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Tracy Park by Mary Jane Holmes

M >> Mary Jane Holmes >> Tracy Park




'If I had only believed it was a cry,' Frank thought, and as he wrapped
the body in the blankets and buffalo robe as tenderly and reverently as
if the stiffened limbs had belonged to his mother, he saw distinctly
before him as if painted upon canvas the driving gale, the inky sky, the
half-opened door, through which the sleet was driving, the light behind,
and the frantic, freezing woman, screaming for help, while only the
winds made answer, and the pitiless storm raged on.

This was the picture which Frank was destined to see in his dreams for
many and many a night, until the mystery was solved concerning the woman
whom they carried to the sleigh, which was driven back to the park
house, where, within fifteen or twenty minutes a crowd of anxious,
curious people gathered. The messenger sent to town had done his work
rapidly and thoroughly, and half the villagers who heard of the tragedy
enacted at their very door started at once for Tracy Park. The boy had
stopped at the station and told his story there, making the
baggage-master feel as if he, too, were a murderer, or at least an
accessory.

'If I had only gone after that woman,' he said, as he told of the
stranger who had come on the train and gotten off on the side of the car
farthest from the depot--'if I had gone after her and made her take a
conveyance to where she was going, this would not have happened; but it
was so all-fired cold, and the wind was yelling so, and she walked off
so fast, as if she knew her own business. So I just minded mine, or
rather I didn't, for I never even seen the box, or trunk, which was
pitched out helter-skelter, and which I found this morning, all covered
up with snow. It was hers, of course, and I shall send it right over
there, as it may tell who the poor critter was.'

This trunk, which was little more than a strong wooden box with two
double locks upon it, was still further secured by a bit of rope wound
twice around it and tied in a hard knot. There was no name upon it to
tell whose it was, or whence it came, except the name of a German
steamer, on which its owner had probably crossed the ocean, and the
significant word 'Hold,' showing that it had not been used in the
state-room. It had been checked at the Grand Central depot in New York
for Shannondale, and the check was still attached to the iron handle
when it was put down in the kitchen at Tracy Park, where the utmost
excitement prevailed, the servants huddling together with scared faces,
and talking in whispers of the terrible thing which had happened, while
Mrs. Tracy and the housekeeper, scarcely less excited than the servants,
gave their attention to the dead.

At the end of the rear hall was a small room, where Frank sometimes
received business calls when at home, and there they laid the body,
after the physician, who had arrived, declared that life had been
extinct for many hours.

Seen in the full daylight, she seemed to be at least thirty-five years
of age, and her features, though not unpleasing, were coarse and large,
especially the nose. Her hair was black, her complexion dark, and the
hands, which lay folded upon her bosom, showed marks of toil, for they
were rough and unshapely, though smaller in proportion than the other
members of her body. Her woollen dress of grayish blue was short and
scant; her knit stockings were black and thick, and her leather shoes
were designed fur use rather than ornament. A wide white apron was tied
around her waist, and she wore a small black and white plaided shawl
pinned about her neck.

And there she lay, not a pleasant picture to contemplate, helpless and
defenceless against the curious eyes bent upon her and the remarks
concerning her, as one after another of the villagers came in to look at
her and speculate as to who she was or how she came in the Tramp House.

Among the crowd was Mr. St. Claire, who gave it as his opinion that she
was a Frenchwoman of the lower class, and asked if nothing had been
found with her except the clothes she wore. Harold told him of the
shawl, and cloak, and carpet-bag which he had carried with the child to
the cottage.

'Yes, there is something more--her trunk,' chimed in the baggage-master,
who had just entered the room, trembling and breathless.

'Her trunk! Did she come in the cars?' Frank asked, his hands dropping
helplessly at his side, and his lips growing pale, as the man replied:

'Yes; last night, on the quarter-past-six from New York; and what is
curi's, she got out on the side away from the depot, and I never seen
her till the cars went on, when she was lookin' at a paper, and the
child cryin' at her feet. I spoke to her, but she did not answer, and
snatching up the child, she hurried off, almost on a run. It was
storming so I did not see her trunk till this mornin', when I found it
on the platform. I wish I had gone after her and made her take a sleigh.
If I had she wouldn't now have been dead, and, I swow, I feel as if I
had killed her. I wonder why under the sun she turned into the lots,
unless she was goin' to Collingwood--'

'Or Tracy Park,' Frank said, involuntarily.

