The House of Armour

CHAPTER XXV

ZILLA’S ROSEBUD

Miss Zilla Camperdown sat on the top step of the second staircase in the house of her adoption, carefully nursing a small parcel done up in white tissue paper, and watching patiently the closed door of a bedroom beyond her.

At last the door opened, and Dr. Camperdown appeared. “How do I look?” he asked, surveying her with a smile so broad and ample that her small form was fairly enveloped by it.

In speechless delight she caught him by the hand, and leading him back into his room, devoured with her eyes every line of his figure.

“How do I look?” he said again, but the child, as if words failed her to describe the perfection of the sight, waved him toward the full length reflection of himself in the pier-glass between his windows.

He gazed complacently at it, and saw a closely cropped, large, but finely shaped sandy head, a trimmed moustache, and a new suit of evening clothes that fitted admirably his strong and powerfully built figure. “Look like a dandy, Zilla,” he muttered. “Body’s all right, so it doesn’t matter about the ugly face.”

“You’re a bouncer,” she said beatifically. “There’ll not be one like you at the toe-skippin’.”

“At the what, Zilla?” he asked, twisting his neck in order to get a view of his coat tails.

“The dance,” she said hastily. “There’ll be women there, I suppose. Don’t let them run their eyes after you, Dr. Brian.”

“Why not, my child?”

“You might be wantin’—wantin’ to fetch one of them here,” a spasm of jealousy contracting her brows.

He did not notice it, being still intent upon his coat tails. “Suppose I did bring one, Zilla—what would you do?”

“I’d dash vitriol at her,” said the child softly; “then she’d run away.”

He turned sharply to her with the sternest expression upon his face that she had ever seen there. Her words had conjured up a vision of his beloved Stargarde hiding her disfigured features from him, and Zilla gloating over her misery. “Your badness is awful,” he said backing away from her; “it is the badness of big cities. Thank Heaven, we don’t have it here.”

His words were as a spark to inflammable material. Immediately the child fell into a raging passion. Her joy in his affection for her had been so acute that it had almost amounted to pain, and her fury at his annoyance was so intense that she reveled in it with a mad sense of pleasure. She could not speak for wrath, but she returned his gaze with ten-fold interest, and walking deliberately up to the long mirror, she poised the dainty heel of her slipper and sent it crashing through the glass.

He neither spoke nor stirred, though some of the broken glass came falling about the toes of his patent leather shoes.

She caught her breath, flung at him a whole mouthful of her forbidden “swear words,” and sprang at a razor on his dressing table.

At this he started toward her quickly enough, and his hand closed over hers just as she seized the shining steel. She struggled with him like a small wild beast, but her strength was powerless against his. “Drop it! drop it!” he said commandingly; then more kindly, “Put it down, Zilla.”

At the change in his tone she looked up at him, and unclasping her fingers from the handle, allowed the dangerous instrument to slip to the floor.

Still holding the little menacing hands, he sat down and took her upon his knee. “Did you wish to kill me with that razor?” he asked.

“No; myself,” she said with a sob. “I’m tired o’ living.”

Tired of living because she fancied that he had ceased to love her. “Zilla,” he said, “I have a dev—a demon of a temper.”

For answer the child buried her face, as he uneasily reflected, in the glossy bosom of his evening shirt front, and wept as if her heart would break. Yet he did not disturb her, except to pat the back of her head and murmur: “Don’t cry, child—you wouldn’t really be angry with me if I got married, would you, Zilla?” he asked, after her passion seemed somewhat subdued. “You know that I hope to make Miss Turner my wife some day.”

“I would not mind her so much,” said the child reluctantly.

“And you would not do anything to hurt her?”

“No.” And she raised her tear-stained face to assure him that she spoke truly.

“No one has been putting nonsense in your head about my marrying you, Zilla?” uneasily.

“Marry you!” she said in accents of the utmost scorn. “I’m not fit enough, and I’m only a little girl. ’Twould be too long to wait.”

