A Prologue To Love (66 page)

“You wait there,” she said in a hoarse voice, “and I’ll see if Miz Sheldon wants to see you.” She closed the splintered door loudly in his face.

The whole house looks as though no one had ever lived here, thought Mr. Chalmers, suppressing his irritation. The door opened and the girl said, “Wal, come in. What you waitin’ for?” And Mr. Chalmers entered a beautifully proportioned but filthy and littered hall and immediately sneezed in the dust. The maid led him to the drawing room, the most wretched room Mr. Chalmers had ever seen in his life, and abandoned him on the threshold. He saw the once-lovely furniture, now broken and smeared with old oil, the threadbare rug, the tattered draperies. It was cold and dark in here after the hot bright sun outside, and Mr. Chalmers, still sneezing, blew his nose.

“Come in, Higsby,” said a well-bred but rusty voice from the interior of a room which he thought resembled a dirty and abandoned warehouse.

“Thank you, Caroline,” he said, and walked into the room and found his hostess sitting massively and stiffly on a chair. She indicated an opposite chair and said curtly, “Tea?”

“No, thank you, Caroline,” he said hurriedly, thinking of the maid’s dirty hands and sore eyes.

“I have nothing else,” said Caroline.

“It doesn’t matter in the least,” said Mr. Chalmers, sitting down carefully, and politely repressing his impulse to dust off his chair first.

He looked at Caroline, whom he had remembered as a tall, shy, but somewhat imposing girl in plain clothing. His mother had said, “If only someone would take that girl in hand — what on earth is Cynthia Winslow doing, anyway? — she could be quite handsome and very impressive.” He understood that people changed with the years; he had once, himself, been a short but slender and graceful youth, and a fine dancer and sportsman, and beardless. Now he was sixty, solidly fat, with high blood pressure, bifocals, and a beard. But surely he had not changed so drastically as Caroline had changed. He would not have recognized this bulky great woman with her scanty white crown of braids, her dark yet pallid skin, her leaden mouth, hard and sullen, as the Caroline he had known as a girl. Poor soul, poor girl, he remarked to himself, and blew his nose again.

“How are you, Caroline?” he asked, feeling quite shocked.

“Well enough,” she said shortly. “And you, Higsby?”

“Well enough,” he repeated, and smiled. “Clara sends you her regards.”

“Um,” said Caroline. Her large hands were folded in her lap. She wore an old black dress which was of a fashion of many, many years ago, with leg-of-mutton sleeves and a tight bodice with a row of buttons down the front, and a full long skirt. The color was tinged here and there with a hint of green age. Then she stirred just a little. She did not actually smile, but Mr. Chalmers believed she did.

“Clara was in my form at Miss Stockington’s,” she said. “She always complained that her family name, Higsby, was so ugly that she would marry the first man who asked her — so she could change it. Yet she married you, a distant cousin with the very same name, only Christian — Higsby.”

This was a long speech for Caroline, and Mr. Chalmers’ fine acute ear caught it, and he understood. Caroline was trying to be pleasant, and it was a fearful effort for her. He said, “And one of my sons and one of my grandsons are named Higsby too.” He laughed gently. His trained eye was studying Caroline without appearing to do so. He was remembering that she had lost her only daughter, a poor, beautiful, mad thing, only a short time ago after years at Hillcrest.

“I suppose,” said Caroline, “that you are wondering why I sent for you.”

“Frankly, I am,” said Mr. Chalmers.

“It is a political matter,” said Caroline.

Mr. Chalmers was startled. He was a lawyer, and a very successful one. He had believed that Caroline had sent for him because of a problem she preferred not to discuss with Tandy, Harkness and Swift.

“Political?” he echoed.

“You are state chairman of your party, are you not?”

“Yes, of course.” He paused. Women could not vote, and he could not conceive of Caroline, the immured recluse, being a suffragette or interested in politics.

“And the candidate for senator of your party is Gideon Lowe, isn’t he?”

Mr. Chalmers, feeling his way, coughed. Caroline’s cousin, Timothy Winslow, was now of the opposite party and also a candidate.

“Yes. A splendid gentleman, Gideon. You knew his family in Boston, I believe.”

Caroline said impatiently, “No matter. I am not interested in Gideon, except that I want him to be elected senator and defeat my cousin, Timothy Winslow.”

