← catalogue

Vivian Grey

by Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin Disraeli · English · Gutenberg #9840 · 1,120,030 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Vivian Grey
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Vivian Grey

Author: Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin Disraeli


        
Release date: February 1, 2006 [eBook #9840]
                Most recently updated: July 13, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9840


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIVIAN GREY ***




VIVIAN GREY

By The Earl Of Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli



The English Comédie Humaine

Second Series

[Illustration: frontispiece]

[Illustration: titlepage]


PUBLISHER’S NOTE.

As a novelist, Benjamin Disraeli belongs to the early part of the
nineteenth century. “Vivian Grey” (1826-27) and “Sybil” (1845) mark the
beginning and the end of his truly creative period; for the two
productions of his latest years, “Lothair” (1870) and “Endymion” (1880),
add nothing to the characteristics of his earlier volumes except the
changes of feeling and power which accompany old age. His period, thus,
is that of Bulwer, Dickens, and Thackeray, and of the later years of Sir
Walter Scott--a fact which his prominence as a statesman during the last
decade of his life, as well as the vogue of “Lothair” and “Endymion,”
 has tended to obscure. His style, his material, and his views of English
character and life all date from that earlier time. He was born in 1804
and died in 1881.

Disraeli was barely twenty-one when he published “Vivian Grey,” his
first work of fiction; and the young author was at once hailed as a
master of his art by an almost unanimous press.

In this, as in his subsequent books, it was not so much Disraeli’s
notable skill as a novelist but rather his portrayal of the social and
political life of the day that made him one of the most popular writers
of his generation, and earned for him a lasting fame as a man of
letters. In “Vivian Grey” is narrated the career of an ambitious young
man of rank; and in this story the brilliant author has preserved to us
the exact tone of the English drawing-room, as he so well knew it,
sketching with sure and rapid strokes a whole portrait gallery of
notables, disguised in name may be, but living characters nevertheless,
who charm us with their graceful manners and general air of being people
of consequence. “Vivian Grey,” then, though not a great novel is beyond
question a marvelously true picture of the life and character of an
interesting period of English history and made notable because of
Disraeli’s fine imagination and vivid descriptive powers.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


Is there anything you want, sir?

He distinctly beheld Mrs. Felix Lorraine open a small silver box.

It was very slowly that the dark thought came over his mind.




VIVIAN GREY




BOOK I


CHAPTER I


We are not aware that the infancy of Vivian Grey was distinguished by
any extraordinary incident. The solicitude of the most affectionate of
mothers, and the care of the most attentive of nurses, did their best to
injure an excellent constitution. But Vivian was an only child, and
these exertions were therefore excusable. For the first five years of
his life, with his curly locks and his fancy dress, he was the pride of
his own and the envy of all neighbouring establishments; but, in process
of time, the spirit of boyism began to develop itself, and Vivian not
only would brush his hair straight and rebel against his nurse, but
actually insisted upon being--breeched! At this crisis it was discovered
that he had been spoiled, and it was determined that he should be sent
to school. Mr. Grey observed, also, that the child was nearly ten years
old, and did not know his alphabet, and Mrs. Grey remarked that he was
getting ugly. The fate of Vivian was decided.

“I am told, my dear,” observed Mrs. Grey, one day after dinner to her
husband, “I am told, my dear, that Dr. Flummery’s would do very well for
Vivian. Nothing can exceed the attention which is paid to the pupils.
There are sixteen young ladies, all the daughters of clergymen, merely
to attend to the morals and the linen; terms moderate: 100 guineas per
annum, for all under six years of age, and few extras, only for fencing,
pure milk, and the guitar. Mrs. Metcalfe has both her boys there, and
she says their progress is astonishing! Percy Metcalfe, she assures me,
was quite as backward as Vivian; indeed, backwarder; and so was Dudley,
who was taught at home on the new system, by a pictorial alphabet, and
who persisted to the last, notwithstanding all the exertions of Miss
Barrett, in spelling A-P-E, monkey, merely because over the word there
was a monster munching an apple.”

“And quite right in the child, my dear. Pictorial alphabet! pictorial
fool’s head!”

“But what do you say to Flummery’s, Horace?”

“My dear, do what you like. I never trouble myself, you know, about
these matters;” and Mr. Grey refreshed himself, after this domestic
attack, with a glass of claret.

Mr. Grey was a gentleman who had succeeded, when the heat of youth was
over, to the enjoyment of a life estate of some two thousand a year. He
was a man of lettered tastes, and had hailed with no slight pleasure his
succession to a fortune which, though limited in its duration, was still
a great thing for a young lounger about town, not only with no
profession, but with a mind unfitted for every species of business.
Grey, to the astonishment of his former friends, the wits, made an
excellent domestic match; and, leaving the whole management of his
household to his lady, felt himself as independent in his magnificent
library as if he had never ceased to be that true freeman, A MAN
OF CHAMBERS.

The young Vivian had not, by the cares which fathers are always heirs
to, yet reminded his parent that children were anything else but
playthings. The intercourse between father and son was, of course,
extremely limited; for Vivian was, as yet, the mother’s child; Mr.
Grey’s parental duties being confined to giving his son a daily glass of
claret, pulling his ears with all the awkwardness of literary affection,
and trusting to God “that the urchin would never scribble.”

“I won’t go to school, mamma,” bawled Vivian.

“But you must, my love,” answered Mrs. Grey; “all good boys go to
school;” and in the plenitude of a mother’s love she tried to make her
offspring’s hair curl.

“I won’t have my hair curl, mamma; the boys will laugh at me,” rebawled
the beauty.

“Now who could have told the child that?” monologised mamma, with all a
mamma’s admiration.

“Charles Appleyard told me so; his hair curled, and the boys called him
girl. Papa! give me some more claret; I won’t go to school.”




CHAPTER II


Three or four years passed over, and the mind of Vivian Grey
astonishingly developed itself. He had long ceased to wear frills, had
broached the subject of boots three or four times, made a sad inroad
during the holidays in Mr. Grey’s bottle of claret, and was reported as
having once sworn at the butler. The young gentleman began also to hint,
during every vacation, that the fellows at Flummery’s were somewhat too
small for his companionship, and (first bud of puppyism!) the former
advocate of straight hair now expended a portion of his infant income in
the purchase of Macassar, and began to cultivate his curls. Mrs. Grey
could not entertain for a moment the idea of her son’s associating with
children, the eldest of whom (to adopt his own account) was not above
eight years old; so Flummery, it was determined, he should leave. But
where to go? Mr. Grey was for Eton, but his lady was one of those women
whom nothing in the world can persuade that a public school is anything
else but a place where boys are roasted alive; and so with tears, and
taunts, and supplications, the point of private education was conceded.

At length it was resolved that the only hope should remain at home a
season, until some plan should be devised for the cultivation of his
promising understanding. During this year Vivian became a somewhat more
constant intruder into the library than heretofore; and living so much
among books, he was insensibly attracted to those silent companions,
that speak so eloquently.

How far the character of the parent may influence the character of the
child the metaphysician must decide. Certainly the character of Vivian
Grey underwent, at this period of his life, a sensible change.
Doubtless, constant communion with a mind highly refined, severely
cultivated, and much experienced, cannot but produce a beneficial
impression, even upon a mind formed and upon principles developed: how
infinitely more powerful must the influence of such communion be upon a
youthful heart, ardent, innocent, and unpractised! As Vivian was not to
figure in the microcosm of a public school, a place for which, from his
temper, he was almost better fitted than any young genius whom the
playing fields of Eton or the hills of Winton can remember, there was
some difficulty in fixing upon his future Academus. Mr. Grey’s two
axioms were, first, that no one so young as his son should settle in the
metropolis, and that Vivian must consequently not have a private tutor;
and, secondly, that all private schools were quite worthless; and,
therefore, there was every probability of Vivian not receiving any
education whatever.

At length, an exception to axiom second started up in the establishment
of Mr. Dallas. This gentleman was a clergyman, a profound Grecian, and a
poor man. He had edited the Alcestis, and married his laundress; lost
money by his edition, and his fellowship by his match. In a few days the
hall of Mr. Grey’s London mansion was filled with all sorts of
portmanteaus, trunks, and travelling cases, directed in a boy’s
sprawling hand to “Vivian Grey, Esquire, at the Reverend Everard
Dallas, Burnsley Vicarage, Hants.”

“God bless you, my boy! write to your mother soon, and remember your
Journal.”




CHAPTER III


The rumour of the arrival of “a new fellow” circulated with rapidity
through the inmates of Burnsley Vicarage, and about fifty young devils
were preparing to quiz the newcomer, when the school-room door opened,
and Mr. Dallas, accompanied by Vivian, entered.

“A dandy, by Jove!” whispered St. Leger Smith. “What a knowing set
out!” squeaked Johnson secundus. “Mammy-sick!” growled Barlow primus.
This last exclamation was, however, a scandalous libel, for certainly no
being ever stood in a pedagogue’s presence with more perfect sang froid,
and with a bolder front, than did, at this moment, Vivian Grey.

One principle in Mr. Dallas’s system was always to introduce a new-comer
in school-hours. He was thus carried immediately in medias res, and the
curiosity of his co-mates being in a great degree satisfied at the time
when that curiosity could not personally annoy him, the new-comer was,
of course, much better prepared to make his way when the absence of the
ruler became a signal for some oral communication with “the arrival.”

However, in the present instance the young savages at Burnsley Vicarage
had caught a Tartar; and in a very few days Vivian Grey was decidedly
the most popular fellow in the school. He was “so dashing! so devilish
good-tempered! so completely up to everything!” The magnates of the land
were certainly rather jealous of his success, but their very sneers bore
witness to his popularity. “Cursed puppy,” whispered St. Leger Smith.
“Thinks himself knowing,” squeaked Johnson secundus. “Thinks himself
witty,” growled Barlow primus.

Notwithstanding this cabal, days rolled on at Burnsley Vicarage only to
witness the increase of Vivian’s popularity. Although more deficient
than most of his own age in accurate classical attainments, he found
himself, in talents and various acquirements, immeasurably their
superior. And singular is it that at school distinction in such points
is ten thousand times more admired by the multitude than the most
profound knowledge of Greek Metres, or the most accurate acquaintance
with the value of Roman coins. Vivian Grey’s English verses and Vivian
Grey’s English themes were the subject of universal commendation. Some
young lads made copies of these productions, to enrich, at the Christmas
holidays, their sisters’ albums; while the whole school were scribbling
embryo prize-poems, epics of twenty lines on “the Ruins of Paestum” and
“the Temple of Minerva;” “Agrigentum,” and “the Cascade of Terni.”
 Vivian’s productions at this time would probably have been rejected by
the commonest twopenny publication about town, yet they turned the brain
of the whole school; while fellows who were writing Latin Dissertations
and Greek Odes, which might have made the fortune of the Classical
Journal, were looked on by the multitude as as great dunderheads as
themselves. Such is the advantage which, even in this artificial world,
everything that is genuine has over everything that is false and forced.
The dunderheads who wrote “good Latin” and “Attic Greek” did it by a
process by means of which the youngest fellow in the school was
conscious he could, if he chose, attain the same perfection. Vivian
Grey’s verses were unlike anything which had yet appeared in the
literary Annals of Burnsley Vicarage, and that which was quite novel was
naturally thought quite excellent.

There is no place in the world where greater homage is paid to talent
than an English school. At a public school, indeed, if a youth of great
talents be blessed with an amiable and generous disposition, he ought
not to envy the Minister of England. If any captain of Eton or praefect
of Winchester be reading these pages, let him dispassionately consider
in what situation of life he can rationally expect that it will be in
his power to exercise such influence, to have such opportunities of
obliging others, and be so confident of an affectionate and grateful
return. Aye, there’s the rub! Bitter thought! that gratitude should
cease the moment we become men.

And sure I am that Vivian Grey was loved as ardently and as faithfully
as you might expect from innocent young hearts. His slight
accomplishments were the standard of all perfection, his sayings were
the soul of all good fellowship, and his opinion the guide in any crisis
which occurred in the monotonous existence of the little commonwealth.
And time flew gaily on.

One winter evening, as Vivian, with some of his particular cronies, were
standing round the school-room fire, they began, as all schoolboys do
when it grows rather dark and they grow rather sentimental, to talk
of HOME.

“Twelve weeks more,” said Augustus Etherege; “twelve weeks more, and we
are free! The glorious day should be celebrated.”

“A feast, a feast!” exclaimed Poynings.

“A feast is but the work of a night,” said Vivian Grey; “something more
stirring for me! What say you to private theatricals?”

The proposition was, of course, received with enthusiasm, and it was not
until they had unanimously agreed to act that they universally
remembered that acting was not allowed. And then they consulted whether
they should ask Dallas, and then they remembered that Dallas had been
asked fifty times, and then they “supposed they must give it up;” and
then Vivian Grey made a proposition which the rest were secretly sighing
for, but which they were afraid to make themselves; he proposed that
they should act without asking Dallas. “Well, then, we’ll do it without
asking him,” said Vivian; “nothing is allowed in this life, and
everything is done: in town there is a thing called the French play, and
that is not allowed, yet my aunt has got a private box there. Trust me
for acting, but what shall we perform?”

This question was, as usual, the fruitful source of jarring opinions.
One proposed Othello, chiefly because it would be so easy to black a
face with a burnt cork. Another was for Hamlet, solely because he wanted
to act the ghost, which he proposed doing in white shorts and a
night-cap. A third was for Julius Caesar, because the murder scene would
be such fun.

“No! no!” said Vivian, tired at these various and varying proposals,
“this will never do. Out upon Tragedies; let’s have a Comedy!”

“A Comedy! a Comedy! oh! how delightful!”




CHAPTER IV


After an immense number of propositions, and an equal number of
repetitions, Dr. Hoadley’s bustling drama was fixed upon. Vivian was to
act Ranger, Augustus Etherege was to personate Clarinda, because he was
a fair boy and always blushing; and the rest of the characters found
able representatives. Every half-holiday was devoted to rehearsals, and
nothing could exceed the amusement and thorough fun which all the
preparations elicited. All went well; Vivian wrote a pathetic prologue
and a witty epilogue. Etherege got on capitally in the mask scene, and
Poynings was quite perfect in Jack Maggot. There was, of course, some
difficulty in keeping all things in order, but then Vivian Grey was such
an excellent manager! and then, with infinite tact, the said manager
conciliated the Classics, for he allowed St. Leger Smith to select a
Greek motto, from the Andromache, for the front of the theatre; and
Johnson secundus and Barlow primus were complimented by being allowed to
act the chairmen.

But alas! in the midst of all this sunshine, the seeds of discord and
dissension were fast flourishing. Mr. Dallas himself was always so
absorbed in some freshly-imported German commentator that it was a fixed
principle with him never to trouble himself with anything that concerned
his pupils “out of school hours.” The consequence was, that certain
powers were necessarily delegated to a certain set of beings
called USHERS.

The usherian rule had, however, always been comparatively light at
Burnsley Vicarage, for the good Dallas, never for a moment entrusting
the duties of tuition to a third person, engaged these deputies merely
as a sort of police, to regulate the bodies, rather than the minds, of
his youthful subjects. One of the first principles of the new theory
introduced into the establishment of Burnsley Vicarage by Mr. Vivian
Grey was, that the ushers were to be considered by the boys as a
species of upper servants; were to be treated with civility, certainly,
as all servants are by gentlemen; but that no further attention was to
be paid them, and that any fellow voluntarily conversing with an usher
was to be cut dead by the whole school. This pleasant arrangement was no
secret to those whom it most immediately concerned, and, of course,
rendered Vivian rather a favourite with them. These men had not the tact
to conciliate the boy, and were, notwithstanding, too much afraid of his
influence in the school to attack him openly; so they waited with that
patience which insulted beings can alone endure.

One of these creatures must not be forgotten; his name was Mallett; he
was a perfect specimen of the genuine usher. The monster wore a black
coat and waistcoat; the residue of his costume was of that mysterious
colour known by the name of pepper-and-salt. He was a pallid wretch with
a pug nose, white teeth, and marked with the small-pox: long, greasy,
black hair, and small black, beady eyes. This daemon watched the
progress of the theatrical company with eyes gloating with vengeance. No
attempt had been made to keep the fact of the rehearsal a secret from
the police; no objection, on their part, had as yet been made; the
twelve weeks diminished to six; Ranger had secretly ordered a dress from
town, and was to get a steel-handled sword from Fentum’s for Jack
Maggot; and everything was proceeding with delightful success, when one
morning, as Mr. Dallas was apparently about to take his departure, with
a volume of Becker’s Thucydides under his arm, the respected Dominie
stopped, and thus harangued: “I am informed that a great deal is going
on in this family with which it is intended that I shall be kept
unacquainted. It is not my intention to name anybody or anything at
present; but I must say that of late the temper of this family has sadly
changed. Whether there be any seditious stranger among you or not, I
shall not at present even endeavour to discover; but I will warn my old
friends of their new ones:” and so saying, the Dominie withdrew.

All eyes were immediately fixed on Vivian, and the faces of the Classics
were triumphant with smiles; those of the manager’s particular friends,
the Romantics, we may call them, were clouded; but who shall describe
the countenance of Mallett? In a moment the school broke up with an
agitated and tumultuous uproar. “No stranger!” shouted St. Leger Smith;
“no stranger!” vociferated a prepared gang. Vivian’s friends were
silent, for they hesitated to accept for their leader the insulting
title. Those who were neither Vivian’s friends nor in the secret, weak
creatures who side always with the strongest, immediately swelled the
insulting chorus of Mr. St. Leger Smith. That worthy, emboldened by his
success and the smiles of Mallett, contained himself no longer: “Down
with the manager!” he cried. His satellites chorussed. But now Vivian
rushed forward. “Mr. Smith, I thank you for being so definite; take
that!” and he struck Smith with such force that the Cleon staggered and
fell; but Smith instantly recovered, and a ring was instantly formed. To
a common observer, the combatants were unequally matched; for Smith was
a burly, big-limbed animal, alike superior to Grey in years and
strength. But Vivian, though delicate in frame and more youthful, was
full his match in spirit, and, thanks to being a Cockney! ten times his
match in science. He had not built a white great coat or drunk blue ruin
at Ben Burn’s for nothing!

Oh! how beautifully he fought! how admirably straight he hit! and
his stops quick as lightning! and his followings up confounding
his adversary with their painful celerity! Smith alike puzzled and
punished, yet proud in his strength, hit round, and wild, and false,
and foamed like a furious elephant. For ten successive rounds the
result was dubious; but in the eleventh the strength of Smith began
to fail him, and the men were more fairly matched. “Go it, Ranger! go
it, Ranger!” halloed the Greyites; “No stranger! no stranger!” eagerly
bawled the more numerous party. “Smith’s floored, by Jove!” exclaimed
Poynings, who was Grey’s second. “At it again! at it again!” exclaimed
all. And now, when Smith must certainly have given in, suddenly stepped
forward Mr. Mallett, accompanied by--Dallas!

“How, Mr. Grey! No answer, sir; I understand that you have always an
answer ready. I do not quote Scripture lightly, Mr. Grey; but ‘Take heed
that you offend not, even with your tongue.’ Now, sir, to your room.”

When Vivian Grey again joined his companions, he found himself almost
universally shunned. Etherege and Poynings were the only individuals who
met him with their former frankness.

“A horrible row, Grey,” said the latter. “After you went, the Doctor
harangued the whole school, and swears you have seduced and ruined us
all; everything was happiness until you came, &c. Mallett is of course
at the bottom of the whole business: but what can we do? Dallas says you
have the tongue of a serpent, and that he will not trust himself to hear
your defence. Infamous shame! I swear! And now every fellow has got a
story against you: some say you are a dandy, others want to know whether
the next piece performed at your theatre will be ‘The Stranger;’ as for
myself and Etherege, we shall leave in a few weeks, and it does not
signify to us; but what the devil you’re to do next half, by Jove, I
can’t say. If I were you, I would not return.”

“Not return, eh! but that will I, though; and we shall see who, in
future, can complain of the sweetness of my voice! Ungrateful fools!”




CHAPTER V


The Vacation was over, and Vivian returned to Burnsley Vicarage. He
bowed cavalierly to Mr. Dallas on his arrival, and immediately sauntered
up into the school-room, where he found a tolerable quantity of wretches
looking as miserable as schoolboys who have left their pleasant homes
generally do for some four-and-twenty hours. “How d’ye do, Grey? How
d’ye do, Grey?” burst from a knot of unhappy fellows, who would have
felt quite delighted had their newly arrived co-mate condescended to
entertain them, as usual, with some capital good story fresh from town.
But they were disappointed.

“We can make room for you at the fire, Grey,” said Theophilus

“I thank you, I am not cold.”

“I suppose you know that Poynings and Etherege don’t come back, Grey?”

“Everybody knew that last half:” and so he walked on.

“Grey, Grey!” halloed King, “don’t go into the dining-room; Mallett is
there alone, and told us not to disturb him. By Jove, the fellow is
going in: there will be a greater row this half between Grey and Mallett
than ever.”

Days, the heavy first days of the half, rolled on, and all the citizens
of the little commonwealth had returned.

“What a dull half this will be!” said Eardley; “how one misses Grey’s
set! After all, they kept the school alive: Poynings was a first-rate
fellow, and Etherege so deuced good-natured! I wonder whom Grey will
crony with this half; have you seen him and Dallas speak together yet?
He cut the Doctor quite dead at Greek to-day.”

“Why, Eardley! Eardley! there is Grey walking round playing fields with
Mallett!” halloed a sawney who was killing the half-holiday by looking
out of the window.

“The devil! I say, Matthews, whose flute is that? It is a devilish
handsome one!”

“It’s Grey’s! I clean it for him,” squeaked a little boy. “He gives me
sixpence a week!”

“Oh, you sneak!” said one.

“Cut him over!”

“Roast him!” cried a third.

“To whom are you going to take the flute?” asked a fourth.

“To Mallett,” squeaked the little fellow. “Grey lends his flute to
Mallett every day.”

“Grey lends his flute to Mallett! The deuce he does! So Grey and Mallett
are going to crony!”

A wild exclamation burst forth from the little party; and away each of
them ran, to spread in all directions the astounding intelligence.

If the rule of the ushers had hitherto been light at Burnsley Vicarage,
its character was materially changed during this half-year. The
vexatious and tyrannical influence of Mallett was now experienced in all
directions, meeting and interfering with the comforts of the boys in
every possible manner. His malice was accompanied, too, by a tact which
could not have been expected from his vulgar mind, and which, at the
same time, could not have been produced by the experience of one in his
situation. It was quite evident to the whole community that his conduct
was dictated by another mind, and that that mind was one versed in all
the secrets of a school-boy’s life, and acquainted with all the workings
of a school-boy’s mind: a species of knowledge which no pedagogue in the
world ever yet attained. There was no difficulty in discovering whose
was the power behind the throne. Vivian Grey was the perpetual companion
of Mallett in his walks, and even in the school; he shunned also the
converse of every one of the boys, and did not affect to conceal that
his quarrel was universal. Superior power, exercised by a superior mind,
was for a long time more than a match even for the united exertions of
the whole school. If any one complained, Mallett’s written answer (and
such Dallas always required) was immediately ready, explaining
everything in the most satisfactory manner, and refuting every complaint
with the most triumphant spirit. Dallas, of course, supported his
deputy, and was soon equally detested. This tyranny had continued
through a great part of the long half-year, and the spirit of the school
was almost broken, when a fresh outrage occurred, of such a nature that
the nearly enslaved multitude conspired.

The plot was admirably formed. On the first bell ringing for school, the
door was to be immediately barred, to prevent the entrance of Dallas.
Instant vengeance was then to be taken on Mallett and his companion--the
sneak! the spy! the traitor! The bell rang: the door was barred: four
stout fellows seized on Mallett, four rushed to Vivian Grey: but stop:
he sprang upon his desk, and, placing his back against the wall, held a
pistol at the foremost: “Not an inch nearer, Smith, or I fire. Let me
not, however, baulk your vengeance on yonder hound: if I could suggest
any refinements in torture, they would be at your service.” Vivian Grey
smiled, while the horrid cries of Mallett indicated that the boys were
“roasting” him. He then walked to the door and admitted the barred-out
Dominie. Silence was restored. There was an explanation and no defence;
and Vivian Grey was expelled.




CHAPTER VI


Vivian was now seventeen; and the system of private education having so
decidedly failed, it was resolved that he should spend the years
antecedent to his going to Oxford at home. Nothing could be a greater
failure than the first weeks of his “course of study.” He was
perpetually violating the sanctity of the drawing-room by the presence
of Scapulas and Hederics, and outraging the propriety of morning
visitors by bursting into his mother’s boudoir with lexicons
and slippers.

“Vivian, my dear,” said his father to him one day, “this will never do;
you must adopt some system for your studies, and some locality for your
reading. Have a room to yourself; set apart certain hours in the day
for your books, and allow no consideration on earth to influence you to
violate their sacredness; and above all, my dear boy, keep your papers
in order. I find a dissertation on ‘The Commerce of Carthage’ stuck in
my large paper copy of ‘Dibdin’s Decameron,’ and an ‘Essay on the
Metaphysics of Music’ (pray, my dear fellow, beware of magazine
scribbling) cracking the back of Montfaucon’s ‘Monarchie.’”

Vivian apologised, promised, protested, and finally sat down “TO READ.”
 He had laid the foundations of accurate classical knowledge under the
tuition of the learned Dallas; and twelve hours a day and
self-banishment from society overcame, in twelve months, the ill effects
of his imperfect education. The result of this extraordinary exertion
may be conceived. At the end of twelve months, Vivian, like many other
young enthusiasts, had discovered that all the wit and wisdom of the
world were concentrated in some fifty antique volumes, and he treated
the unlucky moderns with the most sublime spirit of hauteur imaginable.
A chorus in the Medea, that painted the radiant sky of Attica, disgusted
him with the foggy atmosphere of Great Britain; and while Mrs. Grey was
meditating a visit to Brighton, her son was dreaming of the gulf of
Salamis. The spectre in the Persae was his only model for a ghost, and
the furies in the Orestes were his perfection of tragical machinery.

Most ingenious and educated youths have fallen into the same error, but
few have ever carried such feelings to the excess that Vivian Grey did;
for while his mind was daily becoming more enervated under the beautiful
but baneful influence of Classic Reverie, the youth lighted upon PLATO.

Wonderful is it that while the whole soul of Vivian Grey seemed
concentrated and wrapped in the glorious pages of the Athenian; while,
with keen and almost inspired curiosity, he searched, and followed up,
and meditated upon, the definite mystery, the indefinite development;
while his spirit alternately bowed in trembling and in admiration, as he
seemed to be listening to the secrets of the Universe revealed in the
glorious melodies of an immortal voice; wonderful is it, I say, that the
writer, the study of whose works appeared to the young scholar, in the
revelling of his enthusiasm, to be the sole object for which man was
born and had his being, was the cause by which Vivian Grey was saved
from being all his life a dreaming scholar.

Determined to spare no exertions, and to neglect no means, by which he
might enter into the very penetralia of his mighty master’s meaning,
Vivian determined to attack the latter Platonists. These were a race of
men, of whose existence he knew merely by the references to their
productions which were sprinkled in the commentaries of his “best
editions.” In the pride of boyish learning, Vivian had limited his
library to Classics, and the proud leaders of the later schools did not
consequently grace his diminutive bookcase. In this dilemma he flew to
his father, and confessed by his request that his favourites were not
all-sufficient.

“Father! I wish to make myself master of the latter Platonists. I want
Plotinus, and Porphyry, and Iamblichus, and Syrirnus, and Maximus
Tyrius, and Proclus, and Hierocles, and Sallustius, and Damascius.”

Mr. Grey stared at his son, and laughed.

“My dear Vivian! are you quite convinced that the authors you ask for
are all pure Platonists? or have not some of them placed the great end
rather in practical than theoretic virtue, and thereby violated the
first principles of your master? which would be shocking. Are you sure,
too, that these gentlemen have actually ‘withdrawn the sacred veil,
which covers from profane eyes the luminous spectacles?’ Are you quite
convinced that every one of these worthies lived at least five hundred
years after the great master? for I need not tell so profound a
Platonist as yourself that it was not till that period that even
glimpses of the great master’s meaning were discovered. Strange! that
TIME should alike favour the philosophy of theory and the philosophy of
facts. Mr. Vivian Grey, benefiting, I presume, by the lapse of further
centuries, is about to complete the great work which Proclus and
Porphyry commenced.”

“My dear sir! you are pleased to be amusing this morning.”

“My dear boy! I smile, but not with joy. Sit down, and let us have a
little conversation together. Father and son, and father and son on such
terms as we are, should really communicate oftener together than we do.
It has been, perhaps, my fault; it shall not be so again.”

“My dear sir!”

“Nay, nay, it shall be my fault now. Whose it shall be in future,
Vivian, time will show. My dear Vivian, you have now spent upwards of a
year under this roof, and your conduct has been as correct as the most
rigid parent might require. I have not wished to interfere with the
progress of your mind, and I regret it. I have been negligent, but not
wilfully so. I do regret it; because, whatever may be your powers,
Vivian, I at least have the advantage of experience. I see you smile at
a word which I so often use. Well, well, were I to talk to you for ever,
you would not understand what I mean by that single word. The time will
come when you will deem that single word everything. Ardent youths in
their closets, Vivian, too often fancy that they are peculiar beings;
and I have no reason to believe that you are an exception to the general
rule. In passing one whole year of your life, as you have done, you
doubtless imagine that you have been spending your hours in a manner
which no others have done before. Trust me, my boy, thousands have done
the same; and, what is of still more importance, thousands are doing,
and will do, the same. Take the advice of one who has committed as many,
ay more, follies than yourself; but who would bless the hour that he had
been a fool if his experience might be of benefit to his beloved son.”

“My father!”

“Nay, don’t agitate yourself; we are consulting together. Let us see
what is to be done. Try to ascertain, when you are alone, what may be
the chief objects of your existence in this world. I want you to take no
theological dogmas for granted, nor to satisfy your doubts by ceasing to
think; but, whether we are in this world in a state of probation for
another, or whether we cease altogether when we cease to breathe, human
feelings tell me that we have some duties to perform; to our fellow
creatures, to our friends, to ourselves. Pray tell me, my dear boy, what
possible good your perusal of the latter Platonists can produce to
either of these three interests? I trust that my child is not one of
those who look with a glazed eye on the welfare of their fellow-men, and
who would dream away an useless life by idle puzzles of the brain;
creatures who consider their existence as an unprofitable mystery, and
yet are afraid to die. You will find Plotinus in the fourth shelf of the
next room, Vivian.”




CHAPTER VII


In England, personal distinction is the only passport to the society of
the great. Whether this distinction arise from fortune, family, or
talent, is immaterial; but certain it is, to enter into high society, a
man must either have blood, a million, or a genius.

The reputation of Mr. Grey had always made him an honoured guest among
the powerful and the great. It was for this reason that he had always
been anxious that his son should be at home as little as possible; for
he feared for a youth the fascination of London society. Although busied
with his studies, and professing “not to visit,” Vivian could not avoid
occasionally finding himself in company in which boys should never be
seen; and, what was still worse, from a certain social spirit, an
indefinable tact with which Nature had endowed him, this boy of nineteen
began to think this society delightful. Most persons of his age would
have passed through the ordeal with perfect safety; they would have
entered certain rooms, at certain hours, with stiff cravats, and Nugee
coats, and black velvet waistcoats; and after having annoyed all those
who condescended to know of their existence, with their red hands and
their white gloves, they would have retired to a corner of the room, and
conversationised with any stray four-year-older not yet sent to bed.

But Vivian Grey was a graceful, lively lad, with just enough of dandyism
to preserve him from committing gaucheries, and with a devil of a
tongue. All men will agree with me that the only rival to be feared by a
man of spirit is a clever boy. What makes them so popular with women it
is difficult to explain; however, Lady Julia Knighton, and Mrs. Frank
Delmington, and half a score of dames of fashion, were always
patronising our hero, who found an evening spent in their society not
altogether dull, for there is no fascination so irresistible to a boy as
the smile of a married woman. Vivian had passed such a recluse life for
the last two years and a half, that he had quite forgotten that he was
once considered an agreeable fellow; and so, determined to discover what
right he ever had to such a reputation, he dashed into all these
amourettes in beautiful style.

But Vivian Grey was a young and tender plant in a moral hothouse. His
character was developing itself too soon. Although his evenings were now
generally passed in the manner we have alluded to, this boy was, during
the rest of the day, a hard and indefatigable student; and having now
got through an immense series of historical reading, he had stumbled
upon a branch of study certainly the most delightful in the world; but,
for a boy, as certainly the most perilous, THE STUDY OF POLITICS.

And now everything was solved! the inexplicable longings of his soul,
which had so often perplexed him, were at length explained. The want,
the indefinable want, which he had so constantly experienced, was at
last supplied; the grand object on which to bring the powers of his mind
to bear and work was at last provided. He paced his chamber in an
agitated spirit, and panted for the Senate.

It may be asked, what was the evil of all this? and the reader will,
perhaps, murmur something about an honourable spirit and youthful
ambition. The evil was great. The time drew nigh for Vivian to leave his
home for Oxford, that is, for him to commence his long preparation for
entering on his career in life. And now this person, who was about to be
a pupil, this stripling, who was going to begin his education, had all
the desires of a matured mind, of an experienced man, but without
maturity and without experience. He was already a cunning reader of
human hearts; and felt conscious that his was a tongue which was born to
guide human beings. The idea of Oxford to such an individual was
an insult!




CHAPTER VIII


We must endeavour to trace, if possible, more accurately the workings of
Vivian Grey’s mind at this period of his existence. In the plenitude of
his ambition, he stopped one day to enquire in what manner he could
obtain his magnificent ends.

“The Bar: pooh! law and bad jokes till we are forty; and then, with the
most brilliant success, the prospect of gout and a coronet. Besides, to
succeed as an advocate, I must be a great lawyer; and, to be a great
lawyer, I must give up my chance of being a great man. The Services in
war time are fit only for desperadoes (and that truly am I); but, in
peace, are fit only for fools. The Church is more rational. Let me see:
I should certainly like to act Wolsey; but the thousand and one chances
against me! And truly I feel my destiny should not be on a chance. Were
I the son of a millionaire, or a noble, I might have all. Curse on my
lot! that the want of a few rascal counters, and the possession of a
little rascal blood, should mar my fortunes!”

Such was the general tenor of Vivian’s thoughts, until, musing himself
almost into madness, he at last made, as he conceived, the Grand
Discovery. Riches are Power, says the Economist; and is not Intellect?
asks the Philosopher. And yet, while the influence of the millionaire is
instantly felt in all classes of society, how is it that “Noble Mind” so
often leaves us unknown and unhonoured? Why have there been statesmen
who have never ruled, and heroes who have never conquered? Why have
glorious philosophers died in a garret? and why have there been poets
whose only admirer has been Nature in her echoes? It must be that these
beings have thought only of themselves, and, constant and elaborate
students of their own glorious natures, have forgotten or disdained the
study of all others. Yes! we must mix with the herd; we must enter into
their feelings; we must humour their weaknesses; we must sympathise with
the sorrows that we do not feel; and share the merriment of fools. Oh,
yes! to rule men, we must be men; to prove that we are strong, we must
be weak; to prove that we are giants, we must be dwarfs; even as the
Eastern Genie was hid in the charmed bottle. Our wisdom must be
concealed under folly, and our constancy under caprice.

“I have been often struck by the ancient tales of Jupiter’s visits to
the earth. In these fanciful adventures, the god bore no indication of
the Thunderer’s glory; but was a man of low estate, a herdsman, a hind,
often even an animal. A mighty spirit has in Tradition, Time’s great
moralist, perused ‘the wisdom of the ancients.’ Even in the same spirit,
I would explain Jove’s terrestrial visitings. For, to govern man, even
the god appeared to feel as a man; and sometimes as a beast, was
apparently influenced by their vilest passions. Mankind, then, is my
great game.

“At this moment, how many a powerful noble wants only wit to be a
Minister; and what wants Vivian Grey to attain the same end? That
noble’s influence. When two persons can so materially assist each
other, why are they not brought together? Shall I, because my birth
baulks my fancy, shall I pass my life a moping misanthrope in an old
château? Supposing I am in contact with this magnifico, am I prepared?
Now, let me probe my very soul. Does my cheek blanch? I have the mind
for the conception; and I can perform right skilfully upon the most
splendid of musical instruments, the human voice, to make those
conceptions beloved by others. There wants but one thing more: courage,
pure, perfect courage; and does Vivian Grey know fear?” He laughed an
answer of bitterest derision.




CHAPTER IX


Is it surprising that Vivian Grey, with a mind teeming with such
feelings, should view the approach of the season for his departure to
Oxford with sentiments of disgust? After hours of bitter meditation, he
sought his father; he made him acquainted with his feelings, but
concealed from him his actual views, and dwelt on the misery of being
thrown back in life, at a period when society seemed instinct with a
spirit peculiarly active, and when so many openings were daily offered
to the adventurous and the bold.

“Vivian,” said Mr. Grey, “beware of endeavouring to become a great man
in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed: these are
fearful odds. Admirer as you are of Lord Bacon, you may perhaps remember
a certain parable of his, called ‘Memnon, or a youth too forward.’ I
hope you are not going to be one of those sons of Aurora, ‘who, puffed
up with the glittering show of vanity and ostentation, attempt actions
above their strength.’

“You talk to me about the peculiarly active spirit of society; if the
spirit of society be so peculiarly active, Mr. Vivian Grey should beware
lest it outstrip him. Is neglecting to mature your mind, my boy, exactly
the way to win the race? This is an age of unsettled opinions and
contested principles; in the very measures of our administration, the
speculative spirit of the present day is, to say the least, not
impalpable. Nay, don’t start, my dear fellow, and look the very
Prosopopeia of Political Economy! I know exactly what you are going to
say; but, if you please, we will leave Turgot and Galileo to Mr.
Canning and the House of Commons, or your Cousin Hargrave and his
Debating Society. However, jesting apart, get your hat, and walk with me
as far as Evans’s, where I have promised to look in, to see the Mazarin
Bible, and we will talk this affair over as we go along.

“I am no bigot, you know, Vivian. I am not one of those who wish to
oppose the application of refined philosophy to the common business of
life. We are, I hope, an improving race; there is room, I am sure, for
great improvement, and the perfectibility of man is certainly a pretty
dream. (How well that Union Club House comes out now, since they have
made the opening), but, although we may have steam kitchens, human
nature is, I imagine, much the same this moment that we are walking in
Pall Mall East, as it was some thousand years ago, when as wise men were
walking on the banks of the Ilyssus. When our moral powers increase in
proportion to our physical ones, then huzza, for the perfectibility of
man! and respectable, idle loungers like you and I, Vivian, may then
have a chance of walking in the streets of London without having their
heels trodden upon, a ceremony which I have this moment undergone. In
the present day we are all studying science, and none of us are studying
ourselves. This is not exactly the Socratic process; and as for the
[Greek: gnothi seauton] of the more ancient Athenian, that principle is
quite out of fashion in the nineteenth century (I believe that’s the
phrase). Self is the only person whom we know nothing about.

“But, my dear Vivian, as to the immediate point of our consideration. In
my library, uninfluenced and uncontrolled by passion or by party, I
cannot but see that it is utterly impossible that all that we are
wishing and striving for can take place, without some, without much
evil. In ten years’ time, perhaps, or less, the fever will have
subsided, and in ten years’ time, or less, your intellect will be
matured. Now, my good sir, instead of talking about the active spirit of
the age, and the opportunities offered to the adventurous and the bold,
ought you not rather to congratulate yourself that a great change is
effecting at a period of your life when you need not, individually, be
subjected to the possibility of being injured by its operation; and when
you are preparing your mind to take advantage of the system, when that
system is matured and organised?

“As to your request, it assuredly is one of the most modest, and the
most rational, that I have lately been favoured with. Although I would
much rather that any influence which I may exercise over your mind,
should be the effect of my advice as your friend than of my authority as
your father; still I really feel it my duty, parentally, to protest
against this crude proposition of yours. However, if you choose to lose
a term or two, do. Don’t blame me, you know, if afterwards you
repent it.”

Here dashed by the gorgeous equipage of Mrs. Ormolu, the wife of a man
who was working all the gold and silver mines in Christendom. “Ah! my
dear Vivian,” said Mr. Grey, “it is this which has turned all your
brains. In this age every one is striving to make an immense fortune,
and what is most terrific, at the same time a speedy one. This thirst
for sudden wealth it is which engenders the extravagant conceptions, and
fosters that wild spirit of speculation which is now stalking abroad;
and which, like the Daemon in Frankenstein, not only fearfully wanders
over the whole wide face of nature, but grins in the imagined solitude
of our secret chambers. Oh! my son, it is for the young men of the
present day that I tremble; seduced by the temporary success of a few
children of fortune, I observe that their minds recoil from the
prospects which are held forth by the ordinary, and, mark me, by the
only modes of acquiring property, fair trade, and honourable
professions. It is for you and your companions that I fear. God grant
that there may not be a moral as well as a political disorganisation!
God grant that our youth, the hope of our state, may not be lost to us!
For, oh! my son, the wisest has said, ‘He that maketh haste to be rich
shall not be innocent.’ Let us step into Clarke’s and take an ice.”




BOOK II


CHAPTER I


The Marquess of Carabas started in life as the cadet of a noble family.
The earl, his father, like the woodman in the fairy tale, was blessed
with three sons: the first was an idiot, and was destined for the
Coronet; the second was a man of business, and was educated for the
Commons; the third was a Roué, and was shipped to the Colonies.

The present Marquess, then the Honourable Sidney Lorraine, prospered in
his political career. He was servile, and pompous, and indefatigable,
and loquacious, so whispered the world: his friends hailed him as, at
once, a courtier and a sage, a man of business and an orator. After
revelling in his fair proportion of commissionerships, and
under-secretaryships, and the rest of the milk and honey of the
political Canaan, the apex of the pyramid of his ambition was at length
visible, for Sidney Lorraine became President of a Board, and wriggled
into the adytum of the cabinet.

At this moment his idiot brother died. To compensate for his loss of
office, and to secure his votes, the Earl of Carabas was promoted in the
peerage, and was presented with some magnificent office, meaning
nothing; swelling with dignity, and void of duties. As years rolled on,
various changes took place in the administration, of which his Lordship
was once a component part; and the ministry, to their surprise, getting
popular, found that the command of the Carabas interest was not of such
vital importance to them as heretofore, and so his Lordship was voted a
bore, and got shelved. Not that his Lordship was bereaved of his
splendid office, or that anything occurred, indeed, by which the
uninitiated might have been led to suppose that the beams of his
Lordship’s consequence were shorn; but the Marquess’s secret
applications at the Treasury were no longer listened to, and pert
under-secretaries settled their cravats, and whispered “that the Carabas
interest was gone by.”

The noble Marquess was not insensible to his situation, for he was what
the world calls ambitious; but the vigour of his faculties had vanished
beneath the united influence of years and indolence and ill-humour; for
his Lordship, to avoid ennui, had quarrelled with his son, and then,
having lost his only friend, had quarrelled with himself.

