A Prologue To Love (40 page)

“You take all kinds of risks!” she said harshly. He was startled at her tone and looked up.

“We all do,” he said, wondering at her strong change of mood. “We take the worst risk of all when we draw our first breath. We’re surrounded by risk.”

Caroline did not reply.

“What’s the matter, Carrie? You look very white.”

“Nothing.” Then she bent her head and laid her cheek on the back of his hand.

“Carrie dear,” he said with concern, “what is it?”

“I wish,” she mumbled, her lips now against his hand, “that you’d just stay here with me and the children and not go out and away.”

“You mean,” he said, laughing a little, “you want to lock us up to keep us safe? That’s silly. There are stairs to fall down inside this house, floors to slip on, fires that could burn us all to cinders, food that can go bad and poison us, dusts that carry infections. There’s no safe place anywhere, Carrie.”

He looked down at her head and tried to see her face. He suddenly remembered her face on the morning after their wedding night, as it lay sleeping on the pillow beside him. It had had such a clean yet shining look, as pure and quiet as the face of a statue, purged of fear and recoil. He had raised himself on his elbow to look and to wonder and to feel fresh love. She had not been afraid of him, he remembered. He did not know that in a very dangerous sense she had actually taken him.

He bent and kissed her hair, and he wondered if he would ever be able to rescue her from her chronic fear.

“Let’s go and see the kids,” he said, smoothing one of her ears with a gentle finger.

She sat up abruptly. “I have some work to do,” she said. “I’ll get dressed and go into my study. Children are very boring, at least to me.”

“They’re fond of you, Carrie.”

“Are they? I never noticed. If you want to go, Tom, don’t let me detain you.”

He hesitated. In some odd way he felt that he should not leave Carrie at once. Carrie could be very foolish sometimes, he reflected. But still he hesitated, and though she bent over her papers again she watched him out of the corners of her eyes. Then he sighed and left the room. Caroline’s hand clenched over her pen with ferocious jealousy. How could Tom prefer the company of young and stupid children to hers?

Tom went up the broad and curving stairway to the second floor. As always, he kept pausing to look with pleasure and contentment at the sunlit rooms full of the flickering shadows of the leaves on the trees he had planted years ago and the far, faint glimmer of the ocean light. The house was quiet. To him, it was a peaceful place. He liked the distant clatter of dishes and pots in the kitchen and the voices of the servants; he could smell their morning coffee. He had a sudden desire to go into the kitchen and sit at the table and talk with the servants, whose customary sullenness lightened at the sight of him.

But he went up to the big nursery. Here were different voices, quarrelsome and pettish. The nursemaid scolded; old Beth pleaded. Tom opened the door. Little Elizabeth was firmly seated on John’s big rocking horse, and he was trying to pull her off, and little Ames was whining on the rug and discontentedly smacking a toy animal. The room blazed with sunlight and gushed with warm air. It was a pleasant room, the walls papered with delicate flowers, the floor polished, the soft draperies blowing.

“Well, well,” said Tom. The children immediately raised their voices in a shrill and protesting chorus. John ran to him, a tall sturdy boy, large for his age, with crisp dark curls, his mother’s broad face and hazel eyes and blunt nose. “Make her get off, Papa!” he screamed, pulling at Tom’s hand, “She won’t get off!”

“Let her ride a little,” said Tom. He smiled at his pretty little daughter, who had such big, staring blue eyes, long and satiny fair hair, and delicate features. But she did not answer his smile; her expression was dogged and determined. She rocked more vigorously.

“It’s my horse!” shrieked John in rage, and stamped.

“But you’ve got to share a little,” said Tom soothingly.

“I never saw such children,” sighed Beth, sitting down and fanning herself with her hand. She had aged, had lost much weight, and seemed always tired. Even her eyes had faded to a weary, almost colorless tint. “They have everything, but they’re never contented or happy like other children.”

“I don’t think children are very contented or happy at any time,” said Tom.

“I want fifty cents,” said John, forgetting his horse.

“Why, Johnnie?”

“Just because.”

Tom considered him. “There must be some reason, dear. Tell me.”

“Just to have,” said John, impatient at his idiocy.

This sounded unpleasant to Tom. “For candy? To save for a present?”

“No! Give me fifty cents.”

