Chronicles of Dustypore Part 12

'And the moonlight picnic?' cried Maud, suddenly conscious of the necessity of concealing a feeling which she would not for the world have had Desvoeux suspect, namely, that Sutton's absence would be to her a calamity which would go far to render b.a.l.l.s and picnics alike a matter of indifference.

'Yes,' Desvoeux said, with bitter vehemence; 'life is sometimes too unendurably disagreeable, and things go so provokingly as one does not want them. And we were just having such a happy time! And then, I suppose, to make our farewell the sadder, you have chosen this morning to look your loveliest. As for me, the only bits of life I care about any longer are those I spend with you.'

'And with Mrs Vereker,' cried Maud. 'Come, Mr. Desvoeux, confess, now, have you not been there just this minute saying the very same thing to her? I'll ask her this afternoon and we will compare notes as to our adieux!'

'Profane idea!' said Desvoeux. 'But you are always mocking. You know I care a great deal more about you than you do about me.'

'Impossible,' cried Maud. 'Did I not tell you just now that I was broken-hearted about the picnic? I meant to sit by the waterfall and make you sing us "Spirito Gentil" in the moonlight. It is a cruel disappointment.'

'You are very unkind and very heartless,' said Desvoeux in no mood for banter.

'Come, come,' said Maud, 'do not be cross; we will not quarrel just as we are parting.'

'Well, then, be serious.'

'I am serious,' said the other; 'and, seriously, I am sorry that we are to lose you. Poor fellow!'

'Give a poor fellow a present,' said Desvoeux, beseechingly; 'that cherry riband that binds the loveliest neck in the world.'

'No, I won't,' said Maud; 'it cost me two rupees only the day before yesterday. There, you may have this rose. Take it, take it, and remember----'

'You are enough to drive a fellow mad,' said Desvoeux. 'Who will be the lucky man to find out where your heart is, and whether you have got one?'

Then Desvoeux cantered off and Maud retired to her bedroom, locked herself in, threw herself on a couch and indulged in the unusual luxury of a thoroughly good cry. Sutton, quite unconsciously, had made great advances in the occupation of her heart. He had been constantly with her and Felicia; and the more Maud saw of other people, the more convinced she became that he was the paragon of men and with him the only chance of happiness for her. And now he would come back presently, Maud knew, and say a kind, feeling farewell to Felicia and a word or two of politeness to her, and go away on his expedition and take all the suns.h.i.+ne of existence with him, and never have a suspicion of the aching heart he left behind and of the treasure of devotion waiting for him if he chose to have it. Surely there must be something wrong in the const.i.tution of a world where such woes could come to pa.s.s.

So while Desvoeux, in a sort of half-rage, was hustling his pony down the hillside as if he really did mean to break his neck once for all and have done with a life in which Maud could not continually figure, Maud herself was in affliction for quite another cause; and Sutton, his mind too full of warlike schemes to think of love, was busy with a map spread out on the Viceroy's table, pointing out exactly the route through the Hills which the expedition was to take. Sutton and the Viceroy were the best of friends. They had ridden and shot and slaughtered tigers and bears in each other's company, and each knew and liked the other as a daring, enthusiastic and thoroughgoing sportsman. The Viceroy, himself no mean performer, had seen Sutton dispose of a big boar, turned to bay, on more than one occasion in a way which had filled him with admiration and delight; and when, in rare intervals of business, the Ruler of India allowed himself a day's holiday for a walk through the forest in search of bears or jungle pheasants, no more favourite companion than Sutton ever helped to fill the bag. Each trusted the other thoroughly, and the Viceroy now spoke of the expedition with a cheerful confidence indicative of his conviction that it was in the proper hands. The main plans had been actually settled. The force was to be pushed on as far into the Hills as was practicable. Two strong mule-batteries were provided to keep the mountain-sides clear of a hovering enemy. When they reached the high table-land which lay beyond, a dash was to be made at a village where one of the rebellious tribes was known to be entrenched in force; and when this was seized and destroyed and the rebels for the time dispersed, the little army was to be encamped for a few weeks, by way of demonstration of military power to the refractory mountaineers.

'Good-bye, Sutton,' said the Viceroy, 'and good luck to you and speedy return!' And then, as he went out, kind ladies met him in the hall and wished him a fresh farewell; and Sutton went away, in a glow of excitement and pleasure, to make his preparations for the afternoon's gallop, unconscious of all the sentiment in another person's heart which his departure was stirring into life. He would be gone a fortnight or three weeks, and was, in truth, not sorry for an excuse for a return to his dear soldiers after a month's idleness and holiday-making.

When he came to the Vernons', an hour later, he found Maud's pony at the door, and herself ready-equipped.

'Would you like a companion for the first stage of your journey?'

