The Marquis of Lossie Part 54

Poor Duncan took it much to heart. She saw more of the minister and his wife, who both flattered her, than anybody else, and was expecting the arrival of Lady Bellair and Lord Liftore with the utmost impatience. They, for their part, were making the journey by the easiest possible stages, tacking and veering, and visiting everyone of their friends that lay between London and Lossie: they thought to give Florimel the little lesson, that, though they accepted her invitation, they had plenty of friends in the world besides her ladyship, and were not dying to see her.

One evening, Malcolm, as he left the grounds of Mr Morrison, on whom he had been calling, saw a travelling carriage pa.s.s towards Portlossie; and something liker fear laid hold of his heart than he had ever felt except when Florimel and he on the night of the storm took her father for Lord Gernon the wizard. As soon as he reached certain available fields, he sent Kelpie tearing across them, dodged through a fir wood, and came out on the road half a mile in front of the carriage: as again it pa.s.sed him he saw that his fears were facts, for in it sat the bold faced countess, and the mean hearted lord. Something must be done at last, and until it was done good watch must be kept.

I must here note that, during this time of hoping and waiting, Malcolm had attended to another matter of importance. Over every element influencing his life, his family, his dependents, his property, he desired to possess a lawful, honest command: where he had to render account, he would be head. Therefore, through Mr Soutar's London agent, to whom he sent up Davy, and whom he brought acquainted with Merton, and his former landlady at the curiosity shop, he had discovered a good deal about Mrs Catanach from her London a.s.sociates, among them the herb doctor, and his little boy who had watched Davy, and he had now almost completed an outline of evidence, which, grounded on that of Rose, might be used against Mrs Catanach at any moment. He had also set inquiries on foot in the track of Caley's antecedents, and had discovered more than the acquaintance between her and Mrs Catanach. Also he had arranged that Hodges, the man who had lost his leg through his cruelty to Kelpie, should leave for Duff Harbour as soon as possible after his discharge from the hospital. He was determined to crush the evil powers which had been ravaging his little world.

CHAPTER LX: AN OFFERING

Clementina was always ready to accord any reasonable request Florimel could make of her; but her letter lifted such a weight from her heart and life that she would now have done whatever she desired, reasonable or unreasonable, provided only it was honest. She had no difficulty in accepting Florimel's explanation that her sudden disappearance was but a breaking of the social gaol, the flight of the weary bird from its foreign cage back to the country of its nest; and that same morning she called upon Demon. The hound, feared and neglected, was rejoiced to see her, came when she called him, and received her caresses: there was no ground for dreading his company. It was a long journey, but if it had been across a desert instead of through her own country, the hope that lay at the end of it would have made it more than pleasant. She, as well as Lady Bellair, had friends upon the way, but no desire to lengthen the journey or shorten its tedium by visiting them.

The letter would have found her at Wastbeach instead of London, had not the society and instructions of the schoolmaster detained her a willing prisoner to its heat and glare and dust. Him only in all London must she see to bid goodbye. To Camden Town therefore she went that same evening, when his work would be over for the day. As usual now, she was shown into his room--his only one.

As usual also, she found him poring over his Greek Testament.

The gracious, graceful woman looked lovelily strange in that mean chamber--like an opal in a bra.s.s ring.

There was no such contrast between the room and its occupant.

His bodily presence was too weak to "stick fiery off" from its surroundings, and to the eye that saw through the bodily presence to the inherent grandeur, that grandeur suggested no discrepancy, being of the kind that lifts everything to its own level, casts the mantle of its own radiance around its surroundings. Still to the eye of love and reverence it was not pleasant to see him in such entourage, and now that Clementina was going to leave him, the ministering spirit that dwelt in the woman was troubled.

"Ah!" he said, and rose as she entered; "this is then the angel of my deliverance!" But with such a smile he did not look as if he had much to be delivered from. "You see," he went on, "old man as I am, and peaceful, the summer will lay hold upon me. She stretches out a long arm into this desert of houses and stones, and sets me longing after the green fields and the living air--it seems dead here--and the face of G.o.d--as much as one may behold of the Infinite through the revealing veil of earth and sky and sea. Shall I confess my weakness, my poverty of spirit, my covetousness after the visual? I was even getting a little tired of that glorious G.o.d and man lover, Saul of Tarsus--no, not of him, never of him, only of his shadow in his words. Yet perhaps, yes I think so, it is G.o.d alone of whom a man can never get tired. Well, no matter; tired I was; when lo! here comes my pupil, with more of G.o.d in her face than all the worlds and their skies he ever made!"

"I would my heart were as full of him, too, then, sir!" answered Clementina. "But if I am anything of a comfort to you, I am more than glad,--therefore the more sorry to tell you that I am going to leave you--though for a little while only, I trust."

"You do not take me by surprise, my lady. I have of course been looking forward for some time to my loss and your gain. The world is full of little deaths, deaths of all sorts and sizes, rather let me say. For this one I was prepared. The good summer land calls you to its bosom, and you must go."

"Come with me," cried Clementina, her eyes eager with the light of the sudden thought, while her heart reproached her grievously that only now first had it come to her.

"A man must not leave the most irksome work for the most peaceful pleasure," answered the schoolmaster. "I am able to live--yes, and do my work, without you, my lady," he added with a smile, "though I shall miss you sorely."

"But you do not know where I want you to come," she said.

"What difference can that make, my lady, except indeed in the amount of pleasure to be refused, seeing this is not a matter of choice?

I must be with the children whom I have engaged to teach, and whose parents pay me for my labour--not with those who, besides, can do well without me."

"I cannot, sir--not for long, at least."

"What! not with Malcolm to supply my place?"

Clementina blushed, but only like a white rose. She did not turn her head aside; she did not lower their lids to veil the light she felt mount into her eyes; she looked him gently in the face as before, and her aspect of entreaty did not change.

"Ah! do not be unkind, master," she said.

"Unkind!" he repeated. "You know I am not. I have more kindness in my heart than my lips can tell. You do not know, you could not yet imagine the half of what I hope of and for and from you."

"I am going to see Malcolm," she said, with a little sigh. "That is, I am going to visit Lady Lossie at her place in Scotland-- your own old home, where so many must love you.--Can't you come?

I shall be travelling alone, quite alone, except my servants."

A shadow came over the schoolmaster's face.

"You do not think, my lady, or you would not press me. It pains me that you do not see at once it would be dishonest to go without timely notice to my pupils, and to the public too. But, beyond that quite, I never do anything of myself. I go, not where I wish, but where I seem to be called or sent. I never even wish much--except when I pray to him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. After what he wants to give me I am wishing all day long. I used to build many castles, not without a beauty of their own--that was when I had less understanding: now I leave them to G.o.d to build for me--he does it better and they last longer.

See now, this very hour, when I needed help--could I have contrived a more lovely annihilation of the monotony that threatened to invade my weary spirit, than this inroad of light in the person of my lady Clementina? Nor will he allow me to get over wearied with vain efforts. I do not think he will keep me here long, for I find I cannot do much for these children. They are but some of his many pagans--not yet quite ready to receive Christianity, I think-- not like children with some of the old seeds of the truth buried in them, that want to be turned up nearer to the light. This ministration I take to be more for my good than theirs--a little trial of faith and patience for me--a stony corner of the lovely valley of humiliation to cross. True, I might be happier where I could hear the larks, but I do not know that anywhere have I been more peaceful than in this little room, on which I see you so often cast round your eyes curiously--perhaps pitifully, my lady?"

"It is not at all a fit place for you," said Clementina, with a touch of indignation.

"Softly, my lady----lest, without knowing it, your love should make you sin! Who set thee, I pray, for a guardian angel over my welfare? I could scarce have a lovelier--true! but where is thy brevet? No, my lady! it is a greater than thou that sets me the bounds of my habitation. Perhaps he may give me a palace one day.

If I might choose, it would be the things that belong to a cottage --the whiteness and the greenness and the sweet odours of cleanliness.

But the father has decreed for his children that they shall know the thing that is neither their ideal nor his. Who can imagine how in this respect things looked to our Lord when he came and found so little faith on the earth! But, perhaps, my lady, you would not pity my present condition so much, if you had seen the cottage in which I was born, and where my father and my mother loved each other, and died happier than on their wedding day. There I was happy too until their loving ambition decreed that I should be a scholar and a clergyman. Not before then did I ever know anything worthy of the name of trouble. A little cold and a little hunger at times, and not a little restlessness always was all. But then --ah then, my troubles began! Yet G.o.d, who bringeth light out of darkness, hath brought good even out of my weakness and presumption and half unconscious falsehood!--When do you go?"

"Tomorrow morning--as I purpose."

"Then G.o.d be with thee. He is with thee, only my prayer is that thou mayest know it. He is with me and I know it. He does not find this chamber too mean or dingy or unclean to let me know him near me in it."

"Tell me one thing before I go," said Clementina: "are we not commanded to bear each other's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ? I read it today."

"Then why ask me?"

"For another question: does not that involve the command to those who have burdens that they should allow others to bear them?"

"Surely, my lady. But I have no burden to let you bear."

"Why should I have everything, and you nothing?--Answer me that?"

"My lady, I have millions more than you, for I have been gathering the crumbs under my master's table for thirty years."

"You are a king," answered Clementina. "But a king needs a handmaiden somewhere in his house: that let me be in yours. No, I will be proud, and a.s.sert my rights. I am your daughter. If I am not, why am I here? Do you not remember telling me that the adoption of G.o.d meant a closer relation than any other fatherhood, even his own first fatherhood could signify? You cannot cast me off if you would. Why should you be poor when I am rich?--You are poor. You cannot deny it," she concluded with a serious playfulness.

"I will not deny my privileges," said the schoolmaster, with a smile such as might have acknowledged the possession of some exquisite and envied rarity.

"I believe," insisted Clementina, "you are just as poor as the apostle Paul when he sat down to make a tent--or as our Lord himself after he gave up carpentering."

"You are wrong there, my lady. I am not so poor as they must often have been."

"But I don't know how long I may be away, and you may fall ill, or--or--see some--some book you want very much, or--"

"I never do," said the schoolmaster.

"What! never see a book you want to have?"

"No; not now. I have my Greek Testament, my Plato, and my Shakspere --and one or two little books besides, whose wisdom I have not yet quite exhausted."

"I can't bear it!" cried Clementina, almost on the point of weeping.

"You will not let me near you. You put out an arm as long as the summer's and push me away from you. Let me be your servant."

As she spoke, she rose, and walking softly up to him where he sat kneeled at his knees, and held out suppliantly a little bag of white silk, tied with crimson.

"Take it--father," she said, hesitating, and bringing the word out with an effort; "take your daughter's offering--a poor thing to show her love, but something to ease her heart."

He took it, and weighed it up and down in his hand with an amused smile, but his eyes full of tears. It was heavy. He opened it. A chair was within his reach, he emptied it on the seat of it, and laughed with merry delight as its contents came tumbling out.