ONCE MORE AT GREENHURST.
It was a large chamber, full of rich, massive furniture. The windows
were all muffled with waves of crimson silk, and I found myself in the
hazy twilight they created, dizzy and blinded by a rush of emotions that
it seemed impossible for me to control. After a little, the haze cleared
from my vision, and I saw before me a tall man, attenuated almost to a
shadow, sitting in a great easy-chair with his eyes closed, as if
asleep.
I looked at him with a strained and eager gaze. His head rested on a
cushion of purple silk, and a quantity of soft, fair locks, so lightly
threaded with silver, that, in the rich twilight of the room, all traces
of it were lost, lay scattered over it, with the purple glowing through.
The face was like marble, pure and as white, but with dusky shadows all
around the eyes, and a burning red in the cheeks that made me shudder. A
Turkish dressing-gown of Damascus silk, spotted with gold and lined with
emerald green, lay wrapped around his wasted figure. His hands were
folded in the long Oriental sleeves, and I could see the crimson waves
over his chest rise and fall rapidly with his sharp and frequent
respiration.
I stood beside him unnoticed, for my footsteps had fallen upon the
richly piled carpet lightly as an autumn leaf. The basket shook in my
hands, for my limbs knocked together, and the perspiration started upon
my arms and forehead. But I made no sound, forced back the tears that
struggled in my heart, and stood waiting for what might befall.
Lord Clare turned feebly on his cushion, and let one pale hand fall down
from his bosom.
“Turner,” he said, in a faint, low voice, “did I not ask for something?”
“Yes, my lord—some fruit. It is here.”
I approached. Lord Clare opened his eyes—those wild, blue eyes, and
turned them full upon me.
I could no longer bear my weight, my limbs gave way, and I fell upon one
knee, holding up the basket between my shaking hands.
Turner drew close to my side, holding his breath and trembling.
Lord Clare did not touch the fruit, but fell slowly back on the cushion
with his great burning eyes upon my face.
“Turner,” he said at last, sitting upright and speaking in quick
gasps—“Turner, what is this? Who is she?”
“I do not know,” answered the old man, “we found her on the door-step
years ago. Be tranquil, Master Clarence. If she is the one we have
sought for, there is no proof but those eyes—that face.”
Lord Clare reached out his arms, and tears smothered the painful gaze of
his eyes.
“Aurora,” he said, in a voice of such tenderness that my tears followed
it, “forgive me before I die.”
Turner clasped his hands and held them up toward heaven, trembling like
withered leaves, while tears rolled silently down his cheeks.
“You know, Master Clarence, it cannot be herself.”
Lord Clare turned his eyes from me to Turner, then lifting one pale hand
up to his forehead, he settled it over his eyes, and directly great
drops came starting from between the fingers. A feeble shudder passed
over his frame, and he murmured plaintively, “No, it is her child, our
child. But where is she?”
“I never learned,” answered Turner, sadly.
“Ask her, I cannot.”
“It is useless, my lord, she knows nothing!”
“She must—she must—my child was six years old. At that age children know
everything,” he answered eagerly, “and Zana was very forward, my bright
Zana.”
He looked at me, till I shrunk from the feverish glow of his eyes. At
last he spoke, and my very heart trembled beneath the sweet pathos of
his voice.
“Zana, where is your mother? Tell me, child; I cannot die till she has
spoken to me again.”
I bowed down my face, and answered only with bitter sobs.
“Is she dead? Is Aurora dead that you weep, but cannot speak?” he
questioned, faintly.
“Alas! I do not know!” was my agonized reply.
“My child—Zana—and not know of her mother’s fate! what unnatural thing
is this?” he cried, burying his face in the long sleeves of his gown.
“This child is not my daughter, Turner; Aurora’s child could not have
forgotten her mother thus.”
I struggled with myself—from my innermost soul I called on God to help
me—to give me back the six years of life that had been wrested from my
brain. My temples throbbed; my limbs shook with the effort; it seemed as
if I were going mad.
Lord Clare lifted his face; his eyes swam in tears; his pale lips
trembled. Laying both hands on my head, he spoke to me again—spoke so
tenderly I thought my heart must break before he had done.
“Zana—my daughter—my poor, lost child, what has come over you? Do not be
frightened—do not tremble so. Look up in my face—let me see your eyes
fully. Turner, they are _her_ eyes, my heart answers to them, oh, how
mournfully. Zana, I am your father—you should know that, altered as I
am, for men do not change like children. There, love, there, stop
crying; calm yourself. I have but one wish on earth now, and that
depends on you.”
