"Your grandmother is all right now and you can go to her. I think she wishes to send a telegram, which I will take."
He then asked to see Hephzibah, and I ran quickly to grandmamma. She was sitting perfectly upright as usual, and, except for the slight bluish look round her mouth, seemed quite herself. She made me get her the foreign telegram forms, and wrote a long telegram, thinking between the words, but never altering one. She folded it and told me to get some money from Hephzibah and take it to the doctor. Her eyes looked prouder than ever, but her hand shook a little. A vague feeling of fear came over me which has never left me since. Even when I am excited thinking of my dress, I seem to feel some shadow in the background.
Yesterday grandmamma received a telegram and told me we might expect the Marquis de Rochermont by the usual train in the evening, and at six he arrived. He greeted me with even extra courtesy and made me compliment. I cannot understand it all--he has never before come so early in the year (this is May). What can it mean? Grandmamma sent me out of the room directly, and we did not have dinner until eight o"clock. I could hear their voices from my room, and they seemed talking very earnestly, and not so gayly as usual.
At dinner the Marquis, for the first time, addressed his conversation to me. He prefers to speak in English--to show what a linguist he is, I suppose. He made me many compliments, and said how very like I was growing to my ancestress, Ambrosine Eustasie de Calincourt, and he told me again the old story of the guillotine. Grandmamma seemed watching me.
"Ambrosine is a true daughter of the race," she said. "I think I could promise you that under the same circ.u.mstances she would behave in the same manner."
How proud I felt!
III
How changed all the world can become in one short day! Now I know why the Marquis came, and what all the mystery was about. This morning after breakfast grandmamma sent for me into the drawing-room. The Marquis was standing beside the fireplace, and they both looked rather grave.
"Sit down, my child." said grandmamma; "we have something to say to you."
I sat down.
"I said you were a true daughter of the race--therefore I shall expect you to obey me without flinching."
I felt a cold shiver down my back. What could it be?
"You are aware that I had a fainting fit a short time ago," she continued. "I have long known that my heart was affected, but I had hoped it would have lasted long enough for me to fulfil a scheme I had for a thoroughly suitable and happy arrangement of your destiny. It was a plan that would have taken time, and which I had hoped to put in the way of gradual accomplishment at this ball. However, we must not grumble at fate--it is not to be. The doctor tells me I cannot possibly live more than a few weeks, therefore it follows that something must be settled immediately to secure you a future. You are not aware, as I have not considered it necessary to inform you hitherto of my affairs, that all we are living on is an annuity your father bought for me, before the catastrophe to his fortunes. That, you will understand, ceases with my life. At my death you will be absolutely penniless, a beggar in the street. Even were you to sell these trifles"--and she pointed to the Sevres cups and the miniatures--"the few pounds they would bring might keep you from starving for perhaps a month or two--after that--well, enough--that question is impossible. I can obtain no news of your father. I have heard nothing from or of him for two years. He may be dead--we cannot count on him. In short, I have decided, after due consideration and consultation with my old friend the Marquis, that you must marry Augustus Gurrage. It is my dying wish."
My eyes fell from grandmamma"s face and happened to light on the picture of Ambrosine Eustasie de Calincourt. There she was, with the rose in her dress, smiling at me out of the old paste frame. I was so stunned, all I could think of was to wonder if it was the same rose she walked up the guillotine steps with. I did not hear grandmamma speaking; for a minute there was a buzzing in my ears.
_Marry Augustus Gurrage!_
"My child"--grandmamma"s voice was rather sharper--"I am aware that it is a _mesalliance_, a stain, a finish to our fine race, and if I could take you on the journey I am going I would not suggest this alternative to you; but one must have common-sense and be practical; and as you are young and must live, and cannot beg, this is the only certain and possible solution of the matter. The great honor you will do him by marrying him removes all sense of obligation in receiving the riches he will bestow on you--you yourself being without a _dot_.
Child--why don"t you answer?"
I got up and walked to the window. She had said I was a true daughter of the race. Would it be of the race to kill myself? No--there is nothing so vulgar as to be dramatic. Grandmamma has never erred. She would not ask this of me if there was any other way.
I came back and sat down.
"Very well, grandmamma," I said.
The blue mark round her lips seemed to fade a little and she smiled.
The Marquis came forward and kissed my hand.
"Remember--_chere enfant_," he said, "marriage is a state required by society. It is not a pleasure, but it can--with creature comforts--become supportable, and it opens the door to freedom _et de tous les autres agrements de la vie pour une femme_."
