Tracy Park: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

'I shall try to find out who the woman was, and where she came from; but how am I to do it? how begin? Arthur will not tell me a word about Gretchen, who she is, or what she is to him. Still, I mean to be on the safe side, and do right by the child. Arthur cannot live many years. His nerves will wear him out, if nothing else, and when he does, his money will naturally come to me.'

'Naturally,' his spectral companion replied, and he continued:

'Well, what I intend doing is this: I shall make my will, in which Jerry will share equally with my children, and I shall further draw up a written request that in case I die before my brother, any money which may fall to my children from him shall be shared equally with her. I shall, out of my own private funds, provide for her support and education, until she comes of age, or marries, and if possible, I shall bring about a marriage between her and Tom, who will probably one day be master of Tracy Park. Can anything more be required of me?'

'Nothing,' was the consoling reply; and as the sleigh just then drew up before his door, Frank alighted from it, and said to himself as he ran up the steps:

'I believe I have been riding with the devil, and have made a league with him!'

He found the house thoroughly aired and cleansed from all signs of the recent funeral; and when, at one o'clock, he sat down to lunch in the handsome dining-room, and sipped his favorite claret, and ate his foreign preserves, and thought how much comfort and luxury money could buy, he was sure he had done well for himself and his children after him. But, like Bishop Hatto, of Mouse-Tower memory, Frank Tracy never knew real peace of mind from the day he deliberately sold himself to the Evil One for filthy lucre, until the day, years after, when full restitution was made, and, with the sin confessed, he held his head up again, free from the shadow which he did not leave in the sleigh, but which followed him day and night, walking by him when he walked, sitting by him when he sat, and watching by him when he slept, so as to be ready when he woke with the specious argument that he was acting justly and even generously by the little waif, who was like a sunbeam in the cottage in the lane, whom many people went to see, marvelling at her beauty and wondering in vain whose likeness they sometimes saw in her as she frolicked around the house, full of life, and fun, and laughter.

Frank made his will, as he promised his shadow he would, but he went to Springfield to have it drawn up, for he knew that Colvin, or any lawyer whom he might employ in Shannondale, would wonder at it. He also wrote out himself what he called his dying request to his children, in case he should die before his brother. In this he stated emphatically his wish that Jerry should have her share of whatever might come to them from the Tracy estate, the same as if she were his own child.

'I have a good and sufficient reason for this,' he wrote in conclusion, 'and I enjoin it upon you to carry out my wishes as readily as you would were I to speak to you from my grave,'

This done, Frank felt a little better, and the shadow at his side was not quite as real as it had been before. He put his will and his dying request together in a private drawer with Gretchen's photograph, and the testament with the handwriting in it. He had kept this back when the stranger's trunk was sent to the cottage, thinking that if it were missed and inquired for, he could easily produce it as having been mislaid. At the suggestion of Mr. St. Claire he went to New York, to the office of the German line of steamers, and made inquiries with regard to the passengers who had come on a certain ship at such a time. But nothing could be learned of any woman with a child, and after inserting in several of the New York papers a description of the woman, with a request for any information concerning her which could be given, he returned home, with a feeling that he had done all that could be required of him, and that he might now enjoy himself.

He was accordingly kind and even tender to his brother, who for several weeks suffered from low nervous depression, which kept him altogether in his room, to which he refused to admit any one except his attendant and Frank. He had ceased for the time being, to talk of Gretchen, or to expect her, and he never inquired for the child, whose blue hood had so affected him. Once Frank spoke of her to him and told him where she was, and that she was learning to speak English very rapidly, and growing prettier every day. But Arthur did not seem at all interested and only said: