THE TRUTH TOLD.
True to her promise, Lady Elaine went the next day to see her
_protegee_, if such Jane Collins could be called; and she continued her
visits to her as long as she was an invalid, always carrying her some
little delicacy in the way of fruit, flowers, jellies, etc., and was
herself so gracious and winning and sympathetic that the woman came to
long and watch eagerly for her coming.
One day she went to her a little earlier than usual, taking as her
offering some great, luscious oranges. She had already carried her all
kinds of fruit, but this afternoon she had seen these unusually fine
ones, and their fair, golden beauty had tempted her to buy them more
than anything else.
As she passed the basket to Jane, upon her entrance to her room, she
took one, and, after looking at it a moment, said, with a sigh:
“I never see an orange, my leddy, but I think of a poor, young thing,
sick and friendless, who I took care of in Madrid last summer.”
“Madrid?” exclaimed Lady Elaine, her heart leaping into her throat at
the name. “Were you in Madrid last summer?”
“Yes, my leddy, and my heart aches every time I think of that poor
dear, for I had to leave her before she began to mend in that heathen
country, and she couldn’t speak a word of their gibberish. I’d give
much to know that she got well, and is all right again.”
“Was she English?” Lady Elaine asked, much interested, and with a
little nervous tremor.
“That she was, and just a sweet little body, too; but she were dreadful
sick, and used to beg for oranges like a thirsty child for water.
Many’s the one I’ve held to her mouth and squeezed the cool juice
between her burnin’ lips. She was such a young thing, too, to be
neglected by her wretch of a husband!”
“Husband! What! was she married?--and neglected when she was ill?”
cried Lady Elaine, beginning to lose color at this point of the story.
“Yes, leddy. It’s a sad story. The pretty child left England a bride
and went traveling from place to place with her husband, who seemed to
have a grudge against her for something, and wouldn’t let her go home,
though she often begged him to take her back. When they got to Madrid
their money gave out entirely, and he couldn’t pay their bills. Then he
got reckless, and didn’t care, and he wouldn’t work nor try to support
her. She didn’t tell me all this, yer leddyship; I found out a good
deal when she was ravin’ with the fever. When she found that his money
was gone, she said she couldn’t live so, and if he wouldn’t work to
take care of her, she must do something to support herself. So she went
away from him into cheaper lodgings, and went to drawin’ and paintin’
pictures to earn the bread she ate. She had some money that her aunt
gave her for a weddin’ present, but she were savin’ it to pay her
passage back to England as soon as she could find some one to go with;
and one day, when she went to see the consul to get him to put her in
somebody’s care, a thief broke into her room and stole all her jewels
and money. The shock and a sudden cold that she took threw her into a
dreadful fever, and she was at the sickest when I had to leave her.”
“That was hard. But how did you happen to be with her at all?” asked
her listener.
“Well, ye see, John and I’ve been seafaring people all our lives. He’s
worked up from a common sailor to mate, and I’ve always gone along
with him as stewardess. This time we sailed aboard the _Rocket_, bound
from London to Valencia for fruits, and just before we entered port
at Valencia, on this voyage, John saved the cap’n’s life, and so,
when we landed, he told us we should have a holiday, and go where we
liked while the vessel was being loaded up. We thought we’d like to
travel about a bit, and we went up to Madrid for a look at the city,
and one day we thought we’d go and pay our respects to the English
consul. While we were waitin’ to see him, this pretty young thing
comes into the waitin’-room and sets right down in front of us. I was
that startled when I see her that I thought my heart would jump out of
my mouth, for she was the perfect image of a beautiful leddy that we
picked up at sea once. She and her husband had been shipwrecked coming
home from India, and they had lost their baby--‘Baby Allie,’ the poor
mother called her, with such heart-breaking moans that they have rung
in my ears ever since.”
“Oh! who were they?” Lady Elaine cried, with almost breathless
eagerness.
