CHAPTER XLVIII. “IN RAGS”
If Tony Butler’s success in his new career only depended on his zeal, he would have been a model clerk. Never did any one address himself to a new undertaking with a stronger resolution to comprehend all its details, and conquer all its difficulties. First of all, he desired to show his gratitude to the good fellow who had helped him; and secondly, he was eager to prove, if proven it could be, that he was not utterly incapable of earning his bread, nor one of those hopeless creatures who are doomed from their birth to be a burden to others.
So long as his occupation led him out of doors, conveying orders here and directions there, he got on pretty well. He soon picked up a sort of Italian of his own, intelligible enough to those accustomed to it; and as he was alert, active, and untiring, he looked, at least, a most valuable assistant. Whenever it came to indoor work and the pen, his heart sank within him; he knew that his hour of trial had come, and he had no strength to meet it. He would mistake the letter-book for the ledger or the day-book; and he would make entries in one which should have been in the other, and then, worst of all, erase them, or append an explanation of his blunder that would fill half a page with inscrutable blottedness.
As to payments, he jotted them down anywhere, and in his anxiety to compose confidential letters with due care, he would usually make three or four rough drafts of the matter, quite sufficient to impart the contents to the rest of the office.
Sam M’Gruder bore nobly up under these trials. He sometimes laughed at the mistakes, did his best to remedy, – never rebuked them. At last, as he saw that poor Tony’s difficulties, instead of diminishing, only increased with time, inasmuch as his despair of himself led him into deeper embarrassments, M’Gruder determined Tony should be entirely employed in journeys and excursions here and there through the country, – an occupation, it is but fair to own, invented to afford him employment, rather than necessitated by any demands of the business. Not that Tony had the vaguest suspicion of this. Indeed, he wrote to his mother a letter filled with an account of his active and useful labors. Proud was he at last to say that he was no longer eating the bread of idleness. “I am up before dawn, mother, and very often have nothing to eat but a mess of Indian corn steeped in oil, not unlike what Sir Arthur used to fatten the bullocks with, the whole livelong day; and sometimes I have to visit places there are no roads to; nearly all the villages are on the tops of the mountains; but, by good luck, I am never beat by a long walk, and I do my forty miles a day without minding it.
“If I could only forget the past, dearest mother, or think it nothing but a dream, I ‘d never quarrel with the life I am now leading; for I have plenty of open air, mountain walking, abundance of time to myself, and rough fellows to deal with, that amuse me; but when I am tramping along with my cigar in my mouth, I can’t help thinking of long ago, – of the rides at sunset on the sands, and all the hopes and fancies I used to bring home with me, after them. Well! it is over now, – just as much done for as if the time had never been at all; and I suppose, after a while, I ‘ll learn to bear it better, and think, as you often told me, that ‘all things are for the best.’
“I feel my own condition more painfully when I come, back here, and have to sit a whole evening listening to Sam M’Gruder talking about Dolly Stewart and the plans about their marriage. The poor fellow is so full of it all that even the important intelligence I have for him he won’t hear, but will say, ‘Another time, Tony, another time, – let us chat about Dolly.’ One thing I ‘ll swear to, she ‘ll have the honestest fellow for her husband that ever stepped, and tell her I said so. Sam would take it very kindly of you if you could get Dolly to agree to their being married in March.
“It is the only time he can manage a trip to England, – not but, as he says, whatever time Dolly consents to shall be his time.
“He shows me her letters sometimes, and though he is half wild with delight at them, I tell you frankly, mother, they would n’t satisfy me if I was her lover. She writes more like a creature that was resigned to a hard lot, than one that was about to marry a man she loved. Sam, however, does n’t seem to take this view of her, and so much the better.
“There was one thing in your last letter that puzzled me, and puzzles me still. Why did Dolly ask if I was likely to remain here? The way you put it makes me think that she was deferring the marriage till such time as I was gone. If I really believed this to be the case, I’d go away tomorrow, though I don’t know well where to, or what for, but it is hard to understand, since I always thought that Dolly liked me, as certainly I ever did, and still do, her.
“Try and clear up this for me in your next. I suppose it was by way of what is called ‘sparing me,’ you said nothing of the Lyles in your last, but I saw in the ‘Morning Post’ all about the departure for the Continent, intending to reside some years in Italy.
“And that is more than I ‘d do if I owned Lyle Abbey, and had eighteen blood-horses in my stable, and a clipper cutter in the Bay of Curryglass. I suppose the truth is, people never do know when they’re well off.”
The moral reflection, not arrived at so easily or so rapidly as the reader can imagine, concluded Tony’s letter, to which in due time came a long answer from his mother. With the home gossip we shall not burden the reader, nor shall we ask of him to go through the short summary – four close pages – of the doctor’s discourses on the text, “I would ye were hot or cold,” two sensations that certainly the mere sight of the exposition occasioned to Tony. We limit ourselves to the words of the postscript.
“I cannot understand Dolly at all, and I am afraid to mislead you as to what you ask. My impression is – but mind, it is mere impression – she has grown somewhat out of her old friendship for you. Some stories possibly have represented you in a wrong light, and I half think you may be right, and that she would be less averse to the marriage if she knew you were not to be in the house with them. It was, indeed, only this morning the doctor said, ‘Young married folk should aye learn each other’s failings without bystanders to observe them,’ – a significant hint I thought I would write to you by this post.”
When Tony received his epistle, he was seated in his own room, leisurely engaged in deciphering a paragraph in an Italian newspaper, descriptive of Garibaldi’s departure from a little bay near Genoa to his Sicilian expedition.
Nothing short of a letter from his mother could have withdrawn his attention from a description so full of intense interest to him; and partly, indeed, from this cause, and partly from the hard labor of rendering the foreign language, the details stuck in his mind during all the time he was reading his mother’s words.
“So that ‘s the secret, is it?” muttered he. “Dolly wishes to be alone with her husband, – natural enough; and I’m not the man to oppose it. I hope she’ll be happy, poor girl; and I hope Garibaldi will beat the Neapolitans. I ‘m sure Sam is worthy of a good wife; but I don’t know whether these Sicilian fellows deserve a better government. At all events, my course is clear, – here I mustn’t stay. Sam does not know that I am the obstacle to his marriage; but I know it, and that is enough. I wonder would Garibaldi take me as a volunteer? There cannot be much choice at such a time. I suppose he enrolls whoever offers; and they must be mostly fellows of my own sort, – useless dogs, that are only fit to give and take hard knocks.”
He hesitated long whether he should tell Sam M’Gruder of his project; he well knew all the opposition he should meet, and how stoutly his friend would set himself against a plan so fatal to all habits of patient industry. “And yet,” muttered Tony to himself, “I don’t like to tell him that I hate ‘rags,’ and detest the whole business. It would be so ungrateful of me. I could say my mother wanted to see me in Ireland; but I never told him a lie, and I can’t bear that our parting should be sealed with a falsehood.”
As he pondered, he took out his pistols and examined them carefully; and, poising one neatly in his hand, he raised it, as marksmen sometimes will do, to take an imaginary aim. As he did so, M’Gruder entered, and cried out, laughing, “Is he covered, – is he dead?”
Tony laid down the weapon, with a flush of shame, and said, “After all, M’Gruder, the pistol is more natural to me than the pen; and it was just what I was going to confess to you.”
“You ‘re not going to take to the highways, though?”
“Something not very unlike it; I mean to go and have a turn with Garibaldi.”
“Why, what do you know about Garibaldi or his cause?”
“Perhaps not a great deal; but I’ve been spelling out these newspapers every night, and one thing is clear, whether he has right or wrong on his side, the heavy odds are all against him. He’s going in to fight regular troops, with a few hundred trampers. Now I call that very plucky.”
“So do I; but courage may go on to rashness, and become folly.”
“Well, I feel as if a little rashness will do me a deal of good. I am too well off here, – too easy, – too much cared for. Life asks no effort, and I make none; and if I go on a little longer, I ‘ll be capable of none.”
“I see,” said the other, laughing, “Rags do not rouse your ambition, Tony.”
“I don’t know what would, – that is, I don’t think I have any ambition now;” and there was a touch of sorrow in the last word that gave all the force to what he said.
“At all events, you are tired of this sort of thing,” said the other, good-humoredly, “and it’s not to be much wondered at. You began life at what my father used to call ‘the wrong end.’ You started on the sunny side of the road, Tony, and it is precious hard to cross over into the shade afterwards.”
“You ‘re right there, M’Gruder. I led the jolliest life that ever man did till I was upwards of twenty; but I don’t believe I ever knew how glorious it was till it was over; but I must n’t think of that now. See! this is what I mean to do. You ‘ll find some way to send that safely to my mother. There’s forty-odd pounds in it, and I ‘d rather it was not lost I have kept enough to buy a good rifle – a heavy Swiss one, if I can find it – and a sword-bayonet, and with these I am fully equipped.”
“Come, come, Tony, I’ll not hear of this; that you are well weary of the life you lead here is not hard to see, nor any blame to you either, old fellow. One must be brought up to Rags, like everything else, and you were not. But my brother writes me about starting an American agency, – what do you say to going over to New York?”
“What a good fellow you are!” cried Tony, staring at him till his eyes began to grow clouded with tears; “what a good fellow! you ‘d risk your ship just to give me a turn at the tiller! But it must n’t be, – it cannot be; I ‘m bent on this scheme of mine, – I have determined on it.”
“Since when? since last night?”
“Well, it’s not very long, certainly, since I made up my mind.”
The other smiled. Tony saw it, and went on: “I know what you mean. You are of old Stewart’s opinion. When he heard me once say I had made up my mind, he said, ‘It does n’t take long to make up a small parcel;’ but every fellow, more or less, knows what he can and what he cannot do. Now I cannot be orderly, exact, and punctual, – even the little brains I have I can’t be sure of keeping them on the matter before me; but I defy a horse to throw me; I ‘ll bring you up a crown-piece out of six fathoms water, if it ‘s clear; I’ll kill four swallows out of six with a ball; and though these are not gifts to earn one’s bread by, the man that has them need n’t starve.”
“If I thought that you had really reflected well over this plan, – given it all the thought and consideration it required – ”
“I have given it just as much consideration as if I took five weeks to it. A man may take an evening over a pint of ale, but it’s only a pint, after all, – don’t you see that?”
M’Gruder was puzzled; perhaps there was some force in the illustration. Tony looked certainly as if he thought he had said a clever thing.
“Well, Tony,” said the other, after a moment of grave thought, “you ‘ll have to go to Genoa to embark, I suppose?”
“Yes; the committee sits at Genoa, and every one who enrolls must appear before them.”
“You could walk there in four days.”
“Yes; but I can steam it in one.”
“Ay, true enough; what I mean to ask of you is this, that you will go the whole way on foot; a good walker as you are won’t think much of that; and in these four days, as you travel along, – all alone, – you ‘ll have plenty of time to think over your project. If by the time you reach Genoa you like it as well as ever, I ‘ve no more to say; but if – and mark me, Tony, you must be honest with your own heart – if you really have your doubts and your misgivings; if you feel that for your poor mother’s sake – ”
“There, there! I’ve thought of all that,” cried Tony, hurriedly. “I ‘ll make the journey on foot, as you say you wish it, but don’t open the thing to any more discussion. If I relent, I ‘ll come back. There’s my hand on it!”
“Tony, it gives me a sad heart to part with you;” and he turned away, and stole out of the room.
“Now, I believe it’s all done,” said Tony, after he had packed his knapsack, and stored by in his trunk what he intended to leave behind him. There were a few things there, too, that had their own memories! There was the green silk cap, with its gold tassel, Alice had given him on his last steeple-chase. Ah, how it brought back the leap – a bold leap it was – into the winning field, and Alice, as she stood up and waved her handkerchief as he passed! There was a glove of hers; she had thrown it down sportively on the sands, and dared him to take it up in full career of his horse; he remembered they had a quarrel because he claimed the glove as a prize, and refused to restore it to her. There was an evening after that in which she would not speak to him. He had carried a heavy heart home with him that night! What a fund of love the heart must be capable of feeling for a living, sentient thing, when we see how it can cling to some object inanimate and irresponsive. “I’ll take that glove with me,” muttered Tony to himself; “it owes me some good luck; who knows but it may pay me yet?”
CHAPTER XLIX. MET AND PARTED
Tony went on his way early next morning, stealing off ere it was yet light, for he hated leave-takings, and felt that they weighed upon him for many a mile of a journey. There was enough on the road he travelled to have interested and amused him, but his heart was too full of its own cares, and his mind too deep in its own plans, to dispose him to such pleasures, and so he passed through little villages on craggy eminences and quaint old towers on mountain-tops, scarcely observing them. Even Pisa, with its world-known Tower, and the gem-like Baptistery beside it, scarce attracted notice from him, though he muttered as he passed, “Perhaps on some happier day I ‘ll be able to come back here and admire it” And so onward he plodded through the grand old ruined Massa and the silent Sarzana, whose palaces display the quarterings of old crusading knights, with many an emblem of the Holy War; and by the beauteous Bay of Spezia he went, not stopping to see poor Shelley’s home, and the terrace where his midnight steps had almost worn a track. The road now led through the declining ridges of the Apennines, gorgeous in color, – such color as art would have scarce dared to counterfeit, so emerald the dark green of the waving pines, so silver-like the olive, so gloriously purple the great cliffs of porphyry; and then through many a riven cleft, through feathery foliage and broad-leaved fig-trees, down many a fathom low the sea! – the blue Mediterranean, so blue as to seem another sky of deeper meaning than the one above it.
He noticed little of all these; he felt none of them! It was now the third day of his journey, and though he had scarcely uttered a word, and been deeply intent on his own fate, all that his thinking had done was to lead, as it were, into some boundless prairie, and there desert him.
“I suppose,” muttered he to himself, “I am one of those creatures that must never presume to plan anything, but take each day’s life as I find it. And I could do this. Ay, I could do it manfully, too, if I were not carrying along with me memories of long ago. It is Alice, the thought of Alice, that dashes the present with a contrast to the past, and makes all I now attempt so poor and valueless.”
As the road descends from Borghetto, there is a sudden bend, from which, through a deep cleft, the little beach and village of Levanto are seen hundreds of feet beneath, but yet in that clear still atmosphere so near that not only the white foam of the breaking wave could be seen, but its rhythm-like plash heard as it broke upon the beach. For the first time since he set out had the charm of scenery attracted him, and, descending a few feet from the road, he reached a large square rock, from which he could command the whole view for miles on every side.
He took out his bread and cheese and a melon he had bought that morning, and disposed himself to eat his dinner. He had often partaken of a more sumptuous meal, but never had he eaten with so glorious a prospect at his feet.
A little lateen-sailed boat stole out from beneath the olives and gained the sea; and as Tony watched her, he thought if he would only have been a fisherman there, and Alice his wife, how little he could have envied all that the world has of wealth and honors and ambitions. His friend Skeffy could not do this, but he could. He was strong of limb and stout of heart; he could bear hardships and cold; and it would be so fine to think that, born gentleman as he was, he never flinched from the hardest toil, or repined at the roughest fare, he and Alice treasuring up their secret, and hoarding it as a miser hoards his gold.
Ay, down there, in that little gorge, with the pine-wood behind and the sea before, he could have passed his life, with never a longing thought for the great world and its prizes. As he ran on thus in fancy, he never heard the sound of footsteps on the road above, nor noticed the voices of persons talking.
At last he heard, not the words, but the tone of the speakers, and recognized them to be English. There is that peculiar sound in English utterance that at once distinguishes it from all other speech; and Tony, quite forgetting that his high-peaked Calabrian hat and massive beard made him far more like an Italian brigand than a British gentleman, not wishing to be observed, never turned his head to look at them. At last one said, “The little fishing-village below there must be Levante. John Murray tells us that this is the land of the fan palm and the cactus, so that at length we are in Italy.”
