Gretchen: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

"That's so," Peterkin assented, a little sadly, "and if she don't take to it, the old Harry can't make her. She used to be the meekest of wives them days she dried her clothes on the Lizy Ann, but she don't knock under wuth a cent sense we riz in the world, and Ann Lizy is wus than her mother. But I'll show this to the old woman and let you know."

May Jane did not approve, neither did Billy. No use they said, to flaunt the canal, horse, driver, and all in people's faces; and so the discomfited Peterkin went to Arthur again and told him "the fat was all in the fire, and May Jane on a rampage."

"Try again, square; but give us some kind of water and craft."

So Arthur good humoredly changed the canal into a gracefully flowing river, in a bend of which, in the distance there was just visible a boat, which was a cross between a gondola and one of those little dangerous things so common on the lakes of Wisconsin. Standing in the bow of the boat, with folded arms, as if calmly contemplating the scenery was the figure of a man—supposed to be Peterkin—who swore "he'd keep this picter in spite of 'em;" and as his wife did not seriously object, the sketch was transferred in oil to a panel and inserted in the carriage, which, when drawn by two shining bays and driven by a colored man in long coat and tall hat, with Peterkin sitting back in it with all the pride and pompousness of a two-millionaire, and May Jane at his side, covered with diamonds, attracted general attention and comment. Billy seldom patronized the carriage, but frequently rode beside it, talking to his mother, of whom he was very fond, and taking off his hat to every person he met, whether old or young, rich or poor.

"Billy is an idiot, but very kind-hearted," people said of him, and in truth he was popular with everybody, especially the men in his father's employ, who all went to him for favors, or for an increase of wages; for if Billy had any business it was in his father's office, where he pretended to look after matters and keep the books straight. Such had been the growth of Peterkin during the past ten years. "He had got clean to the front," he said, "and was hob-nobbin' with Square Harrenton, and Judge St. Claire, and the Tracys," all of whom shrugged their shoulders and laughed at him in secret, but treated him civilly to his face; for, deny it as we may, money has a mighty power, and will open many a door which nothing else could move.

"Coarse and ignorant as a horse, but not so bad after all," was what people said of him now; and in fact Peterkin had improved and softened a good deal with the accession of wealth. Nobody gave so lavishly to everything, as he did, while to his employees he was always generous and considerate. Once he thought to join the church, thinking that would add to his respectability; but when talked with by his clergyman he showed himself so lamentably deficient in every necessary qualification that he was advised to wait a while, which he did; but he rented the most expensive pew and carried the largest prayer-book of any one, and read the loudest, and kept his head down the longest, so long, indeed, that he once went to sleep, and had quite a little nap before his wife nudged him and told him to get up.

"Good Lord, deliver us!" was his ejaculation, as he sprang to his feet, and, adjusting his glasses, looked fiercely round at the amused congregation.

So far as money and display were concerned, the St. Claires and Mrs. Atherton had not kept up with Peterkin. On the contrary, as he grew into society they gradually withdrew, until at last Dolly Tracy had it all her own way and looked upon herself as the lady par excellence of the town. She had been to Europe. She had seen the queen; she had had some dresses made at Worth's; she had picked up a few French words which she used on all occasions, with but little regard to their appropriateness. She had decorated a tea-set and was as unlike the Dolly Tracy whom we first knew, as a person well could be. Every thing had gone well with her, and scarcely a sorrow had touched her, for though poor, stupid Jack had slept for five years in the Tracy lot with only the woman of the Tramp House for company, he was so near an imbecile when he died, that his death was a blessing rather than otherwise. Tom, with his fine figure, his fastidious tastes, and aristocratic notions, was the apple of her eye, and tout-a-fait au fait, she said, when her French fever was at its height and she wished to impress her hearers with her knowledge of the language; while, except for her ill-health, and the bad taste she manifested in her liking for Harold's society, Maude was tout-a-fait au fait, too. She had no dread of Gretchen, now; even Arthur had ceased to talk of her, and was as a rule very quiet and contented.

Only her husband troubled her, for with the passing years his silence and abstraction had increased, until now it was nothing remarkable for him to go days without speaking to anyone unless he were first spoken to. His hair was white as snow which made him look years older than he really was, while the habit he had of always walking with his head down added to his apparent years.

During the time Maude was in Europe he grew old very fast, for Maude was all that made life endurable. To see her in her young beauty flitting about the house and grounds like a bright bird, whose nest is high up in some sheltered spot where the storms never come, was some compensation for what he had done; but when she was gone there came over him such a sense of loneliness and desolation that at times he feared lest he should become crazier than his brother, who really appeared to be improving, although the strange forgetfulness of past events still clung to and increased upon him. He did not now remember ever to have said that Gretchen was with him in the ship or on the train, or that he had sent the carriage so many times to meet her; and when he spoke of her, which he seldom did to any one except to Jerrie, it was as of one who had died years ago. Occasionally, in the winter, when a wild storm was raging like that which had shaken the house and bent the evergreens the night Jerrie came, he would tie a knot of crape upon the picture, but would give no reason for it when questioned except to say, "Can't you see it is a badge of mourning?"