“Ah! leddy, I can’t tell ye; but this young girl looked so exactly like
the beautiful leddy that John and I fell to talking about it and she
heard us. She turned as white as a ghost as she looked around at us and
asked us would we please tell her who we were talking about, for she
had been lost coming home from India during a shipwreck, and there was
some puzzle about her parents and who she were.”
“It is Arley--she is telling me about Arley!” Lady Elaine cried to
herself, her teeth almost chattering from nervous excitement. She had
half suspected it before--now she was sure. But she restrained her
impulse to speak of it, and listened eagerly while Jane went on with
her story.
“We told her,” she said, “that we could not tell her who the leddy and
gentleman were, for we were so busy tendin’ to their wants and needs we
never thought to ask; but probably the captain knew, and would tell
her, if she could find him. She sighed and looked disappointed, but
said it was ‘a clew,’ and might help her some time. She seemed ’mazin’
glad to find we were English, and asked were we goin’ back to England
soon. We told her yes, in a little more’n a week. Then she said, ‘Would
we let her go along with us?’
“John was mighty taken with her, for she were jest about the
sweetest-spoken, prettiest little thing we’d ever seen, and he said
he’d try to fix it, if she’d be willin’ to go in a sailin’ vessel. She
told him, so eager and wistful, that she’d go any way to get home once
more. Then we agreed that we’d go and talk more about it with her the
next day, but when we got there, I found her ravin’ with the fever, and
more likely to go into her coffin than back to England. I saw that the
sickness would go hard with her, and there was no one to take care of
her, save that jabberin’ woman who kept the house; so I took my things
right straight off, and told John I should stay with her till the last
minit before it was time to go back to the _Rocket_.”
“You good creature!” murmured Lady Elaine, with glistening eyes, while
she was trembling from head to foot over this thrilling account of
Arley’s strange misfortunes.
“Anybody with a heart o’ stone couldn’t have helped it, if they’d seen
her lyin’ there so helpless and neglected; but I didn’t s’pose then
that I was goin’ to get my pay back in the same way,” Jane returned,
with a grateful look in the fair face opposite her. “I s’pose that is
what the good Book means, where it tells ye to ‘cast your bread upon
the waters, and ye shall get it again after many days.’ Well, that poor
dear was dreadful bad for three or four days, but the fifth she seemed
a little better, for she knew me, and told me about her troubles, or
something about them. She didn’t say much about that scamp, she sort
o’ shielded him, but I knew enough already from her ravin’s, and so,
with what she told me, I had the whole story. But it would have broken
your heart to see how she took on when she found that she couldn’t go
home with us, and then it came out that almost all her money had been
stolen, and she hadn’t anything to pay her bills with. But I fixed that
all right for her, and then tried to comfort her as well as I could by
tellin’ her that it wasn’t fit for the like of her to be goin’ back
to England in a sailin’ vessel, and ’twould be ever so much better to
wait and go like a lady in a steamer, and I finally left her a bit
comforted.”
“But was there no one in all that city--no English person whom you
could have hired to take care of her?” Lady Elaine asked, much
distressed over Arley’s sad state.
“Not a soul, my leddy, though we asked our guide--we had to hire one
to go with us wherever we went, for, of course, we couldn’t understand
a word of that gibberish, and he didn’t know of anybody; the consul was
away, and so we had to leave her. I s’pose that wretch of a husband was
somewhere about, but he couldn’t be found.”
“Did he never come to her while she was sick?”
“No, leddy, not while I were there; she sent for him once, but he’d
gone from their other lodgin’s, and nobody knew where to find him. She
said if she was only well she should not mind bein’ left so much, nor
the loss of the money--though her heart did ache to get home--for she
could draw, and paint, and sell her pictures and take care of herself,
but to be sick and alone and without any money was fit to discourage
anybody. The little chatterin’ doctor was good to her, though, and she
could talk French with him, so it wasn’t quite so bad as it might have
been; and I told her she needn’t worry over the money I’d let her have
and the poor dear wanted me to take her di’monds--for it had gone into
the Lord’s treasury, and He’d take care of it. And He has.”
