Charles Lever - Tony Butler

“I suspect I do,” said Maitland, quietly.

“I saw, too,” resumed Graham, “that you wished to have no talk about it here, amongst all these gossiping people. Was n’t I right?”

“Perfectly right; you appreciated me thoroughly.”

“What I said was this, – Maitland knows the world well. He ‘ll wait till he has his opportunity of talking the matter over with myself. He ‘ll say, ‘Graham and I will understand one another at once.’ One minute; only one,” screamed he out from the window. “Could n’t you come down and just say a word or two to them? They ‘d like it so much.”

Maitland muttered something about his costume.

“Ah! there it is. You fellows will never be seen till you are in full fig. Well, I must be off. Now, then, to finish what we ‘ve been saying. You ‘ll come over next week to Port-Graham, – that’s my little place, though there’s no port, nor anything like a port, within ten miles of it, – and we ‘ll arrange everything. If I ‘m an old fellow, Maitland, I don’t forget that I was once a young one, – mind that, my boy.” And the Commodore had to wipe his eyes, with the laughter at his drollery. “Yes; here I am,” cried he, again; and then turning to Maitland, shook his hand in both his own, repeating, “On Wednesday, – Wednesday to dinner, – not later than five, remember,” – he hastened down the stairs, and scrambled up on the car beside his eldest daughter, who apparently had already opened a floodgate of attack on him for his delay.

“Insupportable old bore!” muttered Maitland, as he waved his hand from the window, and smiled his blandest salutations to the retreating party. “What a tiresome old fool to fancy that I am going over to Graham-pond, or port, or whatever it is, to talk over an incident that I desire to have forgotten! Besides, when once I have left this neighborhood, he may discuss M’Caskey every day after his dinner; he may write his life, for anything I care.”

With this parting reflection he went down to the garden, strolling listlessly along the dew-spangled alleys, and carelessly tossing aside with his cane the apple-blossoms, which lay thick as snow-flakes on the walks. While thus lounging, he came suddenly upon Sir Arthur, as, hoe in hand, he imagined himself doing something useful.

“Oh, by the way, Mr. Maitland,” cried he, “Mark has just told me of the stupid mistake I made. Will you be generous enough to forgive me?”

“It is from me, sir, that the apologies must come,” began Maitland.

“Nothing of the kind, my dear Mr. Maitland. You will overwhelm me with shame if you say so. Let us each forget the incident; and, believe me, I shall feel myself your debtor by the act of oblivion.” He shook Maitland’s hand warmly, and in an easier tone added, “What good news I have heard! You are not tired of us, – not going!”

“I cannot – I told Mark this morning – I don’t believe there is a road out of this.”

“Well, wait here till I tell you it is fit for travelling,” said Sir Arthur, pleasantly, and addressed himself once more to his labors as a gardener.

Meanwhile Maitland threw himself down on a garden-bench, and cried aloud, “This is the real thing, after all, – this is actual repose. Not a word of political intrigue, no snares, no tricks, no deceptions, and no defeats; no waking to hear of our friends arrested, and our private letters in the hands of a Police Prefect. No horrid memories of the night before, and that run of ill-luck that has left us almost beggars. I wonder how long the charm of this tranquillity would endure; or is it like all other anodynes, which lose their calming power by habit? I ‘d certainly like to try.”

“Well, there is no reason why you shouldn’t,” said a voice from the back of the summer-house, which he knew to be Mrs. Trafford’s.

He jumped up to overtake her, but she was gone.

“What was it you were saying about flowers, Jeanie? I was not minding,” said Mrs. Butler, as she sat at her window watching the long heaving roll of the sea, as it broke along the jagged and rugged shore, her thoughts the while far beyond it.

“I was saying, ma’am, that the same man that came with the books t’ other day brought these roses, and asked very kindly how you were.”

“You mean the same gentleman, lassie, who left his card here!” said the old lady, correcting that very Northern habit of Ignoring all differences of condition.

“Well, I mind he was; for he had very white hands, and a big bright ring on one of his fingers.”

“You told him how sorry I was not to be able to see him, – that these bad headaches have left me unable to receive any one?”

“Na; I did n’t say that,” said she, half doggedly.

“Well, and what did you say?”

“I just said, she’s thinking too much about her son, who is away from home, to find any pleasure in a strange face. He laughed a little quiet laugh, and said, ‘There is good sense in that, Jeanie, and I ‘ll wait for a better moment.’”

“You should have given my message as I spoke it to you,” said the mistress, severely.

“I ‘m no sae blind that I canna see the differ between an aching head and a heavy heart Ye ‘re just frettin’, and there ‘s naething else the matter wi’ you. There he goes now, the same man, – the same gentleman, I mean,” said she, with a faint scoff. “He aye goes back by the strand, and climbs the white rocks opposite the Skerries.”

“Go and say that I ‘ll be happy to have a visit from him to-morrow, Jeanie; and mind, put nothing of your own in it, lassie, but give my words as I speak them.”

With a toss of her head Jeanie left the room, and soon after was seen skipping lightly from rock to rock towards the beach beneath. To the old lady’s great surprise, however, Jeanie, instead of limiting herself to the simple words of her message, appeared to be talking away earnestly and fluently with the stranger; and, worse than all, she now saw that he was coming back with her, and walking straight for the cottage. Mrs. Butler had but time to change her cap and smooth down the braids of her snow-white hair, when the key turned in the lock, and Jeanie ushered in Mr. Norman Maitland. Nothing could be more respectful or in better taste than Maitland’s approach. He blended the greatest deference with an evident desire to make her acquaintance, and almost at once relieved her from what she so much dreaded, – the first meeting with a stranger.

“Are you of the Clairlaverock Maitlands, sir?” asked she, timidly.

“Very distantly, I believe, madam. We all claim Sir Peter as the head of the family; but my own branch settled in India two generations back, and, I shame to say, thought of everything but genealogy.”

“There was a great beauty, a Miss Hester Maitland. When I was a girl, she married a lord, I think?”

“Yes, she married a Viscount Kinross, a sort of cousin of her own; though I am little versed in family history. The truth is, madam, younger sons who had to work their way in the world were more anxious to bequeath habits of energy and activity to their children than ideas of blazons and quarterings.”

The old lady sighed at this; but it was a sigh of relief. She had been dreading not a little a meeting with one of those haughty Maitlands, associated in her childhood’s days with thoughts of wealth and power, and that dominance that smacks of, if it does not mean, insolence; and now she found one who was not ashamed to belong to a father who had toiled for his support and worked hard for his livelihood. And yet it was strange with what tenacity she clung to a topic that had its terrors for her. She liked to talk of the family, and high connections, and great marriages of all these people with whose names she was familiar as a girl, but whom she had never known, if she had so much as seen.