University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
RICHARD MARKHAM.

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 Hon. gave him, but he was a plain, matter-of-fact man,
who had not been lifted off from 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 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 any one 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, 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
light 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 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 autumn 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 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 Beaumont, 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 passiveness 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, 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 moulded 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 in a fit of the 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. There was
some gratification in knowing that she was an object of
envy to Susie Graham and Anna Thorne and Carrie Bell,
either of whom would gladly have taken her place as bride-elect
of an M.C., while proud old Colonel 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 Colonel 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 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 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, and, if she had, she
would have thought it a very sensible arrangement for a day
when the thermometer stood ninety-five 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 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 upon her
shoulder. 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 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 he 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
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 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 she had ironed
his shirts and packed them in the 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 for some reason he seemed
to her just like one now, she said to Mrs. Markham, as she
hemmed his pocket handkerchiefs and worked his initials
in the corner with pink floss. Many times 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 sometimes wondered 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 portion
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 she “hoped the new bride would
not have many airs, and would put up with his mother's
ways.”

“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 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 village, just
half a mile from her husband's home. She should probably
spend a few weeks with Mrs. Markham senior, who
she fancied was 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. Col.
Markham once said with regard to her Western sister-in-law,
who had sent 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. Colonel, 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 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 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 steps. Ethelyn would either come herself
to see him, or send some cheering 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” he knew had come,
and he overheard Mrs. Markham's Esther saying to Aunt
Barbara's Betty, 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.
Frank and Ethelyn 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; and
he deliberately began to make his wedding toilet, thinking,
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, but he felt a glow of satisfaction now
as he contemplated himself in the glass, and felt 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 shame 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 the 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.