Ethelyn's Mistake Part 7

Ethelyn was horror-stricken. She had cast her pearls before swine; and with a haughty stare at the offending Timothy, she left the stool, and walking back to her former seat, said:

"I leave the tunes to your sister, who, I believe, plays sometimes."

Somewhat crestfallen, but by no means browbeaten, Tim insisted that Melinda should give them a jig; and, so, crimsoning with shame and confusion, Melinda took the vacant stool and played her brother a tune--a rollicking, galloping tune, which everybody knew, and which set the feet to keeping time, and finally brought Tim and Andy to the floor for a dance. But Melinda declined playing for a cotillion which her brother proposed, and so the dancing arrangement came to naught, greatly to the delight of Ethelyn, who could only keep back her tears by looking up at the sweet face of Daisy smiling down upon her from the wall. That was the only redeeming point in that whole a.s.sembly, she thought. She would not even except Richard then, so intense was her disappointment and so bitter her regret for the mistake she made when she promised to go where her heart could never be.

It was nine o'clock when the company dispersed. Each of the ladies cordially invited Ethelyn to call as soon as convenient, and Mrs.

Harrington, a lady of some cultivation, whose husband was the village merchant, saying encouragingly to her, as she held her hand a moment, "Our Western manners seem strange to you, I dare say; but we are a well-meaning people, and you will get accustomed to us by and by."

She never should--no, never, thought Ethelyn, as she went up to her room, tired and homesick, and disheartened with this, her first introduction to the Olney people. It was a very cross wife that slept at Richard's side that night, and the opinion expressed of the Olneyites was anything but complimentary to the taste of one who had known them all his life and liked them so well. But Richard was getting accustomed to such things. Lectures did not move him now as they had at first, and overcome with fatigue from his day's work and the evening's excitement, he fell asleep, while Ethelyn was enlarging upon the merits of the terrible Tim, who had addressed her as "old lady" and asked her to "play a tune."

CHAPTER XII

SOCIETY

In the course of two weeks all the people in Olney called upon Ethelyn, who would gladly have refused herself to them all. But after the morning when Andy stood outside the door of her room, wringing his hands in great distress at the tone of Richard's voice, and Ethelyn stayed in bed all day with the headache, and was nursed by Eunice and Melinda, Ethelyn did better, and was at least polite to those who called. She had said she would not see them, and Richard had said she should; and as he usually made people do as he liked, Ethelyn was forced to submit, but cried herself sick. It was very desolate and lonely upstairs that day, for Richard was busy in town, and the wind swept against the windows with a mournful, moaning sound, which made Ethelyn think of dear old Chicopee, and the lofty elms through whose swaying branches the same October wind was probably sighing on this autumnal day. But, oh! how vast the difference, she thought; for what would have been music if heard at home among the New England hills, was agony here upon the Western prairie.

Ethelyn was very wretched and hailed with delight the presence of Melinda Jones, who came in the afternoon, bringing a basket of delicious apples and a lemon tart she had made herself. Melinda was very sorry for Ethelyn, and her face said as much as she stood by her side and laid her hand softly upon the throbbing temples, pitying her so much, for she guessed just how homesick she was there with Mrs. Markham, whose ways had never seemed so peculiar, even to her, as since Ethelyn's arrival.

"And still," she thought, "I do not see how she can be so very unhappy, in any circ.u.mstances, with a husband like Richard." But here Melinda made a mistake; for though Ethelyn respected her husband, and had learned to miss him when he was gone, and the day whose close was not to bring him back would have been very long, she did not love him as a husband should be loved; and so there was nothing to fall back upon when other props gave way.

Wholly unsuspicious, Melinda sat down beside her, offering to brush her hair, and while she brushed and combed, and braided, and admired the glossy brown locks, she talked on the subject she thought most acceptable to the young wife's ear--of Richard, and the great popularity he had achieved, not only in his own county, but in neighboring ones, where he stood head and shoulders above his fellows. There was talk once of making him governor, she said, but some thought him too young.

Lately, however, she had heard that the subject was again agitated, adding that her father and Tim both thought it more than probable that the next election would take him to the gubernatorial mansion.

"Tim would work like a hero for Richard," she said. "He almost idolizes him, and when he was up for Judge Tim's exertions alone procured for him a hundred extra votes. Tim is a rough, half-savage fellow, but he has the kindest of hearts, and is very popular with a certain cla.s.s of men who could not be reached by one more polished and cultivated."

