A Prologue to Love

by Taylor Caldwell

  He left the office without a word, in spite of the weak questions and calls. He rolled home through the city, looking at the posters with his name upon them which had been nailed to telephone and electric poles. But he did not see them. There was a murmurous buzzing in his ears and a constriction about his temples. His coachman had to help him from the carriage and then had to half carry him into the house through the avid groups of reporters about the door and the flash of floodlight powder. He did not even see them.

  He said to Amanda, looking at her blankly, “I never want to see her again.” Then he collapsed at her feet in the hallway.

  The newspapers hinted delicately the next day that it was possible that Mr. Timothy Winslow’s stroke had been caused by more than his ghastly defeat at the polls. Under this they reproduced facsimiles of the records of the justice of the peace. They quoted the justice at length. “A lovely young couple,” he said under a photograph of his beaming face, which was under a photograph of Amy making her debut and a photograph of Ames Sheldon taken on a tennis court last summer. “Happy young people. But it took me several hours to realize who they really were.”

  Timothy’s friends were at a loss to know over which event they should be more shocked, the elections or ‘that child Amy’s’ vulgarity at being married in the office of a justice of the peace. The latter event finally engrossed their attention. Grim old ladies nodded portentous heads as they sat in their carriages on the way to visit Amanda and offer their condolences. Amy’s brothers came home from school to be with their stricken mother and their sick father.

  Amy and Ames came to the house three days later, after Amanda had refused to talk with her daughter on the telephone. But when she saw the crying girl she could only take her into her arms and weep also and make no complaints or accusations. She would not look at Ames or speak to him, though he sat near her in the small morning room. This coolly infuriated him. He was no leper; he was the son of one of the richest women in the world. He was a rich man in his own right, and successful. But Amanda’s plump strong back was turned coldly upon him, as though he were a stable groom or a ribbon clerk who had seduced her daughter.

  So, maliciously, he gave Amanda his mother’s written promise to give him three million dollars on the day he married Amy Winslow. He had to thrust the paper into her hand, and he smiled into her glaring eyes. Amanda pulled her glasses from the clip on her dress and read. “What is it, Mama?” asked Amy timidly.

  But Amanda returned the paper to Ames, and her blunt face was glazed over with stony silence.

  Ames was satisfied. He had other satisfactions in the weeks that followed, and many congratulations, and quite a number of new orders. He was not surprised at all this; he understood his fellows very well, indeed. He did not even wonder how the news of his mother’s ‘wedding gift’ had reached the ears of his friends. Perhaps it was the manner in which he was greeted at banks. Just before Christmas, cautious invitations were extended to him and his young wife, who had less color these days than before her marriage and who was even quieter than ordinarily and much more timid. No one spoke to them of Timothy; everyone knew that he would not see his daughter. Here and there a voice rose, criticizing Timothy. After all, his girl had really made an excellent match, even if it had been done in an unapproved, shopgirlish fashion. These modern young people!

  John wrote a short and very pungent letter to his brother, which highly amused Ames. He was even more highly amused at the after-wedding gifts which arrived not only from Amanda’s and Amy’s friends but from John himself. There was no church wedding after all. It was not reasonable to expect one, everyone said. While Timothy was regaining his speech rapidly and had already partly regained the use of his left leg, he was still quite unwell and was immured at home. No one knew of the sincerely kind letter Gideon Lowe had sent to the man he had so overwhelmingly defeated. Timothy put it in the fire; he was alone, and suddenly he was crying as he had not cried since he was eight years old.

  Chapter 12

  Former President Theodore Roosevelt was at war with Germany and her allies. He execrated Democratic President Wilson, and part of his hatred for Germany lay in his detestation of the Chief Executive. By nature an ardent and active man, physically vibrant, he loathed quiet contemplative men, prudent men. He declared that Mr. Wilson was ‘the worst President by all odds since Buchanan, with the possible exception of Andrew Johnson’. Had he been President, he confided to intimates, he would have declared war on Germany months ago. Hearing of this, President Wilson said mildly, “I believe that only Congress can declare war. Or has Mr. Roosevelt suddenly changed the Constitution?” He disliked Mr. Roosevelt intensely. He had only one strong wish: to keep the United States out of the European war.

  When Congress and the people, angry over the British seizure of American seamen on neutral vessels carrying contraband to Europe, demanded war with England, Mr. Wilson exerted himself ceaselessly to prevent it. He did not sleep on the night of December 13, 1914, nor on the fourteenth, either, while Congress debated. Sometimes, as he lay sleepless, he dimly recalled his radical youth and the insidious voices of older men, and he was terribly alarmed. To harass him further, there appeared to be too many men in the Senate and the House who had what he designated as ‘wild schemes’ which went far beyond his modest ‘New Freedoms’. When war with England was averted on December 15, he earnestly implored the American people not to give their government too much power. “Centralized government eventually becomes centralized despotism,” he warned the country.

  A writer on military affairs, one Frederick Louis Huidekoper, returned to the United States after a tour of France, England, and Germany. He became active in founding his National Security League, a preparedness organization. “Adequate preparation for war has never yet in history been made after the beginning of hostilities without unnecessary slaughter, unjustifiable expense and national peril.”