“Far too long,” cheerfully. “We’ll get you a husband when you’re ready for one. Sensible men don’t marry babies, or rather young girls.”

She understood him and smiled comprehendingly. Then she said humbly: “Don’t delay yourself any more—it’s time to go. May I say prayers to you first?”

“Yes,” he replied, gravely subduing his astonishment at this, the first request of the kind that she had made to him. She knelt down by his knee, and pressing her little hot cheek against his hand, repeated devoutly a series of eminently proper and reverential prayers that Mrs. Trotley had taught her, but which, on account of long words, could not possibly convey to her mind any apprehension of their meaning.

At the last of the many “Amens,” she lifted her face and said with unspeakable sadness and humility, “Can I pray an extra?”

“Yes,” he returned, biting his lip; “as many as you please.”

She immediately poured forth one of the heart-felt, childish supplications which the young when in agony of soul will sometimes utter, and to his mingled shame and confusion it was addressed to himself, rather than to the Supreme Deity, who was but a shadowy and mysterious unreality to her.

“Dear Dr. Brian, cut the devil out of my heart and make me like you,” it began, and continued on through his list of virtues—in spite of his recent admission with regard to his temper—and a vehement and longing invocation to be more like him, so that he would not get angry with her.

He did not dare interrupt her, and sat looking at the reflection of his red and confused face in the unbroken part of the mirror opposite.

With a final sob, not dreaming that she had done anything unusual, she quietly put up her cheek for his usual good-night kiss.

“Good-night, dear Zilla,” he said, in a rather tremulous voice. “Will you not call me brother in future, rather than doctor?”

The child stared at him incredulously, then flung her arms around his neck in a choking embrace, murmuring in eager delight, “Brother Brian,” and rushed from the room.

He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Must try to teach her a simpler prayer,” gruffly. “What’s this, something she’s dropped?” and he picked up the crushed paper parcel on the floor. It contained a little, headless stalk wrapped in silver foil. The rosebud top had rolled under the table in Zilla’s struggle with him. He knew that during the afternoon there had been an excursion made to a distant greenhouse by Mrs. Trotley and Zilla, and had guessed that it was to obtain a boutonnière for him.

“Poor child,” he muttered; “her rosebud shall go to the dance,” and taking it in his well-shaped hands, he, by means of one of his surgeon’s needles and a bit of thread, quickly fastened bud and stalk together and placed them in the silk lapel of his coat.

The coat he took off and laid carefully on the bed, and then proceeded to exchange the shirt blistered by Zilla’s tears for a fresh one.

A quarter of an hour later he was standing in front of the sleigh waiting for him by the pavement and attentively scrutinizing Zilla’s windows. Yes; the curtains were drawn slightly apart. He threw back his topcoat, pointed to the rosebud, and waving his hand to her entered the sleigh.

“By love I have won her, by love I must keep her,” soliloquized Camperdown, as his sleigh traversed the distance between his house and the Arm.

He soon arrived among the vehicles, opened and closed, that were dashing up to Pinewood and depositing their occupants at a side entrance to the house, the large front hall being given up to dancing. By a back stairway he was directed to a dressing room, and joining a stream of people, for Mrs. Colonibel’s dance was in reality a ball, proceeded down the wide staircase to the drawing rooms. Mrs. Colonibel, magnificent in pink satin, was receiving her guests inside the back drawing-room door. Colonel Armour, the handsomest man present, in spite of his snowy hair, was with her, as also was Valentine. Stanton was not visible. Beside Mrs. Colonibel stood Vivienne, dressed as usual in white, and receiving the salutations of the many friends of the house, not with the shy, uncertain manner of the débutante, but rather with the serene and conventional reserve of a woman of the world.

“Both smiling angelically and neither of them enjoying it,” muttered Camperdown, pushing aside the purple train of a lady’s dress with his foot, and stepping behind Mrs. Colonibel. “Solomon in all his glory wasn’t a patch on her,” surveying the back of her elaborately-trimmed gown. “And ma’m’selle hasn’t an ornament. Sensible girl! This is a frightful ordeal for her, this plunge into society in a place that her parents fled from. Far better for Flora to have given her a tea; much more suitable for the coming out of a young girl. That’s what we’ll give Zilla. But I must perform my devoir,” and he fell in behind a group of ladies who were coming up to greet their hostess, followed by the gentlemen of their family.

Mrs. Colonibel’s fascinating smile was met by an encouraging one on his part, and pressing gently the white-gloved hand of the girl beside her, he passed on to make way for another bevy of ladies. Nodding to men acquaintances, and bowing to every woman whose eye he could not escape, he passed through the room and along the verandas, which had been covered in for the evening.

“As gorgeous as the sun at midsummer, Will Shakespeare would say,” he soliloquized. “Light, heat, music, jewels, fine raiment on pretty, painted peacocks, strutting about to show their tails to each other—Flora’s idea of heaven. Wonder if Stargarde is about?” With a wholesome fear of imperiling delicate silks and laces, he cautiously re-entered the hall, lifted up his eyes, and saw Stargarde and Judy bending over the railing of the circular well in the third story of the house. He smiled at them, and in a few minutes they heard his step on the stairway.

“Oh, what a dude!” exclaimed Judy. “Just observe his broadcloth and fine linen, Stargarde, and his boutonnière, and perfume too, I believe; that’s the little wildcat’s doings.”

“Hold your tongue, Judy,” he said shyly, slipping in to rest his arms on the railing between her and Stargarde.

“Oh, but really, you know, it is too overcoming,” said Judy saucily. “And his hair, Stargarde! What have you done with your sandy locks, Brian? Isn’t the back of his head nice?” and she ran her fingers lightly over it. “I’m proud of you, my physician,” and thrusting her hand through his arm, she looked down on the moving groups of people below. “They’re just going to start the dancing; the musicians are in a little room off the library. Stanton had to leave his den for once.”

“Where is he?” interrupted Camperdown.

“Dressing; he was detained in town. Doesn’t the house look nice, Brian? We’ve had a florist here all day. I like the palm grove in the back hall best of all. Mamma must be dead tired. She has been at the thing for a week. Stanton for once let her have all the money she wished. All day she has been fussing about the supper, and watching the thermometers; the house isn’t too warm yet, whatever it may be later; and the men were late in coming to take up the hall carpet. There go the lancers. I wish I could dance.”

Camperdown was not listening to her, being engaged in carrying on a conversation in a low note with Stargarde, who seemed strangely listless and inattentive.

“Stargarde forgot that it was the night of the ball,” said Judy. “She came sauntering out here about six o’clock in that cotton gown, and said that mamma had invited her to something, she didn’t know what, but thought it was a dinner. Isn’t she queer, Brian?”

“Very,” he replied; then to the subject of their remarks. “You look pale; will you sit down?”

She sank obediently into the big chair that he pulled up for her, and he resumed his talk with her.

Judy watched the dancing going on below, and listened to the music as if she were entranced, occasionally hushing Mammy Juniper, who sat on a stool in the corner, rocking herself to and fro and groaning, “O Lord, forgive! Good Lord, pardon!” and similar ejaculations.

“There is Stanton,” exclaimed Judy. “I must speak to him,” and she limped down to the hall below.

“Not bad looking,” she said, critically surveying his calm, well-bred face and heavily built though finely proportioned figure. “Might even pass for a handsome man. Why is it that men always look so well in evening clothes? Stanton,” speaking in a low tone, “when I told Vivienne that your business engagements might keep you in town this evening she looked as if she didn’t care at all.”

“Perhaps she didn’t,” he said coolly.

“Bah—you’re a man! She did care. What did you say the other day to make her angry?”

“Nothing.”

“You did something.”

“No, I did not,” he said quietly; “but really I must refuse to have Miss Delavigne thrust upon me at every turn.”

“Come, look at her and see how lovely she is,” and Judy drew him toward the circular opening in the hall. “Aren’t her bows delicious? Do you see Valentine watching her? He is happy because she is going to dance with him presently, and I don’t believe she wants to, for she is afraid that he is going to get silly over her, just as he has been over other girls.”

“Did she tell you this?”

“No, but I know it. What a pity that you have given up dancing, Stanton.”

“I must leave you,” he said abruptly, and in a few minutes he was moving quietly about among his guests below.

“You may pretend and pretend as much as you like,” said Judy sagely, “but you’re a changed man, and everybody notices it; ten times more cheerful, ten times more anxious to be at home, and always with that glitter in your eye. Poor mamma and poor Val!” and chuckling happily she returned to her former place of observation.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE MISERY OF THE WORLD

The house was only pleasantly filled, and there was no crush anywhere. Shaking hands and bowing to many people on his way, Armour passed through the drawing rooms, the library, and the dining room, where on a long table, pots of delicate maiden hair and slender ferns nodded over dishes of dainty china and glassware heaped high with sweetmeats and every dainty viand possible to procure for the elaborate menu of a ball supper.

The wide hall where the dancing was going on was, in spite of the season of the year, like a bower in its profusion of growing plants and cut flowers, whose heavy rich odors were as incense to the nostrils of his cousin—a woman of tropical tastes.

Everybody seemed to be stirring about. There were no dull groups along the walls and the ripple of conversation and laughter was a constant one; and no one was in need of special entertainment he was happy to observe. This was the result of Mrs. Colonibel’s invariable custom of doubling the number of her young lady guests by members of the opposite sex, the usual proclivity of men to look on at a dance rather than to engage in it, being well known to her. So Armour was free to enjoy himself in his own way, and feeling no responsibility for the present as a host he joined a knot of people who were watching the dancers from a doorway.

The musicians were playing sweetly and with no lapses into braying discordancy a new waltz, “Vive la Canada.” The whole house was flooded with their strains, so strong and soul-stirring, yet so well-modulated that those in the near library were not disturbed by them.

Patriotism it was probably that made the blood stir so strangely in Armour’s veins, and his face flush so dark a crimson. His eyes were fixed on Vivienne, who was dancing with the tallest man in the garrison, an officer of the Royal Engineers. Armour noticed that they made frequent pauses, and speculated a little about it, whether it was owing to the awkwardness of her partner, or to her own inclination not to keep on her feet during the entire progress of a round dance. Of the amount of attention that she was attracting she appeared to be quite unconscious, but that she was quite well aware of it, he was fully persuaded.

“Accept my felicitations on the subject of your ward,” said a roguish voice in his ear; “your reward perhaps I should call her, considering the satisfactory termination of your cares on her behalf.”

Armour put out a hand to one of Valentine’s merry friends, who was a frequent visitor at Pinewood. “She’s fairer than the moon in all her glory—that’s from the Bible isn’t it?” pursued the young man; “or perhaps one shouldn’t use the word fair in connection with one so dark. Royal touch-me-not style, but fascinating. Hey nonny! wish I had a million and was good enough shot to wing Macartney. Au revoir, I’m engaged for the next polka—must look up my partner.”

The waltz had ceased and a group of men surrounded the place where Vivienne stood, her white velvet gown gleaming like a snowdrop against the crimson curtain behind her. She seemed to be listening rather than talking and Armour was struck as Camperdown had been by her slight ceremonious air of reserve and by the absence of any girlish eagerness of delight in this her first ball.

He, a man that had fallen into the habit of taking no pleasure in anything, felt like a boy tonight, and suppressing a smile he turned away and sought Mrs. Colonibel to hear any instructions that she might have to give him.

An hour later, while he was having a quiet stroll along the verandas, carefully avoiding the conservatory, where a few stray couples were wandering among the flowers, he came suddenly upon two people who stood in a recess. He turned quickly on his heel, but not before he had noticed the drooping, regretful attitude of Vivienne’s shoulders and the earnest pose of Captain Macartney’s figure. Angrily clasping his hands behind his back, and muttering an uncomplimentary remark regarding men who persecute young girls scarcely out of the schoolroom with a declaration of love, he stepped back into the drawing room.

He had scarcely arrived there before a hand was laid on his shoulder. “Go to Miss Delavigne, will you, Armour?” said Captain Macartney, his face a shade paler than usual. “I think she would like some tea, or an ice.”

With considerable alacrity Mr. Armour obeyed him. He found Vivienne sitting down, her face extremely flushed.

“It is warm here,” he said, cutting a slit in the bunting with his knife. “I do not wonder that you are overcome; I will bring you some tea.”

“I fear that our experiment is not a success,” he said a short time later, as he stood watching her drink the tea.

“Do you refer to this ball?” said Vivienne, lifting her eyebrows.

"Yes; I encouraged Flora in it, for I thought it would be a pleasure to you.

“I can think of nothing but my hackneyed expression of your kindness and my gratitude.”

“And that I do not believe; you talk of gratitude, yet your actions belie your words.”

“I think that I have outlived balls,” she said a little wearily; “and you—you do not care for them.”

“No,” he returned; “but you are younger than I am.”

“Judy and I saw a poor creature to-day when we were with Stargarde. She had been starved to death; it was horrible. If a few of these gowns here to-night were sold they would keep some needy people in food for a year. And the wines that are drunk—they do us no good, and often much harm.”

“Would it please you to hear me say that I shall never have wine offered in a mixed assembly again?”

“It would, Mr. Armour.”

“Then I say it; and now is that shadow to lift from your face?”

It did not, and Vivienne rose and said in some embarrassment: “Shall we not go to Mrs. Colonibel? I have not seen her for some time.”

“Tell me first why you are so ill at ease with me,” he said with some doggedness. “You know that I am anxious to atone for my past sins of neglect toward you, yet you give me no chance. You are restless, and I know your one thought is to get away from here.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Mr. Armour, it is useless for us to try to agree. We are like fire and steel. I resolve and resolve that with you, who admire meekness so much in a woman, that I will be a very Griselda; yet I cannot.”

“I seem to rouse all the opposition in you,” he said; “why is it?”

“I would rather not tell you.”

“I am tired of this constant, ‘I would rather not tell you,’” he uttered in undisguised impatience. “You speak the truth with more offense than most women tell a falsehood.”

She played with her fan without speaking to him.

“Stargarde tells me that you wished to have some conversation with me about your parents,” he continued; “yet, in your willfulness, you will not mention them to me.”

There was something in this new accusation that touched Vivienne’s sense of humor, which was always present with her. He saw her roguish smile and resented it. Scarcely knowing what he did he seized the little white-gloved hand in his: “We are alone for the first time for days. Ask me now what questions you will, and promise me that you will treat me with more friendliness for the rest of your brief stay here.”

“Ask you—promise you,” she said slowly, and with as much composure as though her hands were free. “Mr. Armour, we cannot be friends because according to you we are not equals.”

“Not equals!” he repeated. “What absurdity is this?”

“Some women will lie to their—to their acquaintances,” she went on. “I will not; and I say that to a man of your indomitable pride, a child that he has bought and paid for, as it were, and that has grown into a womanhood that may occasionally divert him, is not for an instant to be considered on an equality with him—that is, in his estimation. It is a toy, a puppet, with which he may occasionally amuse himself, then throw it aside.”

A variety of expressions chased themselves over his face while she was speaking. When she finished he dropped her hands with a smile: “I am right; I thought that your irrepressible and suspicious pride—with which mine cannot be compared—was at the bottom of this; but I will subdue it. Vivienne–”

“Is not this rather a serious and gladiatorial kind of conversation for a ball,” she interrupted, “a place where one should utter only small talk?”

He leaned against the wall, and stroking his mustache in a hasty and disturbed manner muttered: “You are only a girl, yet you have yourself under better control than most women. Would nothing break you down?”