“Do you know – shall I confess it,” said the other, “that I am not thinking of the view, beautiful as it is? I am envying that peasant with his delicious melon on the rock there. I am half tempted to ask him to share it with me.”
“Ask him, by all means,” said the first speaker, laughing.
“You are jesting,” replied the other, “but I am in sober earnest. I can resist no longer. Do you, however, wait here, or the carriage may pass on and leave us behind.”
Tony heard nothing of these words; but he heard the light footsteps, and he heard the rustle of a woman’s dress as she forced her way, through bramble and underwood, till at last, with that consciousness so mysterious, he felt there was some one standing close behind him. Half vexed to think that his isolation should be invaded, he drew his hat deeper over his eyes, and sat steadfastly gazing on the sea below him.
“Is that Levante I see beneath that cliff?” asked she, in Italian, – less to satisfy her curiosity than to attract fris attention.
Tony started. How intensely had his brain been charged with thoughts of long ago, that every word that met his ears should seem impregnated with these memories! A half-sulky “Si” was, however, his only rejoinder.
“What a fine melon you have there, my friend!” said she; and now her voice thrilled through him so strangely that he sprang to his feet and turned to face her. “Is my brain tricking me? – are my senses wandering?” muttered he to himself. “Alice, Alice!”
“Yes, Tony,” cried she. “Who ever heard of so strange a meeting? How came you here? Speak, or I shall be as incredulous as yourself!” But Tony could not utter a word, but stood overwhelmed with wonder, silently gazing on her.
“Speak to me, Tony,” said she, in her soft winning voice, – “speak to me; tell me by what curious fortune you came here. Let us sit down on this bank; our carriage is toiling up the hill, and will not be here for some time.”
“So it is not a dream!” sighed he, as he sat down beside her. “I have so little faith in my brain that I could not trust it.”
It was easy to see that his bewilderment still remained; and so, with a woman’s tact, she addressed herself to talking of what would gradually lead his thoughts into a collected shape. She told how they were all on their way to the South, – Naples or Palermo, not certain which, – somewhere for climate, as Isabella was still delicate. That her father and mother and sister were some miles behind on the road, she having come on more rapidly with a lighter carriage. “Not all alone, though, Master Tony; don’t put on that rebukeful face. The lady you see yonder on the road is what is called my companion, – the English word for duenna; and I half think I am scandalizing her very much by this conduct of mine, sitting down on the grass with a brigand chief, and, I was going to say, sharing his breakfast, though I have to confess it never occurred to him to offer it. Come, Tony, get up, and let me present you to her, and relieve her mind of the terrible thoughts that must be distressing her.”
“One moment, Alice, – one moment,” said he, taking her hand. “What is this story my mother tells me?” He stopped, unable to go on; but she quickly broke in, “Scandal travels quickly, indeed; but I scarcely thought your mother was one to aid its journey.”
“She never believed it,” said he, doggedly.
“Why repeat it, then? Why give bad money currency? I think we had better join my friend. I see she is impatient.”
The coldness with which she spoke chilled him like a wintry blast; but he rallied soon, and with a vigorous energy said, “My mother no more believed ill of you than I did; and when I asked you what the slander meant, it was to know where I could find the man to pay for it.”
“You must deny yourself the pleasure this time, Tony,” said she, laughing. “It was a woman’s story, – a disappointed woman, – and so, not so very blamable as she might be; not but that it was true in fact.”
“True, Alice, – true?”
“Yes, sir. The inference from it was the only falsehood; but, really, we have had too much of this. Tell me of yourself, – why are you here? Where are you now going?”
“You ‘ve heard of my exploits as a messenger, I suppose,” said Tony, with a bitter laugh.
“I heard, as we all heard with great sorrow, that you left the service,” said she, with a hesitation on each word.
“Left it? Yes; I left to avoid being kicked out of it I lost my despatches, and behaved like a fool. Then I tried to turn sailor, but no skipper would take me; and I did turn clerk, and half ruined the honest fellow that trusted me. And now I am going – in good truth, Alice, I don’t exactly know where, but it is somewhere in search of a pursuit to fit a fellow who begins to feel he is fit for nothing.”
“It is not thus your friends think of you, Tony,” said she, kindly.
“That’s the worst of it,” rejoined he, bitterly; “I have all my life been trying to justify an opinion that never should have been formed of me, – ay, and that I well knew I had no right to.”
“Well, Tony, come back with us. I don’t say with me, because I must be triple discreet for some time to come; but come back with papa; he ‘ll be overjoyed to have you with us.”
“No, no,” muttered Tony, in a faint whisper; “I could not, I could not.”
“Is that old grudge of long ago so deep that time has not filled it up?”
“I could not, I could not,” muttered he, evidently not hearing the words she had just spoken.
“And why not, Tony? Just tell me why not?”
“Shall I tell you, Alice?” said he; and his lip shook and his cheek grew pale as he spoke, – “shall I tell you?”
She nodded; for she too was moved, and did not trust herself to speak.
“Shall I tell you?” said he; and he looked into her eyes with a meaning so full of love, and yet of sorrow, that her cheek became crimson, and she turned away in shame.
“No, Tony,” whispered she, faintly, “better not say – what might pain us both, perhaps.”
“Enough, if you know,” said he, faintly.
“There, see, my friend has lost all patience; come up to the road, Tony. She must see that my interview has been with an English gentleman, and not a brigand chief. Give me your arm, and do not look so sulky.”
“You women can look any way you will,” mumbled he, “no matter what you may feel; that is, if you do feel.”
“You are the same old savage, Tony, as ever,” said she, laughing. “I never got my melon, after all, Miss Lester; the sight of an old friend was, however, better. Let me present him to you, – Mr. Butler.”
“Mr. Tony Butler?” asked she, with a peculiar smile; and though she spoke it low, he heard her, and said, “Yes; I am Tony Butler.”
“Sir Arthur will be charmed to know you are here. It was but yesterday he said he ‘d not mind taking a run through Calabria if we only had you with us.”
“I have said all that and more to him, but he does n’t mind it,” said Alice.
“Is this fair, Alice?” whispered he.
“In fact,” resumed she, “he has nowhere particular to go to, provided it be not the same road that we are taking.”
“Is this kind, Alice?” whispered he, again.
“And though I have told him what pleasure it would give us all if he would turn back with us – ”
“You ‘ll drive me to say it,” muttered he, between his teeth.
“If you dare, sir,” said she, in a low but clear whisper; and now she stepped into the carriage, and affected to busy herself with her mufflers. Tony assisted Miss Lester to her place, and then walked round to the side where Alice sat.
“You are not angry with me, Alice?” said he, falteringly.
“I certainly am not pleased,” said she, coldly. “There was a time I had not to press a wish, – I had but to utter it.”
“And yet, Alice,” said he, leaning over, and whispering so close that she felt his breath on her face, – “and yet I never loved you then as I love you now.”
“You have determined that I should not repeat my invitation,” said she, leaning back in the carriage; “I must – I have no help for it – I must say good-bye!”
“Good-bye,” said he, pressing her hand, from which he had just drawn off the glove, to his lips. She never made any effort to withdraw it, but leaned forward as though to conceal the action from her companion.
“Good-bye, dearest Alice,” said he, once more.
“Give me my glove, Tony. I think it has fallen,” said she, carelessly, as she leaned back once more.
“There it is,” muttered he; “but I have another here that I will never part with;” and he drew forth the glove she had thrown on the strand for him to pick up – so long ago!
“You will see papa, Tony?” said she, drawing down her veil; “you can’t fail to meet him before night. Say you saw us. Good-bye.”
And Tony stood alone on the mountain, and watched the cloud of dust that rose behind the carriage, and listened to the heavy tramp of the horses till the sounds died off in the distance.
“Oh if I could trust the whisper at my heart!” cried he. “If I could – if I could – I ‘d be happier than I ever dared to hope for.”