The victory

by Molly Elliot Seawell

Isabey smiled a winning smile which showed his white teeth under his close-clipped black mustache, and then Richard said coolly: “Let me introduce you to my sister, Mrs. Neville Tremaine.”

Isabey bowed, and was astonished to see Angela blush deeply when she returned his bow. He had gathered something from the talk of those around him, in the previous half hour, of Neville Tremaine’s action and of Angela’s position, and he had seen the hostile glances which attended her. Isabey, well versed in women, took a comprehensive view of Angela, and thought her most interesting. The subdued excitement, the smoldering wrath, the burning sense of injustice which animated her, spoke in her air, in the expression of her red lips, and in the angry light from her eyes. But Isabey’s glance was kind. He looked at her as if he did not think her a criminal. On the contrary, he conveyed to her a subtle sympathy; in truth, he thought with the good-humored tolerance of a man of the world that these haughty provincials were engaged in a rather cruel business toward this young girl.

The two did not exchange a single word beyond the formal introduction, Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine taking up the few minutes which remained before the service began in demanding and commanding that Isabey return with them to Harrowby and bringing also any friends he might have with him.

“No one at all is with me,” replied Isabey. “I am simply sent here on military business which I shall be able to transact in a day or two with the assistance of my friend Tremaine and then I must report at Richmond, but it will give me the greatest pleasure to make Harrowby my home the little while that I shall be in this part of the country.”

Then Mr. Brand’s voice was heard through the open door proclaiming that “the Lord was in His Holy Temple.” The wags had it that the Lord never was in His Holy Temple until Mrs. Charteris was seated in her pew, but on this occasion Mr. Brand, after waiting ten minutes for his congregation to finish their gossip in the churchyard, had boldly proclaimed that “the Lord was in His Holy Temple,” while Mrs. Charteris was still gossiping at the church door. The congregation then flocked in and the services began. The Tremaines’ pew was one of the old-fashioned square kind, with faded red moreen curtains. In it sat Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine with Angela. They were followed by Richard Tremaine and Philip Isabey. Archie had taken advantage of the occasion to lag behind and sit in a back pew with George Charteris, where they could whisper unheard by their respective mothers during the whole of the sermon.

Lyddon, who could by no means stand Mr. Brand’s sermons, remained outside, preferring to face Mrs. Tremaine’s gentle reproving glances for having missed the words of wisdom.

To Angela, the sudden shock of seeing Isabey, this man about whom she had dreamed her idle girlish dreams so many years, was secretly agitating. For the first time in her life a personality overwhelmed her, as it were. She was conscious of, rather than saw, Isabey’s clear-cut olive profile, his black eyes, with their short, thick, black lashes, his well-knit figure, and detected the faint aroma of cigar smoke upon his clothes. She forgot the presence of Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine and Richard. She heard not one word of Mr. Brand’s vaporings, nor was she conscious of any sound whatever, except the rapturous trilling bursting from the full heart of a blackbird upon the willow tree just outside the window.

Isabey was different from Richard and Neville Tremaine, and yet not in the least inferior to them. His grace in small actions was infinite—that composed grace which only comes with thorough knowledge of the world. His speech, even, had been new to her. It had the correctness of a language which was first learned from books, for Isabey’s first language was French, not English. He kept his eyes fixed upon Mr. Brand and apparently listened with the deepest attention to the thundering platitudes which resounded from the pulpit. In reality he heard not a word. His heart was filled with pity for the pale girl who sat next to him, her eyes fixed upon the open prayer book, of which she turned not a single leaf. She looked much younger than her nineteen years and seemed to Isabey a precocious but unformed child. Her angles had not yet become curves and she had that charming freshness of the April time of girlhood. The one thing about her which indicated womanhood was her eyes. They were not the wide and fearless eyes of a child, but downcast, sidelong, and with the varying expression of the soul which has thought and felt. Isabey concluded that her mind was considerably older than her body. Angela sat during the whole service and sermon thrilled by Isabey’s personality. When the first hymn was announced and the congregation rose she mechanically joined in the singing. Her voice was clear and sweet, though untrained, and Isabey, listening silent, turning upon Isabey two lustrous, wondering eyes. She was singularly susceptible to music, and the beauty and glory of Isabey’s voice, a robust tenor of a quality and training more exquisite than anyone in that congregation had ever before heard, completed the enchanting spell he had laid upon her. One by one other voices dropped off like Angela’s, and the last verse was almost a solo for Isabey. He was averse to displaying this gift and was almost sorry that he had joined in the singing except for the interest he took in surreptitiously watching Angela. She looked at him with the eyes of a bewitched child, like those who followed the Piper of Hamelin. And Isabey, who knew that a siren lurks in all music, felt more of pity than of gratified vanity when he noticed Angela’s rapt gaze.

Mr. Brand preached a stormy sermon full of patriotism and breathing forth fire and slaughter against everything north of the line drawn by Mason and Dixon. His warlike denunciations, his tremendous philippics, echoed to the roof of the church which had heard Cromwell denounced by vicars who had been driven from England by the Roundheads, and who exhorted their congregations to be true to their royal masters. It had heard a royal master denounced at the time of the Revolution, and now heard the union of the States condemned as roundly. The prayer for the President of the Confederate States was followed with a sort of fierce piety by the congregation. Meanwhile, the fair day grew suddenly dark. The wind rose and the great limbs of the willow trees dashed against the church windows, while the landscape was flooded in a moment with a downpour of April rain. Loud thunder was heard and the dark church was illuminated by frightful flashes of lightning, which seemed to enter every window at once.

As the prayer for the President of the Confederate States was concluded, a tremendous peal of thunder, long and reverberating, crashed overhead. It made the walls of the old church shake and the diamond window panes rattle as if in an earthquake. The clergyman stopped short—nothing could be heard above the roar of the thunder, and the faces of the congregation could only be seen by the pale glare of the lightning. It produced a sort of shock among them, but in a few minutes the storm passed away as rapidly as it had come. The rain, however, still descended in sheets and wrapped the green landscape in a white mist like a muslin veil. When services were finally concluded it was impossible to go out in the downpour. The people, however, were determined not to lose their weekly reunion, especially as there was so much to discuss, and gossiped cheerfully in the aisles.