Part 43 (1/2)

”I never knew a servant who would not tell a lie,” said Florimel.

”I was brought up a fisherman,” said Malcolm.

”And,” Florimel went on, ”I have heard my father say no gentleman ever told a lie.”

”Then Lord Liftore is no gentleman,” said Malcolm. ”But I am not going to plead my own cause even to you, my lady. If you can doubt me, do. I have only one thing more to say: that when I told you and my Lady Clementina about the fisher girl and the gentleman--”

”How dare you refer to that again? Even you ought to know there are things a lady cannot hear. It is enough you affronted me with that before Lady Clementina--and after foolish boasts on my part of your good breeding! Now you bring it up again, when I cannot escape your low talk!”

”My lady, I am sorrier than you think; but which is worse--that you should hear such a thing spoken of, or make a friend of the man who did it--and that is Lord Liftore?”

Florimel turned away, and gave her seeming attention to the moonlit waters, sweeping past the swift sailing cutter.

Malcolm's heart ached for her: he thought she was deeply troubled.

But she was not half so shocked as he imagined. Infinitely worse would have been the shock to him could he have seen how little the charge against Liftore had touched her. Alas! evil communications had already in no small degree corrupted her good manners. Lady Bellair had uttered no bad words in her hearing: had softened to decency every story that required it; had not unfrequently tacked a worldly wise moral to the end of one; and yet, and yet, such had been the tone of her telling, such the allotment of laughter and lamentation, such the acceptance of things as necessary, and such the repudiation of things as Quixotic, puritanical, impossible, that the girl's natural notions of the lovely and the clean had got dismally shaken and confused.

Happily it was as yet more her judgment than her heart that was perverted. But had she spoken out what was in her thoughts as she looked over the great wallowing water, she would have merely said that for all that Liftore was no worse than other men. They were all the same. It was very unpleasant; but how could a lady help it? If men would behave so, were by nature like that, women must not make themselves miserable about it. They need ask no questions.

They were not supposed to be acquainted with the least fragment of the facts, and they must cleave to their ignorance, and lay what blame there might be on the women concerned. The thing was too indecent even to think about.

Ostrich-like they must hide their heads--close their eyes and take the vice in their arms--to love, honour, and obey, as if it were virtue's self, and men as pure as their demands on their wives.

There are thousands that virtually reason thus: Only ignore the thing effectually, and for you it is not. Lie right thoroughly to yourself, and the thing is gone. The lie destroys the fact. So reasoned Lady Macbeth--until conscience at last awoke, and she could no longer keep even the smell of the blood from her. What need Lady Lossie care about the fisher girl, or any other concerned with his past, so long as he behaved like a gentleman to her!

Malcolm was a foolish meddling fellow, whose interference was the more troublesome that it was honest

She stood thus gazing on the waters that heaved and swept astern, but without knowing that she saw them, her mind full of such nebulous matter as, condensed, would have made such thoughts as I have set down. And still and ever the water rolled and tossed away behind in the moonlight.

”Oh, my lady!” said Malcolm, ”what it would be to have a soul as big and as clean as all this!”

She made no reply, did not turn her head, or acknowledge that she heard him, a few minutes more she stood, then went below in silence, and Malcolm saw no more of her that night.

CHAPTER LII: HOPE CHAPEL

It was Sunday, during which Malcolm lay at the point of death some three stories above his sister's room. There, in the morning, while he was at the worst, she was talking with Clementina, who had called to see whether she would not go and hear the preacher of whom he had spoken with such fervour. Florimel laughed.

”You seem to take everything for gospel Malcolm says, Clementina!”

”Certainly not,” returned Clementina, rather annoyed. ”Gospel nowadays is what n.o.body disputes and n.o.body heeds; but I do heed what Malcolm says, and intend to find out, if I can, whether there is any reality in it. I thought you had a high opinion of your groom!”

”I would take his word for anything a man's word can be taken for,”

said Florimel.

”But you don't set much store by his judgment?”

”Oh, I daresay he's right. But I don't care for the things you like so much to talk with him about. He's a sort of poet, anyhow, and poets must be absurd. They are always either dreaming or talking about their dreams. They care nothing for the realities of life.

No--if you want advice, you must go to your lawyer or clergyman, or some man of common sense, neither groom nor poet.”

”Then, Florimel, it comes to this--that this groom of yours is one of the truest of men, and one who possessed your father's confidence, but you are so much his superior that you are capable of judging him, and justified in despising his judgment.”