Chapter XL: Atonement

Arley was literally stricken dumb by this wonderful intelligence. She could only rest in those clinging arms and stare helplessly up into Lady Elaine’s face, her own as white as snow; while all her strength forsook her, leaving her weak and almost fainting.

From the hour when she had first met the young countess in the home of their mutual friend, Annie Hamilton, she had experienced an affection, as deep and strong as it was strange, for her. It had been reciprocated by Lady Elaine, and both had often wondered why they should feel such peculiar tenderness for each other.

Now they understood it; the same blood flowed in their veins; they owed their being to the same father and mother, and nature and instinct had both asserted themselves long before it was possible for them to comprehend the reason for it.

“It is no wonder that we have loved each other if this is true,” Arley breathed at last, while she twined her arms more closely about the form beside her. “My sister! Can it be possible?”

“Not only possible, but an absolute, indisputable fact,” Lady Elaine returned, kissing her again and again.

The tears rained over Arley’s face, and sobs shook her.

“I have so longed for some one who was my very own to love, and who would love me. I have been so lonely all my life, yearning for some congenial companion; and now, just when it has seemed as if life was wearisome and unsatisfying--hardly worth the living--this great blessing comes to me. Oh, Elaine, I am greatly comforted; I am very thankful!”

“Yes, we have found each other just when we most need each other. Our Father knows best just when to send His good gifts to His children,” reverently replied the young countess. “I know all your trouble, dear,” she went on, tenderly, “or, at least, enough of it to guess at the rest, and my heart has been very sore on your account; but we will be all in all to each other now; we will live together, and do good together, and try to forget our sorrows; or, if we cannot forget them, we can soften them by our love, and by doing for others.”

But the words, submissive as they were, seemed to unseal the fountain of the fair girl’s grief, and the two strangely-united sisters abandoned themselves for the moment to its sway.

Arley was the first to recover herself, and, wiping first her own and then Lady Elaine’s tears, she said:

“Now, dear, tell me all about this strange discovery. I can scarcely realize it even yet, though my heart tells me that your words are truth--that I am of one blood with you.”

“It is like a romance,” was the reply; “though there has always been something about you that has moved me strangely--something almost familiar in your looks and movements, although I never mentioned it to you.”

“I presume I should have regarded it merely as a fancy if you had,” Arley returned.

“Well, it was not a mere fancy, and now I am going to prove it to you;” and, as she spoke, Lady Elaine drew from her pocket a small package.

“Ah, such treasures as I have here!” she continued, smiling; “for without them it would have been almost impossible to prove your identity.”

She removed the papers from it, and revealed a small, black velvet case in a box.

Opening the case, she disclosed a picture painted upon porcelain.

“Look, dear,” she said, putting it into Arley’s hand. “This is a portrait of our mother, taken just before her marriage. Now tell me if your face did not remind me of some one I had known?”

Arley gazed upon it wonderingly.

There was, indeed, a striking resemblance, though nothing like that of Ina Wentworth to her mother.

The shape of the face in the picture was much like Arley’s. The shapely brows, the curve of the dark, sweeping lashes, the large, liquid, brown eyes, the piquant mouth and rounded chin were strangely like the happy, spirited girl whom Lady Elaine had first met and loved at Hazelmere.

She gazed upon it breathlessly, holding it in her hand with a reverent clasp, her heart fluttering, like a restless bird, in her bosom.

“Was this my mother?” she whispered.

“Yes, our mother, dear; do not leave me out, please, for I am very jealous of my rights now that I have found my sister,” Lady Elaine said, dropping her golden head upon Arley’s shoulder. “Is it not strange that I could never think whom you resembled? Do you not think that you are very like her?”

“Yes,” Arley answered, with tremulous lips, “and I am so glad; while I believed myself to be Arley Wentworth, it was always a great grief to me that I could trace no resemblance in my features to those of my supposed father and mother. I remember that you told me when we were at Hazelmere that your little sister Alice was dark and very like your mother, while you were a thorough Mordaunt in form and feature. How happy I am to have this picture! but, oh, if she could have lived to own me her daughter, and hold me for one moment to her heart! Oh, Elaine, how I have wanted a mother all my life.”

“Don’t, dear,” Lady Elaine cried, in a voice of pain, “do not let us begin to long for the impossible, for if we do our hearts will surely break,” and Arley knew that she was thinking of Wil as she spoke.

She touched her lips softly to the white cheeks resting on her shoulder, and whispered with her eyes still on the beautiful picture:

“Tell me about her.”

“There is not much to tell,” Lady Elaine said, “for I was only ten years old when she died, but I remember her as gentle and sweet, very affectionate, but with a sadness about her which was extremely pathetic. This was caused, as I was afterward told, by the loss of my little sister Alice, while returning from India, where my father had been obliged to go upon political business soon after his marriage, and by the subsequent death of my only brother, who was the last of the Mordaunts. You have heard of that dreadful voyage from India from Jane Collins, so I will not repeat it; but you were supposed to be drowned, and were always spoken of as being dead. You are two years older than I, for I was not born until some time after our mother’s return to England. She devoted herself to me, but she could not get over the loss of her first-born, and almost the first thing I remember was her teaching me to say Alice, and telling me about my little dark-eyed sister. When I was three years old an heir was born to the house of Mordaunt, and my father’s heart was filled with joy and pride, for now he believed that his name and title would be perpetuated. But Arthur only lived to pass his fifth birthday, and our mother never recovered from the shock occasioned by his death; she grieved until she undermined her health and gradually faded out of life. She died, as I have told you, when I was ten years old, and five years later my father was taken from me, leaving me to the guardianship of Sir Anthony Hamilton, only stipulating that I was to remain at the convent where he had placed me, except during the annual vacation, until my education was completed. So, you perceive, Arley, that my life has been as lonely as your own, even more so, indeed, for you had Dr. and Miss McAllister, who, believing you to be the child of their dear one, loved you as their own. Oh, if we could only have known years ago that we belonged to each other, how happy we might have been!”

Lady Elaine paused to bestow another caress upon the lips so near her own, and then resumed:

“Now, I will tell you how I worked out this intricate puzzle. I told you in my letter how accident brought me into contact with good Jane Collins, and that I learned from her what transpired in connection with you at Madrid. She related how she had been startled upon seeing you, for you resembled so strangely the ‘beautiful lady’ who had been shipwrecked. I made her go over every item of that story for my benefit, and, remembering the date of that terrible ordeal through which my own father and mother had passed, and knowing that you were a poor little waif cast up by the sea, and your birth still shrouded with mystery, I became suddenly impressed that you might be the little Alice for whom our mother grieved as long as she lived. I went immediately to Miss McAllister and asked her if she had retained any articles of clothing which you had worn at the time of your return. She had nothing save a pair of little shoes and stockings, and a tiny ring set with an emerald. The shoes and socks did not, at first, appear to me to be of much value, but the moment that my eyes fell upon the ring, my heart sprang into my throat.

“Mamma had a very dear friend who married a nobleman and went to live in France. When she was notified of the birth of little Alice she immediately sent congratulations, and with them a very plain, but rich ring set with an emerald. ‘If it had only been a son,’ she wrote, ‘the stone should have been a diamond, and remember, whenever the heir does make his appearance, he is to have it.’ When the news of my birth reached her, she sent another ring, the exact counterpart of the first, saying that she should serve the daughters of the house of Mordaunt all alike, and again spoke of a diamond being reserved for the heir; and lo! when Arthur came, true to her promise, there came still another circlet, exactly like the others, only set with a pure, beautiful white stone.

“The moment that Miss McAllister gave me the ring that had been taken from your finger I recognized it, and in my heart I knew well enough that you were my sister; but I knew that you and others would not, like me, feel satisfied without further proof, so I resolved to say nothing about my suspicions until I could establish the fact beyond a doubt. I have the three rings which mamma’s friend sent her; I brought them to show to you--they are the first link in my chain of evidence.”

Lady Elaine opened the box upon her lap, and, taking from it another smaller one, lifted the lid and revealed the three rings lying within upon a bed of snow-white cotton--tiny little things, fit only for baby fingers, but fraught with an interest and sacredness which would render them priceless to those two lovely women so long as they should live.

“See, my darling,” she said, putting the box into Arley’s hand, “if you can pick out your own.”

Arley bent over them with quivering lips and tear-laden eyes, wondering how it was possible that so much vital importance could be connected with such tiny trifles.

“They are exactly alike,” she said, at length. “I can see no difference in them, excepting, perhaps, that the stone in this one is a trifle larger than in the other; but whether it belongs to you or me I cannot tell.”

“We will assume that it is yours, since you are the eldest daughter of the house of Mordaunt,” Lady Elaine answered, smiling, “and,” she added, taking it from her, “we will make a charm of each, and always wear them as the precious mementoes of our restoration to each other.”

She fastened it, as she ceased speaking, upon Arley’s watch chain, and then attached the other to her own.

“The diamond,” she continued, tenderly, “we will lay away among our treasures as a sacred keepsake, to remind us of our only brother.”

She then took from the box upon her lap the little socks which Miss McAllister had given her, and also the pair which she had received from Captain Bancroft’s widow, and told Arley of her visit to the old lady, and of the long and conclusive story which she had related to her.

“I knew,” she said, “before she had half finished, that all mystery and doubt were solved, but when she brought me the passenger list, and I read there the names of our own father and mother--‘Lord Arthur Warburton, Duke of Mordaunt, Lady Warburton, Miss Alice Warburton and nurse’--the fact was established, and I knew that the girl whom I had learned to love so dearly at Hazelmere was my own sister.”

“It is wonderful! I do not know how to comprehend it,” Arley murmured, when Lady Elaine concluded.

“It is wonderful,” she assented, “and I am so thankful, so content, so blest in the knowledge--just think! you are no longer ‘Arley the nameless,’ as you have so often and bitterly styled yourself, but Lady Alice Warburton, eldest daughter of the Duke of Mordaunt, and heiress to half of his immense property.”

Arley flushed a sudden crimson.

“The property--that has always been yours--I cannot take it,” she said, quickly.

Lady Elaine laughed such a low, sweet laugh at this.

“Have you forgotten,” she asked, “how two years ago, when poor Ina Wentworth tremblingly made her appearance, claiming naught but a name and kindred, the ‘usurper,’ Arley, not only relinquished her name, but all right and title to fortune, home and everything?”

“I know,” Arley returned, with a flush still on her cheek, “but I had been using the poor girl’s fortune as freely as if it had been water, while she had barely existed, with no home, no love, or anything else to make life endurable.”

“Out of your own mouth will I condemn you,” Lady Elaine retorted, smiling. “All these long years I have been spending your fortune as freely as if it was water, while during the last two you have lived--how have you lived, Arley?

“You shall tell me about it by and by,” she resumed, hastily, seeing how flushed and pained Arley’s face had grown at the question; “but you must not allow any false scruples to trouble you; remember that you are the eldest daughter of the Duke of Mordaunt, and your rights are paramount to mine--you are to share equally with me from this time forth--that I am resolved upon, and from this day you are to consider that you have ten thousand pounds annually at your disposal.”

Arley knew from her manner that it would be useless to argue the matter further, and so she did not refer to it again.

“It all seems like a dream,” she said, musingly.

“But it is not a dream--it is a blessed, glorious reality; and how much we may both yet enjoy in spite of the sad past,” her sister returned. “Our father’s house here in the city stands closed and gloomy; we will go back to it--it shall be our home, if you consent--I could not live in it alone, but with you to help me enjoy it, it would be a pleasure to go back into its familiar halls and rooms. Then Mordaunt Hall, at Eversham, shall be opened once more in summer time, and we will do what we can for the glory of the old house, and we will be happy in each other, and in doing all the good we can.”

In spite of her hopeful words and her attempt at cheerfulness, Lady Elaine broke down here and threw herself sobbing into Arley’s arms.

All the tender memories of those happy months at Hazelmere came rushing over her with all that she had lost and suffered since, and, in spite of the happiness which she experienced in her new relations with Arley, a feeling of desolateness and misery completely unnerved her for the moment.

Arley soothed her with exceeding tenderness, and when, after a time, she grew more calm, they began to talk over the past more minutely, and to lay plans for the future.

Arley questioned Lady Elaine very closely regarding what she knew of Philip since his return from Spain, and was at length convinced that he had told her all the truth--that he had indeed not “spared himself.”

Then she showed her the letter which he had written to her, and related all that she had learned from Eddie Winthrope regarding his more recent doings.

Lady Elaine was greatly astonished.

“There is good in him, after all,” she said. “He is atoning most nobly.”

“Do you believe that any one can redeem the past?” Arley asked, wearily.

“Perhaps not in one sense, and yet I know that there are many men who have lived the latter years of their lives so nobly that they have blotted out, at least from the minds of others, all remembrance of the sins of their youth, and, in fact, atoned for much of the evil which they have previously done. I must say,” the lovely girl continued, gently, “that my heart yearns a little after that recreant husband of yours, Arley; do you suppose that he could ever atone to you?”

Arley gave her a startled glance, and grew deathly pale at the question.

She did not answer for some time; then, looking up with a sort of hopeless misery in her eyes, she said, in a hollow tone:

“I have said that I can never forgive him, and I do not believe that I ever can; I am afraid I do not even want to.”