IN SHANNONDALE.
Nine years of change in Shannondale, and the green hill-side, which
stretched from the common down to the river where, when our story
opened, sheep and cows were feeding in the pasture land, is thickly
covered with houses of every kind of architecture, from the Mansard roof
to the Queen Anne style, just coming into fashion, while the meadow
lands are dotted over with the small houses of the men who work in the
large furnace, or manufactory, which Peterkin had bought and enlarged,
as a monument, he said, and where he sometimes employed as many as four
hundred men, and had set up a whistle which could be heard for miles and
miles, and nearly blew off the chimney-tops when it sounded in the
morning at six o'clock, it was so loud and shrill. A screecher, Peterkin
called it, and he always listened with a smile of pride and satisfaction
on his face when he heard the first indications of its blowing, and knew
that four hundred men were quickening their stops on account of it,
lest they should be a few minutes late and have their wages docked.
Peterkin counted two millions now, and boasted the finest, or at least,
the most expensive house in the county, not even excepting Tracy Park,
which still held its own for solidity and old-fashioned dignity, and was
the show place to the strangers visiting in Shannondale.
When Peterkin made $20,000 in one day from some speculation in stocks,
he said to Mr. St. Claire, who was now a judge, and with whom he
pretended to be on terms of great familiarity:
'I say, judge, I'm goin' to build a buster, and whip the crowd. I've
lived about long enough in that little nine-by-ten hole, and I'll be
dumbed if I don't show 'em what I can do. I'll have towers, and
bay-windows, and piazzers, with checkered work all 'round 'em, and a
preservatory, and all kinds of new fangled doin's. May Jane and Ann
'Liza want that Queen Anny style, but I tell 'em no such squatty things
for me. They can have all the little winder panes and stained glass,
cart loads on't, if they want; but I'll have the rooms big and high, so
a feller won't bump his head. Yes, _sir_! I'm in for a smasher!'
And he built 'a smasher' on the site of the old house, behind which the
'Liza Ann,' or what there was left of it, was lying; and when the house
was done, and furnished with the most gaudy and expensive furniture he
could find in Boston and New York, he said it had just as good a right
to a name as any body. There was Tracy Park, and Grassy Springs, and
Brier Hill, and Collingwood, and he'd be dumbed if he'd be outdone by
any of 'em.
'He'd like to call it 'Liza Ann,' he said to Arthur, whom he met one day
in the park, and to whom he began to talk of his new house. 'He'd like
to call it 'Liza Ann, after the old boat, for that craft was the
beginnin' of his bein' any body; but May Jane and Ann 'Liza wouldn't
hear to it. They wanted some new-frangled foreign name; could Mr. Tracy
suggest something?'
'How would "_Le Bateau_" do? It is the French for "the boat," and might
cover your difficulty,' Arthur said, without a thought that his
suggestion would be adopted.
But it was, immediately.
'That's jest the checker. 'Liza Ann with a new name, _Lub--lub_--what
d'ye call her?' Peterkin said, and Arthur replied:
'_Le Bateau_.'
'Yes, yes--_Lubber-toe_; that'll suit May Jane tip-top. Beats all what
high notions she's got! Why, I don't s'pose she any more remembers that
she used to wash Miss Atherton's stun steps than you remember somethin'
that never happened. Do you?'
Arthur thought very likely that she did not, and Peterkin went on:
'You say it means a boat in French; _canal_, do you s'pose?'
Arthur did not think it mattered what boat, and Peterkin continued:
'_Lubber-toe_! Sounds droll, but I like it, I'll see an engraver to-day
but how do you spell the plaguy thing!'
Arthur wrote it on a slip of paper, which he handed Peterkin, who began
slowly:
_L-e le, b-a-t-bat; le-bat_. Why, what in thunder! That ain't
_Lubbertoe_. 'Tain't nothin'!'
With an amused smile Arthur explained that the pronunciation of French
words had very little to do with the way they were spelled; then, very
carefully pronouncing the name several times, and making Peterkin repeat
it after him, he said good-bye, and walked away, thinking to himself:
'There are bigger lunatics outside the asylum than I am, but it is not
possible the fool will adopt that name.'
But the fool did. May Jane approved, and Billy did not care, provided
his father would pronounce it right, and so in less than a week, '_Le
Bateau_' was on Peterkin's door-plate, and on the two gate-posts of the
entrance to his grounds, and May Jane's visiting cards bore the words:
'Mrs. Peterkin. Le Bateau. Fridays.'
She had her _days_ now, like Mrs. Atherton, and Mrs. St. Claire, and
Mrs. Tracy, and had her butler, too, and her maid, and her carriage; and
after the house was furnished, and furnished in style which reminded one
of a theatre, it was so gorgeous and gay, Peterkin concluded to have a
_coat of arms_ for his carriage; and remembering how Arthur had helped
him in a former dilemma he sought him again and told him his trouble.
'That _Lubber-too_ (he called it _too_ now) 'went down like hot cakes,
and was just the thing,' he said, 'and now I want some picter for my
carriage door to kinder mark me, and show who I am. You know what I
mean.'
Arthur thought a _puff-ball_ would represent Peterkin better than
anything else, but he replied:
'Yes, I know. You want a coat of arms, which shall suggest your early
days--'
'When I was a flounderin' to get up--jess so,' Peterkin interrupted him.
'You've hit it, square. Now I'd like a picter of the Lizy Ann, as she
was, but May Jane won't hear to't. What do you say, square?'
Arthur tingled to his finger tips at this familiarity from a man whom he
detested, and whom he would like to turn from his door, but the man was
in his house and in his private room, tilting back in a delicate Swiss
chair, which Arthur expected every moment to see broken to pieces, and
which finally did go down with a crash as the burly figure settled
itself a little more firmly upon the frail thing.
'I'll be dumbed if I hain't, broke it all to shivers!' the terrified
Peterkin exclaimed, as he struggled to his feet, and looked with dismay
upon the _débris_. 'What's the damage?' he continued, taking out his
pocket-book and ostentatiously showing a fifty-dollar bill.
'Money cannot replace the chair, which once adorned the _salon_ of
Madame De Stael,' Arthur said, 'Put up your purse, but for Heaven's
sake, never again tip back in your chair. It is a vulgar trick, of which
no gentleman would be guilty.'
Ordinarily, Peterkin would have resented language like this, but he was
just now too anxious to curry favor with Arthur to show any anger, and
he answered, meekly:
'That's so, square. 'Tain't good manners, and I know it, as well as the
next one. I'm awful sorry about the chair, and think mebby I could get
it mended. I'd like to try.'
'Never mind the chair,' Arthur said, with an impatient gesture. 'Try
another and a stronger one, and let's go back to business. You want a
painted panel for your carriage. How will this do?' and he rapidly
sketched a green, pleasant meadow, with a canal running through it, and
on the canal a boat, drawn by one horse, which a barefoot,
elfish-looking boy was driving.
'I swow, square, you're a trump, you be,' Peterkin exclaimed, slapping
him on the back, 'You've hit it to a dot. That's the 'Lizy Ann, and that
there boy is Bije Jones, drivin the old spavin hoss. You or'to hev _me_
somewhere in sight, cussin' the hands as I generally was, and May Jane
on deck, hangin' her clothes to dry. Could you manage that?'
Arthur thought he could, but suggested that Mrs. Peterkin might not like
to be made so conspicuous.
'Possibly she will not like this drawing at all. She may think it too
suggestive of other days.'
'That's so,' Peterkin assented, a little sadly; 'and if she don't take
to it, the old Harry can't make her. She used to be the meekest of wives
them days she dried her clothes on the 'Lizy Ann, but she don't knock
under wuth a cent sense we riz in the world, and Ann Lizy is wus than
her mother. But I'll show this to the old woman and let you know.'
May Jane did not approve, neither did Billy. No use, they said, to
flaunt the canal, horse, driver, and all in people's faces; and so the
discomfited Peterkin went to Arthur again and told him, 'the fat was all
in the fire, and May Jane on a rampage.'
'Try again, squire; but give us some kind of water and craft.'
So Arthur good-humoredly changed the canal into a gracefully flowing
river, in a bend of which, in the distance, there was just visible a
boat, which was a cross between a gondola and one of those little
dangerous things so common on the lakes of Wisconsin. Standing in the
bow of the boat, with folded arms, as if calmly contemplating the
scenery, was the figure of a man--suppositively Peterkin--who swore
'he'd keep this picter in spite of 'em;' and as his wife did not
seriously object, the sketch was transferred in oil to a pannel and
inserted in the carriage, which, when drawn by two shining bays and
driven by a colored man in long coat and tall hat, with Peterkin sitting
back in it with all the pride and pompousness of a two-millionaire, and
May Jane at his side, covered with diamonds, attracted general attention
and comment. Billy seldom patronized the carriage, but frequently rode
beside it, talking to his mother, of whom he was very fond, and taking
off his hat to every person he met, whether old or young, rich or poor.
