A Prologue To Love (48 page)

He knew that Caroline wanted money to protect herself from a world she feared. But he wanted money for power, for influence, for fame. He was considering running for governor, and governors with money always had an advantage over a man of equal or even better qualities. Timothy’s lust for wealth was not innocent, as Caroline’s was innocent. Her dislike for people rose from fright; his rose from contempt.

“Oh, Timothy,” Cynthia said, seeing her son’s expression. “I know it is very hard, but what can one do? You look so terrible.”

“I hope the survivors sue the hell out of her,” said Timothy malevolently, and Cynthia cried again. “I’d like to represent them! But I can’t.”

“Timothy, she is your cousin, the poor girl. And she’s done so much for you.”

It was not hard for her to realize that Timothy was past forty now, for he had never, even as a child, seemed young to her. He had always been mature. She thought it was grief over Melinda that made his pale long face so tense, his mouth so thin and tight.

Melinda, since her husband’s funeral, had kept to her rooms, unspeaking. Cynthia therefore started when the young woman came wanderingly into the drawing room, her blue robe tied about her, her long fair hair hanging in disorder over her shoulders, her face far and unseeing. Timothy did not at first see her. He jumped when he heard his mother cry out and saw her pushing herself to her feet. It was not until Cynthia’s arms were about her daughter that he stood up.

“I should have loved him more,” said Melinda in a curiously penetrating voice. She pulled herself from Cynthia’s arms. She threw back the masses of fair hair and looked at Timothy, and her eyes were feverishly brilliant. “I’ll never forget that he loved me and that I didn’t really love him. I can’t bear to live, remembering that.”

“Of course you loved him, darling,” said Cynthia feebly. She glanced at Timothy. This Melinda was much more heartbreaking than the young widow who had lain in her bed, silent and staring.

“No,” said Melinda, and she shook her head, and her hair flew about her. “I never loved anyone but Tim, and he left me. He left me only for money. And so I married Alfred. I shouldn’t have done that. It was a wicked thing to do to him, and now he’s dead and I can’t tell him I’m sorry.” She clasped her white hands together. “If only I could tell him I’m sorry.”

Cynthia, dazed by disaster herself, blinked her eyes and dimly hated the new electric lights in the drawing room, which gave the soft hues and light tones a glaring appearance and emphasized the torment on Melinda’s face. It was nightmarish to her. She murmured, “Oh, dear God,” and wondered where Amanda was, Amanda who was sleeping in Melinda’s room and giving her sedatives at intervals. “Where is Amanda?” she murmured to Timothy in distraction. “Why did she let the poor child wander like this?”

But Timothy did not hear her. He took Melinda’s clasped hands and held them tightly and looked down into her eyes until their bright wandering stopped and he had all her attention. No one except Melinda could ever move him to a fullness of human emotion, to forgetfulness of self, to sympathy and tenderness and disinterested love; not even his wife, of whom he was casually fond; not even his children, of whom he was even more fond. He said, “Melinda dear. You did love Alfred. He knew it, and” — he hesitated only a moment — “he knows this now. Do you think it’s making him happy to know you’re torturing yourself?”

They were childlike words, and simple, and for this reason alone they reached Melinda. Her eyes changed. “Do you think so, Tim?” she asked. “Really, do you think so?”

“Yes,” he said, and held her hands even more tightly. “I never saw two people happier, dear. I used to envy you.”

Cynthia stared at them and cried silently. No one saw Amanda in her long white nightgown standing in the doorway. Amanda was a sensible young woman, and she knew when not to intrude or cause confusion or excitement or distraction.

“Oh, Tim,” said Melinda, and was so exhausted that Timothy had to put his arms about her to hold her, and she dropped her head on his shoulder. She began to cling to him, her trembling arms like steel. “Oh, Tim!” she cried. “I always knew you loved me! I never did believe you left me because of money and because you wanted much more! I loved Mama and Uncle Montague, but I began to know the truth, in spite of what they said. You didn’t leave me just because they said they’d cut me off — no, no, you didn’t.”

She lifted her head and leaned back in Timothy’s arms, and her hands clutched his arms fiercely above his elbows. “Did they tell you something about my parents, Tim, that sent you away? Would it have injured you if I’d married you? But then, they were happy about my marriage to Alfred — Mama loved Alfred; she wouldn’t have let me marry him if it was that! Tim, Tim, tell me why you left me? I must know, Tim, or I won’t be able to stand it!”

Amanda, astounded and incredulous, came striding into the room, her cotton nightgown billowing around her strong young legs, her long black hair floating rapidly about her. Her usually round and rosy face was pale and drawn, and her black eyes snapped.

