A Prologue to Love

by Taylor Caldwell

  John shrugged and laughed again. For one instant he hoped that, in the event of a war, Nathaniel would be — He hurried away from the thought in his mind. Mimi would be brokenhearted. Then, as always, he was jealous. Mimi should have no other loves but himself.

  “How is Mimi?” Melinda asked, understanding everything, and full of pity. John was so vital, so full of physical strength, so ruddy and imposing, and in many ways so intelligent. He did not have the intellect of his brother Ames, nor his appreciation for beauty. There was much of his mother in him.

  “Splendid, splendid,” said John. And then his hazel eyes hardened. “She is almost six months expecting, Mother Bothwell. Yet she is working all day and part of the night in preparation for her one-woman show in New York — just about the time the baby is due! I wish you’d speak to her; write to her.”

  “Why?” asked Melinda mildly. “That is a great part of her life, John. She is an authentic genius, though you don’t seem to know it. Those two gold medals she’s already received weren’t given her because she is a Bothwell or because she is pretty!”

  John covered his anger with an engaging, coaxing smile. “Oh, I know that. I’m not entirely a fool.” But he thought: Mother Bothwell is an idiot, and though she is a very feminine woman she doesn’t seem to understand that a woman should devote all her life to her husband and have nothing else in all the world but him. Even her children should be nothing in comparison. There were moments when he tightly resented, even disliked, his coming child. He only endured the thought of it, sure that his mother, in spite of everything, would make the child her heir.

  “Her work is noted for its marvelous color, in particular,” said Melinda. “You know what they say: power, depth, fervor, as well as drawing. No other living artist, some critics say, is able to get so intense a red, so living and so vital a yellow, so furious a blue.”

  “Well,” said John. He sat with Melinda in the beautiful room overlooking the sea. It was particularly brilliant today, a passionate aquamarine. He had long known his defect and had hidden it, he thought, from everyone. It was only that damned Ames who knew. Like all those who had secret defects, he had made it wholly his own and had even come to regard it as valuable, or at least distinctive.

  “Don’t you think so?” Melinda said.

  “I’m no art critic,” said John with a beguiling expression and a carefully cultivated gesture of self-deprecation which always disarmed a potential critic or enemy.

  “Of course not,” said Melinda, whom he had, as usual, disarmed. “Do have some more tea, John.”

  He wanted a good sound whiskey before he saw his mother, but he never offended, even slightly, if he could help it. He accepted more tea, which he loathed, and with an air of gratitude that she could be so kind, “You know that Amy has left Ames?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  John laughed. He knew Melinda’s fondness for Amy and Amy’s brothers and Amanda. “She should never have married him,” he said. “That nice little girl.” He did not think Amy ‘nice’ at all. He thought her a stupid, vacuous little fool whose only virtue was her father’s money.

  “I agree that the marriage shouldn’t have taken place,” said Melinda. “It was disastrous for both of them. Ames is entirely too intellectual and too-finished — for Amy.”

  John was not sure that he liked this statement. He thought his brother a poseur, with all those ‘treasures’ of his and his malicious insistence that John observe the delicate colorings of enamels or porcelain when he knew all the time —

  Melinda looked at the watch on her breast. “Dear me, it’s almost time for you to go to see your mother,” she said. “Don’t call for a cab. My own car is here, and Gregory will drive you to your mother’s and then to the station.”

  “I don’t know why she wants to see me,” said John. “We haven’t seen each other since Mimi and I were married. And she tried to prevent the marriage, at that.”

  “Perhaps she wants to talk about Mimi’s show,” said Melinda.

  “I hardly think so,” said John. “They haven’t seen each other for ages.”

  Melinda smiled. When the car came for John she gave the young man her hand affectionately, but her large gray eyes were full of concern. She did not know why she said out of impulse, “Be kind to my child, John. She is a dedicated artist; she had no choice in the matter. Do try to understand a little, won’t you?”

  John patted her hand. He always knew what to say, and now he said generously, looking into Melinda’s eyes, “I try. I don’t always succeed. I hope it’s enough.”

  John had been greatly disturbed over the separation of Ames and Amy. His brother had blandly told him, smiling that subtle smile of his, “Now I’ll soon be free to marry a healthy woman who’ll give me children. Not that I like the little swine, but there is all Mama’s money, you know.”

  Ames had seemed very complacent, like a white and slender cat of aristocratic breeding. He had looked at his brother with one of those infernal mysterious expressions of his.

  “I thought the old lady had bribed you to marry Amy. I heard some rumors.”

  “You must never,” said Ames, “credit rumors.”

  “But you seemed very damned prosperous after the marriage! In fact, the old lady as much as admitted to me that she bribed yon to marry Amy. Everybody knew.”

  “I am not one to make public announcements,” said Ames. He said with a glint in his cold slate-gray eyes, “I hope when I marry that I have a dozen children. I intend to marry a good breeder. With the exception of Mama, the family doesn’t run to breeding. Even she had only three of us.”

