Melissa by Taylor Caldwell
Then he heard the kitchen door open down the long corridor to the right, and he turned quickly, swept up his coat and hat and gloves and cane from the chair where he had laid them, opened the oaken door, and went out. The Dunham carriage was slowly struggling up the snowy pathway and he hailed it with a flourish of his cane. He climbed into the carriage and was driven away. Then he settled down upon the cushions and said simply: “For the love of Christ!”
Melissa dimly heard the door closing after him. After a little, she dropped her arms and, overcome with weakness, turned about, her face still running with tears. She heard the crunching of carriage wheels on the snow; she heard the carriage turn about and the sound of it diminishing as it reached the road. Something opened in her chest like a sharp agony. She rushed into the parlor again, and went to the windows. She watched the carriage out of sight, until it was hid in a bend of the road. She waited and watched until it reappeared again on a higher level. She watched until it was only an insect crawling towards the distant house on the hillside.
Then she sat down in the cold and empty parlor and, unable to find her handkerchief, wiped her eyes and cheeks on her ragged petticoat. “He was lying,” she said aloud. “Oh, yes, he was lying!” And she began to cry again.
CHAPTER 17
Mrs. Arabella Dunham Shaw awaited the coming of her brother with considerable anxiety and trepidation. She had sent him the telegram requested by Amanda Upjohn, and it had been urgent enough. But now he was with Amanda, and Heaven only knew what she would say to himl As Arabella had had few honest thoughts in her life, and as she always found deception and falsehood expedient, she naturally came to the conclusion that all other human beings were as crafty as herself, and as perfidious. Insincere and sly, chronically suspicious of everyone’s motives, she believed in the integrity and honor of no one, and was of the opinion that the apparently upright and single-minded were both liars and hypocrites. She suspected them more than the openly devious and false.
So she hovered behind the curtains of her bedroom and peered with increasing apprehension down the road which led to the Upjohn house. Over and over, she rehearsed her defense. She, herself, had been ill, and had known very little of Amanda’s illness. She had not wanted to worry her brother, who would soon be home for Christmas, anyway. She had often visited Amanda, though the latter had been unconscious and was unaware of the visits, and Amanda had not seemed in very great danger. She had been forbidden to see Amanda, by that intolerable Melissa, that vicious Melissa, that inimical Melissa. She had heen requested by Amanda, herself, not to trouble Geoffrey.
But what was Amanda now saying to Geoffrey? Was she relating a whole lying history of neglect? Was she appealing to Geoffrey’s ridiculous sympathy, as a lonely and abandoned friend? Was she telling him that Arabella had visited the house only once, and then only upon request? Was she picturing herself heart-breakingly as a very sick woman who had no one to appeal to but Geoffrey Dunham? A vivid and repulsive vision of Amanda sobbing on her pillows, upbraiding and denouncing Geoffrey’s sister, came to Arabella’s infuriated mind. It would be just like that hypocrite, Amanda, just like that cunning and designing woman! Fright mixed with rage filled Arabella, and she twisted the fine lace of her curtains in sweating hands. “No matter!” she exclaimed, aloud. “You’ll not get that odious daughter of yours into this house, Amanda Upjohn! I’ll not tolerate that repellent baggage for one instant!”
Arabella reflected incoherently upon her status in this house. The servants hated her because she demanded constant perfection and would not allow them to lapse in their duties even for a moment They hated her for asking them to earn their wages! That was the way with the lower classes. They resented all discipline, and thought themselves as good as their betters. Her life was a constant warfare with the kitchen and the halls. Everyone tried to cheat her, from the shops in Midfield to the gardeners on the grounds. The whole world, from her brother to the very kitchenmaid, was in a conspiracy to deprive her of her rightful heritage, to humiliate her. Her father had been insensible to her proper rights. Only her husband had understood her, and now he was dead. She brought out her rose-scented handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her eyes. But she never looked away from the road that rose from the valley.
