A KISS.
As she sped fast through sun and shade
The happy winds upon her played,
Blowing the ringlets from the braid;
She looked so lovely as she swayed
The rein with dainty finger-tips.
A man had given all other bliss
And all his worldly worth for this:
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.
When Mrs. Vereker suggested Desvoeux's temporary deposition, she
overlooked two obstacles which proved fatal to the scheme's success: in
the first place, Maud did not quite wish to depose him; in the next,
Desvoeux had not the slightest intention of being deposed. Despite all
hints to stay away, he presented himself with provoking regularity at
Mrs. Vereker's cottage-porch, outstayed later callers without the least
compunction, and evidently felt himself quite master of the situation.
At Maud's first symptom of neglect he was more devoted, more assiduous,
more amusing than ever. Both ladies were constrained in their hearts to
admit that his presence was a great enlivenment. Maud, though she would
not have admitted it to herself, felt sometimes impatient for his
arrival. She had given Desvoeux to understand that his attentions were
unwelcome, but she had not the least wish that he should become
inattentive. As the French song says--
Lorsque l'on dit, 'Ne m'aimez plus jamais,'
On prétend bien qu'on obéira, mais
On compte un peu sur des révoltes.
So Maud, when she tried to keep Desvoeux at a distance, probably only
made it apparent how much she liked him to be near; at any rate, the
attempt at a little quarrel had only the result of making them better
friends than before. Then there was a sort of familiarity about him
which Maud was conscious of only half-disliking. Mrs. Vereker declared
she had not breathed a word; but something in his look, when he spoke of
Mrs. Fotheringham, convinced Maud that he had heard of her unlucky
speech to that lady. When she rode with some one else she was sure to
meet him, looking the picture of dulness. She knew that if they had been
together they would be both having the greatest fun. And then how flat
and what a bore her own companion seemed! One day she did actually go
for a ride with General Beau. Mrs. Vereker asked him afterwards how
they had got on, and the General arched his brow and said, 'Ah!' in a
manner which suggested that he had not altogether liked it. Then, one
day, in a pet, Maud went out alone, saying, 'No one can find fault with
me for _this_.' Alas! alas! she was sauntering along in the most
disconsolate manner, when, round a corner of the hill, who should come
sauntering along but Desvoeux, also alone and disconsolate and in the
direst need of a companion! Of course under such circumstances there was
nothing to be done but for Desvoeux to turn his pony round and accompany
her for the rest of the expedition; and then, no sooner had they done
this, than, as bad luck would have it, they came upon all the people
whom they particularly did not wish to meet--first the Fotheringhams,
the mamma and two young ladies in palanquins, a nice young civilian
escorting each; Fotheringham _père_ on his pony, bringing up the
rear--in order, as Desvoeux said scornfully, to cut off retreat if the
young men's hearts failed them.
'If that is courtship _à la mode_,' he said, 'Heaven preserve us! Fancy
four parental eyes glaring at every act! My love is a sensitive plant
and would shrink up at every look.'
Maud, however, felt that it was no joke, and was very much provoked with
Desvoeux. She was in the act of turning back to join the Fotheringhams.
'Don't, pray don't,' said Desvoeux; '_qui s'excuse s'accuse_. Why don't
the two young gentlemen come and ask to be allowed to walk with us and
be taken care of? If only we could _afficher_
"MET BY ACCIDENT,
UPON OUR HONOUR"
on our backs, and let all the world know how innocent we really are!'
And next, before Maud had at all recovered her equanimity, a turn in the
road brought them face to face with all the Government House
party--ladies and ponies and aides-de-camp in attendance, and, last of
all, the Viceroy himself, with a big stick and wide-awake hat. 'Ah! how
d'ye do, Mrs. Sutton?' he said, looking, Maud fancied, not near so
good-humoured as of old and taking no notice of Desvoeux; 'I hope you
have good accounts of your husband?'
