A NEW LIVERY.
Scarcely had the ladies gone to the drawing-room, when Florimel’s maid,
who knew Malcolm, came in quest of him. Lady Lossie desired to see him.
“What is the meaning of this, MacPhail?” she said, when he entered the
room where she sat alone. “I did not send for you. Indeed, I thought
you had been dismissed with the rest of the servants.”
How differently she spoke! And she used to call him _Malcolm_! The girl
Florimel was gone, and there sat--the marchioness, was it? --or some
phase of riper womanhood only? It mattered little to Malcolm. He was no
curious student of man or woman. He loved his kind too well to study
it. But one thing seemed plain: she had forgotten the half friendship
and whole service that had had place betwixt them, and it made him feel
as if the soul of man no less than his life were but as a vapour that
appeareth for a little and then vanisheth away.
But Florimel had not so entirely forgotten the past as Malcolm
thought--not so entirely at least but that his appearance, and certain
difficulties in which she had begun to find herself, brought something
of it again to her mind.
“I thought,” said Malcolm, assuming his best English, “your ladyship
might not choose to part with an old servant at the will of a factor,
and so took upon me to appeal to your ladyship to decide the question.”
“But how is that? Did you not return to your fishing when the household
was broken up?”
“No, my lady. Mr Crathie kept me to help Stoat, and do odd jobs about
the place.”
“And now he wants to discharge you?”
Then Malcolm told her the whole story, in which he gave such a
description of Kelpie, that her owner, as she imagined herself,
expressed a strong wish to see her; for Florimel was almost
passionately fond of horses.
“You may soon do that, my lady,” said Malcolm. “Mr Soutar, not being
of the same mind as Mr Crathie, is going to send her up. It will be
but the cost of the passage from Aberdeen, and she will fetch a better
price here if your ladyship should resolve to part with her. She won’t
fetch the third of her value anywhere, though, on account of her bad
temper and ugly tricks.”
“But as to yourself, MacPhail--where are you going to go?” said
Florimel. “I don’t like to send you away, but, if I keep you, I don’t
know what to do with you. No doubt you could serve in the house, but
that would not be suitable at all to your education and previous life.”
“A body wad tak you for a granny grown!” said Malcolm to himself. But
to Florimel he replied--“If your ladyship should wish to keep Kelpie,
you will have to keep me too, for not a creature else will she let near
her.”
“And pray tell me what use then can I make of such an animal,” said
Florimel.
“Your ladyship, I should imagine, will want a groom to attend you when
you are out on horseback, and the groom will want a horse-- and here am
I and Kelpie!” answered Malcolm.
Florimel laughed.
“I see,” she said. “You contrive I shall have a horse nobody can manage
but yourself.”
She rather liked the idea of a groom so mounted, and had too much
well-justified faith in Malcolm to anticipate dangerous results.
“My lady,” said Malcolm, appealing to her knowledge of his character to
secure credit, for he was about to use his last means of persuasion,
and as he spoke, in his eagerness he relapsed into his mother
tongue,--“My lady, did I ever tell ye a lee?”
“Certainly not, Malcolm, so far as I know. Indeed I am sure you never
did,” answered Florimel, looking up at him in a dominant yet kindly way.
“Then,” continued Malcolm, “I’ll tell your ladyship something you
may find hard to believe, and yet is as true as that I loved your
ladyship’s father.--Your ladyship knows he had a kindness for me.”
“I do know it,” answered Florimel gently, moved by the tone of
Malcolm’s voice, and the expression of his countenance.
“Then I make bold to tell your ladyship that on his deathbed your
father desired me to do my best for you--took my word that I would be
your ladyship’s true servant.”
“Is it so, indeed, Malcolm?” returned Florimel, with a serious wonder
in her tone, and looked him in the face with an earnest gaze. She had
loved her father, and it sounded in her ears almost like a message from
the tomb.
“It’s as true as I stan’ here, my leddy,” said Malcolm.
