How pretty and piquant she was, with her brilliant complexion and her black eyes, and how stylish she looked in the Paris gown of embroidered linen, which fitted her perfectly, and the big hat, which turned up just enough on the side to give her a saucy, coquettish air, as she flitted from one to another, kissing Nina twice, Ann Eliza once, and shaking hands with all the young men except Tom, who put his in his pockets, out of her way.
He could not stand Maude's gush, he said, and he watched her with a half sneering smile as she tiptoed around, for it always seemed as if she walked upon her toes, courtseying as she walked.
"I meant to have been here before the train," she said to Jerrie, "and I was here about an hour ago; but when I found the cars were late, I drove over to tell Harold as time with him was everything. How we did drive, though, when we heard the whistle. Come, jump in," she continued, as she herself stepped into the Victoria. "Jump in, and I will take you home in a jiffy. It won't hurt Hal to walk, although he is awful tired.
"But I would rather walk; take Harold, if he is so tired," Jerrie said, in a tone she did not quite intend.
"Oh, Jerrie," Harold exclaimed, in a low, pained voice, "I am not tired; let us both walk;" and going to Maude, he said something to her which Jerrie could not hear, except the words, "Don't you think it better so?"
"Of course I do; it was stupid in me not to see it before," was Maude's reply, as she laid her hand on Harold's arm, where it rested a moment, while she said her good-bys.
And Jerrie saw the little, ungloved hand touching Harold so familiarly, and thought how small, and white, and thin it was, with the full blue veins showing so distinctly upon it, and then she looked more closely at Maude herself, and saw with a pang, how sick she looked in spite of the bright color in her cheeks, which came and went so fast. There was a pallor about her lips and about her nose,while her ears were almost transparent, and her neck was so small that Jerrie felt she could have clasped it with one hand.
"Maude," she cried, pressing close to the young girl, as Harold stepped aside, "Maude, are you ill? You are pale everywhere except your cheeks, which are like roses."
"No, no," Maude answered, quickly, as if she did not like the question. "Not sick a bit, only a little tired. We have been at work real hard, Hal and I; but he will tell you about it, and now good-by again, for I must go. I shall be round in the morning. Good-by. Oh, Tom, I forgot! We have company to dinner to-night—a Mr. and Mrs. Hart, who are friends of Mrs. Atherton, and have just returned from Germany, bringing Fred's sister, Marian, with them. She has been abroad at school for years, and is very nice. I ought to have told Fred and Nina. How stupid in me! But they will find their invitations when they get home. Now hop in, quick, and don't tear my flounces. You are so awkward!"
"I suppose Hal never tears your flounces," Tom said, as he took his seat beside his sister, and gave Jerrie a look which sent the blood in great waves to her face and neck, for it seemed to imply that he understood the case and supposed that she did, too.
The St. Claire carriage had driven away with Nina, and Dick, and Fred, and the carriage from Le Bateau had gone, too, when at last Jerrie and Harold started down the road and along the highway to the gate through which the strange woman had once passed with the baby Jerrie in her arms. The baby was a young woman now, tall and erect, with her head set high as she walked silently by Harold's side, until the gate was reached and they passed into the shaded lane, where they were hidden from the sight of any one upon the main road leading to the park house. Then, stopping suddenly, she faced squarely toward her companion, and said:
"Why didn't you come to commencement? Tom Tracy said you were shingling a roof, and Billy Peterkin said Maude was helping you."
WHY HAROLD DID NOT GO TO VASSAR.
THE cottage in the lane was not very pretentious, and all its rooms were small and low and upon the ground floor, except the one which Jerrie had occupied since she had grown too large for the crib by Mrs. Crawford's bed. In this room, in which there was but one window, Jerrie kept all her possessions—her playthings and her books, and the trunk and carpet-bag which had been found with her. Here she had cut off her hair and slept on the floor, to see how it would seem, and here she had enacted many a play, in which the scenes and characters were all of the past. For the cold in winter she did not care at all, and when in summer the nights were close and hot, she drew her little bed to the open window and fell asleep while thinking how warm she was. That she ought to have a better room never occurred to her, and never had she found a word of fault or repined at her humble surroundings, so different from those of her girl friends. Only, as she grew taller, she had sometimes laughingly said that if she kept on she should not much longer be able to stand upright in her den, as she called it.
"I hit my head now everywhere except in the middle," she once said. "I wonder if we can't some time manage to raise the roof."
The words were spoken thoughtlessly, and almost immediately forgotten by Jerrie; but Harold treasured them up, and began at once to devise ways and means to raise the roof and give Jerrie a room more worthy of her. This was just after he had left college, and there was hanging over him his debt to Arthur and the support of his grandmother. The first did not particularly disturb him, for he knew that Arthur would wait any length of time, while the latter seemed but a trifle to a strong, robust young man. Mrs. Crawford was naturally very economical, and could make one dollar go farther than most peoplecould two; so that very little sufficed for their daily wants when Jerrie was away.
"I must earn money somehow," Harold thought, "and must seek work where I can do the best, even if it is from Peterkin."
So, swallowing his pride, he went to Peterkin's office and asked for work. Once before, when a boy of eighteen, and sorely pressed, he had done the same thing, and met with a rebuff from the foreman, who said to him, gruffly:
"No, sir; we don't want no more boys; leastwise, gentlemen boys. We've had enough of 'em. Try t'other furnace. Mr. Warner is allus takin' all kinds of trash, out of pity."
But the Warner factory, where Harold had once worked, was full of boys, whom the kind-hearted employer had taken in, and there was no place for Harold. So he waited awhile until Jerrie needed a new dress and his grandmother a bonnet, and then he tried Peterkin again, and this time with success.
"Yes, take him," Peterkin said to his foreman; "take him, and put him to the emery wheel; that's the place for such upstarts; that'll take the starch out of him double quick. He's a bad egg, he is, and proud as Lucifer. I don't suppose he'd touch my Bill or my Ann Lizy with a ten-foot pole. Put him to the wheel. Bad egg! bad egg!"
