The Reflections of Ambrosine: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

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.

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