CHAPTER XLIII.--WINIFRED'S SECRET.

It was Christmas-eve at Craigaderyn as well as before Sebastopol, and all over God's land of Christendom--the "Land of Cakes," perhaps, excepted, as Christmas and all such humanising holidays were banished thence as paganish, by the acts of her Parliament and her "bigots of the Iron Time," as in England by Cromwell, some eighty years later, for a time. A mantle of gleaming white covered all mighty Snowdon, the tremendous abysses of Carneydd Llewellyn, and the lesser ranges of Mynyddhiraeth. Llyn Aled and Llyn Alwen were frozen alike, and the Conway at some of its falls exhibited a beard of icicles that made all who saw them think of the friendly giant--old Father Christmas himself! Deep lay the snow in the Martens' dingle and under all the oaks of the old forest and chase; for it was one of those hearty old English yules that seem to be passing away with other things, or to exist chiefly in the fancy of artists, and which, with their concomitants of cold without and warmth and glowing hospitality within, seemed so much in unison with an old Tudor mansion like Craigaderyn--a genuine Christmas, like one of the olden time, when the yule-log was an institution, when hands were shaken and faces brightened, kind wishes expressed, and hearts grew glad and kind. But on this particular Christmas-eve Winifred and Dora were not at the Court, but with some of their lady friends were busy putting the finishing touches to the leafy decorations of the parish church, for the great and solemn festival of the morrow, with foliage cut from the same woods and places where the Druids procured similar decorations for their temples, as it is simply a custom--an ancient usage--which has survived the shock of invading races and changing creeds.

The night was beautiful, clear, and frosty, and to those who journeyed along the hard and echoing highway the square tower of the old church, loaded alike by snow and ivy, could be seen to loom, darkly and huge, against the broad face of the moon, that seemed to hang like a silver shield or mighty lamp amid the floating clouds, and right in a cleft between the mountains. The heavens were brilliant with stars; and lines of light, varied by the tinting of heraldic blazons and quaint scriptural subjects, fell from the traceried and mullioned windows of the ancient church on the graves and headstones in the burial-place around it; while shadows flitted to and fro within--those of the merry-hearted and white-handed girls who were so cheerily at work, and whose soft voices could be heard echoing under the groined arches in those intervals when the chimes ceased in the belfry far above them. Huge icicles depended from the wyverns and dragons, through whose stony mouths the rain of fully five centuries had been disgorged by the gutters of the old church, and being coated with snow, the obelisks and other mementos of the dead had a weird and ghostlike effect in the frosty moonlight.

In the cosy porch of the church were Sir Madoc Lloyd and his hunting bachelor friend, Sir Watkins Vaughan, each solacing himself with a cigar while waiting for the ladies, to escort whom home they had driven over from the Court after dinner in Sir Watkins' bang-up dog-cart. While smoking and chatting (about the war of course, as no one spoke of anything else then), they peeped from time to time at the picturesque vista of the church, where garlands of ivy and glistening holly, green and white, with scarlet berries, and masses of artificial flowers, were fast making gay the grim Norman arches and sturdy pillars, with their grotesque capitals and quaint details. Nor were the tombs and trophies of the Lloyds of other times forgotten; so the old baronet watched with a pleased smile the slender fingers of his young daughter as they deftly wreathed with holly and bay the rusty helmet that whilom Madoc ap Meredyth wore at Flodden and Pinkey, her blue eyes radiant the while with girlish happiness, and her hair as usual in its unmanageable masses rolling down her back, and seeming in the lights that flickered here and there like gold shaded away with auburn.

The curate, a tall, thin, and closely-shaven man, in a "Noah's-ark coat" with a ritualistic collar, stood irresolutely between the sisters, though generally preferring the graver Winifred to the somewhat hoydenish Dora, who insisted on appropriating his services in the task of weaving and tying the garlands; but he was little more than an onlooker, as the ladies seemed to have taken entire possession of the church and reduced him to a well-pleased cipher. At last Sir Watkins, a pleasant and gentlemanly young man, though somewhat of the "horsey" and fox-hunting type, who had a genuine admiration for Winifred, and had actually proposed for her hand (but, like poor Phil Caradoc, had done so in vain), seemed to think that he was letting his reverence have the ladies' society too exclusively, tossed his cigar into the snow, entered the church, and joined them; while Sir Madoc preferred to linger in the porch and think over the changes each of those successive festivals saw, and of the old friends who were no longer here to share them with him.

"Here comes Sir Watkins, to make himself useful, at last!" said Dora, clapping her hands, as she infinitely preferred the fox-hunter to the parson. "I shall insist upon him going up the long ladder, and nailing all those leaves over that arch."

But Winifred, to whom his rather clumsy attentions, however quietly offered, were a source of secret annoyance, drew nearer her female friends, four gay and handsome girls from London, who were spending Christmas at the Court (but have nothing else to do with our story), and whose eyes all brightened as the young and eligible baronet joined them. But for the charm which the presence of Winifred always had for him, and the pleasure of attending on her and the other ladies, Sir Watkins would infinitely have preferred, to a cold draughty church on Christmas night, Sir Madoc's cosy "snuggery," or the smoking-room at the Court, where they could discuss matters equine and canine, reckon again how many braces of grouse, black-cock, and ptarmigan they lad "knocked over" that day, or discuss the comparative merits of coursing in well-fenced Leicestershire, and in Sussex, where the downs are all open and free as the highway, or other kindred topics, through the medium of hot brandy-and-water.

"Now, Sir Watkins, here are my garlands and there is a ladder," said Dora.

"Any mistletoe among them, Miss Dora?" he asked, laughing.

"No; we leave the arrangement of that mysterious plant to such Druids as you; but here are some lovely holly-berries," said Dora, holding a bunch over the head of one of her companions, and kissing her with all that empressement peculiar to young ladies.

"By Jove," said the baronet, with a positive sigh, "I quite agree with some fellow who has written that 'two women kissing each other is a misapplication of one of God's best gifts.'"

Glancing at Winifred, who looked so handsome in her cosy sealskin jacket, with its cuffs and collar of silver-coloured grebe, the bachelor curate smiled faintly, and said, while playing nervously with his clerical billycock.

"I do not plead for aught approaching libertinism, but I do think that to kiss in friendship those we love seems a simple and innocent custom. In Scripture we have it as a form of ceremonious salutation, as we may find in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, and in first Samuel, where the consecration of the Jewish kings to regal authority was sealed by a kiss from the officiator in the ceremony."

"And we have also in Genesis the courtship of Jacob and the 'fair damsel' Rachel," said Dora, looking up from her task with her bright face full of fun, "wherein we are told that 'Jacob kissed Rachel, and then lifted up his voice, and wept.' If any gentleman did so after kissing me, I am sure that I should die of laughter."

"We are having quite a dissertation on this most pleasant of civilised institutions," said Sir Watkins, merrily, as he flicked away a cobweb here and there with his silver-mounted tandem whip; "have you nothing to say on the subject, Miss Lloyd--no apt quotation?"

"None," replied Winifred, dreamily, while twirling a spray of ivy round her white and tapered fingers.

"None--after all your reading?"

"Save perhaps that a kiss one may deem valueless and but a jest may be full of tender significance to another."

"You look quite distraite, Winny, dear, as you make this romantic admission," said one of her friends.

"Do I--or did I?" she asked, colouring.

"Yes. Of what or of whom were you thinking?"

"Such a deuced odd theme you have all got upon!" said Sir Watkins, perceiving how Winifred's colour had deepened at her own thoughts.

"But how funny--how delightful!" exclaimed the girls, laughing together; while Dora added, with something like a mock sigh, as she held up a crape rose,

"When last I wore this rose in my hair, I danced with little Mr. Clavell--and he is spending his Christmas before Sebastopol! Poor dear fellow--poor Tom Clavell!"

Winifred's colour faded away, her usual calm and self-possessed look returned; and, stooping down, she bent all her energies to weave an obstinate spray of ivy round the carved base of a pillar, some yards distant from the group.

"Permit me to be your assistant, Miss Lloyd," said the baronet, in a low voice and with an earnest manner. "Miss Dora must excuse me; but I don't see the fun of craning my neck up there from the top of a twelve-foot ladder."

Winifred started a little impatiently, for as he stooped by her side, his long fair whiskers brushed her brow. "Do I annoy you?" he asked, gently.

"O no; but I feel nervous to-night, and wish our task were ended."

"It soon will be, if we work together thus. But you promised to tell me, Miss Lloyd, why your old gamekeeper would not permit me to shoot that hare in the Martens' dingle, to-day."

"Need I tell you, Sir Watkins--a Welshman?"

"You forget that my place is in South Wales, almost on the borders of Monmouthshire, and this may be a local superstition."

"It is."

"Well, I am all attention," said he, looking softly down on the girl's wonderfully thick and beautiful eyelashes.

"The story, as I heard it once from dear mamma, runs thus: Ages ago, there took shelter in our forests at Pennant Melangell, the daughter of a Celtic king, called St. Monacella, to whom a noble had proposed marriage; one whom she could not love, and could never love, but on whom her father was resolved to bestow her."

"By Jove!" commented Sir Watkins, while poor Winifred, feeling the awkwardness of saying all this to a man she had rejected, became troubled and coloured deeply; "and so, to escape her tormentors, she fled to the wilderness."

"Yes, and there she dwelt in peace for fifteen years, without seeing the face of a man, till one day Brochwel, Prince of Powis, when hunting, discovered her, and was filled with wonder to find in the depth of the wild forest a maiden of rare beauty, at prayer on her knees beside a holy well; and still greater was his wonder to find that a hare his dogs had pursued had sought refuge by her side, while they shrank cowering back with awe. Brochwel heard her story; and taking pity, gave to God and to her some land to be a sanctuary for all who fled there; she became the patron saint of hares, and for centuries the forest there teemed with them; and even at this hour our old people believe that no bullet can touch a hare, if any one cries in time, 'God and St. Monacella be with thee!'"

"A smart little nursery legend," said Sir Watkins, who perhaps knew it well, though he had listened for the pure pleasure of having her to talk to him, and him alone.

"It is one of the oldest of our Welsh superstitions," said Winifred, somewhat piqued by his tone.

"Why are you so cross with me?" he asked, while venturing just to touch her hand, as he tied a spray of ivy for her. "Cross--I, with you?"

"Reserved, then."

"I am not aware, Sir Watkins, that I am either; but please don't begin to revert to--to--"

"The subject on which we spoke so lately?"

"Yes."

"Ah, Miss Lloyd--my earnest and loving proposal to you."

"In pity say no more about it!" said Winifred, colouring again, but with intense annoyance at herself for having drawn forth the remark.

"Well, Miss Lloyd, pardon me; I am but a plain fellow in my way, and your good papa understands me better than you do."

"And likes you better," said she, smiling.

"I am sorry to be compelled to admit that such is the case; but remember the maxim of Henry IV. of France."

"Why--the roses please--what was it?"

"There are more flies caught by one spoonful of honey than by ten tuns of vinegar."

"Thanks, very much, for the maxim," replied Winifred, proudly and petulantly; "but I hope I am not quite of the nature of vinegar, and I don't wish to catch flies or anything else."

It was now Sir Watkins' turn to blush, which he did furiously, for her proud little ways perplexed him; but she added, with a laugh,

"The base of the next pillar requires our attention, and then I think the decorations are ended. Do let the cobwebs alone with your whip, and assist me, if you would please me."

"There is not in all the world a girl I would do more to please," said Sir Watkins, earnestly, his blue eyes lighting up with honest enthusiasm as he spoke in a low and earnest tone, "and I know that there is not in all England another girl like you, Winifred: you quite distance them all, and it is more than I can understand how it comes to pass that those who--who--don't love you--"

"Well, what, Sir Watkins?"

"Can love any one else!" said he, confusedly, while smoothing his fair moustache, for there was a quick flash in the black eyes of Winifred Lloyd that puzzled him. In fact, though he knew it not, or was without sufficient perception to be aware of it, this was an offhand style of love-making that was infinitely calculated to displease if not to irritate her.

"You flatter me!" said she, her short upper lip curling with an emotion of disdain she did not care at that moment to conceal.

"Does it please you?"

"No."

"I am sorry for that, as we are generally certain of the gratitude at least, if not the love, of those we flatter."

Much more of this sort of thing, almost sparring, passed between them; for Sir Watkins, piqued by her rejection of him, would not permit himself again as yet to address her in the language of genuine tenderness, and most unwisely adopted a manner that had in it a soup?on of banter. But Winifred Lloyd heard him as if she heard him not: the memories of past days were strong at that time in her heart, and glancing from time to time towards the old oak family pew, then half lost in obscurity and gloom, she filled it up in fancy with the figures of some who were far away--of Philip Caradoc and another; of Estelle Cressingham, who, for obvious reasons of her own, had omitted her and Dora from the Christmas circle at Pottersleigh House; and so, while Sir Watkins continued to speak, she scarcely responded. The girl's thoughts "were with her heart, and that was far away," to where the lofty batteries of Sebastopol and the red-and-white marble cliffs of Balaclava looked down upon the Euxine, where scenes of which her gentle heart could form no conception were being enacted hourly; where human life and human agony were of no account; and where the festival of the Babe that was born at Bethlehem, as a token of salvation, peace, and goodwill unto men, was being celebrated by Lancaster guns and rifled cannon, by shot and shell and rockets, and every other device by which civilisation and skill enable men to destroy each other surely, and expeditiously.

