MRS. COMPTON’S SECRET.
On the night after the arrival of John, Brandon had left Denton. He
did not return till the following day. On arriving at the inn he saw an
unusual spectacle--the old man on the balcony, the crowd of villagers
around, the universal excitement.
On entering the inn he found some one who for some time had been waiting
to see him. It was Philips. Philips had come early in the morning, and
had been over to the cottage. He had learned all about the affair at the
inn, and narrated it to Brandon, who listened with his usual calmness.
He then gave him a letter from Frank, which Brandon read, and put in his
pocket.
Then Philips told him the news which he had learned at the cottage about
Langhetti. Langhetti and Despard were both there yet, the former very
dangerously ill, the latter waiting for some friends. He also told about
the affair on the road, the seizure of Clark, and his delivery into the
hands of the authorities.
Brandon heard all this with the deepest interest. While the excitement
at the inn was still at its height, he hurried off to the magistrate
into whose hands Clark had been committed. After an interview with
him he returned. He found the excitement unabated. He then went to the
cottage close by the inn, where Beatrice had found a home, and Langhetti
a refuge. Philips was with him.
On knocking at the door Asgeelo opened it. They entered the parlor, and
in a short time Mrs. Compton appeared. Brandon’s first inquiry was after
Langhetti.
“He is about the same,” said Mrs. Compton.
“Does the doctor hold out any hopes of his recovery?” asked Brandon,
anxiously.
“Very little,” said Mrs. Compton.
“Who nurses him?”
“Miss Potts and Mr. Despard.”
“Are they both here?”
“Yes.”
Brandon was silent.
“I will go and tell them that you are here,” said Mrs. Compton.
Brandon made no reply, and Mrs. Compton, taking silence for assent, went
to announce his arrival.
In a short time they appeared. Beatrice entered first. She was grave,
and cold, and solemn; Despard was gloomy and stern. They both shook
hands with Brandon in silence. Beatrice gave her hand without a word,
lifelessly and coldly; Despard took his hand abstractedly.
Brandon looked earnestly at Beatrice as she stood there before him,
calm, sad, passionless, almost repellent in her demeanor, and wondered
what the cause might be of such a change.
Mrs. Compton stood apart at a little distance, near Philips, and looked
on with a strange expression, half wistful, half timid.
There was a silence which at length became embarrassing. From the room
where they were sitting the inn could plainly be seen, with the crowd
outside. Beatrice’s eyes were directed toward this. Despard said not
a word. At another time he might have been strongly interested in this
man, who on so many accounts was so closely connected with him; but now
the power of some dominant and all-engrossing idea possessed him, and he
seemed to take no notice of any things whatever either without the house
or within.
After looking in silence at the inn for a long time Beatrice withdrew
her gaze. Brandon regarded her with a fixed and earnest glance, as
though he would read her inmost soul. She looked at him, and cast down
her eyes.
“You abhor me!” said he, in a loud, thrilling voice.
She said nothing, but pointed toward the inn.
“You know all about that?”
Beatrice bowed her head silently.
“And you look upon me as guilty?”
She gazed at him, but said nothing. It was a cold, austere gaze, without
one touch of softness.
“After all,” said she, “he was my father. You had your vengeance to
take, and you have taken it. You may now exult, but my heart bleeds.”
Brandon started to his feet.
“As God lives,” he cried, “I did not do that thing!”
Beatrice looked up mournfully and inquiringly.
“If it had been his base life which I sought,” said Brandon, vehemently,
“I might long ago have taken it. He was surrounded on all sides by my
power. He could not escape. Officers of the law stood ready to do my
bidding. Yet I allowed him to leave the Hall in safety. I might have
taken his heart’s-blood. I might have handed him over to the law. I did
not.”
“No,” said Beatrice, in icy tones, “you did not; you sought a deeper
vengeance. You cared not to take his life. It was sweeter to you to
take his son’s life and give him agony. Death would have been
insufficient--anguish was what you wished.
“It is not for me to blame you,” she continued, while Brandon looked
at her without a word. “Who am I--a polluted one, of the accursed
brood--who am I, to stand between you and him, or to blame you if you
seek for vengeance? I am nothing. You have done kindnesses to me which I
now wish were undone. Oh that I had died under the hand of the pirates!
Oh that the ocean had swept me down to death with all its waves! Then I
should not have lived to see this day!”
Roused by her vehemence Despard started from his abstraction and looked
around.
“It seems to me,” said he, “as if you were blaming some one for
inflicting suffering on a man for whom no suffering can be too great.
What! can you think of your friend as he lies there in the next room in
his agony, dying, torn to pieces by this man’s agency, and have pity for
him?”
“Oh!” cried Beatrice, “is he not my father?”
Mrs. Compton looked around with staring eyes, and trembled from head to
foot. Her lips moved--she began to speak, but the words died away on her
lips.
“Your father!” said Despard; “his acts have cut him off from a
daughter’s sympathy.”
“Yet he has a father’s feelings, at least for his dead son. Never shall
I forget his look of anguish as he stood on the balcony. His face was
turned this way. He seemed to reproach me.”
“Let me tell you,” cried Despard, harshly. “He has not yet made
atonement for his crimes. This is but the beginning. I have a debt of
vengeance to extort from him. One scoundrel has been handed over to the
law, another lies dead, another is in London in the hands of Langhetti’s
friends, the Carbonari. The worst one yet remains, and my father’s voice
cries to me day and night from that dreadful ship.”
“Your father’s voice!” cried Beatrice. She looked at Despard. Their eyes
met. Something passed between them in that glance which brought back the
old, mysterious feeling which she had known before. Despard rose hastily
and left the room.
“In God’s name,” cried Brandon, “I say that this man’s life was not
sought by me, nor the life of any of his. I will tell you all. When he
compassed the death of Uracao, of whom you know, he obtained possession
of his son, then a mere boy, and carried him away. He kept this lad with
him and brought him up with the idea that he was his best friend, and
that he would one day show him his father’s murderer. After I made
myself known to him, he told Vijal that I was this murderer. Vijal tried
to assassinate me. I foiled him, and could have killed him. But I spared
his life. I then told him the truth. That is all that I have done. Of
course, I knew that Vijal would seek for vengeance. That was not my
concern. Since Potts had sent him to seek my life under a lie, I sent
him away with knowledge of the truth. I do not repent that told him; nor
is there any guilt chargeable to me. The man that lies dead there is not
my victim. Yet if he were--oh, Beatrice! if he were--what then? Could
that atone for what I have suffered? My father ruined and broken-hearted
and dying in a poor-house calls to me always for vengeance. My mother
suffering in the emigrant ship, and dying of the plague amidst horrors
without a name calls to me. Above all my sweet sister, my pure Edith--”
“Edith!” interrupted Beatrice--“Edith!”
“Yes; do you not know that? She was buried alive.”
“What!” cried Beatrice; “is it possible that you do not know that she is
alive?”
“Alive!”
“Yes, alive; for when I was at Holly I saw her.”
Brandon stood speechless with surprise.
“Langhetti saved her,” said Beatrice. “His sister has charge of her
now.”
“Where, where is she?” asked Brandon, wildly.
“In a convent at London.”
At this moment Despard entered.
“Is this true?” asked Brandon, with a deeper agitation than had ever yet
been seen in him--“my sister, is it true that she is not dead?”
“It is true. I should have told you,” said Despard, “but other thoughts
drove it from my mind, and I forgot that you might be ignorant.”
“How is it possible? I was at Quebec myself. I have sought over the
world after my relatives--”
“I will tell you,” said Despard.
He sat down and began to tell the story of Edith’s voyage and all that
Langhetti had done, down to the time of his rescue of her from death.
The recital filled Brandon with such deep amazement that he had not a
word to say. He listened like one stupefied.
“Thank God!” he cried at last when it was ended; “thank God, I am spared
this last anguish; I am freed from the thought which for years has been
most intolerable. The memories that remain are bitter enough, but they
are not so terrible as this. But I must see her. I must find her. Where
is she?”
“Make yourself easy on that score,” said Despard, calmly. “She will be
here to-morrow or the day after. I have written to Langhetti’s sister;
she will come, and will bring your sister with her.”
“I should have told you so before,” said Beatrice, “but my own troubles
drove every thing else from my mind.”
“Forgive me,” said Brandon, “for intruding now. I came in to learn about
Langhetti. You look upon me with horror. I will withdraw.”
Beatrice bowed her head, and tears streamed from her eyes. Brandon took
her hand.
“Farewell,” he murmured; “farewell, Beatrice. You will not condemn me
when I say that I am innocent?”
“I am accursed,” she murmured.
Despard looked at these two with deep anxiety.
“Stay,” said he to Brandon. “There is something which must be explained.
There is a secret which Langhetti has had for years, and which he has
several times been on the point of telling. I have just spoken to him
and told him that you are here. He says he will tell his secret now,
whatever it is. He wishes us all to come in--and you too, especially,”
said Despard, looking at Mrs. Compton.
The poor old creature began to tremble.
“Don’t be afraid, old woman,” said Philips. “Take my arm and I’ll
protect you.”
