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Tracy Park by Mary Jane Holmes

M >> Mary Jane Holmes >> Tracy Park




That day they dined in the kitchen with a leaf of the table turned up as
they had done in Langley, but the next day they had dinner in the
dining-room, and were waited upon by the new girl as well as it was
possible for her to do with her mistress' interference.

'Never mind; Mr. Tracy's in a hurry. Give him his pie at once,' she
said, as Susan was about to clear the table preparatory to the dessert,
but she repented the speech when she saw the look of surprise which the
girl gave her and which expressed more than words could have done.

'Better let her run herself,' Frank said, when Susan had left the room,
'and if she wants to take every darned thing off the table and tip it
over to boot, let her do it. If she has lived three years with Mrs.
Atherton, she knows what is what better than we do.'

'But it takes so long, and I have much to see to in this great house,'
Dolly objected, and her husband replied:

'Get another girl, then; three of them if you like. What matter how many
girls we have so long as Arthur pays for them, and he is bound to do
that. He said so in his letter. You are altogether too economical. I've
told you so a hundred times, and now there is no need of saving. I want
to see you a lady of silks and satins like Mrs. Atherton. Pump that
girl. I tell you, and find out what ladies do!'

This was Frank's advice to his wife, and as far as in her lay she acted
upon it, and whatever Susan told her was done by Mrs. Atherton at Brier
Hill, she tried to do at Tracy Park: all except staying out of the
kitchen. That, from her nature, she could not and would not do.
Consequently she was constantly changing cooks, and frequently took the
helm herself, to the great disgust of her husband, who managed at last
to imbue her with his own ideas of things.

In course of time most of the neighbors who had any claim to society
called at the park, and among them Mrs. Crawford. But Mrs. Tracy had
then reached a point from which she looked down upon one who had been
housekeeper where she was now mistress, and whose daughter's good name
was under a cloud, as there were some who did not believe that Harold
Hastings had ever made her his wife. When told that Mrs. Crawford had
asked for her Mrs. Tracy sent word that she was engaged, and that if
Mrs. Crawford pleased she would give her errand to the girl.

'I have no errand. I came to call,' was Mrs. Crawford's reply, and she
never crossed the threshold of her old home again until the March winds
were blowing and there was a little boy in the nursery at the park.

At the last moment the expected nurse had fallen sick, and in his
perplexity Mr. Tracy went to the cottage in the lane and begged of Mrs.
Crawford to come and care for his wife. Mrs. Crawford was very proud,
but she was poor, too, and as the price per week which Frank offered her
was four times as much as she could earn by sewing, she consented at
last and went as nurse to the sick-room, and the baby, Tom, on whose
little red face she imprinted many a kiss for the sake of her daughter
who was coming home in June, and over whom the shadow of hope and fear
was hanging.

Dolly Tracy's growth after it fairly commenced, was very rapid, and when
Mrs. Crawford went to her as nurse she had three servants in her employ,
besides the coachman, and was imitating Mrs. Atherton to the best of her
ability; and when, early in the summer, she received the wedding cards
of Edith Hastings, the young lady from Collingwood, who had married a
Mr. St. Claire instead of her guardian, she felt that her position was
assured, and from that time her progress was onward and upward until the
October morning, ten years later, when our story proper opens, and we
see her standing upon the piazza of her handsome house, with every sign
of wealth and luxury about her person, from the silken robe to the
jewels upon her soft, white hands, which once had washed her own dishes,
and canned berries in her own kitchen, where she had received Grace
Atherton, with her sleeves above her elbows.

There were five servants in the house now, and they ran over and against
each other, and quarrelled, and gossipped, and worried her life nearly
out of her, until she was sometimes tempted to send them away and do the
work herself. But she was far too great a lady for that. She dressed in
silk and satin every day, and drove in her handsome carriage, with her
driver and footman in tall hats and long coats. She was thoroughly up in
etiquette, and did not need Susan to tell her what to do. She knew all
about visiting cards, and dinner cards, and cards of acceptance, and
regret, and condolence, and she read much oftener than she did her Bible
a book entitled 'Habits of Good Society.'

