When Maitland entered the drawing-room before dinner, the Commodore was standing in the window-recess pondering over in what way he should receive him; while Sally and Beck sat somewhat demurely watching the various presentations to which Mrs. Maxwell was submitting her much-valued guest. At last Maitland caught sight of where they sat, and hurried across the room to shake hands with them, and declare the delight he felt at meeting them. “And the Commodore, is he here?”
“Yes; I 'll find him for you,” said Beck, not sorry to display before her country acquaintance the familiar terms she stood on with the great Mr. Maitland.
With what a frank cordiality did he shake the old sailor's hand, and how naturally came that laugh about nothing, or something very close to nothing, that Graham said, in allusion to the warm quarters they found themselves in. “Such Madeira!” whispered he, “and some old '34 claret. By the way, you forgot your promise to taste mine.”
“I 'll tell you how that occurred when we 've a quiet moment together,” said Maitland, in a tone of such confidential meaning that the old man was reassured at once. “I 've a good deal to say to you; but we 'll have a morning together. You know every one here? Who is that with all the medals on his coat?”
“General Carnwroth; and that old woman with the blue turban is his wife; and these are the Grimsbys; and that short man with the bald head is Holmes of Narrow Bank, and the good-looking girl there is his niece,—and heiress too.”
“What red arms she has!” whispered Maitland.
“So they are, by Jove!” said Graham, laughing; “and I never noticed it before.”
“Take me in to dinner,” said Mrs. Trafford, in a low voice, as she swept past Maitland.
“I can't. Mrs. Maxwell has ordered me to give her my arm,” said he, following her; and they went along for some paces, conversing.
“Have you made your peace with the Grahams?” asked she, smiling half maliciously.
“In a fashion; at least, I have put off the settling-day.”
“If you take to those morning rambles again with the fair Rebecca, I warn you it will not be so easy to escape an explanation. Here's Mrs. Maxwell come to claim you.”
Heaving with fat and velvet and bugles and vulgar good-humor, the old lady leaned heavily on Maitland's arm, really proud of her guest, and honestly disposed to show him that she deemed his presence an honor. “It seems like a dream to me,” said she, “to see you here after reading of your name so often in the papers at all the great houses in England. I never fancied that old Tilney would be so honored.”
It was not easy to acknowledge such a speech, and even Maitland's self-possession was pushed to its last limits by it; but this awkward feeling soon passed away under the genial influence of the pleasant dinner. And it was as pleasant a dinner as good fare and good wine and a well-disposed company could make it.
At first a slight sense of reserve, a shade of restraint, seemed to hold conversation in check, and more particularly towards where Maitland sat, showing that a certain dread of him could be detected amongst those who would have fiercely denied if charged with such a sentiment.
The perfect urbanity, tinctured, perhaps, with a sort of racy humor, with which Maitland acknowledged the old Commodore's invitation to take wine with him, did much to allay this sense of distrust. “I say, Maitland,” cried he, from the foot of the table, “are you too great a dandy to drink a glass of wine with me?”
A very faint flush colored Maitland's cheek, but a most pleasant smile played on his mouth as he said, “I am delighted, my dear Commodore,—delighted to repudiate the dandyism and enjoy the claret at the same time.”
“They tell me it's vulgar and old-fashioned, and I don't know what else, to take wine with a man,” resumed the old sailor, encouraged by his success to engage a wider attention.
“I only object to the custom when practised at a royal table,” said Maitland, “and where it obliges you to rise and drink your wine standing.” As some of the company were frank enough to own that they heard of the etiquette for the first time, and others, who affected to be conversant with it, ingeniously shrouded their ignorance, the conversation turned upon the various traits which characterize different courtly circles; and it was a theme Maitland knew how to make amusing,—not vaingloriously displaying himself as a foreground figure, or even detailing the experiences as his own, but relating his anecdotes with all the modest diffidence of one who was giving his knowledge at second-hand.
The old General was alone able to cap stories with Maitland on this theme, and told with some gusto an incident of his first experiences at Lisbon. “We had,” said he, “a young attaché to our Legation there; I am talking of, I regret to say, almost fifty years ago. He was a very good-looking young fellow, quite fresh from England, and not very long, I believe, from Eton. In passing through the crowd of the ball-room, a long streamer of lace which one of the Princesses wore in her hair caught in the attache's epaulette. He tried in vain to extricate himself, but, fearing to tear the lace, he was obliged to follow the Infanta about, his confusion making his efforts only the more hopeless. 'Where are you going, sir? What do you mean by this persistence?' asked a sour-faced old lady-of-honor, as she perceived him still after them. 'I am attached to her Royal Highness,' said he, in broken French, 'and I cannot tear myself away.' The Infanta turned and stared at him, and then instantly burst out a-laughing, but so good-humoredly withal, and with such an evident forgiveness, that the duenna became alarmed, reported the incident to the Queen, and the next morning our young countryman got his orders to leave Lisbon at once.”
While the company commented on the incident, the old General sighed sorrowfully,—over the long past, perhaps,—and then said, “He did not always get out of his entanglements so easily.”
“You knew him, then?” asked some one.
“Slightly; but I served for many years with his brother, Wat Butler, as good a soldier as ever wore the cloth.”
“Are you aware that his widow and son are in this neighborhood?” asked Mrs. Trafford.
“No; but it would give me great pleasure to see them. Wat and I were in the same regiment in India. I commanded the company when he joined us. And how did he leave them?”
“On short rations,” broke in old Graham. “Indeed, if It was n't for Lyle Abbey, I suspect very hard up at times.”
“Nothing of the kind, Commodore,” broke in Mrs. Trafford. “You have been quite misinformed. Mrs. Butler is, without affluence, perfectly independent; and more so even in spirit than in fortune.”
A very significant smile from Maitland seemed to say that he recognized and enjoyed her generous advocacy of her friend.
“Perhaps you could do something, General, for his son?” cried Mrs. Maxwell.
“What sort of a lad is he?”
“Don't ask me, for I don't like him; and don't ask my sisters, for they like him too well,” said Mark.
“Have you met him, Mr. Maitland?” asked the General.
“Yes, but passingly. I was struck, however, by his good looks and manly bearing. The country rings with stories of his courage and intrepidity.”
“And they are all true,” said Isabella Lyle. “He is the best and bravest creature breathing.”
“There's praise,—that's what I call real praise,” said the General. “I'll certainly go over and see him after that.”
“I 'll do better, General,” said Mrs. Maxwell; “I 'll send over and ask him here to-morrow. Why do you shake your head, Bella? He 'll not come?”
“No,” said she, calmly.
“Not if you and Alice were to back my request?”
“I fear not,” said Alice. “He has estranged himself of late from every one; he has not been even once to see us since he came back from England.”
“Then Mark will go and fetch him for us,” said Mrs. Maxwell, the most unobservant of all old ladies.
“Not I, madam; nor would that be the way to secure him.”
“Well, have him we must,” said Mrs. Maxwell; while she added in a whisper to Mrs. Trafford, “It would never do to lose the poor boy such a chance.”
“Beck says, if some one will drive her over to the Causeway,” cried the Commodore, “she'll vouch for success, and bring young Tony back with her.”
“Mr. Maitland offers himself,” said Alice, whose eyes sparkled with fun, while her lips showed no trace of a smile.
“Take the phaeton, then,” said Mrs. Maxwell; “only there will be no place for young Butler; but take a britscha, and order post-horses at Greme's Mill.” And now a sharp discussion ensued which road was the shorter, and whether the long hill or the “new cut” was the more severe on the cattle.
“This was most unfair of you,” said Maitland to Mrs. Trafford, as they rose from the table; “but it shall not succeed.”
“How will you prevent it?” said she, laughing. “What can you do?”
“Rather than go I 'd say anything.”
“As how, for instance?”
He leaned forward and whispered a few words in her ear, and suddenly her face became scarlet, her eyes flashed passionately, as she said, “This passes the limit of jest, Mr. Maitland.”
“Not more than the other would pass the limit of patience,” said he; and now, instead of entering the drawing-room, he turned short round and sought his own room.
Mattland was not in the best of tempers when he retired to his room. Whatever the words he had whispered in Alice's ear,—and this history will not record them,—they were a failure. They were even worse than a failure, for they produced an effect directly the opposite to that intended.
“Have I gone too fast?” muttered he; “have I deceived myself? She certainly understood me well in what I said yesterday. She, if anything, gave me a sort of encouragement to speak. She drew away her hand, it is true, but without any show of resentment or anger; a sort of protest, rather, that implied, 'We have not yet come to this.' These home-bred women are hard riddles to read. Had she been French, Spanish, or Italian,—ay, or even one of our own, long conversant with the world of Europe,—I never should have blundered.” Such thoughts as these be now threw on paper, in a letter to his friend Caffarelli.
“What a fiasco I have made,Carlo mio,” said he, “and all from not understanding the nature of these creatures, who have never seen a sunset south of the Alps. I know how little sympathy any fellow meets with from you, if he be only unlucky. I have your face before me,—your eyebrows on the top of your forehead, and your nether lip quivering with malicious drollery, as you cry out, 'Ma perche? perche? perche?' And I'll tell you why: because I believed that she had hauled down her colors, and there was no need to continue firing.
