A Prologue to Love

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Mama?” asked the girl, pleading.

  She studied Cynthia, and what she saw was even more disastrous. She sat on the edge of her bed and dropped her slender hands between her knees. “You told Tim no, Mama?”

  Cynthia nodded, the tears heavy in her eyes. Then she held out her arms to her daughter. Melinda, who was very white, did not move for a few moments. Then, crying out a little, she went to her mother, knelt beside her, and permitted Cynthia to put her arms about her and hold her close. But she did not respond to the caress.

  “I’m so sorry, Mama,” she murmured. “But we are going to be married just the same. We’ve talked about the possibility of your objecting; I’m so sorry, for I love you so much. But we are going to be married.”

  Cynthia pulled the girl’s head to her breast. She said, “No, my darling. Uncle Montague and I have just talked about it. You see” — and she had to swallow the dryness in her throat repeatedly so that she could go on — “we know all about Timothy. He would make you very unhappy. When I — when I talked with Timothy I found out something else. He can’t love anyone, really. If you had no money of your own — over a million dollars now — and prospects of much more, he would not want you.”

  Melinda pulled away from her, and her gray eyes flashed. “That is not so, Mama! Timothy loves me; he always did. I will ask him to come in here now and let him say so to your face!”

  Cynthia clasped her hands tightly together. “He’s already gone, Melinda. He left for the village half an hour or more ago. That was because we told him that if he — married — you, we would both cut you off from the family, and you would have no prospects of an inheritance, and neither would he.”

  Melinda sat back on her heels. She was very white, and her eyes fixed themselves in such intense pain on her mother that Cynthia could not bear it. “Tim has gone?” said the girl. “I can’t believe it! He left me because — because of money?”

  Cynthia nodded. “Oh, Melinda, listen to me. He knows how rich and powerful Montague is. Montague was very frank with him; marriage to you would mean that Timothy would be ruined forever.”

  “Uncle Montague did that to me?” cried the girl in bewilderment and shock. “I thought he was fond of me!”

  “It is because he is fond of you that he did it, darling. Please try to understand. We know what Timothy is; he would break your heart. If Timothy had really loved you and were willing to defy Montague and sacrifice his prospects, then he would not have left this house and left you without a word or even a note. Isn’t that clear to you? Surely you can see now that you are less important to him than his future!”

  Melinda put her hands over her face, but she did not cry. Cynthia watched her; she felt very weak and prostrated and her knees were shaking.

  “He’s my son, Melinda, but he is a bad man. He was a bad boy. He never cared for anyone. He is using his cousin Caroline now, and she should be warned about him. He uses everyone, Melinda. I am his mother, and it almost kills me to tell you this. If I’d only known sooner! I should have told you, and this would never have happened.”

  Melinda dropped her hands. Her young face was lost and stricken; she looked beyond Cynthia. “Oh, Melinda,” said Cynthia, but the girl did not appear to have heard her.

  She said, “It isn’t possible. No, it isn’t possible. I’m sure he loves me.” She stared at Cynthia now. “I’m sure he loves me!” Her voice was a cry of suffering.

  “No, darling. He doesn’t. He never did. Don’t look like that, Melinda; it breaks my heart. But it’s all for the best. You are young. You will meet someone else who will really love you and make you happy. You will forget.”

  “No,” said Melinda, shaking her head. “I’ll never forget.”

  A month later, in New York, Caroline said coldly to her cousin Timothy, “You surely realize that it wasn’t my place to tell you about your mother! And Melinda. I never interfere with anyone’s affairs; it was your mother’s affair. I could not tell you.”

  Timothy looked at her a long time. He was very thin and appeared extremely tired. Then he smiled at the hostility and umbrage of his cousin. “No,” he said gently, “you couldn’t really have told me. You are quite right. We’ll just have to forget all about it, won’t we?”

  But I’ll never forget, he said to himself even while he was placating Caroline. I’ll never forget, as you’ll see for yourself one of these days.