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, reaching Timothy and Melinda. She stood beside her husband and swung to Cynthia. “Mama Halnes! You surely told Melinda, didn’t you? You haven’t let her go all these years, breaking her heart and what not, in absolute ignorance, have you? Why,” she said louder, “you have! How could you do such a thing? Such a terrible, stupid thing! Timothy! Can you stand there with this poor girl and tell me you never told her either? Why, what awful cruelty!”

She clenched her sturdy hands at her sides, and her face blazed with anger. “I just can’t believe it!” she cried. “It isn’t human to have let Melinda suffer all this time. It isn’t human! I wouldn’t treat one of my dogs like this. I wondered what was wrong with Melinda when we visited her and Alfred or they came to us. Why, I just can’t forgive you, Timothy, Mama Halnes, I just can’t. And everyone in Boston knew or suspected for years and years!”

Cynthia stepped back; she became even older; she was an old, broken woman. Melinda still clung to Timothy, but his arms dropped. He turned to his shocked wife. “Amanda, I didn’t know either until I went to England to marry Melinda years ago. Then dear Mama told me. I left. Then she and Montague concocted some of their lies to appease Melly — I don’t know. What could I have done? They didn’t want Melly to know, and they convinced me it would hurt her to know.”

Amanda’s face softened as she scrutinized him and saw his misery. “Poor Timothy,” she said. But her round features hardened again when she turned to Cynthia. “How could you?” she said. “Why, even when I was fourteen and fifteen I heard the women whispering — Mama’s friends. And tittering. But of course they couldn’t ostracize you! You were one of Boston’s First Families, and First Families close ranks,” she said contemptuously. “Then you married Lord Halnes and were even more elevated, for heaven’s sake! I can understand how you felt, but not at the expense of poor Melinda. You owed it to her to tell her.”

“What? What?” murmured Melinda, her exhausted eyes moving pleadingly from face to face.

Amanda had a full round bosom, and it was agitated under her nightgown. She gently removed Melinda from Timothy and put her arms about the young woman. She kissed her soundly and tenderly. “Why, darling,” she said, “Timothy could never have married you. If he had, someone would have told. The adoption records and backgrounds of the children are sealed, but if anything threatens any of them or they get into situations like this, then the records have to be opened. Melinda, Timothy couldn’t have married you. He’s not only your adoptive brother. He’s your real brother too. You both have the same mother.”

Melinda pushed herself from Amanda’s warm grasp. She took a step or two toward Cynthia, then stopped. She clasped her hands together and leaned forward to look at the older woman, whose weeping face was averted. Melinda’s hair fell across her cheeks. She stood silently and rigidly, as if listening. Then she whispered, “Mama? Mama?”

“Yes, love,” Cynthia faltered. “Yes, my darling.”

“Oh, Mama,” Melinda said. “Mama, I’m so glad.” She held out her arms and ran to her mother, and they held each other and there was no sound from them.

“I think,” said Amanda briskly to her husband, “that we aren’t needed now. Poor, stupid, damned Timothy. Come on to bed, boy. Really, half the trouble and misery and pain people have is brought on by themselves. They either talk too much or not enough.” She rubbed her rounded flank. “That cot in Melinda’s room is made of solid iron. You and I, Timothy, are now going to bed together, and let’s have a little peace if we can.”

Timothy smiled at her. “There’s one thing about bread and butter, my sturdy sweet: it satisfies — occasionally.” He went to the wide arched door with his wife. He looked back at Melinda and repeated, “Occasionally.”

When Cynthia, moving as if every muscle in her body were torn and twisted, arrived in her room she found her son, William Lord Halnes, waiting for her in his sensible dark blue dressing gown. His respectable young face, so like his dead father’s, was serious. He had his father’s chubby body and air of innate strength. He loved his mother dearly and knew exactly what to do for her, as his father had known.

A decanter of brandy was on Cynthia’s bedside table, and two glasses. Cynthia sank on the edge of the bed, and her son filled the glasses carefully. He did not need to look at his mother. He knew that she was about to collapse. He handed her her brandy gravely. She looked at him, and he gave her the sudden charming smile of his father. She began to cry, and he did not stop her. He sat opposite her and waited. When she finally could cry no longer he presented his handkerchief, on which she blew her nose. She said, “Dear William. You are such a comfort. Like your father. You seem to know everything.”

“ ‘Everything’ is not so hard to understand,” said the boy. “You make deductions. And you listen. One of the errors of humanity is that it talks but hardly ever stops to hear. Too much babbling.” His English voice was very precise and clipped. “Do drink your brandy. It’s very consoling.”

“Boys shouldn’t drink brandy,” said Cynthia vaguely.

“I’m not a boy,” said William. “In fact, I don’t believe I ever was.”

They sipped in warm silence. Then Cynthia said, “Sometimes life is too much for me.”

“It always is for those who feel too much. But never for those who think, Mama.”

Cynthia sipped again. William said, “There’s too damned much emotion in the world. Sign of the barbarian. But then, those who think too much are dangerous. I believe Shakespeare brought that out in
Julius Caesar
.”

“You are a darling, William,” said Cynthia.

William considered this thoughtfully, “No, Mama, I don’t think so. There are too many ‘darlings’ in the world. Foolish, sentimental, thoughtless people. Spraying their emotions around like cheap scents and asphyxiating everybody. We need fresh air. We need muscles and guts. But in America everything is love and embraces and slopping about and looking into each other’s pockets. No privacy. The difference between man and animal is privacy. Animals run together and herd together. Man should be able to stand alone. Ibsen.”

Cynthia said, “But, darling, we do need to understand each other. We can’t live apart.”

“We don’t need to,” said William Lord Halnes. “We can live with God.” He was fourteen years old. He repeated, “We can live with God.”

He studied the glass in his plump hand. “And once we can live with God, we can live with mankind too.” He lifted his glass to his mother. “Happy New Year to you, poor Mother, or as happy as it can be under the circumstances, and may this new century be better than the last. I doubt it, though. We can only hope that God, in His infinite pity, will have mercy on our souls.”

Cynthia would often say through the years, “It was never necessary to tell William anything or explain it to him, not even when he was very young. He always seemed to know. That is why he chose the life he did. There simply was no other way for him.”

No one in the Sheldon household would ever have believed that Elizabeth listened at doors. She was too cool, too remote, too restrained for such a suspicion. Nevertheless, she listened with sharp avidity; there was nothing too unimportant for her, whether it was a conversation between the slatternly cook and the equally slatternly housemaid, or a short exchange between her parents, or Caroline’s discussions with her cousin Timothy Winslow, or Caroline’s telephone calls to her Boston office or New York or her small bank in the latter city, or even quarrels between her brothers. She eavesdropped, not out of aimless curiosity or malice, but merely in order to inform herself of all things, to see whether or not they could personally benefit her.

At sixteen she had developed the art of overhearing to a special degree. Life was evolving a pattern she could see very clearly. At the center of the pattern stood Elizabeth Josephine Sheldon (and one other), who was determined to use life and not permit life to use her. If Tom Sheldon still did not know the extent of his wife’s fortunes or of what her investments consisted, Elizabeth had a very extensive idea. She also knew that she was her father’s favorite, that he was bewildered and saddened by his sons, and that he lived in a state of chronic wretchedness and despair. She was not yet certain how she would manipulate these facts, but she was at least sure that she would one day.

It was a very snowy Easter, and early, and Elizabeth was home for the holidays, as were her brothers. But all the doors, as usual, were shut. Elizabeth, in her schoolgirl’s navy serge with white collar and cuffs, sat and listened to the silence of the house. She was sitting in what her father had called the ‘drawing room’. It was very shabby now, and the draperies had dimmed and had been mended carelessly. The fine carpet had lost most of its pattern under grime, owing to the languid application of brushes on the part of ever-changing housemaids who rarely stayed for more than a month. The windows were blurred, and the winter sunlight could only smear them with a smudge of light; the wainscoting needed paint, and the floor about the rug was dull and splintered. Elizabeth, the fastidious, looked at the dinginess and pursed her mouth disdainfully. She did not sit here as a rule; she preferred her room. But this large, neglected room was a good central point from which she could hear any movement or voice.

The small fire spluttered, and the room was chilly as well as drab. Elizabeth listened. She heard no voices. But she finally heard the door of her mother’s study open and close, and then another door open, close. She also heard the faint click of a lock. “Bluebeard’s Closet,” she murmured, and put aside her book and went up the stairs like a slim and graceful shadow, her light hair on her shoulders, her hard blue eyes intent. She often listened at the door when her mother entered her private art gallery. For in that room, which no one was ever permitted to enter but herself, the lonely woman talked aloud to something, and what she infrequently said was of immense interest to her daughter.

Elizabeth paused at the top of the stairs. There was a large window at the end of the hallway, gray with dust, and the light filtered in feebly. The red carpeting had faded; it was worn and unkempt and thin. The doors along the hallway were all shut. The servants were enjoying their short rest period on the third floor. Elizabeth drifted over the carpet, which smelled of old grime, and stood by the door of the gallery.

There was no sound inside. Caroline had apparently paused. Then the whisper of her footsteps on carpet began, up and down. Then she paused again. She began to speak in a monotone, and Elizabeth pressed her ear to the door.

Caroline’s voice was still strong and sonorous, and she spoke in the cultured accents of Miss Stockington’s school. “I still think the tower is your best,” she said. “I don’t know why. The brushwork of the girl on a chair or the boy with an apple is superior. Yet I had to pay much more for the tower than for those and the others. Twenty thousand dollars. I have read that you sold it for fifteen dollars. How terrible.”

Elizabeth knew, of course, that the secret room contained paintings. Her father had told her. But he too had never seen them. Once Elizabeth had suggested to her mother that she would like to see them. Caroline had looked at her thoughtfully, as if considering, and then had smiled oddly and said, “I think not. I really think not.” She carried the key to the room with her always. It was never to be found lying about, though Elizabeth had searched diligently. Her curiosity did not concern the paintings in the room but only what her mother said aloud before them. Once she had read that those who speak aloud when alone were mad. Elizabeth did not believe this; her mother was obviously not mad. She was only lonely. Her daughter was the single person in the household who understood that.

The hall was very cold. Elizabeth hugged her slim body with her arms and bent to the door. Caroline was speaking again.

“I dreamed about the tower once or twice,” Caroline said. “But I don’t remember the dreams except that they were frightful. Was the tower frightful to you? Yes, I think it must have been. It expresses some awfulness which I seem about to grasp, and then it vanishes. I wish I could see it; I wish I could remember the dreams I had. But they’ve gone from my mind, as if a dark door had been closed in my face. Perhaps it will open one of these days.”

The footsteps whispered again. There was a sudden curious catch in the room, such as one makes when one tries not to weep. Elizabeth had never heard it before. Caroline spoke in a lower tone, almost halting, as if speaking without real volition. “I know all about you; I read everything there was to know. Your wife, her family. But nothing about your son; nothing about your parents. No one knows. Was there a reason you never told anyone of them? Yes, it must be so. If only you had lived! If only you had lived long enough to know your son. I know how you died. You were coming home and found the barn afire, with all your paintings, and you died of it. I can understand that. When your life is gone there is nothing else. Yes, I can understand that; my life is gone, and I live now because of my father and what he would want me to do. I live only for a dead man, for he was the only one who loved me. There was never anyone else; there never will be. Do you understand?”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows disdainfully. She knew of her mother’s violent obsession about her father, John Ames, for she had listened enough to furious exchanges between her own father, and her mother on the subject. “Why don’t you build a shrine to him?” Tom had once shouted in despair. “Or don’t people build shrines to devils?” Elizabeth had then begun to wonder about her grandfather, John Ames, and what manner of man he had been. Discreet questioning and listening had given her quite a comprehensive portrait, and she approved of him, even if she found her mother’s idolatry ridiculous.

Then she listened even more acutely. Her mother was crying. She had never heard her mother cry before, had never seen her in tears.

“If there was just someone,” Caroline was stammering. “Do we all really live alone like this, shut up in ourselves, unable to speak? Were you so alone? I believe you were. There is a terrible loneliness about this painting of a stream running through a mountain pass; no trees, no grass, only gray stone, and the stream is as green as ice, as if frozen. I can feel all the color in it, as if each tint were a separate emotion. That boulder looks as if it had never touched another boulder since it was thrown there. Are we all like this? I know I am. I never touched anyone but my father. How am I going to go on living, except to increase the trust he gave me?

“I thought Tom loved me. I thought he understood. But he lied to me; he didn’t understand at all; he wouldn’t listen. He had his preconceived frame of reference, and he thought everyone should fit into it. I couldn’t, and he was outraged. Why does everyone believe his own particular reality is the only reality? They say reality is objective; it isn’t; it’s entirely subjective. But — if Tom had only listened while I tried to show him my own reality! But he could hear and see only himself and his own codes and convictions. It’s possible that I am this way too.” She paused, as if in wonderment, then exclaimed, “Yes, it’s very possible! But I did understand Tom’s reality, even if it made me impatient — at least, I understood a little. But he would never even approach mine. I was his wife, Carrie. He never wanted to understand Caroline Ames. Did I frighten him? Tom, frightened?” Her voice rose. “No, he was not frightened; he was only disapproving and angry. But I love him so, I love him so, and he never knows it. There are all the years in between. My children? They have their reason for being, as you know, but they care nothing for me. That doesn’t hurt me. I only want Tom, and he’s gone far away, and I can’t reach him any longer.”

Her weeping was desperate now, and Elizabeth frowned. Her mother was committing a grave impropriety and showing foolish weakness. Then she thought of her mother’s reference to her children, and her cool mind worked rapidly. She and her brothers had a tremendous respect for their mother, or rather for the mind that added constantly to the fortune that would be theirs one day. Their father, in their opinion, was a fool, to be used when necessary. He could not understand how important it was to be powerfully rich. Their mother understood only too well. She was polite to her children, demanded politeness and discipline, never varied in her aloof interest in their education and welfare. She gave them little or no money, never talked with them about themselves or any aspirations they might have. As her children, they were important; as persons, they had no importance at all to her. This had given her authority and power in their minds. A loving and solicitous mother would only have aroused their contempt.

Elizabeth was annoyed now that a little of the profound respect she had for her mother had been washed away by Caroline’s tears in that room. She preferred to think of her mother as far above silly emotions and sentimentality. How could her mother really love a man like her husband, who dripped affection indiscriminately everywhere, as a dog drips saliva? He sought love from his children in an eager and servile way. They despised him. It was upsetting to overhear that Caroline loved so trivial a man.

Elizabeth and her brothers knew their cousins fairly well by now, especially Timothy and Amanda Winslow’s children — Henry, now twelve; Harper, eleven; and Amy, ten years old. Elizabeth considered them all ordinary and of no consequence, not only because she was older than they, but because they were kind and gentle and considerate and loved their parents, which alone would have inspired Elizabeth’s contempt. She saw little Amy at Miss Stockington’s, a shy child with a pink-and-white face, sparkling dark eyes, and a mass of black ringlets. Elizabeth classed all girls younger than herself as ‘imbeciles’, but little Amy, she had concluded, had no wit or intelligence at all. She would cry over the slightest inconvenience; if some classmate spoke rudely to her she was devastated and had to be consoled in the arms of a teacher. Once she had sobbed a whole morning after finding a dead butterfly. All the teachers spoke tenderly of ‘the child’s sensitivity’, but the other children laughed at her readiness to burst into tears. There were times when Elizabeth, seeing the weeping Amy in some corner or in the halls, was angered if a classmate of her own would say to her slyly, “Isn’t that your cousin — that silly little girl?” As for Mary (Mimi) Bothwell, Elizabeth had some respect for her — an independent child who possessed considerable gentle fire and could be stern in the schoolyard when faced with some injustice. Nathaniel resembled his twin sister.

Only the Winslow family came to the Sheldon house in Lyme on rare occasions. But the Bothwell family never came, though the Sheldon children did visit them on Tom’s insistence. Elizabeth knew that a strong antipathy existed in her mother for all the Bothwells, and she shared it emphatically. She thought they lived aimless lives. Melinda’s gravity and reserve would have won Elizabeth’s admiration if she had not shown such devotion to her children and such anxiety for them. She seemed especially kind to Elizabeth, which puzzled the girl and annoyed her, for she had no respect for Melinda with her ‘vague ways’. When Melinda visited the school and sometimes encountered Elizabeth, Melinda would think: How like her father she is! I am afraid for the girl. Elizabeth usually refused invitations to the Bothwell house, unlike her brothers, but since one Christmas when she was thirteen years old, she would call occasionally and in secrecy. For at that Christmas she had met a very old woman, Lady Halnes from England, her mother’s aunt, and she had also met young William Lord Halnes.

She met him again when she was fourteen, the next Christmas, when they were both walking on the hard cold shingle between the two houses. She had said to him suddenly and loudly, “William?” Her voice had rung like a bell in the cold and silent air, and he had turned and looked at her with mild perplexity, not remembering. “I am your cousin Elizabeth Sheldon,” she said, feeling heat in her chill cheeks and a throbbing in her wrists and temple. “Don’t you remember?” He was nearly seventeen years old then, a mature and respectable young man, and he had smiled at her and said, “Of course. Elizabeth.” But he had entirely forgotten her. They had talked a few moments; Elizabeth never remembered of what. She watched for his smile, and when it came something lifted wings in her and her young body strained almost painfully. She had last seen him again only recently. He now filled all her secret thoughts and incomprehensible yearnings. She asked herself why, when she was most hungry, and could not answer her own questions. Though she knew that she had an extraordinary beauty, she had, in some measure, discounted it. The real treasure was money. Men preferred money to beauty, for money remained and beauty did not; money was rare; beauty was quite common. Elizabeth, like her mother, could not conceive that anyone could like or love her for herself and accept her without ulterior motives.