Three children played in the nursery now, Tom, and Jack, and baby Maude,
and she kept a nurse constantly for them, and strove with all her might
to instil into their infant minds that they were the Tracys of Tracy
Park, and entitled to due respect from their inferiors; and Tom, the boy
of ten and a half, had profited by her teaching, and was the veriest
little braggart in all Shannondale, boasting of his father's house, and
his father's money, without a word of the Uncle Arthur wandering no one
knew where, or cared particularly for that matter.

Arthur had never been home since the day he quitted it to look after Amy
Crawford, now lying in the grave-yard of Shannondale, under the shadow
of the tall monument which Arthur's money had bought. At first he had
written frequently to Mrs. Crawford, and occasionally to his brother,
and his agent, Mr. Colvin; then his letters came very irregularly, and
sometimes a year would intervene between them. Then he would write every
week, and he once told them not to be anxious if they did not hear from
him in a long time, as in case of his death he had arranged to have the
news communicated to his friends at once. After this letter nothing had
been heard from him for more than two years, until the morning when his
telegram came and so greatly disturbed the mental equilibrium of Mr.
Frank Tracy that for an hour or more he sat staring into the street in a
bewildered kind of way, wondering what would be the result of his
brother's return, and if he should be required to give up the
investments he had made from the exorbitant sum he had charged for
looking after the place. Once he thought he would ask Colvin's opinion;
but he was a little afraid of the old man, who had sometimes hinted that
his salary was far greater than the services rendered, but as Mr.
Arthur, to whom he made reports of the expenditures, had never objected,
it was not for him to do so, he said. And still Frank distrusted him,
and decided that, on the whole, his better plan was to wait, or at least
to consult no one but his wife, and he was glad when lunch-time came,
and he started home, where preparations were going forward for the first
large party they had ever given.




CHAPTER V.

AT THE PARK.


Frank Tracy had at first grown faster than his wife, and the change in
his manner had been more perceptible; for with all her foolishness Dolly
had a kind heart, and a keen sense of right, and wrong, and justice than
her husband. She had opposed him stoutly when he raised his own salary
from $4,000 to $6,000 a year, on the plea that his services were worth
it, and that two thousand more or less was nothing to Arthur; and when
he was a candidate for the Legislature she had protested loudly against
his inviting to the house and giving beer and cider to the men whose
votes he wanted, and for whom as men he did not care a farthing; but
when he came up for Congress she forgot all her scruples, and was as
anxious as himself to please those who could help him secure the
nomination and afterward the election. It was she who had proposed the
party, to which nearly everybody was to be invited, from old Peterkin,
with his powerful influence among a certain class, and Widow Shipleigh
with her four sons, to Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire, from Grassy Spring,
Squire Harrington, from Collingwood, and Grace Atherton, from Brier
Hill. Very few who could in any way help Frank to a seat in Congress
were omitted from the list, whether Republican or Democrat, for Frank
was popular with both parties and expected help from both. Over three
hundred cards had been issued for the party, which was the absorbing
topic of conversation in the whole town, and which brought white kids
and white muslins into great requisition, while swallow-tails and non
swallow-tails were discussed in the privacy of households, and discarded
or decided upon according to the length of the masculine purse or the
strength of the masculine resistance, for dress coats were not then the
rule in Shannondale. It was said that Mr. St. Claire and Squire
Harrington always wore them to dinner, but they were the nobility _par
excellence_ of the town, and were expected to do things differently from
the middle class, who had their bread to earn. Old Peterkin, however,
whom Frank in his soliloquy, had designated a _canal bummer_, had become
a rich man, and was resolved to show that he knew what was _au fait_ for
the occasion; a new suit throughout, in the very latest style, was in
progress of making for him, and he had been heard to say that 'Tracy
should have his vote and that of fifty more of the boys to pay for his
ticket to the doin's'. This speech, which was reported to Mrs. Tracy,
reconciled her to the prospect of receiving as a guest the coarsest,
roughest man in town, whose only recommendation was his money and the
brute influence he exercised over a certain class.

Dolly has scarcely slept for excitement since the party had been decided
upon, and everything seemed to be moving on very smoothly and in order.
They were to have music, and flowers, and a caterer from Springfield,
where a lovely party-dress for herself of peach-blow satin was making,
and nothing occurred of any importance to disturb her until the morning
of the day appointed for the party, when it seemed as if every evil
culminated at once. First, the colored boy who was to wait in the upper
hall came down with measles. Then Grace Atherton drove round in her
carriage to say that it would be impossible for her to be present, as
she had received news from New York which made it necessary for her to
go there by the next train. She was exceedingly sorry, she said, and for
once in her life Grace was sincere. She _was_ anxious to attend the
party, for, as she said to Edith St. Claire in confidence, she wanted to
see old Peterkin in his swallow-tail and white vest, with a shirt-front
as big as a platter. There was a great deal of sarcasm and ridicule in
Grace Atherton's nature, but at heart she was kind and meant to be just,
and after a fashion really liked Mrs. Tracy, to whom she had been of
service in various ways, helping her to fill her new position more
gracefully than she could otherwise have done, and enlightening her
without seeming to do so on many points which puzzled her sorely; on the
whole they were good friends, and, after expressing her regret that she
could not be present in the evening, Grace stood a few moments chatting
familiarly and offering to send over flowers from her greenhouse, and
her own maid to arrange Mrs. Tracy's hair and assist her in dressing.
Then she took her leave, and it was her carriage Mrs. Tracy was watching
as it went down the avenue, when little Harold Hastings appeared around
the corner of the house, and, coming up the steps, took off his cap
respectfully as he said:

'Grandma sends you her compliments, and is very sorry that she has
rheumatism this morning and cannot come to-night to help you. She
thinks, perhaps, you can get Mrs. Mosher.'

'Your grandmother can't come, when I depended so much upon her, and she
thinks I can get Mrs. Mosher, that termagant, who would raise a mutiny
in the kitchen in an hour!' Mrs. Tracy said this so sharply that a flush
mounted to the handsome face of the boy, who felt as if he were in some
way a culprit and being reprimanded. 'She _must_ come, if she does
nothing but sit in the kitchen and keep order,' was Mrs. Tracy's next
remark.

'She can't,' Harold replied; 'her foot and ankle is all swelled and
aches so she almost cries. She is awful sorry, and so am I, for I was
coming with her to see the show.'

This speech put a new idea into Mrs. Tracy's mind, and she said to the
boy:

'How would you like to come anyway, and stay in the upper hall, and tell
the people where to go? The boy I engaged has disappointed me. You are
rather small for the place, but I guess you'll do, and I will give you
fifty cents.'

'I'd like it first-rate,' Harold said, his face brightening at the
thought of earning fifty cents and seeing the show at the same time.

Half-dollars were not very plentiful with Harold, and he was trying to
save enough to buy his grandmother a pair of spectacles, for he had
heard her say that she could not thread her needle as readily as she
once did, and must have glasses as soon as she had the money to spare.
Harold had seen a pair at the drug-store for one dollar, and, without
knowing at all whether they would fit his grandmother's eyes or not, had
asked the druggist to keep them until he had the required amount. Fifty
cents would just make it, and he promised at once that he would come;
but in an instant there fell a shadow upon his face as he thought of
_Tom_, his tormentor, who worried him so much.

'What is it?' Mrs. Tracy asked, as she detected in him a disposition to
reconsider.

'Will Tom be up in the hall?' Harold asked.

'Of course not,' Mrs. Tracy replied. 'He will be in the parlors until
ten o'clock, and then he will go to bed. Why do you ask?'

'Because,' Harold answered fearlessly, 'if he was to be there I could
not come; he chaffs me so and twits me with being poor and living in a
house his uncle gave us.'

'That is very naughty in him, and I will see that he behaves better in
future,' said Mrs. Tracy, rather amused than other wise at the boy's
frankness.

As the mention of the uncle reminded Harold of the telegram, he took it
from his pocket and handed it to her.

'Mr. Tracy said I was to bring you this. It's from Mr. Arthur, and he's
coming to-night. I'm so glad, and grandma will be, too!'

If Mrs. Tracy heard the last of Harold's speech she did not heed it, for
she had caught the words that Arthur was coming that night, and, for a
moment, she felt giddy and faint, and her hand shook so she could
scarcely open the telegram.

Arthur had been gone so long and left them in undisputed possession of
the park, that she had come to feel as if it belonged to them by right,
and she had grown so into a life of ease and luxury, that to give it up
now and go back to Langley seemed impossible to her. She could see it
all so plainly--the old life of obscurity and toil in the little kitchen
where she had eaten her breakfast on winter mornings so near the stove
that she could cook her buckwheats on the griddle and transfer them to
her own and her husband's plates without leaving her seat. She had been
happy, or comparatively so there, she said to herself, because she knew
no better. But now she did know better, and she ate her breakfast in an
oak-paneled dining-room, with a waitress at her elbow, and her
buckwheats hot from a silver dish instead of the smoking griddle. She
had a governess for her two boys, Tom and Jack, and a nurse for her
little Maude, who, in her ambitious heart, she hoped would one day marry
Dick St. Clair, the young heir of Grassy Spring.

It never occurred to Dolly that they might possibly remain at the park
if Arthur did come home. She felt sure they could not, for Arthur would
hardly approve of his brother's stewardship when he came to realize how
much it had cost him. They would have to leave, and this party she was
giving would be her first and last at Tracy Park. How she wished she had
never thought of it, or, having thought of it, that she had omitted from
the list those who, she knew, would be obnoxious to the foreign brother,
and who had only been invited for the sake of their political influence,
which would now be useless, for Frank Tracy as a nobody, with very
little money to spend, would not run as well, even in his own party, as
Frank Tracy of Tracy Park, with thousands at his command if he chose to
take them.

'It is too bad, and I wish we could give up the party,' she said aloud,
forgetting in her excitement that Harold was still standing there,
gazing curiously at her. 'You here yet? I thought you had gone!' she
said, half angrily, as she recovered herself a little and met the boy's
wondering eyes.

'Yes'm; but you ain't going to give the party up?' he said, afraid of
losing his half-dollar.

'Of course not. How can I, with all the people invited?' she asked,
questioningly, and a little less sharply.

'I don't know, unless I get a pony and go round and tell 'em not to
come,' Harold suggested, thinking he might earn his fifty cents as
easily that way as any other.

But, much as Mrs. Tracy wished the party had never been thought of, she
could not now abandon it, and declining the services of Harold and his
pony, she again bade him go home, with a charge that he should be on
time in the evening, adding, as she surveyed him critically:

'If you have no clothes suitable, you can wear some of Tom's. You are
about his size.'

'Thank you; I have my meetin' clothes, and do not want Tom's,' was
Harold's reply, as he walked away, thinking he would go in rags before
he would wear anything which belonged to his enemy, Tom Tracy.

The rest of the morning was passed by Mrs. Frank in a most unhappy frame
of mind, and she was glad when, at an hour earlier than she had reason
to expect him, her husband came home.

'Well, Dolly,' he said, the moment they were alone, 'this is awfully
unlucky, the whole business. If Arthur must come home, why couldn't he
have written in advance, and not take us by surprise? Looks as if he
meant to spring a trap on us, don't it? And if he did, by Jove, he has
caught us nicely. It will be somewhat like the prodigal son, who heard
the sound of music and dancing, only I don't suppose Arthur has spent
his substance in riotous living, with not over nice people; but there is
no telling what he has been up to all these years that he has not
written to us. Perhaps he is married. He said in his telegram, "Send to
meet _us_." What does that mean, if not a wife?'

'A wife! Oh, Frank!' and with a great gasp Dolly sank down upon the
lounge near where she was standing, and actually went into the hysterics
her husband had prophesied.

In reading the telegram she had not noticed the little monosyllable
'_us_,' which was now affecting her so powerfully. Of course it meant a
wife and possibly children, and her day was surely over at Tracy Park.
It was in vain that her husband tried to comfort her, saying that they
knew nothing positively, except that Arthur was coming home and somebody
was coming with him; it might be a friend, or, what was more likely, it
might be a valet; and at all events he was not going to cross Fox River
till he reached it, when he might find a bridge across it.

But Frank's reasoning did not console his wife, whose hysterical fit was
succeeded by a racking headache, which by night was almost unbearable.
Strong coffee, aconite, brandy, and belladonna, were all tried without
effect. Nothing helped her until she commenced her toilet, when in the
excitement of dressing she partly forgot her disquietude, and the pain
in her head grew leas. Still she was conscious of a feeling of
wretchedness and regret as she sat in her handsome boudoir and felt that
it might be for the last time--that on the morrow another would be
mistress where she had reigned so long.