Peterkin had a bitter prejudice against the boy, on whose account he had once been turned from the Tracy house; and though he had forgiven the Tracys, and would now have voted for Frank for Congressman if he had the chance, he still cherished his animosity against Harold, designating him as an upstart and a bad egg, who was to be put to the wheel; and Harold was "put to the wheel" until he got a bit of steel in his eye, and his hands were cut and blistered. But he did not mind the latter so much, because Jerrie cried over them at night and kissed them in the morning, and bathed them in cosmoline, and called Peterkin a mean old thing, and offered to go herself to the wheel.
But to this Harold only laughed. He could stand it, he said, and a dollar a day was not to be lost. He could wear gloves and save his hands.
But the appearance of gloves was the signal for a general hooting and jeering from the boys of his own age, who were employed there, and who had from the first looked askance at Harold, because they knew how greatly he was their superior, and fancied an affront in everything he did and every word he said, it was spoken so differently from their own dialect.
"I can't stand it," Harold said to Jerrie, after a week's trial with the gloves. "I'd rather sweep the streets than be jeered at as I am. I don't mind the work. I am getting used to it, but the boys are awful. Why, they call me 'sissy,' and 'Miss Hastings,' and all that."
So Harold left the employ of Peterkin, greatly to the chagrin of that functionary, who had found him the most faithful boy he had ever had. But this was years ago, and matters had changed somewhat since then. Harold was a man now—a graduate from Harvard, with an air and dignity about him which commanded respect even from Peterkin, who was sitting upon his high stool when Harold came in with his application. Billy, who was Harold's fast friend, was now in the business with his father, and as he chanced to be present, the thing was soon arranged, and Harold received into the office at a salary of twelve dollars per week, which was soon increased to fifteen and twenty, and at last, as the autumn advanced and Harold began to talk of taking the same school in town which he had once before taught, he was offered $1.500 a year, if he would remain, as foreman of the office, where his services were invaluable. But Harold had chosen the law for his profession, and as teaching school was more congenial to him than writing in the office, and would give him more time for reading law, he declined the salary and took the school, which he kept for two successive winters, going between times into the office whenever his services were needed, which was very often, as they knew his worth, and Billy was always glad to have him there.
In this way he managed to lay aside quite a little sum of money, besides paying his interest to Arthur, and when Maude came home from Europe in March he felt himself warranted in beginningto raise the roof. He was naturally a mechanic, and would have made a splendid carpenter; he was also something of an architect, and sketched upon paper the changes he proposed making. The roofwas to be raised over Jerrie's room; there was to be a pretty bay-window at the south, commanding a view of the Collingwood grounds and the river. There was to be another window on a side, but whether to the east or the west he could not quite decide. There was to be a dressing-room and large closet, while the main room was to be carried up in the center, after the fashion of a church, and to be ceiled with narrow strips of wood painted alternately with a pale blue and gray. He showed the sketch to his grandmother, who approved it, just as she approved everything he did, but suggested that he submit it to Maude Tracy, who, she heard, had become an artist and had a studio; so he took the plan to Maude, explaining it to her, and saying it was to be a surprise to Jerrie, when she came home for good in the summer. Maude was interested and enthusiastic at once, and entered heart and soul into the matter, making some suggestions which Harold adopted, and deciding for him where the extra window was to be placed.
"Put it to the east," she said, "for Jerrie is always looking toward the rising sun, because, she says, her old home is that way. And, besides, she can see the Tramp House she is so fond of. For my part, I think it a poky place, and never like to pass it after dark, lest I should see the woman standing in the door, with the candle in her hand, crying for help. Where was Jerrie then, I wonder! Wouldn't that make a very effective picture? The storm, the open door, the frantic woman in it, with the candle held high over her head, and Jerrie clutching her dress behind, with her great blue eyes staring out in the darkness. That is the way I have always seen it. I mean to paint the picture, and hang it in the new room as another surprise to Jerrie."
"Oh, don't!" Harold said with a shudder. "Jerrie would not like it. It almost killed her when she first knew of the cry which Mr. Arthur heard and the light I saw that night. She insisted upon knowing everything there was to know; and when I told her all the color left her face, and for a moment she sat rigid as a stone, with a look I shall never forget, and then she cried as I never saw any body cry before. This was three years ago, and she has never spoken to me of it since."
Harold's voice trembled as he talked, while Maude cried outright. The idea of the picture was given up, and she went back to the subject of the new room in which she seemed quite as much interested as Harold himself. When the roof was raised, and the floor laid, and the frame-work of the bay-window up, she went nearly every day to the cottage to watch the progress of the work, and to keep Harold's one hired man up to the mark, if he showed the least sign of lagging.
"She is wus than a slave-driver," the man said to Harold one day. "Why, if I ever stop to take a chaw, or rest my bones a bit, she's after me in a jiffy, and asks if I don't think I can get so much done in an hour if I work as tight as I can clip it. I was never so druv in my life."
And yet both the man and Harold liked to see the little lady there, walking through the shavings, and holding high her dainty skirts as she clambered over piles of boards and shingles, or perching herself on the work bench, superintended them both, and twice by her intervention saved a door from swinging the wrong way, and from being a little askew.
Frank, too, was almost as much interested in the work as Maude was, and once offered his services, as did Dick St. Claire and Billy Peterkin.
"That's splendid. We'll have a bee, and get a lot done," Maude said; and she pressed into thebeeher father, and Dick, and Billy, and Fred Raymond, and Tom, the latter of whom did nothing but find fault, saying that the ceiling ought to have been of different woods, the floor inlaid, and the tops of the windows cathedral glass.
"And I suppose you will find the money for all that elegance," Maude said, as she held one end of a board for Harold to nail. "We are cutting our garment according to the cloth, and if you don't like it you'd better go away. We do not want any drones in the hive, do we, Hally?"
She had taken to addressing him thus familiarly since they had commenced their carpenter work together, and Harold smiled brightly upon her as upon a child as she stood on tiptoe at his side.
Tom went away, but he soon came back again; for there was for him a peculiar fascination about this room for Jerrie, and sitting down upon a saw-horse, he looked on,and whittled, and smoked, while Dick blistered his hands, and Fred raised a blood-blister by striking his finger with the hammer, and Billy ran a huge splinter under his thumb nail.
Then they all went away, and Harold was left alone, for his man had been obliged to leave, and thus the finishing up devolved upon him. But he was equal to it. The worst was over, and all that was now required was hard and constant work if he would accomplish it in time to see Jerrie graduated, as he greatly wished to do, provided he should have money enough left for the trip when everything was paid for.
But whoever has repaired an old house does not need to be told that the cost is always greater than was anticipated, and that there are a thousand difficulties which beset the unwary workman and hinder his progress. And Harold found it so. Still he worked on, early and late, taking no rest except for an hour or so in the afternoon, when he found it a very pleasant change to walk through the leafy woods, so full of summer life and beauty, to where Maude waited for him, with her sunny face and bright smile, which always grew brighter at his coming. How could he know what was in her mind?—he, who never dreamed it possible that she, of all other girls, could fall in love with him.
That Maude liked him, he was sure; but he supposed it was mostly for the amusement he afforded her, and for the sake of Jerrie, of whom she was never tired of talking. Maude's friendship was very sweet to the young man, who had so few means of enjoyment, and whose life was one of toil and care; and he went blindly toward the pitfall in the distance, and began to look forward with a great deal of pleasure to the readings or talks with Maude, even though he did not find her very intellectual. She amused and rested him, and that was something to the tired and overworked man.
The room was finished inside at last, and looked exceedingly cool and pretty in its dress of blue and gray, and its two rows of colored glass in each window; for Harold had carried out Tom's suggestion in that respect, and by going without a new hat and a pair of pants, which he needed, had managed to get the glass, which he set himself; for, ashe said to Maude, who assisted him in the matching and arrangement, he was a kind of jack-at-all-trades. Maude had also helped him to putty up the nail-holes, and had tried her hand at painting, until it gave her a sick-headache, and she was obliged to quit.
When Arthur first heard of the raised roof, he went down to see it, and approving of everything which had thus far been done, insisted upon furnishing the room himself. But Harold refused, saying decidedly that it was his own surprise for Jerrie, and no one must help him. So Arthur went away, and told Maude confidentially that the young man Hastings was made of the right kind of stuff, that he liked his independence, and that, although he should allow him to pay his debt, he should deposit the money as fast as received to his credit in the savings bank, so that he would eventually get it all.
"You are the darlingest uncle in the world!" Maude said, rubbing her soft cheek against his, in that purring way many men like, and which made Arthur kiss her, and tell her she was a little simpleton, but rather nice on the whole.
"And you'll not tell Jerrie a word about the room!" Maude charged him, again and again before he went to Vassar.
"Not if I can help it," was his reply, although, as the reader knows, he came near letting it out twice, butheld on in time, so that the raised roof was still a secret from Jerrie when she reached the station and was met by Maude and Harold.
The room was all ready, with its pretty carpet of blue and drab, and a delicate shading of pink in it; its cottage furniture simple, but suitable; its muslin curtains, and chintz-covered lounge, and the willow chair and round table, which Maude had insisted upon buying. Shewouldhave some part in furnishing the room, she said, and Harold allowed her to get the chair, which she put by the window looking toward the Tramp House, and the round table, which stood in the bay-window, with a Japanese bowl upon it filled with lilies Harold had gathered in the early morning. He had found it impossible to go to Vassar, there were so many last things to be done, and so little money left in his purse with which to make the journey, and as Maudehad more confidence in her own taste for the arrangement of furniture than in his, she, too, decided to remain at home and see it through. The carpet was not put down until the morning of the day when the young men started for Vassar, and it was the noise of the tack hammer which Tom had heard and likened to the shingling of a roof.
"There must be flowers everywhere, Jerrie is so fond of them," Maude said; and she brought great baskets full from the park gardens, and a costly Dresden vase, which Arthur had left for Jerrie when he went away, together with his card and his photograph, and a note in which he had written as follows:
"My Dear Child:—"Welcome home again. I wish I could see you when your blue eyes first look upon the room I came so near telling you about. Maude would have killed me if I had. You have no idea how Harold has worked to get it done, and where he got the money is more than I know. Pinched himself in every way, of course. He is a noble fellow, Jerrie. But you know that. I saw it in your face at Vassar, and saw something else, too, which you may think is a secret. Will talk with you about it when I come home. I am off to-morrow for California. Would like to take you with me. Maybe I shall meet with robbers in the Yosemite. I'd rather like to. God bless you!"Arthur Tracy."
"My Dear Child:—
"Welcome home again. I wish I could see you when your blue eyes first look upon the room I came so near telling you about. Maude would have killed me if I had. You have no idea how Harold has worked to get it done, and where he got the money is more than I know. Pinched himself in every way, of course. He is a noble fellow, Jerrie. But you know that. I saw it in your face at Vassar, and saw something else, too, which you may think is a secret. Will talk with you about it when I come home. I am off to-morrow for California. Would like to take you with me. Maybe I shall meet with robbers in the Yosemite. I'd rather like to. God bless you!
"Arthur Tracy."
"Uncle Arthur was very queer the day he went away," Maude said to Harold, as she put the note, and the photograph, and the card upon the dressing-bureau. "I heard him talking to Gretchen, and saying, 'Gretchen, Jerrie will be here by-and-by, to keep you company while I am gone—little Jerrie when I first knew her, but a great, tall Jerrie now, with the air of a duchess. Yes, Jerrie is coming, Gretchen.' How he loves her—Jerrie, I mean; and I do not wonder, do you?"
Harold's mouth was full of tacks and he did not reply, but went steadily on with his work until everything was done.
"Isn't it lovely, and won't she be pleased!" Maude kept saying, as she gave the room a last look and then startedfor home, charging Harold to be on time at the station and to try and not look so tired.
Haroldwasvery tired, for the constant strain of the last few weeks had told upon him, and he felt that he could not have gone on much longer, and that only for Maude's constant enthusiasm and sympathy he should have broken down before the task was done. It was not easy work, shingling roofs, and nailing down floors, and painting ceilings, and every bone in his body ached, and his hands were calloused like a piece of leather, and his face looked tired and pale when he at last sat down to rest awhile before changing his working suit for one scarcely better, although clean and fresher, with no daubs of paint or patches upon it.
"They don't look first-rate, that's a fact," he said to himself, as he surveyed his pants, and boots, and hat, and thought what a contrast he should present to the elegant Tom and the other young men at the station. "But Jerrie won't care; she understands, or will, when she sees her new room. How pretty it is!" he added, as he stopped a moment to look in and admire it.
A blind had swung open, letting in a flood of hot sunshine, and as it was desirable to keep the room as cool as possible, Harold went in to close the shutter. But something was the matter with both fastening and hinge, and he was fixing it when Maude drove up, telling him the train was late.
"That's lucky," he said, "for this blind is all out of gear;" and it took so much time to fix and rehang it that the whistle was heard among the hills a mile away, just as he entered the Victoria with Maude and started for the station upon a run.
THE WALK HOME.
ALL the way from the station to the gate Harold was trying to think of something to say besides the merest commonplaces, and wondering at Jerrie's silence. She had seemed glad to see him, he had seen that in her eyes, and seen there something else which puzzled and troubled him, and he was about to ask her what it was when she stopped so abruptly, and said:
"Why didn't you come to commencement? Tom Tracy said you were shingling a roof, and Billy Peterkin said Maude was helping you."
"Oh, that's it, is it?" Harold said, bursting into a laugh. "That is why you have been so stiff and distant, ever since we left the depot, that I could not touch you with a ten-foot pole."
"Well, I don't care," Jerrie replied, with a sob in her voice. "Everybody had some friend there, but myself. You don't know how lonely I felt when I went on the stage and knew there was no home face looking at me in all that crowd. I think you might have come any way."
"But, Jerrie," Harold said, laying his hand upon her shoulder, as they slowly walked on, "wait a little before you condemn me utterly. I wanted to come quite as much as you wanted to have me. I remembered what a help it was to me when I was graduated to see your face in the crowd and know by its expression that you were satisfied."
"I did not suppose you saw me," Jerrie exclaimed, her voice very different in its tone from what it had been at first.
"Saw you!" and Harold's hand tightened its grasp on her shoulder. "Saw you! I scarcely saw any one else except you, and Maude, who sat beside you. I knew you would be there, and I looked the room over, missing you at first, and feeling as if something were wanting to fire me up, then, when I found you, the inspiration came, and if I began to flag ever so little, I had only to look at your blue eyes and my blood was up again."
This was a great deal for Harold to say, and he felt half frightened when he had said it; but Jerrie's answer was reassuring.
"Oh, I didn't know that. I am so glad you told me."
They were close to the Tramp House now. The walk from the station had been hot and dusty, and Jerrie was tired, so she said to Harold:
"Let's go in a moment; it looks so cool in there."
So they went in, and Jerrie sat down upon a bench, while Harold took a seat upon the table, and said:
"I suppose you had peals of applause and flowers by the bushel."
"Yes," Jerrie replied, "applause enough, and flowers enough—twenty bouquets and baskets in all, including yours. It was kind in you to send it."
She did not tell him of the wilted condition of his flowers, or that one of the faded roses was pressed between the lids of her Latin grammar.
"Billy gave me a heart of blue forget-me-nots," she continued, "and Tom a book of daisies on a standard of violets. What a prig Tom is, and what a dandy Billy has grown to be, and he stammers worse than ever."
"But he is one of the best-hearted fellows in the world;" Harold said, "he has been very kind to me."
"Yes, I know;" Jerrie rejoined, quickly, "he makes his father pay you big wages in the office and gives you a great many holidays; that is kind. But, oh, Harold, how I hate it all—your being obliged to work for such a man as Peterkin. I wish I were rich! Maybe I shall be some day. Who knows?"
The great tears were shining in her eyes as she talked, and brushing them away she suddenly changed the conversation, and said:
"I never come in here that a thousand strange fancies do not begin to flit through my brain, and my memory seems stretched to the utmost tension, and I remember things away back in the past before you found me in the carpet-bag."
She was gazing up toward the rafters with a rapt look on her face, as if she were seeing the things of which she was talking; and Harold, who had never seen her in just this way, said to her very softly:
"What do you remember, Jerrie? What do you see?"
She did not move her head or eyes, but answered him.
"I see always a sweet pale face, to which I can almost give a name—a face, which smiles upon me; and a thin white hand which is laid upon my hair—a hand not like those you have told me about, and which must have touched me so tenderly that awful night. Did you ever try to recall a name, or a dream, which seems sometimes just within your grasp, and then baffles all your efforts to retain it?"
"Yes, often," Harold said.
"Just so it is with me," she continued. "I try to keep the fancies which come and go so fast, and which always have reference to the past, and some far off country—Germany, I think. Harold, I must have been older when you found me than you supposed I was."
"Possibly," Harold replied. "You were so small that we thought you almost a baby, although you had an old head on your shoulders from the first, and could you have spoken our language, I believe you might have told us who you were and where you came from."
"Perhaps," Jerry said. "I don't know; only this, as I grow older, the things way back come to me, and the others fade away. The dark woman; my mother,"—she spoke the name very low—"is not half as real to me as the pale, sick face, on which the firelight shines. It is a small house, and a low room, with a big, white stove in the corner, and somebody is putting wood in it; a dark woman; she stoops; and from the open door the firelight falls upon the face in the chair—the woman who is always writing when she is not in bed; and I am there, a little child; and when the pale face cries, I cry, too; and when she dies—oh, Harold! but you saw me play it once, and wondered where I got the idea. I saw it. I know I did; I was there, a part of the play. I was the little child. Then, there is a blur, a darkness, with many people and a crying—two voices—the dark woman's and mine; then, a river, or the sea, or both, and noisy streets, and a storm, and cold; andyou, taking me into the sunshine."
As she talked she had unconsciously laid her hand onHarold's knee, and he had taken it in his, and was holding it fast, when she startled him with the question:
"Do you—did you—ever think—did any body ever think it possible, that the woman found dead in here, was not my mother?"
"Not your mother!" Harold exclaimed, dropping her hand in his surprise. "Not your mother! What do you mean?"
"No disrespect to her," Jerrie replied—"the good, brave woman, who gave her life for me, and whose dear hands shielded me from the cold as long as there was power in them to do it. I love and reverence her memory as if she had been my mother; but, Harold, do I look at all as she did? You saw her—here, and at the park house. Think—am I like her—in any thing?"
"No," Harold answered. "You are like her in nothing; but you may resemble your father."
"Ye-es," Jerrie said, slowly, "I may. Oh, Harold, the spell is on me now so strong that I can almost remember. Tell me again about that night, and the morning; what they did at the park house—Mr. Arthur, I mean. He was expecting somebody;Gretchen, was it not?"
She had grasped his hand again, and was looking into his face as if his answer would be life or death to her. And Harold, who had no idea what was in her mind, and who had never thought that the dark woman was not her mother, looked at her wonderingly, as he replied:
"Yes, I remember that he had a fancy in his mind that Gretchen was coming; but he has had that fancy so often. He said she was in the ship with him and on the train, but she wasn't. I think Gretchen is dead."
"Yes, she is dead," Jerrie said, decidedly; "but tell me again all you know of the time I came."
Harold told her again what he knew personally of the tragedy, and all he remembered to have heard. But the thing most real to him was Jerrie herself, the beautiful girl sitting by his side and astonishing him with her mood and her questions. He had seen her often in her spells, as he called them; when she acted her pantomimes, and talked to people whom she said she saw; but he had only thought of them as the vagaries of a peculiar mind—a German mindhis grandmother said, and he accepted her theory as the correct one.
He had never seen Jerrie as she was now, with that look in her face and in her eyes, which shone with a strange light as she went on to speak of the things which sometimes came and went so fast, and which she tried in vain to retain. It had never occurred to him that the woman he had found dead was not her mother, and he thought her crazy when she put the question to him. But he was a man, solid and steady, with no vagaries of the brain, and not a tithe of the impetuosity and imagination of the girl, who asked him at last if he had ever seen any one whom she resembled.
He was wondering, in a vague kind of way, how long she meant to stay there, and if the tea-cakes his grandmother was going to make for supper would be spoiled, when she asked the question, to which he replied:
"No, I don't think I ever did, unless it is Gretchen. You are some like her, but I suppose many German girls have her complexion and hair."
The answer was not very reassuring, and Jerrie showed it in her face, which was still upturned to Harold, who, looking down upon it and the earnest, wistful expression which had settled there, started suddenly as if an arrow had struck him, for he saw the likeness Jerrie had seen in the glass, and taking her face between both his hands, he studied it intently, while the possibility of the thing kept growing upon him, making him colder and fainter than Jerrie herself had been when she looked into the mirror.
"What if it were so?" he said to himself, while everything seemed slipping away from him, but mostly Jerrie, who, if it were so, would be separated from him by a gulf he could not pass; for what would the daughter of Arthur Tracy care for him, the poor boy, whose life had been one fight with poverty, and whose worn, shabby clothes, on which the full western sunlight was falling, told plainer than words of the poverty which still held him in thrall.
"Jerrie!" he cried, rising to his feet, and letting the hands which had clasped her face drop down to her shoulders, which they pressed tightly, as if he thus would keep her with him—"Oh, Jerrie, you are like Arthur Tracy, or you were when you looked at me so earnestly; but it isgone now. Do you—have you thought that Gretchen was your mother?"
He was pale as a corpse, and Jerrie was the calmer of the two, as she told him frankly all she had thought and felt since Arthur's visit to her.
"I meant to tell you," she said, "though not quite so soon; but when I came in here I could not help it, things crowded upon me so. It may be, and probably is, all a fancy, but there is something in my babyhood different from the woman who died, and when I am able to do it, I am going to Wiesbaden, for that is where Gretchen lived, and where I believe I came from, and if there is anything I shall find it. Oh, Harold! I may not be Gretchen's daughter, but if I am more than a peasant girl—if anything good comes of my search, my greatest joy will be that I can share with you, who have been so kind to me. I will gladly give you and grandma every dollar I may ever have, and then I should not pay you."
"There is nothing owing me," Harold said, the pain in his heart and his fear of losing her growing less as she talked. "You have brought me nearly all the happiness I have ever known; for when I was a boy and every bone ached with the hard work I had to do—the thought that Jerrie was waiting for me at home, that her face would greet me at the window, or in the door, made the labor light; and now that I am a man—" He paused a moment, and Jerrie's head drooped a little, for his voice was very low and soft, and she waited with a beating heart for him to go on. "Now that I am a man, life would be nothing to me without you."
Was this a declaration of love? It almost seemed so, and, but for a thought of Maude, Jerrie might have believed it was such, and lead him on to something more definite. As it was, her heart gave a great bound of joy, which showed itself on her face as she replied:
"If I make your life happier,Iam glad; for never had a poor, unknown girl, so good and true a brother as I. But come, I have kept you here too long, and grandma must be wondering where we are."
"Yes, and supper will be spoiled," Harold said, as he followed her to the door. "We are to have it in the back porch, where it is so cool, and to have tea-cakes, withstrawberries from our own vines, and cream from our own cow, or rather your cow. Did I write you that she had a splendid calf, which we call Clover-top?"
They had come back to commonplaces now. Jerrie's clairvoyant spell had passed and she was herself again, simple Jerrie Crawford, walking along the familiar path, and talking of the cow which Frank Tracy had given her when it was a sickly calf, whose mother had died. She had taken it home and nursed it so carefully that it was now a healthy little Jersey, whom she called Nannie.
"A funny name for a cow," Harold had said, and she had replied:
"Yes, but it keeps repeating itself in my brain. I have known a Nannie sometime, sure, and may as well perpetuate the name in my bossy as anywhere."
Nannie was in a little inclosure by the side of the lane, and at Harold's call she came to the fence, over which she put her face for the caress she was sure to get, while Clover-top kicked up her heels and acted as if she, too, understood and was glad Jerry had come.
"Oh, it is so pleasant everywhere, and I am so glad to be home again," Jerrie said, as her eyes went rapidly from one thing to another, until at last they fell upon the raised roof looking so new and yellow in the sunlight.
AT HOME.
"OH, Harold, what have you been doing?" Jerrie exclaimed, stopping short, while a suspicion of the truth began to dawn upon her.
"That is the roof Tom told you I was shingling," Harold replied; and taking her by the arm, he hurried her on to the cottage, where Mrs. Crawford stood in the door, in her broad white apron and the neat muslin cap which Maude had fashioned for her.
With a cry of joy, Jerrie took the old lady in her arms, and kissed and cried over her.
"It is so nice to be home, and everything is so pleasant!" she said, as her eyes swept the sitting-room, and kitchen, and back porch where the tea table was laid, with its luscious berries and pitchers of cream.
"Go right up stairs with Harold. I have just come down, and can't go up again," Mrs. Crawford said, excitedly; and, with a bound, Jerrie was up the stars and in the lovely room.
When she saw them coming in the lane, Mrs. Crawford had gone up and opened the shutters, letting in a flood of light, so that nothing should escape Jerrie's notice. And she saw it all at a glance—the high walls, the carpet, the furniture, the curtains, and the flowers—and knew why Harold did not come to Vassar.
He was standing in the bay-window, watching her, and the light fell full upon his shabby clothes, which Jerrie noticed for the first time, knowing exactly why he must wear them, and understanding perfectly all the self-denials and sacrifices he had made for her, who had been angry because he did not come to see her graduate. Had she been younger, she would have thrown herself into his arms and cried there. Harold half thought and hoped she was going to do so now, for she made a rush toward him, then stopped suddenly, and sinking into the willow chair, began to sob aloud, while Harold stood looking at her, wondering what he ought to do.
"Don't you like it, Jerrie?" he said at last.
"Like it?" and in the eyes which she flashed upon him, he read her answer. "Like it! I never saw a room I liked better. But why did you do it? Was it because of that foolish speech of mine about knocking my brains out, the ceiling was so low?"
"Not at all," Harold replied. "I had the idea in my head long before you wrote that to me, but could not quite see my way clear until last spring. I have seen Nina's room, and Maude's, and have heard that Ann Eliza Peterkin's was finer than the queen's at Windsor, and I did not like to think of you in the cooped up place this was, with the slanting roof and low windows. I am glad you like it."
And then, knowing that she would never let him rest until he had done so, he told her all the ways and means by which he had been able to accomplish it, except, indeed,his own self-denials and sacrifices of pride, and even comfort. But this she understood, and looked at the shabby coat, and shoes, and the calloused hands, which lay upon his knees as he talked, and which she wanted so much to take in hers and kiss and pity, for the hard work they had done for her. But this would have been "throwing herself at his head," and so she only cried the more, as she told him how much she thanked him, and that she never could repay him for what he had done for her.
"But it was a pleasure," he said. "I never enjoyed anything in my life as I have working in this room, with Maude to help me. She was here nearly every day, and by her enthusiasm kept me up to fever heat. She puttied up the nail-holes and painted your dressing-room, and would have helped shingle the roof if I had permitted it. She gave the chair you sit in, and the table in the window. She would do that, and I let her; but when Mr. Arthur offered his assistance, and the other Mr. Tracy, I refused, for I wanted it all my own for you."
He was speaking rapidly and excitedly, and had Jerrie looked up she would have seen in his face all she was to him; but she did not, and at mention of Maude a cloud fell suddenly upon her. But she would not let it remain; she would be happy, and make Harold so, too. So she told him again of her delight, and what a joyous coming home it was.
She had not yet seen Arthur's card, and photograph, and note; but Harold called her attention to them; and taking up the latter, she opened it, while her heart gave a throb of something between joy and pain as she saw the words, "My dear child," and then read the note so characteristic of him.
"What a strange fancy of his to go off so suddenly to California. I wonder Mr. Frank allowed it," she said, as she put the note in her pocket, and then, at a call from Mrs. Crawford, went down to where the supper was waiting for her.
The tea-cakes were a little cold, but everything else was delicious, from the fragrant tea to the ripe berries and thick, sweet cream, and Jerrie enjoyed it with the keen relish of youth and perfect health.
After supper was over Jerrie made her grandmother sitstill while she washed and put away the dishes, singing as she worked, and whistling, too—loud, clear, ringing strains, which made a robin in the grass fly up to the porch, where, with his head turned on one side he listened to this new songster, whose notes were strange to him.
And Jerrie did seem like some joyous bird just let loose from prison, as she flitted from one thing to another, now setting her grandmother's cap a little more squarely on her head, and bending to kiss the silvery hair as she said to her, "Your working days are over, for I have come home to care for you, and in the future you have nothing to do but to sit still, with your dear old lame feet on a cushion;" now helping Harold water the flowers in the borders, and pinning a June Pink in his button-hole; now, going with him to milk Nannie, who, either remembering Jerrie, or recognizing a friend in her, allowed her horn to be decorated with a knot of blue ribbon, which Jerrie took from her throat, and which Harold afterward took from Nannie's horn and hid away with the withered lilies Jerrie had thrown him that day at Harvard when her face and her eyes had been his inspiration.
They kept early hours at the cottage, and the people at the Park House were little more than through the grand dinner they were giving, when Jerrie said good-night to her grandmother and Harold, and went up to her new room under the raised roof. It was a lovely summer night, and the moonlight fell softly upon the grass and shrubs outside, and shone far down the long lane where the Tramp House stood, with its thick covering of woodbine.
