A Prologue to Love

by Taylor Caldwell

  He had never confessed to any physical inconvenience before, to Caroline’s knowledge. “Indigestion? Yes, I have some soda. I’ll mix a little with Vichy water, Papa.” She ran into her bathroom, and her hands trembled as she prepared the effervescent drink. She brought it back to John; he had seated himself and she thought he was breathing too rapidly. He appeared not to notice her and the extended glass for a few moments. He seemed absorbed in some intense inner communication, some deeper reality. “Papa,” said Caroline. He turned up his eyes to her and she saw the dark shadow in them and his momentary bemusement, as if he were wondering who she was and where he was.

  “Oh yes,” he said, and his voice sounded as if it came from a distance. “Damn these heavy meals! I don’t like them, but you can’t insult your hosts.” He smiled; Caroline, in that uncertain light, thought that his lips had a bluish edging. He took the glass and drained it. Then he held out his hands to the fire. “I’m glad you thought of this,” he said, and rubbed his hands. The sound was dry, like the rustling of paper.

  He had never approved of heat before. He bent forward to the fire; his shoulders had an unfamiliar aspect of fragility, of weariness. A servant came in and began to light the chandelier; moment by moment the room brightened yellowly. But Caroline noticed nothing but her father. Was it only today that his temples had become concave, his ear lobes darkly mauve? He looked older, smaller, as if he had suddenly shrunk. Caroline’s fingers tightened on the brooch at her neck. “Papa,” she said. “You really are ill. Let me call a doctor.”

  “What are you talking about?” he said. “You’re becoming an old woman, Caroline.” But he held his hands closer to the fire. All at once he fell back into his chair, and his breathing quickened again. “Damn those lunches!” he repeated. “I never have one without dyspepsia afterward.”

  “The soda isn’t helping, Papa?”

  “A little,” he said impatiently. “Do stop fussing, Caroline.” He had closed his eyes; the lids were wrinkled, like those of a very old man. “I have things to think about, my dear. A matter is coming up tonight; I don’t approve of it. You probably won’t understand, but I want you to listen carefully. I not only don’t approve of it, I think it’s insane. . . .” His voice trailed off. Then his breathing quieted and he smiled. “There, the pain’s gone. No more lunches, thank heavens.”

  “Yes, Papa,” she said, nearly blinded by her headache and fear now.

  “You’ve seen Brookingham many times. He’s one of my best friends and associates. An excellent family, too. He’s a very wealthy man and will very shortly have a distinguished title.”

  Caroline pressed her palm against her forehead. “Perhaps it was that ham at breakfast, Papa,” she said. “I do have an awful headache, and a pain in my — ” She paused. “We ate the ham; perhaps it made us both sick.”

  “Perhaps,” said John with more impatience. “Do let’s stop talking about our physical inconveniences, my dear. I think I mentioned Montague Brookingham to you. Well?”

  “The Weasel?” said Caroline without thought.

  “What? What did you call him, Caroline?”

  The girl blushed. “I’m awfully sorry, Papa. But that’s what I call him in my mind. A plump weasel.”

  John looked at her. Then, to her bafflement, he began to smile faintly. His exhausted eyes brightened with amusement. “So, you call him the Weasel, eh? You have a lot of imagination.” He considered, then smiled again. “Definitely a weasel, in more ways than one. But a very intelligent man and, as I said before, wealthy and of a distinguished family.”

  “I don’t care,” said Caroline, happy that she had made her father smile.

  Then he was no longer smiling. He was staring at her in his usual formidable way. “He isn’t hateful to you, is he, Caroline? He admires you, you know.”

  Caroline considered. Mr. Brookingham was her father’s friend. She did not want to antagonize her father, so she said quickly, “I suppose it was nasty of me to call him names. Admires me, Papa? Oh, he doesn’t. He thinks I’m very stupid. And ugly.”

  “On the contrary,” said John. “He thinks you are very brilliant and attractive.”

  She only waited, perplexed.

