JERRIE CLEARS HAROLD.
The next day two items of news went like wildfire through the little
town of Shannondale--the first, set afloat by Peterkin and helped on by
Mrs. Tracy, that Harold had run away from public opinion, which was fast
turning against him, since he could not explain where he found the
diamonds; and the second, that both Maude Tracy and Jerrie Crawford were
much worse, which made Harold's sudden departure all the more heinous in
the eyes of his enemies; for what but conscious guilt could have
prompted him to leave his sister, who, it was said, was calling for him
with every breath, and charging him with having taken the diamonds? This
was false; for although Jerrie's fever had increased rapidly during the
night, and her babbling was something terrible to hear, there was in it
no accusation of Harold, although she was constantly talking to him, and
asking for the diamonds and the bag.
"It is a pity he ever told her about them," the doctor said, as twice
each day, for four successive days, he came and looked upon her
fever-stained cheeks, and counted her rapid pulse, and took her
temperature, and listened to her strange talk; and then, with a shake of
his head, drove over to Tracy Park and stood by poor little Maude's
couch, and looked into her death-white face, and counted her faint heart
beats, and tried in vain to find some word of encouragement for the
stricken man, who looked about as much like death as the young girl so
dear to him. And every morning, on his way from the cottage to Tracy
Park, the doctor saw under the pines two young men, Tom and Dick, seated
upon the iron bench each whittling a bit of pine, which one was
unconsciously fashioning into a cross and the other into a grave-stone.
Tom had found Dick there working at his cross, and, after a simple
good-morning, had sat down beside him and whittled in silence upon
another bit of wood until the doctor appeared on his way to Tracy Park.
Then the whittling ceased, and both young men arose, and, going forward,
asked how Jerrie was.
"Pretty bad. Hal oughtn't to have gone, though I told him there was no
danger. We must telegraph if she gets worse," was the reply, as the
doctor rode on.
Then Tom and Dick separated and saw no more of each other until the next
morning, when they went again, and whittled in silence under the pines
until the doctor came in sight, when the same question was asked and
answered as on the previous day.
Billy never joined them, but sat for hours and hours under the butternut
tree where Jerrie had refused him, watching the sluggish river, and
wondering what the world would be to him if Jerrie were not in it. Had
Billy been with Tom and Dick, he could not have whittled as they did,
for all the nerve power had left his hands, which lay helplessly in his
lap, and when he walked he looked more like a withered old man than a
young one of twenty-seven.
Maude was the first to rally--her first question for Harold, her second
for Jerrie--and her father, who was with her, answered truthfully that
Harold had not returned, and that Jerrie was sick and could not come to
her. He did not say how sick, and Maude felt no alarm, and waited
patiently as the days went by and Jerrie did not appear, but grew worse
so fast that the whole town was moved with sympathy for and interest in
her. Jerrie was a general favorite and flowers and fruit and delicacies
of every kind were sent to the cottage. Carriage after carriage stopped
before the door, offer after offer of assistance was made to Mrs.
Crawford, while Nina and Marian Raymond were there constantly; and Billy
went to Springfield for a chair in which to wheel his sister to the
cottage, for she could not yet mount into the dog-cart; and Tom and Dick
whittled on until the cross and the grave-stone were finished, and, with
a sickly smile, Tom said to Dick:
"Would you cut Jerrie's name upon it?"
"No; oh, no!" Dick answered with a gasp. "She may be better to-morrow."
And when the crisis was past, and Jerrie's strong constitution triumphed
over the disease which had grappled with it, the village wore a holiday
air, as the people said to each other, gladly: "Jerrie is better; Jerrie
will live!"
Her recovery was rapid, and within a week after she awoke to perfect
consciousness, she was able to sit up a part of every day, and had
walked across the floor and read a letter from Harold, full of
solicitude for herself and enthusiasm for his trip over the wild
mountains and across the vast plains to the lovely little city of
Tacoma, built upon a cliff and looking seaward over the sound.
