CHAPTER XVIII.
GAUDIA IN EXCELSIS.
Quis non malarum quas Amor curas habet Haec inter obliviscitur?
Before many weeks had passed Sutton and Desvoeux came up to Elysium fortheir holidays, and Maud's cup of pleasure began to overflow. Bolderomoreover, to the great surprise of every one, discovered that the plainswere telling seriously on his constitution, and, despite thelamentations of his Commissioner, who was at his wits' end to find asatisfactory substitute, insisted on carrying out the doctor'srecommendation to try a change of air.
'I am sorry you are ill,' the Commissioner said, 'and overworked, butwhat on earth am I to do without you? No one understands anything aboutour arterial drainage scheme but you; and who is to open the new cattlefair? And then there is that lakh of saplings we had determined to plantout in the rains--my dear fellow, don't go till October, at any rate.'
But Boldero was inexorable: the arterial drainage of the Sandy Tracts,new cattle fairs, and even the delicious prospect of planting out ahundred thousand trees in a region where a tree was almost as great aphenomenon as Dr. Johnson found it in the Hebrides--all seemed to himbut as hollow dreams, which fell meaningless on the ear, when comparedwith the solid reality of a personal romance. To go to Elysium, to seeMaud again, to hear her joyous laugh, to watch her eyes light up withpleasure, and the colour coming and going in her cheeks, as each newturn of feeling swayed her this way or that; to hold her hand in his andfeel a subtle, electric influence flashing from her to him and stirringevery nerve and fibre of his being into new existence; and then to winthis sweet creature to himself with a tender avowal of devotion and thesweet coercion of passionate attachment; to bring her to irradiate adreary, solitary life with youth, beauty, freshness, everything thatBoldero now discovered that his own existence wanted; this was the dreamwhich filled his waking and sleeping thoughts, or, rather, this was thereality, and everything else was dreamland, far off, unsubstantial,unsatisfying. What, to a man in this mood, are reclamation schemes andirrigation projects and all the vexatious details involved in improvingthankless people against their wills, educating those who do not wantto be taught, and aiming at a chimerical Golden Age, which no one issure can ever come, and which, at any rate, we shall never see? Bolderoconfessed to himself that a morning's sketching on the mountain's sidewith Maud was, as far as his interest about the matter went, worth morethan all the Golden Ages that poets have sung or philanthropistsdevised. The utmost concession that the Commissioner could get out ofhim was that he would go only for a fortnight. And so to Elysium he cameamong the rest.
There may be natures to whom, according to Sir Cornewall Lewis's dictum,life would be tolerable but for its enjoyments; but the Elysiansassuredly are not of the number. They go about pleasure-hunting with avehemence the stronger and keener for the long period of partial ortotal abstinence from amusement which most of them have undergone. Thesoldier who has been for months marching up and down a desert frontier,with no attainable form of excitement but the agreeable possibility ofhaving one's throat cut in the night or a bullet cleverly lodged in onefrom behind a rock overhead--the engineer who has been for months out incamp with little companionship but that of theodolites and maps--theforest superintendent who has spent a twelvemonth among the deodars insome nameless Himalayan gorge--the civilian who has carried off hisbride to a solitary existence in some far-off Mofussil station, wherethe only European is perhaps an excise officer or policeman--people likethese acquire a keen relish for any change of scene and rush into aholiday with the enthusiasm of long-imprisoned schoolboys. Nothing dampstheir ardour--not even Himalayan rain, which effectually dampseverything else. There is a ball, for instance, at the Club House; it israining cataracts and has been doing so for twenty hours. The mountainpaths are knee-deep in mud, and swept by many a turgid torrent rattlingfrom above. Great masses of thunder-cloud come looming up, rumbling,crashing and blazing upon a sodden, reeking world. The night is black asTartarus, save when the frequent flashes light it up with a momentaryglare. The road is steep, rough and not too safe. Carriages, of course,there are none. A false step might send you several thousand feet downthe precipice into the valley below. Will all this prevent Jones theCollector and Brown the Policeman and Smith of the Irregular Cavalryputting their respective ladies into palanquins, mounting their ponieslike men and finding their way, through field and flood, to the scene ofdissipation? Each will ensconce himself in a panoply of indiarubber andrequire a great deal of peeling before becoming presentable in aballroom; but each will get himself peeled, and dance till fouro'clock. The ladies will emerge from their palanquins as fresh andbright and ambrosial as lace and tarlatan can make them. Mrs. Jones, ifshe would only tell the truth, has already more than half-filled up hercard with engagements. Smith and his wife have never been at a dancesince the night he proposed to her at the Woolwich ball, and feel quiteromantic at the prospect of a valse together. Mrs. Brown will meethalf-a-dozen particular friends who are dying to see her, and whom sheis not averse to see. The night outside is Tartarean, certainly, butwithin there is nothing but light, music and mirth. The band crashes outand drowns the patter of the rain above. The Viceroy, towering like aHomeric chief among his peers, mingles with the throng, and is valsingwith Felicia. Boldero has reached the seventh heaven of his hopes, isactually in possession of Maud's hand and has her heart beating close tohis own. Desvoeux looks reproachfully at her over Mrs. Vereker'sshoulder as they go whirling by. A hundred happy hearts are pulsatingwith excitement and pleasure, drowning the cares of existence in suchtransient oblivion as may be manufactured out of fiddlers and champagne.
Is this the race which proclaims itself inadept at amusements, andwhich, historians gravely assure us, loves to take its very pleasuressadly? Are these the melancholy beings whose gloom is supposed to haveacquired a still sadder tinge from the sad routine of Eastern life? Say,rather, a race with healthy instincts and conscious energy and the readyjoyousness of youth--fittest rulers of a world where much hard work isto be done, where many things tend to melancholy and all things tofatigue.
Boldero, as he rode homewards (only three miles out of his directcourse) by the side of Maud's palanquin, through the pelting rain,admitted to himself an almost unlimited capacity for happiness, of whichhe had till now been unaware.
There were some balls, moreover, when it did _not_ rain; when the music,streaming out into the still atmosphere, could be heard miles awayacross the gorge, and the moon, sailing in a cloudless sky, flooded themountain-sides with soft pure light. Such a night was that on which the'Happy Bachelors' entertained their friends. Happy indeed! for thefairest hands in Elysium had been busy twining wreaths and arrangingflowers; and ottomans and sofas and mirrors had been brought from many adespoiled drawing-room, in order that the Happy Bachelors' abode shouldlook as picturesque and comfortable as hands could make it. Wholeconservatories of lovely plants had been all the morning marching up thecraggy path on peasants' heads. All Elysium was alert, for theBachelors were men of taste, 'well loved of many a noble dame;' and, ifnot otherwise fitted for the Episcopate, at any rate fulfilling theApostolic requirement of being given to hospitality.
To one person, however, that ball was a period of the darkestdisappointment. While the merriment of the evening was raging to itsheight poor Boldero's heart was growing colder and colder, and all hispleasant schemes were rapidly melting into air. The course of true lovealways runs delightfully smooth when one person only is concerned andthat person's imagination directs it at his will; but how often rudecontact with reality brings all our airy castle-building to the ground!Boldero, in his dreams about Maud, had no doubt judged her charmsaright; but he had omitted one important consideration, namely, that hewas not the only man in the world, and that other people would be likelyto think about her much as he did himself. This melancholy fact was nowborne in upon him with a cruel vehemence. Maud seemed to be in thegreatest request and to smile with distracting impartiality on all whocame about her. 'Why did you not ask
me sooner?' she said reproachfullywhen he came to claim a dance, 'my card has been full for ages.Stop--you shall have one of Mr. Desvoeux's; he does not matter and hehas put down his name for several too many. Shall it be the fifteenth?'Maud asked this in the most artless way and seemingly without asuspicion that Boldero could be otherwise than pleased. Alas! how farotherwise than pleased he felt! The fifteenth! and then only a sort ofcrumb of consolation from Desvoeux's over-ample banquet! How cruel for aman whose heart was beating high with hope, and who had risen to thatstate of nervous excitement when to propose would have been easier thannot! The charmer had come and gone. The next moment Boldero saw herhurrying off with a new partner and laughing just the same joyous,childlike laugh that had been ringing in his ears for weeks. 'What couldthat idiotic young ensign have said to make her laugh?' How could anyone laugh while Boldero found existence rapidly growing into a Saharaaround him? What business had Maud to smile so affectionately on eachnew comer? Then what was this intimacy with Desvoeux which enabled herto treat him so unceremoniously? How came he to be putting down his namefor what dances he pleased? Boldero moodily denounced the object of hisdevotion as a flirt of the purest water and not over-particular in herselection of admirers. As for Desvoeux, could any really nice girl likesuch a fop as that? Poor Boldero, in the amiable, sensible condition ofmind which jealousy provokes, plunged at once into despair, felt tooacutely miserable to dance, and resigned himself, a melancholy wallflower, to the contemplation of enjoyment in which fate forbade him toparticipate.
