Ethelyn's Mistake Part 17

"There's a great deal of good about that man, after all," she said to her sister, when, after he was gone to his room, they sat together around their hearth and talked the matter over afresh; and then, as she took off and carefully smoothed her little round puffs of false hair, and adjusted her nightcap in its place, she said, timidly, "You were rather hard on him, Sophia, at times."

It needed but this for Mrs. Van Buren to explode again and charge her sister with saying too little rather than too much. "One would think you blamed Ethie entirely, or at least that you were indifferent to her happiness," she said, removing her lace barb, and unfastening the heavy switch bound about her head. "I was surprised at you, Barbara, I must say. After all your pretended affection for Ethelyn, I did expect you would be willing to do as much as to speak for her, at least."

This was too much for poor Aunt Barbara, and without any attempt at justification, except that her sister in her attack upon Richard had left her nothing to say, she cried quietly and sorrowfully, as she folded up her white ap.r.o.n and made other necessary preparations for the night. That she should be accused of not caring for Ethie, of not speaking for her, wounded her in a tender point; and long after Mrs. Van Buren had gone to the front chamber, where she always slept, Aunt Barbara was on her knees by the rocking chair, praying earnestly for Ethie, and then still kneeling there, with her face on the cushion, sobbing softly, "G.o.d knows how much I love her. There's nothing of personal comfort I would not sacrifice to bring her back; but when a man was feeling as bad as he could, what was the use of making him feel worse?"

CHAPTER XXVI

WATCHING AND WAITING

The pink and white blossoms of the apple trees by the pump in Aunt Barbara's back yard were dropping their snowy petals upon the clean, bright gra.s.s, and the frogs in the meadows were croaking their sad music, when Richard Markham came again to Chicopee. He had started for home the morning after his memorable interview with Mrs. Dr. Van Buren, and to Aunt Barbara had fallen the task of telling her troubles to the colonel's family, asking that the affair be kept as quiet as possible, inasmuch as Ethie might soon be found, and matters between her and Richard be made right. Every day, after the mail came from the West, the colonel rang at Aunt Barbara's door and asked solemnly, "if there was any news"--good news, he meant--and Aunt Barbara always shook her head, while her face grew thinner, and her round, straight figure began to get a stoop and a look of greater age than the family Bible would warrant.

Ethelyn had not been heard from, and search as he would, Richard could find no trace of her whatever. She had effectually covered her tracks, so that not even a clew to her whereabouts was found. No one had seen her, or any person like her, and the suspense and anxiety of those three--Richard, Aunt Barbara, and Andy--who loved her so well, was getting to be terrible, when there came to Andy a letter--a letter in the dear, familiar handwriting. A few lines only, and they read:

"NEW YORK, May--.

"MY DARLING ANDY: I know you have not forgotten me, and I am superst.i.tious enough to fancy that you are with me in spirit constantly.

I do not know why I am writing this to you, but something impels me to do it, and tell you that I am well. I cannot say happy yet, for the sundering of every earthly relation made too deep a wound for me not to feel the pain for months and may be for years. I have employment, though--constant employment--that helps me to bear, and keeps me from dwelling too much upon the past.

"Andy, I want you to tell Richard that in thinking over my married life I see many places where I did very wrong and tried him terribly. I am sorry for that, and hope he will forgive me. I wish I had never crossed his path and left so dark a shadow on his life.

"Tell your mother that I know now I did not try to make her like me.

Perhaps I could not if I had; but I might at least have tried. I am sorry I troubled her so much.

"Tell Melinda Jones, and James and John, that I remember all their kindness, and thank them so much. And Eunice, too. She was good to me, always. And oh! Andy, please get word somehow to dear Aunt Barbara that her lost Ethie is well, and so sorry to give her pain, as I know I do. I would write to her myself, but I am afraid she blames me for going away and bringing a kind of disgrace upon her and Aunt Van Buren. I cannot say yet I am sorry for the step I took, and, until I am sorry I cannot write to Aunt Barbara. But you must tell her for me how much I love her, and how every night of my life I dream I am back in the dear old home under the maples, and see upon the hills the swelling buds and leaves of spring. Tell her not to forget me, and be sure that wherever I am or whatever may befall me, she will be remembered as the dearest, most precious memory of my life. Next to her Andy, you come; my darling Andy, who was always so kind to me when my heart was aching so hard.

"Good-by, Andy, good-by."

This was the letter which Andy read with streaming eyes, while around him, on tiptoe, to look over his and each other's shoulders, stood the entire family, all anxious and eager to know what the runaway had written. It was a very conciliatory letter, and it left a sadly pleasant impression on those who read it, making even the mother wipe her eyes with the corner of her ap.r.o.n as she washed her supper dishes in the sink and whispered to herself, "She didn't trouble me so very much more than I did her. I might have done different, too."

Richard made no comment whatever, but, like Andy, he conned the letter over and over until he knew it by heart, especially the part referring to himself. She had cast a shadow upon his life, but she was very dear to him for all that, and he would gladly have taken back the substance, had that been possible. This letter Richard carried to Aunt Barbara, whom he found sitting in her pleasant porch, with the May moonlight falling upon her face, and her eyes wearing the look of one who is constantly expecting something which never comes. And Aunt Barbara was expecting Ethie. It could not be that a young girl like her would stay away for long. She might return at any time, and every morning the good woman said to herself, "She will be here to-day;" every night, "She will come home to-morrow." The letter, however, did not warrant such a conclusion There was no talk of coming back, but the postmark, "New York," told where she was, and that was something gained. They could surely find her now, Aunt Barbara said, and she and Richard talked long together about what he was going to do, for he was on his way then to the great city.

"Bring her to me at once. It is my privilege to have her first," Aunt Barbara said, next morning, as she bade Richard good-by, and then began to watch and wait for tidings which never came.

Richard could not find Ethelyn, or any trace of her, and after a protracted search of six long weeks, he went back to his Iowa home, sick, worn out, and discouraged. Aunt Barbara roused herself for action.

"Men were good for nothing to hunt. They could not find a thing if it was right before their face and eyes. It took a woman; and she was going to see what she could do," she said to Mrs. Van Buren, who was up at the homestead for a few days, and who looked aghast at her sister's proposition, that she should accompany her, and help her hunt up Ethie.

"Was Barbara crazy, that she thought of going to New York in this hot weather, when the smallpox, and the dysentery, and the plague, and mercy knew what was there? Besides that, how did Barbara intend to manage?

What was she going to do?"

Barbara hardly knew herself how she should manage, or what she should do. "Providence would direct," she said, though to be sure she had an idea. Ethie had written that she had found employment, and what was more probable than to suppose that the employment was giving music lessons, for which she was well qualified, or teaching in some gentleman's family. Taking this as her basis, Aunt Barbara intended to inquire for every governess and teacher in the city, besides watching every house where such an appendage would be likely to be found. Still her great hope was in the street and the Park. She should surely meet Ethie there some day--at least she would try the effect of her plan; and she went quietly on with her preparations, while Mrs. Van Buren tried to dissuade her from a scheme which seemed so foolish and utterly impracticable.

"Suppose Ethie was a governess, the family most likely would be out of town at that season; and what good would it do for Aunt Barbara to risk her life and health in the crowded city?"

This view of the matter was rather dampening to Aunt Barbara's zeal; but trusting that Providence would interfere in her behalf, she still insisted that she should go, and again expressed a wish that Sophia would go with her. "It would not be so lonesome, and would look better, too," she said, "while you know more of city ways than I do, and would not get imposed upon."

Mrs. Van Buren could go far beyond her sister in abusing Richard, but when it came to a sacrifice of her own comfort and pleasure, she held back. Nothing could induce her to go to New York. She preferred the cool seaside, where she was to join a party of Boston elite. Her dresses were made, her room engaged, and she must go, she said, urging that Nettie's health required the change--Nettie, who had given to her husband a sickly, puny child, which lived just long enough to warrant a grand funeral, and then was laid to rest under the shadow of the Van Buren monument, out in pleasant Mount Auburn.

So Mrs. Van Buren went back to Boston, while Aunt Barbara gave all needful directions to Betty with regard to the management of the house, and the garden, and plants, and cellar door, which must be shut nights, and the spot on the roof which sometimes leaked when it rained, and the burdocks and dandelions which must be dug up, and the gra.s.s which Uncle Billy Thompson must cut once in two weeks, and the old cat, Tabby, and the young cat, Jim, who had come to the door in a storm, and was now the pet of the house, and the canary bird, and the yeast, and look in the vinegar barrel to see that all was right, and be sure and scald the milk-pans, and turn them up in the sun for an hour, and keep the doors locked, and the silver up in the scuttle-hole; and if she heard the rat which baffled and tormented them so long, get some poison and kill it, but not on any account let it get in the cistern; and keep the door-steps clean, and the stoop, and once in a while sweep the low roof at the back of the house, and not sit up late nights, or sleep very long in the morning; and inasmuch as there would be so little to do, she might as well finish up all her new sewing, and make the pile of sheets and pillow-cases which had been cut out since March. These were Aunt Barbara's directions, which Betty, nothing appalled, promised to heed, telling her mistress not to worry an atom, as things should be attended to, even better than if she were at home to see to them herself.

Aunt Barbara knew she could trust old Betty, and so, after getting herself vaccinated in both arms, as a precaution against the smallpox, and procuring various disinfecting agents, and having underpockets put in all her dresses, by way of eluding pickpockets, the good woman started one hot July morning on her mission in search of Ethie. But, alas, finding Ethie, or anyone, in New York, was like "hunting for a needle in a hay mow," as Aunt Barbara began to think after she had been for four weeks or more an inmate of an uptown boarding house, recommended as first-cla.s.s, but terrible to Aunt Barbara, from the contrast it presented to her own clean, roomy home beneath the maple trees, which came up to her so vividly, with all its delicious coolness and fragrance, and blossoming shrubs, and newly cut gra.s.s, with the dew sparkling like diamonds upon it.

Aunt Barbara was terribly homesick from the first, but she would not give up; so day after day she traversed one street after another, looking wistfully in every face she met for the one she sought, questioning children playing in the parks and squares as to whether they knew any teacher by the name of Markham or Grant, ringing the door-bells of every pretentious-looking house and putting the same question to the servants, until the bombazine dress and black Stella shawl, and brown Neapolitan hat, and old-fashioned lace veil, and large sun umbrella became pretty well known in various parts of New York, while the owner thereof grew to be a suspicious character, whom servants watched from the bas.e.m.e.nt and ladies from the parlor windows, and children shunned on the sidewalk, while even the police were cautioned with regard to the strange woman who went up and down day after day, sometimes in stages, sometimes in cars, but oftener on foot, staring at everyone she met, especially if they chanced to be young or pretty, and had any children near them. Once down near Washington Square, as she was hurrying toward a group of children, in the center of which stood a figure much like Ethie's, a tall man in the blue uniform accosted her, inquiring into her reasons for wandering about so constantly.

Aunt Barbara's honest face, which she turned full toward the officer, was a sufficient voucher for her with the simple, straightforward explanation which she made to the effect that her niece had left home some time ago--run away, in fact--and she was hunting for her here in New York, where her letter was dated. "But it's wearisome work for an old woman like me, walking all over New York, as I have," Aunt Barbara said, and her lip began to quiver as she sat down upon one of the seats in the square, and looked helplessly up at the policeman. She was not afraid of him, nor of the five others of the craft who knew her by sight, and stopped to hear what she had to say. She never dreamed that they could suspect her of wrong, and they did not when they heard her story, and saw the truthful, motherly face. Perhaps they could help her, they said, and they asked the name of the runaway.