“Of course you'll say, 'Meno male,' resume the action. But it won't do, Signor Conte, it won't do. She is not like one of your hardened coquettes on the banks of the Arno or the slopes of Castellamare, who think no more of a declaration of love than an invitation to dinner; nor have the slightest difficulty in making the same excuse to either,—a pre-engagement. She is English, or worse again, far worse,—Irish.
“I 'd give—I don't know what I would n't give—that I could recall that stupid speech. I declare I think it is this fearful language has done it all. One can no more employ the Anglo-Saxon tongue for a matter of delicate treatment, than one could paint a miniature with a hearth-brush. What a pleasant coinage for cajolery are the liquid lies of the sweet South, where you can lisp duplicity, and seem never to hurt the Decalogue.”
As he had written so far, a noisy summons at his door aroused him; while the old Commodore's voice called out, “Maitland! Maitland! I want a word with you.” Maitland opened the door, and without speaking, returned to the fire, standing with his back to it, and his hands carelessly stuck in his pockets.
“I thought I 'd come over and have a cigar with you here, and a glass of brandy-and-water,” said Graham. “They 're hard at it yonder, with harp and piano, and, except holystoning a deck, I don't know its equal.”
“I 'm the more sorry for your misfortune, Commodore, that I am unable to alleviate it I 'm deep in correspondence just now, as you see there, and have a quantity more to do before bedtime.”
“Put it aside, put it aside; never write by candlelight. It ruins the eyes; and yours are not so young as they were ten years ago.”
“The observation is undeniable,” said Maitland, stiffly.
“You're six-and-thirty? well, five-and-thirty, I take it.”
“I 'm ashamed to say I cannot satisfy your curiosity on so natural a subject of inquiry.”
“Sally says forty,” said he, in a whisper, as though the remark required caution. “Her notion is that you dye your whiskers; but Beck's idea is that you look older than you are.”
“I scarcely know to which of the young ladies I owe my deeper acknowledgments,” said Maitland, bowing.
“You're a favorite with both; and if it hadn't been for the very decided preference you showed, I tell you frankly they 'd have been tearing caps about you ere this.”
“This flattery overwhelms me; and all the more that it is quite unexpected.”
“None of your mock modesty with me, you dog!” cried the Commodore, with a chuckling laugh. “No fellow had ever any success of that kind that he did n't know it; and, upon my life, I believe the very conceit it breeds goes halfway with women.”
“It is no small prize to learn the experiences of a man like yourself on such a theme.”
“Well, I 'll not deny it,” said he, with a short sigh. “I had my share—some would say a little more than my share—of that sort of thing. You'll not believe it, perhaps, but I was a devilish good-looking fellow when I was—let me see—about six or eight years younger than you are now.”
“I am prepared to credit it,” said Maitland, dryly.
“There was no make-up aboutme,—no lacquering, no paint, no padding; all honest scantling from keel to taffrail. I was n't tall, it's true. I never, with my best heels on, passed five feet seven and a half.”
“The height of Julius Caesar,” said Maitland, calmly.
“I know nothing about Julius Caesar; but I 'll say this, it was a good height for a sailor in the old gun-brig days, when they never gave you much head-room 'tween decks. It don't matter so much now if every fellow in the ward-room was as tall as yourself. What's in this jar here?”
“Seltzer.”
“And this short one,—is it gin?”
“No; it's Vichy.”
“Why, what sort of stomach do you expect to have with all these confounded slops? I never tasted any of these vile compounds but once,—what they called Carlsbad,—and, by Jove, it was bad, and no mistake. It took three fourths of a bottle of strong brandy to bring back the heat into my vitals again. Why don't you tell Raikes to send you in some sherry? That old brown sherry is very pleasant, and it must be very wholesome, too, for the doctor here always sticks to it.”
“I never drink wine, except at my dinner,” was the cold and measured reply.
“You 'll come to it later on,—you 'll come to it later on,” said the Commodore, with a chuckle, “when you 'll not be careful about the color of your nose or the width of your waistcoat. There's a deal of vanity wrapped up in abstemiousness, and a deal of vexation of spirit too.” And he laughed at his own drollery till his eyes ran over. “You 're saying to yourself, Maitland, 'What a queer old cove that is!'—ain't you? Out with it, man! I'm the best-tempered fellow that ever breathed,—with the men I like, mind you; not with every one. No, no; old G. G., as they used to call me on board the 'Hannibal,' is an ugly craft if you board him on the wrong quarter. I don't know how it would be now, with all the new-fangled tackle; but in the old days of flint-locks and wide bores I was a dead shot. I 've heard you can do something that way?”
“A little,” said he, dryly.
“Every gentleman ought; I've always maintained it; as poor old Bowes used to say, 'With a strong head for port, and a steady hand for a pistol, a man may go a long way in this world.' There, I think it's your turn now at the pump. I've had all the talk to myself since I came in; and the most you've done has been to grant out 'Indeed!' or 'Really!'”
“I have listened, Commodore,—listened most attentively. It has been my great privilege to have heard your opinions on three most interesting topics,—women, and wine, and the duel; and, I assure you, not unprofitably.”
“I 'm not blown, not a bit run off my wind, for all that, if I was n't so dry; but my mouth is like a lime-burner's hat. Would you just touch that bell and order a little sherry or Madeira? You don't seem to know the ways of the house here; but every one does exactly as he pleases.”
“I have a faint inkling of the practice,” said Maitland, with a very peculiar smile.
“What's the matter with you this evening? You 're not like yourself one bit. No life, no animation about you. Ring again; pull it strong. There, they'll hear that, I hope,” cried he, as, impatient at Maitland's indolence, he gave such a Jerk to the bell-rope that it came away from the wire.
“I didn't exactly come in here for a gossip,” said the Commodore, as he resumed his seat. “I wanted to have a little serious talk with you, and perhaps you are impatient that I haven't begun it, eh?”
“It would be unpardonable to feel impatience in such company,” said' Maitland, with a bow.
“Yes, yes; I know all that. That's what Yankees call soft sawder; but I 'm too old a bird, Master Maitland, to be caught with chaff, and I think as clever a fellow as you are might suspect as much.”
“You are very unjust to both of us if you imply that I have not a high opinion of your acuteness.”
“I don't want to be thought acute, sir; I am not a lawyer, nor a lawyer's clerk,—I'm a sailor.”
“And a very distinguished sailor.”
“That's as it may be. They passed me over about the good-service pension, and kept 'backing and filling' about that coast-guard appointment till I lost temper and told them to give it to the devil, for he had never been out of the Admiralty since I remembered it; and I said, 'Gazette him at once, and don't let him say, You 're forgetting an old friend and supporter.'”
“Did you write that?”
“Beck did, and I signed it; for I 've got the gout or the rheumatism in these knuckles that makes writing tough work for me, and tougher for the man it's meant for. What servants they are in this house!—no answer to the bell.”
“And what reply did they make you?” asked Maitland.
“They shoved me on the retired list; and Curtis, the Secretary, said, 'I had to suppress your letter, or my Lords would certainly have struck your name off the Navy List,'—a thing I defy them to do; a thing the Queen could n't do!”
“Will you try one of these?” said Maitland, opening his cigar-case; “these are stronger than the pale ones.”
“No; I can't smoke without something to drink, which I foresee I shall not have here.”
“I deplore my inhospitality.”
“Inhospitality! why, you have nothing to say to it. It is old mother Maxwell receives us all here. You can be neither hospitable nor inhospitable, so far as I see, excepting, perhaps, letting me see a little more of that fire than you have done hitherto, peacocking out the tail of your dressing-gown in front of me.”
“Pray draw closer,” said Maitland, moving to one side; “make yourself perfectly at home here.”
“So I used to be, scores of times, in these very rooms. It's more than five-and-twenty years that I ever occupied any others.”
“I was thinking of going back to the drawing-room for a cup of tea before I resumed my work here.”
“Tea! don't destroy your stomach with tea. Get a little gin,—they 've wonderful gin here; I take a glass of it every night Beck mixes it, and puts a sprig of, not mint, but marjoram, I think they call it I 'll make her mix a brew for you; and, by the way, that brings me to what I came about.”
“Was it to recommend me to take gin?” asked Maitland, with a well-assumed innocence.
“No, sir; not to recommend you to take gin,” said the old Commodore, sternly. “I told you when I came in that I had come on an errand of some importance.”
“If you did, it has escaped me.”
“Well, you sha'n't escape me; that's all.”
“I hope I misunderstand you. I trust sincerely that it is to the dryness of your throat and the state of your tonsils that I must attribute this speech. Will you do me the very great favor to recall it?”
The old man fidgeted in his chair, buttoned his coat, and unbuttoned it, and then blurted out in an abrupt spasmodic way, “All right,—I did n't mean offence—I intended to say that as we were here now—that as we had this opportunity of explaining ourselves—”
“That's quite sufficient, Commodore. I ask for nothing beyond your simple assurance that nothing offensive was intended.”
“I 'll be hanged if I ever suffered as much from thirst in all my life. I was eighteen days on a gill of water a day in the tropics, and didn't feel it worse than this. I must drink some of that stuff, if I die for it. Which is the least nauseous?”
“I think you'll find the Vichy pleasant; there is a little fixed air in it, too.”
“I wish there was a little cognac in it. Ugh! it's detestable! Let's try the other. Worse! I vow and declare—worse! Well, Maitland, whatever be your skill in other matters, I 'll be shot if I 'll back you for your taste in liquors.”