Presently Maud came back and put every depreciatory thought aboutherself to instant flight. There had been some mistake about aquadrille, she said, and her partner was not forthcoming, and so she hadtaken flight at once. It was so dull dancing with people one did notknow; and would it not be nice if it was the fashion to dance only withone's friends? 'And now,' she said, 'do take me outside to look at themoon.' Maud was evidently bent on being kind and gracious; and Boldero,blushing to think what an idiot he had been making of himself, took herout into the balcony, where the Bachelors' industry had worked wonderswith ferns and flowers and sofas poetically suggestive of a_tete-a-tete_ and all that an artistic Bachelor's soul dreams of asappropriate to balls. There lay the still valley at their feet--all itsdepths filled with motionless white clouds, that glistened in themoonlight like a silver lake. The twinkling fires of the hamletsopposite were one by one dying out of sight. The solemn pine-shade allaround, wherever the moonlight could not pierce, made the rest of thepicture seem ablaze with glory. Is there a sweeter, softer radiance inthe world than the moonlight of the Himalayas? 'This is enchanting,'Maud said, in great spirits; 'how I should like to sketch it! Why shouldwe not have a moonlight party? And you will do my sketch for me, willyou not, Mr. Boldero? Let me get Mr. Desvoeux to arrange it; he is greatat such things; and we can make him sing to us and play on his guitar,which he does delightfully, while we are drawing--would it not bedelicious?'
Boldero, in his heart, doubted the deliciousness of any programme inwhich Desvoeux figured as a performer. He had no time to reply, however,for all too soon--before, as it seemed, he and his companion had wellestablished themselves--the quadrille had ended, and Maud's claimant forthe next dance came bustling up; and Maud, who thought moonlight allvery well but would not have missed a valse for the world, wentgleefully away, smiling her adorer a kind farewell that sent himsevenfold deeper into love than ever.
No proposal, it was clear enough, was destined to be made that night;but would the scheme look hopefuller to-morrow? Boldero lay tossingthrough the few hours which intervened before to-morrow, alreadyreddening the eastern horizon, came, and could give himself nosatisfactory reply. She liked him, certainly; but with how many was thisprecious privilege shared? He was one of the 'friends' with whom Maudliked to dance; but the list was so long, that all through a longevening he could with difficulty get near her for a minute. She wouldcome with him for a moonlight picnic; but then Desvoeux was to arrangeit, Sutton, no doubt, to preside, and half-a-dozen more attendantcourtiers to swell the little monarch's train. Boldero's manly bosomheaved with sighs. His servant, inexperienced in such symptoms, broughthim, unbidden, a large beaker of iced soda-water, as if the flames oflove could be extinguished by that innocent beverage.
Maud had, in fact, been very much impressed with Boldero, and, with thefrankness of inexperience, had taken good care to let him know it. Atthis period of her career novelty possessed a wondrous charm and thelast admirer had a strong recommendation in being the last. Bolderoforgot that at Elysium this fortunate advantage was no longer his. StillMaud smiled upon him, as she did on almost every one who aspired to hersmiles. It was not so much fickleness as the keen pleasure of success,the most natural and pleasantest, probably, of all human successes,--theproved capacity to charm mankind. What faint adumbration of love haddarkened the sunshine of her heart was all for Sutton; and even this wasa sort of transient pang, which the excitement of daily life made iteasy to forget. Knowing but faintly what love meant, she mistook, aswomen often do, the thrill of flattered vanity for solid feeling.Boldero had not disguised his admiration, nor Maud the pleasure which itgave her. Mutual satisfaction had been the natural result. Poor Boldero,who was always rushing at conclusions and unskilled in the tactics ofthe feminine heart, thought himself at once the happiest of men andgilded his horizon with a bright aurora of matrimonial bliss. Maudmeanwhile, by a hundred half-unconscious arts, encouraged the delusionand established the relation of friendly intimacy. When he looked acrossthe room her bright eyes met his and spoke him the heartiestrecognition. She would look up wearily from some uncongenial companionand find Boldero watching her, and a glance would sign the pledge ofmutual understanding. 'Here is the song you liked,' she had said onlythe evening before, 'and I like it too;' and then she had sung it, andeach note had caught a new charm in being intended especially for hisear. So it was that Boldero had fallen into the too common mistake ofimpetuous lovers: he thought, poor mortal, that Maud had fallenviolently in love with him; the truth being that she was merely ratherpleased at the symptoms of his being violently in love with her, andaccepted his homage with a light heart, as hardly more than her due.