THE DESOLATE BRIDAL CHAMBERS.
After a while, during which I had been stupefied with the very weight of
my new existence, the man came close to me and took my hand.
“Child,” he said, bending over me till I could see the glitter of his
eyes. “Child, are your eyes open? Is the knowledge complete?”
“Complete!” I answered, with a shudder.
“Look at me—who am I? What part have I taken in the past?”
“You are Chaleco—you loved my mother who fled with _him_. You bore me
from the snow mountains, and warmed me in your arms when thoughts of her
chilled me to the soul.”
“And is that all?”
“No, the tent. I saw you there when that fierce woman fell dead upon the
earth!”
“It is complete,” he said, drawing himself up and lifting one hand to
heaven, while the lightning glared upon him, “the Egyptian mysteries
have lost nothing of their power,—that which was eternal in Papita lives
still in Chaleco. Who shall prevail against one who holds a being like
this in his grasp? The soul which she put to sleep I awake. Girl of the
Caloe, stand up, let me see if the blood of our people is strong in your
veins.”
I stood upright, planting my feet upon the floor firm as a rock. His
words seemed to inspire me with wild vitality. As I looked him in the
face quick gleams of lightning shot around us; my soul grew fierce and
strong beneath the lurid flashes of his eyes; my own scintillated as
with sparks of fire. He spoke.
“Speak—are you Caloe, or of the gentile? Base or brave? Speak the
thought that is burning within you. Are you Aurora’s child or his?”
My form dilated, my bosom heaved, I felt the hot blood flashing up to my
forehead.
“I am Zana, Aurora’s child,” I answered, with ineffable haughtiness.
“The snow that drank her blood quenched the pale drops in my veins.”
“Come,” cried Chaleco, seizing my hand—“come and see the desolation
which her rival left behind. You saw the wedding—your father’s
wedding—come, now, and look at the home that was to receive the bride.”
He went to a fire-place that yawned in the chamber, and fell upon his
knees. Directly I heard the clash as of flint and steel driven furiously
against each other, and the empty fire-place was revealed by the storm
of sparks that broke upon the sculptured stones. His wild impetuosity
defeated itself; five or six times he crashed the metal in one hand
against the flint which was clenched in the other. At last the fierce
sparks centred in a volume, and with a flaming torch in one hand Chaleco
stood up.
“You are pale,” he said, gazing sternly upon me. “Is this fear?”
“No,” I answered, subduing a thrill of awe, as the darkness which had so
long enveloped me was driven back in shadows, that hung like funereal
drapery in the angles and corners of the chamber—“no, I am not afraid.
But that which has been revealed to me may well leave my face white.”
He looked at me keenly, holding up the torch till its blaze flamed
across my eyes. This scrutiny of my features seemed to satisfy him, for
his lip curved till the white teeth gleamed through, and he muttered to
himself, “It is right—the blood that has left her face burns in the
heart—she is one of us.”
Muttering thus, he led the way from the chamber, sending a lurid glare
backward from his torch along the damp walls of the circular staircase.
Thus breaking through the shadows that gathered thick and close in the
old building, he led me on. The tread of his heavy boots resounded
through the vast apartments with a defiant clamor. He took no precaution
to conceal his torch, which glared back from the closed windows as if
the dull glass had been on fire.
We threaded galleries hung with grim old pictures, and peopled with
statues, some antiques, some of bronze, and others simply of armor, the
iron shells from which warriors had perished. A thrill of awe crept over
me as I passed these stern counterfeits of humanity, with their grim
hollows choked up with shadows. As the torchlight fell now upon the limb
of a statue, now across the fierce visage of a picture, now upon the
dull carvings of oak, my imagination increased the desolate grandeur,
till marble, iron, and canvas seemed instinct with vitality.
This effect was not diminished by the wild look which Chaleco sent back
from time to time, as I followed him.
At last we reached a door, inlaid and empanelled with precious woods.
Chaleco attempted to turn the lock. It resisted, and after shaking it
fiercely, he dashed one foot against it, which forced the bolt that had
rusted in its socket.
“Come in,” he said, “you shall see how the widow had prepared for her
young bridegroom.”
I entered, but the dull atmosphere, the damp, mouldly smell was like
that of a tomb. Chaleco held up his torch, throwing its strong light in
glaring flashes through the darkness. It had been a superb suit of
apartments, hangings of azure silk, stained and black with mildew;
Parisian carpets, from which clouds of dust rose at every foot-tread;
gildings that time had blackened into bronze, filled my gaze with a
picture of silent desolation, that made my already worn heart sink
heavier and heavier in my bosom.
I shrank back. Chaleco saw it, and urged me on with a grim smile. I
remembered the scene of death he had revealed to me in my unnatural
sleep, and feared to look upon the place of its actual perpetration.