Maitland smiled, and was silent.
“I shall have a fever—I know I shall—if I don't take something. There's a singing in my head now like a chime of bells, and the back of my throat feels like a coal-bunker in one of those vile steamers. How you stand it I don't know; but to be sure you 've not been talking as I have.” The old Commodore rose, but when he reached the door, seemed suddenly to have remembered something; for he placed his hand to his forehead, and said, “What a brain I have! here was I walking away without ever so much as saying one word about it.”
“Could we defer it till to-morrow, my dear Commodore?” said Maitland, coaxingly. “I have not the slightest notion what it is, but surely we could talk it over after breakfast.”
“But you 'll be off by that time. Beck said that there would be no use starting later than seven o'clock.”
“Off! and where to?”
“To the Burnside,—to the widow Butler's,—where else! You heard it all arranged at dinner, didn't you?”
“I heard something suggested laughingly and lightly, but nothing serious, far less settled positively.”
“Will you please to tell me, sir, how much of your life is serious, and how much is to be accepted as levity? for I suppose the inquiry I have to make of you amounts just to that, and no more.”
“Commodore Graham, it would distress me much if I were to misunderstand you once again to-night, and you will oblige me deeply if you will put any question you expect me to answer in its very simplest form.”
“That I will, sir; that I will! Now then, what are your intentions?”
“What are my intentions?”
“Yes, sir,—exactly so; what are your intentions?”
“I declare I have so many, on such varied subjects, and of such different hues, that it would be a sore infliction on your patience were I only to open the budget; and as to either of us exhausting it, it is totally out of the question. Take your chance of a subject, then, and I 'll do my best to enlighten you.”
“This is fencing, sir; and it doesn't suit me?”
“If you knew how very little the whole conversation suits me, you 'd not undervalue my patience.”
“I ask you once again, what are your intentions as regards my youngest daughter, Miss Rebecca Graham! That's plain speaking, I believe.”
“Nothing plainer; and my reply shall be equally so. I have none,—none whatever.”
“Do you mean to say you never paid her any particular attentions?”
“Never.”
“That you never took long walks with her when at Lyle Abbey, quite alone and unaccompanied?”
“We walked together repeatedly. I am not so ungrateful as to forget her charming companionship.”
“Confound your gratitude, sir! it's not that I'm talking of. You made advances. You—you told her—you said—in fact, you made her believe—ay, and you made me believe—that you meant to ask her to marry you.”
“Impossible!” said Maitland; “impossible!”
“And why impossible? Is it that our respective conditions are such as to make the matter impossible?”
“I never thought of such an impertinence, Commodore. When I said impossible, it was entirely with respect to the construction that could be placed on all my intercourse with Miss Graham.”
“And did n't I go up to your room on the morning I left, and ask you to come over to Port-Graham and talk the matter over with me?”
“You invited me to your house, but I had not the faintest notion that it was to this end. Don't shake your head as if you doubted me; I pledge you my word on it.”
“How often have you done this sort of thing? for no fellow is as cool as you are that's not an old hand at it.”
“I can forgive a good deal—”
“Forgive! I should think you could forgive the people you've injured. The question is, can I forgive? Yes, sir, can I forgive?”
“I declare it never occurred to me to inquire.”
“That's enough,—quite enough; you shall hear from me. It may take me twenty-four hours to find a friend; but before this time to-morrow evening, sir, I 'll have him.”
Maitland shrugged his shoulders carelessly, and said, “As you please, sir.”
“It shall be as I please, sir; I 'll take care of that. Are you able to say at present to whom my friend can address himself?”
“If your friend will first do the favor to call upon me, I 'll be able by that time to inform him.”
“All right. If it's to be Mark Lyle—”
“Certainly not; it could never occur to me to make choice of your friend and neighbor's son for such an office.”
“Well, I thought not,—I hoped not; and I suspected, besides, that the little fellow with the red whiskers—that major who dined one day at the Abbey—”
Maitland's pale cheek grew scarlet, his eyes flashed with passion, and all the consummate calm of his manner gave way as he said, “With the choice of my friend, sir, you have nothing to do, and I decline to confer further with you.”
“Eh, eh! that shell broke in the magazine, did it? I thought it would. I 'll be shot but I thought it would!” And with a hearty laugh, but bitter withal, the old Commodore seized his hat and departed.
Maitland was much tempted to hasten after the Commodore, and demand—imperiously demand—from him an explanation of his last words, whose taunt was even more in the manner than the matter. Was it a mere chance hit, or did the old sailor really know something about the relations between himself and M'Caskey? A second or two of thought reassured him, and he laughed at his own fears, and turned once more to the table to finish his letter to his friend.
“You have often, my dear Carlo, heard me boast that amidst all the shifting chances and accidents of my life, I had ever escaped one signal misfortune,—in my mind, about the greatest that ever befalls a man. I have never been ridiculous. This can be my triumph no longer. The charm is broken! I suppose, if I had never come to this blessed country, I might have preserved my immunity to the last; but you might as well try to keep your gravity at one of the Polichinello combats at Naples as preserve your dignity in a land where life is a perpetual joke, and where the few serious people are so illogical in their gravity, they are the best fun of all. Into this strange society I plunged as fearlessly as a man does who has seen a large share of life, and believes that the human crystal has no side he has not noticed; and the upshot is, I am supposed to have made warm love to a young woman that I scarcely flirted with, and am going to be shot at to-morrow by her father for not being serious in my intentions! You may laugh—you may scream, shout, and kick with laughter, and I almost think I can hear you; but it's a very embarrassing position, and the absurdity of it is more than I can face.
“Why did I ever come here? What induced me ever to put foot in a land where the very natives do not know their own customs, and where all is permitted and nothing is tolerated? It is too late to ask you to come and see me through this troublesome affair; and indeed my present vacillation is whether to marry the young lady or run away bodily; for I own to you I am afraid—heartily afraid—to fight a man that might be my grandfather; and I can't bear to give the mettlesome old fellow the fun of shooting at me for nothing. And worse—a thousand times worse than all this,—Alice will have such a laugh at me! Ay, Carlo, here is the sum of my affliction.
“I must close this, as I shall have to look out for some one long of stride and quick of eye, to handle me on the ground. Meanwhile, order dinner for two on Saturday week, for I mean to be with you; and, therefore, say nothing of those affairs which interest us,ultra montant. I write by this post to M'C. to meet me as I pass through Dublin; and, of course, the fellow will want money. I shall therefore draw on Cipriani for whatever is necessary, and you must be prepared to tell him the outlay was indispensable. I have done nothing, absolutely nothing, here,—neither seduced man nor woman, and am bringing back to the cause nothing greater or more telling than
“Norman Maitland.”
It was late at night, verging indeed on morning, when Maitland finished his letter. All was silent around, and in the great house the lights were extinguished, and apparently all retired to rest. Lighting his cigar, he strolled out into the garden. The air was perfectly still; and although there was no moon, the sky was spangled over with stars, whose size seemed greater seen through the thin frosty atmosphere. It was pre-eminently the bright clear elastic night of a northern latitude, and the man of pleasure in a thousand shapes, the voluptuary, theviveur, was still able to taste the exquisite enjoyment of such an hour, as though his appetite for pleasure bad not been palled by all the artifices of a life of luxury. He strolled about at random from alley to alley, now stopping to inhale the rich odor of some half-sleeping plant, now loitering at some old fountain, and bathing his temples with the ice-cold water. He was one of those men—it is not so small a category as it might seem—who fancy that the same gifts which win success socially, would be just as sure to triumph if employed in the wider sphere of the great ambitions of life. He could count the men he had passed, and easily passed, in the race of social intercourse,—men who at a dinner-table or in a drawing-room had not a tithe of his quickness, his versatility, his wit, or his geniality, and yet, plodding onwards and upwards, had attained station, eminence, and fortune; while he—he, well read, accomplished, formed by travel and polished by cultivation—there he was! just as he had begun the world, the only difference being those signs of time that tell as fatally on temperament as on vigor; for the same law that makes the hair gray and the cheek wrinkled, renders wit sarcastic and humor malevolent Maitland believed—honestly believed—he was a better man than this one here who held a high command in India, and that other who wrote himself Secretary of State. He knew how little effort it had cost him, long ago, to leave “scores of such fellows” behind at school and at the university; but he, unhappily, forgot that in the greater battle of life he had made no such efforts, and laid no tax on either his industry or his ability. He tried—he did his very best—to undervalue, to his own mind, their successes, and even asked himself aloud, “Which of them all do I envy?” but conscience is stronger than casuistry, however crafty it be, and the answer came not so readily as he wished.
While he thus mused, he heard his name uttered, so close to him, too, that he started, and, on looking up, saw that Mrs. Trafford's rooms were lighted, and one of the windows which “gave” upon a terrace was open. Voices came from the room within, and soon two figures passed out on the terrace, which he speedily recognized to be Alice and Mark Lyle.
“You mistake altogether, Mark,” said she, eagerly. “It is no question whatever, whether your friend Mr. Maitland goes away disgusted with Ireland, and sick of us all. It is a much graver matter here. What if he were to shoot this old man? I suppose a fine gentleman as he is would deem it a very suitable punishment to any one who even passingly angered him.”
“But why should there be anything of the kind? It is to me Maitland would come at once if there were such a matter in hand.”
“I'm not so sure of that; and I am sure that Raikes overheard provocation pass between them, and that the Commodore left this half an hour ago, merely telling Sally that he had forgotten some lease or law paper that he ought to have sent off by post.”
“If that be the case, there's nothing to be done.”
“How do you mean nothing to be done?”
“I mean, that as Maitland has not consulted me, I have no pretence to know anything about it.”
“But if you do know it, and if I tell it to you?”
“All that would not amount to such knowledge as I could avail myself of. Maitland is not a man with whom any one can take liberties, Alice.”
“What?” said she, haughtily, and as though she had but partly heard his speech.
“I said that no man takes liberties with Maitland.”
A very insolent laugh from Alice was the answer.
“Come, come,” cried Mark, angrily. “All these scornful airs are not in keeping with what you yourself wrote about Maitland to Bella just two days ago.”
“And had Bella—did she show you my letters?”
“I don't believe she intended me to see the turned-down bit at the end; but I did see it, and I read a very smart sketch of Norman Maitland, but not done by an unfriendly hand.”
“It's not too late to revoke my opinion,” said she, passionately. “But this is all quite beside what I'm thinking of. Will you go down and see Mr. Maitland?”
“He's in bed and asleep an hour ago.”
“He is not. I can see the light on the gravel from his windows; and if he were asleep, he could be awakened, I suppose.”
“I have not the slightest pretext to intrude upon him, Alice.”
“What nonsense all this is! Who is he,—what is he, that he must be treated with all this deference?”
“It 's somewhat too late in the day to ask who and what the man is of whom every society in Europe contests the possession.”
“My dear Mark, be reasonable. What have we to do just now with all the courtly flatteries that have been extended to your distinguished friend, or the thousand and one princesses he might have married? What I want is that he should n't, first of all, make a great scandal; and secondly, shoot a very worthy old neighbor, whose worst sin is being very tiresome.”
“And what I want is, first, that Maitland should n't carry away from this county such an impression that he'd never endure the thought of revisiting it; and secondly, I want to go to bed, and so good-night.”
“Mark, one word,—only one,” cried she; but he was gone. The bang of a heavy door resounded, and then a deep silence showed she was alone.
Maitland watched her as she paced the terrace from end to end with impatient steps. There was a secret pleasure in his heart as he marked all the agitation that moved her, and thought what a share he himself had in it all. At last she withdrew within the room, but the opening and shutting of a door followed, and he surmised that she had passed out. While he was disputing with himself whether she might have followed Mark to his room, he heard a footstep on the gravel, and saw that she was standing and tapping with her finger on the window of his chamber. Maitland hurried eagerly back. “Is it possible that I see you here, Mrs. Trafford,” cried he, “at this hour?”
She started, and for a moment seemed too much overcome to answer, when she said: “You may believe that it is no light cause brings me; and even now I tremble at what I am doing: but I have begun and I 'll go on. Let us walk this way, for I want to speak with you.”
“Will you take my arm?” said Maitland, but without anything of gallantry in his tone.
“No,—yes, I will,” said she, hurriedly; and now for some paces they moved along side by side in silence.
“Mr. Maitland,” said she at last, “a silly speech I made to-day at dinner has led to a most serious result, and Commodore Graham and you have quarrelled.”
“Forgive me if I interrupt you. Nothing that fell from you has occasioned any rupture between Commodore Graham and myself; for that I can pledge you my word of honor.”
“But you have quarrelled. Don't deny it.”
“We had a very stupid discussion, and a difference; and I believe, if the Commodore would have vouchsafed me a patient hearing, he would have seen that he had really nothing to complain of on my part. I am quite ready to make the same explanation to any friend he will depute to receive it.”
“It was, however, what I said about your driving over with Miss Rebecca Graham to the Burnside that led to all this.”
“Nothing of the kind, I assure you.”
“Well, I don't care for the reason,” said she, impatiently; “but you have had a quarrel, and are about to settle it by a duel. I have no doubt,” continued she, more rapidly, “that you, Mr. Maitland, can treat this sort of thing very lightly. I suppose it is part of your code as man of the world to do so; but this old man is a father; his life, however little you may think of it, is of very great consequence to his family; he is an old friend and neighbor whom we all care for, and any mishap that might befall him would be a calamity to us all.”
“Pray continue,” said he, softly; “I am giving you all my attention. Having given the sketch of one of so much value to his friends, I am waiting now to hear of the other whom nobody is interested for.”
“This is no time for sarcasm, however witty, Mr. Maitland; and I am sure your better feeling will tell you that I could not have come here to listen to it. Do not be offended with me for my bluntness, nor refuse what I have asked you.”
“You have not asked anything from me,” said he, smiling.
“Well, I will now,” said she, with more courage in her tone; “I will ask you not to go any further in this affair,—to pledge your word to me that it shall stop here.”
“Remember I am but one; any promise I may make you can only take effect with the concurrence of another.”
“I know nothing—I want to know nothing—of these subtleties; tell me flatly you'll not give this old man a meeting.”
“I will, if you 'll only say how I am to avoid it. No, no; do not be angry with me,” said he, slightly touching the hand that rested on his arm. “I'd do far more than this to win one, even the faintest smile that ever said, 'I thank you;' but there is a difficulty here. You don't know with what he charges me.”
“Perhaps I suspect it.”
“It is that after paying most marked attention to his daughter, I have suddenly ceased to follow up my suit, and declared that I meant nothing by it.”
“Well?” said she, quietly.
“Well,” repeated he. “Surely no one knows better than you that there was no foundation for this.”
“I! how should I know it?”
“At all events,” replied he, with some irritation of manner, “you could n't believe it.”
“I declare I don't know,” said she, hesitatingly, for the spirit of drollery had got the better even of the deep interest of the moment,—“I declare I don't know, Mr. Maitland. There is a charm in the manner of an unsophisticated country girl which men of the world are often the very first to acknowledge.”
“Charming unsophistication!” muttered he, half aloud.
“At all events, Mr. Maitland, it is no reason that because you don't admire a young lady, you are to shoot her papa.”
“How delightfully illogical you are!” said he; and, strangely enough, there was an honest admiration in the way he said it.
“I don't want to convince, sir; I want to be obeyed. What I insist upon is, that this matter shall end here. Do you mind, Mr. Maitland, that it end here?”
“Only show me how, and I obey you.”
“Do you mean to say that with all your tact and cleverness, you cannot find a means of showing that you have been misapprehended, that you are deeply mortified at being misunderstood, that by an expression of great humility—Do you know how to be humble?”
“I can be abject,” said he, with a peculiar smile.
“I should really like to see you abject!” said she, laughingly.
“Do so then,” cried he, dropping on his knee before her, while he still held her hand, but with a very different tone of voice,—a voice now tremulous with earnest feeling,—continued: “There can be no humility deeper than that with which I ask your forgiveness for one word I spoke to you this evening. If you but knew all the misery it has caused me!”
“Mr. Maitland, this mockery is a just rebuke for my presence here. If I had not stooped to such a step, you would never have dared this.”
“It is no mockery to say what my heart is full of, and what you will not deny you have read there. No, Alice, you may reject my love; you cannot pretend to ignore it.”
Though she started as he called her Alice, she said nothing, but only withdrew her hand. At last she said: “I don't think this is very generous of you. I came to ask a great favor at your hands, and you would place me in a position not to accept it.”
“So far from that,” said he, rising, “I distinctly tell you that I place all, even my honor, at your feet, and without one shadow of a condition. You say you came here to ask me a favor, and my answer is that I accord whatever you ask, and make no favor of it. Now, what is it you wish me to do?”
“It's very hard not to believe you sincere when you speak in this way,” said she, in a low voice.
“Don't try,” said he, in the same low tone.
“You promise me, then, that nothing shall come of this?”
“I do,” said he, seriously.
“And that you will make any amends the Commodore's friend may suggest? Come, come,” said she, laughing, “I never meant that you were to marry the young lady.”
“I really don't know how far you were going to put my devotion to the test.”
The pleasantness with which he spoke this so amused her that she broke again into laughter, and laughed heartily too. “Confess,” said she at last,—“confess it's the only scrape you did not see your way out of!”
“I am ready to confess it's the only occasion in my life in which I had to place my honor in the hands of a lady.”
“Well, let us see if a lady cannot be as adroit as a gentleman in such an affair; and now, as you are in my hands, Mr. Maitland,—completely inmyhands,—I am peremptory, and my first orders are that you keep close arrest. Raikes will see that you are duly fed, and that you have your letters and the newspapers; but mind, on any account, no visitors without my express leave: do you hear me, sir?”
“I do; and all I would say is this, that if the tables should ever turn, and it would be my place to impose conditions, take my word for it, I 'll be just as absolute. Do you hear me, madam?”
“I do; and I don't understand, and I don't want to understand you,” said she, in some confusion. “Now, good-bye. It is almost day. I declare that gray streak there is daybreak!”
“On, Alice, if you would let me say one word—only one—before we part.”
“I will not, Mr. Maitland, and for this reason, that I intend we should meet again.”
“Be it so,” said he, sadly, and turned away. After he had walked a few paces, he stopped and turned round; but she was already gone, how and in what direction he knew not. He hurried first one way, then another, but without success. If she had passed into the house,—and, of course, she had,—with what speed she must have gone! Thoughtful, but not unhappy, he returned to his room, if not fully assured that he had done what was wisest, well disposed to hope favorably for the future.