'Were you expecting any one?' Mr. St. Claire asked.

Sinking into a chair, Frank replied:

'No, I was not, but Arthur, who has been worse than usual for a few
days, has again a fancy that Gretchen is coming. He says now that she
was not in the ship with him, but that he has written her to join him
here, and yesterday he took it into his head that she would be here last
night, and insisted that the carriage be sent to meet her; but John had
hurt his back, and as I had no faith in her coming, he did not go. I
wish he had; it might have saved this woman's life, although she is not
Gretchen.'

Frank had made his confession, except so far as deceiving his brother
was concerned, and he felt his mind eased a little, though there was
still a lump in his throat, and a feeling of disquiet in his heart, with
a wish that the dead woman had never crossed his path, and a conviction
that he had not yet seen the worst of it.

Mr. St. Claire looked at him thoughtfully a moment, and then said:

'I should not accuse myself too much. You could not know that any one
would be there, and this woman certainly is not the Gretchen of whom
your brother talks so much, and whose picture is in his room. Has he
seen her? Does he know of the accident?'

'I have not told him yet. He is not feeling well to-day. Charles says he
is still in bed,' was Frank's reply.

'We may find something in her trunk,' Mr. St. Claire continued, 'which
will give us a clue to her history. Where do you suppose she kept her
key?'

No one volunteered an answer, until Harold suggested that if she had a
pocket it was probably there, when half a dozen hands or more at once
felt for the pocket, which was found at last, and proved to be one of
great capacity, and to contain a heterogeneous mass of contents: A
purse, in which were two or three small German coins, an English
sovereign, and a five dollar green-back; two handkerchiefs, one soiled
and coarse, bearing in German text the initials 'N.B.' the other small
and fine, bearing the initial 'J.,' also in German text: a pair of
scissors, a thimble, a small needle-case, a child's toy, a worn
picture-book, printed in Leipsic, a box of pills, some peanuts, some
cloves, a piece of candy, a seed cake, a pocket comb, half a biscuit;
and at the very bottom, the brass check whose number corresponded with
that upon the trunk; also a ring to which were attached three keys, one
belonging to the trunk, another evidently to the carpet-bag, while the
third, which was very small and straight, must have been used for
fastening some box or dressing-case.

It was Mr. St. Claire who opened the trunk, from which one of the
servants had removed the rope, while Frank sat near still trembling in
every limb, and watching anxiously as article after article was taken
out and examined, but afforded no satisfaction whatever, or gave any
sign by which the stranger might be traced.

There was a black alpaca dress and a few coarse garments which must have
belonged to the woman. Some of them bore the initials 'N.B.,' some were
without a mark, and all were cheap and plain, like the clothes of a
servant before her head is turned and she apes her mistress' wardrobe.
The child's dresses were of a better quality, and one embroidered
petticoat bore the name 'Jerrine,' while the letter 'J.' was upon them
all, except a towel of the finest linen, on one corner of which was the
letter 'M.' worked with colored floss.

'Jerrine!' Mr. St. Claire repeated, pronouncing it 'Jerreen.' 'That is a
French name, and a pretty one. It is the child's, of course.'

To this no one replied, and he continued his examination of the trunk
until it was quite empty.

'That is all,' he said in a tone of disappointment; and Frank, who had
been sitting by and holding some of the things in his lap as they were
taken from the trunk, answered, faintly:

'No, here is a book. It was done up in a handkerchief,' and he held up
what proved to be a German Bible; but he did not tell that he had found
something else, which he had thrust into his pocket when no one was
looking at him.

What he had found was a photograph, which had slipped from the leaves of
the Bible, and at sight of the face, of which he only had a glimpse,
every drop of blood seemed to leave his heart and came surging to his
brain, making him so giddy and wild that he did not realise what he was
doing when he hid away the picture until he could examine it by himself.
Once in his pocket he dared not take it out, although he raised his hand
two or three times to do so, but was as often deterred by the thought
that everybody would think that he had intended to hide it and suspect
his motive. So he kept quiet and saw them examine the book, the blank
page of which had been torn half off, leaving only the last three
letters of what must have been the owner's name, '----ich'--that was
all, and might as well not have been there, for any light it shed upon
the matter.

Opening the book by chance at 1st Corinthians, 2nd chapter, Mr. St.
Claire, who could read German much better than he could speak it, saw
pencil-marks around the ninth verse, and read aloud:

'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love
Him.'

On the margin opposite this verse was written, in a girlish hand:

'Think of me as there when you read this, and do not be sorry.'

A lock of soft, golden hair, which might have been cut from a baby's
head, and a few faded flowers, which still gave forth a faint perfume
like heliotrope, were tied with a bit of thread, and lying between the
leaves. And except that the book was full of marked passages, chiefly
comforting and conciliatory, there was nothing more to indicate the
character of the owner.

'If this Bible were hers, she was a good woman,' Mr. St. Claire said,
laying his hand reverently upon the forehead of the dead, while Frank,
who saw another meaning between the lines, shook like one in an ague
fit, for he did not believe that those hands, so pulseless and cold, had
ever traced the words, 'Think of me as there when you read this, and do
not be sorry.' She who wrote them might be, and probably was dead, but
her grave was far away, and the fact did not at all change the duty
which he owed to her and him for whom the message was intended.

'What shall I say to Arthur, and how shall I tell him,' he was wondering
to himself, when Mr. St. Claire roused him by saying:

'You seem greatly unstrung by what has happened. I never saw you look so
ill.'

'Yes, I feel as if I had murdered her by not sending John to the
station,' Frank stammered, glad to offer this as an excuse for his
manner, which he knew must seem strange and unnatural.

'You are too sensitive altogether. John might not have seen her, she
hurried off so fast, and you have no particular reason to think she was
coming here,' Mr. St. Claire said, adding: 'We'd better leave her now.
We can do nothing more until the coroner comes, which will hardly be
to-day. I hear the roads are all blocked and impassable. Let everything
remain in the trunk where he can see them.'

Mechanically Mrs. Tracy, who was present, put the different articles
into the trunk, leaving the Bible on the top, and then followed her
husband from the room. She knew there was more affecting him than the
fact that a dead woman was in the house, or that he had not sent John to
the station. But what it was she could not guess, unless, and she, too,
felt faint and giddy for a moment, as a new idea entered her mind.

'Frank,' she said to him when they were alone for a few moments, 'Arthur
had a fancy that Gretchen was coming last night. You do not think this
woman is she?'

'Gretchen? No. Don't be a fool, Dolly. Gretchen is fair and young, and
the woman is old and black as the ace of spades. Gretchen! No, indeed!'

He did not show her the picture he had secreted; he knew she would not
approve of the act, and if she had no suspicion with regard to the woman
and the child he did not care to share his with her, particularly as it
was only a suspicion, and so far as he could judge in his perturbed
state of mind, nothing he could do would ever make things sure. His wife
seemed to have forgotten the child at the cottage, and he would not
bring it to her mind until it was necessary to do so. Just then Charles
came to the room and said that his master was very much excited and
wished to know the reason for so much commotion in the house, and why so
many people were coming and going down and up the avenue.

'I thought it better that you should tell him,' Charles added, and with
a sinking heart Frank started for his brother's room.

He had not seen him before that day, and now as he looked at him it
seemed to him that he had grown older since the previous night, for
there were lines about his mouth, and his face was very thin and pale.
But his eyes were unusually bright, and his voice rang out clear as a
bell as he said:

'What is it, Frank? What has happened that so many people are coming
here, banging doors and talking so loud that I heard them here in my
room, but I could not distinguish what they said. What's the matter? Any
one hurt or dead?'

He put the question direct, and Frank gave a direct reply.

'Yes, a woman was found frozen to death in the Tramp House this morning,
and was brought here. She is lying in the office at the end of the back
hall.'

'A women frozen to death in the Tramp House!' Arthur repeated. 'Then I
did hear a cry. Oh, Frank, who is she? Where did she come from?'

'We do not know who she is, or where she came from!' Frank replied, 'Mr.
St. Claire thinks she is French. There is nothing about her person to
identify her, but I would like you to see her, and--and--'

'I see her! Why should I see her, and shock my nerves more than they are
already shocked?' Arthur said, with a decided shake of his head.

'But you must see her,' Frank continued. 'Perhaps you know her. She came
last night. She--'

Before he could utter another word Arthur was at his side, Frank seizing
him by the shoulder with the grip of a giant, demanded, fiercely:

'What do you mean by her coming last night? How did she come? Not by
train, for John was there. Frank, there is something you are keeping
back. I know it by your face. Tell me the truth. Is it Gretchen dead in
this house?'