  So Ames would soon be free again to marry — and have children who would inherit the great Ames fortune — Ames, whom John had thought would be eliminated.

  As John was driven to his mother’s house he began to have some sanguine thoughts, as he was a naturally optimistic young man. Had the old white hag repented? Was she going to announce a softening of her decision? What else could be the reason? She had done her worst to John. Anything else she could do would be for the better. He remembered her voice on the telephone, strange, faint, hesitating, almost questioning. His always buoyant spirits rose higher as he rang the bell at his mother’s gates. When he saw her approach down the broken path, he noticed how old she had become, how slow and ponderous in movement, how laboring. Her head was bent. He had never seen it bent that way before, as if she were mortally tired. He wished she would look up to see his broad white smile. She did. He smiled wider, took off his hat, made his brightly colored face affectionate. “Mother!” he called to her.

  Caroline paused on the path. She saw John through the gates, confident, smiling, appearing to be delighted to see her. It isn’t the money, she thought; please God, it isn’t the money. She knew the thought was foolish. When had it ever not been the money? But a starving man, seizing food given to him by an enemy for the enemy’s own evil reasons, does not question. Let it be that I can reach him, she prayed.

  Her lips moved. Was she actually smiling? thought John in astonishment. His thoughts ran quickly, plotting, arranging themselves, conjecturing.

  Something was ‘up’. He became a little confused, and he sweated under the August sun and was excited. He told himself to be careful, to watch her before speaking, to turn every word over before it was uttered. He remembered that his mother was no fool; it was almost impossible to deceive her. She couldn’t have added so enormously to her father’s fortune if she had been a fool. Yet, he thought, even people like his mother became senile, soft, open to cajolery, to false affirmations of concern. Look at old Brundage, a hard-fisted old Wall Streeter at eighty, hating his children, hating his wife, hating everyone. But one of his daughters, who had made a bad marriage, had, within a month of his death, so diddled him, so lavished hypocritical affection on him, so hovered about him, that he had made her his major heir. He had refused to see her for fifteen long years before that.

  John thought: Maybe Mama wasn’t as complac
ent about Amy’s desertion of Ames as he had pretended. It’s possible that she’s up in the air and he was lying to me.

  “I’m awfully glad to see you, Mother,” he said with just the right amount of awkward sincerity in his voice as she unlocked the gates. He put on an embarrassed expression and looked aside. His mother’s hand paused on the key. He knew that she was examining him, listening. Waiting. So that’s it, he thought exultantly. But what ‘it’ was, he did not quite know.

  “Why are you glad to see me?” asked Caroline abruptly.

  Under the same circumstances Ames would have said, “You sent for me, didn’t you? You must have had a reason. It may even be a good reason!’’

  Caroline would have understood that sourly. But John said with an impulsive flow of words, “After all, you’re my mother, aren’t you? I’ve missed you.” Caroline knew it was a lie. Slowly she turned the key and in silence admitted her son.

  He followed her up the path to the house, and he maintained a jocular and boyish air. He said to his mother’s back, “A man likes to think he has some family. I wondered when you’d ask me to come.”

  “Did you?” said Caroline without turning.

  He sat opposite his mother in the deathly living room. He had not been here for many months. It’s like an abandoned cemetery, he thought. He remembered it as it had once been, full of firelight and lamplight and sun. For almost the first time since Tom’s death he thought of his father. Poor devil. Poor ignorant devil.

  “Mimi sends you her love, Mother,” he said.

  Caroline felt the hidden miniature which Mimi had given her warm against her heart, for now she wore it inside her clothing. “I suppose so,” she murmured. Then she could not help herself: “Is she happy?” Caroline’s voice rose. “You are not making her miserable?”

  John looked at his mother and frowned. “Certainly she’s happy, Mother. I wish you’d see her or let her come here to see you.”

  Caroline said, “She came here. Just recently. Didn’t she tell you?”

  “No.” John smiled over his anger. So Mimi wasn’t as open as he thought. Why hadn’t she told him? “She likes her little secrets, like all women.”

  “And,” said Caroline reluctantly, for she had not intended to ask this at all, “the baby. It will be born in December?”

  “Yes.” John brightened. “If it’s a girl, would you like her named after you?”

  “No,” said Caroline.

  John’s brightness dimmed. His mother’s tone had been harsh and firm. He could not know that the very thought of a child being named after her frightened her with something that was very like superstition. John said, “Mimi wants to call her Christina.”

  “Christina,” said Caroline. The syllables seemed to cling to her heart as a child’s fingers cling to one’s hand. She smiled faintly. “A very nice name. And if it’s a boy?”

  “Thomas,” said John promptly, thinking of that only at that very moment.

  Caroline was silent. John was sure that he knew the way now; it was through Mimi. He was no longer angry with his wife. Why, the little devil was smart and cunning! She, too, had a nose for money.

  “Her painting?” said Caroline.

