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.