Under the Red Dragon: A Novel
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, 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.
The "family solicitor," too! He had been introduced as a mutual friend
in the course of affairs--in the course of a friendship that had
ripened most wonderfully. Was this Hawkesby Guilfoyle a fool, or a
charlatan, or both? His various versions of the diamond ring would
seem to show that he was the former. What fancy had the Countess for
him, and why was he tolerated by Sir Madoc? Familiar though I was with
my old friend, I felt that I could not, without a violation of good
taste, ask a question about a guest, especially one introduced by the
Cressinghams. His voice was soft in tone; his manner, when he chose,
was suave; his laugh at all times, even when he mocked and sneered,
which was not unfrequent, silvery and pleasing; yet he was evidently
one who could "smile and smile and be"--I shall not exactly say what.
While smoking a cigar, I pondered over these and other perplexing
things in my room before retiring for the night, hearing ever and anon
the click of the billiard-balls at the end of the corridor. Had I not
the same chance and right of competition as this Guilfoyle, though
unknown to the "family solicitor"? How far had he succeeded in
supplanting me, and perhaps others? for that there were others I knew.
How far had he gone in his suit--how prospered? How was I to construe
the glances I had seen exchanged, the half speech so bluntly made, and
so adroitly drowned at the piano? Who was he? what was he? The attaché
of the mock embassy at a petty German Court! Surely my position in
society was as good, if not better defined than his; while youth,
appearance, health, and strength gave me every advantage over an "old
fogie" like Viscount Pottersleigh.
As if farther to inflame my pique, and confirm the chagrin and
irritation that grew within me on reflection, Phil Caradoc, smoothing
his moustache, came into my room, which adjoined his, to have, as he
said, "a quiet weed before turning in." He looked ruffled; for he had
lost money at billiards--that was evident--and to the object of my
jealousy, too.
"That fellow Guilfoyle is a thorough Bohemian if ever there was one!"
said he, as he viciously bit off the end of his cigar prior to
lighting it, "with his inimitable tact, his steady stroke at
billiards, his scientific whist, his coolness and perfect breeding: