Under the Red Dragon: A Novel
"Or had broken my neck when my horse cleared yonder hedge," said he,
as his arm again went round her, and the strong deep love with which
he had so artfully succeeded in inspiring her, triumphed over every
sentiment of filial regard, of reason, and humanity. She forgot the
old parent who doted on her; the stately old ancestral home, that was
incrusted with the heraldic honours of the past; she forgot her
position in the world, and fled with the _parvenu_ Guilfoyle.
That night the swift express from Shrewsbury to Birkenhead, as it
swept through the beautiful scenery by Chirk and Oswestry, while the
wooded Wrekin sank flat and far behind, bore her irrevocably from her
home; but her father's pale, white, and wondering face was ever and
always upbraidingly before her. As Guilfoyle had foreseen, no proper
marriage could be celebrated at Liverpool ere the ship sailed from the
Mersey. He hurried her on board, and his hunting friend--a dissipated
man of the world, ordered to Madeira for the benefit of his
health--received the pale, shrinking, and already conscience-stricken
girl in the noisy cabin of the great steamer with a critical eye and
remarkably knowing smile, while his manner, that for the time was
veiled by well-bred courtesy, might have taught the poor dove that she
was in the snares of an unscrupulous fowler.
But ere the great ship had made the half of her voyage--about six
days--in her sickness of body and soul, the girl had made a friend and
confidant of the captain, a jolly and good-hearted man, who had girls
of his own at home; and he, summoning a clergyman who chanced to be on
board, under some very decided threats compelled Guilfoyle to perform
the part he had promised; so he and Georgette were duly wedded in the
cabin, while, under sail and steam, the vessel cleft the blue waves of
the western ocean, and her ensign was displayed in honour of the
event. But there the pleasure and the honour ended, too; and Guilfoyle
soon showed himself in his true colours, as a selfish and infamous
_roué_.
"Alas!" said she, weeping, "he no longer called me the pet names I
loved so well; or made a fuss with me, and caressed me, as he was wont
to do among the pleasant woods of Stoke Franklin. I felt that, though
he was my husband, he was a lover no longer! We had not been a
fortnight at Madeira when we heard that the vessel, on board of which
we were married, had perished at sea with all on board, including her
temporary chaplain. Then it was that Mr. Guilfoyle tore from me the
sole evidence of that solemn ceremony given to me by the clergyman,
and cast it in the flames before my face, declaring that then he was
free! Of our past love I had no relic but a gold locket containing his
likeness and bearing a date, the 1st of September, the day on which we
were married, with our initials, H. H. and G., and even that he rent
from me yesterday. Alas for the treachery of which some human hearts
are capable! We were _one_ no longer now, as the old song has it:
"'That time!--'tis now "long, long ago!"
Its hopes and joys all passed away!
On life's calm tide three bubbles glow;
And pleasure, youth, and love are they,
Hope paints them bright as bright can be,
Or did, when he and I were _we!_'
As a finishing stroke to his cruelty and perfidy, he suddenly quitted
Madeira, after some gambling transaction which brought the alcalde of
Funchal and other authorities upon him. He effected his escape
disguised as a vendor of sombreros and canary birds, and got clear
off, leaving a note by the tenor of which he bequeathed me to his
friend, with whom he left me at a solitary _quinta_ among the
mountains."
Though dissipated and "fast" by nature and habit, the latter was at
heart an English gentleman; and pitying the forlorn girl abandoned in
a foreign colony under circumstances so terrible, he sent her home;
and one day, some six months after her flight, saw her once more
standing irresolutely at the closed gate of the old manor-house of
Stoke Franklin.
The latter was empty now; the windows were closed, the bird-cages hung
there no more; the golden and purple crocuses she had planted were
peeping up from the fragrant earth, untended now; the pathways were
already covered with grass and mosses; untrimmed ivy nearly hid the
now unopened door; the old vanes creaked mournfully in the wind; and
save the drowsy hum of the bees, all spoke to her hopeless,
despairing, and remorseful heart of the silence and desolation that
follow death. The odour of last year's dead leaves was heavy on the
air. After a time she learned how rapidly her father had changed in
aspect, and how he had sunk after her disappearance--her desertion of
him; and how there came a time when the fine old gentleman, whose thin
figure half stooping, with his head bent forward musingly, his scant
white hair floating over the collar of his somewhat faded coat, his
kindly but wrinkled face, his tasselled cane trailing behind him from
his folded hands, whilom so familiar in the green lanes about Stoke
Franklin, and who was always welcomed by the children that gambolled
on the village green or around the old stone cross, and the decayed
wooden stocks that stood thereby, appeared no more. A sudden illness
carried him off, or he passed away in his sleep, none knew precisely
which; and then another mound under the old yew-tree was all that
remained to mark where the last of the Franklins, the last of an old,
old Saxon line, was laid.
I promised to assist her if I could, though without the advice of a
legal friend I knew not very clearly what to do; besides, knowing what
lawyers usually are, I had never included one in the circle even of my
acquaintances. Estelle's long silence, and the late episode in the
lane, chiefly occupied my thoughts while riding back to the barracks,
where somewhat of a shock awaited me.
CHAPTER XXIII.--TURNING THE TABLES.
