Besides other duties there was no small number of books--goodly sized folios--of which I had the supervision, ten at least exactly similar to those which are kept at headquarters; and all these tasks were varied by an occasional ball or rout such as a cathedral and garrison town can furnish; or a court-martial, or one of inquiry, concerning Mrs. Private Jones resenting--_vi et armis_--that the canteen-keeper should cut her bacon and tobacco, butter and bread, with the same knife; or to give some Giles Chawbacon fifty lashes about daybreak for a violation of the Red-book, in a hollow square, where men's teeth chattered in the chilly air, or they yawned behind their glazed stocks and shivered with disgust, at a punishment for which the army was indebted to William of Orange, and which is now happily a thing of the past. So the month of August drew to a close, and a box of partridges duly came from Sir Madoc--the spoil of his gun on the slopes of Mynedd Hiraethrog, perhaps; with a letter which acquainted me that Lady Naseby and her daughter had been for fully a fortnight at Walcot Park in Hampshire, but that he supposed I was probably aware of the circumstance, and that Pottersleigh was with them.
Fully a fortnight, and neither letter nor card of invitation, though they knew that I was in Winchester! How or why was this? A chill came over me, though I certainly had no fear of the Viscount's influence; but then I reflected that Estelle could not, and that Lady Naseby would not, invite me--each for reasons of her own. What, then, remained for me to do, but wait the event with patience, or endeavour to seek her out, by throwing myself in her way? I writhed at the idea of a fortnight having escaped us, while the coming of the fatal route for the East hung over me. There was something revolting and humiliating to my spirit in acting the part of a prowler about Walcot Park; but who is a more humble slave than a lover? The declaration of war had animated the services, both by sea and land, with a new or revived interest for all, with women especially. Thus our parades, reviews, and even our marches of exercise were frequently witnessed by all the beauty and fashion of the city and county; and among them I always looked in vain for the carriage and liveries of the Countess. Was Estelle ill, or was their absence from these spectacles part of a system to be pursued by the former?
Walcot Park was, I knew, only a few miles from the barracks on the Whitchurch-road. I had spent many an hour riding there merely to see the place which was associated with Estelle, when she had been absent from it in London or elsewhere; and now I had doubly an attraction to make me turn my horse's head in that direction, after Sir Madoc's letter came; so the second day saw me take the way northward from the old cathedral city, in mufti, to elude observation. The evening was a lovely one, and those swelling hills and fertile valleys, wide expanses of woodland already becoming crisp by the heat of the past summer, with clumps of birch and elder, the wild ash and the oak, which make up the staple features of Hampshire scenery, were in all their autumnal beauty and repose. The tinkling of the waggoner's bells on the dusty highway, was still heard, though the shrill whistle of the locomotive seemed to hint that, like the old stage-coachman, he should ere long find his occupation gone; and mellowed on the soft and ambient air there came the merry evening chimes from more than one quaint, village-church--the broad square Norman tower of which stood--the landmark of its district--in outline distinct and dark against the golden flush of the western sky. Dusk was almost closing when I crossed that noted trouting-stream, the Teste; and passed through Whitchurch.
As I trotted leisurely along the single street of which the little market borough is chiefly composed, at the door of a small inn I perceived a stable-boy holding by their bridles a black horse and a roan mare. The form of the latter seemed familiar to me. I could not mistake the height of forehead, the depth of chest, and roundness of barrel, or a peculiar white spot on the off-shoulder, and in the former recognised the roadster which Guilfoyle had brought with him to Craigaderyn. On seeing that I drew my reins and looked rather scrutinisingly at the animal, the groom, stable helper, or whatever he was, touched his cap, on which I inquired,
"Whose nag is this, my man?"
"Can't say as I knows, sir; but the gentleman, with another, is inside the bar, having a drop of summut," was the answer.
"Does he reside hereabout?"
"At Walcot Park he do."
"Walcot Park!"
"My Lady Naseby's place; he's been there for a couple of days at least, with Mr. Sharpus, my lady's lawyer from London."
