Part 36 (1/2)

Think of his refusing to take any more money from me unless I would accept his note promising to pay it all back in time--just as if he ever can, or will.'

'Indeed he will,' Jerrie exclaimed, rousing at once in Harold's defence.

'He will pay every dollar, and I shall help him.'

'You!' and Arthur laughed, merrily, 'How will you help him, I'd like to know.'

'I shall teach school, or give music lessons, or do both to earn something for grandmother,' Jerrie answered, quickly. 'And I shall help Harold, and shall pay Mr. Frank all he gave grandmother for my board. I know just how much it is. Three dollars a week from the time I was four years old until I was sixteen and came here to school--almost two thousand dollars; a big sum, I know, but I shall pay it. You will see,'

she went on rapidly and earnestly; as she saw the amused look on Arthur's face, and felt that he was laughing at her.

'You are going to pay my brother to the uttermost farthing, but what of me? Am I to be left in the cold?' he asked, as he arose from the table and seated himself upon the sofa near the window.

'I expect to be your debtor all my life,' Jerrie said, as went over to him and laid her soft, white arms around his neck. 'I can never pay you for all you have done for me, never. I can only love you, which I do so dearly, as the kindest and best of men.'

She was stooping over him now; and putting up his hands Arthur drew her close to him, so that the two faces were again plainly reflected, side by side in the mirror opposite--the man's gentle and tender as a woman's, the girl's flushed, and eager, and excited as she caught a second time the likeness which had made her cold and faint when she first saw it, and which made her faint again as she clasped her hands tightly together, and leaning a little forward, looked earnestly at the faces in the mirror, while she listened to what Arthur was saying.

'You owe me nothing, Cherry; the indebtedness is all on my side, and has been since the day when a little white sun-bonnet showed itself at my window, and a clear, ringing voice, which I can hear yet, said to me, ”Mr. Crazyman, don't you want some cherries?” You don't know how much of life and suns.h.i.+ne you brought me with the cherries. My sky was very black those days, and but for you I am certain that I should long ere this have been what you called me--a crazy man for sure, locked up behind bars and bolts. My little Cherry has been all the world to me; and though she is very grand, and tall, and stately now, I love to remember her as the child in the sun-bonnet, clinging to the ladder, and talking to the lunatic inside. That would make a fine picture, and it I were an artist I would paint it some day. Perhaps Maude will. Poor little Maude! Did I tell you that while she was absent she dabbled in water-colors? and now she has what she calls a studio, where she perpetrates the most atrocious daubs you ever saw. Poor Maude! She is weak in the upper story, but is, on the whole, a nice girl, and very pretty, too, with her black eyes, and brilliant color, and kittenish ways. I did not care for her once, but we are great friends now, and she is a comfort to me in your absence. I am afraid, though, that she is not long for this world. Everything tires her, and she has grown so thin that a breath might blow her away. I think it would kill Frank to lose her. His life is bound up in hers; and he once said to me, either that he had sold, or would sell, his soul for her. What do you suppose he meant?'

Jerrie did not reply. The likeness in the mirror had disappeared as Arthur grew more in earnest, and she listened more intently to what he was saying of Maude, every word as he went on a blow from which she shrank as from some physical pain.

'Yes,' Arthur continued, 'Maude is weak, mentally and physically, though I believe she is trying hard to improve her wind, or rather, that young man, Harold, is trying to improve it for her. He is at the house nearly everyday, or she is at the cottage. But, hold on! I wasn't to tell, and I haven't told--only he reads to her, sometimes outside when the weather will admit, but oftener in her _studio_, where she talks to him of art, and where I once saw him giving her a sitting while she tried to sketch his face. A caricature, I called it, ridiculing it so much that she put it away unfinished, and is now at work on some water-lilies he brought her, and which are really very good. Mrs. Tracy is not pleased with Harold's visits, and I once overheard her saying to Maude, ”Why do you encourage the attentions of that young man? why do you run after him so, down there every day?” Hold on, again! What a tattler I am! Why don't I stick to Dolly, who said, ”You certainly do not care for him. He hasn't a cent to his name, nor any family and has even worked in Peterkin's furnace.” What Maude replied I do not know, I only heard Dolly bang the door hard as she left the room, so I suppose the answer was not a pleasing one. Dolly is a grand lady and would not like her daughter to marry an ordinary man like Harold.'

'No,' Jerrie said, slowly, as if speaking were an effort. 'N-no; and you think Harold likes Maude very much?'

'Likes her? Yes. Why shouldn't he like a girl as pretty as she is, especially when she meets him more than half way?' Arthur replied, and Jerrie continued in the same measured tone:

'Ye-es, and you think he would marry her if her mother would permit it?'

'He is not at all likely to do that,' Arthur answered, quickly, 'A man seldom marries a woman who throws herself at his head and lets him see how much she cares for him, and Maude is doing just that. She cannot conceal anything. I tell you, Cherry, if the time ever comes when you love somebody better than all the world beside, don't let him know until he speaks for himself. Don't be lightly won. Better be shy and cold, than demonstrative and gus.h.i.+ng, like Maude. Gretchen was shy as a fawn, and after I told her I loved her she would not believe it possible. But, child, you look f.a.gged and tired. It is time you were in bed. I have talked you nearly to death.'

'I am not tired,' Jerrie said, 'and I want to know what it is about Maude's going to the cottage, which you must not tell me. Is she there very, very often, and does Harold like to have her come, and is that throwing herself at his head, as you call it?'

She had her arm around his neck in a coaxing kind of way, and Arthur smoothed the soft white hand resting on his coat-collar, as he answered, laughingly:

'Mother Eve herself. You would have eaten the apple, too, had you been Mrs. Adam. No, no, I shall not tell any secrets. You must wait and see for yourself. And now you must go, for I am tired myself.'

She said good-night, and went to her room, but not to sleep at once, because of the tumult of emotions which had been roused by what Arthur had told her of Maude and Harold.

'I don't believe now that I really meant him to make love to her when I asked him to amuse her,' she whispered to herself, as she dashed away two great tear-drops from her cheeks.

Then, after a moment, she continued:

'But they shall never know. No one shall ever know that I care, for I don't, or I am not going to. Harold is my brother, and I shall love Maude as my sister, and I will do all I can to make her more like what Harold's wife should be. She is beautiful, and good, and sweet, and true, and with money and position can do far more for him than I could--I, the daughter of a peasant woman, the child of the carpet bag; and yet--'

Here Jerrie's hands beat the air excitedly as she recalled the wild fancy which had twice taken possession of her that night, and which had been born of that likeness seen in the mirror. Many times since she had pa.s.sed from childhood to womanhood had she speculated upon the mystery which enshrouded her, while one recollection after another of past events flitted through her brain, only to bewilder her awhile and then to disappear into oblivion. But never before had she been affected as she was that night when the possibility of what might be nearly drove her wild.

'Oh, if that were so,' she said, 'I could help Harold, and I'd give everything to him and make him my king, as he is worthy to be. There is something far back,' she continued 'something different from the woman who died at my side. That face which haunts me so often was a reality somewhere. It has kissed me and called me darling, and I saw the life fade out of it--saw it cold and dead. I know I did, and sometime, when I have paid that debt to Mr. Frank Tracy, and have helped Harold, and made grandmother comfortable, I'll go to Germany, to Wiesbaden and everywhere, and clear the mystery, if possible; and if mother was a peasant girl, with hands coa.r.s.e and hard, and black from labor in the field, then, I, too, will be a peasant girl, and marry a peasant lad, and draw his potatoes home in a cart, while he trudges at my side.'

At this picture of herself Jerrie laughed out loud, and while trying to think how it would seem to draw potatoes in a cart, after having dug them, she fell asleep and dreamed of Maude and Harold, and studios and lilies, and a face which was a caricature, as Arthur had said, and which, when at a late hour she awoke, proved to be that of the chambermaid, whom Arthur had sent to rouse her, as he was waiting for his breakfast.

CHAPTER XXVI.