Melissa Read online

  For the first time in their lives, they began to observe Phoebe acutely. In truth, they had hardly noticed her before, and only with that vague fondness which an adult bestows on an engaging child or on a lovable domestic animal. Now they saw that Amanda was quite ruthless with the girl, that she kept her busily absorbed in household duties, as a sort of assistant to old fat Sally, that her days were full of bed-making, silver-polishing, cooking, mending and dusting, from morning until night. She must have been doing this for years, though they had never noticed it before, and it seemed unbearably pathetic to them that Phoebe bustled about her tasks so cheerfully, with such pink cheeks, with so many amiable smiles. How she must be suffering, in her sensitive heart, at being forced to perform so many mundane, dull and ugly tasks, yet how amicably, and with what docility, did she obey! Charles and Melissa suffered with her, but they respected her courage and delicacy, and did not offer sympathy. However, she was often invited into the study, while Charles gravely discussed the nuances of poetry with the child, as she sat near him, and Melissa nodded her head at intervals. She was theirs to cultivate. They must be prayerfully careful and devoted.

  Naturally, it was not long before Amanda became aware of the defection of her younger daughter. It was Phoebe’s custom to join her mother in the drawing-room in the evenings, with her basket of mending, her knitting needles, or a book of essays which she would read aloud. Now Amanda was left alone before the grudging fire. Andrew was at Harvard, Sally was in bed, and Charles, Melissa and Phoebe were engrossed in the study, while Amanda had nothing but the autumn wind for company. She made her investigations, and when she discovered how the land lay, she was grimly and coldly outraged.

  One morning, at breakfast, she attacked. She had fixed her pale hard eyes on Charles, and had said: “What is this non sense about Phoebe and poetry, Charles? I never heard of it before, until the silly child confessed to me last night, after questioning.”

  Charles had looked up from his ham and eggs, and had smiled that soft and beguiling smile of his. “My dear Amanda, it isn’t nonsense in the least To use a rather coarse expression, we have struck gold in this house, unsuspected gold, pure and shining. How could it have escaped you so long, my dear? You and Phoebe have always been so very close, this ought to be no surprise to you.”

  As always, his gentlest rebuke threw Amanda into a furious, defensive mood. She exclaimed: “Absurdl Yes, I have often seen Phoebe scribbling, but young girls are always scribbling romantic nonsense, lilies in the dell, moonlight and roses, dew in the morning. I indulged her, for she was always competent and dutiful in her tasks about the house. I have not forgotten my own youth,” she added, her lined and parched skin flushing. (AS always, she never looked at Melissa when engaging in any dispute with Charles, but she felt again that thrill of hatred and rage at the knowledge that Melissa was regarding her with remote coldness, as if she were only a rude and inconsequential intrusion in the room.) “No, Charles, I have not forgotten my own simpering and vaporous girlhood, and so I was indulgent with the girl. I knew that upon her marriage to John Barrett she would forget her scribbling; I knew that poetry often afflicts young girls just before their marriage. It is natural. But once married, once settled in her own home, once engaged in wholesome household duties, all this nonsense would be forgotten. You can imagine my alarm, then, when I discovered that you and—and—when I discovered that you were deliberately cultivating the girl’s romanticism, and taking it seriously, to the disruption of her normal way of life and the jeopardy of her expectations. Then it became my duty as a mother to settle the matter once and for all.”

  Phoebe had sat there, mute, very small, her eyes swimming with tears, her pink cheeks whitening. She had looked helplessly at Charles and Melissa. Charles stirred his coffee thoughtfully, while his daughters waited. But he seemed loath to speak. Then Melissa had lifted her chin, fixed her mother with her eyes, and had said coolly: “Mama, perhaps Phoebe does not wish to marry John Barrett and become part of his farm. We have had discussions over the matter, in the evenings. She is convinced that her destiny is poetry, not a dull and lightless marriage with a farmer, however prosperous.”

  Charles glanced up quickly, frowning just a little, distaste fully. There were times when he wished that dear Melissa were not so direct, so crude, so like a marching grenadier with big clacking boots. Diplomacy, reason, were so much more effective, so much more civilized. But for all his admonitions, all his teaching, there were times when Melissa broke through courtesy and the ring of subdued voices like an armored and warlike young mare. Brunhilde was doubtless very stirring and majestic but a little too incongruous at a polite breakfast table in the palely bright autumn morning of a Pennsylvania countryside. Harsh trumpets caused blue Spode china to rattle, and threw quiet air, redolent of ham and coffee, into turmoil.

