Molly Elliot Seawell

“ It was, as Pembroke knew, no easy undertaking to face the array of lawyers before him. Like them, he was shrewd enough to see that it would be a poor triumph to obtain a verdict that would not stand. Bob Henry became to him merely an incident. He looked day after day, during the trial, at the negro’s ashy, scared face in the prisoner’s dock, and sometimes felt a kind of wonder that a creature so ignorant and so inconsequential could be of such tremendous importance to any human being. For Bob Henry took up Pembroke’s mind, his soul, his nights, his days. ”

“ The Colonel surged on, telling everything at once. Olivia listened with shining eyes. She had held out her hand to Pembroke in the beginning, and as her father talked she continued to hold the hand in her little strong clasp. For the first time Pembroke was burnt by the fire in her eyes. What a woman for a man full of ambition to have! He had seen Elise Koller wildly enthusiastic about herself—but Olivia had forgotten all about herself. She was coloring, smiling, and sympathetic about him.
“How glad I am—how splendid of you—for that poor negro, too. God will reward you,” she said. ”

“ So all day she lay on the sofa, and thought about those early days of hers, and Olivia and Pembroke, and even her Aunt Sally Peyton and poor Miles and Cave, and everybody linked with that time. When she thought of Pembroke, it came upon her that he might be induced to spare her. She had never really understood Pembroke, although she had admired him intensely. If she had, things would have been very different with both of them. She never could understand her own failure with him. Of course she hated him, but love and hatred of the same person are not unfrequently found in women. ”

“ He worked all day for him, the tension never weakening from the time he entered the court room in the morning, until by the light of sputtering candles he saw Bob Henry walked off in the sheriff’s custody at night. Then Pembroke would go to his little office, and lighting his lamp, begin work on his books and his notes. Even Cave and Miles were unwelcome then. He was engaged in a fierce intellectual struggle that he must fight out for himself. He had meant in the beginning to keep himself in condition, but he found out that it was one of the times when the soul triumphs over the body. ”

“ This surprised Pembroke, who really did not know what he thought of her. “You think me the weakest woman in the world. But I have been strong. While my husband lived, heaven knows what I endured. He was the cruelest creature God ever made.”
Pembroke thought it was the same old story of continental husbands and wives. He had once known a marchese who made no secret that he occasionally beat his marchesa. But Madame Koller almost made him smile at the grotesqueness of what she told him, although it was real enough to her to make her weep in the telling. ”

“ Madame Koller looked at Olivia and laughed mirthlessly.
“You sit there and tell me that as coolly as if you expected me to go home without saying another word. But I will not go, and I will speak. However, there is nothing that you need be angry about. Only this. Pembroke, you see, is poor. He has great gifts, but they will not bring him money for many years. He is extravagant—he is proud. He wants to go into public life—that he has told me. Imagine the terrible future of poverty and debt before him if he marries without a fortune. ”

“ De Peyster, herself a stately and imposing matron, and proud to be escorted by such a chevalier. Pembroke walked beside Olivia and Helena down the broad staircase.
Is there any form of social life more imposing than a really splendid ball? The tall and nodding ferns and palms, the penetrating odor of flowers, the clash of music, the brilliant crowd moving to and fro through the great drawing-rooms and halls, brought a deeper flush to Olivia’s cheek. ”

“ As for Pembroke, the fate which had fallen hard on Olivia Berkeley had fondly favored him. He was not only elected to Congress, but he became something of a man after he got there. The House of Representatives is a peculiar body—peculiarly unfavorable to age, and peculiarly favorable to youth. Pembroke, still smarting under his mortification, concluded to dismiss thoughts of any woman from his mind for the present, and devote himself to the work before him. ”

“ Pembroke’s face was quite impassive, but his soul was not so impassive. It cost him much to withstand the entreaties of a woman—and a woman who fancied she had some claim upon him, although in the bottom of his heart, he knew that he had got more trouble, pain and annoyance from Elise Koller than he had pleasure by a great deal—more bad than good—more war than peace.
“Madame Volkonsky,” he continued, after a pause, “you are putting your appeal on the wrong ground. You will find that your husband has been mercifully dealt with—and that mercy was for your sake alone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Madame Koller stood up, and as she did so, she sighed deeply. Olivia, for the first time, felt sorry for her.
“Women who love are foolish, desperate, suicidal—anything. I do not think that you could ever love.”
“Do you think that? I know better. I could love—but not like—not like—”
“Not like me?”
“Yes, since you have said it. Something—something—would hold me back from what you speak of so openly.”
“I always said you were as nearly without feeling as the rest of the people here. Elizabeth Pembroke is the only woman I know of, among all of us, that ever really loved. ”

“ Cole was at last sent back to his rectory, he went under strict instructions from Pembroke to keep his misfortune to himself. But alas for poor Cole! What stung him most was that Madame Koller should have seen him in that condition—for the two hard slaps that she had given him had by no means cured his infatuation. On the contrary, her strong nerves, her fierce temper, her very recklessness of conventionality, irresistibly attracted his timid and conservative nature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is at this point in their development that women of inferior nature begin to deteriorate. Not so with Olivia Berkeley. Life puzzled and displeased her. She found herself full of energy, with many gifts and accomplishments, condemned in the flower of her youth to the dull routine of a provincial life in the country. She could not understand it—neither could she sit down in hopeless resignation and accept it. She bestirred herself. Books there were in plenty at Isleham—the piano was an inestimable comforter. ”

“ Not so Pembroke. The love that survives such a blow to pride and vanity as a refusal, is love indeed—and after the first tempest of mortification he had realized that his passion would not die, but needed to be killed—and after five years of partial absence, awkward estrangement, all those things which do most effectually kill everything which is not love, her presence was yet sweet and potent. ”

“ It seems to me at Malvern that I continually hear my mother’s voice, and my father’s footstep, and all the pleasant family commotion I remember. And Elizabeth—Cave, no woman I ever knew suffered like my sister—and she was not the woman to suffer patiently. Old Keturah tells me that my father would have yielded at any time after he saw that her heart and life were bound up in Waring—but she would not ask him—so while I was enjoying myself three thousand miles away, and only sad when I came home to Miles, Elizabeth and my father were fighting that dreary battle. ”

“ You’ll excuse an old man, my dear, for calling you by your first name, won’t you? And my friend Ahlberg that was. This is delightful,” he added, looking around as if to challenge the whole party.
In the midst of the strange sensations which agitated him, Pembroke could scarcely forbear from laughing at the Colonel’s greeting, and the effect it produced. Madame Volkonsky flushed violently, still under her rouge, while Volkonsky’s face was a study in its helpless rage. ”

“ The people on the grand stand have gone wild—they are shouting names, the men waving their hats, the women standing up on benches to see as two or three horses gradually draw away from the others, and a desperate struggle is promised within the last thirty lengths. And just at this moment, when everybody’s attention is fixed on the incoming horses, French Pembroke has slipped across the track and is speaking to the blonde woman in the victoria. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Love finds a mighty helper in self-love. Whatever determination she might once have had to relinquish Pembroke melted away when she saw that Olivia Berkeley and he were quietly slipping into a state of feeling that would turn to something stronger in a moment of time. And naturally she thought no woman alive could withstand the man that had conquered her. ”

“ Peyton’s sly rallying, Mr. Cole’s sentimental condolence—it was all very exasperating. But solely to Olivia’s tact and good sense both escaped this. Not one soul was the wiser. Olivia, however she felt, and however skillfully she might avoid meeting Pembroke alone, was apparently so easy, so natural and self-possessed, that it put Pembroke on his mettle. Together they managed to hoodwink the whole county about their private affairs—even Colonel Berkeley, who, if he suspected anything, was afraid to let on, and Miles, whose devotion to Olivia became stronger every day. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nevertheless, he did not intend to walk through the field with Madame Koller.
“Come, Elise,” he said. “The way is too long for you. You are no walker. It would be best for you to drive home.”
“When you call me Elise I will do anything for you,” she said—and she was really tired and hated walking for walking’s sake.
The carriage drew up, and Pembroke put her in carefully. Old Madame Schmidt said: “That is right, Eliza,” and they drove off.
A few yards hid him from their sight, and at that instant he struck out in the path to Isleham. In ten minutes he had overtaken Olivia. ”

“ They were Olivia Berkeley and Miles Pembroke, walking gayly along the path, talking merrily. The sight of their innocent gayety smote Madame Volkonsky to the heart with envy. She had never been able to enjoy simple pleasures. A country walk, with a mere nobody, a boy younger than herself, with no one to admire, to notice, could never have pleased her. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was Pembroke. He recognized her at once, and got off his horse.
“You here,” he cried in surprise—“at this hour”—for it was well on to seven o’clock, and Madame Koller was not noted for her fondness for walking.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Is anything the matter at Isleham?” he asked—for she could not have come from anywhere else.
“Nothing at all,” she replied nervously. “I—I—went over to see Olivia Berkeley,” she added boldly.
[Pg 135]
Pembroke could say nothing. After a pause, Madame Koller burst out.
“Pembroke, that girl is made of iron. She cares nothing for you—for anybody but herself.” ”

“ Miles must be provided for, and upon a scale more suited to Pembroke’s tastes than his resources. Then, there remained for the elder brother, nothing. He had not thought of this when he borrowed money at a high interest so merrily while he was in Paris—but as he was every day awaking to his manlier self, this had come home to him in its true light. He was not a man to ask any woman to share poverty with him. To have brought a woman down, as his wife, from a state of former luxury, would have been a misery too keen. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Great as the crowd was at first, it increased every day. Within two hours of the swearing in of the jury, just what Cave had predicted came to pass. The prosecution saw that the jury was on the side of a Pembroke—the Pembrokes had always been prime favorites with juries in that county, and the present one was no exception. Naturally, this nettled the attorney-general and the other great men who appeared for the State. It was certainly an exasperating thing to come so far to find twelve men obstinately bent on seeing things from the point of view of a handsome, plausible young advocate. ”