The moment I entered the drawing-room, where Winifred Lloyd had been doing her utmost to amuse her various guests till we came, and where undoubtedly the ladies' faces grew brighter when we appeared, I felt conscious that the remark of the hoydenish Dora had done me some little mischief. I could read this in the face of the haughty Estelle, together with her fear thatothersmight have heard it; thus, instead of seating myself near her, as I wished and had fully intended, I remained rather aloof, and leaving her almost exclusively to the industrious Guilfoyle, divided my time between listening to Winifred, who, with Caradoc, proceeded to perform the duet he had sent her from the barracks, and endeavouring to make myself agreeable to the Countess--a process rather, I am sorry to say, somewhat of a task to me. Though her dark hair was considerably seamed with gray, her forehead was without a line, smooth and unwrinkled as that of a child--care, thought, reflection, or sorrow had never visitedher. Wealth and rank, with a naturally aristocratic indolence and indifference of mind, had made the ways of life and of the world--at least, the world in which she lived--easy, soft, and pleasant, and all her years had glided brilliantly but monotonously on. She had married the late earl to please her family rather than herself, because he was undoubtedly an eligibleparti; and she fully expected their only daughter to act exactly in the same docile manner. Her mien and air were stately, reserved, and uninviting; her eyes were cold, inquiring, and searching in expression, and I fancied that they seemed to watch and follow me, as if she really and naturally suspected me of "views," or, as she would have deemed them,designs.
Amid the commonplaces I was venturing to utter to this proud, cold, and decidedly unpleasant old dame, whose goodwill and favour I was sedulously anxious to gain, it was impossible for me to avoid hearing some remarks that Sir Madoc made concerning me, and to her daughter.
"I am so glad you like my young friend, Lady Estelle," said the bluff baronet, leaning over her chair, his rubicund face beaming with smiles and happiness; for he was in best of moods after a pleasant dinner, with agreeable society and plenty of good wine.
"Who told you that I did so?" asked she, looking up with fresh annoyance, yet not unmixed with drollery, in her beautiful face.
"Dora and Winny too; and I am so pleased, for he is an especial friend of ours. I love the lad for his dead mother's sake--she was an old flame of mine in my more romantic days--and doesn't he deserve it? What do you think the colonel of his old corps says of him?"
"Really, Sir Madoc, I know not--that he is quite a ladykiller, perhaps; to be such is the ambition of most young subalterns."
"Better than that. He wrote me, that young Hardinge is all that a British officer ought to be; that he has a constitution of iron--could sleep out in all weathers, in a hammock or under a tree--till the fever attacked him at least. If provisions were scanty, he'd share his last biscuit with a comrade; on the longest and hottest march he never fell out or became knocked up; and more than once he has been seen carrying a couple of muskets, the arms of those whose strength had failed them. 'I envy the Royal Welsh their acquisition, and regret thatwehave lost him'--these were the colonel's very words."
Had I fee'd or begged him to plead my cause, he could not have been more earnest or emphatic.
"For heaven's sake, Sir Madoc, do stop this overpowering eulogium," said I; "it is impossible for one not to overhear, when one's own name is mentioned. But did the colonel really say all this of me?"
"All, and more, Harry."
"It should win him a diploma of knight-bachelor," said Lady Estelle, laughing, "a C.B., perhaps a baronetcy."
"Nay," said Sir Madoc; "such rewards are reserved now for toad-eaters, opulent traders, tuft-hunters, and ministerial tools; the days when true merit was rewarded are gone, my dear Lady Estelle."
The duet over, Phil Caradoc drew near me, for evidently he was not making much progress with Miss Lloyd.
"Well, Phil," said I, in a low voice, "among those present have you seen your ideal of woman?"
"Can't say," said he, rather curtly; "butyouhave, at all events, old fellow, and I think Sir Madoc has done a good stroke of business for you by his quotation of the colonel's letter. I heard him all through our singing--the old gentleman has no idea of asotto voce, and talks always as if he were in the hunting-field. By Jove, Harry, you grow quite pink!" he continued, laughing. "I see how the land lies with you; but as for 'la mèreCressingham,' she is an exclusive of the first water, a match-maker by reputation; and I fear you have not the ghost of a chance with her."
"Hush, Caradoc," said I, glancing nervously about me "remember that we are not at Winchester, or inside the main-guard, just now. But see, Lady Estelle and that fellow Guilfoyle are about to favour us," I added, as the pale beauty spread her ample skirts over the piano-stool, with an air that, though all unstudied, seemed quite imperial, and ran her slender fingers rapidly over the white keys, preluding an air; while Guilfoyle, who had a tolerable voice and an intolerable amount of assurance, prepared to sing by fussily placing on the piano a piece of music, on the corner of which was written in a large and bold hand, evidently his own--"To Mr. H. Guilfoyle, from H.S.H. the Princess of Catzenelnbogen."
"You must have been a special favourite with this lady," said Estelle, "as most of your German music is inscribed thus."
"Yes, we were always exchanging our pieces and songs," said he, languidly and in a low voice close to her ear, yet not so low as to be unheard by me. "I was somewhat of a favourite with her, certainly; but then the Princess was quite a privileged person."
"In what respect?"
"She could flirt farther than any one, and yet never compromise herself. However, when she bestowed this ring upon me, on the day when I saved her life, by arresting her runaway horse on the very brink of the Rhine, I must own that his Highness the Prince was the reverse of pleased, and viewed me with coldness ever after; so that ultimately I resigned my office of attaché, just about the time I had the pleasure--may I call it the joy?--of meeting you."
"O fie, Mr. Guilfoyle! were you actually flirting with her?"
"Nay, pardon me; I never flirt."
"You were in love then?"
"I was never in love till--"
A crash of notes as she resumed the air interrupted whatever he was about to say; but his eye told more than his bold tongue would perhaps have dared to utter in such a time or place; and, aware that they had met on the Continent, and had been for some time together in the seclusion of Craigaderyn, I began to fear that he must have far surpassed me in the chances of interest with her.. Moreover, Dora's foolish remark might reasonably lead her to suppose that I was already involved with Winifred; and now, with a somewhat cloudy expression in my face (as a mirror close by informed me), and a keen sense of pique in my heart, I listened while she played the accompaniment to his pretty long German song, the burden of which seemed to be ever and always--
"Ach nein! ach nein! ich darf es nich.Leb wohl! Leb' wohl! Leb' wohl!"
"Ach nein! ach nein! ich darf es nich.Leb wohl! Leb' wohl! Leb' wohl!"
Sir Madoc, who had listened with some secret impatience to this most protracted German ditty, now begged his fair guest to favour him with something Welsh; but as she knew no airs pertaining to the locality, she resigned her place to Winifred, whom I led across the room, and by whose side I remained. After the showy performances of Lady Estelle, she was somewhat reluctant to begin: all the more so, perhaps, that her friend--with rather questionable taste, certainly--was wont, in a spirit of mischief or raillery--but one pardons so much in lovely woman, especially one of rank--to quiz Wales, its music and provincialism; just as, when in the Highlands, she had laughed at the natives, and voted "their sham chiefs and gatherings as delightfully absurd." Finding that his daughter lingered ere she began, and half suspecting the cause, Sir Madoc threatened to send for Owen Gwyllim, the butler, with his harp. Owen had frequently accompanied her with his instrument; but though that passed well enough occasionally among homely Welsh folks, it would never do when Lady Naseby and certain others were present.
"It is useless for an English girl to sing in a foreign language, or attempt to rival paid professional artists, by mourning like Mario from the turret, or bawling like Edgardo in the burying-ground, or to give us 'Stride la vampa' in a fashion that would terrify Alboni," said Sir Madoc, "or indeed to attempt any of those operatic effusions with which every hand organ has made us familiar. So come, Winny, a Welsh air, or I shall ring for Owen."
This rather blundering speech caused Lady Estelle to smile, and Guilfoyle, whose "Leb' wohl" had been something of the style objected to, coloured very perceptibly. Thus urged, Winifred played and sang with great spirit "The March of the Men of Harlech;" doubtless as much to compliment Caradoc and me as to please her father; for it was then our regimental march; and, apart from its old Welsh associations, it is one of the finest effusions of our old harpers. Sir Madoc beat time, while his eyes lit up with enthusiasm, and he patted his daughter's plump white shoulders kindly with his weather-brown but handsome hands; for the old gentleman rather despised gloves, indoors especially, as effeminate.
Winifred had striven to please rather than to excel; and though tremulous at times, her voice was most attractive.
"Thank you," said I, in a low and earnest tone; "your execution is just of that peculiar kind which leaves nothing more to be wished for, and while it lasts, Winny, inspires a sense of joy in one's heart."
"You flatter me much--far too much," replied Miss Lloyd, in a lower and still more tremulous tone, as she grew very pale; for some girls will do so, when others would flush with emotion, and it was evident that my praise gave her pleasure; she attached more to my words than they meant.
An undefinable feeling of pique now possessed me--a sensation of disappointment most difficult to describe; but it arose from a sense of doubt as to how I really stood in the estimation of the fair Estelle. Taking an opportunity, while Sir Madoc was emphatically discussing the points and pedigrees of certain horses and harriers with Guilfoyle and other male friends, while the Countess and other ladies were clustered about Winifred at the piano, and Dora and Caradoc were deep in some affair of their own, I leaned over her chair, and referring--I forget now in what terms--to the last time we met, or rather parted, I strove to effect that most difficult of all moves in the game of love--to lead back the emotions, or the past train of thought, to where they had been dropped, or snapped by mischance, to the time when I had bid her lingeringly adieu, after duly shawling and handing her to the carriage, at the close of a late rout in Park-lane, when the birds of an early June morning were twittering in the trees of Hyde Park, when the purple shadows were lying deep about the Serpentine, when the Ring-road was a solitude, the distant Row a desert, and the yawning footmen in plush and powder, and the usually rubicund coachmen, looking weary, pale, and impatient, and when the time and place were suited neither for delay nor dalliance. Yet, as I have elsewhere said, an avowal of all she had inspired within me was trembling on my lips as I led her through the marble vestibule and down the steps, pressing her hand and arm the while against my side; but her mother's voice from the depths of the carriage (into which old Lord Pottersleigh had just handed her) arrested a speech to which she might only have responded by silence, then at least; and I had driven,viâPiccadilly, to the Junior U.S., when Westminster clock was paling out like a harvest moon beyond the Green Park, cursing my diffidence, that delayed all I had to say till the carriage was announced, thereby missing the chance that never might come again. And then I had but the memory of a lovely face, framed by a carriage window, regarding me with a bright yet wistful smile, and of a soft thrilling pressure returned by an ungloved hand, that was waved to me from the same carriage as it rolled away westward. The night had fled, and there remained of it only the memory of this, and of those glances so full of tenderness, and those soft attentions or half endearments which are so charming, and so implicitly understood, as almost to render language, perhaps, un necessary.
"You remember the night we last met, and parted, in London?" I whispered.
"Morning, rather, I think it wash" said she, fanning herself; "but night or morning, it was a most delightful ball. I had not enjoyed myself anywhere so much that season, and it was a gay one."
