DOES anybody ever ask what becomes of the prime donne who break down early? Madame Koller could have told something about their miseries, from the first struggling steps up to the pinnacle when they can fight with managers, down again to the point when the most dreadful sound that nature holds—so she thought—a hiss—laid them figuratively among the dead. Nature generally works methodically, but in Madame Koller’s case, she seemed to take a delight in producing grapes from thorns. Without one atom of artistic heredity, surroundings or atmosphere to draw upon, Eliza Peyton had come into the world an artist. She had a voice, and she grew up with the conviction that there was nothing in the world but voices and pianos. It is not necessary to repeat how in her girlhood, by dint of her widowed mother marrying a third rate German professor, she got to Munich and to Milan—nor how the voice, at first astonishingly pure and beautiful, suddenly lost its pitch, then disappeared altogether. It is true that after a time it came back to her partially. She could count on it for an hour at a time, but no more. Of course there was no longer any career for her, and she nearly went crazy with grief—then she consoled herself with M. Koller, an elderly Swiss manufacturer. In some way, although she was young and handsome and accomplished, she found in her continental travels that the best Americans and English avoided the Kollers. This she rashly attributed to the fact of her having had a brief professional career, and she became as anxious to conceal it as she had once been anxious to pursue it. M. Koller was a hypochondriac, and went from Carlsbad to Wiesbaden, from Wiesbaden to Hyéres, from Hyéres to Aix-les-Bains. He was always fancying himself dying, but one day at Vichy, death came quite unceremoniously and claimed him just as he had made up his mind to get well. Thus Eliza Koller found herself a widow, still young and handsome, with a comfortable fortune, and a negative mother to play propriety. She went straight to Paris as soon as the period of her mourning was over. It was then toward the latter part of the civil war in America, and there were plenty of Southerners in Paris. There she met Colonel Berkeley and Olivia, and for the first time in her adult life, she had a fixed place in society—there was a circle in which she was known.
What most troubled her, was what rôle to take up—whether she should be an American, a French woman, an Italian, a German, or a cosmopolitan. For she was like all, and was distinctively none. In Paris at that time, she met a cousin of her late husband—Mr. Ahlberg, also a Swiss, but in the Russian diplomatic service. He was a sixth Secretary of Legation, and had hard work making his small salary meet his expenses. He was a handsome man, very blonde, and extremely well-dressed. Madame Koller often wondered if his tailor were not a very confiding person. For Ahlberg’s part, he sincerely liked his cousin, as he called her, and quite naturally slipped into the position of a friend of the family. Everything perhaps would have been arranged to his satisfaction, if just at that time the war had not closed, and French Pembroke and his brother came to Paris that the surgeons might work upon poor Miles. They could not but meet often at the Berkeleys, and Pembroke, it must be admitted, was not devoid of admiration for the handsome Madame Koller, who had the divine voice—when she could be persuaded to sing, which was not often. He had been rather attentive to her, much to Ahlberg’s disgust. And to Ahlberg’s infinite rage, Madame Koller fell distinctly and unmistakably in love with Pembroke. If Ahlberg had only known the truth, Pembroke was really the first gentleman that poor Madame Koller had ever known intimately since her childhood in Virginia. Certainly the wildest stretch of imagination could not call the late Koller a gentleman, and even Ahlberg himself, although a member of the diplomatic corps, hardly came under that description.
Pembroke had a kind of hazy idea that widows could take care of themselves. Besides, he was not really in love with her—only a little dazzled by her voice and her yellow hair. His wrath may be imagined when after a considerable wrench in tearing himself away from Paris, and when he had begun to regard Olivia Berkeley with that lofty approval which sometimes precedes love making, to return to Virginia, and in six weeks to find Madame Schmidt and Madame Koller established at their old place, The Beeches, and Ahlberg, who had been their shadow for two years, living at the village tavern. He felt that this following him, on the part of Madame Koller, made him ridiculous. He was mortally afraid of being laughed at about it. Instead of holding his own stoutly in acrid discussions with Colonel Berkeley, Pembroke began to be afraid of the old gentleman’s pointed allusions to the widow. He even got angry with poor little Miles when the boy ventured upon a little sly chaff. As for Olivia Berkeley, she took Madame Koller’s conduct in coming to Virginia in high dudgeon, with that charming inconsequence of noble and inexperienced women. What particular offense it gave her, beyond the appearance of following Pembroke, which was shocking to her good taste, she could not have explained to have saved her life. But with Madame Koller she took a tone of politeness, sweet yet chilly, like frozen cream—and the same in a less degree, toward Pembroke. She seemed to say, “Odious and underbred as this thing is, I, you see, can afford to be magnanimous.” Colonel Berkeley chuckled at this on the part of his daughter, as he habitually did at the innocent foibles of his fellow creatures. It was very innocent, very feminine, and very exasperating.
Nevertheless, within a week the big landau was drawn up, and Colonel Berkeley and his daughter set forth, en grand tenue, with Petrarch on the box, to call on Madame Koller. The Colonel had never ceased teasing his daughter to go. Time hung heavy on his hands, and although he had not found Madame Koller particularly captivating elsewhere, and Madame Schmidt bored him to death upon the few occasions when she appeared, yet, when he was at Isleham, the ladies at The Beeches assumed quite a fascinating aspect to his imagination. The Colonel had a private notion of his own that Madame Koller had been a little too free with her income, and that a year’s retirement would contribute to the health of her finances. Olivia, however, believed that Madame Koller had but one object in returning to America, and that was because Pembroke had come. She remembered one evening in Paris, Pembroke had “dropped in,” American fashion. The doctors had then said that nothing could be done to restore poor Miles to comeliness—and meanwhile, another blow had fallen upon the two brothers. Their only sister, Elizabeth, a handsome, high spirited girl, older than they, had died—and there had been a violent breach between her and their father to which death alone put a truce. When the country was overrun with troops, a Federal officer had protected the plantation as far as he could, had saved the old father from the consequences of his own rash conduct, and had taken a deep and tender interest in the daughter. This was enough to blast Elizabeth’s life. She gave up her lover—silently, but with a strange unyielding gentleness, she kept aloof from her father. She was not condemned to suffer long. The unhappy father followed her swiftly to the old burying ground at Malvern. Men commonly seek distraction in griefs. Pembroke was like the rest. He was popular, especially among the English colony where his love of sports and manly accomplishments made him a favorite—to say nothing of that prestige, which attaches to a man who has seen service. He had gone into the war a lieutenant, and had come out as major of his ragged, half-starved regiment. Therefore when Pembroke idled and amused himself in Paris, for some time Olivia could only feel sympathy for him. She knew well enough that his means were small and the company he kept was liable to diminish them—but after a while, she began to feel a hot indignation against him. So on this particular evening, the Colonel falling asleep opportunely, she took occasion to express her opinion to Pembroke, that their ruined country needed the presence and the service of every man she could call her own. Pembroke defended himself warmly at first. He came for Miles’ sake—the boy whom he had thought safe at school, and who ran away in the very last days of the war to enlist—and almost the last shot that was fired—so Pembroke said bitterly—disfigured the boy as he now was. Miles had been eager to come, although Pembroke was convinced from the beginning that neither the French, nor any other surgeons could repair the work of that shot. He admitted that the boy had borne the final decision with great manliness and courage “for such a little chap,” the elder brother said fondly. When pressed hard by Olivia about returning home, Pembroke though had no resource but epigrams.
“At all events,” she said presently, with a pretty air of heroism, “Papa and I are going home just as soon as papa can do without his crutch. Papa is a patriot, although he does talk so remarkably sometimes.”
“Then, after you have got back, you can let me know how you like Virginia as it is, and perhaps I will follow,” he answered, laughing in a very exasperating way, Olivia thought. But when the Berkeleys got home they found that the Pembrokes had arrived some weeks before them—and soon afterward Madame Koller and her mother turned up quite unexpectedly at their deserted old place, only to be followed shortly after by Ahlberg, who, from his abode at the village tavern rode over every day on a sorry nag, to see Madame Koller.
Imagine all this in a provincial country neighborhood!
Mr. Cole, the clergyman of Petsworth parish, was a bachelor, a small, neatly-featured person, suspected of High Church leanings. The Colonel had bluntly inquired of him if he intended to call on Madame Koller.
“Hardly, I think, sir,” responded Mr. Cole, with much severity. “She has not once been to church since she returned to the county—and she only two miles off—and I hear that she and her friend Mr. Ahlberg play billiards all day long Sunday, when they are not playing cards.”
“Only the more reason for you to convert the heathen, ha! ha!” answered the Colonel—“and let me tell you, Cole, if you hadn’t been a clergyman, you would have been a regular slayer among the women—and the heathen in this case is about as pretty a heathen as you can find in the State of Virginia, sir.”
Evidently these remarks made a great impression on Mr. Cole, for on the sunny afternoon, when Colonel Berkeley and Olivia drove up to the door of The Beeches, they saw a clerical looking figure disappear ahead of them within the doorway.
“The parson’s here, by Jove,” chuckled the Colonel.
The house was modern and rather showy. Inside there were evidences that Madame Koller was not devoid of taste or money either. The Berkeleys were ushered into a big square drawing-room, where, seated in a high-backed chair, with his feet barely touching the floor, was the little clergyman.
“Why, Cole, I am deuced glad you took my advice,” cried the Colonel, advancing with outstretched hand and with a kind of hearty good fellowship that pleased Mr. Cole, and yet frightened him a little. He was a good soul and divided his small salary with his mother, but he thought Colonel Berkeley’s society rather dangerous for a clergyman. He used too many expletives, and was altogether too free in his notions of what a churchman should be—for the Colonel was a stanch churchman, and would have sworn like a pirate at anybody who questioned his orthodoxy.
“Doing missionary work, hay, Mr. Cole?” continued Colonel Berkeley, while Olivia and Mr. Cole shook hands.
A faint pink mounted into the clergyman’s face. His curiosity had got the better of him, but the excellent little man fancied it was his Christian charity that won the victory.
“Well, Colonel,” he begun, “upon reflection I concluded it was my duty to call on Madame Koller. I wasn’t in this parish—in fact, I wasn’t ordained at the time Madame Koller was Miss Eliza Peyton, and Madame Schmidt was Mrs. Edward Peyton. And being the niece of my excellent friend—Mrs. Sally Peyton—”
“Excellent friend, eh—well, don’t you trust Sally Peyton too far, my good fellow. She was a mighty uncertain kind of a friend thirty or forty years ago—not that I have any particular reason for saying so. But you are quite right in paying your respects to Eliza Peyton—I mean Madame Koller, and I only hope she’ll find our society agreeable enough to stay here.”
A considerable wait ensued. Olivia had begun to wonder how long it took Madame Koller to make a complete toilet, when a white hand moved the curtain from a doorway, and noiselessly and gently Madame Koller entered.
She was heartily glad to see them—their call was not very prompt, but it would have been a cruel mortification had they omitted to come. Olivia’s hand she pressed—so she did the Colonel’s—and also Mr. Cole’s, who colored quite violently, although he struggled for self-possession.
“We are very glad you have come,” said Olivia, with her sweetest affability, “you will be a great acquisition to the neighborhood. You see, I am already beginning to think more of our own neighborhood than all the rest of the universe.”
“Thank you for your kindness,” answered Madame Koller, with equal cordiality. The two women, however, did not cease to examine each other like gladiators.
“And Mr. Cole, I think you were not here when I lived at The Beeches as a girl.”
“No, madam,” replied Mr. Cole, who had now shaded from a red to a pink.
“And did I not have the pleasure of seeing you at the Campdown races the other day?”
Mr. Cole turned pale and nearly dropped off his chair. The Colonel roared out his pleasant cheery laugh.
“No madam, you did not.” Mr. Cole made his denial so emphatic that he was ashamed of himself for it afterwards.
“But you, Miss Berkeley, were there. My cousin Ahlberg saw you. He praised you. He complimented you. ‘I have often seen that face,’ he said. ‘There are some faces which one remembers even in the whirl of the greatest cities. I drive around the Bois de Boulogne—once—twice—three times. I speak to a hundred friends. I see a thousand faces. They pass before me like shadows of the night. One face strikes me. It rises like a star from out the sea. Ah, I exclaim, ‘here is another photograph for my mental portrait gallery.’”
Neither the Colonel nor Olivia was fully prepared to accept Ahlberg. Consequently, Madame Koller’s remark was received with a cool smile by Olivia—and a sniff by the Colonel. But Mr. Cole was quite carried away by Madame Koller’s declamatory manner, and her really beautiful voice.
“What a gift of tongues,” he said. “Madame Koller, if a—er—public speaker—a religious instructor had your felicity of expression—”
“I trust,” answered Madame, “some time to have the pleasure of hearing your felicity of expression. I am not what you call a Christian. I believe in a system of ultimate good—a philosophy if you will—”
“Yes, yes,” cordially chimed in Colonel Berkeley with something dangerously like a wink, “I knew Madame, as soon as I saw you that you believed in a system. It’s very useful and elastic and philosophic.”
Madame playfully waved her hand at the colonel, and turned to Mr. Cole.
“We will be friends, nevertheless,” she said with a captivating smile. “I will visit your church in the morning, and you will return to luncheon with me, and we will have a little game of billiards afterward.”
