Part 13 (1/2)

CHAPTER XXII.

LOVE IS BEGUN.

Love is begun--thus much is come to pa.s.s; The rest is easy.

Sutton rode onward in a condition of happy bewilderment. He recalled the conversation, every word Maud had spoken--her look, her tone: and as he did so the result of the whole seemed to take a deeper hold upon his mind. An afternoon's ride with a pretty girl--what was there in it to a man like Sutton, the experienced companion of so many who had both the power and the will to charm? What was there in this child to whom he had shown the mere ordinary good-nature due to her circ.u.mstances, that all of a sudden, he hardly knew whether by her doing or his own, he should find himself completely fascinated? How was it, too, that the first woman with whom he really felt in love should be so different from the ideal which all his life he had set before himself of what was especially lovable? In his childhood he had loved Felicia with the spontaneous and unconcealed attachment of a near relation. Then had followed years of school, long expeditions abroad, a life which soon became adventurous, grave cares, anxieties and interests at a time when most lads are still trifling over their lessons. Sutton had not only to push his own way in life, but to keep guard over others less capable than himself, of whom he found himself, while still a boy, const.i.tuted the natural protector. His mother, suddenly left a widow, had looked to him unhesitatingly for counsel, protection and--so Sutton's account book would have testified--supplies, which he was ill able to contribute.

Brothers had had to be set a-going, and kept a-going, in that troublesome and anxious process of making a livelihood in a world where no one is in the least want of one's services. Then Fortune and Valour had combined to push Sutton forward as a soldier, and one or two adventures, brilliant because they were not disastrous, made him a reputation which secured him constant employment. When, years later, he had met Felicia again, a newly-arrived bride, in the Sandy Tracts, though he felt towards her the same affection as ever, it had not occurred to him to envy the man who was now lawful possessor of that to which he might have seemed, had circ.u.mstances allowed, a natural pretender. He had remained the loyal friend of both. None the less was Felicia the typical conception in his mind of what a woman ought to be.

Her grave, refined serenity; her unstudied dignity of form and gesture; her mirthfulness flas.h.i.+ng all about a melancholy mood; her sorrows so acutely felt, so bravely borne, so sedulously concealed; the prompt excitability that made the world full of pleasures and interests to her, and her a moving influence in the world; the tenderness of sympathy which, beginning in the little home centre, spread in increasing circles to all who came within her range of thought or action and enthroned her mistress of a hundred hearts,--made up the type which his imagination had adored. Now he was startled to find himself kneeling at quite another shrine, adoring quite another deity, and adoring it, as he was constrained to confess to himself, with a sudden, vehement devotion, characteristic rather of boyish enthusiasm than of the mature sobriety of middle age.

Anyhow, as Sutton rode into the yard of the little inn where dinner awaited him, he wished, for the first time in his life, that the campaign was well over and himself safe back again at the pacific pursuits on which duty was just now sternly calling him to turn his back.

Here he found the Agent and Desvoeux, who had been busy all the afternoon with despatches and were waiting now for the moonlight to allow them to get forward on their journey.

Desvoeux, as was always the case in times of difficulty, had risen to the occasion and fully justified the confidence of those who placed a seeming fop in a responsible position. He had been working all day like a slave, and he was now dining like an Epicurean, and in higher spirits than Epicureans mostly are. The Agent, who kept him in thorough order and got an inordinate amount of first-rate work out of him at times, rewarded him by a generous confidence and a liberty of speech in private, which no other subordinate enjoyed. A jaded, weary official, with an uncomfortably lively scepticism as to the usefulness of himself and his system to the world, forced into all sorts of new and uncomfortable conditions, could not but be grateful to an a.s.sistant whose spirits, like Desvoeux's, were always in inverse ratio to the darkness of surrounding things, whose cynicism was always amusing, and whose observations on the world around and above him, if frequently somewhat impertinent, were never without good sense and insight.

At present both Desvoeux and his master were abusing Blunt over an excellent bottle of champagne. Sutton was soon installed at the banquet, which presently began _da capo_ on his account.

'We shall have no moon till eleven,' said the Agent; 'so Desvoeux and I are amusing ourselves by inveighing against poor Blunt for the kettle of fish he has set a-boiling down below; and which you and your troopers, Sutton, must dispose of as best you can. It is another instance of that bane of the service--zeal. Tallyrand was quite right to insist on no one having any of it.'

'Yes, sir,' said Desvoeux; 'Enthusiasm, Experience and Principle may be said to be the three rocks on which we get s.h.i.+pwrecked--enthusiasm, because it gives us affairs like this of Blunt's; experience----'

'Experience and principle require no ill.u.s.tration,' said the Agent, filling up Sutton's gla.s.s and his own. 'I feel how disastrous they are in my own case. But, seriously, one of the difficulties in dealing with a matter is that you always have to rescue it from the clutches of some one who knows too much by half about it, and who takes a host of details for granted of which n.o.body but himself has the faintest glimmer of understanding. You are right, Desvoeux, in naming experience as one of your banes; I qualify it by the addition of an epithet--inarticulate.'

'Oh!' cried Desvoeux, gaily, 'one takes that for granted. If men possessed the art of making themselves understood, there would be no difficulty in governing at all.'

'Yes,' said the Agent; 'officials and their reports remind one of cuttle-fish, beings capable of extruding an inky fluid for the purpose of concealing their intentions. And now, Sutton, king of men, tell us how soon you mean to lead the bold Acheans to the fray.'

'As fast as I can march the bold Acheans up. In three days at the furthest I hope to be well into the enemy's country; the mule battery will, I expect, do wonders in bringing about a loyal state of mind, and I may rely on the mules and camels for my commissariat?'

'You may rely,' said the Agent; 'I sent word to Boldero yesterday.' And Sutton knew that on that score, at any rate, he might feel secure.

'Boldero,' cried Desvoeux, 'has no doubt by this time impressed every donkey in the province and has a cavalcade of camels awaiting us. The job will, it is to be hoped, have driven Miss Vernon out of his poor bleeding heart. Here is to her good health.'

'And here's to Mrs. Vereker's,' cried Sutton, who felt an urgent need of an immediate change in the conversation.

'Cruel, cruel Sutton,' cried Desvoeux, 'to suggest the mournful thought.

Let me see; it is half-past ten. I left at noon. I grieve to think that I have been forgotten an entire afternoon. Mrs. Vereker's recollections, I believe, never survive a repast. Luncheon, no doubt, swept me from her thoughts.'

'Desvoeux,' said the Agent, 'you are a very unfeeling young man. I believe I am rather in love with Mrs. Vereker myself.'

'Then, sir, I presume you will wish me to transfer my attentions elsewhere; but meanwhile let me dream of the paradise I have quitted--

In the clear heaven of her delightful eye An angel guard of loves and graces lie; Around her knees domestic duties meet----'

'So that,' interposed the Agent, 'as you look at her face, and not at her knees, you naturally see more of the loves and graces than of the domestic duty.'