Tony Butler

CHAPTER XXXIV. TONY ASKS COUNSEL

It was just as Bella said; Alice had sent off that poor boy “twice as much in love as ever.” Poor fellow! what a strange conflict was that that raged within him! – all that can make life glorious, give ecstasy to the present and hope to the future, mingled with everything that can throw a gloom over existence, and make it a burden and a task. Must it be ever thus? – must the most exquisite moments of our life, when we have youth and hope and health and energy, be dashed with fears that make us forget all the blessings of our lot, and deem ourselves the most wretched of created beings?

In this feverish alternation he travelled along homeward, – now thinking of the great things he could do and dare to win her love, now foreshadowing the time when all hopes should be extinguished, and he should walk the world alone and forsaken. He went over in memory – who has not done so at one time or other? – all she had said to him at their last meeting, asking what ground there might be for hope in this, what reason for belief in that. With what intense avidity do we seek for the sands of gold in this crushed and crumbled rock! how eagerly do we peer to catch one glittering grain that shall whisper to us of wealth hereafter!

Surely, thought he, Alice is too good and too true-hearted to give me even this much of hope if she meant me to despair. Why should she offer to write to me if she intended that I was to forget her? “I wonder,” muttered he, in his dark spirit of doubt, – “I wonder if this be simply the woman’s way of treating a love she deems beneath her?” He had read in some book or other that it is no uncommon thing for those women whose grace and beauty win homage and devotion thus to sport with the affections of their worshippers, and that in this exercise of a cruel power they find an exquisite delight. But Alice was too proud and too high-hearted for such an ignoble pastime. But then he had read, too, that women sometimes fancy that, by encouraging a devotion they never mean to reward, they tend to elevate men’s thoughts, ennobling their ambitions, and inspiring them with purer, holier hopes. What if she should mean this, and no more than this? Would not her very hatred be more bearable than such pity? For a while this cruel thought unmanned him, and he sat there like one stunned and powerless.

For some time the road had led between the low furze-clad bills of the country, but now they had gained the summit of a ridge, and there lay beneath them that wild coast-line, broken with crag and promontory towards the sea, and inland swelling and falling in every fanciful undulation, yellow with the furze and the wild broom, but grander for its wide expanse than many a scene of stronger features. How dear to his heart it was! How inexpressibly dear the spot that was interwoven with every incident of his life and every spring of his hope! There the green lanes he used to saunter with Alice; there the breezy downs over which they cantered; yonder the little creek where they had once sheltered from a storm: he could see the rock on which he lit a fire in boyish imitation of a shipwrecked crew! It was of Alice that every crag and cliff, every bay and inlet spoke.

“And is all that happiness gone forever?” cried he, as he stood gazing at the scene. “I wonder,” thought he, “could Skeffy read her thoughts and tell me how she feels towards me? I wonder will he ever talk to her of me, and what will they say?” His cheek grew hot and red, and he muttered to himself, “Who knows but it may be in pity?” and with the bitterness of the thought the tears started to his eyes, and coursed down his cheeks.

That same book, – how it rankled, like a barbed arrow, in his side! – that same book said that men are always wrong in their readings of woman, – that they cannot understand the finer, nicer, more subtle springs of her action; and in their coarser appreciation they constantly destroy the interest they would give worlds to create. It was as this thought flashed across his memory the car-driver exclaimed aloud, “Ah, Master Tony, did ever you see as good a pony as you? he ‘s carried the minister these eighteen years, and look at him how he jogs along to-day!”

He pointed to a little path in the valley where old Dr. Stewart ambled along on his aged palfrey, the long mane and flowing tail of the beast marking him out though nigh half a mile away.

“Why didn’t I think of that before?” thought Tony. “Dolly Stewart is the very one to help me. She has not been bred and brought up like Alice, but she has plenty of keen woman’s wit, and she has all a sister’s love for me, besides. I ‘ll just go and tell her how we parted, and I ‘ll ask her frankly what she says to it.”

