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.
Two of the best rooms in the house were prepared for the expected
guests, and a couple of garret rooms allotted to the two maids who were
to accompany the ladies.
On a lovely May afternoon the coach with Madame Isabey and Madame Le
Noir was due at Harrowby. Never had the old manor house looked sweeter
than on this golden afternoon of late springtime. The great clumps
of syringas and snowballs, like giant bouquets on the green lawn,
were in splendid leaf and flower, and flooded the blue air with their
perfume. The old garden was in the first glory of its blossoming, and
the ancient wall at the end, where stood the bench called Angela’s,
could scarcely support the odorous beauty of the lilacs, white and
purple. The river singing its ceaseless song ran smiling and dimpling
to the sea. All was peace outwardly, although peace was riven within
the household. Angela was palpitating with excitement at the thought of
the strangers’ arrival. She had never seen anyone in her life from a
place as far off as New Orleans, except Isabey and Lyddon. The ladies
of high degree, who were to arrive, belonged in a way to Isabey, and
it was through him that they were invited to take up their domicile at
Harrowby. Angela dressed herself carefully in a pale-green muslin left
over from last year. There had been no question of new gowns for women
that year; an army of men had to be clothed and shod, and for that the
women of the South heroically sacrificed their fal-lals.
Mrs. Tremaine, herself, placid and dignified, was secretly a little
agitated at the coming advent of these strange new guests. Luckily,
Hector being absent, everything went on properly in the department
of the dining room, and there were no complications about lost keys,
disappearing brandy bottles, and the usual corollary of a butler with
magnificent manners, a disinclination for work, and a tendency to steep
his soul in the Lethe of forgetfulness. Toward five o’clock, everything
being in perfect preparation, Angela went into the garden to pace up
and down the long walk and think, to speculate, to dream chiefly of
Isabey, for she had not succeeded in putting him out of her mind. As
she passed across the lawn she met George Charteris about to return to
Greenhill. He went by her with a sort of angry indifference. Angela
noticed this without feeling it. She seemed not four years but a whole
decade older than George Charteris, and eons seemed to have passed
since she was flattered by his boyish admiration.
As she sat on the bench under the lilacs she remembered the old
yearning which had been hers, when the lilacs last bloomed, for
something to happen. Things were happening so fast that her breath
was almost taken away. And then looking toward the house, she saw the
old coach rolling up. Hector, by some occult means, had succeeded in
getting a nip of applejack, and in consequence Colonel Tremaine sat on
the coach box and drove, while Hector, with folded arms, expostulated.
There was, however, no room for Colonel Tremaine inside, as it was
entirely taken up by the two ladies, their maids, and bandboxes. A cart
containing their trunks followed behind.
By the time the cavalcade drew up to the door, Angela, who was fleet of
foot, was standing on the steps with Mrs. Tremaine. Colonel Tremaine,
springing from the box and bowing profoundly, opened the carriage
door and Isabey’s stepmother descended. Madame Isabey was the size
and shape of a hogshead. She had once been pretty and nothing could
dim the laughing light in her eyes and the brilliance of her smile.
She radiated good humor, and when Mrs. Tremaine advanced, embraced,
and kissed her on both cheeks, she poured forth a volley of thanks in
French, of which Mrs. Tremaine understood not one word. Madame Isabey
spoke English tolerably, but in moments of expansion invariably forgot
every word of it. Then she seized Angela, whom she called an angel,
a darling, and a little birdlet, of whom Philip had written her. If
Angela was slightly disappointed in the state and majesty of Madame
Isabey, there was no disappointment when Madame Le Noir descended.
Her eyes were dark and her complexion olive like Madame Isabey’s, but
there the resemblance ceased. Adrienne’s face, delicate, melancholy,
beautiful, was of exquisite coloring, although without a touch of
rose. Her hair was of midnight blackness, her complexion creamy, and
she had the most beautiful teeth imaginable, which showed in a smile
faint and illusive that hovered about her thin, red lips. Her figure
was perfectly modeled, and her gown, her hat, her gloves, everything
betokened an exquisite luxury of simplicity. She spoke English fluently
in the most musical of voices. Lyddon, who from the study window, was
watching the debarkation, promptly came to the conclusion that no
woman with so much personal charm and elegance as Madame Le Noir could
possibly have any mind whatever.