Just as some such ideas occurred to her she saw her father, followed by old Owen Gwyllim, enter the church, and in the faces of both she read an expression of concern that startled her; and from her hands she dropped the ivy sprays and paper roses, which she was entwining together. Sir Madoc held in his hand an open newspaper, with which the old butler had just ridden over from the Court, and he silently indicated a certain paragraph to the curate, who read it and then lifted up his hands and eyes, as with sorrow and perplexity.

"What the devil is up now?" asked Sir Watkins, bluntly; "no bad news from the Crimea, I hope--eh?"

"Very--very bad news! we have lost a dear, dear friend!" replied Sir Madoc, letting his chin drop on his breast; while Sir Watkins, taking the journal from his hand, all unconscious of error or misjudgment, read aloud:

"'It is now discovered beyond all doubt, by the Chief of the Staff, that Captain Henry Hardinge, of the Royal Welsh Fusileers, whose disappearance, when on a particular duty, was involved in so much mystery, has been drowned in the Black Sea, by which casualty a most promising young officer has been lost to her Majesty's service.'"

"Drowned--Harry Hardinge drowned in the Black Sea!" exclaimed Dora, with sudden tears and horror.

"By Jove, the same poor fellow I met at your fête, I think--so sorry, I am sure!" said Sir Watkins, with well-bred regret; "and see--I have quite startled poor Miss Lloyd!"

Winifred, who for a moment seemed turned to stone, covered her face with her handkerchief, while her whole delicate form shook with the sobs she dared not utter.

Mothers, wives, and friends, the tender, the loving, and the true, had all read, until their hearts grew sick and weary, of the perils and sufferings of those who were before Sebastopol, as the horrors of the Crimean winter, adding to those which are ever attendant on war, deepened over them. And now here was one horror more--one that was quite unlooked for in its nature, but which now came home to their own hearts and circle.

"Take me away, papa--take me home!" said Winifred, in a faint voice, as she laid her face on his shoulder, for her tears were irrepressible; and the tall, slender curate in the long coat--an Oxonian, who chanted some portions of his church service, turned to the east when he prayed, had an altar whereon were sundry brazen platters, like unto barbers' basins, and tall candles, which (as yet) he dared not light, and who secretly, but hopelessly, admired Winifred in his inner heart--knew not what to think of all this sudden emotion; but he kindly caressed her passive white hands between his own, and whispered lispingly in her ear, that "the Lord loved those whom He chastened--afflictions come not out of the ground--all flesh was grass--that God is the God of the widow and fatherless--yet there were more thorns than roses in our earthly path," with various other old stereotyped crumbs of comfort.

"To the Court--home!" cried Sir Madoc; "call round the carriages to the porch, Owen, and let us begone."

A few minutes after this they had all quitted the church, and were being driven home in their close vehicle, Sir Watkins excepted, who drove in his dog-cart, sucking a cigar he had forgotten to light, and wondering what the deuced fuss was all about. Had Hardinge stood in his way? If so, by Jove, there was a chance for him yet, thought the good-natured fellow. In the dark depth of the large family carriage, as it bowled along noiselessly by a road where the white mantle of winter lay so deep by hill and wood that one might have thought the Snow-King of the Norsemen had come again, Winifred could weep freely; and as she did so, her father's arm stole instinctively and affectionately round her.

"Drowned," she whispered in his ear; "poor Harry drowned--and I loved him so!"

"It may all be some d--d mistake," sighed Sir Madoc, in sore grief and perplexity.

"But, O papa," whispered the girl, "I loved him so--loved him as Estelle Cressingham never, never did!"

"You, my darling?"

"Yes, papa."

"My poor pet! I suspected as much all along. Well, well, we are all in the hands of God. It is a black Christmas, this, for us at Craigaderyn, and I shall sorrow for him even as Llywarch Hen sorrowed of old for all the sons he lost in battle. But what a strange fatality to escape so narrowly at the B?d Mynach, and then to be drowned in the distant East!"

And with a heart swollen alike by prayer and sorrow, the girl, whose tender and long-guarded secret had at last escaped her in the shock of grief, sat alone in her room that night, and heard the Christmas chimes ringing out clearly and merrily to all, it seemed, but for her; for those bells, those gladsome bells, which speak to every Christian heart of bright hope here and brighter hope elsewhere, seemed to chime in vain for Winifred Lloyd; so she thought in her innocent heart, "I shall go to him yet, though he can never come back to me!"