The Tracy diamonds

by Mary Jane Holmes

“Mother is something of an invalid and does not usually see strangers, but I will tell her of you,” Fanny said, and as a maid just then came to say lunch was ready she bade her good morning and left the parlor.

The acquaintance thus begun ripened into intimacy as the days went by, and the two girls saw each other often. Mistress and maid, a casual observer might have thought them, they were so unlike; the one, slight and fair as a lily and clad in garments of the latest style, with every mark of culture and refinement; the other, tall and strongly built, with a freedom of manner which betokened a child of the mountains rather than of the city, and a face singular in its beauty, and eyes wonderful in their varying expression, from a softness under their veiled lids, amounting almost to sleepiness, to gleams of passion which told of a strong nature which, when aroused, was equal to acts of daring from which Fanny in her timidity would have shrunk appalled. Inez took Fanny on frequent walks through the city which she knew so well and where so many seemed to know her. At first Mrs. Prescott objected to her daughter’s intimacy with one who, in her estimation, was little more than a peasant girl. But Fanny was not to be shaken from her allegiance, and after some inquiries of the housekeeper with regard to Inez Mrs. Prescott ceased to object to Fanny’s being so much with her.

“But don’t bring her in here. Why should I see her?” she said, when Fanny asked that Inez might be presented.

“Because I want you know her, and see if you can tell what makes me feel so when I am with her.”

“Bring her, then,” Mrs. Prescott said, one day, “but don’t let her stay long. My head aches and I am tired.”

That afternoon Fanny went out with her maid on an errand, saying to Inez as she left the hotel, “When I come back I am going to take you to mother.”

For a while Inez waited patiently, watching for Fanny’s return. To call upon Mrs. Prescott was a great event in her life and something of which to tell her father and Tom when she got home. In the housekeeper’s room and from the servants and some of the guests whom she knew, she had heard a great deal of Mrs. Prescott, who was said to be fabulously wealthy, and had such costly diamonds and wore such pretty negligées in the morning and such beautiful dresses to dinner, although there was no one but her daughter at table with her. Occasionally she had caught a glimpse of the lady on the rare occasions when she went to drive, but she was always so closely veiled that it was impossible to tell how she looked. Now, however, Inez was to see her, and she grew very impatient at Fanny’s protracted absence.

“Maybe she has come and I didn’t know it. I mean to go up and see,” she thought, as the clock struck four and there was no sign of Fanny.

Going up to Mrs. Prescott’s rooms she stole softly to the door, which was partly open. Fanny was not there, but she heard a sound as of some one in pain. Mrs. Prescott had complained of a headache all day and after Fanny and her maid went out it grew so much worse that she dropped the shades and lay down upon the couch, hoping to sleep. But the pain which was of a neuralgic nature increased so fast that she at last uttered the moan which Inez heard. Her first impulse was to go in at once; then, knowing this was not the thing to do, she knocked twice and receiving no answer ventured in. Mrs. Prescott, who was lying with her eyes closed, did not know she was there until she said, “Are you sick, and can I do anything for you?”

The voice was singularly sweet, with a tone in it which brought to Mrs. Prescott’s mind vague memories of woods and hills and sunshine on a river and pond where the white lilies grew and where in her giddiness and pain she seemed for a moment to be sailing away into the shadow of the willows which drooped over the water. Just where the woods and hills and river were was not clear to her, and the picture passed as soon as it came. Looking up she saw a young girl standing by her couch, plainly attired in a gingham dress and white apron, with a fancy silk handkerchief knotted around her neck.