A CHASTISEMENT.
When she went to her room, there was Caley taking from a portmanteau
the Highland dress which had occasioned so much. A note fell, and she
handed it to her mistress. Florimel opened it, grew pale as she read
it, and asked Caley to bring her a glass of water. No sooner had her
maid left the room than she sprang to the door and bolted it. Then the
tears burst from her eyes, she sobbed despairingly, and but for the
help of her handkerchief would have wailed aloud. When Caley returned,
she answered to her knock that she was lying down, and wanted to sleep.
She was, however, trying to force further communication from the note.
In it the painter told her that he was going to set out the next
morning for Italy, and that her portrait was at the shop of certain
carvers and gliders, being fitted with a frame for which he had made
drawings. Three times she read it, searching for some hidden message to
her heart; she held it up between her and the light; then before the
fire till it crackled like a bit of old parchment; but all was in vain:
by no device, intellectual or physical, could she coax the shadow of a
meaning out of it, beyond what lay plain on the surface. She must, she
_would_ see him again.
That night she was merrier than usual at dinner; after it, sang
ballad after ballad to please Liftore; then went to her room and told
Caley to arrange for yet a visit, the next morning, to Mr Lenorme’s
studio. She positively must, she said, secure her father’s portrait
ere the ill-tempered painter--all men of genius were hasty and
unreasonable--should have destroyed it utterly, as he was certain to do
before leaving--and with that she showed her Lenorme’s letter. Caley
was all service, only said that this time she thought they had better
go openly. She would see Lady Bellair as soon as Lady Lossie was in
bed, and explain the thing to her.
The next morning therefore they drove to Chelsea in the carriage. When
the door opened, Florimel walked straight up to the study. There she
saw no one, and her heart, which had been fluttering strangely, sank,
and was painfully still, while her gaze went wandering about the room.
It fell upon the pictured temple of Isis: a thick dark veil had fallen
and shrouded the whole figure of the goddess, leaving only the outline;
and the form of the worshipping youth had vanished utterly: where he
had stood, the tesselated pavement, with the serpent of life twining
through it, and the sculptured walls of the temple, shone out clear
and bare, as if Hyacinth had walked out into the desert to return no
more. Again the tears gushed from the heart of Florimel: she had sinned
against her own fame--had blotted out a fair memorial record that might
have outlasted the knight of stone under the Norman canopy in Lossie
church. Again she sobbed, again she choked down a cry that had else
become a scream.
Arms were around her. Never doubting whose the embrace, she leaned her
head against his bosom, stayed her sobs with the one word “_Cruel!_”
and slowly opening her tearful eyes, lifted them to the face that bent
over hers. It was Liftore’s. She was dumb with disappointment and
dismay. It was a hateful moment. He kissed her forehead and eyes, and
sought her mouth. She shrieked aloud. In her very agony at the loss
of one to be kissed by another!--and there! It was too degrading! too
horrid!
At the sound of her cry someone started up at the other end of the
room. An easel with a large canvas on it fell, and a man came forward
with great strides. Liftore let her go, with a muttered curse on the
intruder, and she darted from the room into the arms of Caley, who
had had her ear against the other side of the door. The same instant
Malcolm received from his lordship a well planted blow between the
eyes, which filled them with flashes and darkness. The next, the earl
was on the floor. The ancient fury of the Celt had burst up into the
nineteenth century, and mastered a noble spirit. All Malcolm could
afterwards remember was that he came to himself dealing Liftore
merciless blows, his foot on his back, and his weapon the earl’s whip.
His lordship, struggling to rise, turned up a face white with hate and
impotent fury.
“You damned flunkie!” he panted. “I’ll have you shot like a mangy dog.”
“Meanwhile I will chastise you like an insolent nobleman,” said
Malcolm, who had already almost recovered his self-possession. “You
dare to touch my mistress!”
And with the words he gave him one more stinging cut with the whip.
“Stand off, and let it be man to man,” cried Liftore, with a fierce
oath, clenching his teeth in agony and rage.
“That it cannot be, my lord; but I have had enough, and so I hope has
your lordship,” said Malcolm; and as he spoke he threw the whip to the
other end of the room, and stood back. Liftore sprang to his feet, and
rushed at him. Malcolm caught him by the wrist with a fisherman’s grasp.
“My lord, I don’t want to kill you. Take a warning, and let ill be, for
fear of worse,” he said, and threw his hand from him with a swing that
nearly dislocated his shoulder.
The warning sufficed. His lordship cast him one scowl of concentrated
hate and revenge, and leaving the room hurried also from the house.
At the usual morning hour, Malcolm had ridden to Chelsea, hoping to
find his friend in a less despairing and more companionable mood than
when he left him. To his surprise and disappointment he learned that
Lenorme had sailed by the packet to Ostend the night before. He asked
leave to go into the study. There on its easel stood the portrait of
his father as he had last seen it--disfigured with a great smear of
brown paint across the face. He knew that the face was dry, and he
saw that the smear was wet: he would see whether he could not, with
turpentine and a soft brush, remove the insult. In this endeavour he
was so absorbed, and by the picture itself was so divided from the rest
of the room, that he neither saw nor heard anything until Florimel
cried out.
Naturally, those events made him yet more dissatisfied with his
sister’s position. Evil influences and dangers were on all sides
of her--the worst possible outcome being that, loving one man, she
should marry another, and him such a man as Liftore. Whatever he heard
in the servants’ hall, both tone and substance, only confirmed the
unfavourable impression he had had from the first of the bold-faced
countess. The oldest of her servants had, he found, the least respect
for their mistress, although all had a certain liking for her, which
gave their disrespect the heavier import. He _must_ get Florimel away
somehow. While all was right between her and the painter he had been
less anxious about her immediate surroundings, trusting that Lenorme
would ere long deliver her. But now she had driven him from the very
country, and he had left no clue to follow him up by. His housekeeper
could tell nothing of his purposes. The gardener and she were left in
charge as a matter of course. He might be back in a week, or a year;
she could not even conjecture.
Seeming possibilities, in varied mingling with rank absurdities passing
through Malcolm’s mind, as, after Liftore’s punishment, he lifted the
portrait, set it again upon its easel, and went on trying to clean the
face of it--with no small promise of success. But as he made progress
he grew anxious--lest with the defilement, he should remove some of
the colour as well: the painter alone, he concluded at length could be
trusted to restore the work he had ruined.
He left the house, walked across the road to the river-bank, and gave
a short sharp whistle. In an instant Davy was in the dinghy, pulling
for the shore. Malcolm went on board the yacht, saw that all was right,
gave some orders, went ashore again, and mounted Kelpie.