CHAPTER XIII.
THE HANDKERCHIEF.
"It is, indeed, singular that we should meet again, and so soon, too!" said the elder lady, who, notwithstanding the silver tinge amid her auburn hair, still bore unmistakable traces of a beautiful person; "your regiment is, I think, a Horse Grenadier one?"
"Yes, madam."
"The Guards?"
"No—it is the Scots Greys, or Second Dragoons—yet we boast ourselves 'Second to None.'"
"A proud vaunt," said she, smiling at my manner.
She was silent for a few moments, during which I was conscious that her daughter was observing me with some interest. As our officers did not then wear epaulettes, but simply a silver aiguilette, her next observation was an awkward one for me.
"You are a captain, I hope?" said she, smiling.
"Nay—I am too young," I replied, with a hesitating manner and a glowing cheek.
"Yet Wolfe, whom I once knew, was a colonel at twenty. Then you are a cornet?"
I felt the blood rushing to my temples—yet wherefore should I have blushed "for honest poverty?"
"Curiosity is the privilege of our sex," said the young lady, coming to my rescue; "thus mamma is most anxious to know to whose bravery we owed our safety."
"Madam, I have not the honour to be more than a private trooper," said I, with a bearing of pride that had something stern in it.
Mamma did not lose her presence of mind, though the colour in her daughter's cheeks grew deeper, but replied—
"All, indeed! I believed you by your bearing to be an officer." She drew her head within the carriage.
"I thank you, madam; I was not always what I am to-day," said I, sadly.
"And now, my good fellow, if you will favour me with your name, Colonel Preston shall be duly informed, by letter, of your courage."
There was another pause, during which I shortened my reins, and was turning my horse, when the winning voice of her daughter, which had a singularly sweet chord in it, arrested me, as she said—
"You belong, you state, to the Greys?"
"Yes."
"Do you know a soldier named Gauntlet—Basil Gauntlet?"
It was now my turn to feel confusion and extreme surprise.
"Yes; but how has he the honour, the happiness to be known to you?" I inquired, with growing astonishment, while gazing into her clear, bright eyes.
"I have an interest—have we not both an interest in him, mamma?" said she, with confusion.
"You—in a poor unfriended trooper?" I exclaimed.
"He is from our neighbourhood—that is all," replied the young lady, with a hesitating manner.
I scanned her face in vain; its soft expression and lovely features, her hair of golden-brown, her eyes of dark blue-grey—eyes full of faith, of truth and merriment withal, were quite unknown to me, and my heart beat quicker while my bewilderment increased, as she said—
"We have heard that this ill-starred lad has become wild, rakish, bad, incorrigible and ugly."
"Ugly? Come, I am sorry you say so," said I, with something of pique.
"Why?" asked the mamma, raising her eyebrows and eyeglass.
"Gauntlet and I are alike as twin brothers could be, and I don't like to hear him reviled."
"Ah, indeed," said she, glancing at me leisurely through her eyeglass. Then, as thoughts of Jack Charters' countess, and the scrape she had lured him into occurred to me, I resolved to become reserved; but could not help inquiring—
"Permit me, ladies, to ask how poor Gauntlet is so fortunate as to interest you?"
"We are namesakes—that is all," replied the elder lady, rather coldly.
"Namesakes!" echoed I; but at that moment, as the arms on the panel of the carriage door caught my eye—a shield argent charged with a gauntlet gules—a new light broke upon me. Anger—sudden, fierce, and glowing anger—was my next impulse, and, turning to the fair rider, I stammered, but my voice almost failed me, "You are—you are——"
"The granddaughter of Sir Basil Gauntlet, of Netherwood," said she, with haughty surprise.
I was silenced and confounded! This lovely girl whom I had twice met so singularly and so abruptly, was my cousin Aurora, the new usurper of my patrimony—one whom I had schooled myself to hate and in my soul revile; and this elder lady, so noble, so courtly, and still so handsome, was the mother of my late fox-hunting cousin Tony—my aunt by marriage—she who doubtless believed me to be—if she ever thought of me at all—the outcast, runaway, and worthless wretch my unnatural grandfather had sought to make me.
Pride and a just sense of indignation swelled up within me, and I sat on my horse, silent, irresolute, and stern. Aurora and her mother knew little of the stormy, the fierce conflict of nameless emotions that raged in my heart.
"Adieu, soldier," said the mamma, "with a thousand thanks for the service so bravely and politely rendered. If you will not give us your name, at least do me the favour of accepting this," she added, drawing forth her—-purse.
I uttered a scornful laugh, and reining back my horse, said—
"Nay, nay, ladies, though impoverished and humbled, I cannot submit quietly to the degradation of being offered money."
"This is most singular!"
"How is mamma to reward you?" asked the young lady, with something of surprise and, as I thought, pleasure in her tone. It might be that I flattered myself.
"By permitting you to give, and me to accept—" said I, taking a lace handkerchief from her hand, for I was always a lover of effect, and resolved to produce one now—"of this trifle as a remembrance——"
"Of what?" she asked, blushing to the temples; "a remembrance of what?"
"That Basil Gauntlet has been of some service to Aurora, the beautiful cousin who has done him a grievous wrong in unwittingly depriving him of his heritage and birthright. Three days, now, may find me on the seas for France; so adieu, aunt and cousin, adieu for evermore!"
Then I cut short this remarkable interview by spurring my horse with such energy that he made a wild bound, and sprang away at a dashing pace along the road to Guildford.
Impulse had made me take Aurora's handkerchief, and impulse now made me regret having done so.
Pride resumed its sway, and thus, while riding furiously along the road, I never turned once to look behind me.