Melissa Read online

  She tried to make her voice more courteous: “Truly, Mr. Dunham, I want nothing to eat. The thought sickens me. I think I should prefer to go to bed.” She took a tentative step towards the door. Geoffrey sat down, but not in Charles’ chair. He sat down nearer the fire and lit a cheroot, all his movements thoughtful and precise. He actually had the ill-breeding, the monster, to sit while she stood! That betrayed the full measure of contempt he had for the Upjohns, revealed the low esteem in which he held Charles’ daughter!

  “I said, Mr. Dunham, that I am going to bed,” she repeated sternly.

  “Good. Probably an excellent idea.” He glanced at her kindly. “In the meantime, I think I shall eat this delightful collation myself. It is a wicked thing to allow good food to go to waste. Good night, Melissa.”

  She could not leave him here, desecrating her father’s study, enjoying himself in the very room where Charles had died. Yet she did not know what to do. She was exhausted, and now she knew that she was famished. Her common sense told her that if she allowed her strength to deteriorate, she would betray Charles. The smell of the broth and the tea did strange things to her. Besides, she thought, the more rapidly she ate, the sooner she would be rid of this man.

  It was an effort to speak out of the depths of her sinking weariness. “I suppose I must thank you, Mr. Dunham, for this kindness of yours. It would be rude of me to refuse, would it not?”

  “It would indeed,” he assured her, examining the glowing tip of his cheroot.

  “But it would also be rude if you remained away from the others, downstairs.”

  “Your mother,” said Geoffrey, “has already retired, and your sister. Arabella and Hulda are ‘clearing up.’ Andrew, I think, has gone into the library, and shut himself up there. Evidently you do not know how late it is.”

  Just then the clock below chimed ten, and Melissa started. “It is not in the best taste, I am afraid, for you to remain alone with me, Mr. Dunham.”

  He took the cheroot from his mouth. “Best taste be damned, Melissa. Don’t be a fool. Sit down and eat, or I shall eat it myself. I am going back to Philadelphia tomorrow, and then I am going to New York for several weeks. Though I quite understand that your father is just lately dead and that this is a sad occasion for all of you, there are matters I must discuss before I leave. I shall have no other time after tonight.” Melissa sat down slowly before the food, and stared at it. “You have discussed them with my mother?”

  “No. I am afraid she knows very little about your father’s affairs.”

  New strength came to the girl. The battle for her father had begun. She must not betray him by the pampering of her own grief. Her hand shook as she lifted the spoon to her mouth. The hot soup filled her with warmth, and she ate quickly. Geoffrey did not watch her. He looked at the fire. He smelled the dankness and decay in the room, saw the dusty disorder. His nose wrinkled distastefully. He heard the subdued clatter of the china. The poor dear fool! Only once, after ten minutes had elapsed, did he glance at her out of the corner of his eye. She had cleared away all the food, down to the last morsel, and sat there, straight and stiff, sipping her tea. She seemed very pathetic and young to Geoffrey, in her austere and coldly defiant strength, too thin, and with such a chaste modelling of forehead and chin—a white-faced but dauntless and bewildered nymph, who fancied herself a Valkyrie, challenging a formidable world in the name of her father. My dear, he thought, today a special Emancipation Proclamation was delivered for you, and some day you will know it.

  Melissa set down her teacup, then sat in her chair like a ramrod, her hands in her lap. Geoffrey knew that she was gazing at him commandingly. He said, reflectively:

  “I understand that there are two more volumes, almost completed. Doubtless, you can complete them, Melissa.” “Yes,” she said quietly, “I can. But not for the old royalty, Mr. Dunham. I always thought that unjust and beggarly. Now that my father is—is—not here”—and for a moment her voice broke and her head bent—“I must protect the rights of the family.”

  “What royalty would you suggest?” asked Geoffrey, frowning at his cheroot. He took his gold penknife from his waistcoat pocket and cut off one end of the cheroot, drew on it again, and murmured in satisfaction.

  Melissa’s heart was beating too hard, but she said defiantly: “Twice the customary royalty, Mr. Dunham.”

  “Impossible!” he exclaimed. But he said to himself: I should have thought of that before, then there would have been no twinges of my publisher’s conscience, no squirmy contrivings as to how to increase their bank account.

  “Yes,” said Melissa, in a loud, hard voice.

  He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder, he could hardly keep himself from smiling at the ridiculousness of the situation. There sat the poor girl, her face a pale flame, her chin resolute and lifted, her eyes fanatical. Let her fight a little. It would do her good.

  “You are trying to take advantage of my friendship with Charles,” he said, striving to make his own voice bellicose, even blustering.

  “I am trying to right an old wrong,” she said, with trembling courage.

  She waited, but Geoffrey only sat and smoked. Her fingers wound themselves tensely about each other until the knuckles sprang out. Geoffrey let her wait. He appeared to be reflecting.

  “You have never lost any money on my father’s books,” she said, when she could not endure the waiting any longer. “In fact, I am certain that you have made a fortune,” and her tone was bitter.

  O my God, thought Geoffrey, recalling the Upjohn account. He scowled. “I am admitting nothing, Melissa. The publishing business is no esoteric venture. I, like all other publishers, am in business for a profit, and not for spiritual exaltation. I might be selling stoves, or brooms, or blankets. Books are a commodity. If they sell well, we all make a profit. Now, I am not saying that Charles’ books were a complete failure—“

  “You dare not!” she cried.

  Geoffrey waved his hand impatienly—“I am merely saying that they had a modest sale, for they did not appeal to the less cultivated taste.”

  But Melissa had not heard him. She was considering what he had said just before his last words, and now she shook with outrage and anger. “‘A commodity’! You dare call my father’s lifework a ‘commodity,’ as if it were only a cake of soap, a washtub, a pot or pan! You dare—blaspheme—it like that!” She sprang to her feet and, even above the noise of the storm outside, her breath was fierce and loud.

  Geoffrey rose slowly and looked at her, at her eyes which threw off pale blue lightnings of wrath and affront. Again, he had a difficult time to keep from smiling.

  “Perhaps I was a trifle—coarse, shall we say, Melissa? I was oversimplifying the situation. But I was merely trying to say that the law of supply and demand extends even to the publishing field.”

  “My father’s soul, his life, his learning, his studies, his reflections, his scholarship, were in his work!” she cried, almost beside herself. “You never knew that; you never realized it. To you, he was only a manufacturer of commodities from which you would take an unjustly large share of the profits!”

  Rage had exhilarated her. Her color was less ghastly, there was even a hot coral in her lips, and her disordered hair was a bright flutter over her forehead and about her cheeks, as if a wind had touched it. Good, thought Geoffrey. There was no passion so devastating, so tremendous, as the passion of a repressed woman. He saw how her breasts seemed to pound against the black fabric that covered them, how a large violet vein throbbed in her long throat. The energy of fury poured out from her, the single-hearted, powerful fury of an innocent and aroused spirit.

  “My dear Melissa,” he said, in a conciliatory tone, “I apologize again. I did not mean to offend you. I forgot that you are not an ignorant woman who must be presented with prosaic words in order to simplify a discussion. Let us say that Charles gave the world works of great scholarship which may gain greater appreciation over the coming years. After all,
the war disrupted many minds, made reading and study and scholarship temporarily irrelevant things. The situation will improve, now that there is peace again.

  “I am quite willing to discuss, amiably, the subject of your father’s future royalties, or, I should say, the family’s. I must study our books. But I can assure you that future royalties will be at a higher rate.”

  His manner, his calmness, quieted Melissa to some extent. Now her whole face glowed with triumph. She had forced this robber, this despicable man, to consider her terms. She would compel him to accept them!

  Geoffrey knew her thoughts, and smiled to himself. Now he knew fully, for the first time, that emotion was the secret force which would conquer this poor girl. He had always suspected it, but then, she had always been so controlled, so frigid, whenever he had seen her before.

  He extended his hand with a frank air. “May I again express my sorrow over the death of a dear friend, Melissa? Though your own loss is so immeasurably greater, believe me when I say that Charles’—passing—has left a deep gap in my life.”

  She was still aglow with her grim elation, and it was with absentmindedness that she gave him her hand. It was not until she felt his kiss upon it that she came to herself. With a faint cry she snatched her hand away, shivering. He pretended not to notice. He bowed deeply and went out of the room.

  She watched him go, her left hand clasped convulsively over the back of the right. Her mouth had fallen open, and her eyes stared intently at the door even after it had closed behind Geoffrey. Then she looked down at her hand. The place touched by his lips burned and tingled unbearably. She rubbed it with fury and revulsion, as if in some way her flesh had been violated. He had dared to do this disgusting thing to her, right in this room where her father had died!

  She started for the door, and her own room, where there was water and soap. Then, with her tingling hand on the knob, she stood still, blank and motionless. She stood like that for a long time, listening. Finally she heard the grating of the Dunham carriage on the gravel drive below. Hardly knowing what she did, she ran to the window, threw it open, tore frantically at the shutters.

  The rain had stopped, but the wind still surged against the house like an unseen surf. It had torn the clouds into streamers of milky vapor which blew against the black sky. The moon rushed out from behind them, leaping like a silver ball through space, and its light poured down on a dark and somber earth.

  The Dunham carriage lights blinked with a yellow blur on the road beyond the house. It’s polished top gleamed in the moonlight, dripped with silver drops. Leaning on the windowsill, the wind tearing at her hair until it streamed like a banner in the gale, Melissa watched the carriage until it was swallowed up in the night. Then she bent her head on her arms, and wept again, wildly, desolately, and did not know why she wept.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Dunham carriage wound its way over the sodden mud road that led from the Upjohn house to the great Dunham house on the slope of the nearest hill. Now all the countryside was washed in wet silver, and the dying trees groaned in the heavy gale. Sometimes a cloud rushed across the face of the moon, and the yellow lights of the carriage splashed on the rivers of water that rippled over the road. Sometimes the carriage lurched over softened mud, and the wheels sucked protestingly at the glue-like substance. Now the carriage began to rise slowly towards the twinkling lights on the hillside. But the countryside behind it, and beyond each side, floated in moonlit mist.

  It had turned cold. Geoffrey and his sister, Mrs. Arabella Shaw, pulled the fur lap-robes closer about themselves. Arabella said, sniffing: “I think we shall have snow, Geoffrey.”

  She could not see her brother’s face, but she knew he was leaning back in the carriage. She could smell the rich aroma of his cheroot, and she surreptitiously let down the window a trifle. Her husband had been an enemy of “the wicked weed” but there simply was no use in mentioning the matter to Geoffrey. She was on his partial bounty, which had been very cruel of Papa, who had had a reverence for the English law of inheritance. After all, there was no sense in Geoffrey’s hinting that she ought to remarry. She was a widow of forty-five, and husbands of the proper age and affluence were practically nonexistent. Fortunate for her, indeed, that Geoffrey had so far refrained from the folly of introducing a slip of a stupid girl into Dunham House, and for the past year or so she, Arabella, had begun to breathe easier. Geoffrey was slightly past forty now, he had not spoken of Melissa as a possible wife for nearly two years, and he had seen very little of the Upjohns in that time. She, then, was almost completely safe; she could look forward to long and pleasant declining years as sole mistress of Dunham House, and the weekly, or monthly, brief companionship of her brother. She asked no questions of him, and about once or twice a year accompanied him to his Philadelphia quarters and entertained his few friends, who were also in the publishing business.

  But almost all the entertaining in which Geoffrey engaged was done at Dunham House at Christmas time, and in the summer, if he did not go abroad then. The war was over, thank Heaven, and Arabella could anticipate a goodly list of house guests at Christmas and New Year’s, and perhaps a pleasant party at Thanksgiving. She did so adore the Little-fields of Philadelphia, who had no marriageable daughters, and the Sheridans of New York. It had been a most delightful Thanksgiving last year, with the Littlefields and the Sheridans and the Bertrams. She must begin, almost immediately, to set about her preparations. The Christmas list was completed too.

  She busied herself determinedly with her thoughts, for she knew, with anxiety, that Geoffrey was thinking of the Upjohns. It would be inappropriate just now to talk of Thanksgiving and Christmas, so soon after the funeral, and so soon after leaving that dreadful old house in the valley. Yet Arabella felt a compulsion to speak, in order to distract Geoffrey from his thoughtful brooding. Danger lay there. But what to say? No one could accuse her of being insensible, of dismissing Charles’ death as a matter of no consequence. After all, had she not permitted Hulda to remain with the Upjohns until tomorrow in order to relieve poor Amanda of the need to assist old Sally, and to permit the girls a period of rest for proper mourning? Had she not filled their larder with baked hams and cold meats and loaves of bread and pots of preserves? No one could say that she was not the most tender-hearted of neighbors, for all the Upjohns were so impossible, so morbid, and such unpleasant company. But no wonder people in the country and in Midfield “talked.” The Upjohns were recluses, and engaged in practically no entertaining, and were seen very seldom by their neighbors, or in the village. It was true that they were quite poor; even she, Arabella, had not guessed until tonight how desperately poor they were. But it had been the opinion of the neighbors that it was a deliberate austerity, and not one actually based on real poverty. “High thinking and plain living, humph!” said Arabella to herself. It was very evident that high thinking was only an apology for poor, rather than plain, living, and a necessity. What a silly affectation! What hypocrisyl

  There were some who still pretended that money was less valuable than tradition, learning more to be desired than good fires and excellent tables, and family much more important than bank accounts. Thank Heaven, this nonsense was falling into disrepute in America. If a man were not prosperous, his tradition, learning and breeding were of no consequence whatever, and he had forfeited the respect of his associates. After all, in free and republican America, where any creature worthy of his salt could pile up a fortune, was not money truly the measure of a man’s worth? It was so silly of the darling Sheridans to say that one such as Charles Upjohn represented the only true aristocracy in America, and that with the passing of that aristocracy the country would become a dreary wilderness of money-grubbers and animalistic workers. She, Arabella, could not suspect the Sheridans’ kindness in the slightest, and their eyes had always been clear and without guile when they would say this, and surely they were not thinking that the Dunham fortune was based on the money poor dear Mama, whose father had manufactur
ed pottery in Syracuse, had brought to Papa at a crucial moment in the Dunham affairs. After all, there had been three generations of male Dunhams in the publishing business, the first in England. No, she could not suspect the Sheridans, who were distinguished for their breeding. Besides, who knew of the dreadful cheap pottery, anyway? Family records were never kept in America, and that was a sensible thing.

  They were less than a quarter of a mile from Dunham House now, and perhaps she could pretend to be absorbed in sorrowful meditation, and Geoffrey would not speak. After all, he would expect her to be subdued by the events of the day. She had only to keep quiet and endure the smoke of the cheroot, and then they would be home and a cosy fire would be burning in the hall. It was very late. Geoffrey would not expect her to linger and discuss the Upjohns with him. And tomorrow he would return to Philadelphia, and go on to New York for several weeks, and by the time he returned the Upjohns would be almost forgotten by him. She wished she had not sent a messenger to Midfield to inform Geoffrey by telegraph that his old friend was dead. It might have been better if she had written him later, after the funeral. But then, Geoffrey was so capricious and unpredictable, and it was just possible that he would have been furious with her. She had done the best she could, and now she had only to keep silent.

  She wished the coachman would hurry. He was driving much too slowly, in spite of the awful road and the gushes of water that flowed over it. Then, to her horror, she heard herself saying in a sighing voice: “I cannot believe that poor Charles is dead. And that the family is really so penniless. Whatever will the poor creatures do, Geoffrey?”