The Reflections of Ambrosine Part 18

I could not say, as I felt, "But that is the one thing I should like you to do," so I said nothing, and, as soon as I could get near the bell unperceived, rang for McGreggor again, and put an end to the scene.

VI

Next morning at breakfast Augustus said: "As Farrington has refused for the 15th, you had better write and ask that fellow Thornhirst--your cousin. They tell me he is a capital shot, and I want my birds killed this year."

The year before, apparently, the party had been composed of indifferent marksmen, and the head keeper had spoken rather sarcastically upon the subject.

Augustus, when not bullying them, stands in great awe of his servants.

"I am afraid, with only this short notice, there is little chance of Sir Antony being disengaged," I remarked.

I somehow felt as if I did not want him to come to Ledstone. He would be so ridiculously out of place here.

"A keen shot would throw over any invitation he had had previously for such a chance as my two best days," Augustus replied, pompously, helping himself to a second kidney and smearing it with mustard. "You just write this morning, and ask him to wire reply."

"Very well," I said, reluctantly. He would certainly be engaged though I need not fear, "I had a note from yesterday, saying he had returned from Scotland, and asking us to go over soon and pay our promised visit to dine and sleep."

"There! I'll bet he was fis.h.i.+ng for an invitation to this shoot,"

said Augustus, triumphantly. And, not content with the mustard he had already plastered the kidney with, he shook pepper over it, heaping it up upon his knife first and agitating that implement with his fork to make the pepper fall evenly. I do not know why these details of the way he eats should irritate me so.

"Now, mind you catch the early post," he continued, "and tell him who the party are."

At fifteen minutes to eleven I found myself still staring irresolutely at the sheet of note-paper lying before me on the writing-table in my boudoir. It had the date written, and "Dear Sir Antony." The rest was a blank.

The little, brand-new Dresden clock on the mantel-piece chimed the three-quarters. The post leaves at eleven. I took up the pen and dashed at it.

"Eight guns are going to shoot partridges here on the 15th of October, and Augustus will be very pleased if you will make the ninth,"

I wrote. Could anything be more _bete_? "Please wire reply, and believe me, yours sincerely--" I hesitated again. Must I sign myself "Ambrosine de Calincourt Gurrage"? The strangest reluctance came over me.

It has always been a disagreeable moment when I have had to write "Gurrage," but never so disagreeable as now.

"A. de C.G.," I began. No, initials would not do--"urrage," I added, and the distance between the "G" and the "u" showed, I am afraid, that there was something unnatural about my signature.

"No one would accept such a stupid invitation as that," I said to myself, hopefully, as I folded the sheet and put it in the envelope.

But by ten o'clock next day a telegram was handed to me:

Very pleased to come on 15th. Many thanks.--ANTONY THORNHIRST.

So he will see the stuffed bears, and the negro figures, and the Tottenham Court Road Louis XV. drawing-rooms, after all, whether I wish it or no!

_Whether I wish it or no!_

Augustus was delighted--not so much at the acceptance of this guest, but his own wonderful prehension.

"There! I told you he'd jump at it," he said.

For several days after this a good deal of my time was taken up by my mother-in-law's advice and directions as to how I should rule the house during her absence at Bournemouth, where she would be until she returned to spend Christmas with us.

It was a great wrench, one could see, to Mrs. Gurrage to relinquish even for this short two months her rule at Ledstone. But she was in so good a temper with me for what she considered I had done in bringing Augustus back "to the path of duty" (we have heard no more of Lady Grenellen) that she bestowed upon me her sceptre with a good grace.

At last the day came when Amelia, carrying the parrot, followed her into the brougham.

Augustus had preceded them to the station, and with infinite fuss of maids and footman, and stray card-board boxes, and final directions, the whole party disappeared down the drive, and I was left standing on the red-granite steps.

A sudden sense of exaltation came over me.

I was alone for the first time since my wedding!

It would be evening before Augustus could return from seeing them off in London.

There was almost one whole day. What should I do? Where should I go?

Roy even barked with pleasure.

As I turned back into the house, the butler informed me Hephzibah--Mrs. Prodgers--was waiting to see me.

Dear old nurse! She comes up rarely. She is radiantly happy with her grocer's man, and I think it grieves her to see me.

To-day it was to tell me that she had an accident with one of the Sevres cups, a chip having appeared in the handle.

She almost cried over it.

"Oh! If madam could know!" she said; then, "I dearly wish you would come back just to see how I have kept things," she added.

"Oh, Hephzibah, I will some day, but do not ask me yet! I--I should so miss grandmamma."

"You--you're happy, Miss Ambrosine?" she faltered, timidly. "Madam always knew best, you know. But I had a dream last night of your father, and he shook his fist at us--right there."

"Papa!" I felt startled. Our settled conviction had been so long that he was dead. "You dreamed of papa? Oh! Hephzibah, if he should still be alive!" I cried.

"There, there," she said, uneasily. "It is too late, anyway, my deary, but he'll understand that we could none of us stand against madam--if he should come back, ever. He--he--won't blame us."

I did not ask her what he should blame us for--her, poor soul! for having been unable to keep me with her, free; me for having submitted to the mutilation of my own life. Would papa blame us for this?

Kind, awkward, abrupt papa!

Hephzibah glanced round the room. It is the first time she had been in my boudoir since it was finished.

"Why won't you have up some of your things?" she said, at last. "It don't look like you, this grand place."

"No, it is not very like me, is it? But you see everything is changed, and they would not do mixed, the old and the new. I am a new person."

I sighed. "See--this book is the only thing I brought with me, besides the miniature of my great-great-grandmother," and I took up La Rochefoucauld tenderly.