The Berkeleys and Their Neighbors by Molly Elliot Seawell - HTML preview

CHAPTER XIX.

THE quaint old house, and the straggling, half-kept grounds at Isleham were never lovelier than that spring. Sometimes the extreme quiet and repose had weighed upon Olivia’s spirits as it would upon any other young and vigorous nature. But now she had a good deal of a certain sort of excitement. She was country-bred, and naturally turned to the country for any home feeling she might have. The Colonel and Petrarch were a little bored at first. Both missed the social life at Washington. Pete had been a success in his own circle. His ruffled shirt-front, copied from his master’s, had won infinite respect among his own color. As for the natty white footmen and coachmen, their opinion and treatment, even their jeers, he regarded with lofty indifference, and classed them as among the poorest of poor white trash.

His religion, too, had struck terror to those of the Washington darkies to whom he had had a chance to expound it. His liberal promises of eternal damnation, “an’ sizzlin’ an’ fryin’ in perdition, wid de devil bastin’ ’em wid de own gravy,” had not lost force even through much repetition. “Ole marse,” Petrarch informed Olivia, “he cuss ’bout dem dam towns, an’ say he aint had nuttin’ fittin’ ter eat sence he lef’ Verginny. Ole marse, he jis’ maraudin’ an’ cussin’ ’cause he aint got nuttin’ ter do. I lay he gwi’ back naix’ year. Ef he does, I got some preachments ter make ter dem wuffless niggers d’yar, totin’ de sins ’roun’ like twuz’ gol’ an’ silver.”

It seemed as if Olivia were destined to suffer a good deal of secret mortification on Pembroke’s account. That last neglect of his had cut her to the soul. She had waked up to the fact, however, that Pembroke had taken his first rebuff in good earnest, and that nothing was left for her but that hollow pretense of friendship which men and women who have been, or have desired to be, more to each other, must affect. It was rather a painful and uncomfortable feeling to take around with her, when listening to Mrs. Peyton’s vigorous talk, or the Rev. Mr. Cole’s harmless sermons, and still more harmless conversation. But it was there, and it was unconquerable, and she must simply adjust the burden that she might bear it.

The county was full of talk about Pembroke’s speech. The older people were sure that some information of his father’s great speeches in their court-house about 1849 must have reached Washington, and that Pembroke’s future was predicated upon them. Then there was a good deal in the newspapers about it. The Richmond papers printed the speech in full, together with a genealogical sketch of his family since the first Pembroke came over, with a grant of land from Charles the Second in his pocket. Likewise, Pembroke’s success was attributed almost wholly to his ancestry, and he himself was considered to have had a merely nominal share in it.

It was the long session of Congress, and there was no talk of Pembroke’s returning to the county. Whenever he did come, though, it was determined to give him a public dinner.

One afternoon in May, about the same time of year that Pembroke and Olivia had had their pointed conversation in the garden, Olivia was trimming her rose-bushes. She was a famous gardener, and a part of every morning and afternoon she might have been found looking after her shrubs and flowers. Sometimes, with a small garden hoe, she might have been seen hoeing vigorously, much to Petrarch’s disgust, who remonstrated vainly.

“Miss ’Livy, yo’ mar never did no sech a thing. When she want hoein’ done, she sen’ fur Susan’s Torm, an’ Simon Peter an’ Unc’ Silas’ Jake. She didn’t never demean herself wid no hoe in her han’.”

“But I haven’t got Susan’s Tom, nor Simon Peter nor Uncle Silas’ Jake. And besides, I am doing it because I like it.”

“Fur Gord A’mighty’s sake, Miss ’Livy, doan’ lemme hear dat none o’ de Berkeleys likes fur ter wuk. De Berkeleys allus wuz de gentlefolks o’ de county. Didn’t none on ’em like ter wuk. Ketch ole marse wukkin! Gord warn’t conjurin’ ’bout de fust families when He say, ‘By de sweat o’ de brow dey shall scuffle fer de vittals.’ He mos’ p’intedly warn’t studyin’ ’bout de Berkeleys, ’kase dey got dat high an’ mighty sperrit dey lay down an’ starve ’fo’ dey disqualify deyselfs by wukkin’.”

But Olivia stuck bravely to her plebeian amusement. On this particular afternoon she was not hoeing. She was merely snipping off straggling wisps from the great rose-trees—old-fashioned “maiden’s blush,” and damasks. She was thinking, as, indeed, she generally did when she found herself employed in that way, of Pembroke and that unlucky afternoon six years ago.

Before she knew it Pembroke was advancing up the garden walk. In a moment they were shaking hands with a great assumption of friendliness. Olivia could not but wonder if he remembered the similarity between that and just such another spring afternoon in the same place. Pembroke looked remarkably well and seemed in high spirits.

