Ethan Frome
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 an 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