CHAPTER V.
A NEW CHARACTER.
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—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 I am one 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 au commencement; I feel it, nevertheless, incumbent upon me to devote a few lines to the Lady that 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 laconically described as a Roué. To the initiated, I need say no more; they will all know what sort of a person a roué must be, who has the honour of being the son of an Enghsh Earl. To the uninitiated, I shall only observe, that after having passed through a career with tolerable credit, which would have blasted the character of any common 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 modem 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 for the Continent, and in due time was made drum-major at Barbadoes, or fiscal at Ceylon, or something of that kind; I forget which. While he loitered in Europe, he made a conquest of the heart of the daughter of some German baron, who was ambassador extraordinary from his Serene Highness the Palsgrave of * * * to his most Supreme Excellency the Landgrave of * * * and after six weeks passed in the most affectionate manner, each of the happy couple performing their respective duties with perfect propriety, Felix left 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, toute au contraire, 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. As Vivian wined with the Marchioness, he was not under the necessity of paying any courtesy to his opposite neighbour, whose silence, he plainly 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's 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, and his scandal, and his sentiment;—stories for the Marquess, scandal for the Marchioness, and sentiment for the Marquess's 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 English-woman, a thing 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 en domestique, the goodnatured 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."