Tom’s healthy impulse was to refuse. But if he did John would get into a temper again and remember his horse and would pull his sister’s hair and make her cry. Elizabeth was Tom’s favorite, his darling. So Tom gave his son a silver piece, and John smiled up at him slyly and clutched the money in his brown little fist. Elizabeth, watching, suddenly crowed as if in triumph and rocked harder. When Tom came to her she ignored him and continued her crowing. Her blue eyes glistened, and she did not stop rocking even when Tom kissed her. The nursemaid watched, disapproving. Mr. Sheldon was certainly foolish over these ill-behaved children who needed thrashing more often than not.

Tom picked up the squalling little Ames, who was a fat and bouncing child with slate-gray eyes and blond flat hair and a curiously triangular face, broad and wide at the top and tapering abruptly and sharply to a very pointed and receding chin. He was once the least healthy of the three children; as an infant he had been scrawny and had constantly whined and had had the croup. Now he was fat, but his color was pale and delicate, and his flesh lacked firmness.

“Candy!” he cried, avoiding Tom’s kisses and wriggling in his arms.

Tom glanced at the nursemaid, who shook a disapproving head and firmly folded clean clothing. “Well, now,” said Tom. “You’ve had candy, haven’t you?”

“Too much,” said Beth, rocking and fanning herself. “That’s all he ever wants; he hardly eats anything. Don’t give him any, Tom.”

“Candy!” screamed the child.

Tom put the boy down. Ames waddled furiously to Beth and kicked her leg. Immediately the elderly nursemaid swooped on him and smacked him hard on his bottom. “Bad boy!” she cried. “Bad, wicked, spoiled boy!”

Tom wanted to interfere, but he was wise enough not to, knowing that Briggs was very competent. Ames howled; Elizabeth rocked silently; John ran vigorously up and down the room in sheer animal restlessness.

“They’ll be all right, Mr. Sheldon,” said Briggs, giving the father a sharp smile. “It’s time for them to go out now and work off their spirits on the beach.”

So Tom, somewhat depressed, though reassuring himself that children usually managed to grow up to be presentable adults, went down again to the morning room. Caroline was not there. He walked through a wide hall to her study. She sat at her desk, straight and upright, dressed in a dull brown frock with a ruffle of yellow lace at her throat. The ruffle held the silver pin Tom had given her so long ago.

“How are the children?” she asked indifferently when Tom entered.

“As lively as usual,” he said. “Carrie, I wish you’d give them a little more of your time.”

“Why? They have Briggs and Beth.”

“But they need their mother.”

“Nonsense. That’s sentimentality.” She held up the morning newspaper. “I thought you might like to see this; I find it amusing.”

It was a Boston newspaper, dated the day before. There was a photograph of a young woman on one of the pages which recorded the events of society, a large and prominent photograph. The girl had a beautiful face, slender, composed, but sad. Her light eyes looked from the page with an expression of mute longing, and her fair hair was drawn simply back from her fine cheekbones and the excellent contours of her face and folded into a chignon at the nape. Her sensitive mouth, exquisitely shaped, expressed sorrow and resignation, and her throat appeared long and vulnerable. Tom read the column beside the portrait:

“Miss Melinda Mary Winslow, daughter of Lord and Lady Halnes of Paris and London, arrived in Boston last Sunday with her parents for a short visit. She is a member of the Assemblies and made her debut in London and Boston four years ago. It will be remembered as one of the most brilliant debuts of the season of 1888. Miss Winslow is the adopted sister of Mr. Timothy Winslow of Boston and New York, who married Miss Amanda Bothwell in June 1890, an occasion Boston will long remember.”

Tom studied the portrait and was touched by the expression on the lovely face. “Oh,” he said. “Your adopted cousin. I never met her. She’s not married, is she? Do you know why?”

“Yes,” said Caroline with a most unpleasant smile. “I know.”

She would say nothing more. She dismissed the subject and said, “No one believes me, but we’re on the verge of a financial panic.”

Tom Sheldon had met Timothy Winslow for the first time less than two years after he had married Caroline Ames.

