Tracy Park: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

'In the nursery,' was his reply; and he saw his wishes carried out and ordered in a crib, which used to be Jack's, and bade the nurse see that she was comfortable.

So Jerry was put to bed in the nursery and slept very quietly until about, ten o'clock when she awoke and cried piteously for both 'Man-nee' and 'Ha-roll.' Frank, who was sitting alone in the library, heard the cry, and knew it was not Maude's. Had it been he would not have minded it, for he knew that she would be cared for without his interference. But something in the crying of this little foreign girl stirred him strangely, and after listening to it a few moments he arose, and going softly to the door of the nursery, stood listening until a sharp hush from the nurse girl decided him to enter, and going to the crib he bent over the sobbing child and tried to comfort her. She could not understand him, but the tone of his voice was kind, and when he put his hand on her hot head she took it in hers and held it fast, as if she recognized in him a friend. And Frank as he felt the clasp of the soft, warm fingers, and saw the confiding look in the wide-open eyes, grew faint and cold, and asked himself again, as he had many times that day, if he could do it.

Jerry was asleep at last, but she sobbed occasionally in her sleep, and there were great tears on her eyelashes, while her fingers clutched Frank's hand tightly as if fearing to let it go. But he managed to disengage it and stealing cautiously from the room went back to the library where he sat late into the night, facing the future and wondering if he could meet it.

He had Jerry at the table next morning and saw that she was helped to everything she wanted without any regard to its suitability for her, and when his wife said rather curtly that she never knew that he was so fond of children before, he answered her:

'I am only doing as I would wish some one to do to Maude if she were like this poor little girl.'

When, at last, the hour for the funeral arrived he placed her himself upon the high chair close to the coffin, where she sat through the short service, conspicuous in her gray cloak and blue hood, with her golden hair falling on her neck and piled in wavy masses on her forehead, while her bright eyes scanned the crowd curiously as if asking why they were there and why they were all looking so intently at her. More than one kind-hearted woman went up and kissed her, and when, at the close of the services, Mr. Tracy held her in his arms for a last look at her mother, their tears fell fast for the child, so unconscious of the meaning of what was passing around her.

'Isn't she beautiful! Such lovely hair, and eyes, and dazzling complexion!' was said by more than one; and then they speculated as to her future.

Would she go to the poor-house? Would Frank Tracy keep her with all his children, or was it true, as they had heard, that Mr. Arthur Tracy was to adopt her at his own? And where was Mr. Arthur? He might, at least, have shown enough respect for the dead woman to come into the room, and they wanted so much to see him, for there was a great deal of curiosity with regard to the lunatic of Tracy Park among the lower class of people who had come to Shannondale during the eleven years of his absence.

But Arthur was sick in bed, suffering alternately from chills and a raging fever, which set his brain on fire and made him wilder than usual. He had not slept well during the night. Indeed, he said, he had not slept at all. But this was a common assertion of his, and one to which Charles now paid little heed.

'A man can't snore and not sleep,' was the unanswerable argument with which he refuted the sleepless nights of his master.