Tony Butler

It was remarked, however, that his old pursuits, which were purely those of pleasure or dissipation, had not, to all appearance, the same hold on him as before. “He never goes down to Tattersall’s,” “I don’t think I have seen him once at the opera,” “He has given up play altogether,” were the rumors one heard on all sides; and so it was that the young generation, who had only heard of but never seen him, were sorely disappointed in meeting the somewhat quiet, reserved-looking, haughty man, whose wild feats and eccentricities had so often amused them, but who now gave no evidence of being other than a cold, well-bred gentleman.

It was when hastily passing through London, on his return from India, that Mark Lyle had met him, and Maitland had given him a half-careless promise to come and see him. “I want to go across to Ireland,” said he, “and whenever town gets hot, I’ll run over.” Mark would have heard the same words from a royal duke with less pride, for he had been brought up in his Sandhurst days with great traditions of Maitland; and the favor the great man had extended to him in India, riding his horses, and once sharing his bungalow, had so redounded to his credit in the regiment that even a tyrannical major had grown bland and gentle to him.

Mark was, however, far from confident that he could rely on his promise. It seemed too bright a prospect to be possible. Maitland, who had never been in Ireland, – whom one could, as Mark thought, no more fancy in Ireland than he could imagine a London fine lady passing her mornings in a poorhouse, or inspecting the coarse labors of a sewing-school, —he coming over to see him! What a triumph, were it only to be true! and now the post told him it was true, and that Maitland would arrive at the Abbey on Saturday. Now, when Mark had turned away so hastily and left his sisters, he began to regret that he had announced the approaching arrival of his friend with such a flourish of trumpets. “I ought to have said nothing whatever about him. I ought simply to have announced him as a man very well off, and much asked out, and have left the rest to fortune. All I have done by my ill-judged praise has been to awaken prejudice against him, and make them eager to detect flaws, if they can, in his manner, – at all events in his temper.” The longer he thought over these things the more they distressed him; and, at last, so far from being overjoyed, as he expected, at the visit of his distinguished friend, he saw the day of his coming dawn with dismay and misgiving. Indeed, had such a thing as putting him off been possible, it is likely he would have done it.

The long-looked-for and somewhat feared Saturday came at last, and with it came a note of a few lines from Maitland. They were dated from a little village in Wicklow, and ran thus: —

“Dear L., – I have come down here with a Yankee, whom I chanced upon as a travelling companion, to look at the mines, – gold, they call them; and if I am not seduced into a search after nuggets, I shall be with you some time – I cannot define the day – next week. The country is prettier and the people less barbarous than I expected; but I hear your neighborhood will compensate me for both disappointments.

“Yours,

“N. M.”

“Well! are we to send the carriage into Coleraine for him, Mark?” asked Sir Arthur, as his son continued to read the letter, without lifting his eyes.

“No,” said Mark, in some confusion. “This is a sort of put-off. He cannot be here for several days. Some friend or acquaintance has dragged him off in another direction;” and he crushed the note in his hand, afraid of being asked to read or to show it.

“The house will be full after Tuesday, Mark,” said Lady Lyle. “The Gores and the Masseys and the M’Clintocks will all be here, and Gambier Graham threatens us with himself and his two daughters.”

“If they come,” broke in Mark, “you’ll have my rooms at your disposal.”

“I delight in them,” said Mrs. Trafford; “and if your elegantly fastidious friend should really come, I count upon them to be perfect antidotes to all his impertinence. Sally Graham and the younger one, whom her father calls ‘Dick,’ are downright treasures when one is in want of a forlorn hope to storm town-bred pretension.”

“If Maitland is to be baited, Alice, I ‘d rather the bullring was somewhere else,” said her brother, angrily.

“The real question is, shall we have room for all these people and their followers?” said Lady Lyle.

“I repeat,” said Mark, “that if the Graham girls are to be here, I ‘m off. They are the most insufferably obtrusive and aggressive women I ever met; and I ‘d rather take boat and pass a month at the Hebrides than stop a week in the house with them.”

“I think Sally thrashed you when you came home once for the holidays,” said Mrs. Trafford, laughing.

“No, Alice, it was Beck,” broke in her sister. “She has a wonderful story of what she calls a left-hander, that she planted under his eye. She tells it still with great gusto, but owns that Mark fought on very bravely for two rounds after.”