  It was Amanda’s custom, for many years now, to ignore Melissa as much as possible, to pass over her with eyes faintly glazed, as if unseeing, to speak rarely to Melissa and only when necessary. But too much was now at stake to pretend that she did not exist, to wave away her words with a slight motion of the wrist. Melissa was placing Phoebe in danger, in serious jeopardy, and Phoebe was the soft core of Amanda’s stern heart. Yes; it was Melissa who was doing this, and only Melissa. Whatever evil, fruitlessness, frustration and despair lived in that house, unsuspected by Charles, it all stemmed from Melissa. But she must not touch Phoebe! Never, never, must she ruin, seduce, defile and destroy Phoebe!

  So it was that for the first time in a long while Amanda looked at her elder daughter with wild hatred and fury and defiance. “Hands off my child, my girll” she cried, and there was something ominous and threatening in her low hard voice. She stood up, stately, if trembling visibly, like a tall, beset tree, and she clenched her thin hands at her side. She regarded Melissa with an expression so terrible that Charles, slowly rising, was caught in the very act and paralyzed; he remained crouched in a most ludicrous position, half in and half out of his chair, his napkin clutched to his breast, his spectacles sliding down his nose.

  “You’ve done enough wickedness in this house!” Amanda went on, seeing nothing but Melissa. “You have schemed enough, and plotted enough, in your silent secret way! But you shall not touch my child! She is not yours. Hands off!”

  Melissa had not moved. Her still white face remained immobile, though her eyes became enigmatic. One long, slender hand was stretched beside her cup. The fingers did not curl. They remained like marble fingers, smoothly relaxed and quiet.

  For a long and awful moment mother and daughter re- garded each other in a sudden and malignant silence. Then Amanda, paler than ever, turned to Phoebe and, though her voice was firm, it broke a little at the last as she said: “Come, my child. We have work to do, and it is getting late. It is the day for polishing the silver.”

  Melissa’s mouth opened slightly, but Charles, who had fallen back in his chair, had laid his hand over hers, warningly. Phoebe had peeped at them both in a frightened and meek sort of way, then had slipped from her chair and scurried after her mother like a yellow chick following a hen.

  The silence remained in the room for several moments after Amanda and Phoebe had left. Then Melissa stirred. She lifted the coffeepot and poured more coffee into her father’s cup. She gave him the cream and the loaf sugar. He took them with a courteous inclination of his head. When he glanced at Melissa, she was smiling with her mother’s own grimness, and Charles was disturbed by it.

  “Would you like some more biscuits, Papa?” asked Melissa, her hand reaching for the little silver bell.

  “No, thank you, my dear.” Charles paused. He seemed very thoughtful Altercations of any kind annoyed and distressed him.

  Melissa said quietly: “Shall we go directly upstairs, Papa? We were to go over Phoebe’s last poems, if you remember.”

  It was settled. Charles was relieved. The incident would be forgotten. But Melissa would not forget that she had a duty towards Phoebe. He could always rel
y upon Melissa. They went upstairs to the study, and Melissa ordered that trays be served to her and to her father in that room.

  The first skirmish had been won by Amanda, Melissa was not disconcerted. She always won in the end. She would win this time, too, thought Charles contentedly. One had only to leave it to Melissa. He hoped the struggle would not be too distracting. Why could not everything always be serene and pleasant? He dreaded the morrow and prayed that Melissa would not involve him too much.

  But there was to be no tomorrow for Charles Upjohn. He had died that night, after Melissa had left him.

  Melissa was remembering all this, as she stood tonight in that cold and disordered study, the sheaf of poetry in her hands. She laid down the sheaf. Her struggles, then, must be renewed, to save Phoebe from the lightless and wretched state to which her mother had condemned her. She would save Phoebe, as she had saved her father.

  “I won’t forget, Papa,” she said aloud. She squared her shoulders, as if taking up a burden she had momentarily dropped. And then, all at once, it seemed to her that her heart broke. She pressed her hands to her eyes.

  With heavy, dragging foosteps, she went back to her father’s chair. She fell down upon the hassock beside it. She laid her head upon the worn black leather of the arm and, for the first time, she wept, utterly desolate and forsaken. She wept on and on, but it brought her no surcease, no relief from the tortured wound in her heart. The tears streamed down her cheeks, and they were as hot as fire. The wind pounded at the shutters, tried to tear them loose, then, frustrated, went on howling over the fields and the hills. The rain streamed and gurgled in the eaves.

  “Papa, Papal” she whispered, rolling her head upon the arm of Charles’ chair. “I can’t bear it, Papa. Come back, come back.”

  She heard the slightest sound near her, the creaking of the door. Slowly, painfully, she lifted her head. Geoffrey Dunham stood there, with a tray in his hands. He shut the door behind him with his heel.

  “I thought you’d be here,” he said. “And now I’ve brought you some food, and I’m damned if I’m going to leave until you get it down.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Melissa pushed her loosened hair from her wet face, and Geoffrey saw that face, haggard, torn with anguished emotion, wet with tears. There was a shrunken gauntness about it which alarmed him. But cheerfully, and quietly, he pushed aside Charles’ pipe and papers and put down the steaming tray.

  Melissa struggled to her feet. “Go away. Oh, go away!” she said, hoarsely, her voice hardly above a whisper.

  But he was arranging the dishes, while she stood there, shaking, futilely pushing at her hair, regarding him with detestation and hatred, with mortification that he should have found her so abandoned. Never had he appeared so despicable and loathsome to her, so repellent. She was seized with a rage against him. All his faults of feature, figure and manner seemed to her grotesquely enlarged, so that she shut her eyes in order not to see him. Desperately, with all her will, she attempted to thrust him from this room, which he “desecrated” with his very presence. She had a wild impulse to run out and leave him. But it was as if she would then have left her father to the attack of this hateful man, and Charles must be protected from such as he.

  She had always despised Geoffrey Dunham, even when she had been a young girl of fourteen and he a man of thirty just inheriting his lately deceased father’s publishing business. She had never seen Geoffrey before that time, for he had been in charge of the firm’s London establishment. Now he had come back home, and he had called upon Charles to renew an old acquaintance. Charles had expressed soft, unfeigned pleasure, had forgotten his daughter, had clasped the young man’s hands with affection.

  It was a summer day, and she and Charles had been together in the gardens hidden from the house by a clump of old plum trees. She had just recited her Latin to him, and he was going over her papers. How serene was the sunshine then, warm and mellowed, with butterflies falling and rising in the soft air and the bees busy over the tangled roses! Then there had been the barking of old Chief, the collie, and Geoffrey Dunham had come, like the devil himself, into that garden.

  She could never tell why she so hated him on sight. Perhaps it was because he was so urbane, so polished, so patronizingly at ease, for all his friendly and pleasant greeting. He had worn strange London clothing, with light gray pantaloons strapped under his gleaming boots, and a flowered waistcoat, a darker gray coat with long tails, and a brilliantly white stock with a pearl pin. He held his tall gray hat in his left hand while Charles shook his right, and he had laughed genially, all his big white teeth flashing in the sunlight.

  He had looked down at Melissa, and had said, pleasantly: “This is your daughter, I presume, Charles. A pretty little minx.” And then he had lifted a lock of her straight pale hair, which hung far below her waist like a shawl, and had tweaked it. Yes, she had hated him then. That was the beginning, dismissing her as though she were of no consequence, only a tiresome child! He had gazed at her, smilihg in amusement, for she had jerked her head away and had glared at him in her cold and almost malefic fashion.

  She would never forget how he looked then, tall, very broad of shoulder, debonair and sleek in his disgusting London finery, with the heavy gold chain across his lean middle, and his shining hat in his hand. He had a large and shapely head, with the dark crisp hair cut affectedly long, and a face astonishingly brown from Riviera sunshine. He had somewhat small gray eyes, penetrating and satirical, and without any softness or kindness. His nose was Roman, and, to Melissa, gross, with its flaring nostrils and blunt tip. He had a big and heavy mouth, and the most enormous white teeth, and his smile, though now so agreeable, was hard of outline. There was something about him too assured, too shrewd, too competent; it emphasized all of Charles’ unworldly gentleness and made her father appear old and defenseless in the warm summer sunlight. He had thrown into contrast Charles’ shabbiness and vulnerability, made him appear unshielded and unarmed, prey for any expedient and ruthless man. And, indeed, Geoffrey Dunham was everything that was expedient and ruthless, and he made no attempt to conceal the fact, not even from competitors, not even from valued authors.

  The Upjohns.sometimes did not see Geoffrey Dunham for months, and then again he would return weekly from his city lodgings in Philadelphia. He preferred the country, he would say, and now that his newly widowed sister had come to manage his house for him, he “had a home.” Melissa was seventeen when the weeping Arabella had arrived from Boston, and now Melissa had another object to hate almost as much as she already hated Geoffrey. A few times, upon her father’s pleas, she had accompanied him to the great house half-way up the hillside, but she had gone with shrinking and disgust to endure Geoffrey’s amused banter and Arabella’s maudlin ministrations and hospitality.

  The years had passed, and she never saw that repellent man without a shiver of abhorrence. Worse than anything else was Charles’ obdurate and insistent affection for him and trust in him. She saw the meager royalty reports, and was positive that her father was being cheated. But Charles only laughed at her gently. She never guessed that he derived a secret and malicious satisfaction from the sight of her young and ingenuous jealousy, for there was something in Melissa which blinded her to anything ignoble or devious. Nor did she even know that she was jealous. She knew only that Charles was excessively affectionate when Geoffrey appeared; she did not know that the display was deliberate, though it was not long before Geoffrey realized it, and with contempt.

  Geoffrey had seen too much of the world not to recognize what was revealed to him, and he was alarmed for Melissa. This, then, was what had compelled him to suggest to Amanda that Melissa be sent away to school. Amanda had inspired him with admiration and liking for her integrity and her common sense. He also shrewdly suspected that Amanda was well aware of what she saw, for she had insight and a wide clarity of vision. She had listened to Geoffrey’s quiet suggestion, and then she had said, without apparent emotion: “I have already spo
ken of it to Charles, Geoffrey. He will not have it.”

  Things had not adjusted themselves, and when Melissa was twenty years old he suddenly, and with consternation, understood that he was in love with her. He forced himself to remain away from the Upjohns for a whole year. But it was no use. Now he began to feel, and to know, acutely, the morbidity and unhealthy atmosphere in that old tall house. He must rescue Melissa before it was too late. After five years, he was still trying to rescue her.

  Though he was now forty, the years had not changed Geoffrey much. The crisp dark hair had grayed at the temples, the dark face was a little fuller, the upright figure not quite so svelte and suave as it once had been. But his urbanity and polish had become more mellow with time, and his innate ruthlessness had carved thicker lines about his level mouth and his small shrewd eyes, giving him a strong and invincible look.

  He had always appeared gross and insensitive to Melissa, and now, as her aching and tormented eyes regarded him with such abomination, she felt a sharp nausea and loathing for him, which, for a moment, even made her forget her grief.

  “I will not eat,” she said, her voice coming painfully from her tight throat, “and I ask you to leave me alone in this room, Mr. Dunham.”

  Geoffrey lifted a silver lid from the top of a small bowl. “Ah, our Hulda makes the best broth in the township!” he exclaimed. “Delicate, yet rich, with those tiny dumplings of hers. A breast of chicken here, too, I see, and hot bread and good butter. What is this? Ah, yes, a slice of Arabella’s own fruit-cake, and our own China tea. It smells like all the gardens in Pekin.”

  He set the dishes on the table, after first smoothing out a fine white tray cloth on it. Melissa watched him with redeyed scorn and comprehension. He was such a powerful and cunning wretch. He knew, from her father’s will, that Charles had left several unfinished manuscripts, and he was already plotting to seize and publish them for a pitiful royalty. So it was necessary for him to pretend to be placating and thoughtful of her. Only she could complete the manuscripts, from her father’s copious notes. Without her, the two next volumes would never be completed. And then Melissa had another thought. She glanced down at Phoebe’s sheet of poems, and a quick flash passed over her sunken eyes.