She rose, and, leaning on his arm, followed the others into Langhetti’s
room. He was fearfully emaciated. His material frame, worn down by pain
and confinement, seemed about to dissolve and let free that soaring soul
of his, whose fiery impulses had for years chafed against the prison
bars of its mortal inclosure. His eyes shone darkly and luminously from
their deep, hollow sockets, and upon his thin, wan, white lips there was
a faint smile of welcome--faint like the smile of the sick, yet sweet as
the smile of an angel.
It was with such a smile that he greeted Brandon, and with both of his
thin white hands pressed the strong and muscular hand of the other.
“And you are Edith’s brother,” he said. “Edith’s brother,” he repeated,
resting lovingly upon that name, Edith. “She always said you were alive,
and once she told me she should live to see you. Welcome, brother of my
Edith! I am a dying man. Edith said her other brother was alive--Frank.
Where is Frank? Will he not come to stand by the bedside of his dying
friend? He did so once.”
“He will come,” said Brandon, in a voice choked with emotion, as he
pressed the hand of the dying man. “He will come, and at once.”
“And you will be all here, then--sweet friends! It is well.”
He paused.
“Bice!” said he at last.
Beatrice, who was sitting by his head, bent down toward him.
“Bice,” said Langhetti. “My pocket-book is in my coat, and if you open
the inside pocket you will find something wrapped in paper. Bring it to
me.”
Beatrice found the pocket-book and opened it as directed. In the inside
pocket there was a thin, small parcel. She opened it and drew forth a
very small baby’s stocking.
“Look at the mark,” said Langhetti.
Beatrice did so, and saw two letters marked on it--B. D.
“This was given me by your nurse at Hong Kong. She said your things were
all marked with those letters when you were first brought to her. She
did not know what it meant. ‘B’ meant Beatrice; but what did ‘D’ mean?”
All around that bedside exchanged glances of wonder. Mrs. Compton was
most agitated.
“Take me away,” she murmured to Philips.
But Philips would not.
“Cheer up, old woman!” said he. “There’s nothing to fear now. That devil
won’t hurt you.”
“Now, in my deep interest in you, and in my affection, I tried to find
out what this meant. The nurse and I often talked about it. She told
me that your father never cared particularly about you, and that it was
strange for your clothing to be marked ‘D’ if your name was Potts. It
was a thing which greatly troubled her. I made many inquiries. I found
out about the Manilla murder case. From that moment I suspected that ‘D’
meant Despard.
“Oh, Heavens!” sighed Beatrice, in an agony of suspense. Brandon and
Despard stood motionless, waiting for something further.
“This is what I tried to solve. I made inquiries every where. At last I
gave it up. So when circumstances threw Beatrice again in my way I tried
again. I have always been baffled There is only, one who can tell--only
one. She is here, in this room; and, in the name of God, I call upon her
to speak out and tell the truth.”
“Who?” cried Despard, while he and Brandon both looked earnestly at Mrs.
Compton.
“Mrs. Compton!” said Langhetti; and his voice seemed to die away from
exhaustion.
Mrs. Compton was seized with a panic more overpowering than usual. She
gasped for breath. “Oh, Lord!” she cried. “Oh, Lord! Spare me! spare me!
He’ll kill me!”
Brandon walked up to her and took her hand. “Mrs. Compton,” said he, in
a calm, resolute voice, “your timidity has been your curse. There is no
need for fear now. I will protect you. The man whom you have feared so
many years is now ruined, helpless, and miserable. I could destroy him
at this moment if I chose. You are foolish if you fear him. Your son is
with you. His arm supports you, and I stand here ready to protect both
you and your son. Speak out, and tell what you know. Your husband is
still living. He longs for your return. You and your son are free from
your enemies. Trust in me, and you shall both go back to him and live in
peace.”
Tears fell from Mrs. Compton’s eyes. She seized Brandon’s hand and
pressed it to her thin lips.
“You will protect me?” said she.
“Yes.”
“You will save me from him?” she persisted, in a voice of agony.
“Yes, and from all others like him. Do not fear. Speak out.”
Mrs. Compton clung to the arm of her son. She drew a long breath. She
looked up into his face as though to gain courage, and then began.
It was a long story. She had been attendant and nurse to the wife of
Colonel Despard, who had died in giving birth to a child. Potts had
brought news of her death, but had said nothing whatever about the
child. Colonel Despard knew nothing of it. Being at a distance at the
time, on duty, he had heard but the one fact of his wife’s death, and
all other things were forgotten. He had not even made inquiries as to
whether the child which he had expected was alive or dead, but had at
once given way to the grief of the bereavement, and had hurried off.
In his designs on Colonel Despard, Potts feared that the knowledge of
the existence of a child might keep him in India, and distract his mind
from its sorrow. Therefore he was the more anxious not only to keep this
secret, but also to prevent it from ever being known to Colonel Despard.
With this idea he hurried the preparation of the _Vishnu_ to such an
extent that it was ready for sea almost immediately, and left with
Colonel Despard on that ill-fated voyage.
Mrs. Compton had been left in India with the child. Her son joined her,
in company with John, who, though only a boy, had the vices of a grown
man. Months passed before Potts came back. He then took her along with
the child to China, and left the latter with a respectable woman at
Hong Kong, who was the widow of a British naval officer. The child was
Beatrice Despard.
Potts always feared that Mrs. Compton might divulge his secret, and
therefore always kept her with him. Timid by nature to an unusual
degree, the wretched woman was in constant fear for her life, and as
years passed on this fear was not lessened. The sufferings which she
felt from this terror were atoned for, however, by the constant presence
of her son, who remained in connection with Potts, influenced chiefly by
the ascendency which this villain had over a man of his weak and
timid nature. Potts had brought them to England, and they had lived in
different places, until at last Brandon Hall had fallen into his hands.
Of the former occupants of Brandon Hall, Mrs. Compton knew almost
nothing. Very little had ever been said about them to her. She knew
scarcely any thing about them, except that their names were Brandon, and
that they had suffered misfortunes.
Finally, this Beatrice was Beatrice Despard, the daughter of Colonel
Despard and the sister of the clergyman then present. She herself,
instead of being the daughter of Potts, had been one of his victims, and
had suffered not the least at his hands.
This astounding revelation was checked by frequent interruptions. The
actual story of her true parentage overwhelmed Beatrice. This was the
awful thought which had occurred to herself frequently before. This was
what had moved her so deeply in reading the manuscript of her father
on that African Isle. This also was the thing which had always made her
hate with such intensity the miscreant who pretended to be her father.
Now she was overwhelmed. She threw herself into the arms of her brother
and wept upon his breast. Courtenay Despard for a moment rose above
the gloom that oppressed him, and pressed to his heart this sister so
strangely discovered. Brandon stood apart, looking on, shaken to the
soul and unnerved by the deep joy of that unparalleled discovery. Amidst
all the speculations in which he had indulged the very possibility of
this had never suggested itself. He had believed most implicitly all
along that Beatrice was in reality the daughter of his mortal enemy. Now
the discovery of the truth came upon him with overwhelming force.
She raised herself from her brother’s embrace, and turned and looked
upon the man whom she adored--the one who, as she said, had over and
over again saved her life; the one whose life she, too, in her turn
had saved, with whom she had passed so many adventurous and momentous
days--days of alternating peace and storm, of varying hope and despair.
To him she owed every thing; to him she owed even the rapture of this
moment.
As their eyes met they revealed all their inmost thoughts. There was now
no barrier between them. Vanished was the insuperable obstacle, vanished
the impassable gulf. They stood side by side. The enemy of this man--his
foe, his victim--was also hers. Whatever he might suffer, whatever
anguish might have been on the face of that old man who had looked
at her from the balcony, she had clearly no part nor lot now in that
suffering or that anguish. He was the murderer of her father. She was
not the daughter of this man. She was of no vulgar or sordid race. Her
blood was no longer polluted or accursed. She was of pure and noble
lineage. She was a Despard.
“Beatrice,” said Brandon, with a deep, fervid emotion in his voice;
“Beatrice, I am yours, and you are mine. Beatrice, it was a lie that
kept us apart. My life is yours, and yours is mine.”
He thought of nothing but her. He spoke with burning impetuosity. His
words sank into her soul. His eyes devoured hers in the passion of their
glance.
“Beatrice--my Beatrice!” he said, “Beatrice Despard--”
He spoke low, bending his head to hers. Her head sank toward his breast.
“Beatrice, do you now reproach me?” he murmured.
She held out her hand, while tears stood in her eyes. Brandon seized
it and covered it with kisses. Despard saw this. In the midst of the
anguish of his face a smile shone forth, like sunshine out of a clouded
sky. He looked at these two for a moment.
Langhetti’s eyes were closed. Mrs. Compton and her son were talking
apart. Despard looked upon the lovers.
“Let them love,” he murmured to himself; “let them love and be happy.
Heaven has its favorites. I do not envy them; I bless them, though I
love without hope. Heaven has its favorites, but I am an outcast from
that favor.”
A shudder passed through him. He drew himself up.
“Since love is denied me,” he thought, “I can at least have vengeance.”