MAUDE'S LETTER.
TRACY PARK, June --, 18--.
"MY DARLING JERRIE:
"I wish I could send you a whiff of the delicious air I am breathing
this morning from the roses under my window and the pond-lilies which
Harold brought me about an hour ago. Don't you think he was up before
the sun, and went out upon the river to get them for me, because he
knows how fond I am of them, and I told him yesterday that they always
made me think of you, they are so sweet, and pure, and fair. I wish you
could have heard his voice and seen the look in his eyes, as he said:
'Yes; Jerrie is the lily and you are the rose; you set each other off
admirably. I am glad you are so good friends.'
"Harold thinks the world of you, and were you his own sister, I am sure
he could not love you better than he does. How handsome he has grown
since I went away. I always thought him splendid looking, but he is more
than that now; so tall and straight, with his head set on his shoulders
in such an aristocratic kind of way, and then his eyes, which look at
you so--well, I don't know how they do look at you, but they are eyes
you would trust and never be afraid of anything bad behind them. Uncle
Arthur says his mother was lovely, and that his father was one of the
handsomest men of his time, but I am certain that Harold looks better
than either of them, and has inherited the good qualities of both,
without a single bad one. Fred Raymond--who, you know, is so sweet on
Nina St. Claire--says, that if Harold had all the blood of a hundred
kings in his veins, he could not be more courtly or dignified in his
manner than he is, and that is a great deal for a Kentuckian to say.
Fred is now at Grassy Spring, visiting Dick St. Claire, and will stay
until Nina comes home. I wish Harold was rich, and if I had money of my
own, I believe I'd give it to him, only he wouldn't take it, he is so
awfully proud, and afraid somebody will help him; and yet I respect him
for the pride, which has made him teach school, and do everything he
could find to do in order to go through college the last two years and
pay his own way. But I did not like it a bit when I heard he had
accepted a situation in Peterkin's furnace. I know he had good wages,
but it is dreadful to think of Harold under such a man, even if Billy is
there. When I told Uncle Arthur he laughed, and said: 'Honor and shame
from no condition rise.' I wonder what he meant? I asked Tom, and he
said I was a fool.
"Harold is studying law now all the time he can get in Judge St.
Claire's office, but he comes to read to me for an hour or more nearly
every day. He came of his own accord, too, and sometimes I half think he
is trying to drive something into my head, or was, when he began to read
to me about those old Greeks, Hesiod or Herod, I don't know which and
Theogony--that's rather a pretty name, don't you think so? But I could
not stand the Greeks. My mind is too weak to be impressed by anything
Grecian, unless it is the Grecian bend. You tried it until you were
discouraged and gave it up, telling me I was the stupidest idiot you
ever saw! That was the time we had the spelling school in the Tramp
House, and you were the teacher, and Harold chose me first, and I
spelled biscuit 'biskit!' Do you remember how I cried? and when you told
me nobody would ever like me unless I knew something, Harold said,
'Don't talk like that, Jerrie; those who know the least are frequently
liked the best.'
"What a comfort those words have been to me, and especially at the time
when I failed so utterly in my examination at Vassar and had to give it
up. Oh, Jerrie, you do not know how mortified I was over that failure,
to think I knew so little; and the worst of it is I can't learn, or
understand, or remember, and it makes my head ache so to try; I am sorry
on father's account, he is so proud of me and would like to see me take
the lead in everything. Poor father! he is growing old so fast. Why, his
hair is white as snow, and he sometimes talks to himself just as Uncle
Arthur does. I wonder what ails him that he never smiles or seems
interested in anything except when I am smoothing his hair or sitting on
his knee; then he brightens up and calls me his pet and his darling, and
talks queer kind of talk, I think. He asks me if I am glad I live at
Tracy Park--if I like the pretty things he buys me, and if I should be
as happy if I were poor--not real poor, you know, but as we were at
Langley before I was born. I went there with him a few weeks ago for the
first time; and oh, my goodness gracious! such a poky little house with
the stairs going right up in the room, and such a tiny, stuffy bedroom!
I tried to fancy mamma's scent-bottles, and brushes, and combs, and that
box for polishing her nails, transported to that room, and her in there
with Rosalie dressing her hair. It made me laugh till I cried, and I
think papa did actually cry, for he sat down upon the stairs and turned
his head away, and when he looked up his eyes were wet and red, with
such a sorry look in them that I went straight up and kissed him, and
asked him playfully if he were crying for the old days when he lived in
that house and sold codfish in the store.