Florimel was silent for a moment. Then she said, “How is it that only
now you come to tell me?”
“Your father never desired me to tell you, my lady--only he never
imagined you would want to part with me, I suppose. But when you did
not care to keep me, and never said a word to me when you went away,
I could not tell how to do as I had promised him. It wasn’t that one
hour I forgot his wish, but that I feared to presume; for if I should
displease your ladyship my chance was gone. So I kept about Lossie
House as long as I could, hoping to see my way to some plan or other.
But when at length Mr Crathie turned me away, what was I to do but come
to your ladyship? And if your ladyship will let things be as before
in the way of service, I mean--I canna doot, my leddy, but it’ll be
pleesant i’ the sicht o’ yer father, whanever he may come to ken o’ ’t,
my leddy.”
Florimel gave him a strange, half-startled look. Hardly more than once
since her father’s funeral had she heard him alluded to, and now this
fisher-lad spoke of him as if he were still at Lossie House.
Malcolm understood the look.
“Ye mean, my leddy--I ken what ye mean,” he said. “I canna help it. For
to lo’e onything is to ken ’t immortal. He’s livin’ to me, my leddy.”
Florimel continued staring, and still said nothing.
I sometimes think that the present belief in mortality is nothing but
the almost universal although unsuspected unbelief in immortality grown
vocal and articulate.
But Malcolm gathered courage and went on,
“An’ what for no, my leddy?” he said, floundering no more in attempted
English, but soaring on the clumsy wings of his mother-dialect. “Didna
he turn his face to the licht afore he dee’d? an’ him ’at rase frae
the deid said ’at whaever believed in him sud never dee. Sae we maun
believe ’at he’s livin’, for gien we dinna believe what _he_ says, what
_are_ we to believe, my leddy?”
Florimel continued yet a moment looking him fixedly in the face. The
thought did arise that perhaps he had lost his reason, but she could
not look at him thus and even imagine it. She remembered how strange
he had always been, and for a moment had a glimmering idea that in
this young man’s friendship she possessed an incorruptible treasure.
The calm, truthful, believing, almost for the moment enthusiastic,
expression of the young fisherman’s face wrought upon her with a
strangely quieting influence. It was as if one spoke to her out of a
region of existence of which she had never even heard, but in whose
reality she was compelled to believe because of the sound of the voice
that came from it.
Malcolm seldom made the mistake of stamping into the earth any seeds of
truth he might cast on it: he knew when to say no more, and for a time
neither spoke. But now for all the coolness of her upper crust, Lady
Florimel’s heart glowed--not indeed with the power of the shining truth
Malcolm had uttered, but with the light of gladness in the possession
of such a strong, devoted, disinterested squire.
“I wish you to understand,” she said at length, “that I am not at
present mistress of this house, although it belongs to me. I am but
the guest of Lady Bellair who has rented it of my guardians. I cannot
therefore arrange for you to be here. But you can find accommodation
in the neighbourhood, and come to me every day for orders. Let me know
when your mare arrives: I shall not want you till then. You will find
room for her in the stables. You had better consult the butler about
your groom’s-livery.”
Malcolm was astonished at the womanly sufficiency with which she gave
her orders. He left her with the gladness of one who has had his
righteous desire, held consultation with the butler on the matter
of the livery, and went home to his lodging. There he sat down and
meditated.
A strange new yearning pity rose in his heart as he thought about his
sister and the sad facts of her lonely condition. He feared much that
her stately composure was built mainly on her imagined position in
society, and was not the outcome of her character. Would it be cruelty
to destroy that false foundation, hardly the more false as a foundation
for composure that beneath it lay a mistake? --or was it not rather
a justice which her deeper and truer self had a right to demand of
him? At present, however, he need not attempt to answer the question.
Communication even such as a trusted groom might have with her, and
familiarity with her surroundings, would probably reveal much. Meantime
it was enough that he would now be so near her that no important change
of which others might be aware, could well approach her without his
knowledge, or anything take place without his being able to interfere
if necessary.