THE IRON HAND OF WAR AND CIRCUMSTANCE
Two hours afterwards, the great coach with the big, long-tailed bay
horses, was on its way to Captain Ross’s house.
Within the coach sat Mrs. Tremaine and Madame Isabey. Captain
Ross’s house, a small frame building painted a staring white, was
only a couple of miles away. Already the news of his successful
blockade-running had got abroad, and the space under the trees was
filled with all sorts of vehicles carrying all sorts of people from
Mrs. Tremaine in her coach and pair down to a ramshackle Jersey wagon
drawn by a decrepit mule.
Half the women of the neighborhood were there, and all intent on
buying. The merchandise was piled up in the front room of the house,
known as the “settin’ room,” where Captain Ross’s business manager,
Didlake, presided over the sales. Nothing was sold by the yard or the
pound; the ladies were too eager for that, and bought whole packages
at once. Some of them had gold, but all of them had Confederate or
Virginia State money, which they offered to Didlake, but which was in
every case civilly but firmly refused.
Then came a torrent of invective against his want of patriotism in
declining Confederate money, and demands to see Captain Ross.
This request Didlake, who was suavity itself, politely evaded. “He’s
asleep, ladies. He tumbled over like a log as soon as the anchor kissed
the mud this morning and he got ashore, and I ain’t got the heart to
wake him up. There never was a time from Sunday night, when we slipped
out of Baltimore, until this morning, when we got into Mobjack Bay,
that we wasn’t in sight of a Yankee vessel. They didn’t see us because
we was painted the right color, but we seen them, and I tell you it
wan’t no time for the capt’n to be sleeping. I give out myself last
night and had a good night’s rest, but this is the first time Capt’n
Ross has shet his eyes even to wink, since Sunday night.”
This only produced additional clamors on the part of the ladies to see
Captain Ross before parting with their scanty supply of gold. But while
they were eagerly discussing and denouncing Captain Ross’s turpitude to
the Confederate cause, Madame Isabey, suddenly catching sight of some
organdies which were, indeed, a fair and tempting vision, pulled out a
long silk purse.
“Meestaire what’s-your-name?” she said calmly to Didlake, “I am what
you call a patriotic lady, but these organdies are so very nice and the
war may last a long time. I will pay gold for all I take.”
“Thank you, marm,” replied the unabashed Didlake, and Madame Isabey,
promptly selecting piece after piece of what she wanted, and determined
to make sure of her purchases, opened a door near at hand into a small
bedroom and proceeded to throw on the bed bundles, hard and soft, but
mostly hard. At the tenth throw Captain Ross’s shaggy head uprose from
the bed and he shouted:
“Good God! madam, you’ve nearly knocked my brains out.”
The rest of the ladies fled precipitately, deeply shocked by this
untoward accident, but Madame Isabey stoutly held her ground.
“Oh!” she cried; “it makes no difference. I will throw the bundles on
the floor, meestaire.” This she proceeded to do while Captain Ross
covered his head up and soon began to snooze again.
Having taken her choice of everything and paid for it in gold, like
a man, as Didlake said, Madame Isabey was in possession of enough
contraband goods to set up a small-sized shop.
Mrs. Tremaine had been a modest purchaser and so had most of the other
ladies, but Madame Isabey had got the choice of everything. When the
parcels were loaded into the old coach, there was scarcely room for
Mrs. Tremaine and Madame Isabey with her enormous hoop skirt.
As the two ladies were exchanging confidences out of the coach window
with the group around them concerning prices and qualities, a diversion
was created by Mrs. Charteris driving up in a big barouche, while by
her side sat Mr. Brand. Ever sanguine, Mr. Brand had not yet learned
that every civility offered him by Mrs. Charteris was invariably used
by that lady for his discomfiture. So far, he was the only gentleman
who had appeared upon the scene of action, but as soon as he was on the
ground and had assisted Mrs. Charteris to alight, the ladies flocked
around him. Over their pretty piping voices was heard Didlake’s suave
basso.