  Chapter 5

  It had taken many years, but now there was a confidence and sympathy between Tom Sheldon and his wife’s lawyers, Tandy, Harkness and Swift. When Tom had written Mr. Tandy that he wished to have a confidential discussion with him Mr. Tandy had replied, under discreet blank cover, that he would be glad to make an appointment for the tenth inst. So Tom went to New York, after explaining uncomfortably to Caroline that he was in search of some particular lumber which was exceptionally cheap.

  Before he left for New York, however, he had gone up to the servants’ quarters for his daily visit with old Beth, who was now in her eighties. She had been confined constantly to her bed for over two years, since she had fallen and broken her hip. The servants liked her; she was in good hands, and Tom had made sure of that. He no longer plagued Caroline to visit Beth daily, and so Caroline very rarely mentioned Beth except to say once, sullenly, “I’m sorry for the old soul, of course, so don’t look at me as if you think me a monster, Tom. But it is so tiresome; we wouldn’t need Gladys if it weren’t for Beth, who requires such a lot of attention.”

  “We seem to need fewer and fewer servants, Caroline,” Tom said, looking at the furniture, which was showing many signs of wear, and at the wallpaper, which had needed to be replaced five years ago, and at the dusty carpets.

  “They want too much money these days!” Caroline snapped in answer. “Why, even my aunt never paid more than eight dollars or so a month for a housemaid, and she was very extravagant. She had an excellent cook, but she paid her only twelve dollars a month. Now these creatures are demanding five dollars a week, a cook seven! Do they think we are made of money?”

  Tom had wanted to replace the servants who unaccountably left. (He suspected that Caroline had discharged them behind his back.) But Caroline would not permit this, even though he said he would pay them himself. “You can’t spend our children’s inheritance,” she had said with real anger. “What you have and what I have belongs to them.”

  “You mean,” Tom said bitterly, “that it belongs to you. Everything belongs to you. Well, Beth isn’t going to suffer. She’s served you all these many, many years; she’s treated our children as if they were her grandchildren. She deserves all we can give her. Don’t say anything, Carrie. This time I won’t listen to you.”

  He went upstairs this cold November morning and was enraged to find that no fire burned in Beth’s room and that Beth’s old wasted face appeared chill and blue. She coughed when he spoke to her, and said she was quite comfortable. But Tom brought coal himself and built a fire, then called for young Gladys, who sulkily told him that Mrs. Sheldon said not to waste fuel on unnecessary fires and that Mrs. Knowles was always in bed anyway, warm under blankets and quilts. Tom said, “I want a fire in here day and night, Gladys.” And he gave the girl a ten-dollar gold bill, which made her beam and wink at him.

  Beth’s voice was croaking and feeble now; it was hard for her to talk. “When did you get this cold and cough?” Tom demanded, sitting beside her in the tiny high room and taking her hand. He was disturbed to feel its heat.

  “Tom dear, you musn’t worry,” said the old woman, turning her head restlessly on her pillows. Her thin white hair was only a wisp over her pale skull. “Old people get colds very easily. I’m really very comfy, dear.”

  “I’ll have the doctor for you at once,” said Tom, more and more concerned as he listened to Beth’s cough. He patted her hand. “Where’s your tonic?” He poured the brown medicine for her, and she took it obediently and gave him a long and faded look of love and sadness. The room was becoming war
m. Gladys was a good girl; she kept the room neat, and the little window was clean. Which is more than can be said for the rest of the house, Tom thought, angry with himself that he always let Caroline have her way. But it was easier than confronting her indomitable stubbornness. Besides, he loved her. Had he loved her less he would have opposed her more.

  He went downstairs. The trap was already waiting for him. But first he went into Caroline’s study, where she was, as always, surrounded by papers and ledgers. She looked up at him, frowning for an instant. There were no gray threads in her fine black hair, though she was nearly forty. Her face had changed little; it merely seemed stronger and harder and squarer. The perpetual large freckles on her broad nose never failed to charm Tom, and the sudden smile which quickly replaced her frown had never lost its ability to touch him, to make him think of her as a young and vulnerable girl, He kissed her, and she clutched him to her and kissed him over and over. But she said, “Do try to make a good bargain this time, Tom. People always cheat you.”

  “No, they don’t,” he said. “You mean that I never cheat them, and that’s a different thing entirely. Carrie, Beth seems very sick this morning. Send for the doctor at once.”

  “Why?” She stopped smiling.

  “I told you. She has a bad cough. Promise me you’ll send for the doctor.”

  Caroline’s big pale mouth, no longer red and uncertain, set itself in hard lines. Then as Tom continued to meet her eye determinedly she shrugged.

  “Very well,” she said. “But if you had your way you’d be calling the doctor daily for Beth, which is ridiculous.”

  She added, “Will you be seeing Timothy in New York?”

  “No. Of course not. I detest him more and more.”

  She smiled again. “I can’t see why. He made a lot of money for all of us during the Panic of ‘93. Oh, stocks were very low then, but even so you had to know just what to buy and have some judgment about which would be the first to recover and rise. He was almost invariably right. Now that he’s president of Broome and Company he’s making money hand over fist for me.”

  “And for himself.”

  “That’s to be expected. I wish you didn’t resent him so, Tom.”

  “Don’t pity him too much,” said Tom ironically. “He’s done marvelously well since he married that Bothwell girl, as you know. With that nice fat trust from her grandfather, old Bothwell.”

  Caroline was scowling blackly again, and Tom knew that she still felt much hostility toward him for ‘daring’ to sell Alfred Bothwell a large tract of land five miles away on the sea for a home after the young man had married Melinda Winslow six years ago. He had never understood Caroline’s real and open hatred for the pretty young woman, who now had two children, twins, a boy and a girl. He had seen Melinda often and had been fascinated by her grave beauty, the large sadness in her lovely eyes, her sweet voice and gentle manners, her air of simplicity and trust. Once he had seen Lady Halnes at the Bothwell home and had marveled at how young she still appeared. She was a widow now and rarely came to America. There was some rumor that she and her son Timothy were not particularly friendly and that she seemed indifferent to his two sons and his little daughter but was fond of his wife, Amanda.

  “If people are lucky enough to have family they should cultivate it,” he had said to Caroline, who had given him a cold, dark look in silent answer. He guessed that some mystery was involved here, but Caroline never enlightened him. He had built the comfortable house for Alfred Bothwell, for Tom was well known for the excellence of his houses along the coastline. It was during the building of the Bothwell house that he had first met Melinda, and later he had come to like not only the young woman but her husband. He visited them occasionally, without mentioning this to Caroline, with the vague thought that someday his children would know theirs and lead a normal life.

  Mr. Tandy, Mr. Harkness, and Mr. Swift were very old, yet they seemed to have changed little over the years, except to become thinner and more desiccated, parched of clever face, and very yellow of teeth. But their brown eyes sparkled just as brightly as always and rarely missed anything of importance.

  Mr. Tandy was waiting for Tom in his office, and he greeted Tom with real affection. He had once said to his cousins, “That young man, I might say, is the type of an emerging American race. He is more truly American than are we Bostonians, for it is evident that he is a mixture of bloods. He has the strongly boned facial structure of the Scot, the long head of the Englishman, the shrewd and intelligent long lip of the Irishman, the pugnacious nose of the German, and the dark skin and prideful look of the Spaniard. Indeed, truly American, the consolidation of many races into one new race.”

  “What can I do for you, my dear Tom?” he asked when they were both seated in his office with the door firmly shut. “I gathered from your letter that it was something very important.”

  “It is, sir.” Tom hesitated. He rubbed his temple where the thick black hair had grayed. “But it’s still the old story — Carrie.”

  “Ah, yes.” Mr. Tandy studied him reflectively. “She seems in excellent health.”

  “That isn’t what worries me. I thought we’d have another talk about her. My boy John is thirteen, Elizabeth is eleven, and Ames is ten. They aren’t young children any more. You will remember that when I talked with you last time you promised to try to persuade Carrie to let them live a more natural life. John goes to the village school, which isn’t good enough, with only three overworked teachers; he’ll have a hard time in Groton next year. Carrie never permitted him to make friends among the other children and visit them at their homes or bring them to ours. He goes in the buggy and comes back in it, and that’s all. He had a tutor until he was ten, and the same old tutor teaches Elizabeth and Ames. She won’t let the younger children go to John’s school; it was he who raised such a smoke that she finally permitted him to go, and that surprised me.” Tom paused and smiled ruefully. “Carrie never wanted the children to leave the house and the grounds. But even Carrie understood that he must go away to school next year. I’ve tried to persuade her to let Elizabeth go to Miss Stockington’s. And there’s Ames — ”

  Tom frowned. “Ames is a peculiar little fellow. He isn’t robust like John. He’s secretive; you never know what he’s thinking. Sometimes he’s very unfriendly to everyone. In some ways he resembles — ”

  “Timothy,” said Mr. Tandy. “Ah, yes. In some way.”

  But Tom, who had meant exactly that, shook his head. “I hope not, sir. By the way, I hope I can get out of here without running into him. He has a lot of influence over Carrie, and that’s funny, because she really doesn’t like him. Do you know what I actually did? A year ago I asked him to talk to Carrie about sending Elizabeth away to school and getting a better tutor for Ames. I was reduced to that.” Tom reddened.

  “I see,” said Mr. Tandy. “I did talk to Carrie, you know, and she refused.”

  “When I ask her why,” said Tom, “she either pushes the subject away or she looks frightened. Frightened about what? She stands at her study window when it’s time for John to be home and is restless until he’s inside the house and the door is bolted. She always bolts doors, summer and winter, and would keep the windows bolted in hot weather if I permitted it.

  “I might understand a little if she were devoted to our children, but she isn’t. She is apprehensive about them, concerned about them, and worries about them. But she doesn’t love the boys and the little girl. She doesn’t love anyone.”

  “Except you,” said Mr. Tandy kindly.

  Tom was not embarrassed but only more disturbed. “Yes. If I were a man who is easily frightened I’d be frightened by that. What if I die? What will become of Carrie? She has no friends; she won’t have anything to do with her family, except for Timothy Winslow, but even so she never visits him and his wife in Boston, nor will she go to their house in New York. I’ve met Amanda once or twice, you know, and she’s a nice young woman and very friendly, but Carrie will not see
her.

  “I’m in my forties now, Mr. Tandy. I may live a few more years or die in a year. Or live to be a hundred. For Carrie’s sake, I hope so; I often pray so. I’m her only link to life, and not a very reliable one at that. She never had the children, and they never had her.”

  Mr. Tandy murmured sympathetically and looked at his clasped hands on the desk. Tom tried to laugh. “At one time I thought they loved me as I love them, but they don’t. I’ve given up trying to find the answer.”

  Mr. Tandy murmured again. Tom nervously took out his pipe and filled it with tobacco and lit it. Mr. Tandy was moved to see those big brown hands trembling a little. Tom continued: “If I didn’t have my old village friends and my workmen I’d go out of my mind. How can Carrie live without some human associations, some little friendship, some affection from others besides me? And so I come back to being afraid for her. She’s a recluse; she’s getting worse every year, and she isn’t old yet! She never steps out of that house except to go to her Boston office twice a month and to New York. If she loved our home I’d understand a little. But she doesn’t. It’s falling into rack and ruin, and I have to do the repairs on the sly — the outside, I mean. But the interior needs renovating; she hires only the cheapest and most slovenly farm girls, and so the house is actually dirty. I tried to hire better, and though you will hardly believe it, she became hysterical. She looked then as if she were being — threatened. Please don’t laugh, sir.”