AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE.
The Baron de la Motte, leaving Captain de Volaski stretched on the
ground, to be cared for by the seconds and the surgeon in attendance,
went back to the hotel and made preparations to leave San Vito.
Mademoiselle de la Motte, still very weak from recent illness, was placed
in a carriage at the risk of her life, and compelled to commence the
journey back to France.
Madame de la Motte, grieved with the grief and anxious for the health of
her daughter, dared not show the sufferer any pity or kindness.
Monsieur de la Motte was no longer the tender and affectionate father he
had hitherto shown himself: for, in his bitter mortification and fierce
resentment, his love seemed turned to hatred, his sympathy to antipathy.
The attenuated form, the pale face, and the sunken eyes of his once
beautiful child, failed to move his compassion for her. He told her with
brutal cruelty that he had slain her lover in the duel, and left him dead
upon the ground; and that she must think no more of the villain who had
dishonored her family.
On arriving in Paris, the baron established his household in the
magnificent Hotel de la Motte, in the most aristocratic quarter of the
city; and here began for Valerie a life that was a very purgatory on
earth.
At home, if her purgatory could be called her home, she was studiously
and habitually treated with scorn and contempt, as a creature unworthy to
bear the family name, or share the family honors; until at length the
child herself began to look upon her fault in the light her father wished
her to see it, and with such exaggerating eyes, withal, that she came to
think of herself as a dishonored criminal, unworthy even to live. Her
grief sank to horror, and her depression to despair.
She was treated as an outcast in all respects but one, and this exception
was an additional cruelty; for she was introduced into the gay world of
fashion, and compelled to mix in all its festivities, at the same time
being sternly warned that if this same world should suspect her fault,
she would not be received in any drawing-room in Paris.
Valerie was too broken-spirited to answer by telling the truth, that the
world and the world's favor had lost all attraction for her, who would
willingly have retired from it forever.
Valerie was presented to society as Mademoiselle de la Motte, and nothing
was said of her stolen marriage with the young Russian officer.
That season was perhaps the gayest Paris had ever known during the
quiet reign of the citizen king and queen. Brilliant festivities in
honor of the Spanish marriages were the order of the days and nights.
Representatives from every court in Europe were present, as special
messengers of congratulation--or expostulation; for it will be remembered
the Spanish marriages were not universally popular with the sovereigns of
Europe.
Among the representatives of the English Court, present at the Tuileries,
was the seventh Duke of Hereward, recently come into his titles and
estates.
It was at a ball at the Tuileries that Valerie de la Motte first met the
Duke of Hereward, then a very handsome man of middle age, of accomplished
mind and courtly address. The beautiful, pale, grave brunette at once
interested the English duke more than all the blooming and vivacious
beauties at the French capital could do. At every ball, dinner, concert,
play, or other place of amusement where Mademoiselle de la Motte appeared
with her parents, the Duke of Hereward sought her out; and the more he
saw of her, the more interested he became in her; and it must be
confessed that the conversation of this handsome and accomplished man of
middle age pleased the grave, sedate girl more than that of younger and
gayer men could have done.
The duke, on his part, was not slow to perceive his advantage, and he
would willingly have paid his addresses to Mademoiselle de la Motte in
person, and won her heart and hand for himself, before speaking to her
father on the subject; but as such a proceeding would not have been in
accordance with the customs of the country, no opportunity was allowed
him to do so; for whereas in England, or America, a suitor must win the
favor of his lady before he asks that of her parents, in France the
process is precisely the reverse of all this, and the lover must have the
sanction of the father or mother, or both, before he may dare to woo the
daughter; and this rule of etiquette holds good in all cases except in
those of stolen marriages, which are illegal and disreputable.
It was not long, therefore, before the Duke or Hereward called at the
Hotel de la Motte, and requested a private interview with the baron,
which was promptly and politely accorded.
The duke then and there made known to the baron the state of his
affections, and formally solicited the hand of Mademoiselle Valerie
de la Motte in marriage.
The "mad duke" was not then mad; he had not squandered his princely
fortune; his dukedom was one of the wealthiest as well as one of the
oldest in the United Kingdom; the marriage he offered the baron's
daughter was one of the most brilliant (under royalty) in Europe.
The baron did not hesitate a moment, but promptly accepted the proposals
of the duke in behalf of his daughter.
The Duke of Hereward hurried away, the happiest man in Europe.
The Baron de la Motte went and informed his daughter that she must
prepare to receive the middle-aged suitor as her future husband.
Now, Valerie, in a languid way, liked the Duke of Hereward better than
any one else in the whole world except her mother, but she did not like
him in the character of a husband. The idea of marriage even with him was
abhorrent to her. In her first surprise and dismay at the announcement of
the duke's proposal for her hand, and her father's acceptance of that
proposal, she betrayed all the unconquerable antipathy she felt to the
contemplated marriage; but in vain she wept and pleaded to be left in
peace; to be left to die; to be sent to a convent; to be disposed of in
any way rather than in marriage!
The baron was no longer a tender and compassionate father, but a ruthless
and implacable tyrant.
Valerie's life had been a purgatory before, it was a hell now. She was
covered with reproach, contumely and threats by her father; she was
lectured and mourned over by her mother; and when her mother at length
took sides with her father, in urging her to this marriage, the very
ground seemed to have slidden from beneath her feet; she had not a friend
in the world to whom to turn in her distress.
Meanwhile the Duke of Hereward was impatiently awaiting the promised
summons to the Hotel de la Motte to meet Mademoiselle Valerie as his
future wife.
Valerie believed that her young lover-husband had been slain in the duel
with her father; and that she was free to bestow her hand, if she could
not give her broken heart; she was worn out with the ignominious
reproaches heaped upon her by her father; by the tears and sighs lavished
upon her by her mother; by all the humiliation and degradations of her
daily life, and by the dreariness and desolation of her home. She longed
for peace and rest; she would gladly have sought them in a convent had
she been permitted to do so, or in the grave, had she dared.
I repeat that she did not dislike the Duke of Hereward; but on the
contrary, she liked him better than any one else in the world except her
mother, and so it followed that at length she began to look upon a
marriage with him as the only possible refuge from the horrors of her
home.
What wonder, then, that, goaded and taunted by her father, implored by
her mother, solicited by the handsome duke, believing her young lover to
be dead, slain by the hands of her father, longing to escape from the
persecutions of her family, prostrated in body and mind, broken in heart
and in spirit, Valerie at last succumbed to the pressure brought to bear
upon her, and accepted the refuge of the Duke of Hereward's love,
although the very next moment, in honor of herself and him, she
would willingly have recalled her decision, if she could have done so.
From the moment that her acceptance of the duke's proposal was announced
to her parents, the domestic sky cleared; her ruthless tyrant became
again her tender father; her weeping mother brightened into smiles;
she herself was once more the petted daughter of the house, and her lover
showed himself the proudest and happiest of men; and Valerie de la Motte
would have been at peace but for her consciousness of the secret that
they were all keeping from the duke.
"Mamma, he ought to be told, he is so good, so noble, so confiding. I
feel like a wretch in deceiving him; he ought to be told of my fault
before he commits himself by marrying me," she pleaded with her mother.
"Valerie, you frighten me half to death! Do not dream of such a folly as
telling the duke anything about your mad imprudence in running away with
the young Russian! It would make a great and terrible scandal! Your
father would kill you, I do believe! Besides, for that fault, committed
while you were in our keeping and under our authority, you are
accountable only to me and to your father. Your betrothed husband has
nothing to do with it. No good would come of your telling it; no harm can
come of your keeping it. The wild partner of your imprudence is dead and
buried, the saints be praised! and so he can never rise up to trouble
your peace. While you are here with us, and under our authority, you must
obey us, and hold your peace, and keep your secret," said the baroness.
"Come weal, come woe, my honor requires that this secret should be told
to the noble and confiding gentleman who is about to make me his wife,"
murmured Valerie.
"Your honor, Mademoiselle, is in the keeping of your father, until, by
giving you in marriage, he passes it into the keeping of your husband.
You are not to concern yourself about it. If your father should deem that
your 'honor' demands your secret to be confided to your betrothed
husband, he will divulge it to him: if he does not divulge it, then rest
assured honor does not require him to do so. Now let us hear no more
about it."
Valerie sighed and yielded, but she was not satisfied.
The betrothal was immediately announced to the world, and the marriage,
which soon followed, was celebrated in the church of Notre Dame with the
greatest _eclat_.
Directly after the wedding the duke took his bride on a long tour,
extending over Europe and into Asia; and after an absence of several
months, carried her to England, and settled down for the autumn on his
English patrimonial estate, Hereward Hold, (for Castle Lone was then a
ruin and Inch Lone a wilderness, which no one had yet dreamed of
rebuilding and restoring.)
The youthful duchess, in her quiet English home, was like Louise la
Valliere in the Convent of St. Cyr, "not joyous, but content."
She tried to make her noble husband happy, by fulfilling all the duties
of a wife--_except one_. She knew a wife should have no secrets from
her husband, yet, in her fear of disturbing the sweet domestic peace, in
which her wearied spirit rested, she kept from him the secret of her
first wild marriage.
At the meeting of Parliament in February, the Duke of Hereward took his
beautiful young wife to London, and established her in their magnificent
town-house--Hereward House, Kensington.
At the first Royal drawing-room at Buckingham Palace, the young duchess
was presented to the queen, and soon after she commenced her career as a
woman of fashion by giving a grand ball at Hereward House.
The Duke of Hereward was very fond and very proud of his lovely young
bride, whose beauty soon became the theme of London clubs--though
invidious critics insisted that she was much too pale and grave ever to
become a reigning belle.
Yes, she was very pale and grave; peaceful, not happy.