So much Melinda said, by way of excusing Tim's vulgarities; and then, with the utmost tact, she led the conversation back to Richard and the governorship, hinting that Ethelyn could do much toward securing that office for her husband. A little attention, which cost nothing, would go a great ways, she said; and it was sometimes worth one's while to make an effort, even if they did not feel like it. More than one rumor had reached Melinda's ear touching the pride of d.i.c.k Markham's wife--a pride which the Olney people felt keenly, and it the more keenly knowing that they had helped to give her husband a name; they had made him Judge, and sent him to Congress, and would like to make him governor, knowing well that that no office, however high, would change him from the plain, unpretending man, who, even in the Senate Chamber, would shake drunken Ike Plympton's hand, and slap Tim Jones on the back if need be. They liked their d.i.c.k, who had been a boy among them, and they thought it only fair that his wife should unbend a little, and not freeze them so with her lofty ways.

"She'll kick the whole thing over if she goes on so," Tim had said to his father, in Melinda's hearing, and so, like a true friend to Richard, Melinda determined to try and prevent the proud little feet from doing so much mischief.

Nor was she unsuccessful. Ethelyn saw the drift of the conversation, and though for an instant her cheek crimsoned with resentment that she should be talked at by Melinda Jones, she was the better for the talking, and the Olney people, when next they come in contact with her, changed their minds with regard to her being so very proud. She was homesick at first, and that was the cause of her coldness, they said, excusing her in their kind hearts, and admiring her as something far superior to themselves. Even Tim Jones got now and then a pleasant word, for Ethelyn had not forgotten the hundred extra votes. She would have repelled the insinuation that she was courting favor or that hopes of the future governorship for Richard had anything to do with her changed demeanor. She despised such things in others; but Ethelyn was human, and it is just possible that had there been nothing in expectancy she would not have submitted with so good a grace to the familiarities with which she so constantly came in contact. At home she was cold and proud as ever, for between her mother-in-law and herself there was no affinity, and they kept as far apart as possible, Ethelyn staying mostly in her room, and Mrs. Markham, senior, staying in the kitchen, where Eunice Plympton still remained.

Mrs. Markham had fully expected that Eunice would go home within a few days after Ethelyn's arrival; but when the days pa.s.sed on, Ethelyn showed no inclination for a nearer acquaintance with the kitchen--"never even offering to wipe the teacups on washing days," as Mrs. Markham complained to James, and John, and Andy--the good woman began to manifest some anxiety on the subject, and finally went to Richard to know if "he expected to keep a hired girl all winter or was Ethelyn going to do some light ch.o.r.es."

Richard really did not know; but after a visit to his room, where Ethie sat reading in her handsome crimson wrapper, with the velvet tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, he decided that she could "not do ch.o.r.es," and Eunice must remain. It was on this occasion that Washington was broached, Mrs. Markham repeating what she heard Ethelyn saying to Melinda, and asking Richard if he contemplated such a piece of extravagance as taking his wife to Washington would be. In Richard's estimation there were other and weightier reasons why Ethelyn should remain quietly at home that winter.

He did not especially mind the expense she might be to him, and he owned to a weak desire to see her queen it over all the reigning belles, as he was certain she would. Unbiased by his mother, and urged by Ethelyn, he would probably have yielded in her favor; but the mother was first in the field, and so she won the day, and Ethie's disappointment was a settled thing. But Ethie did not know it, as Richard wisely refrained from being the first to speak of the matter. That she was going to Washington Ethelyn had no doubt, and this made her intercourse with the Olneyites far more endurable. Some of them she found pleasant, cultivated people--especially Mr. Townsend, the clergyman, who, after the Sunday on which she appeared at the Village Hall in her blue silk and elegant basquine, came to see her, and seemed so much like an old friend when she found that he had met at Clifton, in New York, some of her acquaintances. It was easy to be polite to him, and to the people from Camden, who hearing much of Judge Markham's pretty bride, came to call upon her--Judge Miller and his wife, with Marcia Fenton and Miss Ella Backus, both belles and blondes, and both some-bodies, according to Ethelyn's definition of that word. She liked these people, and Richard found no trouble in getting her to return their calls. She would gladly have stayed in Camden altogether, and once laughingly pointed out to Richard a large, vacant lot, adjoining Mr. Fenton's, where she would like to have her new house built.

There was a decided improvement in Ethelyn; nor did her old perversity of temper manifest itself very strongly until one morning, three weeks after her arrival in Olney, when Richard suggested to her the propriety of his mother's giving them a party, or infair, as he called it. The people expected it, he said; they would be disappointed without it, and, indeed, he felt it was something he owed them for all their kindness to him. Then Ethelyn rebelled--stoutly, stubbornly rebelled--but Richard carried the point, and two days after the farmhouse was in a state of dire confusion, wholly unlike the quiet which reigned there usually.

Melinda Jones was there all the time, while Mrs. Jones was back and forth, and a few of the Olney ladies dropped in with suggestions and offers of a.s.sistance. It was to be a grand affair--so far, at least, as numbers were concerned--for everybody was invited, from Mr. Townsend and the other clergy, down to Cecy Doane, who did dressmaking and tailoring from house to house. The Markhams were very democratic in their feelings, and it showed itself in the guests bidden to the party. They were invited from Camden as well--Mr. and Mrs. Miller, with Marcia Fenton and Ella Backus; and after the two young ladies had come over to ascertain how large an affair it was to be, so as to know what to wear, Ethelyn began to take some little interest in it herself and to give the benefit of her own experience in such matters. But having a party in Mrs. Dr. Van Buren's handsome house, where the servants were all so well trained, and everything necessary was so easy of access, or even having a party at Aunt Barbara's, was a very different thing from having one here under the supervision of Mrs. Markham, whose ideas were so many years back, and who objected to nearly everything which Ethelyn suggested. But by dint of perseverance on Melinda's part her scruples were finally overcome; so that when the night of the party arrived the house presented a very respectable appearance, with its lamps of kerosene, and the sperm candles flaming on the mantels in the parlor, and the tallow candles smoking in the kitchen.

Mrs. Markham's bed had been removed from the sitting room, and the carpet taken from the floor, for they were going to dance, and Eunice's mother had been working hard all day to keep her liege lord away from the Cross Roads tavern so that he might be presentable at night, and capable of performing his part, together with his eldest son, who played the flute. She was out in the kitchen now, very large and important with the office of head waiter, her hoops in everybody's way, and her face radiant with satisfaction, as she talked to Mrs. Markham about what we better do. The table was laid in the kitchen and loaded with all the substantials, besides many delicacies which Melinda and Ethelyn had concocted; for the latter had even put her hands to the work, and manufactured two large dishes of Charlotte Russe, with pretty molds of blanc-mange, which Eunice persisted in calling "corn-starch puddin', with the yallers of eggs left out," There were trifles, and tarts, and jellies, and sweetmeats, with raised biscuits by the hundred, and loaves on loaves of frosted cake; while out in the woodshed, wedged in a tub of ice, was a huge tin pail, over which James, and John, and Andy, and even Richard had sat, by turns, stirring the freezing ma.s.s. Mrs. Jones'

little colored boy, who knew better how to wait on company than any person there, came over in his clean jacket, and out on the doorstep was eating chestnuts and whistling Dixie, as he looked down the road to see if anybody was coming. Melinda Jones had gone home to dress, feeling more like going to bed than making merry at a party, as she looped up her black braids of hair and donned her white muslin dress with the scarlet ribbons. Melinda was very tired, for a good share of the work had fallen upon her--or rather she had a.s.sumed it--and her cheeks and hands were redder than usual when, about seven o'clock, Tim drove her over to Mrs. Markham's, and then went to the village after the dozen or more of girls whom he had promised "to see to the doin's."

But Melinda looked very pretty--at least James Markham thought so--when she stood up on tiptoe to tie his cravat in a better-looking bow than he had done. Since the night when Richard first told her of Ethelyn, it had more than once occurred to Melinda that possibly she might yet bear the name of Markham, for her woman nature was quick to see that James, at least, paid her the homage which Richard had withheld. But Melinda's mind was not yet made up, and as she was too honest to encourage hopes which might never be fulfilled, she would not even look up into the handsome eyes resting so admiringly upon her as she tied the bow of the cravat and felt James' breath upon her burning cheeks. She did, however, promise to dance the first set with him, and then she ran upstairs to see if Ethelyn needed her. But Eunice had been before her, and Ethelyn's toilet was made.

Had this party been at Mrs. Dr. Van Buren's, in Boston, Ethelyn would have worn her beautiful white satin with the fleecy lace; but here it would be out of place, she thought, and so she left it pinned up in towels at the bottom of her trunk, and chose a delicate lavender, trimmed with white applique. Lavender was not the most becoming color Ethelyn could wear, but she looked very handsome in it, with the soft pearls upon her neck and arms. Richard thought her dress too low, while modest Andy averted his eyes, lest he should do wrong in looking upon the beautiful round neck and shoulders which so greatly shocked his mother. "It was ridiculous and disgraceful for respectable wimmen folks to dress like that," she said to Melinda Jones, who spoke up for Ethelyn, saying the dress was like that of all fashionable ladies, and in fact was not as low as Mrs. Judge Miller wore to a reception when Melinda was at school in Camden.

