A Prologue To Love (85 page)

“Yes,” said John. He was glum. At least, thought Caroline, he is being unconsciously honest now. Ames has told him of the Boston Museum, and he is resenting it. She began to lean toward him when John forced a large white smile. “I’m glad about the Museum, Mother. Of course you are quite right in leaving those paintings to it.”

Caroline was not angry. She said wryly, “I’m glad you think so. They are extremely valuable now. You know that Mimi has seen them? I am leaving two to her, the ones she admired most.” And one, thought Caroline, is of your and her grandfather, the blind man who would not remove his blindness, because he was a coward and he was afraid.

She made one last effort. “Do you remember your father very often, John?”

John studied her. The old white hag had hated her husband, had despised him, had made her children despise him also. He said with an air of great candor, “Frankly, not often. He wasn’t a man of much character, was he? Ineffectual, simple. Of course I’m grateful that he left me half his money.”

Caroline held back her pain. “He used to pamper you,” she said.

John suddenly remembered something. He must have been only four then. He had been wandering about the garden, which had form in those days, and order. For him, however, the greens and reds had not existed, nor the yellows and blues. He had been a restless and vital child and was always wandering. And then he had come on a large snake, a harmless one, but it had terrified him. He had screamed. Tom, sitting in an arbor, smoking, had come to him at once, in great bounds. Tom had caught him up in his arms, had talked to him soothingly and laughingly. The snake would not harm him; it was a poor innocent creature. Besides, his father was here, wasn’t he? Nothing could hurt him while his father was here. Tom’s arms were strong and warm; his bare brown throat had been strong and warm too. His kisses were full of reassurance and tenderness. The little boy had huddled in his father’s arms, safe and protected, and he had loved Tom then.

Tom had carried him into the house. Caroline was there, in the living room, reading one of her financial reports. Tom had affectionately told her the story. She had dropped the report in her large lap and had looked at Tom with resigned impatience. “Oh, Tom,” she had said, and John, after all these years, could hear the young and disgusted voice, “don’t treat him like a baby. He’s a big boy now, too old for kisses and slaverings. Do put him down; I’ll ring for Beth. He should be having his supper now.”

Tom had instantly put John down. John had helplessly, and in terror, resented it. He had stared at his father. Tom looked crushed, beaten. Caroline was smiling darkly. A strong, contemptuous smile. Then John had despised his father for the first time. But more than all else, the little boy had felt betrayed, naked, bewildered, vengeful, unloved. John now remembered that he had begun to scream and that when old Beth had carried him up the stairs he was still screaming. He remembered the devastating sensation of desertion, of fear. Even now he did not know why.

He jumped to his feet and went away from his mother. He went to one of the smudged windows where Ames had stood only a week ago. He looked out at the ruined garden, the bursting and struggling trees, the wild vegetation. His heart was thumping furiously. He thought of Mimi, and he was enraged. Her damned art! A shocking rage came to him, blinding him.

Why was John standing there at the window, staring out? Caroline asked herself. She had only mentioned that Tom had pampered his older son. Yet he was standing there, rigid, as Ames had stood, and his profile, much larger and heavier than Ames’, had Ames’ sudden whiteness and intensity. Always sensitive to fear, Caroline could feel John’s fear.

Then she knew something else. Her older son, so bulky, so apparently puissant and strong, was innately weak, vulnerable, helpless, confused. He was a man; in character, he was a child. Somewhere in his soul he had stopped growing. He had kept his childishness, his dangerous childishness.

“John!” she exclaimed.

She has abandoned me, John thought, my wife has abandoned me, her husband. I need her, but she’s rejected me. She’s let me go so easily. I thought she was strong and sure and could help me. He felt exposed again, vulnerable, frightened, vaguely terrified. And vengeful. Above all, vengeful, for being deserted.

“He was no good,” said John. “He would never stand up against anything.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Caroline, feeling her son’s confusion, his darkness of mind. “Do you mean your father? He was the best man I’ve ever known, the kindest — ”

John laughed vaguely. “I’m sorry. I was thinking of something. It isn’t important.” He went back to his chair. “Don’t be upset. You don’t look well. Have you been to a doctor recently?”

“I didn’t ask you to come to discuss my health, John,” said Caroline. No? said John inwardly. What then?

“I thought we might have a talk,” said Caroline, knowing it was no use at all.

“Certainly,” said John, as if he understood.

“I’m not young any longer,” said Caroline.

John remembered old Brundage and was elated. “Of course you’re not,” he said in his rich and soothing voice. “This house, for instance, is too much for you. Your business is in New York. There is a house for sale next to ours, a gem of a house — ”

“No,” said Caroline.

