Winifred Lloyd was, as Caradoc had said, a very complete and perfect
creature. The very way her gloves fitted, the handsome form of her
feet, the softness of her dark eyes, the tender curve of her lips,
and, more than all, her winning manner--the inspiration of an innocent
and guileless heart--made her a most desirable companion at all times;
but with me, at present, poor Winifred was only the means to an end;
and perhaps she secretly felt this, as she lingered pensively for a
moment by the marble fountain that stood before Craigaderyn Court, and
played with her white fingers in the water, causing the gold and
silver fish to dart madly to and fro. Above its basin a group of green
bronze tritons were spouting, great Nile lilies floated on its
surface, and over all was the crest of the Lloyds, also in bronze, a
lion's head, gorged, with a wreath of oak. The notes of a harp came
softly towards us through the trees as we walked onward, for old Owen
Gwyllim the butler was playing in that most unromantic place his
pantry, and the air was the inevitable "Jenny Jones."
From the lawn I led her by walks and ways forgotten since my boyhood,
and since I had gone the same route with her birdnesting and nutting
in those glorious Welsh woods, by hedgerows that were matted and
interwoven with thorny brambles and bright wild-flowers, past laden
orchards and picturesque farms, nooks that were leafy and green, and
little tarns of gleaming water, that reflected the smiling summer sky;
past meadows, where the sleek brown, or black, or brindled cattle were
chewing the cud and ruminating knee-deep among the fragrant pasture;
and dreamily I walked by her side, touching her hand from time to
time, or taking it fairly in mine as of old, and occasionally
enforcing what I said by a pressure of her soft arm within mine, while
I talked to her, saying heaven knows what, but most ungratefully
wishing all the time that she were Estelle Cressingham. All was soft
and peaceful around us. The woods of Craigaderyn, glowing in the heat
of the August afternoon, were hushed and still, all save the hum of
insects, or if they stirred it was when the soft west wind seemed to
pass through them with a languid sigh; and so some of the influences
of a past time and a boyish love came over me; a time long before I
had met the dazzling Estelle--a time when to me there had seemed to be
but one girl in the world, and she was Winifred Lloyd--ere I joined
the --th in the West Indies, or the Welsh Fusileers, and knew what the
world was. I dreaded being betrayed into some tenderness as a treason
to Lady Estelle; and fortunately we were not without some
interruptions in our walk of a mile or so to visit her horned pet,
whom she had sent forth for a last run on his native hills.
We visited Yr Ogof (or the cave) where one of her cavalier ancestors
had hidden after the battle of Llandegai, in the Vale of the Ogwen,
during the wars of Cromwell, and now, by local superstition, deemed an
abode of the knockers, those supernatural guardians of the mines, to
whom are known all the metallic riches of the mountains; hideous pigmy
gnomes, who, though they can never be seen, are frequently heard
beating, blasting, and boring with their little hammers, and singing
in a language known to themselves only. Then we tarried by the
heaped-up cairn that marked some long-forgotten strife; and then by
the Maen Hir, a long boulder, under which some fabled giant lay; and
next a great rocking stone, amid a field of beans, which we found
Farmer Rhuddlan--a sturdy specimen of a Welsh Celt, high cheek-boned
and sharp-eyed--contemplating with great satisfaction. High
above the sea of green stalks towered that wizard altar, where whilom
an archdruid had sat, and offered up the blood of his fellow-men to
gods whose names and rites are alike buried in oblivion; but Strabo
tells us that it was from the flowing blood of the victim that the
Druidesses--virgins supposed to be endowed with the gift of
prophecy--divined the events of the future; and this old stone, now
deemed but a barrier to the plough, had witnessed those terrible
observances.
Poised one block upon the other, resting on the space a sparrow alone
might occupy, and having stood balanced thus mysteriously for
uncounted ages, lay the rocking stone. The farmer applied his strong
hand to the spheroidal mass, and after one or two impulses it swayed
most perceptibly. Then begging me not to forget his son, who was with
our Fusileers far away at Varna, he respectfully uncovered his old
white head, and left us to continue his tour of the crops, but not
without bestowing upon us a peculiar and knowing smile, that made the
blood mantle in the peachlike cheeks of Winifred.
"How strange are the reflections these solemn old relics excite!" said
she, somewhat hastily; "if, indeed, one may pretend to value or to
think of such things in these days of ours, when picturesque
superstition is dying and poetry is long since dead."
"Poetry dead?"
"I think it died with Byron."
"Poetry can never die while beauty exists," said I, smiling rather
pointedly in her face.
My mind being so filled with Estelle and her fancied image, caused me
to be unusually soft and tender to Winifred. I seemed to be mingling
one woman's presence with that of another. I regarded Winifred as the
dearest of friends; but I loved Estelle with a passion that was full
of enthusiasm and admiration.
"No two men have the same idea of beauty," said Winifred, after a
pause.
"True, nor any two nations; it exists chiefly, perhaps, in the mind of
the lover."
"Yet love has nothing exactly to do with it."
"Prove this," said I, laughing, as I caught her hand in mine.
"Easily. Ask a Chinese his idea of loveliness, and he will tell you, a
woman with her eyebrows plucked out, the lids painted, her teeth
blackened, and her feet shapeless; and what does the cynical Voltaire
say?--'Ask a toad what is beauty, the supremely beautiful, and he will
answer you, it is his female, with two round eyes projecting out of
its little head, a broad flat neck, a yellow breast, and dark-brown
back.' Even red hair is thought lovely by some; and did not Duke
Philip the Good institute the order of the Golden Fleece of Burgundy
in honour of a damsel whose hair was as yellow as saffron; and now,
Harry Hardinge, what is _your_ idea?"
"Can you ask me?" I exclaimed, with something of ardour, for she
looked so laughingly bright and intelligent as she spoke; then
divining that I was thinking of another, not of her, "for there is a
thread in our thoughts even as there is a pulse in our hearts, and he
who can hold the one knows how to think, and he who can move the other
knows how to feel," she said, with a point scarcely meant.
"The eye may be pleased, the vanity flattered, and ambition excited by
a woman of beauty, especially if she is one of rank; yet the heart may
be won by one her inferior. Talking of beauty, Lady Naseby has striven
hard to get the young earl, her nephew, to marry our friend, Lady
Estelle."
"Would she have him?" I asked, while my cheek grew hot.
"I cannot say--but he declined," replied Winifred, pressing a wild
rose to her nostrils.
"Declined--impossible!"
"Why impossible? But in her fiery pride Estelle will never, never
forgive him; though he was already engaged to one whom he, then at
least, loved well."
"Ah--the Irish girl, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Winifred, with a short little sigh, as she looked down.
"Such a girl as Estelle Cressingham must always find admirers."
"Hundreds; but as the estates, like the title, have passed to the next
male heir, and Lady Naseby has only a life-rent of the jointure house
in Hants--Walcot Park, a lovely place--she is anxious that her
daughter should make a most suitable marriage."
"Which means lots of tin, I suppose?" said I, sourly.
"Exactly," responded Winifred, determined, perhaps, if I had the bad
taste to speak so much of Estelle, to say unpleasant things; "and the
favoured _parti_ at present is Viscount Pottersleigh, who comes here
to-morrow, as his letter informed her."
"Old Pottersleigh is sixty if he is a day!" said I, emphatically.
"What has age to do with the matter in view? Money and position are
preferable to all fancies of the heart, I fear."
"Nay, nay, Winifred, you belie yourself and Lady Estelle too; love is
before everything!"
She laughed at my energy, while I began to feel that, next to making
love, there is nothing so pleasant or so suggestive as talking of it
to a pretty girl; and I beg to assure you, that it was somewhat
perilous work with one like Winifred Lloyd; a girl who had the
sweetest voice, the most brilliant complexion, and the softest eyes
perhaps in all North Wales. She now drew her hand away; till then I
had half forgot it was _her_ hand I had been holding.
"Remember that oft-quoted line in the song of Montrose," said she,
pretty pointedly.
"Which? for I haven't an idea."
"'Love _one_--and love no more.'"
"The great marquis was wrong," said I; "at least, if, according to a
more obscure authority in such matters, Price of ours, one may love
many times and always truly."
"Indeed!" Her lip curled as she spoke.
"Yes; for may not the same charms, traits, manner, and beauty which
lure us to love once, lure us to love again?"
Winifred actually sighed, with something very like irritation, as she
said, "I think all this the most abominable sophistry, Mr. Hardinge,
and I feel a hatred for 'Price of ours,' whoever he may be."
"Mister! Why I was Harry a moment ago."
"Well, here is the abode of Cameydd Llewellyn; and you must tell me
what you think of your future Welsh comrade; his beard may be to the
regimental pattern, though decidedly his horns and moustaches are
not."
As she said this, again laughingly, we found ourselves close to a
little hut that abutted on a thatched cottage and cow-house, in a most
secluded place, a little glen or dell, over which the trees were
arching, and so forming a vista, through which we saw Craigaderyn
Court, as if in a frame of foliage. She opened a little wicket, and at
the sound of her voice the goat came forth, dancing on his hind
legs--a trick she had taught him--or playfully butting her skirts with
his horns, regarding me somewhat dubiously and suspiciously the while
with his great hazel eyes. He was truly a splendid specimen of the old
Carnarvonshire breed of goats, which once ran wild over the mountains
there, and were either hunted by dogs or shot with the bullet so
lately as Pennant's time. His hair, which was longer than is usual
with those of England, led me to fancy there was a Cashmerian cross in
his blood; his black horns were two feet three inches long, and more
than two feet from one sharp tip to the other. He was as white as the
new-fallen snow, with a black streak down the back, and his beard was
as venerable in proportion and volume as it was silky in texture.