By the time Geoffrey’s carriage appeared, she was one seething rage and hatred. She hastily withdrew from the window, bathed her eyes with Cologne water. Her great and frivolous bedroom was filled with the fresh odor of lemon verbena, powder and sachet. She warmed her cold hands for a moment or two at her fire, plucked out the bustle and the draped ruffles on her dark-green silk gown, patted the rolls of hair on the top of her head, shook out the ringlets on her lined and yellowish neck, and tripped down the stairs, a welcoming and affectionate smile on her face. She rustled and bounced girlishly down the massive staircase, her chains and ear-rings and bangles jingling. But she trembled a little when she heard the knocker. She, herself, opened the door, though James, Geoffrey’s man, had promptly appeared.
Geoffrey was immediately enveloped in his sister’s plump and scented arms, and her voice filled his ears with glad cries: “Oh, darling Geoffrey! How lovely it is to see you again! James, take Mr. Dunham’s things. Geoffrey, my love, how well you look, and how fresh! Do come into the library at once; there is such a nice fire waiting, and your own best brandy, and such delicious little cakes!”
Geoffrey reeled under this unusual assault of affection, and he felt a twinge of suspicion. But Arabella did indeed seem glad to see him. At any rate, he was in no mood for accusations against this silly woman. He kissed her heartily, allowed her to link her arm to his and to bounce beside him into the library. There she made quite a violent fuss over him, drawing his favorite chair to the hearth, pouring his brandy, regarding him with vehement affection, then sitting down near him with a crackling of taffeta petticoats and a fresh gush of scent and flurry of ringlets. She clasped her hands together in great anxiety, rolled up her eyes, and cried: “Do tell me at once how dear, dear Amanda is! I must know! I have been dying of concern! But she would not let me send for you. She especially forbade it. I pleaded with her, but it was no use at all. What can one do with such a darling, obdurate but thoughtful woman, Geoffrey? I sent such hampers, larger than the ones you so artfully ordered,” and she rolled her eyes at him coquettishly, “and such flowers, and such loving messages! It was all I could do. And then, when I last saw her, I simply insisted upon sending for you, in spite of all her arguments.”
As this tallied with Amanda’s own account, Geoffrey’s suspicion disappeared. He said: “Amanda is very ill, Bella. She is convinced that she is dying, but that is nonsense of course. I doubt, however, whether she will be well again for a long time.”
Arabella sighed, then opened her shark’s mouth in a round oval of sympathy. She dabbed at her eyes. “Dear Geoffrey, one must be prepared for anything. I, myself, thought Amanda failing very rapidly.” She sighed again. She was safe, but she was immediately suspicious of some dark plot on Amanda’s part in concealing the truth. She added: “It all comes at such a busy time, too. Our guests will be arriving tomorrow, and the house is in such a confusion. But never mind. Tell me all about yourself and what you have been doing these weeks.”
It was pleasant and agreeable in this warm, rich library, with the crimson and blue and brown backs of the leather-bound books glinting in the pale sunlight, with the mighty logs crackling and spluttering on the hearth, and the two setters lying on Geoffrey’s feet. The brandy was warm in him; his sister bent towards him with great admiration and affection. There was a faint scent of roasting beef mingling with the odor of smoking wood. The large windows looked out on a white still world, glittering with vagrant sunlight. Geoffrey listened indulgently to his sister’s plans for Christmas. He, himself, disliked the holiday, but it gave Arabella pleasure, and God knew she had very little of that. He listened to her, but he was remembering Melissa and her pathetic weeping, and the sharp bones of her exhausted face.
“Why shouldn’t they?” asked Geoffrey, coming out of his trance. “We have more money than they have, and that is their yardstick of importance.” He pulled the ears of one dog, and smiled unpleasantly. “It’s very strange. We loftily denounce the caste system in England, and the sharp division of classes, and call it ‘undemocratic’ because the British value men who have a tradition of breeding, culture, and family. We are so damned democratic, we say, scorning the British system. Yet our vulgar yardstick is immeasurably more contemptible and disgusting. We value a man in proportion to his bank accounts, his stocks and bonds. We do not respect a man for what he is, as the British do, but for what he has. And this, when any unscrupulous mountebank, thief or despoiler of the helpless can make a fortune for himself in America in a few years!”
Arabella shook an arch finger at him. “Oh, that comes of the years you spent in England, dear, dear Geoffrey! So snobbish!” She thought of the pottery fortune, and was annoyed. Geoffrey had such a small sense of proportion. He was always remembering that odious pottery, and would never allow his sister to forget it.
Geoffrey smiled. “It is natural that we should suspect gentlemen, for gentlemen are rare in America. I think, too, that we are only too conscious of an inferior heritage and must therefore denounce those of superior heritage in order to preserve our egotism. Values which do not enhance our vanity are values we’ll not have knocking about the place at any cost.” He added: “The Littlefields are in cheese, aren’t they?” “Oh, what an uncivil and crude way to put it, Geoffrey! And how unkind; ‘In cheese’! One instantly thinks of maggots.” She shuddered elaborately.
“Well, the Littlefields are sort of maggoty, aren’t they?” Arabella burst into giggles. The Littlefields were her dear friends, but she enjoyed Geoffrey’s remark tremendously. She said: “To hear you, Geoffrey, one would believe that the dear Littlefields were farmers, selling ugly wheels of cheese. And you know very well that they are the largest importers of delightful foreign cheeses in America. ‘Importers’ does sound so much more genteel.”
“A smell is still a smell, foreign or not, rich or not, and the Littlefields bore me,” said Geoffrey.
Arabella was annoyed. Something had disturbed her brother, and he was apparently not in a holiday mood. He had always been difficult about holidays, and disliked most of his sister’s friends. But he had invariably been gracious, after prolonged and appeasing effusions from her. This time, however, his mood struck her as abnormally distrait. It could only be those awful Upjohns, thought Arabella, with aversion and hatred.
Geoffrey startled her when he spoke again: “It’s just occurred to me that our past invitations to the Upjohns for Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day, or New Year’s Eve, or New Year’s Day, have been lukewarm. At any rate, I suspect it, for only once did Charles come, that was about five years ago, and Phoebe has appeared only twice at our New Year’s Eve dance. I don’t recall that they enjoyed themselves. As for Amanda and Andrew and Melissa—they never came. We have not only been remiss as hosts, we have been remiss as friends. Why weren’t they urged to come here more often?” He looked at his sister sharply, in a very disagreeable way he had. Arabella felt her lips grow cold and her ready smile more fixed. Would she never be free of those Upjohns? Were they destined to haunt her peace and her pleasures and safety forever? She patted Geoffrey’s knee coquettishly, tilted her head at him, and sighed: “But, my dear, they received exactly the same engraved invitations as did our other friends. Did you expect me to go down to them and implore them on my bended knees?”
Geoffrey refilled his brandy glass, and took a very irritating length of time to do it. Then he sipped, and stared at the fire.
Arabella watched him closely, and her heart began to flutter in an alarming way.
She said, soothingly: “Yes, Charles came and, contrary to your remark, he did enjoy himself. He was much admired, though I thought he posed a little absurdly. But everyone was kind, and the next year he was asked for, even if he didn’t deign to honor us with his presence.” Her long yellowish teeth showed for a moment in her sweetish smile. “And everyone thought Phoebe exquisite, though her gown—her gown, my dear!—was too appalling for words. The seamstress poor dear Amanda employs in Midfield is not only mediocre, she is practically mutilating. But then, the Upjohn females were never distinguished for taste, you will have to admit. The material from which the gown was made was not too bad, Charles having sent for it to Philadelphia, but the color was atrocious, a kind of cerise which ruined her hair and coloring. And the lace at the neck and sleeves! Pure Nottingham. We have better at the windows of our servants’ rooms. The next year the poor child appeared in it again, but this time the ruffles were bound in a nasty shade of yellow. The combination was ghastly. That was the time when we were wearing very large hoops, you remember. Phoebe’s hoops were the hoops of a serving-girl! She was very ill at ease—”
“No doubt, with all you vicious females staring at her and giggling in a ladylike fashion behind your fans,” said Geoffrey.
