Tony Butler

“Then his intrusion here was not sanctioned by you?”

“No. It was all your father’s doing.”

“My father’s doing, if you like, Maitland, but concurred in and abetted by this man, whoever he is.”

“I ‘ll not even say that; he assures me that he accepted the invitation in the belief that the arrangement was made by me.”

“And you accept that explanation?”

“Of course I do. I see nothing in it in the smallest degree improbable or unlikely.”

“Well, who is he? That is the main point; for it is clear you do not wish us to receive him as a friend of yours.”

“I say I ‘d not have presented him here, certainly; but I ‘ll not go the length of saying he could n’t have been known by any one in this house. He is one of those adventurous fellows whose lives must not be read with the same glasses as those of quieter people. He has knocked about the world for some five-and-twenty years, without apparently having found his corner in it yet. I wanted him, – what for, I shall probably tell you one of these days, – and some friends of mine found him out for me!”

“One of your mysteries, Maitland,” said Mark, laughing.

“Yes, ‘one of my mysteries!”

“Of what nation is he?”

“There, again, I must balk your curiosity. The fact is, Mark, I can explain nothing about this man without going into matters which I am solemnly bound not to reveal. What I have to ask from you is that you will explain to your father, and of course to Lady Lyle and your sisters, the mistake that has occurred, and request that they will keep it a secret. He has already gone, so that your guests will probably not discuss him after a day or two.”

“Not even so much, for there’s a break-up. Old Mrs. Maxwell has suddenly discovered that her birthday will fall on next Friday, and she insists upon going back to Tilney Park to entertain the tenantry, and give a ball to the servants. Most of the people here accompany her, and Isabella and myself are obliged to go. Each of us expects to be her heir, and we have to keep out competitors at all hazards.”

“‘Why has she never thought of me?” said Maitland.

“She means to invite you, at all events; for I heard her consulting my mother how so formidable a personage should be approached, – whether she ought to address you in a despatch, or ask for a conference.”

“If a choice be given me, I ‘ll stay where I am. The three days I promised you have grown nearer to three weeks, and I do not see the remotest chance of your getting rid of me.”

“Will you promise me to stay till I tell you we want your rooms?”

“Ah, my dear fellow, you don’t know – you could n’t know – what very tempting words you are uttering. This is such a charming, charming spot, to compose that novel I am – not – writing – that I never mean to leave till I have finished it; but, seriously, speaking like an old friend, am I a bore here? am I occupying the place that is wanted for another? are they tired of me?”

Mark overwhelmed his friend with assurances, very honest in the main, that they were only too happy to possess him as their guest, and felt no common pride in the fact that he could find his life there endurable. “I will own now,” says he, “that there was a considerable awe of you felt before you came; but you have lived down the fear, and become a positive favorite.”

“But who could have given such a version of me as to inspire this?”

“I am afraid I was the culprit,” said Mark. “I was rather boastful about knowing you at all, and I suppose I frightened them.”

“My dear Lyle, what a narrow escape I had of being positively odious! and I now see with what consummate courtesy my caprices have been treated, when really I never so much as suspected they had been noticed.”

There was a touch of sincerity in his accent as he spoke, that vouched for the honesty of his meaning; and Mark, as he looked at him, muttered to himself, “This is the man they call an egotist, and who is only intent on taking his turn out of all around him.”

“I think I must let you go to sleep again, Mark,” said Maitland, rising. “I am a wretched sleeper myself, and quite forget that there are happy fellows who can take their ten hours of oblivion without any help from the druggist. Without this” – and he drew a small phial from his waistcoat-pocket – “I get no rest.”

“What a bad habit!”

“Isn’t almost everything we do a bad habit? Have we ever a humor that recurs to us, that is not a bad habit? Are not the simple things which mean nothing in themselves an evil influence when they grow into requirements and make slaves of us? I suppose it was a bad habit that made me a bad sleeper, and I turn to another bad habit to correct it. The only things which are positively bad habits are those that require an effort to sustain, or will break down under us without we struggle to support them. To be morose is not one jot a worse habit than to be agreeable; for the time will come when you are indisposed to be pleasant, and the company in which you find yourself are certain to deem the humor as an offence to themselves; but there is a worse habit than this, which is to go on talking to a man whose eyes are closing with sleep. Good-night.”

