THE
HEIRESS OF GREENHURST.
An Autobiography.
BY MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS,
AUTHOR OF “FASHION AND FAMINE,” “THE OLD HOMESTEAD,” ETC., ETC.
* * * * *
NEW YORK:
EDWARD STEPHENS, PUBLISHER,
126 NASSAU STREET.
1857.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS,
In the Clerk’s Office of the United States District Court, for the
Southern District of New York.
W. H. TINSON, Stereotyper,
43 Centre street.
GEORGE RUSSELL & CO., Printers,
61 Beekman Street.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The First Gift, 9
II. The Sibyl’s Cave, 20
III. Chaleco and his Plunder, 28
IV. The Midnight Ramble, 37
V. Fairy Scenes and Fatal Passions, 56
VI. The Sibyl and the Lovers, 59
VII. Waiting for Vengeance, 66
VIII. The Broken Idol, 70
IX. Waiting and Fearing—A Wilderness of Beauty, 79
X. The Courier and his Wild Visitor, 83
XI. A Traveller’s Toilet, 88
XII. Temptations and Resolutions, 92
XIII. The Weird Wedding, 99
XIV. The Gitanilla’s Oath, 104
XV. The Mansion and the Cottage, 110
XVI. Concealments and Suspicions, 115
XVII. The Old Escritoir, 124
XVIII. The Lady of Marston Court, 130
XIX. My First Heart Tempest, 139
XX. My Mother’s Last Appeal, 143
XXI. The Oath Redeemed, 151
XXII. Lost Memories, 156
XXIII. The Threshold of my Father’s House, 162
XXIV. A Paradise of Rest, 167
XXV. Myself and my Shadow, 174
XXVI. The Fairy at the Pool, 181
XXVII. Funerals and Orphans, 187
XXVIII. Pleasant Days and Pleasant Teachings, 196
XXIX. My Strange Acquaintance, 204
XXX. The Involuntary Hunt and its Consequences, 207
XXXI. My Unexpected Escort, 216
XXXII. The Unwelcome Visitor, 224
XXXIII. Turner’s Struggle against Marriage, 230
XXXIV. The Reluctant Proposal, 236
XXXV. The Jovial Wedding and Random Shot, 240
XXXVI. My First Visit to Greenhurst—The Two Miniatures, 250
XXXVII. Sorrows, Doubts and Conjectures, 260
XXXVIII. The Hazlenut Hedge, 270
XXXIX. My Father’s Return, 276
XL. Once More at Greenhurst, 284
XLI. My Strange Visitor, 290
XLII. Visions and Retrospections, 301
XLIII. The Desolate Bridal Chambers, 310
XLIV. The Bronze Coffer and my Mother’s Journal, 319
XLV. The Shadowy Death-Chamber, 330
XLVI. A Visit to my Arch Enemy, 339
XLVII. My Lost Friend and my Lost Home, 352
XLVIII. Our Flight from Marston Court, 366
XLIX. The Mountain Lake and Hill-side Cottage, 368
L. The Antique Bible, 376
LI. The Island Cove, 382
LII. The Sheep-Farmer and his Wife, 391
LIII. Chaleco’s Triumph, 397
LIV. Irving and his Mother, 404
LV. Self-Abnegation, 411
LVI. The Old Tower Chamber, 425
DEDICATION.
MY MOTHER:
In dedicating this book to you, I have no choice of words; the
memories of a helpless and feeble childhood crowd too closely on my
heart for that. From the day when you received me an infant from the
arms of a dying sister, down to the calm twilight of your own most
useful life, I have a remembrance only of more than motherly kindness
and entire affection. My childhood and my youth, with all their joys
and tender griefs, are so beautifully blended with thoughts of your
household virtues and maternal love, that it is impossible to realize
that even partial orphanage was ever known to me.
I once hoped to blend with yours the name of that honored father, who
has but lately laid down the burden of almost fourscore years and ten,
and gone forth from the faithful affection which surrounded him here,
to the more perfect love of heaven. But my father is dead, and in the
holy welcome of angels the voice of his own child is hushed. Still,
through the golden chain of your love, my mother, this dedication
shall yet reach him. With you—who made his old age tranquil almost as
the heaven he approached, who went faithfully down to the valley of
the shadow of death, giving him up only to the angels that waited
there—I leave this homage, that it may be conveyed to him through your
nightly prayers.
ANN S. STEPHENS.
NEW YORK, _May, 1857_.
THE HEIRESS OF GREENHURST.
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST GIFT.
