Tracy Park: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

'I suppose all these things must stay here till the coroner sees them; so I will put the Bible where I found it.

Arthur gave it up readily enough, and then, as he reached the door, looked back, and said:

'If forty coroners and undertakers come on this business, don't bother me any more. My head buzzes like a bee-hive. See that everything is done decently for the poor woman, and don't let the town bury her. Do it yourself, and send the bill to me. There is room enough on the Tracy lot; put her in a corner.'

'Yes,' Frank answered, standing in the open door and watching him as he went slowly down the long hall and until he heard him going up stairs.

Then locking the door, which shut him in with the dead, he took the photograph from his pocket and examined it minutely, feeling no shadow of doubt in his heart that it was Gretchen—if the picture in the window was like her. It was the same face, the same sweet mouth and sunny blue eyes, with curls of reddish-golden hair shading the low brow. The dress was different and more in accordance with that of a girl who belonged to the middle class, but this counted for nothing, and Frank felt himself a thief, and a liar, and a murderer as he stood looking at the lovely face; and debating what he should do.

Turning it over he saw on the back a word traced in English letters, in a very uncertain scrawling hand, as if it were the writer's first attempt at English. Spelling it letter by letter he made out what he called 'Wiesbaden,' and knew it was some German town. Did Gretchen live there, he wondered, and how could he find out, and what should he do? He had not yet seen the child at the cottage, but from some things Harold said, he knew she was more like this picture than like the dead woman found with her, and in his heart he felt almost sure who she was, and that his course of duty was plain. He ought to show Arthur the photograph, and tell him his suspicions, and take every possible step to ascertain who the woman was and where she came from.

Frank was not a bad man, nor a hard-hearted man, but he was ambitious and weak. He had enjoyed money, and ease, and position long enough to make him unwilling to part with them now, while for his children he was more ambitious than for himself. To see Tom master of Tracy Park was the great desire of his life, and this could not be, if what he feared were proved true. If Arthur had no wife, no child, no will adverse to him, why, then his interest was safe, for no will his brother could now make would be held as valid, and when he died everything would naturally go to him. Of all this Frank thought during the few minutes he staid in the silent room. Then he said to himself:

'I will see the child first. After all I know nothing for certain—can never know anything for certain, and I should be a fool to give up all my children's interests for a fancy, an idea, which may have no foundation. Arthur does not know half the time what he is saying, and might not tell the truth about Gretchen. She may not have been his wife. On the whole, I do not believe she was. He would never have left her if she had been, and if so, this child, if she is Gretchen's, has no right to come between me and mine. No, I shall wait a little while and think, though in the end I mean to do right.'

With these specious arguments Frank tried to quiet his conscience, but he could not help feeling that Satan had possession of him, and as he hurried through the hall he said aloud, as if speaking to something seen:

'Go away—go away! I shall do right if I only know what right is.