Kitabı oku: «Vivian Grey», sayfa 13
CHAPTER II
These conversations play the very deuce with one’s story. We had intended to have commenced this book with something quite terrific, a murder or a marriage; and all our great ideas have ended in a lounge. After all, it is, perhaps, the most natural termination. In life, surely man is not always as monstrously busy as he appears to be in novels and romances. We are not always in action, not always making speeches or making money, or making war, or making love. Occasionally we talk, about the weather generally; sometimes about, ourselves; oftener about our friends; as often about our enemies, at least, those who have any; which, in my opinion, is the vulgarest of all possessions.
But we must get on.
Mr. Cleveland and Mrs. Felix Lorraine again met, and the gentleman scarcely appeared to be aware that this meeting was not their first. The lady sighed and remonstrated. She reproached Mr. Cleveland with passages of letters. He stared, and deigned not a reply to an artifice which he considered equally audacious and shallow. There was a scene. Vivian was forced to interfere; but as he deprecated all explanation, his interference was of little avail; and, as it was ineffectual for one party and uncalled for by the other, it was, of course, not encouraged. The presence of Mrs. Cleveland did not tend to assist Mrs. Felix in that self-control which, with all her wildness, she could appositely practise. In the presence of the Clevelands she was fitful, capricious, perplexing; sometimes impertinent, sometimes humble; but always ill at ease, and never charming.
Peculiar, however, as was her conduct in this particular relation, it was in all others, at this moment, most exemplary. Her whole soul seemed concentrated in the success of the approaching struggle. No office was too mechanical for her attention, or too elaborate for her enthusiastic assiduity. Her attentions were not confined merely to Vivian and the Marquess, but were lavished with equal generosity on their colleagues. She copied letters for Sir Berdmore, and composed letters for Lord Courtown, and construed letters to Lord Beaconsfield; they, in return, echoed her praises to her delighted relative, who was daily congratulated on the possession of “such a fascinating sister in law.”
“Well, Vivian,” said Mrs. Lorraine, to that young gentleman, the day previous to his departure from Buckhurst Lodge, “you are going to leave me behind you.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes! I hope you will not want me. I am very annoyed at not being able to go to town with you, but Lady Courtown is so pressing! and I have really promised so often to stay a week with her, that I thought it was better to make out my promise at once than in six months hence.”
“Well! I am exceedingly sorry, for you really are so useful! and the interest you take in everything is so encouraging, that I very much fear we shall not be able to get on without you. The important hour draws nigh.”
“It does, indeed, Vivian; and I assure you that there is no person awaiting it with intenser interest than myself. I little thought,” she added, in a low but distinct voice, “I little thought, when I first reached England, that I should ever again be interested in anything in this world.”
Vivian was silent, for he had nothing to say.
“Vivian!” very briskly resumed Mrs. Lorraine, “I shall get you to frank all my letters for me. I shall never trouble the Marquess again. Do you know, it strikes me you will make a very good speaker!”
“You flatter me exceedingly; suppose you give me a few lessons.”
“But you must leave off some of your wicked tricks, Vivian! You must not improvise parliamentary papers!”
“Improvise papers, Mrs. Lorraine! What can you mean?”
“Oh! nothing. I never mean anything.”
“But you must have had some meaning.”
“Some meaning! Yes, I dare say I had; I meant; I meant; do you think it will rain to-day?”
“Every prospect of a hard frost. I never knew before that I was an improvisatore.”
“Nor I. Have you heard from papa lately? I suppose he is quite in spirits at your success?”
“My father is a man who seldom gives way to any elation of mind.”
“Ah, indeed! a philosopher, I have no doubt, like his son.”
“I have no claims to the title of philosopher, although I have had the advantage of studying in the school of Mrs. Felix Lorraine.”
“What do you mean? If I thought you meant to be impertinent, I really would; but I excuse you; I think the boy means well.”
“The boy ‘means nothing; he never means anything.’”
“Come, Vivian! we are going to part. Do not let us quarrel the last day. There, there is a sprig of myrtle for you!
What! not accept my foolish flower?
Nay, then, I am indeed unblest!
and now you want it all! Unreasonable young man! If I were not the kindest lady in the land I should tear this sprig into a thousand pieces sooner; but come, my child! you shall have it. There! it looks quite imposing in your button-hole. How handsome you look to-day!”
“How agreeable you are! I love compliments!”
“Ah, Vivian! will you never give me credit for anything but a light and callous heart? Will you never be convinced that, that; but why make this humiliating confession? Oh! no, let me be misunderstood for ever! The time may come when Vivian Grey will find that Amalia Lorraine was—”
“Was what, madam?”
“You shall choose the word, Vivian.”
“Say, then, my friend.”
“‘Tis a monosyllable full of meaning, and I will not quarrel with it. And now, adieu! Heaven prosper you! Believe me, that my first thoughts and my last are for you and of you!”
CHAPTER III
“This is very kind of you, Grey! I was afraid my note might not have caught you. You have not breakfasted? Really I wish you would take up your quarters in Carabas House, for I want you now every moment.”
“What is the urgent business of this morning?”
“Oh! I have seen Bromley.”
“Hah!”
“And everything most satisfactory, I did not go into detail; I left that for you: but I ascertained sufficient to convince me that management is now alone required.”
“Well, my Lord, I trust that will not be wanting.”
“No, Vivian; you have opened my eyes to the situation in which fortune has placed me. The experience of every day only proves the truth and soundness of your views. Fortunate, indeed, was the hour in which we met.”
“My Lord, I do trust that it was a meeting which neither of us will live to repent.”
“Impossible! my dear friend, I do not hesitate to say that I would not change my present lot for that of any Peer of this realm; no, not for that of His Majesty’s most favoured counsellor. What! with my character and my influence, and my connections, I to be a tool! I, the Marquess of Carabas! I say nothing of my own powers; but, as you often most justly and truly observe, the world has had the opportunity of judging of them; and I think I may recur, without vanity, to the days in which my voice had some weight in the Royal Councils. And, as I have often remarked, I have friends, I have you, Vivian. My career is before you. I know what I should have done at your age; not to say what I did do. I to be a tool! The very last person that ought to be a tool. But I see my error: you have opened my eyes, and blessed be the hour in which we met. But we must take care how we act, Vivian; we must be wary; eh! Vivian, wary, wary. People must know what their situations are; eh! Vivian?”
“Exceedingly useful knowledge; but I do not exactly understand the particular purport of your Lordship’s last observation.”
“You do not, eh?” asked the Peer; and he fixed his eyes as earnestly and expressively as he possibly could upon his young companion. “Well, I thought not. I was positive it was not true,” continued the Marquess in a murmur.
“What, my Lord?”
“Oh! nothing, nothing; people talk at random, at random, at random. I feel confident you quite agree with me; eh! Vivian?”
“Really, my Lord, I fear I am unusually dull this morning.”
“Dull! no, no; you quite agree with me. I feel confident you do. People must be taught what their situations are; that is what I was saying, Vivian. My Lord Courtown,” added the Marquess, in a whisper, “is not to have everything his own way; eh! Vivian?”
“Oh, oh!” thought Vivian; “this, then, is the result of that admirable creature, Miss Felix Lorraine, staying a week with her dear friend, Lady Courtown.”
“My Lord, it would be singular if, in the Carabas party, the Carabas interest was not the predominant one.”
“I knew you thought so. I could not believe for a minute that you could think otherwise: but some people take such strange ideas into their heads, I cannot account for them. I felt confident what would be your opinion. My Lord Courtown is not to carry everything before him in the spirit that I have lately observed; or rather, in the spirit which I understand, from very good authority, is exhibited. Eh! Vivian; that is your opinion, is not it?”
“Oh! my dear Marquess, we must think alike on this, as on all points.”
“I knew it. I felt confident as to your sentiments upon this subject. I cannot conceive why some people take such strange ideas into their heads! I knew that you could not disagree with me upon this point. No, no, no; my Lord Courtown must feel which is the predominant interest, as you so well express it. How choice your expressions always are! I do not know how it is, but you always hit upon the right expression, Vivian. The predominant interest, the pre-do-mi-nant in-te-rest. To be sure. What! with my high character and connections, with my stake in society, was it to be expected that I, the Marquess of Carabas, was going to make any move which compromised the predominancy of my interests? No, no, no, my Lord Courtown; the predominant interest must be kept predominant; eh! Vivian?”
