The heiress of Greenhurst

by Ann S. Stephens

“Yes, sure enough,” murmured Chaleco, cautious not to interrupt her.

“Besides, Lady Clare’s name was not Aurora, and he never would have lived here with that beautiful hunting-seat only five miles off, you know.”

“That is quite true,” acquiesced Chaleco, while I sat still, listening keenly to every word.

“You see,” continued the young girl, quite animated on the subject, “you see how impossible it is that the writing means anything; but it is in other books—that is, names are written in them, Clarence sometimes, sometimes Aurora, now and then, both names; but, Zana, I have never found that but once.”

Chaleco fell into thought, and the oars hung listlessly in his hands for some minutes. At last he spoke again, but on indifferent subjects, about the lightness of the air, and the beautiful, silvery glow that shimmered over the waters. But once in a while he would quietly revert to the book again, till I became impressed with its importance to a degree that made me restless for more information.

After sailing around and across the lake for several hours, we drew up at a little island scarcely half a mile across, that lay near the centre of the lake, green as a heap of emeralds, notwithstanding the season was advanced, and embowered by cedar and larch trees, with the richest and most mossy turf I ever trod on, carpeting it from shore to shore.

Chaleco brought forth a basket of provisions from his boat, and bade us wander about while he prepared our dinner. We waited to see him strike fire from two flint stones that he gathered from the bank, and kindle a quantity of dry sticks that lay scattered beneath the trees. When he had spitted a fowl, which, gipsy like, he preferred to cook himself after the sylvan fashion, we went away, and sat down under a clump of larch trees, sadly and in silence, as was natural to persons whose thoughts turned on a common and most painful subject.

I had resolved, there and then, to make my last appeal to the infatuated child. She must have guessed this from my silence and the gravity of my face, for she became wordless as myself, and as I glanced anxiously in her eyes they took the sullen, obstinate expression of one prepared to resist, and, if driven to it, defy.

We sat down together upon the grass. The delicate green foliage of the larches quivered softly over us, and the brown leaves of some trees that had felt the frost, rustled through the air and spotted the turf as with the patterns in a carpet. We remained a long time gazing on these leaves, in sad silence, but holding each other by the hand, as was our habit when little children. My heart was full of those dear old times; it killed me to think that they were gone forever—that again on this earth Cora and I could never be entire friends, friends between whom no subject is forbidden, no respect lost. When I thought of this, and knew that, the impediment lay in my heart as much as it could in her conduct, the future for us both seemed very hopeless. I can hardly describe the feelings that actuated me. Perhaps they arose from the evil felt in my own person, the result of a step like that which Cora had taken, entailed by my mother. True, the cases were not alike; my poor gipsy mother had not sinned consciously; no high moral culture had prepared her to resist temptation; no fond parent graced her with his love; but her act had plunged me, her innocent child, into fatal troubles that must haunt me though life.

It is possible, I say, that these thoughts prevented me feeling all the charity that would have been kind for the poor girl at my side; perhaps, and this is most probable, I could not forgive the companionship of her error, for it is a terrible trial to feel that one you cannot entirely respect is preferred to yourself. In striving thus to analyze the feelings that made me drop Cora’s hand for a time as we sat silently together, one thing was certain, I did not cordially love her with the affection of former years. Still, feelings swelled in my heart stronger and more faithful than love—gratitude, and my solemn promise to the good father; compassion for her, not unmixed, but powerful enough to have commanded any sacrifice; a firm desire to wrest her from the man who had wronged us both; all these motives influenced and urged me on to rescue that poor girl, if human eloquence and human will could accomplish it.