AT THE PARK HOUSE.
It was six months since Jerrie had seen Frank Tracy, and in that time he
had changed so much that she looked at him wonderingly as he came toward
her with a smile on his haggard face, and an eager welcome in his voice,
as he gave her both his hands, and told her how glad he was to see her.
His hair was very white, and she noticed how he stooped as he walked
with her to the house, and told her how anxiously Maude was waiting for
her.
"But she cannot talk just yet," he said. "You must do all that. The
doctor tells us there is no danger if she is kept quiet for a few days.
Oh, Jerrie, what if I should lose Maude after all?"
They were ascending the staircase now, and Frank was holding Jerrie's
hand while she tried to comfort and reassure him, and then thanked him
for the fruit and the flowers he had sent to the cottage for her the day
before.
"You are so good to me," she said, "you and Mr. Arthur. How lonely the
house seems without him."
"Yes," Frank replied, though in his heart he felt his brother's absence
as a relief, for his presence was a constant reproach to him, and helped
to keep alive the remorse which was always tormenting him.
The sight of Jerrie was a pain, but she held a nameless fascination for
him, and he was constantly wondering what she would say and do when she
knew, as he was morally sure she would sometime know what he had done.
He was thinking of this now, and saying to himself, "She will not be as
hard upon me as Arthur," as he lead her up the stairs and stopped at the
door of Arthur's rooms.
"Would you like to go in?" he asked. "I have the keys," and he proceeded
to unlock the door.
But Jerrie held back.
"No," she said, "it is like a grave. The ruling spirit is gone."
"But you forget Gretchen. She is here, and one of Arthur's last
injunctions was that I should visit her every day, and tell her he was
coming back. I have not seen her this morning. Come."
He was leading her now by the wrist through the front parlor, where the
furniture in its white shrouds looked like ghosts, and the pictures were
covered with tarleton. It was dark, too, in the Gretchen room, but Frank
threw open the blinds and let in a flood of light upon the picture,
before which Jerrie stood with feelings such as she had never
experienced before, when she looked upon that lovely face.
A new idea had taken possession of Jerrie since she had last seen that
picture, and while, unsuspected by her, Frank was studying first her
features and then those of Gretchen, she was struggling frantically with
memories of the past.
"Oh, I can almost remember," she whispered, just as Frank's voice broke
the spell by saying:
"Good-morning, Gretchen. Arthur is in California, but he is coming back;
he bade me tell you so."
"Is he crazy as well as Mr. Arthur? Are we all crazy together?" Jerrie
asked herself, as she watched him closing the blinds and shutting out
the sunlight from the room, so that the picture was in shadow.
"I have kept my promise to Arthur; and now for Maude," Frank said, as he
accompanied Jerrie to Maude's room.
On the threshold they met Mrs. Frank, just coming out, elegantly attired
in a muslin wrapper, with more lace and embroidery upon it than Jerrie
had ever worn in her life; her hair was carefully dressed, her face was
powdered, and her manner was one of languor and fineladyism, which she
had cultivated so assiduously and achieved so successfully. Not a muscle
of her face changed when she saw Jerrie, but she closed Maude's door
quickly, and stepping into the hall, offered the tips of her fingers, as
she said, in a fretful, rather than a welcoming tone:
"Good-morning. You are very late. Maude expected you two hours ago,
almost immediately after Tom went out. She has worked herself into a
great state of feverish nervousness."
"I am so sorry," Jerrie replied. "But I could not come sooner. I had a
large washing to do, and that takes time, you know."
Jerrie meant no reflection upon the days when Dolly had done her own
washing, and knew that it took time, but the lady thought she did, and a
frown settled upon her face, as she replied:
"Surely your grandmother might have helped you, or Harold; and Maude is
so impatient and weak this morning. The doctor says there is no danger
if she is kept quiet. She is only tired out, with that room of yours.
Why, I am told she has actually puttied up nail holes, and painted
walls, and sawed boards! I hope you like it. You ought to, for a part of
Maude's life and strength is in it."