Maitland said no more than the truth when he declared how happy he found himself in that quiet unmolested existence which he led at Lyle Abbey. To be free in every way, to indulge his humor to be alone or in company, to go and come as he liked, were great boons; but they were even less than the enjoyment he felt in living amongst total strangers, – persons who had never known, never heard of him, for whom he was not called on to make any effort or support any character.

No man ever felt more acutely the slavery that comes of sustaining a part before the world, and being as strange and as inexplicable as people required he should be. While a very young man, it amused him to trifle in this fashion, and to set absurd modes afloat for imitation; and he took a certain spiteful pleasure in seeing what a host of followers mere eccentricity could command. As he grew older, he wearied of this, and, to be free of it, wandered away to distant and unvisited countries, trying the old and barren experiment whether new sensations might not make a new nature. Cælum non animum mutant, says the adage; and he came back pretty much as he went, with this only difference, that he now cared only for quietness and repose. Not the contemplative repose of one who sought to reflect without disturbance, so much as the peaceful isolation that suited indolence. He fancied how he would have liked to be the son of that house, and dream away life in that wild secluded spot; but, after all, the thought was like the epicure’s notion of how contented he could be with a meal of potatoes!

As the day broke, he was roused from his light sleep by the tumult and noise of the departing guests. He arose and watched them through the half-closed jalousies. It was picturesque enough, in that crisp, fresh, frosty air, to see the groups as they gathered on the long terrace before the door; while equipages the most varied drew up, – here a family-coach with long-tailed “blacks;” there a smart britschka, with spanking grays; a tandem, too, there was for Mark’s special handling; and, conspicuous by its pile of luggage in the “well,” stood Gambier Graham’s outside jaunting-car, – a large basket of vegetables and fruit, and a hamper of lobsters, showing how such guests are propitiated, even in the hours of leave-taking.

Maitland watched Isabella in all her little attentive cares to Mrs. Maxwell, and saw, as he thought, the heir-expectant in every movement. He fancied that the shawl she carried on her arm was the old lady’s, and was almost vexed when he saw her wrap it around her own shoulders. “Well, that at least is sycophancy,” muttered he, as he saw her clutch up a little white Maltese terrier and kiss it; but, alas for his prescience! the next moment she had given the dog to a servant to carry back into the house; and so it was her own that she was parting from, and not Mrs. Maxwell’s that she was caressing!

It is strange to say that he was vexed at being disappointed. She was very pretty, very well-mannered, and very pleasing; but he longed to find that all the charm and grace about her were conventional; he wished to believe that “the whole thing,” as he called life, was a mere trick, where all cheated in proportion to their capacities. Mark had been honest enough to own that they were fortune-hunting, and Isabella certainly could not be ignorant of the stake she played for.

One by one the carriages drew up and moved away, and now Gambier Graham’s car stood before the door, alone; for the crowd of footmen who had thronged to press their services on the others, gradually melted away, hopeless of exacting a blackmail from the old Commodore. While Maitland stood watching the driver, who, in a composite sort of costume, rather more gardener than coachman, amused himself flicking with his whip imaginary flies off the old mare’s neck and withers, a smart tap came to the door; while a hasty voice called out, “May I come in?”

“Let me first hear who you are?” said Maitland.

“Commodore Graham,” was the answer.

In a moment it flashed across Maitland that the old sailor had come to reveal his discovery of M’Caskey. Just as quickly did he decide that it was better to admit him, and, if possible, contrive to make the story seem a secret between themselves.

“Come in, by all means, – the very man I wanted to see,” said Maitland, as he opened the door, and gave him a cordial shake-hands. “I was afraid you were going without seeing me, Commodore; and, early as it was, I got up and was dressing in hope to catch you.”

“That I call hearty, – downright hearty, – Maitland.”

Maitland actually started at this familiar mention of him by one whom he had never met till a few days before.

“Rather a rare event in your life to be up at this hour, I ‘ll be sworn, – except when you have n’t been to bed, eh?” And he laughed heartily at what he fancied was a most witty conceit. “You see we ‘re all off! We ‘ve had springs on our cables these last twenty-four hours, with this frolicsome old woman, who would insist on being back for her birthday; but she ‘s rich, Maitland, immensely rich, and we all worship her!”

Maitland gave a faint shrug of the shoulders, as though he deplored the degeneracy, but couldn’t help it.

“Yes, yes; I ‘m coming,” cried the Commodore, shouting from the open window to his daughters beneath. “The girls are impatient; they want to be at Lesliesford when the others are crossing. There’s a fresh on the river, and it ‘s better to get some stout fellows to guide the carriages through the water. I wanted greatly to have five minutes alone with you, – five would do; half of it, perhaps, between men of the world, as we are. You know about what.”

“I suspect I do,” said Maitland, quietly.

“I saw, too,” resumed Graham, “that you wished to have no talk about it here, amongst all these gossiping people. Was n’t I right?”

“Perfectly right; you appreciated me thoroughly.”

“What I said was this, – Maitland knows the world well. He ‘ll wait till he has his opportunity of talking the matter over with myself. He ‘ll say, ‘Graham and I will understand one another at once.’ One minute; only one,” screamed he out from the window. “Could n’t you come down and just say a word or two to them? They ‘d like it so much.”

Maitland muttered something about his costume.

“Ah! there it is. You fellows will never be seen till you are in full fig. Well, I must be off. Now, then, to finish what we ‘ve been saying. You ‘ll come over next week to Port-Graham, – that’s my little place, though there’s no port, nor anything like a port, within ten miles of it, – and we ‘ll arrange everything. If I ‘m an old fellow, Maitland, I don’t forget that I was once a young one, – mind that, my boy.” And the Commodore had to wipe his eyes, with the laughter at his drollery. “Yes; here I am,” cried he, again; and then turning to Maitland, shook his hand in both his own, repeating, “On Wednesday, – Wednesday to dinner, – not later than five, remember,” – he hastened down the stairs, and scrambled up on the car beside his eldest daughter, who apparently had already opened a floodgate of attack on him for his delay.

“Insupportable old bore!” muttered Maitland, as he waved his hand from the window, and smiled his blandest salutations to the retreating party. “What a tiresome old fool to fancy that I am going over to Graham-pond, or port, or whatever it is, to talk over an incident that I desire to have forgotten! Besides, when once I have left this neighborhood, he may discuss M’Caskey every day after his dinner; he may write his life, for anything I care.”

With this parting reflection he went down to the garden, strolling listlessly along the dew-spangled alleys, and carelessly tossing aside with his cane the apple-blossoms, which lay thick as snow-flakes on the walks. While thus lounging, he came suddenly upon Sir Arthur, as, hoe in hand, he imagined himself doing something useful.

“Oh, by the way, Mr. Maitland,” cried he, “Mark has just told me of the stupid mistake I made. Will you be generous enough to forgive me?”

“It is from me, sir, that the apologies must come,” began Maitland.

“Nothing of the kind, my dear Mr. Maitland. You will overwhelm me with shame if you say so. Let us each forget the incident; and, believe me, I shall feel myself your debtor by the act of oblivion.” He shook Maitland’s hand warmly, and in an easier tone added, “What good news I have heard! You are not tired of us, – not going!”

“I cannot – I told Mark this morning – I don’t believe there is a road out of this.”

“Well, wait here till I tell you it is fit for travelling,” said Sir Arthur, pleasantly, and addressed himself once more to his labors as a gardener.

Meanwhile Maitland threw himself down on a garden-bench, and cried aloud, “This is the real thing, after all, – this is actual repose. Not a word of political intrigue, no snares, no tricks, no deceptions, and no defeats; no waking to hear of our friends arrested, and our private letters in the hands of a Police Prefect. No horrid memories of the night before, and that run of ill-luck that has left us almost beggars. I wonder how long the charm of this tranquillity would endure; or is it like all other anodynes, which lose their calming power by habit? I ‘d certainly like to try.”

“Well, there is no reason why you shouldn’t,” said a voice from the back of the summer-house, which he knew to be Mrs. Trafford’s.

He jumped up to overtake her, but she was gone.

CHAPTER XII. MAITLAND’S VISIT

“What was it you were saying about flowers, Jeanie? I was not minding,” said Mrs. Butler, as she sat at her window watching the long heaving roll of the sea, as it broke along the jagged and rugged shore, her thoughts the while far beyond it.

