The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel | Page 9

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 circumstances 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 S��vres 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 m��salliance, 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