Delphi Collected Works of Ouida, page 779
“Waldemar, I have heard the most absurd report about you.”
“Most reports are absurd.”
“Yes, of course; but this is too ridiculous. What do you think it is?”
“I am sure I can’t say.”
“That you are going to marry.”
“Well?”
“Well! You take it very quietly. If you were going to make a good match I should be the first to rejoice; but they say that you are engaged to some niece of that odious, vulgar parvenu, Cashranger, the brewer; that little bold thing who wrote that play that made a noise a little while ago. Pray set me at rest at once, and say it is not true.”
“I should be very sorry if it were not.”
His sister looked at him in haughty horror. “Waldemar! you must be mad. If you were rich, it would be intolerable to stoop to such a connexion; but, laden with debts as you are, to disgrace the family with such — —”
“Disgrace?” repeated Falkenstein, scornfully. “She would honor any family she entered.”
“You talk like a boy of twenty,” said Virginia, impatiently. “To load yourself with a penniless wife when you are on the brink of ruin — to introduce to us the niece of a low-bred, pushing plebeian — to give your name to a bold manœuvring girl, who has the impudence to take her stand before a crowded theatre — —”
“Hold!” broke out Waldemar, fiercely: “you might thank Heaven, Virginia, if you were as frank-hearted and as free from guile as she is. She thinks no ill, and therefore she is not, like you fine ladies, on the constant qui vive lest it should be attributed to her. I have found at last a woman too generous to be mistrustful, too fond to wait for the world’s advantages, and, moreover, untainted by the breath of your conventionalities, and pride, and cant.”
Virginia threw back her head with a curl on her lip. “You are mad, as I said before. I suppose you do not expect me to countenance your infatuation?”
He shrugged his shoulder. “Really, whether you do or not is perfectly immaterial to me.”
Virginia was silent, pale with anger, for they were all (pardonably enough) proud. She turned with a sneer to Josephine, a younger and less decided woman, just entering. “Josephine, you are come in time to be congratulated on your sister-in-law.”
“Is it true?” murmured Josephine, aghast. “Oh! my dear Waldemar, pause; consider how dreadful for us — a person who is so horribly connected; the man’s beer wagon is now standing at the door. Oh, do reflect — a girl, whose name is before the public — —”
“By talent that would grace a queen!” interrupted Waldemar, rising impatiently. “You waste your words; you might know that I am not so weak as to give up my sole chance of happiness to please your pitiful prejudices.”
“Very well. I shall never speak to her,” said Virginia, between her teeth.
“That you will do as you please; you will be the loser.”
“But, Waldemar, do consider,” began Josephine.
“Your women’s tongues would drive a man mad,” muttered Falkenstein. “Tell me where my father is.”
“In his study,” answered Virginia briefly. And in his study Falkenstein found him. He saw at once that something was wrong by his reception; but he plunged at once into his affairs, showing him plainly his position, and asking him frankly for help to discharge his debts.
Count Ferdinand heard him in silence. “Waldemar,” he answered, after a long pause, “you shall have all you wish. I will sign you a check for the amount this instant if you give me your word to break off this miserable affair.”
Falkenstein’s cheek flushed with annoyance; he had expected sympathy from his father, or at least toleration. “That is impossible. You ask me to give up the one thing that binds me to life — the one love I have given me — the one chance of redeeming the future, that lies in my grasp. I am not a boy led away by a passing caprice. I have known and tried everything, and I can judge what will make my happiness. What unfortunate prejudice have you all formed against my poor little Valérie — —”
“Enough” said his father, sternly. “I address you as a man of the world, and a man of sense; you answer me with infatuated folly. I give you your choice: my aid and esteem, in everything you can desire, or the madman’s gratification of the ill-placed caprice of the hour.”
Falkenstein rose as haughtily as the Count.
“Virtually, then, you give me no choice. I am sorry I troubled you with my concerns. I know whose interference I have to thank for it, and am only astonished you are so easily influenced,” said Falkenstein, setting his teeth hard as he closed the door; for his father’s easy desertion of him hit him hard, and he attributed it, rightly enough, to Maximilian, who, industriously gathering every grain of evil report against his brother, had taken such a character of Valérie — whom, unluckily, he had seen coming out of Duke street — down to Fairlee, that his father vowed to disinherit him, and his sisters never to speak to him. The doors both of his own home and Lowndes Square were closed to him; and in his adversity the only one that clung to him was Valérie.
If he had been willing to ask them, none of his friends could have helped him. Godolphin, with 20,000l. a year, spent every shilling on himself; Tom Bevan, but that he stood for a pocket borough of his governor’s, would have been in quod long ago; and for the others, men very willing to take your money at écarté are not very willing to lend you theirs when you can play écarté no longer. Amadeus Levi grew more and more importunate; down on him at once, as Falkenstein knew, would come the Jew’s griffes if he took any such unprofitable step as a marriage for love; and with all the passion in the world, mesdemoiselles, a man thinks twice before he throws himself into the Insolvent Court.
One night, nolens volens, decision was forced on him. He had seen Valérie that morning in the Pantheon, and they had parted to meet again at a ball, one of the lingering stragglers of the past season. About twelve he dressed and walked down Duke Street, looking for a cab to take him to Park Lane. Under a lamp at the corner, standing reading, he saw a man whom he knew by sight, and whose errand he guessed without hesitation. He paused unnoticed close beside him; he stood a moment and glanced over his shoulder; he saw a warrant for his own apprehension at Levi’s suit. The man looking, to make sure of the dress, never raised his eyes. Falkenstein walked on, hailed a hansom in Regent street, and in a quarter of an hour was chatting with his hostess.
“Where is Miss L’Estrange?” he asked, carelessly.
“She was waltzing with Tom a moment ago,” answered Mrs. Eden. “If you run after her so, I shall believe report. But is anything the matter, Falkenstein? How ill you look!”
“Too much champagne,” laughed Waldemar. “I’ve been dining with Gourmet, and all the Falkensteins inherit the desire of obtaining that gentlemanlike curse, the gout.”
“It’s not the gout, mon ami,” smiled Mrs. Eden.
“Break your engagement and waltz with me,” he whispered, ten minutes after, to Valérie.
“I have none. I kept them all free for you!”
He put his arm round her and whirled her into the circle.
“Count Waldemar, you are not well. Has anything fresh occurred?” she asked anxiously, as she felt the quick throbs of his heart, and saw the dark circles of his eyes and the deepened lines round his haughty mouth.
“Not much, dearest. I will tell you in a moment.”
She was silent, and he led her through the different rooms into Mrs. Eden’s boudoir, which he knew was generally deserted; and there, holding her close to him, but not looking into her eyes lest his strength should fail him, he told her that he must leave England, and asked her if he should go alone.
She caught both his hands and kissed them passionately. “No, no; do not leave me — take me with you, wherever it be. Oh, that I were rich for your sake! I, who would die for you, can do nothing to help you—”
He pressed her fiercely to him. “Oh, Valérie! Heaven bless you for your love, that renders the darkest hour of my life the brightest. But weigh well what you do, my darling. I am utterly ruined. I cannot insure you from privation in the future, perhaps not from absolute want; if I make money, much must go in honor year by year to the payment of my debts, by instalments. I shall take you from all the luxuries and the society that you are formed for; do not sacrifice yourself blindly — —”
“Sacrifice myself!” interrupted Valérie. “Oh! Waldemar, if it is no sacrifice to you, let me be with you wherever it be; and if you have cares, and toil, and sorrow, let me share them. I will write for you, work for you, do anything for you, only let me be with you — —”
He pressed his lips to hers, silent with the tumult of passion, happiness, delirious joy, regret, remorse, that arose in him at her words.
“My guardian angel, be it as you will!” he said, at length. “I must be out of England to-morrow, Valérie. Will you come with me as my wife?”
Early on Sunday morning Falkenstein was married, and out of his host of friends, and relatives, and acquaintance, honest Tom Bevan was the only man who turned him off, as Tom phrased it, and bid him good bye, with few words but much regret, concealed, after the manner of Britons, for the loss of his old chum. Tom’s congratulations were the only ones that fell on Valérie’s ear in the empty church that morning; but I question if Valérie ever noticed the absence of the marriage paraphernalia, so entirely were her heart, and eyes, and mind, fixed on the one whom she followed into exile. They were out of London before their part of it had begun to lounge down to their late breakfasts; and as they crossed the Channel, and the noon sun streamed on the white line of cliffs, Falkenstein, holding her hands in his and looking down into her eyes, forgot the follies of his past, the insecurity of his future, the tale of his ruin and his flight, that would be on the tongues of his friends on the morrow, and only remembered the love that came to him when all others forsook him.
V. THE SILVER CHIMES RING IN A HAPPY NEW YEAR.
One December evening Falkenstein sat in his lodgings in Vienna; the wood fire burnt brightly, and if its flames lighted up a room whose appanages were rather different to the palace his grandfather had owned in the imperial city, they at least shone on waving hair and violet eyes that were very dear to him, and helped to teach him to forget much that he had forfeited. From England he had come to Vienna, where, as he had projected, his uncle, one of the cabinet, had been able to help him to a diplomatic situation, for which his keen judgment and varied information fitted him; and in Austria his name gave him at once a brevet of the highest nobility. Of course the knowledge that he was virtually outlawed, and that he was deep in the debt of such sharps as Amadeus Levi, often galled his proud and sensitive nature; but Valérie knew how to soften and to soothe him, and, under her caressing affection or her ready vivacity, the dark hours passed away.
He was smoking his favorite briar-wood pipe, with Valérie sitting at his feet, reading him some copy just going to her publishers in England, and little Spit, not forgotten in their flight, lying on the hearth, when a deep English voice startled them, singing out, “Here you are at last! I give you my word, I’ve been driving over this blessed city two hours to find you!”
“Tom!” cried Falkenstein.
“Captain Bevan!” echoed Valérie, springing to her feet, while Spit began barking furiously.
Bevan shook hands with them; heartily glad to see his friend again, though, of course he grumbled more about the snow and the stupidity of the Viennese than anything else. “Very jolly rooms you’ve got,” said he at last; “and, ‘pon my life, you look better than I’ve seen you do a long time, Waldemar. Madame has done wonders for you.”
“Madame” laughed, and glanced up at Falkenstein, who smiled half sadly.
“She has taught me how to find happiness, Tom. I wish you may get such a teacher.”
“Thank you, so do I, if my time ever comes; but geniuses aux longs yeux bleus are rare in the world. But you’re wondering why I’m here, ain’t you?”
“I was flattering myself you were here to see us.”
“Well, of course and very glad to see you, too; but I’m come in part as your governor’s messenger.”
Valérie saw him look up quickly, a flush on his face. “My father?”
“Yes, that rascal — (you know I always said he was good for nothing, a fool that couldn’t smoke a Queen without being sick) — I mean, your brother Maximillian — was at the bottom of the Count’s row with you. Last week I was dining at old Fitz’s, and your father and sisters were there, and when the women were gone I asked him when he’d last heard of you; of course he looked tempestuous, and said, ‘Never.’ Happily, I’m not easily shut up, so I told him it was a pity, then, for if he did he’d hear you were jollier than ever, and I said your wife was —— Well, I won’t say what, for fear we spoil this young lady, and make her vain of herself. The old boy turned pale, and said nothing; but two days after I got a line from him, saying he wasn’t quite well; would I go down and speak to him. I found him chained with the gout, and he began to talk about you. I like that old man, Waldemar, I do, uncommonly. He said he’d been too hasty, but that it was a family failing, and that Max had brought him such — well, such confounded lies — about Valérie, that he would have shot you rather than see you give her your name; now he wants to have you back. I’d nothing to do, so I said I’d come and ask you to forgive the poor old boy, and come and see him, for he isn’t well. I know you will, Falkenstein, because you never did bear malice.”
“Oh yes, he will,” murmured Valérie, tears in her eyes. “I separated you, Waldemar; you will let me see you reconciled?”
“My darling, yes! Poor old governor!” And Falkenstein stopped and smoked vigorously, for kindness always touched him to the heart.
Bevan looked at him and was silent. “I say,” he whispered, when he was a moment alone with Valérie. “I didn’t tell Waldemar, because I thought you’d break it to him less blunderingly than I should, but the old Count’s breaking fast. I doubt if he’ll live another week.”
Bevan was right. In another week Falkenstein stood by the death-bed of his father. He had a long interview with him alone, in which the old Count detailed to him the fabricated slanders with which his brother had blackened Valérie’s name. With all his old passion he disowned the son capable of such baseness, and constituted Waldemar his sole heir, save the legacies left his daughters. He died in Waldemar’s arms the night they arrived in England, with his last word to him and Valérie, whom, despite Virginia’s opposition, he insisted on seeing. Falkenstein’s sorrow for his father was deep and unfeigned, like his character; but his guardian angel, as he used to call her, was there to console him, and, under the light of her smile, sorrow could not long pursue him.
On his brother, always his own enemy, and now the traducer of the woman he loved, Waldemar’s wrath fell heavily, and would, to a certainty, have found some means of wreaking itself, but for the last wishes of his father. As it was, he took a nobler, yet a more complete revenge. The day of the funeral, when they were assembled for the reading of the will, Maximilian, unconscious of his doom, came with his gentle face, and tender melancholy air, to inherit, as he believed, Fairlie, and all the personal property.
Stunned as by a spent ball, horror-struck, disbelieving his senses, he heard his younger brother proclaimed the heir. It was a serious thing to him, moreover, for — for a man of large expenses and great ostentation — his own means were small. To secure every shilling he had schemed, and planned, and lied; and now every shilling was taken from him. Like the dog of Æsopian memory, trying to catch two pieces of meat, he had lost his own!
After the last words were read, Waldemar stood a moment irresolute; then he lifted his head, his dark eyes bright and clear, his mouth fixed and firm, a proud calm displacing his old look of passion and of care.
He went up to his brother with a generous impulse, and held out his hand.
“Maximilian, from our boyhood you never liked me, and of late you have done me a great wrong; but I am willing to believe that you did it from a mistaken motive, and by me, at least, it shall never be recalled. My father, in his wish to make amends for the one harsh act of his life to me, has made a will which I know you consider unjust. I cannot dispute his last desire that I should inherit Fairlie, but I can do what I know he would sanction — divide with you the wealth his energy collected. Take the half of the property, as if he had left it to you, and over his grave let us forget the past!”
On the last day of the year, so eventful to them both, Falkenstein and Valérie drove through the park at Fairlie. The rôle of a country gentleman would have been the last into which Waldemar, with his independent opinions and fastidious intellect, would have sunk; but he was fond of the place from early associations, and he came down to take possession. The tenantry and servants welcomed him heartily, for they had often used to wish that the wild high-spirited child, who rode his Shetland over the country at a headlong pace, and if he sometimes teased their lives out, always gave them a kind word and merry laugh, had been the heir instead of the one to whom they applied the old proverb “still and ill.”
The tenantry had been dismissed, the dinner finished, even the briarwood pipe smoked out, and in the wide Elizabethan window of the library Falkenstein stood, looking on the clear bright night, and watching the Old Year out.
“You sent the deed of gift to-day to Maximilian?” said Valérie, clasping both her hands on his arm.
“Yes. He does not take it very graciously; but perhaps we can hardly expect that from a man who has been disinherited. I question if I should accept it at all.”
“But you could never have wronged another as he wronged you,” cried Valérie. “Oh, Waldemar! I think I never realised fully, till the day you took your generous revenge, how noble, how good, how above all others you are.”
