Let Love Come Last

by Taylor Caldwell

  Her heart was beating angrily. She felt deprived. He was excited. “Lucy could have slept on a cot in the kitchen, or somewhere.”

  “No human being shall sleep in the kitchen in my house,” said Ursula. Now her anger increased. He had not kissed her. He had not asked after her health. He had trodden over her, as if she were of no significance at all. He was glaring at her with the dull thick look she detested so heartily, and which made him appear insensate.

  She had once believed him subtle. She saw, now, that she had not been wrong. He had a capacity for intuition. Suddenly he was smiling again, a changed smile. Very slowly, he came to her. He laid his hands on her shoulders. She waited, holding her breath. But he did not bend down his head and kiss her. With an odd little laugh, she raised her hands, took his face in them, and kissed him full upon the lips. He stood very still, and she felt his face stiffen, as if he wanted to reject her.

  “William,” she said softly.

  The hands on her shoulders tightened. His lips had been hard and quiet under her own; now they suddenly became eager, almost ravenous. He pulled her to him. Then he thrust her away rudely. He went to the chair near the fire and sat down. He looked down at his wet boots. He said: “You look very pale.” His voice was indifferent. But his face was heavily flushed.

  “Wedding preparations are very tedious,” she said. She felt curiously light-headed. She sat down near him. Out of the corner of his eyes he peeped at her, and in a less exigent man she would have thought the peep shyness.

  “Wedding preparations,” he repeated, disdainfully. But she knew he had not heard his own words. He bent down to remove an old leaf from his boots. He tossed it into the cold grate. “I want to see Oliver,” he said, surlily. “You can’t keep him from me.”

  “I don’t intend to.” She kept her voice calm and gentle. “But I think the child ought not to be disturbed tonight.” She added, cunningly: “It would be bad for his health.”

  After a moment, he nodded. “Yes.”

  There was silence in the room.

  “I promised him he should see you tomorrow,” said Ursula, mendaciously.

  He looked up. His whole face was alight, sheepishly tender. “Has he missed me?”

  “Very much. But he is a very understanding baby. And very patient. He never once believed you wouldn’t return. I have heard that children believe they are forever deserted, when a parent goes away. Oliver did not believe that.”

  “He cried for me?”

  Ursula’s first emotion was impatience. Then she was compassionate. “Yes. But then I explained to him. He waits for you every night, and asks for you every morning.”

  “Then, I ought to see him now!”

  “But he is asleep—William. It would be very upsetting for him to be awakened. He would be so excited that he might not sleep again, and become ill.”

  She sighed. “William, do you remember my name?”

  “Eh?” He regarded her with astonishment.

  “My name,” she repeated, patiently. “I have a name. Have you forgotten it? You haven’t mentioned it.”

  He still regarded her with astonishment. Then he began to laugh. “Ursula,” he said. He stopped laughing. “Ursula,” he repeated, more gently. He stood up, frowning again. “What foolishness.”

  She stood up, also. Her slight figure moved close to him. He turned his head quickly and, wary as always, tense and watchful, watched her come. She put her hand on his arm. “William,” she said, “did it ever occur to you why I consented to marry you?”

  He did not answer.

  “I agreed to marry you because I love you.” Her voice was very soft and low and pleading.

  He still did not answer. Now he looked away from her.

  “Do you understand what I have said, William?” she urged.

  “I heard you.” His words were almost inaudible.

  “Do you believe it?”

  He flung off her hand, went a few steps away from her. He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “Love,” he said. “There isn’t any love, anywhere.”

  “That is not true,” she said. “You love Oliver.”

  “Children are different.”

  For the first time, she was filled with a fierce jealousy. “No, they are not! I love you. You have never said you loved me. Why are you marrying me, William? I must know.”

  He turned to her. His face was very tired and haggard. He opened his mouth. Then he closed it again. “I can’t believe in love between men and women,” he said, finally, and with heaviness.

  “You don’t love me?”

