A Prologue To Love (41 page)

“What can she tell me, Caroline?” he asked.

“It’s not for me to tell you.”

Timothy considered all possibilities but the true one. “Melinda’s father or mother was a criminal, perhaps?”

Caroline hesitated. Then she said loudly, “Yes! Yes!”

“How do you know?”

“I — heard, Timothy. Perhaps I heard. Don’t press me; I won’t tell you.”

So Caroline was as haughty about the family as he was himself. Yet she had married that familyless bumpkin. Was she regretting it? Timothy hoped so.

“Let your mother tell you,” she said.

“But even if there was something despicable in Melinda’s background, it will not make any difference to me,” said Timothy. “All that is behind her.”

Caroline stood up. “Let your mother tell you.” Timothy rose with her. She had a sudden thought. Was that horrible woman capable, for her own sake, of keeping silent before this dreadful situation? Would she permit incest?

Caroline said, “Write me. If she doesn’t tell you, write me and I’ll tell you, Timothy. Be sure to write me before marrying Melinda.”

“I will,” he promised. He would have to do that, for his own sake. Otherwise Caroline would never forgive him. But whatever this mysterious thing was, it meant nothing to him. Caroline had been immured most of her life. She was making something of a thing that was of no consequence to him. He would return with Melinda as his wife, and Caroline, who now needed him, would have to be reconciled.

They parted in a subdued atmosphere. Later Caroline felt her first exultation. She had finally been avenged on her aunt.

Though Timothy had frequently heard his friends and others contemptuously refer to Caroline as ‘that stupid Ames girl’, he had always known that Caroline was neither stupid nor a fool. She, more than anyone else in all his life, had the power to alarm him, and for this alone he was never to forgive her.

So when he sailed for England in June 1889 to marry Melinda and bring her back with him to America, he began to feel uneasy on the second day out. He tried to dismiss Caroline’s strange words and expressions. He did not succeed. By the fifth day his uneasiness had become sharp tension and anger. Why had not Caroline told him what she thought he should know? He no longer believed that Caroline was inspired by some female dislike of Melinda, or jealousy, or resentment, or anything equally trivial. She had been horrified, genuinely aghast. She had said it was his mother’s place to tell him, not her own. Perhaps so. But as he had acquired a feminine characteristic or two of his own, he was angry at his cousin. She trusted him in other ways; she should have trusted him in this.

On the sixth and balmy day he became excessively restless and walked the pleasant promenade deck for hours. He stood at the rail and urged the ship on with his will. He thought of Melinda constantly, but the memory of her grave sweetness, her gentle voice, her artless mannerisms, and all the other characteristics which had charmed him since she had been a child of four only tormented him now. He had seen her at least twice a year since his mother’s marriage, a month in the summer and often at Christmas. They wrote to each other more than once a week. He could not remember a time when he had not planned on marrying Melinda. Now she was eighteen, and it was all understood between them.

She had promised to speak to Cynthia. If anything was wrong, Cynthia herself would have cabled her son. But her last letter, received only a few days before he had sailed, had expressed her pleasure over his visit and the things she had planned for his amusement. She had enclosed a photograph, pridefully, of her son William and her daughter Melinda. On the last night out, just before going to the captain’s ball, Timothy took out that photograph and studied it again, as if it would tell him something. He looked at the faces of the young girl and the child. The boy had a round and sober face, somewhat resembling his father’s, but he had his mother’s and Melinda’s large light eyes framed in thick and silken lashes. The photograph told Timothy nothing, yet he felt some premonition of calamity on looking at it.

He did not sleep that last night. He was almost the first passenger to disembark at Southampton on this hot June day. He was more than usually irritated by the solemn delay of the Customs and the fact that as his name began with one of the last letters in the alphabet he had to stand, fuming, under the large W for too long a time. The last train to London was already puffing restively when he had finally closed his luggage, found a porter, and jumped into a first-class carriage. A fastidious young man, he was abnormally sensitive to the presence of others; he was glad to find that his compartment contained only himself and a deaf elderly man engrossed hungrily in English newspapers. He sat and looked out at the green English countryside, the placid cattle, the tall hedges, the profusion of buttercups and ferns, the little blue streams, the larches and oaks and willows, the small hamlets. England was peaceful and tranquil, in spite of the distant smoke of great factories and glimpses of dull workmen’s streets and attached houses behind dusty hedges. In London he took the waiting train for Devonshire, for the family was in the country. The heat and smoke and rushing crowds in the glass-covered station suffocated him; his face and hands became gritty and moist.

Three old ladies in shawls and bonnets and carrying old-fashioned reticules occupied his compartment, and they glanced at him quickly over half-glasses and compressed identical withered lips. “Not English,” they communicated with each other silently. They took out shapeless lengths of gray knitting the color and texture of their own hair and knitted busily and murmured together in far, high English voices. Timothy did not feel his usual empathy for the British. He knew the old ladies expected him to smoke and were ready to ring for the trainman in that event. He looked impatiently through the dusty window and swung one lean leg over the other. When the train stopped to pick up fussy families, he detested the clipped treble voices of the children, the dowdiness of the women, the authoritarian manners of the men, the clucking nannies, and the inane young girls with their fair rosy skins and the heaps of fair hair under large straw hats. Why did the English always travel with so many shawls and plaid blankets and mysterious packages on hot summer days?

The train growled, bleated, and smoked its way south, and now the country broadened, became wide and sedate, yet mysterious in its velvety green, its parklike hills and knolls and isolated giant trees, its moors purple under the sun, its villages and cathedrals faerie-like, its cloudscapes enormous and changeful over the quiet earth. Scents of grass and flowers and water invaded the compartment. There were some who spoke fondly of England being ‘pretty, lovely’. But Timothy could feel the monolithic heart of British power under all this pleasantness, this serene smile, this passage of little stone bridges and quiet river and stream. The spirit of Empire lay under the deceptive calm and order, and the spirit of Empire had not only an imperial quality but a ruthlessness. One of these days, thought Timothy, we in America will feel that ageless stirring. An old if powerful Europe was bad enough and menacing enough for humanity. But a young American empire with no traditions, no caution, no experience, no wisdom, no craft, no wily diplomacy to control it would be a terror, even more terrible than ancient Rome.

Timothy usually spent these hours agreeably, either in studying his companions or in taking pleasure in the scenery. But now his thoughts were not only irritable but apprehensive. His leg swung faster and faster. He could not read or rest. The sun was hotter than he remembered from last summer. When he caught glimpses of the sea it shimmered with colorless intensity. Country roads seemed too crowded with dogcarts and carriages and other vehicles, villages too teeming. The old ladies waddled off the train and he was alone, and the long transparent English evening was beginning. Lonely houses appeared, buried in green shadow. The moors took on a threatening silence without horizon.

Then he was at the last station, and the train emptied. An evening wind was rising, pure and fresh and scented, with a hint of wilderness. He climbed the long wooden steps rapidly. He would be met, as usual, by a family carriage and he hoped the coachman would be young and brisk and not potter over the road. A porter struggled behind the young man, who ran up the stairs two at a time. He reached the platform and found himself met not by a coachman but by Melinda. She cried out his name as his head and shoulders appeared and ran to him lightly. She was in his arms, repeating his name over and over in an ecstatic whisper.

Laughing a little in his relief, he held her off and looked at her. She was tall and slender, like his mother, and had a delicate figure set off by her white duck skirt which flared about her ankles and by her white blouse with its rows of exquisite lace. She was hatless; her curling hair hung down her back, restrained only by a blue ribbon, in the English fashion. Her white slippers and silk stockings enhanced her appearance of fragility. “You are thinner, darling,” said Timothy with tender accusation. She laughed softly and patted his cheek, and her young face was full of light and her gray eyes shone in the evening radiance. Now his last apprehension was gone. Melinda was all joy and serenity. She took his hand and led him to a dogcart drawn by a fat pony. The porter was informed by the girl that a carriage would pick up the luggage at once. “I wanted us to be alone on the way home,” she said to Timothy.

