Tony Butler

“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 massive 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 assessor 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 ‘snobbery’ – 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 noble 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 assault 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, pushing his glass 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 protégé; 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.”

“Which is exactly the reason why a friend, speaking from the eminence which a certain station confers, might be able to place matters on a better and more profitable footing.”

“Not with my consent, sir, depend upon it,” said Tony, fiercely.

“My dear Tony, there is a vulgar adage about the impolicy of quarrelling with one’s bread-and-butter; but how far more reprehensible would it be to quarrel with the face of the man who cuts it?”

It is just possible that Sir Arthur was as much mystified by his own illustration as was Tony, for each continued for some minutes to look at the other in a state of hopeless bewilderment. The thought of one mystery, however, recalled another, and Tony remembered his mother’s note.

“By the way, sir, I have a letter here for you from my mother,” said he, producing it.

Sir Arthur put on his spectacles leisurely, and began to peruse it. It seemed very brief, for in an instant he had returned it to his pocket.

“I conclude you know nothing of the contents of this?” said he, quietly.

“Nothing whatever.”

“It is of no consequence. You may simply tell Mrs. Butler from me that I will call on her by an early day; and now, won’t you come and have a cup of tea? Lady Lyle will expect to see you in the drawing-room.”

Tony would have refused, if he knew how; even in his old days he had been less on terms of intimacy with Lady Lyle than any others of the family, and she had at times a sort of dignified stateliness in her manner that checked him greatly.

“Here ‘s Tony Butler come to take a cup of tea with you, and say good-bye,” said Sir Arthur, as he led him into the drawing-room.

“Oh, indeed! I am too happy to see him,” said she, laying down her book; while, with a very chilly smile, she added, “and where is Mr. Butler bound for this time?” And simple as the words were, she contrived to impart to them a meaning as though she had said, “What new scheme or project has he now? What wild-goose chase is he at present engaged in?”

Sir Arthur came quickly to the rescue, as he said, “He’s going to take up an appointment under the Crown; and, like a good and prudent lad, to earn his bread, and do something towards his mother’s comfort.”

“I think you never take sugar,” said she, smiling faintly; “and for a while you made a convert of Alice.”

Was there ever a more common-place remark? and yet it sent the blood to poor Tony’s face and temples, and overwhelmed him with confusion. “You know that the girls are both away?”

“It’s a capital thing they ‘ve given him,” said Sir Arthur, trying to extract from his wife even the semblance of an interest in the young fellow’s career.

“What is it?” asked she.

“How do they call you? Are you a Queen’s messenger, or a Queen’s courier, or a Foreign Office messenger?”

“I’m not quite sure. I believe we are messengers, but whose I don’t remember.”

“They have the charge of all the despatches to the various embassies and legations in every part of the world,” said Sir Arthur, pompously.

“How addling it must be, – how confusing!”

“Why so? You don’t imagine that they have to retain them, and report them orally, do you?”

“Well, I ‘m afraid I did,” said she, with a little simper that seemed to say, What did it signify either way?

“They’d have made a most unlucky selection in my case,” said Tony, laughing, “if such had been the duty.”

“Do you think you shall like it?”

“I suppose I shall. There is so very little I ‘m really fit for, that I look on this appointment as a piece of rare luck.”

“I fancy I ‘d rather have gone into the army, – a cavalry regiment, for instance.”

“The most wasteful and extravagant career a young fellow could select,” said Sir Arthur, smarting under some recent and not over-pleasant experiences.

“The uniform is so becoming too,” said she, languidly.

“It is far and away beyond any pretension of my humble fortune, Madam,” said Tony, proudly, for there was an impertinent carelessness in her manner that stung him to the quick.

“Ah, yes,” sighed she; “and the army, too, is not the profession for one who wants to marry.”

Tony again felt his cheek on fire, but he did not utter a word as she went on, “And report says something like this of you, Mr. Butler.”

“What, Tony! how is this? I never heard of it before,” cried Sir Arthur.

“Nor I, sir.”

“Come, come. It is very indiscreet of me, I know,” said Lady Lyle; “but as we are in such a secret committee here at this moment, I fancied I might venture to offer my congratulations.”

“Congratulations! on what would be the lad’s ruin! Why, it would be downright insanity. I trust there is not a word of truth in it.”

“I repeat, sir, that I hear it all for the first time.”

“I conclude, then, I must have been misinformed.”

“Might I be bold enough to ask from what quarter the rumor reached you, or with whom they mated me?”

“Oh, as to your choice, I hear she is a very nice girl indeed, admirably brought up and well educated, – everything but rich; but of course that fact was well known to you. Men in her father’s position are seldom affluent.”

“And who could possibly have taken the trouble to weave all this romance about me?” said Tony, flushing not the less deeply that he suspected it was Dolly Stewart who was indicated by the description.

“One of the girls, I forget which, told me. Where she learned it, I forget, if I ever knew; but I remember that the story had a sort of completeness about it that looked like truth.” Was it accident or intention that made Lady Lyle fix her eyes steadily on Tony as she spoke? As she did so, his color, at first crimson, gave way to an ashy paleness, and he seemed like one about to faint. “After all,” said she, “perhaps it was a mere flirtation that people magnified into marriage.”

“It was not even that,” gasped he out, hoarsely. “I am overstaying my time, and my mother will be waiting tea for me,” muttered he; and with some scarcely intelligible attempts at begging to be remembered to Alice and Bella, he took his leave, and hurried away.

While Tony, with a heart almost bursting with agony, wended his way towards home, Lady Lyle resumed her novel, and Sir Arthur took up the “Times.” After about half an hour’s reading he laid down the paper, and said, “I hope there is no truth in that story about young Butler.”

“Not a word of it,” said she, dryly.

“Not a word of it! but I thought you believed it.”

“Nothing of the kind. It was a lesson the young gentleman has long needed, and I was only waiting for a good opportunity to give it.”

“I don’t understand you. What do you mean by a lesson?”

“I have very long suspected that it was a great piece of imprudence on our part to encourage the intimacy of this young man here, and to give him that position of familiarity which he obtained amongst us; but I trusted implicitly to the immeasurable distance that separated him from our girls, to secure us against danger. That clever man of the world, Mr. Maitland, however, showed me I was wrong. He was not a week here till he saw enough to induce him to give me a warning; and though at first he thought it was Bella’s favor he aspired to, he afterwards perceived it was to Alice he directed his attentions.”

“I can’t believe this possible. Tony would never dare such a piece of presumption.”

“You forget two things, Sir Arthur. This young fellow fancies that his good birth makes him the equal of any one; and, secondly, Alice, in her sense of independence, is exactly the girl to do a folly, and imagine it to be heroic; so Maitland himself said to me, and it was perfectly miraculous how well he read her whole nature. And indeed it was he who suggested to me to charge Tony Butler with being engaged to the minister’s daughter, and told me – and as I saw, with truth – how thoroughly it would test his suspicions about him. I thought he was going to faint, – he really swayed back and forwards when I said that it was one of the girls from whom I had the story.”

“If I could only believe this, he should never cross the threshold again. Such insolence is, however, incredible.”

“That’s a man’s way of regarding it; and however you sneer at our credulity, it enables us to see scores of things that your obstinacy is blind to. I am sincerely glad he is going away.”

“So am I – now; and I trust, in my heart, we have seen the last of him.”

“How tired you look, my poor Tony!” said his mother, as he entered the cottage and threw himself heavily and wearily into a chair.

“I am tired, mother, – very tired and jaded.”

“I wondered what kept you so long, Tony; for I had time to pack your trunk, and to put away all your things; and when it was done and finished, to sit down and sorrow over your going away. Oh, Tony dear, are n’t we ungrateful creatures, when we rise up in rebellion against the very mercies that are vouchsafed us, and say, Why was my prayer granted me? I am sure it was many and many a night, as I knelt down, I begged the Lord would send you some calling or other, that you might find means of an honest living; and a line of life that would n’t disgrace the stock you came from; and now that He has graciously heard me, here I am repining and complaining just as if it was n’t my own supplication that was listened to.”

Perhaps Tony was not in a humor to discuss a nice question of ethical meaning, for he abruptly said, “Sir Arthur Lyle read your note over, and said he’d call one of these days and see you. I suppose he meant with the answer.”

“There was no answer, Tony; the matter was just this, – I wanted a trifle of an advance from the bank, just to give you a little money when you have to go away; and Tom M’Elwain, the new manager, not knowing me perhaps, referred the matter to Sir Arthur, which was not what I wished or intended, and so I wrote and said so. Perhaps I said so a little too curtly, as if I was too proud, or the like, to accept a favor at Sir Arthur’s hands; for he wrote me a very beautiful letter – it went home to my heart – about his knowing your father long ago, when they were both lads, and had the wide world before them; and alluding very touchingly to the Lord’s bounties to himself, – blessing him with a full garner.”

“I hope you accepted nothing from him,” broke in Tony, roughly.

“No, Tony; for it happened that James Hewson, the apothecary, had a hundred pounds that he wanted to lay out on a safe mortgage, and so I took it, at six per cent, and gave him over the deeds of the little place here.”

“For a hundred pounds! Why, it ‘s worth twelve hundred at least, mother!”

“What a boy it is!” said she, laughing. “I merely gave him his right to claim the one hundred that he advanced, Tony dear; and my note to Sir Arthur was to ask him to have the bond, or whatever it is called, rightly drawn up and witnessed, and at the same time to thank him heartily for his own kind readiness to serve me.”

“I hate a mortgage, mother. I don’t feel as if the place was our own any longer.”

“Your father’s own words, eighteen years ago, when he drew all the money he had out of the agent’s hands, and paid off the debt on this little spot here. ‘Nelly,’ said he, ‘I can look out of the window now, and not be afraid of seeing a man coming ap the road to ask for his interest.’”

“It’s the very first thing I ‘ll try to do, is to pay off that debt, mother. Who knows but I may be able before the year is over! But I am glad you did n’t take it from Sir Arthur.”

“You’re as proud as your father, Tony,” said she, with her eyes full of tears; “take care that you’re as good as he was too.”

CHAPTER XXXVI. A CORNER IN DOWNING STREET

When Tony Butler found himself inside of the swinging glass-door at Downing Street, and in presence of the august Mr. Willis, the porter, it seemed as if all the interval since he had last stood in the same place had been a dream. The head-porter looked up from his “Times,” and with a severity that showed he had neither forgotten nor forgiven, said, “Messengers’ room – first pair – corridor – third door on the left.” There was an unmistakable dignity in the manner of the speaker which served to show Tony not merely that his former offence remained unpardoned, but that his entrance into public life had not awed or impressed in any way the stern official.

Tony passed on, mounted the stairs, and sauntered along a very ill-kept corridor, not fully certain whether it was the third, fourth, or fifth door he was in search of, or on what hand. After about half an hour passed in the hope of seeing one to direct him, he made bold to knock gently at a door. To his repeated summons no answer was returned, and he tried another, when a shrill voice cried, “Come in.” He entered, and saw a slight, sickly-looking youth, very elaborately dressed, seated at a table, writing. The room was a large one, very dirty, ill-furnished, and disorderly.

“Well, what is it?” asked the young gentleman, without lifting his head or his eyes from the desk.

“Could you tell me,” said Tony, courteously, “where I ought to go? I ‘m Butler, an extra messenger, and I have been summoned to attend and report here this morning.”

“All right; we want you,” said the other, still writing; “wait an instant.” So saying, he wrote on for several minutes at a rapid pace, muttering the words as his pen traced them; at last he finished, and, descending from his high seat, passed across the room, opened a door, which led into another room, and called out, —

“The messenger come, sir!”

“Who is he?” shouted a very harsh voice.

“First for Madrid, sir,” said the youth, examining a slip of paper he had just taken from his pocket.

“His name?” shouted out the other again.

“Poynder, sir.”

“I beg your pardon,” suggested Tony, mildly. “I’m Butler, not Poynder.”

“Who’s talking out there, – what’s that uproar?” screamed the voice, very angrily.

“He says he ‘s not for Madrid, sir. It’s a mistake,” cried the youth.

“No; you misunderstand me,” whispered Tony. “I only said I was not Poynder.”

“He says he ‘s in Poynder’s place.”

“I’ll stop this system of substitutes!” cried the voice. “Send him in here.”

“Go in there,” said the youth, with a gesture of his thumb, and his face at the same time wore an expression which said as plain as any words could have spoken, “And you ‘ll see how you like it.”

As Tony entered, he found himself standing face to face to the awful official, Mr. Brand, the same who had reported to the Minister his intended assault upon Willis, the porter. “Aw! what’s all this about?” said Mr. Brand, pompously. “You are Mr. – Mr. – ”

“Mr. Butler,” said Tony, quietly, but with an air of determination.

