The Marquis of Lossie. George MacDonaldЧитать онлайн книгу.
only the patience of God who keeps the whole dull obstinate world alive, while generation after generation is born and vanishes, and of the mighty multitude only one here and there rises up from the fetters of humanity into the freedom of the sons of God – and yet goes on teaching the whole, and bringing every man who will but turn his ear a little towards the voice that calls him, nearer and nearer to the second birth – of sonship and liberty – not only this divine patience must he learn, but the divine insight as well, which in every form spies the reflex of the truth it cannot contain, and in every lowliest lesson sees the highest drawn nearer, and the soul growing alive unto God."
CHAPTER XXII: RICHMOND PARK
The next day at noon, mounted on Kelpie, Malcolm was in attendance upon his mistress, who was eager after a gallop in Richmond Park. Lord Liftore, who had intended to accompany her, had not made his appearance yet, but Florimel did not seem the less desirous of setting out at the time she had appointed Malcolm. The fact was she had said one o'clock to Liftore, intending twelve, that she might get away without him. Kelpie seemed on her good behaviour, and they started quietly enough. By the time they had got out of the park upon the Kensington Road, however, the evil spirit had begun to wake in her. But even when she was quietest, she was nothing to be trusted, and about London Malcolm found he dared never let his thoughts go, or take his attention quite off her ears. They got to Kew Bridge in safety nevertheless, though whether they were to get safely across was doubtful all the time they were upon it, for again and again she seemed on the very point of clearing the stone balustrade, but for the terrible bit and chain without which Malcolm never dared ride her. Still, whatever her caracoles or escapades, they caused Florimel nothing but amusement, for her confidence in Malcolm – that he could do whatever he believed he could – was unbounded. They got through Richmond – with some trouble, but hardly were they well into the park, when Lord Liftore, followed by his groom, came suddenly up behind them at such a rate as quite destroyed the small stock of equanimity Kelpie had to go upon. She bolted.
Florimel was a good rider, and knew herself quite mistress of her horse, and if she now followed, it was at her own will, and with a design; she wanted to make the horses behind her bolt also if she could. His lordship came flying after her, and his groom after him, but she kept increasing her pace until they were all at full stretch, thundering over the grass – upon which Malcolm had at once turned Kelpie, giving her little rein and plenty of spur. Gradually Florimel slackened speed, and at last pulled up suddenly. Liftore and his groom went past her like the wind. She turned at right angles and galloped back to the road. There, on a gaunt thoroughbred, with a furnace of old life in him yet, sat Lenorme, whom she had already passed and signalled to remain thereabout. They drew alongside of each other, but they did not shake hands; they only looked each in the other's eyes, and for a few moments neither spoke. The three riders were now far away over the park, and still Kelpie held on and the other horses after her. "I little expected such a pleasure," said Lenorme.
"I meant to give it you, though," said Florimel, with a merry laugh. "Bravo, Kelpie! take them with you," she cried, looking after the still retreating horsemen. "I have got a familiar since I saw you last, Raoul," she went on. "See if I don't get some good for us out of him! – We'll move gently along the road here, and by the time Liftore's horse is spent, we shall be ready for a good gallop. I want to tell you all about it. I did not mean Liftore to be here when I sent you word, but he has been too much for me."
Lenorme replied with a look of gratitude; and as they walked their horses along, she told him all concerning Malcolm and Kelpie.
"Liftore hates him already," she said, "and I can hardly wonder; but you must not, for you will find him useful. He is one I can depend upon. You should have seen the look Liftore gave him when he told him he could not sit his mare! It would have been worth gold to you."
Lenorme winced a little.
"He thinks no end of his riding," Florimel continued; "but if it were not so improper to have secrets with another gentleman, I would tell you that he rides – just pretty well."
Lenorme's great brow gloomed over his eyes like the Eiger in a mist, but he said nothing yet.
"He wants to ride Kelpie, and I have told my groom to let him have her. Perhaps she'll break his neck."
Lenorme smiled grimly.
"You wouldn't mind, would you, Raoul?" added Florimel, with a roguish look.
"Would you mind telling me, Florimel, what you mean by the impropriety of having secrets with another gentleman? Am I the other gentleman?"
"Why, of course! You know Liftore imagined he has only to name the day."
"And you allow an idiot like that to cherish such a degrading idea of you."
"Why, Raoul! what does it matter what a fool like him thinks?"
"If you don't mind it, I do. I feel it an insult to me that he should dare think of you like that."
"I don't know. I suppose I shall have to marry him some day."
"Lady Lossie, do you want to make me hate you?"
"Don't be foolish, Raoul. It won't be tomorrow – nor the next day. Freuet euch des Lebens!"
"0 Florimel! what is to come of this? Do you want to break my heart? – I hate to talk rubbish. You won't kill me – you will only ruin my work, and possibly drive me mad."
Florimel drew close to his side, laid her hand on his arm, and looked in his face with a witching entreaty.
"We have the present, Raoul," she said.
"So has the butterfly," answered Lenorme; "but I had rather be the caterpillar with a future. – Why don't you put a stop to the man's lovemaking? He can't love you or any woman. He does not know what love means. It makes me ill to hear him when he thinks he is paying you irresistible compliments. They are so silly! so mawkish! Good heavens, Florimel! can you imagine that smile every day and always? Like the rest of his class he seems to think himself perfectly justified in making fools of women. I want to help you to grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when he thought of you first. I want you to be my embodied vision of life, that I may for ever worship at your feet – live in you, die with you: such bliss, even were there nothing beyond, would be enough for the heart of a God to bestow."
"Stop, stop, Raoul; I'm not worthy of such love," said Florimel, again laying her hand on his arm. "I do wish for your sake I had been born a village girl."
"If you had been, then I might have wished for your sake that I had been born a marquis. As it is I would rather be a painter than any nobleman in Europe – that is, with you to love me. Your love is my patent of nobility. But I may glorify what you love – and tell you that I can confer something on you also – what none of your noble admirers can. – God forgive me! you will make me hate them all!"
"Raoul, this won't do at all," said Florimel, with the authority that should belong only to the one in the right. And indeed for the moment she felt the dignity of restraining a too impetuous passion. "You will spoil everything. I dare not come to your studio if you are going to behave like this. It would be very wrong of me. And if I am never to come and see you, I shall die – I know I shall."
The girl was so full of the delight of the secret love between them, that she cared only to live in the present as if there were no future beyond: Lenorme wanted to make that future like but better than the present. The word marriage put Florimel in a rage. She thought herself superior to Lenorme, because he, in the dread of losing her, would have her marry him at once, while she was more than content with the bliss of seeing him now and then. Often and often her foolish talk stung him with bitter pain – worst of all when it compelled him to doubt whether there was that in her to be loved as he was capable of loving. Yet always the conviction that there was a deep root of nobleness in her nature again got uppermost; and, had it not been so, I fear he would, nevertheless, have continued to prove her irresistible as often as she chose to exercise upon him the full might of her witcheries. At one moment she would reveal herself in such a sudden rush of tenderness as seemed possible only to one ready to become his altogether and for ever; the next she would start away as if she had never meant anything, and talk as if not a thought were in her mind beyond the cultivation of a pleasant acquaintance