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If +you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to +it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across +the brick pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked +who he was. + +It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; +and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking +figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was +not so much his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were +easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign +breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a +lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was +something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so +stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was +surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two. I had this +from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to +Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the +families on his line. + +"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's +twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between +reminiscent pauses. + +The "smash-up" it was-I gathered from the same informant-which, +besides drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so +shortened and warped his right side that it cost him a visible +effort to take the few steps from his buggy to the post-office +window. He used to drive in from his farm every day at about noon, +and as that was my own hour for fetching my mail I often passed him +in the porch or stood beside him while we waited on the motions of +the distributing hand behind the grating. I noticed that, though he +came so punctually, he seldom received anything but a copy of the +Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put without a glance into his sagging +pocket. At intervals, however, the post-master would hand him an +envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia-or Mrs. Zeena-Frome, and usually +bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand corner the address of +some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name of his specific. +These documents my neighbour would also pocket without a glance, as +if too much used to them to wonder at their number and variety, and +would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master. + +Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to +his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was +only on rare occasions that one of the older men of the place +detained him for a word. When this happened he would listen quietly, +his blue eyes on the speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone +that his words never reached me; then he would climb stiffly into +his buggy, gather up the reins in his left hand and drive slowly +away in the direction of his farm. + +"It was a pretty bad smash-up?" I questioned Harmon, looking after +Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown +head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong +shoulders before they were bent out of shape. + +"Wust kind," my informant assented. "More'n enough to kill most men. +But the Fromes are tough. Ethan'll likely touch a hundred." + +"Good God!" I exclaimed. At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing +to his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a +wooden box-also with a druggist's label on it-which he had placed in +the back of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when +he thought himself alone. "That man touch a hundred? He looks as if +he was dead and in hell now!" + +Harmon drew a slab of tobacco from his pocket, cut off a wedge and +pressed it into the leather pouch of his cheek. "Guess he's been in +Starkfield too many winters. Most of the smart ones get away." + +"Why didn't he?" + +"Somebody had to stay and care for the folks. There warn't ever +anybody but Ethan. Fust his father-then his mother-then his wife." + +"And then the smash-up?" + +Harmon chuckled sardonically. "That's so. He had to stay then." + +"I see. And since then they've had to care for him?" + +Harmon thoughtfully passed his tobacco to the other cheek. "Oh, as +to that: I guess it's always Ethan done the caring." + +Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his mental and moral +reach permitted there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I +had the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps. +But one phrase stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus about +which I grouped my subsequent inferences: "Guess he's been in +Starkfield too many winters." + +Before my own time there was up I had learned to know what that +meant. Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and +rural delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered +mountain villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as +Bettsbridge and Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. +A. halls to which the youth of the hills could descend for +recreation. But when winter shut down on Starkfield and the village +lay under a sheet of snow perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I +began to see what life there-or rather its negation-must have been +in Ethan Frome's young manhood. + +I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big +power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike +had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at +Starkfield-the nearest habitable spot-for the best part of the +winter. I chafed at first, and then, under the hypnotising effect of +routine, gradually began to find a grim satisfaction in the life. +During the early part of my stay I had been struck by the contrast +between the vitality of the climate and the deadness of the +community. Day by day, after the December snows were over, a blazing +blue sky poured down torrents of light and air on the white +landscape, which gave them back in an intenser glitter. One would +have supposed that such an atmosphere must quicken the emotions as +well as the blood; but it seemed to produce no change except that of +retarding still more the sluggish pulse of Starkfield. When I had +been there a little longer, and had seen this phase of crystal +clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold; when the +storms of February had pitched their white tents about the devoted +village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to +their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its +six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without +quarter. Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been +far fewer, and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of +access between the beleaguered villages; and, considering these +things, I felt the sinister force of Harmon's phrase: "Most of the +smart ones get away." But if that were the case, how could any +combination of obstacles have hindered the flight of a man like +Ethan Frome? + +During my stay at Starkfield I lodged with a middle-aged widow +colloquially known as Mrs. Ned Hale. Mrs. Hale's father had been the +village lawyer of the previous generation, and "lawyer Varnum's +house," where my landlady still lived with her mother, was the most +considerable mansion in the village. It stood at one end of the main +street, its classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a +flagged path between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the +Congregational church. It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at +the ebb, but the two women did what they could to preserve a decent +dignity; and Mrs. Hale, in particular, had a certain wan refinement +not out of keeping with her pale old-fashioned house. + +In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly +illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to +another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield +chronicle. It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any +social superiority to the people about her; it was only that the +accident of a finer sensibility and a little more education had put +just enough distance between herself and her neighbours to enable +her to judge them with detachment. She was not unwilling to exercise +this faculty, and I had great hopes of getting from her the missing +facts of Ethan Frome's story, or rather such a key to his character +as should co-ordinate the facts I knew. Her mind was a store-house +of innocuous anecdote and any question about her acquaintances +brought forth a volume of detail; but on the subject of Ethan Frome +I found her unexpectedly reticent. There was no hint of disapproval +in her reserve; I merely felt in her an insurmountable reluctance to +speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I knew them both... it was +awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession that her distress +could make to my curiosity. + +So marked was the change in her manner, such depths of sad +initiation did it imply, that, with some doubts as to my delicacy, I +put the case anew to my village oracle, Harmon Gow; but got for my +pains only an uncomprehending grunt. + +"Ruth Varnum was always as nervous as a rat; and, come to think of +it, she was the first one to see 'em after they was picked up. It +happened right below lawyer Varnum's, down at the bend of the +Corbury road, just round about the time that Ruth got engaged to Ned +Hale. The young folks was all friends, and I guess she just can't +bear to talk about it. She's had troubles enough of her own." + +All the dwellers in Starkfield, as in more notable communities, had +had troubles enough of their own to make them comparatively +indifferent to those of their neighbours; and though all conceded +that Ethan Frome's had been beyond the common measure, no one gave +me an explanation of the look in his face which, as I persisted in +thinking, neither poverty nor physical suffering could have put +there. Nevertheless, I might have contented myself with the story +pieced together from these hints had it not been for the provocation +of Mrs. Hale's silence, and-a little later-for the accident of +personal contact with the man. + +On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish grocer, who +was the proprietor of Starkfield's nearest approach to a livery +stable, had entered into an agreement to send me over daily to +Corbury Flats, where I had to pick up my train for the Junction. But +about the middle of the winter Eady's horses fell ill of a local +epidemic. The illness spread to the other Starkfield stables and for +a day or two I was put to it to find a means of transport. Then +Harmon Gow suggested that Ethan Frome's bay was still on his legs +and that his owner might be glad to drive me over. + +I stared at the suggestion. "Ethan Frome? But I've never even spoken +to him. Why on earth should he put himself out for me?" + +Harmon's answer surprised me still more. "I don't know as he would; +but I know he wouldn't be sorry to earn a dollar." + +I had been told that Frome was poor, and that the saw-mill and the +arid acres of his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household +through the winter; but I had not supposed him to be in such want as +Harmon's words implied, and I expressed my wonder. + +"Well, matters ain't gone any too well with him," Harmon said. "When +a man's been setting round like a hulk for twenty years or more, +seeing things that want doing, it eats inter him, and he loses his +grit. That Frome farm was always 'bout as bare's a milkpan when the +cat's been round; and you know what one of them old water-mills is +wuth nowadays. When Ethan could sweat over 'em both from sunup to +dark he kinder choked a living out of 'em; but his folks ate up most +everything, even then, and I don't see how he makes out now. Fust +his father got a kick, out haying, and went soft in the brain, and +gave away money like Bible texts afore he died. Then his mother got +queer and dragged along for years as weak as a baby; and his wife +Zeena, she's always been the greatest hand at doctoring in the +county. Sickness and trouble: that's what Ethan's had his plate full +up with, ever since the very first helping." + +The next morning, when I looked out, I saw the hollow-backed bay +between the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his worn +bearskin, made room for me in the sleigh at his side. After that, +for a week, he drove me over every morning to Corbury Flats, and on +my return in the afternoon met me again and carried me back through +the icy night to Starkfield. The distance each way was barely three +miles, but the old bay's pace was slow, and even with firm snow +under the runners we were nearly an hour on the way. Ethan Frome +drove in silence, the reins loosely held in his left hand, his brown +seamed profile, under the helmet-like peak of the cap, relieved +against the banks of snow like the bronze image of a hero. He never +turned his face to mine, or answered, except in monosyllables, the +questions I put, or such slight pleasantries as I ventured. He +seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of +its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast +bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his +silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation +too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his +loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic +as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, +the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters. + +Only once or twice was the distance between us bridged for a moment; +and the glimpses thus gained confirmed my desire to know more. Once +I happened to speak of an engineering job I had been on the previous +year in Florida, and of the contrast between the winter landscape +about us and that in which I had found myself the year before; and +to my surprise Frome said suddenly: "Yes: I was down there once, and +for a good while afterward I could call up the sight of it in +winter. But now it's all snowed under." + +He said no more, and I had to guess the rest from the inflection of +his voice and his sharp relapse into silence. + +Another day, on getting into my train at the Flats, I missed a +volume of popular science-I think it was on some recent discoveries +in bio-chemistry-which I had carried with me to read on the way. I +thought no more about it till I got into the sleigh again that +evening, and saw the book in Frome's hand. + +"I found it after you were gone," he said. + +I put the volume into my pocket and we dropped back into our usual +silence; but as we began to crawl up the long hill from Corbury +Flats to the Starkfield ridge I became aware in the dusk that he had +turned his face to mine. + +"There are things in that book that I didn't know the first word +about," he said. + +I wondered less at his words than at the queer note of resentment in +his voice. He was evidently surprised and slightly aggrieved at his +own ignorance. + +"Does that sort of thing interest you?" I asked. + +"It used to." + +"There are one or two rather new things in the book: there have been +some big strides lately in that particular line of research." I +waited a moment for an answer that did not come; then I said: "If +you'd like to look the book through I'd be glad to leave it with +you." + +He hesitated, and I had the impression that he felt himself about to +yield to a stealing tide of inertia; then, "Thank you-I'll take it," +he answered shortly. + +I hoped that this incident might set up some more direct +communication between us. Frome was so simple and straightforward +that I was sure his curiosity about the book was based on a genuine +interest in its subject. Such tastes and acquirements in a man of +his condition made the contrast more poignant between his outer +situation and his inner needs, and I hoped that the chance of giving +expression to the latter might at least unseal his lips. But +something in his past history, or in his present way of living, had +apparently driven him too deeply into himself for any casual impulse +to draw him back to his kind. At our next meeting he made no +allusion to the book, and our intercourse seemed fated to remain as +negative and one-sided as if there had been no break in his reserve. + +Frome had been driving me over to the Flats for about a week when +one morning I looked out of my window into a thick snow-fall. The +height of the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along +the wall of the church showed that the storm must have been going on +all night, and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open. +I thought it probable that my train would be delayed; but I had to +be at the power-house for an hour or two that afternoon, and I +decided, if Frome turned up, to push through to the Flats and wait +there till my train came in. I don't know why I put it in the +conditional, however, for I never doubted that Frome would appear. +He was not the kind of man to be turned from his business by any +commotion of the elements; and at the appointed hour his sleigh +glided up through the snow like a stage-apparition behind thickening +veils of gauze. + +I was getting to know him too well to express either wonder or +gratitude at his keeping his appointment; but I exclaimed in +surprise as I saw him turn his horse in a direction opposite to that +of the Corbury road. + +"The railroad's blocked by a freight-train that got stuck in a drift +below the Flats," he explained, as we jogged off into the stinging +whiteness. + +"But look here-where are you taking me, then?" + +"Straight to the Junction, by the shortest way," he answered, +pointing up School House Hill with his whip. + +"To the Junction-in this storm? Why, it's a good ten miles!" + +"The bay'll do it if you give him time. You said you had some +business there this afternoon. I'll see you get there." + +He said it so quietly that I could only answer: "You're doing me the +biggest kind of a favour." + +"That's all right," he rejoined. + +Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a +lane to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks +by the weight of the snow. I had often walked that way on Sundays, +and knew that the solitary roof showing through bare branches near +the bottom of the hill was that of Frome's saw-mill. It looked +exanimate enough, with its idle wheel looming above the black stream +dashed with yellow-white spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging +under their white load. Frome did not even turn his head as we drove +by, and still in silence we began to mount the next slope. About a +mile farther, on a road I had never travelled, we came to an orchard +of starved apple-trees writhing over a hillside among outcroppings +of slate that nuzzled up through the snow like animals pushing out +their noses to breathe. Beyond the orchard lay a field or two, their +boundaries lost under drifts; and above the fields, huddled against +the white immensities of land and sky, one of those lonely New +England farm-houses that make the landscape lonelier. + +"That's my place," said Frome, with a sideway jerk of his lame +elbow; and in the distress and oppression of the scene I did not +know what to answer. The snow had ceased, and a flash of watery +sunlight exposed the house on the slope above us in all its +plaintive ugliness. The black wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped +from the porch, and the thin wooden walls, under their worn coat of +paint, seemed to shiver in the wind that had risen with the ceasing +of the snow. + +"The house was bigger in my father's time: I had to take down the +'L,' a while back," Frome continued, checking with a twitch of the +left rein the bay's evident intention of turning in through the +broken-down gate. + +I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house +was partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the +"L": that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to +the main house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and +tool-house, with the wood-shed and cow-barn. Whether because of its +symbolic sense, the image it presents of a life linked with the +soil, and enclosing in itself the chief sources of warmth and +nourishment, or whether merely because of the consolatory thought +that it enables the dwellers in that harsh climate to get to their +morning's work without facing the weather, it is certain that the +"L" rather than the house itself seems to be the centre, the actual +hearth-stone of the New England farm. Perhaps this connection of +ideas, which had often occurred to me in my rambles about +Starkfield, caused me to hear a wistful note in Frome's words, and +to see in the diminished dwelling the image of his own shrunken +body. + +"We're kinder side-tracked here now," he added, "but there was +considerable passing before the railroad was carried through to the +Flats." He roused the lagging bay with another twitch; then, as if +the mere sight of the house had let me too deeply into his +confidence for any farther pretence of reserve, he went on slowly: +"I've always set down the worst of mother's trouble to that. When +she got the rheumatism so bad she couldn't move around she used to +sit up there and watch the road by the hour; and one year, when they +was six months mending the Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and +Harmon Gow had to bring his stage round this way, she picked up so +that she used to get down to the gate most days to see him. But +after the trains begun running nobody ever come by here to speak of, +and mother never could get it through her head what had happened, +and it preyed on her right along till she died." + +As we turned into the Corbury road the snow began to fall again, +cutting off our last glimpse of the house; and Frome's silence fell +with it, letting down between us the old veil of reticence. This +time the wind did not cease with the return of the snow. Instead, it +sprang up to a gale which now and then, from a tattered sky, flung +pale sweeps of sunlight over a landscape chaotically tossed. But the +bay was as good as Frome's word, and we pushed on to the Junction +through the wild white scene. + +In the afternoon the storm held off, and the clearness in the west +seemed to my inexperienced eye the pledge of a fair evening. I +finished my business as quickly as possible, and we set out for +Starkfield with a good chance of getting there for supper. But at +sunset the clouds gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the +snow began to fall straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in +a soft universal diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies +of the morning. It seemed to be a part of the thickening darkness, +to be the winter night itself descending on us layer by layer. + +The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering +medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing +instinct, finally ceased to serve us. Two or three times some +ghostly landmark sprang up to warn us that we were astray, and then +was sucked back into the mist; and when we finally regained our road +the old horse began to show signs of exhaustion. I felt myself to +blame for having accepted Frome's offer, and after a short +discussion I persuaded him to let me get out of the sleigh and walk +along through the snow at the bay's side. In this way we struggled +on for another mile or two, and at last reached a point where Frome, +peering into what seemed to me formless night, said: "That's my gate +down yonder." + +The last stretch had been the hardest part of the way. The bitter +cold and the heavy going had nearly knocked the wind out of me, and +I could feel the horse's side ticking like a clock under my hand. + +"Look