  “We shall not go to war,” said President Wilson.

  The Regular Army consisted of some three thousand officers and seventy-seven thousand men, the organized militia some eight thousand officers and about one hundred nineteen thousand men. Mr. Roosevelt repeatedly brought this to the attention of the American people. They became confusedly alarmed. But Mr. Wilson said, “Why should we increase this strength? We are not at war; we do not intend to be at war. No one is threatening us.” But in their quiet and hidden places the men who were determined that America should go to war quickened their activities. They supported, with large sums of money, the National Security League. Their long patience was becoming impatience. There could be no revolution of any kind, peaceful or bloody, in America without war. There could be no power for them. Editorials approving General Leonard Wood appeared mysteriously in newspapers all over the country, for the general had said from the beginning, “We shall be drawn in; we cannot avert it by good intentions nor protect ourselves by exhortation.” The general was a good man and, like all soldiers, he was single-minded and greatly innocent. He did not know who was using him or why. He sincerely believed that England and her allies were ‘good’ and that Germany and her allies were ‘evil’.

  In the meantime the holocaust of furious death screamed with increasing madness in Europe. In Russia the enemies of all men prepared to make their first savage blow against the world, and their counterparts in all other countries, at war or at peace, prepared also. There were, as Mr. Wilson said, “no quarrels in hell.”

  The munitions makers in America were now so organized, in December 1914, that they could at a moment’s notice produce ordnance to satisfy even General Wood. In the meantime, with noble impartiality, they filled orders for military goods from both Great Britain and Germany. If vessels were sunk carrying these goods, it was a matter of indifference to them. They had already been paid, in gold. Their prosperity began to extend itself to the country at large and other industries, and the American people tried not to think of Europe in their relief at the lifting of the ‘depression’.


  Three days before Christmas, Caroline had an occasion to go to her office in Boston, which she rarely visited.

  The streets in Boston were full of the sound of festivity and children’s voices and the tinkle of bells and movement of carts, carriages, automobiles, and streetcars. The shopwindows sparkled. Salvation Army girls and Santa Clauses stood hopefully by their buckets. Church bells sounded through the snow; roofs whitened. The paths through Boston Gardens and the Common seethed with hurrying crowds carrying packages.

  The noise and the bustle finally reached Caroline’s immured consciousness. She had not been in Boston at this time for many years. All at once she remembered Fern and Son and Beth Knowles. She stopped in a doorway for shelter against the wind and snow, a massive huddled woman in worn black garments and an ancient black bonnet. It was twilight now, and Caroline looked dully at the lights and the laughing crowds. She was both frightened and affronted. What foolishness. What noise. How absurd it was. A group of schoolgirls ran past her, giggling with silly joy, their hair and their ribbons blown back from their wind-stung young faces. Miss Stockington’s girls! Then all at once Caroline was a girl again, fearful but with some hope, shivering, but possessed of love. She clutched at her purse as the young Caroline had clutched her own purse. But this purse was full of gold bills, and the strap was wound tightly about her wrist.

  A young policeman, pacing and smiling, became aware of her in her lonely doorway. He looked at her searchingly. Why, the poor old soul, in those old clothes like his grandmother used to wear! Worn out, too. And those woolen gloves — not even a muff — and those patched boots. A cleaning woman, very likely, tired out and taking refuge from the wind and snow before going home. What kind of a home did the poor soul have? A rat’s nest, probably. And nobody there to give her a hot cup of tea.

  “Everything all right, ma’am?” he asked.

  She was not aware of him. She did not know that there were tears on her pale, seamed face. He came closer and saw the tears, the fixed, unseeing eyes, the big trembling lips. He touched her arm gently, and she started violently and looked at him.

  “Everything all right?” he repeated.

  “Yes. Yes,” said Caroline.

  “Can I help you to a streetcar?”

  “No.” She would have to hurry to the station, for her train would soon be leaving. Two girls flashed by, and one had the hair and face of Elizabeth in the lamplight. “You’re cold,” said the policeman, seeing the woman shiver. “A cup of tea or coffee against the cold, ma’am?”

  “What did you say?” said Caroline, who had forgotten him and was straining to follow the girl with her eyes. He was like a fly buzzing in a room filled with agony. Then she gasped. A pain like a coiling serpent of fire clutched at her heart, and her mouth opened on a smothering and choking. The purse dropped from a suddenly paralyzed arm, and it burst open at the policeman’s feet. A huge roll of gold certificates fell out. The policeman stared at it, stupefied. Thousands of dollars! Maybe! Still stupefied, he bent and picked up the roll; it was very heavy. He looked at Caroline, and she looked at him in her extremity of pain.

  “Your money?” said the policeman, incredulous.

  The pain was too great for her to speak. The street darkened all about her. Her shaken heart stammered, pounded, raced, and seemed to bulge in her throat.

  “Where did you get all this money?” cried the policeman, wildly thinking of bank robberies or rifled safes. He took Caroline sternly by the arm. Then he saw her eyes, dim and flickering in her livid face, and her dry and speechless lips open and panting. It was not fear that stood there, for he recognized fear. It was desperate illness. Hastily thrusting the roll into the purse, which he snapped closed, he put his whistle to his mouth.