“Look here, Mr. Brand,” he called out, with an affectation of
innocence, “we brought some real contraband goods this time that the
ladies ain’t seen yet and don’t want to see. It’s guns and pistols. I
can sell you as good a Colt’s revolver, army regulation pattern, as you
ever see in your life, Mr. Brand. We all knows your duty lies here, but
we are looking to see you and George Charteris and Colonel Tremaine and
that red-headed boy, Archie, all run away to jine the army.”
The impudence of this annoyed Mr. Brand excessively, particularly in
the presence of Mrs. Charteris, who never ceased badgering him openly
and secretly for not joining the army. Mrs. Charteris, who was known
to have more spirit than any ten men in the county, now turned her
attention to Didlake.
“Mr. Didlake,” she cried, “I want to buy some things here, but I
understand you and Captain Ross won’t take Confederate money, the money
of your country.”
“Well, marm,” Didlake began, and halted. He was a little afraid of Mrs.
Charteris, who was reckoned the best business woman in five counties.
“Don’t ‘Well, marm’ me, Mr. Didlake. May I ask in what kind of currency
do you expect to pay the interest on your mortgage which I hold?”
Didlake remained silent, seeing the pitfall before him, and Mrs.
Charteris continued vigorously, but laughing meanwhile at Didlake’s
plight:
“Very well, then, you’ll pay that interest in gold. It has been due
some little time and I shall have pleasure in spending it on the spot.”
And with this, she figuratively collared Didlake, drove him into the
house before her, made him produce the amount of his debt in gold, and
proceeded to lay it out on the spot in purchases.
Madame Isabey, who had heard something of Mr. Brand’s devotion to Mrs.
Charteris and the Charteris acres, was deeply interested in this duello
and could scarcely be torn from the scene, but Mrs. Tremaine gently
reminding her that it was now high noon, they drove away.
Meanwhile, an unexpected visitor had reached Harrowby. As Angela sat
reading alone in the cool green light of the darkened drawing-room,
she heard the clatter of hoofs upon the gravel outside and the next
moment, glancing through the jalousies, she saw Philip Isabey dismount
from his horse and walk up the steps. Her heart gave a great leap, and
she involuntarily put her hand to her breast. Perhaps it was because so
much had happened, so much was happening, that even her strong young
nerves were a little tense.
The next moment Isabey was being ushered in by Hector. Isabey
thought he had never seen more witchery in a woman than in Angela at
that moment. She was palpitating and flushing beautifully, and the
unconscious coquetry of her sidelong glances was charming. Through
her thin white bodice and sleeves could be seen her delicate neck
and slender arms, and she seemed to embody all freshness, coolness,
and purity. Her glances, however, took note of Isabey’s slight but
well-made figure, his perfectly fitting uniform, the masculine charm,
if not beauty, which was his.
“I’m so sorry Madame Isabey is not here,” said Angela, after the first
greetings were exchanged. “She has gone with Aunt Sophia to Captain
Ross’s, the blockade-runner, this morning, and Uncle Tremaine is out
riding. Madame Le Noir, however, is at home, and I will send for her at
once,” and she touched the drawing-room bell.
“You may send for her,” replied Isabey, laughing, “but I know Madame
Le Noir; you will not find her up and dressed at eleven o’clock in the
morning.”
“You will stay some time?” said Angela, accustomed to lavish
hospitality.
“If I am asked--yes. I shall be at the instruction camp for a week
upon military business. In fact, I spent last night there with Richard
Tremaine and found that my affairs could be transacted equally well at
Harrowby, so Tremaine sent me down here to stay a week.”
Guests to spend a week at Harrowby were common, but the prospect of
the week before her made Angela’s flush grow deeper. Just then Tasso
appeared, and Angela sent him to Adrienne’s room with the message that
Captain Isabey had arrived.
