University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
DAYS OF CONVALESCENCE.

THEY were very pleasant to Ethelyn, for with Aunt
Barbara anticipating every want, and talking of
Chicopee, she could not be very weary. It was
pleasant, too, having Richard home again, and Ethie was
very soft and kind, and amiable toward him; but she did
not tell him of the letter she had commenced, or hint at the
confession he longed to hear. It would have been comparatively
easy to write it, but with him there where she could
look into his face and watch the dark expression which was

sure to come into his eyes, it was hard to tell him that Frank
Van Buren had held the first place in her affections, if indeed
he did not hold it now. She was not certain yet,
though she hoped and tried to believe that Frank was nothing
more than cousin now. He surely ought not to be, with
Nettie calling him her husband, while she too was a wife.
But so subtle was the poison which that unfortunate attachment
had infused into her veins that she could not tell whether
her nature was cleared of it or not; and so, though she
asked forgiveness for having so literally kept her vow, and
said that she did commence a letter to him, she kept back
the most important part of all. It was better to wait, she
thought, until she could truly say, “I loved Frank Van
Buren once, but now I love you far better than ever I did
him.”

Had she guessed how much Richard knew, and how the
knowledge was rankling in his bosom, she might have
done differently. But she took the course she thought the
best, and the perfect understanding Richard had so ardently
hoped for was not then arrived at. For the time, however,
there seemed to be perfect peace between them, and Ethelyn
was far happier than she had been since she first came
to Olney. She could not say that she loved her husband
as a true wife ought to love a man like Richard Markham,
but she found a pleasure in his society which she had never
experienced before, while Aunt Barbara's presence was a
constant source of joy. That good woman had prolonged
her stay far beyond what she had thought it possible
when she left Chicopee. She could not tear herself away,
when Ethie pleaded so earnestly for her to remain a
little longer, and she stayed on week after week, seeing
far more than she seemed to see, and making up her

mind pretty accurately with regard to the prospect of
Ethie's happiness, if she remained an inmate of her husband's
family.

Aunt Barbara and Mrs. Markham did not harmonize at
all. At first, when Ethie was so sick, everything had been
merged in the one absorbing thought of her danger, but
when the danger was past it kept recurring again and
again, with very unpleasant distinctness, that Aunt Barbara
was in her way. Nobody could quarrel with Aunt Barbara,—she
was so mild, and gentle, and peaceable,—and Mrs.
Markham did not quarrel with her; but she thought about
her all the time, and fretted over her, and remembered the
letter she had written about her ways and her being good
to Ethie, and wondered what she was there for, and why
she did not go home, and asked at last what time they
generally cleaned house in Chicopee, and if she dared trust
her cleaning with Betty. Aunt Barbara was a great annoyance,
and she complained to Eunice and Mrs. Jones, and
Melinda, who had returned from Washington, that she was
spoiling Ethelyn, and making her think herself so much
weaker than she was.

“Merey knew,” she said, “that in her day, when she
was sick, she did not hug the bed forever. She had something
else to do, and was up and around in a fortnight at
the most. Nobody was carryin' her up glasses of milk-punch,
and lemonade, and cups of tea, at all hours of the
day. She was glad of anything, and got well the faster
for it. Needn't tell her!—it would do Ethelyn good to
stir round and take the air, instead of staying cooped up in
her room, complaining that it is hot and close there in the
bedroom. It's airy enough out doors;” and with a most
aggrieved look on her face, Mrs. Markham put into the

oven the pan of soda-biscuit she had been making, and
then proceeded to lay the cloth for tea.

