The Marquis of Lossie, George MacDonald [freda ebook reader .TXT] 📗

suppose I don't!" she cried, half defiantly, half merrily; and drawing herself from him, she stepped back two paces, and looked at him with saucy eyes, in which burned two little flames of displeasure, that seemed to shoot up from the red spots glowing upon her cheeks. Lenorme looked at her. He had often seen her like this before, and knew that the shell was charged and the fuse lighted. But within lay a mixture even more explosive than he suspected; for not merely was there more of shame and fear and perplexity mingled with her love than he understood, but she was conscious of having now been false to him, and that rendered her temper dangerous.

Lenorme had already suffered severely from the fluctuations of her moods. They had been almost too much for him. He could endure them, he thought, to all eternity, if he had her to himself, safe and sure; but the confidence to which he rose every now and then that she would one day be his, just as often failed him, rudely shaken by some new symptom of what almost seemed like cherished inconstancy. If after all she should forsake him! It was impossible, but she might. If even that should come, he was too much of a man to imagine anything but a stern encounter of the inevitable, and he knew he would survive it; but he knew also that life could never be the same again; that for a season work would be impossible- the kind of work he had hitherto believed his own rendered for ever impossible perhaps, and his art degraded to the mere earning of a living. At best he would have to die and be buried and rise again before existence could become endurable under the new squalid condition of life without her. It was no wonder then if her behaviour sometimes angered him; for even against a Will o' the Wisp that has enticed us into a swamp, a glow of foolish indignation will spring up. And now a black fire in his eyes answered the blue flash in hers; and the difference suggests the diversity of their loves: hers might vanish in fierce explosion, his would go on burning like a coal mine. A word of indignant expostulation rose to his lips, but a thought came that repressed it. He took her hand, and led her-the wonder was that she yielded, for she had seen the glow in his eyes, and the fuse of her own anger burned faster; but she did yield, partly from curiosity, and followed where he pleased -her hand lying dead in his. It was but to the other end of the room he led her, to the picture of her father, now all but finished. Why he did so, he would have found it hard to say. Perhaps the Genius that lies under the consciousness forefelt a catastrophe, and urged him to give his gift ere giving should be impossible.

Malcolm stepped into the drawing room, where the table was laid as usual for breakfast: there stood Caley, helping herself to a spoonful of honey from Hymettus. At his entrance she started violently, and her sallow face grew earthy. For some seconds she stood motionless, unable to take her eyes off the apparition, as it seemed to her, of the late marquis, in wrath at her encouragement of his daughter in disgraceful courses. Malcolm, supposing only she was ashamed of herself, took no farther notice of her, and walked deliberately towards the other door. Ere he reached it she knew him. Burning with the combined ires of fright and shame, conscious also that, by the one little contemptible act of greed in which he had surprised her, she had justified the aversion which her woman instinct had from the first recognized in him, she darted to the door, stood with her back against it, and faced him flaming.

"So!" she cried, "this is how my lady's kindness is abused! The insolence! Her groom goes and sits for his portrait in her father's court dress!"

As she ceased, all the latent vulgarity of her nature broke loose, and with a contracted pff she seized her thin nose between her thumb and forefinger, to the indication that an evil odour of fish interpenetrated her atmosphere, and must at the moment be defiling the garments of the dead marquis.

"My lady shall know of this," she concluded, with a vicious clenching of her teeth, and two or three nods of her neat head.

Malcolm stood regarding her with a coolness that yet inflamed her wrath. He could not help smiling at the reaction of shame in indignation. Had her anger been but a passing flame, that smile would have turned it into enduring hate. She hissed in his face.

"Go and have the first word," he said; "only leave the door and let me pass."

"Let you pass indeed! What would you pass for?-The bastard of old Lord James and a married woman!-I don't care that for you." And she snapped her fingers in his face.

Malcolm turned from her and went to the window, taking a. newspaper from the breakfast table as he passed, and there sat down to read until the way should be clear. Carried beyond herself by his utter indifference, Caley darted from the room and went straight into the study.

Lenorme led Florimel in front of the picture. She gave a great start, and turned and stared pallid at the painter. The effect upon her was such as he had not foreseen, and the words she uttered were not such as he could have hoped to hear.

"What would he think of me if he knew?" she cried, clasping her hands in agony.

That moment Caley burst into the room, her eyes lamping like a cat's.

