CHAPTER IX
DINNER, AND AFTER IT
Eunice had not fully seen the stranger, and so, 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," etc., 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 as she glanced from him to Eunice and then to Ethelyn, whose proud, dignified 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--ah, 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 homesick 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 they were so very far beneath her that whatsoever they might think was not of the slightest consequence. They were a vulgar, 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. Ethelyn was disgusted, and once, as Richard's well-filled knife was moving toward his mouth, she gently touched his foot with her own; but if he understood her he did not heed her, and went quietly on with his dinner. 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 somehow 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 folks. 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 homesickness? Has anyone 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 anyone, and Mrs. Markham, washing her dishes below stairs, 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, upstairs sobbing among the pillows. 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?"