Under the Red Dragon: A Novel
artless production of the locket, proved that he had loved her for
some time past, and secretly too.
"What the deuce is the meaning of this?" exclaimed Sir Madoc, with an
expression of comicality, annoyance, and alarm mingling in his face;
"the servants can nowhere find her!"
"Find who?" asked Lord Pottersleigh, opening his snuffbox as he
shambled forward.
"Why, Lady Estelle."
His lordship took a pinch, paused for the refreshing titillation of a
sneeze, and then said,
"Indeed--surprising--very!"
"And Hardinge is missing, too, you say?" said Phil. "How odd!"
"Odd! egad, I think it _is_ odd; they have not been seen by any one
for more than two hours, and a regular storm has come on!"
Phil and Miss Lloyd had been too much occupied, or they must have
remarked the bellowing of the wind without and the sudden darkening of
the atmosphere.
"O papa, papa!" exclaimed Dora, now rushing in from the lawn,
"something dreadful must have happened. I left them on the verge of
the cliffs; returning to look for the bracelet you gave me, I met my
partner, Mr. Clavell of the 19th; we began dancing again, and I forgot
all about them."
"On the cliffs!" exclaimed several voices, reprehensibly and
fearfully.
"Yes," continued Dora, beginning to weep; "I took them through the
park wicket, and suggested a visit to the Bôd Mynach."
"Suggested this to Estelle! She is not, as we are, used to such paths
and places, and you tell us of it only now!" exclaimed Winifred, with
an expression of reproach and anguish sparkling in her eyes.
"My God, an accident must have occurred! The wind--weather--compose
yourself, Lady Naseby; Gwyllim, ring the house-bell, and summon every
one," cried Sir Madoc; "not a moment is to be lost."
"O, what is all this you tell me now, Dora?" exclaimed Winifred, as
she started from the conservatory, with her lips parted, her dark eyes
dilated, and her hair put back by both her trembling hands.
Poor Phil Caradoc and his proposal were alike forgotten now; and he
began to fear that, like Hugh Price of ours, in making love he had
made some confounded mistake.
Querulous, and useless so far as searching or assisting went, Lord
Pottersleigh nevertheless saw the necessity of affecting to do
something, as a man, as a gentleman, and a very particular friend of
the Naseby family. Accoutred in warm mufflings by his valet, with a
mackintosh, goloshes, and umbrella, he left the house half an hour
after every one else, and pottered about the lawn, exclaiming from
time to time,
"Such weather! such a sky! ugh, ugh! what the devil can have
happened?" till a violent fit of coughing, caused by the keen breeze
from the sea, and certain monitory twinges of gout, compelled him to
return to his room, and wait the event there, making wry faces and
sipping his colchicum, while sturdy old Sir Madoc conducted the search
on horseback, galloping knee-deep among fern, searching the vistas of
the park, and sending deer, rabbits, and hares scampering in every
direction before him. Above the bellowing of the stormy wind, that
swept the freshly torn leaves like rain against the walls and
mullioned windows of the old house, or down those long umbrageous
vistas where ere long the autumn spoil would be lying thick, rose and
fell the clangour of the house-bell. Servants, grooms, gamekeepers,
and gardeners were despatched to search, chiefly in the wild vicinity
of the now empty Bôd Mynach; but no trace could be found of Lady
Estelle or her squire, save a white-laced handkerchief, which, while a
low cry of terror escaped her, Lady Naseby recognised as belonging to
her daughter. On it were a coronet and the initials of her name.
It had been found by Phil Caradoc with the aid of a lantern, when
searching along the weedy rocks between the silent cavern and the
seething sea, which was now black with the gathered darkness and a
mist from the west.
There was no ball at Craigaderyn Court that night.
CHAPTER XIV.--THE UNFORESEEN.
In this world, events unthought of and unforeseen are always
happening; so, as I have hinted, did it prove with me, on the epoch of
Dora's birthday fête. It was not without considerable difficulty and
care on my side, trepidation and much of annoyance at Dora on that of
Lady Estelle, mingled with a display of courage which sprang from her
pride, that I conducted her by the hand down the old and time-worn
flight of narrow steps--which had been hewn, ages ago, by some old
Celtic hermit in the face of the cliff--till at last we stood on the
little plateau that lies between the mouth of his abode and the sea,
which was chafing and surging there in green waves, that the wind was
cresting with snowy foam.
On our right the headland receded away into a wooded dell, that formed
part of Craigaderyn Park. There a little _rhaidr_ or cascade came
plashing down a fissure in the limestone rocks, and fell into a pool,
where a pointed pleasure-boat, named the Winifred, was moored. On our
left the headland, that towered some eighty feet above us, formed part
of the bluffs or sea-wall that stretched away to the eastward, and,
sheer as a rampart, met the waves of the wide Irish Sea. Before us
opened the arched entrance of the monk's abode--a little cavern or
cell, that had been hollowed by no mortal hand. Its echoes are alleged
to be wonderful; and it has been of old used as a hiding-place in
times of war and trouble, and by smugglers for storing goods, where
the knights of Craigaderyn could find them without paying to the
king's revenue. It has evidently been what its name imports--the
chapel and abode of some forgotten recluse. A seat of stones goes
round the interior, save at the entrance. A stone pillar or altar had
stood in its centre. A font or stone basin is there, and from it there
flows a spring of clear water, with which the follower of St. David
was wont to baptise the little savages of Britannia Secunda; and where
now, in a more pleasant and prosaic age, it has supplied the tea and
coffee kettles of many a joyous party, who came hither boating or
fishing from Craigaderyn Court; and above that stone basin the
hermit's hand has carved the somewhat unpronounceable Welsh legend:
"Heb Dduw, heb ddim."[1]
"A wonderful old place! But I have seen caverns enough elsewhere,
and this does not interest me. I am no archæologist," said Lady
Estelle--"besides, where is Dora?" she added, looking somewhat blankly
up the ladder of steps in the cliff, by which we were to return: and
she speedily became much less alive to the beauty of the scenery than
to a sense of danger and awkwardness in her position.