"Dear Harold," Jerrie whispered. "I shall be so glad when he comes home.
Nothing can be done till then; I am so bewildered when I try to think."
In her weak state, everything seemed unreal to Jerrie, except the fact
that she had found her mother, and many times each day she thanked her
God who had brought her this unspeakable joy, and asked that she might
do right when the time came to act. She knew the bag was safe, for she
found it just where she had put it. But where were the diamonds? Had
Harold taken them with him? Had he told any one? Did his grandmother
know anything about them, she wondered, and she tried in many ways to
draw Mrs. Crawford out, but was unsuccessful, for there was now too much
pain and bitterness connected with the diamonds for Mrs. Crawford to
speak to her of them. But the poisonous breath of gossip had been at
work ever since Harold went away, quietly aided and abetted by Mrs.
Tracy, and openly pushed on by Peterkin, until Tom Tracy went to him one
day and threatened to have him tarred and feathered and ridden on a
rail, if he ever breathed Harold's name again in connection with the
diamonds.
"Wall, I swow!" was all Peterkin said, as he put an enormous quid of
tobacco in his mouth, and walked away, thinking to himself, "T'would
take an all-fired while to scrape them tar and feathers off of me, I'm
so big, and I b'lieve the feller meant it. Them high bucks, wouldn't
like no better fun than to make a spectacle of me; so I guess I'll dry
up a spell."
But the trouble did not stop with Peterkin's talk, for a neighboring
Sunday paper, which fed its readers with all the choicest bits of
gossip, came out with an article headed "The Tracy Diamonds," and after
narrating the story in a most garbled and sensational manner, went on to
comment upon the young man's having run away, rather than face public
opinion, and to comment also upon the law which could not touch him
because the offense was committed so long ago.
One after another, and without either knowing that the other had done
so, Tom, and Dick, and Billy, waited upon the editor of the Sunday
_News_, threatening to sue him for libel if he did not retract every
word of the offensive article in his next issue, which he did. But the
mischief was done, and the paper found its way at last to Jerrie, sent
unwittingly by Ann Eliza, who covered it over a basket of fruit and
flowers which was carried one afternoon to the cottage.
Jerrie had been down stairs several times and had walked a little way in
the lane but was in her room when the basket was brought to her. Raising
the paper, she was about to throw it on the floor, when her eye caught
the words, "The Tracy Diamonds," and with bloodless lips and wildly
beating heart she read the article through, understanding the situation
perfectly, and resolving at once how to act. It seemed to her that she
was lifted above and out of herself, she felt so strong, and light, and
well, as she put on her bonnet and shawl, and taking the leather bag in
her hand, hurried down stairs in quest of Mrs. Crawford.
"Grandma!" she exclaimed, "why haven't you told me about Harold, and
the suspicion resting on him, and why did you let him go until I was
better, and what are the people saying? Tell me every thing."
Jerrie would not be put off, and Mrs. Crawford told her every thing she
knew, and that she herself had added to the mystery by the strange
things she had said in her delirium about the diamonds, which she
insisted were hers.
"And they are mine!" Jerrie said, while Mrs. Crawford looked at her in
alarm, lest her madness had returned.
"Where are you going?" she gasped, as Jerrie turned toward the door.
"To Tracy Park, to claim my own and clear Harold!" was the reply. "When
I come back I will tell you all, but now I can't wait."
"But, Jerrie, you are not strong enough to walk there, and besides, they
have company this afternoon, some kind of a new-fangled card party, and
you must not go," Mrs. Crawford said.
"I have the strength of twenty horses," Jerrie replied, "and if they
have company, so much the better, for there will be more to hear my
story. Good-by."
She was off like an arrow, and went almost upon a run through the woods
until the house was reached, and then she stopped a moment to take
breath and look about her. How fair and beautiful was every thing, and
Jerrie's heart beat so hard that she felt for a moment as if she were
choking to death as she sat under a maple tree and tried to think it all
over, to make sure there was no mistake. Opening the box she took out
two papers and read them again as she had the night she was taken sick.
