The Reflections of Ambrosine. Glyn Elinor
place on Balham Hill. We put it here because Augustus did not want anything the least shabby up at The Hall, and I take it kind of you to have cared for it so."
Grandmamma's face never changed; not the least twinkle came into her eye—she is wonderful. I could hardly keep from gurgling with laughter and was obliged to make quite an irritating rattle with the teaspoons. Grandmamma frowned at that.
By the end of the visit we had been invited to view all the glories of The Hall. (The place is called Ledstone Park; The Hall, apparently, is Mrs. Gurrage's pet name for the house itself.) We would not find anything old or shabby there, she assured us.
When they had gone grandmamma said to me, in a voice that always causes my knees to shake, "Why did you not make a révérence to Mrs. Gurrage, may I ask?"
"Oh, grandmamma," I said, "courtesy to that person! She would not have understood in the least, and would only have thought it was the village 'bob' to a superior."
"My child,"—grandmamma's voice can be terrible in its fine distinctness—"my teaching has been of little avail if you have not understood the point, that one has not good manners for the effect they produce—but for what is due to one's self. This person—who, I admit, should have entered by the back door and stayed in the kitchen with Hephzibah—happened to be our guest and is a woman of years—and yet, because she displeased your senses you failed to remember that you yourself are a gentlewoman. What she thought or thinks is of not the smallest importance in the world, but let me ask you in future to remember, at least, that you are my granddaughter."
A big lump came in my throat.
I hate the Gurrages!
The next day one of the old maids—a Miss Burton—arrived just as we were having tea. She was full of excitement at the return of the owners of Ledstone, and gave us a quantity of information about them in spite of grandmamma's aloofness from all gossip. It appears, even in the country in England, Mrs. Gurrage is considered quite an oddity, but every one knows and accepts her, because she is so charitable and gives hundreds to any scheme the great ladies start.
She was the daughter of a small publican in one of the southern counties, Miss Burton said, and married Mr. Gurrage, then a commercial traveller in carpets. (How does one travel in carpets?) Anyway, whatever that is, he rose and became a partner, and finally amassed a huge fortune, and when they were both quite old they got "Augustus." He was "a puny, delicate boy," to quote Miss Burton again, and was not sent to school—only to Cambridge later on. Perhaps that is what gives him that look of his things fitting wrong, and his skin being puffy and flabby, as if he had never been knocked about by other boys. My friend of the knife, even with his coating of mud, looked quite different.
Oh! I wonder if I shall ever know any people of one's own sort that one has not to be polite to against the grain because one happens to be one's self a lady. Perhaps there are numbers of nice people in this neighborhood, but they naturally don't trouble about us in our tiny cottage, and so we see practically nobody.
Just as Miss Burton was leaving Mr. Gurrage rode up. He tried to open the gate with the end of his whip, but he could not, and would have had to dismount only Miss Burton rushed forward to open it for him. Then he got down and held the bridle over his arm and walked up the little path.
"Send some one to hold my horse," he said to Hephzibah, who answered his ring at the door. I could hear, as the window was a little open and he has a loud voice.
"There is no one to send, sir," said Hephzibah, who, I am sure, felt annoyed. Two laborers happened to be passing in the road, and he got one of them to hold his horse, and so came in at last. He is unattractive when you see him in a room; he seemed blustering and yet ill at ease. But he did not thank us for keeping the suite clean! He was awfully friendly, and asked us to make use of his garden, and, in fact, anything we wanted. I hardly spoke at all.
"You have made a snug little crib of it," he said, in such a patronizing voice—how I dislike sentences like that; I don't know whether or no they are slang (grandmamma says I use slang myself sometimes!), but "a snug little crib" does not please me. He took off his glove when I gave him some tea, and he has thick, common hands, and he fidgeted and bounced up if I moved to take grandmamma her cup, and said each time, "Allow me," and that is another sentence I do not like. In fact, I think he is a horrid young man, and I wish he was not our landlord. He actually squeezed my hand when he said good-bye. I had no intention of doing more than to make a bow, but he thrust his hand out so that I could not help it.
"You'll find your way up to Ledstone, anyway, won't you?" he said, with a sort of affectionate look.
Grandmamma found him insupportable, she told me when he was gone. She even preferred the mother.
The following week I was sent up to The Hall with Roy and grandmamma's card to return the visit. They were at home, unfortunately, and I had to leave my dear companion lying on the steps to wait for me. Such a fearful house! An enormous stained-glass window in the hall, the shape of a church window, only not with saints and angels in it; more like the pattern of a kaleidoscope that one peeps into with one eye, and then bunches of roses and silly daisies in some of the panes, which, I am sure, are unsuitable to a stained-glass window. There were ugly negro figures from Venice, holding plates, in the passage, and stuffed bears for lamps, and such a look of newness about everything! I was taken along to Mrs. Gurrage's "budwar," as she called it. That was a room to remember! It had a "suite" in it like the one at the cottage, only with Louis XV. legs and Louis XVI. backs, and a general expression of distortion, and all of the newest gilt-and-crimson satin brocade. And under a glass case in the corner was the top of a wedding-cake and a bunch of orange blossoms.
I was kept waiting about ten minutes, and then Mrs. Gurrage bustled in, fastening her cuff. I can't put down all she said, but it was one continual praise of "Gussie" and his wealth and the jewels he had given her, and how disappointed he would be not to see me. Miss Hoad poured out the tea and giggled twice. I think she must be what Hephzibah calls "wanting." At last I got away. Roy barked with pleasure as we started homeward.
We had not gone a hundred yards before we met Mr. Gurrage coming up the drive. He insisted upon turning back and walking with me. He said it was "beastly hard luck"—he has horrid phrases—his being out when I came, and would I please not to walk so fast, as we should so soon arrive at the cottage, and he wanted to talk to me. I simply pranced on after that. I do not know why people should want to talk to one when one does not want to talk to them. I was not agreeable, but he did all the speaking. He told me he belonged to the Yeomanry and they were "jolly fellows" and were going to give a ball soon at Tilchester—the county town nearest here—and that I must let his mother take me to it. It was to be a send-off to the detachment which had volunteered for South Africa.
A ball! Oh! I should like to go to a ball. What could it feel like, I wonder, to have on a white tulle dress and to dance all the evening. Would grandmamma ever let me? Oh! it made my heart beat. But suddenly a cold dash came—I could not go with a person like Mrs. Gurrage. I would rather stay at home than that. When we got to the gate I said good-bye and gave him two fingers, but he was not the least daunted, and, seizing all my hand, said:
"Now, don't send me away; I want to come in and see your grandmother."
There was nothing left for me to do, and he followed me into the house and into the drawing-room.
Grandmamma was sitting as usual in her chair. She does not have to fluster in, buttoning her cuff, when people call.
"Mr. Gurrage wishes to see you, grandmamma," I said, as I kissed her hand, and then I left them to take off my hat and I did not come down again until I heard the front door shut.
"That is a terrible young man, Ambrosine," grandmamma said, when I did return to the drawing-room. "How could you encourage him to walk back with you?"
"Indeed, grandmamma, I did not wish him to come; he did not even ask my leave; he just walked beside me."
"Well, well," grandmamma said, and she raised my face in her hands. I was sitting on a low stool so as to get the last of the