THE FUNERAL AND AFTER.
Long before ten o'clock, the hour appointed for the funeral, the next
morning, people began to gather at the Park House, and the avenue seemed
full of them. The news that an unknown woman had been frozen to death in
the Tramp House had spread far and wide, awakening in many a curiosity
to see the stranger, and discover, if possible, a likeness to some one
they might have known.
It was strange how many reminiscences were brought to mind by this
circumstance of girls who had disappeared years before and were supposed
to be dead--or worse. And this woman might be one of them; indeed,
Peterkin had said that she was, and they came in crowds to see her, and
to see, as well, the inside of the handsome house, of which they had
heard so much, especially since Mr. Arthur's return. But in this they
were disappointed, for all the front rooms were locked against them, and
only the large dining-room, the breakfast-room, the servants' hall, and
the little back office were thrown open to the public. In the first of
these the corpse was lying in a substantial, handsome coffin, for Frank,
who ordered it, would have no other; and when the undertaker suggested a
cheaper one would answer just as well, had said, decidedly:
'I mean to bury her decently. Give me this one, and send the bill to me,
not to Arthur.'
It was _his_ funeral, and, judging from his face, he was burying all his
friends, instead of a poor, unknown woman, whose large, coarse features
and plain woollen dress looked out of place in that handsome black
coffin, with its silver-plated trimmings. Frank had suggested that she
should have a white merino shroud, but his wife had overruled him. It
was _not_ her funeral, and she had no interest in it, except that it
should be over as soon as possible, and the house cleansed from the
atmosphere of death. So when her husband asked if the child ought not to
have a mourning-dress, she scoffed at him for the suggestion saying she
did not like to see children in black anyway, and even if she died
herself she should not wish hers to wear it.
'I cannot imagine,' she continued, 'why you have taken so unaccountable
a fancy to and interest in these people, especially the child. One would
think she belonged to royalty, the fuss you make over her. What are we
to do with her to-night? Where is she to sleep?'
'In the nursery,' was his reply; and he saw his wishes carried out and
ordered in a crib, which used to be Jack's, and bade the nurse see that
she was comfortable.
So Jerry was put to bed in the nursery and slept very quietly until
about, ten o'clock when she awoke and cried piteously for both 'Man-nee'
and 'Ha-roll.' Frank, who was sitting alone in the library, heard the
cry, and knew it was not Maude's. Had it been he would not have minded
it, for he knew that she would be cared for without his interference.
But something in the crying of this little foreign girl stirred him
strangely, and after listening to it a few moments he arose, and going
softly to the door of the nursery, stood listening until a sharp hush
from the nurse girl decided him to enter, and going to the crib he bent
over the sobbing child and tried to comfort her. She could not
understand him, but the tone of his voice was kind, and when he put his
hand on her hot head she took it in hers and held it fast, as if she
recognized in him a friend. And Frank as he felt the clasp of the soft,
warm fingers, and saw the confiding look in the wide-open eyes, grew
faint and cold, and asked himself again, as he had many times that day,
_if he could do it_.
Jerry was asleep at last, but she sobbed occasionally in her sleep, and
there were great tears on her eyelashes, while her fingers clutched
Frank's hand tightly as if fearing to let it go. But he managed to
disengage it and stealing cautiously from the room went back to the
library where he sat late into the night, facing the future and
wondering if he could meet it.
He had Jerry at the table next morning and saw that she was helped to
everything she wanted without any regard to its suitability for her, and
when his wife said rather curtly that she never knew that he was so fond
of children before, he answered her:
'I am only doing as I would wish some one to do to Maude if she were
like this poor little girl.'
When, at last, the hour for the funeral arrived he placed her himself
upon the high chair close to the coffin, where she sat through the short
service, conspicuous in her gray cloak and blue hood, with her golden
hair falling on her neck and piled in wavy masses on her forehead, while
her bright eyes scanned the crowd curiously as if asking why they were
there and why they were all looking so intently at her. More than one
kind-hearted woman went up and kissed her, and when, at the close of the
services, Mr. Tracy held her in his arms for a last look at her mother,
their tears fell fast for the child, so unconscious of the meaning of
what was passing around her.
'Isn't she beautiful! Such lovely hair, and eyes, and dazzling
complexion!' was said by more than one; and then they speculated as to
her future.
