Part 25 (1/2)
I am not a boy led away by a pa.s.sing 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. G.o.dolphin, with 20,000_l_. a year, spent every s.h.i.+lling 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sionately. ”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 pa.s.sion, 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.