THE FUTURE BRIDE.
It had been arranged that Guy should accompany General Pomeroy up to
London, partly for the sake of arranging about the matters relating
to the Chetwynde estates, and partly for the purpose of seeing the
one who was some day to be his wife. Lord Chetwynde was unable to
undergo the fatigue of traveling, and had to leave every thing to his
lawyers and Guy.
At the close of a wearisome day in the train they reached London, and
drove at once to the General's lodgings in Great James Street. The
door was opened by a tall, swarthy woman, whose Indian nationality
was made manifest by the gay-colored turban which surmounted her
head, as well as by her face and figure. At the sight of the General
she burst out into exclamations of joy.
"Welcome home, sahib; welcome home!" she cried. "Little missy, her
fret much after you."
"I am sorry for that, nurse," said the General, kindly. As he was
speaking they were startled by a piercing scream from an adjoining
apartment, followed by a shrill voice uttering some words which ended
in a shriek. The General entered the house, and hastened to the room
from which the sounds proceeded, and Guy followed him. The uproar was
speedily accounted for by the tableau which presented itself on
opening the door. It was a tableau extremely vivant, and represented
a small girl, with violent gesticulations, in the act of rejecting a
dainty little meal which a maid, who stood by her with a tray, was
vainly endeavoring to induce her to accept. The young lady's
arguments were too forcible to admit of gainsaying, for the servant
did not dare to venture within reach of either the hands or feet of
her small but vigorous opponent. The presence of the tray prevented
her from defending herself in any way, and she was about retiring,
worsted, from the encounter, when the entrance of the gentlemen gave
a new turn to the position of affairs. The child saw them at once;
her screams of rage changed into a cry of joy, and the face which had
been distorted with passion suddenly became radiant with delight.
"Papa! papa!" she cried, and, springing forward, she darted to his
embrace, and twined her arms about his neck with a sob which her joy
had wrung from her.
"Darling papa!" she cried; "I thought you were never coming back. How
could you leave me so long alone?" and, saying this, she burst into a
passion of tears, while her father in vain tried to soothe her.
At this strange revelation of the General's daughter Guy stood
perplexed and wondering. Certainly he had not been prepared for this.
His _fiancée_ was undoubtedly of a somewhat stormy nature, and in the
midst of his bewilderment he was conscious of feeling deeply
reconciled to her ten years.
At length her father succeeded in quieting her, and, taking her arms
from his neck, he placed her on his knee, and said:
"My darling, here is a gentleman waiting all this time to speak to
you. Come, go over to him and shake hands with him."
At this the child turned her large black eyes on Guy, and scanned him
superciliously from head to foot. The result seemed to satisfy her,
for she advanced a few steps to take the hand which he had smilingly
held out; but a thought seemed suddenly to strike her which arrested
her progress half-way.
"Did _he_ keep you, papa?" she said, abruptly, while a jerk of her
head in Guy's direction signified the proper noun to which the
pronoun referred.
"He had something to do with it," answered her father, with a smile.
"Then I sha'n't shake hands with him," she said, resolutely; and,
putting the aforesaid appendages behind her back to prevent any
forcible appropriation of them, she hurried away, and clambered up on
her father's knee. The General, knowing probably by painful
experience the futility of trying to combat any determination of this
very decided young lady, did not attempt to make any remonstrance,
but allowed her to establish herself in her accustomed position.
During this process Guy had leisure to inspect her. This he did
without _any_ feeling of the immense importance of this child's
character to his own future life, without thinking that this little
creature might be destined to raise him up to heaven or thrust him
down to hell, but only with the idle, critical view of an
uninterested spectator. Guy was, in fact, too young to estimate the
future, and things which were connected with that future, at their
right value. He was little more than a boy, and so he looked with a
boy's eyes upon this singular child.
