MY STRANGE VISITOR.
All at once, I felt a hand laid on my shoulder, and, starting up, saw
the strange man by my side.
He was little changed. The same picturesque combination of rich colors
soiled and rudely flung together, composed his garments; the same sharp
glitter made me shrink from a full glance of his eyes. When he smiled, I
saw that his teeth were even and white as ever.
“Zana, get up; you need me, and I am here.”
“I do need some one; but who can help me?” I said despondingly.
“I can!”
“No, God alone can give me what I want!”
“And what is that, Zana?” he said, smiling.
“Light, memory. I would know who and what I am!”
“Well, child, that is easy!”
“To God, truly—but to him alone.”
“But why do you want this knowledge now more than formerly?” he asked.
“My father is dying in anguish from this want!”
“Your father—and who is he?” was the abrupt question with which he
answered this.
“I know, but have not the right to tell!”
“But how came you by the knowledge?”
“My heart lay, for a little time, against his, and they understood each
other. I knew that the same blood beat in both, certainly as if an angel
had told me, I want no other evidence,” was my prompt answer.
“And you crave this knowledge in proof, that it may render his death
easy?”
“Yes!”
“And for no other reason?”
“That I may know myself and those who gave me life, that is all!”
“But Lord Clare is rich!” said the man, fixing his keen eyes upon me.
“Did you think of that?”
“I did not mention Lord Clare,” was my answer, given in astonishment at
the reckless way in which he handled my secret.
“But you were thinking of him, and that he would have money to give a
child proven to be his!”
“No, I never thought of it—never shall think of it!”
“There is no Rommany in that,” he muttered, “the blood does not speak
there.”
Then speaking louder, he addressed me, pointing toward Marston Court.
“Look,” he said, fastening his wild eyes on my face, “that is a fine
estate, and not tied up like Greenhurst to legal heirs; Lord Clare’s
daughter might get that if she had proof of her birth before the earl
dies. Had this nothing to do with your anxiety just now?”
“Nothing,” I replied, with a touch of scorn. “I do not want that estate,
or any other.”
“Fool!” sneered the man; “if I believed you, the secret were not worth
telling!”
“What secret?” I inquired, breathlessly; “can _you_ tell me anything of
my mother?”
“And if I did, what then?”
“I would worship you!”
“Yes, as she did,” he answered, with a sort of mournful fierceness in
his eyes and voice.
“As who did?” I demanded.
“Your mother, Aurora.”
“That was what he called her.”
“Who?”
“It was the name my father used!”
“Ha! the murderer! how dare he?”
“But you know something of my mother!” I said eagerly; “tell it me!”
“That you may give Lord Clare the knowledge he thirsts for?”
“Yes!”
“You shall have this knowledge—he shall have it—and may it crush him
down, down”——
“Stay!” I cried out, seizing his uplifted arm, “I will not listen—it is
my father you curse.”
“_Your_ father—I know it; but what was he to her?—to Aurora?—what was he
to her? What was she to him?”
A flood of burning shame rushed over my face, and my eyes fell beneath
the lurid scorn of his.
“Can you know this and not hate the traitorous gentile?” he said.
I covered my burning face, but could not answer.
“Look up! the fire of your Caloe blood is burning to waste; it should
hurl vengeance on those who have heaped shame on it.”
“What, on my father?” I cried, struck with horror—“he is dying!”
“And without proof that you are his child?”
“Alas! yes.”
“He shall have it.”
“Give it me now, now,” I cried, in eager joy.
“No; let him writhe a little longer—revenge should be eaten slowly—you
must learn this—the blow that kills at once makes a gourmand of the
avenger—he swallows all at a mouthful.”
There was something fiendish in the man’s look as he said this, that
made me shudder as I faltered out, “You terrify me—I do not understand.
Will you tell me of my mother?”
“I will give you the knowledge soon.”
“Oh, now, that it may bless his last moments,” I pleaded; “he may not
live another hour.”
“That it may curse him,” shouted the man. “But that I am sure of it, he
might die like a dog, in his ignorance. Not for all those lands which
the secret shall bring you, child, would I speak, only I know how sweet
my words will be to him,” he cried, pointing toward Greenhurst. “Choke
back those tears, little one; it is time you were among us, full time.”
“But my mother—speak of her—you terrify me.”
“Yes, I forget,” he said, with a sudden change of manner, “there is
gentile blood in your cheeks, and that is cowardly; but what I have to
say will fire it up by and by, Zana,” he continued, with a touch of
feeling, “you are like your mother!”
“I know it.”
“How? I thought—nay, nay, you cannot remember her!”
“Yes, I do.”
“How and where?”
“The face, only the face, I remember that, nothing more!”
“It was a beautiful face, Zana.”
“I know it—very beautiful!”
His forehead grew heavy and dark. A look of wild horror came into his
eyes that were dwelling upon me in apparent wrath.
Just then a gun was fired near us, and through the trees I saw George
Irving and Morton coming toward us.
“Hush, no outcry,” whispered the man, drawing me back into a thicket.
“Come, or do you wish them to see you?”
“No, no—heaven forbid!” I cried, shrinking under cover.
The man smiled grimly.
“It is well,” he said; “there is no contamination here—the blood is true
to itself yet—I will leave you now!”
“No, no, not till you tell me of my mother,” I cried, wild with the
dread of losing this clue to my history.
“Not here, it is impossible,” was his answer. “You have that black pony
yet?”
“Yes.”
“And are no coward? not afraid of the dark?”
“No.”
“After nightfall come to yonder old house.”
“What, Marston Court?”
“Yes, I will be there!”
“And will you tell me all?”
“Yes!”
He darted from me while speaking, and the next instant all trace of him
was lost.
I must have remained a long time buried in the woods, but I have no
remembrance even of my own sensations. So much was crowded on my brain
that it seemed stolid to all subjects but the one great wish to learn
more. Up to the time I met that strange being, who seemed so familiar
and yet so frightful, I had been overwhelmed with tender grief. My
father, suffering, perhaps dying—my father so lately found, filled every
thought. No doubt entered my mind that he was my father; for months the
conviction had gradually settled upon me; but when I remembered the
distrust which tortured him, a painful wish to conquer it—to sweep it
away, possessed me, not for my own sake—never for a moment did I think
of any advantage it might prove to myself—but that he might be
satisfied; that the cruel check that made his tenderness for me a
torture might be removed.
But now came other feelings, such as I had never known or dreamed of
before. I have repeated that man’s conversation word for word, but its
effect no power of mine can reveal. Instead of that tender, holy thirst
for knowledge that might give my father peace, a fierce curiosity took
possession of my soul. I felt not like a child, but an avenger. I would
know myself that night; mysteries should henceforth cease to surround
me. The blackness would be swept from my brain, and by that man—that
man. Was he man or demon? Could anything human, with so little effort,
have filled my bosom with bitterness? I was to meet him that night, meet
him in secrecy and darkness, in a strange place—I, a young girl, not
more than seventeen. It did not frighten me; I panted for the hour to
come, though the very thought thrilled me through and through with the
idea of a sacrilege performed with a demon. My heart would now and then
recoil from the thought, not in fear, but as from something unholy that
I had resolved to do.
This thought could not deter me; on the contrary, it imparted ferocious
strength to my resolution. I was determined to pluck and eat the fruit
of knowledge, though it poisoned me. Toward evening, when I saw the
first beams of sunset shooting like golden lances through the chestnut
boughs and broken against their stately boles, I awoke from this chaos
of thought and went home.
As I mounted the stairs to my room, Maria called after me, begging that
I would come down and eat something; but I hurried on, closed the door
of my chamber, and bolted it without answering a word. The very idea of
seeing any one that night was hateful. She came softly up the stairs and
knocked a long time, telling me that Turner had not been at home all
day, and that she was _so_ anxious about us both. I took no heed, but
sat down by a window, looking with fierce impatience on the west.
A great embankment of clouds, black as chaos, rolled up from where the
sun had been, sweeping all its glowing gold and crimson up through their
ebon outskirts, where it burned and quivered in folds and fringes of
fiery brightness. It was a beautiful sight, but lurid and wild, covering
the earth with uncouth shadows, and filling the woods with a pale glare
that to me seemed demoniac.
It answered well to the fierce impatience gnawing at my heart! Tented by
that dark cloud, I should go forth on my errand with firmness. The more
dreary my road became, the better I should like it.
