MY LOST FRIEND AND MY LOST HOME.
I had made all my preparations, packed up a few clothes, such as I could
carry upon the horn of my saddle, and carefully sealed up the bronze
coffer, which was half full of gold. Turner had been absent most of the
day, and Maria, luckily, was at the village, for some household purpose.
All this was fortunate. Knowing that a few hours would separate us,
perhaps forever, I could not have sustained my part in their presence.
When they came home my eyes were red with weeping, and I sat down
helplessly between them, so sick at heart that it seemed to me like
death. They had heard of Cora’s elopement, and did not wonder at my
grief.
We parted for the night about ten. Oh, how I yearned to throw myself
once more into those kind arms and ask a last blessing! But it could not
be. A suspicion that I was about to leave them would have defeated my
plans. I knew well that they would go forth into the highway homeless
beggars rather than see me so depart.
With calm sadness, though my heart swelled painfully in my bosom, I went
to my room. Oh, that dull, mournful hour of solitude while I waited for
those two friends, all I had on earth, to sleep, that I might escape
like a thief from beneath their roof. I shall never forget that hour. A
life-time of dreary pain was crowded into it. Remember I was very young,
and could only recall as a dream the time when that park had not been my
home.
True, I had a purpose that gave me strength. Cora must be brought back
to her father; then what was to be my fate? The gipsy caves of
Granada—those caves at whose bare remembrance my poor mother had
shuddered even in the zenith of her happiness? But where else should I
go? Ishmael was not more thoroughly cast out by his father’s people than
I had been—while more fortunate than me, his mother went with him into
the desert. I was alone. In the broad world there was no human being
from whom I could claim the draught of cold water which poor Hagar gave
to him.
I went forth, braving all the woes that were divided by the outcast
mother and her child. The rival that I had loved better than a sister
had taken the soul that was mine, and cruelly left me to perish or to
suffer; it mattered as little which to her as it did to Sarah, that her
handmaid died in the wilderness, or passed heartbroken into the desert.
Driven forth from my last shelter by my father’s sister, hunted down
like an evil thing, I felt like the poor stag which I had once saved
from the very foes that seemed chasing me to death. As I sat there alone
in my pretty chamber, with the coffer in my lap, and the bundle at my
feet, I thought of the stone cairn beneath which my mother lay, deep in
the snow mountains, and wished that I too were under it.
Everything was still. Nothing but the faint flutter of autumn leaves as
they fell to the earth reached my ear. Yes, one thing more, the beatings
of my poor heart sounded loud and quick in the stillness, like the laugh
of winter winds when they rustle through masses of dead foliage.
I got up at last—oh, with what heaviness of heart and limb. With the
coffer in one hand, and the bundle in the other, I passed like a ghost
from my beautiful chamber, leaving it bathed in the autumn moonbeams,
all the more quiet that a weary heart had gone out of it.
I went through the little picture gallery. The moonlight threw my black
shadow on the lovely pictures and statuettes, veiling them, as it were,
in mourning at my approach. As I looked back through my tears, they were
poised gracefully as ever, and smiling in the pale light heartless as my
human friends. It was only in my path that the darkness fell.
One moment I paused at the door of Turner’s room. I held my breath,
listening at the key-hole for the faintest noise. A sigh from those
loved sleepers would have fallen upon my heart like a blessing. Nothing
reached me—nothing but the sound of the wind, which was beginning to sob
among the leaves out of doors.
As I listened, something rubbed against my ankle, and the soft purr of a
house cat, whose instinct had recognized me in the dark, made me utter a
faint exclamation. I stooped down and caressed the kind animal a moment,
then hurried away, fearful that my sobs would arouse Turner. The cat
followed me to the stable, and looked on while I saddled Jupiter with a
sort of grave wonder, which seemed to me like regret. She watched me as
I fastened my bundle and mounted the poor old pony. When I rode away,
looking wistfully back at the house, she kept her place till I could no
longer distinguish her.
I believe it was a beautiful night; certainly the moon was at its full,
and the sky crowded with stars, luminous with that deep glow which
precedes an early frost. Without being boisterous, the wind filled the
leaves with their mournful whispers, and the fragrance of broken leaves
and forest flowers, that always breathe sweetest as the frost kills
them, floated silently on the air, saddening the atmosphere with the
perfume of their decay.
I received all these impressions passively, for my heart was too heavy
for anything but that dull consciousness which is blunted by pain. All
the way I was comparing myself with the boy Ishmael, and thinking of
Hagar with yearning sympathy, such as a woman only who has been wronged
and cast forth into that great desert the world can feel.
I reached Marston Court, but the imposing beauty of those walls, the
picturesque effect which the broad moonlight produced among its carved
balconies, broad eaves, and great entrance doors, made only a dream-like
impression on me. My heart was full of one thought. Here and now I must
part with old Jupiter for ever, my last friend. I reached the steps, let
myself down from the saddle, and unknotted my bundle with cold,
trembling fingers, that blundered painfully in their task. Then—it was
because I wanted to prolong the moment of parting—I knotted up the
bridle short upon his neck, that he might not tread on it. When this was
done, I stood a long time with my arm over his neck, crying like a
child. Poor old fellow! when I stood up and shook his bridle, telling
him as well as I could for my sobs, to go home again, he turned his head
and fell to whimpering, as if he understood my desolation better than
any human creature had done.
“Go,” I said, for all the strength was leaving me. “Go home,
Jupiter—home!”
He went tramping heavily over the tangled ground homeward as I had
commanded. I stood till he disappeared among the thickets, listening
breathlessly for his last footfall. When that came, I felt, for the
first time, how utterly, utterly I was alone in the world. I sat upon
the steps of that old house a long time, without thinking or caring what
was next to be done. Perhaps I fell asleep; but at last a hand was laid
on my shoulder, and Chaleco stood beside me.
“Come,” he said, “this is no place for you; the night is cold.”
“Is it?” I said, rising languidly, “I did not know it!”
“Not know it? Why you are trembling like a willow branch now.”
I was indeed shivering from head to foot. My garments rustled as I stood
up, for the dew upon them had turned into frost.
Chaleco had kindled a fire in the huge chimney of his tower room, and
the flames sent a thousand shadows dancing among the grotesque marble
carvings that overhung them. He had evidently made some preparations for
my coming. A huge easy-chair, cushioned with tarnished velvet, stood on
the hearth; and on a little work-table, with curiously twisted legs, was
a plate of biscuit, and one of those old-fashioned goblets of Venetian
glass which have since become so rare.
I was about to sit down, somewhat cheered by the warmth; but Chaleco
prevented this, while he shook the frost from my garments and carefully
removed my bonnet.
“There, now, you may warm yourself without being wet through,” he said,
kindly; and taking a silver cup from the hearth, he filled the goblet
with Bordeaux wine, spiced and warm.
“There,” he said, “eat and drink; then we will have some talk together.”
I obeyed him, cheered and comforted, spite of my grief.
“There, now that you have got a dash of color, and have ceased
trembling, tell me how you got away. Did any one attempt to stop you?”
said Chaleco, at length.
“No one knew—I ran away!”
He laughed.
“That was right—the old blood there. But Papita’s money—you did not
leave that behind?”
“No, I have it here. Do you want it?”
“I? by the Sphinxs! no, it would burn my soul. The gold is
yours—everything in the coffer is yours. Papita’s curse would consume
any other who touched it.”
“But what can I do with it?”
Chaleco laughed till his white teeth shone again.
“What can you do with it?” he said. “Anything, anything. It will take
you to Granada—make a queen of you.”
I shook my head.
“So you reject it; you still despise the Caloes who would adore
you—still cling to the Gentiles who have spurned you forth like a dog.”
“Not so—I scorn no one—I cling to no one—God help me! I have nothing on
earth to which I can cling!”
“Your mother’s people—are they nothing?”
“They murdered her!” I said with a shudder.
Chaleco turned white; his eyes fell, and he muttered,
“I—I did not do it!”
“No, but they did,” I answered.
“It was the law—an old law, made among the people of Egypt centuries
ago; no man among us dares withstand the law.”
“But you would have me acknowledge these laws—enforce them?”
“Our people are ready; go to them with those blood-red rubies in your
ears; give them of Papita’s gold, and they will make you greater than
Chaleco—greater than Papita ever was.”
Again I recoiled from the thought.
“Where else will you go?” asked the gipsy; “who else will receive you?
What other friend have you on earth but me—me, the man whom your mother
betrayed? Yet who has spent his life in guarding her child. If not with
your own people, where will you go, Zana?”
Where could I go? Deserted by the whole world, who would receive me save
the gipsy hordes of my mother’s race, or those to whom friendship for me
would bring ruin on themselves?
I did not attempt to answer. On the broad earth that strange gipsy man
was the only human being that would not turn away in scorn, or become
imperilled by defending me.
“You will go to Granada, Zana?” he continued, bending over me with
paternal interest. “Had Lord Clare but lived to sign that will, then,
indeed, you might have remained here to triumph over your mother’s foes.
Many of her tribe could have crossed the sea to render homage to
Papita’s great-grandchild—the inheritance of her gold, and the symbols
of her power. In these old walls, Zana, should your court have been;
these great oaks clothing the uplands should have sheltered a thousand
tents. Oh, Zana, we would have built up a little kingdom here in the
midst of our enemies. Why did you not have that will signed, Zana? It
was for this we brought you back to England—for this you have been left
among her destroyers so long.”
“Hush!” I said, shuddering—“hush! I dare not think of it. Great heavens,
were all his estates mine at this moment, I would give them to forget
that death-scene. Thank God, he did not sign that will!”
“Bah! it was a bad move—but let that drop. Granada is still open, and
Papita’s gold will do wonders among our people there!”
“But they are ignorant, rude, untaught. My poor mother pined among them,
even before Lord Clare came to turn her discontent into aversion.”
“But they are capable of learning—they will follow Papita’s child in all
things. She has but to will it, and the young ones of her tribe can be
wise and deeply read as their queen.”
This idea filled me with a new life. Yes, I might be the means of
improving this wild race. Perhaps God had permitted me to be spurned and
cast forth like a rabid dog from among the gentiles, that I might become
a benefactor to the Caloes. Surely they could not deal more
treacherously by me than my father’s people had done. These thoughts
were succeeded by a remembrance of Cora, and they gave way before the
great duty that I had imposed on myself.
“Chaleco,” I said, with energy and decision, “there is yet something for
me to do here. I had a friend”——
He interrupted me.
“I know the parson’s daughter, a little golden-haired, blue-eyed thing,
that will always be a child. You would find her—for what?”
“That she may return to her father—that she may be saved,” I answered.
“Nay, nay, let her go. What has Papita’s child in common with this
traitress? What is there worth loving in one who could become the victim
of a wily boy like that?”
I felt the blood rush to my forehead at this scornful mention of the man
I had loved with all the fervor of my mother’s race, and all the pride
of his. But was he not a traitor? How could I resent it, though the
swart gipsy did revile him? But the anger I dared not form in words
broke out in decision of purpose.
“Stay with me—help me till I find Cora—till I send an assurance of her
marriage back to that broken-hearted man, and I will then go with you to
Granada.”
“Heart and soul?” questioned the gipsy.
“Heart and soul!” I replied.
“You will abandon these people?”
“If you insist, I will.”
“Then let us linger.”
“But where—how?” I questioned. “What course can we take?”
“That which they took—the way to Scotland.”
“Let us start at once,” I cried, fired with a thousand conflicting
feelings, in which there was jealousy, doubt, and a generous desire to
rescue my friend; but my limbs gave way beneath all this eagerness, and
I fell back gasping for breath.
“Not now—you must have rest, poor child,” said the gipsy, smoothing my
hair with his palms.
I drew back, recoiling from a repetition of the mysterious influence
which had possessed me the last time I was in that room.
“Do you fear me—me, Chaleco?” he said, with saddened eyes.
“No; but let me act independently—let my brain be clear, my limbs
free—let my own will control me—none other shall!”
He smiled quietly, and kept his softened eyes fixed on mine. I began to
struggle against the drowsiness that possessed me; my eyelashes fell
together, and I could muster neither strength nor wish to open them. A
languid repose stole over my limbs—I did not awake till morning, and
then Chaleco stood before me, holding an antique china cup and saucer in
his hand full of smoking chocolate.
“Drink!” he said, raking open the embers; “here are roasted eggs and
bread—they will give you strength.”
I took the cup. “When shall we start?” I asked, eager to commence my
search for Cora.
“Not till after nightfall,” was the reply; “one day of entire rest you
must have. Besides, it will not do for us to travel so near Greenhurst
by daylight.”
My heart fell at the thought that no one would trouble themselves about
us—no one except old Turner, and secrecy was the only kindness I could
render him.
After I had breakfasted, Chaleco left me, and all day long I wandered
through the vast desolation of that old building, as a ghost might haunt
the vaulted passages of a catacomb.
The reaction of all the exciting scenes I had passed through was upon
me, and with dull apathy I strolled through those desolated chambers,
regardless of all that would, in another state of mind, have filled my
brain with the keenest emotions. Everything was so still in the old
house—the sunbeams that came through the windows were so dulled with
accumulated dust upon the glass, that I seemed gliding through a cloudy
twilight quietly as a shadow, and almost as lifeless. I literally cared
for nothing; my heart beat so sluggishly that I could hardly feel the
life within me. Now I remembered every object in the old house with
perfect distinctness. Then everything ran together like an incoherent
dream.