  “He wants to marry you, Caroline,” said John abruptly.

  Caroline’s mouth fell open in utter astonishment and disbelief. “Marry? Me?” she stuttered.

  “It’s true he’s about twenty years older than you are, my dear. But I was quite a bit older than your mother too. You look considerably older than you are, even now. I think,” said John, studying his daughter ruthlessly, “that you’d easily pass for thirty-five.”

  But Caroline, shocked, heard nothing of this. “Why, Papa!” she cried in credulously. “He’s a monster! A monster!”

  “What are you talking about? ‘A monster’.” John was angry. “What do you mean by a ‘monster’?”

  But Caroline had no words to explain. She was overwhelmed by her horror and incredulity.

  John’s face became darker, and he looked at his daughter probingly. “He’s done nothing more monstrous than I’ve done,” he said. “One lives with the world on its own terms. You’ve been traveling with me all these years. I’d thought by now that you understood how I made my money, and how you will continue to make money after I’m dead. I’d like to have the security of knowing that you and my money are safe in the hands of Montague.”

  Now the color left his face and he looked faint. He gripped the arms of his chair.

  “You mean,” said Caroline, “that you want me to marry him, Papa?”

  “I don’t mean anything. I am merely defending a friend whom you called a monster. I am only suggesting that you consider him as a husband. Did you intend to remain unmarried all your life?”

  “No. Oh no,” said Caroline, and thought of Tom, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Well, then. There’s no one else but Montague. I think it would be a fine arrangement. I know a dozen women who’d scream with joy at the thought, and titled ladies, too, in England and on the Continent. You aren’t young any longer, Caroline.”

  “Papa,” she said feebly, “if you want me to marry him I will.”

  John was silent. Those damned lunches! The room had tilted to an angle, and it had become dim. He looked with annoyance at the chandelier and was surprised to see that it was burning. There’s probably fog in the room, he thought.

  Then, as if he had heard an echo, he became aware of what Caroline had said. It was a great effort to speak. He said, “There is no question of my ‘wanting’ you to do anything against your will. What I ‘want’ and what you want may be two different things.” He stopped. There was a painful choking in his throat, as if he had been grasped by a spiked and iron hand. He shook his head with more irritation than alarm. He coughed a little. “Some years ago you mentioned a girlish infatuation. You haven’t spoken of it since then, so I assume that is past. You are a woman now. Ah,” he added as a waiter came into the room. “You may bring in the buckets of champagne if you please.”

  Chapter 13

  It was Alexander Polevoi whom Caroline called the Giggle, for he had a soft and chuckling laugh and was always smiling, and he appeared to find life very amusing indeed. His French wife (the Teeth, in Caroline’s category) bounced at his side, all vivacity and charm and magnetism, though she was even shorter and stouter than her husband and her dress was careless and her jewels less than immaculate. Both were in their fifties, and both possessed, quite vividly, an avid interest in all things, particularly money. Both were well-born and came from substantial and even illustrious families. Their eagerness for money puzzled Caroline, for neither, it was evident, had ever been poor or had suffered adversity. Monsieur Polevoi, in fact, had been a cadet in His Majesty the Czar’s personal guard, and he had an aunt who was distantly related to the Empress.

  “Dear, dear petite,” said Madame Polevoi with a flash of her great and famous white teeth. Her head hardly reached Caroline’s shoulder, and so sh
e embraced one of the girl’s large arms emphatically. Her gay monkey face twinkled. “How charming you are tonight.”

  Helpless as always when among people, Caroline could only mutter incoherently. She was more dazed than usual; all her thoughts were in confusion, smoldering with terror and disgust and fear. When the Slebers entered she could only move her lips silently. Franz Sleber resembled a bat, with his pallid short face, his naked head, and his big pale ears; and his wife (the Simper) appeared actually beefy in contrast and much more alive, with her wicked dark eyes, her sentimental air and smile, and the generous girth of her lavish figure. She had dyed her hair an improbable black with rusty highlights, and it was drawn back from her square face in a huge tight bun. Yet she had style. If she mentions Mitteleuropa to me tonight I’ll scream, I really will, thought Caroline. “Dear Luzy,” said John, kissing her hand.

  “Are you well, dearest?” asked Luzy Sleber with a languishing look of synthetic concern. “You seem pale.”

  “The Swiss luncheons,” said John Ames. “I see the Ernsts are here.”

  Caroline loathed the Ernsts a little less than she did the others, for Herr Gottfried Ernst (the Bower) had a gentle way with him, and he was younger than the others, in his middle forties, and he was handsome and dark and slender and had a sweet smile. If he constantly bowed each time a lady addressed him, Caroline thought, it was because he was less sure of himself than were the other men. He was of a noble but very poor Austrian family, and Caroline fancied that his faint lack of complete assurance probably came from early poverty. His English wife (the Glitter) had brought him a fortune which had been derived from an excellent beer. She wore a simple black gown tonight, caught under the small bustle with a pin of diamonds; there was an enormous glittering necklace of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds about her long white throat, matched by earrings at her small ears. Her figure was superb — tall and slender and of lovely proportions — and her delicate white arms had a certain translucence. When she spoke, and always in English, for she knew no other language, there was hardly a trace of the born Cockney in her speech.

  Two waiters filled glasses with champagne and served them from a silver tray. These were for Caroline and John Ames. The others preferred dubonnet for a reason inexplicable to the unworldly Caroline, who had not yet learned that champagne was a dessert wine. The ladies chattered in English, in deference to Babette, who had resolutely resisted learning a ‘foreign’ language even though she lived in Vienna and liked it with supreme British tolerance. Caroline managed, as always, to skulk near the fire in order to avoid direct attention. She kept a painful small smile on her face. Her hazel eyes were bright with misery. Let him not come tonight, she prayed, and would not look at the door for dread of its opening. Nevertheless, it opened and Montague Brookingham beamed plumply on his dear friends, who greeted him with pleasure.

  The ladies adored him. Caroline shrank closer to the wall, but she looked with hopeless terror at the man she believed her father wished her to marry. She had never been able to endure the touch of his hand; she had never been able to turn away when he spoke for fear of missing that changeful aspect of his which both fascinated and paralyzed her. It was not until this very moment that she realized the enormity of her father’s suggestion and understood, at last, that it actually concerned her.

  He came toward her, and she spread out her palms on the wall, as if trying to dissolve into it. He had a way of gliding, for all his plumpness; he walked as precisely and as lightly as a dancer. Now he faced Caroline, smiling his captivating smile, and the top of his head reached to her eyebrows.

  “How are you, Caroline?” he asked in a charming voice. But Caroline stared at him fixedly, and he could not miss the naked loathing and fear in her eyes. He was startled. His smile disappeared. “I hope you are well,” he said tentatively. Damn it, had Johnny Ames spoken to her in his usual abrupt way? The girl needs finesse, not a bludgeoning, he thought. She was really not in the least handsome, he thought. However, there had been times when she had smiled involuntarily and her eyes had shone with astonishingly beautiful golden lights, and the smile itself had had loveliness in it. The Queen, he had thought, would be pleased with this girl, who was respectable, wealthy, well bred and quiet, and impressive in her height and her slow, deliberate movements.

  Caroline could not speak, so he bowed to her with a smile and joined the animated group surrounding John Ames. The girl sank down weakly on a chair near the wall and put her hands on her knees. It was impossible. Not even to please her father could she do this terrible thing. Her headache became nauseating. She pushed herself to her feet and groped and sidled along the wall to her room and bathroom. There she drank a glass of water. She rubbed her arms; she felt as cold and stiff as stone. She began to cry a little and wiped away her tears childishly with the backs of her hands.

  She would tell her father tonight about Tom Sheldon. Nothing mattered now but Tom. Perhaps her father would permit her to leave for America at once, she thought frantically. She must see Tom; she must feel his arms around her. She had a frightful sensation that she was in danger and that only Tom could give her protection. She looked at her face in the mirror; it was as pale as her father’s and as ashen. What have I been waiting for? she asked herself, and did not remember. What kept me silent all these years? She had no other fear tonight but the stark fear of Montague Brookingham and all that he was. I’ll go to Tom; only Tom matters, she told her face in the mirror. Warmth moved over her body; her shivering stopped. She dried her face, lifted her head, and returned to the sitting room.

  Her seat at the table was between Brookingham and Herr Ernst. The former had decided ‘to leave the girl alone’ so that she might recover from what had frightened her. Herr Ernst, always kind and considerate, spoke to her in German with his soft Austrian accent. He had just returned from Paris where, he said, he had had the privilege of viewing the private collection of paintings owned by a friend. Unlike the others, who frequently thought Caroline ridiculous and wondered how so handsome a father could have so dull and spiritless and unattractive a daughter, Herr Ernst thought Caroline had much character and interest, and he liked to look into her eyes, where he detected no conceit, no cruelty or cunning. She reminded him of his grandmother, whom he had adored in his childhood.

  “As a traditionalist,” he said, “I am not moved or inspired by the Impressionists. They paint only for themselves. If art has a function beyond its own beauty and power, then its function is to communicate with others and give to others its own emotion. My friend, Fraulein, is also a traditionalist, but he was fortunate enough to acquire three modern paintings of tremendous power and beauty, and I confess that their color and vitality moved me greatly. Here was modern art that cared very much for the viewer. The artist was no exhibitionist, concerned only with his own thoughts and dreams and full of arrogant vanity. Never have I seen such colors! They seemed to leap from the canvas; traditionalists may say that certain colors are inharmonious with others. Nevertheless, this artist combined the inharmonious colors with astounding effect, and all was harmony.”

  Herr Ernst had learned from Caroline herself her secret interest in art, and he was rewarded now by a sudden eagerness in her face. She nodded.

  “One canvas absorbed me,” said Herr Ernst. The table conversation had not yet reached anything important, so he could devote himself to this silent girl who unaccountably charmed him and aroused his pity. “It was not a striking subject in itself. It showed only a bleached and barren plain, like a forlorn desert. But in the near distance was a high and pointed hill, and on that hill stood a ruined tower of crumbling stone with shattered battlements. That was all: the unfertile, blanched plain, the flowerless hill, and the tower. But as I looked at it I became despondent. Did the artist intend to say that this strongly painted scene suggested the inevitable fruitlessness and loneliness and defeat of power? I do not know.”

  He laughed gently. He meditatively sipped a little wine. “There was not much color in
that scene, yet it conveyed vehemence and passion, as well as terror. Some guests thought it blank and distasteful and undisciplined. One said, ‘Ah, these Americans! They know nothing of art and culture.’ You see, the artist was an American who died many years ago. David Ames.”

  “Ames?” said Caroline.

  “Yes. The same name as yours. A relative, perhaps?”

  “No,” said Caroline. She glanced at her father at the head of the table. He had been listening. “You have no relatives, Papa, who were artists?” she asked timidly.

  “No,” he said. “I never had a relative who was an artist.” He resumed his conversation with Madame Polevoi. Caroline thought: He had been listening. Why? He is never interested in art of any kind.

  “Another impressed me greatly,” the Austrian entrepreneur continued.

  “Yet it was only a scene of a mean little street which can be found in any European or perhaps American industrial city. Little drab shops dimly lighted, with small grim windows, and a wagon here and there. The narrow pavements glistened as if a recent rain had fallen, and the street wound into the distance to where an old dark church stood. Extraordinary! The church steeple bore a cross, and it was painted the color of fire, the very color of anger. And above it all was a tremendous sky of many colors, suggesting doom and retribution. There were figures on the street, but one could not tell the sex. They had been reduced to anonymity, featureless and without color. One’s eye could not leave the fiery cross and the furious skies. The artist must have been a man of sensitivity and pain and foreboding.”