Melissa Page 13

  All the chores had fallen to her again, and more, for Amanda was not at hand, and Phoebe, protesting hysterically that she would die, “I know I will,” kept to her own room and sobbed loudly whenever she heard a footstep outside. She called pathetically for her mother, and could sometimes be detected praying behind her door, but no daughterly solicitude would persuade her to enter Amanda’s room. Like Charles, she refused to involve herself in an unpleasant or frightening situation. When she felt she was safe, she sewed placidly on the lengths of new silk and wool which were her trousseau, and embroidered her bridal sheets and pillowcases. She slept easily at night, and dreamlessly as a child. When awake, she thought of her future, hardly emerged from her room, accepted the trays the staggering Melissa brought her, smiled at Melissa’s bent and retreating back, and sobbed until her sister was out of hearing. She found all this very agreeable. She was relieved of onerous household duties; she was enjoying Melissa’s wretched state. If she thought at all of her mother, it was with indifference. Amanda was now in no position to pamper her, and so her importance in her daughter’s life had diminished.

  The house, always dank and gloomy, had heretofore been well-kept, for Amanda had been an excellent housekeeper. But now Sally, saddled with all the work, with endless washings of linens to do, and with no supervision, let dust and dirt accumulate. Days would pass without any room receiving the ministrations of broom or duster. Hearths piled high with ashes; grit covered the carpets, and drifted onto the windowsills. The house, once filled with the smell of wax and polish and soap, now reeked with the odors of grease, dust, ashes and unaired rooms. Slowly it fell into decay, each room, each piece of furniture, exuding neglect and hopelessness. The dining-room, as narrow and bleak as a cold slit, was never used now. Melissa ate her brief meals in the kitchen. She never sat in the parlor, not even for a moment.

  Andrew had returned to Harvard three weeks ago. He had wanted to remain, but Melissa, gathering the full force of her will, the full passion of her devotion to her dead father, had beaten down her brother’s resistance. “There is no use in your remaining, Andrew,” she had said, with the old hard ring of authority in her voice. “It may be weeks. It may even be months. Besides, you will be returning home for Christmas. You have your studies. You dare not abandon them now. Papa struggled so hard for you.” So Andrew had gone back to Harvard. Women were too much for him, he had reflected somberly. But there would soon come a day when they would dominate him no longer. Poor Mother. Yet she had hardly ever noticed him. He had no dislike for her, and certainly no affection. He was only sorry for her, but he was also impatient. She had allowed her husband, who was, in a way, a woman himself, to ruin and degrade her. Andrew, to his surprise, discovered in himself a disgust for any human creature who permitted another to devour his life, to suck the juices from him. It was not so much Melissa’s arguments which persuaded him to return to Harvard as his desire to complete his emancipation, which had begun on the day when he had stood at his father’s grave. “I must clear my eyes,” he thought. While at Harvard, he would round out his plans. In the home atmosphere of despair and silent decay, his mind would be too confused.

  Melissa was alone with her days of nursing, suffering and weariness. She was alone with the candlelight and the gaspings of her mother. She was alone with Phoebe’s tears and “vapors.” She was alone with the dry bread she ate and the stiff chair in which she dozed.

  She dared not think of her father very much now, for if she did she knew her last waning strength would go and she would collapse. But sometimes she felt that he would be proud of her. Long-suffering, patient, self-sacrificing as he had been, condemned by this dying woman to a frustrated and painful life, he would still be all gentle forgiveness, would urge his daughter to minister to his enemy with tenderness and commiseration. Had he not always advocated patience and non-resistance to fate? Had he not always spoken with kindness and tolerance and understanding of everyone, even when Melissa had raged? He would want her to do this thing. She was not serving her mother; she was serving Papa.

  Snow piled itself against the doors, heaped itself about the trees, ridged the walls, obliterated the road, whitened the hills against a white sky, covered the slate roofs of the house, the barn and the out-buildings. Soundlessly the days crept towards Christmas, moving over the snow. The windows became blank, covered with frost, so that the house was a prison, shut-in, immured, unaware of any life beyond itself. No visitors arrived; Dr. Mellon had forbidden them. For a little while, the neighboring farmers, and even the gentry in Midfield, had sent messages and vague offers of help. Now these no longer came. Melissa sat in her candlelighted tomb and listened to her mother struggle for one more breath, then another.

