Chapter XXXI: 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.