CHAPTER XXII.
AT NIGHT IN THE BEECH WALK.
The instant Sir Everard was out of sight Sybilla ran up to her chamber, and presently reappeared, dressed for a walk.
Even the long, shrouding mantle she wore could not disguise the exquisite symmetry of her graceful form, and the thick brown veil could not dim the luster of her flashing Assyrian eyes. She smiled back, before flitting away, at the dark, bright, sparkling face her mirror showed her.
"You are a very pretty person, my dear Miss Silver," she said—"prettier even than my lady herself, though I say it. Worlds have been lost for less handsome faces than this in the days gone by, and Mr. Parmalee will have every reason to be proud of his wife—when he gets her."
She ran lightly down-stairs, a sarcastic smile still on her lips. In the lower hall stood Mr. Edwards, the valet, disconsolately gazing at the threatening prospect. He turned around, and his dull eyes lighted up at sight of this darkling vision of beauty—for Mr. Parmalee was by no means the only gentleman with the good taste to admire handsome Sybilla.
"Going hout, Miss Silver!" Mr. Edwards asked. "Huncommon urgent your business must be to take you from 'ome such a hevening as this. 'Ow's my lady?"
"My lady is not at all well, Mr. Edwards," answered Sybilla. "Sir Everard was obliged to go alone to his mother's, my lady's headache is so intense. Claudine is with her, I believe. We are going to have a storm, are we not? I shall be obliged to hurry back."
She flitted away as she spoke, drawing down her veil, and disappearing while yet Mr. Edwards was trying to make a languid proffer of his services as escort. He lounged easily up against the window, gazing with calm admiration after her.
"An huncommon 'andsome and lady-looking young pusson that," reflected Sir Everard's gentleman. "I shouldn't mind hasking her to be my missus one of these days. That face of hers and them dashing ways would take helegantly behind the bar of a public."
Sybilla sped on her way down the village to the Blue Bell. Just before she reached the inn she encountered Mr. Parmalee himself, taking a constitutional, a cigar in his mouth, and his hands deep in his trousers pockets. He met and greeted his fair betrothed with natural phlegm.
"How do, Sybilla?" nodding. "I kind of thought you'd be after me, and so I stepped out. You've been and delivered that there little message of mine, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Sybilla; "and she will meet you to-night in the Beech Walk, and hear what you have got to say."
"The deuce she will!" said the artist; "and have her fire-eating husband catch us and set the flunkies at me. Not if I know myself. If my lady wants to hear what I've got to say, let my lady come to me."
"She never will," responded Sybilla. "You don't know her. Don't be an idiot, George—do as she requests. Meet her to-night in the Beech Walk."
"And have the baronet come upon us in the middle of our confab! Look here, Sybilla, I ain't a cowardly feller, you know, in the main; but, by George! it ain't pleasant to be horsewhipped by an outrageous young baronet or kicked from the gates by his under-strappers."
"There is no danger. Sir Everard is not at home, and will not be before ten o'clock at least. He is gone to dine at The Grange with his mother; and my lady was to have gone, too, but your message frightened her, and she told him little white lies, and insisted on his going by himself. And, you silly old stupid, if you had two ideas in your head, you would see that this opportunity of braving his express command, and entering the lion's den to meet his wife by night and by stealth, is the most glorious opportunity of revenge you could have. Sir Everard is nearly mad with jealousy and suspicion already. What will he be when he finds his wife of a month has lied to him to meet you alone and in secret at the Beech Walk? I tell you, Mr. Parmalee, you will be gloriously revenged!"
"By thunder!" cried the artist, "I never thought of that. I'll do it,
Sybilla—I'll do it, so help me! Tell my lady I'll be there right on
the minute; and do you take care that confounded baronet finds it out.
I said I'd pay him off for every blow, and I'll do it, by the Eternal!"
"And strike through her!" hissed Sybilla, with glittering black eyes, "and every blow will go straight through the core of his proud heart. We'll torture him, George Parmalee, as man never was tortured before."
"What a little devil you are, Sybilla!" he said, with lover-like candor. "I've heard tell that you wimmin knock us men into a cocked hat in the way of hating, and I now begin to think it is true. What has this 'ere baronet done to you, I should admire to know? You don't hate him like the old sarpent for nothing."
