Your loving brother,
Valentine. P.S.
What about Faning? I rather hope he's gone. If not, perhaps you could fire him out. He swore Spencer was your evil genie, but I thought Spencer had a good eye. Sour grapes, I guess. I suppose you knew what you were doing.
The reformation this letter foreshadowed was more than we could believe, but I am bound to record that it was fairly fulfilled. The shock or the fear of death or, perhaps, his curious communion with that honest and kindly fellowship of simple souls wrought in the Count an astonishing change of heart. The weeds that had choked his qualities withered and died, and though I was most apprehensive of our relation, twenty-four hours' acquaintance had made us the best of friends.
His postscript brings me to Pharaoh. Of that unconscionable scoundrel I have but little to say. That the man was most swift and daring I cannot deny, but I think that his deadly reputation was to him the highwayman's mare. Carefully fed and cherished, it was this that carried him into and out of engagements without a scratch; but when at last he was standing upon his own feet, even I was able to show that, if his eye was quicker, at least his spine was as brittle as that of another man. For all that, he was bold and efficient and something more. Ill served, dogged by misfortune, he nevertheless contrived almost to wring a victory out of defeat. So far as I know, he only made one mistake—and that was to kill young Florin: so far as I know, he had but one slice of luck—and that was, on binding Helena, to find that she had in her hand her master key.
The portrait my cousin had painted will always rank for me as one of the greatest triumphs a painter ever achieved. This is not because he had rendered a beautiful likeness, nor yet because he had captured the leaping spirit that lived in the lovely flesh: but because he had marked, as I had, that the precious eager look was out of his subject's face and had painted it in from memory out of a grateful heart.
Though my life is secure and happy beyond belief, the events of those terrible days are cut as in stone upon my mind. But I would not forget them, if I could: for out of their wrack and turmoil I won my beautiful wife. Often and often I read their grim inscription and gaze at the riotous pageant which this calls up. I see that dreadful labour down in the sparkling dell and Dewdrop finger the paper that I let fall: I tread The Reaping Hook's stairs and I hear—as I shall hear to my dying day—the deadly voice of Pharaoh behind the door: I see him enter the room with Valentine's hand upon his shoulder and I hear him whistling for Sabre with my heart in my mouth: I hear the Carlotta coming with the rush of a mighty wind, and I hear the cough of the Rolls as her engine failed: I hear Rush plying Bugle to make my blood run cold, I hear Pharaoh bullying Freda, and I see the flame of the pistol that saved his life: I see the awful change in my darling's face, and I turn to see Pharaoh smiling behind my back: I smell the fragrance of the valley that knew no sun, and I see the smear of blood upon Helena's delicate leg: and then I see her stricken and trembling in Pharaoh's power, and I hear the roar of our pistols and I see the man spent with hatred, staring into my eyes ...
It is written, Out of the eater came forth meat. I can only say I have found this saying most true. The goddess Aphrodite rose from the foam of the sea: but Helena Spencer came out of the wrath of a tempest that had risen to smite us both. Together, saving each other, we rode out that frightful storm—the remembrance of which is not grievous, for our desperately perilous passage, side by side, has bound us more closely together than the sharing of any joys.
The End.
Storm Music (1934) Page 21
