A Prologue To Love (78 page)

She shook her head and thought: Who knows where the weakness began, or the evil, which is only another word for weakness? Why doesn’t the world realize that the weak are not pitiable, but a threat to all the generations? They spread their helpless wickedness over the unborn and destroy them when they themselves are dead.

But love was necessary for life. It should be strong love. To whom could one give love, and from that one receive it, without damage to others? Whose was the love that did not destroy?

Her mind hovered, shrinking, on the edge of a tremendous revelation. She lifted her hand against it, protecting herself. Not yet! she cried in herself.

Amy stirred, moaning feebly. Griffith entered the room on tiptoe, placed a tray of coffee near the girl, and drew back the draperies. The hot morning sunshine gushed into the pretty room. Caroline looked at Amy and saw the haggard young face, the sunken eyes, the fallen mouth, the thin throat and sticklike arms, the snarled, disheveled dark hair. Caroline sat, while Griffith, murmuring, spoke like a soothing father to Amy, fluffed her pillows, and urged coffee on her. She wailed, as a child wails, peevishly, fretfully. But she drank the coffee obediently. She had been taught obedience in her cradle by her father, who was a weakling and therefore evil. She blinked in the sunlight, wailed for darkness. Then her glazed eyes saw Caroline.

“Cousin Caroline,” she muttered stupidly.

“Do drink the coffee,” said Griffith. “It will make you feel much better.”

Still staring at Caroline, Amy pushed back her long dark curls. She moistened her cracked lips. She still stared at Caroline. There was a vague whimpering in her throat. The only sound in the room other than that was the painful swallowing. But the explosive uproar and honking of automobiles outside invaded this dolorous misery, and the rattle of wheels. Now a flickering ray of sun touched Amy’s right cheek, rimmed it with gold, revealed the sickly color, the smear of tears, the spittle in the corners of her gray mouth. Caroline forced herself to look, remembering the young girl of little more than a year ago, blooming, her flesh dewy, her eyes bright. She had stood and looked with childish compassion at Caroline on the day Elizabeth had been buried. Like Elizabeth, she too had been struck down by forces set into movement long before she had been born. Like Elizabeth, she would die unless she was rescued. But this girl had resources, unlike Elizabeth; she had the love of a mother and brothers, if not the love of a father.

Griffith made Amy drink another cup of coffee. Then he lifted her on her pillows. Her head fell back on them. Slowly, drop by drop, tears began to run down her cheeks.

Her eyes were stark with mute suffering. “I think,” said Caroline to Griffith, “that we can be alone now.”

“Cousin Caroline?” said the frail voice. “It is Cousin Caroline?”

“Who else?” said Caroline. “It isn’t my ghost.”

Amy sat up suddenly, the white silk falling partially from her shoulders and showing their boniness and hardly lifting over the childish breast. A film of sweat appeared on her forehead.

“Ames!” she cried. “You’ve come to take Ames away from me!”

“No,” said Caroline. “I’ve come to take you away from Ames.”

She rose clumsily and went to the girl. She lifted a corner of the sheet and wiped away the sweat. Her movements were awkward, for no one ever before in her life had inspired maternal tenderness in her. The girl submitted, her eyes pleading cravenly. “I can’t live without Ames,” she sobbed.

“You can,” said Caroline firmly, sitting down again. “There is no such thing as not ‘living’ without anyone, unless you are old and tired. You are young and you aren’t tired. A year from now, or at the most two, you’ll have forgotten this. You will have hope. And you’ll probably want to marry someone who will understand, who has some kindness.”

“Oh no!” cried Amy wildly. “I never loved anyone but Ames; I never will!”

“Nonsense,” said Caroline. “What does a child like you know of life? Be quiet! You must listen to me. Be quiet!”

“How can you be so cruel?” the girl wept. “But Ames always said you were.”

“Ames,” said Caroline calmly, “is a liar. I may have been stupid, but I was never deliberately cruel. However, it may be the same thing.”

“Why did you come here?” The girl was becoming very agitated. “To laugh at me, to take Ames away?” She still could not believe this was really Cousin Caroline, Cousin Caroline who never went anywhere.

“I came to save your life,” said Caroline.

“You bribed him to stay with me!”

“Yes. Stupid, wasn’t it? I should have bribed him to let you go. For your sake. Stop crying. You are almost twenty-two, and not an infant. I want to talk to you as one woman to another, as a mother to a child.”