"What has he done to me?" repeated Sybilla, with a strange, slow smile. "That is easily told. He gave me a home when I was homeless; he was my friend when I was friendless. I have broken his bread and drunk of his cup, and slept under his roof, and—I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!"
Mr. Parmalee took out his cigar and stared at her in horror.
"I tell you what it is, Miss Silver," he said, "I don't like this sort of thing—I don't, by George! I ain't surprised at a person hating a person, because I hate him myself; but for a young woman that is going to be my wife to cut up like this here, and swear everlasting vengeance—well, I don't like it. You see, wild cats ain't the most comfortable sort of pets a man can have in his house, and how do I know but it may be my turn next?"
"You precious old stupid! As if I could hate you, if I tried. No, no, George; you may trust Sybilla. The wild cat will sheathe her claws in triple folds of velvet for you."
"Humph!" said Mr. Parmalee; "but the claws will still be there. However, I ain't a-going to quarrel with you about it. I like a spunky woman, and I hate him. I'll meet my lady to-night, and you see that my lady's husband finds it out."
"Until then," responded Sybilla, folding her mantle closer about her, "remember the hour—eight sharp—and don't keep her waiting. Before he sleeps to-night the proudest baronet in the realm shall know why his wife deliberately deceived him to meet a strange man by night and by stealth in the park, where her husband had ordered him never to set foot again."
She fluttered away in the chill spring twilight with the last words, leaving her fiancé gazing after her with an expression that was not altogether unmixed admiration.
"I'll be darned if I ever met the like of you, Miss Silver, in all my travels. You might be own sister to Lucifer himself for wickedness and revengefulness. I'll find out what's at the bottom of all this cantankerous spite before I make you Mrs. G. W. Parmalee, or I'll know the reason why. It's all very fine to have a handsome wife, with big black eyes and a spunky spirit, but a fellow doesn't want a wife that will bury the carving-knife in him the first time he contradicts her."
Sybilla was a good walker; the last yellow line of the watery February sunset had hardly faded as she tripped up the long drive under the gaunt, tossing trees. Mr. Edwards still lounged in elegant leisure in the hall, conversing with a gigantic young footman, and his fishy eyes kindled for the second time as Sybilla appeared, flushed and bright and sparkling, after her windy, twilight walk.
"I have outstripped the storm after all, you see," she remarked as she went by. "I don't believe we shall have it before midnight. Oh, Claudine! is my lady in her room? I have been on an errand for her down the village."
She had encountered the jaunty little French girl on the upper landing, and paused to put the question.
"Yes," Claudine said. "Madame's headache was easier. She is reading in her dressing-room."
Sybilla tapped at the dressing-room door, then turned the handle and entered. It was an exquisite little bijou of a chamber, with fluted walls of rose silk, and delicious plump beauties with bare shoulders and melting eyes, by Greuze. A wood fire flickered on the marble hearth, and was flashed back from lofty mirrors as tall as the room.
Lying back in an arm-chair, her book fallen aimlessly on her lap, her dark, deep eyes looking straight before her into the evening gloaming, my lady sat alone.
The melancholy wash of the waves on the shore, the mournful sighing of the evening wind among the groaning trees, the monotonous ticking of a dainty buhl clock, and the light fall of the cinders sounded abnormally loud in the dead silence of the apartment.
Lady Kingsland turned round at the opening of the door, and her face hardened into that cold look it always wore at sight of her husband's brilliant protégée.
"I have been to the village, my lady," Sybilla said. "I have seen Mr.
Parmalee. He will be in the Beech Walk precisely at eight."
My lady bent her head in cold acknowledgment. Sybilla paused an instant, determined to make her speak.
"Can I be of service to you in any way in this matter, my lady?" she asked.
"You?" in proud surprise. "Certainly not. I wish to be alone, Miss
Silver. Be good enough to go."
Sybilla's little brown fist clinched itself furiously, once on the landing outside.
"I can't humble her!" she thought. "I can't make her fear me. I can't triumph over her, do what I will. I have her secret and I hold her in my power, but she is prouder than Lucifer himself, and she would let me stand forth and tell all, and if one pleading word would stop me, she would not say it. 'The brave may die, but can not yield!' She should have been a man."
She went to the window and drew out her watch; it wanted a quarter of eight.
