THE STORM.
The winter since Christmas had been unusually severe, and the oldest
inhabitant, of whom there are always many in every town, pronounced the
days as they came and went the coldest they had ever known. Ten, twelve,
and even fourteen degrees below zero the thermometers marked more than
once, while old Peterkin's, which was hung inside the Lizy Ann and
always took the lead, went down one morning to seventeen, and all the
water-pipes and pumps in town either froze or burst, and Arthur Tracy,
who, with his absorption of self, never forgot the poor, sent tons and
tons of coal to them, and whispered to himself:
'Poor Gretchen! It is hard for her if she is on the sea in such weather
as this. Heaven protect her, poor little Gretchen!'
That night when Frank went, as his custom was, to sit a few moments with
his brother, he found him on his knees, with his face toward the
picture, repeating the prayer for those upon the sea.
The next day there was a change for the better, and the next, and the
next, until when the last day of February dawned Peterkin's thermometer
registered only two, and people began to show themselves in the
streets, while the sun tried to break through the grey clouds which
shrouded the wintry sky. But this was only temporary, for before noon
the mercury fell again to eight below, the wind began to rise, and when
the New York train came panting to the station at half-past six, clouds
of snow so dense and dark were driving over the hills and along the line
of track that nothing could be distinctly seen.
It was not until the train had moved on that the station-master, who,
half blinded with the sleet, was gathering up the mail-bag, which had
been unceremoniously dropped, saw across the track at a little distance
from him the figure of a woman who seemed to be trying to examine a
paper she held in her hand, while clinging to her skirts and crying
piteously was a little child, but whether boy or girl, he could not
tell.
'Can I do anything for you?' he said advancing toward the stranger, who,
thrusting the paper from sight, caught up the child in her arms, and
without word of answer, hurried away in the storm and rapidly-increasing
darkness.
'Curis! She must have got off t'other side of the cars. I wonder who she
is and where she is goin'. Not fur, I hope, such a night as this. Ugh!
the wind is like so many screech owls and almost takes a feller off his
feet, the agent said to himself, as he looked after the stranger, and
then went back to the light and warmth of his office, where he soon
forgot the woman, who, with the child held closely in her arms, walked
rapidly on, her eyes strained to their utmost tension as they peered
through the darkness and the storm until she reached a gate opening into
a grassy road which led through the fields in a straight line to Tracy
Park and Collingwood beyond.
Carriages seldom traversed this road, but in the summer time the people
from Collingwood and Tracy Park frequently walked that way, as it was a
much nearer route to town than the main highway. Here the woman stopped,
and looking up at the tall arch over the gate, said aloud, as if
repeating a lesson learned by heart, 'Leave the car on your right hand;
take the road to the right, as I have drawn it on paper; go straight on
for a quarter of a mile until you come to a wide iron gate with a tall
arch over it. This gate is also at your right. You cannot mistake it.'
'No,' she continued, 'I cannot mistake it. This is the place. We are
almost there,' and putting down the child, she tugged with all her
strength at the ponderous gate, which she at last succeeded in opening,
and resuming her burden, passed through into the field where the snow
lay on the ground in great white drifts, while the blinding flakes and
cutting sleet from the leaden clouds above, beat pitilessly upon her as
she struggled on the wearisome way.
And while she toiled on, fighting bravely with the storm, and
occasionally speaking a word of encouragement to the little child
nestled in her bosom, Arthur Tracy stood at one of the windows in his
library, with his white face pressed close against the pane, as he
looked anxiously out into the gathering darkness, shuddering
involuntarily as the wind came screaming round a corner of the house,
bending the tall evergreens until their slender tops almost touched the
ground, and then rushing on down the carriage-drive with a shriek like
so many demons let loose from the ice-caves of the north, where the
winds are supposed to hold high carnival.
They were surely holding carnival to-night, and their king was out with
all his legions, and as Arthur listened to the roar of the tempest he
whispered to himself:
'A wild, wild night for Gretchen to arrive, and her dear little feet and
hands will be so cold; but there is warmth and comfort here, and love
such as she never dreamed of, poor Gretchen! I will hold her in my arms
and chafe her cold fingers and kiss her tired face until she feels that
her home-coming is a happy one. It must be almost time,' and he glanced
at a small cathedral clock which stood upon the mantel.
In the adjoining room the dinner table was as usual laid for two, but
one could see that more care than usual had been given to its
arrangement, while the roses in the centre were the largest and finest
of their kind. In the low, wide grate a bright fire was burning, and
Arthur placed a large easy chair before it, and then brought from the
library a covered footstool, with a delicate covering of blue and gold.
No foot had ever yet profaned this stool with a touch, for it was one of
Arthur's specialties, bought at a great price in Algiers; but he brought
it now for Gretchen and saw in fancy resting upon it the cold little
feet his hands were to rub and warm and caress until life came back to
them, and Gretchen's blue eyes smiled upon him and Gretchen's sweet
voice said:
'Thank you, Arthur. It is pleasant coming home.'
For the last two or three weeks, Arthur had been very quiet and
taciturn, but on the morning of this day he had seemed restless and
nervous, and his nervousness and excitability increased until a violent
headache came on, and Charles, the servant, who attended him, reported
to Mrs. Tracy that his midday meal had been untouched and that he really
seemed quite ill. Then Frank went to him, and sitting down beside him as
he lay upon a couch in the room with Gretchen's picture, said to him,
not unkindly:
'Are you sick to-day? What is the matter?'
For a few moments Arthur made no reply, but lay with his eyes closed as
if he had not heard. Then suddenly rousing himself, he burst out,
vehemently:
'Frank, you think me crazy, or you have thought so, and you have based
that belief in part on the fact that I am always expecting Gretchen. And
so for a long time I have suppressed all mention of her, though I have
never ceased to look for her arrival, since--since--well, I may as well
tell you the truth. I know now that she could not have been with me on
the ship and in the train, although I thought she was. I wrote her to
join me in Liverpool, and fancied she did. But my brain must have been a
little mixed. She did not come with me, but I wrote to her weeks ago,
telling her to come at once, and giving her directions how to find the
park if she should arrive at the station and no one there to meet her.
She has had more than time to get here, but I have said nothing about
sending the carriage for her, as that seemed to annoy you. But to-day,
Frank, to-day'--and Arthur's voice grew softer and pleading, and
trembled as he went on. 'I dreamed of her last night, and to-day she
seems so near to me that more than once I have put out my hand to touch
her. Frank, it is not insanity, this presentiment of mine that she is
near me, that she is coming to me, or tidings of her; it is mind acting
upon mind; her thoughts of me reaching forward and fastening upon my
thoughts of her, making a mental bridge on which to see her coming to
me. And you will send for her. You will let John go again. Think if she
should arrive in this terrible storm and no one there to meet her. You
will send this once, and if she is not there I will not trouble you
again.'
There was something in Arthur's white face which Frank could not resist,
and though he had no idea that anything would come of it, he promised
that John should go.
'Oh, Frank,' Arthur exclaimed, his face brightening at once, 'you have
made me so happy! My headache is quite gone,' and then he began to plan
for the dinner, which was to be more elaborate than usual, and served an
hour later, so as to give plenty of time for Gretchen to rest and dress
herself if she wished to do so.
'And she will when she sees the lovely dress I have for her,' he thought
to himself, and after his brother had gone he went to the large closet
where he kept the long black trunk which he called Gretchen's, and into
which Dolly's curious eyes had never looked, although she longed to know
the contents.
This Arthur now opened, and had Dolly been there she would have held
her breath in wonder at the many beautiful things it contained.
Folded in one of the trays, as only a French packer accustomed to
the business could have arranged it, was an exquisite dinner-dress of
salmon-colored satin, with a brocaded front and jacket of blue and gold,
and here and there a knot of duchess lace, which gave it a more airy
effect. This Arthur took out carefully and laid upon the bed in his
sleeping-apartment, together with every article of the toilet necessary
to such a dress, from a lace pocket handkerchief to a pair of pale-blue
silk hose, which he kissed reverently as he whispered to himself:
'Dear little feet, which, no doubt, are so cold now in the wretched car;
but they will never be cold when once I have them here.'
He was talking in German, as he always did when Gretchen was the subject
of his thought, and so Dolly, who came to say that some things which he
had ordered for dinner were impossible now, could not understand him,
but she caught a glimpse of the dress upon the bed, and advanced quickly
toward the open door, exclaiming:
'Oh, Arthur, what a lovely gown! Whose--?'
But before she completed her question Arthur was upon the threshold and
had closed the door, saying as he did so:
'It is Gretchen's. I had it made at Worth's. She is coming to-night, you
know.'
Dolly had heard from her husband of Arthur's fancy, and though she had
no faith in it, she replied:
'Yes, Frank told me you were expecting her again, and I came to say that
we cannot get the fish you ordered, for no one can go to town in this
storm, and I doubt if we could find it if we did. You will have to skip
the fish.'
'All right; all right. Gretchen will be too much excited to care,'
Arthur replied, standing with his hand upon the door-knob until Dolly
left the room and went to this kitchen, where Frank was interviewing the
coachman.
He had found that important personage before the fire, bending nearly
double and complaining bitterly of a fall he had just had on his way
from the stable to the house. According to his statement, the wind had
taken him up bodily, and carrying him a dozen rods or so, had set him
down heavily upon a stone flowerpot which was left outside in the
winter, nearly breaking his back, as he declared. This did not look very
promising for the drive to the station, and Frank opened the business
hesitatingly, and asked John what he thought of it.
'I think I would not go out in such a storm as this with my back if
Queen Victoria was to be there,' John answered gruffly. 'And what would
be the use?' he continued. 'I have been to meet that woman, if she is a
woman, with the outlandish name, more than fifty times, I'll bet; he
don't know what he is talking about when he gets on her track. And
s'posin' she does come, she can find somebody to fetch her. She ain't
going to walk.'
This seemed reasonable; and as Frank's sympathies were with his coachman
and horses rather than with Gretchen and his brother, he decided with
John that he need not go, but added, laughingly, as he saw the man walk
across the floor as well as he ever did on his way to the woodshed:
'Seems to me your broken back has recovered its elasticity very soon.'
To this John made no reply except an inaudible growl, and Frank returned
to the library, resolving not to go near his brother until after train
time, but to let him think that John had gone to the station.
At half-past five, however, Arthur sent for him, and said:
'Has he gone? It must be time.'
'Not quite; it is only half-past five. The train does not come until
half-past six, and is likely to be late,' was Frank's reply.
'Yes, I know,' Arthur continued, 'but he should be there on time. Tell
him to start at once, and take an extra robe with him, and say to
Charles that I will have sherry to-night, and champagne, too, and
Hamburg grapes, and--'
The remainder of his speech was lost on Frank, who was hurrying down the
stairs with a guilty feeling in his heart, although he felt that the end
justified the means, and that under the circumstances he was justified
in deceiving his half-crazy brother. Still he was ill at ease. He had no
faith in Arthur's presentiments, and no idea that any one bound for
Tracy Park would be on the train that night, but he could not shake off
a feeling of anxiety, amounting almost to a dread of some impending
calamity, which possibly the sending of John to the station might have
averted, and going to a window in the library, he, too, stood looking
out into the night, trying not to believe that he was watching for some
possible arrival, when, above the storm, he heard the shrill scream of
the locomotive as it stopped for a moment and then dashed on into the
white snow clouds; trying to believe, too, that he was not glad, as the
minutes became a quarter, the quarter a half, and the half
three-quarters, until at last he heard the clock strike the half-hour
past seven, and nobody had come.
'I shall have to tell Arthur,' he thought, and, with something like
hesitancy, he started for his brother's room.
Arthur was standing before the fire, with his arm thrown caressingly
across the chair where Gretchen was to sit, when Frank opened the door
and advanced a step or two across the threshold.
'Has she come? I did not see the carriage. Where is she?' Arthur cried,
springing swiftly forward, while his bright, eager eyes darted past his
brother to the open door-way and out into the hall.
'No, she has not come. I knew she wouldn't; and it was nonsense to send
the horses out such a night as this,' Frank said, sternly, with a
mistaken notion that he must speak sharply to the unfortunate man, who,
if rightly managed, was gentle as a child.
'Not come! Gretchen not come! There must be some mistake!' Arthur said,
all the brightness fading from his face, which seemed to grow pinched
and pallid as he turned it piteously toward his brother and continued:
'Not come! Oh, Frank! did John say so? Was no one there? Let me go and
question him--there must be a mistake.'
He was hurrying toward the door, when Frank caught his arm and detained
him, while he said, decidedly:
'No use to see John. Can't you believe me when I tell you no one was
there--and I knew there would not be. It was folly to send.'
