The Reflections of Ambrosine Part 20

"Virtuous Comtesse!"

But he rose, and crossed over to the fat wife of the member for this division, and soon her face beamed with smiles.

I soothed Mr. McCormack, who somehow felt the sugar had been his fault.

Augustus mollified the fog-horn Dodd, and peace was restored all around.

It is a long time between tea and dinner when the days are growing short. It was only half-past six when every excuse for lingering over the teacups had expired.

What on earth could one do with this ill-a.s.sorted company for a whole hour?

Augustus, with a desire to be extremely smart, had commanded dinner at half-past eight.

Mercifully, the decent people and some of the men played bridge, and were soon engaged at one or two tables. Augustus, who is growing fond of the game, made one of the fourth, thus leaving five of our guests hanging upon my hands.

"Shall I show you your rooms? Perhaps you would like to rest before dinner," I said to the ladies, who were good enough to a.s.sent, with the exception of Mrs. Dodd, who snorted at the idea of resting.

"Wullie," she said to Mr. Dodd. She had evidently picked up the Scotch p.r.o.nunciation of his name from him, a quiet, red-haired man originally from Glasgow. He was hovering in the direction of one of the bridge-tables. "Wullie, don't let me see you playing that game of cards. There are letters to be written to Martha and my mother. Come with me," she commanded.

Mr. Dodd obeyed, and they retired to the library together.

They are evidently quite at home here, and did not need any attention from me.

Antony Thornhirst was the only other guest unemployed, and he immediately rose and went to write letters in the hall, he said.

He had refused to play bridge on account of this important correspondence.

So at last I got the two women off to their rooms, and was standing irresolutely for a second, glancing over the bal.u.s.trade after closing the last door, when my kinsman looked up.

"Comtesse," he called, softly, "won't you come down and tell me when the post goes?"

I descended the stairs. He was standing at the bottom by one of the negro figures when I reached the last step.

"Have you not some quiet corner where we might sit and talk of our ancestors?" he asked, with a comic look in his cat's eyes. "This place is so draughty, and I am afraid of the bears! And we should disturb that loving couple in the library and the bridge-players in the drawing-room. Have you no suggestions for my comfort? I am one of your guests, too, you know!"

"There is Mrs. Gurrage's boudoir, that has straight-up, padded chairs and crimson satin, and there is my own, that is mustard yellow. Which could you bear best before dinner?" I said, laughing.

"Oh! the yellow--mustard is stimulating and will give me an appet.i.te."

So we walked up the stairs again together and he followed me down the thickly carpeted pa.s.sage to my highly gilded shrine.

For the first time since I have owned it, I felt sorry I had been too numb to make it nice. The house-maids arrange it in the morning, and there it stays, a monument of the English upholsterer's idea of a Louis XV. boudoir.

As I told Hephzibah, the little copy of La Rochefoucauld and the miniature of Ambrosine Eustasie are the only things of mine--my own--that are here, besides all my new books, of course.

I sat down in the straight-backed sofa. It has terra-cotta and buff tulips running over the mustard brocade. The gilt part runs into your back.

Antony sat at the other end.

A very fat, rich cus.h.i.+on of "school of art" embroidery, with frills, fell between us. We looked up at the same moment and our eyes met, and we both laughed.

"You remind me of a picture I bought last year," Antony said. "It was a little pastel by La Tour, and the last owner had framed it in a brand-new, brilliant gilt Florentine frame."

Suddenly, as he spoke, a sense of shame came over me. I felt how wrong I had been to laugh with him about this--my home. It is because, after all these months, I cannot realize that Ledstone is my home that I have been capable of committing this bad taste.

I felt my cheeks getting red and I looked down.

"I--I like bright colors," I said, defiantly. "They are cheerful and--and--"

"Sweet Comtesse!" interrupted Antony, in his mocking tone, which does not anger me. "Tell me about your books."

He got up lazily, and began reading the t.i.tles of a heap on the table beyond.

"What strange books for a little girl! Who on earth recommended you these?"

"No one. I knew nothing at all about modern books, so I just sent for all and any I saw in the advertis.e.m.e.nts in the papers. Most of them are great rubbish, it seems to me, but there are one or two I like."

He did not speak for a few moments.

"All on philosophy! You ought to read novels at your age."

"I did get some in the beginning, but they seemed all untrue and mawkish, or sad and dramatic, and the heroines did such silly things, and the men were mostly brutes, so I have given them up. Unless I see the advertis.e.m.e.nt of a thrilling burglary or mystery story, I read those. They are not true, either, and one knows it, but they make one forget when it rains."

"All women profess to have a little taste for philosophy and beautifully bound Marcus Aureliuses, and _Maximes_, and love poems--clever little sc.r.a.ps covered in exquisite bindings. And one out of a thousand understands what the letter-press is about. I am weary of seeing the same on every boudoir-table, and yet some of them are delightful books in themselves. You have none of these, I see."

He picked up the La Rochefoucauld.

"Yes, here is one, but this is an old edition." He turned to the t.i.tle-leaf and read the date, then looked at the cover. It is bound in brown leather and has the same arms and coronet upon it that my chatelaine has--the arms of Ambrosine Eustasie de Calincourt and an "A. E. de C." entwined, all tooled in faded gold.

"The arms on my knife!" Antony said, pulling it from his waistcoat-pocket and comparing them.

"My knife," I said.

"Tell me all about her--A.E. de C.," he commanded, seating himself on the sofa again.

"She was my great-great-grandmother, and was guillotined. See--I will show you her miniature," and I took it from its case on the writing-table. I have had a leather covering made to keep safe the old, paste frame. It has doors that shut, and I don't let her look too much at the mustard-yellow walls, my pretty ancestress.

"What an extraordinary likeness!" Antony exclaimed, as he looked at it. "Are you sure I am not dreaming and you are not your own great-great-grandmother?"

"No, I am myself. But I am supposed to be like her, though."

"It is the very image of you. She has your air and carriage of the head, and--and--" he looked at it very carefully under the electric light which sprouts from a twisted bunch of bra.s.s lilies on the wall, their stalks suggesting a modern Louis XV. nightmare.

"And what?"

"Well, never mind. Now I want to hear her story." And we both sat down again for the third time on the tulip-sofa.

I told him the history just as I had told him the outline of my life the day in the Harley woods. Only, as then I felt I was speaking of another person, now I seemed to be talking of myself when I came to the part of walking up the guillotine steps.

"And so they cut her head off--poor little lady!" said Antony, when I had finished, and he looked straight into my eyes.