John went on with an assumption of great eagerness: “Mimi would be there, and I know now how fond you are of each other. And there will be the baby.”

Yes, thought Caroline, Mary would want me, but she has always had love. My son has not had love, not from his mother, his brother and sister. John would like to have me in New York, where he believes that he could influence me for his own good.

“I’ve lived here too long,” said Caroline. “People my age don’t move so easily. A change of environment can be distressful.”

What did the old hag want of him? John asked himself. It couldn’t be that she wanted some demonstration of affection in her old age, as he, John, had hoped. She had said no to everything he had suggested; she was still like iron, immovable, dull. He was depressed and restless. He wanted to leave this hideous place. Why was she looking at him so hard, so piercingly?

“I’d like to know that you and Mary — ” said Caroline, and stopped.

John was eager again. “We’re splendid,” he said. “Why don’t you visit us and see for yourself?”

I’d like to know that Mary truly loves you, my son, thought Caroline, and accepts what you are without resentment or misunderstanding.

“Let me know when the baby is born,” she said. She was so very tired.

John took hope from that. She was interested, actually interested, in his coming child. Her first grandchild. Who knew? The thought elated him again. He could even, without taking much thought beforehand and with an air of boyish affection, take his mother’s arm and lead her out to the gate. Caroline could feel the warmth of his flesh through his sleeve and hers, and his flesh was hers, but it was the flesh of an absolute stranger separated from her forever.

He waved to her gaily from the automobile, and she saw the false gesture and the hearty false smile. And the disappointed eyes. I promised him nothing; I gave him nothing, thought Caroline, I’ve done that for him today, at least.

She was no longer afraid for Mimi; she was only afraid for John. There was strength in the young wife; there was no real strength or fortitude in the husband. “Be kind, Mary, to my son, in your youth and strength. Be kind to him, for I have never been kind.”

Caroline went into her house, and it was silent and filled with the smell of dissolution. “Oh, God!” she groaned to the silence and the emptiness. “Oh my God, have mercy on me!”

Caroline, the next morning, early, was called to the telephone. Ames said to her in a light and bantering voice, “Have you read your newspaper this morning?”

“I was about to do so,” said Caroline, “when you interrupted me. Is there something that might be of interest?”

Ames laughed. “Yes indeed. Dear Cousin Timothy died late last night.”

He chuckled. He could hear his mother’s sharp breathing. “Do you want me to send flowers in both our names, Mama?”

“No,” said Caroline. “Not in mine.”

“Pathetic, isn’t it?” said Ames. “You’ll find a very distinguished photograph of my father-in-law on the first page, with a magnificent eulogy. ‘Of the famous Esmond family, distinguished not only in Boston but in the capitals of Europe. Distinguished this, distinguished that. First Families.’ The funeral is on Friday. You won’t be attending, of course.”

“Don’t be a fool,” said Caroline. She thought: So one enemy is less in the world; one of the terrible has died. “Of what did he die, if you know?”

“Oh, I know. I was respectful enough to call at the house, though I didn’t see Amanda or Amy. Just Henry. He was doing the honors and he looked at me as though I had personally murdered his dear father. News travels in Boston. Though it was so early, the whole damn street was full of automobiles and the carriages of the old pussies. The old pussies shied at the sight of me and lifted their circa 1880 bombazine and black silks as if I was manufacturing mud.”

“Why did you go?” asked Caroline.

“Darling Mama, have you forgotten, and you a Miss Stockington girl? Don’t you remember Boston? If I hadn’t made a properly grave appearance today I’d have had to move out of the city soon. I’m a scoundrel, they all think, but they can stomach scoundrels who make money and are of good family. But they can’t stomach anyone who flouts one of their mossy conventionalities. Amy’s deserted me, and as her mother was a Bothwell, Amy cannot possibly have been even slightly in the wrong or culpable. Amy’s on the market again, or will be in the near future, and so will I. Young love — and money — you know.”

“You haven’t told me what caused Timothy to die. He looked well enough when I saw him, though he had had that stroke.”

Ames’ chuckle was louder. “Oh, he had another stroke.” He paused. “Immediately after you left his house. It’s all over the city that you’d been there; possibly servants have been gabbling. So you are the villainess, Mama. You killed Timothy.”

“What nonsense,” said Caroline,

“Why, Mama. Don’t you know people now, at your age? Certainly they are crediting it. You see dear Cousin Timothy; he has an immediate stroke; he dies of it last night. Very simple. Everyone’s quite excited. I haven’t seen so much excitement in Boston since old Henry Fromage hanged himself three years ago. Aren’t you upset?”