"'Yes, Maude,' he said. 'I believe I'd give the remainder of my life if
I could be put back as I was when your Uncle Arthur's letter came and
turned my head. Oh, if the years and everything could be blotted out!'
"What do you suppose he meant? I was frightened, and did not say a word
until he asked me those questions I told you about; did I like pretty
things? did I like to live at Tracy Park, and could I bear to be poor
and live in the Langley house? I just told him, 'No, I should not like
to live in Langley, that I did like living at Tracy Park, and did like
the pretty things which money bought.'
"'Then I ought to be content, if my beautiful Maude is so,' he said, and
the tired look on his face lifted a little.
"He calls me beautiful so often. But I don't see it, do you? Of course
you don't. You think me too black, and small, and thin, and so I am; but
I think you have the loveliest and sweetest face I ever saw, except
Gretchen's. Who was she, I wonder? Uncle Arthur does not talk much of
her now, though I believe he kisses her every night and morning. How
much he thinks of you, and how much he has talked of _Cherry_ since his
visit to you in May. Did he say any thing to you of a trip to
California? He took us quite by surprise two weeks ago by telling us he
was going. He wanted to see the Yosemite Valley before he died, he said,
and June was the time to see it. So he started off with Charles about
ten days ago, and the house seems so dull without him.
"If I can, I shall come to see you graduate with the other Vassars,
though I shall be ashamed to be seen where I failed so utterly. I might
have known I should, for I haven't about me a single quality which would
entitle me to be a Vassar. How learned you and Nina will be, and how you
will cast me in the shade, making me seem stupider than ever. I did try
very hard to learn to speak German when I was abroad with mamma, for
father wished it particularly; but I could not do it, and gave it up. I
have not a capacity for anything, except to love and suffer and
sacrifice for those I love. Do you know, it sometimes frightens me to
think how devotedly I could love some one. Not a girl, but a man--a
lover--a husband, who loved me. Why, I would give my life for him, and
bear any kind of torture if it would add to his happiness. But why write
this nonsense to you, who never acted as if you cared an atom for any
boy, not even Dick St. Claire, who used to give you sugar hearts and
call you his little wife. _Entre nous_ (who says I don't know two French
words?) mamma would like to make a match between Dick and me, but she
never will. Dick is nice, and I like him, but not that way. Poor mamma!
How much she thinks of money and position! I tell her she ought to have
a photograph of the old Langley house hung up in her room to keep her in
mind of her former condition. Just now she has the craze to hammer brass
and paint in water-colors, and goes over to Mrs. Atherton's to take
lessons. Don't you think that Mrs. Peterkin--_May Jane_--had like
aspirations with mamma, and wanted to join the class; but the teacher
found that she had as many pupils as she could attend to, and so May
Jane is left out in the cold. But Mr. Peterkin says, 'By George, my wife
shall have 'complishments if money can buy 'em!' And so, I suppose she
will. What strides those Peterkins have taken, to be sure, and what a
big house he has built with such a funny name--'_Le Batteau_,' which, as
he pronounces it, sounds like _Lubber-too_! It is just finished, and
they have moved into it. I have not been there, but Tom has, and he says
it fairly glitters, it is so gorgeous, and looks inside like those
chariots which come with circuses.
"You ought to hear Peterkin talk about his '_Ann 'Lizy_,' who, he says,
'is to Vassar, gettin' schoolin' with the big bugs, and when she comes
_hum_ he is goin' to get her a hoss and cart for her own, and a maid,
and a vally, too, if she wants one.' Well, there are some bigger fools
in the world than I am, and that's a comfort. As for Billy, he stammers
worse, if possible, than he used to when he told us we were
'pl-pl-plaguey mean to pl-pl-plague Ann Lizy so;' but I guess I will let
him burst upon you in all the magnificence of his summer attire--his
light clothes, short coat, tight pants, pointed shoes, and stove-pipe
hat to make him look taller. He comes here occasionally to see Tom, and
always talks of you. I do believe you might be Mrs. Billy Peterkin and
live at _Lubber-too_, if you wanted; but, really, Billy is very kind to
Harold, who gets twice as much wages in the office, when he writes
there, as he would if it were not for Billy.