He kissed and patted my hand again.
"Start with hate, pa.s.sionate love, indifference, revolt, disgust--what you will--all husbands at the end of a year inspire the same feeling, one of complacent monotony--that is, if they are not altogether brutes--and from the description of madame, _ce jeune_ Gurrage is at least _un brave garcon_."
I am of a practical nature, and a thought struck me forcibly. When could Mr. Gurrage have made the _demande_?
"How did Mr. Gurrage ask for my hand?" I ventured to question grandmamma.
She looked at the Marquis, and the Marquis looked back at her, and polished his eye-gla.s.ses.
At last grandmamma spoke.
"That is not the custom here, Ambrosine, but from what I have observed he will take the first opportunity of asking you himself."
Here was something unpleasant to look forward to! It would be bad enough to have to go through the usual period of formal _fiancailles_ of the sort I have always been brought up to expect--but to endure being made love to by Augustus Gurrage! That was enough to daunt the stoutest heart. However, having agreed to obey grandmamma, I could not argue. I only waited for directions. There was a pause, not agreeable to any of us, and then grandmamma spoke.
"You will go to this ball, my child. You will look beautiful, and you will dance with this young man. You will not be so stiff as you have hitherto been, and during the evening he is sure to propose to you.
You will then accept him, and bear his outburst of affection with what good grace you can summon up. I will save you from as much as I can, and I promise you your engagement shall be short."
A sudden feeling of dizziness came over me. I have never been faint in my life, but all the room swam, and I felt I must scream, "No, no!
I cannot do it!" Then my eyes fell again on grandmamma. The blue mark had returned, but she sat bolt upright. My nerves steadied. I, too, would be calm and of my race.
"Go for a walk now, my child," she said, "Take your dog and run; it will be good for you."
You may believe I courtesied quickly to them and left the room without more ado.
When I got out-of-doors and the fresh May air struck my face it seemed to revive me, and I forgot my ugly future and could think only of grandmamma--poor grandmamma, going away out of the world, and the summer coming, and the blue sky, and the flowers. Going away to the great, vast beyond--and perhaps there she will meet Ambrosine Eustasie de Calincourt, and all the other ancestors, and Jacques de Calincourt, the famous friend of Bayard, who died for his lady"s glove; and she will tell them that I also, the last of them, will try to remember their motto, "_Sans bruit_," and accept my fate also "without noise."
When I got back, my ball-dress had arrived. Hephzibah had unpacked it, and it was lying on my bed--such billows of pure white!--and it fitted! Well, it gave me pleasure, with all the uglies looming in the future, just to try it on.
The Marquis stayed with us. He could not desert his old friend, he said, in her frail health, when she needed some one to cheer her. I suspect the Marquis is as poor as we are, really, and that is why grandmamma could not leave me to him. I am glad he is staying, and now she seems quite her old self again, and I cannot believe she is going to die. However, whether or no, my destiny is fixed, and I shall have to marry Augustus Gurrage.
I did not let myself think of what was to happen at the ball. When one has made up one"s mind to go through something unpleasant, there is no use suffering in advance by antic.i.p.ation. I said to myself, "I will put the whole affair out of my head; there are yet two good days."
Chance, however, arranged otherwise. This morning, the morning of the ball, while I was dusting the drawing-room, I went to the window, which was wide open, to shake out my duster, and there, loitering by the gate, was Mr. Gurrage--at nine o"clock! What could he be doing?
He jumped back as if he had seen me in my nightgown. I suppose it was because of my ap.r.o.n, and the big cambric cap I always wear to keep the dust from getting into my hair. A flash came to me--why not get it over now? He would probably not be so affectionate in broad daylight as at the ball. So I called out, "Good-morning!"
He came forward up the path and leaned on the window-sill, still looking dreadfully uncomfortable, hardly daring to glance at me. Then he said, nervously, "What are you playing with, up like that?"
"I am not playing," I said, "I am dusting the china, and I wear these things to keep me clean."
He _blushed_!
Then I realized all this embarra.s.sment was because he thought I should feel uncomfortable at being caught doing house-work! Not, as one might have imagined, because _he_ had been caught peeping into our garden.
Oh, the odd ideas of the lower cla.s.ses!
I took up a Sevres cup and began to pull the silk duster gently through the handle.
"Er--can I help you?" he said.
At that I burst out laughing. Those thick, common hands touching grandmamma"s best china!