A Prologue To Love (3 page)

“I know,” muttered Beth. “But it’s Carrie. Somehow, I can’t go away and leave her.”

“Never be sorry for anyone to your disadvantage,” said Kate. “That’s a fool’s way, and a weakling’s.”

“It could also be Christian,” replied Beth angrily. “And having some pity!”

Kate lifted her old head abruptly and stared without blinking at Beth. Her mouth grimaced after a few moments. “You mean that,” she said flatly, and shook her head. “God help you, girl, you mean that. You’re a mystery if there ever was one.”

“Not me,” said Beth. But she was a little pleased. “I never told you, but I have a little pension. Fifteen dollars a month. A government pension. After Harry — went away — and I never knew it! — he enlisted in the army. He was killed in Virginia, just before the war ended. I didn’t even know he was in the army. But he must’ve loved me after all, for the government notified me of his being killed, and about the pension.”

“More likely he used you for an excuse not to marry his strumpet,” said Kate. “Now, don’t come over all wounded, Beth. So you have fifteen dollars a month. You can afford to stay here and look after Carrie after all.”

She lifted her bony finger and shook it at Beth. “Now, let me tell you something. When
he
comes home, you ask him for more money. Two dollars a month more. Tell him you’ll leave unless he gives it to you. He’ll not get another woman to dance attendance on his brat for eight dollars a month! And he’ll not dare put her on me again.”

The wind became more violent; the old windows rattled fiercely. The light was crepuscular, and the fire sank even lower. Puffs of icy air blew through the room.

“Oh, you’re very independent,” said Beth, tossing her head.

“That I am,” replied Kate with a satisfied snicker. “And I did it for myself. I’d not have left Ann when she was alive, but after she died I went right up to
him
and said, ‘I’m off, sir. I’ve got a little money saved, and there’s my old sister in England, with a sweets shop, and Ann left me two thousand dollars’.”

She paused, smiling with pleasure at the memory.

“Well,” resumed Kate. “He was in a quandary. He was paying me twelve dollars a month. No other servants. Where would he get a woman, even an old one, to work for him, in two houses, with a brat, and putting up with everything as I do, for that bit of money? Not that he didn’t try! He did. So one night he comes to me and says he’ll pay me fourteen dollars a month and looked at me like he was the brother of Queen Victoria, herself. All pleased with himself for being so generous. And I said no. Not Kate Snope. I was off to England. He couldn’t buy me with any wages.”

She popped another peppermint into her mouth and sucked it voluptuously. “I let him think that over for a bit. And then he comes to me with his stony face. He’d pay me fourteen dollars a month, yes. And he’d make a bargain with me. For every year I’d stay with him, taking care of his houses and his brat, supervising things, he’d put five hundred dollars to my name in the bank! Now, what do you think of that?”

“Five hundred dollars a year!” exclaimed Beth, awed. “Why, you must have thousands from him by now!”

“Yes,” said Kate happily. “I made him pay me back from Carrie’s birth. That’s five thousand dollars. No go, otherwise. ‘And moreover’, I says to him, ‘I want help’. And so you came.”

“So he must be rich, after all,” said Beth. “Five thousand dollars, and five hundred extra every year!” She was incredulous. Then her eyes narrowed. “But didn’t you tell me that your Ann had asked you to stay with her child and that you’d promised never to leave Carrie? Didn’t Mr. Ames remind you of that?”

“He didn’t know,” said Kate. “And I’m trusting you to say nothing to him. But if you can’t hold your tongue and you tell him, that promise or not, I’ll leave. I’m that hard.”

“I’m not a tattler,” said Beth proudly. “But goodness! You must hate him.”

“Always did,” said Kate, placidly chewing a small cake.

Though it was growing much colder and the light was very dull now, Beth Knowles forgot the child watching the sea outside. She was absorbed in the strange story she had been hearing. She said, “How old was Miss Esmond when she married
him
?”

Kate’s face changed, became tight, almost evil. “She was only twenty. And he was thirty-four, almost old enough to be her father. He’s forty-five now; he never changes. Those that are wicked never change; the devil’s with them, taking care of his own.”

A thin long plume of smoke, far out on the ocean, divided the sky and sea like the stroke of a pencil. Caroline sat higher on her boulder. “Oh,” she murmured aloud, “let that be Papa’s ship! Please, good Jesus.” She clasped her small broad hands tightly on her knees and watched the smoke. For a few moments it dwindled, then became larger. But she could not as yet see the ship.

No one but Beth had ever taught her any religion or had taken her to any church. She did not remember her young mother well, nor if that mother had taught her any prayers. The name of God was not spoken in the houses of John Ames, except in a whisper at night, beside Caroline’s bed. As Beth’s theology was simple and her knowledge little, Caroline knew only that the Christ had died on a cross in some far country which she mingled in her mind with the fairy tales she read hungrily. He, too, was somewhat mythological in the child’s thoughts. When she thought of Him, which was seldom except at bedtime and on such occasions as this, she visualized Him as a knight in armor, with a pennanted spear and an iron shield.

“Good Jesus,” repeated Caroline again, straining her eyes across the plain of furious water. Then she hugged herself with joy. The dim shadow of a ship could now be seen. Was her father on that ship? He had been gone a long time, ever since she had been brought here in June after school was closed. (Only Kate had heard from him, a single curt letter. “A shame!” Beth had cried to the old woman indignantly. “Never a word about his child, either, you said!” “Don’t be sentimental,” Kate had chuckled.)

The silent shadow of the ship streamed toward Boston Harbor. Now it disappeared around the side of the great rocks on the beach. If it could be docked that night, John Ames would arrive home in the morning. Still, Caroline sat on her boulder, watching the gulls now. The blur of silver which was the sun moved far down to the west. Suddenly one long colorless ray pierced the gaseous clouds and shot down like a long sword onto the sea. Where it pierced it turned the water to an arctic turquoise, like a brilliant pool in the midst of a gray and turbulent plain. The gulls screamed louder. The wind tore at the girl’s shawl, whipped her face savagely, almost blew her from her seat.

“Hello!” said a strange voice at her shoulder. She started violently, then caught at the sides of the boulder to prevent herself from falling. She turned her head, for she abjectly feared strangers. A boy of about twelve was standing beside her, laughing, a big boy with a face bright red from cold and wind, a handsome boy whose bare head was covered with a thick cap of strong black hair.

Caroline did not reply. She stared at him anxiously. He kicked a wet stone. He was poorly dressed, even more poorly than herself; his wrists extended far below his short sleeves, and the trousers he wore were stretched hard to meet his knees, so that he had a long, lithe look, somewhat wild and unkempt. The wind blew his hair from his ears, and they had a faunlike shape, pointed and pale, contrasting with the color on his wide cheekbones and on his full, smiling lips. He had eyes as blue as a winter sky, and his nose was short and virile, his chin deeply dimpled.

“I’m Tom Sheldon,” he said. His voice was strong, almost manly, and full of warmth and gaiety. “You’re not scared of me, are you? Why, I’m your neighbor. We live only about a mile from you. You’re Caroline Ames, aren’t you, old Ames’ girl? Heard about you in the village.”

Caroline did not answer. Old Kate was always warning her not to speak to strangers. “One never knows,” she would say wisely with a menacing gleam in her eyes. Caroline had come to believe, in spite of Beth’s fitful efforts, that those one did not know were in some way ominous. The little girl began to shift uneasily on the boulder. She glanced at the house; if the boy ‘did’ something, this terrible easy boy, she would scream and Beth would come running.

“You scared?” said Tom, and laughed in her face. He studied her, his head held sideways. “Say, you’re not as homely as everybody says. Say, you’re almost nice-looking.” He peered at her, thrusting out his head. “Why don’t you ever come to the village? The old man keep you locked up?”

Caroline, to her immense surprise, heard her voice answering with weak indignation. “He’s not an old man! Don’t you dare talk like that! I don’t know you. I’m going home.” She dropped to the shingle, then paused, for Tom was laughing at her. For some reason her anger vanished. He had said she wasn’t homely!

She did not know how to talk with strangers, and her lips fumbled. She said proudly, “My papa is coming home. I just saw his ship.”

“You mean that old ship that just went by?” asked Tom, waving his hand toward the sea. “Why, that was nothing but an old freighter. I can tell. Your pa on a freighter?”

Caroline was silent a moment. She reflected. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “It’s suppertime. I’ve got to go in.”

Tom put his cold hands in his pockets and eyed her with humor. “They say your pa is as rich as Croesus,” he remarked.

“Who’s Croesus?” asked Caroline, preparing to run off.

Tom shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know,” he replied. “But that’s what they say.”

“You swore,” said Caroline reprovingly. She pulled the shawl closer about her broad shoulders. Then she did something she had never done before. She giggled. Tom regarded her with approval. “Hell,” he repeated, hoping to evoke another giggle. “You sure aren’t so damn homely.”

He gazed at the stocky little girl, with her big shoulders and her very short neck, her heavy arms and heavier legs, her bulky body in its wretched dark red coat. She had a clumsy, slow manner. Her square face had a stolid look and was without color in spite of the bitter gale, and her mouth was large and without mobility, her nose almost square, with coarse nostrils and spattered with large brown freckles. Her solid chin would have suited a youth rather than a girl child, and so short was her neck that it forced a fold of pallid flesh under the chin. Her very fine dark hair, wisping out from its thin long braids, did not lighten her unprepossessing appearance. The wind dashed her braids in the air like whips.

Caroline was tall for her age, but she was half a head shorter than Tom. The children stared at each other, face to face. Caroline with reluctance and fear, but also with a desire to learn again that she was not truly ugly. She gave her benefactor a shy smile, and when she did so her eyes lit up and sparkled. They were remarkably beautiful eyes, a golden hazel, large and well set under her broad, bare forehead and sharp black eyebrows, and they possessed lashes incredibly thick, and they were extremely soft and intelligent, limpid in the last light from the sky.

“There!” said Tom. “Why, you’re real pretty when you smile. You’ve got real pretty eyes, and nice white teeth, too, though they’re kind of big.” He was pleased with himself; he had discovered something unknown to anyone else. He was naturally friendly. In spite of the poverty of his family, he felt no inferiority. He was without fear, for he was strong. He was also gentle in his heart and curious about all things. Caroline’s hands stopped clutching at her shawl. She basked in the memory of what this boy had told her. She lifted her head as if she were a beauty, and for the first time in her short life there was a curious lilting and warmth in her chest.

“My mama was very pretty,” she said. “Aunt Cynthia’s got her picture. It was painted by a great artist. In New York.”

“You must look like her,” said Tom with large kindness. Caroline shook her head and pulled down her whipping braids. “No, I don’t look like Mama at all. She’s dead.”

“You must look like your old man, then,” said Tom.

“Oh no,” said Caroline, as if this were an insult. “My papa’s very handsome. He’s tall and has blue eyes and curly brown hair and dresses very stylish. He buys all his clothes in New York. And he isn’t old. You mustn’t say that.”

“Never saw him,” said Tom, eyeing her shrewdly.

“He’s been away all summer, in Europe,” said Caroline. “He’s on business.”

“He sure is rich, they say.”

Caroline reflected on that. But it was a matter of indifference to her. She was not quite sure what it meant to be rich, or poor. “I don’t know,” she said.

“You don’t know! Why, that’s funny,” said Tom. “Now, I know we’re poor. Sure know we’re poor! My dad does odd jobs around for the folks in the summer colony.” He examined the Ames house and the grounds with a critical eye. “Your pa could use my dad, but then the folks in the village say your pa is as tight as his skin. Tighter. Never spends a cent. He don’t even have a carriage.”

“We don’t need one,” said Caroline. “Not here, anyway. But we’ve got a carriage in Lyndon. Old Jim drives it. Papa always says we’ve got to be careful.”

“Bet you never have any fun,” said Tom suddenly. “You kind of look that way.”

Caroline became confused at all these remarks. What did ‘fun’ mean?

“Bet you never play with any other girls,” Tom continued.

“Well, no,” said Caroline uncertainly. “Papa doesn’t like strangers in the house. He doesn’t want me to get diseases, either. I have to come right home from Public School Number 10. That’s eight streets from where we live in Lyndon.”

“And you don’t play with the girls at school?” said Tom.

“They don’t like me,” said Caroline, as if this were perfectly normal.

“Why not? You look like a nice girl.”

“I don’t know why. They don’t even speak to me. Only the teachers talk to me. I like Miss Crowley the best. She bought me a blue ribbon for Christmas last year. It was awful pretty.” Caroline looked at Tom. He was no longer smiling. “Hell,” he muttered, and kicked a stone viciously.

Then he turned to Caroline again. “Your pa’s rich, and you go to a public school,” he said, as if accusing her. “The summer people who come here send their girls to private schools, and I’ll bet they don’t have half the money your pa has!”

Caroline was confused again.

“And they’ve got servants, too,” went on Tom wrathfully.

“So do we,” said Caroline eagerly, wishing to please him. “We’ve got old Kate, who was my mother’s nurse, and she’s our housekeeper, and we’ve got Beth, who’s awful nice, and she helps Kate and takes care of me.”

“Your clothes are terrible,” said Tom. “Like they come off a Salvation Army line, like mine. Why don’t your pa buy you some pretty dresses like other girls have, and a fur muff? Bet you look worse than even the girls in your public school.”

“I guess we aren’t rich after all,” said Caroline with distress. Being rich suddenly seemed very desirable to her. “We have to be very, very careful, Papa always tells me.”

“Ho!” snorted Tom.

“I’ve got ten dollars in my tin bank in the house,” offered Caroline. She drew a deep breath and added over the bellowing of the wind: “I haven’t told her yet, but I’m going to give three of them tomorrow to Beth. It’s her birthday.”