The chamber we entered had once been all white and superb in its
adornments. The walls were yet hung with fluted satin, once rich in
snowy gloss but now striped with black, for accumulations of dust had
filled all the flutings. Masses of dusky lace flowed down the windows,
and were entangled over the bed with many a dim cobweb, that the spiders
had been years weaving among their delicate meshes. Dust and mildew had
crept over the bridal whiteness of everything. The couch seemed heaped
with shadows; cobwebs hung low from the gilded cornices that gleamed
through them here and there with ghastly splendor.
As Chaleco lifted his torch above the couch, a bat rent its way through
the lace, scattering a cloud of dust over us, and remained overhead
drearily flapping his impish wings among the cobwebs, till they swayed
over us like a thunder-cloud.
“Was it here the old woman killed her?” I whispered.
“No, she never reached this. It was at Greenhurst.”
“Why do you bring me here?” I said, shuddering.
“That you may see how much power there was in an old woman’s curse.”
“It is terrible,” I whispered, looking around. “My mother, has she not
been fearfully avenged?”
“Avenged!” answered the gipsy; “do you call this vengeance? Not till
every member of that proud house is in the dust—not till Aurora’s child
triumphs over them, body and soul, shall Papita’s curse be fulfilled!”
His words fell upon me like blows; they were crushing me to the earth. I
thought of George Irving. His treachery was forgotten; my heart only
remembered his kindness—his love.
“What, all?” I questioned.
“All! Poverty, disgrace, death, these are the curses which Papita has
left for you to accomplish.”
“For me?” I questioned, aghast.
“You—yes, it is your inheritance. She left it—I enforce—you accomplish
it.”
As he spoke, the bat made a faint noise that struck upon my ear like the
amen of a demon, and, sweeping down from his cloud of cobwebs, he made a
dash at Chaleco’s torch which was extinguished by his wings.
“Give me your hand!” The gipsy seized my arm as he spoke, and led me
onward in the darkness. I followed in silence, rendered desperate by all
I had suffered and seen.
At length we reached the open air, and stood together upon the entrance
steps. The rain had ceased, the clouds were drifting together in broken
masses, leaving fissures and gleams where the cold blue was visible,
winding like half frozen rivers between the dull clouds. The dense
vegetation, the vines and huge elms were dripping with rain, and every
leaf shone like silver when the moon, for a moment, struggled out from
the clouds that overwhelmed it.
My horse stood cowering by the steps. The whole force of the storm had
beat cruelly upon the poor old fellow.
Chaleco lifted me to his back, and commanding me to wait, went away.
Directly he came back, mounted on what appeared to be a spirited horse,
which he rode without saddle.
“Come on!” he said, striking Jupiter with his whip, “let’s be moving.”
“Where?” I questioned, sick at heart with a fear that he would not allow
me to return home.
“To your inheritance—to Greenhurst.”
“But that is not my inheritance!”
“You are the child of its lord, and he is dying.”
“But I am not his heiress.”
“Before morning you will have proof that you are his child. You know
surely how to work on the repentance of a dying man. Go to him, Zana;
this estate and others are his—no claim, no drawback—nothing that the
English call an entail on it. One dash of his hand, and it is yours.”
“But it was hers, not his—Marston Court belonged to Lord Clare’s wife,”
I said, recoiling from the idea of possessing wealth that had once
belonged to my mother’s rival.
“It must be wrested from the Clares—it must be an inheritance for you
and your people, Zana,” he said, riding close to me, as Jupiter picked
his way along the broken road, which was left almost impassable by the
storm. And he added,
“If that man dies without enriching you and your tribe by the spoils of
his marriage, the curse of Papita will fall on you.”
“It is here already,” I answered, shuddering; “with nothing to
trust—nothing to love—deceived, cheated, outraged. What curse can equal
this?”
“Have you not deserved it?” he questioned, sternly.
“How?”
“Where was your heart? Had not the blood of our people grown pale in it?
Did you give it to a Clare, and hope to go uncursed? The cry of your
mother’s blood, is it nothing?”
“I did not know it—oh, would to heaven I had never known,” was my wild
answer. “What am I to do?—how act?”
“Go home—be passive—let the curse work itself out. You know all—tell it
to your father.”
“It will murder him!” I cried.
“Well!”
The word fell upon my ear like a blow, it was uttered so fiercely.
“Oh, don’t!—this conflict—this hardness—it kills me.”
“No, there must be death, but not for you, till the work is done.”
“Oh, what is this fearful work?”
“Nothing, only wait. Men who know how to wait for vengeance need only be
patient and look on. Death is here—I this night give you proofs that
will sweep all the wealth Lord Clare controls into his daughter’s lap.
Poh! child, revenge is nothing when forced, the soul that knows how to
wait need not work.”
I did not comprehend the cold-blooded philosophy of his words—what young
heart could? But one thing I did understand; George Irving might be
independent of his mother. The property that Chaleco was grasping for me
must be wrested from him. A fierce joy possessed me with the thought. If
this wealth were offered to me it would place his destiny in my hands. I
could withhold or restore independence to the man who had trifled with
my orphanage—stolen the friend from my bosom, and uprooted my faith in
human goodness. Not for one moment did I dream of taking his
inheritance, but there was joy in the thought of humbling him to the
dust, by restoring it with my own hands. Too young to comprehend the
refined selfishness of this idea, it really seemed that there was
magnanimity in this desire to humiliate a man I had loved.
As we rode on toward Greenhurst, my frame began to sink beneath the
excitement that nothing human could have supported. My head reeled; the
damp branches that swept across my path almost tore me from the saddle.
Jupiter too was tired and worn out with the drenching storm. He
staggered along the road with his head bent to the ground, ready to drop
beneath my insignificant weight. Chaleco saw this, and rode closer to my
side just in time to receive me on his arm as I was falling.
Without a word he lifted me to his own horse, and cast Jupiter’s bridle
loose.
“Poor old fellow, let him go home,” he said with a laugh; “but as for
you and I, Zana, we have more to accomplish yet.”
He held me close with his left arm, grasping the bridle with the same
hand. With his right palm upon my forehead, he rode slowly for a while,
till the strength came back to my limbs, and a certain vividness of
intelligence possessed me again. Then he spoke.
“Hold tight to me, and be strong. We have lost much time that may be
important.”
Without waiting for a reply, he put his horse into a sharp canter and
sped on, I hardly knew or cared in what direction. At last, he
dismounted and placed me upon the ground, asking abruptly if I knew the
objects around me. The moon was out just then, and I looked earnestly
about. It was the spot where the gipsy tent had been pitched. The spring
where I had found Cora, when an infant, flowed softly on in the hollow
at a little distance, and before me, where the moonbeams lay like silver
upon the wet grass, I saw the meadow which had once been my sole place
of refuge.
“You know the place?” said Chaleco; “it was here _she_ died. Wait a
little.”
He searched among the ferns that overhung the bank, which I have
described as rising abruptly from the spring, and drew forth a pick-axe
and spade covered with rust. A fragment of rock lay imbedded in the bank
around which mosses and gorse of many years’ growth had crept.
With two or three blows of the pick-axe, he sent this stone crashing
down into the water, which rose up in a wild shower all around as it
recoiled from the rude mass.
Chaleco shook off the drops like a water-dog, and continued to turn up
the earth. Directly he lifted a slab of slate rock, broad, and some
inches thick, which certainly could not originally have belonged to the
soil in which it lay.
Throwing this slab back, the gipsy fell upon his knees, and, groping
downward, brought up a bronze box or coffer, from which he brushed the
soil with reverential slowness.
“Loose the key hung around your neck by that chain of hair,” he said,
holding the box up in the moonlight and searching for the lock.
I started. This was proof undoubted that the gipsy had never lost a clue
to my identity, for no human being, except Maria, was aware that a key
of antique gold and platina had always hung around my neck.
I drew it forth with a feeling of awe, and watched in silence while
Chaleco fitted it in the lock. It turned with difficulty, grating in the
rust, and when the lid gave way, it was with a noise that sounded upon
my ear like a moan of suppressed pain.
“What is it?” I said, looking into the open box as one gazes into a
coffin after it has been long closed, curious, but yet afraid.
“It is all that you will ever know of her—of your mother!” he answered
with a touch of bitter sadness in his voice.
I received the box reverentially in both my hands.
“Take it,” said Chaleco, closing the lid; “read them before you sleep!”
“It seems to me that I should never sleep again.”
I said this to Chaleco, but he answered me sharply, and thrusting the
spade and pick-axe aside with his foot, strode away telling me to
follow. The sight of the box I held seemed to irritate him, as the scent
of blood excites a wild animal. I folded it to my bosom with both arms,
and though it sent a chill through every vein of my body, and made me
stagger beneath its weight, I tightened my hold each moment with a
painful feeling that I held the very soul of my mother close to mine.
Chaleco strode on in silence. The shadow from his broad leafed hat
deepened the sombre gloom of his countenance; the moonlight which struck
across the lower part of his face, revealed the ferocious compression of
his mouth.
With all my fatigue, I scarcely felt the distance as we walked rapidly
through the park. Chaleco did not speak till we came in sight of my
home, then he paused and turned.
“Zana,” he said, speaking low and huskily—“Zana, remember you have a
stern task for this night—your mother’s death to revenge—your people’s
interest to secure. Read and act.”
He spoke with an effort, and sprang away as if the presence of any human
thing were a torture.
I was in the edge of our garden when he left me. A noise among the
shrubs drew me onward, and I found Jupiter lying close to his stable,
still saddled, and with the bridle dangling around his head.
I had no room in my heart for compassion, even for the poor old fellow.
To have saved his life, I would not have set down my box for a moment;
so I left him and entered the house.