Mrs. Tracy

“ Tracy came close to her son.
“Oh, try to realize!” she whispered. “It’s your child, too. It’s a Tracy. You can’t abandon your own child to that ignorant, common girl!”
“Common!” said he. “I’ve never seen one like her!”
“She’s—” Mrs. Tracy began.
Maisie reëntered with the baby in her arms. It was asleep, lying limp and flushed against her frail shoulder. Over its dark, rough head, her eyes, misty with tears, met Mrs. Tracy’s.
“I know it’s my baby,” she said in an unsteady voice. “My very own! It’s wrong of any one to take her away from me, for one minute; but I know you love her. ”

“ But she did not look much like driving as she stood there by the wash-tub in that working-dress, which he thought the most charming of anything he had ever seen, notwithstanding his chagrin that the future Mrs. Tom Tracy should ever come in contact with anything as vulgar as soapsuds and pounding barrels. How beautiful she was in that short dress, with her bare arms, the whitest he had ever seen, and how pretty her feet looked in the red stockings and slippers, which he would have sworn were threes instead of fours and a half. ”

“ Alice says it is. Dear little chick; I don’t suppose any one ever made love to her. Strange, too, when she is so pretty and sweet.”
“And poor,” Mrs. Tracy added, while Helen continued: “I don’t believe that would make any difference with me. I could wink ’em up if I hadn’t a dollar. I’d like to pose once as a penniless maiden and see.”
“What nonsense,” Mrs. Tracy replied, and then suddenly exclaimed: “Here it is at last,—Ridgefield! My grandfather’s old home. Strange I’ve never thought of that place. Listen,” and she read aloud Mark Hilton’s advertisement of the Prospect House. ”

“ When Madame Bertrand bustled in her patient was asleep, and Yvonne's cheeks were tear-stained.
"Poor lady!" murmured the Breton woman. "She's nothing but a bundle of nerves. All night long, after the effect of the bromide had passed, she kept crying out for her daughter—meaning you, Mademoiselle. What a notion! Yet you are so alike!"
"With good reason, Madame," said the girl. "She is my mother's sister. There was a family quarrel years ago. Please keep this to yourself; though Madame Carmac will probably tell you of it later." ”

“ Signora Tracy!" Waddy went up the stairs also. But he could not hope to follow to the remote region of Mrs. North's chamber, so he accompanied the new guests through the anterooms to the drawing-room at the end of the suite, where Mrs. Tracy, the second hostess, received them all with cordial greetings. Mrs. Tracy's years were fifty. She hoped that she was fine-looking, that epithet being sometimes applied to tall persons who hold up their heads, even if they are stout; even, too, if their noses are not long enough for classical requirements. ”

“ Martha's departure was followed by that of Sarah, and then Mrs. Tracy was alone, and for a few days enjoyed herself immensely, doing her own work, cooking her own dinner, and eating it when and where she liked—in the kitchen mostly, as that kept the flies from the dining-room, and saved her many steps, for Dolly was beginning to find that there was a vast difference between keeping a house with six rooms and one with twenty or more.
Her husband urged her to try a new servant, saying there was no necessity for her to make a slave of herself: but she refused to listen. ”

“ Mrs. Tracy replied. “I really don’t know why, but I have a queer feeling with regard to him. Mr. Taylor makes quite too much of him. I trust you will teach him his place if he tries to 121step out of it. I saw him looking at you with those queer eyes of his in a way I didn’t like. They have a singular trick of moving round, and you can’t help following them.”
“Oh, mamma, a cat may look upon a king, and Mr. Hilton may surely look at me,” Helen said, knowing perfectly well what her mother meant by Mark’s eyes, which compelled you to meet them, whether you would or not. ”

“ He flung himself down by the side of the bed and buried his face in the coverlet.
"Oh, mother, mother!" he wailed, and his passionate sobs burst forth with alarming vehemence. The poor woman vainly strove to soothe him. She could not move, being paralyzed, but her fingers twined gently in his hair, and she gasped, brokenly:
"Phil, darling, don't make it harder for me. Oh, calm yourself, my dear one, if only for my sake. I have so much to say to you, and perhaps so little time. Be strong, Philip. Be strong and brave, and all will be well with you. ”

“ I like where I am. There isn’t any wind, and I neither freckle nor burn; besides that I am going to drive,” Helen replied.
There was no use arguing with her, and Mrs. Tracy could only look her disapproval, while Uncle Zach, still hopping about and very proud for this fine equipage to be seen before his door by the passers by, said in some alarm, “Better not let her drive till the horses have had some of the wind taken out of their sails. ”

“ He went to her, and said, almost in a whisper:
"You can do no good by remaining here. Won't you go to the tent that is fixed in the oasis, and wait there until I join you? I shall not be long. You understand—it is for the best."
She raised her streaming eyes, and he had never before seen such a grief-stricken face.
"Mr. Royson," she murmured dully, "let me pray yet a little while."
"Indeed I am sorry for you," he said. "Yet I must urge you to go. We have not a moment to lose."
"To lose? What else can happen?"
"The night is coming. We cannot leave the bodies here. It would be too horrible." ”

“ A crazy man is not responsible for his acts,' Jerrie answered, calmly; then, more proudly and decidedly, went on, 'By the way, Mrs. Tracy, I was met by the cook with a singular request, and I wish to say that as there can be but one mistress in a house, it is my wish that so long as you remain here you are that mistress in your own department; of course I shall take charge of my father's, and see that his wishes are carried out. Good afternoon,' and with a proud, lofty bearing, Jerrie walked from the room, leaving Dolly to her own morbid and angry thoughts. ”

“ They are safe, too—safe from her—Mrs. Frank Tracy—who had the boldness to flaunt them in my face at a party the other night. How she came by them I can't guess; but I know how she lost them, I found them on her dressing-table, where she left them when she went to breakfast, and took possession at once. That was no theft, for they are mine, or rather yours, and are waiting for you in my private drawer, where no one has ever looked, except a young girl called Jerrie, who interests me greatly, she is so much like what you must have been when a child. ”

“ But times change, and Ridgefield undoubtedly kept pace with the times, and Mrs. Tracy thought she would like to go there, and said so to her daughter.
“Your grandfather was the leading man in the town, and we should undoubtedly be lionized by the people,” she suggested, while Helen shrugged her shoulders and replied: “Oh, mamma, do let me indulge in a bit of slang and say dry up on lionizing. I’m tired of it. If you want to go to Ridgefield I am quite willing. I only hope there isn’t a newspaper there, nor a reporter, to write up the beautiful Miss Helen Tracy; nor a man to make love to her. ”

“ If Arthur heard her he made no reply, but kept on up the stairs to his room, where they heard him for a long time walking about, opening and shutting windows, locking and unlocking trunks, and occasionally splashing water over his face and hands.
'Your brother is a very elegant-looking man,' Mrs. Tracy said to her husband as she was preparing to retire. 'Quite like a foreigner, but how bright his eyes are, and they look at you sometimes as if they would see through you and know what you were thinking. They almost make me afraid of him.'
Frank made no direct reply. ”

“ Tracy, who was present, put the different articles into the trunk, leaving the Bible on the top, and then followed her husband from the room. She knew there was more affecting him than the fact that a dead woman was in the house, or that he had not sent John to the station. But what it was she could not guess, unless, and she, too, felt faint and giddy for a moment, as a new idea entered her mind.
'Frank,' she said to him when they were alone for a few moments, 'Arthur had a fancy that Gretchen was coming last night. You do not think this woman is she?'
'Gretchen? No. Don't be a fool, Dolly. ”

“ Never at all.—But then, I started to go up to her, by the freight elevator as he had taken her. Down that back hall we did not hear the shot. But the telephone made us halt. Joe told us."
The clasp of Herrick's hand lent her its reassurance and she went on.
"My husband was all at once like a man in a fit. He seemed to have no head. He is not to say fearful, but he is the way men are. 'Go!' I said, 'Hasten! It may be that it is he who himself shot!' And this gave him heart to go upstairs. Then comes to me Christina, slipping along from the back. I saw her white dress in the dark. ”

