The Reflections of Ambrosine: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

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 d�bris 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, _� quoi bon_? No one was ever benefited."

"But the world would not go on if we said '_� 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.'"

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