Cord and Creese

by James De Mille

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.