It was like a return to his former self--to his gay, happy, careless
nature--for Tony Butler to find himself with his friend Skeflfy. As
painters lay layers of the same color on, one over the other, to deepen
the effect, so does youth double itself by companionship. As for
Skeflfy, never did a schoolboy exult more in a holiday; and, like a
schoolboy, his spirits boiled over in all manner of small excesses,
practical jokes on his fellow-passengers, and all those glorious
tomfooleries, to be able to do which with zest is worth all the
enjoyment that ever cynicism yielded twice told.
“I was afraid you would n't come. I did n't see you when the coach drove
into the inn-yard; and I was so disappointed,” said Tony, as he surveyed
the mass of luggage which the guard seemed never to finish depositing
before his friend.
“Two portmanteaus, sir,” said the guard, “three carpetbags, a
dressing-case, a hat-box, a gun-case, bundle of sticks and umbrellas,
and I think this parrot and cage are yours.”
“A parrot, Skeflfy!”
“For Mrs. Maxwell, you dog: she loves parrots, and I gave ten guineas
for that beggar, because they assured me he could positively keep up a
conversation; and the only thing he _can_ say is, 'Don't you wish you
may get it?'”
No sooner had the bird heard the words than he screamed them out with a
wild and scornful cry that made them sound like a bitter mockery.
“There,--that's at me,” whispered Skeflfy,--“at _me_ and _my_ chance of
Tilney. I 'm half inclined to wring his neck when I hear it.”
“Are you looking for any one, Harris?” asked Tony of a servant in livery
who had just ridden into the yard.
“Yes, sir; I have a letter from my mistress for a gentleman that was to
have come by the mail.”
“Here he is,” said Tony, as he glanced at the address. “This is Mr.
Skefflngton Darner.”
While Skeffy broke the seal, Tony muttered in his ear, “Mind, old
fellow, you are to come to us before you go to Tilney, no matter how
pressing she may be.”
“Here's a business,” said Skeffy; “as well as I can make out her old
pothooks, it is that she can't receive me. 'My dear,'--she first wrote
'Nephew,' but it's smudged out,--'My dear Cousin Darner, I am
much distressed to tell you that you must not come here. It is the
scarlatina, which the doctors all think highly infectious, though we
burn cinnamon and that other thing through all the rooms. My advice
would be to go to Harrogate, or some nice place, to amuse yourself,
and I enclose this piece of thin paper.' Where is it, though?” said
he, opening the letter and shaking it “Just think of the old woman
forgetting to put up the enclosure!”
“Try the envelope!” cried Tony, eagerly; but, no, the envelope was also
empty, and it was plain enough she had omitted it.
Skeffy read on: “'I had a very pretty pony for you here; and I remember
Lydia Darner told me how nice you looked riding, with the long curls
down your back.' Why, that was five-and-twenty years ago!” cried he,
with a scream of laughter,--“just fancy, Tony!” and he ran his fingers
through his hair. “How am I ever to keep up the illusion with this crop!
'But,'”--he went on to read,--“'but I suppose I shall not see that now.
I shall be eighty-one next November. Mind that you drink my health on
the 22nd, if I be alive. I could send you the pony if you thought it
would not be too expensive to keep him in London. Tilney is looking
beautiful, and the trees are budding as if it were spring. Drop me
a line before you leave the neighborhood; and believe me, your
affectionate godmother,
“'Dinah Maxwell.'
“I think I had better say I'll send an answer,” said Skeffy, as he
crumpled up the letter; “and as to the enclosure--”
A wild scream and some unintelligible utterance broke from the parrot at
this instant.
“Yes, you beggar, 'you wish I may get it' By the way, the servant can
take that fellow back with him; I am right glad to be rid of him.”
“It's the old adage of the ill wind,” said Tony, laughing.
“How so? What do you mean?”
“I mean that _your_ ill-luck is _our_ good fortune; for as you can't go
to Tilney, you'll have to stay the longer with us.”
