Tracy Park. Mary Jane Holmes
down the child, she tugged with all her strength at the ponderous gate, which she at last succeeded in opening, and resuming her burden, passed through into the field where the snow lay on the ground in great white drifts, while the blinding flakes and cutting sleet from the leaden clouds above, beat pitilessly upon her as she struggled on the wearisome way.
And while she toiled on, fighting bravely with the storm, and occasionally speaking a word of encouragement to the little child nestled in her bosom, Arthur Tracy stood at one of the windows in his library, with his white face pressed close against the pane, as he looked anxiously out into the gathering darkness, shuddering involuntarily as the wind came screaming round a corner of the house, bending the tall evergreens until their slender tops almost touched the ground, and then rushing on down the carriage-drive with a shriek like so many demons let loose from the ice-caves of the north, where the winds are supposed to hold high carnival.
They were surely holding carnival to-night, and their king was out with all his legions, and as Arthur listened to the roar of the tempest he whispered to himself:
'A wild, wild night for Gretchen to arrive, and her dear little feet and hands will be so cold; but there is warmth and comfort here, and love such as she never dreamed of, poor Gretchen! I will hold her in my arms and chafe her cold fingers and kiss her tired face until she feels that her home-coming is a happy one. It must be almost time,' and he glanced at a small cathedral clock which stood upon the mantel.
In the adjoining room the dinner table was as usual laid for two, but one could see that more care than usual had been given to its arrangement, while the roses in the centre were the largest and finest of their kind. In the low, wide grate a bright fire was burning, and Arthur placed a large easy chair before it, and then brought from the library a covered footstool, with a delicate covering of blue and gold. No foot had ever yet profaned this stool with a touch, for it was one of Arthur's specialties, bought at a great price in Algiers; but he brought it now for Gretchen and saw in fancy resting upon it the cold little feet his hands were to rub and warm and caress until life came back to them, and Gretchen's blue eyes smiled upon him and Gretchen's sweet voice said:
'Thank you, Arthur. It is pleasant coming home.'
For the last two or three weeks, Arthur had been very quiet and taciturn, but on the morning of this day he had seemed restless and nervous, and his nervousness and excitability increased until a violent headache came on, and Charles, the servant, who attended him, reported to Mrs. Tracy that his midday meal had been untouched and that he really seemed quite ill. Then Frank went to him, and sitting down beside him as he lay upon a couch in the room with Gretchen's picture, said to him, not unkindly:
'Are you sick to-day? What is the matter?'
For a few moments Arthur made no reply, but lay with his eyes closed as if he had not heard. Then suddenly rousing himself, he burst out, vehemently:
'Frank, you think me crazy, or you have thought so, and you have based that belief in part on the fact that I am always expecting Gretchen. And so for a long time I have suppressed all mention of her, though I have never ceased to look for her arrival, since—since—well, I may as well tell you the truth. I know now that she could not have been with me on the ship and in the train, although I thought she was. I wrote her to join me in Liverpool, and fancied she did. But my brain must have been a little mixed. She did not come with me, but I wrote to her weeks ago, telling her to come at once, and giving her directions how to find the park if she should arrive at the station and no one there to meet her. She has had more than time to get here, but I have said nothing about sending the carriage for her, as that seemed to annoy you. But to-day, Frank, to-day'—and Arthur's voice grew softer and pleading, and trembled as he went on. 'I dreamed of her last night, and to-day she seems so near to me that more than once I have put out my hand to touch her. Frank, it is not insanity, this presentiment of mine that she is near me, that she is coming to me, or tidings of her; it is mind acting upon mind; her thoughts of me reaching forward and fastening upon my thoughts of her, making a mental bridge on which to see her coming to me. And you will send for her. You will let John go again. Think if she should arrive in this terrible storm and no one there to meet her. You will send this once, and if she is not there I will not trouble you again.'
There was something in Arthur's white face which Frank could not resist, and though he had no idea that anything would come of it, he promised that John should go.
'Oh, Frank,' Arthur exclaimed, his face brightening at once, 'you have made me so happy! My headache is quite gone,' and then he began to plan for the dinner, which was to be more elaborate than usual, and served an hour later, so as to give plenty of time for Gretchen to rest and dress herself if she wished to do so.
'And she will when she sees the lovely dress I have for her,' he thought to himself, and after his brother had gone he went to the large closet where he kept the long black trunk which he called Gretchen's, and into which Dolly's curious eyes had never looked, although she longed to know the contents.
This Arthur now opened, and had Dolly been there she would have held her breath in wonder at the many beautiful things it contained. Folded in one of the trays, as only a French packer accustomed to the business could have arranged it, was an exquisite dinner-dress of salmon-colored satin, with a brocaded front and jacket of blue and gold, and here and there a knot of duchess lace, which gave it a more airy effect. This Arthur took out carefully and laid upon the bed in his sleeping-apartment, together with every article of the toilet necessary to such a dress, from a lace pocket handkerchief to a pair of pale-blue silk hose, which he kissed reverently as he whispered to himself:
'Dear little feet, which, no doubt, are so cold now in the wretched car; but they will never be cold when once I have them here.'
He was talking in German, as he always did when Gretchen was the subject of his thought, and so Dolly, who came to say that some things which he had ordered for dinner were impossible now, could not understand him, but she caught a glimpse of the dress upon the bed, and advanced quickly toward the open door, exclaiming:
'Oh, Arthur, what a lovely gown! Whose—?'
But before she completed her question Arthur was upon the threshold and had closed the door, saying as he did so:
'It is Gretchen's. I had it made at Worth's. She is coming to-night, you know.'
Dolly had heard from her husband of Arthur's fancy, and though she had no faith in it, she replied:
'Yes, Frank told me you were expecting her again, and I came to say that we cannot get the fish you ordered, for no one can go to town in this storm, and I doubt if we could find it if we did. You will have to skip the fish.'
'All right; all right. Gretchen will be too much excited to care,' Arthur replied, standing with his hand upon the door-knob until Dolly left the room and went to this kitchen, where Frank was interviewing the coachman.
He had found that important personage before the fire, bending nearly double and complaining bitterly of a fall he had just had on his way from the stable to the house. According to his statement, the wind had taken him up bodily, and carrying him a dozen rods or so, had set him down heavily upon a stone flowerpot which was left outside in the winter, nearly breaking his back, as he declared. This did not look very promising for the drive to the station, and Frank opened the business hesitatingly, and asked John what he thought of it.
'I think I would not go out in such a storm as this with my back if Queen Victoria was to be there,' John answered gruffly. 'And what would be the use?' he continued. 'I have been to meet that woman, if she is a woman, with the outlandish name, more than fifty times, I'll bet; he don't know what he is talking about when he gets on her track. And s'posin' she does come, she can find somebody to fetch her. She ain't going to walk.'
This seemed reasonable; and as Frank's sympathies were with his coachman and horses rather than with Gretchen and his brother, he decided with John that he need not go, but added, laughingly, as he saw the man walk across the floor as well as he ever did on his way to the woodshed:
'Seems to me your broken back has recovered its elasticity very soon.'
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