Cheered by this bright idea, he pursued his way in better spirits, and soon reached the little path which wound off from the high-road through the fields to the Burnside. Not a spot there unassociated with memories, but they were the memories of early boyhood. The clump of white thorns they used to call the Forest, and where they went to hunt wild beasts; the little stream they fancied a great and rapid river, swarming with alligators; the grassy slope, where they had their house, and the tiny garden whose flowers, stuck down at daybreak, were withered before noon! – too faithful emblems of the joys they illustrated!

“Surely,” thought he, “no boy had ever such a rare playfellow as Dolly; so ready to take her share in all the rough vicissitudes of a boy’s pleasures, and yet to bring to them a sort of storied interest and captivation which no mere boy could ever have contributed. What a little romance the whole was, – just because she knew how to impart the charm of a story to all they did and all they planned!”

It was thus thinking that he entered the cottage. So still was everything that he could hear the scratching noise of a pen as a rapid writer’s hand moved over the paper. He peeped cautiously in and saw Dolly seated, writing busily at a table all strewn over with manuscript: an open book, supported by other books, lay before her, at which from time to time she glanced.

Before Tony had advanced a step she turned round and saw him. “Was it not strange, Tony?” said she, and she flushed as she spoke. “I felt that you were there before I saw you; just like long ago, when I always knew where you were hid.”

“I was just thinking of that same long ago, Dolly,” said he, taking a chair beside her, “as I came up through the fields. There everything is the same as it used to be when we went to seek our fortune across the sandy desert, near the Black Lake.”

“No,” said she, correcting; “the Black Lake was at the foot of Giant’s Rock, beyond the rye-field.”

“So it was, Dolly; you are right.”

“Ah, Master Tony, I suspect I have a better memory of those days than you have. To be sure, I have not had as many things happening in the mean while to trouble these memories.”

There was a tone of sadness in her voice, very slight, very faint, indeed, but still enough to tinge these few words with melancholy.

“And what is all this writing about?” said he, moving his hands through the papers. “Are you composing a book, Dolly?”

“No,” said she, timidly; “I am only translating a little German story. When I was up in London, I was lucky enough to obtain the insertion of a little fairy tale in a small periodical meant for children, and the editor encouraged me to try and render one of Andersen’s stories; but I am a very sorry German, and, I fear me, a still sorrier prose writer; and so, Tony, the work goes on as slowly as that bridge of ours used long ago. Do you remember when it was made, we never had the courage to pass over it! Mayhap it will be the same with my poor story, and when finished, it will remain unread.”

“But why do you encounter such a piece of labor?” said he. “This must have taken a week or more.”

“A month yesterday, my good Tony; and very proud I am, too, that I did it in a month.”

“And for what, in heaven’s name?”

“For three bright sovereigns, Master Tony!” said she, blushing.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” said he, in deep shame and confusion. “I meant only, why did you engage on such a hard task.”

“I know you did n’t mean it, Tony; but I was so proud of my success as an author it would out. Yes,” said she, with a feigned air of importance, “I have just disposed of my copyright; and you know, Tony, Milton did not get a great deal more for ‘Paradise Lost.’ You see,” added she, seriously, “what with poor papa’s age and his loneliness, and my own not over-great strength, I don’t think I shall try (at least, not soon) to be a governess again; and it behoves me to be as little as I can of a burden to him; and after thinking of various things, I have settled upon this as the best.”

“What a good girl you are!” said he, and he fixed his eyes full upon her; nor did he know how admiringly, till he saw that her face, her forehead, and even her neck were crimson with shame and confusion.

“There is no such great goodness, in doing what is simply one’s duty,” said she, gravely.

“I don’t know that, Dolly.”

“Come, come, Tony, you never fancied yourself a hero, just because you are willing to earn your bread, and ready to do so by some sacrifice of your tastes and habits.”

The allusion recalled Tony to himself and his own cares, and after a few seconds of deep thought, he said, “I am going to make the venture now, Dolly. I am called away to London by telegraph, and am to leave to-morrow morning.”

“Are you fully prepared, Tony, for the examination?”

“Luckily for me, they do not require it Some accidental want of people has made them call in all the available fellows at a moment’s warning, and in this way I may chance to slip into the service unchallenged.”

“Nay, but, Tony,” said she, reproachfully, “you surely could face the examination?”

“I could face it just as I could face being shot at, of course, but with the same certainty of being bowled over. Don’t you know, Dolly, that I never knew my grammar long ago till you had dinned it into my head; and as you never come to my assistance now, I know well what my fate would be.”

“My dear Tony,” said she, “do get rid once for all of the habit of underrating your own abilities; as my dear father says, people very easily make self-depreciation a plea of indolence. There, don’t look so dreary; I ‘m not going to moralize in the few last minutes we are to have together. Talk to me about yourself.”

“It was for that I came, Dolly,” said he, rising and taking a turn or two up and down the room; for, in truth, he was sorely puzzled how to approach the theme that engaged him. “I want your aid; I want your woman’s wit to help me in a difficulty. Here’s what it is, Dolly,” and he sat down again at her side, and took her hand in his own. “Tell me, Dolly,” said he, suddenly, “is it true, as I have read somewhere, that a woman, after having made a man in love with her, will boast that she is not in the least bound to requite his affection if she satisfies herself that she has elevated him in his ambition, given a higher spring to his hope, – made him, in fact, something better and nobler than his own uninspired nature had ever taught him to be? I ‘m not sure that I have said what I meant to say; but you ‘ll be able to guess what I intend.”

“You mean, perhaps, will a woman accept a man’s love as a means of serving him without any intention of returning it?”

Perhaps he did not like the fashion in which she put his question, for he did not answer, save by a nod.

“I say yes; such a thing is possible, and might happen readily enough if great difference of station separated them.”

“Do you mean if one was rich and the other poor?”

“Not exactly; because inequalities of fortune may exist between persons of equal condition.”

“In which case,” said he, hurriedly, “you would not call their stations unequal, would you?”

“That would depend on how far wealth contributed to the habits of the wealthier. Some people are so accustomed to affluence, it is so much the accompaniment of their daily lives, that the world has for them but one aspect.”

“Like our neighbors here, the Lyles, for instance?” said he.

Dolly gave a slight start, like a sudden pang of pain, and grew deadly pale. She drew away her hand at the same time, and passed it across her brow.

“Does your head ache, dear Dolly?” asked he, compassionately.

“Slightly; it is seldom quite free of pain. You have chosen a poor guide, Tony, when there is a question of the habits of fine folk. None know so little of their ways as I do. But surely you do not need guidance. Surely you are well capable of understanding them in all their moods.”

With all her attempts to appear calm and composed, her lips shook and her cheeks trembled as she spoke; and Tony, more struck by her looks than her words, passed his arm round her, and said, in a kind and affectionate voice, “I see you are not well, my own dear Dolly; and that I ought not to come here troubling you about my own selfish cares; but I can never help feeling that it’s a sister I speak to.”

“Yes, a sister,” said she, in a faint whisper, – “a sister!”

“And that your brother Tony has the right to come to you for counsel and help.”

“So he has,” said she, gulping down something like a sob; “but these days, when my head is weary and tired, and when – as to-day, Tony – I am good for nothing – Tell me,” said she, hastily, “how does your mother bear your going away? Will she let me come and sit with her often? I hope she will.”

“That she will, and be so happy to have you too; and only think, Dolly, Alice Lyle – Mrs. Trafford, I mean – has offered to come and keep her company sometimes. I hope you ‘ll meet her there; how you ‘d like her. Dolly!”

Dolly turned away her head; and the tears, against which she had struggled so long, now burst forth, and slowly fell along her cheek.

“You must not fancy, Dolly, that because Alice is rich and great you will like her less. Heaven knows, if humble fortune could separate us, ours might have done so.”

“My head is splitting, Tony dear. It is one of those sudden attacks of pain. Don’t be angry if I say good-bye; there’s nothing for it but a dark room, and quiet.”

