THE RING.
“Miss McAllister, do you know the name of the vessel in which Arley was
sent home from India?”
This question was asked by Lady Elaine, who called to see that lady the
day following her visit to Captain Conway at Portsmouth.
She had been telling her something of Jane Collins, and her meeting
with Arley in Madrid, and of the story which had been elicited by
Arley’s resemblance to the beautiful lady who had been rescued by the
_Black Swan_.
She did not, however, say anything about her troubles. She thought that
if Arley had written nothing about them herself, it was because she
still wished to conceal them; though with Philip in London, she did not
see how it was possible for her to remain in ignorance much longer.
“Yes,” Miss McAllister returned to her question, “it was the _White
Star_.”
“No--I mean the name of the vessel by which she was rescued, not the
one that was wrecked.”
“Oh, that was the _Vulcan_.”
Lady Elaine wrote the name down on her tablet.
“What was the name of the captain of the _Vulcan_?” she asked.
“That I do not remember--it has gone from me; but it will be in my
brother’s diary. Ina, dear please hand it to me from the upper drawer
in his desk; there are three volumes; bring me the second,” the old
lady said to Ina Wentworth, who, under the influence of happiness, and
surrounded by every luxury, had grown a hundredfold more beautiful than
when we saw her for the first time on Arley’s wedding day.
“But why are you so very eager about these particulars?” Miss
McAllister continued to Lady Elaine, as Ina rose to do her bidding.
“Because,” she answered, with heightening color, “I believe if I follow
this clew closely, I shall discover who Arley’s parents were. I cannot
help thinking that she is this lost baby, Allie, for whom that poor
mother mourned so, and if I can but find the captain of the _Vulcan_, I
believe he will be able to give me valuable information. Have you any
of the clothing that she wore home at that time?”
“Nothing but her little shoes and stockings and a tiny ring set with an
emerald. Her clothing was so soiled and defaced by the sea water that
we did not preserve it.”
“A little ring set with an emerald,” repeated Lady Elaine, quickly, not
heeding the rest of Miss McAllister’s sentence, while a quick, eager
flush mounted to her forehead--“a ring, or a jewel of any kind is often
the key to such mysteries; may I see it?”
“Of course you may see it,” the old lady returned, with an indulgent
smile, “but I hardly think it will prove anything unless you first find
the parents to identify it, for there might be a hundred such rings in
the world. When it got too tight for Arley’s little fingers I put it
away with the shoes and stockings, and have always regarded them as
sacred relics, since they were all that remained of her parents’ loving
care for her.
“Now, dear,” she added, as Ina came forward and laid Dr. McAllister’s
diary in her lap, “in the second drawer of my escritoire you will find
a small box tied with a blue ribbon; will you please bring that to me
also,” and the beautiful girl, always attentive to her slightest wish,
hastened to get it, and at a gesture from her aunt handed it to Lady
Elaine.
But her fingers trembled so with excitement and eagerness that she
could not unfasten the knot in which the ribbon was tied.
Miss McAllister reached out her hand and gently took it from her.
“My dear, how excited you are over a trifle,” she said. “There is
nothing here which can possibly prove anything, unless, as I said
before, you can find the parents themselves.”
She untied the knot, lifted the cover, and then laid the box back in
her visitor’s lap.
There were two little packages in it, wrapped about with tissue paper,
showing that a loving hand had cared for the contents.
Lady Elaine lifted one and took the paper from it. Two tiny shoes fell
out. They were wrinkled and worn, stained and defaced with sea water,
while their little buttons were blackened and tarnished with time.
“May I take these things for a little while, Miss McAllister?” Lady
Elaine asked. “I will guard them as I would a priceless treasure, and
see that nothing happens to them,” she added appealingly.
“Certainly; you can take them and keep them as long as you think you
may need them. I never attached any importance to anything but the
ring until we discovered that our dear Arley did not really belong to
us--I merely kept them because I thought she would prize them as being
the last things that her mother had provided for her.
“But we had nearly forgotten about the captain of the _Vulcan_,” she
continued, taking up and opening the diary which Ina had brought her.
She turned the leaves until she found the date of Arley’s return, and,
after reading a few pages, she looked up, saying:
“It was Captain Simons, dear; but that is all I can find about him.”
“Who brought Arley to you?” Lady Elaine asked, as if inspired by some
sudden thought.
“A poor woman who was flying from poverty and pestilence in France,
and who hoped to find friends and help here in London. She had lost a
little one just before leaving home, and gladly took charge of Arley
during the remainder of the voyage after she was rescued.”
“But there were others rescued at the same time, were there not?” asked
Lady Elaine, anxiously.
“Oh, yes; several.”
“And did no one know anything about the child? Oh, it seems so strange
that there should be all this mystery, when others were saved from the
same vessel!” and Lady Elaine was greatly agitated.
“Yes, it is strange; but you know that every one is for himself at
such a time; the sailor told the captain that she was the child who
was to be sent to Dr. McAllister, of London, and he immediately gave
her to the first one who was willing to assume the care of her. This
woman--Mary Nelson was her name--yearned for the little one, cared
most tenderly for her until the vessel reached port, when he ordered a
carriage for her and sent her to us with the child.”
“God bless her, and the sailor also who saved her!” cried Lady Elaine,
with streaming eyes.
“My dear, I am afraid you are getting very nervous and excited over
this matter,” Miss McAllister said, gravely, as she looked into the
flushed, beautiful face.
“What became of this woman afterward?” Lady Elaine asked, struggling
for composure.
“She died----”
“Died?” interrupted her listener.
“Yes. My brother was so grateful to her for the services which she
had rendered Arley, and she appeared to be so fond of her, that he at
once took her into the family as her nurse. But she only lived three
months. She took the typhus fever, and died very suddenly.”
Lady Elaine sighed heavily and arose to go. She had not learned much to
help her in her quest, but she was just as resolute to pursue it, in
spite of the difficulties which seemed to hedge her about.
She repaired immediately to one of the steamship lines and made
inquiries regarding the _White Star_, which had been wrecked in 18-- on
her homeward voyage from Calcutta.
The names of its owners were easily found, and, with their addresses
written out, Lady Elaine hastened away to seek an interview with them.
Yes, they remembered the captain of the _White Star_ well, they told
her, when she made her inquiry. He had managed, with his wife--who had
been with him on that fatal voyage--and three or four of the crew,
to make his way to land; but it was not without untold suffering and
hardship, nor until every hope of saving the battered steamship was
past. He had afterward been given the command of another vessel, which
he sailed successfully for a dozen years. After that he had been
attacked with rheumatic troubles and the company did not know whether
he was living or not at the present time. The last they had heard of
him he was residing at Harrow; a town about fifteen miles from London.
His name was Bancroft, and he had been a gallant, faithful, captain.
To Harrow, Lady Elaine hastened, hope reviving in her heart; but her
first inquiry met with a most disappointing reply. Captain Bancroft had
died three years previously.
What should she do? she asked herself, appalled. Must she relinquish
her search? She felt sure that this man could have solved the whole
mystery, and there seemed no other way under heaven to have it
explained. She could not feel reconciled to this disappointment.
“Did he leave no family?” she asked, in a weak voice, of her informant.
“Only a wife,” was the reply. “His two sons--one the captain, the other
the mate of a vessel--were both drowned at sea three months before
their father’s death, and the shock killed him.”
“Does his wife reside here?” Lady Elaine questioned, her face lighting
a trifle, for she remembered having been told that the captain’s wife
had been with him at the time of the wreck of the _White Star_.
“Yes, in yonder cottage, poor thing! in poverty and loneliness.”
“Poor thing, indeed!” Lady Elaine murmured, as she turned toward the
forsaken-looking place pointed out to her.
It could not have contained more than three rooms, and was unpainted
and weather-beaten and fast falling to decay. The weeds grew rank about
the door; many of the windows were broken and the apertures either
pasted over with papers or stopped with rags. A kitten lay asleep upon
the door-step in the sun, while two or three hens strutted lazily about
in the yard, and were the only signs of life about the place.
Having but very little hope of having her mystery solved in that
miserable place, yet feeling that it could do no harm to ask a few
questions, Lady Elaine hesitatingly approached the door and knocked
lightly upon it. After a moment or two of delay it was opened, and she
stood face to face with a majestic-looking woman of about sixty years.
She was very tall and large of frame, straight as an arrow, despite her
life of toil and hardship, and with the bearing of one born to command.
Her hair was white as snow; her face was wrinkled and bronzed, wearing
a stern expression, though a not unkindly gleam lighted her large, blue
eyes as they rested questioningly upon the fair young girl who stood
before her.
Her garb was poor, but spotlessly clean, as was also the floor of the
room within which she stood.
“I am in search of the wife of the late Captain Bancroft,” Lady Elaine
began, hardly knowing how to open the subject of her errand.
“She stands before you,” was the curt yet civil reply.
“May I come in and talk with you a little while, then, Mrs. Bancroft?”
the fair girl asked, adding: “I want to ask you something about the
_White Star_, which was wrecked so many years ago.”
A spasm of pain shot across the woman’s face at this request.
“Yes, yes, you can come in,” she said, with a long-drawn sigh, and,
throwing the door wide for her visitor to enter, she brought forward
the only rocking-chair the room contained, for her to sit upon.
“I should not have intruded upon you,” Lady Elaine said, when they
were both seated, “but it is of vital importance to me and a very
dear friend, that we learn everything possible about the loss of that
steamer.”
“Ah, miss! ah, miss! that was a sad, sad day! I never saw the like of
it before--I have never seen the like of it since!” wailed the old
woman, rocking back and forth in her chair and covering her face with
her apron, as if to shut out even the memory of it.