CHAPTER XLVI
VAE VICTIS!
Valerie de Rohan is Mrs. Ropsley now; she has dropped the rank ofCountess, and prides herself upon the facility with which she hasadopted the character of an English matron. She speaks our language, ifanything, a little less correctly than when I knew her first; nevershakes hands with any of her male acquaintances, and cannot be broughtto take a vehement interest in Low Church bishops, parliamentarymajorities, or the costly shawls and general delinquencies of her prettynext-door neighbour, whose private history is no concern of yours ormine. In all other respects she is British enough to be owngrand-daughter to Boadicea herself. She makes her husband's breakfastpunctually at ten; comes down in full morning toilet, dressed for theday, bringing with her an enormous bunch of keys, such as we bachelorsscrutinise with mysterious awe, and of the utility of which, inasmuch asthey are invariably forgotten and left on the breakfast-table, wenourish vague and secret doubts; further, she studies Shakspeare andBurke (not the statesman, but the compiler of that national work whichsets forth the pedigrees of peers and baronets, and honourable messieursand mesdames) with divided ardour, and although she thinks London alittle _triste_, believes her own house in Belgravia to be a perfectparadise, and loves its lord and hers with a pure, simple, and entiredevotion. Mrs. Ropsley is very happy, and so is he.
"The boy is father to the man." I can trace in the late Guardsman--whorelinquished his profession at the Peace--the same energy, the samecalculating wisdom, the same practical good sense, that distinguishedhis youth; but he has lost the selfishness which made his earliercharacter so unamiable, and has acquired in its stead an enlarged viewof the duties and purposes of life, a mellower tone of thought, a deepersense of feeling as to its pleasures and its pains. He has discoveredthat the way to be happy is not to surround oneself with a rampart ofworldly wisdom, not to cover the human breast with a shield of cynicaldefiance, which always fails it at its need, but to take one's sharemanfully and contentedly of the roses as of the thorns--no more ashamedto luxuriate in the fragrance of the one, than to wince from the sharppoints of the other. He entered on life with one predominant idea, andthat one perhaps the least worthy of all those which sanguine boyhoodproposes so ardently to itself; but he had purpose and energy, andthough self was his idol, he worshipped with a perseverance andconsistency worthy of a better cause. Circumstances, which have warpedso many to evil, rescued him at the turning point of his destiny. Whenhe met Valerie at Vienna, he was rapidly hardening into a bold, bad man,but the affection with which she inspired him saved him, as suchaffection has saved many a one before, from that most dangerous state ofall in which he lies who has nothing to care for, nothing to hope, andconsequently nothing to fear. Oh! you who have it in your power to savethe fallen, think of this. How slight is the cable that tows many agoodly vessel into port; what a mere thread will buoy up a drowning man;do not stand on the bank and wag your heads, and say, "I told you so;"stretch but a little finger, throw him the rope that lies to your hand;nay, think it no shame to wet your feet and bring him gently andtenderly ashore, for is he not your brother?
The good work that Valerie's influence had begun, was perfected by thehardships and horrors of the Crimean campaign. No man could witness thesufferings so cheerfully borne, or take his share in the kindly officesso heartily interchanged on that dreary plateau above Sebastopol,without experiencing an improvement in his moral being, and imbibing farmore correct notions than he had entertained before as to the_realities_ of life and death. No man could take his turn of duty dayby day in the trenches, see friends and comrades one by one struck downby grape-shot, or withering from disease, and not feel that he too heldlife on a startlingly uncertain tenure; that if the material were indeedall-in-all, he had no business there; that the ideal has a large shareeven in this life, and will probably constitute the very essence of thatwhich is to come. It is a mistake to suppose that danger hardens theheart; on the contrary, it renders it peculiarly alive to the softer andkindlier emotions. The brave are nearly always gentler, moresusceptible, than apparently weaker natures; and many a man who does notquail at the roar of a battery, who confronts an advancing column with acareless smile and a pleasant jest upon his lips, will wince like achild at an injury or an unkindness dealt him from the hand he loves.
Ropsley, too, had many a pang of remorse to contend with, many an hourof unavailing regret, as he looked back to the mischief he had wroughtby his unscrupulous schemes for his own benefit--the misery, to which inhis now softened nature he was keenly alive, that a thoughtlessselfishness had brought on his oldest and dearest friends. Poor Victormarried in haste, when piqued and angry with one who, whatever might beher faults, was the only woman on earth to _him_. Constance Beverley,driven into this alliance by his own false representations, and herfather's ill-judged vehemence. Another old school-fellow, whom he wasat last beginning to value and esteem, attributing the wreck of all hehoped and cherished in the world to this fatal marriage; and he himselfere long wishing to be connected by the nearest and dearest ties withthose whose future he had been so instrumental in blasting, and whocould not but look upon him as the prime source and origin of all theirunhappiness.
No wonder Ropsley was an altered man; no wonder Victor's sudden andawful death made a still further impression on his awakened feelings; nowonder he prized the blessing he had won, and determined to make himselfworthy of a lot the golden joys of which his youth would have sneered atand despised, but which he was grateful to find his manhood was capableof appreciating as they deserved.
Happiness stimulates some tempers to action, as grief goads others toexertion; and Ropsley is not one to remain idle. Though Edeldorf haspassed away from the name of De Rohan for evermore, he has attained alarge fortune with his wife; but affluence and comfort alone will notfill up the measure of such a man's existence, and his energeticcharacter will be sure to find some outlet for the talents andacquirements it possesses. Politics will probably be his sphere; andthose who know of what efforts a bold far-seeing nature is capable, whenbacked by study, reflection, above all, common sense; and when blessedwith a happy home of love on which to rest, and from which to gatherdaily new hope and strength, will not think me over sanguine inpredicting that something more than a "_Hic Jacet_" will, in the fulnessof time, be carved on Ropsley's tombstone; that he will do somethingmore in his generation than eat and drink, and pay his son's debts, andmake a will, and so lie down and die, and be forgotten.