Night came, and then I began to wonder about Chaleco, who had been
absent all day. I had no apprehension, and but little anxiety; nothing
just then seemed important enough for me to care about. I thought even
of my father’s death-bed with a sort of stolid gloom.
Lifted high up among the old trees, and opening both to the east and
west, the turret in which I sat took the last sunbeams in a perfect
deluge, as they broke against the tall windows and shed their golden
warmth all around me. I knew that these bright flashes came from behind
Greenhurst, and that I might never see it more. This saddened me a
little, and a throb of pain was gathering in my bosom when Chaleco came
in. I did not know him at first, so completely was he changed. The broad
sombrero, the tarnished gold and embroidery of his gipsy habiliments
were all gone. A suit of quiet brown, with knee-buckles of gold and
leggins of drab cloth, such as the better classes of England wore on
their journeys at that time, had quite transfigured him. His coal-black
beard was neatly trimmed, and though his flashing eyes and peculiar
features bespoke foreign blood, no one would have suspected him of being
the picturesque vagrant he had appeared in the morning.
“Well,” he said, cheerfully, “are you rested and quite ready to start? I
have been making inquiries.”
“Do you still intend going to Scotland?” I asked. “What have you found
out?”
“That they went north—so must we. Here, I have brought some food—the
dusk is gathering—eat and let us be off. Old Turner tracked your pony
across the park in this direction; he may be for searching the old
house, and then all chance of coming again will be over. I would not
have this eagle’s nest discovered for the world.”
“But Lady Catherine will discover it,” I said. “She will not leave the
noble building to fall away thus.”
“I have taken care of that. The door leading to the rooms below was
walled up when I first came to England. You have not noticed, but the
staircase winds down within the walls, and has a passage outward through
the wine vaults. We entered through a great oak panel which opens from
the picture gallery; close that and no passage can be found to the
turret. I have formed a snug bower here, off and on, ever since you were
left in the tent, Zana.”
“And were you here then?” I asked, remembering the suffering of that
period.
“No, I fled. Old Papita’s death and her work at the Hurst drove me off.
I went into Spain for a little time—and then farther still.”
“And since then have you been always here?”
He laughed in derision at my ignorance.
“What, a Caloe count of our tribe, and always in one place? What a child
it is! No, no, I only found a roost up in this tower now and then, long
enough to see how it fared with you and the enemy. I have been a great
traveller, Zana, sometimes on your father’s track for months and
months—sometimes hovering over your pretty nest—sometimes with our
people in Granada.”
“Why did you follow Lord Clare?” I inquired, filled with wonder and
respect for energies so indomitable.
“That my rights of vengeance should not be lost. I had received nothing
but pangs and shame. The tribe had _her_. Papita swooped up Lady
Clare—but the greater criminal, the most hated thing of all, was left to
me. No dog ever scented his prey as I tracked Clarence, Earl of Clare.”
“What for?” I cried, thrilled with a horrible suspicion. “Why did you so
hound out my father?”
“Why?” he repeated with shut teeth and gleaming eyes. “What do we follow
the trail of a snake when it has bitten us for, but to kill it?”
My heart was seized as with the talons of a vulture, as he said this. I
remembered the subtle poisons so often mentioned in my mother’s journal,
and rapidly connected them with my father’s terrible appearance when he
returned home to die. Some of these poisons I knew to be of slow action,
eating up vitality from the human system like the sluggish influence of
miasma. Had my noble father been thus poisoned, and by the man who stood
before me?
I could not speak—the horrible thought paralyzed me; my throat was
parched; the breath panted and swelled in my lungs, but I could not draw
a deep respiration. Was it indeed so?—had I sought shelter with my
father’s murderer? He read my thoughts and smiled fiercely.
“You are wrong,” he said; “I did not do that, it needed not the drao,
his own thoughts were enough to poison a dozen lives stronger than his.