There was no appearance of Dora Lloyd, and we heard no sound in that
secluded place, save the chafing of the surf, the equally monotonous
pouring of the waterfall, and the voices of sea-birds as they skimmed
about us.
I thought that Lady Estelle leant upon my arm a little heavier than
usual, and remembered that, when I took her hand in mine to guide her
down, she left it there firmly and confidingly.
"May I show you the grotto?" said I; and my heart beat tumultuously
while I looked in her face, the rare beauty of which was now greatly
enhanced by a flush, consequent on our descent and the sea-breeze.
"O no, no, thanks very much; but let us return to the park ere we be
missed. Give me your hand, Mr. Hardinge. If we came down so quickly,
surely we may as quickly ascend again."
"Shall I go first?"
"Please, do. The caves of Fingal, or Elephanta and Ellora to boot,
were not worth this danger."
"I have come here many a time for a few sea-birds' eggs," said I,
laughing, to reassure her.
But the ascent proved somehow beyond her power. The wind had risen
fast, and was sweeping round the headland now, blowing her dress about
her ankles, and impeding her motions. She had only ascended a little
way when giddiness or terror came over her. She lost all presence of
mind, and began to descend again. Thrice, with my assistance, she
essayed to climb the winding steps that led to the summit, and then
desisted. She was in tears at last. As all confidence had deserted
her, I proposed to bind her eyes with a handkerchief; but she
declined. I also offered, if she would permit me to leave her for a
few minutes, to reach the summit and bring assistance; but she was too
terrified to remain alone on the plateau of rock, between the cell and
the water.
"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, when, like myself, perhaps she thought
of Lady Naseby, "what shall I do? And all this has been brought about
by the heedless suggestions of Dora Lloyd--by her folly and
impulsiveness! Will she never return to advise us?"
Nearly half-an-hour had elapsed, and a dread that she, that I--that
both of us--must now be missed, and the cause of surmise, roused an
anger and pride in her breast, that kindled her eye and affected her
manner, thus effectually crushing any attempt to intrude my own secret
thoughts upon her.
"What _are_ we to do, Mr. Hardinge? Here we cannot stay; I dare not
climb; not a boat is to be seen; the sun has almost set, and see, how
dense a mist is coming on!"
I confess that I had not observed this before, so much had I been
occupied by her own presence, by her beauty, and by entreating that
she would "screw her courage to the sticking-point," and ascend where
I had seen the two pretty Lloyds trip from step to step in their mere
girlhood, to the horror, certainly, of their French governess; but
knowing that a fog from the sea was rolling landward in dense masses,
and that the evening would be a stormy one, I felt intense anxiety for
Lady Estelle, and certainly left nothing unsaid to reassure her,
firmly yet delicately--for good breeding becomes a second nature, and
is not forgotten even in times of dire emergency; then how much less
so when we love, and love as I did Estelle Cressingham?--but all my
arguments were in vain. There was in her dark eyes a wild and startled
brilliance, a hectic spot on each pale cheek. Her innate pride
remained, but her courage was gone. She trembled, and her breath came
short and quick as she said,
"Who would have dreamt that I--_I_ should have acted thus? More
heedlessly even than Dora, for she is a Welsh girl, and, like a goat,
is used to such places. And now there is no aid--not even the smallest
boat in sight!"
"Of what have I been thinking!" I exclaimed. "The pleasure-boat which
belongs to the grotto is moored yonder in the creek, where some
visitor, who preferred the short cut up the cliff, has evidently left
it. If you will permit me to place you in it, I can row across the
mouth of the waterfall to the other side, where a Chinese bridge will
enable us at once to reach the lawn."
"Why did you not think of this before?" she asked, with something of
angry reproach almost flashing in her eyes.
"Will you make the attempt?"
"Of course. O, would that you had thought of it before!"
"Come, then, though the wind has risen certainly; and among so many
guests, our absence may have been unnoticed yet."
I reached the boat--a gaudily-painted shallop, seated for four oars.
There were but two, however; these were enough; but as ill-luck would
have it, she was moored to a ring-bolt in the rocks by a padlock and
chain, which I had neither the strength nor the means of breaking.
This was a fresh source of delay, and Lady Estelle's whole frame
seemed to quiver and vibrate with impatience, while every moment she
raised her eyes to the cliff, by which she expected succour or
searchers to come. What the deuce was she--were _we_--to say to all
this? With a girl possessed of more nerve and firmness of mind this
matter could never have taken such a turn, and the delay had never
occurred. This _malheur_ or mishap--this variation from the strict