section of the population to be able to send their children to a school like this one?’

  ‘If they choose to do so and can afford it—’

  ‘Ah, yes, freedom of choice, all part of that democracy we pride ourselves on so much. But the children here are cocooned in a benign environment with the only disturbance ruffling their calm waters being in the shape of a dragon of a housemother—or matron, call her what you will. They hate her to a man, or rather, boy.’

  ‘But surely a school like this has the money to buy the best equipment?’ Shelley ventured.

  ‘Perhaps, but you’ve got to get the services of teachers who are trained to use such equipment. Either my mother has chosen her staff wrongly, too subjectively—say, a liking for their looks, their manners, their accents—instead of objectively, on the basis of their qualifications and their past experience, or such people don’t exist. I suspect the former—my mother’s damned intuition which she exercises and relies on as a substitute for down-to-earth knowledge.’ He eyed her. ‘Isn’t that how she chose you? Intuition? Had a feeling, she told me naively, that you’d be right for the job.’

  ‘Well,’ defiantly, ‘was she wrong
?’

  ‘Right, in one way. That you were so unselfish and self-sacrificing you’d recognise no limits to your function as a mere secretary. That where your heart called so you would follow, and be damned to your terms of reference as a secretarial assistant. If a nurse was needed, you’d be there. If a tame psychologist was called for, you’d be that psychologist. I’m referring to that homesick little boy. If an uncertificated teacher was required as a fill-in, you’d act the part. If a substitute head teacher—at a poorly paid secretary’s pay—you’d be that substitute. Yes, she chose well and wisely from her own point of view.’

  ‘But not,’ fiercely, ‘the children’s?’

  ‘The children’s?’ with a shrug. ‘If it’s comfort they need, a bit of plaster slapped on a grazed knee, a soft and shapely bosom to nuzzle against in time of stress, perhaps. But from the point of view of real knowledge, of academic achievement (which, after all, is what their parents are paying for), or accomplished nursing care, no, not the children’s.’

  Her lips were tight, her cheeks pale. She stood up. ‘You want me to resign from my job?’

  He drew himself lazily from the chair. ‘Resign? Good heavens, no. If you went, my mother would have to employ at least six other people in your place. If it pleases you to act so many roles at such shockingly low pay, carry on. If it gives you the feeling that there’s a halo somewhere around here,’ his hand stroked her hair and his fingers trailed down her cheek, ‘and it makes you feel wanted—don’t we all at times?—then carry on, Miss Jenner, carry on. Who am I to stop you from carrying out your good works? Think of the money you’re saving the family!’

  Shelley walked stiffly to the door. Her cheeks still tingled from the touch of his fingers. ‘Goodnight, Mr. Allard.’

  ‘Goodnight, Miss Jenner. Come again tomorrow?’ She was breathing so hard as a result of his cynical summing-up of her unselfish actions, she did not answer. ‘Don’t worry,’ he murmured, with a taunting smile, ‘I shall be out.’

  ‘In that case, Mr. Allard, yes, I shall come again tomorrow.’ If she had hoped to crush him, she had badly miscalculated. He laughed out loud as he watched her move swiftly from the room.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  So much work accumulated as a result of Mrs. Allard’s absence, Shelley found herself working increasingly later into the evening. Sometimes, after typing for Craig, she would return to her desk in the office and tackle many of the items she had not been able to deal with during the day.

  Shelley had told Craig none of this, and he did not look at her long enough to realise how much her tiredness showed. They rarely met, anyway. Even when she went to his apartment to type for him, he had usually gone before she arrived.

  Emery was patience itself. For an artist, his temperament was surprisingly equable. Had it been otherwise, Shelley reflected, he would either have exploded into an artistic tantrum at her constant preoccupation with work out of hours, or found someone else. He did neither. He simply painted and sketched, and when he had finished, he painted and sketched again.

  One evening Shelley arrived home during the evening to find Janine sitting over the fire—it was necessary to have one alight although it was early April—and looking sorry for herself.

  ‘Boy-friend let you down?’ Shelley asked with a touch of sarcasm.

  ‘If you mean Craig,’ Janine responded in a tone so depressed Shelley became concerned, ‘yes. He rang to say he had a business engagement this evening and couldn’t come. So I went for a walk. And guess who I saw driving along with a beautiful woman at his side? Craig Allard.’

  ‘And who,’ asked Shelley, her heart beating painfully hard, ‘was the woman?’

  ‘Sylva Wallasey-Browne. Who else?’

  The anger that made her fingers curl, Shelley told herself, was on her sister’s behalf, no one else’s. ‘Isn’t there a rumour that he was once her boy-friend?’

  Janine nodded. ‘I could cry. Why wasn’t he honest? Why didn’t he say he didn’t want my company any more and was brushing me off?’

  The phone rang. Shelley answered. ‘Can I speak to Janine, please?’ the voice asked.

  ‘Is that Mr. Allard?’

  ‘It is. And am I speaking to the redoubtable Miss Shelley Jenner?’

  ‘My sister’s very upset, Mr. Allard.’

  ‘Oh?’ The mocking note had disappeared. ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘Because,’ Shelley rushed on, against her better judgment which was urging her to stop, ‘you lied to her. A business engagement, you said. Since when has another woman been a business engagement?’

  ‘Your sister, Miss Jenner,’ there was brittle anger in his tone, ‘can be as upset as she likes. I’m under no obligation to her in any shape or form. There are no ties between us, no promises have been exchanged. We merely go around together. Is that understood?’ The receiver crashed down.

  ‘Shelley!’ Janine shrieked. ‘Let me speak to him. You had no right—’

  ‘He’s gone,’ Shelley said dully.

  She left Janine madly dialling Craig’s number. ‘Craig,’ she heard, ‘don’t take any notice of Shelley. I’ve told you before, she hates men, especially you. I don’t, Craig, you know that...’

  Next morning, Craig was in his mother’s room when Shelley went in. He was leafing through documents on the desk but pushed them aside when she entered. His mood was bad, Shelley judged, by the way he looked at her.

  ‘I’d like to clear the air between us, Miss Jenner, in relation to our acid conversation on the phone last night. First, who saw me with the so-called “other woman”?’ Shelley told him. ‘Janine. Right. Secondly, even if Sylva Wallasey-Browne were a girl-friend of mine, that would be my business and no one else’s. Despite the fact that I take your sister out, I’m a free agent where women are concerned. Is that clear?’

  Shelley dropped her belongings on her desk across the room. ‘But—but where does my sister fit into your picture? You can’t get a girl fond of you—and I can see with my own eyes that she is—and shrug it off as if it were of no importance.’

  He strolled towards her, eyes slitted. ‘Are you asking me my intentions?’

  Shelley’s head drooped and she sank on to her chair utterly at a loss as to how to deal with the situation—or the man.

  ‘Let’s get this straight. I have no “intentions” regarding your sister.’

  Her head lifted. ‘So what are you doing? Playing around with her, breaking her heart? I’ve suffered that way, remember, and I don’t want it to happen to her. You’re not going to hurt her as another man hurt me. Stop misleading her—’

  ‘And you stop seeing your sister through rose-tinted spectacles. She’s no more serious than I am about our relationship. She’s just immensely flattered.’

  ‘You’re wrong, I’m sure you’re wrong. When she saw you last night with that—with Sylva Wallasey-Browne she was terribly upset.’

  ‘No doubt she was, at being deprived of an expensive meal at one of the many restaurants and hotels I take her to.’

  Shelley felt she should let the subject rest, but something drove her on. ‘My—my sister hasn’t any depth, Mr. Allard. She’s sweet and pretty, and fundamentally a happy person, but she’s not your intellectual equal. If you—if you married her eventually, it would founder.’

  Why, she asked herself, was she persisting like this? What was she hoping to get from this conversation?

  ‘I haven’t got marriage in mind, Miss Jenner, not where any woman is concerned. I have no wish—no need—to tie myself down.’ His anger left him and he lounged against her desk, hands deep in his pockets. The expression on his face warned of the baiting to come. ‘I need women only for relaxation, and by that I mean physical relaxation. I don’t need them to relax my mind. I could find that outlet in reading novels or watching films.’

  Shelley’s heart began slowly, inexorably, to sink. She knew now for what she had been searching in pressing the subject.

  ‘Nor,’ Craig went on relentlessly, ‘do I
need women to stimulate my mind. My work obliges in that respect. Therefore I don’t “need” intelligent women. In fact,’ he looked her over, her glasses now in position, ‘I shy away from them. The more intelligent a woman is, the more I keep her at arms’ length. So don’t worry about your sister at my hands. I find her amusing and a diversion, nothing more.’ Her drawn-in lips, her suppressed anger moved him to a mocking smile. ‘And,’ he went on, ‘when sex “rears its ugly head”, as the saying goes, your sister is perfectly capable of making up her own mind about how far she goes or allows me to go.’ Shelley winced. ‘She’s no child. You may have watched over her for years, from puberty to young womanhood, but she doesn’t need you clucking round her like a frustrated old hen any more.’

  Now Shelley’s lips quivered and she stood to face him. ‘How can you speak to me like that? After all I’ve done for her, looking after her when our parents died, working overtime to earn more money so that she could be apprenticed to a hairdresser. Even,’ her voice lowered, ‘to sacrificing my marriage.’ Craig’s eyebrows rose. ‘In the end my—my fiancé threatened to refuse to have Jan living with us after we were married.’ Shelley looked away. ‘The night before our wedding we quarrelled—over Jan. Then Michael said he couldn’t go through with it. Needless to say, I didn’t tell Jan the whole story.’

  He looked at her steadily. ‘So it’s not true that he found someone else?’

  ‘Yes, it is true. He—he said he didn’t love me any more, and he was sorry it had taken him until the eve of our wedding to find it out. Now,’ she challenged him, ‘do you see why I don’t trust any man?’