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 to _her_ about 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 to _her_, 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
successful _affaire du c[oe]ur_ on 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 own _fiancé_; 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 into _other_ hands, 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 his _insouciance_ sometimes
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 or _contretemps_ concerning 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
in _Humphry 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."
"Who _is_ so 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.