Felicia said; 'if so, Maud will ride with you, and the children and I will start later, and meet her on the way home.' This was, in fact, a kind device of Felicia's--one of the rash things which people do when they are completely perplexed, in a sort of wild hope that some good may come of it, rather than with any precise design. Felicia had come with distressing distinctness to recognise the full gravity of the position and to feel how dreadfully she had been to blame. She had done all that one woman can to lead another to fall in love, and she had succeeded only too well. Her little scheme of happiness for her two friends was marred by an impediment which she had altogether overlooked. Sutton's obduracy had never occurred to her as a serious impediment, yet now he seemed hopelessly unimpressible. Bitterly Felicia reproached herself for all her part in the transaction; but of what use was self-reproach?

There was the terrible result, beyond the reach alike of penitence or redress. Maud's heart, Felicia knew instinctively, was lost--her very silence on the topic betrayed the consciousness of something to conceal.

There was a sort of entreating air about her that seemed to cry for pity. More than once Felicia had taken her to her arms and embraced her tenderly--she could not have said why, but yet she knew. Maud, with her joyousness gone, and battling with a silent sorrow, seemed to her to have a touch of pathos which roused all the latent melancholy of Felicia's nature into activity. It was one of those sad things in life before which her fort.i.tude completely failed. Ruefully did she vow, now that vowing was of no use, that her first attempt at match-making should be her last. At any rate she sent the two riders off together on this last ride, in the faint hope that something might occur to bring the tardy wooer to a right frame of mind.

CHAPTER XXI.

MAUD'S SECRET.

----In the glance, A moment's glance, of meeting eyes, His heart stood still in sudden trance-- He trembled with a sweet surprise; All in the waning light she stood, The star of perfect womanhood.

That summer eve his heart was light, With lighter step he trod the ground, And life was fairer in his sight, And music was in every sound: He bless'd the world where there could be So beautiful a thing as she.

The western horizon was all ablaze, and the sun's rays came slanting through the gloom of the Rhododendron Forest, as Sutton and his companion rode down the mountain-side towards the plains.

Did Felicia's wishes and hopes breathe a subtle influence around them, which drew their hearts together and opened to each the destiny which awaited it? Did the sweet, serious look with which she bade Sutton farewell speak to his eye, for years accustomed to watch for her unspoken commands, of something in which he had failed to please her, to understand her desire, to do or to be exactly what she wanted? Was there some shade of reserve, constraint, dissatisfaction in Felicia's manner that aroused his attention and led him to explore his companion with an anxious curiosity which usually he was far from feeling? Or was it something in Maud, a causeless embarra.s.sment, a scarcely concealed trepidation, a manner at once sad and excited, the flush that, as Desvoeux had told her in the morning, gave her cheek more than its accustomed beauty, which, before they had been ten minutes on the road, had sent such a flash of intelligence through Sutton's being,--which came upon him like an inspiration, clear, cogent, indisputable, and only curious in not having been understood before?

Be that as it may, Sutton suddenly found himself in an altogether different mood and in altogether different company to that which he had figured to himself for the first stage of his journey. Maud had all at once become supremely interesting and infinitely more beautiful than he had ever yet conceived her. She was no longer the mere excitable, romantic child, whose nascent feelings and ideas might be watched with half-amused curiosity, but a being whose brightness and innocence were allied with the most exquisite pathos, and who was ready to cast at the first worthy shrine all the wealth of an impulsive, ardent, tender nature. As for Maud, she was too excited, too profoundly moved, too much the prey of feelings of which she knew neither the true measure nor the full force, to be able to a.n.a.lyse her thoughts or to be completely mistress of herself.

Dissimulation was an art of which life had not as yet taught her the necessity, or experience familiarised the use. The unconscious hypocrisy with which some natures from the very outset, perhaps all natures later on in life, veil so much of themselves from the outer world, had never occurred to her as a possible or necessary means of self-protection in an existence which till now had been too simple, childish and innocent to call for concealment. She fixed her clear, honest eyes on her interrogator, whoever he was, be the question what it might, and he knew that it was the truth, pure, simple and complete, that she was telling.

Each phase of feeling wrote itself on her expression almost before Maud herself had realised it, certainly long before she knew enough about it to attempt to conceal it from the world. The feeble attempts at deception, which the accidents of life had from time to time forced upon her, had proved such absolute failures as merely to warn her of the uselessness of everything of the kind, even if it had occurred to her to wish to deceive. Her courtesy was the courtesy of sincerity, and she had none other to offer. Those whom she disliked, accordingly, p.r.o.nounced her rude, and it was fortunate that they were very few in number. Her friends, on the contrary, and their name was legion, read, and knew that they read, to the very bottom of her heart. Now, for the first time in her life, she was distinctly conscious of a secret which it would be misery and humiliation to divulge, but for the custody of which neither nature nor art had supplied her with any effectual means. Silence was the natural resource, but silence is sometimes more eloquent than speech. Whether she spoke or whether she held her peace, Maud felt a terrified conviction that she would betray herself, should it occur to Sutton to pay the least attention to her state of mind.

'There,' Sutton said, pointing to a range of hills just visible in the faint horizon, 'there is the Black Mountain, and there lies the pa.s.s where we shall be marching in a day or two. It is such a grand, wild place! I have been along it so often, but have never had leisure to paint it. This time, however, I hope to get a sketch.'

'Tell me,' Maud said, 'the sort of expeditions these are, and what happens, and what kind of danger you are all in.'

'I will tell you,' said her companion. 'They are hot, troublesome, inglorious promenades, over country which lames a great many of our horses and hara.s.ses our men. We burn some miserable huts, destroy a few acres of mountain crops and drive off such cattle as the people have not had time to drive away themselves, and, in fact, do all that soldiering admits of in the absence of that most important ingredient of a brilliant campaign, an enemy: _he_, unluckily, is invariably over the hills and far away some hours previous to our arrival.'

Maud felt this account to be on the whole rea.s.suring: 'How soon,' she asked, 'will you come back again?'

'Before you have time to miss me,' said her companion; 'it is an affair literally of days. Besides, Elysium, you will find, is all the pleasanter for having its crowd of soldiers somewhat thinned.'

'It will not be the pleasanter to us,' said Maud, 'for your being gone.'

Her tone took Sutton greatly by surprise.

'You are having a happy time here, are you not?' he asked. 'It seems to me a pleasant sort of life.'

'Yes,' said Maud, emphatically, 'the pleasantest, happiest I have ever known. All life has been bright to me; but there are things in it that hurt one, for all that.'

'Yes?' said Sutton, with a kind inquiry in his tones, for he had never thought of Maud but as the pretty incarnation of enjoyment; 'well, tell me the things which hurt you.'

'The things that have hurt me the most,' said Maud with a sudden impulse of outspokenness, 'are partings. They grieve me, even though I know that they are no real cause for grief. I minded leaving school and my dear mistress more than I can tell, and yet I longed to go. I minded leaving my friends on board s.h.i.+p, and yet I had only known them a month. I minded leaving you at Dustypore when we came away, and now to-day I am sad because you are leaving us.'

'That makes me sad too,' said Sutton, grieved, and yet not wholly grieved, at each new phase of sentiment which the childish frankness of his companion revealed to him; 'but, you know, we soldiers are for ever on the move, and n.o.body is surprised or sad when we are ordered off. You love Felicia, do you not?'

'Yes,' said Maud, seriously; 'I feel a sort of wors.h.i.+p for her. Who could be so sweet, n.o.ble and pure without being adored? But then she makes me melancholy too sometimes, because she is so melancholy herself; and, oh, how far above one! Could one ever hope to be half as good? She fills me with love, but love with a sort of despair about it.'

Maud was highly wrought up and feeling strongly and painfully about everything that formed her life. She was full of thoughts that clamoured for expression; and Sutton, she knew not why, seemed the natural and proper recipient; it was so easy almost to confess to him, to trust him with thoughts, hopes, pangs, which instinct said the common eye must never see; to claim from him a sort of gentle, chivalrous protection which no one but he knew how to give.

'Felicia,' Sutton said, 'need fill no one with despair, rather with hopefulness and courage about life. I have known her since she was a child; we two, in fact--children of two sisters, whose marriages had bound them closer in affection to each other--lived for years more as brother and sister than anything else. I have watched her for years gathering strength, calmness, and n.o.bility from going n.o.bly and calmly through the troubles of the world. She seems to me, in the midst of all that is vulgar and base in the world around her, like the Lady in Comus, impervious to everything that could sully or degrade.'

'Ah!' said Maud, 'if one could only go through life in that way--but it is so horribly unattainable. Everything is too difficult, and one is so shamefully weak. I could never be calm or n.o.ble in a trouble, like Felicia.'

'Wait till the troubles come,' said her companion kindly; 'you will find how one rises to an emergency. Felicia would not be what she is but for the trials she has borne. But see there is the guard, and here, alas!

our pleasant journey together ends. I must travel on alone.'

A few hundred yards below stood Sutton's first relay of horses, and here they were to part. A trooper was waiting to escort Maud on her homeward journey till she rejoined Felicia and the children.

'This,' Sutton said, 'has been a charming ride, though something of a sad one. I shall like to remember it. See, you shall give me that sweet rose you wear, and that shall be my badge in all tournaments to come. In return I will give you something to keep for me. This locket, you know, holds my mother's hair. I never part with it; but I have often thought it a foolish risk to take it on such wild expeditions as this. This time you shall take care of it for me, if you will.

Sutton gave her the locket with the grave, pathetic air which, to Maud's eye, threw a sort of romance over his least important actions. He took her hand and held it in his own, and it seemed as though some sacred pledge were at the moment, with no spoken words, given and received.

Maud never afterwards forgot that little scene--the kind, gentle eyes, the sorrowful furrowed brow, the tender solemn voice; in front the wide mysterious plains, stretching far below, all the horizon still aglow with the expiring glory of the sunset; behind her a cold blue darkening world--the gathering vapours, no longer irradiated, settling in solid ma.s.ses on the solemn mountain-tops. As she came to a bend in the path she turned to wish her companion a last farewell, for she knew that he was watching her departure. Then she rode homewards through the gloom, moved, agitated, frightened, yet on the whole happier--with a deeper kind of happiness than she had ever known before.