here, Frome," I began, "there's no earthly use in your going +any farther-" but he interrupted me: "Nor you neither. There's been +about enough of this for anybody." + +I understood that he was offering me a night's shelter at the farm, +and without answering I turned into the gate at his side, and +followed him to the barn, where I helped him to unharness and bed +down the tired horse. When this was done he unhooked the lantern +from the sleigh, stepped out again into the night, and called to me +over his shoulder: "This way." + +Far off above us a square of light trembled through the screen of +snow. Staggering along in Frome's wake I floundered toward it, and +in the darkness almost fell into one of the deep drifts against the +front of the house. Frome scrambled up the slippery steps of the +porch, digging a way through the snow with his heavily booted foot. +Then he lifted his lantern, found the latch, and led the way into +the house. I went after him into a low unlit passage, at the back of +which a ladder-like staircase rose into obscurity. On our right a +line of light marked the door of the room which had sent its ray +across the night; and behind the door I heard a woman's voice +droning querulously. + +Frome stamped on the worn oil-cloth to shake the snow from his +boots, and set down his lantern on a kitchen chair which was the +only piece of furniture in the hall. Then he opened the door. + +"Come in," he said; and as he spoke the droning voice grew still... + +It was that night that I found the clue to Ethan Frome, and began to +put together this vision of his story. + + + + + + +I + + + + + +The village lay under two feet of snow, with drifts at the windy +corners. In a sky of iron the points of the Dipper hung like icicles +and Orion flashed his cold fires. The moon had set, but the night +was so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms +looked gray against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on +it, and the basement windows of the church sent shafts of yellow +light far across the endless undulations. + +Young Ethan Frome walked at a quick pace along the deserted street, +past the bank and Michael Eady's new brick store and Lawyer Varnum's +house with the two black Norway spruces at the gate. Opposite the +Varnum gate, where the road fell away toward the Corbury valley, the +church reared its slim white steeple and narrow peristyle. As the +young man walked toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade +along the side wall of the building, but from the lower openings, on +the side where the ground sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, +the light shot its long bars, illuminating many fresh furrows in the +track leading to the basement door, and showing, under an adjoining +shed, a line of sleighs with heavily blanketed horses. + +The night was perfectly still, and the air so dry and pure that it +gave little sensation of cold. The effect produced on Frome was +rather of a complete absence of atmosphere, as though nothing less +tenuous than ether intervened between the white earth under his feet +and the metallic dome overhead. "It's like being in an exhausted +receiver," he thought. Four or five years earlier he had taken a +year's course at a technological college at Worcester, and dabbled +in the laboratory with a friendly professor of physics; and the +images supplied by that experience still cropped up, at unexpected +moments, through the totally different associations of thought in +which he had since been living. His father's death, and the +misfortunes following it, had put a premature end to Ethan's +studies; but though they had not gone far enough to be of much +practical use they had fed his fancy and made him aware of huge +cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things. + +As he strode along through the snow the sense of such meanings +glowed in his brain and mingled with the bodily flush produced by +his sharp tramp. At the end of the village he paused before the +darkened front of the church. He stood there a moment, breathing +quickly, and looking up and down the street, in which not another +figure moved. The pitch of the Corbury road, below lawyer Varnum's +spruces, was the favourite coasting-ground of Starkfield, and on +clear evenings the church corner rang till late with the shouts of +the coasters; but to-night not a sled darkened the whiteness of the +long declivity. The hush of midnight lay on the village, and all its +waking life was gathered behind the church windows, from which +strains of dance-music flowed with the broad bands of yellow light. + +The young man, skirting the side of the building, went down the +slope toward the basement door. To keep out of range of the +revealing rays from within he made a circuit through the untrodden +snow and gradually approached the farther angle of the basement +wall. Thence, still hugging the shadow, he edged his way cautiously +forward to the nearest window, holding back his straight spare body +and craning his neck till he got a glimpse of the room. + +Seen thus, from the pure and frosty darkness in which he stood, it +seemed to be seething in a mist of heat. The metal reflectors of the +gas-jets sent crude waves of light against the whitewashed walls, +and the iron flanks of the stove at the end of the hall looked as +though they were heaving with volcanic fires. The floor was thronged +with girls and young men. Down the side wall facing the window stood +a row of kitchen chairs from which the older women had just risen. +By this time the music had stopped, and the musicians-a fiddler, and +the young lady who played the harmonium on Sundays-were hastily +refreshing themselves at one corner of the supper-table which +aligned its devastated pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the +platform at the end of the hall. The guests were preparing to leave, +and the tide had already set toward the passage where coats and +wraps were hung, when a young man with a sprightly foot and a shock +of black hair shot into the middle of the floor and clapped his +hands. The signal took instant effect. The musicians hurried to +their instruments, the dancers-some already half-muffled for +departure-fell into line down each side of the room, the older +spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young man, +after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl +who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head, +and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its +length to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel. + +Frome's heart was beating fast. He had been straining for a glimpse +of the dark head under the cherry-coloured scarf and it vexed him +that another eye should have been quicker than his. The leader of +the reel, who looked as if he had Irish blood in his veins, danced +well, and his partner caught his fire. As she passed down the line, +her light figure swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing +swiftness, the scarf flew off her head and stood out behind her +shoulders, and Frome, at each turn, caught sight of her laughing +panting lips, the cloud of dark hair about her forehead, and the +dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points in a maze of flying +lines. + +The dancers were going faster and faster, and the musicians, to keep +up with them, belaboured their instruments like jockeys lashing +their mounts on the home-stretch; yet it seemed to the young man at +the window that the reel would never end. Now and then he turned his +eyes from the girl's face to that of her partner, which, in the +exhilaration of the dance, had taken on a look of almost impudent +ownership. Denis Eady was the son of Michael Eady, the ambitious +Irish grocer, whose suppleness and effrontery had given Starkfield +its first notion of "smart" business methods, and whose new brick +store testified to the success of the attempt. His son seemed likely +to follow in his steps, and was meanwhile applying the same arts to +the conquest of the Starkfield maidenhood. Hitherto Ethan Frome had +been content to think him a mean fellow; but now he positively +invited a horse-whipping. It was strange that the girl did not seem +aware of it: that she could lift her rapt face to her dancer's, and +drop her hands into his, without appearing to feel the offence of +his look and touch. + +Frome was in the habit of walking into Starkfield to fetch home his +wife's cousin, Mattie Silver, on the rare evenings when some chance +of amusement drew her to the village. It was his wife who had +suggested, when the girl came to live with them, that such +opportunities should be put in her way. Mattie Silver came from +Stamford, and when she entered the Fromes' household to act as her +cousin Zeena's aid it was thought best, as she came without pay, not +to let her feel too sharp a contrast between the life she had left +and the isolation of a Starkfield farm. But for this-as Frome +sardonically reflected-it would hardly have occurred to Zeena to +take any thought for the girl's amusement. + +When his wife first proposed that they should give Mattie an +occasional evening out he had inwardly demurred at having to do the +extra two miles to the village and back after his hard day on the +farm; but not long afterward he had reached the point of wishing +that Starkfield might give all its nights to revelry. + +Mattie Silver had lived under his roof for a year, and from early +morning till they met at supper he had frequent chances of seeing +her; but no moments in her company were comparable to those when, +her arm in his, and her light step flying to keep time with his long +stride, they walked back through the night to the farm. He had taken +to the girl from the first day, when he had driven over to the Flats +to meet her, and she had smiled and waved to him from the train, +crying out, "You must be Ethan!" as she jumped down with her +bundles, while he reflected, looking over her slight person: "She +don't look much on housework, but she ain't a fretter, anyhow." But +it was not only that the coming to his house of a bit of hopeful +young life was like the lighting of a fire on a cold hearth. The +girl was more than the bright serviceable creature he had thought +her. She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her +things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all +he imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at +will. + +It was during their night walks back to the farm that he felt most +intensely the sweetness of this communion. He had always been more +sensitive than the people about him to the appeal of natural beauty. +His unfinished studies had given form to this sensibility and even +in his unhappiest moments field and sky spoke to him with a deep and +powerful persuasion. But hitherto the emotion had remained in him as +a silent ache, veiling with sadness the beauty that evoked it. He +did not even know whether any one else in the world felt as he did, +or whether he was the sole victim of this mournful privilege. Then +he learned that one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of +wonder: that at his side, living under his roof and eating his +bread, was a creature to whom he could say: "That's Orion down +yonder; the big fellow to the right is Aldebaran, and the bunch of +little ones-like bees swarming-they're the Pleiades..." or whom he +could hold entranced before a ledge of granite thrusting up through +the fern while he unrolled the huge panorama of the ice age, and the +long dim stretches of succeeding time. The fact that admiration for +his learning mingled with Mattie's wonder at what he taught was not +the least part of his pleasure. And there were other sensations, +less definable but more exquisite, which drew them together with a +shock of silent joy: the cold red of sunset behind winter hills, the +flight of cloud-flocks over slopes of golden stubble, or the +intensely blue shadows of hemlocks on sunlit snow. When she said to +him once: "It looks just as if it was painted!" it seemed to Ethan +that the art of definition could go no farther, and that words had +at last been found to utter his secret soul.... + +As he stood in the darkness outside the church these memories came +back with the poignancy of vanished things. Watching Mattie whirl +down the floor from hand to hand he wondered how he could ever have +thought that his dull talk interested her. To him, who was never gay +but in her presence, her gaiety seemed plain proof of indifference. +The face she lifted to her dancers was the same which, when she saw +him, always looked like a window that has caught the sunset. He even +noticed two or three gestures which, in his fatuity, he had thought +she kept for him: a way of throwing her head back when she was +amused, as if to taste her laugh before she let it out, and a trick +of sinking her lids slowly when anything charmed or moved her. + +The sight made him unhappy, and his unhappiness roused his latent +fears. His wife had never shown any jealousy of Mattie, but of late +she had grumbled increasingly over the house-work and found oblique +ways of attracting attention to the girl's inefficiency. Zeena had +always been what Starkfield called "sickly," and Frome had to admit +that, if she were as ailing as she believed, she needed the help of +a stronger arm than the one which lay so lightly in his during the +night walks to the farm. Mattie had no natural turn for +housekeeping, and her training had done nothing to remedy the +defect. She was quick to learn, but forgetful and dreamy, and not +disposed to take the matter seriously. Ethan had an idea that if she +were to marry a man she was fond of the dormant instinct would wake, +and her pies and biscuits become the pride of the county; but +domesticity in the abstract did not interest her. At first she was +so awkward that he could not help laughing at her; but she laughed +with him and that made them better friends. He did his best to +supplement her unskilled efforts, getting up earlier than usual to +light the kitchen fire, carrying in the wood overnight, and +neglecting the mill for the farm that he might help her about the +house during the day. He even crept down on Saturday nights to scrub +the kitchen floor after the women had gone to bed; and Zeena, one +day, had surprised him at the churn and had turned away silently, +with one of her queer looks. + +Of late there had been other signs of her disfavour, as intangible +but more disquieting. One cold winter morning, as he dressed in the +dark, his candle flickering in the draught of the ill-fitting +window, he had heard her speak from the bed behind him. + +"The doctor don't want I should be left without anybody to do for +me," she said in her flat whine. + +He had supposed her to be asleep, and the sound of her voice had +startled him, though she was given to abrupt explosions of speech +after long intervals of secretive silence. + +He turned and looked at her where she lay indistinctly outlined +under the dark calico quilt, her high-boned face taking a grayish +tinge from the whiteness of the pillow. + +"Nobody to do for you?" he repeated. + +"If you say you can't afford a hired girl when Mattie goes." + +Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch +the reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass +above the wash-stand. + +"Why on earth should Mattie go?" + +"Well, when she gets married, I mean," his wife's drawl came from +behind him. + +"Oh, she'd never leave us as long as you needed her," he returned, +scraping hard at his chin. + +"I wouldn't ever have it said that I stood in the way of a poor girl +like Mattie marrying a smart fellow like Denis Eady," Zeena answered +in a tone of plaintive self-effacement. + +Ethan, glaring at his face in the glass, threw his head back to draw +the razor from ear to chin. His hand was steady, but the attitude +was an excuse for not making an immediate reply. + +"And the doctor don't want I should be left without anybody," Zeena +continued. "He wanted I should speak to you about a girl he's heard +about, that might come-" + +Ethan laid down the razor and straightened himself with a laugh. + +"Denis Eady! If that's all, I guess there's no such hurry to look +round for a girl." + +"Well, I'd like to talk to you about it," said Zeena obstinately. + +He was getting into his clothes in fumbling haste. "All right. But I +haven't got the time now; I'm late as it is," he returned, holding +his old silver turnip-watch to the candle. + +Zeena, apparently accepting this as final, lay watching him in +silence while he pulled his suspenders over his shoulders and jerked +his arms into his coat; but as he went toward the door she said, +suddenly and incisively: "I guess you're always late, now you shave +every morning." + +That thrust had frightened him more than any vague insinuations +about Denis Eady. It was a fact that since Mattie Silver's coming he +had taken to shaving every day; but his wife always seemed to be +asleep when he left her side in the winter darkness, and he had +stupidly assumed that she would not notice any change in his +appearance. Once or twice in the past he had been faintly disquieted +by Zenobia's way of letting things happen without seeming to remark +them, and then, weeks afterward, in a casual phrase, revealing that +she had all along taken her notes and drawn her inferences. Of late, +however, there had been no room in his thoughts for such vague +apprehensions. Zeena herself, from an oppressive reality, had faded +into an insubstantial shade. All his life was lived in the sight and +sound of Mattie Silver, and he could no longer conceive of its being +otherwise. But now, as he stood outside the church, and saw Mattie +spinning down the floor with Denis Eady, a throng of disregarded +hints and menaces wove their cloud about his brain.... + + + + + + +II + + + + + +As the dancers poured out of the hall Frome, drawing back behind the +projecting storm-door, watched the segregation of the grotesquely +muffled groups, in which a moving lantern ray now and then lit up a +face flushed with food and dancing. The villagers, being afoot, were +the first to climb the slope to the main street, while the country +neighbours packed themselves more slowly into the sleighs under the +shed. + +"Ain't you riding, Mattie?" a woman's voice called back from the +throng about the shed, and Ethan's heart gave a jump. From where he +stood he could not see the persons coming out of the hall till they +had advanced a few steps beyond the wooden sides of the storm-door; +but through its cracks he heard a clear voice answer: "Mercy no! Not +on such a night." + +She was there, then, close to him, only a thin board between. In +another moment she would step forth into the night, and his eyes, +accustomed to the obscurity, would discern her as clearly as though +she stood in daylight. A wave of shyness pulled him back into the +dark angle of the wall, and he stood there in silence instead of +making his presence known to her. It had been one of the wonders of +their intercourse that from the first, she, the quicker, finer, more +expressive, instead of crushing him by the contrast, had given him +something of her own ease and freedom; but now he felt as heavy and +loutish as in his student days, when he had tried to "jolly" the +Worcester girls at a picnic. + +He hung back, and she came out alone and paused within a few yards +of him. She was almost the last to leave the hall, and she stood +looking uncertainly about her as if wondering why he did not show +himself. Then a man's figure approached, coming so close to her that +under their formless wrappings they seemed merged in one dim +outline. + +"Gentleman friend gone back on you? Say, Matt, that's tough! No, I +wouldn't be mean enough to tell the other girls. I ain't as low-down +as that." (How Frome hated his cheap banter!) "But look a here, +ain't it lucky I got the old man's cutter down there waiting for +us?" + +Frome heard the girl's voice, gaily incredulous: "What on earth's +your father's cutter doin' down there?" + +"Why, waiting for me to take a ride. I got the roan colt too. I +kinder knew I'd want to take a ride to-night," Eady, in his triumph, +tried to put a sentimental note into his bragging voice. + +The girl seemed to waver, and Frome saw her twirl the end of her +scarf irresolutely about her fingers. Not for the world would he +have made a sign to her, though it seemed to him that his life hung +on her next gesture. + +"Hold on a minute while I unhitch the colt," Denis called to her, +springing toward the shed. + +She stood perfectly still, looking after him, in an attitude of +tranquil expectancy torturing to the hidden watcher. Frome noticed +that she no longer turned her head from side to side, as though +peering through the night for another figure. She let Denis Eady +lead out the horse, climb into the cutter and fling back the +bearskin to make room for her at his side; then, with a swift motion +of flight, she turned about and darted up the slope toward the front +of the church. + +"Good-bye! Hope you'll have a lovely ride!" she called back to him +over her shoulder. + +Denis laughed, and gave the horse a cut that brought him quickly +abreast of her retreating figure. + +"Come along! Get in quick! It's as slippery as thunder on this +turn," he cried, leaning over to reach out a hand to her. + +She laughed back at him: "Good-night! I'm not getting in." + +By this time they had passed beyond Frome's earshot and he could +only follow the shadowy pantomime of their silhouettes as they +continued to move along the crest of the slope above him. He saw +Eady, after a moment, jump from the cutter and go toward the girl +with the reins over one arm. The other he tried to slip through +hers; but she eluded him nimbly, and Frome's heart, which had swung +out over a black void, trembled back to safety. A moment later he +heard the jingle of departing sleigh bells and discerned a figure +advancing alone toward the empty expanse of snow before the church. + +In the black shade of the Varnum spruces he caught up with her and +she turned with a quick "Oh!" + +"Think I'd forgotten you, Matt?" he asked with sheepish glee. + +She answered seriously: "I thought maybe you couldn't come back for +me." + +"Couldn't? What on earth could stop me?" + +"I knew Zeena wasn't feeling any too good to-day." + +"Oh, she's in bed long ago." He paused, a question struggling in +him. "Then you meant to walk home all alone?" + +"Oh, I ain't afraid!" she laughed. + +They stood together in the gloom of the spruces, an empty world +glimmering about them wide and grey under the stars. He brought his +question out. + +"If you thought I hadn't come, why didn't you ride back with Denis +Eady?" + +"Why, where were you? How did you know? I never saw you!" + +Her wonder and his laughter ran together like spring rills in a +thaw. Ethan had the sense of having done something arch and +ingenious. To prolong the effect he groped for a dazzling phrase, +and brought out, in a growl of rapture: "Come along." + +He slipped an arm through hers, as Eady had done, and fancied it was +faintly pressed against her side. but neither of them moved. It was +so dark under the spruces that he could barely see the shape of her +head beside his shoulder. He longed to stoop his cheek and rub it +against her scarf. He would have liked to stand there with her all +night in the blackness. She moved forward a step or two and then +paused again above the dip of the Corbury road. Its icy slope, +scored by innumerable runners, looked like a mirror scratched by +travellers at an inn. + +"There was a whole lot of them coasting before the moon set," she +said. + +"Would you like to come in and coast with them some night?" he +asked. + +"Oh, would you, Ethan? It would be lovely!" + +"We'll come to-morrow if there's a moon." + +She lingered, pressing closer to his side. "Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum +came just as near running into the big elm at the bottom. We were +all sure they were killed." Her shiver ran down his arm. "Wouldn't +it have been too awful? They're so happy!" + +"Oh, Ned ain't much at steering. I guess I can take you down all +right!" he said disdainfully. + +He was aware that he was "talking big," like Denis Eady; but his +reaction of joy had unsteadied him, and the inflection with which +she had said of the engaged couple "They're so happy!" made the +words sound as if she had been thinking of herself and him. + +"The elm is dangerous, though. It ought to be cut down," she +insisted. + +"Would you be afraid of it, with me?" + +"I told you I ain't the kind to be afraid" she tossed back, almost +indifferently; and suddenly she began to walk on with a rapid step. + +These alterations of mood were the despair and joy of Ethan Frome. +The motions of her mind were as incalculable as the flit of a bird +in the branches. The fact that he had no right to show his feelings, +and thus provoke the expression of hers, made him attach a fantastic +importance to every change in her look and tone. Now he thought she +understood him, and feared; now he was sure she did not, and +despaired. To-night the pressure of accumulated misgivings sent the +scale drooping toward despair, and her indifference was the more +chilling after the flush of joy into which she had plunged him by +dismissing Denis Eady. He mounted School House Hill at her side and +walked on in silence till they reached the lane leading to the +saw-mill; then the need of some definite assurance grew too strong +for him. + +"You'd have found me right off if you hadn't gone back to have that +last reel with Denis," he brought out awkwardly. He could not +pronounce the name without a stiffening of the muscles of his +throat. + +"Why, Ethan, how could I tell you were there?" + +"I suppose what folks say is true," he jerked out at her, instead of +answering. + +She stopped short, and he felt, in the darkness, that her face was +lifted quickly to his. "Why, what do folks say?" + +"It's natural enough you should be leaving us" he floundered on, +following his thought. + +"Is that what they say?" she mocked back at him; then, with a sudden +drop of her sweet treble: "You mean that Zeena-ain't suited with me +any more?" she faltered. + +Their arms had slipped apart and they stood motionless, each seeking +to distinguish the other's face. + +"I know I ain't anything like as smart as I ought to be," she went +on, while he vainly struggled for expression. "There's lots of +things a hired girl could do that come awkward to me still-and I +haven't got much strength in my arms. But if she'd only tell me I'd +try. You know she hardly ever says anything, and sometimes I can see +she ain't suited, and yet I don't know why." She turned on him with +a sudden flash of indignation. "You'd ought to tell me, Ethan +Frome-you'd ought to! Unless you want me to go too-" + +Unless he wanted her to go too! The cry was balm to his raw wound. +The iron heavens seemed to melt and rain down sweetness. Again he +struggled for the all-expressive word, and again, his arm in hers, +found only a deep "Come along." + +They walked on in silence through the blackness of the +hemlock-shaded lane, where Ethan's sawmill gloomed through the +night, and out again into the comparative clearness of the fields. +On the farther side of the hemlock belt the open country rolled away +before them grey and lonely under the stars. Sometimes their way led +them under the shade of an overhanging bank or through the thin +obscurity of a clump of leafless trees. Here and there a farmhouse +stood far back among the fields, mute and cold as a grave-stone. The +night was so still that they heard the frozen snow crackle under +their feet. The crash of a loaded branch falling far off in the +woods reverberated like a musket-shot, and once a fox barked, and +Mattie shrank closer to Ethan, and quickened her steps. + +At length they sighted the group of larches at Ethan's gate, and as +they drew near it the sense that the walk was over brought back his +words. + +"Then you don't want to leave us, Matt?" + +He had to stoop his head to catch her stifled whisper: "Where'd I +go, if I did?" + +The answer sent a pang through him but the tone suffused him with +joy. He forgot what else he had meant to say and pressed her against +him so closely that he seemed to feel her warmth in his veins. + +"You ain't crying are you, Matt?" + +"No, of course I'm not," she quavered. + +They turned in at the gate and passed under the shaded knoll where, +enclosed in a low fence, the Frome grave-stones slanted at crazy +angles through the snow. Ethan looked at them curiously. For years +that quiet company had mocked his restlessness, his desire for +change and freedom. "We never got away-how should you?" seemed to be +written on every headstone; and whenever he went in or out of his +gate he thought with a shiver: "I shall just go on living here till +I join them." But now all desire for change had vanished, and the +sight of the little enclosure gave him a warm sense of continuance +and stability. + +"I guess we'll never let you go, Matt," he whispered, as though even +the dead, lovers once, must conspire with him to keep her; and +brushing by the graves, he thought: "We'll always go on living here +together, and some day she'll lie there beside me." + +He let the vision possess him as they climbed the hill to the house. +He was never so happy with her as when he abandoned himself to these +dreams. Half-way up the slope Mattie stumbled against some unseen +obstruction and clutched his sleeve to steady herself. The wave of +warmth that went through him was like the prolongation of his +vision. For the first time he stole his arm about her, and she did +not resist. They walked on as if they were floating on a summer +stream. + +Zeena always went to bed as soon as she had had her supper, and the +shutterless windows of the house were dark. A dead cucumber-vine +dangled from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for +a death, and the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was +there for Zeena-" Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in +their bedroom asleep, her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a +tumbler by the bed... + +They walked around to the back of the house, between the rigid +gooseberry bushes. It was Zeena's habit, when they came back late +from the village, to leave the key of the kitchen door under the +mat. Ethan stood before the door, his head heavy with dreams, his +arm still about Mattie. "Matt-" he began, not knowing what he meant +to say. + +She slipped out of his hold without speaking, and he stooped down +and felt for the key. + +"It's not there!" he said, straightening himself with a start. + +They strained their eyes at each other through the icy darkness. +Such a thing had never happened before. + +"Maybe she's forgotten it," Mattie said in a tremulous whisper; but +both of them knew that it was not like Zeena to forget. + +"It might have fallen off into the snow," Mattie continued, after a +pause during which they had stood intently listening. + +"It must have been pushed off, then," he rejoined in the same tone. +Another wild thought tore through him. What if tramps had been +there-what if... + +Again he listened, fancying he heard a distant sound in the house; +then he felt in his pocket for a match, and kneeling down, passed +its light slowly over the rough edges of snow about the doorstep. + +He was still kneeling when his eyes, on a level with the lower panel +of the door, caught a faint ray beneath it. Who could be stirring in +that silent house? He heard a step on the stairs, and again for an +instant the thought of tramps tore through him. Then the door opened +and he saw his wife. + +Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and +angular, one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast, +while the other held a lamp. The light, on a level with her chin, +drew out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting +wrist of the hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened +fantastically the hollows and prominences of her high-boned face +under its ring of crimping-pins. To Ethan, still in the rosy haze of +his hour with Mattie, the sight came with the intense precision of +the last dream before waking. He felt as if he had never before +known what his wife looked like. + +She drew aside without speaking, and Mattie and Ethan passed into +the kitchen, which had the deadly chill of a vault after the dry +cold of the night. + +"Guess you forgot about us, Zeena," Ethan joked, stamping the snow +from his boots. + +"No. I just felt so mean I couldn't sleep." + +Mattie came forward, unwinding her wraps, the colour of the cherry +scarf in her fresh lips and cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Zeena! Isn't +there anything I can do?" + +"No; there's nothing." Zeena turned away from her. "You might 'a' +shook off that snow outside," she said to her husband. + +She walked out of the kitchen ahead of them and pausing in the hall +raised the lamp at arm's-length, as if to light them up the stairs. + +Ethan paused also, affecting to fumble for the peg on which he hung +his coat and cap. The doors of the two bedrooms faced each other +across the narrow upper landing, and to-night it was peculiarly +repugnant to him that Mattie should see him follow Zeena. + +"I guess I won't come up yet awhile," he said, turning as if to go +back to the kitchen. + +Zeena stopped short and looked at him. "For the land's sake-what you +going to do down here?" + +"I've got the mill accounts to go over." + +She continued to stare at him, the flame of the unshaded lamp +bringing out with microscopic cruelty the fretful lines of her face. + +"At this time o' night? You'll ketch your death. The fire's out long +ago." + +Without answering he moved away toward the kitchen. As he did so his +glance crossed Mattie's and he fancied that a fugitive warning +gleamed through her lashes. The next moment they sank to her flushed +cheeks and she began to mount the stairs ahead of Zeena. + +"That's so. It is powerful cold down here," Ethan assented; and with +lowered head he went up in his wife's wake, and followed her across +the threshold of their room. + + + + + + +III + + + + + +There was some hauling to be done at the lower end of the wood-lot, +and Ethan was out early the next day. + +The winter morning was as clear as crystal. The sunrise burned red +in a pure sky, the shadows on the rim of the wood-lot were darkly +blue, and beyond the white and scintillating fields patches of +far-off forest hung like smoke. + +It was in the early morning stillness, when his muscles were +swinging to their familiar task and his lungs expanding with long +draughts of mountain air, that Ethan did his clearest thinking. He +and Zeena had not exchanged a word after the door of their room had +closed on them. She had measured out some drops from a +medicine-bottle on a chair by the bed and, after swallowing them, +and wrapping her head in a piece of yellow flannel, had lain down +with her face turned away. Ethan undressed hurriedly and blew out +the light so that he should not see her when he took his place at +her side. As he lay there he could hear Mattie moving about in her +room, and her candle, sending its small ray across the landing, drew +a scarcely perceptible line of light under his door. He kept his +eyes fixed on the light till it vanished. Then the room grew +perfectly black, and not a sound was audible but Zeena's asthmatic +breathing. Ethan felt confusedly that there were many things he +ought to think about, but through his tingling veins and tired brain +only one sensation throbbed: the warmth of Mattie's shoulder against +his. Why had he not kissed her when he held her there? A few hours +earlier he would not have asked himself the question. Even a few +minutes earlier, when they had stood alone outside the house, he +would not have dared to think of kissing her. But since he had seen +her lips in the lamplight he felt that they were his. + +Now, in the bright morning air, her face was still before him. It +was part of the sun's red and of the pure glitter on the snow. How +the girl had changed since she had come to Starkfield! He remembered +what a colourless slip of a thing she had looked the day he had met +her at the station. And all the first winter, how she had shivered +with cold when the northerly gales shook the thin clapboards and the +snow beat like hail against the loose-hung windows! + +He had been afraid that she would hate the hard life, the cold and +loneliness; but not a sign of discontent escaped her. Zeena took the +view that Mattie was bound to make the best of Starkfield since she +hadn't any other place to go to; but this did not strike Ethan as +conclusive. Zeena, at any rate, did not apply the principle in her +own case. + +He felt all the more sorry for the girl because misfortune had, in a +sense, indentured her to them. Mattie Silver was the daughter of a +cousin of Zenobia Frome's, who had inflamed his clan with mingled +sentiments of envy and admiration by descending from the hills to +Connecticut, where he had married a Stamford girl and succeeded to +her father's thriving "drug" business. Unhappily Orin Silver, a man +of far-reaching aims, had died too soon to prove that the end +justifies the means. His accounts revealed merely what the means had +been; and these were such that it was fortunate for his wife and +daughter that his books were examined only after his impressive +funeral. His wife died of the disclosure, and Mattie, at twenty, was +left alone to make her way on the fifty dollars obtained from the +sale of her piano. For this purpose her equipment, though varied, +was inadequate. She could trim a hat, make molasses candy, recite +"Curfew shall not ring to-night," and play "The Lost Chord" and a +pot-pourri from "Carmen." When she tried to extend the field of her +activities in the direction of stenography and book-keeping her +health broke down, and six months on her feet behind the counter of +a department store did not tend to restore it. Her nearest relations +had been induced to place their savings in her father's hands, and +though, after his death, they ungrudgingly acquitted themselves of +the Christian duty of returning good for evil by giving his daughter +all the advice at their disposal, they could hardly be expected to +supplement it by material aid. But when Zenobia's doctor recommended +her looking about for some one to help her with the house-work the +clan instantly saw the chance of exacting a compensation from +Mattie. Zenobia, though doubtful of the girl's efficiency, was +tempted by the freedom to find fault without much risk of losing +her; and so Mattie came to Starkfield. + +Zenobia's fault-finding was of the silent kind, but not the less +penetrating for that. During the first months Ethan alternately +burned with the desire to see Mattie defy her and trembled with fear +of the result. Then the situation grew less strained. The pure air, +and the long summer hours in the open, gave back life and elasticity +to Mattie, and Zeena, with more leisure to devote to her complex +ailments, grew less watchful of the girl's omissions; so that Ethan, +struggling on under the burden of his barren farm and failing +saw-mill, could at least imagine that peace reigned in his house. + +There was really, even now, no tangible evidence to the contrary; +but since the previous night a vague dread had hung on his sky-line. +It was formed of Zeena's obstinate silence, of Mattie's sudden look +of warning, of the memory of just such fleeting imperceptible signs +as those which told him, on certain stainless mornings, that before +night there would be rain. + +His dread was so strong that, man-like, he sought to postpone +certainty. The hauling was not over till mid-day, and as the lumber +was to be delivered to Andrew Hale, the Starkfield builder, it was +really easier for Ethan to send Jotham Powell, the hired man, back +to the farm on foot, and drive the load down to the village himself. +He had scrambled up on the logs, and was sitting astride of them, +close over his shaggy grays, when, coming between him and their +streaming necks, he had a vision of the warning look that Mattie had +given him the night before. + +"If there's going to be any trouble I want to be there," was his +vague reflection, as he threw to Jotham the unexpected order to +unhitch the team and lead them back to the barn. + +It was a slow trudge home through the heavy fields, and when the two +men entered the kitchen Mattie was lifting the coffee from the stove +and Zeena was already at the table. Her husband stopped short at +sight of her. Instead of her usual calico wrapper and knitted shawl +she wore her best dress of brown merino, and above her thin strands +of hair, which still preserved the tight undulations of the +crimping-pins, rose a hard perpendicular bonnet, as to which Ethan's +clearest notion was that he had to pay five dollars for it at the +Bettsbridge Emporium. On the floor beside her stood his old valise +and a bandbox wrapped in newspapers. + +"Why, where are you going, Zeena?" he exclaimed. + +"I've got my shooting pains so bad that I'm going over to +Bettsbridge to spend the night with Aunt Martha Pierce and see that +new doctor," she answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had +said she was going into the store-room to take a look at the +preserves, or up to the attic to go over the blankets. + +In spite of her sedentary habits such abrupt decisions were not +without precedent in Zeena's history. Twice or thrice before she had +suddenly packed Ethan's valise and started off to Bettsbridge, or +even Springfield, to seek the advice of some new doctor, and her +husband had grown to dread these expeditions because of their cost. +Zeena always came back laden with expensive remedies, and her last +visit to Springfield had been commemorated by her paying twenty +dollars for an electric battery of which she had never been able to +learn the use. But for the moment his sense of relief was so great +as to preclude all other feelings. He had now no doubt that Zeena +had spoken the truth in saying, the night before, that she had sat +up because she felt "too mean" to sleep: her abrupt resolve to seek +medical advice showed that, as usual, she was wholly absorbed in her +health. + +As if expecting a protest, she continued plaintively; "If you're too +busy with the hauling I presume you can let Jotham Powell drive me +over with the sorrel in time to ketch the train at the Flats." + +Her husband hardly heard what she was saying. During the winter +months there was no stage between Starkfield and Bettsbridge, and +the trains which stopped at Corbury Flats were slow and infrequent. +A rapid calculation showed Ethan that Zeena could not be back at the +farm before the following evening.... + +"If I'd supposed you'd 'a' made any objection to Jotham Powell's +driving me over-" she began again, as though his silence had implied +refusal. On the brink of departure she was always seized with a flux +of words. "All I know is," she continued, "I can't go on the way I +am much longer. The pains are clear away down to my ankles now, or +I'd 'a' walked in to Starkfield on my own feet, sooner'n put you +out, and asked Michael Eady to let me ride over on his wagon to the +Flats, when he sends to meet the train that brings his groceries. +I'd 'a' had two hours to wait in the station, but I'd sooner 'a' +done it, even with this cold, than to have you say-" + +"Of course Jotham'll drive you over," Ethan roused himself to +answer. He became suddenly conscious that he was looking at Mattie +while Zeena talked to him, and with an effort he turned his eyes to +his wife. She sat opposite the window, and the pale light reflected +from the banks of snow made her face look more than usually drawn +and bloodless, sharpened the three parallel creases between ear and +cheek, and drew querulous lines from her thin nose to the corners of +her mouth. Though she was but seven years her husband's senior, and +he was only twenty-eight, she was already an old woman. + +Ethan tried to say something befitting the occasion, but there was +only one thought in his mind: the fact that, for the first time +since Mattie had come to live with them, Zeena was to be away for a +night. He wondered if the girl were thinking of it too.... + +He knew that Zeena must be wondering why he did not offer to drive +her to the Flats and let Jotham Powell take the lumber to +Starkfield, and at first he could not think of a pretext for not +doing so; then he said: "I'd take you over myself, only I've got to +collect the cash for the lumber." + +As soon as the words were spoken he regretted them, not only because +they were untrue-there being no prospect of his receiving cash +payment from Hale-but also because he knew from experience the +imprudence of letting Zeena think he was in funds on the eve of one +of her therapeutic excursions. At the moment, however, his one +desire was to avoid the long drive with her behind the ancient +sorrel who never went out of a walk. + +Zeena made no reply: she did not seem to hear what he had said. She +had already pushed her plate aside, and was measuring out a draught +from a large bottle at her elbow. + +"It ain't done me a speck of good, but I guess I might as well use +it up," she remarked; adding, as she pushed the empty bottle toward +Mattie: "If you can get the taste out it'll do for pickles." + + + + + + +IV + + + + + +As soon as his wife had driven off Ethan took his coat and cap from +the peg. Mattie was washing up the dishes, humming one of the dance +tunes of the night before. He said "So long, Matt," and she answered +gaily "So long, Ethan"; and that was all. + +It was warm and bright in the kitchen. The sun slanted through the +south window on the girl's moving figure, on the cat dozing in a +chair, and on the geraniums brought in from the door-way, where +Ethan had planted them in the summer to "make a garden" for Mattie. +He would have liked to linger on, watching her tidy up and then +settle down to her sewing; but he wanted still more to get the +hauling done and be back at the farm before night. + +All the way down to the village he continued to think of his return +to Mattie. The kitchen was a poor place, not "spruce" and shining as +his mother had kept it in his boyhood; but it was surprising what a +homelike look the mere fact of Zeena's absence gave it. And he +pictured what it would be like that evening, when he and Mattie were +there after supper. For the first time they would be alone together +indoors, and they would sit there, one on each side of the stove, +like a married couple, he in his stocking feet and smoking his pipe, +she laughing and talking in that funny way she had, which was always +as new to him as if he had never heard her before. + +The sweetness of the picture, and the relief of knowing that his +fears of "trouble" with Zeena were unfounded, sent up his spirits +with a rush, and he, who was usually so silent, whistled and sang +aloud as he drove through the snowy fields. There was in him a +slumbering spark of sociability which the long Starkfield winters +had not yet extinguished. By nature grave and inarticulate, he +admired recklessness and gaiety in others and was warmed to the +marrow by friendly human intercourse. At Worcester, though he had +the name of keeping to himself and not being much of a hand at a +good time, he had secretly gloried in being clapped on the back and +hailed as "Old Ethe" or "Old Stiff"; and the cessation of such +familiarities had