Part 13

So Falkenstein called to Lowndes Square, and lent her books, and gave her a little Skye of his, and met her occasionally by accident on purpose in Kensington Gardens, where Valerie, according to Mrs. Cashranger's request, sometimes took one of her cousins, a headstrong young demon of six or seven, for an early walk, to which early walks Valerie made no objection, preferring them to the drawing-rooms of No. 133, and liking them, you may guess, none the less after seeing somebody she knew standing by the pond throwing in sticks for his retriever, and Falkenstein had sat down with her under the bushes by the water, and talked of all the things in heaven and earth; while Julius Adolphus ran about and gobbled at the China geese, and wetted his silk stockings unreproved. He made no love to her, not a bit; he talked of it theoretically, but never practically. But he liked to talk to her, to argue with her, to see her demonstrative pleasure in his society, to watch her coming through the trees, and find the _longs yeux bleus_ gleam and darken at his approach. All this amused him, pleased him as something original and out of the beaten track. She told him all she thought and felt; she pleased him, and beguiled him from his darker thoughts, and she began to reconcile him to human nature, which, with Faria, he had learnt to class into "les tigres et les crocodiles a deux pieds."

It was well he had this amusement, for it was his only one. He was going to the bad, as we say; debts and entanglements imperceptibly gathered round him, held him tight, and only in Valerie's lively society (lively, for when with him she was as happy as a bird) could exercise his dark spirit.

You remember the vow he made when the Silver Chimes rang in the New Year? So did not he. We cannot be always Medes and Persians, madam, to resist every temptation and keep unbroken every law, though you, sitting in your cushioned chair, in unattacked tranquillity, can tell us easily enough we should be. One night, when he was dining with Bevan, Tom produced those two little ivory fiends, whose rattle is in the ear of watchful deans and proctors as the singing of the rattlesnake, and whose witchery is more wily and irresistible than the witchery of woman. No beaux yeux, whether of the cassette or of one's first love, ever subjugate a man so completely as the fascinations of play. Once yielded to the charm, the Circe that clasps us will not let us go. Falkenstein, though in much he had the strong will of his race, had no power to resist the beguilements of his Omphale; he played again and again, and five times out of seven lost.

"Well, Falkenstein," cried Godolphin, after five games of ecarte at a pony a side, three of which Falkenstein had lost, "I heard Max lamenting to old Straitlace in the lobby, the other night, that you were going to the devil, only the irreproachable member phrased it in more delicate periods."

"Quite true," said Falkenstein, with a short laugh, "if for devil you substitute Queen's Bench."

"Well, we're en route together, old fellow," interrupted Tom Bevan; "and, with all your sins, you're a fat lot better than that brother of yours, who, I believe, don't know Latakia from Maryland. Jesse Egerton told me the other day that his wife has an awful life of it; but who'd credit it of a man who patronises Exeter Hall, and gave the shoeblacks only yesterday such unlimited supply of weak tea, buns, and strong texts?"

"Who indeed! Max is such a moral man," sneered Falkenstein; "though he has done one or two things in his life that I wouldn't have stooped to do. But you may sin as much as you like as long as you sin under the rose. John Bull takes his vices as a ten pound voter takes a bribe; he stretches his hand out eagerly enough, but he turns his eyes away and looks innocent, and is the first to point at his neighbor and cry out against moral corruption. Melville's quite right that there is an eleventh commandment--'Thou shalt not be found out'--whose transgression is the only one society visits with impunity."

"True enough," laughed Jimmy Fitzroy. "Thank Heaven, nobody can accuse us of studying the law and the prophets overmuch. By the way, old fellow, who's that stunning little girl you were walking with by the Serpentine yesterday morning, when I was waiting for the Metcalfe, who promised to meet me at twelve, and never came till half-past one--the most unpunctual woman going. Any new game? She's a governess, ain't she? She'd some sort of brat with her; but she's deuced good style, anyhow."

"That's little L'Estrange," laughed Godolphin: "the beloved Bella's cousin. He's met her there every day for the last three months. I don't know how much further the affair may have gone, or if----"

"My dear Harry, your imagination is running away with you," said Falkenstein, impatiently. "I never made an appointment with her in my life; she's not the same style as Mrs. Metcalfe."

