WHO IS GRETCHEN?
This was the question which Mr. and Mrs. Tracy asked of themselves and
each other many times during the hours which intervened between their
retiring and rising. But speculate as they might they could reach no
satisfactory conclusion, and were obliged to wait for what the morning
and the train might bring. The party had been a success, and Frank felt
that his election to Congress was almost certain; but of what avail
would all this be if he lost his foothold at Tracy Park, as he was sure
to do if a woman appeared upon the scene. Both he and his wife had
outgrown the life of eleven years ago, and could not go back to it
without a struggle, and it is not strange if both wished that the
troublesome brother had remained abroad instead of coming home so
suddenly and disturbing all their plans. They heard him moving in his
room before the clock struck six, and knew he was getting himself in
readiness to meet the dreaded Gretchen. Then, long before the carriage
came round they heard him in the hall opening the windows and admitting
a gust of wind which blew their door open, and when Frank arose to shut
it he saw the top of Arthur's broad-brimmed hat disappearing down the
stairs.
'I believe he is going to walk to the station; he certainly is crazy,'
Frank said to his wife, as they dressed themselves and waited with
feverish impatience for the return of the carriage.
Arthur did walk to the station, which he reached just as the ticket
agent was unlocking the door, and there, with his Spanish cloak wrapped
around him, he stalked up and down the long platform for more than an
hour, for the train was late, and it was nearer eight than seven when it
finally came in sight.
Standing side by side Arthur and John looked anxiously for some one to
alight, but nobody appeared and the expression of Arthur's face was
pitiable as he turned it to John, and said:
'Gretchen did not come. Where do you suppose she is?'
'I am sure I don't know. On the next train, may be,' was John's reply,
at which Arthur caught eagerly.
'Yes, the next train, most likely. We will come and meet it; and now
drive home as fast as you can. This disappointment has brought that heat
to my head, and I must have a bath. But, stop a bit; who is the best
carpenter in town?'
John told him that Belknap was the best, and Burchard the highest
priced.
'I'll see them both,' Arthur said. 'Take me to their houses;' and in the
course of half an hour he had interviewed both Burchard and Belknap,
and made an appointment with both for the afternoon.
Then he was driven back to Tracy Park, where breakfast had been waiting
until it was spoiled, and the cook's temper was spoiled, too, and when
Frank and Dolly met him at the door, both asked in the same breath:
'Where is she?'
'She was not on this train. She will come on the next. We must go and
meet her,' was Arthur's reply, as he passed up the stairs, while Frank
and his wife looked wonderingly at each other.
The spoiled breakfast was eaten by Mr. and Mrs. Tracy alone, for the
children had had theirs and gone to their lessons, and Arthur had said
that he never took anything in the morning except a cup of coffee and a
roll, and these he wished sent to his room, together with a time-table.
After breakfast Mrs. Tracy, who was suffering from a sick headache,
declared her inability to sit up a moment longer and returned to her
bed, leaving her husband and the servants to bring what order they could
out of the confusion reigning everywhere, and nowhere to a greater
extent than in Arthur's room, or rather the rooms which he had
appropriated to himself, and into which he had had all his numerous
boxes and trunks brought, so that he could open them at his leisure.
There were more coming by express, he said, boxes which came through the
custom-house, for he had brought many valuable things, such as pictures,
and statuary, and rugs and inlaid tables and chinas, with which to adorn
his home.
The house, which was very large, had a wing on either side, while the
main building was divided by a wide hall, with three rooms on each side,
the middle one being a little smaller than the other two, with each of
which it communicated by a door. And it was into this middle room on the
second floor Arthur had been put, and which he found quite too small for
his use. So he ordered both the doors to be opened and took possession
of the suite, pacing them several times, and then measuring their
length, and breadth, and height, and the distance between the windows.
Then he inspected the wing on that side of the house, and, going into
the yard, looked the building over from all points, occasionally
marking a few lines on the paper he held in his hand. Before noon every
room in the house, except the one where Dolly lay sick with a headache
had been visited and examined minutely, while Frank watched him
nervously, wondering if he would think they had greatly injured
anything, or had expended too much money on furniture. But Arthur was
thinking of none of these things, and found fault with nothing except
the drain and the gas fixtures, all of which he declared bad, saying
that the latter must be changed at once, and that ten pounds of copperas
must be bought immediately and put down the drain, and that quantities
of chloride of lime and carbolic acid must be placed where there was the
least danger of vegetable decomposition.
