Kitabı oku: «Vivian Grey», sayfa 37
But, most ungallant of scribblers! Place aux dames! Surely Madame Carolina, as the beautiful and accomplished Margaret of Navarre, might well command, even without a mandate, your homage and your admiration! The lovely Queen seemed the very goddess of smiles and repartee; young Max, as her page, carried at her side a painted volume of her own poetry. The arm of the favourite sister of Francis, who it will be remembered once fascinated even the Emperor, was linked in that of Caesar’s natural daughter, her beautiful namesake, the bright-eyed Margaret of Austria. Conversing with these royal dames, and indeed apparently in attendance upon them, was a young gallant of courtly bearing, and attired in a fantastic dress. It is Clement Marot, “the Poet of Princes and the Prince of Poets,” as he was styled by his own admiring age; he offers to the critical inspection of the nimble-witted Navarre a few lines in celebration of her beauty and the night’s festivity; one of those short Marotique poems once so celebrated; perhaps a page culled from those gay and airy psalms which, with characteristic gallantry, he dedicated “to the Dames of France!” Observe well the fashionable bard! Marot was a true poet, and in his day not merely read by queens and honoured by courtiers: observe him well; for the character is supported by our Vivian Grey. It was with great difficulty that Madame Carolina had found a character for her favourite, for the lists were all filled before his arrival at Reisenburg. She at first wished him to appear as some celebrated Englishman of the time, but no character of sufficient importance could be discovered. All our countrymen in contact or connection with the Emperor Charles were churchmen and civilians; and Sir Nicholas Carew and the other fops of the reign of Henry the Eighth, who, after the visit to Paris, were even more ridiculously francisé than the Grand Chamberlain of Reisenburg himself, were not, after mature deliberation, considered entitled to the honour of being ranked in Madame Carolina’s age of Charles the Fifth.
But who is this, surrounded by her ladies and her chamberlains and her secretaries? Four pages in dresses of cloth of gold, and each the son of a prince of the French blood, support her train; a crown encircles locks grey as much from thought as from time, but which require no show of loyalty to prove that they belong to a mother of princes; that ample forehead, aquiline nose, and the keen glance of her piercing eye denote the Queen as much as the regality of her gait and her numerous and splendid train. The young Queen of Navarre hastens to proffer her duty to the mother of Francis, the celebrated Louise of Savoy; and exquisitely did the young and lovely Countess of S– personate the most celebrated of female diplomatists.
We have forgotten one character; the repeated commands of his father and the constant entreaties of Madame Carolina had at length prevailed upon the Crown Prince to shuffle himself into a fancy dress. No sooner had he gratified them by his hard-wrung consent than Baron von Chronicle called upon him with drawings of the costume of the Prince of Asturias, afterwards Philip the Second of Spain. If we for a moment forgot so important a personage as the future Grand Duke, it must have been because he supported his character so ably that no one for an instant believed that it was an assumed one; standing near the side scenes of the amphitheatre, with his gloomy brow, sad eye, protruding under-lip, and arms hanging straight by his sides, he looked a bigot without hope, and a tyrant without purpose.
The first hour is over, and the guests are all assembled. As yet they content themselves with promenading round the amphitheatre; for before they can think of dance or stroll, each of them must be duly acquainted with the other’s dress. It was a most splendid scene. The Queen of Navarre has now been presented to the Emperor, and, leaning on his arm, they head the promenade. The Emperor had given the hand of Margaret of Austria to his legitimate son; but the Crown Prince, though he continued in silence by the side of the young Baroness, soon resigned a hand which did not struggle to retain his. Clement Marot was about to fall back into a less conspicuous part of the procession; but the Grand Duke, witnessing the regret of his loved Consort, condescendingly said, “We cannot afford to lose our poet;” and so Vivian found himself walking behind Madame Carolina, and on the left side of the young Baroness. Louise of Savoy followed with her son, the King of France; most of the ladies of the Court, and a crowd of officers, among them Montmorency and De Lautrec, after their Majesties. The King of England moves by; his state unnoticed in the superior magnificence of Wolsey. Pompeo Colonna apologises to Pope Clement for having besieged his holiness in the Castle of St. Angelo. The Elector of Saxony and the Prince of Orange follow. Solyman the Magnificent is attended by his Admiral; and Bayard’s pure spirit almost quivers at the whispered treason of the Constable of Bourbon. Luther and Melanchthon, Erasmus and Rabelais, Cortez and Pizarro, Correggio and Michael Angelo, and a long train of dames and dons of all nations, succeed; so long that the amphitheatre cannot hold them, and the procession, that they may walk over the stage, makes a short progress through an adjoining summer-room.
