by Ouida
“Will you promise me?” asked Curly; “to give me,peace in my death-hour, promise me.”
“No,” said De Vigne, between his teeth, clenched like an iron vice. “I cannot promise you. Why should you wish me? You loved her yourself—”
“Because I loved her myself, because I love her still; love her so well, that is the thought that in my grave I shall never hear her voice, never see her eyes, never meet her again, that makes me shrink from death,” said Curly; an unutterable tenderness and despair in those faint broken tones whose last utterance was Alma’s name. “I do love her, too well to believe what you believe, that she is Castleton’s mistress.”
De Vigne’s hands clenched the straw of the pallet like a man in bodily agony.
“For God’s sake be silent! Do not drive me to madness. Do you think I should believe it without proof?—”
“On the spur of anger and jealousy you might. I do not know, I cannot tell, but I could never think her capable of falsehood, or dishonour,” whispered Curly, his breath growing shorter, his eyes more dim, though even on his haggard cheek a flush just rose, wavered, and died out, as he went on: “The day she — she — rejected me I accused her of her love for you, and then she answered me as a woman would hardly have done if she had not cared for you very dearly. Before I left England I left all I had to her; it is little enough, but it will keep her from want. Let some one seek her out, even though she were sunk in the lowest shame, and see that they give her my money. It will save her from the vile abyss to which Castleton would leave her to sink down as she might — as she must. Promise me, -De Vigne — or you, Chevasney — promise me, or I cannot die in peace.”
“No, no, I promise you.”
Hoarse and low as De Vigne’s voice was, Curly heard it, a look of gratitude came into the eyes once so bright and fearless, now so dim and dull.
“And if you find that she does love you, you will not reward her for her love as we have done too many?” Whiter and whiter yet grew De Vigne’s face, as his hands clenched harder on the straw of Curly’s bed; it was some moments before he spoke: — .
“I dare not promise that. God help me!”
But his words fell on ears deaf at last to the harsh fret and bustle of the world; the faintness of that terrible last struggle of brain and body with the coming chill of death, had crept over poor Curly. Sudden shiverings seized him, the mind, vanquished at last, began to wander from earth — whither who can dare to say? — dark-blue shadows deepened under his hollow eyes, the life in him still lingered, as though loth to leave the form so brief a space ago full of such beautiful youth, such gracious manhood. To watch it flickering, struggling, growing fainter and fainter, ebbing away so slowly, so surely, dying out painfully, reluctantly; and to know that it might all have been spared by the common care that at home would be given to a horse — to a dog! God knows, there are sights and thoughts in this world that might well turn men to fiends! He gave one sigh, one heavy sigh deep drawn, and turned upon his side: “My mother — Alma!” Those were the last words he uttered; then — all light died out of his eyes, and the life so young, so brave, so gallant, had fled away for ever.
De Vigne bent over the reeking straw that was now the funeral bier of as loyal a heart as ever spent itself in England’s cause; and bitter tears, wrung from his proud eyes, fell on the cold brow, and the rigid features that never more would light up with the kind, fond, fearless smile of friendship, truth, and welcome.
“I loved him,” he muttered. “God help me! Such is ever my fate! My mother — Alma — Curly — all lost; and no bullet will come to me!”
In his own arms De Vigne bore Curly out from the loathsome charnel-house, where the living had been entombed with the dead. We buried him with many another, as loyal and gallant as he, who had died on the slope of the Great Redan; and we gave him a soldier’s gravestone; a plain white wood cross with his name and his regiment marked upon it, such as were planted thick; in those two long years, on the hills and valleys of the Crimea. God knows if it be there now, or if the Russian peasant have struck it down and levelled the little mound with his ploughshare and the hoofs of his heavy oxen.
We have left him in his distant grave. England, whom he remembered in his death-hour, has forgotten him long ere this. Like many another soldier lying in the green sierras of Spain, among the pathless jungle of the tropics, amidst the golden com of Waterloo, and the white headstones upon Cathcart’s Hill; the country for which he fell scarcely heard his name, and never heeded his fate. There he lies in his distant grave, the white and gleaming City he died to win stately and restored to all her ancient beauty; the waters of the Alma rolling through its vineyards as peacefully as though no streams of blood had ever mingled with its flow; the surge of the Euxine Sea beating slowly on the Crimean sands a requiem for the buried dead. There he lies in his distant grave; God requite England if ever she forget him, and those who braved his danger, found his death, and shared his grave.
CHAPTER XI.
How Inconstancy was Voted a Virtue.
THERE was a ball at the Tuileries; that stately palace which has seen so many dynasties and so many generations, from the polished Pairs de France gathered round the courtly and brilliant Bourbons, to the Maréchaux roturiers, with their strong swords and their broad accents, crowding about the Petit Caporal, taking camp tone into palace salons. There were at the Tuileries that night all the English élite, of course, in honour of the “alliance;” and there was among the other foreign guests one Prince Carl of Vallenstein-Seidlitz, an Austrian, with an infinitesimal duchy and a magnificent figure, a tall, strong fellow, with the blue eyes and fair hair of the Teuton race, a man of few words and only two passions: the one for “belles tailles,” the other for “gros jeu.”
He had been exchanging a few monosyllables with the Empress, and now leant against the wall of one of the other reception-rooms, regarding, with calm admiration, the beauty of the Duchesse d’Albe, until his attention wandered to a new face that he had not seen before, and he turned to a young fellow belonging to the British Legation, and demanded who she was?”
Then he asked another question:
“Why have I never seen her?”
“Because she is in love with a married man who is in the Crimea, and but for my mother she would never go into society.”
“Hein! A married man! Introduce her to me!” Rushbrooke Molyneux introduced the Duke of Vallenstein-Seidlitz to his sister, and the bold Teuton eyes fastened on Violet with delight at that lovely form, whose grace and outline eclipsed all he had ever seen. I am not sure that a casual observer would have noticed any change in our brilliant belle. The eyes had lost their riant and cloudless regard; and the smile that had before been so spontaneous and so heartfelt, now faded off her lips the moment courtesy ceased to require it Beyond that, there was little alteration. At her years the most bitter curse upon the mind does not stamp itself upon the features; moreover, she knew that she was pitied and that he was blamed, and that knowledge was sufficient to rouse her Irish spirit to face the world which would only have amused itself with her sorrow and taken occasion for fresh condemnation of him: so — she let the wolf gnaw at her vitals, but suffered no word of pain to escape which might be construed into a reproach to the absent.
Vallenstein looked on her belle taille, and on her proud face, never noticing the weary depths in the eyes that seemed “looking afar off,” and the haughty chillness of tone into which Violet, surrounded with men who would willingly have taught her to forget, had unconsciously fallen in self-defence; but thought to himself, as he drove away to a less formal entertainment at the Café Anglais: “Qui le diable est ce peste (Thomme mariét N’importeI Je la ferai Voublier.” And Lady Molyneux thought, as her maid unfastened her diamond tiara: “If the cards are played well, I may make Violet Duchess of Vallenstein-Seidlitz. It would be the best match of the season. What a pity it seems Sabretasche has never had anything happen to him! — if he were not in that Crimea, alive, to wr
ite her letters and feed this romance, I could soon bring her to reason. However, as it is, a great deal may be done by firmness; if I could only persuade Violet how utterly unnecessary a grande passion is — indeed, in marriage, positively inconvenient! Her dresses mount up very expensively. I must have that lace — only three hundred guineas, dirt cheap! and I don’t believe the women will let me have it unless I pay part of their bill, tiresome creatures. I paid them up every farthing seven years ago, but that sort of persons grows so rude now-a-days, instead of being thankful for one’s custom, that it is utterly insufferable. I must certainly marry Violet to somebody, and I will not procrastinate about it any longer. I shall be firm with her!”
The Molyneux had come to winter in Paris. Corallyne, though it looked well enough in Burke, was utterly uninhabitable; London was out of the question till March, and the Viscountess, tired of travelling, and bored with the Bads, had taken a suite in an hotel in the Champs Elysées, where she contrived to spend her J days tolerably pleasantly, especially as there was a remarkably handsome Confessor, who gave her unusual piquancy in her religious excitements, and made her think seriously of the duties of auricular confession. (It is commonly said that women make the best devotees — doubtless for causes too lengthy to enter upon here — but I wonder, if religions had no priests how many of their fairer disciples would they retain?) And now, Lady Molyneux had another object in life — to woo Prince Carl for her daughter. Bent on that purpose, she tried to make the Hôtel Clâcy very delightful to him, and succeeded. Violet paid him no attention — barely as much as courtesy dictated to a man of his rank and to her father’s guest — but he cared nothing for conversation, and as long as she sat there, however haughtily silent, and he could admire her belle taille as he liked, he wished for no words, though he might have desired a few smiles. Still she was the first woman who had neglected him, and to men as courted as the Austrian this is a better spur than any, and he really grew interested when he found it not so easy “de la faire oublier.”
“C’est en bon train” thought my lady; “if only Violet were more tractable, and Sabretasche would not write!” — would not live was in her thoughts, but naturally so religiously-minded a woman could hardly “murder with a wish,” and having no other weapons than her natural ones of tongue and thought, she planned out a series of ingenious persecutions against her daughter till she should have induced her to marry.
“My dear Violet, oblige me with a few minutes’ conversation,” said my lady, one morning.
Violet looked up and followed her pàssively; her manner was as soft and gentle as of old — even gentler still to those about her — but the chill of her great grief was upon her, and her mother’s persistence had taught her a somewhat haughty reserve, quite foreign to her nature, in defence not only of herself, but of the allegiance, which she never attempted to conceal, that she gave to him as faithfully as though he had been her husband.
“My dear Violet,” began the Viscountess, seating herself opposite to her daughter in her own room, “may I ask whether you absolutely intend dedicating all your days to Vivian Sabretasche? Do you really mean to devote yourself to maidenhood all your life because one man happens not to be able to marry you?”
The colour rose on Violet’s brow; the sensitive wound shrank at any touch; and my Lady Molyneux, religious and gentle woman though she was, could use Belgravian Billingsgate on occasion.
“Why do you renew that subject? You know as well as I, that I shall never marry. It is a subject which concerns no one but myself, and I have told you, once for all, that I hold myself as fully bound to him as if the vows we hoped to take had passed between us?”
Her voice trembled as she spoke, though her teeth were set together. The Viscountess sighed and sneered. “Then do you mean that you will refuse Regalia?”
“I have refused him.”
“You have!” And my lady, with a smile, drank a little eau-de-Cologne by way of refreshment after hearing such a statement “I suppose you know, Violet, that you will have no money; that if you do not make a good match now you are young and pretty, nobody will take you when you are the dowerless passée daughter of a penniless Irish Peer? And Vallenstein-Seidlitz, may I inquire, if you have refused him, too?”
“He has not given me the opportunity; if he do, I shall.”
“If he do, you will? You must be mad — absolutely mad!” cried her mother, too horrified for expression. “Don’t you know that there is not a girl in the English or the French empire, who would not take such an offer as his, and accept it with thanksgiving?”
“Oh yes! I could not sell myself to better advantage!”
“Sell yourself?” repeated the peeress. Fine ladies are not often fond of hearing things called by their proper names, “Yes, sell myself,” repeated Violet, bitterly, leaning against the mantelpiece, with a painful smile upon her lips. “Would you not put me up to auction, knock me down to the highest bidder? Marriage is the mart, mothers the auctioneers, and he who bids the highest wins. Women are like racers, brought up only to run for Cups, and win handicaps for their owners.”
“Nonsense!” said her mother, impatiently. “You have lost your senses, I think. There is no question of ‘selling,’ as you term it. Marriage is a social compact, of course, where alliances suitable in position, birth, and wealth, are studied. Why should you pretend to be wiser than all the rest of the world? Most amiable and excellent women have married without thinking love a necessary ingredient Why should you object to a good alliance if it be a mariage de convenance?”
“Because I consider a mariage de convenance the most gross of all social falsehood! You prostitute the most sacred vows and outrage the closest ties; you carry a lie to your husband’s heart and home. You marry him for his money or his rank, and simulate an attachment for him that you know to be hypocrisy. You stand before God’s altar with an untruth upon your lips, and either share an unhallowed barter, or deceive and trick an affection that loves and honours you. The Quadroon girl sold in the slave-market is not so utterly polluted, as the woman free, educated, and enlightened, who barters herself for a ‘marriage for position.’”
Something of her old passionate eloquence was roused in her, as she spoke with contempt and bitterness. Her heart was sick of the follies and conventionalities which surrounded her, so meshing her in that it needed both spirit and endurance to keep free and true amidst them all. Lady Molyneux was silent for a minute, possibly in astonishment at this novel view of that usual desideratum — a marriage for position.
“My dear Violet, your views are very singular — very extraordinary. You are much too free of thought If you had listened to me once before, you would never have had the misery of your present unhappy infatuation. The eye of society is upon you; you must act with dignity; society demands it of you. You must not disgrace your family by pining after a married man. It was very sad, I know — very sad that affair; and I dare say you were very attached to him. Everybody knows he was a most handsome, gifted, fascinating creature, though, alas! utterly unprincipled. Still, I think your first feeling should have been one of intense thankfulness at being preserved from the fate you might have had. Only fancy if his wife had not declared her claims before your marriage with him! Only fancy, what your position in society would have been! Every one would have pitied you, of course, but not a creature could have visited you?”
The silent scorn in her daughter’s eyes made her pause; she could not but read the contempt of her own doctrines in them, which Violet felt too deeply to put into words.
MI have no doubt it was a very great trial,” she continued hurriedly; “I am not denying that, of course; still, what I mean is, that your duty, your moral duty, Violet, was, as soon as you found that Vivian Sabretasche was the husband of another, to do your very utmost to forget him, certainly not to foster and cherish his memory as persistently and wilfully as you do. It is an entire twelvemonth since you parted from him, and yet, instead of trying to banish all remembrance of yo
ur unhappy engagement and breaking entirely with him, you keep up a correspondence with him — more foolish your father to allow it! — and obstinately refuse to form a more fortunate attachment, and marry well. I tell you that your affection, however legitimate its commencement, became wrong, morally wrong, as soon as you learned that he was married to another woman.”
At last the Viscountess paused for breath; the scorn which had been gathering deeper and deeper in Violet’s face burst into words; she lifted her head, that her mother might not see the thick blinding tears that gathered in her eyes:
“A sin! You cannot mean what you say! The sin, if you like, were indeed to forsake him and forget him; that were a crime, of which, if I were capable, you would indeed have reason to blush for me. When I knew him, worthy of every sacrifice that any woman could make him, so true and generous that he chose misery for himself rather than falsehood towards me, am I then to turn round and say to him, ‘Because you cannot marry me — in other words, contribute to my own aggrandisement, and flatter my own self-love, I choose to forget all that has passed between us, to ignore all the fidelity I once vowed to you, and sell whatever charms I have to some buyer free to bid a better price for them?’”
The satiric bitterness in her tone stung her mother into shame, or as faint an approach to it as she could feel, and, like most people, she covered an indefensible argument with vague irritation.
“Really, Violet, your tone is highly unbecoming: I have absolutely no patience with your folly — !”
Violet stopped her with a gesture as of physical suffering, but with a dignity in her face that awed even her mother into silence.
“Not even you shall ever apply such a term to any devotion I can show to him. He is worthy all the love of a woman far nobler and better than I ever shall be. I promised him my allegiance once when the world smiled upon our love; because the world now frowns instead, do you suppose that I shall withdraw it? Do not torture me any more with this cruel discussion; it is ended once for all. I shall never marry; it will always be as useless to urge me as it is useless now. God knows whether we may ever meet again; but, living or dead, I am for ever bound to him.”