CHAPTER IV.
FELICIA.
The laws of marriage character'd in gold Upon the blanched tablets of her heart; A love still burning upward, giving light To read those laws; an accent very low In blandishment, but a most silver flow Of subtle-paced counsel in distress, Right to the heart and brain, tho' undescried, Winning its way with extreme gentleness Through all the outworks of suspicious pride.
The new home in which Maud found herself might well have contented amore fastidious critic than she was at all inclined to be. The Vernonswere delightful hosts. Maud had established thoroughly comfortablerelations with her cousin during the long journey to Dustypore; andthough he was too indolent or perhaps too much absorbed in work foranything but a sort of passive politeness, still this was, upon thewhole, satisfactory and reassuring, and Maud felt very much at her easewith him. Mrs. Vernon, the 'Cousin Felicia,' whom Maud now realised inflesh and blood for the first time, inspired her with a stronger, keenerfeeling of admiration than any she had known before. She was beautiful,as Maud had often heard; but beauty alone would not account for thethrill of pleasure which something in Felicia's first greeting gave her.The charm lay in an unstudied, unconscious cordiality of manner thatfascinated the new-comer with its sincerity and grace. Feliciacoruscated with cheerfulness, courage, mirth. She was bright, andinfected those about her with brightness. Transplanted from the quietluxury of an English country-house to the rough experiences of Indianlife, she bore through them all an air of calmness, joyousness,refinement, which the troubles of life seemed incapable of disturbing.When, years before, just fresh from the schoolroom and with all thedazzling possibilities of a London season before her, she had admittedher attachment to Vernon and her unalterable desire to go with him toIndia, her father's face had looked darker than she had ever seen itbefore, and a family chorus of indignation had proclaimed the unwisdomof the choice. The rector's son and the squire's daughter, however, hadplayed about together as boy and girl, and long years of intimacy hadcemented a friendship too strong to be shattered by such feeble blows asworldliness or prudence could inflict upon it. Vernon had nothing butthe slender portion which a country clergyman might be expected to leavehis children at his death--nothing, that is, except a long list ofschool and college honours and a successful candidature for the IndianCivil Service. Felicia, as her deploring aunts murmured amongstthemselves, 'was a girl who might have married _any one_;' and herparents, without incurring the charge of a vulgar ambition, mightnaturally complain of a match which gave them so little and cost themthe pang of so complete a separation. Felicia, at any rate, had neverrepented of her choice; she was greatly in love with her husband, andhad the pleasant consciousness that his taste--fastidious, critical, andnot a little sarcastic--found in her nothing that was not absoluteperfection. India had developed in her a self-reliance and fortitudewhich never could have been born in the safe tranquillity of her home.The hot winds of Dustypore had not quite robbed her cheeks of theirEnglish bloom; but there were lines of suffering, anxiety, and fatiguewhich, when her face was at rest, let out the secret that her habitualbrightness was not as effortless as it seemed.
The fact was that life, with all its enjoyments, had been to her full ofpangs, of which, even at a safe distance, she could scarcely trustherself to think. The separation from her home was a grief that longusage made none the easier to bear. On the contrary, there was a sort ofaching want which was never appeased, and which the merest trifle--aletter--a message--a word--was sufficient to light up into somethinglike anguish. Felicia never achieved the art of reading her home letterswith decent composure, and used to carry them, with a sort of nervousuneasiness, to her own room, to be dealt with in solitude. Then fourchildren, all with an air of Indian fragility, and whose over-refinedlooks their mother would thankfully have bartered for a little vigourand robustness, had cost her many a heartache. On the horizon of all hermarried life there loomed the dreadful certainty of a day when anotherseries of separations would begin, and the choice would lie between thecompanionship of her husband in India, or the care of her children athome.
From this horrid thought it was natural for such a temperament asFelicia's to seek refuge in merriment, which, if sometimes a littlestrained, was never wholly unnatural. Excitement was a pleasant cure forgloomy thought, and it was to Felicia never hard to find. Every sort ofsociety amused her, and those who saw her only in public would havepronounced her a being to whom melancholy was inconceivable. Herhusband, however, could have told that Felicia was often sad. There wereafternoons, too, when she was quite alone, when she would order thecarriage and drive away by an unfrequented road to the dreary, lonelyStation Cemetery, and weep passionate tears over a grave where yearsbefore she and her husband had come one morning together and left aprecious little wasted form, and Felicia had felt that happiness wasover for her, and that life could never be the same again. Nor was it,for there are some griefs which travel with us to our journey's end.
Charmed as Maud had been with her newly-found relation, she wasconscious of the stiffness of a perfectly unaccustomed life, and thoughtwistfully of the pleasures of the voyage and even of her French andgeography with Miss Goodenough. Felicia, with all her kindness, just alittle alarmed her; she was so brilliant, so dignified, and quiteunconsciously, so much of a fine lady. Vernon was buried in his books oraway at office, and very seldom available for the purposes ofconversation. The days, despite the excitement of novelty, draggedheavily, and Maud began to think that if every day was to be as long asthese, and there were three hundred and sixty-five of them in the year,and fifty years, perhaps, in a lifetime, how terrific an affairexistence was!
Before, however, she had been a week at Dustypore the ice began to melt.Felicia came in one morning from a long busy time with nurses, children,servants and housekeeping, established herself in an easy-chair, closeto Maud, and was evidently bent upon a chat. Maud found herselfpresently, she knew not how, pouring out all her most sacred secrets,and giving her heart away in a most reckless fashion, to a companionwhom, so far as time went, she still regarded as almost a stranger. Sucha confession she had never made, even to Miss Goodenough, nor feltinclined to make it. Now, however, it seemed to come easily and as amatter of course. Felicia was sympathetic and greatly interested. Eventhe episode of the valentine was not forgotten.
'There,' Maud cried, with a slightly nervous dread of telling somethingeither improper or ridiculous; 'that was my very last school-girlscrape. Was it very bad?'
'Very bad!' cried Felicia, with a laugh, the joyousness of which wasentirely reassuring; 'it was that naughty boy who got you into trouble.Fortunately there are no galleries in our church here, and no boys, sothere is nothing to fear.'
That evening Felicia was singing an old familiar favourite air, as shewas fond of doing, half in the dark, and unconscious of a listener.Vernon was deep in his papers in the adjoining room. Maud, at the otherend of the piano, where she had been turning over the leaves of somemusic, stood with her hand still resting on the page, gazing at thesinger and wrapt in attention. Something, she knew not what, nor stoppedto ask--the time, the place, the song or the tone of Felicia'svoice--touched her as with a sudden gust of feeling. When the song wasover Maud walked across, flung her arms round her companion and kissedher with a sort of rapture.
Felicia, looking up, surprised, saw that the other's eyes were full oftears.
'That is pretty, is it not?' she said, taking Maud's hand kindly in herown.
'Sing it once more,' Maud petitioned. And so, while Vernon, unconsciousof the flow of sentiment so close about him, was still absorbed in thevicissitudes of Orissa, Felicia's performance was encored, and twosympathetic natures had found each other out and worked into unison.
Afterwards, when Maud had departed, Felicia, with characteristicimpulsiveness, broke out into vehement panegyric:
'Come, George,' she said, 'don't be stupid, please, and uninterested;don't you think she is quite charming?'
'Felicia,' said her husband, 'you are for ever falling in love with someone or other, and now you have lost your heart to Maud. No, I don'tthink her charming; but I dare say a great many other people will. Shewill be the plague of our lives, you will see. I wish we had left herat Miss Goodenough's.'
'Of course everybody will fall in love with her,' cried Felicia, quiteundaunted by her husband's gloomy forebodings; 'and I will tell youwhat, George--she will do delightfully for Jem.'
'Jem!' exclaimed her husband, with a tone of horror. 'Felicia, you arematch-making already--and Jem too, poor fellow!'
Now, Jem Sutton was Vernon's oldest friend, and Felicia's kinsman,faithful servant and ally. Years before, the two men had boated andcricketed together at Eton, and spent pleasant weeks at each other'shomes; and when they met in India, each seemed to waken up the other toa host of affectionate recollections about their golden youth. Sutton,in fact, was still a thorough schoolboy, and as delighted with findinghis old chum as if he had just come back from the holidays. He hadcontrived to get as much marching, fighting, and adventuring into histen years' service as a man could wish; had led several border forayswith daring and success; had received several desperate wounds, of whicha great scar across the forehead was the most conspicuous; hadestablished a reputation as a rider and a swordsman, and had receivedfrom his Sovereign the brilliant distinction of the Victoria Cross,which, along with a great many other honourable badges, covered thewide expanse of his chest on state occasions.
Despite his fighting proclivities, Sutton had the softest possible pairof blue eyes, his hair was still as bright a brown as when he was acurly-headed boy at his mother's side; nor did the copious growth of hismoustache quite conceal a smile that was sweetness and honesty itself.Felicia's two little girls regarded him as their especial property andmade the tenderest avowals of devotion to him. Sutton treated them, asall their sex, with a kindness that was chivalrously polite, and whichthey were already women enough to appreciate.
Lastly, among other accomplishments, which rendered him especiallywelcome at the Vernons' house, he possessed a tuneful tenor voice, andsang Moore's Melodies with a pathos which was more than artistic. On thewhole, it is easy to understand how natural it seemed to Felicia thattwo such charming people as Sutton and Maud should be destined by Heavenfor each other, and that hers should be the hand to lead them to theirhappy fate.