THE EVE OF THE CRISIS.
It was late in the sweetest of summer mornings when the Partan’s boat
slipped slowly back with a light wind to the harbour of Portlossie.
Malcolm did not wait to land the fish, but having changed his clothes
and taken breakfast with Duncan, who was always up early, went to
look after Kelpie. When he had done with her, finding some of the
household already in motion, he went through the kitchen, and up the
old cork-screw stone stair to his room to have the sleep he generally
had before his breakfast. Presently came a knock at his door, and there
was Rose.
The girl’s behaviour to Malcolm was much changed. The conviction had
been strengthened in her that he was not what he seemed, and she
regarded him now with a vague awe. She looked this way and that along
the passage, with fear in her eyes, then stepped timidly inside the
room to tell him, in a hurried whisper, that she had seen the woman who
gave her the poisonous philtre, talking to Caley the night before, at
the foot of the bridge, after everybody else was in bed. She had been
miserable till she could warn him. He thanked her heartily, and said he
would be on his guard; he would neither eat nor drink in the house. She
crept softly away. He secured the door, lay down, and trying to think
fell asleep.
When he woke his brain was clear. The very next day, whether Lenorme
came or not, he would declare himself. That night he would go fishing
with Lady Clementina, but not one day longer would he allow those
people to be about his sister. Who could tell what might not be
brewing, or into what abyss, with the help of her _friends_, the woman
Catanach might not plunge Florimel?
He rose, took Kelpie out, and had a good gallop. On his way back he
saw in the distance Florimel riding with Liftore. The earl was on his
father’s bay mare. He could not endure the sight, and dashed home at
full speed.
Learning from Rose that Lady Clementina was in the flower-garden, he
found her at the swan-basin, feeding the gold and silver fishes. An
under-gardener who had been about the place for thirty years, was at
work not far off. The light splash of the falling column which the
marble swan spouted from its upturned beak, prevented her from hearing
his approach until he was close behind her. She turned, and her fair
face took the flush of a white rose.
“My lady,” he said, “I have got everything arranged for to-night.”
“And when shall we go?” she asked eagerly.
“At the turn of the tide, about half-past seven. But seven is your
dinner hour.”
“It is of no consequence.--But could you not make it half an hour
later, and then I should not seem rude?”
“Make it any hour you please, my lady, so long as the tide is falling.”
“Let it be eight then, and dinner will be almost over. They will not
miss me after that. Mr Cairns is going to dine with them. I think,
except Liftore, I never disliked a man so much. Shall I tell them where
I am going?”
“Yes, my lady. It will be better.--They will look amazed--for all their
breeding!”
“Whose boat is it, that I may be able to tell them if they should ask
me?”
“Joseph Mair’s. He and his wife will come and fetch you. Annie Mair
will go with us--if I may say _us_: will you allow me to go in your
boat, my lady?”
“I couldn’t go without you, Malcolm.”
“Thank you, my lady. Indeed I don’t know how I could let you go without
me! Not that there is anything to fear, or that I could make it the
least safer; but somehow it seems my business to take care of you.”
“Like Kelpie?” said Clementina, with a merrier smile than he had ever
seen on her face before.
“Yes, my lady,” answered Malcolm; “--if to do for you all and the best
you will permit me to do, be to take care of you like Kelpie, then so
it is.”
Clementina gave a little sigh.
“Mind you don’t scruple, my lady, to give what orders you please. It
will be _your_ fishing-boat for to-night.”
Clementina bowed her head in acknowledgment.
“And now, my lady,” Malcolm went on, “just look about you for a moment.
See this great vault of heaven, full of golden light raining on trees
and flowers--every atom of air shining. Take the whole into your heart,
that you may feel the difference at night, my lady --when the stars,
and neither sun nor moon, will be in the sky, and all the flowers they
shine on will be their own flitting, blinking, swinging, shutting and
opening reflections in the swaying floor of the ocean,--when the heat
will be gone, and the air clean and clear as the thoughts of a saint.”