A greater contrast to Angela could not be imagined. With that singular
sensitiveness about clothes which is born in the normal woman, Angela
realized at once that her gown was of last year’s fashion and the
brooch and bracelets which she wore, according to the custom of the
time, were not suited to her youth and slimness. She and Adrienne
glanced at each other and in an instant the attraction of repulsion
was established between them, that jealous admiration which is after
all the highest tribute one woman can pay another. Not more was Angela
overwhelmed with Adrienne’s matchless grace, her air of being the
perfect flower of civilization, than was Adrienne impressed by Angela’s
nymphlike freshness. Thirty is old for a woman near Capricorn, and
Adrienne Le Noir looked all her thirty years. Her beauty had been
acquired, as it were, by painstaking and was certainly preserved by it,
while here was a creature, with the freshness of the dawn and much of
its loveliness, whose beauty was no more a thing of calculation than
the wood violets or the wild hyacinths which grew shyly under the yew
hedge along the Ladies’ Walk.
Madame Isabey, who waddled into the house, escorted by Colonel Tremaine
with elaborate welcomes and many genuflections, was charmed with
everything. Finding Mrs. Tremaine did not understand a word of French,
Madame Isabey poured forth her thanks in Spanish, which did not mend
matters in the least. She grew ecstatic over the dazzling account which
Isabey had given of Angela, and Angela, to her own annoyance, blushed
deeply at this--a blush which did not escape Adrienne, whose soft black
eyes saw everything.
Angela’s ear was not attuned to French, and although she had a really
sound knowledge of the language, she was mortified at having to ask for
a repetition of what Madame Isabey was saying. She received another pin
prick by Adrienne’s speaking to her in English.
After the ladies were shown to their rooms they were invited to rest
themselves until supper, which was at eight o’clock. Angela went
downstairs and again sought the garden seat. She was followed by
Lyddon. “Wonderful old party, Madame Isabey,” he said, throwing his
long, lanky figure on the bench. “I perceive, however, that she is
amusing and means to be pleased, and the other lady--by Jupiter, I have
never seen a woman more beautiful than she!”
Angela started.
“Why, Mr. Lyddon,” she said, in a surprised voice, “Madame Le Noir is
very, very pretty, but I shouldn’t call her beautiful!”
“My child, men will always call Madame Le Noir beautiful because she is
seductive; that is beauty of the highest order.”
Angela laughed.
“I didn’t think you were so keen on beauty, Mr. Lyddon.”
“I’m not; I let the ladies alone as severely as they let me alone, but
I know a beautiful woman when I see one. This Madame Le Noir has the
beauty of the serpent of old Nile. I dare say there will be a match
between her and Captain Isabey soon.”
“Why do you think so?” asked in a tremulous voice the wife of Neville
Tremaine.
“It is what the ladies call intuition. They were not brought up
together at all as brother and sister; that much I know from Captain
Isabey, who mentioned that he was at the university when his father’s
second marriage occurred.”
Angela sat silent revolving these things in her mind.
Isabey married! She had thought of him for years as a hero of romance,
a knight of dreams, but she had never contemplated him as married.
Lyddon continued:
“They have a way in those New Orleans families of keeping all the money
in the family connection. I judge that it would be a good financial
arrangement for Madame Isabey’s daughter to marry her stepson, and
the suggestion will come quite naturally from the old lady and will
probably be accepted.”
Lyddon advanced these airy hypotheses with such an air of certainty
that Angela took them just as he intended, seriously and definitely.
He had trained this flower for Neville Tremaine, and he did not wish
Isabey to inhale all its fragrance.
A little before eight o’clock Adrienne came down into the hall where
the lamps and candles were lighted. She was exquisitely dressed in a
gown of the thinnest white muslin and lace, which set off her delicate,
dark beauty. She had already made a conquest of Colonel Tremaine by
her graceful affability, and riveted the chains upon him by her soft
manners and her well-expressed gratitude. Women without penetration
seldom took any notice of Lyddon, but Adrienne had much natural
discernment, and she recognized under Lyddon’s ill-fitting clothes and
general air of abstracted scholarship a very considerable man. As she
talked, standing in an attitude of perfect grace with one bare and
rounded arm upon the mantelpiece, Lyddon concluded that he would add a
second to his private portrait gallery of women, Angela having been the
only one up to that time. Adrienne Le Noir was neither a green girl nor
a simpleton nor a would-be wit, nor any of the tiresome things which
Lyddon always took for granted with young and pretty women. She made
no pretentions to be well read, but she had studied the book of life
and had mastered many of its pages, and Lyddon suspected that she was
better acquainted with the human document than most women. He found
himself wondering what sort of a marriage hers had been, and surmised
that she was by no means broken-hearted. Her pensive air struck him as
being rather an expectant than a retrospective melancholy.
When supper was announced Madame Isabey had not yet appeared, and
Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine would have died rather than gone in the
dining room without her.
“I am afraid you will not find my mother very punctual,” said Adrienne
with a smile. “Even Captain Isabey has never been able to make her
punctual, and she will do more for him than for anyone else in the
world. I often tell her that he is her favorite child, not I.”