Such was the distinguished individual who graced, one day at the latter
end of the season of 18--, the classic board of Horace Grey, Esquire.
The reader will, perhaps, be astonished, that such a man as his Lordship
should be the guest of such a man as our hero’s father; but the truth
is, the Marquess of Carabas had just been disappointed in an attempt on
the chair of the President of the Royal Society, which, for want of
something better to do, he was ambitious of filling, and this was a
conciliatory visit to one of the most distinguished members of that
body, and one who had voted against him with particular enthusiasm. The
Marquess, still a politician, was now, as he imagined, securing his
host’s vote for a future St. Andrew’s day.

The cuisine of Mr. Grey was superb; for although an enthusiastic
advocate for the cultivation of the mind, he was an equally ardent
supporter of the cultivation of the body. Indeed, the necessary
dependence of the sanity of the one on the good keeping of the other,
was one of his favourite theories, and one which, this day, he was
supporting with pleasant and facetious reasoning. His Lordship was
delighted with his new friend, and still more delighted with his new
friend’s theory. The Marquess himself was, indeed, quite of the same
opinion as Mr. Grey; for he never made a speech without previously
taking a sandwich, and would have sunk under the estimates a thousand
times, had it not been for the juicy friendship of the fruit
of Portugal.

The guests were not numerous. A regius professor of Greek; an officer
just escaped from Sockatoo; a man of science, and two M.P.’s with his
Lordship; the host, and Mr. Vivian Grey, constituted the party. Oh, no!
there were two others. There was a Mr. John Brown, a fashionable poet,
and who, ashamed of his own name, published his melodies under the more
euphonious and romantic title of “Clarence Devonshire,” and there was a
Mr. Thomas Smith, a fashionable novelist; that is to say, a person who
occasionally publishes three volumes, one half of which contain the
adventures of a young gentleman in the country, and the other volume and
a half the adventures of the same young gentleman in the metropolis; a
sort of writer, whose constant tattle about beer and billiards, and
eating soup, and the horribility of “committing” puns, give truly an
admirable and accurate idea of the conversation of the refined society
of the refined metropolis of Great Britain. These two last gentlemen
were “pets” of Mrs. Grey.

The conversation may be conceived. Each person was of course prepared
with a certain quota of information, without which no man in London is
morally entitled to dine out; and when the quota was expended, the
amiable host took the burthen upon his own shoulders, and endeavoured,
as the phrase goes, to draw out his guests.

O London dinners! empty artificial nothings! and that beings can be
found, and those too the flower of the land, who, day after day, can
act the same parts in the same dull, dreary farce! The officer had
discoursed sufficiently about “his intimate friend, the Soudan,” and
about the chain armour of the Sockatoo cuirassiers; and one of the
M.P.’s, who was in the Guards, had been defeated in a ridiculous attempt
to prove that the breast-plates of the household troops of Great Britain
were superior to those of the household troops of Timtomtoo. Mrs. Grey,
to whose opinion both parties deferred, gave it in favour of the Soudan.
And the man of science had lectured about a machine which might destroy
fifteen square feet of human beings in a second, and yet be carried in
the waistcoat pocket. And the classic, who, for a professor, was quite a
man of the world, had the latest news of the new Herculaneum process,
and was of opinion that, if they could but succeed in unrolling a
certain suspicious-looking scroll, we might be so fortunate as to
possess a minute treatise on &c., &c., &c. In short, all had said their
say. There was a dead pause, and Mrs. Grey looked at her husband,
and rose.

How singular it is, that when this move takes place every one appears to
be relieved, and yet every one of any experience must be quite aware
that the dead bore work is only about to commence. Howbeit, all filled
their glasses, and the peer, at the top of the table, began to talk
politics. I am sure I cannot tell what the weighty subject was that was
broached by the ex-minister; for I did not dine with Grey that day, and
had I done so, I should have been equally ignorant, for I am a dull man,
and always sleep at dinner. However, the subject was political, the
claret flew round, and a stormy argument commenced. The Marquess was
decidedly wrong, and was sadly badgered by the civil M.P. and the
professor. The host, who was of no party, supported his guest as long as
possible, and then left him to his fate. The military M.P. fled to the
drawing-room to philander with Mrs. Grey; and the man of science and the
African had already retired to the intellectual idiocy of a May Fair “At
Home.” The novelist was silent, for he was studying a scene; and the
poet was absent, for he was musing a sonnet.

The Marquess refuted, had recourse to contradiction, and was too acute a
man to be insensible to the forlornness of his situation; when, at this
moment, a voice proceeded from the end of the table, from a young
gentleman, who had hitherto preserved a profound silence, but whose
silence, if the company were to have judged from the tones of his
voice, and the matter of his communication, did not altogether proceed
from a want of confidence in his own abilities. “In my opinion,” said
Mr. Vivian Grey, as he sat lounging in his father’s vacated seat, “in my
opinion his Lordship has been misunderstood; and it is, as is generally
the case, from a slight verbal misconception in the commencement of this
argument, that the whole of this difference arises.”

The eyes of the Marquess sparkled, and the mouth of the Marquess was
closed. His Lordship was delighted that his reputation might yet be
saved; but as he was not perfectly acquainted in what manner that
salvation was to be effected, he prudently left the battle to his
youthful champion.

Mr. Vivian Grey proceeded with the utmost sang froid; he commented upon
expressions, split and subtilised words, insinuated opinions, and
finally quoted a whole passage of Bolingbroke to prove that the opinion
of the most noble the Marquess of Carabas was one of the soundest,
wisest, and most convincing of opinions that ever was promulgated by
mortal man. The tables were turned, the guests looked astounded, the
Marquess settled his ruffles, and perpetually exclaimed, “Exactly what I
meant!” and his opponents, full of wine and quite puzzled, gave in.

It was a rule with Vivian Grey never to advance any opinion as his own.
He had been too deep a student of human nature, not to be aware that the
opinions of a boy of twenty, however sound, and however correct, stand
but a poor chance of being adopted by his elder, though feebler,
fellow-creatures. In attaining any end, it was therefore his system
always to advance his opinion as that of some eminent and considered
personage; and when, under the sanction of this name, the opinion or
advice was entertained and listened to, Vivian Grey had no fear that he
could prove its correctness and its expediency. He possessed also the
singular faculty of being able to improvise quotations, that is, he
could unpremeditatedly clothe his conceptions in language characteristic
of the style of any particular author; and Vivian Grey was reputed in
the world as having the most astonishing memory that ever existed; for
there was scarcely a subject of discussion in which he did not gain the
victory, by the great names he enlisted on his side of the argument. His
father was aware of the existence of this dangerous faculty, and had
often remonstrated with his son on the use of it. On the present
occasion, when the buzz had somewhat subsided, Mr. Grey looked smiling
to his son, and said, “Vivian, my dear, can you tell me in what work of
Bolingbroke I can find the eloquent passage you have just quoted?”

“Ask Mr. Hargrave, sir,” replied the son, with perfect coolness; then,
turning to the member, “You know, Mr. Hargrave, you are reputed the most
profound political student in the House, and more intimately acquainted
than any other person with the works of Bolingbroke.”

Mr. Hargrave knew no such thing; but he was a weak man, and, seduced by
the compliment, he was afraid to prove himself unworthy of it by
confessing his ignorance of the passage.

Coffee was announced.

Vivian did not let the peer escape him in the drawing-room. He soon
managed to enter into conversation with him; and certainly the Marquess
of Carabas never found a more entertaining companion. Vivian discoursed
on a new Venetian liqueur, and taught the Marquess how to mull Moselle,
an operation of which the Marquess had never heard (as who has?); and
then the flood of anecdotes, and little innocent personalities, and the
compliments so exquisitely introduced, that they scarcely appeared to be
compliments; and the voice so pleasant, and conciliating, and the
quotation from the Marquess’s own speech; and the wonderful art of which
the Marquess was not aware, by which, during all this time, the lively,
chattering, amusing, elegant conversationist, so full of scandal,
politics, and cookery, did not so much appear to be Mr. Vivian Grey as
the Marquess of Carabas himself.

“Well, I must be gone,” said the fascinated noble; “I really have not
felt in such spirits for some time; I almost fear I have been vulgar
enough to be amusing, eh! eh! eh! but you young men are sad fellows, eh!
eh! eh! Don’t forget to call on me; good evening! and Mr. Vivian Grey!
Mr. Vivian Grey!” said his lordship, returning, “you will not forget the
receipt you promised me for making tomahawk punch.”

“Certainly not, my Lord,” said the young man; “only it must be invented
first,” thought Vivian, as he took up his light to retire. “But never
mind, never mind;

     Chapeau bas! chapeau bas!
     Glorie au Marquis de Carabas!!”




CHAPTER II


A few days after the dinner at Mr. Grey’s, as the Marquess of Carabas
was sitting in his library, and sighing, in the fulness of his ennui, as
he looked on his large library table, once triply covered with official
communications, now thinly besprinkled with a stray parliamentary paper
or two, his steward’s accounts, and a few letters from some grumbling
tenants, Mr. Vivian Grey was announced.

“I fear I am intruding on your Lordship, but I really could not refrain
from bringing you the receipt I promised.”

“Most happy to see ye, most happy to see ye.”

“This is exactly the correct receipt, my Lord. TO EVERY TWO BOTTLES OF
STILL CHAMPAGNE, ONE PINT OF CURAÇOA.” The Peer’s eyes glistened, and
his companion proceeded; “ONE PINT OF CURAÇOA; CATCH THE AROMA OF A
POUND OF GREEN TEA, AND DASH THE WHOLE WITH GLENLIVET.”

“Splendid!” ejaculated the Marquess.

“The nice point, however, which it is impossible to define in a receipt,
is catching the aroma. What sort of a genius is your Lordship’s chêf?”

“First-rate! Laporte _is_ a genius.”

“Well, my Lord! I shall be most happy to superintend the first
concoction for you; and remember particularly,” said Vivian, rising,
“remember it must be iced.”

“Certainly, my dear fellow; but pray don’t think of going yet.”

“I am very sorry, my Lord; but such a pressure of engagements; your
Lordship’s kindness is so great, and, really, I fear, that at this
moment especially, your Lordship can scarcely be in a humour for my
trifling.”

“Why this moment especially, Mr. Vivian Grey?”

“Oh, my Lord! I am perfectly aware of your Lordship’s talents for
business; but still I had conceived, that the delicate situation in
which your Lordship is now placed, requiring such anxious
attention such--”

“Delicate situation! anxious attention! why man! you speak riddles. I
certainly have a great deal of business to transact: people are so
obstinate, or so foolish, they will consult me, certainly; and certainly
I feel it my duty, Mr. Vivian Grey; I feel it the duty, sir of every
Peer in this happy country (here his Lordship got parliamentary): yes,
sir, I feel it due to my character, to my family, to, to, to assist with
my advice all those who think fit to consult me.” Splendid peroration!

“Oh, my Lord!” carelessly remarked Vivian, “I thought it was a mere on
dit.”

“Thought what, my dear sir? you really quite perplex me.”

“I mean to say, my Lord; I, I thought it was impossible the overtures
had been made.”

“Overtures, Mr. Vivian Grey?”

“Yes, my Lord! Overtures; has not your Lordship seen the _Post_. But I
knew it was impossible; I said so, I--”

“Said what, Mr. Vivian Grey?”

“Said that the whole paragraph was unfounded.”

“Paragraph! what paragraph?” and his Lordship rose, and rang the library
bell with vehemence: “Sadler, bring me the _Morning Post_.”

The servant entered with the paper. Mr. Vivian Grey seized it from his
hands before it reached the Marquess, and glancing his eye over it with
the rapidity of lightning, doubled up the sheet in a convenient readable
form, and pushing it into his Lordship’s hands, exclaimed, “There, my
Lord! there, that will explain all.”

His Lordship read:

“We are informed that some alteration in the composition of the present
administration is in contemplation; Lord Past Century, it is said, will
retire; Mr. Liberal Principles will have the--; and Mr. Charlatan Gas
the--. A noble Peer, whose practised talents have already benefited the
nation, and who, on vacating his seat in the Cabinet, was elevated in
the Peerage, is reported as having had certain overtures made him, the
nature of which may be conceived, but which, under present
circumstances, it would be indelicate in us to hint at.”

It would have been impossible for a hawk to watch its quarry with eyes
of more fixed and anxious earnestness than did Vivian Grey the Marquess
of Carabas, as his Lordship’s eyes wandered over the paragraph. Vivian
drew his chair close to the table opposite to the Marquess, and when the
paragraph was read, their eyes met.

“Utterly untrue,” whispered the Peer, with an agitated voice, and with
a countenance which, for a moment, seemed intellectual.

“But why Mr. Vivian Grey should deem the fact of such overtures having
been made ‘impossible,’ I confess, astonishes me.”

“Impossible, my Lord!”

“Ay, Mr. Grey, impossible, that was your word.”

“Oh, my Lord! what should I know about these matters?”

“Nay, nay, Mr. Grey, something must have been floating in your mind: why
impossible, why impossible? Did your father think so?”

“My father! Oh! no, he never thinks about these matters; ours is not a
political family; I am not sure that he ever looks at a newspaper.”

“But, my dear Mr. Grey, you would not have used the word without some
meaning. Why did you think it impossible? impossible is such a peculiar
word.” And here the Marquess looked up with great earnestness to a
portrait of himself, which hung over the fire-place. It was one of Sir
Thomas’s happiest efforts; but it was not the happiness of the likeness,
or the beauty of the painting, which now attracted his Lordship’s
attention; he thought only of the costume in which he appeared in that
portrait: the court dress of a Cabinet Minister. “Impossible, Mr. Grey,
you must confess, is a very peculiar word,” reiterated his Lordship.

“I said impossible, my Lord, because I did conceive, that had your
Lordship been of a disposition to which such overtures might have been
made with any probability of success, the Marquess of Carabas would have
been in a situation which would have precluded the possibility of those
overtures being made at all.”

“Hah!” and the Marquess nearly started from his seat.

“Yes, my Lord, I am a young, an inexperienced young man, ignorant of the
world’s ways; doubtless I was wrong, but I have much to learn,” and his
voice faltered; “but I did conceive, that having power at his command,
the Marquess of Carabas did not exercise it, merely because he despised
it: but what should I know of such matters, my Lord?”

“Is power a thing so easily to be despised, young man?” asked the
Marquess. His eye rested on a vote of thanks from the “Merchants and
Bankers of London to the Right Honourable Sydney Lorraine, President,
&c., &c., &c.,” which, splendidly emblazoned, and gilt, and framed, and
glazed, was suspended opposite the President’s portrait.

“Oh, no! my Lord, you mistake me,” eagerly burst forth Vivian. “I am no
cold-blooded philosopher that would despise that, for which, in my
opinion, men, real men, should alone exist. Power! Oh! what sleepless
nights, what days of hot anxiety! what exertions of mind and body! what
travel! what hatred! what fierce encounters! what dangers of all
possible kinds, would I not endure with a joyous spirit to gain it! But
such, my Lord, I thought were feelings peculiar to inexperienced young
men: and seeing you, my Lord, so situated, that you might command all
and everything, and yet living as you do, I was naturally led to believe
that the object of my adoration was a vain glittering bauble, of which
those who could possess it, knew the utter worthlessness.”

The Peer sat in a musing mood, playing the Devil’s tattoo on the library
table; at last he raised his eyes, and said in a low whisper, “Are you
so certain that I can command all and everything?”

“All and everything! did I say all and everything? Really, my Lord, you
scan my expressions so critically! but I see your Lordship is smiling at
my boyish nonsense! and really I feel that I have already wasted too
much of your Lordship’s valuable time, and displayed too much of my own
ignorance.”

“My dear sir! I am not aware that I was smiling.”

“Oh! your Lordship is so very kind.”

“But, my dear sir! you are really labouring under a great mistake. I am
desirous, I am particularly desirous, of having your opinion upon
this subject.”

“My opinion, my Lord! what should my opinion be, but an echo of the
circle in which I live, but a faithful representation of the feelings of
general society?”

“And, Mr. Grey, I should be glad to know what can possibly be more
interesting to me than a faithful representation of the feelings of
general society on this subject?”

“The many, my Lord, are not always right.”

“Mr. Grey, the many are not often wrong. Come, my dear sir, do me the
favour of being frank, and let me know why the public is of opinion that
all and everything are in my power, for such, after all, were
your words.”

“If I did use them, my Lord, it was because I was thinking, as I often
do, what, after all, in this country is public life? Is it not a race
in which the swiftest must surely win the prize; and is not that prize
power? Has not your Lordship treasure? There is your moral steam which
can work the world. Has not your Lordship’s treasure most splendid
consequence, pure blood and aristocratic influence? The Millionaire has
in his possession the seeds of everything, but he must wait for half a
century till his descendant finds himself in your Lordship’s state; till
he is yclept noble, and then he starts fair in the grand course. All
these advantages your Lordship has apparently at hand, with the
additional advantage (and one, oh! how great!) of having already proved
to your country that you know how to rule.”

There was a dead silence, which at length the Marquess broke. “There is
much in what you say; but I cannot conceal it from myself, I have no
wish to conceal it from you; I am not what I was.” O, ambition! art thou
the parent of truth?

“Ah! my Lord!” eagerly rejoined Vivian, “here is the terrible error into
which you great statesmen have always fallen. Think you not, that
intellect is as much a purchasable article as fine parks and fair
castles? With your Lordship’s tried and splendid talents, everything
might be done; but, in my opinion, if, instead of a practised, an
experienced, and wary Statesman, I was now addressing an idiot Earl, I
should not see that the great end might not equally be consummated.”

“Say you so, my merry man, and how?”

“Why, my Lord: but, but, I feel that I am trespassing on your Lordship’s
time, otherwise I think I could show why society is of opinion that your
Lordship can do all and everything; how, indeed, your Lordship might, in
a very short time, be Prime Minister.”

“No, Mr. Grey; this conversation must be finished. I will just give
orders that we may not be disturbed, and then we shall proceed
immediately. Come, now! your manner takes me, and we shall converse in
the spirit of the most perfect confidence.”

Here, as the Marquess settled at the same time his chair and his
countenance, and looked as anxious as if Majesty itself were consulting
him on the formation of a ministry, in burst the Marchioness,
notwithstanding all the remonstrances, entreaties, threats, and
supplications of Mr. Sadler.

Her Ladyship had been what they style a splendid woman; that was now
past, although, with the aid of cashmeres, diamonds, and turbans, her
general appearance was still striking. Her Ladyship was not remarkable
for anything save a correct taste for poodles, parrots, and bijouterie,
and a proper admiration of Theodore Hook and John Bull.

“Oh! Marquess,” exclaimed her Ladyship, and a favourite green parrot,
which came flying in after its accustomed perch, her Ladyship’s left
shoulder, shrieked at the same time in concert, “Oh! Marquess, my poor
Julie! You know we have noticed how nervous she has been for some days
past, and I had just given her a saucer of arrow-root and milk, and she
seemed a little easier, and I said to Miss Graves. ‘I really do think
she is a leetle better’ and Miss Graves said, ‘Yes, my Lady, I hope she
is; ‘when just as we flattered ourselves that the dear little creature
was enjoying a quiet sleep, Miss Graves called out, ‘Oh, my Lady! my
Lady! Julie’s in a fit!’ and when I turned round she was lying on her
back, kicking, with her eyes shut.’ And here the Marchioness detected
Mr. Grey, and gave him as sublime a stare as might be expected from a
lady patroness of Almack’s.

“The Marchioness, Mr. Vivian Grey, my love, I assure you we are engaged
in a most important, a most--”

“Oh! I would not disturb you for the world, only if you will just tell
me what you think ought to be done; leeches, or a warm bath; or shall I
send for Doctor Blue Pill?”

The Marquess looked a little annoyed, as if he wished her Ladyship in
her own room again. He was almost meditating a gentle reprimand, vexed
that his grave young friend should have witnessed this frivolous
intrusion, when that accomplished stripling, to the astonishment of the
future minister, immediately recommended “the warm bath,” and then
lectured, with equal rapidity and erudition, on dogs, and their diseases
in general.

The Marchioness retired, “easier in her mind about Julie than she had
been for some days,” as Vivian assured her “that it was not apoplexy,
but only the first symptom of an epidemic.” And as she retired, she
murmured her gratitude gracefully to Julie’s young physician.

“Now, Mr. Grey,” said his Lordship, endeavouring to recover his dignity,
“we were discussing the public sentiments you know on a certain point,
when this unfortunate interruption--”

Vivian had not much difficulty in collecting his ideas, and he
proceeded, not as displeased as his Lordship with the domestic scene.

“I need not remind your Lordship that the two great parties into which
this State is divided are apparently very unequally proportioned. Your
Lordship well knows how the party to which your Lordship is said to
belong: your Lordship knows, I imagine, how that is constituted. We have
nothing to do with the other. My Lord, I must speak out. No thinking
man, and such, I trust, Vivian Grey is, no thinking man can for a moment
suppose, that your Lordship’s heart is very warm in the cause of a
party, which, for I will not mince my words, has betrayed you. How is
it, it is asked by thinking men, how is it that the Marquess of Carabas
is the tool of a faction?”

The Marquess breathed aloud, “They say so, do they?”

“Why, my Lord, listen even to your servants in your own hall, need I say
more? How, then! is this opinion true? Let us look to your conduct to
the party to which you are said to belong. Your votes are theirs, your
influence is theirs; and for all this, what return, my Lord Marquess,
what return? My Lord, I am not rash enough to suppose, that your
Lordship, alone and unsupported, can make yourself the arbiter of this
country’s destinies. It would be ridiculous to entertain such an idea
for a second. The existence of such a man would not be endured by the
nation for a second. But, my Lord, union is strength. Nay, my Lord,
start not; I am not going to advise you to throw yourself into the arms
of opposition; leave such advice for greenhorns. I am not going to adopt
a line of conduct, which would, for a moment, compromise the consistency
of your high character; leave such advice for fools. My Lord, it is to
preserve your consistency, it is to vindicate your high character, it is
to make the Marquess of Carabas perform the duties which society
requires from him, that I, Vivian Grey, a member of that society, and an
humble friend of your Lordship, speak so boldly.”

“My friend,” said the agitated Peer, “you cannot speak too boldly. My
mind opens to you. I have felt, I have long felt, that I was not what I
ought to be, that I was not what society requires me to be; but where is
your remedy? what is the line of conduct that I should pursue?”

“The remedy, my Lord! I never conceived, for a moment, that there was
any doubt of the existence of means to attain all and everything. I
think that was your Lordship’s phrase. I only hesitated as to the
existence of the inclination on the part of your Lordship.”

“You cannot doubt it now,” said the Peer, in a low voice; and then his
Lordship looked anxiously round the room, as if he feared that there had
been some mysterious witness to his whisper.

“My Lord,” said Vivian, and he drew his chair close to the Marquess,
“the plan is shortly this. There are others in a similar situation with
yourself. All thinking men know, your Lordship knows still better, that
there are others equally influential, equally ill-treated. How is it
that I see no concert, among these individuals? How is it that, jealous
of each other, or each trusting that he may ultimately prove an
exception to the system of which he is a victim; how is it, I say, that
you look with cold hearts on each other’s situation? My Lord Marquess,
it is at the head of these that I would place you, it is these that I
would have act with you; and this is the union which is strength.”

“You are right, you are right; there is Courtown, but we do not speak;
there is Beaconsfield, but we are not intimate: but much might be done.”

“My Lord, you must not be daunted at a few difficulties, or at a little
exertion. But as for Courtown, or Beaconsfield, or fifty other offended
men, if it can be shown to them that their interest is to be your
Lordship’s friend, trust me, that ere six months are over, they will
have pledged their troth. Leave all this to me, give me your Lordship’s
name,” said Vivian, whispering most earnestly in the Marquess’s ear, and
laying his hand upon his Lordship’s arm; “give me your Lordship’s name,
and your Lordship’s influence, and I will take upon myself the whole
organisation of the Carabas party.”

“The Carabas party! Ah! we must think more of this.”

The Marquess’s eyes smiled with triumph, as he shook Vivian cordially by
the hand, and begged him to call upon him on the morrow.




CHAPTER III


The intercourse between the Marquess and Vivian after this interview was
constant. No dinner-party was thought perfect at Carabas House without
the presence of the young gentleman; and as the Marchioness was
delighted with the perpetual presence of an individual whom she could
always consult about Julie, there was apparently no domestic obstacle to
Vivian’s remaining in high favour.

The Earl of Eglamour, the only child in whom were concentrated all the
hopes of the illustrious House of Lorraine, was in Italy. The only
remaining member of the domestic circle who was wanting was the
Honourable Mrs. Felix Lorraine, the wife of the Marquess’s younger
brother. This lady, exhausted by the gaiety of the season, had left town
somewhat earlier than she usually did, and was inhaling fresh air, and
studying botany, at the magnificent seat of the Carabas family, Château
Desir, at which splendid place Vivian was to pass the summer.

In the meantime all was sunshine with Vivian Grey. His noble friend and
himself were in perpetual converse, and constantly engaged in deep
consultation. As yet, the world knew nothing, except that, according to
the Marquess of Carabas, “Vivian Grey was the most astonishingly clever
and prodigiously accomplished fellow that ever breathed;” and, as the
Marquess always added, “resembled himself very much when he was young.”

But it must not be supposed that Vivian was to all the world the
fascinating creature that he was to the Marquess of Carabas. Many
complained that he was reserved, silent, satirical, and haughty. But the
truth was, Vivian Grey often asked himself, “Who is to be my enemy
to-morrow?” He was too cunning a master of the human mind, not to be
aware of the quicksands upon which all greenhorns strike; he knew too
well the danger of unnecessary intimacy. A smile for a friend, and a
sneer for the world, is the way to govern mankind, and such was the
motto of Vivian Grey.




CHAPTER IV


How shall we describe Château Desir, that place fit for all princes? In
the midst of a park of great extent, and eminent for scenery, as varied
as might please nature’s most capricious lover; in the midst of green
lawns and deep winding glens, and cooling streams, and wild forest, and
soft woodland, there was gradually formed an elevation, on which was
situate a mansion of great size, and of that bastard, but picturesque
style of architecture, called the Italian Gothic. The date of its
erection was about the middle of the sixteenth century. You entered by a
noble gateway, in which the pointed style still predominated; but in
various parts of which, the Ionic column, and the prominent keystone,
and other creations of Roman architecture, intermingled with the
expiring Gothic, into a large quadrangle, to which the square casement
windows, and the triangular pediments or gable ends supplying the place
of battlements, gave a varied and Italian feature. In the centre of the
court, from a vast marble basin, the rim of which was enriched by a
splendidly sculptured lotus border, rose a marble group representing
Amphitrite with her marine attendants, whose sounding shells and coral
sceptres sent forth their subject element in sparkling showers. This
work, the chef d’oeuvre celebrated artist of Vicenza, had been purchased
by Valerian, first Lord Carabas, who having spent the greater part of
his life as the representative of his monarch at the Ducal Court of
Venice, at length returned to his native country; and in the creation of
Château Desir endeavoured to find some consolation for the loss of his
beautiful villa on the banks of the Adige.

Over the gateway there rose a turreted tower, the small square window of
which, notwithstanding its stout stanchions, illumined the muniment room
of the House of Carabas. In the spandrils of the gateway and in many
other parts of the building might be seen the arms of the family; while
the tall twisted stacks of chimneys, which appeared to spring from all
parts of the roof, were carved and built in such curious and quaint
devices that they were rather an ornament than an excrescence. When you
entered the quadrangle, you found one side solely occupied by the old
hall, the huge carved rafters of whose oak roof rested on corbels of the
family supporters against the walls. These walls were of stone, but
covered half-way from the ground with a panelling of curiously-carved
oak; whence were suspended, in massy frames, the family portraits,
painted by Dutch and Italian artists. Near the dais, or upper part of
the hall, there projected an oriel window, which, as you beheld, you
scarcely knew what most to admire, the radiancy of its painted panes or
the fantastic richness of Gothic ornament, which was profusely lavished
in every part of its masonry. Here too the Gothic pendent and the Gothic
fan-work were intermingled with the Italian arabesques, which, at the
time of the building of the Château, had been recently introduced into
England by Hans Holbein and John of Padua.

How wild and fanciful are those ancient arabesques! Here at Château
Desir, in the panelling of the old hall, might you see fantastic
scrolls, separated by bodies ending in termini, and whose heads
supported the Ionic volute, while the arch, which appeared to spring
from these capitals, had, for a keystone, heads more monstrous than
those of the fabled animals of Ctesias; or so ludicrous, that you forgot
the classic griffin in the grotesque conception of the Italian artist.
Here was a gibbering monkey, there a grinning pulcinello; now you viewed
a chattering devil, which might have figured in the “Temptation of St.
Anthony;” and now a mournful, mystic, bearded countenance, which might
have flitted in the back scene of a “Witches’ Sabbath.”

A long gallery wound through the upper story of two other sides of the
quadrangle, and beneath were the show suite of apartments with a sight
of which the admiring eyes of curious tourists were occasionally
delighted.

The grey stone walls of this antique edifice were, in many places,
thickly covered with ivy and other parasitical plants, the deep green of
whose verdure beautifully contrasted with the scarlet glories of the
pyrus japonica, which gracefully clustered round the windows of the
lower chambers. The mansion itself was immediately surrounded by
numerous ancient forest trees. There was the elm with its rich branches
bending down like clustering grapes; there was the wide-spreading oak
with its roots fantastically gnarled; there was the ash, with its smooth
bark and elegant leaf; and the silver beech, and the gracile birch; and
the dark fir, affording with its rough foliage a contrast to the trunks
of its more beautiful companions, or shooting far above their branches,
with the spirit of freedom worthy of a rough child of the mountains.

Around the Castle were extensive pleasure-grounds, which realised the
romance of the “Gardens of Verulam.” And truly, as you wandered through
their enchanting paths there seemed no end to their various beauties,
and no exhaustion of their perpetual novelty. Green retreats succeeded
to winding walks; from the shady berçeau you vaulted on the noble
terrace; and if, for an instant, you felt wearied by treading the velvet
lawn, you might rest in a mossy cell, while your mind was soothed by the
soft music of falling waters. Now your curious eyes were greeted by
Oriental animals, basking in a sunny paddock; and when you turned from
the white-footed antelope and the dark-eyed gazelle, you viewed an
aviary of such extent, that within its trellised walls the imprisoned,
songsters could build, in the free branches of a tree, their
natural nests.

“O fair scene!” thought Vivian Grey, as he approached, on a fine
summer’s afternoon, the splendid Château, “O fair scene! doubly fair to
those who quit for thee the thronged and agitated city. And can it be,
that those who exist within this enchanted domain, can think of anything
but sweet air, and do aught but revel in the breath of perfumed
flowers?” And here he gained the garden-gate: so he stopped his
soliloquy, and gave his horse to his groom.




CHAPTER V


The Marquess had preceded Vivian in his arrival about three or four
days, and of course, to use the common phrase, the establishment “was
quite settled.” It was, indeed, to avoid the possibility of witnessing
the domestic arrangements of a nobleman in any other point of view save
that of perfection, that Vivian had declined accompanying his noble
friend to the Château. Mr. Grey, junior, was an epicurean, and all
epicureans will quite agree with me, that his conduct on this head was
extremely wise. I am not very nice myself about these matters; but there
are, we all know, a thousand little things that go wrong on the arrivals
of even the best regulated families; and to mention no others, for any
rational being voluntarily to encounter the awful gaping of an English
family, who have travelled one hundred miles in ten successive hours,
appears to me to be little short of madness.

“Grey, my boy, quite happy to see ye! later than I expected; first bell
rings in five minutes. Sadler will show you your room. Your father, I
hope, quite well?”

Such was the salutation of the Marquess; and Vivian accordingly retired
to arrange his toilet.

The first bell rang, and the second bell rang, and Vivian was seated at
the dinner-table. He bowed to the Marchioness, and asked after her
poodle, and gazed with some little curiosity at the vacant chair
opposite him.

“Mrs. Felix Lorraine, Mr. Vivian Grey,” said the Marquess, as a lady
entered the room.

Now, although we are of those historians who are of opinion that the
nature of the personages they celebrate should be developed rather by a
recital of their conduct than by a set character on their introduction,
it is, nevertheless, incumbent upon us to devote a few lines to the lady
who has just entered, which the reader will be so good as to get
through, while she is accepting an offer of some white soup; by this
means he will lose none of the conversation.

The Honourable Felix Lorraine we have before described as a roué. After
having passed through a career with tolerable credit, which would have
blasted the character of any vulgar personage, Felix Lorraine ended by
pigeoning a young nobleman, whom, for that purpose, he had made his
intimate friend. The affair got wind; after due examination, was
proclaimed “too bad,” and the guilty personage was visited with the
heaviest vengeance of modern society; he was expelled his club. By this
unfortunate exposure, Mr. Felix Lorraine was obliged to give in a match,
which was on the tapis, with the celebrated Miss Mexico, on whose
million he had determined to set up a character and a chariot, and at
the same time pension his mistress, and subscribe to the Society for the
Suppression of Vice. Felix left England for the Continent, and in due
time was made drum-major at Barbadoes, or fiscal at Ceylon, or something
of that kind. While he loitered in Europe, he made a conquest of the
heart of the daughter of some German baron, and after six weeks passed
in the most affectionate manner, the happy couple performing their
respective duties with perfect propriety, Felix left Germany for his
colonial appointment, and also left his lady behind him.

Mr. Lorraine had duly and dutifully informed his family of his marriage;
and they, as amiably and affectionately, had never answered his letters,
which he never expected they would. Profiting by their example, he never
answered his wife’s, who, in due time, to the horror of the Marquess,
landed in England, and claimed the protection of her “beloved husband’s
family.” The Marquess vowed he would never see her; the lady, however,
one morning gained admittance, and from that moment she had never
quitted her brother-in-law’s roof, and not only had never quitted it,
but now made the greatest favour of her staying.

The extraordinary influence which Mrs. Felix Lorraine possessed was
certainly not owing to her beauty, for the lady opposite Vivian Grey
had apparently no claims to admiration, on the score of her personal
qualifications. Her complexion was bad, and her features were
indifferent, and these characteristics were not rendered less
uninterestingly conspicuous by, what makes an otherwise ugly woman quite
the reverse, namely, a pair of expressive eyes; for certainly this
epithet could not be applied to those of Mrs. Felix Lorraine, which
gazed in all the vacancy of German listlessness.

The lady did bow to Mr. Grey, and that was all; and then she negligently
spooned her soup, and then, after much parade, sent it away untouched.
Vivian was not under the necessity of paying any immediate courtesy to
his opposite neighbour, whose silence, he perceived, was for the nonce,
and consequently for him. But the day was hot, and Vivian had been
fatigued by his ride, and the Marquess’ champagne was excellent; and so,
at last, the floodgates of his speech burst, and talk he did. He
complimented her Ladyship’s poodle, quoted German to Mrs. Felix
Lorraine, and taught the Marquess to eat cabinet pudding with Curaçoâ
sauce (a custom which, by-the-bye, I recommend to all); and then his
stories, his scandal, and his sentiment; stories for the Marquess,
scandal for the Marchioness, and sentiment for the Marquess’ sister!
That lady, who began to find out her man, had no mind to be longer
silent, and although a perfect mistress of the English language, began
to articulate a horrible patois, that she might not be mistaken for an
Englishwoman, an occurrence which she particularly dreaded. But now came
her punishment, for Vivian saw the effect which he had produced on Mrs.
Felix Lorraine, and that Mrs. Felix Lorraine now wished to produce a
corresponding effect upon him, and this he was determined she should not
do; so new stories followed, and new compliments ensued, and finally he
anticipated her sentences, and sometimes her thoughts. The lady sat
silent and admiring! At last the important meal was finished, and the
time came when good dull English dames retire; but of this habit Mrs.
Felix Lorraine did not approve, and although she had not yet prevailed
upon Lady Carabas to adopt her ideas on field-days, still, when alone,
the good-natured Marchioness had given in, and to save herself from
hearing the din of male voices at a time at which during her whole life
she had been unaccustomed to them, the Marchioness of Carabas dozed. Her
worthy spouse, who was prevented, by the presence of Mrs. Felix
Lorraine, from talking politics with Vivian, passed the bottle pretty
briskly, and then, conjecturing that “from the sunset we should have a
fine day to-morrow,” fell back in his easy-chair, and snored.

Mrs. Felix Lorraine looked at her noble relatives, and shrugged up her
shoulders with an air which baffleth all description. “Mr. Grey, I
congratulate you on this hospitable reception; you see we treat you
quite en famille. Come! ‘tis a fine evening; you have seen as yet but
little of Château Desir: we may as well enjoy the fine air on
the terrace.”




CHAPTER VI


“You must know, Mr. Grey, that this is my favourite walk, and I
therefore expect that it will be yours.”

“It cannot indeed fail to be such, the favourite as it alike is of
nature and Mrs. Felix Lorraine.”

“On my word, a very pretty sentence! And who taught you, young sir, to
bandy words so fairly?”

“I never can open my mouth, except in the presence of a woman,” observed
Vivian, with impudent mendacity; and he looked interesting and innocent.

“Indeed! And what do you know about such wicked work as talking to
women?” and here Mrs. Felix Lorraine imitated Vivian’s sentimental
voice. “Do you know,” she continued, “I feel quite happy that you have
come down here; I begin to think that we shall be great friends.”

“Nothing appears to me more evident,” said Vivian.

“How delicious is friendship!” exclaimed Mrs. Felix Lorraine;
“delightful sentiment, that prevents life from being a curse! Have you a
friend, Mr. Vivian Grey?”

“Before I answer that question, I should like to know what meaning Mrs.
Felix Lorraine attaches to that important monosyllable, friend.”

“Oh, you want a definition. I hate definitions; and of all the
definitions in the world, the one I have been most unfortunate in has
been a definition of friendship; I might say” (and here her voice sunk),
“I might say of all the sentiments in the world, friendship is the one
which has been must fatal to me; but I must not inoculate you with my
bad spirits, bad spirits are not for young blood like yours, leave them
to old persons like myself.”

“Old!” said Vivian, in a proper tone of surprise.

“Old! ay old; how old do you think I am?”

“You may have seen twenty summers,” gallantly conjectured Vivian.

The lady looked pleased, and almost insinuated that she had seen one or
two more.

“A clever woman,” thought Vivian, “but vain; I hardly know what to think
of her.”

“Mr. Grey, I fear you find me in bad spirits to-day; but alas! I--I have
cause. Although we see each other to-day for the first time, yet there
is something in your manner, something in the expression of your eyes,
that make me believe my happiness is not altogether a matter of
indifference to you.” These words, uttered in one of the sweetest voices
by which ever human being was fascinated, were slowly and deliberately
spoken, as if it were intended that they should rest on the ear of the
object to whom they were addressed.

“My dearest madam! it is impossible that I can have but one sentiment
with regard to you, that of--”

“Of what, Mr. Grey?”

“Of solicitude for your welfare.”

The lady gently took the arm of the young man, and then with an agitated
voice, and a troubled spirit, dwelt upon the unhappiness of her lot, and
the cruelty of her fortunes. Her husband’s indifference was the
sorrowful theme of her lamentations; and she ended by asking Mr. Vivian
Grey’s advice, as to the line of conduct which she should pursue with
regard to him; first duly informing Vivian that this was the only time
and he the only person to whom this subject had been ever mentioned.

“And why should I mention it here, and to whom? The Marquess is the best
of men, but--” and here she looked up in Vivian’s face, and spoke
volumes; “and the Marchioness is the most amiable of women: at least, I
suppose her lap-dog thinks so.”

The advice of Vivian was concise. He sent the husband to the devil in
two seconds, and insisted upon the wife’s not thinking of him for
another moment; and then the lady dried her eyes, and promised to do
her best.

“And now,” said Mrs. Felix Lorraine, “I must talk about your own
affairs. I think your plan excellent.”

“Plan, madam!”

“Yes, plan, sir! the Marquess has told me all. I have no head for
politics, Mr. Grey; but if I cannot assist you in managing the nation, I
perhaps may in managing the family, and my services are at your command.
Believe me, you will have enough to do: there, I pledge you my troth. Do
you think it a pretty hand?”

Vivian did think it a very pretty hand, and he performed due courtesies
in a becoming style.

“And now, good even to you,” said the lady; “this little gate leads to
my apartments. You will have no difficulty in finding your way back.” So
saying, she disappeared.




CHAPTER VII


The first week at Château Desir passed pleasantly enough. Vivian’s
morning was amply occupied in maturing with the Marquess the grand
principles of the new political system: in weighing interests, in
balancing connections, and settling “what side was to be taken on the
great questions?” O politics, thou splendid juggle! The whole business,
although so magnificent in its result, appeared very easy to the two
counsellors, for it was one of the first principles of Mr. Vivian Grey,
that everything was possible. Men did fail in life to be sure, and after
all, very little was done by the generality; but still all these
failures, and all this inefficiency, might be traced to a want of
physical and mental courage. Some men were bold in their conceptions,
and splendid heads at a grand system, but then, when the day of battle
came, they turned out very cowards; while others, who had nerve enough
to stand the brunt of the hottest fire, were utterly ignorant of
military tactics, and fell before the destroyer, like the brave
untutored Indians before the civilised European. Now Vivian Grey was
conscious that there was at least one person in the world who was no
craven either in body or in mind, and so he had long come to the
comfortable conclusion, that it was impossible that his career could be
anything but the most brilliant. And truly, employed as he now was, with
a peer of the realm, in a solemn consultation on that realm’s most
important interests, at a time when creatures of his age were moping in
Halls and Colleges, is it to be wondered at that he began to imagine
that his theory was borne out by experience and by fact? Not that it
must be supposed, even for a moment, that Vivian Grey was what the world
calls conceited. Oh no! he knew the measure of his own mind, and had
fathomed the depth of his powers with equal skill and impartiality; but
in the process he could not but feel that he could conceive much, and
dare do more.

We said the first week at Château Desir passed pleasantly enough; and so
it did, for Vivian’s soul revelled in the morning councils on his future
fortunes, with as much eager joy as a young courser tries the turf,
preliminary to running for the plate. And then, in the evening, were
moonlit walks with Mrs. Felix Lorraine! And then the lady abused England
so prettily, and initiated her companion, in all the secrets of German
Courts, and sang beautiful French songs, and told the legends of her
native land in such an interesting, semi-serious tone, that Vivian
almost imagined, that she believed them; and then she would take him
beside the luminous lake in the park, and now it looked just like the
dark blue Rhine! and then she remembered Germany, and grew sad, and
abused her husband; and then she taught Vivian the guitar, and some
other fooleries besides.




CHAPTER VIII


The second week of Vivian’s visit had come round, and the flag waved
proudly on the proud tower of Château Desir, indicating to the admiring
county, that the most noble Sidney, Marquess of Carabas, held public
days twice a week at his grand castle. And now came the neighbouring
peer, full of grace and gravity, and the mellow baronet, with his hearty
laugh, and the jolly country squire, and the middling gentry, and the
jobbing country attorney, and the flourishing country surveyor; some
honouring by their presence, some who felt the obligation equal, and
others bending before the noble host, as if paying him adoration was
almost an equal pleasure with that of guzzling his venison pasties and
quaffing his bright wines.

Independently of all these periodical visitors, the house was full of
permanent ones. There were the Viscount and Viscountess Courtown and
their three daughters, and Lord and Lady Beaconsfield and their three
sons, and Sir Berdmore and Lady Scrope, and Colonel Delmington of the
Guards, and Lady Louisa Manvers and her daughter Julia. Lady Louisa was
the only sister of the Marquess, a widow, proud and penniless.

To all these distinguished personages Vivian was introduced by the
Marquess as “a monstrous clever young man, and his Lordship’s most
particular friend,” and then the noble Carabas left the game in his
young friend’s hands.

And right well Vivian did his duty. In a week’s time it would have been
hard to decide with whom of the family of the Courtowns Vivian was the
greatest favourite. He rode with the Viscount, who was a good horseman,
and was driven by his Lady, who was a good whip; and when he had
sufficiently admired the tout ensemble of her Ladyship’s pony phaeton,
he entrusted her, “in confidence,” with some ideas of his own about
martingales, a subject which he assured her Ladyship “had been the
object of his mature consideration.” The three honourable Misses were
the most difficult part of the business; but he talked sentiment with
the first, sketched with the second, and romped with the third.

Ere the Beaconsfields could be jealous of the influence of the
Courtowns, Mr. Vivian Grey had promised his Lordship, who was a
collector of medals, an unique which had never yet been heard of; and
her Ladyship, who was a collector of autographs, the private letters of
every man of genius that ever had been heard of. In this division of the
Carabas guests he was not bored with a family; for sons he always made
it a rule to cut dead; they are the members of a family who, on an
average, are generally very uninfluential, for, on an average, they are
fools enough to think it very knowing to be very disagreeable. So the
wise man but little loves them, but woe to the fool who neglects the
daughters!

Sir Berdmore Scrope Vivian found a more unmanageable personage; for the
baronet was confoundedly shrewd, and without a particle of sentiment in
his composition. It was a great thing, however, to gain him; for Sir
Berdmore was a leading country gentleman, and having quarrelled with
Ministers about the corn laws, had been counted disaffected ever since.
The baronet, however, although a bold man to the world, was luckily
henpecked; so Vivian made love to the wife and secured the husband.




CHAPTER IX


I think that Julia Manvers was really the most beautiful creature that
ever smiled in this fair world. Such a symmetrically formed shape, such
perfect features, such a radiant complexion, such luxuriant auburn hair,
and such blue eyes, lit up by a smile of such mind and meaning, have
seldom blessed the gaze of admiring man! Vivian Grey, fresh as he was,
was not exactly the creature to lose his heart very speedily. He looked
upon marriage as a comedy in which, sooner or later, he was, as a
well-paid actor, to play his part; and could it have advanced his views
one jot he would have married the Princess Caraboo to-morrow. But of all
wives in the world, a young and handsome one was that which he most
dreaded; and how a statesman who was wedded to a beautiful woman could
possibly perform his duties to the public, did most exceedingly puzzle
him. Notwithstanding these sentiments, however, Vivian began to think
that there really could be no harm in talking to so beautiful a creature
as Julia, and a little conversation with her would, he felt, be no
unpleasing relief to the difficult duties in which he was involved.

To the astonishment of the Honourable Buckhurst Stanhope, eldest son of
Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Vivian Grey, who had never yet condescended to
acknowledge his existence, asked him one morning, with the most
fascinating of smiles and with the most conciliating voice, “whether
they should ride together.” The young heir-apparent looked stiff and
assented. He arrived again at Château Desir in a couple of hours,
desperately enamoured of the eldest Miss Courtown. The sacrifice of two
mornings to the Honourable Dormer Stanhope and the Honourable Gregory
Stanhope sent them home equally captivated by the remaining sisters.
Having thus, like a man of honour, provided for the amusement of his
former friends, the three Miss Courtowns, Vivian left Mrs. Felix
Lorraine to the Colonel, whose moustache, by-the-bye, that lady
considerably patronised; and then, having excited an universal feeling
of gallantry among the elders, Vivian found his whole day at the service
of Julia Manvers.

“Miss Manvers, I think that you and I are the only faithful subjects in
this Castle of Indolence. Here am I lounging on an ottoman, my ambition
reaching only so far as the possession of a chibouque, whose aromatic
and circling wreaths, I candidly confess, I dare not here excite; and
you, of course, much too knowing to be doing anything on the first of
August save dreaming of races, archery feats, and county balls: the
three most delightful things which the country can boast, either for
man, woman, or child.”

“Of course, you except sporting for yourself, shooting especially, I
suppose.”

“Shooting, oh! ah! there is such a thing. No, I am no shot; not that I
have not in my time cultivated a Manton; but the truth is, having, at an
early age, mistaken my intimate friend for a cock pheasant, I sent a
whole crowd of fours into his face, and thereby spoilt one of the
prettiest countenances in Christendom; so I gave up the field. Besides,
as Tom Moore says, I have so much to do in the country, that, for my
part, I really have no time for killing birds and jumping over ditches:
good work enough for country squires, who must, like all others, have
their hours of excitement. Mine are of a different nature, and boast a
different locality; and so when I come into the country, ‘tis for
pleasant air, and beautiful trees, and winding streams; things which, of
course, those who live among them all the year round do not suspect to
be lovely and adorable creations. Don’t you agree with Tom Moore,
Miss Manvers?”

“Oh, of course! but I think it is very improper, that habit, which every
one has, of calling a man of such eminence as the author of ‘Lalla
Rookh’ _Tom_ Moore.”

“I wish he could but hear you! But, suppose I were to quote Mr. Moore,
or Mr. Thomas Moore, would you have the most distant conception whom I
meant? Certainly not. By-the-bye, did you ever hear the pretty name they
gave him at Paris?”

“No, what was it?”

“One day Moore and Rogers went to call on Denon. Rogers gave their names
to the Swiss, Monsieur Rogers et Monsieur Moore. The Swiss dashed open
the library door, and, to the great surprise of the illustrious
antiquary, announced, Monsieur l’Amour! While Denon was doubting whether
the God of Love was really paying him a visit or not, Rogers entered. I
should like to have seen Denon’s face!”

“And Monsieur Denon did take a portrait of Mr. Rogers as Cupid, I
believe?”

“Come, madam, ‘no scandal about Queen Elizabeth.’ Mr. Rogers is one of
the most elegant-minded men in the country.”

“Nay! do not lecture me with such a laughing face, or else your moral
will be utterly thrown away.”

“Ah! you have Retsch’s ‘Faust’ there. I did not expect on a drawing-room
table at Château Desir to see anything so old, and so excellent, I
thought the third edition of Tremaine would be a very fair specimen of
your ancient literature, and Major Denham’s hair-breadth escapes of your
modern. There was an excellent story about, on the return of Denham and
Clapperton. The travellers took different routes, in order to arrive at
the same point of destination. In his wanderings the Major came unto an
unheard-of Lake, which, with the spirit which they of the Guards surely
approved, he christened ‘Lake Waterloo.’ Clapperton arrived a few days
after him; and the pool was immediately re-baptized ‘Lake Trafalgar.’
There was a hot quarrel in consequence. Now, if I had been there, I
would have arranged matters, by proposing as a title, to meet the views
of all parties, ‘The United Service Lake.’”

“That would have been happy.”

“How beautiful Margaret is,” said Vivian, rising from his ottoman, and
seating himself on the sofa by the lady. “I always think that this is
the only Personification where Art has not rendered Innocence insipid.”

“Do you think so?”

“Why, take Una in the Wilderness, or Goody Two Shoes. These, I believe,
were the most innocent persons that ever existed, and I am sure you will
agree with me, they always look the most insipid. Nay, perhaps I was
wrong in what I said; perhaps it is Insipidity that always looks
innocent, not Innocence always insipid.”

“How can you refine so, when the thermometer is at 100°! Pray, tell me
some more stories.”

“I cannot, I am in a refining humour: I could almost lecture to-day at
the Royal Institution. You would not call these exactly Prosopopeias of
Innocence?” said Vivian, turning over a bundle of Stewart Newton’s
beauties, languishing, and lithographed. “Newton, I suppose, like Lady
Wortley Montague, is of opinion, that the face is not the most beautiful
part of woman; at least, if I am to judge from these elaborate ankles.
Now, the countenance of this Donna, forsooth, has a drowsy placidity
worthy of the easy-chair she is lolling in, and yet her ankle would not
disgrace the contorted frame of the most pious faquir.”

“Well! I am an admirer of Newton’s paintings.”

“Oh! so am I. He is certainly a cleverish fellow, but rather too much
among the blues; a set, of whom, I would venture to say, Miss Manvers
knoweth little about.”

“Oh, not the least! Mamma does not visit that way. What are they?”

“Oh, very powerful people! though ‘Mamma does not visit that way.’ Their
words are Ukases as far as Curzon Street, and very Decretals in the
general vicinity of May Fair; but you shall have a further description
another time. How those rooks bore! I hate staying with ancient
families; you are always cawed to death. If ever you write a novel, Miss
Manvers, mind you have a rookery in it. Since Tremaine, and Washington
Irving, nothing will go down without.”

“By-the-bye, who is the author of Tremaine?”

“It is either Mr. Ryder, or Mr. Spencer Percival, or Mr. Dyson, or Miss
Dyson, or Mr. Bowles, or the Duke of Buckingham, or Mr. Ward, or a young
officer in the Guards, or an old Clergyman in the North of England, or a
middle-aged Barrister on the Midland Circuit.”

“Mr. Grey, I wish you could get me an autograph of Mr. Washington
Irving; I want it for a particular friend.”

“Give me a pen and ink; I will write you one immediately.”

“Ridiculous!”

“There! now you have made me blot Faustus.”

At this moment the room-door suddenly opened, and as suddenly shut.

“Who was that?”

“Mephistopheles, or Mrs. Felix Lorraine; one or the other, perhaps
both.”

“What!”

“What do you think of Mrs. Felix Lorraine, Miss Manvers?”

“Oh! I think her a very amusing woman, a very clever woman a
very--but--”

“But what?”

“But I cannot exactly make her out.”

“Nor I; she is a dark riddle; and, although I am a very Oedipus, I
confess I have not yet unravelled it. Come, there is Washington Irving’s
autograph for you; read it; is it not quite in character? Shall I write
any more? One of Sir Walter’s, or Mr. Southey’s, or Mr. Milman’s or Mr.
Disraeli’s? or shall I sprawl a Byron?”

“I really cannot sanction such unprincipled conduct. You may make me one
of Sir Walter’s, however.”

“Poor Washington!” said Vivian, writing. “I knew him well. He always
slept at dinner. One day, as he was dining at Mr. Hallam’s, they took
him, when asleep, to Lady Jersey’s: and, to see the Sieur Geoffrey, they
say, when he opened his eyes in the illumined saloons, was really quite
admirable! quite an Arabian tale!”

“How delightful! I should have so liked to have seen him! He seems quite
forgotten now in England. How came we to talk of him?”

“Forgotten! Oh! he spoilt his elegant talents in writing German and
Italian twaddle with all the rawness of a Yankee. He ought never to have
left America, at least in literature; there was an uncontested and
glorious field for him. He should have been managing director of the
Hudson Bay Company, and lived all his life among the beavers.”

“I think there is nothing more pleasant than talking over the season, in
the country, in August.”

“Nothing more agreeable. It was dull though, last season, very dull; I
think the game cannot be kept going another year. If it were not for the
General Election, we really must have a war for variety’s sake. Peace
gets quite a bore. Everybody you dine with has a good cook, and gives
you a dozen different wines, all perfect. We cannot bear this any
longer; all the lights and shadows of life are lost. The only good thing
I heard this year was an ancient gentlewoman going up to Gunter and
asking him for ‘the receipt for that white stuff,’ pointing to his Roman
punch. I, who am a great man for receipts, gave it her immediately: ‘One
hod of mortar to one bottle of Noyau.’”

“And did she thank you?”

“Thank me! ay, truly; and pushed a card into my hand, so thick and sharp
that it cut through my glove. I wore my arm in a sling for a month
afterwards.”

“And what was the card?”

“Oh, you need not look so arch. The old lady was not even a faithless
duenna. It was an invitation to an assembly, or something of the kind,
at a place, somewhere, as Theodore Hook or Mr. Croker would say,
‘between Mesopotamia and Russell Square.’”

“Pray, Mr. Grey, is it true that all the houses in Russell Square are
tenantless?”

“Quite true; the Marquess of Tavistock has given up the county in
consequence. A perfect shame, is it not? Let us write it up.”

“An admirable plan! but we will take the houses first, at a pepper-corn
rent.”

“What a pity, Miss Manvers, the fashion has gone out of selling oneself
to the devil.”

“Good gracious, Mr. Grey!”

“On my honour, I am quite serious. It does appear to me to be a very
great pity. What a capital plan for younger brothers! It is a kind of
thing I have been trying to do all my life, and never could succeed. I
began at school with toasted cheese and a pitchfork; and since then I
have invoked, with all the eloquence of Goethe, the evil one in the
solitude of the Hartz, but without success. I think I should make an
excellent bargain with him: of course I do not mean that ugly vulgar
savage with a fiery tail. Oh, no! Satan himself for me, a perfect
gentleman! Or Belial: Belial would be the most delightful. He is the
fine genius of the Inferno, I imagine, the Beranger of Pandemonium.”

“I really cannot listen to such nonsense one moment longer. What would
you have if Belial were here?”

“Let us see. Now, you shall act the spirit, and I, Vivian Grey. I wish
we had a short-hand writer here to take down the Incantation Scene. We
would send it to Arnold. Commençons: Spirit! I will have a fair castle.”

The lady bowed.

“I will have a palace in town.”

The lady bowed.

“I will have a fair wife. Why, Miss Manvers, you forget to bow!”

“I really beg your pardon!”

“Come, this is a novel way of making an offer, and, I hope, a successful
one.”

“Julia, my dear,” cried a voice in the veranda, “Julia, my dear, I want
you to walk with me.”

“Say you are engaged with the Marchioness,” whispered Vivian, with a low
but distinct--voice; his eyes fixed on the table, and his lips not
appearing to move.

“Mamma, I am--”

“I want you immediately and particularly, Julia,” cried Lady Louisa, in
an earnest voice.

“I am coming, I am coming. You see I must go.”




CHAPTER X


“Confusion on that old hag! Her eye looked evil on me, at the very
moment! Although a pretty wife is really the destruction of a young
man’s prospects, still, in the present case, the niece of my friend, my
patron, high family, perfectly unexceptionable, &c. &c. &c. Such blue
eyes! upon my honour, this must be an exception to the general rule,”
 Here a light step attracted his attention, and, on turning round, he
found Mrs. Felix Lorraine at his elbow.

“Oh! you are here, Mr. Grey, acting the solitaire in the park! I want
your opinion about a passage in ‘Herman and Dorothea.’”

“My opinion is always at your service; but if the passage is not
perfectly clear to Mrs. Felix Lorraine, it will be perfectly obscure, I
am convinced, to me.”

“Ah! yes, of course. Oh, dear! after all my trouble, I have forgotten my
book. How mortifying! Well, I will show it to you after dinner: adieu!
and, by-the-bye, Mr. Grey, as I am here, I may as well advise you not to
spoil all the Marquess’s timber, by carving a certain person’s name on
his park trees. I think your plans in that quarter are admirable. I have
been walking with Lady Louisa the whole morning, and you cannot think
how I puffed you! Courage, Cavalier, and we shall soon be connected, not
only in friendship, but in blood.”

The next morning, at breakfast, Vivian was surprised to find that the
Manvers party was suddenly about to leave the Castle. All were
disconsolate at their departure: for there was to be a grand
entertainment at Château Desir that very day, but particularly Mrs.
Felix Lorraine and Mr. Vivian Grey. The sudden departure was accounted
for by the arrival of “unexpected,” &c. &c. &c. There was no hope; the
green post-chariot was at the door, a feeble promise of a speedy return;
Julia’s eyes were filled with tears. Vivian was springing forward to
press her hand, and bear her to the carriage, when Mrs. Felix Lorraine
seized his arm, vowed she was going to faint, and, ere she could recover
herself, or loosen her grasp, the Manvers were gone.




CHAPTER XI


The gloom which the parting had diffused over all countenances was quite
dispelled when the Marquess entered.

“Lady Carabas,” said he, “you must prepare for many visitors to-day.
There are the Amershams, and Lord Alhambra, and Ernest Clay, and twenty
other young heroes, who, duly informed that the Miss Courtowns were
honouring us with their presence, are pouring in from all quarters; is
it not so, Juliana?” gallantly asked the Marquess of Miss Courtown: “but
who do you think is coming besides?”

“Who, who?” exclaimed all.

“Nay, you shall guess,” said the Peer.

“The Duke of Waterloo?” guessed Cynthia Courtown, the romp.

“Prince Hungary?” asked her sister Laura.

“Is it a gentleman?” asked Mrs. Felix Lorraine.

“No, no, you are all wrong, and all very stupid. It is Mrs. Million.”

“Oh, how delightful!” said Cynthia.

“Oh, how annoying!” said the Marchioness.

“You need not look so agitated, my love,” said the Marquess; “I have
written to Mrs. Million to say that we shall be most happy to see her;
but as the castle is very full, she must not come with five
carriages-and-four, as she did last year.”

“And will Mrs. Million dine with us in the Hall, Marquess?” asked
Cynthia Courtown.

“Mrs. Million will do what she likes; I only know that I shall dine in
the Hall, whatever happens, and whoever comes; and so, I suppose, will
Miss Cynthia Courtown?”

Vivian rode out alone, immediately after breakfast, to cure his
melancholy by a gallop.

Returning home, he intended to look in at a pretty farm-house, where
lived one John Conyers, a great friend of Vivian’s. This man had, about
a fortnight ago, been of essential service to our hero, when a vicious
horse, which he was endeavouring to cure of some ugly tricks, had nearly
terminated his mortal career.

“Why are you crying so, my boy?” asked Vivian of a little Conyers, who
was sobbing bitterly at the floor. He was answered only with
desperate sobs.

“Oh, ‘tis your honour,” said a decent-looking woman, who came out of the
house; “I thought they had come back again.”

“Come back again! why, what is the matter, dame?”

“Oh! your honour, we’re in sad distress; there’s been a seizure this
morning, and I’m mortal fear’d the good man’s beside himself.”

“Good heavens! why did not you come to the Castle?”

“Oh! your honour, we a’nt his Lordship’s tenants no longer; there’s been
a change for Purley Mill, and now we’re Lord Mounteney’s people. John
Conyers has been behind-hand since he had the fever, but Mr. Sedgwick
always gave time: Lord Mounteney’s gem’man says the system’s bad, and so
he’ll put an end to it; and so all’s gone, your honour; all’s gone, and
I’m mortal fear’d the good man’s beside himself.”

“And who is Lord Mounteney’s man of business?”

“Mr. Stapylton Toad,” sobbed the good dame.

“Here, boy, leave off crying, and hold my horse; keep your hold tight,
but give him rein, he’ll be quiet enough then. I will see honest
John, dame.”

“I’m sure your honour’s very kind, but I’m mortal fear’d the good man’s
beside himself, and he’s apt to do very violent things when the fits on
him. He hasn’t been so bad since young Barton behaved so wickedly to
his sister.”

“Never mind! there is nothing like a friend’s face in the hour of
sorrow.”

“I wouldn’t advise your honour,” said the good dame. “It’s an awful hour
when the fit’s on him; he knows not friend or foe, and scarcely knows
me, your honour.”

“Never mind, I’ll see him.”

Vivian entered the house; but who shall describe the scene of
desolation! The room was entirely stripped; there was nothing left, save
the bare whitewashed walls, and the red tiled flooring. The room was
darkened; and seated on an old block of wood, which had been pulled out
of the orchard, since the bailiff had left, was John Conyers. The fire
was out, but his feet were still among the ashes. His head was buried in
his hands, and bowed down nearly to his knees. The eldest girl, a fine
sensible child of about thirteen, was sitting with two brothers on the
floor in a corner of the room, motionless, their faces grave, and still
as death, but tearless. Three young children, of an age too tender to
know grief, were acting unmeaning gambols near the door.

“Oh! pray beware, your honour,” earnestly whispered the poor dame, as
she entered the cottage with the visitor.

Vivian walked up with a silent step to the end of the room, where
Conyers was sitting. He remembered this little room, when he thought it
the very model of the abode of an English husbandman. The neat row of
plates, and the well-scoured utensils, and the fine old Dutch clock, and
the ancient and amusing ballad, purchased at some neighbouring fair, or
of some itinerant bibliopole, and pinned against the wall, all gone!

“Conyers!” exclaimed Vivian.

There was no answer, nor did the miserable man appear in the slightest
degree to be sensible of Vivian’s presence.

“My good John!”

The man raised his head from his resting-place, and turned to the spot
whence the voice proceeded. There was such an unnatural fire in his
eyes, that Vivian’s spirit almost quailed. His alarm was not decreased,
when he perceived that the master of the cottage did not recognize him.
The fearful stare was, however, short, and again the sufferer’s face
was hid.

The wife was advancing, but Vivian waved his hand to her to withdraw,
and she accordingly fell into the background; but her fixed eye did not
leave her husband for a second.

“John Conyers, it is your friend, Mr. Vivian Grey, who is here,” said
Vivian.

“Grey!” moaned the husbandman; “Grey! who is he?”

“Your friend, John Conyers. Do you quite forget me?” said Vivian
advancing, and with a tone which Vivian Grey could alone assume.

“I think I have seen you, and you were kind,” and the face was again
hid.

“And always will be kind, John. I have come to comfort you. I thought
that a friend’s voice would do you good. Come, cheer up, my man!” and
Vivian dared to touch him. His hand was not repulsed. “Do you remember
what good service you did me when I rode white-footed Moll? Why, I was
much worse off then than you are now: and yet, you see, a friend came
and saved me. You must not give way so, my good fellow. After all, a
little management will set everything right,” and he took the
husbandman’s sturdy hand.

“I do remember you,” he faintly cried. “You were always very kind.”

“And always will be, John; always to friends like you. Come, come, cheer
up and look about you, and let the sunbeam enter your cottage:” and
Vivian beckoned to the wife to open the closed shutter.

Conyers stared around him, but his eye rested only on bare walls, and
the big tear coursed down his hardy cheek.

“Nay, never mind, man,” said Vivian, “we will soon have chairs and
tables again. And as for the rent, think no more about that at present.”

The husbandman looked up, and then burst into weeping. Vivian could
scarcely hold down his convulsed frame on the rugged seat; but the wife
advanced from the back of the room, and her husband’s head rested
against her bosom. Vivian held his honest hand, and the eldest girl rose
unbidden from her silent sorrow, and clung to her father’s knee.

“The fit is over,” whispered the wife. “There, there, there’s a man, all
is now well;” and Vivian left him resting on his wife’s bosom.

“Here, you curly-headed rascal, scamper down to the village immediately,
and bring up a basket of something to eat; and tell Morgan Price that
Mr. Grey says he is to send up a couple of beds, and some chairs here
immediately, and some plates and dishes, and everything else, and don’t
forget some ale;” so saying, Vivian flung the urchin a sovereign.

“And now, dame, for Heaven’s sake, light the fire. As for the rent,
John, do not waste this trifle on that,” whispered Vivian, slipping his
purse into his hand, “for I will see Stapylton Toad, and get time. Why,
woman, you’ll never strike a light, if your tears drop so fast into the
tinder-box. Here, give it me. You are not fit to work to-day. And how is
the trout in Ravely Mead, John, this hot weather? You know you never
kept your promise with me. Oh! you are a sad fellow! There! there’s a
spark! I wonder why old Toad did not take the tinder-box. It is a very
valuable piece of property, at least to us. Run and get me some wood,
that’s a good boy. And so white-footed Moll is past all recovery? Well,
she was a pretty creature! There, that will do famously,” said Vivian,
fanning the flame with his hat. “See, it mounts well! And now, God bless
you all! for I am an hour too late, and must scamper for my very life.”




CHAPTER XII


Mrs. Million arrived, and kept her promise; only three
carriages-and-four! Out of the first descended the mighty lady herself,
with some noble friends, who formed the most distinguished part of her
suite: out of the second came her physician, Dr. Sly; her toad-eater,
Miss Gusset; her secretary, and her page. The third carriage bore her
groom of the chambers, and three female attendants. There were only two
men servants to each equipage; nothing could be more moderate, or, as
Miss Gusser said, “in better taste.”

Mrs. Million, after having granted the Marquess a private interview in
her private apartments, signified her imperial intention of dining in
public, which, as she had arrived late, she trusted she might do in her
travelling dress. The Marquess kotooed like a first-rate mandarin, and
vowed “that her will was his conduct.”

The whole suite of apartments were thrown open, and were crowded with
guests. Mrs. Million entered; she was leaning on the Marquess’ arm, and
in a travelling dress, namely, a crimson silk pelisse, hat and feathers,
with diamond ear-rings, and a rope of gold round her neck. A train of
about twelve persons, consisting of her noble fellow-travellers,
toad-eaters, physicians, secretaries, &c. &c. &c. followed. The entree
of Her Majesty could not have created a greater sensation than did that
of Mrs. Million. All fell back. Gartered peers, and starred ambassadors,
and baronets with blood older than the creation, and squires, to the
antiquity of whose veins chaos was a novelty; all retreated, with eyes
that scarcely dared to leave the ground; even Sir Plantagenet Pure,
whose family had refused a peerage regularly every century, now, for the
first time in his life, seemed cowed, and in an awkward retreat to make
way for the approaching presence, got entangled with the Mameluke boots
of my Lord Alhambra.

At last a sofa was gained, and the great lady was seated, and the
sensation having somewhat subsided, conversation was resumed; and the
mighty Mrs. Million was not slightly abused, particularly by those who
had bowed lowest at her entree; and now the Marquess of Carabas, as was
wittily observed by Mr. Septimus Sessions, a pert young barrister, “went
the circuit,” that is to say, made the grand tour of the suite of
apartments, making remarks to every one of his guests, and keeping up
his influence in the county.

“Ah, my Lord Alhambra! this is too kind; and how is your excellent
father, and my good friend? Sir Plantagenet, yours most sincerely! we
shall have no difficulty about that right of common. Mr. Leverton, I
hope you find the new plough work well; your son, sir, will do the
county honour. Sir Godfrey, I saw Barton upon that point, as I promised.
Lady Julia, I am rejoiced to see ye at Château Desir, more blooming than
ever! Good Mr. Stapylton Toad, so that little change was effected: My
Lord Devildrain, this is a pleasure indeed!”

“Why, Ernest Clay,” said Mr. Buckhurst Stanhope, “I thought Alhambra
wore a turban; I am quite disappointed.”

“Not in the country. Stanhope; here he only sits cross-legged on an
ottoman, and carves his venison with an ataghan.”

“Well, I am glad he does not wear a turban; that would be bad taste, I
think,” said Fool Stanhope. “Have you read his poem?”

“A little. He sent me a copy, and as I am in the habit of lighting my
pipe or so occasionally with a leaf, why I cannot help occasionally
seeing a line: it seems quite first-rate.”

“Indeed!” said Fool Stanhope; “I must get it.”

“My dear Puff! I am quite glad to find you here,” said Mr. Cayenne, a
celebrated reviewer, to Mr. Partenopex Puff, a small author and smaller
wit. “Have you seen Middle Ages lately?”

“Not very lately,” drawled Mr. Partenopex, “I breakfasted with him
before I left town, and met a Professor Bopp there, a very interesting
man, and Principal of the celebrated University of Heligoland, the model
of the London.”

“Ah, indeed! talking of the London, is Foaming Fudge to come in for
Cloudland?”

“Doubtless! Oh! he is a prodigious fellow! What do you think Booby
says? He says that Foaming Fudge can do more than any man in Great
Britain; that he had one day to plead in the King’s Bench, spout at a
tavern, speak in the House, and fight a duel; and that he found time for
everything but the last.”

“Excellent!” laughed Mr. Cayenne.

Mr. Partenopex Puff was reputed, in a certain set, a sayer of good
things, but he was a modest wit, and generally fathered his bon mots on
his valet Booby, his monkey, or his parrot.

“I saw you in the last number,” said Cayenne. “From the quotations from
your own works, I imagine the review of your own book was by yourself?”

“What do you think Booby said?”

“Mr. Puff, allow me to introduce you to Lord Alhambra,” said Ernest
Clay, by which means Mr. Puff’s servant’s last good thing was lost.

“Mr. Clay, are you an archer?” asked Cynthia Courtown.

“No, fair Dian; but I can act Endymion.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Go away.”

“Aubrey Vere, welcome to ----shire. Have you seen Prima Donna?”

“No; is he here? How did you like his last song in the Age?”

“His last song! Pooh! pooh! he only supplies the scandal.”

“Groves,” said Sir Hanway Etherington, “have you seen the newspaper this
morning? Baron Crupper has tried fifteen men for horse-stealing at York,
and acquitted every one.”

“Well then, Sir Hanway, I think his Lordship’s remarkable wrong; for
when a man gets a horse to suit him, if he loses it, ‘tisn’t so easy to
suit himself again. That’s the ground I stand upon.”

All this time the Marquess of Carabas had wanted Vivian Grey twenty
times, but that gentleman had not appeared. The important moment
arrived, and his Lordship offered his arm to Mrs. Million, who, as the
Gotha Almanack says, “takes precedence of all Archduchesses, Grand
Duchesses, Duchesses, Princesses, Landgravines, Margravines,
Palsgravines, &c. &c. &c.”




CHAPTER XIII


In their passage to the Hall, the Marquess and Mrs. Million met Vivian
Grey, booted and spurred, and covered with mud.

“Oh! Mrs. Million--Mr. Vivian Grey. How is this, my dear fellow? you
will be too late.”

“Immense honour!” said Vivian, bowing to the ground to the lady. “Oh! my
Lord I was late, and made a short cut over Fearnley Bog. It has proved a
very Moscow expedition. However, I am keeping you. I shall be in time
for the guava and liqueurs, and you know that is the only refreshment I
ever take.”

“Who is that, Marquess?” asked Mrs. Million.

“That is Mr. Vivian Grey, the most monstrous clever young man, and
nicest fellow I know.”

“He does, indeed, seem, a very nice young man,” said Mrs. Million.

Some steam process should be invented for arranging guests when they are
above five hundred. In the present instance all went wrong when they
entered the Hall; but, at last, the arrangements, which, of course, were
of the simplest nature, were comprehended, and the guests were seated.
There were three tables, each stretching down the Hall; the dais was
occupied by a military band. The number of guests, the contrast between
the antique chamber and their modern costumes, the music, the various
liveried menials, all combined to produce a whole, which at the same
time was very striking, and “in remarkable good taste.”

In process of time, Mr. Vivian Grey made his entrance. There were a few
vacant seats at the bottom of the table, “luckily for him,” as kindly
remarked Mr. Grumbleton. To the astonishment and indignation, however,
of this worthy squire, the late comer passed by the unoccupied position,
and proceeded onward with undaunted coolness, until he came to about the
middle of the middle table, and which was nearly the best situation
in the Hall.

“Beautiful Cynthia,” said Vivian Grey, softly and sweetly whispering in
Miss Courtown’s ear, “I am sure you will give up your place to me; you
have nerve enough, you know, for anything, and would no more care for
standing out than I for sitting in.” There is nothing like giving a
romp credit for a little boldness. To keep up her character she will
out-herod Herod.

“Oh! Grey, is it you? certainly, you shall have my place immediately;
but I am not sure that we cannot make room for you. Dormer Stanhope,
room must be made for Grey, or I shall leave the table immediately. You
men!” said the hoyden, turning round to a set of surrounding servants,
“push this form down and put a chair between.”

The men obeyed. All who sat lower in the table on Miss Cynthia
Courtown’s side than that lady, were suddenly propelled downwards about
the distance of two feet. Dr. Sly, who was flourishing a carving-knife
and fork, preparatory to dissecting a gorgeous haunch, had these fearful
instruments suddenly precipitated into a trifle, from whose sugared
trellis-work he found great difficulty in extricating them; while Miss
Gusset, who was on the point of cooling herself with some exquisite iced
jelly, found her frigid portion as suddenly transformed into a plate of
peculiarly ardent curry, the property, but a moment before, of old
Colonel Rangoon. Everything, however, receives a civil reception from a
toad-eater, so Miss Gusset burnt herself to death by devouring a
composition, which would have reduced anyone to ashes who had not fought
against Bundoolah.

“Now that is what I call a sensible arrangement; what could go off
better?” said Vivian.

“You may think so, sir,” said Mr. Boreall, a sharp-nosed and
conceited-looking man, who, having got among a set whom he did not the
least understand, was determined to take up Dr. Sly’s quarrel, merely
for the sake of conversation. “You, I say, sir, may think it so, but I
rather imagine that the ladies and gentlemen lower down can hardly think
it a sensible arrangement;” and here Boreall looked as if he had done
his duty, in giving a young man a proper reproof.

Vivian glanced a look of annihilation. “I had reckoned upon two deaths,
sir, when I entered the Hall, and finding, as I do, that the whole
business has apparently gone off without any fatal accident, why, I
think the circumstances bear me out in my expression.”

Mr. Boreall was one of those unfortunate men who always take things to
the letter: he consequently looked amazed, and exclaimed, “Two
deaths, sir?”

“Yes, sir, two deaths; I reckoned, of course, on some corpulent parent
being crushed to death in the scuffle, and then I should have had to
shoot his son through the head for his filial satisfaction. Dormer
Stanhope, I never thanked you for exerting yourself: send me that
fricandeau you have just helped yourself to.”

Dormer, who was, as Vivian well knew, something of an epicure, looked
rather annoyed, but by this time he was accustomed to Vivian Grey, and
sent him the portion he had intended for himself. Could epicure do more?

“Whom are we among, bright Cynthia?” asked Vivian.

“Oh! an odd set,” said the lady, looking dignified; “but you know we can
be exclusive.”

“Exclusive! pooh! trash! Talk to everybody; it looks as if you were
going to stand for the county. Have we any of the millionaires near us?”

“The Doctor and Toady are lower down.”

“Where is Mrs. Felix Lorraine?”

“At the opposite table, with Ernest Clay.”

“Oh! there is Alhambra, next to Dormer Stanhope. Lord Alhambra, I am
quite rejoiced to see you.”

“Ah! Mr. Grey, I am quite rejoiced to see you. How is your father?”

“Extremely well; he is at Paris; I heard from him yesterday. Do you ever
see the Weimar Literary Gazette, my Lord?”

“No; why?”

“There is an admirable review of your poem in the last number I have
received.”

The young nobleman looked agitated. “I think, by the style,” continued
Vivian, “that it is by Goëthe. It is really delightful to see the oldest
poet in Europe dilating on the brilliancy of a new star on the
poetical horizon.”

This was uttered with a perfectly grave voice, and now the young
nobleman blushed. “Who is _Gewter_?” asked Mr. Boreall, who possessed
such a thirst for knowledge that he never allowed an opportunity to
escape him of displaying his ignorance.

“A celebrated German writer,” lisped the modest Miss Macdonald.

“I never heard his name,” persevered the indefatigable Boreall; “how do
you spell it?”

“GOETHE,” re-lisped modesty.

“Oh! _Goty_!” exclaimed the querist. “I know him well: he wrote the
Sorrows of Werter.”

“Did he indeed, sir?” asked Vivian, with the most innocent and inquiring
face.

“Oh! don’t you know that?” said Boreall, “and poor stuff it is!”

“Lord Alhambra! I will take a glass of Johannisberg with you, if the
Marquess’ wines are in the state they should be:

     The Crescent warriors sipped their sherbet spiced,
     For Christian men the various wines were _iced_.

I always think that those are two of the best lines in your Lordship’s
poem,” said Vivian.

His Lordship did not exactly remember them: it would have been a wonder
if he had: but he thought Vivian Grey the most delightful fellow he ever
met, and determined to ask him to Helicon Castle for the
Christmas holidays.

“Flat! flat!” said Vivian, as he dwelt upon the flavour of the Rhine’s
glory. “Not exactly from the favourite bin of Prince Metternich, I
think. By-the-bye, Dormer Stanhope, you have a taste that way; I will
tell you two secrets, which never forget: decant your Johannisberg, and
ice your Maraschino. Ay, do not stare, my dear Gastronome, but do it.”

“O, Vivian! why did not you come and speak to me?” exclaimed a lady who
was sitting at the side opposite Vivian, but higher in the table.

“Ah! adorable Lady Julia! and so you were done on the grey filly.”

“Done!” said the sporting beauty with pouting lips; “but it is a long
story, and I will tell it you another time.”

“Ah! do. How is Sir Peter?”

“Oh! he has had a fit or two, since you saw him last.”

“Poor old gentleman! let us drink his health. Do you know Lady Julia
Knighton?” asked Vivian of his neighbour. “This Hall is bearable to dine
in; but I once breakfasted here, and I never shall forget the ludicrous
effect produced by the sun through the oriel window. Such complexions!
Every one looked like a prize-fighter ten days after a battle. After
all, painted glass is a bore; I wish the Marquess would have it knocked
out, and have it plated.”

“Knock out the painted glass!” said Mr. Boreall; “well, I must confess,
I cannot agree with you.”

“I should have been extremely surprised if you could. If you do not
insult that man, Miss Courtown, in ten minutes I shall be no more. I
have already a nervous fever.”

“May I have the honour of taking a glass of champagne with you, Mr.
Grey?” said Boreall.

“Mr. Grey, indeed!” muttered Vivian: “Sir, I never drink anything but
brandy.”

“Allow me to give _you_ some champagne, Miss,” resumed Boreall, as he
attacked the modest Miss Macdonald: “champagne, you know,” continued he,
with a smile of agonising courtesy, “is quite the lady’s wine.”

“Cynthia Courtown,” whispered Vivian with a sepulchral voice, “‘tis all
over with me: I have been thinking what would come next. This is too
much: I am already dead. Have Boreall arrested; the chain of
circumstantial evidence is very strong.”

“Baker!” said Vivian, turning to a servant, “go and inquire if Mr.
Stapylton Toad dines at the Castle to-day.”

A flourish of trumpets announced the rise of the Marchioness of Carabas,
and in a few minutes the most ornamental portion of the guests had
disappeared. The gentlemen made a general “move up,” and Vivian found
himself opposite his friend, Mr. Hargrave.

“Ah! Mr. Hargrave, how d’ye do? What do you think of the Secretary’s
state paper?”

“A magnificent composition, and quite unanswerable. I was just speaking
of it to my friend here, Mr. Metternich Scribe. Allow me to introduce
you to Mr. Metternich Scribe.”

“Mr. Metternich Scribe, Mr. Vivian Grey!” and here Mr. Hargrave
introduced Vivian to an effeminate-looking, perfumed young man, with a
handsome, unmeaning face and very white hands; in short, as dapper a
little diplomatist as ever tattled about the Congress of Verona, smirked
at Lady Almack’s supper after the Opera, or vowed “that Richmond Terrace
was a most convenient situation for official men.”

“We have had it with us some time before the public received it,” said
the future under-secretary, with a look at once condescending and
conceited.

“Have you?” said Vivian: “well, it does your office credit. It is a
singular thing that Canning and Croker are the only official men who can
write grammar.”

The dismayed young gentleman of the Foreign Office was about to mince a
repartee, when Vivian left his seat, for he had a great deal of business
to transact. “Mr. Leverton,” said he, accosting a flourishing grazier,
“I have received a letter from my friend, M. De Noé. He is desirous of
purchasing some Leicestershires for his estate in Burgundy. Pray, may I
take the liberty of introducing his agent to you?”

Mr. Leverton was delighted.

“I also wanted to see you about some other little business. Let me see,
what was it? Never mind, I will take my wine here, if you can make room
for me; I shall remember it, I dare say, soon. Oh! by-the-bye: ah! that
was it. Stapylton Toad; Mr. Stapylton Toad; I want to know all about Mr.
Stapylton Toad. I dare say you can tell me. A friend of mine intends to
consult him on some parliamentary business, and he wishes to know
something about him before he calls.”

We will condense, for the benefit of the reader, the information of Mr.
Leverton.

Stapylton Toad had not the honour of being acquainted with his father’s
name; but as the son found himself, at an early age, apprenticed to a
solicitor of eminence, he was of opinion that his parent must have been
respectable. Respectable! mysterious word! Stapylton was a diligent and
faithful clerk, but was not so fortunate in his apprenticeship as the
celebrated Whittington, for his master had no daughter and many sons; in
consequence of which, Stapylton, not being able to become his master’s
partner, became his master’s rival.

On the door of one of the shabbiest houses in Jermyn Street the name of
Mr. Stapylton Toad for a long time figured, magnificently engraved on a
broad brass plate. There was nothing however, otherwise, in the
appearance of the establishment, which indicated that Mr. Toad’s
progress was very rapid, or his professional career extraordinarily
prosperous. In an outward office one solitary clerk was seen, oftener
stirring his office fire than wasting his master’s ink; and Mr. Toad was
known by his brother attorneys as a gentleman who was not recorded in
the courts as ever having conducted a single cause. In a few years,
however, a story was added to the Jermyn Street abode, which, new
pointed and new painted, began to assume a mansion-like appearance. The
house-door was also thrown open, for the solitary clerk no longer found
time to answer the often agitated bell; and the eyes of the entering
client were now saluted by a gorgeous green baize office door; the
imposing appearance of which was only equalled by Mr. Toad’s new private
portal, splendid with a brass knocker and patent varnish. And now his
brother attorneys began to wonder “how Toad got on! and who Toad’s
clients were!”

A few more years rolled over, and Mr. Toad was seen riding in the Park
at a classical hour, attended by a groom in a classical livery. And
now “the profession” wondered still more, and significant looks were
interchanged by “the respectable houses:” and flourishing practitioners
in the City shrugged up their shoulders, and talked mysteriously
of “money business,” and “some odd work in annuities.” In spite,
however, of the charitable surmises of his brother lawyers, it must
be confessed that nothing of even an equivocal nature ever transpired
against the character of the flourishing Mr. Toad, who, to complete the
mortification of his less successful rivals, married, and at the same
time moved from Jermyn Street to Cavendish Square. The new residence
of Mr. Toad had previously been the mansion of a noble client, and one
whom, as the world said, Mr. Toad “had got out of difficulties.” This
significant phrase will probably throw some light upon the nature of
the mysterious business of our prosperous practitioner. Noble Lords who
have been in difficulties will not much wonder at the prosperity of
those who get them out.

About this time Mr. Toad became acquainted with Lord Mounteney, a
nobleman in great distress, with fifty thousand per annum. His Lordship
“really did not know how he had got involved: he never gamed, he was not
married, and his consequent expenses had never been unreasonable: he was
not extraordinarily negligent; quite the reverse: was something of a man
of business, remembered once looking over his accounts; and yet in spite
of his regular and correct career, found himself quite involved, and
must leave England.”

