Tracy Park Part 13

'A woman dead in the Tramp House, and a baby!' Frank exclaimed, and for an instant he felt as if he were dying, for there flashed over him a conviction that the woman had come in the train the previous night, and that it was her cry for help which had been borne to him on the winds, and to which he had paid no heed.

'Are you sick? Are you going to faint?' his wife said to him, as she saw how white he grew, and how heavily he leaned back in his chair as Harold related the particulars of his finding the woman and the child.

'I am not going to faint; but it makes me sick and shaky to think of a woman freezing to death so near us that if she had cried for help we might perhaps have heard her,' Frank replied.

Then turning to Harold, he continued:

'How did she look? Was she young? Was she pretty? Was she dark or fair?'

He almost gasped the last word, as if it choked him, and no one guessed how anxiously he waited for Harold's answer, which did not afford him much relief.

'I don't know; it was so dark in there, and cold, and I was afraid some of the time, and in a hurry. I only know that her nose was long and large, for I touched it when I was trying to get at the little girl, and it was so cold--oh, oh!'

And Harold shuddered as if he still felt the icy touch of the dead.

'A long nose and a large one,' Frank said, involuntarily, while a sigh of relief escaped him as he remembered that the nose of the picture in his brother's room was neither long nor large.

Still Harold might be mistaken, and though he had no good cause for believing that the woman lying dead in the Tramp House was Gretchen, there was a horrible feeling in his heart, while a lump came into his throat and affected his speech, which was thick and indistinct, as he rose from his chair at last and said to John:

'We have no time to lose. Hitch up the horses to the long sleigh as quick as you can. We must go to the Tramp House after the woman, and send to the village for a doctor, and telegraph to Springfield for the coroner. I suppose there must be an inquest; and, Dolly, see that a room is prepared for the body.'

'Oh, Frank, must it come here? Why not take it to the cottage? The child is there,' Mrs. Tracy said, not because she cared so much for the trouble, but because of her aversion to having the corpse of a stranger in the house, with all that it involved.

'I tell you that woman must come here,' was Frank's decided reply, as he began to make himself ready for the ride.

'Don't tell Arthur yet,' he said, as he left the house and took his seat in the sleigh, which was soon ploughing its way through the snow banks in the direction of the Tramp House.

It was Harold who acted as master of ceremonies, for John was nervous and hung back from the half open door, while Frank was too much unstrung to know just what he was doing or saying, as he squeezed through the narrow s.p.a.ce and then stood for a moment, snow-blind and dizzy, in the cheerless room.

Harold was not afraid now. He had been there before alone, had seen and touched the white face of the corpse, and now, with companionship in its presence, he went fearlessly up to it, followed by Frank, who could scarcely stand, and who laid his hand for support on Harold's shoulder, and then turned curiously and eagerly toward the woman.

John had lingered outside, shovelling the snow from the door which he succeeded in opening wide, so that the full, broad sunlight fell upon the face, which was neither young, nor pretty, nor fair, while the hair was black as night.

Frank noted all these points at a glance, and could have shouted aloud for joy, so great was the revulsion of his feelings. It was not Gretchen lying there before him, and he was not a murderer, as he had accused himself of being, for she did not come by the train; she had no connection with Tracy Park; she was going somewhere else--to Collingwood, perhaps--when, overcome by the storm and the cold, she had sought shelter for the night in this wretched place.

'I suppose the proper thing to do is to leave her here till the coroner can see her,' he said to John; 'but no train can get through from Springfield to-day, I am sure, and I shall have her taken to the park.

Bring me the blankets from the sleigh.'

He was very collected now, for a great load was lifted from his mind.

'Had she nothing with her? nothing to cover her?' he asked, as they proceeded to wrap her in the warm blankets, which, had they sooner come, would have saved her life.

Harold told him again of the carpet-bag and the cloak and the shawl, which had covered the child, and added, 'That's all; there don't seem to be anything else. Oh, what's this?' and stooping down, he picked up some hard substance which he had kicked against the table.

It proved to be one of those olive wood candle sticks, so convenient in travelling, as when not in use, they can be made into a small round box or ball, and take but little room. It contained but the remains of a wax candle, which had burned down into the socket and then gone out. Near by, upon the floor, was a tiny box of matches, with two or three charred ones among them.

'The poor woman must have had a light for at least a portion of the time,' Frank said, as he picked up the box.

'She had, I know she had,' Harold cried, excitedly; 'for I saw it and told grandma so. It was like she had opened the door and let out a big blaze, and then everything was dark, as if the door was shut or the wind had blown the candle out.'

'What time was that, do you think?' Frank asked.

'It must have been about eleven,' Harold replied, 'for I remember hearing the clock strike and grandma's saying I must go to bed, it was so late. I was up with her because her foot was so bad, and I warmed the poultices.'

Frank groaned aloud, unmindful of the boy looking so curiously at him, for that was the time when he had heard the sound like a human voice is distress. He had thought it a fancy then communicated to him by his brother's nervousness, but now he was certain it must have been the stranger calling through the storm, in the vain hope that somebody would hear and come. Somebody had heard, but no one had come; and so in the cold and the darkness, with the snow sifting through every crevice and blowing down the wide chimney to the hearth where it made a drift like a grave, she had battled for her own life and that of the child beside her, saving the latter but losing her own.

'If I had only believed it was a cry,' Frank thought, and as he wrapped the body in the blankets and buffalo robe as tenderly and reverently as if the stiffened limbs had belonged to his mother, he saw distinctly before him as if painted upon canvas the driving gale, the inky sky, the half-opened door, through which the sleet was driving, the light behind, and the frantic, freezing woman, screaming for help, while only the winds made answer, and the pitiless storm raged on.

