“He has to go over to Feder’s for the bags, Sir Joseph,” whispered the attaché, submissively.
“Send the porter, – send Jasper, – send any one you like. Come along,” said he, drawing his arm within Tony’s. “You ‘ve not been in Italy before, and your first impression ought to be favorable; so I ‘ll introduce you to a Mont Cenis trout.”
“And I ‘ll profit by the acquaintance,” said Tony. “I have the appetite of a wolf.”
CHAPTER XLV. A SHOCK FOR TONY
If Tony Butler took no note of time as he sat at breakfast with Sir Joseph, he was only sharing the fortune of every man who ever found himself in that companionship. From one end of Europe to the other his equal could not be found. It was not alone that he had stores of conversation for the highest capacities and the most cultivated minds, but he possessed that thorough knowledge of life so interesting to men of the world, and with it that insight into character which is so often the key to the mystery of statecraft; and with all these he had a geniality and a winning, grace of look, voice, and demeanor that sent one from his presence with the thought that if the world could but compass a few more like him, one would not change the planet for the brightest in the firmament. Breakfast over, they smoked; then they had a game at billiards; after that they strolled into the garden, and had some pistol-firing. Here Tony acquitted himself creditably, and rose in his host’s esteem; for the minister liked a man who could do anything – no matter what – very well. Tony, too, gained on him. His own fine joyous nature understood at once the high-hearted spirit of a young fellow who bad no affectations about him, thoroughly at his ease without presumption; and yet, through that gentleman element so strong in him, never transgressing the limits of a freedom so handsomely accorded him.
While the hours rolled over thus delightfully, a messenger returned to say that he had been at each of the great hotels, but could find no trace of Colonel Chamberlayne, nor of the missing bags.
“Send Moorcap,” said the minister. Moorcap was away two hours, and came back with the same story.
“I suspect how it is,” said Tony. “Chamberlayne has been obliged to start suddenly, and has carried off my bags with his own; but when he discovers his mistake, he ‘ll drop them at Naples.”
Sir Joseph smiled, – perhaps he did not think the explanation very satisfactory; and perhaps, – who knows? – but he thought that the loss of a despatch-bag was not amongst the heaviest of human calamities. “At all events,” he said, “we’ll give you an early dinner, Butler, and you can start by the late train to Genoa, and catch the morning steamer to Naples.”
Tony asked no better; and I am afraid to have to confess that he engaged at a game of “pool” with all the zest of one who carried no weighty care on his breast.
When the time for leave-taking came, Sir Joseph shook his hand with cordial warmth, telling him to be sure to dine with him as he came through Turin. “Hang up your hat here, Butler; and if I should be from home, tell them that you are come to dinner.”
Very simple words these. They cost little to him who spoke them, but what a joy and happiness to poor Tony! Oh, ye gentlemen of high place and station, if you but knew how your slightest words of kindness – your two or three syllables of encouragement – give warmth and glow and vigor to many a poor wayfarer on life’s high-road, imparting a sense not alone of hope, but of self-esteem, to a nature too distrustful of itself, mayhap you might be less chary of that which, costing you so little, is wealth unspeakable to him it is bestowed upon. Tony went on his way rejoicing; he left that threshold, as many others had left it, thinking far better of the world and its people, and without knowing it, very proud of the notice of one whose favor he felt to be fame. “Ah,” thought he, “if Alice had but heard how that great man spoke to me, – if Alice only saw how familiarly he treated me, – it might show her, perhaps, that others at least can see in me some qualities not altogether hopeless.”
If, now and then, some thought of that “unlucky bag” – so he called it to himself – would invade, he dismissed it speedily, with the assurance that it had already safely reached its destination, and that the Colonel and Skeffy had doubtless indulged in many a hearty laugh over his embarrassment at its loss. “If they knew but all,” muttered he; “I take it very coolly. I ‘m not breaking my heart over the disaster.” And so far he was right, – not, however, from the philosophical indifference that he imagined, but simply because he never believed in the calamity, nor had realized it to himself.