She struck him as the oddest little mortal that he had ever come
across. She was very tiny, not taller than many children of eight,
and so slight and fragile that she looked as if a breath might blow
her away. But if in figure she looked eight, in face she looked
fifty. In that face there was no childishness whatever. It was a
thin, peaked, sallow face, with a discontented expression; her
features were small and pinched, her hair, which was of inky
blackness, fell on her shoulders in long, straight locks, without a
ripple or a wave in them. She looked like an elf, but still this
elfish little creature was redeemed from the hideousness which else
might have been her doom by eyes of the most wonderful brilliancy.
Large, luminous, potent eyes--intensely black, and deep as the depths
of ocean, they seemed to fill her whole face; and in moments of
excitement they could light up with volcanic fires, revealing the
intensity of that nature which lay beneath. In repose they were
unfathomable, and defied all conjecture as to what their possessor
might develop into.
All this Guy noticed, as far as was possible to one so young and
inexperienced; and the general result of this survey was a state of
bewilderment and perplexity. He could not make her out. She was a
puzzle to him, and certainly not a very attractive one. When she had
finally adjusted herself on her father's knee, the General, after the
fashion of parents from time immemorial, asked:
"Has my darling been a good child since papa has been away?"
The question may have been a stereotyped one. Not so the answer,
which came out full and decided, in a tone free alike from penitence
or bravado, but giving only a simple statement of facts.
"No," she said, "I have not been a good girl. I've been very naughty
indeed. I haven't minded any thing that was said to me. I scratched
the ayah, and kicked Sarah. I bit Sarah too. Besides, I spilt my rice
and milk, and broke the plates, and I was just going to starve myself
to death."
At this recital of childish enormities, with its tragical ending, Guy
burst into a loud laugh. The child raised herself from her father's
shoulder, and, fixing her large eyes upon him, said slowly, and with
set teeth:
"I hate you!"
She looked so uncanny as she said this, and the expression of her
eyes was so intense in its malignity, that Guy absolutely started.
"Hush," exclaimed her father, more peremptorily than usual; "you must
not be so rude."
As he spoke she again looked at Guy, with a vindictive expression,
but did not deign to speak. The face seemed to him to be utterly
diabolical and detestable. She looked at him for a moment, and then
her head sank down upon her father's shoulder.
The General now made an effort to turn the conversation to where it
had left off, and reverting to Zillah's confession he said:
"I thought my little girl never broke her word, and that when she
promised to be good while I was away, I could depend upon her being
so."
This reproach seemed to touch her. She sprang up instantly and
exclaimed, in vehement tones:
"It was you who broke your promise to me. You said you would come
back in two days, and you staid four. I did keep my word. I was good
the first two days. Ask the ayah. When I found that you had deceived
me, then I did not care."
"But you should have trusted me, my child," said the General, in a
tone of mild rebuke. "You should have known that I must have had
some good reason for disappointing you. I had very important business
to attend to--business, darling, which very nearly affects your
happiness. Some day you shall hear about it."
"But I don't want to hear about any thing that will keep you away
from me," said Zillah, peevishly. "Promise never to leave me again."
"Not if I can help it, my child," said the General, kissing her
fondly.
"No; but promise that you won't at all," persisted Zillah. "Promise
never to leave me at all. Promise, promise, papa; promise--promise."
"Well," said the General, "I'll promise to take you with me the next
time. That will do, won't it?"
"But I don't want to go away," said this sweet child; "and I won't go
away."
The General gave a despairing glance at Guy, who he knew was a
spectator of this scene. He felt a vague desire to get Guy alone so
as to explain to him that this was only occasional and accidental,
and that Zillah was really one of the sweetest and most angelic
children that ever were born. Nor would this good General have
consciously violated the truth in saying so; for in his heart of
hearts he believed all this of his loved but sadly spoiled child. The
opportunity for such explanations did not occur, however, and the
General had the painful consciousness that Guy was seeing his future
bride under somewhat disadvantageous circumstances. Still he trusted
that the affectionate nature of Zillah would reveal itself to Guy,
and make a deep impression upon him.
