"If I thought Gretchen were dead, nothing would seem so desirable to me as the grave, for then there would be nothing to live for," he was saying to himself, when the sound of voices outside attracted his attention, and going to the window, he saw the children, Harold in the top of the tree, and Jerry at the foot, with her white sun-bonnet shading her face.
Recognizing Harold, he guessed who the little girl was, and a strange feeling of interest stirred in his heart for her, as he said:
"Poor little waif! I wonder where she came from, or what will become of her?"
"Then resuming his walk, he forgot all about the little waif, until startled by a voice which rang, clear and bell-like, through the rooms:
"Mr. Crazyman! Mr. Crazyman! don"t you want some cherries?"
It was not so much the words as something in the tone, the foreign accent, the ring like a voice he never could forget, and which the previous night had called to him in his dreams. And now it was calling again--not in his sleep, but in reality, for he knew he was awake--calling from the adjoining room, which no one could enter without his knowledge.
Mentally weak as he was, and apt to be superst.i.tious, his limbs shook, and his heart beat faster than its wont, as he went toward his sleeping-apartment, from which the voice came again a little louder and more peremptory:
"Mr. Crazyman! where are you? I"ve brought you some cherries!"
He had reached the door by this time, and saw the pail on the broad window-ledge where Jerry had put it, and to which she was clinging, with her white sun-bonnet just in view.
"Oh, Gretchen! how did you get here?" he said, bounding across the floor, with no thought of Jerry in his mind, no thought of any one but Gretchen, whom he was constantly expecting to come, though not exactly in this way.
"I climbed the ladder to fetch you some cherries, and I"m standing on the toppest stick," Jerry said, craning her neck until her bonnet fell back, disclosing to view her beautiful face flushed with excitement, and her bright, wavy hair, which, moist with perspiration, clung in ma.s.ses of round curls to her head and forehead.
"Great Heaven!" Arthur exclaimed, as he stood staring at the wide-open blue eyes confronting him so steadily. "Who are you, and where did you come from?"
"I"m Jerry, and I comed from the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. Take me in, won"t you?" Jerry said; and, mechanically leaning from the window, Arthur took her in, while Harold from below looked on, horror-struck with fear as to what the result might be if Jerry were left any time alone with a madman who did not like children.
"He may kill her; I must tell the folks," he said; and, going round to the side door, he entered, without knocking, and asked for Mrs. Tracy.
But she was not at home, and so he told the servants of Jerry"s danger, and begged them to go to her rescue.
"Pshaw, he won"t hurt her. Charles will come pretty soon, and I"ll send him up. Don"t look so scared; he is harmless," the cook said to Harold, who, in a wild state of nervous fear, went back to the cherry trees, where he could listen and hear the first scream which should proclaim Jerry"s danger.
But none came, and could he have looked into the room, where Jerry sat, or rather stood, he would have been amazed.
As Arthur lifted Jerry through the window, and put her down upon the floor, he said to her:
"Take off that bonnet and let me look at you."
She obeyed and stood before him with all her wealth of hair tumbling about her glowing face, and an eager, questioning expression in her blue eyes, which looked at him so fearlessly. Arthur knew perfectly well who she was, but something about her so dazed and bewildered him that for a moment he could not speak, but stared at her with the hungry, wistful look of one longing for something just within his reach, but still unattainable.
"Do you like me?" Jerry asked at last.
"Like you?" he replied. "Yes. Why did you not come to me sooner?"
And, stooping, he kissed the cherry-stained mouth as he had never kissed a child before.
Sitting down upon the lounge, he took her in his lap and said to her again:
"Who are you, and where did you come from? I know your name is Jerry, which is a strange one for a girl, and I know you live with Mrs.
Crawford, but before that night where did you live? Where did you come from?"
"Out of the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. I told you that once," Jerry said. "Harold found me. I am his little girl. He is out in the cherry tree, and said I must not come up, because you were crazy and would hurt me. You won"t hurt me, will you? And be you crazy?"
"Hurt you? No," he answered, as he parted the rings of her hair from her low brow. "I don"t know whether I am crazy or not They say so, and perhaps I am, when my head is full of b.u.mble-bees."
"Oh--h!" Jerry gasped, drawing back from him. "Can they get out? And will they sting?"
Arthur burst into a merry laugh, the first he had known since he came back to Shannondale. Jerry was doing him good. There was something very soothing in the touch of the little warm hands he held in his, and something puzzling and fascinating, too, in the face of the child. He did not think of a likeness to any one; he only knew that he felt drawn toward her in a most unaccountable manner, and found himself wondering greatly who she was.
"Harold told me there were pictures and marble people up here with nothing on, and everything, and that"s why I comed--that and to bring you some cherries. I like pictures. Can I see them?" Jerry said.
"Yes, you shall see them," Arthur replied; and he led her into the room where Gretchen"s picture looked at them from the window.
"Oh, my!" Jerry exclaimed, with bated breath, "Ain"t she lovely! Is she G.o.d"s sister?" and folding her hands together, she stood before the picture as reverently as a devout Catholic stands before a Madonna.
It was some time since Jerry had spoken a word of German, but as she stood before Gretchen"s picture old memories seemed to revive, and with them the German word for _pretty_, which she involuntarily spoke aloud.
Low as was the utterance, it caught Arthur"s ear, and grasping her shoulder, he said:
"What was that? What did you say, and where did you learn it?"
His manner frightened her; perhaps the b.u.mble-bees were coming out, and she drew back from him, forgetting entirely what she had said.
"It was a German word," he continued, "and the accent is German, too; can you speak it."
Unconsciously as he talked, he dropped into that language, and Jerry listened intently, with a strained look on her face, as if trying to recall something which came and went, but went more than it came, if that could be.
"I talked that once," she said, "when I lived with mamma; but she is dead. Harold found her, and I put flowers on her grave."
Half the time she was speaking in German, or trying to, and Arthur listened in amazement, while his interest in her deepened every moment, as he took her through the rooms and showed her "the marble people with nothing on them," and the beautiful pictures which adorned his walls.
"How would you like to come and be my little girl?" he asked her at last, when, remembering Harold and the cherries, she told him she must go, and started toward the window as if she would make her egress as she had come in.
"Can Harold come, too? I can"t leave Harold," she said Then, as she caught sight of him still standing at a distance, gazing curiously up at the window through which she had disappeared, she called out, "Yes Harold; I"m coming. I have seen him and everything, and he did not hurt me. Good-bye!" and she turned toward Arthur with a little nod.
Then, before he could stop her, she sprang out upon the ladder, and went down faster than she had come up, leaving the pail of cherries upon the window-sill, and leaving, too, in Arthur"s breast a tumult of emotions which he could not define.
That night, when Frank, who had heard in much alarm of Jerry"s visit to his brother, went up to see him, he found him more cheerful and natural than he had seen him in weeks. As Frank expected, his first words were of the little girl who had come to him through the window and left him the cherries, of which he said he had eaten so many that he feared they might make him sick. What did Frank know of the child? What had he learned of her history? Of course he had made enquiries everywhere?
It was just in the twilight, before the gas was lighted, and so Arthur did not see how his brother"s face flamed at first and then grew white as he recapitulated what the reader already knows, dwelling at length upon the enquiries he had made in New York, all of which had been fruitless. There was the name Jerrine on the child"s clothing, he said and the initials "N.B." on that of her mother, who was evidently French, although she must have come from Germany."
"Yes," Arthur replied, "the child is a German, and interests me greatly.
Her face and something in her voice has haunted me all the afternoon.
Was there nothing in that trunk or the carpet-bag which would be a clue?"
"Nothing," Frank replied, although it seemed to him it was the shadow speaking for him, or at least putting the lie into his mouth. There were articles of clothing, all very plain, and a picture book printed at Leipsic, I can get that for you if you like, though it tells nothing unless it he that the mother lived in Leipsic."
Frank talked very rapidly, and laid so much stress on Leipsic, that Arthur got an idea that Jerry had actually come from there, just as his brother meant he should, and he began to speak of the town and recall all he knew of it.
"I was never there but once," he said, "for although I spent a great deal of time in Germany, it was mostly in Heidleberg and Wiesbaden. Oh, that is lovely,--Wiesbaden--and nights now, when I cannot sleep, I fancy that I am there again, in the lovely park, and hear the music of the band, and see the crowds of people strolling through the grounds, and I am there with them, though apart from the rest, just where a narrow path turns off from a bridge, and a seat is half hidden from view behind the thick shrubberies. There I sit again with Gretchen, and feel her hand in mine and her dear head on my arm. Oh, Gretchen--"