“Not in the least,” said Caroline. “I would advise you not to go to the funeral. That would be hypocrisy.”

“It would be flouting convention again. Certainly I will go to the funeral.”

He laughed with delight. He was still laughing when Caroline put the receiver back on its hook. Yes, she thought, I am glad. As long as he lived he was a threat. She considered Amanda and Amy and the good sons. She had never written a real note of condolence in her life, but now she did.

Late in September, as she was working in her study, Caroline, without any warning of previous depression or any increase in her slowly growing tiredness, suddenly felt a sudden and overwhelming loathing for living, for existence, for being, for merely being present on the earth. It appeared to come from outside herself rather than from her own spirit. She put down her pen slowly; it fell from her fingers and rolled, smearing, over her neat ledger.

She was battered as by waves of some dark horror, some profound listlessness, some mighty aversion and turning away from life, from everything that meant life. She studied it objectively while her mouth and lips dried and her heart, as if aroused from some secure cave, felt the presence of an enemy. She was, all at once, interested in nothing at all — the day, the hour, her money, her ledgers, herself, her pains, the world fast rolling into convulsions. She pushed aside her financial magazines and newspapers; she closed her ledgers. Then she stood up and went to the window and looked at the calm and smiling ocean.

Living, she thought, has never brought me any joy or satisfaction. But this is quite different. This is a repudiation of life. All men share it with me at different times; millions, perhaps, are now sharing it with me at this very moment. How can we, at these times, bear to go on living? ‘He who hates his life in this world . . .’ Where had she heard that, a long time ago? She pondered. Beth, of course, who had read those very words of Christ’s to her in the Bible almost half a century ago. Something else, however, was missing — the last of the sentence. There was no Bible in this house; suddenly she wanted to know it all, and what it meant.

A feeling of awful, black confusion came to her, and terror. “You haven’t given me Your grace,” she said aloud, and bitterly. “I asked You, but it never came.” She thought of the priest in Boston. Half stumbling, she went to her telephone and called his rectory, and she did not even pause for a moment to consider how extraordinary this was for Caroline Ames. When the priest answered she said with abruptness and urgency, “You may remember me. I was in your study some weeks ago. I didn’t tell you my name, but I came to you for some kind of help and you spoke about the grace of God. But I’m not calling about that now. I’ve just remembered something from childhood, about hating one’s life — I don’t know. Can you tell me?”

“Yes, Mrs. Sheldon,” said the priest. “Hello? Yes, I knew your name. I overheard the chauffeur mention it. Will you wait a moment? I want to read it to you in its entirety.”

He didn’t sound surprised; he didn’t sound confused; he just accepted it, thought Caroline with gratitude.

The quiet and accepting voice sounded in her ear again. “St. John, Chapter 12:24: ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. He who loves his life, loses it; and he who hates his life in this world keeps it unto life everlasting . . . Now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour! No, this is why I came to this hour. Father, glorify Thy Name!’ ”

The priest paused. “Do you want me to explain the words of Our Lord?”

Caroline said, “No. Repeat it to me again, please.”

He did so. Then the priest said, “You are very troubled, aren’t you? You are experiencing what all of us experience, sometimes only once in our lives, sometimes very often. But you are not alone.”

Caroline said, “I must think about it.” She hesitated. “I’ve asked for that — grace — but it didn’t come.”

“I think it’s come to you now,” said the priest.

“Thank you,” said Caroline brusquely. “Good day.”

She sat at her desk and stared blankly before her, and the awfulness of what she had experienced began to retreat. She thought of what the priest had read to her; somewhere, hidden in her brain or perhaps her spirit, something had been planted, something still in its hard husk but something alive and waiting. It was as if her first overpowering emotions had been a crude spade which had dug into earth for the thing that had been planted a little later.

It was not calmness that came to her, but a quietude. I’ll have to wait, she thought. The time came for her digitalis, and she forgot it. She sat and looked before her. At last, sighing, she returned to her ledgers and then her newspapers. Then she was blank again. They meant nothing at all to her just now. Her telephone rang and she answered it with impatience.

“Madam?” said a man’s voice. “This is Griffith.”

There had been so few times during which she had felt warmth and response in all her life. But she said quickly, “Griffith. Of course. Is there anything wrong?”

“I’m afraid so, madam.” The devoted man hesitated. “I don’t like to disturb you; I know how busy you are.”

“No,” said Caroline. “I’m not busy. I don’t think I ever was really.”

I sound mad, she thought immediately. But like that priest, Griffith accepted her extraordinary words with simplicity. “Tell me,” she said.

“It began, I think, last spring. That was the first time Mr. Sheldon spoke of it, and he was irritated. After all, he’s only a young man still, too young for spectacles. His eyes were blurring, he said. I made him an old mixture, of boric acid with just a little salt in water, and he washed his eyes with it.

I believe it helped him a little. But not his headaches. He bought a bottle of that new drug, aspirin. That was last spring. He took only a few tablets occasionally, but now he buys a bottle every few days.”

He stopped, for his voice had become distressed. Caroline’s instincts, always ready for flight and fear, rushed in on her. “Yes, yes!” she exclaimed. “Go on.”

“He is never ill, madam. An extraordinary constitution; not even a chill occasionally. I suggested a doctor a week ago for his headaches. He thought it very amusing. But he went to one this morning. He must have been suffering. He returned this afternoon. He sat in his
objets d’art
room for a long time. When he came out — madam, I say this without exaggeration — he seemed desperate. He left the house; he did not even speak to me when I asked him what he wished for dinner. He appeared to be — running — madam. I’m not a man given to exaggeration — ”

“The doctor’s name?” said Caroline sharply.

“An eye physician, madam. Dr. Irving Shapiro. I overheard the conversation on the telephone when he made the appointment.”

“I will call him at once. Thank you,” said Caroline, and hung up the receiver.

She reached for the telephone book, then her hand was paralyzed with terror. Ames. Her most unlovable son; her son who was incapable of love. He had nowhere to go for the love he needed. She, his mother, had never told him of love and that it was in the world somewhere. “He appeared to be — running — desperate.” She forced herself to find the doctor’s number, and all her flesh was shaking, rippling, with a horrible cold. Ames was not an emotional man; he did not ‘run’. He was self-assurance itself. “Is he?” said Caroline aloud as she waited for the doctor to answer. “Is anyone?”

She said at once to Dr. Shapiro: “I am the mother of Ames Sheldon. I am Mrs. Caroline Ames Sheldon. Let us not waste time, Doctor. There is something the matter with my son’s eyes. I must know.”

Dr. Shapiro said in a professional voice: “I can’t divulge — Mrs. Sheldon.” He paused, then remembered that this woman was Caroline Ames, the incredibly wealthy recluse, and not some frightened, obscure mother. She could command senators, bankers, the whole world, with her money. But still, he was a young man full of integrity and professional ethics. “I suggest you ask Mr. Sheldon himself.”

“Let us not be stupid, Doctor,” said Caroline, raising her voice. “My son and I rarely see each other. But I am his mother; he has no one else. If he needs help, I am the one who can give it. Who else? Haven’t you a mother yourself? Wouldn’t she want to know about you?”

As Dr. Shapiro had a very tender mother he forgot all about professional ethics and the sacred right of patients to privacy. He even forgot that he was speaking to the formidable Caroline Ames. His cool voice warmed. “I confess,” he said, trying to retain some formality, “that I was a little anxious about his reaction. Of course shock is natural, in these cases, for everyone. But Mr. Sheldon, in a way, reacted differently. It was as if — ”

He stopped. “As if he had suddenly made up his mind” — the doctor coughed — “to die.”

Caroline was silent; her throat became like stone.

“I tried to help him,” said Dr. Shapiro. “I told him to get another opinion, perhaps in Rochester, perhaps in New York. This is too serious for one opinion alone, though I am positive — ”

“What is wrong with my son?” Caroline said in a dwindled voice.

“I am afraid, Mrs. Sheldon, that he has a brain tumor. He will soon be blind. I told him. We don’t often operate on the brain, you know. One of the forbidden chambers still, like the heart. Someday, perhaps — Of course there have been some rare operations. The Egyptians — but still we don’t know if the patients survived.”

Ames. Blind. Ames, who saw all beauty through his eyes; his treasures, the rare paintings he bought, his rugs, furniture. Blind. “Oh, God,” Caroline said.

“I told him,” said the young doctor with compassion, “that perhaps he should see his clergyman. He laughed at me.”

“Of course,” said Caroline in a voice like a groan. “How long — ”

“The tumor will grow. There’s no way of finding out if it’s benign or malignant unless the skull is opened. In any event, it will — ”

“Kill him,” Caroline broke in. “How long will that take?”

“If benign, perhaps many months after he is blind. If malignant, only a short time.”

“There’s no surgeon who can help him?”

“Mrs. Sheldon, I think there is one, the best I know. I’ve read reports of his operations. Amazing. If the tumor is benign, of course. But he is interned in Canada; he’s a German, and there’s the war in Europe. He’s in Toronto.”

“His name?” asked Caroline.

“Dr. Moritz Manz. He had his own clinic in Berlin and came to Canada before the war to demonstrate to colleagues. But — ”

“Thank you,” said Caroline, and replaced the telephone receiver. She called Griffith and said, “When my son returns — and I don’t care what time it is, for I won’t go to bed — you must tell him to call me at once. At once.”

Then she called Higsby Chalmers. “Higsby,” she said without a salutation, “my son Ames has a tumor of the brain. There is a man who can help him, a Dr. Moritz Manz, a German interned now in Canada. Toronto. I want him here to operate on my son.”

“Caroline!” exclaimed Higsby, much perturbed. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear this about Ames! But a German, and interned. I don’t think it’s possible. I can’t see how — ”

“My son,” said Caroline. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. Ames! “Oh, God,” she said. “Higsby, I want that surgeon here; I want him in Boston. I don’t know how you can arrange it, but arrange it you must. That senator I helped elect, what is his name? Never mind telling me! Let him go to the White House. The President has invited me many times. I don’t care how it is done! Ames — he will go blind and die. Unless I can get that Dr. Manz.”

“Caroline, there is Dr. Gushing — ”

“I want Dr. Manz!” shouted Caroline. “Get him, Higsby! Call your politicians. Move anything, anyone. My son will die, do you hear me?”

“I will do what I can,” said Higsby in distress.

“You will do it,” said Caroline harshly. “You must do it. I want no excuses. I want no pleas about a war. There is that matter of a $500,000,000 loan between the British and French governments and American bankers; it will come up soon, and it is to be signed in the offices of J. P. Morgan. I know Mr. Morgan well; he is the only American in favor of that loan. All others are against it.” She paused. “I am too.”

Higsby was silent in the face of that huge implied threat. A Caroline Ames could do even more: she could wreck the frightened stock market. She had many associates in America and Europe. There was a great deal she could do.

“We are a neutral country, aren’t we?” said Caroline with an almost violent rage. “Let us not waste time. I want Dr. Manz in America as fast as possible. How or with whom you can arrange it, I don’t know. I don’t care. But he must come.”

“I will try,” said Higsby. “That is all I can promise, Caroline.”

“Do not try,” said Caroline. “Do not promise. The man must come. Good day, Higsby.”

“Caroline, please listen,” said Higsby. There was no answer. He put the receiver down, troubled and anxious. Then he picked it up again.

Caroline walked down the broken sea walk in the cool, bright September sunlight, in the great silence of the land, in the murmurous voice of the ocean. She stopped on the shingle and looked about her, and suddenly she saw the brilliant glory of the blue water and the vivid burning of the deep blue sky. They came to her like a shock, like a discovery. She had not seen them for many years. She had never really seen them at all since she was a child.

To be blind. Not to see. To grope in darkness. Not to see this little gray and marvelous shell at her feet; not to see the way the incoming tide threw long and bubbling foam on the sand, the color of breaking silver. Not to know the way the watery horizon tumbled in and upon itself in turquoise, streaked with rose, veined in white, vaporous with azure. Not to watch the manner in which the radiant clouds formed vast images of men and castles and unearthly caverns and mountainous gods and racing horses and walls of light. She bent and lifted a handful of sand and watched the endless tiny colors rush between her fingers, scarlet, gray, rose, pale blue, green, gold. A little stone — smooth and full of a thousand hues. A piece of driftwood, pale and carved by water into the shape of a sleek crouching cat. The sea grass, gray and green. The pines, gray and green also, valorous against the wide luminescence, the majestic loneliness of earth and heaven. Not to see the simplest thing — and it, itself, the very core of wonder and mystery.

Then, without warning, something spoke in Caroline. “But you, too, have been blind. You haven’t seen or looked for many years. You have been like your father in your grandfather’s painting; you have willfully blinded yourself with fear. There are many kinds of blindness, but yours has been the worst.”

Yes, thought Caroline, that has been the worst. There was everything for me to see, but I refused to see it. Because I was afraid. Because I preferred to see darkness. I walled myself against the sight of a tree or a stone, a face or a blade of grass, a cloud or a leaf. I was afraid of the emotion they might bring, and the understanding. I had to have my blindness because I was afraid. Shall I blame my father because he cut off my sight? No. That priest was right. God will not accept a plea that others sinned against us. We sin against ourselves, deliberately. And against Him. We refuse to see Him, the Lord our God. Yet He is all about us, visible, if only we look and know.

She looked at the sky and said, “Dear God, have mercy on us, Your deliberately blind, and show us the light. Have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.”

She waited. God had not given her His grace. Not yet. She looked about her and saw His grace and felt it within her. “He who hates his life in this world . . .” His stupid, foolish, tragic, blundering, wicked, blind life. She knew now. She had only to ask to be given.