When he landed at Naples, he drove off at once to the lodgings of his friend Darner, which, though at a considerable height from the ground, in a house of the St. Lucia Quarter, he found were dignified with the title of British Legation; a written notice on the door informed all the readers that “H. R. M.‘s Chargé d’Affaires transacted business from twelve to four every day.” It was two o’clock when Tony arrived, and, notwithstanding the aforesaid announcement, he had to ring three times before the door was opened. At length a sleepy-looking valet appeared to say that “His Excellency” – he styled him so – was in his bath, and could not be seen in less than an hour. Tony sent in his name, and speedily received for answer that he would find a letter addressed to him in the rack over the chimney, and Mr. Darner would be dressed and with him by the time he had read it.
Poor Tony’s eyes swam with tears as he saw his mother’s handwriting, and he tore open the sheet with hot impatience. It was very short, as were all her letters, and so we give it entire: —
“My own darling Tony, – Your beautiful present reached me yesterday, and what shall I say to my poor reckless boy for such an act of extravagance? Surely, Tony, it was made for a queen, and not for a poor widow that sits the day long mending her stockings at the window. But ain’t I proud of it, and of him that sent it! Heaven knows what it has cost you, my dear boy, for even the carriage here from London, by the Royal Parcel Company, Limited, came to thirty-two and fourpence. Why they call themselves ‘Limited’ after that, is clean beyond my comprehension. [If Tony smiled here, it was with a hot and flushed cheek, for he had forgotten to prepay the whole carriage, and he was vexed at his thoughtlessness.]
“As to my wearing it going to meeting, as you say, it’s quite impossible. The thought of its getting wet would be a snare to take my mind off the blessed words of the minister; and I ‘m not sure, my dear Tony, that any congregation could sit profitably within sight of what – not knowing the love that sent it – would seem like a temptation and a vanity before men. Sables, indeed, real Russian sables, appear a strange covering for these old shoulders.
“It was about two hours after it came that Mrs. Trafford called in to see me, and Jeanie would have it that I’d go into the room with my grand new cloak on me; and sure enough I did, Tony, trying all the while not to seem as if it was anything strange or uncommon, but just the sort of wrapper I ‘d throw round me of a cold morning. But it would n’t do, my dear Tony. I was half afraid to sit down on it, and I kept turning out the purple-satin lining so often that Mrs. Trafford said at last, ‘Will you forgive my admiration of your cloak, Mrs. Butler, but I never saw one so beautiful before;’ and then I told her who it was that sent it; and she got very red and then very pale, and then walked to the window, and said something about a shower that was threatening; though, sooth to say, Tony, the only threat of rain I could see was in her own blue eyes. But she turned about gayly and said, ‘We are going away, Mrs. Butler, – going abroad;’ and before I could ask why or where, she told me in a hurried sort of way that her sister Isabella had been ordered to pass a winter in some warm climate, and that they were going to try Italy. She said it all in a strange quick voice, as if she did n’t like to talk of it, and wanted it over; but she grew quite herself again when she said that the gardener would take care that my flowers came regularly, and that Sir Arthur and Lady Lyle would be more than gratified if I would send up for anything I liked out of the garden. ‘Don’t forget that the melons were all of Tony’s sowing, Mrs. Butler,’ said she, smiling; and I could have kissed her for the way she said it.
“There were many other kind things she said, and in a way, too, that made them more than kind; so that when she went away, I sat thinking if it was not a temptation to meet a nature like hers, – so sweet, so lovely, and yet so worldly; for in all she spoke, Tony, there was never a word dropped of what sinful creatures we are, and what a thorny path it is that leads us to the better life before us.
“I was full of her visit, and everything she said, when Dr. Stewart dropped in to say that they had been down again at the Burnside to try and get him to let Dolly go abroad with them. ‘I never liked the notion, Mrs. Butler,’ he said; ‘but I was swayed here and swayed there by my thoughts for the lass, what was best for her body’s health, and that other health that is of far more value; when there came a letter to me, – it was anonymous, – saying, “Before you suffer your good and virtuous daughter to go away to a foreign land, just ask the lady that is to protect her if she still keeps up the habit of moonlight walks in a garden with a gentleman for her companion, and if that be the sort of teaching she means to inculcate.” Mrs. Trafford came to the door as I was reading the letter, and I said, “What can you make of such a letter as this?” and as she read it her cheek grew purple, and she said, “There is an end of our proposal, Dr. Stewart. Tell your daughter I shall importune her no more; but this letter I mean to keep: it is in a hand I know well.” And she went back to the carriage without another word; and tomorrow they leave the Abbey, some say not to come back again.’
“I cried the night through after the doctor went away, for what a world it is of sin and misery; not that I will believe wrong of her, sweet and beautiful as she is, but what for was she angry? and why did she show that this letter could give her such pain? And now, my dear Tony, since it could be no other than yourself she walked alone with, is it not your duty to write to the doctor and tell him so? The pure heart fears not the light, neither are the good of conscience afraid. That she is above your hope is no reason that she is above your love. That I was your father’s wife may show that Above all, Tony, think that a Gospel minister should not harbor an evil thought of one who does not deserve it, and whose mightiest sin is perchance the pride that scorns a self-defence.
“The poor doctor is greatly afflicted: he is sorry now that he showed the letter, and Dolly cries over it night and day.
“Is it not a strange thing that Captain Graham’s daughters, that never were used to come here, are calling at the Burnside two or three times a week?
“Write to me, my dear Tony, and if you think well of what I said, write to the doctor also, and believe me your ever loving mother,
“Eleanor Butler.
“Dolly Stewart has recovered her health again, but not her spirits. She rarely comes to see me, but I half suspect that her reason is her dislike to show me the depression that is weighing over her. So is it, dear Tony, go where you will; there is no heart without its weary load, no spirit without that touch of sorrow that should teach submission. Reflect well over this, dear boy; and never forget that though at times we put off our troubles as a wayfarer lays down his pack, we must just strap on the load again when we take to the road, for it is a burden we have to bear to the journey’s end.”
Not all the moral reflections of this note saved it from being crushed passionately in his hand as he finished reading it. That walk, that moonlight walk, with whom could it have been? with whom but Maitland? And it was by her – by her that his whole heart was filled, – her image, her voice, her gait, her smile, her faintest whisper, that made up the world in which he lived. Who could love her as he did? Others would have their hopes and ambitions, their dreams of worldly success, and such like; but he, – he asked none of these; her heart was all he strove for. With her he would meet any fortune. He knew she was above him in every way, – as much by every gift and grace as by every accident of station; but what did that signify? The ardor of his love glowed only the stronger for the difficulty, – just as his courage would have mounted the higher, the more hazardous the feat that dared it. These were his reasonings, – or rather some shadowy shapes of these flitted through his mind.
And was it now all over? Was the star that had guided him so long to be eclipsed from him? Was he never again to ask himself in a moment of difficulty or doubt, What will Alice say? – what will Alice think? As for the scandalous tongues that dared to asperse her, he scorned them; and he was indignant with the old minister for not making that very letter itself the reason of accepting a proposal he had been until then averse to. He should have said, “Now there can be no hesitation, – Dolly must go with you now.” It was just as his musings got thus far that Skeffy rushed into the room and seized him by both hands.
“Ain’t I glad to see your great sulky face again? Sit down and tell me everything – how you came – when – how long you ‘re to stay – and what brought you here.”
“I came with despatches, – that is, I ought to have had them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that some of the bags I left at Tarin; and one small fellow, which I take to have been the cream of the correspondence, Chamberlayne carried on here, – at least I hope so. Have n’t you got it?”
“What infernal muddle are your brains in? Who is Chamberlayne?”
“Come, come, Skeffy, I ‘m not in a joking mood;” and he glanced at the letter in his hand as he spoke. “Don’t worry me, old fellow, but say that you have got the bag all right.”
“But I have not, I never saw it, – never heard of it.”
“And has the Colonel not been here?”
“Who is the Colonel?”
“Chamberlayne.”
“And who is Chamberlayne.”
“That is cool, certainly; I think a man might acknowledge his godfather.”
“Whose godfather is he?”
“Yours, – your own. Perhaps you ‘ll deny that you were christened after him, and called Chamberlayne?”
Skeffy threw up his embroidered cap in the air at these words, and, flinging himself on a sofa, actually screamed with laughter. “Tony,” cried he at last, “this will immortalize you. Of all the exploits performed by messengers, this one takes the van.”
“Look here, Damer,” said Tony, sternly; “I have told you already I ‘m in no laughing humor. I ‘ve had enough here to take the jollity out of me” – and he shook the letter in his hand – “for many a day to come; so that whatever you have to say to me, bear in mind that you say it to one little disposed to good-humor. Is it true that you have not received these despatches?”
“Perfectly true.”
“Then how are we to trace him? His name is Colonel Moore Chamberlayne, aide-de-camp to the Lord High Commissioner, Corfu.”
Skeffy bit his lip, and by a great effort succeeded in repressing the rising temptation to another scream of laughter, and, taking down a bulky red-covered volume from a shelf, began to turn over its pages. “There,” said he at last, – “there is the Whole staff at Corfu: Hailes, Winchester, Corbett, and Ainslie. No Chamberlayne amongst them.”
Tony stared at the page in hopeless bewilderment. “What do you know of him? Who introduced you to each other? Where did you meet?” asked Skeffy.
“We met at the foot of the Mont Cenis, where, seeing that I had despatches, and no means to get forward, he offered me a seat in his calèche. I accepted gladly, and we got on capitally; he was immense fun; he knew everybody, and had been everywhere; and when he told me that he was your godfather – ”
“Stop, stop! for the love of Heaven, will you stop, or you ‘ll kill me!” cried Skeffy; and, throwing himself on his back on the sofa, he flung his legs into the air, and yelled aloud with laughter.
“Do you know, Master Darner, I’m sorely tempted to pitch you neck and crop out of the window?” said Tony, savagely.
“Do so, do so, by all means, if you like; only let me have my laugh out, or I shall burst a blood-vessel.”
Tony made no reply, but walked up and down the room with his brow bent and his arms folded.
“And then?” cried Skeff, – “and then? What came next?”
“It is your opinion, then,” said Tony, sternly, “that this fellow was a swindler, and not on the Staff at all?”
“No more than he was my godfather!” cried Darner, wiping his eyes.
“And that the whole was a planned scheme to get hold of the despatches?”
“Of course. Filangieri knows well that we are waiting for important instructions here. There is not a man calls here who is not duly reported to him by his secret police.”
“And why did n’t Sir Joseph think of that when I told him what had happened? All he said was, ‘Be of good cheer, Butler; the world will go round even after the loss of a despatch-bag.’”
“So like him,” said Skeffy; “the levity of that man is the ruin of him. They all say so at the Office.”
“I don’t know what they say at the Office; but I can declare that so perfect a gentleman and so fine a fellow I never met before.”
Skeffy turned to the glass over the chimney, smoothed his moustaches, and pointed their tips most artistically, smiling gracefully at himself, and seeming to say, “You and I, if we were not too modest, could tell of some one fully his equal.”
“And what’s to be done, – what’s to come of this?” asked Tony, after a short silence.
“I ‘ll have to report you, Master Tony. I ‘ll have to write home: ‘My Lord, – The messenger Butler arrived here this morning to say that he confided your Lordship’s despatches and private instructions to a most agreeable gentleman, whose acquaintance he made at St. Jean de Maurienne; and that the fascinating stranger, having apparently not mastered their contents up to the present – ‘”
“Go to the – ”
“No, Tony, I shall not; but I think it not at all improbable that such will be the destination his Lordship will assign assistant-messenger Butler. The fact is, my boy, your career in our department is ended.”
“With all my heart! Except for that fine fellow I saw at Turin, I think I never met such a set of narrow-minded snobs.”
“Tony, Tony,” said the other, “when Moses, in the ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ – and I take it he is more familiar to you than the other of that name, – was ‘done’ by the speculator in green spectacles, he never inveighed against those who had unfortunately confided their interests to his charge. Now, as to our department – ”
“Confound the department! I wish I had never heard of it. You say it’s all up with me, and of course I suppose it is; and, to tell you the truth, Skeffy, I don’t think it signifies a great deal just now, except for that poor mother of mine.” Here he turned away, and wiped his eyes hurriedly. “I take it that all mothers make the same sort of blunder, and never will believe that they can have a blockhead for a son till the world has set its seal on him.”
“Take a weed, and listen to me,” said Skeffy, dictatorially, and he threw his cigar-case across the table, as he spoke. “You have contrived to make as bad a début in your career as is well possible to conceive.”
