I
The ship sailed a week ago and Augustus has gone to the war. Oh, I
hate to look back and think of those dreadful three weeks before he
started!
A nightmare of hideous scenes. Alternate drunkenness and inordinate
affection for me, or sullen silence and cringing fear. Oh, of all
the frightful moments there are in life, there can be none so dark as
those that some women have to suffer from the drunken passions and
ways of men!
Augustus would have deserted at the last moment if an opportunity had
offered. His mother made matters worse, as, instead of remembering
her country as so many mothers have, and sending her son on his way
with brave and glorious words, she wept and lamented from morning
till night.
"I told you so, Gussie," she said, when she first met us in London. "I
was always against your joining that Yeomanry. I told you it wasn't
only the uniform, and it might get you into trouble some day. Oh, to
think that an extra glass of champagne could have made you volunteer.
And now you've got to go to the war and you have broken my heart."
Augustus's own terror was pitiable to see if it had not roused all my
contempt.
Oh, that I should bear the name of a craven!
Lady Grenellen was also in London. When he was sober enough and not
engaged with his military duties, Augustus went to see her, and if she
happened to be unkind to him he vented his annoyance upon me on his
return.
Had it not been that he was going to the war, I could not, for my
own self-respect, have put up with the position any longer. But that
thought, and the sight of his weeping mother, made me bear all things
in silence. I could not add to her griefs.
She quite broke down one day.
"I always knew Gussie took too much. It began at Cambridge, long ago,"
she wept. "But after he first saw you and fell in love, he gave it
up, I hoped, and now it has broken out again. I thought marrying you
would have cured him. Oh, deary me! I feared some one would tell your
grandma, and she would break off the match. I was glad when your
wedding was over." And she sobbed and rocked herself to and fro. "I'm
grateful to you, my dear, for what you have done for him. It's been
ugly for you lately. But there--there, he's going to the war and I
shall never see him again!"
"Do not take that gloomy view. The war is nearly over. There is no
danger now," I said, to comfort her. "Augustus will only have riding
about and a healthy out-door life, and it will probably cure him."
"I've lived in fear ever since the war began, and now it's come," she
wailed, refusing to be comforted.
I said everything else I could, and eventually she cheered up for a
few days after this, but at the end broke down again, and now, Amelia
writes, lies prostrate in a darkened room. Amelia is having her time
of trial. They left for Bournemouth yesterday.
Am I a cold and heartless woman because now that Augustus has gone I
can only feel relief?
One of his last speeches was not calculated to leave an agreeable
impression.
"You'd better look out how you behave while I am away," he said. "I'd
kick up a row in a minute, only you're such a lump of ice no man would
bother with you." Then, in a passion: "I wish to God they would, and
take you off, so I could get some one of more use to me!" He was
surprised that I did not wish him to kiss me ten minutes after this.
And now he has gone, and for six months, at any rate, I shall be free
from his companionship.
When he returns things shall be started on a different footing.
I came down to Ledstone by myself yesterday. I have no plans. Perhaps
I shall stay here until Christmas, when I am to go to Bournemouth to
my mother-in-law.
The house seems more than ever big and hideously oppressive. I must
find some interest. The old numbness has returned with double force. I
take up a book and put it down again. I roam from one room to another.
I am restless and rebellious--rebellious with fate.
I know grandmamma would be angry with me could she come back to me
now. She would say I was behaving with the want of self-control of a
common person, and not as one of our race. Well, perhaps she is right.
I shall go to the cottage and see Hephzibah and give myself a shock.
That may do me good.
I never willingly let myself think of Antony, but unconsciously my
thoughts are always turning to the evening in the fog. I do not know
where he is. He may be at Dane Mount, only these few miles off, and
yet we must not meet.
I wonder if Ambrosine Eustasie de Calincourt had ever a lover.
Probably--and she would have listened to him, being of her time.
Oh, what is this quality in me that makes me as I am--a flabby thing,
with strength enough to push away all I desire in life, to keep
untarnished my idea of honor, and yet too weak to tear the matter from
my mind once I have done so?
How grandmamma would despise me!
I think of the Princess's answer to the riddle of the nineteenth day
in _A Digit of the Moon_. I am this middle thing, and it is only the
very bad and very good that achieve peace and perfect happiness.
"Come, Roy, away with us! Let us run, as we used to do last year when
we were young. Let us shake ourselves and laugh. No more of this
unworthy repining! There are some in the world that have but one eye,
and some but one leg, and they cannot see or run, and are worse off
than we are, my friend. So think of that, and don't lift your lip at
me, and tell me it is cold, and you want to stay by the fire."
All the blinds were down in the front of the cottage as I unlatched
the garden gate--the gate I had passed through last following
grandmamma's coffin to her grave. I ran round to the back door and
soon found Hephzibah.
Her joy was great to see me there, her only regret being she had not
known I was coming that she might have had the fires lit. They were
all laid, and she soon put a match to them.
With what pride she showed me how she had kept everything! Then she
left me alone, standing in the little drawing-room. It seemed so
wonderfully small to me now. The pieces of brocade still hid the
magenta "suite," but arranged with a prim stiffness they lacked in
our day. Dear Hephzibah! She had been dusting them, and would not
fold them up and put them away in case that I should ever come.
The china all stood as it used, and grandmamma's chair with her
footstool, and the little table near it with her magnifying-glass and
spectacle-case. There were her books, the old French classics, and the
modern yellow backs, her paper-knife still in one, half-cut. I never
realized how happy I had been here, in this little room, a year ago.
How happy, and, oh, how ridiculously young! My work-box stood in its
usual place, a bit of fine embroidery protruding from its lid.
For the first time in my life I sat down in grandmamma's chair. Oh, if
something of her spirit could descend upon me! I tried to think of her
maxims, her wonderful courage, her cheerfulness in all adversities,
her wit, her gayety. I seemed a paltry, feeble creature daring to sit
there, in her _bergère_, and sigh at fate. No, I would grumble no
more. I, too, would be of the race.
How long I mused there I do not know. The fire was burning low.
I went up to my own old room, I must see everything, now I was here.
It struck me with a freezing chill as I opened the door. The fire had
not drawn here, and lay a mass of smouldering sticks and paper in the
narrow grate.
There was my little white bed, cold and narrow. The dressing-table,
with its muslin flounces and cheap, white-bordered mirror. Even the
china tray was there, where, I remember, my jewels lay the night
before my wedding, and close beside it, the red-morroco case Antony's
present had come in--left behind, by mistake, I suppose, when the
other gifts were packed away. The note he had written me with it was
still in its lid.
The paper felt icy to touch. I pulled it out and read it to the end.
Then I threw it in the fire. The sullen, charred sticks had not life
enough to burn it. I lit a match and watched the bright flames curl up
the chimney until all was destroyed. Then I fled. Here at least in the
cottage I will never come again. The room is full of ghosts.
On the whole, however, my visit did me good. I returned to Ledstone
with a firm determination to be more like grandmamma.
A telegram was awaiting me from Augustus, sent from his first
stopping-place. He had caught the measles, it appeared. The measles!
I thought only children got the measles.
Poor Augustus! He would make a bad patient. I was truly sorry, and
sent the most affectionate and sympathetic answer I could think of
to meet him at St. Helena.
I wrote to the war office, asking them please to send me any further
news when they received it. But the measles! It almost made me laugh.
II
Next day Lady Tilchester wrote and asked me to go to Harley. She had
heard I was alone, and would be so delighted to have me for a week,
she said.
I started two days afterwards. To see her would give me pleasure.
"How very white and thin you are looking, dear!" she said, as we sat
together in her sitting-room the first afternoon I arrived. "You are
not the same person as the very young girl who danced at the Yeomanry
ball in May. How old are you, Ambrosine?"
"I was twenty in October."
"Twenty years old! Only twenty years old, and with that sad face!
Nothing in life ought to make one sad at twenty. You look like a
piteous child. I could imagine Muriel, with a dead bird, or a set
of kittens to be drowned, looking as pathetic as you do."
"I know, I am ashamed of myself," I said, "Grandmamma would be so
angry with me if she were here."
"Well, now we are going to cheer you up. The Duke is coming on
Saturday. He is not married yet, you see."
"Oh, tell me how the affair went," I said, smiling. "It--it's--a month
ago we were at Myrlton."
"The silly girl preferred Luffy, but for the last weeks they both were
hanging on. Miss Trumpet and her aunt were staying at Claridge's, and
they tell me it was too ridiculous! Luffy lunched with them every day,
and Berty dined in the evening."
"You did not tell her about the Coronation, then?"
"Yes, I _did_! But just for once in a way she had fallen in
love--Luffy _is_ beautiful, you know!--and, my dear child, any girl or
woman in love is the most unreasonable, absurd creature on the face of
the earth."
"Yes, I know. But the Americans don't get in love like other nations.
She assured me they knew how to keep men in their places on the other
side of the Atlantic."
"But the 'place' of a man is doing exactly what the particular woman
in the case wants him to do, don't forget that! And Miss Trumpet
finally decided, last week, that she wanted him to be her husband."
"Poor Duke!" I said.
"Oh, I don't think Berty minds very much. Anyway, you will be able
to console him."
"You have quite a mistaken idea there. He likes to talk about himself,
and explain to me his views on morals as manners, but he is not
the least interested in _me_. I am a very good listener, you know.
Grandmamma never let me interrupt people."
"Poor old Berty!" she said. "He has the best heart underneath all his
silly mannerisms. I have known him since he was a child. He is much
older than he looks, almost my age, in fact."
"How has Lady Grenellen taken the engagement?" I asked.
"Cordelia? Oh, she is simply furious. It is the first time any other
woman has ever had a chance with her. An English girl would have a
rather blank prospect in front of her for the afterwards. But these
Americans are so wonderfully clever and sensible, probably Luffy will
remain Miss Trumpet's devoted slave for years."
Lord Tilchester entered the room, and said "How d'y do," to me. He is
a gruff, unattractive person. I do not know what Babykins sees in him.
He spent his time eating tea-cake and feeding the dogs, with a casual
remark here and there. At last he left. I was glad. Lady Tilchester's
manner to him is always gracious and complacent. She attends to his
wishes, and talks to him without yawning. She must be my model for my
future treating of Augustus This is the most perfect and beautiful
lady in the world. I think.
There were only a couple of men staying in the house besides myself
until the Saturday, when a crowd of people came. In these few days
I got to know Margaret Tilchester more intimately. Her beautiful
nature would stand any test. All her real and intense interests are
concentrated upon her schemes to benefit mankind, practical, sensible
schemes, with no sentiment about them. I wish I could see her
children. The boy is, of course, at Eton, and the little girl is again
away, visiting her grandmother. There are dozens of photographs of
them about, and the girl keeps reminding me of some one, I cannot fix
who. She looks a dear little creature. Oh, I should love a baby! But
still I shall always pray I may never have a child.
The Duke arrived with the other guests on Saturday. He looked just the
same. His reverse of fortune had not altered his appearance. He seemed
extremely glad to see me.
"You have heard how the affair went," he said to me the first night
after dinner. "After keeping me in the most ridiculous position,
dangling for weeks, she preferred Luffy."
"Yes, I heard."
"My only satisfaction out of the whole thing is that, for once,
Cordelia is paid out in her own coin. As a rule, she only cares to
take away some one who belongs to some other woman, and now this
little girl has turned the tables."
"How spiteful of you, when Lady Grenellen was trying to arrange for
your future happiness!"
"Nothing of the kind. You don't know Cordelia. She is only afraid I
shall shut up Myrlton, or let it, and she amuses herself a good deal
there. She thought if I had a rich wife her opportunities would
oftener occur. I can only keep it open in the autumn now."
"Oh, you are a wonderful company!" I laughed.
"I wish you were a widow. You would suit me in every way."
"Hush!" I said, frowning. "I do not like you to speak so, even in
jest."
"But I always told you I loved you," he said, resignedly.
"Nonsense. What is this ridiculous love you all speak about? A silly
passion that only wants what it cannot have, or, if it succeeds,
immediately translates itself to some one else. You told me so
yourself. You said at least you were not wearyingly faithful--you,
as a class."
"How you confute one with argument, lovely lady! I shall call you
Portia. But what an adorable Portia!"
"Now stop," I said, severely. "I would rather hear your views on
morality and religion than the rubbish you are now talking."
"I have never been more snubbed in my life. Even Miss Corrisande K.
Trumpet did not flatten me out as you do," he said, with feigned
resentment.
"You told me in the beginning I looked unlike the Englishwomen. Well,
I am unlike them. I am a person of bad nature. I refuse to be bored."
"And I bore you?"
"Only when you talk silly sentiment."
"Then it is a bargain. If I don't bore you, you will be friends with
me?"
"And if you do--_bon soir, monsieur_," and I rose, laughing, and
joined my hostess.
The party this time was much nicer than the former one I came to.
It was composed of clever, interesting people. The conversation was
often brilliant and elevating. No one talked like Babykins or Lady
Grenellen. In fact, it appeared another society altogether. It seemed
impossible among these people to realize that perhaps, in reality,
they are like the rest. There was not a word or a look which would
suggest that they held any but the highest views.
Lady Tilchester shone among them. She seemed to be in a suitable
setting. They were mostly of very high rank, and the rest politicians
and diplomats. They did not clip their sentences and use pet words,
and they did not smoke cigarettes all the time.
The women, although not nearly so well dressed or attractive to look
at, were much more agreeable to one another, and one was a perfectly
wonderful musician. Her playing delighted us all. She played the
things of Greig that I played to Antony on the evening at Dane Mount.
I sat by myself and listened. I seemed to see his face and hear
his voice, but the good resolutions I had made while sitting in
grandmamma's chair helped me to put these thoughts away.
I felt more at rest, at peace, here. Every one's life seemed full of
interest--interest in something great. I would like this society best
if I had to choose which I would frequent, but I can realize that
people as good as these, but duller and less brilliant, would make
one look at the clock.
Perhaps Lady Tilchester's plan of having every sort at her house is
the best, after all. Then she can have variety and never be bored.
I wonder if it is the occupation of their minds with great things,
in this set, which balances with the "lives of compulsion" led by
the middle classes, and so prevents them also from "getting back to
nature," as the Duke said.
It is an interesting problem.
Mr. Budge sat down and talked to me. He has a very strong character,
I am sure, and I was flattered that he should think me worth speaking
to.
"I admire your perfect stillness," he said at last, after there had
been a pause of a moment or two. "I have never seen a woman sit so
still. It is a great quality."
"I was not allowed to fidget when I was young," I said. "Perhaps one
acquires repose as a habit."
"When you were young! Why, you look only a baby now! I would take you
for about eighteen years old, and that is what interests me. Your eyes
have a question and a story in them that is not usual at eighteen."
"Oh, I am ever so much older than that! I must be at least fifty!" I
said.
He smiled. "I am fifty. It is a terrible age."
"I dare say it would be nice to be fifty if one had been long enough
young--to get there gradually. But to jump there, that is what is not
amusing."
"And you have jumped to fifty? I thought there was a story in those
Sphinx eyes."
"Why do you say that? You are the second person who has said I have
the eyes of the Sphinx. I would like to know why?" I asked.
"Because they are inscrutable. They suggest much and reveal nothing.
It would interest me deeply to hear your impression of things."
"What things?"
"The world, the flesh, or the devil--anything that would make you lift
the curtain a little. For instance, what do you think of this society
here now?"
"They all seem to be clever people with interests in life."
"Most people have interests in life. The candle would soon burn out
otherwise. What are yours, if I may ask?"
"I am observing. I have not decided yet what interests me. I would
like to travel, I think, and see the world."
"That is an easy matter at your age. But have you no other desires?"
"No, unless it would be to sleep very soundly and enjoy my food."
"What a little cynic! A gross little materialist! And you look the
embodiment of etherealism."
"At fifty I have always understood creature comforts begin to matter
more. Each age has its pleasures."
He laughed.
"Tell me something else about the emotions of the fifty-year-olds."
"They get up in the morning and they wonder if it will rain, and,
if they are in England, it often answers them by pouring. Then they
breakfast, and wonder if they will read or play the piano or walk, or
if it matters a scrap if they do none of these things, and presently
they look at the papers, and they see the war is going on still, and
people are being killed, and they wonder to what end. And they read
that the opposition is accusing the government of all sorts of crimes
and negligences, and they remember that is the fate of governments,
whichever side is in. And then they lunch, perhaps, and see friends.
And they find they want some one else's husband but their own, and
that the husband, perhaps, only cares for sport, or some one else's
wife. And then they sleep after lunch, and drive, and have tea, and
read books about philosophy, and dine, and yawn, and finally go to
bed."
"What a terrible picture! And when they were young what did they do?"
"It is so long ago I heard of that, but I will try to remember. They
woke feeling the day was a glorious thing in front of them, that even
if they were in England, and it was raining, the sun would soon come
out. And they sang while they dressed, and, if it was summer, they
rushed round the garden, and loved all the flowers, and the scent in
the air, and the beauty of the lights and colors, and the dear little
butterflies. And they saw the shades on the trees, and they heard the
different notes in the birds' songs. And they were hungry, and glad
to eat bread and milk. And every goose was a swan, and every moment
full of joy, because they said to themselves, 'Something glorious' is
coming to me, also, in this most glorious world!'"
I laughed softly. It seemed so true, and so long ago.
Mr. Budge looked at me. His face was grave and puzzled.
"Child," he said, "it grieves me to hear you talk so. I assure you, I,
who am really fifty, still enjoy all those things that you say only
the very young can appreciate."
"We have changed places, then!" I answered, lightly. "And I see Lady
Tilchester making a move towards bed. That is a delightful place,
where fifty and fifteen can both enjoy oblivion--so good-night!" And
I smiled at him over my shoulder as I walked towards the door!
Next day, after church, the Duke and I went for a walk. He kept his
promise and did not bore me. We discussed all sorts of things, some
interesting, and all in the abstract. We left personalities alone. At
last he said:
"Until the beginning of the nineteenth century things went along
gradually. People could look ahead for a hundred years and say, with
something like certainty, what would be likely to take place. But
since then everything has gone with such leaps and bounds that no one
could prophesy! Though in five hundred years we shall probably be a
wretched republic, constructed out of the débris of the old order, and
the Americans will be an aristocratic nation with a king."
"What makes you think so?"
"Because when companies of people get sufficiently rich not to have
to work they grow to like whatever will appeal to their vanity and
self-importance. There is a halo round a title, and you can leave it
to your children. A king becomes a necessity then."
"An American king! It does seem a strange idea. Well, we shall not be
there to see, so it does not matter to us. 'Sufficient unto the day is
the evil thereof.'"
"History always repeats itself. Look at the Romans, a civilized
republic, and then they must have an emperor."
"And then the barbarians came and the whole thing was blotted out. And
so in the end, _à quoi bon_? No one was ever benefited."
"But the world would not go on if we said '_à quoi bon_' to
everything. The fortunate thing is that for the time we think things
matter immensely. When people begin to feel nothing matters at all, it
is because their livers are out of order. And when a nation becomes
apathetic, that is what is the matter too. Look at Italy or Spain!
Their livers are completely out of order. All their institutions are
jaundiced and each country is going down-hill."
"Poor Spain and Italy!" I said, and I laughed.
"I like to hear you laugh, I don't care what it is about," said the
Duke.
"I believe if I had your great position and traditions of family I
should try to be a strong influence in the country. I would try to
make a name for myself in history," I said. "I would not be contented
with being just a duke."
"Ah, if I had you always near me perhaps I should," and he sighed
pathetically.
"Now, now! you are breaking your bargain, and talking personally,
which will bore me."
"But you began it. I was quietly discussing something--the evolution
of the world, I think--when you gave me your opinion of what you would
do in my case."
I laughed.
"Yes, but I am permitted to be illogical, not being a man, and I am
thinking it might cause me an interest if I had your case."
"I will tell you what my grandfather, the tenth Duke, said to me when
he was a very old man--you know his record, of course? He was one of
the greatest politicians and _litterateurs_ of his time, but had been
in the Guards when a boy, and at sixteen fought at Waterloo. 'After
having tasted the best of most things in life, Robert,' he said, 'I
can tell you there are only two things really worth having--women and
fighting.'"
III
Before the end of my visit to Harley the Duke and I became fast
friends, and while not possessing Antony's lightness of wit or
personal attractions, he is an agreeable companion and out of the
ordinary run of young men. He promised me, as we said good-bye, that
he would think of my words, and try to do something with his life to
deserve my good opinion.
"Come here whenever you are lonely, dear child," said my beautiful
hostess, as we parted. "We delight in having you, and you must not
mope at home all by yourself."
The roads were too bad for the automobile, so I drove back to Ledstone
in my victoria. It was a brilliant, frosty day, the 11th of December.
Something in the air sent my spirits up. I felt if Mr. Budge had only
been with me I could have told him I was growing younger. My first
interest when I got home should be to alter my boudoir. Augustus had
left me fairly provided with money, and I could, at all events, run up
what bills I pleased. That thought brought me back to the last bill I
had tried to incur.
What had been the result of my orders? Would the shop-people have told
Lady Grenellen that a strange lady had sent her the tea-gowns? Would
she have wondered about them and made inquiries? I had heard nothing
further. I dismissed the subject and returned to my boudoir. I
was just thinking deeply what change I should make as we drove up
the avenue. Should I take away the mustard walls and do the whole
thing white, or have it pale green, or what? Then we caught up a
telegraph-boy. He handed me the orange envelope.
It was from the war office, and ran:
"We are deeply grieved to inform you intelligence has been
received that your husband, Lieutenant Augustus Gurrage, of the
Tilchester Yeomanry, died of measles on board the troop-ship
_Aurora_ on the 6th instant."
The sky suddenly became dark, I remember nothing more until I found
myself in the hall with a crowd of servants round me. For the first
time in my life I had fainted. I shall not analyze my feelings at this
time. The principal emotions were horror and shock.
Oh, poor Augustus! to have died all alone at sea! Oh, I did, indeed,
grieve for him! And the measles, which I had almost laughed at! The
measles to have killed him! Afterwards, when we heard the details, it
appeared his constitution was so weakened with the quantity of alcohol
he taken in those last three weeks that he had no strength to stand
against the attack.
My one thought was for his poor mother. A telegram had gone to her,
too, it appeared.
I left for Bournemouth by the first train I could catch, but when I
arrived I was met by a doctor. Mrs. Gurrage had lost her reason, he
told me, upon hearing the news. She had been weak and ailing and in
bed ever since her return from London, and this had proved the last
straw, and now she lay, a childish imbecile, in her gorgeous bedroom
up-stairs.
Oh, I can never write the horrors poor Amelia and I went through for
the next ten days. The sadness of it all! My poor mother-in-law did
not recognize me. She talked incessantly of Augustus. She seemed quite
happy. He was a boy again to her--sometimes an infant, and at others
almost grown up.
Once or twice she asked Amelia if I was not the new tenant at the
cottage.
"She's a pretty girl," she said, "and Gussie's wonderful took with
her."
Her poor voice had gone back to the sound and pronunciation of her
early youth. Sometimes her accent was so broad and her expression so
unusual that I could hardly understand her.
They had buried Augustus at sea. A grand and glorious grave, I think.
By the beginning of the new year I found myself a very rich woman.
Augustus had left me his fortune, to be divided with his mother,
should she survive him, and if not, to go to me and any possible
children we might have. The will had been made directly we returned
to Ledstone after our wedding.
Amelia received only a very small legacy.
Towards the end of January there was a change in the poor invalid
up-stairs. My presence began to awake some memories. She was unhappy,
and pointed at me. I disturbed and distressed her. It grieved me.
I would so willingly have stayed and nursed her, but the doctors
absolutely forbade my ever going into her room.
We had all the greatest specialists down from London to consult about
her case, but they all shook their heads. It seemed hopeless and most
unlikely she would ever recover her reason.
One great physician said to me, with truth:
"For the poor lady's sake I could almost hope she will remain in her
present state. She is happy and quite harmless, whereas she would
suffer agonies of grief should she recover."
I tried to take this view, and after making every possible arrangement
for her comfort and attendance I left for London. There was a great
deal of business to be seen about in connection with the will.
Lady Tilchester had telegraphed at once all her sympathy, and I got
numbers of letters from all sorts of people.
Among them Lady Grenellen! A beautifully expressed note, full of the
friendliest sympathy.
When I got back to Ledstone, after my week in London, I found
quantities of letters and bills had accumulated for Augustus. His
lawyers were coming down the next day to sort and settle everything.
They had been piled up in the smoking-room.
I sadly glanced through them as they lay. Oh, I am not a hypocrite to
say that when I first went back into this room, full of tipsy horrors
as its associations were, it brought Augustus back so vividly that I
sat down and cried.
I had never wished him ill, and would have given him back his life if
I could. To die so young, with everything to make existence fair! It
seemed too sad.
I lifted the pile of papers, one after another, and at last came upon
one with the address printed on the outside of the envelope--the
address of the dress-maker where Lady Grenellen's clothes came from.
This bill the lawyers should not see. I looked carefully to the end of
the pile. There were no more of any consequence. I wished I could find
her letters too, to save them also. The drawers were all locked. I
could not think that night what to do, but when the lawyers came next
day I asked them to give me any letters they might find with the same
writing on the envelope as the one I showed them--her note of sympathy
to me--and not to examine them.
And so it was that a day or two afterwards I had before me six letters
with a gold coronet emblazoned upon the envelopes.
I had paid the bill. I wrote the check and despatched it the night
I found it, and now the receipt also lay beside the letters. I tied
them together and sealed the bundle with Augustus's seal. I put the
receipted bill with them, and enclosed the whole packet in another
envelope, and addressed it to Lady Grenellen.
I had not answered her letter of sympathy. This would be my answer.
A thick skin is a fortunate gift, it appears, and one I had thought
of extreme rareness in the class to which she belongs. What was my
surprise to receive a gushing letter of thanks by return of post! My
husband and she had been such friends, she said, and he had helped
her before so kindly out of her difficulties, and it was too good of
me to have paid this bill--she could see by the date I must have paid
it--and it all was too sad, and she hoped we should meet later on,
perhaps at Harley! Her own husband was coming home, slightly wounded,
she added.
Had I been in a laughing mood I should have laughed aloud at the
effrontery of the whole thing. Well, perhaps it was better so. As far
as I am concerned the whole incident shall be forgotten--a memory of
Augustus sunk into the past.
And so January passed and February began.
It seems in life that things all come together. One's days go on
smoothly, uneventfully, for months, and then, one after another, a
series of startling, unusual events occurs, which changes the course
of the peaceful river.
At the end of February--I was still at Ledstone, and my daily
communications from Amelia told me my poor mother-in-law was still a
happy idiot--another telegram came to me--this time it was addressed
to grandmamma--to grandmamma at the cottage! The very outside startled
me.
It was long, and from an unknown firm of lawyers in America, to say
that papa had died out in the West, leaving me and grandmamma a
perfectly colossal fortune--all made in the space of three years, it
must have been.
I seemed past feeling any grief. Papa was a shadow, a strange flash in
my life for so long a time now.
I was perfectly unacquainted with business, and had no more idea than
a child what I should have to do about this. I wished I had a friend
to advise me. Where could I turn? I thought of Antony. For the first
time since my widowhood I let my thoughts turn to him. He would give
me any advice I wanted, but then--no, he had had the good taste never
even to write to me. There was time enough for our meeting. I would
not push fate--I, who had been a widow only two months.
The only thing there seemed for me to do was to start for America
immediately, and, after taking paid advice--one gets very good advice
by paying for it--Roy, McGreggor, my lawyer, and I left England one
cold and bleak March morning.
IV
As my trip to America was one of business entirely, and was
unaccompanied by any interesting incidents or adventures, I have let
it pass by in silence. I was too busy all the time, and too lonely,
to take many fresh impressions. It seemed hurry and rush, continuous
noises, and tension of the nerves. I felt glad when I once more found
myself on board the great liner that was taking me to England.
It was fortunately a fine passage, not even really cold at the end of
May. Just over a year ago since I was a very young girl, wondering
what life had in store for me, and in twelve months a whole chapter of
events and sensations had passed. I seemed to know the whole string of
emotions--or so I thought.
I had my deck-chair put where I could watch the waves receding as the
great ship cut her way through them.
The salt air seemed to bring fresh life to me--fresh life and fresh
ideas. Two things were certain--first, that I was now much too rich
for one woman, and Amelia, who had tasted nothing but the rough bits
of life, was much too poor after her long service.
A scheme had come into my head in these months alone.
My mother-in-law was still an imbecile, happy and contented. She was
surrounded with nurses and all the attention that money and affection
could buy. Why should not poor Amelia get some pleasure out of life?
I had a feeling that I, too, meant to live when the period of my
mourning should be over; and how glorious to live and to forget that
I had ever even had the name of Gurrage! I would give the whole of
Augustus's fortune to Amelia; then she would gain by it, and I,
too, would have the satisfaction of feeling that my marriage was an
episode, a year to be blotted out of my life.
This thought would never have come if Mrs. Gurrage had not passed into
another sphere of mental living. I would not have wounded her for the
world.
I settled all the details in my mind, on my voyage home, and no sooner
got to London than I executed them. The law is a slow and delaying
business, and even a deed of gift requires endless formalities to go
through.
Amelia was overcome. Her gratitude was speechless some days, and at
others broke into torrents of words.
"I can have aunt to live with me back in the dear old home," she
said, once.
To Amelia the crimson-satin boudoir, and the negro figures, and the
bears, and the stained-glass window are all household gods, and far
be it from me to wish to disillusionize her.
And I? I can take my household gods to a more congenial setting,
perhaps. Who can tell? With the summer coming on and the birds singing
it would be useless for me to pretend to grieve any more. A joy lives
always in my heart. Some day--not too soon, but some day--I shall see
Antony.
I shall never hurry matters. If he cares for me as deeply as I once
thought, he will write to me soon or make some sign. Meanwhile--oh, I
am free! Free and rich and young again! The shadows are fading away.
Grandmamma was right.
"Remember, above all things, that life is full of compensations."
Dear grandmamma! I wish you could come back to enjoy this second youth
with me.
Shall I travel? It is late June now. Shall I go and see the world,
or shall I wait, and perhaps, later on, have a companion to see it
with me?
To avoid the Coronation festivities, when all details about my
transfer of Augustus's property to Amelia were finished, I went over
to France. I should stop at Versailles for a month and see the Marquis
in Paris, and then, perhaps, go back to the cottage.
I had often heard from Lady Tilchester--charming, sympathetic,
feminine letters. I must come to them at Harley whenever I decided to
go out a little, she said. I felt the whole of the world was opening
fairly for me.
I stopped a day or two in Paris to do a little shopping on my way to
Versailles, and coming down the steps at Ritz one day I met Mr. Budge.
