Tony Butler. Lever Charles James
people will take every care of her,” said Maitland.
“Is Fenton still with you?” asked Mark.
“Yes; he had some thoughts of leaving me lately. He said he thought he ‘d like to retire, – that he ‘d take a consulate or a barrack-mastership; but I laughed him out of it.”
Sir Arthur and Lady Lyle had now come down to welcome the new arrivals; and greetings and welcomes and felicitations resounded on all sides.
“Come along with me, Maitland,” said Mark, hurrying his friend away. “Let me show you your quarters;” and as he moved off, he added, “What a piece of ill-luck it was that you should have chanced upon the greatest bores of our acquaintance! – people so detestable to me that if I had n’t been expecting your visit I ‘d have left the house this morning.”
“I don’t know that,” said Maitland, half languidly; “perhaps I have grown more tolerant, or more indifferent, – what may be another name for the same thing; but I rather liked the young women. Have we any more stairs to mount?”
“No; here you are;” and Mark reddened a little at the impertinent question. “I have put you here because this was an old garçon apartment I had arranged for myself; and you have your bath-room yonder, and your servant, on the other side of the terrace.”
“It’s all very nice, and seems very quiet,” said Maitland.
“As to that, you’ll not have to complain; except the plash of the sea at the foot of those cliffs, you ‘ll never hear a sound here.”
“It’s a bold thing of you to make me so comfortable, Lyle. When I wrote to you to say I was coming, my head was full of what we call country-house life, with all its bustle and racket, – noisy breakfasts and noisier luncheons, with dinners as numerous as tables d’hôte. I never dreamed of such a paradise as this. May I dine here all alone when in the humor?”
“You are to be all your own master, and to do exactly as you please. I need not say, though, that I will scarce forgive you if you grudge us your company.”
“I’m not always up to society. I’m growing a little footsore with the world, Lyle, and like to lie down in the shade.”
“Lewis told me you were writing a book, – a novel, I think he said,” said Mark.
“I write a book! I never thought of such a thing. Why, my dear Lyle, the fellows who – like myself – know the whole thing, never write! Have n’t you often remarked that a man who has passed years of life in a foreign city loses all power of depicting its traits of peculiarity, just because, from habit, they have ceased to strike him as strange? So it is. Your thorough man of the world knows life too well to describe it. No, no; it is the creature that stands furtively in the flats that can depict what goes on in the comedy. Who are your guests?”
Mark ran over the names carelessly.
“All new to me, and I to them. Don’t introduce me, Mark; leave me to shake down in any bivouac that may offer. I’ll not be a bear if people don’t bait me. You understand?”
“Perhaps I do.”
“There are no foreigners? That’s a loss. They season society, though they never make it, and there’s an evasive softness in French that contributes much to the courtesies of life. So it is; the habits of the Continent to the wearied man of the world are just like loose slippers to a gouty man. People learn to be intimate there without being over-familiar, – a great point, Mark.”
“By the way, – talking of that same familiarity, – there was a young fellow who got the habit of coming here, before I returned from India, on such easy terms that I found him installed like one of ourselves. He had his room, his saddle-horse, a servant that waited on him, and who did his orders, as if he were a son of the family. I cut the thing very short when I came home, by giving him a message to do some trifling service, just as I would have told my valet. He resented, left the house, and sent me this letter next morning.”
“Not much given to letter-writing, I see,” muttered Mait-land, as he read over Tony’s epistle; “but still the thing is reasonably well put, and means to say, ‘Give me a chance, and I ‘m ready for you.’ What’s the name, – Buller?”
“No; Butler, – Tony Butler they call him here.”
“What Butlers does he belong to?” asked Maitland, with more interest in his manner.
“No Butlers at all, – at least, none of any standing. My sisters, who swear by this fellow, will tell you that his father was a colonel and C.B., and I don’t know what else; and that his uncle was, and I believe is, a certain Sir Omerod Butler, minister or ex-minister somewhere; but I have my doubts of all the fine parentage, seeing that this youth lives with his mother in a cottage here that stands in the rent-roll at £18 per annum.”
“There is a Sir Omerod Butler,” said Maitland, with a slow, thoughtful enunciation.
“But if he be this youth’s uncle, he never knows nor recognizes him. My sister, Mrs. Trafford, has the whole story of these people, and will be charmed to tell it to you.”
“I have no curiosity in the matter,” said Maitland, languidly. “The world is really so very small that by the time a man reaches my age he knows every one that is to be known in it. And so,” said he, as he looked again at the letter, “he went off, after sending you the letter?”
“Yes, he left this the same day.”
“And where for?”
“I never asked. The girls, I suppose, know all about his movements. I overhear mutterings about poor Tony at every turn. Tell me, Maitland,” added he, with more earnestness, “is this letter a thing I can notice? Is it not a regular provocation?”
“It is, and it is not,” said Maitland, as he lighted a cigar, puffing the smoke leisurely between his words. “If he were a man that you would chance upon at every moment, meet at your club, or sit opposite at dinner, the thing would fester into a sore in its own time; but here is a fellow, it may be, that you ‘ll never see again, or if so, but on distant terms, I ‘d say, put the document with your tailor’s bills, and think no more of it.”
Lyle nodded an assent, and was silent.
“I say, Lyle,” added Maitland, after a moment, “I’d advise you never to speak of the fellow, – never discuss him. If your sisters bring up his name, let it drop unnoticed; it is the only way to put the tombstone on such memories. What is your dinner-hour here?”
“Late enough, even for you, – eight.”
“That is civilized. I ‘ll come down – at least, to-day,” said he, after a brief pause; “and now leave me.”
When Lyle withdrew, Maitland leaned on the window-sill, and ranged his eyes over the bold coast-line beneath him. It was not, however, to admire the bold promontory of Fairhead, or the sweeping shore that shelved at its base; nor was it to gaze on the rugged outline of those perilous rocks which stretched from the Causeway far into the open sea. His mind was far, far away from the spot, deep in cares and wiles and schemes; for his was an intriguing head, and had its own store of knaveries.
CHAPTER V. IN LONDON
Seeking one’s fortune is a very gambling sort of affair. It is leaving so much to chance, trusting so implicitly to what is called “luck,” that it makes all individual exertion a merely secondary process, – a kind of “auxiliary screw” to aid the gale of Fortune. It was pretty much in this spirit that Tony Butler arrived in London; nor did the aspect of that mighty sea of humanity serve to increase his sense of self-reliance. It was not merely his loneliness that he felt in that great crowd, but it was his utter inutility – his actual worthlessness – to all others. If the gamester’s sentiment, to try his luck, was in his heart, it was the spirit of a very poor gambler, who had but one “throw” to risk on fortune; and, thus thinking, he set out for Downing Street.
If he was somewhat disappointed in the tumble-down,