A Prologue To Love (70 page)

Ames Sheldon had been married to Amy less than two months when he discovered that he was utterly bored by his young wife. And boredom was one condition for which he had no tolerance.

One of Amy’s schoolgirl friends had once said, “Amy Winslow is so absolutely sweet that she sets your teeth on edge and makes your ears ring.” Others, even more malicious, had remarked on Amy’s lack of ‘character’. She was called cloying, had ‘nothing to say for herself’, was ‘too eager to please’, ‘uninteresting’, ‘a darling but just a little stupid.’ ‘Everything is sweetness and light to Amy — so dull’. Still others said, “It’s impossible to spend an interesting hour with her. She’s well read and educated, but she has no opinions. If you speak sharply to her, out of sheer impatience with her shy gurglings and assents, she looks so wounded that you feel like a dog and even more impatient.” An old lady remarked that Amy was a most sweet young girl, “but she will make the most devastatingly boring old woman. I do believe the child is a little simple.”

Though there was some slight truth to these malicious or forthright remarks, Amy was, in fact, by nature and training, an anachronism in an age where women were demanding to be respected not only for their sex but for their intelligence and their enlightened opinions. Her father had had a very intelligent, lovely, but exigent mother, and he had hated her. His cousin Caroline was a woman of power in spite of her reserve and avoidance of strangers, and he had feared that power as well as envied it. But his sister Melinda had always been his dream of fair women, for she was gentle, kind, and truthful. So it was on the image of Melinda that he had tried to impress the soft and fragile wax of his daughter’s spirit. The result had been not only an accentuation of her natural shyness and gentleness but a trustfulness that men were not only physically stronger than women but spiritually, too, and that their very faults had some implicit virtue.

It had never occurred to Timothy that Amy might marry a man with not only her father’s own attributes but with even more of his exigence and cruelty. He had never known that some women unconsciously sought men resembling their fathers if they loved those fathers. But while Timothy had been charmed with his daughter’s blushing simplicity and shyness, gentleness and submissiveness, Ames found himself, just before Christmas of 1914, so bored that he would wryly remark privately that he felt as if his mouth were constantly stuffed with spun sugar.

He had never had too much of Amy’s company before he married her. He had loved her for her prettiness and sweetness and her ardent admiration of him. His first pity for her, on the day of their marriage, his first promise to himself that he would be good to her, and his first shame had disappeared with the first flush of passion. He liked women with spirit and some independence, women who could cajole naughtily, pout, be capricious, a little demanding, and who had some irrational but pretty temper.

Amy was not only ‘yes-saying’ but adored him indiscriminately, was in a state of constant anxiety to please him — which led him to some cruelties of speech and action even beyond his usual ways — and had a way of sweetly chattering which made him think of a single, saccharine violin note constantly singing in his ears.

“What do you think of this war in Europe?”he would ask her.

She would look at him, eagerly smiling, damnably hopeful, trying to guess from his expression what she should say that would meet with his approval and not annoy him. After a few times such as this Ames would deliberately mask his smooth, pale face so that Amy could not get a clue from him. This confused her, set her adrift, and frightened her. Then she would say timidly, “What do you think, Ames?”

“I asked you, Amy.”

The eager radiance, which was by now beginning to irritate him, would die from her pretty face. “Oh, I don’t know,” she would murmur distressfully. “It is so sad, isn’t it? I really don’t know what it is about — ”

They had been married six weeks when Ames said with exquisite brutality, “You never know what anything is about, do you, darling? You never had a single thought in that dear little pinhead of yours, did you? And yet you are twenty-one!”

No one had ever spoken to poor Amy like this before, not even her brothers in their roughest adolescent state. She did not become indignant and retort sharply, as her mother would have done. She was merely crushed. She was not living up to dear Ames’ expectation; she was failing him. And so she would cry.

At first Ames thought the crying a little touching. Now it bored him, as everything about Amy was beginning to bore him. He had been a man about town since he was eighteen and discovered that he could charm and fascinate and delude both men and women and use them and delight them by his use. He belonged to the best of clubs. He began to leave Amy alone more and more in his exquisitely furnished flat with his finely trained manservant. From the first he had warned Amy not to consider any changes to suit herself. His flat was perfect; it needed, he said a little viciously, no feminine touch.

He was in actual flight from his young wife, and for this he deserved a little pity also. In these early weeks he would often leave her abruptly for fear that he would lash at her malignantly and thus destroy the picture of himself as a civilized and self-controlled gentleman. Once he thought: I could become a wife-beater. Easily! When he came home for dinner Amy would be prettily dressed in her schoolgirl fashion. Sometimes he would say, “For God’s sake, Amy, you are a married woman now! Do buy some distinguished clothes. Something with sophistication.” But Amy could not be sophisticated.

