University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.
DINNER, AND AFTER IT.

EUNICE had not fully seen the stranger, and when
dinner was announced and Richard led her out,
with Andy hovering at her side, she stood ready
to be introduced, with the little speech she had been rehearsing
about “I hope to see you well,” &c., trembling on
the tip of her tongue. But her plans were seriously disarranged.
Six months before Richard would have presented
her himself, as a matter of course; but he had
learned some things since then, and he tried not to see his
mother's meaning look as she glanced from him to Eunice
and then to Ethelyn, whose proud bearing awed and abashed
even her. Eunice, however, had been made quite too much
of to be wholly ignored now, and Mrs. Markham felt compelled
to say, “Ethelyn, this—this is—Eunice—Eunice
Plympton.”

That Eunice Plympton was the hired girl Ethelyn did

not for a moment dream; but that she was coarse and
vulgar, like the rest of Richard's family, she at once decided,
and if she bowed at all, it was not perceptible to
Eunice, who mentally resolved “to go home in the morning
if such a proud minx was to live there.”

Mrs. Markham saw the gathering storm, and Richard
knew by the drop of her chin that Ethelyn had not made a
good impression. How could she, with that proud, cold
look, which never for an instant left her face, but rather
deepened in its expression as the dinner proceeded, and
one after the other Mrs. Markham and Eunice left the
table in quest of something that was missing, while Andy
himself, being nearest the kitchen, went to bring a pitcher
of hot water for Ethelyn's coffee, lifting the kettle with
the skirt of his coat, and snapping his fingers, which were
slightly burned with the scalding steam. From the position
she occupied at the table Ethelyn saw the whole performance,
and had it been in any other house she would
have smiled at Andy's grotesque appearance as he converted
his coat-skirts into a holder; but now it only sent a
colder chill to her heart as she reflected that these were
Richard's people and this was Richard's home. Sadly and
vividly there arose before her visions of dear Aunt Barbara's
household, where Betty served so quietly, and where,
except that they were upon a smaller scale, everything was
as well and properly managed as in Mrs. Dr. Van Buren's
family. It was several hours since she had tasted food, but
she could scarcely swallow a morsel for the terrible home-sick
feeling swelling in her throat. She knew the viands
before her were as nicely cooked as even Aunt Barbara or
Betty could have cooked them,—so much she conceded to
Mrs. Markham and Eunice; but had her life depended

upon it she could not have eaten them, and the plate which
James had filled so plentifully scarcely diminished at all.
She did pick a little with her fork at the white, tender
turkey, and tried to drink her coffee, but the pain in her
head and the pain at her heart were both too great to
allow of her doing more, and Mrs. Markham and Eunice
both felt a growing contempt for a dainty thing who could
not eat the dinner they had been at so much pains to prepare.

Ethelyn knew their opinion of her as well as if it had
been expressed in words; but she fancied them so far beneath
her that whatsoever they might think was not of the
slightest consequence. They were an ignorant set, the
whole of them, she mentally decided, as she watched their
manners at table, noticing how James and John poured their
coffee into their saucers, blowing it until it was cool, while
Richard, feeling more freedom now that he was again under
his mother's wing, used his knife altogether, even to eating
jelly with it. Indeed, it might be truly said of him that
“Richard was himself again,” for his whole manner was
that of a petted child, which, having returned to the mother
who spoiled it, had cast off the restraint under which for a
time it had been laboring. Richard was hungry, and would
have enjoyed his dinner hugely, but for the cold, silent
woman beside him, who, he knew, was watching and criticising
all he did; but at home he did not care so much for
her criticisms as when alone with her at fashionable hotels
or with fashionable people. Here he was supreme, and
none had ever disputed his will. Perhaps if Ethelyn had
known all that was in his heart she might have changed her
tactics and tried to have been more conciliatory on that
first evening of her arrival at his home. But Ethelyn did

not know,—she only felt that she was homesick and
wretched,—and pleading a headache, from which she was
really suffering, she asked to go to her room as soon as
dinner was over.

