Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 09

								


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BOOK IX.


"Woe, woe: all things are clear."--SOPHOCLES: OEd. Tyr. 754.

CHAPTER I.


THE privilege that statesmen ever claim,
Who private interest never yet pursued,
But still pretended 'twas for others' good.
.  .  .  .  .  .
From hence on every humorous wind that veered
With shifted sails a several course you steered.

                 Absalom and Achitophel, Part ii.
LORD VARGRAVE had for more than a fortnight remained at the inn at
M-----, too ill to be removed with safety in a season so severe.  Even
when at last, by easy stages, he reached London, he was subjected to a
relapse; and his recovery was slow and gradual.  Hitherto unused to
sickness, he bore his confinement with extreme impatience; and against
the commands of his physician insisted on continuing to transact his
official business, and consult with his political friends in his
sick-room; for Lumley knew well, that it is most pernicious to public men
to be considered failing in health,--turkeys are not more unfeeling to a
sick brother than politicians to an ailing statesman; they give out that
his head is touched, and see paralysis and epilepsy in every speech and
every despatch.  The time, too, nearly ripe for his great schemes, made
it doubly necessary that he should exert himself, and prevent being
shelved with a plausible excuse of tender compassion for his infirmities.
As soon therefore as he learned that Legard had left Paris, he thought
himself safe for a while in that quarter, and surrendered his thoughts
wholly to his ambitious projects.  Perhaps, too, with the susceptible
vanity of a middle-aged man, who has had his bonnes fortunes, Lumley
deemed, with Rousseau, that a lover, pale and haggard--just raised from
the bed of suffering--is more interesting to friendship than attractive
to love.  He and Rousseau were, I believe, both mistaken; but that is a
matter of opinion: they both thought very coarsely of women,--one from
having no sentiment, and the other from having a sentiment that was but a
disease.  At length, just as Lumley was sufficiently recovered to quit
his house, to appear at his office, and declare that his illness had
wonderfully improved his constitution, intelligence from Paris, the more
startling from being wholly unexpected, reached him.  From Caroline he
learned that Maltravers had proposed to Evelyn, and been accepted.  From
Maltravers himself he heard the confirmation of the news.  The last
letter was short, but kind and manly.  He addressed Lord Vargrave as
Evelyn's guardian; slightly alluded to the scruples he had entertained
till Lord Vargrave's suit was broken off; and feeling the subject too
delicate for a letter, expressed a desire to confer with Lumley