“ Tracy, who I may confess to you in confidence, asked me twice to be his wife, and when I refused, without giving him a reason, for I dared not tell him of my love for his friend, he was so angry and behaved so strangely, and there was such a look in his eyes, that I was afraid of him, and it was this fear, I think, which made me willing to go away secretly with Harold and be married in New York. We are going to Europe; shall sail to-morrow morning at nine o'clock in the Scotia. ”

“ It spoils them,” Mrs. Tracy suggested, and Uncle Zach replied, “Can’t spile Mark,—the best feller ever born. I’d trust him with my life.”
Meanwhile Mark was feeling that he was as near Paradise as he would ever be until he reached its gates. It was a good deal to be sitting side by side with the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and it was still more to have the beautiful girl as friendly and gracious as she was, treating him as if she had known him for years, and seldom looking back to speak to Craig, whom she left entirely to Alice. ”

“ It had been checked at the Grand Central depot in New York for Shannondale, and the check was still attached to the iron handle when it was put down in the kitchen at Tracy Park, where the utmost excitement prevailed, the servants huddling together with scared faces, and talking in whispers of the terrible thing which had happened, while Mrs. Tracy and the housekeeper, scarcely less excited than the servants, gave their attention to the dead. ”

“ The best the house afforded was theirs, he said, and he insisted upon their taking the saloon, as he still called the parlor Mrs. Tracy had occupied.
“You’ll be better off there by yourselves,” he said. “The boarders ain’t what they used to be. The Tremont has got the big bugs.”
Poor Dotty couldn’t talk much or move, and Fanny spent hours with her, anticipating her wishes by her looks and greatly smoothing her path to the grave. Roy staid a good deal with Uncle Zach, who asked numberless questions about Mark and Jeff. ”

“ Philip Alexander Maseden,” he persisted.
“I may or may not be. I am not sure. I used a name not my own. It was the first that come into my head—a frightened woman’s attempt to leave herself some loophole of escape in the future.”
“You are mistaken, Nina. I know enough about the law to say definitely that it is the ceremony which counts, not the name. You will see at once that this must be so. If you married another man to-morrow, and signed yourself ‘Mary Smith,’ you would still be committing bigamy.” ”

“ Such a scene might well lull the beholder to rest; but Power was blind to its charms. He was reviewing, in an aimless way, the associations which that very apartment held for him. Changed though it was out of all semblance to the poverty-stricken living-room of the ranch, Nancy’s spirit had never been wholly exorcised. He pictured her slim and lissome figure as she had stood with him at the window many an evening, and watched the purple shadows stealing over the hills. In that room she had married Marten. ”

“ A man of his oak-like qualities could not grasp the nature of a woman who bent as a reed before each puff of wind.
It was hard to utter even a commonplace farewell. She held him by her very helplessness. But the rapid trot of a horse caught his ears, and, whilst he stood irresolute, he saw Constance alighting from the dog-cart. His wife looked out, too. They heard their daughter laughingly regret that she could not ask Mr. Pyne to luncheon—meals were irregular events just then.
Brand felt a timid hand grasping his, and a choking sob proclaimed that Constance's mother was crying. ”

“ Nevertheless, the girl did worry, as her white face and straining eyes well showed. Peter swung the dinghy about so nimbly that she lost all sense of direction. It seemed as if the laughing Solent had swallowed Warden, and she gazed affrightedly on every side but the right one.
“Oh, how could he do it?” she wailed. “I shall never forgive myself—“
Then she heard a deep breath from the water behind her, and she turned to see Warden, with blood streaming from a gash across his forehead, swimming easily with one hand. She whisked round and knelt on the seat. ”

“ John took her in his arms.
“Martha,” he said, with a break in his voice that shook his hearers and stilled his wife’s cries; “dinnat mak’ oor burthen harder te bear. A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps!”
Servants, men and women, came running at their mistress’s scream of terror. They stood, abashed, in the kitchen passage. None paid heed to them.
Colonel Grant rose and approached the trembling woman cowering at her husband’s side. Her old eyes were streaming now; she gazed at him with the pitiful [Pg 266] anguish of a stricken animal. ”