"Ah, you have not forgotten it, then," said I, encouraged.
"No; it stands out in my memory as one night among many happy ones. Day was almost breaking when you led me to the carriage, I remember."
"Can you remember nothing more?' I asked, earnestly.
"You shawled me most attentively--"
"And I was whispering--"
"Something foolish, no doubt; men are apt to do so at such times," she replied, while her white eyelids quivered and she looked up at me with her calm, bright smile.
"Something foolish!" thought I, reproachfully; "and then, as now, my soul seemed on my lips."
"Do you admire Mr. Guilfoyle's singing?" she asked, after a little pause, to change the subject probably.
"His voice is unquestionably good and highly cultured," said I, praising him truthfully enough to conceal the intense annoyance her unexpected question gave me; "but, by the way, Lady Estelle, how does it come to pass that he has the honour of knowing you--to behere, too?"
"How--why--whatdo, you mean, Mr. Hardinge?" she asked, and I could perceive that after colouring slightly she grew a trifle paler than before. "He is a visitor here, like you or myself. We met him abroad first; he was most kind to us when mamma lost all her passports at the Berlin Eisenbahnhof, and he accompanied us to the Alte Leipziger Strasse for others, and saw us safely to our carriage. Then, by the most singular chances, we met him again at the new Kursaal of Ems, at Gerolstein, when we were beginning the tour of the Eifel, and at Baden-Baden. Lastly, we met him at Llandudno, on the beach, quite casually, when driving with Sir Madoc, to whom he said that he knew you--that you were quite old friends, in fact."
"Knew me, by Jove! that is rather odd. I only lost some money to him; enough to make me wary for the future."
"Wary?" she asked, with dilated eyes.
"Yes."
"An unpleasant expression, surely. Sir Madoc, who is so hospitable, asked him here to see the lions of Craigaderyn, and has put a gun at his disposal for the twelfth."
"How kind of unthinking Sir Madoc! A most satisfactory explanation," said I, cloudily, while gnawing my moustache. Guilfoyle had too evidently followed them.
"If any explanation were necessary," was the somewhat haughty response, as the mother-of-pearl fan went faster than ever, and she looked me full in the face with her clear, dark, and penetrating eyes, to the sparkle of which the form of their lids, and their thick fringe of black lash, served to impart a softness that was indeed required. "Do you know anything of him?" she added.
"No; that is--"
"Anything against him?"
"No, Lady Estelle."
"What then?" she asked, a little petulantly.
"Simply that I, pardon me, think a good deal."
"More than you would say?"
"Perhaps."
"This is not just. Mamma is somewhat particular, as you know; and our family solicitor, Mr. Sharpus, who is his legal friend also, speaks most warmly of him. We met him in the best society--abroad, of course; but, Mr. Hardinge, your words, your manner, more than all, your tone, imply what I fear Mr. Guilfoyle would strongly resent. But please go and be attentive to mamma--you have scarcely been near her to-night," she added quickly, as a flush of anger crossed my face, and she perceived it. I bowed and obeyed, with a smile on my lips and intense annoyance in my heart. I knew that the soft eyes of Winifred Lloyd had been on us from time to time; but my little flirtation withherwas a thing of the past now, and I was reckless of its memory. Was she so? Time will prove. I felt jealousy of Guilfoyle, pique at Lady Estelle, and rage at my own mismanagement. I had sought to resume the tenor of our thoughts and conversation on the occasion of our parting after that joyous and brilliant night in Park-lane, when my name on her engagement card had appeared thrice for that of any one else; but if I had touched her heart, even in the slightest degree, would she have become, as it seemed, almost warm in defence of this man, a waif picked up on the Continent? Yet, had she any deeper interest in him than mere acquaintanceship warranted, would she have spoken of him so openly, and so candidly, to me?
Heavens! we had actually been covertly fencing, and nearly quarrelling! Yet, if so, why should she be anxious for me to win the estimation of "mamma"? Lady Naseby had been beautiful in her time, and the utter vacuity and calm of her mind had enabled her to retain much of that beauty unimpaired; and I thought that her daughter, though with more sparkle and brilliance, would be sure to resemble her very much at the same years. She was not displeased to meet with attention, but was shrewd enough to see, and disdainful enough to resent, its being bestowed, as she suspected it was in my instance, on account of her daughter; thus I never had much success; for on the night of that very rout in London my attentions in that quarter, and their apparent good fortune, had excited her parental indignation and aristocratic prejudices against me.
After all the visitors had withdrawn (as horses or carriages were announced in succession), save one or two fox-hunters whom Guilfoyle had lured into the billiard-room for purposes of his own, when the ladies left us at night Lady Estelle did not give me her hand. She passed me with a bow and smile only, and as she swept through the gilded folding doors of the outer drawing-room, with an arm round Dora's waist, her backward glances fell on all--but me. Why was this? Was this coldness of manner the result of Guilfoyle's influence, fear of her mamma, her alleged engagement with old Lord Pottersleigh, pique at myself caused by Dora's folly, or what? It was the old story of "trifles light as air." I felt wrathful and heavy at heart, and repented bitterly the invitation I had accepted, and the leave I had asked; for Lady Estelle seemed so totally unconcerned and indifferent to me now, considering theempressementwith which we had parted in London.
