Chapter XXX: Gathering Scandal

Clara Anderson went slowly across the garden, staggering as she walked. With difficulty she mounted her horse in the shed where he had been left, and rode away. She had no knowledge of looking behind her, nor thought where she was going, but held the bridle loosely in her hand and reeled to and fro in the saddle, as if each motion must fling her under the animal’s hoofs to be trampled on.

She reached home at last, but instead of leaping from her saddle with the fearless grace usual to her, drew her horse close up to the board fence, and holding to that let herself to the ground, a hopeless, broken-hearted girl.

For weeks no one saw her. Mrs. Vose went out for her work and carried it home again. It was always finished in time, for Clara, in spite of her misery, retained a single feeling, her grandmother must not starve, so she worked on like an automaton with dreary faithfulness. After a while she came out of this dead state and grew so nervously irritable that the closing of a door made her cry out. The doctor came, and a second time prescribed wholesome diet and exercise on horseback. But she uttered a cry of anguish when this was mentioned. The remembrance of her last ride came upon her with such force. “Riding hurt her,” she said; “nothing would ever tempt her to try it again. Exercise! No; she would never go out of doors again if she could help it.”

Thus a few weeks went on heavy as death to the wretched girl. To say that she was weary of life would be little: she absolutely yearned to die; smitten to the earth in her love, and stung so entirely in her pride, she was ashamed to live.

But they would not let her rest quietly even in this miserable isolation. Judge Lane was well informed regarding his son, and could not feel quite safe when he was so near the neighborhood of this enthralling girl, whose beauty and high spirit had made a singular impression upon himself. While he kept strict watch upon the young man, his neighbors were equally vigilant regarding Clara Anderson. That solitary horseback ride was a subject of deep solicitude: they knew that she had taken the road to the toll-bridge, and had been watched galloping up the river road; whether she crossed into the town, where Edward was staying, or not, was a question they were for some time unable to solve.

But when the malice or curiosity of a country neighborhood is aroused, the movements of no one person can remain a secret forever. It so happened that the landlady at the Stone Tavern sometimes went to meeting on the other side of the Housatonic, where she had friends who loved a little gossip between the sermons, and were very willing to extend their field of observation whenever the chance was afforded them.

The landlady was by no means a malicious woman, but she loved to carry a little news back and forth as well as her neighbors, and, enjoying a capital post of observation, she always had something of interest to chat about.

Did she know Clara Anderson by sight? Well, she rather thought so. Why one day that girl came galloping up the river road with her horse all in a foam, and riding right under the tavern shed, she jumped off, came into the house and sat down in the out-room without saying a word to anybody, good or bad, but there she sat, looking out of the window with eyes as bright as a wild-cat’s. About half an hour after, a rich gentleman, who often boarded at her house in the summer, came with Miss Bertha Canfield from the Mill Bridge who had been on a horseback ride to the falls; she had been thrown from her horse and was frightened half to death, so went up-stairs to lie down, and in the bustle everybody forgot Clara Anderson. But the help saw her creeping about the chambers, as if in search of some one. Then after a while the landlady herself saw the brazen creature side by side with young Lane, going up the hill back of her garden, and talking so earnestly that no one could have helped noticing it. She was busy getting dinner for the party and should not have thought much about it, but when she went to the bar to get a drop of brandy for the pudding sauce young Lane came in, looking all sorts of ways, and pouring out a whole tumblerful of wine carried that up the side hill; for she watched him herself till the great butternut tree hid him from sight.

Was that all? Oh, no; by no manner of means. Before the pudding sauce was ready she saw that girl cross the end of her garden, coming back all by herself, walking so unsteadily that it was a shame to behold, and with her own eyes she watched her ride down the road, when she expected every moment to see her tumble under the horse’s feet.

If anybody doubted what she said, that person might ask Miss Bertha Canfield, who got up from her bed and stood at the window when Clara rode away, just reeling on her saddle. Mrs. Crane never should forget to her dying day the look that girl gave to the young lady. She had seen such looks in the eyes of a rabbit which her boys caught in a sweet-apple trap once, and was going to kill for a pot-pie, but never anywhere else—never.

Miss Canfield seemed to think it strange, and had tears in her eyes when she turned away, and seemed down-hearted as could be when she started off for home. The young lady did not come down to dinner, which was a great disappointment, for she had roasted a lovely pullet just for her. But she really believed young Lane was glad of it, for he looked wild as a nighthawk, and called for wine, and finally brandy, till the elder gentleman interfered, and took him away from the table—that was all she knew about Clara Anderson or wanted to know. Other people might fancy such doings, but she was the mother of six children, besides two that were dead, and had no idea of putting up with them.

There is no scandal so penetrating as that which is founded on unexplained facts.

Mrs. Crane had an eager audience between sermons that holy Sabbath day, and knowing that she spoke the truth, enjoyed the sensation she was creating with infinite zest.

So that harmless gossip, handed from mouth to mouth within the shadow of the church, grew into a mighty slander by a swift exchange of malice and garrulous imbecility, and was not long in doing its unholy work.

During the next week the malicious reports which had before been in circulation regarding young Lane’s attentions to that “Anderson girl” increased in virulence, and became so general that her name was fairly a byword in the neighborhood.

Of course neither Clara nor her grandmother had any idea of the prevalence of these tales; the person slandered is always the last to learn that which is intended to blast both reputation and peace. Many of the neighbors knew that she was out of favor with the great magnate of the town, but had liked her, spite of the quiet exclusiveness that rejected patronage, but no one had ever heard a whisper of the things which were now subjects of familiar and constant conversation throughout the whole place.

Thus the bane of village life spread and grew like nightshade, till it crept up to the very threshold of that old house and left its poison there.