"I hope from my heart you may," was my reply, as I bade him "farewell,"
and congratulated him on his position, his good fortune, and his bride; though I never made out exactly whether it was Mademoiselle Josephine, or Philippine, or Seraphine who was to enjoy the unspeakable felicity of becoming Mrs. Colonel Manners.
CHAPTER XLIII
"THE SKELETON"
It is one of the conventional grievances of the world to mourn ever the mutability of human affairs, the ever-recurring changes incidental to that short span of existence here which we are pleased to term Life, as if the scenes and characters with which we are familiar were always being mingled and shifted with the rapidity and confusion of a pantomime. It has often struck me that the circumstances which encircle us do _not_ by any means change with such extraordinary rapidity and facility--that, like a French road, with its mile after mile of level fertility and unvarying poplars, our path is sometimes for years together undiversified by any great variety of incident, any glimpse of romance; and that the same people, the same habits, the same pleasures, and the same annoyances seem destined to surround and hem us in from the cradle to the grave. Which is the most numerous class, those who fear their lot _may_ change, or those who hope it _will_? Can we make this change for ourselves? Are we the slaves of circumstances, or is not that the opportunity of the strong which is the destiny of the weak? Surely it must be so--surely the stout heart that struggles on must win at last--surely man is a free agent; and he who fails, fails not because his task is impossible, but that he himself is faint and weak and infatuated enough to hope that he alone will be an exception to the common lot, and achieve the prize without the labour, _Sine pulvere palma_.
The old castle at Edeldorf, at least, is but little changed from what I recollect it in my quiet boyhood, when with my dear father I first entered its lofty halls and made acquaintance with the beautiful blue-eyed child that now sits at the end of that table, a grown-up, handsome man. Yes, once more I am at Edeldorf. Despite all my scruples, despite all the struggles between my worse and better self, I could not resist the temptation of seeing her in her stately home; of satisfying myself with my own eyes that she was happy, and of bidding her a long and last farewell. Oh! I thirsted to see her just once again, only to see her, and then to go away and meet her never, never more. Therefore Ropsley and I journeyed through Bulgaria and up the Danube, and arrived late at Edeldorf, and were cordially welcomed by Victor, and dressed, and came down to dinner, and so I saw her.
She was altered, too; so much altered, and yet it was the well-known face, _her_ face still; but there were lines on the white forehead I remembered once so smooth and fair, and the eyes were sunk and the cheek pale and fallen; when she smiled, too, the beautiful lips parted as sweetly as their wont, but the nether one quivered as though it were more used to weeping than laughing, and the smile vanished quickly, and left a deeper shadow as it faded. She was not happy. I was _sure_ she was not happy, and shall I confess it? the certainty was not to me a feeling of unmixed pain. I would have given every drop of blood in my body to make her so, and yet I could not grieve as I felt I ought to grieve, that it was otherwise.
Perhaps one of the greatest trials imposed on us by the artificial state of society in which we live, is the mask of iron that it forces us to wear for the concealment of all the deeper and stronger feelings of our nature. There we sit in that magnificent hall, hung around with horn of stag and tusk of boar, and all the trophies of the chase, waited on by Hungarian retainers in their gorgeous hussar uniforms, before a table heaped to profusion with the good things that minister to the gratification of the palate, and conversing upon those light and frivolous topics beyond which it is treason to venture, while the hearts probably of every one of us are far, far distant in some region of pain unknown and unguessed by all save the secret sufferers, who hide away their hoarded sorrows under an exterior of flippant levity, and affect to ignore their neighbour's wounds as completely as they veil their own.
What care Ropsley or Valerie whether _perdrix aux champignons_ is or is not a better thing than _dindon aux truffes_? They are dying to be alone with each other once more--she, all anxiety to hear of his campaign and his illness; he, restless and preoccupied till he can tell her of his plans and prospects, and the arrangements that must be concluded before he can make her his own. Both, for want of a better grievance, somewhat disgusted that the order of precedence in going to dinner has placed them opposite each other, instead of side by side. And yet Valerie, who sits by me, seems well pleased to meet her old friend once more; if I had ever thought she really cared for me, I should be undeceived now, when I mark the joyous frankness of her manner, the happy blush that comes and goes upon her cheek, and the restless glances that ever and anon she casts at her lover's handsome face through the epergne of flowers and fruit that divides them. No, they think as little of the ball of conversation which we jugglers toss about to each other, and jingle and play with and despise, as does the pale stately Countess herself, with her dark eyes and her dreamy look apparently gazing far into another world. She is not watching Victor, she seems scarcely aware of his presence: and yet many a young wife as beautiful, as high-spirited, and as lately married, would sit uneasily at the top of her own table, would frown, and fret, and chafe to see her handsome husband so preoccupied by another as is the Count by the fair guest on his right hand--who but wicked Princess Vocqsal?
That lady has, according to custom, surrounded herself by a system of fortification wherewith, as it were, she seems metaphorically to set the world at defiance: a challenge which, to do her justice, the Princess is ever ready to offer, the antagonist not always willing to accept. She delights in being the object of small attentions, so she invariably requires a footstool, an extra cushion or two, and a flask of eau de Cologne, in addition to her bouquet, her fan, her gloves, her pocket-handkerchief, and such necessary articles of female superfluity.
With these outworks and fences within which to retire on the failure of an attack, it is easy to carry out a system of aggressive warfare; and whether it is the presence of his wife that makes the amusement particularly exciting, or whether Count de Rohan has made himself to-day peculiarly agreeable, or whether it is possible, though this contingency is extremely unlikely, that the Prince has _told her not_, certainly Madame la Princesse is taking unusual pains, and that most unnecessarily, to bring Victor into more than common subjection to her fascinations.
She is without contradiction the best-dressed woman in the room; her light gossamer robe, fold upon fold, and flounce upon flounce, floats around her like a drapery of clouds; her gloves fit her to a miracle; her exquisitely-shaped hands and round white arms bear few ornaments, but these are of the rarest and costliest description; her blooming, fresh complexion accords well with those luxuriant masses of soft brown hair escaping here and there from its smooth shining folds in large glossy curls. Her rich red lips are parted with a malicious smile, half playful, half coquettish, that is inexpressibly provoking and attractive; while, although the question as to whether she does really rouge or not is still undecided, her blue eyes seem positively to dance and sparkle in the candle-light. Her voice is low, and soft, and silvery; all she says racy, humorous, full of meaning, and to the point.
Poor Victor de Rohan!
He, too, is at first in unusually high spirits; his courteous, well-bred manner is livelier than his wont, but the deferential air with which he responds to his neighbour's gay remarks is dashed by a shade of sarcasm, and I, who know him so well, can detect a tone of bitter irony in his voice, can trace some acute inward pang that ever and anon convulses for a moment his frank, handsome features. I am sure he is ill at ease, and dissatisfied with himself. I observe, too, that, though he scarcely touches the contents of his plate, his glass is filled again and again to the brim, and he quaffs off his wine with the eager feverish thirst of one who seeks to drown reflection and remorse in the Lethean draught.
Worst sign of all, and one which never fails to denote mental suffering, his spirits fall in proportion to his potations, and that which in a well-balanced nature "makes glad the heart of man," seems but to clog the wings of Victor's fancy, and to sink him deeper and deeper in despondency. Ere long he becomes pale, silent, almost morose, and the charming Princess has all the conversation to herself.
But one individual in the party attends thoroughly to the business in hand. Without doubt, for the time being he has the best of it. Prince Vocqsal possesses an excellent appetite, a digestion, as he says himself, that, like his conscience, can carry a great weight and be all the better for it; a faultless judgment in wine, and a tendency to enjoy the pleasures of the table, enhanced, if possible, by the occasional fit of gout with which this indulgence must unfortunately be purchased.
Fancy-free is the Prince, and troubled neither by memories of the past, misgivings for the present, nor anxieties for the future. Many such passive natures there are--we see them every day. Men who are content to take the world as it is, and, like the ox in his pasture, browse, and bask, and ruminate, and never wish to overleap the boundary that forbids them to wander in the flowery meadow beyond. And yet it may be that these too have once bathed in the forbidden stream, the lava-stream that scorches and sears where it touches; it may be that the heart we deem so hard, so callous, has been welded in the fire, and beaten on the anvil, till it has assumed the consistency of steel. It winced and quivered once, perhaps nearly broke, and now it can bid defiance even to the memory of pain. Who knows? who can tell his neighbour's history, or guess his neighbour's thoughts? who can read the truth, even in the depth of those eyes that look the fondest into his own? Well! there is One that knows all secrets, and He will judge, but not as man judges.
So Prince Vocqsal thinks not of the days that are past, the hearts he has broken, the friends he has lost, the duels he has fought, the money he has squandered, the chances he has thrown away; or, if he does allow his mind to dwell for an instant on such trifles, it is with a sort of dreamy satisfaction at the quantity of enjoyment he has squeezed out of life, tinged with a vague regret that so much of it is over. Why, it was but to-day that, as he dressed for dinner, he apostrophised the grimacing image in his looking-glass,--"Courage, _mon gaillard_,"
muttered the Prince, certainly not to his valet, who was tightening his waistbelt, "courage! you are worth a good many of the young ones, still, and your appetite is as good as it was at sixteen."
He is splendid now, though somewhat apoplectic. His wig curls over his magnificent head in hyacinthine luxuriance, his dyed whiskers and moustache blush purple in the candlelight; his neckcloth is tied somewhat too tight, and seems to have forced more than a wholesome quantity of blood into his face and eyes, but its whiteness is dazzling, and the diamond studs beneath it are of extraordinary brilliance; nor does his waistbelt, though it defies repletion, modify in any great degree the goodly outline of the corpulent person it enfolds.
Altogether he is a very jolly-looking old gentleman, and the only one of the party that seems for the nonce to be "the right man in the right place."
Constance listens to him with a weary, abstracted air; perhaps she has heard that story about the bear and the waterfall once or twice before, perhaps she does not hear it now, but she bends her head courteously towards him, and looks kindly at him from out of her deep, sad eyes.
"Champagne, if you please," says the Prince, interrupting the thread of his narrative, by holding up his glass to be replenished; "and so, Madame, the bear and I were _vis-a-vis_ at about ten paces apart, and my rifle was empty. The last shot had taken effect through his lungs, and he coughed and held his paw to the pit of his stomach, so like a Christian with a cold, that, even in my very precarious position, I could not help laughing outright. Ten paces is a short distance, Madame, a very short distance, when your antagonist feels himself thoroughly aggrieved, and advances upon you with a red, lurid eye, and a short angry growl. I turned and looked behind me for a run--I was always a good runner," remarks the Prince, with a downward glance of satisfaction, the absurdity of which, I am pained to see, does not even call a smile to his listener's pale face--"but it was no question of running here, for the waterfall was leaping and foaming forty feet deep below, and the trees were so thick on either side, that escape by a flank movement was impossible. It was the very spot, Victor, where I killed the woodcocks right and left the morning you disappointed me so shamefully, and left me to have all the sport to myself."--Victor bows courteously, drinks her husband's health, and glances at the Princess with a bitter smile.--"The very spot where I hope you will place me to-morrow at your grand _chasse_. Peste! 'tis strange how passionately fond I still am of the chase. Well, Madame, indecision is not usually my weakness, but before I could make up my mind what to do, the bear was upon me. In an instant he embraced me with his huge hairy arms, and I felt his hot breath against my very face. My rifle was broken short off by the stock, and I heard my watch crack in my waistcoat pocket. I thought it was my ribs. I have seen your wrestlers in England, Madame, and I have once assisted in your country at an exhibition of '_The Box_'
but such an encounter as I now had to sustain was more terrible than anything I ever witnessed fought out fairly between man and man.
Fortunately a ball through the back part of the head, and another through the lungs, had somewhat diminished the natural force of my adversary, or I must have succumbed; and by a great exertion of strength on my part, I managed to liberate one hand and make a grasp for my hunting-knife. Horror! it had fallen from the sheath, but by the mercy of Heaven and the blessing of St. Hubert, it had caught in my boot, and I never felt before how dear life was as when I touched the buckhorn handle of my last friend; three, four times in succession I buried the long keen blade in the bear's side; at each thrust he gave a quick, convulsive sob, but he strained me tighter and tighter to his body, till I thought my very blood-vessels would burst with the fearful pressure.
At last we fell, and rolled over and over towards the waterfall. In the hasty glance I had previously cast behind me, I had remarked a dead fir-tree that stood within a yard or so of the precipice; I remember the thought had darted through my mind, that if I could reach it I might be safe, and the reflection as instantaneously followed, that a bear was a better climber than a Hungarian. Never shall I forget my sensations when, in our last revolution, I caught a glimpse of that naked tree. I shut my eyes then, for I knew it was all over, but I gave him one more stab, and a hearty one, with my hunting-knife. Splash! we reached the water together, and went down like a couple of stones, down, down to the very bottom, but fortunately it was the deepest part of the pool, and we unclosed our embrace the instant we touched the surface--the bear, I believe, was dead before he got there, and I thought myself fortunate in being able to swim ashore, whilst the brown body of my late antagonist went tumbling and whirling down the foaming torrent below. I recovered his skin, Madame, to make a cover for my arm-chair, but I have never been fond of water since. Give me a glass of Tokay, if you please."
"And did you sustain no further harm from your encounter?" asked Constance, rousing herself from her abstraction with an effort, and bending politely towards the Prince, who was drinking his Tokay with immense satisfaction.
"Only the marks of his claws on my shoulder," replied he, smacking his lips after his draught. "I have got them there to this day. Is it not so, Rose?" he added, appealing to his wife with a hearty laugh.
She turned her head away without condescending to notice him. Victor bit his lip with a gesture of impatience, and the Countess, rising slowly and gracefully, gave her hand to the Prince to lead her back to the drawing-room, whither we all followed in the same order as that in which we had proceeded to dinner.
"Do you not feel like a wounded man once more?" observed Valerie, gaily, to me, as I stood, coffee-cup in hand, with my back to the fireplace, like a true Englishman. "Is it not all exactly as you left it? the easiest arm-chair and my eternal embroidery-frame, and your own sofa where you used to lie so wonderfully patient, and look out of window at the sunset. Constance has established herself there now, and considers it her peculiar property. Oh, Vere (I shall always call you Vere), is she not charming? I am so fond of her!"
Slow torture! but never mind, it is but for to-night--this experiment must never be repeated. Go on, Countess Valerie, happy, unconscious executioner.
"You English people are delightful, when one knows you well, although at first you are so cold and undemonstrative. Now, Constance, though she is so quiet and melancholy-looking, though she never laughs, and rarely smiles, has the energy and the activity of a dozen women when it is a question of doing good. You have no idea of what she is here amongst our own people. They worship the very ground she walks on--they call her 'the good angel of Edeldorf.' But she over-exerts herself; she is not strong: she looks ill, very ill. Vere, do you not think so?"
For the first time since we entered the drawing-room I glanced in the direction of the Countess de Rohan, but her face was turned from me; she was still occupied with Prince Vocqsal, who, old enough to appreciate the value of a good listener, was devoting himself entirely to her amusement. No, I could not see the pale, well-known face, but the light streamed off her jet-black hair, and memory probed me to the quick as its shining masses recalled the wet, heavy locks of one whose life I saved in Beverley Mere.