"He is indeed a beautiful creature--a noble fellow!" I exclaimed, with
genuine admiration.
"And just four years old. I obtained him when quite a kid."
"I am so loth that the Fusileers should deprive you of him."
"Talk not of that; but when you see my goat, my old pet Carneydd
Llewellyn, marching proudly at their head, and decked with chaplets on
St. David's day, when you are far, far away from us, you will--" she
paused.
"What, Winifred?"
"Think sometimes of Craigaderyn--of to-day--and of me, perhaps," she
added, with a laugh that sounded strangely unlike one.
"Do I require aught to make me think of you?" said I, patting kindly
the plump, ungloved hand with which she was caressing the goat's head,
and which in whiteness rivalled the hue of his glossy coat; and
thereon I saw a Conway pearl, in a ring I had given her long ago, when
she was quite a little girl.
"I hope not--and papa--I hope not."
The bright beaming face was upturned to me, and, as the deuce would
have it, I kissed her: the impulse was irresistible.
She trembled then, withdrew a pace or two, grew very pale, and her
eyes filled with tears.
"You should not have done that, Harry--I mean, Mr. Hardinge."
There was something wild and pitiful in her face.
"Tears?" said I, not knowing very well what to say; for "people often
_do_ say very little, when they mean a great deal."
"My old favourite will know the black ladders of Carneydd Llewellyn no
more," said she, stooping over the goat caressingly to hide her
confusion.
"But, Winifred--Miss Lloyd--why tears?"
"Can you ask me?" said she, her eyes flashing through them.
"Why, what a fuss you make! I have often done so--when a boy!"
"But you are no longer a boy; nor am I a girl, Mr. Hardinge."
"Do please call me Harry, like Sir Madoc," I entreated. "Not
now--after this; and here comes Lady Estelle."
"Estelle!"
At that moment, not far from us, we saw Lady Naseby, driven in a
pony-phaeton by Caradoc, and Lady Estelle with Guilfoyle a little way
behind them, on horseback, and unaccompanied by any groom, coming
sweeping at a trot down the wooded glen.
Such is the amusing inconsistency of the human heart--the male human
heart, perhaps my lady readers will say--that though I had been more
than flirting with Winifred Lloyd--on the eve of becoming too tender,
perhaps--I felt a pang of jealousy on seeing that Guilfoyle was Lady
Estelle's sole companion, for Dora was doubtless immersed in the
details of her forthcoming fête.
Had she seen us?
Had she detected in the distance that little salute? If so, in the
silly, kindly, half-flirting, and half-affectionate impulse which led
me to kiss my beautiful companion and playfellow of the past
years--the mere impulse of a moment--if mistaken, I might have ruined
myself with her--perhaps with both.
"A lovely animal'! I hope you are gratified, Mr. Hardinge?" said Lady
Estelle, with--but perhaps it was fancy--a curl on her red lip, as she
reined-in her spirited horse sharply with one firm hand, and caressed
his arching neck gracefully with the other, while he rose on his hind
legs, and her veil flew aside.
Already dread of the future had chased away my first emotion of pique,
nor was it possible to be long angry with Estelle; for with men and
women alike, her beauty made her irresistible. Some enemies among the
latter she undoubtedly had; they might condemn the regularity of her
features as too classically severe, or have said that at times the
flash of her dark eyes was proud or defiant; but the smile that played
about her lip was so soft and winning that its influence was felt by
all. Her perfect ease of manner seemed cold--very cold, indeed,
when compared to the thoughts that burned in my own breast at that
moment--dread that I might have been trifling with Winifred Lloyd, for
whom I cherished a sincere and tender friendship; intense annoyance
lest my friend Caradoc, who really loved her, might resent the affair;
and, more than all, that she for whom I would freely have perilled
limb and life might also resent, or mistake, the situation entirely.
And in this vague mood of mind I returned with the little party to the
house, where the bell had rung for tea, before dinner, which was
always served at eight o'clock. As we quitted the goat, its keeper, an
old peasant dame, wearing a man's hat and coat, with a striped
petticoat and large spotted handkerchief, looked affectionately after
Miss Lloyd, and uttered an exclamation in Welsh, which Caradoc
translated to me as being,
"God bless her! May feet so light and pretty never carry a heavy
heart!"