Tony Butler Part 22

"No, no; I was first: I said 'done' before you," interposed a guardsman.

"But how can it be decided? We can't summon the rival beauties to our presence, and perform Paris and the apple," said Skeff.

"Come along with me and you shall see her," broke in Tony; "she lives within less than five minutes' walk of where we are. I am satisfied that the matter should be left to your decision, Skefflngton."

"No, no," cried several, together; "take Mayfair with you. He is the fittest man amongst us for such a criticism; he has studied these matters profoundly."

"Here 's a health to all good la.s.ses!" cried out another; and goblets were filled with champagne, and drained in a moment, while some attempted the song; and others, imagining that they had caught the air, started off with "Here's to the Maiden of Blooming Fifteen," making up an amount of confusion that was perfectly deafening, in which the waiter entered to observe, in a very meek tone, that the Archdeacon of Halford was entertaining a select party in the next room, and entreated that they might be permitted to hear each other occasionally.

Such a burst of horror and indignation as followed this request! Some were for an armed intervention at once; some for a general smash of all things practicable; and two or three, haughtier in their drunkenness, declared that the Star and Garter should have no more of their patronage, and proudly ordered the waiter to fetch the bill.

"Thirty-seven--nine--six," said Mayfair, as he held the doc.u.ment near a candle; "make it an even forty for the waiters, and it leaves five pounds a head, eh?--not too much, after all."

"Well, I don't know; the asparagus was miserably small."

"And I got no strawberries."

"I have my doubts about that Moselle."

"It ain't dear; at least, it's not dearer than anywhere else."

While these criticisms were going forward, Tony perceived that each one in turn was throwing down his sovereigns on the table, as his contribution to the fund; and he approached Skeffington, to whisper that he had forgotten his purse,--his sole excuse to explain, what he would n't confess, that he believed he was an invited guest Skeff was, however, by this time so completely overcome by the last toast that he sat staring fatuously before him, and could only mutter, in a melancholy strain, "To be, or not to be; that's a question."

"Can you lend me some money?" whispered Tony. "I if want your purse."

"He--takes my purse--trash--trash--" mumbled out the other.

"I 'll book up for Skeffy," said one of the guardsmen; "and now it's all right."

"No," said Tony, aloud; "I haven't paid. I left my purse behind, and I can't make Skeffington understand that I want a loan from him;" and he stooped down again and whispered in his ear.

While a buzz of voices a.s.sured Tony that "it did n't matter; all had money, any one could pay," and so on, Skeffington gravely handed out his cigar-case, and said, "Take as much as you like, old fellow; it was quarter-day last week."

In a wild, uproarious burst of laughter they now broke up; some helping Skeffington along, some performing mock-ballet steps, and two or three attempting to walk with an air of rigid propriety, which occasionally diverged into strange tangents.

Tony was completely bewildered. Never was a poor brain more addled than his. At one moment he thought them all the best fellows in the world; he 'd have risked his neck for any of them; and at the next he regarded them as a set of insolent sn.o.bs, daring to show off airs of superiority to a stranger, because he was not one of them; and so he oscillated between the desire to show his affection for them, or have a quarrel with any of them.

Meanwhile Mayfair, with a reasonable good voice and some taste, broke out into a wild sort of air, whose measure changed at every moment One verse ran thus:--

"By the light of the moon, by the light of the moon, We all went home by the light of the moon.

With a ringing song We trampled along, Recalling what we 'll forget so soon, How the wine was good, And the talk was free, And pleasant and gay the company.

"For the wine supplied What our wits denied, And we pledge the girls whose eyes we knew, whose eyes we knew.

You ask her name, but what's that to you, what's that to you?"

"Well, there 's where she lives, anyhow," muttered Tony, as he came to a dead stop on the road, and stared full at a small two-storeyed house in front of him.

"Ah, that's where she lives!" repeated Mayfair, as he drew his arm within Tony's, and talked in a low and confidential tone.

"And a sweet, pretty cottage it is. What a romantic little spot! What if we were to serenade her!"

Tony gave no reply. He stood looking up at the closed shutters of the quiet house, which, to his eyes, represented a sort of penitentiary for that poor imprisoned hardworking girl. His head was not very clear, but he had just sense enough to remember the respect he owed her condition, and how jealously he should guard her from the interference of others.

Meanwhile Mayfair had leaped over the low paling of the little front garden, and stood now close to the house. With an admirable imitation of the prelude of a guitar, he began to sing,--

"Come dearest Lilla, Thy anxious lover Counts, counts the weary moments over--"

As he reached thus far, a shutter gently opened, and in the strong glare of the moonlight some trace of a head could be detected behind the curtain. Encouraged by this, the singer went on in a rich and flowery voice,--

"Anxious he waits, Thy voice to hear Break, break on his enraptured ear."

