CHAPTER X.
A WEDDING IN EXTREMIS.
Two days passed; on the second Guy Molyneux arrived. Lord Chetwynde was ill, and could not travel. He sent a letter, however, full of earnest and hopeful sympathy. He would not believe that things were as bad as his old friend feared; the instant that he could leave he would come up to Pomeroy Court; or if by God's providence the worst should take place, he would instantly fetch Zillah to Chetwynde Castle; and the General might rely upon it that, so far as love and tenderness could supply a father's place, she should not feel her loss.
On Guy's arrival he was shown into the library. Luncheon was laid there, and the housekeeper apologized for Miss Pomeroy's absence. Guy took a chair and waited for a while, meditating on the time when he had last seen the girl who in a short time was to be tied to him for life. The event was excessively repugnant to him, even though he did not at all realize its full importance; and he would have given any thing to get out of it; but his father's command was sacred, and for years he had been bound by his father's word. Escape was utterly impossible. The entrance of the clergyman, who seemed more intent on the luncheon than any thing else, did not lessen Guy's feelings of repugnance. He said but little, and sank into a fit of abstraction, from which he was roused by a message that the General would like to see him. He hurried up stairs.
The General smiled faintly, and greeted him with as much warmth as his weak and prostrated condition would allow.
"Guy, my boy," said he, feebly, "I am very glad to see you."
To Guy the General seemed like a doomed man, and the discovery gave him a great shock, for he had scarcely anticipated any thing so bad as this. In spite of this, however, he expressed a hope that the General might yet recover, and be spared many years to them.
"No," said the General, sadly and wearily; "no; my days are numbered. I must die, my boy; but I shall die in peace, if I feel that I do not leave my child uncared for."
Guy, in spite of his dislike and repugnance, felt deeply moved.
"You need have no fear of that, Sir," he went on to say, in solemn, measured tones. "I solemnly promise you that no unhappiness shall ever reach her if I can help it. To the end of my life I will try to requite to her the kindness that you have shown to us. My father feels as I do, and he begged me to assure you, if he is not able to see you again, as he hopes to do, that the instant your daughter needs his care he will himself take her to Chetwynde Castle, and will watch over her with the same care and affection that you yourself would bestow; and she shall leave his home only for mine."
The General pressed his hand feebly. "God bless you!" he said, in a faint voice.
Suddenly a low sob broke the silence which followed. Turning hastily, Guy saw in the dim twilight of the sick-room what he had not before observed. It was a girl's figure crouching at the foot of the bed, her head buried in the clothes. He looked at her--his heart told him who it was--but he knew not what to say.
The General also had heard that sob. It raised no pity and compassion in him; it was simply some new stimulus to the one idea of his distempered brain. "What, Zillah!" he said, in surprise. "You here yet? I thought you had gone to get ready."
Still the kneeling figure did not move.
"Zillah," said the General, querulously, and with an excitement in his feeble voice which showed how readily he might lapse into complete delirium--"Zillah, my child, be quick. There is no time to lose. Go and get ready for your wedding. Don't you hear me? Go and dress yourself."
"Oh, papa!" moaned Zillah, in a voice which pierced to the inmost heart of Guy, "will it not do as I am? Do not ask me to put on finery at a time like this." Her voice was one of utter anguish and despair.
"A time like this?" said the General, rousing himself somewhat--"what do you mean, child? Does not the Bible say, Like as a bride adorneth herself--for her husband--and ever shall be--world without end--amen--yes--white satin and pearls, my child--oh yes--white pearls and satin--we are all ready--where are you, my darling?" Another sob was the only reply to this incoherent speech. Guy stood as if petrified. In his journey here he had simply tried to muster up his own resolution, and to fortify his own heart. He had not given one thought to this poor despairing child. Her sorrow, her anguish, her despair, now went to his heart. Yet he knew not what to do. How gladly he would have made his escape from this horrible mockery--for her sake as well as for his own! But for such escape he saw plainly there was no possibility. That delirious mind, in its frenzy, was too intent upon its one purpose to admit of this. He himself also felt a strange and painful sense of guilt. Was not he to a great extent the cause of this, though the unwilling cause? Ah! he thought, remorsefully, can wrong be right? and can any thing justify such a desecration as this both of marriage and of death? At that moment Chetwynde faded away, and to have saved it was as nothing. Willingly would he have given up every thing if he could now have said to this poor child--who thus crouched down, crushed by a woman's sorrow before she had known a woman's years--"Farewell. You are free. I will give you a brother's love and claim nothing in return. I will give back all, and go forth penniless into the battle of life."
But the General again interrupted them, speaking impatiently: "What are you waiting for? Is not Zillah getting ready?"
Guy scarcely knew what he was doing; but, obeying the instincts of his pity, he bent down and whispered to Zillah, "My poor child, I pity you, and sympathize with you more than words can tell. It is an awful thing for you. But can you not rouse yourself? Perhaps it would calm your father. He is getting too excited."
Zillah shrunk away as though he were pollution, and Guy at this resumed his former place in sadness and in desperation, with no other idea than to wait for the end.
"Zillah! Zillah!" cried the General, almost fiercely.
At this Zillah sprang up, and rushed out of the room. She hurried up stairs, and found the ayah in her dressing-room with Hilda. In the next room her white silk was laid out, her wreath and veil beside it.
"Here's my jewel come to be dressed in her wedding-dress," said the ayah, joyously.
"Be quiet!" cried Zillah, passionately. "Don't dare to say any thing like that to me; and you may put all that trash away, for I'm not going to be married at all. I can't do it, and I won't. I hate him! I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!"
These words she hissed out with the venom of a serpent. Her attendants tried remonstrance, but in vain. Hilda pointed out to her the handsome dress, but with no greater success. Vainly they tried to plead, to coax, and to persuade. All this only seemed to strengthen her determination. At last she threw herself upon the floor, like a passionate child, in a paroxysm of rage and grief.
The unwonted self-control which for the last few days she had imposed upon herself now told upon her in the violence of the reaction which had set in. When once she had allowed the barriers to be broken down, all else gave way to the onset of passion; and the presence and remonstrances of the ayah and Hilda only made it worse. She forgot utterly her father's condition; she showed herself now as selfish in her passion as he had shown himself in his delirium. Nothing could be done to stop her. The others, familiar with these outbreaks, retired to the adjoining room and waited.
Meanwhile the others were waiting also in the room below. The doctor was there, and sat by his patient, exerting all his art to soothe him and curb his eagerness. The General refused some medicine which he offered, and declared with passion that he would take nothing whatever till the wedding was over. To have used force would have been fatal; and so the doctor had to humor his patient. The family solicitor was there with the marriage settlements, which had been prepared in great haste. Guy and the clergyman sat apart in thoughtful silence.
Half an hour passed, and Zillah did not appear. On the General's asking for her the clergyman hazarded a remark intended to be pleasant, about ladies on such occasions needing some time to adorn themselves--a little out of place under the circumstances, but it fortunately fell in with the sick man's humor, and satisfied him for the moment.
Three-quarters of an hour passed. "Surely she must be ready now," said the General, who grew more excited and irritable every moment. A messenger was thereupon dispatched for her, but she found the door bolted, and amidst the outcry and confusion in the room could only distinguish that Miss Pomeroy was not ready. This message she delivered without entering into particulars.
An hour passed, and another messenger went, with the same result. It then became impossible to soothe the General any longer. Guy also grew impatient, for he had to leave by that evening's train; and if the thing had to be it must be done soon. He began to hope that it might be postponed--that Zillah might not come--and then he would have to leave the thing unfinished. But then he thought of his father's command, and the General's desire--of his own promise--of the fact that it must be done--of the danger to the General if it were not done. Between these conflicting feelings--his desire to escape, and his desire to fulfill what he considered his obligations--his brain grew confused, and he sat there impatient for the end--to see what it might turn out to be.
Another quarter of an hour passed. The General's excitement grew worse, and was deepening into frenzy. Dr. Cowell looked more and more anxious, and at last, shrewdly suspecting the cause of the delay, determined himself to go and take it in hand. He accordingly left his patient, and was just crossing the room, when his progress was arrested by the General's springing up with a kind of convulsive start, and jumping out of bed, declaring wildly and incoherently that something must be wrong, and that he himself would go and bring Zillah. The doctor had to turn again to his patient. The effort was a spasmodic one, and the General was soon put back again to bed, where he lay groaning and panting; while the doctor, finding that he could not leave him even for an instant, looked around for some one to send in his place. Who could it be? Neither the lawyer nor the clergyman seemed suitable. There was no one left but Guy, who seemed to the doctor, from his face and manner, to be capable of dealing with any difficulty. So he called Guy to him, and hurriedly whispered to him the state of things.
"If the General has to wait any longer, he will die," said the doctor. "_You'll_ have to go and bring her. You're the only person. You _must_. Tell her that her father has already had one fit, and that every moment destroys his last chance of life. She must either decide to come at once, or else sacrifice him."
He then rang the bell, and ordered the servant to lead Captain Molyneux to Miss Pomeroy. Guy was thus forced to be an actor where his highest desire was to be passive. There was no alternative. In that moment all his future was involved. He saw it; he knew it; but he did not shrink. Honor bound him to this marriage, hateful as it was. The other actor in the scene detested it as much as he did, but there was no help for it. Could he sit passive and let the General die? The marriage, after all, he thought, had to come off; it was terrible to have it now; but then the last chance of the General's life was dependent upon this marriage. What could he do?
What? A rapid survey of his whole situation decided him. He would perform what he considered his vow. He would do his part toward saving the General's life, though that part was so hard. He was calm, therefore, and self-possessed, as the servant entered and led the way to Zillah's apartments. The servant on receiving the order grinned in spite of the solemnity of the occasion. He had a pretty clear idea of the state of things; he was well accustomed to what was styled, in the servants' hall, "Missy's tantrums;" and he wondered to himself how Guy would ever manage her. He was too good a servant, however, to let his feelings be seen, and so he led the way demurely, and knocking at Zillah's door, announced:
"Captain Molyneux."
The door was at once opened by the ayah.
At that instant Zillah sprang to her feet and looked at him in a fury of passion. "_You_!" she cried, with indescribable malignancy. "_You_! _You_ here! How dare _you_ come here? Go down stairs this instant! If it is my money you want, take it all and begone. I will never, never, never, marry you!"
For a moment Guy was overcome. The taunt was certainly horrible. He turned pale, but soon regained his self-possession.
"Miss Pomeroy," said he, quietly, yet earnestly, "this is not the time for a scene. Your father is in the utmost danger. He has waited for an hour and a quarter. He is getting worse every moment. He made one attempt to get out of bed, and come for you himself. The doctor ordered me to come, and that is why I am here."
"I don't believe you!" screamed Zillah. "You are trying to frighten me."
"I have nothing to say," replied Guy, mournfully. "Your father is rapidly getting into a state of frenzy. If it lasts much longer he will die."
Guy's words penetrated to Zillah's inmost soul. A wild fear arose, which in a moment chased away the fury which had possessed her. Her face changed. She struck her hands against her brow, and uttered an exclamation of terror.
"Tell him--tell him--I'm coming. Make haste," she moaned. "I'll be down immediately. Oh, make haste!"
She hurried back, and Guy went down stairs again, where he waited at the bottom with his soul in a strange tumult, and his heart on fire. Why was it that he had been sold for all this--he and that wretched child?
But now Zillah was all changed. Now she was as excited in her haste to go down stairs as she had before been anxious to avoid it. She rushed back to the bedroom where Hilda was, who, though unseen, had heard every thing, and, foreseeing what the end might be, was now getting things ready.
"Be quick, Hilda!" she gasped. "Papa is dying! Oh, be quick--be quick! Let me save him!"
She literally tore off the dress that she had on, and in less than five minutes she was dressed. She would not stop for Hilda to arrange her wreath, and was rushing down stairs without her veil, when the ayah ran after her with it.
"You are leaving your luck, Missy darling," said she.
"Ay--that I am," said Zillah, bitterly.
"But you will put it on, Missy," pleaded the ayah. "Sahib has talked so much about it."
Zillah stopped. The ayah threw it over her, and enveloped her in its soft folds.
"It was your mother's veil, Missy," she added. "Give me a kiss for her sake before you go."
Zillah flung her arms around the old woman's neck.
"Hush, hush!" she said. "Do not make me give way again, or I can never do it."
At the foot of the stairs Guy was waiting, and they entered the room solemnly together--these two victims--each summoning up all that Honor and Duty might supply to assist in what each felt to be a sacrifice of all life and happiness. But to Zillah the sacrifice was worse, the task was harder, and the ordeal more dreadful. For it was her father, not Guy's, who lay there, with a face that already seemed to have the touch of death; it was she who felt to its fullest extent the ghastliness of this hideous mockery.
But the General, whose eyes were turned eagerly toward the door, found in this scene nothing but joy. In his frenzy he regarded them as blessed and happy, and felt this to be the full realization of his highest hopes.
"Ah!" he said, with a long gasp; "here she is at last. Let us begin at once."
So the little group formed itself around the bed, the ayah and Hilda being present in the back-ground.
In a low voice the clergyman began the marriage service. Far more solemn and impressive did it sound now than when heard under circumstances of gayety and splendor; and as the words sank into Guy's soul, he reproached himself more than ever for never having considered the meaning of the act to which he had so thoughtlessly pledged himself.
The General had now grown calm. He lay perfectly motionless, gazing wistfully at his daughter's face. So quiet was he, and so fixed was his gaze, that they thought he had sunk into some abstracted fit; but when the clergyman, with some hesitation, asked the question,
"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" the General instantly responded, in a firm voice, "I do." Then reaching forth, he took Zillah's hand, and instead of giving it to the clergyman, he himself placed it within Guy's, and for a moment held both hands in his, while he seemed to be praying for a blessing to rest on their union.
The service proceeded. Solemnly the priest uttered the warning: "Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." Solemnly, too, he pronounced the benediction--"May ye so live together in this life that in the world to come ye shall have life everlasting."
And so, for better or worse, Guy Molyneux and Zillah Pomeroy rose up--_man and wife_!
After the marriage ceremony was over the clergyman administered the Holy Communion--all who were present partaking with the General; and solemn indeed was the thought that filled the mind of each, that ere long, perhaps, one of their number might be--not figuratively, but literally--"with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven."
After this was all over the doctor gave the General a soothing draught. He was quite calm now; he took it without objection; and it had the effect of throwing him soon into a quiet sleep. The clergyman and the lawyer now departed; and the doctor, motioning to Guy and Zillah to leave the room, took his place, with an anxious countenance, by the General's bedside. The husband and wife went into the adjoining room, from which they could hear the deep breathing of the sick man.
The Clergyman Began The Marriage Service.
[Illustration: "The Clergyman Began The Marriage Service."]
It was an awkward moment. Guy had to depart in a short time. That sullen stolid girl who now sat before him, black and gloomy as a thunder-cloud, was _his wife_. He was going away, perhaps forever. He did not know exactly how to treat her; whether with indifference as a willful child, or compassionate attention as one deeply afflicted. On the whole he felt deeply for her, in spite of his own forebodings of his future; and so he followed the more generous dictates of his heart. Her utter loneliness, and the thought that her father might soon be taken away, touched him deeply; and this feeling was evident in his whole manner as he spoke.
"Zillah," said he, "our regiment sails for India several days sooner than I first expected, and it is necessary for me to leave in a short time. You, of course, are to remain with your father, and I hope that he may soon be restored to you. Let me assure you that this whole scene has been, under the circumstances, most painful, for your sake, for I have felt keenly that I was the innocent cause of great sorrow to you."
He spoke to her calmly, and as a father would to a child, and at the same time reached out his hand to take hers. She snatched it away quickly.
"Captain Molyneux," said she, coldly, "I married you solely to please my father, and because he was not in a state to have his wishes opposed. It was a sacrifice of myself, and a bitter one. As to you, I put no trust in you, and take no interest whatever in your plans. But there is one thing which I wish you to tell me. What did papa mean by saying to the doctor, that if I did not marry you I should lose one-half of my fortune?"
Zillah's manner at once chilled all the warm feelings of pity and generosity which Guy had begun to feel. Her question also was an embarrassing one. He had hoped that the explanation might come later, and from his father. It was an awkward one for him to make. But Zillah was looking at him impatiently.
"Surely," she continued in a stern voice as she noticed his hesitation, "that is a question which I have a right to ask."
"Of course," said Guy, hastily. "I will tell you. It was because more than half your fortune was taken to pay off the debt on Chetwynde Castle."
A deep, angry, crimson flush passed over Zillah's face.
"So that is the reason why I have been sold?" she cried, impetuously. "Well, Sir, your manoeuvring has succeeded nobly. Let me congratulate you. You have taken in a guileless old man, and a young girl."
Guy looked at her for a moment in fierce indignation. But with a great effort he subdued it, and answered, as calmly as possible:
"You do not know either my father or myself, or you would be convinced that such language could not apply to either of us. The proposal originally emanated entirely from General Pomeroy."
"Ah?" said Zilla, fiercely. "But you were base enough to take advantage of his generosity and his love for his old friend. Oh!" she cried, bursting into tears, "that is what I feel, that he could sacrifice me, who loved him so, for your sakes. I honestly believed once that it was his anxiety to find me a protector."
Guy's face had grown very pale.
"And so it was," he said, in a voice which was deep and tremulous from his strong effort at self-control. "He trusted my father, and trusted me, and wished to protect you from unprincipled fortune-hunters."
"_Fortune-hunters_!" cried Zillah, her face flushed, and with accents of indescribable scorn. "Good Heavens! What are _you_ if you are not this very thing? Oh, how I hate you! how I hate you!"
Guy looked at her, and for a moment was on the point of answering her in the same fashion, and pouring out all his scorn and contempt. But again he restrained himself.
"You are excited," he said, coolly. "One of these days you will find out your mistake. You will learn, as you grow older, that the name of Chetwynde can not be coupled with charges like these. In the mean time allow me to advise you not to be quite so free in your language when you are addressing honorable gentlemen; and to suggest that your father, who loved you better than any one in the world, may possibly have had _some_ cause for the confidence which he felt in us."
There was a coolness in Guy's tone which showed that he did not think it worth while to be angry with her, or to resent her insults. But Zillah did not notice this. She went on as before:
"There is one thing which I will never forgive."
"Indeed? Well, your forgiveness is so very important that I should like to know what it is that prevents me from gaining it."
"The way in which I have been deceived!" burst forth Zillah, fiercely, "if papa had wished to give you half of his money, or all of it, I should not have cared a bit. I do not care for that at all. But why did nobody tell me the truth? Why was I told that it was out of regard to _me_ that this horror, this frightful mockery of marriage, was forced upon me, while my heart was breaking with anxiety about my father; when to you I was only a necessary evil, without which you could not hope to get my father's money; and the only good I can possibly have is the future privilege of living in a place whose very name I loathe, with the man who has cheated me, and whom all my life I shall hate and abhor? Now go! and I pray God I may never see you again."
With these words, and without waiting for a reply, she left the room, leaving Guy in a state of mind by no means enviable.
He stood staring after her. "And that thing is mine for life!" he thought; "that she-devil! utterly destitute of sense and of reason! Oh, Chetwynde, Chetwynde! you have cost me dear. See you again, my fiend of a wife! I hope not. No, never while I live. Some of these days I'll give you back your sixty thousand with interest. And you, why you may go to the devil forever!"
Half an hour afterward Guy was seated in the dog-cart bowling to the station as fast as two thorough-breds could take him; every moment congratulating himself on the increasing distance which was separating him from his bride of an hour.
The doctor watched all that night. On the following morning the General was senseless. On the next day he died.
CHAPTER XI.
A NEW HOME.
Dearly had Zillah paid for that frenzy of her dying father; and the consciousness that her whole life was now made over irrevocably to another, brought to her a pang so acute that it counterbalanced the grief which she felt for her father's death. Fierce anger and bitter indignation nation struggled with the sorrow of bereavement, and sometimes, in her blind rage, she even went so far as to reproach her father's memory. On all who had taken part in that fateful ceremony she looked with vengeful feelings. She thought, and there was reason in the thought, that they might have satisfied his mind without binding her. They could have humored his delirium without forfeiting her liberty. They could have had a mock priest, who might have read a service which would have had no authority, and imposed vows which would not be binding. On Guy she looked with the deepest scorn, for she believed that he was the chief offender, and that if he had been a man of honor he might have found many ways to avoid this thing. Possibly Guy as he drove off was thinking the same, and cursing his dull wit for not doing something to delay the ceremony or make it void. But to both it was now too late.
The General's death took place too soon for Zillah. Had he lived she might have been spared long sorrows. Had it not been for this, and his frantic haste in forcing on a marriage, her early betrothal might have had different results. Guy would have gone to India. He would have remained there for years, and then have come home. On his return he might possibly have won her love, and then they could have settled down harmoniously in the usual fashion. But now she found herself thrust upon him, and the very thought of him was a horror. Never could the remembrance of that hideous mockery at the bedside of one so dear, who was passing away forever, leave her mind. All the solemnities of death had been outraged, and all her memories of the dying hours of her best friend were forever associated with bitterness and shame.
For some time after her father's death she gave herself up to the motions of her wild and ungovernable temper. Alternations of savage fury and mute despair succeeded to one another. To one like her there was no relief from either mood; and, in addition to this, there was the prospect of the arrival of Lord Chetwynde. The thought of this filled her with such a passion of anger that she began to meditate flight. She mentioned this to Hilda, with the idea that of course Hilda would go with her.
Hilda listened in her usual quiet way, and with a great appearance of sympathy. She assented to it, and quite appreciated Zillah's position. But she suggested that it might be difficult to carry out such a plan without money.
"Money!" said Zillah, in astonishment. "Why, have I not plenty of money? All is mine now surely."
"Very likely," said Hilda, coolly; "but how do you propose to get it? You know the lawyer has all the papers, and every thing else under lock and key till Lord Chetwynde comes, and the will is read; besides, dear," she added with a soft smile, "you forget that a married woman can not possess property. Our charming English law gives her no rights. All that you nominally possess in reality belongs to your husband."
At this hated word "husband," Zillah's eyes flashed. She clenched her hands, and ground her teeth in rage.