“The Colonel was out riding—and I did not need Pete’s directions to know that you were very likely pottering among your flowers at this time.”

“Pottering is such a senile kind of a word—you make me feel I am in my dotage. Doddering is the next step to pottering. And this, I remember, is the first chance I have had to congratulate you in person on your speech. Papa gives your father and your grandfather the whole credit. I asked him, however, when he wrote you to give my congratulations.”

“Which he did. It was a very cold and clammy way of felicitating a friend.”

Olivia said nothing, but she could not restrain an almost imperceptible lifting of the brows.

“The result of that speech has been,” continued Pembroke, after a little pause, “that I am in public life to stay as long as I can. That means that I shall never be a rich man. Honest men, in these times, don’t get rich on politics.”

A brilliant blush came into Olivia’s face at that. In the midst of suggestive circumstances Pembroke seemed determined to add suggestive remarks.

“But I hardly think you could take that into consideration,” she answered, after a moment. “A man’s destiny is generally fixed by his talents. You will probably not make a great fortune, but you may make a great reputation—and to my way of thinking the great reputation is the more to be coveted.”

“Did you always think so?”

“Always.”

Then there came an awkward pause. Olivia was angry with him for asking the first question, but Pembroke seemed determined to pursue it.

“Even when I asked you to marry me on this very spot, six years ago? Then I understood that you could not marry a poor man.”

“Then,” said Olivia, calmly, and facing him, “you very much misunderstood me. I did think, as I think now, that poverty is a weight about the neck of a public man. But I can say truthfully, that it was your ability to cope with it, rather than mine, that I feared.”

“And it seems to me,” said Pembroke, calmly, “on looking back, that I was a little too aggressive—that I put rather a forced construction on what you said—and that I was very angry.”

“I was angry, too—and it has angered me every time I have thought of it in these six years, that I was made to appear mercenary, when I am far from it—that a mere want of tact and judgment should have marked me in your esteem—or anybody else’s, for that matter—as a perfectly cold and calculating woman.”

She was certainly very angry now.

“But if I was wrong,” said Pembroke, in a low, clear voice—for he used the resources of his delightful voice on poor Olivia as he had done on many men and some women before—“I have paid the price. The humiliation and the pangs of six years ago were much—and then, the feeling that, after all, there was but one woman in the world for me—ah, Olivia, sometimes I think you do not know how deep is the hold you took upon me. You would have seen in all these years, that however I might try, I could not forget you.”

Olivia was not implacable.

When they came in the house, the Colonel was come, and in a gale of good humor. He had, however, great fault to find with Pembroke’s course. He was too conciliatory—too willing to forget the blood shed upon the battlefields of Virginia—and then and there they entered upon a political discussion which made the old-fashioned mirrors on the drawing-room wall ring again. The Colonel brought down his fist and raved. “By Jove, sir, this is intolerable. My black boy, Petrarch (Petrarch continued to be the Colonel’s boy), knows more about the subject than you do; and he’s the biggest fool I ever saw. I’ll be hanged, sir, if your statements are worth refuting.” Pembroke withstood the sortie gallantly, and at intervals charged the enemy in splendid style, reducing the Colonel to oaths and splutterings and despair.

Olivia sat in a low chair by the round mahogany table, on which the old-fashioned lamp burned softly, casting mellow lights and shades upon her graceful figure. Occasionally a faint smile played about her eyes—whereat Pembroke seemed to gain inspiration, and attacked the Colonel’s theories with renewed vigor.

Upon the Colonel’s invitation he remained all night—the common mode of social intercourse in Virginia. Next morning, the Colonel was ripe for argument. Pembroke, however, to his immense disgust, refused to enter the lists and spent the morning dawdling with Olivia in the garden. About noon, the Colonel, in a rage sent Petrarch after the renegades. Three times did he return without them. The fourth time Petrarch’s patience was exhausted.

“Marse French, fur de Lord’s sake come ter ole marse. He done got de sugar in de glasses, an’ de ice cracked up, an’ he fyarly stan’nin’ on he hade. He got out all dem ole yaller Richmun Exameters, printed fo’ de wah, an’ he say he gwi’ bust yo’ argifyins’ all ter pieces. He mighty obstroporous, an’ you better come along.”

To this pathetic appeal Pembroke at last responded. Olivia, with downcast face, walked by his side. The Colonel was very much worked up and “mighty discontemptuous,” as Petrarch expressed it.

“This is the third time, sir—” he began to roar.

“Never mind, Colonel,” replied Pembroke, laughing. “We will have a plenty of time to quarrel. Olivia has promised to marry me in the summer.”

“By Gad, sir—”

“Have a cigar. Now, where did we leave off last night? Oh, the Virginia Resolutions of 1798.”

END