Our interview was a very silent one. We had barely time for a few words, and heavy on my heart as lead weighed the conviction that I had to part from her--my love so recently won, so firmly promised and affianced. I knew that the days of my sojourn at Winchester must be few now; and with the chances of war before me, and temptations and aristocratic ambition left behind with her, how dubious and how remote were the chances of our meeting again!
Moments there were when I felt blindly desperate, and with my arms round Estelle.
When returning, would she still love me, as Desdemona loved her Moor, for the dangers I had dared? The days of chivalry and romance have gone; but the "old, old story" yet remains to us, fresh as when first told in Eden.
"For life or death, for good or for evil, for weal or woe, darling Estelle, I leave my heart in your keeping!" said I, in a low passionate whisper; "in twelve months, perhaps, I may claim you as my wife."
"L'homme propose, et Dieu dispose," said she, quietly and tenderly. "I yet hope to see you, were it but for a day, at Walcot Park, ere you sail."
"Bless you for the hope your words give me!" said I, as Owen Gwyllim came to announce that the carriage was at the door, and to give me Lady Naseby's and Lord Pottersleigh's cards and farewell wishes. And from that moment all the rest of my leave-taking seemed purely mechanical; and not only Sir Madoc, his two daughters, and Estelle, were on the terrace of the mansion to bid me adieu, but all the hearty, hot-tempered, high-cheekboned old Welsh domestics, most of whom had known me since boyhood, were also there.
The impulsive Dora brought me my courier-bag, a flask filled with brandy, and dainty sandwiches cut and prepared by Winifred's own kind little hands (for in doing this for me she would trust neither the butler nor Mrs. Gwenny Davis the housekeeper), and then she held up her bright face to be kissed; but inspired by I know not what emotion of doubt or dread, I only touched with my lips the hands of Lady Estelle and Miss Lloyd. Both girls stood a little apart from each other, pale as death, tremulous with suppressed emotion, and with their lashes matted and their eyes filled with tears, that pride and the presence of others restrained from falling. They were calm externally, but their hearts were full of secret thoughts, to which I was long in getting the clue. In the eyes of Estelle there was that glance or expression of loving intensity which most men have seenonce--it may be twice--in a woman's eye, and have never, never forgotten.
Sir Madoc's brown manly hand shook mine heartily, and he clapped me on the back.
"I hope to see you yet ere you leave England, my boy, and such hopes always take the sting from an adieu," said he, with a voice that quivered nevertheless. "Sorry you can't stay for the 1st of September--the partridges will be in splendid order; but there is shooting enough of another kind in the preserves you are going to."
"And may never come back from," was the comforting addendum of old Mrs. Davis, as she applied her black-silk apron to her eyes.
"Ah, Harry," said Sir Madoc, "you gave a smile so like your mother just now! She was handsome; but you will be never like her, were you as beautiful as Absalom."
"It is well that poor mamma can't hear all this," said Dora, laughing through her tears.
"Your dear mamma, my girl, was very fond of her and of him, too," said honest Sir Madoc; and then he whispered, "If ever you want cash, Harry, don't forget me, and Coutts and Co.--the dingy den in the Strand. Farewell--anwylbach!--good-bye!"
A few minutes more and all the tableau on the steps had passed away. I was bowling along the tall lime avenue and down the steep mountain road, up which Phil Caradoc and I had travelled but a few weeks before. How much had passed sincethen!and how much was inevitably to pass ere I should again see these familiar scenes! What had I said, or left unsaid? What had I done, what had passed, or how was it, that as the train sped with me beyond brave old Chester, on and on, on and on, monotonously clanking, grinding, jarring, and occasionally shrieking, while intrenched among railway rugs, with a choice cigar between my teeth, and while I was verging into that pleasant frame of mind when soft and happy visions are born of the half-drowsy brain, lulled as it were by rapidity of motion and the sameness of recurring sounds--how was it, I say, that the strange, unfathomable expression I had seen in the soft pleading eyes of dear Winifred--distance was already making her "dear"--mingled in my memory with the smileless, grave, and tender farewell glance of my pale Estelle; and that the sweet innocent kiss of the former was remembered with sadness and delight?
I strove to analyse my ideas, and then thrust them from me, as I lowered the carriage window and looked forth upon the flying landscape and the starry night, and muttered,
"Poor Winny--God bless her! Buttwo loves for one heartwill never, never do. I have been at Craigaderyn too long!"