Would she go to the poor-house? Would Frank Tracy keep her with all his
children, or was it true, as they had heard, that Mr. Arthur Tracy was
to adopt her at his own? And where was Mr. Arthur? He might, at least,
have shown enough respect for the dead woman to come into the room, and
they wanted so much to see him, for there was a great deal of curiosity
with regard to the lunatic of Tracy Park among the lower class of people
who had come to Shannondale during the eleven years of his absence.
But Arthur was sick in bed, suffering alternately from chills and a
raging fever, which set his brain on fire and made him wilder than
usual. He had not slept well during the night. Indeed, he said, he had
not slept at all. But this was a common assertion of his, and one to
which Charles now paid little heed.
'A man can't snore and not sleep,' was the unanswerable argument with
which he refuted the sleepless nights of his master.
On this occasion, however, he had heard no snoring, and Arthur's face,
seen by the morning light, was a sufficient proof of the wakeful hours
he had passed. He, too, had heard the distant crying, and felt
instinctively that it was not Maude's. Starting up in bed to listen, he
said:
'What's that? Is that child here yet?'
'Yes sir: she is to stay till after the funeral,' was Charles' reply,
and Arthur continued:
'Bring me some cotton for my ears. I never can stand that noise. It is a
peculiar cry.'
The cotton was brought. A window in the hall which had a habit of
rattling with every breath of wind was made fast with a bit of shingle
whittled out for that purpose, and then Arthur became tolerably quiet
until morning, when he began to talk to himself in the German language,
which Charles could not understand. But he caught the name Gretchen, and
knew she was the subject of the sick man's thoughts. Suddenly turning to
his attendant, to whom he always spoke in English, Arthur said:
'The funeral is to-day?'
'Yes, sir, at ten o'clock.'
'Well, lock every door leading up this way, and shut out the gossipping
blockheads who will come by hundreds, and, if we would let them, swarm
into my room as thick as the frogs were in the houses of the Egyptians.
Shut the doors, Charles, and keep them out.'
So the doors were shut and bolted, and then Arthur lay listening with
that intensity which so quickens one's hearing, that the faintest sounds
are distinct at great distances. He heard the trampling footsteps as the
people came crowding in, and the tread of horses' feet as sleigh after
sleigh drove up the avenue, and once, with a shudder, he said:
'That is the hearse. I am sure of it.'
Then all was still, and listen as he might he could not distinguish the
faintest sound until the services were over and the people began to
leave the house.
'There,' he said, with a sigh of relief; 'it will soon be over. Bring me
my clothes, Charles. I am going to get up and see the last of this poor
woman. God help her, whoever she was.'
He was beginning to feel a great pity for the woman whose coffin they
were putting in the hearse, which moved off a few rods, and then stopped
until the open sleigh came up, the sleigh in which Frank Tracy sat,
muffled in his heavy overcoat, for the day, though bright and sunny, was
cold, and a chill March wind was blowing. Dolly had taken refuge in a
headache which had prevented her from being present at the funeral and
kept her from going to the grave as her husband had wished her to do. So
only Harold and Jerry occupied the sleigh with Frank, and these sat
opposite him, with their backs to the horses, Jerry in her gray cloak
and blue hood showing conspicuously as she came into full view of the
window where Arthur stood looking at the procession with a feeling at
his heart, as if in some way he were interested in the sad funeral,
where there was no mourner, no one who had ever seen or known the
deceased, save the little helpless girl, looking around her in perfect
unconcern save as she rather liked the stir and all that was going on.
They had tied a thin veil over her head to shield her from the cold, and
thus her face was not visible to Arthur. But he saw the blue hood and
the golden hair on the old gray cloak, and the sight of it moved him
mightily, making him hold fast to the window-casing for support, while
he stood watching it. Just as far as he could see it his eye followed
that hood, and when it disappeared from view, he turned from the window,
deathly sick, and tottering back to his bedroom, vomited from sheer
nervous excitement.
'Thank Heaven it is over and the rabble gone,' he said, when he became
easier. 'Go now and open all the doors and windows to let in the fresh
air and out the smell they are sure to have left. Ugh! I get a whiff of
it now. Burn some of that aromatic paper; but open the hall windows
first.'
Charles did as he was ordered, and the wind was soon sweeping through
the wide hall, while Arthur's rooms were filled with an odor like the
sweet incense burned in the old cathedrals.
