She waited. Melissa regarded her dully. Then the girl said: “I do not know why you should be so agitated, Arabella. What you have said is quite true. You have never expressed an opinion on the subject, though I have asked you for advice. And I do not see why you think it so important that I remember this.”
Arabella smiled. “It is not important. You are too excited, Melissa. But now, shall we continue with the lesson in properly greeting a guest at the threshold?”
. She was so elated, that a good color of her own appeared under the rouge. She added, with humor: “But you may remember, if you wish, that I have tried to improve your manners and your deportment. That may please Geoffrey, in the future.” Her face changed, became almost evil. “He might even give me an allowance in return, as a reward for my selfless efforts and for my time and strength.”
She would not have said this had she not been so elated, so certain of approaching success, for she was not a woman who spoke impulsively. Besides, she was remembering that only three weeks ago her brother had refused to give her the money she had requested for some frippery which he did not think necessary but which had been very dear to her heart, and she felt a sudden stab of hatred and resentment.
Melissa, in spite of her misery, was startled. “You mean, Arabella, that Geoffrey does not give you any money?” Caution tried to hold Arabella back, but her grievances were too strong. She exclaimed, wallowing in her mortification even before this senseless creature: “No, he gives me nothing! He pays my bills, but I have not a single copper to call my own! I have less than my servants. Your husband, Melissa, is not a generous man, or a kind one.”
Melissa studied her in earnest surprise, her pale brows drawn together in her old uncompromising frown. Arabella nodded somberly, as if Melissa had questioned her. Her plump and raddled face, with the incongruous sharp beak of a nose, the round, tooth-filled mouth, the sharp granite-like eyes, took upon itself an expression of long-suffering resignation and quiet martyrdom. Even the puffs of light, gray-streaked hair over her wrinkled forehead acquired for Melissa a kind of subtle pathos, as did the lined fat neck, the fat bosom under the light green faille bodice, the short out-stretched body on the divan. Incredibly, Arabella became the defenseless and exploited Phoebe again.
Money, in the Upjohn household, had been a sort of community property. It was there, in small quantities, and equally shared by anyone who needed it, or it was not there. In either case, Melissa had believed, it was a matter of unimportance. Even when Amanda had spoken of it bitterly, no one had paid much heed to her comments. Melissa had considered Amanda’s remarks as only the outpourings of an acid and disagreeable temperament, calculated to disturb her father and to distract him from his work.
That anyone should withhold money from another, deliberately, especially when it was as plentiful as it was in this household, puzzled and angered Melissa. It was plentiful indeed, this money, and its plenitude ought to have been shared with anyone in the household who needed it at a particular moment. Melissa concentrated intently on this new phase of money, and became more and more baffled and indignant.
“But Geoffrey has plenty of money,” she protested. “Why should there be any question of your having it when you need it, Araeblla?”
“I have tried to tell you, my dear. Geoffrey is tight-fisted with everyone but himself. Moreover, I suspect he delights in keeping others in a state of subservience and mortifying dependence. Has he ever given you any money?”
Melissa glanced away. “I have never asked for any,” she replied, stiffly. “I have not needed it.” She added: “But I cannot understand why you should not have what you need and want.” She looked at Arabella again. Her narrow and literal mind could sometimes be illuminated by the wide and brilliant glare of insight, and as she studied Arabella acutely her intuition told her many things. “It is wrong, wrong!” she exclaimed, vehemently, as her insight broadened and she began to understand. “He has no right to do this thing to you! It is not only the money; it is the prideful independence of the human spirit which he has attacked. I am sure you would be a different woman, Arabella, had not this humiliation been forced upon you!”
Again, Arabella sat up, and this time her face became ugly with affront.
“And what do you mean by that, Madam?” she asked, while Ellis, delighted, listened closely.
Melissa was confused by Arabella’s expression, and by her tightly furious voice.
“I meant no offense,” she stammered. “I only meant that you might have been a kinder and more charitable woman, a better woman, a less embittered one, one more inclined to gentleness—” She paused, appalled at what she had said in her simple integrity. It was an indication of the subtle change which had been at work in her for six months that she could be appalled at what she had said. Before her marriage to Geoffrey, such remarks would have seemed to her entirely natural and honest and to be expected. “I hope I have not offended you, Arabella. I sometimes express things clumsily.”