Skeffy seized his hand and gave it a cordial shake, and the two young
fellows looked fully and frankly at each other, as men do look before
the game of life has caught too strong a hold upon their hearts, and
taught them over-anxiety to rise winners from it.
“Now, then, for your chateau,” said Skeffy, as he leaped up on the car,
already half hidden beneath his luggage.
“Our chateau is a thatched cabin,” said Tony, blushing in spite of all
his attempts to seem at ease. “It is only a friend would have heart to
face its humble fare.”
Not heeding, if he even heard the remark, Skeffy rattled on about
everything,--past, present, and future; talked of their jolly dinner
at Richmond, and of each of their companions on that gay day; asked the
names of the various places they passed on the road, what were the usual
fortunes of the proprietors, how they spent them; and, seldom waiting
for the answer, started some new query, to be forgotten in its turn.
“It is a finer country to ride over,” said Tony, anxious to say
something favorable for his locality, “than to look at. It is not
pretty, perhaps, but there's plenty of grass, and no end of stone walls
to jump, and in the season there's some capital trout-fishing too.”
“Don't care a copper for either. I'd rather see a new pantomime than
the best stag-hunt in Europe. I 'd rather see Tom Salter do the double
spring backwards than I 'd see them take a whale.”
“I 'm not of your mind, then,” said Tony. “I 'd rather be out on the
hillside of a dull, good-scenting day,--well mounted, of course,--and
hear the dogs as they rushed yelping through the cover.”
“Yoics, yoics, yoics! I saw it all at Astley's, and they took a gate in
rare style. But, I say, what is that tower yonder, topping the trees?”
“That is Lyle Abbey,--Sir Arthur Lyle's place.”
“Lyle,--Lyle. There was such a picture in the Exhibition last year of
two sisters, Maud, or Alice, or Bella Lyle, and another, by Watts. I
used to go every morning, before I went down to the office, to have a
look at them, and I never was quite certain which I was in love with.”
“They are here! they are Sir Arthur's daughters.”
“You don't say so! And do you know them, Tony?”
“As well as if they were my sisters.”
“Ain't I in luck!” cried Skeffy, in exultation. “I'd have gone to
Tarnoff,--that's the place Holmes was named consul at,--and wrote back
word that it did n't exist, and that the geography fellows were only
hoaxing the office! just fancy, hoaxing the office! Hulloa!--what have
we here? A four-horse team, by all that's stunning.”
“Mrs. Trafford's. Draw up at the side of the road till they pass,
Peter,” said Tony, hurriedly. The servant on the box of the carriage
had, however, apparently announced Tony Butler's presence, for the
postilions slackened their pace, and came to a dead halt a few paces in
front of the car.
“My mistress, sir, would be glad to speak to you,” said the servant,
approaching Tony.
“Is she alone, Coles?” asked he, as he descended from the car.
“Yes, sir.”
Somewhat reassured by this, but at the same time not a little agitated,
Tony drew nigh the carriage. Mrs. Trafford was wrapped up in a large
fur mantle,--the day was a cold one,--and lay back without making any
movement to salute, except a slight bend of the head as he approached.
“I have to apologize for stopping you,” said she, coldly; “but I had a
message to give you from Mr. Maitland, who left this a couple of days
ago.”
“Is he gone,--gone for good?” asked Tony, not really knowing what he
said.
“I don't exactly know what 'for good' means,” said she, smiling faintly;
“but I believe he has not any intention to return here. His message was
to say that, being much pressed for time, he had not an opportunity to
reply to your note.”
“I don't think it required an answer,” broke in Tony, sternly.
“Perhaps not as regarded you, but possibly it did as respected himself.”
“I don't understand you.”
“What I mean is, that, as you had declined his offer, you might
possibly, from inadvertence or any other cause, allude to it; whereas he
expressly wished that the subject should never be mentioned.”
“You were apparently very much in his confidence?” said Tony, fixing his
eyes steadily on her.