“It is most delightful,” said Colonel Tremaine grandly, “to see so
affectionate a relation existing between a stepmother and a stepson.
No doubt Captain Isabey, with whom we all became infatuated, regards
Madame Isabey as a mother.”
Adrienne laughed a little. “I scarcely think that,” she said. “My
mother never saw Captain Isabey until he was more than twenty years
old, but he is very chivalrous, as you know, and was always most
attentive to my mother, and she has a kind heart. She admires Captain
Isabey, and is very proud of him.”
“As she may well be,” responded Colonel Tremaine impressively. “And
to you, my dear madame, such a brother must have been an acquisition
indeed.”
“But he is not my brother,” replied Adrienne, quickly and decisively.
“I never saw Captain Isabey until just before my marriage, and although
we are the best of friends and I haven’t words to express his goodness
to me, I don’t look upon him as a relative.”
Lyddon glanced at Angela as much as to say: “Just as I thought.”
It was in vain that Adrienne urged that the family go into supper.
Neither Colonel nor Mrs. Tremaine would budge until Madame Isabey
appeared. At last, after waiting twenty minutes, Madame Isabey came
bustling down, finishing her toilet in full view of Colonel Tremaine,
Lyddon, and Archie, and explaining that Celeste, her maid, never could
put her hand on anything. Colonel Tremaine then offered her his arm
and they proceeded to the dining room. Madame Isabey declined both tea
and coffee, and with much innocence asked for red wine, but when Mrs.
Tremaine explained that all the wine at Harrowby had been sent to the
field hospital, the old lady, with the utmost good humor, took a glass
of sugared water instead.
She chattered incessantly in French to Colonel Tremaine, and by dint
of repeating everything over three times and the use of the sign
language made him understand what she was saying, and listened with the
greatest good humor to his rusty French. She talked much about Isabey,
to whom she was evidently attached, and the fact that he had let fall
some words of admiration concerning Angela at once established her in
Madame Isabey’s good graces. The old lady was not deficient in humor
and gave an amusing description in mixed French and English of their
hurried flight from New Orleans, and thanked God that she had found a
comfortable place to rest her bones until the war should be over or she
should be turned out of doors.
“No fear of that, madame,” replied Colonel Tremaine, laughing in spite
of himself. Then Madame Isabey launched into praise of Philip Isabey,
speaking of him as her son. “You, my dear colonel and Mrs. Tremaine,
can sympathize with me as only parents can. I have given my only son,
my Philip, to his country, and you, I hear, more fortunate than I, have
given two sons and one more remains to offer.”
Colonel Tremaine’s handsome old face grew pale, while a flush arose
in Angela’s cheeks. A silence fell which showed instantly to Madame
Isabey that she had made a false step, and she suddenly remembered the
story about Neville Tremaine which she had heard and, for the moment,
forgotten. After a pause, slight but exquisitely painful, Colonel
Tremaine replied: “We have only one son in the Confederate service.”
“Oh, were you ever at the carnival?” cried Madame Isabey, determined to
get away from the unfortunate subject.
“Yes, madame, I was at the carnival of 1847,” replied Colonel Tremaine,
glad to take refuge in the safe harbor of reminiscences of 1847.
“I remember that carnival. I was as slight as your finger, and could
waltz all through the carnival week without being fatigued.” Here
Madame Isabey, with her two fingers and a lace handkerchief deftly
wrapped around her hand, made a very good imitation of a ballet dancer
waltzing and pirouetting on the bare mahogany table. Mrs. Tremaine was
secretly shocked at such flippancy, and Adrienne sighed a little over
the incurable levity of her mother.
One present, however, enjoyed it hugely. This was Archie, who
recognized that Madame Isabey’s heart and soul were about the age of
his own. He grinned delightedly and sympathetically at Madame Isabey.
So did Tasso and Jim Henry, but Hector, assuming an air of stern
rebuke, marched up to Madame Isabey, and in a stage whisper announced:
“Family prayers, m’um, is at half past nine o’clock, mu’m.”
“What does he say?” asked Madame Isabey inquiringly. And Lyddon gravely
explained that Hector wished to know at what hour she would like
breakfast in her room.
After supper, Madame Isabey, who had heard the outlines of Angela’s
story, taking her by the arm, walked up and down the hall, her
voluminous flounces and large hoop making her look like a stupendous
pin cushion. But her smiling face, dimpled with good humor, showed that
she had not outlived the tenderness of sympathy.
“My dear,” she said, speaking slowly and in English, “I know it all.
You adored Neville Tremaine and married him for the best reason in the
world--because he asked you. We are not accustomed to what you people
in Virginia call love marriages, but I rather like them once in a while
when there is a little money back of them. My last marriage was a love
marriage, but I had a fine house in New Orleans and a couple of sugar
plantations, and my husband had two more sugar plantations and a larger
house than mine, so you see we could afford to be sentimental. My first
marriage was arranged for me, but I frankly admit that I preferred the
last one. It sometimes happens that a second marriage is a first love.”
