University of Virginia Library

38. CHAPTER XXXVIII.
RICHARD AND ETHELYN.

ARRIVED at Davenport, and so near his home that
he could discern its roofs and chimneys, the hope
which had kept Richard up all through his rapid
journey began to give way, and he hardly knew what
he expected to find, as he went up the steps to his
house and rang the door-bell. Certainly not Andy,—he
had not thought of him,—and his pulse quickened with a
feeling of eagerness and hope renewed when he caught sight
of his brother's beaming face, and felt the pressure of his
broad hand. In his delight Andy kissed his brother two or
three times during the interval it took to get him through
the hall into the reception-room, where they were alone.
Arrived there, Andy fell to capering across the floor, while
Richard looked on, puzzled to decide whether his weak
brother had gone wholly daft or not. Recollecting himself
at last, and assuming a more sober attitude, Andy
came close to him and whispered—

“Dick, you ought to be thankful, so thankful and glad
that God has been kind at last and heard our prayers, just as
I always told you he would. Guess who is up stairs, ravin'
crazy by spells, and quiet as a Maltese kitten the rest of
the time. I'll bet, though, you'll never guess, it is so
strange. Try, now,—who do you think it is?”

“Ethelyn,” came in a whisper from Richard's lips, and,

rather crestfallen, the simple Andy said, “Somebody told
you, I know; but you are right. Ethie is here,—came
when we all was gone,—said she was a connection of
yourn, and so Miss Dobson let her in, and treated her up,
and showed her the house, and left her in them rooms you
fixed a purpose for her. You see Miss Dobson had some
truck she was canning, and she stayed down stairs so long
that when she went back she found Ethie had taken possession
of that bed where nobody ever slep', and was burnin'
up with fever and talkin' the queerest kind of talk about divorces,
and all that, and there was something in her face
made Miss Dobson mistrust who she was, and she telegraphed
for Melinda and me,—or rather for Melinda,—and
I came out with her, for I knew in a minit who the
strange woman was. But she won't know you, Dick.
She don't know me, though she lays her head on my arm
and snugs up to me awful neat. Will you go now to see
her?”

The question was superfluous, for Richard was half way
up the stairs, followed close by Andy, who went with him
to the door of Ethie's room, and then stood back, thinking
it best for Richard to go in alone.

Ethelyn was asleep, and Melinda sat watching her. She
knew it was Richard who came in, for she had heard his
voice in the hall, and greeting him quietly arose and left
the room, whispering, “If she wakes, don't startle her.
Probably she will not know you.”

Then she went out, and Richard was alone with the wife he
had not seen for more than five weary years. It was very dark
in the room, and it took him a moment to accustom himself
sufficiently to the light to discern the figure lying so
still before him, the pale eyelids closed, and the long eye-lashes

resting upon the crimson cheek. The lips and forehead
were very white, but the rest of the face was purple
with fever, and as that gave the cheeks a fuller, rounder
look, she did not at first seem greatly changed, but looked
much as she did the first time he came from Washington
and found her so low. The long hair which Andy would not
have confined in a cap was pushed back from her brow,
and lay in tangled masses upon the pillow, while her hands
were folded one within the other and rested outside the
covering. And Richard touched her hands first,—the little,
soft, white hands he used to think so pretty, and which
he now kissed so softly as he knelt by the bedside and tried
to look closely into Ethie's face.

“My poor, sick darling, God knows how glad I am to
have you back,” he said, and his tears dropped like rain
upon the hands he pressed so gently. Then softly caressing
the pale forehead, his fingers threaded the mass of tangled
hair, and his lips touched the hot, burning ones
which quivered for a moment, and then said, brokenly—

“A dream,—all a dream. I've had it so many
times.”

She was waking, and Richard drew back a step or two,
while the bright, restless eyes moved round the room as if
in quest of some one.

“It's very dark,” she said, and turning one of the shutters
Richard came back and stood just where the light
would fall upon his face as it did on hers.

He saw now how changed she was; but she was none
the less dear to him for that, and he spoke to her very
tenderly—

“Ethie, darling, don't you know me? I am Richard,
your husband, and I am so glad to get you back.”

There did seem to be a moment's consciousness, for
there crept into the eyes a startled, anxious look as they
scanned Richard's face; then the lip quivered again, and
Ethie said, pleadingly—

“Don't send me away. I am so tired, and the road was
so long. I thought I should never get here. Let me stay.
I shall not be bad any more.”

Then, unmindful of consequences, Richard gathered her
in his arms and held her there an instant in a passionate
embrace, which left her pale and panting, but seemed to
reassure her, for when he would have laid her back upon
the pillow, she said to him, “No, not there,—on your arm,
—so. Yes, that's nice,” and an expression of intense
satisfaction stole into her face as she nestled her head close
to Richard's bosom, and, closing her eyes, seemed to sleep
again. And Richard held her thus, forgetting his own
fatigue, and refusing to give up his post either to Andy or
Melinda, both of whom ventured in at last, and tried to
make him take some refreshment and rest.

“I am not hungry,” he said, “and it is rest enough to
be with Ethelyn.”

Much he wondered where she had come from, and Melinda
repeated all Ethelyn had said which would throw
any light upon the subject.

“She has talked of the Nile, and St. Petersburg, and
the Hellespont, and the ship which was bringing her
home, and of Chicopee, but it was difficult telling how
much was real,” Melinda said, adding, “She talked of
Clifton, too; and were it possible, I should say she came
direct from there, but that could not be. You would have
known if she had been there. What was the number of
your room?”

