A Prologue to Love

by Taylor Caldwell

  He had said this to her scores of times, lightly, affectionately. But now he spoke as a man. The girl, so sensitive, heard the change of tone. She leaned again against his arm and studied him. The large gray eyes moved over his face. Then all at once she blushed deeply, and she jumped down from the bench and ran to the roses. But she did not squat down or take up the trowel. She looked at the flowers in absolute silence and without moving, her hands hanging at her sides, her head bent. Warm shadows ran over her face; an evening wind lifted the glittering cape of her hair and blew it briefly.

  Timothy waited. Something had changed between them, and both were conscious of it, though what had been said was only the apparently playful exchange between a brother who was a man and a sister who was still half a child. He knew a poignant moment had been reached. A great deal now depended on what Melinda would say and what she would do. If she suddenly laughed and ran into the house, he would know that he had been deluded, that he had not touched her at all, and that she was still only a child and thought only as a child.

  She turned her head and looked at him, and there was trouble in her eyes and a searching, too. He looked back at her with the same gravity. The wind made a murmuring in the trees and the shrubs. Clouds of golden bees rose from flower beds and drifted away. A robin let his clear and melancholy evening song roll like drops of silver down the blue slope of the sky. Swallows chittered, gathered together, and flew into the sun. Shadows deepened and lengthened, and the warm air subtly changed and filled with a thousand sweet scents. Melinda looked at Timothy in silence, and for a long time.

  Then she slowly moved toward him again, not running as a child runs, but as a woman walks, half reluctant, half eager. Reaching him, she stood before him. Carefully, tenderly, so as not to frighten her — for he knew that any vehement move would now frighten her — he lifted his hand. She looked at it and moved back a small step. She looked into his eyes again.

  Timothy had never been so intent, yet in appearance he appeared negligent and casual. The girl’s eyes fluttered from his face, then to his hand, then back again. She reached out and took Timothy’s hand. There was no childish pressure now, no childish grasping. It was a woman’s shy touch, a woman’s half-fearful reaching.

  “Melinda,” said Timothy gently.

  “Tim,” she answered.

  That was all, but it was enough for Timothy. He smiled. He stood up and, still holding Melinda’s hand, he went toward the house, and Melinda walked sedately beside him and did not look at him again.

  Cynthia that night spent her usual evening hour with Melinda in her bedroom before saying good night. There was a deep tenderness between mother and adopted daughter, a sure confidence, and an artless trust. Melinda was never loquacious, nor did she speak easily and carelessly. Every word, Cynthia was certain, was well thought out before Melinda spoke.

  To Cynthia, Melinda was still a beloved child, and only a child. She was not yet thirteen. She had reached puberty and was changing day by day. Cynthia was aware of this; it sometimes alarmed her and made her uneasy. But she knew her mother had felt so about her own daughters. It’s just that we know we are going to lose them someday, and perhaps sooner than we wish, Cynthia would think. It’s quite a tragedy — for us. But as long as I can, I am going to keep Melinda a child.

  “What is it, pet?” she asked Melinda, who sat near her in a ruffled nightgown of the softest Egyptian cotton, her long hair braided neatly for the night. Was it possible that she, Cynthia, had never noticed before the increasing firmness of the child’s features and the budding of her young body? Where has the time gone? Cynthia asked herself with a mother’s familiar pain.

  The girl’s bedroom was in her favorite colors, blue and ivory, with a dainty tester bed and ivory rug. Melinda rocked in a chair near Cynthia, and Cynthia impulsively reached out and smoothed the girl’s head with love. “You’re so quiet, darling,” she said. “Don’t you feel well? Is something bothering you?”

  “No, Mama,” said Melinda slowly. “It’s just that I’m thinking. I’ll be thirteen in October, won’t I?”

  “So you will,” agreed Cynthia.

  Now Melinda’s face glowed, and Cynthia saw it. “Don’t be in a hurry!” she cried. “You are only a child, still. You look like Alice in Wonderland, dear,” she said somewhat incoherently. “There’s nothing much in a grown-up world, Melinda. It’s all disillusion, and worry, and pain, and anxiety, and very little pleasure. Be a child as long as you can.”

  “But I’m not a child,” said Melinda. “Not really, Mama.”

  “You’ll always be a child to me,” said Cynthia. “A mother,” she went on, trying to smile lightly, “never does want her children to grow up. She wants them with her always. Of course, darling, you’ll be a woman someday, and then I suppose you’ll marry and leave me. Well, we don’t have to worry about anything for many, many years yet, do we?”

  “Mary Ann’s sister is seventeen, and she hasn’t come out yet, and she’s engaged,” said Melinda. “She’s really been engaged since she was fifteen, and that’s less than three years older than I am.”

  “Oh, heavens,” said Cynthia, and laughed a little. “Have you been reading romances behind my back?”

  “The Mother of Christ was only fourteen when He was born,” said Melinda with a stubbornness Cynthia had encountered several times before.

