Tracy Park. Mary Jane Holmes
a moment Mrs. Crawford hesitated, but as he grew more and more persistent she suffered him to take it, and then watched him as he read it, white the veins on his forehead began to swell until they stood out like a dark blue net-work against his otherwise pallid face.
'Yes,' he snapped between his white teeth. 'I did ask her to be my wife, and she refused, and with her soft, kittenish ways made me more in love with her than ever, and more her dupe. I never suspected Harold, and when I told him of my disappointment, for I never kept a thing from him—traitor that he was—he laughed at me for losing my heart to my housekeeper's daughter! I, who, he said, might marry the greatest lady in the land. I could have knocked him down for his sneer at Amy, and I wish now I had, the wretch! He will not marry your daughter, madam; and if he does not I will kill him!'
He was certainly mad, and Mrs. Crawford shrank away from him an from something dangerous, and going to her room took her bed in a fit of frightful hysterics. This was followed by a state of nervous prostration, and for a few days she neither saw, nor heard of, nor inquired for Mr. Tracy. At the end of the fourth day, however, she was told by the house-maid that he had that morning packed his valise and, without a word to any one, had taken the train for New York. A week went by, and then there came a letter from him, which ran as follows:
'New York, May——, 18—.
'Mrs. Crawford:—I am off for Europe to-morrow, and when I shall return is a matter of uncertainty. They are married; or at least I suppose so, for I found a list of the passengers who sailed in the Scotia, and the names, Mr. and Mrs. Hastings, were in it. So that saves me from breaking the sixth commandment, as I should have done if he hid played Amy false. I may not make myself known to them, but I shall follow them, and if he harms a hair of her head I shall shoot him yet. My brother Frank is to live at Tracy Park. That will suit his wife, and as you will not care to stay with her, I send you a deed of that cottage in the lane by the wood where the gardener now lives. It is a pretty little place, and Amy liked it well. We used to meet there sometimes, and more than once I have sat with her on that seat under the elm tree, and it was there I asked her to be my wife. Alas! I loved her so much, and I love her still as I can never love another woman, and I could have made her so happy; but that is past, and I can only watch her at a distance. When I have anything to communicate, I will write again.
'Yours truly, 'Arthur Tracy.'
'P.S.—Take all the furniture in your room and Amy's, and whatever else is needful for your house. I shall tell Colvin to give you a thousand dollars, and when you want more let him know, I shall never forget that you are Amy's mother.
This was Arthur's letter to Mrs. Crawford, while to his brother he wrote:
'Dear Frank:—I am going to Europe for an indefinite length of time. Why I go it matters not to you or any one. I go to suit myself, and I want you to sell out your business at Langley and live at Tracy Park, where you can see to things as if they were your own. You will find everything straight and square, for Colvin is honest and methodical. He knows all about the bonds, and mortgages, and stocks, so you cannot do better than to retain him in your service, overseeing matters yourself, of course, and drawing for your salary what you think right and necessary for your support and for keeping up the place as it ought to be kept up. I enclose a power of attorney. When I want money I shall call upon Colvin. I may be gone for years and perhaps forever.
'I shall never marry, and when I die, what I have will naturally go to you. We have not been to each other much like brothers for the past few years, but I do not forget the old home in the mountains where we were boys together, and played, and quarreled, and slept up under the roof, where the blankets were hung to keep the snow from sifting through the rafters upon our bed.
'And, Frank, do you remember the bitter mornings, when the thermometer was below zero, and we performed our ablutions in the wood-shed, and the black-eye you gave me once for telling mother that you had not washed yourself at all, it was so cold? She sent you from the table, and made you go without your breakfast, and we had ham and johnny-cake toast that morning, too. That was long ago, and our lives are different now. There are marble basins, with silver chains and stoppers, at Tracy Pack, and you can have a hot bath every day if you like, in a room which would not shame Caracalla himself. And I know you will like it all, and Dolly, too; but don't make fools of yourselves. Nothing stamps a person as a come-up from the scum so soon as airs and ostentation. Be quiet and modest, as if you had always lived at Tracy Park. Imitate Squire Harrington and Mr. St. Claire. They are the true gentlemen, and were to the manner born. Be kind to Mrs. Crawford. She is a lady in every sense of the word, for she comes of good New England stock.
'And now, good-bye. I shall write sometimes, but not often.
'Your brother,
'Arthur Tracy.'
CHAPTER III.
MR. AND MRS. FRANK TRACY.
Mr. Frank, in his small grocery store at Langley, was weighing out a pound of butter for the Widow Simpson, who was haggling with him about the price, when his brother's letter was brought to him by the boy who swept his store and did errands for him. But Frank was too busy just then to read it. There was a circus in the village that day, and it brought the country people into the town in larger numbers than usual. Naturally, many of them paid Frank a visit in the course of the morning, so that it was not until he went home to his dinner that be even thought of the letter, which was finally brought to his mind by his wife's asking if there was any news.
Mrs. Frank was always inquiring for and expecting news, but she was not prepared for what this day brought her. Neither was her husband, and when he read his brother's letter, which he did twice to assure himself that he was not mistaken, he sat for a moment perfectly bewildered, and staring at his wife, who was putting his dinner upon the table.
'Dolly,' he gasped at last, when he could speak at all—'Dolly, what do you think? Just listen. Arthur is going to Europe, to stay forever, perhaps, and has left us Tracy Park. We are going there to live, and you will be as grand a lady as Mrs. Atherton, of Brier Hill; or that young girl at Collingwood.'
Dolly had a platter of ham and eggs in her hand, and she never could tell, though she often tried to do so, what prevented her from dropping the whole upon the floor. She did spill some of the fat upon her clean tablecloth, she put the dish down so suddenly, and sinking into a chair, demanded what her husband meant. Was he crazy, or what?
'Not a bit of it,' he replied, recovering himself and beginning to realize the good fortune which had come to him. 'We are rich people, Dolly. Read for yourself;' and he passed her the letter, which she seemed to understand better than he had done.
'Why, yes,' she said. 'We are going to Tracy Park to live; but that doesn't make us rich. It is not ours.'
'I know that,' her husband replied. 'But we shall enjoy it all the same, and hold our heads with the best of them. Besides, don't you see, Arthur gives me carte blanche as to pay for my services, and, though I shall do right, it is not in human nature that I should not feather my nest when I have a chance. Some of that money ought to have been mine. I shall sell out at once if I can find a purchaser, and if I cannot, I shall rent the grocery and move out of this hole double quick.'
His ideas were growing faster than those of his wife, who was attached to Langley and its people, and shrank a little from the grander opening before her. She had once spent a few days at Tracy Park, as Arthur's guest, and had felt great restraint even in the presence of Mrs. Crawford and Amy, whom she recognized as ladies notwithstanding their position in the house. On that occasion she had, with her brother-in-law, been invited to dine at Brier Hill, the country-seat of Mrs. Grace Atherton, a gay widow, whose dash and style had completely overawed the plain, matter-of-fact Dolly, who did not know