Tony Butler Part 95

M'Gruder gave a heavy sigh, and, turning away, leaned on the bulwark and hid his face. "I'm a bad comforter, Tony," said he at last, and speaking with difficulty. "I did n't mean to have told you, for you have cares enough of your own, but I may as well tell you,--read that." As he spoke, he drew out a letter and handed it to him; and Tony, stooping down beside the binnacle light, read it over twice.

"This is clear and clean beyond me," exclaimed he, as he stood up. "From any other girl I could understand it; but Dolly,--Dolly Stewart, who never broke her word in her life,--I never knew her tell a lie as a little child. What can she mean by it?"

"Just what she says--there--she thought she could marry me, and she finds she cannot."

"But why?"

"Ah! that's more than she likes to tell me,--more, mayhap, than she 'd tell any one."

"Have you any clew to it?"

"None,--not the slightest."

"Is your sister-in-law in it? Has she said or written anything that Dolly could resent?"

"No; don't you mark what she says at the end? 'You must not try to lighten any blame you would lay on me by thinking that any one has influenced me. The fault is all my own. It is I myself have to ask your forgiveness.'"

"Was there any coldness in your late letters? Was there anything that she could construe into change of affection?"

"Nothing,--nothing."

"What will her father say to it?" said Tony, after a pause.

"She's afraid of that herself. You mind the words?--'If I meet forgiveness from you, I shall not from others, and my fault will bear its heavy punishment on a heart that is not too happy.' Poor thing! I do forgive her,--forgive her with all my heart; but it's a great blow, Tony."

"If she was a capricious girl, I could understand it, but that's what she never was."

"No, no; she was true and honest in all things."

"It may be something about her father; he's an old man, and failing. She cannot bear to leave him, perhaps, and it's just possible she could n't bring herself to say it. Don't you think it might be that?"

"Don't give me a hope, Tony. Don't let me see a glimpse of light, my dear friend, if there 's to be no fulfilment after."

The tone of emotion he spoke in made Tony unable to reply for some minutes. "I have no right to say this, it is true," said he, kindly; "but it's the nearest guess I can make: I know, for she told me so herself, she 'd not go and be a governess again if she could help it."

"Oh, if you were to be right, Tony! Oh, if it was to be as you suspect; for we could make him come out and live with us here! We've plenty of room, and it would be a pleasure to see him happy, and at rest, after his long life of labor. Let us read the letter over together, Tony, and see how it agrees with that thought;" and now they both crouched down beside the light, and read it over from end to end. Here and there were pa.s.sages that they pondered over seriously, and some they read twice and even thrice, and although they brought to this task the desire to confirm a speculation, there was that in the tone of the letter that gave little ground for their hope. It was so self-accusing throughout, that it was plain she herself laid no comfort to her own heart in the thought of a high duty fulfilled.

"Are you of the same mind still?" asked M'Gruder, sadly, and with little of hopefulness in his voice; and Tony was silent.

"I see you are not. I see that you cannot give me such a hope."

"Have you answered this yet?"

"Yes, I have written it; but it's not sent off. I kept it by me to read over, and see that there was nothing harsh or cruel,--nothing I would not say in cold blood; for oh, Tony! I will avow it was hard to forgive her; no, I don't mean that, but it was hard to bring myself to believe I had lost her forever. For a while I thought the best thing I could do was to comfort myself by thinking how false she was, and I took out all her letters, to convince me of her duplicity; but what do you think I found? They all showed me, what I never saw till then, that she was only going to be my wife out of a sort of resignation; that the grief and fretting of her poor father at leaving her penniless in the world was more than she could bear; and that to give him the comfort of his last few days in peace, she 'd make any sacrifice; and through all the letters, though I never saw it before, she laid stress on what she called doing her best to make me happy, but there was no word of being happy herself."

Perhaps Tony did not lay the same stress on this that his friend did; perhaps no explanation of it came readily to his mind; at all events, he made no attempt at comment, and only said,--

"And what will your answer be?"

"What can it be?--to release her, of course."

"Ay, but how will you say it?"

"Here's what I have written; it is the fourth attempt, and I don't much like it yet, but I can't do it better."

