"IT IS CRUEL"
"It is cruel of them to say it!"
Evelyn was at the Whipples'. It was a morning in May. Spring possessed the valley. The long vistas across the hills were closing as the leaves crept into the trees again. The windows were open, and the snowy curtains swayed to the wind. Lilacs again in the Whipples' dooryard bloomed, and the general's young cherry trees were white with blossoms. It was not well that any one should be heavy of heart on such a morning, but Evelyn Porter was not happy. She sat leaning forward with both hands resting on the ivory ball of her parasol. A querulous note crept into her voice. It is strange how the heartache to which the face never yields finds a ready prey in the voice.
"It is cruel of them to say it!"
"But it is natural too, dear," said Mrs. Whipple. "Many people must have wondered about you and Warry. If it will help any, I will confess that I wondered a good deal myself. Now you won't mind, will you? It seems hard, now that he has gone—but before—before, it was not unreasonable!"
"But the gossip! I don't care for myself, but it is cruel to him, to his memory, that this should be said. If it had been true; if—if we had been engaged, it would not be so wretched; but this—oh, it hurts me!" She lay back in her chair. Her eyes were over-bright; her words ended in a wail.
Mrs. Whipple felt that Evelyn's view of the matter was absurd. If the people of Clarkson were trying to read an element of romance into Warry Raridan's death, they were certainly working no injury to his memory. Such a view of the matter was fantastic. Evelyn did not know that another current story coupled her name with that of James Wheaton, who was spoken of in some quarters, and even guardedly in newspapers outside of Clarkson, as Raridan's rival for the affections of William Porter's daughter. Mrs. Whipple had shuddered hourly since the tragedy at Poindexter's when she remembered how much Wheaton had been about with Evelyn. He had been with her almost as much as Warry. Mrs. Whipple recalled the carnival of two years ago with shame. Her heart smote her as she watched the girl. It was a hideous thing that evil should have crept so near her life. Wheaton had been a strange species of reptile among them all.
"Poor dear! You must not take it so!" The silence had grown oppressive. It was incumbent upon her to comfort the girl if she could.
"It isn't a thing that you can help, child. There's no way of stopping gossip; and if they persist in saying such things, they will have to say them, that's all. If you wish—if it will help you any, I will refute it when I can—I mean among our friends only."
"Oh, no! That would make it worse. Please don't say anything!"
Mrs. Whipple did not accept solicitude for Warry's memory as a sufficient explanation of Evelyn's troubles; nor was it like Evelyn to complain of gossip about herself. The girl had naturally felt Warry's death deeply; she made no secret of her great fondness for him. But if Evelyn had really cared for Warry with more than a friendly regard, she would never have come to her in this way. She assumed this hypothesis as she made irrelevant talk with the girl. Then she thought of Wheaton; if Wheaton had been the one Evelyn had cared for—if Warry had been the friend and he the lover! She gave rein for a moment to this idea. Perhaps Evelyn followed the man now with sympathy—the thought was repulsive; she rejected it instantly with self-loathing for having harbored an idea that wronged Evelyn so miserably.
"What father feels is that his mistake in Wheaton argues a great weakness in himself," Evelyn was saying. She was more tranquil now. Mrs. Whipple noticed that she spoke Wheaton's name without hesitation; she had dropped the prefix of respect, as every one had. We have a way of eliminating it in speaking of men who are markedly good or bad.
"Father takes it very hard. He isn't naturally morbid, but he seems to feel as if he had been responsible—Grant being back of it all. But we didn't know those men were going out there—we knew nothing until it was all over!" The girl spoke as if she too felt the responsibility. "And he thinks he ought to have known about Wheaton—ought to have seen what kind of man he was!"
Evelyn's blue foulard was beyond criticism and it matched her parasol perfectly; the girl had never been prettier. Mrs. Whipple inwardly apologized for having admitted the thought of Wheaton to her mind.
"We can all accuse ourselves in the same way. To think of it—that he has actually passed tea in this very room!" Her shrug of loathing was so real that Evelyn shuddered.
Then Mrs. Whipple laughed, so suddenly that it startled Evelyn.
"It's dreadful! horrible!" Mrs. Whipple continued, "to find that a person you have really looked upon with liking—perhaps with admiration—has been all along eaten with a moral leprosy. If it weren't for poor Warry we should be able to look upon it as a profitable experience. There aren't many like Wheaton. The bishop thinks we ought to be lenient in dealing with him—that he was not really so bad; that he was simply weak—that his weakness was a kind of disease of his moral nature. But I can't see it that way myself. The man ought not to go scot-free. He ought to be punished. But it's too intangible and subtle for the law to take hold of."
Evelyn had picked up her card-case. It was a pretty trifle of silver and leather; she tapped the handle of her parasol with it. Something had occurred to Mrs. Whipple when she laughed a moment before, and seeing that Evelyn was about to rise, she said casually:
"Mr. Saxton doesn't share the bishop's gentle charity toward Wheaton." She watched Evelyn as she applied the test. The girl did not raise her eyes at once. She bent over the parasol meditatively, still tapping the handle with the card-case.
"What does Mr. Saxton say?" Evelyn asked, dropping the trinket into her lap and looking at her friend vaguely, as people do who ask questions out of courtesy rather than from honest curiosity.
"Mr. Saxton says that Wheaton's a scoundrel—a damned scoundrel, to be literal. He told the general so, here, a few nights ago. He seemed very bitter. You know what close friends he and Warry were!"
"Yes; it was an ideal kind of friendship. They were devoted to each other," said Evelyn very earnestly; there was a little cry in her voice as she spoke. It was as though happiness, struggling against sorrow, had almost gained the mastery.
"It's fine to see that in men. I sometimes think that friendships among them have a quality that ours lack. I think Mr. Saxton is very lonely. I wasn't here when he called, but the general saw him. You know the general likes him particularly."
"Yes."
"You and he both knew and appreciated Warry."
Evelyn had grasped her parasol, and she took up the card-case again. Mrs. Whipple was half ashamed of herself; but she was also convinced. She took another step.
"Of course you see him; he must be reaching out to all Warry's friends in his loneliness."
Mrs. Whipple's powers of analysis were keen, but there were times when they failed her. She did not know that her question hurt Evelyn Porter; and she did not know that Evelyn had seen John Saxton but once since the day they all stood by Warry's grave.
Mrs. Whipple disapproved of herself as she followed Evelyn to the door. She had no business to pry into the girl's secrets in this way; the sweep of the foulard touched her, and she sought to placate her conscience by burying her new-found knowledge under less guilty information.
Evelyn spoke of the place which her father had bought at Orchard Lane, on the North Shore, and told Mrs. Whipple that she and the general were expected to spend a month there.
"You will be away all summer, I suppose. It's fine that your father has taken the course he has. He might have felt that he must stay at home closer than ever, to look after his interests."
"It's more for Grant than for himself," said Evelyn; "but he realizes too that he must take care of himself."
"That's a good deal gained for a Western business man. It's been a terrible year for you, dear,—your father's illness and these other things. You need rest."
She took the girl's cheeks in her hands and kissed her, and Evelyn went out into the spring afternoon and walked homeward over the sloping streets.
Mrs. Whipple pondered long after Evelyn left. Evelyn was not happy. She was not mourning a dead lover, nor one whose life was eclipsed in shame; but another man disturbed her peace, and Mrs. Whipple wondered why. She was still pondering when the general came in. He had been out to take the air, and after he had brought his syphon from the ice-box he was ready to talk.
"Evelyn has been here," said Mrs. Whipple. "She asked us to come to them for a visit. You know Mr. Porter has bought a place on the North Shore."
"It sounds like a miracle. Jim Wheaton didn't live in vain if he's responsible for that."
