"Better let her have her way," Frank said; and Dolly could have knocked him down, he spoke so cheerfully; while Jerrie answered:
"I can"t read them myself aloud. They are written in German."
"But Marian can. I saw her there. Let them all come up; they will have to know," Maude persisted.
After a moment, during which a powerful tonic had been given to his daughter, Frank went down to his guests, who were eagerly discussing the strange story, which not one of them doubted in the least.
In her haste to reach Maude, Jerrie had dropped the bag and the two papers, which Judge St. Claire picked up and held for a moment in his hand; then pa.s.sing the papers to Marian, he said:
"It can be no secret now, and Jerrie will not care. What do the papers contain?"
Running her eyes rapidly over them, Marian said:
"The first is a certificate of marriage between Arthur Tracy and Marguerite Heinrich, who were married October 20th, 18--, in the English church at Wiesbaden, by the Rev. Mr. Eaton, then the officiating clergyman. The second is a certificate of the birth and baptism of Jerrine, daughter of Arthur and Marguerite Tracy, who was born at Wiesbaden, January 1st, 18--, and christened January 8th, 18--, by the Rev. Mr. Eaton."
Then a deep silence fell upon the group, while Tom stood like one paralyzed. He understood the situation perfectly, and knew that if Jerrie was mistress there, he could never hope to be master.
"May as well evacuate at once," he said at last, with an attempt to smile as he walked slowly out of the house, which he felt was his inheritance no longer.
Just then Frank came down, saying that Maude insisted upon knowing what was in the papers which Marian was to read, while the others were to come up and listen. He did not seem at all like a man who had lost anything, but bustled about cheerily; and when the judge said to him apologetically, "We know the contents of two of the papers. They are certificates of the marriage of Arthur with Gretchen, and of Jerrie"s birth. I hope you don"t mind if we read them," he answered, briskly.
"Not at all--not in the least. Arthur and Gretchen! I thought so. Where is Tom? He must hear the papers."
He found his son under the true where he had been sitting the morning when Jerrie came near fainting there, and in his hand was a curious bit of pine finished like a grave-stone--the same he had whittled under the pines, and on which he was now carving, "Euchred, August --, 18--."
"This is the monument to our downfall," he said, as his father came up to him with something so pitiful in his face and voice that Frank gave way suddenly, and, sitting down beside him, laid his hand upon his tall son"s head and cried for a moment like a child, while Tom"s chin quivered, and he was mortally afraid there was something like tears in his own eyes, and he meant to be so brave and not show that he was hurt.
"I am sorry for you, my boy," Frank said at last, "but glad for Jerrie--so glad--and she will not be hard on us."
"I shall ask no favors of her. I can stand it if you can, though money is a good thing to have."
And then, without in the least knowing why, he thought of Ann Eliza, and wondered how her ankle was getting along, and if he ought not to have called upon her again.
"Marian is going to read the papers in Maude"s room, and I have come for you," Frank said.
"I don"t care to hear them," Tom replied. "I am satisfied that we are beggars, and Jerrie the heiress."
But Frank insisted, and Tom went with him to his sister"s room, followed by their friends, for whom the dinner was waiting and spoiling in the kitchen, where as yet no hint of what was transpiring had reached, save the fact that Maude had been down stairs and fainted. She was propped upon pillows scarcely whiter than her face save where two crimson spots burned brightly, and her eyes were fixed constantly upon Jerrie, who sat beside her, holding her cold, clammy hands, which she occasionally patted, and kissed and caressed.
"Where did you find the bag?" the judge asked; and then Jerrie narrated the particulars of her interview with Peterkin, whose destruction of the table had resulted in her finding the bag with the diamonds in it.
"They were mother"s," she said, the last words almost a sob, as she turned her eyes upon Mrs. Tracy, who stood like a block of stone, with no sympathy or credulity upon her face. "Father bought them for her at the same time with Mrs. Tracy"s, which they are exactly like. It is so written in her letter. And she sent them for me. They are mine and I gave them to Harold to keep untill I could think what to do. The diamonds are mine."
She was still looking at Mrs. Tracy, on whom all eyes were now resting as the precious stones flashed, and glittered, and shone in the sunlight in the hall in all the colors of the rainbow.
For an instant the proud woman hesitated, then, quickly unclasping the ear-rings and the pin, she laid them in Jerrie"s lap.
"You are welcome to your property, if it is yours, I am sure," she said, and was about to leave the room.
But her husband kept her back.
"No, Dolly," he said. "You must stay, and hear, and know. It concerns us all."
As he had closed the door and stood against it she had no alternative except to stay, but she walked to the window and stood with her back to them all, while Marian put into English and read, in a clear, distinct voice, and without the least hesitation, that message from the dead.
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE LETTERS.
There were four of them--two in Arthur"s handwriting: one directed to Mrs. Arthur Tracy, Wiesbaden, postmarked Liverpool; one to Margaret Heinrich, Wiesbaden, postmarked Shannondale; one in a strange handwriting to Arthur Tracy, if living; and one to Arthur Tracy"s friends if he were dead, or incapable of understanding it. And it was this last which Marian read; for as Arthur was living, she felt that with his letters strangers had nothing to do. The letter to the friends, which had evidently been written at intervals, as the writer"s strength would permit, was as follows:
"WIESBADEN, December ----, 18--,
"To the friends of Mr. Arthur Tracy, if he is dead, or incapable of understanding this letter, from his wife, who was Marguerite Heinrich, and whom he always called Gretchen.
"I want to tell you about it for the sake of my little Jerrie, whom, if her father is dead, I give to your care, praying G.o.d to deal with you as you are good and just to her. I was seventeen when I first saw Mr. Tracy. My father was dead. I was an only child, and my mother kept a little fancy shop in Wiesbaden. I went to school and learned what other girls like me learned--to read and write, and knit and sew, and fear G.o.d and keep His commandments. People called me pretty. I don"t know that I was, but he told me so when he came to me one day as I was knitting under a tree in the park. He had a picture made of me as I was then, and it is on the wall, but I have p.a.w.ned it for the rent, as I have almost everything."
"Oh, Jerrie!" Marian exclaimed at this point.
But Jerrie"s face was buried in Maude"s pillow and she made no response.
So Marian read on:
"He came many times, for I was always there waiting for him, I am afraid; but when he said he loved me, and wanted me for his wife I could not believe it, he was so grand, so like n.o.bility, and I so poor and plain. Then mother died suddenly--oh, so suddenly--well to-day--dead to-morrow--with cholera, and I was left alone.
""Gretchen we must he married now," he said to me, the night after the funeral; and I answered him, "yes, we must be married;" and we were, the next day, in the little English Church, by Mr. Eaton, the pastor. You will find the certificate with the other papers. Do you ever remember a beautiful moonlight night, when the air was soft, and warm, and sweet with many summer flowers, and there was music in the distance, and heaven seemed so near that you could almost touch the blue lining which separates it from us? Well, just like that was my life with Arthur for a few months. Oh, how I loved him, and how he loved me! It frightened me sometimes, he was so fierce and--I don"t know what the word is--so something in his love. He never left me a moment. He couldn"t, he said, for I was his balance-wheel, and without me he was lost. I think now he was crazy then. I know he was afterward when he did such queer things and forgot so often--sometimes the house we lived in, sometimes his own name, and at last, me, his Gretchen! That was so sad, when he went away, and stayed away for weeks, and said he had forgotten. But he was sorry, too, and made it up, and for ten day heaven came down again so I could touch it; then he went away and I have never seen him since.
"You must excuse me, his friends--if I stop a little while to cry; it makes me no lonesome to think of the long years--four and more--which have been buried with the yesterdays, under the flowers, and under the snow, since Arthur went away and left me all alone. If I had told him, he might have come back, he was so fond of children; but I was not sure, and would not tell a lie, and let him go without a hint. I wrote him once I had something to tell him when he came which would make him glad, as it did me, and he never replied to it, though he wrote two or three times more, and sent me money, but did not tell me where he was, only he was being cured, he said--that was all. In January my baby was born, and I had her christened Jerrine, by Mr. Eaton. You will find it among the papers. Then, how I longed for him, and waited, and watched; but he never came, and I knew he had forgotten; but I did not doubt his love, or that he would one day come back; and I tried to improve myself and learn what was in books, so I could mate with him better when he came home, which he never did; and the years went on, and my little Jerrine grew more lovely every day. She is standing by me now, and says, "Are you writing to him?"
"Darling Jerrie, you will be kind to her, won"t you, for his sake, and for me, too, who will be dead when you yet this?"
Jerrie was sobbing now, and Maude"s arm was around her neck, while Frank had walked to a window, and, like his wife, was looking out upon the lawn, which he did not see for the tears which filled his eyes.
"When the money stopped," the letter went on, "we grew so poor, Jerrie and I and Nannine--that is the French woman who lives with me and whom Jerrie calls Mah-nee. She will bring my child to you when I am dead; and oh, be kind to her, for a truer, more faithful woman never lived. She is such a comfort to me, except when she scolds about Arthur and calls him a _bete noire_, which he is not, as you will see. He was shut up, I don"t know where, but think it was where they put people with bad heads, and he forget everything till he was out, and as far as Paris on his way to America. Then he remembered and wrote me from Liverpool such a letter--full of love and sorrow for the past, and sent me such lovely diamonds, just like those he had bought for his sister in America, he said--and he was going home at such a date on the Scotia, and he wished me to join him in Liverpool. I send the letter with this to prove that I write true.
But it was too late, for I was too weak to travel; neither could I write to him, for he gave me no address. "That was last September, and I have been dying ever since, for my heart broke when I thought of what was and what might have been could I have found him. The money he sent me then I am saving for Nannine and Jerrie to take them to America when I am dead. All the days and nights I prayed that Arthur might remember and write me again, and G.o.d heard, and he did; and five days ago I received his letter. So crazy it was, but just as full of love and tenderness and a desire to see me. He told me of his lovely home and the Gretchen room, where my picture is in the window; and in case there should be no one to meet me at the station when I arrived he sent me directions how to find Tracy Park, and told me just what to do when I reached New York. He would come for me himself, he said, only the sea made him so sick and he was afraid he should forget everything if he did. But you will see in his letter what he wrote and how fond he was of me; and if he is alive and too crazy to understand now, tell him, when he is better, how I loved him and prayed for him every hour that G.o.d would bring him, at last, where I am going so soon. Nannine will take him my Bible, with pa.s.sages marked by me, and a photograph which I had taken a year ago, and which will tell you how I looked then. Now I am so thin and pale that Arthur would hardly know me. I send, too, a lock of Jerrie"s hair, cut when she was three weeks old. Darling Jerrie! She is such a comfort to me, and so old and womanly for her years! She will remember much of our life here, for she notices everything and understands it, too, and goes over, as in a play, what she sees and hears.
"We have been cold and hungry sometimes; but not often; the neighbors are so kind; and when I am dead they will see that Nannine is made ready for America, with Jerrie; and the papers, and the diamonds, which I might have p.a.w.ned when our need was greatest, but I could not. I must save them for Jerrie, and may she wear them some day, and many days in the years to come, when her mother is dust and ashes in the ground, but a glorified spirit in Paradise, where I shall watch over her, and, if I can, be with her often, and keep myself in her mind, so that she will never forget my face or the old home in Germany.
"G.o.d bless my little daughter, and make her a true, n.o.ble woman; and G.o.d bless you, Arthur"s friends, who read this, and incline you to be kind and just to Jerrie, and see that she has her own; for there must be money at Tracy Park; and if you are poor and Jerrie comes rich, tell her from her mother to be kind to you, and give as you have given to her. Now I must stop, I am so tired, and it is growing dark, and Nannie has opened the stove door to let the light fall on the paper in my lap, and Jerrie is standing by me and says, "Are you going to G.o.d pretty soon?"
"Yes, darling, very soon--to-night, perhaps, or to-morrow, or when He will. The air grows cold, the night is coming on, my eyes grow dim, my head is tired. I think, yes, I think it will be to-morrow.
"Good-bye.
"GRETCHEN TRACY."
As she finished reading Marian arose, and going up to Jerrie kissed her lovingly and said to her in German: