IV.
SOME GOLDEN FETTERS ARE SHAKEN OFF AND OTHERS ARE PUT ON.
"Mrs. Boville told me last night that Waldemar Falkenstein is so dreadfully in debt, that she thinks he'll have to go into court—don't they call it?" lisped Bella, the next morning; "be arrested, or bankrupt, or something dreadful. Should you think it is true?"
"I know it's true," said Idiot Tweed, who was there, having a little music before luncheon. "He's confoundedly hard up, poor devil."
"But I thought he was in such a good position—so well off?" said Bella, observing with secret delight that her cousin's head was raised, and that the pen with which she was writing had stopped in its rapid gallop.
"Ah! so one thinks of a good many fellows," answered the Guardsman; "or, at least, you ladies do, who don't look at a man's ins and outs, and the fifty hundred things there are to bother him. Lots of people—householders, and all that sort of thing—that one would fancy worth no end, go smash when nobody's expecting it."
"And Mr. Falkenstein really is embarrassed?"
The Guardsman laughed outright. "That is a mild term, Miss Cashranger. I heard down at Windsor yesterday, from a man that knows his family very well, that if he don't pay his debts this week, Amadeus Levi will arrest him. I dare say he will. Jews do when they can't bleed you any longer, and think your family will come down handsomely. But they say the old Count won't give Falkenstein a rap, so most likely he'll cut the country."
That afternoon, on his return from the Deeds and Chronicles Office, 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.
"Valérie!"
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," Valérie 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 Valérie, 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 Valérie, 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.
"Valérie! Valérie!" 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.
"Valérie!" 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, Valérie—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 Valérie, 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 tête-à-tête 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 Valérie 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 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.