Читать книгу Ethelyn's Mistake - Mary Jane Holmes - Страница 8

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He preferred to be called Richard by his friends and Mr. Markham by strangers--not that he was insensible to the prestige which the title of Judge or Honorable gave him, but he was a plain, matter-of-fact man, who had not been lifted off his balance, or grown dizzy by the rapidity with which he had risen in public favor. At home he was simply Dick to his three burly brothers, who were at once so proud and fond of him, while his practical, unpretending mother called him Richard, feeling, however, that it was very proper for the neighbors to give him the title of Judge. Of Mrs. Markham we shall have occasion to speak hereafter, so now we will only say that she saw no fault in her gifted son, and she was ready to do battle with anyone who should suggest the existence of a fault. Richard's wishes had never been thwarted, but rather deferred to by the entire family, and, as a natural consequence, he had come to believe that his habits and opinions were as nearly correct as they well could be. He had never mingled much in society--he was not fond of it; and the "quilting bees" and "sugar pulls" and "apple parings" which had prevailed in his neighborhood were not at all to his taste. He greatly preferred his books to the gayest of frolics, and thus he early earned for himself the sobriquet of "the old bachelor who hated girls"; all but Abigail Jones, the shoemaker's daughter, whose black eyes and bright red cheeks had proved too much for the grave, sober Richard. His first act of gallantry was performed for her, and even after he grew to be Judge his former companions never wearied of telling how, on the occasion of his first going home with the fair Abigail Jones from spelling school, he had kept at a respectful distance from her, and when the lights from her father's window became visible he remarked that "he guessed she would not be afraid to go the rest of the way alone," and abruptly bidding her good-night, ran back as fast as he could run. Whether this story were true or not, he was very shy of the girls, though the dark-eyed Abigail exerted over him so strong an influence that, at the early age of twenty he had asked her to be his wife, and she had answered yes, while his mother sanctioned the match, for she had known the Joneses in Vermont, and knew them for honest, thrifty people, whose daughter would make a faithful, economical wife for any man. But death came in to separate the lovers, and Abigail's cheeks grew redder still, and her eyes were strangely bright as the fever burned in her veins, until at last when the Indian-summer sun was shining down upon the prairies, they buried her one day beneath the late summer flowers, and the almost boy-widower wore upon his hat the band of crape which Ethelyn remembered as looking so rusty when, the year following, he came to Chicopee. Richard Markham believed that he had loved Abigail truly when she died, but he knew now that she was not the one he would have chosen in his mature manhood. She was suitable for him, perhaps, as he was when he lost her, but not as he was now, and it was long since he had ceased to visit her grave, or think of her with the feelings of sad regret which used to come over him when, at night, he lay awake listening to the moaning of the wind as it swept over the prairies, or watching the glittering stars, and wondering if she had found a home beyond them with Daisy, his only sister. There was nothing false about Richard Markham, and when he stood with Ethelyn upon the shore of Pordunk Pond, and asked her to be his wife, he told her of Abigail Jones, who had been two years older than himself, and to whom he was once engaged.

"But I did not give her Daisy's ring," he said; and he spoke very reverently as he continued, "Abigail was a good, sensible girl, and even if she hears what I am saying she will pardon me when I tell you that it did not seem to me that diamonds were befitting such as she; Daisy, I am sure, had a different kind of person in view when she made me keep the ring for the maiden who would prize such things, and who was worthy of it. Abigail was worthy, but there was not a fitness in giving it to her, neither would she have prized it; so I kept it in its little box with a curl of Daisy's hair. Had she become my wife, I might eventually have given it to her, but she died, and it was well. She would not have satisfied me now, and I should--"

He was going to add "should not have been what I am," but that would have savored too much of pride, and possibly of disrespect for the dead; so he checked himself, and while his rare, pleasant smile broke all over his beaming face, and his hazel eyes grew soft and tender in their expression, he said: "You, Ethelyn, seem to me the one Daisy would have chosen for a sister. You are quiet, and gentle, and pure like her, and I am so glad of the Providence which led me to Chicopee. They said I was looking for a wife, but I had no such idea. I never thought to marry until I met you that afternoon when you wore the pretty delaine, with the red ribbon in your hair. Do you remember it, Ethelyn?"