Then they sat down together, Angela in a corner of a deep old mahogany
sofa while Isabey drew up his chair. He wondered at himself when he
realized the shock of pleasure, nay, of delight, which this girl’s
presence gave him. He was well into his thirties and had lived much,
but Angela was as new to him as he was to her. He knew intimately the
French type of woman only. He had seen many girls of other types,
but seeing is not knowing. He had never known any girl in the least
resembling Angela. On this occasion he was astonished and charmed
by her ease and dignity as a hostess. Angela, in truth, had been
accustomed to play hostess on occasions from the time she was ten years
old. The combination was not rare in the Virginia woman of the day, of
a childlike ignorance of the world together with a most perfect womanly
self-possession and grace. But it was quite new to Isabey.
Apart from all of this, Angela had for him an interest which no other
woman had ever possessed. True, he remembered the time when the
presence of Adrienne had made his pulses leap, when the sweep of her
delicate robe, the fragrance of her hair, would banish from him the
whole world, but that had been long ago when he was a boy of twenty
and Adrienne herself was then engaged to marry the eminently worthy
and wealthy Le Noir, of one of the best families in New Orleans. For
Isabey, that intoxication had passed, and he had rightly reasoned that
it would scarcely be likely an impressionable young fellow, such as he
was thirteen years before, should see a girl as charming as Adrienne
and not fall precipitately in love with her.
However, he had recovered from it whole and sound as lads of twenty
come out of these desperate fevers of love and when, a few years
later, Adrienne was free, the fever had not returned. Isabey admired
her; she pleased every artistic sense he possessed and he believed her
capable of a passionate attachment. But since that early and boyish
infatuation, she had never stirred love within him. He rather wished
she had, because Madame Isabey was always throwing out feelers in the
matter. It would be so very convenient and acceptable in every way for
the marriage to take place. And the fitness of it was so obvious, too
obvious, so Isabey thought.
Adrienne was too clever, too well bred, too much mistress of herself to
betray whatever of chagrin she felt at Isabey’s attitude of easy and
brotherly friendship, and Isabey had too much manly modesty to suppose
that Adrienne yearned for him. He saw, however, that life for her was a
broken dream. She had all that could awaken love, and yet love was not
hers.
Men being exempt from the matchmaking mania, Isabey had not
magnanimously thought of some other man whom Adrienne might bless
until that very day when on his ride to Harrowby he had reflected
upon Richard Tremaine’s frankly expressed admiration for her, and
wondered if something more might not come of it. And at the same time
he thought, with a mingling of rage and amusement in his heart, that
from the hour he found that he could go to Harrowby, Angela’s face
and her slim figure had been continually before him. Poor child! What
fate might be hers! He had seen enough, and surmised more during that
first visit at Harrowby, to suspect that Angela had arranged a loveless
marriage for herself just as a loveless marriage had been arranged for
Adrienne by others.
And then Isabey, manlike, began to feel genuine self-pity for himself.
Here, at last, in this quiet Virginia country house, had he met the
woman who could awaken his interest and perhaps stir his heart, and she
had been married one week before he met her. These thoughts returned
to him as he sat watching Angela in the corner of the sofa fanning
herself slowly and gracefully with a great, green fan.
Isabey told her of Richard’s doings at the instruction camp and spoke
of him with admiration. “I thought I knew Richard Tremaine well, and
as you know, when two youngsters have chummed together as Tremaine
and I did at the university and in Paris, they haven’t usually an
overwhelming admiration for each other, but it is impossible not to
recognize Tremaine’s capacity. It appears greater whenever there is
a great opportunity. He has it now and you will see this time next
year he will be known as one of the best artillery officers in the
Confederate Army.”
Angela was once more impressed by the studied correctness of Isabey’s
speech, which, however much he might be master of English, showed that
it was not his native language, and this added still more to his charm,
serving as it did to differentiate him from all other men she had ever
known in her life.
Upon the wall opposite them hung a fanciful painting of Neville and
Richard when they were little boys in white frocks. According to the
sentimental fashion of the time, they were represented as doing what
they had never done in their lives. Richard, sitting upon a bank of
violets, held a bird cage with a bird in it, at which Neville was
throwing roses. The picture had a quaint prettiness upon which Isabey
remarked, asking if they were portraits of the two brothers.
“Yes,” answered Angela. “The one with the bird cage is Richard and the
other is my--my husband.”
“As you know, I haven’t the pleasure of knowing Captain Neville
Tremaine as well as I know Richard, but, of course, I honor and respect
him the more for the action he has taken, which I believe was the most
painful sacrifice imaginable. I am not of those rabid men who think
that there is but one view of military honor. I think I should have
acted differently if I had been in Neville’s place, but I am very far
from condemning him.”
“Thank you,” said Angela, tremulously. “You don’t know how hard it
is to me to feel that every hand is turned against Neville, every
heart hardened toward him. You see, all of us love Neville better,
I think, than anything in the world; he was Aunt Sophia’s and Uncle
Tremaine’s favorite son, though they always denied they had a favorite,
but Richard and Archie knew it and all of us, and there never was
any jealousy of Neville. Richard was the cleverer, Neville says that
himself, but Neville was the best loved, and now his parents seem to
hate him.”
Angela, as she spoke, leaned back and half-averted her face and lowered
her long lashes, a trick she had when she was distressed or displeased.
Isabey, listening to her, was overwhelmed with a wave of pity. She was
unconsciously telling the story he had suspected from the beginning,
that she had married without exactly knowing what love was. He gently
encouraged her to speak of Neville, and every word she said confirmed
his theory. She could not say too much in praise of Neville, but she
said no word which showed that his presence made heaven for her or that
his absence meant desolation.
“Of course, I shall go to Neville as soon as I can,” she said. “He is
not able to have me yet, but I shall go the instant he writes me to
start. Everyone at Harrowby was kind to me when I was a child, but
Neville was the kindest of all, and now when he is an outcast I am the
only one who will go to him and comfort him. I don’t mean that Richard
is bitter against him. Richard feels as you do, but Aunt Sophia and
everyone else is against him. Aunt Sophia and Uncle Tremaine, you know,
won’t mention his name at family prayers; think of it!”
She leaned forward and two indignant tears dropped upon her pale,
pretty cheeks.
“Oh,” she said, “if I could tell you all!”
Unconsciously she put out her hand, and Isabey, scarcely knowing what
he did, took it. His training was thoroughly French, and he had the
old-fashioned French idea that only the man who loved a woman should
touch her hand. When he felt Angela’s soft palm upon his, it thrilled
him, and Angela, realizing the delicate pressure of his fingers,
suddenly withdrew her hand.
But at that moment the invisible chain was forged. They could not look
at each other with indifference, and were perforce instinctively on
their guard with each other.
“I--I don’t know what made me do that,” Angela faltered. “But
everything is so strange to me now, and I feel so friendless. Six
months ago I had a plenty of people to love me, now I seem to have no
one.”
Then the soft frou-frou of dainty skirts and Adrienne’s delicate
footfall was heard, and the next moment she stood before them.
Never had Angela or Isabey, either, seen Adrienne look more seductive,
for beautiful she was not in its regular sense. The heat had brought
a faint flush into her usually colorless face and a smile parted her
scarlet lips. She was, as always, exquisitely dressed, and there was
about her that singular aroma of elegance which is the possession of
some women.
She and Isabey greeted each other with the utmost friendliness, but
in the French fashion, with bows and not with a clasp of the hand.
Nevertheless, Adrienne felt instinctively that she had arrived at an
inopportune moment. As she approached she had heard Angela’s voice, low
and tremulous, and Isabey’s, in replying, had that unmistakable note of
intimacy which Adrienne had never heard him use before toward any woman.
He was entirely at his ease, although he wished very much that Adrienne
had stayed away a little longer. Angela, however, showed a slight
confusion, and then Lyddon walked into the room. He carried an English
newspaper, and, after a few minutes’ talk, asked to read aloud the
leading article in it concerning the Civil War in America. Its view was
pessimistic, and it asked some puzzling questions concerning the future
of the South whether it succeeded or failed. Lyddon was surprised to
find that Isabey’s thought had gone beyond the conflict and that he,
too, saw the enormous difficulties which lay in the path of the South
whether slavery remained or was abolished.
“But,” he said, after an animated discussion with Lyddon, “there is
nothing for us to do but to fight and march and march and fight. We
have been driven to fight, and I think we love to fight. We can’t think
about to-morrow; there may be no to-morrow for a good many of us.”
Angela longed, while the two men were talking, to ask questions, but
following the rule which she had laid down for herself, to take no part
in discussions about the war, remained silent.
So did Adrienne. She felt her inability to join in conversations like
those and had too much tact to attempt it.
Isabey and Lyddon presently recognized that they were leaving the
ladies out of their talk and promptly returned to a subject in which
all were interested--the makeshifts of the war time.
Lyddon had turned his learning to good account, and had devised means
for preparing a good toilet soap in addition to his formula for candles
and for what he euphemistically called a hair tonic.
While they sat talking Mrs. Tremaine and Madame Isabey returned from
the blockade-runner’s. The latter rushed up to Isabey and embraced him
affectionately--an embrace which he returned.
“Ah!” she cried. “We have been to a block--blockhead----”
“A blockade-runner, you mean,” responded Isabey, laughing.
“--and I have bought organdies, such charming organdies from Baltimore,
almost as good as those we get in New Orleans and from Cuba, and
Adrienne and I will be well dressed during the whole war.”
Such was not Mrs. Tremaine’s idea, who thought that everybody should
dress in sackcloth during the war. But she was too well bred to
intimate anything of the sort. Her hospitable instincts made her turn
to Angela and say: “Angela, have you ordered ‘snack’ for Captain
Isabey?”
Isabey looked puzzled, and Lyddon explained that snack was a good old
Anglo-Saxon word which was used in lieu of luncheon among a people who
had breakfast at eight o’clock and dinner at three.
Angela, feeling conscience-stricken, slipped out on the back porch,
where she discovered Hector looking disconsolately at a large and not
uninviting tray of “snack.” Hector, however, surveyed it with much
dissatisfaction.
“Look a heah, Miss Angela,” he grumbled, “dey ain’t no lemonade heah.
Dey ain’t been a lemon on dis heah plantation sence Marse Linkum was
norgorated, an’ dis heah cider ain’t fitten for gentlemen. De cakes
ain’t got no sugar in dem, dey jes’ sweetened wid honey, an’ don’t
taste like nuttin’ ’tall.”
Angela held up a large, round disk, as big as a dinner plate, of
waferlike biscuit.
“These thin biscuit are very nice, don’t you think, Uncle Hector?” she
asked anxiously.
“Thin biscuit ain’t nuttin’, Miss Angela,” gloomily responded Hector,
picking up the tray and walking off toward the drawing-room. “When
Gineral Lee has done enfalated Gineral McClellan an’ got him in a
sortie, den we can git sumpin’ fitten to give folks for snack. An’ dem
swells from New Orleans, I ’clar to Gord, Miss Angela, I ’shamed to
take dis heah tray in de parlor.”
“I am very sorry, Hector,” sighed Angela, “but it is the best we can do
in war times. At least there is enough.”
“Sech as ’tis,” was Hector’s scornful rejoinder as he marched into the
drawing-room, where he proceeded to hand the tray, making apologies,
_sotto voce_, for everything he offered.
“I hope, marm,” he said grandly to Madame Isabey, as he presented
the tray first to her, “that you’ll ’scuse dis heah cider, but de
lemons is unexpected give out, an’ ole Marse is ’way out ridin’ over
de plantation wid de cellar key in his pocket, so we cyarn’ git no
champagne.”
“Hector,” said Mrs. Tremaine mildly, “there is no more champagne here.
We give our friends gladly what we have, but this is a time of war, and
such luxuries as we had we have sent to the soldiers.”
Madame Isabey took a little of the cider and declared she liked it,
while Isabey helped himself as if it had been Veuve Cliquot of the
first quality. So did Lyddon, who really liked cider, and who offended
Hector very much by saying that good cider was better than the
second-quality champagne which was usually found in America.
It was the source of perennial amusement to Isabey as to Lyddon, the
feudal relationship between master and man in Virginia, and he was
touched by the jealous regard for the family credit which Hector,
in common with so many of his race, showed. Isabey said so to Mrs.
Tremaine, but Mrs. Tremaine only opened her eyes in gentle surprise.
She was really much more concerned for Hector’s feelings in the serving
of so homely a repast than she was for her own or for those of her
guests.
Then Colonel Tremaine came in and presently it was three o’clock, and
dinner was served.
After dinner all the ladies took their siesta according to the Virginia
summer fashion. Lyddon and Isabey went out and smoked in the garden.
Isabey liked Lyddon’s conversation and always listened to it with
pleasure. But on this day he found himself woolgathering. He listened
with his usual courteous attention, but he felt still within his lean,
brown hand the involuntary touch of Angela’s rosy palm.
It was an impulsive thing for any girl to do, but to Isabey, unused
to the Anglo-Saxon freedom between man and woman, it was a phenomenal
thing. He attributed it to the fact that Angela had been brought up
with a boy and almost as a boy, but upon the absolute innocence and
purity of her act he would have staked his life. And the turn of her
head and the dewy freshness of her face haunted him.
It was easy to feel pity for so charming a creature. How wholly
different was she from Adrienne--one the perfect flower of
civilization, the other a wood violet.
Angela lay upon the great four-posted bed in her room, with the window
shutters closed. The summer afternoon was still--so still she could
actually hear the beatings of her own heart and she was thinking of
Isabey. She knew that she had done an unconventional thing in suddenly
putting her hand in his, but her intention had been too innocently pure
to give her any sense of shame. With closed eyes she lived over the
two or three seconds when her hand lay in his. Suddenly she thought of
Neville.
She rose from her bed quickly and, going to the dressing table on which
she kept a daguerreotype of Neville, she clasped her hands and hung her
head as if overwhelmed with guilt. She was a wife, and she had dared
not only to think of another man, but to touch his hand with hers! If
Neville were there it would be so easy, she thought, to confess it to
him. She would even write him a letter and tell him about it. But some
instinct of common sense restrained her. It occurred to her that the
singular change in all her other relations of life affected her with
regard to Neville himself. Some things which she had once told him
frankly she must now consider well whether she should tell him at all.
Of one thing, however, she was certain--she must stop thinking of
Isabey. She took a book and read resolutely until the cool of the
afternoon when it was time to dress. But because she tried to put
Isabey out of her mind, his presence was there the more.
She could hear his voice talking with Lyddon, and caught the whiff of
his cigarette as he passed under her window. She must be on her guard
against Isabey. When away from him she must not think of him, and when
with him she must not even look at him. How new and peculiar it was
that she should be on her guard against any man in the world!
A little after five o’clock she went downstairs. For the last half
hour Adrienne had been playing soft chords upon the piano in the
drawing-room. Angela went into the room and said as she always did when
Adrienne went to the piano:
“Pray keep on playing. I do so love to hear you play.”
And then, whether by a coincidence or not, Isabey entered the room.
Adrienne played some of the sweet, mysterious music of Chopin, and
Angela listened with delight. So did Isabey, but Adrienne was conscious
that the music laid no spell upon him. There was a large, round mirror
over the piano and in it she could clearly see Isabey’s eyes fixed on
Angela.
Upon the music rack were some duets, and Adrienne, turning them over,
hummed little bits of them, but Isabey made no offer to sing them with
her, and when she spoke of singing as an art Isabey said coolly: “The
fact is, I have always been ashamed of my singing. It sounds as if I
had given much more study to it than I really gave.”
“You promised,” said Angela, turning her clear gaze upon him, “that
some time you would tell me how you came to sing so well.”
“The truth is,” he replied, laughing, “I had Mario for a teacher. I
lived one summer in a villa on Lake Constance, next one where Mario
lived. He took an interest in me and insisted on teaching me singing.
I was a youngster then, and Mario was really a delightful old fellow.
Lord Chesterfield says that no gentleman should ever pursue any
art so far as to be mistaken for a professional, and it is a wise
observation, because, if a man does that, he usually unfits himself for
anything else. I did not, however, get so far as that. Mario, meaning
to do me the greatest kindness in the world, wrote a letter to my old
father in New Orleans, saying that if I would study singing seriously I
might, in a year or two, be second tenor at the Paris Opera. You should
have read my father’s letter in reply.”
“I read it,” said Adrienne, laughing.
“The old gentleman, when he was violently angry, wrote in English,
in which he was not very proficient. He wrote me: ‘You do come home
immediately at once, now, at present. You shall disgrace yourself by
singing in the opera. Come home, I threaten.’ I came home by the next
steamer. For a long time my father would not listen to me sing and
swore every time music was mentioned. Then, one day, when he was asleep
in his chair, I went to the piano and began to sing a song his mother
had sung to him long years before in France. When I turned round, after
the song was finished, he was weeping. After that he sometimes listened
to me sing.”
While they were speaking Lyddon had strolled in.
“You will find your singing a very useful accomplishment as long as the
war lasts,” he said to Isabey. “Music, you know, has a singular psychic
influence upon soldiers, and when the real work begins, the man who can
sing a good song at a bivouac is really a very useful person.”
“I read in a book once,” Angela began with animation, “that when a ship
goes to sea, if they can get a good ‘shanty’ man they will take him
whether he is any use or not, just because he sings.”
“What Angela has read in books is really wonderful,” said Lyddon
gravely. “Can’t you tell us, my little dear, about the kind of music to
which the Spartans marched to battle?”
“Mr. Lyddon is making fun of me,” Angela explained. “But he doesn’t
know how often I hoaxed him when I was a child. I would make him read
Latin to me just because he reads it so beautifully and would pretend I
understood a great deal more than I really did, and often when he would
give me what he calls solid books to read, I would read them just to
make Mr. Lyddon think how clever I was.”
“I never taught but one girl in my life,” murmured Lyddon. “And if God
will forgive me----”
“I think I must have a very mean disposition,” continued Angela. “I
remember how safe and triumphant I used to feel when, if Archie missed
his Latin grammar, Mr. Lyddon would give him a clip over the head with
the book, but when I couldn’t do arithmetic, Mr. Lyddon could only ran
his hands through his beard and growl: ‘She must have a governess. I
shall tell Mrs. Tremaine this day.’”
Adrienne sat silent. Her childhood and girlhood had none of these
recollections. She had practically never seen a man until she was
married.
In the dusk of the evening Richard arrived. He was full of news
from camp, and brought word that the Federals were establishing a
camp of instruction, larger and more complete in every way than the
Confederate, about fifteen miles on the other side of Harrowby. It was
not likely, however, that any actual fighting would take place, both
armies reserving their forces for the Titanic struggle around Richmond.
And as the case had been for months past, while the war was discussed,
and it was always being discussed, the negroes were seen furtively
listening to all that went on.
Isabey remained a week as he had expected. Most of his days were spent
in camp, but every evening he rode the ten miles back to Harrowby.
Mrs. Tremaine and Colonel Tremaine remarked to each other upon Captain
Isabey’s filial attention to his stepmother. Madame Isabey was quite
willing outwardly to take Isabey’s attentions, but inwardly she hoped
that it was Adrienne’s presence which drew him to Harrowby.
Not so Adrienne. Perfect man of the world as Isabey was, and careful
as he might be that he should not betray the compelling interest which
Angela possessed for him, he could not disguise it from the other
woman. Adrienne was reminded of a Spanish saying she had heard long
ago: “I am dying for thee and thou art dying for some one who is dying
for another.”
Nor did Lyddon suppose for one moment that Adrienne was the magnet
which drew Isabey. Nevertheless, with a perfectly clear conscience,
he reiterated to Angela that he supposed a marriage would shortly
take place between Captain Isabey and Madame Le Noir. And to Lyddon’s
discomfiture, he saw a look of incredulity come into Angela’s
expressive face. It would have been better if she had shown anger or
distress, but she did not. Without speaking, she conveyed to Lyddon
her inward conviction that Adrienne was nothing and never could be
anything to Isabey.
Lyddon thought that the best thing possible was for Angela to join
Neville at the very earliest opportunity.