The Reflections of Ambrosine Part 8

It appears he likes thick toast in preference to thin, and thick soups; also that a habit he has of taking Welsh rarebit and stout for a late supper when he sits up alone is not good for his digestion and is to be discouraged. She hopes I will see that he wears his second thinnest Jager vests in Paris, not _the_ thinnest--which ought to be kept for August warmth--as once before when there he caught a bad catarrh of the chest through this imprudence.

Lady Tilchester is coming down from London in a special train on purpose to grace our bridal ceremony. She has sent me the prettiest brooch and such a nice letter.

I hope she will be a consolation in the future. For me life must be a thing of waking in the morning, and eating and drinking, and taking exercise, and going to bed again, and deadening all emotions, or else I feel sure I shall get a dreadful disease I once read about in an American paper Hephzibah takes in. It is called "spontaneous combustion," and it said in the paper that a man caught it from having got into a compressed state of heat and rage for weeks, and it made him burst up at last into flames like an exploding sh.e.l.l.

Well, at all events, I have kept my word, and grandmamma is content with me.

Miss Hoad--I shall have to call her Amelia now--is enchanted with the whole entertainment. She is to be the only bridesmaid, and has chosen the dress herself. It is coffee lace with a mustard-yellow sash. It mill match her complexion. And Augustus is presenting her with a huge bouquet, no doubt of the cauliflower shape, like my famous one, besides a diamond-and-ruby watch.

I wonder if Sir Antony will be at the wedding--he was asked.

The Marquis de Rochermont will give me away--grandmamma is too feeble now to stand. The ceremony is to be in the village church here, and the choir, composed of village youths unacquainted with a note of music, is to meet us at the lich-gate and precede us up the aisle, singing an encouraging wedding-hymn, while school-children spread forced white roses, provided by the Tilchester rose-growers.

Augustus explained that patronizing local resources like this will all come in useful when he stands for Parliament later on.

Grandmamma stipulated that there should be no wedding feast, her health and our small house being sufficient excuse. It is a great disappointment to Mrs. Gurrage, I am sure, but we go away to Paris as soon as I can change my dress after the church ceremony.

Think of it! This time to-morrow my name will be Gurrage! And Augustus will have the right to--Merciful G.o.d! stop my heart from beating in this sickening fas.h.i.+on, and let me remember the motto of my race--"_Sans bruit_."

Oh, grandmamma, if I could go on your journey with you! The first jump out into the dark might be fearful, but afterwards it would be quiet and still, and there would be no caterpillars!

That was a beautiful flash of lightning! The storm is coming nearer. Sparks flew from my diamond fender on the dressing-table.

Well--well--I--I wish I had seen Sir Antony again. Just now he sent me a present. It is a knife for my chatelaine, the hilt studded with diamonds, and there is a note which says that there is still time to cut the Gordian knot.

What does it mean? I feel cold, as if I could not understand things to-night.

The Marquis gave me some _conseils de mariage_ this afternoon.

"Remain placid," he said, "_fermez les yeux et pensez a autrui--apres vous aurez les agrements_."

Grandmamma has not even kissed me. Her eyes resemble a hawk's still, but have the look of a tortured tiger as well sometimes. She has grown terribly feeble, and has twice had fainting-fits like the one that changed my destiny. I believe she is remaining alive simply by strength of will and that she will die when all is over.

She has given me the greatest treasure of her life, the miniature of Ambrosine Eustasie. I have it here by my side for my very own.

Yes, Ambrosine Eustasie, for me to-morrow there is also the guillotine; and perhaps I, too, could walk up the steps smiling if I were allowed a rose to keep off the smell of the common people; Augustus's mother uses patchouli.

BOOK II

I

No one can possibly imagine the unpleasantness of a honey-moon until they have tried it. It is no wonder one is told nothing at all about it. Even to keep my word and obey grandmamma I could never have undertaken it if I had had an idea what it would be like.

Really, girls' dreams are the silliest things in the world. I can't help staring at all the married people I see about. "You--poor wretches!--have gone through this," I say to myself; and then I wonder and wonder that they can smile and look gay. I long to ask them when the calmness and indifference set in; how long I shall have to wait before I can really profit by grandmamma's lesson of the caterpillar.

It was useful for the _fiancailles_, but it has not comforted me much since my wedding.

In old-fas.h.i.+oned books, when the heroine comes to anything exciting, or when the situation is too difficult for the author to describe, there is always a row of stars. It seems to mean a jump, a break to be filled up as each person pleases. I feel I must leave this part of my life marked with this row of stars.

It is two weeks now since I wrote my name Ambrosine de Calincourt Athelstan for the last time, two weeks since I walked down the rose-strewn guillotine steps on Augustus's arm, two weeks since he--Ah, no! I will never look back at that. Let these hideous two weeks sink into the abyss of oblivion!

