THE CRISIS
It was the Tuesday before Lent. The gay season was drawing to a close,
for Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Miller, who led the fashionable world of Camden
before Ethelyn's introduction to it, were the highest kind of
church-women, and while neglecting the weightier matters of the law
were strict to bring their tithes of mint, and anise, and cummin. They
were going to wear sackcloth and ashes for forty days and stay at home,
unless, as Mrs. Miller said to Ethelyn, they met occasionally in each
other's house for a quiet game of whist or euchre. There could be no
harm in that, particularly if they abstained on Fridays, as of course
they should. Mr. Bartow himself could not find fault with so simple a
recreation, even if he did try so hard to show what his views were with
regard to keeping the Lenten fast. Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Howard intended
to be very regular at the morning service, hoping that the odor of
sanctity with which they would thus be permeated would in some way atone
for the absence of genuine heart-religion and last them for the
remainder of the year. First, however, and as a means of helping her in
her intended seclusion from the world, Mrs. Howard was to give the
largest party of the season--a sort of carnival, from which the revelers
were expected to retire the moment the silvery-voiced clock on her
mantel struck the hour of twelve and ushered in the dawn of Lent. It was
to be a masquerade, for the Camdenites had almost gone mad on that
fashion which Ethelyn had the credit of introducing into their midst;
that is, she was the first to propose a masquerade early in the season,
telling what she had seen and giving the benefit of her larger
experience in such matters.
It was a fashion which took wonderfully with the people, for the
curiosity and interest attaching to the characters was just suited to
the restless, eager temperament of the Camdenites, and they entered into
it with heart and soul, ransacking boxes and barrels and worm-eaten
chests, scouring the country far and near and even sending as far as
Davenport and Rock Island for the necessary costumes. Andy himself had
been asked by Harry Clifford to lend his Sunday suit, that young scamp
intending to personate some raw New England Yankee; and that was how
Mrs. Markham, senior, first came to hear of the proceedings which, to
one of her rigid views, savored strongly of the pit, especially after
she heard one of the parties described by an eye-witness, who mentioned
among other characters his Satanic Majesty, as enacted by Harry
Clifford, who would fain have appeared next in Andy's clothes! No wonder
the good woman was enraged and took the next train for Camden, giving
her son and daughter a piece of her mind and winding up her discourse
with: "And they say you have the very de'il himself, with hoofs and
horns. I think you might have left him alone, for I reckon he was there
fast enough if you could not see him."
Ethelyn had not approved of Harry Clifford's choice, and with others had
denounced his taste as bad; but she enjoyed the masquerades generally,
and for this last and most elaborate of all she had made great
preparations. Richard had not opposed her joining it, but he did wince a
little when he found she was to personate Mary, Queen of Scots, wishing
that she would not always select persons of questionable character, like
Hortense and Scotland's ill-fated queen. But Ethie had decided upon her
role without consulting him, and so he walked over piles of
ancient-looking finery and got his boots tangled in the golden wig which
Ethie had hunted up, and told her he should be glad when it was over,
and wished mentally that it might be Lent the year around, and was
persuaded into saying he would go to the party himself, not as a masker,
but in his own proper person as Richard Markham, the grave and dignified
Judge whom the people respected so highly. Ethie was glad he was going.
She would always rather have him with her, if possible; and the genuine
satisfaction she evinced when he said he would accompany her did much
toward reconciling him to the affair about which so much was being said
in Camden. When, however, he came in to supper on Tuesday night
complaining of a severe headache, and saying he wished he could remain
quietly at home, inasmuch as he was to start early the next morning for
St. Louis, where he had business to transact, Ethelyn said to him: "If
you are sick, of course I will not compel you to go. Mr. and Mrs. Miller
will look after me."
She meant this kindly, for she saw that he was looking pale and
haggard, and Richard took it so then; but afterward her words became so
many scorpions stinging him into fury. It would seem as if every box,
and drawer, and bag, had been overturned, and the contents brought to
light, for ribbons, and flowers, and laces were scattered about in wild
confusion, while on the carpet, near the drawer where Ethie's little
mother-of-pearl box was kept, lay a tiny note, which had inadvertently
been dropped from its hiding-place when Ethie opened the box in quest of
something which was wanted for Queen Mary's outfit. Richard saw the note
just as he saw the other litter, but paid no attention to it then, and
after supper was over went out as usual for his evening paper.
Gathered about the door of the office was a group of young men, all his
acquaintances, and all talking together upon some theme which seemed to
excite them greatly.
"Too bad to make such a fool of himself," one said, while another added,
"He ought to have known better than to order champagne, when he knows
what a beast a few drops will make of him, and he had a first-class
character for to-night, too."
Richard was never greatly interested in gossip of any kind, but
something impelled him now to ask of whom they were talking.
"Of Hal Clifford," was the reply. "A friend of his came last night to
Moore's Hotel, where Hal boards, and wishing to do the generous host Hal
ordered champagne and claret for supper, in his room, and got drunker
than a fool. It always lasts him a day or two, so he is gone up for
to-night."
Richard had no time to waste in words upon Harry Clifford, and after
hearing the story started for his boarding-place. His route lay past the
Moore House and as he reached it the door opened and Harry came reeling
down the steps. He was just drunk enough to be sociable, and spying
Richard by the light of the lamppost he hurried to his side, and taking
his arm in the confidential manner he always assumed when intoxicated,
he began talking in a half-foolish, half-rational way, very disgusting
to Richard, who tried vainly to shake him off. Harry was not to be
baffled, and with a stammer and a hiccough he began: "I say--a--now, old
chap, don't be so fast to get rid of a cove. Wife waiting for you, I
suppose. Deuced fine woman. Envy you; I do, 'pon honor, and so does
somebody else. D'ye know her old beau that she used to be engaged to,
is here?"
"Who? What do you mean?" Richard asked, turning sharply upon his
companion, who continued:
"Why, Frank Van Buren. Cousin, you know; was chum with me in college, so
I know all about it. Don't you remember my putting it to her that first
time I met her at Mrs. Miller's? Mistrusted by her blushing there was
more than I supposed; and so there was. He told me all about it
last night."
Richard did not try now to shake off his comrade. There seemed to be a
spell upon him, and although he longed to thrash the impudent young man,
saying such things of Ethelyn, he held his peace, with the exception of
the single question:
"Frank Van Buren in town? Where is he stopping?"
"Up at Moore's. Came last night; and between you and me, Judge, I took a
little too much. Makes my head feel like a tub. Sorry for Frank. He and
his wife ain't congenial, besides she's lost her money that Frank
married her for. Serves him right for being so mean to Mrs. Markham, and
I told him so when he opened his heart clear to the breast-bone and told
me all about it; how his mother broke it up about the time you were down
there; and, Markham, you don't mind my telling you, as an old friend,
how he said she went to the altar with a heavier heart than she would
have carried to her coffin. Quite a hifalutin speech for Frank, who used
to be at the foot of his class."
Richard grew faint and cold as death, feeling one moment an impulse to
knock young Clifford down, and the next a burning desire to hear the
worst, if, indeed, he had not already heard it. He would not question
Harry; but he would listen to all he had to say, and so kept quiet,
waiting for the rest. Harry was just enough beside himself to take a
malicious kind of satisfaction in inflicting pain upon Richard, as he
was sure he was doing. He knew Judge Markham despised him, and though,
when sober, he would have shrunk from so mean a revenge, he could say
anything now, and so went on:
"She has not seen him yet, but will to-night, for he is going. I got him
invited as my friend. She knows he is here. He sent her a note this
morning. Pity I can't go, too; but I can't, for you see, I know how
drunk I am. Here we part, do we?" and Harry loosed his hold of Richard's
arm as they reached the corner of the street.
Wholly stunned by what he had heard, Richard kept on his way, but not
toward the Stafford House. He could not face Ethelyn yet. He was not
determined what course to pursue, and so he wandered on in the darkness,
through street after street, while the wintry wind blew cold and chill
about him; but he did not heed it, or feel the keen, cutting blast. His
blood was at a boiling heat, and the great drops of sweat were rolling
down his face, as, with head and shoulders bent like an aged man, he
walked rapidly on, revolving all he had heard, and occasionally
whispering to himself, "She carried a heavier heart to the altar than
she would have taken to her coffin."