She sprang into the dogcart and Timothy followed, taking off his hard hat to let the evening breeze cool his forehead. Melinda gathered up the reins, clucked to the mottled pony, and they drove away. For a while Timothy was content to sit in silence beside the girl as she deftly guided the pony down the cobbled hill to the village. He looked at the high and quiet sky, the walls, the little gardens, the thatched roofs, the children at gates, the blowing curtains at tiny leaded windows, the curving hedges, the traps and the occasional carriage, the drowsing cats on window sills, the hollyhocks and the ancient twisted chestnuts and the white-limbed birches.

Melinda was smiling gently; sometimes she glanced at Timothy and a quick happiness darted across her face like a soft light. Her long silken curls blew about her shoulders; he looked at the touching line from her chin to her ear, so vulnerable, so sweet to him. He took her hand and said, “Melinda, I’m not going home without you, you know.”

“I know,” she said. The dogcart left the little hamlet and swung between high hedgerows blowing with buttercups and ferns and little white flowers. From the meadows above came the lowing of home-going cattle and the tinkle of their bells. Swallows rose against the falling sun; the scent of salt water mingled with the perfume of warm grass. Somewhere church bells rang, their infinitely melancholy and nostalgic sound falling over the countryside, and birds clamored in the trees and a distant dog barked.

Timothy said, “Have you told Mother yet, dear?”

Melinda hesitated, and she was grave again. “No, Timothy. I don’t know why, but I thought I should wait until you came. I didn’t want her to think that it was all — stealthy.”

Timothy sat up, and his apprehensions were sharp again. “You should have told her,” he said. And then, “Never mind, dear. Perhaps you are right.”

She smiled at him timidly. “I hope so. And I do think you are wrong about Mama objecting. Why should she? My friend Lady Agnes married a viscount eighteen years older than herself, and everyone thought it was a fine match, including Mama. As for Uncle Montague, I’m sure he’ll approve; he’s so fond of you, Timothy.”

“Pernicious, like me,” said Timothy, laughing a little.

“Oh, Timothy,” said the girl, “I couldn’t live without you. And I do so want to go home. It’s beautiful here, and I love London, too, but it’s not home.”

He was very moved, and he held her slender elbow. “What? You prefer old dowdy Boston and the fusty old ladies in bombazine and the dry Common and all the imitations of England and the respectable vulgarity? But then, we’ll be living in New York too.”

He told her of his progress with Caroline as the dogcart climbed up the winding and silent road to the headland, and Melinda smiled again, her sweet and affectionate smile. “Once,” she said, “Caroline really loved me; that was when I was a little girl. I never told you, but one day she brought out a box of water colors and she tried to paint me in my pink frock with a blue sash. She was terribly discouraged; she said the colors were so pale.”

“Caroline — paint?” said Timothy in astonishment.

“Why, yes. She was fierce about the paleness of the colors. It was a lovely little portrait of me; I wanted to keep it, but she tore it up at once. I cried, and she cried too. I couldn’t have been more than five, a year after I came from the orphan home.”

Timothy thought about Caroline. She had many aspects, and he suspected that there were many which would even make him uncomfortable, but art was one he had never considered. Then he said, shrugging, “All the girls at Miss Stockington’s school were taught to dabble in water colors. You did, yourself.”

“Yes. But Caroline’s work was different. I was so little, but even at that age her painting looked strong and brilliant to me. It reminds me of a painter whose work I saw in Paris. Ames! Yes, that was the name. Isn’t it strange that he should have the same name?”

But Timothy was already tired of Caroline. He wanted to look at Melinda and talk about her. The dogcart reached the high green headland, broad and filled with blue evening shadows, silent and full of peace. Far beyond lay the bay, sparkling like silver fire and streaked with scarlet below the setting sun. And now they saw Lord Halnes’ country seat, a house of gray stone under heavy trees, without gates or walls, and surrounded by deep gardens. The road was private, soft with dry dust.

