Part 91 (1/2)
The first part of the letter was written in a much clearer chirography than the latter, where it grew fainter and more irregular as it proceeded, until at last, in the signature, it was so nearly illegible as to baffle the ingenuity of the reader to decipher it; as if, in the course of her task, the strength of the dying writer had grown weaker and weaker, until at the end the pen must have fallen from her failing hand.
The Duke of Hereward, who could not make out the name at the bottom of the letter, at once recognized the handwriting at the top, and knew that his correspondent from the dead was his lost wife, Valerie de la Motte.
He grew cold with the chill of an antic.i.p.ated horror; but with that supreme power of self-control which was as much a matter of const.i.tution as of education with him, he suppressed all signs of emotion, and courteously apologized to his visitor, saying:
”Excuse me, young sir; my eyes are not so good as they were some twenty years ago, and I must turn to the light,” and he deliberately wheeled his chair around so as to bring his face entirely out of range of his visitor's sharp vision, while he should read the fatal letter, which was as follows:
”SAN VITO, ITALY, MARCH 1st, 18--
”DUKE OF HEREWARD: This paper will be handed you by Archibald-Alexander-John Scott, my son and yours.
”This news will startle you, if you have not already been sufficiently startled by the living likeness of the boy to yourself, and by the electric chain of memory which will bring before you the weeks immediately preceding our separation, when you yourself had suspicions of my condition, and hopes of becoming a father. Those fond hopes were destined to be fulfilled by me, but doomed to be ruined by you.
”Yes, Duke of Hereward, your son stands before you, strong, healthy, beautiful, perfect as ever wife bore to her husband; yet denied, delegalized, and defrauded by you, his father!
”If you are inclined still to deny him, turn and look upon him, as he stands, and you can no longer do so. If you want further proof, find it in these circ.u.mstances: That this letter is written, and these statements are made by a dying woman, with the immediate prospect of eternity and its retribution before her.
”But on one point be at ease before you read farther; the boy does not know who his father is, and therefore does not know how grievously, how irretrievably you wronged him by divorcing his mother and delegalizing him before his birth. I would not put enmity between father and son by telling him anything about it. _He_ thinks that his father is dead, and I have never undeceived him. He has heard of you only as one who was a friend of his mother, and who, for her sake, may become the friend of her son. It must be for you to decide whether to leave him in this ignorance or to tell him the truth.
”Perhaps you will ask why I have concealed your son's existence from you up to this time. I will tell you; but in order to do so clearly, I must refer to those last few weeks spent with you in Paris before our separation.
”Remember the ball at the British Emba.s.sy, to which you persuaded me to go, and where I met, unexpectedly the Count de Volaski, my secretly married husband, supposed to be dead; remember my illness that followed!
and how earnestly I tried to avoid him, an effort that was totally useless, because he, considering that he possessed the only rightful claim to my society, constantly sought me, and you, ignorant of all his antecedents, constantly helped him to see me.
”My position was degrading, agonizing, intolerable. I found myself, though guiltless of any intentional wrong-doing, in the horrible dilemma of a wife with two living husbands.
”Yes, by the laws of love and nature, justice and the church, I was the wife of Waldemar de Volaski; by the laws of France and England, I was the wife of the Duke of Hereward.
”The discovery shocked, confused, and, perhaps, unsettled my reason. At first I knew not what to do. I prayed for death. I contemplated suicide.
At length, I thought I saw a way out of my dreadful dilemma. It was to escape and to live apart from both forever.
”So also thought the Count de Volaski. I consulted with him. I dared not confess to you the secret that my parents had compelled me to conceal so long. Volaski would have told you, but I would not consent that he should do so, until I should be safe out of the house; for I could not have borne, after such confession, to have met you again; and again, under any circ.u.mstances, I preferred that I myself should be your informant. I determined to leave yon, and to live apart from both, as the only life of peace and honor possible for me, and to write you a letter confessing the whole truth, as an explanation of my course of conduct. I thought that you would understand and pity me, and leave me to my fate.
”I did _not_ think that you would disbelieve my statement, publish my flight, and blast my reputation by a divorce.
”I was never false to you in thought, word or deed.
”Volaski was not my lover; he was my sternest mentor. He came to the house during your absence; not for the pleasure of seeing me, for he took no pleasure in my society; he came to arrange with me the programme of my departure; an angel of purity or a demon of malice might have been present at our interviews, and seen nothing to grieve the first or please the last.
”I was ill and nervous and fearful; I could not travel alone, and therefore Volaski went with me, and took care of me; but it was the care a pitiless gend'arme would have taken of a convicted criminal. It was a care that only hurried me to my destination, my chosen place of exile--San Vito--and which left me on the day of my arrival there. I have never seen him since. And now let me say and swear on the Christian faith and hope of a dying woman--that--from the moment I met Count Waldemar de Volaski at the British emba.s.sy, to the moment I parted with him at San Vito, he never once came so near me as even to kiss my hand--a courtesy that any gentleman might have shown without blame. You may not believe me now; that you did not believe me before was your great misfortune, and mine, and our son's.
”A week after Volaski had left me you followed us and traced us to San Vito. I heard of your visit and trembled; for, though really guiltless, I felt that to meet your eye would seem worse than death. Fortunately for us both, perhaps, you declined to see me and went away.
”The next news that I heard was of the duel in which you had killed Volaski. I should scarcely have believed in his death this time, had not a packet been forwarded to me, through his second. This packet contained a letter that he had written to me on the eve of the duel, and with a presentiment of death overshadowing him. In this letter he said that in death he claimed me again as his wife, and bequeathed to me, as to his widow, all that he had the power to leave, his personal property, and he took a last solemn farewell of me.
”In the packet, besides, was his will and other doc.u.ments necessary to put me in possession of his bequest, and also a great number of valuable jewels.
”These, together with my own small dower, have made me independent for life.