“To be sure, my Lord; explicitness and decision will soon arrange any désagrémens.”
“I have been talking to Lady Carabas, Vivian, upon the expediency of her opening the season early. I think a course of parliamentary dinners would produce a good effect. It gives a tone to a political party.”
“Certainly; the science of political gastronomy has never been sufficiently studied.”
“Egad! Vivian, I am in such spirits this morning. This business of Bromley so delights me; and finding you agree with me about Lord Courtown, I was confident as to your sentiments on that point. But some people take such strange ideas into their heads! To be sure, to be sure, the predominant interest, mine, that is to say ours, Vivian, is the predominant interest. I have no idea of the predominant interest not being predominant; that would be singular! I knew you would agree with me; we always agree. ‘Twas a lucky hour when we met. Two minds so exactly alike! I was just your very self when I was young; and as for you, my career is before you.”
Here entered Mr. Sadler with the letters.
“One from Courtown. I wonder if he has seen Mounteney. Mounteney is a very good-natured fellow, and I think might be managed. Ah! I wish you could get hold of him, Vivian; you would soon bring him round. What it is to have brains, Vivian!” and here the Marquess shook his head very pompously, and at the same time tapped very significantly on his left temple. “Hah! what, what is all this? Here, read it, read it, man; I have no head to-day.”
Vivian took the letter, and his quick eye dashed through its contents in a second. It was from Lord Courtown, and dated far in the country. It talked of private communications, and premature conduct, and the suspicious, not to say dishonourable, behaviour of Mr. Vivian Grey: it trusted that such conduct was not sanctioned by his Lordship, but “nevertheless obliged to act with decision, regretted the necessity,” &c. &c. &c. &c. In short, Lord Courtown had deserted, and recalled his pledge as to the official appointment promised to Mr. Cleveland, “because that promise was made while he was the victim of delusions created by the representations of Mr. Grey.”
“What can all this mean, my Lord?”
The Marquess swore a fearful oath, and threw another letter.
“This is from Lord Beaconsfield, my Lord,” said Vivian, with a face pallid as death, “and apparently the composition of the same writer; at least, it is the same tale, the same refacimento of lies, and treachery, and cowardice, doled out with diplomatic politesse. But I will off to –shire instantly. It is not yet too late to save everything. This is Wednesday; on Thursday afternoon I shall be at Norwood Park. Thank God! I came this morning.”
The face of the Marquess, who was treacherous as the wind, seemed already to indicate “Adieu! Mr. Vivian Grey!” but that countenance exhibited some very different passions when it glanced over the contents of the next epistle. There was a tremendous oath and a dead silence. His Lordship’s florid countenance turned as pale as that of his companion. The perspiration stole down in heavy drops. He gasped for breath!
“Good God! my Lord, what is the matter?”
“The matter!” howled the Marquess, “the matter! That I have been a vain, weak, miserable fool!” and then there was another oath, and he flung the letter to the other side of the table.
It was the official congé of the Most Noble Sydney Marquess of Carabas. His Majesty had no longer any occasion for his services. His successor was Lord Courtown!
We will not affect to give any description of the conduct of the Marquess of Carabas at this moment. He raved, he stamped, he blasphemed! but the whole of his abuse was levelled against his former “monstrous clever” young friend; of whose character he had so often boasted that his own was she prototype, but who was now an adventurer, a swindler, a scoundrel, a liar, a base, deluding, flattering, fawning villain, &c. &c. &c. &c,
“My Lord,” said Vivian.
“I will not hear you; out on your fair words! They have duped me enough already. That I, with my high character and connections! that I, the Marquess of Carabas, should have been the victim of the arts of a young scoundrel!”
Vivian’s fist was once clenched, but it was only for a moment. The Marquess leant back in his chair with his eyes shut. In the agony of the moment a projecting tooth of his upper jaw had forced itself through his under lip, and from the wound the blood was flowing freely over his dead white countenance. Vivian left the room.
CHAPTER IV
He stopped one moment on the landing-place, ere he was about to leave the house for ever.