'I am very giddy and faint,' Arthur said, when Charles came back to him
after his ventilating operation. 'I have looked at the bright snow too
long, and there are a thousand rings of fire dancing before my eyes, and
in every ring I see a blue hood and veil, with waves of hair like
Gretchen's, when she was a child. There is a redder tinge now on
Gretchen's hair, because she is older. Wheel me out there, Charles,
where I can see her.'
Charles obeyed, and moved the light bed-lounge into the library, where
his master could feast his eyes upon the sweet face which knew no
change, but which always, night and day, smiled upon him the same. The
picture had a soothing effect upon Arthur, and he gazed at it now until
it began to fade away and lose itself in the blue hood and veil he had
seen in the sleigh far down the avenue; and when, a few minutes later,
Charles came in to look at him, he found him fast asleep.
Meantime the funeral train had reached the cemetery, where the snow was
piled in great drifts, and where, in a corner of the Tracy lot, they
buried the stranger, with no tear to hallow her grave, and no pang of
regret save that she had ever come there, with the mystery and the doubt
which must always cling to her memory. Frank Tracy's face was very pale
and stern as he held little Jerry in his arms during the committal of
the body to the grave, and then bade her take one last look at the box
which held her mother. But Jerry, who was growing cold and tired, began
to cry, and so Frank took her back to the sleigh, which was driven to
the cottage in the lane. Here she felt at home, and drawing to the fire
the low rocking chair she had appropriated to herself, was soon
supremely happy devouring the ginger cookie which Mrs. Crawford had
given her, and in trying to pronounce English words under Harold's
teaching.
While the children were thus employed, Mr. Tracy was divulging to Mrs.
Crawford the object of his visit. He could hardly explain, he said, why
he was so deeply interested in the child, except it were that her mother
had died on his premises and she seemed to be thrown upon his care.
'I cannot see her go to the poor-house,' he continued, with a trembling
in his voice which made Mrs. Crawford wonder a little, as she had never
credited him with much sympathy for anything outside his own family. 'I
cannot see her go to the poor-house, and I cannot well take her into my
family, as we have three children of our own. But I have made up my mind
to care for her, and I have come to ask if, for a compensation, you will
keep her here?'
'Yes, grandma--say yes!' Harold cried; while Jerry, with her mouth full
of cookie, repeated, 'ay 'ess.'
'You see, the children plead for me,' Mr. Tracy said, with a smile at
the little girl, whose hand just then swept back the hair from her eyes,
which looked steadily at him as he went on: 'While she is young--say,
until she is ten years old--I will pay you three dollars a week, and
after that more, if necessary. I know you will be kind to her, and that
she will be happy here and well brought up. Is it a bargain?'
Mrs. Crawford had never seen him so interested in anything and felt
somewhat surprised and puzzled, but she expressed her willingness to
take the child and do what she could for her.
'It will be a good thing for Harold,' she said, 'as he is in danger of
growing selfish here alone with me.'
And so Jerry's future was settled, and counting out twelve dollars,
Frank handed them to Mrs. Crawford, saying:
'I will pay you for four weeks in advance, as you may need the money,
and--and--perhaps--' His face grew very red as he stammered on, 'perhaps
it may be as well not to tell how much I pay you. People--or
rather--well, Mrs. Tracy might think it strange, and not understand why
I feel such an interest in the child. I don't understand it myself.'
But he did understand, and his knees were shaking under him as, when the
transaction was over, and he was on his way to the Park, he felt that he
had sold himself to Satan.
'And yet I know nothing for sure,' he kept repeating to himself. 'Arthur
is expecting Gretchen, whoever she may be. He says he has written to
her, and he has one of his presentiments that she is coming on the night
when this woman arrives, who is no more like the Gretchen he raves about
than I am. This woman has a child. He says Gretchen has none, and that
he never saw this woman. And yet I find among the things a photograph
exactly like the picture in the window, and also like the child, who
certainly bears a resemblance to my brother, though no one else,
perhaps, would see it. Now, sir,' he appeared to be addressing himself
to some person unseen, from whom he shrank, for he drew himself as far
as was possible to his side of the sleigh and shivered as he went on:
'Now, sir, is that sufficient proof to warrant me in turning everything
topsy-turvy, and making Arthur crazier than he is?'
