AN INNOCENT PLOT.
Florimel and Lady Clementina Thornicroft, the same who in the park
rebuked Malcolm for his treatment of Kelpie, had met several times
during the spring, and had been mutually attracted--Florimel as to a
nature larger, more developed, more self-supporting than her own, and
Lady Clementina as to one who, it was plain, stood in sore need of what
countenance and encouragement to good and free action the friendship
of one more experienced might afford her. Lady Clementina was but a
few years older than Florimel, it is true, but had shown a courage
which had already wrought her an unquestionable influence, and that
chiefly with the best. The root of this courage was compassion. Her
rare humanity of heart would, at the slightest appearance of injustice,
drive her like an angel with a flaming sword against customs regarded,
consciously or unconsciously, as the very buttresses of social
distinction. Anything but a wise woman, she had yet so much in her of
what is essential to all wisdom-- love to her kind--that, if as yet she
had done little but blunder, she had at least blundered beautifully. On
every society that had for its declared end the setting right of wrong
or the alleviation of misery, she lavished, and mostly wasted, her
money. Every misery took to her the shape of a wrong. Hence to every
mendicant that could trump up a plausible story, she offered herself a
willing prey. Even when the barest-faced imposition was brought home to
one of the race parasitical, her first care was to find all possible
excuse for his conduct: it was matter of pleasure to her friends when
she stopped there, and made no attempt at absolute justification.
Left like Florimel an orphan, but at a yet earlier age, she had been
brought up with a care that had gone over into severity, against which
her nature had revolted with an energy that gathered strength from her
own repression of its signs; and when she came of age, and took things
into her own hands, she carried herself in its eyes so oddly, yet with
such sweetness and dignity and consistency in her oddest extravagances,
that society honoured her even when it laughed at her, loved her,
listened to her, applauded, approved--did everything except imitate
her--which indeed was just as well, for else confusion would have
been worse confounded. She was always rushing to defence--with money,
with indignation, with refuge. It would look like a caricature did I
record the number of charities to which she belonged, and the various
societies which, in the exuberance of her passionate benevolence, she
had projected and of necessity abandoned. Yet still the fire burned,
for her changes were from no changeableness: through them all the
fundamental operation of her character remained the same. The case was
that, for all her headlong passion for deliverance, she could not help
discovering now and then, through an occasional self-assertion of that
real good sense which her rampant and unsubjected benevolence could but
overlay, not finally smother, that she was either doing nothing at all,
or more evil than good.
The lack of discipline in her goodness came out in this, at times
amusingly, that she would always at first side with the lower or weaker
or worse. If a dog had torn a child, and was going to be killed in
consequence, she would not only intercede for the dog, but absolutely
side with him, mentioning this and that provocation which the naughty
child must have given him ere he could have been goaded to the deed.
Once when the schoolmaster in her village was going to cane a boy
for cruelty to a cripple, she pleaded for his pardon on the ground
that it was worse to be cruel than to be a cripple, and therefore
more to be pitied. Everything painful was to her cruel, and softness
and indulgence, moral honey and sugar and nuts to all alike, was the
panacea for human ills. She could not understand that infliction might
be loving kindness. On one occasion when a boy was caught in the act of
picking her pocket, she told the policeman he was doing nothing of the
sort--he was only searching for a lozenge for his terrible cough; and
in proof of her asserted conviction, she carried him home with her, but
lost him before morning, as well as the spoon with which he had eaten
his gruel.
As to her person I have already made a poor attempt at describing it.
She might have been grand but for loveliness. When she drew herself up
in indignation, however, she would look grand for the one moment ere
the blood rose to her cheek, and the water to her eyes. She would have
taken the whole world to her infinite heart, and in unwisdom coddled it
into corruption. Praised be the grandeur of the God who can endure to
make and see his children suffer. Thanks be to him for his north winds
and his poverty, and his bitterness that falls upon the spirit that
errs: let those who know him thus praise the Lord for his goodness. But
Lady Clementina had not yet descried the face of the Son of Man through
the mists of Mount Sinai, and she was not one to justify the ways of
God to men. Not the less was it the heart of God in her that drew her
to the young marchioness, over whom was cast the shadow of a tree
that gave but baneful shelter. She liked her frankness, her activity,
her daring, and fancied that, like herself she was at noble feud with
that infernal parody of the kingdom of heaven, called Society. She did
not well understand her relation to Lady Bellair, concerning whom she
was in doubt whether or not she was her legal guardian, but she saw
plainly enough that the countess wanted to secure her for her nephew,
and this nephew had about him a certain air of perdition, which even
the catholic heart of Lady Clementina could not brook. She saw too
that, being a mere girl, and having no scope of choice in the limited
circle of their visitors, she was in great danger of yielding without
a struggle, and she longed to take her in charge like a poor little
persecuted kitten, for the possession of which each of a family of
children was contending. What if her father had belonged to a rowdy
set, was that any reason why his innocent daughter should be devoured,
body and soul and possessions, by those of the same set who had not
yet perished in their sins? Lady Clementina thanked Heaven that she
came herself of decent people, who paid their debts, dared acknowledge
themselves in the wrong, and were as honest as if they had been born
peasants; and she hoped a shred of the mantle of their good name had
dropped upon her, big enough to cover also this poor little thing
who had come of no such parentage. With her passion for redemption
therefore, she seized every chance of improving her acquaintance with
Florimel, and it was her anxiety to gain such a standing in her favour
as might further her coveted ministration, that had prevented her
from bringing her charge of brutality against Malcolm as soon as she
discovered whose groom he was: when she had secured her footing on the
peak of her friendship, she would unburden her soul, and meantime the
horse must suffer for his mistress--a conclusion in itself a great
step in advance, for it went dead against one of her most confidently
argued principles, namely, that the pain of any animal is, in every
sense, of just as much consequence as the pain of any other, human or
inferior: pain is pain, she said; and equal pains are equal wherever
they sting;--in which she would have been right, I think, if pain and
suffering were the same thing; but, knowing well that the same degree
and even the same kind of pain means two very different things in the
foot and in the head, I refuse the proposition.
Happily for Florimel, she had by this time made progress enough to
venture a proposal--namely, that she should accompany her to a small
estate she had on the south coast, with a little ancient house upon
it--a strange place altogether, she said--to spend a week or two in
absolute quiet--only she must come alone-- without even a maid: she
would take none herself. This she said because, with the instinct, if
not quite insight, of a true nature, she could not endure the woman
Caley.
“Will you come with me there for a fortnight?” she concluded.
“I shall be delighted,” returned Florimel, without a moment’s
hesitation. “I am getting quite sick of London. There’s no room in it.
And there’s the spring all outside, and can’t get in here! I shall be
only too glad to go with you, you dear creature!”
“And on those hard terms--no maid, you know?” insisted Clementina.
“The only thing wanted to make the pleasure complete! I shall be
charmed to be rid of her.”
“I am glad to see you so independent.”
“You don’t imagine me such a baby as not to be able to get on without a
maid! You should have seen me in Scotland! I hated having a woman about
me then. And indeed I don’t like it a bit better now --only everybody
has one, and your clothes want looking after,” added Florimel, thinking
what a weight it would be off her if she could get rid of Caley
altogether. “--But I _should_ like to take my horse,” she said. “I
don’t know what I should do in the country without Abbot.”
“Of course; we must have our horses,” returned Clementina. “And--
yes--you had better bring your groom.”
“Please. You will find him very useful. He can do anything and
everything---and is so kind and helpful!”
“Except to his horse,” Clementina was on the point of saying, but
thought again she would first secure the mistress, and bide her time to
attack the man.
Before they parted, the two ladies had talked themselves into ecstasies
over the anticipated enjoyments of their scheme. It must be carried out
at once.
“Let us tell nobody,” said Lady Clementina, “and set off to-morrow.”
“Enchanting!” cried Florimel, in full response.
Then her brow clouded.
“There is one difficulty, though,” she said. “--No man could ride
Kelpie with a led horse; and if we had to employ another, Liftore would
be sure to hear where we had gone.”
“That would spoil all,” said Clementina. “But how much better it would
be to give that poor creature a rest, and bring the other I see him on
sometimes!”
“And by the time we came back, there would not be a living creature,
horse or man, anything bigger than a rat, about the stable. Kelpie
herself would be dead of hunger, if she hadn’t been shot. No, no; where
Malcolm goes Kelpie must go. Besides, she’s such fun--you can’t think!”
“Then I’ll tell you what!” cried Clementina, after a moment’s pause of
perplexity: “we’ll _ride_ down! It’s not a hundred miles, and we can
take as many days on the road as we please.”
“Better and better!” cried Florimel. “We’ll run away with each
other.--But what will dear old Bellair say?”
“Never mind her,” rejoined Clementina. “She will have nothing to say.
You can write and tell her as much as will keep her from being really
alarmed. Order your man to get everything ready, and I will instruct
mine. He is such a staid old fellow, you know, he will be quite
protection. To-morrow morning we shall set out together for a ride in
Richmond Park--that lying in our way. You can leave a letter on the
breakfast-table, saying you are gone with me for a little quiet. You’re
not in chancery--are you?”
“I don’t know,” answered Florimel. “I suppose I’m all right.-- Any how,
whether I’m in chancery or not, here I am, and going with you; and if
chancery don’t like it, chancery may come and fetch me.”
“Send anything you think you may want to my house. I shall get a box
ready, and we will write from some town on our way to have it sent
there, and then we can write for it from The Gloom. We shall find all
mere _necessaries_ there.”
So the thing was arranged: they would start quite early the next
morning; and that there might be no trouble in the streets, Malcolm
should go before with Kelpie, and wait them in the park.