Tracy Park Part 67

'A baby! Gretchen's baby and mine! A little girl! Oh, Cherry, if you are deceiving me now!'

Jerrie, too, had risen, and was standing before him with her hands upon his arm and her eyes, so like Gretchen's, looking into his, as she said:

'I am not deceiving you. There was a baby born to you and Gretchen sometime in January, 18--, and it was christened in the little church where you were married by the Rev. Mr. Eaton. Oh, Mr. Arthur, how can I tell you; she, the baby, is living yet--grown to womanhood now, for this happened about twenty years ago, and the girl is almost twenty--and is waiting and longing so much for her father to recognize and claim her.

Oh, don't you understand me? Look at _me_ and then at Gretchen's picture!'

For an instant Arthur stood like one stricken with catalepsy, his eyes leaping from Jerry's face to Gretchen's, and from Gretchen's back to Jerrie's, and then, with a motion of his hands as if fanning the air furiously, he gasped:

'Twenty years ago--twenty years ago? How old are you, Cherry?'

'About twenty,' she answered, but her voice was a whisper, and her head fell forward a little, though she kept her eyes upon Arthur, who went on:

'And they christened my baby and Gretchen's you say? What name did they give her? Speak quick, for I believe I am dying.'

'They called her Jerrine, but you know her as Jerrie, for--for I am Gretchen's daughter,' fell from Jerrie's lips.

With a wild, glad cry, 'My daughter! oh, my daughter! Thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d!' Arthur sank back into the chair, from which he had risen, fainting and insensible.

For hours he lay in a state so nearly resembling death that but for the physician's rea.s.surance that there was no danger, Jerrie would have believed the great joy given her was to be taken from her at once. But just as the twilight shadows began to gather in the room he came to himself, waking as from some quiet dream, and looking around him until his eyes fell upon Jerrie sitting by his side; then into his white face there flashed a look of ineffable joy and tenderness and love, as he said, with a smile the most willing and sweet Jerrie had ever seen.

'My daughter, my little Cherry, who came to me up the ladder, with Gretchen's eyes and Gretchen's voice, and I did not know her--have not known her all these years, although she has so puzzled and bewildered me at times. My daughter! oh, my daughter!'

He accepted her unquestioningly, and with a glad cry Jerrie threw herself into the arms he stretched toward her, and on her father's bosom gave free vent to the feelings she had restrained so long, sobbing pa.s.sionately as she felt Arthur's kisses upon her face, and his caressing hands upon her hair, as he kept repeating:

'My daughter! Gretchen's baby and mine!'

'There is more to tell. I have not heard it all, or how you came by the information,' he said, when Jerrie was little composed and could look at and speak to him without a burst of tears.

'Yes, there is much more. There is a letter for you, with those you wrote to her,' Jerrie said, 'but you must not have them to-night.

To-morrow you will be stronger, now you must rest.'

She spoke like one with authority, and he did just what she bade him do--took the food she brought him, went to bed when she said he must, and, with her hand locked in his, fell into a heavy slumber, which lasted all through the night, and late into the next morning. It almost seemed as if he would never waken, the sleep was so like death; but the doctor who watched him carefully quieted Jerrie's fears and told her it would do her father good, and that in all probability he would awake with a clearer mind than he had had in years, for as a great and sudden shock sometimes produces insanity, so, contrarywise, it sometimes restored a shattered mind to its equilibrium.

And the doctor was partially correct, for when at last Arthur awoke he seemed natural and bright, with a recollection of all which had happened the day before, and an earnest desire for the letters and the rest of the story which Jerrie told him, with her arm across his neck, and her cheek laid occasionally against his, as she read him the letter directed to his friends, and then showed him the certificate of her birth and her mother's death.

'Born January 1st, 18--, to Arthur Tracy and Marguerite, his wife, a daughter,' Arthur repeated, again and again, and as often as he did so he kissed the bright face which smiled at him through tears, for there was almost as much sadness as joy mingled with the reading of those messages from the dead.

Just what Gretchen's letter to Arthur contained, Jerrie never knew, except that it was full of love and tenderness, with no word of complaint for the neglect and forgetfulness which must have hastened her death.

'Oh, Gretchen, I can't bear it, I can't,' Arthur moaned, as he laid his hand upon Jerrie's shoulder and sobbed like a child. 'To think I could forget her, and she so sweet and good.'

Everything came back to him for a time, and he repeated to Jerrie much which was of interest to her concerning her mother, but with which the reader has nothing to do; while Jerrie, in turn, told him all she could remember of her life in the old house where Gretchen had died. Idle fancies she had sometimes thought these memories of the past, but now she knew they were real. And Arthur hung upon her words with breathless interest, moaning occasionally when she told of the sweet-faced woman who cried so much and prayed so much, and whose death scene she had once enacted for him when a little child. At his own letters addressed to Gretchen he barely glanced, muttering, as he did so, 'how could I have written such crazy bosh as that?' and then suddenly recollecting himself, he asked for the photograph mentioned in Gretchen's letter to his friends, and which he seemed to think had come with the other papers, just as Jerrie meant he should. Taking it from the bag she handed it to him, while his tears fell like rain as he gazed upon the face which was far too young to wear the sad, wan look it did.

'That is as I remember her,' Jerrie said, referring again to the strange ideas which had filled her brain and made her sure that not the dark woman found dead at her side was her mother, but another and far different person, whose face haunted her so continually and whose voice she sometimes seemed to hear speaking to her from the dim shadows of the far-off past when they lived in the little house in Wiesbaden, where the picture hung on the wall.

Arthur remembered the picture well and when it was taken, though that, too, had faded from his mind, until Jerrie told him of it.

'We will go there together, Cherry,' he said, 'you and I, and find the house and the picture, and Gretchen's grave, and bring them home with us. There is room for them at Tracy Park.

He was beginning to talk wildly now, but Jerrie quieted him, and taking up the box of diamonds opened it suddenly and held it before his eyes.

In reading the letters he had not seemed to pay any attention to the diamonds, but when Jerrie said to him; 'These were mother's. You sent them to her from England,' he replied, 'Yes, I remember. I bought them in Paris with other things--dresses, I think--for her,' while into his face there came a troubled look as if he were trying to think of something.

Jerrie, who could read him so well, saw the look, and, guessing at once its cause, hastened to say:

'Father, do you remember that you gave Mrs. Tracy some diamonds like these, and that some one took them from her? Try and think,' she continued, as she saw the troubled look deepen on his face, and the fire beginning to kindle in his eyes. 'It was years ago, just after a party Mrs. Tracy gave, and at which she wore them. You were there and thought they were Gretchen's, did you not?'

'Ye-es,' he answered slowly. 'I believe I did. What did I do with them?

Do you know?'

'I think you put them in your private drawer. Suppose you look and see.'

Obedient to her as a child, Arthur opened his private drawer, bringing out one thing after another, all mementoes of the old Gretchen days, and finally the diamonds, at which be looked with wonder and fear, as he said to Jerrie:

'Did I take them? Will they call it a steal? I thought they were Gretchen's. I remember now.'

Jerrie did not tell him then of the trouble the secreting of the diamonds had brought to her and Harold, but she said:

'No one will think it a steal, and Mrs. Tracy will be glad to get her jewels back. May I take them to her now?'

'Take them to her?--no,' Arthur said, decidedly. 'She has another set--I bought them for her, and she wears them all day long. Ha, ha! diamonds in the morning, with a cotton gown;' and he laughed immoderately at what be thought Dolly's bad taste. 'Take them to her? No! They are yours.'

'But I have mother's,' Jerrie pleaded; 'and I cannot wear two sets.'

'Yes, you can--one to-day, one to-morrow. I mean you shall have seven--one for everyday in the week. What has Dolly to do with diamonds. They are for ladies, and she is only a whitewashed one.'

He was very much excited, and it took all Jerrie's tact to soothe and quiet him.

'Father,' she began and then he stopped short, for the sound of that name spoken by Jerrie had a mighty power over him--'Father, listen to me a moment.'

And then she told him of the suspicions cast upon Harold, and said:

'You do not wish him to suffer any more?'

'Harold? The boy who found you in the carpet-bag--Amy's boy! No, never!

Where is he that I have not seen him yet? Does he know you are my daughter?'

Jerrie had not mentioned Harold before, but she told her father now where he was, and why he had gone, and that she had written him to come home, on Maude's account, if on no other.

'Yes--Maude--I remember; but Harold did not care for Maude. Still, he had better come. I want him here with you and me; and you must stay here now, day and night. Select any room or rooms you please; all is yours, my daughter.'

'But I cannot leave grandma,' Jerrie said.

'Let her come, too,' Arthur replied. 'There is room for her.'

'No,' Jerrie persisted; 'that would not be best. Grandma could not live with Mrs. Tracy.'

'Then let Dolly go at once, I'll give the order now;' and Arthur put out his hand to the bell-cord.

But Jerrie stopped him instantly, saying to him: