Tracy

“ 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. ”

“ The window, across which the woodbine was growing, changed places with the door; the floor rose up and bowed to her, while the room was full of faces, beckoning to and smiling upon her. Faces like the one she knew so well, the pale face in the chair; faces like her own, as she remembered it when a child; faces like the dark woman dead so long ago and buried in the Tracy lot, and faces like Arthur's as she had seen him oftenest, when he spoke so lovingly, and called her little Cherry. ”

“ Tracy almost as angry as she had been with Martha when she called her mean and second-class. 'It cannot be possible that you cook, and wash, and iron, and do everything,' Mrs. Atherton continued. 'My dear Mrs. Tracy, you can never stand it in a house like this, and Mr. Arthur would not like it if he knew. Why he kept as many as six servants, and sometimes more. Pray let me advise you, and commend to you a good girl; who lived with me three years, and can do everything, from dressing my hair to making a blanc-mange. ”

“ Tracy, would have been astonished at her cordiality, but Mrs. Mason was a lady, and as such she would treat Mrs. Tracy when associated with her in the same house. Mrs. Tracy was delighted and met her advance effusively and told her where she was going.
“I think we shall find our young people there. Yes, here they are,” she said, with a meaning smile as she turned the corner and saw them; Craig in his usual place; Helen, who, on the pretext of getting out of the glare of the noonday light, had moved her seat, sitting near him, and Alice on the steps. ”

“ Tom could not tell just when he began to look upon Jerrie as the loveliest girl he had ever seen, and to contemplate the feasibility of making her Mrs. Tom Tracy. His admiration for her had been of slow growth, for she was worse than a nobody—a child of the Tramp House, of whose antecedents nothing was known, while he was a Tracy, of Tracy Park, whom a duchess might be proud to wed. ”

“ He would go to Arthur Tracy, thank him for all he had done, and tell him he could receive no more from him; that if he had an education, he must get it himself by the work of his own hands, and thus be beholden to no one.
Full of this resolution, he went down the stairs and out into the open air, which cooled his hot head a little, though it was still throbbing terribly as he went through the leafy woods toward home.
In the lane he saw Jerry coming toward him, with her sun-bonnet hanging down her back and her soft, curly hair blowing around her forehead. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Tracy was the Duke. Richard smiled a little cynically; he had already had to lend his Grace a thousand guineas to pay off some "trifling debt."
"He means it right enough. I believe it would puzzle him to find it."
"Do you say so? Why, 'tis impossible man! Tracy was in town scarce a fortnight since, and he had a run of the devil's own luck. I tell you Dick, I saw him walk off with a cool five thousand one night! And then he denies me a paltry three! Lord, what a brother! And all with the air of an angel, as if he had never lost at dice. ”

“ The grass was like velvet, with masses of flowers and shrubs, and urns, and bits of statuary here and there, while over a little brook where Jerrie and Maude had often waded, and where poor Jack had had a little water-wheel, a rustic bridge had been built, with a pretty summer-house just beyond. Frank Tracy was a natural gardener, and had lavished piles of money upon the grounds, in which he often worked himself, and where he was busy now with a clump of roses when Tom drove up with Jerrie. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But not even Dick St. Claire could keep Tom Tracy in check. With each succeeding year he grew more and more supercilious and unbearable, pluming himself upon his position as a Tracy of Tracy Park, and this wealth he was to inherit from his Uncle Arthur. For the last year he had been at Andover, where he had formed a new set of acquaintances, one of whom was spending the vacation with him. This was young Fred Raymond, whose home was at Red Stone Hall, in Kentucky, and whose parents were in Europe. ”

“ He was twenty-two, tall and straight and broad shouldered, with something in his voice and features and manner which reminded one of the July morning twenty-three years before when Craig Mason sat on the north piazza of the Prospect House and talked to Alice Tracy. To one who had been in Ridgefield that summer there would have come back the scent of the new mown hay and the perfume of the white pond lilies Alice wore in her belt, and in the young man’s eyes he would have seen a likeness to Alice’s eyes, with thicker lashes and heavier brows. ”

“ Tracy sighed wearily.
"Pray come to the point, Andrew—if point there be. I have no time to waste."
"Lord! Busy? Working? God ha' mercy!" The young rake stretched his legs out before him and cast his eyes down their shapeliness. ”

“ Tracy, who had not yet left her room, start nervously as she wondered who had come so early.
'Old Peterkin, of course. Those whom you care for least always come first.'
Peering over the banister Tom Tracy saw Harold when the door was opened, and screaming to his mother at the top of his voice, 'It ain't old Peterkin, mother; it's Hall Hastings, come to the front door,' he ran down the stairs, and confronting the intruder just as he was crossing the threshold, exclaimed:
'Go 'long; go back. You hain't no business ringin' the bell as if you was a gentleman. ”

“ Poor father! he is growing old so fast. Why, his hair is white as snow, and he sometimes talks to himself just as Uncle Arthur does. I wonder what ails him that he never smiles or seems interested in anything except when I am smoothing his hair or sitting on his knee; then he brightens up and calls me his pet and darling, and talks queer kind of talk, I think. He asks me if I am glad I live at Tracy Park—if I like the pretty things he buys me, and if I should be as happy if I were poor—not real poor, you know, but as we were at Langley before I was born. ”

“ But the strange lady's eyes were now like gimlets, with the very fire of youth burning in them, and it was with the sure fleetness of youth that she suddenly ran in a moment of opportunity from the yew to the gate, pushed it a little open, and slipped aside into a footpath that ran parallel with the lawn on which the "St. Briavels" diners were now strolling.
With equal suddenness, or equal disregard of appearance, Mr. Pugh, too, became young again, as if both, like Philemon and Baucis, had all at once quaffed the elixir of youth; and he was soon by the young-old lady's side on the footpath. ”

“ Constant intercourse with a polished man like Arthur Tracy had not been without its effect upon her, and there was about her an air which with strangers would have placed her at once above the ordinary level of simple country girls. This Harold had been the first to detect, and though he rejoiced at Jerry's good fortune, there was always with him a dread lest she should grow beyond him, and that he should lose the girl he loved so much. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 God 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Since the coming of Jerrie, when the dark shadow settled upon Frank, and remorse was always torturing him, he had had no heart for business, and had, to all intents and purposes, lived upon his brother's generosity, which had never failed.
'Get what you like; there is money enough,' was always Arthur's reply, when a request for anything was made to him, and thus they had literally been sponges, taking everything and giving nothing, until now, when all was lost—the luxury, the elegance, the ease, and the prestige of Tracy Park, which they had enjoyed so much. ”

“ Isn't he a beauty?'
And little Tracy was a most beautiful child, with his father's features and complexion, but Jerrie's expression and ways, and Mrs. Crawford felt, as she folded him to her bosom and cried over him, that he would be the crowning joy of her old age. At first Harold puzzled and perplexed her, he was so changed from the Harold who had shingled roofs and painted barns and worked in Peterkin's furnace. ”

“ The wondrous silence was broken only by the rhythmical clank of the oars, the light plash of the boat’s movement, the strains of a waltz from the Castle lawn, and the musical laughter of women from the yachts.
Owing to the shortness of the dinghy, and the fact that the girl faced Warden, with Peter intervening, the two younger people were compelled to look at each other occasionally. The man saw a sweetly pretty face dowered with a rare conjunction of myosotis blue eyes and purple eyelashes, and crowned with a mass of dark brown hair. Accent, manner, and attire bespoke good breeding. ”

“ Still Jerrie did not speak, but she sat down upon the seat, and, taking off her hat, began to fan herself with it, while with the end of her parasol she tried to trace letters in the thick carpet of dead pine needles at her feet.
Her attitude was not encouraging, and a less conceited man than Tom would have felt disheartened, but he was not. No girl would be insane enough to refuse Tom Tracy, of Tracy Park; and at last he made the plunge, and told her of his love for her and his desire to make her his wife. ”

“ She found oblivion, indeed, but not in the shape she anticipated. Shading his eyes with one hand and holding the telegram in the other, her companion was gazing at it in a dazed way. His cheeks were bloodless, the hand gripping the scrap of flimsy paper shook as though he were seized with ague, his whole attitude was that of a man who had received an overwhelming shock. ”

“ 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. ”