Chronicles of Dustypore Part 2

'Felicia,' said her husband, 'you are for ever falling in love with some one or other, and now you have lost your heart to Maud. No, I don't think her charming; but I dare say a great many other people will. She will be the plague of our lives, you will see. I wish we had left her at Miss Goodenough's.'

'Of course everybody will fall in love with her,' cried Felicia, quite undaunted by her husband's gloomy forebodings; 'and I will tell you what, George--she will do delightfully for Jem.'

'Jem!' exclaimed her husband, with a tone of horror. 'Felicia, you are match-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 and cricketed together at Eton, and spent pleasant weeks at each other's homes; and when they met in India, each seemed to waken up the other to a host of affectionate recollections about their golden youth. Sutton, in fact, was still a thorough schoolboy, and as delighted with finding his old chum as if he had just come back from the holidays. He had contrived to get as much marching, fighting, and adventuring into his ten years' service as a man could wish; had led several border forays with daring and success; had received several desperate wounds, of which a great scar across the forehead was the most conspicuous; had established a reputation as a rider and a swordsman, and had received from his Sovereign the brilliant distinction of the Victoria Cross, which, along with a great many other honourable badges, covered the wide expanse of his chest on state occasions.

Despite his fighting proclivities, Sutton had the softest possible pair of blue eyes, his hair was still as bright a brown as when he was a curly-headed boy at his mother's side; nor did the copious growth of his moustache quite conceal a smile that was sweetness and honesty itself.

Felicia's two little girls regarded him as their especial property and made the tenderest avowals of devotion to him. Sutton treated them, as all their s.e.x, with a kindness that was chivalrously polite, and which they were already women enough to appreciate.

Lastly, among other accomplishments, which rendered him especially welcome at the Vernons' house, he possessed a tuneful tenor voice, and sang Moore's Melodies with a pathos which was more than artistic. On the whole, it is easy to understand how natural it seemed to Felicia that two such charming people as Sutton and Maud should be destined by Heaven for each other, and that hers should be the hand to lead them to their happy fate.

CHAPTER V.

'SUTTON'S FLYERS.'

Consider this--he had been bred i' the wars Since he could draw a sword.

'Sutton's Flyers' were well known in the Sandy Tracts as the best irregular cavalry in that part of the country. Formed originally in the Mutiny, when spirits of an especial hardihood and enterprise gathered instinctively around congenial leaders, they had retained ever since the _prestige_ then acquired and a standard of chivalry which turned every man in the regiment into something of a hero. Many a stalwart lad, bred in the wild uplands of the Province, had felt his blood stirred within him at the fame of exploits which appealed directly to instincts on which the pacific British rule had for years put an unwelcome pressure.

Around the fire of many an evening meal, in many a gossiping bazaar, in many a group at village well or ferry, the fame of the 'Flyers' was recounted, and 'Sutton Sahib' became a household word by which military enthusiasm could be speedily kindled to a blaze. With the lightest possible equipage, wiry country-bred horses, and a profound disregard for all baggage arrangements, Sutton had effected some marches which earned him the credit of being supernaturally ubiquitous. Again and again had Mutineer detachments, revelling in fancied security, found that the dreaded hors.e.m.e.n, whom they fancied a hundred miles away and marching in an opposite direction, had heard of their whereabouts and were close upon their track. Then the suddenness of the attack, the known prowess of the leader, the half-superst.i.tious reverence which his followers paid him, invested the troop with a tradition of invincibility, and had secured them, on more than one occasion, a brilliant success against odds which less fervent temperaments than Sutton's might have felt it wrong to encounter, and which certainly made success seem almost a miracle. To his own men Sutton was hardly less than a G.o.d, and there were few of them on whom he could not safely depend to gallop with him to their doom.

More than one of his officers had saved his life in hand-to-hand fight by reckless exposure of their own; and his adjutant had dragged him, stunned, crushed and bleeding, from under a fallen horse, and carried him through a storm of bullets to a place of safety. All of them, on the other hand, had experienced on a hundred occasions the benefit of his imperturbable calmness, his inspiring confidence and unshaken will. Once Sutton had gratified their pride--and perhaps, too, his own--by a display of prowess which, if somewhat theatrical, was nevertheless extremely effective. A fight was on hand, and the regiment was just going into action, when a Mohammedan trooper, famed as a swordsman on all the country-side, had ridden out from the enemy's lines, bawled out a defiance of the English rule, couched in the filthiest and most opprobrious terms, and dared Sutton to come out and fight, and let him throw his carcase to the dogs. There are moments when instinct becomes our safest, and indeed our only, guide. Sutton, for once in his life, felt a gust of downright fury: he gave the order to halt and sheathe swords, took his challenger at his word, rode out in front of his force and had a fair hand-to-hand duel with the hostile champion. The confronted troops looked on in breathless anxiety, while the fate of either combatant depended on a turn of the sword, and each fought as knowing that one or other was to die. Sutton at last saw his opportunity for a stroke which won him the honours of the day. It cost him a sabre-cut across his forehead, which to some eyes might have marred his beauty for ever; but the foul-mouthed Mussulman lay dead on the field, smitten through the heart, and Sutton rode back among his shouting followers the acknowledged first swordsman of the day.

Such a man stood in no need of Felicia's panegyrics to seem very impressive in the eyes of a girl like Maud. Despite his gentleness of manner and the sort of domestic footing on which everybody at the Vernons', down to the baby, evidently placed him, she felt a little awed. She was inclined to be romantic; but it was rather alarming to have a large, living, incarnate romance sitting next her at luncheon, cutting slices of mutton, and asking her, with a curiosity that seemed necessarily condescending, about all the details of the voyage. There seemed something incongruous and painfully below the mark in having to tell him that they had acted 'Woodc.o.c.k's Little Game,' and had played 'Bon Jour, Philippe,' on board; and Maud, when the revelation became necessary, made it with a blush. After luncheon, however, Sutton and the little girls had a game of 'Post,' and Maud begun to console herself with the rea.s.suring conviction that, after all, he was but a man, and a very pleasant one.

After he had gone, Felicia, who was the most indiscreet of match-makers, began one of her extravagant eulogiums. 'Like him!' she cried, in reply to Maud's inquiry; 'like is not the word. He is the best, n.o.blest, bravest, and most chivalrous of beings.'

'Not the handsomest!' interrupted Maud, tempted by Felicia's enthusiasm into feeling perversely indifferent.

'Yes, and the handsomest too,' Felicia said; 'tall, strong, with beautiful features, and eyes as soft and tender as a woman's; indeed a great deal softer than most women's.'

'Then,' objected Maud, 'why has he never' ----

'Because,' answered her companion, indignantly antic.i.p.ating the objection, 'there is no one half-a-quarter good enough for him.'

'Well,' said the other, by this time quite in a rebellious mood, 'all I can say is, that I don't think him in the least good-looking. I don't like that great scar across his forehead.'

'Don't you?' cried Felicia; and then she told her how the scar had come there, and Maud could no longer pretend not to be interested.

The next day Sutton came with them for a drive, and Maud, who had by this time shaken off her fears, began to find him decidedly interesting.

There was something extremely romantic in having a soldier, whose reputation was already almost historical, the hero of a dozen brilliant episodes, coming tame about the house, only too happy to do her bidding or Felicia's, and apparently perfectly contented with their society.

Felicia was in the highest spirits, for she found her pet project shaping itself with pleasant facility into a fair prospect of realisation; and when Felicia was in high spirits they infected all about her.

Sutton, innocently unconscious of the cause of her satisfaction, but realising only that she wanted Maud amused and befriended, lent himself with a ready zeal to further her wishes and let no leisure afternoon go by without suggesting some new scheme of pleasure. Maud's quick, impulsive, highly-strung temperament, her moods of joyousness or depression, hardly less transient than the shadows that flit across the fields in April, her keen appreciation of beauty and pathos, made her, child as she was in most of her thoughts and ways, an interesting companion to him. Her eagerness in enjoyment was a luxury to see; and Sutton, a good observer, knew before long, almost better than herself, what things she most enjoyed. Instead of the reluctant and unsympathetic permission which her late instructress had accorded to her poetical tastes, Sutton and Felicia completely understood what she felt, treated her taste on each occasion with a flattering consideration, and led her continually to 'fresh woods and pastures new,' where vistas of loveliness, fairer far than any she had yet discovered, seemed to break upon her.

Vernon's library, his one extravagance, was all that the most fastidious scholar could desire; any choice edition of a favourite poet was on his table almost before his English friends had got it. A beautiful book, like a beautiful woman, deserves the best attire that art can give it, and Maud felt a thrill of satisfaction at all the finery of gilt and Russian leather in which she could now behold her well-beloved poems arrayed. Sutton told her, with a decisiveness which carried conviction, what things she would like and what she might neglect; and she soon followed his directions with unquestioning faith. He used to come and read to them sometimes, in a sweet, impressive manner, Maud felt; and the pa.s.sage, as he had read it, lived on in her thoughts with the precise shade of feeling which his voice had given it.

One happy week was consecrated to the 'Idylls of the King,' and this had been so especially delightful as to make a little epoch in her existence--so rich was the picture--so great a revelation of beauty--such depths of sorrow--such agonies of repentance--such calm, quiet, ethereal scenes of loveliness.

More than once Sutton, in reading, had looked up suddenly and found her eyes bent full upon him, and swimming with tears; and Maud had stooped over her work, the sudden scarlet dyeing her cheek, yet almost too much moved to care about detection.

How true, how real, how living it all seemed! Did it, in truth, belong to the far-off, misty, fabulous kingdom over which the mystic Arthur ruled, or was she herself Elaine, and Lancelot sitting close before her, and all the harrowing story playing itself out in her own little troubled world? Anyhow, it struck a chord which vibrated pleasurably, yet with a half-painful vehemence, through her mind and filled it with harmonies and discords unheard before. Certainly, she confessed to herself, there was a something about Sutton that touched one to the heart.

CHAPTER VI.

'A COMPEt.i.tION-WALLAH.'

Ainsi doit etre Un pet.i.t-maitre; Leger, amusant, Vif, complaisant, Plaisant, Railleur aimable, Traitre adorable; C'est l'homme du jour, Fait pour l'amour.

One of the stupid things that people do in India is to select the two hottest hours of the day for calling on each other. How such an idiotic idea first found its way into existence, by what strange fate it became part of the social law of Anglo-Indians, and how it is that no one has yet been found with courage or strength enough to break down a custom so detrimental to the health and comfort of mankind, are among the numerous mysteries which the historian of India must be content to leave unsolved. Like Chinese ladies' feet, the high heels on which fashionable Europe at present does penance, suttee of Hindu widows, and infanticide among the Rajpoot n.o.bles, it is merely a curious instance that there is nothing so foolish and so disagreeable that human beings will not do or endure if it only becomes the fashion.

At any rate, the ladies and gentlemen of Dustypore were resolved not to be a whit less fashionable and uncomfortable than their neighbours, and religiously exchanged visits from twelve to two.

Maud's arrival was the signal for a burst of callers, and a goodly stream of soldiers and civilians arrived day by day to pay their homage to the newly-arrived beauty and her chaperon. Felicia's house was always popular, and all that was pleasantest and best in Dustypore a.s.sembled at her parties. Young London dandies fresh from home, and exploring the Sandy Tracts under the impression of having left the _Ultima Thule_ of civilisation far behind them, were sometimes startled to find her drawing-room as full of taste, luxury, and refinement as if they had suddenly been transported to Eaton Square.

What is the nameless grace that some women have the art of putting into chairs and tables, which turns them from mere bits of upholstery into something hardly short of poetry? How is it that in some rooms there breathes a subtle charm, an aroma of delicacy and culture, a propriety in the behaviour of the sofas and ottomans to one another, a pleasant negligence apparent through the general order, a courageous simplicity amid elaborated comfort, which, in the absence of the mistress, tells the expectant visitor that he is about to meet a thoroughbred lady?

Some such fascination, at any rate, there lingered about the cool, carefully-shaded room in which Felicia received her guests. It was by no means smart, and not especially tidy, for it was often invaded and occupied by a victorious horde from the nursery, and bore many a sign of the commonplace routine of daily life. But to Felicia's friends it was an enchanted abode, where a certain refuge might be found from whatever disagreeable things or people prevailed outside, and where Felicia, who, whatever she might feel, always looked calm and radiant and cool, presided as the _genius loci_, to forbid the possibility of profane intrusion.

One thing that made it picturesque was that at all times and seasons it abounded in flowers. Felicia was an enthusiastic gardener, and her loving skill and care could save many a tender plant which would, in a less experienced hand, have withered and sunk under the burning heat and dust that prevailed everywhere but in the confines of Felicia's kingdom.

Her garden gave her a more home-like feeling than any other Indian experience. It refreshed her to go out early in the morning, while the children were yet asleep, and the sun's rays had barely surmounted the tall rows of plantains that marked the garden's boundary, and guarded her treasures from the sultry air. It soothed her to superintend ferns and roses, cuttings from some Himalayan shrub, or precious little seedlings from England. By dint of infinite care she had created a patch of turf, which, if not quite as green, fresh and dewy as the lawn at home, was at any rate a rest to eyes weary with dazzling wastes and the bright blazing air. There Felicia had a shady corner, where pots and sticks and garden-tools attested the progress of many a new gardening experiment, and where the water forced up from the well at the garden's end went rippling by with a pleasant sound, cooling and softening all the air around. Oftentimes, as she lingered here, her fancies would wander to the pleasant Manor House, where her taste for flowers had been acquired in her father's company, and she would be again fern-hunting with him through some cool mossy woodland, or roaming through a paradise of bluebells, with the well-loved beeches towering overhead, while the sweet summer evening died slowly away.

Early amongst the visitors Mr. Desvoeux was announced, and Felicia, when she saw his card, told Maud that she would be sure now to be very much amused.

'He is the most brilliant of all the young civilians,' she said, 'and is to do great things. But he talks great nonsense and abuses everybody. So do not be astonished at anything you hear.'

'And is he nice?' inquired Maud.

Felicia made a little face, not altogether of approval:

'Well,' she said, 'he is more curious than nice;' and then Desvoeux made his appearance, and while he was exchanging preliminary commonplaces with Felicia, Maud had an opportunity of observing the visitor's exterior claims, which were not inconsiderable, to the regard of womankind.

He was certainly, Maud felt at once, extremely handsome and, apparently, extremely anxious to be thought so. The general effect which he produced was that of a poetical dandy. He was dressed with a sort of effeminate finery, with here and there a careless touch which redeemed it all from utter fopdom. He was far too profusely set about with pretty things, lockets and rings and costly knickknacks; on the other hand his handkerchief was tied with a more than Byronic negligence. The flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole was exquisite, but it was stuck in with a carelessness which, if studied, was none the less artistic. On the whole he was over-dressed; but he walked into the room with the air of a man who had forgotten all about it, and who had no eyes or thoughts for anything but his present company.

Maud soon began to think him very entertaining, but, as Felicia had said, 'curious.' He was full of fun, extravagant, joyous, unconventional; he had turned, after the first few sentences, straight upon Maud and pointedly invited her into the conversation; and she soon felt her spirits rising.

'I saw you this morning,' he said, 'in the distance, riding with Sutton.

I should have asked to be allowed to join you, but that I was too shy, and Sutton would have hated me for spoiling his _tete-a-tete_.'

'Three is an odious number, is it not, Mr. Desvoeux?' said Felicia, 'and should be expunged from the arithmetic books. Why was it ever invented?'