“My poor dear Dolly,” said he, pressing her to him, and kissing her twice on the cheek.

“No, no!” cried she, hysterically, as though to something she was answering; and then, dashing away, she rushed from the room, and Tony could hear her door shut and locked as she passed in.

“How changed from what she used to be!” muttered he, as he went his way; “I scarcely can believe she is the same! And, after all, what light has she thrown on the difficulty I put before her? Or was it that I did not place the matter as clearly as I might? Was I too guarded, or was I too vague? Well, well. I remember the time when, no matter how stupid I was, she would soon have found out my meaning! What a dreary thing that life of a governess must be, when it could reduce one so quick of apprehension and so ready-witted as she was to such a state as this! Oh, is she not changed!” And this was the burden of his musings as he wended his way towards home.

CHAPTER XXXV. SIR ARTHUR ON LIFE AND THE WORLD IN GENERAL

“Here it is at last, mother,” said Tony, holding up the “despatch” as he entered the cottage.

“The order for the examination, Tony!” said she, as she turned pale.

“No, but the order to do without it, mother dear! – the order for Anthony Butler to report himself for service, without any other test than his readiness to go wherever they want to send him. It seems that there ‘s a row somewhere – or several rows – just now. Heaven bless the fellows that got them up, for it gives them no time at the Office to go into any impertinent inquiries as to one’s French, or decimal fractions, or the other qualifications deemed essential to carrying a letter-bag, and so they ‘ve sent for me to go off to Japan.”

“To Japan, Tony, – to Japan?”

“I don’t mean positively to Japan, for Skeffy says it might be Taganrog, or Timbuctoo, or Tamboff, or some other half-known place. But no matter, mother; it ‘s so much a mile, and something besides, per day; and the short and long of it is, I am to show myself on Tuesday, the 9th, at Downing Street, there to be dealt with as the law may direct.”

“It’s a hasty summons, my poor Tony – ”

“It might be worse, mother. What would we say to it if it were, ‘Come up and be examined’? I think I ‘m a good-tempered fellow; but I declare to you frankly, if one of those ‘Dons’ were to put a question to me that I could n’t answer, – and I ‘m afraid it would not be easy to put any other, – I ‘d find it very hard not to knock him down! I mean, of course, mother, if he did it offensively, with a chuckle over my ignorance, or something that seemed to say, ‘There ‘s a blockhead, if ever there was one!’ I know I couldn’t help it!”

“Oh, Tony, Tony!” said she, deprecatingly.

“Yes, it’s all very well to say Tony, Tony; but here’s how it is. It would be ‘all up’ with me. It would be by that time decided that I was good for nothing, and to be turned back. The moment would be a triumphant one for the fellow that ‘plucked’ me, – it always is, I ‘m told, – but I ‘ll be shot if it should be all triumph to him!”

“I won’t believe this of you, Tony,” said she, gravely. “It ‘s not like your father, sir!”

“Then I ‘d not do it, mother, – at least, if I could help it,” said he, growing very red. “I say, mother, is it too late to go up to the Abbey and bid. Sir Arthur good-bye? Alice asked me to do it, and I promised her.”

“Well, Tony, I don’t know how you feel about these things now, but there was a time that you never thought much what hour of the day or night it was when you went there.”

“It used to be so!” said he, thoughtfully; and then added, “but I ‘ll go, at all events, mother; but I ‘ll not be long away, for I must have a talk with you before bedtime.”

“I have a note written to Sir Arthur here; will you just give it to him, Tony, or leave it for him when you ‘re coming away, for it wants no answer?”

“All right, mother; don’t take tea till I come back, and I ‘ll do my best to come soon.”

It was a well-worn path that led from the cottage to Lyle Abbey. There was not an hour of day or night Tony had not travelled it; and as he went now, thoughts of all these long-agos would crowd on his memory, making him ask himself, Was there ever any one had so much happiness as I had in those days? Is it possible that my life to come will ever replace to me such enjoyment as that?