  CHAPTER 13

  One night, as the clock in the hall below struck midnight, Melissa came to herself with a start. She had been dozing. She sat upright and looked at her mother. Amanda seemed to be sleeping. Her breathing was quieter and more regular. Her hands no longer clutched the quilts in a prodigious effort to breathe. They lay slack on the covers, the calloused palms turned upwards in a gesture of utter resignation.

  Melissa crept to the bed. Her mother’s eyes were closed. Her color seemed better. Melissa returned to her chair, sighing, pushing aside a lock of hair which had fallen against her cheek. She could not doze again. She was conscious of a constant vibration in herself, deep within her bones, and the painful throbbing of her own heart. She was wide awake with the toxins of exhaustion.

  She thought: Why, it is only three days to Christmas. Andrew would be coming home in a day or two. He would be coming home to a desolate house, and to fear. Melissa remembered past Christmases. She and her father would go into the woods with a small bright axe, and they would bring back a fresh young fir tree smelling of snow and cold and resin. They would set it up in the drawing-room, while Charles fondly laughed at himself for his sentimentality. Together, assisted by Phoebe, and enlivened by her gay chitterings, they would decorate the tree. Strings of colored paper, twisted together. Balls of molasses popcorn. Candles. Borax to be sprinkled over damp needles. Presents to be hung on the bending and fragrant branches. It would be very gay.

  I owe it to poor little Phoebe, and to Andrew, to get a tree for them, thought Melissa. I shall decorate it myself. She swallowed hard against a wave of uncontrollable sorrow and pain. Papa would want it. I must get a tree. I must make every effort to make the house comfortable for Phoebe and Andrew, and to ease their grief. Life must go on for them. They are young. When—this—is all over, then I will direct them again, and do what is best for them. Tomorrow, if Mama seems better, I’ll go into the woods for a tree, or send Hiram for one. Who knows? Perhaps in a few days I shall be able to get to work on Papa’s manuscripts. I need the money! Andrew’s and Phoebe’s lives must not be injured by this.

  She went to the bowl on her mother’s commode, dipped a cloth in cold water and pressed it against her feverish eyes. She smoothed back her hair. She turned around. For the first time in weeks she heard her mother’s voice, faint, almost a whisper: “Melissa!”

  Melissa started, then began to tremble acutely. She crossed the room to her mother’s bed in a sea of wavering shadows. She stood by the bed and looked down at Amanda. Amanda’s eyes were wide open now, sunken deeply in their sockets. But they were no longer glazed. They were alert with consciousness and awareness. “Yes, Mama,” said Melissa. Her pale heavy braids swung across her shoulders, touched the guilts, as she bent over Amanda.

  Amanda looked at them, turning her eyes slowly. Her hand moved. She touched one of the braids, held it a moment in her gaunt fingers.

  “You must not talk,” said Melissa, in a low tone. “You must not move. Is there anything you want? No, do not speak. Just move your head. Water? It is not time for your medicine. Are you comfortable? Do you need another blanket? It is very cold in here, and I’ll stir up the fire at once.”

  But Amanda’s fingers clutched the braid she had taken. “Sit near me, Melissa,”
she whispered. “I must talk to you. I insist.”

  Melissa sat down carefully on the edge of the hard bed. Amanda held onto her hair. She could not pull away.

  “Only a few words,” whispered Amanda. She was not gasping now, but breathing normally. “You have been here a long time. I have known it. Why?”

  Melissa said, urgently, but still in a hushed voice: “You must not talk. It is Dr. Mellon’s orders. Yes, I have nursed you all this time. You have been very ill. But you are getting better now.” She paused. “Papa would have wanted me to take care of you,” she added, with the brutal forthrightness of her innocence.

  Amanda smiled. It was only a shadow of a smile, bitter and twisted. Her fingers caressed the braid she held, but Melissa was not aware of it.

  Amanda murmured: “Your father, Melissa, he devoured you as he devoured me. No, do not pull away. You must listen, if you would save your life.” Her face had become alive, fluid with her indomitable will, and she held tighter to Melissa, who had involuntarily arched back against her mother’s hold. “Listen, Melissa, and remember. He tried to destroy you, as he destroyed me. He was a man who all his life wanted power, and adulation, and influence over others. He thought he might get it through his writings. He thought he might have admiration that way. But he failed. He failed, because there was no truth in him. He was a liar.”

