Though the dower-house of Walcot Park dated from the days of Dutch
William, when taste was declining fast in England, internally it had
all the comforts of modern life, and its large double drawing-room was
replete with every elegance that art could furnish or luxury
require--gilt china, and buhl cabinets, and console mirrors which
reproduced again and again, in far and shadowy perspectives, the
winged lions of St. Mark in _verde antique_; Laocoon and his sons
writhing in the coils of the serpents; Majolica vases, where tritons,
nymphs, and dolphins were entwined; Titian's cavaliers sallow and
sombre in ruffs and half-armour, with pointed moustachios and
imperious eyes; or red-haired Venetian dames with long stomachers,
long fingers, and Bologna spaniels; or Rubens' blowsy belles, all
flesh and bone, with sturdy limbs, and ruddy cheeks and elbows; but
the mirrors reflected more about the very time that I was lingering at
Whitchurch; to wit, a group, a trio composed of Lady Naseby, her
daughter, and Mr. Guilfoyle; and within that room, so elegant and
luxurious, was being fought by Estelle, silently and bitterly, one of
those struggles of the heart, or battles of life, which, as poor
Georgette Franklin said truly, were harder than those which were
fought in the field by armed men. Guilfoyle was smiling, and looking
very bland and pleased, indeed, to all appearance; Lady Naseby's
usually calm and unimpressionable face, so handsome and noble in its
contour, wore an expression of profound disdain and contempt; while
that of Lady Estelle was as pale as marble. She seemed to be icy cold;
her pink nostrils were dilated, her lips and eyelids were quivering;
but with hands folded before her, lest she should clench them and
betray herself, she listened to what passed between her mother and
their visitor.
"It was, as you say, a strange scene, of course, Mr. Guilfoyle, the
woman fainting--"
"Reclining."
"Well, yes, reclining in the arms of Mr. Hardinge in that lonely
lane," said the Countess; "but we need refer to it no more. He must be
a very reckless person, as Pompon saw him take leave of this creature
with great tenderness, she says, at the door of that obscure inn at
Whitchurch; so that explains all."
"Not quite," replied Guilfoyle.
"Perhaps not; but then it is no affair of ours, at all events, I must
own that I always wondered what the Lloyds--Sir Madoc especially--saw
in that young man, a mere subaltern of the line!"
"Precisely my view of the matter, Lady Naseby."
"Besides, your little baronet people are great sticklers for rank and
dignity, and often affect a greater exclusiveness than those who rank
above them."
"But as for this unfortunate woman," resumed Guilfoyle, who was loth
to quit the subject.
"We have heard of her in our neighbourhood before," said Lady Naseby;
"at least, Pompon has. She is good to all, especially the poor."
"Ah, doesn't care to hide her candle under a bushel, eh?"
"What do you mean, Mr. Guilfoyle?"
"Simply that vanity is often mistaken for generosity, profusion for
benevolence."
"You are somewhat of a cynic, I know."
"Nay, pardon me, I hope not."
"She is too poorly clad in general, Pompon says, to be able to indulge
in profusion," continued Lady Naseby, while Lady Estelle glanced at
the speakers alternately, in silence and with apparent calmness.
But Guilfoyle, who read her eyes and heart, and knew her secret
thoughts, gloated on the pain she was enduring.
"No doubt the unfortunate creature is much to be pitied," said he;
"but when a woman has lost respect for herself, she cannot expect much
of it from others. The poor little soiled love-bird has probably left
some pretty semi-detached villa at Chertsey or St. John's Wood to
follow its faithless redcoat to Hampshire, and hence the touching
tableau in the lane," he added, with his mocking and strangely unreal
laugh.
"Mr. Guilfoyle!" said the Countess, in a tone of expostulation, while
her daughter darted a glance of inexpressible scorn at him. But he
continued coolly, "Well, perhaps I should not speak so slightingly of
her, after what she has given herself out to be."
"And what is that?" asked Lady Naseby.
"Only--his wife."
"His wife!" exclaimed Estelle, starting in spite of herself. "Yes,
Lady Estelle; but it may not be, nay, I hope is not, the case."
"You should rather hope that it is so."
"But we all know what military men are--never particular to a shade;
and though excuses must be made for the temptations that surround
them, and also for youth, I approve of the continental system, which
generally excludes subaltern officers from society."
"Wife!" repeated Estelle; "O, it cannot be!"
"What is it to _you_--to us?" asked mamma, with a slight asperity of
tone.
"Well, wife or not, she certainly wears a wedding-ring, and he has
been more than once to visit her in that inn at Whitchurch. Of one
visit our mutual friend Mr. Sharpus is cognisant. If you doubt this,
ask him, and he will not contradict _me_."
"I have not said that I doubt you, Mr. Guilfoyle," said Estelle, with
intense hauteur, while for a moment--but a moment only--her eyes
flashed, her breast heaved, her hands were clenched, a burning colour
suffused her face, and her feet were firmly planted on the carpet; yet
she asked quietly, "Why do we hear this scandalous story at all? What
is it to mamma--what to me?"
"More, perhaps, than you care to admit," said he, in a low voice, as
the Countess rose to place Tiny in his mother-of-pearl basket.
Guilfoyle at Craigaderyn had acted as eavesdropper, and on more than
one occasion had watched and followed, overseen and overheard us, and
knew perfectly all about our secret engagement, her mother's views and
opposition to any alliance save a noble or at least a moneyed one; and
of all the stories he had the unblushing effrontery to tell, the
present was perhaps the most daring. He had contrived, during the
short visit he had paid to Walcot Park, under the wing of Mr. Sharpus,
to let Estelle know by covert hints and remarks all he knew, and all
he might yet disclose to her mother, to the young Earl of Naseby, to
Lord Pottersleigh, Sir Madoc, and others; and feeling herself in his
power, with all her lofty spirit the poor girl cowered before him, and
he felt this instinctively, as he turned his green eyes exultingly
upon her. But for a delicate, proud, and sensitive girl to have the
secrets of her heart laid bare, and at the mercy of a man like this,
was beyond all measure exasperating. And this strange narrative of
his, coming after what she had seen, and all that Pompon with French
exaggeration had related, crushed her completely for the time.
"I have another little item to add to our Hardinge romance," said he,
with his strange, hard, dry, crackling laugh, and a smile of positive
delight in his shifty green eyes, while he toyed with the long ears of
Tiny the shock, which had resumed its place in Lady Naseby's lap. "You
remember the locket with the initials 'H. H. G.' and the date 1st
September which Miss Dora Lloyd mentioned when we were at
Craigaderyn?"
"I have some recollection of it," replied Lady Naseby, languidly.
"Curiously enough, as I rode past the spot where you saw that touching
and interesting interview--the lane, I mean--I perceived something
glittering among the grass. Dismounting, I picked up that identical
locket, which doubtless the lady had dropped, thus losing it within a
few days of its bestowal, if we are to judge by the date."
"And you have it?"
"Here."
Opening his leather portemonnaie, he drew from it a gold locket, to
which a black-velvet ribbon was attached, and said with the utmost
deliberation, "The initials represent those of Henry Hardinge and his
inamorata, and behold!"
Pressing a spring, the secret of which he knew very well, the locket
flew open, and within it were seen the photograph of the pale woman
whom they saw in Craigaderyn church, and opposite to it one of _me_,
inserted by himself, pilfered from the album of Winifred Lloyd, as we
afterwards ascertained.
"Aha! the moral Mr. Henry Hardinge with his _petite femme entretenue_,
as the French so happily term it."
Lady Estelle was quite calm now in her demeanour, and she surveyed the
locket with a contemptuous smile; but her face was as white as marble.
She felt conscious that it was so, and hence sat with her back to the
nearest window, lest her mother should perceive that she was affected.
Guilfoyle, smilingly, stood by her, stroking his dyed moustache.
"This must be restored to its owner," said he.
"Permit me to do so," said Lady Estelle.
"You, Estelle--you!" exclaimed her usually placid mother, becoming
almost excited now; "why should you touch the wretched creature's
ornament?"
"As an act of charity it should be restored to her, or to _him_," she
added, through her clenched teeth; and taking the locket, she left the
room for her own, ere her mother could reply; and there she gave way
to a paroxysm of tears, that sprang from sorrow, rage, and shame that
she had for a moment permitted herself to have been deluded by me, and
thus be placed in the power of Guilfoyle. Her lips, usually of a rosy
tint, were colourless now; her upper one quivered from time to time,
as she shuddered with emotions she strove in vain to repress; and her
proud hot blood flowed furiously under her transparent skin, as she
threw open her desk, and sought to apply herself to the task of
writing me that which was to be her first, her last, and only letter.
For her heart swelled with thoughts of love and disappointment, pride,
reproach, disdain, and hate, as she spoiled and tore up sheet after
sheet of note-paper in her confusion and perplexity, and at last
relinquished the idea of writing at all.
Thus, while I was scheming how to expose Mr. Hawkesby Guilfoyle, and
have him cast forth from that circle in which he was an intruder, he
turned the tables with a vengeance, and provided me with a wife to
boot. But finding, or suspecting, that he was beginning to be viewed
with doubt, that very day, after having done all possible mischief, he
quitted Walcot Park with Lady Naseby's solicitor, who, strange to say,
seemed to be his most particular friend. He had made no impression
favourable to himself on the heart of Estelle; but he hoped that he
had succeeded in ruining me, as I could neither write nor clear myself
of an allegation of which I was then, of course, ignorant. She was
unjust to me; but she certainly--whatever came to pass in the gloomy
and stormy future--loved me _then_.