The heiress of Greenhurst

A night lamp burned in the lower entrance, for Turner was still absent, and Maria supposed us both at Greenhurst. I took the lamp and went to my room.

No sense of fatigue—not even the awe that crept over me, could restrain the desire that I felt to examine the box. I placed it on the floor, fell upon my knees, and, with the lamp standing near, lifted the lid.

A quantity of folded papers, and the gleam of antique gold, floated mistily beneath my gaze. My fingers trembled as they touched the papers, yellow with age, and blackened with the written misery of my mother. I took them up, one by one, reverently, and holding my breath. It was long before I could see to distinguish one letter from another. But at last the paper ceased to rattle in my hand—the delicate letters grew distinct, and with eager eyes I devoured them.

At first, the writing was broken in its language and stiff in chirography, like the earnest attempts of a school-girl to write. The sentiments too were imperfectly expressed, and full of wild fancies that so appealed to my own nature that my heart answered them like an echo.

There was something child-like and exceedingly beautiful in the expressions of happiness, which broke out through all the imperfections of language and style. The poetry of a rich nature, just beginning to yield itself to the influences of civilization, spoke in every word. Never did the records of a human life seem so full of sunshine—never have I seen a register of affection so deep, and of a faith so perfect.

I read eagerly, turning over page after page, and gathering their contents at a glance. The dates changed frequently. At first, they were in Seville, then in various continental cities, where, it seems, Lord Clare had taken her after their flight from Granada, upon whose snow mountains she had at last perished.

Still, the record continued one of unbroken happiness. She invariably mentioned Lord Clare as her husband; but now and then came an expression of anxiety for the thoughtfulness that would, at times, resist all her efforts to amuse him. As the manuscript progressed, it was easy to trace the development of a vigorous mind under the influence of an intellect more powerful than itself. There was a break in the manuscript. The next date was indefinite. No town, no county, but simply the hills of Scotland.

Oh, how beautiful was the gush of affection with which she spoke of her infant! How thoroughly maternal joy expanded and deepened every feeling of her womanhood! Still it was here that I found the first trace of that sorrow which soon darkened every page. Her warm heart was dissatisfied with the measured affection with which Lord Clare received his child. She questioned the cause, finding it only in herself—her want of power to interest wholly a mind like his. She wrote of two old people who were kind to her and her little one, while Lord Clare was abroad on the hills, or absent on some of those long journeys which he occasionally made into England.

Again the scene changed, and she was at Greenhurst, so happy, so more than pleased with the beauty and comforts of the home which promised to be permanent at last. She described the dwelling, the rooms, with their exquisite adornments, the statuettes and pictures, with the glow of a vivid mind and warm heart. She spoke of her child—the pretty room that was prepared for it—the devotion of a woman whom Lord Clare had procured from Spain. How fearfully strange it seemed that I was the child so loved and cared for; that even then I was acting my part in the mournful drama that had left me worse than an orphan! How often did I find myself described, my eyes, the flowing wealth of my curls, the precocious vigor of my mind!

On a sudden the whole character of the manuscript changed; the delicate writing grew abrupt and broken; wild dashes appeared where sentences should have been, and a spirit of sadness pervaded every written word. She no longer spoke of Lord Clare with the exulting love that had, at first, marked her record; and every time her child was mentioned, the name seemed written in tears. Still it was but the shadow of unhappiness that appeared. No broad mention of discontent was written, but a foreboding of evil, a dread of impending bereavement fell upon the heart with every sentence.

At last it came. Lord Clare, her husband, loved another—had loved another long before he found her, a poor Gitanilla, in the ruins of the Alhambra.

With what a burst of anguish the truth was written! How terrible it must have looked, glaring on her in words formed by her own hand! Poor thing—she had attempted to dash the sentence out, but the quivering hand had only scattered it with blots; soiling the records as with mourning, but not obliterating a single word.

After this, there was no connection between the wild snatches of anguish—the pathetic despair—the pleadings for a return of love which were written in all the eloquence of desperation, and blistered with tears that stained its surface yet.

Trouble blinded my eyes as I read. My hands trembled as they grasped the paper on which her tears had fallen. My soul was full of my mother—tortured by her grief—swelling fiercely with a bitter sense of her wrongs.

I read on to the end. All my mother’s history was before me—I saw her as she described herself, a wild dancing girl of Granada, thrown upon the notice of a romantic and imaginative young man—that gipsy marriage in the caverns of the Alhambra was before me in all its dismal terrors. Was it a marriage, or a deception by which my mother was betrayed? Whatever it was, she believed it to be real. No doubt that she was Lord Clare’s wife ever appeared, but, in the last page, the cry of her wronged love broke out in one fierce burst of sorrow. The certainty that he loved another—had never entirely loved her—uprooted the very fibres of life. She never wrote rationally after that.

“I will go,” she wrote, and great drops as of rain blotted out half the words—“I will go to him once more, and tell him of my oath. Surely, surely he will not let me die—me, his wife, his poor Gitanilla, whose beauty is not all gone yet. This woman, does she love him as I do? Will she give up?—oh, Heaven forgive me, I gave up nothing! What had I to yield, a poor, dancing gipsy, with nothing on earth that was her own, but the beauty of which he is tired, and the heart he is breaking? But she, this woman with one husband in the grave—what can she offer that Aurora did not give? Still, oh, misery, misery, he loves her—I can see it. He thinks me blind, unconscious, content with the sparse hours that he deals out grudgingly to me and my child. Content! well, well, it may not be. I have read of jealous hearts that create by wayward suspicions the evil they dread. What if I were one of them? Oh, heavens, what happiness if it rested thus with me! Let me hope—let me hope! * * * *

“It is over, he has struck my child—the blow has reached my heart. She is at his dwelling—I too will enter it—I too will strike. Have I not sworn an oath that must be redeemed? His oath is forgotten. The gipsies remember better. * * *

“She sleeps in his house to-night; I will be there! How wakeful the child is! How wild and fiery are the eyes with which she has been watching me from that heap of cushions! They are closed, and I will steal away. But how come back? Will it be the last time? * * * *

“I have seen them both—he has told me all. He never loved me as he loved her, not even then, among those ruins. Never loved me! O, my God! am I mad to repeat these words over and over, as the suicide, frantic with the first blow, plunges the dagger again and again in his bosom? Why cannot words kill like daggers? They pierce deeper—they torture worse; but we live. Yes, if this pang could not wrench life away, nothing can reach this stubborn hold on existence. He has said it with his own lips—I am not loved—through all his life that woman has ever stood between me and him. I rose from my knees then and stood up. Did I entreat? No, no! Perhaps he expected it—perhaps he thought the abject gipsy blood would creep to his feet yet. * * * *

“Why was Zana waiting in the darkness of that house? How much her eyes looked like those of my grandame. Ha! my oath. It is well I kept silent there. Have I not sworn that nothing but death shall separate us two? Let them live, the despised gipsy has the courage to die. Zana, my child, gather up your strength, many dreary miles stretch between us and the caves of Granada, but death is there. Without his love, my poor little one, what can we do but die?” * * *

Here the manuscript ended. But upon one of its blank pages was written, in another hand, words that froze the tears in my heart.

It was a stern command to forsake the people of my father’s blood; and after avenging my mother’s death, return to my own tribe for ever. The words were strong with bitter hate, that seemed to burn into the paper on which they were written. The fearful document was signed Papita.

The papers dropped from my hand. I remember sitting, like one stupefied, gazing down upon a pile of gold that nearly filled the coffer, fascinated by the glitter of two antique ear-rings, set with great rubies, that glowed out from the mass like huge drops of blood that had petrified there. I took them up and clasped them in my ears; their history was written out in the manuscript I had just read; and I locked them with a sort of awe. They seemed a fearful link that was to drag me back to my people.

While I searched among the gold for some other token, a strange stupor crept over me, and I fell exhausted on the floor, folding my arms over the bronze box and its contents.

I slept heavily for hours, so heavily that all the sweet noises of morning failed to arouse me. This suspension of consciousness probably saved me from a brain fever, or perhaps utter frenzy. It seems that I had locked myself in, and all day Maria, unconscious of my return, had not thought of looking for me till Turner came home, for a moment, to inquire after us. He found Jupiter still saddled, wandering around the wilderness, hungry and forlorn enough. This excited his fears, and, directly, the faithful old man was knocking at my chamber door. The noise was not enough to arouse me, and receiving no answer he grew desperate, and forcing an entrance, found me prone upon the carpet with my arms around the bronze coffer, my soiled garments lying in torn masses around me, and my pale features gleaming out from beneath the scarlet kerchief, with which I had confined the riding-hat to my head.

The stillness of death itself was not more profound than the sleep into which I had fallen; but at last the gushes of fresh air they let in upon me, aromatic vinegars, and the desperate shake that Turner gave me in his terror, had their effect. I stood up, stiffened in every limb and in a sort of trance; for all consciousness was locked like ice in my bosom.

Slowly, and with many pangs, the remembrance of what had happened came back to me. The bronze coffer at my feet—the sight of my garments, brought back a consciousness of all that I had learned and suffered during the night. I took up the coffer and placed it, reverently, on a table. Turner and Maria watched me, with anxious curiosity. The box was a singular one, and covered with Egyptian hieroglyphics, into which the red soil of the bank had introduced itself. I took no heed of Turner’s astonishment; but, self-centred and stern, asked him if Lord Clare—I did not call him father—still lived.

“Yes,” answered the old man, and all his features commenced to quiver, “he lives—he has asked for you again and again. Where have you been, Zana?”

I did not reply. The stern duty that lay upon me hardened all my senses; the old man’s right to question me passed for nothing. I asked what time it was, as if he had not spoken.

It was four in the afternoon. Lord Clare had inquired for me so often, that Turner determined, spite of Lady Catherine’s prohibition, to bring me to his presence.

“Go,” said the old man, gently—“go change that dress, and drive, if it is possible, that deathly white from your cheek; there is no resemblance now between you and her; that icy face will disappoint him. Look like yourself, Zana—like her!”

I went at his bidding and changed my dress, and braided my hair with fingers as stiff and, it seemed to me, as nerveless as iron. The pallor did not leave my cheek; the blood flowed still and icily in my veins; all the sweet impulses of humanity seemed dead within me. I remembered a scarlet ribbon which lay in the box, with a piece of gold attached. The journal had given me its history. The gold was my father’s first gift to his gipsy wife. I remembered well finding the ribbon in his vest, and carrying it away with a sharp infantile struggle, full of glee and baby triumph. He allowed me to keep it. Yet it was her dearest maiden ornament—the earliest sacrifice that she had made to him. The event was impressed on my mind, because it brought forth the first angry word that I ever remember from my mother. On seeing me come forward, holding up the ribbon, and shouting as it floated behind me, I remember well the quick flash of her eyes, the eager bound which she made toward me, and the clutch of her hand as she wrested away my treasure.

My father laughed lightly at the struggle, but she bore the ribbon away, and did not appear again for hours.

As this memory pressed upon my mind, I entered the room where Turner awaited me, took out the ribbon, and hung it with the gold around my neck.

“Do I look like her now?” I said, turning upon the old man with steady coldness.

He did not reply. His distended eyes were fixed on the antique rings in my ears—a sort of terror possessed him at the sight.

“Zana, where did you get those accursed things?” he said.

I did not answer, but took my mother’s journal from the coffer and closed the lid over the gold.

Turner followed me from the room, evidently filled with awe by the cold stateliness of my demeanor.

With a heart harder than the nether millstone, I entered the house which held my dying father. No misgivings of humanity possessed me—my soul was cruel in its purpose, and my footsteps fell like iron upon the tessellated vestibule.

Upon the staircase we met Lady Catherine Irving. She confronted me with her impatient wrath and ordered me back, denouncing Turner for having introduced me a second time against her commands. I listened till she had done, and then sternly pursued my way, leaving Turner behind.

I opened the door of Lord Clare’s chamber. A voice from the bed, feeble and sharp as that of an old man, called out:

“Turner, Turner, is it you? Have you found the child?”

I strode up to the bed and bent over the dying man. My hair almost touched his forehead. The glow of his great, feverish eyes spread, like fire, over my face.

When he saw me that sharp face began to quiver, and over each cheek there darted a burning spot, as if a red rose leaf had unfurled upon it. He lifted his long arms, and would have clasped them over my neck, but they fell back, quivering, upon the bed. With his lips drawn apart, and the glitter of his eyes growing fearful, he lay gazing at the ruby rings that weighed down my ears.

“Those, those!—the rubies! How came they here?—what demon has locked them into those ears? Out with them, Zana—out with them, they are accursed!”

He held up those pale hands and grasped eagerly at the ear-rings; but I drew back, standing upright by his bed.

“They are my inheritance,” I said; “touch them not.”

“They are accursed,” he faltered, struggling to his elbow, “the symbols of treachery and blood—they were in her ears—the sorceress—the poisoner—they were in her ears that night.”

“I know it. They belonged to old Papita, the grandame of my mother, the Gitanilla whom you married in the vaults of the Alhambra. I am her child.”

“And mine!” he cried, casting up his arms as he fell backward upon the pillows.

I drew back, repulsing those quivering arms with a motion of my hand. They fell heavily upon the bed-clothes. A groan burst from his lips, and, from beneath his closed eyelids, I saw two great tears roll slowly downward.

For one moment the heart within me was stirred with an impulse of compassion. I removed the red ribbon from my neck and flung it over his, the pure offering of my soul. He grasped the gold with both hands and held it against his heart, muttering faint prayers to himself. I took one of the pale hands in mine; the touch softened me still more. The word father trembled on my lips—another moment and I must have fallen on my knees by his side. But that instant Lady Catherine Irving laid her hand on my arm.

“Go!” she said, in a hoarse whisper. “Insolent, begone!”

I shook off her detested touch and drew myself sternly up.

“Hence, woman!” I exclaimed, pointing to the door with my hand—“hence; and leave me alone with my father!”

She turned livid with rage, but kept her ground, attempting to force me from the bed; but she might as well have tried her puny strength on a rock.

“Catherine, go, it is my child,” said a faint voice from the bed; “leave us together.”

“It is against the physician’s orders—his mind wanders—it is madness!” exclaimed the woman, addressing Turner, who followed her; “you will bear witness, good Turner, that at the last his mind wandered.”

Lord Clare’s eyes opened, and were bent, with a look of ineffable love, upon my face.

“My child—my child!” he murmured, repeating the name as if the sound were sweet to him. Then looking at Turner, he whispered, “There must be some new proof. Those rings, take them from her—for, before the God of heaven, she is my own child.”

“He raves—he is insane!” cried Lady Catherine, attempting to push me aside.

I have said that my heart was hard as a rock when I entered that chamber. A moment of tenderness had softened it, but the presence of this woman petrified it again. Still I could not share in this unholy strife around my father’s death-bed without a shudder. My very soul revolted from the contest which might ensue if I persisted in remaining. I took the hand which had been feebly extended toward me, and pressed the journal of my mother into its clasp. He lifted up the papers, held them waving before his eyes, and muttering, “It is hers—it is hers!” cowered down into the bed and began to moan.

“What papers are those?” almost shrieked Lady Catherine, attempting to possess them, but the dying man dragged them beneath the bed-clothes. “It is forbidden him to read—he shall not attempt it!”

Lord Clare started up in bed, and pointed his long, shadowy finger toward the door.

“Woman,” he cried, in a voice that made her creep slowly backward—“woman, intermeddle no more—leave me with these papers and my God!”

The astonished and terrified woman crept abjectly from the room, with her pallid face averted.

Lord Clare sat upright, unfolding the yellow and time-stained journal of my mother with his shaking hands.

“Fling back the curtains,” he cried. “Nay, nay, my eyes are dim—bring lights—bring lights. Ha, yes, that is the sunset, let me read it by the last sun I shall ever see!”

Turner had drawn back the bed curtains, twisting them in masses around the heavy ebony posts. But this was not enough, with a sweep of his arms he sent all the glowing silk away from the nearest window, letting in a burst of the golden sunset.

And by this light my dying father began to read the records of the heart he had broken. It was terrible to witness the eagerness with which his glittering eyes ran over the paper. New vitality had seized upon him: he sat upright and firm as an oak in the bed, which had quivered to his nervous trembling a few minutes before.

I had entered the room determined to spare no pang to the dying man—to shrink from nothing that might send back an avenging torture for all that he had dealt to my mother, but I was young and I was human. The blood that beat in his almost pulseless heart flowed in my veins also. I could not look upon him there—so pale, so full of deathly beauty—and be his executioner. I turned away resolved to spare him the details of my mother’s death. I met Lady Catherine again upon the stairs, and she shrunk back from me as if I had been a viper. It gave me no pain—I was scarcely conscious of her presence.