"Oh, Malcolm!" was all Florimel could answer. She was too pleased to think as yet of any of the thousand questions that might naturally have followed.
"Why, you've got the Arabian Nights, and all my favourite books there!" she said at length. – "How long shall we have before we get among the ships again?"
She fancied she had given orders to return, and that the boat had been put about.
"A good many hours, my lady," answered Malcolm.
"Ah, of course!" she returned; "it takes much longer against wind and tide. – But my time is my own," she added, rather in the manner of one asserting a freedom she did not feel, "and I don't see why I should trouble myself. It will make some to do, I daresay, if I don't appear at dinner; but it won't do anybody any harm. They wouldn't break their hearts if they never saw me again."
"Not one of them, my lady," said Malcolm.
She lifted her head sharply, but took no farther notice of his remark.
"I won't be plagued any more," she said, holding counsel with herself, but intending Malcolm to hear. "I will break with them rather. Why should I not be as free as Clementina? She comes and goes when and where she likes, and does what she pleases."
"Why, indeed?" said Malcolm; and a pause followed, during which Florimel stood apparently thinking, but in reality growing sleepy.
"I will lie down a little," she said, "with one of those lovely books."
The excitement, the air, and the pleasure generally had wearied her. Nothing could have suited Malcolm better. He left her. She went to her berth, and fell fast asleep.
When she awoke, it was some time before she could think where she was. A strange ghostly light was about her, in which she could see nothing plain; but the motion helped her to understand. She rose, and crept to the companion ladder, and up on deck. Wonder upon wonder! A clear full moon reigned high in the heavens, and below there was nothing but water, gleaming with her molten face, or rushing past the boat lead coloured, gray, and white. Here and there a vessel – a snow cloud of sails – would glide between them and the moon, and turn black from truck to waterline.
The mast of the Psyche had shot up to its full height; the reef points of the mainsail were loose, and the gaff was crowned with its topsail; foresail and jib were full; and she was flying as if her soul thirsted within her after infinite spaces. Yet what more could she want? All around her was wave rushing upon wave, and above her blue heaven and regnant moon. Florimel gave a great sigh of delight.
But what did it – what could it mean? What was Malcolm about? Where was he taking her? What would London say to such an escapade extraordinary? Lady Bellair would be the first to believe she had run away with her groom – she knew so many instances of that sort of thing! and Lord Liftore would be the next. It was too bad of Malcolm! But she did not feel very angry with him, notwithstanding, for had he not done it to give her pleasure? And assuredly he had not failed. He knew better than anyone how to please her – better even than Lenorme.
She looked around her. No one was to be seen but Davie, who was steering. The mainsail hid the men, and Rose, having been on deck for two or three hours, was again below. She turned to Davy. But the boy had been schooled, and only answered,
"I maunna sae naething sae lang's I'm steerin', mem."
She called Malcolm. He was beside her ere his name had left her lips. The boy's reply had irritated her, and, coming upon this sudden and utter change in her circumstances, made her feel as one no longer lady of herself and her people, but a prisoner.
"Once more, what does this mean, Malcolm?" she said, in high displeasure. "You have deceived me shamefully! You left me to believe we were on our way back to London – and here we are out at sea! Am I no longer your mistress? Am I a child, to be taken where you please? – And what, pray, is to become of the horses you left at Mr Lenorme's?"
Malcolm was glad of a question he was prepared to answer.
"They are in their own stalls by this time, my lady. I took care of that."
"Then it was all a trick to carry me off against my will!" she cried, with growing indignation.
"Hardly against your will, my lady," said Malcolm, embarrassed and thoughtful, in a tone deprecating and apologetic.
"Utterly against my will!" insisted Florimel. "Could I ever have consented to go to sea with a boatful of men, and not a woman on board? You have disgraced me, Malcolm."
Between anger and annoyance she was on the point of crying.
"It's not so bad as that, my lady. – Here, Rose!"
At his word, Rose appeared.
"I've brought one of Lady Bellair's maids for your service, my lady," Malcolm went on. "She will do the best she can to wait on you."
Florimel gave her a look.
"I don't remember you," she said.
"No, my lady. I was in the kitchen."
"Then you can't be of much use to me."
"A willing heart goes a long way, my lady," said Rose, prettily.
"That is fine," returned Florimel, rather pleased. "Can you get me some tea?"
"Yes, my lady."
Florimel turned, and, much to Malcolm's content vouchsafing him not a word more, went below.
Presently a little silver lamp appeared in the roof of the cabin, and in a few minutes Davy came, carrying the tea tray, and followed by Rose with the teapot. As soon as they were alone, Florimel began to question Rose; but the girl soon satisfied her that she knew little or nothing.
When Florimel pressed her how she could go she knew not where at the desire of a fellow servant, she gave such confused and apparently contradictory answers, that Florimel began to think ill of both her and Malcolm, and to feel more uncomfortable and indignant; and the more she dwelt upon Malcolm's presumption, and speculated as to his possible design in it, she grew the angrier.
She went again on deck. By this time she was in a passion – little mollified by the sense of her helplessness.
"MacPhail," she said, laying the restraint of dignified utterance upon her words, "I desire you to give me a good reason for your most unaccountable behaviour. Where are you taking me?"
"To Lossie House, my lady."
"Indeed!" she returned with scornful and contemptuous surprise. "Then I order you to change your course at once and return to London."
"I cannot, my lady."
"Cannot! Whose orders but mine are you under, pray?"
"Your father's, my lady."
"I have heard more than enough of that unfortunate – statement, and the measureless assumptions founded on it. I shall heed it no longer."
"I am only doing my best to take care of you, my lady, as I promised him. You will know it one day if you will but trust me."
"I have trusted you ten times too much, and have gained nothing in return but reasons for repenting it. Like all other servants made too much of you have grown insolent. But I shall put a stop to it. I cannot possibly keep you in my service after this. Am I to pay a master where I want a servant?"
Malcolm was silent.
"You must have some reason for this strange conduct," she went on. "How can your supposed duty to my father justify you in treating me with such disrespect. Let me know your reasons. I have a right to know them."
"I will answer you, my lady," said Malcolm. "– Davy, go forward; I will take the helm. – Now, my lady, if you will sit on that cushion. – Rose, bring my lady a fur cloak you will find in the cabin. – Now, my lady, if you will speak low that neither Davy nor Rose shall hear us. – Travers is deaf – I will answer you."
"I ask you," said Florimel, "why you have dared to bring me away like this. Nothing but some danger threatening me could justify it."
"There you say it, my lady."
"And what is the danger, pray?"
'You were going on the continent with Lady Bellair and Lord Liftore – and without me to do as I had promised."
"You insult me!" cried Florimel. "Are my movements to be subject to the approbation of my groom? Is it possible my father could give his henchman such authority over his daughter? I ask you again, where was the danger?"
"In your company, my lady."
"So!" exclaimed Florimel, attempting to rise in sarcasm as she rose in wrath, lest she should fall into undignified rage. "And what may be your objection to my companions?"
"That Lady Bellair is not respected in any circle where her history is known; and that her nephew is a scoundrel."
"It but adds to the wrong you heap on me, that you compel me to hear such wicked abuse of my father's friends," said Florimel, struggling with tears of anger. But for regard to her dignity she would have broken out in fierce and voluble rage.
"If your father knew Lord Liftore as I do, he would be the last man my lord marquis would see in your company."
"Because he gave you a beating, you have no right to slander him," said Florimel spitefully.
Malcolm laughed. He must either laugh or be angry.
"May I ask how your ladyship came to hear of that?"
"He told me himself," she answered.
"Then, my lady, he is a liar, as well as worse. It was I who gave him the drubbing he deserved for his insolence to my – mistress. I am sorry to mention the disagreeable fact, but it is absolutely necessary you should know what sort of man he is."
"And, if there be a lie, which of the two is more likely to tell it?"
"That question is for you, my lady, to answer."
"I never knew a servant who would not tell a lie," said Florimel.
"I was brought up a fisherman," said Malcolm.
"And," Florimel went on, "I have heard my father say no gentleman ever told a lie."
"Then Lord Liftore is no gentleman," said Malcolm. "But I am not going to plead my own cause even to you, my lady. If you can doubt me, do. I have only one thing more to say: that when I told you and my Lady Clementina about the fisher girl and the gentleman –"
"How dare you refer to that again? Even you ought to know there are things a lady cannot hear. It is enough you affronted me with that before Lady Clementina – and after foolish boasts on my part of your good breeding! Now you bring it up again, when I cannot escape your low talk!"
"My lady, I am sorrier than you think; but which is worse – that you should hear such a thing spoken of, or make a friend of the man who did it – and that is Lord Liftore?"
Florimel turned away, and gave her seeming attention to the moonlit waters, sweeping past the swift sailing cutter.
Malcolm's heart ached for her: he thought she was deeply troubled. But she was not half so shocked as he imagined. Infinitely worse would have been the shock to him could he have seen how little the charge against Liftore had touched her. Alas! evil communications had already in no small degree corrupted her good manners. Lady Bellair had uttered no bad words in her hearing: had softened to decency every story that required it; had not unfrequently tacked a worldly wise moral to the end of one; and yet, and yet, such had been the tone of her telling, such the allotment of laughter and lamentation, such the acceptance of things as necessary, and such the repudiation of things as Quixotic, puritanical, impossible, that the girl's natural notions of the lovely and the clean had got dismally shaken and confused.
Happily it was as yet more her judgment than her heart that was perverted. But had she spoken out what was in her thoughts as she looked over the great wallowing water, she would have merely said that for all that Liftore was no worse than other men. They were all the same. It was very unpleasant; but how could a lady help it? If men would behave so, were by nature like that, women must not make themselves miserable about it. They need ask no questions. They were not supposed to be acquainted with the least fragment of the facts, and they must cleave to their ignorance, and lay what blame there might be on the women concerned. The thing was too indecent even to think about.
Ostrich-like they must hide their heads – close their eyes and take the vice in their arms – to love, honour, and obey, as if it were virtue's self, and men as pure as their demands on their wives.
There are thousands that virtually reason thus: Only ignore the thing effectually, and for you it is not. Lie right thoroughly to yourself, and the thing is gone. The lie destroys the fact. So reasoned Lady Macbeth – until conscience at last awoke, and she could no longer keep even the smell of the blood from her. What need Lady Lossie care about the fisher girl, or any other concerned with his past, so long as he behaved like a gentleman to her! Malcolm was a foolish meddling fellow, whose interference was the more troublesome that it was honest.
She stood thus gazing on the waters that heaved and swept astern, but without knowing that she saw them, her mind full of such nebulous matter as, condensed, would have made such thoughts as I have set down. And still and ever the water rolled and tossed away behind in the moonlight.
"Oh, my lady!" said Malcolm, "what it would be to have a soul as big and as clean as all this!"
She made no reply, did not turn her head, or acknowledge that she heard him, a few minutes more she stood, then went below in silence, and Malcolm saw no more of her that night.
CHAPTER LII: HOPE CHAPEL
It was Sunday, during which Malcolm lay at the point of death some three stories above his sister's room. There, in the morning, while he was at the worst, she was talking with Clementina, who had called to see whether she would not go and hear the preacher of whom he had spoken with such fervour. Florimel laughed.
"You seem to take everything for gospel Malcolm says, Clementina!"
"Certainly not," returned Clementina, rather annoyed. "Gospel nowadays is what nobody disputes and nobody heeds; but I do heed what Malcolm says, and intend to find out, if I can, whether there is any reality in it. I thought you had a high opinion of your groom!"
"I would take his word for anything a man's word can be taken for," said Florimel.
"But you don't set much store by his judgment?"
"Oh, I daresay he's right. But I don't care for the things you like so much to talk with him about. He's a sort of poet, anyhow, and poets must be absurd. They are always either dreaming or talking about their dreams. They care nothing for the realities of life. No – if you want advice, you must go to your lawyer or clergyman, or some man of common sense, neither groom nor poet."
"Then, Florimel, it comes to this – that this groom of yours is one of the truest of men, and one who possessed your father's confidence, but you are so much his superior that you are capable of judging him, and justified in despising his judgment."
"Only in practical matters, Clementina."
"And duty towards God is with you such a practical matter that you cannot listen to anything he has got to say about it."
Florimel shrugged her shoulders.
"For my part, I would give all I have to know there was a God worth believing in."
"Clementina!"
"What?"
"Of course there is a God. It is very horrible to deny it."
"Which is worse – to deny it, or to deny him? Now, I confess to doubting it – that is, the fact of a God; but you seem to me to deny God himself, for you admit there is a God – think it very wicked to deny that, and yet you don't take interest enough in him to wish to learn anything about him. You won't think, Florimel. I don't fancy you ever really think."
Florimel again laughed.
"I am glad," she said, "that you don't judge me incapable of that high art. But it is not so very long since Malcolm used to hint something much the same about yourself, my lady!"
"Then he was quite right," returned Clementina. "I am only just beginning to think, and if I can find a teacher, here I am, his pupil."
"Well, I suppose I can spare my groom quite enough to teach you all he knows," Florimel said, with what Clementina took for a marked absence of expression. She reddened. But she was not one to defend herself before her principles.
"If he can, why should he not?" she said. "But it was of his friend Mr Graham I was thinking- – not himself."
"You cannot tell whether he has got anything to teach you."
"Your groom's testimony gives likelihood enough to make it my duty to go and see. I intend to find the place this evening."
"It must be some little ranting methodist conventicle. He would not be allowed to preach in a church, you know."
"Of course not! The church of England is like the apostle that forbade the man casting out devils, and got forbid himself for it – with this difference that she won't be forbid. Well, she chooses her portion with Dives and not Lazarus. She is the most arrant respecter of persons I know, and her Christianity is worse than a farce. It was that first of all that drove me to doubt. If I could find a place where everything was just the opposite, the poorer it was the better I should like it. It makes me feel quite wicked to hear a smug parson reading the gold ring and the goodly apparel, while the pew openers beneath are illustrating in dumb show the very thing the apostle is pouring out the vial of his indignation upon over their heads; – doing it calmly and without a suspicion, for the parson, while he reads, is rejoicing in his heart over the increasing aristocracy of his congregation. The farce is fit to make a devil in torment laugh."
Once more, Florimel laughed aloud.
"Another revolution, Clementina, and we shall have you heading the canaille to destroy Westminster Abbey."
"I would follow any leader to destroy falsehood," said Clementina. "No canaille will take that up until it meddles with their stomachs or their pew rents."
"Really, Clementina, you are the worst Jacobin I ever heard talk. My groom is quite an aristocrat beside you."
"Not an atom more than I am. I do acknowledge an aristocracy – but it is one neither of birth nor of intellect nor of wealth."
"What is there besides to make one?"
"Something I hope to find before long. What if there be indeed a kingdom and an aristocracy of life and truth! – Will you or will you not go with me to hear this schoolmaster?"
"I will go anywhere with you, if it were only to be seen with such a beauty," said Florimel, throwing her arms round her neck and kissing her.
Clementina gently returned the embrace, and the thing was settled.
The sound of their wheels, pausing in swift revolution with the clangor of iron hoofs on rough stones at the door of the chapel, refreshed the diaconal heart like the sound of water in the desert. For the first time in the memory of the oldest, the dayspring of success seemed on the point of breaking over Hope Chapel. The ladies were ushered in by Mr Marshal himself, to Clementina's disgust and Florimel's amusement, with much the same attention as his own shop walker would have shown to carriage customers – How could a man who taught light and truth be found in such a mean entourage? But the setting was not the jewel. A real stone might be found in a copper ring. So said Clementina to herself as she sat waiting her hoped for instructor.
Mrs Catanach settled her broad back into its corner, chuckling over her own wisdom and foresight. Her seat was at the pulpit end of the chapel, at right angles to almost all the rest of the pews – chosen because thence, if indeed she could not well see the preacher, she could get a good glimpse of nearly everyone that entered. Keen sighted both physically and intellectually, she recognized Florimel the moment she saw her.
"Twa doos mair to the boody craw!" she laughed to herself. "Ae man thrashin', an' twa birdies pickin'!" she went on, quoting the old nursery nonsense. Then she stooped, and let down her veil. Florimel hated her, and therefore might know her.
"It's the day o' the Lord wi' auld Sanny Grame!" she resumed to herself, as she lifted her head. "He's stickit nae mair, but a chosen trumpet at last! Foul fa' 'im for a wearifu' cratur for a' that! He has nowther balm o' grace nor pith o' damnation.
"Yon laad Flemin', 'at preached i' the Baillies' Barn aboot the dowgs gaein' roon' an' roon' the wa's o' the New Jeroozlem, gien he had but hauden thegither an' no gean to the worms sae sune, wad hae dung a score o' 'im. But Sanny angers me to that degree 'at but for rizons – like yon twa – I wad gang oot i' the mids o' ane o' 's palahvers, an' never come back, though I ha'e a haill quarter o' my sittin' to sit oot yet, an' it cost me dear, an' fits the auld back o' me no that ill."
When Mr Graham rose to read the psalm, great was Clementina's disappointment: he looked altogether, as she thought, of a sort with the place – mean and dreary – of the chapel very chapelly, and she did not believe it could be the man of whom Malcolm had spoken. By a strange coincidence however, a kind of occurrence as frequent as strange, he read for his text that same passage about the gold ring and the vile raiment, in which we learn how exactly the behaviour of the early Jewish churches corresponded to that of the later English ones, and Clementina soon began to alter her involuntary judgment of him when she found herself listening to an utterance beside which her most voluble indignation would have been but as the babble of a child.
Sweeping, incisive, withering, blasting denunciation, logic and poetry combining in one torrent of genuine eloquence, poured confusion and dismay upon head and heart of all who set themselves up for pillars of the church without practising the first principles of the doctrine of Christ – men who, professing to gather their fellows together in the name of Christ, conducted the affairs of the church on the principles of hell – men so blind and dull and slow of heart, that they would never know what the outer darkness meant until it had closed around them – men who paid court to the rich for their money, and to the poor for their numbers – men who sought gain first, safety next, and the will of God not at all – men whose presentation of Christianity was enough to drive the world to a preferable infidelity.
Clementina listened with her very soul. All doubt as to whether this was Malcolm's friend, vanished within two minutes of his commencement. If she rejoiced a little more than was humble or healthful in finding that such a man thought as she thought, she gained this good notwithstanding – the presence and power of a man who believed in righteousness the doctrine he taught. Also she perceived that the principles of equality he held, were founded on the infinite possibilities of the individual – and of the race only through the individual; and that he held these principles with an absoluteness, an earnestness, a simplicity, that dwarfed her loudest objurgation to the uneasy murmuring of a sleeper. She could not but trust him, and her hope grew great that perhaps for her he held the key of the kingdom of heaven. She saw that if what this man said was true, then the gospel was represented by men who knew nothing of its real nature, and by such she bad been led into a false judgment of it.
"If such a man," said the schoolmaster in conclusion, "would but once represent to himself that the man whom he regards as beneath him, may nevertheless be immeasurably above him – and that after no arbitrary judgment, but according to the absolute facts of creation, the scale of the kingdom of God, in which being is rank; if he could persuade himself of the possibility that he may yet have to worship before the feet of those on whom he looks down as on the creatures of another and meaner order of creation, would it not sting him to rise, and, lest this should be one of such, make offer of his chair to the poor man in the vile raiment? Would he ever more, all his life long, dare to say, 'Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool?'"
During the week that followed, Clementina reflected with growing delight on what she had heard, and looked forward to hearing more of a kind correspondent on the approaching Sunday. Nor did the shock of the disappearance of Florimel with Malcolm abate her desire to be taught by Malcolm's friend.
Lady Bellair was astounded, mortified, enraged. Liftore turned grey with passion, then livid with mortification, at the news. Not one of all their circle, as Florimel had herself foreseen, doubted for a moment that she had run away with that groom of hers. Indeed, upon examination, it became evident that the scheme had been for some time in hand: the yacht they had gone on board had been lying there for months; and although she was her own mistress, and might marry whom she pleased, it was no wonder she had run away, for how could she have held her face to it, or up after it?
Lady Clementina accepted the general conclusion, but judged it individually. She had more reason to be distressed at what seemed to have taken place than anyone else; indeed it stung her to the heart, wounding her worse than in its first stunning effects she was able to know; yet she thought better rather than worse of Florimel because of it. What she did not like in her with reference to the affair was the depreciatory manner in which she had always spoken of Malcolm. If genuine, it was quite inconsistent with due regard for the man for whom she was yet prepared to sacrifice so much; if, on the other hand, her slight opinion of his judgment was a pretence, then she had been disloyal to the just prerogatives of friendship.
The latter part of that week was the sorest time Clementina had ever passed. But, like a true woman, she fought her own misery and sense of loss, as well as her annoyance and anxiety, – constantly saying to herself that, be the thing as it might, she could never cease to be glad that she had known Malcolm MacPhail.