CHAPTER LVIII. THE SIXTH OF SEPTEMBER
On the evening of the 6th of September a corvette steamed rapidly out of the Bay of Naples, threading her way deviously through the other ships of war, unacknowledged by salute, – not even an ensign dipped as she passed.
“There goes the King and the monarchy,” said Skeff, as he stood on the balcony with the Lyles, and pointed to the fast-retreating vessel.
“I suppose the sooner we leave the better,” said Lady Lyle, whose interest in political affairs was very inferior to that she felt on personal matters.
“Skeff says that the ‘Talisman’ will take us on board,” said Sir Arthur.
“Yes,” said Skeff; “Captain Paynter will be here by and by to take your orders, and know when he is to send in his boats for you; and though I feel assured my general directions will be carried out here, and that no public disturbance will take place, you will all be safer under the Union Jack.”
“And what of Tony Butler? When is he to arrive?” asked Bella.
“Tony,” said Skeff, “is to arrive here to-night I have had a note from his friend M’Gruder, who has gone down to meet him, and is now at Salerno.”
“And who is his friend M’Gruder?” asked Lady Lyle, superciliously.
“A rag-merchant from Leghorn,” said Skeff; “but Tony calls him an out-and-out good fellow; and I must say he did n’t take five minutes to decide when I told him Tony was coming up from Cava, and would be glad to have his company on the road.”
“These are, of course, exceptional times, when all sorts of strange intimacies will be formed; but I do hope that Tony will see that his altered circumstances as to fortune require from him more care in the selection of his friends than he has hitherto been distinguished for.”
“Don’t trouble yourself about that, my dear,” said Sir Arthur; “a man’s fortune very soon impresses itself on all he says and does.”
“I mistake him much,” said Bella, “if any wealth will estrange him from one of those he cared for in his humbler days. Don’t you agree with me, Alice?”
Alice made no reply, but continued to gaze at the ships through a glass.
“The danger is that he’ll carry that feeling to excess,” said Skeff; “for he will not alone hold to all these people, but he ‘ll make you and me hold to them too.”
“That would be impossible, perfectly impossible,” said my Lady, with a haughty toss of her head.
“No, no; I cannot agree to go that far,” chimed in Sir Arthur.
“It strikes me,” said Alice, quietly, “we are all of us deciding a little too hastily as to what Tony Butler will or will not do. Probably a very slight exercise of patience would save us some trouble.”
“Certainly not, Alice, after what Mr. Darner has said. Tony would seem to have thrown down a sort of defiance to us all. We must accept him with his belongings, or do without him.”
“He shall have me on his own terms,” said Skeffy. “He is a noble savage, and I love him with all my heart.”
“And you will know his rag friend?” asked Lady Lyle.
“Ay, that will I; and an Irish creature, too, that he calls Rory, – a fellow of six feet four, with a voice like an enraged bull and a hand as wide as one of these flags!”
“It is Damon and Pythias over again, I declare!” said Lady Lyle. “Where did he pick up his monster?”
“They met by chance in England, and, equally by chance, came together to Italy, and Tony persuaded him to accompany him and join Garibaldi. The worthy Irishman, who loved fighting, and was not very particular as to the cause, agreed; and though he had originally come abroad to serve in the Pope’s army, some offence they had given him made him desert, and he was well pleased not to return home without, as he said, ‘batin’ somebody.’ It was in this way he became a Garibaldian. The fellow, it seems, fought like a lion; he has been five times wounded, and was left for dead on the field; but he bears a charm which he knows will always protect him.”
“A charm, – what is the charm?”
“A medallion of the Pope, which he wears around his neck, and always kisses devoutly before he goes into battle.”
“The Pope’s image is a strange emblem for a Garibaldian, surely,” said Sir Arthur, laughing.
“Master Rory thinks it will dignify any cause; and as he never knew what or for whom he was fighting, this small bit of copper saved him a world of trouble and casuistry; and so in the name of the Holy Father he has broken no end of Neapolitan skulls.”
“I must say Mr. Butler has surrounded himself with some choice associates,” said Lady Lyle; “and all this time I have been encouraging myself to believe that so very young a man would have had no connections, no social relations, he could not throw off without difficulty.”
“The world will do all his sifting process for him, if we only have patience,” said Sir Arthur; and, indeed, it is but fair to say that he spoke with knowledge, since, in his own progress through life, he had already made the acquaintance of four distinct and separate classes in society, and abandoned each in turn for that above it.
“Was he much elated, Mr. Damer,” asked Lady Lyle, “when he heard of his good fortune?”
“I think he was at first; but it made so little impression on him, that more than once he went on to speculate on his future, quite forgetting that he had become independent; and then, when he remembered it, he certainly did look very happy and cheerful.”
“And what sort of plans has he?” asked Bella.
“They’re all about his mother; everything is for her. She is to keep that cottage, and the ground about it, and he is to make a garden for her; and it seems she likes cows, – she is to have cows. It’s a lucky chance that the old lady had n’t a taste for a plesiosaurus, or he ‘d be offering a prize for one to-morrow.”
“He’s a dear good fellow, as he always was,” said Bella.
“The only real change I see in him,” said Skeffy, “is that now he is never grumpy, – he takes everything well; and if crossed for a moment, he says, ‘Give me a weed; I must smoke away that annoyance.’”
“How sensual!” said my Lady; but nobody heeded the remark.
At the moment, too, a young midshipman saluted Darner from the street, and informed him that the first cutter was at the jetty to take the party off to the “Talisman;” and Captain Paynter advised them not to delay very long, as the night looked threatening. Lady Lyle needed no stronger admonition; she declared that she would go at once; and although the Captain’s own gig, as an attention of honor, was to be in to take her, she would not wait, but set out immediately.
“You ‘ll take care of me, Skeffy,” said Alice, “for I have two letters to write, and shall not be ready before eleven o’clock.”
For a while all was bustle and confusion. Lady Lyle could not make up her mind whether she would finally accept the frigate as a refuge or come on shore again the next day. There were perils by land and by water, and she weighed them and discussed them, and turned fiercely on everybody who agreed with her, and quarrelled with all round. Sir Arthur, too, had his scruples, as he bethought him of the effect that would be produced by the fact that a man of his station and importance had sought the protection of a ship of war; and he asked Skeffy if some sort of brief protest – some explanation – should not be made in the public papers, to show that he had taken the step in compliance with female fears, and not from the dictates of his own male wisdom. “I should be sorry, sincerely sorry, to affect the Funds,” said he; and really, the remark was considerate. As for Bella, she could not bear being separated from Skeffy; he was so daring, so impulsive, as she said, and with all this responsibility on him now, – people coming to him for everything, and all asking what was to be done, – he needed more than ever support and sympathy.
And thus is it the world goes on, as unreal, as fictitious, as visionary as anything there ever was put on the stage and illuminated by footlights. There was a rude realism outside in the street, however, that compensated for much of this. There, all was wildest fun and jollity; not the commotion of a people in the throes of a revolution, not the highly wrought passion of an excited populace mad with triumph; it was the orgie of a people who deemed the downfall of a hated government a sort of carnival occasion, and felt that mummery and tomfoolery were the most appropriate expressions of delight.
Through streets crowded with this dancing, singing, laughing, embracing, and mimicking mass, the Lyles made their way to the jetty reserved for the use of the ships of war, and soon took their places, and were rowed off to the frigate, Skeffy waving his adieux till darkness rendered his gallantry unnoticed.
All his late devotion to the cares of love and friendship had made such inroads on his time that he scarcely knew what was occurring, and had lamentably failed to report to “the Office” the various steps by which revolution had advanced, and was already all but installed as master of the kingdom. Determined to write off a most telling despatch, he entered the hotel, and, seeing Alice engaged letter-writing at one table, he quietly installed himself at another, merely saying, “The boat will be back by midnight, and I have just time to send off an important despatch.”
Alice looked up from her writing, and a very faint smile curled her lip. She did not speak, however, and after a moment continued her letter.
For upwards of half an hour the scraping sounds of the pens were the only noises in the room, except at times a low murmur as Skeff read over to himself some passage of unusual force and brilliancy.
“You must surely be doing something very effective, Skeff,” said Alice, from the other end of the room, “for you rubbed your hands with delight, and looked radiant with triumph.”
“I think I have given it to them!” cried he. “There ‘s not another man in the line would send home such a despatch. Canning wouldn’t have done it in the old days, when he used to bully them. Shall I read it for you?”
“My dear Skeff, I ‘m not Bella. I never had a head for questions of politics. I am hopelessly stupid in all such matters.”
“Ah, yes; Bella told me that Bella herself, indeed, only learned to feel an interest in them through me; but, as I told her, the woman who would one day be an ambassadress cannot afford to be ignorant of the great European game in which her husband is a player.”
“Quite true; but I have no such ambitions before me; and fortunate it is, for really I could not rise to the height of such lofty themes.”
Skeff smiled pleasantly; her humility soothed him. He turned to the last paragraph he had penned and re-read it.
“By the way,” said Alice, carelessly, and certainly nothing was less apropos to what they had been saying, though she commenced thus, – “by the way, how did you find Tony looking, – improved, or the reverse?”
“Improved in one respect; fuller, browner, more manly, perhaps, but coarser; he wants the – you know what I mean – he wants this!” and he swayed his arm in a bold sweep, and stood fixed, with his hand extended.
“Ah, indeed!” said she, faintly.
“Don’t you think so – don’t you agree with me, Alice?”
“Perhaps to a certain extent I do,” said she, diffidently.
“How could it be otherwise, consorting with such a set? You ‘d not expect to find it there?”
Alice nodded assent all the more readily that she had not the vaguest conception of what “it” might mean.
“The fact is, Alice,” said he, arising and walking the room with immense strides, “Tony will always be Tony!”
“I suppose he will,” said she, dryly.
“Yes; but you don’t follow me. You don’t appreciate my meaning. I desired to convey this opinion, that Tony being one of those men who cannot add to their own natures the gifts and graces which a man acquires who has his successes with your sex – ”
“Come, come, Skeff, you must neither be metaphysical nor improper. Tony is a very fine boy, – only a boy, I acknowledge, but he has noble qualities; and every year he lives will, I feel certain, but develop them further.”
“He won’t stand the ‘boy’ tone any longer,” said Skeff, dryly. “I tried it, and he was down on me at once.”
“What did he say when you told him we were here?” said she, carelessly, while putting her papers in order.
“He was surprised.”
“Was he pleased?”
“Oh, yes, pleased, certainly; he was rather afraid of meeting your mother, though.”
“Afraid of mamma! how could that be?”
“Some lesson or other she once gave him sticks in his throat; something she said about presumption, I think.”
“Oh, no, no; this is quite impossible, – I can’t credit it.”
“Well, it might be some fancy of his; for he has fancies, and very queer ones too. One was about a godfather of mine. Come in, – what is it?” cried he, as a knock came to the door.
“A soldier below stairs, sir, wishes to speak to you,” said the waiter.
“Ah! something of importance from Filangieri, I’ve no doubt,” said Skeff, rising and leaving the room. Before he had gone many paces, however, he saw a large, powerful figure in the red shirt and small cap of the Garibaldians, standing in the corridor, and the next instant he turned fully round, – it was Tony.
“My dear Tony, when did you arrive?”
“This moment; I am off again, however, at once, but I would n’t leave without seeing you.”
“Off, and whereto?”
“Home; I’ve taken a passage to Marseilles in the Messageries boat, and she sails at two o’clock. You see I was no use here till this arm got right, and the General thought my head would n’t be the worse of a little quiet; so I ‘ll go back and recruit, and if they want me they shall have me.”
“You don’t know who’s there?” whispered Skeff. Tony shook his head. “And all alone, too,” added the other, still lower. “Alice, – Alice Trafford.”
Tony grew suddenly very pale, and leaned against the wall.
“Come in; come in at once, and see her. We have been talking of you all the evening.”
“No, no, – not now,” said Tony, faintly.
“And when, if not now? You ‘re going off, you said.”
“I’m in no trim to pay visits; besides, I don’t wish it. I ‘ll tell you more some other time.”
“Nonsense; you look right well in your brigand costume, and with an old friend, not to say – Well, well, don’t look sulky;” and as he got thus far – he had been gradually edging closer and closer to the door – he flung it wide open, and called out, “Mr. Tony Butler!” Pushing Tony inside, and then closing the door behind, he retreated, laughing heartily to himself over his practical joke.
