ETHELYN'S
MISTAKE
BY
MRS. MARY J. HOLMES
AUTHOR OF "MILDRED; OR, THE CHILD OF ADOPTION," "MISS
MC'DONALD," "TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE," "ENGLISH
ORPHANS," "EDITH LYLE'S SECRET," "THE
LEIGHTON HOMESTEAD," "MILLBANK;
OR, ROGER IRVING'S WARD," ETC.
MARY J. HOLMES SERIES
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME
By MARY J. HOLMES
Aikenside.
Bad Hugh.
Cousin Maude.
Darkness and Daylight.
Dora Deane.
Edith Lyle's Secret.
English Orphans, The.
Ethelyn's Mistake.
Family Pride.
Homestead on the Hillside, The.
Hugh Worthington.
Leighton Homestead, The.
Lena Rivers.
Maggie Miller.
Marion Grey.
Meadow Brook.
Mildred; or, The Child of Adoption.
Millbank; or, Roger
Irving's Ward.
Miss McDonald.
Rector of St. Marks, The.
Rosamond.
Rose Mather.
Tempest and Sunshine.
_Price, postpaid, 50c. each, or any three
books for $1.25_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. ETHELYN.
II. THE VAN BUREN SET.
III. RICHARD MARKHAM.
IV. THE BRIDAL.
V. THE HONEYMOON.
VI. MRS. MARKHAM'S WAYS.
VII. GETTING HOME.
VIII. ANDY.
IX. DINNER, AND AFTER IT.
X. FIRST DAYS IN OLNEY.
XI. CALLS AND VISITING.
XII. SOCIETY.
XIII. GOING TO WASHINGTON.
XIV. THE FIRST DAY OF RICHARD'S ABSENCE.
XV. ANDY TRIES TO FIND THE ROOT OF THE MATTER.
XVI. WASHINGTON.
XVII. RICHARD'S HEIR.
XVIII. DAYS OF CONVALESCENCE.
XIX. COMING TO A CRISIS.
XX. THE CRISIS.
XXI. THE RESULT.
XXII. ETHIE'S LETTERS.
XXIII. THE DESERTED HUSBAND.
XXIV. THE INVESTIGATION.
XXV. IN CHICOPEE.
XXVI. WATCHING AND WAITING.
XXVII. AFFAIRS AT OLNEY.
XXVIII. THE GOVERNOR.
XXIX. AFTER YEARS OF WAITING.
XXX. ETHIE'S SIC.
XXXI. MRS. DR. VAN BUREN.
XXXII. CLIFTON.
XXXIII. THE OCCUPANT OF NO. 102.
XXXIV. IN RICHARD'S ROOM.
XXXV. MRS. PETER PRY TAKES A PACK.
XXXVI. IN DAVENPORT.
XXXVII. AT HOME.
XXXVIII. RICHARD AND ETHELYN.
XXXIX. RECONCILIATION.
ETHELYN'S MISTAKE
CHAPTER I
ETHELYN
There was a sweet odor of clover blossoms in the early morning air, and
the dew stood in great drops upon the summer flowers, and dropped from
the foliage of the elm trees which skirted the village common. There was
a cloud of mist upon the meadows, and the windings of the river could be
distinctly traced by the white fog which curled above it. But the fog
and the mists were rolling away as the warm June sun came over the
eastern hills, and here and there signs of life were visible in the
little New England town of Chicopee, where our story opens. The
mechanics who worked in the large shoe-shop halfway down Cottage Row had
been up an hour or more, while the hissing of the steam which carried
the huge manufactory had been heard since the first robin peeped from
its nest in the alders down by the running brook; but higher up, on
Bellevue Street, where the old inhabitants lived, everything was quiet,
and the loamy road, moist and damp with the dews of the previous night,
was as yet unbroken by the foot of man or rut of passing wheel.
The people who lived there, the Mumfords, and the Beechers, and the
Grangers, and the Thorns, did not strictly belong to the working class.
They held stocks in railroads, and mortgages on farms, and so could
afford to sleep after the shrill whistle from the manufactory had
wakened the echoes of the distant hills and sounded across the waters
of Pordunk Pond. Only one dwelling here showed signs of life, and that
the large square building, shaded in front with elms and ornamented at
the side with a luxuriant queen of the prairie, whose blossoms were
turning their blushing faces to the rising sun. This was the Bigelow
house, the joint property of Mrs. Dr. Van Buren, née Sophia Bigelow, who
lived in Boston, and her sister, Miss Barbara Bigelow, the quaintest and
kindest-hearted woman who ever bore the sobriquet of an old maid, and
was aunt to everybody. She was awake long before the whistle sounded
across the river and along the meadow lands, where some of the workmen
lived, and just as the robin, whose nest for four summers had been under
the eaves where neither boy nor cat could reach it, brought the first
worm to its clamorous young, she pushed the fringed curtain from her
open window, and with her broad frilled cap still on her head, stood for
a moment looking out upon the morning as it crept up the eastern sky.
"She will have a nice day for her wedding. May her future life be as
fair," Aunt Barbara whispered softly, then kneeling before the window
with her head bowed upon the sill, she prayed earnestly for God's
blessing on the bridal to take place that night beneath her roof, and
upon the young girl who had been both a care and a comfort since the
Christmas morning eighteen years before, when her half-sister Julia had
come home to die, bringing with her the little Ethelyn, then but two
years old.
Aunt Barbara's prayers were always to the point. She said what she had
to say in the fewest possible words, wasting no time in repetition, and
on this occasion she was briefer than usual, for the good woman had many
things upon her mind this morning. First, there was Betty to rouse and
get into a state of locomotion, a good half hour's work, as Aunt Barbara
knew from a three years' experience. There was the "sponge" put to rise
the previous night. She must see if that had risen, and with her own
hands mold the snowy breakfast rolls which Ethelyn liked so much. There
were the chambers to be inspected a second time, to ascertain if
everything was in its place, and dinner to be prepared for the "Van
Buren set" expected up from Boston, while last, though far from least,
there was Ethelyn herself to waken when the clock should chime the hour
of six, and this was a pleasure which good Aunt Barbara would not for
the world have foregone. Every morning for the last sixteen years, when
Ethelyn was at home, she had gone to the pleasant, airy chamber where
her darling slept, and bending over her had kissed her fair, glowing
cheek, and so called her back from the dreamless slumber which otherwise
might have been prolonged to an indefinite time, for Ethelyn did not
believe in the maxim, "Early to bed and early to rise," and always
begged for a little more indulgence, even after the brown eyes unclosed
and flashed forth a responsive greeting to the motherly face bending
above them.
This morning, however, it was not needful that Aunt Barbara should waken
her, for long before the robin sang, or the white-fringed curtain had
been pushed aside from Aunt Barbara's window, she was awake, and the
brown eyes, which had in them a strange expression for a bride's eyes to
wear, had scanned the eastern horizon wistfully, aye, drearily it may
be, to see if it were morning, and when the clock in the kitchen struck
four, the quivering lip had whispered, oh, so sadly, "Sixteen hours
more, only sixteen," and with a little shiver the bed-clothes had been
drawn more closely around the plump shoulders, and the troubled face had
nestled down among the pillows to smother the sigh which never ought to
have come from a maiden's lips upon her wedding day. The chamber of the
bride-elect was a pleasant one, large and airy and high, with windows
looking out upon the Chicopee hills, and from which Ethelyn had many a
time watched the fading of the purplish twilight as, girl-like, she
speculated upon the future and wondered what it might have in store for
her. One leaf of the great book had been turned and lay open to her
view, but she shrank away from what was written there, and wished so
much that the record were otherwise. Upon the walls of Ethelyn's chamber
many pictures were hung, some in water colors, which she had done
herself in the happy schooldays which now seemed so far away, and some
in oil, mementos also of those days. Pictures, too, there were of
people, one of dear Aunt Barbara, whose kindly face was the first to
smile on Ethelyn when she woke, and whose patient, watchful eyes seemed
to keep guard over her while she slept. Besides Aunt Barbara's picture
there was another one, a fair, boyish face, with a look not wholly
unlike Ethelyn, herself, save that it lacked the firmness and decision
which were so apparent in the proud curve of her lip and the flash of
her brown eyes. Fair-haired and blue-eyed, with something feminine in
every feature, it seemed preposterous that the original could ever make
a young girl's heart ache as Ethelyn Grant's was aching that June
morning, when, taking the small oval frame from the wall, she kissed it
passionately, and then thrust it away into the bureau drawer, which held
other relics than the oval frame. It was, in fact, the grave of
Ethelyn's buried hopes--the tomb she had sworn never to unlock again;
but now, as her fingers lingered a moment amid the mementos of the years
when, in her girlish ignorance, she had been so happy, she felt her
resolution giving way, and sitting down upon the floor, with her long
hair unfastened and falling loosely about her, she bowed her head over
buried treasures, and dropped into their grave the bitterest tears she
had ever shed. Then, as there swept over her some better impulse,
whispering of the wrong she was doing to her promised husband, she said:
"I will not leave them here to madden me again some other day. I will
burn them, every one."
There were matches within her reach, while the little fireplace was not
far away, and, sitting just where she was, Ethelyn Grant burned one
after another, letters and notes, some directed in schoolboy style, and
others showing a manlier hand, as the dates grew more recent and the
envelopes bore a more modern and fashionable look. Over one, the
freshest and the last, Ethelyn lingered a moment, her eyes growing dark
with passion, and her lips twitching nervously as she read:
"BOSTON, April--
"Dear Ethie: I reckon mother is right, after all. She generally is, you
know, so we may as well be resigned, and believe it wicked for cousins
to marry each other. Of course I can never like Nettie as I have liked
you, and I feel a twinge every time I remember the dear old times. But
what must be must, and there's no use fretting. Do you remember old
Colonel Markham's nephew from out West--the one who wore the short pants
and the rusty crape on his hat when he visited his uncle, in Chicopee,
some years ago? I mean the chap who helped you over the fence the time
you stole the colonel's apples. He has become a member of Congress, and
quite a big gun for the West, at least, mother thinks. He called on her
to-day with a message from Mrs. Woodhull, but I did not see him. He goes
up to Chicopee to-morrow, I believe. He is looking for a wife, they say,
and mother thinks it would be a good match for you, as you could go to
Washington next winter and queen it over them all. But don't, Ethie,
don't for thunder's sake! It fairly makes me faint to think of you
belonging to another, even though you may never belong to me. Yours
always, Frank."
There was a dark, defiant look in Ethelyn's face as she applied the
match to this letter, and then watched it blacken and crisp upon the
hearth. How well she remembered the day when she received it--the dark,
dismal April day, when the rain which dropped so fast from the leaden
clouds, seemed weeping for her, who could not weep then, so complete was
her humiliation, so utter her desolation. That was not quite three
months ago, and so much had happened since then as the result of that
M.C.'s visit to Chicopee. He was there again, this morning, an inmate of
the great yellow house, with the large, old-fashioned brass knocker,
and, by just putting aside her curtain, Ethelyn could see the very
window of the chamber where he slept. But Ethelyn had other matters in
hand, and if she thought at all of that window whose shutters were
rarely opened except when Colonel Markham had, as now, an honored
guest, it was with a faint shudder of terror, and she went on destroying
mementos which were only a mockery of the past. One little note, the
first ever received from Frank, after a, memorable morning in the
huckleberry hills, she could not burn. It was only a line, and, if read
by a stranger, would convey no particular meaning; so she laid it aside
with the lock of light, soft hair, which clung to her fingers with a
kind of caressing touch, and brought to her hot eyelids a mist which
cooled their feverish heat. And now nothing remained of the treasures
but a tiny tortoise-shell box, where, in its bed of pink cotton, lay a
little ring, with "Ethie" marked upon it. It was too small for the
finger it once encircled, for Ethel was but a child when first she wore
it. Her hands were larger; plumper, now, and it would not pass the
second joint of her finger, though she exerted all her strength to push
it on, taking a kind of savage delight in the pain it caused her, and
feeling that she was thus revenging herself on someone, she hardly knew
or cared whom. At last, however, with a quick, jerking motion she drew
it off, and covering her face with her hands, moaned bitterly:
"It hurts! it hurts! just as the bonds hurt which are closing around my
heart. Oh! Frank, Frank, it was cruel to serve me so."
There was a step in the hall below. Aunt Barbara was coming to waken
Ethelyn, and, with a spring, the young girl bounded to her feet, swept
her hands twice across her face, and, shedding back from her forehead
her wealth of bright brown hair, laughingly confronted the good woman,
who, in the same breath, expressed her surprise that her niece was once
up without being called, and her wonder at the peculiar odor pervading
the apartment.
"Smells if all the old newspapers in the barrel up garret had been burnt
at once," she said; but the fireplace, which lay in shadow, told no
tales, and Aunt Barbara never suspected the pain tugging at the heart of
the girl, whose cheeks glowed with an unnatural red as she dashed hot
water over neck, and arms, and face, playfully plashing a few large
drops upon her aunt's white apron, and asking if there was not an old
adage, "Blessed is the bride the sun shines on." "If so, I must be
greatly blessed," she said, pushing open the eastern shutter, and
letting in a flood of yellow sunlight.
"The day bids fair to be a scorcher. I hope it will grow cool this
evening. A crowded party is so terrible when one feels hot and
uncomfortable, and the millers and horn-bugs come in so thickly, and I
always get so red in the face. Please, auntie, you twist up my hair in a
flat knot--no matter how. I don't seem to have any strength in my arms
this morning, and my head is all in a whirl. It must be the weather,"
and, with a long, panting breath, Ethelyn sank, half fainting, into a
chair, while her frightened aunt ran for water, and camphor, and
cologne, hoping Ethelyn was not coming down with fever, or any other
dire complaint, on this her wedding day.
"It is the weather, most likely, and the awful amount of sewing you've
done these last few weeks," said Aunt Barbara; and Ethelyn suffered her
to think so, though she herself had a far different theory with regard
to that almost fainting fit, which served as an excuse for her unusual
pallor, for her listless apathy, and her want of appetite, even for the
flaky rolls, and the delicious strawberries, and thick, yellow cream
which Aunt Barbara put before her.
She was not hungry, she said, as she turned over the berries with her
spoon, and pecked at the snowy rolls. By and by she might want
something, perhaps, and then Betty would make her a slice of toast to
stay her stomach till the late dinner they were to have on Aunt Van
Buren's account--that lady always professing to be greatly shocked at
the early dinners in Chicopee, and generally managing, during her visits
home, to change entirely the ways and customs of Aunt Barbara Bigelow's
well-ordered household.
"I wish she was not coming, or anybody else. Getting married is a bore!"
Ethelyn exclaimed, while Aunt Barbara looked curiously enough at her,
wondering, for the first time, if the girl's heart were really in this
marriage, which for weeks had been agitating the feminine portion of
Chicopee, and for which so great preparations had been made.
Wholly honest and truthful and sincere herself, Aunt Barbara seldom
suspected wrong in others, and so when Ethelyn, one April night, after a
drive around the road which encircles Pordunk Pond, came to her and
said, "Congratulate me, auntie, I am to be Mrs. Judge Markham," she had
believed all was well, and that as sister Sophia Van Buren, of Boston,
had so often averred, there was not, nor ever had been, anything serious
between dandyish Frank, Mrs. Van Buren's only son, who parted his curly
hair in the middle, and the high-spirited, impulsive Ethelyn, whose eyes
shone like stars as she told of her engagement, and whose hand was icy
cold as she held it up to the lamp-light to show the large diamond which
flashed from the fourth finger as proof of what she said. The stone
itself was of the first water, but the setting was old, so old that a
connoisseur in such matters might wonder why Judge Markham had chosen
such a ring as the seal of his betrothal. Ethelyn knew why, and the
softest, kindliest feeling she had experienced for her promised husband
was awakened when he told her of the fair young sister whose name was
Daisy, and who for many years had slept on the Western prairie beneath
the blossoms whose name she bore. This young girl, loving God with all
her soul, loved too all the beautiful things he had made, and rejoiced
in them as so much given her to enjoy. Brought up in the far West, where
the tastes of the people were simpler than those of our Eastern
neighbors, it was strange, he said, how strong a passion she possessed
for gems and precious stones, especially the diamond. To have for her
own a ring like one she once saw upon a grand Chicago lady was her great
ambition, and knowing this the brother hoarded carefully his own
earnings, until enough was saved to buy the coveted ring, which he
brought to his young sister on her fourteenth birthday. But death even
then had cast its shadow around her, and the slender fingers soon grew
too small for the ring, which she nevertheless kept constantly by her,
admiring its brilliancy, and flashing it in the sunlight for the sake of
the rainbow hues it gave. And when, at last, she lay dying in her
brother's arms, with her golden head upon his breast, she had given back
the ring, and said, "I am going, Richard, where there are far more
beautiful things than this: 'for eye hath not seen, neither hath it
entered into the heart of man, the things prepared for those who love
Him,' and I do love Him, brother, oh! so much, and feel His arms around
me now as sensibly as I feel yours. His will stay after yours are
removed, and I am done with earth; but keep the ring, Brother Dick, and
when in after years you love some pure young girl as well as you love
me, only different--some girl who will prize such things, and is worthy
of it--give it to her, and tell her it was Daisy's; tell her for me, and
that I bade her love you, as you deserve to be loved."
All this Richard Markham had said to Ethelyn as they stood for a few
minutes upon the beach of the pond, with its waters breaking softly upon
the sands at their feet, and the young spring moon shining down upon
them like Daisy's eyes, as the brother described them when they last
looked on him. There was a picture of Daisy in their best room at home,
an oil painting made by a traveling artist, Richard said, and some day
Ethelyn would see it, for she had promised to be his wife, and the
engagement ring--Daisy's ring--was on her finger, sparkling in the
moonbeam, just as it used to sparkle when the dead girl held it in the
light. It was a superb diamond--even Frank, with all his fastidiousness,
would admit that, Ethelyn thought, her mind more, alas! on Frank and his
opinion than on what her lover was saying to her, of his believing that
she was pure and good as Daisy could have desired, that Daisy would
approve his choice, if she only knew, as perhaps she did; he could not
help feeling that she was there with them, looking into their
hearts--that the silvery light resting so calmly on the silent water was
the halo of her invisible presence blessing their betrothal. This was a
good deal for Richard Markham to say, for he was not given to poetry, or
sentiment, or imagery, but Ethelyn's face and Ethelyn's eyes had played
strange antics with the staid, matter-of-fact man of Western Iowa, and
stirred his blood as it had never been stirred before. He did fancy his
angel-sister was there; but when he said so to Ethelyn she started with
a shiver, and asked to be driven home, for she did not care to have even
dead eyes looking into her heart, where the fires of passion were
surging and swelling, like some hidden volcano, struggling to be free.
She knew she was doing wrong--knew she was not the pure maiden whom
Daisy would have chosen--was not worthy to be the bride of Daisy's
brother; but she must do something or die, and as she did not care to
die, she pledged her hand with no heart in it, and hushing the voice of
conscience clamoring so loudly against what she was doing, walked back
across the yellow sand, beneath the spring moonlight, to where the
carriage waited, and, in comparative silence, was driven to Aunt
Barbara's gate.
This was the history of the ring, and here, as well as elsewhere, we may
tell Ethelyn's history up to the time when, on her bridal day, she sat
with Aunt Barbara at the breakfast table, idly playing with her spoon
and occasionally sipping the fragrant coffee. The child of Aunt
Barbara's half-sister, she inherited none of the so-called Bigelow
estate which had come to the two daughters, Aunt Barbara and Aunt
Sophia, from their mother's family. But the Bigelow blood of which Aunt
Sophy Van Buren was so proud was in her veins, and so to this aunt she
was an object of interest, and even value, though not enough so to
warrant that lady in taking her for her own when, eighteen years before
our story opens, her mother, Mrs. Julia Bigelow Grant, had died. This
task devolved on Aunt Barbara, whose great motherly heart opened at once
to the little orphan who had never felt a mother's loss, so faithful and
true had Aunt Barbara been to her trust. Partly because she did not wish
to seem more selfish than her sister, and partly because she really
liked the bright, handsome child who made Aunt Barbara's home so cheery,
Mrs. Dr. Van Buren of Boston, insisted upon superintending the little
Ethelyn's education, and so, when only twelve years of age, Ethelyn was
taken from the old brick house under the elms, which Mrs. Dr. Van Buren
of Boston despised as the "district school where Tom, Dick, and Harry
congregated," and transplanted to the highly select and very expensive
school taught by Madame--, in plain sight of Beacon Street and Boston
Common. And so, as Ethelyn increased in stature, she grew also in wisdom
and knowledge, both of books and manners, and the style of the great
world around her. Mrs. Dr. Van Buren's house was the resort both of the
fashionable and literary people, with a sprinkling of the religious, for
the great lady affected everything which could effect her interest.
Naturally generous, her name was conspicuous on all subscription lists
and charitable associations, while the lady herself owned a pew in----
Church, where she was a regular attendant, together with her only son,
Frank, who was taught to kneel and respond in the right places and bow
in the creed, and then, after church, required to give a synopsis of the
sermon, by way of proving that his mind had not been running off after
the dancing school he attended during the week, under his mother's
watchful supervision. Mrs. Van Buren meant to be a model mother, and
bring up her boy as a model man, and so she gave him every possible
advantage of books and teachers, while far in the future floated the
possibility that she might some day reign at the White House, not as the
President's wife--this could not be, she knew, for the man who had made
her Mrs. Dr. Van Buren of Boston slept in the shadow of a very tall
monument out at Mount Auburn, and the turf was growing fresh and green
over his head. So if she went to Washington, as she fondly hoped she
might, it would be as the President's mother; but when examination after
examination found Frank at the foot of his class, and teacher after
teacher said he could not learn, she gave up the presidential chair, and
contenting herself with a seat in Congress, asked that great pains
should be taken to bring out the talent for debate and speech-making
which she was sure Frank possessed; but when even this failed, and
nineteen times out of twenty Frank could get no farther than "My name
is Norval, on the Grampian Hills," she yielded the M.C. too, and set
herself to make him a gentleman, polished, refined, and cultivated--one,
in short, who was au fait with all that fashionable society required;
and here she succeeded better. Frank was perfectly at home on the
dancing floor or in the saloons of gaiety, or the establishment of a
fashionable tailor, so that when Ethelyn, at twelve, went down to
Boston, she found her tall, slender, light-haired cousin of sixteen a
perfect dandy, with a capability and a disposition to criticise and
laugh at whatever there was of gaucherie in her country manners and
country dress. In some things the two were of mutual benefit to each
other. Ethelyn, who could conquer any lesson however difficult, helped
thick-headed, indolent Frank in his studies, translating his hard
passages in Virgil, working out his problems in mathematics, and even
writing, or at least revising and correcting, his compositions, while he
in return gave her lessons in etiquette as practiced by the Boston
girls, teaching her how to polka a waltz gracefully, so he would not be
ashamed to introduce her as his cousin, he said, at the children's
parties which they attended together. It was not strange that Frank Van
Buren should admire a girl as bright and piquant and pretty as his
cousin Ethelyn, but it was strange that she should idolize him, bearing
patiently with all his criticisms, trying hard to please him, and
feeling more than repaid for her exertions by a word of praise or
commendation from her exacting teacher, who, viewing her at first as a
poor relation, was inclined to be exacting, if not overbearing, in his
demands. But as time passed on all this was changed, and the
well-developed girl of fifteen, whom so many noticed and admired, would
no longer be patronized by the young man Frank, who, finding himself in
danger of being snubbed, as he termed Ethelyn's grand way of putting him
down, suddenly awoke to the fact that he loved his high-spirited cousin,
and he told her so one hazy day, when they were in Chicopee, and had
wandered up to a ledge of rocks in the huckleberry hills which
overlooked the town.
"They might as well make a sure thing of it," he said, in his off-hand
way. "If she liked him and he liked her, they would clinch the bargain
at once, even if they were so young." And so, when they went down the
hill back to the shadow of the elm trees, where Mrs. Dr. Van Buren sat
cooling herself and reading "Vanity Fair," there was a tiny ring on
Ethelyn's finger, and she had pledged herself to be Frank's wife some
day in the future.
Frank had promised to tell his mother, for Ethelyn would have no
concealment; and so, holding up her hand and pointing to the ring, he
said, more in jest than earnest:
"Look, mother, Ethie and I are engaged. If you have any objections,
state them now, or ever after hold your peace."
He did not think proper to explain either to his mother or Ethie that
this was his second serious entanglement, and that the ring had been
bought before for a pretty milliner girl, at least six years his senior,
whose acquaintance he had made at Nahant the summer previous, and whom
he had forgotten when he learned that to her taste his mother was
indebted for the stylish bonnet she sported every season. Frank
generally had some love affair in hand--it was a part of his nature; and
as he was not always careful in his choice, the mother had occasionally
felt a twinge of fear lest, after all her care, some terrible
mésalliance should be thrust upon her by her susceptible son. So she
listened graciously to the news of his betrothal--nay, she was pleased
with it, as for the time being it would divert his mind and keep him out
of mischief. That he would eventually marry Ethelyn was impossible, for
his bride must be rich; but Ethelyn answered the purpose now, and could
easily be disposed of when other and better game appeared. So the
scheming woman smiled, and said "it was not well for cousins to marry
and even if it were, they were both too young to know their minds, and
would do well to keep their engagement a secret for a time," and then
returned to Becky Sharp, while Frank went to sleep upon the lounge, and
Ethelyn stole off upstairs to dream over her happiness, which was as
real to her as such a thing could well be to an impulsive, womanly girl
of fifteen summers. She, at least, was in earnest, and as time passed on
Frank seemed to be in earnest, too, devoting himself wholly to his
cousin, whose influence over him was so great that he was fast becoming
what Aunt Barbara called a man, while his mother began again to have
visions of a seat in Congress, and brilliant speeches, which would find
their way to Boston and be read and admired in the circles in which
she moved.
And so the days and years wore on until Frank was a man of
twenty-four--a third-rate practitioner, too, whose sign, "Frank Van
Buren, Attorney-at-law," etc., looked very fresh and respectable in
front of the office on Washington Street, and Frank himself began to
have thoughts of claiming Ethelyn's promise and having a home of his
own. He would not live with his mother, he said; it was more independent
to be alone; and then, from some things he had discovered in his
bride-elect, he had an uneasy feeling that possibly the brown of
Ethelyn's eyes might not wholly harmonize with the gray of his mother's,
"for Ethie was spunky as the old Nick," he argued with himself, while
"for perversity and self-conceit his mother could not be beaten." It was
better they should keep up two households, his mother seeing to both,
and if need be, supplying the wants of both. To do Frank justice, he had
some very correct notions with regard to domestic happiness, and had he
been poor and dependent upon his own exertions he might have been an
average husband; at least he would have gotten on well with Ethelyn,
whose stronger nature would have upheld his and been like a supporting
prop to a feeble timber. As it was, he drew many pleasing pictures of
the home which was to be his and Ethie's. Now it was in the city, near
to his mother's and Mrs. General Tophevie, his mother's intimate friend,
whose house was the open sesame to the crême de la crême of Boston
society; but oftener it was a rose-embowered cottage, of easy access to
the city, where he could have Ethie all to himself when his day's labor
was over, and where the skies would not be brighter than Ethie's eyes
as she welcomed him home at night, leaning over the gate in the pale
buff muslin he liked so much, with rosebuds in her hair.
He had seen her thus so often in fancy, that the picture had become a
reality, and refused to be erased at once from the mental canvas, when,
in January, Miss Nettie Hudson, niece to Mrs. General Tophevie, came
from Philadelphia, and at once took prestige of everything on the
strength of the one hundred thousand dollars of which she was sole
heiress. The Hudson blood was a mixture of blacksmith's and shoemaker's,
and peddler's too, it was said; but that was far back in the past. The
Hudsons of the present day scarcely knew whether peddler were spelled
with two d's or one. They bought their shoes at the most fashionable
shops, and could, if they chose, have their horses shod with gold, and
so the handsome Nettie reigned supreme as belle. The moment Mrs. Dr. Van
Buren saw her, she recognized her daughter-in-law, the future Mrs.
Frank, and Ethie's fate was sealed. There had been times when Mrs. Dr.
Van Buren thought it possible that Ethelyn might, after all, be the most
favored of women, the wife of her son. These times were at Saratoga, and
Newport, and Nahant, where Ethelyn Grant was more sought after than any
young lady there, and where the proud woman herself took pride in
talking of "my niece," hinting once, when Ethelyn's star was at its
height, of a childish affaire du coeur between the young lady and her
son, and insinuating that it might yet amount to something. She changed
her mind when Nettie came with her one hundred thousand dollars, and
showed a willingness to be admired by Frank. That childish affaire du
coeur was a very childish affair, indeed; she never gave it a moment's
thought herself--she greatly doubted if Frank had ever been in earnest,
and if Ethelyn had led him into an entanglement, she would not, of
course, hold him to his promise if he wished to be released. He must
have a rich wife to support him in his refined tastes and luxurious
habits, for her own fortune was not so great as many supposed. She might
need it all herself, as she was far from being old, and then again it
was wicked for cousins to marry each other. It did not matter if the
mothers were only half-sisters; there was the same blood in the veins of
each, and it would not do at all, even if Ethelyn's affections were
enlisted, which Mrs. Van Buren greatly doubted.
This was what Mrs. Dr. Van Buren said to Ethelyn, after a stormy
interview with Frank, who had at first sworn roundly that he would not
give Ethie up, then had thanked his mother not to meddle with his
business, then bidden her "go to thunder," and finally, between a cry
and a blubber, said he should always like Ethie best if he married a
hundred Netties. This was in the morning, and the afternoon train had
carried Mrs. Dr. Van Buren to Chicopee, where Ethelyn's glowing face
flashed a bright welcome when she came, but was white and pallid as the
face of a corpse when the voluminous skirts of Mrs. Van Buren's poplin
dress passed through the gate next day and disappeared in the direction
of the depot. Aunt Barbara was not at home--she had gone to visit a
friend in Albany; and so Ethelyn met and fought with her pain alone,
stifling it as best she could, and succeeding so well that Aunt Barbara,
on her return, never suspected the fierce storm which Ethelyn had passed
through during her absence, or dreamed how anxiously the young girl
watched and waited for some word from Frank which should say that he was
ready to defy his mother, and abide by his first promise. But no such
letter came, and at last, when she could bear the suspense no longer,
Ethelyn wrote herself to her recreant lover, asking if it were really so
that hereafter their lives lay apart from each other. If such was his
wish, she was content, she said, and Frank Van Buren, who could not
detect the air of superb scorn which breathed in every line of that
letter, felt somehow aggrieved that "Ethie should take it so easy," and
relieved too, that with her he should have no trouble, as he had
anticipated. He was getting used to Nettie, and getting to like her,
too, for her manner toward him was far more agreeable than Ethie's
brusque way of manifesting her impatience at his lack of manliness. It
was inexplicable how Ethie could care for one so greatly her inferior,
both mentally and physically, but it would seem that she loved him all
the more for the very weakness which made her nature a necessity of his,
and the bitterest pang she had ever felt came with the answer which
Frank sent back to her letter, and which the reader has seen.
* * * * *
It was all over now, settled, finished, and two days after she hunted up
Aunt Barbara's spectacles for her, and then sat very quiet while the old
lady read Aunt Sophia's letter, announcing Frank's engagement with Miss
Nettie Hudson, of Philadelphia. Aunt Barbara knew of Ethelyn's
engagement with Frank, but like her sister at the time of its
occurrence, she had esteemed it mere child's play. Later, however, as
she saw how they clung to each other, she had thought it possible that
something might come of it, but as Ethelyn was wholly reticent on that
subject, it had never been mentioned between them. When, however, the
news of Frank's second engagement came, Aunt Barbara looked over her
spectacles straight at the girl, who, for any sign she gave, might have
been a block of marble, so rigid was every muscle of her face, and even
the tone of her voice as she said:
"I am glad Aunt Sophia is suited. Frank will be pleased with anything."
"She does not care for him and I am glad, for he is not half smart
enough for her," was Aunt Barbara's mental comment, as she laid the
letter by for a second reading, and then told her niece, as the last
item of news, that old Captain Markham's nephew had come, and they were
making a great ado over him now that he was a member of Congress, and a
Judge, too. They had asked the Howells and Grangers and the Carters
there to tea for the next day, she said, adding that she and Ethelyn
were also invited. "They want to be polite to him," old Mrs. Markham
said. Aunt Barbara continued, "but for my part, if I were he, I should
not care much for politeness that comes so late. I remember when he was
here ten years ago, on such a matter, and they fairly acted as if they
were ashamed of him then; but titles make a difference. He's an
Honorable now, and the old Captain is mighty proud of him."
