The Berkeleys and their neighbors

by Molly Elliot Seawell

For the first time since their return home each came back to something like the old boy and girl frankness, and they laughed like children.

“How I loved to come here when I was a little girl. Your mother was certainly the most delightful companion for a child. I remember how she allowed me to brush her hair, it was so long and beautiful. I suppose my efforts were torture to her; how splendid she looked when she was dressed for a ball.”

Pembroke was touched to the heart. His mother who died like Elizabeth, in her youth and beauty, was only seventeen years older than himself. He remembered that she had been a little more than a girl when he, her eldest son, reached up to her shoulder. Olivia and her father were always associated with his mother. Few persons remembered her, he thought bitterly. He had imagined that it was impossible for any one to know her without being inspired with the profound admiration he felt, along with his affection for her. But naturally it was not so—and he felt an inexpressible pride in hearing Olivia’s words. They were not many, but he knew they came from her heart.

“Do you know,” he said as they turned away and pursued the path to the house while Cave dropped behind, “I think you are a little like my mother. Petrarch says so too, and Petrarch is a physiognomist.”

“Nonsense,” cried Olivia, nevertheless coloring with pleasure. “Your mother was one of the most beautiful women in the world, and most commanding in her beauty. I don’t know anybody at all like her.”

They were now near the house, and looking up, Pembroke saw Madame Koller and the bundle of wrappings she called mamma descending from the carriage. A little unpleasant shock came upon him. The ladies from The Beeches were out of harmony just then.

Nevertheless they were very cordially greeted. Although the day was spring-like, Madame Koller’s gown was trimmed with fur, and she cowered close to the fire in the big, draughty drawing-room. Pembroke fancied that Madame Schmidt’s fondness for wrappings would eventually descend to her daughter. But Madame Koller was very handsome. The quiet winter, the country air had made her much younger and fresher. And then, most women are much better looking when they are in love. They live in a perpetual agitation, which gives a strange brightness to the eye, a softness to the smile. They are impelled toward their natural rôle, which is acting. Madame Koller had the benefit of all this.

The luncheon passed off very well. In the house was that queer mixture of shabbiness and splendor common in Virginia country houses. At table they sat in common Windsor chairs, but ate off Sèvres china; a rickety sideboard was loaded down with plate. The Virginians were, as a rule, indifferent to comforts, but luxuries they must have. After the luncheon Pembroke took them to the library, and through such of the house as was habitable. Madame Koller raved over the fine editions of books, the old mahogany furniture, the antique portraits intermingled with daubs of later ancestors—the whole an epitome of the careless pleasure-loving, disjointed life of the dead and gone Virginia—when the people stocked their cellars with the best wines and slept on husk mattresses—where the most elaborate etiquette was maintained in the midst of incongruities of living most startling. It had never ceased to be puzzling to Madame Koller. She admired, as well she might, a lovely girlish portrait of Pembroke’s mother which hung in the drawing-room. There was a piteous likeness between it and the one unscarred side of Miles’ face.

Miles had kept close to Olivia—he was not quite easy with Madame Koller. As for Madame Schmidt, he had in vain tried to get something out of her, but the old lady was obviously so much more comfortable seated by the drawing-room fire, well wrapped up, with her feet on the footstool, and nobody to distract her attention from keeping warm, that she was considerately left to herself.

But Madame Koller did not enjoy the day, as, indeed, she did not at that phase of her existence enjoy anything. She had fancied she could conquer her heart, in the presence of its object, and with a dangerous rival in the foreground. 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.