CHAPTER LIX. AN AWKWARD MOMENT
Alice started as she heard the name Tony Butler, and for a moment neither spoke. There was confusion and awkwardness on either side; all the greater that each saw it in the other. She, however, was the first to rally; and, with a semblance of old friendship, held out her hand, and said, “I am so glad to see you, Tony, and to see you safe.”
“I ‘d not have dared to present myself in such a dress,” stammered he out; “but that scamp Skeffy gave me no choice: he opened the door and pushed me in.”
“Your dress is quite good enough to visit an old friend in. Won’t you sit down? – sit here.” As she spoke, she seated herself on an ottoman, and pointed to a place at her side. “I am longing to hear something about your campaigns. Skeff was so provoking; he only told us about what he saw at Cava, and his own adventures on the road.”
“I have very little to tell, and less time to tell it I must embark in about half an hour.”
“And where for?”
“For home.”
“So that if it had not been for Skeff’s indiscretion I should not have seen you?” said she, coldly.
“Not at this moment, – not in this guise.”
“Indeed!” And there was another pause.
“I hope Bella is better. Has she quite recovered?” asked he.
“She is quite well again; she ‘ll be sorry to have missed you, Tony. She wanted, besides, to tell you how happy it made her to hear of all your good fortune.”
“My good fortune! Oh, yes – to be sure. It was so unlooked for,” added he, with a faint smile, “that I have hardly been able to realize it yet; that is, I find myself planning half-a-dozen ways to earn my bread, when I suddenly remember that I shall not need them.”
“And I hope it makes you happy, Tony?”
“Of course it does. It enables me to make my mother happy, and to secure that we shall not be separated. As for myself alone, my habits are simple enough, and my tastes also. My difficulty will be, I suppose, to acquire more expensive ones.”
“It is not a very hard task, I believe,” said she, smiling.
“Not for others, perhaps; but I was reared in narrow fortune, Alice, trained to submit to many a privation, and told too – I ‘m not sure very wisely – that such hardships are all the more easily borne by a man of good blood and lineage. Perhaps I did not read my lesson right. At all events, I thought a deal more of my good blood than other people were willing to accord it; and the result was, it misled me.”
“Misled you! and how – in what way?”
“Is it you who ask me this – you, Alice, who have read me such wise lessons on self-dependence, while Lady Lyle tried to finish my education by showing the evils of over-presumption; and you were both right, though I did n’t see it at the time.”
“I declare I do not understand you, Tony!” said she.
“Well, I ‘ll try to be clearer,” said he, with more animation. “From the first day I knew you, Alice, I loved you. I need not say that all the difference in station between us never affected my love. You were too far above me in every gift and grace to make rank, mere rank, ever occur to my mind, though others were good enough to jog my memory on the subject.”
“Others! of whom are you speaking?”
“Your brother Mark, for one; but I don’t want to think of these things. I loved you, I say; and to that degree that every change of your manner towards me made the joy or the misery of my life. This was when I was an idle youth, lounging about in that condition of half dependence that, as I look back on, I blush to think I ever could have endured. My only excuse is, however, that I knew no better.”
“There was nothing unbecoming in what you did.”
“Yes, there was, though. There was this: I was satisfied to hold an ambiguous position, – to be a something, neither master nor servant, in another man’s house, all because it gave me the daily happiness to be near you, and to see you, and to hear your voice. That was unbecoming, and the best proof of it was, that with all my love and all my devotion, you could not care for me.”
“Oh, Tony! do not say that.”
“When I say care, you could not do more than care; you couldn’t love me.”
“Were you not always as a dear brother to me?”
“I wanted to be more than brother, and when I found that this could not be, I grew very careless, almost reckless, of my life; not but that it took a long time to teach me the full lesson. I had to think over, not only all that separated us in station, but all that estranged us in tone of mind; and I saw that your superiority to me chafed me, and that if you should ever come to feel for me, it would be through some sense of pity.”
“Oh, Tony!”
“Yes, Alice, you know it better than I can say it; and so I set my pride to fight against my love, with no great success at first. But as I lay wounded in the orchard at Melazzo, and thought of my poor mother, and her sorrow if she were to hear of my death, and compared her grief with what yours would be, I saw what was real in love, and what was mere interest; and I remember I took out my two relics, – the dearest objects I had in the world, – a lock of my mother’s hair and a certain glove, – a white glove you may have seen once on a time; and it was over the little braid of brown hair I let fall the last tears I thought ever to shed in life; and here is the glove – I give it back to you. Will you have it?”
