"To America?" exclaimed Erle, in an incredulous voice.
"Yes, but she has told me no particulars. It is hard, very hard, is it not. I find one does not get used to disappointment. It is a heavy blow to my faith. I thought that to-night we should certainly have met."
"I am awfully sorry, Mr. Ferrers, I am indeed. I wish I could have come with you."
"You could not help me. I will take the child home, and talk to those kind friends who have sheltered Crystal; at least I shall hear about her, and know her future movements."
"I think I hear the cab, Mr. Ferrers, and Fluff is fast asleep."
"We will not wake her, poor little thing," returned Raby, lifting her up as he spoke. Fluff grunted contentedly as her head dropped on his broad shoulder. Erle watched them as Roger guided them to the cab. How he longed to accompany them. The next moment he turned with a start, as his uncle"s slow footstep paused beside him.
"Erle," he said, "look at this," and he held out a costly ring, a half hoop of diamonds. "I have heard all I wish from Percy. His sense of honor is none of the finest, but he is useful to me. You and I need not heat ourselves in a perfectly useless discussion. Miss Selby has a right to expect this ring. You are treating her very shabbily, Erle.
Come to me to-morrow and tell me you have placed it on her finger."
"And if I refuse?" Erle"s pale lips could hardly frame the question.
Mr. Huntingdon smiled ironically.
"I do not think you will refuse, Erle. You are too much a gentleman to treat a woman badly. All the world is saying you and Miss Selby are engaged. You can hardly allow a girl to be talked about."
"But if I prefer another?" stammered Erle.
"Tut, tut, boy, you will soon get over your fancy," returned Mr.
Huntingdon, impatiently. "Most young men have half a dozen flirtations before they settle down. I suppose I need not tell you that I strictly prohibit any visits to Mrs. Trafford for the future. If you infringe this rule it will be at your own risk;" and then he continued more earnestly--"Erle, I am determined that you shall not disappoint me.
You are my adopted son, and I trust my future heir. I have a right to count on your obedience. Come to me to-morrow, and tell me you and Miss Selby are engaged, and all will be well between us." Then, pressing his shoulder gently, and in a voice no one had heard from him since his daughter"s loss--"I am an old man, and my life has not been a happy one. Do not let me feel that you have disappointed me too."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
"I WANT HIM SO."
No shade has come between Thee and the sun; Like some long childish dream Thy life has run; But now the stream has reached A dark deep sea, And sorrow, dim and crowned, Is waiting thee.
ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER.
Fluff woke up before they reached their destination, very much refreshed by her brief nap. When the cab stopped before the side door of Mrs. Watkins"s, and she caught sight of Fern standing on the threshold, as though she had been waiting there some time, she gave a little cry, and literally jumped into her sister"s arms.
"Oh, Fluff, Fluff! what does this mean?" exclaimed poor Fern, who had pa.s.sed a most miserable afternoon, picturing Fluff being borne in a policeman"s arms to the nearest hospital; but Fluff silenced her by an embrace so vehement that it nearly produced strangulation.
"It is all right, Fern, so don"t scold me. Grandpapa was not so very angry--at least, only just at first; but he sent me in the beautifulest supper, such nice things on a big gold plate--really gold, you know, like Princess Dove"s; and Mr. Erle was there, and Percy--and oh! I forgot the poor man in the cab, who is blind--quite blind, but he is very nice too."
"Will you let me explain about your little sister, Miss Trafford,"
said Raby in his pleasant voice; and Fern, turning in some surprise, saw a very tall man in clerical dress standing beside her, as she afterward expressed it to her mother, "with the very nicest face she had ever seen."
"I do not know if you have ever heard my name; I am Mr. Ferrers, and your friend Miss Davenport, as she calls herself, is my sister"s cousin."
"Oh, yes, I know," and Fern"s voice grew pitiful all at once; "and you have come just as Crystal has left us; did Florence tell you? Oh, I am so sorry, so very sorry."
"Yes, the child told me; but there is much that I want to ask you. May I come in? The cab will wait for me." And then, as Fern guided him up the narrow staircase, she told him that her mother was out--an evening cla.s.s had detained her; and she had been thankful that this had been the case, and that she should have been spared the anxiety about Fluff. Mrs. Watkins"s boy was scouring the neighborhood, making inquiries of every one he met; and she had just made up her mind to send for her mother when the cab drove up.
"And she really found her way to Belgrave House?" asked Fern, in a voice between laughing and crying; "oh, what will mother say," and she listened with eagerness to Mr. Ferrers"s account of how the child had accosted him, and of her meeting with Mr. Huntingdon.
Raby himself had been much mystified--he had known nothing of his host"s past history; he had thought that the child was only paying an impromptu visit until she mentioned her name. Erle had told him that Mrs. Trafford was Mr. Huntingdon"s daughter, and that he had never seen her since her marriage. This clew guided him to the meaning of the sternness in Mr. Huntingdon"s voice; but he had hardly understood in what way Erle was implicated, or why the child should receive so little notice from her brother. When Raby had finished his account, which was annotated in a rambling and far from lucid manner by Fluff, Fern sent the child away to change her frock and make herself tidy, and whispered in her ear that she might stay with Mrs. Watkins for a little; and when Fluff had left them she began to speak of Crystal, and to answer the many questions he put to her without stint or reserve; she even told him that Crystal had left them on account of Percy"s mad infatuation.
"It was very wrong of Percy to take advantage of her unprotected situation, and I am sure she went to put a stop to it, and because it was so awkward for us. Crystal is not like other girls--she does not care for admiration; people turn round and look after her in the street because she is so beautiful, but she never seems to notice it."
"No; you are right," he returned, with evident emotion.
As Fern spoke, a scene rose to his memory--a fresh young voice behind his chair seemed to whisper in his ear, "Oh, king, live forever!" and there she stood, his dark-eyed Esther, in her girlish loveliness, her white neck and arms gleaming through lace, a ruby pendant on the slender round throat, the small head looking so queenly with its coils of smooth black hair; and he had turned coldly from her, and she never knew that his was the soul of a lover. "No; you are right," he answered, gently; "she was as guileless and innocent as a child."
Fern looked at him wistfully; all her heart seemed to go out to this sad, n.o.ble-looking man. Crystal had not said too much in his praise; but he looked older than she had imagined--for pain and the knowledge of his shorn and wasted powers had aged him, and there was certainly no youth in his aspect.
"Oh," she said, eagerly, for she longed to say something that would comfort him, "I think sometimes that there is no one so good as Crystal--we have all grown to love her so. She has such high-spirited, troublesome pupils; but she is so patient with them when they are ill, she nurses them, and she has more influence over them than the mother; and she is always so kind and thoughtful, and no one ever sees her cross. She is angry with Percy sometimes; but then he deserves it; and she will not take any pleasure, but all she thinks about is to do little kindnesses for people; and though she is so unhappy that she has grown quite thin with fretting, she tries not to let us see it."
"Has she told you all about herself?" he asked, in a very low voice.
"Yes, and it is that that makes her so unhappy. Oh, she told me all about it, and I thought she would never, never stop crying--it preys upon her mind, and her remorse will not let her be happy: she seems to dread even forgiveness. "I go back to him, when I have blighted his life and darkened his days?" oh! you should have heard the despair in her voice when she said that, Mr. Ferrers," and here Fern"s sweet tones trembled. "Mother and I sometimes think that it will kill her in time, unless she has help and comfort."
"Do not fear, Miss Trafford, she shall have both soon; it will not be long before I find her."
"But she is in America--at least, she is on her way there."
"There are other steamers than the one in which she has crossed,"
returned Raby, with a smile. "I suppose she means to write to you?"
"Oh, yes, she will write from every place--she has promised me long letters, and of course Mrs. Norton will hear from Miss Campion; do you really mean to follow her, Mr. Ferrers?"
"Yes; and to the world"s end if it be necessary. I have a strong will, and even blindness will not hinder me. Tell me how did she seem last night; did she leave cheerfully?"
"Well, no, Crystal puzzled us all night," returned Fern, quickly; "she went out to bid good-bye to her pupils, and Percy waylaid her, as usual, but she got rid of him somehow; but she was out a long time, and she would not give us any reason; but when she came back her eyes were swelled, and she had a dreadful headache, and yet she said Percy had nothing to do with it."
A sudden, wild idea flashed into Raby"s mind. "How was she dressed, Miss Trafford--I mean what colored gown did she wear?"
Fern seemed surprised at the question. "Oh, her old brown gown--she was all in brown, I think;" but she did not understand why Mr. Ferrers seemed so strangely agitated at her answer.
"The tall young lady in brown, who seemed to notice you wanted help;"
he remembered those words of Miss Merriman. Good Heavens! it must have been she; it must have been her little hand that guided him so gently; oh, his miserable blindness. Of course she had seen this Percy Trafford, and he had told her all about the guest they expected, and she had come to the station just to see him once again.
But he would not speak of this to Fern; his darling"s secret should be kept by him; he would hide these sweet proofs of her love and devotion in his own breast. Fern wondered why the miserable, hara.s.sed look left his face. He looked quite young--a different man--as he bade her good-bye; his shoulders were no longer stooping, his head was erect.
"Good-bye, Miss Trafford," he said. "I shall come and see you and your mother again before I leave. I shall go back to Sandycliffe next week, and set my house in order, and talk to my sister. I do not doubt for a moment that she will offer to accompany me. I shall not come back until I bring Crystal with me." And Fern quite believed him. There were restless sleepers that night in Belgrave House. Raby was revolving his plans and wondering what Margaret would say; and on the other side of the wall Erle tossed, wakeful and wretched, knowing that his fate was sealed, and that Evelyn Selby and not Fern Trafford was to be his future wife. And now, as he lay in the darkness, he told himself that in spite of her goodness and beauty he could never love her as he loved Fern. He knew it at the moment he asked her to marry him, and when she put her hand in his and told him frankly that he had long won her heart.
"You are too much a gentleman to treat a woman badly," Mr. Huntingdon had said to him, well knowing the softness and generosity of Erle"s nature; and yet, was he not treating Fern badly?
He had thought over it all until his head was dizzy; but his conscience had told him that his sin against Fern had been light in comparison with that against Evelyn. What were those few evenings in Beulah Place compared to the hours he had pa.s.sed in Evelyn"s society?