Melinda and Timothy ran into the stone hall together, and stained-glass windows threw jeweled light down upon them. The paneled walls were lined with armor and pennants, and a low fire burned in a wide fireplace against the rising evening chill. Timothy looked about him with pleasure; it never smelled old and musty here, or damp or unfriendly, though it was an ancient house. There was a warmth and wideness in the hall, in the curve of the great stairway, in the breadth of oaken chairs and settees filled with bright cushions. Timothy knew that his mother had brought her charm to this old mansion, and air and grace, and he was always glad to arrive and be part of the gracious household.

Cynthia came down the stairway in a light blue dress, a string of fine pearls about her throat, and in that mellow air she did not appear to be more than fifty years old. Her hair was as soft and vivid as ever, though discreetly dressed now, and her skin was still fine and clear, her chin line still distinct. She was leading a little boy by the hand, and he climbed slowly and carefully down the stairs beside her. “Dear Timothy!” she cried. “William! Here is your brother!”

Timothy kissed her, patted her shoulder in his usual bantering manner, picked up his small brother, and kissed him. The child gave him Melinda’s own serious look and her timid smile, and when he smiled he lost his resemblance to his father, for his smile was not quite Montague’s. “You’ve forgotten me, haven’t you, William?” asked Timothy. He was fond of his brother, who amused him with his solemnity. The child shook his head mutely and stopped smiling, and Timothy put him down.

“Let me look at you,” said Cynthia, taking Timothy’s thin shoulders in her hands and looking up at him searchingly. “Good heavens. It seems preposterous that such a big young man is my son! You make me feel old, dear.”

“Age cannot wither nor custom stale her infinite variety,” said Timothy with some malice.

“I hate that phrase,” said Cynthia, smoothing her dress about her excellent waist and exhaling perfume. “It isn’t in the least gallant; it’s usually said of old ladies who are fat and rich, and it’s always said by their hopeful nephews who hopefully count their aunts’ years. But tell me all about New York and Boston. We haven’t seen you since Christmas. Do come into the sitting room; tea is waiting.”

“Where’s old Montague?” asked Timothy as they went into the wide and pleasant sitting room where a fire rustled invitingly and windows stood half open to the evening breeze and looked upon the gardens.

“Don’t be disrespectful, dear,” said Cynthia with her old coquettish way of tapping him on the arm. “Montague will be here for dinner; he’s in the village about something. He becomes quite the country squire in Devonshire and potters about and discusses crops and has beer at the inn.”

“Square, rugged, homespun Montague,” said Timothy. “I love to see him in his country boots and with his brown stick and his walking gaiters. Honest Montague, and his pipe and his old dad’s big gold watch and chain which he never wears in London. I’ve often wondered if it still runs.”

“Now you are mocking again,” said Cynthia, and smiled her gay and charming smile. “Montague’s just like every other Englishman; he’s a different man in the country.”

“That’s good,” said Timothy. “If the old boys in these parts ever saw him as he is there’d be another hanging on the village green, title or no title.”

“I thought you were fond of him!” cried Cynthia, beginning to pour tea. “Melinda darling, do give Timothy some of these sandwiches so he can chew them and stop his nasty remarks.”

“I am fond of Montague,” said Timothy. “It’s just that I envy him. I would like to be a ruddy Englishman with a title and a country seat and a house in London and a shooting box in Scotland and an ermine cloak and coronet for coronations and practically all the money in the British Empire — that is, all the money the Queen hasn’t snatched for herself.”

“Well,” said Cynthia, “she has all those children, you know, and then the grandchildren too. Just swarms of them.”

Timothy laughed. He refilled little William’s cup himself; the child gazed at him with great wide eyes.

“Melinda, you look so pale,” said Cynthia. “Timothy, do tell me it’s my imagination.”

“She needs to go home permanently,” said Timothy. “It’s wrong to leave me there all alone while the three of you nest cozily in England. I’ll have to change it.

He looked at her closely as he said this, but her happy smile did not alter. “I suppose it is lonely for you,” she said. “But how nice it is for all my family to be with me here. It makes up for everything. Besides, dear, you’ll be marrying one of these days. By the way, how is Caroline?”