The arrangement of the Mounteney property was the crowning stroke of Mr.
Stapylton Toad’s professional celebrity. His Lordship was not under the
necessity of quitting England, and found himself in the course of five
years in the receipt of a clear rental of five-and-twenty thousand per
annum. His Lordship was in raptures; and Stapylton Toad purchased an
elegant villa in Surrey, and became a Member of Parliament. Goodburn
Park, for such was the name of Mr. Toad’s country residence, in spite of
its double lodges and patent park paling, was not, to Mr. Toad, a very
expensive purchase; for he “took it off the hands” of a distressed
client who wanted an immediate supply, “merely to convenience him,” and,
consequently, became the purchaser at about half its real value.
“Attorneys,” as Bustle the auctioneer says, “have _such_ opportunities!”

Mr. Toad’s career in the House was as correct as his conduct out of it.
After ten years’ regular attendance, the boldest conjecturer would not
have dared to define his political principles. It was a rule with
Stapylton Toad never to commit himself. Once, indeed, he wrote an able
pamphlet on the Corn Laws, which excited the dire indignation of the
Political Economy Club. But Stapylton cared little for their subtle
confutations and their loudly expressed contempt. He had obliged the
country gentlemen of England, and ensured the return, at the next
election, of Lord Mounteney’s brother for the county. At this general
election, also, Stapylton Toad’s purpose in entering the House became
rather more manifest; for it was found, to the surprise of the whole
country, that there was scarcely a place in England; county, town, or
borough; in which Mr. Stapylton Toad did not possess some influence. In
short, it was discovered, that Mr. Stapylton Toad had “a first-rate
parliamentary business;” that nothing could be done without his
co-operation, and everything with it. In spite of his prosperity,
Stapylton had the good sense never to retire from business, and even to
refuse a baronetcy; on condition, however, that it should be offered
to his son.

Stapylton, like the rest of mankind, had his weak points. The late
Marquess of Almack’s was wont to manage him very happily, and Toad was
always introducing that minister’s opinion of his importance. “‘My time
is quite at your service, General,’ although the poor dear Marquess used
to say, ‘Mr. Stapylton Toad, your time is mine.’ He knew the business I
had to get through!” The family portraits also, in ostentatious frames,
now adorned the dining-room of his London mansion; and it was amusing to
hear the worthy M.P. dilate upon his likeness to his respected father.

“You see, my Lord,” Stapylton would say, pointing to a dark, dingy
picture of a gentleman in a rich court dress, “you see, my Lord, it is
not in a very good light, and it certainly is a very dark picture, by
Hudson; all Hudson’s pictures were dark. But if I were six inches
taller, and could hold the light just there, I think your Lordship would
be astonished at the resemblance; but it’s a dark picture, certainly it
is dark; all Hudson’s pictures were.”




CHAPTER XIV


The Cavaliers have left the ancient Hall, and the old pictures frown
only upon empty tables. The Marquess immediately gained a seat by Mrs.
Million, and was soon engrossed in deep converse with that illustrious
lady. In one room, the most eminent and exclusive, headed by Mrs. Felix
Lorraine, were now winding through the soothing mazes of a slow waltz,
and now whirling, with all the rapidity of Eastern dervishes, to true
double Wien time. In another saloon, the tedious tactics of quadrilles
commanded the exertions of less civilised beings: here Liberal Snake,
the celebrated political economist, was lecturing to a knot of alarmed
country gentlemen; and there an Italian improvisatore poured forth to an
admiring audience all the dulness of his inspiration. Vivian Grey was
holding an earnest conversation in one of the recesses with Mr.
Stapylton Toad. He had already charmed that worthy by the deep interest
which he took in everything relating to elections and the House of
Commons, and now they were hard at work on the Corn Laws. Although they
agreed upon the main points, and Vivian’s ideas upon this important
subject had, of course, been adopted after studying Mr. Toad’s “most
luminous and convincing pamphlet,” still there were a few minor points
on which Vivian “was obliged to confess” that “he did not exactly see
his way.” Mr. Toad was astonished, but argumentative, and, of course, in
due time, had made a convert of his companion; “a young man,” as he
afterwards remarked to Lord Mounteney, “in whom he knew not which most
to admire, the soundness of his own views, or the candour with which he
treated those of others.” If you wish to win a man’s heart, allow him to
confute you.

“I think, Mr. Grey, you must admit that my definition of labour is the
correct one?” said Mr. Toad, looking earnestly in Vivian’s face, his
finger just presuming to feel a button.

“That exertion of mind or body which is not the involuntary effect of
the influence of natural sensations,” slowly repeated Vivian, as if his
whole soul was concentrated in each monosyllable. “Y-e-s, Mr. Toad, I do
admit it.”

“Then, my dear sir, the rest follows of course,” triumphantly exclaimed
the member; “don’t you see it?”

“Although I admit the correctness of your definition, Mr. Toad, I am not
free to confess that I am ex-act-ly convinced of the soundness of your
conclusion,” said Vivian, in a musing mood.

“But, my dear sir, I am surprised that you don’t see that--”

“Stop, Mr. Toad,” eagerly exclaimed Vivian; “I see my error. I
misconceived your meaning: you are right, sir; your definition
is correct.”

“I was confident that I should convince you, Mr. Grey.”

“This conversation, I assure you, Mr. Toad, has been to me a peculiarly
satisfactory one. Indeed, sir, I have long wished to have the honour of
making your acquaintance. When but a boy, I remember, at my father’s
table, the late Marquess of Almack’s--”

“Yes, Mr. Grey.”

“One of the ablest men, Mr. Toad, after all, that this country ever
produced.”

“Oh, poor dear man!”

“I remember his observing to a friend of mine, who was at that time
desirous of getting into the House: ‘Hargrave,’ said his Lordship, ‘if
you want any information upon points of practical politics;’ that was
his phrase; you remember, Mr. Toad, that his Lordship was peculiar in
his phrases?”

“Oh! yes, poor dear man; but you were observing, Mr. Grey--”

“Ay, ay! ‘If you want any information,’ said his Lordship, ‘on such
points, there is only one man in the kingdom whom you should consult,
and he is one of the soundest heads I know, and that is Stapylton Toad,
the member for Mounteney;’ you know you were in for Mounteney then,
Mr. Toad.”

“I was, and accepted the Chilterns to make room for Augustus Clay,
Ernest Clay’s brother, who was so involved, that the only way to keep
him out of the House of Correction was to get him into the House of
Commons. But the Marquess said so, eh?”

“Ay, and much more, which I scarcely can remember;” and then followed a
long dissertation on the character of the noble statesman, and his views
as to the agricultural interest, and the importance of the agricultural
interest; and then a delicate hint was thrown out as to “how delightful
it would be to write a pamphlet together” on this mighty agricultural
interest; and then came a panegyric on the character of country
gentlemen, and English yeomen, and the importance of keeping up the old
English spirit in the peasantry, &c. &c. &c. &c.; and then, when Vivian
had led Mr. Toad to deliver a splendid and patriotic oration on this
point, he “just remembered (quite apropos to the sentiments which Mr.
Toad had just delivered, and which, he did not hesitate to say, ‘did
equal honour to his head and heart’) that there was a little point,
which, if it was not trespassing too much on Mr. Toad’s attention, he
would just submit to him;” and then he mentioned poor John Conyers’
case, although “he felt convinced, from Mr. Toad’s well-known benevolent
character, that it was quite unnecessary for him to do so, as he felt
assured that it would be remedied immediately it fell under his
cognisance; but then Mr. Toad had really so much business to transact,
that perhaps these slight matters might occasionally not be submitted to
him,” &c. &c. &c.

What could Stapylton Toad do but, after a little amiable grumbling about
“bad system and bad precedent,” promise everything that Vivian
Grey required?

“Mr. Vivian Grey,” said Mrs. Felix Lorraine, “I cannot understand why
you have been talking to Mr. Toad so long. Will you waltz?”

Before Vivian could answer, a tittering, so audible that it might almost
be termed a shout, burst forth from the whole room. Cynthia Courtown had
stolen behind Lord Alhambra, as he was sitting on an ottoman a la
Turque, and had folded a cashmere shawl round his head with a most
Oriental tie. His Lordship, who, notwithstanding his eccentricities, was
really a very amiable man, bore his blushing honours with a gracious
dignity worthy of a descendant of the Abencerrages. The sensation which
this incident occasioned favoured Vivian’s escape from Mrs. Felix, for
he had not left Mr. Stapylton Toad with any intention of waltzing.

But he had hardly escaped from the waltzers ere he found himself in
danger of being involved in a much more laborious duty; for now he
stumbled on the Political Economist, and he was earnestly requested by
the contending theorists to assume the office of moderator. Emboldened
by his success. Liberal Snake had had the hardihood to attack a
personage of whose character he was not utterly ignorant, but on whom
he was extremely desirous of “making an impression.” This important
person was Sir Christopher Mowbray, who, upon the lecturer presuming to
inform him “what rent was,” damned himself several times from sheer
astonishment at the impudence of the fellow. I don’t wish to be coarse,
but Sir Christopher is a great man, and the sayings of great men,
particularly when they are representative of the sentiment of a species,
should not pass unrecorded.

Sir Christopher Mowbray is member for the county of ----; and member for
the county he intends to be next election, although he is in his
seventy-ninth year, for he can still follow a fox with as plucky a heart
and with as stout a voice as any squire in Christendom. Sir Christopher,
it must be confessed, is rather peculiar in his ideas. His grandson,
Peregrine Mowbray, who is as pert a genius as the applause of a
common-room ever yet spoiled, and as sublime an orator as the cheerings
of the Union ever yet inspired, says “the Baronet is not up to the
nineteenth century;” and perhaps this phrase will give the reader a more
significant idea of Sir Christopher Mowbray than a character as long and
as laboured as the most perfect of my Lord Clarendon’s. The truth is,
the good Baronet had no idea of “liberal principles,” or anything else
of that school. His most peculiar characteristic is a singular habit
which he has got of styling political economists French Smugglers.
Nobody has ever yet succeeded in extracting a reason from him for this
singular appellation, and even if you angle with the most exquisite
skill for the desired definition, Sir Christopher immediately salutes
you with a volley of oaths, and damns French wines, Bible Societies, and
Mr. Huskisson. Sir Christopher for half a century has supported in the
senate, with equal sedulousness and silence, the constitution and the
corn laws; he is perfectly aware of “the present perilous state of the
country,” and watches with great interest all “the plans and plots” of
this enlightened age. The only thing which he does not exactly
comprehend is the London University. This affair really puzzles the
worthy gentleman, who could as easily fancy a county member not being a
freeholder as an university not being at Oxford or Cambridge. Indeed to
this hour the old gentleman believes that the whole business is “a
hoax;” and if you tell him that, far from the plan partaking of the
visionary nature he conceives, there are actually four acres of very
valuable land purchased near White Conduit House for the erection, and
that there is little apprehension that, in the course of a century, the
wooden poles which are now stuck about the ground will not be as fair
and flourishing as the most leafy bowers of New College Gardens, the old
gentleman looks up to heaven, as if determined not to be taken in, and
leaning back in his chair, sends forth a sceptical and smiling “No! no!
no! that won’t do.”

Vivian extricated himself with as much grace as possible from the toils
of the Economist, and indeed, like a skilful general, turned this little
rencontre to account in accomplishing the very end for the attainment of
which he had declined waltzing with Mrs. Felix Lorraine.

“My dear Lord,” said Vivian, addressing the Marquess, who was still by
the side of Mrs. Million, “I am going to commit a most ungallant act;
but you great men must pay a tax for your dignity. I am going to disturb
you. You are wanted by half the county! What could possibly induce you
ever to allow a Political Economist to enter Château Desir? There are.
at least, three baronets and four squires in despair, writhing under the
tortures of Liberal Snake. They have deputed me to request your
assistance, to save them from being defeated in the presence of half
their tenantry; and I think, my Lord,” said Vivian, with a serious
voice, “if you could possibly contrive to interfere, it would be
desirable. That lecturing knave never knows when to stop, and he is
actually insulting men before whom, after all, he ought not to dare open
his lips. I see that your Lordship is naturally not very much inclined
to quit your present occupation, in order to act moderator to a set of
brawlers; but come, you shall not be quite sacrificed to the county. I
will give up the waltz in which I was engaged, and keep your seat until
your return.”

The Marquess, who was always “keeping up county influence,” was very
shocked at the obstreperous conduct of Liberal Snake. Indeed he had
viewed the arrival of this worthy with no smiling countenance, but what
could he say, as he came in the suit of Lord Pert, who was writing, with
the lecturer’s assistance, a little pamphlet on the Currency?
Apologising to Mrs. Million, and promising to return as soon as possible
and lead her to the music-room, the Marquess retired, with the
determination of annihilating one of the stoutest members of the
Political Economy Club.

Vivian began by apologising to Mrs. Million for disturbing her progress
to the Hall by his sudden arrival before dinner; and then for a quarter
of an hour poured forth the usual quantity of piquant anecdotes and
insidious compliments. Mrs. Million found Vivian’s conversation no
disagreeable relief to the pompous prosiness of his predecessor.

And now, having succeeded in commanding Mrs. Million’s attention by that
general art of pleasing which was for all the world, and which was, of
course, formed upon his general experience of human nature, Vivian began
to make his advances to Mrs. Million’s feelings by a particular art of
pleasing; that is, an art which was for the particular person alone whom
he was at any time addressing, and which was founded on his particular
knowledge of that person’s character.

“How beautiful the old Hall looked to-day! It is a scene which can only
be met with in ancient families.”

“Ah! there is nothing like old families!” remarked Mrs. Million, with
all the awkward feelings of a parvenue.

“Do you think so?” said Vivian; “I once thought so myself, but I confess
that my opinion is greatly changed. After all, what is noble blood? My
eye is now resting on a crowd of nobles; and yet, being among them, do
we treat them in a manner differing in any way from that which we should
employ to individuals of a lower caste who were equally uninteresting?”

“Certainly not,” said Mrs. Million.

“The height of the ambition of the less exalted ranks is to be noble,
because they conceive to be noble implies to be superior; associating in
their minds, as they always do, a pre-eminence over their equals. But to
be noble among nobles, where is the pre-eminence?”

“Where indeed?” said Mrs. Million; and she thought of herself, sitting
the most considered personage in this grand castle, and yet with
sufficiently base blood flowing in her veins.

“And thus, in the highest circles,” continued Vivian, “a man is of
course not valued because he is a Marquess or a Duke; but because he is
a great warrior, or a great statesman, or very fashionable, or very
witty. In all classes but the highest, a peer, however unbefriended by
nature or by fortune, becomes a man of a certain rate of consequence;
but to be a person of consequence in the highest class requires
something else besides high blood.”

“I quite agree with you in your sentiments, Mr. Grey. Now what
character or what situation in life would you choose, if you had the
power of making your choice?”

“That is really a most metaphysical question. As is the custom of all
young men, I have sometimes, in my reveries, imagined what I conceived
to be a lot of pure happiness: and yet Mrs. Million will perhaps be
astonished that I was neither to be nobly born nor to acquire nobility,
that I was not to be a statesman, or a poet, or a warrior, or a
merchant, nor indeed any profession, not even a professional dandy.”

“Oh! love in a cottage, I suppose,” interrupted Mrs. Million.

“Neither love in a cottage, nor science in a cell.”

“Oh! pray tell me what it is.”

“What it is? Oh! Lord Mayor of London, I suppose; that is the only
situation which answers to my oracular description.”

“Then you have been joking all this time!”

“Not at all. Come then, let us imagine this perfect lot. In the first
place, I would be born in the middle classes of society, or even lower,
because I would wish my character to be impartially developed. I would
be born to no hereditary prejudices, no hereditary passions. My course
in life should not be carved out by the example of a grandfather, nor my
ideas modelled to a preconceived system of family perfection. Do you
like my first principle, Mrs. Million?”

“I must hear everything before I give an opinion.”

“When, therefore, my mind was formed, I would wish to become the
proprietor of a princely fortune.”

“Yes!” eagerly exclaimed Mrs. Million.

“And now would come the moral singularity of my fate. If I had gained
this fortune by commerce, or in any other similar mode, my disposition,
before the creation of this fortune, would naturally have been formed,
and been permanently developed; and my mind would have been similarly
affected, had I succeeded to some ducal father; for I should then, in
all probability, have inherited some family line of conduct, both moral
and political. But under the circumstances I have imagined, the result
would be far different. I should then be in the singular situation of
possessing, at the same time, unbounded wealth, and the whole powers and
natural feelings of my mind unoppressed and unshackled. Oh! how splendid
would be my career! I would not allow the change in my condition to
exercise any influence on my natural disposition. I would experience
the same passions and be subject to the same feelings, only they should
be exercised and influential in a wider sphere. Then would be seen the
influence of great wealth, directed by a disposition similar to that of
the generality of men, inasmuch as it had been formed like that of the
generality of men; and consequently, one much better acquainted with
their feelings, their habits, and their wishes. Such a lot would indeed
be princely! Such a lot would infallibly ensure the affection and
respect of the great majority of mankind; and, supported by them, what
should I care if I were misunderstood by a few fools and abused by a
few knaves?”

Here came the Marquess to lead the lady to the concert. As she quitted
her seat, a smile, beaming with graciousness, rewarded her youthful
companion. “Ah!” thought Mrs. Million, “I go to the concert, but leave
sweeter music than can possibly meet me there. What is the magic of
these words? It is not flattery; such is not the language of Miss
Gusset! It is not a rifacimento of compliments; such is not the style
with which I am saluted by the Duke of Doze and the Earl of Leatherdale!
Apparently I have heard a young philosopher delivering his sentiments
upon an abstract point in human life; and yet have I not listened to a
brilliant apology for my own character, and a triumphant defence of my
own conduct. Of course it was unintentional; and yet how agreeable to be
unintentionally defended!” So mused Mrs. Million, and she made a
thousand vows not to let a day pass over without obtaining a pledge from
Vivian Grey to visit her on their return to the metropolis.

Vivian remained in his seat for some time after the departure of his
companion. “On my honour, I have half a mind to desert my embryo faction
and number myself in her gorgeous retinue. Let me see. What part should
I act? her secretary, or her toad-eater, or her physician, or her cook?
or shall I be her page? Methinks I should make a pretty page, and hand
a chased goblet as gracefully as any monkey that ever bent his knee in a
lady’s chamber. Well! at any rate, there is this chance to be kept back,
as the gambler does his last trump, or the cunning fencer his
last ruse.”

He rose to offer his arm to some stray fair one; for crowds were now
hurrying to pineapples and lobster salads: that is to say, supper was
ready in the Long Gallery.

In a moment Vivian’s arm was locked in that of Mrs. Felix Lorraine.

“Oh, Mr. Grey, I have got a much better ghost story than even that of
the Leyden Professor for you; but I am so wearied with waltzing that I
must tell it you to-morrow. How came you to be so late this morning?
Have you been paying many calls to-day? I quite missed you at dinner. Do
you think Ernest Clay handsome? I dare not repeat what Lady Scrope said
of you! You are an admirer of Lady Julia Knighton, I believe? I do not
much like this plan of supping in the Long Gallery; it is a favourite
locale of mine, and I have no idea of my private promenade being invaded
by the uninteresting presence of trifles and Italian creams. Have you
been telling Mrs. Million that she was very witty?” asked Vivian’s
companion, with a significant look.




CHAPTER XV


Sweet reader! you know what a Toadey is? That agreeable animal which you
meet every day in civilised society. But perhaps you have not speculated
very curiously upon this interesting race. So much the worse! for you
cannot live many lustres without finding it of some service to be a
little acquainted with their habits.

The world in general is under a mistake as to the nature of these
vermin. They are by no means characterised by that similarity of
disposition for which your common observer gives them credit. There are
Toadeys of all possible natures.

There is your Common-place Toadey, who merely echoes its feeder’s
common-place observations. There is your Playing-up Toadey, who,
unconscious to its feeder, is always playing up to its feeder’s
weaknesses; and, as the taste of that feeder varies, accordingly
provides its cates and confitures. A little bit of scandal for a dashing
widow, or a pious little hymn for a sainted one; the secret history of a
newly discovered gas for a May Fair feeder, and an interesting anecdote
about a Newgate bobcap or a Penitentiary apron for a charitable one.
Then there is your Drawing-out Toadey, who omits no opportunity of
giving you a chance of being victorious in an argument where there is no
contest, and a dispute where there is no difference; and then there
is--but we detest essay writing, so we introduce you at once to a party
of these vermin. If you wish to enjoy a curious sight, you must watch
the Toadeys when they are unembarrassed by the almost perpetual presence
of their breeders; when they are animated by “the spirit of freedom;”
 when, like Curran’s Negro, the chain bursts by the impulse of their
swelling veins. The great singularity is the struggle between their
natural and their acquired feelings: the eager opportunity which they
seize of revenging their voluntary bondage, by their secret taunts, on
their adopted task-masters, and the servility which they habitually mix
up even with their scandal. Like veritable Grimalkins, they fawn upon
their victims previous to the festival; compliment them upon the length
of their whiskers and the delicacy of their limbs prior to excoriating
them, and dwelling on the flavour of their crashed bones. ‘Tis a
beautiful scene, and ten thousand times more piquant than the humours of
a Servants’ Hall, or the most grotesque and glorious moments of high
life below stairs.

“Dear Miss Graves,” said Miss Gusset, “you can’t imagine how terrified I
was at that horrible green parrot flying upon my head! I declare it
pulled out three locks of hair.”

“Horrible green parrot, my dear madam! Why, it was sent to my Lady by
Prince Xtmnprqtosklw, and never shall I forget the agitation we were in
about that parrot. I thought it would never have got to the Château, for
the Prince could only send his carriage with it as far as Toadcaster.
Luckily my Lady’s youngest brother, who was staying at Desir, happened
to get drowned at the time; and so Davenport, very clever of him! sent
her on in my Lord Dormer’s hearse.”

“In the hearse! Good heavens, Miss Graves! How could you think of green
parrots at such an awful moment? I should have been in fits for three
days; eh! Dr. Sly?”

“Certainly you would, madame; your nerves are very delicate.”

“Well! I, for my part, never could see much use in giving up to one’s
feelings. It is all very well for commoners,” rather rudely exclaimed
the Marchioness’ Toadey; “but we did not choose to expose ourselves to
the servants when the old General died this year. Everything went on as
usual. Her Ladyship attended Almack’s; my Lord took his seat in the
House; and I looked in at Lady Doubtful’s where we do not visit, but
where the Marchioness wishes to be civil.”

“We do not visit Lady Doubtful either,” replied Miss Gusset: “she had
not a card for our fête champêtre. I was so sorry you were not in town.
It was so delightful!”

“Do tell me who was there? I quite long to know all about it. I saw some
account of it. Everything seemed to go off so well. Do tell me who
was there?”

“Oh! there was plenty of Royalty at the head of the list. Really I
cannot go into particulars, but everybody was there who is anybody;
eh! Dr. Sly?”

“Certainly, madam. The pines were most admirable. There are few people
for whom I entertain a higher esteem, than Mr. Gunter.”

“The Marchioness seems very fond of her parrot, Miss Graves; but she is
a sweet woman!”

“Oh, a dear, amiable creature! but I cannot think how she can bear the
eternal screaming of that noisy bird.”

“Nor I, indeed. Well, thank goodness, Mrs. Million has no pets; eh! Dr.
Sly?”

“Certainly. I am clearly of opinion that it cannot be wholesome to have
so many animals about a house. Besides which, I have noticed that the
Marchioness always selects the nicest morsels for that little poodle;
and I am also clearly of opinion, Miss Graves, that the fit it had the
other day arose from repletion.”

“I have no doubt of it in the world. She consumes three pounds of
arrowroot weekly and two pounds of the finest loaf sugar, which I have
the trouble of grating every Monday morning. Mrs. Million appears to be
a most amiable woman, Miss Gusset?”

“Quite perfection; so charitable, so intellectual, such a soul! It is a
pity, though, her manner is so abrupt; she really does not appear to
advantage sometimes; eh! Dr. Sly?”

The Toadey’s Toadey bowed assent as usual. “Well,” rejoined Miss Graves,
“that is rather a fault of the dear Marchioness, a little want of
consideration for another’s feelings; but she means nothing.”

“Oh, no! nor Mrs. Million, dear creature! She means nothing; though I
dare say, not knowing her so well as we do; eh! Dr. Sly? you were a
little surprised at the way in which she spoke to me at dinner.”

“All people have their oddities, Miss Gusset. I am sure the Marchioness
is not aware how she tries my patience about that little wretch Julie. I
had to rub her with warm flannels for an hour and a half before the fire
this morning; that is that Vivian Grey’s doing.”

“Who is this Mr. Grey, Miss Graves?”

“Who, indeed! Some young man the Marquess has picked up, and who comes
lecturing here about poodles and parrots, and thinking himself quite
Lord Paramount, I can assure you. I am surprised that the Marchioness,
who is a most sensible woman, can patronise such conduct a moment; but
whenever she begins to see through him the young gentleman has always
got a story about a bracelet, or a bandeau, and quite turns her head.”

“Very disagreeable, I am sure.”

“Some people are so easily managed! By-the-bye, Miss Gusset, who could
have advised Mrs. Million to wear crimson? So large as she is, it does
not at all suit her. I suppose it’s a favourite colour.”

“Dear Miss Graves, you are always so insinuating. What can Miss Graves
mean; eh! Dr. Sly?”

A Lord Burleigh shake of the head.

“Cynthia Courtown seems as lively as ever,” said Miss Gusset.

“Yes, lively enough; but I wish her manner was less brusque.”

“Brusque, indeed! you may well say so. She nearly pushed me down in the
Hall; and when I looked as if I thought she might have given me a little
more room, she tossed her head and said, ‘Beg pardon, never saw you!’”

“I wonder what Lord Alhambra sees in that girl?”

“Oh! those forward misses always take the men.”

“Well,” said Miss Graves, “I have no notion that it will come to
anything; I am sure, I, for one, hope not,” added she, with all a
Toadey’s venom.

“The Marquess seems to keep a remarkably good table,” said the
physician. “There was a haunch to-day, which I really think was the
finest haunch I ever met with; but that little move at dinner; it was,
to say the least, very ill-timed.”

“Yes, that was Vivian Grey again,” said Miss Graves, very indignantly.

“So you have got the Beaconsfields here, Miss Graves! nice, unaffected,
quiet people.”

“Yes, very quiet.”

“As you say, Miss Graves, very quiet, but a little heavy.”

“Yes, heavy enough.”

“If you had but seen the quantity of pineapples that boy Dormer Stanhope
devoured at our fête champêtre! but I have the comfort of knowing that
they made him very ill; eh! Dr. Sly?”

“Oh! he learnt that from his uncle,” said Miss Graves; “it is quite
disgusting to see how that Vivian Grey encourages him.”

“What an elegant, accomplished woman Mrs. Felix Lorraine seems to be,
Miss Graves! I suppose the Marchioness is very fond of her?”

“Oh, yes; the Marchioness is so good-natured that I dare say she thinks
very well of Mrs. Felix Lorraine. She thinks well of everyone; but I
believe Mrs. Felix is rather a greater favourite with the Marquess.”

“O--h!” drawled out Miss Gusset with a very significant tone. “I suppose
she is one of your playing-up ladies. I think you told me she was only
on a visit here.”

“A pretty long visit, though, for a sister-in-law, if sister-in-law she
be. As I was saying to the Marchioness the other day, when Mrs. Felix
offended her so violently by trampling on the dear little Julie, if it
came into a court of justice I should like to see the proof; that’s all.
At any rate, it is pretty evident that Mr. Lorraine has had enough of
his bargain.”

“Quite evident, I think; eh! Dr. Sly? Those German women never make good
English wives,” continued Miss Gusset, with all a Toadey’s patriotism.

“Talking of wives, did not you think Lady Julia spoke very strangely of
Sir Peter after dinner to-day? I hate that Lady Julia, if it be only for
petting Vivian Grey so.”

“Yes, indeed, it is quite enough to make one sick; eh! Dr. Sly?”

The doctor shook his head mournfully, remembering the haunch.

“They say Ernest Clay is in sad difficulties, Miss Gusset.”

“Well, I always expected his dash would end in that. Those wild
harum-scarum men are monstrous disagreeable. I like a person of some
reflection; eh! Dr. Sly?”

Before the doctor could bow his usual assent there entered a pretty
little page, very daintily attired in a fancy dress of green and silver.
Twirling his richly chased dirk with one tiny white hand, and at the
same time playing with a pet curl which was picturesquely flowing over
his forehead, he advanced with ambling gait to Miss Gusset, and, in a
mincing voice and courtly phrase, summoned her to the imperial presence.

The lady’s features immediately assumed the expression which befitted
the approaching interview, and in a moment Miss Graves and the physician
were left alone.

“Very amiable young woman Miss Gusset appears to be, Dr. Sly?”

“Oh! the most amiable being in the world; I owe her the greatest
obligations.”

“So gentle in her manners.”

“O yes, so gentle.”

“So considerate for everybody.”

“Oh, yes! so considerate,” echoed the Aberdeen M.D.

“I am afraid, though, she must sometimes meet with people who do not
exactly understand her character; such extraordinary consideration for
others is sometimes liable to misconstruction.”

“Very sensibly remarked, Miss Graves. I am sure Miss Gusset means well;
and that kind of thing is all very admirable in its way; but, but--”

“But what, Dr. Sly?”

“Why, I was merely going to hazard an observation, that according to my
feelings, that is, to my own peculiar view of the case, I should prefer
some people thinking more about their own business, and, and—but I
mean nothing.”

“Oh, no, of course not, Dr. Sly! You know we always except our own
immediate friends, at least when we can be sure they are our friends;
but, as you were saying, or going to say, those persons who are so very
anxious about other people’s affairs are not always the most agreeable
persons in the world to live with. It certainly did strike me that that
interference of Miss Gusset’s about Julie to-day was, to say the least,
very odd.”

“Oh, my dear madam! when you know her as well as I do, you will see she
is always ready to put in a word.”

“Well! do you know, Dr. Sly, between ourselves, that was exactly my
impression; and she is then very, very—I do not exactly mean to say
meddling or inquisitive; but—but you understand me, Dr. Sly?”

“Perfectly; and if I were to speak my mind, which I do not hesitate to
do in confidence to you, Miss Graves, I really should say that she is
the most jealous, irritable, malicious, meddling, and at the same time
fawning, disposition that I ever met with in the whole course of my
life, and I speak from experience.”

“Well, do you know, Dr. Sly, from all I have seen, that was exactly my
impression; therefore I have been particularly careful not to commit
myself to such a person.”

“‘Ah! Miss Graves! if all ladies were like you! O--h!”

“My dear Dr. Sly!”




CHAPTER XVI


Vivian had duly acquainted the Marquess with the successful progress of
his negotiations with their intended partisans, and Lord Carabas had
himself conversed with them singly on the important subject. It was
thought proper, however, in this stage of the proceedings, that the
persons interested should meet together; and so the two Lords, and Sir
Berdmore, and Vivian were invited to dine with the Marquess alone, and
in his library.

There was abundance of dumb waiters and other inventions by which the
ease of the guests might be consulted, without risking even their secret
looks to the gaze of liveried menials. The Marquess’ gentleman sat in an
ante-chamber, in case human aid might be necessary, and everything, as
his Lordship averred, was “on the same system as the Cabinet Dinners.”

In the ancient kingdom of England it hath ever been the custom to dine
previously to transacting business. This habit is one of those few which
are not contingent upon the mutable fancies of fashion, and at this day
we see Cabinet Dinners and Vestry Dinners alike proving the correctness
of our assertion. Whether the custom really expedites the completion or
the general progress of the business which gives rise to it, is a grave
question, which we do not feel qualified to decide. Certain it is that
very often, after the _dinner_, an appointment is made for the
transaction of the _business_ on the following morning: at the same time
it must be remembered that, had it not been for the opportunity which
the banquet afforded of developing the convivial qualities of the
guests, and drawing out, by the assistance of generous wine, their most
kindly sentiments and most engaging feelings, it is very probable that
the appointment for the transaction of the business would never have
been made at all.

There certainly was every appearance that “the great business,” as the
Marquess styled it, would not be very much advanced by the cabinet
dinner at Château Desir. For, in the first place, the table was laden
“with every delicacy of the season,” and really, when a man is either
going to talk sense, fight a duel, or make his will, nothing should be
seen at dinner save cutlets and the lightest Bordeaux. And, in the
second place, it must be confessed, that when it came to the point of
all the parties interested meeting, the Marquess’ courage somewhat
misgave him. Not that any particular reason occurred to him which would
have induced him to yield one jot of the theory of his sentiments, but
the putting them in practice rather made him nervous. In short, he was
as convinced as ever that he was an ill-used man, of great influence and
abilities; but then he remembered his agreeable sinecure and his
dignified office, and he might not succeed. The thought did not please.

But here they were all assembled; receding was impossible; and so the
Marquess took a glass of claret, and felt more courageous.

“My Lords and Gentlemen,” he began, “although I have myself taken the
opportunity of communicating to you singly my thoughts upon a certain
subject, and although, if I am rightly informed, my excellent young
friend has communicated to you more fully upon that subject; yet, my
Lords and Gentlemen, I beg to remark that this is the first time that we
have collectively assembled to consult on the possibility of certain
views, upon the propriety of their nature, and the expediency of their
adoption.” (Here the claret passed.) “The present state of parties,” the
Marquess continued, “has doubtless for a long time engaged your
attention. It is very peculiar, and although the result has been
gradually arrived at, it is nevertheless, now that it is realised,
startling, and not, I apprehend, very satisfactory. There are few
distinctions now between the two sides of the House of Commons, very
different from the times in which most, I believe all, of us, my Lords
and Gentlemen, were members of that assembly. The question then
naturally arises, why a certain body of individuals, who now represent
no opinions, should arrogate to themselves the entire government and
control of the country? A second question would occur, how they contrive
to succeed in such an assumption? They succeed clearly because the
party who placed them in power, because they represented certain
opinions, still continue to them their support. Some of the most
influential members of that party, I am bold to say, may be found in
this room. I don’t know, if the boroughs of Lord Courtown and Lord
Beaconsfield were withdrawn at a critical division, what might be the
result. I am quite sure that if the forty country gentlemen who follow,
I believe I am justified in saying, our friend Sir Berdmore, and wisely
follow him, were to declare their opposition to any particular tax, the
present men would be beaten, as they have been beaten before. I was
myself a member of the government when so beaten, and I know what Lord
Liverpool said the next morning. Lord Liverpool said the next morning.
‘Forty country gentlemen, if they choose, might repeal every tax in the
Budget.’ Under these circumstances, my Lords and Gentlemen, it becomes
us, in my opinion, to consider our situation. I am far from wishing to
witness any general change, or indeed, very wide reconstruction of the
present administration. I think the interests of the country require
that the general tenor of their system should be supported; but there
are members of that administration whose claims to that distinction
appear to me more than questionable, while at the same time there are
individuals excluded, personages of great influence and recognised
talents, who ought no longer, in my opinion, to occupy a position in the
background. Mr. Vivian Grey, a gentleman whom I have the honour to call
my particular friend, and who, I believe, has had already the pleasure
of incidentally conversing with you on the matters to which I have
referred, has given great attention to this important subject. He is a
younger man than any of us, and certainly has much better lungs than I
have. I will take the liberty, therefore, of requesting him to put the
case in its completeness before us.”

A great deal of “desultory conversation,” as it is styled, relative to
the great topic of debate, now occurred. When the blood of the party was
tolerably warmed, Vivian addressed them. The tenor of his oration may be
imagined. He developed the new political principles, demonstrated the
mistake under the baneful influence of which they had so long suffered,
promised them place, and power, and patronage, and personal
consideration, if they would only act on the principles which he
recommended, in the most flowing language and the most melodious voice
in which the glories of ambition were ever yet chaunted. There was a
buzz of admiration when the flattering music ceased; the Marquess smiled
triumphantly, as if to say, “Didn’t I tell you he was a monstrous clever
fellow?” and the whole business seemed settled. Lord Courtown gave in a
bumper, _“Mr. Vivian Grey, and success to his maiden speech!”_ and
Vivian replied by proposing _“The New Union!”_ At last, Sir Berdmore,
the coolest of them all, raised his voice: “He quite agreed with Mr.
Grey in the principles which he had developed; and, for his own part, he
was free to confess that he had perfect confidence in that gentleman’s
very brilliant abilities, and augured from their exertion complete and
triumphant success. At the same time, he felt it his duty to remark to
their Lordships, and also to that gentleman, that the House of Commons
was a new scene to him; and he put it, whether they were quite convinced
that they were sufficiently strong as regarded talent in that assembly.
He could not take it upon himself to offer to become the leader of the
party. Mr. Grey might be capable of undertaking that charge, but still,
it must be remembered that in that assembly he was as yet untried. He
made no apology to Mr. Grey for speaking his mind so freely; he was sure
that his motives could not be misinterpreted. If their Lordships, on the
whole, were of opinion that this charge should be entrusted to him, he,
Sir Berdmore, having the greatest confidence in Mr. Grey’s abilities,
would certainly support him to the utmost.”

“He can do anything,” said the Marquess.

“He is a surprising clever man!” said Lord Courtown.

“He is a surprising clever man!” echoed Lord Beaconsfield.

“Stop, my Lords,” said Vivian; “your good opinion deserves my gratitude,
but these important matters do indeed require a moment’s consideration.
I trust that Sir Berdmore Scrope does not imagine that I am the vain
idiot to be offended at his most excellent remarks, even for a moment.
Are we not met here for the common good, and to consult for the success
of the common cause? Whatever my talents are, they are at your service,
and in your service will I venture anything; but surely, my Lords, you
will not unnecessarily entrust this great business to a raw hand! I need
only aver that I am ready to follow any leader who can play his great
part in a becoming manner.”

“Noble!” said the Marquess.

But who was the leader to be? Sir Berdmore frankly confessed that he
had none to propose; and the Viscount and the Baron were quite silent.

“Gentlemen!” exclaimed the Marquess, “Gentlemen! there is a man who
could do our bidding,” The eyes of every guest were fixed on the
haranguing host.

“Gentlemen, fill your glasses, I give you our leader, Mr. Frederick
Cleveland!”

“Cleveland”’ every one exclaimed. A glass of claret fell from Lord
Courtown’s hand; Lord Beaconsfield stopped as he was about to fill his
glass, and stood gaping at the Marquess with the decanter in his hand;
and Sir Berdmore stared on the table, as men do when something
unexpected and astounding has occurred at dinner which seems past all
their management.

“Cleveland!” exclaimed the guests.

“I should as soon have expected you to have given us Lucifer!” said Lord
Courtown.

“Or the present Secretary!” said Lord Beaconsfield.

“Or yourself,” said Sir Berdmore.

“And does any one maintain that Frederick Cleveland is not capable of
driving out a much stronger Government than he will have to cope with?”
 demanded the Marquess with a rather fierce air.

“We do not deny Mr. Cleveland’s powers, my Lord; we only humbly beg to
suggest that it appears to us that, of all the persons in the world, the
man with whom Mr. Cleveland would be least inclined to coalesce would be
the Marquess of Carabas.”

The Marquess looked somewhat blank.

“Gentlemen,” said Vivian, “do not despair; it is enough for me to know
that there is a man who is capable of doing our work. Be he animate man
or incarnate fiend, provided he can be found within this realm, I pledge
myself that within ten days he is drinking my noble friend’s health at
this very board.”

The Marquess said, “Bravo,” the rest smiled, and rose from the table in
some confusion. Little more was said on the “great business.” The guests
took refuge in coffee and a glass of liqueur. The pledge was, however,
apparently accepted, and Lord Carabas and Vivian were soon left alone.
The Marquess seemed agitated by Vivian’s offer and engagement. “This is
a grave business,” he said: “you hardly know, my dear Vivian, what you
have undertaken; but, if anybody can succeed, you will. We must talk of
this to-morrow. There are some obstacles, and I should once have
thought, invincible. I cannot conceive what made me mention his name;
but it has been often in my mind since you first spoke to me. You and he
together, we might carry everything before us. But there are some
obstacles; no doubt there are some obstacles. You heard what Courtown
said, a man who does not make difficulties, and Beaconsfield, a man who
does not say much. Courtown called him Lucifer. He is Lucifer. But, by
Jove, you are the man to overcome obstacles. We must talk of it
to-morrow. So now, my dear fellow, good night!”

“What have I done?” thought Vivian; “I am sure that Lucifer may know,
for I do not. This Cleveland is, I suppose, after all, but a man. I saw
the feeble fools were wavering, and, to save all, made a leap in the
dark. Well! is my skull cracked? Nous verrons. How hot either this room
or my blood is! Come, for some fresh air (he opened the library window).
How fresh and soft it is! Just the night for the balcony. Hah! music! I
cannot mistake that voice. Singular woman! I will just walk on till I am
beneath her window.”

Vivian accordingly proceeded along the balcony, which extended down one
whole side of the Château. While he was looking at the moon he stumbled
against some one. It was Colonel Delmington. He apologised to the
militaire for treading on his toes, and wondered “how the devil he
got there!”




BOOK III


CHAPTER I


Fredrick Cleveland was educated at Eton and at Cambridge; and after
having proved, both at the school and the University, that he possessed
talents of a high order, he had the courage, in order to perfect them,
to immure himself for three years in a German University. It was
impossible, therefore, for two minds to have been cultivated on more
contrary systems than those of Frederick Cleveland and Vivian Grey. The
systems on which they had been educated were not, however, more
discordant than the respective tempers of the pupils. With that of
Vivian Grey the reader is now somewhat acquainted. It has been shown
that he was one precociously convinced of the necessity of managing
mankind, by studying their tempers and humouring their weaknesses.
Cleveland turned from the Book of Nature with contempt, and although his
was a mind of extraordinary acuteness, he was, at three-and-thirty, as
ignorant of the workings of the human heart as when, in the innocence of
boyhood, he first reached Eton.

Although possessed of no fortune, from his connections and the
reputation of his abilities, he entered Parliament at an early age. His
success was eminent. It was at this period that he formed a great
intimacy with the present Marquess of Carabas, then Under Secretary of
State. His exertions for the party to which Mr. Under Secretary Lorraine
belonged were unremitting; and it was mainly through their influence
that a great promotion took place in the official appointments of the
party. When the hour of reward came, Mr. Lorraine and his friends
unfortunately forgot their youthful champion. He remonstrated, and they
smiled: he reminded them of private friendship, and they answered him
with political expediency. Mr. Cleveland went down to the House, and
attacked his old comates in a spirit of unexampled bitterness. He
examined in review the various members of the party that had deserted
him. They trembled on their seats, while they writhed beneath the
keenness of his satire: but when the orator came to Mr. President
Lorraine, he flourished the tomahawk on high like a wild Indian
chieftain; and the attack was so awfully severe, so overpowering, so
annihilating, that even this hackneyed and hardened official trembled,
turned pale, and quitted the House. Cleveland’s triumph was splendid,
but it was only for a night. Dis

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/9840