THE BERKELEYS
AND THEIR NEIGHBORS
BY
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL
AUTHOR OF THROCKMORTON, MAID MARIAN, LITTLE JARVIS,
MIDSHIPMAN PAULDING, ETC.
_REVISED EDITION_
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1892
COPYRIGHT, 1888,
BY M. ELLIOT SEAWELL.
COPYRIGHT, 1892,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED AT THE
APPLETON PRESS, U. S. A.
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
=THROCKMORTON.= 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.
“The incidents are of great interest, well-imagined, and admirably
carried out. But the notable feature of the book is the rare charm of
its literary expression. The language is full of grace and wit and
delicate sensibility. To read is to be beguiled.”--_New York Sun._
“The pages of ‘Throckmorton’ are alive with picturesque sketches. Its
humor is never forced, and its pathos is never overdone. It is a novel
to linger over.”--_The Critic._
“A charming story. The author has used good English, and the reader
yields to the fascination of her style.”--_The Book Buyer._
=MAID MARIAN, and other Stories.= 12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth,
$1.00.
“There is an unmistakable cleverness in this collection of short
stories.”--_Boston Literary World._
“Miss Seawell has a brisk and prolific fancy, and a turn for the odd
and fantastic, while she is Past Master in the use of negro dialect
and the production of tales of plantation life and manners. All these
stories are spirited, well marked by local color, and written with
skill and ingenuity.”--_New York Tribune._
=MIDSHIPMAN PAULDING.= A true story of the War of 1812. With Six
full-page Illustrations. 8vo. Bound in blue cloth, with special design
in gold and colors. $1.00.
“The story is told in a breezy, pleasant style that can not fail
to capture the fancy of young readers, and imparts much historical
knowledge at the same time, while the illustrations will help the
understanding of the events described. It is an excellent book for
boys, and even the girls will be interested in it.”--_Brooklyn
Standard-Union._
=LITTLE JARVIS.= The story of the heroic midshipman of the
frigate “Constellation.” With Six full-page Illustrations. 8vo. Bound
uniformly with “Midshipman Paulding.” $1.00.
“Not since Dr. Edward Everett Hale’s classic, ‘The Man without
a Country,’ has there been published a more stirring lesson in
patriotism.”--_Boston Beacon._
“It is what a boy would call ‘a real boy’s book.’”--_Charleston News
and Courier._
D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, New York.
THE BERKELEYS AND THEIR NEIGHBORS.
CHAPTER I.
A PROVINCIAL Virginia race-course is an excellent place to observe
a people which has preserved its distinctiveness as well as the
Virginians. So far, they have escaped that general and fatiguing
likeness which prevails in most of the universe these days.
Therefore, the Campdown race-course, on a golden day in October, looked
like itself and nothing else. The track had started out with the
intention of making a perfect ellipse, but meeting a steep incline,
it saved the trouble of bringing up the grade, by boldly avoiding the
obstacle--so the winning post was considerably nearer the half-mile
than the starting post was. Nobody objected to a little thing like
this, though. The Virginians are good-natured creatures, and seldom
bother about trifles.
It was the fall meeting of the Campdown Jockey Club--a famous
institution “befo’ the war.”
At this time the great awakening had not come--the war was not long
over. For these people, had they but known it, the end of the war
really meant the end of the world--but the change was too stupendous
for any human mind to grasp all at once. There came a period of shock
before the pain was felt, when the people, groping amid the ruins of
their social fabric, patched it up a little here and a little there.
They resumed in a dazed and incomplete way their old amusements, their
old habits and ways of life. They mortgaged their lands--all that was
left to them--with great coolness and a superstitious faith in the
future--Virginians are prone to hanker after mortgages--and spent the
money untroubled by any reflections where any more was to come from
when that was gone.
They were intense pleasure lovers. In that happy afternoon haze in
which they had lived until the storm broke, pleasure was the chief
end of man. So now, the whole county turned out to see two or three
broken-down hacks, and a green colt or two, race for the mythical
stakes. It is true, a green silk bag, embroidered in gold, with the
legend “$300” hung aloft on a tall pole, for the sweepstakes, but it
did not contain three hundred dollars, but about one-half of it in
gold, and a check drawn by the president of the Jockey Club against
the treasurer for the balance. Most of the members had not paid their
dues, and the treasurer didn’t know where the money was to come from,
nor the president either, for that matter; but it takes a good deal to
discount a Virginian’s faith in the future. The public, too, was fully
acquainted with the state of affairs, and the fact that there was any
gold at all in the bag, would eventually be in the nature of a pleasant
surprise.
The people, in carriages, or on horseback, bore little resemblance
to the usual country gathering. They were gentlepeople tinged with
rusticity. All of them had good, high sounding Anglo-Saxon names. There
was some magnificence of an antique pattern. One huge family ark was
drawn by four sleek old horses, with a venerable black coachman on the
box, and inside a superb old lady with a black veil falling over her
white hair. There were but two really correct equipages in the field.
One was a trim, chocolate-colored victoria, with brown horses and a
chocolate-colored coachman to match. In it sat a showy woman, with a
profusion of dazzling blonde hair, and beside her was an immaculately
well dressed blonde man. The turnout looked like a finely finished
photograph among a lot of dingy old family portraits.
The other carriage that would have passed muster was a large and
handsome landau, respectfully called “the Isleham carriage,” and in
it sat Colonel Berkeley and his daughter Olivia. The Colonel was a
genuine Virginia colonel, and claimed to be the last man in the State
to wear a ruffled shirt bosom. A billowy expanse of thread cambric
ruffles rushed out of his waistcoat; his snow white hair was carefully
combed down upon his coat collar. At the carriage door stood his
double--an elderly negro as grizzled as his master, to whom he bore
that curious resemblance that comes of fifty years association. This
resemblance was very much increased when Colonel Berkeley’s back was
turned, and in the privacy of the kitchen, Petrarch--or more commonly
Pete--pished and pshawed and railed and swore in the colonel’s most
inimitable manner. Each, too, possessed a type of aggressive piety,
which in Colonel Berkeley took the form of a loud declaration that
a gentleman, in order to be a gentleman, must be a member of the
Episcopal Church. This once accomplished, the Colonel was willing to
allow liberally for the weaknesses of human nature, and considered
too great strictness of behavior as “deuced ungentlemanlike, begad.”
Petrarch regarded himself as a second Isaiah the prophet, and a vessel
of election--having reached the stage of perfectibility--a usual thing
in the experience of a genuine African. The Colonel described Petrarch
as “that infernal rascally boy of mine,” and this “boy” was the one
individual he had never been able to overawe or silence. Possibly an
exception might be made to this in Miss Olivia, who sitting up, slim
and straight and pretty, was treated by her father with elaborate
old-fashioned courtesy. Colonel Berkeley was in a particularly happy
and virtuous frame of mind on this day. This was his first appearance
in public since his return from Europe, where a serious bodily injury
had kept him during the whole four years of the war. He gloried in the
consciousness that he was no renegade, but had returned to the sacred
soil as soon as he possibly could, when he might have been enjoying
himself elsewhere. When the Colonel said “the State of Virginia,” he
really meant the whole planetary system. Nevertheless, two weeks in his
beloved Virginia had bored him dreadfully, and he was “more orkarder,”
as Petrarch expressed it, than any other two weeks of his whole life.
