by Ouida
‘For a bastard, he crows well!’ she said, loud enough to be heard by him, in the old twelfth-century French of the words she quoted.
Sabran went onward with a quick step; if he had paused, if he had looked back, he felt that he would have murdered her.
‘Talk of the cruelty of men! What beast that lives,’ he thought, ‘has the slow unsparing brutality of a jealous woman?’
He went on, without pausing once, across the great house. So much he could spare his wife, he could save her from her enemy’s triumph in her suffering; he could do as men did in the Indian Mutiny, plunge the knife himself into the heart that loved him, and spare her further outrage.
When he reached the door of the library, he stopped and drew a deep breath. He would have gone to his death with calmness and a smile; but here he had no courage. A sickening spasm of pain seemed to suffocate him. He knew that he met only his just punishment. If he could only have suffered alone he would not have rebelled against his doom. But to smite her! ——
With greater courage than is needed in the battle-field he turned the handle of the door and entered. She was seated at one of the writing-tables with a mass of correspondence before her, to which she had been vainly striving to give her attention. Her thoughts had been with him and Olga Brancka. She looked up with the light on her face which always came there when she saw him after any absence, long or short. But that light was clouded as she perceived the change in his look in his carriage, in his very features, which were aged, and drawn, and bloodless. She rose with an exclamation of alarm, as he came to her across the length of the noble room, where he had first seen her seated by her own hearth, and heard her welcome him a stranger and unknown beneath her roof.
‘Wanda! Wanda!’ he said, and his voice seemed strangled, his lips seemed dumb.
‘My God, what is it?’ she cried faintly. ‘Are the children — —’
‘No, no,’he muttered. ‘The children are well. It is worse than death. Wanda, I have come to tell you the sin of my life, the shame of it. Oh! how will you ever believe that I loved you since I wronged you so?’
A great sob broke down his words.
She put her hand to her heart.
‘Tell me,’ she said, in a low whisper, ‘tell me everything. Why not have trusted me? Tell me — I am strong.’
Then he told her the whole history of his past, and spared nothing.
She listened in unbroken silence, standing all the while, leaning one hand upon the ebony table by her.
When he had ceased to speak he buried his face in her skirts where he knelt at her feet; he did not dare to look at her. She was still silent; her breath came and went with shuddering effort. She drew her velvet gown from him with a gesture of unspeakable horror.
‘You! — you!’ she said, and could find no other word.
Then all grew dark around her; she threw her arms out in the void, and fell from her full height as a stone drops from a rock into the gulf below; struck dumb and senseless for the first time in all the years that she had lived.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Twelve hours later she gave premature birth to a male child, dead. Once in those hours when her physical agony lulled for a moment and her consciousness returned, she said to her physician:
‘Tell him to send for Egon. Egon betrays no one.’
They were the first words she had spoken. Greswold understood nothing; but he saw that some great calamity had fallen on those he loved and honoured, and that her lord never came nigh her chamber, but only pacing to and fro the corridors and passages of the house, with restless, ceaseless steps, paused ever and again to whisper— ‘Does she live?’
‘Come to her,’ said the old man once; but Sabran shuddered and turned aside.
‘I dare not,’ he answered, ‘I dare not. If she die, it is I who shall have killed her.’
Greswold did not venture to ask what had happened; he knew it must be some disaster of which the Countess Brancka was the origin or the messenger.
‘My lady has spoken a few words,’ he said later to his master. ‘She bade me tell you to send for Prince Vàsàrhely. She said he would betray no one. I could ask nothing, for her agony returned.’
Sabran was silent; the thought came to him for the first time that it might be possible Olga Brancka had used the name of her brother-in-law falsely.
‘Send for him yourself,’ he said wearily; ‘What she wishes must be done. Nothing matters to me.’
‘I think the Prince is in Vienna,’ said Greswold; and he sent an urgent message thither, entreating Vàsàrhely’s immediate presence at Hohenszalras, in the name of his cousin.
Olga Brancka remained in her own apartments, uncertain what to do.
‘If Wanda die,’ she thought, ‘it will all have been of no use; he will be neither divorced nor disgraced. Perhaps one might plead the marriage invalid, and disinherit the children; but one would want so much proof, and I have none. If he had not been so stunned and taken off his guard, he might easily have defied me. Egon may know more, but if Wanda dies he will not move. He would care for nothing on earth. He will forget the children were Sabran’s. He will only remember they were hers!’
No one who loved her could have been more anxious for Wanda von Szalras to live than was this cruellest of her enemies, who passed the time in a perpetual agitation, and, as her women brought her tidings from hour to hour, testified so much genuine alternation of hope and terror, that they were amazed to see so much feeling in one so indifferent usually to all woes not her own. She was miserably dull; she had no one to speak to; she had no lover, friend, rival, or foe to give her the stimulant to life that was indispensable to her. Even she did not dare to approach the man whose happiness she had ruined, any more than she would have dared to touch a lion wounded to the death. Yet she could not tear herself away from the scene of her vengeance.
The whole house was hushed like a grave; the servants were full of grief at the danger of a mistress they adored; even the young children, understanding that their mother was in peril, did not play or laugh; but sat unhappy and silent over their books, or wandered aimlessly along the leafless gardens. They knew that there was something terrible, though they knew not what.
‘What is death?’ said Lili to her brothers.
‘It is to go and live with God, they say,’ answered Bela, doubtfully.
‘But how can God be happy Himself,’ said Gela, ‘when He causes so much sorrow?’
‘Our mother will never go away from us,’ said the little Lili, who listened. ‘They may call her from heaven ever — ever so much; she will not leave us.’
Bela sighed; he had a heavy, hopeless impression of death as a thing that was stronger than himself.
‘Pride can do naught against death, my little lord,’ one of the foresters had once said to him. ‘You will find your master there one day.’
A day and a night passed; puerperal convulsions succeeded to the birth of the dead boy, and Wanda was unconscious alike of her bodily and her mental torture. The physicians, whom Greswold had summoned instantly, were around her bed, grave and anxious. The only chance for her lay in the magnificent health and strength with which nature had dowered her. Her constitution might, they said, enable her to resist what weaker women would have gone down under like boats in an ocean storm.
It was towards dawn on the second day when Egon Vàsàrhely arrived.
‘She lives?’ he said, as he entered.
‘That is all,’ said Greswold, with tears in his voice.
‘Can I see her?’
‘It would be useless. She would not know your Excellency.’
Sabran came forward from the further end of the Rittersaal, where the lights were burning with a yellow glare as the grey light of the dawn was stealing through the unshuttered windows.
‘Allow me the honour of a word with you, Prince;’ he said. ‘I understand; you have come at her summons — not at mine.’
Greswold withdrew and left them alone. Vàsàrhely w
as still wrapped in the furs in which he had travelled. He stood erect and listened; his face was very stern.
‘Did you give up my secret to your brother’s wife?’ said Sabran, abruptly.
‘Can you ask that?’ said Vàsàrhely. ‘You had my word.’
‘Madame Brancka knows all that you know. She said that you had betrayed me to her. She would have told Wanda. I chose sooner to tell her myself. The shock has killed the child. It may kill her. Your sister-in-law is here. If she used your name falsely it is for you to avenge it.’
‘Tell me what passed between you,’ said Prince Egon. His face was dark as night.
Sabran hesitated a moment. Even now he could not bring himself to disclose the passion which his enemy had conceived for him. It was one of those women’s secrets which no gentleman can surrender to another.
‘You are aware,’ he replied, ‘that Madame Brancka has been always envious of your cousin; always willing to hurt her. When she got possession of the story of my past she used it without mercy. She would have told my wife with brutality; I told her myself, hoping to spare her something by my own confession. Madame Brancka affirmed to me, twice or thrice over, that you had given her all the information against me.’
‘How could you believe her? You had had my promise.’
‘How could I doubt her?’
‘It is natural you should know nothing of honour!’ thought Vàsàrhely, but he did not utter what he thought. He saw that, dark as had been the crimes of Sabran against those of his race, the chastisement of them was as great.
He said simply:
‘You might sooner have doubted anything than have believed that I should entrust the Countess Brancka with such a secret, and have given her such a power to injure my cousin. How can she have learned your history? Have you betrayed yourself?’
‘Never! Since she had it not from you, I cannot conceive how or where she learned it. Not a soul lives that knows me as — —’
He paused; he could not bring himself to say the name he bore from birth.
‘My brother is unfortunate,! said Vàsàrhely, curtly. ‘He has wedded a vile woman. Leave her to me.’
He saluted Sabran with cold but careful ceremony, and went, to his own apartments. Sabran passed to the corridor which led to his wife’s rooms, and there resumed his miserable restless walk to and fro before her door. He dared not enter. In her conscious hours she had not asked for him. He had ever present before his eyes that movement of horror, of repulsion, with which she had drawn the hem of her gown from his grasp.
Now and again, when her attendants came in and out, he saw through the opening of the door the bed on which she lay and the outline of her form in the pale light of the lamp. He could not rest. He could not even sit down or break a mouthful of bread. If she died, his sin against her would have slain her as surely as though his hand had taken her life. It was about six of the clock in the chilly dawn of the autumnal day.
CHAPTER XXXV.
Egon Vàsàrhely passed the next three hours in mental conflict with his own passions. It would have been precious to him — would have been a blessed and sacred duty — to avenge the woman he adored. But he had a harder task. For her sake he had to befriend the traitor who had wronged her, and shelter him from the just opprobrium of the world. Crueller combat with temptation none ever waged than he fought now against his own truest instincts, his own dearest affections. She lay there, perchance dying, of this treachery which had struck her down in her happiest hours; and it seemed to him as if, through the silence of the darkened and melancholy house, he heard her voice saying to him: ‘For my sake, spare him — spare my children!’
‘I give you more than my life, my beloved!’ he murmured, as he sat alone, whilst the grey day widened over forest and mountain, and for her sake prepared to shield the man who had deceived her from disgrace and death.
‘The hound!’ he thought. ‘He should be branded as a perjurer and thief throughout the world! Yet for her — for her — one must protect him.’
An hour or two later he sent his name to the Countess Brancka, with a request to be received by her. She was but then awaking, and heard with astonishment and alarm of his arrival, so unlooked for and so dreaded. It had never occurred to her as possible that he would come to Hohenszalras.
‘Wanda must have sent for him!’ she thought. ‘Oh heavens! why could she not die with the child!’
It was impossible for her to avoid him; shut up here she could neither deceive nor escape him. She could not go away without her departure being known to the whole household. She was afraid of him, terribly afraid; the Vàsàrhely had a hand of iron when they were offended or injured. But she put a fair face on a bitter obligation, and, when she was dressed, went with a pretty smile into the salon to receive him.
Vàsàrhely gave her no greeting as he entered. A great fear took possession of her as she saw the expression of his eyes. He was the only living being of whom she was in awe. He approached her without any observances of courtesy. He said, simply and sternly:
‘I hear that you have used my name falsely, to the husband of Wanda; that you have dared to give me as your authority for accusations against him. What is your excuse?’
She was for the moment so bewildered and disturbed by his presence and his charge that she lost all her ability and power of interminable falsehood. She was silent, and he saw her bosom heave and her hands tremble a little.
‘What is your excuse?’ he said again. ‘Why did you come into this house to injure Wanda von Szalras? How did you dare to use my name to do her that injury?’
She tried to laugh a little, but she was nervous and thrown off her guard.
‘I wished to do her a service! Since she has married an adventurer — an impostor — she ought to know it and be free.’
‘What is your authority for calling the Marquis de Sabran an adventurer? To him you employed my name as your authority. What truth was beneath that lie?’
She was silent. For the only time in her life she knew not what to say. She had no facts in her hands. Her ground was too uncertain to sustain her in a steady attitude.
‘You know that he is Vassia Kazán!’ she said, with another little laugh.
The face of Vàsàrhely revealed nothing.
‘Who is Vassia Kazán?’ he repeated.
‘He is — the man who robbed you of Wanda.’
‘He could not rob me of what I never possessed. What grounds have you for calling him by this name?’
‘I have reason to believe it.’
‘Reason to believe it! You told him that you heard this story from myself.’
‘He never denied it.’
‘I am not concerned to discuss what he did or did not do. I come here to know on what grounds you employed my name?’
‘Egon, I will tell you the truth!’
‘Can you?’
‘Yes; I can and I will. When I was at Taróc, three summers ago, I saw a fragment of a letter in Sabran’s writing. I saw the name of Vassia Kazán. I put this and that together. I heard something from Russia; I sent some people to Mexico. I had always had my suspicions. I do not say I have any positive legal proof, but I am morally convinced that he is no Marquis de Sabran, and that he was born a serf near the city of Kazán. I have charged him with it, and he has as good as confessed it. He was struck dumb with consciousness.’
She watched the face of Vàsàrhely, but it might have been cast in bronze for anything that it told her.
‘You saw a fragment of a letter, of which you knew nothing,’ he said coldly; ‘you formed some vague suspicions; you descended to the use of spies, and, because you have invented a theory of your own on your so-called discoveries, you deem you have a title to ruin the happiness of your cousin’s home. And you father your work upon me! Often have I pitied my brother, but never so deeply as now.’
‘If my so-called discoveries were false,’ she interrupted, with hardihood, ‘why did he not say so? He was convicted by his own admiss
ions. If my charge had been baseless, would he have said that he would tell his wife himself rather than let her learn it from me?’
‘I neither know nor care what he said,’ answered Vàsàrhely. ‘I have only your version for it. You must pardon me if I do not attach implicit credence to your word. What I do know is that you ventured to use my name to give force and credibility to your accusations. Had you really known for certainty such a history, you would, had you had any decency or feeling, have consulted your husband and myself on the best means of shielding our cousin’s honour. But you have always envied and hated her. What is her husband to you — what is it to you whether he be a noble or a clown? You snatch at the first brand you think you see, in the hope to scorch her honour with it. But when you used my name falsely you did a dangerous thing for yourself. I shall waste no more words upon you, but you will sign what I write now, or you will repent it.’
She affected to laugh.
‘My dear Egon, quel ton de maître! What authority have you over me? Even if you invest yourself in your brother’s, that counts for very little, I assure you.’
‘Perhaps so; but if my brother be too careless of his honour and too credulous of your deceptions, he is yet man enough to resent such infamy as you have been guilty of now. You will sign this.’
He passed to her a few lines which he had already written and brought with him. They ran thus:
‘I, Olga, Countess Brancka, do acknowledge that I most untruthfully used the name of my husband’s brother, the Prince Vàsàrhely, in an endeavour to injure the gentleman known as the Marquis de Sabran; and I hereby do ask the pardon of them both, and confess that in such pardon I receive great leniency and forbearance.’
‘Sign it,’ said Prince Egon.
‘Pshaw!’ said Madame Brancka, and pushed it away with a loud laugh, deigning no further answer.
‘Will you sign it or not?’ asked Vàsàrhely.
She replied by tearing it in shreds.
‘It is easily rewritten,’ he said, unmoved. He went to a writing-table that stood in the room, looked for paper and found it, and wrote out the same formula.