The Marquis of Lossie Part 68

Malcolm laughed, and she could not help joining him.

"Ye maun come the morn an' chise yer ain room i' the Hoose," he said.

"What mean ye by that, laddie?"

"At ye'll ha'e to come an' bide wi' me noo."

"'Deed an' I s' du naething o' the kin', Ma'colm! H'ard ever onybody sic nonsense! What wad I du wi' Jean? An' I cudna thole men fowk to wait upo' me. I wad be clean affront.i.t."

"Weel, weel! we'll see," said Malcolm.

On his way back to the House, he knocked at Mrs Catanach's door, and said a few words to her which had a remarkable effect on the expression of her plump countenance and deep set black eyes.

When he reached home, he ran up the main staircase, knocked at the first door, opened it, and peeped in. There sat Lenorme on the couch, with Florimel on his knees, nestling her head against his shoulder, like a child that had been very naughty but was fully forgiven. Her face was blotted with her tears, and her hair was everywhere; but there was a light of dawning goodness all about her, such as had never shone in her atmosphere before. By what stormy sweet process the fountain of this light had been unsealed, no one ever knew but themselves.

She did not move when Malcolm entered--more than just to bring the palms of her hands together, and look up in his face.

"Have you told him all, Florimel?" he asked.

"Yes, Malcolm," she answered. "Tell him again yourself."

"No, Florimel. Once is enough."

"I told him all," she said with a gasp; then gave a wild little cry, and, with subdued exultation, added, "and he loves me yet! He has taken the girl without a name to his heart!"

"No wonder," said Malcolm, "when she brought it with her."

"Yes," said Lenorme, "I but took the diamond casket that held my bliss, and now I could dare the angel Gabriel to match happinesses with me."

Poor Florimel, for all her worldly ways, was but a child.

Bad a.s.sociates had filled her with worldly maxims and words and thoughts and judgments. She had never loved Liftore, she had only taken delight in his flatteries. And now had come the shock of a terrible disclosure, whose significance she read in remembered looks and tones and behaviours of the world. Her insolence to Malcolm when she supposed his the nameless fate, had recoiled in lurid interpretation of her own. She was a pariah--without root, without descent, without fathers to whom to be gathered. She was n.o.body. From the courted and flattered and high seated and powerful, she was a n.o.body! Then suddenly to this poor houseless, wind beaten, rain wet n.o.body, a house--no, a home she had once looked into with longing, had opened, and received her to its heart, that it might be fulfilled which was written of old, "A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest." Knowing herself a n.o.body, she now first began to be a somebody. She had been dreaming pleasant but bad dreams: she woke, and here was a lovely, unspeakably blessed and good reality, which had been waiting for her all the time on the threshold of her sleep! She was baptized into it with the tears of sorrow and shame. She had been a fool, but now she knew it, and was going to be wise.

"Will you come to your brother, Florimel?" said Malcolm tenderly, holding out his arms.

Lenorme raised her. She went softly to him, and laid herself on his bosom.

"Forgive me, brother," she said, and held up her face.

He kissed her forehead and lips, took her in his arms, and laid her again on Lenorme's knees.

"I give her to you," he said, "for you are good."

With that he left them, and sought Mr Morrison and Mr Soutar, who were waiting him over a gla.s.s of wine after their lunch. An hour of business followed, in which, amongst other matters, they talked about the needful arrangements for a dinner to his people, fishers and farmers and all.

After the gentlemen took their leave, n.o.body saw him for hours.

Till sunset approached he remained alone, shut up in the Wizard's Chamber, the room in which he was born. Part of the time he occupied in writing to Mr Graham.

As the sun's...o...b..d furnace fell behind the tumbling waters, Malcolm turned his face inland from the wet strip of shining sh.o.r.e on which he had been pacing, and ascended the sandhill.

From the other side Clementina, but a moment later, ascended also.

On the top they met, in the red light of the sunset. They clasped each the other's hand, and stood for a moment in silence.

"Ah, my lord!" said the lady, "how shall I thank you that you kept your secret from me! But my heart is sore to lose my fisherman."

"My lady," returned Malcolm, "you have not lost your fisherman; you have only found your groom."

And the sun went down, and the twilight came, and the night followed, and the world of sea and land and wind and vapour was around them, and the universe of stars and s.p.a.ces over and under them, and eternity within them, and the heart of each for a chamber to the other, and G.o.d filling all--nay, nay--G.o.d's heart containing, infolding, cherishing all--saving all, from height to height of intensest being, by the bliss of that love whose absolute devotion could utter itself only in death.