Ethelyn did not answer him at once. She was looking far off upon the water, where the moonlight lay sleeping, and revolving in her mind the expediency of being equally truthful with her future husband, and saying to him, "I, too, have loved, and been promised to another." She knew she ought to tell him this and she would, perhaps, have done so, for Ethie meant to be honest, and her heart was touched and softened by Richard's tender love for his sister; but when he was so unfortunate as to call the green silk which Madame--, in Boston, had made, a pretty delaine, and her scarlet velvet band a "red ribbon," her heart hardened, and her secret remained untold, while her proud lip half curled in scorn at the thought of Abigail Jones, who once stood, perhaps, as she was standing, with her hand on Richard Markham's and the kiss of betrothal wet upon her forehead. Ah, Ethie, there was this difference: Abigail had kissed her lover back, and her great black eyes had looked straight into his with an eager, blissful joy, as she promised to be his wife, and when he wound his arm around her, she had leaned up to the bashful youth, encouraging his caresses, while you--gave back no answering caress, and shook lightly off the arm laid across your neck. Possibly Richard thought of the difference, but if he did he imputed Ethelyn's cold impassiveness to her modest, retiring nature, so different from Abigail's. It was hardly fair to compare the two girls, they were so wholly unlike, for Abigail had been a plain, simple-hearted, buxom country girl of the West, whose world was all contained within the limits of the neighborhood where she lived, while Ethie was a high-spirited, petted, impulsive creature, knowing but little of such people as Abigail Jones, and wholly unfitted to cope with any world outside that to which she had been accustomed. But love is blind, and so was Richard; for with his whole heart he did love Ethelyn Grant; and, notwithstanding his habits of thirty years, she could then have molded him to her will, had she tried, by the simple process of love. But, alas! there was no answering throb in her heart when she felt the touch of his hand or his breath upon her cheek. She was only conscious of a desire to avoid his caress, if possible, while, as the days went by, she felt a growing disgust for "Abigail Jones," whose family, she gathered from her lover, lived near to, and were quite familiar with, his mother.

In happy ignorance of her real feelings, so well did she dissemble them, and so proper and ladylike was her deportment, Richard bade her good-by early in May, and went back to his Western home, writing to her often, but not such letters, it must be confessed, as were calculated to win a maiden's heart, or keep it after it was won. If he was awkward at love-making, and only allowed himself to be occasionally surprised into flashes of tenderness, he was still more awkward in letter-writing; and Ethelyn always indulged in a headache, or a fit of blues, after receiving one of his short, practical letters, which gave but little sign of the strong, deep affection he cherished for her. Those were hard days for Ethelyn--the days which intervened between her lover's bidding her adieu and his return to claim her hand--and only her deeply wounded pride, and her great desire for a change of scene and a winter in Washington, kept her from asking a release from the engagement she knew never ought to have been. Aside, however, from all this, there was some gratification in knowing that she was an object of envy to Susie Graham, and Anna Thorn, and Carrie Bell, either of whom would gladly have taken her place as bride-elect of an M.C., while proud old Captain Markham's frequent mention of "my nephew in Congress, ahem!" and Mrs. Dr. Van Buren's constant exultation over the "splendid match," helped to keep up the glamour of excitement, so that her promise had never been revoked, and now he was there to claim it. He had not gone at once to Miss Bigelow's on his arrival in Chicopee, for the day was hot and sultry, and he was very tired with his forty-eight hours' constant travel, and so he had rested a while in his chamber, which looked toward Ethelyn's, and then sat upon the piazza with his uncle till the heat of the day was past, and the round red moon was showing itself above the eastern hills as the sun disappeared in the west. Then, in his new linen coat, cut and made by Mrs. Jones, mother to Abigail, deceased, he had started for the dwelling of his betrothed. Ethelyn had seen him as he came from the depot in Captain Markham's carriage, and her cheek had crimsoned, and then grown pale at sight of the ancient-looking hair trunk swinging behind the carriage, all unconscious of the indignation it was exciting, or of the vast difference between itself and the two huge Saratoga trunks standing in Aunt Barbara Bigelow's upper hall, and looking so clean and nice in their fresh coverings. Poor Ethelyn! That hair trunk, which had done its owner such good service in his journeys to and from Washington, and which the mother had packed with so much care, never dreaming how very, very far it was behind the times, brought the hot blood in torrents to her face, and made the white hands clasp each other spasmodically, as she thought "Had I known of that hair trunk, I would certainly have told him no."

Even Abigail Jones, the shoemaker's daughter, faded into insignificance before this indignity, and it was long before Ethelyn could recover her composure or her pulse resume its regular beat. She was in no haste to see him; but such is the inconsistency of perverse girlhood that, because he delayed his coming, she felt annoyed and piqued, and was half tempted to have a headache and go to bed, and so not see him at all. But he was coming at last, linen coat and all; and Susie Graham, who had stopped for a moment by the gate to speak with Ethelyn, pronounced him "a magnificent-looking fellow," and said to Ethelyn, "I should think you would feel so proud."

Susie did not observe the linen coat, or if she had, she most likely thought it a very sensible arrangement for a day when the thermometer stood no degrees in the shade; but Susie was not Boston finished. She had been educated at Mount Holyoke, which made a difference, Ethelyn thought. Still, Susie's comment did much towards reconciling her to the linen coat; and, as Richard Markham came up the street, she did feel a thrill of pride and even pleasure, for he had a splendid figure and carried himself like a prince, while his fine face beamed all over with that joyous, happy expression which comes only from a kind, true heart, as he drew near the house and his eye caught the flutter of a white robe through the open door. Ethelyn was very pretty in her cool, cambric dress, with a bunch of sweet English violets in her hair; and at sight of her the man usually so grave and quiet, and undemonstrative with those of the opposite sex, felt all his reserve give way, and there was a world of tenderness in his voice and a misty look in his eye, as he bent over her, giving her the second kiss he had ever given to her, and asking, "How is my darling to-night?"

She did not take his arm from her neck this time--he had a right to keep it there--and she suffered the caress, feeling no greater inconvenience than that his big hand was very warm and pressed a little too hard sometimes upon her shoulders. He spoke to her of the errand on which he had come, and the great, warm hand pressed more heavily as he said, "It seems to me all a dream that in a few days you will be my own Ethie, my wife, from whom I need not be parted"; and then he spoke of his mother and his three brothers, James, and John, and Anderson, or Andy, as he was called. Each of these had sent kindly messages to Richard's bride--the mother saying she should be glad to have a daughter in her home, and the three brothers promising to love their new sister so much as to make "old Dick" jealous, if possible.

These messages "old Dick" delivered, but wisely refrained from telling how his mother feared he had not chosen wisely, that a young lady with Boston notions was not the wife to make a Western man very happy. Neither did he tell her of an interview he had with Mrs. Jones, who had always evinced a motherly care over him since her daughter's death, and to whom he had dutifully communicated the news of his intended marriage. It was not what Mrs. Jones had expected. She had watched Richard's upward progress with all the pride of a mother-in-law, lamenting often to Mrs. Markham that poor Abigail could not have lived to share his greatness, and during the term of his judgeship, when he stayed mostly in Camden, the county seat, she had, on the occasion of her going to town with butter and eggs, and chickens, taken a mournful pleasure in perambulating the streets, and selecting the house where Abigail might, perhaps, have resided, and where she could have had her cup of young hyson after the fatigue of the day, instead of eating her dry lunch of cheese and fried cakes in the rather comfortless depot, while waiting for the train. Richard's long-continued bachelorhood had given her peculiar pleasure, inasmuch as it betokened a continual remembrance of her daughter; and as her youngest child, the blooming Melinda, who was as like the departed Abigail as sisters ever are to each other ripened into womanhood, and the grave Richard spoke oftener to her than to the other maidens of the prairie village, she began to speculate upon what might possibly be, and refused the loan of her brass kettle to the neighbor whose husband did not vote for Richard when he ran for member of Congress. Melinda, too, had her little ambitions, her silent hopes and aspirations, and even her vague longings for a winter in Washington, As the Markham house and the Jones house were distant from each other only half a mile, she was a frequent visitor of Richard's mother, always assisting when there was more work than usual on hand and on the occasion of Richard's first going to Washington ironing his shirts and packing them herself in the square hair trunk which had called forth Ethelyn's ire. Though she did not remember much about "Abby," she knew that, had she lived, Richard would have been her brother; and somehow he seemed to her just like one now, she said to Mrs. Markham, as she hemmed his pocket handkerchiefs, working his initials in the corner with pink floss, and upon the last and best, the one which had cost sixty-two and a half cents, venturing to weave her own hair, which was long, and glossy, and black, as Abigail's had been. Several times a week during Richard's absence, she visited Mrs. Markham, inquiring always after "the Judge," and making herself so agreeable and useful, too, in clear-starching and doing up Mrs. Markham's caps, and in giving receipts for sundry new and economical dishes, that the good woman herself frequently doubted if Richard could do better than take the black-eyed Melinda; and when he told her of Ethelyn Grant, she experienced a feeling of disappointment and regret, doubting much if a Boston girl, with Boston notions, would make her as happy as the plainer Melinda, who knew all her ways. Something of this she said to her son, omitting, of course, that part of her thoughts which referred to Melinda. With Mrs. Jones, however, it was different. In her surprise and disappointment she let fall some remarks which opened Richard's eyes a little, and made him look at her half amused and half sorry, as, suspending her employment of paring apples for the dinner pie she put the corner of her apron to her eyes, and "hoped the new bride would not have many airs, and would put up with his mother's ways.