“When I learn by what right you ask me that question, I 'll answer it,”
said she, just as defiantly.
Tony's face became crimson, and he could not utter a word. At last he
stammered out, “I have a friend here,--Mr. Darner: he is just come over
to pay a visit at Tilney, and Mrs. Maxwell sends him a note to say that
they are all ill there.”
“Only Bella, and she is better.”
“And was Bella ill?” asked Tony, eagerly.
“Yes, since Tuesday or Wednesday, and even up to Friday, very ill. There
was a time this could scarcely have happened without your coming to ask
after her.”
“Is it my fault, Alice? First of all, I never knew it. You know well I
go nowhere. I do not mix with those who frequent grand houses. But tell
me of Bella.”
“She was never alarmingly ill; but the doctor called it scarlatina, and
frightened every one away; and poor Mrs. Maxwell has not yet recovered
the shock of seeing her guests depart and her house deserted, for Bella
and myself are all that remain.”
“May I present my friend to you?--he would take it as such a favor,”
asked Tony, timidly.
“I think not,” said she, with an air of indolence.
“Do let me; he saw your picture--that picture of you and Bella at the
Exhibition--and he is wild to see yourself. Don't refuse me, Alice.”
“If you think this a favor, I wonder you have courage to ask it. Come,
you need not look cross, Master Tony, particularly as all the fault is
on your own side. Come over to Tilney the day after to-morrow with your
friend.”
“But I don't know Mrs. Maxwell.”
“That does not signify in the least; do what I bid you. I am as much
mistress there as she is while I stay. Come early. I shall be quite
alone, for Mark goes to-morrow to town, and Bella will scarcely be well
enough to see you.”
“And you'll not let me introduce him now?”
“No; I shall look more like my picture in a house dress; and
perhaps--though I 'll not promise--be in a better temper too. Good-bye.”
“Won't you shake hands with me, Alice?”
“No; it's too cold to take my hand out of my muff. Remember, now,
Saturday morning, without fail.”
“Alice!” said he, with a look at once devoted and reproachful.
“Tony!” said she, imitating his tone of voice to perfection, “there's
your friend getting impatient. Good-bye.”
As the spanking team whirled past, Skeffy had but a second or two
to catch a glance at the veiled and muffled figure that reclined so
voluptuously in the corner of the carriage; but he was ready to declare
that she had the most beautiful eyes in the world, and “knew what to do
with them besides.” “You 're in love with her, Tony,” cried he, fixing
a steadfast stare on the pale and agitated features at his side. “I see
it, old fellow! I know every shade and tint of that blessed thing they
miscall the tender passion. Make me no confessions; I don't want them.
Your heart is at her feet, and she treats it like a football.”
Tony's cheeks grew purple.
“There's no shame in that, my boy. Women do that with better men than
either of us; ay, and will continue to do it centuries after you and I
shall be canonized as saints. It's that same contempt of us that
makes them worth the winning; but, I say, why is the fellow drawing up
here?--Is he going to bait his beast?”
“No,” muttered Tony, with a certain confusion; “but we must get down and
walk here. Our road lies by that path yonder: there 's no carriage-way
up to our 'chateau;'” and he gave a peculiar accent to the last word.
“All right,” said Skeffy, gayly. “I 'm good for ten miles of a walk.”
“I 'll not test your powers so far; less than a quarter of an hour will
bring us home. Take down the luggage, and I 'll send up for it,” said he
to the driver.
“What honest poor devils you must be down here!” said Skeffy, as he saw
the carman deposit the trunks on the road and drive off. “I 'd not like
to try this experiment in Charing Cross.”
“You see there is some good in poverty, after all,” said Tony, laughing.
“Egad, I've tried it for some years without discovering it,” said
Skeffy, gravely. “That,” continued he, after a brief pause, “it should
make men careless, thoughtless, reckless if you like, I can conceive;
but why it should make them honest, is clean beyond me. What an appetite
this sharp air is giving me, Master Tony! I'll astonish that sirloin or
that saddle of yours, whichever it be.”
