But I did not even thank him for that. What had been wretched, while he was with me, became intolerable when he was gone. I drew the chairs aside, and walked up and down the long apartment in restless misery. Day after day, year after year, were we to live thus?—together, yet with a world between us—with nothing to say to each other—nothing to do with each other—a sullen, dreary silence, or half-a-dozen forced words, making all our domestic intercourse. I had anticipated much vague misery, but the actual exceeded the ideal; and yet, though it was miserable to be together, I was impatient and jealous of his absence; and when I threw myself into a chair by the fire, and began to gaze into it, and to brood over our new life, my thoughts settled down upon a nearer object, and I only wondered where he had gone to, when he would come back again, and if he came again, what he would say.
It was so strange to raise my head, and look round, and see the familiar faces of those family portraits looking down upon me. Instinctively I turned to that portrait which I had said he resembled as a boy. I did not think it was like him now; his face was no longer the face of a student, with those downcast, thoughtful eyelids, and lines of visionary pensiveness. My husband was no visionary; he was not a man to be consumed of over-much thought; he loved the free, open air—he loved exertion and wholesome labor. With a strange perception I found out that this was the case. We seemed to have changed characters since the time of our youth. It was I, now, who lived the unwholesome inner life, who shut myself up with my thoughts. I, whose nature was not so—whose spirit was eager, and courageous, and enterprising—who all my life, till now, had loved adventure and freedom—I was paralysed. I was contented to sit still, brooding and wretched. I cared no longer for the healthful functions of life.
But I was glad when Alice came into the room, and interrupted my thoughts. I had still sufficient discretion to know that, at this moment at least, it was safer not to indulge them. I made Alice sit down by me, and talk to me, though she looked wistfully round the room, and into my face, as if to ask me where he had gone. Alice had learned caution now, and was silent about him. We began to speak of my father. The harsh tempest of my unhappiness had swallowed the tears, the tenderness, the complaints of grief. I had scarcely mourned at all for my father, as people call mourning. His loss added a perfect desolation to my other misfortunes, but I did not weep for it as for a great calamity. It shut up my heart in a closer seclusion—it did not soften and lay me prostrate. I was under a process of hardening, and not of subduing. Contact with death did not humble me—it only made me withdraw myself the more into my own disturbed and darkened world, my own desolated and solitary heart. But since I had been reconciled to her, I found a little refuge, a little comfort with Alice. I sat and wept when she spoke of him. I was glad to hear her do it. I felt myself lightened and eased by a conversation such as we were having now.
While we talked thus, my eye happened to fall upon my father’s ring. I had to wear it on my forefinger, it was so much larger than the other; and I did not like to have profane hands touch it, or to give it away from me, even for an hour, to have it altered. A misfortune! I had no clue to what my father meant when he called it so.
“Did you ever hear any story of this, Alice?” I said, holding it up to her; “he said it was a misfortune. I cannot tell what he meant.”
“Yes, Miss Hester! I’ve heard the story,” said Alice; “it belongs to the family, dear. And there’s a strange tale to it, and a prophecy, though whether it’s just fancy, or true, or what trust you may put upon it, it’s not for the like of me to tell. But I never believe myself, Miss Hester, that there’s power in a bit of gold and a shining stone, even if it’s as precious as that.”
“I have never heard of it. Tell me, Alice,” I said.
“It’s called the Star of Misfortune, dear,” said Alice, lowering her voice with some awe, though she had professed her scepticism, “and I’ve heard say it was a very grand diamond, and could buy up many a poor man’s house; but this I know to be true, Miss Hester, that though it’s been sold, and lost, and given away, the house of Cottiswoode never can keep it from them—it always comes back again—and it never can be lost till the time, let them do what they will.”
“But I do not understand this. Tell me the story, Alice,” said I.
“Well, Miss Hester, it belonged to the second son of Cottiswoode many a long year ago,” said Alice; “it was in a time when there was little learning—far different from now. But them that were learned had great arts that are never heard of now-a-days. The story goes that he got it from a spirit—but you’re not to think, dear, that I put faith in that—he had been a strange gentleman, given up to learning and caring for nothing else—though good to the poor and kind-hearted, as I have heard. There was but two sons of them, and the eldest, the Squire that was, a great gentleman at court, gave Cottiswoode to his brother to live in; and then he used to live all solitary, reading his books and studying everything in the earth and the skies, and was counted a great scholar in his day. And wherever he went and wherever he was seen, he wore that ring on his left hand.”