“And are these the people you expect me to show Maitland?” said Mark, rising from the table; “I’d rather, fifty times rather, write and say, ‘We cannot receive you; our house is full, and will be for a month to come.’”

“Yes, dear Mark, that is the really sensible way to look at it. Nobody nowadays has any scruple in such matters. One is invited from Monday to Thursday, but on no possible pretext can he stay to Friday.” And so Mrs. Trafford ran away, heaping, by apparent consolations, coals of fire on his angry head.

“I think you had better get Alice to write the letter herself,” said Bella; “I’m sure she will do it with great tact and discretion.”

“Pray do,” added she. “Entrust me with the despatch, and I promise you the negotiation will be completed then and there.”

“It is quite bad enough to shut the door in a man’s face, without jeering at him out of the window,” said Mark; and he dashed out of the room in a rage.

“I wish he had shown us his friend’s note,” said Alice. “I’m quite certain that his anger has far, more to do with that epistle than with any of our comments upon it.”

“I’m very sorry Mark should be annoyed,” said Bella; “but I’m selfish enough to own that, if we escape Mr. Maitland’s visit, I shall deem the bargain a good one.”

“I suspect Mr. Maitland does not intend to honor us by his company, and that we may spare ourselves all the embarrassment of preparing for it,” said Lady Lyle. And now the three ladies set themselves to consider in committee that oft-vexed problem of how to make a country-house hold more people than it had room for, and how to persuade the less distinguished of the guests that they are “taking out” in cordiality all that their reception wants in convenience. One difficulty presented itself at every step, and in a variety of shapes. Never before had the Abbey been full of visitors without Tony Butler being there to assist in their amusement, – Tony, equally at home on land and on sea, the cavalier of young ladies, the safe coachman of mammas, the guide to all that was noteworthy, the fisherman, the yachtsman whom no weather disconcerted, no misadventure could provoke, – so good-tempered and so safe; ay, so safe! for Tony never wanted to flirt with the young heiress, nor teach her schoolboy brother to smoke a short pipe. He had neither the ambition to push his fortune unfairly, nor to attach his junior to him by unworthy means. And the sisters ran over his merits, and grew very enthusiastic about traits in him which, by inference, they implied were not the gifts of others nearer home.

“I wish, papa, you would ride over and see Mrs. Butler, and ask when Tony is expected back again.”

“Or if,” added Mrs. Trafford – “or if we could get him back by writing, and saying how much we want him.”

“I know I ‘ll never venture on Soliman till Tony has had a hand on him.”

“And those chestnuts mamma wants for the low phaeton, – who is to break them now?” cried Bella.

“I only heard yesterday,” said Sir Arthur, “that the ‘Mermaid’s’ sails were all cut up. Tony was going to make a schooner of her, it seems; and there she is now, dismantled, and not one of us able to put her in commission again.”

“I declare it sounds absurd,” broke in Lady Lyle, “but I fancy the garden is beginning to look neglected already. Certainly I never saw Mr. Graft there the whole morning; and he would not have dared to absent himself if Tony were here.”

“I ‘d go over willingly and see his mother,” said Sir Arthur; “but as Tony did not confide to us his intended journey, but set off without a word, it would have the appearance of a certain prying curiosity on my part were I to ask after him, and when he is expected home again.”

“Not if you were to say frankly that we wanted him, and could n’t get on without him, papa,” said Alice. “I ‘d have no shame in saying that we are perfectly helpless without his skill, his courage, his ready wit, and his good nature.”

“Why not secure all those perfections beyond risk, Alice?” said Sir Arthur, laughing.

“How so? – only tell me.”

“Marry him.”

“First of all, papa, he might not marry me; and, secondly, if he should, it might not be the way to insure the perpetuity I covet. You know what Swift says of the ‘promising’ Princes and the ‘bad’ Kings the world is full of?”

“I protest,” said Lady Lyle, haughtily, “I have a great regard for young Butler; but it has never gone the length of making me desire him for a son-in-law.”

“Meanwhile, papa, – for we have quite time enough to think over the marriage, – pray let me order them to saddle Peter for you, and ride over to the Burnside.”

“Do so, Alice; I’m quite ready; but, first of all, give me my instructions.”

“We want Tony,” broke in Bella.

