At the sight of this recognition, and the sound of his voice, Zillah uttered a loud cry of joy, and twined her arms about him in an eager hunger of affection.
"Oh, papa! papa!" she moaned, "you are getting better! You will not leave me--you will not--you will not!"
All that day the doctor had been in the house, and at this moment had been waiting in an adjoining apartment. The cry of Zillah startled him, and he hurried into the room. He saw her prostrate on the bed, with her arms around her father, uttering low, half-hysterical words of fondness, intermingled with laughter and weeping.
"Miss Pomeroy," he said, with some sternness, "are you mad? Did I not warn you above all things to restrain your feelings?"
Instantly Zillah started up. The reproof of the doctor had so stung her that for a moment she forgot her father, and regarded her reprover with a face full of astonishment and anger.
"How dare you speak so to me?" she cried, savagely.
The doctor looked fixedly at her for a few moments, and then answered, quietly:
"This is no place for discussion. I will explain afterward." He then went to the General's bedside, and surveyed his patient in thoughtful silence. Already the feeble beginnings of returning consciousness had faded away, and the sick man's eyes were closed wearily. The doctor administered some medicine, and after waiting for nearly an hour in silence, he saw the General sink off into a peaceful sleep.
"Now," said he, in a low voice, "Miss Pomeroy, I wish to say something to you. Come with me." He led the way to the room where he had been waiting, while Zillah, for the first time in her life, obeyed an order. She followed in silence. "Miss Pomeroy," said the doctor, very gravely, "your father's case is very serious indeed, and I want to have a perfect understanding with you. If you have not thorough confidence in me, you have only to say so, and I will give you a list of physicians of good standing, into whose hands you may safely confide the General. But if, on the contrary, you wish me to continue my charge. I will only do so on the condition that I am to be the sole master in that room, and that my injunctions are to be implicitly attended to. Now, choose for yourself."
This grave, stern address, and the idea that he might leave her, frightened Zillah altogether out of her passion. She looked piteously at him, and grasped his hand as if in fear that he would instantly carry out his threat.
"Oh, doctor!" she cried, "pray forgive me; do not leave me when dear papa is so ill! It shall be all as you say, only you will not send me away from him, will you? Oh, say that you will not!"
The doctor retained her hand, and answered very kindly: "My dear child, I should be most sorry to do so. Now that your father has come back to consciousness, you may be the greatest possible comfort to him if you will. But, to do this, you really must try to control yourself. The excitement which you have just caused him has overcome him, and if I had not been here I do not know what might have happened. Remember, my child, that love is shown not by words but by deeds; and it would be but a poor return for all your father's affection to give way selfishly to your own grief."
"Oh, what have I done?" cried Zillah, in terror.
"I do not suppose that you have done him very serious injury," said the doctor, reassuringly; "but you ought to take warning by this. You will promise now, won't you, that there shall be no repetition of this conduct?"
"Oh, I will! I will!"
"I will trust you, then," said the doctor, looking with pity upon her sad face. "You are his best nurse, if you only keep your promise. So now, my dear, go back to your place by his side." And Zillah, with a faint murmur of thanks, went back again.
On the following day General Pomeroy seemed to have regained his full consciousness. Zillah exercised a strong control over herself, and was true to her promise. When the doctor called he seemed pleased at the favorable change. But there was evidently something on the General's mind. Finally, he made the doctor understand that he wished to see him alone. The doctor whispered a few words to Zillah, who instantly left the room.
"Doctor," said the General, in a feeble voice, as soon as they were alone, "I must know the whole truth. Will you tell it to me frankly?"
"I never deceive my patients," was the answer.
"Am I dangerously ill?"
"You are."
"How long have I to live?"
"My dear Sir, God alone can answer that question. You have a chance for life yet. Your sickness may take a favorable turn, and we may be able to bring you round again."
"But the chances are against me, you think?"
"We must be prepared for the worst," said the doctor, solemnly. "At the same time, there is a chance."
"Well, suppose that the turn should be unfavorable, how long would it be, do you think, before the end? I have much to attend to, and it is of the greatest important that I should know this."
