A Prologue to Love

by Taylor Caldwell

  “This won’t take long. I won’t detain you,” said Caroline. The folded hands tightened. “I’ve been in Lyndon and in New York. I’ve been consulting with Papa’s lawyers.”

  “Of course,” murmured Cynthia helplessly. “Did you see Timothy too?”

  “Yes,” said Caroline. She looked down at her hands. Cynthia said, “Caroline, why don’t you come and stay with me and Melinda for a while? Let us go to Newport together.”

  For the first time Caroline looked at her, and the hatred and revulsion on her face shocked Cynthia. Cynthia could not help crying out, “Caroline! What have I done to you to make you look at me like that — you, my sister’s child!”

  But Caroline could not accuse her of her sins, for that would be involving her dead father. She could not speak of Melinda, for that would disgrace John Ames, who had been the victim of this shameless woman, this extravagant and foolish strumpet, this trollop, this middle-aged woman who had the audacity to flood perfume upon herself even now and curl and color her hair and wear fashionable mourning clothes!

  “I have work to do,” said Caroline. “I can go nowhere. I’m not an idle woman.”

  “Yes,” said Cynthia, and wondered why she spoke at all. Only pity held her here; she must make another effort to help that grief, that crushed immobility. John would want her to do that, and this was Ann’s daughter. There was no trace of the mother in Caroline, nor a single trace of John Ames; Cynthia had never considered Caroline really ugly. But now she was ugly in her sorrow and hatred and seemed years older. Her dark skin was thicker and heavier, her chin more massive, her large head actually giving the illusion that it was sitting squarely on her shoulders without the benefit of any neck at all. This gave her a fold under the chin, though she was not stout. Rather, she had lost much weight; the hideous thick black mourning of some undetermined cloth hung on her body.

  Caroline looked at the tall and narrow windows swathed in lace curtains and crimson draperies. She spoke without emotion, “My father left — left your adopted daughter — nearly one million dollars. Well invested, secure, sound.”

  “Do we have to talk about this?” cried Cynthia. “Caroline, you’re my niece. I want to help you. We both loved your father,” she continued recklessly. “I’m grieved, too, though possibly not as much as you are, for he was all you had. You’ve avoided me; you haven’t answered my letters. You’re flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood. Let us console each other and not talk about money just now, please!”

  “You knew about my father’s will?” said Caroline inexorably, as if Cynthia had not spoken. “Before he died?”

  “Yes,” said Cynthia, sagging in defeat.

  Caroline looked at her again, directly, seeing her aunt’s beauty and style, her slenderness and her jewels.

  “You think that will was fair?” asked Caroline.

  “Fair?” repeated Cynthia faintly. Then she colored and became vaguely indignant. “My dear. Your father left you all he had, many, many millions of dollars. If he wished to spare a little for Melinda, that was his privilege. Did you want it all?” she exclaimed, flushing even deeper. “I never thought you were greedy, Caroline! Why, you couldn’t even begin to spend a tenth of the income from the money and property he left you!”

  “I don’t intend to spend even a tenth,” said Caroline, still speaking without emotion. “I intend to use the income to increase Papa’s fortune, as he would want me to do. I see there is no use in speaking of fairness to you — about your adopted daughter.” She paused. “I did think, though, that you’d be willing to refuse that money. You have no right to it.”

  “It is not mine. It’s Melinda’s,” said Cynthia, and there was a sharp constriction in her throat. “I have no legal right, or any other right, to refuse money left to my daughter.”

  She was filled with cold alarm. Did Caroline know that Melinda was her sister? But how could she know? “Do you hate Melinda?” asked Cynthia angrily. “And if so, why?”

  Caroline was silent. The fold of flesh under her chin became a dark pink. Then she said dully, “Yes, I hate her. I never did like her, and I never knew why. I wasn’t jealous of her; why should I be? But — ” She paused, lifted her hand, and dropped it.

  “Hatred is a wicked thing,” said Cynthia, and now her lovely voice was hard. “It is even worse than greed. Are you greedy, Caroline?”

  Caroline’s mouth tightened in a bitter half smile. “Aren’t you?” she said. “I see you won’t give up that money left to — to your adopted daughter. I’ve talked with the lawyers in an effort to break that will. They tell me I can’t. I could put you through years of litigation, they tell me, but you would probably win in the end. My father, they said, had the right to leave his money as he wished. I only thought you would see that justice was on my side. I was foolish, wasn’t I?”

  The small and burdened room became intolerable to Cynthia. But she controlled herself. “It was very kind of your father,” she said, measuring out her words carefully. “We are all grateful. Don’t look at me so terribly; you aren’t intimidating me. Melinda will keep her money. Is there anything else?”

  “Yes,” said Caroline. Cynthia could not know that the girl wanted to burst into wild and desperate tears. “There is the matter of the twenty-five thousand dollars a year left you in trust, for life, by my father. I’m sure that now he’s dead you’ll be willing to give it up.”

  “No,” said Cynthia quietly. “Why should I? It is all I have. Would you wish me to starve, Caroline?”

  “You’d receive an income from Melinda’s trust,” said Caroline. “It wouldn’t be that much money, but it would be enough, until Melinda is twenty-one, when she will be able to manage Papa’s money herself. And surely she wouldn’t let you starve!”

  Cynthia was really angry now. “I have no intention of giving up my twenty-five thousand dollars a year for life, Caroline. The trust was established many years ago, when you were about ten years old. It is not part of your father’s estate at all. It was money set aside, as you know. Upon my death the trust will revert to his estate. Can’t you wait that long, Caroline? Do you want everybody to die so you will have everything?”

  She stood up, rustling and sweet with perfume. “Have you no respect for your father’s wishes? For the provisions he made from his own money? I thought you loved him.”

  Caroline’s large breast moved and trembled. She could not speak. She could not say, “You exploited my father, for yourself and your daughter, and I only want to right a wrong. You cheated and robbed him for your own wicked purposes, for you are without shame and decency.” To speak so might invite fresh revelations, and to have them spoken would defame her father and disgrace his memory.

  Helplessness and suffering thickened her tongue and kept her silent. Cynthia drew on her gloves. She was very pale. Then Caroline could speak, and only in a low voice:

  “I see it’s all hopeless. But I can ask one thing, and I wish you would grant it. I go often to Papa’s grave. And I see you leave flowers on it all the time. I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?” asked Cynthia. “I was very — fond of your father. And so was Melinda. Why do you want to deprive us of a little consolation?”

  Caroline lifted her hand, then let it fall. How could she explain that she thought her aunt’s and Melinda’s visits and flowers desecrated that grave?

  “I’m sure that your father doesn’t mind,” said Cynthia sadly, picking up her purse. She looked at the big and inarticulate girl, and she was full of pity again. “Caroline, you’ve led a very unnatural life, and you’re still young, only going on twenty-four. You were deprived all your young years, and I quarreled with your father about it. Now you are rich. In a way, you’re free. Take up your life, Caroline, if you can. And, if you will, I can help you.”

  “To be like you?” asked Caroline with loathing. Cynthia was horrified. She felt naked and unclean. She wanted to strike Caroline, and never had she wanted to strike anyone before, not even Timothy.
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  “What a dull and stupid fool you are, Caroline,” she said in a shaking voice, her hands clutching her black silk purse. “What do you know of living? Of love and enjoyment, of happiness and laughter? Of being young and gay? Of liking people and music? You’ve lived like — like a — beast, Caroline. A miserable big beast in a zoo, fed and sheltered adequately, but that is all. You know nothing of the world and mankind. Oh, my God!” she cried. “It isn’t your fault, I know! It was your father’s fault, and I can never forgive him for that, never! I only wanted to help you.”

  She began to cry. Then she ran to the door and went away.

  Hearing the departure and the slam of the door, Beth came into the room. Caroline was sitting soundlessly, her hands over her face. Beth had not been ashamed to eavesdrop on the conversation. She stood and looked at Caroline, and she was disgusted with her, and outraged. But she loved the girl. She said, “Carrie, Carrie, my child?”

