Ethelyn's Mistake Part 21

"His bride! We did not know he had one. He pa.s.ses for a widower here,"

several voices echoed in chorus, and then Mrs. Carter began the story which had come to her through a dozen mediums, and which circulated rapidly through the house, but had not reached Mrs. Pry up to the time when, with her blanket and patchwork quilt she had brought from New Hampshire, she lay reposing in her pack, with her ears turned toward the door and ventilator, ready to catch the faintest breath of gossip.

She heard a great deal that afternoon, for the ladies at the end of the hall did not speak very low, and when at last she was released from her bandages and had made her afternoon toilet, she hastened round to Miss Bigelow's to report what she had heard. Tired with her vigils of the previous night, Ethie was lying down, but she bade Mrs. Pry come in, and then kept very quiet while the good woman proceeded to ask if she had heard the news. Ethie had not, but her heart stood still while her visitor, speaking in a whisper, asked if she was sure Governor Markham could not hear. That the news concerned herself Ethelyn was sure, and she was glad that her face was in a measure concealed from view as she listened to the story.

Governor Markham's wife was not dead, as they had supposed. She was a shameless creature, who eight or ten years before eloped with a man a great deal younger than herself. She was very beautiful, people said, and very fascinating, and the governor worshiped the ground she trod upon. He took her going off very hard at first, and for years scarcely held up his head. But lately he had seemed different, and had been more favorable to a divorce, as advised by his friends. This, however, was after he met Miss Sallie Morton, whose father was a millionaire in Chicago, and whose pretty face had captivated the grave governor. To get the divorce was a very easy matter there in the West, and the governor was now free to marry again. As Miss Morton preferred Davenport to any other place in Iowa, he had built him a magnificent house upon a bluff, finishing it elegantly, and taking untold pains with the suite of rooms intended for his bride. As Miss Sallie objected to marrying him while he was so much of an invalid, he had come to Clifton, hoping to reestablish his health so as to bring home his wife in the autumn, for which event great preparations were making in the family of Miss Sallie.

This was the story as told by Mrs. Pry, and considering that it had only come to her through eight or ten different persons, she repeated the substance of it pretty accurately, and then stopped for Ethie's comment.

But Ethie had nothing to say, and when, surprised at her silence, Mrs.

Pry asked if she believed it at all, there was still no reply, for Ethelyn had fainted. The reaction was too great from the bright antic.i.p.ations of the hour before, to the crushing blow which had fallen so suddenly upon her hopes. That a patient at Clifton should faint was not an uncommon thing. Mrs. Pry had often felt like it herself when just out of a pack, or a hot sulphur bath, and so Ethie's faint excited no suspicion in her mind. She was fearful, though, that Miss Bigelow had not heard all the story, but Ethie a.s.sured her that she had, and then added that if left to herself she might possibly sleep, as that was what she needed. So Mrs. Pry departed, and Ethie was alone with the terrible calamity which had come upon her. She had been at the Water Cure long enough to know that not more than half of what she heard was true, and this story she knew was false in the parts pertaining to herself and her desertion of her husband. She had never heard before that she was suspected of having had an a.s.sociate in the flight, and her cheeks crimsoned at the idea, while she wondered if Richard had ever thought that of her. Not at first, she knew, else he had never sought for her so zealously as Aunt Barbara had intimated; but latterly, as he had heard no tidings from her, he might have surmised something of the kind, and that was the secret of the divorce.

"Oh, Richard! Richard!" she murmured, with her hands pressed tightly over her lips, so as to smother all sound, "I felt so sure of your love.

You were so different from me. I am punished more than I can bear."

If she had never known before, Ethie knew now, how much she really loved her husband, and how the hope of eventually returning to him had been the day-star of her life. Had she heard that he was lying dead in the next room, she would have gone to him at once, and claiming him as hers, would have found some comfort in weeping sadly over him, and kissing his cold lips, but now it did indeed seem more than she could bear. She did not doubt the story of the divorce, or greatly disbelieve in the other wife. It was natural that many should seek to win his love now that he had risen so high, and she supposed it was natural that he should wish for another companion. Perhaps he believed her dead, and Ethie's heart gave one great throb of joy as she thought of going in to him, and by her bodily presence contradict that belief, and possibly win him from his purpose. But Ethie was too proud for that, and her next feeling was one of exultation that she had not permitted Aunt Barbara to write, or herself taken any measures for communicating with him. He should never know how near she had been to him, or guess ever so remotely of the anguish she was enduring, as, only a few feet removed from him, she suffered, in part, all the pain and sorrow she had brought upon him.

Then, as she remembered the new house fitted for the bride, she said:

"I must see that house. I must know just what is in store for my rival.

No one knows me in Davenport. Richard is not at home, and there is no chance for my being recognized."

With this decision came a vague feeling akin to hope that possibly the story was false--that after all there was no rival, no divorce. At all events, she should know for a certainty by going to Davenport; and with every nerve stretched to its utmost tension, Ethie arose from her bed and packed her trunk quietly and quickly, and then going to the office, surprised the clerk with the announcement that she wished to leave on the ten-o'clock train. She had received news which made her going so suddenly imperative, she said to him, and to the physician, whom she called upon next, and whose strong arguments against her leaving that night almost overcame her. But Ethie's will conquered at last, and when the train from the East came in she stood upon the platform at the station, her white face closely veiled, and her heart throbbing with the vague doubts which began to a.s.sail her as to whether she were really doing a wise and prudent thing in going out alone and unprotected to the home she had no right to enter, and where she was not wanted.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

IN DAVENPORT

Hot, and dusty, and tired, and sick, and utterly hopeless and wretched, Ethie looked drearily out from the windows of her room at the hotel, whither she had gone on her first arrival in Davenport. Her head seemed bursting as she stood tying her bonnet before the mirror, and drawing on her gloves, she glanced wistfully at the inviting-looking bed, feeling strongly tempted to lie down there among the pillows and wait till she was rested before she went out in that broiling August sun upon her strange errand. But a haunting presentiment of what the dizziness and pain in her head and temples portended urged her to do quickly what she had to do; so with another gulp of the ice water she had ordered, and which only for a moment cooled her feverish heat, she went from her room into the hall, where the boy was waiting to show her the way to "the governor's house." He knew just where it was. Everybody knew in Davenport, and the chambermaid to whom Ethie had put some questions, had volunteered the information that the governor had gone East for his health, and the house, she believed, was shut up--not shut so that she could not effect an entrance to it. She would find her way through every obstacle, Ethie thought, wondering vaguely at the strength which kept her up and made her feel equal to most anything as she followed her conductor through street after street, onward and onward, up the hill, where the long windows and turrets of a most elegant mansion were visible. When asked at the hotel if she would not have a carriage, she had replied that she preferred to walk, feeling that in this way she should expend some of the fierce excitement consuming her like an inward fire. It had not abated one whit when at last the house was reached, and dismissing her guide she stood a moment upon the steps, leaning her throbbing head against the door post, and summoning courage to ring the bell. Never before had she felt so much like an intruder, or so widely separated from her husband, as during the moment she stood at the threshold of her home, hesitating whether to ring or go away and give the matter up. She could not go away now that she had come so far, she finally decided. She must go in and see the place where Richard lived, and so, at last, she gave the silver k.n.o.b a pull, which reverberated through the entire house, and brought Hannah, the housemaid, in a trice to see who was there.

"Is Governor Markham at home?" Ethie asked, as the girl waited for her to say something.

Governor Markham was East, and the folks all gone, the girl replied, staring a little suspiciously at the stranger who without invitation, had advanced into the hall, and even showed a disposition to make herself further at home by walking into the drawing room, the door of which was slightly ajar.

"My name is Markham. I am a relative of the governor. I am from the East," Ethelyn volunteered, as she saw the girl expected some explanation.

Had Hannah known more of Ethelyn, she might have suspected something; but she had not been long in the family, and coming, as she did, from St. Louis, the story of her master's wife was rather mythical to her than otherwise. That there was once a Mrs. Markham, who, for beauty, and style, and grandeur, was far superior to Mrs. James, the present mistress of the establishment, she had heard vague rumors; while only that morning when dusting and airing Richard's room, she had stopped her work a moment to admire the handsome picture which Richard had had painted, from a photograph of Ethie, taken when she was only seventeen.

It was a beautiful, girlish face, and the brown eyes were bright and soft, and full of eagerness and joy; while the rounded cheeks and pouting lips were not much like the pale thin woman who now stood in the marbled hall, claiming to be a relative of the family. Hannah never dreamed who it was; but, accustomed to treat with respect everything pertaining to the governor, she opened the door of the little reception-room, and asked the lady to go in.

"I'll send you Mrs. Dobson the housekeeper," she said; and Ethie heard her shuffling tread as she disappeared through the hall and down the stairs to the regions where Mrs. Dobson reigned.

Ethelyn was a little afraid of that dignitary; something in the atmosphere of the house made her afraid of everything, inspiring her as it did with the feeling that she had no business there--that she was a trespa.s.ser, a spy, whom Mrs. Dobson would be justified in turning from the door. But Mrs. Dobson meditated no such act. She was a quiet, inoffensive, unsuspicious, personage, believing wholly in Governor Markham and everything pertaining to him. She was canning fruit when Hannah came with the message that some of the governor's kin had come from the East, and remembering to have heard that Richard once had an uncle somewhere in Ma.s.sachusetts, she had no doubt that this was a daughter of the old gentleman and a cousin of Richard's, especially as Hannah described the stranger as youngish and tolerably good-looking.

