It would be absurd to suppose that Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay had not heard the entire story of Stella’s escape and all that led up to it, the foolish venture and the unexpected and too serious punishment. They had known all about it from the first moment. They had seen her running down to the beach with her attendants after her, and had heard all about the boat with the new figure-head which Mr. Tredgold had got a bargain and had called after his favourite child. And they had said to each other as soon as they had heard of it, “Mark my words! we shall soon hear of an accident to that boat.” They had related this fact in all the drawing-rooms in the neighbourhood with great, but modest, pride when the accident did take place. But they had shown the greatest interest in Stella, and made no disagreeable remarks as to the depravity of her expedition. Nobody had been surprised at this self-denial at first, for no one had supposed that there was any blame attaching to the young party, two out of the three of whom had suffered so much for their imprudence; for Stella’s cold and the shock to her nerves had at first been raised by a complimentary doctor almost to the same flattering seriousness as Captain Scott’s pneumonia. Now the event altogether had begun to sink a little into the mild perspective of distance, as a thing which was over and done with, though it would always be an exciting reminiscence to talk of--the night when poor Stella Tredgold had been carried out to sea by the sudden squall, “just in her white afternoon frock, poor thing, without a wrap or anything.”
This had been the condition of affairs before Mrs. Seton’s visit. I cannot tell how it was breathed into the air that the adventure was by no means such a simple matter, that Stella was somehow dreadfully in fault, that it would be something against her all her life which she would have the greatest difficulty in “living down.” Impossible to say who sowed this cruel seed. Mrs. Seton declared afterwards that she had spoken to no one, except indeed the landlady of the hotel where Captain Scott was lying, and his nurse; but that was entirely about Algy, poor boy. But whoever was the culprit, or by what methods soever the idea was communicated, certain it is that the views of the little community were completely changed after that moment. It began to be whispered about in the little assemblies, over the tea-tables, and over the billiard-tables (which was worse), that Stella Tredgold’s escapade was a very queer thing after all. It was nonsense to say that she had never heard of the existence of the _Stella_ till that day, when it was well known that old Tredgold bragged about everything he bought, and the lot o’ money, or the little money he had given for it; for it was equally sweet to him to get a great bargain or to give the highest price that had ever been paid. That he should have held his tongue about this one thing, was it likely? And she was such a daring little thing, fond of scandalising her neighbours; and she was a little fast, there could be no doubt; at all events, she had been so ever since she had made the acquaintance of that Mrs. Seton--that Seton woman, some people said. Before her advent it only had been high spirits and innocent nonsense, but since then Stella had been infected with a love of sensation and had learned to like the attendance of men--any men, it did not matter whom. If the insinuation was of Mrs. Seton’s making, she was not herself spared in it.