THE WOES OF A CHAPERON.
The time is out of joint--O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Felicia came home from the ball in far less high spirits than her
_protégée_. Things had not gone as she wished, nor had Maud behaved at
all in the manner which Felicia had pictured to herself as natural and
appropriate to a young lady making her _début_ in polite society.
Instead of displaying an interesting timidity and clinging to her
chaperon for guidance and protection, Maud had taken wing boldly at
once, as in a congenial atmosphere, had been far too excited to be in
the least degree shy and had lent herself with indiscreet facility to a
very pronounced flirtation. Felicia began to realise how hard it is to
make the people about one be what one wants them to be, and how full of
disappointment is the task of managing mankind, even though the fraction
operated upon be no larger than a wayward school-girl's heart. Maud,
whose rapidly-increasing devotion to Sutton had for days past been a
theme of secret congratulation in Felicia's thoughts, had been behaving
all the evening just in the way which Sutton would, she knew, most
dislike, and showing the most transparent liking for the person of whom,
of all others, he especially disapproved. Sutton, too, Felicia
considered, was not comporting himself at all as she would have had him:
he lavished every possible kindness on Maud, but then it was less for
Maud's sake than her own; he would have done, she felt an annoying
conviction, exactly the same for either of her little girls; and though
he agreed with her in thinking Maud decidedly picturesque, and in being
amused and interested in the fresh, eager, childlike impulsiveness of
her character, his thoughts about her, alas! appeared to go no further.
'Why that profound sigh, Felicia?' her husband asked, when Maud had gone
away to bed, leaving the two together for the first time during the
evening. 'Does it mean that some one has been boring you or what?'
'It means,' said Felicia, 'that I am very cross and that Mr. Desvoeux is
a very odious person.'
'And Maud a very silly one, _n'est-ce pas_? Did not I tell you what a
deal of trouble our good-nature in having her out would be sure to give
us? Never let us do a good-natured act again! I tell you Maud is
already a finished coquette and, I believe, would be quite prepared to
flirt with me.'
'I am sure I wish she would,' said Felicia in a despairing tone. 'Do you
know, George, I do not like these balls at all?'
'Come, come, Felicia, how many valses did you dance to-night?' her
husband asked incredulously, for Felicia was an enthusiastic
Terpsichorean.
'That has nothing to do with it,' she said. 'All the people should be
nice, and so many people are not nice at all. It is too close quarters.
There are some men whose very politeness one resents.'
'Courtesy with a touch of traitor in it,' said her husband, 'for
instance?'
'For instance, General Beau,' said Felicia. 'He looks up in the pauses
of his devotions to Mrs. Vereker and turns his eyes upon one as if to
say, "Poor victim! your turn will be the next."'
'I saw you playing "Lady Disdain" to him with great success to-night,'
her husband answered. And indeed it must be confessed that Beau's
advances to Felicia, with whom he was always anxious to stand well, were
received by that lady with a slightly contemptuous dignity, very unlike
her usual joyous cordiality.
'Yes,' said Felicia; 'General Beau's compliments are more than I can
stand. But, George, what can I do with Maud? Is not Mr. Desvoeux
insufferable?'
'Well,' said her husband, 'if a man's ambition is to be thought a
_mauvais sujet_, and to dress like a shopboy _endimanché_, it does not
hurt us.'
'But it may hurt Maud,' said Felicia, 'if, indeed, it has not hurt her
already. Oh dear, how I wish she was safely married!'
From the above conversation it may be inferred that the responsibilities
of her new charge were beginning to weigh upon Felicia's spirits. Sutton
too slow, and Desvoeux too prompt, and Maud's fickle fancies inclining
now this way, now that--what benevolent custodian of other people's
happiness had ever more harassing task upon her hands?
It is probable, however, that had Felicia's insight or experience been
greater, the position of affairs would have seemed less fraught with
anxiety. Maud's liking for Desvoeux was a sentiment of the lightest
possible texture; its very lightness was, perhaps, its charm. With him
she was completely at her ease and experienced the high spirits which
being at one's ease engenders. She was certain of pleasing him, but
careless whether she did so or not. His extravagant protestations amused
her and were flattering in a pleasant sort of way, and his high spirits
made him an excellent companion; but nothing about him touched her with
the keen deep interest that every word or look of Sutton's inspired, or
with the same strong anxiety to retain his friendship. Desvoeux might
come and go, and Maud would have treated either event with the same
indifference; but if Sutton should ever begin to neglect her, she was
already conscious of a sort of pang which the very idea inflicted.