The "family solicitor," too! He had been introduced as a mutual friend in the course of affairs--in the course of a friendship that had ripened most wonderfully. Was this Hawkesby Guilfoyle a fool, or a charlatan, or both? His various versions of the diamond ring would seem to show that he was the former. What fancy had the Countess for him, and why was he tolerated by Sir Madoc? Familiar though I was with my old friend, I felt that I could not, without a violation of good taste, ask a question about a guest, especially one introduced by the Cressinghams. His voice was soft in tone; his manner, when he chose, was suave; his laugh at all times, even when he mocked and sneered, which was not unfrequent, silvery and pleasing; yet he was evidently one who could "smile and smile and be"--I shall not exactly say what. While smoking a cigar, I pondered over these and other perplexing things in my room before retiring for the night, hearing ever and anon the click of the billiard-balls at the end of the corridor. Had I not the same chance and right of competition as this Guilfoyle, though unknown to the "family solicitor"? How far had he succeeded in supplanting me, and perhaps others? for that there were others I knew. How far had he gone in his suit--how prospered? How was I to construe the glances I had seen exchanged, the half speech so bluntly made, and so adroitly drowned at the piano? Who was he? what was he? The attaché of the mock embassy at a petty German Court! Surely my position in society was as good, if not better defined than his; while youth, appearance, health, and strength gave me every advantage over an "old fogie" like Viscount Pottersleigh.
As if farther to inflame my pique, and confirm the chagrin and irritation that grew within me on reflection, Phil Caradoc, smoothing his moustache, came into my room, which adjoined his, to have, as he said, "a quiet weed before turning in." He looked ruffled; for he had lost money at billiards--that was evident--and to the object of my jealousy, too.
"That fellow Guilfoyle is a thorough Bohemian if ever there was one!" said he, as he viciously bit off the end of his cigar prior to lighting it, "with his inimitable tact, his steady stroke at billiards, his scientific whist, his coolness and perfect breeding: yet he is, I am certain, unless greatly mistaken, a regular free-lance, without the bravery or brilliance that appertained to the name of old--a lawless ritter of the gaming-table, and one that can't even act his part well or consistently in being so. He has been spinning another story about that ring, with which I suppose, like Claude Melnotte's, we shall hear in time his grandfather, the Doge of Venice, married the Adriatic I am certain," continued Caradoc, who was unusually ruffled, "that though a vainglorious and boasting fellow, he is half knave, half fool, and wholly adventurer!"
"This is strong language, Phil. Good heavens! do you really think so?" I asked, astonished to find him so boldly putting my own thoughts into words.
"I am all but convinced of it," said he, emphatically. "But how in such society?"
"Ah, that is the rub, and the affair of Sir Madoc, and of Lady Naseby, and of Lady Estelle, too, for she seems to take rather more than an interest in him--they have some secret understanding. . By Jove! I can't make it out at all."
Caradoc's strong convictions and unusual bluntness added fuel to my pique and chagrin, and I resolved that, come what might, I would end the matter ere long; and I thought the while of the song of Montrose--
"He either fears his fate too much,Or his deserts are small,Who dares not put it to the touch,To gain or lose it all!"
"He either fears his fate too much,Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,To gain or lose it all!"
The following day was Sunday; and ere it closed, there occurred a little contretemps which nearly lost me all chance of putting to the issue whether I was "to gain or lose it all" with Estelle Cressingham.
I felt that it was quite possible, if I chose, to have my revenge through the sweet medium of Winifred Lloyd; yet, though Lady Estelle's somewhat pointed defence of Guilfoyle rankled in my memory, and Caradoc's hints had added fuel to the flame, I shrunk from such a double game, and hoped that the chances afforded by propinquity in general, and the coming fête in particular, would soon enable me to come to a decision. My mind was full of vague irritation against her; yet when I rose in the morning, my one and predominant thought was that I should see her again. Carriages and horses had been ordered from the stable for our conveyance to Craigaderyn church, a three miles' drive through lovely scenery, and I resolved to accompany the sisters in the barouche, leaving whom fate directed to take charge of Lady Estelle; yet great was my contentment when she fell to the care of Sir Madoc in the family carriage. Lady Naseby did not appear, her French soubrette, Mademoiselle Babette Pompon, announcing that she was indisposed. Guilfoyle and Caradoc rode somewhat unwillingly together, and I sat opposite Winny, who insisted on driving, and was duly furnished with the smartest of parasol whips--pink, with a white fringe. Quitting the park, we skirted a broad trout stream, the steep banks of which were clad with light-green foliage, and nameNant-y-belan, or the "Martens' dingle." At the bottom the river foamed along over broken and abutting rocks, or flowed in dark and noiseless pools, where the brown trout lurked in the shade, and where the overarching trees and grassy knolls were reflected downward in the depth.
Hawkesby Guilfoyle sat his horse--one of Sir Madoc's hunters, fully sixteen hands high--so well, and looked so handsome and gentlemanly, his riding costume was so complete, even to his silver spurs, well-fitting buff gloves, and riding switch, that I felt regret in the conviction that some cloud hung over the fellow's antecedents, and present life too, perhaps; but with all that I could not forgive him his rivalry and, as I deemed it, presumption, with the strong belief that he was, in his secret heart; my enemy. He and Caradoc rode behind the open carriage; we led the way in the barouche; and a very merry and laughing party we were, as we swept by the base of the green hills of Mynedd Hiraethrog, and over the ancient bridge that spans Llyn Aled, to the church of Craigaderyn, where the entrance of Sir Madoc's family and their visitors caused periodically somewhat of a sensation among the more humble parishioners who were there, and were wont to regard with a species of respectful awe the great square pew, which was lined with purple velvet, and had a carved-oak table in the centre, and over the principal seat the lion's head erased, and the shield of Lloyd per bend sinister, ermine and pean, a lion rampant, armed with a sword.