For a moment a pale, haggard face, which looked still more haggard and
pale with the firelight flickering over it, confronted Frank steadily;
then the lips began to quiver, and the eyelids to twitch, while great
tears gathered in Arthur's eyes, until at last, covering his face with
his hands, he staggered to the couch, and throwing himself upon it,
sobbed convulsively.
'Oh, Gretchen, my darling!' he said. 'I was so sure, and now everything
is swept away, and I am left so desolate.'
Frank had never seen grief just like this, and, with his conscience
pricking him a little for the deception he had practised, he found
himself pitying his brother as he had never done before; and when at
last the latter cried out loud, he went to him, and laying his hand
gently upon his bowed head, said to him, soothingly:
'Don't, Arthur; don't feel so badly. It is terrible to see a man cry as
you are crying.'
'No, no; let me cry,' Arthur replied. 'The tears do me good, and my
brain would burst without them. It is all on fire, and my head is aching
so hard again.'
At this moment Charles appeared, asking if his master would have dinner
served. But Arthur could not eat, and the table which had been arranged
with so much care for Gretchen was cleared away, while Gretchen's chair
was moved back from the fire and Gretchen's footstool put in its place,
and nothing remained to show that she had been expected except the
pretty dress, with its accessories, which lay upon Arthur's bed. These
he took care of himself, folding them with trembling hands and tear-wet
eyes, as a fond mother folds the clothes her dead child has worn,
sorrowing most over the half-worn shoes, so like the dear little feet
which will never wear them again. So Arthur sorrowed over the
high-heeled slippers, with the blue rosettes and pointed toes,
fashionable in Paris at that time. Gretchen had never worn them, it is
true, but they seemed so much like her that his tears fell fast as he
held them in his hands, and, dropping upon the pure white satin, left a
stain upon it.
When everything was put away and the long trunk locked again, Arthur
went back to the couch and said to his brother, who was still in the
room:
'Don't leave me, Frank; at least not yet, till I am more composed. My
nerves are dreadfully shaken to-night, and I feel afraid of something, I
don't know what. How the wind howls and moans! I never heard it like
that but once before, and that was years ago, among the Alps in
Switzerland. Then it blew off the roof of the chalet where I was
staying, and I heard afterward that Amy died that night. You remember
Amy, the girl I loved so well, though not as I love Gretchen. If she had
come, I should have told you all about her, but now it does not matter
who she is, or where I saw her first, knitting in the sunshine, with the
halo on her hair and the blue of the summer skies reflected in her eyes.
Oh, Gretchen, my love, my love!'
He was talking more to himself than to Frank, who sat beside him until
far into the night, while the wild storm raged on and shook the solid
house to its very foundations. A tall tree in the yard was uprooted, and
a chimney-top came crushing down with a force which threatened to break
through the roof. For a moment there was a lull in the tempest, and,
raising himself upon his elbow, Arthur listened intently, while he said,
in a whisper which made Frank's blood curdle in his veins:
'Hark! there's more abroad to-night than the storm! Something is
happening or has happened which affects me. I have heard voices in the
wind--Gretchen calling me from far away. Frank, Frank, _did_ you hear
that? It was a woman's cry; her voice--Gretchen's. Yes, Gretchen, I am
coming!'
And with a bound he was at the window, which he opened wide, and leaning
far out of it, listened to hear repeated a sound which Frank, too, had
heard--a cry like the voice of one in mortal peril calling for help.
It might have been the wind, which on the instant swept round the corner
in a great gust, driving the snow and sleet into Arthur's face, and
making him draw in his body, nearly half of which was leaning from the
window as he waited for the strange cry to be repeated. But it did not
come again, though Frank, whose nerves were strung to almost as high a
tension as his brother's, thought he heard it once above the roar of the
tempest, and a vague feeling of disquiet took possession of him as he
sat for an hour longer watching his brother and listening to the noise
without.
Gradually the storm subsided, and when the clock struck one the wind had
gone down, the snow had ceased to fall, and the moon was struggling
feebly through a rift of dark clouds in the west. After persuading his
brother to go to bed, Frank retired to his own room and was soon asleep,
unmindful of the tragedy which was being enacted not very far away,
where a little child was smiling in its dreams, while the woman beside
it was praying for life until her mission should be accomplished.