Crystal hesitated a moment, and her dark eyes grew a little misty.
"And if it be my duty, Fern, will you say a word to keep me, my darling?" as Fern looked sorrowfully in her face. "I am not leaving you for good and all; I will never do that until--" but here she paused, and then hurried on. "The fact is, Fern, your mother can no longer protect me; your brother"s unmanly persecution is driving me away. No, I will say nothing bitter of him to-night; after all he is your brother; but it will be better for him if I leave here--a brief absence may help to cure him."
"But his selfishness must not drive you away, my poor Crystal."
"Dear, it will be far better for me to go," returned Crystal with a sigh. "I am growing restless again, and, as Miss Campion says, the change will do me good; I came home to tell you this to-night I have told Miss Campion that I will go."
"Next week!"
"Yes, probably next Wednesday or Thursday, about a week from to-day. I shall have to be very busy, you see. Don"t look so pale over it, Fern; six months will soon pa.s.s. Do you know," rather sadly, "I have had such a curious feeling all day, as though something were going to happen, and that I wanted to get away first. Oh, I can"t explain it; I felt the same yesterday. Fern, did Mr. Huntingdon tell you anything more about those friends of his whom he met down at Sandycliffe?"
"No, dear," with rather a wondering look, "he only just mentioned them, you know. What nice people they were, and so kind and friendly; he took rather a fancy to them."
"Yes, but I thought he might have spoken of them again."
"Oh, no, he only saw them twice; he just went over to tell them how Lady Redmond"s ankle was; it was only the accident that made him speak of them at all. How interested you seem in those Ferrers, Crystal."
"Yes," was the quick response; but something in her voice made Fern look at her inquiringly. "Did you--did you know them, Crystal?" she asked, in some surprise.
"Yes," was again the brief answer; but after a moment"s silence she said, "Fern, you have been very good, very patient all this time, you have never asked me any questions about my past life. I think as I am going away from you, and as one can not tell what may happen, that I should like you to know my miserable story. Oh, it will be safe with you; I do not fear that for a moment; I have only hesitated all these months because of the pain of telling it, and for fear you should cease to love me if you knew of the faults I am so bitterly expiating."
"Faults," incredulously; "I have never seen them, Crystal, you always seem so good and brave and patient."
"My dear," she answered, mournfully, "appearances are deceitful sometimes. Do you remember the story of the poor demoniac whose name was Legion, and how he sat clothed and saved and in his right mind: to me it is one of the most touching and beautiful instances of the Redeemer"s power. He was so galled by his chains, he was so torn and wasted by those evil spirits among the Galilean tombs. Fern," with a deep pathetic look in her eyes, "sometimes it seems to me that, thank G.o.d, the evil spirit is exorcised in me too--that there is nothing in my heart now but pa.s.sionate regret for an unpremeditated sin."
"My poor dear Crystal, is it so bad as that?"
"Yes," with a sigh; "shall I tell you about it--as I told your mother--oh, how good she was to me, how she tried to comfort me, and she had suffered so much herself. Of course, you have always known that my name is not really Davenport, but you have never guessed that it is Crystal Ferrers."
"Ferrers! Do you mean that you belong to Mr. Erle"s friends, the blind clergyman who lives with his sister at the Grange?"
"Yes, I am Margaret Ferrers"s cousin, the young cousin whom they adopted as their own child, and who lived with them from childhood.
Well, I will tell you from the beginning, for you will never understand without hearing about my mother. Give me your hand, dear; if you are tired, and do not want to hear more, will you draw it away.
I am glad it is getting dusk, so you will not see my face; the moon will rise presently, so we shall have light enough."
"One moment, Crystal; does Mr. Erle know?"
"No, of course not, he is a mere acquaintance; what should put that in your head, Fern?"
"Oh, nothing, it was only fancy," returned the girl; she hardly knew why she had put the question; was it something in Erle"s manner that afternoon? He had asked her, a little anxiously, if Miss Davenport were going away again, and if she would be at home the following week.
"For she had been such a runaway lately," he had said with a slight laugh, "and I was thinking that it must be dull for you when she is away." But Fern had a.s.sured him that Crystal had no intention of going away again, for she had no idea of the plot that Crystal and Miss Campion were hatching between them.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CRYSTAL"S STORY.
The path my father"s foot Had trod me out (which suddenly broke off What time he dropped the wallet of the flesh And pa.s.sed) alone I carried on, and set My child-heart "gainst the th.o.r.n.y underwood, To reach the gra.s.sy shelter of the trees, Ah, babe i" the wood, without a brother-babe!
