Ethelyn's Mistake Part 23

The question was superfluous, for Richard was halfway up the stairs, followed close by Andy, who went with him to the door of Ethie's room, and then stood back, thinking it best for Richard to go in alone.

Ethelyn was asleep, and Melinda sat watching her. She knew it was Richard who came in, for she had heard his voice in the hall, and greeting him quickly, arose and left the room, whispering: "If she wakes, don't startle her. Probably she will not know you."

Then she went out, and Richard was alone with the wife he had not seen for more than five weary years. It was very dark in the room, and it took him a moment to accustom himself to the light enough to discover the figure lying so still before him, the pale eyelids closed, and the long eyelashes resting upon the crimson cheek. The lips and forehead were very white, but the rest of the face was purple with fever, and as that gave the cheeks a fuller, rounder look, she did not at first seem greatly changed, but looked much as she did the time he came from Washington and found her so low. The long hair which Andy would not have confined in a cap was pushed back from her brow, and lay in tangled ma.s.ses upon the pillow, while her hands were folded one within the other and rested outside the covering. And Richard touched her hands first--the little, soft, white hands he used to think so pretty, and which he now kissed so softly as he knelt by the bedside and tried to look closely into Ethie's face.

"My poor, sick darling, G.o.d knows how glad I am to have you back," he murmured, and his tears dropped like rain upon the hands he pressed so gently. Then softly caressing the pale forehead, his fingers threaded the ma.s.s of tangled hair, and his lips touched the hot, burning ones which quivered for a moment, and then said, brokenly:

"A dream--all a dream. I've had it so many times."

She was waking, and Richard drew back a step or two, while the bright, restless eyes moved round the room as if in quest of someone.

"It's very dark," she said, and turning one of the shutters Richard came back and stood just where the light would fall upon his face as it did on hers.

He saw now how changed she was; but she was none the less dear to him for that, and he spoke to her very tenderly:

"Ethie, darling, don't you know me? I am Richard, your husband, and I am so glad to get you back."

There did seem to be a moment's consciousness, for there crept into the eyes a startled, anxious look as they scanned Richard's face; then the lip quivered again, and Ethie said pleadingly:

"Don't send me away. I am so tired, and the road was so long. I thought I would never get here. Let me stay. I shall not be bad any more."

Then, unmindful of consequences, Richard gathered her in his arms, and held her there an instant in a pa.s.sionate embrace, which left her pale and panting, but seemed to rea.s.sure her, for when he would have laid her back upon the pillow, she said to him, "No, not there--on your arm--so.

Yes, that's nice," and an expression of intense satisfaction stole into her face as she nestled her head close to Richard's bosom, and, closing her eyes, seemed to sleep again. And Richard held her thus, forgetting his own fatigue, and refusing to give up his post either to Andy or Melinda, both of whom ventured in at last, and tried to make him take some refreshment and rest.

"I am not hungry," he said, "and it is rest enough to be with Ethelyn."

Much he wondered where she had come from, and Melinda repeated all Ethelyn had said which would throw any light upon the subject.

"She has talked of the Nile, and St. Petersburg, and the h.e.l.lespont, and the ship which was bringing her to Richard, and of Chicopee, but it was difficult telling how much was real," Melinda said, adding, "She talked of Clifton, too; and were it possible, I should say she came direct from there, but that could not be. You would have known if she had been there. What was the number of your room?"

"102," Richard replied, a new revelation dawning upon him, while Melinda rejoined:

"That is the number she talks about--that and 101. Can it be that she was there?"

Richard was certain of it. The Miss Bigelow who had interested him so much lay there in his arms, his own wife, who was, if possible, tenfold dearer to him now than when he first held her as his bride. He knew she was very sick, but she would not die, he said to himself. G.o.d had not restored her to him just to take her away again, and make his desolation more desolate. Ethie would live. And surely if love, and nursing, and tender care were of any avail to save the life which at times seemed fluttering on the very verge of the grave, Ethelyn would live. Nothing was spared which could avail to save her, and even the physician, who had all along done what he could, seemed to redouble his efforts when he ascertained who his patient was.

Great was the surprise, and numerous the remarks and surmises of the citizens, when it was whispered abroad that the strange woman lying so sick in the governor's house was no other than the governor's wife, about whom the people had speculated so much. Nor was it long ere the news went to Camden, stirring up the people there, and bringing Mrs.

Miller at once to Davenport, where she stayed at a hotel until such time as she could be admitted to Ethelyn's presence.

