Under the Red Dragon. James Grant
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while Sir Madoc was emphatically discussing the points and pedigrees of certain horses and harriers with Guilfoyle and other male friends, while the Countess and other ladies were clustered about Winifred at the piano, and Dora and Caradoc were deep in some affair of their own, I leaned over her chair, and referring--I forget now in what terms--to the last time we met, or rather parted, I strove to effect that most difficult of all moves in the game of love--to lead back the emotions, or the past train of thought, to where they had been dropped, or snapped by mischance, to the time when I had bid her lingeringly adieu, after duly shawling and handing her to the carriage, at the close of a late rout in Park-lane, when the birds of an early June morning were twittering in the trees of Hyde Park, when the purple shadows were lying deep about the Serpentine, when the Ring-road was a solitude, the distant Row a desert, and the yawning footmen in plush and powder, and the usually rubicund coachmen, looking weary, pale, and impatient, and when the time and place were suited neither for delay nor dalliance. Yet, as I have elsewhere said, an avowal of all she had inspired within me was trembling on my lips as I led her through the marble vestibule and down the steps, pressing her hand and arm the while against my side; but her mother's voice from the depths of the carriage (into which old Lord Pottersleigh had just handed her) arrested a speech to which she might only have responded by silence, then at least; and I had driven, viâ Piccadilly, to the Junior U.S., when Westminster clock was paling out like a harvest moon beyond the Green Park, cursing my diffidence, that delayed all I had to say till the carriage was announced, thereby missing the chance that never might come again. And then I had but the memory of a lovely face, framed by a carriage window, regarding me with a bright yet wistful smile, and of a soft thrilling pressure returned by an ungloved hand, that was waved to me from the same carriage as it rolled away westward. The night had fled, and there remained of it only the memory of this, and of those glances so full of tenderness, and those soft attentions or half endearments which are so charming, and so implicitly understood, as almost to render language, perhaps, un necessary.
"You remember the night we last met, and parted, in London?" I whispered.
"Morning, rather, I think it wash" said she, fanning herself; "but night or morning, it was a most delightful ball. I had not enjoyed myself anywhere so much that season, and it was a gay one."
"Ah, you have not forgotten it, then," said I, encouraged.
"No; it stands out in my memory as one night among many happy ones. Day was almost breaking when you led me to the carriage, I remember."
"Can you remember nothing more?' I asked, earnestly.
"You shawled me most attentively--"
"And I was whispering--"
"Something foolish, no doubt; men are apt to do so at such times," she replied, while her white eyelids quivered and she looked up at me with her calm, bright smile.
"Something foolish!" thought I, reproachfully; "and then, as now, my soul seemed on my lips."
"Do you admire Mr. Guilfoyle's singing?" she asked, after a little pause, to change the subject probably.
"His voice is unquestionably good and highly cultured," said I, praising him truthfully enough to conceal the intense annoyance her unexpected question gave me; "but, by the way, Lady Estelle, how does it come to pass that he has the honour of knowing you--to be here, too?"
"How--why--what do, you mean, Mr. Hardinge?" she asked, and I could perceive that after colouring slightly she grew a trifle paler than before. "He is a visitor here, like you or myself. We met him abroad first; he was most kind to us when mamma lost all her passports at the Berlin Eisenbahnhof, and he accompanied us to the Alte Leipziger Strasse for others, and saw us safely to our carriage. Then, by the most singular chances, we met him again at the new Kursaal of Ems, at Gerolstein, when we were beginning the tour of the Eifel, and at Baden-Baden. Lastly, we met him at Llandudno, on the beach, quite casually, when driving with Sir Madoc, to whom he said that he knew you--that you were quite old friends, in fact."
"Knew me, by Jove! that is rather odd. I only lost some money to him; enough to make me wary for the future."
"Wary?" she asked, with dilated eyes.
"Yes."
"An unpleasant expression, surely. Sir Madoc, who is so hospitable, asked him here to see the lions of Craigaderyn, and has put a gun at his disposal for the twelfth."
"How kind of unthinking Sir Madoc! A most satisfactory explanation," said I, cloudily, while gnawing my moustache. Guilfoyle had too evidently followed them.
"If any explanation were necessary," was the somewhat haughty response, as the mother-of-pearl fan went faster than ever, and she looked me full in the face with her clear, dark, and penetrating eyes, to the sparkle of which the form of their lids, and their thick fringe of black lash, served to impart a softness that was indeed required. "Do you know anything of him?" she added.
"No; that is--"
"Anything against him?"
"No, Lady Estelle."
"What then?" she asked, a little petulantly.
"Simply that I, pardon me, think a good deal."
"More than you would say?"
"Perhaps."
"This is not just. Mamma is somewhat particular, as you know; and our family solicitor, Mr. Sharpus, who is his legal friend also, speaks most warmly of him. We met him in the best society--abroad, of course; but, Mr. Hardinge, your words, your manner, more than all, your tone, imply what I fear Mr. Guilfoyle would strongly resent. But please go and be attentive to mamma--you have scarcely been near her to-night," she added quickly, as a flush of anger crossed my face, and she perceived it. I bowed and obeyed, with a smile on my lips and intense annoyance in my heart. I knew that the soft eyes of Winifred Lloyd had been on us from time to time; but my little flirtation with her was a thing of the past now, and I was reckless of its memory. Was she so? Time will prove. I felt jealousy of Guilfoyle, pique at Lady Estelle, and rage at my own mismanagement. I had sought to resume the tenor of our thoughts and conversation on the occasion of our parting after that joyous and brilliant night in Park-lane, when my name on her engagement card had appeared thrice for that of any one else; but if I had touched her heart, even in the slightest degree, would she have become, as it seemed, almost warm in defence of this man, a waif picked up on the Continent? Yet, had she any deeper interest in him than mere acquaintanceship warranted, would she have spoken of him so openly, and so candidly, to me?
Heavens! we had actually been covertly fencing, and nearly quarrelling! Yet, if so, why should she be anxious for me to win the estimation of "mamma"? Lady Naseby had been beautiful in her time, and the utter vacuity and calm of her mind had enabled her to retain much of that beauty unimpaired; and I thought that her daughter, though with more sparkle and brilliance, would be sure to resemble her very much at the same years. She was not displeased to meet with attention, but was shrewd enough to see, and disdainful enough to resent, its being bestowed, as she suspected it was in my instance, on account of her daughter; thus I never had much success; for on the night of that very rout in London my attentions in that quarter, and their apparent good fortune, had excited her parental indignation and aristocratic prejudices against me.
After all the visitors had withdrawn (as horses or carriages were announced in succession), save one or two fox-hunters whom Guilfoyle had lured into the billiard-room for purposes of his own, when the ladies left us at night Lady Estelle did not give me her hand. She passed me with a bow and smile only, and as she swept through the gilded folding doors of the outer drawing-room, with an arm round Dora's waist, her backward glances fell on all--but me. Why was this? Was this coldness of manner the result of Guilfoyle's influence, fear of her mamma, her alleged engagement with old Lord Pottersleigh, pique at myself caused by Dora's folly, or what? It was the old story of "trifles light as air." I felt wrathful and heavy at heart, and repented bitterly the invitation I had accepted, and the leave I had asked; for Lady Estelle seemed so totally unconcerned and indifferent to me now, considering the empressement with which we had parted in London.
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