Ethelyn's Mistake Part 8

His voice and manner startled Ethelyn, but did not prepare her for what followed after she had "dropped her finery" and was standing by her husband.

"Ethelyn," he began, and his eyes did not move from the blazing fire, "it is time we came to an understanding about Washington. I have talked with mother, whose age certainly ent.i.tles her opinion to some consideration, and she thinks that for you to go to Washington this winter would not only be improper, but also endanger your life; consequently, I hope you will readily see the propriety of remaining quietly at home where mother can care for you, and see that you are not at all imprudent. It would break my heart if anything happened to my darling wife, or--" he finished the sentence in a whisper, for he was not yet accustomed to speaking of the great hope he had in expectancy.

He was looking at Ethelyn now, and the expression of her face startled and terrified him, it was so strange and terrible.

"Not go to Washington!" and her livid lips quivered with pa.s.sion, while her eyes burned like coals of fire. "I stay here all this long, dreary winter with your mother! Never, Richard, never! I'll die before I'll do that. It is all--" she did not finish the sentence, for she would not say, "It is all I married you for"; she was too much afraid of Richard for that, and so she hesitated, but looked at him intently to see if he was in earnest.

She knew he was at last--knew that neither tears, nor reproaches, nor bitter scorn could avail to carry her point, for she tried them all, even to violent hysterics, which brought Mrs. Markham, senior, into the field and made the matter ten times worse. Had she stayed away Richard might have yielded, for he was frightened at the storm he had invoked; but Richard was pa.s.sive in his mother's hands, and listened complacently while in stronger, plainer language than he had used she repeated in substance all he had said about the impropriety of Ethelyn's mingling with the gay throng at Washington. Immodesty, Mrs. Markham called it, with sundry reflections upon the time when she was young, and what young married women did then. And while she talked poor Ethelyn lay upon the lounge writhing with pain and pa.s.sion, wishing that she could die, and feeling in her heart that she hated the entire Markham race, from Richard down to the innocent Andy, who heard of the quarrel going on between his mother and Ethelyn, and crept cautiously to the door of their room, wishing so much that he could mediate between them.

But this was a matter beyond Andy's ken. He could not even find a pet.i.tion in his prayer-book suited to that occasion. Mr. Townsend had a.s.sured him that it would meet every emergency; but for once Mr.

Townsend was at fault, for with the sound of Ethelyn's angry voice ringing in his ears, Andy lighted his tallow candle and creeping up to his chamber knelt down by his wooden chair and sought among the general prayers for one suited "to a man and his wife quarreling." There was a prayer for the President, a prayer for the clergy, a prayer for Congress, a prayer for rain, a prayer for the sick, a prayer for people going to sea and people going to be hanged, but there was nothing for the point at issue, unless he took the prayer to be used in time of war and tumults, and that he thought would never answer, inasmuch as he did not really know who was the enemy from which he would be delivered. It was hard to decide against Ethelyn and still harder to decide against "d.i.c.k," and so with his brains all in a muddle Andy concluded to take the prayer "for all sorts and conditions of men," speaking very low and earnestly when he asked that all "who were distressed in mind, body, or estate, might be comforted and relieved according to their several necessities." This surely covered the ground to a very considerable extent; or if it did not, the fervent "Good Lord, deliver us," with which Andy finished his devotions, did, and the simple-hearted, trusting man arose from his knees comforted and relieved, even if Richard and Ethelyn were not.

With them the trouble continued, for Ethelyn kept her bed next day, refusing to see anyone and only answering Richard in monosyllables when he addressed himself directly to her. Once he bent over her and said, "Ethelyn, tell me truly--is it your desire to be with me, your dread of separation from me, which makes you so averse to be left behind?"

There was that in his voice which said that if this were the case he might be induced to reconsider. But though sorely tempted to do it, Ethelyn would not tell a falsehood for the sake of Washington; so she made no reply, and Richard drew from her silence any inference he pleased. He was very wretched those last days, for he could not forget the look of Ethelyn's eye or the sound of her voice when, as she finally gave up the contest, she said to him with quivering nostrils and steady tones, "You may leave me here, Richard, but remember this: not one word or line will I write to you while you are gone. I mean what I say. I shall abide by my decision."

