AT HOME.
Oh, Harold, what is that? What have you been doing?' Jerrie cried,
stopping short, while a suspicion of the truth began to dawn upon her.
'That is the roof Tom told you I was shingling,' Harold replied; and
taking her by the arm, he hurried her into the cottage where Mrs.
Crawford stood at the door, in her broad white apron and the neat muslin
cap which Maude has fashioned for her.
With a cry of joy, Jerrie took the old lady in her arms, and kissed and
cried over her.
'It is so nice to be home, and everything is so pleasant!' she said, as
her eyes swept the sitting-room and kitchen, and back porch where the
tea-table was laid, with its luscious berries and pitchers of cream.
'Go right up stairs with Harold. I have just come down, and cannot go
up again,' Mrs. Crawford said, excitedly; and, with a bound, Jerry was
up the stairs and into the lovely room.
When she saw them coming in the lane, Mrs. Crawford had gone up and
opened the shutters, letting in a flood of light, so that nothing should
escape Jerrie's notice. And she saw it all at a glance--the high walls,
the carpet, the furniture, the curtains, and the flowers--and knew why
Harold did not come to Vassar.
He was standing in the bay-window, watching her, and the light fell full
upon his shabby clothes, which Jerrie noticed for the first time,
knowing exactly why he must wear them, and understanding perfectly all
the self-denials and sacrifices he had made for her, who had been angry
because he did not come to see her graduated. Had she been three years
younger, she would have thrown herself into his arms and died there.
Harold half thought and hoped she was going to do so now, for she made a
rush toward him, then stopped suddenly, and sinking into the willow
chair--Maude's gift--began to sob aloud, while Harold stood looking at
her, wishing she had not cried, and wondering what he ought to do.
'Don't you like it, Jerrie?' he said at last.
'Like it?' and in the blue eyes so full of tears which she flashed upon
him, he read her answer. 'Like it! Oh, Harold, it is perfect! I never
saw a room I liked better. But why did you do it? Was it because of that
foolish speech of mine about knocking my brains out, the ceiling was so
low?'
'Not at all,' Harold replied. 'I had the idea in my head long before you
wrote that to me, but could not quite see my way clear until last
spring. I have seen Nina's room and Maude's, and have heard that Ann
Eliza Peterkin's was finer than the Queen's at Windsor, and I did not
like to think of you in the cooped up place this was, with the slanting
roof and low windows. I am glad you like it.'
And then, knowing that she would never let him rest until he had done
so, he told her all the ways and means by which he had been able to
accomplish it, except indeed, his own self-denials and sacrifices of
pride, and even comfort. But this she understood, and noticed again more
carefully the shabby coat, and pants, and shoes, and the calloused
hands, which lay upon his knees as he talked, and which she wished so
much to take in hers and kiss and pity, for the hard work they had done
for her. But this would have been 'throwing herself at his head.'
She was constantly thinking of Arthur's words, and so she only cried the
more, as she told Harold how much she thanked him, and never could repay
him for what he had done for her.
'But it was a pleasure, Jerrie,' he said.' I never enjoyed anything in
my life as I have working in this room, with Maude to help me. She was
here nearly every day, and by her courage and enthusiasm kept me up to
fever heat. She puttied up the nail-holes and painted your
dressing-room, and would have helped shingle the roof if I had permitted
it. She gave the chair you sit in, and the table in the window. She
would do that and I let her; but when Mr. Arthur offered his assistance,
and the other Mr. Tracy, I refused, for I wanted it all my own, for
you.'
He was speaking rapidly and excitedly, and had Jerrie looked she would
have seen in his face all she was to him; but she did not look up, and
at mention of Maude a cloud fell suddenly upon her. But she would not
let it remain; she would be happy and make Harold so, too. So she told
him again of her delight, and what a joyous coming home it was.
She had not yet seen Arthur's card, and photograph, and note; but Harold
called her attention to them; and taking up the latter, she opened it,
while her heart gave a great throb of something between joy and pain as
she saw the words, 'My dear child,' and then went on to read the note so
characteristic of him.
'What a strange fancy of his to go off so suddenly to California. I
wonder Mr. Frank allowed it,' she said, as she put the note in her
pocket, and then, at a call from Mrs. Crawford, went down to where the
supper was waiting for her.
The tea cakes were a little cold, but everything else was delicious,
from the fragrant tea to the ripe berries and thick, sweet cream, and
Jerrie enjoyed it all with the keen relish of youth and perfect health.
After supper was over Jerrie made her grandmother sit still while she
washed up and put away the dishes, singing as she worked, and whistling,
too--loud, dear, ringing strains, which made a robin in the grass fly up
to the perch, where, with his head turned on one side he listened, as
if in wonder, to this new songster, whose notes were strange to him.