My own self-pity, like the redbreast bird, Flies back to cover all that past with leaves.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
"I must begin at the very beginning, Fern," said Crystal, with a stifled sigh. "I hope I shall not weary you;" and as Fern disclaimed the possibility of fatigue with much energy, she continued: "Oh, I will be as brief as possible, but I want you to understand it all plainly.
"I have told you that Margaret Ferrers is my cousin; her father, Colonel Ferrers, had a brother much younger than himself: his name was Edmund, and he was my father.
"I recollect him very little, except that he was very kind to me, but they tell me that he was a singularly handsome man, and very accomplished, and greatly beloved by all who knew him.
"He was much younger than Uncle Rolf; he was still at college when Uncle Rolf went out to India with his wife. He distinguished himself there, and made a great many friends; his brilliant abilities attracted the notice of rather an influential man; he offered him a secretaryship, and soon afterward took him with him to Rome.
"There his success was even greater than it had been in London. Every one conspired to spoil and flatter the handsome young Englishman. He was admitted to the most select circles; the youthful queens of society tried to find favor in his eyes; he might have made more than one splendid match, for there was quite a _furor_ about him, but he soon put a stop to his brilliant career by a most imprudent marriage, for he fell in love with a Roman flower-girl and made her his wife.
"Ah, you look shocked, Fern; society was shocked too, they had made so much of him, you see.
"People said he was mad, that Bianca"s dark eyes had bewitched him; it may be so, but from the day when he first saw her tying up her roses and lilies on the steps of the fountain, to the last moment when he laid his head like a tired child on her bosom to die, he never loved any other woman but her, and he loved her well. But it was not a happy match; how could it be? it was too unequal, he had all the gentleness and calm that belonged to the Ferrers, and she--she brought him, beside her dark Madonna beauty, the fierce Italian nature, the ungovernable temper that became the heritage of her unhappy daughter."
Fern started as though she would have spoken, but Crystal only pressed her hand and went on--
"When a few months had pa.s.sed over, and the fame of Bianca"s great beauty had got abroad, society relaxed its frowns a little, and received its erring favorite into its arms again.
"They had left Rome and had settled at Florence, and friends began to flock round them; Bianca was only a peasant girl, but love taught her refinement, and she did not disgrace her husband"s choice; but it would have been more for her happiness, and my father"s too, if they had never withdrawn from the seclusion of their quiet villa.
"For very soon the fierce jealousy of her undisciplined nature began to a.s.sert itself.
"She could not endure to see her husband talk to another woman, or hear him praise one even in the most moderate terms. A mere trifle would provoke her, and then long and painful were the scenes that ensued.
"She loved him pa.s.sionately; she loved him as only an Italian can love; and she made his life so bitter to him that he yielded it up almost thankfully at last. He had been very patient with her, and when he was dying, he put his hands upon her dark hair in his tender way:
""We have not been happy together, dear," he said, "but I do not think it has been my fault. I loved you always, but it was hard to make you believe it; be good to our child, Bianca, for my sake." And then, as she knelt beside him in speechless anguish and remorse, he called his little Crystal to him and kissed and blessed me, and while he was still holding my hand a sudden spasm crossed his face and he put his head down upon her shoulder, and in another moment he was gone.
"My poor mother, she did not long survive him.
"As soon as the news of my father"s death reached England, Uncle Rolf wrote at once offering a home to his only brother"s widow and child.
"It was my father"s desire, she knew, that she should live under the protection of his relatives, so she obeyed his wishes at once. She did not hesitate for a moment, though she felt she was a dying woman, and it broke her heart to leave her husband"s grave. She would bring her child to England and place her safely in Colonel Ferrers"s care, and then she could go with an easy conscience to rejoin her beloved.
"How well I remember that journey; every detail was stamped upon my childish recollection.
"Alas! she never lived to reach England. She was taken very ill in Paris, and after a few days of intense suffering, she pa.s.sed peacefully away.
"A kind-hearted American widow and her daughter, with whom my father had a slight acquaintance in Florence, had traveled with us and were at the same hotel, and nothing could exceed their goodness to my poor mother.
"They nursed her most tenderly, and were with her when she died, and Mrs. Stanforth promised my mother most faithfully that they would watch over me until they had seen me safe under Colonel Ferrers"s care.
"Every one was kind to me. I remember once when I was sitting in a corner of the saloon with Minnie Stanforth, I heard people talking softly of the beautiful Florentine lady who lay dead upstairs, and how some one had told them that she had died of a broken heart from the loss of her English husband.