"You," and here the apron and hand with the knife in it came down from her eyes--"you'll excuse me, Richard, for speaking so plain, but you seem like my own boy, and I can't help it. Your mother is the best and cleverest woman in the world, but she has some peculiarities which a Boston girl may not put up with, not being used to them as Melin--I mean, as poor Abigail was."

It was the first time it had ever occurred to Richard that his mother had peculiarities, and even now he did not know what they were. Taking her all in all, she was as nearly perfect, he thought, as a woman well could be, and on his way home from his interview with Mrs. Jones he pondered in his mind what she could mean, and then wondered if for the asking he could have taken Melinda Jones to the fireside where he was going to install Ethelyn Grant. There was a comical smile about his mouth as he thought how little either Melinda or Abigail would suit him now; and then, by way of making amends for what seemed disrespect to the dead, he went round to the sunken grave where Abigail had slept for so many years, and stood again just where he had stood that day when he fancied the light from his heart had gone out forever. But he could not bring back the olden feeling, or wish that Abigail had lived.

"She is happy now--happier than I could have made her. It is better as it is," he said, as he walked away to Daisy's grave, where his tears dropped just as they always did when he stood by the sod which covered the fairest, brightest, purest being he had ever known, except his Ethie.

She was just as pure and gentle and good as blue-eyed Daisy had been, and on the manly face turned so wistfully to the eastward there was a world of love and tenderness for the Ethie who, alas, did not deserve it then, and to whom a few weeks later he gave his mother's kindly message. Then, remembering what Mrs. Jones had said, he felt in duty bound to add:

"Mother has some peculiarities, I believe most old people have; but I trust to your good sense to humor them as much as possible. She has had her own way a long time, and though you will virtually be mistress of the house, inasmuch as it belongs to me, it will be better for mother to take the lead, as heretofore."

There was a curl on Ethelyn's lip as she received her first lesson with regard to her behavior as daughter-in-law; but she made no reply, not even to ask what the peculiarities were which she was to humor. She really did not care what they were, as she fully intended having an establishment of her own in the thriving prairie village, just half a mile from her husband's home. She should probably spend a few weeks with Mrs. Markham, senior, whom she fancied a tall, stately woman, wearing heavy black silk dresses and thread lace caps on great occasions, and having always on hand some fine lamb's-wool knitting work when she sat in the parlor where Daisy's picture hung. Ethelyn could not tell why it was that she always saw Richard's mother thus, unless it were what Mrs. Captain Markham once said with regard to her Western sister-in-law, sending to Boston for a black silk which cost three dollars per yard--a great price for those days--and for two yards of handsome thread lace, which she, the Mrs. Captain, had run all over the city to get, "John's wife was so particular to have it just the pattern and width she described in her letter."

This was Richard's mother as Ethelyn saw her, while the house on the prairie, which she knew had been built within a few years, presented a very respectable appearance to her mind's eye, being large, and fashioned something after the new house across the Common, which had a bay window at the side, and a kind of cupola on the roof. It would be quite possible to spend a few weeks comfortably there, especially as she would have the Washington gayeties in prospect, but in the spring, when, after a winter of dissipation she returned to the prairies, she should go to her own home, either in Olney or Camden; the latter, perhaps, as Richard could as well live there as elsewhere. This was Ethelyn's plan, but she kept it to herself, and changing the conversation from Richard's mother and her peculiarities, she talked instead of the places they were to visit--Quebec and Montreal, the seaside and the mountains, and lastly that great Babel of fashion, Saratoga, for which place several of her dresses had been expressly made.

Ethelyn had planned this trip herself, and Richard, though knowing how awfully he should be bored before the summer was over, had assented to all that she proposed, secretly hoping the while that the last days of August would find him safe at home in Olney among his books, his horses, and his farming pursuits. He was very tired that night, and he did not tarry longer than ten, though a word from Ethelyn would have kept him for hours at her side, so intoxicated was he with her beauty, and so quiet and happy he felt with her; but the word was not spoken, and he left her standing on the piazza, where he could see the gleaming of her white robes when he looked back, as he more than once did ere reaching his uncle's door.

The next three days passed rapidly, bringing at last the eventful one for which all others were made, it seemed to him, as he looked out upon the early, dewy morning, thinking how pleasant it was there in that quiet New England town, and trying to fight back the unwelcome headache which finally drove him back to his bed, from which he wrote the little note to Ethelyn, who might think strange at his non-appearance when he had been accustomed to go to her immediately after breakfast. He never dreamed of the relief it was to her not to have him come, as he lay flushed and heated upon his pillow, the veins upon his forehead swelling with their pressure of hot blood, and his ear strained to catch the first sound of the servant's returning step. Ethelyn would either come herself to see him, or send some cheerful message, he was sure. How, then, was he disappointed to find his own note returned, with the assurance that "it did not matter, as he would only be in the way."

Several times he read it over, trying to extract some comfort from it, and finding it at last in the fact that Ethelyn had a headache, too. This was the reason for her seeming indifference; and in wishing himself able to go to her, Richard forgot in part his own pain, and fell into a quiet sleep, which did him untold good. It was three o'clock when at last he rose, knowing pretty well all that had been doing during the hours of his seclusion in the darkened room. The "Van Buren set" had come, and he overheard Mrs. Markham's Esther saying to Aunt Barbara's Betsy, when she came for the silver cake-basket, that "Mr. Frank seemed in mighty fine spirits, considering all the flirtations he used to have with Miss Ethelyn."

This was the first intimation Richard had received of a flirtation, and even now it did not strike him unpleasantly. They were cousins, he reflected, and as such had undoubtedly been very familiar with each other. It was natural, and nothing for which he need care. He did not care, either, as he deliberately began to make his wedding toilet, thinking himself, when it was completed, that he was looking unusually well in the entire new suit which his cousin, Mrs. Woodhull, had insisted upon his getting in New York, when on his way home in April he had gone that way and told her of his approaching marriage. It was a splendid suit, made after the most approved style, and costing a sum which he had kept secret from his mother, who, nevertheless, guessed somewhere near the truth, and thought the Olney tailor would have suited him quite as well at a quarter the price, or even Mrs. Jones, who, having been a tailoress when a young girl in Vermont, still kept up her profession to a limited extent, retaining her "press-board" and "goose," and the mammoth shears which had cut Richard's linen coat after a Chicago pattern of not the most recent date Richard thought very little about his personal appearance--too little, in fact--but he felt a glow of satisfaction now as he contemplated himself in the glass, feeling only that Ethelyn would be pleased to see him thus.

And Ethelyn was pleased. She had half expected the old coat of she did not know how many years' make, and there was a fierce pang of pain in her heart as she imagined Frank's cool criticisms, and saw, in fancy, the contrast between the two men. So when Judge Markham alighted at the gate, and from her window she took in at a glance his tout ensemble, the revulsion of feeling was so great that the glad tears sprang to her eyes, and a brighter, happier look broke over her face than had been there for many weeks. She was not present when Frank was introduced to him; but when next she met her cousin, he said to her, in his usual off-hand way, "I say, Ethie, he is pretty well got up for a Westerner. But for his eyes and teeth I should never have known him for the chap who wore short pants and stove-pipe hat with the butternut-colored crape. Who was he in mourning for anyway?"

It was too bad to be reminded of Abigail Jones, just as she was beginning to feel more comfortable; but Ethelyn bore it very well, and laughingly answered, "For his sweetheart, I dare say," her cheeks flushing very red as Frank whispered slyly, "You are even, then, on that score."

No man of any delicacy of feeling or true refinement would have made this allusion to the past, with his first love within a few hours of her bridal, and his own betrothed standing near. But Frank had neither delicacy of feeling nor genuine refinement, and he even felt a secret gratification in seeing the blood mount to Ethelyn's cheeks as he thus referred to the past.