Tracy Park Part 63

'That was your mother's picture in our old home in Wiesbaden. I am so glad for you.'

A low sob was Jerrie's reply, and then Judge St. Claire asked:

'Is that all?'

'Yes,' Marian said; 'All except Mr. Tracy's letters to Gretchen. Oh, no,' she added; 'there is something more;' and feeling in the bag, she drew out two small papers, one crumpled and worn, as if it had been often referred to, the other folded neatly and tied with a white ribbon.

This Marian opened first, and found it to be a certificate, written in English, to the effect that Mrs. Arthur Tracy, _nee_ Marguerite Heinrich, died at such a date and was buried by the Rev. Mr. Bellows, the resident rector of the English church; the other was in Arthur's handwriting, and the directions he had written to his wife, as to what she was to do and how to find Tracy Park.

'Yes,' Judge St. Claire said, coming forward and taking the paper from her hand, 'this is what the station-master saw the poor woman examining that night in the storm. She probably dropped it into the bag without stopping to fold it. There can be no doubt.'

Then a deep silence reigned for a moment in the room, until Mrs. Tracy, who, all through the reading had stood like a block of granite by the window, turned and walking swiftly up to Jerrie, said, in a bitter tone:

'Of course there is no mistake. I do not doubt that you are mistress here, and am ready to leave at once. Shall we pack up and quit to-night?'

'Dolly!' 'Mother!' came angrily and sternly from both Tom and Frank, and 'Oh, mamma, please,' came faintly from Maude, while Jerrie lifted up her head, and looking steadily at the cruel woman, said:

'Why are you so hard with me? I cannot help it. I am not to blame. I mean to do right; only wait--a little. I am so sick now--so dizzy and blind. Oh, somebody lead me out where I can breathe. I am choking here.'

It was Tom who reached her first, and pa.s.sing his arm around her, took her into the open air and to a seat under the tree where once before she had almost fainted, as she did now, with her head upon his shoulder, for he put it there, and then pushed her hair back from her face as he said lightly:

'Don't take it so hard; if we can stand it, you can!'

Then Jerrie straightened up and said:

'Oh, Tom, do you want to kill me now?'

'What do you mean?' he asked, and she replied:

'Don't you know you said under the pines that you would kill any claimant to Tracy Park who might appear against you?'

'I remember it,' Tom said, 'but I didn't think then that the claimant would be Jerrie, my cousin,' and he put his arm around her as he continued: 'I can't say that I am not awfully cut up to be turned neck and heels out of what I believed would be my own, but if it must be, I am glad it is you who do it, for I know you'll not be hard upon us, or let Uncle Arthur be, even if mother is so mean. Remember, Jerrie, that I loved you and asked you to be my wife when I believed you poor and unknown.'

Tom was very politic and was speaking good words for himself, but all the good there was in him seemed now to be on the surface and while inwardly rebelling at his misfortune, he felt a thrill of joy in knowing that Jerrie was his cousin, and would not be hard upon him.

'Shall we go back to the house?' he said at last, and they went back, meeting the people upon the piazza, where they stopped for a moment while Jerrie's hands were shaken, and she was kissed and congratulated that at last the mystery was cleared, and her rights restored to her.

'Mr. Arthur Tracy ought to be here,' Judge St. Claire said.

'Yes, I'd thought of that,' Tom replied, first, 'and shall telegraph him to-morrow,'

Then they said good night, and without going in to see either Mr. or Mrs. Tracy again, Tom and Jerry walked slowly toward the cottage, through the leafy woods, where the trees met in graceful arches overhead, and the moonlight fell in silver flecks upon the gra.s.s, and the summer air was odorous and sweet with the smell of the pines and the balm of Gilead trees scattered here and there. It was a lovely place, and Tom thought so with a keen sense of pain, as, after leaving Jerrie at her gate, he walked slowly back until he reached the four pines, where he sat down to think and wonder what he should do as a poor man, with neither business nor prospects.

'I don't suppose the governor has laid up much,' he said, 'for since Uncle Arthur came home he has done very little business, and has spent what really was his own recklessly and without a thought of saving, he was so sure to have enough at last, and Uncle Arthur was so free to give us what we asked for. But that will end when he knows he has a daughter, and as he never fancied me much, I shall either have to beg, or work, or starve, or marry a rich wife, which is not so easy for a poor dog to do.

I don't suppose that Governor's daughter would look at me now, nor anyone else who is anybody. By George, I ought to have called on Ann Eliza before this time. I wonder if it's too late to go there now. I believe I'll walk round there anyway, and if I see a light, I'll go in, and if old _paterfamilias_--how I'd like to kick him--is there, I'll tell him the news, and that I know now he did not strike Jerrie with the table-leg, and perhaps I'll apologize for what I said when in the car.

Tom Tracy, you are a scoundrel, and no mistake,' he added, with energy, as he arose, and struck into the field, through which he had dragged Ann Eliza the night of the storm.

There were lights at Le Bateau, and Tom was soon shaking hands with old _paterfamilias_, who was at home, and with Ann Eliza, who was now able to come down stairs.

CHAPTER XLVII.

ARTHUR.

He had enjoyed himself immensely, from the moment he first caught sight of grand old Pike's Peak on the distant plains until he entered the city of the Golden Gate, and, standing on the terrace of the Cliff House, looked out upon the blue Pacific, with the sea lions disporting on the rocks below. For he went there first, and then to China-town, and explored every nook and corner, and opium den in it, and drank tea at twenty dollars a pound in a high-toned restaurant, and visited the theatre and the Joss House, and patronized the push-cars, as he called them, every day, and experienced a wonderful exhilaration of spirits, as he sat upon the front seat, with the fresh air blowing in his face, and only the broad, steep street, lined with palaces, before him.

'This is heaven! this clears the cobwebs!' he would say to Charles, who sat beside him with chattering teeth and his coat-collar pulled high about his ears, for the winds of San Francisco are cold even in the summer.

Arthur's first trip was to the Yosemite, taking the Milton route, and meeting with the adventure he so much desired; for in the early morning, between Chinese Camp and Priest's, the stage was suddenly stopped by two masked marauders, one of whom stood at the horses' heads, while the other confronted the terrified pa.s.sengers with the blood-curling words:

'Hands up, every soul of you!'

And the hands went up from timid women and strong men, until click-d.i.c.k came in rapid succession from the driver's box, where Arthur sat, and shot after shot followed each other, one bullet grazing the ear of the highwayman at the horses' head, and another cutting through the slouched hat of his comrade near the stage.

'Leave, or I'll shoot you dead! I've five more shots in this one, and two more revolvers in my pockets, and I'm not afraid!' Arthur yelled, jumping about like a maniac, as for the time being he was, and so startling the robbers that they fled precipitately, followed for a little distance by Arthur, who leaped from the stage and started in pursuit, with a revolver in each hand, and ball after ball flying ahead of him as he ran.

When at last he came back, the pa.s.sengers flocked around him, grasping his hands and blessing him as the preserver of their money, if not of their lives. After that Arthur was a lion, whom all people in the valley wished to see and talk with, and with whom the landlord bore as he had never borne with a guest before, for Arthur found fault with the rooms, which he likened to bath-tubs, and fault with the smells which came from the river, and fault with the smoke in the parlour, but made ample amends by the money he spent so lavishly, the scores of photographs he bought, and the puffs he wrote for the San Francisco papers, extolling the valley as the very gate of heaven, and the hotel as second only to the Palace, and signing himself "b.u.mble Bees."

He went on every trail, and started for the highest possible peak, and when he stood on the top of old Capitan and looked down upon the world below, he capered and shouted like a madman, singing at the top of his voice, "Mine eye have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord, glory, glory, hallelujah!" until the rocky gorges rang with the wild echoes which went floating down the valley below, where the sun was shining so brightly and the gra.s.s was growing so green.

On his return to San Francisco after an absence of several weeks, he took up his abode at the Palace Hotel, which he turned topsy-turvy with his vagaries; but as in the valley, so here in the city, the landlord could afford to bear much from one who spent his money so freely and paid so lavishly; and so he was allowed to change rooms every day if he liked, and half the plumbers in the city were called in to see what caused the smells which he declared worse than anything he had ever met in his life, and which were caused in part by the disinfectants which he bought by the wholesale and kept in his bath room, his wash-room, and under his bed, until the chambermaid tied her nose in camphor when she went in to do her work.

But his career was brought to a close suddenly one morning in August, when, just as he was taking his coffee and rolls in his room, Charles brought him the following telegram:

'Come immediately. There's the devil to pay.

'TOM TRACY.'

Arthur read the message two or three times, not at all disturbed by it, but vastly amused at its wording; then, putting it down, he went on with his breakfast until it was finished, when he took a card from his pocket and wrote upon it:

'Pay him then, for I sha'n't come. ARTHUR TRACY.'

This was handed to Charles with instructions to forward it to Tracy Park. This done, he gave no further thought to the message so full of such import to himself, but began to talk of and plan his contemplated trip to Tacoma by the next steamer which sailed. It was six o'clock when he had his dinner in his own private parlour, where he was served by both Charles and a waiter, and where a second telegram was brought him.

'Confound it,' he said, 'have they nothing to do at home but to torment me with telegrams? Didn't I tell them to pay the old Harry and have done with it? What do they mean?' and putting the envelope down by his plate he went quietly on with his dinner until he was through, when he took it up, and, breaking the seal, read:

'Come at once. I need you. JERRIE.'

That changed everything, and with a bound he was in the next room, gesticulating fiercely, and ordering Charles to step lively and get everything in readiness to start home on the first eastward bound train which left San Francisco.

'That rascally Tom is a liar,' he said. 'It's not the old Harry to pay.

It's Jerrie. Do you hear, it's Jerrie. Bring me some paper, quick, and don't stand staring at me as if I were a lunatic. It's Jerrie who needs me.'

Charles brought the paper, on which his master wrote: