This Side of Innocence

by Taylor Caldwell

  Jerome drummed his fingers on the bedpost. His face was hard and shut.

  “Thank you, Dorothea. I may as well tell you that I do not intend to run away. I intend to remain here, as my father’s son and my father’s natural heir.”

  Dorothea’s eyes glowed with joy and relief. She stretched out her hand to her brother. But he looked at it coldly for a moment, then looked away.

  “Jerome! Then we can all forget, and you will be here with us, and we shall have peace and harmony again!”

  He felt a wincing in himself at her loud and joyful voice. His lips tightened. He said: “I hope we can forget—after a while, Dorothea. I hope we’ll have ‘peace and harmony again.’ That is my strongest hope.” He paused. “But Amalie is not to leave. We are both going to ask Alfred to release her. Later I shall marry her.”

  Dorothea was stunned. Her mouth fell open with stupefaction; her eyes blinked. Then she seemed to diminish, to shrink upon her pillows, to become old and wizened. Her lips moved, but her throat closed on a spasm.

  “You have only to keep quiet,” said Jerome, with a new discomfort. He became absorbed in the carvings of the bedpost. “Then no one will be much hurt. When Alfred returns, Amalie and I will talk to him. My father is fond of Amalie, and I am his son. I hope, and expect, that he will help us. He is a realist, not a sentimentalist. Things may be confused, and unpleasant, for a little time, but they will resolve themselves.” He hesitated. “If you care for Alfred in the least, you will understand that he can never be happy with Amalie. She does not love him, and he knows this. To continue with such a marriage can only bring him unhappiness and dissatisfaction.” He returned his eyes to his silent sister. “There can be happiness for him, later. I think you understand what I mean.”

  Dorothea put her hands over her face. She whispered hoarsely: “You actually intend to marry that woman, to keep her under this roof, an insult to your father and to your sister? A woman like that?”

  Jerome said grimly: “You must not speak of Amalie so. I intend to make her my wife. If you cannot forget your hatred for her, and your jealousy, you can at least hide them. There is no use, I know, in my attempting to refute the false opinion you have of her. I can only assure you it is wrong.”

  Dorothea muttered: “No! No! She cannot remain here! She cannot marry you! It is something I could not bear.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Jerome, with hard relentlessness, “vou must bear it. That is what I have come to tell you. I am glad that you have shown some reason, and that you do not intend to try to injure me. It is more than I expected. And so, I thank you, and I myself will attempt to show you some kinder consideration as my sister. I hope you may be happy in the future. If you are reasonable, and just, and have some regard for yourself, as well as for me and for Amalie, I am sure that you will finally get what you want.”

  Dorothea dropped her hands. She was weeping bitterly. “Jerome, that terrible woman can bring you only misery and ruin! Please believe me. I—I promised our mother to help you. I cannot refuse to do so. She wishes me to protect you from that odious creature, that appalling drab. I know it! She spoke to me only a moment or two before you came.” Her voice broke, and her tears came faster.

  Jerome frowned. He could not make his voice harsh, and was angry at its involuntary gentleness. “Dorothea, it might be that our mother wished you to help me, in my own way, by your silence, by your acceptance of my plans.”

  But Dorothea shook her head with desperate violence. “You are wrong, Jerome.”

  Jerome sighed with impatient exasperation. He sat down on the edge of Dorothea’s bed. “Listen to me, Dotty. You must understand. Amalie and I love each other. We have loved each other from the very first. We did not know that, in the beginning. We know it now. We intend to marry each other. Nothing can change that. You must see it. Accept that fact, and everything else is clear. If you do not help us, then we must go away, and Alfred must be humiliated forever, and he will never recover from it. It will probably kill our father. It all lies with you. And you, you must remember, will gain nothing but remorse and loneliness, and the memory that, but for you, everything would have been well.”

  Dorothea gazed at him through her tears. She said in a low tone: “I hate that woman. I wish she might die. I cannot reconcile myself to the thought that I must see her all my life, in this house.”

  “But you must reconcile yourself to that very fact.”

