Under the Red Dragon: A Novel
ever seen the painted face of one, it may be, who was an utter
stranger to you, yet that seemed to fill your mind with a sort of
recognition that sent you out over the sea of speculation, wondering
where you had seen it before, or when you would see it again? The eyes
talk to you and the lips tell you a dreamy story."
Such, then, was the haunting character of the face of Valerie. Her
beauty and her graces of manner filled up all my thoughts, and her
strange dark eyes seemed to say that if it was impossible we had known
each other in the years that were past, we might be dear enough to
each other in the future; and I hoped in my heart that ours should be
one; thus yielding blindly to the influence, to the charm of her
presence and the whole situation. Once she was at the piano, and sang
to me with wonderful grace and brilliance "The Refusal," a Russian
gipsy song, in which a young man makes many desperate professions and
promises of love to a giddy young beauty, who laughs at them and
rejects him, because she values nothing so much as her own liberty.
When turning the leaves for her, the pearl ring of Estelle--a ring so
evidently that of a lady--caught her attention, and I saw Valerie's
colour heighten as she did so. I instantly drew it off; I felt no
compunction in doing so then, and said, "You admire this ring,
apparently?"
"Nay--do not say so, please," said she, bending over the instrument;
"when a lady admires thus, it seems only another fashion of coveting."
"In this instance that were useless," said I, laughing, "as the ring
is not mine to bestow; otherwise I should glory in your accepting it."
"Is it your wife's?"
"My wife's!"
"Yes. Have you one in that wretched little island of yours?" she
continued, sharply.
"No," I replied, delighted by this undisguised little ebullition of
jealousy.
"To whom does it belong, then?"
"The wife of another, to whom it shall be restored in England."
"This is very strange--it has, then, a history?" said she, bending her
dark eyes on mine.
"Yes."
"And this history--what is it?"
"I cannot--dare not tell you."
"Indeed!" Her black lashes drooped for a moment, and she passed a
white hand nervously over her golden braids. "And wherefore?"
"It would be to reveal the secrets of another."
"Another whom you love?" she asked, hurriedly, while her teeth seemed
to glitter as well as her eyes, for her lips were parted.
"No, no; on my honour, no!" said I, laying my right hand on my breast,
and feeling that then I spoke but the truth and without the
equivocation, to which her questions were forcing me. Then Valerie
seemed to blush with pleasure, and my heart beat lightly with joy. I
should certainly have done something rash; but the inevitable Madame
Tolstoff was in the room, embroidering a smoking cap for her son the
colonel, then in command of the 26th at Sebastopol; so I was compelled
to content myself by simply touching the hand of Valerie, and by
caressing it tenderly, while affecting to admire a beautiful opal ring
she wore, and urging her to continue her music. The whole episode
partook somewhat of the nature of a scene between us, and even the
usually self-possessed Valerie seemed a little confused, as she once
more laid her tapered fingers on the ivory keys.
"I am very far from perfect in my music, or anything else, perhaps,"
she said.
"Do not say so," I whispered; "yet had you been more perfect than you
are, I think no other woman in this world would have had the chance of
a lover."
"How--why?"
"All men would be loving you, and you only."
"This is more like the inflated flattery of a Frenchman than the
speech of a sober Briton," said Valerie, a little disdainfully.
"Does it displease you?"
"Yes, certainly."
"Why?"
"People don't love when they flatter," was the pretty pointed and
coquettish response, and preluded an air with a crash on the keys,
thus interrupting something I was about to say--heaven only knows
what--a formal declaration, I fear.
"You admired my opal. Listen to the story of its _origin_; I doubt if
the story of your ring is half so pretty," said she. And then she sang
in English the following song, which she had been taught by her
governess, a song the author of which I have never been able to
discover; but then and there, situated as I was, the English words
came deliciously home to my heart, and I quote them now from memory:--
"A dew-drop came, with a spark of flame
It had caught from the sun's last ray,
To a violet's breast, where it lay at rest,
Till the hours brought back the day.
With a blush and a frown a rose look'd down,
But smiled at once to view,
With its colouring warm, her own bright form
Reflected back by the dew!
Then a stolen look the stranger took
At the sky so soft and blue,
And a leaflet green, with its silvery sheen,
Was seen by the idler, too.
As he thus reclined, a cold north wind
Of a sudden blew around,
And a maiden fair, who was walking there,
Next morning _an opal_ found!"
I ventured to pat her shoulder approvingly. I glanced furtively round;
the Tolstoff had gone out of the room, and somehow my arm slipped
round Valerie, who looked up at me, smiling archly, yet she said,
firmly,
"Pray don't."
"How much longer am I to keep this silence?" I asked.
"How--what silence?"
"To be thus in suspense, Valerie," I added, lowering my voice and
bending my face towards her ear.
Her smile passed away, her white lids drooped, and perplexity and
trouble stole over her eyes, as she drew her head back.
"I do not know what you mean, or whither your conversation tends," she
said.
"You know that I love you!"
"No, I don't."
"You must have seen it--must have guessed it--since the happy hour in
which I first saw you."
"Do not speak to me thus, I implore you," said she, colouring deeply,
and covering her face with her beautiful hands.
"Why, Valerie, dearest, dearest Valerie?"
"I must not--dare not listen to you."
"Dare not?"
"I speak the truth," said she, and her breast heaved.
"Will you marry me, Valerie?"
"I cannot marry you."
"Why?"
"O heavens, don't ask me! But enough of this; and here comes Madame
Tolstoff, to announce that the _samovar_--the tea-urn--is ready."
In my irritation I muttered something that she of the red _sarafan_,
Madame Tolstoff, would not wish graved on her tombstone, and resumed
my previous task of turning the leaves at the piano; but Valerie sang
no more then, and for two entire days gave me no opportunity of
learning why she had received my declaration in a manner so odd and
unexpected. I could but sigh and conjecture the cause, and recall the
words of her brother on the night he first met me at Yalta; and if it
were the case that a convent proved the only barrier, I was not
without hopes of smoothing all such scruples away.
CHAPTER XLVIII.--THE THREATS OF TOLSTOFF.
In the growth of my passion for Valerie I forgot all about the
probable opposition of her brother, the Count, to my wishes. Indeed,
he entered very little into my schemes of the future; for the perilous
contingencies of war caused life to be held by a very slight tenure
indeed; so we might never see him again, though none would deplore
more than I the death of so gallant a fellow. Then, in that instance,
did one so lovely as Valerie require more than ever a legitimate
protector, and who could be more suitable than I? I felt convinced at
that time, that those who loved Valerie once could never feel for
another as they had loved her. She was so full of an individuality
that was all her own. Was it the coquetry of her manner, the strange
and indescribable beauty of her dark eyes, the coils of her golden
hair, the smile on her lips, or the subtle magnetism the kisses of
those lips might possess, that entangled them? God knows, but I have
heard that those who loved her once were never quite the same men
again. If Valerie married me, with what pride and exultation should I
display her beauty, if occasion served, before Estelle and her dotard
Earl, as a bright being I had won from hearts that were breaking for
her, and as one who was teaching me fast to forget _her_, even as she
had forgotten me! A Russian wife, at that crisis of hostility and
hatred, seemed a somewhat singular alliance certainly; what would the
regiment say, and what would my chief friend old Sir Madoc, with all
his strong national prejudices, think? I should be pretty certain to
find the doors of Craigaderyn closed for long against me. These,
however, were minor considerations amid my dreams; for dreams they
were, and visions that might never be realised; _châteaux en Espagne_
never, perhaps, to be mine!
On the morning of the third day after the musical performance recorded
in the preceding chapter, Valerie met me, accompanied by Madame
Tolstoff. Her face wore a bright smile, and interlacing her fingers,
she raised her eyes to the _eikon_ above the fireplace, and said to
me, "O Hospodeen, have I not cause to thank Heaven for the news a
Cossack has just brought me, in a letter from Colonel Tolstoff?"
"I hope so; but pray what is the news?" I. asked, while drawing nearer
her.
"My brother Paulovitch has been taken prisoner by your people."
"Call you that good news?" I asked, with surprise.
"Yes, most happy tidings."
"How?"
"My brother will now be safe, and I hope that they will keep him so
till this horrible and most unjust war is over."
"Unjust! how is it so?" I asked, laughing.
"Can it be otherwise, when it is waged against holy Russia and our
good father the Czar?"
I afterwards learned that Volhonski had been taken prisoner in that
affair which occurred on the night of Sunday, the 14th January, when
the Russians surprised our people in the trenches, and captured one
officer and sixteen men of the 68th, or Durham Light Infantry, into
whose hands Volhonski fell, and was disarmed and taken at once to the
rear.
"I am so happy," continued Valerie, clapping her hands like a child,
"though it may be long, long ere I see him again, my dear Paulovitch!
He will be taken to England, of course."
"Should you not like to join him there?" I asked, softly. "Yes, but I
cannot leave Russia."
"Why?"
"Do not ask me; but we may keep _you_ as a hostage for him," she
added, merrily; "do you agree?"
"Can I do otherwise?" said I, tenderly and earnestly.
"Of course not, while those Cossacks are in the Baidar Valley. Poor
Paulovitch! and this was his parting gift!" she continued, and drew
from her bosom--and none in the world could be whiter or more
lovely--a gold cross; and after kissing, she replaced it, looking at
me with a bright, coquettish, and most provoking smile, as it slipped
down into a receptacle so charming. "And dear Madame Tolstoff is so
happy, too, for her son arrives here to-morrow; he has been severely
bruised by the splinter of a shell in the Wasp Battery, and comes
hither to be nursed by us."
I cannot say that I shared in "dear Madame's" joy on this occasion,
and would have been better pleased had Valerie seemed to be less
excited than she was. Moreover, I feared that the arrival of a Russian
officer as an inmate might seriously complicate matters, and
completely alter my position; and a pang seemed to enter my heart, as
I already began to feel with wretchedness that Valerie might soon be
lost to me. I had no time to lose if I would seek to resume the
subject of conversation on that evening when Madame Tolstoff arrived
just in time to interrupt us; but Valerie seemed studiously never to
afford me an opportunity of being with her alone. This was most
tantalising, especially now when a crisis in my affairs seemed