“On me?” I gasped.
“On you, my darling. Listen, I call you darling, does not the old word
bring back some memory?”
He looked beseechingly in my face, waiting for a reply that I could not
give. My head drooped forward, bowed down with the anguish of my
imbecility.
“It is sweet—it thrills my heart to the centre,” I said, mournfully.
“And awakes some memory? You remember it as something heard and loved,
far, far back in the past. Is it not so?”
I shook my head.
He bent forward, wound his arms lovingly around me, and, drawing me
upward to his bosom, kissed my forehead.
“And this,” he said, folding me to his heart so close that I could feel
every sharp pulsation. “Is there nothing familiar now?—nothing that
reminds you of an old stone balcony, full of flowers, and a bright
little thing leaping to her father’s bosom; and she, that wronged woman,
so darkly beautiful, looking on? Child, my Aurora’s child, is there no
memory like this in your soul now?”
“This tenderness has filled my heart with tears, I can find nothing else
there,” I answered, sadly.
He unfolded his arms, and they dropped down, loose and helpless, like
broken willow-branches, and the quick panting of his bosom made me
shudder with a thought that he was dying I arose, and then he started
upright in his chair, and fixed his flashing eyes upon me.
“Is this creature mine or not?” he said—“Aurora’s daughter or a mockery?
Am I accursed among the children of the earth for one wrong act? Will
this mystery walk with me to the grave? Am I a father, or childless?
Girl, answer me—wring the truth from that brain! Before God I must know
it, or death will not be rest. Your mother, Zana—where is your mother?”
His voice rang sharp and clear through the chamber, filling it like the
scream of a wounded bird. His eyes were wild; his cheeks hueless. I
cowered back, chilled to the soul by his last words. The room
disappeared—everything grew white, and shuddering with cold I felt, as
it were, snow drifts rushing over me, and through their paralyzing
whiteness came the cry,
“Your mother, Zana, where is your mother?”
How long this lasted I do not know, but my next remembrance was of
sitting upon the carpet, faint, and with a stunned feeling, as if some
one had given me a heavy blow. A silver basket lay upturned by my side,
and a mass of crimson fruit, matted with flowers, lay half among the
frosted silver, half upon the carpet.
The room was still as death, save the short, painful sound of some one
breathing near me. I struggled to my feet, and sat down in a great
easy-chair which stood close by me. Then, as my sight cleared, I saw
that a window had been opened, that the drapery was flung back from a
massive ebony bedstead, and upon the white counterpane I saw Lord Clare
lying among the folds of his gorgeous dressing-gown, pale and motionless
as marble.
Turner stood over him, bathing his forehead, white almost as the sick
man.
I arose and would have approached the bed, but Turner waved me back, and
I left the room, sick to the very heart’s core.
I met some persons in the galleries, but passed on without noticing
them. As I reached the lower hall, Lady Catherine Irving came in at the
front entrance, apparently just from her carriage.
“How is this?” she said, turning pale with rage. “Who permitted this?
How came the girl here?”
Her words had no effect upon me; the miserable preoccupation of my soul
rendered them harmless. I went by her without answering, and left the
house.
“See that the creature is never admitted again; I will discharge the
servant who lets her in,” she continued, following me to the door.
I took no heed, but remembered her words afterward.
I wandered off in the woods, for the very thought of the close air of a
house maddened me. Reflect I did not; a chaos of wild thoughts and
wilder feelings possessed me.
At last I found myself on the eminence which I have described more than
once, from which a view of Marston Court could be obtained. The strange
man whom I had met there, years ago, came to my mind; and, singular as
it may seem, I thought of him with a sort of hope which grew into a
desire for his presence.
I thought of my father, for not a doubt arose within me that Lord Clare
was my father—of the agonizing darkness which hung over his death-bed—of
the inability which prevented me sweeping that darkness aside. What was
the mysterious thread which lay upon my faculties? What human power
could ever unloose it?
I looked around in anguish of heart. Was there no help? I would pray to
God, humble myself like a little child at his feet, that he might
mercifully enlighten me. There was hope here, and I knelt down upon the
turf, bowing my face in silence before God. The effort composed me; it
hastened the natural reaction which must follow any intense excitement,
and in my motionless position I became calmer.