Just as the Emperor and the fair Queen are in the middle of the stage, a wounded warrior with a face pale as an eclipsed moon, a helmet on which is painted the sign of his sacred order, a black mantle thrown over his left shoulder, but not concealing his armour, a sword in his right hand and an outstretched crucifix in his left, rushes on the scene. The procession suddenly halts; all recognise Emilius von Aslingen! and Madame Carolina blushes through her rouge when she perceives that so celebrated, “so interesting a character” as Ignatius Loyola, the Founder of the Jesuits, has not been included in the all-comprehensive lists of her committee.
CHAPTER X
Henry of England led the Polonaise with Louise of Savoy; Margaret of Austria would not join in it: waltzing quickly followed. The Emperor seldom left the side of the Queen of Navarre, and often conversed with her Majesty’s poet. The Prince of Asturias hovered for a moment round his father’s daughter, as if he were summoning resolution to ask her to waltz. Once, indeed, he opened his mouth; could it have been to speak? But the young Margaret gave no encouragement to this unusual exertion; and Philip of Asturias, looking, if possible, more sad and sombre than before, skulked away. The Crown Prince left the gardens, and now a smile lit up every face, except that of the young Baroness. The gracious Grand Duke, unwilling to see a gloomy countenance anywhere to-night, turned to Vivian, who was speaking to Madame Carolina, and said, “Gentle poet, would that thou hadst some chanson or courtly compliment to chase the cloud which hovers on the brow of our much-loved daughter of Austria! Your popularity, sir,” continued the Grand Duke, dropping his mock heroic vein and speaking in a much lower tone, “your popularity, sir, among the ladies of the Court, cannot be increased by any panegyric of mine; nor am I insensible, believe me, to the assiduity and skill with which you have complied with my wishes in making our Court agreeable to the relative of a man to whom we owe so much as Mr. Beckendorff. I am informed, Mr. Grey,” continued his Royal Highness, “that you have no intention of very speedily returning to your country; I wish that I could count you among my peculiar attendants. If you have an objection to live in the palace without performing your quota of duty to the State, we shall have no difficulty in finding you an office, and clothing you in our official costume. Think of this!” So saying, with a gracious smile, his Royal Highness, leading Madame Carolina, commenced a walk round the gardens.
