MEANWHILE poor Mr. Ahlberg, condemned to the solitude of the village tavern, varied by daily visits to The Beeches and occasional ones to his acquaintances, the Pembrokes and the Berkeleys, found life tedious. He wanted to get away, but Madame Koller would not let him. Mr. Ahlberg had now, for some years, had an eye to Madame Koller’s fortune. Therefore, when she commanded him to stay, he stayed. He regarded her infatuation for Pembroke as a kind of temporary insanity, which would in time be cured, and that he would be the physician and would marry his patient afterward.
As for Madame Koller, she was wretched, anxious, everything but bored. That she was not—she was too miserable. Like Ahlberg, she thought herself almost a lunatic. Hers was not the folly of a guileless girl, but the deep-seated and unspeakable folly of a matured woman. When M. Koller died she had regarded herself as one of the most fortunate women in the world. Still young, rich, pretty, what more could she ask? The world had almost forgotten, if it ever knew, that she had had a stage career, when stage careers were not the most desirable things in the world. She had done her duty as well as she knew it by the dead and gone Koller, who, in consideration of leaving her a comfortable fortune, had made her life a torment upon earth. Just when she was preparing to enjoy her liberty she had found herself enslaved by her own act as it were. Sometimes she asked herself contemptuously what Pembroke could give her if she married him, in exchange for liberty which she prized, and answered herself with the wisdom of the world. Again she reasoned with herself and got for answer the wildest folly a girl of sixteen could imagine. With him was everything—without him was nothing. And his indifference piqued her. She truly believed him quite callous to any woman, and she had often heard him say that he had no intention of marrying. Pembroke, returning to the life of a country gentleman after four years’ campaigning, followed by a time of thoughtless pleasure, mixed with the pain of defeat, of the misery of seeing Miles forever wretched, broken in fortune, though not in spirit, found Madame Koller’s society quite fascinating enough. But he was not so far gone that he did not see the abyss before him. On the one hand was money and luxury and pleasure and idleness and Madame Koller, with her blonde hair and her studied graces and her dramatic singing—and on the other was work and perhaps poverty, and a dull provincial existence. But then he would be a man—and if he married Madame Koller he would not be a man. It is no man’s part to live solely for any woman, and nobody knew that better than French Pembroke. Of course, he knew that he could marry her—the love-making, such as it was, had been chiefly on the lady’s part. He was angry beyond measure with her when she appeared upon the scene. He wished to try life without Madame Koller. But when she came she certainly drew him often to The Beeches. There was but one other woman in the county who really interested him. This was Olivia Berkeley, and she was uncertain and hard to please. It was undeniably pleasant to ride over to The Beeches on winter afternoons and find Madame Koller in a cosy sitting room before a wood fire, and to have her read to him and sing to him. Sometimes he wondered how he ever came away unpledged. Again, he faintly blamed himself for going—but if he remained away Madame Koller sent for him and reproached him bitterly. She knew quite as much of the world as he did—and he was no mean proficient—and was two or three years older than he besides. But it was an unsatisfactory existence to him. He felt when he went from Madame Koller’s presence into Olivia’s like going from a ball room out into the clear moonlit night. To be on his guard always against a woman, to try and make the best of an anomalous condition, was offensive to his naturally straightforward mind. It relieved him to be with Olivia, even though occasionally she treated him cavalierly. This last he positively relished as a luxury.
Ahlberg he hated. Yet they were scrupulously polite to each other, and Ahlberg occasionally dined with him at Malvern.
One day he met Ahlberg in the road near the village. Ahlberg had a gun and a full game-bag slung over his shoulder.
“You have had good luck,” said Pembroke.
“Very,” answered Ahlberg, with his peculiar smile. “I saw nothing to shoot, but I met two blacks, and for a trifle I bought all this. I am not a sportsman like you. I go for a walk—I take my gun. I want a few birds for an entrée. It matters very little where I get them.”
“What we call a pot hunter,” remarked Pembroke, laughing at what he considered great simplicity on Ahlberg’s part. For his own part, his instincts of sport made him consider Ahlberg’s method of securing an entrée as but little better than sheep stealing. Ahlberg did not quite take in what manner of sport pot hunting was, nor the contumely visited upon a pot hunter, and so was not offended.
“Will you not come to The Beeches to-morrow evening and dine with us on these birds?” he asked. “This is my party, not Elise’s, who is ill with a distressing cold. I have asked the Reverend Cole too, and Hibbs and some others, and we will have a ‘jollitime’ as you Americans and English say.”
Pembroke agreed, he scarcely knew why, particularly as he seldom dined at The Beeches, and never before at Ahlberg’s invitation.
Next evening therefore with Mr. Cole and Mr. Hibbs and young Peyton and two or three others Pembroke found himself in the great, gloomy dining room at The Beeches. Neither Madame Koller nor Madame Schmidt were present. The cold was a real cold. Madame Koller was on the sofa in her sitting room, and if she felt strong enough, sent word to the guests she would see them in the drawing-room later on. The round table though, in the middle of the room, looked cheerful enough, and on the sideboard was an array of long-necked bottles such as Pembroke had never seen for so small a party.
Ahlberg was an accomplished diner out—but that is something different from a good diner at home. He was graceful and attentive, but he lacked altogether the Anglo-Saxon good fellowship. He tucked a napkin under his chin, discussed ménus with much gravity, and referred too often to Hans, a nondescript person whom Madame Koller had brought from Vienna, and who was cook, butler, major-domo and valet in one—and highly accomplished in all. Pembroke was rather disgusted with too much conversation of this sort:
“Hans, you are too pronounced with your truffles. There should be a hint—a mere suspicion—”
“Yes, monsieur. But madame likes truffles. Every day it is ‘Hans, you are too sparing of your truffles.’”
“This salmi is really charming. Hans, I shall put it down in my note book.”
“I can give monsieur admirable salmis of pigeons as well as duck.”
Pembroke, impelled by a spirit of perverseness, declined everything Ahlberg and Hans united in praising, and confined himself solely to port, a wine he did not much care for, and which both Ahlberg and Hans reprobated in the strongest terms.
Not so Mr. Cole. He went religiously through the ménu, praising and exclaiming, and keeping up a fusillade of compliments like the chorus in a Greek play. Nor did he forget the long-necked bottles. At first he positively declined anything but claret. But obeying a look from Ahlberg, Hans filled the clergyman’s glass with champagne. Mr. Cole laughed and blushed, but on being good naturedly rallied by his companions, especially Mr. Hibbs, he consented to one—only one glass. But this was followed by a second, poured out when Mr. Cole was looking another way—and presently as Hans by degrees slyly filled the half dozen wine glasses at his plate, Mr. Cole began with an air of perfect unconsciousness to taste them all. Soon his face flushed, and by the time the dinner was half over, Mr. Cole was half over the line of moderation too. He became convivial, and even affectionate. Pembroke, who had looked on the little clergyman’s first glass of champagne with a smile, began to feel sorry for him, and a very profound contempt for his entertainer. Hans and his pseudo-master evidently understood each other, and exchanged glances oftener than master and man usually do. As the clergyman became more free in his talk, Ahlberg looked at Pembroke with a foxy smile, but received only a cool stare in return. Pembroke was a jolly companion enough, but this deliberately making a gentleman, weak as he might be, but still a gentleman, drunk in a woman’s house struck him as not the most amusing thing in the world. Ahlberg, however, seemed to enjoy the state of affairs, and though he had no sympathy from Pembroke or young Peyton, Mr. Hibbs and one or two others appreciated it highly.
“Ah, Mr. Cole,” he cried, “you know how to dine, I see you do. You would not discredit the Trois Frères itself. Hans, more Chablis.”
Poor Cole’s eyes twinkled. He loved to be thought a man of the world.
“Couldn’t you give us a song, Mr. Cole?” continued Ahlberg, laughing, “English and American fashion, you know. Something about wine and mirth.”
Mr. Cole smiled coquettishly, and cleared his throat.
“Perhaps I might try ‘The Heart Bowed Down With Weight of Woe,’” said he.
“Yes—yes—”
“Or, ‘Then You’ll Remember Me.’ That’s more sentimental—more suited for the occasion.”
“‘Then You’ll Remember Me,’ by all means. Gentlemen, a chorus.”
Mr. Cole, placing his hand upon his heart, after having drained another glass of champagne, began in a weak and rather shaky voice,
“‘When other lips and other hearts
Their tales of love shall tell.’
“Gentlemen, I’m not in good voice to-night.
“‘In language whose excess imparts
The power they feel so well;
When hollow hearts shall wear a mask,’
“Here, Hans, old boy, I’ll take another glass of Chablis—
“‘’Twill break your own to see,
In such a moment I but a—a—a—sk
That you’ll remember me.’”
Here a tremendous chorus, led by Mr. Ahlberg, broke in, accompanied with much pounding on the table, and a rhythmic jingling of glasses:
“Then you’ll remember me, boys,
Then you’ll remember me.”
Mr. Cole, very much annoyed and preposterously dignified, began to protest.
“Gentlemen—er—beloved brethren, I mean gentlemen, this song is a sentimental one—a sentimental song, d’ye hear—and does not admit of a convivial chorus. Now, I’ll give you the last verse over.”
Mr. Cole, looking lackadaisically at the ceiling, began again. When he reached the last line, again an uproarious chorus took the words out of his mouth. He rose, and steadying himself on his feet, implored silence in pantomime. In vain. Ahlberg and Hibbs with shouts and yells of laughter carried the chorus through. Pembroke could not but laugh, but he said to the little clergyman, in a tone subdued but authoritative:
“Sit down, Cole.”
Mr. Cole glanced fiercely at him. “Were it not for my cloth, sir, you—you’d—receive personal chastisement for that remark,” he responded angrily; but comparing his own slender figure with Pembroke’s length and strength, he plaintively continued:
“But I’m afraid you could lick me, Pembroke. You always did at school, you know.”
Pembroke made no reply. He was no anchorite. He had sometimes found amusement in low company in low places—but low company in better places disgusted him. Besides, Cole was an honest little fellow, and not half such a fool as he appeared—and he had a conscience, and Pembroke began to feel sorry already for the pain poor Cole would have to endure.
But Cole was not the only subject of amusement. Ahlberg, now that his dinner was over, considered conversation in order—and began to give his views on things in general, upon which young Hibbs and young Peyton and the others hung with delight. Pembroke therefore thinking it well to get Cole out of the way while he could yet walk, suggested that he should escape for a breath of fresh air—to which Cole assented, and might have slipped out unnoticed, but for his assumption of a lofty stride, which would have landed him on the floor but for a timely arm from Hans.
The fun grew fast and furious, and everybody at the table was flushed except Ahlberg and Pembroke. Ahlberg drank as much as anybody, but his delicate hand was as steady, and his cold blue eyes as clear as if it had been water from the well he was drinking. Pembroke did not drink much and remained cool and smiling.
After an hour or two had passed, he began to be intensely bored by Mr. Hibbs’ songs, who now became the minstrel, Ahlberg’s long stories and young Peyton’s jokes—and besides he wondered at Mr. Cole’s absence. So in the midst of a lively discussion, he quietly left his seat and went out.
In the hall several doors opened—but from the drawing-room door came a flood of light, and voices. He heard Madame Koller’s somewhat shrill tones saying:
“But Mr. Cole, I cannot marry you—fancy me—”
“Darling Eliza,” cried Mr. Cole, in a maudlin, tipsy voice. “I know you love me. Your partiality—”
Pembroke made two strides to the door. Just as he reached it, he saw a tableau. Mr. Cole, whose head just reached to Madame Koller’s shoulder, had seized her by the waist and was saying:
“One kiss—only one, my darling!”
Madame Koller raised her hand—it was large and strong and white—and brought it down upon the clergyman’s cheek with a thundering whack that would have knocked him down, but for another slap she administered on the other side. Pembroke had not been in time to save him, but he caught Cole by the collar, and picking him up as if he had been a baby, set him out of the way.
Madame Koller was raging. She stamped her foot and clinched her hands and ground her teeth with passion.
“Come, Madame Koller,” said Pembroke, sternly, “there is no occasion for this sort of thing. The little fool is tipsy—of course you see it. You ought not to have had anything to say to him.”
But Madame Koller would not be pacified. It was not the liberty he had tried to take which most infuriated her, she inadvertently declared, but the idea that she, Elise Koller, would marry a country parson. She raved. What! She, Elise Koller, born a Peyton, should condescend to that ridiculous person? What would her aunt, Sally Peyton, say to it? What would the shade of the departed Koller say to it? She had been civil to him, and forsooth, he had come, like a thief in the night, and proposed to marry her—her, who might have married a duke—a prince—anybody. Madame Koller was very mad, and used just the extravagant and hysterical language that people of her type do sometimes.
As for Mr. Cole, those two slaps had sobered him as instantly and as completely as anything could. He sat bolt upright on the sofa, while Pembroke with a half smile of contempt in his face that really exasperated Madame Koller more than poor Cole had done, listened to her tirade. What a virago the woman was, to be sure. But how handsome she was too!
“Pembroke,” said poor Cole, rising and coming forward, looking quite pale and desperate, “don’t try to excuse me. I don’t deserve any excuse. I mean to write to the bishop to-morrow and make a clean breast of it—and any punishment he may inflict, or any mortification I may have to endure because of this, I’ll take like a man. Madame Koller, I humbly ask your pardon. I hardly knew what I was doing.”
“To get drunk in my house,” was Madame Koller’s reply.
“Hardly that,” said Pembroke, quietly. “Made drunk by your precious cousin, Ahlberg.”
“I’ll send Louis away if you desire me,” cried Madame Koller, eagerly.
“I desire nothing of the kind. It is no affair of mine. Come, Cole, you’ve done the best you could by apologizing. I’ll see that those fellows say nothing about it. Good evening, Madame Koller.”
“Must you go, Pembroke—now—”
“Immediately. Good-bye,” and in two minutes he and Cole were out of the house.