It is my mother’s story that I am about to write—the story of her young
life, her wrongs, her sufferings, and the effects of those wrongs, those
sharp sufferings as they flowed in fire and tears through my own
existence. Her history ran like a destiny through my own. My life is but
a prolongation of hers. I have but done what she would have
accomplished, had she not been trampled down like a broken flower, in
the civilized life with which none of her blood or race could hope to
mingle and live.
She was a gipsy of Granada. You may search for her birthplace among the
caves that perforate the hill-side to the right, as you gaze down upon
Granada from the Alhambra. That hill, honeycombed with subterranean
dwellings, and its bosom swarming with human beings, was my mother’s
home. Beggars—yes, call them so—a people born to delude and prey upon
all other races, these were her companions. She was a gipsy of the pure
blood, not a drop, not a taint had ever mingled with the fiery life that
glowed in her veins.
Men call me beautiful. And so I am. But compared to my mother, as I
remember her, that which I possess is but the light of a star as it
pales into the morning, contrasted with the same bright jewel of the
sky, when it burns pure and undimmed in the purple of the evening. I
have, it is true, eyes like hers, long, black, almond shaped; but
English blood has thrown a soft mistiness upon their lightning. My
cheeks have a rich bloom; but hers were of a deeper and more peachy
crimson, glowing out through the soft creamy tint of her complexion with
a warmth that shames comparison. See, I can shake down my hair, and it
falls over me like a mantle rolling in heavy black waves far below my
waist; but hers swept to the ground. I have seen her bury her tiny foot
in the extremity of those raven curls, and press them to the earth while
she stood upright, without straightening a single tress. As for her
person, you could liken it to nothing of human beauty. An antelope—a
young leopardess, an Arab steed of the pure blood—these were the
comparisons that flashed to the mind as you watched the movements of
that lithe form—those delicate and slender limbs. Imagine, if you can, a
being like this, wild as a bird—utterly untamed, her veins burning with
that lava fire that seems caught from another world, her every movement
an inspiration. Imagine this creature at fourteen years of age roaming
beneath the old trees that lie at the foot of the Alhambra, and earning
a scant subsistence with her castanets, and her native dance, from the
few foreigners who brave the discomforts of Spanish travel to visit the
Alhambra.
She was always among those beautiful old trees, haunting them like the
birds for shelter and subsistence. Sometimes you might have found her
crouching beneath a thicket half asleep, and dreamily listening to the
silvery flow of a hundred concealed rivulets, introduced by the Moors
into these shady walks. Sometimes she would lie for hours on the banks
of the river that flows through the outskirts of these woods, and weave
garlands from the wild blossoms so abundant there, crowning herself like
a May Queen, and using the waters for a mirror, the only one she had yet
seen. But in all this seeming idleness she was ever upon the alert,
listening for the sound of wheels, peering through the trees for a view
of any chance traveller that might ascend to the ruins on foot; in
short, feverish with anxiety to earn bread for her old grandmother, who
waited hungrily for it in the caves that yawned upon her from the
opposite hill.
One day, when my mother was a little less than fourteen, full-grown as
most females of that age are in Spain, yet delicate and slender as I
have described, she had come to the Alhambra woods with two or three
gipsy girls of her tribe, but wandered away alone as was her habit,
searching for wild flowers to compose a garland for her hair. Down in a
little hollow that sinks abruptly from the broad avenue leading to the
Alhambra, she found a profusion of these sweet stars of the wood, and
began to gather them in handsful, forming a drapery from her scant
calico robe, and filling it with the fragrant mass in pleasant
wantonness, for she had collected blossoms enough to crown half Granada.
She sat down on the ground, and selecting the most dewy buds, began to
weave them into a wreath, blending the tints with a degree of taste that
would have been pronounced artistic in civilized life. Red, yellow,
purple with delicate and starry white blossoms, all flashed through her
little hands, blending themselves, as it were, by magic into this rustic
crown. Now and then she paused and held the garland up admiringly with a
smile upon her lips, and her graceful head turned on one side, half
shyly, like a bird’s, as if she were ashamed of admiring her own work.
Her castanets lay upon the grass, and stretching one little naked foot,
plump as an infant’s, down to the rivulet that flowed by her, she began
to dip it up and down in the sparkling water, carelessly as a bird laves
itself in the morning. As the waters rippled over that little foot,
breaking up in diamond drops all around, she continued her sweet task,
leaning on one side, or bending backward now and then to gather some
green sprig or fresh bud that grew within reach.
My poor, poor mother—how little could she guess that the moment so full
of sweet repose, while the waters sung and whispered to her as they
passed, while the blossoms breathed balm all around, gratifying her
senses and her delicate taste at the same moment—how could she guess
that moment to be one of destiny to her, the single speck of time on
which all her after life depended!
