Melissa Read online

  Sally curtseyed, finally conscious of the amenities. She stuttered: “I—I can’t believe it, sir. You and Miss Melissa!” The idea was still grotesque to her, her eyes blinked rapidly and there was a frightened and subdued look on her broad lardy face.

  “It had to be done quietly, Sally, because of the two recent sad bereavements in the family, and so we told no one,” said Geoffrey with frank heartiness, rubbing his hands together in the cold of the hall. “By the way, Sally, could we have a little fire in the parlor? I think we shall have a family gathering. Yes, I rather think we shall.” He glanced up the steep stairway. Two other pairs of footsteps had joined Melissa’s, and she was speaking excitedly: “You must come down at once! Mr. Dunham is downstairs, and we have something to tell you, dear Phoebe, dear Andrew.”

  The poor artless lamb, thought Geoffrey, following Sally, who scuttled before him. The old woman was in a dither of stupefaction and excitement. She fumbled with the fire, until Geoffrey helped her. In a moment, a reluctant blaze started on the hearth. The room was so cold that Geoffrey’s breath rose in a cloud, and he shuddered. He saw the bleak white countryside beyond the windows, smelled the neglected dust in the parlor. The hearth was full of ashes, and the old rug was gritty.

  Now Melissa rushed into the parlor, her brown skirts a-swirl, her face a-light and pressed forward like the face of a figurehead on a ship. In her wake came Phoebe and Andrew, more slowly, and very bewildered. Geoffrey smiled at their surprised faces. He advanced, took Phoebe’s dainty little hand and bent and kissed her dimpled cheek, which immediately turned pink. He held out his hand to Andrew, who stared at him suspiciously but was polite enough to say: “Good morning, Mr. Dunham. Won’t you sit down?” Andrew turned and glared at Melissa, standing there alone in the center of the room with her hands clasped tightly together and such a pathetic shining in her pale and brilliant eyes. What the hell has she been up to? thought Andrew, with sudden angry pride. Is this her scheme: getting Dunham here to listen to our troubles and probably asking him to lend us money? She is such an idiot!

  Geoffrey turned to Sally, who waited, avidly listening, and he gave her a friendly gesture of dismissal. She retreated backwards, still watching him, and very reluctantly closed the door behind her. Geoffrey knew that she would remain in the hall, listening, and this annoyed him.

  He said to Andrew: “Thank you. And won’t you sit down, too?” He turned to Melissa and courteously offered her a chair. This she refused with a fiercely impatient shake of her head, though she looked only at her brother and sister. “Phoebe!” she cried, “I’ve got—”

  But Geoffrey was assisting Phoebe into a chair, was asking her forgiveness for disturbing her so early. Andrew stood upright on the hearth, huge and unrelenting and more and more suspicious. He scowled, and his rugged young face became marked with his slow and gathering anger. He said, without preamble: “Mr. Dunham, what’s Melissa been up to? She was out of her mind last night, and full of extravagances, and then this morning she flew off with the buggy as if she had gone crazy. What is it all about?”

  He gave his sister a harsh and forbidding glance, and Geoffrey was immediately surprised at his resemblance to his dead mother. He had thought Andrew completely apart from this strange household, but he now saw that Amanda lived as strongly in her son as she did in her elder daughter. Geoffrey felt a deep warmth and kindliness for the young man. He went to him and laid his hand on Andrew’s shoulder. Andrew turned his large head slowly and regarded him in obdurate and proud silence.

  “Don’t blame Melissa for anything, Andrew,” said Geoffrey. “She has news for all of you. And ideas, too. They are for you to reject or accept.”

  Phoebe was upset and frightened. One knew that that odious Melissa would never give up! She was so full of awful schemes, all the time! Just look at her standing there, as if she had gone mad, with such a shining in her silly, stupid eyes! Phoebe, dressed in rusty black too large for her, shrank in her chair, but her little hands doubled with passionate resolution. The look she gave Melissa was implicit with defiant hatred.

  “Oh, what has Melissa been doing?” she cried. “I knew it would be something terrible, the way she ran off this morning, with her shawl flying, and taking the buggy, and thinking nobody knew! She is so ridiculous, I just can’t bear her any longer, Mr. Dunham! And Mama just dead, and I an orphan, and all alone in this horrible house, and Melissa out of her mind, just as I knew would happen some day!”