While such thoughts as these were passing through his mind, and
others of a very varied nature were occurring to Guy, the maid Sarah
arrived to take her young charge to bed. The attempt to do so roused
Zillah to the most active resistance. She had made up her mind not
to yield. "I won't," she cried--"I won't go to bed. I will never go
away from papa a single instant until that horrid man is gone. I know
he will take you away again, and I hate him. Why don't you make him
go, papa?"
At this remark, which was so flattering to Guy, the General made a
fresh effort to appease his daughter, but with no better success than
before. Children and fools, says the proverb, speak the truth; and
the truth which was spoken in this instance was not very agreeable to
the visitor at whom it was flung. But Guy looked on with a smile, and
nothing in his face gave any sign of the feelings that he might have.
He certainly had not been prepared for any approach to any thing of
this sort. On the journey the General had alluded so often to that
daughter, who was always uppermost in his mind, that Guy had expected
an outburst of rapturous affection from her. Had he been passed by
unnoticed, he would have thought nothing of it; but the malignancy of
her look, and the venom of her words, startled him, yet he was too
good-hearted and considerate to exhibit any feeling whatever.
Sarah's effort to take Zillah away had resulted in such a complete
failure that she retired discomfited, and there was rather an awkward
period, in which the General made a faint effort to induce his
daughter to say something civil to Guy. This, however, was another
failure, and in a sort of mild despair he resigned himself to her
wayward humor.
At last dinner was announced. Zillah still refused to leave her
father, so that he was obliged, greatly to his own discomfort, to
keep her on his knee during the meal. When the soup and fish were
going on she was comparatively quiet; but at the first symptoms of
entrées she became restive, and popping up her quaint little head to
a level with the table, she eyed the edibles with the air of an
habitué at the Lord Mayor's banquet. Kaviole was handed round. This
brought matters to a crisis.
"A plate and a fork for me, Thomas," she ordered, imperiously.
"But, my darling," remonstrated her father, "this is much too rich
for you so late at night."
"I like kaviole," was her simple reply, given with the air of one who
is presenting an unanswerable argument, and so indeed it proved to
be.
This latter scene was re-enacted, with but small variations,
whenever any thing appeared which met with her ladyship's approval;
and Guy found that in spite of her youth she was a decided
connoisseur in the delicacies of the table. Now, to tell the truth,
he was not at all fond of children; but this one excited in him a
positive horror. There seemed to be something in her weird and
uncanny; and he found himself constantly speculating as to how he
could ever become reconciled to her; or what changes future years
could make in her; and whether the lapse of time could by any
possibility develop this impish being into any sort of a presentable
woman. From the moment that he saw her he felt that the question of
beauty must be abandoned forever; it would be enough if she could
prove to be one with whom a man might live with any degree of
domestic comfort. But the prospect of taking her at some period in
the future to preside over Chetwynde Castle filled him with complete
dismay. He now began to realize what his father had faintly
suggested--namely, that his part of the agreement might hereafter
prove a sacrifice. The prospect certainly looked dark, and for a
short time he felt somewhat downcast; but he was young and hopeful,
and in the end he put all these thoughts from him as in some sort
treacherous to his kind old friend, and made a resolute
determination, in spite of fate, to keep his vow with him.
After anticipating the dessert, and preventing her father from taking
cheese, on the ground that she did not like it, nature at last took
pity on that much enduring and long suffering man, and threw over the
daughter the mantle of sweet unconsciousness. Miss Pomeroy fell
asleep. In that helpless condition she was quietly conveyed from her
father's arms to bed, to the unspeakable relief of Guy, who felt, as
the door closed, as if a fearful incubus had been removed.
On the following morning he started by an early train for Dublin, so
that on this occasion he had no further opportunity of improving his
acquaintance with his lovely bride. Need it be said that the loss was
not regretted by the future husband?
[Illustration.]