  Melissa’s eyes flashed in the semi-darkness, and her dry lips parted in a wild protest. Her whole body shook with denial and horror, and with fear. She forgot her mother’s dangerous condition. She yanked her braid from Amanda’s grasp and stood up. She cried out: “That is a lie! He was everything that was truth! He cared nothing for power. He derided it to me, said the man who wanted it was contemptible. Power! He only wanted to study and work and live in peace—”

  She had to catch at the bedpost to keep herself from falling. Her breast rose and fell with anguish and outrage. And Amanda lay on her pillows and regarded her daughter with dying sternness.

  Amanda did not move, but her eyes caught and held Melissa’s, and finally the girl was silent and only stood there clutching the bedpost.

  “Listen, my daughter,” whispered Amanda. “He wanted power, and could not get it in the world. It was a disease in him. So he did the next best thing he could. He exercised power over us. If he had lived, there would have been no hope for you. He’s dead now. And you are free, if you’ll only take your freedom.”

  Melissa covered her eyes with her hand, and could not speak. Papa, Papa, she thought.

  “Be free, Melissa,” said Amanda, in a stronger voice, with a ring of warning in it. “Go free, Melissa.”

  Melissa dropped her hand. Amanda’s eyes held hers compellingly. Then the older woman said: “Send for Arabella Dunham. I must see her in the morning.”

  She closed her eyes, and seemed to sleep again.

  Melissa crept back to her chair. She sat there, her clenched hands on her -trembling knees, her body bent forward, her eyes staring at the floor. She was one savage storm of grief and rage and bitter agony. Papal To be so calumnied, so despised, so rejected! To be spoken of so, while he, dead and silent, could not defend himself. She saw him so clearly, asleep in his grave, smiling, pathetic, vulnerable. “No, Papa,” she whispered, “you are not defenseless. I am alive, and here. No one shall dare slander you again. No one understood you, Papa, except me. And some day the world shall know what you were, what a genius, what a great man, what a noble man. I shall never forget you, Papa.”

  Tears began to roll down her cheeks. Her shoulders shook with repressed sobs. The hour for her mother’s medicine passed unheeded, while Melissa wept and could not stop her tears and Amanda seemingly slumbered.

  CHAPTER 14

  Melissa admitted Mrs. Arabella Dunham Shaw to the house and silently helped her remove the wide sable stole which covered her plump shoulders and arms. She took Arabella’s bonnet of blue velvet, trimmed with large purple roses, and Arabella’s gloves. During all this, Arabella chattered with hushed vivacity, expressing her regret, her shock over her friend’s desperate illness, her constant desire in the past few weeks to force her way into the Upjohn house, “there to give poor dear Amanda my best love and assistance. But all I could do was to send flowers, and the hampers that—I mean, the hampers, and an occasional message. I did not want to annoy you with any insistence, dearest Melissa, for I knew how burdened you were, and how irritating the demands of even the closest friends can be during times of affliction. But I assure you you had all my prayers, and my silent devotions, and my most passionate hopes. How many times did I sit at my bedroom windows and endeavor to strain my eyes to catch your midnight candle! How many times did I clasp my hands in fervent supplication that your period of trial might soon be ended! How many tears have I shed! But then, as Geoffrey often says, I am afflicted with too much sensibility. You should hear how he scolds me when he is at home! By the way, he has not returned since the sad passing of your poor darling Papa, but every letter to me is filled with his affection and his concern for all of you. Dear me, my child, have you a fever? Your face is so flushed and hot.”

  “I have no fever,” muttered Melissa. She added, in a louder tone: “Mrs. Shaw, I sent for you against the orders of Dr. Mellon because my mother insisted upon seeing you. Dr. Mellon finally concluded it would be more dangerous to re fuse her wishes than to grant them. I trust you will not remain long.”

  How utterly without manners, thought Arabella, with a glint of aversion in her eye as she looked at Melissa. She sniffed. She caught the strong, acrid odors of the neglected house, and her sharp glance noted the decay, dust and dirt in the hall, which was very cold and damp. She added to herself: It is disgraceful. Melissa is nothing more than a dreaming slut. She put her handkerchief, heavily laden with musk, to her nose. She said, in a sighing voice of compassion: “Certainly, I shall not remain a moment more than necessary, dear child.”