The Campdown races he hailed as a godsend. He had a good competence
left, in spite of having sent orders to his agents to convert lands,
stocks, bonds, and everything, into Confederate securities--cotton
bonds, Confederate gunboat stock, anything in which the State of
Virginia was bound up. As far as in him lay, he had made ducks and
drakes of a splendid fortune, from the finest and most disinterested
motives that ever inspired a mistaken old gentleman, but fate had
befriended him against his will. An investment at the North that the
colonel had vainly tried to throw in the general wreck, had escaped
confiscation, and had increased, a hundredfold in value. His orders
to sell half of Isleham, his family place, for Confederate money,
had arrived too late for his agent to carry it out. He had done the
handsome thing, as it was esteemed, and after having practiced the
strictest virtue, he was rewarded with all the pleasures that are
commonly supposed to be the reward of vice.
“Don’t you think, papa,” the young girl said to him at once, “that
we should go up on the grand stand? It might look a little--a little
standoffish for us to remain here--and the county people--”
The Virginians inherit from their English ancestry, a vast and
preposterous respect for their county people--and Miss Olivia Berkeley,
fresh from Paris and London, was more anxious that no fault should be
found with her by these out-of-the-way provincials than any of the fine
people she had met during a considerable transatlantic experience. So
was Colonel Berkeley--but there was a fly in his ointment.
“I would with pleasure, my love, but damme if those Hibbses are not
sitting up on the stand along with their betters--and I won’t rub
elbows with the Hibbses. It’s everywhere the same. Society is so
infernally mixed now that I am always expecting to meet my tailor at
dinner. I thought certainly, in old Virginia, the people would know
how to keep the canaille in their places, and there, by George, sits a
family like the Hibbses staring me in the face.”
“Yes,” replied Olivia, smiling. “It’s everywhere the same--you are
bound to meet some of the Hibbses everywhere in the world--so we
might as well do the right thing in spite of them. Petrarch, open the
carriage door.”
The Colonel, with old-fashioned gallantry, assisted his daughter to
alight, and giving her his arm, they crossed the track in full view of
the grand stand, and went up the rickety wooden stairs at the end.
At no period in her life had Olivia Berkeley felt herself so
thoroughly on exhibition as then. Her figure, her air--both of
which were singularly graceful and refined--her gown which was
Paris-made--all were minutely examined by hundreds of eyes that had
not seen her since, as a pretty, half-grown girl, she went to church
and paid visits under the charge of a demure governess. After they had
crossed the white track, they were greeted by numerous gentlemen who
sauntered back and forth about the quarter-stretch. Colonel Berkeley
was elaborately gracious, and Olivia was by nature affable--to all
except the Hibbses. But when they passed that inoffending family, the
Colonel stalked on pointedly oblivious, and Olivia’s slight bow was not
warming or cheering.
People moved up to shake hands with them--girls of Olivia’s age, soft
voiced, matronly women, elderly men, a little shaky and broken, as all
the old men looked after the war--and young men with something of the
camp hanging to them still. Olivia was all grace, kindness, and tact.
She had forgotten nobody.
Meanwhile Petrarch, who had followed them, managed to edge up to her
and whisper:
“Miss ’Livy, ain’t dat ar Marse French Pembroke an’ he b’rer Miles?
Look a-yander by de aige o’ de bench.”
Olivia glanced that way, and a slight wave of color swept over her
face--and at that moment “Marse French’s b’rer Miles” turned his full
face toward her.
He was a mere lad, of eighteen at the utmost. One side of his face, as
she had first seen his profile, was of the purest Greek beauty. But on
the other side, a shot had done dreadful work. One eye was drawn out of
place. A horrid gash in the cheek remained, and one side of the mouth
was painfully disfigured. On the same side, an arm was missing.
A torrent of pity almost overwhelmed Olivia as she looked at the
boy--her little playmate in years gone by. And then the elder brother
caught her eye, and bowed and smiled. He did not possess the beauty
that had once belonged to Miles. He was dark and tanned, and his
features had a manly irregularity. But he stood up straight and tall,
and had the figure of a soldier. In a moment or two Olivia was shaking
hands with Miles, looking straight and boldly into his face, as if
there was nothing remarkable there. But just as she touched French
Pembroke’s hand, the blonde woman in the victoria came within her line
of vision.
