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 weigheddown in spirit by the responsibility involved in her protection. Itwould have been easy enough to tell her not to flirt; but it was whenMaud was unconscious and self-forgetful that she fascinated the most;and how warn her against the exercise of attractions of which she neverthought 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 brownhair tumbled about her shoulders in picturesque disarray, and she stood,bright and eager and careless of the disaster, thinking only of thefortunes of the game, but beautiful, as every creature who came near herseemed to feel--when she was merriest in the midst of merry talk, andmade some saucy speech and then blushed scarlet at her ownaudacity--when her intensity of enjoyment in things around her bespokeitself in every look and gesture--when the pleasure she gave seemed toinfect her being and she charmed others because she was herself in lovewith life, how warn her against all this? You might as well havepreached to an April shower!
Desvoeux, too, was not a lover likely to be easily discouraged or to letthe grass grow beneath his feet. Both from temperament and policy hepressed upon a position where advantages seemed likely to be gained.Despite the very coolest welcomes Felicia began to find him aninconveniently frequent visitor. An avowed foe to croquet, he appearedwith provoking regularity at her Thursday afternoons, when the Dustyporeworld was collected to enjoy that innocent recreation on the lawn, andsomehow he always contrived to be playing in Maud's game. Even at churchhe put in an unexpected appearance, and sate through a discourse ofthree-quarters of an hour with a patience that was almost ostentatiouslyhypocritical. Then he would come and be so bright, natural and amusing,and such good company, that Felicia was frequently not near as chillingto him as she wished and as she felt that the occasion demanded. He wasunlike anybody that Maud had ever met before. He seemed to take forgranted that all existing institutions and customs were radically wrongand that everybody knew it. 'Make love to married women? Of course; whynot--what are pretty married women for? Hard upon the husbands? Not abit; all the unfairness was the other way: the husbands have suchtremendous advantages, that it is quite disheartening to fight againstsuch odds: tradition and convention and the natural feminineconservatism all in favour of the husbands; and then the Churchmen, asthey always do, taking their part too: it was so mean! No, no; if thehusbands cannot take care of themselves they deserve the worst that canbefall them.' Or he would say, 'Go to church! Thank you, if Miss Vernonsings in the choir and will say "How d'ye do?" to me as she comes out, Iwill go and welcome; but otherwise, _ca m'embete_, as the Frenchmansaid. I always was a fidget, Miss Vernon, and feel the most burningdesire to chatter directly any one tells me to hold my tongue; and thenI'm argumentative and hate all the speaking being on one side; andthen--and then,--well, on the whole, I rather agree with a friend ofmine, who said that he had only three reasons for not going tochurch--he disbelieved the history, disapproved the morality anddisliked the art.'
Maud used to laugh at these speeches; and though she did not like themnor the man who made them, and understood what Felicia meant by sayingthat Desvoeux's fun had about it something which hurt one, it seemedquite natural to laugh at them. She observed too, before long, that theywere seldom made when Felicia was by, and that Desvoeux, if in higherspirits at Mrs. Vereker's than at the Vernons' house, was also severalshades less circumspect in what he said, and divulged tastes andopinions which were concealed before her cousin. More than once, asFelicia came up Desvoeux had adroitly turned the conversation from sometopic which he knew she would dislike; and Maud, who was guilelessnessitself, had betrayed by flushing cheeks and embarrassed manner the factof something having been concealed.