Eunice had been home for a day or two with a felon on
her thumb, and thus a greater proportion of the work had
fallen upon Mrs. Markham, which to some degree accounted
for her ill-humor. Mrs. Jones and Melinda were spending
the afternoon with her, but the latter was up in Ethie's
room. Melinda had always a good many ideas of her own,
and she had brought with her several new ones from Washington,
and New York, where she had stayed for four weeks
at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. But Melinda, though greatly
improved in appearance, was not one whit spoiled. In
manner and the fit of her dress she was more like Ethelyn
and Mrs. Judge Miller, of Camden, than she once had been;
and at first James was a little afraid of her, she puffed her
hair so high and wore her gowns so long; while his mother,
looking only at the stylish hat and fashionable sack,
which she brought back from Gotham, said her head was
turned, and she was altogether too fine for Olney. But
when, on the next rainy Sunday, she rode to church in her
father's lumber-wagon, holding the blue cotton umbrella
over her old last year's straw and water-proof,—and when
arrived at church she suffered James to help her to alight,
jumping over the muddy wheel, and then going straight
to her accustomed seat in the choir, which had missed her
strong voice so much,—the son changed his mind, and said
she was the same as ever; while after the day when she
found Mrs. Markham making soap, and good-humoredly
offered to watch it and stir it while that lady went into the
house to see to the corn-pudding, which Eunice was sure
to spoil if left to her own ingenuity, the mother, too,
changed her mind, and wished Richard had been so lucky

as to have fixed his choice on Melinda. But James was
far from wishing a thing which would so seriously have
interfered with his hopes and wishes. He was very glad
that Richard's preference had fallen where it did, and his
cheery whistle was heard almost constantly; and after Tim
Jones told, in his blunt way, how “Melind was tryin' to
train him, and to make him more like them dandies at the
big tavern in New York,” he, too, began to amend, and
taking Richard for his pattern, imitated him, until he found
that simple, loving Andy, in his anxiety to please Ethelyn,
had seized upon more points of etiquette than Richard
ever knew existed; and then he copied Andy, having this
in his favor, that whatever he did himself was done with a
certain grace inherent in his nature, whereas Andy's attempts
were awkward in the extreme.

Melinda saw the visible improvement in James, and imputing
it rather to Ethelyn's influence than her own, was
thus saved from any embarrassment she might have experienced
had she known to a certainty how large a share of
James Markham's thoughts and affections she possessed.
She was frequently at the farm-house; but had not made
what her mother called a visit until the afternoon when
Mrs. Markham gave her opinion so freely of Aunt Barbara's
petting and its effect on Ethelyn.

From the first introduction Aunt Barbara had liked the
practical, straightforward Melinda, in whom she found a
wonderful ally whenever any new idea was suggested with
regard to Ethelyn. To her Aunt Barbara had confided
her belief that it was not well for Ethelyn to stay there
any longer,—that she and Richard both would be better
by themselves; an opinion which Melinda heartily endorsed,
and straightway set herself at work to form

some plan whereby Aunt Barbara's idea might be carried
out.

Melinda was not a meddlesome girl, but she did like to
help manage other people's business,—doing it so well, and
evincing so little selfishness in her consideration for others,
that when once she had taken charge of a person's affairs
she was pretty sure to have the privilege again. When
Richard ran for Justice of the Peace, and she was a little
girl, she had refused to speak to three other little girls
who flaunted the colors of the opposition candidate; and
when he was nominated first for Judge and then as member
for the district, she had worked for him quite as zealously
as Tim himself, and through her more than one vote,
which otherwise might have been lost, was cast in his
favor. As she had worked for him, so she now worked
for Ethelyn,—approaching Richard very adroitly and managing
so skilfully that when at last, on the occasion of her
visit to his mother's, Aunt Barbara asked him, in her presence
and Ethelyn's, if he had never thought it would be
well both for himself and wife to live somewhere else than
there at home, he never dreamed that he was echoing the
very ideas Melinda had instilled into his mind by promptly
replying that “he had recently thought seriously of a
change,” and then asked Ethie where she would like to
live,—in Olney or in Camden.

“Not Olney,—no, not Olney!” Ethelyn gasped, thinking
how near that was to her mother-in-law, and shrinking
from the espionage to which she would surely be subjected.

Her preference was Davenport, but to this Richard would
not listen. Indeed, he began to feel sorry that he had admitted
a willingness to change at all, for the old home was
very dear to him, and he had thought he would never leave

it. But he stood committed, and Melinda followed him up
so dexterously, that in less than half an hour it was arranged
that early in June Ethelyn should have a home in Camden,
—either a house of her own, or a suite of rooms at the
Stafford House, just which she preferred. She chose the
latter, and, woman-like, began at once in fancy to furnish
and arrange the handsome apartments which looked out
upon Camden Park, and which Melinda said were at present
unoccupied. Melinda knew, for only two days before she
had been to Camden with her brother Tim, and dined at
the Stafford House, and heard her neighbor on her right
inquire of his vis-a-vis how long since General Martin left
the second floor of the new wing, and who occupied it now.
This was a mere happen-so, but Melinda was one of those
to whom the right thing was always happening, the desired
information always coming; and if she did contrive to
ascertain the price charged for the rooms, it was only because
she understood that one of the Markham peculiarities
was being a little close, and wished to be armed at every
point.

Richard had no idea that Melinda was managing him,
or that any one was managing him. He thought himself
that Camden might be a pleasant place to live in; as an
ex-Judge and M.C. he could get business anywhere; and
though he preferred Olney, inasmuch as it was home, he
would, if Ethelyn liked, try Camden for a while. It is
true, the price of the rooms, which Melinda casually named,
was enormous, but, then, Ethelyn's health and happiness
were above any moneyed consideration; and so, while Mrs.
Markham below made and moulded her soda-biscuit, and
talked about dreading the hot weather if “Ethelyn was
going to be weakly,” Aunt Barbara, and Melinda, and Richard

settled a matter which made her eyes open wide with
astonishment when, after the exit of the Joneses, it was
revealed to her. Of course, she charged it all to Aunt
Barbara, wishing that good woman as many miles away as
intervened between Olney and Chicopee. Had the young
people been going to keep house she would have been
more reconciled, for in that case much of what they consumed
would have been the product of the farm; but
to board, to take rooms at the Stafford House, where
Ethelyn would have nothing to do but to dress and
gossip, was abominable. Then, when she heard of the
price, she opposed the plan with so much energy that, but
for Aunt Barbara and Melinda Jones, Richard might have
succumbed; but the majority ruled, and Ethelyn's eyes
grew brighter, and her cheeks rounder, with the hope of
leaving a place where she had been so unhappy. She
should miss Melinda Jones; and though she would be near
Mrs. Miller, and Marcia Fenton, and Ella Backus, they
could not be to her all Melinda had been, while Andy,—
Ethelyn felt the lumps rising in her throat whenever she
thought of him, and the burst of tears with which he had
heard that she was going away.

“I can't help thinkin' it's for the wuss,” he said, wiping
his smooth face with the cuff of his coat-sleeve. “Something
will happen as the result of your goin' there. I feel
it in my bones.”

Were Andy's words prophetic? Would something
happen, if they went to Camden, which would not have
happened had they remained in Olney? Ethelyn did not
ask herself the question. She was too supremely happy,
and if she thought at all, it was of how she could best accelerate
her departure from the lonely farm-house.

When Mrs. Markham found that they were really going,
that nothing she could say would be of any avail, she gave
up the contest, and, mother-like, set herself at work planning
for their comfort, or rather for Richard's comfort. It
was for him that the best and newest feather-bed, weighing
thirty pounds and a half to a feather, was aired and sunned
three days upon the kitchen roof, the good woman little
dreaming that if the thirty-pounder was used at all it would
do duty under the hair-mattress Ethelyn meant to have.
They were to furnish their own rooms, and whatever expense
Mrs. Markham could save her boy she meant to do.
There was the carpet in their chamber,—they could have
that; for after they were gone it was not likely the room
would be used, and the old rag one would answer. They
could have the curtains too, if they liked, with the table
and the chairs. Left to himself and his mother's guidance,
Richard would undoubtedly have taken to Camden such a
promiscuous outfit as would have made even a truckman
smile; but there were three women leagued against him,
and so draft after draft was drawn from his funds in the
Camden bank until the rooms were furnished; and one
bright morning in early June, a week after Aunt Barbara had
started for Chicopee, Ethie bade her husband's family good-by,
and turning her back upon Olney, turned also the first
leaf of her life's history in the West.