Her voice was strong and dominant, and Amy subsided to a whimpering again. She dropped back against her pillows. She was dreaming: Cousin Caroline was not really here. This was only one of her sick nightmares.

“I came,” Caroline repeated, “to save your life. How long do you think you will live if you go on like this? Are you trying to kill yourself? To revenge yourself on Ames? I can tell you this: It won’t matter in the least to him if you die. In fact, he’ll be relieved. You see, he never loved you at all, never.”

“Oh no,” said the girl. “Oh, you are wrong.” The tears poured.

“You mustn’t be a fool,” said Caroline. “Look at me. I’m the reason Ames married you, the only reason. I gave him three million dollars to marry you.”

Amy’s trembling mouth fell open, and the swollen eyes widened.

“Ask your mother,” said Caroline. “Ask your father. They will tell you.”

Amy pressed the back of her right hand dazedly against her forehead. “But why, Cousin Caroline?”

“Because I hate your father. It is a long and bitter story. We always hated each other. Don’t you understand hate, you child?”

“But why?” whispered the girl again.

“Because of what your father is and I am. I am old, Amy, and so is your father. The story is old. It began perhaps with my grandmother, or her grandparents before her, or other ancestors we’ve never even heard of. We should have stopped it in ourselves when it began in us. We did not. That’s our crime against our children and our children’s children, and probably against generations not even born and who won’t be born even in your lifetime. That, I believe, is what is meant by the sins of the fathers.”

“Ames wouldn’t have married me without your money?” The girl pushed her thin hands frantically through her hair. She pressed her cheek against her knee, hard, trying through pain to reach some reality. She closed her eyes. In a moment she would open them and Cousin Caroline would not be there looming blackly like a monument, telling her wicked things, battering her with her voice. It was only another nightmare.

She opened her eyes, and Caroline was still sitting, watching her. Amy groaned. It was not a dream at all, nothing from which she would wake up, sweating in weak relief that she had escaped. She murmured, “I can’t believe it. Ames wanted to marry me long before he really did. It didn’t matter about money then. You didn’t even know about us.”

“True,” said Caroline. “But he thought that your father wouldn’t really disinherit you or cut you off if you married him. When he finally realized that your father would, he wanted to — get away from you. I know; he told me later.” She stopped; she stared at the girl, willing her to know the truth out of her own despair. “He only married you because I bribed him to do it. I think I’d give my life now not to have been responsible. But, you see, I was also stupid. I thought he had the capacity to care about you, child.”

Amy became very still and rigid. A change began to come over her face; the slack bone structure tightened, the mouth firmed a little. Now her eyes focused themselves between their bloated red lids. She looked at a point near Caroline. Was it possible, thought Caroline, that from somewhere in all that artlessness and immaturity there was a latent strength which was now beginning to push itself through the flowery softness of her nature? Was there some pride there under the weakness and innocence?

Caroline said, “I now know so much about you, child. You remind me of myself when I was your age. Unworldly, adoring a father. Neither of them,” said Caroline, “deserved the love of a decent dog.”

Amy looked at her with sudden intensity.

“Look at me,” said Caroline when she could breathe again without pain. “An old ruin which can never be rebuilt. You see, I am facing my own truth for the first time, as you must face your own truth. You know what I am; you’ve heard in Boston and from your mother, and no doubt from my son. It is quite true. Do you want to be like me? Do you want to lie to yourself that Ames really wants you, as I lied to myself that my father loved me?”

Amy’s small hands clenched on her knees. She was silent. The gentle young mouth was pale and set.

Caroline said, “Look at me. My father crippled me. I could have escaped him several times when I was young. But I was a liar to myself. My aunt, your grandmother, tried to enlighten me and save me, and I hated her for it. I ran away from the truth she tried to tell me over and over. Are you hating me for telling you the truth too?”

“Yes,” said Amy. She turned her face again to Caroline and looked at her with bitterness. “But I’m also believing you.”

Caroline smiled, and the smile was kind. “You’re an honest little girl, Amy. I’d never have admitted the truth when I was your age. Even if an angel from heaven had tried to tell me, I’d have refused to listen. It was very necessary for me to believe a lie because I was weak.”

A white furrow appeared between Amy’s dark brows, and small firm indentations about her pale mouth. “You’ve implied that Ames isn’t capable of loving anyone, Cousin Caroline. What do you mean by that?”

“I made him incapable. I never loved him when he was a child or at any other time. Ames’ father gave him love; I robbed Ames of the capacity to return it, for I had let him know when he was still only a baby that I despised his father. I despised and feared everybody all my life. Children absorb attitudes from their parents. Ames never knew the reason for my fear of people, but he adopted my attitude toward the world without my own reasons, real or imagined. He’ll never be free from it. You will break your life on that fact if you stay with him.”

The furrow between Amy’s eyes deepened, and the firmness of her mouth.

“Then Ames is a cripple in his feelings?”

“Yes,” said Caroline, surprised and encouraged. “Just as I was. And am.”

“There can be help. There’s always God,” said Amy. She bowed her head. “I’m ashamed. I’d forgotten about Him. It’s been very terrible, but I’d forgotten.”

Caroline turned away. “My husband loved me,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard Amy. “I threw it away. He wasn’t patient enough; he didn’t understand. Amy, you mustn’t expect from any human being more than he is capable of giving.”

Amy again pressed her cheek against her knees, but she did not close her eyes. She was quiet for a considerable time, and when she lifted her head her cheek was red, as if it had been struck fiercely. She looked older and resolute.

“Don’t blame yourself too much, Cousin Caroline,” she said in a very quiet voice. “Don’t take all the blame on yourself. That’s as bad as taking no blame at all. I’m not going to blame everything on Ames; I was a little fool myself. I was old enough to know that things aren’t as simple as I thought. I could blame my father for that. Mama tried to teach me differently. I didn’t listen. Yet it was all there.

“I could forgive Ames and even try to make him love me, in spite of what you’ve told me, if he hadn’t taken your bribe. I could be sorry for him, if it weren’t for the money. It was the money he married. Once he liked me; I’m sure of that; he was even a little fond of me. A woman can’t be deceived about those things. Then I poured all that sticky, unthinking love on him; he must have felt he was drowning in syrup.” The girl actually smiled a little. “Neither you nor I, Cousin Caroline, will ever really know if he can love, honestly love. But he certainly won’t ever love me! Because I don’t love him either now. I’m a different person, and that person couldn’t love Ames Sheldon under any circumstances.” She paused and then said almost briskly, “I think I’ll go home now.”

Caroline looked at her. Why, the little thing had courage and character after all. She said gently, “I’m proud of you, Amy.”

“Don’t be, please,” said Amy, looking about her room with self-contempt. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve been drinking like a dirty sot, whining because I felt inadequate and not good enough for Ames. I should have had more sense.”

“We all have our breaking points,” said Caroline. She stood up. “I’ll take you home. That’s why I came. To take you home.”

Amy began to slip out of bed, and Caroline saw the girl’s childish legs sliding from under the white silk, the immature figure, the girlish breast. Amy tried to stand up quickly and tottered, and Caroline caught her. She was alarmed by the slightness of the girl’s body, but Amy laughed, and a sour reek struck the older woman in the face. Caroline hardly noticed; when Amy had laughed she had uttered the amusement of a woman and not a child.

Caroline had never bathed any of her own children or helped to dress them, but she assisted Amy in the pretty bathroom with its long pier mirror. Amy anxiously studied her thin white face as Caroline dried it. “It will take months for me to look right,” she said. “What a damned fool I have been!”

“Doubtless,” said Caroline. Her mouth was both wry and sad. Amy would marry again and be a serene wife and perhaps an affectionate mother. But she would never love as Caroline had loved or as Elizabeth had loved. Out of adversity, starvation, and spiritual agony, love often rose like a giant. It rarely came, it seemed, out of gentle beds, solicitude and shelter, and from the environment of tea tables and the muted laughter of cherished women. Amy would lick her hurts now firmly; she had been ‘wounded but not slain’. There were other things in her life besides rejected love and the misery she had suffered, and these would give her strength to face her life and plan for a calm future. But what of those who had no other resources, like Caroline and Elizabeth? Love was their destroyer. Who would want such love, having nothing else besides?

Caroline brushed Amy’s long hair. The girl seemed abstracted while using hairpins. Once a look of anger and deep disgust flashed in her eyes. She said, “I am just beginning to realize, Cousin Caroline, what it meant to you to come here for me and say and do what you’ve done. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Don’t,” said Caroline. She left Amy and went to see Griffith. “I will take the girl home,” she said to him. “Will you bring her baggage later?”

“Yes, madam,” said Griffith. He hesitated. “How is Mrs. Sheldon?”

“You need not be anxious about her,” said Caroline dryly. “So you mustn’t be sentimental. She’s become quite mature.”

She pressed her ungloved hands together and looked away from him.