With a roof of carved oak, brought from someotherplace (the invariable account of all such roofs in Wales), and built by Jorwerth ap Davydd Lloyd, in 1320, the church was a picturesque old place, where many generations of the Craigaderyn family had worshipped long before and since the Reformation, and whose bones, lapped in lead, and even in coffins of stone, lay in the burial vaults below. The oaken pews were high and deep, and were covered with dates, coats-of-arms, and quaint monograms. In some places the white slabs indicated where lay the remains of those who died but yesterday. Elsewhere, with helmet, spurs, and gloves of steel hung above their stony effigies, and covered by cobwebs and dust, lay the men of ages past and gone, their brasses and pedestal tombs bearing, in some instances, how stoutly and valiantly they had fought against the Spaniard, the Frenchman, and the Scot. One, Sir Madoc ap Meredyth Lloyd, whose sword hung immediately over my head, had wielded it, as his brass recorded, "contra Scotos apud Flodden et Musselboro;" and now the spiders were busy spinning their cobwebs over the rusted helmet through which this old Welsh knight had seen King James's host defile by the silver Till, and that of his fated granddaughter by the banks of the beautiful Esk. In other places I saw the more humble, but curious Welsh mode of commemorating the dead, by hanging up a coffin-plate, inscribed with their names, in the pews where they were wont to sit. Coats-of-arms met the eye on all sides--solid evidences of birth and family, which more than once evoked a covert sneer from Guilfoyle, who to his other bad qualities added the pride and the envy of such things, that seem inseparable from the character of the parvenu. There were two services in Craigaderyn church each Sunday, one in Welsh, the other in English. Sir Madoc usually attended the former; but in courtesy to Lady Estelle, he had come to the latter to-day.
Over all the details of the village fane my eyes wandered from time to time, always to rest on the face of Estelle Cressingham or of Winifred Lloyd, who was beside me, and who on this day, as I had accompanied her, seemed to feel that she had me all to herself. We read off the same book, as we had done years before in the same pew and place; ever and anon our gloved fingers touched; I felt her silk dress rustling against me; her long lashes and snowy lids, with the soft pale beauty of her downcast face, and her sweetly curved mouth, were all most pleasing and attractive; but thesenseof Estelle's presence rendered me invulnerable to all but her; and my eyes could not but roam to where she stood or knelt by the side of burly Sir Madoc, her fine face downcast too in the soft light that stole between the deep mullions and twisted tracery of an ancient stained-glass window, her noble and equally pure profile half seen and half hidden by a short veil of black lace; her rounded chin and lips rich in colour, and beautiful in character as those of one of Greuze's loveliest masterpieces. There, too, were the rich brightness of her hair, and the proud grace that pervaded all her actions, and even her stillness.
Thus, even when I did not look towards her, but in Winifred's face, or on the book we mutually held, and mechanically affected to read, a perception, a dreamy sense of Estelle's presence was about me, and I could not help reverting to our past season in London, and all that has been described by a writer as those "first sweet hours of communion, when strangers glide into friends; that hour which, either in friendship or in love, is as the bloom to the fruit, as the daybreak to the day, indefinable, magical, and fleeting;" the hours which saw me presented as a friend, and left me a lover. The day was intensely hot, and inside the old church, though some of the arched recesses and ancient tombs looked cool enough, there was a blaze of sunshine, that fell in hazy flakes or streams of coloured light athwart the bowed heads of the congregation. With heat and languor, there was also the buzz of insect life; and amid the monotonous tones of the preacher I loved to fancy him reading the marriage service for us--that is, for Estelle and myself--fancied it as an enthusiastic school-girl might have done; and yet how was it that, amid these conceits, the face and form of Winifred Lloyd, with her pretty hand in the tight straw-coloured kid glove, that touched mine, filled up the eye of the mind? Was I dreaming, or only about to sleep, like so many of the congregation--those toilers afield, those hardy hewers of wood and drawers of water, whose strong sinews, when unbraced, induced them to slumber now--the men especially, as the study of each other's toilets served to keep the female portion fully awake. When the clergyman prayed for the success of our arms in the strife that was to come, Winifred's dark eyes looked into mine for a moment, quick as light, and I saw her bosom swell; and when he prayed, "Give peace in our time, O Lord," her voice became earnest and tremulous in responding; and I could have sworn that I saw a tear oozing, but arrested, on the thick black eyelash of this impulsive Welsh girl, whom this part of the service, by its association and the time, seemed to move; but Lady Estelle was wholly intent on having one of her gloves buttoned by Guilfoyle, whose attendance she doubtless preferred to that of old Sir Madoc.
"Look!" said Winifred Lloyd, in an excited whisper, as she lightly touched my hand.
I followed the direction of her eye, and saw, seated at the end of the central aisle, modestly and humbly, among the free places reserved for the poor, a young woman, whose appearance was singularly interesting. Poorly, or rather plainly, attired in faded black, her face was remarkably handsome; and her whole air was perfectly ladylike. She was as pale as death, with a wild wan look in all her features; disease, or sorrow, or penury--perhaps all these together--had marked her as their own; her eyes, of clear, bright, and most expressive gray, were haggard and hollow, with dark circles under them. Black kid gloves showed her pretensions to neatness and gentility; but as they were frayed and worn, she strove to conceal her hands nervously under her gathered shawl.
"She is looking at you, Winifred," said Dora.
"No--at Estelle."
"At us all, I think," resumed Dora, in the same whispered tone; "and she has done so for some time past. Heavens! she seems quite like a spectre."
"Poor creature!" said Winifred; "we must inquire about her."
"Do you know her, Mr. Hardinge?" asked Dora.