“More likely neither, Skeffy. You 're lucky if it be a rasher and eggs.”
“Oh, that it may be,” cried the other, “and draught beer! Have you got
draught beer?”
“I don't think we have any other. There's our crib,--that little cabin
under the rocks yonder.”
“How pretty it is,--the snuggest spot I ever saw!”
“You're a good fellow to say so,” cried Tony; and his eyes swam in tears
as he turned away.
*****
What a change has come over Tony Butler within the last twenty-four
hours! All his fears and terrors as to what Skeffy would think of their
humble cottage and simple mode of life have given way, and there he
goes about from place to place, showing to his friend how comfortable
everything is, and how snug. “There are grander dining-rooms, no
doubt, but did you ever see a warmer or a 'cosier'? And as to the
drawing-room,--match the view from the window in all Europe; between
that great bluff of Fairhead and the huge precipice yonder of the
Causeway there is a sweep of coast unrivalled anywhere. Those great
rocks are the Skerries; and there, where you see that one stone-pine
tree,--there, under that cliff, is the cove where I keep my boat; not
much of a boat,” added he, in a weaker voice, “because I used always to
have the cutter,--Sir Arthur's yacht Round that point there is such a
spot to bathe in; twenty feet water at the very edge, and a white gravel
bottom, without a weed. Passing up that little pathway, you gain
the ledge yonder; and there--do you mark the two stones, like
gate-piers?--there you enter Sir Arthur Lyle's demesne. You can't see
the shrubberies, for the ground dips, and the trees will only grow in
the valleys here!” And there was a despondent tenderness in the last
words that seemed to say, “If it were not for that, this would be
paradise!”
Nor was it mere politeness, and the spirit of good breeding, that made
Skeffy a genial listener to these praises. What between the sense of a
holiday, the delight of what cockneys call an “outing,” the fine fresh
breezy air of the place, the breadth and space,--great elements of
expansiveness,--Skeffy felt a degree of enjoyment that amounted to
ecstasy.
“I don't wonder that you like it all, Tony,” said he. “You 'll never, in
all your wanderings, see anything finer.”
“I often say as much to myself,” replied Tony. “As I sit here of an
evening, with my cigar, I often say, 'Why should I go over the world in
search of fortune, when I have all that one wants here,--here at my very
hand?' Don't you think a fellow might be content with it?”
“Content! I could be as happy as a king here!” and for a moment or
two Skeffy really revelled in delighted thoughts of a region where the
tinkle of a minister's hand-bell had never been heard, where no “service
messengers” ever came, where no dunning tailors invaded; a paradise that
knew not the post nor dreamed of the telegraph.
“And as to money,” continued Tony, “one does not want to be rich in such
a place. I 'm as well off here with, we 'll say, two hundred a year--we
have n't got so much, but I 'll say that--as I should be in London with
a thousand.”
“Better! decidedly better!” said Skeffy, puffing his cigar, and thinking
over that snowstorm of Christmas bills which awaited him on his return.
“If it were not for one thing, Skeffy, I 'd never leave it,” said he,
with a deep sigh, and a look that said as plainly as ever words spoke,
“Let me open my heart to you.”
“I know it all, old fellow, just as if you had confessed it to me. I
know the whole story.”
“What do you know, or what do you suspect you know?” said Tony, growing
red.
“I say,” said Skeffy, with that tone of superiority that he liked to
assume,--“I say that I read you like a book.”
“Read aloud, then, and I 'll say if you 're right”
“It 's wrong with you here, Butler,” said Skeffy, laying his hand on
the other's heart; and a deep sigh was all the answer. “Give me another
weed,” said Skeffy, and for some seconds he employed himself in lighting
it “There's not a man in England,” said he, slowly, and with the
deliberateness of a judge in giving sentence,--“not a man in England
knows more of these sort of things than I do. You, I 'm certain, take me
for a man of pleasure and the world,--a gay, butterfly sort of creature,
flitting at will from flower to flower; or you believe me--and in that
with more reason--a fellow full of ambition, and determined to play
a high stake in life; but yet, Tony Butler, within all these there is
another nature, like the holy of holies in the sanctuary. Ay, my dear
friend, there is the--what the poet calls the 'crimson heart within the
rose.' Isn't that it?”
“I don't know,” said Tony, bluntly.
And now Skeffy smoked on for some minutes without a word. At length he
said, in a solemn tone, “It has not been for nothing, Butler, that I
acquired the gift I speak of. If I see into the hearts of men like you,
I have paid the price of it.”
“I 'm not so certain that you can do it” said Tony, half doubting his
friend's skill, and half eager to provoke an exercise of it.
“I 'll show whether I can or not. Of coarse, if you like to disclaim or
deny--”
“I 'll disclaim nothing that I know to be true.”
“And I am to speak freely?”
“As freely as you are able.”
“Here it is, then, in five words: You are in love, Tony,--in love with
that beautiful widow.”
Tony held his head down between his hands, and was silent.
“You feel that the case is hopeless,--that is to say, that you know,
besides being of rank and wealth, she is one to make a great match, and
that her family would never consent to hear of your pretensions; and yet
all this while you have a sort of lurking suspicion that she cares for
you?”
“No, no!” muttered Tony, between his hands.
“Well, that she did once, and that not very long ago.”
“Not even that,” said Tony, drearily.
“I know better,--you _do_ think so. And I'll tell you more; what makes
you so keenly alive to her change--perfidy, you would like to call
it--is this, that you have gone through that state of the disease
yourself.”
“I don't understand you.”
“Well, you shall. The lovely Alice--isn't that the name?”
Tony nodded.
“The lovely Alice got your own heart only, at second hand. You used to
be in love with the little girl that was governess at Richmond.”
“Not a word of it true,--nothing of the kind,” broke out Tony, fiercely.
“Dolly and I were brother and sister,--we always said we were.”
“What does that signify? I tried the brother-and-sister dodge, and I
know what it cost me when she married Maccleston;” and Skeffy here threw
his cigar into the sea, as though an emblem of his shipwrecked destiny.
“Mind me well, Butler,” said he, at last; “I did not say that you ever
told your heart you loved her; but she knew it, take my word for it. She
knew, and in the knowing it was the attraction that drew you on.”
“But I was not drawn on.”
“Don't tell me, sir. Answer me just this: Did any man ever know the
hour, or even the day, that he caught a fever? Could he go back in
memory, and say, it was on Tuesday last, at a quarter to three, that my
pulse rose, my respiration grew shorter, and my temples began to throb?
So it is with love, the most malignant of all fevers. All this time that
you and What's-her-name were playing brother and sister so innocently,
your hearts were learning to feel in unison,--just as two pendulums in
the same room acquire the same beat and swing together. You 've heard
that?”
“I may; but you are all wrong about Dolly.”
“What would she say to it?”
“Just what I do.”
“Well, we cannot ask her, for she 's not here.”
“She is here,--not two miles from where we are standing; not that it
signifies much, for, of course, neither of us would do _that_.”
“Not plump out, certainly, in so many words.”
“Not in any way, Skeffy. It is because I look upon Dolly as my own dear
sister, I would not suffer a word to be said that could offend her.”
“Offend her! Oh dear, how young you are in these things!”
“What is it, Jenny?” cried Tony to the servant-girl, who was shouting
not very intelligibly, from a little knoll at a distance. “Oh, she 's
saying that supper is ready, and the kippered salmon getting cold, as if
any one cared!”
“Don't they care!” cried Skeffy. “Well, then, they have n't been
inhaling this sea-breeze for an hour, as I have. Heaven grant that love
has carried off your appetite, Tony, for I feel as if I could eat for
six.”