And once more they turned to the light while M'Gruder read out his letter. It was a kind and feeling letter; it contained not one word of reproach, but it said that, into the home he had taken, and where he meant to be so happy, he 'd never put foot again. "You ought to have seen it, Tony," said he, with a quiver in his voice. "It was all so neat and comfortable; and the little room I meant to be Dolly's own was hung round with prints, and there was a little terrace, with some orange-trees and myrtles, that would grow there all through the winter,--for it was a sheltered spot under the Monte Nero; but it's all over now."

"Don't send off that letter. I mean, let me see her and speak to her before you write. I shall be at home, I hope, by Wednesday, and I'll go over to the Burnside,--or, better still, I 'll make my mother ask Dolly to come over to us. Dolly loves her as if she were her own mother, and if any one can influence her she will be that one."

"But I'd not wish her to come round by persuasion, Tony. Dolly's a girl to have a will of her own, and she's never made op her mind to write me that letter without thinking well over it."

"Perhaps she'll tell my mother her reasons. Perhaps she'll say why she draws back from her promise."

"I don't even know that I'd like to drive her to that; it mightn't be quite fair."

Tony flung away his cigar with impatience; he was irritated, for he bethought him of his own case, and how it was quite possible that no such scruples of delicacy would have interfered with him if he could only have managed to find out what was pa.s.sing in Alice's mind.

"I 'm sure," said M'Gruder, "you agree with me, Tony; and if she says, 'Don't hold me to my pledge,' I have no right to ask why."

A short shrug of the shoulders was all Tony's answer.

"Not that I 'd object to your saying a word for me, Tony, if there was to be any hope from it,--saying what a warm friend could say of one he thought well of. You 've been living under the same roof with me, and you know more of my nature, and my ways and my temper, than most men, and mayhap what you could tell her might have its weight."

"That I know and believe."

"But don't think only of me, Tony. _She's_ more to be considered than I am; and if this bargain was to be unhappy for her, it would only be misery for both of us. You'd not marry your own sweetheart against her own will?"

Tony neither agreed to nor dissented from this remark. The chances were that it was a proposition not so readily solved, and that he 'd like to have thought over it.

"No; I know you better than that," said M'Gruder, once more.

"Perhaps not," remarked Tony; but the tone certainly gave no positive a.s.surance of a settled determination. "At all events, I 'll see what I can do for you."

"If it was that she cares for somebody else that she could n't marry,--that her father disliked, or that he was too poor,--I 'd never say one word; because who can tell what changes may come in life, and the man that could n't support a wife now, in a year or two may be well off and thriving? And if it was that she really liked another,--you don't think that likely? Well, neither do I; but I say it here because I want to take in every consideration of the question; but I repeat, if it were so, I 'd never utter one word against it. Your mother, Tony, is more likely to find _that_ out than any of us; and if she says Dolly's heart is given away already, that will be enough. I 'll not trouble nor torment her more."

Tony grasped his friend's hand and shook it warmly, some vague suspicion darting through him at the time that this rag-merchant was more generous in his dealing with the woman he loved than he, Tony, would have been.

Was it that he loved less, or was it that his love was more? Tony could n't tell; nor was it so very easy to resolve it either way.

As day broke, the steamer ran into Leghorn to land some pa.s.sengers and take in others; and M'Gruder, while he took leave of Tony, pointed to a red-tiled roof rising amongst some olive-trees,--the quaint little pigeon-house on top surmounted with a weather-vane fashioned into an enormous letter S.

"There it is," said he, with a shake in his voice; "that was to have been her home. I 'll not go near it till I hear from you, and you may tell her so. Tell her you saw it, Tony, and that it was a sweet little spot, where one might look for happiness if they could only bring a quiet heart to it. And above all, Tony, write to me frankly and openly, and don't give me any hopes if your own conscience tells you I have no right to them."

With a strong grasp of the hand, and a long full look at each other in silence, M'Grader went over the side to his boat, and the steamer ploughed on her way to Ma.r.s.eilles.

CHAPTER LXI. TONY AT HOME AGAIN