How shall we describe Chateau 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d, 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 n.o.ble 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 cas.e.m.e.nt 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 Chateau 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 ma.s.sy 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 Chateau, had been recently introduced into England by Hans Holbein and John of Padua.
How wild and fanciful are those ancient arabesques! Here at Chateau 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 cla.s.sic 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 j.a.ponica, which gracefully cl.u.s.tered 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 cl.u.s.tering 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 berceau you vaulted on the n.o.ble 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 Chateau, "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 n.o.bleman in any other point of view save that of perfection, that Vivian had declined accompanying his n.o.ble friend to the Chateau. 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, inc.u.mbent 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 roue. After having pa.s.sed through a career with tolerable credit, which would have blasted the character of any vulgar personage, Felix Lorraine ended by pigeoning a young n.o.bleman, 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 pa.s.sed 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 Curacoa 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 antic.i.p.ated 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, pa.s.sed 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 n.o.ble 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 Chateau 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."