One was a certificate of marriage, the other of a birth and baptism;
there was no mistake.
Holding the papers in one hand and the bag in the other, she went on to
the house, from which shouts of laughter were issuing, Nina's voice, and
Marian's, and Tom's, and Dick's, and Mrs. Tracy's. She could hear that
distinctly, and she shuddered a little at the sound, for it brought back
to her mind all the slights she had received from that woman who was so
cruel to Harold, and the pity which had been springing up in her heart
ever since she looked at the windows of Maude's room and thought of the
white-faced girl lying there, died out, and it was more a Nemesis than
a gentle, forgiving woman who walked boldly into the hall and stood in
the drawing-room door.
Mrs. Tracy was having a progressive euchre party that afternoon. A
friend in Boston had written her about it, and, proud to be the first to
introduce it in Shannondale, she stood, flushed and triumphant, with the
restored diamonds in her ears and at her throat, laughing merrily at
Judge St. Claire, who had won the booby prize--a little drum, as
something he could _beat_--and who looked as if he did not quite see the
joke.
Apart from the rest, Frank Tracy sat looking on, though with no apparent
interest in the matter. He had joined in the game because his wife told
him he must, and had borne meekly her sarcastic remarks when he trumped
her ace and ordered up on nothing. His thoughts were not with the cards,
but up stairs with Maude, who seemed to be better, and for whom there
was constantly a prayer in his heart.
"Spare her, and I will make reparation; I will tell the truth."
He was trying to bribe the Lord to hear him, when he saw Jerrie in the
door--tall, thin, and white from her recent sickness, with eyes which
rolled and shone, and flashed as Arthur's did sometimes, and which fell
at last upon Mrs. Tracy, where they rested with an intensity which must
have drawn that lady's notice to her, if Frank had not exclaimed, as he
rose to his feet:
"Jerrie! How did you get here?"
Then all turned and looked at her, and crowded around her with
exclamations of surprise and wonder.
For a moment Jerrie stood like one in a catalepsy, with no power to move
or speak, but when Mrs. Tracy came forward, and in her iciest tones said
to her: "Good-afternoon, Miss Crawford. To what am I indebted for this
unexpected pleasure?" her faculties came back, her tongue was loosened,
and she replied in a clear voice, which rang through the room like a
bell, and was, indeed, the knell to all the lady's greatness:
"I am here to claim my own, and to clear Harold from the foul suspicion
heaped upon him. I have seen the paper, have heard the whole from
grandma, and am here to defend him. It was I who gave him the diamonds!
It was for me he kept silent, and let you think what you would."
"You gave him the diamonds?" Mrs. Tracy repeated, "you gave him the
diamonds! and have come to confess yourself a--"
She never finished the sentence, for something in Jerrie's face
frightened her, while her husband, who had come forward, laid his hand
warningly upon her arm.
So absorbed were they all that no one saw the little girl, who at the
sound of Jerrie's voice had, in her eagerness to see her, crept down the
stairs, and now stood in the door-way opposite to Jerrie, her large,
bright eyes looking in wonder upon the scene, and her ears listening
intently to what was as new to her as it had been to Jerrie an hour ago.
"Don't give me the name you have more than once given to Harold," Jerrie
said, as with a gesture she silenced Mrs. Tracy. "The diamonds are mine,
not yours. Can one steal his own?"
"Yours! Your diamonds! What do you mean?" Mrs. Tracy asked.
"They were my mother's," Jerrie replied, "and she sent them to me."
They all thought her crazy except Frank, to whom there had come a horrid
presentiment of the truth, and who clutched his wife's arm hard, as she
said in a mocking, aggravating tone:
"And your mother was--?"
Then Jerrie stepped into the room, and stood in their midst like a queen
among her subjects, as she answered:
"My mother was Marguerite Heinrich, of Wiesbaden, better known to you as
Gretchen; and my father is Arthur Tracy, and I am their lawful child. It
is so written here," and she held up the papers and the bag; "I am
Jerrie Tracy!"