Oh the jesuitism of the most candid men on occasion! He never made an appointment with her, because it was utterly unnecessary, he knowing perfectly that he should find her feeding the ducks with Julius Adolphus any morning he chose to look for her.

"All friendship is it, then?" laughed Godolphin. "Stick to it, my boy, if you can. Take care what you do, though, for to carry her off to Duke Street would give Max such a handle as he would not let go in a hurry; And to marry (though that of course, will never enter your wildest dreams) with anybody of the Cashranger's race, were it the heiress instead of the companion, would be such a come-down to the princely house, as would infallibly strike you out of Count Ferdinand's will."

Waldemar threw back his head like a thorough-bred impatient of the punishing. "The 'princely house,' as you call it, is not so extraordinarily stainless; but leave Valerie alone, she and I have nothing to do with other, and never shall have. I have enough on my hands, in all conscience, without plunging into another love affair."

"I did hear," continued Godolphin, "that Forester proposed to her, but I don't suppose it's true; he'd scarcely be such a fool."

Falkenstein looked up quickly, but did not speak.

"I think it is true," said Bevan; "and, moreover, I fancy she refused him, for he used to cry her up to the skies, and now he's always snapping and sneering at her, which is beastly ungenerous, but after the manner of many fellows."

"One would think you were an old woman, Tom, believing all the tales you hear," said Godolphin. "She'd better know you disclaim her, Falkenstein, that she mayn't waste her chances waiting for you."

Waldemar cast a quick, annoyed, contemptuous glance upon him. "You are wonderfully careful over her interests," he said, sharply, "but I never heard that having her on your lips, Harry, ever did a woman much good. Pass me that whisky, Conrad, will you?"

The next morning, however, though he "disclaimed" her, Waldemar, about ten, took his stick, whistled his dog, and walked down to Kensington Gardens. Under the beeches just budding their first leaves, he saw what he expected to see--Valerie L'Estrange. She turned--even at that distance he thought he saw the _longs yeux bleus_ flash and sparkle--dropped the biscuits she was giving the ducks to the tender mercies of Julius Adolphus, and came to meet him. Spit, the little Skye he had given her, welcoming him noisily.

"Spit is as pleased to see you as I am," said Valerie, laughing. "We have both been wondering whether you would come this morning. I am so glad you have, for I have been reading your 'Pollnitz Memoirs,' and want to talk to you about them. You know I can talk to no one as I can to you."

"You do me much honor," said Falkenstein, rather formally. He was wondering in his mind whether she _had_ refused Forester or not.

"What a cold, distant speech! It is very unkind of you to answer me so. What is the matter with you, Count Waldemar?"

She always called him by the title he had dropped in English society; she had a fervent reverence for his historic _antecedens_; and besides, as she told him one day, "she liked to call him something no one else did."

"Matter with me? Nothing at all, I assure you," he answered, still distantly.

"You are not like yourself, at all events," persisted Valerie. "You should be kind to me. I have so few who are."

The tone touched him; he smiled, but did not speak, as he sat down by her poking up the turf with his stick.

"Count Waldemar," said Valerie, suddenly, brushing Spit's hair off his bright little eyes, "do tell me; hasn't something vexed you?"

"Nothing new," answered Falkenstein, with a short laugh. "The same entanglements and annoyances that have been netting their toils round me for many years--that is all. I am young enough, as time counts, yet I give you my word I have as little hope in my future, and I know as well what my life will be as if I were fourscore."

"Hush, don't say so," said Valerie, with a gesture of pain. "You are so worthy of happiness; your nature was made to be happy; and if you are not, fate has misused you cruelly."

"Fate? there is no such thing. I have been a fool, and my folly is now working itself out. I have made my own life, and I have nobody but myself to thank for it."

"I don't know that. Circumstances, temptation, education, opportunity, association, often take the place of the Parcae, and gild or cut the threads of our destiny."

"No. I don't accept that doctrine," said Falkenstein, always much sterner judge to himself than anybody would have been to him. "What I have done has been with my eyes open. I have known the price I should pay for my pleasures, but I never paused to count it. I never stopped for any obstacle, and for what I desired, I would, like the men in the old legends, have sold myself to the devil. Now, of course, I am hampered with ten thousand embarrassments. You are young; you are a woman; you cannot understand the reckless madness which will drink the wine to-day, though one's life paid for it to-morrow. Screened from opportunity, fenced in by education, position, and society, you cannot know how impossible it is to a man, whose very energies and strength become his tempters, to put a check upon himself in the vortex of pleasure round him----"

"Yes," interrupted Valerie, "I can. Feeling for you, I can sympathise in all things with you. Had I been a man, I should have done as you have done, drunk the ambrosia without heeding its cost. Go on--I love to hear you speak of yourself; and I know your real nature, Count Waldemar, into whatever errors or hasty acts repented of in cooler moments the hot spirit of your race may have led you."

Falkenstein was pleased, despite himself, half amused, half saddened. He turned it off with a laugh. "By Heaven, I wish they had made a brewer of me--I might now be as rich and free from care as your uncle."

"You a brewer!" cried Valerie. Her father, a poor gentleman, had left her his aristocratic leanings. "What an absurd idea! All the old Falkensteins would come out of their crypts, and chanceries, and cloisters, to see the coronet surmounting the beer vats!"

He smiled at her vehemence. "The coronet! I had better have full pockets than empty titles."

"For shame!" cried Valerie. "Yes, bark at him, Spit dear; he is telling stories. You do not mean it; you know you are proud of your glorious name. Who would not rather be a Falkenstein on a hundred a year, than a Cashranger on a thousand?"

"I wouldn't," said Waldemar, wilfully. "If I had money, I could find oblivion for my past, and hope for my future. If I had money, what loads of friends would open their purses for me to borrow the money they'd know I did not need. As it is, if I except poor Tom Bevan, who's as hard up as I am, and who's a good-hearted, single-minded fellow, and likes me, I believe I haven't a friend. Godolphin welcomes me as a companion, a bon vivant, a good card player; but if he heard I was in the Queen's Bench, or had shot myself, he'd say, 'Poor devil! I am not surprised,' as he lighted his pipe and forgot me a second after. So they would all. I don't blame them."

"But I do," cried Valerie, her cheeks burning; "they are wicked and heartless, and I hate them all. Oh! Count Waldemar, I would not do so. I would not desert you if all the world did!"

He smiled: he was accustomed to her passionate ebullitions. "Poor child, I believe you would be truer than the rest," he muttered, half aloud, as he rose hastily and took out his watch. "I must be in Downing Street by eleven, and it only wants ten minutes. If you will walk with me to the gates, I have something to tell you about your MS."

III.

"SCARLET AND WHITE" MAKES A HIT, AND FALKENSTEIN FEELS THE WEIGHT OF THE GOLDEN FETTERS.

"Tom, will you come to the theatre with me to-night?" said Falkenstein as they lounged by the rails one afternoon in May.

"The theatre! What for? Who's that girl with a scarlet tie, on that roan there? I don't know her face. The ballet is the only thing worth stirring a step for in town. Which theatre is it?"

"I am going to see the new piece Pomps and Vanities is bringing out, and I want you as a sort of claqueur."

"Very well. I'll come," said Tom, who regarded Falkenstein, who had been his school and formfellow, still rather as a Highlandman his chief; "but, certainly, the first night of a play is the very last I should select. But if you wish it---- There's that roan coming round again! Good action, hasn't it?"

Obedient to his chiefs orders, Bevan brushed his whiskers, settled his tie, or rather let his valet do it for him, and accompanied Waldemar to one of the crack-up theatres, where Pomps and Vanities, as the manager was irreverently styled by the habitues of his green-room, reigned in a state of scenic magnificence, very different to the days when Garrick played Macbeth in wig and gaiters.

