I
Early in the afternoon, when the sun was making furtive efforts to
slip past the cloud-guard and repair the damage the rain had wrought,
Lavinia stepped briskly from her room, clad in her best blue silk
poplin. An hour past she had been bathing her eyes, and her mirror
satisfied her that the redness and swelling were all gone. She went
straight to her father’s store, across from the bank. Ellen Porter
would be there, behind the bookkeeper’s desk.
“I want you to do something for me, Nell,” she began--noting the hollow
in her voice, and striving against it. “I want you to take this to Mr.
Stone.”
She held a small, neatly tied parcel in her hand. They walked to the
wide doorway and stood watching the sun-glints in the pools of the
muddy street, each waiting for the other to venture on some hospitable
avenue of speech. Ellen considered her thin-soled shoes, scarce dry
from the morning’s wetting, glanced at the precarious stepping stones,
half a block away ... and caught sight of David Trench, coming towards
them. She beckoned him.
David was a shy, fair-cheeked youth, a few months older than Lavinia
and Ellen. The three had been christened the same Sunday in the little
Presbyterian church. They had gone through the village school together,
and David and Ellen sang leading parts in the church choir. It was Dave
Trench who sharpened their skates, pulled their sleds up the hill,
tuned their pianos, repaired their furniture, took them home from
Sunday evening services when no other escort was available.
“Vine wants you to do an errand for her, Davy. Would you mind taking
this little package over to the bank?”
“I wouldn’t mind going to Halifax for her.”
Ellen laid the parcel in his hand. He was to give it to Mr. Stone.
In no case was he to give it to Calvin. As his lithe figure melted
into the gloom of the building across the way, she turned for the
information that was her due.
“It’s my engagement ring.”
“What!”
“Yes, I’ve given Calvin the mitten. His father came down this morning
and laboured with me for more than an hour to get me to change my
mind; but I told him I would never marry a man who smoked and drank
and gambled. That was what I was about to tell you this morning, when
Ted ran in on us. I’ve had him on probation since last spring--for two
years, in fact. He’s promised me over and over. And yesterday, after he
bought the ring for our wedding, he went and got roaring drunk--fell
into the hands of some disreputable woman--and-- Why, Ellen, when he
stopped at the house last night he was so maudlin that he couldn’t give
an account of where he’d been or what had happened to him. You can
guess how we parted. He told his father this morning that he’d go to
the dogs if I turned him down. Mr. Stone almost got down on his knees
to me, but it was all wasted. When I’m done, I’m done.”
Ellen Porter had but one grievous fault. When she found herself unable
to keep a secret, she did not scruple to seek help. Lavinia thought
afterward it had been almost an inspiration ... telling Ellen. By
Sunday it would be all over town, each one of Ellen’s confidantes
pledged to hold the revelation sacred. She knew, too, how Calvin’s
lapse from virtue would grow with each fresh telling of the story. By
another Sunday it would be murder he had committed.