Chapter XIX: Jane Collins’ Story

Arley awoke, weary and unrefreshed, the next morning. She had experienced a sense of protection and safety while abiding beneath the same roof with Philip, even though she saw so little of him; but now, alone in her new quarters, with no one to whom she could speak one word, a feeling of desolation, almost of despair, settled down upon her.

After eating her simple breakfast, which she had arranged to have brought to her room, she dressed herself with great care for her call upon the English consul.

When she arrived at the residence of the consul, she gave her card to an usher, and was shown into a reception-room, where she found several others, who, like herself, were seeking an interview with her majesty’s representative.

Arley sat down upon a vacant chair to wait her turn, and then glanced about her to see if she could find an English face among her visitors.

No; they were all foreign--German, French, Russian, and, for aught that she knew, Turk and Mohammedans, but not one regular John Bull among them all did she see. She heaved a sigh of regret, and a feeling of loneliness began to steal over her again.

Suddenly, however, every nerve in her body tingled with a strange delight, for, directly behind her, she heard an unmistakable English voice say, in a loud, eager whisper:

“John, John! do ye remember the beautiful lady that was picked up at sea, eighteen years ago, by the vessel that brought us from Bombay?”

A shock like electricity shot through Arley at these words, and turning her head a trifle, she saw, seated in the shadow of a curtain a little back of her, a burly, red-faced Englishman and, as she supposed, his wife.

But she pretended not to hear what had been said, while, in fact, she was straining every nerve to catch what should come next.

“I’m not likely to forget the leddy, mother, when I helped to haul her aboard, and thought sure she were dead, when her purty white face dropped so heavy on my shoulder.”

“‘Sh, John! not so loud, man; but the first chance ye get, give a look at the purty girl sitting right afore ye, and tell me if she isn’t the very image of the leddy ye helped to haul aboard the _Black Swan_ on her home’ard voyage? I tell ye, man, she has the very same pair of eyes and wavy brown hair, the same pretty red lips and baby chin.”

Arley felt all her strength suddenly leave her, as if all power to move even hand or foot had deserted her. She seemed like some frozen image planted there, without either life or motion, though she was filled with a nervous, inward trembling.

Had she come all the way to Spain--had it been needful for her to suffer all that she had suffered during the past year, to be led hither in this strange way, under such peculiar circumstances, in order to discover who she was, and to have the great enigma of her life revealed to her?

Arley could not endure the suspense another moment, and she moved her chair so as to face the couple.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, politely, but looking very white; “I could not help hearing what you both have said. Will you please tell me the name of the lady of whom you were speaking, and whom you say I so closely resemble?”

“Land alive, John! it’s her very voice, too, or my ears deceive me,” exclaimed the woman, in a startled tone, to her husband, and regarding Arley more curiously than before.

The young lady began to tremble visibly, and it was only by a strong effort that she kept her teeth from chattering audibly--was she about to learn the truth at last?

“I am so glad,” she said, after a moment and to give them an opportunity to recover somewhat from their surprise, “to have found some of my countrymen here, for you perceive that I am English like yourselves. I came here hoping to hear of some one who might be about returning to England, but it is very strange, I think, that I should have chanced to sit just here and overhear what you have said. Will you please tell me of whom you were speaking?”

The man and the woman looked at each other in perplexity; the resemblance of which they had spoken was growing upon them every moment, until it almost seemed that the lady they had referred to stood again before them, and was addressing them.

“Well, well, miss, this are very queer,” the man said at last; “I don’t think I’m dreamin’, but if ye were not so young looking, I sh’d say ye were the very leddy herself.”

“Her name--please tell me her name.”

Arley could scarcely control her impatience.

But before the man could reply an attendant entered the room and announced that his excellency, the consul, had just received important dispatches calling him away, and he would therefore be unable to receive any visitors that day.

Upon hearing this, most of the people beat a hasty retreat, muttering their disappointment in no amiable mood, and Arley and her two strange companions were thus left the sole occupants of the room.

“Now we can converse undisturbed,” she said, eagerly, as the last one departed, “and I will tell you why I am so anxious to learn the name of the people of whom you have spoken. There is a mystery hanging over my parentage, and I was separated from my parents by an accident at sea, and have never seen them since; so you perceive that it is not strange that I should think from what you have said that you could perhaps throw some light on this dark subject for me.”