“What!” exclaimed Mr. Chalmers, and took his handkerchief from his mouth. Caroline was silent; she merely waited. Mr. Chalmers stared at her. “Er — pardon me, Caroline, but am I mistaken in believing that Timothy is the only member of your family with whom you are on cordial terms? I’ve heard such a rumor.”

Caroline’s face appeared to retreat in the duskiness. “The rumor is correct,” she said. “That has nothing to do with the fact that I wish him defeated, and very soundly.”

Mr. Chalmers was quite stunned. “You do not — er — agree with his principles and politics?” he murmured.

Caroline grunted. “As a woman, I cannot vote and so am classified with idiots, criminals, and children,” she said. “It is of no interest to me. You will remember that I wrote you that the matter I wished to discuss with you is most confidential?”

“Yes indeed.”

“I know nothing of Timothy’s principles or politics, at least not of his averred ones, which I believe are only for public consumption, as are all politicians’ promises and opinions. I merely want him so defeated, so dis credited, that never again will he offer himself for public office.”

“Indeed,” murmured Mr. Chalmers, who wondered if he was hearing correctly.

Caroline stirred again on her chair. “He wants political office and political power; he has only money. So it must be brought to his attention that he will never attain that office, that power. And that will take a great deal of money, will it not?”

Mr. Chalmers, who had been a politician since he was twenty-five and who thought he had encountered everything extraordinary in his career, was truly speechless now. He rubbed the moist palms of his hands on his handkerchief and could only look helplessly at Caroline.

“I am a very busy woman,” said Caroline with new impatience. “Do you accept or not?”

“Accept what?” said the dazed Mr. Chalmers.

“Money! I thought it takes money to elect anyone.”

“So it does,” said Mr. Chalmers. He pulled himself together. He became grave. “I will be brief. I never liked your cousin. I was always suspicious of him, even when we were youths together.” He lifted his plump palm. “Please, Caroline, let me finish. I have heard that your father called him ‘pernicious’. So he is. I hardly expected him to become the candidate of a party which calls itself ‘progressive’ and is enthusiastic about Mr. Wilson’s ‘New Freedoms’ and is really responsible for the passing of the Sixteenth Amendment — the Internal Revenue Act — of February 1913. After all, Timothy is a rich man. I won’t even expound to you my well-grounded theory that that amendment was rushed through, not to gain revenue for the benefit of America, but to finance the present war in Europe and ultimately involve us in the catastrophe. That is my opinion; it is shared by many others. No matter. We are not discussing that now.

“Timothy is an unusually rich man, even for Boston. He has the Bothwell money in his control. I should have thought such a man would be emphatically against the ‘New Freedoms’, whatever on earth they mean — are we not a free, strong nation as it is? Yet Timothy is the candidate of those people, for senator! That is what I do not understand.”

“He is a Jacobin,” said Caroline. “I have been reading his speeches lately. He is fervent about the workingman. Timothy despises what he calls ‘the people’. Yet he is very eloquent now about the ‘rights’ of the poor worker. So he is a liar.”

Mr. Chalmers, the astute politician, knew that something else lay under Caroline’s sudden and curious air of violence. He kept his voice quiet, and he watched Caroline carefully. “A Jacobin. Very good. Very good, indeed. I suspected that.”

“My father suspected and disliked Timothy,” said Caroline.

But it is not that, thought Mr. Chalmers. He leaned toward her. “I will be brief, Caroline. It takes a great deal of money to get elected. A man cannot put too much of his own money into his campaign; there are laws against that. But he can have friends — Timothy has much influence in Boston and many influential friends who are indebted to him. Moreover, it is becoming quite fashionable, even among Bostonians, to be slightly ‘progressive’. There are fashions in politics as well as in other things. There is something in the air — I do not say that all men who are concerned with the deplorable conditions of the workingman today are liars and potential oppressors. No. My great-grandfather was a bricklayer, himself. But, as a conservative, I believe in the balance of power. This country will fall when there is only a rich and powerful elite and subservient masses, no matter how many circuses and free food are furnished the latter, and how many flatteries. The plan, I am afraid, was laid long ago.”

