A Prologue To Love Read Online Free PDF

bought herself from her meager wage. Caroline had never been truly hungry and had never relished any meal. Her palate was so blunted that on the twice-yearly occasions of her visits to her Aunt Cynthia on Beacon Street she could not enjoy the splendid and delicately flavored food. It seemed very odd to her that anyone could eat pheasant with chestnut dressing, wine-flavored sauces, roast meat and peculiar vegetables, such as artichokes under glass, and glacés, and rich fruit cakes, and coffee floating in cream touched with brandy.
     
    In the way of old people, Kate became drowsy after supper and forgot that she must admonish Caroline. So at eight o’clock Beth took Caroline’s hand and led her from the room, carrying a half-burned candle in an old brass holder. The narrow hall outside the parlor was as black and cold as death, whistling with the wind that penetrated the thousand cracks in the ancient house. The faint candlelight shifted in these drafts, showing the unpolished floor, on which there was no carpeting, and the shut door of the dining room that reflected back no gleam of burnished wood. The woman and the child hurried up the echoing stairs, which trembled under their tread. They reached a long thin hall with closed doors; a mouse squeaked away from them, and Beth jumped. The little beams of the candle flickered in the musty gloom; the house smelled of mold and mice and bad drains and memories of boiled cabbage. The damp walls were peeling, the timeless wallpaper of roses and leaves dripping slightly with sea dampness. Beth opened a door, and the air that gushed out at her was bitterly arctic.
     
    The room they entered was small, with a high cracked ceiling. The walls had been only plastered more than forty years ago; they were discolored with damp to a soiled gray. Here, also, there were no carpets; the small window was uncurtained, with only shutters to keep out the night and the early sun. A narrow bed with no counterpane stood in the center of the room, its thin cheap blankets smooth, its pillowcases very white from Beth’s scrubbing. A chest of drawers, with the varnish warped upon it, lurked against a wall, and there was one single rush chair near the bed. This was Caroline’s room, no better and no worse than the other bedrooms, and without heat of any kind.
     
    Beth put the candlestick on the chair, for the room had no table. “Lord,” she said, “we’ll have to get to bed in a hurry, won’t we, dear? Now, let me help you get undressed.” Caroline was ten years old, but Beth loved these ministrations, which filled her lonely heart with affection. She stripped off Caroline’s wool plaid dress — an ugly plaid of serviceable serge bought two years ago — and then the girl’s knitted petticoats and woolen drawers and darned cotton stockings. The child stood before her, hugging her thick body for warmth, while Beth shook out the flannel nightgown which she had folded in the morning under the pillows. The flannel had once been white; it was now yellow from countless washings. “There,” said Beth, dropping the too short garment over Caroline’s shoulders and smoothing it down with the gentlest hands. “Now we’ll be comfortable. Get into bed, sweetheart, and I’ll hear your prayers.”
     
    But Caroline, who seldom spoke, now wished to talk. “I like Tom,” she said shyly. “He’s awfully funny, but I like him. He swears. I like to hear him swear.”
     
    “Boys shouldn’t swear,” said Beth, without reproof, however. “Tom’s a good boy. He was just bragging to you, the way boys brag to girls. I’m glad you like him.” Beth tucked the blankets closely about Caroline’s chin. Then she sat in the candlelight and smiled at the child, putting the candle on the floor, repressing her shivers.
     
    “I do like him,” said Caroline, and her child’s voice, naturally husky and slow, trembled a little. “Not the way I like Papa.” Beth smoothed the long thin braids of dark hair.