Mr. Cole’s delicate face grew ashy. He, John Chrysostom Cole, playing billiards on Sunday! What would his mother say—and what would the bishop say! Olivia looked a little shocked because of course Madame Koller must know better. Not so the Colonel. He laughed heartlessly at Mr. Cole, and began to think Eliza Peyton was a more amusing person than he had fancied.
“Madame Koller,” began Mr. Cole solemnly after a moment, “your long absence from this country—your unfamiliarity with clergymen perhaps—and with the American Sabbath—”
“Oh, yes, I remember the American Sabbath very well,” replied Madame Koller laughing and raising her eyebrows. “My aunt, Mrs. Peyton, always took me to church with her, and I had to listen to Dr. Steptoe’s sermons. Oh those sermons! However,” she added, turning her expressive eyes full on Mr. Cole. “I know, I know yours must be very different. Well, I will go. And forgive me, if I sometimes shock you—forgive and pity me.”
Mr. Cole thought that only a heart of stone could have hardened against that pretty appeal. And the widow was so deliciously charming with her half-foreign manner and her whole-foreign look. But billiards on Sunday!
“Extend the invitation to me, ma’am,” said the Colonel. “I go to church on Sunday—I have no system, just the plain religious belief of a churchman and a gentleman—my ancestors were not a lot of psalm-singing hypocrites, but cavaliers, madam, from the Court of Charles the Second. But after I’ve been to church to please my conscience and my daughter, I don’t mind pleasing myself a little. I’ll play billiards with you—”
The door opened and Ahlberg appeared. Now Mr. Ahlberg was not a favorite of Colonel Berkeley’s at any time—still less of Olivia’s; but it was in the country, and it was very, very dull, so he got the most cordial greeting he had ever had from either of them. The conversation became general, and as soon as Ahlberg had the opportunity, he edged toward Olivia. He was no gentle, unsophisticated creature, like Mr. Cole. He knew that Olivia Berkeley’s polite and self-possessed manner toward him concealed a certain hardness. He made no particular headway in her good graces he saw—and not much more in the Colonel’s. But both gentlemen were hard up for amusement, and each was willing to be amused, so, when Mr. Ahlberg, after a few well-bred vacuities with Olivia, devoted himself to Colonel Berkeley, he was rewarded with the intimation that the Colonel would call on him at the village tavern, and this was followed up by another hint of a dinner invitation to follow. This cheered Mr. Ahlberg very much, for to tell the truth he was as near starvation as a man could be in this nineteenth century, who had money in his pocket. If, however, Mr. Ahlberg had made it his business to horrify Mr. Cole, he could not have done it more thoroughly. He bewailed the absence of book-makers at the races, and wished to know why elections were not held in America on Sunday, took occasion to say that religion was merely an affair of the State, and he too was a believer in a system. When they all rose to go, poor Mr. Cole was quite limp and overcome, but he made an effort to retain his self-possession. He urged both Madame Koller and Mr. Ahlberg to attend the morning service on the following Sunday. Both promised conditionally.
The clergyman had walked over from the rectory where his mother presided over his modest establishment.
“Come, Cole,” cried the Colonel, who was the soul of hospitality, “here’s another seat in the carriage. Come back to dinner with us. I’ve got some capital champagne, and Olivia will play for you.”
“I don’t care about the champagne, thank you,” answered Mr. Cole, “but I’ll come for the pleasure of Miss Olivia’s playing and her society also.”
Scarcely had the carriage turned into the lane, when Mr. Cole burst forth:
“Miss Olivia, did you ever meet a more godless person in your life than Mr. Ahlberg?”
“I don’t think I ever did,” answered Olivia, with much sincerity.
“But the widow—Eliza Peyton—eh, Cole? I think you have made some headway there,” cried the Colonel, wagging his head at the little clergyman. Mr. Cole’s heart began to thump. Strange it was that although he ought, as a Christian and a clergyman, to disapprove of Madame Koller with her beautiful blonde hair, he could not find it in his heart to feel it. Nevertheless he could say it easily enough.
“I very much doubt, sir, the propriety of my visiting at The Beeches.”
“Pooh, pooh. You’ll get over it,” chuckled Colonel Berkeley.
Ah, John Chrysostom! Has it never been known that the outward man denounced what the inward man yearned and hankered after? At this very moment do you not remember the turn of Madame Koller’s handsome head, and the faint perfume that exhaled from her trailing gown?
“We must invite them to dinner,” said the Colonel, decidedly. “Cole, you must come, too. That poor devil, Ahlberg, is almost starved at the tavern on fried chicken three times a day, and claret from the tavern bar.”