It would be dreadful not to hear a word from Ethie during all the dreary winter, and Richard hoped she would recall her words; but Ethelyn was too sorely wounded to do that. She must reach Richard somehow, and this was the way to do it. She did not come downstairs again after it was settled. She was sick, she said, and kept her room, seeing no one but Richard and Eunice, who three times a day brought up her nicely cooked meals and looked curiously at her as she deposited her tray upon the stand and quietly left the room. Mrs. Markham did not go up at all, for Ethelyn charged her disappointment directly to her mother-in-law, and had asked that she be kept away; and so, 'mid pa.s.sion and tears and bitterness, the week went by and brought the day when Richard was to leave.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FIRST DAY OF RICHARD'S ABSENCE

The gray light of a November morning was breaking over the prairies when Richard stooped down to kiss his wife, who did not think it worth her while to rise so early even to see him off. She felt that she had been unjustly dealt with, and up to the very last maintained the same cold, icy manner so painful to Richard, who would fain have won from her one smile to cheer him in his absence. But the smile was not given, though the lips which Richard touched did move a little, and he tried to believe it was a kiss they meant to give. Only the day before Ethie had heard from Aunt Van Buren that Frank was to be married at Christmas, when they would all go on to Washington, where they confidently expected to meet Ethelyn. With a kind of grim satisfaction Ethelyn showed this to her husband, hoping to awaken in him some remorse for his cruelty to her, if, indeed, he was capable of remorse, which she doubted. She did not know him, for if possible he suffered more than she did, though in a different way. It hurt him to leave her there alone feeling as she did.

He hated to go without her, carrying only in his mind the memory of the white, rigid face which had not smiled on him for so long. He wanted her to seem interested in something, for her cold apathy of manner puzzled and alarmed him; so remembering her aunt's letter on the morning of his departure, he spoke of it to her and said, "What shall I tell Mrs. Van Buren for you? I shall probably see more or less of them."

"Tell nothing; prisoners send no messages," was Ethelyn's reply; and in the dim gray of the morning the two faces looked a moment at each other with such thoughts and pa.s.sions written upon them as were pitiable to behold.

But when Richard was fairly gone, when the tones of his voice bidding his family good-by had ceased, and Ethelyn sat leaning on her elbow and listening to the sound of the wheels which carried him away, such a feeling of utter desolation and loneliness swept over her that, burying her face in the pillows, she wept bitterer tears of remorse and regret than she had ever wept before.

That day was a long and dreary one to all the members of the prairie farmhouse. It was lonely there the first day of Richard's absence, but now it was drearier than ever; and with a harsh, forbidding look upon her face, Mrs. Markham went about her work, leaving Ethelyn entirely alone. She did not believe her daughter-in-law was any sicker than herself. "It was only airs," she thought, when at noon Ethelyn declined the boiled beef and cabbage, saying just the odor of it made her sick.

"Nothing but airs and ugliness," she persisted in saying to herself, as she prepared a slice of nice cream toast with a soft-boiled egg and cup of fragrant black tea. Ethie did not refuse this, and was even gracious enough to thank her mother-in-law for her extra trouble, but she did it in such a queenly as well as injured kind of way, that Mrs. Markham felt more aggrieved than ever, and, for a good woman, who sometimes spoke in meeting, slammed the door considerably hard as she left the room and went back to her kitchen, where the table had been laid ever since Ethelyn took to eating upstairs. So long as she ate with the family Mrs.

Markham felt rather obliged to take her meals in the front room, but it made a deal more work, and she was glad to return to her olden ways once more. Eunice was gone off on an errand, and so she felt at liberty to speak her mind freely to her boys as they gathered around the table.

"It is sheer ugliness," she said, "which keeps her cooped up there to be waited on. She is no more sick than the dog; but law, I couldn't make Richard b'lieve it."

"Mother, you surely did not go to Richard with complaints of his wife,"

and James looked reproachfully across the table at his mother, who replied: "I told him what I thought, for I wa'n't going to have him miserable all the time thinking how sick she was, but I might as well have talked to the wind, for any good it did. He even seemed putcherky, too."

"I should be more than putcherky if you were to talk to me against my wife if I had one," James retorted, thinking of Melinda and the way she sang that solo in the choir the day before.

It was a little strange that James and John and Andy all took Ethelyn's part against their mother, and even against Richard, who they thought might have taken her with him.

"It would not have hurt her any more than fretting herself to death at home. No, nor half so much; and she must feel like a cat in a strange garret there alone with them."