By the end of December, Amy was serving tea to her old friends and going out to tea. Everyone observed that though poor Amy had never had much wit or conversation she had always been like a rose in a room, silent but blooming and scented. She was no longer like a rose; her high fresh color was fading. Her large brown eyes had a constant expression of lostness and anxiety. She became visibly thinner. She would have her mother for tea — for Timothy was up and about now in the old house — and would merely look at Amanda as if imploring her mother to give her the secret of successful wifehood. Not only was Amanda beginning to hate Ames more strongly each time she saw her pathetic daughter, but she was also beginning to hate Timothy, who had made this girl what she was.

She tried to give Amy advice. “If Ames goes out too much, set your foot down, dear.” But Amy did not know how to set her foot down. “If he says nasty things, Amy, speak up with dignity.” But Amy did not know how to speak up, with dignity or otherwise. “If Ames is disgusting — and men are frequently that, dear — tell him so and demand that he do better.” But Amy had been taught by her father that no man is disgusting, and she did not know how to demand.

“If he stays out late, don’t be there when he gets home,” said Amanda, suffering for her daughter. “Or be even later than he is and refuse to tell him where you’ve been.” Amy looked at her with horror. “Oh, Mama, I couldn’t do that to Ames! He’s so good! I couldn’t hurt him like that. Besides, isn’t a woman always supposed to be there, greeting her husband when he comes home?”

“Not always,” said Amanda dryly. “In fact, not regularly. It gives him something to think about.” But this baffled Amy; she did not understand her mother. “When your father was particularly atrocious — and you have no idea how atrocious men can be,” said Amanda, “I would give him the silent treatment. It’s very effective. You see, they are born with the myth that women are always talking; it throws them terribly when a woman is silent and refuses to speak to them.” But Amy believed that when Ames was inexplicably displeased it was her duty to chatter at him and try to discover how she had offended him. Though he was cruel by nature, she evoked depths of cruelty in him which would have remained latent had he been married to a woman of more independent character.

“Oh, Amy, for God’s sake, shut up!” he exclaimed once.

Amy’s tension and bafflement began to show in little fine lines about her innocent and tender mouth. She was a foolish and silly wife. She had wronged Ames by marrying him. She exerted herself more and more to please, and only infuriated Ames. She excited the compassion of his manservant, Griffith, a middle-aged Englishman of impeccable manners and understanding. He thought that Mrs. Sheldon was exactly like the English schoolgirls he had known. She was increasingly lonely. He let her help him with the dusting and polishing and would talk to her gravely, and she would listen in gratitude. He consulted her about the dinner menus and what guests should be fed. She had taste and a timid graciousness, and he admired her extravagantly and would cause her to blush and become radiant again. Poor little soul, he would think, and then would say, “Certainly, madam. That is exactly right. Thank you for reminding me.”

Without Griffith, Amy would have found life intolerable and desperate. Griffith took it upon himself to discuss the war with the poor girl and give her thoughts and ideas. He encouraged her to visit the Museum again and her old friends. But all her laughter in this house was only when she and Griffith were alone. At Christmas she gave him three hundred dollars in gold. She thought it was gratitude — poor Griffith! — when she saw tears in his shrewd black eyes.

What little spirit Amy had ever had was fast diminishing, as was her color. Sometimes Griffith found her crying. He would bring her a little whiskey or brandy in hot water, with lemon, and solicitously remark on her ‘cold’. He meant no harm. He had no way of knowing that he was initiating disaster for Amy.

It was understood by her sons that Caroline never wanted to celebrate Christmas and did not care to be visited on that day. She had not seen Amy since Elizabeth’s funeral. She had no curiosity. She had had no malevolence in planning the marriage between her son and Amy, except for the effect it would have on Timothy. Secluded, turned immovably inward, unaware of human emotions and human disasters and fears and hopes and tragedies, she never once wondered how that young marriage was progressing. Her life was in her fortune, the trust her father had left her.

She did know, however, from talks with Mimi Bothwell, that all was not well between Mimi and John Sheldon. This was comforting to Caroline, and reassuring. This lovely girl, this girl so like herself in her own girlhood, this gifted girl, this darling, would never be so stupid as to marry Caroline’s son. Not only was Mimi celebrated in New York and other cities for her marvelous paintings and praised for being ‘the finest colorist since Tintoretto’ and ‘one of the most explicit and imaginative of modern painters’, but she had a mind and character. People were misled by her air of refinement and dignified restraint and sudden, vivid smiles. When it came to selling her paintings, however, Mimi had the instincts of an excellent trader.

She thought that her Aunt Caroline was unjust to her son. Who could help loving John, so amusing, so colorful, so sprightly, so masculine, so strong, so brilliant? Of course John was very tiresome in insisting that a wife should be a wife and that this ‘nonsense painting’ was only a feminine whim. He was not in the least impressed by the notices she received, nor the money. He had his grandfather’s obdurate attitude toward art. He saw no color in Mimi’s work. He knew he was color-blind. He concealed this physical flaw in carping, indulgent criticism. What in the world was Mimi trying to ‘express’, to use the ridiculous modern term? Of course it was all ‘play’. But Mimi was twenty-one, and it was time to marry, and her mother, Aunt Melinda, was agreeable to the marriage.

“You’ll forget about all this when we are married, sweet,” he would say to Mimi.

“No,” said Mimi, feeling tired. “This is my life.”

“But a woman’s life is in her husband. Didn’t you know?”

“Certainly, silly Johnnie. But does a woman have to lose her soul in marriage? Does she have to become only an echo of her husband? Hasn’t she a life, a spirit, a mind of her own? John, if and when we marry, I don’t intend to give up my painting.”

John was a darling, Mimi would think with a woman’s tenderness. She did not know that John was afraid of her success. He often thought about his brother Ames. Ames had married Timothy’s daughter and had received three million dollars from his mother. John never forgot what he had overheard and seen that day nearly five years ago and the evidences of his mother’s love for Mimi. The old girl should be good for at least three million dollars when he married Mimi Bothwell. John was shrewd as well as intelligent. He had guessed that his mother’s gift to Ames was a vengeance, though what had inspired that vengeance he did not know.

He himself was doing very well. He had his own law firm now, finally free from the stuffiness of Tandy, Harkness and Swift. He was a criminal lawyer. If more sober law firms execrated him, and if judges looked at him mistrustfully and without admiration, it did not matter to him. He almost always won his cases, for he had a beguiling way, a virility, a confiding attitude, an amusing manner, a man-to-man approach, which melted the most uncertain of juries. In some way he always managed to get timid and wife-dominated men on them. He was their picture of the masculine male, burly, unafraid, free, independent, unharassed by intransigent wives and demanding daughters. He was the powerful Man, before whom women were silent.

Mimi was his only problem. He truly loved and desired her. His hatred for her ‘art’ rose from the fact that it appeared to be his contender, his rival. He wanted Mimi to devote herself to him, unlike his brother Ames, who wanted no devotion. He was willing that Mimi amuse herself with her painting, provided it did not interfere with her absorption in her husband. But he did not want Mimi to be publicly admired and acclaimed. That would draw her from him.

Mimi thought John’s dislike of her art only a masculine jealousy, an almost lovable quirk. She could not understand his occasional and passionate outbursts against it. He felt his love menaced, as his father’s love had been menaced, and destroyed. John’s greatest need was for a docile and compliant wife who would adore him and would assure him that in all ways he was loved.

Caroline said to Mimi, “You must never marry John. Of course you know better. He will ruin you. He’s really very stupid, you know. What does he know of your art? You have an obligation when you have a gift.”

“To whom?” asked Mimi with sudden sharpness.

“To yourself,” said Caroline. “To others who gave it to you.”

Mimi smiled then. She had no intention of stopping painting. John would understand finally, dear strong, vigorous John, who was merely being pettish. He would understand that women in this era had a right to a life of their own. This was the twentieth century. John would learn that eventually. Her golden eyes would glow, thinking of John.

She had seen her cousin Amy only once or twice since Amy’s marriage. Mimi had never liked Ames; he seemed far and desultory to her, an enigma. But she loved Amy, so tender and weak and yielding. She was baffled by Amy’s babbling, however. What in heaven’s name was the child talking about with this insistence that she had ‘failed’ Ames and was not pleasing him? “If you please yourself, you please everybody,” said Mimi, who was in her way as innocent as Amy. It was a nice aphorism, she complimented herself, and just what little Amy needed. Amy looked at her with stark pleading, and Mimi was exasperated.

Mimi had lost much of the artlessness of her girlhood, though not her honesty. She was less deluded than most young women her age, except in the case of her cousin John. She was reserved in showing her emotions and affections, but with John she was ardent. On Christmas Eve, fearless of the dark and the snow, she went to see her Aunt Caroline. She was never reconciled to the bleakness and grime and abandonment of the house, but she often reminded herself that every person had a right to his own way of life and should not be criticized for it unless it caused others pain or inconvenience. Caroline herself opened the door, for the maid had demanded and received the night off and the next day also.

“Mary,” said Caroline, and put out her large hands and pulled the girl into the dank hall. Mimi could make her smile almost immediately, as one smiles at a fire or a flower. “But what are you doing here at night, and alone? Did you walk?”

“It’s only a few miles,” said Mimi. Her cheeks were bright, her beautiful hazel eyes shining. She kissed Caroline, then looked at her searchingly. “Are you sick?” she asked. “You don’t look well, dear Aunt Caroline.”

“I’m perfectly well,” said her aunt. Mimi removed her black seal coat and round seal hat, threw her muff on a chair, and shook out the flounces of her red wool frock. Her vitality lit the hall like a lamp. She put her arm about Caroline, and they went into the dingy, dimly lit drawing room together, where the smallest of all possible fires lurked on the ash-strewn hearth.