'No,' Frank answered huskily. 'It is not Gretchen, if that picture is
like her, for this woman is very dark and old, and, besides that, has
Gretchen a child?'

For an instant Arthur stood staring at him, or rather at the space
beyond him, as if trying to recall something too distant or too shadowy
to assume any tangible form; then bursting into a laugh he said:

'Gretchen a child! That is the best joke I have heard. How should
Gretchen have a child? She is little more than one herself, or was when
I saw her last. No, Gretchen has no child. Why do you ask?'

'Because,' Frank replied, 'there was a little girl found in the Tramp
House with this woman, a girl three or four years old, I judge. She is
at the cottage now, where Harold carried her. He found the woman this
morning. Will you see her now?'

Arthur answered 'no,' decidedly, and then Frank, who knew that he should
never again know peace of mind if his brother did not see her, summoned
all his courage and said:

'Arthur, you must. I have not told you all. This woman did come by train
from New York.'

'Then why did not John see her?' interrupted Arthur.

'He was not there,' Frank replied. 'Forgive me, Arthur, I did not send
him as you thought. It was so cold and stormy, and I had no faith in
your presentiments, and so--so--'

'And so you lied to me, and I will never trust you again as long as I
live, and if this had been Gretchen, I would kill you, where I stand!'
Arthur hissed in a whisper, more terrible to hear than louder tones
would have been, 'Yes, I will see this woman whose death lies at your
door,' he continued, with a gesture that Frank should precede him.

Arthur was very calm, and collected, and stern, as he followed to the
office where the body lay, covered now from view, but showing terribly
distinct through the linen sheet folded over it.

'Remove the covering,' he said, in the tone of a master to his slave,
and Frank obeyed.

Then bending close to the stiffened form, Arthur examined the face
minutely, while Frank looked on alternately between hope and dread, the
former of which triumphed as his brother said, quietly:

'Yes, she is French: but I do not know her. I never saw her before. Had
she nothing with her to tell who she was?'

His mood had passed, and Frank did not hear him now.

'She had a trunk,' he replied. 'Here it is, with her clothes, and the
child's, and--a Bible.'

'He said the last slowly, and, taking up the book, opened it as far as
possible from the writing on the margin, which might or might not be
dangerous.

'It is a German Bible,' he continued, and then Arthur took it quickly
from him as if it had been a long-lost friend, turning the worn pages
rapidly, but failing to discover the marked passage and the message for
some one.

The lock of baby hair and the faded flowers caught his attention, and
his breath came hard and pantingly, as for a moment he held the little
golden tress which seemed almost to twine itself lovingly around his
fingers.

'That must be her child's hair. You know I told you there was a little
girl found with her. Would you like to see her?' Frank said.

'No, no!' Arthur answered, hastily. 'Let her stay where she is, I don't
like children as a rule. You know I can't abide the noise yours
sometimes make.'

He was leaving the room with the Bible in his hand, but Frank could not
suffer that, and he said:

'I suppose all these things must stay here till the coroner sees them;
so I will put the Bible where I found it.

Arthur gave it up readily enough, and then, as he reached the door,
looked back, and said:

'If forty coroners and undertakers come on this business, don't bother
me any more. My head buzzes like a bee-hive. See that everything is done
decently for the poor woman, and don't let the town bury her. Do it
yourself, and send the bill to me. There is room enough on the Tracy
lot; put her in a corner.'

'Yes,' Frank answered, standing in the open door and watching him as he
went slowly down the long hall and until he heard him going up stairs.

Then locking the door, which shut him in with the dead, he took the
photograph from his pocket and examined it minutely, feeling no shadow
of doubt in his heart that it was Gretchen--if the picture in the window
was like her. It was the same face, the same sweet mouth and sunny blue
eyes, with curls of reddish-golden hair shading the low brow. The dress
was different and more in accordance with that of a girl who belonged to
the middle class, but this counted for nothing, and Frank felt himself a
thief, and a liar, and a murderer as he stood looking at the lovely
face; and debating what he should do.

Turning it over he saw on the back a word traced in English letters, in
a very uncertain scrawling hand, as if it were the writer's first
attempt at English. Spelling it letter by letter he made out what he
called 'Wiesbaden,' and knew it was some German town. Did Gretchen live
there, he wondered, and how could he find out, and what should he do? He
had not yet seen the child at the cottage, but from some things Harold
said, he knew she was more like this picture than like the dead woman
found with her, and in his heart he felt almost sure who she was, and
that his course of duty was plain. He ought to show Arthur the
photograph, and tell him his suspicions, and take every possible step to
ascertain who the woman was and where she came from.

Frank was not a bad man, nor a hard-hearted man, but he was ambitious
and weak. He had enjoyed money, and ease, and position long enough to
make him unwilling to part with them now, while for his children he was
more ambitious than for himself. To see Tom master of Tracy Park was the
great desire of his life, and this could not be, if what he feared were
proved true. If Arthur had no wife, no child, no will adverse to him,
why, then his interest was safe, for no will his brother could now make
would be held as valid, and when he died everything would naturally go
to him. Of all this Frank thought during the few minutes he staid in
the silent room. Then he said to himself:

'I will see the child first. After all I know nothing for certain--can
never know anything for certain, and I should be a fool to give up all
my children's interests for a fancy, an idea, which may have no
foundation. Arthur does not know half the time what he is saying, and
might not tell the truth about Gretchen. She may not have been his wife.
On the whole, I do not believe she was. He would never have left her if
she had been, and if so, this child, if she is Gretchen's, has no right
to come between me and mine. No, I shall wait a little while and think,
though in the end I mean to do right.'

With these specious arguments Frank tried to quiet his conscience, but
he could not help feeling that Satan had possession of him, and as he
hurried through the hall he said aloud, as if speaking to something
seen:

'Go away--go away! I shall do right if I only know what right is.

He did not see his brother again that day, or go to the cottage either,
but as he was dressing himself next morning he said to his wife:

'That little girl ought to see her mother before she is buried. I shall
send for her to-day. The coroner will be here, too. Did I tell you I had
a telegram last night? He is coming on the early train.'

Mrs. Tracy passed the allusion to the coroner in silence, but of the
little girl she said:

'I suppose the child must come to the funeral, but you surely do not
mean to keep her? We are not bound to do that because her mother froze
to death on our premises.'

'Would you let her go to the poor-house?' Frank asked, but Dolly did not
reply.

As the breakfast-bell just then rang, no more was said of the little
waif until the sleigh was brought to the door, and Frank announced his
intention of stopping for the child on his way back from the station,
where he was going to meet the coroner.




CHAPTER XIV.

LITTLE JERRY.


It was nearly noon when Harold left Tracy Park the previous day and
started for home, eager and anxious with regard to the child whom he
claimed as his own. He had found her. She was his and he should keep
her, he said to himself, and then he wondered how his grandmother had
managed with her, and if she had cried for him or for her mother, and as
he reached the house he stood still a moment, to listen. But the sounds
which met his ear were peals of laughter, mingled with mild, and, as it
would seem, unavailing expostulations from his grandmother.

Opening the door suddenly he found the child seated at the table in the
high chair he used to occupy, and which Mrs. Crawford had brought from
the attic, where it was stored. Standing before the child was a dish of
bread and milk, of which she had evidently eaten enough, for she was
playing with it now, and amusing herself by striking the spoon into the
milk, which was splashed over the table, while three or four drops of it
were standing on the forehead and nose of the distressed woman, who was
vainly trying to take the spoon from the little hand clenching it so
firmly.

Mrs. Crawford had had a busy and exciting day with her charge, who,
active and restless, and playful, kept her on the alert and made her
forget in part how lame she was. As she could not put her foot to the
floor without great pain, and as she must move about, she adopted the
expedient of placing her knee on a chair to the back of which she held,
while she hobbled around the room, followed by the child, who, delighted
with this novel method of locomotion, put her knee in a low chair, and
holding to Mrs. Crawford's skirts, limped after her, imitating her
perfectly, even to the groans she sometimes uttered when a twinge
sharper than usual ran up her swollen limb. It was fun for the child,
but almost death to the woman, who, when she could endure it no longer,
sank into a chair, and tried by speaking sharply, to make the little
girl understand that she must keep quiet. But when she scolded, baby
scolded back, in a language wholly unintelligible, shaking her curly
head, and sometimes stamping her foot by way of emphasizing her words.

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