It was John who said this--quiet John, who talked so little, and annoyed Ethelyn so much by coming to the table in his blue frock, with his pants tucked in his boots and his curly hair standing every way. Though very much afraid of his grand sister-in-law, he admired her beyond everything, and kept the slippers she brought him safely put away with a lock of Daisy's hair and a letter written him by the young girl whose grave was close beside Daisy's in the Olney cemetery. John had had his romance and buried it with his heroine, since which time he had said but little to womankind, though never was there a truer heart than that which beat beneath the homespun frock Ethelyn so despised. Richard had bidden him to be kind to Ethie, and John had said he would; and after that promise was given had the farmhouse been on fire the st.u.r.dy fellow would have periled life and limb to save her for d.i.c.k. To James, too, Richard had spoken a word for Ethie, and to Andy also; so that there were left to her four champions in his absence--for Eunice had had her charge, with promises of a new dress if faithful to her trust; and thus there was no one against poor Ethelyn saving the mother-in-law, who made that first dinner after Richard's absence so uncomfortable that John left the table without touching the boiled Indian pudding, of which he was so fond, while James rather curtly asked what there was to be gained by spitting out so about Ethelyn, and Andy listened in silence, thinking how, by and by, when all the ch.o.r.es were done, he would take a basket of kindlings up for Ethie's fire, and if she asked him to sit down, he would do so and try and come to the root of the matter, and see if he could not do something to make things a little better.

CHAPTER XV

ANDY TRIES TO FIND THE ROOT OF THE MATTER

Ethelyn was very sick with a nervous headache, and so Andy did not go in with his kindlings that night, but put the basket near the door, where Eunice would find it in the morning. It was a part of Richard's bargain with Eunice that Ethie should always have a bright, warm fire to dress by, and the first thing Ethelyn heard as she unclosed her eyes was the sound of Eunice blowing the coals and kindlings into a blaze as she knelt upon the hearth, with her cheeks and eyes extended to their utmost capacity. It was a very dreary awakening, and Ethelyn sighed as she looked from her window out upon the far-stretching prairie, where the first snows of the season were falling. There were but few objects to break up the monotonous level, and the mottled November sky frowned gloomily and coldly down upon her. Down in the back-yard James and John were feeding the cattle; the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the cows came to her ear as she turned with a shiver from the window. How could she stay there all that long, dreary winter--there where there was not an individual who had a thought or taste in common with her own?

She could not stay, she decided, and then as the question arose, "Where will you go?" the utter hopelessness and helplessness of her position rushed over her with so much force that she sank down upon the lounge which Eunice had drawn to the fire, and when the latter came up with breakfast she found her young mistress crying in a heart-broken, despairing kind of way, which touched her heart at once.

Eunice knew but little of the trouble with regard to Washington. Mrs.

Markham had been discreet enough to keep that from her; and so she naturally ascribed Ethie's tears to grief at parting with her husband, and tried in her homely way to comfort her. Three months were not very long; and they would pa.s.s 'most before you thought, she said, adding that she heard Jim say the night before that as soon as he got his gray colts broken he was going to take his sister all over the country and cheer her up a little.

Ethie's heart was too full to permit her to reply, and Eunice soon left her alone, reporting downstairs how white and sick she was looking. To Mrs. Markham's credit we record that with a view to please her daughter-in-law, a fire was that afternoon made in the parlor, and Ethelyn solicited to come down, Mrs. Markham, who carried the invitation, urging that a change would do her good, as it was not always good to stay in one place. But Ethelyn preferred the solitude of her own chamber, and though she thanked her mother-in-law for her thoughtfulness, she declined going down, and Mrs. Markham had made her fire for nothing. Not even Melinda came to enjoy it, for she was in Camden, visiting a schoolmate; and so the day pa.s.sed drearily enough with all, and the autumnal night shut down again darker, gloomier than ever, as it seemed to Ethelyn. She had seen no one but Mrs. Markham and Eunice since Richard went away, and she was wondering what had become of Andy, when she heard his shuffling tread upon the stairs, and a moment after, his round shining face appeared, asking if he might come in.

Andy wore his best clothes on this occasion, for an idea had somehow been lodged in his brain that Ethelyn liked a person well dressed, and he was much pleased with himself in his short coat and shorter pants, and the buff and white cotton cravat tied in a hard knot around his sharp, standing collar, which almost cut the bottom of his ears.

"I wished to see you," he said, taking a chair directly in front of Ethelyn and tipping back against the wall. "I wanted to come before, but was afraid you didn't care to have me. I've got something for you now, though--somethin' good for sore eyes. Guess what 'tis?"

And Andy began fumbling in his pocket for the something which was to cheer Ethelyn, as he hoped.

"Look a-here. A letter from old d.i.c.k, writ the very first day. That's what I call real courtin' like," and Andy gave to Ethelyn the letter which John had brought from the office and which the detention of a train at Stafford for four hours had afforded Richard an opportunity to write.

It was only a few lines, meant for her alone, but Ethelyn's cheek didn't redden as she read them, or her eyes brighten one whit. Richard was well, she said, explaining to Andy the reason for his writing, and then she put the letter away, while Andy sat looking at her, wondering what he should say next. He had come up to comfort her, but found it hard to begin. Ethie was looking very pale, and there were dark rings around her eyes, showing that she suffered, even if Mrs. Markham did a.s.sert there was nothing ailed her but spleen.

At last Andy blurted out: "I am sorry for you, Ethelyn, for I know it must be bad to have your man go off and leave you all alone, when you wanted to go with him. Jim and John and me talked it up to-day when we was out to work, and we think you orto have gone with d.i.c.k. It must be lonesome staying here, and you only six months married. I wish, and the boys wishes, we could do something to chirk you up."

With the exception of what Eunice had said, these were the first words of sympathy Ethelyn had heard, and her tears flowed at once, while her slight form shook with such a tempest of sobs that Andy was alarmed, and getting down on his knees beside her, begged of her to tell him what was the matter. Had he hurt her feelings? he was such a blunderin'

critter, he never knew the right thing to say, and if she liked he'd go straight off downstairs.

"No, Anderson," Ethelyn said, "you have not hurt my feelings, and I do not wish you to go, but, oh, I am so wretched and so disappointed, too!"

"About goin' to Washington, you mean?" Andy asked, resuming his chair, and his att.i.tude of earnest inquiry, while Ethelyn, forgetting all her reserve, replied: "Yes, I mean that and everything else. It has been nothing but disappointment ever since I left Chicopee, and I sometimes wish I had died before I promised to go away from dear Aunt Barbara's, where I was so happy."

"What made you promise, then? I suppose, though, it was because you loved d.i.c.k so much," simple-minded Andy said, trying to remember if there was not a pa.s.sage somewhere which read, "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh."

Ethelyn would not wound Andy by telling him how little love had had to do with her unhappy marriage, and she remained silent for a moment, while Andy continued, "Be you disappointed here--with us, I mean, and the fixins?"

"Yes, Anderson, terribly disappointed. Nothing is as I supposed. Richard never told me what I was to expect," Ethelyn replied, without stopping to consider what she was saying.

For a moment Andy looked intently at her, as if trying to make out her meaning. Then, as it in part dawned upon him, he said sorrowfully: "Sister Ethie, if it's me you mean, I was more to blame than d.i.c.k, for I asked him not to tell you I was--a--a--wall, I once heard Miss Captain Simmons say I was Widder Markham's fool," and Andy's chin quivered as he went on: "I ain't a fool exactly, for I don't drool or s...o...b..r like Tom Brown the idiot, but I have a soft spot in my head, and I didn't want you to know it, for fear you wouldn't like me. Daisy did, though, and Daisy knew what I was and called me 'dear Andy,' and kissed me when she died."

Andy was crying softly now, and Ethelyn was crying with him. The hard feeling at her heart was giving way, and she could have put her arms around this childish man, who after a moment continued: "d.i.c.k said he wouldn't tell you, so you must forgive him for that. You've found me out, I s'pose. You know I ain't like Jim, nor John, and I can't hold a candle to old d.i.c.k, but sometimes I've hope you liked me a little, even if you do keep calling me Anderson. I wish you wouldn't; seems as if folks think more of me when they say 'Andy' to me."

"Oh, Andy, dear Andy," Ethelyn exclaimed: "I do like you so much--like you best of all. I did not mean you when I said I was disappointed."

"Who, then?" Andy asked, in his straightforward way. "Is it mother? She is odd, I guess, though I never thought on't till you came here. Yes, mother is some queer, but she is good; and onct when I had the typhoid and lay like a log, I heard her pray for 'her poor dear boy Andy'; that's what she called me, as lovin' like as if I wasn't a fool, or somethin' nigh it."

Ethelyn did not wish to leave upon his mind the impression that his mother had everything to do with her wretchedness, and so cautiously as she could she tried to explain to him the difference between the habits and customs of Chicopee and Olney. Warming up with her theme as she progressed, she said more than she intended, and succeeded in driving into Andy's brain a vague idea that his family were not up to her standard, but were in fact a long way behind the times. Andy was in a dilemma; he wanted to help Ethelyn and did not know how. Suddenly, however, his face brightened, and he asked, "Do you belong to the church?"

"Yes," was Ethelyn's reply.