  He flung out his hands in exasperation. “Why do you keep harping on ‘love’? I’ve asked you to marry me. I want to marry you. Isn’t that enough?”

  She studied him with great intensity. Her first impulse was to say: “No.” Then she smiled. “Yes, I suppose it is,” she said. She wanted to laugh, to kiss him again, to hold him protectingly in her arms. She said only: “Will you have some coffee?”

  He was relieved at her change of mood. “No. I have had my dinner.”

  “I have some brandy. Would you like a glass?”

  “I don’t drink. There was wine tonight. I had half a glass. I didn’t like it.”

  Ursula suddenly remembered a remark of her father’s: “Beware of the man who never drinks, not even a little.”

  “It disagrees with you?” said Ursula, tentatively.

  “No. It is just that I need all my wits about me.”

  “All my wits.” He had set himself against the world, which he suspected would always try to outwit him. He had set himself against it because he feared it and could not trust it.

  He sat down again, leaving her standing. “I had dinner at the home of our ‘dear’ friends, the Bassetts,” he said. He laughed again, and the laugh was unpleasant. “There were other ‘friends’ there: Muehller, Banks, Leslie, Whiscomb. You know them?”

  “Yes.” She sat down, but at some distance.

  Now he was excited again. He hardly seemed to see her. “I must tell you about it. About everything that happened today. You are a woman, and you will not understand all of it. But there is much that you will understand, for you are intelligent.”

  “Thank you,” said Ursula, dryly.

  His whole face became alive, thinner, darker, vital with power. He began to speak. His natural eloquence, released, painted for her the scene in the bank, at the Bassett dinner table. His voice, rising and falling, vivid, strident, sometimes vehement, sometimes full of detestation and loathing—but always triumphant—held her like mesmerism. Her hands lay quietly in her lap.

  He hates them, she thought, though she was appalled at such malignance, such vindictiveness. He hates them because they are despicable and exigent and avaricious, because they would betray a friend, for money, because they would betray themselves, for money.

  All at once she knew that he loved her; there was no longer the faintest reason to doubt it. Even more, he trusted her.

  “Why are you smiling?” he asked, irascibly, halting in the very midst of the flow of his furious words.

  “Smiling?” She had not been conscious of this. She stammered: “Was I smiling? Ought I not to be smiling?” She paused. “Should I be glowering?”

  “But these are your friends.”

  “If you had thought them such friends of mine, would you be telling me this story?” she countered.

  He gave a sudden shout of laughter. “Then, you hate them, too?”

  She said, honestly: “No, I do not. I do not believe I hate anyone. No one has ever given me cause to hate him.”

  Again, his expression changed. “I have wondered whether you had the power to hate anyone. Or whether you were so egotistic that you did not consider anyone important enough for you to hate.”

  He had the ability to arouse more ire in her than she usually felt in the space of a whole year.

  “You certainly have no flattering opinion of me, have you?”

  He smiled derisive
ly. “I think I ought to have remembered that ‘nice’ women are not supposed to have strong opinions about anything.”

  “You express yourself engagingly,” she said. “But, pardon me: please go on with your interesting story.”

  He scrutinized her concentrated silence. Then he said in that dull tone of his, which could follow so quickly on violence: “That is all, I think.”

  He stood up. He began to walk up and down the room, restlessly, while she watched him with a good imitation of calm silence. She was startled when he halted abruptly, right in front of her. “You know so little about me,” he said, looking down at her watchfully. “You know only what others have told you, and what I have seen fit to tell you. Have you never wanted to know more?”

  I know all about you, my darling, she thought, her rage gone. She said: “It is true that I have not known you long.”

  He sat down once more, and he leaned towards her, speaking rapidly, as if throwing the words at her: “You might as well hear it all. My father worked in a little saw-mill down the river. He was badly injured; he died. I was very young, then. We had an old house, but a fairly large one, in a very poor section. My mother had always taken boarders. She continued to do so, after my father died. She worked hard; she worked herself to death. She was a very harsh woman, and she considered me a great responsibility. I don’t think she ever thought of me in any way but as a burden.”