"Tom is home, doing nothing, but taking his ease and aping an English
swell. You know he was with mamma and me in England, and since his
return has affected everything English, and looks quite like the _dude_
of the period. He, too, seems interested in your return; and I don't
know but you might be mistress of Tracy Park, if you could fancy the
incumbrance. Dick St. Claire is going to Vassar, and Harold, too, if he
possibly can. He is very busy just now with something he must finish,
and perhaps he can't be there. Tom is going, and Fred Raymond, and Billy
Peterkin--quite a turn-out from Shannondale.
"I can hardly wait to see you. Only think, it is almost two years since
I said good-by; for we went to Europe just after Harold was graduated,
and your last Christmas holidays were over before we came home.
"What a long letter I have written you, and have not told you a word of
my health, about which you inquired so particularly. Did Uncle Arthur
tell you anything? I wish he had not, for it worries me to have people
look, and act, and talk as if I were sick, when I am not. If I had not a
pain in my side, and a tickling cough, which keeps me awake nights and
makes me sweat until my hair is wet, I should be perfectly strong; and
but for the pain and the weariness, I feel as well as I ever did; and I
go out nearly every day, and I don't want to die and leave my beautiful
home, and father, and mother, and you, and--everybody I love. I am too
young to die. I cannot die.
"Oh, Jerrie, I am glad you are coming home! You will do me good, just as
Harold does. He is so strong every way, and so kind. I can't begin to
tell you what he has been to me since I came home in March--more than a
friend--more than a brother.
"And now I must say good-by, for I am getting tired and must rest. I was
at the cottage this morning, and Harold is coming here this afternoon to
read Tennyson's 'May Queen' to me. He has read it a dozen times, but I
am never tired of it, although it makes me cry to think of that grave in
the long grass, with little Alice in it, cold and dead, listening for
those she loved to come and weep over her. You know, she says to her
mother:
"'I shall hear you when you pass,
With your feet above me, in the long and pleasant grass.'
"Oh, Jerrie, if it should be--you know what I mean; if there should come
a time when people say to each other, 'Maude Tracy is dead!' you'll come
often, won't you, and think of me always as the friend, who, weak and
stupid as she was, loved you dearly--dearly.
"Now, good-by again. Harold has just come in, and says, 'Remember me to
Jerrie, and tell her I shall hope to see her graduated, but do not know,
I am so busy.'
"Truly and lovingly,
"MAUDE TRACY."
"P.S.--Tom has come in, and says, 'Give my love to Jerrie.'
"P.S. No. 2.--Dick St. Claire and Fred Raymond are here, and both send
their regards.
"P.S. No. 3.--If you will believe me, Billy Peterkin is here, nibbling
his little cane, and says, 'Present my compliments to Miss Crawford.'
"Just think of it. Five, or, rather, four young men--for Tom don't
count--for me to entertain. But I can do it, and rather like it, too,
though they all tire me, except Harold."
* * * * *
Jerrie read this letter which was received a few days before
commencement, two or three times, and each time she read it, the little
ache in her heart kept growing larger, until at last it was actual pain,
and covering her face with her hands, she cried like a child.
"It is Maude I am crying for," she kept saying to herself. "I know she
is worse than they have told me. She is going to die, and I am mean to
grudge her Harold's love, if that will make her happier. Why does she go
to the cottage so often, I wonder? Is it to see him? He would not like
me to do that. He was chagrined when I kissed him at Harvard. But, then,
he does not love me, and he does Maude; but he _must_ come to
commencement. I'll write and tell him so;" and seizing her pen, Jerrie
wrote, rapidly and excitedly:
"DEAR HAROLD:
"I have just heard from Maude, who says there is a possibility that
you will not come to Vassar; but I shall be so disappointed if you
do not. I would rather have you here than all the wise old heads in
the State. So come without fail, no matter what you are doing. I
can't imagine anything which should keep you. Tell grandma I am
longing to be home, and keep thinking just how cool and nice the
kitchen looks, with the hop-vine over the door; but she will have to
raise the roof soon, for I do believe I've grown an inch since last
winter, and am in danger of knocking my brains out in those low
rooms.
"Good-by till I see you.
"JERRIE."