CHAPTER LXXI: THE a.s.sEMBLY

That same evening, Duncan, in full dress, claymore and dirk at his sides, and carrying the great Lossie pipes, marched first through the streets of the upper, then through the closes of the lower town, followed by the bellman who had been appointed crier upon his disappearance. At the proper stations, Duncan blew a rousing pibroch, after which the bellman, who, for the dignity of his calling, insisted on a prelude of three strokes of his clapper, proclaimed aloud that Malcolm, Marquis of Lossie, desired the presence of each and every of his tenants in the royal burgh of Portlossie, Newton and Seaton, in the town hall of the same, at seven of the clock upon the evening next following.

The proclamation ended, the piper sounded one note three times, and they pa.s.sed to the next station. When they had gone through the Seaton, they entered a carriage waiting for them at the sea gate, and were driven to Scaurnose, and thence again to the several other villages on the coast belonging to the marquis, making at each in like manner the same announcement.

Portlossie was in a ferment of wonder, satisfaction, and pleasure.

There were few in it who were not glad at the accession of Malcolm, and with every one of those few the cause lay in himself. In the shops, among the nets, in the curing sheds, in the houses and cottages, nothing else was talked about; and stories and reminiscences innumerable were brought out, chiefly to prove that Malcolm had always appeared likely to turn out somebody, the narrator not seldom modestly hinting at a glimmering foresight on his own part of what had now been at length revealed to the world. His friends were jubilant as revellers. For Meg Partan, she ran from house to house like a maniac, laughing and crying. It was as if the whole Seaton had suddenly been translated. The men came crowding about Duncan, congratulating him and asking him a hundred questions.

But the old man maintained a reticence whose dignity was strangely mingled of pomp and grace; sat calm and stately as feeling the glow of reflected honour; would not, by word, gesture, tone, or exclamation, confess to any surprise; behaved as if he had known it all the time; made no pretence however of having known it, merely treated the fact as not a whit more than might have been looked for by one who had known Malcolm as he had known him.

Davy, in his yacht uniform, was the next morning appointed the marquis's personal attendant, and a running time he had of it for a fortnight.

Almost the first thing that fell to him in his office was to show into the room on the ground floor where his master sat--the same in which for ages the lords of Lossie had been wont to transact what little business any of them ever attended to--a pale, feeble man, bowed by the weight of a huge bra.s.s clasped volume under each arm. His lordship rose and met him with outstretched hand.

"I am glad indeed to see you, Mr Crathie," he said, "but I fear you are out too soon."

"I am quite well since yesterday, my lord," returned the factor, his face shining with pleasure. "Your lordship's accession has made a young man of me again. Here I am to render account of my stewardship."

"I want none, Mr Crathie--nothing, that is, beyond a summary statement of how things stand with me."

"I should like to satisfy your lordship that I have dealt honestly "--here the factor paused for a moment, then with an effort added --"by you, my lord."

"One word," said Malcolm "--the last of the sort, I believe, that will ever pa.s.s between us. Thank G.o.d! we had made it up before yesterday.--If you have ever been hard upon any of my tenants, not to say unfair, you have wronged me infinitely more than if you had taken from me. G.o.d be with me as I prefer ruin to wrong.

Remember, besides, that my tenants are my charge and care. For you, my representative, therefore, to do one of them an injury is to do me a double injury--to wrong my tenant, and to wrong him in my name."

"Ah, my lord! you don't know how they would take advantage of you, if there were n.o.body to look after your interests."

"Then do look after them, sir. It would be bad for them to succeed, as well as crippling to me. Only be sure, with the thought of the righteous G.o.d to elevate your sense of justice, that you are in the right. If doubtful, then give in.--And now, if any man thinks he has cause of complaint, I leave it to you, with the help of the new light that has been given you, to reconsider the matter, and, where needful, to make reparation. You must be the friend of my tenant as much as of his landlord. I have no interests inimical to those of my tenants. If any man comes to me with complaint, I will send him to restate his case to you, with the understanding that, if you will not listen to him, he is to come to me again, when I shall hear both sides and judge between. If after six months you should desire me to go over the books with you, I will do so. As to your loyalty to my family and its affairs, of that I never had a shadow of suspicion."

As he ended, Malcolm held out his hand. The factor's trembled in his strong grasp.

"Mistress Crathie is sorely vexed, my lord," he said, rising to take his leave, "at things both said and done in the dark."

Malcolm laughed.

"Give Mrs Crathie my compliments," he said, "and tell her a man is more than a marquis. If she will after this treat every honest fisherman as if he might possibly turn out a lord, she and I shall be more than quits."

The next morning he carried her again a few mackerel he had just caught, and she never forgot the lesson given her. That morning, I may mention, he did not go fishing alone, but had a lady with him in the dinghy; and indeed they were together, in one place and another, the most of the day--at one time flying along the fields, she on the bay mare, and he on Kelpie.