Upon the whole it is probable that Felicia's apprehensions were
groundless. Not the less, however, did she feel disconcerted and
aggrieved when the very next morning after the ball Desvoeux made his
appearance, in the highest possible spirits, evidently on the best terms
with Maud and politely ignoring all Felicia's attempts to put him down.
He was, as it seemed to her, in his very most objectionable mood, and
she felt glad that, at any rate, her husband was at home and that she
was not left to do battle by herself. She resolved to be as
unconciliatory as possible. As for Maud it never occurred to her to
conceal the pleasure which Desvoeux's arrival gave her, and she soon let
out the secret that his visit had been prearranged.
'I did not think that you really would come, Mr. Desvoeux; it is so nice
of you, because we are both of us far too tired to do anything but be
idle, and you can amuse us.'
'You forget, Maud,' said Vernon, 'that Desvoeux may be too tired to be
amusing.'
'And I,' said Felicia, with a slight shade of contempt in her tones, 'am
too tired even to be amused. I feel that Mr. Desvoeux's witticisms would
only fatigue me. I intend to give up balls.'
'Then,' said Desvoeux, with an air of admiring deference which Felicia
felt especially irritating, 'balls will have to give up me. I should not
think it in the least worth while to be a steward and to do all the
horrid things one has to do--polish the floor and audit the accounts and
dance official quadrilles with Mrs. Blunt--if our chief patroness chose
to patronise no more. A ball without Mrs. Vernon would be a May morning
without the sunshine.'
'Or a moonlight night without the moon,' said Felicia: 'Allow me to help
you to a simile.'
'You see he _is_ tired,' said Vernon, 'poor fellow, and for the first
time in his life in need of a pretty phrase.'
'Not at all,' said Desvoeux, with imperturbable good-nature; 'I am
constantly at a loss, like the rest of the world, for words to tell Mrs.
Vernon how much we all admire her. It is only fair that the person who
inspires the sentiment should assist us to express it.'
'But,' cried Maud, 'you are forgetting poor me. Who is to take care of
me, if you please, in the balls of the future?'
'Yes, Felicia,' said Vernon, 'you cannot abdicate just yet, I fear. As
for me, I feel already far too old.'
'Then,' cried Desvoeux, 'you must look at General Beau and learn that
youth is eternal. How nice it is to see him adoring Mrs. Vereker, and to
remember that we, too, may be adored some thirty years to come!'
'Beau's manner is very compromising,' said Vernon; 'it is a curious
trick. His first object, when he likes a lady, is to endanger her
reputation.'
'Yes,' answered Desvoeux, 'he leads her with a serious air to a sofa or
hides himself with her in a balcony; looks gravely into her eyes and
says, "How hot it has been this afternoon!" or something equally
interesting; and all the world thinks that he is asking her to elope at
least.'
'His manners appear to me to be insufferable,' Felicia said, in her
loftiest style; 'just the sort of familiarity that breeds contempt.'
'Poor fellow!' said Desvoeux, who knew perfectly that Felicia's
observations were half-intended for himself, 'it is all his enthusiasm.
He is as proud of every fresh flirtation as if it were a new
experience--like a young hen that has just laid its first egg. He
always seems to me to be chuckling and crowing to the universe, "Behold!
heaven and earth! I have hatched another scandal." Now,' he added,
'Miss Vernon, if ever you and I had a flirtation we should not wish all
the world to "assist," as the French people say, should we? People might
suspect our devotion, and guess and gossip; but there would not be this
revolting matter-of-fact publicity; and we should be for ever putting
people off the scent: I should still look into the Misses Blunt's eyes,
still dance a state quadrille with their mamma, still talk to Mrs.
Vereker about the stars, still feel the poetry of Miss Fotheringham's
new Paris dresses: you would continue to fascinate mankind at large;
only we two between ourselves should know how mutually broken-hearted we
had become.'
'That is a contingency,' Felicia said, in a manner which Desvoeux
understood as a command to abandon the topic, which, happily, there is
no need to discuss.' The conversation turned to something else; but
Felicia made up her mind more than ever that their visitor was a very
impertinent fellow, and more than ever resolved to guard Maud's heart
from every form of attack which he could bring to bear against it. No
protection could, she felt, be half so satisfactory as the
counter-attraction of a lover who would be everything that Desvoeux was
not, and whom all the world acknowledged to be alike _sans peur_ and
_sans reproche_.