  “Hold your tongue, Phoebe,” said Andrew, roughly, and turning very pale. Phoebe immediately burst into loud sobs and buried her face in the wing of the chair. Melissa took a swift step towards her, and Andrew raised his voice commandingly, and exclaimed: “Melissa!”

  Melissa stopped, in the very act of running. She stared at Andrew confusedly. That tone of his was new in this house, so dominant was it, and so strange.

  “Sit down, Melissa,” said Andrew with hard authority. “I’m the man in this house now, and it’s time you left off the trousers. Sit down, I said!”

  Incredulously, Melissa, in a daze, looked about for a chair. Geoffrey came forward and helped her into one. She sat down, stupefied, and could only look at her brother, her hands clenched in her brown lap. She swallowed convulsively, and faltered: “Andrew, I only wanted to say—”

  “Quiet,” said Andrew, still in his hard tone of authority. He glanced at Phoebe, who, taken aback, had fallen into a soft whimpering. “Phoebe, stop acting like a malevolent little fool,” Andrew continued. “I know all about you. You’re vicious, and mean, like—like—” He stopped, and bit his lip. “Melissa has probably got some folly in her head, but at least it’s a good head, if fuddled, and I want to know what she’s done.”

  Geoffrey had been watching and listening to Andrew with admiration. Again, he heard and saw Amanda in her son, and his new affection for his unsuspecting brother-in-law increased. Andrew turned to him, and the skin about his mouth was very white and hard. “And now, Mr. Dunham, perhaps you can tell me what all this is about?”

  “I think I can, Andrew,” said Geoffrey, gently. “Melissa hasn’t done anything silly. I hope you will soon agree with that.”

  “You don’t know Melissa,” said Andrew, quietly. “She doesn’t know she is alive. She means well, but—well, she hasn’t grown up yet. She has all sorts of fantastic notions, and so I must ask you in advance to overlook any of her foolishness.” He paused. “She’s probably asked you to lend us money, and while it is very kind of you, and I appreciate it, the answer is: No, thank you.” He flushed deeply, and his small blue eyes flashed with a formidable glitter.

  “Andrew,” began Melissa. But he looked only at Geoffrey, who was smiling.

  “Well, Mr. Dunham?” he said, peremptorily.

  Geoffrey coughed. “I am afraid you are wronging your sister, Andrew. You see, she and I were married hardly more than two hours ago.”

  Andrew said, softly: “You were—” He stopped. Phoebe’s gasp was loud in the room. Andrew put his hand to his forehead, rubbed it, then shook his head with a bemused air. He dropped his hand. “Will you say that again, Mr. Dunham?” His voice had become hoarse and muffled.

  “Married!” shrilled Phoebe, starting from her chair. “I don’t believe itl It’s some scheme! Why should he marry Melissa?” she screamed, furiously. “Melissa!” She swung, half crouched, on her sister, and her pretty face became distorted with rage and spite. “You’ve done something to force him to marry you—!”

  Andrew took one step towards her, caught her by the shoulder, spun her about, and soundly slapped her face. Then, while she still gaped, he flung her back into her chair. His breath came fiercely, and with pent haste. “You dirty little bitch!” he said, in a harsh voice. “Why, you little animal, you! How dare you talk to your sister like that, you, with your filthy mind!”

  Phoebe began to shriek faintly, holding her hand against her bruised cheek. Melissa blank and white as a statue, could only sit mutely in her chair and stare at nothing. Geo
ffrey was alarmed at her expression, and would have gone to her if Andrew had not stopped him. The young man was breathing unevenly, and his face was drawn and stern.

  “I think I ought to have an explanation, Mr. Dunham.”

  “Of course, Andrew,” said Geoffrey. “You deserve one. I can only say that though this may be news to you, I asked your mother, right after your father died, for Melissa. I believe Melissa was told the next day. She—she has been considering it ever since, and yesterday she told me she would marry me. I am sorry if you did not know it before, but everything was confused, your mother was ill, and apparently you were not informed.”

  “Oh, that horrible, scheming, sly Melissa!” moaned Phoebe. “How dared she do this to me? Telling me not to marry my Johnnie, and plotting all the time to marry the richest gentleman in the whole township!”