“Ah! miss,” the woman said, with a regretful shake of her head, as Arley paused and looked appealingly at her. “I’m sure no one could refuse to oblige a pleasant-spoken leddy like yourself if one could help it, but we don’t know the name of the beautiful leddy who looked enough like ye to be yer twin sister----”

“You don’t know the name?” Arley interrupted, in a tone of bitter disappointment, her heart sinking heavily at this intelligence.

“No, miss. Ye see this was the way of it: My man and I had been on a long voyage from Portsmouth, England, to Bombay, in the _Black Swan_, a sailin’ vessel under Captain Conway. We’ve been sailors together, miss, ever since we were married, he on the deck and I as stewardess; for, ye see, bein’ rather fond o’ one another”--and here the buxom dame blushed like a girl in her teens--“one didn’t like to leave t’other behind. Well, we’d hed a fine voyage most of the way till we entered the Bay o’ Biscay, when things began to look kind o’ threatenin’. Just about sunset one day a great steamer passed us, and everybody on board looked as gay and smilin’ as could be and gave us three hearty cheers with wavin’ kerchiefs, as if they’d had a good passage so far, and were in high feather over it. She, the steamer, soon went out of sight though, and we thought that was the last of her for us, and I couldn’t help frettin’ to think how much faster she sailed than the _Black Swan_, and how much sooner she’d reach port. But I had reason to thank Heaven, miss, for the slow sailin’ vessel afore many days. A storm blew up that night--such a storm as I hope never to be out in again. Me nor my old man never expected to set foot on land, and for three days and nights we didn’t do much but pray. But the fourth day the wind went down some, and we knew the worst was over.

“Well, just as we were roundin’ Point St. Matthew we came upon signs of a wreck--floatin’ spars, boxes, kegs, stools, and such like, and later on durin’ the day, we saw a queer lookin’ object to the leeward of us, with something like a white flag flyin’ from it. Our captain thought it looked suspicious, and ordered his men to bear away toward it, and after a while he had a boat lowered and sent to see what it meant.

“It was well that we came upon it just as we did, for it proved to be a great chicken-coop, with a man and woman lashed to it, and both nearly dead from the cold, and bein’ dashed about in the wild waves. They were brought aboard the _Black Swan_, and given up to me to see if I could find any life in ’em.

“The man came round all right after a little, but it was a tough job fetchin’ the woman to, but she managed to weather it after a while, and then it was enough to break your heart to hear her take on.

“‘My baby--my Allie,’ were the first words she said when she came to herself, and her husband, who never left her a minute after he got her senses back, bent over her and said in a hoarse voice, and his face as white as a sheet, ‘Marg’ret don’t you remember? Darlin’, let us be thankful that we are spared to each other.’

“Upon that the leddy gave a scream and fainted dead away again. Well, it’s no use tellin’ you of the time I had with her, but she just about grieved herself to death, and couldn’t bear her husband out of her sight for a single minute. Day in and day out he sat in the captain’s stateroom--for he gave it up to them and bunked it like a common sailor--holdin’ her in his arms when she was awake, and talkin’ in a soothin’ way to her, but lookin’ as if he were just ready to die with grief himself when she was asleep and he was left to his own thoughts. I had to feed her like a baby, for she was too weak to help herself, and she was so pretty and gentle that I couldn’t help lovin’ her with all my heart; while I’m free to confess I never did so much blubberin’ in all my life as I did in those two weeks that we were makin’ for Portsmouth, after we took them two castaways on board. But it was enough to break the stoutest heart to hear that poor mother grievin’ for her lost baby.

“La, miss!” as Arley buried her face in her handkerchief and sobbed over the sad story, “I didn’t mean to upset ye like that, though I can never tell about it without gettin’ soft myself, for all it’s more’n eighteen years ago. But as for her name, I were so bound up in takin’ care of the poor thing, that I never once thought to ask who she were, and I never heered the captain say. We sailed into Portsmouth harbor all right one fine morning, and after I had wrapped the leddy up in my warm shawl to be taken ashore--for the day was cold--she seized both my hands, and said with her white, tremblin’ lips:

“‘Oh, you good woman, I ought to bless these hands that have helped to bring me back to life, and I do--I do for my husband’s sake; but my heart is broken for my baby--my pretty angel, Allie!”