'Yes, very good, thank you, Lord Clare,' Maud said, blushing at a
question which seemed to convey a reproach to her guilty conscience, and
at the thought of how little her husband had been present to her mind of
late. Altogether, Maud's attempt at a solitary ride turned out a
thorough failure.
Then came the picnic, and Maud, it must be confessed, behaved like a
little idiot.
'The best way to treat gossip,' Desvoeux suggested, 'is to ignore it and
show the world that you have nothing to be ashamed of.' By way of
enforcing his doctrine he proceeded to monopolise her in the most
outrageous manner; nor did she refuse to be monopolised. When other
people came and tried to talk to her Desvoeux stood by and contrived to
make them feel themselves _de trop_. He put poor Boldero, who flattered
himself that his afternoon's sermon was to bear good fruit, utterly to
the rout; insulted General Beau by some absurd question about the
Carraway Islands; put all the aides-de-camp to flight; and, even when
the Viceroy came by and stopped to speak to Maud, seemed to consider it
a very great intrusion.
'Really, Mr. Desvoeux,' Maud said, with a laugh, 'you give yourself all
the airs of a jealous husband.'
'I only wish,' said her companion, 'you had ever given me the chance of
being one. But don't these people bore one? I don't feel a bit inclined
to-day to be bored.'
'No more do I,' said Maud, 'but I feel very cross with you all the same.
Let us go and sit by the Fotheringhams.'
'Please do not,' said Desvoeux; 'here is a delightful nook, with a
smooth stone for your table, and the stream making too much noise for
any one to overhear us. It was evidently intended for you and me.'
So all the world had the opportunity, at lunch, of witnessing Desvoeux
in the act of adoration; and Desvoeux, if he would let no one else have
a chance of talking, had, Maud felt, plenty to say himself. It was
indiscreet, but very pleasant. Even Mrs. Vereker grew alarmed, and
making an excuse to pass close by them, came and whispered in Maud's ear
a solemn 'Don't!'
'Don't what?' said Maud in ill-affected wonderment.
'Don't be a goose,' said her companion; 'Mr. Desvoeux, would you be
good-natured and go and fetch me some ice-pudding, while I sit and talk
to Mrs. Sutton?'
'With pleasure,' said Desvoeux, smothering his resentment as best he
could; 'but where am I to sit when I come back?'
'You need not come back for half-an-hour,' said Mrs. Vereker quietly;
'go and talk with some one else. I see I must keep you young people both
in order.'
Desvoeux went off in dudgeon, and Mrs. Vereker lost no time in supplying
his place. 'Ah, Mr. Boldero!' she said, 'come and be amusing, please,
and give us the latest news from Dustypore.'
For once in his life Boldero thought Mrs. Vereker very nice.
'Be amusing!' thought Maud; 'why does not she ask him to fly to the moon
at once? Only Mr. Desvoeux can be that.'
And so it proved. Even Mrs. Vereker could not make conversation go.
Boldero was stiff, uncordial and ill at ease. Maud was vexed, and did
not care to conceal it. It was a relief when General Beau appeared, and
Maud, in a pet, asked him to take her to the waterfall.
The General, who had been intending to perform the pilgrimage with Mrs.
Vereker, did not betray that he was disconcerted, and professed his
delight at the suggestion.
'But,' said Maud, 'can we trust those two naughty people together? My
dear Mrs. Vereker, "Don't!"'
'Is not she growing saucy?' Mrs. Vereker said to Boldero; 'it is all
your fault; all you gentlemen conspire to spoil her.'
'No,' said Boldero,'begging your pardon, it is all your fault. You let
one of us have it all his own way. You encourage him to flirt, and
encourage her to encourage him. It is a shame, Mrs. Vereker; in another
fortnight her reputation will be gone.'
'Fiddlededee!' cried Mrs. Vereker. 'See what jealousy will do! You might
as well accuse me of flirting with you, and every one knows that I am a
saint.'
'A very pretty one and in a very pretty dress,' said Boldero, whom Mrs.
Vereker's violet eyes always threw off his balance in about two minutes.