"Nay, not I; it is Mr. Guilfoyle she is looking at," said I.
Guilfoyle, having achieved the somewhat protracted operation of buttoning Lady Estelle's lavender kid glove, now stuck his glass in his eye, and turned leisurely and languidly in the direction that attracted us all, just as the service was closing; but the pale woman quickly drew down her veil, and quitted the church abruptly, ere he could see her, as I thought; and this circumstance, though I took no heed of it then, I remembered in the time to come.
Winifred frankly took my arm as we left the church.
"You promised to come with me after luncheon and see the goat I have for the regiment," said she.
"Did I?--ah, yes--shall be most happy, I'm sure," said I, shamefully oblivious of the promise in question, as we proceeded towards the carriages, the people making way for us on all sides, the women curtseying and the men uncovering to Sir Madoc, who was a universal favourite, especially with the maternal portion of the parish, as he was very fond of children and flattered himself not a little on his power of getting on with them, being wont to stop mothers on the road or in the village street, and make knowing remarks on the beauty, the complexions, or the curly heads of their offspring while he was never without a handful of copper or loose silver for general distribution; and now it excited some surprise and even secret disdain in Guilfoyle--a little petulance in Lady Estelle too--to find him shaking hands and speaking in gutteral Welsh with some of the men cottagers, or peasant-women with jackets and tall odd hats. But one anecdote will suffice to show the character of Sir Madoc.
In the very summer of my visit, it had occurred that he had to serve on a jury when a property of some three thousand pounds or so was at issue; and when the jury retired, he found that they were determined to decide in such manner as he did not deem equitable, and which in the end would inevitably ruin an honest farmer named Evan Rhuddlan, father of a sergeant in my company of Welsh Fusileers, who dwelt at a place called Craig Eryri, or "the Rock of Eagles." Finding that they were resolute, he submitted, or affected to acquiesce in their decision; but on announcing it to the court he handed the losing party a cheque on Coutts and Co. for the whole sum in litigation, and became more than ever the idol of the country people.
"Romantic old place--casques, cobwebs, and all that sort of thing," said Guilfoyle, as he handed Lady Estelle into the carriage, and took the bridle of his horse from Bob Spurrit, the groom; "I thought Burke had written the epitaph of chivalry and all belonging to it."
"Yes, but romance still exists, Mr. Guilfoyle," said Winifred, whose face was bright with smiles.
"And love too, eh, Estelle?" added Dora, laughing.
"Even in the region of Mayfair, you think?" said she.
"Yes; and wherever there is beauty, that is rarest," said I.
But she only replied by one of her calm smiles; for she had a reticence of manner which there seemed to be no means of moving.
"Talking of love and romance, I should like to know more of that pale woman we saw in church to-day," said Dora.
"Why so?" asked Guilfoyle, curtly.
"Because I saw she must have some terrible story to tell.--What was the text, Mr. Caradoc?" she asked, as we departed homewards.
"Haven't the ghost of an idea," replied Phil.
"O fie!--or the subject?"
"No," said Caradoc, reddening a little; for he had been intent during the whole service on Winifred Lloyd.
"It was all about Jacob's ladder, of which we have had a most inaccurate notion hitherto," said Dora, as we drove down the long lime avenue, to find that, as the day was so sultry, luncheon had been laid for us by Owen Gwyllim under the grand old trees in the lawn, about thirty yards from the entrance-hall, under the very oak where the spectre of Sir Jorwerth Du was alleged to vanish, the oak of Owen Glendower; and where that doughty Cymbrian had perhaps sought to summon spirits from the vasty deep, we found spirits of another kind--brandy and seltzer, clicquot and sparkling moselle cooling in silver ice-pails on the greensward; and there too, awaiting us, sat Lady Naseby, smiling and fanning herself under the umbrageous shadows of the chase.
Over her stately head was pinned a fall of rich Maltese lace, that hung in lappets on each side--a kind of demi-toilette that well became her lingering beauty and matronly appearance.
In a mother-of-pearl basket by her side, and placed on the luncheon-table, lay Tiny, her shock, a diminutive cur, white as snow, spotless as Mademoiselle Babette with perfumed soap could make it, its long woolly hair dangling over its pink eyes, giving it, as Sir Madoc said, "a most pitiable appearance;" for with all his love of dogs, he disliked such pampered, waddling, and wheezing pets as this, and thought manhood never looked so utterly contemptible as when a tall "Jeames" in livery, with whiskers and calves, cane and nosegay, had the custody of such a quadruped, while his lady shopped in Regent-street or Piccadilly.
While we were at luncheon, and the swollen champagne-corks were flying upward into the green foliage overhead, and while Owen Gwyllim was supplying us with iced claret-cup from a great silver tankard presented to Sir Madoc's uncle by his regiment, the Ancient Britons, after the Irish rebellion of 1798, and with which he, Sir Madoc, had been wont to dispense swig or "brown Betty" on St. David's day, when at Cambridge--Dora, with her hair flying loose, her eyes sparkling, and her face radiant with excitement and merriment came tripping down the perron from the entrance hall, and across the lawn towards us, with the contents of the household post-bag. She seemed to have letters for every one, save me--letters which she dropped and picked up as she came along. There was quite a pile of notes for herself, on the subject of her approaching fête; and how busy her pretty little hands immediately became!
After the usual muttered apologies, all began to read.
There was a letter for Guilfoyle, on reading which he grew very white, exhibited great trepidation, and thrust it into his coat-pocket.
"What is up, sir?" asked Sir Madoc, pausing with a slice of cold fowl on his fork; "nothing unpleasant, I hope?'