He had come over for a breath of gayer air, he told me, after the
Coronation fiasco.
"You are looking wonderfully well," he said, "and not quite fifty
years old now."
"I am hardly more than thirty," I informed him, "and hope, if the
weather keeps fine, to grow a little younger still."
He said he was glad to hear it, and prayed I would let him come and
see the process.
"One grows in the night, when one is asleep," I said, "so no one can
see it. But if you would care to take tea with me in the afternoon,
I shall be very pleased to see you."
He came the next day.
We talked gravely, as was befitting my mourning. He gave me news of my
friends at Harley.
Lady Tilchester, he said, had a new scheme on hand for the employment
of the returning volunteers whose places in business had been filled
up in their absence. She was absorbed in this undertaking, but when
not too busy was more charming than ever.
"I spent a Sunday at Harley a couple of weeks ago." he said. "I don't
think many of the people were there that you met before--none, I
believe, but Sir Antony Thornhirst."
"And how was he?" I tried to say as naturally as possible.
"He seemed in the best of health and spirits. There is an intelligent
person, if you like. I wish he would enter Parliament."
"But Sir Antony is a Tory, I understand, Mr. Budge! He would be no
use to you," I said.
"Yes, indeed, he would. We want some brilliancy just now in the House
to wake us up. It does not matter which side it comes from."
"Don't you think he is too casual to care enough about it? He would
not give himself the trouble to enter Parliament, I believe."
"That is just it. The ablest people are so lazy. Lady Tilchester has
often tried to persuade him, but he has some whimsical answer ready,
and remains at large."
I should like to have talked much more on this subject, but Mr. Budge
changed the conversation. He drifted into saying some personal things
which did not quite please me, considering my mourning. They were not
in perfect taste. I remembered how in the beginning I had not liked
his hands. One's first instincts are generally right.
When he had gone I said to myself I should not care to see him any
more.
In Paris one finds a hundred things to do and to buy if one happens
suddenly to have become a rich widow, as is my case. My few days
stretched themselves into a week.
I had a letter from the Marquis de Rochermont. He was returning to
his tiny apartments in the Rue de Varennes the following day, after
a fortnight's absence, he told me. The dear old Marquis! I should be
glad to see him again. He must be a very old man now, almost eighty,
although he was several years grandmamma's junior.
He would lunch with me with pleasure, he said, and at one next day
arrived in my sitting-room. He looked just as he used to do at first,
but soon I noticed his gayety was gone. He seemed frail and older. He
had deeply grieved for grandmamma.
His conversation was much the same, however. We spoke English as
usual. I had grown, he said, into the most beautiful woman he had ever
seen in his life, and my air and my dignity were worthy of the _ancien
régime_. I had found, he hoped, that his _conseils_ had been of some
use to me in my brief married life.
"Yes, Marquis," I said, "I have often been grateful to you and
grandmamma."
"You are of a great _richesse_ now, _n'est-ce pas, mon enfant_?"
"Yes, of a _richesse_. And so I have given all the Gurrage money back
to one of their family--you may remember her--Amelia Hoad was her
name."
"Ah!" he said, and he kissed my hand. "That was worthy of you and
worthy of your race. It would have pleased our dear madam."
"I had become so rich, you see, from papa, I did not really want the
money, and I had a feeling that if I gave it all back I should have no
further ties with them. I could slip away into another atmosphere and
gradually forget this year of my life."
We had a delightful luncheon, in spite of my poor old guest's
infirmities; he had grown blinder and more tottering since last we
met. He eat very little and sipped his sparkling hock.
I had determined somehow to try and give him some of my great wealth;
but how even to broach the subject I did not know. At last, driven
into a corner with nervousness, I blurted out my wishes.
"Oh, I want you to benefit too, dear friend!" I said. "You shared our
poverty, why not my riches?"
His old, faded cheeks turned pink. He rose from his chair.
"I thank you, madam," he said, haughtily. "The de Rochermonts do not
accept money from women."
I felt as I used to when grandmamma was ever displeased with me. My
knees shook.
"Oh, please forgive me!" I implored. "I have always looked upon myself
as almost your child, although we are no relations, dear Marquis, and
I thought--"
"_Assez, assez, mon enfant_," he said, and he resumed his chair, "You
meant it _gentiment_, but it was a _bêtise quand même_. We shall speak
of it no more."
Before he left he gave me some more _conseils_.
"You took no _amant_, child? No? Well, perhaps in England it was as
well. But now listen to me. Be in no hurry _de prendre un second
mari_. The _agréments_ of life are at their beginnings for you. All
doors fly open to a _jeune et belle veuve_. _Amusez-vous bien._"
I looked at him. We were such old friends. I could speak to him.
"Even if one loved some one very much, Marquis?" I asked.
"_On ne sait jamais combien de temps cela va durer, l'amour à vingt
ans! C'est dangereux!_" And he shook his head. Then, with an air of
illumination, "It is your kinsman, Sir Thornhirst?" he said.
"Yes."
"And you love him very much?"
"I think so."
"In all cases wait--_attendez_--_surtout_--_point trop de hâte!_"
V
Versailles for me is always full of charms. There is a dignity about
it which reminds me of grandmamma. I love to walk in the galleries
and look at the portraits of the great ladies of the past. The gay
_insouciance_ of their expressions, the daintiness of their poses,
the beautiful and suitable color of everything give me a sense of
satisfaction and repose.
I had been there for some little while, spending days of peace and
reflection, when, nearly eight months after the death of Augustus,
I received two letters.
It was a most curious coincidence that neither of my correspondents
had written to me before, even letters of condolence, and that they
should select the same date now.
The letters were from Antony and the Duke. They were both
characteristic.
"Comtesse," Antony wrote, "you know I am thinking of you always. When
may I come and see you, and where?"
The Duke's was longer. It began conventionally, and went on in
delicate language to tell me that time was passing, and surely soon I
must be thinking of seeing my friends again, and he was entirely at my
disposition when I should return to England.
This amused me. Antony's caused me a wave of joy. Oh! should I be able
to take the Marquis's advice and wait for several years? I feared not.
Of course, I should not think of marrying Antony yet. It would be
absolutely indecent haste. Certainly not for eighteen months or two
years, anyway. But there could be no harm in my seeing him soon.
