The scandal derived its impetus from the vulgar circumstance that the
Hilliard washing went to line on Tuesday (Monday having dawned lowering
and ended stormy), thereby exposing more family linen than could
possibly have been foreseen, since the day laundress and Mrs.
Hilliard's housemaid were bound in friendship by a common appetite for
gossip and for tea. Monday's unfinished labors despatched, these
familiars laid their heads together over a pannikin of their favorite
brew, and the laundress, poising her saucer with the elegance which was
the envy of her circle, ventured the opinion that the housemaid was
holding in reserve a palate-tickling morsel concerning the missus;
whereupon the housemaid cloaked herself afresh with mystery and
"suspicioned" that she could tell things if she were one of those
odious persons who carried tales, which of course she was not.
Blowing and sipping with the calm which is the handmaiden of true
elegance, the laundress conceded both propositions, and edged forward
the suggestion that tale-bearing and confidence between intimates were
horses of dissimilar color. This was readily admitted by the housemaid
with its corollary that anything intrusted in confidence to the bosom
of the laundress was as good as locked in the mute confines of the
tomb. With these time-honored preliminaries the crisis above stairs as
seen from below stairs was promptly bared to the scalpel.
"Whin he come home lasht night He was here," the housemaid imparted in
a whisper.
The laundress hurdled the ambiguous pronouns like a thoroughbred.
"Is it th' trut' ye're tellin' me?" she demanded, forgetting her
graces, and grounding her saucer with a clatter.
"Cross me hear-rt," said the housemaid, enjoying her sensation.
"Ye'll excuse me intherruptin'--"
"Ye're no intherruptin'. 'Tis th' ind iv th' shtory."
"But phat did th' good ma-an say?"
As the faithful soul did not know, she remarked that there were some
things which a lady in her delicate position could not confide even to
a bosom friend. She hinted, however, that in the light of what she had
told the laundress a week ago of the family jar occasioned by Her
meeting Him in New York, the present state of things was easy to
conjecture.
But the laundress thirsted for details.
"Was his dayparture suddin like?" she asked.
Feeling that the force of her narrative might suffer from the admission
that she had only entered the house by a side door after she had met
Him walking rapidly away from the front, the housemaid answered merely
by moving sighs. The laundress reasoned from past experience that the
font had gone dry, and suddenly remembered that she was promised to
help with the Bowers's heavy ironing. This was at a quarter before
nine o'clock.
At ten minutes past nine o'clock the laundress remarked across the
ironing-board to Mrs. Bowers that if she were one of those odious
persons who carried tales, which of course she was not, she could
expose the carryings-on of somebody living not a hundred miles away to
a tune which would bring the blush to New Babylon's outraged cheek.
Mrs. Bowers made haste to answer that she was of principle firmly
opposed to gossip; but as an intelligent woman, she recognized that
certain things require ventilation for the good of the community, and
was accustomed in such emergencies to send personal reluctance to the
rear. The tale of how He coming unexpectedly home found Him with Her
was then put through its paces with such skilful jockeying that not one
in ten would know it for the same dobbin so lately brought limping to
the light.
As now set forth, He had fathomed Her and Him with more shrewdness than
the world had given him credit for possessing--poor man!--and had been
hoodwinked by their transparent devices for meeting at the golf links
and on lonely country roads no more than had Mrs. Bowers or any other
person of equal virtue and capacity. He had seen, and he had warned.
Then, stolen sweets becoming perilous near home, the culprits had taken
their several ways to New York,--most fit choice for such a pilgrimage!
This too was fathomed and forgiven. O unwise clemency! O base
requital! Violence upon discovery? No doubt. Loaded pistol
constantly in the house since the last burglar scare. At this Mrs.
Bowers recollected shots in the night; Seneca had said "Campaign
fireworks"; but she knew better; shots, of course. Dreadful thing to
happen at one's very door. An immediate separation naturally. By all
the laws of righteousness she should not be given the custody of the
child.
In affairs requiring ventilation for the common good Mrs. Bowers could
conceive of no instrument so sure as the Widow Weatherwax, who
providentially dropped in to borrow flour at the precise moment Mrs.
Bowers had decided that if she ever meant to run over and copy the
widow's unequalled recipe for floating island, this was the time to do
it. Quite in the same breath with her greetings, therefore, Mrs.
Bowers intimated that were she one of those odious persons who carried
tales, which of course she was not, she could astonish the widow with a
chronicle of happenings not remote in time or scene. But when told,
the widow was not astonished.
"I've knowed she wuz a Scarlet Woman since the last night ov the
camp-meetin' at Eden Centre," she explained. "It come to me when I see
her a-standin' outside the circle, and it was borne in on me to testify
b'fore the brethren."
In this, its third edition, the tale gained picturesqueness and
circumstantial weight. To the New York episode the widow contributed
the imaginative touch of a baffled detective, while Mrs. Bowers's shots
in the stilly night passed into the province of undisputed fact. The
circumstance that the widow had only that morning seen the destroyer of
homes walking abroad unmaimed, was but touching evidence that the
husband had been too grief-crazed to send a bullet to the mark. The
widow almost remembered that the destroyer had limped; therefore the
injured man must have resorted to natural weapons. Doubtless the
beginning of proceedings for an absolute divorce hung fire only because
this was a legal holiday.
As the clock in the town hall struck ten the good women parted company,
and the now able-bodied scandal careered bravely into the world.
Tinctured by personal equation, the respective variants of Mrs. Bowers
and Mrs. Weatherwax had minor differences in the dramatic grouping of
detail, but they were variants, nevertheless, and adhered in all
essentials to the notable fabric these ladies had joined forces to
erect.
Early in the morning the Hon. Seneca Bowers returned to his home for a
warmer overcoat, and met the petrifying version of his wife. His first
thought was of its bearing on the election.
"True or untrue, Eliza," he declared, energetically, "this servant's
chatter must go no farther."
"But if he's a bad man--" began Mrs. Bowers, uneasily.
"I'm not concerned with his morals; it's the party I'm thinking of.
Not one soul must you tell--understand that clearly--not one soul."
"I--I did tell one--just one."
"In God's name, who?" cried her husband.
"Don't swear, Seneca. And you a church member."
"Who? Who?"
"Mrs. W--W--" It was impossible to articulate that tongue-worrying
name with her lord glaring at her so dreadfully.
The man blenched.
"Not old Weatherwax!"
"Y-yes."
Bowers's jaw hung flaccid. This phenomenon continuing, Mrs. Bowers
took alarm.
"You've not gone and had a stroke, have you?" she wavered timidly,
feeling for his pulse.
Bowers revived with a grunt, and bolted for the door. His buggy wheel
protested stridently as he cramped the vehicle at the horse-block,
reassuring Mrs. Bowers that his natural force was not abated; and his
flight down town affronted the ordinance against reckless driving which
he himself had framed.
Shelby, unnaturally pale, but composed, was issuing from his office
staircase, and joined him directly at the curb.
"Jump in," said Bowers, making room.
"No time now."
"But this is important--critical, in fact." Observing no sign of
compliance. Bowers lowered head and voice, murmuring, "You know I'm no
hand at carrying tales, Ross, but--"
"You won't have to," cut in Shelby. "I know."
"You know?"
"Baffled sleuth--discovery by husband--shots--kicked down
steps--divorce case summons in the morning--you see the whole roorback
has come my way."
"Roorback!" Bowers caught at the straw. "We can make a sweeping
denial, then?"
"Whole hog or none." He smiled sarcastically into the face which had
so suddenly gone bright. "The truth has been so far outstripped that
you can't see it with a telescope. Get handbills printed denying the
story, denounce it as a partisan trick, and sign the statement yourself
as chairman of the County Committee. Have them distributed all over
town, and station men--men, mind you, not boys--with a supply just
outside electioneering limits at each polling place. If the yarn
spreads elsewhere in the district, wire our people to take similar
measures."
"Ross!" Bowers called him back. "I don't need to tell you how glad I
am. I never believed it of you."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," laughed Shelby; "but I'd rather
you'd hurry the handbills."
He had a more urgent reason yet, for wishing Bowers to take himself
off. A block or two up the street, where the trees began to interlace
their denuded branches and the court-house common sparkled with frosty
rime, he had seen the Widow Weatherwax accost Ruth Temple. The girl
had stopped when addressed, but almost immediately walked on, as if to
escape the little busybody who, nothing daunted, trotted at elbow for a
rod or more. Then Ruth came down the slope alone, and was intercepted
by Shelby at her gate.
"I must speak with you," he said abruptly. "My good name is being
dragged in the dirt, and I must assure you--"
"No, no," Ruth interposed.
"I tell you I must. You have heard this calumny. I saw her stop
you--the woman who is peddling it from door to door. I must
speak--it's no time for mincing words--speak to you personally--Bowers
will answer to my constituency--speak to you personally, I say, appeal
to you to believe in me. You don't know what your belief in me has
been--my inspiration, my safeguard. Don't take it away--it's vital;
don't deprive me of all this on hearsay. Say you'll not. Give me a
sign--"
"Go win in spite of it." In a single wave of generous impulse she had
spoken, put out her hand, and slipped past him, flushing, through the
gate.
"I can't fail now," he exulted, detaining her an instant. "And victory
means so much. It means--listen: I'll tell you a thing I've breathed
to no one else; success to-day means the governorship two years hence!
It's been fairly promised me--the governorship! That's the great
stake--part of it, rather; you're the rest; you who believe in me and
bid me win. I've not changed my mind since the day we rode together.
I told you to think over what I said, and I've given you time. I meant
then to come to you on the night of my election--a victor--and so I
shall. I couldn't know that I should have the executive mansion to
offer you, but it's none too good. I'll come! I'll come!"