HOW REPUTATIONS ARE RUINED
Miss Le Breton began to be a much-talked-of young woman in Hastings,
and even Bexhill, on account of her wonderful horsemanship. She, with
her uncle, had gone to the first meet of the Bexhill Harriers, and her
portrait on her splendid mare Black Bess had got into the _Hastings and
St. Leonards Pictorial Advertiser_. People began to leave cards at the
White House, but disappointment awaited them--especially, perhaps, the
men--for Mr. Alvin made it well understood that they wished to live
a quiet and retired life, and the calls, with the exception of the
Barrimores’ and the Picketts’, were not returned.
But no one had a word to say against Thomas Alvin, for he was found to
be most liberal to local charities.
Alvin never gave anything, however, without consulting his niece. “The
money is yours, not mine,” he would say to her. But she would answer:
“_Ours_, uncle.”
In these days Alvin was happier than he had ever been in all his
ill-starred life. But he often suffered acutely. There were days when
he never emerged from the little wood where no one but himself ever
entered. He could not forgive himself for the crime he had committed,
though his victim had forgiven him.
He was now much troubled about Eweretta. She had refused Dan Webster’s
offer, and she had told him in so many words that she no longer loved
Philip. What was to become of her when he and Mrs. Le Breton were gone?
She would have money, certainly, but Alvin wanted for her to be a happy
wife and mother. It was at her instigation that he had discouraged
callers. How would she meet with a man she could marry if she insisted
upon isolation?
He had noticed again and again--notably at that first meet of the
Bexhill Harriers--how much admiration she had excited. But she was firm
in her resolve.
“I am quite happy, uncle,” she would say.
She spoke the truth, for though she felt that her romance of love was
over, and that Philip had resigned himself to the loss of the girl
he had once so passionately loved, still, she had the joy of seeing
Philip become more the old Philip of her love. He was conquering that
hardness, that care for social advancement, which had so spoiled him.
She had a curious feeling that she was indeed dead, and was watching
Philip from another world. Perhaps she might help him. She had first
found the pure joy that being a helper brings, in seeing Mrs. Le Breton
become more cheerful under her influence. Mrs. Le Breton had had an
utterly hopeless expression in the first months, but now she could even
laugh.
Then Eweretta had helped Alvin. She was always on the look-out for him
after one of his days shut up in the little wood.
He was sure of finding her at the gate that led from the wood to the
garden, even though November mists lay thick about the bushes. She
would slip her arm through the rough Colonial’s and tell him she had
missed him.
What this meant to the ill-starred Thirteenth Man he alone knew, nor
did he himself realize to the full.
Eweretta was the first woman who had ever cared for him or seen any
good in him. Sometimes he suffered a kind of agony of dumbness. He
longed so much to make her understand how he worshipped her, and no
words seemed worth anything. He would gladly have died to give her a
happiness. All the love which had found no object during his whole life
till he had known Eweretta concentrated now on the beautiful girl--the
girl he had so wronged.
One day--it was after one of those retreats to the little wood--Alvin
told Eweretta that his wrong to her had given him “hell.”
“Don’t let it do so any more, dear uncle,” she said. “So much good
has come out of evil. But for that wrong I should not have had your
love and poor Mrs. Le Breton’s. You would never have found out how
much I love you, and Mrs. Le Breton would have pined away alone in the
prairie.”
“But you lost your lover,” he reminded her.
She gave one of those mystical smiles which had moved Dan so much.
“I lost the Philip that was,” she said. “Had he married me, as he would
have done had he not thought me dead, we might not have been happy.
Philip had passion for me; it remained to be proved if that passion
would ever become steady love.”
“But we know now that there was nothing at all between him and Miss
Lane,” Alvin said. “You thought them lovers.”
“My instinct played me false there,” acknowledged Eweretta. “But you
heard the sentiments expressed in the book.”
“You mean about the man deciding to marry a woman who would help him
socially?”
“Yes,” answered Eweretta. “The man in Philip’s book placed a literary
success before love.”
“That book is burned,” Alvin reminded her.
“Yes, and more was burned with it, I suspect,” she replied
enigmatically.
Eweretta’s helpfulness was not confined to the White House. The old
priest at “St. Mary, Star of the Sea,” had only to let Miss Le Breton
know of a sad case of poverty to find it relieved. She never appeared
herself in such matters. She helped the poor through the old priest.
Father Donelli thought Miss Le Breton a saint. She did not do her good
works before men to get praise of them. She lived a simple, pious life.
She accused herself in the Confessional of want of gratitude for a
sorrow which had come to her--of course, for her good.
Eweretta had, indeed, struggled to thank God for the loss of her lover;
she had at one time bitterly rebelled. She had so loved Philip! The
rebellion was ended, but she had not come yet to be grateful to God for
the sorrow, which she, simple soul that she was, felt that she ought to
do. The poor little “saint” was very human!
One of Eweretta’s greatest admirers was Minnie Pickett. She had
persuaded Minnie to confess her love affair with the clerk from the
gasworks, and not practise a deception on her parents.
Perhaps we never love anyone quite so really as the man or woman who
leads us to abandon a fault or to rise to ideals.
Minnie loved Eweretta, because her influence was all towards the
highest and best.
And Minnie had found that she had lost nothing by being open and above
board with her parents. After an inquiry into the character of Minnie’s
lover, Mr. Pickett had consented to the engagement, and the young man
was allowed to pay stated visits to the farm.
Eweretta often went to Pickett’s Farm, but never when Mrs. Hannington
was there if she knew it. She disliked Mrs. Hannington exceedingly, for
on the one occasion when she had met her, that lady had scandalized
both Philip and Phyllis, and Eweretta had told her exactly what she
thought of her, which had not been pleasant for Mrs. Hannington to
listen to.
Mrs. Hannington had from that time added hatred of Miss Le Breton to
her other iniquities, and far from curbing her love of tearing people’s
characters to pieces, had found a new victim in Miss Le Breton.
Colonel Lane had put an announcement of his daughter’s going to join
her husband in India in the _Hastings Observer_ to stop the talk. It
had been carefully worded and appeared like social news.
Of course Mrs. Hannington had her say on the subject (though not at
Pickett’s Farm). She confided to all her numerous acquaintances, with
this one exception, that Colonel Lane was pretty artful, but that he
couldn’t deceive _her_. Of course, he had sent that notice to the paper
to hoodwink Hastings folk. There was a _reason_ for Miss Lane having
to “clear out,” and it was a pity she _hadn’t_ a husband. The only
thing was to smuggle her out of the country and hide her shame. The
Colonel was as bad as his daughter. Look how he stayed away from home!
Then again, who was the woman he had foisted off on the unsuspecting
Barrimores? A woman with two boys, too! No doubt the boys were Colonel
Lane’s own! All men led double lives, only some of them didn’t get
found out. As for Mr. Philip Barrimore, it was to be hoped he would get
his deserts for being the ruin of a young girl! And he was friendly
with the White House people. What sort of people were they? coming from
no one knew where! And why did they keep so much to themselves, if they
had not some guilty secret? Miss Le Breton, with all her pretended
virtue, had been shut up for _hours_ with that young Mr. Webster--that
she knew for a fact--and artists were always on _far_ too intimate
terms with their models. Miss Le Breton would be going off to India “to
join her husband” _next_!
After this kind of tirade, Mrs. Hannington usually ended up by thanking
God she was not as other women. Mr. Hannington had his own opinion upon
this point, and he did not thank God that his wife was not as other
women; indeed, he had been heard to express the wish that she could be
like any woman he knew--except herself.