  “Keep quiet!” shouted Andrew, turning on his sister, with knotted fists. “You envious little beast, you. This is the return you give her for her kindness to you, her plans for you, and you letting her slave all alone while Mother was ill, you lying in your bed like a warm slug! I know all about you, Phoebe. It almost kills you, doesn’t it, that she married Mr. Dunham, and can have a finer house than yours, and everything she wants?” He advanced towards her, his hand lifted again, and with a louder shriek Phoebe recoiled in her chair. Geoffrey caught the young man’s arm in a strong grip.

  “No matter, Andrew,” he said. “The girl is young, and is naturally startled. She doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Oh, yes she does!” said Andrew, in an ugly tone. “I know all about Phoebe. I know how she and my father exploited Melissa and made her life a hell. My mother and I had a talk, before I went back to Harvard, before she was ill. She told me a lot I already knew, and a lot I didn’t I had intended changing everything when I came home again.” He stopped, looked at Melissa, and his infuriated young face softened. “Melly,” he said. “Poor Melly. I talked to Mother that morning, just before the doctor came. She was conscious for a little while. You remember? She asked me to take care of you. And, by God!” he added, in a resolute voice, “that’s what I intend to do.”

  He waited for her to look at him, to speak. But she sat as if stricken unconscious, staring before her, her face a stark white blur in the dimness of the room. Her lips were carved and folded like marble, her eyes empty and motionless.

  “Please, Melly, listen to me,” said Andrew. He bent over his sister and laid his palm gently against her cold stiff cheek. “I ought to have told you before, but I was such a fool. You see, Melly, I never intended to go back to Harvard. Even if there had been money, I wouldn’t have gone. I want to farm, Melly. I intend to make this place pay. I always wanted to be a farmer. Nothing in the world will ever persuade me to go on with the law. I hate it. I only went because I was too stupid to resist. It was all wrong.”

  Melissa stirred just a little, and her mouth opened slowly. In a voice of muted anguish she said: “Oh, Andrew!” It was an effort for her to speak, but she went on, after a dazed and painful moment: “Don’t say that, Andrew. Don’t. It isn’t true. You only want me not to be sorry, not to try—” She could not go on.

  Andrew frowned in his pity. “For God’s sake, Melissa, try to understand. You must, for your own sake. Melly dear, I want the land. I’ve wanted it ever since I was a child. I wish I hadn’t been such a damned weak fool! But I thought—I thought my father knew what was best for me. He had me hypnotized, just as he had you hypnotized, Melly. But when he was dead, I thought to myself: I am free. And then I understood what it was I had always wanted, and what I now must have.”

  Melissa lifted her hand and averted her head as if in agony. “Don’t, Andrew,” she murmured. “Don’t speak so of Papa. I—I believe now that you want to keep the farm. It’s a terrible disappointment for me, and I’m glad Papa isn’t here to know how you’ve turned against his wishes. And his money, Andrew—he worked so hard for it.”

  “Oh, Mellyl” cried Andrew, in compassionate impatience. “It was never his money. It was Mama’s, her dowry, the money her father left her. Our father spent it foolishly; he added very little to it. He never wanted to have any responsibility, Melly.”

  But Melissa stood up with a frantic gesture, and put her hands to her cheeks. “Andrew, you mustn’t talk like that! It isn’t true! I know it. You’ve been deceived, lied to. Believe me, I know. I—I’m sorry Mama is dead. She suffered. But she always opposed Papa; she never understood him, and she made his life a long misery of frustration. He hated it here, but she would remain, and he was smothered, and his heart broke.” She had spoken with rapid breathlessness, as against a rush of unbearable pain. “But I want you to be happy, Andrew. Papa would want it.”

  Andrew glanced at Geoffrey with eloquent despair. He said with resolution: “We’d better settle all this now, Melly. Here’s Phoebe: she doesn’t want to write poems. She wants to marry Johnnie Barrett, and she’ll marry him no matter what you try to do, however you try to deceive yourself that she really wants something else. Phoebe,” he continued, threateningly, “speak up, and this time don’t lie to Melissa.”

