CHAPTER XX.
MR. PARMALEE SWEARS VENGEANCE.
Sir Everard strode straight to the picture-gallery, his face pale, his eyes flashing, his hands clinched.
His step rang like steel along the polished oaken floor, and there was an ominous compression of his thin lips that might have warned Mr. Parmalee of the storm to come. But Mr. Parmalee was squinting through his apparatus at a grim, old warrior on the wall, and only just glanced up to nod recognition.
"Morning, Sir Everard!" said the artist, pursuing his work. "Fine day for our business—uncommon spring-like. You've got a gay old lot of ancestors here, and ancestresses; and stunningly handsome some of 'em is, too."
"Spare your compliments, sir," said the baronet, in tones of suppressed rage, "and spare me your presence here for the future altogether! The sooner you pack your traps and leave this, the surer you will be of finding yourself with a sound skin."
"Hey?" cried Mr. Parmalee, astounded. "What in thunder do you mean?"
"I mean that I order you out of my house this instant, and that I'll break every bone in your villainous carcass if ever I catch you inside my gates again!"
The artist dropped his tools and stood blankly staring.
"By ginger! Why, Sir Everard Kingsland, I don't understand this here! You told me yourself I might come here and take the pictures. I call this doosed unhandsome treatment—I do, going back on a feller like this!"
"You audacious scoundrel!" roared the enraged young lord of Kingsland, "how dare you presume to answer me? How dare you stand there and look me in the face? If I called my servants and made them lash you outside the gates, I would only serve you right! You low-bred, impertinent ruffian, how dare you write to my wife?"
"Whew!" he whistled, long and shrill, "that's it, is it? Look here, Sir Everard, don't you get so tearin' mad all for nothing. I didn't write no disrespect to her ladyship—I didn't, by Jupiter! I jest had a little request to make, and if I could have seen her ladyship I wouldn't have writ at all, but she kept out of my way, and—"
"You scoundrel!" cried the passionate young baronet, white with fury, "do you mean to say my wife kept out of your way—was afraid of you?"
"Exactly so, squire," replied the imperturbable foreigner. "She must 'a' known I had something to say to her yesterday when I—— Well, she knowed it, and she kept out of my way—I say it again."
"And you dare tell me there is a secret between my wife and you? Are you not afraid I will throw you out of yonder window?"
Mr. Parmalee drew himself stiffly up.
"Not if I know myself! That is a game two can play at. As for the secret," with a sudden sneer, "I ain't no desire to keep it a secret if your wife ain't. Ask her, Sir Everard, and if she's willing to tell you, I'm sartin I am. But I don't think she will, by gosh!"
The sneering mockery of the last taunt was too much for the fiery young prince of Kingsland. With the yell of an enraged tiger he sprung upon Mr. Parmalee, hurled him to the ground in a twinkling, and twisted his left hand into Mr. Parmalee's blue cotton neckerchief, showering blows with his right fast and furious.
The attack was so swift and savage that Mr. Parmalee lay perfectly stunned and helpless, turning unpleasantly black in the face, his eyes staring, the blood gushing.
Kneeling on his fallen foe, with fiery face and distended eyes, Sir Everard looked for the moment an incarnate young demon. It flashed upon him, swift as lightning, in his sudden madness, what he was about.
"I'll murder him if I stay here," he thought; and as the thought crossed his mind, with a shriek and a swish of silk, in rushed Miss Silver and flung herself between them.
"Good Heaven! Sir Everard, have you gone mad? In mercy's name, stop before you have quite murdered him!"
"Dog—cur!" he cried. "Get up and quit my house, or, by the living light above us, I'll blow your brains out as I would a mad hound's!"
He swung round and strode out of the picture-gallery, and slowly, slowly arose the prostrate hero, with bloody face and blackened eyes.
"Get up, Mr. Parmalee," she said, "and go away at once. The woman at the lodge will give you soap and water and a towel, and you can make yourself decent before entering the village. If you don't hurry you'll need a guide. Your eyes are as large as bishop pippins, and closing fast now."
She nearly laughed again, as she assisted her slaughtered betrothed to his feet Mr. Parmalee wiped the blood out of his eyes and looked dizzily about him.
"Where is he?" he gasped.
"Sir Everard? He has gone, I believe he would have killed you outright only I came in and tore him off. What on earth did you say to infuriate him so?"
"I say?" exclaimed the artist, fiercely. "I said nothing, and you know it. It was you, you confounded Delilah, you mischief-making deceiver, who showed him that air note!"
"I protest I did nothing of the sort!" cried Sybilla, indignantly. "He was in my lady's room when I entered, and he saw the note in my hand. She was asleep, and I tried to escape and take the note with me, but he ordered me to leave it and go. Of course I had to obey. If he read it, it was no fault of mine; but I don't believe he did. You have no right to blame me, Mr. Parmalee."
"I'll be even with him for this, the insulting young aristocrat! I'll not spare him now! I'll spread the news far and wide; the very birds in the trees shall sing it, the story of his wife's shame! I'll lower that cursed pride of his before another month is over his head, and I'll have his handsome wife on her knees to me, as sure as my name's Parmalee! He knocked me down, and he beat me to a jelly, did he? and he ordered me out of his house; and he'll shoot me like a mad dog, will he? But I'll be even with him; I'll fix him off! I'll make him repent the day he ever lifted his hand to G. W. Parmalee!"
"So you shall. I like to hear you talk like that. You're a glorious fellow, George, and Sybilla will help you; for, listen"—she came close and hissed the words in a venomous whisper—"I hate Sir Everard Kingsland and all his race, and I hate his upstart wife, with her high and mighty airs, and I would see them both dead at my feet with all the pleasure in life!"
"You get out!" rejoined Mr. Parmalee, recoiling and clapping his hand to his ear. "I told you before, Sybilla, not to whistle in a fellow's ear like that. It goes through a chap like cold steel. As to your hating them, I believe in my soul you hate most people; and women like you, with big, flashing black eyes, are apt to be uncommon good haters, too. But what have they done to you? I always took 'em to be good friends to you, my girl."
"You have read the fable, Mr. Parmalee, of the man who found the frozen adder, and who warmed and cherished it in his bosom, until he restored it to life? Well, Sir Everard found me, homeless, friendless, penniless, and he took me with him, and fed me, clothed me, protected me, and treated me like a sister. The adder in the fable stung its preserver to death. I, Mr. Parmalee, if you ever feel inclined to poison Sir Everard, will mix the potion and hold the bowl, and watch his death-throes!"
"Go along with you!" said the American, beginning to collect his traps. "You're a bad one, you are. I don't like such lingo—I don't, by George! I never took you for an angel, but I vow I didn't think you were the cantankerous little toad you are! I don't set up to be a saint myself, and if a man knocks me down and pummels my innards out for nothin', I calculate to fix his flint, if I can; but you—shoo! you're a little devil on airth, and that's my opinion of you."
"With such a complimentary opinion of me, then, Mr. Parmalee, I presume our late partnership is dissolved?"
"Nothing of the sort! I like grit, and if you've got rayther more than your share, why, when you're Mrs. Parmalee it will be amusing to take it out of you. And now I'm off, and by all that's great and glorious, there'll be howling and gnashing of teeth in this here old shop before I return."
"You go without seeing my lady, then?" said Sybilla.
"My lady's got to come to me!" retorted the artist, sullenly. "It's her turn to eat humble pie now, and she'll finish the dish, by George, before I've done with her! I'm going back to the tavern, down the village, and so you can tell her; and if she wants me, she can put her pride in her pocket and come there and find me."
"And I, too?" said Sybilla, anxiously. "Remember your promise to reveal all to me, George. Am I to seek you out at the inn, too, and await your sovereign pleasure?"
She laid her hands on his shoulders and looked up in his face with eyes few men could resist. They were quite alone in the vast hall—no prying eyes to see that tender caress. Mr. Parmalee was a good deal of a stoic and a little of a cynic; but he was flesh and blood, as even stoics and cynics are, and the man under sixty was not born who could have resisted that dark, bewitching, wheedling, beautiful face.
The American artist took her in his long arms with a vigorous hug, and favored her with a sounding kiss.
"I'll tell you, Sybilla. Hanged if I don't believe you can twist me round your little finger if you choose! You're as pretty as a picture—you are, I swear and I love you like all creation; and I'll marry you just as soon as this little business is settled, and I'll take you to Maine, and keep you in the tallest sort of clover. I never calk'lated on having a British gal for a wife; but you're handsome enough and spunky enough for a president's lady, and I don't care a darn what the folks round our section say about it. I'll tell you, Sybilla; but you mustn't split to a living soul, or my cake's dough. They say a woman can't keep a secret; but you must try, if you should burst for it. I reckon my lady will come down handsomely before I've done with her, and you and me, Sybilla, can go to housekeeping across the three thousand miles of everlasting wet in tip-top style. Come to-night; you've got to come to me now."
"I suppose I will find you at the inn?"
"I suppose so. 'Tain't likely," said Mr. Parmalee, with a sulky sense of injury, "you'll find me prancing up and down the village with this here face. I'll get the old woman to do it up in brown paper and vinegar when I go home, and I'll stay abed and smoke until dark. You won't come afore dark, wilt you?"
"No; I don't want to be recognized; and you must be prepared to come out with me when I do. I'll disguise myself. Ah! suppose I disguise myself in men's clothes? You won't mind, will you?"
"By gosh! no, if you don't. Men's clothes! What a rum one you are, Miss Silver? Doosed good-looking little feller you'll make. But why are you so skeery about it?"
"Why? Need you ask? Would Sir Everard permit me to remain in his house one hour if he suspected I was his enemy's friend? Have you any message to deliver to my lady before we part?"
"No. She'll send a message to me during the day, or I'm mistaken. If she don't, why, I'll send one back with you to-night. By-bye, Mrs. Parmalee that is to be. Take care of yourself until to-night."
The gentleman walked down the stair-way alone toward a side entrance. The lady stood on the landing above, looking after him with a bitter, sneering smile.
"Mrs. Parmalee, indeed! You blind, conceited fool! Twist you round my little finger, can I? Yes, you great, hulking simpleton, and ten times better men! Let me worm your secret out of you—let me squeeze my sponge dry, and then see how I'll fling you into your native gutter!"
Mr. Parmalee, on his way out, stopped at the pretty rustic lodge and bathed his swollen and discolored visage. The lodge-keeper's wife was all sympathy and questions. How on earth did it happen?
"Run up against the 'lectric telegraph, ma'am," replied Mr. Parmalee, sulkily; "and there was a message coming full speed, and it knocked me over. Morning. Much obliged."
He walked away. Outside the gates he paused and shook his clinched fist menacingly at the noble old house.
"I'll pay you out, my fine feller, if ever I get a chance! You're a very great man, and a very proud man, Sir Everard Kingsland, and you own a fine fortune and a haughty, handsome wife, and G. W. Parmalee's no more than the mud under your feet. Very well—we'll see! 'Every dog has his day,' and 'the longest lane has its turning,' and you're near about the end of your tether, and George Parmalee has you and your fine lady under his thumb—under his thumb—and he'll crush you, sir—yes, by Heaven, he'll crush you, and strike you back blow for blow!"
True to his word, ho ordered unlimited supplies of brown paper and vinegar, rum and water, pipes and tobacco, swore at his questioners, and adjourned to his bedroom to await the coming of nightfall and Sybilla Silver.
The short winter day wore on. A good conscience, a sound digestion, rum and smoke ad libitum, enabled our wounded artist to sleep comfortably through it, and he was still snoring when Mrs. Wedge, the landlady, came to his bedside with a flaring tallow candle, and woke him up.
"Which I've been a-knockin' and a-knockin'," Mrs. Wedge cried, shrilly, "fit to knock the skin off my blessed knuckles, Mr. Parmalee, and couldn't wake you no more'n the dead. And he's a-waitin' down-stairs, which he won't come up, but says it's most particular, and must see you at once."
"Hold your noise!" growled the artist, tumbling out of bed. "What's o'clock? Leave that candle and clear out, and tell the young feller I'll be down in a brace of shakes."
"I couldn't see him," replied Mrs. Wedge, "which he's that muffled up in a long cloak and a cap drawed down that his own mother herself couldn't tell him hout there in the dark. Was you a-expectin' of him, sir?"
"That's no business of yours, Mrs. Wedge," the American answered, grimly. "You can go."
Mrs. Wedge departed in displeasure, and tried again to see the muffled stranger. But he was looking out into the darkness, and the good landlady was completely baffled.
She saw her lodger join him; she saw the hero of the cloak take his arm, and both walk briskly away.
"By George! this is a disguise!" exclaimed Mr. Parmalee. "I wouldn't recognize you at noonday in this trim. Do you know who I took you for until you spoke?"
"Whom?"
"Sir Everard himself. You're as like him as two peas in that rig, only not so tall."
"The cloak and cap are his," Miss Silver answered, "which perhaps accounts—"
"No," he said, "there's more than that. I might put on that cap and cloak, but I wouldn't look like the baronet. Your voices sound alike, and there's a general air—I can't describe it, but you know what I mean. You're no relation of his, are you, Sybilla?"
"A relation of the Prince of Kingsland—poor little Sybilla Silver! My good Mr. Parmalee, what an absurd idea! You do me proud even to hint that, the blue blood of all the Kingslands could by any chance flow in these plebeian veins! Oh, no, indeed! I am only an upper servant in that great house, and would lose my place within the hour if its lordly master dreamed I was here talking to the man he hates."
"And my lady, any news from her?"
"Not a word. She came down to dinner beautifully dressed, but white as the snow lying yonder. She and Sir Everard dined tête-à-tête. I take my meals with the housekeeper, now," smiling bitterly. "My Lady Harriet doesn't like me. The butler told me they did not speak six words during the whole time of dinner."
"Both in the sulks," said Mr. Parmalee. "Well, it's natural. He's dying to know, and she'll be torn to pieces afore she breathes a word. She's that sort. But this shyin' and holding off won't do with me. I'm getting tired of waiting, and—and so's another party up to London. Tell her so, Sybilla, with G. W. P.'s compliments, and say that I give her just two more days, and if she doesn't come to book before the end of that time, I'll sell her secret to the highest bidder."
"Yes!" Sybilla said, breathlessly; "and now for that secret, George!"
"You won't tell?" cried Mr. Parmalee, a little alarmed at this precipitation. "Say you won't—never—so help you!"
"Never—I swear it. Now go on!"
* * * * *
An hour later, Sybilla Silver, in her impenetrable disguise, re-entered Kingsland Court. No one had seen her go—no one saw her return. She gained her own room and took off her disguise unobserved.
Once only on her way to it she had paused—before my lady's door—and the dark, beautiful face, wreathed with a deadly smile of hate and exultation, was horribly transformed to the face of a malignant, merciless demon.