Tony Butler Part 61

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, das.h.i.+ng away, she rushed from the room, and Tony could hear her door shut and locked as she pa.s.sed 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 x.x.xV. 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 j.a.pan."

"To j.a.pan, Tony,--to j.a.pan?"

"I don't mean positively to j.a.pan, 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 t.i.tled 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 enn.o.bled 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 hards.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s, and tell me that you are come to pa.s.s 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 gla.s.s, 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 sh.o.r.e 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.

"The soldiers used to fancy they had the best of it, Tony; but, I take it, we civilians won the race at last;" and his eyes ranged over the vast room, with the walls covered by pictures, and the sideboard loaded with ma.s.sive plate, while the array of decanters on the small spider-table beside him suggested largely of good living.

"A very old friend of mine, Jos. Hughes--he was salt a.s.sessor at Bussorabad--once remarked to me, 'Lyle,' said he, 'a man must make his choice in life, whether he prefers a brilliant start or a good finish, for he cannot have both.' Take your pleasure when young, and you must consent to work when old; but if you set out vigorously, determined to labor hard in early life, when you come to my age, Tony, you may be able to enjoy your rest"--and here he waved his hand round, as though to show the room in which they sat,--"to enjoy your rest, not without dignity."

Tony was an attentive listener, and Sir Arthur was flattered, and went on. "I am sincerely glad to have the opportunity of these few moments with you. I am an old pilot, so to say, on the sea you are about to venture upon; and really, the great difficulty young fellows have in life is, that the men who know the whole thing from end to end will not be honest in giving their experiences. There is a certain 'sn.o.bbery'--I have no other word for it--that prevents their confessing to small beginnings. They don't like telling how humble they were at the start; and what is the consequence? The value of the whole lesson is lost! Now, I have no such scruples, Tony. Good family connections and relatives of influence I had; I cannot deny it. I suppose there are scores of men would have coolly sat down and said to their right honorable cousin or their n.o.ble uncle, 'Help me to this,--get me that;' but sach was not my mode of procedure. No, sir; I resolved to be my own patron, and I went to India."

When Sir Arthur said this, he looked as though his words were: "I volunteered to lead the a.s.sault It was I that was first up the breach."

"But, after all, Tony, I can't get the boys to believe this." Now these boys were his three sons, two of them middle-aged, white-headed, liverless men in Upper India, and the third that gay dragoon with whom we have had some slight acquaintance.

"I have always said to the boys, 'Don't lie down on your high relations.'" Had he added that they would have found them a most uncomfortable bed, he would not have been beyond the truth. "'Do as I did, and see how gladly, ay, and how proudly, they will recognize you.' I say the same to you, Tony. You have, I am told, some family connections that might be turned to account?"

"None, sir; not one," broke in Tony, boldly.

"Well, there is that Sir Omerod Butler. I don't suspect he is a man of much actual influence. He is, I take it, a bygone."

"I know nothing of him; nor do I want to know anything of him," said Tony, pus.h.i.+ng his gla.s.s from him, and looking as though the conversation were one he would gladly change for any other topic; but it was not so easy to tear Sir Arthur from such a theme, and he went on.

"It would not do for you, perhaps, to make any advances towards him."

"I should like to see myself!" said Tony, half choking with angry impatience.

"I repeat, it would not do for _you_ to take this step; but if you had a friend--a man of rank and station--one whose position your uncle could not but acknowledge as at least the equal of his own--"

"He could be no friend of mine who should open any negotiations on my part with a relation who has treated my mother so uncourteously, sir."

"I think you are under a mistake, Tony. Mrs. Butler told me that it was rather her own fault than Sir Omerod's that some sort of reconciliation was not effected. Indeed, she once showed me a letter from your uncle when she was in trouble about those Canadian bonds."

"Yes, yes, I know it all," said Tony, rising, as if all his patience was at last exhausted. "I have read the letter you speak of; he offered to lend her five or six hundred pounds, or to give it, I forget which; and he was to take _me_"--here he burst into a fit of laughter that was almost hysterical in its harsh mockery--"to take me. I don't know what he was to do with me, for I believe he has turned Papist, Jesuit, or what not; perhaps I was to have been made a priest or a friar; at all events, I was to have been brought up dependent on his bounty,--a bad scheme for each of us. He would not have been very proud of his protege; and, if I know myself, I don't think I 'd have been very grateful to my protector. My dear mother, however, had too much of the mother in her to listen to it, and she told him so, perhaps too plainly for his refined notions in matters of phraseology; for he frumped and wrote no more to us."