This was the picture which Frank was destined to see in his dreams for many and many a night, until the mystery was solved concerning the woman whom they carried to the sleigh, which was driven back to the park house, where, within fifteen or twenty minutes a crowd of anxious, curious people gathered. The messenger sent to town had done his work rapidly and thoroughly, and half the villagers who heard of the tragedy enacted at their very door started at once for Tracy Park. The boy had stopped at the station and told his story there, making the baggage-master feel as if he, too, were a murderer, or at least an accessory.

'If I had only gone after that woman,' he said, as he told of the stranger who had come on the train and gotten off on the side of the car farthest from the depot--'if I had gone after her and made her take a conveyance to where she was going, this would not have happened; but it was so all-fired cold, and the wind was yelling so, and she walked off so fast, as if she knew her own business. So I just minded mine, or rather I didn't, for I never even seen the box, or trunk, which was pitched out helter-skelter, and which I found this morning, all covered up with snow. It was hers, of course, and I shall send it right over there, as it may tell who the poor critter was.'

This trunk, which was little more than a strong wooden box with two double locks upon it, was still further secured by a bit of rope wound twice around it and tied in a hard knot. There was no name upon it to tell whose it was, or whence it came, except the name of a German steamer, on which its owner had probably crossed the ocean, and the significant word 'Hold,' showing that it had not been used in the state-room. 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.

At the end of the rear hall was a small room, where Frank sometimes received business calls when at home, and there they laid the body, after the physician, who had arrived, declared that life had been extinct for many hours.

Seen in the full daylight, she seemed to be at least thirty-five years of age, and her features, though not unpleasing, were coa.r.s.e and large, especially the nose. Her hair was black, her complexion dark, and the hands, which lay folded upon her bosom, showed marks of toil, for they were rough and unshapely, though smaller in proportion than the other members of her body. Her woollen dress of grayish blue was short and scant; her knit stockings were black and thick, and her leather shoes were designed fur use rather than ornament. A wide white ap.r.o.n was tied around her waist, and she wore a small black and white plaided shawl pinned about her neck.

And there she lay, not a pleasant picture to contemplate, helpless and defenceless against the curious eyes bent upon her and the remarks concerning her, as one after another of the villagers came in to look at her and speculate as to who she was or how she came in the Tramp House.

Among the crowd was Mr. St. Claire, who gave it as his opinion that she was a Frenchwoman of the lower cla.s.s, and asked if nothing had been found with her except the clothes she wore. Harold told him of the shawl, and cloak, and carpet-bag which he had carried with the child to the cottage.

'Yes, there is something more--her trunk,' chimed in the baggage-master, who had just entered the room, trembling and breathless.

'Her trunk! Did she come in the cars?' Frank asked, his hands dropping helplessly at his side, and his lips growing pale, as the man replied:

'Yes; last night, on the quarter-past-six from New York; and what is curi's, she got out on the side away from the depot, and I never seen her till the cars went on, when she was lookin' at a paper, and the child cryin' at her feet. I spoke to her, but she did not answer, and s.n.a.t.c.hing up the child, she hurried off, almost on a run. It was storming so I did not see her trunk till this mornin', when I found it on the platform. I wish I had gone after her and made her take a sleigh.

If I had she wouldn't now have been dead, and, I swow, I feel as if I had killed her. I wonder why under the sun she turned into the lots, unless she was goin' to Collingwood--'

'Or Tracy Park,' Frank said, involuntarily.

'Were you expecting any one?' Mr. St. Claire asked.

Sinking into a chair, Frank replied:

'No, I was not, but Arthur, who has been worse than usual for a few days, has again a fancy that Gretchen is coming. He says now that she was not in the ship with him, but that he has written her to join him here, and yesterday he took it into his head that she would be here last night, and insisted that the carriage be sent to meet her; but John had hurt his back, and as I had no faith in her coming, he did not go. I wish he had; it might have saved this woman's life, although she is not Gretchen.'

Frank had made his confession, except so far as deceiving his brother was concerned, and he felt his mind eased a little, though there was still a lump in his throat, and a feeling of disquiet in his heart, with a wish that the dead woman had never crossed his path, and a conviction that he had not yet seen the worst of it.

Mr. St. Claire looked at him thoughtfully a moment, and then said:

'I should not accuse myself too much. You could not know that any one would be there, and this woman certainly is not the Gretchen of whom your brother talks so much, and whose picture is in his room. Has he seen her? Does he know of the accident?'

'I have not told him yet. He is not feeling well to-day. Charles says he is still in bed,' was Frank's reply.

'We may find something in her trunk,' Mr. St. Claire continued, 'which will give us a clue to her history. Where do you suppose she kept her key?'

No one volunteered an answer, until Harold suggested that if she had a pocket it was probably there, when half a dozen hands or more at once felt for the pocket, which was found at last, and proved to be one of great capacity, and to contain a heterogeneous ma.s.s of contents: A purse, in which were two or three small German coins, an English sovereign, and a five dollar green-back; two handkerchiefs, one soiled and coa.r.s.e, bearing in German text the initials 'N.B.' the other small and fine, bearing the initial 'J.,' also in German text: a pair of scissors, a thimble, a small needle-case, a child's toy, a worn picture-book, printed in Leipsic, a box of pills, some peanuts, some cloves, a piece of candy, a seed cake, a pocket comb, half a biscuit; and at the very bottom, the bra.s.s check whose number corresponded with that upon the trunk; also a ring to which were attached three keys, one belonging to the trunk, another evidently to the carpet-bag, while the third, which was very small and straight, must have been used for fastening some box or dressing-case.