It was very pleasant up there, for a cheerful wood-fire was
blazing on the hearth, and a rocking-chair drawn up before
it, with a footstool which Andy had made and Melinda
covered; while the bed in the little room adjoining looked
so fresh, and clean, and inviting, that with a great sigh of
relief, as the door closed between her and the “dreadful
people below,” Ethelyn threw herself upon it, and burying
her face in the soft pillows, tried to smother the sobs which,
nevertheless, smote heavily upon Richard's ear when he
came in, and drove from him all thoughts of the little lecture
he had been intending to give Ethelyn touching her
deportment toward his family. It would only be a fair return,
he reflected, for all the Caudles he had listened to so
patiently; and duly strengthened for his task by his mother's
remark to James, accidentally overheard, “Altogether too
fine a lady for us. I wonder what Richard was thinking
of,” he mounted the stairs, resolved at least to talk with
Ethie and ask her to do better.

Richard could be very stern when he tried, and the hazel
of his eye was darker than usual, and the wrinkle between
his eyebrows was deeper as he thus meditated harm against
his offending wife. But the sight of the crushed form
lying so helplessly upon the bed, and crying in such a
grieved, heart-sick way, drove all thoughts of discipline
from his mind. He could not add one iota to her misery.
She might be cold, and proud, and even rude to his family,
as she unquestionably had been, but she was still Ethie, his
young wife, whom he loved so dearly; and bending over

her, he smoothed the silken bands of her beautiful hair and
said to her softly, “What is it, darling? Anything worse
than home-sickness? Has any one injured you?”

No one had injured her. On the contrary, all had met,
or tried to meet her with kindness, which she had thrust
back upon them. Ethelyn knew this as well as any one;
and Mrs. Markham, washing her dishes and occasionally
wiping her eyes with the corner of the check-apron as she
thought how all her trouble had been thrown away upon a
proud, ungrateful girl, could not think less of Ethie than
Ethie thought of herself. The family were ignorant and
ill bred, as she counted ignorance and ill breeding; but they
did mean to be kind to her, and she hated herself for her
ingratitude in not at least seeming pleased with their endeavors
to please her. Added to this was a vague remembrance
of a certain look seen in Richard's eye,—a look
which made her uneasy as she thought, “What if he should
hate me too?”

Richard was all Ethelyn had to cling to now. She respected,
if she did not love him, and when she heard his step
upon the stairs, her heart, for an instant, throbbed with dread
lest he was coming to chide her as she deserved. When,
then, he bent so kindly over her, and spoke to her so tenderly,
all her better nature went out toward him in a sudden
gush of something akin to love, and lifting her head,
she laid it upon his bosom, and drawing his arm around her
neck, held it there with a sense of protection, while she said,
“No one has injured me; but, oh, I am so homesick, and
they are all so different, and my head aches so hard.”

He knew she was homesick, and it was natural that she
should be; and he knew, too, that, as she said, they were
“so different,” and though on this point he could not fully

appreciate her feelings he was sorry for her, and he soothed
her aching head, and kissed her forehead, and told her she
was tired; she would feel better by and by, and get accustomed
to their ways; and when, as he said this, he felt
the shiver with which she repelled the assertion, he repressed
his inclination to tell her that she could at least
conceal her aversion to whatever was disagreeable, and
kissing her again, bade her lie down and try to sleep, as
that would help her sooner than anything else, unless it
were a cup of sage tea, such as his mother used to make
for him when his head was aching. Should he send Eunice
up with a cup?

“No; oh, no!” and Ethelyn's voice expressed the disgust
she felt for the young lady with red streamers in her hair,
who had stared so at her and called her husband Richard.

Ethelyn had not yet defined Eunice's position in the
family,—whether it was that of cousin, or niece, or companion,—and
now that Richard had suggested her, she said
to him,

“Who is this Eunice that seems so familiar?”

Richard hesitated a little and then replied,

“She is the girl who works for mother when we need
help.”

“Not a hired girl,—surely not a hired girl!” and Ethelyn
opened her brown eyes wide with surprise and indignation,
wondering aloud what Aunt Sophie would say if she knew
she had eaten with and been introduced to a hired girl.

Richard did not say, “Aunt Sophie be hanged, or be—
anything,” but he thought it, just as he thought Ethelyn's
ideas peculiar and over-nice. Eunice Plympton was a
respectable, trusty girl, and he believed in doing well for
those who did well for him; but that was no time to argue

the point, and so he sat still and listened to Ethelyn's complaint
that Eunice had called him Richard, and would undoubtedly
on the morrow address her as Ethelyn. Richard
thought not, but he changed his mind when, fifteen minutes
later, he descended to the kitchen and heard Eunice asking
Andy if he did not think “Ethelyn looked like the Methodist
minister's new wife.”

This was an offence which even Richard could not suffer
to pass unrebuked; and sending Andy out on some pretext or
other, he said that to Eunice Plympton which made her more
careful as to what she called his wife, but he did it so kindly
that she could not be offended with him, though she was
strengthened in her opinion that “Miss Ethelyn was a
stuck-up, an upstart, and a hateful. Supposin' she had been
waited on all her life, and brought up delicately, as Richard
said, that was no reason why she need feel so big, and above
speaking to a poor girl when she was introduced.” She
guessed that “Eunice Plympton was fully as respectable and
quite as much thought on by the neighbors, if she didn't
wear a frock-coat and a man's hat with a green feather stuck
in it.”

This was the substance of Eunice's soliloquy, as she
cleaned the potatoes for the morrow's breakfast, and laid
the kindlings by the stove, ready for the morning fire.
Still Eunice was not a bad-hearted girl, and when Andy, who
heard her mutterings, put in a plea for Ethelyn, who he
said “had never been so far away from home before, and
whose head was aching enough to split,” she began to
relent, and proposed of her own accord to take up to the
great lady a foot-bath, together with hot water for her
head.

It was so long since Richard had been at home, and

there was so much to hear of what had happened during
his absence, that instead of going back to Ethelyn he
yielded to his mother's wish that he should stay with her;
and sitting down in his arm-chair by the blazing fire, he
found it so pleasant to be flattered and caressed, and
deferred to again, that he was in some danger of forgetting
the young wife who was thus left to the tender mercies of
Andy and Eunice Plympton. Andy had caught eagerly at
Eunice's suggestion of the foot-bath, and offered to carry it
up himself, while Eunice followed with her towels and basin
of hot water. It never occurred to either of them to knock
for admittance, and Ethelyn was obliged to endure their
presence, which she did at first with a shadow on her
brow; but when Andy asked so pleadingly that she try
the hot water, and Eunice joined her entreaties with his,
Ethelyn consented, and lay very quiet while Eunice
Plympton bathed the aching head and smoothed the long,
bright hair, which both she and Andy admired so much;
for Andy, when he found that Ethelyn declined the foot-bath,
concluded to remain awhile, and sitting down before
the fire, he scrutinized the form and features of his new
sister, and made remarks upon the luxuriant tresses which
Eunice combed so carefully.

It was something to have the homage of even such subjects
as these, and Ethelyn's heart grew softer as the pain
gradually subsided beneath Eunice's mesmeric touch, and
she answered graciously the questions propounded as to
whether that sack, or great-coat, or whatever it was called,
which she wore around her, was the very last style, how
much it took to cut it, and if Miss Markham had the pattern.
On being told that “Miss Markham” had not the pattern,
Eunice presumed Melinda Jones could cut one; and

then, while the cooled water was heating on the coals
which Andy raked out upon the hearth, Eunice asked if
she might just try on the “vasquine” and let Miss Markham
see how she looked in it.

For a moment Ethelyn hesitated, but Eunice had been
so kind, and made her request so timidly, that she could
not well refuse, and gave a faint assent. But she was spared
the trial of seeing her basquine strained over Eunice's buxom
figure by the entrance of Richard, who came to say that Eunice
was wanted by his mother, and also that Melinda Jones
was in the parlor below, and had asked to see his wife.
In spite of all Tim had said about madam's airs, and his
advice that “Melinda should keep away,” that young lady
had ventured upon a call, thinking her intimacy with the
family would excuse any unseemly haste, and thinking
too, it may be, that possibly Mrs. Richard Markham
would be glad to know there was some one in Olney more
like the people to whom she had been accustomed than
Mrs. Markham senior and her handmaid, Eunice Plympton.
Melinda's toilet had been made with a direct reference to
what Mrs. Ethelyn would think of it, and she was looking
very well indeed in her gray dress and sack, with plain
straw-hat and green ribbons, which harmonized well with
her high-colored cheeks. But Melinda's pains had been for
naught, just as Richard feared, when she asked if “Mrs.
Markham” was too tired to see her.

Richard was glad to see Melinda, and Melinda was glad
to see Richard,—so glad that she gave him a hearty kiss,
prefacing the act with the remark, “I can kiss you, now
you are a married man.”

Richard liked the kiss, and liked Melinda's frank, open
manner, which had in it nothing Van Burenish, as he secretly

termed the studied elegance of Mrs. Richard Markham's
style. Melinda was natural, and he promptly kissed
her back, feeling that in doing so he was guilty of nothing
wrong, for he would have done the same had Ethelyn been
present. She had a terrible headache, he said, in answer
to Melinda's inquiry, and perhaps she did not feel able to
come down. He would see.

The hot water and Eunice's bathing had done Ethelyn
good, and, with the exception that she was very pale, she
looked bright and handsome, as she lay upon the pillows
with her loose hair forming a dark, glossy frame about her face.

“You are better, Ethie,” Richard said, bending over her,
and playfully lifting her heavy hair. “Eunice has done
you good. She's not so bad, after all.”

“Eunice is well enough in her place,” was Ethelyn's
reply; and then there was a pause, while Richard wondered
how he should introduce Melinda Jones.

Perhaps it was vain in him, but he really fancied that
the name of Jones was distasteful to Ethelyn, just as the
Van Buren name would have been more distasteful to him
than it already was, had he known of Frank's love affair;
and to a certain extent he was right. Ethelyn did dislike
to hear of the Joneses, and her brow grew cloudy at once
when Richard said, bunglingly, and as if it were not at all
what he had come up to say—“Oh, don't you remember
hearing me speak of Melinda Jones, whom I hoped you
would like? She is very kind to mother; we all think a
great deal of her; and though she knows it is rather soon
to call, she has come in for a few minutes, and would like
to see you. I should be so glad if you would go down, for
it will gratify her, I know; and I really think we owe her
something, she has always been so kind.”

But Ethelyn was too tired, and her head ached too hard
to see visitors, she said; and besides that, “Miss Jones
ought to have known that it was not proper to call so soon.
None but a very intimate friend could presume upon such
a thing.”

“And Melinda is an intimate friend,” Richard answered,
a little warmly, as he left his wife and went back to Melinda
with the message that “some time Ethelyn would be
happy to make Miss Jones' acquaintance, but to-night she
must be excused, as she was too tired to come down.”

All this time Andy had been standing with his back to
the fire, his coat-skirts taken up in his arms, his light, soft
hat on his head, and his ears taking in all that was transpiring.
Andy regarded his stylish sister-in-law as a very
choice gem, which was not to be handled too roughly, but
he was not afraid of her; he was seldom afraid of anybody;
and when Richard was gone he walked boldly up
to Ethelyn and said—

“I don't want to be meddlesome, but 'pears to me if
you'd spoke out your feelings to Dick, you'd said, `Tell
Melinda Jones I don't want to see her, neither to-night nor
any time.' Mebby I'm mistaken; but honest, do you want
to see Melinda?”

There was something so straightforward in his manner
that, without being the least offended, Ethelyn replied—

“No, I do not. I am sure I should not like her if she
at all resembles her brother, that terrible Timothy.”

Andy did not know that there was anything so very terrible
about Tim. He liked him because he gave him such
nice chews of tobacco, and was always so ready to lend a
helping hand in hog-killing time, or when a horse was sick;
neither had he ever heard him called Timothy before, and

the name sounded oddly; but he classed it with the fine
ways of his new sister, who called him Anderson, though
he so much wished she wouldn't. It sounded as if she did
not like him; but he said nothing on that subject now,—
he merely adhered to the Jones question, and, without defending
Tim, replied—

“Gals are never much like their brothers, I reckon.
They are softer, and finer, and neater; leastways our Daisy
was as different from us as different could be, and Melinda
is different from Tim. She's been to Camden high-school,
and has got a book that she talks French out of; and didn't
you ever see that piece that she wrote about Mr. Baldwin's
boy, who fell from the top of the church when it was building,
and was scrushed to death? It was printed, all in
rhyme, in the Camden Sentinel, and Jim has a copy of it
in his wallet, 'long with a lock of Melinda's hair. I tell
you she's a team.”

Andy was warming up with his subject, and finding
Ethelyn a good listener, he continued—

“I want you to like her, and I b'lieve you orter, for if
it hadn't been for her this room wouldn't of been fixed up
as 'tis. Melinda coaxed mother to buy the carpet, and
the curtings, and to put your bed in there. Why, that
was the meal-room, where you be, and we used to keep
the beans there too; but Melinda stuck-to till mother
moved the chest and the bags, and then we got some
paint, and me and the boys, and Melinda painted, and
worked, hopin' all the time that you'd be pleased, as I
guess you be. We wanted to have you like us.”

And simple-hearted Andy drew near to Ethelyn, who
was softened more by what he said than she could have
been by her husband's most urgent appeal. The thought

of the people to whom she had been so cold, and rude,
working and planning for her comfort, touched a very tender
chord, and had Richard then requested her to go down, it
is very possible she might have done so; but it was too
late now, and after Andy left her she lay pondering what
he had said, and listening to the sound of voices which
came up to her from the parlor directly beneath her room,
where James, and John, and Andy, and the mother, with
Melinda and Eunice, were talking to Richard, who was
conscious of a greater feeling of content, sitting there in
their midst again, than he had known in many a day.
Melinda had been more than disappointed at Mrs. Richard's
non-appearance, for aside from a curiosity to see the great
lady, there was a desire to be able to report that she had
seen her to other females equally curious, whom she would
next day meet at church. It would have added somewhat
to her self-complacency as well as importance in their eyes,
could she have quoted Mrs. Richard's sayings, and described
Mrs. Richard's dress, the very first day after her arrival. It
would look as if the intimacy, which many predicted would
end with Mrs. Ethelyn's coming, was only cemented the
stronger; but no such honor was in store for her. Ethelyn
declined coming down, and with a good-humored smile
Melinda said she was quite excusable; and then, untying her
bonnet, she laid it aside, just as she did the indescribable
air of stiffness she had worn while expecting Mrs. Richard.

How merrily they all laughed and chatted together! and
how handsome James' eyes grew as they rested admiringly
upon the sprightly girl, who, perfectly conscious of his gaze,
never looked at him, but confined her attention wholly to
Richard, until Andy asked “if they could not have a bit
of a tune.'

Then, for the first time, Richard discovered that Ethelyn's
piano had been unpacked, and was now standing between
the south windows, directly under Daisy's picture.
It was open, too, and the sheet of music upon the rack told
that it had been used. Richard did not care for himself,
but he was afraid of what Ethelyn might say, and wondered
why she had not spoken of the liberty they had taken.

Ethelyn had not observed the piano; or if she had she
paid no attention to it. Accustomed as she had always
been to seeing one in the room, she would have missed its
absence more than she noticed its presence. But when, as
she lay half dozing and thinking of Aunt Barbara, the old
familiar air of “Monymusk,” played with a most energetic
hand, came to her ear, she started, for she knew the
tone of her own instrument,—knew, too, that Melinda
Jones' hands were sweeping the keys,—and all that Melinda
Jones had done for her comfort was forgotten in the
deep resentment which heated her blood, and flushed her
cheek as she listened to “Old Zip Coon,” which followed
“Monymusk,” a shuffling sound of feet telling that somebody's
boots were keeping time after a very unorthodox
fashion. Next came a song,—“Old Folks at Home,”—and
in spite of her resentment Ethelyn found herself listening
intently as James' rich, deep bass, and John's clear tenor,
and Andy's alto joined in the chorus with Melinda's full
soprano. The Markham boys were noted for their fine
voices; and even Richard had once assisted at a public
concert; but to-night he did not sing,—his thoughts were
too intent upon the wife up-stairs and what she might be
thinking of the performance, and he was glad when the
piano was closed and Melinda Jones had gone.

It was later than he supposed, and the clock pointed to

almost eleven when he at last said good-night to his mother
and went, with a half-guilty feeling, to his room. But there
were no chidings in store for him; for, wearied with her
journey, and soothed by the music, Ethelyn had forgotten
all her cares and lay quietly sleeping, with one hand beneath
her cheek and the other resting outside the white
counterpane. Ethie was very pretty in her sleep, and the
proud, restless look about her mouth was gone, leaving an
expression more like a child's than like a girl of eighteen.
And Richard, looking at her, felt supremely happy that she
was his, forgetting all of the past which had been unpleasant,
and thinking only that he was blessed above his fellow-mortals
that he could call the beautiful girl before him
his Ethelyn,—his wife.