The heiress of Greenhurst

by Ann S. Stephens

True, I had a purpose that gave me strength. Cora must be brought back to her father; then what was to be my fate? The gipsy caves of Granada—those caves at whose bare remembrance my poor mother had shuddered even in the zenith of her happiness? But where else should I go? Ishmael was not more thoroughly cast out by his father’s people than I had been—while more fortunate than me, his mother went with him into the desert. I was alone. In the broad world there was no human being from whom I could claim the draught of cold water which poor Hagar gave to him.

I went forth, braving all the woes that were divided by the outcast mother and her child. The rival that I had loved better than a sister had taken the soul that was mine, and cruelly left me to perish or to suffer; it mattered as little which to her as it did to Sarah, that her handmaid died in the wilderness, or passed heartbroken into the desert. Driven forth from my last shelter by my father’s sister, hunted down like an evil thing, I felt like the poor stag which I had once saved from the very foes that seemed chasing me to death. As I sat there alone in my pretty chamber, with the coffer in my lap, and the bundle at my feet, I thought of the stone cairn beneath which my mother lay, deep in the snow mountains, and wished that I too were under it.

Everything was still. Nothing but the faint flutter of autumn leaves as they fell to the earth reached my ear. Yes, one thing more, the beatings of my poor heart sounded loud and quick in the stillness, like the laugh of winter winds when they rustle through masses of dead foliage.

I got up at last—oh, with what heaviness of heart and limb. With the coffer in one hand, and the bundle in the other, I passed like a ghost from my beautiful chamber, leaving it bathed in the autumn moonbeams, all the more quiet that a weary heart had gone out of it.

I went through the little picture gallery. The moonlight threw my black shadow on the lovely pictures and statuettes, veiling them, as it were, in mourning at my approach. As I looked back through my tears, they were poised gracefully as ever, and smiling in the pale light heartless as my human friends. It was only in my path that the darkness fell.

One moment I paused at the door of Turner’s room. I held my breath, listening at the key-hole for the faintest noise. A sigh from those loved sleepers would have fallen upon my heart like a blessing. Nothing reached me—nothing but the sound of the wind, which was beginning to sob among the leaves out of doors.

As I listened, something rubbed against my ankle, and the soft purr of a house cat, whose instinct had recognized me in the dark, made me utter a faint exclamation. I stooped down and caressed the kind animal a moment, then hurried away, fearful that my sobs would arouse Turner. The cat followed me to the stable, and looked on while I saddled Jupiter with a sort of grave wonder, which seemed to me like regret. She watched me as I fastened my bundle and mounted the poor old pony. When I rode away, looking wistfully back at the house, she kept her place till I could no longer distinguish her.

I believe it was a beautiful night; certainly the moon was at its full, and the sky crowded with stars, luminous with that deep glow which precedes an early frost. Without being boisterous, the wind filled the leaves with their mournful whispers, and the fragrance of broken leaves and forest flowers, that always breathe sweetest as the frost kills them, floated silently on the air, saddening the atmosphere with the perfume of their decay.

I received all these impressions passively, for my heart was too heavy for anything but that dull consciousness which is blunted by pain. All the way I was comparing myself with the boy Ishmael, and thinking of Hagar with yearning sympathy, such as a woman only who has been wronged and cast forth into that great desert the world can feel.

I reached Marston Court, but the imposing beauty of those walls, the picturesque effect which the broad moonlight produced among its carved balconies, broad eaves, and great entrance doors, made only a dream-like impression on me. My heart was full of one thought. Here and now I must part with old Jupiter for ever, my last friend. I reached the steps, let myself down from the saddle, and unknotted my bundle with cold, trembling fingers, that blundered painfully in their task. Then—it was because I wanted to prolong the moment of parting—I knotted up the bridle short upon his neck, that he might not tread on it. When this was done, I stood a long time with my arm over his neck, crying like a child. Poor old fellow! when I stood up and shook his bridle, telling him as well as I could for my sobs, to go home again, he turned his head and fell to whimpering, as if he understood my desolation better than any human creature had done.