The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tracy Park, by Mary Jane Holmes
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Title: Tracy Park
Author: Mary Jane Holmes
Release Date: March 10, 2005 [eBook #15321]
Language: English
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TRACY PARK
A Novel
by
MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,
Author of Bessie's Fortune, Queenie Hetherton, Edith Lysle's Secret,
Homestead on the Hillside, etc., etc., etc.
Toronto:
Rose Publishing Company
Hunter Rose & Co.
Printers & Book Binders
Toronto
25 Wellington St
1886
"Don't stand and cry; press forward and remove the
difficulty."--Dickens.
CHAPTER I.
THE TELEGRAM.
'BREVOORT HOUSE, NEW YORK, Oct. 6th, 18--.
'_To Mr. Frank Tracy, Tracy Park, Shannondale_.
'I arrived in the Scotia this morning, and shall take the train for
Shannondale at 3 p.m. Send someone to the station to meet us.
'ARTHUR TRACEY.'
This was the telegram which the clerk in the Shannonville office wrote
out one October morning, and despatched to the Hon. Frank Tracy, of
Tracy Park, in the quiet town of Shannondale, where our story opens.
Mr. Frank Tracy, who, since his election to the State Legislature for
two successive terms, had done nothing except to attend political
meetings and make speeches on all public occasions, had an office in
town, where he usually spent his mornings, smoking, reading the papers
and talking to Mr. Colvin, his business agent and lawyer, for, though
born in one of the humblest of New England houses, where the slanting
roof almost touched the ground in the rear, and he could scarcely stand
upright in the chamber where he slept, Mr. Frank Tracy was a great man
now, and as he dashed along the turnpike behind his blooded bays, with
his driver beside him, people looked admiringly after him, and pointed
him out to strangers as the Hon. Mr. Tracy, of Tracy Park, one of the
finest places in the county. It is true it did not belong to him, but he
had lived there so long that he had come to look upon it as his, while
his neighbors, too, seemed to have forgotten that there was across the
ocean a Mr. Arthur Tracy, who might at any time come home to claim his
own, and demand an account of his brother's stewardship. And it was
this very Arthur Tracy, whose telegram announcing his return from Europe
was read by his brother with mingled feelings of surprise and
consternation.
'Not that everything isn't fair and above-board, and he is welcome to
look into matters as much as he likes,' Frank said over and over to
himself, as he sat stating blankly at the telegram, while the cold
chills ran up and down his back and arms. 'Yes, he can examine all
Colvin's books and he will find them straight as a string, for didn't he
tell me to use what I needed as remuneration for looking after his
property while he was gallivanting over the world; and if he objects
that I have paid myself too much, why, I can at once transfer those
investments in my name to him. No, it is not that which affects me so,
it is the suddenness of the thing, coming without warning and to-night
of all nights, when the house will be full of carousing and champagne.
What will Dolly say! Hysterics of course, if not a sick headache. I
don't believe I can face her till she has had a little time to get over
it. Here, boy, I want, you!' and he rapped at the window at a young lad
who happened to be passing with a basket on his arm. 'I want you to do
an errand for me,' he continued, as the boy entered the office, and,
removing his cap, stood respectfully before him 'Take this telegram to
Mrs. Tracy, and here is a dime for you.'
'Thank you, but I don't care for the money,' the boy said 'I was going
to the park anyway to tell Mrs. Tracy that grandma is sick and can't go
there to-night.'
'Cannot go! Sick! What is the matter?' Mr. Tracy asked, in some dismay,
feeling that here was a fresh cause of trouble and worry for Dolly, as
he designated his wife when off his guard and not on show before his
fashionable friends, to whom she was Dora, or Mrs. Tracy.
'She catched cold yesterday fixing up mother's grave,' the boy replied;
and, as if the mention of that grave had sent Mr. Tracy's thoughts
straying backward to the past, he looked thoughtfully at the child a
moment, and then said:
'How old are you, Harold?'
'Ten, last August,' was the reply; and Mr. Tracy continued:
'You do not remember your mother?'
'No, sir, only a great crowd, and grandma crying so hard,' was Harold's
reply.
'You look like her,' Mr. Tracy said.
'Yes, sir,' Harold answered, while into his frank, open face there came
an expression of regret for the mother who had died when he was three
years old, and whose life had been so short and sad.
'Now, hurry off with the telegram, and mind you don't lose it. It is
from my brother. He is coming to-night.'
'Mr. Arthur Tracy, who sent the monument for my mother--is he coming
home? Oh, I am so glad!' Harold exclaimed, and his handsome face lighted
up with childish joy, as he put the telegram in his pocket and started
For Tracy Park, wondering if he should encounter Tom, and thinking that
if he did, and Tom gave him any chaff, he should lick him, or try to.
'Darn him!' he said to himself, as he recalled the many times when Tom
Tracy, a boy of his own age, had laughed at him for his poverty and
coarse clothes. 'Darn him! he ain't any better than I am, if he does
wear velvet trousers and live in a big house. 'Taint his'n; it's Mr.
Arthur's, and I'm glad he is coming home. I wonder if he will bring
grandma anything. I wish he'd I bring me a pyramid. He's seen 'em, they
say.'
Meantime, Mr. Frank Tracy had resumed his seat, and, with his hands
clasped together over his head, was wondering what effect his brother's
return would have upon him. Would he be obliged to leave the park, and
the luxury he had enjoyed so long, and go back to the old life which he
hated so much.
'No; Arthur will never be so mean,' he said. 'He has always shown
himself generous, and will continue to do so. Besides that, he will want
somebody to keep his house for him, unless--' and here the perspiration
started from every pore, as Frank Tracy thought: 'What if he is married,
and the _us_ in his telegram means a wife, instead of a friend or
servant, as I imagined!'
This would indeed be a calamity, for then his own and Dolly's reign was
over at Tracy Park, and the party they were to give that night to at
least three hundred people would be their last grand blow-out.
'Confound the party!' he thought, as he arose from his chair and began
to pace the room. 'Arthur won't like that as a greeting after eleven
years' absence. He never fancied being cheek by jowl with Tom, Dick and
Harry; and that is just what the smash is to-night. Dolly wants to
please everybody, thinking to get me votes for Congress, and so she has
invited all creation and his wife. There's old Peterkin, the roughest
kind of a canal bummer when Arthur went away. Think of my fastidious
brother shaking hands with him and Widow Shipley, who kept a low tavern
on the tow-path! She'll be there; in her silks and long gold chain, for
she has four boys, all voters, who call me _Frank_ and slap me on the
shoulder. Ugh! even I hate it all; and in a most perturbed state of
mind, the Hon. Frank and would-be Congressman continued to walk the room
lamenting the party which must be, and wondering what his aristocratic
brother would say to such a crowd in his house on the night of his
return.
And if there should be a Mrs. Arthur Tracy, with possibly some little
Tracys! But that idea was too horrible to contemplate, and so he tried
to put it from his mind, and to be as calm and quiet as possible until
lunch-time, when, with no very great amount of alacrity and
cheerfulness, he started for home, where, as he had been warned by his
wife when he left her in the morning, 'he was to lunch standing up or
anyhow, as she had no time for parade that day.'
CHAPTER II.
ARTHUR TRACY.
Although it was a morning in October, the grass in the park was as green
as in early June, while the flowers in the beds and borders, the
geraniums, the phlox, the stocks, and verbenas were handsomer, if
possible, than they had been in the summer-time: for the rain, which had
fallen almost continually during the month of September, had kept them
fresh and bright. Here and there the scarlet and golden tints of autumn
were beginning to show on the trees; but this only added a new charm to
a place which was noted for its beauty, and was the pride and admiration
of the town.
And yet Mrs. Frank Tracy, who stood on the wide piazza, looking after a
carriage which was moving down the avenue which led through the park to
the highway, did not seem as happy as the mistress of that house ought
to have been, standing there in the clear, crisp morning, with a silken
wrapper trailing behind her, a coquettish French cap on her head, and
costly jewels on her short, fat hands, which once were not as white and
soft as they were now. For Mrs. Frank Tracy, as Dorothy Smith, had known
what hard labor and poverty meant, and slights, too, because of the
poverty and labor. Her mother was a widow, sickly and lame, and Dorothy
in her girlhood had worked in the cotton mills at Langley, and bound
shoes for the firm of Newell & Brothers, and had taught a district
school, 'by way of elevating herself,' but the elevation did not pay,
and she went back to the mills in the day-time and her shoes at night,
and rebelled at the fate which had made her so poor and seemed likely to
keep her so.
But there was something better in store for her than binding shoes, or
even teaching a district school, and, from the time when young Frank
Tracy came to Langley as clerk in the Newell firm, Dorothy's life was
changed and her star began to rise. They both sang in the choir,
standing side by side, and sometimes using the same book, and once or
twice their hands met as both tried to turn the leaves together.
Dorothy's were red and rough, and not nearly as delicate as those of
Frank, who had been in a store all his life: and still there was a
magnetism in their touch which sent a thrill through the young man's
veins, and made him for the first time look critically at his companion.
She was very pretty, he thought, with bright black eyes, a healthful
bloom, and a smile and blush which went straight to his heart and made
him her slave at once. In three months' time they were married and
commenced housekeeping in a very unostentatious way, for Frank had
nothing but his salary to depend upon. But he was well connected, and
boasted some blue blood, which, in Dorothy's estimation, made amends for
lack of money. The Tracys of Boston were his distant relatives, and he
had a rich bachelor uncle who spent his winters in New Orleans and his
summers in Shannondale, at Tracy Park, on which he had lavished fabulous
sums of money. From this uncle Frank had expectations, though naturally
the greater part of his fortune would go to his god-son and name-sake,
Arthur Tracy, who was Frank's elder brother, and as unlike him as one
brother could well be unlike another.
Arthur was scholarly in his tastes, quiet and gentlemanly in his
manners, with a musical voice which won him friends at once, while in
his soft black eyes there was a peculiar look of sadness, as if he were
brooding over something which filled him with regret. Frank was very
proud of his brother, and with Dorothy felt that he was honored when,
six months after their marriage, he came for a day or so to visit them,
and with him his intimate friend Harold Hastings, an Englishman by
birth, but so thoroughly Americanized as to pass unchallenged for a
native. There was a band of crape on Arthur's hat, and his manner was
like one trying to be sorry, while conscious of a great inward feeling
of resignation, if not content. The rich uncle was dead. He had died
suddenly in Paris, where he had gone on business, and the whole of his
vast fortune was left to his nephew Arthur--not a farthing to Frank, not
even the mention of his name in the will: and when Dorothy heard it she
put her white apron over her face, and cried as if her heart would
break. They were so poor, she and Frank, and they wanted so many things,
and the man who could have helped them was dead and had left them
nothing. It was hard, and she might not have made the young heir very
welcome if he had not ensured her that he should do something for her
husband. And he kept his word, and in course of time bought out a
grocery in Langley and put Frank in it, and paid the mortgage on his
house, and gave him a thousand dollars, and invited them for a few days
to visit him; and then it would seem as if he forgot them entirely; for
with his friend Harold he settled himself at Tracy Park, and played the
role of the grand gentleman to perfection.
Dinner parties and card parties, where it was said the play was for
money, and where Arthur always allowed himself to lose and his friends
to win; races and hunts were of frequent occurrence at Tracy Park,
where matters generally were managed on a magnificent scale, and created
a great deal of talk among the plain folks of Shannondale, whose only
dissipation then was going to church twice on Sunday and to the cattle
show once each year.
Few ladies ever graced these festivities, for Arthur was very
aristocratic in his feelings, and with two or three exceptions, held
himself aloof from the people of Shannondale. It was said, however, that
sometimes, when he and his friend were alone, there was the sweep of a
white dress and the gleam of golden hair in the parlor, where sweet Amy
Crawford, daughter of the housekeeper, played and sang her simple
ballads to the two gentlemen, who always treated her with as much
deference as if she had been a queen, instead of a poor young girl
dependent for her bread upon her own and her mother's exertions. But
beyond the singing in the twilight Amy never advanced, and so far as her
mother knew she had never for a single instant been alone with either of
the gentlemen. How, then, was the household electrified one morning when
it was found that Amy had fled, and that Harold Hastings was the
companion of her flight?
'I wanted to tell you,' Amy wrote to her mother in the note left on
her dressing table. 'I wanted to tell you and be married at home,
but Mr. Hastings would not allow it. It would create trouble, he
said, between himself and Mr. Tracy, who I may confess to you in
confidence, asked me twice to be his wife, and when I refused,
without giving him a reason, for I dared not tell him of my love for
his friend, he was so angry and behaved so strangely, and there was
such a look in his eyes, that I was afraid of him, and it was this
fear, I think, which made me willing to go away secretly with Harold
and be married in New York. We are going to Europe; shall sail
to-morrow morning at nine o'clock in the Scotia. The marriage
ceremony will be performed before we go on board. I shall write as
soon as we reach Liverpool. You must forgive me, mother, and I am
sure you would not blame me, if you knew how much I love Mr.
Hastings. I know he is poor, and that I might be mistress of Tracy
Park, but I love Harold best. It is ten o'clock, and the train, you
know, passes at eleven; so I must say good-bye.
'Yours lovingly,
'Amy Crawford, now, but when you read this,
'Amy Hastings.'
This was Amy's letter which her mother found upon entering her room
after waiting more than an hour for her daughter's appearance at the
breakfast, which they always took by themselves. To say that she was
shocked and astonished would but faintly portray the state of her mind
as she read that her beautiful young daughter had gone with Harold
Hastings, whom she had never liked, for though he was handsome, and
agreeable, and gentlemanly as a rule, she knew him to be thoroughly
selfish and indolent, and she trembled for her daughter's happiness when
a little time had quenched the ardor of his passion. Added to this was
another thought which made her brain reel for a moment an she thought
what might have been. Arthur Tracy had wished to make Amy his wife, and
mistress of Tracy Park, which she would have graced so well, for in all
the town there was not a fairer, sweeter girl than Amy Crawford, or one
better beloved.
It did not matter that she was poor, and her mother was only a
housekeeper. She had never felt a slight on that account, and had been
reared as carefully and tenderly as the daughters of the rich, and if
away down, in her mother's heart there had been a half defined hope that
some time the master of Tracy Park might turn his attention to her, it
had been hidden so closely that Mrs. Crawford scarcely knew of it
herself until she learned what her daughter was and what she might have
been. But it was too late now. There was no turning back the wheels of
fate.
Forcing herself to be as calm as possible, she took the note to Arthur,
who had breakfasted alone, and was waiting impatiently in the library
for the appearance of his friend.
'Lazy dog!' Mrs. Crawford heard him say, as she approached the open
door. 'Does he think he has nothing to do but to sleep? We were to start
by this time, and he in bed yet!'
'Are you speaking of Mr. Hastings?' Mrs. Crawford asked, as she stepped
into the room.
'Yes,' was his crisp and haughty reply, as if he resented the question,
and her presence there.
He could be very proud and stern when he felt like it, and one of these
moods was on him now, but Mrs. Crawford did not heed it, and sinking
into a chair, for she felt that she could not stand and face him, she
began:
'I came to tell you of Mr. Hastings and--Amy. She did not come to
breakfast, and I found this note in her room. She has gone to New York
with him. They took the eleven o'clock train last night. They are to be
married this morning, and sail in the Scotia for Europe.'
She had told her story, and paused for the result, which was worse than
she had expected.
For a moment Arthur Tracy stood staring at her, while his face grew
white as ashes, and into his dark eyes, usually so soft and mild, there
came a fiery gleam like that of a madman, as he seemed for a time to be.
'Amy gone with Harold, my friend!' he said at last. 'Gone to New York!
Gone to be married! Traitors! Vipers! Both of them. Curse them! If he
were here I'd shoot him like a dog; and she--I believe I would kill
her.'
He was walking the floor rapidly, and to Mrs. Crawford it seemed as if
he really were unsettled in his mind, he talked so incoherently and
acted so strangely.
'What else did she say?' he asked, suddenly, stopping and confronting
her. 'You have not told me all. Did she speak of me? Let me see the
note,' and he held his hand for it.
For a moment Mrs. Crawford hesitated, but as he grew more and more
persistent she suffered him to take it, and then watched him as he read
it, white the veins on his forehead began to swell until they stood out
like a dark blue net-work against his otherwise pallid face.
'Yes,' he snapped between his white teeth. 'I did ask her to be my wife,
and she refused, and with her soft, kittenish ways made me more in love
with her than ever, and more her dupe. I never suspected Harold, and
when I told him of my disappointment, for I never kept a thing from
him--traitor that he was--he laughed at me for losing my heart to my
housekeeper's daughter! I, who, he said, might marry the greatest lady
in the land. I could have knocked him down for his sneer at Amy, and I
wish now I had, the wretch! He will not marry your daughter, madam; and
if he does not I will kill him!'
He was certainly mad, and Mrs. Crawford shrank away from him an from
something dangerous, and going to her room took her bed in a fit of
frightful hysterics. This was followed by a state of nervous
prostration, and for a few days she neither saw, nor heard of, nor
inquired for Mr. Tracy. At the end of the fourth day, however, she was
told by the house-maid that he had that morning packed his valise and,
without a word to any one, had taken the train for New York. A week went
by, and then there came a letter from him, which ran as follows:
'New York, May ----, 18--.
'Mrs. Crawford:--I am off for Europe to-morrow, and when I shall
return is a matter of uncertainty. They are married; or at least I
suppose so, for I found a list of the passengers who sailed in the
Scotia, and the names, Mr. and Mrs. Hastings, were in it. So that
saves me from breaking the sixth commandment, as I should have done
if he hid played Amy false. I may not make myself known to them, but
I shall follow them, and if he harms a hair of her head I shall
shoot him yet. My brother Frank is to live at Tracy Park. That will
suit his wife, and as you will not care to stay with her, I send you
a deed of that cottage in the lane by the wood where the gardener
now lives. It is a pretty little place, and Amy liked it well. We
used to meet there sometimes, and more than once I have sat with her
on that seat under the elm tree, and it was there I asked her to be
my wife. Alas! I loved her so much, and I love her still as I can
never love another woman, and I could have made her so happy; but
that is past, and I can only watch her at a distance. When I have
anything to communicate, I will write again.
'Yours truly, 'Arthur Tracy.'
'P.S.--Take all the furniture in your room and Amy's, and whatever
else is needful for your house. I shall tell Colvin to give you a
thousand dollars, and when you want more let him know, I shall never
forget that you are Amy's mother.
This was Arthur's letter to Mrs. Crawford, while to his brother he
wrote:
'Dear Frank:--I am going to Europe for an indefinite length of time.
Why I go it matters not to you or any one. I go to suit myself, and
I want you to sell out your business at Langley and live at Tracy
Park, where you can see to things as if they were your own. You will
find everything straight and square, for Colvin is honest and
methodical. He knows all about the bonds, and mortgages, and stocks,
so you cannot do better than to retain him in your service,
overseeing matters yourself, of course, and drawing for your salary
what you think right and necessary for your support and for keeping
up the place as it ought to be kept up. I enclose a power of
attorney. When I want money I shall call upon Colvin. I may be gone
for years and perhaps forever.
'I shall never marry, and when I die, what I have will naturally go
to you. We have not been to each other much like brothers for the
past few years, but I do not forget the old home in the mountains
where we were boys together, and played, and quarreled, and slept up
under the roof, where the blankets were hung to keep the snow from
sifting through the rafters upon our bed.
'And, Frank, do you remember the bitter mornings, when the
thermometer was below zero, and we performed our ablutions in the
wood-shed, and the black-eye you gave me once for telling mother
that you had not washed yourself at all, it was so cold? She sent
you from the table, and made you go without your breakfast, and we
had ham and johnny-cake toast that morning, too. That was long ago,
and our lives are different now. There are marble basins, with
silver chains and stoppers, at Tracy Pack, and you can have a hot
bath every day if you like, in a room which would not shame
Caracalla himself. And I know you will like it all, and Dolly, too;
but don't make fools of yourselves. Nothing stamps a person as a
_come-up_ from the scum so soon as airs and ostentation. Be quiet
and modest, as if you had always lived at Tracy Park. Imitate Squire
Harrington and Mr. St. Claire. They are the true gentlemen, and were
to the manner born. Be kind to Mrs. Crawford. She is a lady in every
sense of the word, for she comes of good New England stock.
'And now, good-bye. I shall write sometimes, but not often.
'Your brother,
'Arthur Tracy.'
CHAPTER III.
MR. AND MRS. FRANK TRACY.
Mr. Frank, in his small grocery store at Langley, was weighing out a
pound of butter for the Widow Simpson, who was haggling with him about
the price, when his brother's letter was brought to him by the boy who
swept his store and did errands for him. But Frank was too busy just
then to read it. There was a circus in the village that day, and it
brought the country people into the town in larger numbers than usual.
Naturally, many of them paid Frank a visit in the course of the morning,
so that it was not until he went home to his dinner that be even thought
of the letter, which was finally brought to his mind by his wife's
asking if there was any news.
Mrs. Frank was always inquiring for and expecting news, but she was not
prepared for what this day brought her. Neither was her husband, and
when he read his brother's letter, which he did twice to assure himself
that he was not mistaken, he sat for a moment perfectly bewildered, and
staring at his wife, who was putting his dinner upon the table.
'Dolly,' he gasped at last, when he could speak at all--'Dolly, what do
you think? Just listen. Arthur is going to Europe, to stay forever,
perhaps, and has left us Tracy Park. We are going there to live, and you
will be as grand a lady as Mrs. Atherton, of Brier Hill; or that young
girl at Collingwood.'
Dolly had a platter of ham and eggs in her hand, and she never could
tell, though she often tried to do so, what prevented her from dropping
the whole upon the floor. She did spill some of the fat upon her clean
tablecloth, she put the dish down so suddenly, and sinking into a chair,
demanded what her husband meant. Was he crazy, or what?
'Not a bit of it,' he replied, recovering himself and beginning to
realize the good fortune which had come to him. 'We are rich people,
Dolly. Read for yourself;' and he passed her the letter, which she
seemed to understand better than he had done.
'Why, yes,' she said. 'We are going to Tracy Park to live; but that
doesn't make us rich. It is not ours.'
'I know that,' her husband replied. 'But we shall enjoy it all the same,
and hold our heads with the best of them. Besides, don't you see, Arthur
gives me _carte blanche_ as to pay for my services, and, though I shall
do right, it is not in human nature that I should not feather my nest
when I have a chance. Some of that money ought to have been mine. I
shall sell out at once if I can find a purchaser, and if I cannot, I
shall rent the grocery and move out of this hole double quick.'
His ideas were growing faster than those of his wife, who was attached
to Langley and its people, and shrank a little from the grander opening
before her. She had once spent a few days at Tracy Park, as Arthur's
guest, and had felt great restraint even in the presence of Mrs.
Crawford and Amy, whom she recognized as ladies notwithstanding their
position in the house. On that occasion she had, with her
brother-in-law, been invited to dine at Brier Hill, the country-seat of
Mrs. Grace Atherton, a gay widow, whose dash and style had completely
overawed the plain, matter-of-fact Dolly, who did not know what half the
dishes were, or what she was expected to do. But, by watching Arthur,
and declining some things which she felt sure were beyond her
comprehension, she managed tolerably well, though when the dinner was
over, and she could breathe freely again, she found that the back of her
new silk gown was wet with perspiration, which had oozed from every pore
during the hour and a half she had sat at the table. And even then her
troubles were not ended, for coffee was served in the drawing-room, and
as Arthur took his clear, she did not know whether she was expected to
do the same or not, but finally ventured to say she would have hers with
'trimmin's.' There was a mischievous twinkle in Mrs. Atherton's eyes
which disconcerted her so much that she spilled her coffee in her lap,
and felt, as she afterward told a friend to whom she was describing the
dinner, as if she could have been knocked down with a feather.
'Such folderol!' she said. 'Changing your plates all the time--eating
peas in the winter greener than grass, with nothing under the sun with
them, and drinking coffee out of a cup about as big as a thimble. Give
me the good old-fashioned way, I say, with peas and potatoes, and meat,
and things, and cups that will hold half a pint and have some thickness
that you can feel in your mouth.'
And now she was to exchange the good, old-fashioned way for what she
termed 'folderol,' and for a time she did not like it. But her husband
was so delighted and eager that he succeeded in impressing her with some
of his enthusiasm, and after he had returned to his grocery, and her
dishes were washed, she removed her large kitchen apron, and pulling
down the sleeves of her dress, went and stood before the mirror, where
she examined herself critically and not without some degree of
complacency.
Her hair was black and glossy, or would be if she had time to care for
it as it ought to be cared for; her eyes were bright, and perhaps in
time she might learn to use them as Mrs. Atherton used hers.
Mrs. Atherton stood as the criterion for everything elegant and
fashionable, and naturally it was with her that she compared herself.
'She is older than I am,' she said to herself; 'there are crow-tracks
around her eyes, and her complexion is not a bit better than mine was
before I spoiled it with soap-suds, and stove heat, and everything
else.'
Then she looked at her hands, but they were red and rough, and the nails
were broken and not at all like the nails which an expert has polished
for an hour or more. Mrs. Atherton's diamond rings would be sadly out of
place on Dolly's fingers, but time and abstinence from work would do
much for them, she reflected, and after all it would be nice to live in
a grand house, ride in a handsome carriage, and keep a hired girl to do
the heavy work. So, on the whole, she began to feel quite reconciled to
her change of situation, and to wonder how she ought to conduct herself
in view of her future position. She had intended going to the circus
that night, but she gave that up, telling her husband that it was a
second-class amusement any way, and she did not believe that either Mrs.
Atherton or the young lady at Collingwood patronized such places. So
they staid at home and talked together of what they should do at Tracy
Park, and wondered if it was their duty to ask all their Langley friends
to visit them. Mrs. Frank, as the more democratic of the two, decided
that it was. She was not going to begin by being _stuck up_, she said,
and when at last she left Langley four weeks later, every man, woman,
and child of her familiar acquaintance in town had been heartily invited
to call upon her at Tracy Park if ever they came that way.
Frank had disposed of his business at a reasonable price, and had rented
his house with all the furniture, except such articles as his wife
insisted upon taking with her. The bureau, and bedstead, and chairs
which she and Frank had bought together in Springfield just before their
marriage, the Boston rocker her mother had given her, and in which the
old mother had sat until the day she died, the cradle in which she had
rocked her first baby boy who was lying in the Langley grave-yard, were
dear to the wife and mother, and though her husband told her she could
have no use for them at Tracy Park, where the furniture was of the
costliest kind, and that she would probably put them in the servants'
rooms or attic, there was enough of sentiment in her nature to make her
cling to them as something of the past, and so they were boxed up and
forwarded by freight to Tracy Park, whither Mr. and Mrs. Tracy followed
them a week later.
The best dressmaker in Langley had been employed upon the wardrobe of
Mrs. Frank, who, in her travelling dress of some stuff goods of a
plaided pattern, too large and too bright to be quite in good taste,
felt herself perfectly _au fait_ as the mistress of Tracy Park, until
she reached Springfield, where Mrs. Grace Atherton, accompanied by a
tall, elegant looking young lady, entered the car and took a seat in
front of her. Neither of the ladies noticed her, but she recognized Mrs.
Atherton at once and guessed that her companion was the young lady from
Collingwood, who, rumor said, was soon to marry her guardian, Mr.
Richard Harrington, although he was old enough to be her father.
Dolly scanned both the ladies very closely, noting every article of
their costumes from their plain linen collars and cuffs to their quiet
dresses of gray, which seemed so much more in keeping with the dusty
cars than her buff and purple plaid.
'I ain't like them, and never shall be,' she said to herself, with a
bitter sense of her inferiority pressing upon her. 'I ain't like them,
and never shall be, if I live to be a hundred. I wish we were not going
to be grand. I shall never get used to it,' and the hot tears sprang to
her eyes as she longed to be back in the kitchen where she had worked so
hard.
But Dolly did not know then how readily people can forget the life of
toil behind them and adapt themselves to one of luxury and ease; and
with her the adaptability commenced in some degree the moment
Shannondale station was reached, and she saw the handsome carriage
waiting for them. A carriage finer far and more modern than the one from
Collingwood, in which Mrs. Atherton and the young lady took their seats,
laughing and chatting so gayly that they did not see the woman in the
big plaid who stood watching them with a rising feeling of jealousy and
resentment as she thought of Mrs. Atherton, 'She does not even notice
me.'
But when the Tracy carriage drew up, Grace Atherton saw and recognized
her, and whispered, in an aside to her companion:
'For goodness' sake, Edith, look! There are the Tracys, our new
neighbors.' Then she bowed to Mrs. Tracy, and said: 'Ah, I did not know
you were on the train.'
'I sat right behind you,' was Mrs. Tracy's rather ungracious reply: and
then, not knowing whether she ought to do it or not, she introduced her
husband.
'Yes, Mr. Tracy--how do you do?' was Mrs. Atherton's response; but she
did not in return introduce the young girl, whose dark eyes were
scanning the strangers so curiously, and this Dolly took as a slight and
inwardly resented it.
But Mrs. Atherton had spoken to her and that was something, and helped
to keep her spirits up as she was driven along the turnpike to the
entrance of the park.
On the occasion of Mrs. Frank's first and only visit to her
brother-in-law it was winter, and everything was covered with snow. But
it was summer now, the month of roses, and fragrance, and beauty, and as
the carriage passed up the broad, smooth avenue which led to the house,
Dolly's eyes wandered over the well-kept lawn, sweet with the scent of
newly-mown grass, the parteries of flowers and shrubs, the winding walks
and clumps of evergreens here and there formed into fancy rooms, with
rustic seats and tables under the over-hanging boughs; and when she
reflected that all this was hers to enjoy for many years, and perhaps
for her life-time, she felt the first stirring of that pride, and
satisfaction, and self-assertion which was to grow upon her so rapidly
and transform her from the plain, unpretentious woman who had washed,
and ironed, and baked, and mended in the small house in Langley into the
arrogant, haughty lady of fashion, who courted only the rich and looked
down upon her less fortunate neighbors. Now, however, she was very meek
and humble, and trembled as she alighted from the carriage before the
great stone house which was to be her home.
'Isn't this grand, Dolly?' her husband said, rubbing his hands together
and looking about him complacently.
'Yes, very grand,' Dolly answered him; but somehow it makes me feel
weaker than water. I suppose, though, I shall get accustomed to it.'
CHAPTER IV.
GETTING ACCUSTOMED TO IT.
In the absence of Mrs. Crawford, who for a week or more had been
domesticated in the cottage in the lane, as the house was designated
which Arthur had given her, there was no one to receive the strangers
except the cook and the house-maid, and as Mrs. Tracy entered the hall
the two came forward, bristling with criticism, and ready to resent
anything like interference in the new-comers.
The servants at the park had not been pleased with the change of
administration. That Mr. Arthur was a gentleman whom it was an honor to
serve, they all conceded; but with regard to the new master and
mistress, they had grave doubts. Although none of them had been at the
park on the occasion of Mrs. Tracy's first visit there, many rumors
concerning her had reached them, and she would scarcely have recognized
herself could she have heard the remarks of which she was the subject.
That she had worked in a factory--which was true--was her least offence,
for it was whispered that once, when the winter was unusually severe,
and work scarce, she had gone to a soup-house, and even asked and
procured coal from the poor-master for herself and her mother.
This was not true, and would have argued nothing against her as a woman
if it had been, but the cook and the house-maid believed it, and passed
sundry jokes together while preparing to meet 'the pauper,' as they
designated her.
In this state of things their welcome could not be very cordial, but
Mrs. Tracy was too tired and too much excited, to observe their demeanor
particularly. They were civil, and the house was in perfect order, and
so much larger and handsomer than she had thought it to be, that she
felt bewildered and embarrassed, and said 'Yes 'em,' and 'No, ma'am,' to
Martha, the cook, and told Sarah, who was waiting at dinner, that she
'might as well sit down in a chair as to stand all the time; she
presumed she was tired with so many extra steps to take.'
But Sarah knew her business, and persisted in standing, and inflicting
upon the poor woman as much ceremony as possible, and then, in the
kitchen, she repeated to the cook and the coachman, with sundry
embellishments of her own, the particulars of the dinner, amid peals of
laughter at the expense of the would-be lady, who had said 'she could
just as soon have her salad with her other things, and save washing go
many dishes.'
It was hardly possible that mistress and maids would stay together long,
especially as Mrs. Tracy, when a little more assured, and a little less
in awe of her servants, began to show a disposition to know by personal
observation what was going on in the kitchen, and to hint broadly that
there was too much waste here and expenditure there, and quite too much
company at all hours of the day.
'She didn't propose to keep a boarding-house,' she said, 'or to support
families outside, and the old woman who came so often to the basement
door with a big basket under her cloak must discontinue her calls.'
Then there occurred one of those Hibernian cyclones which sweep
everything before them, and which in this instance swept Mrs. Tracy out
of the kitchen for the time being, and the cook out of the house. Her
self-respect, she said, would not allow her to stay with a woman who
knew just how much coal was burned, how much butter was used, and how
much bread was thrown away, and who objected to giving a bite now and
then to a poor old woman, who, poor as she was, had never yet been
helped by the poor-master, or gone to a soup-house like my lady!
Martha's departure was followed by that of Sarah, and then Mrs. Tracy
was alone, and for a few days enjoyed herself immensely, doing her own
work, cooking her own dinner, and eating it when and where she liked--in
the kitchen mostly, as that kept the flies from the dining-room, and
saved her many steps, for Dolly was beginning to find that there was a
vast difference between keeping a house with six rooms and one with
twenty or more.
Her husband urged her to try a new servant, saying there was no
necessity for her to make a slave of herself: but she refused to listen.
Economy was a part of her nature, and besides that she meant to show
them that she was perfectly independent of the whole tribe; the _tribe_
and _them_ referring to the hired girls alone, for she knew no one else
in town.
Nobody had called except the clergyman, not even Mrs. Crawford, whose
friendship and possible advice Mrs. Tracy had counted upon, and with
whom she knew she should feel more at ease than with Mrs. Atherton from
Brier Hill, or Miss Hastings from Collingwood. She had seen both the
last named ladies at church and had a nod from Mrs. Atherton, and that
was all the recognition she had received from her neighbors up to the
hot July morning, a week or more after the house-maid's departure, when
she was busy in the kitchen canning black raspberries, of which the
garden was full.
Like many housekeepers who do their own work, Dolly was not very
particular with regard to her dress in the morning, and on this occasion
her hair was drawn from her rather high forehead, and twisted into a
hard knot at the back of her head; her calico dress hung straight dawn,
for she was minus hoops, which in those days were worn quite large; her
sleeves were rolled above her elbows, and, as a protection against the
juice of the berries, she wore a huge apron made of sacking. In this
garb, and with no thought of being interrupted, she kept on with her
work until the last kettle of fruit, was boiling and bubbling on the
stove, and she was just glancing at the clock to see if it were time to
put over the peas for dinner, when there came a quick, decisive ring at
the front door.
'Who can that be?' she said to herself, as she wiped her hands upon her
apron. 'Some peddler or agent, I dare say. Why couldn't he come round to
the kitchen, door, I'd like to know?'
She had been frequently troubled with peddlers and agents of all kinds,
and feeling certain that this was one--ringing the bell a second time,
as if in a hurry--she started for' the door in no very amiable frame of
mind, for peddlers were her abomination. Something ailed the lock or
key, which resisted all her efforts to turn it; and at last, putting her
mouth to the keyhole, she called out, rather sharply:
'Go to the back door: I cannot open this,'
Then, as she caught a whiff of burnt syrup, she hurried to the kitchen,
where she found that her berries had boiled over, and were hissing and
sputtering on the hot stove, raising a cloud of smoke so dense that she
did not see the person who stood on the threshold of the door until a
voice wholly unlike that of any peddler or agent said to her;
'Good morning, Mrs. Tracy. I hope I am not intruding.'
Then she turned, and to her horror and surprise, saw Grace Atherton,
attired in the coolest and daintiest of morning costumes, with a jaunty
French bonnet set coquettishly upon her head, and a silver card-case in
her hand.
For the moment Dolly's wits forsook her and she stood staring at her
visitor, who, perfectly at her ease, advanced into the room and said:
'I hope you will excuse me, Mrs. Tracy, for this morning call I came--'
But she did not finish the sentence, for by this time Dolly had
recovered herself a little, and throwing off her apron, she replied,
nervously:
'Not at all--not at all, I supposed you were some peddler or agent when
I sent you to this door. They are the plague of my life, and think I'll
buy everything and give to everything because Arthur did. I am doing my
own work, you see. Come into the parlor;' and she led the way into the
dark drawing-room, and where the chairs and sofas were surrounded in
white linen, looking like so many ghosts in the dim, uncertain light.
But Dolly opened one of the windows, and pushing back the blinds, let in
a flood of sunshine, so strong and bright that she at once closed the
shutters, saying, apologetically, that she did not believe in fading the
carpets, if they were not her own. Then she sat down upon an ottoman and
faced her visitor, who was regarding her with a mixture of amusement and
wonder.
Grace Atherton was an aristocrat to her very finger-tips, and shrank
from contact with anything vulgar and unsightly, and, to her mind, Mrs.
Tracy represented both, and seemed sadly out of place in that handsome
room, with her sleeves rolled up and the berry stains on her hands and
face. Grace knew nothing by actual experience of canning berries, or of
aprons made of sacking, or of bare arms, except it were of an evening
when they showed white and fair against her satin gown, with bands of
gold and precious stones upon them, and she felt that there was an
immeasurable distance between herself and this woman, whom she had come
to see partly on business and partly because she thought she must call
upon her for the sake of Arthur Tracy, the former occupant of the park.
Grace and Arthur had been fast friends, and Brier Hill was almost the
only place where he had visited on anything like terms of intimacy.
Indeed, it was rumored by the busy knowing ones of Shannondale that, had
the pretty widow been six years his junior instead of his senior, she
would have left no art untried to win him. But here the wise ones were
in fault, for though Grace Atherton's heart was not buried in her
husband's grave, and, in fact, had never been her husband's at all, it
was given to one who, though he cared for it once, did not prize it now,
for, with all the intensity of his noble nature, Richard Harrington, of
Collingwood; loved the beautiful girl whom, years ago, he had taken to
his home as his child, and whom, it was said, he was to marry. But if
the belief that the love she once refused and which she would fain
recover was lost to her forever rankled in her breast, Grace never made
a sign, and laughed as gayly and looked almost as young and handsome as
in the days when Richard was wooing her in the pleasant old English town
across the sea. She had loved Richard then, but, alas! loved money more,
and she chose a richer man, old enough to be her father, who had died
when she was twenty-one and left her the possessor of nearly half a
million, every dollar of which she would have given to have recalled the
days which were gone forever.
Grace had been intending to call upon Mrs. Tracy ever since she came to
the park. 'Not,' as she said to her friend, Edith Hastings, 'for the
woman's sake, for she knew her to be vulgar: but because she was a
neighbor and the sister-in-law of Arthur Tracy,' And so at last she
came, partly out of compliment and partly on business, into which last
she plunged at once. She was going to the mountains with Mr. Harrington
and Miss Hastings: her cook, who had been with her seven years, had gone
to attend a sick mother, and had recommended as a fit person to take her
place the woman who had just left Tracy Park.
'I do not like to take a servant without first knowing something of her
from her last employer,' she said: 'and, if you do not mind, I should
like to ask if Martha left for anything very bad.'
Mrs. Tracy colored scarlet, and for a moment was silent. She could not
tell that fine lady in the white muslin dress, with seas of lace and
embroidery, that Martha had called her _second classy_, and _stingy_ and
_strooping_, and _mean_, because she objected to the amount of coal
burned, and bread thrown away, and time consumed at the table, besides
turning down the gas in the kitchen when she thought it too light, to
say nothing of turning it off at the meter at ten o'clock, just when the
servants were beginning to enjoy themselves. All this she felt would
scarcely interest a person like Mrs. Atherton, who might sympathize with
Martha more than with herself, so she finally said:
'Martha was saucy to me, and on the whole it was better for them all to
go; and so I am doing my own work.'
'Doing your own work!' and Grace gave a little cry of surprise, while
her shoulders shrugged meaningly, and made Mrs. Tracy almost as angry as
she had been with Martha when she called her mean and second-class. 'It
cannot be possible that you cook, and wash, and iron, and do
everything,' Mrs. Atherton continued. 'My dear Mrs. Tracy, you can never
stand it in a house like this, and Mr. Arthur would not like it if he
knew. Why he kept as many as six servants, and sometimes more. Pray let
me advise you, and commend to you a good girl; who lived with me three
years, and can do everything, from dressing my hair to making a
blanc-mange. I only parted with her because she was sick, and now that
she is well, her place is filled. Try her, and do not make a servant of
yourself. It is not fitting that you should.'
Grace was fond of giving advice, and had said more than she intended
saying when she began, but Mrs. Tracy, though annoyed, was not angry,
and consented to receive the girl who had lived at Brier Hill three
years, and who, she reflected, could be of use to her in many ways.
While sitting there in her soiled working dress talking to the elegant
Mrs. Atherton she had felt her inferiority more keenly than she had ever
done before, while at the same time she was conscious that a new set of
ideas and thoughts had taken possession of her, reawaking in her the
germ of that ambition to be somebody which she had felt so often when a
girl, and which now was to bud and blossom, and bear fruit a hundred
fold. She would take the girl, and from her learn the ways of the world
as presented at Brier Hill. She would no longer wear sacking aprons, and
open the door herself. She would be more like Grace Atherton, whom she
watched admiringly as she went down the walk to the handsome carriage
waiting for her, with driver and footman in tall hats and long coats on
the box.
This was the beginning of the fine lady into which Dolly finally
blossomed, and when that day Frank went home to his dinner he noticed
something in her manner which he could not understand until she told him
of Mrs. Atherton's call, and the plight in which that lady had found
her.
'Served you right, Dolly,' Frank said, laughing till the tears ran. 'You
have no business to be digging round like a slave when we are able to
have what we like. Arthur said we were to keep up the place us he had
done, and that does not mean that you should be a scullion. No, Dolly;
have all the girls you want, and hold up your head with the best of
them. Get a new silk gown, and return Mrs. Atherton's call at once, and
take a card and turn down one corner or the other, I don't know which,
but this girl of hers can tell you. Pump her dry as a powder horn; find
out what the quality do, and then do it, and not bother about the
expense. I am going in for a good time, and don't mean to work either. I
told Colvin this morning that I thought I ought to draw a salary of
about four thousand a year, besides our living expenses, and though he
looked at me pretty sharp over his spectacles he said nothing. Arthur is
worth half a million, if he is worth a cent. So, go it, Dolly, while you
are young,' and in the exuberance of his joy Frank kissed his wife on
both cheeks, and then hurried back to his office, where he spent most of
his time trying to be a gentleman.
That day they dined in the kitchen with a leaf of the table turned up as
they had done in Langley, but the next day they had dinner in the
dining-room, and were waited upon by the new girl as well as it was
possible for her to do with her mistress' interference.
'Never mind; Mr. Tracy's in a hurry. Give him his pie at once,' she
said, as Susan was about to clear the table preparatory to the dessert,
but she repented the speech when she saw the look of surprise which the
girl gave her and which expressed more than words could have done.
'Better let her run herself,' Frank said, when Susan had left the room,
'and if she wants to take every darned thing off the table and tip it
over to boot, let her do it. If she has lived three years with Mrs.
Atherton, she knows what is what better than we do.'
'But it takes so long, and I have much to see to in this great house,'
Dolly objected, and her husband replied:
'Get another girl, then; three of them if you like. What matter how many
girls we have so long as Arthur pays for them, and he is bound to do
that. He said so in his letter. You are altogether too economical. I've
told you so a hundred times, and now there is no need of saving. I want
to see you a lady of silks and satins like Mrs. Atherton. Pump that
girl. I tell you, and find out what ladies do!'
This was Frank's advice to his wife, and as far as in her lay she acted
upon it, and whatever Susan told her was done by Mrs. Atherton at Brier
Hill, she tried to do at Tracy Park: all except staying out of the
kitchen. That, from her nature, she could not and would not do.
Consequently she was constantly changing cooks, and frequently took the
helm herself, to the great disgust of her husband, who managed at last
to imbue her with his own ideas of things.
In course of time most of the neighbors who had any claim to society
called at the park, and among them Mrs. Crawford. But Mrs. Tracy had
then reached a point from which she looked down upon one who had been
housekeeper where she was now mistress, and whose daughter's good name
was under a cloud, as there were some who did not believe that Harold
Hastings had ever made her his wife. When told that Mrs. Crawford had
asked for her Mrs. Tracy sent word that she was engaged, and that if
Mrs. Crawford pleased she would give her errand to the girl.
'I have no errand. I came to call,' was Mrs. Crawford's reply, and she
never crossed the threshold of her old home again until the March winds
were blowing and there was a little boy in the nursery at the park.
At the last moment the expected nurse had fallen sick, and in his
perplexity Mr. Tracy went to the cottage in the lane and begged of Mrs.
Crawford to come and care for his wife. Mrs. Crawford was very proud,
but she was poor, too, and as the price per week which Frank offered her
was four times as much as she could earn by sewing, she consented at
last and went as nurse to the sick-room, and the baby, Tom, on whose
little red face she imprinted many a kiss for the sake of her daughter
who was coming home in June, and over whom the shadow of hope and fear
was hanging.
Dolly Tracy's growth after it fairly commenced, was very rapid, and when
Mrs. Crawford went to her as nurse she had three servants in her employ,
besides the coachman, and was imitating Mrs. Atherton to the best of her
ability; and when, early in the summer, she received the wedding cards
of Edith Hastings, the young lady from Collingwood, who had married a
Mr. St. Claire instead of her guardian, she felt that her position was
assured, and from that time her progress was onward and upward until the
October morning, ten years later, when our story proper opens, and we
see her standing upon the piazza of her handsome house, with every sign
of wealth and luxury about her person, from the silken robe to the
jewels upon her soft, white hands, which once had washed her own dishes,
and canned berries in her own kitchen, where she had received Grace
Atherton, with her sleeves above her elbows.
There were five servants in the house now, and they ran over and against
each other, and quarrelled, and gossipped, and worried her life nearly
out of her, until she was sometimes tempted to send them away and do the
work herself. But she was far too great a lady for that. She dressed in
silk and satin every day, and drove in her handsome carriage, with her
driver and footman in tall hats and long coats. She was thoroughly up in
etiquette, and did not need Susan to tell her what to do. She knew all
about visiting cards, and dinner cards, and cards of acceptance, and
regret, and condolence, and she read much oftener than she did her Bible
a book entitled 'Habits of Good Society.'
Three children played in the nursery now, Tom, and Jack, and baby Maude,
and she kept a nurse constantly for them, and strove with all her might
to instil into their infant minds that they were the Tracys of Tracy
Park, and entitled to due respect from their inferiors; and Tom, the boy
of ten and a half, had profited by her teaching, and was the veriest
little braggart in all Shannondale, boasting of his father's house, and
his father's money, without a word of the Uncle Arthur wandering no one
knew where, or cared particularly for that matter.
Arthur had never been home since the day he quitted it to look after Amy
Crawford, now lying in the grave-yard of Shannondale, under the shadow
of the tall monument which Arthur's money had bought. At first he had
written frequently to Mrs. Crawford, and occasionally to his brother,
and his agent, Mr. Colvin; then his letters came very irregularly, and
sometimes a year would intervene between them. Then he would write every
week, and he once told them not to be anxious if they did not hear from
him in a long time, as in case of his death he had arranged to have the
news communicated to his friends at once. After this letter nothing had
been heard from him for more than two years, until the morning when his
telegram came and so greatly disturbed the mental equilibrium of Mr.
Frank Tracy that for an hour or more he sat staring into the street in a
bewildered kind of way, wondering what would be the result of his
brother's return, and if he should be required to give up the
investments he had made from the exorbitant sum he had charged for
looking after the place. Once he thought he would ask Colvin's opinion;
but he was a little afraid of the old man, who had sometimes hinted that
his salary was far greater than the services rendered, but as Mr.
Arthur, to whom he made reports of the expenditures, had never objected,
it was not for him to do so, he said. And still Frank distrusted him,
and decided that, on the whole, his better plan was to wait, or at least
to consult no one but his wife, and he was glad when lunch-time came,
and he started home, where preparations were going forward for the first
large party they had ever given.
CHAPTER V.
AT THE PARK.
Frank Tracy had at first grown faster than his wife, and the change in
his manner had been more perceptible; for with all her foolishness Dolly
had a kind heart, and a keen sense of right, and wrong, and justice than
her husband. She had opposed him stoutly when he raised his own salary
from $4,000 to $6,000 a year, on the plea that his services were worth
it, and that two thousand more or less was nothing to Arthur; and when
he was a candidate for the Legislature she had protested loudly against
his inviting to the house and giving beer and cider to the men whose
votes he wanted, and for whom as men he did not care a farthing; but
when he came up for Congress she forgot all her scruples, and was as
anxious as himself to please those who could help him secure the
nomination and afterward the election. It was she who had proposed the
party, to which nearly everybody was to be invited, from old Peterkin,
with his powerful influence among a certain class, and Widow Shipleigh
with her four sons, to Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire, from Grassy Spring,
Squire Harrington, from Collingwood, and Grace Atherton, from Brier
Hill. Very few who could in any way help Frank to a seat in Congress
were omitted from the list, whether Republican or Democrat, for Frank
was popular with both parties and expected help from both. Over three
hundred cards had been issued for the party, which was the absorbing
topic of conversation in the whole town, and which brought white kids
and white muslins into great requisition, while swallow-tails and non
swallow-tails were discussed in the privacy of households, and discarded
or decided upon according to the length of the masculine purse or the
strength of the masculine resistance, for dress coats were not then the
rule in Shannondale. It was said that Mr. St. Claire and Squire
Harrington always wore them to dinner, but they were the nobility _par
excellence_ of the town, and were expected to do things differently from
the middle class, who had their bread to earn. Old Peterkin, however,
whom Frank in his soliloquy, had designated a _canal bummer_, had become
a rich man, and was resolved to show that he knew what was _au fait_ for
the occasion; a new suit throughout, in the very latest style, was in
progress of making for him, and he had been heard to say that 'Tracy
should have his vote and that of fifty more of the boys to pay for his
ticket to the doin's'. This speech, which was reported to Mrs. Tracy,
reconciled her to the prospect of receiving as a guest the coarsest,
roughest man in town, whose only recommendation was his money and the
brute influence he exercised over a certain class.
Dolly has scarcely slept for excitement since the party had been decided
upon, and everything seemed to be moving on very smoothly and in order.
They were to have music, and flowers, and a caterer from Springfield,
where a lovely party-dress for herself of peach-blow satin was making,
and nothing occurred of any importance to disturb her until the morning
of the day appointed for the party, when it seemed as if every evil
culminated at once. First, the colored boy who was to wait in the upper
hall came down with measles. Then Grace Atherton drove round in her
carriage to say that it would be impossible for her to be present, as
she had received news from New York which made it necessary for her to
go there by the next train. She was exceedingly sorry, she said, and for
once in her life Grace was sincere. She _was_ anxious to attend the
party, for, as she said to Edith St. Claire in confidence, she wanted to
see old Peterkin in his swallow-tail and white vest, with a shirt-front
as big as a platter. There was a great deal of sarcasm and ridicule in
Grace Atherton's nature, but at heart she was kind and meant to be just,
and after a fashion really liked Mrs. Tracy, to whom she had been of
service in various ways, helping her to fill her new position more
gracefully than she could otherwise have done, and enlightening her
without seeming to do so on many points which puzzled her sorely; on the
whole they were good friends, and, after expressing her regret that she
could not be present in the evening, Grace stood a few moments chatting
familiarly and offering to send over flowers from her greenhouse, and
her own maid to arrange Mrs. Tracy's hair and assist her in dressing.
Then she took her leave, and it was her carriage Mrs. Tracy was watching
as it went down the avenue, when little Harold Hastings appeared around
the corner of the house, and, coming up the steps, took off his cap
respectfully as he said:
'Grandma sends you her compliments, and is very sorry that she has
rheumatism this morning and cannot come to-night to help you. She
thinks, perhaps, you can get Mrs. Mosher.'
'Your grandmother can't come, when I depended so much upon her, and she
thinks I can get Mrs. Mosher, that termagant, who would raise a mutiny
in the kitchen in an hour!' Mrs. Tracy said this so sharply that a flush
mounted to the handsome face of the boy, who felt as if he were in some
way a culprit and being reprimanded. 'She _must_ come, if she does
nothing but sit in the kitchen and keep order,' was Mrs. Tracy's next
remark.
'She can't,' Harold replied; 'her foot and ankle is all swelled and
aches so she almost cries. She is awful sorry, and so am I, for I was
coming with her to see the show.'
This speech put a new idea into Mrs. Tracy's mind, and she said to the
boy:
'How would you like to come anyway, and stay in the upper hall, and tell
the people where to go? The boy I engaged has disappointed me. You are
rather small for the place, but I guess you'll do, and I will give you
fifty cents.'
'I'd like it first-rate,' Harold said, his face brightening at the
thought of earning fifty cents and seeing the show at the same time.
Half-dollars were not very plentiful with Harold, and he was trying to
save enough to buy his grandmother a pair of spectacles, for he had
heard her say that she could not thread her needle as readily as she
once did, and must have glasses as soon as she had the money to spare.
Harold had seen a pair at the drug-store for one dollar, and, without
knowing at all whether they would fit his grandmother's eyes or not, had
asked the druggist to keep them until he had the required amount. Fifty
cents would just make it, and he promised at once that he would come;
but in an instant there fell a shadow upon his face as he thought of
_Tom_, his tormentor, who worried him so much.
'What is it?' Mrs. Tracy asked, as she detected in him a disposition to
reconsider.
'Will Tom be up in the hall?' Harold asked.
'Of course not,' Mrs. Tracy replied. 'He will be in the parlors until
ten o'clock, and then he will go to bed. Why do you ask?'
'Because,' Harold answered fearlessly, 'if he was to be there I could
not come; he chaffs me so and twits me with being poor and living in a
house his uncle gave us.'
'That is very naughty in him, and I will see that he behaves better in
future,' said Mrs. Tracy, rather amused than other wise at the boy's
frankness.
As the mention of the uncle reminded Harold of the telegram, he took it
from his pocket and handed it to her.
'Mr. Tracy said I was to bring you this. It's from Mr. Arthur, and he's
coming to-night. I'm so glad, and grandma will be, too!'
If Mrs. Tracy heard the last of Harold's speech she did not heed it, for
she had caught the words that Arthur was coming that night, and, for a
moment, she felt giddy and faint, and her hand shook so she could
scarcely open the telegram.
Arthur had been gone so long and left them in undisputed possession of
the park, that she had come to feel as if it belonged to them by right,
and she had grown so into a life of ease and luxury, that to give it up
now and go back to Langley seemed impossible to her. She could see it
all so plainly--the old life of obscurity and toil in the little kitchen
where she had eaten her breakfast on winter mornings so near the stove
that she could cook her buckwheats on the griddle and transfer them to
her own and her husband's plates without leaving her seat. She had been
happy, or comparatively so there, she said to herself, because she knew
no better. But now she did know better, and she ate her breakfast in an
oak-paneled dining-room, with a waitress at her elbow, and her
buckwheats hot from a silver dish instead of the smoking griddle. She
had a governess for her two boys, Tom and Jack, and a nurse for her
little Maude, who, in her ambitious heart, she hoped would one day marry
Dick St. Clair, the young heir of Grassy Spring.
It never occurred to Dolly that they might possibly remain at the park
if Arthur did come home. She felt sure they could not, for Arthur would
hardly approve of his brother's stewardship when he came to realize how
much it had cost him. They would have to leave, and this party she was
giving would be her first and last at Tracy Park. How she wished she had
never thought of it, or, having thought of it, that she had omitted from
the list those who, she knew, would be obnoxious to the foreign brother,
and who had only been invited for the sake of their political influence,
which would now be useless, for Frank Tracy as a nobody, with very
little money to spend, would not run as well, even in his own party, as
Frank Tracy of Tracy Park, with thousands at his command if he chose to
take them.
'It is too bad, and I wish we could give up the party,' she said aloud,
forgetting in her excitement that Harold was still standing there,
gazing curiously at her. 'You here yet? I thought you had gone!' she
said, half angrily, as she recovered herself a little and met the boy's
wondering eyes.
'Yes'm; but you ain't going to give the party up?' he said, afraid of
losing his half-dollar.
'Of course not. How can I, with all the people invited?' she asked,
questioningly, and a little less sharply.
'I don't know, unless I get a pony and go round and tell 'em not to
come,' Harold suggested, thinking he might earn his fifty cents as
easily that way as any other.
But, much as Mrs. Tracy wished the party had never been thought of, she
could not now abandon it, and declining the services of Harold and his
pony, she again bade him go home, with a charge that he should be on
time in the evening, adding, as she surveyed him critically:
'If you have no clothes suitable, you can wear some of Tom's. You are
about his size.'
'Thank you; I have my meetin' clothes, and do not want Tom's,' was
Harold's reply, as he walked away, thinking he would go in rags before
he would wear anything which belonged to his enemy, Tom Tracy.
The rest of the morning was passed by Mrs. Frank in a most unhappy frame
of mind, and she was glad when, at an hour earlier than she had reason
to expect him, her husband came home.
'Well, Dolly,' he said, the moment they were alone, 'this is awfully
unlucky, the whole business. If Arthur must come home, why couldn't he
have written in advance, and not take us by surprise? Looks as if he
meant to spring a trap on us, don't it? And if he did, by Jove, he has
caught us nicely. It will be somewhat like the prodigal son, who heard
the sound of music and dancing, only I don't suppose Arthur has spent
his substance in riotous living, with not over nice people; but there is
no telling what he has been up to all these years that he has not
written to us. Perhaps he is married. He said in his telegram, "Send to
meet _us_." What does that mean, if not a wife?'
'A wife! Oh, Frank!' and with a great gasp Dolly sank down upon the
lounge near where she was standing, and actually went into the hysterics
her husband had prophesied.
In reading the telegram she had not noticed the little monosyllable
'_us_,' which was now affecting her so powerfully. Of course it meant a
wife and possibly children, and her day was surely over at Tracy Park.
It was in vain that her husband tried to comfort her, saying that they
knew nothing positively, except that Arthur was coming home and somebody
was coming with him; it might be a friend, or, what was more likely, it
might be a valet; and at all events he was not going to cross Fox River
till he reached it, when he might find a bridge across it.
But Frank's reasoning did not console his wife, whose hysterical fit was
succeeded by a racking headache, which by night was almost unbearable.
Strong coffee, aconite, brandy, and belladonna, were all tried without
effect. Nothing helped her until she commenced her toilet, when in the
excitement of dressing she partly forgot her disquietude, and the pain
in her head grew leas. Still she was conscious of a feeling of
wretchedness and regret as she sat in her handsome boudoir and felt that
it might be for the last time--that on the morrow another would be
mistress where she had reigned so long.
It was known in the house that Arthur was expected, and some one with
him, but no hint had been given of a wife, and Mrs. Tracy had ordered
separate rooms prepared for the strangers, who were to arrive on the
half-past ten train. How she should manage to keep up and appear natural
until that time Mrs. Tracy did not know, and her face and eyes wore an
anxious, frightened look, which all her finery could not hide. And still
she was really very handsome and striking in her dress of peach blow
satin, and the bare arms which had once been more familiar with
soap-suds and dishwater than lace and gold bracelets, looked very fair
and girlish when at last she descended to the drawing-room and stood
waiting for the first ring which would open the party.
CHAPTER VI.
THE COTTAGE IN THE LANE.
It was called thus because it stood at the end of a broad, grassy avenue
or lane, which led from the park to the entrance of the grounds of
Collingwood, whose chimneys and gables were distinctly visible in the
winter when the trees were stripped of their foliage. At the time when
Mrs. Crawford took possession of it its color was red, but the storms
and rains of eleven summers and winters had washed nearly all the red
away; and as Mrs. Crawford had never had the money to spare for its
repainting, it would have presented a brown and dingy appearance
outwardly, but for the luxurious woodbine, which she had trained with so
much care and skill that it covered nearly three sides of the cottage,
and made a gorgeous display in the autumn, when the leaves had turned a
bright scarlet.
Thanks to the thoughtfulness of Arthur Tracy, the cottage was furnished
comfortably and even prettily when Mrs. Crawford entered it, and it was
from the same kind friend that her resources mostly had come up to the
day when, three years after her marriage, Amy Hastings came home to die,
bringing with her a little two-year-old boy, whom, she called Harold,
for his father. Just where the father was, if indeed he were living, she
did not know. He had left her in London six months before, saying he was
going over to Paris for a few days, and should be back almost before she
had time to miss him. Just before he left her he said to her, playfully:
'Cheer up, _petite_. I have not been quite as regular in my habits as I
ought to have been, but London is not the place for a man of my
tastes--too many temptations for a fellow like me. When I come back we
will go into the country, where you can have a garden, with flowers and
chickens, and grow fat and pretty again. You are not much like the girl
I married. Good-bye.'
He kissed her and the baby, and went whistling down the stairs. She
never saw him again, and only heard from him once. Then he was in Paris,
and had decided to go for a week to Pau, where he said they were having
such fine fox hunts. Weeks went by and he never wrote nor came, and Amy
would have been utterly destitute and friendless but for Arthur Tracy,
who, when her need was greatest, went to her, telling her that he had
never been far from her, but had watched over her vigilantly to see that
no harm came to her. When her husband went to Paris he knew it through a
detective, and from the same source knew when he went to Pau, where all
trace of him had been lost.
'But we are sure to find him again,' he said, encouragingly; 'and
meantime I shall see that you do not suffer. As an old friend of your
husband, you will allow me to care for you until he is found.'
And Amy, who had no alternative, accepted his care, and tried to seem
cheerful and brave while waiting for the husband who never came back.
At last when all hope of seeing him again was gone, Arthur sent her home
to the cottage in the lane, where her mother received her gladly,
thanking Heaven that she had her daughter back again. But not for long.
Poor Amy's heart was broken. She loved her husband devotedly, and his
cruel desertion of her--for she knew now it was that--hurt her more than
years of suffering with him could have done. Occasionally she heard from
Arthur, who was still busy in search of the delinquent, and who always
sent in his letter a substantial proof of his friendship and generosity.
And so the weeks and months went by; and then, one day, there came a
letter in the well-known handwriting. But it was Mrs. Crawford who
opened it and read that Harold Hastings was dead: that Amy was free, and
that Arthur Tracy, who through all had loved her just as well as when he
first asked her to be his wife, now put the question again, offering to
make her the mistress of Tracy Park and surround her with every possible
comfort.
'Say yes, darling Amy,' he wrote, 'and we may yet be very happy. I will
be a good husband to you and a father to your child, who shall share my
fortune as if he were my own. Answer at once, telling me to come, and,
before you know it I shall be there to claim you for my wife.'
With a low moan, Mrs. Crawford hid her face in her hands and sobbed
aloud, for the Amy who might have been the honored wife of Arthur Tracy
lay dead in her coffin; and that day they buried her under the November
snow, which was falling in great sheets upon the frozen ground. What
Arthur felt when he heard the news no one ever knew, for he made no sign
to any one, but at once gave orders to Colvin that a costly monument
should be placed at her grave, with only this inscription upon it:
AMY
_Aged_ 23.
Of course the low-minded people talked, and Mrs. Crawford knew they did;
but her heart was too full of sorrow to care what was said. Her
beautiful daughter was dead, and she was alone with the little boy, the
child Harold, who had inherited his mother's beauty, with all her lovely
traits of character. Had Mrs. Crawford consented, Arthur would have
supported him entirely; but she was too proud for that. She would take
care of him herself as long as possible, she wrote him, but if, when
Harold was older, he chose to educate him, she would offer no objection.
And there the matter dropped, and Mrs. Crawford struggled on as best she
could, sometimes going out to do plain sewing, sometimes taking it home,
sometimes going to people's houses to superintend when they had company,
and sometimes selling fruit and flowers from the garden attached to the
cottage. But whatever she did, she was always the same quiet, lady-like
woman, who commanded the respect of all, and who, poor as she was, was
held in high esteem by the better class in Shannondale. Grace Atherton's
carriage and that of Edith St. Claire stood oftener before her door
than that at Tracy Park; and though the ladies came mostly on business,
they found themselves lingering after the business was over to talk with
one who, in everything save money, was their equal.
Harold was his grandmother's idol. For him she toiled and worked,
feeling more than repaid for all she did by his love and devotion to
her. And Harold was a noble little fellow, full of manly instincts, and
always ready to deny himself for the sake of others. That he and his
grandmother were poor he knew, but he had never felt the effects of
their poverty, save when Tom Tracy had jeered at him for it, and called
him a pauper. There had been one square fight between the two boys, in
which Harold had been the victor, with only a torn jacket, while Tom's
eye had been black for a week, and Mrs. Tracy had gone to the cottage to
complain and insist that Harold should be punished. But when she heard
that Dick St. Claire had assisted in the fray, taking Harold's part, and
himself dealing Tom the blow which blackened his eye, she changed her
tactics, for she did not care to quarrel with Mrs. Arthur St. Claire, of
Grassy Spring.
Harold and Richard St. Claire, or Dick, as he was familiarly called,
were great friends, and if the latter knew there was a difference
between himself and the child of poverty he never manifested it, and
played far oftener with Harold than with Tom, whose domineering
disposition and rough manners were distasteful to him. That Harold would
one day be obliged to earn his living, Mrs. Crawford knew, but he was
still too young for anything of that kind; and when Grace Atherton, or
Mrs. St. Claire offered him money for the errands he sometimes did for
them, she steadily refused to let him take it. Had she known of Mrs.
Tracy's proposition that he should be present at the party as hall-boy,
she would have declined, for though she could go there herself as an
employee, she shrank from suffering Harold to do so. That Mrs. Tracy was
not a lady, she knew, and in her heart there was always a feeling of
superiority to the woman even while she served her, and she was not as
sorry, perhaps, as she ought to have been, for the attack of rheumatism
which would prevent her from going to the park to take charge of the
kitchen during the evening.
'I am sorry to disappoint her, but I am glad not to be there,' she was
thinking to herself as she sat in her bright, cheerful kitchen, waiting
for Harold, when he burst in upon her, exclaiming:
'Oh, grandma, only think! I am invited to the party, and I told her I'd
go, and I am to be there at half-past seven sharp, and to wear my
meetin' clothes.'
'Invited to the party! What do you mean? Only grown up people are to be
there,' Mrs. Crawford said.
'Yes, I know;' replied Harold, 'but I'm not to be with the _grown-ups_.
I'm to stay in the upper hall and tell 'em where to go.'
'Oh, you are to be a _waiter_,' was Mrs. Crawford's rather contemptuous
remark, which Harold did not heed in his excitement.
'Yes, I'm to be at the head of the stairs, and somebody else at the
bottom; and they are to have fiddlin and dancin'; I've never seen
anybody dance; and ice-cream and cake, with something like plaster all
over it, and oranges and grapes, and, oh, everything! Dick St. Claire
told me; he knows; his mother has had parties, and she's going to-night,
and her gown is crimson velvet, with black and white fur in it like our
cat, only they don't call it that; and--oh, I forgot--they have had a
telegraph, and I took it to Mrs. Tracy, who looked mad and almost cried
when she read it, Mr. Arthur Tracy is coming home to-night.'
Harold had talked so fast that his grandmother could hardly follow him,
but she understood what he said last, and started as if he had struck
her a blow.
'Arthur Tracy! Coming home to-night!' she exclaimed. 'Oh, I am so glad,
so glad.'
'But Mrs. Tracy did not seem to be, and I guess she wanted to stop the
party,' Harold said, repeating as nearly as he could what had passed
between him and the lady.
Harold was full of the party to which he believed he had been invited,
and when in the afternoon Dick St. Claire came to the cottage to play
with him, he felt a kind of patronizing pity for his friend who was not
to share his honor.
'Perhaps mother will let me come over and help you,' Dick said, 'I know
how they do it. You mustn't talk to the people as they come up the
stairs, nor even say good-evening, only;
'"Ladies will please walk this way, and gentlemen that!"
And Dick went through with a pantomime performance for the benefit of
Harold, who, when the drill was over, felt himself competent to receive
the Queen's guests at the head of the great staircase in Windsor Castle.
'Yes, I know,' he said, '"Ladies this way, and gentlemen that;" but when
am I to go down and see the dancing and get some ice-cream?'
On this point Dick was doubtful. He did not believe, he said, that
waiters ever went down to see the dancing, or to get ice cream, until
the party was over, and then they ate it in the kitchen, if there was
any left.
This was not a cheerful outlook for Harold, whose thoughts were more
intent upon cream and dancing than upon showing the people where to go,
and it was also the second time the word waiter had been used in
connection with what he was expected to do. But Harold was too young to
understand that he was not of the party itself. Later on it would come
to him fast enough, that he was only a part of the machinery which moved
the social engine. Now, he felt like the engine itself, and long before
six o'clock he was dressed, and waiting anxiously for his grandmother's
permission to start.'
'I'll tell you all about it,' he said to her. 'What they do, and what
they say, and what they wear, and if I can, I'll speak to Mr. Arthur
Tracy and thank him for mother's grave-stone.'
By seven o'clock he was on his way to the park, walking rapidly, and
occasionally saying aloud with a gesture of his hand to the right and
the left, and a bow almost to the ground.
'Ladies this way,' and 'gentlemen that.'
When he reached the house the gas-jets had just been turned up, and
every window was ablaze with light from the attic to the basement.
'My eye! ain't it swell!' Harold said to himself, as he stood a moment,
looking at the brilliantly lighted rooms. 'Don't I wish I was rich and
could burn all that gas, and maybe I shall be. Grandma says Mr. Arthur
Tracy was once a poor boy like me; only he had an uncle and I haven't.
I've got do earn my money, and I mean to, and sometimes, maybe, I'll
have a house us big as this, and just such a party, with a boy up stairs
to tell 'em where to go. I wonder now if I'm expected to go into the
kitchen door. Of course not, I've got on my Sunday clothes, and am
invited to the party. I shall ring,'
And he did ring--a sharp, loud ring, which made Mrs. Tracy, who had not
yet left her room, start nervously as she wondered who had come so
early.
'Old Peterkin, of course. Those whom you care for least always come
first.'
Peering over the banister Tom Tracy saw Harold when the door was opened,
and screaming to his mother at the top of his voice, 'It ain't old
Peterkin, mother; it's Hall Hastings, come to the front door,' he ran
down the stairs, and confronting the intruder just as he was crossing
the threshold, exclaimed:
'Go 'long; go back. You hain't no business ringin' the bell as if you
was a gentleman. Go to the kitchen door with the other servants!'
With a thrust of the hand he pushed Harold back and was about to shut
the door upon him when, with a quick, dextrous movement, Harold darted
past him into the hall, saying, as he did so:
'Darn you, Tom Tracy, I won't go to the back kitchen door, and I'm not a
servant, and if you call me so again I'll lick you!'
How the matter would have ended is doubtful, if Mrs. Tracy had not
called from the head of the stairs:
'Thomas! Thomas Tracy! I am ashamed of you! Come to me this minute! And
you, boy, go to the kitchen; or, no--now you are here, come up stairs,
and I'll tell you what you are to do.'
Her directions were much like those of Dick St. Claire, except that she
laid more stress upon the fact that he was not to speak to any one
familiarly, but was to be in all respects a machine. Just what she meant
by that Harold did not know; but he hung his cap on a bracket, and
taking his place where she told him to stand, watched her admiringly as
she went down the staircase, with her peach-blow satin trailing behind
her, and followed, by her husband, who looked and felt anxious and ill
at ease.
Tom had disappeared, but his younger brother, Jack, who was wholly
unlike him, came to Harold's side, and began telling him what quantities
of good things there were in the dining-room and pantry, and that his
Uncle Arthur was coming home that night, and his mother was so glad, she
cried; then, with a spring he mounted upon the banister of the long
staircase and slipped swiftly to the bottom. Ascending the stairs almost
as quickly as he had gone down, he bade Harold try it with him.
'It's such fun! and mother won't care. I've done it forty times,' he
said, as Harold demurred; and then, as the temptation became too strong
to be resisted, two boys instead of one rode down the banister and
landed in the lower hall, and two pairs of little legs ran nimbly up the
stairs just as the door opened and admitted the first arrival.
CHAPTER VII.
THE PARTY.
The invitations had been for half-past seven, and precisely at that hour
Peterkin arrived, magnificent in his swallow-tail and white shirt front,
where an enormous diamond shone conspicuously. With him came the second
Mrs. Peterkin, whose name was Mary Jane, but whom her husband always
called _May_ Jane. She was a frail, pale faced little woman, and had
once been Grace Atherton's maid, but had married Peterkin for his money.
This was her first appearance at a grand party, and in her excitement
and timidity she did not hear Harold's thrice repeated words, 'Ladies go
that way,' but followed her husband into the gentlemen's dressing-room,
where she deposited her wraps, and then, shaking in every limb,
descended to the drawing-room, where Peterkin's boisterous laugh was
soon heard, as he slapped his host on the shoulder, and said:
'You see, we are here on time, though May Jane said it was too early.
But I s'posed half-past seven meant half-past seven and then I wanted a
little time to talk up the ropes with you. We are going to run you in,
you bet!' and again his coarse laugh thrilled every nerve in Mrs.
Tracy's body, and she longed for fresh arrivals to help quiet this
vulgar man.
Soon they began to come by twos, and threes, and sixes, and Harold was
kept busy with his 'Ladies this way, and gentlemen that.'
After Mrs. Peterkin had gone down stairs, leaving her wraps in the
gentlemen's rooms, Harold, who knew they did not belong there, had
carried them to the ladies' room and deposited them upon the bed, just
as the girl who was to be in attendance appeared at her post, asked him
sharply why he was in there rummaging the ladies' things.
'I'm not rummaging. They are Mrs. Peterkin's. She left them in the other
room, and I brought them here,' Harold said, as he returned to the hall,
never dreaming that this little circumstance, trivial as it seemed,
would be one of the links in the chain of evidence which must for a time
overshadow him so darkly.
Now, he was eager and excited, and interested in watching the people as
they came up the stairs and went down again. With the quick instinct of
a bright, intelligent boy, he decided who was accustomed to society and
who was not, and leaning over the banister when not on duty, watched
them when they entered the drawing-room and were received by Mr. and
Mrs. Tracy. Unconsciously he began to imitate them, bowing when they
bowed, and saying softly to himself:
'Oh, how do you do? Good evening. Happy to see you. Pleasant to-night.
Walk in. Ye-as!'
This was the monosyllable with which he finished every sentence, and was
the affirmation to the thought in his mind that he, too, would some day
go down those stairs and into those parlors as a guest, while some other
boy in the upper hall bade the ladies go this way and the gentlemen
that.
It was after nine when Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire arrived, with Squire
Harrington, from Collingwood. Harold had been looking for them, anxious
to see the crimson satin trimmed with ermine, of which Dick had told
him. Many of the guests he had mentally criticised unsparingly, but Mrs.
St. Claire, he knew, was genuine, and his face beamed, when in passing
him, she smiled upon him with her sweet, gracious manner, and said,
pleasantly:
'Good evening, Harold. I knew you were to be here. Dick told me, and he
wanted to come and assist you, but I thought he'd better stay home with
Nina.'
Up to this time no one had spoken to Harold, and he had spoken to no one
except to tell them where to go, but had, as far as possible, followed
Mrs. Tracy's injunction to be a machine. But the machine was getting a
little tired. It was hard work to stand for two hours or more, and Mrs.
Tracy had impressed it upon him that he was not to sit down. But when
Mrs. St. Claire came from the dressing-room and stood before him a
moment in her crimson satin and pearls, he forgot his weariness and
forgot that he was not to talk, and said to her, involuntarily:
'Oh, Mrs. St. Claire, how handsome you look! Handsomer than anybody yet,
and different, too, somehow.'
Edith knew the compliment was genuine, and she replied:
'Thank you, Harold,' then, laying her hand on the boy's head and parting
his soft, brown hair, she said, as she noticed a look of fatigue in his
eyes, 'are you not tired, standing so long? Why don't you bring a chair
from one of the rooms and sit when you can?'
'She told me to stand,' Harold replied, nodding toward the parlors, from
which a strain of music then issued.
The dancing had commenced, and Harold's feet and hands beat time to the
lively strains of the piano and violin, until he could contain himself
no longer. The dancing he must see at all hazards and know what it was
like, and when the last guests came up the stairs there was no hall boy
there to tell them, 'Ladies this way, gentlemen that,' for Harold was in
the thickest of the crowd, standing on a chair so as to look over the
heads of those in front of him and see the dancers. But, alas, for poor
Harold! He was soon discovered by Mrs. Tracy, who, asking him if he did
not know his place better than that, ordered him back to his post, where
he was told to stay until the party was over.
Wholly unconscious of the nature of his offence, but very sorry that he
had offended, Harold went up the stairs, wondering why he could not see
the dancing, and how long the party would last. His head was beginning
to ache with the glare and gas; his little legs were tired, and he was
growing sleepy. Surely he might sit down now, particularly as Mrs. St.
Claire had suggested it, and bringing himself a chair from one of the
rooms he sat down in a corner of the hall and was soon in a sound sleep,
from which, however, he was roused by the sound of Mr. Tracy's voice, as
he came up the stairs, followed by a tall, distinguished-looking man,
who wore a Spanish cloak wrapped gracefully around him, and a large,
broad-brimmed hat drawn down so closely, as to hide his features from
view.
As he reached the upper landing he raised his head, and Harold, who was
now wide awake and standing up, caught a glimpse of a thin, pale face
and a pair of keen, black eyes, which seemed for an instant to take
everything in; than the head was dropped, and the two men disappeared in
a room at the far end of the hall.
'I'll bet that's Mr. Arthur. How grand he is! looks just like a pirate
in that cloak and hat,' was Harold's mental comment.
Before he had time for further thought, Frank Tracy came from the room
and hurried down the stairs to rejoin his guests.
Five minutes later and the door at the end of the long hall which
communicated with the back staircase and the rear of the house, opened,
and a man whom Harold recognized as the expressman from the station
appeared with a huge trunk on his shoulder and a large valise in his
hand. These he deposited in the stranger's room and then went back for
more, until four had been carried in. But when he came with the fifth
and largest of all, a hand, white and delicate as a woman's, was thrust
from the door-way with an imperative gesture, and a voice with a decided
foreign accent exclaimed:
'For heaven's sake, don't bring any more boxes in here. Why, I am
positively stumbling over them now. Surely there must be some place in
the house for my luggage besides my private apartment.'
Then the door was shut with a bang, and Harold heard the sliding of the
bolt as Arthur Tracy fastened himself in his room.
CHAPTER VIII.
ARTHUR.
All the time that Frank Tracy had been receiving his guests and trying
to seem happy and at his ease, his thoughts had been dwelling upon his
brother's telegram and the ominous words, 'Send some one to meet us.'
How slowly the minutes dragged until it was ten o'clock, and he knew
that John had started for the station to meet the dreaded '_us_.' He had
told everybody that he was expecting his long-absent brother, and had
tried to seem glad on account of it.
'You and he were great friends, I believe,' he said to Squire
Harrington.
'Yes, we were friends,' the latter replied; 'but when he lived here my
health was such that I did not mingle much in society. I met him,
however, in Paris four years ago, and found him very companionable and
quite Europeanized in his manner and tastes. He spoke French or German
altogether, and might easily have passed for a foreigner. I shall be
glad to see him.'
'And so shall I,' chimed in Peterkin, whose voice was like a trumpet and
could be heard everywhere. 'A first-rate chap, though we didn't use to
hitch very well together. He was all-fired big feelin', and them days
Peterkin was nowhere; but circumstances alter cases. He'll be glad to
see me now, no doubt;' and with the most satisfied air the half
millionaire put his hand as if by accident to his immense diamond pin,
and pulling down his swallow-tail, walked away.
Frank saw the faint smile of contempt which showed itself in Squire
Harrington's face, and his own grew red with shame, but paled almost
instantly as the outer door was opened by some one who did not seem to
think it necessary to ring; and a stranger, in Spanish cloak and
broad-brimmed hat, stepped into the hall.
Arthur had come, and was _alone_. The train had been on time, and at
just half-past ten the long line of cars stopped before the Shannondale
station, where John, the coachman from Tracy Park, was waiting. The
night was dark, but by the light from the engine and the office John saw
the foreign-looking stranger, who stepped upon the platform, and felt
sure it was his man. But there was no one with him, though it seemed as
if he were expecting some one to follow him from the car as he stood for
a moment waiting. Then, as the train moved on, he turned with a puzzled
look upon his face to meet John, who said to him, respectfully:
'Are you Mr. Arthur Tracy?'
'Yes; who are you?' was the not very cordial response.
'Mr. Frank Tracy sent me from the park to fetch you,' John replied. 'I
think he expected some one with you. Are you alone?'
'Yes--no, no!' and Arthur's voice indicated growing alarm and uneasiness
as he looked rapidly around him, 'Where is she? Didn't you see her? She
was with me all the way. Surely she got off when I did. Where can she
have gone?'
He was greatly excited, and kept peering through the darkness as he
talked; while John, a good deal puzzled, looked curiously at him, as if
uncertain whether he were in his right mind or not.
'Was there some one with you in the car?' he asked.
'Yes, in the car, and in New York, and on the ship. She was with me all
the way,' Mr. Tracy replied. 'It is strange where she is now. Did no one
alight from the train when I did?'
'No one,' John answered, more puzzled than ever.... 'I was looking for
you, and there was no one else. She may have fallen asleep and been
carried by.'
'Yes, probably that is it,' Mr. Tracy said, more cheerfully, 'she was
asleep and carried by. She will come back to-morrow.'
He seemed quite content with this solution of the mystery, and began to
talk of his luggage, which lay upon the platform--a pile so immense that
John looked at it in some alarm, knowing that the carriage could never
take it all.
'Eight trunks, two portmanteaus, and a hat-box!' he said, aloud,
counting the pieces.
'Yes, and a nice sum those rascally agents in New York made me pay for
having them come with me,' Arthur rejoined. 'They weighed them all, and
charged me a little fortune. I might as well have sent them by express;
but I wanted them with me, and here they are. What will you do with
them? This is hers,' and he designated a black trunk or box, longer and
larger than two ordinary trunks ought to be.
'I can take one of them with the box and portmanteau, and the expressman
will take the rest. He is here. Hallo, Brown,' John said, calling to a
man in the distance, who came forward, and, on learning what was wanted,
begun piling the trunks into his wagon, while Arthur followed John, to
the carriage, which he entered, and, sinking into a seat, pulled his
broad-brimmed hat over his face and eyes, and sat as motionless as if he
had been a stone.
For a moment John stood looking at him, wondering what manner of man he
was, and thinking, too, of the woman who, he said, had been with him in
the train, and who should have alighted with him. At last, remembering
suddenly a message his master had given him, he began:
'If you please, sir, Mr. Tracy told me to tell you he was very sorry
that he could not come himself to meet you. If he had known that you
were coming sooner, he would have done different; but he did not get
your telegram till this morning, and then it was too late to stop it. We
are having a great break-down to-night.'
During the first of these remarks Arthur had given no sign that he
heard, but when John spoke of a break-down, he lifted his head quickly,
and the great black eyes, which Harold noticed later as peculiar,
flashed a look of inquiry upon John, as he said:
'Break-down? What is that!'
'A party--a smasher! Mr. Tracy is running for Congress.' was John's
reply.
And then over the thin face there crept a ghost of a smile, which, faint
as it was, changed the expression wonderfully.
'Oh, a party!' he said. 'Well, I will be a guest, too. I have my
dress-suit in some of those trunks. Frank is going to Congress, is he?
That's a good joke! Drive on. What are you standing there for?'
The carriage door was shut, and, mounting the box, John drove as rapidly
toward Tracy Park as the darkness of the night would admit, while the
passenger inside sat with his hat over his eyes, and his chin almost
touching his breast, as if absorbed in thought, or else not thinking at
all. Once, however, he spoke to himself, and said:
'Poor little Gretchen! I wonder how I could have forgotten and left her
in the train. What will she do alone in a strange place? But perhaps
Heaven will take care of her. She always said so. I wish I had her faith
and could believe as she does. Poor little Gretchen!'
They had turned into the park by this time, and very soon draw up before
the house, from every window of which lights were flashing, while the
sounds of music and dancing could be distinctly heard.
Something like Frank's idea came into Arthur's mind at the sight.
'It makes me think of the return of the prodigal, only I have not wasted
my substance and my father does not come to meet me,' he said, as he
descended from the carriage and went up the broad steps to the piazza,
on which a few young people were walking, unmindful of the chill night
air.
'I need not ring at my own house,' Arthur thought, as he opened the door
and stepped into the hall; and thus it was that the first intimation
which Frank had of his arrival was when he saw him standing in the midst
of a crowd of people, who were gazing curiously at him.
'Arthur!' he exclaimed, rushing forward and taking his brother's hand.
'Welcome home again! I did not hear the carriage, though I was listening
for it. I am so glad to see you! Come with me to your room;' and he led
the way up stairs to the apartment prepared for the stranger.
He had seen at a glance that Arthur was alone, unless, indeed, he had
brought a servant who had gone to the side door; and thus relieved from
a load of anxiety, he was very cordial in his manner, and began at once
to make excuses for the party, repeating in substance what John had
already said.
'Yes, I know; that fellow who drove me here told me,' Arthur said,
throwing off his coat and hat, and beginning to lave his face, and neck,
and hands in the cold water which he turned into the bowl until it was
full to the brim, and splashed over the sides as he dashed it upon
himself.
All this time Frank had not seen his face distinctly, nor did he have
an opportunity to do so until the ablutions were ended and Arthur had
rubbed himself with, not one towel, but two, until it seemed as if he
must have taken off the skin in places. Then he turned, and running his
fingers through his luxuriant hair, which had a habit of curling around
his forehead as in his boyhood, looked full at his brother, who saw that
he was very pale and thin, and that his eyes were unnaturally large and
bright, while there was about him an indescribable something which
puzzled Frank a little. It was not altogether the air of foreign travel
and cultivation which was so perceptible, but a something else--a
restlessness and nervousness of speech and manner as he moved about the
room, walking rapidly and gesticulating as he walked.
'You are looking thin and tired. Are you not well?' Frank asked.
'Oh, yes, perfectly well,' Arthur replied: 'only this infernal heat in
my blood, which keeps me up to fever pitch all the time. I shall have to
bathe my face again,' and, turning a second time to the bowl, he began
to throw water over his face and hands as he had done before.
'I'd like a bath in ice water,' he said, as he began drying himself with
a fresh towel. 'If I remember right, there is no bath-room on this
floor, but I can soon have one built. I intend to throw down the wall
between this room and the next, and perhaps the next, so as to have a
suite.'
He was asserting the ownership at once, and Frank had nothing to say,
for his brother was master there, and had a right to tear the house down
if he chose. The second washing must have cooled him, for there came a
change in his manner, and he moved more slowly and spoke with greater
deliberation, as he asked some questions about the people below.
'Will you come down by-and-bye,' Frank said, after having made some
explanations with regard to his guests.
'No, you will have to excuse me,' Arthur replied. 'I am too tired to
encounter old acquaintances or make new. I do not believe I could stand
old Peterkin, who you say is a millionaire. I suppose you want his
influence; your coachman told me you were running for Congress,' and
Arthur laughed the old merry musical laugh which Frank remembered so
well: then, suddenly changing his tune, he said: 'When does the next
train from the East pass the station?'
Frank told him at seven the next morning, and he continued:
'Please send the carriage to meet it. Gretchen will probably be there.
She was in the train with me, and should have gotten out when I did, but
she must have been asleep and carried by.'
'Gr-gr-gretchen! Who is she?' Frank stammered, while the cold sweat
began to run down his back.
The 'us' in the telegram did mean something, and mischief, too, to his
interests, he felt intuitively.
Instantly into Arthur's eyes there stole a look of cunning, and a
peculiar smile played round his mouth as he replied:
'She is Gretchen. See that the carriage goes for her, will you?'
His voice and manner indicated that he wished the conference ended, and
with a great sinking at his heart Frank left the room and returned to
his guests and his wife, who had not seen the stranger when he entered
the hall, and thus did not know of Arthur's arrival until her husband
rejoined her.
'He has come,' he whispered to her, while she whispered back:
'Is he alone?'
'Yes, but somebody is coming to-morrow; I do not know who; Gretchen, he
calls her,' was Frank's reply.
'Gretchen!' Mrs. Tracy repeated, in a trembling voice. 'Who is she?'
'I don't know. He merely said she was Gretchen; his daughter, perhaps,'
was Frank's answer, which sent the color from his wife's cheeks, and
made her so faint and sick that she would have given much to be alone
and think over this evil coming upon her the next day in the shape of
the mysterious Gretchen.
Meantime when left to himself, Arthur changed his mind with regard to
going down into the parlors to see his brother's guests, and, unlocking
the trunk which held his own wardrobe he took out an evening suit fresh
from the hands of a London tailor, and, arraying himself in it, stood
for a moment before the glass to see the effect. Everything was
faultless, from his neck-tie to his boots; and, opening the door, he
went out into the hall, which was empty, except for Harold, who was
sitting near the stairs, half asleep again. Most of the guests were in
the supper-room, but a few of the younger portion were dancing, and the
strains of music were heard with great distinctness in the upper hall.
'Ugh!' Arthur said, with a shiver, as he stopped a moment to listen,
while his quick eye took in every detail of the furniture and its
arrangement in the hall. 'That violinist ought to be hung--the pianist,
too! Don't they know what horrid discord they are making? It brings that
heat back. I believe, upon my soul, I shall have to bathe my face
again.'
Suiting the action to the word, he went back and washed his face for the
third time; then returning to the hall, he advanced toward Harold, who
was now wide awake and stood up to meet him. As Arthur met the
clear-brown eyes fixed so curiously upon him, he stopped suddenly, and
put his hand to his head as if trying to recall something; then going a
step or two nearer to Harold, he said:
'Well, my little boy, what are you doing up here?'
'Telling the folks which way to go,' was Harold's answer.
'Who are you?' Arthur continued. 'What is your name?'
'Harold Hastings,' was the reply; and instantly there came over the
white, thin face, and into the large, bright eyes, an expression which
made the boy stand back a little as the tall man came up to him and,
laying a hand on his shoulder, said, excitedly:
'Harold Hastings! He was once my friend, or, I thought he was; but I
hate him now. And he was your father, and Amy Crawford was your mother?
_N'est ce pas?_ Answer me!'
'Yes, sir--yes, sir; but I don't know what you mean by "_na-se par_,"'
Harold said, in a frightened voice; and Arthur continued, as he
tightened his grasp on his shoulder:
'Don't you know you ought to have been my son, instead of his?'
'Yes, sir--yes, sir; I'll never do so again,' Harold stammered, too much
alarmed now to know what he was saying, or of what he was accused.
'No, you never will do it again. I hated your father, and I hate you,
and I am going to throw you over the stair railing!' Arthur said, and
seizing Harold's coat-collar, he swung him over the banister as if he
had been a feather, while the boy struggled and fought, and held onto
the rails, until help appeared in the person of Frank Tracy, who came
swiftly up the stairs, demanding the cause of what he saw.
He had been standing near the drawing-room door, and had caught the
sound of his brother's voice and Harold's as if in altercation. Excusing
himself from those around him, he hastened to the scene of action in
time to save Harold from a broken limb, if not a broken neck.
'What is it? What have you been doing?' he asked the boy, who replied,
amid his tears:
'I hain't been doing anything, only minding my business, and he came and
asked me who I was, and when I told him, he was going to chuck me over
the railing--darn him! I wish I was big; I'd lick him!'
Harold's cheeks were flushed, and the great tears glittered in his eyes,
as he stood up, brave and defiant, and resentful of the injustice done
him.
'Are you mad, Arthur?' Frank said.
And whether it was the tone of his voice, or the words he uttered,
something produced a wonderful effect upon his brother, whose mood
changed at once, and who advanced toward Harold with outstretched hand,
saying to him:
'Forgive me, my little man. I think I must have been mad for the
instant; there is such a heat in my head, and the crash of that music
almost drives me wild. Shall it be peace between us, my boy?'
It was next to impossible to resist the influence of Arthur Tracy's
smile, and Harold took the offered hand and said, between a sob and a
laugh:
'I don't know now why you wanted to throw me down stairs.'
'Nor I, and I will make it up to you some time,' was Arthur's reply, as
he took his brother's arm and said: 'Now introduce me to your guests.'
The moment the gentlemen disappeared from view Harold's resolution was
taken. He was of no use there any longer, as he could see. It was nearly
midnight. He was very tired and sleepy, and his head was aching
terribly. He could not see the dancing. He had had nothing to eat; he
had stood until his legs were ready to drop off, and to crown all a
lunatic had tried to throw him over the banister.
'I won't stay here another minute,' he said.
And leaving the hall by the rear entrance, and slipping down a back
stairway, he was soon in the open air, and running swiftly through the
park toward the cottage in the lane.
Meanwhile the two brothers had descended to the drawing-room, where
Arthur was soon surrounded by his friends and old acquaintances, whom he
greeted with that cordiality and friendliness of manner which had made
him so popular with those who knew him best. Every trace of excitement
had disappeared, and had he been master of ceremonies himself, at whose
bidding the guests were there, he could not have been more gracious or
affable. Even old Peterkin, when he came into notice, was treated with a
consideration which put that worthy man at ease, and set his tongue
again in motion. At first he had felt a little overawed by Arthur's
elegant appearance, and had whispered to his neighbor:
'That's a swell, and no mistake. I s'pose that's what you call foreign
get up. Well, me and ma is goin' to Europe some time, and hang me if I
don't put on style when I come home. I'd kind of like to speak to the
feller. I wonder if he remember that I was runnin' a boat when he went
away?'
If Arthur did remember it he showed no sign when Peterkin at last
pressed up to him, claiming his attention, as Captain Peterkin, of the
_'Liza Ann_, the fastest boat on the canal, and by George, the
all-tiredest meanest, too, I guess, he said: 'but them days is past, and
the old captain is past with them. I dabbled a little in ile, and if I
do say it, I could about buy up the whole canal if I wanted to; but I
ain't an atom proud, and I don't forget the old boatin' days, and I've
got the old '_Liza Ann_ hauled up inter my back yard as a relict. The
children use it for a play-house, but to me it is a--a--what do you call
it? a--gol darn it, what is it?'
'Souvenir,' suggested Arthur, vastly amused at this tirade, which had
assumed the form of a speech, and drawn a crowd around him.
'Wall, yes; I s'pose that's it, though 'taint exactly what I was trying
to think of,' he said. It's a reminder, and keeps down my pride, for
when I get to feelin' pretty big, after hearin' myself pointed out as
Peterkin the millionaire, I go out to that old boat in the back yard,
and says I, '_'Liza Ann_,' says I, 'you and me has took many a trip up
and down the canal, with about the wust crew, and the wust hosses, and
the wust boys that was ever created, and though you've got a new coat of
paint onto you, and can set still all day and do nothing while I can
wear the finest broadcloth and set still, too, it won't do for us to
forget the pit from which we was dug, and I don't forget it neither, no
more than I forgit favors shown when I was not fust cut. You, sir, rode
on the _'Liza Ann_ with that crony of yours--Hastings was his name--and
you paid me han'some, though I didn't ask nothin'; and ther's your
brother--Frank, I call him. I don't forgit that he used to speak to me
civil when I was nobody, and now, though I'm a Dimocrat, as everybody
knows me knows, and everybody most does know me, for Shannondale allus
was my native town, I'm goin' to run him into Congress, if it takes my
bottom dollar, and anybody, Republican or Dimocrat; who don't vote him
ain't my friend, and must expect to feel the full heft of my--my--'
'Powerful disapprobation,' Arthur said, softly, and Peterkin continued:
'Thank you, sir, that's the word--powerful, sir, powerful, powerful,'
and he glowered threateningly at two or three young men in white kids
and high shirt collars, who were known to prefer the opposing candidate.
Peterkin had finished his harrangue, and was wiping his wet face with
his handkerchief, when Arthur, who had listened to him with well-bred
attention, said:
'I thank you, Captain Peterkin, for your interest in my brother, who, if
he succeeds, will, I am sure, owe his success to your influence, and be
grateful in proportion. Perhaps you have a bill you would like him to
bring before the House?'
'No,' Peterkin said, with a shake of the head. 'My Bill is a little
shaver, eight or nine years old; too young to go from home, but'--and he
lowered his voice: a little--'I don't mind saying that if there should
be a chance, I'd like the post-office fust-rate. It would be a kind of
hist, you know, to see my name in print, Captain Joseph Peterkin, P.M.'
Here the conversation ended, and the aspirant for the post-office, who
had tired himself out, stepped aside and gave place to others who were
anxious to renew their acquaintance with Arthur. It was between one and
two o'clock in the morning when the party finally broke up, and, as the
Peterkins had been the first to arrive, so they were the last to leave,
and Mrs. Peterkin found herself again in the gentlemen's dressing-room,
looking after her wraps. But they were not there, and after a vain and
anxious search she said to her husband:
'Joe, somebody has stole my things, and 'twas my Indian shawl, too, and
gold-headed pin, with the little diamond.'
Mrs. Tracy was at once summoned to the scene, and the missing wraps were
found in the ladies' room, where Harold had carried them, but the
gold-headed shawl-pin was gone and could not be found.
Lucy, the girl in attendance, said, when questioned, that she knew
nothing of the pin or Mrs. Peterkin's wraps either, except that on first
going up to the room after the lady's arrival, she found Harold Hastings
fumbling them over, and that she sent him out with a sharp reprimand.
Harold was then looked for and could not be found, for he had been at
home and in bed for a good two hours. Clearly, then, he knew something
of the pin; and Peterkin and his wife said good-night, resolving to see
the boy the first thing in the morning, and demand their property.
When the Peterkins were gone, Arthur started at once for his room, but
stopped at the foot of the stairs and said to his brother:
'Don't forget to have the carriage at the station at seven o'clock.
Gretchen is sure to be there.'
'All right,' was Frank's reply.
While Mrs. Tracy asked:
'Who is Gretchen?'
If Arthur heard her he made no reply, but kept on up the stairs to his
room, where they heard him for a long time walking about, opening and
shutting windows, locking and unlocking trunks, and occasionally
splashing water over his face and hands.
'Your brother is a very elegant-looking man,' Mrs. Tracy said to her
husband as she was preparing to retire. 'Quite like a foreigner, but how
bright his eyes are, and they look at you sometimes as if they would
see through you and know what you were thinking. They almost make me
afraid of him.'
Frank made no direct reply. In his heart there was an undefined fear
which he then could not put into words, and with the remark that he was
very tired, he stepped into bed, and was just falling into a quiet sleep
when there came a knock upon his door loud enough, it seemed to him, to
waken the dead. Starting up he demanded who was there and what was
wanted.
'It is I,' Arthur said. 'I thought I smelled gas, and I have been
hunting round for it. There is nothing worse to breathe than gas,
whether from the furnace, the pipes, or the drain. I hope that is all
right.'
'Yes,' Frank answered, a little crossly. 'Had a new one put in two weeks
ago.'
'If there's gas in the main sewer it will come up just the same, and I
am sure I smell it,' Arthur said. 'I think I shall have all the
waste-pipes which connect with the drain cut off. Good-night. Am sorry I
disturbed you.'
They heard him as he went across the hall to his room, and Frank was
settling down again to sleep when there came a second knock, and Arthur
said, in a whisper:
'I hope I do not trouble you, but I have decided to go myself to the
station to meet Gretchen. She is very timid, and does not speak much
English. Good-night once more, and pleasant dreams.'
To sleep now was impossible, and both husband and wife turned restlessly
on their pillows, Frank wondering what ailed his brother, and Dolly
wondering who Gretchen was and how her coming would affect them.
CHAPTER IX.
WHO IS GRETCHEN?
This was the question which Mr. and Mrs. Tracy asked of themselves and
each other many times during the hours which intervened between their
retiring and rising. But speculate as they might they could reach no
satisfactory conclusion, and were obliged to wait for what the morning
and the train might bring. The party had been a success, and Frank felt
that his election to Congress was almost certain; but of what avail
would all this be if he lost his foothold at Tracy Park, as he was sure
to do if a woman appeared upon the scene. Both he and his wife had
outgrown the life of eleven years ago, and could not go back to it
without a struggle, and it is not strange if both wished that the
troublesome brother had remained abroad instead of coming home so
suddenly and disturbing all their plans. They heard him moving in his
room before the clock struck six, and knew he was getting himself in
readiness to meet the dreaded Gretchen. Then, long before the carriage
came round they heard him in the hall opening the windows and admitting
a gust of wind which blew their door open, and when Frank arose to shut
it he saw the top of Arthur's broad-brimmed hat disappearing down the
stairs.
'I believe he is going to walk to the station; he certainly is crazy,'
Frank said to his wife, as they dressed themselves and waited with
feverish impatience for the return of the carriage.
Arthur did walk to the station, which he reached just as the ticket
agent was unlocking the door, and there, with his Spanish cloak wrapped
around him, he stalked up and down the long platform for more than an
hour, for the train was late, and it was nearer eight than seven when it
finally came in sight.
Standing side by side Arthur and John looked anxiously for some one to
alight, but nobody appeared and the expression of Arthur's face was
pitiable as he turned it to John, and said:
'Gretchen did not come. Where do you suppose she is?'
'I am sure I don't know. On the next train, may be,' was John's reply,
at which Arthur caught eagerly.
'Yes, the next train, most likely. We will come and meet it; and now
drive home as fast as you can. This disappointment has brought that heat
to my head, and I must have a bath. But, stop a bit; who is the best
carpenter in town?'
John told him that Belknap was the best, and Burchard the highest
priced.
'I'll see them both,' Arthur said. 'Take me to their houses;' and in the
course of half an hour he had interviewed both Burchard and Belknap,
and made an appointment with both for the afternoon.
Then he was driven back to Tracy Park, where breakfast had been waiting
until it was spoiled, and the cook's temper was spoiled, too, and when
Frank and Dolly met him at the door, both asked in the same breath:
'Where is she?'
'She was not on this train. She will come on the next. We must go and
meet her,' was Arthur's reply, as he passed up the stairs, while Frank
and his wife looked wonderingly at each other.
The spoiled breakfast was eaten by Mr. and Mrs. Tracy alone, for the
children had had theirs and gone to their lessons, and Arthur had said
that he never took anything in the morning except a cup of coffee and a
roll, and these he wished sent to his room, together with a time-table.
After breakfast Mrs. Tracy, who was suffering from a sick headache,
declared her inability to sit up a moment longer and returned to her
bed, leaving her husband and the servants to bring what order they could
out of the confusion reigning everywhere, and nowhere to a greater
extent than in Arthur's room, or rather the rooms which he had
appropriated to himself, and into which he had had all his numerous
boxes and trunks brought, so that he could open them at his leisure.
There were more coming by express, he said, boxes which came through the
custom-house, for he had brought many valuable things, such as pictures,
and statuary, and rugs and inlaid tables and chinas, with which to adorn
his home.
The house, which was very large, had a wing on either side, while the
main building was divided by a wide hall, with three rooms on each side,
the middle one being a little smaller than the other two, with each of
which it communicated by a door. And it was into this middle room on the
second floor Arthur had been put, and which he found quite too small for
his use. So he ordered both the doors to be opened and took possession
of the suite, pacing them several times, and then measuring their
length, and breadth, and height, and the distance between the windows.
Then he inspected the wing on that side of the house, and, going into
the yard, looked the building over from all points, occasionally
marking a few lines on the paper he held in his hand. Before noon every
room in the house, except the one where Dolly lay sick with a headache
had been visited and examined minutely, while Frank watched him
nervously, wondering if he would think they had greatly injured
anything, or had expended too much money on furniture. But Arthur was
thinking of none of these things, and found fault with nothing except
the drain and the gas fixtures, all of which he declared bad, saying
that the latter must be changed at once, and that ten pounds of copperas
must be bought immediately and put down the drain, and that quantities
of chloride of lime and carbolic acid must be placed where there was the
least danger of vegetable decomposition.
'I am very sensitive to smells, and afraid of them, too, for they breed
malaria and disease of all kinds,' he said to the cook, whose nose and
chin both were high in the air, not on account of any obnoxious odor,
but because of this unreasonable meddling with what she considered her
own affairs. If things were to go on in this way, she said to the
house-maid, and if that man was going to poke his nose into drains, and
gas-pipes, and kerosene lamps, and bowls of sour milk which she might
have forgotten, she should give notice to quit.
But when, half an hour later, some boxes and trunks which had come by
express were deposited in the back hall, and Arthur, who was
superintending them, said to her, as he pointed to a large black trunk,
'I think this has the dress patterns and shawls I brought for you,
girls; for though I did not know you personally, I knew that women were
always pleased with anything from Paris' her feelings underwent a
radical change, and Arthur was free to smell the drain and the gas
fixtures as much as he liked.
He was very busy, and though always pleasant, and even familiar at
times, there was in all he said and did an air of ownership, as if he
had assumed the mastership. And he had. Everything was his, and he knew
it, and Frank knew it, too, and gave no sign of rebelling when the reins
were taken from him by one who seemed to be driving at a break-neck
speed.
At lunch, while the brothers were together, Arthur announced his
intentions in part, but not until Frank, who was anxious to get it off
his mind, said to him:
'By the way, I suppose you will be going to the office this afternoon,
to see Colvin and look over the books. I believe you will find them
straight, and hope you will not think I have spent too much, or drawn
too large a salary. It you do, I will--'
'Nonsense!' was Arthur's reply, with a graceful shrug of his shoulders.
'Don't bother about that there is money enough for us both. What I
invested in Europe has trebled itself, and more too, and would make me a
rich man if I had nothing else. I am always lucky. I played but once at
Monte Carlo, just before I came home, and won ten thousand dollars,
which I invested in--But no matter; that is a surprise--something for
your wife and Gretchen. I have come home to stay. I do not think I am
quite what I used to be. I was sick all that time when you heard from me
so seldom, and I am not strong yet. I need quite a rest. I have seen the
world, and am tired of it, and now I want a house for Gretchen and
myself, and you too. I expect you to stay with me as long as we pull
together pleasantly and you do not interfere with my plans. I am going
to take the three south rooms on the second floor for my own. I shall
put folding-doors, or rather a wide arch between two of them, making
them almost like one, and these I shall fit up to suit my own taste. In
the smaller and middle room, where I slept last night, I shall have a
large bow window, with shelves for books in the spaces between and
beneath, and by the sides of the windows. I got the idea in a villa a
little way out of Florence. Opposite this bow window, on the other side
of the room, I shall have niches in the wall and corners for statuary,
with shelves for books above and below. I have some beautiful pieces of
marble from Florence and Rome. The Venus de Milo, Apollo Belvidere,
Nydra and Psyche, and Ruth at the Well. But the crowning glory of this
room will be the upper half of the middle window of the bow. This is to
be of stained glass, bright but soft colors which harmonize perfectly,
two rows on the four sides, and in the centre a lovely picture of
Gretchen, also of cathedral glass, and so like her that it seems to
speak to me in her soft German tongue. I had it made from a photograph I
have of her, and it is very natural--the same sad, sweet smile around
the lips which never said an unkind word to any one--the same bright,
wavy hair, and eyes of blue, innocent as a child--and Gretchen is little
more than that. She is only twenty-one--poor little Gretchen!' and,
leaning back in his chair, Arthur seemed to be lost in recollections of
the past.
Not pleasant, all of them, it would seem, for there was a moisture in
his eyes when he at last looked up in response to his brother's
questioning.
'Who did you say Gretchen was?'
Instantly the expression of the eye changed to one of weariness and
caution, as Arthur replied:
'I did not say who she was, but you will soon know. I saw by the
time-table that the train which passes here at eleven does not stop, but
the three o'clock does, and you will please see that John goes with the
carriage. I may be occupied with the carpenters, Burchard and Belknap,
who were coming to talk with me about the changes I purpose to make, and
which I wish commenced immediately. It is a rule of mine that when I am
to do a thing, to do it at once. So I shall employ at least twenty men,
and before Christmas everything will be finished, and I will show you
rooms worthy of a palace. It is of Gretchen I am thinking, more than of
myself. Poor little Gretchen!'
Arthur's voice was inexpressibly sad and pitiful as he said 'Poor
Gretchen,' while his eyes again grew soft and tender, with a far-away
look in them, as if they were seeing things in the past rather than in
the future.
There was not a particle of sentiment in Frank's nature, and Gretchen
was to him an object of dread rather than a romance. So far as he could
judge, his brother had no intention of routing him; but a woman in the
field would be different, and he should at once lose his vantage-ground.
'You seem to be very fond of Gretchen,' he said, at last.
'Fond!' Arthur replied, 'I should say I am, though the poor child has
not much cause to think so. But I am going to atone, and this suite of
rooms is for her. I mean to make her a very queen, and dress her in
satin and diamonds every day. She has the diamonds. I sent them to her
when I wrote to her to join me in Liverpool.'
'And she did join you, I suppose?' Frank said, determined by adroit
questioning to learn something of the mysterious Gretchen.
'Yes, she joined me,' was the reply.
'Was she very seasick?' Frank continued.
'Not a minute. She sat by me all the time while I lay in my berth, but
she would not let me hold her hand, and if I tried to touch even her
hair, she always moved away to the other side of the state-room, where
she sat looking at me reproachfully with those soft blue eyes of hers.'
'And she was with you at the Brevoort in New York!' Frank said.
'Yes, with me at Brevoort.'
'And in the train?'
'Yes, and in the train.'
'And you left her there?'
'No; she left herself. She did not follow me out. She went on by
mistake, but is sure to come back this afternoon,' Arthur replied,
rather excitedly, just as a sharp ring at the bell announced the arrival
of Burchard and Belknap, the leading carpenters of the town, with whom
he was closeted for the next two hours, and both of whom he finally
hired in order to expedite the work he had in hand.
At precisely three o'clock the carriage from Tracy Park drew up before
the station, awaiting the arrival of the train and Gretchen, but though
the former came, the latter did not, and John returned alone, mentally
avowing to himself that he would not be sent on a fool's errand a third
time; but five o'clock found him there again with the same result.
Gretchen did not come, and Arthur's face wore a sad, troubled
expression, and looked pale and worn, notwithstanding the many times he
bathed it in the coldest water and rubbed it with the coarsest towels.
He had unpacked several of his trunks and boxes, and made friends of all
she servants by the presents, curious and rare, which he gave them,
while Dolly's headache had been wholly cured at sight of the exquisite
diamonds which her husband brought to her room and told her were hers,
the gift of Arthur, who had bought them in Paris, and who begged her to
accept them with his love.
The box itself, which was of tortoise shell, lined with blue velvet, was
a marvel of beauty, while the pin was a cluster of five diamonds with a
larger one in the center, but the ear-rings were solitaires, large and
brilliant, and Dolly's delight knew no bounds as she took the dazzling
stones in her hands and examined them carefully. Diamond were the jewels
of all others which she coveted, but which Frank never felt warranted in
buying, and now they were hers, and for a time she forgot even Gretchen,
whose arrival, or rather non-arrival, troubled her as much as it did her
brother-in-law.
Arthur had been very quiet and gentle all the afternoon, showing no sign
of the temper he had exhibited the previous night at sight of Harold
until about six o'clock, when Tom, his ten-year-old nephew, came rushing
into the library, followed by Peterkin, very hot and very red in the
face, which he mopped with his yellow silk handkerchief.
'Oh, mother,' Tom began, 'what do you think Harold Hastings has done? He
stole Mrs. Peterkin's gold pin last night. It was stuck in her shawl,
and she couldn't find it, and Lucy saw him fumbling with the things, and
he denies it up hill and down, and Mr. Peterkin is going to arrest him.
I guess Dick St. Claire won't think him the nicest boy in town now. The
thief! I'd like--
But what he would like was never known, for with a spring Arthur bounded
toward him, and seizing him by the coat collar, shook him vigorously,
while he exclaimed:
'Coward and liar! Harold Hastings is not a thief! No child of Amy
Crawford could ever be a thief, and if you say that again, or even
insinuate it to any living being, I'll break every bone in your body. Do
you understand?'
'Yes, sir; no sir, I won't; I won't,' Tom gasped, as well as he could,
with his head bobbing forward and back so rapidly that his teeth cut
into his under lip.
'But _I_ shall,' Peterkin roared. 'I'll have the young dog arrested,
too, if he don't own up and give up.'
There was a wicked look in Arthur's black eyes, which he fastened upon
Peterkin, as he said;
'What does it all mean, sir? Will you please explain?'
'Yes, in double quick time,' replied Peterkin, a little nettled by
Arthur's manner, which he could not understand. 'You see, me and Mary
Jane was early to the doin's; fust ones, in fact, for when your invite
says half past seven it means it, I take it. Wall, we was here on time,
and Mary Jane has been on a tear ever since, and says Miss St. Claire
nor none of the big bugs didn't come till nine, which I take is
imperlite, don't you?'
'Never mind, we are not discussing etiquette. Go on with the pin and the
boy,' Arthur said haughtily.
'Mary Jane,' Peterkin continued, 'had a gold-headed shawl pin, with a
small diamond in the head--real, too, for I don't b'lieve in shams, and
haint sense the day I quit boatin' and hauled ther 'Liza Ann up inter my
back yard. Well, she left this pin stickin' in her shawl, and no one up
there but this boy of that Crawford gal's, and nobody knows who else.'
Something in Arthur's face and manner made Frank think of a tiger about
to pounce upon its prey, and he felt himself growing cold with suspense
and dread as he watched his brother, while Peterkin continued:
'When Mary Jane came to go home, her things wa'n't there, and the pin
was missin'; and Lucy, the girl, said she found the boy pullin' them
over by himself, when he had no call to be in there; and, sir, there
ain't a lawyer in the United States that would refuse a writ on that
evidence, and I'll get one of St. Claire afore to-morrow night. I told
'em so, the widder and the boy, who was as brassy as you please, and
faced me down and said he never seen the pin, nor knowed there was one;
while she--wall, I swow, if she didn't start round lively for a woman
with her leg bandaged up in vinegar and flannel. When I called the brat
a thief and said I'd have him arrested, she made for the door and
ordered me out--me, Joe Peterkin, of the 'Liza Ann! I'll make her smart,
though, wus than the rheumatiz. I'll make her feel the heft--'
He did not have time to finish the sentence, for the tiger in Arthur was
fully roused, and with a bound toward Peterkin he opened the door, and,
in a voice which seemed to fill the room, although it was only a
whisper, he said:
'Clown! loafer! puff-ball! Leave my house instantly, and never enter it
again until you have apologized to Mrs. Crawford and her grandson for
the insult offered them by your vile accusations. If it were not for
soiling my hands, I would throw you down the steps,' he continued, as he
stood holding the door open, and looking with his flashing eyes and
dilated nostrils, as if he were fully equal to anything.
Like most men of the boasting sort, Peterkin was a coward, and though he
probably had twice the strength of Arthur, he went through the door-way
out upon the piazza, where he stopped, and, with a flourish of his fist,
denounced the whole Tracy tribe, declaring them but a race of upstarts,
no better than he was, and saying he would yet be even with them, and
make them feel the heft of his powerful disapprobation. Whatever else he
said was not heard, for Arthur shut the door upon him, and returning to
the library, where his brother stood, pale, trembling, and anxious for
the votes he felt he had lost, he became on the instant as quiet and
gentle as a child, and, consulting his watch, said in his natural tone:
'Quarter of seven, and the train is due at half-past. Please tell John
to have the carriage ready. I am going myself this time.'
Frank opened his lips to protest against it, but something in his
brother's manner kept him quiet and submissive. He was no longer master
there--unless--unless--he scarcely dared whisper to himself what; but
when the carriage went for the fourth time to the station after Gretchen
and returned without her, he said to his wife:
'I think Arthur is crazy, and possibly we shall have to shut him up.'
'Yes, I wish you would,' was Dolly's reply, in a tone of relief, for,
thus far, Arthur's presence in the house had not added to her comfort.
'Of course he is crazy, and ought to be taken care of before he tears
the house down over our heads, or does some dreadful thing.'
'That's so, and I will see St. Claire to-morrow and find out the proper
steps to be taken,' said Frank.
That night he dreamed of windows with iron bars across them, and
strait-jackets, into which he was thrusting his brother, while a face,
the loveliest he had ever seen, looked reproachfully at him, with tears
in the soft blue eyes, and a pleading pathos in the voice which said
words he could not understand, for the language was a strange one to him
who only knew his own.
With a start Frank awoke, and found his wife sitting up in bed,
listening intently to sounds which came from the hall, where some one
was evidently moving around.
'Hark!' she said, in a whisper. 'Do you hear that? There's a burglar in
the house after my diamonds. What shall I do?'
But Frank knew that no burglar ever made the noise this disturber of
their rest was making and stepping out of bed he opened the door
cautiously, and looking out, saw his brother, wrapped in a long
dressing-gown, with a candle in his hand, opening one window after
another until the hall was filled with the cold night wind, which swept
down the long corridor banging a door at the farther end and setting all
the rest to rattling.
'Oh! Frank, is that you?' Arthur said. 'I am sorry I woke you, but I
smelled an awful smell somewhere, and traced it to the hall, which you
see I am airing; better shut the door or you will take cold. The house
is full of malaria.'
He was certainly crazy; there could be no doubt of it; and next morning,
when Mr. St. Claire entered his office, he found Frank Tracy waiting
there to consult him with regard to the legal steps necessary to procure
his brother's incarceration in a lunatic asylum.
Arthur St. Claire's face wore a grave, troubled look as he listened, for
he remembered a time, years before, when he, too, had been interested in
the lunatic asylum at Worcester, where a beautiful young girl, his wife,
had been confined. She was dead now, and the Florida roses were growing
over her grave, but there were many sad, regretful memories connected
with her short life, and not the least sad of these were those connected
with the asylum.
'If it were to do over again I would not put her there, unless she
became dangerous,' he had often said to himself, and he said much the
same thing to Frank Tracy with regard to his brother.
'Keep him at home, if possible. Do not place him with a lot of lunatics
if you can help it. No proof he is crazy because he smells everything.
My wife does the same. Her nose is over the registers half the time in
winter to see if any gas is escaping from the furnace. And as to this
Gretchen, it is possible there was some woman with him on the ship, or
in New York, and he may be a little muddled there. You can inquire at
the hotel where he stopped.'
This was Mr. St. Claire's advice, and Frank acted upon it, and took
immediate steps to ascertain if there had been a lady in company with
his brother at the Brevoort House, where he had stopped, or if there had
been any one in his company on the ship, which was still lying in the
dock at New York. But there no one had been with him. Arthur Tracy alone
was registered among the list of passengers, and only Arthur Tracy was
on the books at the hotel. He had come alone, and been alone on the sea
and at the hotel.
Gretchen was a myth, or at least a mystery, though he still persisted
that she would arrive with every train from Boston; and for nearly a
week they humored him, and the carriage went to meet her, until at last
there seemed to dawn upon his mind the possibility of a mistake, and
when the carriage had made its twentieth trip for nothing, and Mr. St.
Claire, who was standing by him on the platform when the train came up
and brought no Gretchen, said to him:
'She did not come.'
'I am afraid she will never come,' he answered, sadly. 'No, she will
never come. There has been some mistake. She will never come. Poor
little Gretchen!' Then, after a moment he added, but there _is_ a
Gretchen, and I wrote to her to join me in Liverpool, and I thought she
did and was with me on the ship and in the train, but sometimes, when my
head is so hot, I get things mixed, and am not sure but--' and he looked
wistfully in his companion's face, while his voice trembled a little.
'Don't let them shut me up; I have a suspicion that they will try it,
but it will do no good. I was in an asylum nearly three years near
Vienna; went of my own accord, because of that heat in my head.'
'Been in an asylum?' Mr. St. Claire said, wonderingly.
'Yes,' Arthur continued, 'I was only out three months ago. I wrote
occasionally to Frank and Gretchen, but did not tell them where I was.
They called it a _maison de santé_, and treated me well because I paid
well, but the sight of so many crazy people made me worse, and if I had
staid I should have been mad as the maddest of them. As it was, I forgot
almost everything that ever happened, and fancied I was an Austrian. As
soon as I came out I was better, though I was not quite myself till I
got to Liverpool. Then things came back to me. Stand by me, St. Claire.
I can see I am in the way, and Frank would like to be rid of me; but
stand by me, and don't let them do it.'
His manner was very pleading, and like one who was in fear of something,
and remembering the past when a golden-haired girl had begged him to
save her from iron bars and bolts, Mr. St. Claire assured him of his
support against any steps which might be taken to prove him mad enough
for the asylum.
'But I would not come for Gretchen any more,' he said. 'I would give her
a rest. Who is she?'
Instantly the old look of cunning came into Arthur's eyes, as he
replied:
'She is Gretchen;' and then he walked toward the carriage, while Mr. St.
Claire looked curiously after him, and said to himself:
'That fellow is not right, but he is not a subject for a mad house, and
I should oppose his being sent there. I do not believe, however, that
they will try it on.'
CHAPTER X.
ARTHUR SETTLES HIMSELF.
They did try it on, but not until after the November election, at which
Frank was defeated by a large majority, for Peterkin worked against him
and brought all the 'heft of his powerful disapprobation' to bear upon
him. Although Frank had had no part in turning him from the door that
morning after the party, he had not tried to prevent it by a word, and
this the low, brutal man resented, and swearing vengeance upon the whole
Tracy tribe, declared his intention to defeat Frank if it cost him half
his fortune to do so. And it did cost him at least two thousand dollars,
for Frank Tracy was popular with both parties; many of the Democrats
voted for him, but the rabble, the scum, those who could be bought on
both sides, went against him, even to the Widow Shipley's four sons; and
when all was over, Frank found himself defeated by just as many votes as
old Peterkin had paid for, not only in Shannondale, but in the adjoining
towns, where his money carried 'heft,' as he expressed it.
It was a terrible disappointment to Frank and his wife, who had looked
forward to enjoying a winter in Washington, where they intended to take
a house and enjoy all society had to offer them in the national
metropolis. Particularly were they anxious for the change now that
Arthur had come home, for it was not altogether pleasant to be ruled
where they had so long been rulers, and to see the house turned upside
down without the right to protest.
'I can't stand it, and I won't,' Frank said to his wife in the first
flush of his bitter disappointment. 'Ever since he came home he has
raised Cain generally, with his carpenters, and masons, and painters,
and stewing about water-pipes, and sewer-gas, and smells. He's mad as a
March hare, and if I can't get rid of him by going to Washington, I'll
do it in some other way. You know he is crazy, and so do I, and I'll
swear to it on a stack of Bibles as high as the house.'
And Frank did swear to it, not on a stack of Bibles, but before two or
three physicians and Mr. St. Claire, who, at his solicitation, came to
Tracy Park, and were closeted with him for an hour or more, while he
related his grievances, asserting finally that he considered his brother
dangerous, and did not think his family safe with him, citing as proof
that he had on one occasion threatened to kill his son Tom for accusing
Harold Hastings of theft.
How the matter would have terminated is doubtful, if Arthur himself had
not appeared upon the scene, calm, dignified, and courtly in his manner,
which insensibly won upon his hearers, as in a few well-chosen and
eloquent words, he proceeded to prove that though he might be peculiar
in some respects, he was not mad, and that a man might repair his own
house, and cut off his own water-pipes, and take up his sewer, and
detect a bad smell, and still not be a subject for a lunatic asylum.
'And,' he continued, addressing his brother, 'it ill becomes you to
take this course against me--you, who have enriched yourself at my
expense, while I have held my peace. Suppose I require you to give an
account of all the money which you have considered necessary for your
support and salary--would you like to do it? Would the world consider
you strictly honorable, or would they call you a lunatic on the subject
of money and not responsible for your acts? But I have no wish to harm
you. I have money enough, and cannot forget that you are my brother. But
molest me, and I shall molest you. If I go to the asylum you will leave
Tracy Park. If I am allowed to stay here in peace, you can do so,
too--at least, until Gretchen comes, when it will, perhaps, be better
for us to separate. Two masters may manage to scramble along in the same
house, but two mistresses never can, and Dora and Gretchen would not be
congenial. Good morning, gentlemen!' and he bowed himself from the room,
leaving Frank covered with confusion and shame as he felt that he was
beaten.
The physicians did not think it a case in which they were warranted to
interfere. Neither could conscientiously sign a certificate which should
declare Arthur a lunatic, and their advice to Frank was that he should
suffer his brother to have his own way in his own house, and when he
felt that he could not bear with his idiosyncracies he could go
elsewhere. But it was this going elsewhere which Frank did not fancy;
and, after a consultation with his wife, he decided to let matters take
their course for a time at least, or until Gretchen came, if she ever
did.
Arthur's allusion to the sums of money his brother had appropriated to
his own use had warned Frank that he was not quite so indifferent or
ignorant of his business affairs as he had seemed, and this of itself
served to keep him quiet and patient during the confusion which ensued,
as walls were torn down, and doors and windows cut, while the house was
filled with workmen, and the sound of the hammer and saw was heard from
morning till night.
It was in the middle of October when Arthur fairly commenced his
repairs, but so many men did he employ, and so rapidly was the work
pushed on, that the first of January found everything finished and
Arthur installed in his suite of rooms, which a prince might have
envied, so richly and tastefully were they fitted up. Beautiful pictures
and rich tapestry covered the walls in the first room, where the floor
was inlaid with colored woods in lovely Mosaic designs, and the centre
was covered with a costly Oriental rug, which Arthur had bought at a
fabulous price in Paris, where it had once adorned a room in the
Tuileries. But the gem of the whole was the library, where the statuary
stood in the niches, and where, from the large bow-window at the south,
a young girl's face looked upon the scene with an expression of shy
surprise and half regret in the soft blue eyes, as if their owner
wondered how she came there, and was always thinking of the fields and
forests of far-away Germany. For it was decidedly a German face of the
higher type, and such as is seldom found among the lower or even middle
classes. And yet you instinctively felt that it belonged to the latter,
notwithstanding the richness of the dress, from the pearl-embroidered
cap set jauntily on the reddish golden hair to the velvet bodice and the
satin peasant waist. The hands, small and dimpled like those of a child,
were clasped around a prayer-book and a bunch of wild flowers which had
evidently just been gathered. It was a marvelously beautiful face, pure
and sweet as that of a Madonna, and the workmen involuntarily bowed
their heads before it, calling it, not without some reason, a memorial
window, for the name Gretchen was under the picture, and one
unconsciously found himself looking for the date of birth and death. But
only the one word 'Gretchen' was there, with no sign to tell who she
was, or where, if living, she was now, or what relation she bore to the
strange man who often stood before her whispering to himself:
'Poor little Gretchen! Will you never come?'
For a few days after the rooms were completed, they were thrown open to
such of Arthur's friends as cared to see them, and the question 'Who is
Gretchen?' was often asked, but the answer was always the same: 'She is
Gretchen. I am expecting her every day.'
But if he were expecting her, he no longer asked that the carriage be
sent to meet her. That had been one of the proofs of his insanity as
alleged by his brother, and Arthur was sane enough and cunning enough to
avoid a repetition of that offence, but he often went himself to the
station, when the New York trains were due, for it was from the west
rather than the east that he was now looking for her.
Frank, who watched him nervously, with all his senses sharpened, guessed
what had caused the change and grew more nervous and morbid on the
subject of Gretchen than ever. At first his brother, who was greatly
averse to going out, had asked him to post his letters; business letters
they seemed to be, for they were addressed to business firms in New
York, London, and Paris, with all of which Arthur had relations. But one
morning when Frank went as usual to his brother's room asking if there
was any mail to be taken to the office, Arthur, who was just finishing a
letter, replied:
'No, thank you, I will post this myself. I have been writing to
Gretchen.'
'Yes, to Gretchen?' Frank said, quickly, as he advanced nearer to the
writing desk, hoping to see the address on the envelope.
But Arthur must have suspected his motive, for he at once turned over
the envelope and kept his hand upon it, while Frank said to him:
'Is she in London now?'
'No; she was never in London,' was the curt reply, and then, turning
suddenly, Arthur faced his brother and said: 'Why are you so curious
about Gretchen? It is enough for you to know that the is the sweetest,
truest little girl that ever lived. When she comes I shall tell you
everything, but not before. You have tried to prove me crazy; have said
I was full of cranks; perhaps I am, and Gretchen is one of them, but it
does not harm you, so leave me in peace, if you wish for peace
yourself.'
There was a menacing look in Arthur's eyes which Frank did not like, and
he retreated from the room, resolved to say no more to him of Gretchen,
whose arrival he again began to look for and dread. But Gretchen did not
come, or any tidings of her, and Christmas came and went, and the lovely
bracelets which Arthur brought from the trunk he said was hers, and into
which no one had ever looked but himself, remained unclaimed upon his
table, as did the costly inlaid work-box, and the cut-glass bottles with
the gold stoppers. All these were to have been Gretchen's Christmas
presents; but when she did not come they disappeared from view and were
not seen again, while Arthur seemed to be settling into a state of great
depression, caring nothing for the outside world, but spending all his
time in the lovely rooms he had prepared for himself and one who never
came.
As far as was possible he continued his foreign habits, having his
coffee and rolls at eight in the morning, his breakfast, as he called
it, at half-past twelve, and his dinner at half-past six. All these
meals were served in his room as elaborately, and with as much ceremony,
as if lords and ladies sat at the table instead of one lone man, who
never let himself down a particle, but required the utmost subservience
and care in the waiting. The finest of linen, and china, and glass, and
silver adorned his table, with bits of fanciful crockery gathered here
and there in his extended wanderings, and always flowers for a
centre-piece--roses mostly, if he could get them--tea roses and Marshal
Neils, for Gretchen, he said, was fond of these, and, as she might
surprise him at any moment, he wished to be ready for her, and show that
he was expecting her.
Opposite him, at the end of the table, was always an empty plate with
its surroundings, and the curiously-carved chair, which had seen the
lion at Lucerne. But no one ever sat in it. No one ever used the
decorated plate, or the glass mug at its side, with its twisted handle
and the letter 'G.' on the silver cover. Just what this mug was for none
of the household knew until Grace Atherton, who had travelled in Europe,
and to whom Mrs. Tracy showed it one day when Arthur was out, said:
'Why, it is a beer-mug, such as is used in Germany, though more
particularly among the Bavarian Alps and in the Tyrol. This Gretchen is
probably a tippler, with a red nose and a double chin. I wish to
goodness she would come and satisfy our curiosity.'
This wish of Grace's was not shared by Mrs. Tracy, who felt an uneasy
sense of relief as the days went on, and the beer-drinking Gretchen did
not appear, while Arthur became more and more depressed and remained
altogether in his room, seeing no one and holding no intercourse with
the outside world. He had returned no calls, and had been but once to
the cottage in the lane to see Mrs. Crawford. That interview had been a
long and sad one, and when they talked of Amy, whose grave Arthur had
visited on his way to the cottage, both had cried together, and Gretchen
seemed for the time forgotten. They talked of Amy's husband, who, Arthur
said, had died at Monte Carlo; and then he spoke of Amy's son, who was
not present, and whom he seemed to have forgotten entirely, for when
Mrs. Crawford said to him, 'You saw him on the night of your return
home,' he looked at her in a perplexed kind of way, and if trying to
recall something which had gone almost entirely from his mind. It was
this utter forgetfulness of people and events which was a marked feature
of his insanity, if insane he were, and he knew it and struggled against
it; and when Mrs. Crawford told him he had seen Harold he tried to
recall him, and could not until the boy came in, flushed and excited
from a race with Dick St. Claire through the crisp November wind, which
had brought a bright color to his cheek and a sparkle to his eye. Then
Arthur remembered everything, and something of his old prejudice came
back to him, and his manner was a little constrained as he talked to the
boy, whose only fault was that Harold Hastings had been his father and
that he bore his name.
Arthur did not stay long after Harold came in, but said good-morning to
Mrs. Crawford and walked slowly away, going again to Amy's grave, and
taking from it a few leaves of the ivy which was growing around the
monument. And this was all the intercourse he held with Mrs. Crawford,
except to send her at Christmas a hundred dollars, which he said was for
the boy Harold, to whom he had done an injustice.
After this he seldom went out, but gave himself heart and soul to the
completion of his rooms, and when they were finished he settled down
into the life of a recluse, seeing very few and talking but little,
except occasionally to himself, when he seemed to be carrying on a
conversation with some unseen visitant, who must have spoken in a
foreign tongue or tongues, for sometimes it was French, sometimes
Italian, and oftener German, in which he addressed his fancied guest,
and neither Frank nor Dolly could understand a word of the strange
jargon. On the whole, however, he was very quiet and undemonstrative,
and but for the habit of talking to himself and smelling odors where
there were none, he would not have seemed very different from many
peculiar people who are never suspected of being crazy.
If he were still expecting Gretchen, he gave no sign of it, except the
place at his table always laid for her, and Frank was beginning to
breathe freely, and to look upon his brother's presence in the house as
not altogether unbearable, when an event occurred which excited all
Shannondale, and for a time made Frank almost as crazy as his brother.
CHAPTER XI.
THE STORM.
The winter since Christmas had been unusually severe, and the oldest
inhabitant, of whom there are always many in every town, pronounced the
days as they came and went the coldest they had ever known. Ten, twelve,
and even fourteen degrees below zero the thermometers marked more than
once, while old Peterkin's, which was hung inside the Lizy Ann and
always took the lead, went down one morning to seventeen, and all the
water-pipes and pumps in town either froze or burst, and Arthur Tracy,
who, with his absorption of self, never forgot the poor, sent tons and
tons of coal to them, and whispered to himself:
'Poor Gretchen! It is hard for her if she is on the sea in such weather
as this. Heaven protect her, poor little Gretchen!'
That night when Frank went, as his custom was, to sit a few moments with
his brother, he found him on his knees, with his face toward the
picture, repeating the prayer for those upon the sea.
The next day there was a change for the better, and the next, and the
next, until when the last day of February dawned Peterkin's thermometer
registered only two, and people began to show themselves in the
streets, while the sun tried to break through the grey clouds which
shrouded the wintry sky. But this was only temporary, for before noon
the mercury fell again to eight below, the wind began to rise, and when
the New York train came panting to the station at half-past six, clouds
of snow so dense and dark were driving over the hills and along the line
of track that nothing could be distinctly seen.
It was not until the train had moved on that the station-master, who,
half blinded with the sleet, was gathering up the mail-bag, which had
been unceremoniously dropped, saw across the track at a little distance
from him the figure of a woman who seemed to be trying to examine a
paper she held in her hand, while clinging to her skirts and crying
piteously was a little child, but whether boy or girl, he could not
tell.
'Can I do anything for you?' he said advancing toward the stranger, who,
thrusting the paper from sight, caught up the child in her arms, and
without word of answer, hurried away in the storm and rapidly-increasing
darkness.
'Curis! She must have got off t'other side of the cars. I wonder who she
is and where she is goin'. Not fur, I hope, such a night as this. Ugh!
the wind is like so many screech owls and almost takes a feller off his
feet, the agent said to himself, as he looked after the stranger, and
then went back to the light and warmth of his office, where he soon
forgot the woman, who, with the child held closely in her arms, walked
rapidly on, her eyes strained to their utmost tension as they peered
through the darkness and the storm until she reached a gate opening into
a grassy road which led through the fields in a straight line to Tracy
Park and Collingwood beyond.
Carriages seldom traversed this road, but in the summer time the people
from Collingwood and Tracy Park frequently walked that way, as it was a
much nearer route to town than the main highway. Here the woman stopped,
and looking up at the tall arch over the gate, said aloud, as if
repeating a lesson learned by heart, 'Leave the car on your right hand;
take the road to the right, as I have drawn it on paper; go straight on
for a quarter of a mile until you come to a wide iron gate with a tall
arch over it. This gate is also at your right. You cannot mistake it.'
'No,' she continued, 'I cannot mistake it. This is the place. We are
almost there,' and putting down the child, she tugged with all her
strength at the ponderous gate, which she at last succeeded in opening,
and resuming her burden, passed through into the field where the snow
lay on the ground in great white drifts, while the blinding flakes and
cutting sleet from the leaden clouds above, beat pitilessly upon her as
she struggled on the wearisome way.
And while she toiled on, fighting bravely with the storm, and
occasionally speaking a word of encouragement to the little child
nestled in her bosom, Arthur Tracy stood at one of the windows in his
library, with his white face pressed close against the pane, as he
looked anxiously out into the gathering darkness, shuddering
involuntarily as the wind came screaming round a corner of the house,
bending the tall evergreens until their slender tops almost touched the
ground, and then rushing on down the carriage-drive with a shriek like
so many demons let loose from the ice-caves of the north, where the
winds are supposed to hold high carnival.
They were surely holding carnival to-night, and their king was out with
all his legions, and as Arthur listened to the roar of the tempest he
whispered to himself:
'A wild, wild night for Gretchen to arrive, and her dear little feet and
hands will be so cold; but there is warmth and comfort here, and love
such as she never dreamed of, poor Gretchen! I will hold her in my arms
and chafe her cold fingers and kiss her tired face until she feels that
her home-coming is a happy one. It must be almost time,' and he glanced
at a small cathedral clock which stood upon the mantel.
In the adjoining room the dinner table was as usual laid for two, but
one could see that more care than usual had been given to its
arrangement, while the roses in the centre were the largest and finest
of their kind. In the low, wide grate a bright fire was burning, and
Arthur placed a large easy chair before it, and then brought from the
library a covered footstool, with a delicate covering of blue and gold.
No foot had ever yet profaned this stool with a touch, for it was one of
Arthur's specialties, bought at a great price in Algiers; but he brought
it now for Gretchen and saw in fancy resting upon it the cold little
feet his hands were to rub and warm and caress until life came back to
them, and Gretchen's blue eyes smiled upon him and Gretchen's sweet
voice said:
'Thank you, Arthur. It is pleasant coming home.'
For the last two or three weeks, Arthur had been very quiet and
taciturn, but on the morning of this day he had seemed restless and
nervous, and his nervousness and excitability increased until a violent
headache came on, and Charles, the servant, who attended him, reported
to Mrs. Tracy that his midday meal had been untouched and that he really
seemed quite ill. Then Frank went to him, and sitting down beside him as
he lay upon a couch in the room with Gretchen's picture, said to him,
not unkindly:
'Are you sick to-day? What is the matter?'
For a few moments Arthur made no reply, but lay with his eyes closed as
if he had not heard. Then suddenly rousing himself, he burst out,
vehemently:
'Frank, you think me crazy, or you have thought so, and you have based
that belief in part on the fact that I am always expecting Gretchen. And
so for a long time I have suppressed all mention of her, though I have
never ceased to look for her arrival, since--since--well, I may as well
tell you the truth. I know now that she could not have been with me on
the ship and in the train, although I thought she was. I wrote her to
join me in Liverpool, and fancied she did. But my brain must have been a
little mixed. She did not come with me, but I wrote to her weeks ago,
telling her to come at once, and giving her directions how to find the
park if she should arrive at the station and no one there to meet her.
She has had more than time to get here, but I have said nothing about
sending the carriage for her, as that seemed to annoy you. But to-day,
Frank, to-day'--and Arthur's voice grew softer and pleading, and
trembled as he went on. 'I dreamed of her last night, and to-day she
seems so near to me that more than once I have put out my hand to touch
her. Frank, it is not insanity, this presentiment of mine that she is
near me, that she is coming to me, or tidings of her; it is mind acting
upon mind; her thoughts of me reaching forward and fastening upon my
thoughts of her, making a mental bridge on which to see her coming to
me. And you will send for her. You will let John go again. Think if she
should arrive in this terrible storm and no one there to meet her. You
will send this once, and if she is not there I will not trouble you
again.'
There was something in Arthur's white face which Frank could not resist,
and though he had no idea that anything would come of it, he promised
that John should go.
'Oh, Frank,' Arthur exclaimed, his face brightening at once, 'you have
made me so happy! My headache is quite gone,' and then he began to plan
for the dinner, which was to be more elaborate than usual, and served an
hour later, so as to give plenty of time for Gretchen to rest and dress
herself if she wished to do so.
'And she will when she sees the lovely dress I have for her,' he thought
to himself, and after his brother had gone he went to the large closet
where he kept the long black trunk which he called Gretchen's, and into
which Dolly's curious eyes had never looked, although she longed to know
the contents.
This Arthur now opened, and had Dolly been there she would have held
her breath in wonder at the many beautiful things it contained.
Folded in one of the trays, as only a French packer accustomed to
the business could have arranged it, was an exquisite dinner-dress of
salmon-colored satin, with a brocaded front and jacket of blue and gold,
and here and there a knot of duchess lace, which gave it a more airy
effect. This Arthur took out carefully and laid upon the bed in his
sleeping-apartment, together with every article of the toilet necessary
to such a dress, from a lace pocket handkerchief to a pair of pale-blue
silk hose, which he kissed reverently as he whispered to himself:
'Dear little feet, which, no doubt, are so cold now in the wretched car;
but they will never be cold when once I have them here.'
He was talking in German, as he always did when Gretchen was the subject
of his thought, and so Dolly, who came to say that some things which he
had ordered for dinner were impossible now, could not understand him,
but she caught a glimpse of the dress upon the bed, and advanced quickly
toward the open door, exclaiming:
'Oh, Arthur, what a lovely gown! Whose--?'
But before she completed her question Arthur was upon the threshold and
had closed the door, saying as he did so:
'It is Gretchen's. I had it made at Worth's. She is coming to-night, you
know.'
Dolly had heard from her husband of Arthur's fancy, and though she had
no faith in it, she replied:
'Yes, Frank told me you were expecting her again, and I came to say that
we cannot get the fish you ordered, for no one can go to town in this
storm, and I doubt if we could find it if we did. You will have to skip
the fish.'
'All right; all right. Gretchen will be too much excited to care,'
Arthur replied, standing with his hand upon the door-knob until Dolly
left the room and went to this kitchen, where Frank was interviewing the
coachman.
He had found that important personage before the fire, bending nearly
double and complaining bitterly of a fall he had just had on his way
from the stable to the house. According to his statement, the wind had
taken him up bodily, and carrying him a dozen rods or so, had set him
down heavily upon a stone flowerpot which was left outside in the
winter, nearly breaking his back, as he declared. This did not look very
promising for the drive to the station, and Frank opened the business
hesitatingly, and asked John what he thought of it.
'I think I would not go out in such a storm as this with my back if
Queen Victoria was to be there,' John answered gruffly. 'And what would
be the use?' he continued. 'I have been to meet that woman, if she is a
woman, with the outlandish name, more than fifty times, I'll bet; he
don't know what he is talking about when he gets on her track. And
s'posin' she does come, she can find somebody to fetch her. She ain't
going to walk.'
This seemed reasonable; and as Frank's sympathies were with his coachman
and horses rather than with Gretchen and his brother, he decided with
John that he need not go, but added, laughingly, as he saw the man walk
across the floor as well as he ever did on his way to the woodshed:
'Seems to me your broken back has recovered its elasticity very soon.'
To this John made no reply except an inaudible growl, and Frank returned
to the library, resolving not to go near his brother until after train
time, but to let him think that John had gone to the station.
At half-past five, however, Arthur sent for him, and said:
'Has he gone? It must be time.'
'Not quite; it is only half-past five. The train does not come until
half-past six, and is likely to be late,' was Frank's reply.
'Yes, I know,' Arthur continued, 'but he should be there on time. Tell
him to start at once, and take an extra robe with him, and say to
Charles that I will have sherry to-night, and champagne, too, and
Hamburg grapes, and--'
The remainder of his speech was lost on Frank, who was hurrying down the
stairs with a guilty feeling in his heart, although he felt that the end
justified the means, and that under the circumstances he was justified
in deceiving his half-crazy brother. Still he was ill at ease. He had no
faith in Arthur's presentiments, and no idea that any one bound for
Tracy Park would be on the train that night, but he could not shake off
a feeling of anxiety, amounting almost to a dread of some impending
calamity, which possibly the sending of John to the station might have
averted, and going to a window in the library, he, too, stood looking
out into the night, trying not to believe that he was watching for some
possible arrival, when, above the storm, he heard the shrill scream of
the locomotive as it stopped for a moment and then dashed on into the
white snow clouds; trying to believe, too, that he was not glad, as the
minutes became a quarter, the quarter a half, and the half
three-quarters, until at last he heard the clock strike the half-hour
past seven, and nobody had come.
'I shall have to tell Arthur,' he thought, and, with something like
hesitancy, he started for his brother's room.
Arthur was standing before the fire, with his arm thrown caressingly
across the chair where Gretchen was to sit, when Frank opened the door
and advanced a step or two across the threshold.
'Has she come? I did not see the carriage. Where is she?' Arthur cried,
springing swiftly forward, while his bright, eager eyes darted past his
brother to the open door-way and out into the hall.
'No, she has not come. I knew she wouldn't; and it was nonsense to send
the horses out such a night as this,' Frank said, sternly, with a
mistaken notion that he must speak sharply to the unfortunate man, who,
if rightly managed, was gentle as a child.
'Not come! Gretchen not come! There must be some mistake!' Arthur said,
all the brightness fading from his face, which seemed to grow pinched
and pallid as he turned it piteously toward his brother and continued:
'Not come! Oh, Frank! did John say so? Was no one there? Let me go and
question him--there must be a mistake.'
He was hurrying toward the door, when Frank caught his arm and detained
him, while he said, decidedly:
'No use to see John. Can't you believe me when I tell you no one was
there--and I knew there would not be. It was folly to send.'
For a moment a pale, haggard face, which looked still more haggard and
pale with the firelight flickering over it, confronted Frank steadily;
then the lips began to quiver, and the eyelids to twitch, while great
tears gathered in Arthur's eyes, until at last, covering his face with
his hands, he staggered to the couch, and throwing himself upon it,
sobbed convulsively.
'Oh, Gretchen, my darling!' he said. 'I was so sure, and now everything
is swept away, and I am left so desolate.'
Frank had never seen grief just like this, and, with his conscience
pricking him a little for the deception he had practised, he found
himself pitying his brother as he had never done before; and when at
last the latter cried out loud, he went to him, and laying his hand
gently upon his bowed head, said to him, soothingly:
'Don't, Arthur; don't feel so badly. It is terrible to see a man cry as
you are crying.'
'No, no; let me cry,' Arthur replied. 'The tears do me good, and my
brain would burst without them. It is all on fire, and my head is aching
so hard again.'
At this moment Charles appeared, asking if his master would have dinner
served. But Arthur could not eat, and the table which had been arranged
with so much care for Gretchen was cleared away, while Gretchen's chair
was moved back from the fire and Gretchen's footstool put in its place,
and nothing remained to show that she had been expected except the
pretty dress, with its accessories, which lay upon Arthur's bed. These
he took care of himself, folding them with trembling hands and tear-wet
eyes, as a fond mother folds the clothes her dead child has worn,
sorrowing most over the half-worn shoes, so like the dear little feet
which will never wear them again. So Arthur sorrowed over the
high-heeled slippers, with the blue rosettes and pointed toes,
fashionable in Paris at that time. Gretchen had never worn them, it is
true, but they seemed so much like her that his tears fell fast as he
held them in his hands, and, dropping upon the pure white satin, left a
stain upon it.
When everything was put away and the long trunk locked again, Arthur
went back to the couch and said to his brother, who was still in the
room:
'Don't leave me, Frank; at least not yet, till I am more composed. My
nerves are dreadfully shaken to-night, and I feel afraid of something, I
don't know what. How the wind howls and moans! I never heard it like
that but once before, and that was years ago, among the Alps in
Switzerland. Then it blew off the roof of the chalet where I was
staying, and I heard afterward that Amy died that night. You remember
Amy, the girl I loved so well, though not as I love Gretchen. If she had
come, I should have told you all about her, but now it does not matter
who she is, or where I saw her first, knitting in the sunshine, with the
halo on her hair and the blue of the summer skies reflected in her eyes.
Oh, Gretchen, my love, my love!'
He was talking more to himself than to Frank, who sat beside him until
far into the night, while the wild storm raged on and shook the solid
house to its very foundations. A tall tree in the yard was uprooted, and
a chimney-top came crushing down with a force which threatened to break
through the roof. For a moment there was a lull in the tempest, and,
raising himself upon his elbow, Arthur listened intently, while he said,
in a whisper which made Frank's blood curdle in his veins:
'Hark! there's more abroad to-night than the storm! Something is
happening or has happened which affects me. I have heard voices in the
wind--Gretchen calling me from far away. Frank, Frank, _did_ you hear
that? It was a woman's cry; her voice--Gretchen's. Yes, Gretchen, I am
coming!'
And with a bound he was at the window, which he opened wide, and leaning
far out of it, listened to hear repeated a sound which Frank, too, had
heard--a cry like the voice of one in mortal peril calling for help.
It might have been the wind, which on the instant swept round the corner
in a great gust, driving the snow and sleet into Arthur's face, and
making him draw in his body, nearly half of which was leaning from the
window as he waited for the strange cry to be repeated. But it did not
come again, though Frank, whose nerves were strung to almost as high a
tension as his brother's, thought he heard it once above the roar of the
tempest, and a vague feeling of disquiet took possession of him as he
sat for an hour longer watching his brother and listening to the noise
without.
Gradually the storm subsided, and when the clock struck one the wind had
gone down, the snow had ceased to fall, and the moon was struggling
feebly through a rift of dark clouds in the west. After persuading his
brother to go to bed, Frank retired to his own room and was soon asleep,
unmindful of the tragedy which was being enacted not very far away,
where a little child was smiling in its dreams, while the woman beside
it was praying for life until her mission should be accomplished.
CHAPTER XII.
THE TRAMP HOUSE.
About midway between the entrance to the park and the Collingwood
grounds, and fifty rods or more from the cross-road which the strange
woman had taken on the night of the storm, stood a small stone building,
which had been used as a school-house until the Shannondale turnpike was
built and the cross-road abandoned. After that it was occupied by one
poor family after another, until the property of which it was a part
came into the hands of the elder Mr. Tracy, who, with his English ideas,
thought to make it a lodge and bring the gates of his park down to it.
But this he did not do, and the house was left to the mercy of the
winds, and the storms, and the boys, until Arthur became master there,
and with his artistic taste thought to beautify it a little and turn it
to some use.
'I would tear it down,' he said to his neighbor, Mr. St. Claire, who
stood with him one day looking at it, 'I would tear it down, and have
once or twice given orders to that effect, but as often countermanded
them. I do not know that I am exactly superstitious, but I am subject to
fancies, or presentiments, or whatever you choose to call those moods
which take possession of you and which you cannot shake off, and,
singularly enough, one of these fancies is connected with this old hut,
and as often as I decide to remove it something tells me not to; and
once I actually dreamed that a dead woman's hand clutched me by the arm
and bade me leave it alone. A case of "Woodman spare that tree," you
see.'
And Arthur laughed lightly at his own morbid fancies, but he left the
house and planted around it quantities of woodbine, which soon crept up
its sides to the chimney-top and made it look like the ivy-covered
cottages so common in Ireland. It was the nicest kind of rendezvous for
lovers, who frequently availed themselves of its seclusion to whisper
their secrets to each other, and it was sometimes used as a dining-room
by the people of Shannondale, where in summer they held picnics in the
pretty pine grove not far away. But during Arthur's absence it had been
suffered to go to decay, for Frank cared little for lovers or picnics,
and less for the tramps who often slept there at night, and for whom it
came at last to be called the Tramp House. So the winds, and the storms,
and the boys did their work upon it unmolested, and when Arthur
returned, the door hung upon one hinge, and there was scarcely a whole
light of glass in the six windows.
'Better tear the old rookery down. It is of no earthly use except to
harbor rats and tramps. I've known two or three to spend the night in it
at a time, and once a lot of gipsies quartered themselves here for a
week and nearly scared Dolly to death,' Frank said to his brother as
they were walking past it a few days after his return, and Arthur was
commenting upon its dilapidated appearance.
'Oh, the tramps sleep here, do they?' Arthur said. 'Well, let them. If
any poor, homeless wretches want to stay here nights they are very
welcome, I am sure, and I will see that the door is rehung and glass put
in the windows. May as well make them comfortable.'
'Do as you like,' Frank replied, and there, so far as he was concerned,
the matter ended.
But while the carpenters were at work at the Park Arthur sent one of
them to the old stone house and had the door fixed and glass put in two
of the windows, while rude but close shutters were nailed before the
others, and then Arthur went himself into the room and pushed a long
table which the picnic people had used for their refreshments and the
tramps for a bed into a corner, where one sleeping upon it would be more
sheltered from the draught. All this seemed nonsense to Frank, who
laughingly suggested that Arthur should place in it a stove and a ton of
coal for the benefit of his lodgers. But Arthur cared little for his
brother's jokes. His natural kindness of heart, which was always seeking
another's good, had prompted him to this care for the Tramp House, in
which he felt a strange interest, never dreaming that what he was doing
would reach forward to the future and influence not only his life but
that of many others.
The storm which had raged so fiercely around the house in the park had
not spared the cottage in the lane, which rocked like a cradle as gust
after gust of wind struck it with a force which made every timber
quiver, and sent the boy Harold close to his grandmother's side as he
asked, tremblingly:
'Do you think we shall be blown away?'
The rheumatism from which Mrs. Crawford had been suffering in the fall
had troubled her more or less during the entire winter, and now,
aggravated by a cold, it was worse than it had ever been before, and on
the night of the storm she was suffering intense pain, which was only
relieved by the hot poultices which Harold made under her direction and
applied to the swollen limb. This kept him up later than usual, and the
clock was striking eleven when his grandmother declared herself easier,
and bade him go to bed.
It was at this hour that Arthur Tracy had fancied he heard the cry for
help, and the snow was sweeping past the cottage in great billows of
white when Harold went to the window and looked out into the night. In
the summer when the leaves were upon the trees the old stone house could
not he seen from the cottage, from which it was distant a quarter of a
mile or more, but in the winter when the trees were stripped of their
foliage it was plainly discernible, and as Harold glanced that way a
gleam of light appeared suddenly, as if the door had been opened and the
flickering rays of a candle had for a moment shone out into the
darkness. Then it disappeared, but not until Harold had cried out:
'Oh, grandma, there's a light in the Tramp House; I saw it plain as day.
Somebody is in there.'
'God pity them.' was Mrs. Crawford's reply, though she did not quite
credit Harold's statement, or think of it again that night.
It was late next morning when Harold awoke to find the sun shining into
the room, and without any sign of the terrible storm, except the snow,
which lay in great piles everywhere and came almost to the window's
edge. But Harold was not afraid of snow, and soon had the walks cleared
around the cottage, and when, after breakfast, which he prepared
himself, for his grandmother could not step, he was told that a doctor
must be had and he must go for him, he did not demur at all, but
commenced his preparations at once for the long and wearisome walk.
'Better go through the park,' his grandmother said to him, as he was
tying his warm comforter about his ears and putting on his mittens. 'It
is a little farther that way, but somebody has broken a path by this
time, and the cross-road, which is nearer, must be impassable.'
Harold made no reply, but remembering the light he had seen in the Tramp
House, resolved within himself to take the cross-road and investigate
the mystery. Bidding his grandmother good-by, and telling her he should
be back before she had time to miss him, he started on his journey, and
was soon plunging through the snow, which, in some places, was up to his
armpits, so that his progress was very slow, but by kicking with his
feet and throwing out his arms like the paddles of a boat, he managed to
get on until he was opposite the Tramp House, which looked like an
immense snow-heap, so completely was it covered. Only the chimney and
the slanting roof showed any semblance to a house as Harold made his way
toward it, still beating the snow with his arms, and thinking it was not
quite the fun he had fancied it might be.
He was close to the house at last, and stood for a moment looking at it,
while a faint thrill of fear stirred in his veins as he remembered to
have heard that burglars and thieves sometimes made it their rendezvous
after a night's marauding. What if they were there now, and should rush
upon him if he ventured to disturb them!
'I don't believe I will try it,' he thought, as he glanced nervously at
the door, which was blockaded by a great bank of snow; and he was about
to retrace his steps, when a sound met his ear which made him stand
still and listen until it was repeated a second time.
Then forgetting both burglar and thief, he started forward quickly, and
was soon at the door, from which he dug away the snow with a desperate
energy, as if working for his life. For the sound was the cry of a
little child, frightened and pleading.
'Mah-nee! mah-nee!' it seemed to say; and Harold, thinking it was mamma,
answered, cheerily:
'I am coming as fast I can.'
Then the crying ceased, and all was still inside, while Harold worked on
until enough snow was cleared away to allow of his opening the door
about a foot, and through this narrow opening he forced his way into the
cold, damp room, where for a moment he could see nothing distinctly, for
the sunlight outside had blinded him, and there was but little light
inside, owing to the barred and snow-bound windows.
Gradually, however, as he became accustomed to the place, he saw upon
the long table in the corner where Arthur Tracy had moved it months
before, what looked like a human form stretched at full length and lying
upon its back, with its white, stony face upturned to the rafters above,
and no sound or motion to tell that it still lived.
With an exclamation of surprise, Harold sprang forward and laid his hand
upon the pale forehead of the woman, but started back as quickly with a
cry of horror, for by the touch of the ice-cold flesh he knew the woman
was dead.
'Frozen to death!' he whispered, with ashen lips; and then, as something
stirred under the gray cloak which partly covered the woman, he
conquered his terror and went forward again to the table, over which he
bent curiously.
Again the cry, which was more like 'mah-nee' now than 'mamma,' met his
ear, and, stooping lower, he saw a curly head nestle close to the bosom
of the woman, while a little fat white hand was clasping the neck as if
for warmth and protection.
At this sight all Harold's fear vanished, and, bending down so that his
lips almost touched the bright, wavy hair, he said:
'Poor little girl!'--he felt instinctively that it was a girl--'poor
little girl! come with me away from this dreadful place!' and he tried
to lift up her head, but she drew it away from him, and repeated the
piteous cry of 'Mah-nee, mah-nee!'
At last, however, as Harold continued to talk to her, the cries ceased,
and, cautiously lifting her head, she turned toward him a fat, chubby
face and a pair of soft, blue eyes in which the great tears were
standing. Then her lips began to quiver in a grieved kind of way, as if
the horror of the previous night had stamped itself upon her tender mind
and she were asking for sympathy.
'Mah-nee!' she said again, placing one hand on the cold, dead face, and
stretching the other toward Harold, who put out his arms to take her.
But something resisted all his efforts, and a closer inspection showed
him a long, old-fashioned carpet-bag, which enveloped her body from her
neck to her feet, and into which she had evidently been put to protect
her from the cold.
'Not a bad idea either,' Harold said, as he comprehended the situation;
'and your poor mother gave you the most of her cloak, too, and her
shawl,' he continued, as he saw how carefully the child had been
wrapped, while the mother, if it were her mother, had paid for her
unselfishness with her life.
'What is your name, little girl?' he asked.
The child, who had been staring at him while he talked as if he were a
lunatic, made no reply until he had her in his arms, when she, too,
began to talk in a half-frightened way. Then he looked at her as if she
were the lunatic, for never had he heard such speech as hers.
'I do believe you are a Dutchman,' he said, as he wrapped both shawl and
cloak around her and started for the door, which he kicked against some
time in order to make an opening wide enough to allow of his egress with
his burden.
When at last they emerged from the cold, dark room into the bright
sunshine, the child gave a great cry of delight, and the blue eyes
fairly danced with joy as they fell upon the dazzling snow. Then she put
both arms around Harold's neck, and nestling her face close to his,
kissed him as fondly as if she had known him all her life, while the boy
paid her back kiss after kiss as he proceeded slowly toward home.
The child was heavy, and the bag and shawl made such an unwieldy bundle
that his progress was very slow, and he stopped more than once to rest
and take breath, and as often as he stopped the blue eyes would look up
enquiringly at him with an expression which made his boyish heart beat
faster as he thought what pretty eyes they were and wondered who she
was. Once he fell down, and bag and baby rolled in the snow; but only
the vigorous kicking of a pair of little legs inside the bag showed that
the child disapproved of the proceeding, for she made no sound, and when
he picked her up she brushed the snow from his hair, and laughed as if
the thing had been done for fun.
He reached the cottage at last, and bursting into the room where his
grandmother was sitting with her foot in a chair, exclaimed, as he put
down the child, who, as she was still enveloped in the bag, stood with
difficulty:
'Oh grandma, what do you think? I did see a light in the Tramp House,
and there is somebody there--a woman--dead--frozen to death, with
nothing over her, for she had given her cloak and shawl to her little
girl. I went there. I found her, and brought the baby home in the
carpet-bag, and now I must go back to the woman. Oh, it was dreadful to
see her white face, and it is so cold there and dark;' and if the horror
of what he had seen had just impressed itself upon him, the boy turned
pale and faint, and, staggering to a chair, burst into tears.
Too much astonished to utter a word, Mrs. Crawford stared at him a
moment in a bewildered kind of way, and then when the child, seeing him
cry, began also to cry for "Mah-nee," and struggle in the bag, she
forgot her lame foot, on which she had not stepped for a week, and going
to the little girl, released her from the bag, and taking her upon her
lap, began to untie the soft woollen cloak and to chafe the cold
fingers, while she questioned her grandson.
Having recovered himself somewhat, Harold repeated his story, and asked
with a shudder:
'Must I go for her alone? I can't, I can't. I was not afraid with the
baby there, but it is so awful, and I never saw any one dead before.'
'Go back alone! Of course not!' his grandmother replied. 'But you must
go to the park at once and tell them; go as fast as you can. She may not
be dead.'
'Yes, she is,' Harold answered, decidedly. 'I touched her face, and
nothing alive could feel like that.'
He was buttoning his overcoat preparatory to a fresh start, but before
he went he kissed the little girl who was sitting on his grandmother's
lap, and who, as she saw him leaving her, began to cry for him and to
utter curious sounds unintelligible to them both. But Harold brought her
a piece of bread, which she began to devour ravenously, and then he
stepped quietly out and was soon breaking through the drifts which lay
between the cottage and the park.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE WOMAN.
They slept later than usual at the park house that morning, and Frank
and his family were just sitting down to breakfast, and Arthur was
taking his rolls and coffee in his own room, when John, with a white,
scared face, looked in and said:
'Excuse me, Mr. Tracy, but--but something dreadful has happened. There's
a woman frozen to death in the Tramp House, with a baby, and Harold
Hastings found them, and--but he is here, sir; he will tell you
himself;' and he went for the boy, who soon entered the room, followed
by every servant in the house.
Harold had come upon John first in the stable, and sinking down
exhausted upon the hay, had told his story, while the man, John,
listened terror-stricken and open-mouthed. Then seeing how weak and
tired Harold seemed, and how he sank back upon the hay when he attempted
to rise, he took him in his arms, and carrying him to the kitchen, left
him there while he went with the news to his master.
'A woman dead in the Tramp House, and a baby!' Frank exclaimed, and for
an instant he felt as if he were dying, for there flashed over him a
conviction that the woman had come in the train the previous night, and
that it was her cry for help which had been borne to him on the winds,
and to which he had paid no heed.
'Are you sick? Are you going to faint?' his wife said to him, as she saw
how white he grew, and how heavily he leaned back in his chair as Harold
related the particulars of his finding the woman and the child.
'I am not going to faint; but it makes me sick and shaky to think of a
woman freezing to death so near us that if she had cried for help we
might perhaps have heard her,' Frank replied.
Then turning to Harold, he continued:
'How did she look? Was she young? Was she pretty? Was she dark or fair?'
He almost gasped the last word, as if it choked him, and no one guessed
how anxiously he waited for Harold's answer, which did not afford him
much relief.
'I don't know; it was so dark in there, and cold, and I was afraid some
of the time, and in a hurry. I only know that her nose was long and
large, for I touched it when I was trying to get at the little girl, and
it was so cold--oh, oh!'
And Harold shuddered as if he still felt the icy touch of the dead.
'A long nose and a large one,' Frank said, involuntarily, while a sigh
of relief escaped him as he remembered that the nose of the picture in
his brother's room was neither long nor large.
Still Harold might be mistaken, and though he had no good cause for
believing that the woman lying dead in the Tramp House was Gretchen,
there was a horrible feeling in his heart, while a lump came into his
throat and affected his speech, which was thick and indistinct, as he
rose from his chair at last and said to John:
'We have no time to lose. Hitch up the horses to the long sleigh as
quick as you can. We must go to the Tramp House after the woman, and
send to the village for a doctor, and telegraph to Springfield for the
coroner. I suppose there must be an inquest; and, Dolly, see that a room
is prepared for the body.'
'Oh, Frank, must it come here? Why not take it to the cottage? The child
is there,' Mrs. Tracy said, not because she cared so much for the
trouble, but because of her aversion to having the corpse of a stranger
in the house, with all that it involved.
'I tell you that woman must come here,' was Frank's decided reply, as he
began to make himself ready for the ride.
'Don't tell Arthur yet,' he said, as he left the house and took his seat
in the sleigh, which was soon ploughing its way through the snow banks
in the direction of the Tramp House.
It was Harold who acted as master of ceremonies, for John was nervous
and hung back from the half open door, while Frank was too much unstrung
to know just what he was doing or saying, as he squeezed through the
narrow space and then stood for a moment, snow-blind and dizzy, in the
cheerless room.
Harold was not afraid now. He had been there before alone, had seen and
touched the white face of the corpse, and now, with companionship in its
presence, he went fearlessly up to it, followed by Frank, who could
scarcely stand, and who laid his hand for support on Harold's shoulder,
and then turned curiously and eagerly toward the woman.
John had lingered outside, shovelling the snow from the door which he
succeeded in opening wide, so that the full, broad sunlight fell upon
the face, which was neither young, nor pretty, nor fair, while the hair
was black as night.
Frank noted all these points at a glance, and could have shouted aloud
for joy, so great was the revulsion of his feelings. It was not Gretchen
lying there before him, and he was not a murderer, as he had accused
himself of being, for she did not come by the train; she had no
connection with Tracy Park; she was going somewhere else--to
Collingwood, perhaps--when, overcome by the storm and the cold, she had
sought shelter for the night in this wretched place.
'I suppose the proper thing to do is to leave her here till the coroner
can see her,' he said to John; 'but no train can get through from
Springfield to-day, I am sure, and I shall have her taken to the park.
Bring me the blankets from the sleigh.'
He was very collected now, for a great load was lifted from his mind.
'Had she nothing with her? nothing to cover her?' he asked, as they
proceeded to wrap her in the warm blankets, which, had they sooner come,
would have saved her life.
Harold told him again of the carpet-bag and the cloak and the shawl,
which had covered the child, and added, 'That's all; there don't seem to
be anything else. Oh, what's this?' and stooping down, he picked up some
hard substance which he had kicked against the table.
It proved to be one of those olive wood candle sticks, so convenient in
travelling, as when not in use, they can be made into a small round box
or ball, and take but little room. It contained but the remains of a wax
candle, which had burned down into the socket and then gone out. Near
by, upon the floor, was a tiny box of matches, with two or three charred
ones among them.
'The poor woman must have had a light for at least a portion of the
time,' Frank said, as he picked up the box.
'She had, I know she had,' Harold cried, excitedly; 'for I saw it and
told grandma so. It was like she had opened the door and let out a big
blaze, and then everything was dark, as if the door was shut or the wind
had blown the candle out.'
'What time was that, do you think?' Frank asked.
'It must have been about eleven,' Harold replied, 'for I remember
hearing the clock strike and grandma's saying I must go to bed, it was
so late. I was up with her because her foot was so bad, and I warmed the
poultices.'
Frank groaned aloud, unmindful of the boy looking so curiously at him,
for that was the time when he had heard the sound like a human voice is
distress. He had thought it a fancy then communicated to him by his
brother's nervousness, but now he was certain it must have been the
stranger calling through the storm, in the vain hope that somebody would
hear and come. Somebody had heard, but no one had come; and so in the
cold and the darkness, with the snow sifting through every crevice and
blowing down the wide chimney to the hearth where it made a drift like a
grave, she had battled for her own life and that of the child beside
her, saving the latter but losing her own.
'If I had only believed it was a cry,' Frank thought, and as he wrapped
the body in the blankets and buffalo robe as tenderly and reverently as
if the stiffened limbs had belonged to his mother, he saw distinctly
before him as if painted upon canvas the driving gale, the inky sky, the
half-opened door, through which the sleet was driving, the light behind,
and the frantic, freezing woman, screaming for help, while only the
winds made answer, and the pitiless storm raged on.
This was the picture which Frank was destined to see in his dreams for
many and many a night, until the mystery was solved concerning the woman
whom they carried to the sleigh, which was driven back to the park
house, where, within fifteen or twenty minutes a crowd of anxious,
curious people gathered. The messenger sent to town had done his work
rapidly and thoroughly, and half the villagers who heard of the tragedy
enacted at their very door started at once for Tracy Park. The boy had
stopped at the station and told his story there, making the
baggage-master feel as if he, too, were a murderer, or at least an
accessory.
'If I had only gone after that woman,' he said, as he told of the
stranger who had come on the train and gotten off on the side of the car
farthest from the depot--'if I had gone after her and made her take a
conveyance to where she was going, this would not have happened; but it
was so all-fired cold, and the wind was yelling so, and she walked off
so fast, as if she knew her own business. So I just minded mine, or
rather I didn't, for I never even seen the box, or trunk, which was
pitched out helter-skelter, and which I found this morning, all covered
up with snow. It was hers, of course, and I shall send it right over
there, as it may tell who the poor critter was.'
This trunk, which was little more than a strong wooden box with two
double locks upon it, was still further secured by a bit of rope wound
twice around it and tied in a hard knot. There was no name upon it to
tell whose it was, or whence it came, except the name of a German
steamer, on which its owner had probably crossed the ocean, and the
significant word 'Hold,' showing that it had not been used in the
state-room. It had been checked at the Grand Central depot in New York
for Shannondale, and the check was still attached to the iron handle
when it was put down in the kitchen at Tracy Park, where the utmost
excitement prevailed, the servants huddling together with scared faces,
and talking in whispers of the terrible thing which had happened, while
Mrs. Tracy and the housekeeper, scarcely less excited than the servants,
gave their attention to the dead.
At the end of the rear hall was a small room, where Frank sometimes
received business calls when at home, and there they laid the body,
after the physician, who had arrived, declared that life had been
extinct for many hours.
Seen in the full daylight, she seemed to be at least thirty-five years
of age, and her features, though not unpleasing, were coarse and large,
especially the nose. Her hair was black, her complexion dark, and the
hands, which lay folded upon her bosom, showed marks of toil, for they
were rough and unshapely, though smaller in proportion than the other
members of her body. Her woollen dress of grayish blue was short and
scant; her knit stockings were black and thick, and her leather shoes
were designed fur use rather than ornament. A wide white apron was tied
around her waist, and she wore a small black and white plaided shawl
pinned about her neck.
And there she lay, not a pleasant picture to contemplate, helpless and
defenceless against the curious eyes bent upon her and the remarks
concerning her, as one after another of the villagers came in to look at
her and speculate as to who she was or how she came in the Tramp House.
Among the crowd was Mr. St. Claire, who gave it as his opinion that she
was a Frenchwoman of the lower class, and asked if nothing had been
found with her except the clothes she wore. Harold told him of the
shawl, and cloak, and carpet-bag which he had carried with the child to
the cottage.
'Yes, there is something more--her trunk,' chimed in the baggage-master,
who had just entered the room, trembling and breathless.
'Her trunk! Did she come in the cars?' Frank asked, his hands dropping
helplessly at his side, and his lips growing pale, as the man replied:
'Yes; last night, on the quarter-past-six from New York; and what is
curi's, she got out on the side away from the depot, and I never seen
her till the cars went on, when she was lookin' at a paper, and the
child cryin' at her feet. I spoke to her, but she did not answer, and
snatching up the child, she hurried off, almost on a run. It was
storming so I did not see her trunk till this mornin', when I found it
on the platform. I wish I had gone after her and made her take a sleigh.
If I had she wouldn't now have been dead, and, I swow, I feel as if I
had killed her. I wonder why under the sun she turned into the lots,
unless she was goin' to Collingwood--'
'Or Tracy Park,' Frank said, involuntarily.
'Were you expecting any one?' Mr. St. Claire asked.
Sinking into a chair, Frank replied:
'No, I was not, but Arthur, who has been worse than usual for a few
days, has again a fancy that Gretchen is coming. He says now that she
was not in the ship with him, but that he has written her to join him
here, and yesterday he took it into his head that she would be here last
night, and insisted that the carriage be sent to meet her; but John had
hurt his back, and as I had no faith in her coming, he did not go. I
wish he had; it might have saved this woman's life, although she is not
Gretchen.'
Frank had made his confession, except so far as deceiving his brother
was concerned, and he felt his mind eased a little, though there was
still a lump in his throat, and a feeling of disquiet in his heart, with
a wish that the dead woman had never crossed his path, and a conviction
that he had not yet seen the worst of it.
Mr. St. Claire looked at him thoughtfully a moment, and then said:
'I should not accuse myself too much. You could not know that any one
would be there, and this woman certainly is not the Gretchen of whom
your brother talks so much, and whose picture is in his room. Has he
seen her? Does he know of the accident?'
'I have not told him yet. He is not feeling well to-day. Charles says he
is still in bed,' was Frank's reply.
'We may find something in her trunk,' Mr. St. Claire continued, 'which
will give us a clue to her history. Where do you suppose she kept her
key?'
No one volunteered an answer, until Harold suggested that if she had a
pocket it was probably there, when half a dozen hands or more at once
felt for the pocket, which was found at last, and proved to be one of
great capacity, and to contain a heterogeneous mass of contents: A
purse, in which were two or three small German coins, an English
sovereign, and a five dollar green-back; two handkerchiefs, one soiled
and coarse, bearing in German text the initials 'N.B.' the other small
and fine, bearing the initial 'J.,' also in German text: a pair of
scissors, a thimble, a small needle-case, a child's toy, a worn
picture-book, printed in Leipsic, a box of pills, some peanuts, some
cloves, a piece of candy, a seed cake, a pocket comb, half a biscuit;
and at the very bottom, the brass check whose number corresponded with
that upon the trunk; also a ring to which were attached three keys, one
belonging to the trunk, another evidently to the carpet-bag, while the
third, which was very small and straight, must have been used for
fastening some box or dressing-case.
It was Mr. St. Claire who opened the trunk, from which one of the
servants had removed the rope, while Frank sat near still trembling in
every limb, and watching anxiously as article after article was taken
out and examined, but afforded no satisfaction whatever, or gave any
sign by which the stranger might be traced.
There was a black alpaca dress and a few coarse garments which must have
belonged to the woman. Some of them bore the initials 'N.B.,' some were
without a mark, and all were cheap and plain, like the clothes of a
servant before her head is turned and she apes her mistress' wardrobe.
The child's dresses were of a better quality, and one embroidered
petticoat bore the name 'Jerrine,' while the letter 'J.' was upon them
all, except a towel of the finest linen, on one corner of which was the
letter 'M.' worked with colored floss.
'Jerrine!' Mr. St. Claire repeated, pronouncing it 'Jerreen.' 'That is a
French name, and a pretty one. It is the child's, of course.'
To this no one replied, and he continued his examination of the trunk
until it was quite empty.
'That is all,' he said in a tone of disappointment; and Frank, who had
been sitting by and holding some of the things in his lap as they were
taken from the trunk, answered, faintly:
'No, here is a book. It was done up in a handkerchief,' and he held up
what proved to be a German Bible; but he did not tell that he had found
something else, which he had thrust into his pocket when no one was
looking at him.
What he had found was a photograph, which had slipped from the leaves of
the Bible, and at sight of the face, of which he only had a glimpse,
every drop of blood seemed to leave his heart and came surging to his
brain, making him so giddy and wild that he did not realise what he was
doing when he hid away the picture until he could examine it by himself.
Once in his pocket he dared not take it out, although he raised his hand
two or three times to do so, but was as often deterred by the thought
that everybody would think that he had intended to hide it and suspect
his motive. So he kept quiet and saw them examine the book, the blank
page of which had been torn half off, leaving only the last three
letters of what must have been the owner's name, '----ich'--that was
all, and might as well not have been there, for any light it shed upon
the matter.
Opening the book by chance at 1st Corinthians, 2nd chapter, Mr. St.
Claire, who could read German much better than he could speak it, saw
pencil-marks around the ninth verse, and read aloud:
'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love
Him.'
On the margin opposite this verse was written, in a girlish hand:
'Think of me as there when you read this, and do not be sorry.'
A lock of soft, golden hair, which might have been cut from a baby's
head, and a few faded flowers, which still gave forth a faint perfume
like heliotrope, were tied with a bit of thread, and lying between the
leaves. And except that the book was full of marked passages, chiefly
comforting and conciliatory, there was nothing more to indicate the
character of the owner.
'If this Bible were hers, she was a good woman,' Mr. St. Claire said,
laying his hand reverently upon the forehead of the dead, while Frank,
who saw another meaning between the lines, shook like one in an ague
fit, for he did not believe that those hands, so pulseless and cold, had
ever traced the words, 'Think of me as there when you read this, and do
not be sorry.' She who wrote them might be, and probably was dead, but
her grave was far away, and the fact did not at all change the duty
which he owed to her and him for whom the message was intended.
'What shall I say to Arthur, and how shall I tell him,' he was wondering
to himself, when Mr. St. Claire roused him by saying:
'You seem greatly unstrung by what has happened. I never saw you look so
ill.'
'Yes, I feel as if I had murdered her by not sending John to the
station,' Frank stammered, glad to offer this as an excuse for his
manner, which he knew must seem strange and unnatural.
'You are too sensitive altogether. John might not have seen her, she
hurried off so fast, and you have no particular reason to think she was
coming here,' Mr. St. Claire said, adding: 'We'd better leave her now.
We can do nothing more until the coroner comes, which will hardly be
to-day. I hear the roads are all blocked and impassable. Let everything
remain in the trunk where he can see them.'
Mechanically Mrs. Tracy, who was present, put the different articles
into the trunk, leaving the Bible on the top, and then followed her
husband from the room. She knew there was more affecting him than the
fact that a dead woman was in the house, or that he had not sent John to
the station. But what it was she could not guess, unless, and she, too,
felt faint and giddy for a moment, as a new idea entered her mind.
'Frank,' she said to him when they were alone for a few moments, 'Arthur
had a fancy that Gretchen was coming last night. You do not think this
woman is she?'
'Gretchen? No. Don't be a fool, Dolly. Gretchen is fair and young, and
the woman is old and black as the ace of spades. Gretchen! No, indeed!'
He did not show her the picture he had secreted; he knew she would not
approve of the act, and if she had no suspicion with regard to the woman
and the child he did not care to share his with her, particularly as it
was only a suspicion, and so far as he could judge in his perturbed
state of mind, nothing he could do would ever make things sure. His wife
seemed to have forgotten the child at the cottage, and he would not
bring it to her mind until it was necessary to do so. Just then Charles
came to the room and said that his master was very much excited and
wished to know the reason for so much commotion in the house, and why so
many people were coming and going down and up the avenue.
'I thought it better that you should tell him,' Charles added, and with
a sinking heart Frank started for his brother's room.
He had not seen him before that day, and now as he looked at him it
seemed to him that he had grown older since the previous night, for
there were lines about his mouth, and his face was very thin and pale.
But his eyes were unusually bright, and his voice rang out clear as a
bell as he said:
'What is it, Frank? What has happened that so many people are coming
here, banging doors and talking so loud that I heard them here in my
room, but I could not distinguish what they said. What's the matter? Any
one hurt or dead?'
He put the question direct, and Frank gave a direct reply.
'Yes, a woman was found frozen to death in the Tramp House this morning,
and was brought here. She is lying in the office at the end of the back
hall.'
'A women frozen to death in the Tramp House!' Arthur repeated. 'Then I
did hear a cry. Oh, Frank, who is she? Where did she come from?'
'We do not know who she is, or where she came from!' Frank replied, 'Mr.
St. Claire thinks she is French. There is nothing about her person to
identify her, but I would like you to see her, and--and--'
'I see her! Why should I see her, and shock my nerves more than they are
already shocked?' Arthur said, with a decided shake of his head.
'But you must see her,' Frank continued. 'Perhaps you know her. She came
last night. She--'
Before he could utter another word Arthur was at his side, Frank seizing
him by the shoulder with the grip of a giant, demanded, fiercely:
'What do you mean by her coming last night? How did she come? Not by
train, for John was there. Frank, there is something you are keeping
back. I know it by your face. Tell me the truth. Is it Gretchen dead in
this house?'
'No,' Frank answered huskily. 'It is not Gretchen, if that picture is
like her, for this woman is very dark and old, and, besides that, has
Gretchen a child?'
For an instant Arthur stood staring at him, or rather at the space
beyond him, as if trying to recall something too distant or too shadowy
to assume any tangible form; then bursting into a laugh he said:
'Gretchen a child! That is the best joke I have heard. How should
Gretchen have a child? She is little more than one herself, or was when
I saw her last. No, Gretchen has no child. Why do you ask?'
'Because,' Frank replied, 'there was a little girl found in the Tramp
House with this woman, a girl three or four years old, I judge. She is
at the cottage now, where Harold carried her. He found the woman this
morning. Will you see her now?'
Arthur answered 'no,' decidedly, and then Frank, who knew that he should
never again know peace of mind if his brother did not see her, summoned
all his courage and said:
'Arthur, you must. I have not told you all. This woman did come by train
from New York.'
'Then why did not John see her?' interrupted Arthur.
'He was not there,' Frank replied. 'Forgive me, Arthur, I did not send
him as you thought. It was so cold and stormy, and I had no faith in
your presentiments, and so--so--'
'And so you lied to me, and I will never trust you again as long as I
live, and if this had been Gretchen, I would kill you, where I stand!'
Arthur hissed in a whisper, more terrible to hear than louder tones
would have been, 'Yes, I will see this woman whose death lies at your
door,' he continued, with a gesture that Frank should precede him.
Arthur was very calm, and collected, and stern, as he followed to the
office where the body lay, covered now from view, but showing terribly
distinct through the linen sheet folded over it.
'Remove the covering,' he said, in the tone of a master to his slave,
and Frank obeyed.
Then bending close to the stiffened form, Arthur examined the face
minutely, while Frank looked on alternately between hope and dread, the
former of which triumphed as his brother said, quietly:
'Yes, she is French: but I do not know her. I never saw her before. Had
she nothing with her to tell who she was?'
His mood had passed, and Frank did not hear him now.
'She had a trunk,' he replied. 'Here it is, with her clothes, and the
child's, and--a Bible.'
'He said the last slowly, and, taking up the book, opened it as far as
possible from the writing on the margin, which might or might not be
dangerous.
'It is a German Bible,' he continued, and then Arthur took it quickly
from him as if it had been a long-lost friend, turning the worn pages
rapidly, but failing to discover the marked passage and the message for
some one.
The lock of baby hair and the faded flowers caught his attention, and
his breath came hard and pantingly, as for a moment he held the little
golden tress which seemed almost to twine itself lovingly around his
fingers.
'That must be her child's hair. You know I told you there was a little
girl found with her. Would you like to see her?' Frank said.
'No, no!' Arthur answered, hastily. 'Let her stay where she is, I don't
like children as a rule. You know I can't abide the noise yours
sometimes make.'
He was leaving the room with the Bible in his hand, but Frank could not
suffer that, and he said:
'I suppose all these things must stay here till the coroner sees them;
so I will put the Bible where I found it.
Arthur gave it up readily enough, and then, as he reached the door,
looked back, and said:
'If forty coroners and undertakers come on this business, don't bother
me any more. My head buzzes like a bee-hive. See that everything is done
decently for the poor woman, and don't let the town bury her. Do it
yourself, and send the bill to me. There is room enough on the Tracy
lot; put her in a corner.'
'Yes,' Frank answered, standing in the open door and watching him as he
went slowly down the long hall and until he heard him going up stairs.
Then locking the door, which shut him in with the dead, he took the
photograph from his pocket and examined it minutely, feeling no shadow
of doubt in his heart that it was Gretchen--if the picture in the window
was like her. It was the same face, the same sweet mouth and sunny blue
eyes, with curls of reddish-golden hair shading the low brow. The dress
was different and more in accordance with that of a girl who belonged to
the middle class, but this counted for nothing, and Frank felt himself a
thief, and a liar, and a murderer as he stood looking at the lovely
face; and debating what he should do.
Turning it over he saw on the back a word traced in English letters, in
a very uncertain scrawling hand, as if it were the writer's first
attempt at English. Spelling it letter by letter he made out what he
called 'Wiesbaden,' and knew it was some German town. Did Gretchen live
there, he wondered, and how could he find out, and what should he do? He
had not yet seen the child at the cottage, but from some things Harold
said, he knew she was more like this picture than like the dead woman
found with her, and in his heart he felt almost sure who she was, and
that his course of duty was plain. He ought to show Arthur the
photograph, and tell him his suspicions, and take every possible step to
ascertain who the woman was and where she came from.
Frank was not a bad man, nor a hard-hearted man, but he was ambitious
and weak. He had enjoyed money, and ease, and position long enough to
make him unwilling to part with them now, while for his children he was
more ambitious than for himself. To see Tom master of Tracy Park was the
great desire of his life, and this could not be, if what he feared were
proved true. If Arthur had no wife, no child, no will adverse to him,
why, then his interest was safe, for no will his brother could now make
would be held as valid, and when he died everything would naturally go
to him. Of all this Frank thought during the few minutes he staid in
the silent room. Then he said to himself:
'I will see the child first. After all I know nothing for certain--can
never know anything for certain, and I should be a fool to give up all
my children's interests for a fancy, an idea, which may have no
foundation. Arthur does not know half the time what he is saying, and
might not tell the truth about Gretchen. She may not have been his wife.
On the whole, I do not believe she was. He would never have left her if
she had been, and if so, this child, if she is Gretchen's, has no right
to come between me and mine. No, I shall wait a little while and think,
though in the end I mean to do right.'
With these specious arguments Frank tried to quiet his conscience, but
he could not help feeling that Satan had possession of him, and as he
hurried through the hall he said aloud, as if speaking to something
seen:
'Go away--go away! I shall do right if I only know what right is.
He did not see his brother again that day, or go to the cottage either,
but as he was dressing himself next morning he said to his wife:
'That little girl ought to see her mother before she is buried. I shall
send for her to-day. The coroner will be here, too. Did I tell you I had
a telegram last night? He is coming on the early train.'
Mrs. Tracy passed the allusion to the coroner in silence, but of the
little girl she said:
'I suppose the child must come to the funeral, but you surely do not
mean to keep her? We are not bound to do that because her mother froze
to death on our premises.'
'Would you let her go to the poor-house?' Frank asked, but Dolly did not
reply.
As the breakfast-bell just then rang, no more was said of the little
waif until the sleigh was brought to the door, and Frank announced his
intention of stopping for the child on his way back from the station,
where he was going to meet the coroner.
CHAPTER XIV.
LITTLE JERRY.
It was nearly noon when Harold left Tracy Park the previous day and
started for home, eager and anxious with regard to the child whom he
claimed as his own. He had found her. She was his and he should keep
her, he said to himself, and then he wondered how his grandmother had
managed with her, and if she had cried for him or for her mother, and as
he reached the house he stood still a moment, to listen. But the sounds
which met his ear were peals of laughter, mingled with mild, and, as it
would seem, unavailing expostulations from his grandmother.
Opening the door suddenly he found the child seated at the table in the
high chair he used to occupy, and which Mrs. Crawford had brought from
the attic, where it was stored. Standing before the child was a dish of
bread and milk, of which she had evidently eaten enough, for she was
playing with it now, and amusing herself by striking the spoon into the
milk, which was splashed over the table, while three or four drops of it
were standing on the forehead and nose of the distressed woman, who was
vainly trying to take the spoon from the little hand clenching it so
firmly.
Mrs. Crawford had had a busy and exciting day with her charge, who,
active and restless, and playful, kept her on the alert and made her
forget in part how lame she was. As she could not put her foot to the
floor without great pain, and as she must move about, she adopted the
expedient of placing her knee on a chair to the back of which she held,
while she hobbled around the room, followed by the child, who, delighted
with this novel method of locomotion, put her knee in a low chair, and
holding to Mrs. Crawford's skirts, limped after her, imitating her
perfectly, even to the groans she sometimes uttered when a twinge
sharper than usual ran up her swollen limb. It was fun for the child,
but almost death to the woman, who, when she could endure it no longer,
sank into a chair, and tried by speaking sharply, to make the little
girl understand that she must keep quiet. But when she scolded, baby
scolded back, in a language wholly unintelligible, shaking her curly
head, and sometimes stamping her foot by way of emphasizing her words.
When Mrs. Crawford laughed the child laughed, and when once a pang
severer than usual wrung the tears from her eyes, baby looked at her
compassionately a moment, while her little face puckered itself into
wrinkles as if she too were going to cry; then, putting up her soft hand
she wiped the tears from Mrs. Crawford's cheeks, and, climbing into her
lap, became as quiet as a kitten. But a touch sufficed to start her up,
for she was full of fun and frolic, and her laughing blue eyes, which
were of that wide-open kind which see everything, were brimming over
with mischief. Once or twice she called out 'Mahnee,' and going to the
window, stood on tip-toe looking out, to see if she were coming. But on
the whole she seemed happy and content, exploring every nook and corner
of the kitchen and examining curiously every article of furniture as if
it were quite new to her.
Once when Mrs. Crawford was talking earnestly to her, trying to make her
understand, she stood for a moment watching and imitating the motion of
the lady's lips and the expression of her face; then going up to her she
began to examine her mouth and her teeth, as if she would know what
manner of machinery it was which produced sounds so new and strange to
her. She certainly was a remarkable child for her age, though Mrs.
Crawford was puzzled to know just how old she was. She was very small,
and, judging from her size, one would have said she was hardly three;
but the expression of her face was so mature, and she saw things so
quickly and understood so readily, that she must have been older. She
was certainly very precocious, with a most inquiring turn of mind, and
Mrs. Crawford felt herself greatly interested in her as she watched her
active movements and listened to the musical prattle she could not
understand.
She had examined the carpet-bag, in which were found the articles
necessary for an ocean voyage, and little else. Most of these were
soiled from use, but there was among them a little clean, white apron,
and this Mrs. Crawford put upon the child, after having washed her face
and hands and brushed her wavy hair, which had a trick of coiling itself
into soft, fluffy curls all over her head.
The bread and milk had been given her about twelve o'clock, and the
laugh she gave when she saw it showed her appreciation of it quite as
much as the eagerness with which she ate it. Her appetite appeased,
however, she began to play with it and throw the milk over the table and
into Mrs. Crawford's face, just as Harold came in, full of what he had
seen at the park, and anxious to see his baby, as he called her.
Taking her on his lap and kissing her rosy cheeks, he began to narrate
to his grandmother all that had been done, and told her that Mr. St.
Claire had given it as his opinion that the woman was French.
'And if so,' he continued, 'baby must be French, too, though she does
not look a bit like her mother, who is very dark and not--well, not at
all like you or Mrs. St. Claire.'
Then he told of the trunk which the baggage-master had taken to the
park, and of what it contained.
'The woman's clothes were marked "N.B."' he said, 'and some of the
baby's--such a funny name. Mr. St. Claire said it was French, and
pronounced "Jerreen," though it is spelled "Jerrine."'
'That is the name of the child's things in the bag,' Mrs. Crawford said.
'Of course it is baby's, then,' Harold replied; 'but, I shall call her
Jerry for short, even if it is a boy's name, and so my little lady, I
christen you Jerry;' and kissing the forehead, the eyes, the nose, and
the chin, he marked the shape of the cross upon the face upturned to
his, and named his baby 'Jerry.'
Later, when he knew more of the world, he would change the 'y' into
'ie,' but now she was simply Jerry, and when he called her that she
laughed and nodded as if the sound were not new to her. She was a
beautiful child, with complexion as pure as wax, and eyes which might
have borrowed their color from the blue lakes of Italy, or from the
skies of England when they are at their brightest.
'I wish she could talk to me. I suppose she must speak French,' he said,
as he was trying in vain to make her understand him. 'Don't you know a
word I say?' he asked her, and her reply was what sounded to him like
'We, we.'
'That's English,' he cried, delighted with her progress, but when he
spoke to her again, her answer was, 'Yah, yah,' which seemed to him so
nonsensical that after a few attempts to make her say 'yes,' and to
teach her what it meant, he gave up his lesson for the remainder of the
day and talked to her by signs and gestures which she seemed to
understand.
Whatever he did she did, and he saw her more than once imitating his
grandmother's motions as well as his own, to the life.
Late in the afternoon Mr. St. Claire came to the cottage, curious to see
the child, who, at sight of him, retreated behind Harold, and then
peered shyly up at him, with a look in her great blue eyes which puzzled
him on the instant, as one is frequently puzzled with a likeness to
something or somebody he tries in vain to recall. In this instance it
was hardly the eyes themselves, but rather the way they looked at him,
and the sweep of the long lashes, together with a firm shutting together
of the lips, which struck Mr. St. Claire as familiar, and when with a
swift movement of her little hand, she swept the mass of golden hair
back from her forehead, he would have sworn that he had seen that trick
a thousand times, and yet he could not place it. That she was the child
of the dead woman he believed, and as the mother was French, so also was
she. He had once passed two years in France, and was master of the
language; so he spoke to the child in French, but though she seemed to
understand him she made no reply, until he said to her:
'Where is your mother, little one?'
'Then she answered, promptly, 'Dead,' but the language was German, not
French.
'Ho-ho! You are a little Dutchman,' Mr. St. Claire said, with some
surprise in his voice.
Then as he noted the purity of her complexion, her fair hair and blue
eyes, he said to himself:
'Her father was a German, and probably they lived in Germany, but the
mother was certainly French.'
His own knowledge of German was very limited, but he could speak it a
little, and turning again to the child he managed to say:
'What is your name!'
'Der-ree,' was the reply, and Harold exclaimed:
'That's it; she means Jerry; that's short for the name on her clothes,
which you said was pronounced Jereen. I have christened her Jerry, and
she is my little girl, ain't you, Jerry!'
'Yah--oui--'ess,' was the answer, and there was a gleam of triumph in
the blue eyes which flashed up to Harold for approbation.
She had not, of course, understood a word he said, except, indeed her
name; but the tone of his voice was interrogatory, and seemed to expect
an affirmative answer, which she gave in three languages, emphasizing
the ''ess' with a nod of her head, as if greatly pleased with herself.
'Bravo!' Harold shouted. 'She can say yes. I taught her, and I shall
have her talking English in a few days as well as I do, shan't I,
Jerry?'
'Yah--'ess,' was the reply.
Then Mr. St. Claire tried to question her further with regard to herself
and her home, but his phraseology was probably at fault, for no
satisfactory result was reached beyond the fact that her mother was
dead, that her name was Jerry, or Derree, as she called it, and that she
had been on a ship with Mah-nee, who did _so_--and she imitated
perfectly the motions and contortions of one who is deathly sea-sick.
'I suppose she means her mother by Mah-nee,' said Mr. St. Claire; and
when he asked her if it were not so, she answered 'yah,' and ''ess,' as
she did to everything, adopting finally the latter word altogether
because she saw it pleased Harold.
No matter what was the question put to her, her reply was ''ess,' which
she repeated quickly, with a prolonged sound on the 's.'
When at last Mr. St. Claire took his leave, it was with a strange
feeling of interest for the child, whose antecedents must always be
shrouded in mystery, and whose future he could not predict.
It seemed impossible for Mrs. Crawford to keep her, poor as she was, and
as he had no idea that the Tracys would take her, there was no
alternative but the poor-house, unless he took her himself and brought
her up with his own little five-year-old Nina. He would wait until after
the funeral and see, he decided, as he went back to his home at Brier
Hill, where his children, Dick and Nina, were eager to hear all he had
to tell them of the poor little girl whose mother had been frozen to
death.
The next morning the sleigh from Tracy Park stopped before the cottage
door, and Frank, who had been to meet the coroner, alighted from it. He
was pale and haggard as he entered the room where Jerry was playing on
the floor with Harold's Maltese kitten. As he came in she looked up at
him, and, lifting her hand, swept the hair back from her forehead just
as she had done the day before when Mr. St. Claire was there. The
peculiar motion had struck the latter as something familiar, though he
could not define it; but Frank did, or in his nervous condition he
thought he did, and his knees shook so he could hardly stand as he
talked with Mrs. Crawford and told her he had come for the child, who
ought to be where her mother was until after the funeral.'
'Then she will come back again. You will not keep her. She is mine,
ain't you, Jerry?' Harold exclaimed, eagerly; while Jerry, who, with a
child's instinct scented danger from Harold's manner and associated that
danger with the strange man looking so curiously at her, sprang to her
feet, which she stamped vigorously, while she cried, ''ess, 'ess, 'ess,'
with her face all in wrinkles, and her blue eyes anything but soft and
sunny, as they usually were.
In this mood she was not much like Gretchen in the picture, but she was
like some one else whom Frank had seen in excited moods, and he grew
faint and sick as he watched her, and saw the varying expression of her
face and eyes. The way she shook her head at him and flourished her
hands was a way he had seen many times and remembered so well, and he
felt as if his heart would leap from his throat as he tried to speak to
her. A turn of the head, a gesture of the hands, a curve of the
eyelashes, a tone in the voice, seemed slight actions on which to base a
certainty; but Frank did feel certain, and his brain reeled for a second
as his thoughts leaped forward years and years until he was an old man,
and he wondered if he could bear it and make no sign.
Then, just as he had decided that he could not, the tempter suggested a
plan which seemed so feasible and fair that the future, with a secret to
guard, did not look so formidable, and to himself he said:
'It is not likely I can ever be positive; and so long as there is a
doubt, however small, it would be preposterous to give up what otherwise
must come to my children, if not to me; but I will not wrong her more
than I can help.'
'Come, little girl, go with me,' he said, in his kindest tones, as he
advanced toward her, while Harold went for her cloak and hood.
Jerry knew then that she was expected to go with the stranger, and
without Harold, and resisted with all her might. Standing behind him, as
if safe there, and clinging to his coat, she sobbed piteously,
intermingling her sobs with 'Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' the only English word she
knew, and which she seemed to think would avail in every emergency.
And it did help her now, for Harold pleaded that he might go, too, and
when Jerry saw him with his coat and hat, and understood that he was to
be her escort, she ceased to sob, and allowing herself to be made ready,
was soon in the sleigh, and on her way to Tracy Park.
CHAPTER XV.
JERRY AT THE PARK.
And so this is the poor little girl. We'll take her right to the
kitchen, where she can get warm,' Mrs. Tracy said, as she met her
husband in the hall, with Harold and the mite of a creature wrapped in
the foreign looking cloak and hood.
'No, Dolly!' and Frank spoke very decidedly, as Harold was turning in
the direction of the kitchen. 'She is going to the nursery, with the
other children, and when they have their dinner she shall have hers with
them.'
'Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' Jerry said, as if she comprehended that there was a
difference of opinion between the man and woman, and that she was on the
affirmative side.
'Take her to the nursery! Oh, Frank! she may have something about her
which the children will catch,' Mrs. Tracy said, blocking the way as she
spoke.
But Jerry, who through the half-open door had caught sight of the pretty
sitting-room, with its warm carpet and curtains, and cheerful fire,
shook her head defiantly at the lady, and brushing past her, went boldly
into the room, whose brightness had attracted her.
Marching up to the fire, she stood upon the rug and looked about her
with evident satisfaction; then glancing at the three who were watching
her, she nodded complacently, and said, ''ess, 'ess, 'ess,' while she
held her little cold hands to the fire.
'Acts as if she belonged here, doesn't she?' Frank said to his wife, who
did not reply, so intent was she upon watching the strange child, who
deliberately took off her cloak and hood and tossing them upon the
floor, drew a small low chair to the fire, and climbing into it, sat
down as composedly as if she were mistress there instead of an intruder.
Once she swept the hair back from her forehead with the motion Frank
knew so well, and then the lump came into his throat again, and he
steadied himself against the mantel, while he looked curiously at the
young girl, making herself so much at home and seeming so well pleased
with her surroundings.
'Take her to the nursery now. I must see to that coroner,' he said to
his wife, adding: 'Harold must go too, or there will be the Old Harry to
pay.'
''Ess, 'ess,' came decidedly from the child, who went willingly with
Harold, and was soon ushered into the large upper room, which was used
as both nursery and school-room, for Mrs. Tracy could not allow her two
sons, Tom and Jack, to come in contact with the boys at school; so she
kept a governess, a middle-aged spinster, who, glad of a home, and the
rather liberal compensation, sat all day in the nursery and bore
patiently with Tom's freaks and Jack's dullness: to say nothing of the
trouble it was to have the three-year-old Maude toddling about and
interfering with everything.
'Hallo!' Tom cried, as his mother came in, followed by Harold and Jerry.
'Hallo, what's up?' And throwing aside the slate on which he had been
trying to master the difficulties of a sum in long division, he went
toward them, and said: 'Has the coroner come, and can't I go and see the
inquest? You said maybe I could if I behaved, and I do, don't I, Miss
Howard?'
Just then he caught sight of Jerry, and stopping short, exclaimed:
'By Jingo! ain't she pretty! I mean to kiss her.'
And he made a movement toward the little face, which looked up so shyly
at him. But his mother caught his arm and held him back, as she said,
sharply:
'Don't touch her, there is no tolling what you may catch. I wanted her
to go to the kitchen, the proper place for her, but your father insisted
that she should be brought here. I hope, Miss Howard, you will see that
she does not go near the children.'
'Yes, Madam,' Miss Howard replied, 'but I am sure there can be no
danger. She looks as clean and sweet as a rose.'
Miss Howard was fond of children, and she held out her hand to the
little girl, who seemed to have a most wonderful faculty for
discriminating between friends and enemies, and who went to her readily,
and leaning against her arm, looked curiously at the group of
children--at Tom, and Jack, and Maude, the latter of whom wished to go
to her, but was restrained by the nurse. The moment the door closed on
Mrs. Tracy, Tom walked up to the child, and said:
'I shall kiss her now, anyhow.'
But Jerry hid her face, and could not be induced to look up until he had
moved away from her.
'Catty as well as pretty,' Tom said. 'I wonder who she is anyway, and
how she will like the poor-house?'
'Who said she was going to the poor-house?' Harold exclaimed
indignantly.
'Mother said so,' Tom replied. 'I heard her talking to the cook. Where
would she go if she did not go to the poor-house? Who would take care of
her?'
'I!' Harold answered, and to Miss Howard he seemed to grow older a dozen
years, as he stood there with his arms folded and the light of a brave
manhood in his brown eyes. 'I shall take care of her. She will live with
grandmother and me. I found her, and she is mine.'
''Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' came from Jerry, as she swung one little foot back
and forth and looked confidingly at her champion.
'_You_ take care of her!' Tom sneered, with that supercilious air he
always assumed toward those he considered his inferiors. Why, you and
your grandmother can't take care of yourselves, or you couldn't if it
wasn't for Uncle Arthur. Mother says so. You wouldn't have any house to
live in if he hadn't given it to you,'
Harold's arms were unfolded now and the doubled fists were in his
pockets clenching themselves tighter and tighter as he advanced to Tom,
who, remembering his black eye, began to back towards the nurse for
safety.
'It's a lie, Tom Tracy,' Harold said. 'Mr. Arthur does not take care of
us. We do it ourselves, and have for ever so long. He did give us the
house, but it ain't for you to twit me of that. Whose house is this, I'd
like to know? It isn't yours, nor your father's, and there isn't a thing
in it yours. It is all Mr. Arthur's.'
'Wall, we are to be his _hares_--Jack, and Maude, and me. Mother says
so,' Tom stammered out, while Jerry, who had been looking intently,
first at one boy, and then at the other, called out in her own language:
'Nein, nein, nein,' and struck her hand toward Tom.
'What does she mean by her "Nine, nine, nine,'" he asked of Miss Howard,
who replied that she thought it was the German for 'No, no, no,' and
that the child probably did not approve of him.
Tom knew she did not, and though she was only a baby, be felt chagrined
and irritable. Had he dared, he would have struck Harold, who asked him
what he meant by being his uncle's _hare._ But he was afraid of Miss
Howard, and remembering it must be time for the inquest, he slipped from
the room, whispering fiercely to Harold as he passed him:
'Darn you, Hal Hastings, I'll thrash you yet.'
'Let me know when you are ready, and also when you get to be your
uncle's _hare_,' was Harold's taunting reply, as the door closed upon
the discomfited Tom.
* * * * *
The inquest was a mere matter of form, for there was no doubt in any
one's mind that the woman had been frozen to death, and she had no
friends to complain that due attention had not been paid her. So after a
few questions put to Mr. Tracy, and more to Harold, who was summoned
from the nursery to tell what he knew, and a look at the cold rigid
face, a verdict was rendered of 'Frozen to death.'
Then came the question of burial, as to when, and where, and at whose
expense. Quite a number of people had assembled and the little room was
full. Conspicuous among them was Peterkin, who, having been elected to
an office, which necessitated a care for the expenditures of the
village, was swelled with importance, and dying for a chance to be
heard.
When Harold came into the room Jerry was with him. She had refused to
let him leave her, and he led her by the hand into the midst of the men,
who grew as silent and respectful the moment she appeared as if she had
been a woman instead of a little child, who could speak no word of their
language, or understand what was said to her. It was her mother lying
there dead, and they made way for her as, catching sight of the white
face, she uttered a cry of joy, and running up to the body, patted the
cold cheeks, while she kept calling 'Mah-nee, Mah-nee,' and saying words
unintelligible to all, but full of pathos and love, and child-like
coaxing for the inanimate form to rouse itself, and speak to her again.
'Poor little thing,' was said by more than one, and hands went up to
eyes unused to tears, for the sight was a touching one--that lovely
child bending over the dead face, and imprinting kisses upon it.
Harold took her away from the body, and lifting her into a chair, kept
by her, as with her arm around his neck, she stood listening to, and
watching, and sometimes imitating the gestures of the men around her.
It was Peterkin who spoke first; standing back so straight that his
immense stomach, with the heavy gold watch-chain hanging across it,
seemed to fill the room, he gave his opinion before any one had a chance
to express theirs.
It was the first time he had been in the house since the morning after
the party, when Arthur had turned him from the door. He had vowed
vengeance against the Tracys then, and kept his vow by spending two
thousand dollars in order to defeat Frank as member of Congress and to
get himself elected as one of the village trustees, and now he had come,
partly out of curiosity to see the woman, and partly to oppose her being
buried by the town, if such a thing were suggested.
'Let them Tracys bury their own dead,' he said to his wife before he
left home, and he said it again in substance now, as with a tremendous
'ahem!' he commenced his speech standing close to little Jerry, who
never took her eyes from him, but watched him with a face which varied
in its expression with every variation in his voice and manner, and
reached its climax when he said: 'I don't b'lieve in saddlin' the town
with a debt we don't orto pay. Let the Tracys bury their own dead, I
say!'
''Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' Jerry chimed in with an emphatic shake of her head
with each ''ess,' and a flourish of her hand more threatening than
approving toward the speaker, who glanced at her and went on:
'Do you see, gentlemen of the jury, who this cub looks like. I do! and
so can you with half an eye. She looks like Arthur Tracy!'
Just then Jerry swept back her golden hair, and, opening her eyes,
flashed them around the room until they rested by accident upon Frank,
who, pale, and faint, and terrified, was leaning against the door-way
trying to seem only amused at the tirade which was concluded as follows:
'Yes, Arthur Tracy! Not her skin, perhaps, nor hair, nor her eyes,
leastwise not the color, but something I can't describe; and this woman,
her mother, you say is a furriner; that may be, but I've seen her afore,
or I'm mistaken. She took passage once on the 'Liza Ann, I'm sure on't,
and Arthur look passage same day as far as Chester and was as chipper as
you please with her. I don't say nothin', nor insinerate nothin', but I
won't consent to have the town pay what belongs to the Tracys. Let 'em
run their own canoes and funerals, too, I say; and as for this young one
with the yaller hair--though where she got that the lord only knows;
'tain't her's,' pointing to the corpse; 'nor 'tain't his'n,' pointing in
the direction of Arthur's rooms; 'as for her, I'm opposed to sendin' to
the poor-house another pauper.'
'She is not a pauper, and she is not going to the poor-house either,'
Harold exclaimed, while Jerry came in with her _nein, nein, nein_, which
made the bystanders laugh, as Peterkin went on, addressing himself to
Harold:
'You are her champion, hey, and intend to take care of her. Mighty fine,
I'm sure, but hadn't you better fetch back May Jane's pin that you took
at the party.'
'It is false,' Harold cried. 'I never saw the pin, never!' and the hot
tears sprang to his eyes at this unmanly assault.
By this time Peterkin, who felt that everybody was against him, was
swelling with rage, and seizing Harold by the collar, roared out:
'Do you tell me I lie! You rascal! I'll teach you what belongs to
manners!' and he would have struck the boy but for Jerry, who had been
watching him as a cat watches a mouse, and who, raising her war-cry of
'_nein, nein, nein_,' sprang at him like a little tiger, and by the
fierceness of her gestures and the volubility of her German jargon
actually compelled him to retreat step by step until she had him outside
the door, which she barred with her diminutive person. No one could help
laughing at the discomfited giant and the mite of a child facing him so
bravely, while she scolded at the top of her voice.
Peterkin saw that he was beaten and left the house, vowing vengeance
against both Harold and Jerry, if he should ever have it in his power to
harm them.
When he was gone, Frank, who had recovered his composure during the
ludicrous scene, said to those present:
'I would not explain to that brute, but it is not my intention to
trouble the town. I have no more idea who this woman is than you have,
and I'll swear that Peterkin's vile insinuations with regard to her are
false. My brother says he never saw her in his life, and he speaks the
truth. She may have been on Peterkin's boat, but I doubt it. She has
every appearance of a foreigner, and her child'--here Frank's tongue
felt a little thick, but he cleared his throat and went on--'her child
speaks a foreign language--German, they tell me. This poor woman died on
my--or rather my brother's premises. I have consulted with him, and he
thinks as I do, that she should be cared for at our expense. He says,
further, that there is room on the Tracy lot; she is to be buried there.
I shall attend to it at once, and the funeral will take place to-morrow
morning at ten o'clock from this house. What disposition will be made of
the child I have not yet decided, but she will _not_ go to the
poor-house.'
'Oh, Mr. Tracy,' Harold burst out, 'she is mine. She is to live with
grandma and me. You will not take her from me--say you will not?'
'_Vill not_,' Jerry reiterated, imitating as well as she could Harold's
last words.
For a moment Mr. Tracy looked fixedly at the boy, pleading for a burden
which would necessitate toil, and self-denial, and patience of no
ordinary kind and never had he despised himself more than he did then,
when, believing what he did believe, he said at last:
'I will talk with your grandmother, and see what arrangements we can
make. I rather think you have the best right to her. But she must stay
here to-night and until after the funeral, when she can go with you, if
you like.'
To this Harold did not object, and as Jerry seemed very happy and
content, he left her, while she was exploring the long drawing-room, and
examining curiously the different articles of furniture. As she did not
seem disposed to touch anything, she was allowed to go where she liked,
although Mrs. Frank remonstrated against her roaming all over the house
as if she belonged there, and suggested again that she be sent to the
kitchen. But Frank said 'no,' decidedly, and Jerry was left to herself,
except as the nurse-girl and Charles looked after her a little.
And so it came about that towards evening she found herself in the upper
hall, and after making a tour of the rooms, whose doors were open, she
came to one whose door was shut--nor could she turn the knob, although
she tried with all her might. Doubling her tiny fist, she knocked upon
the door, and then, as no one came, kicked against it with her foot, but
still with no result.
Inside the room, with Gretchen's picture, Arthur sat in his
dressing-gown, very nervous and a little inclined to be irritable and
captious. He knew there had been an inquest, and that many people had
come and gone that day, for he had seen them from his window, and had
seen, too, the sleigh, with Frank, and the coroner, and Harold, and a
blue hood, drive into the yard. But to the blue hood he never gave a
thought, as he was only intent upon the dead woman, whose presence in
the house made him so nervous and restless.
'I shall be glad when she is buried. I have been so cold and shaky ever
since they brought her here,' he said to Charles, as, with a shiver, he
drew his chair nearer to the fire and leaning back wearily in it fixed
his eyes upon Gretchen's picture smiling at him from the window, 'Dear
little Gretchen,' he said in a whisper, 'you seem so near to me now that
I can almost hear your feet at the door, and your voice asking to come
in. Hush!' and he started suddenly, as Jerry's kicks made themselves
heard even to the room where he sat. 'Hush! Charles, who is that banging
at the door? Surely not Maude? They would not let her come up here. Go
and see, and send her away.'
He had forgotten that he was listening for Gretchen, and when Charles,
who had opened the door cautiously and described the intruder, said to
him. 'It is that woman's child. Shall I let her in? She is a pretty
little thing,' he replied, 'Let her in? No; why should you and why is
she allowed to prowl around the house? Tell her to go away.'
So Jerry was sent away with a troubled disappointed look in her little
face, and as the chill March night came on and the dark shades crept
into the room and Gretchen's picture gradually faded from sight in the
gathering gloom until it seemed only a confused mixture of lead and
glass, Arthur felt colder, and drearier, and more wretched than he had
ever felt before. It was a genuine case of homesickness, if one can be
homesick who is in his own house, surrounded by every possible comfort
and luxury. He was tired, and sick, and disappointed, and his head was
aching terribly, while thoughts of the past were crowding his brain
where the light of reason seemed struggling to reinstate itself. He was
thinking of Gretchen, and longing for her so intensely that once he
groaned aloud and whispered to himself:
'Poor Gretchen! I am so sorry for it all. I can see it clearer now, how
I left her and did not write, and I don't know where she is, or if she
will ever come; and yet, I feel as if she had come, or tidings of her.
Perhaps my letter reached her. Perhaps she is on her way. God grant it,
and forgive me for all I have made her suffer.'
It was very still in the room where Arthur sat, for Charles had gone
out, and only the occasional crackling of the coal in the grate and
ticking of the clock broke the silence which reigned around him; and at
last, soothed into quiet, he fell asleep and dreamed that on his door he
heard again the thud of baby feet, while Gretchen's voice was calling to
him to let the baby in.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE FUNERAL AND AFTER.
Long before ten o'clock, the hour appointed for the funeral, the next
morning, people began to gather at the Park House, and the avenue seemed
full of them. The news that an unknown woman had been frozen to death in
the Tramp House had spread far and wide, awakening in many a curiosity
to see the stranger, and discover, if possible, a likeness to some one
they might have known.
It was strange how many reminiscences were brought to mind by this
circumstance of girls who had disappeared years before and were supposed
to be dead--or worse. And this woman might be one of them; indeed,
Peterkin had said that she was, and they came in crowds to see her, and
to see, as well, the inside of the handsome house, of which they had
heard so much, especially since Mr. Arthur's return. But in this they
were disappointed, for all the front rooms were locked against them, and
only the large dining-room, the breakfast-room, the servants' hall, and
the little back office were thrown open to the public. In the first of
these the corpse was lying in a substantial, handsome coffin, for Frank,
who ordered it, would have no other; and when the undertaker suggested a
cheaper one would answer just as well, had said, decidedly:
'I mean to bury her decently. Give me this one, and send the bill to me,
not to Arthur.'
It was _his_ funeral, and, judging from his face, he was burying all his
friends, instead of a poor, unknown woman, whose large, coarse features
and plain woollen dress looked out of place in that handsome black
coffin, with its silver-plated trimmings. Frank had suggested that she
should have a white merino shroud, but his wife had overruled him. It
was _not_ her funeral, and she had no interest in it, except that it
should be over as soon as possible, and the house cleansed from the
atmosphere of death. So when her husband asked if the child ought not to
have a mourning-dress, she scoffed at him for the suggestion saying she
did not like to see children in black anyway, and even if she died
herself she should not wish hers to wear it.
'I cannot imagine,' she continued, 'why you have taken so unaccountable
a fancy to and interest in these people, especially the child. One would
think she belonged to royalty, the fuss you make over her. What are we
to do with her to-night? Where is she to sleep?'
'In the nursery,' was his reply; and he saw his wishes carried out and
ordered in a crib, which used to be Jack's, and bade the nurse see that
she was comfortable.
So Jerry was put to bed in the nursery and slept very quietly until
about, ten o'clock when she awoke and cried piteously for both 'Man-nee'
and 'Ha-roll.' Frank, who was sitting alone in the library, heard the
cry, and knew it was not Maude's. Had it been he would not have minded
it, for he knew that she would be cared for without his interference.
But something in the crying of this little foreign girl stirred him
strangely, and after listening to it a few moments he arose, and going
softly to the door of the nursery, stood listening until a sharp hush
from the nurse girl decided him to enter, and going to the crib he bent
over the sobbing child and tried to comfort her. She could not
understand him, but the tone of his voice was kind, and when he put his
hand on her hot head she took it in hers and held it fast, as if she
recognized in him a friend. And Frank as he felt the clasp of the soft,
warm fingers, and saw the confiding look in the wide-open eyes, grew
faint and cold, and asked himself again, as he had many times that day,
_if he could do it_.
Jerry was asleep at last, but she sobbed occasionally in her sleep, and
there were great tears on her eyelashes, while her fingers clutched
Frank's hand tightly as if fearing to let it go. But he managed to
disengage it and stealing cautiously from the room went back to the
library where he sat late into the night, facing the future and
wondering if he could meet it.
He had Jerry at the table next morning and saw that she was helped to
everything she wanted without any regard to its suitability for her, and
when his wife said rather curtly that she never knew that he was so fond
of children before, he answered her:
'I am only doing as I would wish some one to do to Maude if she were
like this poor little girl.'
When, at last, the hour for the funeral arrived he placed her himself
upon the high chair close to the coffin, where she sat through the short
service, conspicuous in her gray cloak and blue hood, with her golden
hair falling on her neck and piled in wavy masses on her forehead, while
her bright eyes scanned the crowd curiously as if asking why they were
there and why they were all looking so intently at her. More than one
kind-hearted woman went up and kissed her, and when, at the close of the
services, Mr. Tracy held her in his arms for a last look at her mother,
their tears fell fast for the child, so unconscious of the meaning of
what was passing around her.
'Isn't she beautiful! Such lovely hair, and eyes, and dazzling
complexion!' was said by more than one; and then they speculated as to
her future.
Would she go to the poor-house? Would Frank Tracy keep her with all his
children, or was it true, as they had heard, that Mr. Arthur Tracy was
to adopt her at his own? And where was Mr. Arthur? He might, at least,
have shown enough respect for the dead woman to come into the room, and
they wanted so much to see him, for there was a great deal of curiosity
with regard to the lunatic of Tracy Park among the lower class of people
who had come to Shannondale during the eleven years of his absence.
But Arthur was sick in bed, suffering alternately from chills and a
raging fever, which set his brain on fire and made him wilder than
usual. He had not slept well during the night. Indeed, he said, he had
not slept at all. But this was a common assertion of his, and one to
which Charles now paid little heed.
'A man can't snore and not sleep,' was the unanswerable argument with
which he refuted the sleepless nights of his master.
On this occasion, however, he had heard no snoring, and Arthur's face,
seen by the morning light, was a sufficient proof of the wakeful hours
he had passed. He, too, had heard the distant crying, and felt
instinctively that it was not Maude's. Starting up in bed to listen, he
said:
'What's that? Is that child here yet?'
'Yes sir: she is to stay till after the funeral,' was Charles' reply,
and Arthur continued:
'Bring me some cotton for my ears. I never can stand that noise. It is a
peculiar cry.'
The cotton was brought. A window in the hall which had a habit of
rattling with every breath of wind was made fast with a bit of shingle
whittled out for that purpose, and then Arthur became tolerably quiet
until morning, when he began to talk to himself in the German language,
which Charles could not understand. But he caught the name Gretchen, and
knew she was the subject of the sick man's thoughts. Suddenly turning to
his attendant, to whom he always spoke in English, Arthur said:
'The funeral is to-day?'
'Yes, sir, at ten o'clock.'
'Well, lock every door leading up this way, and shut out the gossipping
blockheads who will come by hundreds, and, if we would let them, swarm
into my room as thick as the frogs were in the houses of the Egyptians.
Shut the doors, Charles, and keep them out.'
So the doors were shut and bolted, and then Arthur lay listening with
that intensity which so quickens one's hearing, that the faintest sounds
are distinct at great distances. He heard the trampling footsteps as the
people came crowding in, and the tread of horses' feet as sleigh after
sleigh drove up the avenue, and once, with a shudder, he said:
'That is the hearse. I am sure of it.'
Then all was still, and listen as he might he could not distinguish the
faintest sound until the services were over and the people began to
leave the house.
'There,' he said, with a sigh of relief; 'it will soon be over. Bring me
my clothes, Charles. I am going to get up and see the last of this poor
woman. God help her, whoever she was.'
He was beginning to feel a great pity for the woman whose coffin they
were putting in the hearse, which moved off a few rods, and then stopped
until the open sleigh came up, the sleigh in which Frank Tracy sat,
muffled in his heavy overcoat, for the day, though bright and sunny, was
cold, and a chill March wind was blowing. Dolly had taken refuge in a
headache which had prevented her from being present at the funeral and
kept her from going to the grave as her husband had wished her to do. So
only Harold and Jerry occupied the sleigh with Frank, and these sat
opposite him, with their backs to the horses, Jerry in her gray cloak
and blue hood showing conspicuously as she came into full view of the
window where Arthur stood looking at the procession with a feeling at
his heart, as if in some way he were interested in the sad funeral,
where there was no mourner, no one who had ever seen or known the
deceased, save the little helpless girl, looking around her in perfect
unconcern save as she rather liked the stir and all that was going on.
They had tied a thin veil over her head to shield her from the cold, and
thus her face was not visible to Arthur. But he saw the blue hood and
the golden hair on the old gray cloak, and the sight of it moved him
mightily, making him hold fast to the window-casing for support, while
he stood watching it. Just as far as he could see it his eye followed
that hood, and when it disappeared from view, he turned from the window,
deathly sick, and tottering back to his bedroom, vomited from sheer
nervous excitement.
'Thank Heaven it is over and the rabble gone,' he said, when he became
easier. 'Go now and open all the doors and windows to let in the fresh
air and out the smell they are sure to have left. Ugh! I get a whiff of
it now. Burn some of that aromatic paper; but open the hall windows
first.'
Charles did as he was ordered, and the wind was soon sweeping through
the wide hall, while Arthur's rooms were filled with an odor like the
sweet incense burned in the old cathedrals.
'I am very giddy and faint,' Arthur said, when Charles came back to him
after his ventilating operation. 'I have looked at the bright snow too
long, and there are a thousand rings of fire dancing before my eyes, and
in every ring I see a blue hood and veil, with waves of hair like
Gretchen's, when she was a child. There is a redder tinge now on
Gretchen's hair, because she is older. Wheel me out there, Charles,
where I can see her.'
Charles obeyed, and moved the light bed-lounge into the library, where
his master could feast his eyes upon the sweet face which knew no
change, but which always, night and day, smiled upon him the same. The
picture had a soothing effect upon Arthur, and he gazed at it now until
it began to fade away and lose itself in the blue hood and veil he had
seen in the sleigh far down the avenue; and when, a few minutes later,
Charles came in to look at him, he found him fast asleep.
Meantime the funeral train had reached the cemetery, where the snow was
piled in great drifts, and where, in a corner of the Tracy lot, they
buried the stranger, with no tear to hallow her grave, and no pang of
regret save that she had ever come there, with the mystery and the doubt
which must always cling to her memory. Frank Tracy's face was very pale
and stern as he held little Jerry in his arms during the committal of
the body to the grave, and then bade her take one last look at the box
which held her mother. But Jerry, who was growing cold and tired, began
to cry, and so Frank took her back to the sleigh, which was driven to
the cottage in the lane. Here she felt at home, and drawing to the fire
the low rocking chair she had appropriated to herself, was soon
supremely happy devouring the ginger cookie which Mrs. Crawford had
given her, and in trying to pronounce English words under Harold's
teaching.
While the children were thus employed, Mr. Tracy was divulging to Mrs.
Crawford the object of his visit. He could hardly explain, he said, why
he was so deeply interested in the child, except it were that her mother
had died on his premises and she seemed to be thrown upon his care.
'I cannot see her go to the poor-house,' he continued, with a trembling
in his voice which made Mrs. Crawford wonder a little, as she had never
credited him with much sympathy for anything outside his own family. 'I
cannot see her go to the poor-house, and I cannot well take her into my
family, as we have three children of our own. But I have made up my mind
to care for her, and I have come to ask if, for a compensation, you will
keep her here?'
'Yes, grandma--say yes!' Harold cried; while Jerry, with her mouth full
of cookie, repeated, 'ay 'ess.'
'You see, the children plead for me,' Mr. Tracy said, with a smile at
the little girl, whose hand just then swept back the hair from her eyes,
which looked steadily at him as he went on: 'While she is young--say,
until she is ten years old--I will pay you three dollars a week, and
after that more, if necessary. I know you will be kind to her, and that
she will be happy here and well brought up. Is it a bargain?'
Mrs. Crawford had never seen him so interested in anything and felt
somewhat surprised and puzzled, but she expressed her willingness to
take the child and do what she could for her.
'It will be a good thing for Harold,' she said, 'as he is in danger of
growing selfish here alone with me.'
And so Jerry's future was settled, and counting out twelve dollars,
Frank handed them to Mrs. Crawford, saying:
'I will pay you for four weeks in advance, as you may need the money,
and--and--perhaps--' His face grew very red as he stammered on, 'perhaps
it may be as well not to tell how much I pay you. People--or
rather--well, Mrs. Tracy might think it strange, and not understand why
I feel such an interest in the child. I don't understand it myself.'
But he did understand, and his knees were shaking under him as, when the
transaction was over, and he was on his way to the Park, he felt that he
had sold himself to Satan.
'And yet I know nothing for sure,' he kept repeating to himself. 'Arthur
is expecting Gretchen, whoever she may be. He says he has written to
her, and he has one of his presentiments that she is coming on the night
when this woman arrives, who is no more like the Gretchen he raves about
than I am. This woman has a child. He says Gretchen has none, and that
he never saw this woman. And yet I find among the things a photograph
exactly like the picture in the window, and also like the child, who
certainly bears a resemblance to my brother, though no one else,
perhaps, would see it. Now, sir,' he appeared to be addressing himself
to some person unseen, from whom he shrank, for he drew himself as far
as was possible to his side of the sleigh and shivered as he went on:
'Now, sir, is that sufficient proof to warrant me in turning everything
topsy-turvy, and making Arthur crazier than he is?'
'Certainly not,' he seemed to hear in reply, either from within or
without, he hardly knew which, and he went on:
'I shall try to find out who the woman was, and where she came from; but
how am I to do it? how begin? Arthur will not tell me a word about
Gretchen, who she is, or what she is to him. Still, I mean to be on the
safe side, and do right by the child. Arthur cannot live many years. His
nerves will wear him out, if nothing else, and when he does, his money
will naturally come to me.'
'Naturally,' his spectral companion replied, and he continued:
'Well, what I intend doing is this: I shall make my will, in which Jerry
will share equally with my children, and I shall further draw up a
written request that in case I die before my brother, any money which
may fall to my children from him shall be shared equally with her. I
shall, out of my own private funds, provide for her support and
education, until she comes of age, or marries, and if possible, I shall
bring about a marriage between her and Tom, who will probably one day be
master of Tracy Park. Can anything more be required of me?'
'Nothing,' was the consoling reply; and as the sleigh just then drew up
before his door, Frank alighted from it, and said to himself as he ran
up the steps:
'I believe I have been riding with the devil, and have made a league
with him!'
He found the house thoroughly aired and cleansed from all signs of the
recent funeral; and when, at one o'clock, he sat down to lunch in the
handsome dining-room, and sipped his favorite claret, and ate his
foreign preserves, and thought how much comfort and luxury money could
buy, he was sure he had done well for himself and his children after
him. But, like Bishop Hatto, of Mouse-Tower memory, Frank Tracy never
knew real peace of mind from the day he deliberately sold himself to the
Evil One for filthy lucre, until the day, years after, when full
restitution was made, and, with the sin confessed, he held his head up
again, free from the shadow which he did not leave in the sleigh, but
which followed him day and night, walking by him when he walked, sitting
by him when he sat, and watching by him when he slept, so as to be ready
when he woke with the specious argument that he was acting justly and
even generously by the little waif, who was like a sunbeam in the
cottage in the lane, whom many people went to see, marvelling at her
beauty and wondering in vain whose likeness they sometimes saw in her as
she frolicked around the house, full of life, and fun, and laughter.
Frank made his will, as he promised his shadow he would, but he went to
Springfield to have it drawn up, for he knew that Colvin, or any lawyer
whom he might employ in Shannondale, would wonder at it. He also wrote
out himself what he called his dying request to his children, in case he
should die before his brother. In this he stated emphatically his wish
that Jerry should have her share of whatever might come to them from the
Tracy estate, the same as if she were his own child.
'I have a good and sufficient reason for this,' he wrote in conclusion,
'and I enjoin it upon you to carry out my wishes as readily as you would
were I to speak to you from my grave,'
This done, Frank felt a little better, and the shadow at his side was
not quite as real as it had been before. He put his will and his dying
request together in a private drawer with Gretchen's photograph, and the
testament with the handwriting in it. He had kept this back when the
stranger's trunk was sent to the cottage, thinking that if it were
missed and inquired for, he could easily produce it as having been
mislaid. At the suggestion of Mr. St. Claire he went to New York, to the
office of the German line of steamers, and made inquiries with regard to
the passengers who had come on a certain ship at such a time. But
nothing could be learned of any woman with a child, and after inserting
in several of the New York papers a description of the woman, with a
request for any information concerning her which could be given, he
returned home, with a feeling that he had done all that could be
required of him, and that he might now enjoy himself.
He was accordingly kind and even tender to his brother, who for several
weeks suffered from low nervous depression, which kept him altogether in
his room, to which he refused to admit any one except his attendant and
Frank. He had ceased for the time being, to talk of Gretchen, or to
expect her, and he never inquired for the child, whose blue hood had so
affected him. Once Frank spoke of her to him and told him where she was,
and that she was learning to speak English very rapidly, and growing
prettier every day. But Arthur did not seem at all interested and only
said:
'How can Mrs. Crawford afford to keep the child?'
Others than Arthur asked that question, and among them Dolly, who with a
woman's quick wit, sharpened by something she accidentally saw, divined
the truth, which she wrung at last from her husband. There was a fierce
quarrel--almost their first--a sick headache which lasted three days,
and a month or more of coldness between the married pair, and then,
finding she could accomplish nothing, for Frank was as firm as a rock,
Dolly gave up the contest, and tried by economizing in various ways, to
save the money which she felt was taken from her children by the little
girl, who had become so dear to Mrs. Crawford, that she would not have
parted with her had nothing been paid for her keeping.
CHAPTER XVII.
"MR. CRAZYMAN, DO YOU WANT SOME CHERRIES?"
More than two years had passed away since the terrible March night when
the strange woman was frozen to death in the Tramp House, and her
history was still shrouded in mystery. Not a word had been heard
concerning her, and her story was gradually being forgotten by the
people of Shannondale. Her grave, however, was tolerably well kept, and
every Saturday afternoon, in summer time, a few flowers were put upon it
by Harold. Not so much for the sake of the dead as for the beautiful
child who always accompanied him, laughing, and frolicking, and
sometimes dancing around the grave where he told her her mother was
buried.
As there had been no date on which to fix Jerry's birth, they had called
the first day of March her birthday, so that when more than two years
later we introduce her to our readers on a hot July morning, she was
said to be six years and four months old. In some respects, however, she
seemed much older, for there was about her a precocity only found in
children who have always associated with people much older than
themselves, or into whose lives strange experiences have come. In
stature she was very short, though round and plump as a partridge.
'Dutchy,' Mr. Tracy called her, for Mrs. Tracy did not like her, and
took no pains to conceal her dislike, though it was based upon nothing
except the money which she knew was paid regularly to Mrs. Crawford for
the child's maintenance.
There could be no reason, she said to her husband, why he should support
the child of a tramp, and the woman had been little better, judging from
appearances, unless, indeed--and then she told what old Peterkin had
said more than once, to the effect that Jerry Crawford, as she was
called, was growing to be the image of the Tracys, especially Arthur.
'And if so,' she added, 'you'd better let Arthur take care of her, and
save your money for your own children,'
To this Frank never replied. He knew better than old Peterkin that Jerry
was like the Tracys, or, rather, like his brother, and that it was not
so much in the features as in the expression and certain movements of
the head and hands, and tones of the voice when she was very much in
earnest, and raised it to a higher pitch than usual. She could speak
English very well now, and sometimes, when Frank, who was a frequent
visitor at the cottage, sat watching her at her play, and listening to
her as she talked to herself, as was her constant habit, he could have
shut his eyes and sworn it was his brother's voice calling to him from
the hay-loft or apple tree where they had played together when boys.
Jerry's favorite amusement when alone was to make believe that either
herself, or a figure she had made out of a shawl, was a sick woman,
lying on a settee which she converted into a bed. Sometimes she was the
nurse and took care of the sick woman to whom she always spoke in
German, bending fondly over her, and occasionally holding up before her
a doll which Mrs. St. Claire had given her, and which she played was the
woman's baby. Then she would be the sick woman herself, and trying on
the broad frilled cap which had been found in the trunk, would slip
under the covering, and laying her head upon the pillow, go through with
all the actions of some one very sick, occasionally hugging to her bosom
and kissing the doll.
Once she enacted the pantomime of dying. Folding her hands together and
closing her eyes, her lips moved as if in prayer, for a moment, then
stretching out her feet she lay perfectly motionless, with a set
expression in the little face which looked so comical under the broad
frilled cap. Then, as if it had occurred to her that action was
necessary from some one, she exchanged places with the lay figure, and
tying the cap upon its head, tucked it carefully in the bed, by which
she knelt, and covering her face with her hands imitated perfectly the
sobs and moans of a middle-aged person, mingled occasionally with the
clearer, softer notes of a child's crying.
The first time Frank witnessed this piece of acting was on a Saturday
afternoon, when he had come to the cottage as usual to pay his weekly
due. Both Mrs. Crawford and Harold were gone, but knowing they would
soon return, as it was not their habit to leave Jerry long alone he sat
down to wait, while she went back to the corner in the kitchen, which
she used as her play-house.
'Somebody is sick and I am taking care of her,' she said to Mr. Tracy,
who watched her through the pantomime of the death scene with a feeling,
when it was over, that he had seen Gretchen die.
There was not a shadow of doubt in his mind that the sick woman was
Gretchen, the nurse the stranger found in the Tramp House, and the doll
baby the little girl upon whose memory that scene had been indelibly
stamped, and who, with her wonderful powers of imitation, could rehearse
it in every particular. To herself she always spoke in German, which no
one could understand sufficiently to make out what she meant. Once Mr.
St. Claire suggested to Frank that he take her to his brother, to whom
German was as natural as English, and who might be able to learn
something of her antecedents. And Frank had answered that he would do
so, knowing the while that nothing could tempt him to bring her and his
brother together until all the recollections of her babyhood, if she had
any, were obliterated, and she had in part forgotten her own language.
His first step in evil doing had to be followed by others until he was
so far committed that he could not retrace his steps, and two shadows
were with him constantly now, one always reproaching him for what he had
done, and the other telling him it was now too late to turn back.
He was very fond of Jerry, and on the Saturday afternoon when he sat
watching her strange play, noticing how graceful was every movement, and
how lovely the constantly varying expression of her face--from concern
and anxiety when she was the nurse to distress and pain and then
resignation and quietude in death when she took the role of the sick
woman--he felt himself moved by some mighty influence to right her at
once and put her in her proper place.
'It is more than I can bear. I can't even look Dolly straight in the
eye,' he said to his evil shadow, which answered back.
'You know nothing sure. Will you give up your prospects for a photograph
and a likeness which may be accidental?'
So his conscience was smothered again; but he would question the child,
and after her play was over he called her to him and taking her in his
lap, kissed the little grave face upon which the shadow of the scene she
had been enacting had left its impress.
'Jerry,' he said, 'that lady who just died in the bed with the cap on
was your mamma, was it not?'
''Ess,' was Jerry's reply, for she still adhered to her first
pronunciation of the word.
'And the other was the nurse?'
''Ess,' Jerry said again; 'Mah-nee.'
This was puzzling, for he had always supposed that by 'mah-nee' the
child meant 'mam-ma;' but he went on:
'Try to understand me, Jerry; try to think away back before you came in
the ship.'
''Ess, I vill,' she said, with a very wise look on her face, while Mr.
Tracy continued:
'Had you a papa? Was he there with you?'
'_Nein_,' was the prompt reply, and Mr. Tracy continued:
'Where did your mamma live? Was it in Wiesbaden?'
He knew he did not pronounce the word right, and was surprised at the
sudden lighting up of the child's eyes as she tried to repeat the name.
'Oo-oo-ee,' she began, with a tremendous effort, but the W mastered her,
and she gave it up with a shake of her head.
'I not say dat oo-oo-ee,' she said, and he put the question in another
form:
'Where did your mamma die?'
'Tamp House; f'oze to deff,' was now the ready answer, a natural one,
too, for she had been taught by Harold that such was the case, and had
often gone with him to the house where he found her, and where the old
table still stood against the wall.
No one picnicked there now, for the place was said to be haunted, and
the superstitious ones told each other that on stormy nights, when the
wild winds were abroad, lights had been seen in the Tramp House, where a
pale-faced woman, with her long, black hair streaming down her back,
stood in the door-way, shrieking for help, while the cry of a child
mingled with her call. But Harold shared none of these fancies. He was
not afraid of the building, and often went there with Jerry, and sitting
with her on the table, told her again and again how he had found her
mother that wintry morning, and how funny she herself had looked in the
old carpet-bag, and so it is not strange that when Mr. Tracy asked her
where her mother died, she should answer, 'In the Tramp House,' although
she had acted a pantomime whose reality must have taken place under very
different circumstances.
'Of course your mother died in the Tramp House, and I have nothing with
which to reproach myself. I am altogether too morbid on the subject,'
Frank said, and he had decided that he was a pretty good sort of fellow,
after all, when at last Mrs. Crawford came in and he paid her for
Jerry's board.
It was a part of Frank's plan to save the money out of his own personal
expenses, so he smoked two cigars less each day and went without claret
for dinner, except on Sunday, and never touched champagne, and wore his
hats and coats until his wife said they were shabby and insisted upon
new ones. In this way he saved more than three dollars a week, but the
overplus was laid aside for the time when Jerry must necessarily cost
him more because she would be older. In some respects he was doing his
duty by the child, who, next to Harold and Mrs. Crawford, whom she
called grandma, loved him better than any one else. She always ran to
meet him when he came, and sometimes, when he went away, accompanied him
down the lane, holding his hand and asking him numberless questions
about Tracy Park and about his little girl, and why she never came to
see her.
Frank could not tell Jerry of his wife's bitter prejudice against her,
and that this was the reason why Maude had never been to the cottage or
Jerry to the park. But if Jerry had not visited it in person, she was
greatly interested in the handsome house and grounds, and the lovely
rooms where the crazy man lived. This was Harold's designation of Mr.
Arthur--the crazy man--and perhaps of all the things at Tracy Park,
Jerry was most desirous to see him and his rooms. Harold, who, on one of
the rare occasions when Arthur was out to dine, had been sent to the
house on an errand, had gone with Jack into these rooms, which he
described minutely to his grandmother and Jerry, dwelling longest upon
the beautiful picture in the window. 'Gretchen, he calls it,' he said;
and then Jerry, who was listening intently, gave a sudden upward and
sidewise turn to her Lead, just as she had done when Mr. Tracy spoke to
her of Wiesbaden.
'Detchen,' she repeated, with a little hesitancy. 'Vat the name vas? Say
again.'
He said it again, and over the child's face there came a puzzled
expression, as if she were trying to recall something which baffled all
her efforts. But she did not forget the name, and that evening Mrs.
Crawford heard her singing to herself,
'Detchen, Detchen, who are you? Detchen, Detchen, where are you?' and
she noticed that the doll baby with which Jerry played the most was ever
after called 'Detchen,' instead of Maude, as it had been christened when
first given to her.
Jerry had seen Maude Tracy many times and had admired her greatly, with
her pretty white dresses and costly embroideries; and once, at church,
when Maude passed near where she was standing, she stood back as far as
possible out of the way and held her plain gingham dress aside, as if
neither it nor herself had any right to come in close contact with so
superior a being. Of the house in the park she knew nothing, except what
Harold had told her, and that it was a place to be admired and gazed at
breathlessly at a respectful distance. She had never been there since
the day of the funeral But she was going at last with Harold, who had
permission to gather cherries for his grandmother from some of the many
trees which grew upon the place.
It was a hot morning in July, and the air seemed thunderous and heavy
when she set off on what to her was as important an expedition as is a
trip to Europe to an older person. She had wanted to wear her pink
gingham dress, the one kept sacred for Sunday, and had even hoped that
she might be allowed to display her best straw hat with the blue ribbons
and cluster of apple blossoms. She had no doubt that she should go into
the house and see the crazy man, and Mrs. Tracy, who she had heard wore
silk stockings every day, and she wished to be suitably attired for such
honor.
But Mrs. Crawford dispelled her air castles by telling her that she was
only to go into the side yard where the cherry trees were, and that she
must be very quiet, so as not to disturb Mr. Arthur, whose windows
looked that way. To wear her pink dress was impossible, as she would get
it stained with the juice of the cherries, while the best hat was not
for a moment to be thought of.
So Jerry submitted to the dark calico frock and high-necked,
long-sleeved apron which Mrs. Crawford thought safe and proper for her
to wear on a cherry expedition. A clean, white sun-bonnet with a wide
cape covered her head and concealed her face when she started from the
cottage, with her quart tin pail on her arm; but no sooner was she on
the path which led to the park that the obnoxious bonnet was removed and
was swinging on her arm, while she was admiring the shadow which, her
long, bright curls made in the sunshine as she shook her head from side
to side.
To tell the truth, our little Jerry was rather vain. Passionately fond
of pictures and flowers, and quick to detect everything beautiful both
in art and nature, she knew that the little face she sometimes saw in
Mrs. Crawford's old-fashioned mirror was pretty, and after the day when
Dick St. Claire told her that her hair was 'awful handsome,' she had
felt a pride in it and in herself, which all Mrs. Crawford's
asseverations that 'Handsome is that handsome does' could not destroy.
Maude Tracy's hair was black and straight, and here she felt she had the
advantage over her.
'I do hope we shall see her,' she said to Harold, as she danced along,
swaying her bonnet and shaking her hair. 'Do you think we shall?'
Harold thought it doubtful, and, even if they did, it was not likely she
would speak to them, he said.
'Why not?' Jerry asked, and he replied:
'Oh, I suppose they feel big because they are rich and we are poor.'
'But why ain't I rich, too? Why don't I live at the park like Maude, and
wear low-necked aprons instead of this old high one?' Jerry asked; but
Harold could not tell, and only said:
'Would you rather live at the park than with me?'
'No,' Jerry answered, promptly, stopping short and digging her heel into
the soft loam of the path. 'I would not stay anywhere without you; and
when I live at the park you will live there, too, and have codfish and
tatoe every day.'
Strangely enough this was Harold's favorite dish, and, as it was not his
grandmother's, his taste was not gratified in that respect as often as
he would have liked, hence Jerry's promise of the luxury.
Just here, at a sudden turn in the path, they came upon Jack and Maude
Tracy playing on a bench under a tree, while the nurse was at a distance
either reading or asleep. Harold would have passed them at once, as he
knew his grandmother was in a hurry for the cherries, but Jerry had no
such intention.
Stopping short in front of Maude, she inspected her carefully, from her
white dress and bright plaid sash to the string of amber beads around
her neck; while, side by side with this picture, she saw herself in her
dark calico frock and high-necked apron, with her sun-bonnet and tin
pail on her arm. Jerry did not like the contrast, and a lump began to
swell in her throat. Then, as a happy thought struck her, she said, with
something like exultation in her tone:
'My hair curls and yours don't.'
'No,' Maude answered, slowly--'no it don't curl, but it's black, and
yours is yaller.'
This was a set back to Jerry, who hated everything yellow, and who had
never dreamed of applying that color to her hair. She only knew that
Dick St. Claire had called it pretty, but in this new light thrown upon
it all her pride vanished, for she recognized like a flash that it might
be 'yaller,' and stood there silent and vanquished, until Maude, who in
turn had been regarding her attentively, said to her:
'Ain't you Jerry Crawford?'
That broke the ice of reserve, and the two little girls were soon
talking together familiarly, and Jerry was asking Maude if she wore
beads and her best clothes every day.
'Phoo! These ain't my best clothes. I have one gown all brawdery and
lace,' was Maude's reply, while Jack, who was standing near, chimed in:
'My father's got lots of money, and so has Uncle Arthur, and when he
dies we are going to have it; Tom says so.'
Slowly the shadows gathered on Jerry's brow as she said, sadly;
'I wish I had an Uncle Arthur, and could wear beads and a sash every
day' Then, as she looked at Harold, her face brightened immediately and
she exclaimed.
'But I have Harold and a grandma, and you hain't,' and running up to
Harold, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him lovingly, as
if to make amends for the momentary repining.
'We must go now,' Harold said, and taking her hand in his, he led her
away toward the house, which impressed her with so much awe that as she
drew near to it, she held her breath and walked on tiptoe, as if afraid
that any sound from her would be sacrilege in that aristocratic
atmosphere.
'Oh, isn't it grand, Harold?' Isn't it grand!' she kept repeating, with
her mouth full of cherries, after they had reached the trees on which
the ripe, red fruit hung so thickly. 'Do you s'pose we shall see the
crazy man?' she asked, and Harold replied:
'I don't know. I guess not, unless he comes to the window. Those are his
rooms, and that window which looks so ugly outside, is the one with the
picture in it,' and he pointed to the south wing, most of the windows of
which were open, while against one a long ladder was standing.
It had been left there by a workman who had been up on it to fix the
hinge of a blind, and who had gone to the village in quest of something
he needed, Jerry saw the ladder and its close proximity to the open
window, and she thought to herself.
'I mean to fill my pail with cherries, and go up that ladder and take
them to him, I wonder if he would bite me?'
Suiting the action to the word she stopped eating; and began to pick
from the lower limbs as rapidly as possible until her pail was full.
'Pour them into the basket,' Harold called to her from the top of the
tree, but Jerry did not heed him. She had seen the tall figure of a man
pass before the window, and a pale, thin face had for a moment, looked
out, apparently to discover whence the talking came.
'I'm going to take the crazyman some cherries,' she tried, and almost
before Harold could protest, she was half way up the ladder, which she
climbed with the agility of a little cat.
'Jerry, Jerry! What are you doing!' Harold exclaimed, 'Come back this
minute. He doesn't like children; he tried to throw me over the banister
once; he will knock you off the ladder; oh, Jerry!' and Harold's voice
was almost a sob as he watched the girl going up round after round until
the top was reached, and she stood with her flushed, eager face, just on
a level with the window so that by standing on tiptoe, she could look
into the room.
It was Arthur's bedroom, and there was no one in it, but she heard the
sound of footsteps in the adjoining apartment, and raising herself as
far as possible, and holding up her pail, she called out in a clear,
shrill voice;
'Mr. Crazyman, Mr. Crazyman, don't you want some cherries?'
CHAPTER XVIII.
ARTHUR AND JERRY.
Arthur had passed a restless night. Indeed all his nights were restless,
but this one had been especially so. Thoughts of Gretchen had troubled
him in his dreams, and two or three times he had started up to listen,
thinking that he heard her calling to him from a distance. He had
dreamed also of the blue hood seen that day of the funereal, now more
than two years ago, and of the child who had come knocking at his door,
first with her hands and then with her feet, but whom he had refused to
admit. He had never seen her since, and had never inquired for her of
his own accord. Two or three times his brother had spoken of her in a
casual way, telling him once that she was with Mrs. Crawford. Arthur had
then asked how she could afford to keep her, and Frank had made no
reply. But the second time when he spoke of Jerry, and Arthur, more
interested in Mrs. Crawford than in her, had asked the same question,
Frank had said:
'She cannot afford it, I pay her three dollars a week.'
For a moment Arthur looked inquiringly at him; then he said:
'You are a good fellow after all, even if you did deceive me about
sending John for Gretchen. Tell Colvin, when Christmas comes, to give
Mrs. Crawford a hundred dollars for me.'
After this Mrs. Crawford and her affairs passed completely out of
Arthur's mind. He never went to the cottage, or near it. He never went
anywhere, in fact, but lived the life of a recluse, growing thinner, and
paler, and more reticent every day, talking now but seldom of Gretchen,
though he never arose in the morning or retired at night without kissing
her picture and murmuring to it some words of tenderness in German.
He had measured the length of his three rooms and dressing-room, and
found them to be nearly one hundred feet, or six rods do that by passing
back and forth twenty-five times he would walk almost a mile.
Regularly each morning, when it was not too cold or stormy, he would
throw open his windows and take his daily exercise, which was but a poor
substitute for what might be had in the fresh air outside, but was
nevertheless much better than nothing.
On this particular morning, when Harold and Jerry were at the park, he
was taking his walk as usual, though very slowly, for he felt weak and
sick, and, oh, so inexpressibly lonely and desolate that it seemed to
him he would gladly lie down and die.
'If I thought Gretchen were dead, nothing would seem so desirable to me
as the grave, for then there would be nothing to live for,' he was
saying to himself, when the sound of voices outside attracted his
attention, and going to the window, he saw the children, Harold in the
top of the tree, and Jerry at the foot, with her white sun-bonnet
shading her face.
Recognizing Harold, he guessed who the little girl was, and a strange
feeling of interest stirred in his heart for her, as he said:
'Poor little waif! I wonder where she came from, or what will become of
her?'
'Then resuming his walk, he forgot all about the little waif, until
startled by a voice which rang, clear and bell-like, through the rooms:
'Mr. Crazyman! Mr. Crazyman! don't you want some cherries?'
It was not so much the words as something in the tone, the foreign
accent, the ring like a voice he never could forget, and which the
previous night had called to him in his dreams. And now it was calling
again--not in his sleep, but in reality, for he knew he was
awake--calling from the adjoining room, which no one could enter without
his knowledge.
Mentally weak as he was, and apt to be superstitious, his limbs shook,
and his heart beat faster than its wont, as he went toward his
sleeping-apartment, from which the voice came again a little louder and
more peremptory:
'Mr. Crazyman! where are you? I've brought you some cherries!'
He had reached the door by this time, and saw the pail on the broad
window-ledge where Jerry had put it, and to which she was clinging, with
her white sun-bonnet just in view.
'Oh, Gretchen! how did you get here?' he said, bounding across the
floor, with no thought of Jerry in his mind, no thought of any one but
Gretchen, whom he was constantly expecting to come, though not exactly
in this way.
'I climbed the ladder to fetch you some cherries, and I'm standing on
the toppest stick,' Jerry said, craning her neck until her bonnet fell
back, disclosing to view her beautiful face flushed with excitement, and
her bright, wavy hair, which, moist with perspiration, clung in masses
of round curls to her head and forehead.
'Great Heaven!' Arthur exclaimed, as he stood staring at the wide-open
blue eyes confronting him so steadily. 'Who are you, and where did you
come from?'
'I'm Jerry, and I comed from the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. Take me
in, won't you?' Jerry said; and, mechanically leaning from the window,
Arthur took her in, while Harold from below looked on, horror-struck
with fear as to what the result might be if Jerry were left any time
alone with a madman who did not like children.
'He may kill her; I must tell the folks,' he said; and, going round to
the side door, he entered, without knocking, and asked for Mrs. Tracy.
But she was not at home, and so he told the servants of Jerry's danger,
and begged them to go to her rescue.
'Pshaw, he won't hurt her. Charles will come pretty soon, and I'll send
him up. Don't look so scared; he is harmless,' the cook said to Harold,
who, in a wild state of nervous fear, went back to the cherry trees,
where he could listen and hear the first scream which should proclaim
Jerry's danger.
But none came, and could he have looked into the room, where Jerry sat,
or rather stood, he would have been amazed.
As Arthur lifted Jerry through the window, and put her down upon the
floor, he said to her:
'Take off that bonnet and let me look at you.'
She obeyed and stood before him with all her wealth of hair tumbling
about her glowing face, and an eager, questioning expression in her blue
eyes, which looked at him so fearlessly. Arthur knew perfectly well who
she was, but something about her so dazed and bewildered him that for a
moment he could not speak, but stared at her with the hungry, wistful
look of one longing for something just within his reach, but still
unattainable.
'Do you like me?' Jerry asked at last.
'Like you?' he replied. 'Yes. Why did you not come to me sooner?'
And, stooping, he kissed the cherry-stained mouth as he had never kissed
a child before.
Sitting down upon the lounge, he took her in his lap and said to her
again:
'Who are you, and where did you come from? I know your name is Jerry,
which is a strange one for a girl, and I know you live with Mrs.
Crawford, but before that night where did you live? Where did you come
from?'
'Out of the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. I told you that once,' Jerry
said. 'Harold found me. I am his little girl. He is out in the cherry
tree, and said I must not come up, because you were crazy and would hurt
me. You won't hurt me, will you? And be you crazy?'
'Hurt you? No,' he answered, as he parted the rings of her hair from her
low brow. 'I don't know whether I am crazy or not They say so, and
perhaps I am, when my head is full of bumble-bees.'
'Oh--h!' Jerry gasped, drawing back from him. 'Can they get out? And
will they sting?'
Arthur burst into a merry laugh, the first he had known since he came
back to Shannondale. Jerry was doing him good. There was something very
soothing in the touch of the little warm hands he held in his, and
something puzzling and fascinating, too, in the face of the child. He
did not think of a likeness to any one; he only knew that he felt drawn
toward her in a most unaccountable manner, and found himself wondering
greatly who she was.
'Harold told me there were pictures and marble people up here with
nothing on, and everything, and that's why I comed--that and to bring
you some cherries. I like pictures. Can I see them?' Jerry said.
'Yes, you shall see them,' Arthur replied; and he led her into the room
where Gretchen's picture looked at them from the window.
'Oh, my!' Jerry exclaimed, with bated breath, 'Ain't she lovely! Is she
God's sister?' and folding her hands together, she stood before the
picture as reverently as a devout Catholic stands before a Madonna.
It was some time since Jerry had spoken a word of German, but as she
stood before Gretchen's picture old memories seemed to revive, and with
them the German word for _pretty_, which she involuntarily spoke aloud.
Low as was the utterance, it caught Arthur's ear, and grasping her
shoulder, he said:
'What was that? What did you say, and where did you learn it?'
His manner frightened her; perhaps the bumble-bees were coming out, and
she drew back from him, forgetting entirely what she had said.
'It was a German word,' he continued, 'and the accent is German, too;
can you speak it.'
Unconsciously as he talked, he dropped into that language, and Jerry
listened intently, with a strained look on her face, as if trying to
recall something which came and went, but went more than it came, if
that could be.
'I talked that once,' she said, 'when I lived with mamma; but she is
dead. Harold found her, and I put flowers on her grave.'
Half the time she was speaking in German, or trying to, and Arthur
listened in amazement, while his interest in her deepened every moment,
as he took her through the rooms and showed her 'the marble people with
nothing on them,' and the beautiful pictures which adorned his walls.
'How would you like to come and be my little girl?' he asked her at
last, when, remembering Harold and the cherries, she told him she must
go, and started toward the window as if she would make her egress as she
had come in.
'Can Harold come, too? I can't leave Harold,' she said Then, as she
caught sight of him still standing at a distance, gazing curiously up at
the window through which she had disappeared, she called out, 'Yes
Harold; I'm coming. I have seen him and everything, and he did not hurt
me. Good-bye!' and she turned toward Arthur with a little nod.
Then, before he could stop her, she sprang out upon the ladder, and went
down faster than she had come up, leaving the pail of cherries upon the
window-sill, and leaving, too, in Arthur's breast a tumult of emotions
which he could not define.
That night, when Frank, who had heard in much alarm of Jerry's visit to
his brother, went up to see him, he found him more cheerful and natural
than he had seen him in weeks. As Frank expected, his first words were
of the little girl who had come to him through the window and left him
the cherries, of which he said he had eaten so many that he feared they
might make him sick. What did Frank know of the child? What had he
learned of her history? Of course he had made enquiries everywhere?
It was just in the twilight, before the gas was lighted, and so Arthur
did not see how his brother's face flamed at first and then grew white
as he recapitulated what the reader already knows, dwelling at length
upon the enquiries he had made in New York, all of which had been
fruitless. There was the name Jerrine on the child's clothing, he said
and the initials 'N.B.' on that of her mother, who was evidently French,
although she must have come from Germany.'
'Yes,' Arthur replied, 'the child is a German, and interests me greatly.
Her face and something in her voice has haunted me all the afternoon.
Was there nothing in that trunk or the carpet-bag which would be a
clue?'
'Nothing,' Frank replied, although it seemed to him it was the shadow
speaking for him, or at least putting the lie into his mouth. There were
articles of clothing, all very plain, and a picture book printed at
Leipsic, I can get that for you if you like, though it tells nothing
unless it he that the mother lived in Leipsic.'
Frank talked very rapidly, and laid so much stress on Leipsic, that
Arthur got an idea that Jerry had actually come from there, just as his
brother meant he should, and he began to speak of the town and recall
all he knew of it.
'I was never there but once,' he said, 'for although I spent a great
deal of time in Germany, it was mostly in Heidleberg and Wiesbaden. Oh,
that is lovely,--Wiesbaden--and nights now, when I cannot sleep, I fancy
that I am there again, in the lovely park, and hear the music of the
band, and see the crowds of people strolling through the grounds, and I
am there with them, though apart from the rest, just where a narrow
path turns off from a bridge, and a seat is half hidden from view
behind the thick shrubberies. There I sit again with Gretchen, and feel
her hand in mine and her dear head on my arm. Oh, Gretchen--'
There was a sob now in his voice, and he seemed to be talking to himself
rather than to his brother, who said to him:
'Gretchen lived in Wiesbaden, then?'
'Yes; but for heaven's sake pronounce it with a V, and not a W, and in
two syllables instead of three,' Arthur answered, pettishly, his ear
offended as it always was with a discordant sound or mispronounciation.
'Veesbaden, then,' Frank repeated, understanding now why Jerry had
stumbled over the name when he once spoke it to her.
Clearly she had come from Wiesbaden, where Gretchen had lived, and where
he believed she had died, though he did not tell Arthur so; he merely
said:
'Gretchen was your sweetheart, I suppose?'
But Arthur did not reply; he never replied to direct questions as to who
Gretchen was, but after a moment's silence, he said:
'You speak of her as something past. Do you believe she is dead?'
'Yes, I do,' was Frank's decided answer. You have never told me who she
was, though I have my own opinion on the subject, and I know that you
loved her very much, and if she loved you so much--'
'She did--she did; she loved me more--far more than I deserved,' was
Arthur's vehement interruption.
'Well, then,' Frank continued, 'if she did, and were living, she would
have come to you, or answered your letters, or sent you some messenger.'
Frank's voice trembled here, and be seemed to see again the cold, still
face of the dead woman, whose lips, could they have spoken, might have
unlocked the mystery and brought a message from Gretchen'
'True, true,' Arthur replied. 'She would have come or written. How long
is it since I came home?'
'Four years next October,' Frank said.
'Four years;' Arthur went on, 'is it so long as that? And it, was then
more than three years since I had seen her. Everything was blotted out
from my mind from the time that I entered that accursed _maison de
santé_ until I found myself in Paris. I am afraid she _is_ dead.'
Just then Charles came in with lights and the chocolate his master
always took before retiring, and so Frank said good-night, and went out
upon the broad piazza, hoping the night air would cool his heated brow,
or that the laughter and prattle of Jack and Maude, who were frolicking
on the gravel walk, would drown the voice of the shadow which said to
him:
'But for the number of years he says it is since he saw Gretchen, there
could be no doubt, and you would be the biggest rascal living. As it is,
you need not distress yourself--Jerry is nothing to him; and if she
were, you have gone too far now to go back. People would never respect
you again. And then there is Maude. You cannot disgrace her.'
No, he could not disgrace his darling Maude, who, as if guessing that he
was thinking of her, came up the steps to his side, and seating herself
upon his lap, pushed the hair from his forehead with her soft fingers,
and kissed him lovingly as she was wont to do.
'My beautiful Maude,' he thought, for he knew she would be beautiful,
with her black hair, and starry eyes, and brilliant complexion, and he
loved her with all the strength of his nature. To see her grow into
womanhood, admired and sought after by everyone, was the desire of his
heart, and as he believed that money was necessary to the perfect
fulfilment of his desire, for her sake he would carry his secret to the
grave.
'Are you sick, papa?' Maude asked, looking into his pale face, on which
the moon shone brightly.
'No, pet,' he answered, 'only tired. I am thinking of little Jerry
Crawford. She was here this afternoon,'
'Yes, I saw her in the park with Harold. Isn't he handsome, papa? and
such a nice boy! so different from Tom,' said Maude, and then she went
on: 'Jerry is pretty too; prettier than I am; her hair curls and mine
doesn't, but her dress is so ugly--that old high apron and calico gown.
What makes her so poor and me so rich?'
Mr. Tracy groaned inwardly, as he replied:
'You are not rich, my child.'
'Oh, yes, I am,' Maude said, 'I heard mamma tell Mrs. Brinsmade so. She
said Uncle Arthur was worth a million, and when he died we should have
it all, because he could not make a will if he wanted to, and he had no
children of his own,'
Although little more than seven years old, Maude Tracy was very knowing
and precocious in some respects, and, like her brother Tom, had heard so
much from her mother and others of their prospective wealth, that she
understood the situation far better than she ought, and was already
counting on the thousands waiting for her when her uncle died. And yet
Maude Tracy had in her nature qualities which were to ripen into a noble
womanhood. Truthful and generous, her instincts of right and wrong were
very keen, and young as she was she had no respect for anything like
deception or trickery. This her father knew, and his bitterest pang of
remorse came from this thought, 'What would Maude say if she knew?' And
it was more for her sake he was sinning than for his own or that of any
other. She was so pretty, or would be when grown to young ladyhood, and
the adornments which money could bring would so well become her.
'Maude,' he said at last, 'how would you like to change places with
Jerry? That is, let her come here and live, while we go away and be
poor; not quite as she is, but like many people.'
'And not wear a sash, and beads, and buttoned boots every day?' Maude
interrupted him quickly. 'I should not like it at all. Why, Jerry
dresses herself, and wipes the dishes, and wears those big aprons all
the time. No, I don't want to be poor;' and as if something in her
father's mind had communicated itself to her, she raised her head from
his shoulder and looked beseechingly at him.
'Nor shall you be poor, if I can help it,' he said; 'but you must be
very kind to Jerry, and never let her feel that you are richer than she.
Do you understand?'
'I think I do,' Maude answered, adding as she kissed him fondly: 'And
now I s'pose I must go, for there is Hetty come for me; so, good-night,
you dearest, best papa in the world.'
He knew that she believed in him fully; that should he confess his
fault she would understand it, and lose faith in him. He would bear the
burden, he said to himself. There should be no more repining or looking
back, Maude must never know; and so Jerry's chance was lost.
The next morning Arthur awoke with a racking headache. He was accustomed
to it, it is true; but this one was particularly severe.
'It's the cherries; no wonder; a quart of those sour things would turn
upside down any stomach,' Charles said, as he glanced at the empty tin
pail which was adorning an inlaid table, and then suggested a dose of
ipecac as a means of dislodging the offending cherries.
But Arthur declined the medicine. His stomach was well enough, he said.
It was his head which ached, and nothing would help that like the touch
of the cool little hands he had held in his the previous day. Charles
must go for Jerry--go at once, for he wanted her, and as when Arthur
wanted a thing he wanted it immediately, Charles was soon on his way to
the cottage in the lane, where he found the little girl under a tall
lilac bush, busy with the mud pies she was making, and talking to
herself, partly in English and partly in broken German, which she had
resumed since visiting the park.
'Seemed like something I had dreamed, when he talked like that, and I
could almost do it myself,' she said to Harold when describing the
particulars of her interview with Mr. Tracy, and her tongue fell
naturally into the language of her babyhood.
On hearing Charles' errand, her delight was unbounded.
'Iss. You'll let me go,' she cried, as she stood before Mrs. Crawford,
with the mud-spots on her hands and face; 'and you'll let me wear my
best gown now, and my white apron with the shoulder-straps, and my
morocco shoes, because this visiting.'
As Mrs. Crawford could see no objection to the plan, Jerry was soon
dressed, and on her way to the Park House, which seemed to her to be a
very palace, and until the day before a place to be looked upon with
awe, and admired breathlessly at a distance. Indeed, she had sometimes,
when passing near the house, walked on tiptoe, as if on sacred ground,
and held back her humble dress lest it should harm a shrub or vine by
contact. But matters now were changed. She had been there, and was
going there again by special invitation from the master, and she tripped
along airily with a sense of dignity and importance unusual in one so
young.
Mrs. Tracy, who seldom troubled herself with her brother-in-law's
affairs, knew nothing of his having sent for Jerry, and was surprised
when she saw her coming up the walk with Charles, whose manner indicated
that he knew perfectly what he was about. She had heard of Jerry's visit
on the previous day, and had wondered what Arthur could find in that
child to interest him, when he would never allow Maude in his room. She
knew nothing of the shadow which night and day was nearer to her husband
than she was herself, but she did not fancy Jerry, because of the three
dollars a week, which she felt was so much taken from herself. Why they
should be burdened with the support of the child, just because her
mother happened to be found dead upon their premises, she could not
understand.
Had Jerry been older, she might, she said, have taken her into the
kitchen as maid of all work, for Dolly had reached a point where she
liked a great many servants in the household, and prided herself upon
employing more help than either Grace Atherton or Edith St. Claire. Only
that morning she had spoken to her husband of Jerry, and asked him how
long he proposed to support her.
'Just as long as I have a dollar of my own, and she needs it,' was his
reply, as he left the room, slamming the door behind him and leaving her
to think him almost as crazy as his brother.
Thus it was not in a very quiet frame of mind that she went out upon the
cool, broad piazza, and, taking one of the large willow chairs standing
there, began to rock back and forth and wonder what had so changed her
husband, making him silent and absent-minded, and even irritable at
times, as he had been that morning. Was there insanity in his veins as
well as in his brother's, and would her children inherit--her darling
Maude, of whom she was so proud, and who, she hoped, would some day be
the richest heiress in the county and marry Dick St. Claire, if, indeed,
she did not look even higher?
It was at this point in her soliloquy that she saw Jerry coming up the
walk, her face glowing with excitement and her manner one of freedom and
assurance.
Ascending the steps, Jerry nodded and smiled at the lady, whose
expression was not very inviting, and who, to the child's remark, 'I've
comed again,' answered, icily:
'I see you have. Seems to me you come pretty often.' Turning to Charles,
Mrs. Tracy continued:
'Why is she here again so soon? What does she want?'
Quick to detect and interpret the meaning of the tones of a voice, and
hearing disapprobation in Mrs. Tracy's, Jerry's face was shadowed at
once, and she looked up entreatingly at Charles, who said:
'Mr. Tracy sent me for her. She was with him yesterday, and he will have
her again to-day.'
Then Jerry's face brightened, and she chimed in:
'Iss, I'm visiting, I'm invited, and I'm going to stay to eat.'
Mrs. Tracy dared not interfere with Arthur, even if he took Jerry to
live there altogether, and, with a bend of her head, she signified to
Charles that the conference was ended.
'Come, Jerry,' Charles said; but Jerry held back a moment, and asked:
'Where's Maude?'
If Mrs. Tracy heard, she did not reply, and Jerry followed on after
Charles through the hall and up the broad staircase to the darkened room
where Arthur lay, suffering intense pain in the head, and moaning
occasionally. But he heard the patter of the little feet, for he was
listening for it, and when Jerry entered his room he raised himself upon
his elbow, and reaching the other hand toward her, said:
'So you have come again, little Jerry; or, perhaps I should call you
little _Cherry_, considering how you first came to me. Would you like
that name?'
'Iss,' was Jerry's reply, in the quick, half-lisping way which made the
monosyllable so attractive.
'Well, then, Cherry,' Arthur continued, 'take off that bonnet, and open
the blind behind me so I can see your face. Then bring that stool and
sit where I can look at you while you rub my head with your hands. It
aches enough to split, and I believe the bumble bees are swarming; but
they can't get out, and if they could, they are the white-faced kind,
which never sting.'
Jerry knew all about white-faced bumble-bees, for Harold had caught them
for her, and with this fear removed, she did as Arthur bade her, and was
soon seated at his side, rubbing his forehead, where the blue veins were
standing out full and round, and smoothing his hair caressingly with her
fingers, which seemed to have in them a healing power, for the pain and
heat grew less under their touch, and, after a while Arthur fell into a
quiet sleep.
When he awoke, after half an hour or so, it was with a delicious sense
of rest and freedom from pain. Jerry had dropped the shades to shut out
the sunlight, and was walking on tiptoe round the room, arranging the
furniture and talking to herself in whispers, as she usually did when
playing alone.
'Jerry,' Arthur said to her, and she was at his side in a moment, 'you
are an enchantress. The ache is all gone from my head, charmed away by
your hands. Now, come and sit by me again, and tell me all you know of
yourself before Harold found you. Where did you live? What was your
mother's name? Try and recall all you can.'
Jerry, however, could tell him very little besides the Tramp House, and
the carpet-bag, and Harold letting her fall in the snow. Of the cold and
the suffering she could recall nothing, or of the journey from New York
in the cars. She did remember something about the ship, and her mother's
seasickness, but where she lived before she went to the ship she could
not tell. It was a big town, she thought, and there was music there, and
a garden, and somebody sick. That was all. Everything else was gone
entirely, except now and then when vague glimpses of something in the
past bewildered and perplexed her. Her pantomime of the dying woman and
the child had not been repeated for more than a year, for now her acting
always took the form of the tragedy in the Tramp House, with herself in
the carpet-bag and a lay figure dead beside her. But gradually, as
Arthur questioned her, the old memories began to come back and shape
themselves in her mind, and he said at last:
'It was like this--playin' you was a sick lady and I was your nurse. I
can't think of her name, I guess I'll call her Manny. And there must be
a baby; that's me, only I can't think of my name.'
'Call it Jerry, then,' Arthur suggested, both interested and amused,
though he did not quite understand what she meant.
But he was passive in her hands, and submitted to have a big
handkerchief put over his head for a cap, to hold on his arm the baby
she improvised from a sofa-cushion of costly plush, around which she
arranged as a dress an expensive tablespread, tied with the rich cord
and tassel of his dressing-gown.
'You must cry a great deal,' she said, 'and pray a great deal, and kiss
the baby a great deal, and I must scold you some for crying so much, and
shake the baby some in the kitchen for making a noise, because, you
know, the baby can walk and talk, and is me, only I can't be both at a
time.'
She was not very clear in her explanations, but Arthur began to have a
dim perception of her meaning, and did what she bade him do, and rather
enjoyed having his face and hands washed with a wet rag, and his hair
brushed and _turled_, as she called it, even though the fingers which
_turled_ it sometimes made suspicious journeyings to her mouth. He cried
when she told him to cry; he coughed when she told him to cough; he
kissed the baby when she told him to kiss it; he took medicine from the
tin pail in the form of the cherry juice left there, and did not have to
make believe that it sickened him, as she said he must, for that was a
reality. But when she told him he must die, but pray first, he demurred,
and asked what he should say. Jerry hesitated a little. She knew that
her prayers were 'Our Father,' and 'Now I lay me,' but it seemed to her
that a person dying should say something else, and at last she replied:
'I can't think what she did say, only a lot about _him_. There was a
_him_ somewhere, and I guess he was naughty, so pray for _him_, and the
baby--that's me--and tell Manny she must take me to Mecky,'
'To whom?' Arthur asked, and she replied:
'To Mecky, where he was, don't you know?'
Arthur did not know, but he prayed for _him_, saying what she bade him
say--a mixture half English, half German.
'There now, you are dead,' she said at last, as she closed his eyes and
folded his hand upon his chest, 'You are dead, and mustn't stir nor
breathe, no matter how awful we cry, Man-nee and I.'
Kneeling down beside him, she began to cry so like that of two persons
that if Arthur had not known to the contrary, he would have sworn there
were two beside him, a woman and a child, the voice of the one shrill
and clear, and young, and frightened, the other older, and harsher, and
stronger, and both blending together in a most astonishing manner.
'With a little practice she would make a wonderful ventriloquist,'
Arthur thought, as he watched her flitting about the room, talking to
unseen people and giving orders with regard to himself.
Once Frank had witnessed a pantomine very similar to this, only then the
play had ended with the death, while now there was the burial, and when
Arthur moved a little and asked if he might get up, she laid her hand
quickly on his mouth, with a peremptory 'hush! you are dead and we must
bury you.'
But here Jerry's memory failed her, and the funeral which followed was
an imitation of the one which had left the Park House three years
before, and which Arthur had watched from his window. Frank was there,
and his wife, and Peterkin, and Jerry imitated the voices of them all,
and when someone bade her kiss her mother she stooped and kissed
Arthur's forehead, and said:
'Good-bye, mamma,' then throwing a thin tidy over his face, she
continued, 'Now, I am going to shut the coffin,' and as she worked at
the corners, as if driving down the screws, Arthur felt as if he were
actually being shut out from life, and light, and the world.
To one of his superstitious tendencies the whole was terribly real, and
when at last she told him he was buried, and the folks had come back,
and he could get up, the sweat was standing upon his face and hands in
great drops, and he felt that he had in very truth been present at the
obsequies of some one, whose death had made an impression so strong upon
Jerry's mind that time had not erased it. There was in his heart no
thought of Gretchen, as there had been in Frank's when he was a
spectator at the play. He had no cause for suspicion, and thought only
of the child whose restlessness and activity were something appalling to
him.
'Now, what shall we play next?' she asked, as he sat white and trembling
in his chair.
'Oh, nothing, nothing,' he groaned, 'I cannot stand any more now.'
'Well, then, you sit still, and I'll clean house; it needs it badly.
Such mud as that boy brings in I never saw, and I'm so lame, too!' Jerry
responded, and Arthur recognized Mrs. Crawford, whose tidiness and
cleanliness were proverbial, and for the next half hour he watched the
little actress as she limped around the room exactly as Mrs. Crawford
limped with her rheumatism, sweeping, dusting, and scolding a little,
both to Harold and Jerry, the latter of whom once retorted:
'I would not be so cross as that if I had forty rheumatisses in my
laigs, would you, Harold?'
But Harold only answered, softly:
'Hush, Jerry I you should not speak so to grandmamma, and she so good to
us both, when we haven't any mother.'
Arthur would have laughed, so perfect was the imitation of voice and
gesture, but at the mention of Harold's mother there came into his mind
a vision of sweet Amy Crawford, who had been his first love, and for
whose son he had really done so little.
'Jerry,' he said, 'I guess you have cleaned house long enough. Wash your
hands and come to me.'
She obeyed him, and looking into his face, said:
'Now, what? can you play cat's cradle or casino?'
'No; I want to talk to you of Harold. You love him very much?'
'Oh, a hundred bushels--him and grandma, too.'
'And he is very kind to you?'
'Yes, I guess he is. He never talks back, and I am awful sometimes, and
once I spit at him, and struck him; but I was so sorry and cried all
night, and offered to give him my best doll 'cause it was the plaything
I loved most, and I went without my piece of pie so he could have two
pieces if he wanted,' Jerry said, her voice trembling as she made this
confession, which gave Arthur a better insight into her real character
than he had had before.
Hasty, impulsive, repentant, generous, and very affectionate, he felt
sure she was, and he continued;
'Does Harold go to school?'
'Yes; and I too--to the district; but I hate it!' Jerry replied.
'Why hate it?' Arthur asked. 'What is the matter with the district
school?'
'Oh, it smells awful there sometimes when it is hot,' Jerry replied with
an upward turn to her nose. 'And the boys are so mean, some of them.
Bill Peterkin goes there and I can't bear him, he plagues me so. Wants
to kiss me. A-a-h, and says I am to be his wife, and he has got warts on
his thumb!'
Jerry's face was sufficiently indicative of the disgust she felt for
Bill Peterkin with his warts, and leaning back in his chair, Arthur
laughed heartily, as he said:
'And you do not like Bill Peterkin? Well, what boys do you like?'
'Harold and Dick St. Claire,' was the prompt response, and Arthur
continued:
'What would you have in place of the district school?'
'A governess,' was Jerry's answer. 'Nina St. Claire has one, and Ann
Eliza Peterkin has one, and Maude Tracy has one.'
Here Jerry stopped suddenly, as if struck with a new idea.
'Why, Maude is your little girl, isn't she? You are her rich uncle, and
she is to have all your money when you die. I wish I was your little
girl.'
She spoke the last very sadly, and something in the expression of her
face brought Gretchen to Arthur's mind, and his voice was choked as he
said to her:
'I'd give half my fortune if you were my little girl.'
Then laying his hand on her bright hair, he questioned her adroitly of
her life at the cottage, finding that it was a very happy one, and that
she had never known want, although Mrs. Crawford was unable to work as
she once had done, and was largely dependent upon the price for Jerry's
board, which Frank paid regularly. Of this, however, Jerry did not
speak. She only said:
'Harold works in the furnace, and in folks' gardens, and does lots of
things for everybody, and once Bill Peterkin twitted him because he goes
to Mrs. Baker's sometimes after stuff for the pig, and Harold cried, and
I got up early the next morning and went after it myself and drew the
cart home. After that grandma wouldn't let Harold go for any more, so I
s'pose the pig will not weigh as much, I'm sorry, for I like sausage,
don't you?'
Arthur hated it, but he did not tell her so, and she went on.
'Harold studies awful hard, and wants to go to college. He is trying to
learn Latin and recites to Dick St. Claire; but grandma says it is
up-hill business. Oh, if I's only rich I'd give it all to Harold, and he
should get learning like Dick. Maybe I can work some time and earn some
money. I wish I could.'
Arthur did not speak for a long time, but sat looking at the child whose
face now wore an old and troubled look. In his mind he was revolving a
plan which, with, his usual precipitancy, he resolved to carry into
effect at once. But he said nothing of it to Jerry, whose attention was
diverted by the entrance of Charles and the preparations for luncheon,
which on the little girl's account, was served with more care than
usual.
Jerry, who had a great liking for everything luxurious, had taken tea
once or twice at Grassy Spring with Nina St. Claire, and had been
greatly impressed with the appointments of the table, prizing them more
even than the dainties for her to eat. But what she had seen there
seemed as nothing compared to this round Swiss table, with its colored
glass and rare china, no two pieces of which were alike.
'Oh, it is just like a dream!' she cried, as she watched Charles'
movement and saw that there were two places laid.
'Am I to sit down with you?' she said in an awe-struck voice, 'and in
that lovely chair? I am glad I wore my best gown. It won't dirty the
chair a bit.'
But she took her pocket handkerchief and covered over the satin cushion
before she dared seat herself in the chair, which had once been brought
out for Gretchen, and in which she now sat down, dropping her head and
shutting her eyes a moment Then, as she heard no sound, she looked up
wonderingly, and asked:
'Ain't you going to say "for Christ's Sake?" grandma does.'
Arthur's face was a study with its mixed expression of surprise,
amusement, and self-reproach. He never prayed except it were in some
ejaculatory sentences wrung from him in his sore need, and the thought
of asking a blessing on his food had never occurred to him. But Jerry
was persistent.
'You must say "for Christ's sake,"' she continued, and, with his weak
brain all in a muddle, Arthur began what he meant to be a brief
thanksgiving, but which stretched itself into a lengthy prayer, fall of
the past and of Gretchen, whom he seemed to be addressing rather than
his Maker.
For a while Jerry listened reverently; then she looked up and moved
uneasily in the chair, and at last when the prayer had continued for at
least five minutes, she burst out impulsively:
'Oh, dear, do say "amen." I am so hungry!'
That broke the spell, and with a start Arthur came to himself, and said:
'Think you, Jerry, praying is a new business for me, and I do believe I
should have gone on forever if you had not stopped me. Now, what will
you have?'
He helped her to whatever she liked best, but could eat scarcely
anything himself. It was sufficient for him to watch Jerry sitting there
in Gretchen's chair and using Gretchen's plate, which every day for so
many years had been laid for her. Gretchen had not come. She would never
come, he feared, but with Jerry he did not feel half as desolate as when
alone, with only his morbid fancies for company. And he must have her
there, at least a portion of the time. His mind was made up on that
point, and when about four o'clock, Jerry said to him:
'I want to go now. Grandma said I was to be home by five,' she replied:
'Yes, I am going with you. I wish to see your grandmother. I am going to
drive you in the phaeton. How would you like that?'
Her dancing eyes told him how she would like it, and Charles was sent to
the stable with an order to have the little pony phaeton brought round
as soon as possible as he was going for a drive.
CHAPTER XIX.
ARTHUR'S PLAN
'Why, the madam is going to drive, too, and I've come to harness;
there'll be a row somewhere,' John said.
'Can't help it,' Charles replied, 'Mr. Arthur wants the phaeton, and
will have it for all of Madam.'
'Yes, I s'p'o' so. Wall, I'll go and tell her,' was John's rejoinder, as
he started for the house, where Mrs. Tracy was just drawing on her long
driving gloves, and admiring her new hat and feather before the glass.
Dolly looked almost as young, and far prettier, than when the came to
the park, eleven years before. A life of luxury suited her. She had
learned to take things easily, and the old woman with the basket might
now come every day to her kitchen door without her knowing it. She aped
Mrs. Atherton of Brier Hill, in everything, and had the satisfaction of
knowing that she was on all occasions quite as stylish-looking and
well-dressed as that aristocratic lady whom she called her intimate
friend. She had also grown very proud and very exclusive in her ideas,
and when poor Mrs. Peterkin, who was growing, too, with _her_ million,
ventured to call at the park, the call was returned with a card which
Doily's coachman left at the door. Since the night of her party, and the
election which followed when Frank was defeated, she had ignored the
Peterkins, and laughed at what she called their vulgar imitation of
people above them, and when she heard that Mary Jane hail hired a
governess for her two children, Bill and Ann Eliza, she scoffed at the
airs assumed by _come-up_ people, and wondered if Mrs. Peterkin had
forgotten that she was one of Grace Atherton's hired girls. Dolly had
certainly forgotten the Langley life, and was to all intents and
purposes the great lady of the park, who held herself aloof from the
common herd, and taught her children to do the same.
She had seen Jerry enter the house that morning with a feeling of
disapprobation, which had not diminished as the day wore on and still
the child staid, and what was worse, Maude was not sent for to join her.
'Not that I would have allowed it, if she had been,' she said to
herself, for she did not wish her daughter intimate with one of whose
antecedents nothing was known, but Arthur might at least have invited
her. He had never noticed her children much, and this she deeply
resented. Maude, who knew of Jerry's presence in the house had cried to
go in and play with her, but Mrs. Tracy had refused, and promised as an
equivalent a drive in the phaeton around the town. And it was for this
drive Dolly was preparing herself, when John came with the message that
she could not have the phaeton, as Mr. Arthur was going to take Jerry
home in it.
Usually Arthur's slightest wish was a law in the household, for that was
Frank's order; but on this occasion Dolly felt herself justified in
rebelling.
'Not have the phaeton! That's smart, I must say,' she exclaimed. 'Can't
that child walk home, I'd like to know? Tell Mr. Tracy Maude has had the
promise of a drive all day, and I am ready, with my things on. Ask him
to take the Victoria; he never drives.'
All this in substance was repeated to Arthur, who answered, quietly:
'Let Mrs. Tracy take the victoria. I prefer the phaeton myself.'
That settled it, and in few moments Jerry was seated at Arthur's side,
and skimming along through the park, and out upon the highway which
skirted the river for miles.
'This is not going home, and grandma will scold,' Jerry said.
'Never mind the grandma--I will make it right with her. I am going to
show you the country,' Arthur replied, as he chirruped to the fleet pony
who seemed to fly along the smooth road.
No one who saw the tall, elegant-looking man, who sat so erect, and
handled the reins so skilfully, would ever have suspected him of
insanity, and more than one stopped to gaze after him and the little
girl whose face, with the golden hair blowing about it, looked out from
the white sun bonnet with so joyous an expression. On the homeward route
they met the victoria, with John upon the box, and Mrs. Tracy and Maude
inside.
'There's Maude! Hallo, Maude--see me! I'm riding!' Jerry called out,
cheerily, while Maude answered back:
'Hallo, Jerry!'
But Mrs. Tracy gave no sign of recognition, and only rebuked her
daughter for her vulgarity in saying 'Hallo,' which was second class and
low.
'Then Nina St. Claire is second class and low, for she says "Hallo,"'
was Maude's reply, to which her mother had no answer.
Meanwhile the phaeton was going swiftly on toward the cottage, which it
reached a few minutes after the furnace whistle blew for six, and
Harold, who had been working there, came up the lane. There were soiled
spots on his hands and on his face, and his clothes showed marks of
toil, all of which Arthur noted, while he was explaining to Mrs.
Crawford that he had taken Jerry for a drive, and kept her beyond the
prescribed hour. Then, turning to Harold, he said:
'And so you work in the furnace?'
'Yes, sir, during vacation, when I can get a job there,' Harold
answered, and Mr. Tracy continued:
'How much do you get a day?'
'Fifty cents in dull times,' was the reply, and Arthur went on:
'Fifty cents from seven in the morning to six at night, and board
yourself. A magnificent sum truly. Pray, how do you manage to spend so
much? You must be getting rich.'
The words were sarcastic, but the tone belied the words, and Harold was
about to speak, when his grandmother interrupted him, and said,
'What he does not spend for us he puts aside. He is trying to save
enough to go to the High School, but it's slow work. I can do but little
myself, and it all falls upon Harold.'
'But I like it, grandma. I like to work for you and Jerry, and I have
almost twenty dollars saved,' Harold said, 'and in a year or two I can
go away to school, and work somewhere for my board. Lots of boys do
that.'
Arthur was hitching his pony to the fence, while a new idea was dawning
in his mind.
'Fifty cents a day,' he said to himself, 'and he has twenty dollars
saved, and thinks himself rich. Why, I've spent more than that on one
bottle of wine, and here is this boy, Amy's son, wanting an education,
and working to support his grandmother like a common laborer. I believe
I _am_ crazy.'
He was in the cottage by this time--in the clean, cool kitchen where the
supper table was laid with its plain fair, most unlike the costly viands
which daily loaded his board.
'Don't wait for me, Harold must be hungry,' he said, adding quickly: 'Or
stay, if you will permit me, I will take a cup of tea with you. The
drive has given me an appetite, and your tea smells very inviting.'
It was a great honor to have Arthur Tracy at her table, and Mrs.
Crawford felt it as such, and was very sorry, too, that she had nothing
better to offer him than bread and butter and radishes, with milk, and a
dish of cold beans, and chopped beets, and a piece of apple pie saved
for Harold from dinner. But she made him welcome, and Jerry, delighted
to return the hospitality she had received, brought him a clean plate
and cup and saucer, and asked if she might get the best sugar-bowl and
the white sugar. Then, remembering the beautiful flowers which had
adorned the table at Tracy Park, she ran out and gathering a bunch of
June pinks, put them in a little glass by his plate.
When all was ready and they had taken their seats at the table, Mrs.
Crawford closed her eyes reverently and asked the accustomed blessing
which in that house preceded every meal. Jerry's amen was a good deal
louder and more emphatic than usual, while she nodded her head to
Arthur, with an expression which he understood to mean, 'You know now
what you ought to say, instead of that long prayer,' and he nodded back
that he did so understand it.
Arthur enjoyed the supper immensely, or pretended that he did. He ate
three slices of bread and butter; he drank three cups of tea; he even
tried the beans and the beets, but declined the radishes, which, he
said, would give him the nightmare.
When supper was over and the table cleared away, he still showed no
signs of going, but asking Mrs. Crawford to take a seat near him, he
plunged at once into the business which had brought him there, and
which, since he had seen Harold in his working-dress and heard what he
was trying to do, had grown to be of a two-fold nature. He was very
lonely, he said, and all the elegance and luxuriousness of his handsome
house failed to give him pleasure or to make him forget the past. He
wanted some one to love who would love him in return, and the little
taste he had had of Jerry's society had made him wish for more, and he
must have her with him a part at least of every day.
'In short,' he said, 'I should like to undertake her education myself
until she is older, when I shall see that she has the proper finishing.
She tells me she hates the district school, with Bill Peterkin and his
warts--'
'Trying to kiss me,' Jerry interrupted, as open-eyed and open-mouthed,
she stood, with her hand on his shoulder, listening to him.
'Yes, trying to kiss you, though I do not blame him much for that,'
Arthur said, with a smile, and then continued: 'She is ambitious enough
to want a governess like Ann Eliza Peterkin and my brother's daughter,
but I am better than a dozen governesses. I can teach her all the
rudiments of an English education, with French and German, and Latin,
too, if she likes; and my plan is, that she come to me every day except
Saturdays and Sundays--come at ten in the morning, get her lessons and
her lunch with me, and return home at four in the afternoon. Would you
like it, Cherry?'
'Oh-h-oh!' was all the answer Jerry could make for a moment, but her
cheeks were scarlet, and tears of joy stood in her eyes, until she
glanced at Harold; then all the brightness faded from her face, for how
could she accept this great good and leave him to drudge and toil alone?
'What is it, Cherry?' Mr. Tracy asked; and, with a half sob, she
replied:
'I can't go without Harold. If I get learning, he must get learning,
too,' and leaving Arthur, the crossed over to the boy, and putting her
arm around him, looked up at him with a look which in after years he
would have given half his life to win.
She was a little girl now and did not care if he did know how much she
loved him, and that for him she would sacrifice everything. But in this
case the sacrifice was not required, for Arthur hastened to say:
'I shall not forget Harold. I have something better in store for him
than reciting his lessons to me. When the High School opens in
September, he is going there, and if he does well he shall go to
Andover in time, and perhaps to Harvard. It will all depend upon
himself, and how he improves his opportunities. What! crying? Don't you
like it?' Arthur asked, as he saw the great tears gathering in Harold's
eyes and rolling down his cheeks.
'Yes, oh, yes; but it don't seem real, and--and--I guess it makes me
kind of sick,' Harold gasped, as, freeing himself from Jerry's
encircling arm, he hurried from the room, to think over this great and
unexpected joy which had come so suddenly to him.
With his naturally refined tastes and instincts the dirty furnace work
had not been pleasant to him, and he had shrunk with inexpressible
loathing from the swill cart and the other menial duties he had been
obliged to perform for the sake of those he loved. How to get an
education was the problem he was earnestly trying to solve, and lo! it
was now solved for him. For a moment the suddenness of the thing
overcame him, and he sat down upon a table in the yard, faint and
bewildered, while Arthur made his plan clear to Mrs. Crawford, saying
that what he meant to do was partly for Jerry's sake and partly for the
sake of the young girl who had been his early love.
'I always intended to take care of you,' he said; 'but things go from my
mind, and I forget the past as completely as if it had never been. But
this will stay by me, for I shall have Cherry as a reminder, and if I am
in danger of forgetting she will jog my memory.'
Fur a moment Mrs. Crawford could not speak, so great was her surprise
and joy that the good she had thought unattainable was to be Harold's at
last. And yet something in her proud, sensitive nature rebelled against
receiving so much from a stranger, even if that stranger were Arthur
Tracy. It seemed like charity, she said, when at last she spoke at all.
But Arthur overruled her with that persuasive way he had of converting
people to his views; and when at last he left the cottage it was with
the understanding that Jerry should commence her lessons with him the
first week in September, and that Harold should enter the High School in
Shannondale when it opened in the autumn.
CHAPTER XX.
THE WORKING OF ARTHUR'S PLAN.
As Arthur was wholly uncommunicative with regard to his affairs, and as
Mrs. Crawford kept her own counsel, and bade Harold and Jerry do the
same, the Tracys knew nothing whatever of the plan until the September
morning when Jerry presented herself at the park house, and was met in
the door-way by Mrs. Frank, who was just going out. Very few could have
resisted the bright little face, so full of childish happiness, or the
clear, assured voice, which said so cheerily:
'Good-morning, Mrs. Tracy. I'm come to school.'
But, prejudiced as she was against the girl, Mrs. Tracy could resist any
thing, and she answered, haughtily;
'Come to school! What do you mean? This is not a school-house, and if
you have any errand here, go round to the other door. Only company come
in here.'
'But I'm company. I'm going to get learning; he told me to come,' Jerry
answered, flushed and eager, and altogether sure of her right to be
there.
Before Mrs. Frank could reply, a voice, distinct and authoritative, and
to which she always yielded, called from the top of the stairway inside:
'Mrs. Tracy, if that is Jerry to whom you are talking, send her up at
once. I am waiting for her.'
Jerry did not mean the nod she gave the lady as she passed her to be
disrespectful, but Mrs. Frank felt it as such, and went to her own room
in a most perturbed state of mind, for which she could find no vent
until her husband came in, when she stated the case to him, and asked if
he knew what it meant.
But Frank was as ignorant as herself, and could not enlighten her until
that night, after he had seen his brother, and heard from him what he
was intending to do.
'God bless you, Arthur. You don't know how happy you have made me,'
Frank said, feeling on the instant that a great burden was lifted from
his mind.
Jerry was to be educated and cared for, and would probably receive all
that the world would naturally concede to her if the truth were known.
He believed, or thought he did, that Gretchen had never been his
brother's wife, though to believe so seemed an insult to the original of
the sweet face which looked at him from the window every time he entered
his brother's room. Jerry was a great trouble to him, and he would not
have liked to confess to any one how constantly she was in his mind, or
how many plans he had devised in order to atone for the wrong he knew he
was doing her. And now his brother had taken her off his hands, and she
was to be cared for and receive the education which would fit her to
earn her own livelihood, and make her future life respectable. No
particular harm was done her after all, and he might now enjoy himself,
and cast his morbid fancies to the winds, he reflected, as he went
whistling to his wife's apartment, and told her what he had heard.
For a moment Dolly was speechless with astonishment, and when at last
she opened her lips, her husband silenced her with that voice and manner
of which she was beginning to be afraid.
It was none of their business, he said, what Arthur did in his own
house, provided they were not molested, and if he chose to turn
schoolmaster, he had a right to do so. For his part, he was glad of it,
as it saved him the expense of Jerry's education, for if Arthur had not
taken it in hand, he should; and Dolly was to keep quiet and let the
child come and go in peace.
After delivering himself of these sentiments, Frank went away, leaving
his wife to wonder, as she had done more than once, if he, too, were not
a little crazy, like his brother. But, she said no mare about Jerry's
coming there, except to suggest that she might at least come in at the
side door instead of the front, especially on muddy days when she was
liable to soil the costly carpets. And Jerry, who cared but little how
she entered the house, if she only got in, came through the kitchen
after the second day, and wiped her feet upon the mat; and once, when
her shoes were worse than usual, took them off, lest they should leave a
track.
It is not our intention to linger over the first few months of Jerry's
school days at Tracy Park, but rather to hasten on to the summer four
years after her introduction to Tracy Park as Arthur's pupil. During all
that time he had never once seemed to grow weary of the task he had
imposed upon himself, but, on the contrary, his interest had daily
deepened in the child who developed so rapidly under his training that
he sometimes looked at her in astonishment, marvelling more and more who
she was and from whom she had inherited her wonderful memory and power
to grasp points which are usually far beyond the comprehension of a
child of ten, or even twelve, and which Maude Tracy could no more have
mastered than her brother, the stupid Jack. His intellect had not grown
with his body, and when at thirteen he was asked the question, 'If there
are five peaches on the table, and Tom eats three of them, how many will
there be left?' he answered, promptly:
'None, 'cause Tom would eat them all.'
In this reply there was a shrewdness which poor Jack never intended, and
the laugh which followed his answer confused and bewildered him. There
was a tutor now at Tracy Park for Jack, but Maude had been transferred
to Arthur's care. This was wholly due to Jerry, who alone could have
induced him to let Maude share her instruction. Arthur did not care for
Maude. She was dull, he said, and would never learn her lessons. But
Jerry coaxed so hard that Arthur consented at last, and when Jerry had
been with him about three years, Maude became his pupil, and that of
Jerry as well, for nearly every day when the lessons were over the two
little girls might have been seen sitting together under the trees in
the park, or in some corner of the house, Maude puzzled, and perplexed,
and worried, and Jerry anxious, decided, and peremptory, as she went
over and over again with what was so clear to her and so hazy to her
friend.
'Oh, dear me, suz, what does ail you?' she said, one day, with a stamp
of her foot, after she had tried in vain to make Maude see through a
simple sum in long division. 'Can't you remember first to divide, second
multiply, third subtract, and fourth bring down?'
'No, I can't. I can't remember anything, and if I could, how do I know
what to divide or what to bring down? I am stupid, and shall never know
anything,' was Maude's sobbing reply, as she covered her face with her
slate.
Maude's tears always moved Jerry, who tried to reassure the weeping girl
with the assurance that perhaps, if she tried very hard, she might some
time know enough to teach a district school. This was the height of
Jerry's ambition, to teach a district school and board around; but
Maude's aspirations were different. She was rich. She was to be a belle
and wear diamonds and satins like her mother; and so it did not matter
so much whether she understood long division or not, though it did hurt
her a little to be so far outstripped by Jerry, who was younger than
herself.
To Arthur, Jerry was a constant delight and surprise, and nothing
astonished or pleased him more than the avidity with which she took up
German. This language was like play to her, and by the time she was ten
years old she spoke, and read, and wrote it almost as well as Arthur
himself.
'It takes me back somewhere, I can't tell where,' she said to him; 'and
I seem to be somebody else than Jerry Crawford, and I hear music and see
people, and a pale face is close to me, and I get all confused trying to
remember things which come and go.'
Only once after her first day at the park had she enacted the pantomime
of the sick woman and the nurse, and then she had done it at Arthur's
request. But it was not quite as thrilling as at first; the _him_ for
whom the dying woman had prayed was omitted, and the whole was mixed
with the Tramp House, and the carpet-bag, and Harold, who was now a
youth of seventeen, and a student at the high school in Shannondale,
where he was making as rapid progress in his studies as Jerry was at the
park.
But Harold's life was not as serene and happy as Jerry's, for it was not
pleasant for him to hear, as he often did, that he was a charity
student, supported by Arthur Tracy. Such remarks were very galling to
the high-spirited boy, and he was constantly revolving all manner of
schemes by which he could earn money and cease to be dependent. All
through the summer vacations, which were long ones, he worked at
whatever he could find to do, sometimes in people's gardens, sometimes
on their lawns, but oftener in the hay-fields, where he earned the
most. Here Jerry was not infrequently his companion. She liked to rake
hay, she said; it came natural to her, and she had no doubt she
inherited the taste from her mother, who had probably worked in the
fields in Germany.
One afternoon, when Jerry knew that Harold was busy in one of Mr.
Tracy's meadows, she started to join him, for he had complained of a
headache at home, and had expressed a fear that he might not be able to
finish the task he had imposed upon himself. The road to the field was
by the Tramp House, which looked so cool and quiet, with its thick
covering of woodbine and ivy over it, that Jerry turned aside for a
moment to look into the room which had so great a fascination for her,
and where she spent so much time. Indeed, she seldom passed near it
without going in for a moment and standing by the old table which had
once held her and her dead mother. Things came back to her there, she
said, and she could almost give a name to the pale-faced woman who
haunted her so often.
As she entered the damp, dark place now, she started, with an
exclamation of surprise, which was echoed by another, as Frank Tracy
sprang up and confronted her. It was not often that he entered the Tramp
House, and he would not have confessed to any one his superstitious
dread of it, or that, when he did visit it, he always had a feeling that
the dead woman found there years ago would start up to accuse him of his
deceit and hypocrisy. Could he have had his way he would have pulled the
building down, but it was not his, and when he suggested it to Arthur,
as he sometimes did, the latter opposed it, saying latterly, since Jerry
had been so much to him:
'No, no, Frank; let it stand. I like it, because but for it Jerry might
have perished with her mother, and I should not have had her with me.'
So the Tramp House stood, and grew damper and mustier each year, as the
moss and ivy gathered on the walls outside, and the dust and cobwebs
gathered on the walls within. These, however, Jerry was careful to brush
away, for she had a play house in one corner, and a little work-bench
and chair, and she often sat there alone and talked to herself, and the
woman dead so long ago, and to others whose faces were dim and shadowy,
but whom she had felt sure she had known. Very frequently she went
through the process of cleaning up, as she called it, and her object in
stopping there now was, in part, to see if it did not need her care
again.
'Oh, Mr. Tracy! are you here! How you scared me? I thought it was a
tramp!' she said, as he came toward her.
'Do you come here often?' he asked, as he offered her his hand.
'Yes, pretty often. I like it, because mother died here, and sometimes I
feel as if she would make it known to me here who she was. I talk to her
and ask her to tell me, but she never has. Oh, don't you wish she
would?'
Frank shuddered involuntarily, for to have Jerry told who she really
was, was the last thing he could desire, but as a criminal is said
always to talk about the crime he has committed and is hiding, so Frank,
when with Jerry, felt impelled to talk with her of the past and what she
could remember of it. Seating himself upon the bench with her at his
side, he said:
'And you really believe the woman found here was your mother?'
'Why, yes. Don't you? Who was my mother, if she wasn't?' and Jerry's
eyes opened wide as he looked at him.
'I don't know, I am sure. Does my brother talk of Gretchen now?' was the
abrupt reply.
'Yes, at times,' Jerry answered: 'and yesterday, after I sang him a
little German song, which he taught me, he had them pretty bad--the bees
in his head, I mean: that is what he calls it when things are mixed; and
he says he is going to write to her, or her friends.'
'Write to her! I thought he had given that up. I thought he--Did he say,
"Write to her friends?"' Frank gasped as he felt himself grow cold and
sick with this threatened danger.
Arthur had seemed so quiet and happy with Jerry, and had said so little
of Gretchen, that Frank had grown quite easy in his mind, and the black
shadow of fear did not trouble him quite so much as formerly. But now it
was over him again, and grew in intensity as he questioned the child.
'Have you ever tried to find out who Gretchen is?' he asked at last.
'No,' she replied, 'but I guess she is his wife.'
'Yes,' Frank said, falteringly, 'his wife; and where do you think she
lived?'
'Oh, I know that. In Wiesbaden. He told me so once, and it seems as if I
had been there, too, when he talked about it, and I hear the music and
see the flowers, and a white-faced woman is with me, not at all like
mother, who, they say, was ugly and dark; black as a nigger, Tom told me
once, when he was mad. Was she black?'
Mr. Tracy made no reply to this, but said, suddenly:
'Jerry, do you like me well enough to do me a favor, a great favor?'
'Why, yes, I guess I do. I like you very much, though not as well as I
do Harold and Mr. Arthur. What do you want?' was Jerry's answer.
After hesitating a moment, Mr. Tracy began:
'There are certain reasons why I ought to know if my brother writes to
Gretchen, or her friends, or any one in Germany, especially Wiesbaden. A
letter of that kind might do me a great deal of harm; if he should write
to any one in Germany, you would, perhaps, he asked to post the letter,
as he never goes to town?'
He said this interrogatively, and Jerry answered him promptly:
'I think he would give it to me.'
'Yes, well; Jerry, can you keep a secret, and never tell any one what I
am saying to you?' was Frank's next remark, to which Jerry responded:
'I think I should tell Harold, and, perhaps, Mr. Arthur.'
'No, no, no, Jerry, never!' and Frank laid his hand half menacingly upon
the little girl's shoulder. 'I have been kind to you, have paid your
board to Mrs. Crawford ever since you have been there--'
He felt how mean it was to say this, and do not at all resent Jerry's
quick reply:
'Yes, but Mrs. Peterkin says you do not pay enough.'
'Perhaps not,' he continued, 'but if Mrs. Crawford is satisfied, it
matters little what Mrs. Peterkin thinks. Jerry, you _must_ do this for
me,' he went on rapidly, as his fears kept growing. 'You must never tell
anyone of our conversation, and if my brother writes that letter soon,
or at any time, you must bring it to me. Will you do it? Great harm
would come if it were sent--harm to me, and harm to Maude, and--'
'To Maude!' Jerry replied. 'I would do anything for Maude. Yes, I will
bring the letter to you if he writes one. You are sure it would be right
for me to do so?'
Frank had touched the right cord when he mentioned his daughter's name,
for during these years of close companionship the two little girls had
learned to love each other devotedly, though naturally Jerry's was the
stronger and less selfish attachment of the two. To her Maude was a
queen who had a right to tyrannize over and command her if she pleased;
and as the tyranny was never very severe, and was usually followed by
some generous act of contrition, she did not mind it at all, and was
always ready to make up and be friends whenever it suited the capricious
little lady.
'Yes, I will do it for Maude,' she said again; but there was a troubled
look on her face, and a feeling in her heart as if, in some way, she was
false to Arthur in thus consenting to his brother's wishes.
But, she reflected, Arthur was crazy, so people said, and she herself
knew better than anyone else of his many fanciful vagaries, which, at
times, took the form of actual insanity. For weeks he would seem
perfectly rational, and then suddenly his mood would change, and he
would talk strange things to himself and the child, who was now so
necessary to him, and who alone had a soothing influence over him. Only
the day before, as Jerry had told Frank, Arthur had been unusually
excited, after listening to a simple air which he had taught to her, and
which, at his request, she sang to him after Maude had gone out and left
them alone.
'I could swear you were Gretchen, singing to me in the twilight, and
across the meadow comes the tinkle of the bells where the cows and goats
are feeding,' he said to her, as he paced up and down the room.'
Then, stopping suddenly, he went up to her, and pushing her soft, wavy
hair from her forehead, looking long and earnestly into her face.
'Cherry,' he said at last, using the pet name he often gave her, 'you
_are_ some like Gretchen as she must have been when of your age. Oh, if
you only were hers and mine! But there was no child; and yet--and yet--'
He seemed to be thinking intently for a moment, and then going to a
drawer in his writing desk, which Jerry had never seen open before, he
took out a worn, yellow letter, and ran his eye rapidly over it until he
found a certain paragraph, which he bade Jerry read.
The paragraph was as follows:
'I have something to tell you when you come, which I am sure will make
you as glad as I am.'
Jerry read it aloud slowly, for the handwriting was cramped and
irregular, and then looked up questioningly to Arthur, who said to her:
'What do you think she meant by the something which would make me glad
as she was?'
'I don't know,' Jerry answered him. 'Who wrote it? Gretchen?'
'Yes, Gretchen; it is her last letter to me, and I never went back to
see what she meant, for the bees were bad in my head and I forgot
everything, even Gretchen herself. Poor little Gretchen! What was the
idea which came to me like a flash of lightning, in regard to this
letter, when I heard you sing? It is gone, and I cannot recall it.'
There was a worried, anxious look on his face as he put the letter away,
and went on talking to himself of Gretchen, saying he was going to write
her again, or her friends, and find out what she meant.
The next day Jerry met Frank in the Tramp House, as we have described,
and gave him the promise to bring him any letter directed to Germany
which Arthur might entrust to her. But the promise weighed heavily upon
her as she walked slowly on towards the field where Harold was at work,
and where she found him resting for a moment under the shadow of a
wide-spreading butternut. He looked tired and pale, and there were great
drops of sweat upon his white forehead, and an expression on his face
which Jerry did not understand.
Harold was not in a very happy frame of mind. Naturally cheerful and
hopeful, it was not often that he gave way to fits of despondency, or
repining at his humble lot, so different from that of the boys of his
own age, with whom he came in daily contact, both at school and in the
town.
Dick St. Claire, his most intimate friend, always treated him as if he
were fully his equal, and often stood between him and the remarks which
boys made thoughtlessly, and which, while they mean so little, wound to
the quick such sensitive natures as Harold's. But not even Dick St.
Claire could keep Tom Tracy in check. With each succeeding year he grew
more and more supercilious and unbearable, pluming himself upon his
position as a Tracy of Tracy Park, and this wealth he was to inherit
from his Uncle Arthur. For the last year he had been at Andover, where
he had formed a new set of acquaintances, one of whom was spending the
vacation with him. This was young Fred Raymond, whose home was at Red
Stone Hall, in Kentucky, and whose parents were in Europe. Between the
two youths there was but little similarity of taste or disposition, for
young Raymond represented all that was noble and true, and though proud
of his State and proud of his name, never assumed the slightest
superiority over those whom the world considered his inferiors. He was
Tom's room-mate, and hence the intimacy between them which had resulted
in Fred's accepting the invitation to Tracy Park. If anything had been
wanting to complete Tom's estimate of his own importance this visit of
the Kentuckian would have done it. All his former friends were cut
except Dick St. Claire, while Harold was as much ignored as if he had
never existed. Tom did not even see him or recognize him with so much as
a look, but passed him by as he would any common day laborer whom he
might chance to meet. All through the summer days, while Harold was
working until every bone in his body ached, Tom and his friend were
enjoying themselves in hunting, fishing, driving, or rowing, or lounging
under the trees in the shady lawns.
That afternoon when Jerry joined him in the hayfield, Tom and the
Kentuckian had passed him in their fanciful hunting-suits with their
dogs and guns, but though Harold was within a few yards of them, Tom
affected not to see him, and kept his head turned the other way, as if
intent upon some object in the distance.
Leaning upon his rake, Harold watched them out of sight, with a choking
sensation in his throat as he wondered if it would always be thus with
him, and if the day would never come when he, too, could know what
leisure meant, with no thought for the morrow's bread.
'I am Tom's superior in everything but money, and yet he treats me like
a dog,' he said, as he seated himself upon the grass, where he sat
fanning himself with his straw hat.
When Jerry appeared in view he brightened at once, for in all the world
there was not anything half so sweet and lovely to him as the little
blue-eyed girl who seated herself beside him, and, nestling close to
him, laid her curly head upon his arm.
'I've come to help you rake the hay,' she said, 'for grandma told me you
had a headache at noon, and couldn't eat your huckleberry pie. I am
awfully sorry, Harold, but I ate it myself, it looked so good, instead
of saving it for your supper. It was nasty and mean in me, and I hope it
will make me sick.'
But Harold told her he did not care for the pie, and would rather that
she would eat it if she liked it. Then he questioned her of the park
house and of Arthur; asking if the bees were often in his head now, or
had she driven them out.
'No, I guess I haven't. They were awful yesterday and to-day,' Jerry
replied. 'He was talking of Gretchen all the time. I wonder who she was.
Sometimes I look at her until it seems to me I have seen her or
something like her, a paler face with sadder eyes. How he must have
loved her, better than you or I could ever love anybody; don't you think
so?'
Harold hesitated a moment, and then replied:
'I don't know, but it seems to me I love you as much as a man could ever
love another.'
'Phoo! Of course you do; but that's boy love; that isn't like when you
are old enough to have a beau!' and Jerry laughed merrily, as she sprang
up, and, taking Harold's rake, began to toss the hay about rapidly,
bidding him sit still and see how fast she could work in his place.
Harold was very tired, and his head was aching badly, so for a time he
sat still, watching the graceful movements of the beautiful child, who,
it seemed to him, was slipping away from him. Constant intercourse with
a polished man like Arthur Tracy had not been without its effect upon
her, and there was about her an air which with strangers would have
placed her at once above the ordinary level of simple country girls.
This Harold had been the first to detect, and though he rejoiced at
Jerry's good fortune, there was always with him a dread lest she should
grow beyond him, and that he should lose the girl he loved so much.
'What if she should think me a clown and a clodhopper, as Tom Tracy
does?' he said to himself, as he watched her raking up the hay faster,
and quite as well as he could have done himself. 'I believe I should
want to die.'
It was impossible that Jerry should have guessed the nature of Harold's
thoughts, but once, as she passed near him, she dropped her rake, and
going up to him, wiped his forehead with her apron, and, kissing him
fondly, said to him:
'Poor, tired boy, is your head awful? You look as if you wanted to
vomit? Do you?'
'No, Jerry,' Harold answered, laughingly. 'I am not as bad as that. I
was only thinking and wishing that I were rich and could sometime give
you and grandma a home as handsome as Tracy Park. How would you like
it?'
'First-rate, if you were there,' Jerry replied; 'but if you were not I
shouldn't like it at all. I never mean to live anywhere without you;
because, you know, I am your little girl, the one you found in the
carpet-bag, and I love you more than all the world, and will love and
stand by you forever and ever, amen!'
She said the last so abruptly, and it sounded so oddly, that Harold
burst into a laugh, and taking up the rake she had dropped, began his
work again, declaring that the headache was gone, and that he was a
great deal better.
'Forever and ever, amen!' The words kept repeating themselves over and
over in Harold's mind as he walked homeward in the gathering twilight
with Jerry hip-pi-ty-hopping at his side, her hand in his, and her
tongue running rapidly, as it usually did when with him.
She would 'love and stand by him forever and ever, amen!' It was a
singular remark for a child, and in after years, when his sky was the
blackest, the words would come back to the man Harold like so many stabs
as he whispered in his anguish:
'She has forgotten her promise to "stand by me forever and ever, amen!"'
CHAPTER XXI.
MRS. TRACY'S DIAMONDS.
Mrs. Tracy was going to have a party--not a general one, like that which
she gave when our readers first knew her, and Harold Hastings stood at
the head of the stairs and bade 'the ladies go this way and the
gentlemen that.' Since Dolly had become so exclusive and a leader of
fashion, she had ignored general parties and limited her invitations to
a select few, which, on this occasion, numbered about sixty or seventy.
But the entertainment was prepared as elaborately as if hundreds had
been expected, and the hostess was radiant in satin and lace, and
diamonds, as she received her guests and did the honors of the occasion.
The September night was soft and warm, and the grounds were lighted up,
while quite a crowd collected near the house to hear the music and watch
the proceedings.
Mrs. Tracy would have liked to have had Jerry in the upper hall, where
Harold had once stood.
'It would help to keep the child in her place,' she thought, 'for she is
getting to feel herself of quite too much consequence, with so much
attention from Arthur.'
But her husband promptly vetoed the proposition, saying that when Jerry
Crawford came to the park house to an entertainment it would be as a
guest, and not as a waiter. So a colored boy stood in the upper hall,
and a colored boy stood in the lower hall, and there were colored
waiters everywhere, and Dolly had never been happier or prouder in her
life: for Governor Markham and his wife, from Iowa, were there, and a
judge's wife from Springfield--all guests of Grace Atherton, and, in
consequence, bidden to the party.
Another remarkable feature of the evening was the presence of Arthur in
the parlors. He had known both Governor Markham and his wife, Ethelyn
Grant, and had been present at their wedding, and it was mostly on their
account that he had consented to join in the festivities. Jerry, it is
true, had done a great deal toward persuading him to go down,
repeating, in her own peculiar way, what she had heard people say with
regard to his seclusion from society.
'You just make a hermit of yourself,' she said, 'cooped up here all the
time. I don't wonder folks say you are crazy. It is enough to make
anybody crazy, to stay in one or two rooms and see nobody but Charles
and me. Just dress yourself in your best clothes and go down and be
somebody, and don't talk of Gretchen all the time! I am tired of it, and
so is everybody. Give her a rest for one evening, and show the people
how nice you can be if you only have a mind to.'
Jerry delivered this speech with her hands on her hips, and with all the
air of a woman of fifty; while Arthur laughed immoderately, and promised
her to do his best not to disgrace her, and to appear as if he were not
crazy.
Jerry's anxiety was somewhat like that of a mother for a child whose
ability she doubts; and, after her supper was over she took her way to
the park house to see that Arthur was dressed properly for the occasion.
'It would be like him to go without his neck-tie and wear his every-day
boots,' she thought.
But she found him as faultlessly gotten up as he well could be in his
old-fashioned evening dress, which sat rather loosely upon him, for he
had grown thinner with each succeeding year.
Jerry thought him splendid, and watched him admiringly as if he left the
room and started for the parlors, with her last injunction ringing in
her ears:
'Not a word out of your head about Gretchen, but try and act as if you
were not crazy.'
'I'll do it, Cherry. Don't you worry,' he said to her, with a little
reassuring nod, as he descended the stairs.
And he kept his promise well. There was no word out of his head about
Gretchen, and no one ignorant of the fact would ever have suspected that
his mind was unsettled as he moved among the guests, talking to one
another with that pleasant, courtly manner so natural to him. A very
close observer, however, might have seen his eyes dilate and even flash
with some sudden emotion when his brother's wife passed him and her
brilliant diamonds, his gift, sparkled in the bright gaslight. The
setting was rather peculiar, but Mrs. Tracy liked it for the
peculiarity, and had never had it changed. She was very proud of her
diamonds, they were so large and clear, and she had the satisfaction of
knowing that there were no finer, if as fine, in town. She seemed to
know, too, just in what light to place herself in order to show them to
the best advantage, and at times the gleams of fire from them were
wonderful, and once Arthur put his hand before his eyes as she passed
him, and muttering something to himself moved quickly to another part of
the room. This was late in the evening, and soon after he excused
himself to those around him, saying it was not often that he dissipated
like this, and as he was growing tired he must say good-night.
The next morning Charles found him looking very pale and worn, with a
bad pain in his head. He had rested badly, he said, and would have his
coffee in bed, after which Charles was to leave him alone and not come
back until he rang for him, as he might possibly fall asleep.
It was very late that morning when the family breakfasted, and as they
lingered around the table, discussing the events of the previous night,
it was after eleven o'clock when at last Mrs. Tracy went up to her room.
As she ascended the stairs to the upper hall, she caught a glimpse of
Harold disappearing through a door at the lower end of the hall,
evidently with the intention of going down the back stairway and making
his exit from the house by the rear door, rather than the front. Mrs.
Tracy knew that he was sometimes sent by his grandmother on some errand
to Arthur, and giving no further thought to the matter went on to her
own room, which her maid had put in order. All the paraphernalia of last
night's toilet were put away, diamonds and all. Contrary to her usual
custom, for she was very careful of her diamonds, and very much afraid
they would be stolen, she had left them in their box on her dressing
bureau. But they were not there now. Sarah, who knew where she kept
them, had put them away, of course, and she gave them no more thought
until three days later, when she received an invitation to a lunch party
at Brier Hill.
'I shall wear my dark blue satin and diamonds,' she said to her maid,
who was dressing her hair, but the diamonds, when looked for, were not
in their usual place.
Sarah had not put them away, nor in fact had she seen them at all, for
they were not upon the bureau when she went to arrange her mistress'
room the morning after the party. The diamonds were gone, nor could any
amount of searching bring them to light. And they looked everywhere, in
every box and drawer and corner, and Mrs. Tracy grew cold and sick and
faint, and finally broke down in a fit of crying, as she explained to
her husband that her beautiful diamonds were stolen. She called it that,
now, and the whole household was roused and questioned as to when and
where each had last seen the missing jewels. But no one had seen them
since they were in the lady's ears, and she knew she had left them upon
her bureau when she went down to breakfast. She was positive of that. No
one had been in the room, or that part of the house, except Tom, Fred
Raymond, Charles and Sarah. Of these the first two were not to be
thought of for a moment, while the last two had been in the family for
years, and were above suspicion. Clearly, then, it was some one from
outside, who had watched his or her portunity and come in.
Had any one been seen about the house at that hour? Yes, Charles
remembered having met Harold Hastings coming out of the rear door;
'but,' he added, 'I would sooner suspect myself than him.'
And this was the verdict of all except Mrs. Tracy, who now recalled the
fact that she, too, had seen Harold 'sneaking through the door as if he
did not wish to be seen.'
That was the way she expressed herself, and her manner had in it more
meaning even than her words.
'What was Harold doing in the house? What was his errand? Does any one
know?' she asked, but no one volunteered any information until Charles
suggested that he probably came on some errand to Mr. Arthur; he would
inquire, he said, and he went at once to his master's room.
Arthur was sitting by his writing-desk, busy with a letter, and did not
turn, his head when Charles asked if he remembered whether Harold
Hastings had been to his room the morning after the party.
'No, I have not seen him for more than a week,' was the reply.
'But he must have been here that morning,' Charles continued. 'Try and
think.'
'I tell you no one was here. I am not quite demented yet. Now go. Don't
you see you are interrupting me?' was Arthur's rather savage response,
and without having gained any satisfactory information Charles returned
to the group anxiously awaiting him:
'_Well_?' was Mrs. Tracy's sharp interrogatory, to which Charles
responded:
'He does not remember what happened that morning; but that is not
strange. He was very tired and unusually excited after the party, and
when he is that way he does not remember anything. Harold might have
been there a dozen times and he would forget it.'
'Bring the boy, then. He will know what he was doing here,' was Mrs.
Tracy's next peremptory remark, and her husband said to her,
reproachfully:
'Surely you do not intend to charge him with the theft?'
'I charge no one with the theft until it is proven on him; but I must
see the boy and know what he was doing here. I never liked this free
running in and out of those people in the lane. I always knew something
would come of it,' Mrs. Tracy said, and Charles was despatched for
Harold.
He found him mowing the lawn for a gentleman whose premises joined Tracy
Park, and without any explanation told him that he was wanted
immediately at the park house.
'But it is noon,' Harold said, glancing up at the sun. 'And there is
Jerry coming to call me to dinner.'
'No; better come at once. Jerry can go with you, if she likes,' Charles
said, feeling intuitively that in the little girl Harold would find a
champion.
Harold left his lawn mower, and explaining to Jerry, who had come up to
him, that he had been summoned to the park house, whither she could
accompany him if she chose, he started with her and Charles, whom he
questioned as to what was wanted with him.
'Were you in the park house the morning after the party? That would be
Wednesday,' Charles asked.
'Yes, I went to see Mr. Arthur Tracy, but could get no answer to my
knock,' Harold promptly replied, while his face flushed scarlet, and he
seemed annoyed at something. He could not explain to Charles his motive
in going to see Arthur, as, now that the first burst of indignation was
over, he felt half ashamed of it himself. On the afternoon of the day of
the party he had been at Grassy Spring, helping Mrs. St. Claire with her
flowers, and after his work was done he had gone with Dick into the
billiard-room, where they found Tom Tracy and his friend, young Raymond.
They had come over for a game, and the four boys were soon busily
engaged in the contest. Harold, who had often played with Dick and was
something of an expert, proved himself the most skilful of them all,
greatly to the chagrin of Tom, who had not recognized him even by a nod.
Dick, on the contrary, had introduced him to Fred Raymond with as much
ceremony as if he had been the Governor's son, instead of the boy who
sometimes worked in his mother's flower garden. And the Kentuckian had
taken him by the hand and greeted him cordially, with a familiar:
'How d'ye do, Hastings? Glad to make your acquaintance'
There was nothing snobbish about Fred Raymond, whose every instinct was
gentlemanly and kind, and Harold felt at ease with him at once, and all
through the game appeared at his best, and quite as well bred as either
of his companions.
When the play was over Dick excused himself a moment, as he wished to
speak with his father, who was about driving to town. As he stayed away
longer than he had intended doing, Tom grew restless and angry, too,
that Fred should treat Harold Hastings as an equal, for the two had at
once entered into conversation, comparing notes with regard to their
standing in school and discussing the merits of Cicero and Virgil, the
latter of which Harold had just commenced.
'We can't wait here all day for Dick,' Tom said. 'Let us go out and look
at the pictures.'
So they went down the stairs to a long hall, in which many pictures were
hanging--some family portraits and others, copies of the old masters
which Mr. St. Claire had brought from abroad. Near one of the portraits
Fred lingered a long time, commenting upon its beauty, and the
resemblance he saw in it to little Nina St. Claire, the daughter of the
house, and whose aunt the original had been. The portrait was not far
from the stairway which led to the billiard-room, and Harold, who had
remained behind, and was listlessly knocking the balls, could not help
hearing all they said:
'By the way, who is that Hastings? I don't think I have seen him before;
he is a right clever chap,' Fred Raymond said.
Tom replied, in that sneering, contemptuous tone which Harold knew so
well, and which always made his blood boil and his fingers tingle with a
desire to knock the speaker down:
'Oh, that's Hal Hastings, a poor boy, who does chores for us and the St.
Claires. His grandmother used to work at the park house, and so uncle
Arthur pays for his schooling, and Hal allows it, which I think right
small in him. I wouldn't be a charity student, anyway, if I never knew
anything. Besides that, what's the use of education to chaps like him.
Better stay as he was born. I don't believe in educating the masses, do
you?'
Of himself Tom could never have thought of all this, but he had heard it
from his mother, who frequently used the expression 'not to elevate the
masses,' forgetting that she was once herself a part of the mass which
she would now keep down.
Just what Fred said in reply Harold did not hear. There was a ringing in
his ears, and he felt as if every drop of blood in his body was rushing
to his head as he sat down, dizzy and bewildered, and smarting cruelly
under the wound he had received this time. He had more than once been
taunted with his poverty and dependence upon Mr. Tracy, but the taunts
had never hurt him so before, and he could have cried out in his pain as
he thought of Tom's words, and knew that in himself there was the making
of a far nobler manhood than Tom Tracy would ever know.
Was poverty, which one could not help, so terrible a disgrace, an
insuperable barrier to elevation, and was it mean and small in him to
accept his education from a man on whom he had no claim? Possibly; and
if so, the state of things should not continue. He would go to Arthur
Tracy, thank him for all he had done, and tell him he could receive no
more from him; that if he had an education, he must get it himself by
the work of his own hands, and thus be beholden to no one.
Full of this resolution, he went down the stairs and out into the open
air, which cooled his hot head a little, though it was still throbbing
terribly as he went through the leafy woods toward home.
In the lane he saw Jerry coming toward him, with her sun-bonnet hanging
down her back and her soft, curly hair blowing around her forehead. The
moment she saw him she knew something was the matter, and, hastening her
steps to run, asked him what had happened, and why he looked so white
and mad.
Harold was sure of sympathy from Jerry, and he told her his story, which
roused her to a high pitch of indignation.
'The miserable, nasty, sneaking Tom!' she said, stopping short and
emphasizing each adjective with a stamp of her foot as if she were
trampling upon the offending Tom. 'I wish I had heard him. I'd have
scratched his eyes out! talking of you as if you were dirt! I hate him,
and I told him so the other day, and spit at him when he tried to kiss
me.'
'Kiss you! Tom Tracy kiss you!' Harold exclaimed, forgetting his own
grief in this insult to Jerry; for it seemed to him little less than
profanity for lips like Tom Tracy's to touch his little Jerry.
'No, he didn't, but he tried, right before that boy from Kentucky; but I
wriggled away from him, and bit him, too, and he called me a cat, and
said he guessed I wouldn't mind if _you_ or Dick St. Claire tried to
kiss me, and I shouldn't; but I'll fight _him_ and Bill Peterkin every
time. I wonder why all the boys want to kiss me so much!'
'I expect it is because you have just the sweetest mouth in the world,'
Harold said, stooping down and kissing the lips which seemed made for
that use alone.
This little episode had helped somewhat to quiet Harold's state of mind,
but did not change his resolve to speak to Mr. Tracy, and tell him that
he could not receive any more favors from his hands. He would, however,
wait until to-morrow, as Jerry bade him to.
'You will worry him so that he will be crazier than a loon at the
party,' she said, and so Harold waited, but started for the park the
next morning as soon as he thought Mr. Tracy would see him.
He had rung at the door of the rear hall, but as no one heard him he
ventured in, as he had sometimes done before, when sent for Jerry if it
rained, and ascending the stairs to the upper hall, knocked two or three
times at Arthur's door, first gently, and then louder as there came no
response.
'He cannot be there, and I must come again,' he thought as he retraced
his steps, reaching the door at the lower end of the hall just as Mrs.
Tracy came up the broad staircase on her way to her room.
As that day wore on, and the next, and the next, Harold began to care
less for Tom's insult, and to think that possibly he had been hasty in
his determination to decline Arthur's assistance, especially as he meant
to pay back every dollar when he was a man. He would at all events wait
a little, he thought, and so had made no further effort to see Mr.
Tracy, when Charles found him, and told he was wanted at the park house.
CHAPTER XXII.
SEARCHING FOR THE DIAMONDS.
They went directly to Mrs. Tracy's room, where they found that lady in a
much higher fever of excitement than when she first discovered her loss.
All the household had assembled in the hall and in her room, except
Arthur, who sat in his library, occasionally stopping to listen to the
sound of the many voices, and to wonder why there was much noise.
Tom was there with his friend, Fred Raymond, anxiously awaiting the
arrival of Harold, whose face wore a look of wonder and perplexity which
deepened into utter amazement as Mrs. Tracy angrily demanded of him what
his business was in the hall on Wednesday morning when she saw him
sneaking through the door.
'Where had you been, and did you see my diamonds? Somebody has stolen
them,' she said, while Harold gazed at her in utter astonishment.
'Somebody stolen your diamonds!' he repeated, without the shadow of an
idea that she could in any way connect him with a theft; nor would the
idea have come to him at all, if Tom had not said to him with a sneer:
'Better own up, Hal, and restore the property. It is your easiest way
out of it.'
Then he comprehended, and had Tom knocked him senseless the effect could
not have been greater. With lips as white as ashes and fists tightly
clenched, he stood, shaking like a leaf and staring helplessly, first at
one and then at another, unable to speak until his eyes fell on Jerry,
whose face was a study. She had thrown her head forward and on one side,
and was looking intently at Tom Tracy, while her blue eyes flashed fire,
and her whole attitude was like that of a tiger ready to pounce upon its
prey. And when Harold said faintly, 'Ask Jerry; she knows,' she did
pounce upon Tom, not bodily, but with her tongue, pouring out her words
so rapidly and mingling with them so much German that it was almost
impossible to understand all she said.
'You miserable, good-for-nothing, nasty fellow,' she began. 'Do you dare
accuse Harold of stealing! Stealing! You, who are not fit to tie his
shoes! And do you want to know why he was here that morning? I can tell
you; but no, I won't tell _you_! I won't speak to you! I'll never speak
to you again; and if you try to kiss me as you did the other day,
I'll--I'll scratch out every single one of your eyes! _You_ twit Harold
for being poor, and call him a charity! What are you but a charity
yourself, I'd like to know! Is this your house? No, sir! It is Mr.
Arthur's! Everything is Mr. Arthur's, and if you don't quit being so
mean to Harold I'll tell him every single nasty thing I know about you!
Then see what he will do!'
As Jerry warmed with her subject, every look, every gesture, and every
tone of her voice was like Arthur's, and Frank watched with a
fascination which made him forget everything else, until she turned
suddenly to him, and in her own peculiar style and language told him why
Harold had come to the park house that morning when the diamonds were
missing.
'I advised him to come,' she said, with all the air of a grown woman,
'and I said I'd stand by him, and I will, forever and ever, amen!'
The words dropped from her lips the more maturely, perhaps, because she
had used them once before with reference to the humiliated boy, to whose
pale, set face there came a smile as he heard them again, and stretching
out his hand he laid it on Jerry's curly head with a caressing motion
which told plainer than words could have done of his affection for and
trust in her.
What more Jerry might have said was prevented by the appearance of a new
actor upon the scene in the person of Arthur himself. He had borne the
noise and confusion as long as he could, and then had rung for Charles
to enquire what it meant. But Charles was too much absorbed with other
matters to heed the bell, though it rang three times sharply and loudly.
At last, as no one came, and the bustle outside grew louder, and Jerry's
voice was distinctly heard, excited and angry, Arthur started to see for
himself what had happened.
'Oh, Mr. Arthur,' Jerry cried, as she caught sight of him coming down
the hall, 'I was just going after you, to come and turn Tom out of
doors, and everybody else who says that Harold took Mrs. Tracy's
diamonds. She has lost them, and Tom--'
But here she was interrupted by Tom himself, who, always afraid of his
uncle, and now more afraid than ever because of the fiery gleam in his
eyes, stammered out that he had not accused Harold, nor any one; that he
only knew the diamonds were gone and could not have gone without help.
'Do you mean those stones your mother flashed in my eyes that night?
Serves her right if she has lost them,' Arthur said, without manifesting
the slightest interest or concern in the matter.
But when Jerry began her story, which she told rapidly in German, he
became excited at once, and his manner was that of a maniac, as he
turned fiercely upon Tom, denouncing him as a coward and a liar, and
threatening to turn him out of the house if he dared harbor such a
suspicion against Harold Hastings.
'I'll turn you all into the street,' he continued, 'if you are not
careful, and bring Harold and Jerry here to live; then see if I can have
peace. Diamonds, indeed! what has a poor man's wife to do with
diamonds? Gretchen's diamonds, too! If they are lost, search the house,
but never accuse Harold again.'
At this paint Arthur wandered off into German, which no one could
understand except Jerry, who stood, holding fast to his arm, her face
flushed and triumphant at Harold's victory and Tom's defeat; but as the
tirade in German went on, she started suddenly forward, and with clasped
hands and staring eyes stood confronting Arthur until he had ceased
speaking, and with a wave of his hand signified that he was through and
his audience dismissed. Jerry, however, did not move, but stood
regarding him with a frightened, questioning expression in her face,
which was lost upon the spectators, who were too much interested in the
all-absorbing topic to notice anyone particularly.
Tom was the first to go away, and his example was followed by all the
servants, except Charles, who succeeded in getting his master back to
his room and quieting him somewhat, though he kept talking to himself of
diamonds, and Paris, and Gretchen, who, he said, should not he wronged.
'I am sorry, Harold, that this thing has happened. I have no idea that
you know anything of the matter. I would as soon suspect my own son,'
Frank said to Harold, as he was leaving the house.
With this grain of comfort, the boy went slowly home, humiliated and cut
to the heart with the indignity put upon him; while Jerry walked
silently at his side, never speaking a word until they were nearly home,
when she said, suddenly:
'I know where the diamonds are, but I shan't tell now while there is
such a fuss;' but Harold was too much absorbed in his own thoughts to
pay much attention to the remark, although it recurred to him years
after, when the diamonds came up to confront him again.
It did not take long for the whole town to know of Mrs. Tracy's loss.
The papers were full of it. The neighbors talked of it constantly, and
two detectives were employed to work the matter up and discover the
thief, if possible. A thorough search was also made at the park house.
Every servant was examined and cross-examined, and all their trunks and
boxes searched; every nook and corner and room was gone through in the
most systematic order, even to Arthur's apartments. This last was
merely done as a matter of form, and to let the indignant servant see
that no partiality was shown, the polite officers explained to Arthur,
who at first refused to let them in, but who finally opened the door
himself, and bade them go where they liked.
Half hidden among the cushions of the sofa from which Arthur had arisen
when he let the officers in and to which he returned again, was Jerry,
her face pale to her lips and her eyes like the eyes of some haunted
animal, when she saw the policemen cross the threshold.
After her return home the previous day she had been unusually taciturn
and had taken no part in the conversation relative to the missing
diamonds, but just before going to bed she said to Harold:
'What will they do with the one who took the diamonds, if they find
him?'
'Send him to state prison,' Harold answered.
'And what do they do to them in state prison?' Jerry continued.
'Cut their hair off; make them eat bread and water and mush, and sleep
on a board, and work awful hard,' was Harold's reply, given at random
and without the least suspicion why the question had been asked.
Jerry said no more, but the next morning she started for the park house,
which she knew was to be searched, and going to Mr. Arthur's room looked
him wistfully in the face as she asked in a whisper:
'Are they found?'
'Found! What found?' he said, as if all recollection of the missing
jewels had passed entirely from his mind.
'The diamonds; Mrs. Tracy's diamonds; the ones you gave her,' was
Jerry's answer.
For a moment, Arthur looked perplexed and bewildered and confused, and
seemed trying to recall something which would not come at his bidding.
'I don't know anything about it,' he said at last. 'I don't seem to
think of anything, my head is so thick with all the noise there was here
yesterday and the tumult this morning. Search-warrants, Charles says,
and two strange men driving up so early. Who are they, Jerry?'
'Police, come to search the house; search everybody and everything.
Ain't you afraid?' Jerry said.
'Afraid? No: why should I be afraid? Why, child, how white you are, and
what makes you tremble so? You didn't take the diamonds,' was Arthur's
response, as he drew the little girl close to him and looked into her
pallid face.
'Mr. Arthur,' Jerry began, very low, as if afraid of being heard, 'if I
should give Maude something for her very own, and she should accept and
keep it a good while, and then some day I should take it from her, when
she did not know it, and hide it, and not give it up, would that be
stealing?'
'Certainly. Why do you ask?'
Jerry did not say why she asked, but put the same question to him she
had put to Harold:
'If they find the one who took the diamonds will they send him to state
prison?'
'Undoubtedly. They ought to.'
'And cut off his hair?'
She was threading Arthur's luxuriant locks caressingly, and almost
pityingly, with her fingers as she asked the last question, to which he
replied, shortly:
'Yes.'
'And make him eat bread and water and mush?'
'Yes; I believe so.'
'And sleep on a board?'
'Yes, or something as bad.'
'And make him work awful hard until his hands are blistered?'
Now she had in hers Arthur's hands, soft and white as a woman's, and
seemed to be calculating how much hard work it would take to blister
hands like these.
'Yes, work till his hands drop off,' Arthur said.
With a shudder, she continued:
'I could not bear it: could you?'
'Bear it? No; I should die in a week. Why, what does ail you? You are
shaking like a leaf. What are you afraid of?'
'I don't know; only state prison seems so terrible, and they are looking
everywhere. What if they should come in here?'
'Come in here? Impossible, unless they break the door down,' Arthur
replied; and then Jerry said to him:
'If they do, suppose you lie down and let me cover you with the afghan
and cushions?'
'But I don't want to lie down and be smothered with cushions,' Arthur
returned, puzzled, and wondering at the excitement of the child, who
nestled close to his side and held fast to his hand, as if she were
guarding him, or expected him to guard her, while the examination went
on outside, and the frightened and angry servants submitted to having
their boxes and trunks examined.
At last footsteps were heard on the stairs and the sound of strange
voices, mingled with that of Frank, who was protesting against his
brother's rooms being entered.
'You will lose every servant you have if we do not serve all alike,' was
the answer.
Then Frank knocked at his brother's door and asked admittance.
'We must do it to pacify the servants,' he said, as Arthur refused,
bidding him go about him business.
After a little further expostulation Arthur arose, and, unlocking the
door, bade them enter and look as long as they pleased and where they
pleased.
It was a mere matter of form, for not a drawer or box was disturbed; but
Jerry's breath came in gasps, and her eyes were like saucers, as she
watched the men moving from place to place, and then looked timidly at
Arthur to see how he was taking it. He took it very coolly, and when it
was over and the men were about to leave, he bade them come again as
often as they liked; they would always find him there ready to receive
them, but the diamonds--_nix_.
This last he said in a low tone as he turned to Jerry, who, the moment
they were alone and he had seated himself beside her, put her head on
his arm and burst into a hysterical fit of crying.
'Why, Cherry, what is it? Why are you crying so?' he asked, in much
concern.
'Oh, I don't know,' the sobbed; 'only I was so scared all the time they
were in the room. What if they had found them! What if they should think
that--that--_I_ took them, and should send me to prison, and cut off my
hair: and make me eat bread and water and mush, which I hate!'
Arthur looked at her a moment, and then with a view to comfort her,
said, laughingly:
'They would not send you to prison, for I would go in your stead.'
'Would you? Could you? I mean could somebody go for another somebody, if
they wanted to ever go much?' Jerry asked, eagerly, as she lifted her
tear-stained face to Arthur's.
Without clearly understanding her meaning, and with only a wish to quiet
her, Arthur answered, at random:
'Certainly. Have you never heard of people who gave life for another's?
So, why not be a substitute, and go to prison, if necessary?'
'Yes,' Jerry answered, with a long-drawn breath, and the cloud lifted a
little from her face.
After a moment, however, she asked, abruptly:
'Suppose the one who took the diamonds will not give them up, and
somebody else knows where they are, ought that somebody else tell?'
'Certainly, or be an accessory to the crime,' was Arthur's reply.
Jerry did not at all know what an accessory was, but it had an awful
sound to her, and she asked:
'What do they do to an accessory? Punish her--him, I mean--just the
same?'
'Yes, of course,' Arthur said, scarcely heeding what she was asking him,
and never dreaming of the wild fancy which had taken possession of her.
That one could go to prison in another's stead, and that an accessory
would be punished equally with the criminal, were the two ideas distinct
in her mind when she at last arose to go, saying to Arthur, as she stood
in the door:
'You are sure you are not afraid to have them come here again, if they
take it into their heads to do so?'
'Not in the least; they can search my rooms every day and welcome, if
they like,' was Arthur's reply.
'Well, that beats me!' Jerry said aloud to herself, with a nod for every
word, as she went down the stairs and started for home, taking the Tramp
House on her way. 'I guess I'll go in there and think about it,' she
said, and entering the deserted building, she sat down upon the bench
and began to wonder if she _could do it_, if worst came to worst, as it
might.
'Yes, I could for him, and I'll never tell; I'll be that thing he said,
and a substitute, too, if I can,' she thought, 'though I guess it would
kill me. Oh, I hope I shan't have to do it! I mean to say a prayer about
it, anyway.'
And kneeling down in the damp, dark room, Jerry prayed, first, that it
might never be found out, and second, that if it were she might not be
called to account as an accessory, but might have the courage to be the
substitute, and stand by him forever and ever, amen!'
'I may as well begin to practice, and see if I can bear it,' she
thought, as she walked slowly home, where she astonished Mrs. Crawford
by asking her to make some mush for dinner.
'Mush! Why, child, I thought you hated it' Mrs. Crawford exclaimed.
'I did hate it,' Jerry replied, 'but I want it now real bad. Make it for
me, please. Harold likes it, don't you, Hally?'
Harold did like it very much; and so the mush was made, and Jerry forced
herself to swallow it in great gulps, and made up her mind that she
could not stand that any way. She preferred bread and water. So, for
supper she took bread and water and nothing else, and went up to bed us
unhappy and nervous as a healthy, growing child well could be.
She had tried the mush, and the bread and water, and now she meant to
try the shorn head, which was the hardest of all, for she had a pride in
her hair, which so many had told her was beautiful.
Standing before her little glass, with the lamp beside her, she looked
at it admiringly for a while, turning her head from side to side to see
the bright ringlets glisten; then, with an unsteady hand the severed,
one by one, the shining tresses, on which her tears fell like rain as
she gathered them in a paper and put them away, wondering if the prison
shears would cut closer or shorter, and wondering if it would make any
difference that she was only a substitute, or at most an accessory.
It was a strange idea which had taken possession of her, and a senseless
one, but it was terribly real to her, and that little shorn head
represented as noble and complete a sacrifice as was ever made by older
and wiser people. There was no hard board to sleep upon, and so she took
the floor, with a pillow under her head and a blanket over her,
wondering the while if this were not a more luxurious couch than
convicts, who had stolen diamonds, were accustomed to have.
'Why, Jerry, what have you done?' and 'Oh, Jerry, how you look!' were
the ejaculatory remarks which greeted her next morning, when she went
down to her breakfast of bread and water, for she would take nothing
else.
'Why did you do it?' Mrs. Crawford asked a little angry and a good deal
astonished; but Jerry only answered at first with her tears, as Harold
jeered at her forlorn appearance and called her a picked chicken.
'Maude's hair is short, and all the girls', and mine was always in my
eyes and snarled awfully,' she said at last, and this was all the excuse
she would give for what she had done; while for her persisting in a
bread and water diet she would give no reason for three or four days.
Then she said to Harold, suddenly:
'You told me that the one who stole the diamonds would have to eat bread
and water and have his head shaved, and I am trying to see how it would
seem--am playing that I am the man, and in prison; but I find it very
hard, I don't believe I can stand it. Oh, Harold, do you think they will
ever find the diamonds? I am so tired and hungry, and the blackberry pie
we had for dinner did look so good!'
'Jerry,' Harold exclaimed, in amazement, and but dimly comprehending her
real meaning, 'you are crazy, to be playing you are a convict! And is
that what you have been doing?'
'Ye-es,' Jerry sobbed; 'but I can't bear it, and I hope they will not
find him,'
'Him! Who?' Harold asked.
'The one who took the diamonds,' she replied.
'And I hope they will. He ought to be found and punished. Think what
harm he has done to me by letting them accuse me,' Harold answered,
indignantly.
'No, no, Hally,' Jerry replied. 'No one accused you but Tom, and he is
meaner than dirt; and if they did think you took them, and if you had to
go, I should not let you; I should go in your place. I could do it for
you and Mr. Arthur, but for no one else. Oh, I hope they will never find
them.'
She put her hands to her head, and looked so white and faint that
Harold was alarmed, and took her at once to his mother, who, scarcely
less frightened than himself, made her lie down, and brought her a piece
of toast and a cup of milk, which revived her a little. But the strain
upon her nerves for the last few days, and the fasting on bread and
water proved too much for the child, who for a week or more lay up in
her little room, burning with fever, and talking strange things at
intervals, of diamonds, and state prison, and accessories, and
substitutes, the last of which she said she was, assuring some one to
whom she seemed to be talking that she would never tell, never!
Every day Arthur came and sat for an hour by her bed, and held her hot
hands in his, and listened to her talk, and marvelled at her shorn head,
which he did not like. Whatever he said to her was spoken in German, and
as she answered in the same tongue, no one understood what they said to
each other, though Harold, who understood a few German words, knew that
she was talking of the diamonds, and the prison, and the substitute.
'I shall _never_ tell!' she said to Arthur, 'and I shall go! I can bear
it better than you. It is not that which makes my headache so. It's--oh,
Mr. Arthur, I thought you so good, and I am so sorry about the
diamonds--Mrs. Tracy was so proud of them. Can't you contrive to get
them back to her? I could, if you would let me. I am thinking all the
time how to do it, and never let her know, and the back of my head aches
so when I think.'
Arthur could not guess what she really meant, except that the lost
diamonds troubled her, and that she wished Mrs. Tracy to have them.
Occasionally his brows would knit together, and he seemed trying to
recall something which perplexed him, and which her words had evidently
suggested to his mind.
'Cherry,' he said to her one day when he came as usual, and her first
eager question was, 'Have they found them?' 'Jerry, try and understand
me. Do you know where the diamonds are?'
Instantly into Jerry's eyes there came a scared look, but she answered,
unhesitatingly:
'Yes, don't you?'
'No,' was the prompt reply; 'though it seems to me I did know, but there
has been so much talk about them, and you are so sick, that everything
has gone from my head, and the bees are stinging me frightfully. Where
are the diamonds?'
But by this time Jerry was in the prison, sleeping on a board and eating
bread and mush, and Arthur failed to get any satisfaction from her.
Indeed, they were two crazy ones talking together, with little or no
meaning in what they said. Only this Arthur gathered--that Jerry would
be happy if 'Mrs. Tracy had her diamonds again and did not know how they
came to her. When this dawned upon him he laughed aloud, and kissing her
hot cheek, said to her:
'I see; I know, and I'll do it. Wait till I come again.
It was ten o'clock in the morning when he left Mrs. Crawford's house;
there was a train which passed the station at half-past ten, bound for
New York, and without returning to the park, Arthur took the train,
sending word to his brother not to expect him home until the next day,
and not to be alarmed on his account, as he was going to New York and
would take care of himself.
Why he had gone Frank could not guess, and he waited in much anxiety for
his return. It was evening when he came home, seeming perfectly composed
and well, but giving no reason for his sudden journey to the city. His
first inquiry was for Jerry, and his second, if anything had been heard
of the diamonds. On being answered in the negative, he remarked:
'Those rascally detectives are bunglers, and oftentimes would rather let
the culprit escape than catch him. I doubt if you ever see the jewels
again. But no matter; it will all come right. Tell your wife not to
fret,'
The next morning when Mrs. Tracy went to her room after breakfast she
was astonished to find upon her dressing bureau a velvet box with
Tiffany's name upon it, and inside an exquisite set of diamonds; not as
fine as those she had lost, or quite as large, but white, and clear, and
sparkling as she took them in her hand with a cry of delight, and ran
with them to her husband. Both knew from whence they came, and both went
at once to Arthur, who, to his sister-in-law's profuse expressions of
gratitude, replied indifferently:
'Don't bother me with thanks; it worries me. I bought them to please
the little girl, who talks about them all the time. She will yet well
now, I am going to tell her.'
He found Jerry better, and perfectly sane. She was very glad to see him,
though she seemed somewhat constrained, and shrank from him a little,
when he sat down beside her. Her first rational question had been for
him, and her second for the diamonds; were they found, and if not, were
they still looking for them.
'No, they have not found them,' Harold had said, 'and the officers are
still hunting for the thief, while the papers are full of the reward
offered to any one who will return them. Five hundred dollars now, for
Mr. Arthur has added two hundred to the first sum. He has quite waked up
to the matter. You know he seemed very indifferent at first.'
'Mr. Arthur offered two hundred more!' Jerry exclaimed. 'Well, that
beats me!'
This was Mrs. Crawford's favorite expression, which Jerry had caught, as
she did most of the peculiarities in speech and manner of those about
her.
'Two hundred dollars! He must be crazy.'
'Of course he is. He don't know what he does or says half the time, and
especially since you have been sick,' Harold said.
'Sick!' Jerry repeated, quickly. 'Have I been sick, and is that why I am
in bed so late? I thought you had come in to wake me up, and I was glad,
for I have had horrid dreams.'
Harold told her she had been in bed since the day of the investigation,
when she came from the park house with a dreadful headache.
'And you've been crazy, too, as a loon,' he continued, 'and talked the
queerest things about state prison, and hard boards, and bread and
water, and accessories, and substitutes, and so on. Seemed as if you
thought you were a felon, and a body would have supposed that you had
either taken the diamonds yourself or else knew who did, the way you
went on by spells.'
'Oh, Harold!' Jerry gasped, while her face grew spotted and the
perspiration came out upon her forehead. 'Did I speak anybody's name?'
'No,' Harold replied. 'I could not make you do that. I asked you ever
so many times if you knew who took the diamonds, and you said "Yes," but
when I asked who it was, you always answered, "Don't you wish you knew?"
and that was all I could get out of you. Mr. Arthur was here every day,
and sometimes twice a day, but you spoke German to him. Still I knew it
was about the diamonds, for I understood that word. He was not here
yesterday at all. There, hark! I do believe he is coming now. Don't you
know who is said to be near when you are talking about him?'
And, with a laugh, Harold left the room just as Arthur entered it.
'Well, Cherry,' he said to her, as he drew a chair to her bedside, 'Mrs.
Crawford tells me the bees are out of your head this morning, and I am
glad. I have some good news for you. Mrs. Tracy has some diamonds, and
is the happiest woman in town.'
Jerry had not noticed his exact words, and only understood that Mrs.
Tracy had found her diamonds.
'Oh, Mr. Arthur, I am so glad!' the cried; and springing up in bed, she
threw both arms around his neck and held him fast, while she sobbed
hysterically.
'There, there, child! Cherry, let go. You throttle me. You are pulling
my neck-tie all askew, and my head spins like a top,' Arthur said, as he
unclasped the clinging arms and put the little girl back upon her
pillow, where she lay for a moment, pale and exhausted, with the light
of a great joy shining in her eyes.
'Did she know where they came from? how did you manage it? Are you sure
she did not suspect!' she asked.
'I put them on her dressing-bureau while she was at breakfast,' he
replied, 'and when she came up there they were--large solitaire
ear-rings and a bar with five stones, not quite as large or as fine as
the ones she lost, but the best I could find at Tiffany's. Why, Jerry,
what is the matter? You do not look glad a bit. I thought you wanted me
to give them to her surreptitiously, and I did,' he continued, as the
expression of Jerry's face changed to one of blank dismay and
disappointment, and the tears gathered in her eyes.
'I did--I do,' she said; 'but I meant, not new ones, but her very
own--the ones you gave her.'
For a moment Arthur sat looking at her with a perplexed and troubled
expression, as if wondering what she could mean, and why he had so
utterly failed to please her; then he said, slowly:
'The ones I gave her? You make my head swim trying to remember, and the
bumble-bees are black-faced, instead of white, and stinging me
dreadfully. I wish you would say nothing more of the diamonds. It
worries me, and makes me feel as if I were in a nightmare, and I know
nothing of them.'
Raising herself on her elbow and pointing her finger toward him in a
half beseeching, half threatening way, Jerry said:
'As true as you live and breathe, and hope not to be hung and choked to
death, don't you know where they are?'
This was the oath which Jerry's companions were in the habit of
administering to each other in matters of doubt, and she now put it to
Arthur as the strongest she knew.
'Of course not,' he answered, with a little irritation in his tone.
'What ails you, Cherry? Are you crazy, like myself? Struggle against it.
Don't let the bees get into your brain and swarm and buzz until you
forget everything. You ought to remember; you do things you ought not to
do. It is terrible to be crazy and half conscious of it all the
time--conscious that no one believes what you say or holds you
responsible for what you do.'
'Don't they?' Jerry asked, eagerly, for she knew the meaning of the word
'responsible.' 'If a crazy man or woman took the diamonds, and then
forgot, and did not tell, and it was ever found out, wouldn't they be
punished?'
'Certainly not,' was the reassuring reply, 'Don't you know how many
murders are committed and the murderer is not hung, because they say he
is crazy?'
In a moment the cloud lifted from Jerry's face, which grew so bright
that Arthur noticed the change, and said to her:
'You are better now, I see, and I must go before I undo it all.
Good-bye, and never say diamonds to me again; it gets me all in a--m
a--well, a French pickle--mixed, you know.'
He kissed her tenderly, and promising to take her for a drive as soon as
she was able, went out and left her alone, wondering why it was that his
having given the diamonds to his sister-in-law had failed in its effect
upon her, and upon himself, too.
For a long time after he was gone Jerry lay thinking with her eyes
closed, so that if Harold or her grandmother came in they would think
her asleep. Mr. Arthur was certainly crazy at times--very crazy. She
could swear to that, and so could many others. And if a crazy man was
not responsible for his acts, then he was not, and the law would not
touch him; but with regard to the accessory, she was not sure. If that
individual were not crazy, why, then he or she might be punished; and as
the taste she had had of bread and water, and hard boards, in the shape
of the floor, was not very satisfactory, and as Mrs. Tracy had other
diamonds in the place of the lost ones, she finally determined to keep
her own counsel and never tell what she had heard Arthur say that
morning when the theft was discovered and he had talked so fast in
German to her and to himself. If she had known where the diamonds were
she might have managed to return them to their owner. But she did not
know, and her better course was to keep quiet, hoping that in time Mr.
Arthur himself would remember and make restitution; for that he had
forgotten and was sincere in saying that he knew nothing of them she was
certain, and her faith in him, which for a little time had been shaken,
was restored.
With this load lifted from her mind Jerry's recovery was rapid, and when
the autumnal suns were just beginning to tinge the woodbine on the Tramp
House and the maples in the park woods with scarlet, she took her
accustomed seat in Arthur's room and commenced her lessons again with
Maude, who had missed her sadly and who would have gone to see her every
day during her sickness if her mother had permitted it.
CHAPTER XXIII.
ARTHUR'S LETTER.
Two weeks had passed since Jerry's return to her lessons, and people had
ceased to talk of the missing diamonds, although the offered reward of
$500 was still in the weekly papers, and a detective still had the
matter in charge, without, however, achieving the slightest success. No
one had ever been suspected, and the thief, whoever he was, must have
been an expert, and managed the affair with the most consummate skill.
Now that she had another set, Mrs. Tracy was content, and peace and
quiet reigned in the household, except so far as Arthur was concerned.
He was restless and nervous, and given to fits of abstraction, which
sometimes made him forget the two little girls, one of whom watched him
narrowly; and once when they were alone and he seemed unusually absorbed
in thought, she asked him if he were trying to think of something.
'Yes,' he said, looking up quickly and eagerly; 'that is it. I am trying
to remember something which, it seems to me, I ought to remember; but I
cannot, and the more I try, the farther it gets from me. Do you know
what it is?'
Jerry hesitated a moment, and then she asked:
'Is it the diamonds?'
'Diamonds! No. What diamonds? Didn't I tell you never to say diamonds to
me again? I am tired of it,' he said, and in his eyes there was a gleam
which Jerry had never seen there before when they rested upon her. It
made her afraid, and she answered, meekly:
'Then I cannot help you to remember.'
'Of course not. No one can,' Arthur replied, in a softened tone. 'It is
something long ago, and has to do with Gretchen.'
Then suddenly brightening, as if that name had been the key to unlock
his misty brain, he added;
'I have it; I know; it has come to me at last! Gretchen always sets me
right. I wrote her a letter long ago--a year, it seems to me--and it has
never been posted. Strange that I should forget that; but something came
up--I can't tell what--and drove it from my mind.'
As he talked he was opening and looking in the drawer which Jerry had
never seen but once before, and that when he took from it the letter in
German, a paragraph of which he had bidden her read.
'Here it is!' he said, joyfully, as he took out a sealed envelope and
held it up to Jerry. 'This is the letter which you must post to-day. I
can trust it to you.'
He gave her the letter, which she took with a beating heart and a sense
of shame and regret as she remembered her pledge to Mr. Frank Tracy. She
had promised to take him any letter which Mr. Arthur might intrust to
her care, and if she took this one from Arthur she must keep her word.
'Oh, I can't do it--I can't! It would be mean to Mr. Arthur,' she
thought; and returning him the letter, she said: 'Please post it
yourself; then you will be sure, and I might lose it, or forget. I am
careless sometimes. Don't ask me to take it.'
She was pleading with her might; but Arthur paid no heed, and only
laughed at her fears.
'I know you will not forget, and I'd rather trust you than Charles.
Surely, you will not refuse to do so small a favor for me?'
'No,' she said, at last, as she put the letter in her pocket, with the
thought that, after all, there might be no harm in showing it to Mr.
Frank, who, of course, merely wished to see it, and would not think of
keeping it.
But she did not know Frank Tracy or guess how great was his anxiety lest
any message should ever reach a friend of Gretchen, if friend there were
living. She found him in the room he called his office, where the dead
woman had lain in her coffin, and where he often sat alone thinking of
the day when the inquest was held, and when he took his first step in
the downward road, which had led him so far that now it seemed
impossible to turn back, even had he wished to do so, as he sometimes
did.
'If I had never secreted the photograph, or the book with the
handwriting, if I had shown them to Arthur, everything would have been
so different, and I should have been free,' he was thinking, when Jerry
knocked timidly at the door, rousing him from his reverie, and making
him start with a nameless tsar which was always haunting him.
'Oh, Jerry, it is you,' he said, as the little girl crossed the
threshold, and shutting the door, stood with her back against it, and
her hands behind her. 'What is it?' he asked, as he saw her hesitating.
With a quick, jerky movement of the head, which set in motion the little
rings of hair, now growing so fast, and brought his brother to his mind,
Jerry replied:
'I came to tell you that Mr. Arthur has written the letter.'
'What letter?' Frank asked, for the moment forgetting the conversation
he had held with the child in the Tramp House.
'The one I promised to bring you to show you--the one to Germany,' was
Jerry's answer.
And then Frank remembered at once what, in the excitement of the diamond
theft, had passed from his mind.
'Yes, yes, I know; give it to me,' he said, advancing rapidly toward
her, and putting out his hand. 'When did he write it? Give it to me,
please.'
'But not to keep,' Jerry said, struck by something in his face and
manner which, it seemed to her, meant danger to the letter.
'Let me see it,' he continued.
And rather reluctantly Jerry handed him a bulky letter, the direction of
which covered nearly the whole of one side of the envelope.
Very nervously Frank scanned the address, which might as well have been
in the Fiji language for any idea it conveyed to him.
'To whom is it directed? I cannot read German,' he said
'I don't know,' Jerry replied. 'I have not looked at it, and would
rather not.'
'Why, what a little prude you are;' and Frank laughed uneasily. 'What
possible harm is there in reading an address? The postmaster has to do
it, and any one who took it to the office would do it if he could.'
This sounded reasonable enough, and standing beside him, while he held
the letter a little way from her, Jerry read the address in German
first, then, as he said to her: 'I don't understand that lingo, put it
into English,' she read again:
'To Marguerite Heinrich, if living, and if dead to any of her friends;
or to the postmaster at Wiesbaden, Germany. If not delivered within two
months, return to Arthur Tracy, Tracy Park, Shannondale, Mass., U.S.A.'
'Marguerite--Marguerite Heinrich!' Frank repeated, 'That is not
Gretchen. The letter is not to her.'
'I guess it is,' Jerry replied. 'He told me once that Gretchen was a pet
name for Marguerite.'
'Yes,' Frank returned, with a sigh, as this little crumb of hope was
swept away, while to himself he added: 'At all events it is not
Marguerite Tracy, and that makes me less a scoundrel than I should
otherwise be. If he had written a little more it would have run over to
the other side of the envelope. Any one would know he was crazy,' he
continued, with a sickly attempt at a smile, while Jerry stood waiting
to take the letter from him.
He knew she was waiting, and said to her, as he put it in his pocket:
'Thank you for bringing this to me. It is probably some nonsense which
ought not to go, even if the sending it would do no harm, as it
certainly would.'
Until then Jerry had not realised that he did not mean the letter to go
at all. She had remembered her promise to take it to him, and forgotten
that he had said it must not be sent lest it should do harm to Maude.
But it all came back to her now, and her tears fell like rain as she
stood for a moment irresolute. But loyalty to Arthur conquered every
other feeling. Surely he would not suffer any wrong to come to his own
brother and niece. The letter was harmless, and must go.
'Give it to me, please. You do not mean to keep it?' she said, at last,
in a tone and manner she might have borrowed from Arthur himself, it was
so like him when on his dignity.
And Frank felt it, and knew that he had more than a child to deal with,
and must use duplicity if he would succeed. So he said to her quietly
and naturally:
'Why, how excited you are! Do you think I intend to keep the letter? It
is as safe with me as with you. It is true that when I talked with you
in the Tramp House I thought that it must not be sent, but I have
changed my mind since then, and do not care. I am going to the office,
and will take it myself. John is saddling my horse now, and if I hurry I
shall be in time for the western mail. Good-bye, and do not look so
worried. Do you take me for a villain?'
He was leaving the room as he talked, and before he had finished he was
in the hall and near the outer door, leaving Jerry stupefied, and
perplexed, and only half reassured.
'If I had not sold myself to Satan before, I have now, for sure; and
still I did not actually tell her that I would post it, though it
amounted to that,' Frank thought, as he galloped through the park toward
the highway which led to the town.
Once he took the letter from his pocket and examined it again, wishing
so much that he knew its contents.
'If I could read German, I believe I am bad enough now to open it; but I
can't, and I dare not take it to any one who can,' he said, as he put it
again in his pocket, half resolving to post it and take the chances of
its ever reaching Gretchen's friends, or any one who had known her.
'I'll see how I feel when I get inside,' he thought, as he dismounted
from his horse before the door of the post-office.
The mail was just in, and the little room was full of people waiting for
it to be distributed; and Frank waited with them, leaning against the
wall, with his head bent down, and beating his boot with his
riding-whip.
'I must decide soon,' he thought, when a voice not far from him caught
his ear, and glancing from under his hat, he saw Peterkin coming in,
portly and pompous, and with him a dapper little man, who, in the days
of the 'Liza Ann, had been a driver for the boat, but who now, like his
former employer, was a millionaire, and wore a thousand-dollar diamond
ring. To him Peterkin was saying:
'There, that's him--that's Frank Tracy, the biggest swell in town--lives
in that handsome place I was telling you about.'
Strange that words like these from a man like old Peterkin should have
inflated Frank's pride; but he was weak in many points; and though he
detested Peterkin, it gratified him to be pointed out to strangers as a
swell who lived in a fine house, and with the puff of vanity came the
reflection that, as Frank Tracy of some other place than Tracy Park,
with all its appliances of wealth, he would not be a swell whom
strangers cared to see, and Jerry's chance was lost again.
'Here is your mail, Mr. Tracy,' the postmistress said; and stepping
forward, Frank took his letters from her, just as Peterkin slapped him
on the shoulder, and, with a familiarity which made Frank want to knock
him down, called out:
'Hallo, Tracy! Just the feller I wanted to see. Let me introduce you to
Mr. Bijah Jones, from Pennsylvany; used to drive hosses for me in the
days I ain't ashamed of, by a long shot. He's bought him a place out
from Philadelphy, and wants to lay it out _à la--à la_--dumbed if I
know the word, but like them old chaps' gardens in Europe, and I told
him of Tracy Park, which beats everything holler in this part of the
country. Will you let us go over it and take a survey?'
'Certainly; go where you like,' Frank said, struggling to reach the
door; but Peterkin button-holed him and held him fast, while he
continued:
'I say, Tracy, heard anything from them diamonds?'
'Nothing,' was the reply.
'Didn't hunt in the right quarter,' Peterkin continued, 'leastwise
didn't foller it up, or you'd a found 'em without so much advertisin'.'
'What do you mean?' Frank asked.
'Oh, nothin',' Peterkin replied; 'only them diamonds never went off
without hands, and them hands ain't a thousand miles from the park.'
'Perhaps not,' Frank answered, mechanically, more intent upon getting
away than upon what Peterkin was saying.
He longed to be in the open air, and as he mounted his horse, he said,
as if speaking to some one near him:
'Well, old fellow, I've done it again, and sunk myself still lower. You
are bound to get me now some day, unless I have a death-bed repentance
and confess everything. The thief was forgiven at the last hour, why not
I?'
The black shadow which Frank felt sure was beside him, did not answer,
though he could have sworn that he heard a chuckle as he rode on, fast
and far, until his horse was tired and he was tired, too. Then he began
to retrace his steps, so slowly that it was dark when, he reached the
village, and took the road which led by the gate through which the woman
had passed to her death on the night of the storm. It was the shortest
route to the park, and he intended to take it.
As he drew near to the gate, it seemed to him that there was something
on the wide post nearest the fence which had not been there in the
afternoon when he rode by--something dark, and large, and peculiar in
shape, and motionless as a stone. He was not by nature a coward, and
once he had no belief in ghosts or supernatural appearances, but now he
did not know what he believed, and this object, whose outline, seen
against, the western sky, where a little dim light was lingering, seemed
almost like that of a human form, made his heart beat faster than its
wont, and he involuntarily checked his horse, just as a clear, shrill
voice called out:
'Mr. Tracy, is that you? I have waited so long, and I'm so cold sitting
here. Did you post the letter?'
It was Jerry who, after he had left her in his office, had been seized
with an indefinable terror lest he might not post the letter after all.
It seemed wrong to doubt him, and she did not really think that she did
doubt him; still she would feel happier if she knew, and after supper
was over she started along the grassy road until she reached the gate.
Here she waited a long time, and then, as Mr. Tracy did not appear, she
walked up and down the lane until the sun was down and the ground began
to feel so damp and cold that she finally climbed up to the top of the
gate-post, which was very broad, and where, on her way to town, she had
frequently sat for a while. It was very cold and tiresome waiting there,
and she was beginning to get impatient and to wonder if it could be
possible that he had gone home by some other road, when she heard the
sound of a horse's hoofs and felt sure he was coming.
'Why, Jerry, how you frightened me!' Frank said, as he reined his horse
close up to her. 'Jump down and get up behind me. I will take you home.'
She obeyed, and with the agility of a little cat, got down from the
gate-post and on to the horse's back, putting both arms around Frank's
waist to keep herself steady, for the big horse took long steps, and she
felt a little afraid.
'Did you post the letter?' she asked again, as they left the gate behind
them and struck into the lane.
To lie now was easy enough, and Frank answered without hesitation:
'Of course. Did you think I would forget it?'
'No,' Jerry answered. 'I knew you would not. I only wanted to be sure,
because he trusted it to me, and not to have sent it would have been
mean, and a sneak, and a lie, and a steal. Don't you think so?'
She emphasized the 'steal,' and the 'lie,' and the 'sneak,' and the
'mean,' with a kick that made the horse jump a little and quicken his
steps.
'Yes,' Frank assented; it would be all she affirmed, and more too, and
the man who could do such a thing was wholly unworthy the respect of any
one, and ought to be punished to the full extent of the law.
'That's so,' Jerry said, with another emphatic kick and a slight
tightening of her arm around the conscience-stricken man, who wondered
if he should ever reach the cottage and be free from the clasp of those
arms, which seemed to him like bands of fire burning to his soul. 'I'd
never speak to him again,' Jerry continued, 'and Mr. Arthur wouldn't
either. He is so right-up, and hates a trick. I don't believe, either,
that any harm will come to Maude from that letter, as you said. If there
does, and Mr. Arthur can fix it, he will, I know, for I shall ask him,
and he once told me he would do anything for me, because I look as he
thinks Gretchen must have looked when she was a little girl like me.'
They had reached the cottage by this time, where they found Harold in
the yard looking up and down the lane for Jerry, whose protracted
absence at that hour had caused them some anxiety, even though they were
accustomed to her long rambles by herself and frequent absences from
home. It was not an unusual thing for her to linger in the Tramp House,
even after dark, talking to herself, and Gretchen, and Mah-nee, and her
mother and a sick woman, whose face was far back in the past. She was
there now, Harold supposed, and this belief was confirmed when Mr. Tracy
said to him:
'You see I have picked up your little girl and brought her home. Jump
down, Jerry, and good-night to you.'
She was on the ground in an instant, and he was soon galloping toward
home, saying to himself:
'I don't believe I can even have a death-bed repentance now. I have told
too many lies for that, and more than all, must go on lying to the end.
I have sold my soul for a life of luxury, which after all is very
pleasant,' he continued, as he drew near the house, which was
brilliantly lighted up, while through the long windows of the
drawing-room he could see the table, with its silver and glass and
flowers, and the cheerful blaze upon the hearth of the fire-place, which
Dolly had persuaded Arthur to have built. There was every kind of
bric-a-brac on the tall mantel, and Frank saw it as he passed, and saw
the colored man moving slowly about the room after the manner of a
well-trained servant who understands his business. There was company
staying in the house, Mr. and Mrs. Raymond, from Kentucky, father and
mother to Fred; and Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire, and Grace Atherton, and
Squire Harrington had been invited to dinner, and were already in the
dining-room when Frank entered it after a hasty toilet.
He had been out in the country and ridden further than he had intended,
he said by way of apology, as he greeted his guests, and then took Mrs.
Raymond into dinner, which, with the exception of the soup and fish, was
served from side tables. This was Dolly's last new kink, as Frank called
it, and Dolly was very fine, in claret velvet, with her new diamonds,
which were greatly admired, Grace Atherton declaring that she liked them
quite as well as the stolen ones, whose setting was rather _passé._
'That is just why I liked them so, because they were old-fashioned; it
made them look like heir-looms, and showed that one had always had a
family,' Dolly said.
Grace Atherton shrugged her still plump shoulders just a little, and
thought of the first call she ever made upon Dolly, when she entered
through the kitchen and the lady entertained her in her working-apron!
Dolly did not look now as if she had ever seen a working-apron, and was
very bright and talkative, and entertaining, and all the more so because
of her husband's silence. He was given to moods, and sometimes
aggravated his wife to desperation when he left all the conversation to
her.
'Do talk,' she would say to him when they were alone. 'Do talk to people
and not sit so glum, with that great wrinkle between your eyes as if you
were mad at something; and do laugh, too, when anybody tells anything
worth laughing at, and not leave it all to me. Why, I actually giggle at
times until I feel like a fool, while you never smile or act as if you
heard a word. Look at me occasionally, and when I elevate my
eyebrows--_so_--brace up and say something, if it isn't so cunning.'
This _elevating of the eyebrows_ and _bracing up_ were matters of
frequent occurrence, as Frank grew more and more silent and abstracted,
and now after he had sat through a funny story told by Mr. St. Claire
and had not even smiled, or given any sign that he heard it, he suddenly
caught Dolly's eye and saw that both eyebrows, and nose, and chin were
up as marks of unusual disapprobation, for how could she guess of what
he was thinking as he sat with his head bent down, and his eyes
seemingly half shut. But they came open wide enough, and his head was
high enough when he saw Dolly's frown; and turning to Mrs. Raymond he
began to talk rapidly and at random. She had just returned from Germany,
where she had left her daughter, Marion, in school, and Frank asked her
of the country, and if she had visited Wiesbaden, and had there met or
heard of anyone by the name of Marguerite Heinrich.
Mrs. Raymond had spent some months in Wiesbaden, for it was there her
daughter was at school, and she was very enthusiastic in her praises of
the beautiful town. But she had never seen or heard of Marguerite
Heinrich, or of anyone by the name of Heinrich.
'Marguerite Heinrich?' Dolly repeated. 'Who in the world is she--and
where did you know her?'
'I never did know her. I have only heard of her,' Frank replied, again
lapsing into a silence from which he did not rouse again.
He was thinking of the letter hidden away with the photograph and the
book--of the lies he had told since his deception began, and now sure it
was that he had sinned beyond forgiveness. When he was a boy he had
often listened, with the blood curdling in his veins, to a story his
grandmother told him with sundry embellishments, for he was not well
versed in German literature, of a man--Foster it seemed to him was the
name--who sold his soul to the devil in consideration that for a certain
number of years he was to have every pleasure the world could give. It
had been very pleasant listening to the recital of the fine things the
man enjoyed, for Satan kept his promise well; but the boy's hair had
stood on end as the story neared its close, and he heard how, when the
probation was ended, the devil came for his victim down the wide-mouthed
chimney, scattering bricks and fire-brands over the floor, as he carried
the trembling soul out in the blackness of the stormy night.
Strangely enough this story came back to him now, and notwithstanding
the horror of the thing he laughed aloud as he glanced up at the tall
oak fire-place, wondering if it would be that way he would one day go
with his master, and seeing in fancy Dolly's dismay when the tea-cups,
and saucers, and vases, and plaques, came tumbling to the floor as he
disappeared from sight in a blue flame, which smelled of brimstone.
It was a loud, unnatural laugh, but fortunately for him it came just as
Grace Atherton had set the guests in a roar with what she was saying of
the Peterkin's final struggle to enter society, and so it passed
unnoticed by most of them. But that night in the privacy of his room,
where Dolly delivered most of her lectures, she again upbraided him with
his taciturnity, telling him that he never laughed but once, and then it
sounded more like a groan than a laugh.
'You have hit the nail on the head this time, for it was a groan,' Frank
said, as he plunged into bed; and Dolly, as she undressed herself
deliberately, and this time put her diamonds carefully away, little
dreamed what was passing in the mind of the man, who, all through the
long hours of the night, lay awake, seldom stirring lest he should
disturb her, but repeating over and over to himself, the words:
'Lost now forever and ever, but if Maude is happy I can bear it.'
CHAPTER XXIV.
JERRIE--NINE YEARS LATER.
She spelled her name with an _ie_ now, instead of a _y._ She was
nineteen years old; she had been a student at Vassar for four years,
together with Nina St. Claire and Ann Eliza Peterkin, and in July was to
be graduated with the highest honors of her class. In her childhood,
when we knew her as little Jerry, she had been very small, but at the
age of twelve she suddenly shot up like an arrow, and had you first seen
her, with her back to you, you might have said she was very tall, but
had you waited till she turned her face toward you, or walked across
the floor, you would have thought that if an eighth of an inch were
taken from her height it would spoil her splendidly developed form. Her
school companions called her the Princess, she was so tall and straight,
and graceful in every movement, with that sweet graciousness of manner
which won all hearts to her and made her a general favorite. Whether she
spelled her name with an _ie_ or a _y_ and stood five feet six or four
feet five, she was the same Jerry who had defended Harold against Tom
Tracy, and been ready to go to prison, if need be, for Mr. Arthur.
Frank, unselfish, truthful, and original, she had been as a child, with
perhaps a little too much pride in her hair, which she hid once cut off
to see how it would seem, and she was original, and truthful, and
unselfish now, with a pardonable pride in her luxuriant tresses, which
lay in waves upon her finely-shaped head and glistened in the sunlight
like satin of a golden hue. But nothing could spoil Jerrie, not even the
adulation of her friends or the looking-glass which told her she was
beautiful, just as Nina St. Claire told her every day.
'Yes; I am not blind, and I know that I am rather good-looking,' she
once said to Nina, 'and I am glad, for, as a rule, people like pretty
things better than ugly ones, but I am not an idiot to think that looks
are everything, and I don't believe I am very vain. I used to be though,
when a child, but Harold gave me so many lectures upon vanity that I
should not do credit to his teachings were I now to be proud of what I
did not do myself.'
'But Harold thinks you are beautiful,' Nina replied.
'He does? I did not know that. When did he say so?' Jerrie asked; with
kindling eyes and a quick, sideways turn of her head, of which she had a
habit when startled by some sudden emotion.
'He said so last vacation, when we were home, and I had that little
musicale, and you played and sang so divinely, and wore that dress of
baby-blue which Mr. Arthur gave you, with the blush-rose, in your belt.'
Nina said; 'I was so proud of you and so was mamma and Mrs. Atherton.
You remember there were some New Yorkers there who were visiting Mrs.
Grace, and I was glad for them to know that we had some talent, and some
beauty, too, in the country; and Harold was proud, too. I don't think
he ever took his eyes off you from the time you sat down to the piano
until you left it, and when I said to him, "Doesn't she sing like an
angel, and isn't the lovely?" he replied: "I think my sister Jerry has
the loveliest face I ever saw, and that blue dress is very becoming to
her."'
'Wasn't that rather a stiff speech to make about his _sister_?' Jerry
said, with a slight emphasis upon the last word, as she walked away,
leaving Nina to wonder if she were displeased.
Evidently not, for a few minutes later she heard her whistling softly
the air 'He promised to buy me a knot of blue ribbon to tie up my bonny
brown hair,' and could she have looked into Jerry's room she would have
seen her standing before the mirror examining the face which Harold had
said was the loveliest he had ever seen. Others had said the same, and
their sayings had been repeated to her. Billy Peterkin, and Tom Tracy,
and Dick St. Claire, and even Fred Raymond, from Kentucky, who was
supposed to be devoted to Nina. But Jerry cared little for the
compliments of either Fred or Dick, while those of Tom she scorned and
those of Billy she ridiculed. One word of commendation from Harold was
worth more to her than the praises of the whole world besides. But
Harold had always been chary of his commendations, and was rather more
given to reproof than praise, which did not altogether suit the young
lady.
As Jerry had grown older, and merged from childhood into womanhood, a
change had come over both the girl and boy, a change which Jerry
discovered first, awaking suddenly one day to find that the brother and
sister delusion was ended, and Harold stood to her in an entirely new
relation. Just when the change had commenced she could not tell. She
only knew that it had come, and that she was not quite so happy as she
had been in the days when she called Harold her brother, and kissed him
whenever she felt like it, which was very often, for she was naturally
affectionate, and showed her affection to those she loved. She was
seventeen when the dream came--the old, old story which transformed her
from a romping, a rather gushing child, into a woman more quiet and more
dignified, especially with Harold, who missed and mourned in secret for
the playful loving ways which had been so pleasant to him, even if he
did not always make a return.
Though capable of loving quite as devotedly and unselfishly as Jerry,
he was not demonstrative, while a natural shyness and depreciation of
himself made him afraid to tell in words just what or how much he did
feel. He would rather show it by acts; and never was brother tenderer or
kinder toward a sister than he was to Jerry, whose changed mood he could
not understand. And so there gradually arose between them a little
cloud, which both felt, and neither could exactly define.
Arthur had kept his promise well with regard to Jerry, who had passed
from him to Vassar, and he would have kept it with Harold, if the latter
had permitted it. But the boy's pride and independence had asserted
themselves at last. He had accepted the course at Andover, and one year
at Harvard, on condition that he should be allowed to pay Arthur back
all he had received as soon as he was able to do it. As he entered
Harvard in advance, he was a junior when he decided to care for himself,
and during the remainder of his college course, which, of course, was
longer than usual, he struggled on, doing what he could during the
summer vacation--teaching school for months at a time--and in the
college reducing his expenses by acting as proctor, and compelling
obedience to the rules of the institution. Even the few who were aware
of his limited means, and his efforts to increase them, had to
acknowledge, as he stood before the multitude, delivering the
valedictory, and exciting thunders of applause by his graceful gestures
and thrilling eloquence, that he was not only an orator, but every inch
a gentleman.
His fellow students who saw him then, and listened entranced to his
clear, well-trained voice, thought not of Harold's threadbare coat and
shining old-fashioned pants, which were so conspicuous as he pursued his
studies in the class-room, but which were now concealed by the gown he
wore over them. They saw only the large, dark eyes, the finely chiseled
features, and the manly form. But as they listened to the burning words
which showed so much clear, deep thought, they said to each other:
'The young man has a future before him. Such eloquence as that could
move the world, and rouse or quiet the wildest mob that ever surged
through the streets of mad Paris.'
Jerry was there, and saw and heard. And when Harold's speech was over,
and the building was shaking with applause, and flowers were falling
around him like rain, she, too, stood up and cheered so loudly that a
Boston lady, who sat in front of her, and who thought any outward show
of feeling vulgar and ill-bred, turned and looked at her wonderingly and
reprovingly. But in her excitement Jerry did not see the disapprobation
in the cold, proud eyes. She saw only what she mistook for enquiry, and
she answered eagerly:
'That's Harold--that's my brother! Oh, I am so proud of him!'
And leaning forward so that a curl of her bright hair touched the Boston
woman's bonnet, she threw the bunch of pond lilies which she had herself
gathered that day on the river at home, before the sun was up, and while
the white petals were still folded in sleep. For Jerry had come down on
the early train to see Harold graduated, and Maude had found her in the
crowd and sat beside her, almost as pleased and happy as herself to see
Harold thus acquit himself.
Maude's roses had been bought at a florist's in Boston at a fabulous
price, for they were the choicest and rarest in market. Harold had seen
both the roses and the lilies long before they fell at his feet. It was
a fancy, perhaps, but it seemed to him that it sweet perfume from the
latter reached him with the brightness of Jerry's eyes. He knew just
where the lilies came from, for he had often waded out to the green bed
when the water was low to get them for Jerry; and all the time he was
speaking there was in his heart a thought of the old home, and the
woods, and the river, and the tall tree on the bank, with the bench
beneath, and on it the girl, whose upturned, eager face he saw above the
sea of heads confronting him.
Jerrie's approval was worth more to the young man than that of all the
rest; for he knew that, though she would be very lenient toward him, she
was a keen and discriminating critic, and would detect a weakness which
many an older person would fail to see. But she was satisfied--he was
sure of that; and if there had been in his mind any doubt it would have
been swept away when, after the exercises were over, and he stood
receiving the congratulations of his friends, she worked her way through
the crowd and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him fondly, and
bursting into a flood of tears as she told him how proud she was of him.
The eyes of half his classmates were upon him, and though Harold felt a
thrill of keen delight run through his veins at the touch of Jerrie's
lips, he would a little rather she had waited until they were alone.
'There, there, Jerrie, that will do!' he whispered, as he unclasped her
arms, and put her gently from him, though he still held her hand. 'Don't
you see they are all looking at us.'
With a sudden, jerk Jerrie withdrew her hand from his and stepped back
into the crowd, her heart beating wildly, and her cheeks burning with
shame, as she thought what she had done and how it must have mortified
Harold.
Maude was speaking to him now--Maude with her bright black eyes and
brilliant color. But she was neither crying nor strangling him with
kisses. She was shaking hands with him very decorously, and telling him
how pleased and glad she was. And in his hand he held her roses, which
he occasionally smelled as he listened, and smiled upon her with that
peculiar smile of his which made him so attractive. But the lilies were
nowhere to be seen; and when, an hour later, all the baskets and
bouquets bearing his name were piled together, the lilies were not
there.
'He has thrown them away! He did not care for them at all, and I might
as well have staid in bed as to have gotten up at four o'clock and
risked my neck to get them. He likes Maude and her roses better than he
does me,' Jerrie thought, with a swelling heart and all through the
journey home--for they returned that night--she was very quiet and
tactiturn, letting Maude do all the talking, and saying when asked why
she was so still, that her head was aching, and that she was too tired
and sleepy to talk.
That was the last time for years that Jerrie put her arms around
Harold's neck, or touched her lips to his; for it had come to her like a
blow how much he was to her, and, as she believed, how little she was to
him.
'Maude is preferred to me--I see it now so plainly; he likes me well
enough, but he loves _her_--I saw it in the way he looked at her that
time I mortified him so dreadfully with my _gush_,' she thought; and
although of all her girl friends, not even excepting Nina St. Claire,
Maude was the nearest and dearest, she was half-glad when a week or two
later, Maude said good-bye to her, and with her mother sailed away to
Europe, where she remained for more than a year and a half.
During her absence the two girls corresponded regularly, and Jerrie
never failed to write whatever she thought would please her friend to
hear of Harold; and when at last Maude returned, and wrote to Jerrie of
failing health, and wakeful nights, and lonely days, and her longing for
the time when Jerrie would be home, and be with her, and read to her, or
recite bits of poetry, as she had been wont to do, Jerrie trampled every
jealous, selfish thought under her feet, and in her letters to Harold
urged him to see Maude as often as possible, and read to her whenever
she wished him to do so.
'You have such a splendid voice, and read so well,' she wrote, 'that it
will rest her just to listen to you, and will keep her from being so
lonely; so offer your services if she does not ask for them--that's a
good boy.'
Then, as she remembered how weak Maude was, mentally, she thought:
'He never can be happy with her as she is now. A girl who cannot do a
sum in simple fractions, and who, when abroad, thought only of Rome as a
good place in which to buy sashes and ribbons, and who asked me in a
letter to tell her who all those Caesars were, and what the Forum was
for, is not the wife for a man like Harold, and however much he might
love her at first he would be sure to tire of her after a while, unless
he can bring her up. Possibly he can.'
Resuming her pen, she wrote:
'Don't give her all sentimental poetry and love trash, but something
solid--something historical, which she can remember and talk about with
you.'
In his third letter to Jerrie, after the receipt of her instructions,
Harold wrote as follows:
'I have offered my services as reader, and tried the solid on Maude as
you advised--have read her fifty pages of Grote's History of Greece; but
when I got as far as Homeric Theogony, she looked piteously at me, while
with Hesiod and Orpheus she was hopelessly bewildered, and by the time I
reached the extra Hellenic religion she was fast asleep! I do not
believe her mind is strong enough to grapple with those old Greek chaps;
at all events they worry her, and tire her more than they rest. So I
have abandoned the gods and come down to common people, and am reading
to her Tennyson's poems. Have read the May Queen four times, until I do
believe she knows it by heart. She has a great liking for the last
portion of it, especially the lines:
"I shall not forget you, mother:
I shall hear you when you pass,
With your feet above my head
In the long and pleasant grass."
'I saw her cry one day when I read that to her. Poor little Maude! She
is very frail, but no one seems to think her in danger, she has so
brilliant a color, and always seems so bright.'
Jerrie read this letter two or three times, and each time with an
increased sense of comfort. No man who really loved a girl could speak
of her mental weakness to another as Harold had spoken of Maude's to
her, and it might be after all that he merely thought of her as a
friend, whom he had always known. So the cloud was lifted in part, and
she only felt a greater anxiety for Maude's health, which as the spring
advanced, grew stronger, so that it was almost certain that she would
come to Vassar in the summer and see her friend graduated.
Such was the state of affairs when Nina repeated to Jerrie what Harold
had said to her at the musicale the previous winter. All day long there
was a note of gladness in Jerrie's heart which manifested itself in
snatches of song, and low, warbling, whistled notes, which sounded more
as if they came from a canary's than from a human throat. Jerrie did
_not_ chew gum, but she whistled, and the teachers who reproved her most
for what they called a boyish trick, always listened intently, when the
clear, musical notes, now soft and low, now loud and shrill, were heard
outside, or in the building.
'Whistling Jerrie,' the girls sometimes called her, but she rather liked
the name, and whistled on whenever she felt like it.
And it was a very joyous, happy song she trilled, as she thought of
Harold's compliment, and wished she might wear at commencement the dress
of baby-blue which he had admired, for Harold would, of course, be there
to see and hear, and as, when he wrote his valedictory two years before
there had been in every line a thought of her, so in her essay, which
was peculiarly German in its method and handling, thoughts of Harold had
been closely interwoven. She knew she should receive a surfeit of
applause--she always did; but if Harold's were wanting the whole thing
would be a failure. So she wrote him twice a week, urging him to come,
and he always replied that nothing but necessity would keep him from
doing so.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE TWO FACES IN THE MIRROR.
Toward the last of May Arthur came to Vassar, bringing with him the
graduating dress which he had bought in New York, with Maude as his
adviser. He had Jerrie at the hotel to spend Saturday and Sunday with
him, and took her to drive and to shop, and then in the evening asked
her to put on her finery, that he might see how it looked.
'I shall not come to hear you spout out your erudition,' he said, 'for I
detest crowds, with the dreadful smell of the rooms. I have gotten the
park house tolerably free from odors, though the cook's drain is
terrible at times, and I shall have brimstone burned in the cellar once
a week. But what was I saying? Oh, I know--I shall not be here at
commencement, and I wish to see if my Cherry is likely to look as well
as any of them.'
So Jerrie left him alone while she donned the white dress, which fell in
soft, fluffy folds around her feet, and fitted her superb figure
perfectly. She knew how well it became her, and sure of Arthur's
approbation, went back to the parlor, where she had left him. Arthur was
standing with his back to the door when she came in, and going up to
him, she said:
'Here I am in all my gewgaws. Do you think I shall pass muster?'
She spoke in German, as she always did to him, and when he turned
quickly, there was a startled look on his face, as he said:
'Oh, Cherry, it's you! I thought for a moment it was Gretchen speaking
to me. Just so she used to come in with her light footstep and soft
voice, so much like yours. Where is she, Cherry, that she never comes
nor writes? Where is Gretchen now?'
His chin quivered as he talked, and there was a moisture in his eyes,
bent so fondly upon the young girl beside him. He was worn with the
fatigue and excitement of his journey and the long drive he had taken,
and Jerrie knew that whenever he was tired his mind was weaker and
wandered more thin usual. So she tried to quiet and divert him by
calling his attention to her dress, and asking how he liked it.
'It is lovely,' he said, examining the lace and the soft flounces. 'It
is the prettiest Maude and I could find. You know, she was with me, and
helped me select it. Yes, it's lovely, and so are you, Cherry, with
Gretchen's eyes and hair, and smile, and that one dimple in your cheek.
She used to wear soft, white dresses, and in this you are enough like
her to be her daughter.'
They were standing side by side before a long mirror, she taller for a
woman than he was for a man, so that her face was almost in a range with
his, as he stooped a little forward.
Glancing into the mirror at the two faces so near to each other, Jerrie
saw something which for an instant made her cold and sick, and set every
nerve to quivering as she stepped suddenly back, looking first at the
man's face and then at her own in the mirror. It was gone now, the look
which had so startled her, but it had certainly been there--a likeness
between the two faces--and she had seen it plainer than she had ever
seen any resemblance between herself and the picture. Gretchen had blue
eyes, and fair hair, and fair complexion, and so had she, and so had
hundreds of German girls, and all Arthur had ever said to her had never
brought to her mind a thought like the two faces in the mirror. _What if
it were so?_ That was the thought which had flashed like lightning
through her brain, making her so weak that she grasped Arthur's arm to
steady herself as she tried to speak composedly.
'You are white as your dress,' he said. 'It is this confounded hot room;
let us sit nearer the window.'
They sat down together on a sofa, and taking up a newspaper, Arthur
fanned Jerrie gently, while she said to him:
'Do you really think I look like Gretchen?'
'Yes; except that you are taller. You might be her daughter.'
'Had she--had Gretchen a daughter?' was Jerrie's next question, put
hesitatingly.
'None that I ever heard of,' Arthur replied. 'Why do you ask that?'
'And her name when a girl was Marguerite Heinrich, was it not?' Jerrie
went on.
'Yes. Who told you that?' Arthur said.
'I saw it on a letter which you gave me to post years ago, when I was a
child,' Jerrie replied. 'You never received an answer to that letter,
did you?'
'What letter did you post for me to Marguerite Heinrich? I don't know
what you mean,' Arthur said, the old worried look settling upon his
face, which always came there when he was trying to recall something he
ought to remember.
As he grew older he seemed to be annoyed when told of things he had
forgotten, and as the letter had evidently gone entirely from his mind,
Jerrie said no more of it. _She_ remembered it well; and never dreaming
that it had not been posted, she had watched a long time for an answer,
which never came. Gretchen was dead; that was settled in her mind. But
who was she? With the words, 'What if it were so?' still buzzing in her
brain, the answer to this question was of vital importance to her, and
after a moment, she continued, as if she had all the time been talking
of Gretchen:
'She was Marguerite Heinrich when a girl in Wiesbaden, but she had
another name afterward, when she was married.'
'You are talking of something you know nothing about. Can't you let
Gretchen alone?' Arthur said, petulantly, and springing up he began to
pace the room in a state of great excitement, while Jerrie sat
motionless, with a white, stony look on her face and a far off look in
her eyes, as if she were seeing in a vision things she could not retain,
they passed to rapidly before her, and were so hazy and indistinct.
The likeness she had seen in the glass was gone now. She was not like
Arthur at all; it was madness in her to have thought so. And she was not
like Gretchen either. Her mother was lying under the little pine tree
which she and Harold had planted above the lonely grave. Her mother had
been dark, and coarse, and bony, and a peasant woman--so Ann Eliza
Peterkin, who had heard it from her father, had told her once, when
angry with her, and Harold, when sorely pressed, had admitted as much to
her.
'Dark, with large, hard hands,' he had said; and Jerrie with the great
tears shining in her eyes, had answered, indignantly:
'But hard and black as they were, they always touched _me_ gently and
tenderly, and sometimes I believe I can remember just how lovingly and
carefully they wrapped the old cloak around me to keep me warm. Dear
mother, what do I care how black she was, and coarse. She was mine, and
gave her life for me.'
This was when Jerrie was a child, and now that she was older she was
seeking to put away this woman with the dark face and the coarse hands,
and substitute in her place a fairer, sweeter face, with hands like wax
and features like a Madonna. But only for a few moments, and then the
wild dream vanished, and the sad, pale face, the low voice, the music,
the trees, the flowers, the sick-room, the death-bed, the woman who
died, and the woman who served, all went out together into the darkness,
and she was Jerrie Crawford again, wearing her commencement dress to
please the man still pacing the floor abstractedly, and paying no heed
to her when she went out to change her dress for the blue muslin she bud
worn through the day.
When she returned to the parlor she found him seated at the tea-table,
which had been laid during her absence. Taking her seat opposite to him,
she made his tea, and buttered his toast, and chatted, and laughed until
she succeeded in bringing back a quiet expression to the face which bore
no likeness now to her own, but looked pale and haggard as it always did
after any excitement. He was talking of the commencement exercises, and
regretting that he could not be present.
'I may not be home,' he said. 'And if I am. I shall not come. Crowds
kill me, and smells kill me, and we are sure to have both. I wish I had
a different nose, but it is as it was made, and I think I detect some
bad odor in here, don't you?'
Jerrie, who knew from experience that the better way was to humor his
fancy, said she did smell something; perhaps it was the carpet, or the
curtains, both of which were new.
'Very likely, and in that case the smell is a clean one,' he replied,
and began again to speak of commencement.
'Harold is sure to be here,' he said, 'and he is better than forty old
coves like me. It is astonishing what a fancy I have taken to that young
man. I don't see a fault in him, except that he is too infernally proud.
Think of his refusing to take any more money from me unless I would
accept his note promising to pay it all back in time--just as if he ever
can, or will.'
'Indeed he will,' Jerrie exclaimed, rousing at once in Harold's defence.
'He will pay every dollar, and I shall help him.'
'You!' and Arthur laughed, merrily, 'How will you help him, I'd like to
know.'
'I shall teach school, or give music lessons, or do both to earn
something for grandmother,' Jerrie answered, quickly. 'And I shall help
Harold, and shall pay Mr. Frank all he gave grandmother for my board. I
know just how much it is. Three dollars a week from the time I was four
years old until I was sixteen and came here to school--almost two
thousand dollars; a big sum, I know, but I shall pay it. You will see,'
she went on rapidly and earnestly; as she saw the amused look on
Arthur's face, and felt that he was laughing at her.
'You are going to pay my brother to the uttermost farthing, but what of
me? Am I to be left in the cold?' he asked, as he arose from the table
and seated himself upon the sofa near the window.
'I expect to be your debtor all my life,' Jerrie said, as went over to
him and laid her soft, white arms around his neck. 'I can never pay you
for all you have done for me, never. I can only love you, which I do so
dearly, as the kindest and best of men.'
She was stooping over him now; and putting up his hands Arthur drew her
close to him, so that the two faces were again plainly reflected, side
by side in the mirror opposite--the man's gentle and tender as a
woman's, the girl's flushed, and eager, and excited as she caught a
second time the likeness which had made her cold and faint when she
first saw it, and which made her faint again as she clasped her hands
tightly together, and leaning a little forward, looked earnestly at the
faces in the mirror, while she listened to what Arthur was saying.
'You owe me nothing, Cherry; the indebtedness is all on my side, and has
been since the day when a little white sun-bonnet showed itself at my
window, and a clear, ringing voice, which I can hear yet, said to me,
"Mr. Crazyman, don't you want some cherries?" You don't know how much of
life and sunshine you brought me with the cherries. My sky was very
black those days, and but for you I am certain that I should long ere
this have been what you called me--a crazy man for sure, locked up
behind bars and bolts. My little Cherry has been all the world to me;
and though she is very grand, and tall, and stately now, I love to
remember her as the child in the sun-bonnet, clinging to the ladder, and
talking to the lunatic inside. That would make a fine picture, and it I
were an artist I would paint it some day. Perhaps Maude will. Poor
little Maude! Did I tell you that while she was absent she dabbled in
water-colors? and now she has what she calls a studio, where she
perpetrates the most atrocious daubs you ever saw. Poor Maude! She is
weak in the upper story, but is, on the whole, a nice girl, and very
pretty, too, with her black eyes, and brilliant color, and kittenish
ways. I did not care for her once, but we are great friends now, and she
is a comfort to me in your absence. I am afraid, though, that she is not
long for this world. Everything tires her, and she has grown so thin
that a breath might blow her away. I think it would kill Frank to lose
her. His life is bound up in hers; and he once said to me, either that
he had sold, or would sell, his soul for her. What do you suppose he
meant?'
Jerrie did not reply. The likeness in the mirror had disappeared as
Arthur grew more in earnest, and she listened more intently to what he
was saying of Maude, every word as he went on a blow from which she
shrank as from some physical pain.
'Yes,' Arthur continued, 'Maude is weak, mentally and physically, though
I believe she is trying hard to improve her wind, or rather, that young
man, Harold, is trying to improve it for her. He is at the house nearly
everyday, or she is at the cottage. But, hold on! I wasn't to tell, and
I haven't told--only he reads to her, sometimes outside when the weather
will admit, but oftener in her _studio_, where she talks to him of art,
and where I once saw him giving her a sitting while she tried to sketch
his face. A caricature, I called it, ridiculing it so much that she put
it away unfinished, and is now at work on some water-lilies he brought
her, and which are really very good. Mrs. Tracy is not pleased with
Harold's visits, and I once overheard her saying to Maude, "Why do you
encourage the attentions of that young man? why do you run after him so,
down there every day?" Hold on, again! What a tattler I am! Why don't I
stick to Dolly, who said, "You certainly do not care for him. He hasn't
a cent to his name, nor any family and has even worked in Peterkin's
furnace." What Maude replied I do not know, I only heard Dolly bang the
door hard as she left the room, so I suppose the answer was not a
pleasing one. Dolly is a grand lady and would not like her daughter to
marry an ordinary man like Harold.'
'No,' Jerrie said, slowly, as if speaking were an effort. 'N-no; and you
think Harold likes Maude very much?'
'Likes her? Yes. Why shouldn't he like a girl as pretty as she is,
especially when she meets him more than half way?' Arthur replied, and
Jerrie continued in the same measured tone:
'Ye-es, and you think he would marry her if her mother would permit it?'
'He is not at all likely to do that,' Arthur answered, quickly, 'A man
seldom marries a woman who throws herself at his head and lets him see
how much she cares for him, and Maude is doing just that. She cannot
conceal anything. I tell you, Cherry, if the time ever comes when you
love somebody better than all the world beside, don't let him know until
he speaks for himself. Don't be lightly won. Better be shy and cold,
than demonstrative and gushing, like Maude. Gretchen was shy as a fawn,
and after I told her I loved her she would not believe it possible. But,
child, you look fagged and tired. It is time you were in bed. I have
talked you nearly to death.'
'I am not tired,' Jerrie said, 'and I want to know what it is about
Maude's going to the cottage, which you must not tell me. Is she there
very, very often, and does Harold like to have her come, and is that
throwing herself at his head, as you call it?'
She had her arm around his neck in a coaxing kind of way, and Arthur
smoothed the soft white hand resting on his coat-collar, as he answered,
laughingly:
'Mother Eve herself. You would have eaten the apple, too, had you been
Mrs. Adam. No, no, I shall not tell any secrets. You must wait and see
for yourself. And now you must go, for I am tired myself.'
She said good-night, and went to her room, but not to sleep at once,
because of the tumult of emotions which had been roused by what Arthur
had told her of Maude and Harold.
'I don't believe now that I really meant him to make love to her when I
asked him to amuse her,' she whispered to herself, as she dashed away
two great tear-drops from her cheeks.
Then, after a moment, she continued:
'But they shall never know. No one shall ever know that I care, for I
don't, or I am not going to. Harold is my brother, and I shall love
Maude as my sister, and I will do all I can to make her more like what
Harold's wife should be. She is beautiful, and good, and sweet, and
true, and with money and position can do far more for him than I
could--I, the daughter of a peasant woman, the child of the carpet bag;
and yet--'
Here Jerrie's hands beat the air excitedly as she recalled the wild
fancy which had twice taken possession of her that night, and which had
been born of that likeness seen in the mirror. Many times since she had
passed from childhood to womanhood had she speculated upon the mystery
which enshrouded her, while one recollection after another of past
events flitted through her brain, only to bewilder her awhile and then
to disappear into oblivion. But never before had she been affected as
she was that night when the possibility of what might be nearly drove
her wild.
'Oh, if that were so,' she said, 'I could help Harold, and I'd give
everything to him and make him my king, as he is worthy to be. There is
something far back,' she continued 'something different from the woman
who died at my side. That face which haunts me so often was a reality
somewhere. It has kissed me and called me darling, and I saw the life
fade out of it--saw it cold and dead. I know I did, and sometime, when I
have paid that debt to Mr. Frank Tracy, and have helped Harold, and made
grandmother comfortable, I'll go to Germany, to Wiesbaden and
everywhere, and clear the mystery, if possible; and if mother was a
peasant girl, with hands coarse and hard, and black from labor in the
field, then, I, too, will be a peasant girl, and marry a peasant lad,
and draw his potatoes home in a cart, while he trudges at my side.'
At this picture of herself Jerrie laughed out loud, and while trying to
think how it would seem to draw potatoes in a cart, after having dug
them, she fell asleep and dreamed of Maude and Harold, and studios and
lilies, and a face which was a caricature, as Arthur had said, and
which, when at a late hour she awoke, proved to be that of the
chambermaid, whom Arthur had sent to rouse her, as he was waiting for
his breakfast.
CHAPTER XXVI.
MAUDE'S LETTER.
TRACY PARK, June ----, 18--.
'My darling Jerrie:--I wish I could send you a whiff of the
delicious air I am breathing this morning from the roses under my
window and the pond-lilies which Harold brought me about an hour
ago. Don't you think he was up before the sun, and went out upon the
river to get them for me because he knows how fond I am of them, and
I told him yesterday that they always made me think of you, they are
an sweet, and pure, and fair. I wish you could have seen him, or,
rather, have heard his voice and seen the look in his eyes, as he
said: "Yes; Jerrie is the lily and you are the rose; you set each
other off admirably. I am glad you are so good friends."
'Harold thinks the world of you, Jerrie, and were you his own
sister, I am sure he could not love you better than he does. How
handsome he has grown since I went away. I always thought him
splendid-looking, but he is more than that now; so tall and
straight, with his head set on his shoulders in such an aristocratic
kind of way, and then his eyes, which look at you so--well, I don't
know how they do look at you, but they are eyes you would trust and
never be afraid of anything bad behind them. Uncle Arthur says his
mother was lovely, and that his father was one of the handsomest men
of his time, but I am certain that Harold looks better than either
of them, and has inherited the good qualities of both, without a
single bad one. He is so nice and gentlemanly, and has such a kind,
courteous way of saying and doing things. Fred Raymond--who, you
know, is so sweet on Nina St. Clair--says that if Harold had all the
blood of a hundred kings in his veins he could not be more courtly
or dignified in his manner than he is, and that is a great deal for
a Kentuckian to say. Fred is now at Grassy Spring, visiting Dick St.
Claire, and will stay until Nina comes home. I wish Harold was rich,
and if I had money of my own, I believe I'd give it to him, only he
wouldn't take it, he is so awfully proud, and afraid somebody will
help him; and yet I respect him for the pride, which has made him
teach school, and do everything he could find to do in order to go
through college the last two years and pay his own way. But I did
not like it a bit when I heard he had accepted a situation in
Peterkin's furnace. I know he had good wages, but it is dreadful to
think of Harold under such a man, even if Billy is there. When I
told Uncle Arthur he laughed, and said: "Honor and shame from no
condition rise." I wonder what he meant? I asked Tom, and he said I
was a fool.
'Weren't you proud of Harold, though, the day he graduated? What an
oration that was! and how the building shook with applause when he
came on and when he went off! And do you remember the expression of
his face when he picked up the bouquet of roses I threw him, and
looked over where we sat? I thought he touched his lips to them, but
was not sure. Do you remember? He is studying law now all the time
he can get in Judge St. Claire's office, but he comes to read to me
for an hour or more nearly every day. He came of his own accord,
too. I did not ask him, or even hint, as Tom says I do, when I want
anything; and sometimes I half think he is trying to drive something
into my head, or was, when he began to read to me about those old
Greeks, Hesiod, or Herod, I don't know which, and Theogony--that's
rather a pretty name, don't you think so? But I could not stand the
Greeks. My mind is too weak to be impressed by anything Grecian,
unless it is the Grecian bend. You tried it until you were
discouraged and gave it up, telling me I was the stupidest idiot you
ever saw! That was the time we had the a spelling-school in the
Tramp House, and you were the teacher, and Harold chose me first,
and I spelled biscuit "bisket!" Do you remember how I cried? and
when you told me nobody would ever like me unless I knew something,
Harold said. "Don't talk like that, Jerrie; those who know the least
are frequently liked the best."
'What a comfort those words have been to me; and especially at the
time when I failed so utterly in examination at Vassar and had to
give it up. Oh, Jerrie, you do not know how mortified I was over
that failure, to think I knew so little; and the worst of it is I
can't learn, or understand; or remember, and it makes my head ache
so to try. I am sorry most on father's account, he is so proud of
me and would like to see me take the lead in everything. Poor
father! he is growing old so fast. Why, his hair is white as snow,
and he sometimes talks to himself just as Uncle Arthur does. I
wonder what ails him that he never smiles or seems interested in
anything except when I am smoothing his hair or sitting on his knee;
then he brightens up and calls me his pet and darling, and talks
queer kind of talk, I think. He asks me if I am glad I live at Tracy
Park--if I like the pretty things he buys me, and if I should be as
happy if I were poor--not real poor, you know, but as we were at
Langley before I was born. I went there with him a few weeks ago for
the first time; and oh, my goodness gracious! such a poky little
house, with the stairs going right up in the room, and such a tiny,
stuffy bedroom! I tried to fancy mamma's scent bottles, and brushes,
and combs, and the box for polishing her nails, transported to that
room, and her in there with Rosalie dressing her hair. It made me
laugh till I cried, and I think papa did actually cry, for he sat
down upon the stairs and turned his head away, and when he looked up
his eyes were all wet and red, with such a sorry look in them that I
went straight up and kissed him, and asked him playfully if he was
crying for the old days when he lived in that house and sold codfish
in the store.
'"Yes, Maude," he said. "I believe I'd give the remainder of my life
if I could be put back right here as I was when your uncle Arthur's
letter came and turned my head. Oh, if the years and everything
could be blotted out!"
'What do you suppose he meant? I was frightened, and did not say a
word until he asked me those questions I told you about; did I like
pretty things? did I like to live at Tracy Park, and could I bear to
be poor and live in the Langley house? I just told him, 'No, I
should not like to live in Langley, that I did like living at Tracy
Park, and did like the pretty things which money bought.'
'"Then I ought to be content, if my beautiful Maude is so," he said,
and the tired look on his face lifted a little.
'He calls me beautiful so often. But I don't see it, do you? Of
course you don't. You think me too black, and small, and thin, and
so I am. Harold never told me I was pretty, and--I tell this in
confidence, and you must never breathe it to any one--I have tried
to wring a compliment from him so many times, but it's no use, I
can't do it, he never understands anything, though he does sometimes
say, when he brings me a bright rose: "Wear it, Maude; it will
become your style."
'He never says you are pretty, either, and that is strange, for I
think you have the loveliest and sweetest face I ever saw, except
Gretchen's in the picture, you look like her; I saw it so plainly
two years ago, when you were here one evening, and I spoke of it to
father. Who was she, I wonder? Uncle Arthur does not talk much of
her now, though I believe he kisses her every night and morning. How
much he thinks of you, and how much he has talked of _Cherry_ since
his visit to you in May. I am so glad you liked the dress, he was so
anxious about it. Did he say any thing to you of a trip to
California? He took us quite by surprise two weeks ago by telling us
he was going. He wanted to see the Yosemite Valley before he died,
he said, and June was the time to see it. So he started off with
Charles about ten days ago, and the house seems like a tomb without
him.
'If I can, I shall come and see you graduate with the other Vassars,
though I shall be ashamed to be seen where I failed so utterly. I
might have known I should, for I haven't about me a single quality
which would entitle me to be a Vassar, unless it is my fondness for
_gum_. Do you really chew an awful lot there, or is it a fib? How
learned you and Nina will be, and how you will cast me in the shade,
making me seem stupider than ever. I did try very hard to learn to
speak German when I was abroad with mamma, for father wished it
particularly; but I could not do it, and gave it up. I have not a
capacity for anything, except to love and suffer and sacrifice for
those I love. Do you know, it sometimes frightens me to think how
devotedly I could love some one. Not a girl, but a man--a lover--a
husband, who loved me. Why, I would give my life for him, and bear
any kind of torture if it would add to his happiness. But why write
this nonsense to you, who never acted as if you cared an atom for
any boy, not even Dick St. Claire, who used to give you sugar hearts
and call you his little wife. _Entre nous_ (who says I do not know
two French words?) mamma would like to make a match between Dick and
me, but she never will--never! Dick is nice, and I like him, but not
that way. Poor mamma! How much she thinks of money and position! I
tell her she ought to have a photograph of the old Langley House
hung up in her room to keep her in mind of her former condition.
Just now she has the craze to hammer brass and paint in
water-colors, and goes over to Mrs. Atherton's to take lessons.
Don't you think that Mrs. Peterkin--_May Jane_--had like aspirations
with mamma, and wanted to join the class; but the teacher found that
she had as many pupils as she could attend to, and so May Jane is
left out in the cold. But Mr. Peterkin says, 'By George, my wife
shall have 'complishments if money can buy em!' And so, I suppose,
she will. What strides those Peterkins have taken, to be sure, and
what a big house he has built with such a funny name.--"_Le
Batteau_", which, as he pronounces it, sounds like _Lubber-too_! It
is just finished, and they have moved into it. I have not been
there, but Tom has, and he says it fairly glitters, it is so
gorgeous, and looks inside like those chariots which come with
circuses.
'You ought to hear Peterkin talk about his '_Ann Lizy_, who, he
says, "is to Vassar, gettin schoolin' with the big bugs, and when
she comes _hum_ he is goin' to get her a hoss and cart for her own,
and a maid, and a vally, too, if she wants one." Well, there are
some bigger fools in the world than I am, and that's a comfort. As
for Billy, he stammers worse, if possible, than he used to when he
told us we were "pl-p-plaguey mean to pl-pl-plague Ann Lizy so;" but
I guess I will let him burst upon you in all the magnificence of his
summer attire--his almost white clothes, short coat, tight pants,
pointed shoes, and stove-pipe hat to make him look taller. He comes
here occasionally to see Tom, and always talks of you. I do believe
you might be Mrs. Billy Peterkin and live at _Lubber-too_, if you
wanted; but, really, Billy is very kind to Harold, who gets twice as
much wages in the office, when he writes there, as he would if it
were not for Billy.
'Tom is home, doing nothing, but taking his ease and aping an
English swell. You know he was with mamma and me in England, and
since his return has effected everything English, and looks quite
like the _dude_ of the period. He, too, seems interested in your
return; and I don't know but you might be mistress of Tracy Park, if
you could fancy the incumbrance. Dick St. Claire is going to Vassar
to see you and Nina graduate; and Harold, too, if he possibly can.
He is very busy just now with something he must finish, and perhaps
he cannot be there. Tom is going, and Fred Raymond, and Billy
Peterkin--quite a turn-out from Shannondale.
'I can hardly wait to see you. Only think, it is almost two years
since I said good-bye; for we went to Europe just after Harold was
graduated, and your last Christmas holidays were over before we came
home.
'What a long letter I have written you, and have not told you a word
of my health, about which you inquired so particularly. Did Uncle
Arthur tell you anything? I wish he had not, for it worries me to
have people look, and act, and talk as if I were sick, when I am
not. If I had not a pain in my side, and a tickling cough, which
keeps me awake nights and makes me sweat until my hair is wet, I
should be perfectly strong; and but for the pain and the weariness,
I feel as well as I ever did; and I go out nearly every day, and I
don't want to die and leave my beautiful home, and father, and
mother, and you, and--everybody I love. I am too young to die. I
cannot die.
'Oh, Jerrie, I am glad you are coming home! You will do me good,
just as Harold does. He is so strong every way, and so kind I can't
begin to tell you what he has been to me since I came home in
March--more than a friend--more than a brother. I do not see why you
never fell in love with him, thought I suppose it is living with
him always, as you have, and looking upon him as a brother.
'And now I must say good-bye, for I am getting tired and must rest.
I was at the cottage this morning, and Harold is coming here this
afternoon to read Tennyson's "May Queen" to me. He has read it a
dozen times, but I am never tired of it, although it makes me cry to
think of that grave in the long grass, with little Alice in it, cold
and dead, listening for those she loved to come and weep over her.
You know, she says to her mother:
'"I shall hear you when you pass,
With your feet above me, in the long and pleasant grass."
'Oh, Jerrie, if it should be--you know what I mean; if there should
come a time when people say to each other, "Maude Tracy is dead!"
you'll come often, won't you, and think of me always as the friend,
who, weak and stupid as she was, loved you dearly--dearly.
'Now, good-bye again. Harold has just come in, and says, "Remember
me to Jerrie, and tell her I shall hope to see her graduated, but do
not know, I am so busy."
'Truly and lovingly,
'MAUDE TRACY.'
'P.S.--Tom has come in, and says, "Give my love to Jerrie."
'P.S. No. 2.--Dick St. Claire and Fred Raymond are here, and both
send their regards.
'P.S. No. 3.--If you will believe me, Billy Peterkin is here,
nibbling his little cane, and says, "Present my compliments to Miss
Crawford."
'Just think of it. Five, or, rather, four young men--for Tom don't
count--for me to entertain. But I can do it, and rather like it,
too, though they all tire me, except Harold.'
Jerrie read this letter, which was received a few days before
commencement, two or three times, and each time she read it, the little
ache in her heart kept growing larger, until at last it was actual pain,
and covering her face with her hands, she cried like a child.
'It is Maude I am crying for,' she kept saying to herself. 'I know she
is worse than they have told me. She is going to die, and I am mean to
grudge her Harold's love, if that will make her happier. Why does she go
to the cottage so often, I wonder? Is it to see him? He would not like
me to do that. He was chagrined when I kissed him at Harvard. But, then,
he does not love me, and he does Maude; but he _must_ see me graduate.
I'll write and tell him so. That, surely, will not be "throwing myself
at his head;"' and seizing her pen, Jerrie wrote, rapidly and excitedly:
'DEAR HAROLD: I have just heard from Maude, who says there is a
possibility that you will not come to Vassar; but I shall be so
disappointed if you do not. I would rather have you here than all
the wise old heads in the State. So come without fail, no matter
what you are doing. I can't imagine anything which should keep you.
Tell grandma I am longing to be home, and keep thinking just how
cool and nice the kitchen looks, with the hop-vine over the door;
but she will I have to raise the roof soon, for I do believe I've
grown an inch since last winter and am in danger of knocking my
brains out in those low rooms.
'Good-bye till I see you.
'JERRIE.'
CHAPTER XXVII.
'HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID.
The _she_ was Jerrie, who, the night before commencement, was shaking
hands with Dick St. Claire, Fred Raymond, Tom Tracy, and Billy Peterkin,
all of whom had arrived on the evening train, and after dinner had come
to pay their respects to the young ladies from Shannondale. The _he_ way
Harold, for whom Jerrie asked at once.
'Where is Harold? Is he coming in the morning?' she said, as she stood,
tall, and straight, and queen-like, before the four young men, who
glanced at each other with a significance in their looks, which she did
not understand.
It was Dick St. Claire who took it upon himself to explain.
'No, Hal is not coming,' he said, 'and he is awfully cut up about it. He
thought he might manage it until yesterday when he found it impossible
to do so. You see, he has taken a job which must be done at a certain
time.'
'Taken a job!' Jerrie repeated. 'What job? What do you mean?' and her
blue eyes flashed upon each of the young men, falling last upon Tom
Tracy, as if she expected him to answer, which he did in the half
sneering, half satirical tone which made her hate him and long to box
his ears.
'Why, it's a sort of carpenter's job,' he said; 'and I heard his hammer
going this morning before sunrise, for I was up early for once and out
in the park. Sounded as if he were shingling a roof, and that's work,
you know, which must be done in fair weather. It might rain and spoil
the plastering.'
'Thank you,' Jerrie answered, curtly. 'Harold is shingling a roof, and
cannot come. But where is Maude? Is she shingling a roof, too?'
'Yes, b-b-by Jove. You've h-hit it. Maude's sh-shingling a roof, too:
the b-best joke out,' Billy Peterkin chimed in, glad of an opportunity
to join in the conversation, and so get some attention from Jerrie.
He was a little man, only four feet five with heels, and he wore the
light clothes of which Maude had written, and a stove-pipe hat, and dove
colored gloves, and carried a little cane, which he constantly nibbled
at, when he was not beating his little boot with it. But he was
good-natured and inoffensive and kind-hearted, with nothing low or mean
in his nature; and Jerrie, who looked as if she could have picked him up
and thrown him over the house, liked him far better than she did the
'elegant Tom,' as she had nicknamed him, who stood six feet without
heels, and who knew exactly what shade of color to choose, from his
neck-tie to his hose, which were always silk of the finest quality. Tom
was faultlessly gotten up, and he knew it, and carried himself as if he
knew it, and knew, too, that he was Tom Tracy, the future heir of Tracy
Park, if he were fortunate enough to outlive both his uncle and his
father. Jerrie had disliked him when he was a boy and she disliked him
now, and turning her back upon him pretended to be interested in 'little
Billy,' as she was in the habit of calling him; he was so short and she
was so tall.
He was speaking of Harold, and he said:
'It's a dused shame he co-couldn't come, b-but he sent some money by
Dick to buy you a b-basket in New York, and by George, we've got you a
st-stunner down to the h-hotel; only I'm a-a-fraid it'll be w-wilted
some b-before to-morrow.
'Yes,' Dick said, coming forward, 'I should not have told you now, if
Billy had not let it out; Hal did give me some money to buy a basket of
flowers for you; the very best I could find, he said, and I got a big
one; but I'm afraid it was not very fresh, for it begins to look wilted
now. You must blame Tom, though; he pretends to be up in flowers, and
advised my getting this one in New York, because it was so handsome and
cheap.'
'Oh, it is all right,' Tom drawled, in that affected voice he had
adopted since his return from Europe. 'It was the best, any way, we
could get for the money. Hal, you know, isn't very flush in the pocket.'
It was a mean speech to make, and all Tom's audience felt it to be so,
while Jerry crimsoned with resentment and answered hotly:
'Faded or not, I shall care more for Harold's flowers than for all the
rest which may be given me.'
This was not very encouraging to three at least of the young men who
were intending to make the finest floral offering they could find, to
the girl whom in their secret hearts they admired more than any girl
they had ever seen, and who, had she made the slightest sign, might have
been installed at Grassy Spring, or Tracy Park, or Le Bateau, within
less than a month. But Jerry had never made a sign, and had laughed and
chatted and flirted with them all, not excepting Tom, who had long ago
dropped his supercilious air of superiority and patronage when talking
with her, and treated her with a gentleness and consideration almost
lover-like. Horribly jealous of Harold, whom he still felt infinitely
above, although he did not now often openly show it, he had encouraged
the visits of the latter to Tracy Park, and by jokes and hints and
innuendoes had fed the flame which he knew was burning in his sister's
heart.
'There will be a jolly row when mother finds it out,' he said to Maude
one day; 'for you know she holds her head a great deal higher than Hal
Hastings, who isn't the chap I'd choose for a brother-in-law. But if you
like him, all right. Stick to him, and I'll stand by you to the death.'
This was to Maude; while to his mother, when, she complained that Harold
came there quite too often, and that Maude was running after him too
much, he said:
'Nonsense, mother! let Maude alone. She knows what she is about, and
would not wipe her shoes on Hal Hastings, much less marry him. She is
lonely without Nina and Jerry, and not strong enough to read much
herself, and Hal amuses her; that's all. I know. I have talked with her.
I am keeping watch, and the moment I see any indications of love-making
on either side I will give you warning, and together we will put my fine
chap in his proper place in a jiffy.'
Tom was a young man now of twenty-seven, tall, and finely-formed, with
all his mother's good looks, and his Uncle Arthur's courtliness of
manner when he felt that his companions were worthy of his notice, but
proud, and arrogant, and self-asserting with his inferiors, or those
whom he thought such. He had never overcome his unwarrantable dislike of
Harold, whom he considered far beneath him; but Harold was too popular
to be openly treated with contempt, and so there was a show of
friendship and civility between them, without any real liking on either
side. Tom could not tell just when he began to look upon Jerrie as the
loveliest girl he had ever seen, and to contemplate the feasibility of
making her Mrs. Tom Tracy. His admiration for her had been of slow
growth, for she was worse than a nobody--a child of the Tramp House, of
whose antecedents nothing was known, while he was a Tracy, of Tracy
Park, whom a duchess might be proud to wed. But he had succumbed at last
to Jerrie's beauty, and sprightliness, and originality, and now his love
for her had become the absorbing passion of his life, and he would have
made her his wife at any moment, in the face of all his mother's
opposition. By some subtle intuition, he felt that Harold was his rival,
though he could not fathom the nature of Harold's feeling for Jerrie, so
carefully did the latter conceal it.
'He must regard her as something more than a sister,' he thought; 'he
cannot see her every day without loving her, and by-and-by he will tell
her so, and then my cake is dough. If I can only get him committed to
Maude while Jerrie is away, my way is clear, for I am quite sure she
does not care for Dick, and she would be a fool not to take Tracy Park
if she could get it. And why shouldn't Hal love Maude? She is pretty,
and sweet, and winning, and will some day be an heiress. Hal may thank
his stars to get her, though I hate him as I do poison.'
It was Tom who had insisted that Harold's basket should be bought in New
York, where there was a better chance, he said, and he had himself
selected flowers which he knew were not fresh, and would be still worse
twenty-four hours later.
'Why don't you get yours here, if it is the be-best place?' Will
Peterkin had asked him, and he replied:
'Oh, we can't be bothered with more than one basket in the train. I can
find something there.'
He did not say what he intended to find, or that baskets were quite too
common for him. But after leaving the young ladies in the evening, he
went to a florist's and ordered for Jerrie a book of white daisies, with
a rack of purple pansies for it to rest upon.
'That will certainly be unique, and show her that I have taste,' he
thought.
For Nina a bouquet was sufficient, while for Ann Eliza Peterkin he
ordered nothing. Tom could be lavish of his money where his own interest
was concerned, but where he had no interest he was stingy and even mean,
and so poor little red-haired Ann Eliza, who would have prized a leaf
from him more than all the florist's garden from another, was to get
nothing from him.
'What business has old Peterkin's daughter to graduate with ladies, any
way?' he thought, and he looked on with a sneer, while Billy ordered
five baskets, one of which was to be of white roses, with a heart of
blue forget-me-nots in the centre.
'What, under heaven, are you going to do with five baskets?' he asked;
but Billy was non committal, for he would not own that three were
intended for Jerrie, whom he wished to carry off the palm so far as
flowers were concerned.
And she did; for of all the young ladies who the next day passed in
review before the multitude, no one attracted so much attention or
received so much praise as Jerrie. For clearness of reasoning, depth of
thought, and purity of language, her essay, though a little too
metaphysical, perhaps, was accounted the best, and listened to with rapt
attention. And when the musical voice ceased, and the young girl, who
had never looked more beautiful than she did then, with the sparkle in
her eyes and the flush on her cheeks, bowed to the audience, bouquets of
flowers fell around her like hailstones, while basket after basket was
handed up to her, Tom Tracy's book showing conspicuously from the rest
and attracting unusual admiration.
But, alas for poor Harold's gift! Dick had watered it the last thing
before going to bed and the first thing in the morning, but the flowers
were limp and faded, and gave forth a sickly odor, while the leaves of
the roses were dropping off, and only the size, which was immense,
remained to tell what it once had been. But Jerrie singled it out from
all the rest, and held it in her hands until the exercises were over;
and that night, at a reception given to the graduates, she wore in her
bosom two faded pink roses, the only ones she could make hold together,
and which Nina told her smelled a little old. But Jerrie did not care.
They were Harold's roses, which he had sent to her, and she prized them
more than all the rest she had received. At little Billy's _heart_ she
had laughed till she cried, and then had given it to a young girl, not a
graduate, who admired it exceedingly. Tom's book she knew was exquisite,
and placed it with others, and thanked him for it, and told him it was
lovely, and then gave it to Ann Eliza, whose offerings had been so few.
A bouquet from Dick St. Claire and Fred Raymond, a basket from her
brother, and one more from _herself_, were all, and the little
red-haired girl, who, with her heavy gold chain and locket, and diamond
ear-rings, and three bracelets, and five finger-rings, had looked like a
jeweller's shop, felt aggrieved and neglected, and Jerrie found her
sobbing in her room as if her heart was broken.
'Only four snipping things,' she said, 'and you had twenty-five, and
mother will be so disappointed, and father too, when he knows just how
few I got. I wish I was popular like you.'
'Never mind,' Jerrie said, cheerfully. 'It was only a happen so--my
getting so many. You are just as nice as I am, and I'll give you part of
mine to take home to your mother. I can never carry them all. I should
have to charter a car,' and in a few moments six of Jerrie's baskets
were transferred to Ann Eliza's room, including Tom Tracy's book.
'Oh, I can't take that, Ann Eliza said; he didn't mean it for me; he
didn't give me anything, and I--I--'
Here she began to sob again, and laying her hand pityingly upon the
bowed head, Jerrie said:
'Yes, I know; I understand. Something from Tom Tracy would have pleased
you more than from anyone; but listen to me, Annie. Tom is not worth
your tears.'
'Don't you care for him?' the girl asked, lifting her head suddenly.
'Not a particle, as you mean. You have nothing to fear from me,' Jerrie
replied.
This was a grain of comfort to the girl who had been weak enough to
waste her affections upon Tom Tracy, and who, fearing Jerrie was a
rival, was weak enough to hope that with her out of the way she might
eventually succeed in bringing him to her feet, for she knew his
fondness for money, and knew, too, that she should in all probability be
one day the heiress to a million. So great was her infatuation for the
man who had never shown her the slightest attention, that even his
flowers, though second-hand, and not intended for her, were everything
to her, and when she packed her trunk that night she put them carefully
away in many wrappings of paper, to be brought out at home in the
privacy of her own room, and kept as long as the least beauty or perfume
remained.
It was a merry party which the New York train carried to Shannondale the
next day, and Jerrie was the merriest and gayest of them all, bandying
jokes and jests, and coquetting pretty equally with the young men, until
neither Tom, nor Dick, nor Billy quite knew what he was doing or saying.
But always in her gayest moods, when her eyes were brightest and her wit
the keenest, there was in Jerrie's heart a thought of Harold, who had so
disappointed her, and a wonder as to the nature of the _job_ which had
been of sufficient importance to keep him from Vassar.
'Shingling a roof, and Maude is helping him,' Billy said, 'I wonder what
he meant?' she was thinking, when she heard Ann Eliza cry out, that the
towers of 'Le Bateau' were visible.
As she had not seen that wonderful structure since its completion, she
arose from her seat, and going to the window, looked out upon the
massive pile in the distance, looking, with its turrets, and towers, and
round projections, like some old castle rather than a home where people
could live and be happy.
'It is very grand,' she said to Ann Eliza; and Billy, who was leaning
toward her, replied:
'Yes, too grand for a Pe-Peterkin. It wants you, there, Jerrie, as its
m-m-master-p-p-piece, and, by Jove, you can b-be there, too, if you
will!'
No one heard this attempt at an offer but Jerrie, who, with a saucy toss
of the head, replied, laughingly:
'Thank you, Billy. I'll think of it, and let you know when I make up my
mind to come. Just now I prefer the cottage in the lane to any spot on
earth. Oh, here, we are at the station,' she cried, as the train shot
round a curve and Shannondale was reached.
There was a scrambling for bundles, and flowers, and wraps. Fred Raymond
gathering up Nina's, while Dick, and Tom, and Billy, almost fought over
Jerrie's, and poor little Ann Eliza would have carried hers alone if
Jerrie had not helped her.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
IN SHANNONDALE.
Nine years of change in Shannondale, and the green hill-side, which
stretched from the common down to the river where, when our story
opened, sheep and cows were feeding in the pasture land, is thickly
covered with houses of every kind of architecture, from the Mansard roof
to the Queen Anne style, just coming into fashion, while the meadow
lands are dotted over with the small houses of the men who work in the
large furnace, or manufactory, which Peterkin had bought and enlarged,
as a monument, he said, and where he sometimes employed as many as four
hundred men, and had set up a whistle which could be heard for miles and
miles, and nearly blew off the chimney-tops when it sounded in the
morning at six o'clock, it was so loud and shrill. A screecher, Peterkin
called it, and he always listened with a smile of pride and satisfaction
on his face when he heard the first indications of its blowing, and knew
that four hundred men were quickening their stops on account of it,
lest they should be a few minutes late and have their wages docked.
Peterkin counted two millions now, and boasted the finest, or at least,
the most expensive house in the county, not even excepting Tracy Park,
which still held its own for solidity and old-fashioned dignity, and was
the show place to the strangers visiting in Shannondale.
When Peterkin made $20,000 in one day from some speculation in stocks,
he said to Mr. St. Claire, who was now a judge, and with whom he
pretended to be on terms of great familiarity:
'I say, judge, I'm goin' to build a buster, and whip the crowd. I've
lived about long enough in that little nine-by-ten hole, and I'll be
dumbed if I don't show 'em what I can do. I'll have towers, and
bay-windows, and piazzers, with checkered work all 'round 'em, and a
preservatory, and all kinds of new fangled doin's. May Jane and Ann
'Liza want that Queen Anny style, but I tell 'em no such squatty things
for me. They can have all the little winder panes and stained glass,
cart loads on't, if they want; but I'll have the rooms big and high, so
a feller won't bump his head. Yes, _sir_! I'm in for a smasher!'
And he built 'a smasher' on the site of the old house, behind which the
'Liza Ann,' or what there was left of it, was lying; and when the house
was done, and furnished with the most gaudy and expensive furniture he
could find in Boston and New York, he said it had just as good a right
to a name as any body. There was Tracy Park, and Grassy Springs, and
Brier Hill, and Collingwood, and he'd be dumbed if he'd be outdone by
any of 'em.
'He'd like to call it 'Liza Ann,' he said to Arthur, whom he met one day
in the park, and to whom he began to talk of his new house. 'He'd like
to call it 'Liza Ann, after the old boat, for that craft was the
beginnin' of his bein' any body; but May Jane and Ann 'Liza wouldn't
hear to it. They wanted some new-frangled foreign name; could Mr. Tracy
suggest something?'
'How would "_Le Bateau_" do? It is the French for "the boat," and might
cover your difficulty,' Arthur said, without a thought that his
suggestion would be adopted.
But it was, immediately.
'That's jest the checker. 'Liza Ann with a new name, _Lub--lub_--what
d'ye call her?' Peterkin said, and Arthur replied:
'_Le Bateau_.'
'Yes, yes--_Lubber-toe_; that'll suit May Jane tip-top. Beats all what
high notions she's got! Why, I don't s'pose she any more remembers that
she used to wash Miss Atherton's stun steps than you remember somethin'
that never happened. Do you?'
Arthur thought very likely that she did not, and Peterkin went on:
'You say it means a boat in French; _canal_, do you s'pose?'
Arthur did not think it mattered what boat, and Peterkin continued:
'_Lubber-toe_! Sounds droll, but I like it, I'll see an engraver to-day
but how do you spell the plaguy thing!'
Arthur wrote it on a slip of paper, which he handed Peterkin, who began
slowly:
_L-e le, b-a-t-bat; le-bat_. Why, what in thunder! That ain't
_Lubbertoe_. 'Tain't nothin'!'
With an amused smile Arthur explained that the pronunciation of French
words had very little to do with the way they were spelled; then, very
carefully pronouncing the name several times, and making Peterkin repeat
it after him, he said good-bye, and walked away, thinking to himself:
'There are bigger lunatics outside the asylum than I am, but it is not
possible the fool will adopt that name.'
But the fool did. May Jane approved, and Billy did not care, provided
his father would pronounce it right, and so in less than a week, '_Le
Bateau_' was on Peterkin's door-plate, and on the two gate-posts of the
entrance to his grounds, and May Jane's visiting cards bore the words:
'Mrs. Peterkin. Le Bateau. Fridays.'
She had her _days_ now, like Mrs. Atherton, and Mrs. St. Claire, and
Mrs. Tracy, and had her butler, too, and her maid, and her carriage; and
after the house was furnished, and furnished in style which reminded one
of a theatre, it was so gorgeous and gay, Peterkin concluded to have a
_coat of arms_ for his carriage; and remembering how Arthur had helped
him in a former dilemma he sought him again and told him his trouble.
'That _Lubber-too_ (he called it _too_ now) 'went down like hot cakes,
and was just the thing,' he said, 'and now I want some picter for my
carriage door to kinder mark me, and show who I am. You know what I
mean.'
Arthur thought a _puff-ball_ would represent Peterkin better than
anything else, but he replied:
'Yes, I know. You want a coat of arms, which shall suggest your early
days--'
'When I was a flounderin' to get up--jess so,' Peterkin interrupted him.
'You've hit it, square. Now I'd like a picter of the Lizy Ann, as she
was, but May Jane won't hear to't. What do you say, square?'
Arthur tingled to his finger tips at this familiarity from a man whom he
detested, and whom he would like to turn from his door, but the man was
in his house and in his private room, tilting back in a delicate Swiss
chair, which Arthur expected every moment to see broken to pieces, and
which finally did go down with a crash as the burly figure settled
itself a little more firmly upon the frail thing.
'I'll be dumbed if I hain't, broke it all to shivers!' the terrified
Peterkin exclaimed, as he struggled to his feet, and looked with dismay
upon the _débris_. 'What's the damage?' he continued, taking out his
pocket-book and ostentatiously showing a fifty-dollar bill.
'Money cannot replace the chair, which once adorned the _salon_ of
Madame De Stael,' Arthur said, 'Put up your purse, but for Heaven's
sake, never again tip back in your chair. It is a vulgar trick, of which
no gentleman would be guilty.'
Ordinarily, Peterkin would have resented language like this, but he was
just now too anxious to curry favor with Arthur to show any anger, and
he answered, meekly:
'That's so, square. 'Tain't good manners, and I know it, as well as the
next one. I'm awful sorry about the chair, and think mebby I could get
it mended. I'd like to try.'
'Never mind the chair,' Arthur said, with an impatient gesture. 'Try
another and a stronger one, and let's go back to business. You want a
painted panel for your carriage. How will this do?' and he rapidly
sketched a green, pleasant meadow, with a canal running through it, and
on the canal a boat, drawn by one horse, which a barefoot,
elfish-looking boy was driving.
'I swow, square, you're a trump, you be,' Peterkin exclaimed, slapping
him on the back, 'You've hit it to a dot. That's the 'Lizy Ann, and that
there boy is Bije Jones, drivin the old spavin hoss. You or'to hev _me_
somewhere in sight, cussin' the hands as I generally was, and May Jane
on deck, hangin' her clothes to dry. Could you manage that?'
Arthur thought he could, but suggested that Mrs. Peterkin might not like
to be made so conspicuous.
'Possibly she will not like this drawing at all. She may think it too
suggestive of other days.'
'That's so,' Peterkin assented, a little sadly; 'and if she don't take
to it, the old Harry can't make her. She used to be the meekest of wives
them days she dried her clothes on the 'Lizy Ann, but she don't knock
under wuth a cent sense we riz in the world, and Ann Lizy is wus than
her mother. But I'll show this to the old woman and let you know.'
May Jane did not approve, neither did Billy. No use, they said, to
flaunt the canal, horse, driver, and all in people's faces; and so the
discomfited Peterkin went to Arthur again and told him, 'the fat was all
in the fire, and May Jane on a rampage.'
'Try again, squire; but give us some kind of water and craft.'
So Arthur good-humoredly changed the canal into a gracefully flowing
river, in a bend of which, in the distance, there was just visible a
boat, which was a cross between a gondola and one of those little
dangerous things so common on the lakes of Wisconsin. Standing in the
bow of the boat, with folded arms, as if calmly contemplating the
scenery, was the figure of a man--suppositively Peterkin--who swore
'he'd keep this picter in spite of 'em;' and as his wife did not
seriously object, the sketch was transferred in oil to a pannel and
inserted in the carriage, which, when drawn by two shining bays and
driven by a colored man in long coat and tall hat, with Peterkin sitting
back in it with all the pride and pompousness of a two-millionaire, and
May Jane at his side, covered with diamonds, attracted general attention
and comment. Billy seldom patronized the carriage, but frequently rode
beside it, talking to his mother, of whom he was very fond, and taking
off his hat to every person he met, whether old or young, rich or poor.
'Billy is an idiot, but very kind-hearted,' people said of him, and in
truth he was popular with everybody, especially with the men in his
father's employ, who all went to him for favors, or for an increase of
wages; for if Billy had any business it was in his father's office,
where he pretended to look after matters and keep the books straight.
Such had been the growth of Peterkin during the past nine years. 'He had
got clean to the front,' he said, 'and was hob-nobbin' with Squire
Harrenton, and Judge St. Claire, and the Tracys,' all of whom shrugged
their shoulders and laughed at him in secret, but treated him civilly to
his face, for, deny it as we may, money has a mighty power, and will
open many a door which nothing else could move.
'Coarse and ignorant as a horse, but not so bad after all' was what
people said of him now; and in fact Peterkin had improved and softened a
good deal with the accession of wealth. Nobody gave so largely, or
lavishly either, to everything, as he did, while to his employees he was
always generous and considerate. Once he thought to join the church,
thinking that would add to his respectability; but when talked with by
his clergyman he showed himself so lamentably deficient in every
necessary qualification that he was advised to wait a while, which he
did; but he rented the most expensive pew he could find, and carried the
largest prayer-book of any one, and read the loudest, stumbling over the
words frightfully, and kept his head down the longest, so long, indeed,
that he once went to sleep, and had quite a little nap before his wife
nudged him and told him to get up.
'Good Lord deliver us!' Was his ejaculation, as he sprang to his feet,
and, adjusting his glasses, looked fiercely round at the amused
congregation.
So far as money and display were concerned, the St. Claires and Mrs.
Atherton had not kept up with Peterkin. On the contrary, as he grew into
society they gradually withdrew, until at last Dolly Tracy had it all
her own way and looked upon herself as the lady _par excellence_ of the
town. She had been to Europe. She had seen the queen; she had had some
dresses made at Worth's; she had picked up a few French words which she
used on all occasions, with but little regard to their appropriateness.
She had decorated a tea set, and was as unlike the Dolly Tracy, who once
did her own work and ate griddle cakes from her own kitchen stove, as a
person well could be. Everything had gone well with her, and scarcely a
sorrow had touched her, for though poor, stupid Jack had slept for five
years in the Tracy lot with only the woman of the Tramp House for
company, he was so near an imbecile when he died that his death was a
blessing rather than otherwise. Tom, with his fine figure, his
fastidious tastes, and aristocratic notions, was the apple of her eye,
and _tout à fait au fait_, she said, when her French fever was at its
height and she wished to impress her hearers with her knowledge of the
language; while, except for her ill-health, and the bad taste she
manifested in her liking for Harold's society, Maude was _tout à fait au
fait_, too. She had no dread of Gretchen, now; even Arthur had ceased to
talk of her, and was as a rule very quiet and contented.
Only her husband troubled her, for with the passing years his silence
and abstraction had increased, until now it was nothing remarkable for
him to go days without speaking to any one unless he were first spoken
to. His hair was white as snow, and made him look years older than he
really was; while the habit he had of always walking with his head down,
and a stoop in his shoulders, added to his apparent years.
During the time Maude was in Europe he grew old very fast, for Maude was
all that made life endurable. To see her in her young beauty, flitting
about the house and grounds like a bright bird, whose nest is high up in
some sheltered spot where the storms never come, was some compensation
for what he had done; but when she was gone there came over him such a
sense of loneliness and desolation that at times he feared lest he
should become crazier than his brother, who really appeared to be
improving, although the strange forgetfulness of past events still clung
to and increased upon him. He did not now remember ever to have said
that Gretchen was with him in the ship or on the train, or that he had
sent the carriage so many times to meet her; and when be spoke of her,
which he seldom did to any one except to Jerrie, it was as of one who
had died years ago. Occasionally, in the winter, when a wild storm was
raging like that which had shaken the house and bent the evergreens the
night Jerrie came, he would tie a knot of crape upon the picture, but
would give no reason for it when questioned except to say, 'Can't you
see it is a badge of mourning?'
For a week or more it would remain there, and then he would put it
carefully away, to be again brought out when the night was wild and
stormy.
It was during Maude's absence that the two brothers became more intimate
than they had been before since Arthur first came home, and it happened
in this wise. Every day, for months after Maude and his wife went away,
Frank spent hours alone in his private room, sometimes doing nothing,
but oftener looking at the photograph of Gretchen, and the Bible with
the marked passages and the handwriting around it. Then he would take
out the letter about which Jerrie had been so anxious, and examine it
carefully, studying the address, which he knew by heart, and beginning
at last to arrange the letters in alphabetical order as far as he could,
and try to imitate them. It was a difficult process, but little by
little, with the assistance of a German text book of Maude's which he
found, he learned the alphabet, and began to form words, then to put
them together, and then to read. Gradually the work began to have a
great fascination for him, and he went to Arthur one day and asked for
some assistance.
'Never too old to learn,' he said, 'and as the house is like a tomb
without Maude, I have actually taken up German, but find it up-hill
business without a teacher. Will you help me?'
'To be sure, to be sure,' Arthur cried, brightening up at once, and
bringing out on the instant such a pile of books as appalled Frank and
made him wish to withdraw his proposition.
But Arthur was eager, and persistent, and patient, and had never
respected his brother one half as much as when he was stammering over
the German pronunciation, which he could not well master. But he learned
to read with a tolerable degree of fluency, and to speak a little, too,
while he could understand nearly all Arthur said to him.
'Do you think I could get along in Germany?' he asked his brother, one
day.
'Certainly you could,' Arthur replied. Do you think of going there? If
you do, go to Wiesbaden, and inquire for Gretchen--how she died, and
where she was buried. I should have gone long ago only I dreaded the
ocean voyage so confoundedly, and then I forget so badly. When are you
going?'
'Oh, I don't know--I don't know as ever,' Frank answered quickly; and
yet in his heart there was the firm resolve to go to Wiesbaden and hunt
up Marguerite Heinrich's friends, if possible.
'And if I find them, and find my suspicions correct, what shall I do
then?' he asked himself over and over again; and once made answer to his
question: 'I will either make restitution, or drown myself in the
Rhine.'
Jerrie was a constant source of misery to Frank, and yet when she was at
home he was always managing to have her at the park house, where he
could see her, and watch her, as she moved like a young queen though the
handsome rooms, or frolicked with Maude upon the lawn.
'She is surely Gretchen's daughter, and Arthur's, too,' he would say to
himself, as he, too, detected in her face the likeness to his brother,
which had so startled Jerrie in the mirror.
He was always exceedingly kind to her, and almost as proud of her
success at Vassar as Arthur himself; and on the day when she was
expected home he went two or three times to the cottage in the lane,
carrying fruit and flowers, and even offering things more substantial,
which, however, were promptly declined by Mrs. Crawford, who had
signified her intention to take nothing more for Jerrie's board.
'The girl pays for herself, or will,' she said, 'and it is Harold's wish
and mine to be independent.'
But she accepted the fruit and the flowers and wondered a little to see
Frank so excited, and nervous, and anxious that every thing should be
done to make Jerrie's final home-coming as pleasant as possible.
It was a lovely July afternoon when the young ladies from Vassar were
expected, but the train was half an hour late, and the carriage from
Grassy Spring and the carriage from Le Bateau had waited so long that
both coachmen were asleep upon their respective boxes, when at last the
whistle was heard among the hills telling that the cars were coming. The
Tracy carriage was not there, though twenty minutes before train time
Maude had come down in the victoria, and on learning of the delay had
been driven rapidly to the cottage in the lane, from which she had not
returned when at last the cars stopped before the station and the young
people alighted upon the platform, which, with their luggage, seemed at
once to be full.
'Your checks, miss,' the coachman from Grassy Spring said to Nina, as he
touched his hat regretfully to her, and his words were repeated to Ann
Eliza by the servant from Le Bateau.
But Jerrie held hers in her hand with a rueful look of disappointment on
her face as she looked in vain for Harold or Maude to greet her. For a
single moment the difference between her position and that of Nina and
Ann Eliza struck her like a blow, and she thought to herself:
'For them everything, for me nothing.'
Then she rallied, and passing her checks to the baggage master, said to
him:
'If there is a boy here with a cart or a wheelbarrow, let him take my
trunks, otherwise send them by express. I see there is no one to meet
me.'
'Yes'm, but they's comin',' the man replied, with a significant nod in
the direction where a cloud of dust was visible, as the Tracy victoria
came rapidly up to the station, with Maude and Harold in it.
The former was standing up and waving her parasol to the party upon the
platform, while, almost before the carriage stopped, Harold sprang out,
and had both of Jerrie's hands in his, and held them, as he told her how
glad he was to welcome her home again. He looked tired and flurried, and
did not seem quite himself, but there could be no doubt that he was
glad, for the gladness shone in his eyes and in his face, and Jerrie
felt it in the warm clasp of his hands, which she noticed with a pang
were brown, and calloused, and bruised in some places as if they had of
late been used to harder toil than usual. But she had not much time for
thought before Maude's arms were around her neck and Maude was standing
on tiptoe and drawing down her face which she covered with kisses; and,
between laughing and crying, exclaimed:
'You darling old Jerrie, how glad I am to see you again! and how tall
and grand you have grown! Why, I don't much more than come to your
shoulder. See, Harold, how Jerrie outshines me,' and she lifted her
sparkling face to Harold, who looked down at her as a brother might have
looked at an only sister of whom he was very fond.
How pretty and piquant she was with her brilliant complexion and her
black eyes, and how stylish she looked in the Paris gown of embroidered
linen, which fitted her perfectly, and the big hat, which turned up just
enough on the side to give her a saucy, coquettish air, as she flitted
from one to another, kissing Nina twice, Ann Eliza once, and shaking
hands with all the young men except Tom, who put his in his pockets out
of her way.
He could not stand Maude's gush, he said, and he watched her with a
half-sneering smile as she tiptoed around, for it always seemed as if
she walked upon her toes, courtesying as she walked.
'I meant to have been here before the train,' she said to Jerrie, 'and I
was here about an hour ago; but when I found the cars were late I drove
over to tell Harold, as time with him was everything. How we did drive,
though, when we heard the whistle. Come, jump in,' she continued, as she
herself stepped into the victoria. 'Jump in, and I will take you home in
a jiffy. It won't hurt Hal to walk, although he is awful tired.'
'But I would rather walk; take Harold, if he is so tired,' Jerrie said,
in a tone she did not quite intend.
'Oh, Jerrie,' Harold exclaimed, in a low, pained voice, 'I am not tired,
let us both walk,' and going to Maude he said something to her which
Jerrie could not hear, except the words, 'Don't you think it better so?'
'Of course I do; it was stupid in me not to see it before,' was Maude's
reply, as she laid her hand on Harold's arm where it rested a moment,
while she said her good-byes.
And Jerrie saw the little, ungloved hand touching Harold so familiarly,
and thought how small, and white and thin it was, with the full, blue
veins showing so distinctly upon it, and then she looked more closely at
Maude herself, and saw with a pang how tired and sick she looked in
spite of the bright color in her cheeks which came and went so fast.
There was a pallor about her lips and about her nose, while her ears
were almost transparent, and her neck was so small that Jerrie felt she
could have clasped it with one hand.
'Maude,' she cried, pressing close to the young girl, as Harold stepped
aside, 'Maude, are you sick? You are so pale everywhere except your
cheeks, which are like roses.'
'No, no,' Maude answered quickly, as if she did not like the question.
'Not sick a bit, only a little tired. We have been at work real hard,
Hal and I; but he will tell you about it, and now good-bye again, for I
must go, I shall be round in the morning. Good-bye. Oh, Tom, I forgot!
We have company to dinner to-night--a Mr. and Mrs. Hart, who are friends
of Mrs. Atherton, and have just returned from Germany, bringing Fred's
sister, Marian, with them. She has been abroad at school for years, and
is very nice. I ought to have told Fred and Nina. How stupid in me! But
they will find their invitations when they get home. Now hop in, quick,
and don't tear my flounces. You are so awkward.'
'I suppose Hal never tears your flounces,' Tom said, as he took his seat
beside his sister, and gave Jerrie a look which sent the blood in great
waves to her face and neck, for it seemed to imply that he understood
the case and supposed she did too.
The St. Claire carriage had driven away with Nina and Dick, and Fred,
and the carriage from Le Bateau had gone, too, when at last Jerrie and
Harold started down the road and along the highway to the gate through
which the strange woman had once passed with the baby Jerrie in her
arms. The baby was a young woman now, tall and erect, with her head set
high as she walked silently by Harold's side, until the gate was reached
and they passed into the shaded lane, where they were hidden from the
sight of anyone upon the main road leading to the park house. Then
stopping suddenly, she faced squarely toward her companion, and said:
'Why didn't you come to commencement? Tom Tracy said you were shingling
a roof, and Billy Peterkin said Maude was helping you.'
CHAPTER XXIX.
WHY HAROLD DID NOT GO TO VASSAR.
The cottage in the lane, as its name implied, was not very pretentious,
and all its rooms were small and low, and mostly upon the ground floor,
except the one which Jerrie had occupied since she had grown too large
for the crib by Mrs. Crawford's bed. In this room, in which there was
but one window, and where the roof slanted down on both sides, Jerrie
kept all her possessions--her playthings and her books, and the trunk
and carpet-bag which had been found when she was found. Here she had cut
off her hair and slept on the floor, to see how it would seem, and here
she had enacted many a play, in which the scenes and characters were all
of the past. For the cold in winter she did not care at all, and when in
summer the nights were close and hot, she drew her little bed to the
open window and fell asleep while thinking how warm she was. That she
ought to have a better room had never occurred to her, and never had she
found a word of fault or repined at her humble surroundings, so
different from those of her girl friends. Only, as she grew taller, she
had sometimes laughingly said that if the kept on she should not much
longer be able to stand upright in her den, as she called it.
'I hit my head now everywhere except in the middle,' she once said. 'I
wonder if we can't some time manage to raise the roof.'
The words were spoken thoughtlessly, and almost immediately forgotten by
Jerrie: but Harold treasured them up, and began at once to devise ways
and means to raise the roof and give Jerrie a room more worthy of her.
This was just after he had left college, and there was hanging over him
his debt to Arthur and the support of his grandmother. The first did not
particularly disturb him, for he knew that Arthur would wait any length
of time, while the latter seemed but a trifle to a strong, robust young
man. Mrs. Crawford was naturally very economical, and could make one
dollar go further than most people could two; so that very little
sufficed for their daily wants when Jerrie was away.
'I must earn money somehow,' Harold thought, 'and must seek work where I
can do the best, even if it is from Peterkin.'
So, swallowing his pride, he went to Peterkin's office and asked for
work. Once before, when a boy of eighteen, and sorely pressed, he had
done the same thing, and met with a rebuff from the foreman, who said to
him gruffly:
'No, sir; we don't want no more boys; leastwise, gentlemen boys. We've
had enough of 'em. Try t'other furnace. Mr. Warner is allus takin' all
kinds of trash, out of pity, and if he says "No," go to his wife; she'll
get you in.'
But the Warner factory, where Harold had once worked, was full of boys,
whom the kind-hearted employer, or his wife, or both, had taken in, and
there was no place for Harold. So he waited awhile until Jerrie needed a
new dress and his grandmother a bonnet, and then he tried Peterkin
again, and this time with success.
'Yes, take him,' Peterkin said to his foreman, 'take him, and put him to
the emery wheel; that's the place for such upstarts; that'll take the
starch out of him double quick. He's a bad egg, he is, and proud as
Lucifer. I don't suppose he'd touch my Bill or my Ann'Lizy with a
ten-foot pole. Put him to the wheel. Bad egg! bad egg!'
For some moat unaccountable reason, old Peterkin had a bitter prejudice
against the boy, on whose account he had once been turned from the Tracy
house; and though he had forgiven the Tracys, and would now have voted
for Frank for Congressman if he had the chance, he still cherished his
animosity against Harold, designating him as an upstart and a bad egg,
who was to be put to the wheel. So Harold was 'put to the wheel' until
he got a bit of steel in his eye, and his hands were blistered. But he
did not mind the latter so much, because Jerrie cried over them at night
and kissed them in the morning, and bathed them in cosmoline, and called
Peterkin a mean old thing, and offered to go herself to the wheel.
But to this Harold only laughed. He could stand it, he said, and a
dollar a day was not to be sneezed at. He could wear gloves and save his
hands.
But the appearance of gloves was the signal for a general hooting and
jeering from the boys of his own age who were employed there, and who
had from the first looked askance at Harold because they knew how
greatly he was their superior, and fancied an affront in everything he
did and every word he said, it was spoken so differently from their own
dialect.
'I can't stand it,' Harold said to Jerrie, after a week's trial with the
gloves. 'I'd rather sweep the streets than be jeered at as I am. I don't
mind the work. I am getting used to it, but the boys are awful. Why,
they call me 'sissy,' and 'Miss Hastings,' and all that.'
So Harold left the employ of Peterkin, greatly to the chagrin of that
functionary, who had found him the most faithful boy he had ever had.
But this was years ago, and matters had changed somewhat since then.
Harold was a man now--a graduate from Harvard, with an air and dignity
about him which commanded respect even from Peterkin, who was sitting
upon his high stool when Harold came in with his application. Billy, who
was Harold's fast friend, was now in the business with his father, and
as he chanced to be present, the thing was soon arranged, and Harold
received into the office at a salary of twelve dollars per week, which
was soon increased to fifteen and twenty, and at last, as the autumn
advanced and Harold began to talk of taking the same school in town
which he had once before taught, he was offered $1,500 a year, if he
would remain, as foreman of the office, where his services were
invaluable. But Harold had chosen the law for his profession, and as
teaching school was more congenial to him than writing in the office,
and would give him more time for reading law, he declined the salary and
took the school, which he kept for two successive winters, going between
times into the office whenever his services were needed, which was very
often, as they knew his worth, and Billy was always glad to have him
there.
In this way he managed to lay aside quite a little sum of money, besides
paying his interest to Arthur, and when Maude came home from Europe in
March he felt himself warranted in beginning _to raise the roof_. He was
naturally a mechanic, and would have made a splendid carpenter; he was
also something of an architect, and sketched upon paper the changes he
proposed making. The roof was to be raised over Jerrie's room; there was
to be a pretty bay-window at the south, commanding a view of the
Collingwood grounds and the river. There was to be another window on a
side, but whether to the east or the west he could not quite decide.
There was to be a dressing-room and large closet, while the main room
was to be carried up in the centre, after the fashion of a church, and
to be ceiled with narrow strips of wood painted alternately with a pale
blue and gray. He showed the sketch to his grandmother, who approved it,
just as she approved everything he did, but suggested that he submit it
to Maude Tracy, who she heard, had become an artist and had a studio; so
he took the plan to Maude, explaining it to her, and saying it was to be
a surprise to Jerrie, when she came home for good in the summer. Maude
was interested and enthusiastic at once, and entered heart and soul into
the matter, making some suggestions which Harold adopted, and deciding
for him where the extra window was to be placed.
'Put it to the east,' she said, 'for Jerrie is always looking toward the
rising sun, because, she says her old home is that way. And, besides,
she can see the Tramp House she is so fond of. For my part, I think it a
poky place, and never like to pass it after dark, lest I should see the
dark woman standing in the door, with the candle in her hand, crying for
help. Where was Jerry then, I wonder! In the carpet-bag, asleep,
perhaps. Wouldn't that make a very effective picture! The storm, the
open door, the frantic woman in it, with the candle held high over her
head, and Jerrie clutching her dress behind, with her great blue eyes
staring out in the darkness. That is the way I have always seen it since
you told me about it, and the light you saw. I mean to paint the
picture, and hang it in the new room as another surprise to Jerrie.'
'Oh, don't!' Harold said, with a shudder. 'Jerrie would not like it. It
almost killed her when she first knew of the cry which Mr. Arthur heard,
and the light I saw that night. She insisted upon knowing everything
there was to know; and when I told her all the color left her face, and
for a moment she sat rigid as a stone, with a look I shall never forget,
and then she cried as I never saw anybody cry before. This was three
years ago, and she has never spoken to me of it since.'
Harold's voice trembled as he talked, while Maude cried outright. The
idea of the picture was given up, and she went back to the subject of
the new room in which she seemed quite as much interested as Harold
himself. When the roof was raised, and the floor laid, and the
frame-work of the bay-window up, she went nearly every day to the
cottage to watch the progress of the work, and to keep Harold's one
hired man up to the mark, if he showed the least sign of lagging.
'She is wus than a slave-driver,' the man said to Harold one day. 'Why,
if ever I stop to take a chair, or rest my bones a bit, she's after me
in a jiffy, and asks if I don't think I can get so much done in an hour
if I work as tight as I can clip it. I was never so druv in my life.'
And yet both the man and Harold liked to see the little lady there,
walking through the shavings, and holding high her dainty skirts as she
clambered over piles of boards and shingles, or perching herself on the
work bench, superintended them both, and twice by her intervention saved
a door from swinging the wrong way, and from being a little askew.
Mrs. Tracy was greatly opposed to Maude's going so often to the cottage,
wondering what pleasure she could find in seeing an old house repaired,
and predicting that she would make herself sick. But Maude was
headstrong and would have her way, especially as her father did not
object, but himself took her frequently to the cottage. Frank was almost
as much interested in the work as she was, and once offered his
services, as did Dick St. Claire and Billy Peterkin.
'That's splendid. We'll have a bee, and get a lot done,' Maude said; and
she pressed into the _bee_ her father and Dick, and Billy, and Fred
Raymond, and Tom, the latter of whom did nothing but find fault, saying
that the ceiling ought to have been of different woods, the floor
inlaid, and the tops of the windows cathedral glass.
'And I suppose you will find the money for all that elegance,' Maude
said, as she held one end of a board for Harold to nail. 'We are cutting
our garment according to the cloth, and if you don't like it you'd
better go away. We do not want any drones in the hive, do we, Hally?'
'She had taken to address him thus familiarly since they had commenced
their carpenter work together, and Harold smiled brightly upon her as
upon a child, as she stood on tip-toe at his side.
Tom went away, but he soon came back again; for there was for him a
peculiar fascination about this room for Jerrie, and sitting down upon a
saw-horse, he looked on, and whittled, and smoked, while Dick blistered
his hands, and Fred raised a blood-blister by striking his finger with
the hammer, and Billy ran a huge splinter under his thumb nail.
Then they all went away, and Harold was left alone, for his man had been
obliged to leave, and thus the finishing up devolved upon him. But he
was equal to it. The worst was over, and all that was now required was
hard and constant work if he would accomplish it in time to see Jerrie
graduated, as he greatly wished to do, provided he should have money
enough left for the trip when everything was paid for.
But whoever has repaired an old house needs not to be told that the cost
is always greater than was anticipated, and that there are a thousand
difficulties which beset the unwary workman and hinder his progress. And
Harold found it so. Still he worked bravely on, early and late, taking
no rest except for an hour or so in the afternoon, when he found it a
very pleasant change to walk through the leafy woods, so full of summer
life and beauty, to where Maude waited for him, with her sunny face and
bright smile, which always grew brighter at his coming. How could he
know what was in her mind?--he, who never dreamed it possible that she,
of all other girls, could fall in love with him--'that Hastings chap,
poor as poverty,' as he knew Tom sometimes called him.
That Maude liked him, he was sure; but he supposed it was mostly for the
amusement he afforded her, and for the sake of Jerrie, of whom she was
never tired of talking. Maude's friendship was very sweet to the young
man, who had so few means of enjoyment, and whose life was one of toil
and care. So he went blindly on toward the pitfall in the distance, and
began at last to look forward with a great deal of pleasure to the
readings or talks with Maude, even though he did not find her very
intellectual. She amused and rested him, and that was something to the
tired and overworked man.
The room was finished inside at last, and looked exceedingly cool and
pleasant in its dress of blue and gray, and its two rows of colored
glass in each window; for Harold had carried out Tom's suggestion in
that respect, and by going without a new hat and a pair of pants, which
he needed, had managed to get the glass, which he set himself; for, as
he said to Maude, who assisted him in the matching and arrangement, he
was a kind of jack-at-all-trades. Maude had also helped him to putty up
the nail-holes, and had tried her hand at the painting until it gave her
a sick-headache, and she was obliged to quit.
When Arthur first heard of the raised roof, he went down to see it, and
approving of everything which had thus far been done, insisted upon
furnishing the room himself. But Harold refused, saying decidedly that
it was his own surprise for Jerrie, and no one must help him. So Arthur
went away, and told Maude confidentially that the young man Hastings was
made of the right kind of stuff, that he liked his independence, and
that, although he should allow him to pay his debt, he should deposit
the money as fast as received to his credit in the savings bank, so that
he would eventually get it all.
'You are the darlingest uncle in the world!' Maude said, rubbing her
soft cheek against his, in that purring way many men like, which made
Arthur kiss her, and tell her she was a little simpleton, but rather
nice on the whole.
'And you'll not tell Jerrie a word about the room!' Maude charged him
again and again, while they were in New York selecting the dress.
'Not if I can help it,' was his reply, although, as the reader knows, he
came near letting it out twice, but _held on in time_, so that the
raised roof was still a secret from Jerrie when she reached the station
and was met by Maude and Harold.
The room, was all ready, and a most inviting looking room it was, with
its pretty carpet of blue and drab, and a delicate shading of pink in
it; its cottage furniture, simple, but suitable; its muslin curtains and
chintz covered lounge, and the willow chair and round table, which Maude
had insisted upon furnishing. She _would_ have some part in furnishing
the room, she said, and Harold allowed her to get the chair, which she
put by the window looking toward the Tramp House, and the round table,
which stood in the bay-window, with a Japanese bowl upon it filled with
the lilies Harold had gathered in the early morning. He had found it
impossible to go to Vassar there were so many last things to be done,
and so little money left in his purse with which to make the journey,
and as Maude had more confidence in her own taste for the arrangement
of furniture than in his, she too decided to remain at home and see it
through. The carpet was not put down until the morning of the day when
the young men started for Vassar, and it was the noise of the
tack-hammer which Tom had heard and likened to the shingling of a roof.
'There must be flowers everywhere, Jerrie is so fond of them,' Maude
said; and she brought great baskets full from the park gardens, and a
costly Dresden vase, which Arthur had left for Jerrie when he went away,
together with his card and his photograph, and a note in which he had
written as follows:
'MY DEAR CHILD:--Welcome, welcome home again. I wish I could see you
when your blue eyes first look upon the room I came so near telling
you about. Maude would have killed me if I had. You have no idea how
Harold has worked to get it done, and where he got the money is more
than I know. Pinched himself, in every way, of course. He is a noble
fellow, Jerrie. But you know that. I saw it in your face at Vassar,
and saw something else, too, which you may think is a secret. Will
talk with you about it when I come home. I am off to-morrow for
California. Would like to take you with me. Maybe I shall meet with
robbers in the Yosemite. I'd rather like to. God bless you!
'ARTHUR TRACY.'
'Uncle Arthur was very queer the day he went away,' Maude said to
Harold, as she put the note, and the photograph, and the card upon the
dressing-bureau. 'I heard him talking to Gretchen, and saying,
"Gretchen, Gretchen, Jerrie will be here by-and-by, to keep you company
while I am gone--little Jerrie, when I first knew her, but a great tall
Jerrie now, with the air of a duchess. Yes, Jerrie is coming, Gretchen."
How he loves her--Jerrie, I mean; and I do not wonder, do you?'
Harold's mouth was full of tacks and he did not reply, but went steadily
on with his work until everything was done.
'Isn't it lovely, and won't she be pleased!' Maude kept saying, as she
gave the room a last look and then started for home, charging Harold to
be on time at the train, and to try and not look so tired.
Harold _was_ very tired, for the constant strain of the last few weeks
had told upon him, and he felt that he could not have gone on much
longer, and that only for Maude's constant enthusiasm and sympathy he
should have broken down before the task was done. It was not easy work,
shingling roofs and nailing down floors, and painting ceilings, and
every bone in his body ached, and his hands were calloused like a piece
of leather, and his face looked tired and pale when he at last sat down
to rest awhile before changing his working suit for one scarcely better,
although clean and fresher, with no daubs of paint or patches upon it.
'They don't look first-rate, that's a fact,' he said to himself as he
surveyed his pants, and boots, and hat, and thought what a contrast he
should present to the elegant Tom and his other friends at the station.
'But Jerrie won't care a bit; she understands, or will, when she sees
her new room. How pretty it is!' he added, as he stopped to look in and
admire it.
A blind had swung open, letting in a flood of hot sunshine and as it was
desirable to keep the room as cool as possible, Harold went in to close
the shutter. But something was the matter with both fastening and hinge,
and he was fixing it when Maude drove up, telling him the train was
late.
'That's lucky,' he said, 'for this blind is all out of gear;' and it
took so much time to fix and rehang it that the whistle was heard among
the hills a mile away, just as he entered the victoria with Maude and
started for the station upon a run.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE WALK HOME.
All the way from the station to the gate Harold was trying to think of
something to say besides the merest commonplaces, and wondering at
Jerrie's silence. She had seemed glad to see him, he had seen that in
her eyes, and seen there something else which puzzled and troubled him,
and he was about to ask her what it was when she stopped so abruptly,
and said:
'Why didn't you come to Vassar? Tom Tracy said you were shingling a
roof, and Billy Peterkin said Maude was helping you.'
'Oh, that's it, is it?' Harold said, bursting into a laugh. 'That is why
you have been so stiff and distant, ever since we left the depot, that I
could not touch you with a ten-foot pole.'
'Well, I don't care,' Jerry replied, with a sob in her voice. 'I was so
disappointed, for I wanted you so badly. Everybody had some friend
there, but myself. You don't know how lonely I felt when I went on the
stage and knew there was no home face looking at me in all that crowd. I
think you might have come any way.'
'But, Jerrie,' Harold said, laying his hand upon her shoulder, as they
slowly walked on, 'wait a little before you condemn me utterly. I wanted
to come quite as much as you wanted to have me. I remembered what a help
it was to me when I was graduated to see your face in the crowd, and
know by its expression that you were satisfied.'
'I did not suppose you saw me,' Jerry exclaimed, her voice very
different in its tone from what it had been at first.
'Saw you!' and Harold's hand tightened its grasp on her shoulder. 'Saw
you! I scarcely saw any one else except you, and Maude, who sat beside
you. I knew you would be there, and I looked the room over, missing you
at first, and feeling as if something were wanting to fire me up; then,
when I found you, the inspiration came, and if I began to flag ever so
little, I had only to look at your blue eyes and my blood was up again.'
This was a great deal for Harold to say and he felt half frightened when
he had said it; but Jerrie's answer was reassuring.
'Oh, I didn't know that. I am so glad you told me.'
They were close to the Tramp House now. The walk from the station had
been hot and dusty, and Jerry was tired, so she said to Harold:
'Let's go in a moment; it looks so cool in there.'
So they went in, and Jerry sat down upon a bench, while Harold took a
seat upon the table where Jerrie once had slept, with the shadow of
death around her, and the carpet-bag for her covering.
'I suppose you had peals of applause and flowers by the bushel,' Harold
said.
'Yes,' Jerry replied, 'applause enough, and flowers enough--twenty
bouquets and baskets in all, including yours. It was kind in you to send
it.'
She did not tell him of the wilted condition of his flowers, or that one
of the faded roses was pressed between the lids of her Latin grammar.
'Billy sent up a heart of blue forget-me-nots,' she continued, 'and Tom
a bunch of daisies on a standard of violets. What a prig Tom is, and
what a dandy Billy has grown to be, and he stammers worse than ever.'
'But he is one of the best-hearted fellows in the world;' Harold said,
'he has been very kind to me.'
'Yes, I know;' Jerry rejoined, quickly, 'he makes his father pay you big
wages in the office and gives you a great many holidays; that is kind.
But, oh, Harold, how I hate it all--your being obliged to work for such
a man as Peterkin. I wish I were rich! Maybe I shall be some day. Who
knows?'
The great tears were shining in her eyes as she talked, and brushing
them away she suddenly changed the conversation, and said:
'I never come in here that a thousand strange fancies do not begin to
flit through my brain, and my memory seems stretched to the utmost
tension, and I remember things away back in the past before you found me
in the carpet-bag.'
She was gazing up toward the rafters with a rapt look on her face, as if
she were seeing the things of which she was talking; and Harold, who had
never seen her in this way, said to her very softly:
'What do you remember, Jerrie? What do you see?'
She did not move her head or eyes, but answered him.
'I see always a sweet pale face, to which I can almost give a name--a
face which smiles upon me; and a thin, white hand which is laid upon my
hair--a hand not like those you have told me about, and which must have
touched me so tenderly that awful night. Did you ever try to recall a
name, or a dream, which seems sometimes just within your grasp, and then
baffles all your efforts to retain it?'
'Yes, often,' Harold said.
'Just so it is with me,' she continued, 'I try to keep the fancies which
come and go so fast, and which always have reference to the past and
some far off country--Germany, I think. Harold, I must have been older
when you found me than you supposed I was.'
'Possibly,' Harold replied. 'You were so small that we thought you
almost a baby, although you had an old head on your shoulders from the
first, and could you have spoken our language I believe you might have
told us where you were and where you came from.'
'Perhaps,' Jerry said. 'I don't know; only this, as I grow older, the
things way back come to me, and the others fade away. The dark woman; my
mother,'--she spoke the name very low--'is not half as real to me as the
pale, sick face, on which the firelight shines. It is a small house, and
a low room, a poor room, I think, with a big, white stove in the corner,
and somebody is putting wood in it; a dark woman; she stoops; and from
the open door the firelight falls upon the face in the chair--the woman
who is always writing when she is not in bed; and I am there, a little
child; and when the pale face cries, I cry, too; and when she dies--oh,
Harold! but you saw me play it once, and wondered where I got the idea.
I saw it. I know I did; I was there, a part of the play. I was the
little child. Then, there is a blur, a darkness, with many people and a
crying--two voices--the dark woman's and mine; then, a river, or the
sea, or both, and noisy streets, and a storm, and cold; and _you_ taking
me into the sunshine.'
As she talked she had unconsciously laid her hand on Harold's knee, and
he had taken it in his, and was holding it fast, when she startled him
with the question:
'Do you--did you--ever think--did anybody ever think it possible, that
the woman found dead in here, was not my mother?'
'Not your mother!' Harold exclaimed, dropping her hand in his surprise.
'Not your mother! What do you mean?'
'No disrespect to her,' Jerrie replied--'the good, brave woman, who gave
her life for me, and whose dear hands caressed and shielded me from the
cold as long as there was power in them to do it. I love and reverence
her memory as if she had been my mother; but Harold, do I look at all as
she did? You saw her--here, and at the park house. Think--am I like
her--in any thing?'
'No,' Harold answered. 'You are like her in nothing; but you may
resemble your father.'
'Ye-es,' Jerrie said, slowly, 'I may. Oh, Harold, the spell is on me now
so strong that I can almost remember. Tell me again about that night,
and the morning; what they did at the park house--Mr. Arthur, I mean. He
was expecting somebody; Nina told me a little once, but not much. Do you
know? Was it _Gretchen_ he expected?'
She had grasped his hand again, and was looking into his face as if his
answer would be life or death to her. And Harold who had no idea what
was in her mind, and who had never thought that the dark woman was not
her mother, looked at her wonderingly, as he replied:
'Yes, I remember that he had a fancy in his mind that Gretchen was
coming; but he has had that fancy so often. He said she was in the ship
with him and on the train, but she wasn't. I think Gretchen is dead.'
'Yes, she is dead,' Jerry said, decidedly; 'but tell me all you know of
the time I came.'
So Harold told her again what he knew personally of the tragedy, and all
he remembered to have heard. There was little which Jerrie did not
already know, for as Harold had been a boy when it happened, he had not
heard all that was said, and since that time other matters had crowded
the incidents of the death and burial out of his mind. The thing most
real to him was Jerrie herself, the beautiful girl sitting by his side,
astonishing him so with her mood and her questions. He had seen her
often in her spells, as he called them; when she acted her pantomimes,
and talked to people whom she said she saw; but he had only thought of
them as the vagaries of a peculiar mind--a German mind his grandmother
said, and he accepted her theory as the correct one.
He had never seen Jerrie as she was now, with that rapt look in her face
and in her eyes, which shone with a strange light as she went on to
speak of the things which sometimes came and went so fast, and which she
tried in vain to retain. It had never occurred to him that the woman he
had found dead was not her mother, and he thought her crazy when she put
the question to him. But he was a man, solid and steady, with no
vagaries of the brain, and not a tithe of the impetuosity and
immigration of the girl, who went on to ask him if he had ever seen any
one whom she resembled.
He was wondering, in a vague kind of way, how long she meant to stay
there, and if the tea-cakes his grandmother was going to make for supper
would be spoiled, when she asked the question, to which he replied.
'No, I don't think I ever did, unless it is Gretchen. You are some like
her, but I suppose many German girls have her complexion and hair.'
The answer was not very reassuring, and Jerrie showed it in her fact,
which was still upturned to Harold, who, looking down upon it and the
earnest, wistful expression which had settled there, started suddenly as
if an arrow had struck him, for he saw the likeness Jerry had seen in
the glass, and taking the upturned face between both his hands, he
studied it intently, while, like lightening, the possibility of the
thing flashed through his brain, making him colder and fainter than
Jerrie herself when she looked into the mirror.
'What if it were so?' he said to himself, while everything seemed
slipping away from him, but mostly Jerrie, who, if it were so, would be
separated from him by a gulf he could not pass; for what could the
daughter of Arthur Tracy care for him, the poor boy, whose life had been
one fight with poverty, and whose worn, shabby clothes, on which the
full western sunlight was falling, told plainer than words of the
poverty which still held him in thrall.
'Jerrie!' he cried, rising to his feet, and letting the hands which had
clasped her face drop down to her shoulders, which they pressed tightly,
as if he thus would keep her with him--'Oh, Jerrie, you are like Arthur
Tracy, or you were when you looked at me so earnestly; but it is gone
now. Do you--have you thought that Gretchen was your mother?'
He was pale as a corpse, and Jerrie was the calmer of the two, as she
told him frankly all she had thought and felt since Arthur's visit to
her.
'I meant to tell you,' she said, 'though not quite so soon; but when I
came in here I could not help it, things crowd upon me so. It may be,
and probably is, all a fancy, but there is something in my babyhood
different from the woman who died, and when I am able to do it I am
going to Wiesbaden, for that is where Gretchen lived, and where I
believe I came from, and if there is anything I shall find it. Oh,
Harold!' and she grasped his hand in hers, 'I may not be Gretchen's
daughter, but if I am more than a peasant girl--if anything good comes
of my search, my greatest joy will be that I can share with you who have
been so kind to me. I will gladly give you and grandma every dollar I
may ever have, and then I should not pay you.'
'There is nothing owing me,' Harold said, the pain in his heart and his
fear of losing her growing lean as she talked. 'You have brought me
nearly all the happiness I have ever known; for when I was a boy and
every bone ached with the hard work I had to do--the thought that Jerry
was waiting for me at home, that her face would greet me at the window,
or in the door, made the labor light; and now that I am a man--' He
paused a moment, and Jerrie's head dropped a little, for his voice was
very low and soft, and she waited with a beating heart for him to go on.
'Now that I am a man, life would be nothing to me without you.'
Was this a declaration of love? It almost seemed so, and but for a
thought of Maude, Jerry might have believed it was such, and lead him on
to something more definite. As it was, her heart gave a great bound of
joy, which showed itself on her face as she replied:
'If I make your life happier, _I_ am glad; for never had a poor, unknown
girl so good and true a brother as I. But come, I have kept you here too
long, and grandma must be wondering where we are.'
'Yes, and supper will be spoiled,' Harold said, as he followed her to
the door. 'We are to have it in the back porch, where it is so cool, and
to have tea-cakes, with strawberries from our own vines, and cream from
our own cow, or rather your cow. Did I write you that she had a splendid
calf, which we call Clover-top.
They had come back to commonplaces now, Jerrie's clairvoyant spell had
passed and she was herself again, simple Jerrie Crawford, walking along
the familiar path, and talking of the cow which Frank Tracy had given
her when it was a little sickly calf, whose mother had died. She had
taken it home and nursed it so carefully that it was now a healthy
little Jersey, whom she called Nannie.
'A funny name for a cow,' Harold had said, and she had replied:
'Yes, but it keeps repeating itself in my brain. I have known a Nannie
sometime, sure, and may as well perpetuate the name in my bossy as
anywhere.'
Nannie was in a little enclosure by the side of the lane, and at
Harold's call she came at once to the fence, over which she put her face
for the caress she was sure to get, while Clover-top kicked up her heels
and acted as if she, too, understood and were glad Jerrie had come.
'Oh, it is so pleasant everywhere, and I am so glad to be home again,'
Jerrie said, as her eyes went rapidly from one thing to another, until
at last they fell upon the raised roof shining to new and yellow in the
sunlight.
CHAPTER XXXI.
AT HOME.
Oh, Harold, what is that? What have you been doing?' Jerrie cried,
stopping short, while a suspicion of the truth began to dawn upon her.
'That is the roof Tom told you I was shingling,' Harold replied; and
taking her by the arm, he hurried her into the cottage where Mrs.
Crawford stood at the door, in her broad white apron and the neat muslin
cap which Maude has fashioned for her.
With a cry of joy, Jerrie took the old lady in her arms, and kissed and
cried over her.
'It is so nice to be home, and everything is so pleasant!' she said, as
her eyes swept the sitting-room and kitchen, and back porch where the
tea-table was laid, with its luscious berries and pitchers of cream.
'Go right up stairs with Harold. I have just come down, and cannot go
up again,' Mrs. Crawford said, excitedly; and, with a bound, Jerry was
up the stairs and into the lovely room.
When she saw them coming in the lane, Mrs. Crawford had gone up and
opened the shutters, letting in a flood of light, so that nothing should
escape Jerrie's notice. And she saw it all at a glance--the high walls,
the carpet, the furniture, the curtains, and the flowers--and knew why
Harold did not come to Vassar.
He was standing in the bay-window, watching her, and the light fell full
upon his shabby clothes, which Jerrie noticed for the first time,
knowing exactly why he must wear them, and understanding perfectly all
the self-denials and sacrifices he had made for her, who had been angry
because he did not come to see her graduated. Had she been three years
younger, she would have thrown herself into his arms and died there.
Harold half thought and hoped she was going to do so now, for she made a
rush toward him, then stopped suddenly, and sinking into the willow
chair--Maude's gift--began to sob aloud, while Harold stood looking at
her, wishing she had not cried, and wondering what he ought to do.
'Don't you like it, Jerrie?' he said at last.
'Like it?' and in the blue eyes so full of tears which she flashed upon
him, he read her answer. 'Like it! Oh, Harold, it is perfect! I never
saw a room I liked better. But why did you do it? Was it because of that
foolish speech of mine about knocking my brains out, the ceiling was so
low?'
'Not at all,' Harold replied. 'I had the idea in my head long before you
wrote that to me, but could not quite see my way clear until last
spring. I have seen Nina's room and Maude's, and have heard that Ann
Eliza Peterkin's was finer than the Queen's at Windsor, and I did not
like to think of you in the cooped up place this was, with the slanting
roof and low windows. I am glad you like it.'
And then, knowing that she would never let him rest until he had done
so, he told her all the ways and means by which he had been able to
accomplish it, except indeed, his own self-denials and sacrifices of
pride, and even comfort. But this she understood, and noticed again more
carefully the shabby coat, and pants, and shoes, and the calloused
hands, which lay upon his knees as he talked, and which she wished so
much to take in hers and kiss and pity, for the hard work they had done
for her. But this would have been 'throwing herself at his head.'
She was constantly thinking of Arthur's words, and so she only cried the
more, as she told Harold how much she thanked him, and never could repay
him for what he had done for her.
'But it was a pleasure, Jerrie,' he said.' I never enjoyed anything in
my life as I have working in this room, with Maude to help me. She was
here nearly every day, and by her courage and enthusiasm kept me up to
fever heat. She puttied up the nail-holes and painted your
dressing-room, and would have helped shingle the roof if I had permitted
it. She gave the chair you sit in, and the table in the window. She
would do that and I let her; but when Mr. Arthur offered his assistance,
and the other Mr. Tracy, I refused, for I wanted it all my own, for
you.'
He was speaking rapidly and excitedly, and had Jerrie looked she would
have seen in his face all she was to him; but she did not look up, and
at mention of Maude a cloud fell suddenly upon her. But she would not
let it remain; she would be happy and make Harold so, too. So she told
him again of her delight, and what a joyous coming home it was.
She had not yet seen Arthur's card, and photograph, and note; but Harold
called her attention to them; and taking up the latter, she opened it,
while her heart gave a great throb of something between joy and pain as
she saw the words, 'My dear child,' and then went on to read the note so
characteristic of him.
'What a strange fancy of his to go off so suddenly to California. I
wonder Mr. Frank allowed it,' she said, as she put the note in her
pocket, and then, at a call from Mrs. Crawford, went down to where the
supper was waiting for her.
The tea cakes were a little cold, but everything else was delicious,
from the fragrant tea to the ripe berries and thick, sweet cream, and
Jerrie enjoyed it all with the keen relish of youth and perfect health.
After supper was over Jerrie made her grandmother sit still while she
washed up and put away the dishes, singing as she worked, and whistling,
too--loud, dear, ringing strains, which made a robin in the grass fly up
to the perch, where, with his head turned on one side he listened, as
if in wonder, to this new songster, whose notes were strange to him.
And Jerrie did seem like some joyous bird just let loose from prison, as
she flitted from one thing to another, now setting her grandmother's cap
a little more squarely on her head, and bending to kiss the silvery hair
as she said to her, 'Your working days are over now, for I have come
home to care for you, and in the future you have nothing to do but to
sit still, with your dear old lame feet on a cushion;' now helping
Harold water the flowers in the borders, and pinning a June pink in his
buttonhole, while he longed to take her in his arms and kiss her as in
the days when they were children together; now, going with him to milk
Nannie, who, either remembering Jerrie, or recognizing a friend in her,
allowed her gentle face to be petted and her horn to be decorated with a
knot of blue ribbon, which Jerrie took from her throat, and which Harold
afterward took from Nannie's horn and hid away with the withered lillies
Jerrie had thrown him that day at Harvard when her face and her eyes had
been his inspiration.
They kept early hours at the cottage, and the people at the Park House
were little more than through the grand dinner they were giving, when
Jerrie said good-night to her grandmother and Harold, and went up to her
new room under the raised roof. It was a lovely summer night, and the
moonlight fell softly upon the grass and shrubs outside, and shone far
down the long lane where the Tramp House stood, with its thick covering
of woodbine.
Leaning from the window Jerrie looked out upon the night, while a
thousand thoughts and fancies came crowding into her brain, all born of
that likeness seen by her in the mirror when Arthur was with her at
Vassar, and which Harold, too, had recognized that afternoon when she
sat with him in the Tramp House. After Arthur had left her in May, she
had been too busy to indulge often in idle dreams, but they had come
back to her again with an overwhelming force, which seemed for a few
moments to lift the veil of mystery and show her the past, for which she
was so eagerly longing. The pale lace was clearer, more distinct in her
mind, as was the room with the tall white stove and the high-backed
settee beside it, and on the settee a little girl--herself, she
believed--and she could hear a voice from the cushioned chair where the
pale face was resting speaking to her and calling her by the name Arthur
had given her in his note.
'My child,' he had written; but he had only put it as a term of
endearment; he had no suspicion of the truth if it were truth; and yet
why should he not know? Could anything obliterate the memory of a child,
if there had been one, Jerrie asked herself, as her eyes wandered in
that direction of the park, which had once seemed to her like Paradise.
'I _will_ know some time. _I_ will find it out myself,' she said, as she
withdrew from the window and commenced her preparations for bed.
As she stepped into her dressing room, her eye fell upon the foreign
trunk, which had come with her, and with the contents of which she was
familiar. They had been kept intact by Mrs. Crawford, who hoped that by
them Jerrie might some day be identified. The girl went now to the old
trunk, and, lifting the heavy lid, took out the articles one by one with
a very different feeling from what she had ever experienced before when
handling them. The alpaca dress came first, and she examined it
carefully. It was coarse, and plain, and old-fashioned, and she felt
intuitively that a servant had worn it and not she whose pale, refined
face seemed almost to touch hers as she knelt beside the box. The cloak
and shawl, in which she had been wrapped, were inspected next, and on
these Jerrie's tears fell like rain, while there was in her heart an
indefinable feeling of pity for the woman who had resolutely put away
the covering from herself to save a life which was no part of her own.
'Oh, Mah-nee,' she sobbed, laying her face upon the rough, coarse
garments, 'I am not disloyal to you in trying to believe that you were
not my mother, and could you come back to me, Mah-nee, whoever you are,
I'd be to you so loving and true. Tell me, Mah-nee, who I am; give me
some sign that what comes to me so often of that far-off land is true.
There _was_ another face than yours, which kissed me fondly, and other
hands, dead now, as are the dear old hands which shielded me from the
cold that awful night, have caressed me lovingly.'
But to this appeal there came no response, and Jerrie would have been
frightened if there had. The shawl, the cloak, the dress were as silent
and motionless as she to whom they had belonged; and Jerrie folded them
reverently, kissing each one as she did so; then she took out the
carpet-bag, which had once held her tiny body. She always laughed when
she looked at this and tried to imagine herself in it, and she did so
now as she held it up and said:
'I could not much more than get my two feet in you now, old bag; but you
did me good service once, and I respect you, although I have outgrown
you.'
Her own clothes came next--the little dresses, which showed a mother's
love and care; the handkerchief, marked 'J;' the aprons, and the picture
book with which she had played, and from which it seemed to her she had
learned the alphabet, standing by that cushioned chair before the tall
white stove. There was only the fine towel left of the clothing, and
Jerrie gazed along and thoughtfully at the letter 'M,' embroidered with
flowers in the corners.
'Marguerite begins with M,' she said, 'and Gretchen's name was
Marguerite. Oh, if it were Gretchen who worked this letter, then I can
touch what her hands have touched--the little dimpled hands in the
picture,' and she kissed the 'M' as fervently as if it had been
Gretchen's lips and Gretchen were her mother.
On the old brass ring the key to the trunk and carpet-bag were still
fastened, together with the small straight key, for which no use had
ever been found. Jerrie had never thought much about this key before,
but now she held it in her hand a long, long time, while the conviction
grew that this was the key to the mystery; that could she find the
article which this unlocked, she would know what she so longed to
know--something definite with regard to herself. But where to look she
could not guess; and with her brain in a whirl which threatened a
violent headache, she closed the chest at last, and crept wearily to bed
just as the clock, which Peterkin had set up in one of his towers,
struck for half-past ten, and Grace Atherton's carriage was rolling down
the avenue from the big dinner at the Park House.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE NEXT DAY.
Jerrie was astir the next morning almost as soon as the first robin
begin to sing under her window. She had left a blind open, and the red
beams of the rising sun fell upon her face and roused her from a dream
of Germany and what she meant to do there. Once fairly awake, Germany
seemed far away, as did the fancies of the previous night. The spell,
mesmeric, or clairvoyant, or whatever one chooses to call it, was
broken, and she was only Jerrie Crawford again, dressing herself rapidly
and noiselessly so as not to awaken her grandmother, who slept in the
room beneath hers.
'I shall get the start of her,' she said, as she donned a simple working
dress which had done her service during the summer vacations for three
successive years. 'I heard her telling Harold last night to have the
tubs and water ready early, for she had put off the Monday's washing
until I came home, as I was sure to bring a pile of soiled clothes. And
I have; but, my dear grandmother, your poor old twisted hands will not
touch them. What is a great strapping girl like me for, I'd like to
know, if it is not to wash her own clothes, and yours, too?' and Jerrie
nodded resolutely at the fresh young face in the mirror, which nodded
back with a smile of approbation of the _tout ensemble_ of the figure
reflected in the glass.
And truly it was a very pretty and piquant picture which she, made in
her neat calico dress, which, as it was three years old at least, was a
little too short for her, and showed plainly her red stockings and
high-heeled slippers, with the strap around her instep. Her sleeves were
short, for she had cut them off and arranged them in a puff above her
elbows to save rolling them up, and her white bib-apron was fastened on
each shoulder with a knot of blue ribbon, Harold's favorite color. She
had thoroughly brushed her beautiful wavy hair, and then twisting it
into a mass of curls had tucked it under a coquettish muslin cap, whose
narrow frill just shaded her lovely face. 'You look like a peasant
girl, and I believe you are a peasant girl, and ought to be working in
the fields of Germany this minute,' she said to herself with a mocking
courtesy, as she left the mirror and descended to the kitchen, where,
early as it was, she found Harold warming some coffee over a fire of
chips, and cutting a slice of dry bread.
'What in the world!' she exclaimed, stopping short on the threshold. 'I
mean to be the first on the scene, and lo! here you are before me. What
are you doing?'
'Getting my breakfast,' Harold replied, turning toward her with a slight
shade of annoyance on his face. 'You see, I have a job. I did not tell
you last night that a Mr. Allen, who lives across the river, four miles
away, looked in one day when I was painting your ceiling, and liked it
so much that he has engaged me to paint one for him. I told him I was
only an amateur, but he said he'd rather have me than all the boss
painters in Shannondale. He offered me three dollars a day and board,
which means dinner and supper, or fifteen for the job; and I took the
last offer, as I can make the most at it by beginning early and working
late, and we need--'
Here he stopped short, for how could he tell Jerrie that the raised roof
had taken all his means, and that he even owed the grocer for the sugar
she had eaten upon her berries, and the butcher for the bit of steak
bought the previous night for her breakfast and his grandmother's. But
Jerrie guessed it without his telling, but with her quick instinct and
delicate perception knew that no genuine man like Harold cares to have
even his best friend know of his poverty if he can help it. Forcing back
the tears which sprang to her eyes, she cried, cheerily:
'Yes, I know; you are a kind of second Michael Angelo, though I doubt if
that old gentleman, at your age, could have done my room better than you
did. I don't wonder Mr. Allen wanted you. But you are not going to tramp
four miles on a hot morning, on nothing but bread and coffee, and such
coffee--muddier than the Missouri River! You shall have a decent
breakfast, if I can get it for you. Just sit down and rest, and see what
a Vassar with a diploma can do.'
As she talked she was replenishing the fire with hard-wood, putting on
the kettle, pouring out the coffee dregs saved from yesterday's
breakfast, and hunting for an egg with which to settle the fresh cup she
intended to make.
'No, no, Jerrie. No, you must not take that; it is all we have in the
house, and grandma must have a fresh one every day at eleven o'clock,
the doctor says--it strengthens her,' Harold said, rising quickly, while
Jerrie put the one egg back in the box and asked what Mrs. Crawford did
settle coffee with.
'I am sure I don't know; cold water, I guess,' Harold said, resuming his
seat, while Jerrie tripped here and there, laying the cloth, bringing
his cup and saucer and plate, and at last pouncing upon the bit of steak
in the refrigerator.
But here Harold again interfered.
'Jerrie--Jerrie, that is for your breakfast and grandma's. You must not
take that.'
'But I shall take half of it. I would rather have a glass of Nannie's
milk any time than meat, and you are going to have my share; so, Mr.
Hastings, just mind your business and let the cook alone, or she'll be
givin' ye warnin',' Jerrie answered laughingly, as she divided the
steak, which she proceeded at once to broil.
So Harold let her have her way, and felt an increase of self-respect,
and that he was something more than a common day laborer, as he ate his
steak and buttered toast, and drank the coffee, which seemed to him the
best he had ever tasted. Jerrie picked him a few strawberries, and laid
beside his plate a beautiful half-opened rose, with the dew still upon
it. It was a delicate attention, and Harold felt it more than all she
had done for him.
'Thank you, Jerrie,' he said, picking up the rose as he finished his
breakfast. 'It was so nice in you to think of it, just as if I were a
king instead of a jack-at-all-trades, but I hardly think it suits my
blue checked shirt and painty pants. Keep it yourself, Jerrie,' and he
held it up against her white bib apron. 'It is just like the pink on
your cheeks. Wear it for me,' and taking a pin from his collar, he
fastened it rather awkwardly to the bib, while his face came in so close
proximity to Jerrie's that he felt her breath stir his hair, and felt,
too, a strong temptation to kiss the glowing cheek so near his own.
'There, that completes your costume,' he said, holding her off a little
to look at her. 'By the way, haven't you got yourself up uncommonly
well this morning? I never saw you as pretty as you are in this rig. If
it would not be very improper, I'd like to kiss you.'
He was astonished at his own boldness, and not at all surprised at
Jerrie's reply, as she stepped back from him.
'No, thank you, it would be highly improper for a man of twenty-six, who
stands six feet in his boots, to kiss a girl of nineteen, who stands
five feet six in her slippers.'
There was a flush on her cheeks and a strange look in her eyes, for she
was thinking of Harvard, where he had put her from him, ashamed that
strangers should see her kiss him. Harold had forgotten that incident,
which at the time had made no impression upon him, and was now thinking
only of the beautiful girl whose presence seemed to brighten and ennoble
everything with which she came in contact, and to whom he at last said
good-bye, just as Peterkin's tower clock struck for half-past five.'
'I _must_ go now,' he said, taking up his basket of brushes. 'I have
lost a full half-hour with you, and your steaks, and your coddling me
generally. I ought to have been there by this time. Good-bye,' and
offering her his hand, he started down the lane at a rapid pace,
thinking the morning the loveliest he had ever known, and wondering why
everything seemed so fresh, and bright, and sweet.
If he could have sung, he would have done so, but he could not, and so
he talked to himself, and to the birds, and rabbits, and squirrels,
which sprang up before him as he struck into the woods as the shortest
route to Mr. Allen's farm house--talked to them and to himself of
Jerrie, and how delightful it was to have her home again, unspoiled by
flattery, sweet and gracious as ever, and how he longed to tell her of
his love, but dared not yet until he was surer of her and of what she
felt for him. He had no faith now in her fancies with regard to herself.
Of the likeness to Arthur, which he thought he saw the previous there
had been no trace on the face which had almost touched his that morning
when he pinned the rose upon her bib. She was not--could not be
Gretchen's daughter, and was undoubtedly the child of the woman found in
the Tramp House--his Jerry, whom he had found, and claimed as his own,
and whom he meant to win some day, when he had his profession, and was
established in business. 'But that will be a long, long time, and some
one else may steal her from me,' he said to himself, sadly, as he
thought of the years which must elapse before he could venture to take a
wife. 'Oh, if I were sure she cared for me a little, as I do for her, I
would ask her now and have it settled; for Jerrie is not a girl to go
back on her promise, and the years would seem so short, and the work so
easy, with Jerrie at the end of it all,' he continued, and then he
wondered how he could find out the nature of Jerrie's feeling for him
without asking her directly, and so spoiling everything if he should
happen to be premature.
Would his grandmother know? Not at all likely. She was too old to know
much of love, or its symptoms in a girl. Would Nina St. Claire know?
Possibly, for she and Jerrie were great friends, and girls always told
each other their secrets, so Maude said, and Maude was just then his
oracle. He had seen so much of her the last few months that he felt as
if he knew her even better than he did Jerrie, and he was certainly more
at his ease in her presence. Then why not talk with Maude and enlist her
as a partisan. He might certainly venture to make her his confidente,
she had been so very communicative and familiar with him, telling him
things which he had wondered at, with regard to her father, and mother,
and Tom, and the family generally. Yes, he would sound Maude, very
cautiously at first, and get her opinion, and then he should know better
what to do. Maude would espouse his cause, he was sure, for she liked
him and worshipped Jerrie. He could trust her, and he would.
He had reached the Allen farm-house by this time, and though he was
perspiring at every pore, for the morning was very hot, he scarcely felt
the heat or the fatigue of his rapid four-mile walk, as he mixed his
paints and prepared for his work, for there was constantly in his heart
a thought of Jerrie, as she had looked in that bewitching dress, and of
the bright, smile she had flashed upon him when she said good-bye.
Meanwhile Jerrie had watched him out of sight, whistling merrily:
'Gin a body meet a body,
Comin' through the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?'
whistling it so loud and clear that Nannie came to the fence and put
her head over it with a faint low of approval, while Clover-top thrust
his white nose through the bars, and looked at her inquiringly, as
Jerrie pulled up handfuls of fresh grass and fed them from her hands,
noticing that Nannie had lost her knot of ribbon, and wondering where it
was. Then she returned to the house, and was busying herself with
preparations for her grandmother's breakfast and her own, when the
latter appeared in the kitchen, surprised to find her there, and saying:
'Why, Jerrie, what made you get up till I called you? Why didn't you lie
and rest?'
'Lie and rest,' Jerrie answered laughingly. 'It is you who are to lie
and rest, and not a great overgrown girl like me. I have given Harold
his breakfast and seen him off. I cooked him half the steak,' she added
as she took out the remaining half and put it on the gridiron. 'I don't
care for steak,' she continued, as she saw Mrs. Crawford about to
protest. 'I would rather any time have bread and milk and strawberries.
I shall never tire of them;' and the big bowl full which she ate with a
keen relish, proved that she spoke the truth.
'Now, grandma,' she said, when breakfast was over. 'I am going to do the
work, washing and all. I must do something to work off my superfluous
health, and strength, and muscle. Look at that arm, will you?' and she
threw out her bare arm, which for whiteness and roundness and symmetry
of proportion, might have been coveted by the most fashionable lady in
the land. 'Go back to your rocking-chair and rest your dear, old lame
foot on your softest cushion, and see how soon I will have everything
done. It is just seven now, and by ten we shall be all slicked up, as
Ann Eliza Peterkin says.'
It was of no use to try to resist Jerrie. She would have her own way;
and so Mrs. Crawford, after skimming her milk and attending to the
cream, went to her rocking-chair and her cushion, and sat there quietly,
while Jerrie in the woodshed pounded and rubbed, and boiled and rinsed,
and wrung and starched and blued, and hung upon the line article after
article, until there remained only a few towels and aprons and stockings
and socks, and a pair of colored overalls which Harold had worn at his
work. As these last were rather soiled and had no them patches of
paint, Jerrie was attacking them with a will, when her grandmother
called out in great trepidation:
'Jerrie, Jerrie, do wipe your hands and come quick! Here's Tom Tracy
hitching his horse at the gate.'
Jerrie's first impulse was to do as her grandmother bade her, and her
second to stay where she was.
'If Tom chooses to call so early he must take me as he finds me,' she
thought, while to her grandmother she said: 'Nonsense! Who cares for Tom
Tracy? If he asks for me send him to the woodshed. I can't stop my
work.'
In a moment the elegant Tom, fresh from his perfumed bath, the odor of
which still lingered about him, and faultlessly attired in a cool summer
suit, was bending his tall figure in the door-way of the woodshed where
Jerrie, who was rubbing away on Harold's overalls, received him with a
nod and a smile, as she said:
'Good-morning, Tom. You are up early, and so was I. Business before
pleasure, you know; so I hope you will excuse me if I keep right on. I
have stinted myself to get through, mopping and all, by ten, and it is
now nine by Peterkin's bell. Pray be seated. How is Maude?'
She pointed to a wooden chair near the door, where Tom sat down, wholly
nonplussed, and not knowing at all what to say first.
Never before had he been received in this fashion, and it struck him
that there was something incongruous between himself, in his dainty
attire, with a cluster of beautiful roses in his hand, and that chair,
minus a back, in the woodshed, where the smell of the soapsuds would
have made him faint and sick if he had not been so near to the open
door.
Tom had not slept well the previous night. He had joined the fine
dinner-party his mother had given to the Hart's, and St. Claire's and
Atherton's, and had sat next to Fred Raymond's sister Marian, a very
pretty young girl with a good deal that was foreign in her style and in
her accent, for she had been in Europe nine years, and had only just
come home. Everything in her manner was perfect, from her low,
well-modulated voice, to her sweet, musical laugh, and Tom acknowledged
to himself that she was the most highly polished and cultivated girl he
had ever met; and still she tired him, and he was constantly
contrasting her with Jerrie, and thinking how much better he should
enjoy himself if she were there beside him, with her ready wit and
teasing remarks, which frequently amounted almost to ridicule. Jerrie
had been very gracious to him on the train, and had laughed and joked
with him quite as much as she had with Dick St. Clare.
'Perhaps she likes me better than I have supposed she did,' he thought.
'Anyway, I'd better be on hand, now she is at home and can see Harold
every day. He don't care a copper for Maude, or wouldn't if she didn't
run after him so much, and that will sicken him pretty soon, now that he
has Jerrie. By George, I believe I'd be as poor as he is, and paint for
a living, if I couldn't have Jerrie without it. But I think I can;
anyway, I am going to try. She cannot be insensible to the advantage it
would be to her to be my wife, and eventually the mistress of Tracy
Park. There is not a girl in the world who would not consider twice
before she threw such a chance away.'
Such was the nature of Tom's reflections all through the dinner, and to
him the tiresome talk which followed it and the short summer night
during which he was planning his mode of attack.
'I'll call in the morning and take her some roses; she likes flowers,'
he thought. 'I wonder what she did with those I gave her at Vassar? They
were not with her on the car, unless she hid them in the paper box she
carried so carefully. Yes, I guess they were there, and I shall see them
standing around some where.'
And this was the secret of Tom's early call. He had thought at first to
walk, but had changed his mind, and driven down to the cottage in his
light buggy, with the intention of asking Jerrie to drive with him along
the river road. But she did not look much like driving as she stood
there by the wash-tub in that working-dress, which he thought the most
charming of anything he had ever seen, notwithstanding his chagrin that
the future Mrs. Tom Tracy should ever come in contact with anything as
vulgar as soapsuds and pounding barrels. How beautiful she was in that
short dress, with her bare arms, the whitest he had ever seen, and how
pretty her feet looked in the red stockings and slippers, which he
would have sworn were threes instead of fours and a half.
'I was coming this way,' he said at last, 'and thought I'd stop and see
how you stood the journey, and I've brought you some roses.'
He held them toward her, and with a bright smile she came forward to
receive them.
'Oh, thank you, Tom,' she said, 'it was so kind in you. Roses are my
favorites after the white pond lilies, and these are very sweet.'
She buried her face in them two or three times, and then, putting them
in some water, resumed her position by the wash-tub.
'I'd like you to drive with me,' Tom said, 'but I see you are too busy.
Must you do that work, Jerrie? Can't somebody--can't your grandmother do
it for you?'
'Grandmother! That old lady do my washing! No, indeed!' Jerrie answered,
scornfully, as she made a dive into the boiler with the clothes-stick
and brought out a pair of Mrs. Crawford's long knit stockings, and
dropped them into the rinsing water with a splash.
'Grandma has worked enough,' she continued, as she plunged both her arms
into the water. 'Harold and I shall take care of her now. He was up this
morning at four o'clock, and has gone to Mr. Allen's, four miles away,
to paint a room for him like mine.'
She said this a little defiantly, for she felt hot and resentful that
Tom Tracy should be sitting there at his ease, while Harold was
literally working for his daily bread, and also took a kind of bitter
pride in letting Tom know that she was not ashamed of Harold's work.
'Yes,' Tom drawled, 'that new room must have cost Hal his bottom dollar.
We all wondered how he could afford it. I hope you like it.'
She was too angry to tell him whether she liked it or not, for she knew
the speech was a mean one and prompted by a mean spirit, and she kept on
rubbing a towel until there was danger of its being rubbed into shreds.
Then suddenly remembering that Tom had not told her of Maude, she
repeated her question. 'How is Maude? She was coming to see me this
morning I hope I shall be done before she gets here.'
'Don't hurry yourself for Maude,' Tom replied. 'She will not be here
to-day. I had nearly forgotten that she sent her love and wants you to
come there. She is sick in bed, or was when I left. She had a slight
hemorrhage last night. I think it was from her stomach, though, and so
does mother, but father is scared to death, as he always is if Maude has
a pain in her little finger.'
'Oh, Tom,' Jerrie said, recalling with a pang the thin face, the
blue-veined hands, the tired look of the young girl at the station. 'Oh,
Tom, why didn't you tell me before, so I could hurry and go to her;' and
leaning over her tub Jerrie began to cry, while Tom looked curiously at
her, wondering if she really cared so much for his sister.
'Don't cry, Jerrie,' he said, at last, very tenderly for him. 'Maude is
not so bad; the doctor has no fear. She is only tired with all she has
done lately. You know, perhaps, that she was here constantly with
Harold, and I believe she actually painted for him some, and for aught I
know helped shingle the roof, as Billy said.'
'Yes, I know; I understand,' Jerrie replied, 'I saw it in her face
yesterday. She has tired herself out for me, and if she dies I shall
hate the room forever.'
'But she will not die; that is nonsense,' Tom began when he was
interrupted by Mrs. Crawford, who called out:
'Oh, Jerry, here is Billy Peterkin, with his hands full. What shall I do
with him?'
Dashing away her tears, Jerry replied:
'Send him in here, of course.'
In a few moments the dapper little man was in the woodshed, with a large
bouquet of hot-house flowers in one hand and a basket of delicious
black-caps in the other. For a moment he stood staring first at Tom on
the wooden chair glaring savagely at him, and at Jerrie by the washtub
with the traces of tears on her face--then, with a wind of forced laugh,
he said:
'Be-beg pardon, if I in-tr-trude. Looks dusedly like l-love in a
t-t-tub.'
'And if it is, you have knocked the bottom out,' Tom said, with a sneer.
Both jokes were atrocious, but they made Jerrie laugh, which was
something. She was glad on the whole that Billy had come, and when he
offered her the berries and the flowers, she accepted them graciously,
and bade him sit down, if he could find a seat.
'Here is one on the wash bench,' she said, 'or, will be when I have
emptied the tub;' and she was about to take up the latter, when Billy
sprang to her assistance and emptied it himself, while Tom sat looking
on, chaffing with anger and disgust.
After a moment Billy stuttered out:
'Ann Eliza sent me here, and wants you to c-c-come and see her rooms.
G-g-got a suite, you know; and, by Jove, they are like a b-b-bazaar,
they are so f-full of things, and fl-flowers; half Vassar is there. Got
your basket of d-daisies, Tom, and when I asked her where she g-g-got
'em, she said it was n-n-none of my business. D-did she steal 'em?' and
he turned to Jerrie, whose face was scarlet, as she replied:
'No, I gave them to her, with a lot of others; I could not bring them
all and it was better to dispose of home flowers, as I can get them any
time.'
Tom could have beaten the air, he was so angry. He had been vain enough
to hope that his gift was carefully put away in some box or parcel; and
lo! it was in the possession of that red-haired Peterkin girl, whose
_penchant_ for himself he suspected, and whom he despised accordingly.
'Much obliged to you for giving away my flowers,' he was going to say,
when Mrs. Crawford called again, and this time in real distress.
'Jerrie, Jerrie! you _must_ come now, for here is Dick St. Claire.'
For an instant Jerrie hesitated, and then ashamed of the feeling which
had at first prompted her not to let Dick into the wood-shed, she
replied:
'If Tom and Billy can he admitted to my boudoir, Dick can. Send him in.'
'By George, this is jolly!' Dick said, as he bent his tall figure under
the low door-way, and seated himself upon the inverted washtub which
Billy had emptied. 'Have you all been washing?' 'No,' Jerrie answered,
proudly. 'I am the washerwoman, and all those clothes you saw on the
line are my handiwork.'
'By George!' Dick said again. 'You are a trump, Jerrie! Why didn't you
wear that dress when you were graduated? It's the prettiest costume I
ever saw.'
'Th-that's what I think, only I d-didn't d-dare t-tell her so!' Billy
cried, springing to his feet and hopping about like a little robin.
'How is Nina?' Jerrie asked, ignoring the compliment.
'Brisk as a bee,' Dick replied, 'and sends an invitation for you to come
over to a garden-tea to-night to meet Marian Raymond, Fred's sister.
Awful pretty girl, with an accent like a foreigner; was over there
several years, you know. I was going to the Park House to invite you and
Maude,' he continued, turning to Tom, 'but as you are here, it will save
me the walk. Half-past five sharp.'
Then as his eye fell upon Billy, in whose face there was a look of
expectancy, his countenance fell, for Nina had given him no instructions
to invite the Peterkins, and he felt intuitively that there was nothing
in common between Ann Eliza Peterkin and the refined and aristocratic
Marian Raymond, who had seen the best society in Europe, and in whose
veins some of Kentucky's bluest blood was flowing. But Dick was very
kind-hearted, and never knowingly wounded the feelings of any one if he
could help it; and, after an awkward moment, during which he was
wondering what Nina would do to him if he did it, he turned to Billy and
said, as naturally as if it were what he had been expressly bidden to
say:
'Why, I shan't have to walk over to Le Bateau either. I'm in luck this
hot morning, if you will take the invitation to your sister--for
half-past five.'
'Th-thanks,' Billy began; 'b-but am I left out?'
'Of course not. I'm an awful blunderer,' Dick said, adding, mentally,
'and liar, too, though I didn't say anybody would be happy to see them.
Poor Billy, he is well enough, and so is Ann Eliza, if she wouldn't pile
that red hair so high on the top of her head and wear so much jewelry.
Well, I am in for it, and Nina can't any more than kill me.'
By this time Jerrie was bustling about, putting away the washing
paraphernalia and sweeping the wood-shed, thus indicating that she had
no more time to lose with her three callers, two of whom Dick and Billy,
took the hint and left, but not until she had explained to the former
that it would be impossible for Harold to be present at the
garden-party, as she knew he would not be home until late, and would
then be quite too tired for company.
'I am sorry that he cannot join us. I counted upon him,' Dick said. 'But
you will come, of course, and I offer my services on the spot to see you
home. Do you accept them?'
Jerrie seemed to see, without looking, the disappointment in Billy's
face, and the wrath in Tom's; but as she greatly preferred Dick's
society to theirs in a walk from Grassy Spring to the cottage, she
accepted his offer, and then said, laughingly:
'Now, good-morning to you, and good riddance, too, for I am in an awful
hurry, I am going over to see Maude as soon as I can get myself ready.'
She had not thought that Tom would wait for her, and would greatly have
preferred to walk; but Tom was persistent, and moving his chair from the
wood-shed outside into the shade where it was cooler, he sat fanning
himself with his hat, and watching the long line of clothes, which
Jerrie had washed, flopping in the wind, with a feeling of mortified
pride, as if his own wife had washed them. He knew that his mother had
once been familiar with tubs, and wash-boards, and soap-suds, but that
was before his day. Twenty-seven years had washed all that out, and he
really felt that to be a Tracy and live at Tracy Park was an honor
scarcely less than to be President of the United States, and Jerrie, he
was sure, would see it as such when once the chance was offered her. She
could not be so blind to her own interest as to refuse him, Tom Tracy,
who was so much sought after by the belles of Saratoga and Newport,
where he had spent a part of two or three seasons. He had been best man
at the great ---- wedding in Springfield, and groomsman at another big
affair in Boston, and had scores of invitations everywhere. Taken
altogether, he was a most desirable _parti_, and he was rather surprised
himself at his infatuation for the girl whom he had found in the suds,
and who was not ashamed that he had thus seen her. This was while he was
watching the clothes on the line, scowling at three pairs of coarse,
vulgar stockings which he knew belonged to Mrs. Crawford, and the pair
of blue overalls which were Harold's.
'Yes, I do wonder at my interest in that nameless girl, whose mother was
a common peasant woman,' he thought; but when the nameless girl
appeared, fresh, and bright, and dainty, as if she had never seen a
wash-tub, with her hat on her arm, and two of his roses pinned on the
bosom of her blue muslin dress, he forgot the peasant woman, and the
lack of a name, and thought only of the lovely girl who signified that
she was ready.
It was very cool in the pine woods, where the heat of the summer morning
had not yet penetrated, and Tom, who was enjoying himself immensely,
suggested that they leave the park and take a short drive on the river
road. But Jerrie, who was not enjoying herself, said 'No!' very
decidedly. It would be hot there, and she was anxious to be with Maude
as soon as possible. So they drove on until they reached the grounds
which surrounded the house, and which Jerrie thought more beautiful than
she had ever seen them. The grass was like velvet, with masses of
flowers and shrubs, and urns, and bits of statuary here and there, while
over a little brook where Jerrie and Maude had often waded, and where
poor Jack had had a little water-wheel, a rustic bridge had been built,
with a pretty summer-house just beyond. Frank Tracy was a natural
gardener, and had lavished piles of money upon the grounds, in which he
often worked himself, and where he was busy now with a clump of roses
when Tom drove up with Jerrie.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
AT THE PARK HOUSE.
It was six months since Jerrie had seen Frank Tracy, and even in that
time he had changed so much that she noticed it at once, and looked at
him wonderingly as he came quickly toward her with a smile on his
haggard face, and an eager welcome in his voice, as he gave her both
his hands, and told her how glad he was to see her.
His hair was very white, and she noticed how he stooped as he walked
with her to the house and told her how anxiously Maude was waiting for
her.
'But she cannot talk just yet,' he said. 'You must do all that. The
doctor tells us there is no danger, if she is kept quiet for a few days.
Oh, Jerrie, what if I should lose Maude after all.'
They were ascending the staircase now, and Frank was holding Jerrie's
hand while she tried to comfort and reassure him, and then thanked him
for the fruit and the flowers he had sent to the cottage for her the day
before.
'You are so good to me,' she said, 'you and Mr. Arthur. How lonely the
house seems without him.'
'Yes,' Frank replied, though in his heart he felt his brother's absence
as a relief, for his presence was a constant reproach to him, and helped
to keep alive the remorse which was always tormenting him.
The sight of Jerrie, too, was a pain, but she held a nameless
fascination for him, and he was constantly wondering what she would say
and do when she knew, as he was morally sure she would sometime know
what he had done. He was thinking of this now, and saying to himself,
'She will not be as hard upon me as Arthur,' as he led her up the stairs
and stopped at the door of Arthur's rooms.
'Would you like to go in?' he asked. 'I have the keys,' and he proceeded
to unlock the door.
But Jerrie held back.
'No,' she said, as she glanced in at the silent, deserted rooms. 'It is
like a grave. The ruling spirit is gone.'
'But you forget Gretchen. She is here, and one of Arthur's last
injunctions was that I should visit her every day, and tell her he was
coming back. I have not seen her this morning. Come.'
He was leading her now by the waist through the front parlor, where the
furniture in its white shrouds looked like ghosts, and the pictures were
covered with tarletan. It was dark, too, in the Gretchen room, as they
called it now, but Frank threw open the blinds and let in a flood of
light upon the picture, before which Jerrie stood reverently, and with
feelings such as she had never experienced before, as she looked upon
that lovely, girlish face.
A new idea had taken possession of Jerrie since she had last seen that
picture, and while, unsuspected by her, Frank was studying first her
features and then those of Gretchen, she was struggling frantically with
the past, which seemed clearer than before. Again she saw the low room
far away--the tall stove in the corner, the dark woman opening the door,
the firelight on the white face in the chair; and this time memory added
another item to the picture, and she of the white face and wavy golden
hair seemed to hold a writing-desk on her lap and a piece of paper on
which the pale hands were tracing words slowly and feebly, as if the
effort were a pain.
'Oh, I can almost remember,' she whispered, just as Frank's voice broke
the spell by saying:
'Good-morning, Gretchen. Arthur is in California, but he is surely
coming back; he bade me tell you so.'
'Is he crazy as well as Mr. Arthur? Are we all crazy together?' Jerrie
asked herself, as she watched him closing the blinds and shutting out
the sunlight from the room, so that the picture was in shadow now and
seemed nothing but bits of colored glass.
'I have kept my promise to Arthur; and now for Maude,' Frank said, and
Jerry was conscious of a new and strange sensation--a feeling of
ownership and possession, as she went through the broad hall, glancing
in at one handsome room after another, until she reached Maude's door.
On the threshold she met Mrs. Frank, just coming out, and elegantly
attired in a tasteful muslin wrapper, with more lace and embroidery upon
it than Jerrie had ever worn in her life; her hair was carefully dressed
with a cap which looked like a pen-wiper or doll's bonnet, it was so
small, perched on the top of it; her face was powdered, and her manner
was one of languor and fine-ladyism, which she had cultivated so
assiduously and achieved so successfully. Not a muscle of her face
changed when she saw Jerrie, but she closed Maude's door quickly, and
stepping into the hall, offered the tips of her fingers, as she said, in
a fretful, rather than a welcoming tone:
'Good-morning. You are very late. Maude expected you two hours ago,
almost immediately after Tom went out. She has worked herself into a
great state of feverish nervousness.'
'I am so sorry,' Jerry replied. 'But I could not come sooner. I had a
large washing to do, and that takes time, you know.'
Jerry meant no reflection upon the days when Dolly had done her own
washing, and knew that it took time, but the thought she did, and a
frown settled upon her face as she replied:
'Surely your grandmother might have helped you, or Harold; and Maude is
so impatient and weak this morning. The doctor says there is no danger
if she is kept quiet. She is only tired out with that room of yours.
Why, I am told she has actually puttied up nail-holes, and painted
walls, and sawed boards! I hope you like it. You ought to, for a part of
Maude's life and strength is in it.'
'Oh, Mrs. Tracy,' Jerry cried, with tears in her eyes, 'I am so sorry.
Of course I like the room, or did; but if it has injured Maude, I shall
hate it.'
Dolly had given her a little stab and was satisfied, so she said in a
softer tone:
'Maude may recover--I think she will; but everything must be done to
please her, and she cannot talk to you this morning--remember that. You
must do the talking, but must not stay too long.'
'Mamma--mamma, let Jerrie in,' came faintly from the closed room; and
then Mrs. Tracy stood aside and let Jerrie pass into the luxurious
apartment, where Maude lay upon a silken couch, with a soft,
rose-colored shawl thrown over her shoulders, her eyes large and hollow,
and her face as white almost as a corpse.
One looking at her needed not to be told of her danger, or of the peril
there was in exciting her; and Jerrie felt a cold thrill creep over her
as she went to the couch, and kneeling beside it, kissed the pale,
quivering lips and smoothed the dark hair, while she tried to speak
naturally and cheerfully, as if in her mind there was no thought of
danger to the beautiful girl, who smiled so lovingly upon her and kept
caressing her hands and her face, as if she would thus express her
gladness to see her.
'I know all about it, Maude,' Jerrie said. 'Tom told me, and your
mother. You tired yourself out for me. Hush! Don't speak, or I shall go
away,' she continued, as she saw Maude's lips move. 'You are not to
talk. You are to listen, just for a day or two, and then you will he
better, and come to the cottage and see my lovely room. It is so pretty,
and I like it so much, and thank you and Harold so much. He has gone to
the Allen farm to-day to paint,' she said, in answer to an eager
questioning look in Maude's eyes. 'He does not know you are sick. He
will come when he can see you--to-morrow, maybe. Would you like to have
him?'
A warm pressure of the hand was Maude's reply, as the moisture gathered
upon her heavy eyelashes. But Jerrie kissed it away, though her own hot
tears fell upon Maude's hair, which, however, was so thick that she did
not feel them; nor did she dream what it cost Jerrie to sit there and
tell her everything of Harold which she could think of, because she knew
that would please the sick girl better. Once she made Maude laugh, as
she took off little Billy, imitating his voice so perfectly that a
person outside would have said he was in the room. Jerrie's talent for
imitation and ventriloquism had not deserted her, although as she grew
older, she did not so often practice it as when a child; but she brought
it into full play now to amuse Maude, and imitated every individual of
whom she spoke, except Arthur. He was the one person whose peculiarities
she could not take off.
'I have been to Mr. Arthur's room,' she said, 'but it seems so desolate
without him. Do you hear from him often?'
'I have only had one letter, and then he was in Salt Lake City, at the
Continental, in a room which he said was big enough for three rooms, and
had not a single bad smell in it, except the curtains, which were new,
and in which he did detect a little odor.'
Here Maude laughed again, while there came into her face a faint color
and a look which made Jerrie's breath come quickly as, for the first
time, the thought flashed across her mind that if what she had been
foolish enough to dream of were true Maude was her cousin--her own flesh
and blood.
'Maude,' she said suddenly, with a strong desire to fold the frail
little body in her arms and tell her what she had thought.
But when Maude looked up inquiringly at her she only put her head down
upon the rose-colored shawl and began to cry. Then, regardless of
consequences, Maude raised herself upon her elbow, and laying her face
on Jerrie's head began herself to cry piteously.
'Jerrie, Jerrie,' she sobbed, 'you think I am going to die, I know you
do, and so does everybody, but I am not; I cannot die when there is so
much to live for, and my home is so beautiful, and I love everybody so
much, and--'
Terrified beyond measure, Jerrie put her hand over Maude's mouth and
said, almost sharply:
'If you want to live you must not talk. Be careful and you will get
well; the doctor says so.'
But Jerrie's tears belied her words when she saw the palor in Maude's
face as she sank back upon her pillow exhausted, while, with her
handkerchief she wiped a faint coloring of blood from her lips.
'I have stayed too long,' Jerrie said, as she arose from her low seat by
the couch. Then Maude spoke again in a whisper and said:
'Send Harold soon.'
'I will,' Jerrie replied, and kissing the death-like face again she went
softly from the room, thinking to herself, as she descended the stairs,
'I believe I could give Harold to her now.'
CHAPTER XXXIV.
UNDER THE PINES WITH TOM.
Jerrie found Tom just where she had left him, on the piazza outside,
waiting for her, it would seem, for the moment she appeared he arose,
and going with her down the steps walked by her side along the avenue
toward the point where she would turn aside into the road which led to
the cottage.
'How did you find Maude!' he asked.
'Weaker than I supposed,' Jerrie replied, 'and so tired. Oh, Tom, I know
she hurt herself worrying about my room as she did, and if she dies I
shall never like it again.'
'Nonsense,' Tom answered, carelessly. 'Maude won't die. She's got the
Tracy constitution, which nothing can kill. Don't fret about your room.
Maude liked being there. Nothing could keep her away. And don't flatter
yourself that it was all love for you which took her there so much, for
it wasn't. She is just mashed with Harold, while he--well, what can a
young man do when a pretty girl--and Mamie is pretty--when she gushes at
him all the time? It is a regular flirtation, and everybody knows about
it except mother and the Gov.'
'Who is the Gov.?' Jerry asked, sharply.
'Why, you Vassars must be very innocent,' Tom replied, with a laugh,
'not to know that Gov. is one's respected sire: the old man, some call
him, but I am more respectful. My gracious, though! isn't it sweltering?
I'm nearly baked, you make me walk so fast!' and he wiped the great
drops of swat from his forehead.
'Why don't you go back then? Why are you walking here in the hot sun?'
Jerrie asked.
'I am going home with you,' he replied. 'Do you think I'd let you go
alone?'
'Go alone?' Jerrie repeated, stopping short and fixing her blue eyes
upon him. 'You have let me go alone a hundred times, and after dark,
too, when I was much smaller than I am now, and less able to defend
myself, supposing there was anything to fear, which there is not. Pray
go back, and not trouble yourself for me.'
'I shall not go back,' Tom said. 'I waited on purpose to come with you.
There is something I must say to you, and I may as well say it now as
any other time.'
Jerrie was tall, but Tom was six inches taller, and he was looking down
straight into her eyes with an expression in his before which hers fell,
for she guessed what it was he wished to say to her, and her heart beat
painfully as, without another word, she walked rapidly on until they
were in the woods near a place where four tall pines formed a kind of
oblong square. Here an iron seat had been placed years before, when the
Tracy children were young, and held what they called their picnics there
under the thick boughs of the pines which shaded them from both heat and
cold. Laying his hand on Jerrie's shoulder, Tom said to her:
'Sit here with me under the pines while I tell you what for a long time
I have wanted to tell you, and which may as well be told at once.'
Still Jerrie did not speak, but she sat down upon the seat, and, taking
off her hat, began to fan herself with it, while with the end of her
parasol she tried to trace letters in the thick carpet of dead pine
needles at her feet.
Her attitude was not encouraging, and a less conceited man than Tom
would have felt disheartened, but he was not. No girl would be insane
enough to refuse Tom Tracy, of Tracy Park; and at last he made the
plunge, and told her of his love for her and his desire to make her his
wife.
'I know I was a mean little scamp when I was a boy,' he said, 'and did a
lot of things for which I am ashamed; but I believe that I always loved
you, Jerrie, even when I was teasing you the worst. I know I used to
think you the prettiest little girl I ever saw, and now I think you the
prettiest big one, and I have had splendid opportunities for seeing
girls. You know I have travelled a great deal, and been in the very best
society; and, if I may say it, I think I can marry almost any one whom I
choose. I used to fear lest you and Hal would hit it off together, or,
rather, that he would try to get you, but, since he and Maude are so
thick, my fears in that quarter have vanished, and I am constantly
building castles as to what we will do. I did not mean to ask you quite
so soon, but the sight of you this morning washing your clothes, with
all that soapy steam in your face, decided me not to put it off. A Tracy
has no business in a washtub.'
'Did no Tracy ever wash her own clothes?' Jerrie asked, with an upward
and sidewise turn of her head, habitual with her when startled or
stirred.
There was a ring in her voice which Tom did not quite like, but he
answered, promptly:
'Oh, of course, years ago; but times change, and you certainly ought not
to be familiar with such vulgar things, and at Tracy Park you will be
surrounded with every possible luxury, Father, and Maude, and Uncle
Arthur will be overjoyed to have you there; and if, on my part, love and
money can make you happy, you certainly will be so.'
'You have plenty of money of your own?' Jerrie said, with another upward
toss of her golden head.
The question was full of sarcasm, but Tom did not see it, and answered
at once:
'Why, yes, or I shall have in time. Uncle Arthur, you know, is in no
condition to make a will now. It would not stand a minute. All the
lawyers say that.'
'You have taken counsel, then?'
The parasol dug a great hole in the soft pines and was in danger of
being broken, as Tom replied:
'Oh, yes; we are sure of that. Whatever Uncle Arthur has, and it is more
than a million, will go to father, and, after him, to Maude and me; so
you are sure to be rich and to be the mistress of Tracy Park, which will
naturally come to me. Think, Jerrie, what a different life you will lead
at the Park House from what you do now, washing old Mrs. Crawford's
stockings and Harold's overalls.'
'Yes, I am thinking,' Jerrie answered, very low; and if Tom had followed
the end of her parasol, he would have seen that it was forming the word
Gretchen in front of him.
'Suppose Mr. Arthur has a wife somewhere?' Jerrie asked.
'A wife!' Tom exclaimed. 'That is impossible. We should have heard of
that.'
'Who was Gretchen?' was the next query.
'Oh, some sweetheart, I suppose--some little German girl with whom he
amused himself a while and then cast off, as men usually do such
incumbrances.'
Tom did not quite know himself what he was saying, or what it implied,
and he was not at all prepared to see the parasol stuck straight into
the ground, while Jerrie sprang to her feet and confronted him fiercely.
'Tom Tracy! If you mean to insinuate a thing which is not good and pure
against Gretchen, I'll never speak to you as long as I live! Take back
what you said about Mr. Arthur's casting her off! She was his wife, and
you know it? Dead, perhaps--I think she is; but she was his wife--his
true and lawful wife; and--I--sometimes--'
She could not add 'think she was my mother,' for the words stuck in her
throat, where her heart seemed to be beating wildly and choking her
utterance.
'Why, Jerrie,' Tom said, startled at her excited appearance, and anxious
to appease her, 'what can ail you? I hardly know what I said, and if I
have offended you, I am sorry, I know nothing of Gretchen; her face is a
good one and a pretty one, and Maude says you look like her; though I
don't see it, for I think you far prettier than she. Perhaps she was my
uncle's wife--I guess she was: but that does not injure my prospects,
for of course she is dead, or she would have turned up before this time.
We have nothing to fear from her.'
'She may have left a child. What then?' Jerrie asked, with as steady a
voice as she could command.
'Pshaw! humbug!' Tom replied, with a laugh. 'That is impossible. A child
would have been heard from before this time. There is no child; I'm sure
I hope not, as that would seriously interfere with our prospects. Think
of some one--say a young lady--walking in upon us some day and claiming
to be Arthur Tracy's daughter!'
'What would you do?' Jerrie asked, in a tone of smothered excitement.
'I believe I'd kill her,' Tom said, laughingly, 'or marry her, if I had
not already seen you. But don't worry about that. There is no child;
there is nothing between us and a million, and you have only to appoint
the day which will make me the happiest of men, and free you from a
drudgery, which just to think of sets my teeth on edge. Will you name
the day, Jerrie?'
If it had been possible for a look to have annihilated Tom, the scorn
which blazed in Jerrie's eyes would have done so. To hear him talk as if
the matter were settled and the money he was to inherit from his uncle
could buy her made her blood boil, and seizing her poor parasol, still
standing up so straight in the piny sand, she stepped backward from him
and said, in a mocking voice:
'Thank you, Tom, for the honor you would confer upon me, and which I
must decline, for I would rather wash grandma's stockings all my life,
and Harold's overalls, too, than marry a man for money.'
'Jerrie, oh, Jerrie, you don't mean it! You do not refuse me!' Tom
cried, in alarm, stretching out his arm to reach her but touching only
the parasol, to which he clung desperately as a drowning man to a straw.
'I do mean it, Tom,' she said, softened a little by the pain she saw in
his face. 'I can never be your wife.'
'But why not!' Tom demanded. 'Many a girl who stands higher socially in
the world than you would gladly bear my name. I might have married
Governor Storey's daughter, at Saratoga, last summer. She threw herself
at my head, but one thought of you was enough to keep me from her. You
cannot be in earnest.'
'But I am. I care nothing for your money, which may or may not be yours.
I do not love you, Tom; and without love I would not marry a prince.'
It was very hard for Tom to believe that Jerrie really meant to refuse
him, Tom Tracy, who with all his love for her--and he did love her as
well as he was capable of loving any one--still felt that he was
stooping a little, or at least was honoring her greatly when he asked
her to be his wife. And she had refused him, and kept on refusing him in
spite of all he could say; and worse than all, made him feel at last
that she did not consider it an honor to be Mrs. Tom Tracy, of Tracy
Park, and did not care either for him or his prospective fortune. She
called it that finally, then Tom grew angry and taunted her with
fostering a hope that Arthur might make her his heir, or at least leave
her some portion of his money.
'But I tell you he can't do it. A crazy man's will would never stand,
and he is crazy and you know it. You will never touch a dollar of Uncle
Arthur's money, if you live to be a hundred, unless it comes to you from
me. Don't flatter yourself that you will, and don't flatter yourself
either that you will ever catch Hal Hastings, who is the real obstacle
in my way. I know that very well, and so do you; but let me tell you
that what heart he has is given to Maude, who is silly enough to
encourage him; though I doubt if she would ever marry him when it comes
to that. She will look higher than a painter, a carpenter, a--'
'Tom Tracy!' and Jerrie's parasol was raised so defiantly and her eyes
flashed so indignantly that Tom did not finish what he was going to
say, but cowered a little before the angry girl, who stood so tall
before him and hurled her words at him with such scathing vehemence.
'Tom Tracy! Stop! You have said enough. When you made me believe that
you really did care for me; and I suppose you must, or you would not
have thrown over a governor's daughter for me, or left so many lovelorn,
high-born maidens out in the cold, I was sorry for you, for I hate to
give any one pain, and I would rather have you my friend than my enemy;
but when you taunt me with expectations from your uncle--.'
Here Jerrie paused, for the lump in her throat would not suffer the
words to come, and there arose before her as if painted upon canvas the
low room, the white stove, the firelight on the whiter face, the writing
on the lap, and the little child in the far-off German city. But she
would have died sooner than have told Tom of this, or that the
conviction was strong upon her that she should one day stand there under
the pines, herself the heiress of Tracy Park, Gretchen's memory honored,
and Gretchen's wrongs wiped out.
After a moment she went on:
'I care nothing for your money, and less for you, who show the meanness
there is in your nature when you speak of Harold Hastings as you have
done. Supposing he is poor--suppose he is a painter and a carpenter, and
has been what you started to call him--is he less a man for that? A
thousand times no, and there is more of true manhood and nobility in his
little finger than in your whole body; and if Maude has won his love,
she should be prouder of it than of a duchess' coronet. I do not wish to
wound you, but when you talk of Harold, you make me so mad.
Good-morning; it is time for me to be at my drudgery, as you call it.'
She walked rapidly away, leaving her parasol, which she had again thrust
into the ground, flopping in the breeze which had just sprung up, and
each flop seemed to mock the discomfited Tom, who, greatly astonished
but not at all out of conceit with himself, sat staring blankly after
her, and with her head and shoulders more erect than usual, if possible,
she went on almost upon a run until a turn in the road hid her from
view. Then he arose and shook himself together, and picking up the
soiled parasol, folded it carefully and put it upon the seat, saying as
he did so:
'By George! did that girl know what she was about when she refused to
marry me?'
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE GARDEN PARTY.
Jerrie went on very rapidly toward home, almost running at times, and
not at all conscious of the absence of her parasol, or that the noonday
sun was beating hot upon her head, conscious only of a bitter feeling of
pain and vexation, the latter that she had allowed herself to speak so
angrily to Tom, and of pain because of what he had said to her of Maude
and Harold. Do what she might, she could not forget the tone of Harold's
voice, or the look in his eyes when he bade her good-bye that morning,
or that his whole manner since her return had been more like that of a
lover than of a brother. And still there was that little throb of
jealousy tugging at her heart-strings, notwithstanding that he had said
to herself in substance not more than an hour before that she believed
she could give Harold to Maude, whose love for him she could not doubt.
'And I'll do it now,' she said, at last, to herself. 'I'll fight it
down, this something which makes me hate myself. If Harold loves Maude
he shall never know from me of that horrible pain which cuts me like a
knife and makes me forget to be indignant at Tom for talking so much of
his money and his position, as if they could buy me! Poor Tom! I said
some sharp things to him, but he deserved them, the prig! Let him marry
that governor's daughter if he can. I am sure I wish him success.'
She had reached home by this time, and found their simple dinner waiting
for her. 'Oh, grandma, why did you do it? Why didn't you wait for me?'
she said, as she took her seat at the table where the dishes were all so
plain, and the cloth, though white and clean, so coarse and cheap.
Jerrie was as fond of luxury and elegance as any one, and Tracy Park,
with its appurtenances, would have suited her taste better than the
cottage.
'But not with Tom, not with Tom,' she kept on repeating to herself, as
she cleared the table and washed the dishes, and then brought in and
folded the clothes for the morrow's ironing.
By this time she was very tired, and going to her cool, pretty room, she
threw herself upon the lounge and slept soundly for three hours or more.
Sleep is a wonderful tonic, and Jerrie rose refreshed and quite herself
again. Not even a thought of Maude and Harold disturbed her as she went
whistling and singing around her room, hanging up her dresses one by
one, and wondering which she should wear at the garden party. Deciding
at last upon a simple white muslin, which, although two years old, was
still in fashion, and very becoming, she arranged her wavy hair in a
fluffy mass at the back of her head, brushed her bangs into short, soft
curls upon her forehead, pinned a cluster of roses on the bosom of her
dress, and was ready for the party.
'Tell Harold, if he is not too tired, I want him very much to come for
me,' she said, to Mrs. Crawford, and then about five o'clock started for
Grassy Spring, where she found the guests all assembled in the pleasant,
shady grounds, which surrounded the house.
Tom was there in his character of a fine city dandy, and the moment he
saw Jerry, he hastened to meet her, greeting her with perfect
self-possession, as if nothing had happened.
'You are late,' he said, going up to her. 'We are waiting for you to
complete our eight hand croquet, and I claim you as my partner.'
'I c-c call that mean, T-t-tom. I was g-g-going to ask J-jerrie to
pl-play with m-me,' little Billy said, hopping around them, while Dick's
face showed that he, too, would like the pleasure of playing with
Jerrie, who was known to be an expert and seldom missed a ball.
Naturally, however, Marian Raymond, as a stranger, would fall to him,
and they were soon paired off, Dick and Marian, Tom and Jerrie, Nina and
Billy, Fred Raymond and Ann Eliza, who wore diamonds enough for a full
dress party, and whose red hair was piled on the top of her head so
loosely that the ends of it stuck out here and there like the streamers
on a boat on gala days. This careless style of dressing her hair, Ann
Eliza affected, thinking it gave individuality to her appearance; and it
certainly did attract general observation, her hair was so red and
bushy. Dick had stumbled and stammered dreadfully when confessing to his
sister that he had invited the Peterkins, while Nina had drawn a long
breath of dismay as she thought of presenting Ann Eliza and Billy to
Marian Raymond, with her culture and aristocratic ideas. Then she burst
into a laugh and said, with her usual sweetness:
'Never mind, Dickie. You could not do otherwise. I'll prepare Marian,
and the Peterkins will really enjoy it.'
So Marian, who, with all her accomplishments and foreign air, was a
kind-hearted, sensible girl, was prepared, and received the Peterkins
very graciously, and seemed really pleased with Billy, whose big, kind
heart shone through his diminutive body and always won him friends. He
was very happy to be there, because he liked society, and because he
knew Jerrie was coming; and Ann Eliza was very glad because she felt it
an honor to be at Grassy Spring, and because she knew Tom was coming,
and when he came she fastened upon him with a tenacity which he could
not well shake off; and when croquet was proposed she was the first to
respond.
'Oh, yes, that will be nice, and I know our side will beat,' and she
looked at Tom as it were a settled thing that she should play with him.
But Tom was not in a mood to be gracious. He had come to the
entertainment, which he mentally called a bore, partly because he would
not let Jerrie think he was taking her refusal to heart, and partly
because he must see her again, even if she never could be his wife. All
the better nature of Tom was concentrated in his love for Jerrie, and
had she married him he would probably have made her as happy as a wholly
selfish man can make happy the woman he loves. But she had declined his
offer, and wounded him deeper than she supposed.
A hundred times he had said to himself that afternoon, as he sat alone
in the lovely park--of which he had once said to Harold, he was to be
the _hare_, and of whose possession in the future he had boasted to
Jerrie--that he did not care a _sou_, that he was glad she had refused
him, for after all it was only an infatuation on his part; that the girl
of the carpet-bag was not the wife for a Tracy; but the twinge of pain
in his heart belied his words, and he knew he did love Jerrie Crawford
better than he should ever again love any girl, whether the daughter of
a governor or of the president.
'And I go to the party, too, just to show her that I don't care, and for
the sake of looking at her,' he said. 'She can't help that, and it is a
pleasure to look at a woman so grandly developed and perfectly formed as
she is. By Jove! Hal Hastings is a lucky dog; but I shall hate him
forever.'
So Tom pulled himself together, and went to Grassy Spring in a frame of
mind not the most amiable; and when croquet was proposed, he sneered at
it as something quite too _passé_, citing lawn tennis as the only decent
outdoor amusement.
'Why, then, don't you set it up on your grounds, where you have plenty
of room, and ask us all over there?' Dick asked, good-humoredly, as he
began to get out the mallets and balls.
To this Tom did not reply, but said, instead:
'Count me out. I don't like the game, and there are enough without me.'
Just then Jerry appeared at the gate, and he added quickly:
'Still, I don't wish to be ungracious; and now Jerrie has come, we can
have an eight hand.'
Hastening toward her, he met her as we have recorded, and claimed her
for his partner.
'Thank you, Tom,' Jerrie said, with a bright smile on her face, which
made the young man's heart beat fast with both pleasure and pain, as he
gave her the mallet and told her she was to play first.
Tom was making himself master of ceremonies, and Dick kept quiet and let
him, and watched Jerrie admiringly as she made the two arches, and the
third, and fourth, and then sent her ball out of harm's way. It was a
long and closely contested game, for all were skilful players, except
poor Ann Eliza, who was always behind and required a great deal of
attention from her partner especially when it came to croqueting a
ball. She did not know exactly what to do, and kept her foot so long
upon the ball that less amiable girls than Nina and Jerrie would have
said she did it on purpose, to show how small and pretty it looked in
her closely fitting French boot. But Jerrie's side beat, as it usually
did. She had become a 'rover' the second round, had rescued Tom from
many a difficulty, and taken Ann Eliza through four or five wickets,
besides doing good service to her other friends.
'I p-p-propose three ch-cheers for Jerrie,' Billy said, standing on his
tiptoes and nearly splitting his throat with his own hurrah.
After the game was over they repaired to the piazza, where the little
tables were laid for tea, and where Jerrie found herself _vis-à-vis_
with Marian Raymond, of whom she had thought she might stand a little in
awe, she had heard so much of her. But the mesmeric power which Jerrie
possessed drew the Kentucky girl to her at once, and they were soon in a
most animated conversation.
'You do not seem like a stranger to me,' Marian said, 'and I should
almost say I had seen you before, you are so like a picture in Germany.'
'Yes,' Jerrie answered, with a gasp, and a feeling such as she always
experienced when the spell was upon her and she saw things as in a
dream.
'Was it in a gallery?'
'Oh, no; it was in a house we rented in Wiesbaden. You know, perhaps,
that I was there at school for a long time. Then, when mamma came out,
and I was through school, we stayed there for months, it was so lovely,
and we rented a house which an Englishman had bought and made over. Such
a pretty house it was, too, with so many flowers and vines around it.'
'And the picture--did it belong to the Englishman?' Jerrie asked.
'Oh, no,' Marian replied: 'it did not seem to belong to anybody. Mr.
Carter--that was the name of our landlord--said it was there in the wall
when he took the house, which was then very small and low, with only two
or three rooms. He bought it because of the situation, which, though
very quiet and pleasant, was so near the Kursaal that we could always
hear the music without going to the garden.
'Yes,' Jerrie said again, with her head on one side, and her ear turned
up, as if she were listening to some far-off, forgotten strains. 'Yes;
and the picture was like me, you say--how like me?'
'Every way like you,' Marian replied; 'except that the original must
have been younger when it was taken--sixteen, perhaps--and she was
smaller than you, and wore a peasant's dress, and was knitting on a
bench under a tree, with the sunshine falling around her, and at a
little distance a gentleman stood watching her. But what is the matter,
Miss Crawford? Are you sick?' Marian asked, suddenly, as she saw the
bright color fade for an instant from Jerrie's face, leaving it deathly
white, while Tom and Dick knocked their heads together in their efforts
to get her a glass of water, which they succeeded in spilling into her
lap.
'It is nothing,' Jerrie said, recovering herself quickly. 'I have been
in the hot sun a good deal to-day, and perhaps that affected me and made
me a little faint. 'It has passed now;' and she looked up as brightly as
ever.
'It's that confounded washing!' Tom thought; but Jerrie could have told
him differently.
As Marian had talked to her of the house in Wiesbaden and the picture on
the wall--of the peasant girl knitting in the sunshine--she had seen, as
by revelation, through a rift in the clouds which separated her from the
past--the picture on the wall, in its pretty Florentine frame, and knew
that it resembled the pale, sweet face which came to her so often and
was so real to her. Was it her old home Marian was describing? Had she
lived there once, when the house consisted of only two or three rooms?
and was that a picture of her mother, left there she knew not how or
why? These were the thoughts crowding each other so fast in her brain
when the faintness and pallor crept over her and the objects about her
began to seem unreal. But the cold water revived her, and she was soon
herself again, listening while Marian talked of heat and sun-strokes,
with an evident forgetfulness of the peasant girl knitting in the
sunshine; but Jerrie soon recurred to the subject and asked, rather
abruptly: 'Was there a stove in that house--a tall, white stove, in a
corner of one of the old rooms--say the kitchen--and a high-backed
settee?'
Marian stared at her a moment in surprise, and then replied:
'Oh, I know what you mean--those unwieldy things in which they sometimes
put the wood from the hall. No; there was nothing of that kind, though
there was an old settee by the kitchen fire-place, but not a tall stove.
Mr. Carter had modernized the house, and set up a real Yankee
stove--Stewart's, I think they called it.'
'Was the picture in the kitchen?' Jerrie asked next.
'No,' Marian replied, 'it was in a little, low apartment which must once
have been the best room.'
'And was there no theory with regard to it! It seems strange that any
one should leave it there if he cared for it,' Jerrie said.
'Yes, it does,' Marian replied; 'but all Mr. Carter knew was that the
people of whom he bought the house said the portrait was there when they
took possession, and that it had been left to apply on the back rent;
also that the original was dead. He (Mr. Carter) had bought the picture
with the house, and offered to take it down, but I would not let him. It
was such a sweet, sunny, happy face that it did me good to look at it,
and wonder who the young girl was, and if her life were ever linked with
that of the stranger watching her.'
Again the faintness came upon Jerrie, for she could see so plainly on
the sombre wall the picture of the sweet-faced girl, with the long
stocking in her lap--a very long stocking she felt sure it was, but
dared not ask, lest they should think her question a strange one. Of the
stranger in the back yard watching the young girl she had no
recollection, but her heart beat wildly as she thought:
'Was that Mr. Arthur, and was the young girl Gretchen?'
How fast the lines touching her past had widened about her since she
first saw the likeness in the mirror, and her confused memories of the
past began to take shape and assume a tangible form.
'I will find that house, and that picture, and that Mr. Carter, and the
people who lived there before him,' she said to herself; and then again,
addressing Marian, she asked:
'What was the street, and the number of that house?'
Marian told her the street, but could not remember the number, while Tom
said, laughingly:
'Why, Jerrie, what makes you so much interested in an old German house?
Do you expect to go there and live in it?'
'Yes,' Jerrie replied, in the same light tone. 'I am going to Germany
sometime--going to Wiesbaden, and I mean to find that house and the
picture which Miss Raymond says I am so much like; then I shall know how
I look to others. You remember the couplet:
'"Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see ourselfs as others see us!"
'Look in the glass there, the best one you can find, and you'll see
yourself as others see you,' Dick said, gallantly.
Before Jerrie could reply, a servant appeared on the piazza, saying
there was some one at the telephone asking for Mr. Peterkin.
It proved to be Billy's father, who was in the village, and had received
a telegram from Springfield concerning a lawsuit which was pending
between himself and a rival firm, which claimed that he had infringed
upon their patents. Before replying to the telegram he wished to confer
with his son, who was to come at once to the hotel, and, if necessary,
go to Springfield that night.
'B-by Jove,' Billy said, as he returned to the piazza and explained the
matter, 'it's t-t-too bad that I must g-go, when I'm enjoying m-myself
t-t-tip-top. I wish that lawsuit was in Gu-Guinea.'
Then turning to Ann Eliza he asked how she would get home if he did nut
return.
'Oh, don't trouble about me. I can take care of myself,' Ann Eliza said,
with a bounce up in her chair, which set every loose hair of her frowzy
head to flying.
'M-m-maybe they'll send the ca-carriage,' Billy went on, 'and if they
do-don't, m-may be you can g-go with T-Tom as far as his house, and then
you wo-wont be afraid.'
Tom could have killed the little man for having thus made it impossible
for him not to see his sister safely home. He had fully intended to
forestall Dick, and go with Jerrie if Harold did not come, for though
she had refused him, he wished to keep her as a friend, hoping that in
time she might be led to reconsider. He liked to hear her voice--to look
into her face--to be near her, and the walk in the moonlight, with her
upon his arm, had been something very pleasant to contemplate, and now
it was snatched from him by Billy's ill-advised speech, and old
Peterkin's red-haired daughter thrust upon him. It was rather hard, and
Tom's face was very gloomy and dark for the remainder of the evening,
while they sat upon the piazza and laughed, and talked, and said the
little nothings so pleasant to the young and so meaningless to the old
who have forgotten their youth.
Jerrie was the first to speak of going. She had hoped that Harold might
possibly come for her, but as the time passed on, and he did not appear,
she knew he was not coming, and at last arose to say good-night to Nina,
while Dick hastened forward and announced his intention to accompany
her.
'No, Dick, no; please don't,' she said. 'I am not a bit afraid, and I
would rather you did not go.'
But Dick was persistent.
'You know you accepted my services this morning,' he said, and his face,
as he went down the steps with Jerrie on his arm, wore a very different
expression from that of poor Tom, who, with Ann Eliza coming about to
his elbow, stalked moodily along the road, scarcely hearing and not
always replying to the commonplace remarks of his companion, who had
never been so happy in her life, because never before had she been out
alone in the evening with Tom Tracy as her escort.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
OUT IN THE STORM.
For half an hour or more before the young people left the house a dark
mass of clouds had been rolling up from the west, and by the time that
they were out of the grounds and on the highway, the moonlight was
wholly obscured and the sky was overcast as with a pall, while frequent
groans of thunder and flashes of lightning in the distance told of the
fast coming storm.
'Oh, I am so afraid of thunder! Aren't you?' Ann Eliza cried, in terror,
as she clung closer to Tom, who, beside her, seemed a very giant, and
who did not reply until there came a gleam of lightning which showed him
the white face and the loose hair blowing out from under his companion's
hat.
There was a little shriek of fear and a smothered cry. 'Oh, Tom, aren't
you a bit afraid?'
And then the giant answered the trembling little girl whom he would like
to have shaken off, she clung so closely to him 'Thunder and lightning,
no!' I'm not afraid of anything except getting wet; and if you are,
you'd better run before the whole thing is upon us; the sky is blacker
than midnight now. I never saw a storm come on so fast. Can you run?'
'Yes--some,' Ann Eliza gasped out; 'only my boots are so tight and new,
and the heels are so high. Do you think we shall be struck?'
This as a peal of thunder louder than any which had preceded it rolled
over their heads, making Ann Eliza clutch Tom's arm in nervous terror
which was not feigned.
'Struck? No. But don't screech and hang on to me so. We can never get
along if you do,' Tom growled; and, taking her by the wrist, he dragged
rather than led her through the woods where the great rain-drops were
beginning to fall so fast as the two showers--one from the west and one
from the south--approached each other, until at last they met overhead,
and then commenced a wild and fierce battle of the elements, the
southern storm and the western storm each seemingly trying to outdo the
other and come off conqueror.
As the thunder and lightning and rain increased, Tom went on faster and
faster, forgetting that the slip of a girl, who scarcely came to his
shoulders, could not take so long strides as a great, hulking fellow
like himself.
'Oh, Tom, Tom--please not so fast. I can't keep up, my heart beats so
fast and my boots hurt me so,' came in a faint, sobbing protest more
than once from the panting girl at his side; but he only answered:
'You _must_ keep up, or we shall be soaked through and through. I never
knew it rain so fast. Take off your boots, if they hurt you. You've no
business to wear such small ones.'
He had heard from Maude that Ann Eliza was very proud of her feet, and
always wore boots too small for them, and he experienced a savage
satisfaction in knowing that she was paying for her foolishness. This
was not very kind in Tom, but he was not a kind-hearted man, and he held
the whole Peterkin tribe, as he called them, in such contempt that he
would scarcely have cared if the tired little feet, boots and all, had
dropped off, provided it did not add to his discomfort. They were out of
the woods and park by this time, and had struck into a field as a
shorter route to Le Bateau. But the way was rough and stony, and Tom had
stumbled himself two or three times and almost fallen, when a sharp,
loud cry from Ann Eliza smote his ear, and he felt that she was sinking
to the ground.
His first impulse was to drag her on, but that would have been too
brutal, and stopping short he asked what was the matter.
'Oh, I don't know. I guess I've sprained my ankle. It turned right over
on a big stone, you went so fast, and hurts me awfully. I can't walk
another step. Oh, what shall we do, and am I going to die?'
'Die? No!' Tom answered, gloomily. 'But we are in an awful muss, and I
don't know what to do. Here it is raining great guns, and I am wet to my
skin, and you can't walk, you say. What in thunder shall we do?'
Ann Eliza was sobbing piteously, and when a glare of lightning lighted
up the whole heavens, Tom caught a glimpse of her face which was white
as marble, and distorted with pain, and this decided him. He had thought
to leave her in the darkness and rain, while he went for assistance
either to the Park House or Le Bateau; but the sight of her utter
helplessness awoke in him a spark of pity, and bending over her he said,
very gently for him:
'Annie,'--this was the name by which he used to call her when they were
children together, and he thought Ann Eliza too long--'Annie, I shall
have to carry you in my arms; there is no other way. It is not very far
to your home. Come!' and stooping low over the prostrate form he lifted
her very carefully and holding her in a position the least painful for
her, began again to battle with the storm, walking more carefully now
and groping his way through the stony field lest he should stumble and
fall and sprain him own ankle, perhaps.
'This is a jolly go,' he said to himself, as he went on; and then he
thought of Dick and Jerrie, and wondered how they were getting through
the storm, and if she had sprained her ankle and Dick was carrying her
in his arms.
'He will sweat some, if he is, for Jerrie is twice as heavy as
Peterkin's daughter;' and at the very idea Tom laughed out loud,
thinking that he should greatly prefer to have Jerrie's strength and
weight in his arms to his light, slim, little girl, who neither spoke
nor moved until he laughed, and then there came in smothered tones from
the region of his vest:
'Oh, Tom, how can you laugh? Do you think it such fun?'
'Fun! Thunder! Anything but fun!' was his gruff reply, as he went on
more rapidly now, for they were in the grounds of Le Bateau, and the
lights from the house were distinctly visible at no great distance away.
'We are here at last. Thank the Lord.' he said, as he went up the steps
and pulled sharply at the bell.
'Let me down. I can stand on one foot,' Ann Eliza said; and nothing loth
Tom put her down, a most forlorn and dilapidated piece of humanity as
she stood leaning against him with the light of the piazza lamp falling
full upon her.
Her little French boots, which had partly done the mischief, were
spoiled, and the heel of one of them had been nearly wrenched off when
she stumbled over the stone. Her India muslin, with its sash, and
ribbons, and streamers, was torn in places and bedraggled with mud. She
had lost her hat in the woods, and the wind and the rain had held high
carnival in her loosely-arranged hair, whose color Tom so detested, and
which streamed down her back in many little wet tags, giving her the
look of a drowned rat after it has been tortured in a trap.
Old Peterkin was reading his evening paper when Tom's sharp summons
sounded through the house, making him jump from the chair, as he
exclaimed:
'Jiminy hoe-cakes! Who can that be in this storm?'
He had seen Billy off in the train, and had returned home just as the
rain began to fall. Naturally both he and his wife had felt some
anxiety on Ann Eliza's account, but had concluded that if the storm
continued she would remain at Grassy Spring, and if it cleared in time
they would send the carriage for her. So neither thought of her when the
loud ring came, startling them both so much. It was Peterkin himself who
went to the door, gorgeous in a crimson satin dressing gown which came
to his feet, but which no amount of pulling would make meet together
over his ponderous stomach. An oriental smoking cap was on his head, the
big tassel hanging almost in his eyes, and a half-burned cigar between
his fingers.
'Good George of Uxbridge!' he exclaimed, as his eye fell upon Tom, from
whose soaked hat the water was dripping, and upon Ann Eliza leaning
against him, her pale face quivering with pain, and her eyes full of
tears. 'George of Uxbridge! What's up? What ails the girl!'
At sight of her father Ann Eliza began to cry, while Tom said:
'She has sprained her ankle and I had to bring her home. She cannot
step.'
'Jerusalem hoe-cakes! Spraint her ankle! Can't step! You bring her home!
Heavens and earth! Here, May Jane, come lively! Here's a nice how-dy-do!
Ann Liza's broke her laig, and Tom Tracy's brung her home!'
As Peterkin talked, he was taking his daughter in his arms and bringing
her into the hall, hitting her lame foot against the door, and eliciting
from her a cry of pain.
'Oh, father; Oh-h!--it does hurt so. Put me somewhere quick, and take
off my boot. I believe I am going to die!'
She was dripping wet, and little puddles of water trailed along the
carpet as Peterkin carried her into the sitting room, where he was about
to lay her down upon the delicate satin couch, when his wife's
housewifely instincts were roused, and she exclaimed:
'No, father. No, not there, when she's so wet, and water spots that
satin so dreadfully.'
'What in thunder shall I do with her? Hold her all night?' Peterkin
demanded, while Tom deliberately picked up the costly Turkey hearth rug,
and throwing it across the couch, said:
'Put her on that.' So Peterkin deposited her upon the rug, hitting her
foot again, and sending her off in a dead faint.
'Oh, she's dead! she's dead! What shall we do?' Mrs. Peterkin cried,
wringing her hands, and walking about excitedly.
'Do?' Peterkin yelled. 'Hold your yawp, and stop floppin' round like a
hen with her head cut off! She ain't dead. She's fainted. Bring some
camfire, or alcohol, or hartshorn, or Pond's Extract, or something for
her to smell.'
'Yes, yes; but where are they?' Mrs. Peterkin moaned, still flopping
around, as her husband had expressed it, while Tom rang the bell and
summoned the maid, to whom he gave directions.
'Bring some camphor or hartshorn,' he said. 'Miss Peterkin has fainted,
and get off the boot as soon as possible. Don't you see how her foot is
swelling?'
This to Peterkin, who made a dive at the boot, which resisted all his
efforts, even after it was unbuttoned. The leather, which was soaked
through, had shrunk so that it was impossible to remove the boot without
cutting it away, and this they commenced to do.
Ann Eliza had recovered her consciousness by this time, and although the
pain was terrible she bore it heroically, as piece after piece of the
boot was removed, together with the silk stocking which left her poor
little swollen foot exposed and bare.
'By Jove, she's plucky!' Tom thought, as he watched the operation and
saw the great drops of sweat on Ann Eliza's forehead and her efforts to
quiet her mother, pretending that it did not hurt so very much. 'Yes,
she's plucky,' and for the first time in his life Tom was conscious of a
feeling of something like respect for Peterkin's red-haired daughter.
'She _has_ a small foot, too; the smallest I ever saw on a woman. I do
believe she wears twos,' he thought, while something about the little
white foot made him think of poor Jack's dead feet, laid under the grass
years ago.
In this softened frame of mind he at last said good-night, although
pressed by Peterkin to stay and dry himself, or at least take a drink as
a preventive against cold, but Tom declined both, saying a hot bath
would set him all right. 'Good-bye, Annie. I'm awful sorry for the
sprain,' he said, offering her his hand; and as she took it in hers,
noticing about the wrist prints of his fingers which had grasped it so
tightly and held it so firmly as he dragged her along over stumps, and
bogs, and stones, until she sank at his feet, 'I guess I was a brute to
race her like that,' he said to himself, as he went out into the
darkness and started for home. 'But I didn't want to go with her. I
wanted to be with Jerrie, who, I have no doubt, went straight along,
without ever thinking of spraining her ankle, as Ann Eliza did. Poor
little foot! How swollen, though, it was when they got that boot off;
but she bore it like a major! Pity she has such all-fired red hair, and
piles it up like a haystack on the top of her head, with every hair
looking six ways for Sunday.'
At this point in his soliloquy Tom reached home, and was soon
luxuriating in a hot bath, which removed all traces of the soaking he
had received. That night he dreamed of Ann Eliza, and how light she was
in his arms, and how patient through it all, and that the magnificent
rooms at Le Bateau were all frescoed with diamonds and the floors inlaid
with gold. Then the nature of his dream changed, and it was Jerry he was
carrying in his arms, bending under her weight until his back was nearly
broken. But he did not heed it in the least, and when he bent to kiss
the face lying upon his bosom, where Ann Eliza had lain, he awoke
suddenly to find that it was morning and that the sun was shining
brightly into his room.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
UNDER THE PINES WITH DICK.
Jerrie was soaked through, but she did not sprain her ankle as Ann Eliza
had done. And yet, had she been given her choice, rather than inflict
the pain she did inflict upon poor Dick, she would have chosen the
former unhesitatingly, and felt herself happy in doing it. Like Tom and
Ann Eliza, she and Dick had run when they saw how fast the storm was
coming, but it was of no use, for by the time they entered the park, the
shortest route to the cottage, the rain came down in torrents, and
drenched them to the skin in a few moments. Jerrie's hat was wrenched
off, as Ann Eliza's had been by the wind, which tossed her long golden
hair in a most fantastic fashion. But Dick put his hat upon her head,
and would have given her his coat had she allowed it.
'No, Dick,' she said, laughingly, as she saw him about to divest himself
of it. 'Keep your coat. I am wet enough without that. But what an awful
storm, and how dark it grows. We shall break our necks stumbling along
at this rate.'
Just then a broad glare of lightning illuminated the darkness, and
showed Dick the four pines close at hand. He knew the place well, for,
with the Tracy children, he had often played there when a boy, and knew
that the thick bushes would afford them some protection from the storm.
'By Jove, we are in luck!' he said. 'Here's the pine room, as we used to
call it when you played you were Marie Antoinette, and had your head cut
off. I can remember just how I felt when your white sun-bonnet, with
Mrs. Crawford's false hair pinned it in, dropped into the basket, and
how awful it seemed when you played dead so long that we almost thought
you were; and when you came to light, the way you imitated the cries of
a French mob, I would have sworn there were a hundred voices instead of
one yelling: "Down with the nobility!" You were a wonderful actress,
Jerrie; and it is a marvel you have not gone upon the stage.'
While he talked he was groping for the bench under the pines, where they
sat down, Dick seating himself upon the parasol, which Jerrie had left
there that morning after her interview with Tom.
'Hallo! what's this?' he said, drawing the parasol from under him. 'An
umbrella, as I live! We are in luck. What good fairy do you suppose left
it here for us?'
Jerrie could not tell him that she had left it there, and she said
nothing; while he opened and held it so that every drop of rain which
slipped from it fell upon her neck and trickled down her back. 'Great
Cæsar! that was a roarer!' Dick said, as the peal of thunder which had
so frightened Ann Eliza burst over their heads, and, echoing through the
woods, went bellowing off in the direction of the river, 'That's a
stunner! but I rather like it, and like being here, too, with you, if
you don't mind it. I've wanted a chance to speak to you alone, ever
since--well, ever since this morning, when I saw you in that bewildering
costume that showed your feet and your arms so--you know, with that
thing like a napkin pinned up in front, and that jimcrack on your head,
and the red stockings--and--and--'
Dick was getting bewildered and did not quite know what he was saying,
so he stopped and waited for Jerrie to reply. But Jerrie did not speak,
because of the sudden alarm which possessed her. She could not see
Dick's face, but in his voice she had recognized a tone heard in Tom's
that morning when she sat with him under pines as she was sitting now
with Dick and he had asked her to be his wife. Something told her that
Dick was feeling for her hands, which she resolutely put behind her out
of his way, and as he could not find them, he wound his arm around her
and held her fast, while he told her how much he loved her and wanted
her for his wife.
'I believe I have loved you,' he said, 'ever since the day I first saw
you at the inquest, and you flew so like a little cat at Peterkin when
he attacked Harold. I used to be awfully jealous of Hal, for fear he
would find in you more than a sister, but that was before he and Maude
got so thick together. I guess that's a sure thing, and it makes me bold
to tell you what I have. Why are you so silent Jerrie? Don't you love me
a little? That is all I ask at first, for I know I can make you love me
a great deal in time. I will be so kind and true to you. Jerrie, and
father, and mother, and Nina will be so glad. Speak to me, Jerrie, and
say you will try to love me, if you do not now.'
As he talked he had drawn the girl closer to him, where she sat rigid as
a stone, wholly unmindful of the little puddles of water--and they were
puddles now--running down her back, for Dick had tilted the parasol in
such a manner that one of the points rested upon the nape of her neck.
But she did not know it, or think of any thing except the pain she must
inflict upon the young man wooing her so differently from what Tom
Tracy had done. No hint had Dick given of the honor he was conferring
upon her, or of his own and his family's superiority to her family and
herself. All the honor and favor to be conferred were on her side; all
the love and humility on his, and for one brief moment the wild wish
flashed upon her:
'Oh, if I could love him as a wife ought, I might he so happy, for he is
all that is noble and good and true.'
But this was while she was smarting under the few words he had said of
Harold and Maude. He, too, believed it a settled thing between the
two--everybody believed it--and why should she waste her love upon one
who did not care for her as she did for him? Why not encourage a love
for Dick, who stood next in her heart to Harold? Questioning herself
thus until there flushed upon her the recollection of Harold's voice as
it had spoken to her that morning, and the look in his eyes when they
rested upon her, as he said good-bye, lingering a moment as if loth to
leave her, and then Dick's chance, if he had ever had any, was gone!
'I do not believe it,' she said to herself, and then, turning her face
to Dick she cried: 'Oh, Dick, I am so sorry you have said this to me;
sorry that you love me--in this way--for I can't--I can't--. I do love
you as a friend, a brother, next to Harold, but I cannot be your wife. I
cannot.'
For a moment there was perfect silence in the darkness, and then a lurid
flame of lightning showed the two faces--that of the man pale as ashes,
with a look of bitter pain upon it, and that of the woman, whiter than
the man's and bathed in upon which fell almost as fast as the rain drops
were falling tears, the pines.
Then Dick spoke, but his voice sounded strange and unnatural and a great
ways off:
'If I wait a long, long time--say a year, or two, or three--do you think
you could learn to love me just a little? I will not ask for much; only,
Jerrie, I do hunger so for you that without you life would seem a
blank.'
'No, Dick; not if you waited twenty years. I must still answer no. I
cannot love you as your wife should love you, and as some good, sweet
girl will one day love you when you have forgotten me.'
This is what Jerrie said to him, with much more, until he knew she was
in earnest and felt as if his heart were breaking.
'I shall never forget you, Jerrie,' he said, 'or cease to hope that you
will change your mind, unless--' and here he started so suddenly that
the wet parasol, down which streams of water were still coursing their
way to Jerrie's back, dropped from his hand and rolled off upon the bed
of fine needles at his feet, just where it had been in the morning when
Tom was there instead of himself--'unless there is some one between us,
some other man whom you love. I will not ask you the question, but I
believe I could bear it better if I knew it was because your love was
already given to another, and not because of anything in me.'
For a moment Jerrie was silent; then suddenly facing Dick, she laid her
hand on his and said:
'I can trust you, I am sure of that; there is some one between us--some
one whom I love. If I had never seen him, Dick, never known that he
lived--and if I had known you just as I do, I might not have answered
just as I have. I am very sorry.'
Dick did not ask her who his rival was, nor did Harold come to his mind,
so sure was he that an engagement existed between him and Maude.
Probably it was some one whom she had met while away at school; and if
so, Nina would know, and he would sound her cautiously, but never let
her know, if he could help it, the heart-wound he had received.
Poor Dick! every nerve was quivering with pain and disappointment when
at last, as the rain began to cease, he rose at Jerrie's suggestion, and
offering her his arm, walked silently and sadly with her to the door of
the cottage. Here for a moment they stood side by side and hand in hand,
until Jerrie said:
'Dick, your friendship has been very dear to me. I do not want to lose
it.'
'Nor shall you,' he answered; and winding his arms around her, he kissed
her lips, saying as he did so:
'That is the seal of our eternal friendship. The man you love would not
grudge me that one kiss, but perhaps you'd better tell him. Good-bye,
and God bless you. When I see you again I shall try to be the same Dick
you have always known.'
For a few moments Jerrie stood listening to the sound of his footsteps
as he went splashing through the wet grass and puddles of water; then,
kissing her hands to him, she whispered:
'Poor Dick! it would not be difficult to love you if I had never known
Harold.'
Opening the door softly, she found, as she had expected, that both her
grandmother and Harold had retired; and taking the lamp from the table
where it had been left for her, she stole quietly up to her room and
crept shivering into bed, more wretched than she had ever been before in
her life.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
AT LE BATEAU.
Harold got his own breakfast the next morning, and was off for his work
just as the sun looked into the windows of the room where Jerrie lay in
a deep slumber. She had been awake a long time the previous night,
thinking over the incidents of a day which had been the most eventful
one of her life, but had fallen asleep at last, and dreamed that she had
found the low room far away in Wiesbaden, with the wall adorned with the
picture of a young girl knitting in the sunshine, and the stranger
watching her from a distance.
It was late when she awoke, and Peterkin's clock was striking eight when
she went down to the kitchen, where she found Mrs. Crawford sewing, and
a most dainty breakfast waiting for her on a little round table near an
open window shaded with the hop-vines. There was a fresh egg for her,
with English buns, and strawberries and cream, and chocolate served in a
pretty cup which she had never seen before, while near her plate was
lying a bunch of roses, and on them a strip of paper, on which Harold
had written:
"The top of the mornin' to ye, Jerrie. I'd like to stay and see you,
but if I work very hard to-day, I hope to finish the job on Monday
and get my fifteen dollars. That's a pile of money to earn in three
days, isn't it? I hope you enjoyed the garden-party. If I had not
been so awfully tired I should have gone for you. Grandma will tell
you that I went to bed and to sleep before that shower came up, so I
knew nothing of it. I wonder you got home; but of course Dick came
with you, or Billy, or possibly Tom. I hear you entertained all
three of them at the washtub! Pretty good for the first day home!
Good-bye till to-night. I only live till then, as they say in
novels.
"HAROLD."
This note, every line of which was full of affection and thoughtfulness
for her, was worth more to Jerrie than the chocolate, or the bun, or the
pretty cup and saucer which Harold had bought for her the night before,
going to the village, a mile out of his way, on purpose to get them and
surprise her. This, Mrs. Crawford told her, as she eat eating her
breakfast, which she had to force down because of the lump in her throat
and the tears which came so fast as she listened.
'You see,' Mrs. Crawford began, 'Mr. Allen paid Harold two or three
dollars, and so he came home through the village, and bought the eggs,
and the buns, and the chocolate, which he knew you liked, and the cup
and saucer at Grady's. He has had it on his mind a long time to get it
for you, but there were so many other things to pay for. Don't you think
it is pretty?'
'Yes, lovely!' Jerrie replied, taking up the delicate bit of china,
through which the light shone so clearly. 'It is very pretty; but I wish
he had not bought it for me,' and Jerrie wiped the hot tears from both
her eyes, as Mrs. Crawford continued:
'Oh, he wanted to. He is never happier than when doing something which
he thinks pleases you or me. Harold is the most unselfish boy I ever
knew; and I never saw him give way, or heard him complain that his lot
was hard but once, and that was this summer, when he was building the
room, and had to dismiss the man because he had no money to pay him.
That left it all for him to do, and he was already so tired and
overworked; and then Tom Tracy was always making fun of the addition,
and saying it made the cottage look like a pig-sty with a steeple to
it, and that you would think so too; and if it were his he'd tear the
old hut down and start anew. Peterkin, too, made remarks about its being
out of proportion to the rest of the house, and wondered where Harold
got the money, and why he didn't do this and that, but supposed he
couldn't afford it, adding that "beggars couldn't be choosers." When
Harold heard all that, he was tired, and nervous, and sick, and
discouraged, and his hands were blistered and bruised with hard work.
His head was aching, and he just put it on that table, where you are
sitting, and cried like a baby. When I tried to comfort him, he said,
"It isn't the hard work, grandmother; I don't mind that in the least;
neither do I care for what they say, or should not, if there was not
some truth in it; things are out of proportion, and the new room makes
the rest of the cottage look lower than ever, and I'd like so much to
have everything right for Jerrie, who would not shame the Queen's
palace. I wish, for her sake, that I had money, and could make her home
what it ought to be. I do not want her to feel homesick, or long for
something better, when she comes back to us."'
Jerrie was crying outright now; but Mrs. Crawford, who was a little deaf
and did not hear her, went on:
'If you were a hundred times his sister he could not love you more than
he does, or wish to make you happier. He would have gone for you last
night, only he was so tired, and I persuaded him to go to bed. I knew
somebody would come home with you, Dick, wasn't it? I thought I heard
his voice.'
'Yes, it was Dick,' Jerrie answered, very low, returning again to her
breakfast, while her grandmother rambled on:
'Harold slept so soundly that he never heard the storm or knew there was
one till this morning. Lucky you didn't start home till it was over.
You'd have been wet to the skin.'
Jerrie made no answer, for she could not tell of that interview under
the pines, or that she had been wet to the skin, and felt chilly even
now from the effects of it. It seemed that Mrs. Crawford would never
tire talking of Harold, for she continued:
'He was up this morning about daylight, I do believe, and had his own
breakfast eaten and that table laid for you when I came down. He wanted
to see you before he went, and know if you were pleased; but I told him
you were probably asleep, as it was late when you came in, and so he
wrote something for you, and went whistling off as merrily as if he had
been in his carriage, instead of on foot in his working-dress.'
'And he shall have his carriage, too, some day, and a pair of the finest
horses the country affords, and you shall ride beside him, in a satin
gown and India shawl. You'll see!' Jerrie said, impetuously, as she
arose from the table and began to clear away the dishes.
The spell was upon her strongly now, and as her grandmother talked, the
objects around her gradually faded away; the cottage, so out of
proportion, and so humble in all its surroundings, was gone, and in its
place a house, fair to look upon, fair as Tracy Park and much like it,
and Harold was the master, looking a very prince, instead of the tired,
shabbily dressed man he was now.
'And I shall be there, too,' Jerrie whispered, or rather nodded to
herself. 'I know I shall, and I do not believe one word of the Maude
affair, and never will until he tells me himself, or she; and
then--well, then, I will be glad for them, until I come to be really
glad myself.'
She was moving rapidly around the kitchen, for there was a great deal to
be done--the Saturday's work and all the clothes to be ironed, and then
she meant to get up some little surprise for Harold, to show him that
she appreciated his thoughtfulness for her.
About half-past ten a servant from Le Bateau brought her a note from Ann
Eliza, who wrote as follows.
'Dear Jerrie:--Have pity on a poor cripple, and come as soon as you
can and see her. I sprained my ankle last night in that awful storm,
and Tom had to bring me home in his arms. Think of it, and what my
feelings must have been. I am hardly over it yet--the queer feelings
I mean--for, of course, my ankle is dreadful, and so swollen, and
pains me so that I cannot step, but must stay in my room all day. So
come as soon as possible. You have never seen the inside of our
house, or my rooms. Come to lunch, please. We will have it up here.
Good-bye.
'From your loving friend,
'ANN ELIZA.
'P.S.--I wonder if Tom will inquire for me.'
'Tell her I will be there by lunch time,' Jerrie said to the man, while
to her grandmother she continued: 'The baking and cleaning are all done,
and I can finish the ironing when I get back; it will be cooler then,
and I do want to see the inside of that show-house which Harold says
cost a hundred thousand dollars. Pity somebody besides the Peterkins did
not live there.'
And so, about twelve o'clock Jerrie walked up to the grand house of gray
stone, which, with its turrets, and towers, and immense arch over the
carriage drive in front of a side door, looked like some old feudal
castle, and flaunted upon its walls the money it had cost. Even the loud
bell which echoed through the hall like a town clock told of wealth and
show, as did the colored man who answered the summons, and bowing low to
Jerrie, held out a silver tray for her card.
'Nonsense, Leo!' Jerrie said, laughingly, for she had known the negro
all her life and played with him, too, at times, when they both went to
the district school. 'I have no card with me. Miss Ann Eliza has invited
me to lunch, and I have come. Tell her I am here.'
With another profound bow, Leo waved Jerrie into the reception-room, and
then started to deliver her message.
Seated upon one of the carved chairs, Jerrie looked about her curiously,
with a feeling that the half had not been told her, everything was so
much more gorgeous and magnificent than she had supposed. But what
impressed and at the same time oppressed her most was the height of the
walls from the richly inlaid floor to the gayly decorated ceiling
overhead. It made her neck ache staring up fourteen feet and a half to
the costly center ornament from which the heavy chandelier depended. All
the rooms of the old house had been low, and when Peterkin built the new
one, he made ample amends.
"I mean to lick the crowd," he said; and a man was sent to Collingwood,
and Grassy Spring, and Brier Hill, and lastly to Tracy Park, to take the
height of the lower rooms. Those at Tracy Park were found to be the
highest, and measured just twelve feet, so Peterkin's orders were to
"run 'em up--run 'em up fourteen feet, for I swan I'll get ahead of
'em."
So they were run up fourteen feet, and by some mistake, half a foot
higher, looking when finished so cold and cheerless and bare that the
ambitious man ransacked New York and Boston and even sent to London for
ornaments for his walls. Books were bought by the square yard, pictures
by the wholesale, mirrors by the dozen, with bronzes and brackets and
sconces and tapestry and banners and screens and clocks and cabinets and
statuary, with every kind of furniture imaginable, from the costliest
rugs and carpets to the most exquisite inlaid tables to be found in
Florence or Venice. For Peterkin sent there for them by a gentleman to
whom he said:
'Git the best there is if it costs a fortune. I'm bound to lick the
crowd.'
This was his favorite expression; and when his house was done, and he
stood, his broad, white shirt-front studded with diamonds and his coat
thrown back to show them, surveying his possessions, he felt that he
'had licked the crowd.'
Jerrie felt so, too, as she followed the elegant Leo up the stairs and
through the upper hall--handsomer, if possible than the lower one--to
the pretty room where Ann Eliza lay, or rather reclined, with her lame
foot on a cushion and her well one incased in a white embroidered silk
stocking and blue satin slipper. She was dressed in a delicate blue
satin wrapper, trimmed with swan's-down, and there were diamonds in her
ears and on the little white hands which she stretched toward Jerrie as
she came in.
'Oh, Jerrie,' she said, 'I am so glad to see you, for it is awfully
lonesome here; and if one can be homesick at home, I am. I miss the
girls and the lessons and the rules at Vassar; much as I hated them when
I was there; and just before you came in I wanted to cry. I guess my
rooms are too big and have too much in them; any way, I have the feeling
that I am visiting, and everything is strange and new. I do believe I
liked the old room better, with its matting on the floor and the little
mirror with the peacock feathers ornamenting the top, and that painted
plaster image of Samuel on the mantel. It is very ungrateful in me, I
know, when father has done it mostly to please me. Do you believe--he
has hunted me up a maid; Doris is her name; and what I am ever to do
with her, or she with me, I am sure I don't know. Do you?'
Jerrie did not know either, but suggested that she might read to her
while she was confined to her room. 'Yes, she might, perhaps, do that,
if she can read,' Ann Eliza said. 'She certainly has pretentions enough
about her to have written several treatises on scientific subjects. She
was a year with Lady Augusta Hardy, in Ireland. Don't you remember the
grand wedding father and mother attended in Allington two or three years
ago, when Augusta Browne was married to an Irish lord, who had been
bought by her money?--for of course he did not care much for her. Well,
Doris went out with her as maid, and acts as if she, too, had married a
peer. She came last night, and mamma and I are already as afraid of her
as we can be, she is so fine and airy. She insisted upon dressing me
this morning, and I felt all the while as if she were thinking how red
and ugly my hair is, or counting the freckles on my face, and
contrasting me with 'my Lady Augusta,' as she calls her. I wonder if she
ever saw my lady's mother, Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, who told me once that I
had a very _petty figger_, but she presumed it would _envelope_ as I
grew older. But then people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw
stones,' and Ann Eliza colored a little as she made this reference to
her own father and mother, whose language was not much more correct than
Mrs. Rossiter-Browne's.
For one brought up as she had been, Ann Eliza was a rather sensible
girl, and although she attached a great deal of importance to money, she
knew it was not everything, and that with her father's millions there
was still a wide difference between him and the men to whose society he
aspired; and knew, too, that although Jerrie had not a penny in the
world, she was greatly her superior, and so considered by the world at
large. She was very fond of Jerrie, who had often helped her with her
lessons, and stood between her and the ridicule of her companions, and
was never happier than when in her society. So now she made her bring an
ottoman close beside her, and held her hand while she narrated in detail
the events of the previous night, dwelling at length upon the fact that
Tom had carried her in his arms, and wondering if he would call to
inquire after her. Jerrie thought he would; and, as if in answer to the
thought, Doris almost immediately appeared with his card. She _was_ very
fine and very smart, and Jerrie herself felt awed by her dignity and
manner as she delivered her message. 'The gentleman sends his
compliments, and would like to know how you are this morning.'
'Jerrie, it's Tom! he has come!' Ann Eliza said, with joy in her voice.
'Surely I can receive him here, for this is my parlor.'
Jerrie thought she might, but the toss of the fine maid's head showed
that she thought differently, as she left the room with her mistress'
message.
'Thunderation! I didn't want to see her. It's enough to have to call,'
was Tom's mental comment, when Doris told him he was to walk up stairs.
Indeed, he would not have come at all if Maude, to whom he related his
adventure, had not insisted that he must.
'You needn't see her, of course; but you must go and inquire how she is.
According to your own statement you are to blame for her mishap; you
dragged her along too fast.
Tom knew there was some truth in this, and so he went the more
willingly; and, sending up his card, stood near the open door, ready to
leave the moment Leo came down with the message he had received from
Doris.
'I shall be cheek by jowl with these Peterkins, if I don't look out,' he
thought, as he ascended the stairs to the hall, where Doris stood
waiting to show him her mistress' room.
'What! Jerry! You here?' he exclaimed, his face clearing, and the whole
aspect of matters changing at once, as she arose to meet him.
With Jerrie there the place seemed different, and he did not feel as if
he were lowering himself, as he sat in the luxuriously furnished room,
and joined in the dainty lunch which was brought up and served from
Dresden china, and linen and cut glass, and was as delicate and dainty
in its way as anything he had ever found at the Brunswick or
Delmonico's. Mrs. Peterkin prided herself upon her _cuisine_, which she
always superintended, and as Peterkin was something of an epicure and
gourmand, the table was always supplied with every possible delicacy.
Tom enjoyed it all, and praised the chocolate, and the broiled chicken,
and the jellies, and thought Ann Eliza not so very bad-looking in her
blue satin wrapper, with the swan's-down trimmings, and made himself
generally agreeable. Maude was better, he said, and could talk a
little, and he asked Jerrie to go home with him and see her. But Jerrie
declined.
'I have a great deal of work to do yet,' she said, 'I must iron all
those clothes you saw upon the line yesterday, and so I must be going.'
Tom frowned at the mention of the clothes which Jerrie had washed; while
Ann Eliza insisted that she should stay until the dog-cart, which had
been sent to the station for Billy, came back, when Lewis would take her
home, as it was too warm to walk. Jerrie did not mind the walk, but she
felt morally sure that Tom meant to accompany her, and greatly preferred
the dog-cart and Lewis to another _tête-à-tête_ with him, for he did not
act at all like a discarded lover, but rather as one who still hoped he
had a chance. So she signified her intention to wait for the dog-cart,
which soon came, with Billy in it, anxious when he heard of his sister's
accident, delighted when he found Jerrie there, and persistent in saying
that he and not Lewis would take her home.
'Well, if you will, you will,' she said, laughingly; and bidding Ann
Eliza good-bye, and telling Tom to give her love to Maude and say to her
that she did not believe she should be at the park that day, she had so
much to do, she was soon in the dog-cart with Billy, whose face was
radiant as he gathered up the reins and started down the turnpike,
driving at what Jerrie thought a very slow pace, as she was anxious to
get home.
Something of Billy's thoughts must have communicated itself to Jerrie,
for she became nervous and ill at ease and talked rapidly of things in
which she had not the slightest interest.
'What of the lawsuit?' she asked. 'Are you likely to settle it?'
'N-no,' Billy answered, hurriedly. 'It will h-have to co-come into
co-court in a f-few days, and I am aw-awful sorry. I wa-wanted father to
p-pay what they demanded, but he won't. Hal is subpoenaed on the other
side, as he was in our office, and is supposed to know something about
it; b-but I ho-hope he won't da-damage us m-much, as father would
n-never forgive him if he went against us.'
'But he must tell the truth, no matter who is damaged,' Jerrie said.
'Ye-yes' Billy replied, 'of co-course he must, b-but he needn't
volunteer information.'
Jerry began to think that Billy had insisted upon coming with her for
the sake of persuading her to caution Harold against saying too much
when he was called to testify in the great lawsuit between Peterkin &
Co., manufacturers in Shannondale, and Wilson & Co., manufacturers in
Truesdale, an adjoining town; but she was undeceived when her companion
turned suddenly off upon the river road, which would take them at least
two miles out of their way.
'Why are you coming here!' Jerrie said, in real distress. 'It is ever so
much farther, and I must get home. I have piles of work to do.'
'Co-confound the work,' Billy replied, very energetically for him, and
reining his horse up under a wide spreading butternut tree, which grew
upon the river bank, he sprang out and pretended to be busy with some
part of the harness, while he astonished Jerrie by bursting out, without
the least stammer, he was so earnest and so excited: 'I've something to
say to you, Jerrie, and I may as well say it now as any time, and know
the worst, or the best. I can't bear the suspense any longer, and I got
out of the cart so as to stand where I could look you square in the face
while I say it.'
And he was looking her square in the face while she grew hot and cold
and experienced a sensation quite different from what she had when Tom
and Dick made love to her. She had felt no fear of them, but she was
afraid of this little man, who stood up so resolutely, with his tongue
loosened, and asked her to be his wife, for that was what he did, making
his wishes known in a very few words, and then waiting for her answer
with his eyes fixed upon her face and a firm, set look about his mouth
which puzzled and troubled her and made her uncertain as to how she was
to deal with this third aspirant for her hand within twenty-four hours.
Billy had long had it in his mind that Jerry Crawford was the only girl
in the world for him, but he might not have spoken quite; so soon had it
not been for a conversation held with his father the previous night,
when they were alone in a private room at the hotel in Shannondale,
waiting for the train which Billy was to take, and which was half an
hour late. Peterkin had exhausted himself in oaths and epithets with
regard to the lawsuit and those who had brought it against him, and was
regaling himself with a cigar and a glass of brandy and water, while
Billy sat by the window watching for the train and wishing himself at
Grassy Spring with Jerrie. Peterkin seldom drank to excess, but on this
occasion he had taken a little too much. When under the influence of
stimulants, he was either aggressive and quarrelsome, or jocose and
talkative. The latter mood was on him now, and as he drank his brandy
and water he held forth upon the subject of matrimony, wondering why his
son did not marry, and saying it was quite time he did so and settled
down.
'You can have the south wing,' he said, 'and if the rooms ain't up to
snuff now, why, I'll make 'em so. The fact is, Bill, I've got money
enough--three millions and better; but somehow it doesn't seem to do the
thing. It doesn't fetch us to the quality and make us fust-cut. We need
better blood than the Peterkins or the Moshers--need boostin', and you
must get a wife to boost us. Have you ever thought on't?'
'Billy never had thought of it in that light,' he said, although he had
thought of marrying, providing the girl would have him.
'Have you! Thunderation! A girl would be a fool who wouldn't marry three
millions, with Lubber-too thrown in! Who is she?' Peterkin asked.
After a little hesitancy Billy replied:
'Jerrie Crawford.'
'Jerrie Crawford! I'll be dammed! Jerrie Crawford!' and Peterkin's big
feet came down from the back of the chair on which they were resting,
upsetting the chair and his brandy at the same time. 'Jerrie Crawford! I
swow! A gal without a cent, or name either, though I used to have a
sneakin' notion that I knew who she was, but I guess I didn't. 'Twould
have come out afore now. What under heavens put her into your noddle?
She can't _boost_! and then she's head and shoulders taller than you be!
How you would look trottin' beside her! Jerrie Crawford! Wal, I swan!'
and Peterkin laughed until his big stomach shook like a bowl of jelly.
Billy was angry, and replied that he did not know what height had to do
with it, or name either; and as for _boosting_, he wouldn't marry a
king's daughter, if he did not love her; and for that matter Jerrie
could boost, for she stood quite as high in town as any young lady.
Both Nina St. Claire and Maude Tracy worshipped her, while Mrs. Atherton
paid her a great deal of attention; and so did the Mungers and
Crosbys--enough sight more than they did to Ann Eliza with all her
money.
'Mo-money isn't ev-everything.' Billy stammered, 'and Je-Jerrie would
make a ve-very different pl-place of Le Bateau.'
'Mebby she would--mebby she would; but I'd never thought of her for
you,' Peterkin said. 'I'd picked out some; big bug, who perhaps wouldn't
wipe her shoes on you. Jerrie is handsome as blazes and no mistake, with
a kinder up and comin' way about her which takes the folks. Yes, it
keeps growin' on me, and I presume Arthur Tracy would give her away,
which would be a feather in your cap; but lord! you'll have to git a
pair of the highest heels you ever seen to come within ten foot on her.'
'She's only two inches t-taller than I am,' Billy said, and his father
continued:
'Wall, if your heart's set on her go it, and quick, too, I'm goin' to
have a smasher of a party in the fall, and Jerrie'll be just the one to
draw, I can see her now, standin' there with the diamonds we'll give her
sparklin' on her neck, and she lookin' like a queen, and the _sinecure_
of all eyes. But for thunder's sake don't marry the old woman and all.
Leave her to Harold, the sneak! I never did like him, and I'll be mad
enough to kill him if he goes agin me in the suit, and I b'lieve he
will.'
At this point Peterkin wandered off to the suit entirely and forgot
Jerrie, who was to boost the house of Peterkin and make it 'fust-cut.'
But not so Billy, and all the way from Shannondale to Springfield he was
thinking of Jerrie, and wondering if it were possible that she could
ever look upon him with favor. Like Tom and Dick, he could scarcely
remember the time when he did not think Jerrie the loveliest girl in the
world, and ever since he had grown to manhood he had meditated making
her his wife, but had feared what his father might say, as he knew how
much importance he attached to money. Now however, his father had
signified his assent, and, resolving to lose no time, Billy, on his
return next day to Le Bateau, seized the opportunity to take Jerrie
home, as the occasion for declaring his love, which he did in a manly,
straightforward manner, never hinting at any advantage it would be to
her to be the wife of a millionaire, or offering any inducement in any
way except to say that he loved her and would devote his life to making
her happy. Tom Tracy Jerrie had scorned, Dick St. Claire she had pitied,
but this little man she felt like ridiculing.
'Oh, Billy,' she said, laughing merrily. 'You can't be in earnest. Why
I'm head and shoulders taller than you are. I do believe I could pick
you up and throw you into the river. Only think how we should look
together; people would think you my little boy, and that I should not
like. So, I can never be your wife.'
Nothing cuts a man like ridicule, and sensitive as he was with regard to
his size, Billy felt it to his heart's core; and as he stood nervously
playing with the reins and looking at Jerrie sitting there so tall and
erect in all the brightness of her wonderful beauty, it flashed upon him
how impossible it was for that glorious creature ever to be his wife,
and what a fool he had made of himself.
'For-gi-give me, Jerrie,' he said, his chin beginning to quiver, and the
great tears rolling down his face, 'I know you ca-can't, and I
ou-oughtn't to have ask-asked it, bu-but I d-did love you so much, that
I f-forgot how impossible it was f-for one like you to lo-love one
li-like me. I am so small and insig-insignificant, and st-stutter so. I
wish I was dead,' and laying his head upon the horse's neck, he sobbed
aloud.
In an instant Jerrie was out of the dog-cart and at his side, talking to
and trying to soothe him as she would a child.
'Oh, Billy, Billy,' she said. 'I am so sorry for you, and sorry I said
those cruel words about your size. It was only in fun. Your size has
nothing to do with my refusal. I know you have a big, kind heart, and
next to Harold and Dick, and Mr. Arthur, I like you better than any man
I ever knew; but I cannot be your wife. Don't cry, Billy; it hurts me so
to see you and know that I have done it. Please stop, and take me home
as quickly as possible.'
With a great gulp, and a long sigh like a grieved child, Billy dried
his tears, of which he was much ashamed, and helping Jerrie into the
cart drove her rapidly to the door of the cottage.
'I should not like Tom, nor Dick, nor Harold to know this,' he said to
her, as he stood a moment with her at the gate.
'Billy!' she exclaimed, 'do you know me so little as to think I would
tell them, or anybody? I have more honor than that,' and she gave him
her hand, which he held tightly in his while he looked earnestly into
the sweet young face which could never be his, every muscle of his own
quivering with emotion, and telling of the pain he was enduring.
'Good-bye. I shall be more like a ma-man, and less a ba-baby when I see
you again,' and springing into his cart he drove rapidly away.
Jerrie found her grandmother seated at a table and trying to iron.
'Grandma,' she said, 'this is too bad. I did not mean to stay so long.
Put down that flat-iron this minute. I am coming there as soon as I lay
off my hat.'
Running up the stairs to her room, Jerrie put away her hat, and then,
throwing herself upon the bed, cried for a moment as hard as she could
cry. The look on Billy's face haunted her, and she pitied him now more
than she had pitied Dick St. Claire.
'Dick will get over it, and marry somebody else, but Billy never,' she
said.
Then, rising up, she bathed her eyes, and pushing back her tangled hair,
stood for a moment before the mirror, contemplating the reflection of
herself in it.
'Jerrie Crawford,' she said, 'you must be a mean, heartless,
good-for-nothing girl, for it certainly is not your Dutch face, nor
yellow hair, nor great staring eyes, which make men think that you will
marry them; so it must be your flirting, coquettish manners. I hate a
flirt. I hate you, Jerrie Crawford.'
Once when a little girl, Jerrie had said to Harold, 'Why do all the boys
want to kiss me so much?' and now she might have asked, 'Why do these
same boys wish to marry me?' It was a curious fact that she should have
had three offers within twenty-four hours; and she didn't like it, and
her face wore a troubled look all that hot afternoon as she stood at the
ironing table, perspiring at every pore, and occasionally smiling to
herself as she thought, 'Grassy Spring, Le Bateau, Tracy Park, I might
take my choice, if I would, but I prefer the cottage,' and then at the
thought of Tracy Park her thoughts went off across the sea to Germany,
and the low room with the picture upon the wall, and her resolve to find
it some day.
'Far in the future it may be, but find it I will, and find, too, who I
am,' she said to herself, little dreaming that the finding was close at
hand, and that she had that day lighted the train which was so soon to
bear her on to the end.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
MAUDE.
Harold did not finish his work at the Allen farm-house until Tuesday, so
it was not until Wednesday afternoon that he started to pay his promised
visit to Maude. Jerrie had seen her twice, and reported her as much
better, although still very weak.
'She is so anxious to see you. Don't you think you can go this
afternoon?' she said to Harold, in the morning, as she helped him weed
the garden and pick the few strawberries left upon the vines.
'Ye-es, I guess I can--if you'll go with me,' he said.
He was so loth to be away from Jerrie when it was not absolutely
necessary, that even a call upon Maude without her did not seem very
tempting. But Jerrie could not go now, for Nina and Marian Raymond came
down to the cottage to spend the afternoon, and Harold went alone to the
park house, where he found Maude in the room she called her studio
trying to finish a little water-color which she had sketched of the
cottage as it was before the roof was raised.
'I mean it for Jerrie,' she had said to Harold, who stood by her when
she sketched it, 'and I am going to put her under the tree, with her sun
bonnet hanging down her back, as she used to wear it when she was a
little girl, and you are to be over there by the fence, looking at me
coming up the lane.'
It was the best thing Maude had ever done, for the likeness to Jerrie
and to herself was perfect, while the cottage, embowered in trees and
flowers, made it a most attractive picture. Harold had praised it a
great deal, and told her that it would make her famous. But when the
carpenter work came in Maude put it aside until now, when she brought it
out again, and was just beginning to retouch it in places, as Harold was
announced.
She was looking very tired, and it seemed to Harold that she had lost
many pounds of flesh since he saw her last. Her face was pale, and
pinched, and wan, but it flushed brightly as Harold came in, and she
went eagerly forward to meet him.
'Hally, you naughty boy!' she began, as she gave him her little, thin
hand. 'Why didn't you come before? You don't know how I have missed you.
You must not forget me now that Jerrie is at home.'
She had led him to a seat, and then herself sank into a large cushioned
easy chair, against which she leaned her head wearily, while she looked
at him with eyes which ought to have told Harold how much he was to her,
and so put him on his guard, and saved the misunderstanding which
followed.
'No, Maude, I couldn't forget you,' he said; and without really knowing
that he was doing it, he put his hand upon the little soft white one
lying on the arm of the chair.
Every nerve in Maude's body thrilled to the touch of that hand upon
which she involuntarily laid her other one, noticing as she did so the
signs of toil upon it, and feeling sorry for him. One would have thought
them lovers, sitting there thus together, but nothing could have been
farther from Harold's mind. He was thinking only of Jerrie, and his
resolve to confide in Maude, and get her opinion with regard to his
chance.
'Now is as good a time as any,' he thought, wondering how he should
begin, and finding it harder than he had imagined it would he.
At last after a few commonplaces, Maude told him again that he must not
neglect her now that Jerrie was at home.
'Neglect you? How can I do that?' he said, 'when I look upon you as one
of my best friends, and in proof of it, I am going to tell you
something, or, rather, ask you something, and I hope you will answer me
truly. Better that I know the worst at first than learn it afterward.'
Maude's face was aflame now with a great and sudden joy, and her soft
eyes drooped beneath Harold's as he went on stammeringly, for he began
to feel the awkwardness of telling one girl that he loved another, even
though that other were her dearest friend.
'I hardly know how to begin,' he said, 'it is such a delicate matter,
and perhaps I'd better say nothing at all.'
'Was he going to stop? Had he changed his mind--and would he not after
all, say the words she had so longed to hear?' Maude asked herself, as
she turned her eyes appealingly to him, while he sat silent and unmoved,
his thoughts very, very far from her to whom he was all in all.
Poor Maude! She was weak and sick, and impulsive and mistaken in the
nature of Harold's feelings for her; so judge her not too harshly, my
prudish reader, if she at last did what Arthur would have called
'throwing herself at his head.'
'I can guess what you mean,' she said, after a long pause, during which
he did not speak. 'I have long suspected that you cared for me just as I
care for you, and have wondered you did not tell me so, but supposed
that you refrained because I was rich and you were poor; but what has
that to do with those who love each other? I am glad you have spoken;
and you have made me very happy; and even if we can never be more to
each other than we are now, because I may die, as I sometimes fear I
shall--'
'Oh, Maude, Maude, you are mistaken. I--,' came from Harold like a cry
of horror as he wrenched away his hand lying between hers, and to which
her slender fingers hung caressingly.
What could she mean? How had she understood him? he asked himself, while
great drops of sweat gathered upon his forehead and in the palms of his
hands, as like lightning the past came back to him, and he could see as
in a printed page that what he had thought mere friendship for himself
was a far different and deeper feeling, while he unwittingly had fanned
the flame; and was now reaping the result.
'What can I do?' he said aloud, unconsciously, while from the depths of
the chair on which Maude was leaning back so wearily came a plaintive
voice like that of a child:
'Ring the bell, and give me my handkerchief.'
He was at her side in a moment, bending over her, and looking anxiously
into the pallid face from which the bright color had faded, leaving it
gray, and pinched, and drawn, it seemed to him. Had he killed her by
blurting out so roughly that she was mistaken; and thus filling her with
mortification and shame? No, that could not be, for as he brought her
handkerchief and bent still closer to her, she whispered to him:
'I am not mistaken, Hally. I am going to die, but you have made the last
days of my life very, very happy.'
She thought he was referring to herself and her situation when he told
her she was mistaken, and with a smothered groan he was starting for the
camphor, as she bade him do, when the door opened, and Mrs. Tracy
herself appeared.
'What is it?' she asked, sharply; then, as she saw Maude's face she knew
what it was, and going swiftly to her, said to Harold:
'Why did you allow her to talk and get excited? What were you saying to
her?'
Instantly Maude's eyes went up to Harold's with an appealing look, as if
asking him not to tell her mother then--a precaution which was needless,
as he had no intention to tell Mrs. Tracy, or any one, of the terrible
blunder he had made; and with a hope that the reality might dawn upon
Maude, he answered, truthfully:
'I was talking to her of Jerrie. I am very sorry.'
If Maude heard she did not understand, for drops of pinkish blood were
oozing from her lips, and she looked as if she were already dead, as in
obedience to Mrs. Tracy's command, Harold took her in his arms and
carried her to the couch near the open window, where he laid her down as
tenderly as if she were indeed his affianced wife.
'Thanks,' she sighed, softly, and her bright, beautiful eyes looked up
at him with an expression which half tempted him to kiss the quivering
lips from which he was wiping the stains so carefully, while Mrs. Tracy,
at the door, gave some orders to a servant.
'You can go now,' she said, returning to the couch, and dismissing him
with her usual hauteur of manner; while Maude put up her hand and
whispered:
'Come soon--and Jerrie.'
Had Harold been convicted of theft or murder he could scarcely have felt
worse than he did as he walked slowly through the park, reviewing the
situation and wondering what he ought to do.
'If it almost killed her when she thought I loved her, it would surely
kill her to know that I do not,' he thought. 'I cannot undeceive her
now, while she is so weak; but when she is better and able to bear it, I
will tell her the truth.'
'And if she dies?' came to him like the stab of a knife, as he
remembered how white she looked as he held her in his arms. 'If she
does,' he said, 'no one shall ever know of the mistake she made. In this
I will be true to Maude, even should the world believe I loved her and
had told her so. But, oh, Heaven! spare me that, and spare Maude's life
for many years. She is too young, too sweet, too good to die.'
This was Harold's prayer as he rested for a moment in the pine-room,
where he had often played with the little girl, and where he could now
see her so plainly picking up the cones, or sitting on the soft bed of
needles, with the bloom on her cheeks and the brightness in her soft
black eyes which had looked so lovingly at him an hour ago. 'Spare
Maude; do not let her die!' was his prayer, and that of many others
during the week which followed, when Maude's life hung on a thread, and
every bell at the park house was muffled, and the servants spoke only in
whispers; while Frank Tracy sat day and night in the room where his
daughter lay, perfectly quiet, except as she sometimes put up her hand
to stroke his white hair or wipe away the tears constantly rolling down
his cheeks.
In Frank's heart there was a feeling worse than death itself, for keen
remorse and bitter regret were torturing his soul as he sat beside the
wreck of all his hopes and felt that he had sinned for naught. He knew
Maude would die, and then what mattered it to him if he had all the
money of the Rothschilds at his command?
'Oh, Gretchen, you are avenged, and Jerrie, too! Oh, Jerrie!' he said,
one day, unconsciously, as he sat by his daughter, who, he thought, was
sleeping. But at the mention of Jerrie's name her eyes unclosed and
fixed themselves upon her father with a look in which he read an earnest
desires for something.
'What is it, pet?' he asked. 'Do you want anything?'
They had made her understand that, she must not speak, for the slightest
effort to do so always brought on a fit of coughing which threatened a
hemorrhage, of which she could not endure many more. But they had
brought her a little slate, on which she sometimes wrote her requests,
though that, too, was an effort. Pointing now to the slate, she wrote,
while her father held it:
'I want Jerrie.'
'I thought so; and you shall have her for just as long as she will
stay,' Frank said; and a servant was dispatched to the cottage with the
message that Jerrie must come at once, and come prepared to pass the
night, if possible.
It had been very dreary for Maude during the time she had been shut up
in her room, to which no one was admitted except her father and mother,
the doctor, and the nurse. Many messages of enquiry and sympathy,
however, had come to her from the cottage, and Grassy Spring, and Le
Bateau, where Ann Eliza was still kept a prisoner with her sprained
ankle; and once Jerrie had written to Maude a note full of love and
solicitude and a desire to see her. As a postscript she added:
'Harold sends his love, and hopes you will soon be better. You don't
know how anxious he is about you. Why, I believe he has lost ten pounds
since your attack, for which he seems to blame himself, thinking he
excited you too much by talking to you.'
Maude listened to this note, which her father read to her, with a smile
on her face and tears on her long eyelashes; but when he came to the
postscript she laughed aloud, as a little child laughs at the return of
its mother, for whom it has been hungering. This was the first word she
had had from him, except that he had called to enquire for her, and she
had so longed for something which should assure her that he remembered
her even as she did him. She had no distrust of him, and would as soon
have doubted that the sun would rise again as to have doubted his
sincerity; but she wanted to hear again that he loved her, and now she
had heard it, and, folding her hands upon her breast, she fell into the
most, refreshing sleep she had had since her illness. Could Maude have
talked and seen people, or if she had been less anxious to live, she
would probably have told Jerrie and Nina, and possibly Ann Eliza
Peterkin, of what had passed between herself and Harold, but she had not
seen them; while life, with Harold to love her, looked so bright and
sweet, that if by keeping silence she could prolong it, she would do so
for months, if necessary. To live for Harold was all she wished or
thought about; and often when they hoped she was sleeping, she lay so
still, with her eyes closed and her arms folded upon her breast, just as
if she were praying in her dreams, her father thought. She _was_ praying
for life and length of days, with strength to make Harold as happy as he
ought to be, and was thinking of and planning all she meant to do for
him when once they were married. First to Europe, where she would be so
proud to show him the places she had seen, and where Jerrie would be
with them, for in all her plans Jerrie had almost as prominent a place
as herself.
'I am nothing without Jerrie,' she thought 'She keeps me up, and Jerrie
will live with us, and Mrs. Crawford; that makes four, just enough for a
nice game of whist in long winter evenings, when it is so cold outside
but warm and bright within--always bright for Harold, whose life has
been so full of care and toil. Poor boy! how I pitied his great warm
hand when it was holding mine so lovingly, and how I could have kissed
every seam and scar upon it. But by and by his hands shall be white like
Tom's, though not so soft. I hate a hand which feels like a fluff of
cotton. He shall not live here, for Harold could never get along with
mother and Tom; but we will build a house together, Hally and I, with
Jerrie to help and plan--build one where the cottage stands, or near it,
so Jerrie can still see the old Tramp House she is so fond of. Not a
house like this, with such big rooms, but a pretty, modern Queen Ann
house, with every room a corner room, and a bay-window in it. And Harold
will have an office in town, and I shall drive down for him every
afternoon and take him home to dinner and to Jerrie.'
Such was the nature of Maude's thoughts, as she lay day after day upon
the couch, too weak to do more thin lift her hands or rise her head
when the dreadful paroxysms of coughing seized her and racked her
fragile frame. Still she was very happy, and the happiness showed itself
upon her, where there rested a look of perfect content and peace, which
her father and mother had noticed and commented upon, and which Jerrie
saw the moment she entered the room and stood by Maude's side.
'Dear Maude,' she said, as she took the hot hands in hers and kissed
them tenderly.
Then she sat down beside her, and smoothed her hair, and told her how
lovely she looked in her pretty rose-colored wrapper, and how sorry
every one was for her, and that both she and Nina would have been there
every day, only they knew they could not see her. Then, as the great
black eyes fixed themselves steadily upon her, with a look of enquiry in
them, she set her teeth hard, and began:
'I don't think anyone has been more sorry than Harold. Why, for the
first few days after you were taken so ill he just walked the floor all
the time he was in the house, and when grandma asked what ailed him, he
said, "I am thinking of Maude, and am afraid my call upon her was the
cause of the attack."'
'N--n--,' Maude began, but checked herself in time, and taking up her
slate, wrote, 'Tell him it was not his call. I am glad he came.'
'Yes I will,' Jerrie replied, scarcely able to keep back her tears, when
she saw how cramped and irregular the handwriting was, so unlike
Maude's, and realized more and more how weak and sick was the little
girl whose eyes followed her everywhere and always grew brighter and
softer when she was talking to her of Harold.
All day and all night Jerrie sat by her, sometimes talking to her and
answering the questions she wrote upon the slate, but oftener in perfect
silence, when Maude seemed to be asleep. Then Jerrie's tears fell like
rain, the face upon the pillow looked so much like death, and she kept
repeating to herself the lines:
'We thought her dying when she slept.
And sleeping when she died.'
When the warm July morning looked in at the windows of the sick-room,
bringing with it the perfume of hundreds of flowers blooming on the
lawn, and the scent of the hay cut the previous day, it found Jerrie
still watching by Maude, her own face tired and pale, with dark rings
about her eyes, which were heavy with tears and wakefulness. She had not
slept at all, and her head was beginning to ache frightfully when the
nurse came in and relieved her, telling her breakfast was ready. Maude
was awake, and wrote eagerly upon the slate:
'You'll come back? You'll stay all day? You do me so much good, and I am
a great deal better for your being here.'
Jerrie hesitated a moment; her head was aching so hard that she longed
to get away. But selfishness was not one of Jerrie's faults, and putting
her own wishes aside, she said:
'Yes, I will stay until afternoon, and then I must go home. I did not
tell you that Harold was going away to-night, did I?'
Maude shook her head, and Jerry went on:
'You know, perhaps, that some time ago a Mr. Wilson, of Truesdale, sued
Peterkin for some infringement on a patent, or something of that sort.'
Maude nodded, and Jerrie continued:
'The suit comes off to-morrow, and Harold is subpoenaed as a witness, as
he was in Peterkin's office a while and knows something about the
arrangement between them. I am sorry he has got to swear against
Peterkin; it will make him so angry, and he hates Harold now. The suit
is to be called in the morning and Judge St. Claire and Harold are going
to-night on the five o'clock train; and as he may be gone a day or two I
must be home to see to packing his bag. But I will stay with you just as
long as I can.'
She said nothing of her head which throbbed in a most peculiar way,
making her dizzy and half blind as she went down to breakfast, which she
took alone with Mrs. Tracy. Frank had eaten his long before, and was now
pacing up and down the long piazza with his head bent forward and his
hands locked together behind him.
'I shall never have rest or peace again until it is known. Oh, if it
would only come out without my telling,' he said to himself, little
dreaming how near it was to coming out and that before that day's sun
had set Jerrie would know!
Tom seldom appeared until after ten, and when Jerrie went for a few
moments into the grounds, to see if the fresh air would do her good, she
found him seated in an arm-chair under a horse chestnut tree, stretching
himself and yawning as if he were just out of bed.
'Jerrie, you here? Did you stay all night? If I'd known that, I'd have
made an effort to come down to breakfast, though I think getting up in
the morning a bore. Why, what's the matter? You look as if you were
going to faint. Sit down here,' he continued, as he saw Jerrie reel
forward as if she were about to fall.
He put her into the chair and stood over her, fanning her with his hat
and wondering what he should do, while for a moment she lost
consciousness of the things about her, and her mind went floating off
after the picture on the wall in Wiesbaden, which was haunting her that
morning.
When she came to herself, Tom and Dick and Billy were all three hovering
around, and so close to her that without opening her eyes she could have
told exactly where each one was standing, Tom by the smell of tobacco,
with which his clothes were saturated, Billy by the powerful scent of
white rose with which he always perfumed his handkerchief, and Dick,
because, as she had once said to Nina when a child, he was so clean and
looked as if he had just been scrubbed. The two young men had come to
enquire for Maude, and had found Jerrie half swooning under the tree,
with Tom fanning her frantically and acting like a wild man.
Jerrie had seen Dick twice since her refusal of him, and both times her
manner, exactly like what it had always been to him, had put him at his
ease, so that a looker-on would never have dreamed of that episode under
the pines when she nearly broke his heart. Billy, however, was more
conscious. He had not seen Jerrie since he took her home in his
dog-cart, and his face was scarlet and his manner nervous and
constrained as he stood before her, longing and yet not daring to fan
her with his hat just as Tom was doing.
Of the three young men who had sought her hand, Billy's wound was the
deepest, and Billy would remember it the longest; for, mingled with his
defeat, was a sense of mortification and hatred of his own personal
appearance, which he could not help thinking had influenced Jerrie's
decision. 'And I don't blame her, by Jove!' he said to himself a
hundred times. 'She could not marry a pigmy, and I was a fool to hope
it; but I shall love her just the same as long as I live, and if I can
ever help her I will.'
And when at last Jerrie was better, and assured him so with her own
sweet graciousness of manner, and put her hand upon his shoulder to
steady herself as she stood up, he felt that paradise was opening to him
again, and that although he had lost Jerrie as a wife, he still had her
as a friend, which was more than he had dared expect.
'Are you better now? Can you walk to the house?' Tom asked.
'Oh, yes; I can walk. The giddiness is gone,' Jerrie replied. 'I don't
quite know what ails me this morning.'
Never before could she remember having felt as she did now, with that
sharp pain in her head, that buzzing in her ears, and more than all,
that peculiar state of mind which she called "spells," and which seemed
to hold her now, body and soul. Even when she returned to Maude's room,
and sat down beside her couch, her thoughts were far away, and
everything which had ever come to her concerning her babyhood came to
her now, crowding upon her so fast that once it seemed to her that the
top of her head was lifting, and she put up her hand to hold it in its
place. And still she staid on with Maude, although two or three times
she arose to go, but something kept her there--chance, if one chooses to
call by that name the something which at times moulds us to its will and
influences our whole lives. Something kept her there until the morning
was merged into noon and the noon into the middle of the afternoon, and
then she could stay no longer. The hour had come when she must go, for
the other force which was to be the instrument in changing all her
future was astir, and she must go to keep her unconscious appointment
with it.
CHAPTER XL.
'DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?'
Judging from the result, this question might far better have been put to
rather than by Peterkin, as he stood puffing, and hot, and indignant in
the Tramp House, looking down upon Jerrie, who was sitting upon the
wooden bench, with her aching head resting upon a corner of the old
table standing against the wall just where it stood that stormy night
fifteen years ago, when death claimed the woman beside her, but left her
unharmed.
After saying good-bye to Maude, Jerrie had walked very slowly through
the park, stopping more than once to rest upon the seats scattered here
and there, and wondering more and more at the feeling which oppressed
her and the terrible pain in her head, which grew constantly worse as
she went on.
'I'm afraid I'm going to be sick,' she said to herself. 'I never felt
this way before; and no wonder, with all I have gone through the last
few weeks. The getting ready for the commencement, the coming home, and
all the excitement which followed, with three men, one after another,
offering themselves to me, and the drenching that night in the rain, and
then watching by Maude without a wink of sleep, it is enough to make a
behemoth sick, and I am so dizzy and hot--'
She had reached the Tramp House by this time, and, feeling that she
could go no farther without resting herself, she went in, and seating
herself upon the bench, laid her tired, aching head upon the table, and
felt again for a few moments that strange sensation as if the top of her
head were rising up and up until she could not reach it with her hand,
for she tried, and thought of Ann Eliza, with her hair piled so high on
her head.
'The loss of an inch or two might improve me,' she said, though I'd
rather keep my scalp.'
Then she seemed to be drifting away into the realms of sleep, and all
around her were confusion and bewilderment. The window, across which
the woodbine was growing, changed places with the door; the floor rose
up and bowed to her, while the room was full of faces, beckoning to and
smiling upon her. Faces like the one she knew so well, the pale face in
the chair; faces like her own, as she remembered it when a child; faces
like the dark woman dead so long ago and buried in the Tracy lot, and
faces like Arthur's as she had seen him oftenest, when he spoke so
lovingly, and called her little Cherry. Then the scene changed, and the
old Tramp House was full of wondrous music, which came floating in at
every crevice and through the open door and windows, while she listened
intently in her dreams as the grand chorus went on. It as was if Arthur,
from the top of the highest peak beyond the Rocky Mountains, and
Gretchen, from her lonely grave in far-off Germany, were calling to each
other across two continents, their voices meeting and mingling together
in the Tramp House in a jubilistic strain, now wild and weird like the
cry of the dying woman looking out into the stormy night, now soft and
low as the lullaby a fond mother sings to her sleeping child, and now
swelling louder and louder, and higher and higher, until the rafters
rang with the joyous music, and the whole world outside was filled with
the song of gladness.
Wake up, Jerrie! Wake from the dream of rapture to a reality far more
rapturous, for the time is at hand, the hour has come, heralded by the
shadow which falls over the floor as Peterkin's burly figure crosses the
threshold and enters the silent room.
After Peterkin's conversation with his son concerning his future wife,
Jerrie had grown rapidly in the old man's favor. It is true she had
neither name nor money, the latter of which was scarcely necessary in
this case, but he was not insensible to the fact that she possessed
other qualities and advantages which would be a help to the house of
Peterkin in its efforts to rise. No girl in the neighborhood was more
popular or more sought after than Jerrie, or more intimate with the
big-bugs, as he styled the St. Claires, and Athertons, and Tracys.
Jerrie would _draw_; Jerry would _boost_; and he found himself forming
many plans for the young couple, who were to occupy the south wing; and
in fancy he saw Arthur at Le Bateau half the time at least, while the
rest of the time the carriages from Grassy Spring, and Brier Hill, and
Tracy Park, were standing under the stone arch in front of the door.
How, then, was he disappointed, and enraged, too, when told by his son
that Jerrie had refused him?
Peterkin had been in Springfield nearly a week, and after his return
home had waited a little before broaching the subject to his son; so
that it was not until the morning before the day of the lawsuit that he
learned the truth by closely questioning Billy, who shielded and
defended Jerrie as far as possible.
'Not have you! Refused you! Don't love you! Don't care for money!
Thunderation! What does the girl mean? Is she crazy? Is she a fool? Is
she in love with some other idiot?'
'I th-think so, yes; th-though it did not occur to me then,' Billy
answered, very meekly; 'and if so she ca-can't care for me any mo-more
that I ca-can care for any other girl.'
'And you are a fool, too,' was the affectionate rejoinder. 'I'll be
dummed if you ain't a pair! Who is the lucky man? Not that dog Harold,
who is goin' to swear agin' us to-morrow? If it is, I b'lieve I'll shoot
him.'
'Father,' Billy cried in alarm, 'be quiet; if I can st-stand it, you
can.'
But Peterkin swore he wouldn't stand it. He'd do something, he didn't
know what; and all the morning he went about the house like a madman,
swearing at his wife, because she wasn't _up to snuff_, and couldn't hoe
her own with the 'ristocrats; swearing at Billy because he was a fool,
and so small that 'twas no wonder a bean-pole like Jerrie wouldn't look
at him, and swearing at Ann Eliza because her hair was so red, and
because she had sprained her ankle for the sake of having Tom Tracy
bring her home, hoping he would keep calling to see her, and thus give
her a chance to rope him in, which she never could as long as the world
stood.
'Neither you nor Bill will ever marry, with all your money, unless you
take up with a cobbler, and he with a washwoman,' was his farewell
remark, as he finally left the house about three o'clock and started for
the village, where he had some of his own witnesses to see before taking
the train for Springfield at five.
His wife had ventured to suggest that he go in a carriage, as it was so
warm, but he had answered, savagely:
'Go to thunder with your carriage and coat-of-arms! What good have they
ever done us only to make folks laugh at us for a pack of fools? Nothing
under heaven gives us a h'ist, and I'm just goin' to quit the folderol
and pad it on foot, as I used to when I was cap'n of the 'Liza Ann--durn
it!'
And so, with his bag in his hand, he started rapidly down the road in
the direction of Shannondale. But the sun was hot, and he was hot, and
his bag was heavy, and, cursing himself for a fool that he had not taken
the carriage, he finally struck into the park as a cooler, if a longer,
route to the station.
As he came near the Tramp House, which gave no sign of its sleeping
occupant, something impelled him to look in at the door. And this he did
with a thought of Jerrie in his heart, though with no suspicion that she
was there; and when he saw her he started suddenly, and uttered an
exclamation of surprise, which roused her from her heavy slumber.
'Oh!' she exclaimed, shedding back her golden hair from her flushed face
and lifting her eyes to him; but whatever else she might have said was
prevented by his outburst of passion, which began with the question:
'Do you know what you have done?'
Jerrie looked at him wonderingly, but made no reply, and he went on:
'Yes, do you know what you have done?--you, a poor, unknown girl, who,
but for the Tracys, would have gone to the poor-house sure as guns,
where you orter have gone! Yes, you orter. You refuse my Bill! you, who
hain't a cent to your name; and all for that sneak of a Harold, who will
swear agin me to-morrer. I know he's at the root on't, though Bill
didn't say so, and I hate him wuss than pizen; he, who has been at the
wheel in my shop and begged swill for a livin'! he to be settin' up for
a gentleman and a cuttin' out my Bill, who will be wuth more'n a
million,--yes, two millions, probably, and you have refused him! Do you
hear me, gal?'
He yelled this last, for something in Jerry's attitude made him think
Jerrie was not giving him her undivided attention, for she was still
listening to the music, which seemed to swell higher and higher, louder
and clearer, until it almost drowned the voice of the man demanding a
second time so fiercely:
'Do you hear me, gal?'
'Yes, I hear you,' she said. 'You are talking of Harold, and saying
things you shall not repeat in my presence.'
'Hoity-toity, miss! What's to hinder me repeatin' in your presence that
Harold Hastings is a sneak and a snob, a hewer of wood, a drawer of
water, and a--'
Jerrie had risen to her feet, and stood up so tall and straight that, it
seemed to Peterkin as if she towered even above himself, while something
in the flash of her blue eyes made him think of Arthur when he turned
him from the house for accusing Harold of theft, and also of the little
child who had attacked him so fiercely on that wintry morning when the
dead woman lay stretched upon the table at the Park House, with her dark
face upturned to the ceiling above.
'I shall hinder you,' she said, her voice ringing clear and distinct;
'and if you breathe another word against Harold, I'll turn you from this
room. The Tramp House is mine; Mr. Arthur gave it to me, and you cannot
stay in it with me.'
"Heavens and earth! hear the girl! One would s'pose she was the Queen of
Sheby to hear her go on, instead of a beggar, whose father was the Lord
only knows who, and whose mother was found in rags on this 'ere table.
Drat the dum thing!" Peterkin roared, bringing his fist down with such
force upon the poor old rickety table that it fell to pieces under the
blow and went crashing to the floor.
Jerrie's face was a face to fear then, and Peterkin was afraid, and
backed himself out of the room, with Jerrie close to him, never speaking
a word, but motioning him to the door, through which he passed swiftly,
and picking up his bag, walked rapidly away, growling to himself:
'There's the very Old Harry in that gal's eye. Bill did well to get shet
of her; and yit, if she'd married him, how she would have rid over all
their heads! Well, to be sure, what a dum fool she is!'
CHAPTER XLI.
WHAT JERRIE FOUND UNDER THE FLOOR.
Meantime Jerrie had gone back to the wreck of the table, which she tried
to straighten up, handling it as carefully and as reverently as if it
had been her mother's coffin she was touching. One of the legs had been
broken off before, and she and Harold has fastened it on and turned it
to the side of the house where it would be more out of the way of harm,
and it was this leg which had succumbed first to the force of Peterkin's
fist, and as the entire pressure of the table was brought to bear upon
it in falling, it had been precipitated through a hole in the base
board, which had been there as long as she could remember the place, not
so large at first, but growing larger each year, as the decaying boards
crumbled or were eaten away by rats.
Jerrie called it a rat-hole, and had several times put a trap there to
catch the marauders, who sometimes scampered across her very feet, so
accustomed were they to her presence. But the rats would not go into the
trap, and then she pasted a newspaper over the hole, but this had been
torn, and hung in shreds, while the hole grew gradually larger.
Taking up the top of the table, Jerrie dragged it to the centre of the
room, and, putting three of the legs upon it, went to search for the
fourth, one end of which was just visible at the aperture in the wall.
As she stooped to take it out, a bit of the floor under her feet gave
way, making the opening so large that the table leg disappeared from
view entirely. Then Jerrie went down upon her knees, and, thrusting her
hand under the floor, felt for the missing leg, striking against stones,
and brushes, and bits of mortar, and finally touching something from
which she recoiled for an instant, it was so cold and slimy.
But she struck it again in her search, this time more squarely, and,
grasping it hard in her hand, brought it out to the light, while an
undefinable thrill, half of terror, half of joy, ran through her frame,
as she held it up and examined it carefully.
It was a small hand-bag of Russian leather, covered with mold and
stained with the damp of its long hiding-place, while a corner of it
showed that the rats had tested its properties, but, disliking either
the taste or the smell had left it in quiet. And there under the floor,
not two feet from where Jerrie had often played, it had lain ever since
the wintry night years before when on the table a strange woman had
struggled with death, and in her struggle the bag, which held so much
that was important to the child beside her, had probably fallen from her
rude bed into the hole just behind it, and which was then large enough
to receive it. Then the rats, attracted by this novel appearance in
their midst, had investigated and dragged it so far from the opening
that it could not been seen unless one went down upon the floor to look
for it.
This was the conviction that flashed upon Jerrie as she stood, with
widely dilated eyes and quivering nostrils, staring at the bag, without
the power at first to speak or move.
The music was gone now--Gretchen's voice and Arthur's--and there was
only in her ears a roaring sound like the rushing of distant waters
falling heavily, while the objects in the room swam around her, and she
experienced again that ringing sensation as if the top of her head were
leaving her. She was so sure that here at last was a message from the
dead--that she had the mystery of her babyhood in her grasp--and yet,
for full two minutes she hesitated and held back, until at last the
sweet, pale face which had haunted her so often seemed about to touch
her own with a caress which brought the hot tears to her eyes, and the
spell which had bound her hands and feet was broken.
The bag was clasped, but not locked, although there was a lock, and
Jerrie thought involuntarily of the little key lying with the other
articles on the dead woman's person. To unclasp the bag required a
little strength, for the steel was covered with rust; but it yielded at
last to Jerrie's strong fingers; and the bag came open, disclosing first
some square object carefully wrapped in a silk handkerchief which had
been white in its day, but which now was yellow and soiled by time. At
this, however, Jerrie scarcely looked, for her eye had fallen upon a
package of papers lying beneath it--papers folded with care, and
securely tied with a bit of faded blue ribbon.
Seating herself upon the bench where she had been sleeping when
Peterkin's voice aroused her, Jerrie untied the package, and then began
to read, first slowly, as if weighing every word and sentence, then
faster and faster, until at last it seemed that her burning eyes, from
which the hot tears were streaming like rain, fairly leaped from page to
page, taking in the contents at a glance, and comprehending everything.
When she had finished, she sat for a moment rigid as a corpse, and then,
with a loud, glad cry, which made the very rafters ring, and went
floating out upon the summer air, "Thank Heaven, I have found my
mother!" she fell upon her face, insensible to everything.
How long she lay thus she did not know, but when she came back to
consciousness the sunlight had changed its position in the room, and she
felt it was growing late.
Starting suddenly up, and wiping from her face a drop of blood which has
oozed from a cut in her forehead caused by her striking it against some
hard substance when she fell, she looked about her for a moment in a
bewildered kind of way, not realizing at first what had happened; and
even when she remembered, she was too much stunned and astonished to
take it all in as she would afterward when she was calmer and could
think more clearer.
Taking up the papers one by one, in the order in which she had found
them, she tied them again with the blue ribbon, and put them into the
bag.
'There was something more,' she whispered, trying to think what it was.
Then, as her eye fell upon the first package she had taken out, and
which was wrapped in a silk handkerchief, she took it up, and removing
the covering, started as suddenly as if a blow had been dealt her, for
there was the tortoise-shell box, with its blue satin lining, and its
diamonds, which seemed to her like so many sparks of fire flashing in
her eyes and dazzling her with their brilliancy.
Just such a box as this, and just such diamonds as these, Mrs. Frank
Tracy had lost years ago, and as Jerrie held them in her hand and turned
them to the light, till they showed all the hues of the rainbow, she
experienced a feeling of terror as if she were a thief and had been
convicted of the theft. Then, as she remembered what she had read, she
burst into a hysterical fit of laughing and crying together, and
whispered to herself:
'I believe I am going mad like him.'
After a time she arose, and with the bag on her arm and the diamonds in
her hand, she started for home, with only one thought in her mind:
'I must tell Harold, and ask him what to do.'
She had forgotten that he was to leave that afternoon on the
train--forgotten everything, except the one subject which affected her
so strongly, so that in one sense she might be said to be thinking of
nothing, when, as she was walking with her head bent down, she came
suddenly face to face with Harold, who, with his satchel in his hand,
was starting for the train due now in a few minutes.
'Jerrie,' he exclaimed, 'how late you are! I waited until the last
minute to say good-bye. Why, what ails you, and where have you been?' he
continued, as she raised her head and he saw the bruise on her forehead
and the strange pallor of her face.
'In the Tramp House,' the answered, in a voice which was not hers at
all, and made Harold look more curiously at her.
As he did so he saw peeping from a fold of the silk handkerchief the
corner of the tortoise-shell box which he remembered so well, and the
sight of which brought back all the shame and humiliation and pain of
that memorable morning when he had been suspected of taking it.
'What is it? What have you in your hand?' he asked.
Then Jerrie's face, so pale before, flushed scarlet, and her eyes had in
them a wild look which Harold construed into fear, as, without a word,
she laid the box in his hand, and then stood watching him is he opened
it.
Harold's face was whiter than Jerrie's had been, and his voice trembled
as he said, in a whisper:
'Mrs. Tracy's diamonds!'
'Yes, Mrs. Tracy's diamonds,' Jerrie replied, with a marked emphasis on
the _Mrs. Tracy_.
'How came you by them, and where did you find them,' Harold asked next,
shrinking a little from the glittering stones which seemed like fiery
eyes confronting him.
'I can't tell you now. Put them up quick. Don't let any one see them.
Somebody is coming,' Jerrie said, hurriedly, as her ear caught a sound
and her eye an object which Harold neither saw nor heard as he
mechanically thrust the box into his side pocket and then turned just as
Tom Tracy came up on horseback.
'Hallo, Jerrie! hallo, Hal!' he cried, dismounting quickly and throwing
the bridle-rein over his arm. 'And so you are off to that suit?' he
continued, addressing himself to Harold. 'By George, I wish I were a
witness. I'd swear the old man's head off; for, upon my soul, I believe
he is an old liar?' Then turning to Jerrie, he continued: 'Are you
better than you were this morning? Upon my word, you look worse. It's
that infernal watching last night that ails you. I told mother you ought
not to do it.'
Just then a whistle was heard in the distance; the train was at
Truesdale, four miles away.
'You will never catch it,' Tom said, as Harold snatched up his bag and
started to run, 'Here, jump on to Beaver, and leave him at the station.
I can go there for him.'
Harold knew it was impossible for him to make time against the train,
and, accepting Tom's offer, he vaulted into the saddle and galloped
rapidly away, reaching the station just in time to give his horse to the
care of a boy and to leap upon the train as it was moving away.
Meanwhile Tom walked on with Jerrie to the cottage, where he would have
stopped if she had not said to him:
'I would ask you to come in, but my head is aching so badly that I must
go straight to bed. Good-bye, Tom,' and she offered him her hand, a most
unusual thing for her to do on an ordinary occasion like this.
What ailed her, Tom wondered, that she spoke so kindly to him and looked
at him so curiously? Was she sorry for her decision, and did she wish to
revoke it?
'Then, by Jove, I'll give her a chance, for every time I see her I find
myself more and more in love,' Tom thought, as he left her and started
for the station after Beaver, whom he found hitched to a post and pawing
the ground impatiently.
Mrs. Crawford was in the garden when Jerrie entered the house, and thus
there was no one to see her as she hurried up stairs and hid the leather
bag away upon a shelf in her dressing-room. First, however, she took out
two of the papers and read them again, as if to make assurance doubly
sure; then she tried the little key to the lock, which it fitted
perfectly.
'There is no mistake,' she whispered; 'but I can't think about it now,
for this terrible pain in my head. I must wait till Harold comes home;
he will tell me what to do, and be so glad for me. Dear Harold; his days
of labor are over, and grandmother's, too. Those diamonds are a fortune
in themselves, and they are _mine_! my own! she said so! Oh, mother, I
have found you at last, but I can't make it real; my head is so strange.
What if I should be crazy?' and she started suddenly. 'What if that
dreadful taint should be in my blood, or what if I should die just as I
have found my mother! Oh, Heaven, don't let me die; don't let me lose my
reason, and I will try to do right; only show me what right is.'
She was praying now upon her knees with her throbbing head upon the side
of the bed, into which she finally crept with her clothes on, even to
her boots, for Jerrie was herself no longer. The fever with which for
days she had been threatened, and which had been induced by over-study
at Vassar, and the excitement which had followed her return home, could
be kept at bay no longer, and when Mrs. Crawford, who had seen her enter
the house, went up after a while to see why she did not come down to
tea, she found her sleeping heavily, with spots of crimson upon her
cheeks, while her hands, which moved incessantly, were burning with
fever. Occasionally she moaned and talked in her sleep of the Tramp
House, and rats, and Peterkin, who had struck the blow and knocked
something or somebody down, Mrs. Crawford could not tell what, unless it
were Jerrie herself, on whose forehead there was a bunch the size now of
a walnut.
'Jerrie, Jerrie,' Mrs. Crawford cried in alarm, as she tried to remove
the girl's clothes. 'What is it, Jerrie? What has happened? Who hurt
you? Who struck the blow?'
'Peterkin,' was the faint response, as for an instant Jerrie opened her
eyelids only to close them again and sink away into a heavier sleep or
stupefaction. It seemed the latter, and as Mrs. Crawford could not
herself go for a physician, and as no one came down the lane that
evening, she sat all night, by Jerrie's bed, bathing the feverish hands
and trying to lessen the lump on the forehead, which, in spite of all
her efforts, continued to swell until it seemed to her it was as large
as a hen's egg.
'Did Peterkin strike you, and what for?' she kept asking; but Jerrie
only moaned and muttered something she could not understand, except once
when she said, distinctly:
'Yes, Peterkin. Such a blow; it was like a blacksmith's hammer, and
knocked the table to pieces. I am glad he did it.'
What did she mean? Mrs. Crawford asked herself in vain, and when at last
the early summer morning broke, she was almost as crazy as Jerrie, who
was steadily growing worse, and who was saying the strangest things
about arrests and blows, and Peterkin, and Harold, and Mr. Arthur, whose
name she always mentioned with a sob and stretching out of her hands, as
to some invisible presence. Help must be had from some quarter; and for
two hours, which seemed to her years, Mrs. Crawford watched for the
coming of someone, until at last she saw Tom Tracy galloping up on
Beaver.
'Tom, Tom,' she screamed from the window, as she saw him dismounting at
the gate, 'don't get off, but ride for your life and fetch the doctor,
quick. Jerrie is very sick; has been crazy all night, and has a bunch on
her head as big as a bowl, where she says Peterkin struck her.
'Peterkin struck Jerrie! I'll kill him!' Tom said as he tore down the
lane and out upon the highway in quest of the physician, who was soon
found and at Jerrie's side, where Tom stood with him, gazing awe struck
upon the fever stricken girl, who was tossing and talking all the time,
and whose bright eyes unclosed once and fixed themselves on him, as he
spoke her name and laid his hand on one of hers.
'Oh, Tom, Tom,' she said, 'you told me you'd kill her. Will you kill
her? Will you kill her?' And a wild, hysterical laugh echoed through the
room, as she kept repeating the words, 'Will you kill her? Will you kill
her?' which conveyed no meaning to Tom, who had forgotten what he had
said he would do if a claimant to Tracy Park should appear in the shape
of a young lady.
Whatever Jerrie took up she repeated rapidly until something else came
into her mind, and when Mrs. Crawford, referring to the bunch on her
head, said to the physician, 'Peterkin struck the blow, she says,' she
began at once like a parrot. 'Peterkin struck the blow! Peterkin struck
the blow!' until another idea suggested itself, and she began to ring
changes on the sentence. 'In the rat-hole; in the Tramp House; in the
Tramp House; in the rat-hole,' talking so fast that sometimes it was
impossible to follow her.
The blow on her head alone could not have produced this state of things;
it was rather over-excitement, added to some great mental shock, the
nature of which he could not divine, the doctor said to Tom, who in his
wrath at Peterkin was ready to flay him alive, or at least to ride him
on a rail the instant he entered town.
It was a puzzling case, though not a dangerous one as yet, the physician
said. Jerrie's strong constitution could stand an attack much more
severe than this one; and prescribing perfect quiet, with strict orders
that she should see no more people than was necessary, he left,
promising to return in the afternoon, when he hoped to find her better.
Tom lingered a while after the doctor had left, and showed himself so
thoughtful and kind that Mrs. Crawford forgave him much which she had
harbored against him for his treatment of Harold.
All night Tom's dreams had been haunted with Jerrie's voice and Jerrie's
look as she gave him her hand and said, 'Good-bye, Tom,' and he had
ridden over early to see if the look and tone were still there, and if
they were, and he had a chance, he meant to renew his offer. But words
of love would have been sadly out of place to this restless, feverish
girl, whose incoherent babblings puzzled and bewildered him.
One fact, however, was distinct in his mind--Peterkin had struck her a
terrible blow in the Tramp House. Of that he was sure, though why he
should have done so he could not guess; and vowing vengeance upon the
man, he left the cottage at last and rode down to the Tramp House, where
he found the table in a state of ruin upon the door, three of the legs
upon it and the other one nowhere to be seen.
'He struck her with it and then threw it away, I'll bet,' he said to
himself, as he hunted for the missing leg; 'and it was some quarrel he
picked with her about Hal, who is going to swear against him. Jerrie
would never hear Hal abused, and I've no doubt she aggravated the wretch
until he forgot himself and dealt her that blow. I'll have him arrested
for assault and battery, as sure as I am born.'
Hurrying home, he told the story to his mother, who smiled incredulously
and said she did not believe it, bidding him say nothing of it to Maude,
who was not as well as usual that day. Then he told his father, who
started at once for the cottage, where Mrs. Crawford refused to let him
see Jerrie, saying that the doctor's orders were that she should be kept
perfectly quiet. But as they stood talking together near the open door,
Jerrie's voice was heard calling:
'Let Mr. Frank come up.'
So Frank went up, and, notwithstanding all he had heard from Tom, he was
surprised at Jerrie's flushed face and the unnatural expression of her
eyes, which turned so eagerly toward him as he came in.
'Oh, Mr. Tracy,' she said, as he sat down beside her and took one of her
burning hands in his, 'you have always been kind to me, haven't you?'
'Yes,' he replied, with a keen pang of remorse, and wondering if she
would call it kindness if she knew all that he did.
'And I think you like me some,' she continued: 'don't you?'
'Like you!' he repeated; 'yes, more than you can ever know. Why,
sometimes I think I like you almost as much as I do Maude.'
As if the mention of Maude had sent her thoughts backward in a very
different channel, she said abruptly, while she held his gaze steadily
with her bright eyes:
'You posted that letter?'
Frank knew perfectly well that she meant the letter which, together with
the photograph, and the Bible, and the lock of the baby's golden hair,
had lain for years in his private drawer--the letter whose
superscription he had studied so many times, and which had seldom been
absent from his thoughts an hour since that night when, from her perch
on the gate-post, Jerrie had startled him with the question she was
asking him now. But be affected ignorance and said, as indifferently as
he could, with those blue eyes upon him seeming to read his inmost
thoughts:
'What letter do you mean?'
'Why, the one Mr. Arthur wrote to Gretchen, or her friends, in
Wiesbaden, and gave me to post. You took it for me to the office, and I
sat on the gate so long in the darkness waiting for you to come and tell
me you had posted it sure.'
'Oh, yes, I remember it perfectly, and how you frightened me sitting up
there so high like a goblin,' Frank answered, falteringly, his face as
crimson now as Jerrie's, and his eyes dropping beneath her gaze.
'Gretchen's friends never got that letter,' Jerrie continued.
'No, they never got it,' Frank answered, mechanically.
'If they had,' Jerrie went on, 'they would have answered it, for she had
friends there.'
Frank looked up quickly and curiously at the girl talking so strangely
to him. What had she heard? What did she know? or was this only an
outburst of insanity? She certainly looked crazy as she lay there
talking to him. He was sure of it a moment after when, as if the nature
of her thoughts had changed suddenly, she said to him:
'Yes, you have been very kind to me, you and Maude--you and Maude--and I
shan't forget it. Tell her I shan't forget it.--I shan't forget it.'
She repeated this rapidly, and was growing so wild and excited that
Frank thought it advisable to leave her. As he arose to go she looked up
pleadingly at him, and said:
'Kiss me, Mr. Tracy, please.'
Had he been struck by lightning, Frank could hardly have been more
astonished than he was at this singular request, and for a moment he
stared blankly at the girl who had made it, not because he was at all
averse to granting it, but because he doubted the propriety of the act,
even if she were crazy. But something in Jerrie's face, like Arthur's,
mastered him, and, stooping down, he kissed the parched lips through
which the breath came so hotly, wondering as he did so what Dolly would
say if she could see him, a white-haired man of forty-five, kissing a
young girl of nineteen, and that girl Jerrie Crawford.
'Thanks,' Jerrie said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. 'I
think you have been chewing tobacco, haven't you? But I sha'nt forget
it; I sha'nt forget it. I shall do right. I shall do right. Tell Maude
so; tell Maude so.'
She was certainly growing worse, Frank thought, as he went down to
confer with Mrs. Crawford as to what ought to be done, and to offer his
services. He would remain there that afternoon, he said, and send a
servant over to be in the house during the night.
'She is very sick,' he said; 'but it does not seem as if her sickness
could be caused wholly by that bruise on her head. Do you think Peterkin
struck her?'
'She says so,' was Mrs. Crawford's reply, 'though why he should do it, I
cannot guess.'
Then she added that a servant would not be necessary, as Harold would be
home by seven.
'But he may not,' Frank replied. 'Squire Harrington came at two, and
reported that the suit was not called until so late that they would not
probably get through with the witnesses to-day, so Hal may not be here,
and I will send Rob anyway.'
On his way home Frank, too, looked in at the Tramp House, and saw the
broken-down table, and hunted for the missing leg, and with Tom
concluded that something unusual had taken place there, though he could
not guess what.
That evening, as Jerrie grew more and more restless and talkative, Mrs.
Crawford listened anxiously for the train, and when it came, waited and
watched for Harold, but watched in vain, for Harold did not come.
Several of her neighbors, however, did come; those who had gone to the
city out of curiosity to attend the lawsuit, and 'see old Peterkin
squirm and hear him swear;' and could she have looked into the houses in
the village that night, she would have heard some startling news, for
almost before the train rolled away from the platform, everybody at or
near the station had been told that Mrs. Tracy's diamonds, lost nine or
ten years ago, had been found in Harold Hastings' pocket, and that he
was under arrest.
Such news travels fast, and it reached the Park House just as the family
were finishing their late dinner.
'I told you so! I always thought he was guilty, or knew something about
them,' Mrs. Frank exclaimed, with a look of exultation on her face as
she turned to her husband. 'What do you think now of your fine young
man, who has been hanging around here after your daughter until she is
half-betwaddled after him?'
Frank's face was very grave as he answered, decidedly:
'I do not believe it. Harold Hastings never took your diamonds.'
'How came he by them, then?' she asked, in a loud, angry voice.
'I don't know,' her husband replied; 'there is some mistake; it will be
cleared in time. But keep it from Maude; I think the news would kill
her.'
Meantime Tom had sat with his brows knit together, as if intently
thinking; and when at last he spoke he said to his father:
'I shall go to Springfield on the ten o'clock train, and you'd better go
with me.'
To this Frank made no objections. If his wife's diamonds were really
found, he ought to be there to receive them; and, besides, he might say
a word in Harold's defence, if necessary. So ten o'clock found him and
Tom at the station, where also was Dick St. Claire, with several other
young men, pacing up and down the platform and excitedly discussing the
news, of which they did not believe a word.
'I almost feel as if they were hurting me when they touch Hal, he's such
a noble fellow,' Dick said to Mr. Tracy and Tom. 'We are all as mad as
can be, and so a lot of us fellows, who have always known him, are going
over to speak a good word for him, and go his bail if necessary. I don't
believe, though, they can do anything after all these years; but father
will know. He is there with him.'
And so the night train to Springfield carried fourteen men from
Shannondale, thirteen of whom were going to stand by Harold, while the
fourteenth hardly knew why he was going or what he believed. Arrived in
the city, their first inquiry was for Harold, who, instead of being in
the charge of an officer as they had feared, was quietly sleeping in his
room at the hotel, while Judge St. Claire had the diamonds in his
possession.
CHAPTER XLII.
HAROLD AND THE DIAMONDS.
When Harold sprang upon the train as it was moving from the station and
entered the rear car, he found old Peterkin near the door, button-holing
Judge St. Claire, to whom he was talking loudly and angrily of that
infernal cheat, Wilson, who had brought the suit against him.
'Yes, yes, I see; I know; but all that will come out on the trial,' the
judge said, trying to silence him.
But Peterkin held on, until his eye caught Harold, when he let the judge
go, and seating himself beside the young man began in a soft, coaxing
tone for him:
'I don't see why in thunder you are goin' agin me, who have allus been
your friend, and gin you work when you couldn't git it any where else;
and I can't imagine what you're goin' to say, or what you know.'
Harold's face was very red, but his manner was respectful as he replied:
'You cannot be more sorry than I am that I am subpoenaed as a witness
against you. I did not seek it. I could not help it: but, being a
witness, I must answer the questions truthfully.'
'Thunder and lightning, man! Of course you must! Don't I know that?' the
irascible Peterkin growled, getting angry at once. 'Of course you must
answer questions, but you needn't blab out stuff they don't ask you, so
as to lead 'em on. I know 'em, the blood-hounds; they'll squeeze you
dry, once let 'em git an inklin' you know sunthin' more. Now, if this
goes agin me, I'm out at least thirty thousand dollars; and between you
and I, I don't mind givin' a cool two thousand, or three, or mebby five,
right out of pocket, cash down, to anybody whose testimony, without
bein' a lie--I don't want nobody to swear false, remember--but, heaven
and earth, can't a body furgit a little, and keep back a lot if they
want to?' 'What are you trying to say to me?' Harold asked, his face
pale with resentment, as he suspected the man's motive.
'Say to you? Nothin', only that I'll give five thousand dollars down to
the chap whose testimony gits me off and flings old Wilson.'
'Mr. Peterkin,' Harold said, looking the old wretch full in the face,
'if you are trying to bribe me, let me tell you at once that I am not to
be bought. I shall not volunteer information, but shall answer
truthfully whatever is asked me.'
'Go to thunder, then! I always knew you were a bad aig,' Peterkin
roared; and as there was nothing to be made from Harold, he changed his
seat to try his tactics elsewhere.
Left to himself, Harold had time to think of the diamonds, which,
indeed, had not been absent from his thoughts a moment, since Jerrie
gave them to him. They were closely buttoned in his coat pocket, where
they burned like fire, as he wondered where and how Jerrie had found
them.
'In the Tramp House it must have been,' he said to himself; 'but who put
them there, and how did she chance to find them, and why did she look so
wild and excited, so like a crazy person, when she gave them to me,
bidding me let no one see them?'
These questions he could not answer, and his brain was all in a whirl
when the train reached Springfield, and, with the others, he registered
himself at the hotel. Suddenly, like a gleam of lightning seen through a
rift of clouds, there came back to him, with a horrible distinctness,
the words the child Jerry had spoken to him that day years ago, when he
had walked homeward with her through the leafy woods from the Park
House, where he had been questioned so closely by Mrs. Tracy with regard
to her diamonds and what he had been doing in the house on the morning
of their disappearance.
'I know where those diamonds are, but I shan't tell while there is such
a fuss,' she had said, and in his abstraction he had scarcely noticed it
then, but it came back to him now with fearful significance, making him
sick, and faint, and cold, although the great drops of sweat stood
thickly upon his lips and under his hair, as, after the gas was lighted,
he sat alone in a little reception-room opening from one of the parlors.
Did Jerrie know where they were, and had she known all the time and not
spoken? And, if so, was she not guilty as an accessory, at least in
trying to shield another? For that she took them herself he never for a
moment dreamed. It was some one else, and she knew and did not tell. He
was certain of it now, as every incident connected with her strange
sickness came back to him, when she seemed to be doing penance for
another's fault. She had called herself an accessory, and that was what
she was, or rather what the world would call her, if it knew. To him she
was Jerrie, the girl he loved, and he would defend her to the bitter
end, no matter how culpable she had been in keeping silence so long.
But who took them! That was the question puzzling him so much as he sat
thinking with his head bent down, and so absorbed that he did not hear a
step in the adjoining room, or know that Peterkin had seated himself
just where a large mirror showed him distinctly the young man in the
next room, whom he recognized at once, though Harold never moved for a
few moments or lifted his head.
At last, however, he unbuttoned his coat and after glancing cautiously
around to make sure no one was near, he took the box from his pocket,
and holding the stones to the light examined them carefully, taking in
his hand first the ear-rings and then the pin, and holding them in such
a way that two or three times they flashed directly in the eyes of the
cruel man watching him.
'Yes, they are Mrs. Tracy's diamonds; there can be no mistake,' he
whispered, just as he became conscious that there was some one in the
door looking at him.
Quick as thought he put the box out of sight just as Peterkin's voice,
exultant and hateful, cried out:
'Hallo, Mr. Prayer-book! your piety won't let you keep back a darned
thing you know agin me, but it lets you have in your possession diamonds
which I'd eenamost sware was them stones Miss Tracy lost years ago and
suspected you of takin. I know the box anyway, I heard it described so
often, and I b'lieve I know them diamonds. I seen 'em in the
lookin'-glass, settin' in t'other room, and seen you look all round like
a thief afore you opened 'em. So, fork over, and mebby you can give me
back May Jane's pin you stole at the party the night Mr. Arthur came
home. Fork over, I say!'
Too much astonished at first to speak, Harold stood staring at the man
who had attacked him so brutally, while his hand closed tightly over the
diamonds in his pocket, as if fearing they might be wrenched from him by
force.
'Will you fork over, or shall I call the perlice?' Peterkin asked.
'Call the police as soon as you like,' Harold replied, 'but I shall not
give you the diamonds.'
'Then you own that you've got 'em! That's half the battle!' Peterkin
said, coming up close to him, and looking at him with a meaning smile
more detestable than any menace could have been. 'I know you've got 'em,
and I can run you if I try, and then what will your doxie think of you!
Will she refuse my Bill for a thief, and treat me as if I was dirt?'
'What do you mean, sir?' Harold demanded, feeling intuitively that by
his _doxie_ Jerrie was meant, and feeling a great horror, too, lest by
some means Jerrie's name should be mixed up with the affair before she
had a chance to explain.
The reference to Billy was a puzzle, but Peterkin did not leave him in
doubt.
'I mean that you think yourself very fine, and always have, and that are
girl of the carpet-bag thinks herself fine, too, and refused my Bill for
you, who hain't a cent in the world. I seen it in her face when I
twitted her on it, and she riz up agin me like a catamount. But I'll be
even with you both yit. I've got you in my power, young man, but--' and
here he came a step or two nearer to Harold, and dropping his voice to a
whisper said: 'I sha'n't do nothin', nor say nothin' till you've gin
your evidence, and if you hold your tongue I will. You tickle me, and
I'll tickle you! see!'
Harold was too indignant to reply, and feeling that he was degrading
himself every moment he spent in the presence of that man, he left the
room without a word, and went to his own apartment, but not to sleep,
for never had he spent so wretched a night as that which followed his
interview with Peterkin. Of what the man could do to him, he had no
fear. His anxiety was all for Jerrie. Where did she find the diamonds,
and for whom did she keep silence so long? and what would be said of
the act when it was known, as it might be, though not from him?
Two or three times he arose and lighted the gas, examined the diamonds
carefully to see if there were not some mistake. But there could be
none. He had seen them on the lady's person and had heard them described
so accurately that he could not be mistaken; and then the box was the
same he had once seen when Jack took him to his mother's room to show
him what Uncle Arthur had brought. That was a tortoise shell, of an oval
shape, lined with blue satin, and this was a tortoise shell, oval
shaped, and lined with blue satin. Harold felt, when at last the
daylight shone into his room, that if it had tarried a moment longer he
must have gone mad. He was very white and haggard, and there were dark
rings under his eyes, when he went down to the office, where the first
person he met was Billy, who also looked pale and worn, with a different
expression upon his face from anything Harold had ever seen before. It
was as if all life and hope had gone, leaving him nothing now to care
for. In his anxiety and worry about the diamonds Harold had scarcely
given a thought to what Peterkin had said of Jerrie's refusal of Billy,
for it seemed so improbable that the latter would presume to offer
himself to her; but at sight of Billy's face it came back to him with a
throb of pity for the man, and a thrill of joy for himself for whom
Peterkin had said his son was rejected.
'Does Billy know of the diamonds, I wonder?' he thought.
As if to answer the question in the negative, Billy came quickly
forward, and offering his hand, bade Harold good-morning, and then
motioning him to a seat, took one beside him, and began:
'I'm awful sorry, Hal, th-that you are mix-mixed up in th-this but I sup
suppose you m-must t-tell the truth.'
'Yes, I must tell the truth, Harold said.'
'Fa-father will be so m-mad,' Billy continued. 'I wi-wish I could
t-t-testify f-for you, bu-but I can't. You were th-there, I wa-wan't,
and all I know fa-father told me; bu-but d don't volunteer information.'
'No,' Harold said, slowly, wishing that the ocean were rolling between
him and this detestable suit.
Once he resolved to go to Judge St. Claire, deliver up the diamonds, and
tell him all he knew about them, but this would be bringing Jerrie into
the matter, and so he changed his mind and wondered aimlessly about the
town until it was time for him to appear at the court-house, where a
crowd was gathering. It was late before the suit known as _Wilson vs.
Peterkin_ was called, and later still when Harold took the stand.
White and trembling, so that both his hands and his knees were shaking
visibly, he seemed more like a criminal than a witness, he was so
agitated and pre-occupied, too, it would seem, for at first his answers
were given at random, as if he hardly knew what he was saying; nor did
he, for over and beyond the sea of long faces confronting him, Judge St.
Claire's wondering and curious--Billy's wondering, too--Wilson's
disappointed and surprised, and Peterkin's threatening and exultant by
turns--he saw only Jerrie coming to him in the lane and asking him to
keep the diamonds for her--saw her, too, away back years ago up in the
little low room, with her fever-stained cheeks and shorn head, talking
the strangest things of prisons, and substitutes, and accessories, and
assuring some one that she would never tell, and was going for him, if
necessary.
Who was that man? Where was he now? and why had he imposed this terrible
secret upon Jerrie?
These were the thoughts crowding through his brain while he was being
questioned as to what he knew of the agreement between the plaintiff and
defendant while in the office of the latter. Once a thought of Maude
crossed his mind with a keen pang of regret, as he remembered the lovely
face which had smiled so fondly upon him, mistaking his meaning utterly,
and appropriating to herself the love he was trying to tell her was
another's. And with thoughts of Maude there came a thought of Arthur,
the very first which Harold had given him, Arthur, the crazy man, who
himself had hidden the diamonds and for whom Jerrie was ready to
sacrifice so much. It was clear as daylight to him now, the anxiety and
stain were over, and those who were watching him so intently as he gave
his answers at random, with the sweat pouring like rain down his face,
were electrified at the start he gave as he came to himself and realized
for the first time where he was, and why he was there. Arthur would
never see Jerrie wronged. _She_ was safe, and with this load lifted from
him, he gave his whole attention to the business on hand, answering the
questions now clearly and distinctly.
When at last the lawyer said to him, 'Repeat what you can remember of
the conversation which took place between the plaintiff and the
defendant on the morning of ----, 18--,' he gave one sorry look at poor
Billy, who was the picture of shame and confusion, and then, in a clear,
distinct voice, which filled every corner of the room, told what he had
heard said in his presence, and what he knew of the transaction, proving
conclusively that the plaintiff was right and Peterkin a rascal, and
this in the face of the man who had asked him not to _blab_ and who
shook his fist at him threateningly as the narrative went on.
'Would you believe the defendant under oath?' was asked at the close,
and Harold answered, promptly:
'Under oath--yes.'
'Would you, if not under oath?'
'If an untruth would be to his advantage, no,' and then Harold was
through.
As he stepped down from the witness stand old Peterkin arose, so angry
that at first he could scarcely articulate his words.
'You dog! you liar! you thief! he screamed; 'to stand there and lie so
about me! I'll teach you--I'll show 'em what you are. If there's a
perlice here, I call on 'em to arrest this feller for them diamonds of
Miss Tracy's! They are in his pocket--or was last night. I seen 'em
myself, and he dassent deny it.'
By this time the court-house was in wild confusion, as the spectators
arose from their seats and pressed forward to where Peterkin stood
denouncing Harold, who was white as ashes, and looked as if he were
going to faint, as Billy hastened to his side, whispering:
'Lean on me, and I will get you out of this. Father is mad.'
But order was soon restored, though not until Peterkin had yelled again,
as Harold was leaving the room:
'Search him, I tell you! Don't let him escape! He's got 'em in his
pocket--Miss Tracy's diamonds! Lord of heavens! don't you remember the
row there was about 'em years ago?'
Of what followed during the next hour Harold knew very little. There
was a crowd around him, and cries of 'He is going to faint!' while
Billy's stammering voice called pleadingly, 'St-stand back, ca-can't
you, and gi-give him air.'
Then, a deluge of water in his face; then a great darkness and the
voices sounded a long way off, and he felt so tired and sleepy, and
thought of Jerry, and Maude, and lived over again the scene in the
Tramp-House, when he found the former in the bag, and felt her little
fat arms around his neck as he staggered with her through the snow,
wondering why she was so heavy, and why her feet were dragging on the
ground. When he came more fully to himself, he was in a little room in
the court-house, and Billy's arm was lying protectingly across his
shoulder, while Billy's father was bellowing like a bull:
'Be you goin' to let him go! Ain't you goin' to git a writ and arrest
him! Why don't you handcuff him, somebody? And you, Bill, be you a fool
to stan' there a huggin' him as if he was a gal! What do you mean?'
'Ha-Hal is my fr-friend, father. He never to-took the diamonds,' Billy
answered, sadly, while Judge St. Claire, who had the box of jewels in
his hand and was looking very anxious, turned to the angry man clamoring
so loudly for a _writ_ and said, sternly:
'Even if Harold took the diamonds--which he did not, I am certain of
that--there is some mistake which he will explain; but if he took them,
it is too late to arrest him. A theft commited ten years ago cannot be
punished now.'
'May the Lord give you sense,' Peterkin rejoined, with a derisive laugh.
'Don't tell me that a body can't be punished for stealin' diamonds ef
'twas done a hundred years ago,'
'But it is true, nevertheless,' the judge replied.
Turning to another lawyer who was standing near, Peterkin asked:
'Is that so, square? Is it so writ? Is that the law?'
'That is the law,' was the response.
'Wall, I'll be condumbed, if that don't beat all!' Peterkin exclaimed.
'Can't be sent to prison! I swow! There ain't no law or justice for
nobody but _me_, and I must be kicked to the wall! I'll give up, and
won't try to be nobody, I vurm!' And as he talked he walked away to
ruminate upon the injustice of the law which could not touch Harold
Hastings, but could throw its broad arms tightly around himself.
Meanwhile the Judge had ordered a carriage and taken Harold with him to
his private room in the hotel, where the hardest part for Hal was yet to
come.
'Now, my boy,' the judge said, after he had made Harold lie down upon
the couch and had locked the door, 'now, tell me all about it. How came
you by the diamond?'
It was such a pitiful, pleading, agonized face which lifted itself from
the cushion and looked at Judge St. Claire, as Harold began:
'I cannot tell you now--I must not? but by and by perhaps I can. They
were handed to me to keep by some one, just for a little while. I cannot
tell you who it was. I think I would die sooner than do it. Certainly I
would rather go to prison, as Peterkin wishes me to.'
There was a thoughtful, perplexed look on the judge's face as he said:
'This is very strange, Harold, that you cannot tell who gave them to
you, and with some people will be construed against you.'
'Yes, I know it; but I would rather bear it than have that person's name
brought in question,' was Harold's reply.
'Do you think that person took them?' the judge asked.
'No, a thousand times, no!' and Harold leaped to his feet and began to
pace the floor hurriedly. 'They never took them, never; I'd swear to
that with my life. Don't talk any more about it, please; I can't bear
it. I have gone through so much to-day, and last night I never slept a
wink. Oh, I am so tired!' and with a groan he threw himself again upon
the couch, and, closing his eyes, dropped almost instantly into a heavy
slumber, from which the judge did not rouse him until after dinner, when
he ordered some refreshments sent to his room, and himself awoke the
young man, whose face looked pinched, and white, and haggard, and who
could only swallow a cup of coffee and a part of a biscuit.
'I am so tired,' he kept repeating; 'but I shall be better in the
morning;' and long before the night train had come he was in bed
sleeping off the effects of the day's excitement.
The next morning when he went down to the office he was surprised and
bewildered at the crowd which gathered around him--the friends who had
came on the train to stand by and defend him, if necessary; and as the
home faces he had known all his life looked kindly into his, and the
familiar voices of his boyhood told him of sympathy for and faith in
him, while hand after hand took his in a friendly clasp, that of Dick
St. Claire clinging to his with a grasp which said plainer than words
could have done: 'I believe in you, Hal, and am so sorry for you,' the
tension of his nerves gave way entirely, and, sinking down in their
midst, he cried like a child when freed from some terrible danger.
He had not thought before that he cared for himself what people said,
but he knew now that he did, and this assurance of confidence from his
friends unnerved him for a time; then, dashing away his tears and
lifting up his face, on which his old winning smile was breaking, he
said:
'Excuse me for this weakness; only girls should cry, but I have borne so
much, and your coming was such a surprise. Thank you all. I cannot say
what I feel. I should cry again if I did.'
'Never mind, old boy,' Dick's cheery voice called out. 'We know what you
would say. We came to help you, just a few of us; but if anything had
really happened to you, why, all Shannondale would have turned out to
the rescue.'
'Thank you, Dick,' Harold said, the tears starting again; then, as his
eye fell for the first time upon Tom, he exclaimed, with a glad ring in
his voice, 'and you, too, Tom!'
'Yes, I thought I'd come with the crowd and see the fun,' Tom answered,
indifferently, as he walked away by himself.
Tom had said very little, on the train, or after they had reached the
hotel, but no one had listened with more eagerness to every detail of
the matter than he had done, and all that morning he was busy gathering
up every item of information, and listening to the guesses as to who the
person could be who gave the diamonds to Harold.
The jewels had been identified by his father and by himself, although an
identification was scarcely necessary as Harold had distinctly said:
'They are the Tracy diamonds, and the person who gave them, to me said
so.'
But who was the person? That was the question puzzling the heads of all
the Shannondale people as the morning wore on, and each went where he
liked. At last, toward noon, Tom found himself near Harold in front of
the court-house, and going up to him, said:
'Hal, I wan't to talk to you a little while.'
'Yes,' Hal said, assentingly, and selecting out a retired corner, Tom
began:
'Hal, I've never shown any great liking for you, and I don't s'pose I
have any, but I don't like to see a man kicked for nothing, and so I
came over with the rest.'
'Thank you, Tom,' Harold replied, 'I don't think you ever did like me,
and I don't think I cared if you didn't, but I'm glad you came. Is that
all you wished to say to me?'
'So,' Tom answered. 'Jerrie is very sick--'
'Jerrie! Jerrie sick! Oh, Tom!'
It was a cry of almost despair as Harold thought, 'What if she should
die and the people never know.'
'She had an awful headache when you left her in the lane, and I walked
home with her, and the next morning she was raving mad--kind of a brain
fever, I guess.'
Harold was stupefied, but he managed to ask:
'Does she talk much? What does she say?'
There was alarm in his voice, which the sagacious Tom detected at once,
and, strengthened in his suspicion, he replied:
'Nothing about the diamonds, and the Lord knows I hope she won't.'
'What do you mean!' Harold asked, in a frightened tone.
'Don't you worry,' Tom replied. 'I wouldn't harm Jerrie any more than
you would, but--Well, Hal, you are a trump! Yes, you are, to hold your
tongue and let some think you are the culprit. Hal, Jerrie gave you the
diamonds. I saw her do it in the lane as I came up to you. I did not
think of it at the time, but afterward it came to me that you took
something from her and slipped it into your pocket, and that you both
looked scared when you saw me. Jerrie was abstracted and queer all the
way to the house, and had a bruise on her head, and she keeps talking of
the Tramp House and Peterkin, who, she says, dealt the blow. I went to
the Tramp House, and found the old table on the floor, with three of the
legs on it; the fourth I couldn't find. I thought at first that the old
wretch had quarreled with her about you on account of the suit, and she
had squared up to him, and he had struck her; but now I believe _he_ had
the diamonds, and she got them from him in some way, and he struck her
with the missing table-leg. If you say so, I'll have him arrested.'
Tom had told his story rapidly, while Harold listened breathlessly,
until he suggested the arrest of Peterkin, when he exclaimed:
'No, no, Tom. No; don't you see that would mix Jerrie's name up with the
diamonds, and that must not be. She must not be mentioned in connection
with them until she speaks for herself; and, besides, I do not believe
it was Peterkin who took them. It might have been your Uncle Arthur.'
'Uncle Arthur?' Tom said, indignantly. 'Why, he gave them to mother.'
'I know he did,' Harold continued; 'but in a crazy fit he might have
taken them away and secreted them and then forgotten it, and Jerrie
might have known it, and not been able to find them till now. Many
things go to prove that;' and very briefly Harold repeated some
incidents connected with Jerrie's illness when she was a child.
'That looks like it, certainly,' Tom said; 'but I am awfully loth to
give up arresting the brute, and believe I shall do it yet for assault
and battery. He certainly struck her. You will see for yourself the lump
on her head.'
So saying Tom arose to go away, but before he went made a remark quite
characteristic of him and his feeling for Harold, to whom he said, with
a laugh:
'Don't for thunder's sake, think us a kind of a Damon and Pythias twins,
because I've joined hands with you against Peterkin and for Jerrie.
Herod and Pilate, you know, became friends, but I guess at heart they
were Pilate and Herod still.'
'No danger of my presuming at all upon your friendship for myself,
though I thank you for your interest in Jerrie,' Harold replied.
Then the two separated, Tom going his way and Harold his, until it was
time for the afternoon train which was to take them home.
The suit had gone against Peterkin, and it was in a towering rage that
he stood in the long depot, denouncing everybody, and swearing he would
sell out Lubbertoo and every dumbed thing he owned in Shannondale and
take his money away, 'and then see how they'd git along without his
capital to boost 'em.' At Harold he would not even look, for his
testimony had been the most damaging of all, and he frowned savagely
when on entering the car he saw his son in the same seat with him,
talking in low, earnest tones, while Harold was evidently listening to
him with interest. Small as he was and mean in personal appearance,
there was more of true manhood in Billy's finger than in his father's
whole body. The suit had been a pain and trouble to Billy, from
beginning to end, for he knew his father was in the wrong, and he bore
no malice toward Harold for his part in it, and when the diamonds came
up, and his father was clamoring for a writ, he was the first to declare
Harold's innocence and to say he would go his bail. Now, there was in
his mind another plan by which to benefit his friend, and rival,
too--for Billy knew he was that; and the heart of the little man ached
with a bitter pain and sense of loss whenever he thought of Jerrie, and
lived over again the scene under the butternut tree by the river, when
her blue eyes had smiled so kindly upon him and her hands had touched
his, even while she was breaking his heart. When Billy reached his
majority his father had given him $100,000, and thus he had business of
his own to transact, and a part of this was just now centered in
Washington Territory, where, in Tacoma, on Puget Sound, he owned real
estate and had dealings with several parties. To attend to this an agent
was needed for a while, and he said to himself;
'I'll offer it to Hal, with such a salary that he cannot refuse it; that
will get him out of the way until this thing blows over.'
Billy knew perfectly well that although everybody said Harold was
innocent and that nine-tenths believed it, there would still be a few in
Shannondale--the scum whose opinions his father's money controlled--who,
without exactly saying they doubted him, would make it unpleasant for
him in many ways; and from this he would save him by sending him to
Tacoma at once, and thus getting him out of the way of any
unpleasantness which might arise from his father's persecutions or those
of his clan. It was this which he was proposing to Harold, who at once
thought favorably of it--not because he wished to escape from the
public, he said, but because of the pay offered, and which seemed to him
far more than his services would be worth.
'You are a noble fellow, Billy,' he said. 'I'll think of the plan, and
let you know after I've seen Jerrie and Judge St. Claire.'
'A-all ri-right; he'll a-advise you to go,' Billy said, as they arose to
leave the car, followed by Peterkin, who had been engaged in a fierce
altercation with Tom, who had accused him of having struck Jerrie, and
threatened to have him arrested for assault and battery the moment they
reached Shannondale.
'Thunder and lightning and guns' old Peterkin exclaimed, while the
spittle flew from his mouth like the spray from Niagara. 'I assault and
batter Jerry Crawford!--a gal! What do you take me for, young man? I'm a
gentleman, I be, if I ain't a Tracy; and I never salted nor battered
nobody, and she'll tell you so herself. Heavens and earth! this is the
way 'twas,' and Peterkin shook from his head to his feet--for, like most
men who clamor so loudly for the law, he had a mortal terror of it for
himself, and Tom's threatening looks and words made him afraid. 'This is
how 'twas. I found her in the Tramp-House, and I was all-fired mad at
her about somethin'--I shan't tell what, for Bill would kill me; but I
pitched into her right and left; and, by gum, she pitched into me, so
that for a spell it was nip-and-tuck betwixt us; and, by George, if she
didn't order me out of the Tramp-House, and said it was her'n; and I'll
be dumbed if I don't believe she'd av put me out, too, body and bones,
if I hadn't gone. She was just like a tiger; and, I swan, I was kinder
feared on her, and backed out with a kinder flourish of my fist on that
darned old rotten table, which went all to smash; and that's all I know.
You don't call that 'sault and batter, do you?'
Tom could not say that he did, but he replied:
'That's your version of it. Jerrie may have another, and her friends
ain't going to have her abused by a chap like you; and my advice is that
you hold your tongue, both about her and Harold. It will he better for
you. Do you understand?'
'You bet!' Peterkin said, with a meaning nod, breathing a little more
freely as he caught sight of the highest tower of _Lubbertoo_, and more
freely still when he arrived at the station, where he was met by his
coat-of-arms carriage, instead of a writ, and was suffered to go
peaceably home, a disappointed, if not a better man.
CHAPTER XLIII.
HAROLD AND JERRIE.
The news which so electrified all Shannondale was slow in reaching Mrs.
Crawford, but it did reach her at last, crushing and overwhelming her
with a sense of shame and anguish, until as the day wore on, Grace
Atherton, and Mrs. St. Claire, and Nina, and many others came to
reassure her, and to say that it was all a mistake, which would be soon
cleared up.
Thus comforted and consoled, she tried to be calm, and wait patiently
for the train. But there was a great pity for her boy in her heart as
she sat by Jerrie's bedside and watched her in all her varying moods,
now perfectly quiet, with her wide open eyes staring up at the ceiling
as if she were seeing something there, now talking of Peterkin, and the
Tramp House, and the table, and the blow, and again of the bag, which
she said was lost, and which her grandmother must find.
Thinking she meant the carpet bag, Mrs. Crawford brought that to her,
but she tossed it aside impatiently saying:
'No, no; the other one, which tells it all. Where is it! I must have
lost it. Find it, find it. To be so near, and yet so far. What did it
say? Why can't I think? Am I like Mr. Arthur--crazy, like him?'
Mrs. Crawford thought her crazier than Arthur, and waited still more
impatiently for Harold, until she heard his step outside, and knew that
he had come.
'Harold!'
'Grandma!' was all they said for a moment while the poor old lady was
sobbing on his neck, and then he comforted her as best he could,
telling her that it was all over now--that no one but Peterkin had
accused him--that everybody was ready to defend him, and that after a
little he could explain everything.
'And now I must see Jerrie,' he continued, starting for the stairs, and
glad that his grandmother did not attempt to follow him.
Jerrie had heard his voice, and had raised herself in bed, and as he
came in, met him with the question:
'Have you brought them? Has any one seen them?'
The strange light in her eyes should have told Harold how utterly
incapable she was of giving any rational answers to his questions, but
he did not think of that, and instead of trying to quiet her, he plunged
at once into the subject she had broached:
'Do you mean the diamonds?' he asked.
'Yes,' she replied, 'the diamonds! the diamonds! Where are they?'
'Mrs. Tracy has them by this time,' Harold replied.
'Mrs. Tracy!' Jerrie exclaimed. 'What has she to do with them? They are
not hers. They are mine--they are mine! Bring them to me--bring them to
me.'
She was terribly excited, and for a time Harold bent all his energies to
soothe her, and at last when from sheer exhaustion she became quiet he
said to her:
'Jerrie, where did you find the diamonds?'
She looked at him curiously, but made no reply, and he continued:
'You must tell me where you found them: it is necessary I should know.'
Still she did not reply, but stared at him, as if not fully
comprehending what he meant.
'Jerrie,' he said again, 'do you love me?'
Quickly her eyes filled with tears, and she replied:
'Love you, Harold! Yes, more than you ever dreamed of; more than you
love me.'
Instantly Harold had his arms around her, for she had risen to a sitting
posture, and pillowing her head upon his breast, he said:
'No, darling, that is impossible, for I love you better than my life,'
and his lips pressed hers passionately. He felt that this was their
betrothal, for he did not take into consideration the state of her mind;
but she undeceived him quickly, for although she kissed him back, she
said, with a tinge of sarcasm in her voice:
'Aren't you afraid they will see you?'
'Who are they?' he asked, and she replied
'The people, and the Harvard boys and Maude.'
He did not know at all what she meant, but at the mention of Maude he
groaned involuntarily, as the white face came up before him again and
the eyes looked into his, fuller far of love and tenderness than those
confronting him so steadily, with no consciousness of his real meaning
in them.
'Those diamonds have caused me a great deal of trouble,' he began again,
'and will cause me more unless you tell me where you found them. Try and
think. Was it in the Tramp House?'
That started her at once, and she began to rave of the Tramp House, and
the rat-hole, and the table, and Peterkin, who dealt the blow. The
bruise on her head had not proved so serious as was at first feared, and
with her tangled hair falling over her face Harold had not noticed it.
But he looked at it now and questioned her of it, and asking if Peterkin
had struck her there.
'No,' she said, and began the senseless babbling of rat-holes, and
table-legs and bags, and diamonds until Harold became alarmed and went
for his grandmother.
There was nothing to be learned from Jerrie in her present condition,
and so Harold started for the Tramp House to see what that would tell
him. The table was still upon the floor, with the three legs piled upon
it, while the fourth one was missing. But Harold found it at last; for,
remembering what Jerrie had said of the rat-hole, he investigated that
spot, and from its enlarged appearance drew his own conclusion. Jerrie
had found the diamonds there; he had no doubt of it, and he told Tom
Tracy so; for, as if there was a fascination about the place for him,
Tom appeared in the door-way just as Harold was leaving it. Sitting down
upon the bench where Jerrie had sat that day when Peterkin attacked her,
the two young men who had been enemies all their lives, but who were now
drawn together by a common sympathy and love for the same girl, talked
the matter over again, each arriving at the same theory as the most
probable one they could accept.
'Arthur, in a crazy fit, had secreted the diamonds, and Jerrie knew it,
but possibly not where he had put them. This accounted for her strange
sickness when a child, while her finding them later on, added to other
causes, would account for her sickness now. Peterkin owns that he was
blowing her up for something, and that he knocked the table down with
his fist, but he swears he didn't touch her,' Tom said, repeating in
substance all Peterkin had said to him in the train when shaking with
fear of a _writ_.
'And do you still mean to keep silent with regard to Jerrie?' Tom asked.
'Yes,' Harold replied; 'her name must not be mentioned in connection
with the diamonds. I can't have the slightest breath of suspicion
touching Jerrie, _my sister_.'
'Sister be hanged!' Tom began savagely, then checked himself, and added
with a sneering laugh: 'Don't try to deceive me, Hal, with your sister
business. You love Jerrie, and she loves you, and that is one reason why
I hate you, or shall, when this miserable business is cleared up. Just
now we must pull together and find out where she found the diamonds, and
who put them there. To write to Uncle Arthur would do no good, though
seeing him might; the last we heard he was thinking of taking the coast
voyage from San Francisco to Tacoma.'
'Tom,' Harold exclaimed, with great energy, as he sprang to his feet,
'that decides me;' and then he told of the offer Billy had made him on
the car. 'When I saw how sick Jerrie was, I made up my mind not to
accept it, although I need the money badly. But now, if Jerrie gets no
worse, I shall start for Tacoma in a few days and shall find your uncle
Arthur, if he is to be found.'
It was growing dark when the two young men finally emerged from the
house and stood for a moment outside, while Harold inquired for Maude.
'She is not very well, that's a fact,' Tom said, gloomily; 'and no
wonder, when mother keeps her cooped up in one room, without enough
fresh air, and lets nobody see her except the family and the doctor, for
fear they will excite her. She knows nothing about the diamonds, nor
that Jerrie is sick. I did tell her, though, that you had come home;
and, by Jove! I pretty near forgot it. She wants to see you bad; but,
Lord! mother won't let you in. No use to try. She's like a she-wolf
guarding its cub. Good-night.'
And Tom walked away, while Harold went back to the cottage, where he
found Jerrie sleeping very quietly, with a look on her face so like that
it had worn in her babyhood, when he called her his little girl, that he
involuntarily stooped down and kissed it as one would kiss a beautiful
baby.
The next morning Jerrie was very restless, and talked wildly of the
Tramp House and the diamonds, insisting that they were hers and must be
brought to her.
'Why did you tell her about them?' Mrs. Crawford asked, reproachfully.
But Harold did not reply, his mind was so torn with distracting doubts
as to whether he ought to take the western trip or not.
If he went, he must go at once, and to leave Jerrie in her present state
seemed impossible. He would consult the physician first, and Judge St.
Claire next. The doctor gave it as his opinion that Jerrie was in no
danger, if she were only kept quiet. She had taken a severe cold and
overtaxed her strength, while most likely she had inherited from some
one a tendency to be flighty when anything was the matter, and he
thought Harold might venture to leave her.
'Yes, I'd go if I were you,' he added, looking intently at the young
man; for, like Billy, he too thought it might be pleasanter for him to
be out of the way for a time, although he did not say so.
And this was the view the judge took of it, after a few moments'
conversation. His first question had been:
'Well, my boy, can you tell me now who gave them to you?'
'No, I can't,' was Harold's reply; and then, acting upon a sudden
impulse, he burst out impetuously: 'Yes, I will tell you, for I can
trust you, and I want your advice so badly.'
So he repeated rapidly all he knew, and his theory with regard to
Arthur, whom he wished so much to find, and of Billy's proposition that
he should go on his business to Tacoma. For a few moments the judge
seemed perplexed and undecided, for he was balancing in his mind the
pros and cons for going from the people, or staying to face them. If he
stayed he might have some unpleasant things to bear and hear, for there
were those who would talk, in spite of their protestations of the young
man's innocence; while to go might look like running away from the
storm, with the matter unexplained. On the whole, however, he decided
that it was better to go.
'Jerrie's interests are safe with me,' he said, 'and by the time you
return everything will be explained; but find Mr. Tracy as soon as
possible. I am inclined to think your theory with regard to him
correct.'
So it was decided that Harold should go, and the next night was
appointed for him to start. Had he known that Peterkin, and even Mrs.
Tracy, were each in his or her own way insinuating that he was running
from public opinion, nothing could have induced him to leave. But he did
not know it, and went about his preparations with as brave a heart as he
could command under the circumstances. Jerrie was more quiet now, though
every effort on his part to learn anything from her concerning the
diamonds brought on a fit of raving, when she would insist that the
jewels were hers, and must be brought to her at once.
'But you told me they were Mrs. Tracy's,' he said to her once.
With a cunning gleam in her eyes, she replied:
'So they are, or were; but oh, how little you know!'
And this was all he could get from her.
He told her he was going away, but that did not seem to affect her, and
she only began to talk of Maude, who, she said, must not be harmed.
'Have you seen her? have you seen her?' she kept saying.
'Not yet,' he replied, 'but I am going to say good-bye;' and on the day
of his departure he went to the Park House and asked if he could see
Maude.
'Of course not,' was Mrs. Tracy's prompt reply, when the request was
taken to her. 'No one sees her, and I certainly shall not allow him to
enter her room.'
'But, Dolly,' Frank began, protestingly, but was cut short by the lady,
who said:
'You needn't "Dolly" me, or try to take his part, either. I have my
opinion, and always shall. He cannot see Maude, and you may tell him
so,' turning now to the servant who had brought Harold's message, and
who softened it as much as possible.
Harold had half expected a refusal, and was prepared for it. Taking a
card from his pocket, he wrote upon it:
'DEAR MAUDE,--I am going away for a few weeks, and am very sorry
that I cannot see you; but your mother knows best, of course, and I
must not do anything to make you worse. I shall think of you very
often, and hope to find you much better when I return.
'HAROLD.'
'Will you give this to her?' he said to the girl, who answered that she
would, and who, of course, read every word before she took it to her
young mistress, late in the afternoon, while the family were at dinner,
and she was left in charge of the invalid.
'Mr. Hastings sent you this,' she said, handing the card to Maude, into
whose face the bright color rushed, but left it instantly as she read
the few hurried lines.
'Going away! Gone! and I didn't see him!' she exclaimed, regardless of
consequences. 'And mother did it. I know she did. I _will_ talk till I
spit blood; then see what she'll say!' she continued, as the frightened
girl tried to stop her, and as she could not, ran for Mrs. Tracy, who
came in much alarm, asking what was the matter.
'You sent Harold away. You didn't let him see me, and he is--'
Maude gasped, but could get no farther, for the paroxysm of coughing
which came on, together with a hemorrhage which made her so weak that
they thought her dying all night, she lay so white, and still, and
insensible, save at times when her lips moved, and her mother, bending
over her, heard her whisper:
'Send for Harold.'
But it was too late now; the train had come and gone, and taken Harold
with it, away from the girl _he_ loved and from, the girls who loved him
so devotedly, and both of whom, for a few days after his departure, went
down very near to the gates of death, and whose first enquiry, when they
at last came back to life and consciousness, was for Harold and why he
stayed away.
CHAPTER XLIV.
JERRIE CLEARS HAROLD.
The next day two items of news went like wildfire through the little
town of Shannondale--the first, set afloat by Peterkin and helped on by
Mrs. Tracy, that Harold had run away from public opinion, which was fast
turning against him since he could not explain where he found the
diamonds; and the second, that both Maude Tracy and Jerrie Crawford were
at the point of death, which made Harold's sudden departure all the more
heinous in the eyes of his enemies; for what but conscious guilt could
have prompted him to leave his sister, who, it was said, was calling for
him with every breath, and charging him with having taken the diamonds?
Now, this was false; for although Jerrie's fever had increased rapidly
during the night, and her babbling was something terrible to hear, there
was in it no accusation of Harold, although she was constantly talking
to him, and asking for the diamonds and the bag.
'It is a pity he ever told her about them,' the doctor said, as twice
each day, morning and night, for four successive days, he came and
looked upon her fever-stained cheeks, and counted her rapid pulse, and
took her temperature, and listened to her strange talk; and then, with a
shake of his head, drove over to Tracy Park and stood by poor little
Maude's couch, and looked into her death-white face, and counted her
faint heartbeats, and tried in vain to find some word of encouragement
for the stricken man, who looked about as much like death as the young
girl so dear to him. And every morning, on his way from the cottage to
Tracy Park, the doctor saw under the pines two young men, Tom and Dick,
seated upon the iron bench each whittling a bit of pine, which one was
unconsciously fashioning into a cross and the other into a grave-stone.
Tom had found Dick there working at his cross, and, after a simple
good-morning, had sat down beside him and whittled in silence upon
another bit of wood until the doctor appeared on his way to Tracy Park.
Then the whittling ceased, and both young men arose, and, going forward,
asked how Jerrie was.
'Pretty bad. Hal oughtn't to have gone, though I told him there was no
danger. We must telegraph if she gets worse,' was the reply, as the
doctor rode on.
Tom and Dick separated, and saw no more of each other until the next
morning, when they went again, and whittled in silence under the pines
until the doctor came in sight, when the same questions were asked and
answered as on the previous day.
Billy never joined them, but sat under the butternut tree where Jerrie
had refused him, for hours and hours watching the sluggish river, and
wondering what the world would be to him if Jerrie were not in it. Had
Billy been with Tom and Dick, he could not have whittled as they did,
for all the nerve power had left his hands, which lay helplessly in his
lap, and when he walked he looked more like a withered old man than a
young one of twenty-seven.
Maude was the first to rally--her first question for Harold, her second
for Jerrie--and her father, who was with her, answered truthfully that
Harold had not returned, and that Jerrie was sick and could not come to
her. He did not say how sick, and Maude felt no alarm, but waited
patiently until Jerrie should appear. For Maude, on her brass bedstead
with its silken hangings, and every possible luxury around her, there
were hired nurses and a mother's care, with many kind inquiries, while
it would seem as if every hand in town was stretched out to Jerrie, who
was a general favorite. Flowers and fruit and delicacies of every kind
were sent to the cottage, carriage after carriage stopped before the
door, offer after offer of assistance was made to Mrs. Crawford, while
Nina and Marian Raymond were there constantly; and Billy went to
Springfield for a chair in which to wheel his sister to the cottage, for
she could not yet mount into the dog-cart; and Tom and Dick whittled on
until the cross and the grave-stone were finished, and, with a sickly
smile, Tom said to Dick:
'Would you cut Jerrie's name upon it?'
'No; oh, no!' Dick answered, with a gasp. 'She may be better to-morrow.'
When, after a few days, the crisis was past, and Jerrie's strong
constitution triumphed over the disease which had grappled with it, the
whole town wore a holiday air as the people said to each other gladly:
'Jerrie is better; Jerrie will live!'
Her recovery was rapid, and within a week after the fever left her and
she awoke to perfect consciousness, she was able to sit up a part of
every day, and had walked across the floor and read a letter from Harold
to his grandmother, full of solicitude for herself and enthusiasm for
his trip over the wild mountains and across the vast plains to the
lovely little city of Tacoma, built upon a cliff and looking seaward
over the sound.
'Dear Harold,' Jerrie whispered. 'I shall be so glad when he comes home.
Nothing can be done till then, and I am so bewildered when I try to
think.'
In her weak state, everything seemed unreal to Jerrie, except the fact
that she had found her mother--and such a mother!--and many times each
day she thanked her God who had brought her this unspeakable joy, and
asked that she might do right when the time came to act. She knew the
bag was safe, for she had climbed to the top shelf and found it just
where she had put it. But where were the diamonds? Had Harold taken them
with him? Had he told any one? Did his grandmother know anything about
them? she wondered. She tried in many ways to draw Mrs. Crawford out,
but was unsuccessful, for there were now too much pain and bitterness
connected with the diamonds for Mrs. Crawford to speak to her of them.
The poisonous breath of gossip had been at work ever since Harold went
away, quietly aided and abetted by Mrs. Tracy, who never failed to roll
her eyes and shrug her shoulders when Harold's name was mentioned, and
openly pushed on by Peterkin, until Tom Tracy went to him one day and
threatened to have him tarred and feathered and ridden on a rail, if he
ever breathed Harold's name again in connection with the diamonds.
'Wall, I swow!' was all Peterkin said, as he put an enormous quid of
tobacco in his mouth, and walked away, thinking to himself, 'Twould take
an all-fired while to scrape them tar and feathers off of me, I'm so
big, and I b'lieve the feller meant it. Them high bucks wouldn't like no
better fun than to make a spectacle of me; so I guess I'll dry up a
spell.'
But the trouble did not stop with Peterkin's talk, for a neighboring
Sunday paper, which fed its readers with all the choicest bits of
gossip, came out with an article headed 'The Tracy Diamonds,' and after
narrating the story in the most garbled and sensational manner, went on
to comment upon the young man's having run away, rather than face public
opinion, and to comment upon the law which could not touch him because
the offence was committed so long ago.
One after another, and without either knowing that the other had done
so, Tom, and Dick, and Billy, waited upon the editor of the Sunday
_News_, threatening to sue him for libel if he did not retract every
word of the offensive article in his next issue, which he did. But the
mischief was done, and the paper found its way at last to Jerrie, sent
unwittingly by Ann Eliza, who covered it over a basket of fruit and
flowers which was carried one afternoon to the cottage.
Jerrie had been down stairs several times, but was in her room when the
basket was brought to her. Raising the paper, she was about to throw it
on the floor, when her eye caught the words, 'The Tracy Diamonds,' and
with bloodless lips and wildly beating heart she read the article
through, understanding the situation perfectly, and resolving at once
how to act. It seemed to her that she was lifted above and out of
herself, she felt so strong, and light, and well, as she threw on her
bonnet and shawl, and taking the leather bag in her hand, hurried down
stairs in quest of Mrs. Crawford.
'Grandma!' she exclaimed, 'why haven't you told me about Harold, and the
suspicion resting on him, and why did you let him go until I was better,
and what are the people saying? Tell me everything.'
Jerrie would not be put off, and Mrs. Crawford told her everything she
knew, and that she herself had added to the mystery by the strange
things she had said in her delirium about the diamonds, which she
insisted were hers.
'And they are mine!' Jerrie said, while Mrs. Crawford looked at her in
alarm, for her madness had returned.
'Where are you going?' she gasped, as Jerrie turned toward the door.
'To Tracy Park, to claim my own and clear Harold!' was the reply. 'When
I come back I will tell you all, but now I cannot wait.'
'But, Jerrie, you are not strong enough to walk there, and besides they
have company this afternoon, some kind of a new-fangled card party, and
you must not go,' Mrs. Crawford said.
'I have the strength of twenty horses,' Jerrie said, 'and if they have
company, so much the better, for there will be more to hear my story.
Good-bye.'
She was off like an arrow, and went almost upon a run through the leafy
woods until the house was reached, and then she stopped a moment to take
breath and look about her. How very fair and beautiful it was, that home
of the Tracys, and Jerrie's heart beat so hard that she felt for a
moment as if she were choking to death as she sat under a maple tree and
tried to think it all over, to make sure there was no mistake. Opening
the box she took out two documents, and read them again as she had the
night she was taken sick. One was a certificate of marriage, the other
of a birth and baptism; there was no mistake.
Holding the papers in one hand and the bag in the other, she went on to
the house, from which shouts of laughter were issuing, Nina's voice, and
Marian's, and Tom's, and Dick's, and Mrs. Tracy's. Jerrie shuddered a
little when she heard that, for it brought back to her mind all the
slights she had received from that woman who was so cruel to Harold, and
the pity which had been springing up in her heart ever since she looked
up at the windows of Maude's room and thought of the white-faced girl
lying there, died out, and it was more a Nemesis than a gentle,
forgiving woman who walked boldly into the hall and entered unbidden at
the drawing-room door.
Mrs. Tracy was having a progressive euchre party that afternoon. A
friend in Boston had written her about it, and, proud to be the first to
introduce it in Shannondale, she stood, flushed and triumphant, with the
restored diamonds in her ears and at her throat, laughing merrily with
the others at Judge St. Claire, who had won the booby prize--a little
drum, as something he could beat--and who, with a perplexed look in his
face, was staring at the thing as if he did not quite get the joke.
Apart from the rest, Frank Tracy sat looking on, though with no apparent
interest in the matter. He had joined in the game because his wife told
him he must, and had borne meekly her sarcastic remarks when he trumped
her ace and ordered up on nothing. His thoughts were not with the cards,
but up stairs with Maude, who seemed to be much better, and for whom
there was constantly a prayer in his heart.
'Spare her, and I will make reparation; I will tell the truth.'
He was trying to bribe the Lord to hear him, and there was some such
thought in his mind when he saw Jerrie in the door--tall, thin, and
white from her recent sickness, with eyes which rolled, and shone, and
flashed as Arthur's did sometimes, and falling at last upon Mrs. Tracy,
where they rested with an intensity which must have drawn that lady's
notice to her, if Frank had not exclaimed, as he rose to his feet:
'Jerrie! How did you get here?'
Then all turned and looked at her, and crowded around her with
exclamations of surprise and inquiries as to how she got there.
For a moment Jerrie stood like one in a catalepsy, with no power to move
or speak, but when Mrs. Tracy came forward, and in her iciest tones said
to her: 'Good-afternoon, Miss Crawford. To what am I indebted for this
unexpected pleasure?' her faculties came back, her tongue was loosened,
and she replied in a clear voice, which rang through the room like a
bell, and was, indeed, the knell to all the lady's greatness:
'I am here to claim my own, and to clear Harold from the foul suspicion
heaped upon him--by whom, at first, I do not know, but it was helped on
by you. I have seen the paper, have heard the whole from grandma, and am
here to defend him. It was I who gave him the diamonds! It was for me he
kept silent, and let you think what you would.'
'You gave him the diamonds?' Mrs. Tracy repeated, as one by one all the
members of the party, even the judge and Tom, gathered close to her in
their astonishment. 'You gave him the diamonds! You! and have come to
confess yourself a--'
She never finished the sentence, for something in Jerrie's face
frightened her, while her husband, who had come forward, laid his hand
warningly upon her arm.
So absorbed were they all that no one saw the little white-robed girl,
who, they supposed, was lying up stairs in her room, but who at the
sound of Jerrie's voice had, in her eagerness to see her, crept down the
stairs, and now stood in the door-way opposite to Jerrie, her large,
bright eyes looking in wonder upon the scene, and her ears listening
intently to what was as new to her as it had been to Jerrie an hour ago.
'Don't give me the name you have more than once given to Harold,' Jerrie
said, as with a gesture she silenced Mrs. Tracy. 'The diamonds are mine,
not yours. Can one steal his own?'
'Yours! Your diamonds! What do you mean?' Mrs. Tracy asked.
'They were my mother's,' Jerrie replied, 'and she sent them to me.'
They all thought her crazy except Frank, to whom there had come a horrid
presentiment of the truth, and who had clutched hard his wife's arm as
she said questioningly, in a mocking, aggravating tone:
'And your mother was--?'
Then Jerrie stepped into the room, and stood in their midst like a queen
among her subjects as she answered:
'My mother was Marguerite Heinrich, of Wiesbaden, better known to you as
Gretchen; and my father is Arthur Tracy, and I am their lawful child. It
is so written here,' and she held up the papers and the bag; 'I am
Jerrie Tracy!'
CHAPTER XLV.
WHAT FOLLOWED.
'Thank God that it is out! I couldn't have borne it much longer,' leaped
involuntarily from Frank's lips.
No one heard it save Jerrie, and she scarcely heeded it then; for with
one bound, as it seemed to the petrified spectators, who divided right
and left to let her pass, she reached the opposite door-way, and
stooping over the little figure lying there so still, lifted it
tenderly, and carrying it up stairs, laid it down in the room it would
never leave again until other hands than hers carried it out and laid
it away in the Tracy lot, where only Jack and the dark woman were lying
now.
Maude had heard all Jerrie was saying, and understood it, too; and at
the words, 'I am Jerrie Tracy,' she felt an electric thrill pass over
her, like what she had experienced when watching the acting in some
great tragedy; then all was darkness, and she knew no more until Jerrie
was bending over her and she heard her mother saying:
'Leave her to me, Miss Crawford. You have done harm enough for one day.
You have killed my daughter!'
'No!' Maude cried, exerting all her strength. 'She has not hurt me. She
must not go, I want her; for if what she said is true, she is my own
cousin. Oh, Jerrie, I am so glad!' and throwing her arms around Jerrie's
neck, Maude sobbed convulsively.
As yet Maude saw only the good which had come to her, if the news were
true; the evil had not yet been presented to her, and she clung tightly
to Jerrie, who, nearly distraught herself, did not know what to do. She
knew that Mrs. Tracy looked upon her as an intruder, and possibly a
liar; but she cared little for that lady's opinion. She only thought of
Frank and what he would say.
Lifting up her head at last from the pillow where she had lain it for a
moment, while Maude's thin little hands caressed the golden hair, she
saw him standing at the foot of the bed, taller, straighter than she had
seen him in years, with a look on his face which she knew was not
adverse to herself.
'Jerrie,' he said, slowly and thickly, for something choked his speech,
'I can't tell you now all I feel, only I am glad for you and Arthur, but
gladder for myself.'
What did he mean? Jerrie wondered; while Maude's eyes sought his
questioningly, and his wife said, sharply:
'You are talking like a lunatic! Do you propose to give up so easily to
a girl's bare word! Let Jerrie prove it, before she is mistress here.'
Then into Maude's eyes there crept a look of terror and pain, and she
whispered:
'Yes, Jerrie, prove it. There were papers in your hand, and a bag, and
you said, "It is so written here." Bring the papers and read them to
us--here in this room. I can bear it. I must hear them. I must know.'
'Better let her have her way,' Frank said; and Dolly could have knocked
him down, he spoke so cheerfully; while Jerrie answered:
'I can't read them myself aloud. They are written in German.'
'But Marian can. I saw her there. Let them all come up; they will have
to know,' Maude persisted.
After a moment, during which a powerful tonic had been given to his
daughter, Frank went down to his guests, who were eagerly discussing the
strange story, which not one of them doubted in the least.
In her haste to reach Maude, Jerrie had dropped the bag and the two
papers, which Judge St. Claire picked up and held for a moment in his
hand; then passing the papers to Marian, he said:
'It can be no secret now, and Jerrie will not care. What do the papers
contain?'
Running her eyes rapidly over them, Marian said:
'The first is a certificate of marriage between Arthur Tracy and
Marguerite Heinrich, who were married October 20th, 18--, in the English
church at Wiesbaden, by the Rev. Mr. Eaton, then the officiating
clergyman. The second is a certificate of the birth and baptism of
Jerrine, daughter of Arthur and Marguerite Tracy, who was born at
Wiesbaden, January 1st, 18--, and christened January 8th, 18--, by the
Rev. Mr. Eaton.'
Then a deep silence fell upon the group, while Tom stood like one
paralyzed. He understood the situation perfectly, and knew that if
Jerrie was mistress there, he could never hope to be master.
'May as well evacuate at once,' he said at last, with an attempt to
smile as he walked slowly out of the house, which he felt was his
inheritance no longer.
Just then Frank came down, saying that Maude insisted upon knowing what
was in the papers which Marian was to read, while the others were to
come up and listen. He did not seem at all like a man who had lost
anything, but bustled about cheerily; and when the judge said to him
apologetically, 'We know the contents of two of the papers. They are
certificates of the marriage of Arthur with Gretchen, and of Jerrie's
birth. I hope you don't mind if we read them,' he answered, briskly.
'Not at all--not in the least. Arthur and Gretchen! I thought so. Where
is Tom? He must hear the papers.'
He found his son under the true where he had been sitting the morning
when Jerrie came near fainting there, and in his hand was a curious bit
of pine finished like a grave-stone--the same he had whittled under the
pines, and on which he was now carving, 'Euchred, August --, 18--.'
'This is the monument to our downfall,' he said, as his father came up
to him with something so pitiful in his face and voice that Frank gave
way suddenly, and, sitting down beside him, laid his hand upon his tall
son's head and cried for a moment like a child, while Tom's chin
quivered, and he was mortally afraid there was something like tears in
his own eyes, and he meant to be so brave and not show that he was hurt.
'I am sorry for you, my boy,' Frank said at last, 'but glad for
Jerrie--so glad--and she will not be hard on us.'
'I shall ask no favors of her. I can stand it if you can, though money
is a good thing to have.'
And then, without in the least knowing why, he thought of Ann Eliza, and
wondered how her ankle was getting along, and if he ought not to have
called upon her again.
'Marian is going to read the papers in Maude's room, and I have come for
you,' Frank said.
'I don't care to hear them,' Tom replied. 'I am satisfied that we are
beggars, and Jerrie the heiress.'
But Frank insisted, and Tom went with him to his sister's room, followed
by their friends, for whom the dinner was waiting and spoiling in the
kitchen, where as yet no hint of what was transpiring had reached, save
the fact that Maude had been down stairs and fainted. She was propped
upon pillows scarcely whiter than her face save where two crimson spots
burned brightly, and her eyes were fixed constantly upon Jerrie, who sat
beside her, holding her cold, clammy hands, which she occasionally
patted, and kissed and caressed.
'Where did you find the bag?' the judge asked; and then Jerrie narrated
the particulars of her interview with Peterkin, whose destruction of the
table had resulted in her finding the bag with the diamonds in it.
'They were mother's,' she said, the last words almost a sob, as she
turned her eyes upon Mrs. Tracy, who stood like a block of stone, with
no sympathy or credulity upon her face. 'Father bought them for her at
the same time with Mrs. Tracy's, which they are exactly like. It is so
written in her letter. And she sent them for me. They are mine and I
gave them to Harold to keep untill I could think what to do. The
diamonds are mine.'
She was still looking at Mrs. Tracy, on whom all eyes were now resting
as the precious stones flashed, and glittered, and shone in the sunlight
in the hall in all the colors of the rainbow.
For an instant the proud woman hesitated, then, quickly unclasping the
ear-rings and the pin, she laid them in Jerrie's lap.
'You are welcome to your property, if it is yours, I am sure,' she said,
and was about to leave the room.
But her husband kept her back.
'No, Dolly,' he said. 'You must stay, and hear, and know. It concerns us
all.'
As he had closed the door and stood against it she had no alternative
except to stay, but she walked to the window and stood with her back to
them all, while Marian put into English and read, in a clear, distinct
voice, and without the least hesitation, that message from the dead.
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE LETTERS.
There were four of them--two in Arthur's handwriting: one directed to
Mrs. Arthur Tracy, Wiesbaden, postmarked Liverpool; one to Margaret
Heinrich, Wiesbaden, postmarked Shannondale; one in a strange
handwriting to Arthur Tracy, if living; and one to Arthur Tracy's
friends if he were dead, or incapable of understanding it. And it was
this last which Marian read; for as Arthur was living, she felt that
with his letters strangers had nothing to do. The letter to the friends,
which had evidently been written at intervals, as the writer's strength
would permit, was as follows:
'WIESBADEN, December ----, 18--,
'To the friends of Mr. Arthur Tracy, if he is dead, or incapable of
understanding this letter, from his wife, who was Marguerite
Heinrich, and whom he always called Gretchen.
'I want to tell you about it for the sake of my little Jerrie, whom,
if her father is dead, I give to your care, praying God to deal with
you as you are good and just to her. I was seventeen when I first
saw Mr. Tracy. My father was dead. I was an only child, and my
mother kept a little fancy shop in Wiesbaden. I went to school and
learned what other girls like me learned--to read and write, and
knit and sew, and fear God and keep His commandments. People called
me pretty. I don't know that I was, but he told me so when he came
to me one day as I was knitting under a tree in the park. He had a
picture made of me as I was then, and it is on the wall, but I have
pawned it for the rent, as I have almost everything.'
'Oh, Jerrie!' Marian exclaimed at this point.
But Jerrie's face was buried in Maude's pillow and she made no response.
So Marian read on:
'He came many times, for I was always there waiting for him, I am
afraid; but when he said he loved me, and wanted me for his wife I
could not believe it, he was so grand, so like nobility, and I so
poor and plain. Then mother died suddenly--oh, so suddenly--well
to-day--dead to-morrow--with cholera, and I was left alone.
'"Gretchen we must he married now," he said to me, the night after
the funeral; and I answered him, "yes, we must be married;" and we
were, the next day, in the little English Church, by Mr. Eaton, the
pastor. You will find the certificate with the other papers. Do you
ever remember a beautiful moonlight night, when the air was soft,
and warm, and sweet with many summer flowers, and there was music in
the distance, and heaven seemed so near that you could almost touch
the blue lining which separates it from us? Well, just like that was
my life with Arthur for a few months. Oh, how I loved him, and how
he loved me! It frightened me sometimes, he was so fierce and--I
don't know what the word is--so something in his love. He never left
me a moment. He couldn't, he said, for I was his balance-wheel, and
without me he was lost. I think now he was crazy then. I know he was
afterward when he did such queer things and forgot so
often--sometimes the house we lived in, sometimes his own name, and
at last, me, his Gretchen! That was so sad, when he went away, and
stayed away for weeks, and said he had forgotten. But he was sorry,
too, and made it up, and for ten day heaven came down again so I
could touch it; then he went away and I have never seen him since.
'You must excuse me, his friends--if I stop a little while to cry;
it makes me no lonesome to think of the long years--four and
more--which have been buried with the yesterdays, under the flowers,
and under the snow, since Arthur went away and left me all alone. If
I had told him, he might have come back, he was so fond of children;
but I was not sure, and would not tell a lie, and let him go without
a hint. I wrote him once I had something to tell him when he came
which would make him glad, as it did me, and he never replied to it,
though he wrote two or three times more, and sent me money, but did
not tell me where he was, only he was being cured, he said--that was
all. In January my baby was born, and I had her christened Jerrine,
by Mr. Eaton. You will find it among the papers. Then, how I longed
for him, and waited, and watched; but he never came, and I knew he
had forgotten; but I did not doubt his love, or that he would one
day come back; and I tried to improve myself and learn what was in
books, so I could mate with him better when he came home, which he
never did; and the years went on, and my little Jerrine grew more
lovely every day. She is standing by me now, and says, "Are you
writing to him?"
'Darling Jerrie, you will be kind to her, won't you, for his sake,
and for me, too, who will be dead when you yet this?'
Jerrie was sobbing now, and Maude's arm was around her neck, while Frank
had walked to a window, and, like his wife, was looking out upon the
lawn, which he did not see for the tears which filled his eyes.
'When the money stopped,' the letter went on, 'we grew so poor,
Jerrie and I and Nannine--that is the French woman who lives with me
and whom Jerrie calls Mah-nee. She will bring my child to you when I
am dead; and oh, be kind to her, for a truer, more faithful woman
never lived. She is such a comfort to me, except when she scolds
about Arthur and calls him a _bête noire_, which he is not, as you
will see. He was shut up, I don't know where, but think it was where
they put people with bad heads, and he forget everything till he was
out, and as far as Paris on his way to America. Then he remembered
and wrote me from Liverpool such a letter--full of love and sorrow
for the past, and sent me such lovely diamonds, just like those he
had bought for his sister in America, he said--and he was going home
at such a date on the Scotia, and he wished me to join him in
Liverpool. I send the letter with this to prove that I write true.
But it was too late, for I was too weak to travel; neither could I
write to him, for he gave me no address. 'That was last September,
and I have been dying ever since, for my heart broke when I thought
of what was and what might have been could I have found him. The
money he sent me then I am saving for Nannine and Jerrie to take
them to America when I am dead. All the days and nights I prayed
that Arthur might remember and write me again, and God heard, and he
did; and five days ago I received his letter. So crazy it was, but
just as full of love and tenderness and a desire to see me. He told
me of his lovely home and the Gretchen room, where my picture is in
the window; and in case there should be no one to meet me at the
station when I arrived he sent me directions how to find Tracy Park,
and told me just what to do when I reached New York. He would come
for me himself, he said, only the sea made him so sick and he was
afraid he should forget everything if he did. But you will see in
his letter what he wrote and how fond he was of me; and if he is
alive and too crazy to understand now, tell him, when he is better,
how I loved him and prayed for him every hour that God would bring
him, at last, where I am going so soon. Nannine will take him my
Bible, with passages marked by me, and a photograph which I had
taken a year ago, and which will tell you how I looked then. Now I
am so thin and pale that Arthur would hardly know me. I send, too, a
lock of Jerrie's hair, cut when she was three weeks old. Darling
Jerrie! She is such a comfort to me, and so old and womanly for her
years! She will remember much of our life here, for she notices
everything and understands it, too, and goes over, as in a play,
what she sees and hears.
'We have been cold and hungry sometimes; but not often; the
neighbors are so kind; and when I am dead they will see that Nannine
is made ready for America, with Jerrie; and the papers, and the
diamonds, which I might have pawned when our need was greatest, but
I could not. I must save them for Jerrie, and may she wear them some
day, and many days in the years to come, when her mother is dust and
ashes in the ground, but a glorified spirit in Paradise, where I
shall watch over her, and, if I can, be with her often, and keep
myself in her mind, so that she will never forget my face or the old
home in Germany.
'God bless my little daughter, and make her a true, noble woman; and
God bless you, Arthur's friends, who read this, and incline you to
be kind and just to Jerrie, and see that she has her own; for there
must be money at Tracy Park; and if you are poor and Jerrie comes
rich, tell her from her mother to be kind to you, and give as you
have given to her. Now I must stop, I am so tired, and it is growing
dark, and Nannie has opened the stove door to let the light fall on
the paper in my lap, and Jerrie is standing by me and says, "Are you
going to God pretty soon?"
'Yes, darling, very soon--to-night, perhaps, or to-morrow, or when
He will. The air grows cold, the night is coming on, my eyes grow
dim, my head is tired. I think, yes, I think it will be to-morrow.
'Good-bye.
'GRETCHEN TRACY.'
As she finished reading Marian arose, and going up to Jerrie kissed her
lovingly and said to her in German:
'That was your mother's picture in our old home in Wiesbaden. I am so
glad for you.'
A low sob was Jerrie's reply, and then Judge St. Claire asked:
'Is that all?'
'Yes,' Marian said; 'All except Mr. Tracy's letters to Gretchen. Oh,
no,' she added; 'there is something more;' and feeling in the bag, she
drew out two small papers, one crumpled and worn, as if it had been
often referred to, the other folded neatly and tied with a white ribbon.
This Marian opened first, and found it to be a certificate, written in
English, to the effect that Mrs. Arthur Tracy, _née_ Marguerite
Heinrich, died at such a date and was buried by the Rev. Mr. Bellows,
the resident rector of the English church; the other was in Arthur's
handwriting, and the directions he had written to his wife, as to what
she was to do and how to find Tracy Park.
'Yes,' Judge St. Claire said, coming forward and taking the paper from
her hand, 'this is what the station-master saw the poor woman examining
that night in the storm. She probably dropped it into the bag without
stopping to fold it. There can be no doubt.'
Then a deep silence reigned for a moment in the room, until Mrs. Tracy,
who, all through the reading had stood like a block of granite by the
window, turned and walking swiftly up to Jerrie, said, in a bitter tone:
'Of course there is no mistake. I do not doubt that you are mistress
here, and am ready to leave at once. Shall we pack up and quit
to-night?'
'Dolly!' 'Mother!' came angrily and sternly from both Tom and Frank, and
'Oh, mamma, please,' came faintly from Maude, while Jerrie lifted up her
head, and looking steadily at the cruel woman, said:
'Why are you so hard with me? I cannot help it. I am not to blame. I
mean to do right; only wait--a little. I am so sick now--so dizzy and
blind. Oh, somebody lead me out where I can breathe. I am choking here.'
It was Tom who reached her first, and passing his arm around her, took
her into the open air and to a seat under the tree where once before she
had almost fainted, as she did now, with her head upon his shoulder, for
he put it there, and then pushed her hair back from her face as he said
lightly:
'Don't take it so hard; if we can stand it, you can!'
Then Jerrie straightened up and said:
'Oh, Tom, do you want to kill me now?'
'What do you mean?' he asked, and she replied:
'Don't you know you said under the pines that you would kill any
claimant to Tracy Park who might appear against you?'
'I remember it,' Tom said, 'but I didn't think then that the claimant
would be Jerrie, my cousin,' and he put his arm around her as he
continued: 'I can't say that I am not awfully cut up to be turned neck
and heels out of what I believed would be my own, but if it must be, I
am glad it is you who do it, for I know you'll not be hard upon us, or
let Uncle Arthur be, even if mother is so mean. Remember, Jerrie, that I
loved you and asked you to be my wife when I believed you poor and
unknown.'
Tom was very politic and was speaking good words for himself, but all
the good there was in him seemed now to be on the surface and while
inwardly rebelling at his misfortune, he felt a thrill of joy in knowing
that Jerrie was his cousin, and would not be hard upon him.
'Shall we go back to the house?' he said at last, and they went back,
meeting the people upon the piazza, where they stopped for a moment
while Jerrie's hands were shaken, and she was kissed and congratulated
that at last the mystery was cleared, and her rights restored to her.
'Mr. Arthur Tracy ought to be here,' Judge St. Claire said.
'Yes, I'd thought of that,' Tom replied, first, 'and shall telegraph him
to-morrow,'
Then they said good night, and without going in to see either Mr. or
Mrs. Tracy again, Tom and Jerry walked slowly toward the cottage,
through the leafy woods, where the trees met in graceful arches
overhead, and the moonlight fell in silver flecks upon the grass, and
the summer air was odorous and sweet with the smell of the pines and the
balm of Gilead trees scattered here and there. It was a lovely place,
and Tom thought so with a keen sense of pain, as, after leaving Jerrie
at her gate, he walked slowly back until he reached the four pines,
where he sat down to think and wonder what he should do as a poor man,
with neither business nor prospects.
'I don't suppose the governor has laid up much,' he said, 'for since
Uncle Arthur came home he has done very little business, and has spent
what really was his own recklessly and without a thought of saving, he
was so sure to have enough at last, and Uncle Arthur was so free to give
us what we asked for. But that will end when he knows he has a daughter,
and as he never fancied me much, I shall either have to beg, or work, or
starve, or marry a rich wife, which is not so easy for a poor dog to do.
I don't suppose that Governor's daughter would look at me now, nor
anyone else who is anybody. By George, I ought to have called on Ann
Eliza before this time. I wonder if it's too late to go there now. I
believe I'll walk round there anyway, and if I see a light, I'll go in,
and if old _paterfamilias_--how I'd like to kick him--is there, I'll
tell him the news, and that I know now he did not strike Jerrie with the
table-leg, and perhaps I'll apologize for what I said when in the car.
Tom Tracy, you are a scoundrel, and no mistake,' he added, with energy,
as he arose, and struck into the field, through which he had dragged Ann
Eliza the night of the storm.
There were lights at Le Bateau, and Tom was soon shaking hands with old
_paterfamilias_, who was at home, and with Ann Eliza, who was now able
to come down stairs.
CHAPTER XLVII.
ARTHUR.
He had enjoyed himself immensely, from the moment he first caught sight
of grand old Pike's Peak on the distant plains until he entered the city
of the Golden Gate, and, standing on the terrace of the Cliff House,
looked out upon the blue Pacific, with the sea lions disporting on the
rocks below. For he went there first, and then to China-town, and
explored every nook and corner, and opium den in it, and drank tea at
twenty dollars a pound in a high-toned restaurant, and visited the
theatre and the Joss House, and patronized the push-cars, as he called
them, every day, and experienced a wonderful exhilaration of spirits, as
he sat upon the front seat, with the fresh air blowing in his face, and
only the broad, steep street, lined with palaces, before him.
'This is heaven! this clears the cobwebs!' he would say to Charles, who
sat beside him with chattering teeth and his coat-collar pulled high
about his ears, for the winds of San Francisco are cold even in the
summer.
Arthur's first trip was to the Yosemite, taking the Milton route, and
meeting with the adventure he so much desired; for in the early morning,
between Chinese Camp and Priest's, the stage was suddenly stopped by two
masked marauders, one of whom stood at the horses' heads, while the
other confronted the terrified passengers with the blood-curling words:
'Hands up, every soul of you!'
And the hands went up from timid women and strong men, until click-dick
came in rapid succession from the driver's box, where Arthur sat, and
shot after shot followed each other, one bullet grazing the ear of the
highwayman at the horses' head, and another cutting through the slouched
hat of his comrade near the stage.
'Leave, or I'll shoot you dead! I've five more shots in this one, and
two more revolvers in my pockets, and I'm not afraid!' Arthur yelled,
jumping about like a maniac, as for the time being he was, and so
startling the robbers that they fled precipitately, followed for a
little distance by Arthur, who leaped from the stage and started in
pursuit, with a revolver in each hand, and ball after ball flying ahead
of him as he ran.
When at last he came back, the passengers flocked around him, grasping
his hands and blessing him as the preserver of their money, if not of
their lives. After that Arthur was a lion, whom all people in the valley
wished to see and talk with, and with whom the landlord bore as he had
never borne with a guest before, for Arthur found fault with the rooms,
which he likened to bath-tubs, and fault with the smells which came from
the river, and fault with the smoke in the parlour, but made ample
amends by the money he spent so lavishly, the scores of photographs he
bought, and the puffs he wrote for the San Francisco papers, extolling
the valley as the very gate of heaven, and the hotel as second only to
the Palace, and signing himself "Bumble Bees."
He went on every trail, and started for the highest possible peak, and
when he stood on the top of old Capitan and looked down upon the world
below, he capered and shouted like a madman, singing at the top of his
voice, "Mine eye have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord, glory,
glory, hallelujah!" until the rocky gorges rang with the wild echoes
which went floating down the valley below, where the sun was shining so
brightly and the grass was growing so green.
On his return to San Francisco after an absence of several weeks, he
took up his abode at the Palace Hotel, which he turned topsy-turvy with
his vagaries; but as in the valley, so here in the city, the landlord
could afford to bear much from one who spent his money so freely and
paid so lavishly; and so he was allowed to change rooms every day if he
liked, and half the plumbers in the city were called in to see what
caused the smells which he declared worse than anything he had ever met
in his life, and which were caused in part by the disinfectants which he
bought by the wholesale and kept in his bath room, his wash-room, and
under his bed, until the chambermaid tied her nose in camphor when she
went in to do her work.
But his career was brought to a close suddenly one morning in August,
when, just as he was taking his coffee and rolls in his room, Charles
brought him the following telegram:
'Come immediately. There's the devil to pay.
'TOM TRACY.'
Arthur read the message two or three times, not at all disturbed by it,
but vastly amused at its wording; then, putting it down, he went on with
his breakfast until it was finished, when he took a card from his pocket
and wrote upon it:
'Pay him then, for I sha'n't come. ARTHUR TRACY.'
This was handed to Charles with instructions to forward it to Tracy
Park. This done, he gave no further thought to the message so full of
such import to himself, but began to talk of and plan his contemplated
trip to Tacoma by the next steamer which sailed. It was six o'clock when
he had his dinner in his own private parlour, where he was served by
both Charles and a waiter, and where a second telegram was brought him.
'Confound it,' he said, 'have they nothing to do at home but to torment
me with telegrams? Didn't I tell them to pay the old Harry and have done
with it? What do they mean?' and putting the envelope down by his plate
he went quietly on with his dinner until he was through, when he took it
up, and, breaking the seal, read:
'Come at once. I need you. JERRIE.'
That changed everything, and with a bound he was in the next room,
gesticulating fiercely, and ordering Charles to step lively and get
everything in readiness to start home on the first eastward bound train
which left San Francisco.
'That rascally Tom is a liar,' he said. 'It's not the old Harry to pay.
It's Jerrie. Do you hear, it's Jerrie. Bring me some paper, quick, and
don't stand staring at me as if I were a lunatic. It's Jerrie who needs
me.'
Charles brought the paper, on which his master wrote:
'Coming on the wings of the wind, Yours respectfully,
'ARTHUR TRACY.'
In less than half an hour this singular message was flying along the
wires across the continent, and within a few hours Arthur was following
it as fast as the steam horse could take him.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
WHAT THEY WERE DOING AND HAD DONE IN SHANNONDALE.
If the earth had opened suddenly and swallowed up half the inhabitants
of Shannondale the other half could not have been more astonished than
they were at the news which Peterkin was the first to tell them, and
which he had risen very early to do, before some one else should be
before him. Irascible and quick-tempered as he was, he was easily
appeased, and the fact that Jerrie was Arthur Tracy's daughter changed
his opinion of her at once.
'The biggest heiress in the county except my Ann 'Liza, and, by gum, I'm
glad on't for her and Arthur. I allus said she was hisen, and by George,
to think that I helped her into her fortin, for if I hadn't of knocked
that rotten old table down she'd of never found them memoirs,' he said
to the first person to whom he communicated the news, and then hurried
off to buttonhole and enlighten others, until everybody knew and was
discussing the strange story.
Before noon scores of people had found it in their way to walk past the
cottage, hoping to catch sight of Jerrie, while several went in and told
her how glad they were for her and Mr. Arthur, and looked at her with
wondering eyes as if she were not quite the same girl they had known as
Jerrie Crawford.
When, the previous night, Mrs. Crawford had listened to the story Jerrie
told her after her return from the Park House, she had been for a few
moments stupefied with amazement, and had sat motionless on her chair
until she felt Jerrie's soft hands upon her head smoothing her silvery
hair, and Jerrie's voice said to her:
'Dear grandma, I told you your working days were over, and they are, for
what is mine is yours and Harold's, and my home is your home always, so
long as you live.'
The poor old lady put her head upon Jerrie's arm and cried hysterically
for a moment; then she rallied, and brushing away her tears, kissed the
young girl who had been so much to her, and whom for a brief moment she
feared she might have lost. Far into the night they sat, talking of the
past and the future, and of Harold, who was in Tacoma, where he might
have to remain for three or four weeks longer. He had written several
times to his grandmother and once to Jerrie, but had made no mention of
the diamonds, while in her letters to him Mrs. Crawford had refrained
from telling him what some of the people were saying, and the
construction they were putting upon his absence. Jerrie had not yet
written to him, but, 'I shall to-morrow,' she said, 'and tell him to
hurry home, for I need him now, if ever.'
Jerrie was very tired when she went at last to bed, but the dreamless
sleep which came upon her, and which lasted until a late hour in the
morning, did her good, and probably saved her from a relapse, which
might have proved fatal. Still she was very pale and weak when she went
down stairs about nine o'clock and found Tom waiting for her. He had
been up since sunrise, strolling through the park, with a troubled,
sorry look on his face for he was extremely sorry for himself, though
very glad for Jerrie, whose sworn ally he was and would be to the end.
In a way he had tried to comfort his mother by telling her that neither
his uncle nor Jerrie would be unjust to her, if she'd only behave
herself, and treat the latter as she ought, and not keep up such a high
and mighty and injured air, as if Jerrie had done something wrong in
finding out who she was.
But Dolly would not be comforted, and her face wore a sullen, defiant
expression, as she moved about the handsome house where she had queened
it so long that she really looked upon it as her own, resenting bitterly
the thought that another was to be mistress there. She had talked with
her husband, and made him tell her exactly how much he was worth in his
own right, and when he told her how little it was, she had exclaimed,
angrily:
'We are beggars, and may as well go back to Langley and sell codfish
again.'
She had seen Tom that morning, and when to her question, 'Why are you up
so early?' he replied, 'To attend to Jerrie's affairs,' she tossed her
head scornfully, and said: 'Before I'd crawl after any girl, much less
Jerrie Crawford! You'd better be attending to your own sister. She's
worse this morning, and looks as if she might die any minute.'
Then Tom went to Maude, who, since the shock of the night before, had
lain as if she were dead, except for her eyes, in which there was a new
and wondrous light, and which looked up lovingly at Tom as he came in
and kissed her, a most unusual thing for him to do.
'Dear Tom,' she whispered, 'come closer to me,' and as he bent down to
her, she continued, 'is every thing Jerrie's?'
'Yes, or will be. She is Uncle Arthur's daughter.'
'Shall we be very poor?'
'Yes, poor as a church mouse.'
Then there was a pause, and when Maude spoke again she said slowly:
'For me, no matter--sorry for you, and father and mother; but glad for
Jerrie. Stand by her, Tom; tell mother not to be so bitter--it hurts me.
Tell Harold, when he comes, I meant to do so much for him, but Jerrie
will do it instead. Tell her I must see her, and send for Uncle Arthur.'
There was a lump in Tom's throat as he left his sister's room, and going
to the village, telegraphed to his uncle's head-quarters at the Palace
Hotel, San Francisco, that he was to come at once.
At least a hundred people stopped him on his way to the office, asking
if what they had heard was true, and to all he replied:
'True as the gospel; we are floored, as Peterkin would say.'
And then he hurried to the cottage to see Jerrie, and tell her of the
message sent to Arthur, though not how it was worded After a moment he
continued, hesitatingly, as if half ashamed of it:
'I called at _Lubbertoo_ last night to enquire after Ann Eliza's foot,
and you ought to have seen Peterkin when I told him the news. At first
he could not find any word in his vocabulary big enough to swear by, but
after a little one came to him, and what do you think it was?'
Jerrie could not guess, and Tom continued.
He said, "by the great Peterkin!" and then he swowed, and vowed, and
snummed, and vummed, and dummed, and finally said he was glad of it,
and had always known you were a Tracy. Ann Eliza was so glad she cried,
and I think Billy cried, too, for he left the room suddenly, with very
suspicious-looking eyes. Why, everybody is glad for you, Jerrie, and
nobody seems to think how mean it is for us; but I'm not going to whine.
I'm glad it's you, and so is Maude, and she wants to see you. I believe
she's going to die, and--and--Jerrie--'
Something choked Tom for a moment, then he went on:
'If Uncle Arthur should get high, and order us out at once, as father
seems to think he will, you'll--you'll--let us stay while Maude lives,
won't you?'
'Tom,' Jerrie said, reproachfully, 'What do you take me for, and why
does your father think his brother will order him out?'
'I don't know,' Tom replied, 'but he seems awfully afraid to meet him.
Mother says he was up all night walking the floor and talking to
himself, and yet he says he is glad, and he is coming this morning to
see you and talk it over. I believe I hear him now speaking to Mrs.
Crawford. Yes, 'tis he; so I guess I'll go; and when I hear from my
telegram I'll let you know. Good-bye.'
A moment after Tom left the room his father entered it, looking haggard
and old, and frightened, too, it seemed to Jerrie, as she went forward
to meet him with a cheery 'good-morning, Uncle Frank.'
It was the first time she had addressed him by that name, and her smile
was so bright and her manner so cordial that for an instant the cloud
lifted from his face, but soon came back darker than ever as he declined
the seat she offered him and stood tremblingly before her.
Frank had not slept a wink the previous night, nor had he been in bed,
but had walked his room until his wife said to him angrily:
'I thought you were glad; seems to me you don't act like it; but for
pity's sake stop walking, or go somewhere else do it and not keep me
awake.'
Then he went into the hall outside, and there he walked the livelong
night, trying to think what he should say to Jerrie, and wondering what
she would say to him, for he meant to tell her everything. Nothing could
prevent his doing that; and as soon as he thought she would see him he
started for the cottage, taking with him the Bible, the photograph and
the letter he had secreted so long. All the way there, he was repeating
to himself the form of speech with which he should commence, but when
Jerrie said to him, so graciously, 'Good morning, Uncle Frank,' the
words left him, and he began, impetuously;
'Don't call me uncle. Don't speak to me, Jerrie, until you have heard
what I have come to confess on my knees, with my white head upon the
floor, if you will it so, and that would not half express the shame and
remorse with which I stand before you and tell you I am a cheat, a liar,
a villain, and have been since that day when I first saw you and that
dead woman we thought your mother.'
Jerrie was dumb with surprise, and did not speak or move as he went on
rapidly, telling her the whole, with no attempt at an excuse for
himself, except so far as to report what he had done in a business point
of view, making provision for her in case of his death and enjoining it
upon his children to see that his wishes were carried out.
'Here is the Bible,' he said, laying the book in her lap. 'Here is the
photograph, and here the letter which you gave me to post, and which,
had it been sent, might have cleared the mystery sooner.'
He had made his confession, and he stood before her with clasped hands
and an expression upon his face such as a criminal might wear when
awaiting the jury's decision. But Jerrie neither looked at him nor
spoke, for through a rain of tears she was gazing upon the sweet face,
sadder and thinner than the face of Gretchen in the window, but so like
it that there could be no mistaking it, and so like to the face which
had haunted her so often, and seemed so near to her.
'Mother, mother! I remember you as you are here, sick and sorry, but oh,
so lovely!' she said, as she pressed her lips again and again to the
picture, with no thought or care for the wretched man who had come a
step nearer to her, and who said at last:
'Will you never speak to me, Jerrie? Never tell me how much you despise
me?'
'Then she looked up at the face quivering with anguish and entreaty, and
the sight melted her at once. Indeed, as he had talked she had scarcely
felt any resentment toward him, for she was sure that though his error
had been great, his contrition and remorse had been greater, and she
thought of him only as Maude's father and the man who had always been
kind to her. And she made him believe at last that she forgave him for
Maude's sake, if not for his own.
'Had my life been a wretched one because of your conduct,' she said, 'I
might have found it harder to forgive you, but it has not. I have not
been the daughter of Tracy Park, it is true, but I have been the petted
child of the cottage, and I would rather have lived with Harold in
poverty all these years than to have been rich without him. And do you
know, I think it was noble in you to tell me, when you might have kept
it to yourself.'
'No, no. I couldn't have done that much longer,' he exclaimed,
energetically, as he began to walk up and down the room. 'I could not
bear it. And the shadow which for years has been with me night and day,
counselling me for bad, was growing so black, and huge, and unendurable
that I must have confessed or died. But it is gone now, or will be when
I have told my brother.'
'Told your brother! Mr. Tracy--Uncle Frank--you cannot mean to do that?'
Jerrie exclaimed.
'But I do mean to do it,' Frank replied, 'as a part of my punishment,
and he will not forgive as you have done. He will turn me out at once,
as he ought to do.'
Jerrie thought this very likely, and with all her powers she strove to
dissuade Frank from making a confession which could do no possible good,
and might result in untold harm.
'Remember Maude,' she said, 'and the effect this thing would have upon
her if your brother should resort to immediate and violent means, as he
might in his first frenzy.'
'But, I mean to tell Maude, too,' Frank replied.
Then Jerrie looked upon him as madder than Arthur himself, and talked so
rapidly and argued so well that he consented at last to keep his own
counsel, for the present at least, unless the shadow still haunted him,
in which case he must tell as an act of contrition or penance.
'He will think the photograph came with the other papers in the bag,'
Jerrie said, as she kissed the sweet face, which looked so much like
life that it was hard to think there was not real love and tenderness in
the eyes which looked into hers so steadfastly.
It was the hardest to forgive the letter hidden so long, and Jerrie did
feel a pang of resentment, or something like it, as she took it in her
hand and thought of the day when Arthur had confided it to her, saying
he could trust her when he could not another. And she had trusted Frank,
who had not been true to the trust, and here, after the lapse of years,
was the letter, in her hands, with its singular superscription, covering
its whole side, and its seal unbroken. But she would break it now.
Surely she might do that, if Arthur was never to see it; and after a
moment's hesitancy, she opened it, and read, first, wild, crazy
sentences, full of love and tenderness for the little Gretchen to whom
they were addressed, and whom the writer sometimes spoke to as living,
and again as dead. There was the expression of a strong desire to see
her, a wish for her to come where her husband was waiting for her, and
her diamonds too. Here Jerrie started with an exclamation of surprise,
and involuntarily read aloud:
'The most exquisite diamonds you ever saw, and I long to see them on
you. They are safe, too--safe from her--Mrs. Frank Tracy--who had the
boldness to flaunt them in my face at a party the other night. How she
came by them I can't guess; but I know how she lost them, I found them
on her dressing-table, where she left them when she went to breakfast,
and took possession at once. That was no theft, for they are mine, or
rather yours, and are waiting for you in my private drawer, where no one
has ever looked, except a young girl called Jerrie, who interests me
greatly, she is so much like what you must have been when a child. There
has been some trouble about the diamonds--I hardly know what, my head is
in such a buzzing most of the time that everything goes from me but you.
Oh, if I had remembered you years ago as I do now--'
Jerrie could read no further, for the letter dropped from her hands, as
she cried joyfully:
'I knew he had them. I was sure of it, though I did not know where they
were.'
Then very briefly she explained to Frank that on the morning when the
diamonds were missed, Arthur was so excited because Harold had been in a
way accused, and had rambled off into German, and said many things which
made her know that he had taken them himself and secreted them.
'You remember my sickness,' she said, and how strangely I talked of
going to prison as an accessory or a substitute? Well, it was for your
brother I was ready to go; and when he told me, as he did one day, that
he knew nothing of the diamonds, I was never more astonished in my life;
but afterward, as I grew older, I came to believe that he had forgotten
them, as he did other things, and that some time he would remember and
make restitution, I am glad we know where they are, but we cannot get
them until he returns. When do you think that will be?'
Frank did not know. It would depend, he said, upon whether he was in San
Francisco when Tom's telegram was received. If he were and started at
once, travelling day and night, he would be home in a week.
It seemed a long time to wait in Jerrie's state of mind, and very, very
short to the repentant man, who shrank from his brother's return as from
an impending evil, although it was a relief to think that he need not
tell him what a hypocrite he had been.
'Thank you, Jerrie,' he said at last, as he rose to go, 'Thank you for
being so kind to me. I did not deserve it. I did not expect it. Heaven
bless you. I am glad for you, and so is Maude. Oh, Jerrie, heaven is
dealing hard with me to take her from me, and yet it is just. I sinned
for her; sinned to see her in the place I was sure was yours, although
the shadow was always telling me that I did not and never could know for
sure that you were Arthur's child; but I did, and I meant to go to
Germany some day, when I had the language a little better, and clear it
up, and then I had promised myself to tell you. Will you lay again that
you forgive me before I go back to Maude?'
He was standing before her with his white head dropped upon his hat, the
very picture of misery and remorse, and Jerrie laid her hand upon his
head, and said:
'I do forgive you, Uncle Frank, fully and freely, for Maude's sake if no
other; and if she lives what is mine shall be hers. Tell her so, and
tell her I am coming to see her as soon as I am able, I am so tired
to-day, and everything is so strange. Oh, if Harold were here.'
Jerrie was indeed so tired and exhausted that for the remainder of the
day she lay upon the couch in her room, seeing no one but Judge St.
Claire and Tom, both of whom came up together, the latter bringing the
answer to his telegram, and asking what to do next.
'Why, Tom,' Jerrie said, as she read Arthur's reply, 'pay him then, for
I shan't come,' what does he mean? What did you say to him, and whom are
you to pay?'
With a half comical smile Tom replied, 'I told him the Old Nick was to
pay, though I am afraid I used a stronger name for his Satanic majesty
than that. I guess you'll have to try what you can do.'
And so Jerrie's message, 'I need you,' went across the continent, and
brought the ready response, 'coming on the wings of the wind.' It was
Judge St. Claire who wrote to Harold, for Jerrie's nerveless fingers
could not grasp the pen, and she could only dictate what she wished the
judge to say.
'Tell him everything,' she said, 'and how much I want him here; and tell
him, too, of Maude, whose life hangs on a thread. That may bring him
sooner.'
It was three days before Jerrie went again to the Park House, and then
Tom came for her, saying Maude was failing very fast. The shock which
had come upon her so suddenly with regard to Jerrie's birth and the
suspicions resting upon Harold had shortened the life nearing its close,
and the moment Jerrie entered the room she knew the worst, and with a
storm of sobs and tears knelt by the sick girl's couch and cried:
'Oh, Maude, Maude, I can't bear it. I'd give up everything to save you.
Oh, Maude, Maude, you don't know how much I love you!'
Maude was very calm, though her lips quivered a little and the tears
filled her eyes as she put her hand caressingly upon Jerrie's golden
hair. A great change had come over Maude since the night when she heard
Jerrie's strange story--a change for the better some might have thought,
although the physician who attended her gave no hope. She neither
coughed nor suffered pain, and could talk all she liked, although often
in a whisper, she was so very weak. 'Yes, Jerrie,' she said, 'I know
you love me, and it makes me very glad, and dying seems easier for it;
for, Jerrie, oh, Jerrie! once before I knew about you, and when I feared
I might die, I wrote something on paper for father to see when I was
dead, and it was that he should take you in my place, you and Harold.'
Maude's voice shook a little here, but she soon steadied it and went on:
'I wanted him to give you what I thought would be mine had I lived, and
what all the time was yours. Oh, Jerrie, how can you help hating me, who
have stood so long where you ought to have stood, and enjoyed what you
ought to have enjoyed?'
'Maude,' Jerrie cried, as she kissed the little wan face, 'don't talk
like that; as if I, or any one, could ever have hated you. Why, I
worshiped you as some little empress when I used to see you in your
bright sashes and yellow kid boots, with the amber beads around your
neck; and if the contrast between your finery and my high-necked gingham
apron and white sun-bonnet sometimes struck me painfully, I had no wish
to take the boots and sashes from you, whom they fitted so admirably;
and as we grew older and you did not shrink from or slight Jerrie
Crawford, I cannot tell you how great was the love which grew in my
heart for you, the dearest girl friend I ever had, and a thousand times
dearer now that I know you are my cousin.'
Maude was silent for a moment, and then she asked abruptly:
'Jerrie, why did you never fall in love with Harold?'
'Oh, Maude!' and Jerrie started as if Maude had struck her, while the
tell-tale blood rushed to her face, and into her eyes there came a look
which even Maude could not understand.
'Jerrie,' she exclaimed, 'forgive me. I didn't know, I never guessed, I
was go stupid; but I have been thinking so much since Harold went away.
Does he know about you? who you are? and how long before he will come
home?'
'Judge St. Claire wrote him everything three days ago,' Jerrie replied,
'and told him how sick you were. That will surely bring him at once, if
it is possible for him to leave; but it will he three or four days now
before the letter will reach him, and take a week for him to come. Would
you like to see him very much?'
'Yes,' Maude answered with a sob, 'very much, but I never shall. Jerrie,
did Harold ever--did he--does he--love you?'
'He never told me so,' Jerrie answered, frankly; 'but I have thought
that he loved you'
'N--no,' Maude answered, piteously, with the great tears in her eyes.
'It is all a mistake, and when I am dead and Harold comes, promise to
tell him something from me, will you?'
'Yes,' Jerrie answered, and Maude continued:
'Tell him the very first time you and he are alone together, and speak
of me, that I have been thinking and thinking until it came to me clear
as day that it was all a mistake, a stupid blunder on my part. I was
always stupid, you know; but I believe my brain is a little clearer now.
Will you tell him, Jerrie?'
'Mistake about what?' Jerrie asked with a vague apprehension that the
task imposed upon her might not be a pleasant one if she know all it
involved.
'Harold will tell you what,' Maude answered 'He will understand what I
mean, and you must tell him, for I shall not be here when he comes, I am
sure of it. I hope to live till Uncle Arthur comes, for I must see him
and ask him not to be hard on poor father, and tell him that I am sorry
that I have been so long in your place where you should have been. You
will stay here when he comes, and be with me to the last. I want you
with me--want you to hold my hand when I say good-bye for ever. You are
so strong that I shall not be afraid with you to see and hear as long as
I hear and see anything.'
'And are you afraid?' Jerrie asked, and Maude replied:
'Of the death struggle, yes; but not what lies beyond where He is, the
Saviour, for I know I am going to Heaven; and when you think me asleep I
am often praying silently for more faith and love, and for you all, that
you may one day come where I soon shall be. Heaven is very, very
beautiful, for I have seen it in my dreams--a material heaven some would
say, for there are trees and flowers, and grass; and on a golden bench,
beneath a tree whose leaves are like emeralds, and whose blossoms are
like pearls, I am sitting, on the bank of a shining river, resting,
resting, and waiting, as little Pilgrim waited for the coming of the
Master, and for you all.'
Maude was very tired now, and her voice was so low that Jerrie could
scarcely hear it, while the eyelids drooped heavily, and in a few
moments she fell asleep, with a rapt look on her as if she were already
resting on the golden seat beneath the tree whose leaves were emeralds
and whose blossoms were like pearls.
That night Jerrie wrote as follows:
'Dear Harold, come home as soon as you can, for Maude is very low,
and, unless you come soon, you will never see her again. The judge
has written you of me, but I must tell you myself that nothing can
ever change me from the Jerrie of old; and the fact which makes me
the happiest is that now I can help you who have been so kind to me.
How I long to see you and talk it all over. We expect Mr. Arthur in
a few days. I cannot call him father yet, until he has given me the
right to do so by calling me daughter first; but to myself I am
calling Gretchen mother all the time--dear, sweet, darling little
mother! Oh, Harold, you must come home and share my happiness. Truly
Harold, you ought to see how stiffly Mrs. Tracy carries herself
toward me--stiffer, if possible, than she did when I came up the
front steps in my muddy shoes and she bade me go round to the back
door. Poor Mrs. Tracy!'
During the next few days Jerrie stayed with Maude, who constantly grew
weaker and weaker, and who asked about every hour if anything had been
heard from her uncle since his message that he was coming.
'I shall never see Harold,' she said to Jerrie; but I must live till
uncle Arthur comes, and you are put in your right place.'
And at last, one lovely September morning, a telegram was brought to
Frank from Charles, which said the travellers would be home that
afternoon, and that the carriage must be sent to meet them.
CHAPTER XLIX.
TELLING ARTHUR.
Who should do the telling was the question which for some time was
discussed by Frank and Judge St. Claire and Jerrie. Naturally the task
fell upon the latter, who for three or four days prior to Arthur's
arrival remained altogether at the Park House, watching by Maude, and
going over and over again in her mind what she should say and how she
should commence.
At last the announcement came that Arthur was in Albany, and then it
seemed to Jerrie that she had suddenly turned into stone, for every
thought and feeling had left her, and she had no plan or action or
speech as she moved mechanically about Arthur's rooms, making them
bright with flowers, especially the Gretchen room, which seemed a bower
of beauty when her skilful hands had finished it. Once, as she was
passing through the hall with her arms full of flowers she met Mrs.
Tracy, whose face wore a most forbidding expression as she said:
'I hope you will leave a few flowers for Maude. You know she likes them
so much.'
Jerrie made no reply, but by the pang of resentment which shot through
her heart at the smallness of the woman, she knew she was not past all
feeling, and that there was still something human in the stone, as she
had styled herself.
Slowly the day wore on, every minute seeming an hour, and every hour a
day, until at last Jerrie heard the carriage driving down the avenue,
and not long after the whistle of the engine in the distance. Then,
bending over Maude and kissing her fondly, she said:
'Pray for me, darling, I am going to meet my father.'
Arthur had been very quiet during the first part of the journey from San
Francisco, and it was with difficulty that Charles could get a word from
him.
'Let me alone,' he said once, when spoken to. 'I am with Gretchen. She
is on the train with me, and I'm trying to make out what it is she is
telling me.'
But after Chicago was left behind his mood changed, and he became as
wild and excitable as he had before been abstracted and silent.
Sometimes he was on the top of old Capitan, looking down into the valley
below, and singing 'glory, hallelujah,' at the top of his voice, while
the startled passengers kept aloof from him as from a lunatic. Again he
was out upon the platform urging the conductor to greater speed; and
when at last Shannondale was reached, he bounded from the car upon the
platform before the train stopped, and was collaring Rob, the coachman,
and demanding of him to know what was the matter with Jerrie, and why he
had been sent for. Rob, who had received his instructions to be wholly
non-committal answered stolidly that nothing was the matter with Jerrie,
but that Miss Maude was very sick and probably would not live many days.
'Is that all?' Arthur said, gloomily, as he entered the carriage. 'I do
not see what the old Harry has to do with Maude's dying, and certainly
Tom's telegram said something about that chap. I have it in my pocket.
Yes, here it is. "Come immediately. The devil is to pay." That doesn't
mean Maude. There is something else Rob has not told me. 'Here, you
rascal, you are keeping something from me! What is it? Out with it!' he
shouted to the driver, as he thrust his head from the carriage window,
where he kept it, and in this way was driven to the door of the Park
House, where Frank was waiting for him outside, and where, inside,
Jerrie stood, holding fast to the banisters of the stairs, her heart
throbbing wildly one moment, and the next seeming to lie pulseless as a
piece of lead.
She heard Arthur's voice as he came up the steps, speaking to Frank, and
asking why he had been sent for; and the next moment she saw him
entering the hall, tall and erect, but with the wild look in his eyes
which she knew so well, but which changed at once to a softer expression
as they fell upon her.
'Cherry, you here!' he cried, with a joyful ring in his voice as he
sprang to her side and kissed her forehead and lips.
Then Jerrie grew calm instantly, although she could scarcely restrain
herself from falling on his neck and sobbing out, 'Oh, my father! I am
your daughter Jerrie!' But the time for this had not come, and when he
questioned her eagerly as to why she had sent for him, she only
replied:
'Maude is very sick. But come with me to your rooms, and I will tell you
everything.'
'Then there is the deuce to pay; I thought so,' he said, as he followed
her upstairs into the Gretchen room, where he stood for a moment, amazed
at the effect produced by the flowers and vines which Jerrie had
arranged so skilfully, 'It is like Eden,' he said, 'and Gretchen is here
with me. Darling Gretchen!' he continued, as he walked up to the picture
and kissed the lovely face which, it seemed to Jerrie, smiled in
benediction upon them both, the husband and the daughter, as they stood
there side by side, Jerrie's hands resting on his shoulder, which she
pressed hard, as if to steady herself, while he talked to the inanimate
face before him.
'Have you been lonesome, Gretchen, and are you glad to have me back
again! Poor little Gretchen!' And now he turned to Jerrie, who was pale
to the lips, and said: 'It all came to me on the top of those mountains
about Gretchen--who she was, and how I forgot her so long--that is the
strangest of all; and, Cherry,' here his voice dropped to a whisper, 'I
know for sure that Gretchen is dead--that came to me, too.'
'Yes, Gretchen is dead,' Jerrie answered him, with the sound of a sob in
her own voice, while her hands tightened their grasp on his shoulder, as
she went on; 'I have had a message from Gretchen, and that is why we
sent for you.'
Jerrie's hands were not strong enough to hold him then, and, wrenching
himself from her, he stood confronting her with a look more like that of
a maniac than any she had ever seen in him before, and which might have
frightened one with nerves less strong than Jerrie's. But she was not
afraid, and a strange calmness fell upon her, now that she had actually
reached a point where she must act, and her eyes, which looked so
steadily into Arthur's, held them fast, even while he interrogated her
rapidly.
'A message from Gretchen! How, when, and where is it? Give it to me
quick, or tell me about it? Where is she, and when is she coming?'
'Never!' answered Jerrie sadly. 'I told you she was dead. But sit here,'
and she motioned him to a large cushioned chair. 'Sit here and let me
tell you what I know of Gretchen.'
Something in the girl's manner mastered him and made him a child in her
hands.
Sinking into the chair, pale and panting with excitement, he leaned his
head back wearily, and closing his eyes, said to her:
'Begin. What did Gretchen write?'
Jerrie felt that she could not stand all through the interview, and
bringing a low ottoman to Arthur's side, seated herself upon it just
where she could look into his face and detect every change in it.
'Let me tell you of Gretchen as she was when you first knew her,' she
said, 'and then you will be better able to judge of the truth of all I
know.'
He did not reply, and she went on:
'Gretchen was very young--sixteen or seventeen--when you first saw her
knitting in the sunshine under the trees in Wiesbaden, and very
beautiful, too--so beautiful that you went again and again to look at
her and talk to her, until you came to love her very much, and told her
so at last; but you seemed so much above her that she could not believe
you at first. At last, however, you made her understand, and when her
mother died suddenly--'
'Her mother was Mrs. Heinrich, and kept a kind of fancy store,' Arthur
interposed, as if anxious that nothing should be omitted.
'Yes, she kept a fancy store,' Jerrie rejoined; 'and when she died
suddenly and left Gretchen alone, you said to her, "We must be married
at once," and you were, in the little English chapel, by the Rev. Mr.
Eaton, who was then rector.' Here Arthur's eyes opened wide and fixed
themselves wonderingly upon Jerrie, as he said:
'Are you the old Harry that you know all this? But go on; don't stop; it
all comes back to me so plain when I hear you tell it. She wore a straw
bonnet trimmed with blue, and a white dress, but took it off directly
for a black one because her mother was dead. Did she tell you that?'
'No,' Jerrie replied. 'She told me nothing of the dress, only how happy
she was with you, whom she loved so much, and who loved her and made her
so happy for a time that earth seemed like heaven to her, and then--'
Here Jerrie faltered a little, but Arthur's sharp 'What then?' kept her
up, and she continued:
'Then something came to you, and you began to forget everything, even
poor little Gretchen, and went away for weeks and left her very sad and
lonely, not knowing where you were; and then, after some months, you
went away and never came back again to the little wife who waited, and
watched, and prayed, and wanted you so badly.'
'Oh, Cherry! oh, Gretchen! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to do it; I
surely didn't. May God forgive me for forgetting the little wife! Was it
long? Was it months, or was it years? I can't remember, only that there
was a Gretchen, and I left her,' Arthur said.
'It was years, four or five, and--and'--Jerrie's breath came heavily now
and her words slowly, for she was nearing the point relating to herself
and wondering what the effect would be upon him. 'After a while there
came into Gretchen's life the dawning of a great hope, a great joy,
which she felt would make you glad, and wishing to keep it a secret till
you came home, she only gave you a hint of it. She wrote: "I have
something to tell you which will make you as happy as it does me--"'
'Stop!' and Arthur put out both his hands as if groping for something
which he could not find; then he said, 'Go on,' and Jerrie went on,
slowly now, for every word was an effort, and spoken so low that Arthur
bent forward to listen to her.
'I don't know just where Gretchen's home was when she lived alone
waiting for you. I only know that after a while there came to it a
little baby--a girl baby--Gretchen's and yours--'
She did not get any further, for with a bound Arthur was on his feet,
every faculty alert, every nerve strung to its utmost pitch, and every
muscle of his face quivering with wild excitement, as he exclaimed:
'A baby! Gretchen's baby and mine! A little girl! Oh, Cherry, if you are
deceiving me now!'
Jerrie, too, had risen, and was standing before him with her hands upon
his arm and her eyes, so like Gretchen's, looking into his, as she said:
'I am not deceiving you. There was a baby born to you and Gretchen
sometime in January, 18--, and it was christened in the little church
where you were married by the Rev. Mr. Eaton. Oh, Mr. Arthur, how can I
tell you; she, the baby, is living yet--grown to womanhood now, for this
happened about twenty years ago, and the girl is almost twenty--and is
waiting and longing so much for her father to recognize and claim her.
Oh, don't you understand me? Look at _me_ and then at Gretchen's
picture!'
For an instant Arthur stood like one stricken with catalepsy, his eyes
leaping from Jerry's face to Gretchen's, and from Gretchen's back to
Jerrie's, and then, with a motion of his hands as if fanning the air
furiously, he gasped:
'Twenty years ago--twenty years ago? How old are you, Cherry?'
'About twenty,' she answered, but her voice was a whisper, and her head
fell forward a little, though she kept her eyes upon Arthur, who went
on:
'And they christened my baby and Gretchen's you say? What name did they
give her? Speak quick, for I believe I am dying.'
'They called her Jerrine, but you know her as Jerrie, for--for I am
Gretchen's daughter,' fell from Jerrie's lips.
With a wild, glad cry, 'My daughter! oh, my daughter! Thank God! thank
God!' Arthur sank back into the chair, from which he had risen, fainting
and insensible.
For hours he lay in a state so nearly resembling death that but for the
physician's reassurance that there was no danger, Jerrie would have
believed the great joy given her was to be taken from her at once. But
just as the twilight shadows began to gather in the room he came to
himself, waking as from some quiet dream, and looking around him until
his eyes fell upon Jerrie sitting by his side; then into his white face
there flashed a look of ineffable joy and tenderness and love, as he
said, with a smile the most willing and sweet Jerrie had ever seen.
'My daughter, my little Cherry, who came to me up the ladder, with
Gretchen's eyes and Gretchen's voice, and I did not know her--have not
known her all these years, although she has so puzzled and bewildered me
at times. My daughter! oh, my daughter!'
He accepted her unquestioningly, and with a glad cry Jerrie threw
herself into the arms he stretched toward her, and on her father's
bosom gave free vent to the feelings she had restrained so long, sobbing
passionately as she felt Arthur's kisses upon her face, and his
caressing hands upon her hair, as he kept repeating:
'My daughter! Gretchen's baby and mine!'
'There is more to tell. I have not heard it all, or how you came by the
information,' he said, when Jerrie was little composed and could look at
and speak to him without a burst of tears.
'Yes, there is much more. There is a letter for you, with those you
wrote to her,' Jerrie said, 'but you must not have them to-night.
To-morrow you will be stronger, now you must rest.'
She spoke like one with authority, and he did just what she bade him
do--took the food she brought him, went to bed when she said he must,
and, with her hand locked in his, fell into a heavy slumber, which
lasted all through the night, and late into the next morning. It almost
seemed as if he would never waken, the sleep was so like death; but the
doctor who watched him carefully quieted Jerrie's fears and told her it
would do her father good, and that in all probability he would awake
with a clearer mind than he had had in years, for as a great and sudden
shock sometimes produces insanity, so, contrarywise, it sometimes
restored a shattered mind to its equilibrium.
And the doctor was partially correct, for when at last Arthur awoke he
seemed natural and bright, with a recollection of all which had happened
the day before, and an earnest desire for the letters and the rest of
the story which Jerrie told him, with her arm across his neck, and her
cheek laid occasionally against his, as she read him the letter directed
to his friends, and then showed him the certificate of her birth and her
mother's death.
'Born January 1st, 18--, to Arthur Tracy and Marguerite, his wife, a
daughter,' Arthur repeated, again and again, and as often as he did so
he kissed the bright face which smiled at him through tears, for there
was almost as much sadness as joy mingled with the reading of those
messages from the dead.
Just what Gretchen's letter to Arthur contained, Jerrie never knew,
except that it was full of love and tenderness, with no word of
complaint for the neglect and forgetfulness which must have hastened her
death.
'Oh, Gretchen, I can't bear it, I can't,' Arthur moaned, as he laid his
hand upon Jerrie's shoulder and sobbed like a child. 'To think I could
forget her, and she so sweet and good.'
Everything came back to him for a time, and he repeated to Jerrie much
which was of interest to her concerning her mother, but with which the
reader has nothing to do; while Jerrie, in turn, told him all she could
remember of her life in the old house where Gretchen had died. Idle
fancies she had sometimes thought these memories of the past, but now
she knew they were real. And Arthur hung upon her words with breathless
interest, moaning occasionally when she told of the sweet-faced woman
who cried so much and prayed so much, and whose death scene she had once
enacted for him when a little child. At his own letters addressed to
Gretchen he barely glanced, muttering, as he did so, 'how could I have
written such crazy bosh as that?' and then suddenly recollecting
himself, he asked for the photograph mentioned in Gretchen's letter to
his friends, and which he seemed to think had come with the other
papers, just as Jerrie meant he should. Taking it from the bag she
handed it to him, while his tears fell like rain as he gazed upon the
face which was far too young to wear the sad, wan look it did.
'That is as I remember her,' Jerrie said, referring again to the strange
ideas which had filled her brain and made her sure that not the dark
woman found dead at her side was her mother, but another and far
different person, whose face haunted her so continually and whose voice
she sometimes seemed to hear speaking to her from the dim shadows of the
far-off past when they lived in the little house in Wiesbaden, where the
picture hung on the wall.
Arthur remembered the picture well and when it was taken, though that,
too, had faded from his mind, until Jerrie told him of it.
'We will go there together, Cherry,' he said, 'you and I, and find the
house and the picture, and Gretchen's grave, and bring them home with
us. There is room for them at Tracy Park.
He was beginning to talk wildly now, but Jerrie quieted him, and taking
up the box of diamonds opened it suddenly and held it before his eyes.
In reading the letters he had not seemed to pay any attention to the
diamonds, but when Jerrie said to him; 'These were mother's. You sent
them to her from England,' he replied, 'Yes, I remember. I bought them
in Paris with other things--dresses, I think--for her,' while into his
face there came a troubled look as if he were trying to think of
something.
Jerrie, who could read him so well, saw the look, and, guessing at once
its cause, hastened to say:
'Father, do you remember that you gave Mrs. Tracy some diamonds like
these, and that some one took them from her? Try and think,' she
continued, as she saw the troubled look deepen on his face, and the fire
beginning to kindle in his eyes. 'It was years ago, just after a party
Mrs. Tracy gave, and at which she wore them. You were there and thought
they were Gretchen's, did you not?'
'Ye-es,' he answered slowly. 'I believe I did. What did I do with them?
Do you know?'
'I think you put them in your private drawer. Suppose you look and see.'
Obedient to her as a child, Arthur opened his private drawer, bringing
out one thing after another, all mementoes of the old Gretchen days, and
finally the diamonds, at which be looked with wonder and fear, as he
said to Jerrie:
'Did I take them? Will they call it a steal? I thought they were
Gretchen's. I remember now.'
Jerrie did not tell him then of the trouble the secreting of the
diamonds had brought to her and Harold, but she said:
'No one will think it a steal, and Mrs. Tracy will be glad to get her
jewels back. May I take them to her now?'
'Take them to her?--no,' Arthur said, decidedly. 'She has another set--I
bought them for her, and she wears them all day long. Ha, ha! diamonds
in the morning, with a cotton gown;' and he laughed immoderately at what
be thought Dolly's bad taste. 'Take them to her? No! They are yours.'
'But I have mother's,' Jerrie pleaded; 'and I cannot wear two sets.'
'Yes, you can--one to-day, one to-morrow. I mean you shall have
seven--one for everyday in the week. What has Dolly to do with
diamonds. They are for ladies, and she is only a whitewashed one.'
He was very much excited, and it took all Jerrie's tact to soothe and
quiet him.
'Father,' she began and then he stopped short, for the sound of that
name spoken by Jerrie had a mighty power over him--'Father, listen to me
a moment.'
And then she told him of the suspicions cast upon Harold, and said:
'You do not wish him to suffer any more?'
'Harold? The boy who found you in the carpet-bag--Amy's boy! No, never!
Where is he that I have not seen him yet? Does he know you are my
daughter?'
Jerrie had not mentioned Harold before, but she told her father now
where he was, and why he had gone, and that she had written him to come
home, on Maude's account, if on no other.
'Yes--Maude--I remember; but Harold did not care for Maude. Still, he
had better come. I want him here with you and me; and you must stay here
now, day and night. Select any room or rooms you please; all is yours,
my daughter.'
'But I cannot leave grandma,' Jerrie said.
'Let her come, too,' Arthur replied. 'There is room for her.'
'No,' Jerrie persisted; 'that would not be best. Grandma could not live
with Mrs. Tracy.'
'Then let Dolly go at once, I'll give the order now;' and Arthur put out
his hand to the bell-cord.
But Jerrie stopped him instantly, saying to him:
'Remember Maude. While she lives she must stay here.'
'Yes, I forgot Maude. Poor little Maude, I have not seen her yet,'
Arthur replied, subdued at once, and willing now that Jerrie should take
the jewels to Dolly, who deserved but little forbearance from Jerrie's
hand.
Up to the very last Mrs. Tracy had, unconsciously perhaps, clung to a
shadowy hope that Arthur might repudiate his daughter and call it a
trumped-up affair; but when she heard how joyfully he had acknowledged
and claimed her, she lost all hope, and her face wore a sullen, defiant
expression as she walked about the house and through the handsome rooms,
the very furniture of which had nearly all been bought with Arthur's
money, and consequently was not her own. Since the coming of Jerrie,
when the dark shadow settled upon Frank, and remorse was always
torturing him, he had had no heart for business, and had, to all intents
and purposes, lived upon his brother's generosity, which had never
failed.
'Get what you like; there is money enough,' was always Arthur's reply,
when a request for anything was made to him, and thus they had literally
been sponges, taking everything and giving nothing, until now, when all
was lost--the luxury, the elegance, the ease, and the prestige of Tracy
Park, which they had enjoyed so much. It was hard, and Dolly felt that
she could not bear it, and that she hated the girl through whom this
change had come, and in every possible way she meant to wound and annoy
her; so when the cook came to her that day for orders for dinner, she
answered, curtly:
'Go to the heiress. She is mistress now.'
In the hall, coming to seek her, Jerrie met the cook, who, with a
comical look on her face, asked what she would have for dinner.
'I don't know what you mean,' Jerrie said, and when the cook explained,
her cheeks flushed for an instant and her eyes blazed with resentment
But she controlled herself quickly and said, 'Tell Mrs. Tracy--but, no,
I am going to her room and will tell her myself.'
Knocking at Mrs. Tracy's door, she was admitted to the presence of the
lady, who simply stared at her as if asking why she were there. Jerrie
told her in a few words that her own diamonds had been found, and where
they had been secreted, and that she had come to return them.
'Then your father was the thief,' Dolly said, with that rasping,
aggravating tone so hard to hear unmoved.
'Call him what you please. A crazy man is not responsible for his acts,'
Jerrie answered, calmly; then, more proudly and decidedly, went on, 'By
the way, Mrs. Tracy, I was met by the cook with a singular request, and
I wish to say that as there can be but one mistress in a house, it is my
wish that so long as you remain here you are that mistress in your own
department; of course I shall take charge of my father's, and see that
his wishes are carried out. Good afternoon,' and with a proud, lofty
bearing, Jerrie walked from the room, leaving Dolly to her own morbid
and angry thoughts.
Not even the restored diamonds had power to conciliate her, and they
were so beautiful as she held them up, admiring their brilliancy and
their size.
'I'll never wear them, never, because she has some like them,' she said
to herself; and then the thought flashed upon her that she could sell
them, and thus add to the sum which her husband had invested in his own
name.
Ten thousand dollars, that was all, he had told her, and she had
calculated the income, only six hundred dollars a year to live on--less
than she now wasted yearly upon bric-a-brac and things of which she
tired so soon.
It was a sombre outlook, and it is not strange that her tears fell fast
upon the costly stones, whose value she could not guess, although she
knew it must be great, they were so superior in size and quality to any
she had ever seen.
'Yes, I will sell them,' she said, 'and invest the proceeds in my own
name; but even that will hardly keep the wolf from the door, for Frank
is growing more and more imbecile every day, and Tom is good for
nothing. He'll have to scratch for himself, though, I can tell him.'
Here her ladylike, but very characteristic, soliloquy was brought to an
end by a faint call, which had the power to drive every other thought
from her heart, for the mother-love was strong even with her, and going
to Maude, she asked what she wanted.
'Uncle Arthur,' Maude replied; 'I have not seen him yet. And Jerrie,
too, she has scarcely been here to-day.'
Maude's request was made known to Arthur, who, two or three hours later,
went to her room, and kissing her lips, told her how sorry he was to see
her so sick, and that he hoped she would soon be better.
Frank had been alone with Maude for a long time that day, and he was
with her now, sitting upon the side of her bed, near the head, with his
arm across her pillow, and his eyes fixed anxiously upon her as she held
her conference with his brother.
'No, uncle,' she said; 'I shall never be any better in this world; but
by-and-by, pretty soon, I shall be well in the other And I want to tell
you how glad I am for you and Jerrie, and to thank you for your kindness
to us all these years, when Jerrie should have been here in our place.'
'Yes, yes,' Arthur said, with a wave of his hand. 'Only I didn't know.
If I had--'
'It would have been so different,' Maude interrupted him. 'I know that,
but I want you to be kind to poor father still, and forgive him, he is
sorry, and--'
'Oh, Maude, Maude,' came like a groan from Frank, as he laid his hand on
Maude's lips, while Arthur replied:
'Forgive him! For what? He couldn't help being here. I sent for him. He
did not keep Jerrie from her rightful position as my daughter. If he had
I could never forgive him. Why, I believe I'd kill him, or any other one
who, knowing that Jerrie was my daughter, kept it from me.'
He was gesticulating now with both hands, and Jerrie, who had listened
wonderingly to the conversation, took hold of them as they were swaying
in the air, and said to him softly:
'Father!'
The word quieted him, and with a gasp his mind seemed to change at once.
'Maude is very tired,' Jerrie went on; 'perhaps we'd better go now and
come again to-morrow.'
'Yes, yes, that's best, child. I'm not fond of sick rooms, though I must
say this is very free from smells,' Arthur replied; then stooping down
he kissed Maude again, saying to her as he rose to go:
'Don't worry about your father; he is my brother, and he was kind to
Jerry. I shan't forget that. Come, my daughter.'
And putting his arm fondly around Jerrie he left the room.
CHAPTER L.
THE FLOWER FADETH.
It took some days after Arthur's return for the household to settle down
into anything like order and quiet, Arthur was so restless and so happy,
and so anxious for everyone to recognise Jerrie as his daughter--Miss
Tracy, as he called her when presenting her to the people who had known
her all her life--the St. Claires, and Athertons, and Crosbys, and
Warners--who came to call upon and congratulate him. Even Peterkin came
in his coat-of-arms carriage, with a card as big as the back of
Webster's spelling book, and himself gotten up in a dress coat, with
lavender kids on his burly hands, which nearly crushed Arthur's in their
grasp as he expressed himself 'tickleder than he ever was before in his
life.'
'And to think I was the means on't,' he said, 'for if I hadn't of kicked
that darned old table into slivers when I was givin' on't to Jerrie,
she'd never of know'd what was in that dumbed rat-hole. I was a leetle
too upstrupulous, I s'spose, but I'll be darned if she didn't square up
to me like a catamount, till my hair riz right up, and I concluded the
Tramp House was no place for me. But I respect her for it; yes, I do,
and by George, old chap, I congratulate you with my whole soul, and so
does May Jane, and so does Ann 'Lizy, and so does Bill, and so does the
whole caboodle on us.'
This was Peterkin's speech, which Arthur received more graciously than
Jerrie, who, remembering Harold, could not be very polite to the man who
had injured him so deeply. As if divining her thoughts, Peterkin turned
to her and said:
'Now, one word, Miss Tracy, about Hal. I hain't one to go halves in any
thing, and I was meaner to him than pussly; but you'll see what I'll do.
I've met with a change, I swow, I have,' and he laid his lavender kid on
his stomach. 'He never took them diamonds, nor May Jane's pin, nor
nothin', and I've blasted it all over town that he didn't, and I've got
a kerridge hired, and some chaps, and a brass band, and a percession,
and when Hal comes, there's to be an oblation to the depot, with the
bugle a playin' "Hail to the Chief," and them hired chips a histen' him
inter the kerridge, with the star-spangled banner a floatin' over it,
and a drawin' him home without horses! What do you think of that for
high?' and he chuckled merrily as he represented the programme he had
prepared for Harold's reception.
Jerrie shuddered, mentally hoping that Harold's coming might be at
night, and unheralded, so as to save him from what she knew would fill
him with disgust.
That call of Peterkin's was the last of a congratulatory nature made at
Tracy Park for weeks, for the shadow of death had entered the grand old
house, the doors and windows of which stood wide open, one lovely
September morning, about a week after Arthur's return. But there was no
stir or sign of life, except in the upper hall, near the door, and in
the room where Maude Tracy was dying. Jerrie had been with her
constantly for two or three days, and the converse the two had held
together would never be forgotten, Maude was so peaceful and happy, so
sure of the home beyond, where she was going, and so lovely and sweet to
those around her, thinking of everything and planning everything, even
whose hands were to lower her into the grave.
'Dick, and Fred, and Billy, and Harold,' she said to Jerrie, one day,
'Something tells me Harold will be here in time for that; and if he is,
I want those four to put me in the grave. They can lift me, for I shall
not be very heavy,' and, with a smile, she held up her wasted arms and
hands, not as large now as a child's. 'And, Jerrie,' she went on, 'I
want the grave lined with boughs from our old playing place--the four
pines, you know--and many, many flowers, for I shudder at the thought of
the cold earth which would chill me in my coffin. So, heap the grave
with flowers, and come often to it, and think lovingly of me, lying
there alone. I am thinking so much of that poem Harold read me long ago
of poor little Alice, the May queen, who said she should hear them as
they passed, with their feet above her in the long and silent grass.
Maybe the dead can't do that. I don't know, but if they can, I shall
listen for you, and be glad when you are near me, and I know I shall
wait on the golden seat by the river. Remember your promise to tell
Harold that it was all a mistake. My mind gets clearer toward the end,
and I see things differently from what I did once, and I know how I
blundered. You will tell him?'
Again Jerrie made the promise, with a sinking heart, not knowing to what
it bound her; and as Maude was becoming tired, she bade her try to rest
while she sat by and watched her.
The next day, at the same hour, when the balmy September air was
everywhere, and the mid-afternoon sun was filling the house with golden
light, and the crickets' chirp was heard in the long grass, and the
robins were singing in the tree-tops, another scene was presented in the
sick room, where Frank Tracy knelt at his dying daughter's side, with
his face bowed on his hands, while her fingers played feebly with his
white hair as she spoke to Arthur, who had just come in. They had told
him she was dying and had asked for him, and with his nervous horror of
everything painful and exciting, he had shrunk from the ordeal; but
Jerrie's will prevailed, and he went with her to the room, where Frank,
and his wife, and Tom were waiting--Tom standing, with folded arms, at
the foot of the bed, and looking, with hot, dry eyes, into the face on
the pillow, where death was setting his seal; the mother, half-fainting
upon the lounge, with the nurse beside her; and Frank, oblivious of
everything except the fact that Maude was dying.
'Kiss me good-bye, Uncle Arthur,' she said, when he came in, 'and come
this side where father is.' Then, as he went round and stood by Frank,
she reached her hand for his, and, putting it on her father's head, said
to him: 'Forgive him, Uncle Arthur; he is so sorry, poor father--the
dearest, the best man in the world. It was for me; say that you forgive
him.'
Only Frank and one other knew just what she meant, although a sudden
suspicion darted through Jerrie's mind, and, when Arthur looked
helplessly at her, she whispered to him:
'Never mind what she means--her mind may be wandering; but say that you
forgive him, no matter what it is.'
Thus adjured, Arthur said to the grief-stricken man, who shook like an
aspen:
'I know of nothing to forgive except your old disbelief in Gretchen, and
deceiving me about sending the carriage the night Jerrie came; but if
there is anything else, no matter what it is, I do forgive you freely.'
'Thanks,' came faintly from Maude, who whispered:
'It is a vow, remember, made at my death-bed.'
She had done all she could, this little girl, whose life had been so
short, and who, as she once said, had been capable of nothing but loving
and being loved; and now, turning her dim eyes upon Jerrie, who was
parting the damp hair upon her brow, she went on:
'Remember the promise, and the flowers, and the golden seat where you
will find me resting by the flowing river whose shores I am now looking
upon, for I am almost there, almost to the golden seat, and the tree
whose leaves are like emeralds, and where the grass and flowers are like
the flowers and grass of summer just after a rain. I am glad for you,
Jerrie. Good-bye; and you, father dear, good-bye.'
That was the last, for Maude was dead; and the servants, who had been
standing about the door, stole noiselessly back to their work, with wet
eyes and a sense of pain and loss in their hearts, for not one of them
but had loved the gentle girl now gone forever from their midst.
If was Jerrie who led Frank from the room to his own, where she left him
by himself, knowing it would be better so, and it was Arthur who took
Dolly out, for Tom had disappeared, and no one saw him again until the
next day, when he came down to breakfast, with a worn, haggard look upon
his face, which told that he did care, though his mother thought he did
not, and taunted him with his indifference. Poor Tom! He had gone
directly to his room and locked the door, and smoked and smoked, and
thought and thought, and then, when it was dark, he had stolen out into
the park as far as the four pines, and smoked, and looked up at the
stars and wondered if Maude were there with Jack, sitting on the golden
seat by the river. Then going back to the house where no one saw him, he
went into the silent room where Maude was lying, and looked long and
earnestly upon her white, still face, and wondered in a vague kind of
way if she knew he was there, and why he had never thought before what a
nice kind of girl she was, and why he had not made more of her as her
brother.
'Maude,' he whispered, with a lump in his throat, 'if you can hear me,
I'd like to tell you I am sorry that I was ever mean to you, and I guess
I did like you more than I supposed.'
Then he kissed her pale forehead and went to his room, where he smoked
the night through, and in the morning felt as if he had lived a hundred
years since the previous night, and wondered how he should get through
the day. It occurred to him that it might be the proper thing to see
his mother; and after his breakfast he went to her room, and was
received by her with a burst of tears and reproaches for his
indifference and lack of feeling in keeping himself away from everybody,
as if it were nothing to him that Maude was dead, or that there was
nothing for him to do.
'Thunderation, mother!' Tom exclaimed, 'would you have me yell and
scream, and make a fool of myself? I sat up all night long, which was
more than you did, and I've been meditating in the woods, and have seen
Maude and made it square with her. What more can I do?'
'You can see to things,' Mrs. Tracy replied. 'Your father is all broken
up and has gone to bed, and it is not becoming in me to be around.
Somebody must take the helm.'
'And somebody has,' Tom answered her. 'Uncle Arthur is master of the
ceremonies now. He is running the ranch, and running it well, to.'
And Tom was right, for Arthur had taken the helm, and aided and abetted
by Jerrie, was quietly attending to matters and arranging for the
funeral, which Dolly said must be in the house, as she would not go to
the church, with a gaping crowd to stare at her. So it was to take place
at the house on Friday afternoon, and Arthur ordered a costly coffin
from New York, with silver mountings and panels, and almost a car-load
of flowers and floral designs, for Jerrie had explained to him Maude's
wishes with regard to her grave, which they lined first with the
freshest of the boughs from the four pines, filling these again with
flowers up to the very top, so that the grave when finished seemed like
one mass of flowers, in which it would not be hard to lie.
Dolly had objected to Billy as one of the pall-bearers. He was too short
and inferior looking, she said, and not at all in harmony with Dick, and
Fred, and Paul Crosby, the young man who, in Harold's absence, had been
asked to take his place. But Arthur overruled her with the words 'It was
Maude's wish,' and Billy kept his post.
The day arrived, and the hour, and the people came in greater crowds
than they had done when poor Jack was buried, or the dark woman,
Nannine, with only Jerrie as chief mourner, and the procession was the
longest ever seen in Shannondale; and Dolly, even while her heart was
aching with bitter pain, felt a thrill of pride that so many were
following her daughter to the grave.
Arrived at the cemetery, there was a halt for the mourners to alight and
the bearers to take the coffins from the hearse and carry it to the
grave--a halt longer than necessary, it seemed to Jerrie, who under the
folds of her veil did not see the tall young man making his way through
the ranks of the people crowding the road, straining every nerve to
reach the hearse, which he did just as the four young men were taking
the coffin from it.
With a quick movement he put Paul Crosby aside, saying, apologetically:
'Excuse me, Paul. I must carry Maude to her grave. She wished it so.'
Then, taking the young man's place, he went slowly on to the open grave
near which piles and piles of flowers were lying ready to cover the
young girl who it was hard for him to believe was there beneath his
hand, cold and dead, with no word of welcome for him who had tried so
hard to see her, and was only in time for this, to help lay her in the
grave and to listen to the solemn words 'ashes to ashes,' and hear the
dreadful sound of earth to earth falling upon the box which held the
beautiful coffin and the lovely girl within it.
Even then Jerrie did not see him, but when she took a step or two
forward to look into the grave before it was filled up, and someone put
a hand upon her shoulder and said, 'Not too near, Jerrie,' she started
suddenly, with a suppressed cry, and turning, saw Harold standing by
her, tall, and erect, and self-possessed, as he faced the multitude,
some of whom had suspected him of a crime, but all of whom were ready
now to do him justice and bid him welcome home.
'Oh, Harold,' Jerrie said, as she grasped his arm, 'I am so glad you are
here. I wish you had come before.'
Harold could not reply, for they were now leaving the spot, and many
gathered around him; first and foremost, Peterkin, who came tramping
through the grass, puffing like an engine, and, unmindful of the time or
place, slapping him upon the shoulder, as he said: 'Well, my boy, glad
to see you back, 'pon my soul, I be; but you flustrated all my plans. I
was meanin' to give you an oblation; got it, all arranged, and you
spiled it by takin' us onawares, like a thief in the night. I beg your
pardon,' he continued, as he met a curious look in Harold's eyes, 'I'm a
blunderin' cuss, I be. I didn't mean nothin', I've ever meant nothin',
and if I hev' I'm sorry for it.'
Harold did not hear the last, for he was handing Jerrie into the
carriage with her father, who bade him enter, too; saying they would
leave him at the cottage where he wished to go as soon as possible.
There was no time for much conversation before the cottage was reached,
and Harold alighted at the gate, and no allusion whatever had been made
to Jerrie's changed relations until Harold stood looking at her as she
kept her seat by her father and made no sign of an intention to stop.
Then he said, as calmly as he could:
'Do you stay at the Park House altogether now?'
'Oh, no,' she answered quickly. 'I have been there a great deal with
Maude, but am coming home to-night. I could not leave grandma alone, you
know.'
She acknowledged the home and the relationship still, and Harold's face
flushed with a look of pleasure, which deepened in intensity when
Arthur, with a wave of the hand habitual to him, said:
'I must keep her now that you are here to see to the grandmother, but
will let you have her to-night. Come up later, if you like, and walk
home with her.'
'I shall be most happy to do so,' Harold said, and then the carriage
drove away, while he went in to his grandmother, who had not attended
the funeral, but who knew that he had returned and was waiting for him.
CHAPTER LI.
UNDER THE PINES WITH HAROLD.
It seemed to Harold that it had been a thousand years since he had left
Shannondale, so much had come into and so much had gone out of his life
since he said good-bye to the girl he loved and to the girl who loved
him. One was dead, and he had only come in time to help lay her in her
grave; while the other, the girl he loved, was, some might think,
farther removed from him than death itself could have removed her.
But Harold did not feel so. He had faith in Jerrie--that she would not
change, though there had been a time during the first homesick weeks in
Tacoma, when, knowing from his grandmother of her convalescence, and
still hearing from her no explanation with regard to the diamonds, which
he knew a few still suspected him of having taken, in his impatience and
humiliation he had cried out, 'Jerrie has forgotten. She is not standing
by me, forever and ever, amen, as she once promised to do.' But this
feeling quickly passed, and there came a day when he read the judge's
letter in the privacy of his room at the Tacoma, and rejoiced with an
exceeding great joy for Jerrie, whose house and birthright had been so
strangely restored. He never doubted the story for a moment, but felt
rather as if he had known it always, and wondered how any one could have
imagined for a moment that blue-eyed, golden-haired Jerrie was the child
of the dark, coarse looking woman found dead beside her. 'I am so glad
for Jerrie,' he said, without a thought that her relations to himself
would in any way be changed.
Once, when she had told him of the fancies which haunted her so often,
he had put them from him with a fear that, were they true, Jerrie would
be lost to him forever. But he had no such misgivings now; and when
Jerrie's letter came, urging his return, both for her own sake and
Maude's, he wrote a few hurried lines to her, telling her how glad he
was for her, and of his intention to start for the East as soon as
possible. 'To-morrow, perhaps,' he wrote, 'in which case I may be there
before this letter reaches you, for the mails are sometimes slow, and
the judge's communication was overdue three or four days.'
Starting the second day after his letter, Harold travelled day and
night, while something seemed beckoning him on--Maude's thin, white
face, and Jerrie's, too; and when, between St. Paul and Chicago, there
came a detention from a freight car off the track, he felt that he must
fly, so sure was he that he was wanted and anxiously looked for at Tracy
Park, where at that very time Maude was dying. The next afternoon he
left Chicago, and with no further accident reached Shannondale just as
the long procession was winding its way to the cemetery.
He had heard from an acquaintance in Springfield that Maude was dead,
and of her request that he should be one of the pall-bearers, together
with Dick, and Fred, and Billy. 'And I will do it yet,' he said, with a
throb of pain, as he thought of the little girl who had died believing
that he loved her. Once or twice he had resolved to write and tell her
as carefully as possible of her mistake, but as often had changed his
mind, thinking to wait until she was better; and now she was dead, and
the chance for explanation gone forever; but he would, if possible,
carry out the wish she had expressed with regard to himself.
Striking into the fields from the station, he reached the cemetery in
time to take his place by Billy and carry poor little Maude to her last
resting place; and then he looked for Jerrie, and felt an indefinable
thrill when he saw her on her father's arm, and began to realize that
she was Jerrie Tracy. But all that was over now; he had talked with her
face to face, and had found her the Jerrie he had always known, and he
was going to see her in her own home, at Tracy Park--the daughter of the
house, the heiress of Arthur Tracy, and of more than two millions, it
was said--for, despite Frank's extravagance, all of which Arthur had met
without a protest, his money had accumulated rapidly, so that he was a
much richer man now, than when he first came home from Europe.
Harold found the family at dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Tracy and Tom in the
dining-room, and Arthur and Jerrie in the Gretchen room, to which he was
taken at once.
'Come in--come in, my boy. You are just in time for dessert,' Arthur
said, rising with alacrity and going forward to meet him; while Jerrie,
too, arose and took his hand, and made him sit by her, and questioned
him on his journey, and helped him to the fairest peach and the finest
bunch of grapes, and, without seeming to do so, examined him from head
to foot, and thought how handsome and grand he was, and felt sure that
her father thought so too.
With a part of the first money Billy had paid him, or rather had told
him to draw in Tacoma, Harold had bought himself the clothes which he
needed sadly; and though it was only a business suit, and had travelled
thousands of miles, it fitted him well, and it was not at all a shabby
Harold sitting at Arthur's table, but a young man of whom anyone might
have been proud. And Jerrie was proud of him and of her father, too, as
they talked together; and Harold showed no sign of any inequality, even
if he felt it, which he did not.
'A fine young man, with the best of manners, and carries himself as he
were the lord high chancellor,' Arthur said, when, after dinner, Harold
left there to pay his respects to the other inmates of the family, whom
he found just leaving the dining-room.
Dolly bowed to him coldly at first, and was about to pass on, when, with
a burst of tears, she offered him her hand, and sobbed:
'Oh, Harold, why didn't you come before? Maude wanted to see you so
badly.'
This was a great deal for Dolly, and Tom stared at her in amazement,
while Harold explained that he had come as soon as he possibly could,
and tried to say something of Maude, but could not, for the tears which
choked him. Frank was unfeignedly glad to see him, and told him so.
'Our dear little girl was fond of you, Hal. I am sure she was, and I
shall always like you for that. Heaven bless you, my boy,' he said, as
he wrung Harold's hand and then hurried away after his wife, leaving
Harold alone with Tom, who, awfully afraid he should break down, said,
indifferently:
'Glad to see you, Hal. Wish you had come before Maude died. She was in
a tearin' way to see you. Have a cigar? Got a prime lot in my room. Will
you go there?
Harold was in no mood for cigars, and, declining Tom's offer, sauntered
awhile around the grounds, where he found himself constantly expecting
to find the dead girl sitting under a tree wailing for him with the
light whose meaning he now knew kindling in her beautiful eyes as she
bade him welcome and told him how glad she was to see him. He was glad
now that he had not written and told her of her mistake, and he felt in
his heart a greater tenderness for the Maude dead than he ever could
have felt for the Maude living.
It was beginning to grow dark when he returned to the house where he
found Jerrie in the hall ready to go home. Arthur was at her side, with
his arm thrown lovingly around her, and as he passed her over to Harold,
he said:
'Make the most of her to-night, my boy, for to-morrow she comes home to
stay. Heaven bless you, my daughter!'
His words sent a thrill through both Harold and Jerrie, who walked on in
silence until they reached the four pines, where Jerrie halted suddenly
and said:
'Let us sit down, Harold. I have a message from Maude, which I promised
to deliver the first time we were alone together after you came home.'
Jerrie's voice trembled a little, and after they were seated she was
silent until Harold said to her:
'You were going to tell me of Maude;' then she started and replied:
'Yes; she wanted so much to see you and tell you herself. I don't know
what she meant, but she said she had made a mistake, and I must tell you
so, and that you would understand it. She had been thinking and
thinking, she said, and knew it was a stupid blunder of hers; that was
what she called it--a stupid blunder; and she was sorry for you that she
had made it, and bade me say so, and tell you no one knew but herself
and you. Dear little Maude! I wish she had not died.'
Jerrie was crying now, and perhaps that was the reason she did not mind
when Harold put his arm around her and drew her closer to him, so close
that his brown hair touched her golden curls, for the night was warm and
she had brought her bonnet in her hand all the way, while he had taken
off his hat when they sat down under the pines, which moaned and sighed
above them for a moment, and then grew still, as if listening for what
Harold would say.
'Yea,' he began slowly, 'I think I know what Maude meant by the mistake.
Did she say I must tell you what it was?'
'She said you would tell me, but perhaps you'd better not,' Jerrie
replied,
'Yes, I must tell you,' he continued, 'as a preliminary to what I have
to say to you afterward, and what I did not mean to say quite so soon;
but this decides me,' and Harold drew Jerrie a little closer to him as
he went on: 'Did you ever think that I loved poor little Maude?'
'Yes, I have thought so,' was Jerrie's answer.
'She thought so, too,' Harold continued, 'and it was all my fault; my
blunder, not hers. I loved her as I would a sister; as I did you in the
olden days, Jerrie. She was so sweet and good, and so interested in you
and all I wanted to do for you, that I regarded her as a very dear
friend, nothing more. And because I looked upon her this way, I
foolishly went to her once to confess my love for another; her dearest
and most intimate friend, and ask if she thought I had a chance for
success. I must have bungled strangely, for she mistook my meaning and
thought I was speaking of herself and in a way she accepted me; and
before I had time to explain, her mother came in and I have never seen
her since; but I shall never forget the eyes which looked at me so
gladly, smiting me so cruelly for the delusion in which I had to leave
her. That is what Maude meant. She saw the mistake, and wished to
rectify it by giving me the chance to tell you myself what I wanted to
tell you then and dared not.'
Jerrie trembled violently, but made no answer, and Harold went on:
'It may seem strange that I, who used to be so much afraid of Jerrie
Crawford that I dared not tell her of my love, have the courage to do it
now that she is Jerrie Tracy, and I do not understand it myself. Once
when you told me your fancies concerning your birth, a great fear took
possession of me, lest I should lose you, if they were true; but when I
heard that they were true, I felt so sure of you that I could scarcely
wait for the time when I could ask you, as I now do, to be my wife, poor
as I am, with nothing but love to give you. Will you, Jerrie?'
His face was so close to hers now that her hot cheeks touched his as she
bent her head lower and lower, but she made no reply for a moment, and
then she cried:
'Oh, Harold, it seems so soon, with Maude only buried to-day. What shall
I say? What ought I to say?'
'Shall I tell you?' he answered, taking her hand in his. 'Say the first
English word you ever spoke, and which I taught you. Do you remember
it?'
'_Iss_' came involuntarily from Jerrie, in the quick, lisping accent of
her babyhood, when that was all the English she could master; and almost
before it had escaped her, Harold smothered it with the kisses he
pressed upon her lips as he claimed her for his own.
'But, Harold,' she tried to explain between his kisses, 'I meant that I
_did_ remember. You must not--you must not kiss me so fast. You take my
breath away. There! I won't stand it any longer. I'm going straight home
to tell grandma how you act!'
'And so am I,' Harold said, rising as she did, but keeping his arm
around her as they went slowly along in the soft September night, with
the stars, which were shining for the first time on Maude's grave,
looking down upon then, and a thought of Maude in their hearts, and her
dear name often upon their lips, as they talked of the past as lovers
will, trying to recall just when it was that friendship ceased and love
began, and deciding finally that neither knew nor cared when it was, so
great was their present joy and anticipation of the future.
CHAPTER LII.
'FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE.'
'Grandma, Jerrie has promised to be my wife!' Harold said to his
grandmother that night when he took Jerrie in to her about ten o'clock,
during which time they had walked to the Tramp House, and sitting down
upon the chair which would hold but one, had talked the whole matter
over, from the morning Harold first saw the sweet little face in the
carpet-bag to the present moment when the same sweet face was pressed
lovingly against his, and the same arms which had clung to him in the
snow were around his neck in the darkness, as they went over with the
old, old story, newest always and best to the last one who listens to it
and believes that it is true.
'Father, I have promised to marry Harold,' Jerrie said to Arthur the
next morning as she stood before him in the Gretchen room, with Harold's
hand in hers, and a look in her face something like what Gretchen's had
worn when Arthur first called her his wife.
'Lord bless you, I knew it was coming, but did not think it would be
quite so soon. You shock my nerves dreadfully,' Arthur exclaimed,
springing up and walking two or three times across the room. Then,
confronting the young couple, he said, 'Going to marry Harold? I knew
you would all this time. Well, he will do as well as any one to look
after the business. Frank is no good, and Colvin is too old. So, get
married at once, within a week if you like. I'm off for Germany next
month, to find Gretchen's grave, and the house, and the picture, and
everything, and as I shall take you with me I shall need some one with
brains to look after things while I am gone.'
'But father,' Jerrie began, 'if I go to Germany, Harold will go, too,
and if he stops here, I shall stay.'
Arthur looked at her inquiringly a moment, and then, as he begun to
understand, replied: 'Ah, yes, I see; "where thou goest, I go, and
where thou--" and so forth, and so forth. Well, all right; only you must
come here directly; it will never do to stay there, now you are engaged;
and you must be married in this room, with Gretchen looking on, and
soon, too. No wedding, of course, Maude's death is too recent for that;
but soon, very soon, so we can get off. I'll engage passage at once in
the Germanic, which sails the 15th of October, and you shall be married
the 10th. That's three weeks from to-day, and will give you a few days
in New York. I'll leave Frank here till we return, and then he must go,
of course, and the new mistress step in with Mrs. Crawford to
superintend. We will get some nice man and woman to stay with her while
we are gone.'
He had settled everything rapidly, but Jerrie had something to say upon
the subject. She did not wish to come to Tracy Park altogether while
Mrs. Tracy was there; she would rather enjoy the lovely room which
Harold had built for her, she said, and preferred to be married in the
cottage, the only home she had ever known.
'I shall stay with you all day,' she continued, 'but go home at night.'
'And so have a long walk with Harold. Yes, I see,' Arthur said,
laughingly, but assenting finally to her proposal.
It was Jerrie now who planned everything, with Harold's assistance, and
who broached the subject of Frank's future to her father, asking what
provision he intended to make for him when he left Tracy Park.
'What provision?' Arthur said. 'I guess he has made provision for
himself all these years, when my purse has been as free to him as
myself. Colvin tells me there has been an awful lot of money spent
somewhere.'
'Yes,' Jerrie replied, 'but you gave him permission to spend it, and it
would hardly be fair now to leave him with little or nothing, and he so
broken down. When Maude feared she was going to die, and before she knew
who I was, she wrote a letter for her father and you, asking him to give
me what he would have given her, and you to do the same. So now, I want
you to give Maude's father what you would have given me for Maude's
sake.'
'Bless my soul, Jerrie!' Arthur said. 'What a beggar you are! I don't
know what I should have given you; all I am worth, perhaps. How much
will satisfy you for Frank? Tell me, and it is done.'
Jerrie thought one hundred thousand dollars would not be any too much,
nor did it seem so to Arthur, who placed but little value upon his
money, and Jerrie was deputed to tell her uncle what provision was to be
made for him, and that, if he wished, he was to remain at the park until
his brother's return from Europe.
Frank was not in his own room, but Mrs. Tracy was, and to her Jerrie
first communicated the intelligence that she was to be married and go
with her father to Germany. The look which the highly scandalized lady
gave her was wonderful, as she said:
'Married! almost before the crape is off the door, or the flowers wilted
on Maude's grave! Well, that shows how little we are missed; and I am
not surprised, though I think Maude would be, at Harold, certainly. I
suppose you know there was something between them; but a man will do any
thing for money. I wish you joy of your husband.'
Jerrie was too indignant to explain any thing, and hurried off in quest
of her uncle, whom she found in Maude's room, where he spent the most of
his time, walking up and down and examining the different articles which
had belonged to his daughter, and which, at his request, remained
untouched as she had left them. Her brushes, her comb, her bottled
perfumery, her work-box, her Bible, a little half-finished sketch, and
her soft bed-slippers she had worn when she died, and one of which he
held in his hand when Jerrie went in to him.
'It is so like Maude,' he said, with quivering lips, as she went to his
side, 'and when I hold it in my hand I can almost hear the dear little
feet, which I know are cold and dead, coming along the hall as she used
to come, and will never come again. I think I should like to die here in
this room and go where Maude has gone, and I believe I should go there.
I am sure God has forgiven me, and Maude forgave me, too, for I told
her.'
'You did! I thought so,' Jerrie said.
'Yes, I had to tell her,' he continued, 'and I am glad I did, and she
loved me just the same. You saw her die. You heard what she said to me.
She must have believed in me, and that keeps me from going mad. I told
Dolly, too; the shadow was so black I had to; and she said she'd never
speak to me again as long as she lived, and she didn't either until last
night, when I was alone in here, crying on Maude's bed; then she came to
me and called me Frank, and said she was sorry she had been so hard, and
asked me what we were going to do, and where we were going. I'm sure I
don't know; do you?'
He was so broken, so like a child in his appeal to her, that Jerrie's
tears came fast as she told him of her approaching marriage and what her
father intended doing for him. Then Frank broke down entirely, and cried
like a child.
'I don't deserve it, and I know I owe it to you, whom I have injured so
much,' he said, while Jerrie tried to comfort him.
'I must go back now to father,' she said at last; and, with a kiss upon
his worn face, she went out into the hall, where she encountered Tom
just coming from his mother's room.
'Hallo!' Tom cried, with an attempt at a smile, 'and so you are going to
marry Harold?'
'Yes, Tom; I'm going to marry Harold,' Jerrie replied, unhesitatingly,
as she laid her hand on Tom's arm and walked with him down the stairs.
It seemed to her the most natural thing in the world that she should
marry Harold, and she was not at all abashed in speaking of it to Tom;
but when outside they saw Harold coming up the walk, the color rushed to
her cheeks, and her eyes grew wondrously bright with the love-light
which shown in them, as she dropped Tom's arm and hurried to Harold's
side.
'By George, I b'lieve I'll go and hang myself!' Tom said, under his
breath, as he stalked moodily away; but instead of that he went across
the fields to Le Bateau, where he sat for an hour, talking with old
Peterkin and waiting for Ann Eliza, who had gone to Springfield, her
father said, after a new gown, for which he was to pay two hundred
dollars.
'Think on't!' he continued. 'When we was fust married and run the 'Liza
Ann, the best gown May Jane had to her back was a mereener or
balzarine--dummed if I know what you call it--at one and ninepence a
yard; but now, lord land, what's two hundred dollar gownd to me! Ann
Eliza can have forty on 'em, if she wants to. There she is; there's the
kerridge! By gosh, though, ain't she a neat little filly!' and the
father's face glowed with pride as he watched his daughter alighting
from the carriage, to which Tom had hastened in order to assist her, for
she was still a little lame and limped as she walked.
He saw the two hundred dollar gown, for Peterkin would have it
displayed, and admired it, of course, and wished thut he had half the
sum it cost in his own right, and wondered if he could stand it, as he
walked slowly home, where he heard from his mother that they were still
to remain at Tracy Park for a while, and that his father was to have one
hundred thousand dollars settled upon him.
'I guess now I'll wait a spell, and let old Peterkin go to thunder,' he
decided, and for two weeks and more Ann Eliza watched in vain for his
coming, while Peterkin remarked to his wife that if Tom Tracy was goin'
to play fast and loose with his gal, he'd find himself brought up
standin' mighty lively.
The news that Harold and Jerrie were soon to be married, and go with
Arthur to Germany, created some surprise, and some talk, too, in town,
where many of the people had believed that there had been an
understanding, if not an engagement, between Harold and Maude. But Tom
put that right with a few decided words. There had never been an
engagement, he said. Maude had liked Harold very much, and he had liked
her, but had always preferred Jerrie; in short, matters had been as good
as settled between them, long ago.
This last was a little fiction of Tom's brain, but the people accepted
it as true, and began to look eagerly forward to the approaching
marriage, wondering, as people will, who would be invited, and who would
not. It took place the 10th of October, in Mrs. Crawford's little
parlor, with only a few intimate friends present--Grace Atherton, the
St. Claires, Ann Eliza Peterkin, and the Tracys, with the exception of
Dolly, who could not do so great violence to her feeling, as to attend a
wedding. Billy was not there, but he sent a magnificent emerald ring to
Jerrie, with the following note:
DEAR JERRIE,--I can't see you married, although I am glad for you,
and glad for Hal. God bless you both. I shall never forget you as
long as I live; and when you come back, maybe I can bear to see you
as Hal's wife, but now it would kill me. Good-bye.
Jerrie read this note with wet eyes up in her room, and then passed it
to Harold, to whom she told of that episode under the butternut tree,
when Billy asked her to be his wife.
'Poor Billy! I am awful sorry for him, but I can't let him have you,
Jerrie,' Harold said, passing the note back to her, and kissing her
tenderly, as he added: 'That is my last kiss for Jerrie Tracy, my little
girl of the carpet-bag. When I kiss you again, you will be my wife.'
'Come, children, we are waiting,' came with startling distinctness from
Arthur at the foot of the stairs, and then Harold and Jerrie went down
to the parlor, where they were soon made one, Arthur giving the bride
away, and behaving pretty well under the circumstances.
He had been very flighty the day before, insisting that Jerrie should be
married in white, with a blue ribbon on her bonnet, just as Gretchen had
been, and when she reminded him of Maude's recent death, he replied:
'Well, Gretchen will wear colors if you do not.'
And again he brought out and laid upon his bed the dress bought in Paris
years before, and which had been waiting for Gretchen on that stormy
night when he heard the wild cry of the dying woman above the wintery
gale. She was with him again in fancy, and when he went out to the
carriage which was to carry him to the cottage, he stepped back and
stood a moment by the door as if to let some one enter before him, and
all during the ceremony those nearest to him heard him whispering to
himself, 'I, Arthur, take thee, Gretchen,' and so forth; but when it was
over he came to himself and seemed perfectly rational, as he kissed his
daughter and shook hands with his son-in-law, to whom he gave a check
for ten thousand dollars, saying as he did so, that young men must have
a little spending money.
It was a very pleasant wedding, and every one seemed happy, even to
Dick, whose spirits, however, were rather too gay to be quite natural,
and whose voice shook just a little as he called Jerrie Mrs. Hasting,
and told her he hoped to see her in Paris in the spring as he thought of
going over there with Nina to join the Raymonds.
'Oh, I hope you will! Nothing could make me so happy as to meet you
there,' Jerrie said, looking at him with an expression which told him
she was thinking of the pines and was sorry for him.
The newly married pair were going directly to New York, where Arthur was
to join them on the 4th, as the _Germanic_ sailed the 15th.
All the wedding guests accompanied them to the station, Tom accepting a
seat in the coupé with Ann Eliza, who wore her two hundred dollar gown,
and was, of course, overdressed. But Tom did not think much about that.
He was ill at ease that morning, though trying to seem natural; and when
the train which took Jerrie away disappeared from view, he felt as if
everything which had made life desirable had left him forever, and he
cared but little now what he did, or with whom his lot was cast.
So when Ann Eliza, who had cried at parting with Jerrie, dried her eyes
and said to him, 'It is such a fine day; suppose we drive along the
river; it may dispel the blues,' he assented, and soon found himself
bowling along the smooth turnpike with Ann Eliza, whom he thought rather
interesting, with the tears shed for Jerrie on her long, light
eyelashes.
'I shall miss her so much, and be so lonely without her. I hope you'll
call often,' she said to him, when at last the drive was over, and Tom
promised that he would, and kept his promise, too; for after Arthur
left, he found Tracy Park so insupportably dull, with his father always
in Maude's room and his mother always in tears, that it was a relief to
go to Le Bateau and be made much of as if he were a prince and treated
to nice little lunches and suppers, even if old Peterkin did make one of
the party and disgust him so at times that he felt as if he must snatch
up his hat and fly.
And one night, when the old man had been more than usually disagreeable
and pompous, he did start up abruptly and leave the house, mentally
vowing never to enter it again.
'I'd rather saw wood and gather swill, as Hal used to, than listen to
that infernal old brag,' he was saying to himself, when he heard a
wheezy sound behind him, and looking round saw the old brag in full
pursuit and beckoning him to stop.
'I'm goin' to walk a spell with you,' he said, locking his arm in Tom's
as he came up. 'I want to have a little talk.'
'Yes,' Tom faltered, with a dreadful sinking of the heart, while
Peterkin went on:
'You see you've been a comin' to Lubbertoo off and on for mighty nigh a
month, and as the parents of a family it's time I as't your intentions.'
'Intentions!' Tom stammered, trying to draw his arm from Peterkin's.
But he might as well have tried to wrench it from a vise, for Peterkin
held it fast and went on:
'Yes, intentions! Thunderation, hain't a chap 'sposed to have intentions
when he hangs round a gal who has money like my Ann 'Liza! I tell you
what, Thomas,' and his manner became very insinuating and frank, 'as
nigh as I can kalkerlate I'm worth three millions, fair and square, and
there's three on 'em to divide it amongst--May Jane, Bill, and Ann
'Liza. Now, s'posin' we say three into three million, don't it leave a
million?'
Tom acknowledged that it did, and Peterkin continued:
'Jess so. Now I ain't one of them mean skunks that wants his folks to
wait till he's dead afore they enjoys themselves; and the day my Ann
'Liza is married, I plank down a million in hard cash for her and her
husband to do what they darned please with; cut a dash in Europe as Hal
is doin', if they like, or cut a splurge to hum, it's all one to me. I
call that square, don't you?'
Tom admitted that he did, and Peterkin went on:
'Now, then, I ain't goin't to have Ann 'Liza's affections trifled with,
and if I catch a feller a doin' on't, d'ye know what I'll do?'
Tom could not guess, and Peterkin continued:
'I'll lick him within an inch of his life, and then set the dogs on him,
and heave him inter the river! See?'
It was not a warm day, but Tom was perspiring at every pore as he saw
presented to him the choice between a million or to be 'licked within an
inch of his life and then dogged into the river.' Naturally he chose the
first as the lesser evil of the two, and began to lie as he had never
lied in his life before. He was very glad, he said, that Peterkin had
broached the subject, as it made matters easier for him by showing him
that his suit might not be rejected, as he had feared it might be.
'You know, of course, Mr. Peterkin,' he said, 'that I am a poor young
man, with no expectations whatever, for though Uncle Arthur has settled
something upon father, I cannot depend upon that, and how could I dare
to look as high as your daughter without some encouragement?'
'Encouragement, boy? Great Scott!' and releasing Tom's arm, Peterkin hit
him a friendly slap, which nearly knocked him down. 'Great Scott! What
do you call encouragement? When a gal is so flustified at seeing you,
and so tickled that she tetters right up and down, while her mother
hunts heaven and earth for tit-bits to tickle your palate with--quail on
toast, mushrooms, sweet-breads, and the Lord knows what--ain't that a
sign they are willin'? Thunder and guns! what would you have? Ann 'Liza
can't up and say "Marry me, Tom;" nor I can't up and say, "Thomas, marry
my daughter," can I? But if you want to marry her, say so like a man,
and I swan I'll meet you like a man, and a father!'
Alas for Tom! he had nothing left him to do except to say that he wished
to marry Ann Eliza, and that he would come the next evening and tell her
so.
It was Peterkin who answered his ring when he presented himself at the
door of Le Bateau, Peterkin more inflated and pompous than ever as he
shook the young man's hand, calling him Thomas--a name which aggravated
him beyond all description--and telling him to go right into the parlor,
where he would find Ann 'Liza waitin' for him, and where they could bill
and coo as much as they liked, for he and May Jane would keep out of the
way and give 'em a chance.
Even then Tom cast one despairing glance toward the door, with a half
resolve to bolt; but Peterkin was behind him, pushing him on to his
fate, which, after all, was not so very bad when he came to face it.
There was nothing low, or mean, or coarse about Ann Eliza, who, but for
her very bright red hair, would have been called pretty by some, and who
was by no means ill-looking, even with her red hair, as she stood up to
receive her lover, with a droop in her eyes, and a flush on her cheeks;
for she knew the object of his visit, into which he plunged at once. He
did not say that he loved her, but he asked her in a straightforward
way to be his wife, and then waited for her answer, which was not long
in coming, for Ann Eliza was no dissembler. She loved Tom Tracy with her
whole soul, and felt herself honored in being sought by him.
'Oh, Tom!' she said, while the tears shone in her eyes, which Tom
noticed for the first time were large and clear and very blue. 'It does
not seem possible for you to love me, but, if you really do, I will be
your wife and try to make you happy, and--and--'
She hesitated a moment and then went on:
'Save you as much as possible from father. We cannot live here; you and
he would not get on; he means well and is the kindest of fathers to me,
but he is not like you, and we must go away.'
She was really a very sensible girl, Tom thought, and in his joy at
finding her so sensible he stooped and kissed her forehead as the proper
thing for him to do, while she, the poor little mistaken girl, threw
herself into his arms and began to cry, she was so glad and happy.
Tom did not know exactly what he ought to do. It was a novel situation
for him to be in, with a girl sobbing on his bosom, and his first
impulse was to push her off; but when he remembered that she represented
a million of dollars, he did what half the men in the world would have
done in his place: he held her close and tried to quiet her, and told
her he was not half good enough for her, and knew in his heart he was
telling the truth, and felt within him that stirring of a resolve that
she should never know he did not love her, and that he would make her
happy, if he could.
And so they were betrothed without much billing and cooing, and Peterkin
came in with Mary Jane and made a speech half-an-hour long to his future
son-in-law, and settled just when they were to be married and what they
were to do.
Christmas week was the time, and he vowed he'd give 'em a wedding which
should take the starch entirely out of Gusty Browne, whose mother, Mrs.
Rossiter Browne, would think Gusty was never married at all when she saw
what he could do. Greatly he lamented that Harold and Jerry could not be
present. 'But they'll see it in the papers,' he said, 'for I'll have a
four column notice, if I write it myself, and pay for it too! And when
you meet 'em in Europe you can tell 'em what they missed.'
To all this Tom listened, with great drops of cold sweat running down
his back as he thought of the ridicule he should incur if Peterkin
should carry out his intentions to 'take the rag off the bush,' as he
expressed it. The trip to Europe pleased him, but the party filled him
with a horror from which he saw no escape, until he consulted his
mother, to whom he at once announced his engagement, but did not tell
her of the check on a Springfield bank for $2,000 which Peterkin had
slipped into his hand at parting with him, saying, when he protested
against taking it:
'Don't be a fool, Thomas. I'm to be your dad, so take it; you'll need
it. I know your circumstances; they ain't what they was, and I don't
s'pose you've got enough to buy the engagement ring, I want a big one. A
solitary--no cluster for me. I know what 'tis to be poor. Take it,
Thomas.'
So Tom took it with a sense of shame which prompted him several times to
tear it in shreds and throw them to the winds. But this he did not do,
for he knew he should need money, as he had none of his own; and when, a
few days before, he had asked Colvin for some, that worthy man, who had
never taken kindly to him, had bidden him go to a very warm place for
money, as he had no orders to give him any.
'Your uncle,' he said, 'settled one hundred thousand dollars on your
father--the more fool he--and expects him to live on it. So my advice to
you is that you go to work.'
Now, Tom couldn't work, and after a little Peterkin's gift did not seem
so very humiliating to him, although he could not bring himself to tell
his mother of it when he announced his engagement to her, which he did
bluntly and with nothing apologetic in his manner or speech.
'I am going to marry Ann Eliza Peterkin some time during the holidays,
and start at once for Europe,' he said, and then brought some water and
dashed it in her face, for she immediately went into hysterics and
declared herself dying.
When she grew calm, Tom swore a little, and talked a good deal, and told
her about the million, which he said was not to be sneezed at, and told
her what Colvin had said to him, and asked what the old Harry he was to
do if he didn't marry Ann Eliza, and told her of the proposed party,
asking her to save him from it if she could.
When she found she could not help herself, Dolly rose to the situation,
and said she would see her daughter-in-law elect, whom Tom was to bring
to her, as she could not think of calling at Le Bateau in her present
state of affliction. So Ann Eliza came over in the coat-of-arms
carriage, and her mother came with her. But her Dolly declined to see.
She could not endure everything, she said to Tom, and was only equal to
Ann Eliza, whom she met with a bow and the tips of her fingers, without
rising from her chair. Still, as the representative of a million, Ann
Eliza was entitled to some consideration, and Dolly motioned her to a
seat beside her, and, with her black-bordered handkerchief to her eyes,
said to her:
'Tom tells me you are going to marry him, and I trust you will try to
make him happy. He is a most estimable young man now, and if he should
develop any bad habits, I shall think it owing to some new and bad
influence brought to bear upon him.'
'Yes'm,' Ann Eliza answered, timidly; and the great lady went on to talk
of family, and blood, and position, as something for which money could
not make amends, and to impress upon her a sense of the great honor it
was to be a member of the Tracy family.
Then she spoke of the wedding party, which she trusted Ann Eliza would
prevent, as nothing could be in worse taste when they were in such
affliction, adding that neither herself nor Mr. Tracy could think of
being present.
'Be married quietly, without any display, if you wish to please me,' she
said; and with a wave of her cobweb handkerchief she signified that the
conference was ended.
'Well, Annie, how did you and my lady hit it?' Tom asked, meeting Ann
Eliza in the hall as she came out, flushed and hot from the interview.
'We didn't hit it at all,' Ann Eliza replied, with a sound of tears in
her voice, and a gleam in her eye which Tom had never seen before. 'She
just talked as if I were dirt, and that you were only marrying me for
money. She don't like me and I don't like her, there!' and the indignant
little girl began to cry.
Tom laughed immoderately, and, passing his arm around her as they went
down the stairs, he said:
'Of course you don't like her. Who ever did like her mother-in-law? But
you are marrying me, not my mother, so don't cry, _petite_.'
Tom was making an effort to be very kind, and even lover-like to his
_fiancée_, who was easily comforted, and who, on her return to Le Bateau
told her father plainly that the party must be given up, as it would be
sadly out of place and deeply offend the Tracys. Very unwillingly
Peterkin gave it up, and sent word to that effect to Mrs.
Rossiter-Browne, who had already been apprised of the coming event and
was having a wonderful gown made for the occasion.
'I find,' he wrote, 'that it wouldn't be at all _rachelshay_ to have a
blow out whilst the family is in deep black; but when they git into
lavender, and the young folks is home from their tower, I'll have a
tearer.'
Peterkin tried two or three times to see Mrs. Tracy, but she put him off
with one excuse after another, until Tom took the matter in hand and
told her she was acting like a fool and putting on quite too many airs.
Then she appointed an interview, and, bracing herself with a tonic, went
down to the darkened, cheerless room, and by her manner so managed to
impress him with her superiority over him and his that he forgot
entirely the speech he had prepared with infinite pains, and which had
in it a good deal about family _bonds_, and family _units_, and _Aaron's
beard_, and brotherly love. This he had rehearsed many times to May
Jane, with wonderful gestures and flourishes; 'but, I'll be bumped' he
said to her on his return from the Park House, 'if I didn't forget every
blessed word, she was so high and mighty. Lord! as if I didn't know what
she sprung from; but that's the way with them as was born to nothin'.
May Jane, if I ever catch you puttin' on airs 'cause you're a Peterkin,
I b'lieve I'll kill you!'
After this, anything like familiar intercourse ceased between the heads
of the two families until the morning after Christmas day, when Frank
and Dolly drove over to Le Bateau, where were assembled the same people
who had been present at Jerrie's wedding, and where Peterkin insisted
upon darkening the rooms and lighting the gas, as something a little out
of the usual order of things in Shannondale. Peterkin was very happy,
and very proud of this alliance with the Tracy, and his pride and
happiness shone in his face all through the ceremony; and when the
clergyman asked, 'Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?' his
manner was something grand to see as he stepped forward and responded,
'I do, sir,' in a voice so loud and full of importance that Dolly
involuntarily groaned, while Tom found it hard to refrain from laughing.
Tom behaved very well, and kissed his bride before any one else had a
chance to do so, and called May Jane mother and Peterkin father, after
he saw the papers which made Ann Eliza own in her own right a million
dollars; and when, an hour later, she handed over to him as his own, a
deed of property valued at one hundred thousand dollars, he took her in
his arms and kissed her again, telling her what was very true, that she
was worth her weight in gold. Tom had felt his poverty keenly, and all
the more so that Ann Eliza's engagement-ring, a superb solitaire, had
actually been bought with her father's gift, as had their passage
tickets to Europe. But now he was a rich man, made so by his wife's
thoughtful generosity, and he was conscious of a new set of feelings and
emotions with regard to her, and inwardly vowed that, so far as in him
lay, he would make her happy.
They took the train for New York that afternoon, accompanied by
Peterkin, who, when the ship sailed away next day, stood upon the wharf
waving his hands and calling out as long as they could hear him, 'God
bless you, my children! God bless you, my children!' Then he went back
to Shannondale and called at Tracy Park, and reported to Frank, the only
one he saw, that the youngsters had gone, and that Mrs. Thomas Tracy
looked as well as the best on 'em in the ship, and a darned sight better
than some!
After this the great houses of Le Bateau and Tracy Park settled down
into perfect quiet, especially that of Tracy Park, where Dolly shut
herself up in her mourning and crape, and Frank spent most of his time
in Maude's room, with her photograph in his hand, and his thoughts busy
with memories of the dear little girl lying in her grave of flowers
under the winter snow.
CHAPTER LIII.
AFTER TWO YEARS.
Two years since Harold and Jerrie went away, and it was October again,
and the doors and windows of the Park House were all open to the warm
sunshine which filled the rooms, where the servants were flitting in and
out with an air of importance and pleased expectancy, for that afternoon
the master was coming home, with Harold and Jerrie; and what was more
wonderful and exciting still, there was in the party a little boy, born
in Wiesbaden six months before, and christened Frank Tracy. They had
gone directly to Germany--Arthur, Harold, and Jerrie--for the former
would not stop a day until Wiesbaden was reached; and there, overcome
with fatigue and the recollections of the past which crowded upon him so
fast, Arthur fell sick and was confined to his room in the hotel for a
week, during which time Jerrie explored the city with Harold and a
guide, finding every spot connected with Gretchen and her life, even to
the shop were Frau Heinrich had sold her small wares.
As soon as her father was able, she took him to them one by one. Hand in
hand, for he seemed weak as a little child, they went to the bench under
the trees where he had first seen Gretchen knitting in the sunshine,
with the halo on her hair, and here Arthur took off his hat as if on
consecrated ground, and whispered, 'May God forgive me!' then to the
little shop once kept by Frau Heinrich, where Arthur astonished the
woman by buying out half her stock, which he ordered sent to his hotel,
and afterward gave away; then to the English church, where he knelt
before the altar and seemed to be praying, though the words he said were
spoken more to Gretchen than to God; then to the house where he had
lived with his bride, when heaven came down so close that she could
touch it, or rather, to the site of the house, for fire had done its
work there and they could only stand before the ruins, while Arthur said
again and again, 'May God forgive me!' then to the house where Jerrie
had lived and Gretchen had died, and where the picture still hung upon
the wall, a wonder and delight to all who had rented the place since
Marian's parents parents lived there. Jerrie recognized it in a moment,
and so did Arthur, but he could only wring his hands before it and sob,
'Oh, Gretchen, my darling, my darling!' Changed as the house was, Jerrie
found the room she remembered so well, where she had played and her
mother had died.
'The big stove stood here,' she said, indicating the spot, 'and mother
sat there writing to you, when Nannine opened the door and let the
firelight shine upon the paper. I can see it all so distinctly, and over
there in the corner was the bed where she died.'
Then Arthur knelt down upon the spot, and as if the oft-repeated
ejaculation, 'May God forgive me!' were wholly inadequate now, he said
the Lord's Prayer, with folded hands and streaming eyes, while Jerrie
stood over him, with her arm around his neck.
'Oh, Gretchen,' he cried; 'do you know I am here after so many
years?--Arthur, your husband, who loved you through all? Come back to
me, Gretchen, and I'll be so tender and true--tender and true! My heart
is breaking, Gretchen, and only for Cherry, our dear little girl baby, I
should wish I were dead, like you. Oh, Gretchen! Gretchen! sweetest wife
a man ever called his! and yet I forgot you, darling--forgot that you
had ever lived! May heaven forgive me for I could not help it; I forgot
everything. Where are you, Cherry? It's getting so dark and cold, and
Gretchen is not here--I think you must take me home.
Jerrie took him back to the hotel, where he kept his room for three
days, and then they went to Gretchen's grave beside her mother, which
Jerrie had found after some little search and enquiry. Here Arthur stood
like a statue, holding fast to Jerrie, and gazing down upon the
neglected grave, on which clumps of withered grass were growing and
blowing in the November wind.
'Gretchen is not here in this place,' he said mournfully, with a shake
of his head. 'She couldn't rest there a moment, for she liked everything
beautiful and bright, and this is like the Potter's field. But we'll put
up a monument for her, and make the place attractive; and by and by,
when she is tired of wandering about, she may come back and rest when
she sees what we have done, and knows that we have been here. We will
buy that house too, he said, as he walked away from the lonely grave;
and the next day Harold found the owner of the place and commenced
negotiations for the house, which soon changed hands and became the
property of Arthur.
Just what he meant to do with it he did not know, until Jerrie suggested
that he should make it an asylum for homeless children, who should
receive the kindest and tenderest care from competent and trustworthy
nurses, hired for the purpose.
'Yes, I'll do it,' Arthur said, 'and will call it "The Gretchen Home."
Maybe she will come there some time, and know what I have done.'
This idea once in his mind, Arthur never let go of it until the house
was fitted up with school-rooms and dormitories, with the little white
beds and chairs suggestive of the little ones rescued from want and
misery and placed in the Gretchen home until it would hold no more. The
general supervision of this home was placed in the hands of the English
rector, the Rev. James Dennis, whose many acts of kindness and humanity
among the poor had won for him the sobriquet of St. James, and with whom
the interests of the children were safe as with a loving father.
'There is money enough--money enough,' said Arthur, when giving his
instructions to the matron, a good-natured woman, who, he knew, would
never abuse a child. 'Money enough; to give them something besides bread
and water for breakfast, and mush and molasses for supper. Children like
cookies and custard pie, and if there comes a circus to town let them go
once in a while; it won't hurt them to see a little of the world.'
Frau Hirch looked at him in some surprise, but promised compliance with
his wishes; and when in the middle of December he left Wiesbaden for
Italy he had the satisfaction of knowing that the inmates of the
Gretchen home were enjoying a bill of fare not common in institutions of
the kind.
Another odd fancy had entered his brain, upon which he acted with his
usual promptness. Every child not known to have been baptized, was to be
christened with a new name, either Gretchen, or Jerrie, or Maude or
Arthur, or Harold, or Frank.
'Suppose you have Tom, and Ann Eliza, and Hilly,' Jerrie suggested, and
after a little demur Arthur consented, and the names of Tom, and Ann
Eliza, and Billy were added to the list, which, in the course of time,
created some little confusion in the Gretchen home, where Jerries, and
Maudes, and Harolds, and Arthurs abounded in great profusion, these
being the favorites of the children, who in most instances were allowed
to choose for themselves.
It was not difficult to find in Wiesbaden people who had remembered
Gretchen and the grand marriage she had made with the rich American, who
afterward abandoned her. That was the way they worded it, and they
remembered too, the little girl, Jerrine, whom, after her mother's
death, the nurse, Nannine, took to her father's friends, since which
nothing had been heard from her. Thus, had there been in Arthur's mind
any doubt as to Jerrie's identity, it would have been swept away; but
there was none. He had accepted her from the first as his daughter, and
he always looked up to her as a child to its mother whom it fears to
lose sight of.
The winter was mostly spent in Rome, where Harold and Jerrie explored
every part of the city, while Arthur staid in his room talking to an
unseen Gretchen, who afforded him almost as much satisfaction as the
real one might have done. In May they visited the lakes and in June
drifted to Paris, where Jerrie was overjoyed to meet Nina and Dick, who
were staying with the Raymonds at a charming chateau just outside the
city. Here she and Harold passed a most enjoyable week, and before she
left she was made happy by something which she saw and which told her
that Dick was forgetting that night under the pines, and that some day
not far in the future he would find in Marian all he had once hoped to
find in her. In Paris, too, she came one day upon Ann Eliza at the Bon
Marché, with silks and satins piled high around her, and two or three
obsequious clerks in attendance, for La Petite Américaine, who bought so
lavishly everything she saw and fancied, was well known to the
tradespeople, who eagerly sought her patronage and that of my lord
monsieur, who inspired them greatly with his air of importance and
dignity. Tom was enjoying himself immensely, and was really a good deal
improved and a good deal in love with his little wife, whom he always
addressed as Petite or Madame, and who was quite a belle and a general
favorite in the American colony. Following a fashion, which Tom was sure
had been made for his benefit, she had cut off her obnoxious red hair
and substituted in its place a wig of reddish brown, which for
naturalness and beauty was a marvel of art and skill, and became her so
well that Tom really thought her handsome, or at least very stylish and
stunning, which was better than mere beauty. They had a suite of rooms
at the Continental, and there Harold and Jerrie dined with them in their
private parlor, for Tom was quite too fine a gentleman to go to _table
d'hôte_ with the common herd. Ann Eliza's grand maid, Doris, was with
her still, and had come to look upon her young mistress as quite as
great a personage as the Lady Augusta Hardy, whom she had ceased to
quote, and who, with her mother, Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, was now in the
city, attended, it was said, by a Polish count, who had an eye upon her
money. Once, when they were alone, Jerrie asked Tom when he was going
home, and, with a comical twinkle in his eye, he replied, 'When I hear
that my respected father-in-law has gone off with apoplexy, and not
before.' Jerrie thought this a shocking speech, but she was glad to see
him so happy, and, as she told Harold, 'so much more of a man than she
had ever supposed he could be.'
That summer Harold and Jerrie spent in Switzerland, with the Raymonds
and St. Claires and Tracys, while Arthur went to Wiesbaden to see to the
Gretchen Home, which he found so much to his taste that he remained
there until Harold and Jerrie, after a trip through Austria and Germany,
joined him in November, when they went again for the winter to Italy,
coming back in the spring to Wiesbaden, and because Arthur would have it
so, taking up their abode for a while in the Gretchen Home, which had
been greatly enlarged and improved, and now held thirty deserted and
homeless children. Here, in April, Jerrie's little boy was born, in the
same room and corner where Gretchen had died, and where Arthur again
went down upon his knees and said the Lord's Prayer, to which he added a
fervent thanksgiving for Jerrie spared and a baby given to him.
'I hoped it would be a girl,' he said, 'for then we should have called
it Gretchen; but as it is a boy, suppose we name it Heinrich?'
'No, father,' Jerrie said decidedly, 'Baby is not to be Heinrich, or
Arthur, or Harold, although I think the last the dearest name in the
world,' and she put up her hand caressingly to the brown beard of the
tall young man bending over to kiss her pale face and look at his son.
'We will call the baby Frank Tracy.'
And so Frank Tracy was the name given to the child, who was more like
its father than its mother, and whom Arthur called Tracy, which he liked
better, he said, than he did Frank.
They remained in Wiesbaden until June, then went to Switzerland and
Paris, and in October sailed for home, where the Park House was ready
for them, with no mistress to dispute Jerrie's rights and no master
except the lawful one. Just out of town on a grassy ridge overlooking
the river, a gentleman from New York had built a pretty little cottage,
which, as his wife died suddenly, he never occupied, but offered for
sale, with all its furniture and appointments.
'Let's buy it,' Dolly said to her husband. 'We must go somewhere before
Arthur comes home, and we can live there very respectably and
economically, too.'
She was beginning to count the cost of everything now, and was almost
penurious in her efforts to make their income go as far as possible. So
they bought the pretty place, which she called Ridge Cottage, but Frank
did not live to occupy it. After Tom went away and left him alone with
his wife, who was not the most agreeable of companions, he failed
rapidly, both in body and mind, and those who saw him walking about the
house, with his white hair and bent form, would have said he was seventy
rather than fifty years old. Every day, when the weather permitted, he
visited Maude's grave, where he sometime stayed for hours looking down
upon the mound talking to the insensible clay beneath.
'I am coming soon, Maude, very soon, to be here beside you,' he would
say. 'Everybody has gone, even to Tom, and your mother is sometimes hard
upon me because of what I did. And I am tired, and cold, and old, and
the world is dark and dreary, and I am coming very soon.'
Then he would walk slowly back, taking the post office on his way, to
inquire for letters from the folks, as he designated the absent ones.
These letters were a great comfort to him, especially those from Jerrie,
who wrote him very often and told him all they were doing and seeing,
and tried to make him understand how much she loved and sympathised with
him. Not a hint had been given him of the baby; and when, in June, he
received a letter from her containing a photograph of the little boy
named for him, he seemed childish in his joy, and started with the
picture at once for Maude's grave. Kneeling down, with his face in the
long grass, he whispered:
'Look, Maude!--Jerrie's baby boy, named for me--Frank Tracy! Do you hear
me, Maude? Frank Tracy, for me--who wronged her so. God bless Jerrie,
and give her many years of happiness when I am dead and gone, which will
not now be long. I am coming very soon, Maude; sooner than you think,
and shall never see Jerrie's little boy, God bless him!'
That night Frank seemed brighter than usual, and talked a great deal
with his wife, who, to the last day of her life, was glad that she was
kind to him and humored all his fancies; and once, when he lay upon the
couch, with the baby's picture in his hand, she went and sat by him and
ran her fingers caressingly through his white hair, and asked if he were
not better.
'Yes, Dolly,' he said, taking her fingers in his hand and holding them
fast. 'A great deal better. Jerrie's baby has done me good, and you,
too, Dolly. You don't knew how nice it seems to have you smooth my hair;
it is like the old days at Langley, when we sang in the choir together,
and you were fond of me.'
'I am fond of you now, Frank,' Dolly replied, as she stooped to kiss the
face in which there was a look she had never seen before, and which
haunted her long after he had said good-night and gone to Maude's room,
where he said he would sleep, as he was likely to be restless and might
keep her awake.
The next morning Dolly took her breakfast alone, for Frank did not join
her.
'Let him sleep,' she said to the servant, who suggested calling him; but
when some time later, he did not appear, she went herself to Maude's
room, into which the noonday sun was shining, for every blind and window
was open and the light was so dazzling that for a moment she did not see
the still figure stretched upon the bed, where with Maude's picture in
one hand and Jerrie's baby's in the other, her husband lay, calmly
sleeping the sleep which knows no waking.
On his face there was a look of rapturous joy, and on his lips a smile
as if they were framing the loved name of Maude when death came and
sealed them forever. Around him was no sign of struggle or pain, for the
covering was not disturbed; and the physician when he came said he must
have died quietly and possibly instantly without a note of warning. They
buried him beside his daughter and then Dolly was alone in the great
house, which became so intolerable to her that she left it early in
August and took possession of the cottage on the Ridge, which, though
scarcely less lovely, was not as large as the Park House and did not
seem haunted with the ghosts of the dead.
And so it happened that Mrs. Crawford alone stood in the door-way to
welcome the travellers when, late in the bright October afternoon they
came, tired and dusty, but oh, so glad to be home once more and to feel
that now it really was home to all intents and purposes.
'I never was so glad in my life, and if Uncle Frank were here I should
be perfectly happy,' Jerrie cried, as she threw herself upon Mrs.
Crawford's neck, hugging and kissing her awhile, and then taking her
baby from the nurse she put it into the old lady's arms, saying as she
did so:
'Another grandson for you--Harold's baby. Isn't he a beauty?'
And little Tracy was a most beautiful child, with his father's features
and complexion, but Jerrie's expression and ways, and Mrs. Crawford
felt, as she folded him to her bosom and cried over him, that he would
be the crowning joy of her old age. At first Harold puzzled and
perplexed her, he was so changed from the Harold who had shingled roofs
and painted barns and worked in Peterkin's furnace. Foreign travel and
prosperity set well upon him, and one could scarcely have found a more
refined or polished young man than Harold as he moved about the
premises, every inch a gentleman and every inch the master, with a
bright smile and pleasant word for everyone, whether of high or low
degree. He had known what poverty meant, with slights on account of it,
and had risen above it all, and remembering the days when he worked in
the Tracy fields and envied his companions their leisure and freedom
from toil, he had resolved that, if possible, some portion of mankind
should be happier because of him. He knew he was very fine-looking, for
his tailor told him so, and his mirror told him so, and Jerrie told him
so twenty times a day as she kissed his handsome face, and his
grandmother frequently took off her spectacles to wipe away her glad
tears as she looked at her boy and felt so proud of him.
All Shannondale hastened to call upon the travellers, and no one was
louder or more demonstrative in his welcome than Peterkin, who called
himself their _kin_, and was very proud of the connection and of his son
_Thomas_, for whom he made many inquiries. It did not take long for the
family to settle down into every-day quiet, Jerrie proving herself a
competent and thorough housekeeper, while Harold was to all intents and
purposes the head to whom everyone deferred and went for directions.
Arthur, who had half died from seasickness, had at once taken to his
rooms and his old mode of life, telling Harold and Jerrie to do what
they liked and not bother him. One change, however, he made; he put
Harold into the office in the place of Colvin, who had done his business
for so many years, and who was glad to give it up, while Harold was glad
to take it, as it gave him something to do and did not greatly interfere
with his law studies, which he immediately resumed, applying himself so
closely that he was admitted to practice within the year, and in time
became one of the ablest lawyers in the State.
And now there remains but little to do except to gather up the few
tangled threads of our story and bring it to a close. For another year
the Raymonds and St. Claires remained abroad, and then, just before they
sailed for home, there was a double wedding one morning in London, when
Fred and Dick were the bridegrooms, and Marian and Nina were the brides.
Dick had not forgotten the night under the pines, but he had ceased to
remember it with pain; and when he asked Marian to be his wife he told
her of it, and of his old love for Jerrie, while she in turn told him of
a grave among the Alps by which she had stood with an aching heart,
while strangers buried from her sight forever a young artist from
Boston, who, had he lived, would have made it impossible for her to be
the wife of Dick St. Claire. But Allan was dead, and Jerrie was a wife
and mother, and so across the graves of a living and a dead love the two
grasped hands, and, forgetting the past as far as possible, were content
with the new happiness offered to them.
* * * * *
It is five years now since Harold and Jerrie came home, and toddling
about the house is a little girl two years old, whom they call Gretchen,
and who has all the soft beauty of the Gretchen in the picture, together
with Jerrie's stronger and more marked features. This little girl is
Arthur's idol, and has succeeded in luring him from his den, in which,
until she came, he was staying closer than ever. Now, however, he is
with her constantly, either in the house or in the grounds, or sitting
under a tree holding her in his lap, while he talks his strange talk to
the other Gretchen, and the child listens wonderingly, with her great
blue eyes fixed upon him.
'This is our grandchild,' he will say, nodding to the space beside him,
while little Gretchen nods too, as if she also saw a figure sitting
there. 'Our grandchild and Jerrie's baby, and you are its grandmother.
Grandma Gretchen! That's funny;' and then he laughs, and baby laughs,
and says after him, lispingly, 'Danma Detchen, that's funny.'
Then Tracy comes up with his whip and his cart, and his straw hat
hanging down his back, and Arthur points him out to the spirit Gretchen
as her grandson, who, he says, is all Hastings, with a very little Tracy
and not a grain of German in him, 'but very nice, very nice; and you are
his grandmother, too, and I am his grandfather, whom he once called an
old crazy man because I wouldn't let him play in my room with a little
alligator which his Aunt Dolly sent him from Florida.'
'Well, you be crazy, ain't you?' the boy says, seating himself upon the
bench and nestling his brown head against the arm of the man, who
replies:
'I don't know whether I am or not, but if to be very happy in the
companionship of the living and of the dead, and to have one as real as
the other is craziness, then I am crazy.'
And then, for the hundredth time, he tells to the boy, and to the baby,
too, who seems to understand the story of the carpet-bag and the little
girl, their mother, whom the boy, their father, found in the Tramp House
one wintry morning years ago, and carried through the snow. And Tracy
starts to his feet with dilating eyes, and says:
'I just wish I'd been there. I'd carried mamma, and wouldn't let her
drop in the snow as papa did. Where was I then, grandpa?'
But grandpa does not answer, and begins the story of the cherries and
the ladder, which Tracy likes even better than that of the carpet bag,
particularly the part where the white sun-bonnet appears in the window,
and the shrill voice calls out: 'Mr. Crazyman, Mr. Crazyman, don't you
want some cherries?'
This Arthur makes very dramatic and real, and Tracy holds his breath;
and sometimes when the question is more real than usual, little Gretchen
puts out her hand, and says:
'_Iss_, div me some.'
Then the boy and the old man laugh, and Tracy runs off after a passing
butterfly, and Arthur goes on with talk to the baby and the other
Gretchen beside him, until the former falls asleep, and he takes her to
the crib he has had put in the bay window under the picture which smiles
down upon the sleeping infant, whose guardian angel it seems to be.
The Tramp House has been repaired and renovated, the table mended, and
the rat hole stopped up; and the trio frequently go there together, for
it is the children's play-house, where Arthur is sometimes a horse,
sometimes a bear, and sometimes a whole menagerie of animals. Once or
twice he has been the dead woman on the table, with little Gretchen
beside him in the carpet-bag, and Tracy tugging with all his might to
lift her out; but after the day when he let her fall, and gave her a big
bump upon the forehead, that kind of play ceased, and the boy was
compelled to try some other make believe than that of the tragedy on the
wintry night many years before.
Billy Peterkin has never married, and never will. His heart-wound was
too deep to heal without a scar to tell where it had been; but he and
Jerrie are the best of friends, and he is very fond of her children.
Tom is still abroad, waiting for that fit of apoplexy which is to be the
signal for his return; but the probabilities are that he will wait a
long time, for Peterkin, who is himself afraid of apoplexy, has gone
through the Banting process, which has reduced his weight from fifty to
seventy-five pounds, and as he is very careful in his diet Tom may stay
abroad longer than he cares to do, unless Ann Eliza's persuasions bring
him home to his dreaded father-in-law. There was a little girl born to
them in Rome, whom they called Maude, but she only lived a few weeks,
and then they buried her under the daisies in the Protestant burying
ground, where so many English and Americans are lying. Ann Eliza sent a
lock of the little one's hair to her father, who had it framed and hung
in his bedroom, and wore on his hat a band of crape which nearly covered
it.
Dolly still calls the Ridge Cottage her home, but she is not often
there, for a mania for travelling has seized her, and she is always upon
the move, searching for some new place, where she hopes to find rest and
quiet. She still dresses in black, relieved at times with something
white, but she has laid aside crape and sports her diamonds, which she
did not find it necessary to sell, and which attract a great deal of
attention, they are so clear and large. One year she spent in Europe
with Tom and Ann Eliza, the latter of whom she made so uncomfortable
with her constant dictation and assumption of superiority that Tom at
last came to the rescue, and told her either to mind her business and
let his wife alone or go home. As she could not do the former she came
home, and joined a Raymond party to California, but soon separated
herself from it, as the members were not to her taste. Every summer she
goes either to Saratoga or the sea-side or the mountains, and every
winter she drifts southward to Florida, where, at certain hotels, she is
as well known as the oldest _habituée_. We saw her recently at Winter
Park, where, at the Seminole, she has a maid and a suit of rooms, and as
far as possible keeps herself aloof from the common herd, consorting
only with the noted ones of the place, those she knows who have money
and position at home. Poor foolish Dolly, who has forgotten Langley and
its humble surroundings. There are many like her in real life, but only
one in our story, to which we now write
THE END.
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