“102,” Richard replied, while Melinda rejoined—

“That is the number she talks about,—that and 101.
Can it be that she was there?”

Richard was certain of it. The Miss Bigelow who had
interested him so much, lay there in his arms, his own
wife, who was, if possible, tenfold dearer to him now than
when he first held her as his bride. He knew she was very
sick, but she would not die, he said to himself. God had
not restored her to him just to take her away again,
and make his desolation more desolate. Ethie would live.
And surely if love, and nursing, and tender care were of
any avail to save the life which at times seemed fluttering
on the very verge of the grave, Ethelyn would live.
Nothing was spared which could avail to save her, and
even the physician, who had all along done what he could,
seemed to redouble his efforts when he ascertained who his
patient was.

Great was the surprise, and numerous the remarks and
surmises of the citizens, when it was whispered abroad that
the strange woman lying so sick in the Governor's house
was no other than the Governor's wife, about whom the
people had speculated so much. Nor was it long ere the
news went to Camden, stirring up the people there, and
bringing Mrs. Miller at once to Davenport, where she
stayed at a hotel until such time as she could be admitted
to Ethelyn's presence.

Mrs. Markham, senior, was washing windows when
Tim Jones brought her the letter, bearing the Davenport
post-mark. Melinda had purposely abstained
from writing home until Richard came; and so the
letter was in his handwriting, which his mother recognized
at once.

“Why, it's from Richard!” she exclaimed. “I thought
he wouldn't stay long at Clifton. I never did believe in
swashin' all the time. A bath in the tin wash-basin does
me very well,” and the good woman wiped her window
leisurely, and even put it back and fastened the side-slat in
its place, before she sat down to see what Richard had
written.

Tim knew what he had written; for in his hat was another
letter from Melinda, for his mother, which he had
opened, his feet going off into a kind of double-shuffle as
he read that Ethelyn had returned. She had been very cold
and proud to him; but he had admired her greatly, and
remembered her with none but kindly feelings. He was
a little anxious to know what Mrs. Markham would say;
but as she was in no hurry to open her letter, and he was
in a hurry to tell his mother the good news, he bade her
good morning, and mounting his horse, galloped away
toward home.

“I hope he's told who the critter was that was took sick
in the house,” Mrs. Markham said, as she adjusted her
glasses, and broke the seal.

Mrs. Markham had never fainted in her life, but she
came very near it that morning, feeling some as she would
if the Daisy, dead so long, had suddenly walked into the
room and taken a seat beside her.

“I am glad for Dick,” she said. “I never saw a man
change as he has, pinin' for her. I mean to be good to
her, if I can;” and Mrs. Markham's sun-bonnet was bent
low over Richard's letter, on which there were traces of
tears when the head was lifted up again. “I must let John
know. I never can stand it till dinner-time,” she said; and
a shrill blast from the tin horn, used to bring her sons to

dinner, went echoing across the prairie to the lot where
John was working.

It was not a single blast, but peal upon peal, a loud, prolonged
sound, which startled John greatly, especially as he
knew by the sun that it could not be twelve o'clock.

“Blows as if somebody was in a fit,” he said, as he took
long and rapid strides towards the farm-house.

His mother met him in the lane, letter in hand, and her
face white with excitement as she said below her breath—

“John, John, oh! John, she's come. She's there at
Richard's,—sick with the fever, and crazy; and Richard is
so glad. Read what he says.”

She did not say who had come, but John knew, and his
eyes were dim with tears as he took the letter from his
mother's hand, and read it, walking beside her to the
house.

“I presume they doctor her that silly fashion, with little
pills the size of a small pin-head. Melinda is so set in her
way. She ought to have some good French brandy if they
want to save her. I'd better go myself and see to it,” Mrs.
Markham said, after they had reached the house, and John,
at her request, had read the letter aloud.

John did not quite fancy his mother's going, particularly
as Richard had said nothing about it, but Mrs. Markham
was determined.

“It was a good way to make it up with Ethelyn, to be
there when she come to,” she thought, and so, leaving her
house-cleaning to itself, and John to his bread and milk,
of which he never tired, she packed a little travelling bag,
and taking with her a bottle of brandy, started on the next
train for Davenport, where she had never been.

Aunt Barbara was not cleaning house. She was cutting
dried caraway seed in the garden, and thinking of Ethie
and wondering why she did not write, and hoping that
when she did she would say that she had talked with Richard,
and made the matter up. Ever since hearing that he
was at Clifton, in the room next to Ethie, Aunt Barbara had
counted upon a speedy reconciliation, and done many things
with a direct reference to that reconciliation. The best
chamber was kept constantly aired, with bouquets of flowers
in it, in case the happy pair, “as good as just married,”
should come suddenly upon her. Ethie's favorite loaf cake
was kept on hand, and Aunt Barbara was in a constant state
of expectancy, so she was not in the least surprised when
Charlie Howard looked over the garden gate with “Got a
letter for you.”

“It ain't from her. It's from,—why, it's from Richard,
and he is in Davenport,” Aunt Barbara exclaimed, as
she sat down in a garden chair to read the letter which
was not from Ethie.

Richard did not say directly to her that she must
come, but Aunt Barbara felt an innate conviction that
her presence would not be disagreeable, even if Ethie
lived, while “if she died,” and Aunt Barbara's heart
gave a great throb as she thought it, “if Ethie dies,
I must be there,” and so her trunk was packed for the
third time in Ethie's behalf, and the next day's train
from Boston carried the good woman on her way to
Davenport.