CHAPTER XXVI.
"THE PERSON IN LONDON."
The February day was closing in London in a thick, clammy, yellow fog. No keen frost, no sparkling stars brightened the chill spring twilight; the sky, where it could be seen, was of a uniform leaden tint, the damp mist wet you to the bone, and a long, lamentable blast whistled around the corners and pierced chillingly through the thickest wraps, and passengers strode through the greasy black mud with surly faces and great-coats and the inevitable London umbrella.
At the window of a dull and dirty little lodging a woman sat, in this dark gloaming, gazing out at the passers-by. The house had a perpetual odor of onions and cabbage and dinner, as it is in the nature of such houses to have, and the room, "first floor front," was in the last stage of lodging-house shabbiness and discomfort.
The woman was quite alone—a still, dark figure sitting motionless by the grimy window. She might have been carved in stone, so still she sat—so still she had sat for more than two hours.
Her dress was black, of the poorest sort, frayed and worn, and she shivered under a threadbare shawl drawn close around her shoulders. Yet, in spite of poverty and sickness, and despair and middle age, the woman was beautiful still, with a dark and haggard and wild sort of beauty that would have haunted one to one's dying day.
In her youth, and her first freshness and innocence, she must have been lovely as a dream; but that loveliness was all gone now.
The listless hands lay still, the great, glittering dark eyes stared blankly at the dingy houses opposite, at the straggling pedestrians, at the thickening gloom. The short February day was almost night now, the street-lamps flared yellow and dull athwart the clammy fog.
"Another day," the woman murmured, "another endless day of sick despair gone. Alone and dying—the most miserable creature on the wide earth. Oh, great God, who didst forgive Magdalene, have a little pity on me!"
A spasm of fierce anguish crossed her face for an instant, fading away, and leaving the hopeless despair more hopeless than before.
"I am mad, worse than mad, to hope as I do. She will never look upon my guilty face—she so pure, so stainless, so sweet—how dare I ask it? Oh, what happy women there are in the world! Wives who love and are beloved, and are faithful to the end! And I—think how I drag on living with all that makes life worth having gone forever, while those happy ones, whose lives are one blissful dream, are torn by death from all who love them. To think that I once had a husband, a child, a home; to think what I am now—to think of it, and not to go mad!"
She laid her face against the cold glass with a miserable groan. "Have pity on me, oh, Lord! and let me die!"
There was a rush of carriage-wheels without, a hansom cab whirled up to the door, and a tall young man leaped out. Two minutes more and the tall young man burst impetuously into the dark room.
"All alone, Mrs. Denover," called a cheery voice, "and all in the dark? Darkness isn't wholesome—too conducive to low spirits and the blue devils. Halloo! Jane Anne, idol of my young affections, bring up the gas."
He leaned over the greasy baluster, shouting into the invisible regions below, and was answered promptly enough by a grimy maid-servant with a flickering dip-candle.
"'Tain't my fault, nor yet missis's," said this grimy maid. "Mrs.
Denover will sit in the dark, which I've——"
"That will do, Jane Anne," taking the dip and unceremoniously cutting her short. "Vamoose! evaporate! When I want you I'll sing out."
He re-entered the room and placed the candle on the table. The woman had risen, and stood with both hands clasped over her heart, a wild, gleaming, eager light in her black eyes. But she strove to restrain herself.
"I am glad to see you back, Mr. Parmalee," she said. "I have been expecting you for the last two days."
"And wearing yourself to skin and bone, as I knew you would, with your fidgets. What's the good of taking on so? I told you I'd come back as quick as I could, and I've done so. It ain't my fault that the time's been so long—it's Lady Kingsland's."
"You have seen her?"
"That I have. And very well worth seeing she is, I tell you. She's as handsome as a picture, though not so handsome as you must have been at her age, either, Mrs. Denover. And she says she'll see you."
"Oh, thank God!"
The woman tottered hack and sunk into a chair.
"That's right," said Mr. Parmalee; "take a seat, and let us talk it all over at our ease."
He took one himself, not in the ordinary fashion, but with his face to the back, his arms crossed over it, and his long legs twisted scientifically round the bottom.
"I've seen him, and I've seen her," said the photographer, "and a finer-looking couple ain't from here to anywhere. And as the Lord made 'em, He matched 'em for an all-fired prouder pair you couldn't meet in a summer-day's walk."
"She comes of a proud race," the woman murmured, feebly. "The Hunsdens are of the best and oldest stock in England."
"And she's a thorough-bred, if ever there was a thorough-bred one yet, and blood will show in a woman as well as a horse. Yes, she's proud, she's handsome and dreadful cut up, I can tell you, at the news I brought her."
The woman covered her face with her hands with a low moan. Mr.
Parmalee composedly went on:
"She knew your picture the minute she clapped eyes on it. I was afraid she might holler, as you wimmin do, at the sight, and her husband and another young woman were present, but she's got grit, that girl, the real sort. She turns round, by George! and gives me such a look—went through me like a carving-knife—and gets up without a word and walks away. And she never sent for me nor asked a question about it, although I mentioned you gave it to me, until I forced her to it, and after that no one need talk to me about the curiosity of the fair sex."
"Does her husband know?"
"No; and he's as jealous as a Turk. I wrote her a note—just a line—and sent it by that other young woman I spoke of, and what does he do but come to me like a roaring lion, and like to pummel my innards out! I owe him one for that, and I'll pay him off, too. I had to send again to my lady before she would condescend to see me, but when she did, I must say she behaved like a trump. She gave me thirty sovereigns plump down, promised me three hundred pounds, and told me to fetch you along. It ain't as much as I expected to make in this speculation; but, on the whole, I consider it a pretty tolerable fair stroke of business."
"Thank God!" the woman whispered, "thank God! I shall see my lost darling once before I die!"
"Now don't you go and take on, Mrs. Denover," observed Mr. Parmalee, "or you'll use yourself up, you know, and then you won't be able to travel to-morrow. And after to-morrow, and after you see your—— Well, my lady, there's the other little trip back to Uncle Sam's domains you've got to make; for you ain't a-going to stay in England and pester that poor young lady's life out?"
"No," said Mrs. Denover, mournfully—"no, I will never trouble her again. Only let me see her once more, and I will go back to my native land and wait until the merciful God sends me death."
"Oh, pooh!" said the artist; "don't you talk like that—it kind of makes my flesh creep, and there ain't no sense in it. There's Aunt Deborah, down to our section—you remind me of her—she was always going on so, wishing she was in heaven, or something horrid, the whole time. It's want of victuals more than anything else. You haven't had any dinner, I'll be bound!"
"No; I could not eat."
"Nor supper?"
"No: I never thought of it."
Mr. Parmalee got up, and was out of the room and hanging over the baluster in a twinkling.
"Here you, Jane Anne!"
Jane Anne appeared.
"Fetch up supper and look sharp—supper for two. Go 'round the corner and get us some oysters and a pint of port, and fetch up some baked potatoes and hot mutton chops—and quick about it."
"Now, then," said Mr. Parmalee, reappearing, "I've dispatched the slavery for provisions, and you've got to eat when they come. I won't have people living on one meal a day, and wishing they were in heaven, when I'm around."
"I will do whatever you think best, Mr. Parmalee," she said, humbly.
"You have been very good to me."
"I know it," said Mr. Parmalee. "I always do the polite thing with your sex. My mother was a woman. She's down in Maine now, and can churn and milk eight cows, and do chores, and make squash pie. Oh! them squash pies of my old lady's require to be eat to be believed in; and, for her sake, I always take to elderly female parties in distress. Here's the forage. Come in, Jane Anne, beloved of my soul, and dump 'em down and go."
Jane Anne did.
"Now, Mrs. Denover, you sit right up and fall to. Here's oysters, and here's mutton chops, raging hot, and baked potatoes—delicious to look at. And here's a glass of port wine, and you've got to drink it without a whimper. Mind what I told you; you don't budge a step to-morrow unless you eat a hearty supper to-night."
"You are very good to me," Mrs. Denover repeated. "What would have become of me but for you?"
She strove to eat and drink to please him and to sustain her feeble strength, but every morsel seemed to choke her. She pushed away her plate at last and looked at him imploringly.
"I can not eat another mouthful. Indeed I would if I could. I have no appetite at all of late."
"That's plain to be seen. Well, if you can't, you can't, of course. And now, as it's past nine, the best thing you can do is to go to bed at once."
With the same humility she had evinced throughout, the woman obeyed at once. Mr. Parmalee, left alone, sat over his oysters and his port, luxuriating in the thirty sovereigns in the present and the three hundred pounds in the prospective.
"It's been an uncommon good investment," he reflected, "and knocks the photograph business into a cocked hat. Then there's Sybilla—she goes with the bargain, too. Three hundred pounds and a handsome, black-eyed wife. I wish she hadn't such a devil of a temper. I'll take her home to the farm, and if mother doesn't break her in she'll be the first she ever failed with."
Mr. Parmalee retired betimes, slept soundly, and was up in the gray day-dawn. Breakfast, piping hot, smoked on the table when Mrs. Denover appeared.
"Eat, drink and be merry," said Mr. Parmalee. "Go in and win. Try that under-done steak, and don't took quite so much like the ghost of Hamlet's father, if you can help it."
The woman tried with touching humility to please him, and did her best, but that best was a miserable failure.
A cab came for them in half an hour, and whirled them off on the first stage of their journey.
In the golden light of the spring afternoon Mr. Parmalee made his appearance again at the Blue Bell Inn, with a veiled lady, all in black, hanging on his arm.
"This here lady is my maiden aunt, come over from the State of Maine to see your British institutions," Mr. Parmalee said, in fluent fiction, to the obsequious landlady. "She's writing a book, and she'll mention the Blue Bell favorably in it. Her name is Miss Hepzekiah Parmalee. Let her have your best bedroom and all the luxuries this hotel affords, and I will foot the bill."
He lighted a cigar and sallied forth.