  “Don’t, Beth,” said Caroline, and she stood up and went into her own room.

  Beth wrote to Tom Sheldon:

  “We’ll be in Lyme for a week or two beginning next Tuesday, dear Tom. Please help me with Carrie. Sometimes she seems to be going out of her mind with grief. She hardly speaks at all. She just wanders around the house in Lyndon, and then she goes to New York to see her lawyers, alone. She won’t even let me go with her. She looks like she’s dying, Tom. And she will die, I’m sure, if someone doesn’t help her. Her aunt tried, and she drove her away. I try, and she won’t answer me. She does love you, Tom. She wears your brooch all the time. It’s the only jewelry she does wear; she never touches the jewelry her mother left her and which is now out of the bank. Never mind if she acts like she doesn’t want to see you or talk to you. Just be there, Tom dear. She needs you.”

  Tom had written many times to Caroline since her father’s death, but she had not answered. He had even gone to Lyndon, to find that she was in New York. He left urgent messages for her, which she had ignored. Now he read Beth’s letter and shook his head. He would try once more, and if he failed, then it would be the end. He would have to try to forget her. Perhaps he wouldn’t. But he had a life to live too. He held Beth’s letter in his hand and reread that portion of it referring to the brooch he had bought for Caroline. Then all at once he was desperate, and he saw himself as a ridiculous figure, a buffoon, an ignoramus. What had he, Tom Sheldon, who had never had a formal education and who was now twenty-six years old and only a builder of good little houses in obscure places, to offer a woman whom the newspapers were still referring to as ‘one of the richest girls in the world’? He had always thought of her only as Carrie Ames, a sad, shy girl, a shabby, frightened girl, a girl he loved and had to protect.

  On reading of her father’s death in Switzerland he had sent her an expensive cable, offering her consolation and assuring her that he loved her and prayed for her. But his real emotion was one of thanksgiving that a sinister presence had been removed from a terrified girl who had been restored to life. He felt continuing dismay that the newspapers had not as yet stopped writing of her; he looked at Boston, New Haven, and New York newspapers, and invariably her photograph was there, accompanied by articles concerning John Ames and speculations about his daughter, ‘whom he had kept secluded while he prepared her to take his place in the world of finance’. Tom would look at the severe photographs of Caroline, and beyond the cold, impassive expression he would see her soft hazel eyes, her smile, and hear her hesitating voice and sometimes a rare, confiding laughter. The full realization of what and who Caroline Ames was did not reach him until this very moment, on a July day, as he sat on his father’s porch, facing the sea and resting after fourteen hours of vigorous work.

  Never before had he considered money in connection with Caroline. “How could I have been such a fool!” he said aloud and with bitterness, looking at the evening sea and watching the rise of the golden curve of the young moon. He remembered that the newspapers had even hinted that such-and-such a personage — a European nobleman, a count, a prince, or sons of mighty fortunes in America — was being conjectured as a possible mate for Caroline Ames. At first this had not disturbed him. Carrie was ‘my girl’. The woman in the newspapers was not Carrie at all. It was not until John Ames’ body had been brought home and laid in the Esmond family plot in Boston that sharp uneasiness had come to Tom. He had actually gone to the cemetery. Caroline knew so few people, he had told himself. Only her aunt and her cousin Timothy and her adopted cousin, little Melinda, and perhaps a few friends would be there to console and help her. He would not go to the church, of course; it was better for the bereaved to be alone there, looking at the face of the dead for the last time. He arrived at the cemetery gates an hour before the burial.

  Then he received his first shock. A cordon of police was at the gates, and the captain on horseback coldly asked him if he had ‘a ticket’ or if he was visiting the grave of a relative. “No,” said Tom, bewildered, his hands holding the strong thorny roses he had cultivated himself in his sea garden behind his father’s house. “I’m just a friend of — of Miss Ames.” It took a moment or two for him to realize that he could not attend the funeral of John Ames unless he had a scrap of cardboard and had been invited!