Excitement tingled to my very finger-tips at the thought. I did not
answer either letter for nearly a week. I walked about the gardens at
Versailles and luxuriously enjoyed my musings.
I was, as it were, a cat playing with a mouse, only I was both cat and
mouse.
One day I would picture our meeting--Antony's and mine. The next I
would push him away from my thoughts, and decide that I would not even
let him come to me until the year was up. Then, again, when it grew
evening, and the darkness gradually crept up, there came a scent in
the air which affected me so that I longed to see him at once--to see
him--to let him kiss me. Oh, to myself I hardly dared to think of
this!
The kisses of Augustus were, as yet, the only ones I knew.
At last I wrote my answers.
To the Duke I said my plans were uncertain. I did not know when I
should return to England; probably not at all until next year, as
I thought of going to Egypt for the winter. I finished with some
pleasant platitudes.
Antony's answer took longer to write, and was only a few words when
finished.
"I am staying at Versailles," I wrote. "If you like to come and see me
casually--to talk about the ancestors--you may; but not for a week."
Why I made this stipulation of a week I do not know. Directly I had
posted the letter I felt the time could never pass. It was with the
greatest difficulty I prevented myself from sending a telegram of
three words: "Come now. To-day." How would he find me looking? Would
he, too, think I had improved in appearance? I had grown an inch, it
seemed to me. I was never very short, but now, at five feet seven, he
could not call me "little Comtesse" any more. Oh, to hear his dear
voice! To look into his greeny-blue, beautiful eyes! Oh, I fear no
advice in the world of a hundred marquises could keep me from Antony
much longer!
Would Wednesday never come? The Wednesday in August after the
Coronation, that was the day I had fixed for our meeting.
Should I be out, and leave a message for him to follow me into the
gardens, or should I quietly stay in my sitting-room? What should
we say to each other? I must be very calm, of course, and appear
perfectly indifferent, and we must not speak upon any subjects but the
pictures here, and our mutual friends, and the pleasure of Paris, and
the health of the dogs.
He had replied, immediately:
"I shall be there, and we can talk of the ancestors--and other
things," No, there must be no "other things" yet.
But what immense joy all this was to think about for me! I who had
never in all my life been able to do as I pleased. Now I would nibble
at my cake and enjoy its every crumb--not seize and eat it all at
once.
On Tuesday morning I got a telegram from Lady Tilchester, sent from
Paris. I had written to her some days before. She had run over to Ritz
for a week, she said, to recover from her fatigues of the Saturday,
and would I come into town, and lunch with her that day at half-past
twelve?
With delight I started in my automobile. I had not seen her for
months.
"Oh, you beautiful thing!" she exclaimed, when we met, "I have never
seen such a change in any one. You are like an opening rose, a
glorious, fresh flower."
She looked tired, I thought, but fascinating as ever. We lunched
together in the restaurant, and had a long conversation.
She told me an amusing story of the American Lady Luffton, whom she
had seen the day before. An expected family event had prevented her
from gracing the Coronation.
"My dear"--and Lady Tilchester imitated her voice exactly--"it is a
dispensation of Providence that circumstances did not permit me to
attend this ceremony. You Englishwomen would have gone anyhow; but
we Americans are different. But, I say, it is a dispensation of
Providence, as I am considerably contented with Luffy and my position
up to the present time. But if I had gotten there, stuffed behind with
the baronesses, and had seen those duchesses marching along with their
strawberry-leaves ahead of me, I kinder think I should have had a fit
of dyspepsia right there in the Abbey."
After lunch we went up to the sitting-room. I meant to stay for half
an hour before going back to Versailles.
Telegrams called Lady Tilchester away for a little. She is always so
full of business.
"I shall send Muriel to entertain you while I answer these," she said.
"I brought her over with me to have a glimpse of Paris, too."
In a few moments the sound of feet running down the passage caused me
to turn round as the door opened and a slender child of ten or eleven
entered the room. She was facing the light. I happened to be standing
with my back to the window.
"How do you do?" she said, sweetly, and put out her little hand.
"Mother says I may come and talk to you."
There are some moments in life too anguishing for words!
Her face is the face of Lady Tilchester, but her eyes--her eyes are
grayish-greeny-blue, with black edges, and that look like a cat's,
that can see in the dark.
Now I know whom her photograph reminded me of.
There can be only one other pair of such eyes in the world.
I don't remember what I said. Something kind and _banal_. Then I
invented an excuse to go away.
"Give my best love to your mother, dear," I said, "and say I must not
stop another moment. I have remembered an important appointment with
the dressmaker, and I must fly!"
She put up her _mignonne_ oval face to kiss me.
"I have heard so much of you," she said. "I wanted so to see you. I
wish you could have stayed." And so we kissed and parted.
When I got into the automobile outside, I felt as if I were going
to faint for a few awful moments. Everything was clear to me now!
I remembered the little photograph on his mantel-piece, his sudden
changing of the conversation, a number of small things unnoticed at
the time. How had I been so ridiculously blind? It was because she
seemed so great and noble, and utterly apart from all these things.
Had it been Babykins or Lady Grenellen, or any other woman, this
discovery would have made no difference to me. I did not doubt that
Antony loved me, and me only, now. He had been "not wearyingly
faithful," like the rest of his world, that was all.
But she--Lady Tilchester--my friend! Oh, I could not take her lover
from her! She who had always been so good to me, from the first moment
of our acquaintance, kind and sympathetic and dear! I owed her deepest
gratitude. If one of us must suffer, it should certainly be I. I could
not play her false like this. Of course she loved him still! He was
often with her, I knew, and her face had softened when first she spoke
of him. They had known each other for fourteen years, she had said. I
seemed to see it all. This was her "mid-summer madness," and Antony
had gone away to travel for several years, and then returned to her
again. They had probably been so happy together until I came upon the
scene.
Well, they can be happy once more when he forgets me. I, at least,
shall not stand in the way. Dear Margaret, I am not so mean as that!
You shall keep your lover, and I will never have mine!
All my life I shall hate the road to Versailles. "Go at top speed,"
I told my chauffeur.
I felt if we might dash against a tree and have done with the whole
matter, it would be the best thing in the end.
The rapid motion through the air revived me. I had my wits about me
when we drew up at the hotel door.
"I am going to Switzerland to-night," I said to McGreggor. "Pack up
everything."
She is a maid of wonderful sense.
"Very well, ma'am," she said, without the slightest appearance of
surprise.
I sat down and wrote a telegram to Antony. It would just catch him. He
was to leave by the night mail:
"I have seen Muriel and I know. Lady Tilchester has been
always kind to me. Do not come. Good-bye."
Then I took it to the post-office myself.
That night we left for Lucerne--McGreggor and Roy and I.
VI
It being August, crowds of tourists faced me everywhere. Lucerne,
which I had always heard was such a pretty place, filled me with
loathing. I only stayed a day there. At last, after stopping in
several places, we arrived one afternoon at Zuïebad. Here, at
least, there were no tourists, only ugly rheumatic invalids, and
unattractive. What made me choose such a place I do not know, unless
it was because I happened to see the name printed large upon the map.
Any place would do. I had not felt much in my rapid rush. A numbness,
as of a limb cut off, an utter indifference to everything in life.
But when I found myself alone in the vast pine-woods, an anguish, as
of physical pain, took possession of me. Every tree spoke to me of
Antony. The surroundings were all perfect.
What would he do? Would he follow me and try to persuade me to alter
my mind? Oh no, he could never do that. He would know that this must
be final. What had been his idea all along? How could he think I
should never find out, and having done so, that I would ever accept
such a position?
Or was it that he, like all his world, thought so lightly of passing
from one love to another that fidelity to Lady Tilchester was among
the catalogue of things that do not count.
I had taken no pains to hide my whereabouts.
At each hotel they would know to where I had gone on. For days a
feverish excitement took possession of me. Every knock at the door
made me start. Would he write? Would he make any sign? I almost prayed
not, and yet I feared and longed to hear from him.
This is not a school-girl love story I am writing, but the chronicle
of my life. I have always despised sentimental heart-burnings, and
when I used to read of the heroine dying for love, it always made me
laugh. But, oh, never again can I know such bitterness in life as I
have suffered in this black week--to have been so near to bliss, and
now to be away forever!
What good to me were my freedom and riches? As well be married or
dead. I never knew before how much I had been looking forward to
seeing Antony again. I never realized how, instinctively, for months
my soul had been living in the background on this thought.
And now it was all finished. I must not be a coward. Oh, how I wished
again for grandmamma's spirit! This time I must tear the whole thing
out of my life at once.
To go on caring for another woman's lover was beneath contempt.
When I should have recovered a little, I would go back to England and
mix with the world, and gradually forget, and eventually marry the
Duke. Fortunately, as the Marquis said, _à vingt ans_ one could never
be sure of love lasting. So probably I should soon be cured, and there
would be compensation in being an English duchess. It was a great
position, as Miss Corrisande K. Trumpet had said. And all men make
good enough husbands if you have control of the dollars, I remember
she added.
Well, I should have control of the dollars. So we should see.
The Duke was a gentleman, too, and intelligent, agreeable, and had
liberal views. His Duchess might eventually have a "friend," like the
rest, he had said. So, no doubt, I should be able to acquire the habit
of thus amusing myself. Why should I hesitate, when the best and the
noblest gave me examples?
All my ideas on those subjects had fallen to pieces like a pack of
cards.
"'Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die.'"
Well, I had never eaten or drunk of happiness yet, and now my heart
was dead. So what was the good of it all, anyway? _À quoi bon_? and
again, _à quoi bon_? That is what the trees said to me when they tired
of calling for Antony.
I breakfasted and lunched and dined and walked miles every day. I
loathed my food. I hated the faces of the people who stared at me.
I fear I even snapped at McGreggor. Roy was my only comfort.
But gradually the beauty and peace of the pine-forests soothed me.
Better thoughts came. I said to myself: "Enough. Now you will go home
and face life. At least you can try to do some good in the world,
and with your great wealth make some poor creatures happy. You have
behaved according to your own idea of gratitude and honor. No one
asked you to do it; therefore, why sit there and growl at fate? Have
courage to carry the thing through. No more contemptible repinings."
* * * * *
Far away up the hills there is a path that leads to an open space--a
tiny peep out over the tree-tops, sheer precipices below. I would go
there for the last time, and to-morrow return to England.
The climb was steep. I was a little out of breath, and leaned on the
stone ledge to rest myself when I arrived at the top. I was quite
alone.
The knife on my chatelaine caught in the lichen and dragged at the
chain. It angered me. I took it off the twisted ring and looked at it.
"Little 'ill omen,' as he called you, is it your fault that once fate,
once honor, once gratitude to a woman have kept me from my love? Well,
I shall throw you away now, then I shall have no link left to remind
me of foolish things that might have been."
I lifted my arm, and with all my might flung the tiny, glittering
thing out into the air. It fell far away down among the tree-tops in
the valley.
Then I turned to go down the hill. I had done with ridiculous
sentiment, which I had always disliked and despised.
Footsteps were coming towards me up the long, winding path. It was a
lonely place. I hoped it was not one of the fat German Jews who had
followed me once or twice. Ugly creatures!--hardly human, they seemed
to me. I wished I had Roy with me. He had gone with McGreggor into the
town.
A bend in the path hid the person from view until we met face to face.
And then I saw it was Antony, and it seemed as if my heart stopped
beating.
"At last I have found you, Ambrosine, sweetheart!" he said, and he
clasped me in his arms and kissed my lips.
Then I forgot Lady Tilchester and gratitude and honor and
self-control, because in nature I find there is a stronger force than
all these things, and that is the _touch_ of the one we love.
* * * * *
It was perhaps an hour afterwards. The shadows looked blue among the
pine-trees.
We sat on a little wooden bench. There was a warm, still silence. Not
a twig moved. A joy so infinite seemed everywhere around.
"It was all over between us ten years ago," Antony said. "It only
lasted a year or two, when we were very young. The situation galled us
both too much, and Tilchester was always my friend. She knows I love
you, and she only cares for her great works and her fine position now.
So you need not have fled, Comtesse."
"I shall tell you something, Antony." I whispered. "I am glad I am
doing no wrong, but if it was to break Lady Tilchester's heart, if
grandmamma were to come back and curse me here for forgetting all her
teachings, if it was almost disgrace--now that I know what it is like
to stay in your arms--I should stay!"
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Reflections of Ambrosine, by Elinor Glyn