The heiress of Greenhurst

by Ann S. Stephens

So I met the wild, little beauty each day in the mirror. Every graceful curve and line of the statues had become familiar, and almost wearisome to me, but here was infinite variety changing at my will. She was my slave, my subject, a being over whom I had absolute control; and this was the first idea that I ever had of companionship.

In the library I found some books still done up in brown paper packages, as if ordered for some purpose and forgotten. These, of course, became objects of especial curiosity to a child always on the alert for discoveries. They were juvenile volumes, richly illustrated, containing all the fairy tales, I do believe, ever invented or translated into the English language.

I seized upon these books with eagerness, studied the pictures, and made toilsome efforts to spell out their meaning. So between Maria’s reading, and my own spelling out of words, we gathered up all the glowing romance; and this opened new visions to me, and gave a vivid impulse to my day dreamings among the pictures. It was only my wild spirit that wandered. At first the debility that followed my illness, and afterward Turner’s earnest prohibition, confined me to the house, or, as a great indulgence, to the little flower nook directly under the windows.

A winter and spring went by, and then my fairy-like imprisonment ceased. Old Turner grew cheerful and indulgent; he gave me long walks among the trees; he brought a pretty black pony upon which I rode, while he walked by my saddle.

My frame grew vigorous, and my spirits bird-like, under this wholesome indulgence. Sometimes I caught glimpses of Greenhurst, and a vivid remembrance of the morning Turner had found me upon its door-steps, came back upon my brain. I wondered if the lady, with her dog, and that long, silver-grey morning-robe, was there yet, and if I should ever see her again. As my courage and curiosity grew strong, I inquired about these things of Turner. “No, the lady was not there,” he said, “she had gone up to London, to be near her son, who was at Eton.”

Where was London? Who was her son? What was Eton?

How eagerly I crowded all these questions together, when, for the first time, I found the dear old man disposed to indulge my curiosity. London, Eton were soon explained, but they still seemed like the cities I had read of in my fairy books. But when he told me of this son, that he was Lord Clare’s nephew, and might one day become owner of Greenhurst, our own pretty home, and the broad fields and parks around us to the horizon almost, my heart fell, my thoughts grew dark, and for a moment the beautiful landscape disappeared. A cold mist surrounded me. It was but for a moment, but why was it? How came this bleak vision to encompass me thus with its dreary indistinctness? Had some name jarred on my memory which refused to receive it, and yet felt the shock? Was that name Lord Clare’s? Why had neither Turner nor Maria ever mentioned him before? Who was he? What was Turner to him?

I asked these questions at once. Turner answered in a low voice, and I fancied with reluctance. Certain I am, his voice was more husky than usual.

He explained that Lord Clare was his master—that he had gone into foreign lands, and might not come back for years. The lady whom I had seen was his sister, unlike him in everything, but still his sister; and during his absence her home was to be at Greenhurst whenever it might be her pleasure to reside there.

We had ridden to the brow of an eminence on the verge of the park while Turner was giving me this intelligence. The spot commanded a fine view of the country far and near. In a sweeping curve of the distant uplands stood a dark stone dwelling, partially castellated and partaking of a style which admits of towers and balconies, so ornamented that it was impossible to guess to what age they belonged. It was an imposing building, and made both a grand and picturesque object, lapped as it was among the most verdant and lovely hills in the world. I looked toward this building with interest. It seemed like something I had seen before, pictured perhaps in a book.