As Sir Madoc and I proceeded along the to me well-known Whitchurch road, I asked myself mentally, could it really be that I was again looking with farewell eyes on all this fair English scenery, and perhaps for the last time; for our departure to the seat of war, where we were to be face to face and foot to foot with an enemy, was very different from other voyages to a peaceful British colony? Now, varied by autumnal tints, brown, golden, or orange, I saw the long and shady lane where Estelle had last seen me, and near it the low churchyard wall, where our evil genius had rent away the locket from his wife. Sir Madoc's eyes were turned chiefly to the tawny stubble-fields, and he sighed with regret, as he saw the brown coveys of partridges whirring up, that he had not his patent breech-loader in lieu of a hunting-whip.
"Estelle--Estelle!" thought I. "How many temptations in mighty London, and in the country, too--in Brighton, that other London by the sea, and wherever she may go--will beset one so noble and so beautiful--allurements that may teach her to forget and banish from her memory the poor Fusileer subaltern, to whom she seems as the centre of the universe!"
The evening was a lovely one, and the scenery was beautiful. Chestnuts and oaks were, at every turn of the way we rode, forming natural arches and avenues, beyond which were pleasant glimpses of quaint cottages, whose walls and roofs were nearly hidden by masses of roses and honeysuckle; short square village spires and ivy-covered parsonages; widespreading pastures, where the sleepy cattle browsed amid purple clover and golden cowslips, with the glory of the ruddy sunset falling aslant upon them, while the ambient air was full of earthy and leafy fragrance; for many fallen leaves, the earliest spoil of autumn, lay with bursting cones in cool and sunless dells, or by the wayside, where the fern and foxglove mingled under the old thick hedgerows. And so I was looking, as I have said, on all this peaceful scene, perhaps for the last time; yet there was no sadness in my heart, for the revulsion or change of feeling, from the gloom and tumultuous anxiety of many, many days past, and even of that morning, was great indeed to me, especially when we cantered through the handsome iron gates of Walcot Park, the once suspicious keeper of which gave me an unmistakable glance of recognition. I felt like one in a dream as I threw my reins to a servant, and was led upstairs by Sir Madoc.
"Where is Lady Estelle?" he asked of another valet, to whom I gave my sword in the hall.
"In the front drawing-room."
"Alone?"
"I think so, sir."
"All right, Harry!"
But he suddenly affected to remember that he had something to say to his own groom, and as he turned back, I was ushered into the long and stately apartment. I had a dreamy sense of being amid many buhl tables and glass shades, much drapery, and several mirrors that reproduced everything, amid which I saw Estelle advancing cordially to meet me. She had a bright smile in her face, and held out both her hands; but I could scarcely speak.
"Estelle," I whispered, "joy--joy! It is indeed joy, to see you once again!"
"Then you quite forgive me, dearest Harry?"
"Forgive you? O Estelle!" I exclaimed, in a low and passionate voice, as she turned up her adorable face to meet mine half-way.
I knew from past experience that caresses from her meant much more than they did from most women; for Estelle, though proud and reticent, and apparently cold and calm, was reluctant to give and to accept them; so now I felt all the truth and sincerity of this reunion. "A lovers' quarrel is but love renewed;" we, however, had not quarrelled, but been cruelly wrenched asunder by the art and cunning of another.
"Are you on duty, Mr. Hardinge?" said a voice; and from a window where she had been sitting, quite unseen and unnoticed by me, Winny Lloyd came forth, looking, as I thought, a little paler and sadder than when I had seen her last at Craigaderyn Court.
"What makes you think I am on duty, dear Miss Lloyd?--or rather let me say, my dear, dear good friend and guardian angel Winifred, to whose intercession I owe all the happiness of a time like this," said I, pressing her hand caressingly between both of mine.
"Because you are in undress uniform, of course," said she, almost petulantly.
"I can wear no other costume now; we bid good-bye to mufti, the sable livery of civilisation, to-morrow."
"How?"
"We march at daybreak."
"For the East?"
"Yes; for the East, at last."
"So soon?" exclaimed both girls at once.
"The order came within an hour or little more, when Sir Madoc was with me."
The eyes of the girls were full of sudden tears, and they gazed on me with an honest emotion of tenderness and real interest, that, considering the rare beauty and high position of both, were alike flattering and bewildering; and I felt that this was one of those moments when, to be a soldier or a sailor on the eve of departure to the seat of war, was indeed worth something.
And Winifred, the impulsive Welsh fairy, so fresh-hearted, so simple in her motives, and sweet in her disposition, uttered something very like a little sob in her slender white throat, adding apologetically to Estelle, "We have been such old friends, Harry Hardinge and I."
"You never wrote to me, Estelle," said I, softly, yet reproachfully.
"I dared not; you remember our arrangement," she replied, with hesitation.
"Nor was I invited here, like Mostyn, Clavell, and others; thus I had no opportunity of--"
"I had no control, darling Harry, over mamma's dinner-list: I could but suggest to mamma; and then there was that terrible story. But here comes mamma!"
And turning, I found myself face to face with the tall, handsome, and stately Countess of Naseby, whom--nathless her chilling manner and lofty presence--I hoped yet to hail as a very creditable mother-in-law.
I was on the eve of departure, to go where glory waited me. I might cross her exclusive path no more; so my Lady Naseby seemed quite disposed to bury the hatchet, and received me with that which was--for her--unusual kindness, and an enmpressement which made the eyes of her daughter to sparkle with pleasure. A late dinner made a sad hole in the time I had hoped to spend with Estelle; yet I had the pleasure of sitting beside her--a pleasure that was clouded by the conviction that my presence would soon be imperatively requisite at the barracks, where so much was to be done ere morning, and that I should be compelled to abridge even this, my farewell visit, to pleasant Walcot Park, and all who were there. Fortunately, Lady Naseby went quietly to sleep in her boudoir after dinner, with Tiny on her lap; Sir Madoc obligingly went into the library to write; and Winifred suggested a turn in the conservatory, where for a little time she adroitly left Estelle and me together.
There is no utility in dwelling on how we sealed our reconciliation and renewed our troth, when once more I placed my ring upon her finger; or in rehearsing the soft and tender words--perhaps (O heaven!) the "twaddle"--we spoke for an indescribable few minutes, and how each said to the other that our apparent separation had been as a living death. But now all that misery was over; we loved each other more than ever, and the grave alone could part us finally; words, the prompting of the heart, came readily, till our emotions became too deep, and she agreed that I should write to her boldly, "as ere long mamma, through good Sir Madoc, must know all." And so we leaned against a great flower-stand, almost hidden by gorgeous azaleas, our hands tightly clasped in each other, eyes looking fondly into eyes, and feeling that the depth of our tenderness formed for us one of those few-and-far-between portions of existence when time seems to stand still, when silence is made eloquent by the beatings of the heart, when we almost forget we are mortal, and feel as if earth had become heaven. From this species of happy trance we were roughly roused by the crash of a great majolica vase containing a giant cactus, and a voice exclaiming querulously,
"God bless my soul!--Pardon me; I did not know any one was here."
"The devil you didn't!" was my blunt rejoinder.
And there, with gold glasses on his long aristocratic nose, and in his richly-tasselled robe de chamber and embroidered slippers, stood my Lord Pottersleigh, whom I knew not to be at Walcot Park, as he had been nursing his gout upstairs; and now I wished his lordship in a hotter climate than the quarters of the 2nd West India for his unwelcome interruption. Of what he had seen or what he thought I cared not a rush, so far as he was concerned; and a few minutes later saw me, after a hurried farewell to all, with the pleasure of remembered kisses on my lips, and my heart full of mingled joy and sadness, triumph and prayerful hope for the perilous future, flying at full gallop back to Winchester.