"Sold on a bay mare--that is all," he replied, with an affected laugh, as if to dismiss the subject.
"How?" asked Sir Madoc, whom a "horsey" topic immediately interested.
"Like many other handicap 'pots' this season, my nag came in worse than second."
"A case of jockeying?"
"Pure and simple."
"When?"
"O, ah--York races."
"Why, man alive, they don't come off for a month yet!" responded Sir Madoc, somewhat dryly; but perceiving that his guest was awkwardly placed, he changed the subject by saying, "But your letter, Lady Estelle, gives you pleasure, I am glad to see."
"It is from Lord Pottersleigh. He arrives here to-morrow and hopes his rooms have a southern exposure."
"The fête-day--of course. His comforts shall be fully attended to."
"Why did he write toherabout this, and not to Sir Madoc or Miss Lloyd?" thought I.
"He is such an old friend," remarked Lady Estelle, as if she divined my mental query.
"Yes, rather too old for my taste," said the somewhat mischievous Dora. "He wears goloshes in damp weather, his hat down on the nape of his neck; is in an agony of mind about exposures, draughts, and currents of air; makes his horse shy every time he attempts to mount, and they go round in circles, eyeing each other suspiciously till a groom comes; and when he does achieve his saddle, he drops his whip or his gloves, or twists his stirrup-leather. And yet it is this old fogie whose drag at Epsom or the Derby makes the greatest show, has the finest display of lovely faces, fans, bonnets, and parasols--a moving Swan and Edgar, with a luncheon spread that Fortnum and Mason might envy, and champagne flowing as if from a fountain; but withal, he is so tiresome!"
"Dora, you quite forget yourself," said Winifred, while I could have kissed her for this sketch of my rival, at which Sir Madoc, and even Estelle Cressingham, laughed; but Lady Naseby said, with some asperity of tone,
"Lord Pottersleigh is one of our richest peers, Miss Dora, and his creation dates from Henry VIII."
"And he is to dance with me," said the heedless girl, still laughing. "O, won't I astonish his nerves if we waltz!"
"Your cousin Naseby is to visit us, Estelle, at Walcot Park, so soon as we return, if he can," said the Countess, turning from Dora with a very dubious expression of eye, and closing a letter she had received; "his love-affair with that odious Irish girl is quite off, thank heaven!"
"How?--love of change, or change of love?"
"Neither."
"What then, mamma?"
"The Irish girl actually had a mind of her own, and preferred some one else even to a peer, an English peer!"
"I drain this clicquot to the young lady's happiness," said Sir Madoc.
"But all this is nothing to me, mamma," said Lady Estelle, coldly.
But I could see at a glance, that if it was unimportant toher, it was not so to her mother, his aunt, who would rather have had the young earl for her son-in-law than the old viscount, even though the patent of the latter had been expede by the royal Bluebeard, most probably for services that pertained more to knavery than knighthood.
"Well, Caradoc," said I, "is your despatch from the regiment?"
"Yes; from Price of ours. Nothing but rumours of drafts going eastward to make up the death-losses at Varna, and he fears our leave may be cancelled. 'Deuced awkward if we go soon,' he adds, 'as I have a most successfulaffaire du c[oe]uron hand just now.'"
"When is he ever without one?" said I; and we both laughed.
Winifred's eyes were on me, and Caradoc's were on her, while I was sedulously attending to Lady Estelle. As for Guilfoyle, since the advent of his letter he had become quite silent. We were at the old game of cross-purposes; for it seems to be in love, as with everything else in life, that the obstacles in the way, and the difficulty of attainment, always enhance the value of the object to be won. Yet in the instance of Lady Estelle I was not so foolish as poor Price of ours, the butt of the mess, who always fell in love with the wrong person--to whom the pale widow, inconsolable in her first crape; the blooming bride, in her clouds of tulle and white lace; the girl just engaged, and who consequently saw but one man in the world, and that man her ownfiancé; or any pretty girl whom he met just when the route came and the mess-plate was packed prior to marching--became invested with remarkable charms, and a sudden interest that made his susceptible heart feel sad and tender.
The ladies' letters opened up quite a budget of town news and gossip. To Sir Madoc, a genuine country gentleman, full only of field-sports, the prospects of the turnip crop and the grouse season, the county-pack and so forth, a conversation that now rose, chiefly on the coming fête on dresses, music, routs and Rotten-row, kettledrums and drawing-rooms, and the town in general, proved somewhat of a bore. He fidgeted, and ultimately left for the stables, where he and Bob Spurrit had to hold a grave consultation on certain equine ailments. The ladies also rose to leave us; but Caradoc, Guilfoyle, and I lingered under the cool shadow of the oaks, and lit our cigars. With his silver case for holding the last-named luxuries, Guilfoyle unconsciously pulled forth a letter, which fell on the grass at my feet. Picking it up, I restored it to him; but brief though the action, I could not help perceiving it to be the letter he had just received, that it was addressed in a woman's hand, and had on the envelope, in coloured letters, the name "Georgette."
"Thanks," said he, with sudden irritation of manner, as he thrust it into a breast-pocket this time; "a narrow squeak that!" he added, slangily, with a half-muttered malediction.
I felt certain that there was a mystery in all this; that he feared something unpleasant might have been revealed, had that identical letter fallen intootherhands, or under more prying eyes; and I remembered those trivial circumstances at a future, and to me rather harassing, time. I must own that this man was to me a puzzle. With all his disposition to boast, he never spoke of relations or of family; yet he seemed in perfectly easy circumstances; his own valet, groom, and horses were at Craigaderyn; he could bear himself well and with perfect ease in the best society; and it was evident that, wherever they came from, he was at present a man of pretty ample means. He possessed, moreover, a keen perception for appreciating individuals and events at their actual value; his manners were,when he chose, polished, his coolness imperturbable, and hisinsouciancesometimes amusing. For the present, it had left him.