increased the chill of his return to Starkfield. + +There the silence had deepened about him year by year. Left alone, +after his father's accident, to carry the burden of farm and mill, +he had had no time for convivial loiterings in the village; and when +his mother fell ill the loneliness of the house grew more oppressive +than that of the fields. His mother had been a talker in her day, +but after her "trouble" the sound of her voice was seldom heard, +though she had not lost the power of speech. Sometimes, in the long +winter evenings, when in desperation her son asked her why she +didn't "say something," she would lift a finger and answer: "Because +I'm listening"; and on stormy nights, when the loud wind was about +the house, she would complain, if he spoke to her: "They're talking +so out there that I can't hear you." + +It was only when she drew toward her last illness, and his cousin +Zenobia Pierce came over from the next valley to help him nurse her, +that human speech was heard again in the house. After the mortal +silence of his long imprisonment Zeena's volubility was music in his +ears. He felt that he might have "gone like his mother" if the sound +of a new voice had not come to steady him. Zeena seemed to +understand his case at a glance. She laughed at him for not knowing +the simplest sick-bed duties and told him to "go right along out" +and leave her to see to things. The mere fact of obeying her orders, +of feeling free to go about his business again and talk with other +men, restored his shaken balance and magnified his sense of what he +owed her. Her efficiency shamed and dazzled him. She seemed to +possess by instinct all the household wisdom that his long +apprenticeship had not instilled in him. When the end came it was +she who had to tell him to hitch up and go for the undertaker, and +she thought it "funny" that he had not settled beforehand who was to +have his mother's clothes and the sewing-machine. After the funeral, +when he saw her preparing to go away, he was seized with an +unreasoning dread of being left alone on the farm; and before he +knew what he was doing he had asked her to stay there with him. He +had often thought since that it would not have happened if his +mother had died in spring instead of winter... + +When they married it was agreed that, as soon as he could straighten +out the difficulties resulting from Mrs. Frome's long illness, they +would sell the farm and saw-mill and try their luck in a large town. +Ethan's love of nature did not take the form of a taste for +agriculture. He had always wanted to be an engineer, and to live in +towns, where there were lectures and big libraries and "fellows +doing things." A slight engineering job in Florida, put in his way +during his period of study at Worcester, increased his faith in his +ability as well as his eagerness to see the world; and he felt sure +that, with a "smart" wife like Zeena, it would not be long before he +had made himself a place in it. + +Zeena's native village was slightly larger and nearer to the railway +than Starkfield, and she had let her husband see from the first that +life on an isolated farm was not what she had expected when she +married. But purchasers were slow in coming, and while he waited for +them Ethan learned the impossibility of transplanting her. She chose +to look down on Starkfield, but she could not have lived in a place +which looked down on her. Even Bettsbridge or Shadd's Falls would +not have been sufficiently aware of her, and in the greater cities +which attracted Ethan she would have suffered a complete loss of +identity. And within a year of their marriage she developed the +"sickliness" which had since made her notable even in a community +rich in pathological instances. When she came to take care of his +mother she had seemed to Ethan like the very genius of health, but +he soon saw that her skill as a nurse had been acquired by the +absorbed observation of her own symptoms. + +Then she too fell silent. Perhaps it was the inevitable effect of +life on the farm, or perhaps, as she sometimes said, it was because +Ethan "never listened." The charge was not wholly unfounded. When +she spoke it was only to complain, and to complain of things not in +his power to remedy; and to check a tendency to impatient retort he +had first formed the habit of not answering her, and finally of +thinking of other things while she talked. Of late, however, since +he had reasons for observing her more closely, her silence had begun +to trouble him. He recalled his mother's growing taciturnity, and +wondered if Zeena were also turning "queer." Women did, he knew. +Zeena, who had at her fingers' ends the pathological chart of the +whole region, had cited many cases of the kind while she was nursing +his mother; and he himself knew of certain lonely farm-houses in the +neighbourhood where stricken creatures pined, and of others where +sudden tragedy had come of their presence. At times, looking at +Zeena's shut face, he felt the chill of such forebodings. At other +times her silence seemed deliberately assumed to conceal +far-reaching intentions, mysterious conclusions drawn from +suspicions and resentments impossible to guess. That supposition was +even more disturbing than the other; and it was the one which had +come to him the night before, when he had seen her standing in the +kitchen door. + +Now her departure for Bettsbridge had once more eased his mind, and +all his thoughts were on the prospect of his evening with Mattie. +Only one thing weighed on him, and that was his having told Zeena +that he was to receive cash for the lumber. He foresaw so clearly +the consequences of this imprudence that with considerable +reluctance he decided to ask Andrew Hale for a small advance on his +load. + +When Ethan drove into Hale's yard the builder was just getting out +of his sleigh. + +"Hello, Ethe!" he said. "This comes handy." + +Andrew Hale was a ruddy man with a big gray moustache and a stubbly +double-chin unconstrained by a collar; but his scrupulously clean +shirt was always fastened by a small diamond stud. This display of +opulence was misleading, for though he did a fairly good business it +was known that his easygoing habits and the demands of his large +family frequently kept him what Starkfield called "behind." He was +an old friend of Ethan's family, and his house one of the few to +which Zeena occasionally went, drawn there by the fact that Mrs. +Hale, in her youth, had done more "doctoring" than any other woman +in Starkfield, and was still a recognised authority on symptoms and +treatment. + +Hale went up to the grays and patted their sweating flanks. + +"Well, sir," he said, "you keep them two as if they was pets." + +Ethan set about unloading the logs and when he had finished his job +he pushed open the glazed door of the shed which the builder used as +his office. Hale sat with his feet up on the stove, his back propped +against a battered desk strewn with papers: the place, like the man, +was warm, genial and untidy. + +"Sit right down and thaw out," he greeted Ethan. + +The latter did not know how to begin, but at length he managed to +bring out his request for an advance of fifty dollars. The blood +rushed to his thin skin under the sting of Hale's astonishment. It +was the builder's custom to pay at the end of three months, and +there was no precedent between the two men for a cash settlement. + +Ethan felt that if he had pleaded an urgent need Hale might have +made shift to pay him; but pride, and an instinctive prudence, kept +him from resorting to this argument. After his father's death it had +taken time to get his head above water, and he did not want Andrew +Hale, or any one else in Starkfield, to think he was going under +again. Besides, he hated lying; if he wanted the money he wanted it, +and it was nobody's business to ask why. He therefore made his +demand with the awkwardness of a proud man who will not admit to +himself that he is stooping; and he was not much surprised at Hale's +refusal. + +The builder refused genially, as he did everything else: he treated +the matter as something in the nature of a practical joke, and +wanted to know if Ethan meditated buying a grand piano or adding a +"cupolo" to his house; offering, in the latter case, to give his +services free of cost. + +Ethan's arts were soon exhausted, and after an embarrassed pause he +wished Hale good day and opened the door of the office. As he passed +out the builder suddenly called after him: "See here-you ain't in a +tight place, are you?" + +"Not a bit," Ethan's pride retorted before his reason had time to +intervene. + +"Well, that's good! Because I am, a shade. Fact is, I was going to +ask you to give me a little extra time on that payment. Business is +pretty slack, to begin with, and then I'm fixing up a little house +for Ned and Ruth when they're married. I'm glad to do it for 'em, +but it costs." His look appealed to Ethan for sympathy. "The young +people like things nice. You know how it is yourself: it's not so +long ago since you fixed up your own place for Zeena." + +Ethan left the grays in Hale's stable and went about some other +business in the village. As he walked away the builder's last phrase +lingered in his ears, and he reflected grimly that his seven years +with Zeena seemed to Starkfield "not so long." + +The afternoon was drawing to an end, and here and there a lighted +pane spangled the cold gray dusk and made the snow look whiter. The +bitter weather had driven every one indoors and Ethan had the long +rural street to himself. Suddenly he heard the brisk play of +sleigh-bells and a cutter passed him, drawn by a free-going horse. +Ethan recognised Michael Eady's roan colt, and young Denis Eady, in +a handsome new fur cap, leaned forward and waved a greeting. "Hello, +Ethe!" he shouted and spun on. + +The cutter was going in the direction of the Frome farm, and Ethan's +heart contracted as he listened to the dwindling bells. What more +likely than that Denis Eady had heard of Zeena's departure for +Bettsbridge, and was profiting by the opportunity to spend an hour +with Mattie? Ethan was ashamed of the storm of jealousy in his +breast. It seemed unworthy of the girl that his thoughts of her +should be so violent. + +He walked on to the church corner and entered the shade of the +Varnum spruces, where he had stood with her the night before. As he +passed into their gloom he saw an indistinct outline just ahead of +him. At his approach it melted for an instant into two separate +shapes and then conjoined again, and he heard a kiss, and a +half-laughing "Oh!" provoked by the discovery of his presence. Again +the outline hastily disunited and the Varnum gate slammed on one +half while the other hurried on ahead of him. Ethan smiled at the +discomfiture he had caused. What did it matter to Ned Hale and Ruth +Varnum if they were caught kissing each other? Everybody in +Starkfield knew they were engaged. It pleased Ethan to have +surprised a pair of lovers on the spot where he and Mattie had stood +with such a thirst for each other in their hearts; but he felt a +pang at the thought that these two need not hide their happiness. + +He fetched the grays from Hale's stable and started on his long +climb back to the farm. The cold was less sharp than earlier in the +day and a thick fleecy sky threatened snow for the morrow. Here and +there a star pricked through, showing behind it a deep well of blue. +In an hour or two the moon would push over the ridge behind the +farm, burn a gold-edged rent in the clouds, and then be swallowed by +them. A mournful peace hung on the fields, as though they felt the +relaxing grasp of the cold and stretched themselves in their long +winter sleep. + +Ethan's ears were alert for the jingle of sleigh-bells, but not a +sound broke the silence of the lonely road. As he drew near the farm +he saw, through the thin screen of larches at the gate, a light +twinkling in the house above him. "She's up in her room," he said to +himself, "fixing herself up for supper"; and he remembered Zeena's +sarcastic stare when Mattie, on the evening of her arrival, had come +down to supper with smoothed hair and a ribbon at her neck. + +He passed by the graves on the knoll and turned his head to glance +at one of the older headstones, which had interested him deeply as a +boy because it bore his name. + +SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF + +ETHAN FROME AND ENDURANCE HIS WIFE, + +WHO DWELLED TOGETHER IN PEACE + +FOR FIFTY YEARS. + +He used to think that fifty years sounded like a long time to live +together, but now it seemed to him that they might pass in a flash. +Then, with a sudden dart of irony, he wondered if, when their turn +came, the same epitaph would be written over him and Zeena. + +He opened the barn-door and craned his head into the obscurity, +half-fearing to discover Denis Eady's roan colt in the stall beside +the sorrel. But the old horse was there alone, mumbling his crib +with toothless jaws, and Ethan whistled cheerfully while he bedded +down the grays and shook an extra measure of oats into their +mangers. His was not a tuneful throat-but harsh melodies burst from +it as he locked the barn and sprang up the hill to the house. He +reached the kitchen-porch and turned the door-handle; but the door +did not yield to his touch. + +Startled at finding it locked he rattled the handle violently; then +he reflected that Mattie was alone and that it was natural she +should barricade herself at nightfall. He stood in the darkness +expecting to hear her step. It did not come, and after vainly +straining his ears he called out in a voice that shook with joy: +"Hello, Matt!" + +Silence answered; but in a minute or two he caught a sound on the +stairs and saw a line of light about the door-frame, as he had seen +it the night before. So strange was the precision with which the +incidents of the previous evening were repeating themselves that he +half expected, when he heard the key turn, to see his wife before +him on the threshold; but the door opened, and Mattie faced him. + +She stood just as Zeena had stood, a lifted lamp in her hand, +against the black background of the kitchen. She held the light at +the same level, and it drew out with the same distinctness her slim +young throat and the brown wrist no bigger than a child's. Then, +striking upward, it threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her +eyes with velvet shade, and laid a milky whiteness above the black +curve of her brows. + +She wore her usual dress of darkish stuff, and there was no bow at +her neck; but through her hair she had run a streak of crimson +ribbon. This tribute to the unusual transformed and glorified her. +She seemed to Ethan taller, fuller, more womanly in shape and +motion. She stood aside, smiling silently, while he entered, and +then moved away from him with something soft and flowing in her +gait. She set the lamp on the table, and he saw that it was +carefully laid for supper, with fresh doughnuts, stewed blueberries +and his favourite pickles in a dish of gay red glass. A bright fire +glowed in the stove and the cat lay stretched before it, watching +the table with a drowsy eye. + +Ethan was suffocated with the sense of well-being. He went out into +the passage to hang up his coat and pull off his wet boots. When he +came back Mattie had set the teapot on the table and the cat was +rubbing itself persuasively against her ankles. + +"Why, Puss! I nearly tripped over you," she cried, the laughter +sparkling through her lashes. + +Again Ethan felt a sudden twinge of jealousy. Could it be his coming +that gave her such a kindled face? + +"Well, Matt, any visitors?" he threw off, stooping down carelessly +to examine the fastening of the stove. + +She nodded and laughed "Yes, one," and he felt a blackness settling +on his brows. + +"Who was that?" he questioned, raising himself up to slant a glance +at her beneath his scowl. + +Her eyes danced with malice. "Why, Jotham Powell. He came in after +he got back, and asked for a drop of coffee before he went down +home." + +The blackness lifted and light flooded Ethan's brain. "That all? +Well, I hope you made out to let him have it." And after a pause he +felt it right to add: "I suppose he got Zeena over to the Flats all +right?" + +"Oh, yes; in plenty of time." + +The name threw a chill between them, and they stood a moment looking +sideways at each other before Mattie said with a shy laugh. "I guess +it's about time for supper." + +They drew their seats up to the table, and the cat, unbidden, jumped +between them into Zeena's empty chair. "Oh, Puss!" said Mattie, and +they laughed again. + +Ethan, a moment earlier, had felt himself on the brink of eloquence; +but the mention of Zeena had paralysed him. Mattie seemed to feel +the contagion of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids, +sipping her tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for +dough-nuts and sweet pickles. At last, after casting about for an +effective opening, he took a long gulp of tea, cleared his throat, +and said: "Looks as if there'd be more snow." + +She feigned great interest. "Is that so? Do you suppose it'll +interfere with Zeena's getting back?" She flushed red as the +question escaped her, and hastily set down the cup she was lifting. + +Ethan reached over for another helping of pickles. "You never can +tell, this time of year, it drifts so bad on the Flats." The name +had benumbed him again, and once more he felt as if Zeena were in +the room between them. + +"Oh, Puss, you're too greedy!" Mattie cried. + +The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from Zeena's seat +to the table, and was stealthily elongating its body in the +direction of the milk-jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie. The +two leaned forward at the same moment and their hands met on the +handle of the jug. Mattie's hand was underneath, and Ethan kept his +clasped on it a moment longer than was necessary. The cat, profiting +by this unusual demonstration, tried to effect an unnoticed retreat, +and in doing so backed into the pickle-dish, which fell to the floor +with a crash. + +Mattie, in an instant, had sprung from her chair and was down on her +knees by the fragments. + +"Oh, Ethan, Ethan-it's all to pieces! What will Zeena say?" + +But this time his courage was up. "Well, she'll have to say it to +the cat, any way!" he rejoined with a laugh, kneeling down at +Mattie's side to scrape up the swimming pickles. + +She lifted stricken eyes to him. "Yes, but, you see, she never meant +it should be used, not even when there was company; and I had to get +up on the step-ladder to reach it down from the top shelf of the +china-closet, where she keeps it with all her best things, and of +course she'll want to know why I did it-" + +The case was so serious that it called forth all of Ethan's latent +resolution. + +"She needn't know anything about it if you keep quiet. I'll get +another just like it to-morrow. Where did it come from? I'll go to +Shadd's Falls for it if I have to!" + +"Oh, you'll never get another even there! It was a wedding +present-don't you remember? It came all the way from Philadelphia, +from Zeena's aunt that married the minister. That's why she wouldn't +ever use it. Oh, Ethan, Ethan, what in the world shall I do?" + +She began to cry, and he felt as if every one of her tears were +pouring over him like burning lead. "Don't, Matt, don't-oh, don't!" +he implored her. + +She struggled to her feet, and he rose and followed her helplessly +while she spread out the pieces of glass on the kitchen dresser. It +seemed to him as if the shattered fragments of their evening lay +there. + +"Here, give them to me," he said in a voice of sudden authority. + +She drew aside, instinctively obeying his tone. "Oh, Ethan, what are +you going to do?" + +Without replying he gathered the pieces of glass into his broad palm +and walked out of the kitchen to the passage. There he lit a +candle-end, opened the china-closet, and, reaching his long arm up +to the highest shelf, laid the pieces together with such accuracy of +touch that a close inspection convinced him of the impossibility of +detecting from below that the dish was broken. If he glued it +together the next morning months might elapse before his wife +noticed what had happened, and meanwhile he might after all be able +to match the dish at Shadd's Falls or Bettsbridge. Having satisfied +himself that there was no risk of immediate discovery he went back +to the kitchen with a lighter step, and found Mattie disconsolately +removing the last scraps of pickle from the floor. + +"It's all right, Matt. Come back and finish supper," he commanded +her. + +Completely reassured, she shone on him through tear-hung lashes, and +his soul swelled with pride as he saw how his tone subdued her. She +did not even ask what he had done. Except when he was steering a big +log down the mountain to his mill he had never known such a +thrilling sense of mastery. + + + + + + +V + + + + + +They finished supper, and while Mattie cleared the table Ethan went +to look at the cows and then took a last turn about the house. The +earth lay dark under a muffled sky and the air was so still that now +and then he heard a lump of snow come thumping down from a tree far +off on the edge of the wood-lot. + +When he returned to the kitchen Mattie had pushed up his chair to +the stove and seated herself near the lamp with a bit of sewing. The +scene was just as he had dreamed of it that morning. He sat down, +drew his pipe from his pocket and stretched his feet to the glow. +His hard day's work in the keen air made him feel at once lazy and +light of mood, and he had a confused sense of being in another +world, where all was warmth and harmony and time could bring no +change. The only drawback to his complete well-being was the fact +that he could not see Mattie from where he sat; but he was too +indolent to move and after a moment he said: "Come over here and sit +by the stove." + +Zeena's empty rocking-chair stood facing him. Mattie rose +obediently, and seated herself in it. As her young brown head +detached itself against the patch-work cushion that habitually +framed his wife's gaunt countenance, Ethan had a momentary shock. It +was almost as if the other face, the face of the superseded woman, +had obliterated that of the intruder. After a moment Mattie seemed +to be affected by the same sense of constraint. She changed her +position, leaning forward to bend her head above her work, so that +he saw only the foreshortened tip of her nose and the streak of red +in her hair; then she slipped to her feet, saying "I can't see to +sew," and went back to her chair by the lamp. + +Ethan made a pretext of getting up to replenish the stove, and when +he returned to his seat he pushed it sideways that he might get a +view of her profile and of the lamplight falling on her hands. The +cat, who had been a puzzled observer of these unusual movements, +jumped up into Zeena's chair, rolled itself into a ball, and lay +watching them with narrowed eyes. + +Deep quiet sank on the room. The clock ticked above the dresser, a +piece of charred wood fell now and then in the stove, and the faint +sharp scent of the geraniums mingled with the odour of Ethan's +smoke, which began to throw a blue haze about the lamp and to hang +its greyish cobwebs in the shadowy corners of the room. + +All constraint had vanished between the two, and they began to talk +easily and simply. They spoke of every-day things, of the prospect +of snow, of the next church sociable, of the loves and quarrels of +Starkfield. The commonplace nature of what they said produced in +Ethan an illusion of long-established intimacy which no outburst of +emotion could have given, and he set his imagination adrift on the +fiction that they had always spent their evenings thus and would +always go on doing so... + +"This is the night we were to have gone coasting. Matt," he said at +length, with the rich sense, as he spoke, that they could go on any +other night they chose, since they had all time before them. + +She smiled back at him. "I guess you forgot!" + +"No, I didn't forget; but it's as dark as Egypt outdoors. We might +go to-morrow if there's a moon." + +She laughed with pleasure, her head tilted back, the lamplight +sparkling on her lips and teeth. "That would be lovely, Ethan!" + +He kept his eyes fixed on her, marvelling at the way her face +changed with each turn of their talk, like a wheat-field under a +summer breeze. It was intoxicating to find such magic in his clumsy +words, and he longed to try new ways of using it. + +"Would you be scared to go down the Corbury road with me on a night +like this?" he asked. + +Her cheeks burned redder. "I ain't any more scared than you are!" + +"Well, I'd be scared, then; I wouldn't do it. That's an ugly corner +down by the big elm. If a fellow didn't keep his eyes open he'd go +plumb into it." He luxuriated in the sense of protection and +authority which his words conveyed. To prolong and intensify the +feeling he added: "I guess we're well enough here." + +She let her lids sink slowly, in the way he loved. "Yes, we're well +enough here," she sighed. + +Her tone was so sweet that he took the pipe from his mouth and drew +his chair up to the table. Leaning forward, he touched the farther +end of the strip of brown stuff that she was hemming. "Say, Matt," +he began with a smile, "what do you think I saw under the Varnum +spruces, coming along home just now? I saw a friend of yours getting +kissed." + +The words had been on his tongue all the evening, but now that he +had spoken them they struck him as inexpressibly vulgar and out of +place. + +Mattie blushed to the roots of her hair and pulled her needle +rapidly twice or thrice through her work, insensibly drawing the end +of it away from him. "I suppose it was Ruth and Ned," she said in a +low voice, as though he had suddenly touched on something grave. + +Ethan had imagined that his allusion might open the way to the +accepted pleasantries, and these perhaps in turn to a harmless +caress, if only a mere touch on her hand. But now he felt as if her +blush had set a flaming guard about her. He supposed it was his +natural awkwardness that made him feel so. He knew that most young +men made nothing at all of giving a pretty girl a kiss, and he +remembered that the night before, when he had put his arm about +Mattie, she had not resisted. But that had been out-of-doors, under +the open irresponsible night. Now, in the warm lamplit room, with +all its ancient implications of conformity and order, she seemed +infinitely farther away from him and more unapproachable. + +To ease his constraint he said: "I suppose they'll be setting a date +before long." + +"Yes. I shouldn't wonder if they got married some time along in the +summer." She pronounced the word married as if her voice caressed +it. It seemed a rustling covert leading to enchanted glades. A pang +shot through Ethan, and he said, twisting away from her in his +chair: "It'll be your turn next, I wouldn't wonder." + +She laughed a little uncertainly. "Why do you keep on saying that?" + +He echoed her laugh. "I guess I do it to get used to the idea." + +He drew up to the table again and she sewed on in silence, with +dropped lashes, while he sat in fascinated contemplation of the way +in which her hands went up and down above the strip of stuff, just +as he had seen a pair of birds make short perpendicular flights over +a nest they were building. At length, without turning her head or +lifting her lids, she said in a low tone: "It's not because you +think Zeena's got anything against me, is it?" + +His former dread started up full-armed at the suggestion. "Why, what +do you mean?" he stammered. + +She raised distressed eyes to his, her work dropping on the table +between them. "I don't know. I thought last night she seemed to +have." + +"I'd like to know what," he growled. + +"Nobody can tell with Zeena." It was the first time they had ever +spoken so openly of her attitude toward Mattie, and the repetition +of the name seemed to carry it to the farther corners of the room +and send it back to them in long repercussions of sound. Mattie +waited, as if to give the echo time to drop, and then went on: "She +hasn't said anything to you?" + +He shook his head. "No, not a word." + +She tossed the hair back from her forehead with a laugh. "I guess +I'm just nervous, then. I'm not going to think about it any more." + +"Oh, no-don't let's think about it, Matt!" + +The sudden heat of his tone made her colour mount again, not with a +rush, but gradually, delicately, like the reflection of a thought +stealing slowly across her heart. She sat silent, her hands clasped +on her work, and it seemed to him that a warm current flowed toward +him along the strip of stuff that still lay unrolled between them. +Cautiously he slid his hand palm-downward along the table till his +finger-tips touched the end of the stuff. A faint vibration of her +lashes seemed to show that she was aware of his gesture, and that it +had sent a counter-current back to her; and she let her hands lie +motionless on the other end of the strip. + +As they sat thus he heard a sound behind him and turned his head. +The cat had jumped from Zeena's chair to dart at a mouse in the +wainscot, and as a result of the sudden movement the empty chair had +set up a spectral rocking. + +"She'll be rocking in it herself this time to-morrow," Ethan +thought. "I've been in a dream, and this is the only evening we'll +ever have together." The return to reality was as painful as the +return to consciousness after taking an anaesthetic. His body and +brain ached with indescribable weariness, and he could think of +nothing to say or to do that should arrest the mad flight of the +moments. + +His alteration of mood seemed to have communicated itself to Mattie. +She looked up at him languidly, as though her lids were weighted +with sleep and it cost her an effort to raise them. Her glance fell +on his hand, which now completely covered the end of her work and +grasped it as if it were a part of herself. He saw a scarcely +perceptible tremor cross her face, and without knowing what he did +he stooped his head and kissed the bit of stuff in his hold. As his +lips rested on it he felt it glide slowly from beneath them, and saw +that Mattie had risen and was silently rolling up her work. She +fastened it with a pin, and then, finding her thimble and scissors, +put them with the roll of stuff into the box covered with fancy +paper which he had once brought to her from Bettsbridge. + +He stood up also, looking vaguely about the room. The clock above +the dresser struck eleven. + +"Is the fire all right?" she asked in a low voice. + +He opened the door of the stove and poked aimlessly at the embers. +When he raised himself again he saw that she was dragging toward the +stove the old soap-box lined with carpet in which the cat made its +bed. Then she recrossed the floor and lifted two of the geranium +pots in her arms, moving them away from the cold window. He followed +her and brought the other geraniums, the hyacinth bulbs in a cracked +custard bowl and the German ivy trained over an old croquet hoop. + +When these nightly duties were performed there was nothing left to +do but to bring in the tin candlestick from the passage, light the +candle and blow out the lamp. Ethan put the candlestick in Mattie's +hand and she went out of the kitchen ahead of him, the light that +she carried before her making her dark hair look like a drift of +mist on the moon. + +"Good night, Matt," he said as she put her foot on the first step of +the stairs. + +She turned and looked at him a moment. "Good night, Ethan," she +answered, and went up. + +When the door of her room had closed on her he remembered that he +had not even touched her hand. + + + + + + +VI + + + + + +The next morning at breakfast Jotham Powell was between them, and +Ethan tried to hide his joy under an air of exaggerated +indifference, lounging back in his chair to throw scraps to the cat, +growling at the weather, and not so much as offering to help Mattie +when she rose to clear away the dishes. + +He did not know why he was so irrationally happy, for nothing was +changed in his life or hers. He had not even touched the tip of her +fingers or looked her full in the eyes. But their evening together +had given him a vision of what life at her side might be, and he was +glad now that he had done nothing to trouble the sweetness of the +picture. He had a fancy that she knew what had restrained him... + +There was a last load of lumber to be hauled to the village, and +Jotham Powell-who did not work regularly for Ethan in winter-had +"come round" to help with the job. But a wet snow, melting to sleet, +had fallen in the night and turned the roads to glass. There was +more wet in the air and it seemed likely to both men that the +weather would "milden" toward afternoon and make the going safer. +Ethan therefore proposed to his assistant that they should load the +sledge at the wood-lot, as they had done on the previous morning, +and put off the "teaming" to Starkfield till later in the day. This +plan had the advantage of enabling him to send Jotham to the Flats +after dinner to meet Zenobia, while he himself took the lumber down +to the village. + +He told Jotham to go out and harness up the greys, and for a moment +he and Mattie had the kitchen to themselves. She had plunged the +breakfast dishes into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with +her slim arms bared to the elbow, the steam from the hot water +beading her forehead and tightening her rough hair into little brown +rings like the tendrils on the traveller's joy. + +Ethan stood looking at her, his heart in his throat. He wanted to +say: "We shall never be alone again like this." Instead, he reached +down his tobacco-pouch from a shelf of the dresser, put it into his +pocket and said: "I guess I can make out to be home for dinner." + +She answered "All right, Ethan," and he heard her singing over the +dishes as he went. + +As soon as the sledge was loaded he meant to send Jotham back to the +farm and hurry on foot into the village to buy the glue for the +pickle-dish. With ordinary luck he should have had time to carry out +this plan; but everything went wrong from the start. On the way over +to the wood-lot one of the greys slipped on a glare of ice and cut +his knee; and when they got him up again Jotham had to go back to +the barn for a strip of rag to bind the cut. Then, when the loading +finally began, a sleety rain was coming down once more, and the tree +trunks were so slippery that it took twice as long as usual to lift +them and get them in place on the sledge. It was what Jotham called +a sour morning for work, and the horses, shivering and stamping +under their wet blankets, seemed to like it as little as the men. It +was long past the dinner-hour when the job was done, and Ethan had +to give up going to the village because he wanted to lead the +injured horse home and wash the cut himself. + +He thought that by starting out again with the lumber as soon as he +had finished his dinner he might get back to the farm with the glue +before Jotham and the old sorrel had had time to fetch Zenobia from +the Flats; but he knew the chance was a slight one. It turned on the +state of the roads and on the possible lateness of the Bettsbridge +train. He remembered afterward, with a grim flash of self-derision, +what importance he had attached to the weighing of these +probabilities... + +As soon as dinner was over he set out again for the wood-lot, not +daring to linger till Jotham Powell left. The hired man was still +drying his wet feet at the stove, and Ethan could only give Mattie a +quick look as he said beneath his breath: "I'll be back early." + +He fancied that she nodded her comprehension; and with that scant +solace he had to trudge off through the rain. + +He had driven his load half-way to the village when Jotham Powell +overtook him, urging the reluctant sorrel toward the Flats. "I'll +have to hurry up to do it," Ethan mused, as the sleigh dropped down +ahead of him over the dip of the school-house hill. He worked like +ten at the unloading, and when it was over hastened on to Michael +Eady's for the glue. Eady and his assistant were both "down street," +and young Denis, who seldom deigned to take their place, was +lounging by the stove with a knot of the golden youth of Starkfield. +They hailed Ethan with ironic compliment and offers of conviviality; +but no one knew where to find the glue. Ethan, consumed with the +longing for a last moment alone with Mattie, hung about impatiently +while Denis made an ineffectual search in the obscurer corners of +the store. + +"Looks as if we were all sold out. But if you'll wait around till +the old man comes along maybe he can put his hand on it." + +"I'm obliged to you, but I'll try if I can get it down at Mrs. +Homan's," Ethan answered, burning to be gone. + +Denis's commercial instinct compelled him to aver on oath that what +Eady's store could not produce would never be found at the widow +Homan's; but Ethan, heedless of this boast, had already climbed to +the sledge and was driving on to the rival establishment. Here, +after considerable search, and sympathetic questions as to what he +wanted it for, and whether ordinary flour paste wouldn't do as well +if she couldn't find it, the widow Homan finally hunted down her +solitary bottle of glue to its hiding-place in a medley of +cough-lozenges and corset-laces. + +"I hope Zeena ain't broken anything she sets store by," she called +after him as he turned the greys toward home. + +The fitful bursts of sleet had changed into a steady rain and the +horses had heavy work even without a load behind them. Once or +twice, hearing sleigh-bells, Ethan turned his head, fancying that +Zeena and Jotham might overtake him; but the old sorrel was not in +sight, and he set his face against the rain and urged on his +ponderous pair. + +The barn was empty when the horses turned into it and, after giving +them the most perfunctory ministrations they had ever received from +him, he strode up to the house and pushed open the kitchen door. + +Mattie was there alone, as he had pictured her. She was bending over +a pan on the stove; but at the sound of his step she turned with a +start and sprang to him. + +"See, here, Matt, I've got some stuff to mend the dish with! Let me +get at it quick," he cried, waving the bottle in one hand while he +put her lightly aside; but she did not seem to hear him. + +"Oh, Ethan-Zeena's come," she said in a whisper, clutching his +sleeve. + +They stood and stared at each other, pale as culprits. + +"But the sorrel's not in the barn!" Ethan stammered. + +"Jotham Powell brought some goods over from the Flats for his wife, +and he drove right on home with them," she explained. + +He gazed blankly about the kitchen, which looked cold and squalid in +the rainy winter twilight. + +"How is she?" he asked, dropping his voice to Mattie's whisper. + +She looked away from him uncertainly. "I don't know. She went right +up to her room." + +"She didn't say anything?" + +"No." + +Ethan let out his doubts in a low whistle and thrust the bottle back +into his pocket. "Don't fret; I'll come down and mend it in the +night," he said. He pulled on his wet coat again and went back to +the barn to feed the greys. + +While he was there Jotham Powell drove up with the sleigh, and when +the horses had been attended to Ethan said to him: "You might as +well come back up for a bite." He was not sorry to assure himself of +Jotham's neutralising presence at the supper table, for Zeena was +always "nervous" after a journey. But the hired man, though seldom +loth to accept a meal not included in his wages, opened his stiff +jaws to answer slowly: "I'm obliged to you, but I guess I'll go +along back." + +Ethan looked at him in surprise. "Better come up and dry off. Looks +as if there'd be something hot for supper." + +Jotham's facial muscles were unmoved by this appeal and, his +vocabulary being limited, he merely repeated: "I guess I'll go along +back." + +To Ethan there was something vaguely ominous in this stolid +rejection of free food and warmth, and he wondered what had happened +on the drive to nerve Jotham to such stoicism. Perhaps Zeena had +failed to see the new doctor or had not liked his counsels: Ethan +knew that in such cases the first person she met was likely to be +held responsible for her grievance. + +When he re-entered the kitchen the lamp lit up the same scene of +shining comfort as on the previous evening. The table had been as +carefully laid, a clear fire glowed in the stove, the cat dozed in +its warmth, and Mattie came forward carrying a plate of doughnuts. + +She and Ethan looked at each other in silence; then she said, as she +had said the night before: "I guess it's about time for supper." + + + + + + +VII + + + + + +Ethan went out into the passage to hang up his wet garments. He +listened for Zeena's step and, not hearing it, called her name up +the stairs. She did not answer, and after a moment's hesitation he +went up and opened her door. The room was almost dark, but in the +obscurity he saw her sitting by the window, bolt upright, and knew +by the rigidity of the outline projected against the pane that she +had not taken off her travelling dress. + +"Well, Zeena," he ventured from the threshold. + +She did not move, and he continued: "Supper's about ready. Ain't you +coming?" + +She replied: "I don't feel as if I could touch a morsel." + +It was the consecrated formula, and he expected it to be followed, +as usual, by her rising and going down to supper. But she remained +seated, and he could think of nothing more felicitous than: "I +presume you're tired after the long ride." + +Turning her head at this, she answered solemnly: "I'm a great deal +sicker than you think." + +Her words fell on his ear with a strange shock of wonder. He had +often heard her pronounce them before-what if at last they were +true? + +He advanced a step or two into the dim room. "I hope that's not so, +Zeena," he said. + +She continued to gaze at him through the twilight with a mien of wan +authority, as of one consciously singled out for a great fate. "I've +got complications," she said. + +Ethan knew the word for one of exceptional import. Almost everybody +in the neighbourhood had "troubles," frankly localized and +specified; but only the chosen had "complications." To have them was +in itself a distinction, though it was also, in most cases, a +death-warrant. People struggled on for years with "troubles," but +they almost always succumbed to "complications." + +Ethan's heart was jerking to and fro between two extremities of +feeling, but for the moment compassion prevailed. His wife looked so +hard and lonely, sitting there in the darkness with such thoughts. + +"Is that what the new doctor told you?" he asked, instinctively +lowering his voice. + +"Yes. He says any regular doctor would want me to have an +operation." + +Ethan was aware that, in regard to the important question of +surgical intervention, the female opinion of the neighbourhood was +divided, some glorying in the prestige conferred by operations while +others shunned them as indelicate. Ethan, from motives of economy, +had always been glad that Zeena was of the latter faction. + +In the agitation caused by the gravity of her announcement he sought +a consolatory short cut. "What do you know about this doctor anyway? +Nobody ever told you that before." + +He saw his blunder before she could take it up: she wanted sympathy, +not consolation. + +"I didn't need to have anybody tell me I was losing ground every +day. Everybody but you could see it. And everybody in Bettsbridge +knows about Dr. Buck. He has his office in Worcester, and comes over +once a fortnight to Shadd's Falls and Bettsbridge for consultations. +Eliza Spears was wasting away with kidney trouble before she went to +him, and now she's up and around, and singing in the choir." + +"Well, I'm glad of that. You must do just what he tells you," Ethan +answered sympathetically. + +She was still looking at him. "I mean to," she said. He was struck +by a new note in her voice. It was neither whining nor reproachful, +but drily resolute. + +"What does he want you should do?" he asked, with a mounting vision +of fresh expenses. + +"He wants I should have a hired girl. He says I oughtn't to have to +do a single thing around the house." + +"A hired girl?" Ethan stood transfixed. + +"Yes. And Aunt Martha found me one right off. Everybody said I was +lucky to get a girl to come away out here, and I agreed to give her +a dollar extry to make sure. She'll be over to-morrow afternoon." + +Wrath and dismay contended in Ethan. He had foreseen an immediate +demand for money, but not a permanent drain on his scant resources. +He no longer believed what Zeena had told him of the supposed +seriousness of her state: he saw in her expedition to Bettsbridge +only a plot hatched between herself and her Pierce relations to +foist on him the cost of a servant; and for the moment wrath +predominated. + +"If you meant to engage a girl you ought to have told me before you +started," he said. + +"How could I tell you before I started? How did I know what Dr. Buck +would say?" + +"Oh, Dr. Buck-" Ethan's incredulity escaped in a short laugh. "Did +Dr. Buck tell you how I was to pay her wages?" + +Her voice rose furiously with his. "No, he didn't. For I'd 'a' been +ashamed to tell him that you grudged me the money to get back my +health, when I lost it nursing your own mother!" + +"You lost your health nursing mother?" + +"Yes; and my folks all told me at the time you couldn't do no less +than marry me after-" + +"Zeena!" + +Through the obscurity which hid their faces their thoughts seemed to +dart at each other like serpents shooting venom. Ethan was seized +with horror of the scene and shame at his own share in it. It was as +senseless and savage as a physical fight between two enemies in the +darkness. + +He turned to the shelf above the chimney, groped for matches and lit +the one candle in the room. At first its weak flame made no +impression on the shadows; then Zeena's face stood grimly out +against the uncurtained pane, which had turned from grey to black. + +It was the first scene of open anger between the couple in their sad +seven years together, and Ethan felt as if he had lost an +irretrievable advantage in descending to the level of recrimination. +But the practical problem was there and had to be dealt with. + +"You know I haven't got the money to pay for a girl, Zeena. You'll +have to send her back: I can't do it." + +"The doctor says it'll be my death if I go on slaving the way I've +had to. He doesn't understand how I've stood it as long as I have." + +"Slaving!-" He checked himself again, "You sha'n't lift a hand, if +he says so. I'll do everything round the house myself-" + +She broke in: "You're neglecting the farm enough already," and this +being true, he found no answer, and left her time to add ironically: +"Better send me over to the almshouse and done with it... I guess +there's been Fromes there afore now." + +The taunt burned into him, but he let it pass. "I haven't got the +money. That settles it." + +There was a moment's pause in the struggle, as though the combatants +were testing their weapons. Then Zeena said in a level voice: "I +thought you were to get fifty dollars from Andrew Hale for that +lumber." + +"Andrew Hale never pays under three months." He had hardly spoken +when he remembered the excuse he had made for not accompanying his +wife to the station the day before; and the blood rose to his +frowning brows. + +"Why, you told me yesterday you'd fixed it up with him to pay cash +down. You said that was why you couldn't drive me over to the +Flats." + +Ethan had no suppleness in deceiving. He had never before been +convicted of a lie, and all the resources of evasion failed him. "I +guess that was a misunderstanding," he stammered. + +"You ain't got the money?" + +"No." + +"And you ain't going to get it?" + +"No." + +"Well, I couldn't know that when I engaged the girl, could I?" + +"No." He paused to control his voice. "But you know it now. I'm +sorry, but it can't be helped. You're a poor man's wife, Zeena; but +I'll do the best I can for you." + +For a while she sat motionless, as if reflecting, her arms stretched +along the arms of her chair, her eyes fixed on vacancy. "Oh, I guess +we'll make out," she said mildly. + +The change in her tone reassured him. "Of course we will! There's a +whole lot more I can do for you, and Mattie-" + +Zeena, while he spoke, seemed to be following out some elaborate +mental calculation. She emerged from it to say: "There'll be +Mattie's board less, any how-" + +Ethan, supposing the discussion to be over, had turned to go down to +supper. He stopped short, not grasping what he heard. "Mattie's +board less-?" he began. + +Zeena laughed. It was on odd unfamiliar sound-he did not remember +ever having heard her laugh before. "You didn't suppose I was going +to keep two girls, did you? No wonder you were scared at the +expense!" + +He still had but a confused sense of what she was saying. From the +beginning of the discussion he had instinctively avoided the mention +of Mattie's name, fearing he hardly knew what: criticism, +complaints, or vague allusions to the imminent probability of her +marrying. But the thought of a definite rupture had never come to +him, and even now could not lodge itself in his mind. + +"I don't know what you mean," he said. "Mattie Silver's not a hired +girl. She's your relation." + +"She's a pauper that's hung onto us all after her father'd done his +best to ruin us. I've kep' her here a whole year: it's somebody +else's turn now." + +As the shrill words shot out Ethan heard a tap on the door, which he +had drawn shut when he turned back from the threshold. + +"Ethan-Zeena!" Mattie's voice sounded gaily from the landing, "do +you know what time it is? Supper's been ready half an hour." + +Inside the room there was a moment's silence; then Zeena called out +from her seat: "I'm not coming down to supper." + +"Oh, I'm sorry! Aren't you well? Sha'n't I bring you up a bite of +something?" + +Ethan roused himself with an effort and opened the door. "Go along +down, Matt. Zeena's just a little tired. I'm coming." + +He heard her "All right!" and her quick step on the stairs; then he +shut the door and turned back into the room. His wife's attitude was +unchanged, her face inexorable, and he was seized with the +despairing sense of his helplessness. + +"You ain't going to do it, Zeena?" + +"Do what?" she emitted between flattened lips. + +"Send Mattie away-like this?" + +"I never bargained to take her for life!" + +He continued with rising vehemence: "You can't put her out of the +house like a thief-a poor girl without friends or money. She's done +her best for you and she's got no place to go to. You may forget +she's your kin but everybody else'll remember it. If you do a thing +like that what do you suppose folks'll say of you?" + +Zeena waited a moment, as if giving him time to feel the full force +of the contrast between his own excitement and her composure. Then +she replied in the same smooth voice: "I know well enough what they +say of my having kep' her here as long as I have." + +Ethan's hand dropped from the door-knob, which he had held clenched +since he had drawn the door shut on Mattie. His wife's retort was +like a knife-cut across the sinews and he felt suddenly weak and +powerless. He had meant to humble himself, to argue that Mattie's +keep didn't cost much, after all, that he could make out to buy a +stove and fix up a place in the attic for the hired girl-but Zeena's +words revealed the peril of such pleadings. + +"You mean to tell her she's got to go-at once?" he faltered out, in +terror of letting his wife complete her sentence. + +As if trying to make him see reason she replied impartially: "The +girl will be over from Bettsbridge to-morrow, and I presume she's +got to have somewheres to sleep." + +Ethan looked at her with loathing. She was no longer the listless +creature who had lived at his side in a state of sullen +self-absorption, but a mysterious alien presence, an evil energy +secreted from the long years of silent brooding. It was the sense of +his helplessness that sharpened his antipathy. There had never been +anything in her that one could appeal to; but as long as he could +ignore and command he had remained indifferent. Now she had mastered +him and he abhorred her. Mattie was her relation, not his: there +were no means by which he could compel her to keep the girl under +her roof. All the long misery of his baffled past, of his youth of +failure, hardship and vain effort, rose up in his soul in bitterness +and seemed to take shape before him in the woman who at every turn +had barred his way. She had taken everything else from him; and now +she meant to take the one thing that made up for all the others. For +a moment such a flame of hate rose in him that it ran down his arm +and clenched his fist against her. He took a wild step forward and +then stopped. + +"You're-you're not coming down?" he said in a bewildered voice. + +"No. I guess I'll lay down on the bed a little while," she answered +mildly; and he turned and walked out of the room. + +In the kitchen Mattie was sitting by the stove, the cat curled up on +her knees. She sprang to her feet as Ethan entered and carried the +covered dish of meat-pie to the table. + +"I hope Zeena isn't sick?" she asked. + +"No." + +She shone at him across the table. "Well, sit right down then. You +must be starving." She uncovered the pie and pushed it over to him. +So they were to have one more evening together, her happy eyes +seemed to say! + +He helped himself mechanically and began to eat; then disgust took +him by the throat and he laid down his fork. + +Mattie's tender gaze was on him and she marked the gesture. + +"Why, Ethan, what's the matter? Don't it taste right?" + +"Yes-it's first-rate. Only I-" He pushed his plate away, rose from +his chair, and walked around the table to her side. She started up +with frightened eyes. + +"Ethan, there's something wrong! I knew there was!" + +She seemed to melt against him in her terror, and he caught her in +his arms, held her fast there, felt her lashes beat his cheek like +netted butterflies. + +"What is it-what is it?" she stammered; but he had found her lips at +last and was drinking unconsciousness of everything but the joy they +gave him. + +She lingered a moment, caught in the same strong current; then she +slipped from him and drew back a step or two, pale and troubled. Her +look smote him with compunction, and he cried out, as if he saw her +drowning in a dream: "You can't go, Matt! I'll never let you!" + +"Go-go?" she stammered. "Must I go?" + +The words went on sounding between them as though a torch of warning +flew from hand to hand through a black landscape. + +Ethan was overcome with shame at his lack of self-control in +flinging the news at her so brutally. His head reeled and he had to +support himself against the table. All the while he felt as if he +were still kissing her, and yet dying of thirst for her lips. + +"Ethan, what has happened? Is Zeena mad with me?" + +Her cry steadied him, though it deepened his wrath and pity. "No, +no," he assured her, "it's not that. But this new doctor has scared +her about herself. You know she believes all they say the first time +she sees them. And this one's told her she won't get well unless she +lays up and don't do a thing about the house-not for months-" + +He paused, his eyes wandering from her miserably. She stood silent a +moment, drooping before him like a broken branch. She was so small +and weak-looking that it wrung his heart; but suddenly she lifted +her head and looked straight at him. "And she wants somebody handier +in my place? Is that it?" + +"That's what she says to-night." + +"If she says it to-night she'll say it to-morrow." + +Both bowed to the inexorable truth: they knew that Zeena never +changed her mind, and that in her case a resolve once taken was +equivalent to an act performed. + +There was a long silence between them; then Mattie said in a low +voice: "Don't be too sorry, Ethan." + +"Oh, God-oh, God," he groaned. The glow of passion he had felt for +her had melted to an aching tenderness. He saw her quick lids +beating back the tears, and longed to take her in his arms and +soothe her. + +"You're letting your supper get cold," she admonished him with a +pale gleam of gaiety. + +"Oh, Matt-Matt-where'll you go to?" + +Her lids sank and a tremor crossed her face. He saw that for the +first time the thought of the future came to her distinctly. "I +might get something to do over at Stamford," she faltered, as if +knowing that he knew she had no hope. + +He dropped back into his seat and hid his face in his hands. Despair +seized him at the thought of her setting out alone to renew the +weary quest for work. In the only place where she was known she was +surrounded by indifference or animosity; and what chance had she, +inexperienced and untrained, among the million bread-seekers of the +cities? There came back to him miserable tales he had heard at +Worcester, and the faces of girls whose lives had begun as hopefully +as Mattie's.... It was not possible to think of such things without +a revolt of his whole being. He sprang up suddenly. + +"You can't go, Matt! I won't let you! She's always had her way, but +I mean to have mine now-" + +Mattie lifted her hand with a quick gesture, and he heard his wife's +step behind him. + +Zeena came into the room with her dragging down-at-the-heel step, +and quietly took her accustomed seat between them. + +"I felt a little mite better, and Dr. Buck says I ought to eat all I +can to keep my strength up, even if I ain't got any appetite," she +said in her flat whine, reaching across Mattie for the teapot. Her +"good" dress had been replaced by the black calico and brown knitted +shawl which formed her daily wear, and with them she had put on her +usual face and manner. She poured out her tea, added a great deal of +milk to it, helped herself largely to pie and pickles, and made the +familiar gesture of adjusting her false teeth before she began to +eat. The cat rubbed itself ingratiatingly against her, and she said +"Good Pussy," stooped to stroke it and gave it a scrap of meat from +her plate. + +Ethan sat speechless, not pretending to eat, but Mattie nibbled +valiantly at her food and asked Zeena one or two questions about her +visit to Bettsbridge. Zeena answered in her every-day tone and, +warming to the theme, regaled them with several vivid descriptions +of intestinal disturbances among her friends and relatives. She +looked straight at Mattie as she spoke, a faint smile deepening the +vertical lines between her nose and chin. + +When supper was over she rose from her seat and pressed her hand to +the flat surface over the region of her heart. "That pie of yours +always sets a mite heavy, Matt," she said, not ill-naturedly. She +seldom abbreviated the girl's name, and when she did so it was +always a sign of affability. + +"I've a good mind to go and hunt up those stomach powders I got last +year over in Springfield," she continued. "I ain't tried them for +quite a while, and maybe they'll help the heartburn." + +Mattie lifted her eyes. "Can't I get them for you, Zeena?" she +ventured. + +"No. They're in a place you don't know about," Zeena answered +darkly, with one of her secret looks. + +She went out of the kitchen and Mattie, rising, began to clear the +dishes from the table. As she passed Ethan's chair their eyes met +and clung together desolately. The warm still kitchen looked as +peaceful as the night before. The cat had sprung to Zeena's +rocking-chair, and the heat of the fire was beginning to draw out +the faint sharp scent of the geraniums. Ethan dragged himself +wearily to his feet. + +"I'll go out and take a look around," he said, going toward the +passage to get his lantern. + +As he reached the door he met Zeena coming back into the room, her +lips twitching with anger, a flush of excitement on her sallow face. +The shawl had slipped from her shoulders and was dragging at her +down-trodden heels, and in her hands she carried the fragments of +the red glass pickle-dish. + +"I'd like to know who done this," she said, looking sternly from +Ethan to Mattie. + +There was no answer, and she continued in a trembling voice: "I went +to get those powders I'd put away in father's old spectacle-case, +top of the china-closet, where I keep the things I set store by, +so's folks shan't meddle with them-" Her voice broke, and two small +tears hung on her lashless lids and ran slowly down her cheeks. "It +takes the stepladder to get at the top shelf, and I put Aunt Philura +Maple's pickle-dish up there o' purpose when we was married, and +it's never been down since, 'cept for the spring cleaning, and then +I always lifted it with my own hands, so's 't shouldn't get broke." +She laid the fragments reverently on the table. "I want to know who +done this," she quavered. + +At the challenge Ethan turned back into the room and faced her. "I +can tell you, then. The cat done it." + +"The cat?" + +"That's what I said." + +She looked at him hard, and then turned her eyes to Mattie, who was +carrying the dish-pan to the table. + +"I'd like to know how the cat got into my china-closet"' she said. + +"Chasin' mice, I guess," Ethan rejoined. "There was a mouse round +the kitchen all last evening." + +Zeena continued to look from one to the other; then she emitted her +small strange laugh. "I knew the cat was a smart cat," she said in a +high voice, "but I didn't know he was smart enough to pick up the +pieces of my pickle-dish and lay 'em edge to edge on the very shelf +he knocked 'em off of." + +Mattie suddenly drew her arms out of the steaming water. "It wasn't +Ethan's fault, Zeena! The cat did break the dish; but I got it down +from the china-closet, and I'm the one to blame for its getting +broken." + +Zeena stood beside the ruin of her treasure, stiffening into a stony +image of resentment, "You got down my pickle-dish-what for?" + +A bright flush flew to Mattie's cheeks. "I wanted to make the +supper-table pretty," she said. + +"You wanted to make the supper-table pretty; and you waited till my +back was turned, and took the thing I set most store by of anything +I've got, and wouldn't never use it, not even when the minister come +to dinner, or Aunt Martha Pierce come over from Bettsbridge-" Zeena +paused with a gasp, as if terrified by her own evocation of the +sacrilege. "You're a bad girl, Mattie Silver, and I always known it. +It's the way your father begun, and I was warned of it when I took +you, and I tried to keep my things where you couldn't get at 'em-and +now you've took from me the one I cared for most of all-" She broke +off in a short spasm of sobs that passed and left her more than ever +like a shape of stone. + +"If I'd 'a' listened to folks, you'd 'a' gone before now, and this +wouldn't 'a' happened," she said; and gathering up the bits of +broken glass she went out of the room as if she carried a dead +body... + + + + + + +VIII + + + + + +When Ethan was called back to the farm by his father's illness his +mother gave him, for his own use, a small room behind the untenanted +"best parlour." Here he had nailed up shelves for his books, built +himself a box-sofa out of boards and a mattress, laid out his papers +on a kitchen-table, hung on the rough plaster wall an engraving of +Abraham Lincoln and a calendar with "Thoughts from the Poets," and +tried, with these meagre properties, to produce some likeness to the +study of a "minister" who had been kind to him and lent him books +when he was at Worcester. He still took refuge there in summer, but +when Mattie came to live at the farm he had to give her his stove, +and consequently the room was uninhabitable for several months of +the year. + +To this retreat he descended as soon as the house was quiet, and +Zeena's steady breathing from the bed had assured him that there was +to be no sequel to the scene in the kitchen. After Zeena's departure +he and Mattie had stood speechless, neither seeking to approach the +other. Then the girl had returned to her task of clearing up the +kitchen for the night and he had taken his lantern and gone on his +usual round outside the house. The kitchen was empty when he came +back to it; but his tobacco-pouch and pipe had been laid on the +table, and under them was a scrap of paper torn from the back of a +seedsman's catalogue, on which three words were written: "Don't +trouble, Ethan." + +Going into his cold dark "study" he placed the lantern on the table +and, stooping to its light, read the message again and again. It was +the first time that Mattie had ever written to him, and the +possession of the paper gave him a strange new sense of her +nearness; yet it deepened his anguish by reminding him that +henceforth they would have no other way of communicating with each +other. For the life of her smile, the warmth of her voice, only cold +paper and dead words! + +Confused motions of rebellion stormed in him. He was too young, too +strong, too full of the sap of living, to submit so easily to the +destruction of his hopes. Must he wear out all his years at the side +of a bitter querulous woman? Other possibilities had been in him, +possibilities sacrificed, one by one, to Zeena's narrow-mindedness +and ignorance. And what good had come of it? She was a hundred times +bitterer and more discontented than when he had married her: the one +pleasure left her was to inflict pain on him. All the healthy +instincts of self-defence rose up in him against such waste... + +He bundled himself into his old coon-skin coat and lay down on the +box-sofa to think. Under his cheek he felt a hard object with +strange protuberances. It was a cushion which Zeena had made for him +when they were engaged-the only piece of needlework he had ever seen +her do. He flung it across the floor and propped his head against +the wall... + +He knew a case of a man over the mountain-a young fellow of about +his own age-who had escaped from just such a life of misery by going +West with the girl he cared for. His wife had divorced him, and he +had married the girl and prospered. Ethan had seen the couple the +summer before at Shadd's Falls, where they had come to visit +relatives. They had a little girl with fair curls, who wore a gold +locket and was dressed like a princess. The deserted wife had not +done badly either. Her husband had given her the farm and she had +managed to sell it, and with that and the alimony she had started a +lunch-room at Bettsbridge and bloomed into activity and importance. +Ethan was fired by the thought. Why should he not leave with Mattie +the next day, instead of letting her go alone? He would hide his +valise under the seat of the sleigh, and Zeena would suspect nothing +till she went upstairs for her afternoon nap and found a letter on +the bed... + +His impulses were still near the surface, and he sprang up, re-lit +the lantern, and sat down at the table. He rummaged in the drawer +for a sheet of paper, found one, and began to write. + +"Zeena, I've done all I could for you, and I don't see as it's been +any use. I don't blame you, nor I don't blame myself. Maybe both of +us will do better separate. I'm going to try my luck West, and you +can sell the farm and mill, and keep the money-" + +His pen paused on the word, which brought home to him the relentless +conditions of his lot. If he gave the farm and mill to Zeena what +would be left him to start his own life with? Once in the West he +was sure of picking up work-he would not have feared to try his +chance alone. But with Mattie depending on him the case was +different. And what of Zeena's fate? Farm and mill were mortgaged to +the limit of their value, and even if she found a purchaser-in +itself an unlikely chance-it was doubtful if she could clear a +thousand dollars on the sale. Meanwhile, how could she keep the farm +going? It was only by incessant labour and personal supervision that +Ethan drew a meagre living from his land, and his wife, even if she +were in better health than she imagined, could never carry such a +burden alone. + +Well, she could go back to her people, then, and see what they would +do for her. It was the fate she was forcing on Mattie-why not let +her try it herself? By the time she had discovered his whereabouts, +and brought suit for divorce, he would probably-wherever he was-be +earning enough to pay her a sufficient alimony. And the alternative +was to let Mattie go forth alone, with far less hope of ultimate +provision... + +He had scattered the contents of the table-drawer in his search for +a sheet of paper, and as he took up his pen his eye fell on an old +copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle. The advertising sheet was folded +uppermost, and he read the seductive words: "Trips to the West: +Reduced Rates." + +He drew the lantern nearer and eagerly scanned the fares; then the +paper fell from his hand and he pushed aside his unfinished letter. +A moment ago he had wondered what he and Mattie were to live on when +they reached the West; now he saw that he had not even the money to +take her there. Borrowing was out of the question: six months before +he had given his only security to raise funds for necessary repairs +to the mill, and he knew that without security no one at Starkfield +would lend him ten dollars. The inexorable facts closed in on him +like prison-warders handcuffing a convict. There was no way +out-none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of light +was to be extinguished. + +He crept back heavily to the sofa, stretching himself out with limbs +so leaden that he felt as if they would never move again. Tears rose +in his throat and slowly burned their way to his lids. + +As he lay there, the window-pane that faced him, growing gradually +lighter, inlaid upon the darkness a square of moon-suffused sky. A +crooked tree-branch crossed it, a branch of the apple-tree under +which, on summer evenings, he had sometimes found Mattie sitting +when he came up from the mill. Slowly the rim of the rainy vapours +caught fire and burnt away, and a pure moon swung into the blue. +Ethan, rising on his elbow, watched the landscape whiten and shape +itself under the sculpture of the moon. This was the night on which +he was to have taken Mattie coasting, and there hung the lamp to +light them! He looked out at the slopes bathed in lustre, the +silver-edged darkness of the woods, the spectral purple of the hills +against the sky, and it seemed as though all the beauty of the night +had been poured out to mock his wretchedness... + +He fell asleep, and when he woke the chill of the winter dawn was in +the room. He felt cold and stiff and hungry, and ashamed of being +hungry. He rubbed his eyes and went to the window. A red sun stood +over the grey rim of the fields, behind trees that looked black and +brittle. He said to himself: "This is Matt's last day," and tried to +think what the place would be without her. + +As he stood there he heard a step behind him and she entered. + +"Oh, Ethan-were you here all night?" + +She looked so small and pinched, in her poor dress, with the red +scarf wound about her, and the cold light turning her paleness +sallow, that Ethan stood before her without speaking. + +"You must be frozen," she went on, fixing lustreless eyes on him. + +He drew a step nearer. "How did you know I was here?" + +"Because I heard you go down stairs again after I went to bed, and I +listened all night, and you didn't come up." + +All his tenderness rushed to his lips. He looked at her and said: +"I'll come right along and make up the kitchen fire." + +They went back to the kitchen, and he fetched the coal and kindlings +and cleared out the stove for her, while she brought in the milk and +the cold remains of the meat-pie. When warmth began to radiate from +the stove, and the first ray of sunlight lay on the kitchen floor, +Ethan's dark thoughts melted in the mellower air. The sight of +Mattie going about her work as he had seen her on so many mornings +made it seem impossible that she should ever cease to be a part of +the scene. He said to himself that he had doubtless exaggerated the +significance of Zeena's threats, and that she too, with the return +of daylight, would come to a saner mood. + +He went up to Mattie as she bent above the stove, and laid his hand +on her arm. "I don't want you should trouble either," he said, +looking down into her eyes with a smile. + +She flushed up warmly and whispered back: "No, Ethan, I ain't going +to trouble." + +"I guess things'll straighten out," he added. + +There was no answer but a quick throb of her lids, and he went on: +"She ain't said anything this morning?" + +"No. I haven't seen her yet." + +"Don't you take any notice when you do." + +With this injunction he left her and went out to the cow-barn. He +saw Jotham Powell walking up the hill through the morning mist, and +the familiar sight added to his growing conviction of security. + +As the two men were clearing out the stalls Jotham rested on his +pitch-fork to say: "Dan'l Byrne's goin' over to the Flats to-day +noon, an' he c'd take Mattie's trunk along, and make it easier +ridin' when I take her over in the sleigh." + +Ethan looked at him blankly, and he continued: "Mis' Frome said the +new girl'd be at the Flats at five, and I was to take Mattie then, +so's 't she could ketch the six o'clock train for Stamford." + +Ethan felt the blood drumming in his temples. He had to wait a +moment before he could find voice to say: "Oh, it ain't so sure +about Mattie's going-" + +"That so?" said Jotham indifferently; and they went on with their +work. + +When they returned to the kitchen the two women were already at +breakfast. Zeena had an air of unusual alertness and activity. She +drank two cups of coffee and fed the cat with the scraps left in the +pie-dish; then she rose from her seat and, walking over to the +window, snipped two or three yellow leaves from the geraniums. "Aunt +Martha's ain't got a faded leaf on 'em; but they pine away when they +ain't cared for," she said reflectively. Then she turned to Jotham +and asked: "What time'd you say Dan'l Byrne'd be along?" + +The hired man threw a hesitating glance at Ethan. + +"Round about noon," he said. + +Zeena turned to Mattie. "That trunk of yours is too heavy for the +sleigh, and Dan'l Byrne'll be round to take it over to the Flats," +she said. + +"I'm much obliged to you, Zeena," said Mattie. + +"I'd like to go over things with you first," Zeena continued in an +unperturbed voice. "I know there's a huckabuck towel missing; and I +can't take out what you done with that match-safe 't used to stand +behind the stuffed owl in the parlour." + +She went out, followed by Mattie, and when the men were alone Jotham +said to his employer: "I guess I better let Dan'l come round, then." + +Ethan finished his usual morning tasks about the house and barn; +then he said to Jotham: "I'm going down to Starkfield. Tell them not +to wait dinner." + +The passion of rebellion had broken out in him again. That which had +seemed incredible in the sober light of day had really come to pass, +and he was to assist as a helpless spectator at Mattie's banishment. +His manhood was humbled by the part he was compelled to play and by +the thought of what Mattie must think of him. Confused impulses +struggled in him as he strode along to the village. He had made up +his mind to do something, but he did not know what it would be. + +The early mist had vanished and the fields lay like a silver shield +under the sun. It was one of the days when the glitter of winter +shines through a pale haze of spring. Every yard of the road was +alive with Mattie's presence, and there was hardly a branch against +the sky or a tangle of brambles on the bank in which some bright +shred of memory was not caught. Once, in the stillness, the call of +a bird in a mountain ash was so like her laughter that his heart +tightened and then grew large; and all these things made him see +that something must be done at once. + +Suddenly it occurred to him that Andrew Hale, who was a kind-hearted +man, might be induced to reconsider his refusal and advance a small +sum on the lumber if he were told that Zeena's ill-health made it +necessary to hire a servant. Hale, after all, knew enough of Ethan's +situation to make it possible for the latter to renew his appeal +without too much loss of pride; and, moreover, how much did pride +count in the ebullition of passions in his breast? + +The more he considered his plan the more hopeful it seemed. If he +could get Mrs. Hale's ear he felt certain of success, and with fifty +dollars in his pocket nothing could keep him from Mattie... + +His first object was to reach Starkfield before Hale had started for +his work; he knew the carpenter had a job down the Corbury road and +was likely to leave his house early. Ethan's long strides grew more +rapid with the accelerated beat of his thoughts, and as he reached +the foot of School House Hill he caught sight of Hale's sleigh in +the distance. He hurried forward to meet it, but as it drew nearer +he saw that it was driven by the carpenter's youngest boy and that +the figure at his side, looking like a large upright cocoon in +spectacles, was that of Mrs. Hale. Ethan signed to them to stop, and +Mrs. Hale leaned forward, her pink wrinkles twinkling with +benevolence. + +"Mr. Hale? Why, yes, you'll find him down home now. He ain't going +to his work this forenoon. He woke up with a touch o' lumbago, and I +just made him put on one of old Dr. Kidder's plasters and set right +up into the fire." + +Beaming maternally on Ethan, she bent over to add: "I on'y just +heard from Mr. Hale 'bout Zeena's going over to Bettsbridge to see +that new doctor. I'm real sorry she's feeling so bad again! I hope +he thinks he can do something for her. I don't know anybody round +here's had more sickness than Zeena. I always tell Mr. Hale I don't +know what she'd 'a' done if she hadn't 'a' had you to look after +her; and I used to say the same thing 'bout your mother. You've had +an awful mean time, Ethan Frome." + +She gave him a last nod of sympathy while her son chirped to the +horse; and Ethan, as she drove off, stood in the middle of the road +and stared after the retreating sleigh. + +It was a long time since any one had spoken to him as kindly as Mrs. +Hale. Most people were either indifferent to his troubles, or +disposed to think it natural that a young fellow of his age should +have carried without repining the burden of three crippled lives. +But Mrs. Hale had said, "You've had an awful mean time, Ethan +Frome," and he felt less alone with his misery. If the Hales were +sorry for him they would surely respond to his appeal... + +He started down the road toward their house, but at the end of a few +yards he pulled up sharply, the blood in his face. For the first +time, in the light of the words he had just heard, he saw what he +was about to do. He was planning to take advantage of the Hales' +sympathy to obtain money from them on false pretences. That was a +plain statement of the cloudy purpose which had driven him in +headlong to Starkfield. + +With the sudden perception of the point to which his madness had +carried him, the madness fell and he saw his life before him as it +was. He was a poor man, the husband of a sickly woman, whom his +desertion would leave alone and destitute; and even if he had had +the heart to desert her he could have done so only by deceiving two +kindly people who had pitied him. + +He turned and walked slowly back to the farm. + + + + + + +IX + + + + + +At the kitchen door Daniel Byrne sat in his sleigh behind a +big-boned grey who pawed the snow and swung his long head restlessly +from side to side. + +Ethan went into the kitchen and found his wife by the stove. Her +head was wrapped in her shawl, and she was reading a book called +"Kidney Troubles and Their Cure" on which he had had to pay extra +postage only a few days before. + +Zeena did not move or look up when he entered, and after a moment he +asked: "Where's Mattie?" + +Without lifting her eyes from the page she replied: "I presume she's +getting down her trunk." + +The blood rushed to his face. "Getting down her trunk-alone?" + +"Jotham Powell's down in the wood-lot, and Dan'l Byrne says he +darsn't leave that horse," she returned. + +Her husband, without stopping to hear the end of the phrase, had +left the kitchen and sprung up the stairs. The door of Mattie's room +was shut, and he wavered a moment on the landing. "Matt," he said in +a low voice; but there was no answer, and he put his hand on the +door-knob. + +He had never been in her room except once, in the early summer, when +he had gone there to plaster up a leak in the eaves, but he +remembered exactly how everything had looked: the red-and-white +quilt on her narrow bed, the pretty pin-cushion on the chest of +drawers, and over it the enlarged photograph of her mother, in an +oxydized frame, with a bunch of dyed grasses at the back. Now these +and all other tokens of her presence had vanished and the room +looked as bare and comfortless as when Zeena had shown her into it +on the day of her arrival. In the middle of the floor stood her +trunk, and on the trunk she sat in her Sunday dress, her back turned +to the door and her face in her hands. She had not heard Ethan's +call because she was sobbing and she did not hear his step till he +stood close behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders. + +"Matt-oh, don't-oh, Matt!" + +She started up, lifting her wet face to his. "Ethan-I thought I +wasn't ever going to see you again!" + +He took her in his arms, pressing her close, and with a trembling +hand smoothed away the hair from her forehead. + +"Not see me again? What do you mean?" + +She sobbed out: "Jotham said you told him we wasn't to wait dinner +for you, and I thought-" + +"You thought I meant to cut it?" he finished for her grimly. + +She clung to him without answering, and he laid his lips on her +hair, which was soft yet springy, like certain mosses on warm +slopes, and had the faint woody fragrance of fresh sawdust in the +sun. + +Through the door they heard Zeena's voice calling out from below: +"Dan'l Byrne says you better hurry up if you want him to take that +trunk." + +They drew apart with stricken faces. Words of resistance rushed to +Ethan's lips and died there. Mattie found her handkerchief and dried +her eyes; then,-bending down, she took hold of a handle of the +trunk. + +Ethan put her aside. "You let go, Matt," he ordered her. + +She answered: "It takes two to coax it round the corner"; and +submitting to this argument he grasped the other handle, and +together they manoeuvred the heavy trunk out to the landing. + +"Now let go," he repeated; then he shouldered the trunk and carried +it down the stairs and across the passage to the kitchen. Zeena, who +had gone back to her seat by the stove, did not lift her head from +her book as he passed. Mattie followed him out of the door and +helped him to lift the trunk into the back of the sleigh. When it +was in place they stood side by side on the door-step, watching +Daniel Byrne plunge off behind his fidgety horse. + +It seemed to Ethan that his heart was bound with cords which an +unseen hand was tightening with every tick of the clock. Twice he +opened his lips to speak to Mattie and found no breath. At length, +as she turned to re-enter the house, he laid a detaining hand on +her. + +"I'm going to drive you over, Matt," he whispered. + +She murmured back: "I think Zeena wants I should go with Jotham." + +"I'm going to drive you over," he repeated; and she went into the +kitchen without answering. + +At dinner Ethan could not eat. If he lifted his eyes they rested on +Zeena's pinched face, and the corners of her straight lips seemed to +quiver away into a smile. She ate well, declaring that the mild +weather made her feel better, and pressed a second helping of beans +on Jotham Powell, whose wants she generally ignored. + +Mattie, when the meal was over, went about her usual task of +clearing the table and washing up the dishes. Zeena, after feeding +the cat, had returned to her rocking-chair by the stove, and Jotham +Powell, who always lingered last, reluctantly pushed back his chair +and moved toward the door. + +On the threshold he turned back to say to Ethan: "What time'll I +come round for Mattie?" + +Ethan was standing near the window, mechanically filling his pipe +while he watched Mattie move to and fro. He answered: "You needn't +come round; I'm going to drive her over myself." + +He saw the rise of the colour in Mattie's averted cheek, and the +quick lifting of Zeena's head. + +"I want you should stay here this afternoon, Ethan," his wife said. +"Jotham can drive Mattie over." + +Mattie flung an imploring glance at him, but he repeated curtly: +"I'm going to drive her over myself." + +Zeena continued in the same even tone: "I wanted you should stay and +fix up that stove in Mattie's room afore the girl gets here. It +ain't been drawing right for nigh on a month now." + +Ethan's voice rose indignantly. "If it was good enough for Mattie I +guess it's good enough for a hired girl." + +"That girl that's coming told me she was used to a house where they +had a furnace," Zeena persisted with the same monotonous mildness. + +"She'd better ha' stayed there then," he flung back at her; and +turning to Mattie he added in a hard voice: "You be ready by three, +Matt; I've got business at Corbury." + +Jotham Powell had started for the barn, and Ethan strode down after +him aflame with anger. The pulses in his temples throbbed and a fog +was in his eyes. He went about his task without knowing what force +directed him, or whose hands and feet were fulfilling its orders. It +was not till he led out the sorrel and backed him between the shafts +of the sleigh that he once more became conscious of what he was +doing. As he passed the bridle over the horse's head, and wound the +traces around the shafts, he remembered the day when he had made the +same preparations in order to drive over and meet his wife's cousin +at the Flats. It was little more than a year ago, on just such a +soft afternoon, with a "feel" of spring in the air. The sorrel, +turning the same big ringed eye on him, nuzzled the palm of his hand +in the same way; and one by one all the days between rose up and +stood before him... + +He flung the bearskin into the sleigh, climbed to the seat, and +drove up to the house. When he entered the kitchen it was empty, but +Mattie's bag and shawl lay ready by the door. He went to the foot of +the stairs and listened. No sound reached him from above, but +presently he thought he heard some one moving about in his deserted +study, and pushing open the door he saw Mattie, in her hat and +jacket, standing with her back to him near the table. + +She started at his approach and turning quickly, said: "Is it time?" + +"What are you doing here, Matt?" he asked her. + +She looked at him timidly. "I was just taking a look round-that's +all," she answered, with a wavering smile. + +They went back into the kitchen without speaking, and Ethan picked +up her bag and shawl. + +"Where's Zeena?" he asked. + +"She went upstairs right after dinner. She said she had those +shooting pains again, and didn't want to be disturbed." + +"Didn't she say good-bye to you?" + +"No. That was all she said." + +Ethan, looking slowly about the kitchen, said to himself with a +shudder that in a few hours he would be returning to it alone. Then +the sense of unreality overcame him once more, and he could not +bring himself to believe that Mattie stood there for the last time +before him. + +"Come on," he said almost gaily, opening the door and putting her +bag into the sleigh. He sprang to his seat and bent over to tuck the +rug about her as she slipped into the place at his side. "Now then, +go 'long," he said, with a shake of the reins that sent the sorrel +placidly jogging down the hill. + +"We got lots of time for a good ride, Matt!" he cried, seeking her +hand beneath the fur and pressing it in his. His face tingled and he +felt dizzy, as if he had stopped in at the Starkfield saloon on a +zero day for a drink. + +At the gate, instead of making for Starkfield, he turned the sorrel +to the right, up the Bettsbridge road. Mattie sat silent, giving no +sign of surprise; but after a moment she said: "Are you going round +by Shadow Pond?" + +He laughed and answered: "I knew you'd know!" + +She drew closer under the bearskin, so that, looking sideways around +his coat-sleeve, he could just catch the tip of her nose and a blown +brown wave of hair. They drove slowly up the road between fields +glistening under the pale sun, and then bent to the right down a +lane edged with spruce and larch. Ahead of them, a long way off, a +range of hills stained by mottlings of black forest flowed away in +round white curves against the sky. The lane passed into a pine-wood +with boles reddening in the afternoon sun and delicate blue shadows +on the snow. As they entered it the breeze fell and a warm stillness +seemed to drop from the branches with the dropping needles. Here the +snow was so pure that the tiny tracks of wood-animals had left on it +intricate lace-like patterns, and the bluish cones caught in its +surface stood out like ornaments of bronze. + +Ethan drove on in silence till they reached a part of the wood where +the pines were more widely spaced, then he drew up and helped Mattie +to get out of the sleigh. They passed between the aromatic trunks, +the snow breaking crisply under their feet, till they came to a +small sheet of water with steep wooded sides. Across its frozen +surface, from the farther bank, a single hill rising against the +western sun threw the long conical shadow which gave the lake its +name. It was a shy secret spot, full of the same dumb melancholy +that Ethan felt in his heart. + +He looked up and down the little pebbly beach till his eye lit on a +fallen tree-trunk half submerged in snow. + +"There's where we sat at the picnic," he reminded her. + +The entertainment of which he spoke was one of the few that they had +taken part in together: a "church picnic" which, on a long afternoon +of the preceding summer, had filled the retired place with +merry-making. Mattie had begged him to go with her but he had +refused. Then, toward sunset, coming down from the mountain where he +had been felling timber, he had been caught by some strayed +revellers and drawn into the group by the lake, where Mattie, +encircled by facetious youths, and bright as a blackberry under her +spreading hat, was brewing coffee over a gipsy fire. He remembered +the shyness he had felt at approaching her in his uncouth clothes, +and then the lighting up of her face, and the way she had broken +through the group to come to him with a cup in her hand. They had +sat for a few minutes on the fallen log by the pond, and she had +missed her gold locket, and set the young men searching for it; and +it was Ethan who had spied it in the moss.... That was all; but all +their intercourse had been made up of just such inarticulate +flashes, when they seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they +had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods... + +"It was right there I found your locket," he said, pushing his foot +into a dense tuft of blueberry bushes. + +"I never saw anybody with such sharp eyes!" she answered. + +She sat down on the tree-trunk in the sun and he sat down beside +her. + +"You were as pretty as a picture in that pink hat," he said. + +She laughed with pleasure. "Oh, I guess it was the hat!" she +rejoined. + +They had never before avowed their inclination so openly, and Ethan, +for a moment, had the illusion that he was a free man, wooing the +girl he meant to marry. He looked at her hair and longed to touch it +again, and to tell her that it smelt of the woods; but he had never +learned to say such things. + +Suddenly she rose to her feet and said: "We mustn't stay here any +longer." + +He continued to gaze at her vaguely, only half-roused from his +dream. "There's plenty of time," he answered. + +They stood looking at each other as if the eyes of each were +straining to absorb and hold fast the other's image. There were +things he had to say to her before they parted, but he could not say +them in that place of summer memories, and he turned and followed +her in silence to the sleigh. As they drove away the sun sank behind +the hill and the pine-boles turned from red to grey. + +By a devious track between the fields they wound back to the +Starkfield road. Under the open sky the light was still clear, with +a reflection of cold red on the eastern hills. The clumps of trees +in the snow seemed to draw together in ruffled lumps, like birds +with their heads under their wings; and the sky, as it paled, rose +higher, leaving the earth more alone. + +As they turned into the Starkfield road Ethan said: "Matt, what do +you mean to do?" + +She did not answer at once, but at length she said: "I'll try to get +a place in a store." + +"You know you can't do it. The bad air and the standing all day +nearly killed you before." + +"I'm a lot stronger than I was before I came to Starkfield." + +"And now you're going to throw away all the good it's done you!" + +There seemed to be no answer to this, and again they drove on for a +while without speaking. With every yard of the way some spot where +they had stood, and laughed together or been silent, clutched at +Ethan and dragged him back. + +"Isn't there any of your father's folks could help you?" + +"There isn't any of 'em I'd ask." + +He lowered his voice to say: "You know there's nothing I wouldn't do +for you if I could." + +"I know there isn't." + +"But I can't-" + +She was silent, but he felt a slight tremor in the shoulder against +his. + +"Oh, Matt," he broke out, "if I could ha' gone with you now I'd ha' +done it-" + +She turned to him, pulling a scrap of paper from her breast. +"Ethan-I found this," she stammered. Even in the failing light he +saw it was the letter to his wife that he had begun the night before +and forgotten to destroy. Through his astonishment there ran a +fierce thrill of joy. "Matt-" he cried; "if I could ha' done it, +would you?" + +"Oh, Ethan, Ethan-what's the use?" With a sudden movement she tore +the letter in shreds and sent them fluttering off into the snow. + +"Tell me, Matt! Tell me!" he adjured her. + +She was silent for a moment; then she said, in such a low tone that +he had to stoop his head to hear her: "I used to think of it +sometimes, summer nights, when the moon was so bright I couldn't +sleep." + +His heart reeled with the sweetness of it. "As long ago as that?" + +She answered, as if the date had long been fixed for her: "The first +time was at Shadow Pond." + +"Was that why you gave me my coffee before the others?" + +"I don't know. Did I? I was dreadfully put out when you wouldn't go +to the picnic with me; and then, when I saw you coming down the +road, I thought maybe you'd gone home that way o' purpose; and that +made me glad." + +They