She took it with a trembling hand; and in a voice of weak but steady utterance said, “I told you that this time would come.”
“You did so,” said he, gloomily.
Alice rose and walked out upon the balcony; and after a moment Tony followed her. They leaned on the balustrade side by side, but neither spoke.
“But we shall always be dear friends, Tony, sha’n’t we?” said she, while she laid her hand gently over his.
“Oh, Alice,” said he, plaintively, “do not – do not, I beseech you – lead me back again into that land of delusion I have just tried to escape from. If you knew how I loved you – if you knew what it costs me to tear that love out of my heart – you’d never wish to make the agony greater to me.”
“Dear Tony, it was a mere boyish passion. Remember for a moment how it began. I was older than you – much older as regards life and the world – and even older by more than a year. You were so proud to attach yourself to a grown woman, – you a mere lad; and then your love – for I will grant it was love – dignified you to yourself. It made you more daring where there was danger, and it taught you to be gentler and kinder, and more considerate to every one. All your good and great qualities grew the faster that they had those little vicissitudes of joy and sorrow, the sun and rain of our daily lives; but all that is not love.”
“You mean there is no love where there is no return of love?”
She was silent
“If so, I deny it. The faintest flicker of a hope was enough for me; the merest shadow, a smile, a passing word, your mere ‘Thank you, Tony,’ as I held your stirrup, the little word of recognition you would give when I had done something that pleased you, – these – any of them – would send me home happy, – happier, perhaps, than I ever shall be again.”
“No, Tony, do not believe that,” said she, calmly; “not,” added she, hastily, “that I can acquit myself of all wrong to you. No; I was in fault, – gravely in fault I ought to have seen what would have come of all our intimacy; I ought to have known that I could not develop all that was best in your nature without making you turn in gratitude – well, in love – to myself; but shall I tell you the truth? I over-estimated my power over you. I not only thought I could make you love, but unlove me; and I never thought what pain that lesson might cost – each of us.”
“It would have been fairer to have cast me adrift at first,” said he, fiercely.
“And yet, Tony, you will be generous enough one of these days to think differently!”
“I certainly feel no touch of that generosity now.”
“Because you are angry with me, Tony, – because you will not be just to me; but when you have learned to think of me as your sister, and can come and say, Dear Alice, counsel me as to this, advise me as to that, – then there will be no ill-will towards me for all I have done to teach you the great stores that were in your own nature.”
“Such a day as that is distant,” said he, gloomily.
“Who knows? The changes which work within us are not to be measured by time; a day of sorrow will do the work of years.”
“There! that lantern at the peak is the signal for me to be off. The skipper promised to give me notice; but if you will say ‘Stay!’ be it so. No, no, Alice, do not lay your hand on my arm if you would not have me again deceive myself.”
“You will write to me, Tony?”
He shook his head to imply the negative.
“Well, to Bella, at least?”
“I think not. I will not promise. Why should I? Is it to try and knot together the cords we have just torn, that you may break them again at your pleasure?”
“How ungenerous you are!”
“You reminded me awhile ago it was my devotion to you that civilized me; is it not natural that I should go back to savagery, as my allegiance was rejected?”
“You want to be Garibaldian in love as in war,” said she, smiling.
The deep boom of a gun floated over the bay, and Tony started.
“That’s the last signal, – good-bye.” He held out his hand.
“Good-bye, dear Tony,” said she. She held her cheek towards him. He hesitated, blushed till his face was in a dame, then stooped and kissed her. Skeff’s voice was heard at the instant at the door; and Tony rushed past him and down the stairs, and then, with mad speed, dashed along to the jetty, leaped into the boat, and, covering his face with his hands, never raised his head till they were alongside.
“You were within an inch of being late, Tony,” cried M’Gruder, as he came up the side. “What detained you?”
“I ‘ll tell you all another time, – let me go below now;” and he disappeared down the ladder. The heavy paddles flapped slowly, then faster; and the great mass moved on, and made for the open sea.