CHAPTER VI. DOLLY STEWART
Tony's first care, when he got back to his hotel, was to write to his mother. He knew how great her impatience would be to hear of him, and it was a sort of comfort to himself, in his loneliness, to sit down and pour out his hopes and his anxieties before one who loved him. He told her of his meeting with the Minister, and, by way of encouragement, mentioned what Damer had pronounced upon that event. Nor did he forget to say how grateful he felt to Damer, who, “after all, with his fine-gentleman airs and graces, might readily have turned a cold shoulder to a rough-looking fellow like me.”
Poor Tony! in his friendlessness he was very grateful for very little. Nor is there anything which is more characteristic of destitution than this sentiment. It is as with the schoolboy, who deems himself rich with a half-crown!
Tony would have liked much to make some inquiry about the family at the Abbey; whether any one had come to ask after or look for him; whether Mrs. Trafford had sent down any books for his mother's reading, or any fresh flowers,—the only present which the widow could be persuaded to accept; but he was afraid to touch on a theme that had so many painful memories to himself. Ah, what happy days he had passed there! What a bright dream it all appeared now to look back on! The long rides along the shore, with Alice for his companion, more free to talk with him, less reserved than Isabella; and who could, on the pretext of her own experiences of life,—she was a widow of two-and-twenty,—caution him against so many pitfalls, and guard him against so many deceits of the world. It was in this same quality of widow, too, that she could go out to sail with him alone, making long excursions along the coast, diving into bays, and landing on strange islands, giving them curious names as they went, and fancying that they were new voyagers on unknown seas.
Were such days ever to come back again? No, he knew they could not They never do come back, even to the luckiest of us; and how far less would be our enjoyment of them if we but knew that each fleeting moment could never be re-acted! “I wonder, is Alice lonely? Does she miss me? Isabella will not care so much. She has books and her drawing, and she is so self-dependent; but Alice, whose cry was, 'Where 's Tony?' till it became a jest against her in the house. Oh, if she but knew how I envy the dog that lies at her feet, and that can look up into her soft blue eyes, and wonder what she is thinking of! Well, Alice, it has come at last. Here is the day you so long predicted. I have set out to seek my fortune; but where is the high heart and the bold spirit you promised me? I have no doubt,” cried he, as he paced his room impatiently, “there are plenty who would say, it is the life of luxurious indolence and splendor that I am sorrowing after; that it is to be a fancied great man,—to have horses to ride, and servants to wait on me, and my every wish gratified,—it is all this I am regretting. But I know better! I 'd be as poor as ever I was, and consent never to be better, if she 'd just let me see her, and be with her, and love her, to my own heart, without ever telling her. And now the day has come that makes all these bygones!”
It was with a choking feeling in his throat, almost hysterical, that he went downstairs and into the street to try and walk off his gloomy humor. The great city was now before him,—a very wide and a very noisy world,—with abundance to interest and attract him, had his mind been less intent on his own future fortunes; but he felt that every hour he was away from his poor mother was a pang, and every shilling he should spend would be a privation to her. Heaven only could tell by what thrift and care and time she had laid by the few pounds he had carried away to pay his journey! As his eye fell upon the tempting objects of the shop-windows, every moment displaying something he would like to have brought back to her,—that nice warm shawl, that pretty clock for her mantelpiece, that little vase for her flowers; how he despised himself for his poverty, and how meanly the thought of a condition that made him a burden where he ought to have been a benefit! Nor was the thought the less bitter that it reminded him of the wide space that separated him from her he had dared to love! “It comes to this,” cried he bitterly to himself, “that I have no right to be here; no right to do anything, or think of anything that I have done. Of the thousands that pass me, there is not, perhaps, one the world has not more need of than of me! Is there even one of all this mighty million that would have a kind word for me, if they knew the heavy heart that was weighing me down?” At this minute he suddenly thought of Dolly Stewart, the doctor's daughter, whose address he had carefully taken down from his mother, at Mr. Alexander M'Grader's, 4 Inverness Terrace, Richmond.
It would be a real pleasure to see Dolly's good-humored face, and hear her merry voice, instead of those heavy looks and busy faces that addled and confused him; and so, as much to fill up his time as to spare his purse, he set out to walk to Richmond.
With whatever gloom and depression he began his journey, his spirits rose as he gained the outskirts of the town, and rose higher and higher as he felt the cheering breezes and the perfumed air that swept over the rich meadows at either side of him. It was, besides, such a luxuriant aspect of country as he had never before seen nor imagined,—fields cultivated like gardens, trim hedgerows, ornamental trees, picturesque villas on every hand. How beautiful it all seemed, and how happy! Was not Dolly a lucky girl to have her lot thrown in such a paradise? How enjoyable she must find it all!—she whose good spirits knew always how “to take the most out of” whatever was pleasant How he pictured her delight in a scene of such loveliness!
“That's Inverness Terrace, yonder,” said a policeman of whom he inquired the way,—“that range of small houses you see there;” and he pointed to a trim-looking row of cottage-houses on a sort of artificial embankment which elevated them above the surrounding buildings, and gave a view of the Thames as it wound through the rich meadows beneath. They were neat with that English neatness which at once pleases and shocks a foreign eye,—the trim propriety that loves comfort, but has no heart for beauty. Thus, each was like his neighbor. The very jalousies were painted the same color; and every ranunculus in one garden had his brother in the next No. 4 was soon found, and Tony rang the bell and inquired for Miss Stewart.
“She's in the school-room with the young ladies,” said the woman servant; “but if you 'll step in and tell me your name, I 'll send her to you.”