“I was saying, ma’am, that the same man that came with the books t’ other day brought these roses, and asked very kindly how you were.”

“You mean the same gentleman, lassie, who left his card here!” said the old lady, correcting that very Northern habit of Ignoring all differences of condition.

“Well, I mind he was; for he had very white hands, and a big bright ring on one of his fingers.”

“You told him how sorry I was not to be able to see him, – that these bad headaches have left me unable to receive any one?”

“Na; I did n’t say that,” said she, half doggedly.

“Well, and what did you say?”

“I just said, she’s thinking too much about her son, who is away from home, to find any pleasure in a strange face. He laughed a little quiet laugh, and said, ‘There is good sense in that, Jeanie, and I ‘ll wait for a better moment.’”

“You should have given my message as I spoke it to you,” said the mistress, severely.

“I ‘m no sae blind that I canna see the differ between an aching head and a heavy heart Ye ‘re just frettin’, and there ‘s naething else the matter wi’ you. There he goes now, the same man, – the same gentleman, I mean,” said she, with a faint scoff. “He aye goes back by the strand, and climbs the white rocks opposite the Skerries.”

“Go and say that I ‘ll be happy to have a visit from him to-morrow, Jeanie; and mind, put nothing of your own in it, lassie, but give my words as I speak them.”

With a toss of her head Jeanie left the room, and soon after was seen skipping lightly from rock to rock towards the beach beneath. To the old lady’s great surprise, however, Jeanie, instead of limiting herself to the simple words of her message, appeared to be talking away earnestly and fluently with the stranger; and, worse than all, she now saw that he was coming back with her, and walking straight for the cottage. Mrs. Butler had but time to change her cap and smooth down the braids of her snow-white hair, when the key turned in the lock, and Jeanie ushered in Mr. Norman Maitland. Nothing could be more respectful or in better taste than Maitland’s approach. He blended the greatest deference with an evident desire to make her acquaintance, and almost at once relieved her from what she so much dreaded, – the first meeting with a stranger.

“Are you of the Clairlaverock Maitlands, sir?” asked she, timidly.

“Very distantly, I believe, madam. We all claim Sir Peter as the head of the family; but my own branch settled in India two generations back, and, I shame to say, thought of everything but genealogy.”

“There was a great beauty, a Miss Hester Maitland. When I was a girl, she married a lord, I think?”

“Yes, she married a Viscount Kinross, a sort of cousin of her own; though I am little versed in family history. The truth is, madam, younger sons who had to work their way in the world were more anxious to bequeath habits of energy and activity to their children than ideas of blazons and quarterings.”

The old lady sighed at this; but it was a sigh of relief. She had been dreading not a little a meeting with one of those haughty Maitlands, associated in her childhood’s days with thoughts of wealth and power, and that dominance that smacks of, if it does not mean, insolence; and now she found one who was not ashamed to belong to a father who had toiled for his support and worked hard for his livelihood. And yet it was strange with what tenacity she clung to a topic that had its terrors for her. She liked to talk of the family, and high connections, and great marriages of all these people with whose names she was familiar as a girl, but whom she had never known, if she had so much as seen.

“My poor husband, sir, – you may have heard of him, – Colonel Walter Butler, knew all these things by heart. You had only to ask when did so-and-so die, and who married such a one, and he ‘d tell you as if out of a book.”

“I have heard of Colonel Butler, madam. His fame as a soldier is widespread in India; indeed, I had hoped to have made his son’s acquaintance when I came here; but I believe he is with his regiment.”

“No, sir, he’s not in the service,” said she, flushing.

“Ah! a civilian, then. Well, madam, the Butlers have shown capacity in all careers.”

“My poor boy has not had the chance given him as yet, Mr. Maitland. We were too poor to think of a profession; and so, waiting and hoping, though it ‘s not very clear for what, we let the time slip over; and there he is a great grown man! as fine a young fellow as you ever looked on, and as good as handsome; but yet he cannot do one hand’s turn that would give him bread; and yet, ask your friends at the Abbey if there’s a grace or gift of a gentleman he is not the master of.”