  Her thoughts went on: I wish Geoffrey could see her nowl She is as ffeshless as a scarecrow, and her frock is dirty. And her eyesl They are quite mad. And there is a smudge on her bony cheek, which looks as though it had been there for days.

  She turned about, still sighing, and tried, with the aid of the clouded mirror over the hall table, to smooth the curled rolls of her gray-streaked light hair. She peered closer to admire the fit of her plum-colored velvet bodice with its pearl buttons, its bows at the shoulder, its ruffle of fine lace at the neck. She smoothed down the folds of the velvet skirt, plumped out a huge bustle at the back, and rattled her gold bangles. Long pearl ear-rings hung at her ears, and swayed against her fat cheeks. She smiled, and her shark-like mouth opened in a lipless oval. Then she quenched the smile, and turned again to Melissa.

  “I shall write tonight and tell dear Geoffrey of my visit. He will be so happy to know that Amanda has improved a little. Did I tell you, dear, that he is practically engaged to the most wonderful girl in Philadelphia? One of the Biddles, no less! So charming, so chic, so graceful and aristocratic. She can play the harp so heavenly! I was quite entranced when I last saw her. It was easy to observe that she was smitten by Geoffrey, and now I have such hopes!”

  Melissa moved, with a dry rustle of her garments, to the stairway. “Shall we go up to Mama at once?” She looked at Arabella from the shadows, and her face was a whitish mask filled with eyes.

  Arabella followed Melissa up the stairs; she heard the grinding of the grit under her fashionable French boots and high, tapering heels. Her skirts gave out a sweet silken rustle and swish, loud in the silence. Her scent followed her like a cloud. She panted when she reached the top of the stairway, but she moved quickly behind Melissa to Amanda’s room.

  That room, observed Arabella, as she tiptoed within, was at least well-kept and clean, and had no unpleasant odors. The candlelight wavered against the musty drawn draperies, and at first Arabella could hardly see the white bed in the center of the room. She approached it on tiptoe, with a soft murmur in her throat. Melissa stood at a distance, wit
h her back to the door.

  “Dear, dear Amanda,” said Arabella, in a hushed, musical tone, bending over the bed. “How glad I am to see you so well, and able to receive visitorsl”

  Amanda gazed at her from her pillows. Her mouth was sunken, her face a ghastly color. But her eyes burned indomitably upon her friend. She even smiled a little, and allowed Arabella to press her cold hand. She indicated a chair. Melissa stirred near the door.

  “You are permitted only a few minutes, Mrs. Shaw,” she said, and her voice was too loud, and a trifle shrill.

  Amanda said, not looking away from Arabella: “Melissa, I wish to be alone with Arabella.” Her voice was stronger today. Death stood beside her, but she held it off by the sheer force of her inexorable will. Arabella sat down with a crackle of silken petticoats, and gazed at Amanda with her head cocked compassionately to one side. Melissa hesitated, then left the room.

  The dim firelight leapt up, and threw a wan light on Amanda’s stern face. Arabella touched her scented handkerchief to her dry eyelids. Amanda studied her friend. A silly, frivolous, heartless old fool, a false and crafty woman! Amanda saw the hard slate-gray eyes, the parrot-like nose with its sharp cruel tip, the fat, faintly rouged cheeks, and the rich and gaudy finery. Amanda smelled the strong, expensive but sickening perfume, and she turned her head slightly away. She thought: It is impossible to trust her. I must abandon my plan to plead with her for help for Melissa. I know now I dare not speak to her of Geoffrey’s offer, for she would circumvent his desire if she could, and would not send him the message that I must see him at once, for all the lying promises she would give me. She would tell him nothing

  She asked aloud, in her faint but resolute voice: “Have you written to Geoffrey that I have been ill, Arabella?”

  Arabella had written one letter to her brother to say that Amanda had had a slight seizure the day after the funeral, but that he must not worry in the least, that she, Arabella, was in constant touch with the Upjohn household, that everything was in good order and that there was no occasion for any undue concern. When Geoffrey had written demanding more details, she had added in a postscript: “Amanda is doing splendidly and will be her old self in a day or two.”