“What story may you be meaning, ma’am?” inquired Maria blandly. She had heard the tale, of course, from half a dozen different sources, and was inwardly fuming with loyal wrath and indignation—the more so in that she dared not mention the matter to her young mistress whose still, pale composure had seemed to fence her round with a barrier which it was beyond Maria’s powers to surmount.
“Why—why—” Miss Caroline fluttered. “The story that she stayed the night at a hotel in the mountains with young Mr. Brabazon when she was on the Continent.”
“And did you suppose ‘twas true?” demanded Maria scornfully, her arms akimbo, her blue eyes gimleting Miss Caroline’s face.
“I—I don’t know what to think,” began Miss Caroline feebly.
Maria looked her up and down—a look beneath which Miss Caroline wilted visibly.
“Well, ‘tis certain sure no one would pass the night with you, miss, on any mountain top,” she observed grimly. “And ‘tis just as sure they wouldn’t with Miss Ann—though there’d be a main diff’rence in the reason why!” And with a snort of defiance she had flounced back into the house, slamming the door in Miss Caroline’s astonished face.
To Ann herself, the sudden cloud of obloquy in which she found herself enveloped heaped an added weight to the burden she already had to bear, and compelled her to take Robin fully into her confidence. It was a mystery to her how the story of the Dents de Loup episode had leaked out in the neighbourhood. She utterly declined to believe that Coventry himself would have shared his knowledge of the incident with any one. But that it had leaked out was cruelly self-evident, and the worst part of it was that the malicious gossip was founded on so much actual fact that it was difficult—almost impossible, in fact—to combat or refute it. She felt helpless in the face of the detestable scandal which had reared itself upon a foundation of such innocent truth.
“I wish Coventry had accepted my resignation,” fulminated Robin fiercely. “This is a perfectly beastly business. That vile scandal’s all over the place.”
“I know,” assented Ann indifferently. It hurt her that certain people should think ill of her as they did, but after all, the ache in her heart hurt much more. A man stretched on the rack would probably take little notice if you ran a pin into him. The lesser pain would be overwhelmed by the great agony. And although the first realisation of the gossip that had fastened on her name filled Ann with bitter indignation and disgust, it became a relatively small matter in comparison with the total shipwreck of her love and happiness. It did not really matter very much that Mrs. Carberry had cut her pointedly in the middle of Silverquay, or that some of the village girls whispered and pointed at her surreptitiously as she passed. These were all external things, which could be fought down. But the wound that Eliot himself had dealt her had pierced to the very core of her being.
“Well,” Robin resumed thoughtfully after a brief silence. “I’ve got to stay here till the six months are run out. But you needn’t, Ann. You had better look for a post of some kind till I’m free—”