'No, thank you,' she said, tossing her shapely head in pretty scorn, 'I
don't want any flattery; we are too old friends. My dress is lovely, I
am well aware, and it has pleased God to make me not quite a fright. But
about Maud, now: don't you know that all the gossip is simple envy; some
horrid unkind old woman like Mrs. Fotheringham, with about as much heart
as one of these rocks, and her two hoydens of girls? But here comes
Major Fenton, who has, I consider, quite neglected me to-day.'
Major Fenton was one of the hosts, and the most eligible of the trio.
'Impossible!' he said, melting under the sweet smile from a stern,
languid air which he wore to all the world; 'the duties of my day
performed, its pleasures are now, I hope, about to begin. Will you come
with me to the waterfall?'
Mrs. Vereker bent two soft orbs on Boldero with a reproachful look, as
if to say, 'Why did you not ask me sooner?' and went off in glee with
the Major; and Boldero, left in solitude to his own meditations,
mentally voted this the dullest, flattest, and most unsuccessful picnic
at which it had ever been his ill-luck to be a guest.
When Maud and General Beau arrived at the waterfall, there, of course,
was Desvoeux, trying to encourage the Miss Fotheringhams to cross the
stream and so ascend to the finest point of view. This was a little more
than the Miss Fotheringhams' nerves were equal to: the stream was full
and foamed and tossed itself into an angry crest; the water looked black
and swift and treacherous. You had to jump on to one boulder, then
balance yourself on three stepping-stones through the shallows, then
make one good spring to the rock opposite, and the feat was done! This,
however, was just too much for the Miss Fotheringhams, who had not been
trained in athletics and were not naturally what the Irishmen call
'leppers.' As they were hesitating and refusing, Maud and the General
came up, looking very much bored. Maud had been finding her companion
almost intolerable, and would have jumped _anywhere_ to be free of him.
There was nothing in it: Desvoeux had been skipping across half-a-dozen
times. 'Look,' he said, 'a skip, two hops and a jump, and there you are!
Do try. Don't you see?'
'I see, exactly,' said Maud, gathering up her petticoats and giving her
parasol to General Beau.
'Stop! it is not safe,' he cried; 'stop, I implore; the rocks are
slippery, the water is deep. I implore, I beseech, I command!'
But the General might as well have commanded the stream to stop, for
Maud was gone, and in about two seconds was standing, flushed, beautiful
and triumphant, on the opposite side.
'If you will not come with us,' said Desvoeux, calling to the people on
the other side, 'we must go up to the Point without you. General Beau
will, I am sure, take care of the Miss Fotheringhams.'
'A most wilful girl,' thought the General, 'and dull, but a fine jumper,
and feet and ankles quite perfection.'
Maud, when she got across the stream, had passed a moral Rubicon; she
left propriety, prudence, and prudishness on the other side with the
General and the Miss Fotheringhams.
Desvoeux was in the greatest glee at the result which had come about. 'I
wish the General had tried and tumbled in,' he said, 'and got a
ducking.'
'Oh,' cried Maud, 'what a dreadful man he is, with his shrugs and his
"Ahs!" How lucky that you came to save me!'
'And you to save me,' said her companion; 'I was having a sad time of it
with the Fotheringham girls. What a thing it is to have a deliverer!'
'But,' said Maud, 'I think the younger one is looking very pretty. You
know you used to love her. What lovely hair!'
'Yes,' said the other. 'Hair
So young and yellow, crowning sanctity,
And claiming solitude: can hair be false?'
'It can,' exclaimed Maud; 'Mrs. Blunt showed me two large coils, which
had arrived from Douglas' in her last box from Europe. When one has a
diamond tiara I suppose one must have hair to put it in, _coûte qui
coûte_.'
'Mrs. Blunt and her eternal tiara!' cried Desvoeux; 'like the toad and
adversity, ugly and venemous, she wears a precious jewel in her head.
But is not this lovely? Look at the rainbow in the foam and the deep
green of the ferns beside it. Was it not worth a jump?'
'Was not _what_ worth a jump?' said Maud, with one of her pretty
blushes.