He sighed. “I have said that it is becoming somewhat fashionable, even in Boston, to be slightly ‘progressive’. It gives silly, rich people a feeling of eclat, takes them out of their fat sluggishness and gives them a sensation of being part of a dynamic movement. It is only an illusion, of course, but I doubt they will awaken in time to the fact that not only has their own ruin been well plotted, but the destruction of their country as well.

“To be desperately candid about it, I think Timothy will be elected. Gideon has only honor, integrity, and justice to offer.”

“I am not interested,” said Caroline. “Are you aware that I own the mortgage of the Boston
Morning Enquirer
, which is supporting my cousin?”

“No!” cried Mr. Chalmers in consternation.

Caroline nodded. “Within a few days they will change their tune decisively. They will take ‘second thought’. They will ‘weigh the issues’. They will be very grave. They will support Gideon Lowe. With growing emphasis.”

Mr. Chalmers stood up, put his hands under his coattails, and walked about the room on his short fat legs. Caroline watched him with her intent hazel eyes. Then he stopped before her. “Thank you, Caroline,” he said. “You don’t know what this means to me and Gideon.”

“I am not interested,” she said wearily. “Why can’t you understand? I am only interested in defeating Timothy.”

Mr. Chalmers stood very still, his hands under his coattails, and looked down at her. He did not know why he thought it, but he said to himself: The cost of revenge is very big. Often, it is too high. As a sensitive man, he could feel Caroline’s enormous weariness in his very bones. He sat down heavily.

He said, “It will take a vast amount of money to defeat Timothy, Caroline. Perhaps more than you are willing to expend. The newspaper will be of great help. But money is necessary; I know, in some measure, how much is being expended, through force, flattery and threats, and friendship, on Timothy. Gideon, who is honest, intelligent, mild, and good, does not have that money and does not have Timothy’s friends. How much are you willing to expend to defeat your cousin?”

“What is needed?” The August sun was moving to the west. Long fingers of gold and rose touched the decaying wall near Caroline.

“The Boston
Morning Enquirer
is the largest newspaper in Boston, Caroline. It also reaches all the suburbs and small towns in our vicinity. I suggest thousands of free copies be distributed everywhere. That is only the beginning. Then we must have eloquent speakers, who will demand a fee, and posters and advertising. We must buy expensive pages in other local newspapers. We must have workers. We are not a poor party, but we simply don’t have the outlets our opponents have. We must bring the important issues to the people. As the state chairman of our party, I, too, am limited in what I can spend. We must flood the whole state with news of Gideon, not only Boston.”

“What is needed?” repeated Caroline.

She reached over to a table and took a slim slip of paper in her hand. “I can trust you, Higsby,” she said. “I am giving you this check. When you need more, you have only to call me.”

Mr. Chalmers looked at the check, could not believe it, then readjusted his glasses.

“Not enough?” asked Caroline sardonically.

“Enough,” said Mr. Chalmers in a subdued voice.

“As a beginning,” said Caroline. “I will spend whatever you need to defeat him.”

Mr. Chalmers held the check in his hand. He looked at Caroline. He was not an impulsive man, but he said, “Caroline, can I help you?”

She stood up. “No one can. I must leave you now, Higsby. The maid will order a hack for you. Your train to Boston will leave in half an hour.”

She left him and went upstairs. He could hear the rustling of her dress, the sound of grit under her shoes. He heard a door open, then close.

Caroline lay down on Elizabeth’s bed. “My darling,” she whispered. “My darling.”

There was a stunning blank feeling in her head. She had a strange dream about Elizabeth, who stood before her silently. She said to the shadow, “But I was betrayed long before you were born. Perhaps even before I was born.”

Six days later the maid came to Caroline in her study. “Miz Timothy Winslow wants to speak to you, ma’am. She’s downstairs. Should I send her away?”

Caroline reread a letter from her son Ames and smiled. “I will see Mrs. Winslow,” she said. She went downstairs.

Amanda was waiting in the drawing room, sitting on the edge of the chair where Mr. Chalmers had sat. She did not speak when Caroline came into the room, nor even when Caroline sat opposite her in silence. The two women looked at each other, Amanda’s candid brown eyes straight and steady, Caroline’s indifferent. Amanda was dressed in a light tan suit, long and pleated, and she wore a large feathered hat, and her hands were gloved. Her round and pleasant face was grave and pale.