"They talk a deal about Australia, Tony; and, indeed, I sometimes think I "d like to go there myself. I read in the "Times" t" other day that a dairy-maid got as much as forty-six pounds a-year and her board; only fancy, forty-six pounds a-year! Do you know," added she, in a cautious whisper, "I have only eighteen pounds here, and was in rare luck too, they say, to get it."
"What if we were to set out together, Dolly?" said he, laughing; but a deep scarlet flush covered her face, and though she tried to laugh too, she had to turn her head away, for the tears were in her eyes.
"But how could _you_ turn dairymaid, Dolly?" cried he, half reproachfully.
"Just as well, or rather better, than _you_ turn shepherd or gold-digger. As to mere labor, it would be nothing; as to any loss of condition, I "d not feel it, and therefore not suffer it."
"Oh, I have no sn.o.bbery myself about working with my hands," added he, hastily. "Heaven help me if I had, for my head would n"t keep _me_; but a girl"s bringing up is so different from a boy"s; she oughtn"t to do anything menial out of her own home."
"We ought all of us just to do our best, Tony, and what leaves us less of a burden to others,--that"s my reading of it; and when we do that, we "ll have a quiet conscience, and that"s something that many a rich man could n"t buy with all his money."
"I think it"s the time for the children"s dinner, Miss Stewart," said the grim lady, entering. "I am sorry it should cut short an interview so interesting."
A half-angry reply rose to Tony"s lips, when a look from Dora stopped him, and he stammered out, "May I call and see you again before I go back?"
"When _do_ you go back, young gentleman?" asked the thin lady.
"That"s more than I can tell. This week if I can; next week if I must."
"If you "ll write me a line, then, and say what day it would be your convenience to come down here, I will reply, and state whether it will be Miss Stewart"s and mine to receive you."
"Come, at all events," said Dora, in a low voice, as they shook hands and parted.
"Poor Dolly!" muttered he, as he went his way towards town. "What between the pale cheeks and the cropped hair and the odious cap, I "d never have known her!" He suddenly heard the sound of footsteps behind him, and, turning, he saw her running towards him at full speed.
"You had forgotten your cane, Tony," said she, half breathless, "and I knew it was an old favorite of yours, and you "d be sorry to think it was lost. Tell me one thing," cried she, and her cheek flushed even a deeper hue than the exercise had given it; "could you--would you be a clerk--in a merchant"s office, I mean?"
"Why do you ask me, Dolly?" said he; for her eager and anxious face directed all his solicitude from himself to her.
"If you only would and could, Tony," continued she, "write. No; make papa write me a line to say so. There, I have no time for more; I have already done enough to secure me a rare lesson when I get back. Don"t come here again."
She was gone before he could answer her; and with a heavier heart and a very puzzled head, he resumed his road to London, "Don"t come here again" ringing in his head as he went.
CHAPTER VII. LYLE ABBEY AND ITS GUESTS
The company at Lyle Abbey saw very little of Maitland for some days after his arrival. He never appeared of a morning; he only once came down to dinner; his pretext was indifferent health, and Mark showed a disposition to quarrel with any one who disputed it. Not, indeed, that the squirearchy then present were at all disposed to regret Maitland"s absence. They would infinitely rather have discussed his peculiarities in secret committee than meet himself in open debate. It was not very easy to say why they did not like him, but such was the fact. It was not that he overbore them by any species of a.s.sumption; he neither took on him airs of superior station nor of superior knowledge; he was neither insolent nor haughty; nor was he even, what sometimes is not less resented, careless and indifferent His manner was a sort of middle term between popularity-seeking and inattention. The most marked trait in it was one common enough in persons who have lived much on the Continent,--a great preference for the society of ladies making him almost ignore or avoid the presence of the men around him. Not that Maitland was what is called _pet.i.t maitre_; there was not any of that flippant prettiness which is supposed to have its fascination for the fair s.e.x; he was quiet without any touch of over-seriousness, very respectful, and at the same time with an insinuated friendliness as though the person he talked to was one selected for especial cordiality; and there was a sort of tender languor too about him, that implied some secret care in his heart, of which each who listened to his conversation was sure to fancy that she was one day to become the chosen depositary.
"Do you know, Bella," said Mrs. Trafford, as they sat together at the fire in her dressing-room, "I shall end by half liking him."
"I have n"t got that far, Alice, though I own that I am less in dread of him than I was. His superiority is not so crushing as I feared it might be; and certainly, if he be the Admirable Crichton Mark pretends he is, he takes every possible pains to avoid all display of it."
