The Reflections of Ambrosine: Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Before I opened my eyes next morning in my beautiful room a telegram
came from Augustus--a long telegram written the night before, telling
me that it was impossible to penetrate the fog that night, and I was
to come up and join him at once in London, as he had just decided to
go to the war with his Yeomanry. He could not keep out of it longer,
as all his brother officers had volunteered, so he had felt obliged
to do so, too. They were to start in less than three weeks.

"I shall go by the ten-o'clock train," I told McGreggor, as I
scribbled my reply. "I must get up at once. Ask for my breakfast to
be brought up here."

I was dressed by nine o'clock and sipping my chocolate.

The daintiness of the old Dresden china equipage pleased me, forced
itself upon my notice in spite of the deep preoccupation of my mind.

An exquisite bunch of fresh roses lay on the tray, and a note from
Antony--only a few words--hoping I had slept well and saying the
brougham would be ready for me at half-past nine, and that he also
was going to London.

McGreggor had left the room. Oh! am I very wicked? I kissed the
writing before I threw the paper in the fire!

And so Augustus is going to the war, after all. It must have been some
very strong influence which persuaded him to volunteer, he who hated
the very thought.

I felt bitterly annoyed with myself that this news did not cause me
any grief. I have been this man's wife for five months, and his going
into danger in a far country leaves me cold. But I did, indeed, grieve
for his mother. Her many good qualities came back to me. This will be
a terrible blow to her.

I looked up at the little pastel by La Tour. The sprightly French
Marquise smiled back at me.

"Good-bye," I said. "You, pretty Marquise, would call me a fool
because to-day Antony is not my lover. But I--oh, I am glad!"

He did not even kiss my finger-tips last night. We parted sadly after
a storm of words neither he nor I had ever meant to speak.

"_Il s'en faut bien que nous commissions tout ce que nos passions nous
font faire!_"

Once more La Rochefoucauld has spoken truth.

Why the situation is as it is I cannot tell. In my bringing up, the
idea of taking a lover after marriage seemed a more or less natural
thing, and not altogether a deadly sin, provided the affair was
conducted _sans fanfaronnade_, without scandal. It was not that
grandmamma and the Marquis actually discussed such matters in my
hearing, but the general tone of their conversation gave that
impression.

Marriage, as the Marquis said to me, was not a pleasure--it is a means
to an end, a tax of society. The _agreements_ of life came afterwards.
I had always understood he had been grandmamma's lover.

Once I heard him express this sentiment when I was supposed to be
reading my book: The marriage vows, he said, were the only ones a
gentleman might break without great blemish to his honor. This was the
atmosphere I had always lived in, and since my wedding the people of
my own class that I have met do not seem to hold different views. Lord
Tilchester is Babykins's lover. The Duke has passed on from several
women, and, to come nearer home, there are my husband and Lady
Grenellen. Only Lady Tilchester seems noble and above all these
earthly things.

Why did I hesitate? I do not know. There is a something in my spirit
which cried out against the meanness of it, the degradation, the
sacrilege. I could not break my word to Augustus. Oh! I could not
stoop to desecrate myself, and to act for all the future--hours of
deceit.

And now after to-day I will never see Antony alone again. That we
shall casually meet I cannot guard against. But never again shall I
stay in his house. Never again awake in this beautiful room. Never
again--

"The brougham is at the door, ma'am," said McGreggor, interrupting my
thoughts, and I descended the stairs. The fog was still gray and raw,
but had considerably lifted.

In the uncompromising daylight Antony's face looked haggard and drawn.

"Comtesse," he said, as we drove along, "I cannot forgive myself for
causing you pain last night. Nothing was further from my thoughts than
to harass and disturb you--here, in my own house--that I wanted you
to look upon as your haven of rest. But I am not made of stone. The
situation was exceptional--and I love you."

In spite of our imminent parting, joy rushed through me at his words.
Oh! could I ever get tired of hearing Antony say "I love you"?

"You did not cause me pain," I said. "We had drifted, neither knowing
where. It was fate."

"Darling, do you remember our talk in your sitting-room, and of the
_coup de foudre_? Well, it has struck us both. Oh! I could curse
myself! Your dear little white face looks up at me pathetically
without a reproach, and I have been a selfish brute to even tell you
I love you. I meant to be your friend and comrade that you might feel
you had at least some one that would stand by you forever. I wanted to
make your life pleasanter, and now my mad folly has spoiled it all,
and you decree that we must part. Oh! my little Comtesse, my loving
you has only been to hurt you!"

"Oh no. It makes me glad to know it--only--only I cannot see you any
more."

"I would promise never to say another word that could disturb you. Oh!
Why must we say good-bye?"

"Because I could not promise not to wish you to say things. You must
surely know if we went on meeting it could only have one end."

"Well, I will do as you wish, my darling white rose. In my eyes you
are above the angels."

Antony's voice when it is moved could wile a bird from off a tree.

Then I told him of my telegram, and I know he, too, felt glad that
last night we had parted as we had.

"Ambrosine, listen to me," he said, "I will not try to see you, but if
you want anything in the world done for you, promise to let me do it."

I promised.

"There is just one thing I want to know," I said. "That day before my
wedding, when you sent me the knife and the note saying it was not too
late to cut the Gordian knot, what did you mean? Did you care for me,
then?"

"I do not know exactly what I meant. I was greatly attracted by you.
That day we came over I very nearly said to you then, 'Come along away
with me,' and then we never met again until your wedding. When I sent
the knife I half wondered what you would say. I wrote the note half
in joke, half in earnest. My principal feeling was that I could not
bear you to marry Augustus. If we had chanced to meet then, really,
I should have taken you off to Gretna Green."

"Alas!" I said.

The footman opened the door. We had arrived at the station.

We did not travel in the same carriage going to London. We had agreed
it would be better not. And I do not think any one, seeing Antony
calmly handing me into the hired brougham Augustus had sent to me,
would have guessed that we were parting forever, and that, to me at
least, all joy in the world had fled.

It is stupid to go on talking about one's feelings. Having cut off
one's hand, I am sure grandmamma would say it would be drivelling and
mawkish to meditate over each drop of blood.

I tried hard to think of other things. I counted the stupid pattern on
the braid that ornamented the inside of the brougham. I counted the
lamp-posts, with their murky lights, showing through the fog. I looked
at McGreggor sitting stolidly opposite me. Could any emotions happen
to that wooden mask? "Have you a lover that you have said good-bye to
forever, I wonder? And is that why your face is carved out of stone?"
I said to myself.

In spite of all grandmamma's stoical bringing-up, it was physical pain
I was suffering.

In Queen Victoria Street a hansom passed us and I caught a misty
glimpse of Antony. He smiled mechanically as he raised his hat.

And so this is the end.

The fog is falling thickly again. Everything is damp and cold and
black as night.

And I--Oh! I wish--

"Hallo, little woman! Glad to see you!" said Augustus, in a thick and
tipsy voice, as I got out of the carriage. And he kissed me in front
of all the people at the hotel door.

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