Tony Butler. Lever Charles James
who married Lord Claude Somebody, are so terribly tiresome that I long for the racket and noise of those bustling young women, who will at least dispel our dulness.”
“At the cost of our good breeding.”
“At all events, they are Jolly and good-tempered girls. We have known them for – ”
“Oh, don’t say how long. The younger one is two years older than myself.”
“No, Mark, Beck is exactly your own age.”
“Then I ‘m determined to call myself five-and-thirty the first opportunity I have. She shall have three years tacked to her for the coming into the world along with me.”
“Sally is only thirty-four.”
“Only! the idea of saying only to thirty-four.”
“They don’t look within eight or nine years of it, I declare. I suppose you will scarcely detect the slightest change in them.”
“So much the worse. Any change would improve them, in my eyes.”
“And the Captain, too. He, I believe, is now Commodore.”
“I perceive there is no change in the mode of travel,” said Mark, pointing to the trunks. “The heavy luggage used always to arrive the day before they drove up in their vile Irish jaunting-car. Do they still come in that fashion?”
“Yes; and I really believe with the same horse they had long, long ago.”
“A flea-bitten mare with a twisted tail?”
“The very same,” cried she, laughing. “I’ll certainly tell Beck how well you remember their horse. She ‘ll take it as a flattery.”
“Tell her what you like; she’ll soon find out how much flattery she has to expect from me!” After a short pause, in which he made two ineffectual attempts to light a cigar, and slightly burned his fingers, he said, “I ‘d not for a hundred pounds that Maitland had met them here. With simply stupid country gentry, he ‘d not care to notice their ways nor pay attention to their humdrum habits; but these Grahams, with all their flagrant vulgarity, will be a temptation too irresistible, and he will leave this to associate us forever in his mind with the two most ill-bred women in creation.”
“You are quite unfair, Mark; they are greatly liked, – at least, people are glad to have them; and if we only had poor Tony Butler here, who used to manage them to perfection, they ‘d help us wonderfully with all the dulness around us.”
“Thank Heaven we have not. I ‘d certainly not face such a constellation as the three of them. I tell you, frankly, that I ‘d pack my portmanteau and go over to Scotland if that fellow were to come here again.”
“You ‘re not likely to be driven to such an extremity, I suspect; but here comes papa, and I think he has been down at the Burnside; let us hear what news he has.”
“It has no interest for me,” said he, walking away, while she hastened out to meet Sir Arthur.
“No tidings, Alice, – at least, none that I can learn. Mrs. Butler’s headache still prevents her seeing me, though I could wager I saw her at work in the garden when I turned off the high-road.”
“How strange! You suspect that she avoids you?”
“I am certain of it; and I went round by the minister’s, thinking to have a talk with Stewart, and hear something that might explain this; but he was engaged in preparing his sermon, and begged me to excuse him.”
“I wish we could get to the bottom of this mystery. Would she receive me, do you think, if I were to go over to the cottage?”
“Most likely not I suspect whatever it be that has led to this estrangement will be a passing cloud; let us wait and see. Who are those coming up the bend of the road? The horse looks fagged enough, certainly.”
“The Grahams, I declare! Oh, I must find Mark, and let him be caught here when they arrive.”
“Don’t let the Commodore get at me before dinner; that’s all I ask,” said Sir Arthur, as he rode round to the stables.
When Alice entered the house, she found Mark at the open window watching with an opera-glass the progress of the jaunting-car as it slowly wound along the turns of the approach, lost and seen as the woods intervened or opened.
“I cannot make it out at all, Alice,” said he; “there are two men and two women, as well as I can see, besides the driver.”
“No, no; they have their maid, whom you mistake for a man.”
“Then the maid wears a wideawake and a paletot. Look, and see for yourself;” and he handed her the glass.
“I declare you are right, – it is a man; he is beside Beck. Sally is on the side with her father.”
“Are they capable of bringing some one along with them?” cried he, in horror. “Do you think they would dare to take such a liberty as that here?”
“I ‘m certain they would not. It must be Kenrose the apothecary, who was coming to see one of the maids, or one of our own people, or – ” Her further conjectures were cut short by the outburst of so strong an expletive as cannot be repeated; and Mark, pale as death, stammered out, “It’s Maitland! Norman Maitland!”
“But how, Mark, do they know him?”
“Confound them! who can tell how it happened?” said he., “I ‘ll not meet him; I ‘ll leave the house, – I ‘ll not face such an indignity.”
“But remember, Mark, none of us know your friend, we have not so much as seen him; and as he was to meet these people, it’s all the better they came as acquaintances.”
“That’s all very fine,” said he, angrily; “you can be beautifully philosophical about it, all because you have n’t to go back to a mess-table and be badgered by all sorts of allusions and references to Maitland’s capital story.”
“Here they are, here they are!” cried Alice; and the next moment she was warmly embracing those dear friends to whose failings she was nowise blind, however ardent her late defence of them. Mark, meanwhile, had advanced towards Maitland, and gave him as cordial a welcome as he could command. “My sister Mrs. Trafford, Mr. Maitland,” said he; and Alice gave her hand with a graceful cordiality to the new guest.
“I declare, Mark is afraid that I ‘ll kiss him,” cried Beck. “Courage, mon ami, I’ll not expose you in public.”
“How are you? how are you?” cried the Commodore; “brown, brown, very brown; Indian sun. Lucky if the mischief is only skin-deep.”
“Shake hands, Mark,” said Sally, in a deep masculine voice; “don’t bear malice, though I did pitch you out of the boat that day.”
Mark was however, happily, too much engaged with his friend to have heard the speech. He was eagerly listening to Maitland’s account of his first meeting with the Grahams.
“My lucky star was in the ascendant; for there I stood,” said Maitland, “in the great square of Bally – Bally – ”
“Ballymena,” broke in Beck; “and there’s no great square in the place; but you stood in a very dirty stable-yard, in a much greater passion than such a fine gentleman should ever give way to.”
“Calling, ‘A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse!’”
“It was ‘a chaise and pair’ I heard, and you were well laughed at for your demand. The baker offered you a seat, which you rejected with dismay; and, to tell the truth, it was half in the hope of witnessing another outburst of your indignation that I went across and said, ‘Would you accept a place beside me, sir?’”
“And was I not overwhelmed with joy? Was it not in a transport of gratitude that I embraced your offer?”
“I know you very nearly embraced my maid as you lifted her off the car.”
“And, by the way, where is Patience?”