Miles sighed. A look came into his poor face that Pembroke had seen there before—a look that made the elder brother’s strong heart ache. Any disappointment to Olivia was a stab to this unfortunate young soul. Men, as nature made them, are not magnanimous in love. Only some frightful misfortune like this poor boy’s can make them so.
Presently Miles continued, hesitatingly:
“You must go to see her very early to-morrow. You know they return to Virginia early in the week.”
“I can’t go,” answered Pembroke, wounding himself, and the brother that he loved better than himself, in order to wound Olivia. “I must go to New York early to-morrow morning, on business. I was notified ten days ago.”
Miles said no more.
Early the next morning Pembroke was off, leaving a note for Olivia, which that young lady showed her father, and then, running up to her own room, tore into bits—and then she burst into tears. And yet it was a most kind, cordial, friendly note. When Pembroke returned, the Berkeleys had left town for the season.
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.