MY LADY'S SECRET.
It was quite dark before prudent Mr. Parmalee, notwithstanding
Sybilla's assurance that the baronet was away from home, ventured
within the great entrance gates of the park. He was not, as he said
himself, a coward altogether; but he had a lively recollection of the
pummeling he had already received, and a wholesome dread of the
scientific hitting of this strong-fisted young aristocrat. When he did
venture, his coat-collar was so pulled up that recognition was next to
impossible.
Mr. Parmalee, smoking a cigar, made his way to the Beech Walk, and
leaning against a giant tree, stared at the moon, and waited. The
loud-voiced turret clock struck eight a moment after he had taken his
position.
"Time is up," thought the photographer. "My lady ought to be here now.
I'll give her another quarter. If she isn't with me in that time, then
good-bye to Lady Kingsland and my keeping her secret."
Ten minutes passed. As he replaced his watch a light step sounded on
the frozen snow, a shadow darkened the entrance, and Lady Kingsland's
pale, proud face looked fixedly at him in the moonlight. He took off
his hat and threw away his half-smoked cigar.
"My Lady Kingsland!"
She bowed haughtily, hovering aloof.
"You wished to see me, Mr. Parmalee--that is your name, I believe.
What is it you have to say to me?"
"I don't think you really need to ask that question, my lady. You know
as well as I do, or I'm mistaken."
"Who are you?" she demanded, impatiently, impetuously. "How do you
come to know my secret? How do you come to be possessed of that
picture?"
"I told you before. She gave it to me herself."
"For God's sake, tell me the truth! Don't deceive me! Do you really
mean it? Have you really seen my----"
She stopped, shuddering in some horrible inward repulsion from head to
foot.
"I really have," rejoined Mr. Parmalee. "I know the--the party in
question like a book. She told me her story, she gave me her picture
herself, of her own free will, and she told me where to find you. She
is in London now, all safe, and waiting--a little out of patience,
though, by this time, I dare say."
"Waiting!" Lady Kingsland gasped the word in white terror. "Waiting
for what?"
"To see you, my lady."
There was a blank pause. My lady covered her face with both hands, and
again that convulsive shudder shook her from head to foot.
"She is very penitent, my lady," Mr. Parmalee said, in a softer tone.
"She is very poor, and ill and heart-broken. Even you, my lady, might
pity and forgive her if you saw her now."
"For Heaven's sake, hush! I don't want to hear. Tell me how you met
her first. I never heard your name until that day in the library."
"No more you didn't," said the artist. "You see, my lady, it was pure
chance-work from first to last. I was coming over here on a little
speculation of my own in the photographic line, and being low in pocket
and pretty well used to rough it, I was coming in the steerage. There
was a pretty hard crowd of us--Dutch and Irish and all sorts mixed up
there--an' among 'em one that looked as much out of her element as a
fish out of water. Any one could tell with half an eye she'd been a
lady, in spite of her shabby duds and starved, haggard face. She was
alone. Not a soul knew her, not a soul cared for her, and half-way
across she fell sick and had like to died."
Mr. Parmalee paused. My lady stood before him, ashen, white to the
lips, listening with wild, wide eyes.
"Go on," she said, almost in a whisper.
"Well, my lady," Mr. Parmalee resumed, modestly, "I'm a pretty rough
sort of a fellow, as you may see, and I hain't never experienced
religion or that, and don't lay claim to no sort of goodness; but for
all that I've an old mother over to home, and for her sake I couldn't
stand by and see a poor, sufferin' feller-critter of the female
persuasion and not lend a helping hand. I nussed that there sick party
by night and by day, and if it hadn't been for that nussin' and the
little things I bought her to eat, she'd have been under the Atlantic
now, though I do say it."
My lady held out her hand, aglitter with rich rings.
"You are a better man than I took you for," she said softly. "I thank
you with all my heart."
Mr. Parmalee took the dainty hand, rather confusedly, in his
finger-tips, held it a second, and dropped it.
"It was one night, when she thought herself dying, that she told me her
story--told me everything, my lady--who she had been, who she was, and
what she was coming across for. My lady, nobody could be sorrier than
she was then. I pitied her, by George, more than I ever pitied any one
before in my life. She had been unhappy and remorseful for a long
time, but she was in despair. It was too late for repentance, she
thought. There was nothing for it but to go on to the dreadful end.
Sometimes, when she was almost mad, she--well, she took to drink, you
know, and he wasn't in any way a good or kind protector to
her--Thorndyke wasn't."
My lady flung up both arms with a shrill scream.
"Not that name," she cried--"not that accursed name, if you would not
drive me mad!"
"I beg your pardon!" said Mr. Parmalee; "I won't. Well, she heard of
your father's death--_he_ told her, you see--and that completed her
despair. She took to drink worse and worse; she got out of all
bounds--sort of frantic, you see. Twice she tried to kill
herself--once by poison, once by drowning; and both times he--you know
who I mean--caught her and stopped her. He hadn't even mercy enough on
her, she says, to let her die!"
"For God's sake, don't tell me of those horrors!" my lady cried, in
agony. "I feel as though I were going mad."
"It is hard," said the artist, "but I can't help it--it's true, all the
same. She heard of your marriage to Sir Everard Kingsland next. It
was the last thing he ever taunted her with; for, crazed with his jeers
and insults, she fled from him that night, sold all she possessed but
the clothes on her back, and took passage for England."
"To see me?" asked Harriet, hoarsely.
"To see you, my lady, but all unknown. She had no wish to force
herself upon you; she only felt that she was dying, and that if she
could look on your face once before she went out of life, and see you
well, and beautiful, and beloved, and happy, she could lie down in the
dust at your gates and die content.
"She made me write you a line or two that night," continued Mr.
Parmalee--"that night which she thought her last--and she begged me to
find you and give it to you, with her picture. I have it yet; here
they are, both."
He drew from his pocket the picture and a note, and gave them into my
lady's hand.
"She didn't die," he resumed; "she got better, and I took her to
London, left her there, and came down here. Now, my lady, I don't make
no pretense of being better than I am; I took this matter up in the way
of speculation, in the view to make money out of it, and nothing else.
I said to myself: 'Here's this young lady, the bride of a rich baronet;
it ain't likely she's been and told him all this, and it ain't likely
her pa has died and left her ignorant of it. Now, what's to hinder my
making a few honest pounds out of it, at the same time I do a good turn
for this poor, sufferin'. sinful critter here? That's what I said, my
lady, and that's what I am here for. I'm a poor man, and I live by my
wits, and a stroke of business is a stroke of business, no matter how
far it's out of the ordinary run. Your husband don't know this here
story; you don't want him to know it, and you come down handsomely and
I'll keep your secret."
"You have rather spoiled your marketable commodity, then, Mr. Parmalee.
It would have paid you better not to have shared your secret with
Sybilla Silver."
"She's told you, has she?" said the artist, rather surprised. "Now
that's what I call mean. You don't think she'll peach to Sir Everard,
do you?"
"I think it extremely likely that she will. She hates me, Mr.
Parmalee, and Miss Silver would do a good deal for a person she hates.
You should have waited until she became Mrs. Parmalee before making her
the repository of your valuable secrets."
"It's no good talking about it now, however," said Mr. Parmalee, rather
doggedly. "I've told her, and it can't be helped. And now, my lady, I
don't want to be caught here, and it's getting late, and what are you
going to give a fellow for all his trouble?"
"What will hardly repay you," said my lady, "for I have very little of
my own, as you doubtless have informed yourself ere this. What I have
you have earned and shall receive. At the most it will not exceed
three hundred pounds. Of my husband's money not one farthing shall any
one ever receive from me for keeping a secret of mine."
"I must have more than that," he said, resolutely. "Three hundred
pounds is nothing to a lady like you."
"It is all I have--all I can give you, and to give you that I must sell
the trinkets my dear dead father gave me. But it is for his sake I do
it--to preserve his secret. My jewels, my diamonds, my husband's gifts
I will not touch, nor one farthing of his money will you ever receive.
You entirely mistake me, Mr. Parmalee. My secret I will keep from him
while I can; I swore a solemn oath by my father's death-bed to do so.
But to pay you with his money--to bribe you to deceive him with his
gold--I never will. I would die first."
She stood before him erect, defiant, queenly.
Mr. Parmalee frowned darkly.
"Suppose I go to him then, my lady--suppose I pour this nice little
story into his ear--what then?"
"Then," she exclaimed, in tones of ringing scorn, "you will receive
nothing. His servants will thrust you from his gates. No, Mr.
Parmalee, if money be your object you will make a better bargain with
me than with him. What is mine you shall have--every farthing I own,
every trinket I possess--on condition that you depart and never trouble
me more. That is all I can do--all I will do. Decide which you
prefer."
"There is no choice," replied the American, sullenly; "half a loaf is
better than nothing. I'll take the three hundred pounds. And now, my
lady, what do you mean to do about her? She wants to see you."
"See me!" An expression of horror swept over my lady's face. "Not for
ten thousand worlds!"
"Well, now, I call that hard," said Mr. Parmalee. "I don't care what
she's done or what she's been, it's hard! She's sorry now, and no one
can be more than that. I take an interest in that unfortunate party,
my lady; and if you knew how she hankers after a sight of you--how poor
and ill and heart-broken she is--how she longs to hear you say once, 'I
forgive you,' before she dies--well, you wouldn't be so hard."
"Stop--stop!" Lady Kingsland exclaimed.
She turned away, leaning against a tree, her face more ghastly than the
face of a dead woman.
Mr. Parmalee watched her. He could see the fierce struggle that shook
her from head to foot.
"Don't be hard on her!" he pleaded. "She's very humble now, and fallen
very low. She won't live long, and you'll be happier on your own
death-bed, my lady, for forgiving her poor soul!"
She put out her hand blindly and took his.
"I will see her," she said, hoarsely. "May God forgive her and pity
me! Fetch her down here, Mr. Parmalee, and I will see her."
"Yes, my lady; but as I'm rather short of funds, perhaps--"
She drew out her purse and poured its glittering contents into his palm.
"It is all I have now; when you return I will have the three hundred
pounds. You must take her back to New York. She and I must never meet
again--for my husband's sake."
"I understand, my lady. I'll do what I can. I'll take her back, and
I'll trouble you no more."
His last words were drowned in the gallop of Sir Galahad up the avenue.
"It is my husband," my lady exclaimed. "I must leave you. When will
you--and she--return?"
"In two days we will be here. I'll give out she's a sister of mine at
the inn, and I'll send you word and arrange a meeting."
Mr. Parmalee drew down his hat and strode away. Weak, trembling, my
lady leaned for a few moments against a tree, trying to recover
herself, then turned slowly and walked back to the house to meet her
husband.