“The gentleman gave me a fifty-pound note, with a hearty ‘Heaven bless ye,’ just before he carried her up on deck, and I’ve never set eyes on either of ’em, nor heard one word about ’em since.”

“Do you know the name of the steamer that they were on when they were wrecked?” Arley asked, with almost breathless eagerness, when the woman ended her story.

“Yes, miss; it were the _White Star_, and she were bound from Calcutta, India, to England.”

Arley started, and a cry escaped her; it was the same vessel on which, it was supposed she had sailed with her nurse for England over some eighteen years ago; and thus it became evident that there had been two children of about the same age on board that ill-fated steamer. There might have been more--she did not know; but she was quite sure now that both Ina and herself had been among the passengers, and while Ina had drifted into the hands of those rude fishermen on the coast of Spain she had been rescued by one of the sailors of the _White Star_, mistaken for her, and thus sent to Dr. McAllister of London.

Something within her told her that she belonged to the beautiful woman, to whose sad story she had just listened--something aside from the strong resemblance to her of which this honest couple had spoken; and she felt that at last she held a clew, though a very faint one, to the mystery of her parentage.

It was very unsatisfactory, however, and would doubtless require diligent and patient search and inquiry in order to make it of the least avail, while it was possible that she might never get beyond this point.

“I believe you have been telling me about my own father and mother,” she said, in a trembling voice to the woman.

“Land alive, miss, ye don’t mean it!” was the astonished rejoinder, while the burly John leaned forward, wonder depicted on his face.

“Yes, I feel quite sure of it,” Arley said; “but oh! if you could only have told me their name, the way out of this puzzle would be comparatively easy.”

Then she told them something of her own life, for she felt it was due to them after their courtesy to her.

“It are all like a story, miss, and it’ll all come out right at last, never fear,” said John; “and,” he added, “all ye’ve got to do when ye go back to England is to hunt up the captain of the _White Star_, if he’s livin’, and the rest’ll be easy enough.”

“If he’s living?” Yes, that was it; if the steamer had been wrecked it was more than probable that the captain had gone down with her, and thus the sequel to her secret remain forever buried in the deep waters of the ocean.

Arley heaved a sigh, but she looked into the faces before her with a smile, and asked:

“Will you kindly tell me your name? I am very thankful to you for telling me this story.”

“My name? Sartin, miss. It’s Jane Collins, and it’s one I’ve never had reason to be ashamed on either,” was the satisfied reply, while the honest creature bestowed an affectionate glance upon her husband.

“John here has been a good man to me,” she added; “and we’ve been middlin’ prosperous in this world’s goods, and we’ve roved the world pretty much over together, first and last.”

“Shall you go back to England soon?” Arley inquired, with a sudden heart-bound, and feeling that she could trust herself with these rough, but evidently honest people, more fully perhaps than she could with others who might be wiser in the ways of the world.

“Yes, miss. The _Rocket_--that’s the vessel John’s mate aboard, and I’m stewardess--starts on her homeward voyage next week, of a Wednesday.”

“Would you let me go with you? Could I obtain a passage in the vessel?” Arley asked, eagerly, while her voice trembled with the earnestness of her plea.

“A sailin’ vessel ain’t no kind of a place for a delicate young leddy like ye,” Jane Collins remarked, doubtfully, as she eyed Arley’s dainty figure, from top to toe.

“Oh, I would not mind the vessel, if I only might go home; and, somehow, I feel as if I should be very safe with you and your husband,” Arley said, while tears of entreaty actually gathered in her eyes.

Jane bestowed a grateful look on her as she said this; then she replied:

“Sure, miss, we’d do the best we could for ye if ye did go, but we are all in the Lord’s hands. What d’ye say, John?” and she turned a questioning glance upon her husband.

“Reckon we can fix it somehow,” he returned, laconically.

“Oh, thank you! thank you!” Arley murmured, and the sweet brown eyes brimmed over with the glittering drops which told how intense were her longings after England and home.