Tony Butler

Too much shocked at the change in her appearance to speak, Tony could only mumble out a few broken words about her father.

“Yes,” cried she, eagerly, “his last letter says that he rides old Dobbin about just as well as ever; ‘perhaps it is,’ says he, ‘that having both of us grown old together, we bear our years with more tolerance to each other;’ but won’t you sit down, Tony? you ‘re not going away till I have talked a little with you.”

“Is the music lesson finished, Miss Stewart?” asked the thin lady, sternly.

“Yes, ma’am; we have done everything but sacred history.”

“Everything but the one important task, you might have said, Miss Stewart; but, perhaps, you are not now exactly in the temperament to resume teaching for to-day; and as this young gentleman’s mission is apparently to report, not only on your health but your happiness, I shall leave you a quarter of an hour to give him his instructions.”

“I hate that woman,” muttered Tony, as the door closed after her.

“No, Tony, she’s not unkind; but she doesn’t exactly see the world the way you and I used long ago. What a great big man you have grown!”

“And what a fine tall girl, you! And I used to call you a stump!”

“Ay, there were few compliments wasted between us in those days; but weren’t they happy?”

“Do you remember them all, Dolly?”

“Every one of them, – the climbing the big cherry-tree the day the branch broke, and we both fell into the melon-bed; the hunting for eels under the stones in the river, – was n’t that rare sport? and going out to sea in that leaky little boat that I ‘d not have courage to cross the Thames in now! – oh, Tony, tell me, you never were so jolly since?”

“I don’t think I was; and what’s worse, Dolly, I doubt if I ever shall be.”

The tone of deep despondency of these words went to her heart, and her lip trembled, as she said, —

“Have you had any bad news of late? is there anything going wrong with you?”

“No, Dolly, nothing new, nothing strange, nothing beyond the fact that I have been staring at, though I did not see it three years back, that I am a great hulking idle dog, of no earthly use to himself or to anybody else. However, I have opened my eyes to it at last; and here I am, come to seek my fortune, as we used to say long ago, which, after all, seems a far nicer thing in a fairy book than when reduced to a fact.”

Dolly gave a little short cough, to cover a faint sigh which escaped her; for she, too, knew something about seeking her fortune, and that the search was not always a success.

“And what are you thinking of doing, Tony?” asked she, eagerly.

“Like all lazy good-for-nothings, I begin by begging; that is to say, I have been to a great man this morning who knew my father, to ask him to give me something, – to make me something.”

“A soldier, I suppose?”

“No; mother won’t listen to that She ‘s so indignant about the way they treated my poor father about that good-service pension, – one of a race that has been pouring out their blood like water for three centuries back, – that she says she ‘d not let me accept a commission if it were offered to me, without it came coupled with a full apology for the wrong done my father; and as I am too old for the navy, and too ignorant for most other things, it will push all the great man’s ingenuity very close to find out the corner to suit me.”

“They talk a deal about Australia, Tony; and, indeed, I sometimes think I ‘d like to go there myself. I read in the ‘Times’ t’ other day that a dairy-maid got as much as forty-six pounds a-year and her board; only fancy, forty-six pounds a-year! Do you know,” added she, in a cautious whisper, “I have only eighteen pounds here, and was in rare luck too, they say, to get it.”

“What if we were to set out together, Dolly?” said he, laughing; but a deep scarlet flush covered her face, and though she tried to laugh too, she had to turn her head away, for the tears were in her eyes.

“But how could you turn dairymaid, Dolly?” cried he, half reproachfully.

“Just as well, or rather better, than you turn shepherd or gold-digger. As to mere labor, it would be nothing; as to any loss of condition, I ‘d not feel it, and therefore not suffer it.”

“Oh, I have no snobbery myself about working with my hands,” added he, hastily. “Heaven help me if I had, for my head would n’t keep me; but a girl’s bringing up is so different from a boy’s; she oughtn’t to do anything menial out of her own home.”

“We ought all of us just to do our best, Tony, and what leaves us less of a burden to others, – that’s my reading of it; and when we do that, we ‘ll have a quiet conscience, and that’s something that many a rich man could n’t buy with all his money.”

“I think it’s the time for the children’s dinner, Miss Stewart,” said the grim lady, entering. “I am sorry it should cut short an interview so interesting.”

A half-angry reply rose to Tony’s lips, when a look from Dora stopped him, and he stammered out, “May I call and see you again before I go back?”

“When do you go back, young gentleman?” asked the thin lady.

“That’s more than I can tell. This week if I can; next week if I must.”

“If you ‘ll write me a line, then, and say what day it would be your convenience to come down here, I will reply, and state whether it will be Miss Stewart’s and mine to receive you.”

“Come, at all events,” said Dora, in a low voice, as they shook hands and parted.

“Poor Dolly!” muttered he, as he went his way towards town. “What between the pale cheeks and the cropped hair and the odious cap, I ‘d never have known her!” He suddenly heard the sound of footsteps behind him, and, turning, he saw her running towards him at full speed.

“You had forgotten your cane, Tony,” said she, half breathless, “and I knew it was an old favorite of yours, and you ‘d be sorry to think it was lost. Tell me one thing,” cried she, and her cheek flushed even a deeper hue than the exercise had given it; “could you – would you be a clerk – in a merchant’s office, I mean?”

“Why do you ask me, Dolly?” said he; for her eager and anxious face directed all his solicitude from himself to her.

“If you only would and could, Tony,” continued she, “write. No; make papa write me a line to say so. There, I have no time for more; I have already done enough to secure me a rare lesson when I get back. Don’t come here again.”

She was gone before he could answer her; and with a heavier heart and a very puzzled head, he resumed his road to London, “Don’t come here again” ringing in his head as he went.

CHAPTER VII. LYLE ABBEY AND ITS GUESTS

The company at Lyle Abbey saw very little of Maitland for some days after his arrival. He never appeared of a morning; he only once came down to dinner; his pretext was indifferent health, and Mark showed a disposition to quarrel with any one who disputed it. Not, indeed, that the squirearchy then present were at all disposed to regret Maitland’s absence. They would infinitely rather have discussed his peculiarities in secret committee than meet himself in open debate. It was not very easy to say why they did not like him, but such was the fact. It was not that he overbore them by any species of assumption; he neither took on him airs of superior station nor of superior knowledge; he was neither insolent nor haughty; nor was he even, what sometimes is not less resented, careless and indifferent His manner was a sort of middle term between popularity-seeking and inattention. The most marked trait in it was one common enough in persons who have lived much on the Continent, – a great preference for the society of ladies making him almost ignore or avoid the presence of the men around him. Not that Maitland was what is called petit maître; there was not any of that flippant prettiness which is supposed to have its fascination for the fair sex; he was quiet without any touch of over-seriousness, very respectful, and at the same time with an insinuated friendliness as though the person he talked to was one selected for especial cordiality; and there was a sort of tender languor too about him, that implied some secret care in his heart, of which each who listened to his conversation was sure to fancy that she was one day to become the chosen depositary.

“Do you know, Bella,” said Mrs. Trafford, as they sat together at the fire in her dressing-room, “I shall end by half liking him.”

“I have n’t got that far, Alice, though I own that I am less in dread of him than I was. His superiority is not so crushing as I feared it might be; and certainly, if he be the Admirable Crichton Mark pretends he is, he takes every possible pains to avoid all display of it.”

“There may be some impertinence in that,” said the other. “Did you remark how he was a week here before he as much as owned he knew anything of music, and listened to our weary little ballads every evening without a word? and last night, out of pure caprice, as it seemed, he sits down, and sings song after song of Verdi’s difficult music, with a tenor that reminds one of Mario.”

“And which has quite convinced old Mrs. Maxwell that he is a professional, or, as she called it, ‘a singing man.’”

“She would call him a sketching man if she saw the caricature he made of herself in the pony carriage, which he tore up the moment he showed it to me.”

“One thing is clear, Alice, – he means that we should like him; but he is too clever to set about it in any vulgar spirit of captivation.”

“That is, he seeks regard for personal qualities rather more than admiration for his high gifts of intellect. Well, up to this, it is his cleverness that I like.”

“What puzzles me is why he ever came here. He is asked about everywhere, has all manner of great houses open to him, and stores of fine people, of whose intimacy you can see he is proud; and yet he comes down to a dull country place in a dull county; and, stranger than all, he seems to like it.”

“John Hunter says it is debt,” said Mrs. Trafford.

“Mark Fortescue hints that a rich and handsome widow has something to say to it.”

“Paul M’Clintock declares that he saw your picture by Ary Scheffer in the Exhibition, and fell madly in love with it, Bella.”