“Yes; and insist on having him. He must be here by Monday night or Tuesday morning, if it cost an express to go after him.”

“We ought to bear in mind, girls, that Tony has not left home in pursuit of pleasure. The poor fellow has had some call of urgency or necessity, and our selfishness must not go the length of a cruelty.”

“But with your nice tact, papa, you’ll find out all that; you ‘ll learn, in the course of conversation, whether anything of importance has called him away, or whether it be not, as I half suspect, a sort of passing caprice.” And she looked significantly at Bella, and left her sentence unfinished.

“Do you know of anything that should induce you to believe this, Alice?”

“Nothing more than a chance word that dropped from Mark this morning. He took it into his head last night that poor Tony was presumptuous, and gave himself airs, – Tony! of all creatures in the world; and so the great hussar, in the plenitude of his regimental experiences, essayed what he called ‘to put him down’! Now, the chances are that this may have occasioned some unpleasantness, and it is not in the least unlikely may have led to Tony’s departure.”

“You must be right, Alice; and since we have been standing here at the window, I saw Mrs. Butler’s herd give Mark a letter, which, after reading, he crushed impatiently in his hand and thrust into his pocket. This decides me at once. I will go down to Mrs. Butler’s without delay.”

“Please explain that I have not called, solely because the carriage-road is so bad. The drive down through that forest of fern and reeds is like a horrid nightmare on me,” said Lady Lyle.

“Well, I think I can apologize for your absence without telling her that she lives in an unapproachable wilderness,” said he, laughing; “and as she cares little for visiting or being visited, the chances are my task will be an easy one.

“Would you like me to go with you, papa?” asked Alice.

“Yes, by all means; but stay,” added he, quickly, “it might possibly be better not to come; if anything unpleasant should have occurred between Mark and Tony, she will have less reluctance to speak of it when we are alone.”

They all agreed that this was well thought of, and soon after saw him set out on his mission, their best wishes for his success following him.

Sir Arthur pondered as he went over what he should say, and how he would meet the remarks he deemed it likely she would make to him. Without being in the least what is called a person of superior abilities, Mrs. Butler was a somewhat hard-headed woman, whose North of Ireland caution and shrewdness stood her in stead for higher qualities; and if they would not have guided her in great difficulties, she had the good fortune or the prudence to escape from such. He knew this; and he knew besides that there pertains to a position of diminished means and station a peculiar species of touchy pride, always suggesting to its possessor the suspicion that this or that liberty would never have been taken in happier days, and thus to regard the most well-meant counsels and delicately conveyed advice as uncalled-for interference, or worse.

It was after much consideration he saw himself at the little wicket of the garden, where he dismounted, and, fastening his bridle to the gate, knocked at the door. Though he could distinctly hear the sound of voices within, and the quick movement of feet, his summons was unanswered, and he was about to repeat it for the third time when the door was opened.

“Is your mistress at home, Jeanie?” said he, recognizing with a smile the girl’s courtesy to him.

“Yes, sir, she’s at home,” was the dry answer.

“Will you just tell her, then, that Sir Arthur Lyle would take it as a great favor if she’d permit him to speak to her?”

The girl disappeared with the message, but did not return again for several minutes; and when she did, she looked slightly agitated. “My mistress is very sorry, sir, but she canna see ye the day; it’s a sort of a headache she has.”

“Mr. Anthony, is he at home?” asked he, curious to remark the effect of his question.

“He’s no just at name the noo,” was the cautious reply.

“He has not been up at the Abbey to-day,” said he, carelessly; “but, to be sure, I came through the ‘bracken,’ and might have missed him.”

A little dry nod of the head, to acknowledge that this or anything else was possible, was all that his speech elicited.

“Say that I was very sorry, Jeanie, that Mrs. Butler could not see me, and sorrier for the reason; but that I hope tomorrow or next day to be more fortunate. Not,” added he, after a second thought, “that what I wanted to speak of is important, except to myself; don’t forget this, Jeanie.”

“I winna forget,” said she; and courtesying again, closed the door. Sir Arthur rode slowly back to report that his embassy had failed.