Clementina did as he said, and gazed above and around her on the glory
of the summer day overhanging the sweet garden, and on the flowers that
had just before been making her heart ache with their unattainable
secret. But she thought with herself that if Malcolm and she but shared
it with a common heart as well as neighboured eyes, gorgeous day and
ethereal night, or snow-clad wild and sky of stormy blackness, were
alike welcome to her spirit.
As they talked they wandered up the garden, and had drawn near the
spot where, in the side of the glen, was hollowed the cave of the
hermit. They now turned towards the pretty arbour of moss that covered
its entrance, each thinking the other led, but Malcolm not without
reluctance. For how horribly and unaccountably had he not been shaken,
the only time he ever entered it, at the sight of the hermit! The thing
was a foolish wooden figure, no doubt, but the thought that it still
sat over its book in the darkest corner of the cave, ready to rise and
advance with outstretched hand to welcome its visitor, had, ever since
then, sufficed to make him shudder. He was on the point of warning
Clementina lest she too should be worse than startled, when he was
arrested by the voice of John Jack, the old gardener, who came stooping
after them, looking a sexton of flowers.
“Ma’colm, Ma’colm!” he cried, and crept up wheezing. “--I beg yer
leddyship’s pardon, my leddy, but I wadna ha’e Ma’colm lat ye gang in
there ohn tellt ye what there is inside.”
“Thank you, John. I was just going to tell my lady,” said Malcolm.
“Because, ye see,” pursued John, “I was ae day here i’ the gairden
--an’ I was jist graftin’ a bonny wull rose-buss wi’ a Hector o’
France--an’ it grew to be the bonniest rose-buss in a’ the haill
gairden--whan the markis, no the auld markis, but my leddy’s father,
cam up the walk there, an’ a bonny yoong leddy wi’ his lordship, as it
micht be yersels twa--an’ I beg yer pardon, my leddy, but I’m an auld
man noo, an’ whiles forgets the differs ’atween fowk--an’ this yoong
leddy ’at they ca’d Miss Cam’ell-- ye kenned her yersel’ efterhin’,
I daursay, Ma’colm--he was unco ta’en wi’ her, the markis, as ilka
body cud see ohn luikit that near, sae ’at some saich ’at hoo he hed
no richt to gang on wi’ her that gait, garrin’ her believe, gien he
wasna gaein’ to merry her. That’s naither here nor there, hooever,
seein’ it a’ cam to jist naething ava’. Sae up they gaed to the cave
yon’er, as I was tellin’ ye; an’ hoo it was, was a won’er, for I s’
warran’ she had been aboot the place near a towmon (_twelvemonth_),
but never had she been intill that cave, and kenned no more nor the
bairn unborn what there was in ’t. An’ sae whan the airemite, as the
auld minister ca’d him, though what for he ca’d a muckle block like
yon an _airy-mite_, I’m sure I never cud fathom--whan he gat up, as I
was sayin’, an’ cam foret wi’ his han’ oot, she gae a scraich ’at jist
garred my lugs dirl, an’ doon she drappit, an’ there, whan I ran up,
was she lyin’ i’ the markis his airms, as white ’s a cauk eemege, an’
it was lang or he broucht her till hersel’, for he wadna lat me rin for
the hoosekeeper, but sent me fleein’ to the f’untain for watter, an’
gied me a gowd guinea to haud my tongue aboot it a’. Sae noo, my leddy,
ye’re fore-warnt, an’ no ill can come to ye, for there’s naething to be
fleyt at whan ye ken what’s gauin’ to meet ye.”
Malcolm had turned his head aside, and now moved on without remark.
Struck by his silence, Clementina looked up, and saw his face very
pale, and the tears standing in his eyes.
“You must tell me the sad story, Malcolm,” she murmured. “I could
scarcely understand a word the old man said.”
He continued silent, and seemed struggling with some emotion. But when
they were within a few paces of the arbour, he stopped short, and said--
“I would rather not go in there to-day. You would oblige me, my lady,
if you would not go.”
She looked up at him again, with wonder but more concern in her lovely
face, put her hand on his arm, gently turned him away, and walked back
with him to the fountain. Not a word more did she say about the matter.