At first Aunt Barbara refused to give it, wishing to spare Ethie this notoriety; but she finally yielded so far as to say, "She might call herself either Markham or Grant," and that was all they could get from her; but after that day the bombazine dress, and black Stella shawl, and large sun umbrella were safe from the surveillance of the police, save as each had a kindly care for the owner, and an interest in the object of her search.

The light-fingered gentry, however, were not as chary of her. The sweet, motherly face, and wistful, pleading, timid eyes, did not deter them in the least. On the contrary, they saw in the bombazine and Stella shawl a fine field for their operations; and twice, on returning to her boarding house, the good soul was horrified to find her purse was missing, notwithstanding that she had kept her hand upon her pocket every instant, except once, when the man who looked like a minister had kindly opened the car window for her, and she had gathered up her dress to make more room for him at her side, and once when she got entangled in a crowd, and had to hold on to her shawl to keep it on her shoulders. Ten dollars was the entire sum purloined, so the villains did not make much out of her, Aunt Barbara reflected with a good deal of complacency; but when they stole her gold-bowed gla.s.ses from her pocket, and adroitly s.n.a.t.c.hed from her hand the parcel containing the dress she had bought for Betty at Stewart's, she began to look upon herself as specially marked by a gang of thieves for one on whom to commit their depredations; and when at last a fire broke out in the very block where she was boarding, and she, with others was driven from her bed at midnight, with her bombazine only half on, and her hoops left behind, she made up her mind that the fates were against her, and wrote to Betty that she was coming home, following her letter in the next train so that both reached Chicopee the same day, the very last day of summer.

It was sooner than Betty expected her, but the clean, cool house, peeping out from the dense shadows of the maples, looked like a paradise to the tired, dusty woman, who rode down the street in the village hack and surprised Betty sitting in the back door cutting off corn to dry and talking to Uncle Billy, whose scythe lay on the gra.s.s while he drank from the gourd swimming on top of the water-pail.

Betty was glad to see her mistress, and lamented that she did not know of her coming, so as to have a nice hot cup of tea ready, with a delicate morsel of something. Aunt Barbara was satisfied to be home on any terms, though her nose did go up a little, and something which sounded like "P-shew!" dropped from her lips as she entered the dark sitting room, where the odor was not the best in the world.

"It's the rat, ma'am, I think," Betty said, opening both blinds and windows. "I put the pizen for him as you said, and all I could do he would die in the wall. It ain't as bad as it has been, and I've got some stuff here to kill it, though I think it smells worse than the rat himself," and Betty held her nose as she pointed out to her mistress the saucer of chloride of lime which, at Mrs. Col. Markham's suggestion, she had put in the sitting room.

Aside from the rat in the wall, things were mostly as Aunt Barbara could wish them to be. The vinegar had made beautifully. There was fresh yeast, brewed the day before, in the jug. The milk-pans were bright and sweet; the cellar door was fastened; the garden was looking its best; the silver was all up the scuttle-hole, Betty climbing up and risking her neck every morning to see if it were safe; the stoop and steps were scrubbed, the roof was swept, and both the cats, Tabby and Jim, were so fat that they could scarcely walk as they came up to greet their mistress. Only two mishaps Betty had to relate. Jim had eaten up the canary bird, and she had broken the kitchen tongs. She had also failed to accomplish as much sewing as she had hoped to do, and the pile of work was not greatly diminished.

"There is so many steps to take when a body is alone, and with you gone I was more particular," she said, by way of apology, as she confessed to the rat, and the canary bird, and the kitchen tongs, and the small amount of sewing she had done.

These were all the points wherein she had been remiss, and Aunt Barbara was content, and even happy, as she laid aside her Stella shawl and brown Neapolitan, and out in her pleasant dining room sat down to the hasty meal which Betty improvised, of bread and b.u.t.ter, Dutch cheese, baked apples, and huckleberry pie, with a cup of delicious tea, such as Aunt Barbara did not believe the people of New York had ever tasted.

