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The Reflections of Ambrosine
A Novel by
Elinor Glyn
NOTE
In thanking the readers who were kind enough to appreciate my "Visitsof Elizabeth," I take this opportunity of saying that I did not writethe two other books which appeared anonymously. The titles of thoseworks were so worded that they gave the public the impression that Iwas their author. I have never written any book but the "Visits ofElizabeth." Everything that I write will be signed with my name,
ELINOR GLYN
BOOK I
I
I have wondered sometimes if there are not perhaps some disadvantagesin having really blue blood in one's veins, like grandmamma and me.For instance, if we were ordinary, common people our teeth wouldchatter naturally with cold when we have to go to bed without fires inour rooms in December; but we pretend we like sleeping in "well-airedrooms"—at least I have to. Grandmamma simply says we are obliged tomake these small economies, and to grumble would be to lose a trickto fate.
"Rebel if you can improve matters," she often tells me, "but otherwiseaccept them with calmness."
We have had to accept a good many things with calmness since papa madethat tiresome speculation in South America. Before that we had a niceapartment in Paris and as many fires as we wished. However, in spiteof the comfort, grandmamma hated papa's "making" money. It was not thecareer of a gentleman, she said, and when the smash came and one heardno more of papa, I have an idea she was almost relieved.
We came first over to England, and, after long wanderings backward andforward, took this little furnished place at the corner of LedstonePark. It is just a cottage—once a keeper's, I believe—and we haveonly Hephzibah and a wretched servant-girl to wait on us. Hephzibahwas my nurse in America before we ever went to Paris, and she is asugly as a card-board face on Guy Fawkes day, and as good as gold.
Grandmamma has had a worrying life. She was brought up at the court ofCharles X.—can one believe it, all those years ago!—her family upto that having lived in Ireland since the great Revolution. Indeed,her mother was Irish, and I think grandmamma still speaks French withan accent. (I hope she will never know I said that.) Her name wasMademoiselle de Calincourt, the daughter of the Marquis de Calincourt,whose family had owned Calincourt since the time of Charlemagneor something before that. So it was annoying for them to have hadtheir heads chopped off and to be obliged to live in Dublin onnothing a year. The grandmother of grandmamma, Ambrosine Eustasiede Calincourt, after whom I am called, was a famous character. Shewas so good-looking that Robespierre offered to let her retain herhead if she would give him a kiss, but she preferred to drive to theguillotine in the cart with her friends, only she took a rose to keepoff the smell of the common people, and, they say, ran up the stepssmiling. Grandmamma has her miniature, and it is, she says, exactlylike me.
I have heard that grandmamma's marriage with grandpapa—anEnglishman—was considered at the time to be a very suitable affair.He had also ancestors since before Edward the Confessor. However,unfortunately, a few years after their marriage (grandmamma wasreally un peu passée when that took place) grandpapa made abêtise—something political or diplomatic, b