Vivian Grey

“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.

CHAPTER V

In half an hour Vivian was at Mr. Cleveland’s door.

“My master is at the Marquess of Carabas’, sir; he will not return, but is going immediately to Richmond, where Mrs. Cleveland is staying.”

Vivian immediately wrote to Mr. Cleveland. “If your master have left the Marquess’, let this be forwarded to him at Richmond immediately.”

“CLEVELAND!

“You know all. It would be mockery were I to say that at this moment I am not thinking of myself. I am a ruined man in body and in mind. But my own misery is nothing; I can die, I can go mad, and who will be harmed? But you! I had wished that we should never meet again; but my hand refuses to trace the thoughts with which my heart is full, and I am under the sad necessity of requesting you to see me once more. We have been betrayed, and by a woman; but there has been revenge. Oh, what revenge!

“VIVIAN GREY.”

When Vivian left Mr. Cleveland’s he actually did not know what to do with himself. Home, at present, he could not face, and so he continued to wander about, quite unconscious of locality. He passed in his progress many of his acquaintance, who, from his distracted air and rapid pace, imagined that he was intent on some important business. At length he found himself in one of the most sequestered parts of Kensington Gardens. It was a cold, frosty day, and as Vivian flung himself upon one of the summer seats the snow drifted from off the frozen board; but Vivian’s brow was as burning hot as if he had been an inhabitant of Sirius. Throwing his arms on a small garden table, he buried his face in his hands and wept as men can but once weep in this world.

O, thou sublime and most subtle philosopher, who, in thy lamp-lit cell, art speculating upon the passions which thou hast never felt! O, thou splendid and most admirable poet, who, with cunning words, art painting with a smile a tale of woe! tell me what is Grief, and solve me the mystery of Sorrow.

Not for himself, for after the first pang he would have whistled off his high hopes with the spirit of a Ripperda; not even for Cleveland, for at this moment, it must be confessed, his thoughts were not for his friend, did Vivian Grey’s soul struggle as if it were about to leave its fleshy chamber. We said he wept as men can weep but once in this world, and yet it would have been impossible for him to have defined what, at that fearful moment, was the cause of his heart’s sorrow. Incidents of childhood of the most trivial nature, and until this moment forgotten, flashed across his memory; he gazed on the smile of his mother, he listened to the sweet tones of his father’s voice, and his hand clenched, with still more agonised grasp, his rude resting-place, and the scalding tears dashed down his cheek in still more ardent torrents. He had no distinct remembrance of what had so lately happened; but characters flitted before him as in a theatre, in a dream, dim and shadowy, yet full of mysterious and undefinable interest; and then there came a horrible idea across his mind that his glittering youth was gone and wasted; and then there was a dark whisper of treachery, and dissimulation, and dishonour; and then he sobbed as if his very heart were cracking. All his boasted philosophy vanished; his artificial feelings fled him. Insulted Nature reasserted her long-spurned authority, and the once proud Vivian Grey felt too humble even to curse himself. Gradually his sobs became less convulsed and his brow more cool; and, calm from very exhaustion, he sat for upwards of an hour motionless.

At this moment there issued, with their attendant, from an adjoining shrubbery, two beautiful children. They were so exceedingly lovely that the passenger would have stopped to gaze upon them. The eldest, who yet was very young, was leading his sister hand in hand with slow and graceful steps, mimicking the courtesy of men. But when his eye caught Vivian’s the boy uttered a loud cry of exultation, and rushed, with the eagerness of infantile affection, to his gentle and favourite playmate. They were the young Clevelands. With what miraculous quickness will man shake off the outward semblance of grief when his sorrow is a secret! The mighty merchant, who knows that in four-and-twenty hours the world must be astounded by his insolvency, will walk in the front of his confident creditor as if he were the lord of a thousand argosies; the meditating suicide will smile on the arm of a companion as if to breathe in this sunny world were the most ravishing and rapturous bliss. We cling to our stations in our fellow-creatures’ minds and memories; we know too well the frail tenure on which we are in this world great and considered personages. Experience makes us shrink from the specious sneer of sympathy; and when we are ourselves falling, bitter Memory whispers that we have ourselves been neglectful.

And so it was that even unto these infants Vivian Grey dared not appear other than a gay and easy-hearted man; and in a moment he was dancing them on his knee, and playing with their curls, and joining in their pretty prattle, and pressing their small and fragrant lips.

It was night when he paced down—. He passed his club; that club to become a member of which had once been the object of his high ambition, and to gain which privilege had cost such hours of canvassing, such interference of noble friends, and the incurring of favours from so many people, “which never could be forgotten!”

A desperate feeling actuated him, and he entered the Club-house. He walked into the great saloon and met some fifty “most particular friends,” all of whom asked him “how the Marquess did,” or “have you seen Cleveland?” and a thousand other as comfortable queries. At length, to avoid these disagreeable rencontres, and indeed to rest himself, he went to a smaller and more private room. As he opened the door his eyes lighted upon Cleveland.

He was standing with his back to the fire. There were only two other persons in the room; one was a friend of Cleveland’s, and the other an acquaintance of Vivian’s. The latter was writing at the table.

When Vivian saw Cleveland he would have retired, but he was bid to “come in” in a voice of thunder.

As he entered he instantly perceived that Cleveland was under the influence of wine. When in this situation, unlike other men, Mr. Cleveland’s conduct was not distinguished by any of the little improprieties of behaviour by which a man is always known by his friends “to be very drunk.” He neither reeled, nor hiccuped, nor grew maudlin. The effect of drinking upon him was only to increase the intensity of the sensation by which his mind was at the moment influenced. He did not even lose the consciousness of identity of persons. At this moment it was clear to Vivian that Cleveland was under the influence of the extremest passion; his eyes rolled wildly, and seemed fixed only upon vacancy. As Vivian was no friend to scenes before strangers he bowed to the two gentlemen and saluted Cleveland with his wonted cordiality; but his proffered hand was rudely repelled.

“Away!” exclaimed Cleveland, in a furious tone; “I have no friendship for traitors.”

The two gentlemen stared, and the pen of the writer stopped.

“Cleveland!” said Vivian, in an earnest whisper, as he came up close to him; “for God’s sake contain yourself. I have written you a letter which explains all; but—”

“Out! out upon you. Out upon your honied words and your soft phrases! I have been their dupe too long;” and he struck Vivian.