"Beautiful brilliant that of yours, Mr. Guilfoyle," said Caradoc, to fish for another legend of the ring; but in vain, for Guilfoyle was no longer quite himself, though he had policy enough to feed the snarling cur Tiny in her basket, with choice morsels of cold fowl, as Lady Naseby's soubrette, Mademoiselle Babette, was waiting to carry it away. Since the remarks orcontretempsconcerning the York races he had been as mute as a fish; and now, when he did begin to speak in the absence of Sir Madoc, I could perceive that gratitude for kindness did not form an ingredient in the strange compound of which his character was made up. Perhaps secret irritation at Sir Madoc's queries about the letter which so evidently disturbed his usual equanimity might have been the real spirit that moved him now to sneer at the old baronet's Welsh foibles, and particularly his weakness on the subject of pedigrees.
"You are to stay here for the 1st, I believe?" said I.
"Yes; but, the dooce! for what? Such a labour to march through miles of beans and growing crop, to knock over a few partridges and rabbits" (partwidges and wabbits, he called them), "which you can pay another to do much better for you."
"Sturdy Sir Madoc would hear this with incredulous astonishment," said I.
"Very probably. Kind fellow old Taffy, though," said he, while smoking leisurely, and lounging back in an easy garden-chair; "has a long pedigree, of course, as we may always remember by the coats-of-arms stuck up all over the house. 'County people' in the days of Howel Dha; 'county ditto' in the days of Queen Victoria, and likely to remain so till the next flood forms a second great epoch in the family history. Very funny, is it not? He reminds me of what we read of Mathew Bramble inHumphry Clinker--a gentleman of great worth and property, descended in a straight line by the female side from Llewellyn, Prince of Wales."
I was full of indignation on hearing my old friend spoken of thus, if not under his own roof, under his ancient ancestral oaks; but Philip Caradoc, more Celtic and fiery by nature, anticipated me by saying sharply, "Bad taste this, surely in you, Mr. Guilfoyle, to sneer thus at our hospitable entertainer; and believe me, sir, that no one treats lightly the pedigree of another who--who--"
"Ah, well--who what?"
"Possesses one himself," added Phil, looking him steadily in the face.
"Bah! I suppose every one has had a grandfather."
"Even you, Mr. Guilfoyle?" continued Caradoc, whose cheek began to flush; but the other replied calmly, and not without point,
"There is a writer who says, that to pride oneself on the nobility of one's ancestors is like looking among the roots for the fruit that should be found on the branches."
Finding that the conversation was taking a decidedly unpleasant turn, and that, though his tone was quiet and his manner suave, a glassy glare shone in the greenish-gray eyes of Guilfoyle, I said, with an assumed laugh,
"We must not forget the inborn ideas and the national sentiments of the Welsh--call them provincialisms if you will. But remember that there are eight hundred thousand people inspired by a nationality so strong, that they will speak only the language of the Cymri; and it is among those chiefly that our regiment has ever been recruited. But if the foibles--I cannot deem them folly--of Sir Madoc are distasteful to you, the charms of the scenery around us and those of our lady friends cannot but be pleasing."
"Granted," said he, coldly; "all are beautiful, even to Miss Dora, who looks so innocent."
"Whoisso innocent by nature, Mr. Guilfoyle," said I, in a tone of undisguised sternness.
"Then it is a pity she permits herself to say--sharp things."
"With so much unintentional point, perhaps?"
"Sir!"
"Truth, then--which you will," said I, as we simultaneously rose to leave luncheon-table.
And now, oddly enough, followed by Winifred, Dora herself came again tripping down the broad steps of the perron towards us, exclaiming,
"Is not papa with you?--the tiresome old dear, he will be among the harriers or the stables of course!"
"What is the matter?" I asked.
"Only think, Mr. Hardinge, that poor woman we saw at church this morning, looking so pretty, so pale, and interesting, was found among the tombstones by Farmer Rhuddlan, quite in a helpless faint, after we drove away--so the housekeeper tells me; so we must find her out and succour her if possible."
"But who is she?" asked Caradoc.
"No one knows; she refused obstinately to give her name or tell her story ere she went away; but at her neck hangs a gold locket, with a crest, the date, 1st of September, on one side, and H. G. beautifully enamelled on the other. How odd--your initials, Mr. Guilfoyle!"
"You are perhaps not aware that my name is Henry Hawkesby Guilfoyle," said he, with ill-concealed anger, while he played nervously with his diamond ring.
"How intensely odd!" resumed his beautiful but unwitting tormentor; "H. H. G. were the three letters on the locket!"
"Did no one open it?" he asked.
"No; it was firmly closed."
"By a secret spring, no doubt."
Guilfoyle looked ghastly for a moment, or it might have been the effect of the sunlight flashing on his face through the waving foliage of the trees overhead; but he said laughingly,
"A droll coincidence, which under some circumstances, might be very romantic, but fortunately in the present has no point whatever. If my initials hung at your neck instead of hers, how happy I should be, Miss Dora!"
And turning the matter thus, by a somewhat clumsy compliment or bit of flattery, he ended an unpleasant conversation by entering the house with her and Caradoc.
Winifred remained irresolutely behind them.
"We were to visit my future comrade," said I.
"Come, then," said she, with a beautiful smile, and a soft blush of innocent pleasure.