"Oh, Mrs. Tracy," Jerrie cried, "I am so sorry. Of course I like the
room, or did; but if it has injured Maude, I shall hate it."
Dolly had given her a little stab and was satisfied, so she said, in a
softer tone:
"Maude may recover--I think she will; but everything must be done to
please her, and she cannot talk to you this morning--remember that, and
you must not stay too long."
"Mamma--mamma, let Jerrie in," came faintly from the closed room; and
then Mrs. Tracy stood aside and let Jerrie pass into the luxurious
apartment, where Maude lay upon a silken couch, with a soft,
rose-colored shawl thrown over her shoulders, her eyes large and bright,
and her face as white almost as a corpse.
One looking at her needed not to be told of the peril there was in
exciting her; and Jerrie felt a cold chill creep over her as she went to
the couch, and, kneeling beside it, kissed the quivering lips and
smoothed the dark hair, while she tried to speak naturally and
cheerfully, as if in her mind there was no thought of danger to the
beautiful girl, who smiled so lovingly upon her and kept caressing her
hands and her face, as if she would thus express her gladness to see
her.
"I know all about it, Maude," Jerrie said. "Tom told me, and your
mother. You tired yourself out for me. Hush! Don't speak, or I shall go
away," she continued, as she saw Maude's lips move. "You are not to
talk. You are to listen, just for a day or two, and then you will be
better, and come to the cottage and see my lovely room. It is so pretty,
and I like it so much, and thank you and Harold so much. He has gone to
the Allen farm to-day to paint," she said, in answer to an eager,
questioning look in Maude's eyes. "He does not know you are sick. He
will come when he can see you--to-morrow, maybe. Would you like to have
him?"
A pressure of the hand was Maude's reply, as the moisture gathered upon
her heavy eyelashes. But Jerrie kissed it away, and then talked to her
of whatever she thought would please her. Once she made her laugh, as
she took off little Billy, imitating his voice so perfectly that a
person outside would have said he was in the room. Jerrie's talent for
imitation and ventriloquism had not deserted her, although she did not
so often practice it as when a child; but she brought it into full play
now to amuse Maude, and imitated every individual of whom she spoke,
except Arthur. He was the one person whose peculiarities she could not
take off.
"I have been to Mr. Arthur's room," she said, "but it seemed so desolate
without him. Do you hear from him often? I have only had one letter, and
then he was in Salt Lake City, at the Continental, in a room which he
said was big enough for three rooms, and had not a single bad smell in
it, except the curtains, which were new, and in which he did detect a
little odor."
Here Maude laughed again, while there came into her face a faint color
and a look which made Jerrie's breath come quickly as, for the first
time, the thought flashed across her mind that if what she had been
foolish enough to dream of were true, Maude was her cousin--her own
flesh and blood.
"Maude," she said, suddenly, with a strong desire to fold the frail
little body in her arms and tell her what she had thought.
But when Maude looked up inquiringly at her, she only put her head down
upon the shawl and began to cry. Then, regardless of consequences, Maude
raised herself upon her elbow and laying her face on Jerrie's head,
began herself to cry piteously.
"Jerrie, Jerrie," she sobbed, "you think I am going to die, I know you
do, and so does everybody, but I am not; I cannot die when there is so
much to live for, and my home is so beautiful, and I love everybody so
much, and--"
Terrified beyond measure, Jerrie put her hand over Maude's mouth and
said, almost sharply:
"If you want to live you must not talk. Be careful and you will get
well, the doctor says so."
But Jerrie's fears belied her words when she saw the pallor in Maude's
face as she sank back upon her pillow exhausted, while, with her
handkerchief she wiped a faint coloring of blood from her lips.
"I have staid too long," Jerrie said, as she arose from her seat by the
couch. Then Maude spoke again in a whisper:
"Send Harold soon."
"I will," Jerrie replied, and kissing the death-like face she went
softly from the room, thinking to herself, as she descended the stairs,
"I believe I could give Harold to her now."