“And you might have found more comforting words, lassie, – how the winds can be tempered to the shorn lamb,” said the old lady, almost rebukefully; and Dolly drooped her head in silence.
“I think it’s a bad scheme,” said Tony, boldly, and as though not hearing his mother’s remark. “For a man at the doctor’s age to go to the other end of the globe, to live in a new land, and make new friendships at his time of life, is, I ‘m sure, a mistake.”
“That supposes that we have a choice; but my father thinks we have no choice.”
“I cannot see that. I cannot see that what a man has borne for five-and-thirty or forty years – he has been that long at the Burnside – I believe he can endure still longer. I must have a talk with him myself over it.” And unconsciously – quite unconsciously – Tony uttered the last words with a high-sounding importance, so certain is it that in a man’s worldly wealth there is a store of self-confidence that no mere qualities of head or heart can ever supply; and Dolly almost smiled at the assured tone and the confident manner of her former playfellow.
“My father will be glad to see you, Tony, – he wants to hear all about your campaigns; he was trying two nights ago to follow you on the map, but it was such a bad one he had to give up the attempt.”
“I’ll give you mine,” cried the old lady, – “the map Tony brought over to myself. I ‘ll no just give it, but I ‘ll lend it to you; and there’s a cross wherever there was a battle, and a red cross wherever Tony was wounded.”
“Pooh, pooh, mother! don’t worry Dolly about these things; she ‘d rather hear of pleasanter themes than battles and battle-fields. And here is one already, – Jeanie says, ‘dinner’.”
“Where did you find your sprig of myrtle at this time?” asked Dolly, as Tony led her in to dinner.
“I got it at the Abbey. I strolled up there to-day,” said he, in a half-confusion. “Will you have it?”
“No,” said she, curtly.
“Neither will I, then,” cried he, tearing it out of his button-hole and throwing it away.
What a long journey in life can be taken in the few steps from the drawing-room to the dinner-table!
CHAPTER LXIV. THE END
As Dr. Stewart had many friends to consult and many visits to make, – some of them, as he imagined, farewell ones, – Dolly was persuaded, but not without difficulty, to take up her residence at the cottage till she should be able to return home. And a very pleasant week it was. To the old lady it was almost perfect happiness. She had her dear Tony back with her after all his dangers and escapes, safe and sound, and in such spirits as she had never seen him before. Not a cloud, not a shadow, now ever darkened his bright face; all was good-humor, and thoughtful kindness for herself and for Dolly.
And poor Dolly, too, with some anxious cares at her heart, – a load that would have crushed many, – bore up so well that she looked as cheery as the others, and entered into all the plans that Tony formed about his future house, and his gardens and stables, as though many a hundred leagues of ocean were not soon to roll between her and the spots she traced so eagerly on the paper. One evening they sat even later than usual. Tony had induced Dolly, who was very clever with her pencil, to make him a sketch for a little ornamental cottage, – one of those uninhabitable little homesteads, which are immensely suggestive of all the comforts they would utterly fail to realize; and he leaned over her as she drew, and his arm was on the back of her chair, and his face so close at times that it almost touched the braids of the silky hair beside him.
“You must make a porch there, Dolly; it would be so nice to sit there with that noble view down the glen at one’s feet, and three distinct reaches of the Nore visible.”
“Yes, I’ll make a porch; I’ll even make you yourself lounging in it See, it shall be perfect bliss!”
“What does that mean?”
“That means smoke, sir; you are enjoying the heavenly luxury of tobacco, not the less intensely that it obscures the view.”
“No, Dolly, I’ll not have that. If you put me there, don’t have me smoking; make me sitting beside you as we are now, – you drawing, and I looking over you.”
“But I want to be a prophet as well as a painter, Tony. I desire to predict something that will be sure to happen, if you should ever build this cottage.”
“I swear I will, – I ‘m resolved on it.”
“Well, then, so sure as you do, and so sure as you sit in that little honeysuckle-covered porch, you ‘ll smoke.”
