Pembroke

“ 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. ”

“ Pembroke. A sign of guilt. What will your Highness do?
Edward I. With your good counsel, lords, doubtless the best!
Percy. To horse, and take the knave alive or dead!
Edward I. A speedy finish; but consider this:
Comyn and Bruce divide the land of Scots;
They now are mortal foes; why need we stir
To fight two cocks who will each other slay
Between the high walls of their Scottish pit?
Yet Pembroke, Clifford, and bold Harry Percy
Be ready at a word to lead your knights
Across the border. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Just then the door opened and Pembroke's valet came in. He handed a card to me, and I read upon it, "Count von Walden." I cast it into Pembroke's lap.
"That's the man. He is the inseparable of the Prince of Wortumborg."
Then to the valet, "Show him up."
"What's it all about?" asked Pembroke.
"Honestly, I should like to run away," I said musingly. The snow on the housetops across the way sparkled in the early moonshine. "It's about a woman. If I live—ah!" I went to the door and swung it open. The Count gravely passed over the threshold. ”

“ When I see these middle-aged folk, Queen and courtier, posing as lovers and indulging in youthful follies, I ask myself, will it be so with me? shall I dance attendance on fair ladies when I have told out near fifty years of life? I hope not.'
Lady Pembroke laughed.
'There is no fear, methinks, for you or Philip; but, after all, it is the heart which keeps us really young, despite age, yes, and infirmity. ”

“ Pembroke's religious views inclined to Calvinism. He had stood godfather to a son of Edward Underhill, 'the hot gospeller,' and he never pretended to sympathise with the Roman catholic revival. According to an improbable statement of Aubrey, Wilton Abbey was restored by Mary, and the nuns reinstated there, to Pembroke's disgust. In the council he was avowedly opposed to Gardiner, Petre, and the ardent catholic party, but his political principles were pliant, and he assented to the queen's marriage with Philip. ”

“ Pembroke was originally intended as a study of the human will in several New England characters, in different phases of disease and abnormal development, and to prove, especially in the most marked case, the truth of a theory that its cure depended entirely upon the capacity of the individual for a love which could rise above all considerations of self, as Barnabas Thayer's love for Charlotte Barnard finally did. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Like all the men of his race and generation, he firmly believed there were some cases in which blood must be shed—but a roadside quarrel, in which nothing but personal dislike figured, did not come under that head. Pembroke was fully alive to the folly and wickedness of fighting Ahlberg under the circumstances—but it was now impossible for him to recede. ”

“ All that long journey was for nothing—all those months of [Pg 137] wretched loneliness, of still more wretched hopes and fears, were in vain. She heard Pembroke saying:
“You had best let me see you home. It is too late for you to be out alone.”
“You will not,” she replied. “I will not permit you, after what you have said, to go one step with me.”
Pembroke felt thoroughly ashamed. It was one of the incidents of his association with Madame Koller and Ahlberg that they always made him say and do things he was ashamed of. In short, they demoralized him. ”

“ Unless he is a man of the broadest and most democratic tendencies, to whom culture and the polish of society is as nothing beside humanity, and unless he returns, as faithfully as the village birds to their nests, to his summer home year after year, he cannot see very far below the surfaces of villages of which Pembroke is typical. ”

“ After having most truly lived her long life—a life faithful, devoted, and true—the Countess of Pembroke died at her town house in Aldersgate Street, on the 25th September, 1621. She was interred in the vault of her husband's family in Salisbury Cathedral.
A noble life is its own monument. To have influenced such a life as that of Philip Sidney; to have lived her own life—with its lasting impress on the literature of England, and its beneficial lessons to England's daughters—is to the subject of this sketch a more worthy and lasting memorial than stateliest pile of finest marble. ”

“ There is no one left to-day at all like George Pembroke. His combination of intellectual temperament, gregariousness, variety of tastes—yachting, art, sport and literature—his beauty of person and hospitality to foreigners made him the distinguished centre of any company. His first present to me was Butcher and Lang's translation of the Odyssey, in which he wrote on the fly- leaf, "To Margot, who most reminds me of Homeric days, 1884," and his last was his wedding present, a diamond dagger, which I always wear close to my heart. ”

“ A Platonic admiration for Christian, Countess of Devonshire, called forth in verses the romantic gallantry of the Earl of Pembroke. One cannot help rejoicing that Lawes set to music what Pembroke wrote:--
"Wrong not, dear Empress of my heart,
The merits of true passion,
With thinking that he feels no smart
Who sues for no compassion. ”

“ No opulent gentleman commoner panting for one-and-twenty could have treated the academical authorities with more gross disrespect. The needy scholar was generally to be seen under the gate of Pembroke, a gate now adorned with his effigy, haranguing a circle of lads, over whom, in spite of his tattered gown and dirty linen, his wit and audacity gave him an undisputed ascendancy. ”

“ Pembroke removed his hand. He found such patriotism somewhat craven. Genuine patriotism comes only from the heart. It knows no parleying with reason. English ladies will declare abroad that there are no fogs in London, and Mr. Pembroke, though he would not go to this, was only restrained by the certainty of being found out. On this occasion he remarked that the Greeks lacked spiritual insight, and had a low conception of woman.
“As to women—oh! there they were dreadful,” said Rickie, leaning his hand on the chapel. “I realize that more and more. ”

“ The Countess of Pembroke was always her mother's chief sympathiser in joy and sorrow. She retired with her behind the glass screen where the Queen, in her visits to Penshurst, always chose to summon her host, or any of her ministers for a private conversation or flirtation, as the case might be. By the opening of a panel of white Venetian glass, those who were seated behind the screen could watch unseen what was passing in the room beyond.
'You look weary, dear mother,' Lady Pembroke said—'weary and sad. Methinks pride in our Philip should overrule grief at his loss. ”

“ Scarcely knowing what he did in his perplexity, the count retreated slowly to the churchyard of the cathedral, and, setting his back against a wall, he shouted defiance at his assailants as they came resolutely on.
De Perche’s foes formed themselves in front of him in a semi-circle, and the Earl of Pembroke, who could not but admire the count’s dauntless bearing in the hour of defeat and despair, invited him to surrender.
“Yield, sir count,” said the earl in accents which he meant to be persuasive. “You have done all that a brave man could. Therefore yield and live. Life has its sweets.” ”

“ He headed slowly for the "old" part of town, aging his clothes against buildings and fences as he walked. He had already torn the collar of the shirt and discarded his belt. By morning his beard would grow to blacken his face. And he would look weary and hungry and aimless. Only the last would be a deception.
Two weeks later Pembroke phoned Mary Ann. The police had accepted her story without even checking. And when, when would she be seeing him again? He had aroused her passion and no amount of long-distance love could requite it. Soon, he assured her, soon. ”

“ Oh, is he not noble and beautiful beyond all men who ever lived? I hear them say the Queen calls him "her Philip" and "her bright gem," and that he is the wisest statesman, and grandest poet and finest scholar of the age, and yet he is not too great to be good to me—little Lucy Forrester. And it may be I shall never see him again—never return to Lady Pembroke—live up on that hill all my days, and get as stupid and dull as the old brindled cow that stares with big, dull eyes straight before her, and sees nought, nor cares for nought but to chew her food. ”

“ He gets out of the carriage and grasps Pembroke by the hand. He calls him “mon cher” a vulgar mode of address which Pembroke resents with a curt “Good-morning, Mr. Ahlberg,” and then he lifts his hat to the lady whom he calls Madame Koller. “Why did you not come before?” she asks, “you might have known it would be dull enough.”
“Don’t you know everybody here?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Madame Koller, sighing profoundly. “I remember all of them—and most of the men have called. Some of them are so strange. They stay all day when they come. And such queer carriages.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If it isn't one woman it's another."
Sunshine came into Pembroke's face again. "Ideal or not ideal, I am going to make the effort."
"Success to you!" patting his shoulder. He was good to look at, and it was my opinion that Phyllis might do worse. We miss a good deal in this world by being over particular.
We were coming into Trafalgar. Nelson stood high up in the yellow fog.
"Nature is less gracious than history sometimes," mused Pembroke, gazing up. "She is doing her best to dull the lustre of the old gentleman. Ah, those were days when they had men." ”

“ Walter and Ralph the smith fought in front of their men, and hard as Pembroke and his followers struggled, they could not drive them back a foot. The court party was galled by the heavy fire of arrows kept up by the apprentices along the side of the moat, and finding all his efforts to regain the earthwork useless, Pembroke withdrew his forces into the castle, and in spite of the efforts of the besiegers managed to close the gates in their faces. The assailants, however, succeeded in severing the chains of the drawbridge before it could be raised. ”

“ Humphrey Jeffes and Gabriel Spencer, whose names are mentioned in The True Tragedy of the Duke of York, which was played by Pembroke's company in 1592-93, and who, we may therefore infer, were members of Pembroke's company in those years, or else were members of the company that previously owned this play, are mentioned as playing with the Lord Admiral's company as Pembroke's men in 1597. ”

“ She is waiting in her carriage,” he said.
Volkonsky did not take time even to bid his host good-night, but slipped out, Pembroke a little behind him. When they reached the carriage, Madame Volkonsky was inside weeping violently. Pembroke had not got her out a moment too soon.
Volkonsky looked at Pembroke for a moment. “Madame has not her wrap,” he said. “She has a mantle of sable that cost—ah, here is the footman with it.” Pembroke turned away sick at heart.
Within a week the Grand Duke’s visit was over, and the Russian Legation was suddenly turned over to Ryleief. ”

“ The extent of their mutual aid, and the exact part performed by each, will never be known. Although the whole of the beautiful romance, The Arcadia, is attributed to Philip, it is certain that his sister had no insignificant part in advising and directing it, so much so that he gave to it the name of "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia." The introduction is a pleasing record of their loving devotion and a testimony of fraternal gratitude:—
"To my dear Lady and Sister, The Countess of Pembroke. ”