Gretchen: A Novel
by Mary Jane Holmes · English · Gutenberg #40702 · 956,853 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Gretchen: A Novel
Author: Mary Jane Holmes
Release date: September 7, 2012 [eBook #40702]
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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRETCHEN: A NOVEL ***
POPULAR NOVELS.
BY
_MRS. MARY J. HOLMES_.
TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.
ENGLISH ORPHANS.
HOMESTEAD ON HILLSIDE.
'LENA RIVERS.
MEADOW BROOK.
DORA DEANE.
COUSIN MAUDE.
MARIAN GREY.
EDITH LYLE.
DAISY THORNTON.
CHATEAU D'OR.
QUEENIE HETHERTON.
BESSIE'S FORTUNE.
DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.
HUGH WORTHINGTON.
CAMERON PRIDE.
ROSE MATHER.
ETHELYN'S MISTAKE.
MILBANK.
EDNA BROWNING.
WEST LAWN.
MILDRED.
FORREST HOUSE.
MADELINE.
CHRISTMAS STORIES.
GRETCHEN (_New_).
"Mrs. Holmes is a peculiarly pleasant and fascinating writer. Her
books are always entertaining, and she has the rare faculty of
enlisting the sympathy and affections of her readers, and of holding
their attention to her pages with deep and absorbing interest."
G.W. DILLINGHAM, PUBLISHER,
SUCCESSOR TO
G.W. CARLETON & Co., New York.
GRETCHEN.
A Novel.
BY
MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,
AUTHOR OF
TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.--DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.--MILBANK.--ENGLISH
ORPHANS.--'LENA RIVERS.--ETHELYN'S MISTAKE.--HUGH
WORTHINGTON.--MADELINE.--WEST LAWN.--EDNA
BROWNING.--MARIAN GREY.--BESSIE'S
FORTUNE, ETC.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
_G.W. Dillingham, Publisher_,
SUCCESSOR TO G.W. CARLETON & CO.
LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
MDCCCLXXXVII.
COPYRIGHT, 1887,
BY DANIEL HOLMES.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
STEREOTYPED BY
SAMUEL STODDER,
42 DEY STREET, N.Y.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Telegram 9
II. Arthur Tracy 12
III. Mr. and Mrs. Frank Tracy 19
IV. Getting Accustomed to It 24
V. At the Park 32
VI. The Cottage in the Lane 38
VII. The Party 45
VIII. Arthur 48
IX. Who is Gretchen? 60
X. Arthur Settles Himself 72
XI. The Storm 78
XII. The Tramp House 87
XIII. The Woman 94
XIV. Little Jerry 108
XV. Jerry at the Park 114
XVI. The Funeral, and After 122
XVII. "Mr. Crazyman, Do You Want Some Cherries?" 131
XVIII. Arthur and Jerry 139
XIX. Arthur's Plan 158
XX. The Working of Arthur's Plan 164
XXI. Mrs. Tracy's Diamonds 175
XXII. Searching For the Diamonds 184
XXIII. Arthur's Letter 198
XXIV. Ten Years Later 209
XXV. The Two Faces in the Mirror 216
XXVI. Maude's Letter 224
XXVII. "He Cometh Not," She Said 230
XXVIII. In Shannondale 237
XXIX. Why Harold Did Not Go to Vassar 249
XXX. The Walk Home 258
XXXI. At Home 264
XXXII. The Next Day 269
XXXIII. At the Park House 283
XXXIV. Under the Pines with Tom 287
XXXV. The Garden Party 293
XXXVI. Out in the Storm 301
XXXVII. Under the Pines with Dick 307
XXXVIII. At Le Bateau 312
XXXIX. Maude 326
XL. "Do You Know What You Have Done?" 336
XLI. What Jerrie Found under the Floor 341
XLII. Harold and the Diamonds 352
XLIII. Harold and Jerrie 366
XLIV. Jerrie Clears Harold 372
XLV. What Followed 379
XLVI. The Letters 382
XLVII. Arthur 389
XLVIII. What They were Doing and had Done in Shannondale 393
XLIX. Telling Arthur 404
L. The Flower Fadeth 416
LI. Under the Pines with Harold 422
LII. "For Better, For Worse." 427
LIII. After Two Years 441
GRETCHEN.
CHAPTER I.
THE TELEGRAM.
"BREVOORT HOUSE, NEW YORK, Oct. 6th, 18--.
"To Mr. Frank Tracy, of Tracy Park, Shannondale.
"I arrived in the Scotia this morning, and shall take the train for
Shannondale at 3 P.M. Send some one to the station to meet us.
"ARTHUR TRACY."
This was the telegram which the clerk in the Shannondale office received
one October morning, and dispatched 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 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 man of
leisure now, and as he dashed along the turnpike in his handsome
carriage, 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 looked upon it as
his, while his neighbors, too, seemed to have forgotten that there was 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 Arthur
Tracy, whose telegram announcing his return from Europe was read by his
brother with 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 to himself, as he sat
staring at the telegram, while the cold chills ran up and down his back
and arms. "Yes, he can examine all Colvin's books; he will find them
straight as a string, and didn't he tell me to take what I thought right
as remuneration for looking after his property while he was gallivanting
over the world; and if he objects that I have taken too much, 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 brace up. Here, boy, I want you!" and he rapped on 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."
"Sick! What is the matter?" Mr. Tracy asked, in dismay, feeling that
here was a fresh cause of trouble and worry for his wife.
"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 for 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, his face lighting up with
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 thresh him, or try to.
"Darn him!" he said to himself, as he recalled the many times when Tom
Tracy, a boy about his own age, had laughed at him for his poverty and
coarse clothes. "He ain't any better than I am, if he does wear velvet
trousers and live in a big house. 'Tain't 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 bring me a pyramid. He's seen 'em, they say."
Meantime, Mr. Frank Tracy had resumed his seat, and, with his hands
clasped 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 the 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!"
That would indeed be a calamity, for then his reign was over at Tracy
Park, and the party he and his wife were to give that night to at least
three hundred people would be their last.
"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 would be Congressman continued to walk the room, lamenting the
party, 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 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.
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 lead 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 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
working in the mills, 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 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 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 godson and namesake, 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, and quiet and gentlemanly in his
manners, and, though subject to moods and fits of abstraction and
forgetfulness, which won for him the reputation of being a "little
queer," he was exceedingly popular with everyone. 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 an inward feeling of resignation,
if not content. The rich uncle had died suddenly, 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 assured her that he should do something for her
husband. And he kept his word, and 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 Dolly 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.
Few ladies ever called at the house, for, with two or three exceptions,
Arthur held himself aloof from the people of Shannondale. It was said,
however, that sometimes, when he and his friend were alone, there was
the sound of music in the parlor, where sweet Amy Crawford, daughter of
the housekeeper, played and sang her simple ballads to the two
gentlemen, who 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, 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 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 passes at eleven, so I must say good-by.
"Yours lovingly,
"AMY."
This letter Mrs. Crawford found upon entering her daughter's room, after
waiting more than an hour for her 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 Amy'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. Arthur Tracy had wished to make
Amy his wife, and the 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. But it was too late now. There
was no turning back the wheels of fate; and forcing herself to be as
calm as possible, she took the note to Arthur, who 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 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, she began:
"I came to tell you of Mr. Hastings, and--Amy. 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 for
Europe."
For a moment Arthur Tracy stood looking at her, while his face grew
white as ashes, and into his dark eyes, there came a gleam like that of
a madman.
"Amy gone with Harold, my friend!" he said, at last. "Gone to be
married! Traitors! both of them. Curse them! If he were here I'd shoot
him like a dog; and she--I believe I would kill her too."
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 gave it to him, and then watched him as he read it, while
the veins on his forehead began to swell until they stood out like a
dark blue network against his otherwise pallid face.
"Yes," he said between his 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, he laughed
at me for losing my heart to my housekeeper's daughter! I could have
knocked him down for his sneer at Amy, and I wish now I had! He does not
mean to marry your daughter, madam, but if he does not, I will kill
him!"
He was certainly mad, and Mrs. Crawford shrank away from him as 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 was 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 had 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 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 you need 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 in 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 inclose 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 much like brothers for the past few years,
but I don't forget the old home in the mountains where we were boys
together, and played, and quarreled, and slept under the roof, where
the blanket's 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 Park, 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, and Dolly, too; but
don't make fools of yourselves. Be quiet and modest, and act as if
you had always lived at Tracy Park. Be kind to Mrs. Crawford, who is
a lady in every sense of the word.
"And now, good-by. I shall write occasionally, but not often.
"Your brother,
"ARTHUR TRACY."
CHAPTER III.
MR. AND MRS. FRANK TRACY.
Mr. Frank, in his small grocery 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 he thought of the letter,
which was finally brought to his mind by his wife's asking if there were
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
stared 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
table-cloth, she put the dish down so suddenly, and then sinking into a
chair, she 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 can't, 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 grand life
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, where she had been so completely overawed, that she
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.
"Such folderol!" she said to a friend, to whom she was describing the
dinner. "Such folderol! Changing your plates all the time--eating peas
in the winter, 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 large and bright, and
perhaps in time she might learn to use them as Mrs. Atherton used hers.
"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,
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 stayed 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
decided that it was. She was not going to begin by being _stuck up_, she
said; and when 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 in which her old mother had sat until the
day she died, the cradle in which she had rocked her baby boy who was
lying in the Langley graveyard, were dear to the wife and mother, and
though her husband told her she could have no use for them, 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 traveling 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_, 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.
Dolly scanned both the ladies very closely, noticing 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 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 plaids who
stood watching them with a rising feeling of jealousy and resentment,
because she was not noticed.
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.
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,
and Dolly's eye wandered over the well-kept grounds, sweet with the
scent of newly-mown grass, and filled with every adornment which taste
can devise or money procure, she felt within her the first stirring of
the pride, and satisfaction, and self-assertion which were 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 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 offense,
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, 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.
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, 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 thirty 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.
No one had called, and a bow from Mrs. Atherton, whom she had seen at
church 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 down,
for she was minus hoops, which in those days were very large; her
sleeves were rolled above her elbows, and, as a protection against the
juice of the berries, she wore an 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, 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 feeling certain that
this was one--she started for the door in no very amiable frame of mind,
for peddlers were her abomination. Something ailed the 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 can't open this."
Then, as she caught a whiff of burnt sirup, 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 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 looking 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, began 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, where the chairs and sofas were shrouded in white
linen, and looked 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 fingertips, 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 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, who was one of her friends.
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 don't mind, I should
like to ask if Martha left you 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 _snooping_, and _mean_, because she objected to the amount of coal
burned, and bread thrown away, and time consumed at the table. 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 stingy. "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. 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 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 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 practiced 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," 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 as 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 don't 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 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.
That day they had 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 so 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 in 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: except staying out of the kitchen.
That, from her nature, she could 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
idea of things.
In course of time most of the neighbors who had any claim to society
called, 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 Amy 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 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 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 woman and the baby, Tom, on whose
little red face she imprinted many a kiss for the sake of her daughter,
who was still abroad, and over whom the shadow of hope and fear was
hanging.
Dolly Tracy's growth, after it fairly commenced, had been 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 following summer, they
received the wedding cards of Edith Hastings, the young lady from
Collingwood, who had married a Mr. St. Claire, 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 hands, which once had canned berries in her
kitchen, where she 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 quarreled, and gossiped, and worried her life nearly out
of her, until she sometimes wished she could send them away, and do the
work herself. But she was far too great a lady for that. 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 Maude, and
she strove with all her might to instill into their infant minds that
they were the Tracys of Tracy Park, and entitled to due respect from
their inferiors; and Tom had profited by her teaching, and was the
veriest little braggart in 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 graveyard of Shannondale, under the shadow of
the tall monument which his 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 in one he
told them not to feel 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 them at once. After this letter, nothing had been heard
from him until the morning when his telegram came and so greatly
disturbed the mental equilibrium of both Mr. and Mrs. Frank Tracy.
CHAPTER V.
AT THE PARK.
Frank 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 keener 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 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, and Widow Shipleigh, 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
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 dresscoats were not then the rule in Shannondale. Old
Peterkin, however, whom Frank in his soliloquy had designated a _canal
bummer_, was resolved to show that he knew what was _au fait_ for the
occasion and a new suit throughout was in progress of making for him.
"Tracy should have his vote and that of fifty more of the boys to pay
for his ticket to the doin's," he said; and 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 had scarcely slept for excitement since the party had been decided
upon, and everything seemed to be moving on very smoothly until the
morning of the day appointed for the party, when it seemed as if every
evil came at once. First the colored boy, who was to wait in the upper
hall, was attacked with measles. Then Grace Atherton drove round 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 which 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 can't 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, 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 put a new idea into Mrs. Tracy's mind, and she said to the boy:
"How would you like to come any way, 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 tormenter, 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," Mrs. Tracy said, rather amused than otherwise 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 is
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 accustomed to a life of ease and luxury, that to
give it up now and go back to Langley seemed impossible to her.
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 might 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 that Harold was still standing there. "You here yet? I
thought you had gone!" she continued, as she recovered herself 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 the
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 does, 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 less. Still she was conscious of a feeling of
wretchedness and regret as she sat in her handsome boudoir and felt
that on the morrow another might 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 she 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
lace, 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 so called 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 to Paris for a few days, and should be back 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 by." Then 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 Pau, where he said they were having such fine fox hunts.
Weeks went by and he neither 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," 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 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 there came a letter from
Arthur saying that Harold Hastings had died in Berlin, and been buried
at his expense.
A few weeks later and Amy, too, lay dead in her coffin; and 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, 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, 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 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 come off 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. 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 always 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 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;" Harold replied, "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 cake, 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 on 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 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."
"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 gentleman 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 to earn my money, and I mean to, and sometime, maybe, I'll have
a house as big as this, and just such a party, with a boy upstairs 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 Hal 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. You hain't no business ringin' the bell as if you was a
guest. 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 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 upstairs,
and I'll tell you what you are to do."
Her directions were very 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, followed by her husband, who looked 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 Mrs.
Peterkin, whose name was Mary Jane, but whom her husband always called
_May_ Jane. She was a frail, pale-faced little woman, who had once been
Grace Atherton's maid, and 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 loud voice 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 room, 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, asking
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,
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 as
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.
Clair, 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 help 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, 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 his 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 just 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 and 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 offense, 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 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 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; then 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 into 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 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 five 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 fust-rate chap, though we didn't used 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 a most satisfied air the millionaire put
his hand, as if by accident, on 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 sprang 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, for 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 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 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 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. Hullo, Brown!" John said, calling to a
man in the distance, who came forward, and, on learning what was
wanted, began 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 of the woman who, he said, had been with him in the
train. At last, remembering 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 flashed a looked of inquiry upon John, as he
said:
"Break-down? What's 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
dressing-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. Once 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."
They had turned into the park by this time, and very soon drew up before
the house, from every window of which lights were flashing, while the
sound of music and dancing could be distinctly heard.
"I need not ring at my own house," Arthur thought, as he ran up the
steps, and, opening the door, 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 replied,
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 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, going a second time to the bowl, he began to
throw the 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."
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 by," 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 tone, he asked: "When does the next
train from the East pass the station?"
Frank told him at seven in the 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.
Instantly into Arthur's eyes there came a look of cunning, 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 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 could scarcely stand, and did not
know at all what her guests were saying to her.
Meantime, Arthur had changed his mind with regard to going down into the
parlors, 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 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 standing 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 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 face, and into the large, bright eyes, an expression which made
the boy stand back 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:
"I hated your father, and I hate you, and I am going to throw you over
the stair railing!" 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 on to 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.
"Arthur, are you mad?" Frank said.
And whether it was the tone of his voice, or his words, something
produced a wonderful effect upon his brother, whose mood changed at
once, and who advanced towards 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. 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 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, he could not
have been more gracious or affable. Even old Peterkin was treated with a
consideration which put that worthy man at his ease, and set his tongue
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 remembers 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-firedest 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 '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 Peterkin.
"Wall, yes; I s'pose that's it, though 'tain't 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 nothin', while I can
wear the finest of 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 just 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 there'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
who 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 for 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," and he
glowered threatingly 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 harangue, and was wiping his wet face with his
hankerchief, 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 this aspirant for the post-office
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 for 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 after the lady's arrival she had 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 how they look at you sometimes. They almost
make me afraid of him."
Frank made no direct reply. In his heart there was an undefined fear
which he could not then 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 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 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 that 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 all his boxes and trunks
brought, so that he could open them at his leisure. There were more
coming, he said, boxes which were still in the custom-house, and which
contained many valuable things, such as pictures, and statuary, and
rugs, and inlaid tables, and china.
The house, which was very large, had two wings, 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 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 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 put 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, 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 declared 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. If 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 quiet and 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 seem 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
Belvedere, Nydia 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 center 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
question.
"Who did you say Gretchen was?"
Instantly the expression of the eyes changed to one of wariness 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 are coming to talk with me about the changes I purpose to make, and
which I wish commenced immediately. It is a rule of mine, 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 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 of 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 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 sea-sick?" 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 the 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
vowing 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
the 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 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, 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. Diamonds were the jewels of all others which she
coveted, but which Frank had 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 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 could not 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. Clair 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
towards 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 were fastened upon
Peterkin, as he said:
"What does it all mean, sir? Will you please explain?"
"Yes, in double quick time," Peterkin replied, a little nettled by
Arthur's manner, which he could not understand. "You see me and May 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
May 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 as imperlite,
don't you?"
"Never mind; we are not discussing etiquette. Go on with the pin and the
boy," Arthur said, haughtily.
"May 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
hain't sence the day I quit boatin' and hauled the 'Liza Ann up inter my
back yard. Wall, she left this pin stickin' in her shawl, and no one was
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 May 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, Joel 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 spring 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 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 we may have to shut him up."
"Oh, 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'll 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 putting 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.
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.
Going to the door and looking out he 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."
There could be no doubt of his insanity, 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 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 of 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. 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 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 insisted
that she would arrive with every train from Boston; and for nearly a
week the carriage was sent 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," he answered, sadly, "No;
there has been some mistake. She will never come." 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; it will do no
good. I was in an asylum three years or more 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 before I sailed
for home. I wrote occasionally to Frank and Gretchen, but did not tell
them where I was. They called it a _maison de sante_, 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.
"Mine was a curious case, they said, and one not often met with in
mental diseases. I was all right in everything except my memory which
played me the wildest tricks--why I actually forgot my name, and fancied
myself an Austrian. Strangest of all I forgot where Gretchen lived and
forget her, too, a part of the time, and I don't know now how long it
was before I went to that place that I saw her last. As soon as I came
out I was better, and in Paris things came back to me, and when I
reached Liverpool I wrote to Gretchen to join me. That is all I know. I
can see that I am in Frank's way and he would like to shut me up. But
stand by me St. Claire--don't let him do it."
Assuring him of his support against any steps which might be taken to
prove him mad enough for the asylum, Mr. St. Claire continued: "I
wouldn't come for Gretchen any more. Who is she?"
"That is my little secret, my surprise which will be like a bomb-shell
in the camp when she comes," Arthur replied, as he walked towards 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 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 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 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, 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 the world consider you strictly honorable? 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. 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.
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 to 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 the middle of October when Arthur 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, and the center was covered with a costly Oriental rug,
which Arthur had bought at a fabulous price in Paris. But the gem of the
suite 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 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, wondering who she
was, or where, if living, she was now, and what relation she bore to the
strange man who often stood before her whispering to himself:
"Poor little Gretchen! Will you never come?"
If he were expecting her now 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 to avoid a repetition
of that offense, but he often went himself to the station, when the New
York trains were due, as 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 she 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 resolved to say no more to him of Gretchen, whose arrival he again
began to look for and dread. But she 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, as did the costly inlaid
work-box and the cutglass bottles with the golden stoppers, 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 rooms he had
prepared for himself and one who never came.
As far as 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 required the
utmost attention and care in the waiting. The finest of linen, and
china, and glass, and silver adorned his table, with a profusion of
flowers--roses mostly, if he could get them, 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 traveled 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 double chin. I wish to goodness
she would come and satisfy our curiosity."
But Gretchen did not come, and as the days went by 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 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,
and then Arthur spoke of Amy's son, who was not present, and whom he
seemed to have forgotten, 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, as if trying to remember 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.
He 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 settled down into the life of a
recluse, talking occasionally to himself, with some unseen person, 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 if he were still expecting Gretchen, he gave no
sign of it, and Frank was beginning to breathe freely, and to look upon
his 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
inhabitants, 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 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!"
The next day there was a change for the better, and the next, and the
next, until when the last day of February dawned people began to look
more cheerful, 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 the track that nothing could be distinctly seen at a
distance.
It was not until the train had moved on that the station-master, who 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 child, but whether boy
or girl, he could not tell.
"Can I do anything for you?" he said, advancing toward the stranger, who
caught up the child in her arms, and without a word of answer, hurried
away in the storm and rapidly increasing darkness.
"Curis! She must have got off t'other side of the car. 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 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 swiftly on, her eyes strained to
their utmost tension as they peered through the darkness 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 the people from
Collingwood and Tracy Park frequently walked that way, as it was a much
nearer route to town. 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 or more 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 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 her 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 face pressed against the pane, as he looked anxiously
out into 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 a carnival to-night, 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 clock which stood upon the mantle.
In the adjoining room the dinner table was laid for two, and one could
see that more care than usual had been given to its arrangement, while
the roses in the center were the largest and finest of their kind. In
the grate a bright fire was burning, and Arthur placed a large
easy-chair before it and then brought from the library a 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, while 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 lunch 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?"
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, 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, and when I made up my mind to that, as I did a few
weeks ago, I wrote again 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 seems to
annoy you. But Frank--" and Arthur's voice trembled as he went on--"I
dreamed of her last night; such strange dreams, 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 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 I 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 face which Frank could not resist, and
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
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, and after his brother left him he went to the large closet
where he kept the trunk which he called Gretchen's, and into which
Dolly's curious eyes had never looked, although she longed to know its
contents.
This Arthur now opened, and had Dolly been there she would have held her
breath in wonder at the many beautiful things which 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:
"Dear little feet, which are so cold now in the wretched car; but they
will never be cold again when once I have them here."
He was talking in German, as he always did when Gretchen was the subject
of his thoughts, 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, 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 the 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 upon a stone flower-pot which was left outside, 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, and then returned to the library, resolving
not to see his brother again 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
Hamburgh 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
warranted 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 of an hour, 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! There must be some mistake!" Arthur said, all the brightness
fading from his face, which grew pinched and pallid as he 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 Arthur's pale, haggard face, which looked still more
haggard and pale with the fire-light flickering over it, confronted
Frank steadily; then the lips began to quiver and the eyelids to twitch,
while great tears gathered in his 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 for the deception he had practiced, 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; 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, 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, and then, in a
whisper, which made Frank's blood curdle in his veins, he said:
"Hark! there's more abroad to-night than the storm! Something is
happening which affects me. I have heard voices in the wind all the
evening--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."
With a bound he was at the window, which he opened, 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 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 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 more above the roar of the tempest,
and a feeling of disquiet took possession of him as he sat for an hour
longer talking to 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 twenty 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, 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 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 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, when 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 came
home, 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, 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 re-hung 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 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 be 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 all traces of the terrible storm gone 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 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 to take the cross-road and investigate the mystery.
Bidding his grandmother good-bye, 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.
"Ma-ma! ma-ma!" it seemed to say; and Harold answered, cheerily:
"I am coming as fast as 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 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 nestled 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 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 arm 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
inquiringly 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 as 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, and taking her upon her lap, began to
untie the soft woolen 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 had slept later than usual at the park house that morning, and
Frank and his family were just sitting down to breakfast, when John,
with a white, scared face, looked in and said:
"Excuse me, Mr. Tracy,--but something dreadful has happened. There's a
woman frozen to death in the Tramp House, with a baby, and Harold
Hastings found them; 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 came upon John in the stable, and sinking down exhausted upon
the hay, had told his story, while the man 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, 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.
"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 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.
"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 plowing 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 opened 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, had seen and
touched the white face of the corpse, and 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, shoveling 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 this woman 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
traveling, as when not in use, they can be made into a small round box
or ball, and take but little room. It contained 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 in
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 as distinctly
before him as if painted upon canvas, the angry sky, the half-open 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 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 doors, 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 see the box, or trunk, which was
pitched out helter-skelter, and which I found this morning, all covered
up with snow. It is 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 nothing 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. Her woolen dress of grayish blue was short and
scant; her knit stockings were black and thick, and her leather shoes
were designed for 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, helpless and defenseless 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! Then she did come in the cars?" Frank said, 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 didn't answer, and
snatching up the child, she hurried off, almost on a run. It was
storming so I didn't 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 going to Collingwood----"
"Or Tracy Park," Frank said, involuntarily.
"Were you expecting any one?" Mr. St. Claire asked; and 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 didn't 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 couldn't know that any one
would be there, and this woman certainly is not the Gretchen of whom
your brother talks so much. 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 clew 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 greenback; 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, 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 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. 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. "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 in a handkerchief," and he held up what
proved to be a German Bible; but he did not tell of the photograph he
had found, and thrust into his pocket when no one was looking at him.
It 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 come surging to his brain, making him so giddy and wild that
he did not realize 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 th
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