Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete
the head of the house of Maltravers, were nearly completed; and on his
wedding-day he hoped to be able to announce that the happy pair had
set out for their princely mansion of Lisle Court. In politics; though
nothing could be finally settled till his return, letters from Lord
Saxingham assured him that all was auspicious: the court and the heads
of the aristocracy daily growing more alienated from the premier, and
more prepared for a Cabinet revolution. And Vargrave, perhaps, like
most needy men, overrated the advantages he should derive from, and the
servile opinions he should conciliate in, his new character of landed
proprietor and wealthy peer. He was not insensible to the silent anguish
that Evelyn seemed to endure, nor to the bitter gloom that hung on
the brow of Lady Doltimore. But these were clouds that foretold no
storm,--light shadows that obscured not the serenity of the favouring
sky. He continued to seem unconscious to either; to take the coming
event as a matter of course, and to Evelyn he evinced so gentle,
unfamiliar, respectful, and delicate an attachment, that he left no
opening, either for confidence or complaint. Poor Evelyn! her gayety,
her enchanting levity, her sweet and infantine playfulness of manner,
were indeed vanished. Pale, wan, passive, and smileless, she was the
ghost of her former self! But days rolled on, and the evil one drew
near; she recoiled, but she never dreamed of resisting. How many equal
victims of her age and sex does the altar witness!
One day, at early noon, Lord Vargrave took his way to Evelyn's. He had
been to pay a political visit in the Faubourg St. Germain, and he was
now slowly crossing the more quiet and solitary part of the gardens of
the Tuileries, his hands clasped behind him, after his old, unaltered
habit, and his eyes downcast,--when suddenly a man, who was seated alone
beneath one of the trees, and who had for some moments watched his steps
with an anxious and wild aspect, rose and approached him. Lord Vargrave
was not conscious of the intrusion, till the man laid his hand on
Vargrave's arm, and exclaimed,--
"It is he! it is! Lumley Ferrers, we meet again!"
Lord Vargrave started and changed colour, as he gazed on the intruder.
"Ferrers," continued Cesarini (for it was he), and he wound his arm
firmly into Lord Vargrave's as he spoke, "you have not changed; your
step is light, your cheek healthful; and yet I--you can scarcely
recognize me. Oh, I have suffered so horribly since we parted! Why is
this? Why have I been so heavily visited, and why have you gone free?
Heaven is not just!"
Castruccio was in one of his lucid intervals; but there was that in his
uncertain eye, and strange unnatural voice, which showed that a breath
might dissolve the avalanche. Lord Vargrave looked anxiously round; none
were near: but he knew that the more public parts of the garden
were thronged, and through the trees he saw many forms moving in the
distance. He felt that the sound of his voice could summon assistance in
an instant, and his assurance returned to him.
"My poor friend," said he soothingly, as he quickened his pace, "it
grieves me to the heart to see you look ill; do not think so much of
what is past."
"There is no past!" replied Cesarini, gloomily. "The Past is my Present!
And I have thought and thought, in darkness and in chains, over all that
I have endured, and a light has broken on me in the hours when they told
me I was mad! Lumley Ferrers, it was not for my sake that you led me,
devil as you are, into the lowest hell! You had some object of your
own to serve in separating _her_ from Maltravers. You made me your
instrument. What was I to you that you should have sinned for _my_ sake?
Answer me, and truly, if those lips can utter truth!"
"Cesarini," returned Vargrave, in his blandest accents, "another time
we will converse on what has been; believe me, my only object was your
happiness, combined, it may be, with my hatred of your rival."
"Liar!" shouted Cesarini, grasping Vargrave's arm with the strength of
growing madness, while his burning eyes were fixed upon his tempter's
changing countenance. "You, too, loved Florence; you, too, sought her
hand; _you_ were my real rival!"
"Hush! my friend, hush!" said Vargrave, seeking to shake off the grip
of the maniac, and becoming seriously alarmed; "we are approaching the
crowded part of the gardens, we shall be observed."
"And why are men made my foes? Why is my own sister become my
persecutor? Why should she give me up to the torturer and the dungeon?
Why are serpents and fiends my comrades? Why is there fire in my brain
and heart; and why do you go free and enjoy liberty and life? Observed!
What care _you_ for observation? All men search for _me_!"
"Then why so openly expose yourself to their notice; why--"
"Hear me!" interrupted Cesarini. "When I escaped from the horrible
prison into which I was plunged; when I scented the fresh air, and
bounded over the grass; when I was again free in limbs and spirit,--a
sudden strain of music from a village came on my ear, and I stopped
short, and crouched down, and held my breath to listen. It ceased; and I
thought I had been with Florence, and I wept bitterly! When I recovered,
memory came back to me distinct and clear; and I heard a voice say to
me, 'Avenge her and thyself!' From that hour the voice has been heard
again, morning and night! Lumley Ferrers, I hear it now! it speaks to
my heart, it warms my blood, it nerves my hand! On whom should vengeance
fall? Speak to me!"
Lumley strode rapidly on. They were now without the grove; a gay throng
was before them. "All is safe," thought the Englishman. He turned
abruptly and haughtily on Cesarini, and waved his hand; "Begone,
madman!" said he, in a loud and stern voice,--"begone! vex me no more,
or I give you into custody. Begone, I say!"
Cesarini halted, amazed and awed for the moment; and then, with a dark
scowl and a low cry, threw himself on Vargrave. The eye and hand of the
latter were vigilant and prepared; he grasped the uplifted arm of the
maniac, and shouted for help. But the madman was now in his full fury;
he hurled Vargrave to the ground with a force for which the peer was not
prepared, and Lumley might never have risen a living man from that spot,
if two soldiers, seated close by, had not hastened to his assistance.
Cesarini was already kneeling on his breast, and his long bony fingers
were fastening upon the throat of his intended victim. Torn from his
hold, he glared fiercely on his new assailants; and after a fierce but
momentary struggle, wrested himself from their grip. Then, turning round
to Vargrave, who had with some effort risen from the ground, he
shrieked out, "I shall have thee yet!" and fled through the trees and
disappeared.
CHAPTER II.
AH, who is nigh? Come to me, friend or foe!
My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,
Ev'n now forsake me.--_HENRY VI_. Part iii.
LORD VARGRAVE, bold as he was by nature, in vain endeavoured to banish
from his mind the gloomy impression which the startling interview with
Cesarini had bequeathed. The face, the voice of the maniac, haunted him,
as the shape of the warning wraith haunts the mountaineer. He returned
at once to his hotel, unable for some hours to collect himself
sufficiently to pay his customary visit to Miss Cameron. Inly resolving
not to hazard a second meeting with the Italian during the rest of his
sojourn at Paris by venturing in the streets on foot, he ordered
his carriage towards evening; dined at the Cafe de Paris; and then
re-entered his carriage to proceed to Lady Doltimore's house.
"I beg your pardon, my lord," said his servant, as he closed the
carriage-door, "but I forgot to say that, a short time after you
returned this morning, a strange gentleman asked at the porter's lodge
if Mr. Ferrers was not staying at the hotel. The porter said there was
no Mr. Ferrers, but the gentleman insisted upon it that he had seen
Mr. Ferrers enter. I was in the lodge at the moment, my lord, and I
explained--"
"That Mr. Ferrers and Lord Vargrave are one and the same? What sort of
looking person?"
"Thin and dark, my lord,--evidently a foreigner. When I said that you
were now Lord Vargrave, he stared a moment, and said very abruptly that
he recollected it perfectly, and then he laughed and walked away."
"Did he not ask to see me?"
"No, my lord; he said he should take another opportunity. He was a
strange-looking gentleman, and his clothes were threadbare."
"Ah, some troublesome petitioner. Perhaps a Pole in distress! Remember I
am never at home when he calls. Shut the door. To Lady Doltimore's."
Lumley's heart beat as he threw himself back,--he again felt the grip of
the madman at his throat. He saw, at once, that Cesarini had dogged him;
he resolved the next morning to change his hotel, and to apply to the
police. It was strange how sudden and keen a fear had entered the breast
of this callous and resolute man!
On arriving at Lady Doltimore's, he found Caroline alone in the
drawing-room. It was a _tete-a-tete_ that he by no means desired.
"Lord Vargrave," said Caroline, coldly, "I wished a short conversation
with you; and finding you did not come in the morning, I sent you a note
an hour ago. Did you receive it?"
"No; I have been from home since six o'clock,--it is now nine."
"Well, then, Vargrave," said Caroline, with a compressed and writhing
lip, and turning very pale, "I tremble to tell you that I fear Doltimore
suspects. He looked at me sternly this morning, and said, 'You seem
unhappy, madam; this marriage of Lord Vargrave's distresses you!'"
"I warned you how it would be,--your own selfishness will betray and
ruin you."
"Do not reproach me, man!" said Lady Doltimore, with great vehemence.
"From you at least I have a right to pity, to forbearance, to succour. I
will not bear reproach from _you_."
"I reproach you for your own sake, for the faults you commit against
yourself; and I must say, Caroline, that after I had generously
conquered all selfish feeling, and assisted you to so desirable and
even brilliant a position, it is neither just nor high-minded in you to
evince so ungracious a reluctance to my taking the only step which can
save me from actual ruin. But what does Doltimore suspect? What ground
has he for suspicion, beyond that want of command of countenance which
it is easy to explain,--and which it is yet easier for a woman and a
great lady [here Lumley sneered] to acquire?"
"I know not; it has been put into his head. Paris is so full of slander.
But, Vargrave--Lumley--I tremble, I shudder with terror, if ever
Doltimore should discover--"
"Pooh! pooh! Our conduct at Paris has been most guarded, most discreet.
Doltimore is Self-conceit personified,--and Self-conceit is horn-eyed.
I am about to leave Paris,--about to marry, from under your own roof; a
little prudence, a little self-control, a smiling face, when you wish
us happiness, and so forth, and all is safe. Tush! think of it no more!
Fate has cut and shuffled the cards for you; the game is yours, unless
you revoke. Pardon my metaphor; it is a favourite one,--I have worn
it threadbare; but human life _is_ so like a rubber at whist. Where is
Evelyn?"
"In her own room. Have you no pity for her?"
"She will be very happy when she is Lady Vargrave; and for the rest, I
shall neither be a stern nor a jealous husband. She might not have given
the same character to the magnificent Maltravers."
Here Evelyn entered; and Vargrave hastened to press her hand, to whisper
tender salutations and compliments, to draw the easy-chair to the
fire, to place the footstool,--to lavish the _petits soins_ that are so
agreeable, when they are the small moralities of love.