And Jerrie did seem like some joyous bird just let loose from prison, as
she flitted from one thing to another, now setting her grandmother's cap
a little more squarely on her head, and bending to kiss the silvery hair
as she said to her, 'Your working days are over now, for I have come
home to care for you, and in the future you have nothing to do but to
sit still, with your dear old lame feet on a cushion;' now helping
Harold water the flowers in the borders, and pinning a June pink in his
buttonhole, while he longed to take her in his arms and kiss her as in
the days when they were children together; now, going with him to milk
Nannie, who, either remembering Jerrie, or recognizing a friend in her,
allowed her gentle face to be petted and her horn to be decorated with a
knot of blue ribbon, which Jerrie took from her throat, and which Harold
afterward took from Nannie's horn and hid away with the withered lillies
Jerrie had thrown him that day at Harvard when her face and her eyes had
been his inspiration.
They kept early hours at the cottage, and the people at the Park House
were little more than through the grand dinner they were giving, when
Jerrie said good-night to her grandmother and Harold, and went up to her
new room under the raised roof. It was a lovely summer night, and the
moonlight fell softly upon the grass and shrubs outside, and shone far
down the long lane where the Tramp House stood, with its thick covering
of woodbine.
Leaning from the window Jerrie looked out upon the night, while a
thousand thoughts and fancies came crowding into her brain, all born of
that likeness seen by her in the mirror when Arthur was with her at
Vassar, and which Harold, too, had recognized that afternoon when she
sat with him in the Tramp House. After Arthur had left her in May, she
had been too busy to indulge often in idle dreams, but they had come
back to her again with an overwhelming force, which seemed for a few
moments to lift the veil of mystery and show her the past, for which she
was so eagerly longing. The pale lace was clearer, more distinct in her
mind, as was the room with the tall white stove and the high-backed
settee beside it, and on the settee a little girl--herself, she
believed--and she could hear a voice from the cushioned chair where the
pale face was resting speaking to her and calling her by the name Arthur
had given her in his note.
'My child,' he had written; but he had only put it as a term of
endearment; he had no suspicion of the truth if it were truth; and yet
why should he not know? Could anything obliterate the memory of a child,
if there had been one, Jerrie asked herself, as her eyes wandered in
that direction of the park, which had once seemed to her like Paradise.
'I _will_ know some time. _I_ will find it out myself,' she said, as she
withdrew from the window and commenced her preparations for bed.
As she stepped into her dressing room, her eye fell upon the foreign
trunk, which had come with her, and with the contents of which she was
familiar. They had been kept intact by Mrs. Crawford, who hoped that by
them Jerrie might some day be identified. The girl went now to the old
trunk, and, lifting the heavy lid, took out the articles one by one with
a very different feeling from what she had ever experienced before when
handling them. The alpaca dress came first, and she examined it
carefully. It was coarse, and plain, and old-fashioned, and she felt
intuitively that a servant had worn it and not she whose pale, refined
face seemed almost to touch hers as she knelt beside the box. The cloak
and shawl, in which she had been wrapped, were inspected next, and on
these Jerrie's tears fell like rain, while there was in her heart an
indefinable feeling of pity for the woman who had resolutely put away
the covering from herself to save a life which was no part of her own.
'Oh, Mah-nee,' she sobbed, laying her face upon the rough, coarse
garments, 'I am not disloyal to you in trying to believe that you were
not my mother, and could you come back to me, Mah-nee, whoever you are,
I'd be to you so loving and true. Tell me, Mah-nee, who I am; give me
some sign that what comes to me so often of that far-off land is true.
There _was_ another face than yours, which kissed me fondly, and other
hands, dead now, as are the dear old hands which shielded me from the
cold that awful night, have caressed me lovingly.'
But to this appeal there came no response, and Jerrie would have been
frightened if there had. The shawl, the cloak, the dress were as silent
and motionless as she to whom they had belonged; and Jerrie folded them
reverently, kissing each one as she did so; then she took out the
carpet-bag, which had once held her tiny body. She always laughed when
she looked at this and tried to imagine herself in it, and she did so
now as she held it up and said:
'I could not much more than get my two feet in you now, old bag; but you
did me good service once, and I respect you, although I have outgrown
you.'
Her own clothes came next--the little dresses, which showed a mother's
love and care; the handkerchief, marked 'J;' the aprons, and the picture
book with which she had played, and from which it seemed to her she had
learned the alphabet, standing by that cushioned chair before the tall
white stove. There was only the fine towel left of the clothing, and
Jerrie gazed along and thoughtfully at the letter 'M,' embroidered with
flowers in the corners.
'Marguerite begins with M,' she said, 'and Gretchen's name was
Marguerite. Oh, if it were Gretchen who worked this letter, then I can
touch what her hands have touched--the little dimpled hands in the
picture,' and she kissed the 'M' as fervently as if it had been
Gretchen's lips and Gretchen were her mother.
On the old brass ring the key to the trunk and carpet-bag were still
fastened, together with the small straight key, for which no use had
ever been found. Jerrie had never thought much about this key before,
but now she held it in her hand a long, long time, while the conviction
grew that this was the key to the mystery; that could she find the
article which this unlocked, she would know what she so longed to
know--something definite with regard to herself. But where to look she
could not guess; and with her brain in a whirl which threatened a
violent headache, she closed the chest at last, and crept wearily to bed
just as the clock, which Peterkin had set up in one of his towers,
struck for half-past ten, and Grace Atherton's carriage was rolling down
the avenue from the big dinner at the Park House.