Ann S. Stephens

“ Oh, it is so difficult for the young to feel absolute despair or absolute resignation; both are the fruit of good or evil old age.
Unmolested, as she had left it, Zulima stole back to her chamber. Weary, and yet with a heart more free than it had been for weeks, she flung off her damp garments, and lying down, slept sweetly for an hour. Zulima dreamed that she was sitting with her husband beneath the great magnolia-tree; her babe lay upon the turf laughing gleefully, and, with its little hands in the air, grasping after the summer insects as they flashed overhead. ”

“ She could hear the tread of a horse from the spot, should one pass up from the city; and so, with a cheek that kindled and a heart that leaped to each sound, the young creature sat down to wait. To wait! oh, how hard a task for her untamed spirit, her eager wishes! Never till her marriage with Mr. Clark had Zulima’s vivid nature been fully aroused; never before had she been capable of the exquisite joy, the intense suffering that marked every stage of her attachment to that lofty and singular man. ”

“ Zulima had gone forth alone, not into the garden to sigh among its wilderness of blossoms, but away, with an aching heart and pale forehead, to suffer among the wild nooks of the neighboring hollows. Here nature started to life in harsher beauty, and sent forth her sweets with a sort of rude waywardness, forming a contrast to the voluptuous air and over cultivation that closed in her home, as it were, from the rough and true things of the world. ”

“ When the serpent jealousy reaches a heart like hers, it comes with a fling, striking his fang suddenly and at once. Zulima was not jealous, but that fierce pain lay coiled close by her heart, ready to make a leap that should envenom her whole being. More than once Zulima had started from her seat at some slight sound, which proved to be only a bird rising from the overhanging bank, or a rabbit leaping across the thick sward, and thus, between hope and despondency, dreams and thoughts of the stern real, the time crept by till noon. ”

“ Tenderness had given to that voice an intonation startlingly like the low tones of Daniel Clark when love most softened his proud nature.
She started and looked wildly at the young man, her hand trembling in his—her lips parted in a half smile—the delusion had not quite left her.
“Zulima, what is it that troubles you? Oh, if you only knew, if you could but guess, how—how it wrings my heart to see you thus! What has the man been saying to wound you?” ”

“ Clark slept in Zulima’s chamber, upon the couch her delicate limbs had pressed, and upon the pillow where her head had found its sweetest slumbers. Perhaps the fever-spirit grew riotous and strong on the memory which these objects aroused, or it might have been that, without all these reminiscences, the illness that came upon him that night would have proved more painful still. The morning found the heart-stricken man faint and strengthless as a child. ”

“ Full of this high trust, she wrote to Whitney and told him the whole.
84“You sought me,” said the letter, “and loved me as the heiress of great wealth, as the only daughter of a proud and rich man. All at once, as if a flash of lightning had swept across the horizon of my life, revealing the truth with a single fiery gleam, I find myself the orphan of a great and good man, whom I remember only as the shade of a vision—and of a woman, lovely as she has been unfortunate—alive still, but kept from her child by bonds that have yet proved too strong, even for the yearnings of maternal love. ”

“ Why do you repeat thus bitterly the words that I have spoken?” said Clark, regarding her wild agitation with wonder. “When I speak of our marriage, you do not shrink or tremble as one who has profaned a holy rite, but your eye is full of scorn, your lips curl with bitter smiles. Zulima, are you indeed so lost that the mention of ties that bound us once, and that legally bind us yet, ties that you, unhappy woman, have broken and dishonored, can only awake a smile of scorn?” ”

“ It was spring-time in the South—that rich, bright season more luxurious in foliage and profuse in fragrance than our warm and mellow summers ever are. The orange-trees were all in flower; carnations blushed warm and glowing upon the garden banks; the grass was mottled with tiny blossoms, gorgeous and sweet as the air they breathed. All around the house which Zulima occupied was hedged in with honeysuckles and prairie-roses, that sheltered the grounds and leaped up here and there among the magnolia-trees, lacing them together in festoons and arcades of fantastic beauty. ”

“ An air of gentle languor lay upon this young creature, and there was something more than that affectionate tenderness with which a mother regards her young child, in the look that she, from time to time, cast upon the slumbering infant—a shade of sadness, that but for her feeble state, might have taken the strength of passionate regret, seemed ready to break from her eyes in a flood of tears, whenever they dwelt longer than usual upon the babe. ”

“ Love them she did, now, as it seemed, more intensely than ever, but there was excitement in her heart, a sort of wild, unsettled feeling, that destroyed all the sweet faith and tranquillity of affection. It was no longer the quiet and serene love which had clung around her from infancy, naturally and without effort, as wild blossoms bud upon a bank where the sunshine sleeps longest—but something of unrest and pain mingled with it all. In the history of her parents she found much to excite her imagination, her deep and sorrowful interest. ”

“ He came directly to the residence of her friend, ignorant of all that had transpired to drive Myra from the protection of her own home.
Mr. Whitney had left the young girl gay, blooming, and brilliant, with joyous anticipations—she met him now pale and drooping, her eyes heavy with tears, her form swayed by the weight of her grief, like the stalk of a flower on which the dew has fallen too heavily.
“And now,” he said, when she had told him all, “there is but one course for us to pursue, and that, thank Heaven, is one to secure our happiness. ”

“ What if papa should pronounce him an impostor also? she thought; and her heart was in a glow at the very idea. She felt that the eyes of her father were fixed on her inquiringly, and this deepened her confusion.
“We have received one other stranger here,” she said at length, making an effort to look up; “a very talented and agreeable gentleman, whom I met by accident when out on an excursion.”
“Indeed; and who is he?” inquired Mr. D. in a grave tone, and casting a glance at his wife that had a shade of displeasure in it. ”

“ Subdued and touched to the heart by the depth of feeling with which this appeal was made, Zulima arose from the pillow where she had been striving to subdue her grief, and taking the infant in her trembling arms, motioned her husband to receive it. The moment she was relieved from the sweet burden, the young creature fell back, and closing her eyes, tried to check the grief that, however suppressed, still clamored at her heart. ”

“ Mother, mother, say in mercy that he is only angry—that it is not so!”
With a wild gesture, and a burst of passionate tears, the unhappy girl cast herself into her mother’s arms. The poor lady trembled beneath the weight of that fragile form. She wove her arms around it; she pressed kiss after kiss upon that forehead with her cold and quivering lips. She strove, by the warmth and passion of her maternal love, to charm away the pain and the truth from her daughter’s heart, but she said not in words, “Myra, you are my child,” and the young girl arose from her bosom utterly desolate. ”

“ It was doubtful, he said, even if Clark ever had been married to Zulima; or, being so, if he would not deem it a good service in his friends to relieve him of the obligations imposed by that union. Bitter and cruel were the accusations urged against that poor young wife; and with his interests all with her enemies, joined to a lively desire to think ill of her, in order to justify his conduct to his own heart, this weak and cruel man yielded himself to become the tool of a deeper and far more unprincipled villain than himself. ”

“ I tell you, Ross, I would rather encounter a squadron of armed men, than the look of those soft eyes, as they followed her child this morning, when I took it from her. It was the glance of a wounded fawn, as we have often seen it, turned upon the hunter.”
“I will see my wife at once,” replied Ross, unable with all his duplicity to conquer the disappointment that was consuming him; “then I will depart for the city, and make a strong effort to bring De Grainges to his trial.”
“It is strange,” said Mr. Clark; “but some influence that I can not fathom seems to keep back this man’s sentence. ”

“ The warm glow of her affectionate nature broke through every feature like flame hidden in the heart of a pearl. Her cheek, her mouth, her white forehead were full of animation; her brown eyes sparkled with delight. With her whole being she loved the man whom she believed to be her father, and for the gentle woman who stood gazing upon her with so much affection as her toilet was completed, Myra’s devotion was almost more than the natural love of a child for its mother. Scarcely a minute elapsed before the young girl was ready to go down. ”

“ All necessary evidence of the existence of a last will and of its destruction was secured; witnesses of Zulima’s marriage with Daniel Clark in Philadelphia still existed. The mother herself, though shrinking from the cruel publicity of her wrongs, gave such aid as her naturally shrinking nature, now rendered almost timid by suffering, would permit. Men of influence, struck by the sublime spectacle of a fair young creature, with scarcely the physical strength of a child, entering courageously on a battle where such fearful odds prevailed against her, came generously to her support. ”

“ Clark’s carriage. Zulima was now wild with excitement; the blood seemed to leap through her heart—her cheeks burned like fire. She gasped for breath, 46when a turn in the streets took those carriage-lamps an instant from her sight.
They came in sight of a fine old mansion house, standing back from the street and surrounded by tall trees; an aristocratic and noble dwelling it was, with the lights gleaming through its windows, and those rare old trees curtaining its walls with their black branches, now gilded and glowing with the golden flashes of light that came through all the windows. ”

“ Mr. D., full of unrest as the elements, was pacing the veranda—his face was unnaturally pale in the gleams of lightning, and he paced up and down, unconscious or heedless of the water-drifts that now and then swept over him. Poor Myra sat watching him; the storm within her own breast and the tempest without, imparted to her spirit a wild and reckless courage. She stepped out on the veranda; the rain beat in her pale face, the lightning glared across her eyes, already more than brilliant; she met her father in his walk, and touched his arm with her cold hand. ”

“ A man who was well acquainted with the frauds that had been practiced on the infant heiress, sought out the young bride and told her of the vast wealth illegally withheld from her by the executors of Daniel Clark’s estate—told her of that which stirred the proud blood in her veins more warmly than any idea of wealth could have done—the doubt that had been craftily thrown on her own legitimacy, and thus on the fair fame of her mother. ”

“ Then, while the young wife lay so pale and deathly there stole toward the bed that negro woman, who bent down till the bright Madras ’kerchief turbaning her forehead mingled with the chestnut tresses that lay scattered over the shoulder and bosom of the sufferer. She listened a moment, as if to make herself quite certain that what seemed so deathly was not death itself, and then glided from the chamber. ”

“ That night Daniel Clark spent under the roof of his friend, Ross, the very roof that had sheltered his bridal life with Zulima and the birth of her child. He met his false friend calmly, and without any outbreak of the terrible sense of wrong that ached at his heart. He said truly, that reproaches are for slight wrongs, only his were too mighty for words. He never once hinted to the traitor that he was aware of his treachery. ”

“ A few years and he, in the very city which had proved so fatal to her first love, lay down amid his ripe honors, and died, blessing her with his last word on earth. And now she still—indomitable still—untiring fights the great battle alone, and another year will prove that the life-struggle of Myra Clark Gaines has not been without its victory, and that energy, even in a delicate woman, can at last overtake justice. ”

“ Zulima made her home in the South, and there also, after years of wandering, came Daniel Clark—weary with excitement, and unhappy with a sense of bitter loneliness. In the first moments of his anger against Zulima, he had made his will, giving all his vast possessions to an aged relative, and making the false friends who had caused his misery executors of that will. And this was the deep game for which these men had staked their souls—these possessions and the control over them. No matter though the fair wife was crushed to the earth ”

“ The servants were all out to receive their young mistress as she alighted from the carriage; even the hunting dogs came whining and yelping from their kennels, riotous with joy, as so many politicians the day after an election. Myra had smiles for all; but as her eyes fell upon the gentle mother, who had loved her so devotedly, the young girl broke away, her cheeks glowing, her eyes full of tears, and threw herself into the arms that were joyously opened to receive her. ”

“ Like a plant that keeps green so long as the frost is in its leaves, but withers and droops with the first glow of sunshine, her strength gave way, and there was a time when her very life seemed in jeopardy.
Thus weak and feeble, poor Myra lay upon her couch in the quiet gloom of her sick-chamber, and shrinking from the slightest sound, with that sensitive dread which was itself a pain, she heard a noise upon the stairs. It seemed like the hesitating tread of a man, blended with the eager and suppressed remonstrance of some person who desired to check his progress. ”

“ They were living at an hotel in the heart of the city, with no home comforts around them, and surrounded by a crowd of enemies—such as spring from hotly-contested law-suits where many persons are interested in the defence. To all those persons who had in any way attained a claim on the property of Daniel Clark, his daughter was, of course, held as an aggressive enemy,—a woman who had come with her ambition and her doubtful claims to disturb the tranquillity of a great city. ”

“ Gold is a potent agent. Even your wife yields; she will not appear. You can be cleared of this charge; you can claim Zulima as your lawful wife. We pledge ourselves to accomplish all that we have proposed.”
“Gentlemen, you seem kind, and I thank you; but I know that the wrong which I inflicted on that young girl has been followed by her aversion; she has told me so. She is not my lawful wife; without her love—her firm, earnest love, I would not claim her if she were. All that she desires is freedom; that she shall have, though it cost my life instead of a few years’ imprisonment.” ”

“ A look of mournful despondency was on their features, their hands were clasped for an instant, and then Zulima turned away, and tottering feebly in her walk, passed from the garden. He stood watching her till the last flutter of her garments disappeared under 60the orange-boughs, then he turned away and went forth, a broken-hearted man. Mother and father both went away, leaving the child alone. Terrified by the scene of anguish passing before her, the little creature had neither moved nor spoken, and in the agony of that last parting she was forgotten. She had no heart for play then. ”

“ There was no sleep for any of the pretty group that night, but closeted in a little bedroom, with a bright fire flashing and glowing over their lovely and eager faces, the young girls plotted and held council together, sometimes laughing at the miserable plight in which Myra had presented herself at the door; sometimes listening with a start, as if amid the rush and pause of the storm, they yet feared to detect the tread of some person in pursuit of the beautiful fugitive. ”

“ She was no young heroine, but a noble, strong-minded woman, suffering keenly, but firm because she believed herself to be in the right. There was silence for a time, for the young girls respected the grief of their friend, then the eldest arose and leaning over Myra’s chair, began with gentle delicacy to smooth and arrange the light tresses that had been so completely disordered by the storm. ”

“ Among these beautiful grounds little Myra Clark had been at play since the breakfast-hour. She had chased the humming-birds from their swarming places in the arbors and rose-hedges; she had gathered golden-edged violets from the borders, and leaping up with a laugh to the orange-boughs that drooped over the gravel-walk, had torn down the white blossoms and mellow fruit to crowd with the flowery spoil that she had gathered in the skirt of her muslin dress. ”