'Billy is an idiot, but very kind-hearted,' people said of him, and in
truth he was popular with everybody, especially with the men in his
father's employ, who all went to him for favors, or for an increase of
wages; for if Billy had any business it was in his father's office,
where he pretended to look after matters and keep the books straight.
Such had been the growth of Peterkin during the past nine years. 'He had
got clean to the front,' he said, 'and was hob-nobbin' with Squire
Harrenton, and Judge St. Claire, and the Tracys,' all of whom shrugged
their shoulders and laughed at him in secret, but treated him civilly to
his face, for, deny it as we may, money has a mighty power, and will
open many a door which nothing else could move.
'Coarse and ignorant as a horse, but not so bad after all' was what
people said of him now; and in fact Peterkin had improved and softened a
good deal with the accession of wealth. Nobody gave so largely, or
lavishly either, to everything, as he did, while to his employees he was
always generous and considerate. Once he thought to join the church,
thinking that would add to his respectability; but when talked with by
his clergyman he showed himself so lamentably deficient in every
necessary qualification that he was advised to wait a while, which he
did; but he rented the most expensive pew he could find, and carried the
largest prayer-book of any one, and read the loudest, stumbling over the
words frightfully, and kept his head down the longest, so long, indeed,
that he once went to sleep, and had quite a little nap before his wife
nudged him and told him to get up.
'Good Lord deliver us!' Was his ejaculation, as he sprang to his feet,
and, adjusting his glasses, looked fiercely round at the amused
congregation.
So far as money and display were concerned, the St. Claires and Mrs.
Atherton had not kept up with Peterkin. On the contrary, as he grew into
society they gradually withdrew, until at last Dolly Tracy had it all
her own way and looked upon herself as the lady _par excellence_ of the
town. She had been to Europe. She had seen the queen; she had had some
dresses made at Worth's; she had picked up a few French words which she
used on all occasions, with but little regard to their appropriateness.
She had decorated a tea set, and was as unlike the Dolly Tracy, who once
did her own work and ate griddle cakes from her own kitchen stove, as a
person well could be. Everything had gone well with her, and scarcely a
sorrow had touched her, for though poor, stupid Jack had slept for five
years in the Tracy lot with only the woman of the Tramp House for
company, he was so near an imbecile when he died that his death was a
blessing rather than otherwise. Tom, with his fine figure, his
fastidious tastes, and aristocratic notions, was the apple of her eye,
and _tout à fait au fait_, she said, when her French fever was at its
height and she wished to impress her hearers with her knowledge of the
language; while, except for her ill-health, and the bad taste she
manifested in her liking for Harold's society, Maude was _tout à fait au
fait_, too. She had no dread of Gretchen, now; even Arthur had ceased to
talk of her, and was as a rule very quiet and contented.
Only her husband troubled her, for with the passing years his silence
and abstraction had increased, until now it was nothing remarkable for
him to go days without speaking to any one unless he were first spoken
to. His hair was white as snow, and made him look years older than he
really was; while the habit he had of always walking with his head down,
and a stoop in his shoulders, added to his apparent years.
During the time Maude was in Europe he grew old very fast, for Maude was
all that made life endurable. To see her in her young beauty, flitting
about the house and grounds like a bright bird, whose nest is high up in
some sheltered spot where the storms never come, was some compensation
for what he had done; but when she was gone there came over him such a
sense of loneliness and desolation that at times he feared lest he
should become crazier than his brother, who really appeared to be
improving, although the strange forgetfulness of past events still clung
to and increased upon him. He did not now remember ever to have said
that Gretchen was with him in the ship or on the train, or that he had
sent the carriage so many times to meet her; and when be spoke of her,
which he seldom did to any one except to Jerrie, it was as of one who
had died years ago. Occasionally, in the winter, when a wild storm was
raging like that which had shaken the house and bent the evergreens the
night Jerrie came, he would tie a knot of crape upon the picture, but
would give no reason for it when questioned except to say, 'Can't you
see it is a badge of mourning?'
For a week or more it would remain there, and then he would put it
carefully away, to be again brought out when the night was wild and
stormy.
It was during Maude's absence that the two brothers became more intimate
than they had been before since Arthur first came home, and it happened
in this wise. Every day, for months after Maude and his wife went away,
Frank spent hours alone in his private room, sometimes doing nothing,
but oftener looking at the photograph of Gretchen, and the Bible with
the marked passages and the handwriting around it. Then he would take
out the letter about which Jerrie had been so anxious, and examine it
carefully, studying the address, which he knew by heart, and beginning
at last to arrange the letters in alphabetical order as far as he could,
and try to imitate them. It was a difficult process, but little by
little, with the assistance of a German text book of Maude's which he
found, he learned the alphabet, and began to form words, then to put
them together, and then to read. Gradually the work began to have a
great fascination for him, and he went to Arthur one day and asked for
some assistance.
'Never too old to learn,' he said, 'and as the house is like a tomb
without Maude, I have actually taken up German, but find it up-hill
business without a teacher. Will you help me?'
'To be sure, to be sure,' Arthur cried, brightening up at once, and
bringing out on the instant such a pile of books as appalled Frank and
made him wish to withdraw his proposition.
But Arthur was eager, and persistent, and patient, and had never
respected his brother one half as much as when he was stammering over
the German pronunciation, which he could not well master. But he learned
to read with a tolerable degree of fluency, and to speak a little, too,
while he could understand nearly all Arthur said to him.
'Do you think I could get along in Germany?' he asked his brother, one
day.
'Certainly you could,' Arthur replied. Do you think of going there? If
you do, go to Wiesbaden, and inquire for Gretchen--how she died, and
where she was buried. I should have gone long ago only I dreaded the
ocean voyage so confoundedly, and then I forget so badly. When are you
going?'
'Oh, I don't know--I don't know as ever,' Frank answered quickly; and
yet in his heart there was the firm resolve to go to Wiesbaden and hunt
up Marguerite Heinrich's friends, if possible.
'And if I find them, and find my suspicions correct, what shall I do
then?' he asked himself over and over again; and once made answer to his
question: 'I will either make restitution, or drown myself in the
Rhine.'
Jerrie was a constant source of misery to Frank, and yet when she was at
home he was always managing to have her at the park house, where he
could see her, and watch her, as she moved like a young queen though the
handsome rooms, or frolicked with Maude upon the lawn.
'She is surely Gretchen's daughter, and Arthur's, too,' he would say to
himself, as he, too, detected in her face the likeness to his brother,
which had so startled Jerrie in the mirror.
He was always exceedingly kind to her, and almost as proud of her
success at Vassar as Arthur himself; and on the day when she was
expected home he went two or three times to the cottage in the lane,
carrying fruit and flowers, and even offering things more substantial,
which, however, were promptly declined by Mrs. Crawford, who had
signified her intention to take nothing more for Jerrie's board.
'The girl pays for herself, or will,' she said, 'and it is Harold's wish
and mine to be independent.'
But she accepted the fruit and the flowers and wondered a little to see
Frank so excited, and nervous, and anxious that every thing should be
done to make Jerrie's final home-coming as pleasant as possible.
It was a lovely July afternoon when the young ladies from Vassar were
expected, but the train was half an hour late, and the carriage from
Grassy Spring and the carriage from Le Bateau had waited so long that
both coachmen were asleep upon their respective boxes, when at last the
whistle was heard among the hills telling that the cars were coming. The
Tracy carriage was not there, though twenty minutes before train time
Maude had come down in the victoria, and on learning of the delay had
been driven rapidly to the cottage in the lane, from which she had not
returned when at last the cars stopped before the station and the young
people alighted upon the platform, which, with their luggage, seemed at
once to be full.
'Your checks, miss,' the coachman from Grassy Spring said to Nina, as he
touched his hat regretfully to her, and his words were repeated to Ann
Eliza by the servant from Le Bateau.
But Jerrie held hers in her hand with a rueful look of disappointment on
her face as she looked in vain for Harold or Maude to greet her. For a
single moment the difference between her position and that of Nina and
Ann Eliza struck her like a blow, and she thought to herself:
'For them everything, for me nothing.'
Then she rallied, and passing her checks to the baggage master, said to
him:
'If there is a boy here with a cart or a wheelbarrow, let him take my
trunks, otherwise send them by express. I see there is no one to meet
me.'
'Yes'm, but they's comin',' the man replied, with a significant nod in
the direction where a cloud of dust was visible, as the Tracy victoria
came rapidly up to the station, with Maude and Harold in it.
The former was standing up and waving her parasol to the party upon the
platform, while, almost before the carriage stopped, Harold sprang out,
and had both of Jerrie's hands in his, and held them, as he told her how
glad he was to welcome her home again. He looked tired and flurried, and
did not seem quite himself, but there could be no doubt that he was
glad, for the gladness shone in his eyes and in his face, and Jerrie
felt it in the warm clasp of his hands, which she noticed with a pang
were brown, and calloused, and bruised in some places as if they had of
late been used to harder toil than usual. But she had not much time for
thought before Maude's arms were around her neck and Maude was standing
on tiptoe and drawing down her face which she covered with kisses; and,
between laughing and crying, exclaimed:
'You darling old Jerrie, how glad I am to see you again! and how tall
and grand you have grown! Why, I don't much more than come to your
shoulder. See, Harold, how Jerrie outshines me,' and she lifted her
sparkling face to Harold, who looked down at her as a brother might have
looked at an only sister of whom he was very fond.
How pretty and piquant she was with her brilliant complexion and her
black eyes, and how stylish she looked in the Paris gown of embroidered
linen, which fitted her perfectly, and the big hat, which turned up just
enough on the side to give her a saucy, coquettish air, as she flitted
from one to another, kissing Nina twice, Ann Eliza once, and shaking
hands with all the young men except Tom, who put his in his pockets out
of her way.
He could not stand Maude's gush, he said, and he watched her with a
half-sneering smile as she tiptoed around, for it always seemed as if
she walked upon her toes, courtesying as she walked.
'I meant to have been here before the train,' she said to Jerrie, 'and I
was here about an hour ago; but when I found the cars were late I drove
over to tell Harold, as time with him was everything. How we did drive,
though, when we heard the whistle. Come, jump in,' she continued, as she
herself stepped into the victoria. 'Jump in, and I will take you home in
a jiffy. It won't hurt Hal to walk, although he is awful tired.'
'But I would rather walk; take Harold, if he is so tired,' Jerrie said,
in a tone she did not quite intend.
'Oh, Jerrie,' Harold exclaimed, in a low, pained voice, 'I am not tired,
let us both walk,' and going to Maude he said something to her which
Jerrie could not hear, except the words, 'Don't you think it better so?'
'Of course I do; it was stupid in me not to see it before,' was Maude's
reply, as she laid her hand on Harold's arm where it rested a moment,
while she said her good-byes.
And Jerrie saw the little, ungloved hand touching Harold so familiarly,
and thought how small, and white and thin it was, with the full, blue
veins showing so distinctly upon it, and then she looked more closely at
Maude herself, and saw with a pang how tired and sick she looked in
spite of the bright color in her cheeks which came and went so fast.
There was a pallor about her lips and about her nose, while her ears
were almost transparent, and her neck was so small that Jerrie felt she
could have clasped it with one hand.
'Maude,' she cried, pressing close to the young girl, as Harold stepped
aside, 'Maude, are you sick? You are so pale everywhere except your
cheeks, which are like roses.'
'No, no,' Maude answered quickly, as if she did not like the question.
'Not sick a bit, only a little tired. We have been at work real hard,
Hal and I; but he will tell you about it, and now good-bye again, for I
must go, I shall be round in the morning. Good-bye. Oh, Tom, I forgot!
We have company to dinner to-night--a Mr. and Mrs. Hart, who are friends
of Mrs. Atherton, and have just returned from Germany, bringing Fred's
sister, Marian, with them. She has been abroad at school for years, and
is very nice. I ought to have told Fred and Nina. How stupid in me! But
they will find their invitations when they get home. Now hop in, quick,
and don't tear my flounces. You are so awkward.'
'I suppose Hal never tears your flounces,' Tom said, as he took his seat
beside his sister, and gave Jerrie a look which sent the blood in great
waves to her face and neck, for it seemed to imply that he understood
the case and supposed she did too.
The St. Claire carriage had driven away with Nina and Dick, and Fred,
and the carriage from Le Bateau had gone, too, when at last Jerrie and
Harold started down the road and along the highway to the gate through
which the strange woman had once passed with the baby Jerrie in her
arms. The baby was a young woman now, tall and erect, with her head set
high as she walked silently by Harold's side, until the gate was reached
and they passed into the shaded lane, where they were hidden from the
sight of anyone upon the main road leading to the park house. Then
stopping suddenly, she faced squarely toward her companion, and said:
'Why didn't you come to commencement? Tom Tracy said you were shingling
a roof, and Billy Peterkin said Maude was helping you.'