Vivian Grey Part 36

Essper was silent, and stood with his hands crossed on his breast, and his eyes fixed on the ground.

"If you do not want anything, quit the room immediately."

Here the singular being began to weep.

"Poor fellow!" thought Vivian, "I fear, with all thy wit and pleasantry, thou art, after all, but one of those capriccios which Nature sometimes indulges in, merely to show how superior is her accustomed order to eccentricities, even accompanied with rare powers."

"What is your wish, Essper?" continued Vivian, in a kinder tone. "If there be any service that I can do you, you will not find me backward.

Are you in trouble? you surely are not in want?"

"No!" sobbed Essper; "I wish to be your servant:" here he hid his face in his hands.

"My servant! why surely it is not very wise to seek dependence upon any man. I am afraid that you have been keeping company too much with the lackeys that are always loitering about these bathing-places, Ernstorff's green livery and sword, have they not turned your brain, Essper?"

"No, no, no! I am tired of living alone."

"But remember, to be a servant, you must be a person of regular habits and certain reputation. I have myself a good opinion of you, but I have myself seen very little of you, though more than any one here, and I am a person of a peculiar turn of mind. Perhaps there is not another individual in this house who would even allude to the possibility of engaging a servant without a character."

"Does the ship ask the wind for a character when he bears her over the sea without hire and without reward? and shall you require a character from me when I request to serve you without wages and without pay?"

"Such an engagement, Essper, it would be impossible for me to enter into, even if I had need of your services, which at present I have not.

But I tell you frankly that I see no chance of your suiting me. I should require an attendant of steady habits and experience; not one whose very appearance would attract attention when I wish to be un.o.bserved, and acquire a notoriety for the master which he detests. I warmly advise you to give up all idea of entering into a state of life for which you are not in the least suited. Believe me, your stall will be a better friend than a master. Now leave me."

Essper remained one moment with his eyes still fixed on the ground; then walking very rapidly up to Vivian, he dropped on his knee, kissed his hand, and disappeared.

Mr. St. George breakfasted with the Baron, and the gentlemen called on Lady Madeleine early in the morning to propose a drive to Stein Castle; but she excused herself, and Vivian following her example, the Baron and Mr. St. George "patronised" the Fitzlooms, because there was nothing else to do. Vivian again joined the ladies in their morning walk, but Miss Fane was not in her usual high spirits. She complained more than once of her cousin's absence; and this, connected with some other circ.u.mstances, gave Vivian the first impression that her feelings towards Mr. St. George were not merely those of a relation. As to the Chevalier de Boeffleurs, Vivian soon found that it was utterly impossible to be on intimate terms with a being without an idea. The Chevalier was certainly not a very fit representative of the gay, gallant, mercurial Frenchman: he rose very late, and employed the whole of the morning in reading the French journals and playing billiards alternately with Prince Salvinski and Count von Altenburgh.

These gentlemen, as well as the Baron, Vivian, and Mr. St. George, were to dine this day at the New House.

They found a.s.sembled at the appointed hour a party of about thirty individuals. The dinner was sumptuous, the wines superb. At the end of the banquet the company adjourned to another room, where play was proposed and immediately commenced. His Imperial Highness did not join in the game, but, seated in a corner of the apartment, was surrounded by his aides-de-camp, whose business was to bring their master constant accounts of the fortunes of the table and the fate of his bets. His Highness did not stake.

Vivian soon found that the game was played on a very different scale at the New House to what it was at the Redoute. He spoke most decidedly to the Baron of his detestation of gambling, and expressed his unwillingness to play; but the Baron, although he agreed with him in his sentiments, advised him to conform for the evening to the universal custom. As he could afford to lose, he consented, and staked boldly.

This night very considerable sums were lost and won; but none returned home greater winners than Mr. St. George and Vivian Grey.

CHAPTER X

The first few days of an acquaintance with a new scene of life and with new characters generally appear to pa.s.s very slowly; not certainly from the weariness which they induce, but rather from the keen attention which every little circ.u.mstance commands. When the novelty has worn off, when we have discovered that the new characters differ little from all others we have met before, and that the scene they inhabit is only another variety of the great order we have so often observed, we relapse into our ancient habits of inattention; we think more of ourselves, and less of those we meet; and musing our moments away in reverie, or in a vain attempt to cheat the coming day of the monotony of the present one, we begin to find that the various-vested hours have bounded and are bounding away in a course at once imperceptible, uninteresting, and unprofitable. Then it is that, terrified at our nearer approach to the great river whose dark windings it seems the business of all to forget, we start from our stupor to mourn over the rapidity of that collective sum of past-time, every individual hour of which we have in turn execrated for its sluggishness.

Vivian had now been three weeks at Ems, and the presence of Lady Madeleine Trevor and her cousin alone induced him to remain. Whatever the mystery existing between Lady Madeleine and the Baron, his efforts to attach himself to her party had been successful. The great intimacy subsisting between the Baron and her brother materially a.s.sisted in bringing about this result. For the first fortnight the Baron was Lady Madeleine's constant attendant in the evening promenade, and sometimes in the morning walk; and though there were few persons whose companionship could be preferred to that of Baron von Konigstein, still Vivian sometimes regretted that his friend and Mr. St. George had not continued their rides. The presence of the Baron seemed always to have an unfavourable influence upon the spirits of Miss Fane, and the absurd and evident jealousy of Mr. St. George prevented Vivian from finding in her agreeable conversation some consolation for the loss of the sole enjoyment of Lady Madeleine's exhilarating presence. Mr. St. George had never met Vivian's advances with cordiality, and he now treated him with studied coldness.

The visits of the gentlemen to the New House had been frequent. The saloon of the Grand Duke was open every evening, and in spite of his great distaste for the fatal amus.e.m.e.nt which was there invariably pursued, Vivian found it impossible to decline frequently attending without subjecting his motives to painful misconception. His extraordinary fortune did not desert him, and rendered his attendance still more a duty. The Baron was not so successful as on his first evening's venture at the Redoute; but Mr. St. George's star remained favourable. Of Essper Vivian had seen little. In pa.s.sing through the bazaar one morning, which he seldom did, he found, to his surprise, that the former conjuror had doffed his quaint costume, and was now attired in the usual garb of men of his condition of life. As Essper was busily employed at the moment, Vivian did not stop to speak to him; but he received a respectful bow. Once or twice, also, he had met Essper in the Baron's apartments; and he seemed to have become a very great favourite with the servants of his Excellency and the Chevalier de Boeffleurs, particularly with his former b.u.t.t, Ernstorff, to whom he now behaved with great deference.

For the first fortnight the Baron's attendance on Lady Madeleine was constant. After this time he began to slacken in his attentions. He first disappeared from the morning walks, and yet he did not ride; he then ceased from joining the party at Lady Madeleine's apartments in the evening, and never omitted increasing the circle at the New House for a single night. The whole of the fourth week the Baron dined with his Imperial Highness. Although the invitation had been extended to all the gentlemen from the first, it had been agreed that it was not to be accepted, in order that the ladies should not find their party in the saloon less numerous or less agreeable. The Baron was the first to break through a rule which he had himself proposed, and Mr. St. George and the Chevalier de Boeffleurs soon followed his example.

"Mr. Grey," said Lady Madeleine one evening, as she was about to leave the gardens, "we shall be happy to see you to-night, if you are not engaged."

"I fear that I am engaged," said Vivian; for the receipt of some letters from England made him little inclined to enter into society.

"Oh, no! you cannot be," said Miss Fane: "pray come! I know you only want to go to that terrible New House. I wonder what Albert can find to amuse him there; I fear no good. Men never congregate together for any beneficial purpose. I am sure, with all his gastronomical affectations, he would not, if all were right, prefer the most exquisite dinner in the world to our society. As it is, we scarcely see him a moment. I think that, you are the only one who has not deserted the saloon. For once, give up the New House."

Vivian smiled at Miss Fane's warmth, and could not persist in his refusal, although she did dilate most provokingly on the absence of her cousin. He therefore soon joined them.

"Lady Madeleine is a.s.sisting me in a most important work, Mr. Grey. I am making drawings of the Valley of the Rhine. I know that you are acquainted with the scenery; you can, perhaps, a.s.sist me with your advice about this view of old Hatto's Castle."

Vivian was so completely master of every spot in the Rhineland that he had no difficulty in suggesting the necessary alterations. The drawings were vivid representations of the scenery which they professed to depict, and Vivian forgot his melancholy as he attracted the attention of the fair artist to points of interest unknown or unnoticed by the guide-books and the diaries.

"You must look forward to Italy with great interest, Miss Fane?"

"The greatest! I shall not, however, forget the Rhine, even among the Apennines."

"Our intended fellow-travellers, Lord Mounteney and his family, are already at Milan," said Lady Madeleine to Vivian; "we were to have joined their party. Lady Mounteney is a Trevor."

"I have had the pleasure of meeting Lord Mounteney in England, at Sir Berdmore Scrope's: do you know him?"

"Slightly. The Mounteneys pa.s.s the winter at Rome, where I hope we shall join them. Do you know the family intimately?"

"Mr. Ernest Clay, a nephew of his Lordship's, I have seen a great deal of; I suppose, according to the adopted phraseology, I ought to describe him as my friend, although I am ignorant where he is at present; and although, unless he is himself extremely altered, there scarcely can be two persons who now more differ in their pursuits and tempers than ourselves."

"Ernest Clay! is he a friend of yours? He is at Munich, attached to the Legation. I see you smile at the idea of Ernest Clay drawing up a protocol!"

"Madeleine, you have never read me Caroline Mounteney's letter, as you promised," said Miss Fane; "I suppose full of raptures; 'the Alps and Apennines, the Pyrenaean and the River Po?'"

"By no means; the whole letter is filled with an account of the ballet at La Scala, which, according to Caroline, is a thousand times more interesting than Mont Blanc or the Simplon."

"One of the immortal works of Vigano, I suppose," said Vivian; "he has raised the ballet of action to an equality with tragedy. I have heard my father mention the splendid effect of his Vestale and his Otello."

"And yet," said Violet, "I do not like Oth.e.l.lo to be profaned. It is not for operas and ballets. We require the thrilling words."

"It is very true; yet Pasta's acting in the opera was a grand performance; and I have myself seldom witnessed a more masterly effect produced by any actor in the world than I did a fortnight ago, at the Opera at Darmstadt, by Wild in Oth.e.l.lo."

"I think the history of Desdemona is the most affecting of all tales,"

said Miss Fane.

"The violent death of a woman, young, lovely, and innocent, is a.s.suredly the most terrible of tragedies," observed Vivian.

"I have often asked myself," said Miss Fane, "which is the most terrible destiny for the young to endure: to meet death after a life of anxiety and suffering, or suddenly to be cut off in the enjoyment of all things that make life delightful."

"For my part," said Vivian, "in the last instance, I think that death can scarcely be considered an evil. How infinitely is such a destiny to be preferred to that long apprenticeship of sorrow, at the end of which we are generally as unwilling to die as at the commencement!"

"And yet," said Miss Fane, "there is something fearful in the idea of sudden death."

"Very fearful," muttered Vivian, "in some cases;" for he thought of one whom he had sent to his great account before his time.

"Violet, my dear!" said Lady Madeleine, "have you finished your drawing of the Bingenloch?" But Miss Fane would not leave the subject.