CHAPTER IV. SOME NEW ARRIVALS

Day after day went over, and no tidings of Maitland. When the post came in of a morning, and no letter in his hand appeared, Mark’s impatience was too perceptible to make any comment for his sisters either safe or prudent. Nor was it till nigh a week passed over that he himself said, “I wonder what has become of Maitland? I hope he’s not ill.” None followed up the theme, and it dropped. The expected guests began to drop in soon after, and, except by Mark himself, Mr. Norman Maitland was totally forgotten. The visitors were for the most part squires, and their wives and families; solid, well-to-do gentlemen, whose chief objects in life were green crops and the poor-law. Their talk was either of mangold or guano, swedes or the union, just as their sons’ conversation ranged over dogs, horses, meets, and covers; and the ladies disported in toilette, and such details of the Castle drawing-rooms as the Dublin papers afforded. There were Mr. and Mrs. Warren, with two daughters and a son; and the Hunters, with two sons and a daughter. There were Colonel Hoyle and Mrs. Hoyle, from regimental head-quarters, Belfast; and Groves Bulkney, the member for the county, who had come over, in the fear of an approaching dissolution of Parliament, to have a look at his constituents. He was a Tory, who always voted with the Whigs; a sort of politician in great favor with the North of Ireland, and usually supposed to have much influence with both parties. There were Masseys from Tipperary, and M’Clintocks from Louth; and, lastly, herald of their approach, three large coffin-shaped trunks, undeniably of sea-origin, with the words “Cap. Gambier Graham, R.N.,” marked on them, which arrived by a carrier, with three gun-cases and an immense array of fishing-tackle, gaffs, and nets.

“So I see those odious Grahams are coming,” said Mark, ill-humoredly, as he met his elder sister in the hall. “I declare, if it were not that Maitland might chance to arrive in my absence, I ‘d set off this very morning.”

“I assure you, Mark, you are all wrong; the girls are no favorites of mine; but looking to the staple of our other guests, the Grahams are perfect boons from Heaven. The Warrens, with their infant school, and Mrs. Maxwell, with her quarrel with the bishop, and the Masseys, with their pretension about that daughter who married Lord Claude Somebody, are so terribly tiresome that I long for the racket and noise of those bustling young women, who will at least dispel our dulness.”

“At the cost of our good breeding.”

“At all events, they are Jolly and good-tempered girls. We have known them for – ”

“Oh, don’t say how long. The younger one is two years older than myself.”

“No, Mark, Beck is exactly your own age.”

“Then I ‘m determined to call myself five-and-thirty the first opportunity I have. She shall have three years tacked to her for the coming into the world along with me.”

“Sally is only thirty-four.”

“Only! the idea of saying only to thirty-four.”

“They don’t look within eight or nine years of it, I declare. I suppose you will scarcely detect the slightest change in them.”

“So much the worse. Any change would improve them, in my eyes.”

“And the Captain, too. He, I believe, is now Commodore.”

“I perceive there is no change in the mode of travel,” said Mark, pointing to the trunks. “The heavy luggage used always to arrive the day before they drove up in their vile Irish jaunting-car. Do they still come in that fashion?”

“Yes; and I really believe with the same horse they had long, long ago.”

“A flea-bitten mare with a twisted tail?”

“The very same,” cried she, laughing. “I’ll certainly tell Beck how well you remember their horse. She ‘ll take it as a flattery.”

“Tell her what you like; she’ll soon find out how much flattery she has to expect from me!” After a short pause, in which he made two ineffectual attempts to light a cigar, and slightly burned his fingers, he said, “I ‘d not for a hundred pounds that Maitland had met them here. With simply stupid country gentry, he ‘d not care to notice their ways nor pay attention to their humdrum habits; but these Grahams, with all their flagrant vulgarity, will be a temptation too irresistible, and he will leave this to associate us forever in his mind with the two most ill-bred women in creation.”

“You are quite unfair, Mark; they are greatly liked, – at least, people are glad to have them; and if we only had poor Tony Butler here, who used to manage them to perfection, they ‘d help us wonderfully with all the dulness around us.”

“Thank Heaven we have not. I ‘d certainly not face such a constellation as the three of them. I tell you, frankly, that I ‘d pack my portmanteau and go over to Scotland if that fellow were to come here again.”

“You ‘re not likely to be driven to such an extremity, I suspect; but here comes papa, and I think he has been down at the Burnside; let us hear what news he has.”

“It has no interest for me,” said he, walking away, while she hastened out to meet Sir Arthur.

