The heiress of Greenhurst

I could not realize the importance of Lady Catherine’s visit all at once. It had been carried on so quietly, so like the ordinary common-place of her patrician life, that its meaning seemed lost in sound. I could even amuse myself with the excitement of poor Turner, who, folding his arms behind him, went furiously pacing up and down the garden, treading everything down in his path, and wading knee deep through the tall autumn blossoms, jerking his feet among them now and then, as if it were a relief to destroy anything that came in his way.

I had never seen the old man in this mood before, and almost thought him mad, for he muttered to himself, and seemed quite unconscious that I was a witness to the scene.

At last he came by the window with a long pendant of honeysuckle trailing from his boot.

“Mr. Turner,” I said, laughing softly as he came up.

“Oh, you can be amused—easily amused—children always are!” he exclaimed savagely. “Now can you see what mischief that ride has done? Sit and laugh, truly—but what am I to do?”

“Lady Catherine says you must get married,” I answered, mischievously, for rage, instead of appalling, was invariably sure to amuse me.

“Married!” almost shrieked the old man, “and so you have brought me to that, you—you!”

The contortions of his face were too droll. I could not keep from laughing again.

“Zana,” said the old man, and tears absolutely stood in his eyes, “I was good to you—I loved you—what right had you to bring this misfortune on me? I knew that evil would come of it when I found Jupiter’s stall empty; but marriage, oh, I did not dream of that calamity.”

“And is marriage always a calamity?” I inquired, sobered by his evident feeling.

“Yes!”

He hissed forth the monosyllable as if it had been a drop of poison that burned his tongue.

“And you dislike it very much?”

“Dislike it!”

There is no describing the bitterness that he crowded into these two words.

“Then do not—for my sake do not be married. Why should you? I’m sure it will do me no good. I don’t care in the least for it!”

His sharp eyes brightened for an instant, and he looked at me eagerly, like a convict on whom sudden hopes of escape had dawned.

“Then you wouldn’t much mind leaving this place, Zana?” he said.

My heart sunk, but I strove to answer cheerfully.

“No, no, I—I don’t think it would seem so hard after a little!”

“And Jupiter, and Cora?”

I burst into tears.

“There now, that is it—I’m answered—I was sure it would break her little heart,” cried the old man, desperately—“I’ll do it. I’ll bind myself, hand and foot—I’ll make an eternal old fool of myself. I’ll—I’ll. It’s no use struggling, I’m sold, lost—tied up—married!”

He uttered the last word ferociously, casting it down as if it had been a rock.

“Not for me, Turner—not for me,” I said, losing all sense of the ludicrous in his genuine repugnance to the measure Lady Catherine had proposed. “I do not understand this—what on earth is the reason they cannot let us live in peace?”

“Because you must be cutting loose from my authority—cantering about like a little Nimrod in long skirts—fighting hounds—getting acquainted with young men whom you ought to hate—to hate, I say Miss Zana! Because you are a little fool, and I am an old one. Because, because—but it’s no use talking.”

I began to see my disobedience in its true light. Certainly it was impossible to comprehend why it had led to the necessity which my old benefactor so much deplored, but I felt to the bottom of my heart that this evil, whatever it was, had been brought on by myself.

“Mr. Turner,” I said, “if I stay in-doors a month, nay, a whole year, will it do any good?”

“No—not the least!”

“What can I do? Indeed, indeed, Turner, I am very sorry,” I persisted; “but let us go away; it will be far better to leave Cora and Jupiter, the house and everything.”

Why did I lose my voice so suddenly? Why did the thought that George Irving was at Greenhurst depress my heart and speech? I felt myself growing pale, and looking despairingly around the lovely garden, for the first time realizing how dear every flower had become.

Turner looked at me wistfully, and at length went away. I saw him an hour after wandering to and fro in the wilderness. I did not leave the window, though breakfast had been long waiting. The whole conversation had bewildered me. Why should Turner dread this marriage so much—was it not right? It seemed to me a very easy thing when so much depended on it. I had never thought seriously of marriage in my whole life, and its very mysteriousness made me look upon Turner as the victim of some hidden evil. I was resolved that he should not be sacrificed. What was my bonne, friends, Jupiter, to the comfort of an old friend like him?

I went forth into the wilderness, and found him sitting at the root of a huge chestnut, with his clasped hands drooping idly down between his knees, and gazing steadfastly on the earth.

“Zana,” he said, reaching forth his hand, “sit down here, and tell me all about it. What have I been saying? Have I been very cross, darling?”

His kindness went to my heart. I sat down upon a curved root of the tree, and leaned softly against him.

“Yes, a little cross, but not half so much as I deserved,” I said, meekly. “But tell me now, Mr. Turner, what is this marriage, what is there so dreadful about it?”

“Nothing, child—nothing,” he answered, with forced cheerfulness. “I dare say it is very pleasant—very pleasant indeed to some people. I know of persons who are very fond of weddings, quite charmed with them; but for my part a funeral seems more the thing—there is some certainty about that. It settles a man, leaves him alone, provides for him.”

“I never saw a wedding,” said I, thoughtfully, “and but one funeral. That was very sad, Mr. Turner; if a wedding is like that, don’t be married—it is dreadful! Are weddings like that funeral ever?”

“I have seen weddings a great deal more solemn,” he answered, still gazing on the ground. “One that seemed but the mockery of a funeral, and ended in one!”

“What one was that?” I questioned, while a cold chill crept mysteriously through my veins.

“It was Lord Clare’s wedding that I was thinking of,” he answered, looking up, “and that happened three days before I found you on his door-step.”

I looked fearfully around. It seemed as if a funeral train were creeping through the woods—the ghost of some procession that lived in my memory, yet would not give itself forth.

“And do they wish your wedding to be like that?” I whispered, creeping close to him.

“Like that!” said Turner, lifting up his eyes, “God forbid! Mine, if it must be, is but the expiation of that!”

“And would Lord Clare desire it?—would he insist like Lady Catherine?” I questioned. “Would he turn me out of doors unless you married Maria, do you think?”

“He turn you out of doors—he, child? I only wish we had some way of reaching him!”

“Where is he now?”

“In Africa, the last we heard, searching for what he will never find.”

“And what is that, Mr. Turner?”

“Peace, child, peace—a thing that he will never know again on this side the grave!”

“Is he a bad man then?” I persisted, strangely enthralled by the subject.

“Millions of worse men will live and revel after he has pined himself into the grave.”

“Let us leave this place and seek for him,” I said, filled with a sympathy so deep that my very heart trembled. “If he is unhappy, you and I may do him some good.”

“Oh, child, if you could but remember. If I had but some little proof,” he answered, gazing at me impressively.

“Proof of what, Turner?—what can you wish to prove?”

“That in which nothing but God can help me!” was the desponding reply.

“It seemed to me,” said I, pressing each hand upon my temples, for they were hot with unavailing thought—“it seemed to me as if the thing that you wish to know was beating in my brain all the time. Something there is, blank and dark in my memory—how shall I bring it forth that you may read it?”

“Wait God’s own time, my child,” answered the old man, gently taking the hands from my temples, “sooner or later that which we wish to learn will be made clear. Come now, let us go home!”

“But they will not let us stay there, and I am ready to go,” I remonstrated.

“Yes, they will let us stay now,” he answered, with a grim smile.

“Why?”

“Because I shall marry the Spanish woman to-morrow.”

There was a lingering bitterness in the emphasis placed on the words Spanish woman, that lengthened the phrase for a moment. It was the last I ever witnessed. Turner did not sacrifice himself by halves.

“Zana,” said the noble old man, as we moved slowly toward the house, “you must not tell Maria of Lady Catherine’s visit, or of—of my shameful passion after it. Women have strange ideas about love, and so on, and she might take it into her head to ask awkward questions if she knew all. Do you understand?”

Yes, I understood perfectly. He was anxious to save the poor Spanish woman from a knowledge of his repugnance to the marriage. I promised the secrecy that he desired.

We entered the breakfast-room together. Maria had been waiting for us more than an hour, but she ran cheerfully for the coffee urn and muffins without a word of comment.

I saw Turner look at her with some appearance of interest once or twice during the meal. The queer old philosopher was evidently reconciling himself to the fate that an hour ago had half driven him mad. Maria certainly looked younger and more interesting than usual that morning. Unlike the Spanish women in general, she wore her years becomingly, the moist climate of England, and the quiet of her life conspiring to keep from her the haggard look of old age that marks even mid-life in her native land. The picturesque costume which she had never been induced to change, was also peculiarly becoming; the dark blue skirt and bodice of black cloth; the long braids of her hair, slightly tinged with snow, but gay with knots of scarlet ribbon; the healthy stoutness of her person united in rendering my faithful bonne anything but a repulsive person. I began to have less compassion for Turner, and with the mobility of youth amused myself with fancying Maria’s astonishment when she should learn what the fates had in store for her.