A Prologue To Love (74 page)

His mother, her round face blotched with tears, her eyes filled with them, was sitting there with a lean, middle-aged man. The man looked faintly familiar; it was not until he stood up respectfully that Henry recognized him as Ames’ butler, cook, and houseman, Griffith. Henry immediately thought of his sister, whom he visited occasionally, perhaps every six weeks or so. He didn’t like to be disloyal to his father and was always uncomfortable with Amy, whom he deeply loved. (Why did she have to do this to Dad, on the very day he had been so shockingly defeated and had had his stroke?)

“Is something wrong with Amy?” Henry asked in an unusually sharp tone, out of his affection for his sister.

“Terribly wrong, dear,” said Amanda. “Sit down. Listen carefully, Henry. Griffith has been telling me the whole story. Amy — well, it seems Ames hates her and has been abusing her in subtle ways almost since the day they were married. He — never cared for her, Henry, not truly. I never told you. But his mother gave him three million dollars to marry Amy. Don’t look so damned incredulous!” cried poor Amanda wildly. “You’ve got to accept some things as facts without everything being in black and white — that comes from your damned law training! I tell you, these things are true! Caroline Ames wanted to revenge herself on your father — ”

“But why?” asked Henry. “She put him on his way, didn’t she?”

“Never mind!” Amanda said in a muffled scream. “I know things you don’t, you young careful-minded idiot! Oh, God, shut that door; I hope your father hasn’t already heard me screeching! Tight; shut it tight. Sit down; don’t hover like a big damned befuddled bumblebee, Henry! Henry, you must just listen!

“He wouldn’t have married her without that money, Henry. Of course he was always after her, and perhaps he did care a little about her, but he had to have that money. Now he thinks Amy’s a fool. He’s always calling her half-witted. I didn’t know! I knew she was unhappy about something, the silly, timid little thing, but she’d never tell me much. And now he’s driven her to drink.”

“Nonsense,” said Henry, paling. “I — I’ve never seen her — What is all this? It sounds pretty ridiculous to me.” He turned to Griffith and said sternly, his kind young face tight, “What are these wild stories you’ve brought my — Mrs. Winslow?”

“Oh, Henry!” said Amanda, weeping again. “Just listen. Griffith is like a father to Amy. He wants us to help her. A few nights ago Amy heard Ames telling Caroline that he was going to divorce Amy, and then apparently Caroline offered him money not to. She just wants him to keep on torturing your little sister! She hates all of us so!”

“Divorce? Torture? Mother, you haven’t swallowed all this?” He again turned to Griffith. “Are you trying to get even with Mr. Sheldon? Has he fired you or something?”

“No, sir, he has not. I am still in his employ, and he pays me a large salary. But Mrs. Winslow is merely condensing what I have been telling her for over an hour.” Griffith spoke with dignity. Then his long slash of a mouth shook. “I’m afraid I am partly to blame, perhaps a great deal to blame. When young Mrs. Sheldon would be most distressed I would bring her a glass of brandy, to calm her. She spent much time with me in the kitchen. She was so lonely, you see; she had no one to talk with, to confide in, except me. She could hardly tell her mother that so early in her marriage she was being derided and abused and tormented by a — by a young man who is strangely — shall we say — corrupt? Perhaps it is not his fault.

“Mrs. Sheldon would come crying into the kitchen at all hours, very badly shocked and shaken, sir. And I would give her brandy. I only thought to soothe her, to calm her. Had I thought that it would lead to — this — this — I’d have cut my right hand off first, sir, and you must believe me.”

Henry bent his curly dark head and considered this for some long moments. Like his mother, he had a bright color. It was all gone when he finally lifted his head.

“But, accepting all these things tentatively, why should Ames want to divorce Amy? They haven’t been married a year yet.”

Griffith hesitated, coughed. Amanda said, “I didn’t know until today, when Griffith told me. Amy will never be able to have children. Don’t ask me for details! Just listen! And so Ames really hates her now. He wanted children who would inherit his mother’s money.”

“A drunkard? Amy?” said Henry after a moment’s contemplation. “I just can’t believe it.” Then he clenched his big hands. “I’ll beat Ames — I’ll kill him.”