"Come and play the march in 'The Honijady,'" said Ropsley, leading his _fiancee_ gaily off to the pianoforte. "_On revient toujours a ses premiers amours_, but I really cannot allow you to flirt with Egerton any more," he added, with a smile of such thorough confidence and affection in his promised bride as altered the whole expression of his countenance, and lit it up with a beauty I had never before imagined it to possess.
"Not _that_," she answered, looking anxiously round, "but 'Cheer, boys!
cheer!' as often as you like, now we have got you back again." And they walked away together, a happy, handsome pair as one should wish to see.
I could not have borne it much longer. I gasped for solitude as a man half-stifled gasps for air. With an affectation of leisurely indifference, I strolled into the adjoining billiard-room. I passed close to the Countess, but she never turned her head, so engrossed was she with the conversation of Prince Vocqsal. I walked on through the spacious conservatory. I even stopped to examine an exotic as I passed.
At length I reached a balcony in which that structure terminated, and sinking into a chair that stood in one corner, out of sight and interruption, I leaned my forehead against the cold iron railing, and prayed for fortitude and resignation to my lot.
The fresh night air cooled and composed me. A bright moonlight flickered and glistened over the park. The tones of Valerie's pianoforte, softened by distance, stole sadly, yet soothingly, on my ear. The autumn breeze, hushed to a whisper, seemed to breathe of peace and consolation. I felt that the strength I had asked would be given; that though the fight was not yet over, it would be won at last; that although, alas! the sacrifice was still to be offered, I should have power to make it, and the higher the cost, the holier, the more acceptable it would be. More than once the Devil's sophistry prompted me to repine; more than once I groaned aloud to think that _she_, too, was sacrificed unworthily, that her happiness, like my own, was lost beyond recall. "Oh," I thought, in the bitterness of my agony, "I could have given her up to one that _loved_ her, I could have rejoiced in her welfare, and forgotten _myself_ in the certainty of her happiness. I could have blessed him thankfully for his care and tenderness towards that transplanted flower, and lived on contented, if not happy, to think that I had not offered up my own broken heart in vain; but to see her neglected and pining--her dignity insulted--her rights trampled on--another, immeasurably her inferior, filling the place in her husband's affections to which she had an undoubted right! Victor!
Victor! you were my earliest friend, and yet I can almost _curse_ you from my soul!"
But soon my better nature triumphed; I saw the path of duty plain before me, I determined to follow it, and struggle on, at whatever cost. I had lived for her all my life. I would live for her still. Perhaps when I became an old grey man she would know it; perhaps--never in this life--perhaps she might bless me for it in another; but it should be done! Could I but make a certainty of Victor's _liaison_ with the Princess, could I but obtain _a right_ to speak to him on the subject!
I would make him one last appeal that should _force_ him back to his duty. I would, if necessary, tell him the whole truth, and shame him by my own sacrifice into the right path. I felt a giant's strength and a martyr's constancy; once more I leaned my head upon the cold iron rail, and the opportunity that I asked for seemed to come when I least expected it.
In such a mood as I then was, a man takes no note of time; I could not tell how long I had been sitting there in the solemn peaceful night, it might have been minutes, it might have been hours, but at length the click of billiard-balls, which had been hitherto audible in the adjoining apartment, ceased altogether, a man's step and the rustle of a lady's dress were heard in the conservatory, and when they reached within six paces of me, Victor placed a chair for Princess Vocqsal under the spreading branches of a brilliant azalea, and seated himself at her side. She dropped her bracelet on the smooth tesselated floor as she sat down; he picked it up and clasped it on her arm: as he did so I caught a glimpse of his face: he was deadly pale, and as he raised his eyes to hers, their wild mournful appealing glance reminded me of poor Bold's last look when he died licking my hand. The Princess, on the contrary, shone if possible more brilliant than ever; there was a settled flush, as of triumph, on her cheek, and her whole countenance bore an impress of determined, uncompromising resolution, which I had already remarked as no uncommon expression on those lovely features.
My first impulse was to confront them at once, and take my departure; but I have already said I suffered from constitutional shyness to a great degree, and I was unwilling to face even my old friend with such traces of strong emotion as I knew must be visible on my exterior. I was most unwilling to play the eavesdropper. I felt that, as a man of honour, I was inexcusable in not instantly apprising them of my presence; yet some strange, inexplicable fascination that I could not resist, seemed to force me to remain where I was, unnoticed and unsuspected. Ere they had spoken three words I was in possession of the whole truth, that truth which a few minutes earlier I had been so anxious to ascertain. I do not attempt to excuse my conduct, I am aware that it admits of no palliation, that no one can be guilty of an act of espial and still remain _a gentleman_; but I state the fact as it occurred, and can only offer in extenuation the fever of morbid excitement into which I had worked myself, and my unwavering resolution to save Victor, in spite of his own infatuation, for her sake in whose behalf I did not hesitate thus to sacrifice even my honour.
"Anything but _that_, Rose, my adored Rose; anything but that," pleaded the Count; and his voice came thick and hoarse, whilst his features worked convulsively with the violence of his feelings. "Think of what I have been to you, think of all my devotion, all my self-denial. You cannot doubt me: it is impossible; you cannot mistrust me _now_; but, as you have a woman's heart, ask me for anything but _that_."
She was clasping and unclasping the bracelet he had placed upon her arm, her head drooped over the jewel, but she raised her soft lustrous eyes to his, and with a witching, maddening glance, of which he knew too well the power, murmured--
"Give it me, Victor, _dear_ Victor! you have never refused me anything since I have known you."
"Nor would I now, were it anything that is in my power to give," he burst out hurriedly, and in accents of almost childish impatience; "I tell you, that for your sake I would cast everything to the winds--fortune, friends, home, country, life itself. Drop by drop, you should have the best blood in my body, and I would thank you and bless you for accepting it; but this is more than all, Rose--this is my honour. Could you bear to see me a disgraced and branded man? could you bear to feel that I _deserved_ to have my arms reversed and my name scouted? Could you care for me if it were so? Oh, Rose, you have never loved me if you ask for this!"
"Perhaps you are right," she answered coldly, "perhaps I never did. You have often told me I am very hard-hearted--Victor," she added, after a pause, with a sudden change of manner, and another of those soft fond looks that made such wild work with her victim--"do you think I would ask a man I did not care for to make such a sacrifice? Oh, Victor! you little know a woman's heart--you have cruelly mistaken mine."
The fond eyes filled with tears as she spoke. Victor was doomed. I knew it from that moment. He scarcely made an effort to save himself now.
"And you ask for this as a last proof of my devotion. You are not satisfied yet. It is not enough that I have given you the whole happiness of my life, you must have that life itself as well--nay, even that is too little," he added with bitter emphasis, "I must offer up the unstained honour of the De Rohans in addition to all!"
Another of those speaking, thrilling glances. Oh, the old, old story!
Samson and Delilah--Hercules and Omphale--Antony and Cleopatra, on the ruins of an empire--or plain Jack and Gill at the fair. Man's weakness is woman's opportunity, and so the world goes on.
"Victor," she said, "it is for _my_ sake."
The colour mounted in his cheek, and he rose to his feet like a man.
The old look I had missed all the evening on his face came back once more, the old look that reminded me of shouting squadrons by the Danube, and a dash to the front with AH Mesrour and brave Iskender Bey. His blood was up, and his lance in rest now, stop him who can!
"So be it," he said, calmly and distinctly, but with his teeth clenched and his nostril dilated, like that of a thorough-bred horse after a gallop. "So be it! and never forget, Rose, in the long dark future, never forget that it was for your sake: and now listen to me. I betray my own and my father's friends, I complete an act of treachery such as is yet unknown in the annals of my country, such as her history shall curse for its baseness till the end of time. I devote to ruin and death a score of the noblest families, a score of the proudest heads in Hungary. I stain my father's shield, I break my own oaths. Life, and honour, and all, I cast away at one throw, and, Rose, it is for your sake!"