She kept on with her pretty garlands, blending with unconscious taste, a
little delicate green, and a few white bells with the rich clusters of
crimson, yellow, and blue that predominated there.
When it was finished, she withdrew her foot from the water, that it
might not disturb the pure surface—watched the bubbles with a smile as
they floated downward, and, bending over the rivulet, wreathed her
garland among the rich folds of hair which I have mentioned as so glossy
and abundant.
A knot of scarlet ribbon—I know not how obtained, but it was her only
finery, poor thing—fastened this floral crown; and after arranging her
dress of many-colored chintz, she regarded herself in the water for an
instant with smiling admiration. And well she might, for the image
thrown back by that tranquil pool was full of picturesque beauty, unlike
anything you ever dreamed of even in romance.
A slight noise, something rustling among the neighboring foliage, made
her start from that graceful half-stooping position. She looked eagerly
around—and there, upon the upper swell of the bank, stood a young man
looking at her.
My poor mother had no thought but of the coin she might earn. A cry of
glad surprise broke from her lips, and seizing her castanets she sprang
from amid the litter of wild flowers that had fallen around her feet,
and with a single bound stood before the stranger, poising herself for
the national dance.
I cannot tell what it was, but some strange magnetic influence possessed
my mother. As her slender limbs were prepared for the first graceful
bound, her spirited ankle strained back, and one little foot just ready
to spurn the turf, a wonderful fascination came over her. She stood a
moment immovable, frozen into that graceful attitude, her eyes fixed
upon the stranger’s, her red lips parted in a half smile, checked and
still as her limbs. Then the eyelids, with their long, thick lashes,
began to quiver, and drooped heavily downward, veiling the fire of those
magnificent eyes. The tension slowly left her muscles, and with the
castanets hanging loose in her hands, she drooped languidly toward the
youth, as a flower bends on its stalks when the sunshine is too warm.
He addressed her in English, but, though she did not understand his
words, the very sound of his voice made her shiver from head to foot. He
spoke again and smiled pleasantly, not as men smile with their lips
alone, but with a sort of heart-bloom spreading all over the face. She
looked up, and knew that he was asking her to dance; but she, whose
muscles up to that moment had answered to her will, as harp-strings obey
the master-touch, found all her power gone. She could not even lift her
eyes to meet the admiring glance bent upon her, but shrunk timidly,
awkwardly—if a creature so full of native grace could be awkward—away,
and burst into tears.
That instant there came leaping up from a neighboring hollow, the half
dozen gipsy girls that my mother had forsaken in the woods. On they came
like a troop of young antelopes, leaping, singing, rattling their
castanets, and surrounding the stranger with smiles, gestures, and
sounds of eager glee.
He looked around, surprised and smiling. The scene took him unawares.
His heart was brimful of that sweet romance that hovers forever like a
spirit about the place, and this picturesque exhibition startled him
into enthusiasm. It was like enchantment. The wild poetry of the past
acted before him. His dark grey eyes grew brilliant with excitement. He
smiled, nay, even laughed gaily, scattering silver among the troop of
dark browed fairies that had beset his way. There was something eager
and grasping in the manner of these girls as they scrambled for the
money, pushing each other aside with lightning flashes of the eye, and
searching avariciously among the grass when all had been gathered up.
You could see that the young man was very fastidious from the effect
this had upon him. A look of disappointment, tinged with contempt, swept
the happy expression from his face; and when they began a new dance,
less modest than the preceding, he motioned them to desist. But they
were not to be driven away; he had been too liberal for that. They drew
back a little, but continued to dance, some moving around him on the
avenue, others choosing the turfy bank. Still he beckoned them to
desist, but misunderstanding his gestures, they became subdued, threw a
more voluptuous spirit into the dance, and the languor that tamed down
each movement seemed a portion of the balmy atmosphere, so subtle and
enervating was the effect.
But the stranger was no ordinary man. The very efforts that would have
charmed others, created a singular feeling of repulsion in him. He
turned from the dancing girls with a look of weariness, and would have
moved on; but disappointed in the result of the last effort, they sprang
into his path like so many bacchantes, making the soft air vibrate with
the rapidity and force of their movements. Half clothed—for the garments
of these young creatures reached but little below the knees, their
slender limbs and small, naked feet exposed in the wild frenzy of their
exertions, eager as wild animals who have tasted blood—they beset his
way with bolder and more desperate attempts to charm forth a new supply
of coin.