“Don’t be hysterical,” said his mother with some malice as she remembered that Henry had called her that when she had protested some of his ideas. Then the malice was gone in fresh tears. “We’ve got to get Amy away from him! We must! She’s drunk almost the whole time now, Griffith tells me. Oh, my God! I’ve heard rumors all over Boston that Amy ‘doesn’t seem herself’. And sly smiles at me. People know, Henry; we are the only ones who didn’t. We must get Amy away before she dies, poor, darling, little baby.”

“He hates her because she can’t have children?” said Henry, who was methodical and orderly in his thoughts. “Oh yes, you’ve said the money. He married her because his mother bribed him to. I’ve never heard anything like this before; it sounds — ”

“You’ve been a shielded infant all your life!” cried Amanda. “A downy infant! Loved, protected, pampered, secure! What a horrible thing to do to children! Then when they come face to face with reality they are lost and wandering and look empty, just as you’re doing, Henry. Damn it, boy, grow up this very minute! I need your help. And forgive me for keeping you a child until you were this age!”

Devastated, she thought of Amy, who had suffered the most from her childish belief that mankind was good and kind and decent, inclined to virtue rather than evil, to justice rather than cruelty, to honor rather than theft, to life rather than death.

“Oh, dear, dear God,” wailed Amanda as her son paced up and down the small but handsome room with its view of a walled garden. “What a family that is, the Sheldons! And the Winslows, coming down to that. And in the center of all this misery — Caroline Ames. How can any woman be as horrible as this?”

Griffith coughed again. “Perhaps she is not, madam,” he offered. “I have seen these matriarchs in London, in the counties, in New York and Boston. You will remember, if you’ll pardon me, that the Recording Angels will not take as an excuse for your wickedness that the world of men has abused you, or parents, or children or brothers or sisters, or friends or neighbors, or even enemies. Each man molds his own soul. If Mr. Ames is what he is, he as well as his mother is guilty.”

Henry stopped abruptly in front of him. His young face was hard and still. “We aren’t blaming you for Amy’s — her bad habits. You did your best. Indeed, we should thank you for your concern, Griffith, and that you came to us to ask help for my sister.”

He looked at his mother. “I know law, Mother. You can’t just abduct Amy or persuade her to leave her husband against her real will. Apparently she likes that swine, or she’d have come to us for help herself. Moreover, if you do bring her here and prevent her from seeing Ames, he could sue you and Dad for alienating his wife’s affections and influencing her against him. He’s just the sort. Wouldn’t you agree?” he asked Griffith.

“Yes indeed, sir. I have thought of that very thing myself. But the young lady will die if she remains with her husband.” He paused. He looked at Amanda. “There is something else, Mrs. Winslow. I have protected Mrs. Sheldon from her husband; he did not discover that she had a — a weakness — until three days ago. You see, they occupy separate bedrooms.” He looked down at his hands modestly. “But three days ago, on a morning, he went into her bedroom and found her already drunk, with the very bottle beside her.”

“Well?” said Henry after Griffith had paused for some time. The older man lifted his eyes wretchedly.

“This will make you very unhappy, sir. But Mr. Ames expressed himself as outraged. At any rate, I heard the young lady scream and ran to her assistance, to discover her husband — ”

He could not go on. But Henry looked down at him and moment by moment the young man grew older and he was no longer a boy.

“So,” said Henry, “you discovered him slapping her and probably calling her filthy names.”

“Yes, that is it, sir.”

“Amy, beaten?” said Amanda faintly. “Amy, cursed? Our little Amy? Why, no one ever smacked her, not once in her whole life, not even I! No one even raised a voice to her! Amy!”

Henry did not speak like a boy now; he did not repeat, “I’ll kill him.” He just stood and thought and he seemed to grow taller and wider. He said to Griffith, “You will testify to this, if necessary, in court?”

“Yes. I came to suggest that myself.”

Henry smiled at him briefly, while his mother cried and mopped at her face and swollen eyes. “Good,” he said.

“However,” said Griffith, “as I have met ladies like Mrs. Sheldon, Mr. Ames’ mother, I suggest that you permit me to see her myself and explain the situation and ask her assistance.”

“Caroline!” shrieked Amanda. “Are you mad? Caroline Ames!”

“Hush, Mother,” said Henry severely, still looking at Griffith. “When are you thinking of going?”

“I believe there is a train to Lyme within a half hour,” said Griffith, taking out a large old gold watch and studying it.

“You aren’t serious!” exclaimed Amanda. “She’s the most hateful and detestable creature in the world! Have you forgotten that she bribed her son to elope with my little girl so that Timothy would be injured and hurt? This news about my child will only make her happier.”

Griffith shook his head. “I’ve never met Mrs. Sheldon, but the family history has interested me and I have studied it. She has a reputation for high integrity and strictness of character. Perhaps she was, indeed, looking for revenge on Mr. Winslow for something we do not know, but she is, after all, a mother, and I cannot feel that she bears little Mrs. Sheldon any malice. There are imponderables that I know.”

“Well, then,” said Henry, “arm yourself with those imponderables, Griffith. I’ll drive you to the station myself. But I’d advise you to telephone Caroline first. She’s walled herself in, I hear.”

He led Griffith out to the hall to telephone, then ran lightly upstairs to listen at his father’s door. There was only silence behind it, so he leaned over the stairway and nodded to Griffith. Griffith asked the operator to connect him with Mrs. Thomas Sheldon of Lyme and waited. The only sound in the great pleasant house was the muffled sobbing of Amanda in the morning room nearby.

“Are you there?” asked Griffith politely. “Ah, yes. Will you please inform Mrs. Sheldon that a gentleman wishes to call upon her within the hour on a matter of the gravest importance — concerning Mr. Ames Sheldon and three million dollars?” Henry smiled down at him grimly, leaning his elbows on the balustrade. The two waited. Then Griffith said, “No, I cannot give my name. I hope you impressed Mrs. Sheldon with the importance — Yes, I will wait.”

Griffith stood thinly poised in his respectable black broadcloth suit and stiff white collar, leaning courteously toward the telephone. Then he said, “Yes? Thank you. No, I will not give my name over the telephone, as I have mentioned before. Very sorry, indeed.”

They waited again. Griffith murmured, “Most extraordinarily incompetent young woman, that, sir. She does not sound her consonants.” Then he bowed to the telephone and said, “Thank you. I shall be there shortly.”

He hung up the receiver and nodded to Henry. “I think,” he said thoughtfully, “that I have aroused Mrs. Sheldon’s curiosity. Ladies are very similar, I have discovered.”

As Henry drove Griffith to the station he found himself thinking of the servant not as a menial but as a friend in whom one could confide. He said, driving rapidly through the warm and golden streets of summer Boston, “There’s my father, you know. He’s almost an invalid now since his stroke. He can walk with difficulty, with a cane, but his left leg drags and his left arm is weak, and sometimes he can’t express himself clearly. He’s become an old man since last November. Two very bad blows in one day, you see, the election and then my sister. He won’t let us even mention her in our house; he’d be infuriated if he knew my brother and I visit her sometimes. If we can get this thing straight and my sister away from Ames, what shall we do?”

“I am sure that when you bring her home she will be welcomed by her father,” said Griffith.

Henry nodded. He said, “My mother hates herself for Amy’s being as she is now. But it was my father’s doing, you know. He never let Amy become a woman. He thought women should be dependent and clinging and soft and sweet; he thought they should never have an opinion of their own or any intelligence, really. Their whole lives, he thinks, should revolve about the men in their families.”

“No doubt there were ladies of very independent character in his life,” said Griffith after a moment’s thought. “His mother, perhaps. And — ”

“Oh, Mother,” said Henry. “My mother is filled to the brim with common sense, and I’ve noticed that most men resent common sense. And then, of course, there was old Caroline, who is sort of like a monument in the family. Dad hated her. We men are always telling women to be sensible, but when they are we resent it. We are weak characters, aren’t we?”

“No,” said Griffith soberly. “Merely, I should say, romantics. It is strange, is it not, that there are very few innocent ladies of any consequence in history? Could it be that what we demand in women is not what we honestly wish?”