Beatrice Boville and Other Stories Part 24

"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 pa.s.sion 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, pa.s.sionately; "but think twice, Valerie--pause before you decide. I am a ruined man--embarra.s.sments 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 G.o.dolphin; 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, pa.s.sing 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 G.o.dolphin. "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 s.n.a.t.c.hed the case from the table, with a suppressed oath, and went back to the inner room, slamming the folding-doors after him. G.o.dolphin 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, G.o.dolphin being generally chaffed about the affection he bore his own person.

"That _was_ the little L'Estrange, wasn't it?" asked G.o.dolphin, 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."

G.o.dolphin 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 sn.o.b, 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.