The Reflections of Ambrosine: Chapter 6

Chapter 6

To-morrow is my wedding-day--the 10th of June. There is my dress
spread over the sofa, looking like a ghost in the dim light--I have
only one candle on the dressing-table. It is pouring rain and there
are rumbles of thunder in the distance. Well, let it pour and hail
and rage, and do what it pleases--I don't care! Just now a flash came
nearer and seemed to catch the huge diamonds in my engagement-ring,
which hangs loose on my finger now. I flung it into the little china
tray, where strings of pearls and a fender tiara are already reposing
ready for to-morrow. I shall blaze with jewels, and Augustus will be
able to tell the guests how much they all cost.

This month of my _fiancailles_ has been nothing agreeable to recall.
Indeed, I should not have been able to go through with it only the
blue mark has so often appeared round grandmamma's mouth, especially
when Augustus and I have had trifling differences of opinion.

Long years ago, one summer we spent at Versailles when I was a child,
I remember an incident.

I was sitting reading aloud to grandmamma in the garden when from the
trees above there fell upon my neck, which was bare, a fat, hairy
caterpillar. I recollect I gave a gurgling, nasty scream, and dropped
the book.

Grandmamma was very angry. She explained to me that such noises were
extremely vulgar, and that if my flesh was so little under control
that this should turn me sick, the sooner I got over such fancies the
better.

She made me pick the creature up and let it crawl over my arm. At
first I nearly felt mad with horror, but gradually custom deadened the
sensation, and although it remained disagreeable, I could contemplate
it without emotion.

This memory has often proved useful to me during this last month.
To-day, even, I was able to sit upon the sofa and allow Augustus to
kiss me for quite ten minutes, without having to rush up and take
sal-volatile, as I had to in the beginning.

I have been through various trying ordeals. The tenants have
presented us with silver trays and other things, and we have listened
to speeches, and bowed sweetly, and numbers of hitherto distant
acquaintances have showered presents upon us. My future mother-in-law
has loaded me with advice, chiefly of a purely domestic kind, most of
it a guide as to how I had better please Augustus.

It appears he likes thick toast in preference to thin, and thick
soups; also that a habit he has of taking Welsh rarebit and stout for
a late supper when he sits up alone is not good for his digestion and
is to be discouraged. She hopes I will see that he wears his second
thinnest Jager vests in Paris, not _the_ thinnest--which ought to be
kept for August warmth--as once before when there he caught a bad
catarrh of the chest through this imprudence.

Lady Tilchester is coming down from London in a special train on
purpose to grace our bridal ceremony. She has sent me the prettiest
brooch and such a nice letter.

I hope she will be a consolation in the future. For me life must be a
thing of waking in the morning, and eating and drinking, and taking
exercise, and going to bed again, and deadening all emotions, or
else I feel sure I shall get a dreadful disease I once read about
in an American paper Hephzibah takes in. It is called "spontaneous
combustion," and it said in the paper that a man caught it from having
got into a compressed state of heat and rage for weeks, and it made
him burst up at last into flames like an exploding shell.

Well, at all events, I have kept my word, and grandmamma is content
with me.

Miss Hoad--I shall have to call her Amelia now--is enchanted with the
whole entertainment. She is to be the only bridesmaid, and has chosen
the dress herself. It is coffee lace with a mustard-yellow sash. It
mill match her complexion. And Augustus is presenting her with a
huge bouquet, no doubt of the cauliflower shape, like my famous one,
besides a diamond-and-ruby watch.

I wonder if Sir Antony will be at the wedding--he was asked.

The Marquis de Rochermont will give me away--grandmamma is too feeble
now to stand. The ceremony is to be in the village church here, and
the choir, composed of village youths unacquainted with a note of
music, is to meet us at the lich-gate and precede us up the aisle,
singing an encouraging wedding-hymn, while school-children spread
forced white roses, provided by the Tilchester rose-growers.

Augustus explained that patronizing local resources like this will all
come in useful when he stands for Parliament later on.

Grandmamma stipulated that there should be no wedding feast, her
health and our small house being sufficient excuse. It is a great
disappointment to Mrs. Gurrage, I am sure, but we go away to Paris
as soon as I can change my dress after the church ceremony.

Think of it! This time to-morrow my name will be Gurrage! And Augustus
will have the right to--Merciful God! stop my heart from beating
in this sickening fashion, and let me remember the motto of my
race--"_Sans bruit_."

Oh, grandmamma, if I could go on your journey with you! The first jump
out into the dark might be fearful, but afterwards it would be quiet
and still, and there would be no caterpillars!

That was a beautiful flash of lightning! The storm is coming
nearer. Sparks flew from my diamond fender on the dressing-table.
Well--well--I--I wish I had seen Sir Antony again. Just now he sent
me a present. It is a knife for my chatelaine, the hilt studded with
diamonds, and there is a note which says that there is still time to
cut the Gordian knot.

What does it mean? I feel cold, as if I could not understand things
to-night.

The Marquis gave me some _conseils de mariage_ this afternoon.

"Remain placid," he said, "_fermez les yeux et pensez � autrui--apres
vous aurez les agruments_."

Grandmamma has not even kissed me. Her eyes resemble a hawk's still,
but have the look of a tortured tiger as well sometimes. She has grown
terribly feeble, and has twice had fainting-fits like the one that
changed my destiny. I believe she is remaining alive simply by
strength of will and that she will die when all is over.

She has given me the greatest treasure of her life, the miniature of
Ambrosine Eustasie. I have it here by my side for my very own.

Yes, Ambrosine Eustasie, for me to-morrow there is also the
guillotine; and perhaps I, too, could walk up the steps smiling if
I were allowed a rose to keep off the smell of the common people;
Augustus's mother uses patchouli.

Back to chapter list of: The Reflections of Ambrosine