  Cynthia sighed. “I suppose that is what they say,” she admitted. “But we aren’t living in the old times, dear, and girls don’t marry so young. Not in America, at least. They don’t even get engaged then.” She paused. “What little boy has charmed you, pet? It seems to me that Amanda brings that big hulk of a thirteen-year-old brother around very often these days. No wonder; you’re so pretty. Is it Alfred?” She smiled indulgently, thinking of her own long-past and childish infatuations. “Alfred Bothwell has a long way to go before he becomes a man. Many, many years. Is it Alfred?”

  Harper Bothwell, finally becoming certain that Cynthia would never marry him, had married a cousin twelve years ago, a widow with a boy about a year old, and had adopted him, and he now had a daughter of his own in addition.

  Melinda was silent. Cynthia smiled again. So it was Alfred, that big hulking boy. The love affairs of children! But one had to manage them wisely or the little souls were extremely hurt, and the hurt could last all one’s life. Cynthia remembered her own young years. She had been frightfully infatuated with — now, what was his name? She could not remember. But he had had a beautiful pair of big brown eyes. Like a cow’s, she thought now wryly. She had been thrilled to the heart when he had sent her a bunch of tight little hothouse roses when she was Melinda’s age. Where was the poor creature now? He was a fat old banker with a belly, in New York.

  Melinda said, “Mama, do you still not know who my parents were?”

  The girl had asked this many times before, and Cynthia, respecting her, had always answered: “Darling, no one knows. The records are always sealed.” So she repeated this again tonight, expecting Melinda to accept it as casually as she had done in other years. Melinda was not satisfied.

  “I wish I knew,” she said wistfully.

  “Why?” Cynthia demanded.

  “I don’t know, Mama. I wonder if they are dead.”

  Cynthia bit her lip. She had been about to say, “Of course they are not dead.” She shivered at the thought of how close she had been to saying that. She drew her light lace shawl closer about her. Really, these June nights could be deceptive.

  “Are you dissatisfied, Melinda?” asked Cynthia with some sharpness. “Haven’t I been a good mother to you?”

  “Oh, Mama,” said Melinda with remorse, putting her hand on Cynthia’s knee. “I’ve hurt your feelings. I’m so sorry. But a girl, adopted like me, often wonders about her real parents. Don’t be hurt, Mama. I love you so much.”

  Cynthia held out her arms to Melinda, and the girl came to her and sat on her lap, and they clung to each other. Cynthia murmured over and over, “My darling, m
y darling, my darling.”

  They rocked together, and Cynthia thought, as she had thought many times before, that she would literally burst with her passionate love. She murmured endearments against the girl’s temple and cheek. “Melinda, Melinda,” she said.

  Then Melinda said, “Mama, I’m sorry Tim’s going away so soon to New York.”

  Cynthia stopped rocking. She smoothed Melinda’s head. “Well, dear, after all, he’s a man now. He has his own way to make. He can’t stay home forever.”

  “I suppose not,” Melinda sighed.

  “You two have always been so fond of each other,” said Cynthia. “But never mind. He’ll be home on the holidays, no doubt.”

  “Yes. Yes,” said Melinda. “But I’ll miss him so much.”

  “There’s always Alfred Bothwell,” said Cynthia, smiling.

  Melinda did not answer. Cynthia rocked again with the girl in her arms.

  “I’ve always loved Tim so much,” said Melinda.

  “And that makes you a majority of one,” said Cynthia. “Look at the time! My chick should have been in bed and asleep half an hour ago.”

  Cynthia came down to the sitting room, where Tim was reading a dull financial paper. She had refused to have gaslight installed, saying it smelled bad, flickered too much, and was too harsh and glaring. Timothy knew that she preferred the softer light of lamps because of the filmy webbing about her eyes and the one small cleft between them. Otherwise she was as stately and graceful as in her youth, with a slender and supple figure; she moved lightly, and her native polish was enhanced by the years as silver is enhanced by use and becomes more satiny. She sat down in her favorite chair near the fireplace; the aperture had been filled with a basket of red roses, and the scent filled the room. It had been raining a little; an odor of warm dust and freshness and heated stone came through the tall opened windows.

  Timothy had risen automatically when his mother came in, then when she had sat down he took up his paper again. They had, as yet, not exchanged a word. Cynthia picked up her embroidery. The clock chimed ten.

  “Why don’t you wear spectacles, Mother?” asked Timothy idly from behind his paper. “You’re in the bosom of your family and there’s no one to peep. It is almost painful for me to watch you holding your work at arm’s length and squinting. That’s a fine way to acquire the wrinkles you loathe, you know.”

  “One can always trust you, Timothy, to say the kindest things,” said Cynthia.

  “One remembers that on his mother’s next birthday she will be forty — ?”

  Cynthia could not help smiling. “Forty,” she said. “I’ve been forty some time now and I don’t intend to be any older even when I have grandchildren. Don’t be impertinent, Timothy.” She sighed, looked at her work impatiently, and put it down. “How time flies,” she said.

  “I’ve heard that remark before,” said her son.

  Her restless thoughts moved on. “Really,” she said, “I don’t see how you can subsist like a gentleman in New York on eighteen dollars a week. It’s ridiculous.”

  “I’ll subsist, if not necessarily like a gentleman. I’ll be as rigorous as my dear Uncle John was at my age.”

  “You never mention him without a sneer in your voice,” said Cynthia. “What has John ever done to hurt you? He has been more than good to me, and without any obligation on his part, and good to you, too.”

  “But, dear Mama, he isn’t a gentleman, and you are always speaking of breeding. Never mind, don’t frown. It only makes that mark between your eyes go deeper. There are some who can afford to be gentlemen; I am not one of them yet, due in great part to the profligacy of both you and my dear dead papa.”

  Cynthia’s cheeks colored. She looked with animus at her son, and then she saw that he appeared strained and pale and that his light eyes were tired. She could not help it: he was abominable and merciless, but he was her son and she loved him even if she disliked him heartily as a person. “You’ve said that before,” she remarked in a milder tone than he expected. “Your father’s expectations were exaggerated, and neither of us had ever had a reason to be prudent. We weren’t trained in prudence. But at least you’ve had a beautiful home, an excellent education, and you are a gentleman in spite of what you say.”

  Timothy shrugged and rattled the paper. Cynthia became exasperated. “You surely will allow me to send you a sum which will double your income,” she said. “Why, I believe you’re proud! It’s good to be proud, but not at the price of cheap shirts, poor lodgings, bad food, and coarse boots. Especially when it isn’t necessary.”

  “It won’t be necessary long,” Timothy assured her. One of his feet moved restively. For a moment she was deeply moved. She wished he had been a less difficult child, but even as an infant he had resented coddlings and kissings and murmurous sounds against his cheek. “He’s like a little thistle,” she would complain. What did she know about Timothy? she reflected. Absolutely nothing. He had been an unloving baby, an unloving and self-assured child, and now he was a withdrawn young man.

  Timothy continued, when she remained silent: “I expect to start at eighteen dollars a week, yes. But I hope — I know that I will be getting much more than that within a year. And I hope that I’ll be a junior partner within five years. Dear Uncle John has hinted as much; he practically owns that law firm. At least he frightens the devil out of the whole office when he appears. A rich, tidy firm. I remember an old Scots saying to the effect that lawyers are the devil’s race, and I’m sure it is true.”

  “Why do you always ascribe villainy to everybody?” Cynthia said with renewed exasperation.

  “Probably because everyone is a villain at heart,” he replied, pleased that he had annoyed her. “Except, of course, Melly.”

  “Don’t call her ‘Melly’!” Cynthia cried. “What a vulgar nickname.”

  He put down the paper. “She calls me Tim, and that’s a nickname,” he said.

  “But she’s only a child. She’s growing up. At least she will soon begin to grow up,” Cynthia added hastily. “And it’s time for even you to call her by her right name.” She clasped her hands in her mauve silk lap and smiled. “The child is in love! Imagine that, she is in love.”

  Her large gray eyes dreamed, grew brighter, as if a little tearful. “Is she indeed?” Timothy said. “With whom?”

  “A silly schoolboy just a little older than herself. Harper Bothwell’s adopted son, his nephew. That big uncouth boy, Alfred.”

  “Did she say so herself?” asked Timothy.

  “I think so. Yes, I think she did. At least when I teased her about Alfred — he’s always coming here with Amanda and standing around looking ill at ease and staring at Melinda. Like a stork, on one foot.”

  “Did she say so herself?” repeated Timothy. Cynthia was startled.

  “Dear me,” she said, “you are actually sounding like an outraged father.” She was pleased. “Or the very much older brother you really are. What does it matter? Those children! Now I don’t recall that Melinda really did say anything.”

  Timothy carefully folded his newspaper, then smoothed it neatly. The ring his mother had given him on his fifteenth birthday, a deep ruby set in bright gold, twinkled in the soft lamplight.

  “However,” said Cynthia, “I agree with you that it’s ridiculous even talking about such a thing in connection with those children. It’ll be years and years. I myself was married too young. I wasn’t quite twenty-one, and very inexperienced, practically a dolt concerning worldly matters, and no doubt very stupid.” She glanced at the portrait on the wall.

  “Melinda,” said Timothy, “will be eighteen in less than six years. And that horror of a boy is only a little older than she.”

  “But he’s going to be handsome. All the Bothwells are handsome, and he is a Bothwell by birth as well as by adoption, you know. He has really lovely Irish eyes, deep blue, and such long black lashes, and his hair is black and curly. He is pimply just now, but he’ll be a fine-looking man. Melinda coul
d do much worse — with all that money, too. Ah, well, it will be centuries, and it’s foolish even to talk about it now.”

  “You are so particular about breeding,” said Timothy. “I’ve often wondered why you adopted Melinda.”

  Cynthia took up her embroidery, held it at arm’s length, and pretended to scrutinize it. “How tiresome,” she said. “I think I took too large a stitch there. It will have to come out. What did you say, Timothy? Oh yes something about Melinda’s parents. Well, one has only to look at the child to know that she didn’t come from a mean line. And when I saw her for the very first time I said to myself, ‘Why, if dear Ann had had another daughter she would have looked exactly like Melinda’. It almost killed me when Ann died.”

  “Of neglect,” Timothy reminded her. “Dear Uncle John was too parsimonious to call a physician in time.”