Caroline rarely spoke of her relatives, and Tom had come to the conclusion that there was something malign and disreputable about them all. When she had read of her aunt’s marriage to Montague Lord Halnes she had at first been silently shocked and then had flown into a bitter rage. After Tom had calmed her a little he questioned her, but she became as furiously silent as she had been furiously vocal and incoherent. She said only, “That unspeakable woman! And my father dead not even four months! And that man!”

“But, Carrie, she wasn’t your father’s widow.”

Caroline would say nothing then. A few days later she spoke of Melinda with contempt and mysterious hatred.

When they had been married a month Caroline mentioned her cousin Timothy, and he was surprised to hear her speak with some warmth and kindness. She told him of the arrangements she had made for Timothy, of her father’s belief in him. Later she went to New York with Tom, but did not suggest that he go with her to her lawyers and bankers, and though he was relieved he was also hurt. Was Carrie ashamed of him? He asked her that question later, and she had looked at him with absolute surprise and had said, “Tom, don’t be silly!” It was not until much later that he discovered that his wife was naturally secretive; she would seldom talk about her investments and holdings to him and merely mention that she had bought or sold.

Once, he remembered, she had begged him to go with her to see her lawyers and help her. Now that they were married she never suggested it. She kept her papers locked in a big safe in her study; she also kept her desk locked. He had discovered this accidentally a year after their marriage. He did not ask her why she did this; he had learned much of Caroline by this time.

When John was born in the old rotting house in Lyndon, in the deep of an exceptionally bad winter, she had had a severe ordeal. She did not recover quickly; she retained a certain listlessness. Then matters needed her attention in New York, but her doctor forbade her to go while the weather remained bitter, and so she had sent for Timothy to come to her. They had just moved to the house near Lyme, and Timothy arrived one day, carrying his brief case.

Tom, usually kind and tolerant and ready to like anyone, did not like Timothy Winslow, that sleek, quiet, fair young man with his calm and elegant ways, his pale and observant eyes, his low voice, his fine features. He was courteous, listened politely when Tom spoke, and subtly made Tom feel stupid, ignorant, clumsy, and totally irrelevant. He and Caroline stayed all day in her study, and it was tacitly understood that Tom’s presence was not necessary. Just before dinner they had emerged, and Timothy had remarked with the utmost agreeableness about the pleasant rooms of the house and its excellent form. But it was quite evident to Tom that Timothy did not really like the house. Tom thought it boorish of Caroline to remark, when Timothy admired the drawing-room furniture, “Oh, it’s not really Sheraton, none of it. Just replicas Tom found somewhere.”

“Replicas?” Timothy had repeated, raising his light eyebrows.

Then Tom had said with hard coldness, “I don’t know what’s wrong with good replicas.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” Timothy had replied too quickly. “If Caroline hadn’t told me I doubt that I’d known. It’s remarkable what they can produce in factories these days, isn’t it?”

His voice dismissed both Tom and factories, and during dinner he had talked almost entirely with his cousin. He had admired the new baby. He had remained overnight and then had left early. When he was gone Tom, still smarting, said to his wife, “Your cousin despises me. But I can tell you one thing, Carrie. He hates you.”

Caroline seemed vaguely interested. “Really, Tom? Well, what does that matter? I don’t like him, either; I admire him for his ability, and he’ll serve me well so long as it’s to his profit. And he’s given me some excellent advice about my investments, even when my lawyers and bankers and brokers thought him wrong. So, you think he hates me? We detested each other when we were children. Now we can use each other, and so we’re friends.”

“Perhaps you trust him. But I don’t,” said Tom. “If he can ever find a way to injure you or exploit you, he will.”

Caroline was amused. “He never will,” she said.

She mentioned Timothy later when she heard in a letter from him that his mother had presented Lord Halnes with a son in London and that his infant half brother’s name was William Alexander Albert George Alistair. Caroline was disgusted. “A woman that age, a woman that old!” she said. “Why, she must be forty-six or so.” Then she added with an unexpected malevolence, “I wonder how Miss Melinda likes to be replaced?”

“What did the girl ever do to you?” Tom asked. “She’s very young, isn’t she? About sixteen, seventeen? And she’s an orphan, isn’t she? Carrie, you’re not like your cousin, are you? Looking down on the poor girl because of her birth or something?”

“Oh, Tom,” she said, “if I were like Timothy, would I have married you?”

“Thank you,” Tom answered wryly. Caroline looked genuinely confused. Then she returned to the subject of Melinda. “I never liked that girl; in fact, I think I really hate her. She is nothing but curls and smiles and precious little ways and thinks herself very aristocratic. I hope she is smarting. My aunt was fatuous about her; now she has someone else to be fatuous about, and I’m pleased.”

When the family came to Boston for Melinda’s debut Caroline read of it morosely. She muttered over the account of Melinda’s presentation at Court. But she did not discuss the matter with Tom. That was in December 1888. In the meantime Timothy Winslow had made himself indispensable to his cousin and visited the house near Lyme at least half a dozen times a year with his bulging brief case, and Caroline frequently met him at her office in Boston and in New York. Timothy remained bland and courteous to Tom. He did not speak of his mother or Melinda. Even when he returned from his yearly visit to England he did not mention his family. By this time Caroline had had a telephone installed, and there was hardly a day that she did not speak to her cousin at length and in private. She had come to trust his judgment absolutely. In 1889 she had been able to make him executive vice-president of Broome and Company, with increased responsibilities and a larger salary and profits.

“That’s a lot of money,” said Tom, still smarting over Timothy. “And he’s not quite thirty yet, is he? And he’s still with your lawyers too?”

Caroline did not like even Tom to question her judgments. “You may not like Timothy, but I have absolute confidence in him now, and I made a wise selection. He represents me at meetings of the Board of Broome and Company; I could hardly be on the Board myself, as a woman, and that’s very tiresome. Well, it isn’t too much money for Timothy, considering what he does for me. I wouldn’t know what to do without him.”

One day early in 1889 she returned from New York strangely excited. She was then pregnant with Ames. Tom had protested her going in her condition, but she had refused to listen to him. He thought when she returned that she was sick. But she had given him a darkly exultant smile and had said impatiently that she was quite well and there was nothing wrong.

He was certain there was, but he knew how obstinate Caroline could be and that she became even more so if pressed.

She had stayed on that occasion, as always when alone, at the Gentlewoman’s Pension, which was becoming exceedingly shabby; it was in its final year. She and Timothy had dinner there, also customary after a day or two of long, hard discussion and consultations. The food was more execrable than ever. Caroline noticed that Timothy hardly touched his plate and that he appeared tense. His smile was absent; there were lines of nervousness in his pale face. But he seemed more than usually solicitous about his cousin and unusually deferential. She was quite pleased.

“Should you, Caroline,” he said delicately, “be coming to New York so often — now?”

Caroline said bluntly, “Why not? You mean about my being pregnant? I don’t believe in all that silliness about retiring, Timothy, and keeping out of sight, with the dainty pretension that nothing is about to happen. What is so shameful concerning pregnancy? Queen Victoria used to preside at Parliament and at Court on the very eve, I’ve heard, and no one commented on it.”

Timothy had laughed quickly, though he thought her gross and common.

“Does it show?” asked Caroline in her forthright manner.

Timothy glanced about him furtively. He tried to be as forthright as Caroline and let her see that he admired her, which he did not. “No. No, Caroline. What an extraordinary woman you are! I wish more of our ladies were so honest.”

“I haven’t time to be anything else,” said Caroline. She paused. “I’m grateful to you, Timothy. Against all other advice, but taking your advice about that harvester stock, I made a fine profit on it.”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” agreed Timothy. He relaxed a little. Now for it! “These old men are too conservative; they distrust modern inventions and our powerfully rising industry all over the country. But we are still young, and we have faith in the future.”

She nodded. “I won’t forget this, Timothy. It’s been my biggest profit in three months, and even the last big profit was due to you.”

He sipped a little vile coffee. Then he leaned his elbows on the table and looked at her with flattering seriousness. “Caroline, I must protest your check.”

“Nonsense. You earned it,” said Caroline, wincing only a little.

“I’ve come to admire you over all these years, Caroline. I’ve come to think of you as my best friend.”

She was more and more pleased with him. She was sorry she still could not like him very much.

“And so,” said Timothy, “I want you to be the very first to know.” He hesitated and made his pale eyes more serious than ever and more flattering. “I’m going to be married this summer.”

“Are you?” Caroline appeared interested. “That awful Bothwell girl, Amanda, who has been pursuing you for years?”

“Oh, Carrie.” He lifted his hand deprecatingly and then let it drop on the table. “It wasn’t very gallant of me to tell you, was it? I thought it would amuse you. How old was she when you last saw her? Well, she’s twenty now, and one of those big, hearty Boston girls. A man eater, brisk and ruddy, and addicted to long walks and museums. There, I’m being ungallant again.”

“She has a lot of money,” said Caroline thoughtfully. “The Bothwell fortune is one of the largest in Boston, and they’re very clever in their investments, I’ve heard. You could do worse, Timothy. Then it is Amanda?”

“No.” There was no retreat now. “Caroline, I know how you feel about the other members of our family, and in many ways I don’t blame you. I’ve revised my opinion about one. In fact, I have come to love her, if I may speak frankly. And I want you to think of her kindly, too, as my future wife.”

Caroline knew instantly. The ‘one’ could only be Melinda. She was so shocked that she turned deathly white. Her eyes widened, became huge and full of extreme horror. She pushed her chair back from the table, looked about wildly, as if searching for an exit in an urgent emergency.

Timothy was frightened for the first time in his life. He could see only anger and repudiation in Caroline’s face, in the way her eyelids jerked spasmodically, in the way she had put both hands to her large breast. He had never seen her so shaken. What if he had ruined himself?

“Caroline, please,” he said pleadingly.

Caroline caught her breath. Then she whispered, “Oh, not Melinda! Timothy, not Melinda!”

His acute ear caught something strange in her voice, and his eye something even stranger in her appearance. She was not angry, after all. She was only extremely shaken.

“Caroline dear, please listen,” he urged. “I know how you feel; you think of my mother in connection with Melinda. But Melinda isn’t the least like her, believe me. I wish you had known her better; you would now love her too. I am going to marry her this summer and bring her home with me. The English climate isn’t good for her; she’s quite frail, you know.”

Caroline found her voice. She repeated, “Oh, Timothy. Not Melinda! How could it be Melinda?” And then, to his amazement, he saw that her eyes were large with tears.

“It is Melinda, I’m afraid,” he said with more courage.

Then she cried, “That’s impossible!”

“Why, dear? Do you hate her so much?”

She wanted to say, “You can’t. I never told anyone before, but I know she is my sister. And yours.” But she held back. To tell him this devastating fact would be to degrade her father, to heap filth on his memory. Yet something must be done. Then another thought came to her and sickened her almost beyond bearing.

“Does your mother know about this?”

Timothy, though excessively puzzled about Caroline’s reaction, was relieved. “No, Caroline. Melinda is going to tell her. I’ve just had a letter from her today. She has possibly told Mother by this time. And that is why I am sailing for England the day after tomorrow.”

“Oh, Timothy,” said Caroline in despair for him. “Why didn’t you tell your mother before?”

“Mother’s never liked me, as you know, Caroline. And she adores Melinda. I’ve always been afraid that if she knew prematurely she would do all she could to keep Melinda from marrying me. I’ve had the astute idea for a long time that she would consider me unsuitable for Melinda, not only because I am more than ten years older, but because she distrusts me and never concealed the fact. She’s wrong. I never cared for anyone before Melinda or since. Melinda insisted on telling her now; she is a girl who can’t bear deceit. She’s devoted to my dear mama.”

“That terrible woman!” cried Caroline.

Timothy was silent.

“You can’t marry Melinda,” said Caroline, and her eyes filled with tears again.

“Why?” he insisted.

“Your mother should have told you.”

“What should she have told me? Is your objection, Caroline, because Melinda is an orphan of unknown parentage?”

Caroline wanted to say yes, but falsehood was almost impossible for her. She could only shake her head mutely.

“Well, then.” Her strangeness made him uneasy. “What else, Caroline?”

She tried to drink water, but it splashed over her hand, and she put the glass down. Then she stared at him blankly for several moments. Wicked woman! Let her tell her son herself, in faraway England. Let her suffer as she had made others suffer with her wantonness. Let her feel shame and agony. Let all know what she was.

She said in a clearer voice, “Please don’t think, dear Timothy, that I am objecting. But you must tell your mother. You say Melinda has probably already told her by now. I doubt she will give her the reason why you cannot marry Melinda. And she must tell you!”

Now Timothy watched her alertly.