Ethan Frome Page #24

Ethan Frome is a 1911 book by American author Edith Wharton. It is set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. The novel was adapted into a film, Ethan Frome, in 1993.

• Fantasy
• Horror
• Novel

								


“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.”
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