Bevan asked no questions; he was rather a silent man, and probably knew by experience that he would most likely get no answers, unless the information was volunteered. So settling in his own mind that it was the debut of some protegee of Falkenstein's, he followed him to the door of a private box. Waldemar opened it, and entered. In it sat two women: one, a middle-aged lady-like-looking person; the other a young one, in whom, as she turned round with a radiant smile, and gave Falkenstein her hand, Bevan recognised Valerie L'Estrange. "Keep up your courage," whispered Waldemar, as he took the seat behind her, and leaned forward with a smile. Tom stared at them both. It was high Dutch to him; but being endowed with very little curiosity, and a lion's share of British immovability, he waited without any impatience for the elucidation of the mystery, and seeing the Count and Valerie absorbed in earnest and low-toned conversation, he first studied the house, and finding not a single decent-looking woman, he dropped his glass and studied the play-bill. The bill announced the new piece as "Scarlet and White." "Queer title," thought Bevan, a little consoled for his self-immolation by seeing that Rosalie Rivers, a very pretty little brunette, was to fill the soubrette role. The curtain drew up. Tom, looking at Valerie instead of the stage, fancied she looked very pale, and her eyes were fixed, not on the actors, but on Falkenstein. The first act passed off in ominous silence. An audience is often afraid to compromise itself by applauding a new piece too quickly. Then the story began to develop itself--wit and passion, badinage and pathos, were well intermingled. It turned on the love of a Catholic girl, a fille d'honneur to Catherine de Medicis, for a Huguenot, Vicomte de Valere, a friend of Conde and Coligny. The despairing love of the woman, the fierce struggle of her lover between his passion and his faith, the intrigues of the court, the cruelty and weakness of Charles Neuf, were all strikingly and forcibly written. The actors, being warmly applauded as the plot thickened and the audience became interested, played with energy and spirit; and when the curtain fell the success of "Scarlet and White" was proclaimed through the house.

"Very good play--very good indeed," said Tom, approvingly. "I hope you've been pleased, Miss L'Estrange." Valerie did not hear him; she was trembling and breathless, her blue eyes almost black with excitement, while Falkenstein bent over her, his face more full of animation and pleasure than Bevan had seen it for many a day. "Well," thought Tom, "Forester _did_ say little Val was original. I should think that was a polite term for insane. I suppose Falkenstein's keeper."

At that minute the applause redoubled. Pomps and Vanities had announced "Scarlet and White" for repetition, and from the pit to the gods there was a cry for the author. Falkenstein bent his head till his lips touched her hair, and whispered a few words. She looked up in his face. "Do you wish me?"

"Certainly."

His word was law. She rose and went to the front of the box, a burning color in her cheeks, smiles on her lips, and tears lying under her lashes.

"The devil, Waldemar! Do you mean that--that little thing?" began Bevan.

Falkenstein nodded, and Tom, for once in his life astonished, forgot to finish his sentence in staring at the author! Probably the audience also shared his surprise, in seeing her young face and girlish form, in lieu of the anticipated member of the Garrick or new Bourcicault, with inspiration drawn from Cavendish and Cognac; for there was a moment's silence, and then they received her with such a welcome as had not sounded through the house for years.

She bowed two or three times to thank them; then Falkenstein, knowing that though she had no shyness, she was extremely excitable, drew her gently back to her seat behind the curtain. "Your success is too much for you," he said, softly.

"No, no," said Valerie, passionately, utterly forgetful that any one else was near her; "but I am so glad that I owe it all to you. It would be nothing to me, as you know, unless it pleased you; and it came to me through your hands."

Falkenstein gave a short, quick sigh, and moved restlessly.

"You would like to go home now, wouldn't you?" he said after a pause.

She assented, and he led her out of the box, poor victimised Tom following with her duenna, who was the daily governess at No. 133.

As their cab drove away, Valerie leaned out of the window, and watched Falkenstein as long as she could see him. He waved his hand to her, and walked on into Regent Street in silence.

"Hallo, Waldemar!" began Bevan, at length, "so your protegee's turning out a star. Do you mean that she really wrote that play?"

Falkenstein nodded.

"Well, it's more than I could do. But what the deuce have you got to do with it? For a man who says he won't entangle himself with another love affair, you seem pretty tolerably _au mieux_ with her. How did it all come about?"

"Simply enough," answered Falkenstein. "Of course I haven't known her all these months without finding out her talents. She has a passion for writing, and writes well, as I saw at once by those New Year's Night's Proverbs. She has no money, as you know; she wants to turn her talents to account, and didn't know how to set about it. She'd several conversations with me on the subject, so I took her play, looked it over, and gave it to Pomps and Vanities. He read it to oblige me, and put it on the stage to oblige himself, as he wanted something new for the season, and was pretty sure it would make a hit."

"Do the Cashrangers know of it?"

"No; that is why she asked the governess to come with her to-night. That stingy old Pomps wouldn't pay her much, but she thinks it an El Dorado, and I shall take care she commands her own price next time. I count on a treat on enlightening Miss Bella."

"Yes, she'll cut up rough. By George! I quite envy you your young genius."

"She isn't _mine_," said Falkenstein, bitterly.

"She might be if you chose."

"Poor little thing!--yes. But love is too expensive a luxury for a ruined man, even if---- The devil take this key, why won't it unlock? You're off to half a dozen parties I suppose, Tom?"

"And where are you going?"

"Nowhere."

"What! going to bed at half-past ten?"

"There is no particular sin in going to bed at half-past ten, is there?" said Waldemar, impatiently. "I haven't the stuff in me for balls and such things. I'm sick of them. Good-night, old fellow."

He went up-stairs to his room, threw himself on his bed, and, lighting his pipe, lay smoking and thinking while the Abbey clock tolled the hours one after another. The _longs yeux bleus_ haunted him, for Waldemar had already too many chains upon him not to shrink from adding to them the Golden Fetters of a fresh passion, and marriage, unless a rich one, was certain to bring about him all his entanglements. He resolved to seek her no more, to check the demonstrative affection which, like Esmeralda, "a la fois naive et passionnee," she had no thought of concealing from him, and which, as Falkenstein's conscience told him, he had done everything to foster. "What is a man worth if he hasn't strength of will?" he muttered, as he tossed on his bed. "And yet, poor little Valerie---- Pshaw! all women learn quickly enough to forget!"

Some ten days after he was calling in Lowndes Square. True as yet to his resolution, he had avoided the tete-a-tete walks in the Gardens; and Valerie keenly felt the change in his manner, though in what he did for her he was as kind as ever. The successful run of "Scarlet and White," the praises of its talents, its promises of future triumphs--all the admiration which, despite Bella's efforts to keep her back, the _yeux bleus_ excited--all were valueless, if, as she vaguely feared, she had lost "Count Waldemar." The play had made a great sensation, and the Cashrangers had taken a box the night before, as they made a point of following the lead and seeing everything, though they generally forswore theatres as not quite _ton_. Pah! these people, "qui se couchent roturiers et se levent nobles," they paint their lilies with such superabundant coloring, that we see, at a glance, the flowers come not out of a conservatory but out of an atelier.

They were out, as it chanced, and Valerie was alone. She received him joyously, for unhappy as she was in his absence, the mere sight of his face recalled her old spirits, and Falkenstein, in all probability, never guessed a tithe she suffered, because she had always a smile for him.

"Oh! Count Waldemar," she cried, "why have you never been to the Gardens this week? If you only knew how I miss you----"

"I have had no time," he answered, coldly.

"You could make time if you wished," said Valerie, passionately. "You are so cold, so unkind to me lately. Have I vexed you at all?"

"Vexed me, Miss L'Estrange? Certainly not."

She was silent, chilled, despite herself.

"Why do you call me Miss L'Estrange?" she said, suddenly. "You know I cannot bear it from _you_."

"What should I call you?"

"Valerie," she answered, softly.

He got up and walked to the hearth-rug, playing with Spit and Puppet with his foot, and for once hailed, as a relief, the entrance of Bella, in an extensive morning toilet, fresh from "shopping." She looked rapidly and angrily from him to Valerie, and attacked him at once. Seeing her cousin's vivacity told, she went in for the same stakes, with but slight success, being a young lady of the heavy artillery stamp, with no light action about her.

"Oh! Mr. Falkenstein," she began, "that exquisite play--you've seen it, of course? Captain Boville told me I should be delighted with it, and so I was. Don't you think it enchanting?"

"It is very clever," answered Falkenstein, gravely.

"Val missed a great treat," continued Bella; "nothing would make her go last night; however, she never likes anything I like. I should love to know who wrote it; some people say a woman, but I would never believe it."