Tony Butler. Lever Charles James
given was as freely accepted. The stranger came, dined, and was here in the drawing-room when we came back.”
“This is unpardonable. Who is he? What is he?”
“He is a gentleman. I believe, as well born as either of us. I know something – not much – about him, but there are circumstances which, in a manner, prevent me from talking of him. He came down to this part of the world to see me, though I never intended it should have been here.”
“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