A Prologue to Love

by Taylor Caldwell

  Elizabeth dressed quickly. The gown showed her beautifully modeled white shoulders and her smooth white arms and clung to her narrow waist and then fell into elegant folds below the knee. Caroline had never worn her mother’s pearl necklace, the necklace of the portrait of Ann and Cynthia which now hung in the drawing room below. She had given the necklace to Elizabeth on her twenty-first birthday with a strange sour smile. Elizabeth wore it for the first time. She wound up her light brown hair in soft fold on fold on the crown of her head. She stood before the pier mirror and inspected herself closely, and she felt a tumult of joy. She saw herself as William would see her, and she was full of delight and pleasure. She did not wait for the dinner bell. She ran down the great staircase to the drawing room and found William standing alone before the newly lit fire, glancing over the evening newspaper from London.

  She halted in the doorway and looked at him, and she felt unsteady. He put a pipe in his mouth, struck a match, and lit it. He continued to read. His solid round head bent to an item in the paper; he exuded comfort and kind strength and contentment. Then something disturbed him. He lifted his head and slowly turned toward the doorway and saw Elizabeth standing there.

  She shimmered in the lamplight, white and silvery, the pearls glowing about her throat, her blue eyes soft, her figure no longer angular but melting. The two young people regarded each other in grave silence.

  Then William said, using an Americanism he had learned from his mother: “Hello, there.” He dropped the paper and came toward his cousin, and he smiled and held out his hand. Elizabeth could not speak; she gave him her hand, and her fingers involuntarily curled about his like the fingers of a lonely child.

  He led her to a chair and then stood before her. Gentle conversation came naturally to him as a rule; it did not come now. He folded his hands under the back of his long black coat and looked down at Elizabeth. How could he have remembered her as a hard, cold child, palely indifferent and with a shut expression? His memory had been wrong, or she had changed as she had become a young woman.

  “I’ve just been thinking,” he said, “how tangled our family relationships are. Very British; hardly American.” His voice was deep and eloquent and confiding.

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth with a shyness her brothers would never have believed. “You’re my second cousin, aren’t you, William? You’re my mother’s first cousin. And Timothy is your brother, and he’s also my second cousin. And Melinda is my mother’s adopted sister. Yes, it is very tangled, isn’t it?”

  “Do you see Melinda often?” he asked.

  “No. I sometimes meet her and her children at Timothy’s Boston house. But that is all.” She had always despised Melinda. Yet now, as she looked at William, she did not despise his ‘adopted’ sister any longer. She was so very happy. Her voice, usually so modulated and almost monotonous in its indifference, was warm and young. It had a ringing clarity, as of innocence. William thought: Timothy has often mentioned that the girl and her brothers are corrupt, and I had taken it for granted that corruption always recognizes corruption. But Timothy is wrong. This girl is no more corrupt than Amy.

  He thought of Rose Haven. He knew his mother hoped for a marriage between her son and this girl of whom she was so fond; Rose’s family also hoped for it. He more than liked her; he was drifting into a deep affection for her, placid and accepting. But now, involuntarily, he compared her with Elizabeth. Life with Rose would be peaceful and serene. It would be gracious. It would also, he found himself thinking with dismay, be a damned bore. He was so taken aback by his own thoughts that he sat down abruptly and stared earnestly at Elizabeth.

  Life with this girl would never be boring. Intelligence stood in her eyes. He knew, from reports given him by Timothy, that Elizabeth was smoothly taking over many of her mother’s affairs, and with competence. She had a look of sophistication, in spite of her youth, and a charmingly worldly air. Her conversation would be stimulating and not confined to parish duties, wifely duties, and duties to children. She would never prattle nicely for hours about nothing at all until her husband yawned and furtively glanced at his watch to see if it was not time to put out the lights and forget boredom in sleep. He had never, as yet, held any real conversation with Elizabeth. But he guessed quite positively that she would not bore him and that, for her, her husband would be first above all others. He knew that he would inherit a vast fortune. Rose knew nothing about money except, as she said, “it was lovely to have.” Elizabeth knew all about money. William was, after all, his father’s son. He had, in fact, been studying financial news from London, Paris, Berlin, New York, and Berne, when Elizabeth had entered the room.

  “Tell me,” he said, leaning toward Elizabeth, as if urgently asking to be told a secret, “how you like England.”

  I love you, I love you, thought Elizabeth. Her face lit up. For the first time in her life she began to speak without calculation, without guile, without indifference, without coldness. William watched her, fascinated and smiling. He was more than half in love with her when the rest of the family wandered in. He had never heard a girl speak before with such joy, with such eager simplicity, and with such ardent passion.

  “How beautiful you are,” said Cynthia, looking at her sister’s grand daughter with astonishment. “I think that you really look like my dear Ann.”

  She smiled tenderly and she kissed Elizabeth gently on the cheek. Amanda, Amy, and the boys gaped at this incredible Elizabeth, so stately and so full of queenliness, with her delicately flushed cheeks and her shining blue eyes and exquisite gown. Timothy looked sharply from Elizabeth to William. The young peer was gazing at Elizabeth with an expression Timothy, the malicious, could only describe as fatuous and bedazzled.

  Amanda, as usual, was somewhat dowdy in her no-nonsense gown, and Amy appeared callow and awkward compared with Elizabeth. The boys, staring at Elizabeth, appeared more fatuous than their Uncle William. We are a fine success, thought Timothy. He said, “Is it really you, Elizabeth?”

  “I think,” said William, “that it is.”

  They went into the dining room, where silver and candlelight and fragrance again enchanted Elizabeth. Her Esmond blood, so long suppressed and inhibited, delighted in this display of mellowed graciousness. It was as if she had been born only this day, had come to maturity only this night. She had no other memories but of this house, no love but this young man sitting beside her and solicitous that she should be served the proper cut of beef. When William’s sleeve touched her bare arm she trembled. When he turned to her she could only look into his eyes with naked and touching love.

  Timothy smiled in himself with elation. Amanda thought: Perhaps I was mistaken in the girl. Poor thing. How happy she seems away from her mother and that horrible moldering house. She is only a girl, after all. I must do more for her at home. She said to Henry, who, almost eighteen, was at the susceptible age, “Dear, you haven’t touched that wonderful Yorkshire pudding, your favorite.” She looked at Amy, her pretty daughter, and thought crossly that salmon pink was definitely not the girl’s color. She saw Cynthia smiling at Elizabeth as at some resurrected vision and was pleased. Then she saw Timothy’s face and was startled. He kept glancing at Elizabeth, and there was something in that glance that made Amanda uneasy.

  “I keep early hours now, children,” said Cynthia. “How I used to hate them! I never went to bed before two in the morning, even when I wasn’t entertaining. I loved the night; much more exciting than the day. But now I must creep off like an old, sick child, at ten.”

  She added quickly, “Don’t pity me! I’ve had a most enjoyable life, much better than most.”

  “We’re all tired too,” said Amanda. “Timothy has been attending so many meetings in London, and so has Elizabeth, on her mother’s business. And this country air is making all the children yawn. I think we should go to bed early.”

  They were sitting in the drawing room now, and Amanda was drinking whiskey, Amy was shyly sipping a little sweet port, and the boy
s, defying their mother’s scowl, had accepted small glasses of beer. Timothy found his brandy was giving him heartburn. He could not look away from Elizabeth and William murmurously laughing together side by side on a love seat.

  When Cynthia stood up, all stood with her. But William said, “I’m not sleepy, and I’m sure Elizabeth isn’t. I’d like to walk with her about the grounds. There’s an uncommonly fine moon tonight.”

  Cynthia was very tired. She was pleased that William liked this poor, loveless girl who was taking on a resemblance to ‘dear Ann’ more and more in Cynthia’s eyes. “Oh, do,” she said. “I think the sunken garden is especially lovely in moonlight.”

  William took Elizabeth’s hand easily; they said good night and walked out together. “Dear children,” sighed Cynthia sentimentally. “William is so kind. Did I tell you, dears, that I hope we’ll have a Very Important Announcement to make while you are here? William and Rose Haven.”

  “Excellent,” said Timothy, looking at the french doors through which William and Elizabeth had just disappeared. “Excellent,” he repeated. He caught his wife’s eye. She was frowning at him. Damn Mandy. She had a way of reading what he really meant under his words. Had she heard him gloating? His fingers as he grasped Amanda’s arm just above her elbow cut into her warm flesh, and she said frankly, “Ouch! Do you have to pinch me like that, Timothy, my love?”

  Elizabeth, who had been born to beauty only that day, only this night, wandered slowly with William over the thick grass which was sprinkled with shining drops of dew under the moon. They did not speak now that they were alone. They passed a fountain and paused to look at it. They walked on and on, until they left the grounds and could stand on the headland and look at the sea. It was a plain of silver. The evening wind gushed with fragrance and salt.

  “What is it, Elizabeth?” asked William. “Are you crying?”

  “I can’t help it,” she stammered. “I don’t know why. But it’s as if I were alive for the first time in all my life.”

  He took his handkerchief and wiped her eyes gently, as his father had wiped Cynthia’s eyes more than twenty-five years ago. He could see the blue under Elizabeth’s lashes, the soft curve of her cheek, the rose of her lips. He dropped his hand.

  Then, hardly standing on his toes, he kissed the girl’s parted lips, simply and naturally. She put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Oh, William,” said Elizabeth, and her shriveled heart expanded painfully.

  “Dear Elizabeth,” said William, and he kissed her again and felt her innocence and inexperience, and he was full of compassion. Her lips moved timidly against his.

  Was he in love with this girl? He did not know. He was not an impulsive young man. He only knew that what he felt for Elizabeth was totally different from the affection he felt for Rose Haven. During his early student years he had engaged in what the English discreetly called ‘young men’s indiscretions’, but only briefly and at long intervals. He knew what passion was. He felt it now, and something else that keenly disturbed yet delighted him. He became overpoweringly aware of the beauty of the night.

  “Do you remember the last time we met?” asked Elizabeth, leaning against his shoulder.

  William thought. He could not remember in the least. He said, “It was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”

  It was only yesterday for Elizabeth. She had been sixteen. It was a slightly warm pre-Easter day in Boston, and the air had a sweetness in it. Even Elizabeth, the exigent, was suddenly startled by the promised fragrance of spring, and she had stopped on the steps of Miss Stockington’s school and had looked about her vaguely and had as vaguely frowned, as at an imperious voice intruding upon her. Her books were heavy on her arm; her fair hair blew back from her face in the living breeze. She looked at the houses across the brick road, their walls bright and rosy in the sun, and she was suddenly excited and did not know why. Then a carriage had drawn up and her Aunt Melinda was being assisted from it by young William, and they were laughing together.

  She had seen William only twice before, and always she had felt a dim stirring, and when he had gone after a few words in the presence of his family she had had the sensation of emptiness and loss. The sensation haunted her for days. But she had been younger then. Now she was sixteen.

  Melinda’s laughter had stopped when she saw her niece, but she gave her a kind smile and greeted her and, as always, she asked about Caroline. Elizabeth murmured something. She looked at William; he was not handsome, not distinguished, not a young man to attract a young girl’s attention at first glance. He was somewhat short, pudgy, and unremarkable of face and feature. Yet when Elizabeth looked at him her excitement increased, until he was the very focus of the warm spring day. Her pale face flushed as he shook hands with her. The wind blew several strands of her pretty hair over her cheeks and into her eyes, and William laughed and pushed them behind her ears.

  “I’ll go in for Mimi,” said Melinda, pleased at the sudden laughter of her brother. She glanced at Elizabeth and was surprised to see that cold young girl laughing also. Why, the child was actually beautiful with that color in her cheeks and her white teeth flashing in the sun. How unfortunate that her clothing was so plain, her manner usually so constrained and indifferent. Melinda smiled again and went into the school and left the two young people alone.

  William remarked pleasantly on the day. He was in America for another week; he had been here a month. Then he was going to Canada for the first time. He would travel from coast to coast. “One has to keep an eye on the empire, you know,” he said, pursing his mouth amusingly. Elizabeth listened with silent gravity, not to his words, but to his voice. Her right arm, pressed against her side, could feel the thumping of her heart.

  Then Elizabeth said abruptly, “I haven’t seen you for two years.”

  He was surprised, for he had asked her an amiable question concerning her knowledge of Canada. She had apparently not heard a word he had said. He stopped smiling. He looked at her intently. The Sheldon family, he had heard, was very odd, indeed, and this girl apparently was a good example. But what beautiful blue eyes she had, the most beautiful he had ever seen. Absolutely blue, so that the color appeared to fill her eye sockets. Her features were stern now as she watched him.

  “I suppose not,” he said.

  She moved a little closer to him. She was too young to ask herself why she was so helplessly pulled to this young man, why she wanted to touch his hand, his plump cheek.

  “Your parents?” said William lamely. Where the devil was Melinda? But he looked into Elizabeth’s eyes again and forgot his sister.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Elizabeth. (Why was she staring at him like that? thought William a little uneasily.) “I remember every time I ever saw you,” said the girl.

  “Oh?” said William. Melinda and Mimi came out then, and he turned to them. When he looked for Elizabeth she had gone.

  “I was sixteen,” said Elizabeth as she stood with William, looking far down at the night sea in Devon. “I never forgot, never once. It was a day in spring, and you came with Aunt Melinda for Mimi. You and I stood talking on the steps of Miss Stockington’s. Don’t you remember?” she pleaded.

  He did not. But he was good and kind and he said, “How a person forgets. But of course — ”

  He kissed Elizabeth again, and they walked back to the house.

  Elizabeth did not sleep that night. As her grandfather had loved her great-aunt, so she loved William, with as much passion, fierceness, and devotion. But John Ames had been able to think of other important things beyond his love. Elizabeth, as a woman, could think of nothing else but the young man.

  In spite of her sleepless night — she could think only of William under the same roof with her — she bloomed the next morning. She was gentle; she laughed easily; she was kind to Amanda and her children. She walked and moved as if unbearably exhilarated. Sometimes she would press her palms together and shiver. Only Timothy understood. Cynthia and Amanda thought the girl �
�was coming out of herself for the first time’. They were pleased, for they were kindhearted women.

  Cynthia had a riding habit which exactly fitted Elizabeth, and so the girl went riding with William. She had been taught to ride at Miss Stockington’s. She sat beautifully and with grace, the long skirt sweeping the horse’s side, Cynthia’s postilion hat riding her shining light hair, the wind whipping color into her cheeks. She did not need to talk with William. They rode in a sweet silence. They came to a quiet glade, dismounted, and sat on the scented grass together.

  Then Elizabeth began to speak. Something tight and dark and strong broke in her, and she spoke to William as her mother had spoken to young Tom Sheldon in a blue twilight so long ago. She spoke with passionate loathing of what she knew and what she had heard in London; she spoke with sudden hatred of her mother’s seclusion and hostility toward the world. She leaned toward William, tense with emotion, her face paling and flushing, her eyes large. And William listened.