The Marquis of Lossie

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CHAPTER LXX: THE DISCLOSURE

When the earl saw Malcolm coming, although he was no coward, and had reason to trust his skill, yet knowing himself both in the wrong and vastly inferior in strength to his enemy, it may be pardoned him that for the next few seconds his heart doubled its beats. But of all things he must not show fear before Florimel!

"What can the fellow be after now?" he said. "I must go down to him."

"No, no; don't go near him--he may be violent," objected Florimel, and laid her hand on his arm with a beseeching look in her face. "He is a dangerous man."

Liftore laughed.

"Stop here till I return," he said, and left the room.

But Florimel followed, fearful of what might happen, and enraged with her brother.

Malcolm's brief detention by Lizzy gave Liftore a little advantage, for just as Malcolm approached the top of the great staircase, Liftore gained it. Hastening to secure the command of the position, and resolved to shun all parley, he stood ready to strike. Malcolm, however, caught sight of him and his attitude in time, and, fearful of breaking his word to Lizzy, pulled himself up abruptly a few steps from the top--just as Florimel appeared.

"MacPhail," she said, sweeping to the stair like an indignant goddess, "I discharge you from my service. Leave the house instantly."

Malcolm turned, flew down, and ran to the servants' stair half the length of the house away. As he crossed the servants' hall he saw Rose. She was the only one in the house except Clementina to whom he could look for help.

"Come after me, Rose," he said without stopping.

She followed instantly, as fast as she could run, and saw him enter the drawing room. Florimel and Liftore were there. The earl had Florimel's hand in his.

"For God's sake, my lady!" cried Malcolm, "hear me one word before you promise that man anything."

His lordship started back from Florimel, and turned upon Malcolm in a fury. But he had not now the advantage of the stair, and hesitated. Florimel's eyes dilated with wrath.

"I tell you for the last time, my lady," said Malcolm, "if you marry that man, you will marry a liar and a scoundrel."

Liftore laughed, and his imitation of scorn was wonderfully successful, for he felt sure of Florimel, now that she had thus taken his part.

"Shall I ring for the servants, Lady Lossie, to put the fellow out?" he said. "The man is as mad as a March hare."

Meantime Lady Clementina, her maid having gone to send her man to get horses for her at once, was alone in her room, which was close to the drawing room: hearing Malcolm's voice, she ran to the door, and saw Rose in a listening attitude at that of the drawing room.

"What are you doing there?" she said.

"Mr MacPhail told me to follow him, my lady, and I am waiting here till he wants me."

Clementina went into the drawing room, and was present during all that now follows. Lizzy also, hearing loud voices and still afraid of mischief had come peering up the stair, and now approached the other door; behind Florimel and the earl.

"So!" cried Florimel, "this is the way you keep your promise to my father!"

"It is, my lady. To associate the name of Liftore with his would be to blot the scutcheon of Lossie. He is not fit to walk the street with men: his touch is to you an utter degradation. My lady, in the name of your father, I beg a word with you in private."

"You insult me."

"I beg of you, my lady--for your own dear sake."

"Once more I order you to leave my house, and never set foot in it again."

"You hear her ladyship?" cried Liftore. "Get out." He approached threateningly.

"Stand back," said Malcolm. "If it were not that I promised the poor girl carrying your baby out there, I should soon--"

It was unwisely said: the earl came on the bolder. For all Malcolm could do to parry, evade, or stop his blows, he had soon taken several pretty severe ones. Then came the voice of Lizzy in an agony from the door--

"Haud aff o' yersel', Ma'colm. I canna bide it. I gi'e ye back yer word."

"We'll manage yet Lizzy," answered Malcolm, and kept warily retreating towards a window. Suddenly he dashed his elbow through a pane, and gave a loud shrill whistle, the same instant receiving a blow over the eye which the blood followed. Lizzy made a rush forward, but the terror that the father would strike the child he had disowned, seized her, and she stood trembling. Already, however, Clementina and Rose had darted between, and, full of rage as he was, Liftore was compelled to restrain himself.

"Oh!" he said, "if ladies want a share in the row, I must yield my place," and drew back.

The few men servants now came hurrying all together into the room.

"Take that rascal there, and put him under the pump," said Liftore. "He is mad."

"My fellow servants know better than touch me," said Malcolm.

The men looked to their mistress.

"Do as my lord tells you," she said, "--and instantly."

"Men," said Malcolm, "I have spared that foolish lord there for the sake of this fisher girl and his child, but don't one of you touch me."

Stoat was a brave enough man, and not a little jealous of Malcolm, but he dared not obey his mistress.

And now came the tramp of many feet along the landing from the stair head, and the six fisherman entered, two and two. Florimel started forward.

"My brave fisherman!" she cried. "Take that bad man MacPhail, and put him out of my grounds ."

"I canna du't, my leddy," answered their leader.

"Take Lord Liftore," said Malcolm, "and hold him, while I make him acquainted with a fact or two which he may judge of consequence to him."

The men walked straight up to the earl. He struck right and left, but was overpowered in a moment, and held fast.

