CHAPTER XXVIII.
MORNING CLOUDS.
----The little rift within the lute----
Sutton brought back his bride in April, all the better, as it appeared,in health and spirits for her two months' expedition. The beautiful roseof her cheeks had a tinge of brown which spoke only of healthy exercisein the open air. Everybody pronounced her prettier, brighter and morecharming than ever. She was in the highest spirits to be back, andSutton seemed pleased to bring her and to be once more amongst oldfriends.
To all who saw them, except Felicia's observant eye, they seemedeverything which a newly-wedded pair should wish to be. But Felicia feltless confident of their happiness. Whether Maud's letters hadunconsciously sounded a little note of distress, or whether it was thatshe knew both their natures so well and how they ought to harmonise,that the least approach to discord caught her ear--something, at anyrate, made her aware of the existence of a subtle disquietude betweenMaud and her husband. The discovery, or rather the suspicion, filled herwith a distress which she attempted in vain to ignore. She found herselfjoining languidly and insincerely in the chorus of gratulation which theDustypore community set up over the happy couple. When Mrs. Vereker cameto call, rustling in the loveliest of new dresses, and poured out alittle stream of gossiping remarks--how pretty it was to see themtogether, and what a charming lover Sutton made, and was not Maud apicture of a girl-wife?--Felicia responded with a coldness which puzzledher visitor and which Felicia was conscious of trying in vain toconceal. Something, her fine instinct told her, was amiss. One alarmingsymptom was the obvious relief which Maud found in her society, and theprofuse tenderness and affection which she displayed whenever there wasno one else to see. She lavished on her a sort of unconscious fondness,for which Felicia looked in vain in her behaviour to her husband. Withhim her affection seemed constrained, conscious, too deferential to benatural and happy. There was about Maud, when she and Felicia were alonetogether, a joyous self-abandonment to animal high spirits, which wasfor ever flowing out into some pretty childish act of fun or affection,but which vanished at the appearance of Sutton or any other onlooker.She became a girl again--she sang, she danced, she got into the wildestgames with the children--she let off her excitement and mirth in athousand natural acts. Then Jem would come in, and it all seemed to dieaway. When visitors arrived, and Felicia had presently more on her handsthan was at all to her taste, Maud would seem to enjoy it and to getamused and interested; then, as the door closed upon the strangers, shewould come and throw her arms round Felicia and caress her, as if herone feeling about the visit was that it had been an inconvenientrestraint on love which was wanting every moment to express itself insome outspoken fashion; 'I love you the best, the best of all,' shewould say impetuously.
'Of all women,' Felicia put in.
'Of all women and of all men too, except Jem,' Maud answered; 'yes, andI believe I love you better even than Jem; anyhow, I love you.'
More than once, too, Felicia detected little manoeuvres on Maud's partto walk or drive with her and to quit her husband's society in order todo so. Altogether Felicia felt frightened, anxious and sad about herfriends: and Vernon, who always knew her melancholy moods and couldgenerally guess their cause, in vain endeavoured to console her with theassurance that all was right and that Sutton's had been a wise and happychoice.
The truth was that the march had not been altogether a success. A greatauthority on such matters has said that people often endanger thepermanent happiness of married life by putting too severe a strain uponit at its outset. Now a two-month's _tete-a-tete_ is a serious strain.Life wants something besides mere affection to make it run smoothly: itwants the ease and comfort of familiarity, the freedom of tastesascertained to be congenial, the pleasant usages of common action. Thefirst year of wedded life is, no doubt, a series of experiments ingetting on; two wheels, however nicely fitted, are likely to rub alittle at some point of contact or other. And then Paradise itself wouldlose its charm if it were all the same; and the days on Maud's firstjourney had a distracting resemblance. Her eyes ached with theinterminable horizon of dust and sand, the scrubby brushwood, the lonelycrumbling tomb, the rare clumps of palms, the scuffling, bellowing herdsof cattle. Sutton's cook, whom his master in his simple tastes believeda prodigy of culinary skill, used to send up the same dishes withdepressing monotony, and, do what she would, Maud could not like them.Then some marches were over terribly rough ground, and her Arab madestumbles that took her breath away, though she was ashamed to say so.But it was not the little things which really mattered. Her husband'svery nobility of nature oppressed her. A hundred times she had felt howgood he was, how true, how really great, how chivalrous in his devotion,how tenderly considerate, and yet--and yet--something more unheroicwould perhaps have been sometimes a relief. When the most ineffablystupid young officers rode across from some neighbouring station andplunged with cheerful volubility into the gossip of last season atElysium, there was, Maud felt, something welcome in the humblercompanion and the more trivial theme. Then, too, the solitary daysoppressed her. Sutton had often outlying posts to visit and wouldaccomplish them by starting off three or four hours before Maud wasawake and making a _detour_, so as to meet her at their newhalting-place at breakfast. On these mornings Maud had the company of anescort of troopers, her greyhound Punch, and her own thoughts, whichwere apt to get gloomy. Even Punch, she fancied, thought it a bore, andwent along in a dejected fashion. Sometimes Sutton's work could not beso quickly disposed of, and he would be detained till the evening, andthen the solitary day seemed sad and interminably long. More than oncethe tears had come unbidden to her eyes. Did Sutton forget her? Neverfor an instant, her heart told her clearly enough; but he did notperhaps sufficiently realise the wants and wishes, the flickering,uncertain spirits, the wayward moods, the causeless melancholy of onewho, though invested with the dignities of womanhood, was in characterand powers in reality still a child.
Then, though Sutton was never in the slightest degree imperative, andthough her every spoken wish was law, Maud was conscious sometimes ofbeing kept in better order than she liked and being forced up to astandard which was inconveniently high. Her husband spoke little of histastes; no word from him ever assumed the resemblance of a command; yetMaud not unfrequently felt that a secret pressure was constraining herto something that was not exactly congenial; she knew with an almostdistressing distinctness what her husband liked and disliked, and theknowledge was something of a burden. She was conscious when she hurthim; sometimes from mere waywardness she chose to do it, but she hurtherself in the process as much as him. She had given him her heart andmade him all her world, and was glad to have done so. None the lessthere was sometimes an undefined pang about her self-devotion; shebecame restless, anxious, uncertain in her moods, and the tears seemedto lie near the surface and would spring to light, in unwary moments, attrifles too slight to cause their flow.
Then on some matters her husband's tastes and hers were by no means inharmony. On one occasion Desvoeux had seized the opportunity of theAgent's camp being in the neighbourhood and had ridden across andtravelled a couple of marches with them. Maud had looked forward toseeing him with pleasure and greeted his arrival with marked animation.The visit turned out as pleasant as she had expected; but the pleasurewas marred by a secret conviction of her husband's disapproval. Nothingcould quench Desvoeux's light-heartedness or impede the easy flow of hisamusing small-talk. Sutton, however, did not seem to find it amusing,and assumed, quite unconsciously, a dignified air, which Maud felt to berather awful, though Desvoeux was, as usual, imperturbable in hisgaiety. His spirits, however, were better, and she was more at her easeto be infected by them when Sutton was not by. It vexed her to the heartto know that it was so, but so she knew it was.
The morning that Desvoeux went away was one of Sutton's busy days, andMaud was alone when their guest bade her farewell. 'Good-bye,' she said,with a sort of sigh; 'how I wish you could have stopped and ridden withme this morning! I shall b
e alone all day and feel that I am going tohave a fit of low spirits.'
'And so am I,' said Desvoeux, 'a very bad fit indeed, which will lasttill next time we meet. Good-bye.'
Maud saw him turning pale, as he used to do when he got excited, andheard the eager tremble in his voice. He held her hand for an instant asif he could not bear to give it up, and looked at her with a look thatwas earnest and reproachful and, Maud felt, very, very sad. ThenDesvoeux had left without another word, but how eloquent may silencesometimes be!
Was she smiling or crying, and did she really want his company; and wasshe neglected and miserable? Desvoeux had galloped away with his heartin a tumult from queries such as these, cursing the cruel fate whichobliged him to be at his master's camp, full thirty miles away, withendless boxes of despatches ready for disposal before to-morrow morning.
Thus it was that Maud's early married life had not been without itsmorning clouds and sorrows. Then, as people do when they are unhappy,casting about for a cause of her unhappiness, she began to reproachherself. The old doubts of her fitness, her worthiness for her position,her power to retain her husband's love, began to haunt her. 'Ah me!' shesometimes felt inclined to cry, 'I fear that I am no true wife.' And yetshe knew that, not even if her inmost thoughts were read, could shebring any charge of doubtful love or allegiance against herself.Sutton's men had, she had often heard, begun to worship him when hisexploits in the Mutiny had raised their enthusiasm to its height. Maudfelt that she could understand the feeling; in fact, she did worship himwith all her being. But then worship is not all that is wanted for ahappy married life. Maud, at any rate, felt it delightful to be withFelicia once again.