"Yes, I believe it now. I remember how white she was, and how her hand
trembled when I took it in mine. Oh! Ethie, Ethie, I did not deserve
this from you."
Resentment--hard, unrelenting resentment--was beginning to take the
place of the deep pain he had at first experienced, and it needed but
the sight of Mrs. Miller's windows, blazing with light, to change the
usually quiet, undemonstrative man into a demon.
"She is to meet him here to-night, it seems, and perhaps talk over her
blighted life. Never, no, never, so long as bolts and bars have the
power to hold her. She shall not disgrace herself, for with all her
faults she is my wife, and I have loved her so much. Oh, Ethie, I love
you still," and the wretched man leaned against a post as he sent forth
this despairing cry for the Ethie who he felt was lost forever.
Every little incident which could tend to prove that what Harry had said
was true came to his mind; the conversation overheard in Washington
between Frank and Melinda, Ethelyn's unfinished letter, to which she had
never referred, and the clause in Aunt Van Buren's letter relating to
Frank's first love affair. He could not any longer put the truth aside
with specious arguments, for it stood out in all its naked deformity,
making him cower and shrink before it. It was a very different man who
went up the stairs of the Stafford House to room No--from the man who
two hours before had gone down them, and Ethelyn would hardly have known
him for her husband had she been there to meet him. Wondering much at
his long absence, she had at last gone on with her dressing, and then,
as he still did not appear, she had stepped for a moment to the room of
a friend, who was sick, and had asked to see her when she was ready.
Richard saw that she was out, and sinking into the first chair, his eyes
fell upon the note lying near the bureau drawer. The room had partially
been put to rights, but this had escaped Ethie's notice, and Richard
picked it up, glowering with rage, and almost foaming at the mouth when,
in the single word, "Ethie," on the back, he recognized Frank Van
Buren's writing!
He had it then--the note which his rival had sent, apprising his wife of
his presence in town, and he would read it, too. He had no scruples
about that, and his fingers tingled to his elbows as he opened the note,
never observing how yellow and worn it looked, or that it was not dated.
He had no doubt of its identity, and his face grew purple with passion
as he read:
"MY OWN DARLING ETHIE: Don't fail to be there to-night, and, if
possible, leave the 'old maid' at home, and come alone. We shall have so
much better time. Your devoted,
"FRANK."
Words could not express Richard's emotions as he held that note in his
shaking hand, and gazed at the words, "My own darling Ethie." Quiet men
like Richard Markham are terrible when roused; and Richard was terrible
in his anger, as he sat like a block of stone, contemplating the proof
of his wife's unfaithfulness. He called it by that hard name, grating
his teeth together as he thought of her going by appointment to meet
Frank Van Buren, who had called him an "old maid," and planned to have
him left behind if possible. Then, as he recalled what Ethelyn had said
about his remaining at home if he were ill, he leaped to his feet, and
an oath quivered on his lips at her duplicity.
"False in every respect," he muttered, "and I trusted her so much."
It never occurred to him that the note was a strange one for what he
imagined it to portend, Frank merely charging Ethelyn to be present at
the party, without even announcing his arrival or giving any explanation
for his sudden appearance in Camden. Richard was too much excited to
reason upon anything, and stood leaning upon the piano, with his livid
face turned toward the door, when Ethie made her appearance, looking
very pretty and piquant in her Mary Stuart guise. She held her mask in
her hand, but when she caught a glimpse of him she hastily adjusted it,
and springing forward, "Where were you so long? I began to think you
were never coming. We shall be among the very last. How do I look as
Mary? Am I pretty enough to make an old maid like Elizabeth jealous
of me?"
Had anything been wanting to perfect Richard's wrath, that allusion to
an "old maid" would have done it. It was the drop in the brimming
bucket, and Richard exploded at once, hurling such language at Ethelyn's
head that, white and scared, and panting for breath, she put up both her
hands to ward off the storm, and asked what it all meant. Richard had
locked the door, the only entrance to their room, and stooping over
Ethelyn he hissed into her ear his meaning, telling her all he had heard
from Harry Clifford, and asking if it were true. Ere Ethelyn could reply
there was a knock at the door, and a servant's voice called out,
"Carriage waiting for Mrs. Markham."