"In fifteen minutes my lady goes; in fifteen more I shall follow her, and not alone. I am afraid Sir Everard's slumbers will be rather disturbed to-night."
The last yellow gleam of the dying day was gone, and a sickly, pallid moon glimmered dully among drifts of scudding black clouds. An icy blast wailed up from the sea, and the rocking trees were like dryad specters in writhing agony. The distant Beech Walk looked black and grim and ghostly in the weird light.
A great clock high up in a windy turret struck eight. A moment after the door of my lady's dressing-room opened. A dark, shrouded figure emerged, flitted swiftly down the long gallery, down the stair-way, and vanished.
Ten minutes later Edwards, yawning forlornly, still in the entrance hall, beheld Miss Silver coming toward him with an anxious face, a large shawl thrown over her head.
"Going out again?" the valet exclaimed. "And such a nasty night, too.
You are fond of walking, Miss S., and no mistake."
"I'm not going for a walk," said Sybilla. "I am going to look for a locket I lost this afternoon. I was out in the park, in the direction of the Beech Walk, and there I must have dropped it."
"Better wait until to-morrow," suggested Edwards. "The wind's 'owling through the trees, and it's colder than the Harctic regions. Better wait."
"I can not. The locket was a present, and I value it exceedingly. I thought of asking you to accompany me, but as it is so cold perhaps you had better not."
"Oh, I'll go with pleasure!" said Mr. Edwards. "If you can stand the cold, I can, I dessay. Wait till I get my 'at and hovercoat—I won't be a minute."
Miss Silver waited. Mr. Edwards reappeared in a twinkling.
"'Adn't I better fetch a lantern?" he suggested. "It will be himpossible to see it, heven if it should be there."
"No," said Sybilla. "The moon is shining, and the locket will glimmer on the snow. Come!"
She took his arm, and they started at a brisk pace for the Beech Walk. The ground, baked hard as iron, rang under their tread, and whether it was the bitter blast or not, Mr. Edwards could not tell, but his companion's face was flushed with a more brilliant glow, in the ghostly moonlight, than he had ever before seen there.
They reached the long grove of magnificent copper-beeches, and just without its entrance Miss Silver began searching for her lost locket.
"It is not here," said Sybilla. "Let us go further down——"
She paused at a sudden gesture of her companion.
"Hush!" he said. "There is some one talking in the Beech Walk."
Both paused and stood stock still. Borne unmistakably on the night wind, voices came to them—the soft voice of a woman, the deeper tones of a man.
"One of the maids, I dare say," Sybilla said, carelessly, "holding tryst with her lover."
"No," said the valet; "not one of the maids would set foot hinside this walk hafter nightfall for a kingdom! They say it's 'aunted. Come forward a little, and let's see if we can't 'ave a look at the talkers. Whoever it is, he's hup to no good, I'll be bound!"
Very softly, stealing on tiptoe, the twain approached the entrance of the avenue. The watery moonlight breaking through a rift in the clouds, shone out for an instant above the trees, and showed them a man and a woman, standing face to face, earnestly talking. Mr. Edwards barely repressed a cry of consternation.
"Good Lord!" he gasped; "it's my lady!"
"Hush!" cried Sybilla. "Who is the man?"
As if some inward prescience told him they were there, the man lifted his hat at that very instant, and plainly showed his face.
"The Hamerican, by Jove!" gasped the horrified valet. Sybilla Silver's eyes blazed like coals of fire, and the demoniac smile, that made her brilliant beauty hideous, gleamed on her lips.
She grasped the man's arm with slender fingers of iron, and stood gloating over the scene.
Not one word could they hear—the distance was too great—but they could see my lady's passionate gestures; they could see the white hands clasp and cover her face; they could see her wildly excited, even in that dim light. And once they saw her take from her pocket her purse, and pour a handful of shining sovereigns into Mr. Parmalee's extended hand.
Nearly an hour they had stood, petrified gazers, when they were aroused as by a thunder-clap. A horse came galloping furiously up the avenue, as only one rider ever galloped there. Sybilla Silver just repressed a scream of exultation—no more.
"It is Sir Everard Kingsland!" she cried, in a whisper of fierce delight, "in time to catch his sick wife in the Beech Walk with the man he hates!"