She was silent a moment, as if looking back into the past. "It is the sequel, rather than the story itself, that is singular," she said. "The first part is like only too many other stories, alas! Your Great-aunt Phoebe—your Great-great-aunt, I should say—was betrothed to a brave young officer, Lieutenant Hetherington. It was just at the breaking out of the War of 1812, and the engagement was made just as he was going into active service. She was a beautiful girl, with large dark eyes, and superb fair hair,—none of you three girls have this combination, but it is not uncommon among the Montforts; I myself had fair hair and dark eyes. Phoebe was highly romantic, and when her lover went to war, she gave him a sword-belt plaited of her own hair."
"Oh," cried Margaret, "like Sir Percival's sister!"
"Exactly! Very likely it was from that story that she took the idea, for she was a great reader. However it might be, her mother was greatly distressed at her cutting off so much of her fine hair, and did her best to prevent it, but to no purpose, as you may imagine. Giles Hetherington joined the army, carrying the braided belt with him, and they say he never parted with it, night or day, but slept with it beside him on the pillow. Poor fellow! He was killed in a night attack by the Indians, set on by the British. He was in a hut with some other officers, and the sentry must have slept at his post, they supposed. They were surrounded, the house set on fire, and the officers all killed. One private escaped to tell the dreadful story, and he told of the gallant fight they made, and how Giles Hetherington fought for the life that was so dear to others. He defended the door while two of his comrades forced the window open, hoping to steal around and take the savages in the rear; but the window was watched, too, and these officers were shot down, and then an Indian sprang in at the window, and stabbed Hetherington in the back. Ah, me! It is a terrible story, dear child! He staggered back to the bed, the soldier said, and caught up the belt, that was lying there while he slept. He was past speech, but he gave it to this soldier, who was a lad from this place, and motioned him to the window; then he fell back dead, and the man crept out of the window,—the Indians having run around to the front,—and crawled off, lying flat in the grass, and so escaped with his life. He brought the belt, all dabbled with blood, back to Fernley, meaning to give it to Madam Montfort quietly, that she might break the news to her daughter, but poor Phoebe chanced to come through the garden just as he was standing on the steps with the belt in his hand, and she saw it."
"Oh! oh, dear!" cried Margaret, clasping her hands. "Aunt Faith, it is too dreadful! How could she bear it?"
"My dear, she could not bear it. She had not the strength. She did not lose her mind, like poor Aunt Penelope, but really, it might almost have been as well if she had, poor soul. When she woke from the long swoon into which she had fallen at sight of the belt, she heard all the story through without a word, and then she came here, and left the world."
"Came here?" repeated Margaret.
"Here, to these rooms; but what different rooms! She sent for a painter, and had the walls painted black. She had everything with an atom of colour in it taken away; and in these black rooms she lived, and in them she died. She wept so much—partly that, and partly the want of light—that her eyes became abnormally sensitive, and she could not bear even to see anything white. As time went on—Margaret, you will hardly believe this, but it is literally true—she would not even have white china on her table. She declared it hurt her eyes. So her father, who could refuse her nothing, sent for a set of dark brown china, and she ate brown bread on it,—would not look at white bread,—and was served by a mulatto woman, an old nurse who had been in the family from her childhood."
"Aunt Faith, can it be—you say it really is true! but—how could they let her? Why did they not have an oculist?"
"My dear child, oculists did not exist in those days. If she were living to-day, it would be pronounced a case of nervous exhaustion, and she would be taken for a sea voyage, or sent to a rest-cure, or treated in one of the hundred different ways that we know of nowadays. But then, nobody knew what to do for her, poor lady. To be 'crossed in love,' as it was called, was a thing that admitted of no cure, unless the patient were willing to be cured. People spoke of Phoebe Montfort under their breath, and called her 'a blight,' meaning a person whose life has been blighted. The world has gone on a good deal in the two generations since then, my dear Margaret."
"I should think so," said Margaret; "poor soul! And did she have to live very long, Aunt Faith? I hope not!"