Читать книгу Tony Butler - Lever Charles James - Страница 13

Day followed day, and Tony Butler heard nothing from the Minister. He went down each morning to Downing Street, and interrogated the austere doorkeeper, till at length there grew up between that grim official and himself a state of feeling little short of hatred.

“No letter?” would say Tony.

“Look in the rack,” was the answer.

“Is this sort of thing usual?”

“What sort of thing?”

“The getting no reply for a week or eight days?”

“I should say it is very usual with certain people.”

“What do you mean by certain people?”

“Well, the people that don’t have answers to the letters, nor ain’t likely to have them.”

“Might I ask you another question?” said Tony, lowering his voice, and fixing a very quiet but steady look on the other.

“Yes, if it’s a short one.”

“It’s a very short one. Has no one ever kicked you for your impertinence?”

“Kicked me, – kicked me, sir!” cried the other, while his face became purple with passion.

“Yes,” resumed Tony, mildly; “for let me mention it to you in confidence, it’s the last thing I mean to do before I leave London.”

“We ‘ll see about this, sir, at once,” cried the porter, who rushed through the inner door, and tore upstairs like a madman. Tony meanwhile brushed some dust off his coat with a stray clothes-brush near, and was turning to leave the spot, when Skeffington came hurriedly towards him, trying to smother a fit of laughter that would not be repressed.

“What’s all this, Butler?” said he. “Here’s the whole office in commotion. Willis is up with the chief clerk and old Brand telling them that you drew a revolver and threatened his life, and swore if you had n’t an answer by tomorrow at twelve, you’d blow Sir Harry’s brains out.”

“It’s somewhat exaggerated. I had no revolver, and never had one. I don’t intend any violence beyond kicking that fellow, and I ‘ll not do even that if he can manage to be commonly civil.”

“The Chief wishes to see this gentleman upstairs for a moment,” said a pale, sickly youth to Skeffington.

“Don’t get flurried. Be cool, Butler, and say nothing that can irritate, – mind that,” whispered Skeffington, and stole away.

Butler was introduced into a spacious room, partly office, partly library, at the fireplace of which stood two men, a short and a shorter. They were wonderfully alike in externals, being each heavy-looking white-complexioned serious men, with a sort of dreary severity of aspect, as if the spirit of domination had already begun to weigh down even themselves.

“We have been informed,” began the shorter of the two, in a slow, deliberate voice, “that you have grossly outraged one of the inferior officers of this department; and although the case is one which demands, and shall have, the attention of the police authorities, we have sent for you – Mr. Brand and I – to express our indignation, – eh, Brand?” added he, in a whisper.

“Certainly, our indignation,” chimed in the other.

“And aware, as we are,” resumed the Chief, “that you are an applicant for employment under this department, to convey to you the assurance that such conduct as you have been guilty of totally debars you – excludes you – ”

“Yes, excludes you,” chimed in Brand.

“From the most remote prospect of an appointment!” said the first, taking up a book, and throwing it down with a slap on the table, as though the more emphatically to confirm his words.

“Who are you, may I ask, who pronounce so finally on my prospects?” cried Tony.

“Who are we, – who are we?” said the Chief, in a horror at the query. “Will you tell him, Mr. Brand?”

The other was, however, ringing violently at the bell, and did not hear the question.

“Have you sent to Scotland Yard?” asked he of the servant who came to his summons. “Tell Willis to be ready to accompany the officer, and make his charge.”

“The gentleman asks who we are!” said Baynes, with a feeble laugh.

“I ask in no sort of disrespect to you,” said Butler, “but simply to learn in what capacity I am to regard you. Are you magistrates? Is this a court?”

“No, sir, we are not magistrates,” said Brand; “we are heads of departments, – departments which we shall take care do not include within their limits persons of your habits and pursuits.”

“You can know very little about my habits or pursuits. I promised your hall-porter I ‘d kick him, and I don’t suspect that either you or your little friend there would risk any interference to protect him.”

“My Lord!” said a messenger, in a voice of almost tremulous terror, while he flung open both inner and outer door for the great man’s approach. The person who entered with a quick, active step was an elderly man, white-whiskered and white-haired, but his figure well set up, and his hat rakishly placed a very little on one side; his features were acute, and betokened promptitude and decision, blended with a sort of jocular humor about the mouth, as though even State affairs did not entirely indispose a man to a jest.

“Don’t send that bag off to-night, Baynes, till I come down,” said he, hurriedly; “and if any telegrams arrive, send them over to the house. What’s this policeman doing at the door? – who is refractory?”

“This – young man” – he paused, for he had almost said “gentleman” – “has just threatened an old and respectable servant of the office with a personal chastisement, my Lord.”

“Declared he ‘d break every bone in his body,” chimed in Brand.

“Whose body?” asked his Lordship.

“Willis’s, my Lord, – the hall-porter, – a man, if I mistake not, appointed by your Lordship.”

“I said I ‘d kick him,” said Tony, calmly.