At this moment the window was thrown open, and a female voice, in an accent strongly Scotch, called out, "Awa wi' ye,--pack o' ne'er-do-weels as ye are,--awa wi' ye a'! I 'll call the police." But Mayfair went on,--

The night invites to love, So tarry not above, But Lilla--Lilla--Lilla, come down to me!

"I'll come down to you, and right soon," shouted a hoa.r.s.e masculine voice. Two or three who had clambered over the paling beside Mayfair now scampered off; and Mayfair himself, making a spring, cleared the fence, and ran down the road at the top of his speed, followed by all but Tony, who, half in indignation at their ignominious flight, and half with some vague purpose of apology, stood his ground before the gate.

The next moment the hall door opened, and a short thickset man, armed with a powerful bludgeon, rushed out and made straight towards him.

Seeing, however, that Tony stood firm, neither offering resistance nor attempting escape, he stopped short, and cried out, "What for drunken blackguards are ye, that canna go home without disturbing a quiet neighborhood?"

"If you can keep a civil tongue in your head," said Tony, "I 'll ask your pardon for this disturbance."

"What's your apology to me, you young scamp!" cried the other, wrenching open the gate and pa.s.sing out into the road. "I'd rather give you a lesson than listen to your excuses." He lifted his stick as he spoke; but Tony sprang upon him with the speed of a tiger, and, wrenching the heavy bludgeon out of his hand, flung it far into a neighboring field, and then, grasping him by the collar with both hands, he gave him such a shake as very soon convinced his antagonist how unequal the struggle would be between them. "By Heaven!" muttered Tony, "if you so much as lay a hand on me, I 'll send you after your stick. Can't you see that this was only a drunken frolic, that these young fellows did not want to insult you, and if I stayed here behind them, it was to appease, not to offend you?"

"Dinna speak to me, sir. Let me go,--let go my coat I 'm not to be handled in this manner," cried the other, in pa.s.sion.

"Go back to your bed, then!" said Tony, pushing him from him. "It's clear enough you have no gentleman's blood in your body, or you 'd accept an amends or resent an affront."

Stung by this retort, the other turned and aimed a blow at Butler's face; but he stopped it cleverly, and then, seizing him by the shoulder, he swung him violently round, and threw him within the gate of the garden.

"You are more angered than hurt," muttered Tony, as he looked at him for an instant.

"Oh, Tony, that this could be you!" cried a faint voice from a little window of an attic, and a violent sob closed the words.

Tony turned and went his way towards London, those accents ringing in his ears, and at every step he went repeating, "That this could be you!"

CHAPTER XV. A STRANGE MEETING AND PARTING

What a dreary waking was that of Tony's on the morning after the orgies!

Not a whit the less overwhelming from the great difficulty he had in recalling the events, and investigating his own share in them. There was nothing that he could look back upon with pleasure. Of the dinner and the guests, all that he could remember was the costliness and the tumult; and of the scene at Mrs. M'Grader's, his impression was of insults given and received, a violent altercation, in which his own share could not be defended.

How different had been his waking thoughts, had he gone as he proposed, to bid Dora a good-bye, and tell her of his great good fortune! How full would his memory now have been of her kind words and wishes; how much would he have to recall of her sisterly affection, for they had been like brother and sister from their childhood! It was to Dora that Tony confided all his boyhood's sorrows, and to the same ear he had told his first talc of love, when the beautiful Alice Lyle had sent through his heart those emotions which, whether of ecstasy or torture, make a new existence and a new being to him who feels them for the first time.

He had loved Alice as a girl, and was all but heart-broken when she married. His sorrows--and were they not sorrows?--had all been intrusted to Dora; and from her he had heard such wise and kind counsels, such encouraging and hopeful words; and when the beautiful Alice came back, within a year, a widow, far more lovely than ever, he remembered how all bis love was rekindled. Nor was it the less entrancing that it was mingled with a degree of deference for her station, and an amount of distance which her new position exacted.

He had intended to have pa.s.sed his last evening with Dora in talking over these things; and how had he spent it? In a wild and disgraceful debauch, and in a company of which he felt himself well ashamed.

It was, however, no part of Tony's nature to spend time in vain regrets; he lived ever more in the present than the past. There were a number of things to be done, and done at once. The first was to acquit his debt for that unlucky dinner; and, in a tremor of doubt, he opened his little store to see what remained to him. Of the eleven pounds ten shillings his mother gave him he had spent less than two pounds; he had travelled third-cla.s.s to London, and while in town denied himself every extravagance. He rang for his hotel bill, and was shocked to see that it came to three pounds seven-and-sixpence. He fancied he had half-starved himself, and he saw a catalogue of steaks and luncheons to his share that smacked of very gluttony. He paid it without a word, gave an apology to the waiter that he had run himself short of money, and could only offer him a crown. The dignified official accepted the excuse and the coin with a smile of bland sorrow. It was a pity that cut both ways,--for himself and for Tony too.