"Stan' still," said Peter, "or I ha'e a han'fu' o' twine i' my pooch 'at I'll jist cast a k-not aboot yer airms wi' in a jiffey."

His lordship stood still, muttering curses.

Then Malcolm stepped into the middle of the room approaching his sister.

"I tell you to leave the house," Florimel shrieked, beside herself with fury, yet pale as marble with a growing terror for which she could ill have accounted.

"Florimel!" said Malcolm solemnly, calling her sister by name for the first time.

"You insolent wretch!" she cried, panting. "What right have you, if you be, as you say, my base born brother, to call me by my name."

"Florimel!" repeated Malcolm, and the voice was like the voice of her father, "I have done what I could to serve you."

"And I want no more such service!" she returned, beginning to tremble.

"But you have driven me almost to extremities," he went on, heedless of her interruption. "Beware of doing so quite."

"Will nobody take pity on me?" said Florimel, and looked round imploringly. Then, finding herself ready to burst into tears, she gathered all her pride, and stepping up to Malcolm, looked him in the face, and said,

"Pray, sir! is this house yours or mine?"

"Mine," answered Malcolm. "I am the Marquis of Lossie, and while I am your elder brother and the head of the family, you shall never with my consent marry that base man--a man it would blast me to the soul to call brother."

Liftore uttered a fierce imprecation.

"If you dare give breath to another such word in my sister's presence, I will have you gagged," said Malcolm. "If my sister marries him," he continued, turning again to Florimel, "not one shilling shall she take with her beyond what she may happen to have in her purse at the moment. She is in my power, and I will use it to the utmost to protect her from that man."

"Proof!" cried Liftore sullenly. But Florimel gazed with pale dilated eyes in the face of the speaker. She knew his words were true. Her soul assured her of it.

"To my sister," answered Malcolm, "I will give all the proof she may please to require; to Lord Liftore I will not even repeat my assertion. To him I will give no shadow of proof. I will but cast him out of my house. Stoat, order horses for Lady Bellair."

"Gien ye please, sir, my Lord," replied Stoat, "the Lossie Airms horses is ordered a'ready for Lady Clementina."

"Will my Lady Clementina oblige me by yielding her horses to Lady Bellair?" said Malcolm, turning to her.

"Certainly, my lord," answered Clementina.

"You, I trust, my lady," said Malcolm, "will stay a little longer with my sister."

Lady Bellair came up.

"My lord," she said, "is this the marquis or the fisherman's way of treating a lady?"

"Neither. But do not drive me to give the rein to my tongue. Let it be enough to say that my house shall never be what your presence would make it."

He turned to the fishermen.

"Three of you take that lord to the town gate, and leave him on the other side of it. His servant shall follow as soon as the horses come."

"I will go with you," said Florimel, crossing to Lady Bellair.

Malcolm took her by the arm. For one moment she struggled, but finding no one dared interfere, submitted, and was led from the room like a naughty child.

"Keep my lord there till I return," he said as he went.

He led her into the room which had been her mother's boudoir, and when he had shut the door,

"Florimel," he said, "I have striven to serve you the best way I knew. Your father, when he confessed me his heir, begged me to be good to you, and I promised him. Would I have given all these months of my life to the poor labour of a groom, allowed my people to be wronged and oppressed, my grandfather to be a wanderer, and my best friend to sit with his lips of wisdom sealed, but for your sake? I can hardly say it was for my father's sake, for I should have done the same had he never said a word about you. Florimel, I loved my sister, and longed for her goodness. But she has foiled all my endeavours. She has not loved or followed the truth. She has been proud and disdainful, and careless of right. Yourself young and pure, and naturally recoiling from evil, you have yet cast from you the devotion of a noble, gifted, large hearted, and great souled man, for the miserable preference of the smallest, meanest, vilest of men. Nor that only! for with him you have sided against the woman he most bitterly wrongs: and therein you wrong the nature and the God of women. Once more, I pray you to give up this man; to let your true self speak and send him away."

"Sir, I go with my Lady Bellair, driven from her father's house by one who calls himself my brother. My lawyer shall make inquiries."

She would have left the room, but he intercepted her.

"Florimel," he said, "you are casting the pearl of your womanhood before a swine. He will trample it under his feet and turn again and rend you. He will treat you worse still than poor Lizzy, whom he troubles no more with his presence."

He had again taken her arm in his great grasp.

"Let me go. You are brutal. I shall scream."

"You shall not go until you have heard all the truth."

"What! more truth still? Your truth is anything but pleasant."

"It is more unpleasant yet than you surmise. Florimel, you have driven me to it. I would have prepared you a shield against the shock which must come, but you compel me to wound you to the quick. I would have had you receive the bitter truth from lips you loved, but you drove those lips of honour from you, and now there are left to utter it only the lips you hate, yet the truth you shall receive: it may help to save you from weakness, arrogance, and falsehood.--Sister, your mother was never Lady Lossie."

"You lie. I know you lie. Because you wrong me, you would brand me with dishonour, to take from me as well the sympathy of the world. But I defy you."