He was not a very imaginative youth, but he had that amount of the quality that suffices for small castle-building; and he went on, as he walked, picturing to himself what would be the boon he would ask from Fortune if some benevolent fairy were to start out from the tall ferns and grant him his wish. Would it be to be rich and titled and great, so that he might propose to make Alice his wife without any semblance of inordinate pretension? or would it not be to remain as he was, poor and humble in condition, and that Alice should be in a rank like his own, living in a cottage like Dolly Stewart, with little household cares to look after?

It was a strange labyrinth these thoughts led him into, and he soon lost his way completely, unable to satisfy himself whether Alice might not lose in fascination when no longer surrounded by all the splendid appliances of that high station she adorned, or whether her native gracefulness would not be far more attractive when her life became ennobled by duties. A continual comparison of Alice and Dolly would rise to his mind; nothing could be less alike, and yet there they were, in incessant juxtaposition; and while he pictured Alice in the humble manse of the minister, beautiful as he had ever seen her, he wondered whether she would be able to subdue her proud spirit to such lowly ways, and make of that thatched cabin the happy home that Dolly had made it. His experiences of life were not very large, but one lesson they had certainly taught him, – it was, to recognize in persons of condition, when well brought up, a great spirit of accommodation. In the varied company of Sir Arthur’s house he had constantly found that no one submitted with a better grace to accidental hardships than he whose station had usually elevated him above the risks of their occurrence, and that in the chance roughings of a sportsman’s life it was the born gentleman – Sybarite it might be at times – whose temper best sustained him in all difficulties, and whose gallant spirit bore him most triumphantly over the crosses and cares that beset him. It might not be a very logical induction that led him to apply this reasoning to Alice, but he did so, and in so doing he felt very little how the time went over, till he found himself on the terrace at Lyle Abbey.

Led on by old habit, he passed in without ringing the bell, and was already on his way to the drawing-room when he met Hailes the butler.

In the midst of a shower of rejoicings at seeing him again, – for he was a great favorite with the household, – Hailes hastened to show him into the dining-room, where, dinner over, Sir Arthur sat in an easy-chair at the fire, alone, and sound asleep. Roused by the noise of the opening door, Sir Arthur started and looked up; nor was he, indeed, very full awake while Tony blundered out his excuses for disturbing him.

“My dear Tony, not a word of this. It is a real pleasure to see you. I was taking a nap, just because I had nothing better to do. We are all alone here now, and the place feels strange enough in the solitude. Mark gone – the girls away – and no one left but Lady Lyle and myself. There’s your old friend; that’s some of the ‘32 claret; fill your glass, and tell me that you are come to pass some days with us.”

“I wish I was, sir; but I have come to say good-bye. I ‘m off to-morrow for London.”

“For London! What! another freak, Tony?”

“Scarcely a freak, sir,” said he, smiling. “They ‘ve telegraphed to me to come up and report myself for service at the Foreign Office.”

“As a Minister, eh?”

“No, sir; a Messenger.”

“An excellent thing, too; a capital thing. A man must begin somewhere, you know. Every one is not as lucky as I was, to start with close on twelve hundred a year. I was n’t twenty when I landed at Calcutta, Tony, – a mere boy!” Here the baronet filled his glass, and drank it off with a solemnity that seemed as if it were a silent toast to his own health, for in his own estimation he merited that honor, very few men having done more for themselves than he had; not that he had not been over-grateful, however, to the fortune of his early days in this boastful acknowledgment, since it was in the humble capacity of an admiral’s secretary – they called them clerks in those days – he had first found himself in the Indian Ocean, a mere accident leading to his appointment on shore and all his subsequent good fortune. “Yes, Tony,” continued he, “I started at what one calls a high rung of the ladder. It was then I first saw your father; he was about the same age as you are now. He was on Lord Dollington’s staff. Dear me, dear me! it seems like yesterday;” and he closed his eyes, and seemed lost in revery; but if he really felt like yesterday, he would have remembered how insolently the superb aide-de-camp treated the meek civilian of the period, and how immeasurably above Mr. Lyle of those days stood the haughty Captain Butler of the Governor-General’s staff.