were silent again. They had reached the point where the road +dipped to the hollow by Ethan's mill and as they descended the +darkness descended with them, dropping down like a black veil from +the heavy hemlock boughs. + +"I'm tied hand and foot, Matt. There isn't a thing I can do," he +began again. + +"You must write to me sometimes, Ethan." + +"Oh, what good'll writing do? I want to put my hand out and touch +you. I want to do for you and care for you. I want to be there when +you're sick and when you're lonesome." + +"You mustn't think but what I'll do all right." + +"You won't need me, you mean? I suppose you'll marry!" + +"Oh, Ethan!" she cried. + +"I don't know how it is you make me feel, Matt. I'd a'most rather +have you dead than that!" + +"Oh, I wish I was, I wish I was!" she sobbed. + +The sound of her weeping shook him out of his dark anger, and he +felt ashamed. + +"Don't let's talk that way," he whispered. + +"Why shouldn't we, when it's true? I've been wishing it every minute +of the day." + +"Matt! You be quiet! Don't you say it." + +"There's never anybody been good to me but you." + +"Don't say that either, when I can't lift a hand for you!" + +"Yes; but it's true just the same." + +They had reached the top of School House Hill and Starkfield lay +below them in the twilight. A cutter, mounting the road from the +village, passed them by in a joyous flutter of bells, and they +straightened themselves and looked ahead with rigid faces. Along the +main street lights had begun to shine from the house-fronts and +stray figures were turning in here and there at the gates. Ethan, +with a touch of his whip, roused the sorrel to a languid trot. + +As they drew near the end of the village the cries of children +reached them, and they saw a knot of boys, with sleds behind them, +scattering across the open space before the church. + +"I guess this'll be their last coast for a day or two," Ethan said, +looking up at the mild sky. + +Mattie was silent, and he added: "We were to have gone down last +night." + +Still she did not speak and, prompted by an obscure desire to help +himself and her through their miserable last hour, he went on +discursively: "Ain't it funny we haven't been down together but just +that once last winter?" + +She answered: "It wasn't often I got down to the village." + +"That's so," he said. + +They had reached the crest of the Corbury road, and between the +indistinct white glimmer of the church and the black curtain of the +Varnum spruces the slope stretched away below them without a sled on +its length. Some erratic impulse prompted Ethan to say: "How'd you +like me to take you down now?" + +She forced a laugh. "Why, there isn't time!" + +"There's all the time we want. Come along!" His one desire now was +to postpone the moment of turning the sorrel toward the Flats. + +"But the girl," she faltered. "The girl'll be waiting at the +station." + +"Well, let her wait. You'd have to if she didn't. Come!" + +The note of authority in his voice seemed to subdue her, and when he +had jumped from the sleigh she let him help her out, saying only, +with a vague feint of reluctance: "But there isn't a sled round +anywheres." + +"Yes, there is! Right over there under the spruces." He threw the +bearskin over the sorrel, who stood passively by the roadside, +hanging a meditative head. Then he caught Mattie's hand and drew her +after him toward the sled. + +She seated herself obediently and he took his place behind her, so +close that her hair brushed his face. "All right, Matt?" he called +out, as if the width of the road had been between them. + +She turned her head to say: "It's dreadfully dark. Are you sure you +can see?" + +He laughed contemptuously: "I could go down this coast with my eyes +tied!" and she laughed with him, as if she liked his audacity. +Nevertheless he sat still a moment, straining his eyes down the long +hill, for it was the most confusing hour of the evening, the hour +when the last clearness from the upper sky is merged with the rising +night in a blur that disguises landmarks and falsifies distances. + +"Now!" he cried. + +The sled started with a bound, and they flew on through the dusk, +gathering smoothness and speed as they went, with the hollow night +opening out below them and the air singing by like an organ. Mattie +sat perfectly still, but as they reached the bend at the foot of the +hill, where the big elm thrust out a deadly elbow, he fancied that +she shrank a little closer. + +"Don't be scared, Matt!" he cried exultantly, as they spun safely +past it and flew down the second slope; and when they reached the +level ground beyond, and the speed of the sled began to slacken, he +heard her give a little laugh of glee. + +They sprang off and started to walk back up the hill. Ethan dragged +the sled with one hand and passed the other through Mattie's arm. + +"Were you scared I'd run you into the elm?" he asked with a boyish +laugh. + +"I told you I was never scared with you," she answered. + +The strange exaltation of his mood had brought on one of his rare +fits of boastfulness. "It is a tricky place, though. The least +swerve, and we'd never ha' come up again. But I can measure +distances to a hair's-breadth-always could." + +She murmured: "I always say you've got the surest eye..." + +Deep silence had fallen with the starless dusk, and they leaned on +each other without speaking; but at every step of their climb Ethan +said to himself: "It's the last time we'll ever walk together." + +They mounted slowly to the top of the hill. When they were abreast +of the church he stooped his head to her to ask: "Are you tired?" +and she answered, breathing quickly: "It was splendid!" + +With a pressure of his arm he guided her toward the Norway spruces. +"I guess this sled must be Ned Hale's. Anyhow I'll leave it where I +found it." He drew the sled up to the Varnum gate and rested it +against the fence. As he raised himself he suddenly felt Mattie +close to him among the shadows. + +"Is this where Ned and Ruth kissed each other?" she whispered +breathlessly, and flung her arms about him. Her lips, groping for +his, swept over his face, and he held her fast in a rapture of +surprise. + +"Good-bye-good-bye," she stammered, and kissed him again. + +"Oh, Matt, I can't let you go!" broke from him in the same old cry. + +She freed herself from his hold and he heard her sobbing. "Oh, I +can't go either!" she wailed. + +"Matt! What'll we do? What'll we do?" + +They clung to each other's hands like children, and her body shook +with desperate sobs. + +Through the stillness they heard the church clock striking five. + +"Oh, Ethan, it's time!" she cried. + +He drew her back to him. "Time for what? You don't suppose I'm going +to leave you now?" + +"If I missed my train where'd I go?" + +"Where are you going if you catch it?" + +She stood silent, her hands lying cold and relaxed in his. + +"What's the good of either of us going anywheres without the other +one now?" he said. + +She remained motionless, as if she had not heard him. Then she +snatched her hands from his, threw her arms about his neck, and +pressed a sudden drenched cheek against his face. "Ethan! Ethan! I +want you to take me down again!" + +"Down where?" + +"The coast. Right off," she panted. "So 't we'll never come up any +more." + +"Matt! What on earth do you mean?" + +She put her lips close against his ear to say: "Right into the big +elm. You said you could. So 't we'd never have to leave each other +any more." + +"Why, what are you talking of? You're crazy!" + +"I'm not crazy; but I will be if I leave you." + +"Oh, Matt, Matt-" he groaned. + +She tightened her fierce hold about his neck. Her face lay close to +his face. + +"Ethan, where'll I go if I leave you? I don't know how to get along +alone. You said so yourself just now. Nobody but you was ever good +to me. And there'll be that strange girl in the house... and she'll +sleep in my bed, where I used to lay nights and listen to hear you +come up the stairs..." + +The words were like fragments torn from his heart. With them came +the hated vision of the house he was going back to-of the stairs he +would have to go up every night, of the woman who would wait for him +there. And the sweetness of Mattie's avowal, the wild wonder of +knowing at last that all that had happened to him had happened to +her too, made the other vision more abhorrent, the other life more +intolerable to return to... + +Her pleadings still came to him between short sobs, but he no longer +heard what she was saying. Her hat had slipped back and he was +stroking her hair. He wanted to get the feeling of it into his hand, +so that it would sleep there like a seed in winter. Once he found +her mouth again, and they seemed to be by the pond together in the +burning August sun. But his cheek touched hers, and it was cold and +full of weeping, and he saw the road to the Flats under the night +and heard the whistle of the train up the line. + +The spruces swathed them in blackness and silence. They might have +been in their coffins underground. He said to himself: "Perhaps +it'll feel like this..." and then again: "After this I sha'n't feel +anything..." + +Suddenly he heard the old sorrel whinny across the road, and +thought: "He's wondering why he doesn't get his supper..." + +"Come!" Mattie whispered, tugging at his hand. + +Her sombre violence constrained him: she seemed the embodied +instrument of fate. He pulled the sled out, blinking like a +night-bird as he passed from the shade of the spruces into the +transparent dusk of the open. The slope below them was deserted. All +Starkfield was at supper, and not a figure crossed the open space +before the church. The sky, swollen with the clouds that announce a +thaw, hung as low as before a summer storm. He strained his eyes +through the dimness, and they seemed less keen, less capable than +usual. + +He took his seat on the sled and Mattie instantly placed herself in +front of him. Her hat had fallen into the snow and his lips were in +her hair. He stretched out his legs, drove his heels into the road +to keep the sled from slipping forward, and bent her head back +between his hands. Then suddenly he sprang up again. + +"Get up," he ordered her. + +It was the tone she always heeded, but she cowered down in her seat, +repeating vehemently: "No, no, no!" + +"Get up!" + +"Why?" + +"I want to sit in front." + +"No, no! How can you steer in front?" + +"I don't have to. We'll follow the track." + +They spoke in smothered whispers, as though the night were +listening. + +"Get up! Get up!" he urged her; but she kept on repeating: "Why do +you want to sit in front?" + +"Because I-because I want to feel you holding me," he stammered, and +dragged her to her feet. + +The answer seemed to satisfy her, or else she yielded to the power +of his voice. He bent down, feeling in the obscurity for the glassy +slide worn by preceding coasters, and placed the runners carefully +between its edges. She waited while he seated himself with crossed +legs in the front of the sled; then she crouched quickly down at his +back and clasped her arms about him. Her breath in his neck set him +shuddering again, and he almost sprang from his seat. But in a flash +he remembered the alternative. She was right: this was better than +parting. He leaned back and drew her mouth to his... + +Just as they started he heard the sorrel's whinny again, and the +familiar wistful call, and all the confused images it brought with +it, went with him down the first reach of the road. Half-way down +there was a sudden drop, then a rise, and after that another long +delirious descent. As they took wing for this it seemed to him that +they were flying indeed, flying far up into the cloudy night, with +Starkfield immeasurably below them, falling away like a speck in +space... Then the big elm shot up ahead, lying in wait for them at +the bend of the road, and he said between his teeth: "We can fetch +it; I know we can fetch it-" + +As they flew toward the tree Mattie pressed her arms tighter, and +her blood seemed to be in his veins. Once or twice the sled swerved +a little under them. He slanted his body to keep it headed for the +elm, repeating to himself again and again: "I know we can fetch it"; +and little phrases she had spoken ran through his head and danced +before him on the air. The big tree loomed bigger and closer, and as +they bore down on it he thought: "It's waiting for us: it seems to +know." But suddenly his wife's face, with twisted monstrous +lineaments, thrust itself between him and his goal, and he made an +instinctive movement to brush it aside. The sled swerved in +response, but he righted it again, kept it straight, and drove down +on the black projecting mass. There was a last instant when the air +shot past him like millions of fiery wires; and then the elm... + +The sky was still thick, but looking straight up he saw a single +star, and tried vaguely to reckon whether it were Sirius, or-or-The +effort tired him too much, and he closed his heavy lids and thought +that he would sleep... The stillness was so profound that he heard a +little animal twittering somewhere near by under the snow. It made a +small frightened cheep like a field mouse, and he wondered languidly +if it were hurt. Then he understood that it must be in pain: pain so +excruciating that he seemed, mysteriously, to feel it shooting +through his own body. He tried in vain to roll over in the direction +of the sound, and stretched his left arm out across the snow. And +now it was as though he felt rather than heard the twittering; it +seemed to be under his palm, which rested on something soft and +springy. The thought of the animal's suffering was intolerable to +him and he struggled to raise himself, and could not because a rock, +or some huge mass, seemed to be lying on him. But he continued to +finger about cautiously with his left hand, thinking he might get +hold of the little creature and help it; and all at once he knew +that the soft thing he had touched was Mattie's hair and that his +hand was on her face. + +He dragged himself to his knees, the monstrous load on him moving +with him as he moved, and his hand went over and over her face, and +he felt that the twittering came from her lips... + +He got his face down close to hers, with his ear to her mouth, and +in the darkness he saw her eyes open and heard her say his name. + +"Oh, Matt, I thought we'd fetched it," he moaned; and far off, up +the hill, he heard the sorrel whinny, and thought: "I ought to be +getting him his feed..." + +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + + + + + + +THE QUERULOUS DRONE ceased as I entered Frome's kitchen, and of the +two women sitting there I could not tell which had been the speaker. + +One of them, on my appearing, raised her tall bony figure from her +seat, not as if to welcome me-for she threw me no more than a brief +glance of surprise-but simply to set about preparing the meal which +Frome's absence had delayed. A slatternly calico wrapper hung from +her shoulders and the wisps of her thin grey hair were drawn away +from a high forehead and fastened at the back by a broken comb. She +had pale opaque eyes which revealed nothing and reflected nothing, +and her narrow lips were of the same sallow colour as her face. + +The other woman was much smaller and slighter. She sat huddled in an +arm-chair near the stove, and when I came in she turned her head +quickly toward me, without the least corresponding movement of her +body. Her hair was as grey as her companion's, her face as bloodless +and shrivelled, but amber-tinted, with swarthy shadows sharpening +the nose and hollowing the temples. Under her shapeless dress her +body kept its limp immobility, and her dark eyes had the bright +witch-like stare that disease of the spine sometimes gives. + +Even for that part of the country the kitchen was a poor-looking +place. With the exception of the dark-eyed woman's chair, which +looked like a soiled relic of luxury bought at a country auction, +the furniture was of the roughest kind. Three coarse china plates +and a broken-nosed milk-jug had been set on a greasy table scored +with knife-cuts, and a couple of straw-bottomed chairs and a kitchen +dresser of unpainted pine stood meagrely against the plaster walls. + +"My, it's cold here! The fire must be 'most out," Frome said, +glancing about him apologetically as he followed me in. + +The tall woman, who had moved away from us toward the dresser, took +no notice; but the other, from her cushioned niche, answered +complainingly, in a high thin voice. "It's on'y just been made up +this very minute. Zeena fell asleep and slep' ever so long, and I +thought I'd be frozen stiff before I could wake her up and get her +to 'tend to it." + +I knew then that it was she who had been speaking when we entered. + +Her companion, who was just coming back to the table with the +remains of a cold mince-pie in a battered pie-dish, set down her +unappetising burden without appearing to hear the accusation brought +against her. + +Frome stood hesitatingly before her as she advanced; then he looked +at me and said: "This is my wife, Mis' Frome." After another +interval he added, turning toward the figure in the arm-chair: "And +this is Miss Mattie Silver..." + +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + +Mrs. Hale, tender soul, had pictured me as lost in the Flats and +buried under a snow-drift; and so lively was her satisfaction on +seeing me safely restored to her the next morning that I felt my +peril had caused me to advance several degrees in her favour. + +Great was her amazement, and that of old Mrs. Varnum, on learning +that Ethan Frome's old horse had carried me to and from Corbury +Junction through the worst blizzard of the winter; greater still +their surprise when they heard that his master had taken me in for +the night. + +Beneath their wondering exclamations I felt a secret curiosity to +know what impressions I had received from my night in the Frome +household, and divined that the best way of breaking down their +reserve was to let them try to penetrate mine. I therefore confined +myself to saying, in a matter-of-fact tone, that I had been received +with great kindness, and that Frome had made a bed for me in a room +on the ground-floor which seemed in happier days to have been fitted +up as a kind of writing-room or study. + +"Well," Mrs. Hale mused, "in such a storm I suppose he felt he +couldn't do less than take you in-but I guess it went hard with +Ethan. I don't believe but what you're the only stranger has set +foot in that house for over twenty years. He's that proud he don't +even like his oldest friends to go there; and I don't know as any +do, any more, except myself and the doctor..." + +"You still go there, Mrs. Hale?" I ventured. + +"I used to go a good deal after the accident, when I was first +married; but after awhile I got to think it made 'em feel worse to +see us. And then one thing and another came, and my own troubles... +But I generally make out to drive over there round about New Year's, +and once in the summer. Only I always try to pick a day when Ethan's +off somewheres. It's bad enough to see the two women sitting +there-but his face, when he looks round that bare place, just kills +me... You see, I can look back and call it up in his mother's day, +before their troubles." + +Old Mrs. Varnum, by this time, had gone up to bed, and her daughter +and I were sitting alone, after supper, in the austere seclusion of +the horse-hair parlour. Mrs. Hale glanced at me tentatively, as +though trying to see how much footing my conjectures gave her; and I +guessed that if she had kept silence till now it was because she had +been waiting, through all the years, for some one who should see +what she alone had seen. + +I waited to let her trust in me gather strength before I said: "Yes, +it's pretty bad, seeing all three of them there together." + +She drew her mild brows into a frown of pain. "It was just awful +from the beginning. I was here in the house when they were carried +up-they laid Mattie Silver in the room you're in. She and I were +great friends, and she was to have been my bridesmaid in the +spring... When she came to I went up to her and stayed all night. +They gave her things to quiet her, and she didn't know much till +to'rd morning, and then all of a sudden she woke up just like +herself, and looked straight at me out of her big eyes, and said... +Oh, I don't know why I'm telling you all this," Mrs. Hale broke off, +crying. + +She took off her spectacles, wiped the moisture from them, and put +them on again with an unsteady hand. "It got about the next day," +she went on, "that Zeena Frome had sent Mattie off in a hurry +because she had a hired girl coming, and the folks here could never +rightly tell what she and Ethan were doing that night coasting, when +they'd ought to have been on their way to the Flats to ketch the +train... I never knew myself what Zeena thought-I don't to this day. +Nobody knows Zeena's thoughts. Anyhow, when she heard o' the +accident she came right in and stayed with Ethan over to the +minister's, where they'd carried him. And as soon as the doctors +said that Mattie could be moved, Zeena sent for her and took her +back to the farm." + +"And there she's been ever since?" + +Mrs. Hale answered simply: "There was nowhere else for her to go;" +and my heart tightened at the thought of the hard compulsions of the +poor. + +"Yes, there she's been," Mrs. Hale continued, "and Zeena's done for +her, and done for Ethan, as good as she could. It was a miracle, +considering how sick she was-but she seemed to be raised right up +just when the call came to her. Not as she's ever given up +doctoring, and she's had sick spells right along; but she's had the +strength given her to care for those two for over twenty years, and +before the accident came she thought she couldn't even care for +herself." + +Mrs. Hale paused a moment, and I remained silent, plunged in the +vision of what her words evoked. "It's horrible for them all," I +murmured. + +"Yes: it's pretty bad. And they ain't any of 'em easy people either. +Mattie was, before the accident; I never knew a sweeter nature. But +she's suffered too much-that's what I always say when folks tell me +how she's soured. And Zeena, she was always cranky. Not but what she +bears with Mattie wonderful-I've seen that myself. But sometimes the +two of them get going at each other, and then Ethan's face'd break +your heart... When I see that, I think it's him that suffers most... +anyhow it ain't Zeena, because she ain't got the time... It's a +pity, though," Mrs. Hale ended, sighing, "that they're all shut up +there'n that one kitchen. In the summertime, on pleasant days, they +move Mattie into the parlour, or out in the door-yard, and that +makes it easier... but winters there's the fires to be thought of; +and there ain't a dime to spare up at the Fromes.'" + +Mrs. Hale drew a deep breath, as though her memory were eased of its +long burden, and she had no more to say; but suddenly an impulse of +complete avowal seized her. + +She took off her spectacles again, leaned toward me across the +bead-work table-cover, and went on with lowered voice: "There was +one day, about a week after the accident, when they all thought +Mattie couldn't live. Well, I say it's a pity she did. I said it +right out to our minister once, and he was shocked at me. Only he +wasn't with me that morning when she first came to... And I say, if +she'd ha' died, Ethan might ha' lived; and the way they are now, I +don't see's there's much difference between the Fromes up at the +farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard; 'cept that down there +they're all quiet, and the women have got to hold their tongues." + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Ethan Frome +by Edith Wharton + |