AN ELYSIAN PICNIC.
Nay, the world—the world,
All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart
To interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue
To blaze its own interpretation!
Three gallant officers, who had been enjoying the hospitality of Elysium for many weeks, were fired one day with a noble resolve to show their gratitude to the gentlemen and their devotion to the ladies by whom they had been so pleasantly entertained. It was an inspiration, everybody felt at once, and all Elysium thrilled with conscious responsiveness at the happy thought. There is a little valley near Elysium, a mile or two from the mountain's summit, where a green, smooth sward invites the weary climber to repose; where venerable deodars, towering on the steep hillside, stretch their limbs to ward off the fierce afternoon sun; where a headlong stream comes bubbling down among the thick-grown ferns and falls in a feathery cascade and disappears in the gorge below; where the Genius of the Mountains has, in fact, its chosen haunt. There you may sit and watch the rose-tipped snowy range warming into fresh life and beauty as the sun goes down, and fading into cold gloom as he disappears. Here, in a hundred suggestive nooks, Nature has hinted at a sylvan tête-à-tête, or spread a verdant curtain of wild growth to festoon an al fresco banquet; and here it was that the three inspired officers resolved to give an entertainment that should at once do justice to the warmth of their feelings, the correctness of their tastes, and the profuseness of their liberality.
It was to be a picnic—the picnic of the season—the picnic of the world; and if enchanting scenery, a cloudless sky, enthusiastic hosts, a crowd of pretty women, an army of devoted men, a community not too blasé to be easily amused, nor yet so unused to pleasure as not to know how to take it—if all these ingredients, backed with the music of a lovely band crashing out among the rocks, cookery over which, by gracious permission, the Viceroy's own chef presided, and champagne, iced to perfection in Himalayan snows, could make a success, then it would, as Maud expected, be indeed an era in the lives of all concerned.
Mrs. Vereker, though perhaps less sanguine than her more youthful companion, determined to have a new dress for the occasion; and a committee of adorers discussed the rival merits of half-a-dozen projected costumes. Mrs. Vereker, however, treated all their suggestions with contempt, and determined in the depths of her own consciousness on something that should be a sweet surprise.
Maud, happily, had one of her English treasures which was still unknown to the admiring public, and which she felt at once would be the very thing.
For some days nothing but the picnic could be talked of in Elysium; what to wear at it, how to get to it, how to return, were topics of the liveliest interest to all. A hundred pleasant plans in connection with it shaped themselves into being. General Beau, who liked being beforehand with the world, secured for himself the honour of escorting Mrs. Vereker; and Desvœux, as a matter of course, established his claim to act as Maud's gentleman-in-waiting on the occasion. By this time her spirits were very high and impatient of all that seemed to check their flow. She was flirting with Desvœux, she knew, in the most open manner, yet she resented any notice being taken of it. Boldero had met her at a croquet party and been very disagreeable. He confessed to having been two days in Elysium, and could or would give no account of why he had not been to call. 'How unkind and unlike the old Mr Boldero whom we all liked so much! How you are changed!'
'Yes,' Boldero said, flushing up quite red, so that Maud knew that he meant more than met the ear, 'and some one else is changed too and might not care about her former friends.'
'What do you mean?' Maud said, disturbed at Boldero's serious air; 'how can I care about you, if you won't come and see me? Come now, and take me across the lawn for an ice, and tell me what it is that is the matter.'
'I do not think I can tell you,' said Boldero, greatly alarmed at finding himself committed to a lecture; 'you will not like it; you want a scolding.'
'Well,' said Maud, 'I like scoldings from my friends, and I often deserve them, and often get them, goodness knows. Give me one now; only you must be quick, please, because there is Mr. Desvœux signalling me, and I have promised to go for a ride with him.'
'Don't,' said Boldero, with great alacrity; 'stay and hear my lecture. Let me go and say you would rather not.'
'Not for the world!' cried Maud; 'I am looking forward to it immensely; he would be broken-hearted if I disappointed him, poor fellow. How would you like it yourself?'
'Broken-hearted!' said Boldero, with that peculiar turn of contempt in his voice with which her husband and his friends always vexed Maud by speaking of Desvœux.
'How disagreeable you are!' said Maud. 'Don't you know he is my particular friend?'
'Friend!' said Boldero; 'he is the very worst enemy you have, believe me. Forgive me, as your husband's old friend, if I tell you the truth when, it seems, no one else will. He is making you talked of; and if you could only know how people talk! He knows it, and he likes it, and it is what he is always doing.'
'And what you are always doing,' said Maud in a passion, 'is coming and saying the most horrid things in the most disagreeable way and joining the horrid people who gossip about one. Do they talk of me? Then why don't you make them eat their words—you, who used to be my friend?'
'I am your friend,' said the other with a grave persistence, 'and Sutton's too. It is because I am that I risk your displeasure by telling you that you are doing wrong.'
'Doing wrong?' cried Maud, by this time quite flushed with excitement and hardly mistress of her words; 'how dare you say so? You know it is false. I am alone, or you would not venture to insult me.'
'Come,' said Boldero, unmoved by the taunt, of which Maud herself felt the outrageous injustice, 'be sensible, and let me take care of you this evening: do me a kind act for once.'