The young Baroness did not follow them. Solyman the Magnificent, and Bayard the irreproachable, and Barbarossa the pirate, and Bourbon the rebel, immediately surrounded her. Few persons were higher ton than the Turkish Emperor and his Admiral; few persons talked more agreeable nonsense than the Knight sans peur et sans reproche; no person was more important than the warlike Constable; but their attention, their amusement, and their homage were to-night thrown away on the object of their observance. The Baroness listened to them without interest, and answered them with brevity. She did not even condescend, as she had done before, to enter into a war of words, to mortify their vanity or exercise their wit. She treated them neither with contempt nor courtesy. If no smile welcomed their remarks, at least her silence was not scornful, and the most shallow-headed prater that fluttered around her felt that he was received with dignity and not with disdain. Awed by her conduct, not one of them dared to be flippant, and every one of them soon became dull. The ornaments of the Court of Reisenburg, the arbiters of ton and the lords of taste, stared with astonishment at each other when they found, to their mutual surprise, that at one moment, in such a select party, universal silence pervaded. In this state of affairs, every one felt that his dignity required his speedy disappearance from the lady’s presence. The Orientals, taking advantage of Bourbon’s returning once more to the charge with an often unanswered remark, coolly walked away: the Chevalier made an adroit and honourable retreat by joining a passing party; and the Constable was the only one who, being left in solitude and silence, was finally obliged to make a formal bow and retire discomforted from the side of the only woman with whom he had ever condescended to fall in love. Leaning against the trunk of a tree at some little distance, Vivian Grey watched the formation and dissolution of the young Baroness’ levée with lively interest. His eyes met the lady’s as she raised them from the ground on von Sohnspeer quitting her. She immediately beckoned to Vivian, but without her usual smile. He was directly at her side, but she did not speak. At last he said, “This is a most brilliant scene!”
“You think so, do you?” answered the lady, in a tone and manner which almost made Vivian believe, for a moment, that his friend Mr. Beckendorff was at his side.
“Decidedly his daughter!” thought he.
“You are not gay to-night?” said Vivian.
“Why should I be?” said the lady, in a manner which would have made Vivian imagine that his presence was as disagreeable to her as that of Count von Sohnspeer, had not the lady herself invited his company.
“I suppose the scene is very brilliant,” continued the Baroness, after a few moments’ silence. “At least all here seem to think so, except two persons.”
“And who are they?” asked Vivian.
“Myself and—the Crown Prince. I am almost sorry that I did not dance with him. There seems a wonderful similarity in our dispositions.”
“You are pleased to be severe to-night.”
“And who shall complain when the first person that I satirize is myself?”
“It is most considerate in you,” said Vivian, “to undertake such an office; for it is one which you yourself are alone capable of fulfilling. The only person that can ever satirize your Excellency is yourself; and I think even then that, in spite of your candour, your self-examination must please us with a self-panegyric.”
“Nay, a truce to compliments: at least let me hear better things from you. I cannot any longer endure the glare of these lamps and dresses! your arm! Let us walk for a few minutes in the more retired and cooler parts of the gardens.”
The Baroness and Vivian left the amphitheatre by a different path to that by which the Grand Duke and Madame Carolina had quitted it. They found the walks quite solitary; for the royal party, which was small, contained the only persons who had yet left the stage.
Vivian and his companions strolled about for some time, conversing on subjects of casual interest. The Baroness, though no longer absent, either in her manner or her conversation, seemed depressed; and Vivian, while he flattered himself that he was more entertaining than usual, felt, to his mortification, that the lady was not entertained.
“I am afraid you find it dull here,” said he; “shall we return?”
“Oh, no; do not let us return! We have so short a time to be together that we must not allow even one hour to be dull.”
As Vivian was about to reply, he heard the joyous voice of young Maximilian; it sounded very near. The royal party was approaching. The Baronet expressed her earnest desire to avoid it; and as to advance or to retreat, in these labyrinthine walks, was almost equally hazardous, they retired into one of those green recesses which we have before mentioned; indeed it was the very evergreen grove in the centre of which the Nymph of the Fountain watched for her loved Carian youth. A shower of moonlight fell on the marble statue, and showed the Nymph in an attitude of consummate skill: her modesty struggling with her desire, and herself crouching in her hitherto pure waters, while her anxious ear listens for the bounding step of the regardless huntsman.
“The air is cooler here,” said the Baroness, “or the sound of the falling water is peculiarly refreshing to my senses. They have passed. I rejoice that we did not return; I do not think that I could have remained among those lamps another moment. How singular, actually to view with aversion a scene which appears to enchant all!”
“A scene which I should have thought would have been particularly charming to you,” said Vivian; “you are dispirited tonight!”
