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CHAPTER XXXII: A CHASTISEMENT
When she went to her room, there was Caley taking from a portmanteau
the Highland dress which had occasioned so much. A note fell, and
she handed it to her mistress. Florimel opened it, grew pale as she
read it, and asked Caley to bring her a glass of water. No sooner
had her maid left the room than she sprang to the door and bolted
it. Then the tears burst from her eyes, she sobbed despairingly,
and but for the help of her handkerchief would have wailed aloud.
When Caley returned, she answered to her knock that she was lying
down, and wanted to sleep. She was, however, trying to force further
communication from the note. In it the painter told her that he was
going to set out the next morning for Italy, and that her portrait
was at the shop of certain carvers and gliders, being fitted with
a frame for which he had made drawings. Three times she read it,
searching for some hidden message to her heart; she held it up
between her and the light; then before the fire till it crackled
like a bit of old parchment; but all was in vain: by no device,
intellectual or physical, could she coax the shadow of a meaning
out of it, beyond what lay plain on the surface. She must, she
would see him again.
That night she was merrier than usual at dinner; after it, sang
ballad after ballad to please Liftore; then went to her room and
told Caley to arrange for yet a visit, the next morning, to Mr
Lenorme's studio. She positively must, she said, secure her father's
portrait ere the ill tempered painter--all men of genius were
hasty and unreasonable--should have destroyed it utterly, as he
was certain to do before leaving--and with that she showed her
Lenorme's letter. Caley was all service, only said that this time
she thought they had better go openly. She would see Lady Bellair
as soon as Lady Lossie was in bed, and explain the thing to her.
The next morning therefore they drove to Chelsea in the carriage.
When the door opened, Florimel walked straight up to the study.
There she saw no one, and her heart, which had been fluttering
strangely, sank, and was painfully still, while her gaze went
wandering about the room. It fell upon the pictured temple of Isis:
a thick dark veil had fallen and shrouded the whole figure of the
goddess, leaving only the outline; and the form of the worshipping
youth had vanished utterly: where he had stood, the tesselated
pavement, with the serpent of life twining through it, and the
sculptured walls of the temple, shone out clear and bare, as if
Hyacinth had walked out into the desert to return no more. Again
the tears gushed from the heart of Florimel: she had sinned against
her own fame--had blotted out a fair memorial record that might
have outlasted the knight of stone under the Norman canopy in
Lossie church. Again she sobbed, again she choked down a cry that
had else become a scream.
Arms were around her. Never doubting whose the embrace, she leaned
her head against his bosom, stayed her sobs with the one word "Cruel!"
and slowly opening her tearful eyes, lifted them to the face that
bent over hers. It was Liftore's. She was dumb with disappointment
and dismay. It was a hateful moment. He kissed her forehead and
eyes, and sought her mouth. She shrieked aloud. In her very agony
at the loss of one to be kissed by another!--and there! It was
too degrading! too horrid!
At the sound of her cry someone started up at the other end of
the room. An easel with a large canvas on it fell, and a man came
forward with great strides. Liftore let her go, with a muttered
curse on the intruder, and she darted from the room into the arms
of Caley, who had had her ear against the other side of the door.
The same instant Malcolm received from his lordship a well planted
blow between the eyes, which filled them with flashes and darkness.
The next, the earl was on the floor. The ancient fury of the Celt
had burst up into the nineteenth century, and mastered a noble spirit.
All Malcolm could afterwards remember was that he came to himself
dealing Liftore merciless blows, his foot on his back, and his
weapon the earl's whip. His lordship, struggling to rise, turned
up a face white with hate and impotent fury.
"You damned flunkie!" he panted. "I'll have you shot like a mangy
dog."
"Meanwhile I will chastise you like an insolent nobleman," said
Malcolm, who had already almost recovered his self possession. "You
dare to touch my mistress!"
And with the words he gave him one more stinging cut with the whip.
"Stand off, and let it be man to man," cried Liftore, with a fierce
oath, clenching his teeth in agony and rage.
"That it cannot be, my lord; but I have had enough, and so I hope
has your lordship," said Malcolm; and as he spoke he threw the
whip to the other end of the room, and stood back. Liftore sprang
to his feet, and rushed at him. Malcolm caught him by the wrist
with a fisherman's grasp.
"My lord, I don't want to kill you. Take a warning, and let ill
be, for fear of worse," he said, and threw his hand from him with
a swing that nearly dislocated his shoulder.
The warning sufficed. His lordship cast him one scowl of concentrated
hate and revenge, and leaving the room hurried also from the house.
At the usual morning hour, Malcolm had ridden to Chelsea, hoping to
find his friend in a less despairing and more companionable mood
than when he left him. To his surprise and disappointment he learned
that Lenorme had sailed by the packet to Ostend the night before.
He asked leave to go into the study. There on its easel stood the
portrait of his father as he had last seen it--disfigured with a
great smear of brown paint across the face. He knew that the face
was dry, and he saw that the smear was wet: he would see whether
he could not, with turpentine and a soft brush, remove the insult.
In this endeavour he was so absorbed, and by the picture itself
was so divided from the rest of the room, that he neither saw nor
heard anything until Florimel cried out.
Naturally, those events made him yet more dissatisfied with his
sister's position. Evil influences and dangers were on all sides
of her--the worst possible outcome being that, loving one man,
she should marry another, and him such a man as Liftore. Whatever
he heard in the servants' hall, both tone and substance, only
confirmed the unfavourable impression he had had from the first of
the bold faced countess. The oldest of her servants had, he found;
the least respect for their mistress, although all had a certain
liking for her, which gave their disrespect the heavier import.
He must get Florimel away somehow. While all was right between
her and the painter he had been less anxious about her immediate
surroundings, trusting that Lenorme would ere long deliver her.
But now she had driven him from the very country, and he had left
no clue to follow him up by. His housekeeper could tell nothing of
his purposes. The gardener and she were left in charge as a matter
of course. He might be back in a week, or a year; she could not
even conjecture.
Seeming possibilities, in varied mingling with rank absurdities
passing through Malcolm's mind, as, after Liftore's punishment,
he lifted the portrait, set it again upon its easel, and went on
trying to clean the face of it--with no small promise of success.
But as he made progress he grew anxious--lest with the defilement,
he should remove some of the colour as well: the painter alone,
he concluded at length could be trusted to restore the work he had
ruined.
He left the house, walked across the road to the riverbank, and
gave a short sharp whistle. In an instant Davy was in the dinghy,
pulling for the shore. Malcolm went on board the yacht, saw that
all was right, gave some orders, went ashore again, and mounted
Kelpie.
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