It hardly seems possible that in fifteen days one could so completely alter one's views and notions of life. I cannot look at anything with the same eyes. It is all very well for people to talk philosophy, but it is difficult to be philosophical when one's every sense is being continually _froisse_. I feel sometimes that I could commit murder, and I do not know when I shall be able to take the Marquis's advice to remain placid and shut my eyes and try to get what good out of life I can.

Augustus as a husband is extremely unpleasant. I hate the way his hair is brushed--there always seems to be a lock sticking up in the back; I hate the way he ties his ties; I hate everything he says and does. I keep saying to myself when I hear him coming, "remember the caterpillar, caterpillar, caterpillar." And once in the beginning, when I was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up my eyes not to see, he got quite close before I knew and he heard me saying it aloud.

He bounced away, thinking I meant there was one crawling on him, and then he got quite cross.

"There are no caterpillars here, Ambrosine. How silly you are!" he said.

He revels in being at once recognized as a bridegroom. He has dreadfully familiar ways and catches hold of my arm in public, making us both perfectly ridiculous. He has insisted upon buying me numbers of gorgeous garments for my outer covering, but when I ventured to order some very fine other things he grumbled at the cost.

"I don't mind your getting clothes that will show the money I've put into them," he explained, "but I'm bothered if I'll encourage useless extravagance in this way."

At the play he never understands more than a few words, but is always asking me to explain what it means when there is anything interesting, so I miss most of it myself from having to talk, and some of the French plays are really very funny, I find, and have opened my eyes a great deal, and I--even I--could laugh if I were left in peace to listen a little.

Augustus is furiously angry, too, when the Frenchmen look at me. I never thought I could even notice the gaze of strangers, but I am ashamed to say that last night it quite pleased me.

We were dining at Paillard's, and two really nice-looking Frenchmen had the next table. They looked at me, and Augustus glared at them and fussed the waiters more than usual, and wanted to hurry me as much as possible to get away; so I asked for other dishes and peaches and nectarines and things out of season. At last, when I had dawdled quite an extra half-hour, it came to an end, and the usual sums on the margin of the bill began--Augustus adds up every item to see no sou has been overcharged. At this point I looked up and caught one of the Frenchmen's eye. Of course I glanced away at once, but there was such a gleam of fun in his that I nearly smiled. Then, suddenly the recollection came upon me that this creature, this thing sitting opposite me, belonged to me. I have his name, he is my husband. I must not laugh with others at his odious ways. After that I was glad to creep away.

I am worried about grandmamma. She has not written; there only came a small note from the Marquis. I am sure she must be very ill, if not already dead. I cannot grieve; I almost feel as if I wished it so.

Augustus as a grandson-in-law would sting her fine senses unbearably.

He bl.u.s.ters continually, and his airs of proprietors.h.i.+p _envers moi_ would irritate her; besides, she would always have the idea that she is cheating me by remaining alive, that, after all, my marriage was not a necessity if she is still there to keep me. Oh, dear grandmamma!

if I could save you a moment's sorrow you know I would. When I said good-bye to her she held me close and kissed me. "Ambrosine," she said, "I shall have started upon my journey before you come back; you must not grieve or be sad. My last advice to you, my child, is to remember life is full of compensations, as you will find. Try to see the bright and gay side of things, and, above all, do not be dramatic."

She was always cheerful, grandmamma, but if I could just see her again to tell her I will, indeed I will, try to follow her advice! Hus.h.!.+

here is Augustus; I hear his clumsy footsteps. He has a telegram.

Alas! alas! My fears are true--grandmamma died this morning. Oh! I cannot write, the tears make everything a mist.

It is late July and I am at Ledstone as its nominal mistress--I say nominal, for Augustus's mother reigns, as she always did.

The sorrow of grandmamma's death, the feeling that nothing can matter in the world now, has kept me from caring or a.s.serting myself in any way. I feel numb. I seem to be a person listening from some gallery when they all speak around me, and that the Ambrosine who answers placidly is an automaton who moves by clockwork.

Shall I ever wake again? I sit night after night in my mother-in-law's "budwar," the crimson-satin chairs staring at me, the wedding-cake ornament with its silver leaves glittering in the electric light; I sit there listening vaguely to her admonitions and endless prattle of Augustus's perfections. I have now heard every incident of his childhood: what ailments he had, what medicines suited him best, when he cut all those superfluous teeth of his.

One little trait appears to have been considered a sign of great astuteness and infantine perception. His fond parents--the late Mr.

Gurrage was alive then--gave him a new threepenny bit each week to give to a barrel-organ man who played before the house at Bournemouth.

Augustus at the age of two invariably changed it on the stairs with the butler for two pennies and two halfpennies, keeping one penny halfpenny for himself.

"Me dear"--my mother-in-law always completes this story with this sentence--"Mr. Gurrage said to me, 'Mark my word, Mary Jane, the boy will get on!'"

In the cla.s.s of my _belle famille_, mourning is fortunately a matter of such importance that the wearing of crepe for grandmamma has been allowed to be sufficient reason for abandoning the wedding rejoicings.