Angela with Madame Isabey’s fat arm upon her slender one, and the old
lady’s dark, bright eyes seeking hers, was inwardly horrified at Madame
Isabey’s confidence, but maintained a discreet silence as Madame Isabey
prattled on.
“So was Adrienne’s marriage for her, but she is different from me. She
didn’t take it kindly. Oh, I don’t mean she objected! My daughter is
far too well bred, too well governed, for that. She is superior to me
in understanding and everything else, but she was very _triste_ all
the time poor Le Noir lived, and when he died, after two years of
marriage, Adrienne appeared relieved. That was ten years ago, and I
believe she intends to make a love marriage the next time.”
Then, catching a glimpse of Lyddon shambling across the hall to the
old study, Madame Isabey darted after him with an activity and grace
singularly contrasted with her size and shape.
“Come here, you Mr. Lyddon, you Englishman,” she cried. “Tell Madame
Neville Tremaine and me what you think of love marriages.”
“It is a subject upon which I never dare to think,” replied Lyddon in
his scholarly French.
“That’s the way with you blessed English,” cried Madame Isabey
laughing. “You never think, you only act, you English. I am telling
Madame Neville that there are worse things than love marriages, and as
for all this racket about her husband remaining in the Union Army, tra
la la.”
However astounded Angela might be by Madame Isabey’s frank confessions,
her goodness of heart and her desire to make herself acceptable was
obvious, nor was she without charms and interest.
When they went into the drawing-room, Colonel Tremaine asked Adrienne
if she played.
“Yes,” she replied, smiling, and seating herself at the piano, swept
away the music on the rack, and ran her fingers softly over the keys.
Her playing was to Angela as great a revelation as Isabey’s singing.
It was so finished, so full of art, so unlike the noisy transcriptions
of operas and descriptive pieces to which Angela was accustomed.
She listened, thrilled, but with a sinking heart. Each of her
accomplishments seemed to disappear, one by one, in the light of
Adrienne’s superiority.
When Adrienne had finished playing, Madame Isabey cried: “Oh, you
should hear Adrienne and Philip sing together the most charming duets
imaginable! My child, sing for our friends.”
Adrienne acquiesced readily and gracefully. She was in no wise averse
to showing her gifts before this young girl already a wife, whom Philip
Isabey had admired so openly.
Adrienne’s voice was not remarkable, but her method, her feeling, her
deep musical intelligence made her songs charming.
Then to complete Angela’s mortification, as it were, Mrs. Tremaine
asked her to play. Angela, with the courage which would lead a forlorn
hope, went to the piano and very wisely chose to do what she could best
do. She played a waltz with perfect rhythm, but she had nothing of the
phrasing, the tone color, the power of expression which marked the
finished musician.
The waltz was, however, inspiring enough, or rather too much so, for
Madame Isabey crying, “The music gets into my feet, it makes me waltz,
I can’t help it,” sprang up, and catching Archie by the arm, cried
out: “Oh, you dear little red-headed boy, come and waltz with me!”
Archie, nothing loath, seized her about her capacious waist, and the
two floated round the big drawing-room to their own delight and to the
discomfiture of all present except Lyddon and the servants, whose black
faces peering in at the door were expanded into smiles which showed
all their ivories.
Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine were aghast; Mrs. Tremaine had never really
considered the waltz respectable.
Neither age nor size could impair Madame Isabey’s grace, and Archie,
enveloped in her flounces, his round, red head peering over her
shoulder, found less difficulty in steering her than many a sylph-like
girl. Lyddon, smiling grimly, leaned with folded arms against the
mantelpiece. He forebore to take a chair, meaning to make his escape at
the first moment. Suddenly Madame Isabey darted up to him and crying,
“Here is an opportunity to teach you the divine waltz,” proceeded to
drag him around the room, keeping time meanwhile with a refrain of
“one, two, three, waltz around.”
Angela turned round, and for the first time in a month burst out
laughing. So did Colonel Tremaine, while a subdued guffaw from the
window showed that Lyddon’s predicament had not been wholly lost
on Tasso, Jim Henry, Mirandy, and their colleagues. Lyddon, when
he recovered his senses, found he had waltzed half round the room
with Madame Isabey, but then tore himself loose, and rushed away,
considering whether or not he should be obliged to give up the
comfortable berth at Harrowby, which he had held for twelve years,
rather than live under the roof with this extraordinary old lady.
Madame Isabey sat down panting. The laugh which went round relieved for
a moment the tension which had prevailed at Harrowby ever since that
fateful night of Neville’s departure.