Oh, the horror of it! I shut my eyes, and in the emotion of the moment
I bent the bow on the top of the frame of Ambrosine Eustasie.
Then, dragging myself from his embrace and stuttering with rage, "How dare you!" I gasped. "How dare you!"
He looked sulky and offended.
"You said you would marry me—what is a fellow to understand?"
"You are to understand that I will not be mauled and—and kissed like—like Hephzibah at the back door," I said, with freezing dignity, my head in the air.
"Hoity-toity!" (hideous expression!) "What airs you give yourself! But you look so deuced pretty when you are angry!" I did not melt, but stood on the defensive.
He became supplicating again.
"Ambrosine, I love you—don't be cross with me. I won't make you angry again until you are used to me. Ambrosine, say you forgive me." He took my hand. His hands are horrid to touch—coarse and damp. I shuddered involuntarily.
He looked pained at that. A dark-red flush came over all his face. He squared his shoulders and got over the window-sill again.
"You cold statue!" he said, spitefully. "I will leave you."
"Go," was all I said, and I did not move an inch.
He stood looking at me for a few moments, then with one bound he was in the room again and had seized me in his arms.
"No, I sha'n't!" he exclaimed. "You have promised, and I don't care what you say or do. I will keep you to your word."
Mercifully, at that moment Hephzibah opened the door, and in the confusion her entrance caused him, he let me go. I simply flew from the room and up to my own; and there, I am ashamed to say, I cried—sat on the floor and cried like a gutter-child. Oh, if grandmamma could have seen me, how angry she would have been! I have never been allowed to cry—a relaxation for the lower classes, she has always told me.
My face burned. All the bottles of Lubin in grandmamma's cupboard would not wash off the stain of that kiss, I felt. I scrubbed my face until it was crimson, and then I heard grandmamma's voice and had to pull myself together.
I have always said she had hawk's eyes; they see everything, even with the blinds down in her room. When I went in she noticed my red lids and asked the cause of them.
"Mr. Gurrage has been here and has asked me to marry him, grandmamma,"
I said.
"At this hour in the morning! What does the young man mean?"
"He saw me dusting the Sèvres from the road and came in."
Grandmamma kissed me—a thing of the greatest rareness.
"My child," she said, "try and remember to accept fate without noise. Now go and rest until breakfast, or you will not be pretty for your ball to-night."
The Marquis's congratulations were different when we met in the salle à manger; he kissed my hand. How cool and fine his old, withered fingers felt!
"You will be the most beautiful débutante to-night, ma chère enfant," he said; "and all the félicitations are for Monsieur Gurrage. You are a noble girl—but such is life. My wife detested me—dans le temps. But what will you?"
"You, at least, were a gentleman, Marquis," I said.
"There is that, to be sure," he allowed. "But my wife preferred her dancing-master. One can never judge."
At half-past two o'clock (they must have gobbled their lunch), Mrs. Gurrage, Augustus—yes, I must get accustomed to saying that odious name—Augustus and Miss Hoad drove up in the barouche, and got solemnly out and came up to the door which Hephzibah held open for them. They solemnly entered the sitting-room where we all were, and solemnly shook hands. There is something dreadfully ill-behaved about me to-day. I could hardly prevent myself from screaming with laughter.
"I've heard the joyous news," Mrs. Gurrage said, "and I've come to take you to me heart, me dear."
Upon which I was folded fondly against a mosaic brooch containing a lock of hair of the late Mr. Gurrage.
It says a great deal for the unassailable dignity of grandmamma that she did not share the same fate. She, however, escaped with only numerous hand-shakings.
"He is, indeed, to be congratulated, votre fils, madame," the Marquis said, on being presented.
"And the young lady, too, me dear sir. A better husband than me boy'll make there is not in England—though his old mother says it."
Grandmamma behaved with the stiffest decorum. She suggested that we—the young girls—should walk in the garden, while she had some conversation with Mrs. Gurrage and Augustus.
Miss Hoad and I left the room. Her name is Amelia. She looked like a turkey's egg, just that yellowish white with freckles.
"I hope you will be good to Gussie," she said, as we walked demurely along the path. "He is a dear fellow when you know him, though a bit masterful."
I bowed.
"Gussie's awfully spoony on you," she went on. "I said to aunt weeks ago I knew what was up," she giggled.
I bowed again.
"I say, he'll give you a bouquet for the ball to-night; we are going into Tilchester now to fetch it."
I could not bow a third time, so I said:
"Is not a bouquet rather in the way of dancing? I have never been to a ball yet."
"Never been to a ball? My! Well I've never had a bouquet, so I can't say. If you have any one sweet on you I suppose they send them, but I have always been too busy with aunt to think about that."
Poor Miss Hoad!
When they had gone—kept behind grandmamma's chair, and so only received a squeeze of the hand from my betrothed—grandmamma told me she would be obliged to forego the pleasure of herself taking me to the ball to-night, but the Marquis would accompany me, and Mrs. Gurrage would chaperon me there. So, after all, I am going with Mrs. Gurrage! Grandmamma also added that she had explained the circumstances of her health to them, and that Augustus had suggested that the wedding should take place with the shortest delay possible.
"I have told them your want of dot," she said, "and I must say for these bourgeois they seemed to find that a matter of no importance. But they do not in the least realize the honor you are doing them. That must be for you as a private consolation. I have stipulated, as my time is limited, that I shall have you as much to myself as possible during the month that must elapse before you can collect a trousseau."
For that mercy, how grateful I felt to grandmamma!
IV
It is difficult to judge of a thing when your mind is prejudiced on any point. Balls may be delightful, but my first ball contained hours which I can only look back upon as a nightmare.
The Marquis and I arrived not too early; Mrs. Gurrage and her bevy of nieces and friends were already in the dressing-room. They seemed to be plainish, buxom girls, several of the bony, passé description. They looked at me with eyes of deep interest. My dress, as I said before, was perfection. Mrs. Gurrage wore what she told me were the "family jewels." Her short neck and undulating chest were covered with pearls, diamonds, sapphires, and rubies, all jumbled together, necklace after necklace. On top of her head, in front of an imitation lace cap, a park paling of diamonds sat up triumphantly; one almost saw its reflection in her shining forehead below. In spite of this splendor, my future mother-in-law had an unimportant,