She had no thought that it was the runaway wife, of whom she knew more than Hannah, else she would surely have dropped the Spencer jar she was filling and burned her fingers worse than she did, trying to crowd in the refractory cover, which persisted in tipping up sideways and all ways but the right way.

"Some of his kin. Pity they are gone. What shall we do with her?" she said, as she finally pushed the cover to its place and blew the thumb she had burned badly.

"Maybe she don't mean to stay long; she didn't bring no baggage," Hannah said, and thus rea.s.sured, Mrs. Dobson rolled down her sleeves and tying on a clean ap.r.o.n, started for the reception-room, where Ethie sat like one stupefied, or one who walks in a dream from which he tries in vain to waken.

This house, as far as she could judge, was not like that home on the prairie where her first married days were spent. Everything here was luxurious and grand and in such perfect taste. It seemed a princely home, and Ethie experienced more than one bitter pang of regret that by her own act she had in all probability cut herself off from any part or lot in this earthly paradise.

"I deserve it, but it is very hard to bear," she thought, just as Mrs.

Dobson appeared and bowing respectfully, began:

"Hannah tells me you are kin to the governor's folks,--his cousin, I reckon--and I am so sorry they are all, gone, and will be yet for some weeks. The governor is at a water cure down East--strange you didn't hear of it--and t'other Mr. Markham has gone with his wife to Olney, and St. Paul, and dear knows where. Too bad, ain't it? But maybe you'll stay a day or two and rest? We'll make you as comfortable as we can. You look about beat out," and Mrs. Dobson came nearer to Ethelyn, whose face and lips were white as ashes, and whose eyes looked almost black with her excitement.

She was very tired. The rapid journey, made without rest or food either, save the cup of tea and cracker she tried to swallow, was beginning to tell upon her, and while Mrs. Dobson was speaking she felt stealing over her the giddiness which she knew was a precursor to fainting.

"I am tired and heated," she gasped. "I could not sleep at the hotel or eat, either. I will stay a day and rest, if you please. Rich--Governor Markham will not care; I was traveling this way, and thought I would call. I have heard so much about his house."

She felt constrained to say this by way of explanation, and Mrs. Dobson accepted it all, warming up at once on the subject of the house--that was her weak point; while to show strangers through the handsome rooms was her delight. No opportunity to do this had for some time been presented, and the good woman's face glowed with the pleasure she antic.i.p.ated from showing the governor's cousin his house and grounds.

But first the lady must have some dinner, and bidding her lay aside her bonnet and shawl and make herself at home, she hurried back to the kitchen and dispatched Hannah for the tender lamb-chop she was going to broil, as that was something easily cooked, and the poor girl seemed so tired and feeble.

"She looks like the Markhams, or like somebody I've seen," she said, never dreaming of finding the familiar resemblance to "somebody she had seen" in the picture hanging in Richard's room.

What she would have done had she known who the stranger was is doubtful.

Fortunately she did not know; but being hospitably inclined, and feeling anxious to show the governor's Eastern relatives how grand and nice they were, she broiled the tender lamb, and made the fragrant coffee, and laid the table in the cozy breakfast-room, and put on the little silver set, and then conducted her visitor out to dinner, helping her herself, and leaving the room with the injunction to ring if she wanted anything, as Hannah was within hearing. Terribly bewildered and puzzled with regard to her own ident.i.ty, Ethie sat down to Richard's table, in Richard's house, and partook of Richard's food, with a strange feeling of quiet, and a constantly increasing sensation of numbness and bewilderment. Access to the house had been easier than she fancied; but she could not help feeling that she had no right to be there, no claim on Richard's hospitality. Certainly she had none, if what she had heard at Clifton were true. But was it? There was some doubt creeping into her mind, though why Richard should wish to build so large and so fine a house just for himself alone she could not understand. She never guessed how every part of that dwelling had been planned with a direct reference to her and her tastes; that not a curtain, or a carpet, or a picture had been purchased without Melinda's having said she believed Ethie would approve it. Every stone, and plank and tack, and nail had in it a thought of the Ethie whose coming back had been speculated upon and planned in so many different ways, but never in this way--never just as it had finally occurred, with Richard gone, and no one there to welcome her, save the servants in the kitchen, who, while she ate her solitary dinner, feeling more desolate and wretched than she had ever before felt in her life, wondered who she was, and how far they ought to go with their attentions and civilities. They were not suspicious, but took her for what she professed to be--a Markham, and a near connection of the governor; and as that stamped her somebody, they were inclined to be very civil, feeling sure that Mrs. James would heartily approve their course. She had rung no bell for Hannah; but they knew her dinner was over, for they heard her as she went back into the reception-room, where Mrs. Dobson ere long joined her, and asked if she would like to see the house.

"It's the only thing we can amuse you with, unless you are fond of music. Maybe you are," and Mrs. Dobson led the way to a little music-room, where, in the recess of a bow window a closed piano was standing.

At first Ethelyn did not observe it closely; but when the housekeeper opened it, and pushing back the heavy drapery, disclosed it fully to view, Ethie started forward with a sudden cry of wonder and surprise, while her face was deathly pale, and the fingers which came down with a crash upon the keys shook violently, for she knew it was her old instrument standing there before her--the one she had sold to procure money for her flight. Richard must have bought it back; for her sake, too, or rather for the sake of what she once was to him, not what she was now.

"Play, won't you?" Mrs. Dobson said. But Ethie could not then have touched a note. The faintest tone of that instrument would have maddened her and she turned away from it with a shudder, while the rather talkative Mrs. Dobson continued: "It's an old piano, I believe, that belonged to the first Mrs. Markham. There's to be a new one bought for the other Mrs. Markham, I heard them say."

Ethie's hands were tightly locked together now, and her teeth shut so tightly over her lips that the thin skin was broken, and a drop of blood showed upon the pale surface; but in so doing she kept back a cry of anguish which leaped up from her heart at Mrs. Dobson's words. The "first Mrs. Markham," that was herself, while the "other Mrs. Markham"

meant, of course, her rival--the bride about whom she had heard at Clifton. She did not think of Melinda as being a part of that household, "and the other Mrs. Markham," for whom the new piano was to be purchased--she thought of nothing but herself, and her own blighted hopes.

"Does the governor know for certain that his first wife is dead?" she asked, at last, and Mrs. Dobson replied:

"He believes so, yes. It's five years since he heard a word. Of course she's dead. She must have been a pretty creature. Her picture is in the governor's room. Come, I will show it to you."

Mrs. Dobson had left her gla.s.ses in the kitchen, so she did not notice the white, stony face, so startling in its expression, as her visitor followed her on up the broad staircase into the s.p.a.cious hall above, and on still further, till they came to the door of Richard's room, which Hannah had left open. Then for a moment Ethelyn hesitated. It seemed almost like a sacrilege for her feet to tread the floor of that private room, for her breath to taint the atmosphere of a spot where the new wife would come. But Mrs. Dobson led her on until she stood in the center of Richard's room, surrounded by the unmistakable paraphernalia of a man, with so many things around her to remind her of the past.

Surely, this was her own furniture; the very articles he had chosen for the room in Camden. It was kind in Richard to keep and bring them here, where everything was so much more elegant--kind, too, in him to redeem her piano. It showed that for a time, at least, he had remembered her; but alas! he had forgotten her now, when she wanted his love so much.

There were great blurring tears in her eyes, and she could not distinctly see the picture on the walk which Mrs. Dobson said was the first Mrs. Markham, asking if she was not a beauty.

"Rather pretty, yes," Ethie said, making a great effort to speak naturally, and adding after a moment: "I suppose it will be taken down when the other Mrs. Markham comes."

In Mrs. Dobson's mind the other Mrs. Markham only meant Melinda, and she replied:

"Why should it? She knows it is here. She knew the other lady and liked her, too."

"She knew me? Who can it be?" Ethie asked herself, remembering that the name she had heard at Clifton was a strange one to her.

"This, now, is the very handsomest part of the whole house," Mrs. Dobson said, throwing open a door which led from Richard's room into a suite of apartments which, to Ethie's bewildered gaze, seemed more like fairyland than anything real she had ever seen. "This the governor fitted up expressly for his wife and I'm told he spent more money here than in all the upper rooms. Did you ever see handsomer lace? He sent to New York for them," she said, lifting up one of the exquisitely wrought curtains festooned across the arch which divided the boudoir from the large sleeping room beyond. "This I call the bridal chamber," she continued, stepping into the room where everything was so pure and white. "But, bless me, I forgot that I put on a lot of bottles to heat: I'll venture they are every one of them shivered to atoms. Hannah is so careless.

Excuse me, will you, and entertain yourself a while. I reckon you can find your way back to the parlor."

Ethelyn wanted nothing so much as to be left alone and free to indulge in the emotions which were fast getting the mastery of her. Covering her face with her hands, as the door closed after Mrs. Dobson, she sat for a moment bereft of the power to think or feel. Then, as things became more real, as great throbs of heat and pain went tearing through her temples, she remembered that she was in Richard's house, up in the room which Mrs. Dobson had termed the bridal chamber, the apartments which had been fitted up for Richard's bride, whoever she might be.

"I never counted on this," she whispered, as she paced up and down the range of rooms, from the little parlor or boudoir to the dressing room beyond the bedroom, and the little conservatory at the side, where the choicest of plants were in blossom, and where the dampness was so cool to her burning brow.