It is good to be firm, strong-minded, and practical; it is good to swimwith the stream, and, without ever losing sight of the landing-place, tolose no advantage of the current, no lull of the back-water, no ripplingeddy in one's favour. It is not good to struggle blindly on againstwind and tide, to trust all to a gallant heart, to neglect the beaconand the landmark, to go down at last, unconquered it may be in spirit,but beaten and submerged for all that, in fact. There is an old tale ofchivalry which bears with it a deep and somewhat bitter moral: of acertain knight who, in the madness of his love, vowed to cast aside hisarmour and ride three courses through the melee with no covering savehis lady's night-weeds. Helm, shield, and corslet, mail and plate, andstout buff jerkin, all are cast aside. With bared brow and naked breastthe knight is up and away!--amongst those gathering warriors clad fromhead to foot in steel. Some noble hearts--God bless them!--turn asideto let him pass; but many a fierce blow and many a cruel thrust aredelivered at the devoted champion in the throng. Twice, thrice he ridesthat fearful gauntlet; and ere his good horse stops, the whitenight-dress is fluttering in rags--torn and hacked, and saturated withblood. It is a tale of Romance, mark that! and the knight recovers, tobe happy. Had it been Reality, his ladye might have wrung her handsover a clay-cold corpse in vain. Woe to him who sets lance in rest toride a tournament with the world! Woe to the warm imagination, thekindly feelings, the generosity that scorns advantage, the soft andvulnerable heart! How it bleeds in the conf
lict, how it suffers in thedefeat! Yet are there some battles in which it is perhaps nobler tolose than to win. Who shall say in what victory consists? "Discretionis the better part of valour," quoth Prudence; but Courage, withherald-voice, still shouts, "Fight on! brave knights, fight on!"
In the tomb of his fathers, in a gloomy vault, where a light isconstantly kept burning, sleeps Victor de Rohan, my boyhood's friend, mymore than brother. Many a stout and warlike ancestor lies about him;many a bold Crusader, whose marble effigy, with folded hands and crossedlegs, makes silent boast that he had struck for the good cause in theHoly Land, rests there, to shout and strike no more. Not one amongstthem all that had a nobler heart than he who joined them in the flowerof manhood--the last of his long and stainless line. As the oldwhite-haired sexton opens the door of the vault to trim and replenishthe glimmering death-lamp, a balmy breeze steals in and stirs the heavysilver fringe on the pall of Victor's coffin--a balmy breeze that playsround the statue of the Virgin on the chapel roof, and sweeps acrossmany a level mile of plain, and many a fair expanse of wood and water,till it reaches the fragrant terraces and the frowning towers of distantSieben-buergen--a balmy breeze that cools the brow of yon pale droopinglady, who turns an eager, wistful face towards its breath. For why? Itblows direct from where he sleeps at Edeldorf.
She is not even clad in mourning, yet who has mourned him as she hasdone? She might not even see him borne to his last home, yet who sowillingly would lay her down by his side, to rest for ever with him inthe grave?
Alas for you, Rose, Princess Vocqsal!--you who must needs play withedged tools till they cut you to the quick!--you who must needs rousepassions that have blighted you to the core!--you who never knew you hada heart till the eve of St. Hubert's Day, and found it empty and brokenon the morrow of that festival!
She tends that old man now with the patience and devotion of asaint--that old childish invalid in his garden chair, prattling of hisearly exploits, playing contentedly with his little dog, fretful andimpatient about his dinner. This is all that a paralytic stroke, actingon a constitution weakened by excess, has left of Prince Vocqsal.
Nor is the wife less altered than her husband. Who would recognise inthose pale sunken features, in that hair once so sunny, now streakedwith whole masses of grey, in that languid step and listless, fragileform, the fresh, sparkling roseate beauty of the famous PrincessVocqsal? She has done with beauty now; she has done with love andlight, and all that constitute the charm and the sunshine of life; butshe has still a duty to perform; she has still an expiation to make; andwith a force and determination which many a less erring nature mightfail to imitate, she has set herself resolutely to the task.
Save to attend to her religious duties, comprising many an act of severeand grievous penance, she never leaves her patient. All that woman'scare and woman's tenderness can provide, she lavishes on that querulousinvalid; with woman's instinct of loving that which she protects, he isdearer to her now than anything on earth; but oh! it is a sad, sad facethat she turns to the breeze from Edeldorf.
Her director comes to see her twice a day; he is a grave, sternpriest--an old man who has shriven criminals on the scaffold--who hasaccustomed himself to read the most harrowing secrets of the human soul.He should be dead to sensibility, and blunted to all softer emotions,yet he often leaves the Princess with tears in his grave cold eyes.
She is a Roman Catholic; do not therefore argue that her repentance maynot avail. She has been a sinner--scarlet, if you will, of the deepestdye; do not therefore say that the door of mercy will be shut in herface. There are sins besides those of the feelings--crimes which springfrom more polluted sources than the affections. The narrow gate is wideenough for all. If you are striving to reach it, walking hopefullyalong the strait path, it is better not to turn aside and take uponyourself the punishment of every prostrate bleeding sinner; if you mustneeds stop, why not bind the gaping wounds, and help the sufferer toresume the uphill journey? There are plenty of flints lying about, weknow--heavy, sharp, and three-cornered--such as shall strike the poorcowering wretch to the earth, never to rise again. Which of us shallstoop to lift one of them in defiance of Divine mercy? Which of usshall dare to say, "I am qualified to cast the first stone at her"?