“Kick Willis?” said my Lord, with a forced gravity, which could not, however, suppress a laughing twinkle of his keen gray eyes, – “kick Willis?”

“Yes, my Lord; he does not attempt to deny it.”

“What’s your name, sir,” asked my Lord.

“Butler,” was the brief reply.

“The son of – no, not son – but relative of Sir Omerod’s?” asked his Lordship again.

“His nephew.”

“Why, Sir Harry Elphinstone has asked me for something for you. I don’t see what I can do for you. It would be an admirable thing to have some one to kick the porters; but we have n’t thought of such an appointment, – eh, Baynes? Willis, the very first; most impudent dog! We want a messenger for Bucharest, Brand, don’t we?”

“No, my Lord; you filled it this morning, – gave it to Mr. Beed.”

“Cancel Beed, then, and appoint Butler.”

“Mr. Beed has gone, my Lord, – started with the Vienna bag.”

“Make Butler supernumerary.”

“There are four already, my Lord.”

“I don’t care if there were forty, Mr. Brand! Go and pass your examination, young gentleman, and thank Sir Harry Elphinstone, for this nomination is at his request. I am only sorry you didn’t kick Willis.” And with this parting speech he turned away, and hopped downstairs to his brougham, with the light step and jaunty air of a man of thirty.

Scarcely was the door closed, when Baynes and Brand retired into a window recess, conversing in lowest whispers and with much head-shaking. To what a frightful condition the country must come – any country must come – when administered by men of such levity, who make a sport of its interests, and a practical joke of its patronage – was the theme over which they now mourned in common.

“Are you going to make a minute of this appointment, Brand?” asked Baynes. “I declare I ‘d not do it.”

The other pursed up his lips and leaned his head to one side, as though to imply that such a course would be a bold one.

“Will you put his name on your list?”

“I don’t know,” muttered the other. “I suspect we can do it better. Where have you been educated, Mr. Butler?”

“At home, principally.”

“Never at any public school?”

“Never, except you call a village school a public one.”

Brand’s eyes glistened, and Baynes’s returned the sparkle.

“Are you a proficient in French?”

“Far from it. I could spell out a fable, or a page of ‘Telemachus,’ and even that would push me hard.”

“Do you write a good hand?”

“It is legible, but it’s no beauty.”

“And your arithmetic?”

“Pretty much like my French, – the less said about it the better.”

“I think that will do, Brand,” whispered Baynes.

The other nodded, and muttered, “Of course; and it is the best way to do it.”

“These are the points, Mr. Butler,” he continued, giving him a printed paper, “on which you will have to satisfy the Civil Service Commissioners; they are, as you see, not very numerous nor very difficult. A certificate as to general conduct and character – British subject – some knowledge of foreign languages – the first four rules of arithmetic – and that you are able to ride – ”

“Thank Heaven, there is one thing I can do; and if you ask the Commissioners to take a cast ‘cross country, I ‘ll promise them a breather.”

Tony never noticed – nor, had he noticed, had he cared for – the grave austerity of the heads of departments at this outburst of enthusiasm. He was too full of his own happiness, and too eager to share it with his mother.

As he gained the street, Skeffington passed his arm through his, and walked along with him, offering him his cordial gratulations, and giving him many wise and prudent counsels, though unfortunately, from the state of ignorance of Tony’s mind, these latter were lamentably unprofitable. It was of “the Office” that he warned him, – of its tempers, its caprices, its rancors, and its jealousies, till, lost in the maze of his confusion, poor Tony began to regard it as a beast of ill-omened and savage passions, – a great monster, in fact, who lived on the bones and flesh of ardent and high-hearted youths, drying up the springs of their existence, and exhausting their brains out of mere malevolence. Out of all the farrago that he listened to, all that he could collect was, “that he was one of those fellows that the chiefs always hated and invariably crushed.” Why destiny should have marked him out for such odium – why he was born to be strangled by red tape, Tony could not guess, nor, to say truth, did he trouble himself to inquire; but, resisting a pressing invitation to dine with Skeffington at his club, he hastened to his room to write his good news to his mother.

“Think of my good fortune, dearest little mother,” he wrote. “I have got a place, and such a place! You ‘d fancy it was made for me, for I have neither to talk nor to think nor to read nor to write, – all my requirements are joints that will bear bumping, and a head that will stand the racket of railroad and steamboat without any sense of confusion, beyond what nature implanted there. Was he not a wise Minister who named me to a post where bones are better than brains, and a good digestion superior to intellect? I am to be a messenger, – a Foreign Service Messenger is the grand title, – a creature to go over the whole globe with a white leather bag or two, full of mischief or gossip, as it may be, and whose whole care is to consist in keeping his time, and beins never out of health.

“They say in America the bears were made for Colonel Crocket’s dog, and I ‘m sure these places were made for fellows of my stamp, – fellows to carry a message, and yet not intrusted with the telling it.

“The pay is capital, the position good, – that is, three fourths of the men are as good or better than myself; and the life, all tell me, is rare fun, – you go everywhere, see everything, and think of nothing. In all your dreams for me, you never fancied the like of this. They talk of places for all sorts of capacities, but imagine a berth for one of no capacity at all! And yet, mother dear, they have made a blunder, – and a very absurd blunder too, and no small one! they have instituted a test – a sort of examination – for a career that ought to be tested by a round with the boxing-gloves, or a sharp canter over a course with some four-feet hurdles!

“I am to be examined, in about six weeks from this, in some foreign tongues, multiplication, and the state of my muscles. I am to show proof that I was born of white parents, and am not too young or too old to go alone of a message. There’s the whole of it. It ain’t much, but it is quite enough to frighten one, and I go about with the verb avoir in my head, and the first four rules of arithmetic dance round me like so many furies. What a month of work and drudgery there is before you, little woman! You ‘ll have to coach me through my declensions and subtractions. If you don’t fag, you ‘ll be plucked, for, as for me, I’ll only be your representative whenever I go in. Look up your grammar, then, and your history too, for they plucked a man the other day that said Piccolomini was not a general, but a little girl that sang in the ‘Traviata’! I ‘d start by the mail this evening, but that I have to go up to the Office – no end of a chilling place – for my examination papers, and to be tested by the doctor that I am all right, thews and sinews; but I ‘ll get away by the afternoon, right glad to leave all this turmoil and confusion, the very noise of which makes me quarrelsome and ill-tempered.

“There is such a good fellow here, Skeffington, – the Honorable Skeffington Darner, to speak of him more formally, – who has been most kind to me. He is private secretary to Sir Harry, and told me all manner of things about the Government offices, and the Dons that rule them. If I was a clever or a sharp fellow, I suppose this would have done me infinite service; but, as old Dr. Kinward says, it was only ‘putting the wine in a cracked bottle;’ and all I can remember is the kindness that dictated the attention.

“Skeff is some relation – I forget what – to old Mrs. Maxwell of Tilney, and, like all the world, expects to be her heir. He talks of coming over to see her when he gets his leave, and said – God forgive him for it – that he ‘d run down and pass a day with us. I could n’t say ‘Don’t,’ and I had not heart to say ‘Do!’ I had not the courage to tell him frankly that we lived in a cabin with four rooms and a kitchen, and that butler, cook, footman, and housemaid were all represented by a barefooted lassie, who was far more at home drawing a fishing-net than in cooking its contents. I was just snob enough to say, ‘Tell us when we may look out for you;’ and without manliness to add, ‘And I ‘ll run away when I hear it.’ But he ‘s a rare good fellow, and teases me every day to dine with him at the Arthur, – a club where all the young swells of the Government offices assemble to talk of themselves, and sneer at their official superiors.

“I ‘ll go out, if I can, and see Dolly before I leave, though she told me that the family did n’t like her having friends, – the flunkeys called them followers, – and of course I ought not to do what would make her uncomfortable; still, one minute or two would suffice to get me some message to bring the doctor, who ‘ll naturally expect it I’d like, besides, to tell Dolly of my good fortune, – though it is, perhaps, not a very graceful thing to be full of one’s own success to another, whose position is so painful as hers, poor girl. If you saw how pale she has grown, and how thin; even her voice has lost that jolly ring it had, and is now weak and poor. She seems so much afraid – of what or whom I can’t make out – but all about her bespeaks terror. You say very little of the Abbey, and I am always thinking of it. The great big world, and this great big city that is its capital, are very small things to me, compared to that little circle that could be swept by a compass, with a centre at the Burnside, and a leg of ten miles long, that would take in the Abbey and the salmon-weir, the rabbit-warren and the boat-jetty! If I was very rich, I ‘d just add three rooms to our cottage, and put up one for myself, with my own traps; and another for you, with all the books that ever were written; and another for Skeff, or any other good fellow we ‘d like to have with us. Would n’t that be jolly, little mother? I won’t deny I ‘e seen what would be called prettier places here, – the Thames above and below Richmond, for instance. Lawns smooth as velvet, great trees of centuries’ growth, and fine houses of rich people, are on every side. But I like our own wild crags and breezy hillsides better; I like the great green sea, rolling smoothly on, and smashing over our rugged rocks, better than all those smooth eddied currents, with their smart racing-boats skimming about. If I could only catch these fellows outside the Skerries some day, with a wind from the northwest: wouldn’t I spoil the colors of their gay jackets? ‘ere’s Skeff come again. He says he is going to dine with some very pleasant fellows at the Star and Garter, and that I must positively come. He won’t be denied, and I am in such rare spirits about my appointment that I feel as if I should be a churl to myself to refuse, though I have my sore misgiving about accepting what I well know I never can make any return for. How I ‘d like one word from you to decide for me!

“I must shut up. I ‘m off to Richmond, and they are all making such a row and hurrying me so, that my head is turning. One has to hold the candle, and another stands ready with the sealing-wax, by way of expediting me. Good-bye, dearest mother – I start to-morrow for home. – Your affectionate son,

“Tony Butler.”