"Miss Hepzekiah Parmalee" dined alone in her own room; then sat by the window, with white face and strained eyes, waiting for Mr. Parmalee's return.
It was almost dark when he came. He entered hurriedly, flushed and excited.
"Fortune favors us this bout, Mrs. Denover," he said, "I've met an old chum down on the wharf yonder—a countryman—and I'd as soon have expected to find the President of the United States in this little one-horse town. His name's Davis—Captain Davis, of the schooner 'Angelina Dobbs'—and he's going to sail for Southampton this very night. There's a streak of luck. A free passage for you and for me up to Southampton to-night."
"But my—Lady Kingsland?" she faltered.
"I've made that all right, too. I met one of the flunkies and sent word to Sybilla that we were here, and that she'd better see us at once. I expect an answer every—— Ah, by George! speak of the—here she is!"
It was Miss Sybilla Silver, sailing gracefully down the street. Mr. Parmalee darted out and met her—superbly handsome, her dark cheeks flushed with some inward excitement, her black eyes gleaming with strange fire.
"Is she here?" she breathlessly asked.
Mr. Parmalee nodded toward the window.
Sybilla gazed up a moment at the pale, haggard face.
"They are alike," she said, under her breath—"mother and daughter—and that face is scarcely more haggard than the other now. We have had a dreadful quarrel, Mr. Parmalee, since you left, up at the Court."
"Want to know about me?"
"Partly. About the secret—about that meeting in the Beech Walk. He absolutely threatened her life."
"Should like to have been there to hear him," said Mr. Parmalee. "It would be paying off old scores a little. How did she take it?"
"She fainted. Her maid found her in a dead swoon next morning. She did not tell Sir Everard, by my advice; he would have been for making it up directly. They have not met since—my doing, too. He thinks she is sulking in her room. He is half mad to be reconciled—to make a fool of himself, asking pardon, and all that—but I have taken good care he shall not. He thinks she is obstinate and sullen; she thinks he is full of nothing but rage and revenge. It is laughable to manage them."
"Fun to you, but death to them," observed the artist. "You are flinty, Sybilla, and no mistake. I'm pretty hard myself, but I couldn't torment folks like that in cold blood. It's none of my business, however, and I don't care how high you pile the agony on him. Did you tell her the elderly party was here?"
"Yes. She has not left her room for three days. She is the shadow of her former self, and she was dreadfully agitated upon hearing it; but she answered, firmly, 'I will see her, and at once. I will meet her to-night.' I asked where, and then, for the first time, she was at a loss."
"The Beech Walk," suggested the artist.
"The Beech Walk is watched. Sir Everard's spies are on the lookout. No—I know a better place. The young plantation slopes down to the very water's edge; the shrubbery is thick and dense, the spot gloomy; no one ever goes there. You can come by water and fetch her in the boat. Land on the shore under the stone terrace, about midnight, and my lady will meet you there."
"And you, Sybilla? The old lady and me, we sail at the turn of the tide for Southampton, to take passage for America. I suppose you hain't forgotten your promise?"
"Is it likely, George? I will follow you to America and we will be married there. It is impossible for me to go with you now. You can wait a couple of months, can you not?"
"But—"
"You must wait, George. I love you, and I will follow you and be your true and devoted wife. But you must wait a little. Say you agree, and let us part until we meet again—where? In New York?"
"I suppose so," Mr. Parmalee responded, gruffly. "You're boss in this business, it seems, and I've got to do as you say. But it's hard on a fellow; I calk'lated on taking you over with me."
"Would you have me go to you penniless? I will come to you with a fortune. Believe me, trust me, and wait. You will be on the stone terrace at twelve to-night?"
"She will," said the American. "I'll wait in the boat. 'Tain't likely they want me to be present at their interview. Just remind my lady to fetch along the three hundred pounds, and don't let her fail to come. I want to sail in the 'Angelina Dobbs' to-night."
"She will not fail. She will come."
Her eyes blazed up with a lurid fire as she said it.
"She will be there," she said, "and she shall fetch the three hundred pounds. Do you not fail!"
"I will not. Will you be there, too, Sybilla?"
"I? Of course not. There is no need of me."
"Then we say good-bye here?"
"Yes. Good-bye until we meet in New York."
"I will write to you from there," he said, wringing her hand. "Good-bye, Sybilla! I will be at the trysting-place to-night. Be sure the other party is, too."
"Without fail. Adieu, and—forever!"
She waved her hand and flitted away, uttering the last word under her breath.
Mr. Parmalee watched her out of sight, heaved a heavy sigh, and went back to the house.
Swiftly Sybilla Silver fluttered along in the chill evening wind, her face to the sunset sky. But not the pale luster of that February sunset lighted her dark face with that lurid light—the flame burned within. Two fierce red spots blazed on either cheek: her eyes glowed like living coals; her hands were clinched under her shawl.
"She will be there," she whispered, under her breath—"she will be there, but she never will return. By the wrongs of the dead, by the vengeance I have sworn, this night shall be her last on earth. And he shall pay the penalty—my oath will be kept, the astrologer's prediction fulfilled, and Zenith the gypsy avenged!"