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CHAPTER X: THE TEMPEST
The play was begun, and the stage was the centre of light. Thither
Malcolm's eyes were drawn the instant he entered. He was all but
unaware of the multitude of faces about him, and his attention was
at once fascinated by the lovely show revealed in soft radiance. But
surely he had seen the vision before! One long moment its effect
upon him was as real as if he had been actually deceived as to
its nature: was it not the shore between Scaurnose and Portlossie,
betwixt the Boar's Tail and the sea? and was not that the marquis,
his father, in his dressing gown, pacing to and fro upon the
sands? He yielded himself to illusion--abandoned himself to the
wonderful, and looked only for what would come next.
A lovely lady entered: to his excited fancy it was Florimel. A
moment more and she spoke.
If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
Then first he understood that before him rose in wondrous realization
the play of Shakspere he knew best--the first he had ever read:
The Tempest, hitherto a lovely phantom for the mind's eye, now
embodied to the enraptured sense. During the whole of the first act
he never thought either of Miranda or Florimel apart. At the same
time so taken was he with the princely carriage and utterance of
Ferdinand that, though with a sigh, he consented he should have
his sister.
The drop scene had fallen for a minute or two before he began
to look around him. A moment more and he had commenced a thorough
search for his sister amongst the ladies in the boxes. But when at
length he found her, he dared not fix his eyes upon her lest his
gaze should make her look at him, and she should recognise him.
Alas, her eyes might have rested on him twenty times without his
face once rousing in her mind the thought of the fisher lad of
Portlossie! All that had passed between them in the days already
old was virtually forgotten.
By degrees he gathered courage, and soon began to feel that there
was small chance indeed of her eyes alighting upon him for the
briefest of moments. Then he looked more closely, and felt through
rather than saw with his eyes that some sort of change had already
passed upon her. It was Florimel, yet not the very Florimel he had
known. Already something had begun to supplant the girl freedom
that had formerly in every look and motion asserted itself. She
was more beautiful, but not so lovely in his eyes; much of what had
charmed him had vanished. She was more stately, but the stateliness
had a little hardness mingled with it: and could it be that the
first of a cloud had already gathered on her forehead? Surely she
was not so happy as she had been at Lossie House. She was dressed
in black, with a white flower in her hair.
Beside her sat the bold faced countess, and behind them her nephew,
Lord Meikleham that was now Lord Liftore. A fierce indignation
seized the heart of Malcolm at the sight. Behind the form of the
earl, his mind's eye saw that of Lizzy, out in the wind on the
Boar's Tail, her old shawl wrapped about herself and the child of
the man who sat there so composed and comfortable. His features
were fine and clear cut, his shoulders broad, and his head well
set: he had much improved since Malcolm offered to fight him with
one hand in the dining room of Lossie House. Every now and then
he leaned forward between his aunt and Florimel, and spoke to the
latter. To Malcolm's eyes she seemed to listen with some haughtiness. Now
and then she cast him an indifferent glance. Malcolm was pleased:
Lord Liftore was anything but the Ferdinand to whom he could consent
to yield his Miranda. They would make a fine couple certainly, but for
any other fitness, knowing what he did, Malcolm was glad to perceive
none. The more annoyed was he when once or twice he fancied he caught
a look between them that indicated more than acquaintanceship--
some sort of intimacy at least. But he reflected that in the relation
in which they stood to Lady Bellair it could hardly be otherwise.
The play was tolerably well put upon the stage, and free of the
absurdities attendant upon too ambitious an endeavour to represent to
the sense things which Shakspere and the dramatists of his period
freely committed to their best and most powerful ally, the willing
imagination of the spectators. The opening of the last scene,
where Ferdinand and Miranda are discovered at chess, was none the
less effective for its simplicity, and Malcolm was turning from a
delighted gaze at its loveliness to glance at his sister and her
companions, when his eyes fell on a face near him in the pit which
had fixed an absorbed regard in the same direction. It was that of
a man a few years older than himself, with irregular features, but
a fine mouth, large chin; and great forehead. Under the peculiarly
prominent eyebrows shone dark eyes of wondrous brilliancy and seeming
penetration. Malcolm could not but suspect that his gaze was upon
his sister, but as they were a long way from the boxes, he could
not be certain. Once he thought he saw her look at him, but of that
also he could be in no wise certain.
He knew the play so well that he rose just in time to reach the
pit door ere exit should be impeded with the outcomers, and thence
with some difficulty he found his way to the foot of the stair up which
those he watched had gone. There he had stood but a little while,
when he saw in front of him, almost within reach of an outstretched
hand, the same young man waiting also. After what seemed a long
time, he saw his sister and her two companions come slowly down the
stair in the descending crowd. Her eyes seemed searching amongst
the multitude that filled the lobby. Presently an indubitable glance
of still recognition passed between them, and by a slight movement
the young man placed himself so that she must pass next him in
the crowd. Malcolm got one place nearer in the change, and thought
they grasped hands. She turned her head slightly back, and seemed
to put a question--with her lips only. He replied in the same
manner. A light rushed into her face and vanished. But not a feature
moved and not a word had been spoken. Neither of her companions
had seen the dumb show, and her friend stood where he was till they
had left the house. Malcolm stood also, much inclined to follow
him when he went, but, his attention having been attracted for a
moment in another direction, when he looked again he had disappeared.
He sought him where he fancied he saw the movement of his vanishing,
but was soon convinced of the uselessness of the attempt, and walked
home.
Before he reached his lodging, he had resolved on making trial of
a plan which had more than once occurred to him, but had as often
been rejected as too full of the risk of repulse.
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