CHAPTER V.
THE RACK.
He stopped one moment on the landing-place, ere he was about to leave the house for ever.
"'Tis all over! and so, Vivian Grey, your game is up! and to die too, like a dog!—a woman's dupe! Were I a despot, 1 should perhaps satiate my vengeance upon this female fiend, with the assistance of the rack—but that cannot be; and after all, it would be but a poor revenge in one who has worshipped the Empire of the Intellect, to vindicate the agony I am now enduring, upon the base body of a woman. No! 'tis not all over. There is yet an intellectual rack few dream of, far, far more terrific than the most exquisite contrivances of Parysatis.—Madeleine," said he to a female attendant that passed, "is your mistress at home?"
"She is, Sir."
"'Tis well," said Vivian, and he sprang up stairs.
"Health to the lady of our love!" said Vivian Grey, as he entered the elegant boudoir of Mrs. Felix Lorraine. "In spite of the easterly wind, which has spoiled my beauty for the season, I could not refrain from enquiring after your prosperity, before I went to the Marquess. Have you heard the news?"
"News! no; what news?"
"'Tis a sad tale," said Vivian, with a melancholy voice.
"Oh! then, pray don't tell it me. I'm in no humour for sorrow to-day. Come! a bon mot, or a calembourg, or exit Mr. Vivian Grey."
"Well then, good morning! I'm off for a black crape, or a Barcelona kerchief.—Mrs. Cleveland is—dead."
"Dead!" exclaimed Mrs. Lorraine.
"Ay; cold dead. She died last nightsuddenly.—Isn't it horrible?"
"Shocking!" exclaimed Mrs. Lorraine, with a mournful voice, and an eye dancing with joy. "Why! Mr. Grey, I do declare you're weeping."
"It is not for the departed!"
"Nay, Vivian! for Heaven's sake, what's the matter?"
"My dear Mrs. Lorraine!"—But here the speaker's voice was choaked with grief, and he could not proceed.
"Pray, compose yourself."
"Mrs. Felix Lorraine, can I speak with you half an hour, undisturbed?"
"Oh! certainly, by all means. I'll ring for Madeleine. "Madeleine! mind, I'm not at home to any one. Well! what 's the matter?"
"Oh! Madam, I must pray your patience—I wish you to shrive a penitent."
"Good God! Mr. Grey! for Heaven's sake, be explicit."
"For Heaven's sake—for your sake—for my soul's sake, I would be explicit; but explicitness is not the language of such as I am. Can you listen to a tale of horror? Can you promise me to contain yourself?"
"I will promise any thing. Pray, pray proceed."
But in spite of her earnest solicitations, her companion was mute. At length he arose from his chair, and leaning on the chimney-piece, buried his face in his hands, and wept most bitterly.
"Vivian," said Mrs. Lorraine, "have you seen the Marquess yet?"
"Not yet," he sobbed; "I am going to him; but I 'm in no humour for business this morning."
"Oh! compose yourself, I beseech you. I will hear every thing. You shall not complain of an inattentive, or an irritable auditor. Now, my dear Vivian, sit down and tell me all." She led him to a chair, and then, after stifling his sobs, with a broken voice he proceeded.
"You will recollect, Madam, that accident made me acquainted with certain circumstances connected with yourself, and Mr. Cleveland. Alas! actuated by the vilest of sentiments, I conceived a violent hatred against that gentleman—a hatred only to be equalled by my passion for you; but, I find difficulty in dwelling upon the details of this sad story of jealousy and despair."
"Oh! speak, speak! compensate for all you have done, by your present frankness;—be brief— be brief."
"I will be brief," shouted Vivian, with terrific earnestness; "I will be brief. Know then. Madam, that in order to prevent the intercourse between you and Mr. Cleveland from proceeding, I obtained his friendship, and became the confidant of his heart's sweetest secret. Thus situated, I suppressed the letters, with which I was entrusted from him to you, and poisoning his mind, I accounted for your silence, by your being employed in other correspondence; nay, I did more, with the malice of a fiend, I boasted ofnay, do not stop me; I have more to tell."
Mrs. Felix Lorraine, with compressed lips, and looks of horrible earnestness, gazed in silence.
"The result of all this you know,—but the most terrible part is to come; and, by a strange fascination, I fly to confess my crimes at your feet, even, while the last minutes have witnessed my most heinous one. Oh! Madam, I have stood over the bier of the departed; I have mingled my tears with those of the sorrowing widower,—his young, and tender, child was on my knee; and, as I kissed his innocent lips, methought it was but my duty to the departed, to save the father from his mother's rival—" He stopped.
"Yes,—yes,—yes," said Mrs. Felix Lorraine, in a low whisper.
"It was then, even then, in the hour of his desolation, that I mentioned your name, that it might the more disgust him; and, while he wept over his virtuous and sainted wife, I dwelt on the vices of his rejected Mistress."
Mrs. Lorraine clasped her hands, and moved restlessly on her seat.
"Nay! do not stop me;—let me tell all. 'Cleveland,' said I, 'if ever you become the husband of Mrs. Felix Lorraine, remember my last words:—it will be well for you, if your frame be like that of Mithridates of Pontus, and proof againstpoison."
"And did you say this?" shrieked the woman.
"Even these were my words."
"Then may all evil blast you!" She threw herself on the sofa: her voice was choked with the convulsions of her passion, and she writhed in the most fearful agony.
Vivian Grey, lounging in an arm-chair, in the easiest of postures, and with a face brilliant with smiles, watched his victim with the eye of a Mephistophiles.
She slowly recovered, and with a broken voice poured forth her sacred absolution to the relieved penitent.
"You wonder I do not stab you,—hah! hah! hah! there is no need for that;—the good powers be praised, that you refused the draught I once proffered. Know, wretch, that your race is run. Within five minutes, you will breathe a beggar, and an outcast. Your golden dreams are over—your cunning plans are circumvented—your ambitious hopes are crushed for ever—you are blighted in the very spring of your life. Oh! may you never die! May you wander for ever, the butt of the world's malice! and may the slow moving finger of scorn, point where'er you go at the ruined Charlatan!"
"Hah, hah! is it so, my lady? Oh! think you, that Vivian Grey would fall by a woman's wile? Oh! think you that Vivian Grey, could be crushed by such a worthless thing as you! Know, then, that your political intrigues have been as little concealed from me as your personal ones;—I have been acquainted with all. The Marquess has, himself, seen the Minister, and is more firmly stablished in his pride of place than ever. I have, myself, seen our colleagues, whom you tampered with, and their hearts are still true, and their purpose still fixed. All, all prospers; and ere five days are passed, 'the Charlatan ' will be a Senator."
The shifting expression of Mrs. Lorraine's countenance, while Vivian was speaking, would have baffled the most cunning painter. Her complexion was capricious as the chamelion's, and her countenance was so convulsed, that her features seemed of all shapes and sizes. One large vein protruded nearly a quarter of an inch from her forehead; and the dank light which gleamed in her tearful eye, was like an unwholesome meteor quivering in a marsh. When he ended, she sprang from the sofa, and looking up, and extending her arms with unmeaning wildness, she gave one loud shriek, and dropped like a bird shot on the wingshe had burst a blood-vessel.
Vivian raised her on the sofa, and paid her every possible attention. There is always a vile apothecary lurking about the mansions of the noble, and so a Mr. Andrewes soon appeared, and to this worthy, and the attendant Madeleine, Vivian delivered his patient.
Had Vivian Grey left the boudoir a pledged bridegroom, his countenance could not have been more triumphant; but he was labouring under the most unnatural excitation: for it is singular, that when, as he left the house, the porter told him that Mr, Cleveland was with his Lord, Vivian had no idea at the moment, what individual bore that name. The fresh air of the street revived him, and somewhat cooled the bubbling of his blood. It was then that the man's information struck upon his senses.
"So, poor Cleveland!" thought Vivian, "then he knows all!" His own misery he had not yet thought of; but, when Cleveland occurred to him, with his ambition once more baulked—his high hopes once more blasted— and his honourable soul once more deceived,—when he thought of his fair wife, and his infant children, and his ruined prospects; a sickness came over his heart, he grew dizzy, and fell.
"And the gentleman's ill, I think," said an honest Irishman; and, in the fulness of his charity, he placed Vivian on a door step.
"So it seems," said a genteel passenger in black; and he snatched, with great sang-froid, Vivian's gold watch. "Stop thief!" halloed the Hibernian. Paddy was tripped up. There was a row; in the midst of which, Vivian Grey crawled to an hotel.