"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 s.e.x."
"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 G.o.d!" the woman whispered, "thank G.o.d! 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 G.o.d 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 bal.u.s.ter 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 s.e.x. My mother was a woman. She"s down in Maine now, and can churn and milk eight cows, and do ch.o.r.es, 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 gla.s.s 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 appet.i.te 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 c.o.c.ked 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 inst.i.tutions," 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 pa.s.sage 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?"