  The captain was kind. He looked at Tom’s neat cheap clothing, at the black cravat he had bought only that morning for fifty cents, and at the sturdy workman’s boots. “Are you a servant of the family?” he asked. Tom glared at him. “Well, then,” said the captain in his Irish voice, “you’ll not be at the funeral, I’m thinking, my boyo. It’s very exclusive, that it is, and all the big lads and their ladies will be here, even from Washington,” he added importantly, flicking a speck of dust from the harness with an elegant touch of his gloved finger.

  “I’m a friend of Carrie’s — that is, Miss Ames,” repeated Tom, growing angry and bewildered. “But it is not a ticket she sent you,” said the captain, shaking his head. He liked Tom’s appearance, his height, his lucid eyes, his well-brushed black hair, and he thought the roses very beautiful. He bent down from his horse to sniff them. He was sorry for Tom. The ‘big ones’ were always forgetting; they had money to think about, and it was money that was important to them.

  “The President of the United States,” said the captain, “is sending an important personage to represent him at this funeral, and there’ll be a few senators and congressmen and the governor and many of the big ones from New York, itself, and their ladies, and politicians with the sticky hands of them. Oh, many a famous one will be here! And so the funeral is private, with three ministers and a procession.”

  He nodded at Tom. “But there’s no law,” he said, “that’ll be keeping you, lad, from standing back there, outside the gates, and watching. Best to take your place; the whole town will be coming out to see the grand funeral, all with black horses and plumes and silver harness. Boston gentlemen spare their five-cent pieces, but they do love their funerals!”

  Tom Sheldon did not believe that John Ames ever loved anything or anyone and would certainly not ‘love’ his funeral. He became despondent. He could not connect Caroline with such a funeral and such a display. Yet all that he had been reading lately in the press, all the adulation for Caroline and all the guesses about her tremendous inheritance and her position, came back to his mind, and he was more and more depressed. The broad road leading to the cemetery was empty. Tom peered through the tall iron bars under the close supervision of one of the policemen. He saw, near the bars, a raw brown grave decorated only by a cheap wooden cross which was already leaning and discolored. All about it lay the crowded graves of the insignificant and the obscure and the glitterless, some with cheap funeral urns upon them, some covered with ivy or ferns, and some with fading flowers. The lonely and abandoned grave moved Tom in his own personal misery. He went back to the captain and said, “There’s a grave in there with no flowers or urns or ivy, just an old little cross. May I put these flowers on it?”

  The captain looked at t
he beautiful vital roses, then peered at the grave, and then he looked at Tom. “You’ll be coming out at once?” he asked doubtfully.

  “Yes, I have no ticket,” said Tom, smiling slightly.

  “Well, now, and you may go in and say a prayer for the poor soul,” said the captain. “But it’s ten o’clock and the funeral is at eleven, and the rascals who have nothing better to do on a Chewsday working day will be running after the fine funeral, or in front of it, to see a rich man buried and gape at the horses and the famous people. So go in, but be quick about it, lad.”

  He waved Tom inside the gates. The unsheltered sun beat down on the hard earth and shimmered over the graves. Tom could feel the lumpy soil and stones even through his thick boots. The silence that only cemeteries possess lay about him palpably; he had tucked his cap under his arm, and the sun struck his bare head like a hot hammer, and his eyes were dazzled. He stood and looked down at the abandoned grave, at its grasslessness, its loneliness. He bent to read the name: “Alice Turney, 1864-1883.” The painted words were already faded, burned by sun, half washed away by rain; the cross leaned. It would soon fall and would rot unnoticed and uncared for, Alice Turney was a name; there was no ‘sister of’ or ‘wife of’ or ‘daughter of’ mentioned on the cross. She had been only twenty, this nameless and unloved and unwanted Alice Turney. Had no one loved her even for an hour? Had she died of loneliness and sadness, a girl from some back street, a servant, a seamstress, a shopgirl?