The thought came to her that, perhaps, it was after all because she had seen in her life so few strangers that Isabey so impressed her, yet he was a man likely to attract attention anywhere. But deep in her heart Angela realized that Isabey possessed for her an inherent interest which no other human being ever had possessed or could possess.
He left the next afternoon. He had had plenty of time to observe Angela and had found out a great deal about her. He was filled with pity for her, that pity which is akin to love.
CHAPTER X
THE ARRIVAL OF THE STRANGERS
COLONEL and Mrs. Tremaine had carried out their intention of writing to Madame Isabey and Madame Le Noir, in Richmond, inviting them to make Harrowby their home during the war. Isabey had smiled, rather grimly, while expressing his thanks. He could make a very good forecast of how the two ladies from New Orleans would impress the simple Virginia household, but, being a wise man, did not attempt to regulate the ladies in any particular whatever.
When Isabey had left, Angela felt, for the first time, a singular sensation as if the sun had gone out, leaving the world gray and cold. How commonplace seemed her life, how inferior the familiar books and things and places to those new books and things and places of which Isabey had shown her a glimpse! She had loved the piano and had joyed in singing her simple songs, but now how primitive, how crude her music seemed contrasted with Isabey’s exquisite singing! He had promised to tell her how he had learned to sing so well, but he had forgotten to do so.
Angela spent some days in idle dreaming, not the delicious dreams which usually come of idleness, but dreams painful and perplexing. She wrote long letters to Neville which she destroyed as soon as they were written, for they were all a reflex of Isabey. She had placed upon her dressing table a daguerreotype of Neville which he had given her a year or two before. She took it up, looked at it dutifully half a dozen times a day. How dear was Neville, if only she were not married to him, and but for that awkward fact how freely she could have talked with him about Isabey; but now because Neville was her husband there were things she could never mention to him!
It was some days before she recovered her balance. It was, however, no time to be idle at Harrowby, for Mrs. Tremaine had undertaken to equip a field hospital for Richard Tremaine’s battery of artillery. She contributed to this most of her linen sheets and pillowcases, and organized a household brigade of maids and seamstresses to scrape into lint all the pieces of old linen to be found. Angela did her part with readiness and energy. And, as the case always is, work steadied her mind and her composure. Her heart and soul were growing by leaps and bounds, and in a month she progressed as far as she would have done in a year ordinarily. She wrote a letter to Neville regularly once a week and gave it to Lyddon, who contrived to get it to the British Consul at Norfolk, through whom it was forwarded, and she heard once or twice during the month from Neville. He wrote her that he knew not from day to day where he would be, and was kept on the wing continually. Nor could he fix any time when there would be a chance of her joining him, but that of one thing she might be certain, he would not delay an hour in sending for her when it should be possible for him to have her. In these letters he always mentioned his father and mother with the deepest affection and without resentment. Angela read those parts of his letters to Mrs. Tremaine, who listened in cold silence, but who repeated them to Colonel Tremaine when the father and mother alone together made silent lament over the disgrace of their eldest-born.
Richard Tremaine was but little at home during the next month. A large camp of instruction was formed about fifteen miles from Harrowby where troops were pouring in not only from Virginia but from other Southern States. These men had to be drilled and trained to be soldiers and the task was heavy. There was much illness among these green soldiers unused to living in the open, and Mrs. Tremaine and Mrs. Charteris, with other ladies in the county, were angels of mercy to the sick. Mrs. Charteris had accepted Richard Tremaine’s suggestion to send George Charteris over to Harrowby to study with Archie under Mr. Lyddon as the means of keeping him at home until he should be eighteen. George Charteris, to whom Angela had been the star of his boyish soul, now showed her coldness and disdain. So did everybody in the county, however, with the solitary exception of Mrs. Charteris. Angela remained quietly at home, a thing not difficult to do when one has no invitations abroad. She went to church on Sundays, but, beyond a few cool salutations, had nothing to say to anyone. When the first burst of indignation against her in the county was over, the attitude of the people among whom she had been born and bred became somewhat modified, but it was then Angela who, standing upon her dignity, would have nothing to say to them. She had a natural longing for companions of her own age and sex, but when the Yelvertons and Careys made a few timid advances toward her she repelled them resentfully.
Meanwhile, letters had been received from Madame Isabey and Madame Le Noir acknowledging the hospitable invitation to Harrowby and accepting it at the end of the month. Madame Isabey’s letter was in French, but Madame Le Noir’s was in English of the same sort as Isabey’s, fluent and correct, but of a different flavor from the English of those who are born to speak English. Angela looked forward with excitement and even pleasure to the advent of the strangers. Their society would provide her with the novelty which she secretly loved. She imagined she would be much awed by the stateliness of Madame Isabey, but anticipated being in complete accord with Madame Le Noir, a widow, barely thirty. Her very name, Adrienne, breathed romance to Angela, who was accustomed to Sallys and Susans and Ellens and Janes, and she had not yet found out that names do not always mean anything.
The whole journey of the New Orleans ladies from Richmond had to be made by land, as river transportation was entirely stopped, owing to the patrolling of the Federal gunboats. It was arranged that the Harrowby carriage should meet the guests at a certain point on the road from Richmond. As usual the regular coachman was displaced in Hector’s favor, and Colonel Tremaine went in the carriage out of exquisite hospitality, and likewise for fear that Hector might in some way have got hold of the applejack which had replaced the French brandy and champagne at Harrowby, and land the ladies in a ditch.