“And why not do as I say? Why not make you sketching – ”
“Because I shall not be sketching; because, by the time your cottage is finished, I shall probably be sketching a Maori chief, or a war-party bivouacking on the Raki-Raki.”
Tony drew away his arm and leaned back in his chair, a sense almost of faintish sickness creeping over him.
“Here are the dogs too,” continued she. “Here is Lance with his great majestic face, and here Gertrude with her fine pointed nose and piercing eyes, and here’s little Spicer as saucy and pert as I can make him without color; for one ought to have a little carmine for the corner of his eye, and a slight tinge to accent the tip of his nose. Shall I add all your ‘emblems,’ as they call them, and put in the fishing-rods against the wall, and the landing-net, and the guns and pouches?”
She went on sketching with inconceivable rapidity, the drawing keeping pace almost with her words.
But Tony no longer took the interest he had done before in the picture, but seemed lost in some deep and difficult reflection.
“Shall we have a bridge – a mere plank will do – over the river here, Tony? and then this zigzag pathway will be a short way up to the cottage.”
He never heard her words, but arose and left the room. He passed out into the little garden in front of the house, and, leaning on the gate, looked out into the dark still night.
Poor Tony! impenetrable as that darkness was, it was not more difficult to peer through than the thick mist that gathered around his thoughts.
“Is that Tony?” cried his mother from the doorway.
“Yes,” said he, moodily, for he wanted to be left to his own thoughts.
“Come here, Tony, and see what a fine manly letter your friend Mr. M’Gruder writes in answer to mine.”
Tony was at her side in an instant, and almost tore the letter in his eagerness to read it. It was very brief, but well deserved all she had said of it. With a delicacy which perhaps might scarcely have been looked for in a man so educated and brought up, he seemed to appreciate the existence of a secret he had no right to question; and bitterly as the resolve cost him, he declared that he had no longer a claim on Dolly’s affection.
“I scarcely understand him, mother; do you?” asked Tony.
“It ‘s not very hard to understand, Tony,” said she, gravely. “Mr. M’Gruder sees that Dolly Stewart could not have given him her love and affection as a man’s wife ought to give, and he would be ashamed to take her without it.”
“But why could n’t she? Sam seems to have a sort of suspicion as to the reason, and I cannot guess it.”
“If he does suspect, he has the nice feeling of a man of honor, and sees that it is not for one placed as he is to question it.”
“If any man were to say to me, ‘Read that letter, and tell me what does it infer,’ I’d say the writer thought that the girl he wanted to marry liked some else.”
“Well, there’s one point placed beyond an inference, Tony; the engagement is ended, and she is free.”
“I suppose she is very happy at it.”
“Poor Dolly has little heart for happiness just now. It was a little before dinner a note came from the doctor to say that all the friends he had consulted advised him to go out, and were ready and willing to assist him in every way to make the journey. As January is the stormy month in these seas, they all recommended his sailing as soon as he possibly could; and the poor man says very feelingly, ‘To-morrow, mayhap, will be my farewell sermon to those who have sat under me eight-and-forty years.’”
“Why did you not make some proposal like what I spoke of, mother?” asked he, almost peevishly.
“I tried to do it, Tony, but he would n’t hear of it. He has a pride of his own that is very dangerous to wound, and he stopped me at once, saying, ‘I hope I mistake your meaning; but lest I should not, say no more of this for the sake of our old friendship.’”
“I call such pride downright want of feeling. It is neither more nor less than consummate selfishness.”
“Don’t tell him so, Tony, or maybe you ‘d fare worse in the argument. He has a wise, deep head, the doctor.”
“I wish he had a little heart with it,” said Tony, sulkily, and turned again into the garden.
Twice did Jeanie summon him to tea, but he paid no attention to the call; so engrossed, indeed, was he by his thoughts, that he even forgot to smoke, and not impossibly the want of his accustomed weed added to his other embarrassments.
“Miss Dolly’s for ganging hame, Master Tony,” said the maid at last, “and the mistress wants you to go wi’ her.”
As Tony entered the hall, Dolly was preparing for the road. Coquetry was certainly the least of her accomplishments, and yet there was something that almost verged on it in the hood she wore, instead of a bonnet, lined with some plushy material of a rich cherry color, and forming a frame around her face that set off all her features to the greatest advantage. Never did her eyes look bluer or deeper, – never did the gentle beauty of her face light up with more of brilliancy. Tony never knew with what rapture he was gazing on her till he saw that she was blushing under his fixed stare.
The leave-taking between Mrs. Butler and Dolly was more than usually affectionate; and even after they had separated, the old lady called her back and kissed her again.
“I don’t know how mother will bear up after you leave her,” muttered Tony, as he walked along at Dolly’s side; “she is fonder of you than ever.”
Dolly murmured something, but inaudibly.
“For my own part,” continued Tony, “I can’t believe this step necessary at all. It would be an ineffable disgrace to the whole neighborhood to let one we love and revere as we do him, go away in his old age, one may say, to seek his fortune. He belongs to us, and we to him. We have been linked together for years, and I can’t bear the thought of our separating.”
This was a very long speech for Tony, and he felt almost fatigued when it was finished; but Dolly was silent, and there was no means by which he could guess the effect it had produced upon her.
“As to my mother,” continued he, “she’d not care to live here any longer, – I know it. I don’t speak of myself, because it’s the habit to think I don’t care for any one or anything, – that’s the estimate people form of me, and I must bear it as I can.”
“It’s less than just, Tony,” said Dolly, gravely.
“Oh, if I am to ask for justice, Dolly, I shall get the worst of it,” said he, laughing, but not merrily.
For a while they walked on without a word on either side.
“What a calm night!” said Dolly, “and how large the stars look! They tell me that in southern latitudes they seem immense.”
“You are not sorry to leave this, Dolly?” murmured he, gloomily; “are you?”
A very faint sigh was all her answer.
“I ‘m sure no one could blame you,” he continued. “There is not much to attach any one to the place, except, perhaps, a half-savage like myself, who finds its ruggedness congenial.”
“But you will scarcely remain here, now, Tony; you’ll be more likely to settle at Butler Hall, won’t you?”
“Wherever I settle it sha’n’t be here, after you have left it,” said he, with energy.
“Sir Arthur Lyle and his family are all coming back in a few days, I hear.”
“So they may; it matters little to me, Dolly. Shall I tell you a secret? Take my arm, Dolly, – the path is rough here, – you may as well lean on me. We are not likely to have many more walks together. Oh dear! if you were as sorry as I am, what a sad stroll this would be!”
“What’s your secret, Tony?” asked she, in a faint voice
“Ah! my secret, my secret,” said he, ponderingly: “I don’t know why I called it a secret, – but here is what I meant. You remember, Dolly, how I used to live up there at the Abbey formerly. It was just like my home. I ordered all the people about just as if they had been my own servants, – and, indeed, they minded my orders more than their master’s. The habit grew so strong upon me, of being obeyed and followed, that I suppose I must have forgot my own real condition. I take it I must have lost sight of who and what I actually was, till one of the sons – a young fellow in the service in India – came back and contrived to let me make the discovery, that, though I never knew it, I was really living the life of a dependant. I ‘ll not tell you how this stung me, but it did sting me – all the more that I believed, I fancied, myself – don’t laugh at me – but I really imagined I was in love with one of the girls – Alice. She was Alice Trafford then.”
“I had heard of that,” said Dolly, in a faint voice.
“Well, she too undeceived me – not exactly as unfeelingly nor as offensively as her brother, but just as explicitly – you know what I mean?”
“No; tell me more clearly,” said she, eagerly.
“I don’t know how to tell you. It’s a long story, – that is to say, I was a long while under a delusion, and she was a long while indulging it. Fine ladies, I ‘m told, do this sort of thing when they take a caprice into their heads to civilize young barbarians of my stamp.”
“That’s not the generous way to look at it, Tony.”
“I don’t want to be generous, – the adage says one ought to begin by being just. Skeffy – you know whom I mean, Skeff Darner – saw it clearly enough – he warned me about it. And what a clever fellow he is! Would you believe it, Dolly? he actually knew all the time that I was not really in love when I thought I was. He knew that it was a something made up of romance and ambition and boyish vanity, and that my heart, my real heart, was never in it.”
Dolly shook her head, but whether in dissent or in sorrow it was not easy to say.
“Shall I tell you more?” cried Tony, as he drew her arm closer to him, and took her hand in his; “shall I tell you more, Dolly? Skeff read me as I could not read myself. He said to me, ‘Tony, this is no case of love, it is the flattered vanity of a very young fellow to be distinguished not alone by the prettiest, but the most petted woman of society. You,’ said he, ‘are receiving all the homage paid to her at second-hand.’ But more than all this, Dolly; he not merely saw that I was not in love with Alice Trafford, but he saw with whom my heart was bound up, for many and many a year.”
“Her sister, her sister Bella,” whispered Dolly.
“No, but with yourself, my own own Dolly,” cried he; and turning, and before she could prevent it, he clasped her in his arms, and kissed her passionately.
“Oh, Tony!” said she, sobbing, “you that I trusted, you that I confided in, to treat me thus.”
“It is that my heart is bursting, Dolly, with this long pent-up love, for I now know I have loved you all my life long. Don’t be angry with me, my darling Dolly; I’d rather die at your feet than hear an angry word from you. Tell me if you can care for me; oh, tell me, if I strive to be all you could like and love, that you will not refuse to be my own.”
She tried to disengage herself from his arm; she trembled, heaved a deep sigh, and fell with her head on his shoulder.
“And you are my own,” said he, again kissing her; “and now the wide world has not so happy a heart as mine.”
Of those characters of my story who met happiness, it is as well to say no more. A more cunning craftsman than myself has told us that the less we track human life the more cheerily we shall speak of it. Let us presume, and it is no unfair presumption, that, as Tony’s life was surrounded with a liberal share of those gifts which make existence pleasurable, he was neither ungrateful nor unmindful of them. Of Dolly I hope there need be no doubt. “The guid dochter is the best warrant for the guid wife:” so said her father, and he said truly.
In the diary of a Spanish guerilla chief, there is mention of a “nobile Inglese,” who met him at Malta, to confer over the possibility of a landing in Calabria, and the chances of a successful rising there. The Spaniard speaks of this man as a person of rank, education, and talents, high in the confidence of the Court, and evidently warmly interested in the cause. He was taken prisoner by the Piedmontese troops on the third day after they landed, and, though repeatedly offered life under conditions it would have been no dishonor to accept, was tried by court-martial, and shot.
There is reason to believe that the “nobile Inglese” was Maitland.
From the window where I write, I can see the promenade on the Pincian Hill; and if my eyes do not deceive me, I can perceive that at times the groups are broken, and the loungers fall back, to permit some one to pass. I have called the waiter to explain the curious circumstance, and asked if it be royalty that is so deferentially acknowledged. He smiles, and says: “No. It is the major domo of the palace exacts the respect you see. He can do what he likes at Rome. Antonelli himself is not greater than the Count M’Caskey.”
As some unlettered guide leads the traveller to the verge of a cliff, from which the glorious landscape beneath is visible, and winding river and embowered homestead, and swelling plain and far-off mountain, are all spread out beneath for the eye to revel over, so do I place you, my valued reader, on that spot from which the future can be seen, and modestly retire that you may gaze in peace, weaving your own fancies at will, and investing the scene before you with such images and such interests as best befit it.
My part is done: if I have suggested something for yours, it will not be all in vain that I have written “Tony Butler.”