'I am very sensitive to smells, and afraid of them, too, for they breed
malaria and disease of all kinds,' he said to the cook, whose nose and
chin both were high in the air, not on account of any obnoxious odor,
but because of this unreasonable meddling with what she considered her
own affairs. If things were to go on in this way, she said to the
house-maid, and if that man was going to poke his nose into drains, and
gas-pipes, and kerosene lamps, and bowls of sour milk which she might
have forgotten, she should give notice to quit.
But when, half an hour later, some boxes and trunks which had come by
express were deposited in the back hall, and Arthur, who was
superintending them, said to her, as he pointed to a large black trunk,
'I think this has the dress patterns and shawls I brought for you,
girls; for though I did not know you personally, I knew that women were
always pleased with anything from Paris' her feelings underwent a
radical change, and Arthur was free to smell the drain and the gas
fixtures as much as he liked.
He was very busy, and though always pleasant, and even familiar at
times, there was in all he said and did an air of ownership, as if he
had assumed the mastership. And he had. Everything was his, and he knew
it, and Frank knew it, too, and gave no sign of rebelling when the reins
were taken from him by one who seemed to be driving at a break-neck
speed.
At lunch, while the brothers were together, Arthur announced his
intentions in part, but not until Frank, who was anxious to get it off
his mind, said to him:
'By the way, I suppose you will be going to the office this afternoon,
to see Colvin and look over the books. I believe you will find them
straight, and hope you will not think I have spent too much, or drawn
too large a salary. It you do, I will--'
'Nonsense!' was Arthur's reply, with a graceful shrug of his shoulders.
'Don't bother about that there is money enough for us both. What I
invested in Europe has trebled itself, and more too, and would make me a
rich man if I had nothing else. I am always lucky. I played but once at
Monte Carlo, just before I came home, and won ten thousand dollars,
which I invested in--But no matter; that is a surprise--something for
your wife and Gretchen. I have come home to stay. I do not think I am
quite what I used to be. I was sick all that time when you heard from me
so seldom, and I am not strong yet. I need quite a rest. I have seen the
world, and am tired of it, and now I want a house for Gretchen and
myself, and you too. I expect you to stay with me as long as we pull
together pleasantly and you do not interfere with my plans. I am going
to take the three south rooms on the second floor for my own. I shall
put folding-doors, or rather a wide arch between two of them, making
them almost like one, and these I shall fit up to suit my own taste. In
the smaller and middle room, where I slept last night, I shall have a
large bow window, with shelves for books in the spaces between and
beneath, and by the sides of the windows. I got the idea in a villa a
little way out of Florence. Opposite this bow window, on the other side
of the room, I shall have niches in the wall and corners for statuary,
with shelves for books above and below. I have some beautiful pieces of
marble from Florence and Rome. The Venus de Milo, Apollo Belvidere,
Nydra and Psyche, and Ruth at the Well. But the crowning glory of this
room will be the upper half of the middle window of the bow. This is to
be of stained glass, bright but soft colors which harmonize perfectly,
two rows on the four sides, and in the centre a lovely picture of
Gretchen, also of cathedral glass, and so like her that it seems to
speak to me in her soft German tongue. I had it made from a photograph I
have of her, and it is very natural--the same sad, sweet smile around
the lips which never said an unkind word to any one--the same bright,
wavy hair, and eyes of blue, innocent as a child--and Gretchen is little
more than that. She is only twenty-one--poor little Gretchen!' and,
leaning back in his chair, Arthur seemed to be lost in recollections of
the past.
Not pleasant, all of them, it would seem, for there was a moisture in
his eyes when he at last looked up in response to his brother's
questioning.
'Who did you say Gretchen was?'
Instantly the expression of the eye changed to one of weariness and
caution, as Arthur replied:
'I did not say who she was, but you will soon know. I saw by the
time-table that the train which passes here at eleven does not stop, but
the three o'clock does, and you will please see that John goes with the
carriage. I may be occupied with the carpenters, Burchard and Belknap,
who were coming to talk with me about the changes I purpose to make, and
which I wish commenced immediately. It is a rule of mine that when I am
to do a thing, to do it at once. So I shall employ at least twenty men,
and before Christmas everything will be finished, and I will show you
rooms worthy of a palace. It is of Gretchen I am thinking, more than of
myself. Poor little Gretchen!'
Arthur's voice was inexpressibly sad and pitiful as he said 'Poor
Gretchen,' while his eyes again grew soft and tender, with a far-away
look in them, as if they were seeing things in the past rather than in
the future.
There was not a particle of sentiment in Frank's nature, and Gretchen
was to him an object of dread rather than a romance. So far as he could
judge, his brother had no intention of routing him; but a woman in the
field would be different, and he should at once lose his vantage-ground.
'You seem to be very fond of Gretchen,' he said, at last.
'Fond!' Arthur replied, 'I should say I am, though the poor child has
not much cause to think so. But I am going to atone, and this suite of
rooms is for her. I mean to make her a very queen, and dress her in
satin and diamonds every day. She has the diamonds. I sent them to her
when I wrote to her to join me in Liverpool.'
'And she did join you, I suppose?' Frank said, determined by adroit
questioning to learn something of the mysterious Gretchen.
'Yes, she joined me,' was the reply.
'Was she very seasick?' Frank continued.
'Not a minute. She sat by me all the time while I lay in my berth, but
she would not let me hold her hand, and if I tried to touch even her
hair, she always moved away to the other side of the state-room, where
she sat looking at me reproachfully with those soft blue eyes of hers.'
'And she was with you at the Brevoort in New York!' Frank said.
'Yes, with me at Brevoort.'
'And in the train?'
'Yes, and in the train.'
'And you left her there?'
'No; she left herself. She did not follow me out. She went on by
mistake, but is sure to come back this afternoon,' Arthur replied,
rather excitedly, just as a sharp ring at the bell announced the arrival
of Burchard and Belknap, the leading carpenters of the town, with whom
he was closeted for the next two hours, and both of whom he finally
hired in order to expedite the work he had in hand.
At precisely three o'clock the carriage from Tracy Park drew up before
the station, awaiting the arrival of the train and Gretchen, but though
the former came, the latter did not, and John returned alone, mentally
avowing to himself that he would not be sent on a fool's errand a third
time; but five o'clock found him there again with the same result.
Gretchen did not come, and Arthur's face wore a sad, troubled
expression, and looked pale and worn, notwithstanding the many times he
bathed it in the coldest water and rubbed it with the coarsest towels.
He had unpacked several of his trunks and boxes, and made friends of all
she servants by the presents, curious and rare, which he gave them,
while Dolly's headache had been wholly cured at sight of the exquisite
diamonds which her husband brought to her room and told her were hers,
the gift of Arthur, who had bought them in Paris, and who begged her to
accept them with his love.
The box itself, which was of tortoise shell, lined with blue velvet, was
a marvel of beauty, while the pin was a cluster of five diamonds with a
larger one in the center, but the ear-rings were solitaires, large and
brilliant, and Dolly's delight knew no bounds as she took the dazzling
stones in her hands and examined them carefully. Diamond were the jewels
of all others which she coveted, but which Frank never felt warranted in
buying, and now they were hers, and for a time she forgot even Gretchen,
whose arrival, or rather non-arrival, troubled her as much as it did her
brother-in-law.
Arthur had been very quiet and gentle all the afternoon, showing no sign
of the temper he had exhibited the previous night at sight of Harold
until about six o'clock, when Tom, his ten-year-old nephew, came rushing
into the library, followed by Peterkin, very hot and very red in the
face, which he mopped with his yellow silk handkerchief.
'Oh, mother,' Tom began, 'what do you think Harold Hastings has done? He
stole Mrs. Peterkin's gold pin last night. It was stuck in her shawl,
and she couldn't find it, and Lucy saw him fumbling with the things, and
he denies it up hill and down, and Mr. Peterkin is going to arrest him.
I guess Dick St. Claire won't think him the nicest boy in town now. The
thief! I'd like--
But what he would like was never known, for with a spring Arthur bounded
toward him, and seizing him by the coat collar, shook him vigorously,
while he exclaimed:
'Coward and liar! Harold Hastings is not a thief! No child of Amy
Crawford could ever be a thief, and if you say that again, or even
insinuate it to any living being, I'll break every bone in your body. Do
you understand?'
'Yes, sir; no sir, I won't; I won't,' Tom gasped, as well as he could,
with his head bobbing forward and back so rapidly that his teeth cut
into his under lip.
'But _I_ shall,' Peterkin roared. 'I'll have the young dog arrested,
too, if he don't own up and give up.'
There was a wicked look in Arthur's black eyes, which he fastened upon
Peterkin, as he said;
'What does it all mean, sir? Will you please explain?'
'Yes, in double quick time,' replied Peterkin, a little nettled by
Arthur's manner, which he could not understand. 'You see, me and Mary
Jane was early to the doin's; fust ones, in fact, for when your invite
says half past seven it means it, I take it. Wall, we was here on time,
and Mary Jane has been on a tear ever since, and says Miss St. Claire
nor none of the big bugs didn't come till nine, which I take is
imperlite, don't you?'
'Never mind, we are not discussing etiquette. Go on with the pin and the
boy,' Arthur said haughtily.
'Mary Jane,' Peterkin continued, 'had a gold-headed shawl pin, with a
small diamond in the head--real, too, for I don't b'lieve in shams, and
haint sense the day I quit boatin' and hauled ther 'Liza Ann up inter my
back yard. Well, she left this pin stickin' in her shawl, and no one up
there but this boy of that Crawford gal's, and nobody knows who else.'
Something in Arthur's face and manner made Frank think of a tiger about
to pounce upon its prey, and he felt himself growing cold with suspense
and dread as he watched his brother, while Peterkin continued:
'When Mary Jane came to go home, her things wa'n't there, and the pin
was missin'; and Lucy, the girl, said she found the boy pullin' them
over by himself, when he had no call to be in there; and, sir, there
ain't a lawyer in the United States that would refuse a writ on that
evidence, and I'll get one of St. Claire afore to-morrow night. I told
'em so, the widder and the boy, who was as brassy as you please, and
faced me down and said he never seen the pin, nor knowed there was one;
while she--wall, I swow, if she didn't start round lively for a woman
with her leg bandaged up in vinegar and flannel. When I called the brat
a thief and said I'd have him arrested, she made for the door and
ordered me out--me, Joe Peterkin, of the 'Liza Ann! I'll make her smart,
though, wus than the rheumatiz. I'll make her feel the heft--'
He did not have time to finish the sentence, for the tiger in Arthur was
fully roused, and with a bound toward Peterkin he opened the door, and,
in a voice which seemed to fill the room, although it was only a
whisper, he said:
'Clown! loafer! puff-ball! Leave my house instantly, and never enter it
again until you have apologized to Mrs. Crawford and her grandson for
the insult offered them by your vile accusations. If it were not for
soiling my hands, I would throw you down the steps,' he continued, as he
stood holding the door open, and looking with his flashing eyes and
dilated nostrils, as if he were fully equal to anything.
Like most men of the boasting sort, Peterkin was a coward, and though he
probably had twice the strength of Arthur, he went through the door-way
out upon the piazza, where he stopped, and, with a flourish of his fist,
denounced the whole Tracy tribe, declaring them but a race of upstarts,
no better than he was, and saying he would yet be even with them, and
make them feel the heft of his powerful disapprobation. Whatever else he
said was not heard, for Arthur shut the door upon him, and returning to
the library, where his brother stood, pale, trembling, and anxious for
the votes he felt he had lost, he became on the instant as quiet and
gentle as a child, and, consulting his watch, said in his natural tone:
'Quarter of seven, and the train is due at half-past. Please tell John
to have the carriage ready. I am going myself this time.'
Frank opened his lips to protest against it, but something in his
brother's manner kept him quiet and submissive. He was no longer master
there--unless--unless--he scarcely dared whisper to himself what; but
when the carriage went for the fourth time to the station after Gretchen
and returned without her, he said to his wife:
'I think Arthur is crazy, and possibly we shall have to shut him up.'
'Yes, I wish you would,' was Dolly's reply, in a tone of relief, for,
thus far, Arthur's presence in the house had not added to her comfort.
'Of course he is crazy, and ought to be taken care of before he tears
the house down over our heads, or does some dreadful thing.'
'That's so, and I will see St. Claire to-morrow and find out the proper
steps to be taken,' said Frank.
That night he dreamed of windows with iron bars across them, and
strait-jackets, into which he was thrusting his brother, while a face,
the loveliest he had ever seen, looked reproachfully at him, with tears
in the soft blue eyes, and a pleading pathos in the voice which said
words he could not understand, for the language was a strange one to him
who only knew his own.
With a start Frank awoke, and found his wife sitting up in bed,
listening intently to sounds which came from the hall, where some one
was evidently moving around.
'Hark!' she said, in a whisper. 'Do you hear that? There's a burglar in
the house after my diamonds. What shall I do?'
But Frank knew that no burglar ever made the noise this disturber of
their rest was making and stepping out of bed he opened the door
cautiously, and looking out, saw his brother, wrapped in a long
dressing-gown, with a candle in his hand, opening one window after
another until the hall was filled with the cold night wind, which swept
down the long corridor banging a door at the farther end and setting all
the rest to rattling.
'Oh! Frank, is that you?' Arthur said. 'I am sorry I woke you, but I
smelled an awful smell somewhere, and traced it to the hall, which you
see I am airing; better shut the door or you will take cold. The house
is full of malaria.'
He was certainly crazy; there could be no doubt of it; and next morning,
when Mr. St. Claire entered his office, he found Frank Tracy waiting
there to consult him with regard to the legal steps necessary to procure
his brother's incarceration in a lunatic asylum.
Arthur St. Claire's face wore a grave, troubled look as he listened, for
he remembered a time, years before, when he, too, had been interested in
the lunatic asylum at Worcester, where a beautiful young girl, his wife,
had been confined. She was dead now, and the Florida roses were growing
over her grave, but there were many sad, regretful memories connected
with her short life, and not the least sad of these were those connected
with the asylum.
'If it were to do over again I would not put her there, unless she
became dangerous,' he had often said to himself, and he said much the
same thing to Frank Tracy with regard to his brother.
'Keep him at home, if possible. Do not place him with a lot of lunatics
if you can help it. No proof he is crazy because he smells everything.
My wife does the same. Her nose is over the registers half the time in
winter to see if any gas is escaping from the furnace. And as to this
Gretchen, it is possible there was some woman with him on the ship, or
in New York, and he may be a little muddled there. You can inquire at
the hotel where he stopped.'
This was Mr. St. Claire's advice, and Frank acted upon it, and took
immediate steps to ascertain if there had been a lady in company with
his brother at the Brevoort House, where he had stopped, or if there had
been any one in his company on the ship, which was still lying in the
dock at New York. But there no one had been with him. Arthur Tracy alone
was registered among the list of passengers, and only Arthur Tracy was
on the books at the hotel. He had come alone, and been alone on the sea
and at the hotel.
Gretchen was a myth, or at least a mystery, though he still persisted
that she would arrive with every train from Boston; and for nearly a
week they humored him, and the carriage went to meet her, until at last
there seemed to dawn upon his mind the possibility of a mistake, and
when the carriage had made its twentieth trip for nothing, and Mr. St.
Claire, who was standing by him on the platform when the train came up
and brought no Gretchen, said to him:
'She did not come.'
'I am afraid she will never come,' he answered, sadly. 'No, she will
never come. There has been some mistake. She will never come. Poor
little Gretchen!' Then, after a moment he added, but there _is_ a
Gretchen, and I wrote to her to join me in Liverpool, and I thought she
did and was with me on the ship and in the train, but sometimes, when my
head is so hot, I get things mixed, and am not sure but--' and he looked
wistfully in his companion's face, while his voice trembled a little.
'Don't let them shut me up; I have a suspicion that they will try it,
but it will do no good. I was in an asylum nearly three years near
Vienna; went of my own accord, because of that heat in my head.'
'Been in an asylum?' Mr. St. Claire said, wonderingly.
'Yes,' Arthur continued, 'I was only out three months ago. I wrote
occasionally to Frank and Gretchen, but did not tell them where I was.
They called it a _maison de santé_, and treated me well because I paid
well, but the sight of so many crazy people made me worse, and if I had
staid I should have been mad as the maddest of them. As it was, I forgot
almost everything that ever happened, and fancied I was an Austrian. As
soon as I came out I was better, though I was not quite myself till I
got to Liverpool. Then things came back to me. Stand by me, St. Claire.
I can see I am in the way, and Frank would like to be rid of me; but
stand by me, and don't let them do it.'
His manner was very pleading, and like one who was in fear of something,
and remembering the past when a golden-haired girl had begged him to
save her from iron bars and bolts, Mr. St. Claire assured him of his
support against any steps which might be taken to prove him mad enough
for the asylum.
'But I would not come for Gretchen any more,' he said. 'I would give her
a rest. Who is she?'
Instantly the old look of cunning came into Arthur's eyes, as he
replied:
'She is Gretchen;' and then he walked toward the carriage, while Mr. St.
Claire looked curiously after him, and said to himself:
'That fellow is not right, but he is not a subject for a mad house, and
I should oppose his being sent there. I do not believe, however, that
they will try it on.'