What Aunt Barbara had said was strictly true, for there had been a time
when proud old Captain Markham ignored his brother's family living on
the far prairies of the West; but when the eldest son, Richard, called
for him, had become a growing man, as boys out West are apt to do,
rising from justice of the peace to a member of the State Legislature,
then to a judgeship, and finally to a seat in Congress, and all before
he was quite thirty-two, the Captain's tactics changed, and a most
cordial letter, addressed to "My dear nephew," and signed "Your
affectionate uncle," was sent to Washington, urging a visit from the
young man ere he returned to Iowa.
And that was how Richard Markham, M.C., came to be in Chicopee at the
precise time when Ethelyn's heart was bleeding at every pore, and ready
to seize upon any new excitement which would divert it from its pain.
She remembered well the time he had once before visited Chicopee. She
was a little girl of ten, fleeing across the meadow-land from a maddened
cow, when a tall, athletic young man had come to her rescue, standing
between her and danger, helping her over the fence, picking up the apron
full of apples which she had been purloining from the Captain's orchard,
and even pinning together a huge rent made in her dress by catching it
upon a protruding splint as she sprang to the ground. She was too much
frightened to know whether he had been wholly graceful in his endeavors
to serve her, and too thankful for her escape to think that possibly her
torn dress was the result of his rather awkward handling. She remembered
only the dark, handsome face which bent so near to hers, the brown,
curly head actually bumping against her own, as he stooped to gather the
stolen apples. She remembered, too, the kindly voice which asked if "her
aunt would scold," while the large, red hands pinned together the
unsightly seam, and she liked the Westerner, as the people of Chicopee
called the stranger who had recently come among them. Frank was in
Chicopee then, fishing on the river, when her mishaps occurred; and once
after that, when walking with him, she had met Richard Markham, who
bowed modestly and passed on, never taking his hands from his pockets
where they were planted so firmly, and never touching his hat as Frank
said a gentleman would have done.
"Isn't he handsome?" Ethelyn had asked, and Frank had answered, "Looks
well enough, though anybody with half an eye would know he was a codger
from the West. His pants are a great deal too short; and look at his
coat--at least three years behind the fashion; and such a hat, with that
rusty old band of crape around it. Wonder if he is in mourning for his
grandmother. Oh, my! we boys would hoot him in Boston. He's what I
call a gawky."
That settled it with Ethelyn. If fourteen-year-old Frank Van Buren,
whose pants and coats and neckties and hats were always the latest make,
said that Richard Markham was a gawky, he was one, and henceforth during
his stay in Chicopee, the Western young man was regarded by Ethelyn with
a feeling akin to pity for his benighted condition. Aunt Barbara's pew
was very near to Captain Markham's, and Richard, who was not much of a
churchman, and as often as any way lounged upon the faded damask
curtains, instead of standing up, often met Ethelyn's brown eyes fixed
curiously upon him, but never dreamed that she regarded him as a species
of heathen, whom it would be a pious act to Christianize. Richard rarely
thought of himself at all, or if he did, it was with a feeling that he
"was well enough "; that if his mother and "the neighbors" were
satisfied with him, as he knew they were, he ought to be satisfied with
himself. So he had no suspicion of the severe criticism passed upon him
by the little girl who read the service so womanly, he thought, eating
caraway and lozenges between times, and whose face he carried in memory
back to his prairie home, associating her always with the graceful
dark-brown heifer bearing so strong a resemblance to the cow which had
so frightened Ethelyn on the day of his first introduction to her.
But he forgot her in the excitement which followed, when he began to
grow rapidly, as only Western men can grow, and we doubt if she had been
in his mind for years until her name was mentioned by Mrs. Dr. Van
Buren, who saw in him a most eligible match for her niece. He was well
connected--own nephew to Captain Markham, and first cousin to Mrs.
Senator Woodhull, of New York, who kept a suite of servants for herself
and husband, and had the finest turn-out in the Park. Yes, he would do
nicely for Ethelyn and by way of quieting her conscience, which kept
whispering that she had not been altogether just to her niece, Mrs. Dr.
Van Buren packed her trunk and took the train for Chicopee the very day
of Mrs. Captain Markham's tea party.
Ethelyn was going, and she looked very pretty in her dark-green silk,
with the bit of soft, rich lace at the throat and the scarlet ribbon in
her hair. She was not dressed for effect. She cared very little, in
fact, what impression she made upon the Western Judge, though she did
wonder if, as a Judge, he was much improved from the raw young man whom
Frank had called a "gawky." He was standing with his elbow upon the
mantel talking to Susie Granger, when Ethelyn entered Mrs. Markham's
parlor; one foot was carelessly crossed over the other, so that only the
toe of the boot touched the carpet, while his hand grasped his large
handkerchief rather awkwardly. He was not at ease with the ladies; he
had never been very much accustomed to their society. He did not know
what to say to them, and Susie's saucy black eyes and sprightly manner
evidently embarrassed and abashed him. That vocabulary of small talk so
prevalent in society, and a limited knowledge of which is rather
necessary to one's getting on well with everybody, were unknown to him,
and he was casting about for some way to escape from his companion, when
Ethelyn was introduced, and his mind went back to the stolen apples and
the torn dress which he had pinned together.
Judge Markham was a tall, finely formed man, with deep hazel eyes, which
could be very stern or very soft in their expression, just as his mood
happened to be. But the chief attraction of his face was his smile,
which changed his entire expression, making him very handsome, as
Ethelyn thought, when he stood for a moment holding her hand between
both his broad palms and chatting familiarly with her as with an old
acquaintance. He could talk to her better than to Susie Granger, for
Ethie, though neither very deep nor learned, was fond of books and
tolerably well versed in the current literature of the day. Besides
that, she had a faculty of seeming to know more than she really did and
so the impression left upon the Judge's mind, when the little party was
over and he had returned from escorting Ethelyn to her door, was that
Miss Grant was far superior to any girl he had ever met since Daisy
died, and like the Judge in Whittier's "Maud Muller," he whistled
snatches of an old love tune he had not whistled in years, as he went
slowly back to his uncle's, and thought strange thoughts for him, the
grave old bachelor who had said he should never marry. He was not
looking for a wife, as rumor intimated, but he dreamed of Ethelyn Grant
that night, and called upon her the next day, and the next, until the
village began to gossip, and Mrs. Dr. Van Buren was in an ecstasy of
delight, talking openly of the delightful time her niece would have in
Washington the next winter, and predicting for her a brilliant career as
reigning belle, and even hinting the possibility of her taking a house
so as to entertain her Boston friends.
And Ethelyn herself had many and varied feelings on the subject, the
strangest of which was a perverse desire to let Frank know that she did
not care--that her heart was not broken by his desertion, and that there
were those who prized her even if he did not. She had criticised Judge
Markham very severely. She had weighed him in the balance with Frank,
and found him sadly, wanting in all those little points which she
considered as marks of culture and good breeding. He was not a ladies'
man; he was even worse than that, for he was sometimes positively rude
and ungentlemanly, as she thought, when he would open a gate or a door
and pass through it first himself instead of holding it deferentially
for her, as Frank would have done. He did not know how to swing his
cane, or touch his hat, or even bow as Frank Van Buren did; while the
cut of his coat, if not six, was at least two years behind the times,
and he did not seem to know it either. All these things Ethelyn wrote
against him; but the account was more than balanced by the seat in
Congress, the anticipated winter in Washington, the great wealth he was
said to possess, the high estimation in which she knew he was held, and
the keen pang of disappointment from which she was suffering. This last
really did the most to turn the scale in Richard's favor, for, like many
a poor, deluded girl, she fancied that marrying another was the surest
way to forget a past which it was not pleasant to remember. She
respected Judge Markham highly, and knew that in everything pertaining
to a noble manhood he was worth a dozen Franks, even if he never had
been to dancing school, and did not obsequiously pick up the
handkerchief which she purposely dropped to see what he would do. And
so, when Aunt Sophia had gone back to the city, and Judge Markham was in
a few days to return to his Western home, she rode with him around the
Pond, and when she came back the dead Daisy's ring was upon her finger
and she was a promised wife. A dozen times since then she had been
tempted to write to Richard Markham, asking to be released from her
engagement; for, bad as she has thus far appeared to the reader, there
were many noble traits in her character, and she shrank from wronging
the man of whom she knew she was not worthy.
But the deference paid her as Mrs. Judge Markham-elect, the delight of
Aunt Sophia, the approbation of Aunt Barbara, the letter of
congratulation sent her by Mrs. Senator Woodhull, Richard's cousin, and
more than all, Frank's discomfiture, as evinced by the complaining note
he sent her, prevailed to keep her to her promise, and the bridegroom,
when he came in June to claim her hand, little guessed how heavy was the
heart which lay in the bosom of the young girl so passively suffering
his caresses, but whose lips never moved in response to the kiss he
pressed upon them.
She was very shy, he thought--more so, even, than when he saw her last;
but he loved her just as well, and never suspected that, when on the
first evening of his arrival he sat with his arm around her, wondering a
little what made her so silent, she was burning with mortification
because the coat he wore was the very same she had criticised last
spring, hoping in her heart of hearts that long before he came to her
again it might find its proper place, either in the sewing society or
with some Jewish vender of old clothes. Yet here it was again, and her
head was resting against it, while her heart beat almost audibly, and
her voice was even petulant in its tone as she answered her lover's
questions. Ethelyn was making a terrible mistake, and she knew it,
hating herself for her duplicity, and vaguely hoping that something
would happen to save her from the fate she so much dreaded. But nothing
did happen, and it was now too late to retract herself. The bridal
trousseau was prepared under Mrs. Van Buren's supervision, the bridal
guests were bidden, the bridal tour was planned, the bridegroom had
arrived, and she would keep her word if she died in the attempt.
And so we find her on her bridal morning wishing nobody was coming, and
denouncing getting married "a bore," while Aunt Barbara looked at her in
surprise, wondering if everything were right. In spite of her ill humor,
she was very handsome that morning in her white cambric wrapper, with
just a little color in her cheeks and her heavy hair pushed back in
behind her ears and twisted under the silk net. Ethelyn cared little for
her looks--at least not then; by and by she might, when it was time for
Mrs. Dr. Van Buren to arrive with Frank and Nettie Hudson, whom she had
never seen. She should want to look her very best then, but now it did
not matter, even if her bridegroom was distant not an eighth of a mile,
and would in all probability be coming in ere long. She wished he would
stay away--she would rather not see him till night; and she experienced
a feeling of relief when, about nine o'clock, Mrs. Markham's maid
brought her a little note which read as follows:
"DARLING ETHIE:
"You must not think it strange if I do not come to you this morning, for
I am suffering from one of my blinding headaches, and can scarcely see
to write you this. I shall be better by night. Yours lovingly,
"RICHARD MARKHAM."
Ethelyn was sitting upon the piazza steps, arranging a bouquet, when the
note was brought to her; and as it was some trouble to put all the roses
from her lap, she sent the girl for a pencil, and on the back of the
note wrote hastily:
"It does not matter, as you would only be in the way, and I have
something of a headache, too.
"E. GRANT."
"Take this back to Judge Markham," she said to the girl, and then
resumed her bouquet-making, wondering if every bride-elect were as
wretched as herself, or if to any other maiden of twenty the world had
ever looked so desolate and dreary, as it did to her this morning.