Part 35 (2/2)

They were standing side by side before a long mirror, she taller for a woman than he was for a man, so that her face was almost in a range with his, as he stooped a little forward.

Glancing into the mirror at the two faces so near to each other, Jerrie saw something which for an instant made her cold and sick, and set every nerve to quivering as she stepped suddenly back, looking first at the man's face and then at her own in the mirror. It was gone now, the look which had so startled her, but it had certainly been there--a likeness between the two faces--and she had seen it plainer than she had ever seen any resemblance between herself and the picture. Gretchen had blue eyes, and fair hair, and fair complexion, and so had she, and so had hundreds of German girls, and all Arthur had ever said to her had never brought to her mind a thought like the two faces in the mirror. _What if it were so?_ That was the thought which had flashed like lightning through her brain, making her so weak that she grasped Arthur's arm to steady herself as she tried to speak composedly.

'You are white as your dress,' he said. 'It is this confounded hot room; let us sit nearer the window.'

They sat down together on a sofa, and taking up a newspaper, Arthur fanned Jerrie gently, while she said to him:

'Do you really think I look like Gretchen?'

'Yes; except that you are taller. You might be her daughter.'

'Had she--had Gretchen a daughter?' was Jerrie's next question, put hesitatingly.

'None that I ever heard of,' Arthur replied. 'Why do you ask that?'

'And her name when a girl was Marguerite Heinrich, was it not?' Jerrie went on.

'Yes. Who told you that?' Arthur said.

'I saw it on a letter which you gave me to post years ago, when I was a child,' Jerrie replied. 'You never received an answer to that letter, did you?'

'What letter did you post for me to Marguerite Heinrich? I don't know what you mean,' Arthur said, the old worried look settling upon his face, which always came there when he was trying to recall something he ought to remember.

As he grew older he seemed to be annoyed when told of things he had forgotten, and as the letter had evidently gone entirely from his mind, Jerrie said no more of it. _She_ remembered it well; and never dreaming that it had not been posted, she had watched a long time for an answer, which never came. Gretchen was dead; that was settled in her mind. But who was she? With the words, 'What if it were so?' still buzzing in her brain, the answer to this question was of vital importance to her, and after a moment, she continued, as if she had all the time been talking of Gretchen:

'She was Marguerite Heinrich when a girl in Wiesbaden, but she had another name afterward, when she was married.'

'You are talking of something you know nothing about. Can't you let Gretchen alone?' Arthur said, petulantly, and springing up he began to pace the room in a state of great excitement, while Jerrie sat motionless, with a white, stony look on her face and a far off look in her eyes, as if she were seeing in a vision things she could not retain, they pa.s.sed to rapidly before her, and were so hazy and indistinct.

The likeness she had seen in the gla.s.s was gone now. She was not like Arthur at all; it was madness in her to have thought so. And she was not like Gretchen either. Her mother was lying under the little pine tree which she and Harold had planted above the lonely grave. Her mother had been dark, and coa.r.s.e, and bony, and a peasant woman--so Ann Eliza Peterkin, who had heard it from her father, had told her once, when angry with her, and Harold, when sorely pressed, had admitted as much to her.

'Dark, with large, hard hands,' he had said; and Jerrie with the great tears s.h.i.+ning in her eyes, had answered, indignantly:

'But hard and black as they were, they always touched _me_ gently and tenderly, and sometimes I believe I can remember just how lovingly and carefully they wrapped the old cloak around me to keep me warm. Dear mother, what do I care how black she was, and coa.r.s.e. She was mine, and gave her life for me.'

This was when Jerrie was a child, and now that she was older she was seeking to put away this woman with the dark face and the coa.r.s.e hands, and subst.i.tute in her place a fairer, sweeter face, with hands like wax and features like a Madonna. But only for a few moments, and then the wild dream vanished, and the sad, pale face, the low voice, the music, the trees, the flowers, the sick-room, the death-bed, the woman who died, and the woman who served, all went out together into the darkness, and she was Jerrie Crawford again, wearing her commencement dress to please the man still pacing the floor abstractedly, and paying no heed to her when she went out to change her dress for the blue muslin she bud worn through the day.

When she returned to the parlor she found him seated at the tea-table, which had been laid during her absence. Taking her seat opposite to him, she made his tea, and b.u.t.tered his toast, and chatted, and laughed until she succeeded in bringing back a quiet expression to the face which bore no likeness now to her own, but looked pale and haggard as it always did after any excitement. He was talking of the commencement exercises, and regretting that he could not be present.

'I may not be home,' he said. 'And if I am. I shall not come. Crowds kill me, and smells kill me, and we are sure to have both. I wish I had a different nose, but it is as it was made, and I think I detect some bad odor in here, don't you?'

Jerrie, who knew from experience that the better way was to humor his fancy, said she did smell something; perhaps it was the carpet, or the curtains, both of which were new.

'Very likely, and in that case the smell is a clean one,' he replied, and began again to speak of commencement.

'Harold is sure to be here,' he said, 'and he is better than forty old coves like me. It is astonis.h.i.+ng what a fancy I have taken to that young man. I don't see a fault in him, except that he is too infernally proud.

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