“‘Clumsily’ is a vast understatement,” replied Arabella, with a swift and vicious smile. “You see, Melissa, the reason why I so often lose hope about you. There are times when I feel that my task is completely hopeless, my work in vain. I have done my best, but I am afraid it will always be impossible to make a lady of you, to fit you for the position which has been—thrust—upon you.” She scrutinized Melissa with long and cold cruelty. “So, you consider me uncharitable, embittered, ungentle and unkind, do you?”
Melissa was silent. She wrung a fold of the dimity in her damp fingers. Fear did not come to her often, but now, for some nameless reason, she felt afraid. She did not yet recognize hatred and implacability when she saw them. The sick and ominous oppression of the spirit which so afflicted her these days fell on her like a great darkness again. I should really go away at once, she thought. My presence is a constant wretchedness to him, my inability to learn keeps him from his own home.
Arabella saw the spectral mask of the girl’s face in the gloom, and she sensed her depression with exultation.
“I am afraid that Geoffrey is going to be very angry with me when he discovers how little I have been able to help you, my dear Melissa,” she said sadly, after several moments had passed.
“He should not be angry,” said Melissa, almost inaudibly. “You have done your best. The fault lies with me.”
The enormous clock in the hall struck four sonorous notes in the hot dim silence.
Arabella sighed. “Well,” she murmured, with a swift glance of elation at Ellis, “it is four o’clock. Is not your sister expected at half-past for tea, Melissa? If so, I would suggest changing your gown and brushing your hair, in preparation.” “Oh, Phoebe does not care what I look like. It is very unimportant,” said Melissa wearily.
“My dear Melissa! You see how little you have absorbed of what I have tried to teach you! A lady is always well-groomed and well-dressed to receive any visitor at all, is always scented and fresh—even if the visitor be only her own sister! Never would a lady present herself to the view in a disheveled and—” she glanced over at Melissa and elaborately winced, “—in a coarsely perspiring condition!”
Melissa immediately got to her feet and hastened towards the door. Arabella let her reach the threshold, then called thinly and tiredly: “Melissa. Do you not remember what I have taught you to say when you leave the room?”
Melissa turned slowly. There was a movement along her white throat as she swallowed. She said, in a lifeless tone:
“Pray excuse me, Arabella. I beg your permission to retire.” Arabella smirked, replied in a theatrical tone: “Indeed, Melissa, the permission is granted, but do not deprive us of your company too long.”
“I shall return immediately,” said Melissa, obediently following the routine of her lesson. Then she went out with the precipitate swiftness of an embarrassed child.
Arabella and Ellis waited until they could no longer hear Melissa’s footsteps, then they buried their faces in their hands and shr
illed with mirth and triumph.
CHAPTER 41
Rachel was already waiting for Melissa when her mistress entered with a slow and heavy step and a heart-sick face. The maid had laid out for her a light summer tea-gown of chocolat-au-lait-colored silk, with streamers of green silk trimmed with airy black lace, a confection newly sent from New York and guaranteed to have been created by Worth. Melissa had been taking a novel interest in clothing lately, and Rachel was dismayed now when the girl only glanced dully at the gown as Rachel held it up for her inspection.
“Tell me, Rachel, why is it necessary to lie and tell a guest that you are delighted to see her when you are not?” asked Melissa, so absently that Rachel was aware that she hardly heard her own words.
“It is an accepted social custom, Mrs. Dunham,” replied Rachel, anxiously studying Melissa’s pallor and the lines about her pale mouth. “You would not say: ‘Mrs. Jones, I am not delighted to see you, but please come in just the same’?”
She hoped to amuse Melissa, and indeed Melissa did smile, but so faintly that it only added to the deep misery of her eyes.
“Well,” said Melissa, “I don’t think it honest, or even kind, to express delight when you are not delighted and the guest is probably interrupting an interesting afternoon or evening of work or quiet solitude. I think it is enough to invite the guest in. Then, if she is a woman of sensibility, she will soon learn that she is intruding, and will take herself off, and everyone will be more comfortable. It saves your own time, and the guest’s, for she will then go to another house where she will indeed be welcome.”
“It is not possible always to be honest,” said Rachel, nonplussed as usual when faced with Melissa’s inflexible logic.
A slight animation returned to Melissa’s eyes. “Why not? Do you know, I think that we’d have fewer wars, and certainly would make fewer enemies, and society would be set on a firmer basis, if we were always uncompromisingly honest. My father was a completely honest man, and I surely believe he had no enemies and was respected by all, because he refused to prevaricate even in the interests of a false politeness.”
She sat down suddenly, overcome with the unbearable weight of her depression. She leaned her elbow on the arm of the chair, and dropped her head in her hand. “I am so tired,” she murmured.
Rachel stood with the gown in her arms, and could not speak. She could only look at her mistress with aching compassion and love. She knew, and guessed at the cause of, the chronic and overpowering agony that was breaking down the high and intolerant spirit of Melissa, that had taken away her old arrogant certitude of mind and conviction. Such agony, Rachel knew, was too vast and enormous for words of comfort. An outsider was powerless to help. A kind of spiritual disintegration was taking place in Melissa, and the force that would reintegrate it into a new and happier pattern was not coming to her rescue. Rachel felt a fierce anger against Geoffrey, and a bafflement.
Melissa had no friends, in this household, but James and Rachel. Melissa instinctively felt the derision and hostility of the other servants, and shrank from their services and their presence. This seemed most terrible to Rachel: that Melissa should be demonstrating fear before eyes both friendly and hostile. And Rachel understood that, to Melissa, fear was a new and unrecognized emotion, as was the more powerful anguish that beset her every moment.
Had Melissa’s suffering been less deep, been even faintly self-understood or articulate, Rachel would have been able to help her with argument, reason and comfort. But it was a mute and gigantic anguish, too immense for any consolation or sympathy. Rachel could only convey her love and understanding by smiles, by a murmur, by a touch, by a great gentleness. She knew the gossip of the countryside and the household about Melissa and Ravel Littlefield, and once or twice she had wanted to warn her mistress. But one glance at that strong and uncomprehending face, and Rachel fell into impotent silence again. Melissa would not understand. She just would not understand in the least, and her bewilderment and incredulity might force her to drive Rachel from her.
“May I help you get dressed, Mrs. Dunham?” asked Rachel, in a moved voice.
Melissa wearily lifted her head. “In just a moment, Rachel,” she replied She glanced at her desk, and sighed. “So much work to be done, and I must waste time on a tea-party.”
“But, Mrs. Dunham, it was you, was it not, who extended the invitation?”
Melissa stared at her emptily. “Oh, that doesn’t matter. We never stood on ceremony at home.”
Rachel was concerned. “I think Mrs. Shaw might object,” she ventured. “She is very rigid about social manners. She would think it necessary for you to be present at a tea for your sister, Mrs. Dunham.”
Melissa nodded. “I suppose you are right, Rachel. No wonder Arabella considers me hopeless. I never remember.” She stood up and let Rachel unbutton her frock. She had become accustomed to these services and thought no more of them. Besides, the maid’s touch soothed her like the touch of a friend Rachel felt the cold and clammy flesh under her finger-tips, and again she ached with pity.
“I think, if we hurry, that I might have fifteen minutes or more to work,” said Melissa, as Rachel assisted her to dress.
Rachel turned her towards the mirror. “This new gown is so becoming, Mrs. Dunham,” she said admiringly. “The turquoise necklace and ear-rings and bangles will go excellently with the green silk streamers. And I think you should wear the green silk net over your hair, with the black bows, to match the black lace.”
Melissa glanced into the mirror. “Nothing,” she said, despairingly, “will ever make me passable in appearance. I have such an ugly face and such pale lifeless hair, and I am too tall and thin. But, then, I should not be distressed at all this. I have had my body for twenty-six years, and Papa often pointed out to me that, though I am not pleasing to look at, I at least had intelligence. Though I am beginning to doubt this, too.”
Rachel’s mouth compressed itself into a straight line. “You are a beautiful lady, Mrs. Dunham,” she said, as she had said a hundred times before without impressing Melissa. Again Melissa shook her head impatiently and commented: “You are very kind. Rachel, but you know it is not true. No wonder Mr. Dunham cannot bear to look at me.”
“I remember the evening of the day you married Mr. Dunham,” said Rachel. “You wore a blue silk frock. If you remember, ma’am, he said that you were very beautiful And you believed him, then.”
“Yes, I did. I was a fool. He was only trying to be kind. I ought to have known.” She allowed Rachel to brush and twist up her long hair. “Arabella has made me see myself as I am. She has done her best for me, to change me, but it is no use.”
Rachel listened grimly. Her mouth opened once or twice, then she closed it. But finally she said: “Mrs. Shaw is getting old, ma’am, and I have heard it said that elderly ladies do not like young and handsome ones.”
Melissa turned on her in outrage. “Rachel! How cruel of you to say that! Arabella has spent endless hours with me in an effort to teach me graces and manners and elegances! She has chosen my gowns, my laces, my ribbons, my—silks. Even you have commented on their beauty and costliness, and how they become me. How can you be so unkind?”
Rachel knew it was hopeless, so she did not reply.
Melissa, now dressed, glanced at the clock on the white mantel. It was only twenty minutes past four. Forgetting Rachel, she ran, rustling, to her desk, determined to use the last precious moments for work on her father’s almost completed manuscript. She sat down, and hastily pulled a bundle of papers from a lower drawer. She had not as yet gone through these thoroughly, though a former cursory glance had convinced her that these notes were merely redundant and contained little of what had not already been enlarged upon and included in the finished portion of the manuscript. In a moment, she was completely engrossed, rapidly skimming over page after page. She saw that many of the notes were old, for Charles had meticulously dated each one at the top. Apparently he had intended them for earlier books
, then had laid them aside to be included in later ones, not caring to discard them completely. Some of them bore dates as early as 1859 and 1860, and were worn and dog-eared.
Rachel watched her mistress helplessly. The poor young creature, with her pale thin face and slender worn hands! How busily she turned the pages and laid them aside, and how reverently she handled them. She was so engrossed that she might have been lifted bodily into a different and remote world, where no one could touch her. It was a face in a trance, a dedicated face, lost to any human contact. The bright sunlight that flooded the lovely room lay on her head as it would lie on curved gold, and made the turquoises on white neck and in white ears glow like illuminated green metal.
Melissa came upon a shorter sheet of paper. It was dated March 15, 1860. Apparently it had been crushed, tossed aside, then smoothed out, reread, and finally discarded. Whole sentences had been crossed out, others added above. Melissa studied it, puzzling over the faded writing. She glanced at the date again. Above it, she saw the words: “Midfield, State of Pennsylvania,” and below it: “Dear Geoffrey.” It was a letter, then. How had it come to be included in the papers? It was most obviously the first draft of a letter written to Geoffrey, and had only accidentally found its way into the bundle of notes. But perhaps her father had reason to keep the draft, after all. He often kept copies of important letters to his publishers, or to critics, or to other scholars. Melissa looked through it hastily, trying to find the reason for its preservation. It was some moments before the full import of the letter came to her.
“Dear Geoffrey,” Charles had written, “I have your letter of the first, and I am deeply moved by it, and by its implications of your regard for a member of my family, and your concern for her. But, as I wrote you before, when you hinted at matters more boldly expressed in your last letter, it is impossible. The girl has been well-schooled by me; she is far better educated than you realize, and if I were not an understanding friend of yours, and did not sense the kindness that prompted your letter, I might take serious offense. I do know, however, your attachment to my family, and, I humbly understand, to myself. I feel compassion in your letter. I am a proud man, and I resent compassion in others, particularly when I do not need pity or generosity, and when the girl certainly does not need it. If I should send her to the school you suggest, and on your bounty, she would most surely be driven out of her very precariously balanced mind. She is not only incurably unworldly, but she suffers from fantasies and delusions, as only a father can know, and from which only a loving and suffering father can derive so complete a despair. Imagine her in the company of graceful and handsome young females! The imagination recoils at the thought. She is not only unprepossessing by nature, but, I confess with anguish, is strangely stupid and obtuse. Consider, too, her lack of charm of face and figure, afflictions which would cause her wretchedness in contrast with others more blessed and fortunate. I have considered all these things from her earliest childhood, and have kept her with me to shield her from the world and its inevitable thrusts. And now you suggest that I expose her to all manner of agonies! You will recall that we have had many conversations on this very subject before and that, out of my own understanding of the motives that inspired you, I have expressed my gratitude for your pity for the girl and for your desire to aid her. Believe me, should I ever, in a weak moment, consent, you would long and sadly rue the day.”