On the whole, Felicia had never found the world harder to manage or thelittle empire of her drawing-room less amenable to her sway. Her guestssomehow would not be what she wished. Desvoeux, though behaving withmarked deference to her wishes and always sedulously polite, pleased herless and less, Maud's innocence and impulsiveness, however attractive,frequently produced embarrassments which it required all Felicia's tactto overcome. Her husband, laconic and indolent, gave not the slightesthelp. Another ground on which she distressed herself (veryunnecessarily, could she only have known) was, that Sutton, among otherperformers on Felicia's little stage, played not at all the brilliantpart which she had mentally assigned him. The slightly contemptuousdislike for Desvoeux which Felicia had often heard him express, and inwhich she greatly sympathised, though veiled under a rigid courtesy, wasyet incompatible with cordiality, or good cheer; and Desvoeux, whosehigh spirits nothing could put down, often appeared the pleasantercompanion of the two. Sutton, in fact, had on more occasions than onecome into collision with Desvoeux in a manner which a less easy-goingand light-hearted man would have found it difficult to forgive. Once, atmess, on a Guest-night, Desvoeux had rattled out some offensive nonsenseabout women, and Sutton had got up and, pushing his chair backunceremoniously, had marched silently away to the billiard-room in amanner which in him, the most chivalrous of hosts, implied a more thanordinarily vehement condemnation. Afterwards Desvoeux had been given tounderstand that, if he came to the mess, he must not, in the Major'spresence at any rate, outrage good taste and good morals by any suchdisplays. Then, at another time, there was a pretty young woman--asergeant's wife--to whom Desvoeux showed an inclination to be polite.Sutton had told Desvoeux that it must not be, in a quietly decisive waywhich he felt there was no disputing, though there was something in theother's authoritative air which was extremely galling. He could not beimpertinent to Sutton, and he bore him no deep resentment; but herevenged himself by affecting to regard him as the ordinary 'plunger' ofthe period--necessary for purposes of defence and a first-rate leader ofnative cavalry, but socially dull, and a fair object for an occasionalirreverence. Sutton's tendency was to be more silent than usual whenDesvoeux was of the party. Desvoeux, on the other hand, would not havelet Sutton's or the prophet Jeremiah's presence act as a damper onspirits which were always at boiling-point and a temperament which wasfor ever effervescing into some more or less indiscreet form of mirth.The result was that the one man quite eclipsed the other and tossed theball of talk about with an ease and dexterity not always quiterespectful to his less agile senior. One night, for instance, Maud, in asudden 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 thattime it will be bedtime; but, Major Sutton, you must tell us somethingabout some of your battles, please, something very romantic andexciting.'
Sutton was the victim of a morbid modesty as to all his soldieringexploits 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 ismostly routine, you know, and not picturesque or amusing.'
'Yes, but,' said Maud, 'tell us something that is picturesque oramusing: a hairbreadth escape, or a forlorn hope, or a mine. I loveaccounts of mines. You dig and dig for weeks, you know, and then you'recountermined and hear the enemy digging near you; and then you put thepowder 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 knowall about it better than I. I'm not a gunner--all my work isabove-ground.'
'Well, then,' cried Maud, with the eager air of a child longing for astory, 'tell us something above ground. How did you get your VictoriaCross, 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 wasat
Mirabad. There was a cannon down at the end of the lane which waslikely to be troublesome, and some of our fellows went down with me andspiked it. That was all!'
'Excuse me, Miss Vernon,' said Desvoeux; 'Sutton's modesty spoils anexcellent story. Let me tell it as it deserves.' And then he threwhimself into a mock-tragical attitude.
'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 windowpoured a little volley; every house had to be stormed, hand-to-hand wefought our way, and so on. You know the sort of thing. Then, as weturned into the main street, puff! a great blaze and a roar, and a densecloud of smoke, and smash came a cannon-ball into the midst of us--fiveor six men were knocked over--Tomkin's horse lost a tail, Brown had hisnose put out of joint, Smith was blown up to a second-storeywindow--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 myArab's sides, to cut my way down through the astonished mob, to leap thebarricade (it was only eight feet high, and armed with a _chevaux defrise_), to sabre the six gunners who were working the battery, was, Ineed hardly say, the work of a moment. Then--a crushing blow frombehind, and I remember nothing more, till, a month later, I foundmyself, 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 feltso confused, and the nun looked so angelic, that I fancied I must havegone to heaven. My companion, however, soon brought me to earth by--_etcaetera et caetera et caetera_.'
'That is the sort of thing which happens in "Charles O'Malley,"' saidSutton; 'only Lever would have put Tippoo Sahib or Tantia Topee on theother side of the barricade, and I should have had to cut his head offand 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 outto 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 'thatpart of the story I will tell you myself. The nun was a male one--mygood friend Boldero, who took me into his quarters, looked after me forsix weeks, till I got about again, and was as good a nurse as any onecould wish for.'
'I should have liked to be the nun,' Maud cried, moved by a suddenimpulse which brought the words out as the thought flashed into hermind, and turning crimson, as was her wont, before they were out of hermouth.
'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 verycharming nurse and cured me, I dare say, even faster than Boldero. Andnow, 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 fromthe confusion of a thoughtless speech and turn Desvoeux's attention fromher. It seemed quite natural and of a piece with Sutton's watchful,sympathetic care to give her all possible pleasure and to shield herfrom every shade of annoyance. A thrill of gratitude 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, sheknew not wherefore, far into the night--only again and again the tearsstreamed out--the outcome, though as yet she knew it not, of that purestof all pure fountains, an innocent first love.