Most certainly those who were fortunate enough to board at first-cla.s.s boarding-houses had not; and as she sipped her favorite beverage with Tabby on her dress and the criminal Tim in her lap, his head occasionally peering over the table, she felt comforted and rested, and thankful for her cozy home, albeit it lay like a heavy weight upon her that her trouble had been for nothing, and no tidings of Ethie had been obtained.

She wrote to Richard the next day, of her unsuccessful search, and asked what they should do next.

"We can do nothing but wait and hope," Richard wrote in reply, but Aunt Barbara added to it, "we can pray;" and so all through the autumn, when the soft, hazy days which Ethie had loved so well kept the lost one forever in mind, Aunt Barbara waited and hoped, and prayed and watched for Ethie's coming home, feeling always a sensation of expectancy when the Western whistle sounded and the Western train went thundering through the town; and when the hack came up from the depot and did not stop at her door, she said to herself, "She would walk up, maybe," and then waiting again she would watch from her window and look far up the quiet street, where the leaves of crimson and gold were lying upon the walk. No Ethie was to be seen. Then as the days grew shorter and the nights fell earlier upon the Chicopee hills, and the bleak winds blew across the meadow, and the waters of the river looked blue and dark and cold in the November light, she said: "She will be here sure by Christmas. She always liked that day best," and her fingers were busy with the lamb's wool stockings she was knitting for her darling.

"It won't be much," she said to Betty, "but it will show she is not forgotten;" and so the stocking grew, and was shaped from a half-worn pair which Ethelyn used to wear, and on which Aunt Barbara's tears dropped as she thought of the dear little feet, now wandered so far away, which the stockings used to cover.

Christmas came, and Susie Granger sang of Bethlehem in the old stone church, and other fingers than Ethie's swept the organ keys, and the Christmas tree was set up, and the presents were hung upon the boughs, and the names were called, and Aunt Barbara was there, but the lamb's-wool stockings were at home in the bureau drawer; there was no one to wear them, no one to take them from the tree, if they had been put there; Ethie had not come.

CHAPTER XXVII

AFFAIRS AT OLNEY

Richard could not stay in Camden, where everything reminded him so much of Ethelyn, and at his mother's earnest solicitations he went back to Olney, taking with him all the better articles of furniture which Ethie had herself selected, and which converted the plain farmhouse into quite a palace, as both Andy and his mother thought. The latter did not object to them in the least, and was even conscious of a feeling of pride and satisfaction when her neighbors came in to admire, and some of them to envy her the handsome surroundings. Mrs. Dr. Van Buren's lesson, though a very bitter one, was doing Richard good, especially as it was adroitly followed up by Melinda Jones, who, on the strength of her now being his sister-elect, took the liberty of saying to him some pretty plain things with regard to his former intercourse with Ethie.

James had finally nerved himself to the point of asking Melinda if she could be happy with such a homespun fellow as himself, and Melinda had answered that she thought she could, hinting that it was possible for him to overcome much which was homespun about him.

"I do not expect you to leave off your heavy boots or your coa.r.s.e frock when your work requires you to wear them," she said, stealing her hand into his in a caressing kind of way; "but a man can be a gentleman in any dress."

James promised to do his best, and with Melinda Jones for a teacher, had no fear of his success. And so, some time in August, when the summer work at the Jones' was nearly done, Melinda came to the farmhouse and was duly installed as mistress of the chamber which James and John had occupied--the latter removing his Sunday clothes, and rifle, and fishing lines, and tobacco, and the slippers Ethie had given him, into Andy's room, which he shared with his brother. Mrs. Markham, senior, got on better with Melinda than she had with Ethelyn; Melinda knew exactly how to manage her, and, indeed, how to manage the entire household, from Richard down to Andy, who, though extremely kind and attentive to her, never loved her as he did Ethelyn.

"She was a nice, good girl," he said, "but couldn't hold a candle to Ethie. She was too dark complected, and had altogether too thumpin' feet and ankles, besides wearin' wrinkly stockings."