'Certainly not,' he seemed to hear in reply, either from within or
without, he hardly knew which, and he went on:
'I shall try to find out who the woman was, and where she came from; but
how am I to do it? how begin? Arthur will not tell me a word about
Gretchen, who she is, or what she is to him. Still, I mean to be on the
safe side, and do right by the child. Arthur cannot live many years. His
nerves will wear him out, if nothing else, and when he does, his money
will naturally come to me.'
'Naturally,' his spectral companion replied, and he continued:
'Well, what I intend doing is this: I shall make my will, in which Jerry
will share equally with my children, and I shall further draw up a
written request that in case I die before my brother, any money which
may fall to my children from him shall be shared equally with her. I
shall, out of my own private funds, provide for her support and
education, until she comes of age, or marries, and if possible, I shall
bring about a marriage between her and Tom, who will probably one day be
master of Tracy Park. Can anything more be required of me?'
'Nothing,' was the consoling reply; and as the sleigh just then drew up
before his door, Frank alighted from it, and said to himself as he ran
up the steps:
'I believe I have been riding with the devil, and have made a league
with him!'
He found the house thoroughly aired and cleansed from all signs of the
recent funeral; and when, at one o'clock, he sat down to lunch in the
handsome dining-room, and sipped his favorite claret, and ate his
foreign preserves, and thought how much comfort and luxury money could
buy, he was sure he had done well for himself and his children after
him. But, like Bishop Hatto, of Mouse-Tower memory, Frank Tracy never
knew real peace of mind from the day he deliberately sold himself to the
Evil One for filthy lucre, until the day, years after, when full
restitution was made, and, with the sin confessed, he held his head up
again, free from the shadow which he did not leave in the sleigh, but
which followed him day and night, walking by him when he walked, sitting
by him when he sat, and watching by him when he slept, so as to be ready
when he woke with the specious argument that he was acting justly and
even generously by the little waif, who was like a sunbeam in the
cottage in the lane, whom many people went to see, marvelling at her
beauty and wondering in vain whose likeness they sometimes saw in her as
she frolicked around the house, full of life, and fun, and laughter.
Frank made his will, as he promised his shadow he would, but he went to
Springfield to have it drawn up, for he knew that Colvin, or any lawyer
whom he might employ in Shannondale, would wonder at it. He also wrote
out himself what he called his dying request to his children, in case he
should die before his brother. In this he stated emphatically his wish
that Jerry should have her share of whatever might come to them from the
Tracy estate, the same as if she were his own child.
'I have a good and sufficient reason for this,' he wrote in conclusion,
'and I enjoin it upon you to carry out my wishes as readily as you would
were I to speak to you from my grave,'
This done, Frank felt a little better, and the shadow at his side was
not quite as real as it had been before. He put his will and his dying
request together in a private drawer with Gretchen's photograph, and the
testament with the handwriting in it. He had kept this back when the
stranger's trunk was sent to the cottage, thinking that if it were
missed and inquired for, he could easily produce it as having been
mislaid. At the suggestion of Mr. St. Claire he went to New York, to the
office of the German line of steamers, and made inquiries with regard to
the passengers who had come on a certain ship at such a time. But
nothing could be learned of any woman with a child, and after inserting
in several of the New York papers a description of the woman, with a
request for any information concerning her which could be given, he
returned home, with a feeling that he had done all that could be
required of him, and that he might now enjoy himself.
He was accordingly kind and even tender to his brother, who for several
weeks suffered from low nervous depression, which kept him altogether in
his room, to which he refused to admit any one except his attendant and
Frank. He had ceased for the time being, to talk of Gretchen, or to
expect her, and he never inquired for the child, whose blue hood had so
affected him. Once Frank spoke of her to him and told him where she was,
and that she was learning to speak English very rapidly, and growing
prettier every day. But Arthur did not seem at all interested and only
said:
'How can Mrs. Crawford afford to keep the child?'
Others than Arthur asked that question, and among them Dolly, who with a
woman's quick wit, sharpened by something she accidentally saw, divined
the truth, which she wrung at last from her husband. There was a fierce
quarrel--almost their first--a sick headache which lasted three days,
and a month or more of coldness between the married pair, and then,
finding she could accomplish nothing, for Frank was as firm as a rock,
Dolly gave up the contest, and tried by economizing in various ways, to
save the money which she felt was taken from her children by the little
girl, who had become so dear to Mrs. Crawford, that she would not have
parted with her had nothing been paid for her keeping.