"John Anthony Butler, Esq.," cried a loud voice, and Skeffy sprang over a box-hedge almost as tall as himself, flourishing a great sealed packet in his band. "A despatch on Her Majesty"s service just sent on here!"
cried he; "and now remember, Tony, if it"s Viceroy you"re named, I insist on being Chief Sec.; if you go to India as Governor-General, I claim Bombay or Madras. What stuff is the fellow made of? Did you ever see such a stolid indifference? He doesn"t want to know what the Fates have decreed him."
"I don"t care one farthing," said Tony, doggedly.
"Here goes, then, to see," cried Skeffy, tearing open the packet and reading: ""Downing Street, Friday, 5th.--Mr. Butler will report himself for service as F. O. Messenger on Tuesday morning, 9 th. By order of the Under-Secretary of State.""
"There"s a way to issue a service summons. It was Graves wrote that, I "d swear. All he ought to have said was, "Butler for service, F. O., to report immediately.""
"I suppose the form is no great matter," said Mrs. Trafford, whose eyes now turned with an anxious interest towards Tony.
"The form is everything, I a.s.sure you. The Chief Secretary is a regular Tartar about style. One of our fellows, who has an impediment in his speech, once wrote, "I had had," in a despatch, and my Lord noted it with, "It is inexcusable that he should stutter in writing.""
"I must be there on Wednesday, is it?" asked Tony.
"Tuesday--Tuesday, and in good time too. But ain"t you lucky, you dog!
They "re so hard pressed for messengers, they"ve got no time to examine you. You are to enter official life _par la pet.i.te porte_, but you get in without knocking."
"I cannot imagine that the examination would be much of a difficulty,"
said Mrs. Trafford.
Tony shook his head in dissent, and gave a sad faint sigh.
"I "d engage to coach him in a week," broke in Skeffy. "It was I ground Vyse in Chinese, and taught him that glorious drinking-song, "Tehin Tehan Ili-Ta!" that he offered to sing before the Commissioners if they could play the accompaniment."
Leaving Skeffy to revel in his gratifying memories of such literary successes, Alice turned away a few steps with Tony.
"Let us part good friends, Tony," said she, in a low tone. "You "ll go up to the Abbey, I hope, and wish them a good-bye, won"t you?"
"I am half ashamed to go now," muttered he.
"No, no, Tony; don"t fancy that there is any breach in our friendship; and tell me another thing: would you like me to write to you? I know you "re not very fond of writing yourself, but I "ll not be exacting. You shall have two for one,--three, if you deserve it."
He could not utter a word; his heart felt as if it would burst through his side, and a sense of suffocation almost choked him. He knew, if he tried to speak, that his emotion would break out, and in his pride he would have suffered torture rather than shed a tear.
With a woman"s nice tact she saw his confusion, and hastened to relieve it. "The first letter must, however, be from you, Tony. It need be only half a dozen lines, to say if you have pa.s.sed your examination, what you think of your new career, and where you are going."
"I couldn"t write!" stammered out Tony; "I could not!"
"Well, I will," said she, with a tone of kind feeling. "Your mother shall tell me where to address you."
"You will see mother, then?" asked he, eagerly.
"Of course, Tony. If Mrs. Butler will permit me, I will be a frequent visitor."
"Oh, if I thought so!"
"Do think so,--be a.s.sured of it; and remember, Tony, whenever you have courage to think of me as your own old friend of long ago, write and tell me so." These words were not said without a certain difficulty.
"There, don"t let us appear foolish to your smart friend, yonder.
Goodbye."
"Good-bye, Alice," said he, and now the tears rushed fast, and rolled down his cheeks; but he drew his hand roughly across his face, and, springing upon the car, said, "Drive on, and as hard as you can; I am too late here."
Skeffy shouted his adieux, and waved a most picturesque farewell; but Tony neither heard nor saw either. Both hands were pressed on his face, and he sobbed as if his very heart was breaking.
"Well, if that"s not a melodramatic exit, I"m a Dutchman," exclaimed Skeffy, turning to address Alice; but she too was gone, and he was left standing there alone.
"Don"t be angry with me, Bella! don"t scold, and I "ll tell you of an indiscretion I have just committed," said Alice, as she sat on her sister"s bed.
"I think I can guess it," said Bella, looking up in her face.
