A Prologue to Love

by Taylor Caldwell

  Elizabeth was taken aback. She had believed her financial studies to be her own secret. Ames saw her perturbation and smiled. “I shouldn’t have let you know,” he said. “You were enjoying yourself so much, and I found it enjoyable to watch you. What do you want?”

  Elizabeth recovered herself. She leaned toward the large mahogany cabinet and studied the many beautiful and exquisite objects in it. Everything was so small! She hated smallness. She hated tiny and fragile beauty. She despised imponderables. She thought Ames effeminate, which was not true. She thought him concerned solely with trivialities, for to her beauty was a triviality. She tended her own dispassionately, as a possession which would serve her well in the future.

  “You have a fortune here,” she said.

  “Indeed,” said Ames. “But I’m not interested in selling. Were you thinking of buying something from me? No sale.”

  He smiled at her and wondered what the old girl was up to. Elizabeth did nothing without a purpose.

  “Has Mother ever seen these wonderful things?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Ma? Yes. She’s come in here once or twice. Now, Ma is strictly utilitarian. She doesn’t like frivolities, and she thinks my collection is frivolous. She knows nothing whatsoever of art.”

  “You are wrong,” said Elizabeth seriously, and sat down on Ames’ bed. “I’ve just had a talk with her.”

  “Indeed,” said Ames skeptically. “Has Ma suddenly developed a taste for curios or figurines?”

  “It could be,” said Elizabeth.

  Ames laughed; he had a very quiet laugh which contained more amusement than his brother John’s loud mirth. “If she hasn’t, then Dad has. A very well-developed taste, too.”

  Elizabeth thought her brother was referring to the little works of art Tom had bought for his son, but when she saw the laughter shining enjoyably in Ames’ eyes she knew it was something else, something much more interesting.

  “Don’t you know?” asked Ames maliciously. “I thought you knew everything. You’re always everywhere in your slippery way.”

  Elizabeth ignored the insult and said, “It’s possible I know but didn’t think it was important enough.”

  Ames laughed out loud now. “You’d think it important enough! Everybody down in the village is talking about it, and I’ve heard sniggers about it at Groton.”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “Who cares about village gossip,” she said, lifting her chin, “or schoolboy chatter?” She waited. Ames was chuckling at her and shaking his head.

  “You don’t know,” he said. “But as your loving brother I’m going to tell you. Dear old Dad spends a large part of his time at the Bothwell house. He stops in at least three or four times a week to see poor old Aunt Melinda, who has a nice companion lady from Boston — best of family — as chaperone, seeing both the kids are away at school. Mrs. Ernest Griswold-Smith, a widow. Grim old hag. As she is almost seventy, it couldn’t be Mrs. Smith Dad is visiting so regularly for a couple of hours each time. It could only be Aunt Melinda.”

  Elizabeth actually blushed, and Ames was delighted. “Oh no,” said the girl. “How stupid. How foolish. But Mother apparently knows; she knows everything. So it can’t be important. What a nasty mind you have, Ames. What could two old people like Dad and Aunt Melinda have in common? It’s possible that Dad feels guilty, in a way, for Uncle Alfred’s death, though it was all Mother’s fault. I remember that Dad and Uncle Alfred were close friends; Dad built his house. So it’s perfectly natural, under the circumstances, for Dad to continue his visits.”

  “Perhaps,” agreed Ames. “Dad takes gifts for the kids on holidays, too. Very expensive ones. Wouldn’t it be nice for us if he left all his money to Aunt Melinda and her kids, as a sort of conscience bequest?”

  Elizabeth knew that her father was now rich, probably a millionaire. She was disturbed.

  “I like facts, not rumors,” she said, dismissing the subject for the time being. She had a more immediate object in mind. “Let’s come back to what I wanted to talk to you about. I had a long conversation with Mother this afternoon. She let me see her pictures in the gallery.”

  “She did?” Ames was interested. “What were they like?”

  Elizabeth considered. “Unusual,” she said cautiously. “Interesting, too. I don’t think you’d care for them, though, because you like old rare things. They’re by David Ames and very expensive.”

  Ames sat up abruptly. “David Ames! Why, you can’t buy any of his works! They’re priceless! What does she know of art, anyway?”

  “She knows a lot,” said Elizabeth, nodding her head. “You’d be surprised. Just because she’s a recluse and rarely goes out except on business does not mean she’s uninformed and ignorant. Remember, she went to Miss Stockington’s, too, and then traveled all over Europe, and even South America, with our grandfather. Though she doesn’t talk very much, as you know, I gather she’s deeply interested in art and beauty of all kinds.”

  “This house proves it,” said Ames.

  “She isn’t interested in houses. She’s interested in money and art.”

  “I never noticed it,” said Ames, “and I have a sharp eye for such things. She made some mean remarks about my collections and said they were a waste of money.”

  “That is because she thinks you aren’t serious about your collections and that you buy them only for their intrinsic value and not for any real feeling about them.”

