There is no accounting for these revulsions of feeling, and it is perhaps best not to attempt to analyze them. So much small malice and miserable uncharitableness would be brought to light, that we should be ashamed of the exposure--being liable to such influences ourselves. Joshua's character had hitherto been irreproachable; he had been almost loved by many, and liked and admired by all. Suddenly he is tainted by suspicion, and by suspicion only. There is not a tittle of direct evidence against him. But the suspicion is enough; directly it is whispered, it swells and grows, like the cloud which is at first "no bigger than a man's hand," and Joshua's good name is wrecked in the storm that follows.
The additional grief that this general verdict inflicted upon Joshua's parents may easily be imagined. They had to learn that "slander's edge is sharper than the sword," and that though their dear son were "chaste as ice and pure as snow, he should not escape calumny." But they did not receive these lessons meekly. They fought and protested against them with all the strength of their loving souls. They might as well have tried to stop a fierce wind with the palms of their hands.
One of their bitterest experiences was the knowledge that there was a difference of sentiment between them. They did not all believe alike. All of them, except Susan, believed alike in the innocence and purity of Joshua; but not so with respect to Minnie. The mercy that Dan and Ellen accorded to her was denied to her by Mr. and Mrs. Marvel. Neither of them thought well of her; and although Mrs. Marvel's verdict was less harsh than that of her husband, she too, gentle and forgiving as was her nature, could not forgive and hold dear the unhappy girl who had brought this great misery upon them. What Minnie had done was nothing less than a crime in the eyes of the good mother and good woman.
But Minnie had one champion--Susan. It was generally reported, a few days after the tragic occurrence, that Susan had gone mad because of Basil Kindred's death; and a whisper went about, that, mad as she was, she was fixed to the one idea of bringing Joshua to justice. Susan's madness, if madness it was, took a very mild form. She did not speak upon the subject, but she believed thoroughly in Minnie's innocence and Joshua's guilt; and she was ever on the watch to bring that false friend to justice. She was always peering about her and hunting for Joshua. She contracted a strange habit of suspecting that he was biding in the place she last left, and when she went out of the house, returned, after going a few paces, to see if the man she was waiting for was in the passage. If she opened a gate and shut it behind her, she walked back to it and looked about her, expectant. Never a night passed but she rose from her bed and went into the street, waiting for Joshua; in the dead of night, when all others were asleep, she would sit at her window and look into the street, waiting patiently. When they discovered this habit at home, they tried to break her of it; but their efforts were unavailing. By and by, this proceeding began to be exceedingly popular in the neighborhood, and popular opinion veered round to Susan's view; Minnie was not so thoroughly condemned, and the blame was entirely laid on Joshua's shoulders. And when the neighbors openly expressed their sympathy to Mr. Marvel because Joshua had "turned out bad," he resented it angrily in his dogmatic obstinate way, until he began to quarrel with them. He was so indignant, so hurt, so unhappy, that he refused to speak to his old acquaintances, and gradually they fell off from him, and a coldness sprang up which made his life a misery. Still, he and all that were bound to him cherished the hope that when Joshua came home all would be cleared up. But Mr. Marvel made up his mind that he would never forgive his neighbors for their suspicions. Months passed, and the estrangement between him and his acquaintances grew stronger; his home, too, was not a happy one. He grew morose and ill-tempered, and would not speak to his wife upon the subject of Joshua and Minnie; and when she found that he was determined upon this point, she wisely forbore to press him, knowing his nature.
Before the advent of another spring, Ellen became a mother. Her situation had been concealed from all but Dan and Mrs. Marvel; even Mr. Marvel did not know it until the child was born. It was a girl; and when the news was buzzed about the neighborhood, Joshua and Minnie started again into a notoriety which had been on the wane. Again the busybodies were at work, and again the busy tongues wagged more volubly than before. It was a matter for resentment with the neighbors that they had not been made acquainted with Ellen's situation; it was depriving them of a legitimate privilege. But Ellen and her two confidants had kept the secret well; and now the young mother nursed her child in privacy, and seemed only anxious to keep it from prying and unsympathizing eyes. No news had been received of Joshua or of his ship; and although Mr. Marvel went every other day to the London agents of the "Merry Andrew," they had nothing to tell him. Now that the child was born, their anxiety for news of Joshua increased. But still they received none. Weeks passed, months passed, until the suspense became almost maddening. Ellen nursed the baby, and rejoiced that the pretty little thing had Joshua's eyes, and yearned for Joshua to see them. Mr. Marvel looked more angrily upon his old acquaintances, who were ready to quarrel with him afresh for his sour looks. Mrs. Marvel suffered in patience, and strove by assumed cheerfulness to lighten the loads the others had to bear. Susan waited and watched. And Dan waited and hoped--When there came a time!--
Ellen was in Mrs. Marvel's kitchen; her baby was in her lap, and she was gazing at and worshipping, for the thousandth thousandth time, the baby's beautiful eyes, and beautiful fingers and nails, and the round cheeks, and the pretty mouth and chin, so like Joshua's. It was evening, and Mr. Marvel was expected home every minute, with news from the agents about Joshua's ship. Ellen began singing this to baby--singing in a low soft voice how father would soon come from over the seas to see his own little darling--his dear darling precious; and she was in the midst of this, enriching the theme with twenty different forms of endearing expression, when Mr. Marvel staggered into the kitchen. There was a wild look in his face, and his hands were trembling. He was drunk.
"O father!" cried Ellen.
"Where's mother?" he asked in a husky voice. "Where's mother?" he repeated in a louder tone.
His wife answered the question by coming into the kitchen. She had seen him reel into the house, and had followed him at once. She knew he had been drinking, but she did not reproach him. He saw in her face the knowledge and the forbearance, and he said,--
"Yes, I've been drinking; I was bound to. O mother, mother! how shall I tell you?"