'If only,' cried Desvoeux, 'there was somewhere we could jump to, where
I could have you all for my very own! But see, here is the Speaking
Rock; call out something now and see how it will answer you.'
'Hoop!' cried Maud, and 'Hoop!' answered the steep crag opposite, and
Maud, in a mood to be pleased with everything, was quite delighted.
'Hoop, hie!' she cried again, and all the hillside seemed to echo to her
joyful tones.
'See,' cried Desvoeux, 'you have waked the Genius of the Mountain. If
you called long enough the nymphs would come and dance and crown you for
a rural queen, the fairest that Arcadia ever saw!'
'Now,' said Maud, quite breathless with her calls, 'shout out something,
Mr. Desvoeux, and see what the mountain nymphs will have to say to you.'
'No,' Desvoeux said sentimentally, 'the nymphs would answer nothing: my
voice is too rough to please them. Besides I know by experience it is my
fate to call and call, and rocks and other things just as hard will give
me no response.'
'Indeed,' said Maud, 'I think they answer quite as much as is good for
you.'
'Our echoes,' cried Desvoeux, turning suddenly upon her and speaking
with a vehemence that was only half in play--
'Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever----'
'And ever and ever,' laughed Maud. 'Well, now, it is high time that they
stopped growing for the present. Come, Mr. Desvoeux, let us get back
before our dear friends have torn us quite to pieces.'
Maud came back in great spirits and made a public laugh at General Beau
for his desertion of her.
'"The rocks are slippery, the water is deep!"' she cried, taking him off
to his face with great success, '"I implore, I entreat, I command"; but
I don't jump! O faithless, faithless General Beau!'
The General was not in the least disconcerted. 'Ah!' he said, in his
usual mysterious way; and everybody felt that he could have jumped if he
had chosen, but that he had some particular reason for not choosing to
do so.
Then the party reassembled for tea and they played at games. Some one
proposed 'What is my thought like?'
'Delightful!' cried Maud. 'General Beau, what is my thought like, pray?'
'Like?' said the General, quite unprepared for such sudden demands on
his conversational powers, 'it is like yourself, no doubt.'
'Enough, enough!' cried Maud. 'Now, then, please say how wit, which is
my word, and I are like each other?'
'Ah!' said the General, as if to imply that he mentally perceived the
resemblance; 'because, because'----
'Because,' said Mrs. Vereker, 'you are both to "madness near allied."'
'Or because,' said Desvoeux, cutting in with great promptitude, '"true
wit is nature to advantage dressed;" and so, I am sure, is Mrs. Sutton.'
'Very nice!' cried Maud, glowing with pleasure; 'now, General Beau, you
must pay forfeit, you know. I will give you a bad one for deserting me
so cruelly.'
'Forfeits!' said Desvoeux, 'spare us, spare us--they are too fatiguing.'
'Not a bit,' said Maud, 'you bow to what is wisest, and kneel to what is
prettiest, and kiss what you love best.'
'Well, then,' said Desvoeux, kissing his hand sentimentally and blowing
it into the air, 'there is a kiss for what I love best, wherever it may
be.'
'Dear me,' said Mrs. Vereker, 'what a touching idea! There goes my
kiss.'
'And,' cried Maud, laughing and kissing the tips of her pretty fingers,
'there goes mine! What a state the air will be in! But here comes Major
Fenton with a plate of plumcake, which is what I love best; so my kiss
is for that!'
'Happy plumcake!' said the Major, gallantly, 'to be loved, eaten and
kissed by a mouth so fair.'
'Give me a bit too, Fenton,' said Desvoeux; 'I must eat some for
sympathy, though it is not what I love best.'
Then the quiet valley shadows crept about them, and it grew sad and
sombre; and while they sat and talked and laughed, the day was done and
all steps were turned towards home.
So Maud and Desvoeux found themselves travelling home together in the
moonlight and falling behind the crowd of riders, to enjoy, undisturbed,
the pleasure of a _tête-à-tête_. One of the great dangers of the Hills
is that the paths admit only of two people riding abreast; the _terzo
incomodo_ must ride behind, and might, so far as prudence is concerned,
just as well not be there at all. No such inconvenient intruder,
however, threatened Desvoeux's enjoyment of the present occasion or
aided the faltering monitions which Maud's half-silenced conscience
whispered to her. Her nerves were overstrung, and the excessive
loveliness of the scene seemed only to add to her excitement. Along the
winding path which crept up the mountain-side, and through the dark
green forest-trees towering sublimely over them and all ablaze in
moonlit patches with silver floods of light, their journey took them.
Far away, miles below, a hundred tiny sparks showed where the villagers
were cooking the evening meal; across the valley, on the opposite side,
a great streak of woodland was blazing, scarcely seen by day, but now a
ruddy lurid glow in the white light that lit up all the scene around. In
the horizon was the great, cold, snowy range, standing out hard and
clear in the moonlight--still, majestic, awful. How sweet, how bright,
how exhilarating to a heart so prompt for enjoyment, senses so quickly
impressible, nerves so alive to every surrounding influence as Maud's!
Again and again she burst into exclamations of pleasure as each turn in
the road brought them to some new scene of enchantment.
'Let us stop,' she cried, 'I must get off and sit down here and enjoy
this in peace.'
'Let us walk a little,' said Desvoeux, 'and send our ponies on to await
us at the half-way point. Are you too tired?'
'I am not a bit tired,' Maud said, glowing with pleasure; 'it is too
lovely to think of it. This is the best of all the day's pleasures.'
'It is lovely,' said her companion, 'but to me its greatest charm is
that I have you to myself.'
'Well,' said Maud, who was accustomed to pulling up Desvoeux when he
became inconveniently sentimental, 'we have had a delightful day and
great fun. I wish we had had the forfeits all the same and made General
Beau do something nice. You stopped it all, Mr. Desvoeux, by being so
idle. Why did you blow your kiss into the air?'
'It was the only thing I could do with it,' said Desvoeux, 'and see--it
has alighted on your cheek!'
'And _that_ on your arm,' cried Maud, wielding her whip with a sudden
vehemence which made Desvoeux feel that his kiss had been, at any rate,
well paid for; 'when I want to be kissed I will tell you; but no
robberies!'
'You little spitfire!' said Desvoeux, rubbing his shoulder with a comic
air.
'Well,' said Maud, suddenly repentant, and trying her whip across her
knee, 'it _does_ hurt, I confess. I beg your pardon. You deserved it,
however, and I was in a passion at the moment. Do you forgive me?'
She gave him her hand--that little, delicate, exquisitely-fashioned
piece of Nature's workmanship, which Desvoeux had often vowed was the
most beautiful thing in India. Its very touch electrified him.
'Forgive you?' he said, with a sudden sadness in his voice; 'you hurt me
once in good earnest, and I forgave you that, and do forgive it, but it
hurts me still.'
Desvoeux's voice trembled with feeling. Something in his look struck
Maud with a sudden pang of pity, sympathy, remorse. Was Desvoeux then
really suffering, and his life darkened on account of her? A sudden rush
of sentiment streamed across her soul, carrying everything before it. A
passionate, irresistible impulse possessed her. She stooped towards
him, bent her cheek, flushed with excitement, to his, pressed to his the
lips on which Desvoeux's thoughts had dwelt a hundred times in
impassioned reverie, and kissed him with a long, sweet, earnest caress,
the sudden outburst of gratitude, tenderness, regret.
Desvoeux said not a word, but he still kept possession of her hand, and
the two stood looking silently across the misty valley and the precipice
that fell away at their feet into solemn gloom below. The tramp of a
horse's feet was heard behind them and Boldero came trotting innocently
up the path.
'We are walking home,' Maud said, 'the night is so delicious. You may
get off and come with us, if you please.'
Boldero, who would have jumped over the mountain-side if Maud had bidden
him, at once dismounted. Desvoeux fell behind, and said not one word
during the rest of the homeward journey.