Though the dower-house of Walcot Park dated from the days of Dutch
William, when taste was declining fast in England, internally it had
all the comforts of modern life, and its large double drawing-room was
replete with every elegance that art could furnish or luxury
require--gilt china, and buhl cabinets, and console mirrors which
reproduced again and again, in far and shadowy perspectives, the
winged lions of St. Mark in _verde antique_; Laocoon and his sons
writhing in the coils of the serpents; Majolica vases, where tritons,
nymphs, and dolphins were entwined; Titian's cavaliers sallow and
sombre in ruffs and half-armour, with pointed moustachios and
imperious eyes; or red-haired Venetian dames with long stomachers,
long fingers, and Bologna spaniels; or Rubens' blowsy belles, all
flesh and bone, with sturdy limbs, and ruddy cheeks and elbows; but
the mirrors reflected more about the very time that I was lingering at
Whitchurch; to wit, a group, a trio composed of Lady Naseby, her
daughter, and Mr. Guilfoyle; and within that room, so elegant and
luxurious, was being fought by Estelle, silently and bitterly, one of
those struggles of the heart, or battles of life, which, as poor
Georgette Franklin said truly, were harder than those which were
fought in the field by armed men. Guilfoyle was smiling, and looking
very bland and pleased, indeed, to all appearance; Lady Naseby's
usually calm and unimpressionable face, so handsome and noble in its
contour, wore an expression of profound disdain and contempt; while
that of Lady Estelle was as pale as marble. She seemed to be icy cold;
her pink nostrils were dilated, her lips and eyelids were quivering;
but with hands folded before her, lest she should clench them and
betray herself, she listened to what passed between her mother and
their visitor.
"It was, as you say, a strange scene, of course, Mr. Guilfoyle, the
woman fainting--"
"Reclining."
"Well, yes, reclining in the arms of Mr. Hardinge in that lonely
lane," said the Countess; "but we need refer to it no more. He must be
a very reckless person, as Pompon saw him take leave of this creature
with great tenderness, she says, at the door of that obscure inn at
Whitchurch; so that explains all."
"Not quite," replied Guilfoyle.
"Perhaps not; but then it is no affair of ours, at all events, I must
own that I always wondered what the Lloyds--Sir Madoc especially--saw
in that young man, a mere subaltern of the line!"
"Precisely my view of the matter, Lady Naseby."
"Besides, your little baronet people are great sticklers for rank and
dignity, and often affect a greater exclusiveness than those who rank
above them."
"But as for this unfortunate woman," resumed Guilfoyle, who was loth
to quit the subject.
"We have heard of her in our neighbourhood before," said Lady Naseby;
"at least, Pompon has. She is good to all, especially the poor."
"Ah, doesn't care to hide her candle under a bushel, eh?"
"What do you mean, Mr. Guilfoyle?"
"Simply that vanity is often mistaken for generosity, profusion for
benevolence."
"You are somewhat of a cynic, I know."
"Nay, pardon me, I hope not."
"She is too poorly clad in general, Pompon says, to be able to indulge
in profusion," continued Lady Naseby, while Lady Estelle glanced at
the speakers alternately, in silence and with apparent calmness.
But Guilfoyle, who read her eyes and heart, and knew her secret
thoughts, gloated on the pain she was enduring.
"No doubt the unfortunate creature is much to be pitied," said he;
"but when a woman has lost respect for herself, she cannot expect much
of it from others. The poor little soiled love-bird has probably left
some pretty semi-detached villa at Chertsey or St. John's Wood to
follow its faithless redcoat to Hampshire, and hence the touching
tableau in the lane," he added, with his mocking and strangely unreal
laugh.
"Mr. Guilfoyle!" said the Countess, in a tone of expostulation, while
her daughter darted a glance of inexpressible scorn at him. But he
continued coolly, "Well, perhaps I should not speak so slightingly of
her, after what she has given herself out to be."
"And what is that?" asked Lady Naseby.
"Only--his wife."
"His wife!" exclaimed Estelle, starting in spite of herself. "Yes,
Lady Estelle; but it may not be, nay, I hope is not, the case."
"You should rather hope that it is so."
"But we all know what military men are--never particular to a shade;
and though excuses must be made for the temptations that surround
them, and also for youth, I approve of the continental system, which
generally excludes subaltern officers from society."
"Wife!" repeated Estelle; "O, it cannot be!"
"What is it to _you_--to us?" asked mamma, with a slight asperity of
tone.
"Well, wife or not, she certainly wears a wedding-ring, and he has
been more than once to visit her in that inn at Whitchurch. Of one
visit our mutual friend Mr. Sharpus is cognisant. If you doubt this,
ask him, and he will not contradict _me_."
"I have not said that I doubt you, Mr. Guilfoyle," said Estelle, with
intense hauteur, while for a moment--but a moment only--her eyes
flashed, her breast heaved, her hands were clenched, a burning colour
suffused her face, and her feet were firmly planted on the carpet; yet
she asked quietly, "Why do we hear this scandalous story at all? What
is it to mamma--what to me?"
"More, perhaps, than you care to admit," said he, in a low voice, as
the Countess rose to place Tiny in his mother-of-pearl basket.
Guilfoyle at Craigaderyn had acted as eavesdropper, and on more than
one occasion had watched and followed, overseen and overheard us, and
knew perfectly all about our secret engagement, her mother's views and
opposition to any alliance save a noble or at least a moneyed one; and