When the cloud had spread and blackened over the whole horizon, I
started up and put on my dress of dark cloth and a broad-leaved beaver
hat, which I tied firmly on my head with a scarlet silk handkerchief,
passed over the crown. I searched for no gloves, but went out, darting
like a shadow through the hall, that Maria might not detect me.
I stopped by a laburnum tree and broke off a shoot, stripping the leaves
away with my hand, for I had no time to search for my little gold and
agate-headed whip then. Jupiter was in his stall. I girded on his
saddle, and buckled the throat-latch of his bridle so tightly, that he
rose back, shaking off my hold. At another time I might have regretted
this impetuous haste, but now I gave Jupiter a blow over the head with
my whip, that made him whimper like a child.
I took no notice, but led him out, and from the door sill, which was
somewhat lifted from the ground, sprang to the saddle. He hung back when
I attempted to move, but I struck him smartly over the ears and he
walked on, but sideling and plunging with great discontent. I suppose
the dense clouds and the close atmosphere terrified him; but to me their
sluggish grandeur was full of excitement.
After we had cleared the woods, my old pony became more tractable. Very
soon his speed answered to my sharp impatience, and we dashed on through
the lurid twilight with spectre-like velocity. As we neared Marston
Court, the darkness settled thick and heavy over everything. We could
hardly distinguish the turrets and pointed towers from the black sky
that they seemed to loom against. The road became ascending and broken.
More than once Jupiter stumbled over the loose boulders that had rolled
down the banks into the road.
As we drew near the building the trees closed in upon us. Their gnarled
branches hung low, and vines now and then trailed down, almost sweeping
me from the saddle. The atmosphere was heavy and still as death; not a
leaf stirred; no sound but the tramp of Jupiter reached us from any
quarter. My heart grew heavy. I would have given the world for a gush of
air or a gleam of starlight, everything around was so terribly black.
Still, I urged Jupiter on, following the deviations of a carriage-road
half choked up. We passed by a pile of something that seemed denser and
closer than the great trees, which slowly assumed the outline of a
building overrun with foliage, and this I took for a ruined lodge.
After passing it, we found ourselves tangled up in the luxurious growth
of some pleasure-ground run to waste; for long trailing branches swept
across my face, and from the perfume, which rose heavy and sickening on
the close air, I knew that Jupiter was treading flowers to death every
moment with his hoofs.
At last, we came close to the building. All around the base was matted
and overrun with ivy, and the straggling branches of ornamental trees. I
checked Jupiter, hoping to detect some light or signal to guide me on.
The outline of a vast building alone met my search. It might have been a
heap of rocks or the spur of a mountain, for any idea that I could
obtain of its architecture; but its blackness and size disheartened me.
How was I to search, in a pile like that, for the man I had come to
meet? As I sat upon Jupiter looking wistfully upward, the clouds broke
above and began to quiver, and from the depths rushed out a flash,
followed by a broad, lurid sheet of lightning.
There, for the first time, and a single moment, I saw Marston Court, its
gables, its stone balconies, heavy with sculpture, its facade flanked
with towers that loomed grimly over the broad steps and massive granite
balustrades that wound up from where we stood to the front door.
In my whole life I never witnessed a scene more imposing. A glimpse, and
all was black again. The flash had given me one view of the mansion,
nothing more. I was impressed painfully by its vastness. How could I
force an entrance?—how make way through the vast interior when that was
obtained?
It seemed a hopeless effort, but my determination was strong as ever; so
springing to the ground, I felt my way to the stone balustrade and tied
Jupiter. Then guiding myself by the carved stone, I mounted one flight
of the steps that curved like the two horns of a crescent from the great
oaken doors that divided them upon the arch.
I started, and a shriek burst from me. Upon my hand, which lay upon the
balustrade, another fell. When I shrieked it grasped my fingers like
iron, and a voice that I knew, said in that language—the language I had
never spoken, but could understand—“hush. Who taught you to fear?”
“You came upon me so abruptly, so still!” I whispered, shuddering as his
breath floated across my lips.
“Speak in your own language—speak Rommany,” he said, in the same tongue.
“I cannot,” was my half timid answer.
“Try!”
The command was imperative. I made an effort to answer in his own
mysterious tongue. To my surprise the words syllabled themselves rudely
on my trembling lips; he comprehended me.
“Where are you taking me?” I had said.
He grasped my hand till the pain made me cry out.
“It is there—the true fire—old Papita kindled it in the soul of her
great-grandchild—the mystery is not broken—the sorcery still works—queen
of our people, speak again,” he cried, with an outburst of fiery
enthusiasm, more impressive from the hushed tones in which he spoke.
I felt like one possessed. By what power did my tongue form that
language?—what was it? All at once, while he waited for me to speak, I
began to shiver and burst into tears. He tossed my hand away with a
gesture of contempt.
“Bah! you are only a half-blood after all, the Caloe is poisoned on your
tongue.”
I checked the tears that so offended him, and moved breathlessly
forward, relieved by the gesture which had freed me from his hand.
When we reached the broad, stone platform that clasped the two
staircases in one, he took hold of my hand again. That moment another
flash of lightning leaped from the clouds, sheeting us, the building and
all its neglected grounds in a glare of bluish light.
It blinded me for an instant, then I saw the man’s face clearly, bending
over me as I cowered to the stones. The lightning had no effect upon me
like the unearthly glow of those eyes. Since then I have seen birds
fascinated by the undulating movements of a serpent, and they always
brought back a shuddering remembrance of that hour.
“Up,” he said, grasping my arm, and lifting me to his side, “half the
true blood is stagnant still. We will set it on fire.”
He placed one heavy foot against a leaf of the oaken door, and it fell
open with a clang that resounded frightfully from the deep, empty hall.
Again the lightning blazed upon the floor, tessellated with blocks of
black and white marble, and suits of antique armor, with shields and
firearms, that hung upon the wall.
“It is a fearful night,” I said, looking wildly at my companion.
“Gitanilla!” he said, turning upon me with folded arms, and a fierce
gathering of the brow, “I have seen a morning when the sunlight lay rosy
among the snow peaks—when the earth seemed covered with sifted
pearls—when every breath poured health and vigor into the frame; I have
seen such a morning more fearful a thousand times than this! Come with
me!”
“What for?—where?” I demanded, thrilled and astonished by the glowing
words, which I must ever fail to give in English.
“That you may hate the sunshine and love the storm as I do—that
whiteness may make you shudder—and nothing but black midnight seem
beautiful. Come with me!”
“Are you possessed? Would you possess me with some evil thing?” I said,
terribly excited. “Would you fill my veins with gall, my soul with
hate?”
“Yes,” he answered, through his shut teeth, leading me along the marble
floor.
I shuddered, remembering what I had been only that morning, and the
fearful sensations that possessed me then. Was it a fiend that I was
following?
“Oh, I feel the bitterness, the soul-blight even now. Unclasp my hand,”
I shrieked.
“Are you afraid?” he retorted, with a sneer.
“Yes, I am afraid.”
He dropped my hand.
“Go, you are not worthy to learn anything of your mother—go, such
knowledge is not for cowards.”
“My mother,” I cried, “oh, I had forgotten. Yes, tell me of her—I will
follow anywhere, only tell me.”
“Nay, I will tell you everything—come!”
He drew me rapidly forward, threading the darkness like a night bird. We
mounted steps winding upward till I was sick and dizzy. At last he
passed into what seemed to me a small circular room, high in one of the
towers.
“Sit down,” he said, pressing a hand upon my shoulder till I sunk into a
seat that yielded to my weight. “Sit down and keep still, we are alone,
high above the earth; the stars, which those of your blood should read
like a parchment, are all hidden. It has a bad look for the future, but
this is the appointed hour.”
He paused a moment, and seemed to be leaning from a narrow window
interrogating the darkness. He turned abruptly and said,
“You saw Lord Clare, this morning?”
“Yes.”
“And he is dying?”
“Alas! I fear so.”
“How many days first?”
“What!” I exclaimed, shocked by the coldness with which he questioned
me.
“How many days at the most will he live?”
“I cannot tell; God forbid that I should even guess.”
“Would you save his life?”
“Would I?—would I keep the breath in my own bosom?”
“Then you wish him to live?”
“Wish it, yes—heaven only knows how much!”
“Renegade!”
“What?”
“Nay,” he said, with a sudden change from ferocity to the most
child-like tenderness, “let her know all—how can she judge?”