The heiress of Greenhurst

by Ann S. Stephens

I knew the young man’s face well, and my soul, which was in the child’s bosom, sang for joy as he came up.

A moment of obscurity, of mistiness and shadows—then appeared before me the cottage in Greenhurst, its gardens, its dim old wilderness of trees; and now my soul leaped from event to event, scaling over all that might have been repose, and seizing upon the rugged points of that human history like a vampire.

Again and again I saw that young mother, so beautiful, so sad, that every fibre of my being ached with sympathy. It was not her face or her form alone that I saw, but all the doubt, the anguish, the humiliation of her wild, proud nature tortured my own being. I not only saw her, but felt all the changes of her soul writing themselves on my own intelligence.

Why was it that in that wonderful sleep or trance—I know not to this day what it was—but how did it happen that I could read every thought and feeling in my mother’s heart, but only the actions of my father? Did that weird being so will it, that all my burning nature should pour itself forth in sympathy for the wronged woman, and harden into iron toward the man? I saw him too, pale, struggling with indecisions, that ended in more than mental torture, but this awoke no sympathy in my bosom, none, none. Then came another upon my vision, a proud, noble woman, always clad in black, that hovered around the old dwelling where my father rested, like a raven. She was my mother’s rival; I felt it the moment her black shadow fell upon my memory. I saw her in a dim old room, and he was with her. Both were pale and in trouble; she sat watching him through her tears, and those tears shook his manhood till he trembled from head to foot. A child, dark-eyed, and with a look of intelligence beyond her years, sat crouching in a corner, with her great black eyes following every movement—I knew that child well. It was the infant who had shouted its joyous greeting to the young huntsman. Its blood was beating then in my own veins.

Again I saw the woman, beneath a clump of gnarled old oaks. She lay prone upon the earth, white as death, stiffened like a corpse; a horse dripping with sweat stood cowering on the other side of a chasm that yawned between him and the lady. There was that child again, peering out from a thicket, with her wild eyes gleaming with ferocious joy, as if she gloried in the stillness that lay like death upon the woman.

Then a huntsman rode up, and I saw the white face of the woman on his bosom. He kissed the face—he wept over it—he laid her on the grass, and looked piteously around for help.

Then the child sprang up like a tiger-cub from the thicket; with a bound she stood beside the two; her little form dilating, her whole attitude full of wrath. Words were spoken, between the man and the child, bitter, harsh words. Then the woman moved faintly; the child saw it; her tiny hands were clenched; her teeth locked together, and lifting her foot, she struck it fiercely down upon the lady’s bosom.

A blow from the man dashed her to the ground; confusion followed, flashes as of fire filled my vision. Then I saw the child wandering through the tall trees alone, her little features locked, her arms tightly folded.

It grew dark, so dark that under the trees the young mother, who stood by her child, could not see the fierce paleness of her face. Then I saw them both wandering like thieves along the vast mansion house. They were separated. The mother went into numberless chambers searching for some one, and holding her breath. At one moment she stood over a bed, on which the strange woman slept; then I was sure that the child was hers by the deadly blackness of her eyes as they fell on the noble sleeper. She passed out with one hand firmly clenched, though it held nothing, and wandered into the darkness again.

Once more she stood in the light, dim and faint, for the lamp that gave it was hidden under an alabaster shade, and sent forth only a few pale rays like moonbeams. I saw little that surrounded her, for my soul was searching the great agony of heart with which she stood beside that man. He was not in bed, but wrapped in a dressing-gown of some rich Oriental silk, lay upon a couch with his eyes closed and smiling.