I rode on and spurred my horse to a maddening pace for some distance, and then permitting the reins to drop on his neck, gave way to the tide of perplexing, harassing, and exasperating thoughts that flowed upon me. I remembered that we had arranged at Craigaderyn not to inform Lady Naseby of the real character of her chosen continental acquaintance, a foolish and fatal mistake, as the fellow would seem to have had sufficient presumption to present himself at Walcot Park, and there remain until exposed and expelled. But how came it to pass that such as he was patronised and fostered, as it were, by "the family solicitor," and patented by being his companion? Surely a legal man, however great a rascal professionally and personally, was too wary to adopt openly a blackleg as his friend and protégé!
I felt that Lady Naseby should instantly be warned of Guilfoyle's real character; but by whom was this to be done? Tied up by my secret arrangements with Estelle, I could neither write nor call uninvited; but why had she not, as she had promised, written to me, or given me some sign of her being so near Winchester as Walcot Park? When I recalled her apparent preference for this man, when Caradoc and I first went to Wales, their frequent recurrence to past companionship abroad, their duets together, and so forth, her angry defence of him to myself, together with an interest he had acquired in the eyes of her usually unapproachable mother, something of my old emotions of pique and doubt, and a jealousy for which I blushed, began to mingle with my perplexity and mortification, and the fear that _he_ could have any influence on her destiny or mine!
I recalled all the conversation overheard by Pottersleigh, and greater grew my astonishment and indignation. I felt it imperative that something should be done instantly, and resolved to telegraph or write to Sir Madoc, requesting him to procure the dismission of this intruder from Walcot Park as promptly as he had despatched him from Craigaderyn. From a part of the road where it wound over an upland slope I could see the Jointure House which formed the residence of Lady Naseby and of that Estelle who was a law, a light, a guiding star to me, and towards whom every thought and aspiration turned. Walcot Park was a spacious domain, and studded by clumps of stately old trees, which had been planted after the Revolution of 1688 by a peer of the Naseby family, who was one of the first to desert his hereditary king at Rochester. The mansion itself dated from the same stormy period, and was built entirely of red brick with white stone corners and cornices. Its peristyle of six Ionic columns glistened white in the moonlight, and was distinctly visible from where I sat on horseback. The shadow of the square façade of the entire edifice fell purple and dark far across the park. There were lights in several of the windows, and I knew that my Estelle must be in one of those rooms--but which?
At that moment all my soul yearned for her; could I but for an instant have seen her, or heard her voice! She dwelt there, visible to and approachable by others, and yet I dared not visit her. The fact of her presence there seemed to pervade and charm all the place, and with a sad, loving, and yet exasperated interest, I continued to survey it. I was hovering there, but aimlessly, and without any defined purpose, other than the vague chance of seeing or being near her. Walcot I knew was her favourite place, and there she kept all her pets, for she had many: a parrot sent from the Cape by the captain of a frigate to whom she had spoken but once at a ball; a spaniel from Malta, the gift of some forgotten rifleman; a noble staghound, given by a Highland officer who had danced with her once--once only--and never forgot it; a squirrel, the gift of Sir Madoc; and an old horse or two, her father's favourite hacks, turned loose in the park as perpetual pensioners.
Could she really have loved me as she said she did, if she was already behaving so coldly to me now? No letter or note, no invitation--she had surely influence enough with her mother to have procured me that!--no notice taken of my vicinity, of my presence with the depôt again! What shadow was this that seemed already to be falling on our sunny love? Whence the doubt that had sprung up within me, and the coldness that seemed between us? Full of these thoughts, I was gazing wistfully at the house, when I perceived the dark figures of two horsemen riding leisurely along the winding approach that led to the white peristyle, and felt certain that they were Guilfoyle and his legal friend Mr. Sharpus (of Sharpus and Juggles) mounted on the identical nags I had seen at the inn-door; and inspired by emotions of a very mingled character, I galloped back to the barracks, never drawing my bridle for the entire twelve miles of the way, until I threw it to my man Evans; and hurrying to my room, wrote instantly a most pressing letter to Sir Madoc, informing him of what I had seen and heard. I was not without thoughts of communicating with Lord Pottersleigh; but, for obvious reasons, shrunk from _his_ intervention in the Cressingham family circle.