Under the Red Dragon: A Novel
"This may all be true, Harry, or not--only _entre nous_, I don't
believe it is," said Phil Caradoc aside to me; "for who here knows
anything of Croatia? He might as well talk to old Gwyllim the butler,
or any chance medley Englishman, of the land of Memnon and the
hieroglyphics. This fellow Guilfoyle beats Munchausen all to nothing;
but did he not before tell something _else_ about that ring?"
"I don't remember; but now, Phil, that you have seen her," said I, in
a tone of tolerably-affected carelessness, "what do you think of _la
belle_ Cressingham?"
"She is very handsome, certainly," replied Phil, in the same
undertone, and luckily looking at his glass, and not at me, "a
splendid specimen of her class--a proud and by no means a bashful
beauty."
"Most things in this world are prized just as they are difficult of
attainment, or are scarce. I reckon beauty among these, and no woman
holds it cheap," said I, not knowing exactly what to think of
Caradoc's criticism. "There is Miss Lloyd, for instance--"
"Ah," said he, with honest animation, "she is a beauty too, but a
gentle and retiring one--a girl that is all sweetness and genuine
goodness of heart."
"With some dairy-farms in the midland counties, eh?"
"The graces of such a girl are always the most attractive. We men are
so constituted that we are apt to decline admiration where it is
loftily courted or seemingly expected--as I fear it is in the case of
Lady Cressingham--and to bestow it on the gentle and retiring."
I felt there was much truth in my friend's remarks, and yet they
piqued me so that I rather turned from him coldly for the remainder of
the evening.
"Her mother is haughty, intensely ambitious, and looks forward to a
title for her as high, if not higher, than that her father bore," I
heard Sir Madoc say to a neighbour who had been talking on the same
subject--the beauty of Lady, Estelle; "the old lady is half Irish and
half Welsh."
"Rather a combustible compound, I should think," added Guilfoyle, as,
after coffee and curaçoa, we all rose to join the ladies in the
drawing-room.
CHAPTER VII.--PIQUE.
The moment I entered the drawing-room, where Winifred Lloyd had been
doing her utmost to amuse her various guests till we came, and where
undoubtedly the ladies' faces grew brighter when we appeared, I felt
conscious that the remark of the hoydenish Dora had done me some
little mischief. I could read this in the face of the haughty Estelle,
together with her fear that _others_ might have heard it; thus,
instead of seating myself near her, as I wished and had fully
intended, I remained rather aloof, and leaving her almost exclusively
to the industrious Guilfoyle, divided my time between listening to
Winifred, who, with Caradoc, proceeded to perform the duet he had sent
her from the barracks, and endeavouring to make myself agreeable to
the Countess--a process rather, I am sorry to say, somewhat of a task
to me. Though her dark hair was considerably seamed with gray, her
forehead was without a line, smooth and unwrinkled as that of a
child--care, thought, reflection, or sorrow had never visited _her_.
Wealth and rank, with a naturally aristocratic indolence and
indifference of mind, had made the ways of life and of the world--at
least, the world in which she lived--easy, soft, and pleasant, and all
her years had glided brilliantly but monotonously on. She had married
the late earl to please her family rather than herself, because he was
undoubtedly an eligible _parti_; and she fully expected their only
daughter to act exactly in the same docile manner. Her mien and air
were stately, reserved, and uninviting; her eyes were cold, inquiring,
and searching in expression, and I fancied that they seemed to watch
and follow me, as if she really and naturally suspected me of "views,"
or, as she would have deemed them, _designs_.
Amid the commonplaces I was venturing to utter to this proud, cold,
and decidedly unpleasant old dame, whose goodwill and favour I was
sedulously anxious to gain, it was impossible for me to avoid hearing
some remarks that Sir Madoc made concerning me, and to her daughter.
"I am so glad you like my young friend, Lady Estelle," said the bluff
baronet, leaning over her chair, his rubicund face beaming with smiles
and happiness; for he was in best of moods after a pleasant dinner,
with agreeable society and plenty of good wine.
"Who told you that I did so?" asked she, looking up with fresh
annoyance, yet not unmixed with drollery, in her beautiful face.
"Dora and Winny too; and I am so pleased, for he is an especial friend
of ours. I love the lad for his dead mother's sake--she was an old
flame of mine in my more romantic days--and doesn't he deserve it?
What do you think the colonel of his old corps says of him?"
"Really, Sir Madoc, I know not--that he is quite a ladykiller,
perhaps; to be such is the ambition of most young subalterns."
"Better than that. He wrote me, that young Hardinge is all that a
British officer ought to be; that he has a constitution of iron--could
sleep out in all weathers, in a hammock or under a tree--till the
fever attacked him at least. If provisions were scanty, he'd share his
last biscuit with a comrade; on the longest and hottest march he never
fell out or became knocked up; and more than once he has been seen
carrying a couple of muskets, the arms of those whose strength had
failed them. 'I envy the Royal Welsh their acquisition, and regret
that _we_ have lost him'--these were the colonel's very words."
Had I fee'd or begged him to plead my cause, he could not have been
more earnest or emphatic.
"For heaven's sake, Sir Madoc, do stop this overpowering eulogium,"
said I; "it is impossible for one not to overhear, when one's own name
is mentioned. But did the colonel really say all this of me?"
"All, and more, Harry."
"It should win him a diploma of knight-bachelor," said Lady Estelle,
laughing, "a C.B., perhaps a baronetcy."
"Nay," said Sir Madoc; "such rewards are reserved now for toad-eaters,
opulent traders, tuft-hunters, and ministerial tools; the days when
true merit was rewarded are gone, my dear Lady Estelle."
The duet over, Phil Caradoc drew near me, for evidently he was not
making much progress with Miss Lloyd.
"Well, Phil," said I, in a low voice, "among those present have you
seen your ideal of woman?"
"Can't say," said he, rather curtly; "but _you_ have, at all events,
old fellow, and I think Sir Madoc has done a good stroke of business
for you by his quotation of the colonel's letter. I heard him all
through our singing--the old gentleman has no idea of a _sotto voce_,
and talks always as if he were in the hunting-field. By Jove, Harry,
you grow quite pink!" he continued, laughing. "I see how the land lies
with you; but as for '_la mère_ Cressingham,' she is an exclusive of
the first water, a match-maker by reputation; and I fear you have not
the ghost of a chance with her."
"Hush, Caradoc," said I, glancing nervously about me "remember that we
are not at Winchester, or inside the main-guard, just now. But see,
Lady Estelle and that fellow Guilfoyle are about to favour us," I
added, as the pale beauty spread her ample skirts over the
piano-stool, with an air that, though all unstudied, seemed quite
imperial, and ran her slender fingers rapidly over the white keys,
preluding an air; while Guilfoyle, who had a tolerable voice and an
intolerable amount of assurance, prepared to sing by fussily placing
on the piano a piece of music, on the corner of which was written in a
large and bold hand, evidently his own--"To Mr. H. Guilfoyle, from
H.S.H. the Princess of Catzenelnbogen."
"You must have been a special favourite with this lady," said Estelle,
"as most of your German music is inscribed thus."
"Yes, we were always exchanging our pieces and songs," said he,
languidly and in a low voice close to her ear, yet not so low as to be
unheard by me. "I was somewhat of a favourite with her, certainly; but
then the Princess was quite a privileged person."
"In what respect?"
"She could flirt farther than any one, and yet never compromise
herself. However, when she bestowed this ring upon me, on the day when
I saved her life, by arresting her runaway horse on the very brink of
the Rhine, I must own that his Highness the Prince was the reverse of
pleased, and viewed me with coldness ever after; so that ultimately I
resigned my office of attaché, just about the time I had the
pleasure--may I call it the joy?--of meeting you."
"O fie, Mr. Guilfoyle! were you actually flirting with her?"
"Nay, pardon me; I never flirt."
"You were in love then?"
"I was never in love till--"
A crash of notes as she resumed the air interrupted whatever he was
about to say; but his eye told more than his bold tongue would perhaps
have dared to utter in such a time or place; and, aware that they had
met on the Continent, and had been for some time together in the
seclusion of Craigaderyn, I began to fear that he must have far
surpassed me in the chances of interest with her.. Moreover, Dora's
foolish remark might reasonably lead her to suppose that I was already
involved with Winifred; and now, with a somewhat cloudy expression in
my face (as a mirror close by informed me), and a keen sense of pique
in my heart, I listened while she played the accompaniment to his
pretty long German song, the burden of which seemed to be ever and
always--
"Ach nein! ach nein! ich darf es nich.
Leb wohl! Leb' wohl! Leb' wohl!"
Sir Madoc, who had listened with some secret impatience to this most
protracted German ditty, now begged his fair guest to favour him with
something Welsh; but as she knew no airs pertaining to the locality,
she resigned her place to Winifred, whom I led across the room, and by
whose side I remained. After the showy performances of Lady Estelle,
she was somewhat reluctant to begin: all the more so, perhaps, that
her friend--with rather questionable taste, certainly--was wont, in a
spirit of mischief or raillery--but one pardons so much in lovely
woman, especially one of rank--to quiz Wales, its music and
provincialism; just as, when in the Highlands, she had laughed at the
natives, and voted "their sham chiefs and gatherings as delightfully
absurd." Finding that his daughter lingered ere she began, and half
suspecting the cause, Sir Madoc threatened to send for Owen Gwyllim,
the butler, with his harp. Owen had frequently accompanied her with
his instrument; but though that passed well enough occasionally among
homely Welsh folks, it would never do when Lady Naseby and certain
others were present.
"It is useless for an English girl to sing in a foreign language, or
attempt to rival paid professional artists, by mourning like Mario
from the turret, or bawling like Edgardo in the burying-ground, or to
give us 'Stride la vampa' in a fashion that would terrify Alboni,"
said Sir Madoc, "or indeed to attempt any of those operatic effusions
with which every hand organ has made us familiar. So come, Winny, a
Welsh air, or I shall ring for Owen."
This rather blundering speech caused Lady Estelle to smile, and
Guilfoyle, whose "Leb' wohl" had been something of the style objected
to, coloured very perceptibly. Thus urged, Winifred played and sang
with great spirit "The March of the Men of Harlech;" doubtless as much
to compliment Caradoc and me as to please her father; for it was then
our regimental march; and, apart from its old Welsh associations, it
is one of the finest effusions of our old harpers. Sir Madoc beat
time, while his eyes lit up with enthusiasm, and he patted his
daughter's plump white shoulders kindly with his weather-brown but
handsome hands; for the old gentleman rather despised gloves, indoors