And I pictured to myself the drawing-room there: Estelle, perhaps, at the piano to conceal her emotions; or listening, it might be, to the twaddle of old Pottersleigh. Winny gazing out upon the starlit terrace, trying to realise the prospect--as women proposed to will do--if she had married Phil Caradoc; or thinking of--heaven knows what! And old Sir Madoc in his arm-chair, and dreaming, while Dora nestled by his side, of the old times, and the boy--to wit, myself--he loved so well.
Caradoc and many other good fellows were gone eastward, and save Hugh Price and a newly-fledged ensign, I was the only officer with the depôt, and being senior had the command. The former had always some affair of the heart on the tapis; the latter was a mere boy, fresh from Harrow, so neither was companion for me. Back once more to the prosaic life of heavy drill and much useless duty in Winchester barracks, the picturesque and joyous past at Craigaderyn--after I had written a letter to Sir Madoc full of remembrances to the ladies-- seemed somewhat like a dream.
My engagement with Estelle--our rides, drives, and rambles by the wild green hills of Mynedd Hiraethrog; in the chase and long lime avenue; our chance meetings in the garden arbour; by the fountain, where the lilies floated and the gold fish shot to and fro; over all, that wild boat adventure, by which our lives were to be knit up as one in the future--seemed too like a dream, of which her ring on my finger alone remained to convince me of the reality, as no letters could pass between us--at least none from me to her. Thus I grew fond of courting solitude after the duties of the day were over, and I could fling sword, sash, and belt aside; and usually I quitted early the jollity of the battalion mess, that I might indulge in visions and conjure up bright fancies amid the gray smoke wreaths of a quiet cigar, in that humble bachelor's quarter already described; while the moonlight silvered the spires and red-tiled roofs of Winchester, and when all became still in the crowded barrack, after the tattoo-drums had beaten, and the notes of the last bugle had warned--like the Norman curfew of old--the extinction of all lights and fires.
I had seen many a drama and read many a romance; but now I seemed to be personally the hero of either one or other. Engaged to the daughter of an earl; but insecret, and unknown to all! And how or when was that engagement to end--to be brought to a successful issue? On these points my ideas were painfully vague and full of anxiety. Were we yet to meet--were it but for an hour--ere war separated us more completely, by sea as well as land? Returning, it might be mutilated and disfigured, should I still find her loving, tender, and true? and if I fell in action, how long might I hope to be remembered ere Estelle--But I could not with patience contemplate the chances of another replacing or supplanting me. Occasionally, as if to kill time, I was seized by fits of unwonted zeal, and found plenty of work to do, apart from parades, guards, sword-exercise, and revolver-pistol practice--for hourly recruits, many of whom could not speak a word of English, were coming in to replace those that had sailed with Phil Caradoc; and it is one of the essential parts of the duty of the officer commanding a regimental depôt to see after the arms, accoutrements, and clothing of his men; and also, that so far as drill goes, they are made perfect soldiers. Few or none of these recruits were natives of the counties outside Offa's Dyke; but when the news of the Alma came, and all England thrilled with the story of the uphill charge of the Royal Welsh, more than one London paper enviously spread the rumour, that our regiment was Cambrian only in name; till it was flatly contradicted by the colonel--but the story nearly gave hot peppery Sir Madoc a fit of apoplexy.
Besides other duties there was no small number of books--goodly sized folios--of which I had the supervision, ten at least exactly similar to those which are kept at headquarters; and all these tasks were varied by an occasional ball or rout such as a cathedral and garrison town can furnish; or a court-martial, or one of inquiry, concerning Mrs. Private Jones resenting--vi et armis--that the canteen-keeper should cut her bacon and tobacco, butter and bread, with the same knife; or to give some Giles Chawbacon fifty lashes about daybreak for a violation of the Red-book, in a hollow square, where men's teeth chattered in the chilly air, or they yawned behind their glazed stocks and shivered with disgust, at a punishment for which the army was indebted to William of Orange, and which is now happily a thing of the past. So the month of August drew to a close, and a box of partridges duly came from Sir Madoc--the spoil of his gun on the slopes of Mynedd Hiraethrog, perhaps; with a letter which acquainted me that Lady Naseby and her daughter had been for fully a fortnight at Walcot Park in Hampshire, but that he supposed I was probably aware of the circumstance, and that Pottersleigh was with them.
Fully a fortnight, and neither letter nor card of invitation, though they knew that I was in Winchester! How or why was this? A chill came over me, though I certainly had no fear of the Viscount's influence; but then I reflected that Estelle could not, and that Lady Naseby would not, invite me--each for reasons of her own. What, then, remained for me to do, but wait the event with patience, or endeavour to seek her out, by throwing myself in her way? I writhed at the idea of a fortnight having escaped us, while the coming of the fatal route for the East hung over me. There was something revolting and humiliating to my spirit in acting the part of a prowler about Walcot Park; but who is a more humble slave than a lover? The declaration of war had animated the services, both by sea and land, with a new or revived interest for all, with women especially. Thus our parades, reviews, and even our marches of exercise were frequently witnessed by all the beauty and fashion of the city and county; and among them I always looked in vain for the carriage and liveries of the Countess. Was Estelle ill, or was their absence from these spectacles part of a system to be pursued by the former?
Walcot Park was, I knew, only a few miles from the barracks on the Whitchurch-road. I had spent many an hour riding there merely to see the place which was associated with Estelle, when she had been absent from it in London or elsewhere; and now I had doubly an attraction to make me turn my horse's head in that direction, after Sir Madoc's letter came; so the second day saw me take the way northward from the old cathedral city, in mufti, to elude observation. The evening was a lovely one, and those swelling hills and fertile valleys, wide expanses of woodland already becoming crisp by the heat of the past summer, with clumps of birch and elder, the wild ash and the oak, which make up the staple features of Hampshire scenery, were in all their autumnal beauty and repose. The tinkling of the waggoner's bells on the dusty highway, was still heard, though the shrill whistle of the locomotive seemed to hint that, like the old stage-coachman, he should ere long find his occupation gone; and mellowed on the soft and ambient air there came the merry evening chimes from more than one quaint, village-church--the broad square Norman tower of which stood--the landmark of its district--in outline distinct and dark against the golden flush of the western sky. Dusk was almost closing when I crossed that noted trouting-stream, the Teste; and passed through Whitchurch.
As I trotted leisurely along the single street of which the little market borough is chiefly composed, at the door of a small inn I perceived a stable-boy holding by their bridles a black horse and a roan mare. The form of the latter seemed familiar to me. I could not mistake the height of forehead, the depth of chest, and roundness of barrel, or a peculiar white spot on the off-shoulder, and in the former recognised the roadster which Guilfoyle had brought with him to Craigaderyn. On seeing that I drew my reins and looked rather scrutinisingly at the animal, the groom, stable helper, or whatever he was, touched his cap, on which I inquired,
"Whose nag is this, my man?"
"Can't say as I knows, sir; but the gentleman, with another, is inside the bar, having a drop of summut," was the answer.
"Does he reside hereabout?"
"At Walcot Park he do."
"Walcot Park!"
"My Lady Naseby's place; he's been there for a couple of days at least, with Mr. Sharpus, my lady's lawyer from London."
I rode on and spurred my horse to a maddening pace for some distance, and then permitting the reins to drop on his neck, gave way to the tide of perplexing, harassing, and exasperating thoughts that flowed upon me. I remembered that we had arranged at Craigaderyn not to inform Lady Naseby of the real character of her chosen continental acquaintance, a foolish and fatal mistake, as the fellow would seem to have had sufficient presumption to present himself at Walcot Park, and there remain until exposed and expelled. But how came it to pass that such as he was patronised and fostered, as it were, by "the family solicitor," and patented by being his companion? Surely a legal man, however great a rascal professionally and personally, was too wary to adopt openly a blackleg as his friend and protégé!
I felt that Lady Naseby should instantly be warned of Guilfoyle's real character; but by whom was this to be done? Tied up by my secret arrangements with Estelle, I could neither write nor call uninvited; but why had she not, as she had promised, written to me, or given me some sign of her being so near Winchester as Walcot Park? When I recalled her apparent preference for this man, when Caradoc and I first went to Wales, their frequent recurrence to past companionship abroad, their duets together, and so forth, her angry defence of him to myself, together with an interest he had acquired in the eyes of her usually unapproachable mother, something of my old emotions of pique and doubt, and a jealousy for which I blushed, began to mingle with my perplexity and mortification, and the fear thathecould have any influence on her destiny or mine!
