THE WOMAN.
They had slept later than usual at the park house that morning, and
Frank and his family were just sitting down to breakfast, when John,
with a white, scared face, looked in and said:
"Excuse me, Mr. Tracy,--but something dreadful has happened. There's a
woman frozen to death in the Tramp House, with a baby, and Harold
Hastings found them; he is here, sir; he will tell you himself;" and he
went for the boy, who soon entered the room, followed by every servant
in the house.
Harold had came upon John in the stable, and sinking down exhausted upon
the hay, had told his story, while the man listened terror-stricken and
open-mouthed. Then, seeing how weak and tired Harold seemed, and how he
sank back upon the hay when he attempted to rise, he took him in his
arms, and carrying him to the kitchen, left him there while he went with
the news to his master.
"A woman dead in the Tramp House, and a baby!" Frank exclaimed, and for
an instant he felt as if he were dying, for there flashed over him a
conviction that the woman had come in the train the previous night, and
that it was her cry for help which had been borne to him on the winds,
and to which he had paid no heed.
"Are you sick? Are you going to faint?" his wife said to him, as she saw
how white he grew, as Harold related the particulars of his finding the
woman and the child.
"I am not going to faint; but it makes me sick and shaky to think of a
woman freezing to death so near us that if she had cried for help we
might perhaps have heard her," Frank replied.
Then, turning to Harold, he continued:
"How did she look? Was she young? Was she pretty? Was she dark or fair?"
He almost gasped the last word, as if it choked him, and no one guessed
how anxiously he waited for Harold's answer.
"I don't know; it was so dark in there, and cold, and I was afraid some
of the time, and in a hurry. I only know that her nose was long and
large, for I touched it when I was trying to get at the little girl, and
it was so cold--oh, oh!"
And Harold shuddered as if he still felt the icy touch of the dead.
"A long nose and a large one," Frank said, involuntarily, while a sigh
of relief escaped him as he remembered that the nose of the picture in
his brother's room was neither long nor large.
Still Harold might be mistaken, and though he had no good cause for
believing that the woman lying dead in the Tramp House was Gretchen,
there was a horrible feeling in his heart, while a lump came into his
throat and affected his speech, which was thick and indistinct, as he
rose from his chair at last and said to John:
"We have no time to lose. Hitch the horses to the long sleigh as quick
as you can. We must go to the Tramp House after the woman, and send to
the village for a doctor, and telegraph to Springfield for the coroner.
I suppose there must be an inquest; and, Dolly, see that a room is
prepared for the body."
"Oh, Frank, must it come here? Why not take it to the cottage? The child
is there," Mrs. Tracy said.
"I tell you that woman must come here," was Frank's decided reply, as he
began to make himself ready for the ride.
"Don't tell Arthur yet," he said, as he left the house and took his seat
in the sleigh, which was soon plowing its way through the snow banks in
the direction of the Tramp House.
It was Harold who acted as master of ceremonies, for John was nervous
and hung back from the half opened door, while Frank was too much
unstrung to know just what he was doing or saying, as he squeezed
through the narrow space and then stood for a moment, snow-blind and
dizzy, in the cheerless room.
Harold was not afraid now. He had been there before, had seen and
touched the white face of the corpse, and he went fearlessly up to it,
followed by Frank, who could scarcely stand, and who laid his hand for
support on Harold's shoulder, and then turned curiously and eagerly
toward the woman.
John had lingered outside, shoveling the snow from the door, which he
succeeded in opening wide, so that the full, broad, sunlight fell upon
the face, which was neither young, nor pretty, nor fair, while the hair
was black as night.
Frank noted all these points at a glance, and could have shouted aloud
for joy, so great was the revulsion of his feelings. It was not Gretchen
lying there before him, and he was not a murderer, as he had accused
himself of being, for this woman did not come by the train; she had no
connection with Tracy Park; she was going somewhere else--to
Collingwood, perhaps--when overcome by the storm and the cold, she had
sought shelter for the night in this wretched place.