“What! have you ever heard from her? Has she sent it back to you?”
asked the young countess, not quite comprehending her meaning.
“Oh, dear, no marm. I don’t mean that, but you have been so much kinder
to me than I was to her, that I’ve had my pay twice over already,” was
the earnest reply.
Lady Elaine smiled.
“That is the way you reckon it, is it?” she said. Then, with a strange
trembling of her lips and a queer feeling at her heart, she asked:
“Who was this lady? What was her name?”
“She told me it was Mrs.--Mrs. Paxton--I’m sure that was it; and I
reckon that her scamp of a husband’s other name were Philip, for when
she were ravin’ she would call out that name and beg him to go to work
so that they could go home, and not stay there to starve or get into
debt. I tell ye, my leddy, I don’t do much snivelin’ on my own account,
but it made me cry like a baby to hear her; and then the day I had
to leave her! I declare! for the first time in my life I was almost
willin’ to let John go off alone, while I stayed and took care of her.
Ah! my leddy, but ye have a tender heart yerself,” Jane concluded,
as she heard a convulsive sob and saw that Lady Elaine was weeping
bitterly.
“Oh, Jane, you do not know it, but you have been telling me about my
dearest friend,” she said. “I was quite sure of it, even before you
spoke her name, and it nearly breaks my heart to learn how she has
suffered and been wronged. She was called Arley Wentworth when I first
knew her, and she was a lovely girl, and she never knew a care or
sorrow until the day she married Philip Paxton. I have never seen her
since, for she went away directly, but she has written to me several
times, though she has never hinted at any trouble, and yet I have
imagined that she was not happy. And now----”
She stopped short, her face all ablaze with indignation, as she thought
of the wretch who, having refused to do anything to support the wife
whom he had won under false pretenses, had taken her to a strange,
almost barbarous country, and, when she was sick, destitute, and
friendless, had left her to her fate and returned to his own country.
Her heart was in a perfect tumult of contempt and righteous anger, and
she almost hated herself for having tolerated his presence for one
moment. However, he stood unmasked before her now, and she would know
how to deal with him in the future.
Jane Collins was greatly surprised by what Lady Elaine told her.
“Just to think of it!” she cried, her face a perfect picture of
wonderment. “How queer things do come about?”
“How long were you with Arley?” her companion asked.
“Just about a week, yer leddyship--the day was set for the _Rocket_ to
sail, and go I must in her, for there was no one to take my place, and
John couldn’t get along without me any more than a baby could without
its mother.”
“And you are sure that no one came to see or to inquire after my friend
during that time?” questioned the young countess, thoughtfully, and
remembering what Philip had told her about Arley receiving attention
and money from a gentleman in Madrid.
“No, leddy, not a soul came near her save the doctor, John and I,” Jane
asserted, confidently.
“Did she at any time speak of any one whom she knew, or wished to call
upon for assistance?”
“No, marm; she said she hadn’t a friend to help her, and she would be
without a soul to do her a good turn when I was gone.”
“Strange!” murmured Lady Elaine, musingly. “No, it is not strange,
either,” she added to herself; “it is all of a piece with his other
treachery.”
Then she began to question Jane regarding the clew which Arley had
gained, or thought she had gained, about her parentage. She made her
go over every item of the story which she had told Arley, and which we
know already; and as she listened to it she also became excited and
nervous over it.
She drew out her pocket-tablet, writing down portions of the tale,
asking quick, eager questions, taking down the name of the captain of
the _Rocket_, and the place of his residence when in port, and gleaning
every item which seemed likely to be of use in sifting the mystery of
her friend’s birth.
She was astonished when the little clock in Jane’s kitchen gave five
short, sharp strokes.
“Why, it is five o’clock, and I have kept you talking much longer than
I ought!” she exclaimed, ruefully. “I have been here more than two
hours, and I should have gone home long ago.”
She took leave of Jane, and, hastening to her carriage, was driven back
to her hotel.