  John considered his mother. He shrugged and said lightly, “She still plays around with her paints. Even now. She wants to have a show just before the baby is born. It’s true that I don’t know very much about art” — and he watched his mother warily — “but it’s also true that Mimi isn’t a real artist — that is, of any importance — though she’s received some recognition and even some money. If she were an important artist she’d be wallowing in gold bills.”

  Caroline’s broad face was closed. She thought of her grandfather, David Ames. And then she studied her son sharply. Did he value everything only in terms of money? But, she said to herself, I have always been that way, always, except for my grandfather’s paintings. Why should I expect something different from my sons? Her eyes left John and stared desolately at a distant window.

  How can I reach him, she asked herself, if there is anything there to reach? What words can I say to him to ask his forgiveness, to beg for some affection, to explain that all my life was a victimization and I crave his pity for what I am and for what I did to my children? How does one say this to one’s children in one’s old age, especially if one never knew how to use words?

  “I think,” said Caroline, “that Mary is a true artist and that someday she’ll be famous.”

  John sat up, smiling brilliantly. “If you say so, then it must be so, Mother.”

  “Why do you say that?” she asked with disconcerting sharpness.

  “Well. You have your gallery; you’ve had it for years.”

  Caroline paused. She tested him. “Would you like to see it?”

  She hoped that he would say, “If you want to show it to me, but I know nothing about it. You see, I can’t distinguish color at all; I’m color-blind.”

  If he had that honesty, some of her anguish would leave; she would then have a way to reach him.

  But John shone like the sun. “I’d love it! I’ve always wanted to see it! Ames told me of the — the color, the vitality, the meaning.”

  It’s no use, thought Caroline. What a fool I am.

  Desolation, like death, filled every portion of her sick body. In other years she would have said to John, “You are lying. You could not see the colors in those paintings.” But now she was full of compassion. She said almost gently, “I’m sorry. But I’m afraid I’m too tired today to climb the stairs. By the way, did Ames tell you that my paintings were done by David Ames, who was your great-grandfather?”

  “Yes,” said John. He was glum. At least, thought Caroline, he is being unconsciously honest now. Ames has told him of the Boston Museum, and he is resenting it. She began to lean toward him when John forced a large white smile. “I’m glad about the Museum, Mother. Of course you are quite right in leaving those paintings to it.”

  Caroline was not angry. She said wryly, “I’m glad you think so. They are extremely valuable now. You know that Mimi has seen them? I am leaving two to her, the ones she admired most.” And one, thought Caroline, is of your and her grandfather, the blind man who would not remove his blindness, because he was a coward and he was afraid.

  She made one last effort. “Do you remember your father very often, John?”

  John studied her. The old white hag had hated her husband, had despised him, had made her children despise him also. He said with an air of great candor, “Frankly, not often. He wasn’t a man of much character, was he? Ineffectual, simple. Of course I’m grateful that he left me half his money.”

  Caroline held back her pain. “He used to pamper you,” she said.

  John suddenly remembered something. He must have been only four then. He had been wandering about the garden, which had form in those days, and order. For him, however, the greens and reds had not existed, nor the yellows and blues. He had been a restless and vital child and was always wandering. And then he had come on a large snake, a harmless one, but it had terrified him. He had screamed. Tom, sitting in an arbor, smoking, had come to him at once, in great bounds. Tom had caught him up in his arms, had talked to him soothingly and laughingly. The snake would not harm him; it was a poor innocent creature. Besides, his father was here, wasn’t he? Nothing could hurt him while his father was here. Tom’s arms were strong and warm; his bare brown throat had been strong and warm too. His kisses were full of reassurance and tenderness. The little boy had huddled in his father’s arms, safe and protected, and he had loved Tom then.

  Tom had carried him into the house. Caroline was there, in the living room, reading one of her financial reports. Tom had affectionately told her the story. She had dropped the report in her large lap and had looked at Tom with resigned impatience. “Oh, Tom,” she had said, and John, after all these years, could hear the young and disgusted voice, “don’t treat him like a baby. He’s a big boy now, too old for kisses and slaverings. D
o put him down; I’ll ring for Beth. He should be having his supper now.”

  Tom had instantly put John down. John had helplessly, and in terror, resented it. He had stared at his father. Tom looked crushed, beaten. Caroline was smiling darkly. A strong, contemptuous smile. Then John had despised his father for the first time. But more than all else, the little boy had felt betrayed, naked, bewildered, vengeful, unloved. John now remembered that he had begun to scream and that when old Beth had carried him up the stairs he was still screaming. He remembered the devastating sensation of desertion, of fear. Even now he did not know why.

  He jumped to his feet and went away from his mother. He went to one of the smudged windows where Ames had stood only a week ago. He looked out at the ruined garden, the bursting and struggling trees, the wild vegetation. His heart was thumping furiously. He thought of Mimi, and he was enraged. Her damned art! A shocking rage came to him, blinding him.