A LAST RIDE.
He turned his charger as he spoke
Upon the river-shore;
He gave the bridle-reins a shake,
Said 'Adieu for evermore,
My love!
And adieu for evermore!'
Sutton, who was practising '_La ci darem la mano_' with Maud when the
telegram arrived, glanced at its contents without stopping the duet and
slipped it into his pocket before Maud had even seen it. '_Andiam,
Andiam, Andiam,_' she sang joyfully; '_Andiam, Andiam, Andiam_' pealed
Sutton's pleasant tenor tones; '_d'un innocente Amor_' sang the two
together; so the performance came smoothly to its close. 'And now,'
Sutton said, 'I am afraid we must stop our practice for this morning, as
I have to go to the Viceroy. I will come and see you on my way back. I
may have to go down to Dustypore this afternoon.'
'Down to Dustypore!' Maud cried, in a tone that bespoke the pang of
disappointment that shot into her heart, 'I thought that you were to
stay all the summer?'
'And so did I,' said her companion; 'but unluckily some of my naughty
boys on the Hills out there have been getting into too good spirits, and
I must go and look after them. And now for his Excellency.'
Before Sutton had been gone many minutes Desvoeux came galloping up the
pathway, and found Maud still standing in the verandah, where she had
wished Sutton farewell, and where in truth she had been standing in a
brown study ever since he went. Desvoeux was in the gloomiest spirits,
far too much concerned about himself to pay much attention to Maud's
troubled looks. 'Have you heard the dreadful, dreadful news?' he said.
'All our holidays are over for the year. There has been an outbreak on
the frontier. The troops are already on the march. The Agent is closeted
with the Viceroy and goes down this afternoon, and of course poor I have
to go along with him. Sutton is to command the expedition, and, I
daresay, is off already. Every soldier in the place will be ordered
down; and meanwhile what is to become of the fancy-ball?'
'And the moonlight picnic?' cried Maud, suddenly conscious of the
necessity of concealing a feeling which she would not for the world
have had Desvoeux suspect, namely, that Sutton's absence would be to
her a calamity which would go far to render balls and picnics alike a
matter of indifference.
'Yes,' Desvoeux said, with bitter vehemence; 'life is sometimes too
unendurably disagreeable, and things go so provokingly as one does not
want them. And we were just having such a happy time! And then, I
suppose, to make our farewell the sadder, you have chosen this morning
to look your loveliest. As for me, the only bits of life I care about
any longer are those I spend with you.'
'And with Mrs Vereker,' cried Maud. 'Come, Mr. Desvoeux, confess, now,
have you not been there just this minute saying the very same thing to
her? I'll ask her this afternoon and we will compare notes as to our
adieux!'
'Profane idea!' said Desvoeux. 'But you are always mocking. You know I
care a great deal more about you than you do about me.'
'Impossible,' cried Maud. 'Did I not tell you just now that I was
broken-hearted about the picnic? I meant to sit by the waterfall and
make you sing us "Spirito Gentil" in the moonlight. It is a cruel
disappointment.'
'You are very unkind and very heartless,' said Desvoeux in no mood for
banter.
'Come, come,' said Maud, 'do not be cross; we will not quarrel just as
we are parting.'
'Well, then, be serious.'
'I am serious,' said the other; 'and, seriously, I am sorry that we are
to lose you. Poor fellow!'
'Give a poor fellow a present,' said Desvoeux, beseechingly; 'that
cherry riband that binds the loveliest neck in the world.'
'No, I won't,' said Maud; 'it cost me two rupees only the day before
yesterday. There, you may have this rose. Take it, take it, and
remember----'
'You are enough to drive a fellow mad,' said Desvoeux. 'Who will be the
lucky man to find out where your heart is, and whether you have got
one?'
Then Desvoeux cantered off and Maud retired to her bedroom, locked
herself in, threw herself on a couch and indulged in the unusual luxury
of a thoroughly good cry. Sutton, quite unconsciously, had made great
advances in the occupation of her heart. He had been constantly with her
and Felicia; and the more Maud saw of other people, the more convinced
she became that he was the paragon of men and with him the only chance
of happiness for her. And now he would come back presently, Maud knew,
and say a kind, feeling farewell to Felicia and a word or two of
politeness to her, and go away on his expedition and take all the
sunshine of existence with him, and never have a suspicion of the aching
heart he left behind and of the treasure of devotion waiting for him if
he chose to have it. Surely there must be something wrong in the
constitution of a world where such woes could come to pass.
So while Desvoeux, in a sort of half-rage, was hustling his pony down
the hillside as if he really did mean to break his neck once for all and
have done with a life in which Maud could not continually figure, Maud
herself was in affliction for quite another cause; and Sutton, his mind
too full of warlike schemes to think of love, was busy with a map spread
out on the Viceroy's table, pointing out exactly the route through the
Hills which the expedition was to take. Sutton and the Viceroy were the
best of friends. They had ridden and shot and slaughtered tigers and
bears in each other's company, and each knew and liked the other as a
daring, enthusiastic and thoroughgoing sportsman. The Viceroy, himself
no mean performer, had seen Sutton dispose of a big boar, turned to bay,
on more than one occasion in a way which had filled him with admiration
and delight; and when, in rare intervals of business, the Ruler of India
allowed himself a day's holiday for a walk through the forest in search
of bears or jungle pheasants, no more favourite companion than Sutton
ever helped to fill the bag. Each trusted the other thoroughly, and the
Viceroy now spoke of the expedition with a cheerful confidence
indicative of his conviction that it was in the proper hands. The main
plans had been actually settled. The force was to be pushed on as far
into the Hills as was practicable. Two strong mule-batteries were
provided to keep the mountain-sides clear of a hovering enemy. When they
reached the high table-land which lay beyond, a dash was to be made at a
village where one of the rebellious tribes was known to be entrenched in
force; and when this was seized and destroyed and the rebels for the
time dispersed, the little army was to be encamped for a few weeks, by
way of demonstration of military power to the refractory mountaineers.
'Good-bye, Sutton,' said the Viceroy, 'and good luck to you and speedy
return!' And then, as he went out, kind ladies met him in the hall and
wished him a fresh farewell; and Sutton went away, in a glow of
excitement and pleasure, to make his preparations for the afternoon's
gallop, unconscious of all the sentiment in another person's heart which
his departure was stirring into life. He would be gone a fortnight or
three weeks, and was, in truth, not sorry for an excuse for a return to
his dear soldiers after a month's idleness and holiday-making.
When he came to the Vernons', an hour later, he found Maud's pony at
the door, and herself ready-equipped.
'Would you like a companion for the first stage of your journey?'
Felicia said; 'if so, Maud will ride with you, and the children and I
will start later, and meet her on the way home.' This was, in fact, a
kind device of Felicia's--one of the rash things which people do when
they are completely perplexed, in a sort of wild hope that some good may
come of it, rather than with any precise design. Felicia had come with
distressing distinctness to recognise the full gravity of the position
and to feel how dreadfully she had been to blame. She had done all that
one woman can to lead another to fall in love, and she had succeeded
only too well. Her little scheme of happiness for her two friends was
marred by an impediment which she had altogether overlooked. Sutton's
obduracy had never occurred to her as a serious impediment, yet now he
seemed hopelessly unimpressible. Bitterly Felicia reproached herself for
all her part in the transaction; but of what use was self-reproach?
There was the terrible result, beyond the reach alike of penitence or
redress. Maud's heart, Felicia knew instinctively, was lost--her very
silence on the topic betrayed the consciousness of something to conceal.
There was a sort of entreating air about her that seemed to cry for
pity. More than once Felicia had taken her to her arms and embraced her
tenderly--she could not have said why, but yet she knew. Maud, with her
joyousness gone, and battling with a silent sorrow, seemed to her to
have a touch of pathos which roused all the latent melancholy of
Felicia's nature into activity. It was one of those sad things in life
before which her fortitude completely failed. Ruefully did she vow, now
that vowing was of no use, that her first attempt at match-making should
be her last. At any rate she sent the two riders off together on this
last ride, in the faint hope that something might occur to bring the
tardy wooer to a right frame of mind.