In the midst of this wild scene, the young man chanced to turn his eyes
upon my mother. She was standing apart, not drooping helplessly as at
first, but upright, spirited, with a curve of invincible scorn upon
those red lips, and a blush glowing like fire over every visible part of
her person. For the first time in her life, she seemed to be aroused to
the character of her national dance: for the first time in her life the
young gipsy had learned to blush.
The Englishman was struck by her appearance, and made an effort to draw
near, but his wild tormentors followed close, and, to free himself, he
adroitly flung a handful of small coin far up the avenue. Away sprang
the whole group, shouting, leaping, and hustling each other about, as
they cleared the distance between themselves and the Englishman.
He approached my mother with a little reluctance, such as a man feels
when he tries a new language, and uttered a few words in Spanish.
“Why do you remain behind? There is money up yonder,” he said.
My mother looked up. The tears which she had suppressed still sparkled
on her curling eyelashes.
“I do not want money,” she said; “I have done nothing to earn it.”
“And why did you not dance with the rest?”
“I don’t know. It seems to me now that I never have danced like them,
and yet, I tried to begin that very dance—tried and could not.”
The blush again burned on her face. She made a movement as if to cover
it with her hands, and desisted, ashamed of her new-born modesty.
“And why could you not dance for me as you have for others?”
“I do not know.”
“You have already earned money enough?”
“I have an old grandmother who has not tasted food to-day. She is
waiting in patient hunger till I shall bring money from the woods to
purchase it. My companions will carry food to their parents—mine must
wait.”
“See, I have driven these people away. They did not please me, but you
shall give me a dance while they are busy. Here is a piece of good
English gold, which will supply your grandame with food during the next
fortnight.”
My mother took the gold and examined it with great curiosity. She had
never seen so much money at once in her life.
“I—I am to dance before you, and this will be mine?” she said, at last.
“Yes, it will be yours!”
She handed him back the money, took up her castanets, and stepped forth
with a sort of haughty grace. Giving her person a willowy bend sideways,
she began, the tears starting afresh to her eyes as she made the effort.
But the elasticity seemed to have forsaken her limbs: she stopped
abruptly and retreated.
“I will not go on,” she said; “I don’t want the piece of gold; I only
know the dances that made you drive my companions away.”
There was no acting in this. My poor mother literally could not perform
her task, and it was this very failure that charmed the young
Englishman. Had she earned the money it would have been given, and she
possibly remembered no more; as it was—ah, would to heaven she had
earned it—earned it and gone on her way true to her people—true to the
blood that never mingles with that of another race without blending a
curse with it.
But there was something in my mother’s refusal that interested the
Englishman. He was very young, only in his twenty-fourth year, but of
mature intellect and strong of mind. Still the fresh and romantic
delicacy of youth clung to his feelings. They were both fresh and
powerful. The ideal blended with all things. He could never have been a
slave to the mere senses, but sensation excited, his poetical nature
made even that exquisite. He was not a man to indulge in light fancies,
but his imagination and his feelings were both strong, and in these lay
the danger.
Love is the religion of a woman educated as my mother had been. In her
it seemed like apostasy from the true faith to allow her heart a
moment’s resting-place out of her own race. Indeed, she deemed it an
impossibility, and thus secure, was all unconscious of the fatal passion
that had transformed her very nature in a single morning.
Not half an hour had elapsed since my mother had met the stranger. The
dew that trembled on her coronal of wild blossoms still glittered there;
the first footprint she had made upon the grass that morning still kept
its place. Yet how much time it has required for me to give you an idea
of the feelings that grew into strength in that brief time—feelings that
vibrated through more than one generation, that made me what I am; for
this man was my father.
Be patient, and I will tell you more; for there lies a long history
between that time and this, the history of many persons; for did I not
say that my life was but a continuation of hers? And I have known much,
felt much, suffered. But who that has known and felt, can say that he
has not suffered?
“Nay, you have fairly earned the gold,” said the Englishman, bending his
now bright and earnest eyes on my mother, with an expression that made
every nerve in her body thrill, as if it had been touched to music for
the first time—“take it for your grandam’s sake, my poor child!”
What charm possessed my mother? She who had been among the most eager
when money was to be obtained—why did she shrink and blush at taking the
gold from that generous palm? Why, when she happened to touch his hand
in receiving it, did the warm blood leap to each finger’s end, till the
delicately curved nails seemed red with some artificial dye? The gold
gave her no pleasure at first. It seemed a sacrilege to receive it from
him; but after a little it grew precious as her own life. Her
grandmother went hungry to bed that night, for the gipsy girl would not
part with this one piece of gold. She did not even acknowledge to any
one that it had been given her, but hid it away close to her heart, and
kept it there through many a sharp struggle that broke that poor heart
at last. I have it in my bosom. It was necessary at times that I should
feel it grating cold and hard, or something of tenderness would have
crept there. I could not have gone through with all that I had to
accomplish but for this gold—gold, gold. It is a fine thing to harden
the heart with; in many ways men have found it so.
My mother took the money, then, with a faint blush and a smile that
lighted up his face into absolute beauty, the young man said, “I see you
hesitate; you will not believe the money is fairly earned. Now to set
you at rest I will take the wreath you wear as full compensation. It
will remind me hereafter of my first day at the Alhambra.”
My mother smiled, and her face kindled up with the pleasure his request
had given. She unbound the wreath and presented it to him, ribbon and
all.
That ribbon was the only ornament that she had in the world, but she
parted with it joyfully; though the diamonds that Queen Isabella
sacrificed to Christopher Columbus were not half so precious to their
owner as this scarlet snood had been to the gipsy girl.
I have the ribbon too. That piece of gold is suspended to it about my
neck—the first gift of my mother—the first gift of my father. He wore
the ribbon around his neck at the death-hour. The gold also; alas! it
was an awful hour when that piece of gold was laid in my palm.
The Englishman lingered for weeks at the Alhambra. He lived at a little
Fonda that stands close beneath the ruins, sometimes spending whole days
among the old Moorish remains, at others wandering thoughtfully beneath
the stately trees.
My mother had spent her life in those woods. She could not change her
habits now, for the love of those cool shadows had become a want of her
whole being; but she danced the gipsy dances and sung the gipsy songs no
more. Her companions wondered greatly at this, and triumphed over her
with a wild glee that would have roused her indignation a few weeks
before. Now, she turned from them with a quiet curve of scorn upon her
lip, and stole away by herself, weaving garlands, and listening to the
hidden waters that chimed their sweet voices in the solitude, whispering
a thousand dreamy fancies, which deepened almost into sadness as time
wore on.
I know not how often she saw the Englishman during that period. Not very
frequently, I am sure; for she had become timid as a fawn, and would sit
crouching among the thickets for hours, only to see him pass distantly
through the dim veil of the forest leaves.
Night after night she went home from the woods empty-handed, and musing
as if in a dream. Her grandame chided her sharply at times, for hunger
made her stern. The gipsy girl bore this with surprising meekness,
weeping gently, but never urging a word in her own defence, save that
she did not know why, but it was impossible to dance as she had done;
the strength left her limbs whenever she attempted it.
A week—more than one—went by, and the gipsy girl remained in this
inactive, dreamy state. Then a sudden change came over her. She grew
animated, the wild passions of her nature kindled up again. You could
see that her heart slept no longer. The dove that had brooded there so
sweetly had taken wing. She went to the Alhambra early. She left it
sometimes after dark, often bringing a little money which she gave the
old woman with trembling hands and downcast eyes, that were frequently
full of tears.
At this season you could not have looked upon her face without
admiration. The bloom upon the sunniest peach suffered in comparison
with the rich hues of her cheek. Her eyes were starry in their
brightness. You could not speak to her without bringing a smile to her
mouth, that brightened it as the sunshine glows upon ripe strawberries.
If tears sometimes started beneath these thick lashes, they only served
to light up the eyes they could not dim, for every bright drop seemed to
leap from a blissful source.
She was quiet though, and said little. You only knew how exquisite was
her happiness by the glorious beauty of her face.
Then, all this exquisite joy went gradually out, as you see a lamp fade
when the perfume oil burns low. She wept no more blissful tears. Her
smile grew constrained, and took a marble paleness. It was singular that
no one observed this; that the keen-eyed people of her tribe never
suspected what was going on in that young heart—but so it was.
One person of the tribe would not have been thus blinded; for he loved
the gipsy girl as only the wild, strong nature of the pure blood can
love; but he had gone to attend the annual fair at Seville, and my
mother was left to the tempter and her own heart. Much that passed
during this time remains a mystery even to me, her child, for in the
manuscript that she left, there is hesitation, embarrassment—many
erasures and whole sentences blotted out, as if no language could
satisfy her—or, as if there existed much that she could not force
herself to write. Still, she seemed to linger about this period as if
afraid to go on. It was her first love-dream; how could she describe it?
Her first step in the crooked way which no human being can possibly make
straight. How could she describe that to her own child? Still, much was
written, much revealed, that I shall put into form. For my mother was a
child of the Alhambra, and there her destiny commenced shaping itself
into a fate.