“‘Tis all over! and so, Vivian Grey, your game is up! and to die, too, like a dog! a woman’s dupe! Were I a despot, I should perhaps satiate my vengeance upon this female fiend with the assistance of the rack, but that cannot be; and, after all, it would be but a poor revenge in one who has worshipped the Empire of the Intellect to vindicate the agony I am now enduring upon the base body of a woman. No! ‘tis not all over. There is yet an intellectual rack of which few dream: far, far more terrific than the most exquisite contrivances of Parysatis. Jacinte,” said he to a female attendant that passed, “is your mistress at home?”
“She is, sir.”
“‘Tis well,” said Vivian, and he sprang upstairs.
“Health to the lady of our love!” said Vivian Grey, as he entered the elegant boudoir of Mrs. Felix Lorraine. “In spite of the easterly wind, which has spoiled my beauty for the season, I could not refrain from inquiring after your prosperity before I went to the Marquess. Have you heard the news?”
“News! no; what news?”
“‘Tis a sad tale,” said Vivian, with a melancholy voice.
“Oh! then, pray do not tell it me. I am in no humour for sorrow to-day. Come! a bon-mot, or a calembourg, or exit Mr. Vivian Grey.”
“Well, then, good morning! I am off for a black crape, or a Barcelona kerchief. Mrs. Cleveland is dead.”
“Dead!” exclaimed Mrs. Lorraine.
“Dead! She died last night, suddenly. Is it not horrible?”
“Shocking!” exclaimed Mrs. Lorraine, with a mournful voice and an eye dancing with joy. “Why, Mr. Grey, I do declare you are weeping.”
“It is not for the departed!”
“Nay, Vivian! for Heaven’s sake, what is the matter?”
“My dear Mrs. Lorraine!” but here the speaker’s voice was choked with grief, and he could not proceed.
“Pray compose yourself.”
“Mrs. Felix Lorraine, can I speak with you half an hour, undisturbed?”
“By all means. I will ring for Jacinte. Jacinte! mind I am not at home to anyone. Well, what is the matter?”
“O! madam, I must pray your patience; I wish you to shrive a penitent.”
“Good God! Mr. Grey! for Heaven’s sake be explicit.”
“For Heaven’s sake, for your sake, for my soul’s sake, I would be explicit; but explicitness is not the language of such as I am. Can you listen to a tale of horror? can you promise me to contain yourself?”
“I will promise anything. Pray, pray proceed.”
But in spite of her earnest solicitations her companion was mute. At length he rose from his chair, and leaning on the chimney-piece, buried his face in his hands and wept.
“Vivian,” said Mrs. Lorraine, “have you seen the Marquess yet?”
“Not yet,” he sobbed; “I am going to him, but I am in no humour for business this morning.”
“Compose yourself, I beseech you. I will hear everything. You shall not complain of an inattentive or an irritable auditor. Now, my dear Vivian, sit down and tell me all.” She led him to a chair, and then, after stifling his sobs, with a broken voice he proceeded.
“You will recollect, madam, that accident made me acquainted with certain circumstances connected with yourself and Mr. Cleveland. Alas! actuated by the vilest of sentiments, I conceived a violent hatred against that gentleman, a hatred only to be equalled by my passion for you; but I find difficulty in dwelling upon the details of this sad story of jealousy and despair.”
“Oh! speak, speak! compensate for all you have done by your present frankness; be brief, be brief.”
“I will be brief,” said Vivian, with earnestness: “I will be brief. Know then, madam, that in order to prevent the intercourse between you and Mr. Cleveland from proceeding I obtained his friendship, and became the confidante of his heart’s sweetest secret. Thus situated, I suppressed the letters with which I was entrusted from him to you, and, poisoning his mind, I accounted for your silence by your being employed in other correspondence; nay, I did more; with the malice of a fiend, I boasted of—; nay, do not stop me; I have more to tell.”
Mrs. Felix Lorraine, with compressed lips and looks of horrible earnestness, gazed in silence.