Mrs. Markham "did not care for Miss Miller, nor forty more like her.

Ethelyn looked rid.i.c.kerlous, showing her shoulderblades, with that sharp point running down her back, and her skirts moppin' the floor for half a yard behind."

Any superfluity of length in Ethelyn's skirts was more than counterbalanced by Mrs. Markham's, who this night wore the heavy black silk which her sister-in-law had matched in Boston ten years before. Of course it was too narrow and too short, and too flat in front, Andy said, admiring Ethelyn far more than he did his mother, even though the latter wore the coiffure which Aunt Barbara had sent her, and a big collar made from the thread lace which Mrs. Captain Markham, of Chicopee, had also matched in Boston. Ethelyn was perfect, Andy thought, and he hovered constantly near her, noticing how she carried her hands, and her handkerchief, and her fan, and thinking Richard must be perfectly happy in the possession of such a gem.

But Richard was not happy--at least not that night--for, with Mrs.

Miller, and Marcia Fenton, and Ella Backus before her mind, Ethelyn had lectured him again on etiquette, and Richard did not bear lecturing here as well as at Saratoga. There it was comparatively easy to make him believe he did not know anything which he ought to know; but at home, where the old meed of praise and deference was awarded to him, where his word was law and gospel, and he was Judge Markham, the potentate of the town, Ethelyn's criticisms were not palatable, and he hinted that he was old enough to take care of himself without quite so much dictation.

Then, when he saw a tear on Ethelyn's eyelashes, he would have put his arm around her and kissed it away, if she had not kept him back, telling him he would muss her dress. Still he was not insensible to her pretty looks, and felt very proud of her, as she stood at his side and shook the hands of the arriving guests.

By eight o'clock the Olneyites had a.s.sembled in full force; but it was not until the train came in and brought the elite from Camden that the party was fairly commenced. There was a hush when the three ladies with veils on their heads went up the stairs, and a greater hush when they came down again--Mrs. Judge Miller, splendid in green moire-antique, with diamonds in her ears, while Marcia Fenton and Ella Backus figured in white tarletan, one with tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of blue, the other with tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of pink, and both with waists so much lower than Ethelyn's that Mrs.

Markham thought the latter very decent by comparison.

It took the ladies a few minutes to inspect the cut of Mrs. Miller's dress, and the style of hair worn by Marcia and Ella, whose heads had been under a hairdresser's hands, and were curiosities to some of the Olneyites. But all stiffness vanished with the sound of Jerry Plympton's fiddle, and the girls on the west side of the room began to look at the boys on the opposite side, who were straightening their collars and glancing at their "pumps."

Ethelyn did not intend to dance, but when Judge Miller politely offered to lead her to the floor, saying, as he guessed her thoughts, "Remember the old adage, 'among the Romans, and so forth,'" she involuntarily a.s.sented, and even found herself leading the first cotillion to the sound of Jerry Plympton's fiddle. Mrs. Miller was dancing, too, as were both Marcia and Ella, and that in a measure reconciled her to what she was doing. They knew something of the lancers there on the prairie, and terrible Tim Jones offered to call off "if Miss Markham would dance with him and kind of keep him goin' straight."

Tim had laid a wager with a companion as rough as himself, that he would dance with the proud beauty, and this was the way he took to win the bet. The ruse succeeded, too, Richard's eyes and low-toned "Ethelyn!"

availing more than aught else to drive Ethelyn to the floor with the dreadful Tim, who interlarded his directions with little asides of his own, such as "Go it, Jim," "Cut her down there, Tom," "Hurry up your cakes."

Ethelyn could have screamed out with disgust, and the moment the set was over she said to Richard, "I shall not dance again to-night."

And she kept her word, until toward the close of the party when poor Andy, who had been so unfortunate as to find everybody engaged or too tired, came up to her as she was playing an accompaniment to Jerry's "Money-musk," and with a most doleful expression, said to her, timidly:

"Please, sister Ethie, dance just once with me; none of the girls wants to, and I hain't been in a figger to-night."

Ethelyn could not resist Andy, whose face was perfectly radiant as he led her to the floor, and b.u.mped his head against hers in bowing to her.

Eunice was in the same set--her partner the terrible Tim--who cracked jokes and threw his feet about in the most astounding fashion. And Ethelyn bore it all, feeling that by being there with such people she had fallen from the pedestal on which Ethelyn Grant once stood. Her lavender dress was stepped upon, and her point applique caught and torn by the big pin Andy had upon his coat cuff. Taken as a whole, that party was the most dreadful of anything Ethelyn had endured and she could have cried for joy when the last guest had said good-night, and she was at liberty to lay her aching head upon her pillow.

Four days after there was a large and fashionable party at Mrs. Judge Miller's, in Camden, and Ethelyn went over in the cars, taking Eunice with her as dressing-maid, and stopping at the Stafford House. That night she wore her bridal robes, receiving so much attention that her head was nearly turned with flattery. She could dance with the young men of Camden, and flirt with them, too--especially with Harry Clifford, who, she found, had been in college with Frank Van Buren. Harry Clifford was a fast young man, but pleasant to talk with for a while and Ethelyn found him very agreeable, saving that his mention of Frank made her heart throb unpleasantly; for she fancied he might know something of that page of her past life which she had concealed from Richard. Nor were her fears without foundation, for once when they were standing together near her husband, Harry said:

"It seems so strange that you are the Ethie about whom Frank used to talk so much, and a lock of whose hair he kept so sacred. I remember I tried to buy a part of it from him, but could not succeed until once, when his funds from home failed to come, and he was so hard up, as we used to say, that he actually sold, or rather p.a.w.ned, half of the shining tress for the sum of five dollars. As the p.a.w.n was never redeemed, I have the hair now, but never expected to meet with its fair owner, who needs not to be told that the tress is tenfold more valuable since I have met her, and know her to be the wife of our esteemed Member," and young Clifford bowed toward Richard, whose face wore a perplexed, dissatisfied expression.

He did not fancy Harry Clifford much, and he certainly did not care to hear that he had in his possession a lock of Ethelyn's hair, while the allusions to Frank Van Buren were anything but agreeable to him. Neither did he like Ethelyn's painful blushes, and her evident desire for Harry to stop. It looked as if the hair business meant more than he would like to suppose. Naturally bright and quick, young Clifford detected Richard's thoughts, and directly began to wonder if there were not something somewhere which Judge Markham did not understand.

"I mean to find out," he thought, and watching an opportunity, when Ethelyn was comparatively alone, he crossed to her side and said in a low tone, "Excuse me, Mrs. Markham. If in my illusions to Frank Van Buren I touched a subject which has never been discussed between yourself and your husband, I meant no harm, I a.s.sure you."

Instead of rebuking the impertinent young man, Ethelyn turned very red, and stammered out something about its being of no consequence; and so Harry Clifford held the secret which she had kept so carefully from Richard, and that party in Camden was made the stepping-stone to much of the wretchedness that afterward came to our heroine.

CHAPTER XIII

GOING TO WASHINGTON

Richard's trunk was ready for Washington. His twelve shirts, which Eunice had ironed so nicely, were packed away with his collars and new yarn socks, and his wedding suit, which he was carrying as a mere matter of form, for he knew he should not need it during his three months'

absence. He should not go into society, he thought, or even attend levees, with his heart as sore and heavy as it was on this, his last day at home. Ethelyn was not going with him. She knew it now, and never did the face of a six-months wife look harder or stonier than hers as she stayed all day in her room, paying no heed whatever to Richard, and leaving entirely to Eunice and her mother-in-law those little things which most wives would have been delighted to do for their husbands'

comfort. Ethelyn was very unhappy, very angry, and very bitterly disappointed. The fact that she was not going to Washington had fallen upon her like a thunderbolt, paralyzing her, as it were, so that after the first great shock was over she seemed like some benumbed creature bereft of care, or feeling, or interest in anything.

She had remained in Camden the most of the day following Mrs. Judge Miller's party, and had done a little shopping with Marcia Fenton and Ella Backus, to whom she spoke of her winter in Washington as a matter of course, saying what she had to say in Richard's presence, and never dreaming that he was only waiting for a fitting opportunity to demolish her castles entirely. Perhaps if Ethelyn had talked Washington openly to her husband when she was first married, and before his mother had gained his ear, her chances for a winter at the capital would have been far greater than they were now. But she had only taken it for granted that she was going, and supposed that Richard understood it just as she did.

She had asked him several times where he intended to board and why he did not secure rooms at Willard's, but Richard's non-committal replies had given her no cue to her impending fate. On the night of her return from Camden, as she stood by her dressing bureau, folding away her point-lace handkerchief, she had casually remarked, "I shall not use that again till I use it in Washington. Will it be very gay there this winter?"

Richard was leaning his elbow upon the mantel, looking thoughtfully into the fire, and for a moment he did not answer. He hated to demolish Ethie's castles, but it could not be helped. Once it had seemed very possible that she would go with him to Washington, but that was before his mother had talked to him upon the subject. Since then the fiat had gone forth, and thinking this the time to declare it, Richard said at last, "Put down your finery, Ethelyn, and come stand by me while I say something to you."