A Prologue to Love

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Dear Montague has a wonderful town house in London,” said Cynthia, dreaming again. “And the family seat in Devonshire and a home in Scotland. How marvelous it will be for darling Melinda.”

  Timothy sat up. Cynthia went on: “We will keep our house in Boston, though. Montague comes at least once a year to America. And he does seem to like Boston, though why, I don’t really know. So dull. He is charmed by my house. He hasn’t met my dearest Melinda yet, but he will shortly. He has seen her portrait and has fallen in love with the little dear. Do you know, he may possibly adopt her! Wouldn’t that be fortunate?”

  “You will be taking Melinda to England?” asked Timothy.

  She stared at him with astonishment. “Dear Timothy! Where else? She is only thirteen. Did you think I could leave her here when we go to England? And with whom? Dear boy!”

  Of course she was right. The carriage drew up before the house on Beacon Street. Timothy said as he helped his mother from the carriage, “I, too, have many things to tell you. And you won’t like some of them.” He could not keep a vicious note from his voice.

  When Timothy left Cynthia alone in her little sitting room, where they had talked for a long time, Cynthia found it necessary after all to resort to the paint pot. She had dressed abstractedly and then had coiled up her hair in the new Grecian fashion. She looked searchingly into her pier mirror; she wore a magnificent Worth dress of pale ivory and gold brocade which revealed bare shoulders and slim white throat. The small train just touched the floor but was draped sufficiently to show golden slippers. She put on John’s necklace and her betrothal ring. But I look like a ghost, she thought, sighing, and dipped a slim finger into the paint pot and touched up her cheekbones and then her lips and blew a cloud of perfume upon herself with her atomizer. She had sent a maid for Lord Halnes, and after a soft knock he came in, dressed formally.

  “Ah, my love,” he said, looking at her with intense pleasure. “You look like a shining bird.” And he kissed her lingeringly, just barely standing on his toes.

  “Dear Montague,” she said, and blinked back her tears. “Do you know, Papa always called me that? And he called my sister a dove.”

  “Is anything wrong, Cynthia?” he asked after they had seated themselves on a love seat that overlooked the garden.

  “A great deal wrong, and a great deal very good,” she replied. “That is why I asked you to come here where we can talk in privacy before dinner. Do give me a glass of brandy, dearest. Thank you.” She was very serious, and Montague knew that when Cynthia was serious she was not to be taken lightly. She was not a trivial woman.

  He listened in silence while she spoke of Caroline, her son, and Caroline’s prospective marriage. Then, when she had come to the end of her story, he asked her permission and lit a thin cheroot and smoked quietly for a considerable time, thinking. Cynthia waited anxiously and thought how marvelous it was that she was no longer alone and had such a man to protect and help her and share her worries. His mobile eyebrows moved up and down; various muted expressions drifted across his respectable face; a thin blue smoke rose above his solid round skull.

  Then he said, “Well, old girl, there is nothing you can do, is there? Caroline is more than of age. She never struck me as a fool; on the contrary. Dull, but not a fool. She has shown considerable acumen in her choice of your son, who, from what you have already told me, I should judge to be an extraordinary young man.”

  Cynthia smiled a little. “John always called him pernicious, which was really quite unfair.”

  “I met him below after he left you,” said Lord Halnes. “We introduced ourselves.”

  “Oh? Good,” said Cynthia with a faint question in her pretty voice.

  “I think both his mother and his uncle to be good judges of character,” he said.

  “How ambiguous, darling.”

  He took her hand and kissed it. “I think not. I’m pernicious, myself. Well, then, I repeat, there is nothing you can do about this unfortunate marriage your niece is about to make.”

  “I feel so responsible, Montague, for she is my sister’s child.”

  “But she feels no responsibility toward you or to anyone but herself. I repeat, she is not a fool. The clodhopper she will marry may have redeeming qualities, seen through the girl’s obstinate eyes. She has known him from childhood; I thought very often that she had a most sensitive eye. Perhaps that is why she always shrank from me.”

  “How ridiculous! Caroline shrinks from everybody. Unfortunate girl. I never did know why she hated me so. And now she has done all that for Timothy because she thinks it will put me out of countenance! Really! And you say she is no fool.”

  “She has a single eye, though it is a very sharp one. She sees, in a large measure, what she wishes to see. You should console yourself with the thought that at least she has made an overt gesture to one member of her family. I doubt that she did it only to vex you. She isn’t a petty young woman. Clumsy, maladroit, but not petty. I haven’t the slightest doubt that she will increase poor old Johnny’s fortune. In a way, I pity the young man who is going to marry her. Who would not be wealthy? But, to paraphrase Lord Acton, money corrupts, but absolute money corrupts absolutely. The young man will be corrupted, for all he is a nobleman of the soil, as I think one of your poets put it.”

  “You are not corrupt, Montague,” said Cynthia, smiling again.

  “No?” He tilted an eyebrow at her. “My darling, would you love me if I were not, and if I were as I appear to be in sober moments?”

  “Of course not,” she agreed. “You are quite satanic, and that makes you irresistible. I could never marry a dull man, even if he had your money. I haven’t the faintest idea how you got your money and I don’t want to know. It is sufficient for me that I love you.” She was serious again. “But, Montague! My sister’s child. A girl who has great advantages, who would be considered a desirable catch in Boston or anywhere else in the world. She has presence, really. She could look majestic if she weren’t so afraid and sullen and suspicious all the time. She will make a heroic dowager if she does not prevent herself. And she’s so very, very wealthy, and an Esmond, and I am sure that her dear father was a gentleman born, even if he denied it.”

  She could never mention John Ames but that Montague felt a hard spasm of jealousy. “There, now, you are frowning,” she murmured, and absently kissed his cheek. “Poor Caroline. I had thought perhaps you and I could do something.”

  “We can do nothing at all,” he said decisively. “Any attempt at interference on your part could injure Timothy too.”

  She nodded. “But such a scandal, Montague. Tongues will be wagging all over Boston. No one will believe it!”

  “Then we will give them more reason to wag,” he said, smiling once more. “And no one will believe it. How long have we known each other, sweet Cynthia?”

  “Twelve — no, thirteen — days,” she said.

  “Twelve years,” he answered. “Didn’t you say we should remember that? But it has really been much longer; I’ve known you all my life. I was simply waiting for you.”

  He reached to her throat and deftly removed John’s necklace and with out comment put it on the table. I will save it for Melinda, thought Cynthia, oddly comforted.

  Chapter 8

  After her evening with Timothy Winslow in New York, Caroline went to bed early in order to catch the first train back to Boston the next morning. She had inherited her father’s faculty of putting all thoughts out of her mind at will which were not connected with the immediate issue. She had only to think as she lay down: I will take care of that in its season or at such an hour or day, and then she would sleep at once, and usually without dreams or uneasiness.

  But tonight she dreamed again of the tower which Herr Ernst had described to her. There was one difference, however. It was her grandfather. David Ames, and not Tom Sheldon who entreated her not to enter the tower and to ignore the groaning of the hidden man inside. She looked at him with wondering recogni
tion and then with trusting love. He took her hand; his head hardly reached her tall shoulder; he smiled up at her and led her away into a landscape throbbing and vibrating with color and beauty. He said, “Here is life. Don’t go back, my child.” She looked over her shoulder and saw the tower crumbling into dust, its battlements turning into wisps of smoke.

  She awoke to early morning, and someone was knocking softly but insistently on her door, and she threw on a cheap calico wrapper and opened it. It was one of the maids, who had a letter in her hand. “It was delivered by a messenger, who said it was urgent, Miss Ames,” said the girl, looking curiously at the wrapper and the coarse cotton nightgown that peeped from under it. Caroline closed the door and opened the letter and found that it was a message from Mr. Tandy. He had written, “It is most necessary, dear Caroline, for you not to return to Boston immediately but to meet us at our offices as soon as possible.” It was only half-past six, and Caroline’s train left at eight. She reread the short message, frowning. Then she began to bathe and dress.

  She was at the office building at half-past seven. The hot morning streets were already filled and scuttling with weary clerks who had spent a hot and airless night in their rooms; the first blinding sun flashed on the rooftops. Horse cars rumbled, and drays and wagons full of goods and food clattered over the cobblestones. But the office building was cool and dusky, and the offices were shaded, quiet, and discreet. Caroline thought of what her father had once said of Tandy, Harkness and Swift: “They rarely offer advice or an opinion, but they officiate in their Temple of Law, murmuring a quiet prayer before entering the Consultation Chambers.” Though it was very early, clerks were at their desks, green eyeshades cutting into their foreheads. Mr. Tandy was waiting for Caroline, and he appeared to be slightly agitated; he conducted her into his own office, seated her with his usual affectionate courtesy, and sat down behind his desk.

  “A contingency has arisen, dear Caroline,” he said, and picked up an envelope which was covered with foreign stamps.

  “Yes?” said Caroline. If Mr. Tandy spoke of ‘a contingency’, that was equal to another man speaking of an enormous disaster or unheaval. She felt a thrill of fear.

  “Otherwise I should not have disturbed you,” said Mr. Tandy. His small neat face appeared much less composed than usual.

  “Please!” exclaimed Caroline.

  “Of course, my dear. May I give you a glass of water?”

  “No,” said Caroline abruptly. “Mr. Tandy, there is another train to Boston in an hour. If there is something I should know I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me at once. I don’t want a glass of water!”

  “Very well,” said Mr. Tandy a little stiffly. One did not rush into matters of importance without first, and properly, approaching them in the correct atmosphere, and Caroline was creating an atmosphere that was decidedly not correct. She was staring at the letter in his hand and was leaning forward. Mr. Tandy dropped it on the desk and half covered it with his small fingers, rebukingly.

  “You will remember the terms of your father’s will, Caroline,” he said in a cool and reverent voice. “Half his estate was left to you outright; you had the disposition of it only during your lifetime. There was, of course, the possibility of any residue or increase. We know that you will increase the residue. No matter. The other fifty percent was held in trust for you by Tandy, Harkness and Swift and the Bankers Trust Company of New York, to be invested discreetly by them, you to receive the income, only, during your lifetime.”

  “I know,” said Caroline impatiently.

  “Your father asked that within four months of his death you should make a will disposing of a part of your outright legacy of fifty percent. You have not done so.”

  To his surprise and mild interest, she turned very pink and suddenly appeared years younger. “I intend to draft my will very shortly, Mr. Tandy. In fact,” she added, “I can make my will now, though I don’t intend to die soon, I assure you.”

  “One never knows,” sighed Mr. Tandy. “But let us hope, dear Caroline, that you will live many, many decades. I will go on. You may remember that your father’s will states that in the event of your death without natural and legal issue — which means only children, not a spouse — what remains of your outright fifty percent, if any, is to be added to the invested trust. With the exception, of course, of what you have made your own through investments or other avenues.”

  “Yes? Yes, I understand.”

  “Do you, my dear?” he asked in a peculiar tone. “If you have no natural and legal issue, all will go to another heir. Surely you must have understood there must be another heir or heirs?”

  Then she was deeply frightened. “I never intended to use any part of my outright legacy, Mr. Tandy. I intended to use only the income, to increase the legacy.”

  “Very good,” he said approvingly, understanding that this was precisely what a proper Bostonian would do. “One does not dispose of principal recklessly. But still, without your natural and legal issue, there would be another heir. And you did not think of that, my dear?” he demanded with less approval and some shock.

  She fumbled with her purse, then exclaimed, “Mr. Tandy, who is the other heir if I have no issue?”

  Now she was greatly alarmed. Mr. Tandy leaned back in his chair. “One understands your sad condition after your father’s death, my dear, and one understands that, after all, you are a young female. It is understandable that such things may have skipped your mind briefly.”

  “Please, Mr. Tandy, I must know! Who is the other heir?”

  “That, my dear, is what we could not tell you. You may remember that the will states that in the event of your death without natural and legal issue a secret codicil, carefully sealed, should be opened. It was only to be opened — a copy of it is in Surrogate’s Court and another copy in our safe — on your death, whether a week from now or sixty years from now. But in no other event. Do you remember that we told you of that codicil?”

  “Yes,” said Caroline faintly. “But I gave it very little thought. Besides, I intend marrying.”

  “Indeed?” said Mr. Tandy with very deep interest. “Soon, my dear?”

  But Caroline was flushing again.

  “Under those circumstances, and under your resolution to marry — I assume you have someone definite in mind — I can well understand why you did not consider the codicil,” said Mr. Tandy. (His mind inventoried the young Bostonians Caroline might possibly know. Or was it some foreign fortune hunter?)

  “Please. The codicil?” said Caroline in a stifled voice.

  “I believe I have mentioned that it was not to be opened except in the event of your death without natural and legal issue.”

  Caroline snapped and unsnapped the clasp of her purse. She considered this with confusion. She opened her purse again and touched her plain cotton handkerchief to her lips.

  “And you cannot tell me, Mr. Tandy?”

  He paused gravely. “Until this letter, my dear” — and he smoothed his hand over the letter on his desk — “I could not, under any circumstances.”

  “What is the letter?” cried Caroline, moving to the edge of her chair.

  “I don’t understand it,” said Mr. Tandy. “It should have arrived many weeks ago. Your father wrote it, my dear, two days before he died, and I still do not know why he wrote it. Perhaps it was that he had some premonition — He must have come to love you very dearly.”

  “Papa?” said Caroline weakly, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “I can only believe,” said Mr. Tandy, “that after writing that letter Mr. Ames permitted it to remain in his desk in your suite in Geneva, so he could give further consideration as to whether or not he should send it to us. He was never a hasty gentleman. We shall never know if he did intend posting it. We shall never know if he actually posted it or if some servant, during cleaning, found the letter and posted it on her own volition. The Swiss are very correct about these matters,” he added with approval. “Had it been
found, say, in France or Italy, it would never have arrived.

  “In any event, the long delay may be due to the fact that it was not found until comparatively recently — the postmark is very blurred and unreadable — or it was lost in the post for some time. The European posts are very incompetent, I have discovered. It arrived last evening among much other mail. I did not discover it until half-past nine last night; I had remained in order to dispose of accumulated matter. I then wrote you and had the message delivered to you this morning. Very urgent.”

  “What did Papa write you?” asked Caroline in a loud voice. The heat was rising here even in this shaded office, and her forehead and face were damp.

  “You may read it yourself, dear Caroline,” said Mr. Tandy, and rose with ceremony and came around his desk and gave it into her hand. “You will notice he dated it two days before his death.”

  Caroline’s trembling fingers fumbled with the envelope. Her eyes blurred at the sight of her father’s handwriting. She unfolded the stiff white paper. Her father had written: “Under circumstances which have arisen, and under the impression that I may not live much longer, I have decided to authorize you to open the codicil and reveal the contents to my daughter, Caroline Ames, immediately after my death.”