"Probably a month--possibly less," answered the doctor, gravely, after a moment's thought; "that is, if the worst should take place. But it is impossible to speak with certainty until, your symptoms are more fully developed."
"Thank you, doctor, for your frankness; and now, will you kindly send my daughter to me?"
"Remember," said the doctor, doubtfully, "that it is of the greatest possible moment that you be kept free from all excitement. Any agitation of your mind will surely destroy your last chance."
"But I must see her!" answered the General, excitedly. "I have to attend to something which concerns her. It is her future. I could not die easily, or rest in my grave, if this were neglected."
Thus far the General had been calm, but the thought of Zillah had roused him into dangerous agitation. The doctor saw that discussion would only aggravate this, and that his only chance was to humor his fancies. So he went out, and found Zillah pacing the passage in a state of uncontrollable agitation. He reminded her of her promise, impressed on her the necessity of caution, and sent her to him. She crept softly to the bedside, and, taking her accustomed seat, covered his hand with kisses.
"Sit a little lower, my darling," said the General, "where I may see your face." She obeyed, still holding his hand, which returned with warmth her caressing pressure.
The agitation which the General had felt at the doctor's information had now grown visibly stronger. There was a kind of feverish excitement in his manner which seemed to indicate that his brain was affected. One idea only filled that half-delirious brain, and this, without the slightest warning, he abruptly began to communicate to his daughter.
"You know, Zillah," said he, in a rapid, eager tone which alarmed her, "the dearest wish of my heart is to see you the wife of Guy Molyneux, the son of my old friend. I betrothed you to him five years ago. You remember all about it, of course. He visited us at London. The time for the accomplishment of my desire has now arrived. I received a letter from Lord Chetwynde on the day of my accident, telling me that his son's regiment was shortly to sail for India. I intended writing to ask him to pay us a visit before he left; but now," he added, in a dreamy voice, "of course he must come, and--he must marry you before he goes."
Any thing more horrible, more abhorrent, to Zillah than such language, at such a time, could not be conceived. She thought he was raving.
A wild exclamation of fear and remonstrance started to her lips; but she remembered the doctor's warning, and by a mighty effort repressed it. It then seemed to her that this raving delirium, if resisted, might turn to madness and endanger his last chance. In her despair she found only one answer, and that was something which might soothe him.
"Yes, dear papa," she said, quietly; "yes, we will ask him to come and see us."
"No, no," cried the General, with feverish impatience. "That will not do. You must marry him at once--to-day--to-morrow--do you hear? There is no time to lose."
"But I must stay with you, dearest papa, you know," said Zillah, still striving to soothe him. "What would you do without your little girl? I am sure you can not want me to leave you."
"Ah, my child!" said the General, mournfully, "I am going to leave _you_. The doctor tells me that I have but a short time to live; and I feel that what he says is true. If I must leave you, my darling, I can not leave you without a protector."
At this Zillah's unaccustomed self-control gave way utterly. Overcome by the horror of that revelation and the anguish of that discovery, she flung her arms around him and clung to him passionately.
"You shall not go!" she moaned. "You shall not go; or if you do you must take me with you. I can not live without you. You know that I can not. Oh, papa! papa!"
The tones of her voice, which were wailed out in a wild, despairing cry, reached the ears of the doctor, who at once hurried in.
"What is this?" he said, sharply and sternly, to Zillah. "Is this keeping your promise?"
"Oh, doctor!" said Zillah, imploringly, "I did not mean to--I could not help it--but tell me--it is not true, is it? Tell me that my father is not going to leave me!"
"I will tell you this," said he, gravely. "You are destroying every chance of his recovery by your vehemence."
Zillah looked up at him with an expression of agony on her face such as, accustomed as he was to scenes of suffering, he had but seldom encountered.
"I've killed him, then!" she faltered.
The doctor put his hand kindly on her shoulder. "I trust not, my poor child," said he; "but it is my duty to warn you of the consequences of giving way to excessive grief."
"Oh, doctor! you are quite right, and I will try very hard not to give way again."
