Tony Butler Part 56

It was no use that Tony shook his head and looked despondingly; there was a hopeful warmth about Skeffy not to be extinguished by any discouragement. In fact, if a shade of dissatisfaction seemed ever to cloud the brightness of his visions, it was the fear lest, even in his success, some other career might be neglected wherein the rewards were greater and the prizes more splendid. He knew, and he did not scruple to declare that he knew, if he had been a soldier he 'd have risen to the highest command. If he 'd have gone to the bar, he'd have ended on the woolsack. Had he "taken that Indian appointment," he 'd have been high up by this time on the Council, with his eye on Government House for a finish. "That's what depresses me about diplomacy, Tony. The higher you go, the less sure you are. They--I mean your own party--give you Paris or St. Petersburg, we 'll say; and if they go out, so must you."

"Why must you?" asked Tony.

"For the reason that the well-bred dog went downstairs when he saw certain preparations that betokened kicking him down.

"After all, I think a new colony and the gold-fields the real thing,--the glorious independence of it; you live how you like, and with whom you like. No Mrs. Grundy to say, 'Do you know who dined with Skeffington Darner yesterday?' 'Did you remark the young woman who sat beside him in his carriage?' and such-like."

"But you cannot be always sure of your nuggets," muttered Tony. "I 've seen fellows come back poorer than they went."

"Of course you have; it's not every horse wins the Derby, old boy. And I'll tell you another thing, too; the feeling, the instinct, the inner consciousness that you carry success in your nature, is a rarer and a higher gift than the very power to succeed. You meet with clever fellows every day in the week who have no gauge of their own cleverness. To give an ill.u.s.tration; you write a book, we'll say."

"No, I don't," blurted out Tony.

"Well, but you might; it is at least possible."

"It is not."

"Well, let us take something else. You are about to try something that has a great reward attached to it, if successful; you want, we 'll suppose, to marry a woman of high rank and large fortune, very beautiful,--in fact, one to whom, according to every-day notions, you have not the slightest pretensions. Is n't that a strong case, eh?"

"Worse than the book. Perhaps I 'd better try authorship," said Tony, growing very red; "but make the case your own, and I 'll listen just as attentively."

"Well, here goes; I have only to draw on memory," said he, with a sigh; "I suppose you don't remember seeing in the papers, about a year and a half ago, that the Prince of Cobourg Cohari--not one of our Cobourgs, but an Austrian branch--came over to visit the Queen. He brought his daughter Olga with him; she was called Olga after the Empress of Russia's sister. And such a girl! She was nearly as tall as you, Tony,--I'll swear she was,--with enormous blue eyes, and ma.s.ses of fair hair that she wore in some Russian fashion that seemed as if it had fallen loose over her neck and shoulders. And were n't they shoulders!

I do like a large woman! a regular Cleopatra,--indolent, voluptuous, dreamy. I like the majestic languor of their walk; and there is a ma.s.sive grandeur in their slightest gesture that is very imposing."

"Go on," muttered Tony, as the other seemed to pause for a sentiment of concurrence.

"I was in the Household in those days, and I was sent down with old Dollington to Dover to meet them; but somehow they arrived before we got down, and were comfortably installed at the 'Lord Warden' when we arrived. It did not matter much; for old Cohari was seized with an attack of gout, and could not stir; and there I was, running back and forward to the telegraph office all day, reporting how he was, and whether he would or would not have Sir James This or Sir John That down to see him! Dollington and he were old friends, fortunately, and had a deal to say to each other, so that I was constantly with Olga. At first she was supremely haughty and distant, as you may imagine; a regular Austrian Serene Highness grafted on a beauty,--fancy that! but it never deterred _me_; and I contrived that she should see mine was the homage of a heart she had captivated, not of a courtier that was bound to obey her. She saw it, sir,--saw it at once; saw it with that instinct that whispers to the female heart, 'He loves me,' ere the man has ever said it to himself. She not only saw, but she did not discourage, my pa.s.sion.

Twenty little incidents of our daily life showed this, as we rambled across the downs together, or strolled along the sh.o.r.e to watch the setting sun and the arrival of the mail-boat from Calais.

"At last the Prince recovered sufficiently to continue his journey, and I went down to order a special train to take us up to town the following morning. By some stupid arrangement, however, of the directors, an earlier announcement should have been given, and all they could do was to let us have one of the royal carriages attached to the express. I was vexed at this, and so was Dollington, but the Prince did not care, in the least; and when I went to speak of it to Olga, she hung down her head for an instant, and then, in a voice and with an accent I shall never forget, she said, 'Ah, Monsieur Darner, it would appear to be your destiny to be always too late!' She left me as she spoke, and we never met after; for on that same evening I learned from Dollington she was betrothed to the Duke Max of Hohenhammelsbraten, and to be married in a month. That was the meaning of her emotion,--that was the source of a sorrow that all but overcame her; for she loved me, Tony,--she loved me!

not with that headlong devotion that belongs to the wanner races, but with a Teutonic love; and when she said, 'I was too late,' it was the declaration of a heart whose valves worked under a moderate pressure, and never risked an explosion."

"But how do you know that she was not alluding to the train, and to your being late to receive them on the landing?" asked Tony.

"Ain't you prosaic, Tony,--ain't you six-and-eight-pence! with your dull and commonplace interpretation! I tell you, sir, that she meant, 'I love you, but it is in vain,--I love you, but another is before you,--I love you, but you come too late!'"

"And what did you do?" asked Tony, anxious to relieve himself from a position of some awkwardness.

"I acted with dignity, sir. I resigned in the Household, and got appointed to the Colonial."

"And what does it all prove, except it be something against your own theory, that a man should think there is nothing too high for his reach?"

"Verily, Tony, I have much to teach you," said Skeffy, gravely, but good-naturedly. "This little incident shows by what slight casualties our fortunes are swayed: had it not been for Max of Hammelsbraten, where might not I have been to-day? It is by the flaw in the metal the strength of the gun is measured,--so it is by a man's failures in life you can estimate his value. Another would not have dared to raise his eyes so high!"

"That I can well believe," said Tony, dryly.

"You, for instance, would no more have permitted yourself to fall in love with her, than you'd have thought of tossing for half-crowns with the Prince her father."

"Pretty much the same," muttered Tony.

"That 's it,--that is exactly what establishes the difference between men in life. It is by the elevation given to the cannon that the ball is thrown so far. It is by the high purpose of a man that you measure his genius."

"All the genius in the world won't make you able to take a horse over seven feet of a stone wall," said Tony; "and whatever is impossible has no interest for me."

"You never can say what is impossible," broke in Skeffy. "I 'll tell you experiences of mine, and you 'll exclaim at every step, 'How could that be?'" Skeffy had now thoroughly warmed to his theme,--the theme he loved best in the world,--himself; for he was one of those who "take out" all their egotism in talk. Let him only speak of himself, and he was ready to act heartily and energetically in the cause of his friends. All that he possessed was at their service,--his time, his talents, his ingenuity, his influence, and his purse. He could give them everything but one; he could not make them heroes in his stories. No, his romance was his own realm, and he could share it with none.

Listen to him, and there never was a man so traded on,--so robbed and pilfered from. A Chancellor of the Exchequer had caught up that notion of his about the tax on domestic cats. It was on the railroad he had dropped that hint about a supply of cordials in all fire-escapes. That clever suggestion of a web livery that would fit footmen of all sizes was his; he remembered the day he made it, and the fellow that stole it, too, on the chain-pier at Brighton. What leaders in the "Times,"

what smart things in the "Sat.u.r.day," what sketches in "Punch" were constructed out of his dinner-talk!

Poor Tony listened to all these with astonishment, and even confusion, for one-half, at least, of the topics were totally strange and new to him. "Tell me," said he at last, with a bold effort to come back to a land of solid reality, "what of that poor fellow whose bundle I carried away with me? Your letter said something mysterious about him, which I could make nothing of."

"Ah, yes,--a dangerous dog,--a friend of Mazzini's, and a member of I can't say how many secret societies. The Inspector, hearing that I had asked after him at the hotel, came up to F. O. t' other morning to learn what I knew of him, and each of us tried for full half an hour to pump the other."

"I 'll not believe one word against him," said Tony, st.u.r.dily; "an honester, franker face I never looked at."

"No doubt! Who would wish to see a better-looking fellow than Orsini?"

"And what has become of him,--of Quin, I mean?"

"Got away, clean away, and no one knows how or where. I 'll tell _you_, Tony," said he, "what I would not tell another,--that they stole that idea of the explosive bombs from _me_."

"You don't mean to say--"

"Of course not, old fellow. I 'm not a man to counsel a.s.sa.s.sination; but in the loose way I talk, throwing out notions for this and hints for that, they caught up this idea just as Blakeney did that plan of mine for rifling large guns."

Tony fixed his eyes on him for a moment or two in silence, and then said gravely, "I think it must be near dinnertime; let us saunter towards home."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII. A MORNING CALL AT TILNEY

On the morning after this conversation, the two friends set out for Tilney; Skeffy, as usual, full of himself, and consequently in high spirits,--happy in the present, and confident for the future. Tony, indeed, was delighted with his companion, and thoroughly enjoyed the volatile gayety of one who seemed to derive pleasure from everything.

With all a school-boy's zest for a holiday, Skeffy would be forever at something. Now he would take the driver's seat on the car and play coachman till, with one wheel in the ditch and the conveyance nearly over, he was summarily deposed by Tony, and stoutly rated for his awkwardness.

Then it was his pleasure to "chaff" the people on the road,--a population the least susceptible of drollery in all Europe!--a grave, saturnine race, who, but for Tony's intervention, would have more than once resented such liberties very practically. As they saw the smoke from the chimney of a little cottage under the hill, and heard it was there Dolly Stewart lived, it was all Tony could do to prevent Skeffy running down to "have a look at her," just as it required actual force to keep him from jumping off as they pa.s.sed a village school, where Skeffy wanted to examine a cla.s.s in the Catechism. Then he would eat and drink everywhere, and, with a mock desire for information, ask the name of every place they pa.s.sed, and as invariably miscall them, to the no small amus.e.m.e.nt of the carman, this being about the limit of his appreciation of fun.

"What a fidgety beggar you are!" said Tony, half angry and half laughing at the incessant caprices of his vivacious companion. "Do you know it's now going on to eleven o'clock, and we have fourteen miles yet before us?"

"One must eat occasionally, my dear friend. Even in the 'Arabian Nights'

the heroine takes a slight refection of dates now and then."

"But this is our third 'slight refection' this morning, and we shall probably arrive at Tilney for luncheon."

"_You_ can bear long fasts, I know. I have often heard of the 'starving Irish;' but the Anglo-Saxon stomach requires a 'retainer,' to remind it of the great cause to be tried at dinner-time. A mere bite of bread and cheese, and I'm with you."

At last the deep woods of Tilney came in sight; and evidence of a well-cared-for estate--trim cottages on the roadside, and tasteful little gardens--showed that they were approaching the residence of one who was proud of her tenantry.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Tony, struck by a momentary silence on his companion's part.