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 asharp 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, andhe 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.
"ButIshall," 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, saidshe 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 thereisa 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 amaison 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."
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 wasnot 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 theNew 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 timein 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 almostentirely 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.
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 asArthur 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 herarrival, 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 ofsalmon-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 wentto 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 satbeside 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,didyou 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.
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 insummer 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, whichrocked 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 gofor 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, whileHarold 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, andwhen 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.