It was the carriage sent by Mrs. Miller for Ethelyn, and quick as
thought Richard stepped to the door, and unlocking it, said hastily,
"Give Mrs. Miller Mrs. Markham's compliments, and say she cannot be
present to-night. Tell her she regrets it exceedingly"; and Richard's
voice was very bitter and sarcastic in its tone as he closed the door
upon the astonished waiter; and relocking it, he returned again to
Ethelyn, who had risen to her feet, and with a different expression upon
her face from the white, scared look it had worn at first, stood
confronting him fearlessly now, and even defiantly, for this bold step
had roused her from her apathy; and in a fierce whisper, which,
nevertheless, was as clear and distinct as the loudest tones could have
been; she asked, "Am I to understand that I am a prisoner here in my own
room? It is your intention to keep me from the party?"
"It is," and with his back against the door, as if doubly to bar her
egress, Richard regarded her gloomily, while he charged her with the
special reason why she wished to go. "It was to meet Frank Van Buren,
your former lover," he said, asking if she could deny it.
For a moment Ethelyn stood irresolute, mentally going over all that
would be said if she stayed from Mrs. Miller's, where she was to be the
prominent one, and calculating her strength to stem the tide of wonder
and conjecture as to her absence which was sure to follow. She could not
meet it, she decided; she must go, at all hazards, even if, to achieve
her purpose, she made some concessions to the man who had denounced her
so harshly, and used such language as is not easily forgotten.
"Richard," she began, and her eyes had a strange glittering light in
them, "with regard to the past I shall say nothing now, but that Frank
was here in Camden I had not the slightest knowledge till I heard it
from you. Believe me, Richard, and let me go. My absence will seem very
strange, and cause a great deal of remark. Another time I may explain
what would best have been explained before."
The light in her eyes was softer now, and her voice full of entreaty;
for Ethie felt almost as if pleading for her life. But she might as well
have talked to the wall for any good results it produced. Richard was
moved from his lofty height of wrath and vindictiveness, but he did not
believe her. How could he, with the fatal note in his hand, and the
memory of the degrading epithet it contained, and which Ethie, too, had
used against him, still ringing in his ears? The virgin queen of England
was never more stony and inexorable with regard to the unfortunate Mary
than was Richard toward his wife, and the expression of his face froze
all the better emotions rising in Ethie's heart, as she felt that in a
measure she was reaping a just retribution for her long deception.
"I do not believe you, madam," Richard said; "and if I were inclined to
do so, this note, which Harry said was sent to you, and which I found
upon the floor, would tell me better," and tossing into her lap the
soiled bit of paper, accomplishing so much harm, he continued: "There is
my proof; that in conjunction with the name of opprobrium, which you
remember you insinuatingly used, asking if you were pretty enough to
make the old maid, Elizabeth, jealous. You are pretty enough, madam; but
it is an accursed beauty which would attract to itself men of Frank Van
Buren's stamp."
Richard could not get over that epithet. He would have forgiven the
other sin almost as soon as this, and his face was very dark and stern
as he watched Ethelyn reading the little note. She knew in a moment what
it was, and the suddenness of its appearance before her turned her white
and faint. It brought back so vividly the day when she received it--six
or seven years ago, the lazy September day, when the Chicopee hills wore
the purplish light of early autumn, and the air was full of golden
sunshine. It was a few weeks after the childish betrothal among the
huckleberry hills, and Frank had come up to spend a week with a boy
friend of his, who lived across the river. There was to be an exhibition
in the white schoolhouse, in the river district, and Frank had written,
urging her to come, and asking that Aunt Barbara should be left
behind--"the old maid," he sometimes called her to his cousin, thinking
it sounded smart and manlike. Aunt Barbara had stayed at home from
choice, sending her niece in charge of Susie Granger's mother; but the
long walk home, after the exercises were over, the lingering, loitering
walk across the causeway, where the fog was riding so damply, the
stopping on the bridge, and looking down into the deep, dark water,
where the stars were reflected so brightly, the slow climbing of the
depot hill, and the long talk by the gate beneath the elms, whose long
arms began to drop great drops of dew on Ethie's head ere the interview
was ended--all this had been experienced with Frank, whose arm was
around the young girl's waist, and whose hand was clasping hers, as with
boyish pride and a laughable effort to seem manly, he talked of "our
engagement," and even leaped forward in fancy to the time "when we
are married."