“I think I know how the Lyles speak of him, and what affection they bear him.”

“Many would condemn me, sir,” cried she, warming with the one theme that engaged her whole heart, “for having thrown my boy amongst those so far above him in fortune, and given him habits and ways that his own condition must deny him; but it was my pride to see him in the station that his father held, and to know that he became it. I suppose there are dangers in it, too,” said she, rather answering his grave look than anything he had said. “I take it, sir, there are great temptations, mayhap over-strong temptations, for young natures.”

Maitland moved his head slightly, to imply that he assented.

“And it’s not unlikely the poor boy felt that himself; for when he came home t’ other night he looked scared and worn, and answered me shortly and abruptly in a way he never does, and made me sit down on the spot and write a letter for him to a great man who knew his father, asking – it is hard to say what I asked, and what I could have expected.”

“Colonel Butler’s son can scarcely want friends, madam,” said Maitland, courteously.

“What the world calls friends are usually relatives, and we have but one who could pretend to any sort of influence; and his treatment of my poor husband debars us from all knowledge of him. He was an only brother, a certain Sir Omerod Butler. You may, perhaps, have heard of him?”

“Formerly British Minister at Naples, I think?”

“The same, sir; a person, they tell me, of great abilities, but very eccentric, and peculiar, – indeed, so his letters bespeak him.”

“You have corresponded with him then, madam?”

“No, sir, never; but he wrote constantly to my husband before our marriage. They were at that time greatly attached to each other; and the elder, Sir Omerod, was always planning and plotting for his brother’s advancement. He talked of him as if he was his son, rather than a younger brother; in fact, there were eighteen years between them. Our marriage broke up all this. The great man was shocked at the humble connection, and poor Walter would not bear to have me slightingly spoken of; but dear me, Mr. Maitland, how I am running on! To talk of such things to you! I am really ashamed of myself! What will you think of me?”

“Only what I have learned to think of you, madam, from all your neighbors, – with sentiments of deep respect and sincere interest.”

“It is very good of you to say it, sir; and I wish Tony was back here to know you and thank you for all your attention to his mother.”

“You are expecting him, then?” asked he.

“Well, sir, I am, and I am not. One letter is full of hope and expectancy; by Thursday or Friday he ‘s to have some tidings about this or that place; and then comes another, saying how Sir Harry counsels him to go out and make friends with his uncle. All mammon, sir, – nothing but mammon; just because this old man is very rich, and never was married.”

“I suspect you are in error there, madam. Sir Omerod was married at least twenty years ago, when I first heard of him at Naples.”

She shook her head doubtfully, and said, “I have always been told the reverse, sir. I know what you allude to, but I have reason to believe I am right, and there is no Lady Butler.”

“It is curious enough, madam, that through a chance acquaintance on a railroad train, I learned all about the lady he married. She was an Italian.”

“It ‘s the same story I have heard myself, sir. We only differ about the ending of it. She was a stage-player or a dancer.”

“No, madam; a very celebrated prima donna.”

“Ay,” said she, as though there was no discrepancy there. “I heard how the old fool – for he was no young man then – got smitten with her voice and her beauty, and made such a fuss about her, taking her here and there in his state coach, and giving great entertainments for her at the Embassy, where the arms of England were over the door; and I have been told that the king heard of it, and wrote to Sir Omerod a fearful letter, asking how he dared so to degrade the escutcheon of the great nation he represented. Ah, you may smile, sir.” Maitland had, indeed, smiled alike at her tale, and the energy with which she told it “You may smile, sir; but it was no matter for laughter, I promise you. His Majesty called on him to resign, and the great Sir Omerod, who would n’t know his own brother, because he married a minister’s daughter, fell from his high station for the sake of – I will not say any hard words; but she was not certainly superior in station to myself, and I will make no other comparison between us.” \

“I suspect you have been greatly misled about all this, madam,” said Maitland, with a quiet, grave manner. “Sir Omerod – I heard it from my travelling companion – took his retiring pension and quitted diplomacy the very day he was entitled to it So far from desiring him to leave, it is said that the Minister of the day pressed him to remain at his post. He has the reputation of possessing no mean abilities, and certainly enjoyed the confidence of the Court to which he was accredited.”