I recalled all the conversation overheard by Pottersleigh, and greater grew my astonishment and indignation. I felt it imperative that something should be done instantly, and resolved to telegraph or write to Sir Madoc, requesting him to procure the dismission of this intruder from Walcot Park as promptly as he had despatched him from Craigaderyn. From a part of the road where it wound over an upland slope I could see the Jointure House which formed the residence of Lady Naseby and of that Estelle who was a law, a light, a guiding star to me, and towards whom every thought and aspiration turned. Walcot Park was a spacious domain, and studded by clumps of stately old trees, which had been planted after the Revolution of 1688 by a peer of the Naseby family, who was one of the first to desert his hereditary king at Rochester. The mansion itself dated from the same stormy period, and was built entirely of red brick with white stone corners and cornices. Its peristyle of six Ionic columns glistened white in the moonlight, and was distinctly visible from where I sat on horseback. The shadow of the square façade of the entire edifice fell purple and dark far across the park. There were lights in several of the windows, and I knew that my Estelle must be in one of those rooms--but which?
At that moment all my soul yearned for her; could I but for an instant have seen her, or heard her voice! She dwelt there, visible to and approachable by others, and yet I dared not visit her. The fact of her presence there seemed to pervade and charm all the place, and with a sad, loving, and yet exasperated interest, I continued to survey it. I was hovering there, but aimlessly, and without any defined purpose, other than the vague chance of seeing or being near her. Walcot I knew was her favourite place, and there she kept all her pets, for she had many: a parrot sent from the Cape by the captain of a frigate to whom she had spoken but once at a ball; a spaniel from Malta, the gift of some forgotten rifleman; a noble staghound, given by a Highland officer who had danced with her once--once only--and never forgot it; a squirrel, the gift of Sir Madoc; and an old horse or two, her father's favourite hacks, turned loose in the park as perpetual pensioners.
Could she really have loved me as she said she did, if she was already behaving so coldly to me now? No letter or note, no invitation--she had surely influence enough with her mother to have procured me that!--no notice taken of my vicinity, of my presence with the depôt again! What shadow was this that seemed already to be falling on our sunny love? Whence the doubt that had sprung up within me, and the coldness that seemed between us? Full of these thoughts, I was gazing wistfully at the house, when I perceived the dark figures of two horsemen riding leisurely along the winding approach that led to the white peristyle, and felt certain that they were Guilfoyle and his legal friend Mr. Sharpus (of Sharpus and Juggles) mounted on the identical nags I had seen at the inn-door; and inspired by emotions of a very mingled character, I galloped back to the barracks, never drawing my bridle for the entire twelve miles of the way, until I threw it to my man Evans; and hurrying to my room, wrote instantly a most pressing letter to Sir Madoc, informing him of what I had seen and heard. I was not without thoughts of communicating with Lord Pottersleigh; but, for obvious reasons, shrunk fromhisintervention in the Cressingham family circle.
I knew that it would be delivered at Craigaderyn on the morrow, and deemed that now twenty-four hours must be the utmost limit of Mr. Hawkesby Guilfoyle's sojourn in his present quarters, and in a sphere which he insulted by his presence; but three, four, even five days passed, and no reply came from Sir Madoc, who was then, though I knew it not, shooting with some friends in South Wales, and did not receive my epistle until it was somewhat late for him to act on it. During these intervening days I was in a species of fever. One Sunday I incidentally heard, at mess, that Lady Naseby's party, now a pretty numerous one, had been at service in the cathedral, and to hear the bishop preach. She had come in state, in the carriage, attended by several gentlemen on horseback, and two tall fellows in livery, one carrying her prayer-books, the other a long cane and huge nosegay; and there I might have met them all face to face, and seen Estelle once more, had my evil destiny not assigned to me the command of the main guard, and thus detained me in barracks; but Price of ours--susceptible as the Tupman ofPickwick--had seen her, and came to mess raving about her beauty.
Every hour I could spare from duty was spent in hovering, like a spectre or a spy--an unquiet spirit certainly--in the vicinity of Walcot Park, till the lodge-keepers, who had been wont to touch their hats civilly at first, began ere long to view me with mistrust; and my horse knew every crook and turn of the Whitchurch-road quite as well as the way to his own stable. On the evening of the fifth day after I had written to Sir Madoc--a pleasant evening in the first days of September--I was again riding leisurely among the deep green lanes that border on Walcot Park, and which lay between dark green hedgerows then studded by scarlet dogberries, and the overarching branches of apple, pear, and damson trees, my heart, as usual, full of vague doubts, decided longings, and most undecided intentions, when I began slowly to walk my horse up a long, steep, and picturesque road, the vista of which was closed by an old village church, in the low and moss-grown wall surrounding which was a green wicket. It was on just such an evening as the last I have described, when the farewell gleam of the sun shone level along the fields, when the many-coloured foliage rustled in the gentle wind, and the voices of the blackbird, the thrush, and the lark came sweetly at times from the darkening copsewood, and when, as Clare writes in his rhyming calendar,
"The wagons haste the corn to load,And hurry down the dusty road;The driving boy with eager eyeWatches the church clock, passing by--Whose gilt hands glitter in the sun--To see how far the hours have run;Right happy in the breathless day,To see time wearing fast away."
"The wagons haste the corn to load,And hurry down the dusty road;The driving boy with eager eyeWatches the church clock, passing by--Whose gilt hands glitter in the sun--To see how far the hours have run;Right happy in the breathless day,To see time wearing fast away."
Nearly covered with ivy, the square tower of the little church--a fane old as the days when the Saxons bent their bows in vain at Hastings; yea, old as the time of St. Ethelwold (the famous architect and Bishop of Winchester)--peeped up amid the rich autumnal foliage that almost hid it from the view. At the wicket, some hundred yards from me, in the twilight--for though the sun had not set, the density of the copsewood about the place rendered the light rather dim and obscure--were a lady and gentleman, the latter mounted, and the former on foot. At first they seemed to be in close and earnest conversation; then the lady gesticulated earnestly, raising her hands and face to him imploringly; but twice he thrust her back, almost violently, with the handle of his whip. This was a strange and unpleasant episode to encounter. I knew not whether to advance or retire. I feared to intrude on what I supposed was something more than a lovers' quarrel, or, from the man's utter indifference, was perhaps a matrimonial squabble; and I was equally loth to retire, and leave a woman--a lady evidently--to the violence or passion of this person, upon whose love or mercy--it might be both--by her gestures and even the distant tones of her voice, she was so evidently throwing herself in vain.
I checked my horse's pace, and, amid the thick rank grass of the narrow lane, his footsteps were unheeded by the two actors in this scene; moreover, without backing him well into one of the thick hedges, I could not have turned to retrace my way.
Her hands were clasped now; she had dropped her parasol, and her face, a very white one, was upturned pleadingly to his; but to whatever she said, this horseman, whose back was to me, replied scornfully and derisively by a low mocking laugh, which somehow I seemed to have heard before, but when, or where, I quite failed to remember. Anon she drew something from her bosom, and, kissing it, held it towards him, as if seeking to influence him, by an appeal through it to some past time of love, or truth, or happiness, or all together. Whatever it was she thus displayed, he snatched it roughly, even fiercely, from her with a curse, and, again thrusting her violently from him--so violently, that I believe he must have used his foot and the off-stirrup iron---she fell heavily against the low wall, which, at the same moment, he cleared by a flying leap, and then disappeared in the network of lanes, orchards, and hedgerows that lie about the churchyard. A low wail escaped her; and when I came cantering up, and dismounted, she was lying on the path beside the churchyard wicket in tears and despair. Her appearance was perfectly ladylike, and most prepossessing; yet I knew not very clearly what to say or how to interfere in the matter, though manhood and courtesy rendered some action imperatively necessary.
"I trust you are not hurt," said I, taking her hand and assisting her to rise.
"Thank you, sir--not bodily hurt," she replied, in a low and broken voice, while scarcely venturing to look at me, and pressing her left hand upon her heart, as if to restrain emotion, or as if she felt a pain there.
"Did that person rob you?" asked I.
"O no, no, sir," she answered, hurriedly.
"But he seemed to snatch or wrench something from you?"
"Yes," said she, with hesitation.
"By violence, too?"
She did not reply, but covered her face with her handkerchief, and bit it, apparently in efforts to control her sobs.
"Can I assist you--be of service to you in any way?" I urged, in a pleading tone; for her whole air and appearance interested me.
"No, sir; none can assist me now."
"None?"
"Save God, and even He seems to abandon me."
"What is the meaning of this despair?" I asked, after a pause. "It is a lovers' quarrel, I presume; and if so--"
"O no, sir; he is no lover of mine--now, at least."
"He--who?"
"The gentleman who has just left me," said she, evasively. "But permit me to pass you, sir; I must return to Whitchurch."
I bowed, and led my horse aside, that she might pass down the lane.
"I thank you, sir, for your kindness," said she, bowing, as I lifted my hat; and then she seemed to totter away weakly and feebly, supporting or guiding herself, as if blind, by the rude low wall; and I could perceive that her left hand, which was now ungloved, was small, delicate, and of exceeding beauty in form. Her manner and air were hurried; her voice and eyes were agitated; she seemed a ladylike little creature, but plainly and darkly attired in a kind of second mourning. Her figure, ifpetite, was very graceful and girlish, too, though she was nearer thirty, perhaps, than twenty. Her face was delicate in feature, and charmingly soft and feminine in expression. Her eyes were of that clear dark gray which seems almost black at night, and their lashes were long and tremulous, lending a chastened or Madonna tone to her face, which, when taken together with her sadness of manner and a certain languor that seemed to be the result of ill-health, proved very prepossessing. With all this there was something, I thought, of the widow in her aspect and dress; but this was merely fancy.
Ere I remounted, and while observing her, I perceived that she tottered, as if overcome by weakness, emotion, or both. She sank against the churchyard wall, and nearly fell; on this, I again approached, and said with all softness and respect:
"Pardon me, and do not deem me, though a stranger, intrusive; you are ill and weary, and unable to walk alone. Permit me to offer my arm, for a little way at least, down this steep and rugged road."
"Thanks," she replied; "you are very kind, sir; once at the foot of this lane, I shall easily make my way alone. I am not afraid of strangers," she added, with a strange smile; "I have been much cast among them of late."
"You reside at Whitchurch?" said I, as we proceeded slowly together, occasionally treading the fallen apples under foot among the long grass.
"Yes."
"It is, then, your home?"
"I have no other--at present," said she, in a choking voice, and scarcely making an effort to restrain her tears, while I detected on a finger of the ungloved hand, the beauty of which I so much admired, a plain gold hoop--the marriage ring. So she was a wife; and the unseemly quarrel I had seen must have been a matrimonial one. Thus I became more assured in my manner.
"I am almost a stranger here," said I, "as I belong to the garrison at Winchester."
"You are an officer?"
"Yes, madam, of the Royal Welsh Fusileers."
She simply bowed, but did not respond to my information by sayingwhoshe was.
"Though a soldier, sir," said she, after a pause, "I dare say you will be aware that the hardest battles of this world arenotfought in the field."
"Where then?"
"Where we might least look for struggles of the soul: in many a well-ordered drawing-room; in many a poor garret; in many a lovely bower and sunny garden, or in a green and shady lane like this; fought in secrecy and the silence of the heart, and in tears that are hot and salt as blood!"
Sheisvery pretty, thought I; but I hope she won't become melodramatic, hysterical, or anything of that sort!
"Darkness will be set in ere you can reach Whitchurch, at our present rate of progression," said I; "and your--your--" (I was about to say husband) "relations or friends will be anxious about you."
"Alas, no, sir! I have no one to miss or to regret me," she replied, mournfully; "but I must not intrude selfishly my sorrows on a stranger."
"There is no appearance of the--the person who annoyed you returning," said I, looking backward up the long narrow lane we were descending.
"Little chance is there of that," said she, bitterly; "hewill return no more."
"You are certain of that?"
"Too fatally certain!"
"You have quarrelled, then?"
"No; it is worse than a quarrel," said she, with her pale lips quivering.
"He is an enemy?"
"My enemy?--my tempter--my evil spirit--he is my husband!"
"Pardon me; I did not mean to be curious, when I have no right to be so; but here is the highway; I too am going towards Whitchurch--my way to the barracks lies in that direction; and I shall have much pleasure in escorting you to your home, if you will permit me," said I, seized by an impulse of gallantry, humanity, or both, which I ere long had cause to repent.
"Sir, I thank you, and shall detain you no longer," she replied, hurriedly; "I am something of a wanderer now, and my rooms are at the ivy-clad inn by the roadside."
This was the place where I had seen Guilfoyle's roan mare, an evening or so past.
We had now reached the end of the narrow and secluded lane, a famous one in that locality as the trysting-place of lovers, and were standing irresolutely near the main road that leads to Whitchurch and Winchester, when a large and handsome carriage, drawn by a pair of spanking dark gray horses, approached us rapidly.
Throwing my nag's bridle over my left arm, I was in the act of offering my right hand to this mysterious lady in farewell, when her eyes caught sight of the carriage; a half-stifled sob escaped her; she reeled again, and would have fallen, had I not thrown my arm round her, and by its firm support upheld her. At that moment the carriage bowled past. The face of a lady was at the open window, looking out upon us with wonder and interest, as she saw a lady and gentleman to all appearance embracing, or at least on very good terms with each other, at the corner of a shady lane, a little way off the Queen's highway; and something like an exclamation of dismay escaped me on recognising the colourless haughty face, the dark eyes, the black hair, and bonnet of that orange tint so becoming to one of her complexion--she of whom my whole soul was full, Lady Estelle Cressingham!
Had Estelle recognised me? If so, what might she--nay, what must she--think, and how misconstrue the whole situation? Should I ride after the carriage, or write at all risks, and explain the matter, or commit the event to fate? That might be perilous. She may not have recognised me, I thought: the twilight, the shade, the place might have concealed my identity; but if not, they were all the more against me. I was now in greater and more horrible perplexity than ever, and I wished the unhappy little woman, the cause of all, in a very warm climate indeed.
Thus, while longing with all the energies of my life to see Estelle, to be seen by herthere, at a time so liable to misconception if left unexplained, might be death to my dearest hopes, and destruction to the success I had achieved.
"Why were you so agitated by the sight of Lady Naseby's carriage?" I asked, with an annoyance of tone that I cared not to conceal.
"Giddiness, perhaps; but was I agitated?"
"Of course you were--nearly fell; would have fallen flat, indeed, but for me."
"I thank you, sir," was the gentle reply; for my asperity of manner was either unnoticed or unheeded by her; "but you seemed scarcely less so."
"I, madam!--why the deuce should I have been agitated?"
"Unless I greatly err, you were, and are so still."
"Indeed!"
"Do you know the ladies?"
"Were there two?" asked I, with increased annoyance.
"The Countess and her daughter."
"I saw but one."
"And--O, pardon my curiosity, dear sir--you know them?"
"Intimately;--and what then?" I asked, with growing irritation.
"Intimately!" she repeated, with surprise.
"There is nothing very singular in that, I suppose?"
"And, sir, you visit them?"
"I have not as yet, but hope to do soon. We were all together in the same house in North Wales."
"Ah! at Craigaderyn Court?"
"Yes; Sir Madoc Lloyd's. Do you know Sir Madoc?"
"I have not that pleasure."
"Who, then, that you are acquainted with knows him?"
"My husband."
"Your husband!" said I, glancing at the plain hoop on the delicate little hand, which she was now gloving nervously.
"He was there with you; must have been conversing with you often. I saw you all at church together one Sunday afternoon, and frequently on the terraces and on the lawn; while!"--she covered her face with her hands--"while I loitered and lurked like an outcast!"
"Your husband, madam?" I queried again.
"Mr. Hawkesby Guilfoyle."
Whew! Here was a discovery: it quite took my breath away, and I looked with deeper interest on the sweet and pale and patient little face.
I now remembered the letter I had picked up and returned to him; his confusion about it, and the horse he alleged to have lost by at a race that had not come off; his irritation, the postal marks, and the name ofGeorgette.
After such a termination to his visit to Craigaderyn, I could fancy that his situation as a guest or visitor at Walcot Park, even after he found the ladies there were ignorant of the nature of Sir Madoc's curt note to him, must be far from enviable, for such as he must live in hourly dread of insult, slight, or exposure; but how was I now situated with regard to her I loved?
Deemed, perhaps, guilty in her eyes, and without a crime; and if aware of the situation, the malevolent Guilfoyle would be sure to avail himself of it to the fullest extent.
"Lady Estelle is very lovely, as I could see," said my companion.
"Very; but you saw her--when?"
"In Craigaderyn church, most fully and favourably."
And now I recalled the pale-faced little woman in black, who had been pointed out to me by Winifred Lloyd, and who had been found in a swoon among the gravestones by old Farmer Rhuddlan.
In all this there was some mystery, which I felt curious enough to probe, as Guilfoyle had never by word or hint at any time given those among whom he moved reason to believe he was aught else than a bachelor, and a very eligible one, too; for if my once rival, as I believed him to be, was not a creditable, he was certainly a plausible, one; and here lay with me the means of anexposébeyond even that which had taken place at Craigaderyn Court.
"You are his wife, madam, and yet--does he, for purposes of his own, disavow you?" said I, after a pause, not knowing very well how to put my leading question.
"It is so, sir--for infamous purposes of his own."
"But you have him in your power; you have all the air of a lady of birth and education--why not come forward and assert your position?"
The woman's soft gray eyes were usually filled by an expression of great and deep sadness; but there were times when, as she spoke, they flashed with fire, and there were others, when her whole face seemed to glitter with "the white light of passion" as she thought of her wrongs. Restraining her emotion, she replied,
"To assert my claims; that is exactly what I cannot do--now at least."
"Why?"
"Because he has destroyed all the proofs that existed of our unhappy and most miserable marriage."
"Destroyed them! how?"
"Very simply, by putting them in the fire before my face."
"But a record--a register--must exist somewhere."
"We were married at sea, and the ship, in the chaplain's books of which the marriage I have no doubt was recorded, perished. Proofs I have none. But tell me, sir, is it true, that--that he is to be married to the daughter of Lady Naseby?"
"To Estelle Cressingham?" I exclaimed, while much of amusement mingled with the angry scorn of my manner.
"Yes," she replied, eagerly.
"No, certainly not; what on earth can have put such an idea into your head, my good woman?"
My hauteur of tone passed unheeded, as she replied:
"I saw her portrait in the Royal Academy, and heard a gentleman who stood near me say to another, that it was so rumoured; that he--Mr. Guilfoyle--had come with her from the Continent, and that he was going after her down to North Wales. He had said so at the club."
I almost ground my teeth on hearing this. That his contemptible name should have been linked with hers by empty gossips in public places like the Royal Academy and "his club," where none dared think of mine, was intolerable.
"I followed him to Wales," she continued. "I saw nothing at Craigaderyn church, or elsewhere, on her part to justify the story; when I met my husband on the lawn at thefête--for I was there, though uninvited--he laughed bitterly at the rumour, and said she was contracted to Lord Pottersleigh, who, as I might perceive, was ever by her side. He then gave me money, which I flung on the earth; ordered me on peril of my life to leave the place, lest he might give notice to the police that I had no right to be there. But though I have long since ceased to love, I cannot help hovering near him, and from Wales I followed him here; for I know that now he is at Walcot Park."
"I can assure you, for your ease, that the Lady Estelle is engaged, but to a very different person from old Lord Pottersleigh," said I, twirling the ends of my moustache with undisguised satisfaction, if not with a little superciliousness; "your husband, however, seems a man of means, Mrs. Guilfoyle."
She gave me a bitter smile, as she replied, "Yes, at times; and drawn from various resources. He laughs to scorn now my marriage ring; and yet he wears the diamond one which I gave him in the days when we were engaged lovers, and which had once been my dear father's."
The diamond whichshegave him! Here, then, was another, and the most probable version of the history of that remarkable brilliant.
"Of what was it that he deprived you by force, before his horse leaped the wall?"
"A locket which I wore at my neck, suspended by a ribbon," said she, as her tears began to fall again.
"He has the family solicitor with him at Walcot Park, I understand," said I.
"They are visiting there together. Mr. Sharpus came on business, and my husband accompanied him."
"Why not appeal to this legal man?
"I have done so many times."
"And he--"
"Fears Mr. Guilfoyle and dare not move in the matter, or affects to disbelieve me."
"What power has this--your husband, over him?"
"God alone knows--I do not," she replied, clasping her hands; "but Mr. Sharpus quails like a criminal under the eye of Hawkesby Guilfoyle, who seems also to possess some strange power over Lady Naseby, I think."
Could such really be? It seemed impossible; everything appeared to forbid it; and yet I was not insensible to a conviction that the dowager countess was rather pleased with, than influenced by, him. Could he have acted in secret the part of lover toher, and so flattered her weakness by adulation? Old women and old men, too, are at times absurd enough for anything; and now the words of Caradoc, on the night he lost money to Guilfoyle at billiards, recurred to me, when in his blunt way he averred they had all some secret understanding, adding, "By Jove! I can't make it out at all." My mind was a kind of chaos as I walked onward with my new friend, and leading my horse by the bridle we entered Whitchurch together. In the dusk I left her at the inn door, promising to visit her on the morrow, and consult with her on the means for farther exposing her husband; for although her story--for all I knew to the contrary--might be an entire fabrication, I was not then in a mood of mind to view it as such. As I bade her adieu, a dog-cart, driven by a servant,--whose livery was familiar to me, passed quickly. Two women were in it, one of whom mentioned my name. I looked up and recognised Mademoiselle Babette Pompon, Lady Naseby's soubrette, who had evidently been shopping; and a natural dread that she, out of a love of gossip, or the malevolence peculiar to her class, might mention having seen me at the inn porch with a fair friend, was now added to the annoyance caused by the episode at the lane end--an episode to which the said parting would seem but an addendum or sequel; and I galloped home to my quarters in a frame of thought far from enviable, and one which neither brandy nor seltzer at the mess-house could allay.