"There may be some impertinence in that," said the other. "Did you remark how he was a week here before he as much as owned he knew anything of music, and listened to our weary little ballads every evening without a word? and last night, out of pure caprice, as it seemed, he sits down, and sings song after song of Verdi"s difficult music, with a tenor that reminds one of Mario."
"And which has quite convinced old Mrs. Maxwell that he is a professional, or, as she called it, "a singing man.""
"She would call him a sketching man if she saw the caricature he made of herself in the pony carriage, which he tore up the moment he showed it to me."
"One thing is clear, Alice,--he means that we should like him; but he is too clever to set about it in any vulgar spirit of captivation."
"That is, he seeks regard for personal qualities rather more than admiration for his high gifts of intellect. Well, up to this, it is his cleverness that I like."
"What puzzles me is why he ever came here. He is asked about everywhere, has all manner of great houses open to him, and stores of fine people, of whose intimacy you can see he is proud; and yet he comes down to a dull country place in a dull county; and, stranger than all, he seems to like it."
"John Hunter says it is debt," said Mrs. Trafford.
"Mark Fortescue hints that a rich and handsome widow has something to say to it."
"Paul M"Clintock declares that he saw your picture by Ary Scheffer in the Exhibition, and fell madly in love with it, Bella."
"And old Colonel Orde says that he is intriguing to get in for the borough of Coleraine; that he saw him in the garden t"other morning with a list of the electors in his hand."
"My conjecture is, that he is intolerably bored everywhere, and came down here to try the effect of a new mode of the infliction that he had never experienced before. What else would explain a project I heard him arrange for this morning,--a walk with Beck Graham!"
"Yes, I was in the window when he asked her where she usually went in those wanderings over the fern hills, with that great umbrella; and she told him to visit an old lady--a Mrs. Butler--who had been a dear friend of her mother"s; and then he said, "I wish you "d take me with you. I have a positive weakness for old ladies;" and so the bargain was struck, that they were to go to the cottage to-day together."
"Beck, of course, fancying that it means a distinct avowal of attention to herself."
"And her sister, Sally, very fully persuaded that Maitland is a suitor for her hand, and cunningly securing Beck"s good offices before he risks a declaration."
"Sally already believes that Mark is what she calls "landed;" and she gave me some pretty broad hints about the insufferable pretensions of younger sons, to which cla.s.s she consigns him."
"And Beck told me yesterday, in confidence, that Tony had been sent away from home by his mother, as the last resource against the consequence of his fatal pa.s.sion for her."
"Poor Tony," sighed the young widow, "he never thought of her."
"Did he tell you as much, Alice?" said her sister, slyly.
"No, dear; it is the one subject--I mean love in any shape--that we never discussed. The poor boy confessed to me all his grief about his purposeless idle life, his mother"s straitened fortune, and his uncle"s heartless indifference; everything, in short, that lay heavily on his heart."
"Everything but the heaviest, Alice," said the other smiling.
"Well, if he had opened that sorrow, I "d have heard him without anger; I"d have honestly told him it was a very vain and fruitless pursuit. But still my own heart would have declared to me that a young fellow is all the better for some romance of this kind,--that it elevates motives and dignifies actions, and, not least of all advantages, makes him very uncompanionable for creatures of mere dissipation and excess."
"But that, of course, you were merely objective the while,--the source from which so many admirable results were to issue, and never so much as disturbed by the breath of his attachment. Is n"t that so?"
"I "d have said, "You "re a very silly boy if you imagine that anything can come of all this. ""
"And if he were to ask for the reason, and say, "Alice, are you not your own mistress, rich, free to do whatever you incline to do? Why should you call me a fool for loving you?""
"Take my word for it, Bella, he "ll never risk the answer he "d be sure to meet to such a speech," said the other, haughtily; and Isabella, who felt a sort of awe of her sister at certain moments, desisted from the theme. "Look! yonder they go, Maitland and Rebecca, not exactly arm-inarm, but with bent-down heads, and that propinquity that implies close converse."
"I declare I feel quite jealous,--I mean on your account, Bella," said Mrs. Trafford.
"Never mind _my_ interests in the matter, Alice," said she, reddening; "it is a matter of the most complete indifference to me with whom he walks or talks. Mr. Norman Maitland is not to me one whit more of consequence than is Tony Butler to my sister."
"That"s a confession, Bella,--a confession wrung out of a hasty moment; for Tony certainly likes _me_, and _I_ know it."