They debated their invitation, which Mrs. Whipple had already accepted, she explained, from a sense of duty to Evelyn. The general said he supposed he would have to go, with a show of reluctance that was wholly insincere and to which Mrs. Whipple gave no heed. They were asked for July. They discussed the old friends whom they would probably see while they were East, until the summer loomed pleasant before them, and then the talk came back to Evelyn.
"The child doesn't look well," said Mrs. Whipple.
"I shouldn't think she would, with all the row and rumpus they've been having in their family. Abductions and murders and abscondings at one's door are not conducive to light-heartedness."
"She's annoyed by all this gossip about her and Warry. She doesn't know that Wheaton is supposed to have taken more than a friendly interest in her."
"Well, I wouldn't tell her that, if I were you—if Wheaton didn't."
"Of course he didn't!"
"Well, he didn't then." The syphon hissed into the glass.
"Evelyn and Warry weren't engaged," said Mrs. Whipple. The general held up the glass and watched the gas bubbling to the top.
"It's just as well that way," he said. "It saves her a lot of heartache."
"That's what I think," said Mrs. Whipple promptly. In such conversations as this she usually combated the general's opinions. An exception to the rule was so noteworthy that he began to pay serious attention.
"They weren't, but they might have been. Is that it?"
"No. Anything might have been. There's no use speculating about what can't be now."
"I suppose that's true. Well?"
"Something is troubling Evelyn, and I'll tell you what I think it is. I think it was Saxton all along."
"I always told you he was a good fellow. He's really shown me some attentions, and that's more than most of the young men have done, except Warry. Warry was nice to everybody. But Saxton's alive and hearty and hasn't skipped for parts unknown. Why is Evelyn mourning?" He shook the glass until the ice tinkled pleasantly.
"I don't know. Maybe—maybe he doesn't understand!"
"He isn't stupid," said the general, thoughtfully.
"Of course he isn't."
"It may be that he isn't interested—that she doesn't appeal to him. Such a thing is conceivable."
"No, it isn't! Of course it isn't!"
The general laughed at her scornful rejection of the idea.
"You tell me, then."
"What I think is, that there is some reason—perhaps some point of honor with him—that keeps him away from her. He was Warry's friend. He was nearer Warry in his last years than any one. Don't you think that something of that sort may be the matter?"
The general was greatly amused, and he laughed so that Mrs. Whipple's own dignity was shaken.
"Amelia," he said, "your analytical powers are too sharp for this world. You're shaving it down pretty fine, it seems to me. I wish you'd tell me what you base that on."
"I'm not basing it; but it seems so natural that that should be the way."
The syphon gurgled harshly and sputtered, and the general put it down sadly.
"Now that you've solved the riddle in your own mind, how are you going to proceed? You'd better not try army tactics on a civilian job. Saxton isn't a second lieutenant, to be regulated by the commandant's wife."
"He's a dear!" declared Mrs. Whipple irrelevantly. "If Evelyn Porter wants him, she's going to have him."
"Oh, Lord!" The general took up his syphon to carry it back to the case in the pantry. "He's 'a dear,' is he? Amelia, John Saxton weighs at least one hundred and eighty pounds. I don't believe I'd call him 'a dear.' I'd reserve that for slim, elderly persons like me, or young girls just out of school." He stood swinging the syphon at arm's length. "Now, if my advice were worth anything, I'd tell you to let these young people alone. If you've guessed the true inwardness of this matter—as you probably haven't—they'll come out all right."
"Of course they'll come out all right," she answered, dreamily. The swinging door in the dining-room fanned upon her answer as the general strode through into the pantry.
For several weeks following Mrs. Whipple continued to think of Evelyn and her affairs. Evelyn was not an object of pity, and yet there was a certain pathos about her. Her position in the town as the daughter of its wealthiest citizen isolated her, it seemed to Mrs. Whipple. A girl would be less than human if the experiences to which Evelyn had been subjected did not make a profound impression upon her. Mrs. Whipple had seen a good deal of trouble in her day. She felt that Evelyn had learned too much of life in one lesson; if she could ease the future for her, she wished to do it. With such hopes as these she occupied herself as spring waxed old and summer held the land.