Olivia threw up her head, and greeted Pembroke with a kind of chilling
sweetness. But this all dissolved toward Miles.
“How delightful to see you again,” she said. “I suppose I shall have to
say Mr. Miles now, although I never can think of you as anything but a
dear little tormenting boy.”
The ghost of a smile--his smile was a mere contortion--came into Miles’
face--and while he talked, he thrust his one hand into his trousers
pocket with a gesture of boyish shyness. Olivia thought she heard the
tell-tale rattle of marbles in the pocket.
“I’ve--I’ve been a soldier since I saw you,” he said, with a boy’s
mixture of pride and diffidence.
“So I hear,” answered Olivia, with a pretty air of severity, “ran away
from school, I believe.”
“Yes,” said Miles, his diffidence disappearing before his pride. “I was
big enough to carry a musket. Though I wasn’t but sixteen, I was taller
than the captain of my company. Soldiering was fun until--until--.” He
began to blush furiously, but kept on after a moment. “I didn’t mind
sleeping in the mud, or anything. A man oughtn’t to mind that sort of
thing, Olivia--if you’ll let me call you Olivia.”
“Of course I will,” replied Olivia gayly. “Do you think I want to
appear any older than I am?” Then she turned to Pembroke and said, “I
was sorry not to have seen you the day you came to Isleham. We met last
in Paris.”
“I hope to see as much of Isleham as we did in the old days,” answered
Pembroke. His voice was rather remarkable, it was so clear and well
modulated.
“I hope,” began Miles, stammering a little, “that--that you and the
Colonel understood my not--why I didn’t come to see you in Paris.”
“Not fully,” answered Olivia, pleasantly. “You must come over to
Isleham and explain it--if you can. Have you seen papa yet?”
“I see him now,” said Pembroke with a smile, “shaking hands with Mrs.
Peyton.”
Olivia smiled too. There had been a flirtation between Mrs. Peyton
and Colonel Berkeley forty odd years before, and as everything that
happened in the community was perfectly well known by everybody else,
the episode had crystallized into a tradition. Colonel Berkeley had
been known to swear that Sally Peyton in her youth was a jilt. Mrs.
Peyton always said that Tom Berkeley was not to be depended on. The
Colonel was saying to Mrs. Peyton in his grandest tones:
“Madam, Time has passed you by.”
“Ah, my dear Colonel,” responded Mrs. Peyton with a quizzical look at
Colonel Berkeley’s elaborate toilet and flamboyant shirt ruffles, “we
can’t cross the dead line of sixty without showing it. Even art cannot
conceal it.”
“Just like Sally Peyton’s sharp tongue,” the colonel growled sotto
voce--while a suppressed guffaw from Pete on the verge of the group,
showed the remark was not lost on that factotum.
“And Petrarch too,” cried Mrs. Peyton in her fine, jovial old voice,
holding out her hand.
Pete shuffled up and took her hand in his black paw.
“Howdy, Miss Sally. Lordy, marster done tole de truf--you looks jes ez
young an’ chipper--How’s Mandy?”
“Mandy has lost her senses since old Abe Lincoln made you all free.
She’s left me and gone to Richmond to go to school--the old idiot.”
“Hi! I allers did like Mandy, but I ain’t got no use fer dem niggers
dat kin read ’n write. Readin’ an’ writin’ is fer white folks.”
“Shut up, you black rascal,” roared the Colonel, nevertheless highly
delighted. “Madam, may I present my daughter--Olivia, my child.”
Olivia came up, and Mrs. Peyton kissed her affectionately, but not
before a rapid glance which took in all there was of her.
“Like her sainted mother,” began the Colonel, dramatically.
“Not a bit,” briskly answered Mrs. Peyton. “A Berkeley all over, if
ever I saw one. Child, I hope you are as nice as you are pretty.”
“Nobody ever told me I wasn’t nice,” responded Olivia with a smile.
“And not spoiled by your foreign travels?”
