A Prologue To Love (54 page)

The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.

Jeremiah 33:29

Amanda said crossly to her husband, Timothy Winslow: “I really don’t understand, even after all your explanations, why we have to be burdened with Elizabeth Sheldon on our European trip. Yes, I know her mother asked you. Elizabeth must meet Caroline’s foreign investment associates. But she’s old enough to go alone. Twenty-one, for heaven’s sake! Why does she need a chaperone, or whatever? Girls these days, even Boston girls, aren’t secluded all the time. She’s old enough to go on her own.”

She added resentfully, “Perhaps some girls of twenty-one might get into mischief alone abroad. But not Elizabeth Sheldon! Can you imagine anyone less liable to seduction or amorous adventures than Elizabeth? Oh, I grant you she’s quite beautiful, and she was the sensation of the year at her debut, and she’s a member of the Assemblies and is one of Caroline’s heirs and all that. But who would, anywhere, try to injure Elizabeth? She’s a match for anybody. She doesn’t have a single beau, in spite of her looks and her mother’s money, and the money alone would attract young Bostonians.”

Timothy looked at his plump and pretty wife with her lively dark curls powdered with gray and her forthright and sparkling dark eyes. He said indulgently, “I know you don’t like the girl. I don’t either. She reminds me too much of old Johnny Ames; she probably has his character, too. The girl’s as sharp as a razor, and Caroline seems to dote on her, though I can’t imagine why. A cold straight icicle. I have the funniest conviction that she’ll be Caroline’s real heir. Caroline’s been instructing her ever since she was sixteen or less. Look at the sons! They rarely, if ever, see their mother. Mutual hate, probably. John’s doing splendidly at Tandy, Harkness and Swift; junior member of the firm, but he’ll be a full member one of these days. Ames is no fool, either. Spends a lot of money on his nice little bachelor establishment in Boston, and very independent at twenty, but combines an interest in miniature art with a good business sense in that construction business. Good architect, too, like his father. Do you know, he got a fine contract to rebuild one of the old churches in Boston?

“But Caroline might not have any other children except Elizabeth, as far as an outsider could judge. I owe a lot to Caroline.” His long pale face became subtly malevolent. He passed his hand over his smooth gray hair, which was still streaked with the pale gold of his youth. “Please let me judge, my dear, that it is perfectly natural for Elizabeth to go with us.”

“I don’t like her!” Amanda said vehemently. “Why does Caroline have to burden us with that girl? I’ve been looking forward to this trip, and so have our children. They don’t like Elizabeth, either. Amy’s a delicate little thing; she told me Elizabeth gives her ‘the shudders’. Henry and Harper despise her. Children do have good instincts, you know.”

“You were Elizabeth’s sponsor when she made her debut,” Timothy said.

“So I was,” said Amanda sulkily. “I thought I could do something for her. But it was a waste of time. What a family that is! Do you know that Amy has a crush on Ames? Ames! She’s only fifteen, but girls of that age get disastrous crushes on young men. Never mind, she’ll outgrow it, I’ll see to that! You may like him and be flattered that people say he resembles you. But I just detest that imitation Voltaire. And Amy will be thrown with his sister all those weeks. I just don’t like it, Timothy.”

“I didn’t notice that Elizabeth likes Ames,” said Timothy, yawning. “I doubt that she’ll try to advance any interest of her brother’s. Besides, a young man of twenty would hardly consider a girl of fifteen. Amy’s cow-eyed devotion to him just embarrasses him. Now, watch that blood pressure. You know what your doctor says; you’re quite scarlet. I wish you’d stop stuffing yourself at the table, my dear. You’re entirely too stout.”

This dexterous change of subject succeeded. Amanda engaged in a heated discussion with her husband about her doctor’s orders. She lost her temper, but Timothy knew that the underlying reason was that he had agreed to take Elizabeth to Europe with him and his family. Amanda’s first impulse toward all people was affection and kindliness, even though she was frequently blunt. She was particularly generous to younger people. Elizabeth was one of the first who had ever aroused Amanda’s hostility; she never judged prematurely.

Timothy’s original fondness for his wife had increased considerably since she had inherited half a fortune impressive even by Boston standards. He was also at ease with her, for she knew all about him, yet accepted him tolerantly. “You’re a scoundrel, of course,” she had said to him candidly before they were married, “and I won’t pretend I like scoundrels. I do not. But you aren’t stuffy and pompous and self-important, and you’re very interesting. It’s unfortunate that these traits aren’t often found in the virtuous.”

To which he had replied, “You may remember that Lord Melbourne said over sixty years ago: ‘This damned morality is going to ruin everything!’ He was referring to the ‘new men’, as Cicero called them, the middle class.”

Amanda had looked at him thoughtfully. “Well, this ‘damned morality’ is necessary for the safety of women and children. It has its points. And we in America could use more of it in our government. Washington’s full of blackguards, as Papa used to call them.”

The Bothwell house, which Timothy and his family now occupied, was not in the least like his mother’s house, which had been pale and exquisite. He liked its solidity, its excellent sturdy stairways, its big rooms full of fine but massive furniture, its Adam mantelpieces, its Federal doorways, its fanlight. It had the authority of wood paneling and genuine strength. Amanda had insisted upon electric lighting but had retained the old gaslight fixtures, mellow and warm. She had also retained the huge and glittering hall chandelier with its candles, lit only on special occasions. Timothy often thought his wife resembled the house in which she had been born — open, sturdy, and comfortable. He found the house easeful, as a background for his most uninnocent daily life, his devious character. No one would suspect him of anything when a guest in this atmosphere of polished silver and woodwork, this brass-clawed Duncan Phyfe furniture, these heavy cabinets full of
objets d’art
and ancient laced fans, these tassled and brocaded draperies. He was nearly fifty now, but a lean, taut fifty, and looked younger, and he was ripe for his coming excursion into politics.

He and Amanda were sitting this warm June evening in the family room with its high french windows open to the sweet air. He was drinking brandy. Amanda was enjoying whiskey and soda. It was like Amanda to prefer this, and it did not displease Timothy. “It’s good for my blood pressure,” she would say with a wink as she took a long and enjoyable swallow.

She drank in the presence of her children, too, and they did not respect her the less. The boys adored Mama and admired their father. But Amy loved her father devotedly, and he returned the devotion. They all resembled Amanda rather than Timothy, and the boys — Henry, seventeen, and Harper, sixteen — had her candid and easy personality, her intrepid character, her integrity, and her sense of humor. They shared her intolerance of evil and malice in word or speech or conduct. This amused Timothy, thinking of his strong, tall, dark sons. He thought them just a trifle stupid for all their excellent scholarship and attention to school and duty. Fine boys, but hardly the stuff of entrepreneurs or promoters and adventurers. They would guard what they would inherit and never touch the sacred capital, but they would live solidly and richly within their income.

Amy came into the living room just now to say good night. Timothy stood up as he would for any lady, though the girl was only fifteen. Tall and with curling black hair like her mother’s and brothers’, she was also slender and delicate. She had an oval face that always had a soft rose-and-white glow, and large dark eyes full of sweetness and candor, a pretty short nose, and a full pink mouth. Her long blue dress, of the softest summer silk, outlined her young figure; she would be full-breasted like her mother on reaching maturity. The ruffled edge of hem just touched her ankles.

There was not the slightest physical resemblance, but Timothy was always reminded of his sister Melinda when he saw his daughter, and so he was particularly tender toward her. He bent and kissed her warm cheek lightly. “Isn’t it late?” he asked, putting his arm about her shoulders. “Almost eleven.”

“It isn’t school time now, Daddy,” she said. “And I’m not a child any longer.”

“Too bad,” said Amanda. “I mean, young girls these days seem to grow up too fast. Why have you done up your hair, Amy?”

The girl had twisted her silky black hair in a big pompadour over her white forehead. She patted it awkwardly. “I’m almost sixteen,” she said.

“In five months.” The back of her hair was inexpertly pinned. “Do say I can wear it this way on our trip, Mama.”

“Nonsense,” said Amanda. “You’re a schoolgirl, and you’re not going to look like a young lady who has her debut long behind her.” Then she relented. “Well, for evenings on shipboard and for dinners. Good gracious, why are you in such a hurry, child? Youth lasts only twenty-one years. After that you are old a very long time, and it’s very dreary and tiresome and full of responsibilities.”

Amanda vigorously attacked the gros point she was making for her dining-room chairs. She pricked her finger and said, “Damn.” Amy sat down with the grace she had copied from her father. “I didn’t say you could sit down,” said her mother, sucking the wounded finger. “You’re supposed to ask permission. Never mind. You’ll only think I’m old-fashioned, just as I thought about my own mother. Manners are certainly going out.”

“Don’t be stuffy, Mandy,” said Timothy, sitting down near his daughter. Amanda glared at him. “I loathe nicknames,” she said, “and especially that one. It reminds me of advertisements for flour. You have a suspiciously dreaming expression in your eyes, Amy, and I do detest that moist, far-off look which hints that your mother never had dreams of her own one time.” But she grinned amiably at the girl. “There was a matinee idol when I was young. All of us girls simply swooned at the very mention of his name. Very dashing and romantic, with long curly hair and burning eyes. He was a grandfather; when we found that out we abandoned him.” She looked at Amy with a little sharpness. “All girls get crushes. It doesn’t harm them unless they take them seriously.”

Amy blushed. She tried to escape the probing eyes of her mother. “Don’t worry about me, Mama,” she murmured.

“Don’t give me any occasion to worry,” said Amanda tartly. She moistened her handkerchief with the tip of her tongue, then rubbed it on a little bloodstain that had just marred the gros point.

“Amy’s never given us occasion to worry,” said Timothy. “Why should she start now? Are you looking forward to our trip, dear?”

“Oh yes, Daddy.” She made a breathy sound which caused her mother to glare.

“Where do you pick up these foolish habits?” demanded Amanda. “Why are you girls taking on the soft choky way of expressing pleasure? Never mind. Every generation to its silliness. At least you don’t say ‘twenty-three skidoo’. What slang. What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” said Amy.

“I wish you’d learn not to be so shy,” said Amanda. “You hardly speak at all, even to your parents, though I’ve heard you giggling with your friends. Are we ogres?”

“No,” said Amy, blushing again. She looked appealingly at her father, who brushed her soft cheek with the back of his hand.

“You’re a tartar, Amanda,” he said. “Amy’s at the sensitive age.”

“I’ll bet you never were,” said his wife, eying him shrewdly. “I’ll bet you were never young, either. What a generation you were!” She was a little jealous and so pointedly reminded him that he was more than eleven years her senior.

“We were very serious,” said Timothy, smiling. “I decided to be a lawyer when I was hardly past ten. Life to us was very sober and grave.”

“Your mother’s wasn’t,” said Amanda. “And my mother’s friends were just like her. Gay. Pleasure-loving. Extravagant. Witty. Always full of movement. Sophisticated. Lively. The young people today are grim in comparison.” She paused and looked at her daughter with speculation. “You haven’t seen your grandmother since you were a child, or your Uncle William. Lord Halnes. A nice, brilliant young man, though he does look something like a head bookkeeper in a going establishment. Too bad he is your uncle. He’ll make some lucky girl very happy. But imagine him going into that church, the Anglo-Catholic Church. His father would have had a fit.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” said Timothy. “Old Montague restored the family fortunes. And all English boys of noble family either go into the army or navy, or government, or the Church. At the very least, into the law, so they can become judges. Montague expected that. William will be a bishop later. He does all things properly; he’ll marry an English girl of just the right family, and she’ll have at least ten children, six of them boys.”

“Well, I hope he’ll introduce Amy to some excellent young man who’ll give her some solid dreams,” said Amanda. “Not some nickelodeon hero. How I hate those jumping characters, those oily, bowing caricatures. Or those rough types in western boots.”

“You have a lot of hates,” said Timothy, still stroking his daughter’s cheek.

“So I have,” said Amanda sturdily. “Good, solid, earthy hates. That’s what the world always needs. Tolerance! That’s a sickly thing; it demands that you love the irresponsible, the inferior, the vicious, the mediocre, the false, the meaningless — and you understand them too! What stupidity.”

She said to her daughter, “Are you happy that your cousin Elizabeth is going with us?”

Amy looked down at her hands. “No,” she murmured. “I don’t particularly like Elizabeth; perhaps it’s because I don’t know her very well. Then, she’s so old.”

“All of twenty-one,” said Amanda solemnly, winking at her husband. “Well, look. It’s late. Off to bed with you, young lady.” She was pleased with Amy.

The boys came to say good night to their parents, and Amanda looked at them fondly, particularly Harper, her darling. What lovely, serious boys. Kind, good, honest. She kissed them heartily. Harper, she thought, resembled dear brother Alfred.

Caroline Sheldon was alone in her dusty and decaying house now, for Elizabeth had left for Europe three weeks ago with Timothy Winslow and his family. Caroline had thriftily disposed of the lackluster housemaid during Elizabeth’s absence and had only the grumpy maid who was supposed to do the cooking and the ‘first-floor work’. Her mistress had informed her that she would attend to the upper stories, which she did not. Dust lay like soft gray carpets everywhere, except in the gallery and the study, for even the maid had done little in revenge for her miserable wages.

Like John, Elizabeth had an acute perception of the weaknesses and sins and greeds and malice of humanity and had begun long ago to take advantage of them. From early childhood she knew that her mother needed appreciation and admiration and understanding. Because she was truly reverent before Caroline’s genius for money-making, she gave her these things. That Caroline needed much more, and, above all, disinterested love, was something that Elizabeth was incapable of understanding. Like all those who concentrate only on the vices of others for their own purposes, she discounted the tragedies of the spirit and ignored them. Her mother had expressed no visible grief over the death of Tom Sheldon — therefore, to Elizabeth, her mother had not been very grieved after all.

After a few dabbles with paint soon after Caroline had surprised Elizabeth at the door of the gallery, Elizabeth had confessed with excellently assumed distress that she really had no eye for drawing. Caroline had comforted her. “I, too,” she had said, “have no eye, except for color, which expresses what even music or prose can’t express.” Elizabeth had nodded dolefully.

Elizabeth, at twenty-one, was her mother’s right hand. She had completely taken on the burden of checking rent receipts from the impressive property Caroline owned in Boston and New York. She would discuss daily, all stock-market reports with her mother, and as her interest in these was truly voracious, her discussions were remarkable for lucidity and understanding. She, too, had a reverent respect for capital. It was Elizabeth who had astutely reassured her mother during the Panic of ‘07 and had induced her not to sell some stocks which even the shrewdest of financiers had declared worthless. When Elizabeth’s judgment — and she had been only nineteen then — had been vindicated, Caroline was so delighted that she gave Elizabeth a good portion of the formerly despised stock. Elizabeth did not even spend the dividends, to Caroline’s approval. She merely used them to buy more stock. It had not taken Caroline long to understand that her daughter resembled John Ames in more ways than appearance. So her old delusion began again. Her father had loved her devotedly; his granddaughter, so like him, must therefore love her mother in the same fashion, though maintaining reserve. On this false fruit Caroline’s lonely spirit fed.