Mrs. Markham, senior, was washing windows when Tim Jones brought her the letter bearing the Davenport postmark. Melinda had purposely abstained from writing home until Richard came; and so the letter was in his handwriting, which his mother recognized at once.

"Why, it's from Richard!" she exclaimed. "I thought he wouldn't stay long at Clifton. I never did believe in swashin' all the time. A bath in the tin washbasin does me very well," and the good woman wiped her window leisurely, and even put it back and fastened the side-slat in its place before she sat down to see what Richard had written.

Tim knew what he had written, for in his hat was another letter from Melinda, for his mother, which he had opened, his feet going off into a kind of double shuffle as he read that Ethelyn had returned. She had been very cold and proud to him; but he had admired her greatly, and remembered her with none but kindly feelings. He was a little anxious to know what Mrs. Markham would say, but as she was in no hurry to open her letter, and he was in a hurry to tell his mother the good news, he bade her good-morning, and mounting his horse, galloped away toward home.

"I hope he's told who the critter was that was took sick in the house,"

Mrs. Markham said, as she adjusted her gla.s.ses and broke the seal.

Mrs. Markham had never fainted in her life, but she came very near it that morning, feeling some as she would if the Daisy, dead, so long, had suddenly walked into the room and taken a seat beside her.

"I am glad for d.i.c.k," she said. "I never saw a man change as he has, pinin' for her. I mean to be good to her, if I can," and Mrs. Markham's sun-bonnet was bent low over Richard's letter, on which there were traces of tears when the head was lifted up again. "I must let John know, I never can stand it till dinner time," she said, and a shrill blast from the tin horn, used to bring her sons to dinner, went echoing across the prairie to the lot where John was working.

It was not a single blast, but peal upon peal, a loud, prolonged sound, which startled John greatly, especially as he knew by the sun that it could not be twelve o'clock.

"Blows as if somebody was in a fit," he said, as he took long and rapid strides toward the farmhouse.

His mother met him in the lane, letter in hand, and her face white with excitement as she said below her breath:

"John, John, oh! John, she's come. She's there at Richard's--sick with the fever, and crazy; and Richard is so glad. Read what he says."

She did not say who had come, but John knew, and his eyes were dim with tears as he took the letter from his mother's hand, and read it, walking beside her to the house.

"I presume they doctor her that silly fashion, with little pills the size of a small pin head. Melinda is so set in her way. She ought to have some good French brandy if they want to save her. I'd better go myself and see to it," Mrs. Markham said, after they had reached the house, and John, at her request, had read the letter aloud.

John did not quite fancy his mother's going, particularly as Richard had said nothing about it, but Mrs. Markham was determined.

"It was a good way to make it up with Ethelyn, to be there when she come to," she thought, and so, leaving her house-cleaning to itself, and John to his bread and milk, of which he never tired, she packed a little traveling bag, and taking with her a bottle of brandy, started on the next train for Davenport, where she had never been.

Aunt Barbara was not cleaning house. She was cutting dried caraway seed in the garden, and thinking of Ethie, wondering why she did not write, and hoping that when she did she would say that she had talked with Richard, and made the matter up. Ever since hearing that he was at Clifton, in the next room to Ethie, Aunt Barbara had counted upon a speedy reconciliation, and done many things with a direct reference to that reconciliation. The best chamber was kept constantly aired, with bouquets of flowers in it, in case the happy pair, "as good as just married," should come suddenly upon her. Ethie's favorite loaf cake was constantly kept on hand, and when Betty suggested that they should let Uncle Billy cut down that caraway seed, "and heave it away," the good soul objected, thinking there was no telling what would happen, and it was well enough to save such things as anise and caraway. So, in her big cape bonnet, she was cutting her branches of herbs, when Charlie Howard looked over the garden gate with "Got a letter for you."

"It ain't from her. It's from--why, it's from Richard, and he is in Davenport," Aunt Barbara exclaimed, as she sat down in a garden chair to read the letter which was not from Ethie.

