Ethelyn's Mistake Part 19

"Yes, Governor of Iowa; and James' wife lived with him. She was Melinda Jones."

"Yes, yes," and Ethie's foot beat the carpet thoughtfully, while her eyes were cast-down, and the great tears gathered slowly in the long-fringed lids, then they fell in perfect showers, and laying her head in Aunt Barbara's lap she sobbed piteously.

Perhaps she was thinking of all she had thrown away, and weeping that another had taken the post she would have been so proud to fill. Aunt Barbara did not know, and she kept smoothing the bowed head until it was lifted up again, and the tears were dried in Ethie's eyes, where there was not the same hopeful expression there had been at first when she heard of Richard's hunting for her. Some doubt or fear had crossed her mind, and her hands were folded together in a hopeless kind of way as, at Aunt Barbara's urgent request, she began the story of her wanderings.

CHAPTER x.x.x

ETHIE'S STORY

"You say you read my letter, auntie; and if you did, you know nearly all that made me go away. I do not remember now just what was in it, but I know it was very concise, and plain, and literal; for I was angry when I wrote it, and would not spare Richard a bit. But, oh! I had been so tired and so wretched. You can't guess half how wretched I was at the farmhouse first, where they were all so different, and where one of the greatest terrors was lest I should get used to it and so be more like them. I mean Richard's mother, auntie. I liked the others--they were kind and good; especially Andy. Oh, Andy! dear old Andy! I have thought of him so much during the last five years, and bad as I am I have prayed every night that he would not forget me.

"Aunt Barbara, I did not love Richard, and that was my great mistake. I ought not to have married him, but I was so sore and unhappy then that any change was a relief. I do not see now how I ever could have loved Frank; but I did, or thought I did, and was constantly contrasting Richard with him and making myself more miserable. If I had loved Richard things would have been so much easier to bear. I was beginning to love him, and life was so much pleasanter, when he got so angry about Frank and charged me with those dreadful things, driving me frantic and making me feel as if I hated him and could do much to worry him. Don't look so shocked. I know how wicked it was, and sometimes I fear G.o.d never can forgive me; but I did not think of him then. I forgot everything but myself and my trouble, and so I went away, going first to ----, so as to mislead Richard, and then turning straight back to New York.

"Do you remember Abby Jackson, who was at school in Boston, and who once spent a week with me here? She married, and lives in New York, and believes in women's rights and wears the Bloomer dress. She would take my part, I said, and I went at once to her house and told her all I had done, and asked if I could stay until I found employment. Aunt Barbara, this is a queer world, and there are queer people in it. I thought I was sure of Abby, she used to protest so strongly against the tyranny of men, and say she should like nothing better than protecting females who were a.s.serting their own rights. I was a.s.serting mine, and I went to her for sympathy. She was glad to see me at first, and petted and fondled me just as she used to do at school. She was five years older than I, and so I looked up to her. But when I told my story her manner changed, and it really seemed as if she looked upon me as a suspicious person who had done something terrible. She advocated women's rights as strongly as ever, but could not advise me to continue in my present course. It would bring odium upon me, sure. A woman separated from her husband was always pointed at, no matter what cause she had for the separation. It was all wrong, she urged, that public opinion should be thus, and ere long she trusted there would be a change. Till then I would do well to return to Iowa and make it up with Richard. That was what she said, and it made me very angry, so that I was resolved to leave her the next day; but I was sick in the morning, and sick some weeks following, so that I could not leave her house.

"She nursed me carefully and tried to be kind, but I could see that my being there was a great annoyance to her. Her husband had an aunt--a rich, eccentric old lady--who came sometimes to see me, and seemed interested in me. Forgive me, auntie, if it was wrong. I dropped the name of Markham and took yours, asking Abby to call me simply Miss Bigelow to her friends. Her husband knew my real name, but to all others I was Adelaide Bigelow. Old Mrs. Plum did not know I was married, for Abby was as anxious to keep the secret as I was myself. She was going abroad, the rich aunt, and being a nervous invalid, she wanted some young, handy person as traveling companion. So when I was better Abby asked if I was still resolved not to go home, and on learning that I was, she spoke of Mrs. Plum, and asked if I would go. I caught at it eagerly, and in May I was sailing over the sea to France. I wrote a few lines to Andy before I went, and I wanted to write to you, but I fancied you must be vexed and mortified, and I would not trouble you.

"Mrs. Plum was very nervous, and capricious, and exacting, and my life with her was not altogether an easy one. At first, before we were accustomed to each other, it was terrible. I suppose I have a high temper. She thought so, and yet she could not do without me, for she was lame in her arms, and unable to help herself readily; besides that, I spoke the French language well enough to make myself understood, and so was necessary to her. There were many excellent traits of character about her, and after a time I liked her very much, while she seemed to think of me as a willful but rather 'nicish' kind of a daughter. She took me everywhere, even into Russia and Palestine; but the last two years of our stay abroad were spent in Southern France, where the days were one long bright summer dream, and I should have been so happy if the past had been forgotten."

"And did you hear nothing from us in all that time?" Aunt Barbara asked, and Ethelyn replied: "Nothing from Richard, no; and nothing direct from you. I requested as a favor that Mrs. Plum should order the Boston _Traveller_ and Springfield _Republican_ to be sent to her address in Paris, which we made our headquarters. I knew you took both these papers, and if anything happened to you, it would appear in their columns. I saw the death of Col. Markham, and after that I used to grow so faint and cold, for fear I might find yours. I came across a New York paper, too, and saw that Aunt Van Buren had arrived at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, knowing then that she was just as gay as ever. Richard's name I never saw; neither did Abby know anything about him.. I called at her house yesterday. She has seven children now--five born since I went away--and her women's rights have given place to theories with regard to soothing syrups and baby-jumpers, and the best means of keeping one child quiet while she dresses the other. Mrs. Plum died six weeks ago--died in Paris; and, auntie, I was kind to her in her last sickness, bearing everything, and finding my reward in her deep grat.i.tude, expressed not only in words, but in a most tangible form. She made her will, and left me ten thousand dollars. So you see I am not poor nor dependent. I told her my story, too--told her the whole as it was; and she made me promise to come back, to you at least, if not to Richard.

Going to him would depend upon whether he wanted me, I said. Do you think he has forgotten me?"

Again the eager, anxious expression crept into Ethie's eyes, which grew very soft, and even dewy, as Aunt Barbara replied, "Forgotten you? No. I never saw a man feel as he did when he first came here, and Sophia talked to him so, as he sat there in that very willow chair."

Involuntarily Ethie's hand rested itself on the chair where Richard had sat, and Ethie's face crimsoned where Aunt Barbara asked:

"Do you love Richard now?"

"I cannot tell. I only know that I have dreamed of him so many, many times, and thought it would be such perfect rest to put my tired head in his lap, as I never did put it. When I was on the ocean, coming home, there was a fearful storm, and I prayed so earnestly to live till I could hear him say that he forgave me for all the trouble I have caused him. I might not love him if I were to see him again just as he used to be. Sometimes I think I should not, but I would try. Write to him, auntie, please, and tell him I am here, but nothing more. Don't say I want to see him, or that I am changed from the willful, high-tempered Ethie who made him so unhappy, for perhaps I am not."

A while then they talked of Aunt Van Buren, and Frank, and Nettie, and Susie Granger, who was married to a missionary and gone to heathen lands; and the clock was striking one before Aunt Barbara lighted her darling up to the old room, and kissing her good-night, went back to weep glad tears of joy in the rocking-chair by the hearth, and to thank her Heavenly Father for sending home her long lost Ethelyn.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

MRS. DR. VAN BUREN

She was always tossing up just when she was not wanted, Ethie used to say in the olden days, when she saw the great lady alighting at the gate in time to interfere with and spoil some favorite project arranged for the day, and she certainly felt it, if she did not say it, when, on the morning following her arrival in Chicopee she heard Betty exclaim, "If there ain't Miss Van Buren! I wonder what sent her here!"

Ethie wondered so, too, and drawing the blanket closer around her shoulders (for she had taken advantage of her fatigue and languor to lie very late in bed) she wished her aunt had stayed in Boston, for a little time at least.

It had been very delightful, waking up in the dear old room and seeing Betty's kind face bending over her--Betty, who had heard of her young mistress' return with a gush of glad tears, and then at once bethought herself as to what there was nice for the wanderer to eat. Just as she used to do when Ethie was a young lady at home, Betty had carried her pan of coals and kindlings into the chamber where Ethie was lying, and kneeling on the hearth had made the cheerfulest of fires, while Ethie, with half-closed eyes, watched her dreamily, thinking how nice it was to be cared for again, and conscious only of a vague feeling of delicious rest and quiet, which grew almost into positive happiness as she counted the days it would take for Aunt Barbara's letter to go to Iowa and for Richard to answer it in person, as he surely would if all which Aunt Barbara had said was true.

Ethie did not quite know if she loved him. She had thought of him so much during the last two years, and now, when he seemed so near, she longed to see him again--to hear his voice and look into his eyes. They were handsome eyes as she remembered them; kindly and pleasant, too--at least they had been so to her, save on that dreadful night, the memory of which always made her shiver and grow faint. It seemed a dream now--a far-off, unhappy dream--which she would fain forget just as she wanted Richard to forget her foibles and give her another chance. She had bidden Aunt Barbara write to say she was there, and so after the tempting breakfast, which had been served in her room, and which she had eaten sitting up in bed, because Betty insisted that it should be so--and she was glad to be petted and humored and made into a comfortable invalid--Aunt Barbara brought her writing materials into the room, and bidding Ethie lie still and rest herself, began the letter to Richard.

But only the date and name were written, when Betty, coming in with a few geranium leaves and a white fuchsia which she had purloined from her mistress' house plants, announced Mrs. Van Buren's arrival, and the pleasant morning was at an end. Mrs. Dr. Van Buren had come up from Boston to borrow money from her sister for the liquidation of certain debts contracted by her son, and which she had not the ready means to meet. Aunt Barbara had accommodated her once or twice before, saying to her as she signed the check, "That money in the bank was put there for Ethie, but no one knows if she will ever need it, so it may as well do somebody some good."

It had done good by relieving Mrs. Van Buren of a load of hara.s.sing care, for money was not as plenty with her as formerly, and now she wanted more. She was looking rather old and worn, and her cloak was last year's fashion, but good enough for Chicopee, she reflected, as she hurried into the house and stamped the muddy, melting snow from her feet.

Utter amazement seemed the prevailing sensation in her mind when she learned that Ethelyn had returned, and then her selfishness began to suggest that possibly Barbara's funds, saved for Ethie, might not now be as accessible for Frank. She was glad, though, to see her niece, but professed herself shocked at her altered appearance.

"Upon my word, I would not have recognized you," she said, sitting down upon the bed and looking Ethie fully in the face.

Aunt Barbara, thinking her sister might like to have Ethie alone for a little, had purposely left the room, and so Mrs. Van Buren was free to say what she pleased. She had felt a good deal of irritation toward Ethie for some time past. In fact, ever since Richard became governor, she had blamed her niece for running away from the honor which might have been hers. As aunt to the governor's lady, she, too, would have come in for a share of the eclat; and so, as she smoothed out the folds of her stone-colored merino, she felt as if she had been sorely aggrieved by that thin, white-faced woman, who really did not greatly resemble the rosy, bright-faced Ethelyn to whom Frank Van Buren had once talked love among the Chicopee hills.

"No, I don't believe I should have known you," Mrs. Van Buren continued.

"What have you been about to fade you so?"

Few women like to hear that they have faded, even if they know it to be true, and Ethie's cheek flushed a little as she asked, with a smile, "Am I really such a fright?"

"Why, no, not a fright! No one with the Bigelow features can ever be that. But you are changed; and so I am sure Richard would think. He liked beautiful girls. You know he has been governor?"

Ethie nodded, and Mrs. Van Buren continued: "You lost a great deal, Ethelyn, when you went away; and I must say that, though, of course, you had great provocation, you did a very foolish thing leaving your husband as you did, and involving us all, to a certain extent, in disgrace."

It was the first direct intimation Ethie had received that her family had suffered from mortification on her account. She had felt that they must, and knew that she deserved some censure; but as kind Aunt Barbara had withheld it, she was not quite willing to hear it from Mrs. Van Buren, and for an instant her eyes flashed, and a hot reply trembled on her lips; but she restrained herself and merely said: "I am sorry if I disgraced you, Aunt Sophia. I was very unhappy at the time,"

"Certainly; I understand that, but the world does not; and if it did, it forgot all when your husband became governor. He was greatly honored and esteemed, I hear from a friend who spent a few weeks at Des Moines, and everybody was so sorry for him."

"Did they talk of me?" Ethie asked, repenting the next minute that she had been at all curious in the matter.

Mrs. Van Buren, bent upon annoying her, replied, "Some, yes; and knowing the governor as they did, it is natural they should blame you more than him. There was a rumor of his getting a divorce, but my friends did not believe it and neither do I, though divorces are easy to get out West.

Have you written to him? Are you not 'most afraid he will think you came back because he has been governor?"

"Aunt Sophia!" and Ethie looked very much like her former self, as she started from her pillow and confronted her interlocutor. "He cannot think so. I never knew he had been governor until I heard it from Aunt Barbara last night. I came back for no honors, no object. My work was taken from me; I had nothing more to do, and I was so tired, and sick, and weary, and longed so much for home. Don't begrudge it to me, Aunt Sophia, that I came to see Aunt Barbara once more. I won't stay long in anybody's way; and if--if he likes, Richard--can--get--that--divorce--as soon as he pleases."

The last came gaspingly, and showed the real state of Ethie's feelings.

In all the five long years of her absence the possibility that Richard would seek to separate himself from her had never crossed her mind. She had looked upon his love for her as something too strong to be shaken--as the great rock in whose shadow she could rest whenever she so desired. At first, when the tide of angry pa.s.sion was raging at her heart, she had said she never should desire it, that her strength was sufficient to stand alone against the world; but as the weary weeks and months crept on, and her anger had had time to cool, and she had learned better to know the meaning of "standing alone in the world," and thoughts of Richard's many acts of love and kindness kept recurring to her mind, she had come gradually to see that the one object in the future to which she was looking forward was a return to Aunt Barbara and a possible reconciliation with her husband. The first she had achieved, and the second seemed so close within her grasp, a thing so easy of success, that in her secret heart she had exulted that, after all, she was not to be more sorely punished than she had been--that she could not have been so very much in fault, or Providence would have placed greater obstacles in the way of restoration to all that now seemed desirable.

But Ethie's path back to peace and quiet was not to be free from thorns, and for a few minutes she writhed in pain, as she thought how possible, and even probable, it was that Richard should seek to be free from one who had troubled him so much. Life looked very dreary to Ethelyn that moment--drearier than it ever had before--but she was far too proud to betray her real feelings to her aunt, who, touched by the look of anguish on her niece's face, began to change her tactics, and say how glad she was to have her darling back under any circ.u.mstances, and so she presumed Richard would be. She knew he would, in fact; and if she were Ethie, she should write to him at once, apprising him of her return, but not making too many concessions.--Men could not bear them, and it was better always to hold a stiff rein, or there was danger of a collision. She might as well have talked to the winds, for all that Ethie heard or cared. She was thinking of Richard, and the possibility that she might not be welcome to him now. If so, nothing could tempt her to intrude herself upon him. At all events, she would not make the first advances. She would let Richard find out that she was there through some other source than Aunt Barbara, who should not now write the letter. It would look too much like begging him to take her back. This was Ethie's decision, from which she could not be moved; and when, next day, Mrs.

Van Buren went back to Boston with the check for $1,000 which Aunt Barbara had given her, she was pledged not to communicate with Richard Markham in any way, while Aunt Barbara was held to the same promise.

"He will find it out somehow. I prefer that he should act unbiased by anything we can do," Ethelyn said to Aunt Barbara. "He might feel obliged to come if you wrote to him that I was here, and if he came, the sight of me so changed might shock him as it did Aunt Van Buren. She verily thought me a fright," and Ethie tried to smile as she recalled her Aunt Sophia's evident surprise at her looks.

The change troubled Ethie more than she cared to confess. Nor did the villagers' remarks, when they came in to see her, tend to soothe her ruffled feelings. Pale, and thin, and languid, she moved about the house and yard like a mere shadow of her former self, having, or seeming to have, no object in life, and worrying Aunt Barbara so greatly that the good woman began at last seriously to inquire what was best to do.

Suddenly, like an inspiration, there came to her a thought of Clifton, the famous water-cure in Western New York, where health, both of body and soul, had been found by so many thousands. And Ethie caught eagerly at the proposition, accepting it on one condition--she would not go there as Mrs. Markham, where the name might be recognized. She had been Miss Bigelow abroad, she would be Miss Bigelow again; and so Aunt Barbara yielded, mentally asking pardon for the deception to which she felt she was a party, and when, two weeks after, the clerk at Clifton water-cure looked over his list to see what rooms were engaged, and to whom, he found "Miss Adelaide Bigelow, of Ma.s.sachusetts," put down for No. 101, while "Governor Markham of Iowa," was down for No. 102.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

