Chapter XXVII: 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.