"My lady!" she shrieked, "there's MacPhail, the groom, my lady, dressed up in your honoured father's bee-utiful clo'es as he always wore when he went to dine with the Prince! And, please, my lady, he's that rude I could 'ardly keep my 'ands off him."

Florimel flashed a dagger of question in Lenorme's eyes. The painter drew himself up.

"It was at my request, Lady Lossie," he said.

"Indeed!" returned Florimel, in high scorn, and glanced again at the picture.

"I see!" she went on. "How could I be such an idiot! It was my groom's, not my father's likeness you meant to surprise me with!"

Her eyes flashed as if she would annihilate him.

"I have worked hard in the hope of giving you pleasure, Lady Lossie," said the painter, with wounded dignity.

"And you have failed," she adjoined cruelly.

The painter took the miniature after which he had been working, from a table near, handed it to her with a proud obeisance, and the same moment dashed a brushful of dark paint across the face of the picture.

"Thank you, sir," said Florimel, and for a moment felt as if she hated him.

She turned away and walked from the study. The door of the drawing room was open, and Caley stood by the side of it. Florimel, too angry to consider what she was about, walked in: there sat Malcolm in the window, in her father's clothes, and his very attitude, reading the newspaper. He did not hear her enter. He had been waiting till he could reach the bedroom unseen by her, for he knew from the sound of the voices that the study door was open. Her anger rose yet higher at the sight.

"Leave the room," she said.

He started to his feet, and now perceived that his sister was in the dress of a servant. He took one step forward and stood-a little mazed-gorgeous in dress and arms of price, before his mistress in the cotton gown of a housemaid.

"Take those clothes off instantly," said Florimel slowly, replacing wrath with haughtiness as well as she might. Malcolm turned to the door without a word. He saw that things had gone wrong where most he would have wished them go right.

"I'll see to them being well aired, my lady," said Caley, with sibilant indignation.

Malcolm went to the study. The painter sat before the picture of the marquis, with his elbows on his knees, and his head between his hands.

"Mr Lenorme," said Malcolm, approaching him gently.

"Oh, go away," said Lenorme, without raising his head. "I can't bear the sight of you yet."

Malcolm obeyed, a little smile playing about the corners of his mouth. Caley saw it as he passed, and hated him yet worse. He was in his own clothes, booted and belted, in two minutes. Three sufficed to replace his father's garments in the portmanteau, and in three more he and Kelpie went plunging past his mistress and her maid as they drove home in their lumbering vehicle.

"The insolence of the fellow!" said Caley, loud enough for her mistress to hear notwithstanding the noise of the rattling windows. "A pretty pass we are come to!"

But already Florimel's mood had begun to change. She felt that she had done her best to alienate men on whom she could depend, and that she had chosen for a confidante one whom she had no ground for trusting.

She got safe and unseen to her room; and Caley believed she had only to improve the advantage she had now gained.


CHAPTER XXXI: THE TWO DAIMONS


Things had taken a turn that was not to Malcolm's satisfaction, and his thoughts were as busy all the way home as Kelpie would allow. He had ardently desired that his sister should be thoroughly in love with Lenorme, for that seemed to open a clear path out of his worst difficulties; now they had quarrelled; and besides were both angry with him. The main fear was that Liftore would now make some progress with her. Things looked dangerous. Even his warning against Caley had led to a result the very opposite of his intent and desire. And now it recurred to him that he had once come upon Liftore talking to Caley, and giving her something that shone like a sovereign.

Earlier on the same morning of her visit to the studio, Florimel had awaked and found herself in the presence of the spiritual Vehmgericht. Every member of the tribunal seemed against her. All her thoughts were busy accusing, none of them excusing one another. So hard were they upon her that she fancied she had nearly come to the conclusion that, if only she could do it pleasantly, without pain or fear, the best thing would be to swallow something and fall asleep; for like most people she was practically an atheist, and therefore always thought of death as the refuge from the ills of life. But although she was often very uncomfortable, Florimel knew nothing of such genuine downright misery as drives some people to what can be no more to their purpose than if a man should strip himself naked because he is cold. When she returned from her unhappy visit, and had sent her attendant to get her some tea, she threw herself upon her bed, and found herself yet again in the dark chambers of the spiritual police. But already even their company was preferable to that of Caley, whose officiousness began to enrage her. She was yet tossing in the Nessus tunic of her own disharmony, when Malcolm came for orders. To get rid of herself and Caley both, she desired him to bring the horses round at once.

It was more than Malcolm had expected. He ran: he might yet have a chance of trying to turn her in the