THE PSYCHE.
It was a lovely day, but Florimel would not ride: Malcolm must go at
once to Mr Lenorme; she would not go out again until she could have a
choice of horses to follow her.
“Your Kelpie is all very well in Richmond Park, and I wish I were able
to ride her myself, Malcolm, but she will never do in London.”
His name sounded sweet on her lips, but somehow to-day, for the first
time since he saw her first, he felt a strange sense of superiority in
his protection of her: could it be because he had that morning looked
unto a higher orb of creation? It mattered little to Malcolm’s generous
nature that the voice that issued therefrom had been one of unjust
rebuke.
“Who knows, my lady,” he answered his mistress, “but you may ride
her some day! Give her a bit of sugar every time you see her-- on
your hand, so that she may take it with her lips, and not catch your
fingers.”
“You shall show me how,” said Florimel, and gave him a note for Mr
Lenorme.
When he came in sight of the river, there, almost opposite the
painter’s house, lay his own little yacht! He thought of Kelpie in the
stable, saw Psyche floating like a swan in the reach, made two or three
long strides, then sought to exhale the pride of life in thanksgiving.
The moment his arrival was announced to Lenorme, he came down and went
with him, and in an hour or two they had found very much the sort of
horse they wanted. Malcolm took him home for trial, and Florimel was
pleased with him. The earl’s opinion was not to be had, for he had hurt
his shoulder when he fell from the rearing Kelpie the day before, and
was confined to his room in Curzon Street.
In the evening Malcolm put on his yachter’s uniform, and set out
again for Chelsea. There he took a boat, and crossed the river to the
yacht, which lay near the other side, in charge of an old salt whose
acquaintance Blue Peter had made when lying below the bridges. On board
he found all tidy and ship-shape. He dived into the cabin, lighted a
candle, and made some measurements: all the little luxuries of the
nest, carpets, cushions, curtains, and other things, were at Lossie
House, having been removed when the Psyche was laid up for the winter:
he was going to replace them. And he was anxious to see whether he
could not fulfil a desire he had once heard Florimel express to her
father--that she had a bed on board, and could sleep there. He found
it possible, and had soon contrived a berth: even a tiny stateroom was
within the limits of construction.
Returning to the deck, he was consulting Travers about a carpenter,
when, to his astonishment, he saw young Davy, the boy he had brought
from Duff Harbour, and whom he understood to have gone back with Blue
Peter, gazing at him from before the mast.
“Gien ye please, Maister MacPhail,” said Davy, and said no more.
“How on earth do _you_ come to be here, you rascal?” said Malcolm.
“Peter was to take you home with him!”
“I garred him think I was gauin’,” answered the boy, scratching his red
poll, which glowed in the dusk.
“I gave him your wages,” said Malcolm.
“Ay, he tauld me that, but I loot them gang an’ gae him the slip, an’
was ashore close ahint yersel’, sir, jist as the smack set sail. I
cudna gang ohn hed a word wi’ yersel’, sir, to see whether ye wadna lat
me bide wi’ ye, sir. I haena muckle wut, they tell me, sir, but gien I
michtna aye be able to du what ye tell’t me to du, I cud aye haud ohn
dune what ye tell’t me no to.”
The words of the boy pleased Malcolm more than he judged it wise to
manifest. He looked hard at Davy. There was little to be seen in his
face except the best and only thing--truth. It shone from his round
pale blue eyes; it conquered the self-assertion of his unhappy nose; it
seemed to glow in every freckle of his sunburnt cheeks, as earnestly he
returned Malcolm’s gaze.
“But,” said Malcolm, almost satisfied, “how is this, Travers? I never
gave you any instructions about the boy.”
“There’s where it is, sir,” answered Travers. “I seed the boy aboard
before, and when he come aboard again, jest arter you left, I never as
much as said to myself, It’s all right. I axed him no questions, and he
told me no lies.”
“Gien ye please, sir,” struck in Davy, “Maister Trahvers gied me my
mait, an’ I tuik it, ’cause I hed no sil’er to buy ony: I houp it wasna
stealin’, sir. An’ gien ye wad keep me, ye cud tak it aff o’ my wauges
for three days.”
“Look here, Davy,” said Malcolm, turning sharp upon him, “can you swim?”
“Ay can I, sir,--weel that,” answered Davy.
“Jump overboard then, and swim ashore,” said Malcolm, pointing to the
Chelsea bank.
The boy made two strides to the larboard gunwale, and would have been
over the next instant, but Malcolm caught him by the shoulder.
“That’ll do, Davy; I’ll give you a chance, Davy,” he said, “and if I
get a good account of you from Travers, I’ll rig you out like myself
here.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Davy. “I s’ du what I can to please ye, sir. An’
gien ye wad sen’ my wauges hame to my mither, sir, ye wad ken ’at I
cudna be gauin’ stravaguin’, and drinkin’ whan yer back was turn’t.”
“Well, I’ll write to your mother, and see what she says,” said Malcolm.
“Now I want to tell you, both of you, that this yacht belongs to the
Marchioness of Lossie, and I have the command of her, and I must have
everything on board ship-shape, and as clean, Travers, as if she were
a seventy-four. If there’s the head of a nail visible, it must be
as bright as silver. And everything must be at the word. The least
hesitation, and I have done with that man. If Davy here had grumbled
one mouthful, even on his way overboard, I wouldn’t have kept him.”
He then arranged that Travers was to go home that night, and bring with
him the next morning an old carpenter friend of his. He would himself
be down by seven o’clock to set him to work.
The result was that, before a fortnight was over, he had the cabin
thoroughly fitted up, with all the luxuries it had formerly possessed,
and as many more as he could think of--to compensate for the loss of
the space occupied by the daintiest little stateroom --a very jewel box
for softness and richness and comfort. In the cabin, amongst the rest
of his additions, he had fixed in a corner a set of tiny bookshelves,
and filled them with what books he knew his sister liked, and some that
he liked for her. It was not probable she would read in them much, he
said to himself, but they wouldn’t make the boat heel, and who could
tell when a drop of celestial nepenthe might ooze from one or another
of them! So there they stood, in their lovely colours, of morocco,
russia, calf or vellum --types of the infinite rest in the midst of the
ever restless-- the types for ever tossed, but the rest remaining.
By that time also he had arranged with Travers and Davy a code of
signals.
The day after Malcolm had his new hack, he rode him behind his mistress
in the park, and nothing could be more decorous than the behaviour of
both horse and groom. It was early, and in Rotten Row, to his delight,
they met the lady of rebuke. She and Florimel pulled up simultaneously,
greeted, and had a little talk. When they parted, and the lady came to
pass Malcolm, whom she had not suspected, sitting a civilised horse
in all serenity behind his mistress, she cast a quick second glance
at him, and her fair face flushed with the red reflex of yesterday’s
anger. He expected her to turn at once and complain of him to her
mistress, but to his disappointment, she rode on.
When they left the park, Florimel went down Constitution Hill, and
turning westward, rode to Chelsea. As they approached Mr Lenorme’s
house, she stopped and said to Malcolm--
“I am going to run in and thank Mr Lenorme for the trouble he has been
at about the horse. Which is the house?”
She pulled up at the gate. Malcolm dismounted, but before he could get
near to assist her, she was already halfway up the walk-- flying, and
he was but in time to catch the rein of Abbot, already moving off,
curious to know whether he was actually trusted alone. In about five
minutes she came again, glancing about her all ways but behind, with a
scared look, Malcolm thought. But she walked more slowly and statelily
than usual down the path. In a moment Malcolm had her in the saddle,
and she cantered away--past the hospital into Sloane Street, and across
the park home. He said to himself, “She knows the way.”