“What’s the use of telling me that? In your confounded passion for hearing yourself talk, you forget that it is not so pleasant for me to listen.”
“Prisoner at the bar,” continued Skeffy, “you have been convicted – you stand, indeed, self-convicted – of an act which, as we regard it, is one of gross ignorance, of incredible folly, or of inconceivable stupidity, – places you in a position to excite the pity of compassionate men, the scorn of those severer moralists who accept not the extenuating circumstances of youth, unacquaintance with life, and a credulity that approaches childlike – ”
“You ‘re a confounded fool, Skeffy, to go on in this fashion when a fellow is in such a fix as I am, not to speak of other things that are harder to bear. It’s a mere toss-up whether he laughs at your nonsense or pitches you over the banisters. I’ve been within an ace of one and the other three times in the last five minutes; and now all my leaning is towards the last of the two.”
“Don’t yield to it, then, Tony. Don’t, I warn you.”
“And why?”
“Because you ‘d never forgive yourself, not alone for having injured a true and faithful friend, but for the far higher and more irreparable loss in having cut short the career of a man destined to be a light to Europe. I say it in no vanity, – no boastfuluess. No, on my honor! if I could – if the choice were fairly given to me, I ‘d rather not be a man of mark and eminence. I ‘d rather be a commonplace, tenth-rate sort of dog like yourself.”
The unaffected honesty with which he said this did for Tony what no cajolery nor flattery could have accomplished, and set him off into a roar of laughter that conquered all his spleen and ill-humor.
“Your laugh, like the laugh of the foolish, is ill-timed. You cannot see that you were introduced, not to be stigmatized, but to point a moral. You fancy yourself a creature, – you are a category; you imagine you are an individuality, – you are not; you are a fragment rent from a primeval rock.”
“I believe I ought to be as insensible as a stone to stand you. But stop all this, I say, and listen to me. I ‘m not much up to writing, – but you ‘ll help me, I know; and what I want said is simply this: ‘I have been tricked out of one of the bags by a rascal that if ever I lay hands on I ‘ll bring bodily before the Office at home, and make him confess the whole scheme; and I ‘ll either break his neck afterwards, or leave him to the law, as the Secretary of State may desire.’”
Now, poor Tony delivered this with a tone and manner that implied he thought he was dictating a very telling and able despatch. “I suppose,” added he, “I am to say that I now resign my post, and I wish the devil had me when I accepted it.”
“Not civil, certainly, to the man who gave you the appointment, Tony. Besides, when a man resigns, he has to wait for the acceptance of his resignation.”
“Oh, as for that, there need be no ceremony. They’ll be even better pleased to get rid of me than I to go. They got a bad bargain; and, to do them justice, they seemed to have guessed as much from the first.”
“And then, Tony?”
“I ‘ll go to sea, – I ‘ll go before the mast; there must be many a vessel here wants a hand, and in a few weeks’ practice I’ll master the whole thing; my old yachting experiences have done that for me.”
“My poor Tony,” said Skeffy, rising and throwing his arms round him, “I’ll not listen to it. What! when you have a home here with me, are you to go off and brave hardship and misery and degradation?”
“There’s not one of the three, – I deny it. Coarse food and hard work are no misery; and I ‘ll be hanged if there’s any degradation in earning one’s bread with his hands when his head is not equal to it.”
“I tell you I ‘ll not suffer it. If you drive me to it, I ‘ll prevent it by force. I am her Majesty’s Charge d’Affaires. I ‘ll order the consul to enroll you at his peril, – I ‘ll imprison the captain that takes you, – I ‘ll detain the ship, and put the crew in irons.”
“Before you do half of it, let me have some dinner,” said Tony, laughing, “for I came on shore very hungry, and have eaten nothing since.”
“I’ll take you to my favorite restaurant, and you shall have a regular Neapolitan banquet, washed down by some old Capri. There, spell out that newspaper till I dress and if any one rings in the mean while, say his Excellency has just been sent for to Caserta by the King, and will not be back before to-morrow.” As he reached the door he put his head in again, and said, “Unless, perchance, it should be my godfather, when, of course, you ‘ll keep him for dinner.”