“Oh, my dear, we are not that ill-bred! I must protest! Everyone received her charmingly and gave her many compliments. But Phoebe knew she was out of place. She was always a sensible girl—”
“Out of place!” exclaimed Geoffrey, and his full dark face became ruddy with anger. “Out of place among the cheesemongers? Charles came of a distinguished family, dating far back before the Revolution. His people were English gentry even then. As for Amanda, I happen to know her history, and my father knew her father well. One of the greatest gentlemen in Boston, in America. You talk like a fool, Arabella. But then, you always were a little more than vulgar. And yet, I agree with you. Phoebe was out of place among the cheese-gentry. We ought not to have insulted her by inviting her.”
Arabella lost her temper. She did not often do this with Geoffrey, for she was afraid of him. It had always been her part to placate. But the Upjohns had become too much for her, and the dark fear that haunted her days undid her self-control. She cried recklessly: “How can you speak of the
Upjohns as if they were of any consequence whatever, Geoffrey! They haven’t a penny! They are as poor as church-mice.”
Geoffrey gave her a look which made her wince. He stood up, began to walk slowly about the room, carrying his brandy-glass. He said, heavily: “I hear your echo everywhere, Bella, so I suppose I shouldn’t be too hard on you. I see men of distinction despised by nameless boors who have acquired wealth by crime, thievery, quackery, exploitation, filthy politics, manipulation of stocks, horse trading, butchery, downright robbery, cheese-manufacturing, machinery, flour-making, and God knows what else in the way of rascality and plebeian trade, which once were despised by gentlemen of culture and breeding. We are selling gentlemen into economic slavery and social exile, and allowing the faceless hordes, who have contrived to browbeat or swindle their neighbors out of their dollars, to sit on the velvet seats of government and dictate who shall or shall not enter the sacred chambers of ‘society.’ ”
He drank a little of the brandy, while Arabella watched him and bridled with fright and umbrage.
“Tradesmen!” said Geoffrey, with profound loathing. “We are becoming a nation of despicable tradesmen who imitate the gentry as well as an ape can imitate a man. You can’t breed gentlemen out of cattle.”
Arabella, forgetting herself further, exclaimed spitefully: “Our mother was a peasant, as you would say! But you would not be drinking that fine brandy and walking up and down this handsome room but for her money!”
Geoffrey turned his head and smiled at her unpleasantly. “That is just what I mean, my dear Bella. That’s just the disgusting thing about it.”
He walked up and down again. “It wouldn’t matter so much if the cheese-mongers and the other tradesmen remained humb
He went to the fire and kicked at a log quite savagely. “What will happen to our country then, with its best blood bred out and squeezed out, despised and rejected, because it has no money? A nation of dolts, fools, and liars, mountebanks and vulgarians, without passion or vision, truth or no bility, degrading everything they touch and relegating art to the dust-bin because they cannot understand it.”
He crushed a smoldering piece of wood with his foot. “It happened to Rome. It can happen to America. Rome did very well until the plebe replaced the aristocrat, and out-bred him. The history of the fall of every nation is the history of the rise of the low-bred man and the fall of the gentleman.” Arabella listened with bewilderment and angry malice. “What of our dear Mr. Lincoln? He came of humble parentage, was born in a log-house, and saved our country!”
Geoffrey gloomily turned his glass in his hand. “I doubt very much whether Mr. Lincoln came of peasant stock. His name proves that, if nothing else. But somehow he had acquired the peasant’s point of view, and we’re going to suffer for it. We are already suffering for it. Look at the carpetbaggers now despoiling the aristocratic South. There are some who blame the Negro, but that is a stupid man’s reasoning. The blame lies in the peasant rampant, unrestrained by law or custom.”
Arabella stood up, trembling with umbrage. “Geoffrey, you have a singular way of expressing yourself. Our house will be filled with our guests tomorrow, and I do hope you will restrain—”