It was known in the house that Arthur was expected, and some one with
him, but no hint had been given of a wife, and Mrs. Tracy had ordered
separate rooms prepared for the strangers, who were to arrive on the
half-past ten train. How she should manage to keep up and appear natural
until that time Mrs. Tracy did not know, and her face and eyes wore an
anxious, frightened look, which all her finery could not hide. And still
she was really very handsome and striking in her dress of peach blow
satin, and the bare arms which had once been more familiar with
soap-suds and dishwater than lace and gold bracelets, looked very fair
and girlish when at last she descended to the drawing-room and stood
waiting for the first ring which would open the party.




CHAPTER VI.

THE COTTAGE IN THE LANE.


It was called thus because it stood at the end of a broad, grassy avenue
or lane, which led from the park to the entrance of the grounds of
Collingwood, whose chimneys and gables were distinctly visible in the
winter when the trees were stripped of their foliage. At the time when
Mrs. Crawford took possession of it its color was red, but the storms
and rains of eleven summers and winters had washed nearly all the red
away; and as Mrs. Crawford had never had the money to spare for its
repainting, it would have presented a brown and dingy appearance
outwardly, but for the luxurious woodbine, which she had trained with so
much care and skill that it covered nearly three sides of the cottage,
and made a gorgeous display in the autumn, when the leaves had turned a
bright scarlet.

Thanks to the thoughtfulness of Arthur Tracy, the cottage was furnished
comfortably and even prettily when Mrs. Crawford entered it, and it was
from the same kind friend that her resources mostly had come up to the
day when, three years after her marriage, Amy Hastings came home to die,
bringing with her a little two-year-old boy, whom, she called Harold,
for his father. Just where the father was, if indeed he were living, she
did not know. He had left her in London six months before, saying he was
going over to Paris for a few days, and should be back almost before she
had time to miss him. Just before he left her he said to her, playfully:

'Cheer up, _petite_. I have not been quite as regular in my habits as I
ought to have been, but London is not the place for a man of my
tastes--too many temptations for a fellow like me. When I come back we
will go into the country, where you can have a garden, with flowers and
chickens, and grow fat and pretty again. You are not much like the girl
I married. Good-bye.'

He kissed her and the baby, and went whistling down the stairs. She
never saw him again, and only heard from him once. Then he was in Paris,
and had decided to go for a week to Pau, where he said they were having
such fine fox hunts. Weeks went by and he never wrote nor came, and Amy
would have been utterly destitute and friendless but for Arthur Tracy,
who, when her need was greatest, went to her, telling her that he had
never been far from her, but had watched over her vigilantly to see that
no harm came to her. When her husband went to Paris he knew it through a
detective, and from the same source knew when he went to Pau, where all
trace of him had been lost.

'But we are sure to find him again,' he said, encouragingly; 'and
meantime I shall see that you do not suffer. As an old friend of your
husband, you will allow me to care for you until he is found.'

And Amy, who had no alternative, accepted his care, and tried to seem
cheerful and brave while waiting for the husband who never came back.

At last when all hope of seeing him again was gone, Arthur sent her home
to the cottage in the lane, where her mother received her gladly,
thanking Heaven that she had her daughter back again. But not for long.
Poor Amy's heart was broken. She loved her husband devotedly, and his
cruel desertion of her--for she knew now it was that--hurt her more than
years of suffering with him could have done. Occasionally she heard from
Arthur, who was still busy in search of the delinquent, and who always
sent in his letter a substantial proof of his friendship and generosity.

And so the weeks and months went by; and then, one day, there came a
letter in the well-known handwriting. But it was Mrs. Crawford who
opened it and read that Harold Hastings was dead: that Amy was free, and
that Arthur Tracy, who through all had loved her just as well as when he
first asked her to be his wife, now put the question again, offering to
make her the mistress of Tracy Park and surround her with every possible
comfort.

'Say yes, darling Amy,' he wrote, 'and we may yet be very happy. I will
be a good husband to you and a father to your child, who shall share my
fortune as if he were my own. Answer at once, telling me to come, and,
before you know it I shall be there to claim you for my wife.'

With a low moan, Mrs. Crawford hid her face in her hands and sobbed
aloud, for the Amy who might have been the honored wife of Arthur Tracy
lay dead in her coffin; and that day they buried her under the November
snow, which was falling in great sheets upon the frozen ground. What
Arthur felt when he heard the news no one ever knew, for he made no sign
to any one, but at once gave orders to Colvin that a costly monument
should be placed at her grave, with only this inscription upon it:

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