Under the Red Dragon: A Novel

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!" CHAPTER XI.--THE FÊTE CHAMPETRE. How wild and inconceivable, abrupt, yet quite practicable, were the brilliant visions I drew, the projects I formed! Mentally I sprang over all barriers, cleared at a flying leap every obstacle. In fancy I achieved all my desires. I was the husband of Estelle; the chosen son-in-law of her mother--the man of all men to whom she would have entrusted the future happiness of her only daughter. The good old lady had sacrificed pride, ambition, and all to love. Time, life-usage, all became subservient to me when in these victorious moods. I had distanced all rivals--she was mine; I hers. I had cut the service, bidden farewell to the Royal Welsh; she, for a time at least, to London, the court, the Row, "society," the world itself for me; and were rusticating hand-in-hand, amid the woods of Walcot Park, or somewhere else, of which I had a very vague idea. But from these daydreams I had to rouse myself to the knowledge that, so far from being accepted, I had not yet ventured to propose; that I had more than one formidable rival; that other obstacles were to be overcome; and that Lady Naseby was as cold and proud and unapproachable as ever. The day of Dora's fête proved a lovely one. The merry little creature--for she was much less in stature than her elder sister--with