Tracy Park Part 22

There was a sob now in his voice, and he seemed to be talking to himself rather than to his brother, who said to him:

'Gretchen lived in Wiesbaden, then?'

'Yes; but for heaven's sake p.r.o.nounce it with a V, and not a W, and in two syllables instead of three,' Arthur answered, pettishly, his ear offended as it always was with a discordant sound or misp.r.o.nounciation.

'Veesbaden, then,' Frank repeated, understanding now why Jerry had stumbled over the name when he once spoke it to her.

Clearly she had come from Wiesbaden, where Gretchen had lived, and where he believed she had died, though he did not tell Arthur so; he merely said:

'Gretchen was your sweetheart, I suppose?'

But Arthur did not reply; he never replied to direct questions as to who Gretchen was, but after a moment's silence, he said:

'You speak of her as something past. Do you believe she is dead?'

'Yes, I do,' was Frank's decided answer. You have never told me who she was, though I have my own opinion on the subject, and I know that you loved her very much, and if she loved you so much--'

'She did--she did; she loved me more--far more than I deserved,' was Arthur's vehement interruption.

'Well, then,' Frank continued, 'if she did, and were living, she would have come to you, or answered your letters, or sent you some messenger.'

Frank's voice trembled here, and be seemed to see again the cold, still face of the dead woman, whose lips, could they have spoken, might have unlocked the mystery and brought a message from Gretchen'

'True, true,' Arthur replied. 'She would have come or written. How long is it since I came home?'

'Four years next October,' Frank said.

'Four years;' Arthur went on, 'is it so long as that? And it, was then more than three years since I had seen her. Everything was blotted out from my mind from the time that I entered that accursed _maison de sante_ until I found myself in Paris. I am afraid she _is_ dead.'

Just then Charles came in with lights and the chocolate his master always took before retiring, and so Frank said good-night, and went out upon the broad piazza, hoping the night air would cool his heated brow, or that the laughter and prattle of Jack and Maude, who were frolicking on the gravel walk, would drown the voice of the shadow which said to him:

'But for the number of years he says it is since he saw Gretchen, there could be no doubt, and you would be the biggest rascal living. As it is, you need not distress yourself--Jerry is nothing to him; and if she were, you have gone too far now to go back. People would never respect you again. And then there is Maude. You cannot disgrace her.'

No, he could not disgrace his darling Maude, who, as if guessing that he was thinking of her, came up the steps to his side, and seating herself upon his lap, pushed the hair from his forehead with her soft fingers, and kissed him lovingly as she was wont to do.

'My beautiful Maude,' he thought, for he knew she would be beautiful, with her black hair, and starry eyes, and brilliant complexion, and he loved her with all the strength of his nature. To see her grow into womanhood, admired and sought after by everyone, was the desire of his heart, and as he believed that money was necessary to the perfect fulfilment of his desire, for her sake he would carry his secret to the grave.

'Are you sick, papa?' Maude asked, looking into his pale face, on which the moon shone brightly.

'No, pet,' he answered, 'only tired. I am thinking of little Jerry Crawford. She was here this afternoon,'

'Yes, I saw her in the park with Harold. Isn't he handsome, papa? and such a nice boy! so different from Tom,' said Maude, and then she went on: 'Jerry is pretty too; prettier than I am; her hair curls and mine doesn't, but her dress is so ugly--that old high ap.r.o.n and calico gown.

What makes her so poor and me so rich?'

Mr. Tracy groaned inwardly, as he replied:

'You are not rich, my child.'

'Oh, yes, I am,' Maude said, 'I heard mamma tell Mrs. Brinsmade so. She said Uncle Arthur was worth a million, and when he died we should have it all, because he could not make a will if he wanted to, and he had no children of his own,'

Although little more than seven years old, Maude Tracy was very knowing and precocious in some respects, and, like her brother Tom, had heard so much from her mother and others of their prospective wealth, that she understood the situation far better than she ought, and was already counting on the thousands waiting for her when her uncle died. And yet Maude Tracy had in her nature qualities which were to ripen into a n.o.ble womanhood. Truthful and generous, her instincts of right and wrong were very keen, and young as she was she had no respect for anything like deception or trickery. This her father knew, and his bitterest pang of remorse came from this thought, 'What would Maude say if she knew?' And it was more for her sake he was sinning than for his own or that of any other. She was so pretty, or would be when grown to young ladyhood, and the adornments which money could bring would so well become her.

'Maude,' he said at last, 'how would you like to change places with Jerry? That is, let her come here and live, while we go away and be poor; not quite as she is, but like many people.'

'And not wear a sash, and beads, and b.u.t.toned boots every day?' Maude interrupted him quickly. 'I should not like it at all. Why, Jerry dresses herself, and wipes the dishes, and wears those big ap.r.o.ns all the time. No, I don't want to be poor;' and as if something in her father's mind had communicated itself to her, she raised her head from his shoulder and looked beseechingly at him.

'Nor shall you be poor, if I can help it,' he said; 'but you must be very kind to Jerry, and never let her feel that you are richer than she.

Do you understand?'

'I think I do,' Maude answered, adding as she kissed him fondly: 'And now I s'pose I must go, for there is Hetty come for me; so, good-night, you dearest, best papa in the world.'

He knew that she believed in him fully; that should he confess his fault she would understand it, and lose faith in him. He would bear the burden, he said to himself. There should be no more repining or looking back, Maude must never know; and so Jerry's chance was lost.

The next morning Arthur awoke with a racking headache. He was accustomed to it, it is true; but this one was particularly severe.

'It's the cherries; no wonder; a quart of those sour things would turn upside down any stomach,' Charles said, as he glanced at the empty tin pail which was adorning an inlaid table, and then suggested a dose of ipecac as a means of dislodging the offending cherries.

But Arthur declined the medicine. His stomach was well enough, he said.

It was his head which ached, and nothing would help that like the touch of the cool little hands he had held in his the previous day. Charles must go for Jerry--go at once, for he wanted her, and as when Arthur wanted a thing he wanted it immediately, Charles was soon on his way to the cottage in the lane, where he found the little girl under a tall lilac bush, busy with the mud pies she was making, and talking to herself, partly in English and partly in broken German, which she had resumed since visiting the park.

'Seemed like something I had dreamed, when he talked like that, and I could almost do it myself,' she said to Harold when describing the particulars of her interview with Mr. Tracy, and her tongue fell naturally into the language of her babyhood.

On hearing Charles' errand, her delight was unbounded.

'Iss. You'll let me go,' she cried, as she stood before Mrs. Crawford, with the mud-spots on her hands and face; 'and you'll let me wear my best gown now, and my white ap.r.o.n with the shoulder-straps, and my morocco shoes, because this visiting.'

As Mrs. Crawford could see no objection to the plan, Jerry was soon dressed, and on her way to the Park House, which seemed to her to be a very palace, and until the day before a place to be looked upon with awe, and admired breathlessly at a distance. Indeed, she had sometimes, when pa.s.sing near the house, walked on tiptoe, as if on sacred ground, and held back her humble dress lest it should harm a shrub or vine by contact. But matters now were changed. She had been there, and was going there again by special invitation from the master, and she tripped along airily with a sense of dignity and importance unusual in one so young.

Mrs. Tracy, who seldom troubled herself with her brother-in-law's affairs, knew nothing of his having sent for Jerry, and was surprised when she saw her coming up the walk with Charles, whose manner indicated that he knew perfectly what he was about. She had heard of Jerry's visit on the previous day, and had wondered what Arthur could find in that child to interest him, when he would never allow Maude in his room. She knew nothing of the shadow which night and day was nearer to her husband than she was herself, but she did not fancy Jerry, because of the three dollars a week, which she felt was so much taken from herself. Why they should be burdened with the support of the child, just because her mother happened to be found dead upon their premises, she could not understand.

Had Jerry been older, she might, she said, have taken her into the kitchen as maid of all work, for Dolly had reached a point where she liked a great many servants in the household, and prided herself upon employing more help than either Grace Atherton or Edith St. Claire. Only that morning she had spoken to her husband of Jerry, and asked him how long he proposed to support her.

'Just as long as I have a dollar of my own, and she needs it,' was his reply, as he left the room, slamming the door behind him and leaving her to think him almost as crazy as his brother.

Thus it was not in a very quiet frame of mind that she went out upon the cool, broad piazza, and, taking one of the large willow chairs standing there, began to rock back and forth and wonder what had so changed her husband, making him silent and absent-minded, and even irritable at times, as he had been that morning. Was there insanity in his veins as well as in his brother's, and would her children inherit--her darling Maude, of whom she was so proud, and who, she hoped, would some day be the richest heiress in the county and marry d.i.c.k St. Claire, if, indeed, she did not look even higher?

It was at this point in her soliloquy that she saw Jerry coming up the walk, her face glowing with excitement and her manner one of freedom and a.s.surance.

Ascending the steps, Jerry nodded and smiled at the lady, whose expression was not very inviting, and who, to the child's remark, 'I've comed again,' answered, icily:

'I see you have. Seems to me you come pretty often.' Turning to Charles, Mrs. Tracy continued:

'Why is she here again so soon? What does she want?'

Quick to detect and interpret the meaning of the tones of a voice, and hearing disapprobation in Mrs. Tracy's, Jerry's face was shadowed at once, and she looked up entreatingly at Charles, who said:

'Mr. Tracy sent me for her. She was with him yesterday, and he will have her again to-day.'