“The result of all this you know; but the most terrible part is to come; and, by a strange fascination, I fly to confess my crimes at your feet, even while the last minutes have witnessed my most heinous one. Oh! madam. I have stood over the bier of the departed; I have mingled my tears with those of the sorrowing widower, his young and tender child was on my knee, and as I kissed his innocent lips, me thought it was but my duty to the departed to save the father from his mother’s rival—” He stopped.
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Mrs. Felix Lorraine, in a low whisper.
“It was then, even then, in the hour of his desolation, that I mentioned your name, that it might the more disgust him; and while he wept over his virtuous and sainted wife, I dwelt on the vices of his rejected mistress.”
Mrs. Lorraine clasped her hands, and moved restlessly on her seat.
“Nay! do not stop me; let me tell all. ‘Cleveland,’ said I, ‘if ever you become the husband of Mrs. Felix Lorraine, remember my last words: it will be well for you if your frame be like that of Mithridates of Pontus, and proof against – poison.’”
“And did you say this?” shrieked the woman.
“Even these were my words.”
“Then may all evil blast you!” She threw herself on the sofa; her voice was choked with the convulsions of her passion, and she writhed in fearful agony.
Vivian Grey, lounging in an arm-chair in the easiest of postures, and with a face brilliant with smiles, watched his victim with the eye of a Mephistopheles.
She slowly recovered, and, with a broken voice, poured forth her sacred absolution to the relieved penitent.
“You wonder I do not stab you; hah! hah! hah! there is no need for that! the good powers be praised that you refused the draught I once proffered. Know, wretch, that your race is run. Within five minutes you will breathe a beggar and an outcast. Your golden dreams are over, your cunning plans are circumvented, your ambitious hopes are crushed for ever, you are blighted in the very spring of your life. Oh, may you never die! May you wander for ever, the butt of the world’s malice; and may the slow moving finger of scorn point where’er you go at the ruined Charlatan!”
“Hah, hah! is it so? Think you that Vivian Grey would fall by a woman’s wile? Think you that Vivian Grey could be crushed by such a worthless thing as you? Know, then, that your political intrigues have been as little concealed from me as your personal ones; I have been acquainted with all. The Marquess has himself seen the Minister, and is more firmly established in his pride of place than ever. I have myself seen our colleagues, whom you tampered with, and their hearts are still true, and their purpose still fixed. All, all prospers; and ere five days are passed ‘the Charlatan’ will be a Senator.”
The shifting expression of Mrs. Lorraine’s countenance, while Vivian was speaking, would have baffled the most cunning painter. Her complexion was capricious as the chameleon’s, and her countenance was so convulsed that her features seemed of all shapes and sizes. One large vein protruded nearly a quarter of an inch from her forehead, and the dank light which gleamed in her tearful eye was like an unwholesome meteor quivering in a marsh. When he ended she sprang from the sofa, and, looking up and extending her arms with unmeaning wildness, she gave one loud shriek and dropped like a bird shot on the wing; she had burst a blood-vessel.
Vivian raised her on the sofa and paid her every possible attention. There is always a medical attendant lurking about the mansions of the noble, and to this worthy and the attendant Jacinte Vivian delivered his patient.
Had Vivian Grey left the boudoir a pledged bridegroom his countenance could not have been more triumphant; but he was labouring under unnatural excitement; for it is singular that when, as he left the house, the porter told him that Mr. Cleveland was with his Lord, Vivian had no idea at the moment what individual bore that name. The fresh air of the street revived him, and somewhat cooled the bubbling of his blood. It was then that the man’s information struck upon his senses.
“So, poor Cleveland!” thought Vivian; “then he knows all!” His own misery he had not yet thought of; but when Cleveland occurred to him, with his ambition once more baulked, his high hopes once more blasted, and his honourable soul once more deceived; when he thought of his fair wife, and his infant children, and his ruined prospects, a sickness came over his heart, he grew dizzy, and fell.
“And the gentleman’s ill, I think,” said an honest Irishman; and, in the fulness of his charity, he placed Vivian on a door-step.
“So it seems,” said a genteel passenger in black; and he snatched, with great sang-froid, Vivian’s watch. “Stop thief!” hallooed the Hibernian. Paddy was tripped up. There was a row, in the midst of which Vivian Grey crawled to an hotel.