Richard did not say directly to her that she must come, but Aunt Barbara felt an innate conviction that her presence would not be disagreeable, even if Ethie lived, while "if she died," and Aunt Barbara's heart gave a great throb as she thought it, "if Ethie died she must be there," and so her trunk was packed for the third time in Ethie's behalf, and the next day's train from Boston carried the good woman on her way to Davenport.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

RECONCILIATION

There had been a succession of rainy days in Davenport--dark, rainy days, which added to the gloom hanging over that house where they watched so intently by Ethie's side, trembling lest the life they prayed for so earnestly might go out at any moment, so high the fever ran, and so wild and restless the patient grew. The friends were all there now--James, and John, and Andy, and Aunt Barbara, with Mrs. Markham, senior, who, at first, felt a little worried, lest her son should be eaten out of house and home, especially as Melinda manifested no disposition to stint the table of any of their accustomed luxuries. As housekeeper, Mrs. Dobson was a little inclined at first to stand in awe of the governor's mother, and so offered no remonstrance when the tea grounds from supper were carefully saved to be boiled up for breakfast, as both Melinda and Aunt Barbara preferred tea to coffee, but when it came to a mackerel and a half for seven people, and four of them men, Mrs. Dobson demurred, and Melinda's opinion in requisition, the result was that three fishes, instead of one and a half smoked upon the breakfast table next morning, together with toast and mutton-chops.

After that Mrs. Markham gave up the contest with a groan, saying, "they might go to destruction their own way, for all of her."

Where Ethelyn was concerned, however, she showed no stint. Nothing was too good for her, no expense too great, and next to Richard and Andy, she seemed more anxious, more interested than anyone for the sick girl who lay so insensible of all that was pa.s.sing around her, save at brief intervals when she seemed for an instant to realize where she was, for her eyes would flash about the room with a frightened, startled look, and then seek Richard's face with a wistful, pleading expression, as if asking not to cast her off, not to send her back into the dreary world where she had wandered so long alone. The sight of so many seemed to worry her, for she often talked of the crowd at the Clifton depot, saying they took her breath away; and once, drawing Andy's face down to her, she whispered to him, "Send them back to the Cure, all but his royal highness"--pointing to Richard--"and Anna, the prophetess, she can stay."

This was Aunt Barbara, to whom Ethelyn clung as a child to its mother, missing her the moment she left the room, and growing quiet as soon as she returned. It was the same with Richard. She seemed to know when he quitted her side, and her eyes watched the door eagerly till he came back to her again. At the doctor's suggestion, all were at last banished from the sick-room except Aunt Barbara, and Richard, and Nick Bottom, as she persisted in calling poor Andy, who was terribly perplexed to know whether he was complimented or not, and who eventually took to studying Shakspere to find out who Bottom was. Those were trying days to Richard, who rarely left Ethie's bedside, except when it was absolutely necessary. She was more quiet with him, and would sometimes sleep for hours upon his arm, with one hand clasped in Aunt Barbara's, and the other held by Andy. At other times, when the fever was on, no arm availed to hold her as she tossed from side to side, talking of things at which a stranger would have marveled, and which made Richard's heart ache to its very core. At times she was a girl in Chicopee, and all the past as connected with Frank Van Buren was lived over again; then she would talk of Richard, and shudder as she recalled the dreary, dreadful day when the honeysuckles were in blossom, and he came to make her his wife.

"It was wrong, all wrong. I did not love him then," she said, "nor afterward, on the prairie, nor anywhere, until I went away, and found what it was to live without him."

"And do you love him now?" Richard asked her once when he sat alone with her.

There was no hesitancy on her part, no waiting to make up an answer. It was ready on her lips, "Yes, oh, yes!" and the weak arms lifted themselves up and were wound around his neck with a pressure almost stifling. How much of this was real Richard could not tell, but he accepted it as such, and waited impatiently for the day when the full light of reason should return and Ethie be restored to him. There was but little of her past life which he did not learn from her ravings, and so there was less for her to tell him when at last the fever abated, and his eyes met hers with a knowing, rational expression. Andy was alone with her when the change first came. The rain, which had fallen so steadily, was over, and out upon the river the sunlight was softly falling. At Andy's earnest entreaty, Richard had gone for a little exercise in the open air, and was walking slowly up and down the broad piazza, while Aunt Barbara slept, and Andy kept his vigils by Ethelyn.

She, too, was sleeping quietly, and Andy saw the great drops of perspiration standing upon her brow and beneath her hair. He knew it was a good omen, and on his knees by the bedside, with his face in his hands, he prayed aloud, thanking G.o.d for restoring Ethelyn to them, and asking that they might all be taught just how to make her happy. A faint sound between a moan and a sob roused him and, looking up, he saw the great tears rolling down Ethie's cheeks, while her lips moved as if they would speak to him.

"Andy, dear old Andy! is it you, and are you glad to have me back?" she said, and then all Andy's pent-up feelings found vent in a storm of tears and pa.s.sionate protestations of love and tenderness for his darling sister.

She remembered how she came there, and seemed to understand why Andy was there, too; but the rest was a little confused. Was Aunt Barbara there, or had she only dreamed it?