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CHAPTER XXXVII: AN INNOCENT PLOT
Florimel and Lady Clementina Thornicroft, the same who in the park
rebuked Malcolm for his treatment of Kelpie, had met several times
during the spring, and had been mutually attracted--Florimel as
to a nature larger, more developed, more self supporting than her
own, and Lady Clementina as to one who, it was plain, stood in sore
need of what countenance and encouragement to good and free action
the friendship of one more experienced might afford her. Lady
Clementina was but a few years older than Florimel, it is true, but
had shown a courage which had already wrought her an unquestionable
influence, and that chiefly with the best. The root of this courage
was compassion. Her rare humanity of heart would, at the slightest
appearance of injustice, drive her like an angel with a flaming
sword against customs regarded, consciously or unconsciously, as the
very buttresses of social distinction. Anything but a wise woman,
she had yet so much in her of what is essential to all wisdom--
love to her kind, that, if as yet she had done little but blunder,
she had at least blundered beautifully. On every society that had
for its declared end the setting right of wrong or the alleviation
of misery, she lavished, and mostly wasted, her money. Every misery
took to her the shape of a wrong. Hence to every mendicant that
could trump up a plausible story, she offered herself a willing
prey. Even when the barest faced imposition was brought home to one
of the race parasitical, her first care was to find all possible
excuse for his conduct: it was matter of pleasure to her friends
when she stopped there, and made no attempt at absolute justification.
Left like Florimel an orphan, but at a yet earlier age, she had been
brought up with a care that had gone over into severity, against
which her nature had revolted with an energy that gathered strength
from her own repression of its signs; and when she came of age, and
took things into her own hands, she carried herself in its eyes so
oddly, yet with such sweetness and dignity and consistency in her
oddest extravagances, that society honoured her even when it laughed
at her, loved her, listened to her, applauded, approved--did
everything except imitate her--which indeed was just as well,
for else confusion would have been worse confounded. She was always
rushing to defence--with money, with indignation, with refuge. It
would look like a caricature did I record the number of charities
to which she belonged, and the various societies which, in the
exuberance of her passionate benevolence, she had projected and
of necessity abandoned. Yet still the fire burned, for her changes
were from no changeableness: through them all the fundamental
operation of her character remained the same. The case was that,
for all her headlong passion for deliverance, she could not help
discovering now and then, through an occasional self assertion of
that real good sense which her rampant and unsubjected benevolence
could but overlay, not finally smother, that she was either doing
nothing at all, or more evil than good.
The lack of discipline in her goodness came out in this, at times
amusingly, that she would always at first side with the lower or
weaker or worse. If a dog had torn a child, and was going to be
killed in consequence, she would not only intercede for the dog,
but absolutely side with him, mentioning this and that provocation
which the naughty child must have given him ere he could have been
goaded to the deed. Once when the schoolmaster in her village was
going to cane a boy for cruelty to a cripple, she pleaded for his
pardon on the ground that it was worse to be cruel than to be a
cripple, and therefore more to be pitied. Everything painful was
to her cruel, and softness and indulgence, moral honey and sugar
and nuts to all alike, was the panacea for human ills. She could
not understand that infliction might be loving kindness. On one
occasion when a boy was caught in the act of picking her pocket,
she told the policeman he was doing nothing of the sort--he was
only searching for a lozenge for his terrible cough; and in proof
of her asserted conviction, she carried him home with her, but lost
him before morning, as well as the spoon with which he had eaten
his gruel.
As to her person I have already made a poor attempt at describing
it. She might have been grand but for loveliness. When she drew
herself up in indignation, however, she would look grand for the
one moment ere the blood rose to her cheek, and the water to her
eyes. She would have taken the whole world to her infinite heart,
and in unwisdom coddled it into corruption. Praised be the grandeur
of the God who can endure to make and see his children suffer. Thanks
be to him for his north winds and his poverty, and his bitterness
that falls upon the spirit that errs: let those who know him thus
praise the Lord for his goodness. But Lady Clementina had not yet
descried the face of the Son of Man through the mists of Mount
Sinai, and she was not one to justify the ways of God to men. Not
the less was it the heart of God in her that drew her to the young
marchioness, over whom was cast the shadow of a tree that gave but
baneful shelter. She liked her frankness, her activity, her daring,
and fancied that, like herself she was at noble feud with that
infernal parody of the kingdom of heaven, called Society. She did
not well understand her relation to Lady Bellair, concerning whom
she was in doubt whether or not she was her legal guardian, but
she saw plainly enough that the countess wanted to secure her for
her nephew, and this nephew had about him a certain air of perdition,
which even the catholic heart of Lady Clementina could not brook.
She saw too that, being a mere girl, and having no scope of choice
in the limited circle of their visitors, she was in great danger of
yielding without a struggle, and she longed to take her in charge
like a poor little persecuted kitten, for the possession of which
each of a family of children was contending. What if her father
had belonged to a rowdy set, was that any reason why his innocent
daughter should be devoured, body and soul and possessions, by
those of the same set who had not yet perished in their sins? Lady
Clementina thanked Heaven that she came herself of decent people,
who paid their debts, dared acknowledge themselves in the wrong,
and were as honest as if they had been born peasants; and she hoped
a shred of the mantle of their good name had dropped upon her, big
enough to cover also this poor little thing who had come of no such
parentage. With her passion for redemption therefore, she seized
every chance of improving her acquaintance with Florimel, and
it was her anxiety to gain such a standing in her favour as might
further her coveted ministration, that had prevented her from bringing
her charge of brutality against Malcolm as soon as she discovered
whose groom he was: when she had secured her footing on the peak of
her friendship, she would unburden her soul, and meantime the horse
must suffer for his mistress--a conclusion in itself a great step
in advance, for it went dead against one of her most confidently
argued principles, namely, that the pain of any animal is, in every
sense, of just as much consequence as the pain of any other, human
or inferior: pain is pain, she said; and equal pains are equal
wherever they sting;--in which she would have been right, I think,
if pain and suffering were the same thing; but, knowing well that
the same degree and even the same kind of pain means two very
different things in the foot and in the head, I refuse the proposition.
Happily for Florimel, she had by this time made progress enough
to venture a proposal--namely, that she should accompany her to
a small estate she had on the south coast, with a little ancient
house upon it--a strange place altogether, she said--to spend
a week or two in absolute quiet--only she must come alone--
without even a maid: she would take none herself. This she said
because, with the instinct, if not quite insight, of a true nature,
she could not endure the woman Caley.
"Will you come with me there for a fortnight?" she concluded.
"I shall be delighted," returned Florimel, without a moment
s hesitation. "I am getting quite sick of London. There's no room
in it. And there's the spring all outside, and can't get in here!
I shall be only too glad to go with you, you dear creature!"
"And on those hard terms--no maid, you know?" insisted Clementina.
"The only thing wanted to make the pleasure complete! I shall be
charmed to be rid of her."
"I am glad to see you so independent."
"You don't imagine me such a baby as not to be able to get on
without a maid! You should have seen me in Scotland! I hated having
a woman about me then. And indeed I don't like it a bit better now
--only everybody has one, and your clothes want looking after,"
added Florimel, thinking what a weight it would be off her if she
could get rid of Caley altogether. "--But I should like to take
my horse," she said. "I don't know what I should do in the country
without Abbot."
"Of course; we must have our horses," returned Clementina. "And--
yes--you had better bring your groom."
"Please. You will find him very useful. He can do anything and
everything---and is so kind and helpful!"
"Except to his horse," Clementina was on the point of saying, but
thought again she would first secure the mistress, and bide her
time to attack the man.
Before they parted, the two ladies had talked themselves into
ecstasies over the anticipated enjoyments of their scheme. It must
be carried out at once.
"Let us tell nobody," said Lady Clementina, "and set off tomorrow."
"Enchanting!" cried Florimel, in full response.
Then her brow clouded.
"There is one difficulty, though," she said. "--No man could ride
Kelpie with a led horse; and if we had to employ another, Liftore
would be sure to hear where we had gone."
"That would spoil all," said Clementina. "But how much better it
would be to give that poor creature a rest, and bring the other I
see him on sometimes!"
"And by the time we came back, there would not be a living creature,
horse or man, anything bigger than a rat, about the stable. Kelpie
herself would be dead of hunger, if she hadn't been shot. No, no;
where Malcolm goes Kelpie must go. Besides, she's such fun--you
can't think!"
"Then I'll tell you what!" cried Clementina, after a moment's pause
of perplexity: "we'll ride down! It's not a hundred miles, and we
can take as many days on the road as we please."
"Better and better!" cried Florimel. "We'll run away with each
other.--But what will dear old Bellair say?"
"Never mind her," rejoined Clementina. "She will have nothing to
say. You can write and tell her as much as will keep her from being
really alarmed. Order your man to get everything ready, and I will
instruct mine. He is such a staid old fellow, you know, he will be
quite protection. Tomorrow morning we shall set out together for
a ride in Richmond Park--that lying in our way. You can leave a
letter on the breakfast table, saying you are gone with me for a
little quiet. You're not in chancery--are you?"
"I don't know," answered Florimel. "I suppose I'm all right.--
Any how, whether I'm in chancery or not, here I am, and going with
you; and if chancery don't like it, chancery may come and fetch
me."
"Send anything you think you may want to my house. I shall get a
box ready, and we will write from some town on our way to have it
sent there, and then we can write for it from The Gloom. We shall
find all mere necessaries there."
So the thing was arranged: they would start quite early the next
morning; and that there might be no trouble in the streets, Malcolm
should go before with Kelpie, and wait them in the park.
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