During this conversation, which was low and hurried, General Pomeroy lay without hearing any thing of what they were saying. His lips moved, and his hands picked at the bed-clothes convulsively. Only one idea was in his mind--the accomplishment of his wishes. His daughter's grief seemed to have no effect on him whatever. Indeed, he did not appear to notice it.
"Speak to her, doctor," said he, feebly, as he heard their voices. "Tell her I can not die happy unless she is married--I can not leave her alone in the world."
The doctor looked surprised. "What does he mean?" he said, taking Zillah aside. "What is this fancy? Is there any thing in it?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Zillah. "It is certainly on his mind, and he can't be argued or humored out of it. It is an arrangement made some years ago between him and Lord Chetwynde that when I grew up I should marry his son, and he has just been telling me that he wishes it carried out now. Oh! what--what _shall_ I do?" she added, despairingly. "Can't you do something, doctor?"
"I will speak to him," said the latter; and, approaching the bed, he bent over the General, and said, in a low voice:
"General Pomeroy, you know that the family physician is often a kind of father-confessor as well. Now I do not wish to intrude upon your private affairs; but from what you have said I perceive that there is something on your mind, and if I can be of any assistance to you I shall be only too happy. Have you any objection to tell me what it is that is troubling you?"
While the doctor spoke the General's eyes were fixed upon Zillah with feverish anxiety. "Tell her," he murmured, "that she must consent at once--at once," he repeated, in a more excited tone.
"Consent to what?"
"To this marriage that I have planned for her. She knows. It is with the son of my old friend, Lord Chetwynde. He is a fine lad, and comes of a good stock. I knew his father before him. I have watched him closely for the last five years. He will take care of her. He will make her a good husband. And I--shall be able to die--in peace. But it must be done--immediately--for he is going--to India."
The General spoke in a very feeble tone, and with frequent pauses.
"And do you wish your daughter to go with him? She is too young to be exposed to the dangers of Indian life."
This idea seemed to strike the General very forcibly. For some minutes he did not answer, and it was with difficulty that he could collect his thoughts. At last he answered, slowly:
"That is true--but she need not accompany him. Let her stay with me--till all is over--then she can go--to Chetwynde. It will be her natural home. She will find in my old friend a second father. She can remain with him--till her husband returns."
A long pause followed. "Besides," he resumed, in a fainter voice, "there are other things. I can not explain--they are private--they concern the affairs of others. But if Zillah were to refuse to marry him--she would lose one-half of her fortune. So you can understand my anxiety. She has not a relative in the world--to whom I could leave her."
Here the General stopped, utterly exhausted by the fatigue of speaking so much. As for the doctor, he sat for a time involved in deep thought. Zillah stood there pale and agitated, looking now at her father and now at the doctor, while a new and deeper anguish came over her heart. After a while he rose and quietly motioned to Zillah to follow him to the adjoining room.
"My dear child," said he, kindly, when they had arrived there, "your father is excited, but yet is quite sane. His plan seems to be one which he has been cherishing for years; and he has so thoroughly set his heart upon it that it now is evidently his sole idea. I do not see what else can be done than to comply with his wishes."
"What!" cried Zillah, aghast.
"To refuse," said the doctor, "might be fatal. It would throw him into a paroxysm."
"Oh, doctor!" moaned Zillah. "What do you mean? You can not be in earnest. What--to do such a thing when darling papa is--is dying!"
Sobs choked her utterance. She buried her face in her hands and sank into a chair.
"He is not yet so bad," said the doctor, earnestly, "but he is certainly in a critical state; and unless it is absolutely impossible--unless it is too abhorrent to think of--unless any calamity is better than this--I would advise you to try and think if you can not bring yourself to--to indulge his wish, wild as it may seem to you. There, my dear, I am deeply sorry for you; but I am honest, and say what I think."
For a long time Zillah sat in silence, struggling with her emotions. The doctor's words impressed her deeply; but the thing which he advised was horrible to her--abhorrent beyond words. But then there was her father lying so near to death--whom, perhaps, her self-sacrifice might save, and whom certainly her selfishness would destroy. She could not hesitate. It was a bitter decision, but she made it. She rose to her feet paler than ever, but quite calm.