"No, you cannot,--you are not within a thousand miles of it. I know perfectly what you mean, Bella; you suspect that I have opened a flirtation with the distinguished Londoner, the wonderful Skeffington Darner."
Bella shook her head dissentingly.
"Not but one might," continued Alice, laughing, "in a dull season, with an empty house and nothing to do; just as I "ve seen you trying to play that tw.a.n.kling old harpsichord in the Flemish drawing-room, for want of better; but you are wrong, for all that."
"It was not of him I was thinking, Alice,--on my word, it was not. I had another, and, I suppose, a very different person in my head."
"Tony!"
"Just so."
"Well, what of him; and what the indiscretion with which you would charge me?"
"With which you charge yourself, Alice dearest! I see it all in that pink spot on your cheek, in that trembling of your lips, and in that quick impatience of your manner."
"Dear me! what can it be which has occasioned such agitation, and called up such terrible witnesses against me?"
"I "ll tell you, Alice. You have sent away that poor boy more in love than ever. You have let him carry away a hope which you well know is only a delusion."
"I protest this is too bad. I never dreamed of such a lecture, and I "ll just go downstairs and make a victim of Mr. Damer."
Alice arose and dashed out of the room; not, however, to do as she said, but to hurry to her own room, and lock the door after her as she entered it.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV. TONY ASKS COUNSEL
It was just as Bella said; Alice had sent off that poor boy "twice as much in love as ever." Poor fellow! what a strange conflict was that that raged within him!--all that can make life glorious, give ecstasy to the present and hope to the future, mingled with everything that can throw a gloom over existence, and make it a burden and a task. Must it be ever thus?--must the most exquisite moments of our life, when we have youth and hope and health and energy, be dashed with fears that make us forget all the blessings of our lot, and deem ourselves the most wretched of created beings?
In this feverish alternation he travelled along homeward,--now thinking of the great things he could do and dare to win her love, now foreshadowing the time when all hopes should be extinguished, and he should walk the world alone and forsaken. He went over in memory--who has not done so at one time or other?--all she had said to him at their last meeting, asking what ground there might be for hope in this, what reason for belief in that. With what intense avidity do we seek for the sands of gold in this crushed and crumbled rock! how eagerly do we peer to catch one glittering grain that shall whisper to us of wealth hereafter!
Surely, thought he, Alice is too good and too true-hearted to give me even this much of hope if she meant me to despair. Why should she offer to write to me if she intended that I was to forget her? "I wonder,"
muttered he, in his dark spirit of doubt,--"I wonder if this be simply the woman"s way of treating a love she deems beneath her?" He had read in some book or other that it is no uncommon thing for those women whose grace and beauty win homage and devotion thus to sport with the affections of their worshippers, and that in this exercise of a cruel power they find an exquisite delight. But Alice was too proud and too high-hearted for such an ign.o.ble pastime. But then he had read, too, that women sometimes fancy that, by encouraging a devotion they never mean to reward, they tend to elevate men"s thoughts, enn.o.bling their ambitions, and inspiring them with purer, holier hopes. What if she should mean this, and no more than this? Would not her very hatred be more bearable than such pity? For a while this cruel thought unmanned him, and he sat there like one stunned and powerless.
For some time the road had led between the low furze-clad bills of the country, but now they had gained the summit of a ridge, and there lay beneath them that wild coast-line, broken with crag and promontory towards the sea, and inland swelling and falling in every fanciful undulation, yellow with the furze and the wild broom, but grander for its wide expanse than many a scene of stronger features. How dear to his heart it was! How inexpressibly dear the spot that was interwoven with every incident of his life and every spring of his hope! There the green lanes he used to saunter with Alice; there the breezy downs over which they cantered; yonder the little creek where they had once sheltered from a storm: he could see the rock on which he lit a fire in boyish imitation of a shipwrecked crew! It was of Alice that every crag and cliff, every bay and inlet spoke.
"And is all that happiness gone forever?" cried he, as he stood gazing at the scene. "I wonder," thought he, "could Skeffy read her thoughts and tell me how she feels towards me? I wonder will he ever talk to her of me, and what will they say?" His cheek grew hot and red, and he muttered to himself, "Who knows but it may be in pity?" and with the bitterness of the thought the tears started to his eyes, and coursed down his cheeks.