  Dorothea’s tears came in a fresh outburst. “There is nothing, no sense of honor, no decency, no proper regard for your father and for your sister, that can change your mind?”

  “No.” He rose.

  She felt his implacable determination. She wrung her hands and wept aloud.

  Jerome waited. His sister’s tears disturbed him more than he could have thought possible.

  “What of Sally?” stammered Dorothea.

  Jerome glanced away. “I must talk to the General. As soon as possible.”

  “Have you no honor, Jerome, that would prevent you from inflicting such pain upon that young girl, and such mortification? Have you forgotten that you are betrothed to her?”

  “It was a mistake, Dorothea, one of my many mistakes. I am sorry for Sally, but I should have made her a detestable husband.”

  Dorothea moaned: “How terrible all this is! If only none of us had ever seen that woman!”

  Jerome knew now that his sister would not lift her hand against him or Amalie. He approached her, and kissed her forehead gently.

  “We can’t change things, my dear. We can only accept them. Be reasonable. I am going to Saratoga for my father and Philip. Alfred must remain in New York for a few weeks longer. Try to control yourself, until matters are settled. You will be doing all of us a tremendous favor, including yourself. I can trust you, Dotty?”

  She put her hand on his shoulder. Her streaming dark eyes implored him. Then despair filled them, and they closed.

  “Yes, Jerome, you may trust me. But, oh, Jerome, if things could have been different!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “We have nothing to fear from Dotty,” said Jerome. “While she is not exactly imbued with love and light for either of us, I have convinced her that it is to her best interests not to interfere.”

  He stood with Amalie in their favorite spot on the other side of the tall pines. The Sabbath peace stood in shining silence about them, and they could hear the faint fairy tinkling of the bells in the valley. The long yellow sunlight lay over the hills, flowed down the slopes, sparkled on all the trees.

  Jerome held Amalie’s hand tightly and smiled down at her.

  “I am going for my father and Philip. Then, when Alfred returns, it will all be settled. In the meantime, don’t worry or fret yourself, my love.”

  “It is not easy to think of disrupting so many lives and yet remain calm,” she answered.

  He smoothed the thick masses of her black hair fondly. “No, it is not easy. But nothing in your life has been easy, has it? There are some people who invite thunderbolts, and I think you are one of them. There, now, do not look so distressed. You must remember that the meek and the humble and the timid live vegetable lives. It is only the dauntless who attract the attention of whatever powers there be.”

  “I don’t feel particularly dauntless any more,” she said, smiling miserably. “In fact, I am vulnerable all over me. I am full of chinks. I believe I have not been without courage in the past, but then, the young are courageous either because they lack imagination or because they feel, in their exuberance, that nothing can defeat them.”

  “You still don’t lack youth or imagination,” he said, and he ran his fingers softly over her smooth cheek. “And you are quite healthy, even though you are so pale lately.” He put his arm about her waist and drew her quickly to him. “Vapors would never become you, and I don’t advise you to try swooning. Not with those shoulders and this chin and this height.”

  She tried to laugh. “I am really very delicate, Jerome. My appe
arance is a great fraud.”

  He held her face in his hands. “What beautiful pansy eyes you have, my sweet. Such gentle eyes, too. I never knew how gentle they are. They were usually flashing at me in a particularly hostile fashion.”

  “That is because you were particularly odious, dear Jerome. I think you, too, are a great fraud.”

  When he did not reply, she said, with emotion: “I always thought I was very astute in judging character. But I misjudged you.”

  “Oh, but you didn’t. Don’t make a hero of me, my pet. It is just that I have found a new interest in life; two interests, to be exact.” He thought of Alfred, and the old expression of cruelty returned to his eyes. “Don’t be sentimental, Amalie. If you begin by expecting excellent things of me you are going to spend a life of disappointment in this house.”

  When Jerome had gone to Saratoga a heavy somberness settled over the house. Dorothea went to her room immediately upon completing her household tasks. She seldom spoke to Amalie, except when necessary, and her voice, if polite, was dull and remote. This saddened Amalie, but she saw no way to assuage Dorothea’s antipathy for her, and her profound if unspoken hatred. Dorothea had accepted the inevitable with her usual austerity, but her bitterness was only too evident. She had an air, too, of making her own personal plans, and this gave Amalie moments of secret anxiety.

  The servants sensed the tension in the house. They knew it lay between the two women. They did not have any fondness for Amalie. She had come from their own “class,” and they resented her new estate. She was an “upstart,” and so they were as impertinent to her as they dared to be. If she was distant with them, she was “puttin’ on airs.” If she was kind, she was “trucklin’ to them.” In either event, they were determined that she should understand that they were familiar with her origin. The static and silent hostility between Dorothea and Amalie gave them their opportunity. They talked over the situation in their own quarters, and speculated curiously upon the cause. One and all, they sided with Dorothea against the stranger. Even Jim’s influence was not enough to soften them, and he soon shrewdly desisted from his defense for fear of arousing suspicion regarding his master. However, it was he, rather than any of the others, who answered her bell, which might have been ignored save for him.

  Amalie soon became aware of the atmosphere in the house, yet she held her temper. But she kept her private dossier, for she was only human. She was grateful for Jim’s politeness and his readiness to carry out her wishes, and she was also uneasily embarrassed, suspecting the cause. She rang her bell as little as possible.

  Slowly she realized that Dorothea, in spite of the openly impudent and fractious servants, was placing more and more responsibility for the house upon her shoulders. When one of the stableboys was outrageously impertinent to her, and she threatened to discuss the matter with Dorothea, he grinned in her face. Now, added to her grief and anxiety, was a nameless fear. She wondered what Dorothea was plotting in her room. She had been convinced by Jerome that Dorothea would make no move to ruin her or Jerome, but she knew instinctively that Dorothea’s own plans would not bring her, Amalie, much comfort.

  She longed for, but dreaded, the return of the family. Jerome, she knew, would not discuss the matter with Mr. Lindsey until Alfred had come home.

  Almost hardest of all to endure were Alfred’s loving if stiff letters. She replied to them as briefly as possible. He was enjoying himself in New York. He was being entertained by Mr. Regan, who was “very civil.” He was also the guest on several occasions of Mr. Regan’s friends. Shyly, and obscurely, and in very euphemistic language, he hinted of “his hopes” for himself and Amalie. She did not reply to these, except to say that Dr. Hawley believed her health was not as sturdy as it should be, but that he, Alfred, must not worry.

  She knew that Jerome could not write her directly. But he gave messages to Jim, and the wrinkled little man relayed them to her. Mr. Lindsey, who had been profiting from his stay at Saratoga, had had a relapse. His arthritis was very bad. He could not return home immediately. It would be at least another two weeks or so. Philip, however, was splendidly well.

  Amalie, who had been praying for a reprieve, now found the endless days almost unendurable. Her nerves became ragged. She was subject to fits of nausea. Sometimes; when awakening in the middle of the night, she discovered that her whole bed was in a slight tremor because of her involuntary trembling. Finally, she could hardly sleep at all. Her nausea increased. She fled from the table as soon as possible. She forced herself to work hard, to drive about the country in the buggy, to read for hours, to mend, sew, embroider. She visited her old friends, the poverty-stricken farmers and townsfolk. She did not accept the many invitations from the Widow Kingsley and the family of General Tayntor. Once, Sally called upon Dorothea. Seeing her from her window, approaching in her smart trap, Amalie left by the rear of the house and remained away for two hours.

  Life took on the dimensions and the terror and atmosphere of a dreadful nightmare, an isolated nightmare in which she moved among malefic shadows and grinning faces. The summer advanced in golden heat and shimmering lights, but she saw none of it. Her exhaustion had become like a disease. She sickened at the sight of food, feared the coming of the night. She lost flesh and strength, and now there were deep lavender hollows under her eyes.

  She felt herself completely friendless. Jerome had been gone for three weeks, and there was no immediate sign of his return with his father and Philip. Alfred wrote that his negotiations with Mr. Regan were unavoidably extended. Finally, she found that days would pass with hardly a word being exchanged between herself and Dorothea and the servants. The house assumed a strange quality, as if it had retreated from her and its walls had become insubstantial.

  Her sickness became stronger. She debated whether or not she should call upon Dr. Hawley. But the thought of entering the village made her shrink. There was no comfort for her anywhere. She wandered through the house like a specter. She hated the sight of her thin white face in the mirror. She was conscious of mysterious disturbances in her body, curious stresses and aches and throbbings.

  July came, in heat and thunder. Amalie could scarcely endure it. Her clothing seemed made of haircloth. She seldom saw Dorothea now. She dared not venture out of the house during the day because of the fiery sun. But sometimes, in the evenings, she crept from the house and lay in the cool pungent depths of the pines, giving herself up to complete terror, grief and sickness. Sometimes she would lie like this for hours, staring dry-eyed at the burning white moon, or watching the wide heat lightning flashing through the dark sky. Sometimes she slept here, and did not awaken until the ghostly mists of the dawn were trailing in pearly scarves over the hills.

  One morning she summoned enough strength to visit the gardens and return with a basket of roses. She arranged them in the library vases. She heard a small sound and, trembling with weakness, turned to see Jim sliding into the room. He wore a furtive air. He came to her as she stood by the long table, glanced behind him quickly, then whispered; “Ma’am. Mr. Jerome will return on the thirtieth, he says.”

  Amalie’s hands remained among the roses. She gazed at Jim in pale silence.

  He studied her with anxiety and fondness. “If you’ll pardon me, ma’am, but you’re ailin’. It’s the heat, perhaps? Sometimes I can’t abide it.”

  She tried to smile. She thrust roses into cool water. “It is bad, isn’t it, Jim?”

  He was silent. He shifted about on his small polished feet. Then he cleared his throat. “The master won’t like it at all, ma’am.”

  A thin color ran into her cheeks. “What do you mean, Jim?”

  “He told me to look after you, Miss Amalie. He’ll not like to see you like this. He’ll blame me.”

  Her color deepened, and her throat closed. Then she said, in a low tone: “Why should he blame you, Jim? Please don’t speak of it.”

  He came closer to her, staring at her earnestly. “Ma’am, I want you to know you’ve got a
friend in this ’ouse.”

  She was so weak now that tears came easily to her eyes. “I know I have, Jim, and thank you.”

  He was touched and sighed. “If there’s anythin’ I can do, ma’am, you’ve just got to let me know.”

  “Yes, Jim.” She touched his arm with her chilled fingers, then moved away, her head high. He followed her with his eyes, and sighed again. A lovely young creature, this, and a lady, for all they said in the servants’ quarters. He did not blame the master much. But still, it was a bloody mess.

  The next day, Amalie received a jubilant letter from Alfred that he was on the way home.

  The news unnerved her completely. When she tried to get up the next morning she discovered she was too ill, overcome with a sick apathy which she could not shake off. And so it was that Alfred found her, almost unable to speak, unable to lift her head from her pillows.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Alfred sat with Dorothea on the terrace in the warm twilight. Dorothea wore a light gown of gray poplin with a white muslin fichu. She had removed her frilled cap, and her thick dark hair was wound about her head in heavy braids. She seemed, to Alfred, everything that was austere and majestic, safe and secure, in his life, full of the common sense he prized and the stability which was his god.

  In her presence he felt at ease and comfortable, for he knew that she was his friend and that he need not speak fully and meticulously to gain her comprehension. She appeared to understand him when he spoke only a few words, or made one of his stiff slight gestures, or exchanged a glance with him. Dorothea was well aware of this, and it added bitterness to her grief. How could a man be so blind as to overlook the true possible source of his happiness? she would reflect to herself with somber rebellion against Alfred. He has always spoken to me of his difficulties, his problems, and his uneasiness, she thought, and constantly comes to me for consolation and sympathy. We have understood each other from childhood. Yet, he has married two women and found nothing but unhappiness in them, and still he does not understand in the least! I have been an ear to him, and a kind eye, and a companion. But at the first flick of a frivolous petticoat he is off from my side. Even when he returns, full of wounds and bewilderment, he is not aware that I, and I alone, understand him and am part of him.