The heiress of Greenhurst

by Ann S. Stephens

This sound had continued some time. It issued first from that beautiful double corridor which was once the grand entrance to those enchanting scenes, that even in ruins have more than the fascinations of romance. Time, that has dimmed their first loveliness, but leaves broader scope for the imagination, which, starting from these vestiges of beauty, rebuilds, creates, becomes luxurious. Contrast, too, has its share; the bleak, almost rude severity of those grim towers, the weeds, the broken stonework, the walls tracing the uneven slopes of the hill, the ruined defences, all give a force, and brighten the exquisite grace of that little Paradise, which takes one by surprise.

Well, the footsteps, I have said, came from this corridor, once the thoroughfare of kings. Then they were heard from the gorgeous saloon on the right, composing a portion of those apartments in which the Moorish Sultanas spent their isolated lives. Then these footsteps moved towards the great tower of Comares, and two shadowy forms appeared moving slowly, almost languidly, between the slender columns and azulejo pillars of a gallery that leads that way.

These persons—for two were walking close together, and with footsteps so light that those of the female seemed but an echo of the harder and firmer tread of the man—these persons were not wandering in that heavenly place, you may be certain, from a desire to examine the wonderful beauty that surrounded them. They had looked a thousand times on those singular remnants of art. Besides, the gallery was almost wrapped in shadow, and the rich colours, the lace-like stucco, the dim gilding, were all flowing together unveiling the darkness, but nothing more.

They hurried on, for the dome of heavy wood that overhung them seemed gloomy and portentous as a thunder-cloud. The shadows within those noble carvings were black as ebony. The beautiful design, the long, graceful stalactites, honeycombed and dashed with gold, all breaking out as from the midnight of ages, had a sombre effect. It seemed, as I have said before, like a storm-cloud condensed over them, full of gloom and prophetic wrath. My parents had come forth in search of joy, light, beauty—things that would harmonize with the ineffable happiness that overflowed their own young hearts—and they hastened from beneath this frowning roof, with its marvel of art, its grim antiquity, as we flee from the chill of a vault to the warm sunshine.

Other persons might have lost themselves in this labyrinth of beauty, but my mother had trod those ruined halls before she could remember, and the darkness was nothing against her entire knowledge of the place. Now she stood in that miracle of beauty, the Hall of the Ambassadors, the grand Moorish state chamber which occupies the entire Comares Tower. They were no longer in darkness, for through the deep embrasures of its windows came the moonlight, falling upon the pavement in long gleams of radiance, and flowing over the rich colors like the unfolding of a silver banner.

It fell upon the walls with their exquisite tracery heavy in themselves, but so refined by art that the golden filagree work of Genoa is scarcely more delicate, and snow itself less pure. It gilded the azulejos. By this I mean those exquisite little tiles, brilliant as the richest enamel, of various tints—blue, red, and yellow predominating—which inlaid a gorgeous recess in the wall, and glittered around that raised platform which had been the foundation of a lost throne, now glowing in gorgeous masses, as if precious stones had been imbedded in the snow-work. All this was so richly revealed, so mistily hidden, that with a full knowledge of all which the shadows kept from view, the imagination would take flight, and you felt as if the gates of Paradise must have been flung open, before even a glimpse of so much beauty could be given to mortal eyes.

For a moment even those two lovers, in the first sublime egotism of passion which was destiny to them, stood hushed and dumb as they found themselves beneath the dome of that wonderful chamber. It was before the present ribs of wood and masses of intricate carving were introduced, with all their elaborated gloom, to brood over the most graceful specimen of art that human genius ever devised. The original dome arched above them seventy feet in the air, pure, majestic, gorgeous, as if the gold and crimson of a sunset sky were striving to break through the masses of summer clouds centred there. Then they became accustomed to the light, and things grew more distinct. The glorious moonlight of southern Europe is so luminous—the darkness that it casts so deep—it leaves no beauty unrevealed—it gathers all deformity under its shadows.

Every beautiful line of art that surrounded them was not only revealed, but idealized. The noble stucco work within the dome, moulded into exquisite designs two feet deep, pure as if cut from the snow ridges of Alpujarras—the ground-work of gorgeous colors, red, blue, gold glowing out from those depths of woven whiteness—the long, delicate stalactites dripping with moonlight, and peering downward from the compartments of each deep interstice, as if the snow-work, beginning to melt, had frozen again into great icicles—the pure whiteness all around, the colors burning underneath, or breaking out in rich masses like belts of jewels near the pavement—all this, as I have said, made even the lovers tread across the chamber cautiously and in silence. The stillness, the glow, the moonlight, made even the stealthy tread of their footsteps a sacrilegious intrusion.

They stole into one of the deep recesses of a window, where the moonlight fell upon them full and broad. The walls were so deep that it gave them a sort of seclusion. They began to breathe more freely, and the deep spell that had rapt their hearts for an instant, gave way to the rich flood of happiness that no power on earth could long hold in abeyance.

They stood together in the recess, but with a touch of art—for entire love has always a shyness in it, a sort of holy reserve, which is the modesty of passion—Aurora’s eyes were turned aside, not exactly to the floor, but she seemed gazing upon the beautiful plain of Granada, which lay like a stretch of Paradise far below them. He was looking in her face, for there was something of wild beauty, of the shy grace which one sees in a half-tamed bird, which would have drawn the eyes of a less interested person upon the gipsy girl, as she stood there with the radiant moonlight falling upon her like a veil. As she looked forth a shade of sadness fell upon her face, singular as it was beautiful, for in her wild life the passions seldom found repose enough for that gentle twilight of the soul, sadness. But it was both strange and lovely, that unwonted softness, the first sweet hush of civilization upon her meteor-like spirit. Still he could see her eyes glitter through those curling lashes, thick, long, inky as night, but nothing could entirely shut out the wonderful radiance of those eyes.