"I suppose the proper thing to do is to leave her here till the coroner
can see her," he said to John; "but no train can get through from
Springfield to-day, I am sure, and I shall have her taken to the park.
Bring me the blankets from the sleigh."
He was very collected now, for a great load was lifted from his mind.
"Had she nothing with her? nothing to cover her?" he asked, as they
proceeded to wrap her in the warm blankets, which, had they sooner come,
would have saved her life.
Harold told him again of the carpet-bag, and the cloak, and the shawl,
which had covered the child, and added: "That's all; there don't seem to
be anything else. Oh, what's this?" and stooping down, he picked up some
hard substance which he had kicked against the table.
It proved to be one of those olive-wood candle sticks, so convenient in
traveling, as when not in use, they can be made into a small round box
or ball, and take but little room. It contained the remains of a wax
candle, which had burned down into the socket and then gone out. Near
by, upon the floor, was a tiny box of matches, with two or three charred
ones among them.
"The poor woman must have had a light for at least a portion of the
time," Frank said, as he picked up the box.
"She had, I know she had," Harold cried, excitedly; "for I saw it and
told grandma so. It was like she had opened the door and let out a big
blaze, and then everything was dark, as if the door was shut or the wind
had blown the candle out."
"What time was that, do you think?" Frank asked.
"It must have been about eleven," Harold replied, "for I remember
hearing the clock strike and grandma's saying I must go to bed, it was
so late. I was up with her because her foot was so bad, and I warmed the
poultices."
Frank groaned aloud, unmindful of the boy looking so curiously at him,
for that was the time when he had heard the sound like a human voice in
distress. He had thought it a fancy then communicated to him by his
brother's nervousness, but now he was certain it must have been the
stranger calling through the storm, in the vain hope that somebody would
hear and come. Somebody had heard, but no one had come; and so in the
cold and the darkness, with the snow sifting through every crevice and
blowing down the wide chimney to the hearth, where it made a drift like
a grave, she had battled for her own life and that of the child beside
her, saving the latter, but losing her own.
"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 as distinctly
before him as if painted upon canvas, the angry sky, the half-open 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 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 doors, 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 see the box, or trunk, which was
pitched out helter-skelter, and which I found this morning, all covered
up with snow. It is 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 nothing 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. Her woolen dress of grayish blue was short and
scant; her knit stockings were black and thick, and her leather shoes
were designed for 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, helpless and defenseless 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! Then she did come in the cars?" Frank said, 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 didn't answer, and
snatching up the child, she hurried off, almost on a run. It was
storming so I didn't 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 going to Collingwood----"
"Or Tracy Park," Frank said, involuntarily.
"Were you expecting any one?" Mr. St. Claire asked; and 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 didn't 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 couldn't know that any one
would be there, and this woman certainly is not the Gretchen of whom
your brother talks so much. 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 clew 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 greenback; 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, 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 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. 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. "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 in a handkerchief," and he held up what
proved to be a German Bible; but he did not tell of the photograph he
had found, and thrust into his pocket when no one was looking at him.
It 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 come surging to his brain, making him so giddy and wild that
he did not realize 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 owners
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, 2d chapter, Mr. St.
Claire, who could read German much better than he could speak it, saw
pencil-marks around the 9th 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 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 consolatory, 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 was strange and unnatural.
"You are too sensitive altogether. John might not have seen her, she
hurried off so fast, and you had 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 head.
"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!"
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 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 woman 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, and 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 looking 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. She is at the cottage 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 you 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 alternating 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 fear 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 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 in his hand.
"This 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 in 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
"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, and he
felt sure that he ought to show Arthur the photograph, and tell him his
suspicions.
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.
"I will see the child before I decide what to do," he thought. "I can
never know anything for certain, and I should be a fool to give up all
my children's interests for 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 some one:
"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, and 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.