Leaning from the window, Jerrie looked out upon the night, while a thousand thoughts and fancies came crowding into her brain, all born of that likeness seen by her in the mirror when Arthur was with her at Vassar, and which Harold, too, had recognized when she sat with him in the Tramp House. After Arthur had left her in May she had been too busy to indulge in idle dreams, but they had come back to her again with an overwhelming force, which seemed for a few moments to lift the vail of mystery and show her the past, for which she was so eagerly longing. The pale face was more distinct in her mind, as was the room with the tall white stove and the high-backed settee beside it, and on the settee a little girl—herself, shebelieved—and she could hear a voice from the cushioned chair speaking to her and calling her by the name Arthur had given her in his note.
"My child," he had written; but he had only put it as a term of endearment; he had no suspicion of the truth, if it were truth; and yet why should he not know? Could anything obliterate the memory of a child, if there had been one, Jerrie asked herself.
"Iwillknow some time. I will find it out," she said, as she withdrew from the window and commenced her preparations for bed.
As she stepped into her dressing-room, her eyes fell upon the foreign trunk, with the contents of which she was familiar. They had been kept intact by Mrs. Crawford, who hoped that by them Jerrie might some day be identified. Going to the old trunk Jerrie lifted the lid, and took out the articles one by one with a very different feeling from what she had ever experienced before when handling them. The alpaca dress came first, and she examined it carefully. It was coarse, and plain, and old-fashioned, and she felt intuitively that a servant had worn it. The cloak and shawl, in which she had been wrapped, were inspected next, and on these Jerrie's tears fell like rain, as she thought of the woman who had resolutely put away the covering from herself to save a life which was no part of her own.
"Oh, Mah-nee," she sobbed, laying her face upon the rough coarse garments, "I am not disloyal to you in trying to believe that you were not my mother, and could you come back to me, Mah-nee, whoever you are, I'd be to you so loving and true. Tell me, Mah-nee, who I am: give me some sign that what comes to me so often of that far-off land is true. Therewasanother face than yours which kissed me, and other hands, dead now, as are the dear old hands which shielded me from the cold that awful night, have caressed me lovingly."
But to this appeal there came no response, and Jerrie would have been frightened if there had. The shawl, the cloak, and the dress were as silent and motionless as she to whom they had belonged; and Jerrie folded them reverently, and putting them aside took out her own clothes next—the little dresses which showed a mother's love and care; the handkerchief marked "J;" the aprons, and the picturebook with which she had played, and from which it seemed to her she had learned the alphabet, standing by a cushioned chair before a tall white stove. There was only the fine towel left, and Jerrie looked long and thoughtfully at the letter "M" embroidered in the corner.
"Marguerite begins with M," she said, "and Gretchen's name was Marguerite. If it were Gretchen who worked this letter I can touch what her hands have touched"—and she kissed the "M" as fervently as if it had been Gretchen's lip, and Gretchen were her mother.
On the old brass ring the key to the trunk and carpet-bag were still fastened, together with the small key, for which no use had ever been found. Jerrie had never thought much about this key before, but now she held it a long time while the conviction grew that this was the key to the mystery; that could she find the article which this unlocked, she would know something definite with regard to herself. But where to look she could not guess; and with her brain in a whirl which threatened a violent headache, she closed the chest at last, and crept wearily to bed just as the clock, which Peterkin had set up in one of his towers, struck for half-past ten, and Grace Atherton's carriage was rolling down the avenue from the big dinner at the Park House.
THE NEXT DAY.
JERRIE was astir the next morning almost as soon as the first robin began to sing under her window. She had left a blind open, and the red beams of the rising sun fell upon her face and roused her from a dream of Germany and what she meant to do there. Once fairly awake, Germany seemed far away, as did the fancies of the previous night. The spell, mesmeric, or clairvoyant, or whatever one chooses to call it, was broken, and she began dressing rapidly and noiselessly so as not to awaken her grandmother, who slept in the room beneath hers.
"I shall get the start of her," she said, as she donned a simple working dress which had done her service during the summer vacations for three successive years. "I heard her telling Harold last night to have the tubs and water ready early, for she had put off the Monday's washing until I came home, as I was sure to bring a pile of soiled clothes. And I have; but, my dear grandmother, your poor old twisted hands will not touch them. What is a great strapping girl like me for, I'd like to know, if it is not to wash her own clothes, and yours, too?" and Jerrie nodded resolutely at the fresh young face in the mirror, which nodded back with a smile of approbation of thetout ensembleof the figure reflected in the glass.
And truly it was a very pretty and piquant picture she made in her neat calico dress, which, as it was three years old at least, was a little too short for her, and showed plainly her red stockings and high-heeled slippers, with the strap around her instep. Her sleeves were short, for she had cut them off and arranged them in a puff above her elbows to save rolling them up, and her white bib-apron was fastened on each shoulder with a knot of blue ribbon, Harold's favorite color. She had thoroughly brushed her hair, and then twisting it into a knot, had tucked it under a coquettish muslin cap, whose narrow frill just shaded her face.
"You look like a peasant girl, and I believe you are a peasant girl, and ought to be working in the fields of Germany this minute," she said to herself with a mocking courtesy, as she left the mirror and descended to the kitchen, where, early as it was, she found Harold warming some coffee over a fire of chips, and cutting a slice of dry bread.
"What in the world!" she exclaimed, stopping short on the threshold. "I meant to be the first on the scene, and lo! here you are before me. What are you doing?"
"Getting my breakfast," Harold replied, turning toward her with a slight shade of annoyance on his face. "You see, I have a job. I did not tell you last night that a Mr. Allen, who lives across the river, four miles away, looked in one day when I was painting your ceiling, and liked it so much that he engaged me to paint one for him. I told him I was only an amateur, but he said he'd ratherhave me than all the boss painters in Shannondale. He offered me three dollars a day and board, which means dinner and supper, or fifteen for the job; and I took the last offer, as I can make the most at it by beginning early and working late, and we need——"
Here he stopped short, for how could he tell Jerrie that the raised roof had taken all his means, and that he even owed the grocer for the sugar she had eaten upon her berries, and the butcher for the bit of steak bought the previous night for her breakfast and his grandmother's. But Jerrie guessed it without his telling, but with her quick instinct and delicate perception knew that no genuine man like Harold cares to have even his best friend know of his poverty if he can help it. Forcing back the tears which sprang to her eyes, she said, cheerily:
"Yes, I know; you are a kind of second Michael Angelo, though I doubt if that old gentleman, at your age, could have done my room better than you did. I don't wonder Mr. Allen wants you. But you are not going to tramp four miles on a hot morning, on nothing but bread and coffee, and such coffee—muddier than the Missouri River! You shall have a decent breakfast, if I can get it for you. Just sit down and rest, and see what a Vassar with a diploma can do."
As she talked she was replenishing the fire with hard wood, putting on the kettle, pouring out the coffee dregs saved from yesterday's breakfast, and hunting for an egg with which to settle the fresh cup she intended to make.
"No, no, Jerrie. You must not take that; it is all we have in the house, and grandma must have a fresh one every day at eleven o'clock, the doctor says—it strengthens her," Harold said, rising quickly, while Jerrie put the one egg back in the box and asked what Mrs. Crawford did settle coffee with.
"I am sure I don't know; cold water, I guess," Harold said, resuming his seat, while Jerrie tripped here and there laying the cloth, bringing his cup and saucer and plate, and at last pouncing upon the bit of steak in the refrigerator.
But here Harold again interfered.
"Jerrie—Jerrie, that is for your breakfast and grandma's. You must not take that."
"But I shall take half of it. I would rather have a glass of Nannie's milk any time than meat, and you are going to have my share; so, Mr. Hastings, just mind your business and let the cook alone, or she'll be givin' ye warnin'," Jerrie answered, laughingly, as she divided the steak, which she proceeded at once to broil.
So Harold let her have her way, and felt an increase of self-respect, and that he was something more than a common day-laborer, as he ate his steak and buttered toast, and drank the coffee, which seemed to him the best he had ever tasted. Jerrie picked him a few strawberries, and laid beside his plate a beautiful half-opened rose, with the dew still upon it. It was a delicate attention, and Harold felt it more than all she had done for him.
"Thank you, Jerrie," he said, picking up the rose as he finished his breakfast. "It was so nice in you to think of it, just as if I were a king instead of a jack-at-all-trades; but I hardly think it suits my blue checked shirt and painty pants. Keep it yourself, Jerrie," and he held it up against her white bib apron. "It is just like the pink on your cheeks. Wear it for me," and taking a pin from his collar, he fastened it rather awkwardly to the bib, while his face came in so close proximity to Jerrie's that he felt her breath stir his hair, and felt, too, a strong temptation to kiss the cheek so near his own. "There; that completes your costume," he said, holding her off a little to look at her. "By the way, haven't you got yourself up uncommonly well this morning? I never saw you as pretty as you are in this rig. If it would not be very improper, I'd like to kiss you."
He was astonished at his own boldness, and not at all surprised at Jerrie's reply, as she stepped back from him:
"No, thank you; it would be highly improper for a man who stands six feet in his boots, to kiss a girl who stands five feet six in her slippers."
There was a flush on her cheeks, and a strange look in her eyes, for she was thinking of Harvard, where he had put her from him, ashamed that strangers should see her kiss him. Harold had forgotten that incident, which at the time had made no impression upon him, and was now thinking only of the beautiful girl whose presence seemed to brighten and ennoble everything with which she came incontact, and to whom he at last said good-by, just as Peterkin's tower clock struck for half-past five.
"Imustgo now," he said, taking up his basket of brushes. "I have lost a full half-hour with you, and your steaks, and your coddling me generally. I ought to have been there by this time. Good-by," and offering her his hand, he started down the lane at a rapid pace, thinking the morning the loveliest he had ever known, and wondering why everything seemed so fresh, and bright, and sweet.
If he could have sung, he would have done so; but he could not, and so he talked to himself, and to the birds, and rabbits, and squirrels, which sprang up before him as he struck into the woods as the shortest route to Mr. Allen's farm-house—talked to them of Jerrie, and how delightful it was to have her home again, unspoiled by flattery, sweet and gracious as ever, and how he longed to tell her of his love, but dared not, until he was sure of her and of what she felt for him. He had no faith now in her fancies with regard to herself. Of the likeness to Arthur, which he thought he saw the previous day, there had been no trace that morning when he pinned the rose upon her bib. She could not be Gretchen's daughter, and was undoubtedly the child of the woman found dead in the Tramp House—his Jerrie, whom he had found, and claimed as his own, and whom he meant to win some day, when he had his profession, and was established in business.
"But that will be a long, long time, and some one else may steal her from me," he said to himself, sadly, as he thought of the years which must elapse before he could venture to take a wife. "Oh, if I were sure she cared for me as I do for her, I would ask her now, and have it settled; for Jerrie is not a girl to go back on her promise, and the years would seem so short, and the work so easy, with Jerrie at the end of it all," he continued; and then he wondered how he could find out the nature of Jerrie's feeling for him without asking her directly, and so spoiling everything if he should happen to be premature.
Would his grandmother know? Not at all likely. She was too old to know much of love, or its symptoms in a girl. Would Nina St. Claire know? Possibly, for she and Jerrie were great friends, and girls always told each other their secrets, so Maude said, and Maude was just thenhis oracle. He had seen so much of her the last few months that he felt as if he knew her even better than he did Jerrie, and he was certainly more at his ease in her presence. Then why not talk with Maude and enlist her as a partisan. He might certainly venture to make her his confidant, she had been so very communicative and familiar with him, telling him things which he had wondered at, with regard to her father, and mother, and Tom, and the family generally. Yes, he would sound Maude, very cautiously at first, and get her opinion, and then he should know better what to do. Maude would espouse his cause, he was sure, for she worshiped Jerrie. He could trust her, and he would.
He had reached the Allen farm-house by this time, and though he was perspiring at every pore, for the morning was very hot, he scarcely felt the heat or the fatigue of his rapid four-mile walk, as he mixed his paints and prepared for his work, for there was constantly in his heart a thought of Jerrie, as she had looked in that bewitching dress, and of the bright smile she had given him when she said good-by.
Meanwhile Jerrie had watched him out of sight, whistling merrily: