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.”