I watched him night and day—night and day, Zana; at a distance
sometimes, but oftener close as a brother might, in those safe disguises
that our people study so well. Month after month I was alone with him in
the desert—on the hot sands of Africa—on the sluggish waters of the
Nile. I was his dragoman, his confidential companion; for in the desert,
Zana, even that haughty being, an English nobleman, learns something of
that equality which he is sure to find in the grave. Ten thousand times
I could have killed him like a dog, left him in the hot sands for the
jackals, and no one have been the wiser; but that would have been like a
gentile, who, in the greed of his revenge, ends all with a blow. It was
sweeter to see the flesh waste from his bones; the light from his eyes;
and to watch the death-fires kindle in his cheeks, set to blazing and
fed by the venom of his own thoughts. I tell you, girl, not for the
universe would I have shortened his misery for a moment. To watch it was
all the joy I have tasted since your mother’s last death-wail.”
While he spoke, I struggled with the breath driven back upon my chest as
one wrestles with a nightmare. It seemed as if I was given up to the
power of a demon. At last my voice broke out so sharp and unnatural that
it seemed like another person’s.
“Stop, stop, I will not endure this; he was my father—he was not
deserving of this cruel malice, this murderous revenge. He was my
father, man, remember that, and spare me.”
“It is because he was your father that I hated him—that I gloated over
the pangs that ate away his life with a keener anguish than I could have
dealt him,” answered the gipsy, hissing the words forth as a serpent
shoots venom through its jaws.
“My God! my God! is the murderous blood of this man’s race in my veins?”
was the wild response that broke from me as I writhed in the torture of
his words—“must I become a fiend like this?”
Instantly Chaleco seemed transformed; the evil light went out from his
face, leaving that look of subtle cunning almost universal among Caloes.
With sinister gentleness he strove to soothe me into forgetfulness of
all the tiger so late rampant in his nature.
“Come, little one, look up and weep, if you can; this hot and fiery look
never was your mother’s.”
“She had only her own wrongs to suffer and forgive; while I—oh, Father
of mercies, how great is the load of evil that I inherit and must
endure! Am I doomed like Ishmael? Must my hand be raised against all
races and all people? Is there no brotherhood—no sisterhood—no humanity
left for me on earth?”
“Hush!” said Chaleco, softly, and gliding to the back of my chair—“hush,
little one, this is madness!”
As he spoke, I felt the soft touch of his hands upon my head. What
unearthly power was it that possessed this man? Scarcely had his palm
smoothed down my hair twice, when the oppression upon my chest was gone.
A feeling of ineffable calm stole over me; the hate which a moment
before had burned in my heart against him, sunk quietly down, as a tiger
falls asleep. I remembered all that had been said of my father, it is
true, but vaguely as one thinks of a dream; the sting and anguish, the
sense of reality was gone. I slept a little, probably ten minutes, for
it was not wholly dark when I awoke, but it seemed as if that sweet
slumber had refreshed me for hours.
“Come now,” said the gipsy, bringing my bonnet, and a habit of dark
green cloth that I usually wore in cold weather when on horseback, “get
ready and let us ride. We must make a good night’s work of it!”
“My poor Cora,” I muttered, gathering up the riding-habit, “when you are
found, what will there be for me to accomplish? What is before me after
that?”
“Hush, Zana—have you no belief in the God you talk about? We of the
Caloes, who expect nothing beyond this earth, fear nothing while here;
but you, this hereafter makes cowards of you all; you are forever and
ever flinging the present—all a man ever is sure of—after the past, or
filling it with fears that blacken the future. Bah! what is your faith
to be counted for, if it gives no better courage than this?”
I felt the rebuke, and without another complaint equipped myself to
depart.
I saw no more of the old house that night, for we passed the secret
panel in the winding staircase which led to the main building, and
penetrating downward through cellars and vaulted passages, came to the
open air through the floor of a dilapidated summer-house.
“Look,” said Chaleco, holding his lantern down that I might examine the
tessellated pattern worked in with colored marbles. “Should the old
house be inhabited at any time, and you wish to seek the tower yonder,
press your hand upon this little flag of verd-antique, the only block of
that noble stone that you will find here. See how easily it works!”
He touched the diagonal fragment, and instantly the centre of the floor
sunk an inch or two and wheeled inward, leaving a circular entrance and
a glimpse of the winding stairs we had just mounted, where a large
mosaic star had a moment before formed a centre to the radiating pattern
of the pavement.
“You understand,” he said, wheeling the star back to its place, “this
passage may yet be of use, who knows? At any rate, it is our secret. I
found the passage and blocked up the turret door. No one remembers much
about the old house now, and the change will never be noticed. No human
soul that ever breathed here, save you and I, are alive; and my lady
countess must take the old pile as she finds it. Twenty years of ruin
will make changes; the birds and I have held possession a long time,” he
added, lifting his eyes to the rooks’ nests that blackened the topmost
boughs of a group of elms just above us.