GOING TO WASHINGTON
Richard's trunk was ready for Washington. His twelve shirts, which
Eunice had ironed so nicely, were packed away with his collars and new
yarn socks, and his wedding suit, which he was carrying as a mere matter
of form, for he knew he should not need it during his three months'
absence. He should not go into society, he thought, or even attend
levees, with his heart as sore and heavy as it was on this, his last day
at home. Ethelyn was not going with him. She knew it now, and never did
the face of a six-months wife look harder or stonier than hers as she
stayed all day in her room, paying no heed whatever to Richard, and
leaving entirely to Eunice and her mother-in-law those little things
which most wives would have been delighted to do for their husbands'
comfort. Ethelyn was very unhappy, very angry, and very bitterly
disappointed. The fact that she was not going to Washington had fallen
upon her like a thunderbolt, paralyzing her, as it were, so that after
the first great shock was over she seemed like some benumbed creature
bereft of care, or feeling, or interest in anything.
She had remained in Camden the most of the day following Mrs. Judge
Miller's party, and had done a little shopping with Marcia Fenton and
Ella Backus, to whom she spoke of her winter in Washington as a matter
of course, saying what she had to say in Richard's presence, and never
dreaming that he was only waiting for a fitting opportunity to demolish
her castles entirely. Perhaps if Ethelyn had talked Washington openly to
her husband when she was first married, and before his mother had gained
his ear, her chances for a winter at the capital would have been far
greater than they were now. But she had only taken it for granted that
she was going, and supposed that Richard understood it just as she did.
She had asked him several times where he intended to board and why he
did not secure rooms at Willard's, but Richard's non-committal replies
had given her no cue to her impending fate. On the night of her return
from Camden, as she stood by her dressing bureau, folding away her
point-lace handkerchief, she had casually remarked, "I shall not use
that again till I use it in Washington. Will it be very gay there
this winter?"
Richard was leaning his elbow upon the mantel, looking thoughtfully into
the fire, and for a moment he did not answer. He hated to demolish
Ethie's castles, but it could not be helped. Once it had seemed very
possible that she would go with him to Washington, but that was before
his mother had talked to him upon the subject. Since then the fiat had
gone forth, and thinking this the time to declare it, Richard said at
last, "Put down your finery, Ethelyn, and come stand by me while I say
something to you."
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 entitles 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 passion, 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 passive 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 passion, 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
petition in his prayer-book suited to that occasion. Mr. Townsend had
assured 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
"Dick," 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 passion and tears and
bitterness, the week went by and brought the day when Richard was
to leave.