Under the Red Dragon. James Grant
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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 that we have 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; "but you have, 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 a sotto 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 mère Cressingham,' 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!"
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,