“And instead of reporting yourself, you come here to say that you have exchanged with Poynder.”

“I never heard of Poynder till three minutes ago.”

“You want, however, to take his journey, sir. You call yourself first for Madrid?”

“I do nothing of the kind. I have come here because I got a telegram two days ago. I know nothing of Poynder, and just as little about Madrid.”

“Oh – aw! you’re Butler! I remember all about you now; there is such a swarm of extras appointed, that it’s impossible to remember names or faces. You ‘re the young gentleman who – who – yes, yes, I remember it all; but have you passed the civil-service examiners?”

“No; I was preparing for the examination when I received that message, and came off ‘at once.”

“Well, you ‘ll present yourself at Burlington House. Mr. Blount will make out the order for you; you can go up the latter end of this week, and we shall want you immediately.”

“But I am not ready. I was reading for this examination when your telegram came, and I set off at the instant.”

“Blount, Mr. Blount!” screamed out the other, angrily; and as the affrighted youth presented himself, all pale and trembling, he went on: “What’s the meaning of this, sir? You first attempt to pass this person off for Poynder: and when that scheme fails, you endeavor to slip him into the service without warrant or qualification. He tells me himself he knows nothing.”

“Very little, certainly, but I don’t remember telling you so,” said Tony.

“And do you imagine, sir, that a bravado about your ignorance is the sure road to advancement? I can tell you, young gentleman, that the days of mighty patronage are gone by; the public require to be served with competent officials. We are not in the era of Castlereaghs and Vansittarts. If you can satisfy the Commissioners, you may come back here; if you cannot, you may go back to – to whatever life you were leading before, and were probably most fit for. As for you, Mr. Blount, I told you before that on the first occasion of your attempting to exercise here that talent for intrigue on which you pride yourself, and of which Mr. Vance told me you were a proficient, I should report you. I now say, sir, – and bear in mind I say so openly, and to yourself, and in presence of your friend here, – I shall do so this day.”

“May I explain, sir?”

“You may not, sir, – withdraw!” The wave of the hand that accompanied this order evidently included Tony; but he held his ground undismayed, while the other fell back, overwhelmed with shame and confusion.

Not deigning to be aware of Tony’s continued presence in the room, Mr. Brand again addressed himself to his writing materials, when a green-cloth door at the back of the room opened, and Mr. Vance entered, and, advancing to where the other sat, leaned over his chair and whispered some words in his ear. “You ‘ll find I ‘m right,” muttered he, as he finished.

“And where’s the Office to go to?” burst out the other, in a tone of ill-repressed passion; “will you just tell me that? Where’s the Office to go – if this continues?”

“That’s neither your affair nor mine,” whispered Vance. “These sort of things were done before we were born, and they will be done after we ‘re in our graves!”

“And is he to walk in here, and say, ‘I ‘m first for service; I don’t care whether you like it or not’?”

“He ‘s listening to you all this while, – are you aware of that?” whispered Vance; on which the other grew very red in the face, took off his spectacles, wiped and replaced them, and then, addressing Tony, said, “Go away, sir, – leave the Office.”

“Mr. Brand means that you need not wait,” said Vance, approaching Tony. “All you have to do is to leave your town address here, in the outer office, and come up once or twice a day.”

“And as to this examination,” said Tony, stoutly, “it’s better I should say once for all – ”

“It’s better you should just say nothing at all,” said the other, good-humoredly, as he slipped his arm inside of Tony’s and led him away. “You see,” whispered he, “my friend Mr. Brand is hasty.”

“I should think he is hasty!” growled out Tony.

“But he is a warm-hearted – a truly warm-hearted man – ”

“Warm enough he seems.”

“When you know him better – ”

“I don’t want to know him better!” burst in Tony. “I got into a scrape already with just such another: he was collector for the port of Derry, and I threw him out of the window, and all the blame was laid upon me!”

“Well, that certainly was hard,” said Vance, with a droll twinkle of his eye, – “I call that very hard.”

“So do I, after the language he used to me, saying all the while, ‘I’m no duellist, – I’m not for a saw-pit, with coffee and pistols for two,’ – and all that vulgar slang about murder and such-like.”

“And was he much hurt?”

“No; not much. It was only his collar-bone and one rib, I think, – I forget now, – for I had to go over to Skye, and stay there a good part of the summer.”