CLIFTON

They were very full at Clifton that summer, for the new building was not completed, and every available point was taken, from narrow, contracted No. 94 in the upper hall down to more s.p.a.cious No. 8 on the lower floor, where the dampness, and noise, and mold, and smell of coal and cooking, and lower bathrooms were. "A very, very quiet place, with only a few invalids too weak and languid, and too much absorbed in themselves and their 'complaints' to note or care for their neighbors; a place where one lives almost as much excluded from the world as if immured within convent walls; a place where dress and fashion and distinction were unknown, save as something existing afar off, where the turmoil and excitement of life were going on." This was Ethelyn's idea of Clifton; and when, at four o'clock, on a bright June afternoon, the heavily laden train stopped before the little brown station, and "Clifton" was shouted in her ears, she looked out with a bewildered kind of feeling upon the crowd of gayly dressed people congregated upon the platform. Heads were uncovered, and hair frizzled, and curled, and braided, and puffed, and arranged in every conceivable shape, showing that even to that "quiet town" the hairdresser's craft had penetrated. Expanded crinoline, with light, fleecy robes, and ribbons, and laces, and flowers, was there a.s.sembled, with bright, eager, healthful faces, and snowy hands wafting kisses to some departed friend, and then turning to greet some new arrival. There were no traces of sickness, no token of disease among the smiling crowd, and Ethelyn almost feared she had made a mistake and alighted at the wrong place, as she gave her checks to John, and then taking her seat in the omnibus, sat waiting and listening to the lively sallies and playful remarks around her. n.o.body spoke to her, n.o.body stared at her, n.o.body seemed to think of her; and for that she was thankful, as she sat with her veil drawn closely over her face, looking out upon the not very pretentious dwellings they were pa.s.sing. The scenery around Clifton is charming, and to the worn, weary invalid escaping from the noise and heat and bustle of the busy city, there seems to come a rest and a quiet, from the sunlight which falls upon the hills, to the cool, moist meadow lands where the ferns and mosses grow, and where the rippling of the sulphur brook gives out constantly a soothing, pleasant kind of music. But for the architecture of the town not very much can be said; and Ethie, who had longed to get away from Chicopee, where everybody knew her story, and all looked curiously at her, confessed to a feeling of homesickness as her eyes fell upon the blacksmith shop, the dressmaker's sign, the grocery on the corner, where were sold various articles of food forbidden by doctor and nurse; the schoolhouse to the right, where a group of noisy children played, and the little church further on, where the Methodist people worshiped. She did not see the "Cottage" then, with its flowers and vines, and nicely shaven lawn, for her back was to it; nor the handsome grounds, where the shadows from the tall trees fall so softly upon the velvet gra.s.s; and the winding graveled walks, which intersect each other and give an impression of greater s.p.a.ce than a closer investigation will warrant.

"I can't stay here," was Ethie's thought, as it had been the thought of many others, when, like her, they first step into the matted hall and meet the wet, damp odor, as of sheets just washed, which seems to be inseparable from that part of the building.

But that was the first day, and before she had met the kindness and sympathy of those whose business it is to care for the patients, or felt the influences for good, the tendency to all the better impulses of our nature, which seems to pervade the very atmosphere of Clifton. Ethie felt this influence very soon, and her second letter to Aunt Barbara was filled with praise of Clifton, where she had made so many friends, in spite of her evident desire to avoid society and stay by herself. She had pa.s.sed through the usual ordeal attending the advent of every new face, especially if that face be a little out of the common order of faces. She had been inspected in the dining room, and bathroom, and chapel, both when she went in and when she went out. She had been talked up and criticised from the way she wore her hair to the hang of her skirts, which here, as well as in Olney, trailed the floor with a sweep unmistakably aristocratic and stamped her as somebody. The sacque and hat brought from Paris had been copied by three or four, and p.r.o.nounced distingue, but ugly by as many more, while Mrs. Peter Pry, of whom there are always one or two at every watering-place, had set herself industriously at work to pry into her antecedents to find out just who and what Miss Bigelow was. As the result of this research, it had been ascertained that the young lady was remotely connected with the Bigelows of Boston, and had something of her own--that she had spent several years abroad, and could speak both French and German with perfect ease; that she had been at the top of Mont Blanc, and pa.s.sed part of a winter at St. Petersburg, and seen a crocodile in the river Nile, and a Moslem burying-ground in Constantinople, and had the cholera at Milan, the varioloid at Rome, and was marked between the eyes and on the chin, and was twenty-five years old, and did not wear false hair, nor use Laird's Liquid Pearl, as was at first suspected from the clearness of her complexion, and did wear crimping pins at night, and pay Annie, the bath-girl, extra for bringing up the morning bath, and was more interested in the chapel exercises when the great Head Center was there, and bought cream every morning of Mrs. King, and sat up at night long after the gas was turned off, and was there at Clifton for spine in the back and head difficulties generally. These few items, together with the surmise that she had had some great trouble--a disappointment, most likely, which affected her health--were all Mrs. Pry could learn, and she detailed them to anyone who would listen, until Ethelyn's history, from the Pry point of view, was pretty generally known and the most made of every good quality and virtue.