  “If she felt responsible for you, then she must have loved you,” said Ursula, gently.

  “No, you are wrong. She was an ignorant and religious woman. I was the millstone the Lord had thought fit to hang about her neck. So, she carried the millstone, grimly.”

  How tired she must have been, thought Ursula, with compassion. She said: “I imagine keeping boarders must have left her little time for anything else.”

  William ignored her crass remark. “I helped, as soon as I was able. Then I met Dr. Cowlesbury. I was in the woods one day.”

  He was silent for so long after he had said this that Ursula felt impelled to say: “Yes?”

  He only said: “Dr. Cowlesbury was the only friend I have ever had.”

  He made an awkward but compelling gesture, as if denying a plea from her to hear more, or as if repudiating her sympathy. He said: “I really ought to see Oliver. Does he like you, still? He has not fretted?”

  “It is almost eleven, William. It would be most unwise to disturb the baby. Yes, he likes me; very much, I think. After all, he is so young, and I am not exactly a brute. No, he has not fretted. He is too amiable and sensible.”

  “I hope you have not taught him to care for you more than for me.” The words were childish, and he smiled. But it was a jealous and suspicious smile.

  The clock tinkled eleven, and Ursula rose. “You will ruin my reputation if you remain a moment longer,” she said. “Even though I have a chaperone.”

  Then she mentioned something of which she had been thinking these past few days: “I have thought, perhaps, if you have not planned a honeymoon, that we might spend the time before you have finished your own house in this one.” She colored. William did not, apparently, find her remark in the least indelicate. In fact, he looked about him slowly and consideringly. He studied every object in the room with great and thoughtful care. At last, he said: “It is a beautiful little house, I admit. But it is not so—”

  “So magnificent as the Imperial Hotel?” she finished.

  He did not apologize, or deny. “I don’t like small houses very much,” he added with candor. “This is a woman’s house, also.”

  “My father lived here; my father furnished this house,” said Ursula, provoked, “and my father was not in the least a woman.”

  “Who said he was?” asked William, absently. Again, he studied the room. “No, I think not. I should imagine myself poor again. Not that I do not realize that you have some treasures here. Still, smallness reminds me of poverty. I should stifle here.”

  “At least, you are frank,” said Ursula. She was amused in spite of her vexation.

  He was catching up his coat and hat and gloves and cane now, with those swift movements which so expressed his restless vitality. “You are right. It is very late, and I must go. I’ll take Oliver off your hands tomorrow. The carriage will call for him in the morning.”

  He put on his coat. He went towards the vestibule. Then he turned about and looked at her. She went to him serenely, and held up her face. She waited. He did not move. She laughed a little. “You’ll have to remember to kiss me occasionally,” she said.

  To her surprise, he colored. He brushed her cheek unwillingly with his lips. “Good-night,” he said.

  They looked at each other. He murmured, almost inaudibly: “Ursula.” Then, with a kind of reluctant urgency: “Ursula. I have thought of you often, while I was away. You kept coming into my mind when I least expected it.” He spoke accusingly.

  “I am glad,” she said, simply.

  He repeated: “Good-night.” He opened the door and closed it quickly behind him, and she heard him run down the stone steps outside.

  Ursula went slowly back into the room, and sat down. It was wrong. Everything was wrong.

  CHAPTER XI

  The naive, even those who called themselves friends of Chauncey Arnold, often wondered if and why his wife loved him, though they, themselves, were frequently as undeserving of the love of their wives and families. The men who, without the slightest hesitation, had betrayed him, knew him to be bullying, meanly expedient, sly and greedy. His father had owned a prosperous saw-mill, and had been famous for his ability to drive an excellent and ruthless bargain. But he had been content with the saw-mill. Chauncey Arnold had had larger ambitions. Before he was thirty, he had founded and organized the American Lumber Company. Before he was forty, he was a rich man. He had demonstrated the noblest virtue of all: He had a knack for making money. Moreover, he could be genial and expansive, had a loud laugh, a fund of stories, and a good table. His flaws of character were rarely if ever mentioned. Still, it was a wonder to everyone that his wife loved him. She had certainly not married him for his money, for at the time of their marriage he was only the manager of his father’s saw-mill. Her own father had been a successful physician.

  Had she been similar to him in personality, the question would never have arisen at all. But she was a gentlewoman, stately, full of personal integrity, kind and serene. Her manners were impeccable, her taste beyond question. In her youth, she had even been beautiful, a little austere, to be sure, but undeniably desirable. Sometimes he spoke rudely to her; she ignored it. It never occurred to anyone that she loved him because he loved her. There was a pleasant regard between herself and Ursula Wende, and they were always pleased to encounter each other. She visited Ursula occasionally, but always alone. No one needed to tell Alice that Ursula had an aversion for Chauncey Arnold. Had Alice been less intelligent, she would have resented this. But not only did Alice Arnold possess subtlety; she also possessed humor, tolerance and charity. Most of all, she had a strong pity for everyone, even the most fortunate, smug and complacent.

  Alice loved her son, Eugene, as devotedly as she loved her husband. But her pity for Eugene was, paradoxically, not so strong as her pity for Chauncey. With the inconsistency of human nature, she expected more of her son than she expected of her husband. After all, her father had been a man of high breeding, taste and great probity.

  Observing the families of her friends, she had discerned that sons have a tendency to love their mothers more than they love their fathers. Sometimes, she found herself annoyed that Eugene, who did not respect his father, and who knew all about him, loved Chauncey more than he loved his mother. She was also aware that there was in Eugene a strong protective instinct towards Chauncey, and so she forgave her son and remained on excellent terms with him.

  Eugene, at twelve, took an enormous interest in his father’s affairs. Chauncey often said, with as much seriousness as chaff in his voice, that he never did anything of real im
portance without consulting his son. Certainly, Eugene was both intelligent and astute. He knew that some day a much cleverer man than Chauncey might possibly ruin him. Hence his protectiveness towards his father, which was also protectiveness towards himself as his father’s heir.

  When the first days of danger for Chauncey arrived, Eugene knew it. He acknowledged to himself that he had always expected these days. To him, it was no surprise, no shock, as it was to his father. It was simply inevitable. A man who thought himself secure was the most vulnerable. Even before the final dénouement, he listened for hours to Chauncey’s incoherent and frantic denunciations of William Prescott. But Eugene did not hate William for it. William, unknowingly, possessed the respect of Chauncey Arnold’s son.

  William, however, had disliked Eugene from the time he had first seen the boy, which was when Eugene was about seven years old. The two had studied each other acutely, for only a few moments. For Eugene, the scrutiny had ended in admiration, but also in a faint disdain. By the time Eugene was twelve, he had recognized William’s tremendous vitality and force of character; he knew also that here was a man of ambition and imagination, a man who could not be stopped. He had also recognized another trait in William, which only Ursula also knew, and that was a certain instability of emotion, and a certain fanaticism, a fanaticism which had nothing to do with the immense importance of making money. It was like a treacherous flaw in a glacial rock, which might at any moment expand in a great explosion and wreck the rock and all that surrounded it.

  Eugene did not resemble his father very much. In appearance he was startlingly like his mother, very tall and thin and strongly angular, and of a curious pallor, almost a colorlessness. This lack of color in Alice added to her elegance. But in Eugene it was also formidable and arresting. He had his mother’s pale, lustreless hair, straight and smooth, her pale, still eyes and bloodless lips, her regular, somewhat bony features, her wide, deep eye-sockets, her firm dimpled chin.

  William had perhaps instinctively recognized the cold, childlike implacability of the boy, a quality which he unconsciously hated and feared as an adult quality. At any rate, after his scrutiny of Eugene, he had turned away. He never saw the boy after that without an increase in his aversion and disgust.