'Thank you,' said Maud, the tears gleaming in her eyes, 'and hear such things as you have been saying over again? Take care of me, indeed! Please never speak to me again!'
She was gone, leaving her companion discomfited. In another instant Desvœux was at her side, and, as he lifted her to her pony, said something which made her laugh and blush. Boldero would have liked to throttle him.
Maud's conscience, however, prevented her full enjoyment of the ride. She knew as well as possible that Boldero was telling her truth: she was doing wrong, she felt only too distinctly. Boldero would have cut his fingers off to please her, and she had chosen to misunderstand him. Still it was too provoking to be lectured. When she got home there was a letter from Dustypore, which told her that Felicia too had heard of her proceedings and was wanting to warn her. 'You must not forget, dear Maud,' the letter said, 'what a home of gossip Elysium is, and how all that is young and pretty and interesting is what gossip busies itself most about. Some men, like Mr. Desvœux, for instance, have only to look at one for the gossipers to begin; but I know you will be very judicious, even at the expense of being somewhat too particular. How I wish I were with you!'
'They all want to tease me with their horrid advice and hints,' Maud thought, in vexation of heart; 'as for Mr. Boldero, he was too odious: I can never, never forgive him.'
Then, as if all the world were in a conspiracy, Mrs. Fotheringham, whom Maud met at a dinner-party that night, pounced upon her as the ladies were filing into the drawing-room and made her come and sit down on a remote sofa.
Maud always believed, probably not without justice, that Mrs. Fotheringham bore her a grudge for being married before the two Miss Fotheringhams. She was, accordingly, quite indisposed to be lectured.
'My dear,' Mrs. Fotheringham said, 'an old woman may sometimes give a young one a friendly hint. You don't know the world as I do, with my twenty years of India. Now, don't be angry with me if I give you a bit of advice. Take care! Young wives whose husbands are in the Plains cannot take too much.'
This seemed the last drop in the overflowing cup of annoyance and humiliation. Maud felt excessively indignant. It was an impertinence surely for Mrs. Fotheringham to venture to speak so.
'And what am I to take care of?' she said; 'and what right have you to speak to me in this way?'
'Take care of your companions, my dear. You have chosen the most dangerous, the worst you could find—Mr. Desvœux.'
'Stop, stop!' cried Maud, jumping up in a fury; 'he is my friend, my kind friend. I will not hear him abused.'
'You must be on your guard,' continued the other, with exasperating pertinacity; 'he is very unprincipled.'
'I know he is very agreeable,' cried Maud; 'unprincipled! what do you mean by that?'
'I mean—I mean,' said the other, 'that he is dangerous—just the sort of man to try to kiss you, if you gave him the chance.'
'Indeed?' cried Maud, by this time in far too great a passion to be either courteous or discreet, 'I should think none the worse of him for that. I believe they all would!' Having delivered this parting shot, Maud hurried away in a great state of agitation, and Mrs. Fotheringham shrugged her shoulders in despair at so unseemly an outburst of temper, so awful a view of human nature.
When they got home that night Maud told Mrs. Vereker her troubles, and was relieved to find what slight importance she attached to them. She burst out laughing, and clapped her hands in delight at Maud's account of the encounter with Mrs. Fotheringham. 'But, my dear child, what induced you to make such a foolish speech? And as for Mr. Boldero, he wanted you himself, don't you understand? Flirt a little with him to-morrow and see how much he will want to lecture you then.'
'But he won't flirt with me,' said Maud; 'it is very odd. Besides, I was in a passion, and told him never to speak to me again. Poor fellow!'
'You dear little goose!' Mrs. Vereker said, kissing her, 'sit down this instant and write and tell him you are broken-hearted for being so rude, and that he is to come to lunch and finish his lecture to-morrow. You must not quarrel with all the world at once.'
Of Felicia's letter Mrs. Vereker equally made light. 'She means nothing, my dear, except what I preach to you and practise myself, discretion and moderation. So many dances in the evening, so many rides in the week, so many lunches, so many looks, so many smiles, and so forth. Besides, you know, Mrs. Vernon is a prude, a born prude; she breathes a congenial atmosphere of proprieties where I should be suffocated. She likes men to be polite, and only polite; I take them up where politeness ends and something else begins. She likes small-beer; I happen to prefer champagne, bright, sparkling and intoxicatingly delicious! Besides,' rattled on Mrs. Vereker, quite at ease with a familiar topic, 'Mrs. Vernon is a flirt too, in her prudish way. She flirts, she used to flirt with your husband scandalously, I hope he behaves better now. Mine is a monster, and makes me cry my eyes out. But, I tell you what, my dear Maud, there is great safety in numbers. Don't speak to that saucy Desvœux for a fortnight, and turn your pretty eyes on some one else, the first you fancy. Would you like my General? or Parson Boldero? Take him in hand, my dear, and in a week we will make the horrid fellow flirt just as much as his neighbours.'
'He's a very bad hand at it at present,' said Maud, with a laugh.
However, the result of the conference was that Maud sat down and wrote a pretty little repentant note: and the next day Boldero came with a beating heart and took the little scapegrace for a ride, and scolded her very affectionately, much to his own satisfaction, through a whole pleasant summer afternoon.