"Alas! there is no help, sister. Your mother indeed passed as Lady Lossie, but my mother, the true Lady Lossie, was alive all the time, and in truth, died only last year. For twenty years my mother suffered for yours in the eye of the law. You are no better than the little child his father denied in your presence. Give that man his dismissal, or he will give you yours. Never doubt it. Refuse again, and I go from this room to publish in the next the fact that you are neither Lady Lossie nor Lady Florimel Colonsay. You have no right to any name but your mother's. You are Miss Gordon."

She gave a great gasp at the word, but bravely fought the horror that was taking possession of her. She stood with one hand on the back of a chair, her face white, her eyes starting, her mouth a little open and rigid--her whole appearance, except for the breath that came short and quick, that of one who had died in sore pain.

"All that is now left you," concluded Malcolm, "is the choice between sending Liftore away, and being abandoned by him. That choice you must now make."

The poor girl tried to speak, but could not. Her fire was burning out, her forced strength fast failing her.

"Florimel," said Malcolm, and knelt on one knee and took her hand. It gave a flutter as if it would fly like a bird; but the net of his love held it, and it lay passive and cold. "Florimel, I will be your true brother. I am your brother, your very own brother, to live for you, love you, fight for you, watch and ward you, till a true man takes you for his wife." Her hand quivered like a leaf. "Sister, when you and I appear before our father, I shall hold up my face before him: will you?"

"Send him away," she breathed rather than said, and sank on the floor. He lifted her, laid her on a couch, and returned to the drawing room.

"My lady Clementina," he said, "will you oblige me by going to my sister in the room at the top of the stair?"

"I will, my lord," she answered, and went.

Malcolm walked up to Liftore.

"My lord," he said, "my sister takes leave of you."

"I must have my dismissal from her own lips."

"You shall have it from the hands of my fishermen. Take him away."

"You shall hear from me, my lord marquis, if such you be," said Liftore.

"Let it be of your repentance, then, my lord," said Malcolm. "That I shall be glad to hear of."

As he turned from him, he saw Caley gliding through the little group of servants towards the door. He walked after her, laid his hand on her shoulder, and whispered a word in her ear, she grew gray rather than white, and stood still.

Turning again to go to Florimel, he saw the fishermen stopped with their charge in the doorway by Mr Morrison and Mr Soutar, entering together.

"My lord! my lord!" said the lawyer, coming hastily up to him, "there can be surely no occasion for such--such--measures!"

Catching sight of Malcolm's wounded forehead, however, he supplemented the remark with a low exclamation of astonishment and dismay-- the tone saying almost as clearly as words, "How ill and foolishly everything is managed without a lawyer!"

Malcolm only smiled, and went up to the magistrate, whom he led into the middle of the room, saying,

"Mr Morrison, every one here knows you: tell them who I am."

"The Marquis of Lossie, my lord," answered Mr Morrison; "and from my heart I congratulate your people that at length you assume the rights and honours of your position."

A murmur of pleasure arose in response. Ere it ceased, Malcolm started and sprung to the door. There stood Lenorme! He seized him by the arm, and, without a word of explanation, hurried him to the room where his sister was. He called Clementina, drew her from the room, half pushed Lenorme in, and closed the door.

"Will you meet me on the sand hill at sunset, my lady?" he said.

She smiled assent. He gave her the key of the tunnel, hinted that she might leave the two to themselves for awhile, and returned to his friends in the drawing room.

Having begged them to excuse him for a little while, and desired Mrs Courthope to serve luncheon for them, he ran to his grandfather, dreading lest any other tongue than his own should yield him the opened secret. He was but just in time, for already the town was in a tumult, and the spreading ripples of the news were fast approaching Duncan's ears.

Malcolm found him, expectant and restless. When he disclosed himself he manifested little astonishment, only took him in his arms and pressed him to his bosom, saying, "Ta Lort pe praised, my son! and she wouldn't pe at aal surprised." Then he broke out in a fervent ejaculation of Gaelic, during which he turned instinctively to his pipes, for through them lay the final and only sure escape for the prisoned waters of the overcharged reservoir of his feelings. While he played, Malcolm slipped out, and hurried to Miss Horn.

One word to her was enough. The stern old woman burst into tears, crying,

"Oh, my Grisel! my Grisel! Luik doon frae yer bonny hoose amo' the stars, an' see the braw laad left ahint ye, an' praise the lord 'at ye ha'e sic a son o' yer boady to come hame to ye whan a' 's ower."

She sobbed and wept for a while without restraint. Then suddenly she rose, dabbed her eyes indignantly, and cried,

"Hoot! I'm an auld fule. A body wad think I hed feelin's efter a'!"

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 affrontit."

"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 associates 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 nobody. From the courted and flattered and high seated and powerful, she was a nobody! Then suddenly to this poor houseless, wind beaten, rain wet nobody, 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 nobody, 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 glass 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, nobody 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 orbed furnace fell behind the tumbling waters, Malcolm turned his face inland from the wet strip of shining shore 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 spaces over and under them, and eternity within them, and the heart of each for a chamber to the other, and God filling all--nay, nay--God'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.

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