Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete
as a gallant than promoting his more serious objects as a man of the
world. By degrees, and especially at Knaresdean, Vargrave himself became
deeply entangled by an affair that he had never before contemplated as
more important than a passing diversion; instead of securing a friend
to assist him in his designs on Evelyn, he suddenly found that he had
obtained a mistress anxious for his love and jealous of his homage. With
his usual promptitude and self-confidence, he was led at once to deliver
himself of all the ill-consequences of his rashness,--to get rid of
Caroline as a mistress, and to retain her as a tool, by marrying her
to Lord Doltimore. By the great ascendancy which his character acquired
over her, and by her own worldly ambition, he succeeded in inducing her
to sacrifice all romance to a union that gave her rank and fortune;
and Vargrave then rested satisfied that the clever wife would not only
secure him a permanent power over the political influence and private
fortune of the weak husband, but also abet his designs in securing an
alliance equally desirable for himself. Here it was that Vargrave's
incapacity to understand the refinements and scruples of a woman's
affection and nature, however guilty the one, and however worldly the
other, foiled and deceived him. Caroline, though the wife of another,
could not contemplate without anguish a similar bondage for her lover;
and having something of the better qualities of her sex still left to
her, she recoiled from being an accomplice in arts that were to drive
the young, inexperienced, and guileless creature who called her "friend"
into the arms of a man who openly avowed the most mercenary motives, and
who took gods and men to witness that his heart was sacred to another.
Only in Vargrave's presence were these scruples overmastered; but the
moment he was gone they returned in full force. She had yielded, from
positive fear, to his commands that she should convey Evelyn to Paris;
but she trembled to think of the vague hints and dark menaces that
Vargrave had let fall as to ulterior proceedings, and was distracted at
the thought of being implicated in some villanous or rash design.
When, therefore, the man whose rivalry Vargrave most feared was almost
established at her house, she made but a feeble resistance; she thought
that, if Legard should become a welcome and accepted suitor before
Lumley arrived, the latter would be forced to forego whatever hopes
he yet cherished, and that she should be delivered from a dilemma, the
prospect of which daunted and appalled her. Added to this, Caroline
was now, alas! sensible that a fool is not so easily governed; her
resistance to an intimacy with Legard would have been of little avail:
Doltimore, in these matters, had an obstinate will of his own; and,
whatever might once have been Caroline's influence over her liege,
certain it is that such influence had been greatly impaired of late by
the indulgence of a temper, always irritable, and now daily more soured
by regret, remorse, contempt for her husband,--and the melancholy
discovery that fortune, youth, beauty, and station are no talismans
against misery.
It was the gayest season of Paris; and to escape from herself, Caroline
plunged eagerly into the vortex of its dissipations. If Doltimore's
heart was disappointed, his vanity was pleased at the admiration
Caroline excited; and he himself was of an age and temper to share in
the pursuits and amusements of his wife. Into these gayeties, new to
their fascination, dazzled by their splendour, the young Evelyn entered
with her hostess; and ever by her side was the unequalled form of
Legard. Each of them in the bloom of youth, each of them at once formed
to please, and to be pleased by that fair Armida which we call the
World, there was, necessarily, a certain congeniality in their views and
sentiments, their occupations and their objects; nor was there, in all
that brilliant city, one more calculated to captivate the eye and
fancy than George Legard. But still, to a certain degree diffident and
fearful, Legard never yet spoke of love; nor did their intimacy at this
time ripen to that point in which Evelyn could have asked herself if
there were danger in the society of Legard, or serious meaning in his
obvious admiration. Whether that melancholy, to which Lady Vargrave had
alluded in her correspondence with Lumley, were occasioned by thoughts
connected with Maltravers, or unacknowledged recollections of Legard, it
remains for the acute reader himself to ascertain.
The Doltimores had been about three weeks in Paris; and for a fortnight
of that time Legard had been their constant guest, and half the inmate
of their hotel, when, on that night which has been commemorated in our
last book, Maltravers suddenly once more beheld the face of Evelyn, and
in the same hour learned that she was free. He quitted Valerie's box;
with a burning pulse and a beating heart, joy and surprise and hope
sparkling in his eyes and brightening his whole aspect, he hastened to
Evelyn's side.
It was at this time Legard, who sat behind Miss Cameron, unconscious of
the approach of a rival, happened by one of those chances which occur in
conversation to mention the name of Maltravers. He asked Evelyn if she
had yet met him.
"What! is he, then, in Paris?" asked Evelyn, quickly. "I heard, indeed,"
she continued, "that he left Burleigh for Paris, but imagined he had
gone on to Italy."
"No, he is still here; but he goes, I believe, little into the society
Lady Doltimore chiefly visits. Is he one of your favourites, Miss
Cameron?"
There was a slight increase of colour in Evelyn's beautiful cheek, as
she answered,--
"Is it possible not to admire and be interested in one so gifted?"
"He has certainly noble and fine qualities," returned Legard; "but
I cannot feel at ease with him: a coldness, a _hauteur_, a measured
distance of manner, seem to forbid even esteem. Yet _I_ ought not to say
so," he added, with a pang of self-reproach.
"No, indeed, you ought not to say so," said Evelyn, shaking her head
with a pretty affectation of anger; "for I know that you pretend to like
what I like, and admire what I admire; and I am an enthusiast in all
that relates to Mr. Maltravers!"
"I know that I would wish to see all things in life through Miss
Cameron's eyes," whispered Legard, softly; and this was the most meaning
speech he had ever yet made.
Evelyn turned away, and seemed absorbed in the opera; and at that
instant the door of the box opened, and Maltravers entered.
In her open, undisguised, youthful delight at seeing him again,
Maltravers felt, indeed, "as if Paradise were opened in her face." In
his own agitated emotions, he scarcely noticed that Legard had risen and
resigned his seat to him; he availed himself of the civility, greeted
his old acquaintance with a smile and a bow, and in a few minutes he was
in deep converse with Evelyn.
Never had he so successfully exerted the singular, the
master-fascination that he could command at will,--the more powerful
from its contrast to his ordinary coldness. In the very expression of
his eyes, the very tone of his voice, there was that in Maltravers, seen
at his happier moments, which irresistibly interested and absorbed your
attention: he could make you forget everything but himself, and the
rich, easy, yet earnest eloquence, which gave colour to his language and
melody to his voice. In that hour of renewed intercourse with one who
had at first awakened, if not her heart, at least her imagination and
her deeper thoughts, certain it is that even Legard was not missed.
As she smiled and listened, Evelyn dreamed not of the anguish she
inflicted. Leaning against the box, Legard surveyed the absorbed
attention of Evelyn, the adoring eyes of Maltravers, with that utter and
crushing wretchedness which no passion but jealousy, and that only while
it is yet a virgin agony, can bestow! He had never before even dreamed
of rivalry in such a quarter; but there was that ineffable instinct,
which lovers have, and which so seldom errs, that told him at once that
in Maltravers was the greatest obstacle his passion could encounter. He
waited in hopes that Evelyn would take the occasion to turn to him at
least--when the fourth act closed. She did not; and, unable to constrain
his emotions, and reply to the small-talk of Lord Doltimore, he abruptly
quitted the box.
When the opera was over, Maltravers offered his arm to Evelyn; she
accepted it, and then she looked round for Legard. He was gone.
BOOK VIII.
O Fate! O Heaven!--what have ye then decreed?
SOPHOCLES: _Oed. Tyr._ 738.
"Insolent pride...
...... The topmost crag of the great precipice
Surmounts--to rush to ruin."
_Ibid._ 874.
CHAPTER I.
... SHE is young, wise, fair, In these to Nature she's immediate heir.
...... ... Honours best thrive When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers!--_All's Well that Ends Well_.
LETTER FROM ERNEST MALTRAVERS TO THE HON. FREDERICK CLEVELAND.
EVELYN is free; she is in Paris; I have seen her,--I see her daily!
How true it is that we cannot make a philosophy of indifference! The
affections are stronger than all our reasonings. We must take them into
our alliance, or they will destroy all our theories of self-government.
Such fools of fate are we, passing from system to system, from scheme
to scheme, vainly seeking to shut out passion and sorrow-forgetting that
they are born within us--and return to the soul as the seasons to the
earth! Yet,--years, many years ago, when I first looked gravely into
my own nature and being here, when I first awakened to the dignity and
solemn responsibilities of human life, I had resolved to tame and curb
myself into a thing of rule and measure. Bearing within me the wound
scarred over but never healed, the consciousness of wrong to the heart
that had leaned upon me, haunted by the memory of my lost Alice, I
shuddered at new affections bequeathing new griefs. Wrapped in a haughty
egotism, I wished not to extend my empire over a wider circuit than my
own intellect and passions. I turned from the trader-covetousness of
bliss, that would freight the wealth of life upon barks exposed to every
wind upon the seas of Fate; I was contented with the hope to pass life
alone, honoured, though unloved. Slowly and reluctantly I yielded to
the fascinations of Florence Lascelles. The hour that sealed the compact
between us was one of regret and alarm. In vain I sought to deceive
myself,--I felt that I did not love. And then I imagined that Love was
no longer in my nature,--that I had exhausted its treasures before my
time, and left my heart a bankrupt. Not till the last--not till that
glorious soul broke out in all its brightness the nearer it approached
the source to which it has returned--did I feel of what tenderness she
was worthy and I was capable. She died, and the world was darkened!
Energy, ambition, my former aims and objects, were all sacrificed at her
tomb. But amidst ruins and through the darkness, my soul yet supported
me; I could no longer hope, but I could endure. I was resolved that
I would not be subdued, and that the world should not hear me groan.
Amidst strange and far-distant scenes, amidst hordes to whom my very
language was unknown, in wastes and forests, which the step of civilized
man, with his sorrows and his dreams, had never trodden, I wrestled with
my soul, as the patriarch of old wrestled with the angel,--and the angel
was at last the victor! You do not mistake me: you know that it was not
the death of Florence alone that worked in me that awful revolution;
but with that death the last glory fled from the face of things that