  In the darkness that roared and seethed about her Caroline became faintly aware of supporting arms, of the helpless movement of her legs under her heavy woolen petticoats and worn skirts, of manly voices that encouraged, of faces that rushed in on the darkness, then receded — staring, curious faces. She forgot even her own identity and where she was. She was one huge and crushing anguish. Each choking breath came with more difficulty than the last. An awful weariness made her body as heavy as iron. She wanted only to lie down somewhere, but they made her move, and there were questioning voices and the ringing of bells.

  Then she was sitting down. She was terribly cold, but she could feel warmth on her face and lights against her shut eyes. A glass was pressed against her lips; a pellet was on her tongue. She swallowed listlessly, un-curious, unresisting. She opened her eyes and saw a large quiet room and the figures of nuns about her, and beyond them two policemen looking at her intently. She could speak now, and with an ancient fear. “My purse? My purse!” The pain in her chest was receding like a dark tide.

  “In your lap, my dear,” said an old nun who had given her the pellet and the water. “Don’t be afraid. You are very sick, aren’t you?” As the young policeman had done, she looked at the worn clothing with pity.

  Caroline was silent. Her face was all intensity as she waited for the tide to recede still more. Her body felt sheathed in ice. Her arms were numb. Then there was only the shadow of pain beyond her, and her heart was weakly pacing. Her fumbling fingers opened the bag, and she saw the roll there, safe and secure. She sighed. The nuns saw the money, and they were startled. Caroline covered the purse with her hands, as if to protect it.

  “The doctor will be here at once. Just rest,” said the old nun.

  “The hospital?” Caroline said. “I am in the hospital?”

  “Yes, dear. These kind boys brought you here; it was only a little way.”

  “I was only faint,” said Caroline, trembling with her old dread of strangers. She was also ashamed; her shame made her ashen face flush with dull color. “I am perfectly well now. I must go home at once.”

  “In a moment,” said the old nun, pressing her hand on Caroline’s shoulder. “Ah, here is the doctor now.”

  The physician who entered was the very physician who had first examined Elizabeth when she had run here in her terror. He recognized Caroline at once. He was shocked. He exclaimed, “Mrs. Sheldon!” He came to her and tried to take her hand, but she held back, confused and mortified.

  “I was only faint,” she repeated. Her weariness rested on her shoulders like an intolerable weight. The nuns murmured to the doctor; the young policeman hurriedly told his story. The doctor, more shocked than ever, looked at Caroline.

  “I must examine you, Mrs. Sheldon,” he said. “You may have had a heart attack.”

  But Caroline pushed herself to her feet. “Nonsense,” she said. “I was only cold. It was the wind. I’m not accustomed any longer to being out in bad weather.” She had forced her voice to be steady and loud. No matter what happened, she had to leave this place of her humiliation and pain. She must hide herself again in her house and close her doors and pull down her shades. “I’ll pay for — How much is it?”

  No one answered her. All the faces were concerned and anxious. She looked at the nuns, and she was in the room in Switzerland and they were speaking to her in mercy and gentleness. Her throat became full, and there were tears in her eyes. She opened her bag and threw the roll of money onto the table beside her. “Take it,” she mumbled. “I have my ticket for the train.” She looked at the young policeman. “Give a bill to him,” she said. She tried to smile. “It’s Christmas, isn’t it?”

  “We don’t want your money,” said the doctor, very moved. “We only want to help you.”

  “Then,” said Caroline, “find me a hack to the station. And you must keep the money.” How little it was, compared with what she was annually giving to this hospital! The thought made her smile again, and she felt power and returning strength.

  “I think you are very sick,” said the doctor, whose excellent salary she paid. He thought to himself that it was quite out of character for Caroline Ames to throw money from her indifferently, even in the name of charity.

  “No,
no,” she said impatiently. “A hack, please, or I’ll miss my train.”

  The doctor unwillingly took her in his fine chauffeur-driven automobile to the train, through the Christmas streets, through the crowds, through the snow and the voices of the bells. She did not speak to him, for she was again utterly spent. She knew now that she had looked at death. She had the irrational belief that once in her house, alone, she would be safe. The doctor watched her closely by the light of the street lamps and saw her dreadful color and the blueness of her mouth. “Promise me,” he said, “that you will call your own doctor at once when you get home.”

  She was so eager to be rid of him and his solicitude — which was only because she was Caroline Ames, she thought — that she nodded. She had no intention of calling a doctor. Within her own walls, she would be safe from all her agonies. She would be blessedly alone. There would be no voices there, no confusions, no mortifications, no pain, no memory.

  She slept heavily in the cold train, her hands clutched on her purse. The station hack was even colder. She could not stop her shivering. When she arrived home, she found feeble fires and a badly cooked dinner awaiting her. She could not eat. She went at once to bed and lay under frayed blankets, unable to warm herself. The moldering house was full of sounds, of distant footsteps, of half-caught voices. The snow fell against the windows, and the boulders outside became shapes of white, and the sea’s harsh voice filled the room.