“PICKED UP ADRIFT.”
On the morning following two travelers left a small inn which lay on the
road-side, about ten miles north of Brandon. It was about eight o’clock
when they took their departure, driving in their own carriage at a
moderate pace along the road.
“Look, Langhetti,” said the one who was driving, pointing with his whip
to an object in the road directly in front of them.
Langhetti raised his head, which had been bowed down in deep
abstraction, to look in the direction indicated. A figure was
approaching them. It looked like a woman. She walked very slowly, and
appeared rather to stagger than to walk.
“She appears to be drunk, Despard,” said Langhetti. “Poor wretch, and on
this bleak March morning too! Let us stop and see if we can do any thing
for her.”
They drove on, and as they met the woman Despard stopped.
She was young and extraordinarily beautiful. Her face was thin and
white. Her clothing was of fine materials but scanty and torn to shreds.
As they stopped she turned her large eyes up despairingly and stood
still, with a face which seemed to express every conceivable emotion of
anguish and of hope. Yet as her eyes rested on Langhetti a change came
over her. The deep and unutterable sadness of her face passed away, and
was succeeded by a radiant flash of joy. She threw out her arms toward
him with a cry of wild entreaty.
The moment that Langhetti saw her he started up and stood for an instant
as if paralyzed. Her cry came to his ears. He leaped from the carriage
toward her, and caught her in his arms.
“Oh, Bice! Alas, my Bicina!” he cried, and a thousand fond words came to
his lips.
Beatrice looked up with eyes filled with grateful tears; her lips
murmured some inaudible sentences; and then, in this full assurance
of safety, the resolution that had sustained her so long gave way
altogether. Her eyes closed, she gave a low moan, and sank senseless
upon his breast.
Langhetti supported her for a moment, then gently laid her down to try
and restore her. He chafed her hands, and did all that is usually done
in such emergencies. But here the case was different--it was more than a
common faint, and the animation now suspended was not to be restored by
ordinary efforts.
Langhetti bowed over her as he chafed her hands. “Ah, my Bicina,” he
cried; “is it thus I find you! Ah, poor thin hand! Alas, white wan face!
What suffering has been yours, pure angel, among those fiends of hell!”
He paused, and turned a face of agony toward Despard. But as he looked
at him he saw a grief in his countenance that was only second to his
own. Something in Beatrice’s appearance had struck him with a deeper
feeling than that merely human interest which the generous heart feels
in the sufferings of others.
“Langhetti,” said he, “let us not leave this sweet angel exposed to this
bleak wind. We must take her back to the inn. We have gained our object.
Alas! the gain is worse than a failure.”
“What can we do?”
“Let us put her in the carriage between us, and drive back instantly.”
Despard stooped as he spoke, raised her reverently in his arms, and
lifted her upon the seat. He sprang in and put his arms around her
senseless form, so as to support her against himself. Langhetti looked
on with eyes that were moist with a sad yet mysterious feeling.
Then he resumed his place in the carriage.
“Oh, Langhetti!” said Despard, “what is it that I saw in the face of
this poor child that so wrings my heart? What is this mystery of yours
that you will not tell?”
“I can not solve it,” said Langhetti, “and therefore I will not tell
it.”
“Tell it, whatever it is.”
“No, it is only conjecture as yet, and I will not utter it.”
“And it affects me?”
“Deeply.”
“Therefore tell it.”
“Therefore I must not tell it; for if it prove baseless I shall only
excite your feeling in vain.”
“At any rate let me know. For I have the wildest fancies, and I wish to
know if it is possible that they are like your own.”
“No, Despard,” said Langhetti. “Not now. The time may come, but it has
not yet.”
Beatrice’s head leaned against Despard’s shoulder as she reclined
against him, sustained by his arm. Her face was upturned; a face as
white as marble, her pure Grecian features showing now their faultless
lines like the sculptured face of some goddess. Her beauty was perfect
in its classic outline. But her eyes were closed, and her wan, white
lips parted; and there was a sorrow on her face which did not seem
appropriate to one so young.
[Illustration: “HE LEAPED FROM THE CARRIAGE TOWARD HER, AND CAUGHT HER
IN HIS ARMS.”]
“Look,” said Langhetti, in a mournful voice. “Saw you ever in all your
life any one so perfectly and so faultlessly beautiful? Oh, if you could
but have seen her, as I have done, in her moods of inspiration, when she
sang! Could I ever have imagined such a fate as this for her?”
“Oh, Despard!” he continued, after, a pause in which the other had
turned his stern face to him without a word--“Oh, Despard! you ask me to
tell you this secret. I dare not. It is so wide-spread. If my fancy be
true, then all your life must at once be unsettled, and all your soul
turned to one dark purpose. Never will I turn you to that purpose till I
know the truth beyond the possibility of a doubt.”
“I saw that in her face,” said Despard, “which I hardly dare acknowledge
to myself.”
“Do not acknowledge it, then, I implore you. Forget it. Do not open up
once more that old and now almost forgotten sorrow. Think not of it even
to yourself.”
Langhetti spoke with a wild and vehement urgency which was wonderful.
“Do you not see,” said Despard, “that you rouse my curiosity to an
intolerable degree?”
“Be it so; at any rate it is better to suffer from curiosity than to
feel what you must feel if I told you what I suspect.”
Had it been any other man than Langhetti Despard would have been
offended. As it was he said nothing, but began to conjecture as to the
best course for them to follow.
“It is evident,” said he to Langhetti, “that she has escaped from
Brandon Hall during the past night. She will, no doubt, be pursued. What
shall we do? If we go back to this inn they will wonder at our bringing
her. There is another inn a mile further on.”
“I have been thinking of that,” replied Langhetti. “It will be better to
go to the other inn. But what shall we say about her? Let us say she is
an invalid going home.”
“And am I her medical attendant?” asked Despard.
“No; that is not necessary. You are her guardian--the Rector of Holby,
of course--your name is sufficient guarantee.”
“Oh,” said Despard, after a pause, “I’ll tell you something better yet.
I am her brother and she is my sister--Miss Despard.”
As he spoke he looked down upon her marble face. He did not see
Langhetti’s countenance. Had he done so he would have wondered. For
Langhetti’s eyes seemed to seek to pierce the very soul of Despard.
His face became transformed. Its usual serenity vanished, and there was
eager wonder, intense and anxious curiosity--an endeavor to see if there
was not some deep meaning underlying Despard’s words. But Despard showed
no emotion. He was conscious of no deep meaning. He merely murmured to
himself as he looked down upon the unconscious face:
“My sick sister--my sister Beatrice.”
Langhetti said not a word, but sat in silence, absorbed in one intense
and wondering gaze. Despard seemed to dwell upon this idea, fondly and
tenderly.
“She is not one of that brood,” said he, after a pause. “It is in name
only that she belongs to them.”
“They are fiends and she is an angel,” said Langhetti.
“Heaven has sent her to us; we most preserve her forever.”
“If she lives,” said Langhetti, “she must never go back.”
“Go back!” cried Despard. “Better far for her to die.”
“I myself would die rather than give her up.”
“And I, too. But we will not. I will adopt her. Yes, she shall cast away
the link that binds her to these accursed ones--her vile name. I will
adopt her. She shall have my name--she shall be my sister. She shall be
Beatrice Despard.
“And surely,” continued Despard, looking tenderly down, “surely, of all
the Despard race there was never one so beautiful and so pure as she.”
Langhetti did not say a word, but looked at Despard and the one whom
he thus called his adopted sister with an emotion which he could
not control. Tears started to his eyes; yet over his brow there came
something which is not generally associated with tears--a lofty,
exultant expression, an air of joy and peace.
“Your sister,” said Despard, “shall nurse her back to health. She
will do so for your sake, Langhetti--or rather from her own noble and
generous instincts. In Thornton Grange she will, perhaps, find some
alleviation for the sorrows which she may have endured. Our care shall
be around her, and we can all labor together for her future welfare.”
They at length reached the inn of which they had spoken, and Beatrice
was tenderly lifted out and carried up stairs. She was mentioned as the
sister of the Rev. Mr. Despard, of Holby, who was bringing her back from
the sea-side, whither she had gone for her health. Unfortunately, she
had been too weak for the journey.
The people of the inn showed the kindest attention and warmest sympathy.
A doctor was sent for, who lived at a village two miles farther on.
Beatrice recovered from her faint, but remained unconscious. The doctor
considered that her brain was affected. He shook his head solemnly over
it; as doctors always do when they have nothing in particular to say.
Both Langhetti and Despard knew more about her case than he did.
They saw that rest was the one thing needed. But rest could be better
attained in Holby than here; and besides, there was the danger of
pursuit. It was necessary to remove her; and that, too, without delay.
A closed carriage was procured without much difficulty, and the patient
was deposited therein.
A slow journey brought them by easy stages to Holby. Beatrice remained
unconscious. A nurse was procured, who traveled with her. The condition
of Beatrice was the same which she described in her diary. Great grief
and extraordinary suffering and excitement had overtasked the brain, and
it had given way. So Despard and Langhetti conjectured.
At last they reached Holby. They drove at once to Thornton Grange.
“What is this?” cried Mrs. Thornton, who had heard nothing from them,
and ran out upon the piazza to meet them as she saw them coming.
“I have found Bice,” said Langhetti, “and have brought her here.”
“Where is she?”
“There,” said Langhetti. “I give her to your care--it is for you to give
her back to me.”