Involuntarily, without thinking what I did, I removed my ring to my left hand as Alice spoke. In spite of her professions of unbelief, Alice spoke very reverentially, and impressed her hearer with a strong conviction of the truth of what she said.
“Yes, dear, there he is,” said Alice, pointing suddenly to one of the portraits, “if you look close, you’ll see the ring on his finger; and I don’t doubt he was a fine young gentleman, and all the look of a scholar about his brow.”
I started with great surprise—the portrait—the one which I thought like Edgar Southcote when he was a boy—was the very same one at which I had been looking before she came in. “I have heard of him often,” I said—“but I never heard this story—and, Alice, my father never wore this diamond while we were in Cottiswoode.”
“It was because of the tale, Miss Hester. Hush, dear, and I will tell you,” said Alice. “His name was Mr. Edgar, and he was the Squire’s only brother, as I said—and for long they were loving friends—the one was great at court and the other a great scholar, and Cottiswoode was a grander estate, and a grander Hall there than it is now. But Mr. Edgar chanced to see a young lady nigh and fell in love with her, Miss Hester—and the Squire came down on a visit, and he fell in love with her too—and strife came between the brothers, as it comes between many a generation of the name since—and the lady chose the Squire and cast off Mr. Edgar, and there was sad work in the house. But the end was that Mr. Edgar left all his books, and went away to foreign parts—to foreign parts—to the wars—and though his brother and the lady wanted to make friends, he would not, but held his left hand to them, and said he would leave their children an inheritance. Well, as the story goes, Miss Hester, no one thought more of that, except to be sorry for the poor gentleman, and the Squire and the lady settled down at Cottiswoode, and had two beautiful boys, and were as happy as a summer-day; but when ten years were gone, an old man from over the sea brought a letter to the Squire—and what was this but Mr. Edgar’s ring, and a prophecy about the house and the name of Southcote—the ring was always to go to the second son, and it was to be called the Star of Misfortune; and trouble was never to depart from the race till it was lost.”
“But you said it would not be lost,” I said, eagerly.
“Neither it can, till its time,” said Alice with solemnity; “when there is no second son born to the house of Cottiswoode, but only an heir, then the curse was to be over; and when it was worn upon a woman’s finger it was to lose its power; if it had not been for that, dear—though I put no trust in such things—I could neither have told you the tale, nor seen that evil thing shining on your innocent finger. Well, it came to pass, Miss Hester, that when the poor lady at Cottiswoode read the words Mr. Edgar had written, and saw the diamond, she screamed out it was shining and looking at her like a living eye, and fell down in a fit, and was brought to bed of a dead baby, and died before the week’s end, and the Squire’s heart broke, and the two boys grew up with no one minding them. There was strife between them from that very day, the story goes, and when they came to be men—it was the time of the civil wars—and one took one side and one the other; and the youngest boy went off from the house by night with that jewel on his finger, and nothing else but his sword; and Cottiswoode was taken by the rebels, and blood shed upon the kindly threshold—brother’s blood, Miss Hester, but neither of them was killed—and when that young man died, the ring came back to the hall by a strange messenger, though it had been sold to buy bread. And so it has been ever since. When there was more than two sons in Cottiswoode, there was less harm—but that has only been twice in all the history of the house. Brother has warred against brother, Miss Hester, from Edgar the scholar’s time down to Mr. Brian and your papa; but one way or another, dear, the ring has come back to the house, and never gone to any but the second son of Cottiswoode till now. When your papa was master here, he put it away, and maybe he thought the curse was past; but them that knew the tale, knew well that the curse would not be past till there was a born heir, and only one son in the house. And when the present young squire came, your papa put on the ring again—it goes to my heart to see you wear it, Miss Hester. It never was but a token of evil. I think it put thoughts of strife into the mind of every one that ever wore it; thoughts and examples of ill, darling, and we’re all too ready to follow iniquity, God help and preserve us! and that is the story of the ring.”
“And, Alice, tell me again how it is to be lost?” I asked anxiously.
“When there is but one heir, and no second son; and when love and peace is in the house of Cottiswoode, and when those that are nearest in blood are dearest in heart; then the ring that never could be lost before, will fall from the hand of a born Southcote, and never be seen again—that is the prophecy, Miss Hester,” said Alice, “and if I saw it come to pass, I would give thanks to God!”
I was much excited by this story—it threw a strange weird ghostly romance about us and our race. I fitted the ring closer upon the fore-finger of my left hand, and held it up sparkling with its living quivering radiance, in the firelight. For myself, I felt no desire to lose it—it had gained a superstitious importance in my eyes: I resolved to keep it sacred, and preserve for ever, as my father had bidden me, this strange inheritance. I was not pleased with my exemption, as a woman, from its magic power—women, as I had cause to know, were quite as accessible to passions of resentment, and even to the desire for revenge, as men were, and I should have been better satisfied had there been some place for me in this grand system of family vengeance. With a different, yet a stronger interest, I looked up at the picture of Edgar the scholar, with its contemplative student face and pensive eyes. How strange that this man should be the origin of such bitter retribution—for it was very bitter, pitiless, almost fiend-like, an inheritance of animosity to be borne by brother against brother. I wondered as I looked up at the regular calm features, the undisturbed refined face, I could see no cruelty in it, as it looked down upon me thoughtfully from the familiar wall.
“It should be called the star of strife, and not of misfortune, Alice,” I said.