AT THE PARK HOUSE.
It was six months since Jerrie had seen Frank Tracy, and even in that
time he had changed so much that she noticed it at once, and looked at
him wonderingly as he came quickly toward her with a smile on his
haggard face, and an eager welcome in his voice, as he gave her both
his hands, and told her how glad he was to see her.
His hair was very white, and she noticed how he stooped as he walked
with her to the house and told her how anxiously Maude was waiting for
her.
'But she cannot talk just yet,' he said. 'You must do all that. The
doctor tells us there is no danger, if she is kept quiet for a few days.
Oh, Jerrie, what if I should lose Maude after all.'
They were ascending the staircase now, and Frank was holding Jerrie's
hand while she tried to comfort and reassure him, and then thanked him
for the fruit and the flowers he had sent to the cottage for her the day
before.
'You are so good to me,' she said, 'you and Mr. Arthur. How lonely the
house seems without him.'
'Yes,' Frank replied, though in his heart he felt his brother's absence
as a relief, for his presence was a constant reproach to him, and helped
to keep alive the remorse which was always tormenting him.
The sight of Jerrie, too, was a pain, but she held a nameless
fascination for him, and he was constantly wondering what she would say
and do when she knew, as he was morally sure she would sometime know
what he had done. He was thinking of this now, and saying to himself,
'She will not be as hard upon me as Arthur,' as he led her up the stairs
and stopped at the door of Arthur's rooms.
'Would you like to go in?' he asked. 'I have the keys,' and he proceeded
to unlock the door.
But Jerrie held back.
'No,' she said, as she glanced in at the silent, deserted rooms. 'It is
like a grave. The ruling spirit is gone.'
'But you forget Gretchen. She is here, and one of Arthur's last
injunctions was that I should visit her every day, and tell her he was
coming back. I have not seen her this morning. Come.'
He was leading her now by the waist through the front parlor, where the
furniture in its white shrouds looked like ghosts, and the pictures were
covered with tarletan. It was dark, too, in the Gretchen room, as they
called it now, but Frank threw open the blinds and let in a flood of
light upon the picture, before which Jerrie stood reverently, and with
feelings such as she had never experienced before, as she looked upon
that lovely, girlish face.
A new idea had taken possession of Jerrie since she had last seen that
picture, and while, unsuspected by her, Frank was studying first her
features and then those of Gretchen, she was struggling frantically with
the past, which seemed clearer than before. Again she saw the low room
far away--the tall stove in the corner, the dark woman opening the door,
the firelight on the white face in the chair; and this time memory added
another item to the picture, and she of the white face and wavy golden
hair seemed to hold a writing-desk on her lap and a piece of paper on
which the pale hands were tracing words slowly and feebly, as if the
effort were a pain.
'Oh, I can almost remember,' she whispered, just as Frank's voice broke
the spell by saying:
'Good-morning, Gretchen. Arthur is in California, but he is surely
coming back; he bade me tell you so.'
'Is he crazy as well as Mr. Arthur? Are we all crazy together?' Jerrie
asked herself, as she watched him closing the blinds and shutting out
the sunlight from the room, so that the picture was in shadow now and
seemed nothing but bits of colored glass.
'I have kept my promise to Arthur; and now for Maude,' Frank said, and
Jerry was conscious of a new and strange sensation--a feeling of
ownership and possession, as she went through the broad hall, glancing
in at one handsome room after another, until she reached Maude's door.
On the threshold she met Mrs. Frank, just coming out, and elegantly
attired in a tasteful muslin wrapper, with more lace and embroidery upon
it than Jerrie had ever worn in her life; her hair was carefully dressed
with a cap which looked like a pen-wiper or doll's bonnet, it was so
small, perched on the top of it; her face was powdered, and her manner
was one of languor and fine-ladyism, which she had cultivated so
assiduously and achieved so successfully. Not a muscle of her face
changed when she saw Jerrie, but she closed Maude's door quickly, and
stepping into the hall, offered the tips of her fingers, as she said, in
a fretful, rather than a welcoming tone:
'Good-morning. You are very late. Maude expected you two hours ago,
almost immediately after Tom went out. She has worked herself into a
great state of feverish nervousness.'
'I am so sorry,' Jerry replied. 'But I could not come sooner. I had a
large washing to do, and that takes time, you know.'
Jerry meant no reflection upon the days when Dolly had done her own
washing, and knew that it took time, but the thought she did, and a
frown settled upon her face as she replied:
'Surely your grandmother might have helped you, or Harold; and Maude is
so impatient and weak this morning. The doctor says there is no danger
if she is kept quiet. She is only tired out with that room of yours.
Why, I am told she has actually puttied up nail-holes, and painted
walls, and sawed boards! I hope you like it. You ought to, for a part of
Maude's life and strength is in it.'
'Oh, Mrs. Tracy,' Jerry cried, with tears in her eyes, 'I am so sorry.
Of course I like the room, or did; but if it has injured Maude, I shall
hate it.'
Dolly had given her a little stab and was satisfied, so she said in a
softer tone:
'Maude may recover--I think she will; but everything must be done to
please her, and she cannot talk to you this morning--remember that. You
must do the talking, but must not stay too long.'
'Mamma--mamma, let Jerrie in,' came faintly from the closed room; and
then Mrs. Tracy stood aside and let Jerrie pass into the luxurious
apartment, where Maude lay upon a silken couch, with a soft,
rose-colored shawl thrown over her shoulders, her eyes large and hollow,
and her face as white almost as a corpse.
One looking at her needed not to be told of her danger, or of the peril
there was in exciting her; and Jerrie felt a cold thrill creep over her
as she went to the couch, and kneeling beside it, kissed the pale,
quivering lips and smoothed the dark hair, while she tried to speak
naturally and cheerfully, as if in her mind there was no thought of
danger to the beautiful girl, who smiled so lovingly upon her and kept
caressing her hands and her face, as if she would thus express her
gladness to see her.
'I know all about it, Maude,' Jerrie said. 'Tom told me, and your
mother. You tired yourself out for me. Hush! Don't speak, or I shall go
away,' she continued, as she saw Maude's lips move. 'You are not to
talk. You are to listen, just for a day or two, and then you will he
better, and come to the cottage and see my lovely room. It is so pretty,
and I like it so much, and thank you and Harold so much. He has gone to
the Allen farm to-day to paint,' she said, in answer to an eager
questioning look in Maude's eyes. 'He does not know you are sick. He
will come when he can see you--to-morrow, maybe. Would you like to have
him?'
A warm pressure of the hand was Maude's reply, as the moisture gathered
upon her heavy eyelashes. But Jerrie kissed it away, though her own hot
tears fell upon Maude's hair, which, however, was so thick that she did
not feel them; nor did she dream what it cost Jerrie to sit there and
tell her everything of Harold which she could think of, because she knew
that would please the sick girl better. Once she made Maude laugh, as
she took off little Billy, imitating his voice so perfectly that a
person outside would have said he was in the room. Jerrie's talent for
imitation and ventriloquism had not deserted her, although as she grew
older, she did not so often practice it as when a child; but she brought
it into full play now to amuse Maude, and imitated every individual of
whom she spoke, except Arthur. He was the one person whose peculiarities
she could not take off.
'I have been to Mr. Arthur's room,' she said, 'but it seems so desolate
without him. Do you hear from him often?'
'I have only had one letter, and then he was in Salt Lake City, at the
Continental, in a room which he said was big enough for three rooms, and
had not a single bad smell in it, except the curtains, which were new,
and in which he did detect a little odor.'
Here Maude laughed again, while there came into her face a faint color
and a look which made Jerrie's breath come quickly as, for the first
time, the thought flashed across her mind that if what she had been
foolish enough to dream of were true Maude was her cousin--her own flesh
and blood.
'Maude,' she said suddenly, with a strong desire to fold the frail
little body in her arms and tell her what she had thought.
But when Maude looked up inquiringly at her she only put her head down
upon the rose-colored shawl and began to cry. Then, regardless of
consequences, Maude raised herself upon her elbow, and laying her face
on Jerrie's head began herself to cry piteously.
'Jerrie, Jerrie,' she sobbed, 'you think I am going to die, I know you
do, and so does everybody, but I am not; I cannot die when there is so
much to live for, and my home is so beautiful, and I love everybody so
much, and--'
Terrified beyond measure, Jerrie put her hand over Maude's mouth and
said, almost sharply:
'If you want to live you must not talk. Be careful and you will get
well; the doctor says so.'
But Jerrie's tears belied her words when she saw the palor in Maude's
face as she sank back upon her pillow exhausted, while, with her
handkerchief she wiped a faint coloring of blood from her lips.
'I have stayed too long,' Jerrie said, as she arose from her low seat by
the couch. Then Maude spoke again in a whisper and said:
'Send Harold soon.'
'I will,' Jerrie replied, and kissing the death-like face again she went
softly from the room, thinking to herself, as she descended the stairs,
'I believe I could give Harold to her now.'