  “If she thought that, she’d approve. I know Ma,” said Ames, watching his sister. “What can’t be sold for a profit or what one just keeps isn’t of interest to her. If I were doing a brisk trade and making money at it, she would be interested all right!”

  “Mother could do quite a brisk trade, as you call it, with her Ames paintings if she wanted to,” Elizabeth brought out. “But she wouldn’t sell them for any money, and you know how Mother is about money. In fact, she paid twenty thousand dollars for one; she told me. She’s now looking for another.” She paused and widened her eyes at her brother. “Why don’t you tell her how you feel about your collection and that you’d like a larger allowance so you can add to them? Why don’t you tell her you aren’t interested in money as a thing in itself, but only to spend on beautiful things? She’d understand.”

  Ames was silent. His suspicions were far deeper and more astute than John’s.

  “Tell me,” he said at last, “just what is behind all this? Your interest in whether or not I get a larger allowance to ‘indulge’ myself in ‘fripperies’, as Ma calls it?”

  “It’s very simple,” said Elizabeth. “I want a larger allowance too. At this very minute John is trying to persuade Ma to increase his. If he gets his way and you do, too, I’ll get an increase. It would only be fair. Even Mother will see that.”

  Ames twitched his sharp long nose and stared at his sister. “John’s with her now? Was that your idea too?”

  “Certainly. I’m not being charitable.” Elizabeth smiled. “I want you boys to have more money so I can have more money.”

  “Nothing’s simple where you’re concerned,” said her loving brother. But he thought: This is just like old Lizzie, hot after the cash. It couldn’t be anything else.

  Then Elizabeth said, “If you both succeed — and I can’t see why you shouldn’t — I wouldn’t mind a small tip for my advice.”

  Ames considered again. “Did you try to hit her up yourself?”

  Elizabeth smiled smugly. “Why should I tell you?”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. But if you had, and if you’d gotten your way, you wouldn’t be here putting the thumbscrews on me,” said Ames. “You’d just keep your mouth shut, except when you were licking your lips. What makes you think we’d do any better?”

  “Because you’re boys, and mothers care more for their sons and understand them better. Mother thinks I shouldn’t have more than she had at my age.”

  Try though he did, Ames could not see that there was anything more to this conversation than what Elizabeth was reveal
ing. Elizabeth stood up. She had heard John’s door close loudly and furiously. She waited a moment, then said, “John just went into his room. Now you can go to Mother’s study and plead your case.”

  “I’ll talk to John first,” said Ames, “to see how the land lies.”

  Elizabeth had a fairly good idea of how the land lay, but she did not want Ames to know it. “Do you think he’d tell you?” she asked. “You know how John is — all for himself. Do hurry, Ames.”

  Caroline was in her study, but not looking over her financial statements and ledgers. She was thinking of Elizabeth, and her deprived spirit was expanding more and more, and she was wallowing in remorse. But she was also hopeful. She had misunderstood her daughter; it was more than possible that she had misunderstood her sons. For the first time to her they were no longer her heirs but her flesh and blood. She was in this excited and agitated mood when John knocked on her door and then came in. His first thought when he saw her sudden and eager smile was that old Lizzie had been right, for he could not remember when he had seen his mother smile like that before.

  “Well, John,” she said, and he was quite astonished at the kindness in her voice. “Come in. Is there anything you want?”

  The big young man sat down and studied his mother and the room. Here all was extreme order, with a wide desk, good lights, and filing cabinets.

  Caroline waited. She took off her glasses, and though her eyes were tired they were also shyly beaming and expectant. John was a little unnerved; the hard cold woman, the silent, unloving woman, the businesslike woman he had always known was gone. He could not understand this woman who suddenly looked like a mother, anxious to hear her son speak and anxious to help him. He had no way of knowing the yearning that was reaching out to him, the hope, the desperation and loneliness that ached to be relieved in him, the girlish naïveté and the endless suffering. He could not see the woman who wanted so dreadfully to be reassured that life had something for her at last.

  John relaxed. He was grateful to his sister; she had done a very good job, it seemed, of softening up the old lady. But he moved carefully. He gave his mother a wide and confiding smile.

  “I thought you’d like to know how I’m getting along at Harvard,” he said. “This is my second semester, you know, Ma.”

  “Yes,” said Caroline. Color had come into her big lips. “Tell me, John. I do have your reports, as you know, but I’d like to hear from you, yourself.”

  John was quite amazed. Caroline had given him only personal indifference all his life, though she had been interested in his scholarly progress and had warned him to excel. “I want to do the best I can, Ma,” he said, still moving carefully. “And I’m going to like law, so I can take my place in Tandy, Harkness and Swift, as you planned. I’m only sorry I never saw the old boys, but only their sons and nephews.”

  “They’re ‘old boys’ too,” said Caroline, waiting for the words of deliverance. “The youngest is in his forties. I’m glad you like law, John. Ames doesn’t. It is a big disappointment to me.”

  John had no intention of helping his brother, so he made his expression serious. “He doesn’t care for anything but his collection,” he said. “Well, everyone to his taste.”

  “The ‘boutique’,” murmured Caroline, thinking of her aunt and Ames simultaneously. Her warm expression darkened.

  “What did you say, Ma?” asked John.

  “Nothing, John. Just a thought of mine. It will be a great satisfaction to me to have you in that law firm; they were my father’s lawyers and are mine, and I want them to be my children’s.”

  She was still looking at John eagerly and expectantly, and this disturbed him a little. What did she want him to say?

  “I’ll do my very best,” he said, watching her.

  She nodded and she still waited. She waited for him to say, “I want to do my best so I can help you and be really a son to you, because I love you and you are my mother.”

  “I’ll do my very best,” the young man repeated. He paused. “But there’s something else. As you know, times are different. Even in Boston. People respect money and want it. They know it’s good to have it behind you and to save part of your income. But they also know that money was made to be spent in the enjoyment of life and not only in the getting of it.”

  Caroline’s expression changed, and John was alarmed. What had gone wrong?

  “Go on,” said Caroline.

  “I need a lot more money, Ma. A much bigger allowance. After all, things are expected of the men at Harvard. It’s expected that you entertain in your turn and not do it niggardly. I’m the son of a rich lady and so more is expected of me even than of the others. I want to live, Ma, to spend money, to have a fine time doing it, and to make many friends. You have to buy friends, you know. What else is money for, after a decent part of it is saved, but to spend and travel and have fun and a lot of enjoyment?”

  Caroline was silent. She looked at him piercingly. She thought: He cares nothing for the trust that was given me and which was to be his trust also. He is selfish and coarse and wants to indulge himself at my expense and throw away Papa’s money.

  She said coldly, “When I am dead, John, you’ll have a lot of money. What will you do with it?”

  John was cautious and a little frightened now. But he remembered what Elizabeth had told him. He put some enthusiasm in his voice. “Ma, you never lived, yourself. I know how horribly you existed when you were a girl — the poverty and all that. You never had a rich, full life. You were deprived. You once told me your father had a very hard time accumulating money. But when he did have all that money he should have loosened up and spent a lot on you, to make you happy as a young girl. If there is anything to the theory of retribution, I hope he is having some of it now.” He smiled sympathetically at his mother.

  “Go on,” said Caroline bitterly.

  Things were not going as expected. But John blundered on. “You’ve asked me what I’ll do with all that money which will be my share. Of course I’ll keep some part of it as insurance and security. But I’ll spend the greater part of it, enjoying myself as you should have enjoyed yourself. I want to live, Ma, as you never lived. As my grandfather never lived. What else is money for?”

  She had met men like John before in her travels, beefy men, ruddy men, extravagant, selfish men, full of wine, glittering with jewelry, carrying with them the odor of lavish living and the scent of bought women. Many of them became bankrupt. They had inherited money and had spent it heedlessly, the money so painfully and laboriously gathered by fathers and grandfathers, the money which had been a sacred trust and a fortress against the world. Her father had said, “Worthless wretches, with no sense of responsibility. They are only appetites, gaudy and gross, ripe for picking.”

  “What do you know of my father, John?” she asked her son.

  John was fumbling around in his mind. The pale glare of the cold sun suddenly came out and he could not see his mother’s face clearly, as her back was to the windows. He said, “From all I hear, he was a miser and he made your life wretched.”

  Caroline felt weak and sick, and she was also filled with a cold and violent anger. Her son was attacking his grandfather as her Aunt Cynthia had often attacked him, and in almost the same accusing words. What did these superficial, wasteful people know of men like John Ames, these parasites, these appetites, these heedless spenders of what worthier people had earned?

  She made a quick and merciless resolution. She would change her will at once; she would leave John not more than five thousand dollars a year from a trust. Many cautious parents in Boston did this to prevent the wasting of their money by children.

  She said abruptly, “You’ve asked me for a larger allowance in order that you can spend as other young men spend. I don’t approve of such spending. No, John.”

  “No?” he said.

  “No. When you are a member of my law firm you will have your regular salary, very modest to begin with, for at first you’ll only b
e a clerk. Later you will be a junior member with a little larger salary. Perhaps later you will be a full member. That is up to you and your diligence and thrift. I can promise nothing more.”

  She was so full of bitterness and wild disappointment that she went on ruthlessly, “Don’t expect much more from me. I intend to leave you five thousand a year for life, and nothing more. You may go now.”

  He stumbled to his feet. His eyes glittered at her with hatred. “Is that your last word?” he said.

  “My very last word. And don’t expect me to change it.”

  He knew his mother. She would never relent.

  “Miser,” he said. “You were never anything else but a stupid miser who never knew how to live and who doesn’t want anyone else to live. But I’ll tell you this: I’ll get around things someway. By God, I will!”