“Am I?” said the Baroness. “I ought not to be; not to be more dispirited than I ever am. To-night I expected pleasure; nothing has happened which I did not expect, and everything which I did. And yet I am sad! Do you think that happiness can ever be sad? I think it must be so. But whether I am sorrowful or happy I can hardly tell; for it is only within these few days that I have known either grief or joy.”
“It must be counted an eventful period in your existence which reckons in its brief hours a first acquaintance with such passions!” said Vivian, with a searching eye and an inquiring voice.
“Yes; an eventful period, certainly an eventful period,” answered the Baroness, with a thoughtful air and in measured words.
“I cannot bear to see a cloud upon that brow!” said Vivian. “Have you forgotten how much was to be done to-night? How eagerly you looked forward to its arrival? How bitterly we were to regret the termination of the mimic empire?”
“I have forgotten nothing; would that I had! I will not look grave. I will be gay; and yet, when I remember how soon other mockery besides this splendid pageant must be terminated, why should I look gay? Why may I not weep?”
“Nay, if we are to moralise on worldly felicity, I fear that instead of inspiriting you, which is my wish, I shall prove but a too congenial companion. But such a theme is not for you.”
“And why should it be for one who, though he lecture me with such gravity and gracefulness, can scarcely be entitled to play the part of Mentor by the weight of years?” said the Baroness, with a smile: “for one who, I trust, who I should think, as little deserved, and was as little inured to, sorrow as myself!”
“To find that you have cause to grieve,” said Vivian, “and to learn from you, at the same time, your opinion of my own lot, prove what I have too often had the sad opportunity of observing, that the face of man is scarcely more genuine and less deceitful than these masquerade dresses which we now wear.”
“But you are not unhappy?” asked the Baroness with a quick voice.
“Not now,” said Vivian.
His companion seated herself on the marble balustrade which surrounded the fountain: she did not immediately speak again, and Vivian was silent, for he was watching her motionless countenance as her large brilliant eyes gazed with earnestness on the falling water sparkling in the moonlight. Surely it was not the mysterious portrait at Beckendorff’s that he beheld!
She turned. She exclaimed in an agitated voice, “O friend! too lately found, why have we met to part?”
“To part, dearest!” said he, in a low and rapid voice, and he gently took her hand; “to part! and why should we part? why—”
“Ask not; your question is agony!” She tried to withdraw her hand, he pressed it with renewed energy, it remained in his, she turned away her head, and both were silent.
“O! lady,” said Vivian, as he knelt at her side, “why are we not happy?”
His arm is round her waist, gently he bends his head, their speaking eyes meet, and their trembling lips cling into a kiss!
A seal of love and purity and faith I and the chaste moon need not have blushed as she lit up the countenances of the lovers.
“O! lady, why are we not happy?”
“We are, we are: is not this happiness, is not this joy, is not this bliss? Bliss,” she continued, in a low broken voice, “to which I have no right, no title. Oh! quit, quit my hand! Happiness is not for me!” She extricated herself from his arm, and sprang upon her feet. Alarm, rather than affection, was visible on her agitated features. It seemed to cost her a great effort to collect her scattered senses; the effort was made with pain, but with success.
“Forgive me,” she said, in a hurried and indistinct tone; “forgive me! I would speak, but cannot, not now at least; we have been long away, too long; our absence will be remarked to-night; to-night we must give up to the gratification of others, but I will speak. For yours, for my own sake, let us, let us go. You know that we are to be very gay to-night, and gay we will be. Who shall prevent us? At least the present hour is our own; and when the future ones must be so sad, why, why, trifle with this?”
CHAPTER XI
The reader is not to suppose that Vivian Grey thought of the young Baroness merely in the rapid scenes which we have sketched. There were few moments in the day in which her image did not occupy his thoughts, and which, indeed, he did not spend in her presence. From the first her character had interested him. His accidental but extraordinary acquaintance with Beckendorff made him view any individual connected with that singular man with a far more curious feeling than could influence the young nobles of the Court, who were ignorant of the Minister’s personal character. There was an evident mystery about the character and situation of the Baroness, which well accorded with the eccentric and romantic career of the Prime Minister of Reisenburg. Of the precise nature of her connection with Beckendorff Vivian was wholly ignorant. The world spoke of her as his daughter, and the affirmation of Madame Carolina confirmed the world’s report. Her name was still unknown to him; and although during the few moments that they had enjoyed an opportunity of conversing together alone, Vivian had made every exertion of which good breeding, impelled by curiosity, is capable, and had devised many little artifices with which a schooled address is well acquainted to obtain it, his exertions had hitherto been unsuccessful. If there was a mystery, the young lady was competent to preserve it; and with all her naïveté, her interesting ignorance of the world, and her evidently uncontrollable spirit, no hasty word ever fell from her cautious lips which threw any light on the objects of his inquiry. Though impetuous, she was never indiscreet, and often displayed a caution which was little in accordance with her youth and temper. The last night had witnessed the only moment in which her passions seemed for a time to have struggled with, and to have overcome, her judgment; but it was only for a moment. That display of overpowering feeling had cost Vivian a sleepless night; and he is at this instant pacing up and down the chamber of his hotel, thinking of that which he had imagined could exercise his thoughts no more.
She was beautiful; she loved him; she was unhappy! To be loved by any woman is flattering to the feelings of every man, no matter how deeply he may have quaffed the bitter goblet of worldly knowledge. The praise of a fool is incense to the wisest of us; and though we believe ourselves broken-hearted, it still delights us to find that we are loved. The memory of Violet Fane was still as fresh, as sweet, to the mind of Vivian Grey as when he pressed her blushing cheek for the first and only time. To love again, really to love as he had done, he once thought was impossible; he thought so still. The character of the Baroness had interested him from the first. Her ignorance of mankind, and her perfect acquaintance with the polished forms of society; her extreme beauty, her mysterious rank, her proud spirit and impetuous feelings; her occasional pensiveness, her extreme waywardness, had astonished, perplexed, and enchanted him. But he had never felt in love. It never for a moment had entered into his mind that his lonely bosom could again be a fit resting-place for one so lovely and so young. Scared at the misery which had always followed in his track, he would have shuddered ere he again asked a human being to share his sad and blighted fortunes. The partiality of the Baroness for his society, without flattering his vanity, or giving rise to thoughts more serious than how he could most completely enchant for her the passing hour, had certainly made the time passed in her presence the least gloomy which he had lately experienced. At the same moment that he left the saloon of the palace he had supposed that his image quitted her remembrance; and if she had again welcomed him with cheerfulness and cordiality, he had felt that his reception was owing to not being, perhaps, quite as frivolous as the Count of Eberstein, and rather more amusing than the Baron of Gernsbach.
It was therefore with the greatest astonishment that, last night, he had found that he was loved, loved, too, by this beautiful and haughty girl, who had treated the advances of the most distinguished nobles with ill-concealed scorn, and who had so presumed upon her dubious relationship to the bourgeois Minister that nothing but her own surpassing loveliness and her parent’s all-engrossing influence could have excused or authorised her conduct.
Vivian had yielded to the magic of the moment, and had returned the feelings apparently no sooner expressed than withdrawn. Had he left the gardens of the palace the Baroness’s plighted lover he might perhaps have deplored his rash engagement, and the sacred image of his first and hallowed love might have risen up in judgment against his violated affection; but how had he and the interesting stranger parted? He was rejected, even while his affection was returned; and while her flattering voice told him that he alone could make her happy, she had mournfully declared that happiness could not be hers. How was this? Could she be another’s? Her agitation at the Opera, often the object of his thought, quickly occurred to him! It must be so. Ah! another’s! and who this rival? this proud possessor of a heart which could not beat for him? Madame Carolina’s declaration that the Baroness must be married off was at this moment remembered: her marked observation, that von Sohnspeer was no son of Beckendorff’s, not forgotten. The Field Marshal, too, was the valued friend of the Minister; and it did not fail to occur to Vivian that it was not von Sohnspeer’s fault that his attendance on the Baroness was not as constant as his own. Indeed, the unusual gallantry of the Commander-in-Chief had been the subject of many a joke among the young lords of the Court, and the reception of his addresses by their unmerciful object not unobserved or unspared. But as for poor von Sohnspeer, what could be expected, as Emilius von Aslingen observed, “from a man whose softest compliment was as long, loud, and obscure as a birthday salute!”
No sooner was the affair clear to Vivian, no sooner was he convinced that a powerful obstacle existed to the love or union of himself and the Baroness, than he began to ask what right the interests of third persons had to interfere between the mutual affection of any individuals. He thought of her in the moonlight garden, struggling with her pure and natural passion. He thought of her exceeding beauty, her exceeding love. He beheld this rare and lovely creature in the embrace of von Sohnspeer. He turned from the picture in disgust and indignation. She was his. Nature had decreed it. She should be the bride of no other man. Sooner than yield her up he would beard Beckendorff himself in his own retreat, and run every hazard and meet every danger which the ardent imagination of a lover could conceive. Was he madly to reject the happiness which Providence, or Destiny, or Chance had at length offered him? If the romance of boyhood could never be realised, at least with this engaging being for his companion, he might pass through his remaining years in calmness and in peace. His trials were perhaps over. Alas! this is the last delusion of unhappy men!
Vivian called at the Palace, but the fatigues of the preceding night prevented either of the ladies from being visible. In the evening he joined a small and select circle. The party, indeed, only consisted of the Grand Duke, Madame, their visitors, and the usual attendants, himself, and von Sohnspeer. The quiet of the little circle did not more strikingly contrast with the noise, and glare, and splendour of the last night than did Vivian’s subdued reception by the Baroness with her agitated demeanour in the garden. She was cordial, but calm. He found it quite impossible to gain even one moment’s private conversation with her. Madame Carolina monopolised his attention, as much to favour the views of the Field Marshal as to discuss the comparative merits of Pope as a moralist and a poet; and Vivian had the mortification of observing his odious rival, whom he now thoroughly detested, discharge without ceasing his royal salutes in the impatient ear of Beckendorff’s lovely daughter.
Towards the conclusion of the evening a chamberlain entered the room and whispered his mission to the Baroness. She immediately rose and quitted the apartment. As the party was breaking up she again entered. Her countenance was agitated. Madame Carolina was in the art of being overwhelmed with the compliments of the Grand Marshal, and Vivian seized the opportunity of reaching the Baroness. After a few hurried sentences she dropped her glove. Vivian gave it her. So many persons were round them that it was impossible to converse except on the most common topics. The glove was again dropped.
“I see,” said the Baroness, with a meaning look, “that you are but a recreant knight, or else you would not part with a lady’s glove so easily.”
Vivian gave a rapid glance round the room. No one was observing him, and the glove was immediately concealed. He hurried home, rushed up the staircase of the hotel, ordered lights, locked the door, and with a sensation of indescribable anxiety tore the precious glove from his bosom, seized, opened, and read the enclosed and following note. It was written in pencil, in a hurried hand, and some of the words were repeated:—
“I leave the Court to-night. He is here himself. No art can postpone my departure. Much, much, I wish to see you; to say, to say, to you. He is to have an interview with the Grand Duke to-morrow morning. Dare you come to his place in his absence? You know the private road. He goes by the high road, and calls in his way on a Forest Councillor: it is the white house by the barrier; you know it! Watch him to-morrow morning; about nine or ten I should think; here, here; and then for heaven’s sake let me see you. Dare everything! Fail not! Mind, by the private road: beware the other! You know the ground. God bless you:
“SYBILLA”
