CHAPTER XIII.

DESVOEUX MAKES THE RUNNING.

Free love, free field--we love but while we may: The woods are hushed, their music is no more; The leaf is dead, the yearning past away, New leaf, new life--the days of frost are o'er.

New life, new love, to suit the newer day: New loves are sweet as those that went before, Free love, free field--we love but while we may.

Felicia was beginning to find Maud a serious charge, and to be weighed down in spirit by the responsibility involved in her protection. It would have been easy enough to tell her not to flirt; but it was when Maud was unconscious and self-forgetful that she fascinated the most; and how warn her against the exercise of attractions of which she never thought and the existence of which would have been a surprise to her?

When, on the lawn, Maud's hat blew off and all her wealth of soft brown hair tumbled about her shoulders in picturesque disarray, and she stood, bright and eager and careless of the disaster, thinking only of the fortunes of the game, but beautiful, as every creature who came near her seemed to feel--when she was merriest in the midst of merry talk, and made some saucy speech and then blushed scarlet at her own audacity--when her intensity of enjoyment in things around her bespoke itself in every look and gesture--when the pleasure she gave seemed to infect her being and she charmed others because she was herself in love with life, how warn her against all this? You might as well have preached to an April shower!

Desvoeux, too, was not a lover likely to be easily discouraged or to let the gra.s.s grow beneath his feet. Both from temperament and policy he pressed upon a position where advantages seemed likely to be gained.

Despite the very coolest welcomes Felicia began to find him an inconveniently frequent visitor. An avowed foe to croquet, he appeared with provoking regularity at her Thursday afternoons, when the Dustypore world was collected to enjoy that innocent recreation on the lawn, and somehow he always contrived to be playing in Maud's game. Even at church he put in an unexpected appearance, and sate through a discourse of three-quarters of an hour with a patience that was almost ostentatiously hypocritical. Then he would come and be so bright, natural and amusing, and such good company, that Felicia was frequently not near as chilling to him as she wished and as she felt that the occasion demanded. He was unlike anybody that Maud had ever met before. He seemed to take for granted that all existing inst.i.tutions and customs were radically wrong and that everybody knew it. 'Make love to married women? Of course; why not--what are pretty married women for? Hard upon the husbands? Not a bit; all the unfairness was the other way: the husbands have such tremendous advantages, that it is quite disheartening to fight against such odds: tradition and convention and the natural feminine conservatism all in favour of the husbands; and then the Churchmen, as they always do, taking their part too: it was so mean! No, no; if the husbands cannot take care of themselves they deserve the worst that can befall them.' Or he would say, 'Go to church! Thank you, if Miss Vernon sings in the choir and will say "How d'ye do?" to me as she comes out, I will go and welcome; but otherwise, _ca m'embete_, as the Frenchman said. I always was a fidget, Miss Vernon, and feel the most burning desire to chatter directly any one tells me to hold my tongue; and then I'm argumentative and hate all the speaking being on one side; and then--and then,--well, on the whole, I rather agree with a friend of mine, who said that he had only three reasons for not going to church--he disbelieved the history, disapproved the morality and disliked the art.'

Maud used to laugh at these speeches; and though she did not like them nor the man who made them, and understood what Felicia meant by saying that Desvoeux's fun had about it something which hurt one, it seemed quite natural to laugh at them. She observed too, before long, that they were seldom made when Felicia was by, and that Desvoeux, if in higher spirits at Mrs. Vereker's than at the Vernons' house, was also several shades less circ.u.mspect in what he said, and divulged tastes and opinions which were concealed before her cousin. More than once, as Felicia came up Desvoeux had adroitly turned the conversation from some topic which he knew she would dislike; and Maud, who was guilelessness itself, had betrayed by flushing cheeks and embarra.s.sed manner the fact of something having been concealed.

On the whole, Felicia had never found the world harder to manage or the little empire of her drawing-room less amenable to her sway. Her guests somehow would not be what she wished. Desvoeux, though behaving with marked deference to her wishes and always sedulously polite, pleased her less and less, Maud's innocence and impulsiveness, however attractive, frequently produced embarra.s.sments which it required all Felicia's tact to overcome. Her husband, laconic and indolent, gave not the slightest help. Another ground on which she distressed herself (very unnecessarily, could she only have known) was, that Sutton, among other performers on Felicia's little stage, played not at all the brilliant part which she had mentally a.s.signed him. The slightly contemptuous dislike for Desvoeux which Felicia had often heard him express, and in which she greatly sympathised, though veiled under a rigid courtesy, was yet incompatible with cordiality, or good cheer; and Desvoeux, whose high spirits nothing could put down, often appeared the pleasanter companion of the two. Sutton, in fact, had on more occasions than one come into collision with Desvoeux in a manner which a less easy-going and light-hearted man would have found it difficult to forgive. Once, at mess, on a Guest-night, Desvoeux had rattled out some offensive nonsense about women, and Sutton had got up and, pushing his chair back unceremoniously, had marched silently away to the billiard-room in a manner which in him, the most chivalrous of hosts, implied a more than ordinarily vehement condemnation. Afterwards Desvoeux had been given to understand that, if he came to the mess, he must not, in the Major's presence at any rate, outrage good taste and good morals by any such displays. Then, at another time, there was a pretty young woman--a sergeant's wife--to whom Desvoeux showed an inclination to be polite.

Sutton had told Desvoeux that it must not be, in a quietly decisive way which he felt there was no disputing, though there was something in the other's authoritative air which was extremely galling. He could not be impertinent to Sutton, and he bore him no deep resentment; but he revenged himself by affecting to regard him as the ordinary 'plunger' of the period--necessary for purposes of defence and a first-rate leader of native cavalry, but socially dull, and a fair object for an occasional irreverence. Sutton's tendency was to be more silent than usual when Desvoeux was of the party. Desvoeux, on the other hand, would not have let Sutton's or the prophet Jeremiah's presence act as a damper on spirits which were always at boiling-point and a temperament which was for ever effervescing into some more or less indiscreet form of mirth.

The result was that the one man quite eclipsed the other and tossed the ball of talk about with an ease and dexterity not always quite respectful to his less agile senior. One night, for instance, Maud, in a sudden freak of fancy, had set her heart upon a round of story-telling.

'I shall come last of course,' she said, 'as I propose it, and by that time it will be bedtime; but, Major Sutton, you must tell us something about some of your battles, please, something very romantic and exciting.'

Sutton was the victim of a morbid modesty as to all his soldiering exploits and would far rather have fought a battle than described it.

'Ah,' he said, 'but our fighting out here is not at all romantic; it is mostly routine, you know, and not picturesque or amusing.'

'Yes, but,' said Maud, 'tell us something that is picturesque or amusing: a hairbreadth escape, or a forlorn hope, or a mine. I love accounts of mines. You dig and dig for weeks, you know, and then you're countermined and hear the enemy digging near you; and then you put the powder in and light the match, and run away, and then--now you go on!'

'And then there is a smash, I suppose,' laughed Sutton; 'but you know all about it better than I. I'm not a gunner--all my work is above-ground.'

'Well, then,' cried Maud, with the eager air of a child longing for a story, 'tell us something above ground. How did you get your Victoria Cross, now?'

Maud, however, was not destined to get a story out of Sutton.

'There was nothing romantic about _that_, at any rate,' he said. 'It was at Mirabad. There was a cannon down at the end of the lane which was likely to be troublesome, and some of our fellows went down with me and spiked it. That was all!'

'Excuse me, Miss Vernon,' said Desvoeux; 'Sutton's modesty spoils an excellent story. Let me tell it as it deserves.' And then he threw himself into a mock-tragical att.i.tude.

'Go on,' said Maud, eagerly.

'The street-fighting at Mirabad,' said Desvoeux, with a declamatory air, 'was the fiercest of the whole campaign----'

'What campaign?' asked Sutton.

'The Mirabad campaign,' replied the other, with great presence of mind, 'in eighteen hundred and--, I forget the year--but never mind.'

'Yes, never mind the year,' said Maud; 'go on.'

'The enemy fought us inch by inch, and lane by lane; from every window poured a little volley; every house had to be stormed, hand-to-hand we fought our way, and so on. You know the sort of thing. Then, as we turned into the main street, puff! a great blaze and a roar, and a dense cloud of smoke, and smash came a cannon-ball into the midst of us--five or six men were knocked over--Tomkin's horse lost a tail, Brown had his nose put out of joint, Smith was blown up to a second-storey window--something must be done. But I am tiring you?'

'No, no,' cried Maud, 'I like it--go on.'

'Well, let me see. Oh yes, something must be done. To put spurs to my Arab's sides, to cut my way down through the astonished mob, to leap the barricade (it was only eight feet high, and armed with a _chevaux de frise_), to sabre the six gunners who were working the battery, was, I need hardly say, the work of a moment. Then--a crushing blow from behind, and I remember nothing more, till, a month later, I found myself, weak and wounded, in bed; and a lovely nun gave me some gruel, and told me that Mirabad was ours! "Where am I?" I exclaimed, for I felt so confused, and the nun looked so angelic, that I fancied I must have gone to heaven. My companion, however, soon brought me to earth by--_et caetera et caetera et caetera_.'

'That is the sort of thing which happens in "Charles O'Malley,"' said Sutton; 'only Lever would have put Tippoo Sahib or Tantia Topee on the other side of the barricade, and I should have had to cut his head off and slaughter all his bodyguard before I got out again.'

'And then,' said Maud, 'the nun would have turned out to be some one.'

'But,' said Desvoeux, 'how do you know that the nun did _not_ turn out to be some one, if only I had chosen to fill up those _et caeteras?_'

'Well,' said Sutton, who apparently had had enough of the joke 'that part of the story I will tell you myself. The nun was a male one--my good friend Boldero, who took me into his quarters, looked after me for six weeks, till I got about again, and was as good a nurse as any one could wish for.'

'I should have liked to be the nun,' Maud cried, moved by a sudden impulse which brought the words out as the thought flashed into her mind, and turning crimson, as was her wont, before they were out of her mouth.

'That is very kind of you,' said Sutton, standing up, and defending her, as Maud felt, from all eyes but his own; 'and you would have been a very charming nurse and cured me, I dare say, even faster than Boldero. And now, Desvoeux, go and sing us a song as a _finale_ to your story.

Maud knew perfectly well that this was a mere diversion to save her from the confusion of a thoughtless speech and turn Desvoeux's attention from her. It seemed quite natural and of a piece with Sutton's watchful, sympathetic care to give her all possible pleasure and to shield her from every shade of annoyance. A thrill of grat.i.tude shot through her.

There was a charm, a fascination, in protection so prompt, so delicate, so kind, compared with which all other attractions seemed faint indeed.

That evening Maud went to bed with her heart in a tumult, and wept, she knew not wherefore, far into the night--only again and again the tears streamed out--the outcome, though as yet she knew it not, of that purest of all pure fountains, an innocent first love.

CHAPTER XIV.

TO THE HILLS!

However marred, and more than twice her years, Scarred with an ancient sword-cut on the cheek, And bruised and bronzed,--she lifted up her eyes, And loved him with that love which was her doom.

Summer was beginning to come on apace; not summer as English people know it, the genial supplement to a cold and watery spring, with just enough heat about it to thaw the chills of winter out of one; but summer in its fiercest and cruellest aspect, breathing sulphurous blasts, glowing with intolerable radiance, begirt with whirlwinds of dust--the unsparing despot of a sultry world. The fields, but a few weeks ago one great 'waveless plain' of ripening corn, had been stripped of their finery, and were now lying brown and blistering in the sun's eye. The dust lay deep on every road and path and wayside shrub, and seized every opportunity of getting itself whirled into miniature siroccos. More than once Maud and Felicia had been caught, not in a sweet May shower, stealing down amid bud and blossom and leaving the world moist and fresh and fragrant behind it, but in rough, turbulent clouds of rushing sand, which shut out the sunshine and replaced the bright blue atmosphere with the lurid glare of an eclipse. Felicia's flowers had begun to droop, nor could all her care rescue the fresh green of her lawn from turning to a dingy brown. Already prudent housekeepers were busy with preparations against the evil day so near at hand. Verandahs were guarded with folds of heavy matting, to shut out the intolerable light that would have forced a way through any ordinary barrier; windows were replaced by fragrant screens of cuscus-gra.s.s, through which the hot air pa.s.sing might lose a portion of its sting; and one morning, when Maud came out, she found a host of labourers carrying a huge winnowing-machine to one side of the house, the object of which was, Vernon informed her, to manufacture air cool enough for panting Britons to exist in.

Day by day some piece of attire was discarded as too intolerably heavy for endurance. The morning ride became a thing of the past, and even a drive at sunset too fatiguing to be quite enjoyable. Maud felt that she had never--not even when Miss Goodenough had locked her up for a whole summer afternoon, to learn her 'duty to her neighbour'--known what exhaustion really meant till now.

The children were turning sadly white, and Felicia began to be anxious for their departure to the Hills. Maud would of course go with them, and Vernon was to follow in a couple of months, when he could get his leave.

Much as she hated leaving her husband, Felicia was on the whole extremely glad to go. The state of things at home disturbed her. Maud's outspoken susceptibility, Desvoeux's impressionable and eager temperament, Sutton's unconsciousness of what she wanted him to do--the combination was one from which it was a relief in prospect to escape to the refuge of a new and unfamiliar society. Felicia's buoyant and hopeful nature saw in the promised change of scene the almost certainty that somehow or other matters would seem less unpromising when looked at from the summits of Elysium.

For Elysium accordingly they started. Three primitive vehicles, whose battered sides and generally faded appearance spoke eloquently of the dust, heat and bustle in which their turbulent existence was for the most part engaged, were dragged one afternoon, each by a pair of highly rebellious ponies, with a vast deal of shouting, pushing, and execrating, into a convenient position before the hall-door, and their tops loaded forthwith with that miscellaneous and profuse supply of baggage which every move in India necessarily involves, and which it is the especial glory of Indian servants to preserve in undiminished amplitude. Suffice it to say, that it began with trunks and cradles, went on with native nurses, and concluded with a goat. Vernon sat in the verandah, smoking a cheroot with stoical composure and interfering only when some pyramid of boxes seemed to be a.s.suming proportions of perilous alt.i.tude. He was to travel with them, establish them at Elysium, and ride down sixty miles again by night--a performance of which no Dustyporean thought twice. Maud, to whom one of the creaking fabrics was a.s.signed in company with the two little girls, found that (the feat of clambering in and establishing herself once safely accomplished) the journey promised to be not altogether unluxurious. The Vernons' servants were experienced and devoted, and every detail of the journey was carefully foreseen. The interior of the carriage, well furnished with mattresses and pillows, made an excellent bed; a little army of servants gathered round to proffer aid and to give the Sahibs a pa.s.sing salaam; friendly carriages kept rolling in to say 'Good-bye.' Sutton, who had been kept away on business, galloped in at the last moment and seemed too much occupied in saying farewell to Felicia to have much time for other thoughts. 'Good-bye,' he said, in the most cheery tone, as he came to Maud's carriage, and 'Good-bye, Uncle Jem!' shouted the little girls, waving their adieux as best they might under the deep awning; and then, after a frantic struggle for independent action on the part of the ponies, they were fairly off and spinning along the great, straight, high road which stretches in unswerving course through so many hundred miles of English rule.

The little girls were in the greatest glee, and busy in signalling Uncle Jem for as long as possible. Maud, somehow, did not share their mirth: for the first time Sutton had seemed unkind, or near enough unkind, to give her pain. This ending of the pleasant time seemed to her an event which friendship ought not quite to have ignored. She looked back upon many happy hours, the brightest of her life; and the person who had made them bright evidently did not share her sentimental views about them in the least. Partings, Maud's heart told her, must surely be always sad; yet Sutton's voice had no tone of sadness in it. 'Stay--stay a little!'

she could have cried with Imogen,

Were you but riding forth to air yourself, Such parting were too petty--

True, they were to meet in a few weeks; but yet--but yet!

'You've got a big tear on your cheek,' said one of her companions, with the merciless frankness of childhood.

'Have I?' said Maud. 'Then it must be the dust that has gone into my eyes. How hot it is! Come, let us have some oranges!'