"Doctor," said she, "I have decided. It is horrible beyond words; but I will do it, or any thing, for his sake. I would die to save him; and this is something worse than death."
She was calm and cold; her voice seemed unnatural; her eyes were tearless.
"It seems very hard," she murmured, after a pause; "I never saw Captain Molyneux but once, and I was only ten years old."
"How old are you now?" asked the doctor, who knew not what to say to this poor stricken heart.
"Fifteen."
"Poor child!" said he, compassionately; "the trials of life are coming upon you early; but," he added, with a desperate effort at condolence, "do not be so despairing; whatever may be the result, you are, after all, in the path of duty; and that is the safest and the best for us all in the end, however hard it may seem to be in the present."
Just then the General's voice interrupted his little homily, sounding querulously and impatiently: "Zillah! Zillah!"
She sprang to his bedside: "Here I am, dear papa."
"Will you do as I wish?" he asked, abruptly.
"Yes," said Zillah, with an effort at firmness which cost her dear. Saying this, she kissed him; and the beam of pleasure which at this word lighted up the wan face of the sick man touched Zillah to the heart. She felt that, come what might, she had received her reward.
"My sweetest, dutiful child," said the General, tenderly; "you have made me happy, my darling. Now get your desk and write for him at once. You must not lose time, my child."
This unremitting pressure upon her gave Zillah a new struggle, but the General exhibited such feverish impatience that she dared not resist. So she went to a Davenport which stood in the corner of the room, and saying, quietly, "I will write here, papa," she seated herself, with her back toward him.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
"Yes, papa."
The General then began to dictate to her what she was to write. It was as follows:
"MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,--I think it will cause you some grief to hear that our long friendship is about to be broken up. My days, I fear, are numbered."
Zillah stifled the sobs that choked her, and wrote bravely on:
"You know the sorrow which has blighted my life; and I feel that I could go joyfully to my beloved, my deeply mourned wife, if I could feel that I was leaving my child--her child and mine--happily provided for. For this purpose I should like Guy, before he leaves for India, to fulfill his promise, and, by marrying my daughter, give me the comfort of knowing that I leave her in the hands of a husband upon whom I can confidently rely."
But at this point Zillah's self-control gave way. She broke down utterly, and, bowing her head in her hands on the desk, burst forth into a passion of sobs.
The poor child could surely not be blamed. Her nature was impassioned and undisciplined; from her birth every whim had been humored, and her wildest fancies indulged to the utmost; and now suddenly upon this petted idol, who had been always guarded so carefully from the slightest disappointment, there descended the storm-cloud of sorrow, and that too not gradually, but almost in one moment. Her love for her father was a passion; and he was to be taken from her, and she was to be given into the hands of entire strangers. The apparent calmness, almost indifference, with which her father made these arrangements, cut her to the quick. She was too young to know how much of this eagerness was attributable entirely to disease. He appeared to her as thinking of only his own wishes, and showing no consideration whatever for her own crushing grief, and no appreciation of the strength of her affection for him. The self-sacrificing father had changed into the most selfish of men, who had not one thought for her feelings.
"Oh, Zillah!" cried her father, reproachfully, in answer to her last outburst of grief. She rose and went to his bedside, struggling violently with her emotion.
"I can not write this, dearest papa," she said, in a tremulous voice; "I have promised to do just as you wish, and I will keep my word; but indeed, indeed, I can not write this letter. Will it not do as well if Hilda writes it?"
"To be sure, to be sure," said the General, who took no notice of her distress. "Hilda will do it, and then my little girl can come and sit beside her father."
Hilda was accordingly sent for. She glided noiselessly in and took her place at the Davenport; while Zillah, sitting by her father, buried her head in the bed-clothes, his feeble hands the while playing nervously with the long, straggling locks of her hair which scattered themselves over the bed. The letter was soon finished, for it contained little more than what has already been given, except the reiterated injunction that Guy should make all haste to reach Pomeroy Court. It was then sent off to the post, to the great delight of the General, whose mind became more wandering, now that the strain which had been placed upon it was removed.
"Now," said he, in a flighty way, and with an eager impetuosity which showed that his delirium had increased, "we must think of the wedding--my darling must have a grand wedding," he murmured to himself in a low whisper.
A shudder ran through Zillah as she sat by his side, but not a sound escaped her. She looked up in terror. Had every ray of reason left her father? Was she to sacrifice herself on so hideous an altar without even the satisfaction of knowing that she had given him pleasure? Then she thought that perhaps her father was living again in the past, and confounding this fearful thing which he was planning for her with his own joyous wedding. Tears flowed afresh, but silently, at the thought of the contrast. Often had her ayah delighted her childish imagination by her glowing descriptions of the magnificence of that wedding, where the festivities had lasted for a week, and the arrangements were all made on a scale of Oriental splendor. She loved to descant upon the beauty of the bride, the richness of her attire, the magnificence of her jewels, the grandeur of the guests, the splendor of the whole display--until Zillah had insensibly learned to think all this the necessary adjuncts of a wedding, and had built many a day-dream about the pomp which should surround hers, when the glorious knight whom the fairy tales had led her to expect should come to claim her hand. But at this time it was not the sacrifice of all this that was wringing her heart. She gave it not even a sigh. It was rather the thought that this marriage, which now seemed inevitable, was to take place here, while her heart was wrung with anxiety on his account--here in this room--by that bedside, which her fears told her might be a bed of death. There lay her father, her only friend--the one for whom she would lay down her life, and to soothe whose delirium she had consented to this abhorrent sacrifice of herself. The marriage thus planned was to take place thus; it was to be a hideous, a ghastly mockery--a frightful violence to the solemnity of sorrow. She was not to be married--she was to be sold. The circumstances of that old betrothal had never been explained to her; but she knew that money was in some way connected with it, and that she was virtually bought and sold like a slave, without any will of her own. Such bitter thoughts as these filled her mind as she sat there by her father's side.
Presently her father spoke again. "Have you any dresses, Zillah?"
"Plenty, papa."
"Oh, but I mean a wedding-dress--a fine new dress; white satin my darling wore; how beautiful she looked! and a veil you must have, and plenty of jewels--pearls and diamonds. My pet will be a lovely bride."
Every one of these words was a stab, and Zillah was dumb; but her father noticed nothing, of this. It was madness, but, like many cases of madness, it was very coherent.
"Send for your ayah, dear," he continued; "I must talk to her--about your wedding-dress."
Zillah rang the bell. As soon as the woman appeared the General turned to her with his usual feverish manner.
"Nurse," said he, "Miss Pomeroy is to be married at once. You must see--that she has every thing prepared--suitably--and of the very best."
The ayah stood speechless with amazement. This feeling was increased when Zillah said, in a cold monotone:
"Don't look surprised, nurse. It's quite true. I am to be married within a day or two."
Her master's absurdities the ayah could account for on the ground of delirium; but was "Little Missy" mad too? Perhaps sorrow had turned her brain, she thought. At any rate, it would be best to humor them.
"Missy had a white silk down from London last week, Sir."
"Not satin? A wedding-dress should be of satin," said the General.
"It does not matter, so that it is all white," said the nurse, with decision.
"Doesn't it? Very well," said the General. "But she must have a veil, nurse, and plenty of jewels. She must look like my darling. You remember, nurse, how she looked."
"Indeed I do, sahib, and you may leave all to me. I will see that Missy is as fine and grand as any of them."
The ayah began already to feel excited, and to fall in with this wild proposal. The very mention of dress had excited her Indian love of finery.
"That is right," said the General; "attend to it all. Spare no expense. Don't you go, my child," he continued, as Zillah rose and walked shudderingly to the window. "I think I can sleep, now that my mind is at ease. Stay by me, my darling child."
"Oh, papa, do you think I would leave you?" said Zillah, and she came back to the bed.
The doctor, who had been waiting until the General should become a little calmer, now administered an anodyne, and he fell asleep, his hand clasped in Zillah's, while she, fearful of making the slightest movement, sat motionless and despairing far into the night.