All this came back to Ethelyn, and she seemed to feel again the breath
of the September night, and see through the clustering branches the
flashing light waiting for her in the dear old room in Chicopee. She
forgot for a moment the stern, dark face watching her so jealously, and
so hardening toward her as he saw how pale she grew, and heard her
exclamation of surprise when she first recognized the note, and
remembered that in turning over the contents of the ebony box she must
have dropped it upon the floor.
"Do you still deny all knowledge of Frank's presence in town?" Richard
asked, and his voice recalled Ethelyn from the long ago back to the
present time.
He was waiting for her answer; but Ethie had none to give. Her hot,
imperious temper was in the ascendant now. She was a prisoner for the
night; her own husband was the jailer, who she felt was unjust to her,
and she would make no explanations, at least not then. He might think
what he liked or draw any inference he pleased from her silence. And so
she made him no reply, except to crush into her pocket the paper which
she should have burned on that morning when, crouching on the
hearthstone at home, she destroyed all other traces of a past which
ought never to have been. He could not make her speak, and his words of
reproach might as well have been given to the winds as to that cold,
statue-like woman, who mechanically laid aside the fanciful costume in
which she was arrayed, doing everything with a deliberation and
coolness more exasperating to Richard than open defiance would have
been. A second knock at the door, and another servant appeared, saying,
apologetically, that the note he held in his hand had been left at the
office for Mrs. Markham early in the morning, but forgotten till now.
"Give it to me, if you please. It is mine," Ethelyn said, and something
in her voice and manner kept Richard quiet while she took the offered
note and went back to the chandelier where, with a compressed lip and
burning cheek, she read the genuine note sent by Frank.
* * * * *
"Dear cousin," he wrote, "business for a Boston firm has brought me to
Camden, where they have had debt standing out. Through the influence of
Harry Clifford, who was a college chum of mine, I have an invitation to
Mrs. Miller's, where I hope to meet yourself and husband. I should call
to-day, but I know just how busy you must be with your costume, which I
suppose you wish to keep incog., even from me. I shall know you, though,
at once. See if I do not. Wishing to be remembered to the Judge, I am,
yours truly,
"FRANK VAN BUREN."
* * * * *
This is what Ethelyn read, knowing, as she read, that it would make
matters right between herself and husband--at least so far as an
appointment was concerned; but she would not show it to him then. She
was too angry, too much aggrieved, to admit of any attempts on her part
for a reconciliation; so she put that note with the other, and then went
quietly on arranging her things in their proper places. Then, when this
was done, she sat down by the window and peering out into the wintry
darkness watched the many lights and moving figures in Mrs. Miller's
house, which could be distinctly seen from the hotel. Richard still
intended to take the early train for St. Louis, and so he retired at
last, but Ethelyn sat where she was until the carriages taking the
revelers home had passed, and the lights were out in Mrs. Miller's
windows, and the bell of St. John's had ushered in the second hour of
the fast. Not then did she join her husband, but lay down upon the
sofa, where he found her when at six o'clock he came from his broken,
feverish sleep, to say his parting words. He had contemplated the
propriety of giving up his trip and remaining at home while Frank Van
Buren was in town, but this he could not very well do.
"I will leave her to herself," he thought, "trusting that what has
passed will deter her from any further improprieties."
Something like this he said to her when, in the gray dawn, he stood
before her, equipped for his journey; but Ethelyn did not respond, and
with her cold, dead silence weighing more upon him than bitter
reproaches would have done, Richard left her and took his way through
the chill, snowy morning to the depot, little dreaming as he went of
when and how he and Ethelyn would meet again.