“Not in the least.”
Clang! Clang! Clang! goes the saddling bell.
“What do you think?” says Olivia laughing. “Papa has entered Dashaway.
You know he is twelve years old, and as Petrarch says, he hasn’t any
wind left--but papa wouldn’t listen to anybody.”
“Yes, that’s Tom Berkeley all over. Ah, my dear, I could tell you
something that happened forty-two years ago, in which I promise you, I
got the better of your father.”
The horses by this time are coming out. They are an ordinary looking
lot except one spanking roan, the property of the despised Hibbses,
and Dashaway, a gray thoroughbred, a good deal like Colonel Berkeley
himself, but like him, with certain physical defects. The gray has a
terrific wheeze, and the hair on his fetlocks is perfectly white. But
he holds his head up gallantly, and gives a tremendous snort which
nearly shakes the mite of a darkey off his back. All the jockeys are
negro boys. There is no pool-selling, but the gentlemen make bets among
themselves and with the ladies. The transactions if small, are exciting.
Colonel Berkeley’s presence hardly prevents a laugh as the gray ambles
past the grand stand, snorting and blowing like a porpoise. The
Colonel, however, has unshaken confidence in Dashaway. Is he not of the
best blood of Sir Henry, and didn’t he win fourteen hundred dollars for
the Colonel on the Campdown course the year before the war? Colonel
Berkeley knows a horse well enough--but to know horses and to know
one’s own horse are two things.
Colonel Berkeley, leaning over the fence, is giving his directions, in
a loud voice, to the little darkey, who is nearly ashy with fright. He
knows what is expected of him, and he knows Dashaway’s deficiencies.
“Now, sir, you are to make the running from the half-mile post. Keep
well up with the horse in the lead, but don’t attempt to pass him until
you have turned the half-mile.”
“Yes, sah,” answers the small jockey, trembling. “But Dashaway, he
c’yarn run much, sah, ’thout blowin’, an’--an’--”
“Zounds, sirrah, do you mean to instruct me about my own horse? Now
listen you young imp. Use the whip moderately, Dashaway comes of stock
that won’t stand whip and spur. If he runs away, just give him his
head, and if you don’t remember every word I tell you, by the Lord
Harry, I’ll make you dance by the time you are out of the saddle!”
“Good Gord A’mighty, marster,” puts in Petrarch. “Dashaway, he ain’
never gwi’ run away. He too ole, an’ he ain’t strong ’nuff--”
“Good Gad, sir, was ever a man so tormented by such a set of black
rascals? Hold your tongue--don’t let me hear another word from you, not
another word, sir.”
The jockey, who takes the Colonel’s words at their full value, which
Petrarch discounts liberally, begins to stutter with fright.
“M--m--marster, ef I jes’ kin git Dashaway ’long wid de res’--”
“Silence, sir,” shouts the Colonel, “and remember every word I tell
you, or----” Colonel Berkeley’s appalling countenance and uplifted cane
complete the rest.
Dashaway is not only conspicuously the worst of the lot, but the most
troublesome. Half a dozen good starts might be made but for Dashaway.
At last the flag drops. “Go!” yells the starter, and the horses are
off. Dashaway takes his place promptly in the rear, and daylight
steadily widens between him and the last horse. As the field comes
thundering down the homestretch the spanking roan well in the lead,
Dashaway is at least a quarter of a mile behind, blowing like a whale,
and the jockey is whipping furiously, his arm flying around like a
windmill. The Colonel is fairly dancing with rage.
Colonel Berkeley is not the man to lose a race to the Hibbses with
composure, and Petrarch’s condolences, reminiscences, prophecies and
deductions were not of a consolatory character.
“Ole Marse, I done tole you, Dashaway warn’t fitten ter run, at de very
startment. He been a mighty good horse, but he c’yarn snuffle de battle
fum befo’, an’ say Hay! hay! like de horse in de Bible no mo’.”
“Shut up, sir--shut up. Religion and horse racing don’t mix,” roars the
Colonel.
“Naw suh, dey doan! When de horse racin’ folks is burnin’ in de lake
full er brimstone an’ sulphur, de ’ligious folks will be rastlin’ wid
de golden harps--” Petrarch’s sermon is cut ruthlessly short by Colonel
Berkeley suddenly catching sight of the unfortunate jockey in a vain
attempt to get out of the way. But his day of reckoning had come.
Petrarch had collared him, and the Colonel proceeded to give him what
he called a dressing-down, liberally punctuated with flourishes of a
bamboo cane.
“Didn’t I tell you,” he was shouting to the unhappy youngster, “to
make the running--_to make the running, hay_?”
“M--m--marster, I ’clar to Gord, I thot’ Dashaway wuz gw’in’ to drap
’fo I git him to de half-mile pos’--”
“_Drap_--you scoundrel, _drap_! The blood of Sir Henry _drap_! You
confounded rascal, you pulled that horse,” etc., etc., etc.
Mrs. Peyton laughed. “It does my heart good to hear Tom Berkeley raging
like that. It reminds me that we are not all dead or changed, as it
seems to me sometimes. Your father and I have had passages-at-arms in
_my_ time, I can tell you, Olivia.”
Clang! presently again. It is the saddling bell once more. But there
is no Dashaway in this race. Nevertheless it is very exciting. There
are half a dozen horses, and after the start is made it looks to be
anybody’s race. Even as they come pounding down the straight sweep
of the last two furlongs, it would be hard to pick out the probable
winner. The people on the grand stand have gone wild--they are shouting
names, the men waving their hats, the women standing up on benches to
see as two or three horses gradually draw away from the others, and a
desperate struggle is promised within the last thirty lengths. And just
at this moment, when everybody’s attention is fixed on the incoming
horses, French Pembroke has slipped across the track and is speaking
to the blonde woman in the victoria. His face does not look pleasant.
He has chosen this moment, when all attention is fixed on something
else to speak to her, so that it will not be observed--and although he
adopts the subterfuge, he despises it. Nor does the blonde woman fail
to see through it. She does not relish being spoken to on the sly as it
were. Nothing, however, disturbs the cheerful urbanity of the gentleman
by her side. He gets out of the carriage and grasps Pembroke by the
hand. He calls him “mon cher” a vulgar mode of address which Pembroke
resents with a curt “Good-morning, Mr. Ahlberg,” and then he lifts his
hat to the lady whom he calls Madame Koller. “Why did you not come
before?” she asks, “you might have known it would be dull enough.”
“Don’t you know everybody here?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Madame Koller, sighing profoundly. “I remember all
of them--and most of the men have called. Some of them are so strange.
They stay all day when they come. And such queer carriages.”
“And the costumes. The costumes!” adds Mr. Ahlberg on the ground.
Pembroke felt a sense of helpless indignation. He answered Mr. Ahlberg
by turning his back, and completely ignoring that excessively stylish
person.
“You must remember the four years’ harrowing they have been through,”
he says to Madame Koller. “But they are so thoroughly established
in their own esteem,” he adds with a little malice, “that they are
indifferent even to the disapproval of Madame Koller. I am glad to see
you looking so well. I must, however, leave you now, as I am one of
the managers, and must look after the weighing.”
“Now you are going away because I have been disagreeable,” remarked
Madame Koller reproachfully. “And poor Ahlberg--”
“Must take care of you, and do his best to amuse you,” answered
Pembroke with a laugh and a look that classed Ahlberg with Madame’s
poodle or her parrot. “Good-bye,” and in a minute he was gone. Madame
Koller looked sulky. Mr. Ahlberg’s good humor and composure were
perfectly unruffled.
Hardly any one noticed Pembroke’s little expedition except Mrs.
Peyton and Olivia Berkeley. Mrs. Peyton mounted a pair of large gold
spectacles, and then remarked to Olivia:
“My dear, there’s French Pembroke talking to my niece, Eliza Peyton--”
Mrs. Peyton was a Peyton before she married one--“Madame Elise Koller
she now calls herself.”
“Yes, I see.”
“I suppose you saw a good deal of her in Paris, and my sister-in-law,
Sarah Scaife that was--now Madame Schmidt. She showed me the dear
departed’s picture the other day--a horrid little wretch he looked,
while my brother, Edmund Peyton, was the handsomest young man in the
county.”
“We saw Madame Koller quite often,” said Olivia. Mrs. Peyton was
amazingly clever as a mind reader, and saw in a moment there was no
love lost between Olivia Berkeley and Madame Koller.
“And that Mr. Ahlberg. Sarah Scaife says he is a cousin of Eliza’s--I
mean Elise’s--husband.”
“I should think if anybody knew the facts in the case it would be Sarah
Scaife, as you call her,” replied Olivia laughing. “I believe he is a
very harmless kind of a man.”
At that Mrs. Peyton took off her spectacles and looked at Olivia keenly.
“I hate to believe you are a goose,” she said, good-naturedly; “but you
must be very innocent. Harmless! That is the very thing that man is
not.”
“So papa says, but I think it comes from Mr. Ahlberg eating asparagus
with his fingers and not knowing how to play whist, or something of
the kind. I have seen him on and off at watering places, and in Paris
for two or three years. I never saw him do anything that wasn’t quite
right--and I never heard anything against him except what you and papa
say--and that is rather indefinite.”
“And you didn’t observe my niece with French Pembroke, did you?”
Olivia Berkeley’s face turned a warm color. Such very plain spoken
persons as Mrs. Peyton were a little embarrassing. But just then came
the sound of the Colonel’s voice, raised at a considerable distance.
“Olivia, my love--God bless my soul--Mrs. Peyton--there’s that charming
niece of yours--what a creature she was when she lived in this county
as Eliza Peyton--a regular stunner, begad--I must go and speak to
her--and my particular friend, Ahlberg--excuse me a moment, my love.”
Colonel Berkeley stalked across the track, receiving all the attention
which Pembroke had tried to avoid. Life in his beloved Virginia had
almost driven the Colonel distracted by its dullness, and he could
not but welcome a fellow creature from the outside. He buttoned his
light overcoat trimly around his still handsome figure, and bowed
majestically when he reached the carriage. Madame Koller returned the
bow with a brilliant smile. She was beginning to feel very much alone,
albeit she was in her native county, and she welcomed Colonel Berkeley
as a deliverer. Evidently she soothed him about Dashaway. Pembroke,
passing by, heard scraps like the following:
“I have seen just such things at the Grand Prix--”
“Madame, the infernal system here of putting up irresponsible negro
boys--”
“I could see he had a superb stride--”
“Dashaway, Madame Koller, comes from the very best stock in the State
of Virginia.”
The day wore on, and by dint of spinning things out most unconscionably
it was dusk of the clear autumn evening before the cavalcade took
the dusty white road toward home. In “the Isleham carriage” Colonel
Berkeley leaned back and waxed confidential with his daughter.
“My dear, Eliza Peyton--Madame Koller I should say--is what you young
sprigs call green--excessively green. She imagines because I am old I
am a fool. And that precious scamp, Ahlberg--”
“Why do you call him a scamp, papa?”
“Why do I call Petrarch an African?”
“Mrs. Peyton seems to have some kind of a prejudice to Mr. Ahlberg,
too.”
“Aha, trust Sally Peyton to see for herself. She’s devilish tricky,
is Sally Peyton--not that I have any cause to complain of it--none
whatever. She’s very sharp. But we’ll go and call some day on
Eli--Madame Koller. She’s not bad company for the country--and I’ve
heard she could sing, too.”
“Yes, we will go,” answered Olivia, suppressing a yawn. “It’s in the
country, as you say.”