  Phoebe was utterly cowed now by her brother’s manner and expression. She pushed back against the chair as if to escape him. She whimpered: “I won’t lie, Andrew, please. You know what I want. I want Johnnie, and I’m going to marry him, just as soon as he wishes. Tomorrow, if he says so.” “Oh, no, Phoebe,” pleaded Melissa, lifting her bent head and extending her hands to her sister. “You are just frightened, darling. You mustn’t be afraid of Andrew.” She caught her brother’s arm. “See, Phoebe, he won’t hurt you. He is our Andrew. You can tell me the truth, dear, nothing will happen.”

  Phoebe was silent. She looked up at her sister’s white face and desperate mouth, and her own became shut and spiteful. She licked her round pink lips. Now an ugly little triumph gleamed in her eyes, a secret and vivid delight.

  “I’ll tell you the truth, Melissa! I don’t want to write poems. I hate them! I just let you dream to yourself, because you were so ridiculous. Nothing in the world will keep me from Johnnie, nothing. I haven’t any ‘gift,’ as you say, and I’m glad! I made up things, just to amuse myself, and sometimes I copied, and you and Papa never found out! You were so silly, both of you! And Papa used to make fun of you, too. You never knew it, but I did!” Now her expression changed, became strangely malignant. “And you were a liar and a sneak! You went off and married Mr. Dunham, pretending all the time you didn’t mind being poor, when you were just planning to be a rich lady and live in a mansion and laugh at all of us. I hate you, Melissa! I always hated you, and I never, never, never want to see you again or hear your awful voice.” She was rapidly becoming hysterical in her envy and furious resentment.

  She stamped her foot before the dumb Melissa, and then, in a flurry of skirts, she ran wailing out of the room, almost knocking down Sally in the passage.

  Be still, Geoffrey commanded himself. It is better this way, for the shocks to come all at once and be over with. But he could not bear to look at Melissa standing so petrified and so still in the middle of the room, and with such a look on her poor face. Apparently Andrew could not endure it either, for he went to his sister and put his arm about her shoulders.

  “Melly, dear, this is what you meant, isn’t it, when you asked us last night for a day or two more? You intended to marry Mr. Dunham and get the money for us from him, didn’t you? Poor Melly, poor Melly. It wasn’t necessary, dear. But I’m glad, anyway. You’ll have your own happiness, and then you’ll forget all about this and live the life you deserve and ought to have. Just remember that you are his wife, that your first duty now is to him.”

  Melissa did not answer or move. She stood in the utter immobility of grief and exhaustion. Andrew, his arm still over her shoulders, looked at Geoffrey. “I see it all now, sir, and I think that poor Melly, in her ignorance, has hurt you. But try to understand, please. You can make her happy. Be good to her.”

  “Oh, yes, Andrew
, I understand. You can trust me.”

  Andrew impulsively stretched out his free hand to Geoffrey and the older man took it. They stood with their hands warmly pressed together, much moved, but smiling.

  Then Andrew patted his sister’s shoulder and led her back to a chair. She sat down, obediently, like one under mesmerism. Andrew went to the door and caught Sally with her ear against the opened crack. She started away when he flung open the door, expecting to be berated. But Andrew merely said, mildly: “Sally, go upstairs and pack some of Miss Melissa’s things. She is leaving right away, with her husband.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Geoffrey tucked the fur lap-robes over Melissa, and the Dunham carriage crunched down to the road and began the long ascent to the house on the hill-side. Charles Upjohn’s manuscripts, notes and papers, and a few of his reference books, had been wrapped in an old black shawl and now lay in the back of the carriage, together with Melissa’s splintered raffia box and battered leather bag. Charles’ belongings made a much larger display than Melissa’s, for the box and the bag had weighed a great deal less.

  Geoffrey did not speak to his new wife as the carriage moved through a white and sunlit landscape. Neither did he look at her directly, in his compassion. He only knew that she sat beside him as speechless as the dead, and as motionless, and probably as unaware. When the carriage swayed, she swayed helplessly; when it lurched, she lurched also. Her hands, and all her body from the waist down, were covered with the lap-robe, but Geoffrey felt that there was no warmth at all under the fur.

  The Dunham house grew larger as the carriage approached it, and all its windows sparkled in the sunlight. It’s chimneys blew out great plumes of blue vapor; its red roofs were a vivid slash against the white hillside behind it. Geoffrey now believed he ought to speak to Melissa before confronting his sister. He turned to her, and then was surprised.