whose slow red-tapeism ill suited his impatient and vigorous intellect,
Waldemar sat down deliberately to investigate his affairs. It was true
that Amadeus Levi's patience was waning fast; his debts of honor had put
him deep in that worthy's books, and Falkenstein, as he sat in his
lodgings, with the August sun streaming full on the relentless figures
that showed him, with cruel mathematical ruthlessness, that he was fast
chained in the Golden Fetters of debt, leaned his head upon his arms
with the bitter despair of a man whose own hand has blotted his past and
ruined his future.
The turning of the handle of his door roused him from his reverie. He
looked up quickly.
"A lady wants to speak to you, sir," said the servant who waited on him.
"What name?"
"She'd rather not give it, sir."
"Very well," said Falkenstein, consigning all women to the devil; "show
her up."
Resigning himself to his fate, he rose, leaning his hand on the arm of
the chair. He started involuntarily as the door opened again.
"Valerie!"
She looked up at him half hesitatingly. "Count Waldemar, don't be angry
with me----"
"Angry! no, Heaven knows; but----"
Her face and her voice were fast thawing his chill reserve, and he
stopped abruptly.
"You wonder why I have come here," Valerie went on singularly shyly for
her, "but--but I heard that you--you have much to trouble you just now.
Is it true?"
"True enough, Heaven knows."
"Then--then," said Valerie, with all her old impetuosity, "let me do
something for you--let me help you in some way--you who have done
everything for me, who have been the only person kind to me on earth. Do
let me--do not refuse me. I would die to serve you."
He breathed fast as he gazed on her expressive eyes. It was a hard
struggle to him to preserve his self-control.
"No one can help me," he answered, hurriedly. "I have made my own
fate--leave me to it."
"I will not!" cried Valerie, passionately. "Do not send me away--do not
refuse me. What happiness would there be for me so great as serving
you--you to whom I owe all the pleasure I have known! Take them. Count
Waldemar--pray take them; they have often told me they are worth a good
deal, and I will thank Heaven every hour for having enabled me to aid
you ever so little." She pressed into his hands a jewel-case.
Falkenstein could not answer her. He stood looking down at her, his lips
white as death. She mistook his silence for displeasure, and laid her
hands on his arm.
"Do not be offended--do not be annoyed with me. They are my own--an old
heirloom of the L'Estranges that only came to me the other day. Take
them, Count Waldemar. Do, for Heaven's sake. I spoke passionately to you
last night; I have been unhappy ever since. If you will not take them, I
shall think you have not yet forgiven me?"
He seized her hands and drew her close to him: "Good Heavens! do you
love me like this?"
She did not answer, but she looked up at him. That look shivered to
atoms Falkenstein's resolves, and cast his pride and prudence to the
winds. He pressed her fiercely against his heart, he kissed her again
and again, bitter tears rushing to his burning eyes.
"Valerie! Valerie!" he whispered, wildly, "my fate is at its darkest.
Will you share it?"
She leaned her brow on his shoulder, trembling with hysterical joy.
"You do care for me, then?" she murmured, at last.
"Oh! thank Heaven."
In the delirium of his happiness, in the vehemence of feelings touched
to the core by sight of the intense love he had awakened, Falkenstein
poured out on her all the passion of his impetuous and reserved nature,
and in the paradise of the moment forgot every cloud that hung on his
horizon.
"Valerie!" he whispered, at length, "I have now nothing to offer you. I
can give you none of the riches, and power, and position that other men
can----"
She stopped him, putting her hands on his lips. "Hush! I shall have
everything that life can give me in having your love."
"My darling, Heaven bless you!" cried Falkenstein, passionately; "but
think twice, Valerie--pause before you decide. I am a ruined
man--embarrassments fetter me on every side. To-morrow, for aught I
know, I may be arrested for debt. I would not lead you into what, in
older years, you may regret."
"Regret!" cried Valerie, clinging to him. "How can I ever regret that I
have won the one heaven I crave. If you love me, life will always be
beautiful in my eyes; and, Count Waldemar, I can work for you--I can
help you, be it ever so little. I cannot make much money now, but you
have said that I shall gain more year after year. Only let me be with
you; let me know your sorrows and lighten them if I can, and I could ask
no greater happiness----"
Falkenstein bent over her, and covered with caresses the lips that to
him seemed so eloquent; he had no words to thank her for a love that, to
his warm and solitary heart, came like water in the wilderness. The
sound of voices gay and laughing, on the stairs, startled him.
"That is Bevan and Godolphin; I forgot they were coming for me to go
down to the Castle. Good Heavens! they mustn't see you here, love, to
jest about you over their mess-tables. Stay," said Falkenstein, hastily,
as the men entered the front room, "wait here a moment; they cannot see
you in this window, and I will come to you again. Hallo! old fellows!"
said he, passing through the folding-doors. "You're wonderfully
punctual, Tom. I always give you half an hour's grace; but I suppose
Harry's such an awful martinet, that he kept you up to time for once."
"All the credit's due to my mare," laughed Godolphin. "She did the
distance from Knightsbridge in four minutes, and I don't think Musjid
himself could beat that. Are you ready, I say? because we're to be at
the Castle by six, and Fitz don't like waiting for his turbot."
"Give me a brace of seconds, and I shall be with you," said Waldemar.
"Make haste, there's a good fellow. By George!" said Harry, catching
sight of the jewel-case, "for a fellow who's so deucedly hard up, you've
been pretty extravagant in getting those diamonds, Waldemar. Who are
they for--Rosalie Rivers, or the Deloraine; or that last love of yours,
that wonderful little L'Estrange?"
Falkenstein's brow grew dark; he snatched the case from the table, with
a suppressed oath, and went back to the inner room, slamming the
folding-doors after him. Godolphin lounged to the window looking on the
street, where he stood for five minutes, whistling A te, o cara. "The
devil! what's that fellow about?" he said, yawning. "How impatient
Bonbon's growing! Why don't that fool Roberts drive her up and down? By
Jove! come here, Tom. Who's that girl Falkenstein's now putting into a
cab? That's what he wanted his brace of seconds for! Confound that
portico! I can't see her face, and women dress so much alike now,
there's no telling one from another. What an infernal while he is
bidding her good-by. I shall know another time what his two seconds
mean. There, the cab's off at last, thank Heaven!--Very pretty,
Falkenstein," he began, as the Count entered. "That's your game, is it?
I think you might have confided in your bosom friend. Who is the fair
one? Come, make a clean breast of it."
Falkenstein shook his head. "My dear Harry, spare your words. Don't you
know of old that you never get anything out of me unless I choose?"
"Oh yes, confound you, I know that pretty well. One question,
though--was she pretty?"
"Do you suppose I entertain plain women?"
"No; never was such a man for the beaux yeux. It looked uncommonly like
little L'Estrange; but I don't suppose she could get out of the durance
vile of Lowndes Square, to come and pay you a tete-a-tete call. Well,
are you ready now? because Bonbon's tired of waiting, and so are we. A
man in love makes an abominable friend."
"A man in love with himself makes a worse one," said Waldemar; which hit
Harry in a vulnerable spot, Godolphin being generally chaffed about the
affection he bore his own person.
"That _was_ the little L'Estrange, wasn't it?" asked Godolphin, as they
leaned out of the window after dinner, apart from the others.
"Yes," said Waldemar, curtly; "but I beg you to keep silence on it to
every one."
"To be sure; I've kept plenty of your confidences. I had no idea you'd
push it so far. Of course you won't be fool enough to marry her?"
Falkenstein's dark eyes flashed fire. "I shall not be fool enough to
consult or confide in any man upon my private affairs."
Godolphin shrugged his shoulders with commiseration, and left Waldemar
alone in his window.
Falkenstein called in Lowndes Square the morning after and had an
interview with old Cash in the library of gaudy books that were never
opened, and told him concisely that he loved his niece, and--that ever I
should live to record it!--that little snob, with not two ideas in his
head, who couldn't, if put to it, tell you who his own grandfather was,
and who owed his tolerance in society to his banking account, refused an
alliance with the refined intellect and the blue blood of one of the
proud, courtly, historic Falkensteins! He'd been tutored by his wife,
and said his lesson properly, refusing to sanction "any such connexion;"
of course his niece must act for herself.
Waldemar bowed himself out with all his haughtiest high-breeding; he
knew Valerie _would_ act for herself, but the insult cut him to the
quick. He threw himself into the train, and went down to Fairlie, his
governor's place in Devonshire, determining to sacrifice his pride, and
ask his father to aid him in his effort for freedom. In the drawing-room
he found his sister Virginia, a cold, proud woman of the world. She
scarcely let him sit down and inquire for the governor, before she
pounced on him.
"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 manoeuvring 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
Valerie----"
"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 Valerie--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 Valerie.
If he had been willing to ask them, none of his friends could have
helped him. Godolphin, with 20,000_l_. 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 ecarte are not very willing to lend
you theirs when you can play ecarte 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
Valerie 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 Valerie.
"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, Valerie! 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 Valerie. "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, Valerie. 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 Valerie's ear in the empty church that morning; but I question
if Valerie 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 Valerie
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 Valerie 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 Valerie, 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."
Valerie 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 Valerie, 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 Valerie, 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 Valerie. "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 Valerie'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 Valerie, 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.