“No tidings, Alice, – at least, none that I can learn. Mrs. Butler’s headache still prevents her seeing me, though I could wager I saw her at work in the garden when I turned off the high-road.”

“How strange! You suspect that she avoids you?”

“I am certain of it; and I went round by the minister’s, thinking to have a talk with Stewart, and hear something that might explain this; but he was engaged in preparing his sermon, and begged me to excuse him.”

“I wish we could get to the bottom of this mystery. Would she receive me, do you think, if I were to go over to the cottage?”

“Most likely not I suspect whatever it be that has led to this estrangement will be a passing cloud; let us wait and see. Who are those coming up the bend of the road? The horse looks fagged enough, certainly.”

“The Grahams, I declare! Oh, I must find Mark, and let him be caught here when they arrive.”

“Don’t let the Commodore get at me before dinner; that’s all I ask,” said Sir Arthur, as he rode round to the stables.

When Alice entered the house, she found Mark at the open window watching with an opera-glass the progress of the jaunting-car as it slowly wound along the turns of the approach, lost and seen as the woods intervened or opened.

“I cannot make it out at all, Alice,” said he; “there are two men and two women, as well as I can see, besides the driver.”

“No, no; they have their maid, whom you mistake for a man.”

“Then the maid wears a wideawake and a paletot. Look, and see for yourself;” and he handed her the glass.

“I declare you are right, – it is a man; he is beside Beck. Sally is on the side with her father.”

“Are they capable of bringing some one along with them?” cried he, in horror. “Do you think they would dare to take such a liberty as that here?”

“I ‘m certain they would not. It must be Kenrose the apothecary, who was coming to see one of the maids, or one of our own people, or – ” Her further conjectures were cut short by the outburst of so strong an expletive as cannot be repeated; and Mark, pale as death, stammered out, “It’s Maitland! Norman Maitland!”

“But how, Mark, do they know him?”

“Confound them! who can tell how it happened?” said he., “I ‘ll not meet him; I ‘ll leave the house, – I ‘ll not face such an indignity.”

“But remember, Mark, none of us know your friend, we have not so much as seen him; and as he was to meet these people, it’s all the better they came as acquaintances.”

“That’s all very fine,” said he, angrily; “you can be beautifully philosophical about it, all because you have n’t to go back to a mess-table and be badgered by all sorts of allusions and references to Maitland’s capital story.”

“Here they are, here they are!” cried Alice; and the next moment she was warmly embracing those dear friends to whose failings she was nowise blind, however ardent her late defence of them. Mark, meanwhile, had advanced towards Maitland, and gave him as cordial a welcome as he could command. “My sister Mrs. Trafford, Mr. Maitland,” said he; and Alice gave her hand with a graceful cordiality to the new guest.

“I declare, Mark is afraid that I ‘ll kiss him,” cried Beck. “Courage, mon ami, I’ll not expose you in public.”

“How are you? how are you?” cried the Commodore; “brown, brown, very brown; Indian sun. Lucky if the mischief is only skin-deep.”

“Shake hands, Mark,” said Sally, in a deep masculine voice; “don’t bear malice, though I did pitch you out of the boat that day.”

Mark was however, happily, too much engaged with his friend to have heard the speech. He was eagerly listening to Maitland’s account of his first meeting with the Grahams.

“My lucky star was in the ascendant; for there I stood,” said Maitland, “in the great square of Bally – Bally – ”

“Ballymena,” broke in Beck; “and there’s no great square in the place; but you stood in a very dirty stable-yard, in a much greater passion than such a fine gentleman should ever give way to.”

“Calling, ‘A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse!’”

“It was ‘a chaise and pair’ I heard, and you were well laughed at for your demand. The baker offered you a seat, which you rejected with dismay; and, to tell the truth, it was half in the hope of witnessing another outburst of your indignation that I went across and said, ‘Would you accept a place beside me, sir?’”

“And was I not overwhelmed with joy? Was it not in a transport of gratitude that I embraced your offer?”

“I know you very nearly embraced my maid as you lifted her off the car.”

“And, by the way, where is Patience?” asked Mrs. Trafford.

“She’s coming on, some fashion, with the swell’s luggage,” added she, dropping her voice to a whisper, – “eight trunks, eleven carpet-bags, and four dressing-boxes, besides what I thought was a show-box, but is only a shower-bath.”