Scarcely twelve months had passed since she had been cruelly torn from
the idolized young husband of her youth and thrown into a convent, where
the only news that she heard of him was, that he had been killed in a
duel with her ruthless father. She had mourned for him in secret, without
hope and without sympathy, and before the first year of her widowhood had
passed--a widowhood she had been sternly forbidden by her father either
to bewail or even to acknowledge--she had been driven by a series of
unprecedented persecutions to give her hand where she could not give her
broken heart, and to go to the altar with a deadly secret on her
conscience, if not with a lie on her lips!
Now her persecutions had ceased, indeed; but not her sorrows. Her home
was quiet and honored, her middle-aged husband was kind and considerate,
and she loved him with filial affection and reverence; but she could not
forget the husband of her youth, slain by her father; his memory was a
tender sorrow cherished in the depths of her heart, the only living
sentiment there, for it seemed dead to all else.
"If he were a living lover," she whispered to herself, "I should be bound
by every consideration of honor and duty to cast him out of my heart--if
I could! But for my dead boy, my husband, slain in the flower of his
youth for my sake, I may cherish remembrance and sorrow."
Thus, it is no wonder that she moved through the splendor of her first
London season, a beautiful, pale, grave Melpomene.
But the splendor of that season was soon to be dimmed.
News came by telegraph to the Duke of Hereward, announcing the sudden
death of the Baron de la Motte, of apoplexy, in Paris.
Now much has been said and written about the ingratitude of children; but
quite as much might be said of their indestructible affection. The Baron
de la Motte had shown himself a very cruel father to his only child; he
had shot down her young husband in a duel; yet, notwithstanding all that,
Valerie was wild with grief at the news of his sudden death. She
wondered, poor child, if she herself had not had some hand in bringing
it on by all the trouble she had given him, although that trouble had
passed away now more than twelve months since; and the late baron was
known to have been a man of full habit and excitable temperament, and,
withal, a heavy feeder and hard drinker--a very fit subject for apoplexy
to strike down at any moment.
The Duke and Duchess of Hereward hastened to Paris, where they found the
remains of the baron laid in state in the great saloon of the Hotel de la
Motte, and the widowed baroness prostrated by grief, and confined to her
bed.
The duke and duchess remained until after the funeral, when the will of
the late baron was read. It was then discovered for the first time that
his daughter, Valerie, was not nearly the wealthy heiress she was
supposed to be.
All the late baron's landed estates went to the male heir-at-law, a young
officer in the Chasseurs d' Afrique, then in Algiers. All his personal
property, consisting of bank and railroad stocks, after a deduction as a
provision for his widow, was bequeathed to his only daughter Valerie,
Duchess of Hereward. But this property was so inconsiderable, that,
without other means, it would scarcely have sufficed for the respectable
support of the mother and daughter.
After the settlement of the late baron's affairs, the duke and duchess
would have returned immediately to London but for the condition of the
widowed baroness' health.
Madame de la Motte had for years been a delicate invalid, and she had
experienced, in the sudden death of her husband, a severe shock, from
which she could not rally; so that, within a few weeks after the baron's
remains had been laid in the family vault, she passed away, and hers were
laid by his side.
Valerie was even more prostrated with sorrow by the loss of her mother
than she had been by that of her father.
The duke, to distract her grief, telegraphed to New Haven, where his
yacht, the _Sea-Bird_, was lying to have her brought over to meet
him at Dieppe, took his duchess down to that little seaport and embarked
with her for a voyage to Norway.
The season was most favorable for such a northerly voyage. They sailed on
the first of July, and spent three months cruising about the coasts of
Norway, Iceland, and down to the Western Isles. They returned about the
first of October.
The duke left his yacht at Dieppe, and, accompanied by the duchess, went
up to Paris, to attend to some business connected with the estate of the
late baron.
As but a third of a year had passed since the death of her parents, and
the duchess had scarcely passed out of her first deep crape mourning, she
went very little into society. Nevertheless, she was constrained, at the
duke's request, to accept one invitation.
There was to be a diplomatic dinner given at the British Legation, at
which the Prussian, Austrian and Russian ministers, with the higher
officers of their suites, were to be present.
Valerie, living her recluse life in the city, did not know the names of
one of these ministers, nor, in the apathy of her grief, did she care to
inquire.
On the evening appointed for the entertainment, she went to the hotel of
the British Legation, escorted by her husband.
Dressed in her rich and elegant mourning of jet on crape, glimmering
light on blackest darkness, and looking herself paler and fairer by its
contrast, she entered the grand drawing-room, leaning on the arm of her
husband. She heard their names announced:
"The Duke and Duchess of Hereward."
Then she found herself in a room sparsely occupied by a very brilliant
company, and stood--not, as she had expected to stand, among
strangers--but in the midst of her own familiar friends, whom she had
known in her girlhood at the court of St. Petersburg, or met, in her
womanhood, in the drawing-rooms of London.
It was while she was still leaning on her husband's arm and receiving the
courteous salutations of her old friends, that their host, Lord C--n,
approached with a gentleman.
Valerie looked up and saw standing before her the young husband of her
girlish love!