The Case of Richard Meynell by Mrs. Humphry Ward

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Meynell's face was at first blank, or bewildered. Then a light of
understanding shot through it. He fell back in his chair with an odd
smile.

"So _that_--is what you have in your mind?"

Barron coughed a little. He was angrily conscious of an anxiety and
misgiving he had not expected. He made all the greater effort to recover
what seemed to him the proper tone.

"It is all most sad--most lamentable. But I had, you perceive, the
positive statement of a woman who should have known the facts first-hand,
if any one did. Owing to her physical state, it was impossible to
cross-examine her, and her sudden death made it impossible to refer her
to you. I had to consider what I should do--"

"Why should you have done anything--" said Meynell dryly, raising his
eyes--"but forget as quickly as possible a story you had no means of
verifying, and which bore its absurdity on the face of it?"

Barron allowed himself a slight and melancholy smile.

"I admit of course--at once--that I could not verify it. As to its _prima
facie_ absurdity, I desire to say nothing offensive to you, but there
have been many curious circumstances connected with your relation to
the Fox-Wilton family which have given rise before now to gossip in this
neighbourhood. I could not but perceive that the story told me threw
light upon them. The remarkable language of Sir Ralph's will, the
position of Miss Hester in the Fox-Wilton family, your relation to
her--and to--to Miss Puttenham."

Meynell's composure became a matter of some difficulty, but he maintained
it.

"What was there abnormal--or suspicious--in any of these circumstances?"
he asked, his eyes fixed intently on his visitor.

"I see no purpose to be gained by going into them on this occasion," said
Barron, with all the dignity he could bring to bear. "For the unfortunate
thing is--the thing which obliged me whether I would or no--and you will
see from the dates that I have hesitated a long time--to bring Judith
Sabin's statement to your notice--is that she seems to have talked to
some one else in the neighbourhood before she died, besides myself. Her
son declares that she saw no one. I have questioned him; of course
without revealing my object. But she must have done so. And whoever it
was has begun to write anonymous letters--repeating the story--in full
detail--_with_ the identification--that I have just given you."

"Anonymous letters?" repeated Meynell, raising himself sharply. "To
whom?"

"Dawes, the colliery manager, received the first."

"To whom did he communicate it?"

"To myself--and by his wish, and in the spirit of entire friendliness to
you, I consulted your friend and supporter, Mr. Flaxman."

Meynell raised his eyebrows.

"Flaxman? You thought yourself justified?"

"It was surely better to take so difficult a matter to a friend of yours,
rather than to an enemy."

Meynell smiled--but not agreeably.

"Any one else?"

"I have heard this morning on my way here that Miss Nairn has received a
copy."

"Miss Nairn? That means the village."

"She is a gossipping woman," said Barron.

Meynell pondered. He got up and began to pace the room--coming presently
to an abrupt pause in front of his visitor.

"This story then is now all over the village--will soon be all over the
diocese. Now--what was your object in yourself bringing it to me?"

"I thought it right to inform you--to give you warning--perhaps also to
suggest to you that a retreat from your present position--"

"I see--you thought it a means of bringing pressure to bear upon me?--you
propose, in short, that I should throw up the sponge, and resign my
living?"

"Unless, of course, you can vindicate yourself publicly."

Barron to his annoyance could not keep his hand which held a glove from
shaking a little. The wrestle between their personalities was rapidly
growing in intensity.

"Unless I bring an action, you mean--against any one spreading the story?
No--I shall not bring an action--I shall _not_ bring an action!" Meynell
repeated, with emphasis.

"In that case--I suggest--it might be better to meet the wishes of your
Bishop, and so avoid further publicity."

"By resigning my living?"

"Precisely. The scandal would then drop of itself. For Miss Puttenham's
sake alone you must, I think, desire to stop its development."

Meynell flushed hotly. He took another turn up the room--while Barron sat
silent, looking straight before him.

"I shall not take action"--Meynell resumed--"and I shall not dream of
retreating from my position here. Judith Sabin's story is untrue. She did
not see me at Grenoble and I am not the father of Hester Fox-Wilton. As
to anything else, I am not at liberty to discuss other people's affairs,
and I shall not answer any questions whatever on the subject."

The two men surveyed each other.

"Your Bishop could surely demand your confidence," said Barron coldly.

"If he does, it will be for me to consider."

A silence. Barron looked round for his stick. Meynell stood motionless,
his hands in his baggy pockets, his eyes on Barron. Lightings of thought
and will seemed to pass through his face. As Barron rose, he began to
speak.

"I have no doubt you think yourself justified in taking the line
you clearly do take in this matter. I can hardly imagine that you
really believe the story you say you got from Judith Sabin--which you
took to Flaxman--and have, I suppose, discussed with Dawes. I am
convinced--forgive me if I speak plainly--that you cannot and do not
believe anything so preposterous--or at any rate you would not believe it
in other circumstances. As it is, you take it up as a weapon. You think,
no doubt, that everything is fair in controversy as in war. Of course the
thing has been done again and again. If you cannot defeat a man in fair
fight, the next best thing is to blacken his character. We see that
everywhere--in politics--in the church--in private life. This story _may_
serve you; I don't think it will ultimately, but it may serve you for a
time. All I can say is, I would rather be the man to suffer from it than
the man to gain from it!"

Barron took up his hat. "I cannot be surprised that you receive me in
this manner," he said, with all the steadiness he could muster. "But as
you cannot deal with this very serious report in the ordinary way, either
by process of law, or by frank explanation to your friends--"

"My 'friends'!" interjected Meynell.

"--Let me urge you at least to explain matters to your diocesan. You
cannot distrust either the Bishop's discretion, or his good will. If he
were satisfied, we no doubt should be the same."

Meynell shook his head.

"Not if I know anything of the _odium theologicum!_ Besides, the Miss
Nairns of this world pay small attention to bishops. By the way--I forgot
to ask--you can tell me nothing on the subject of the writer of the
anonymous letters?--you have not identified him?"

"Not in the least. We are all at sea."

"You don't happen to have one about you?"

Barron hesitated and fumbled, and at last produced from his breast-pocket
the letter to Dawes, which he had again borrowed from its owner that
morning. Meynell put it into a drawer of his writing-table without
looking at it.

The two men moved toward the door.

"As to any appeal to you on behalf of a delicate and helpless
lady--" said Meynell, betraying emotion for the first time--"that I
suppose is useless. But when one remembers her deeds of kindness in this
village, her quiet and irreproachable life amongst us all these years,
one would have thought that any one bearing the Christian name would have
come to me as the Rector of this village on one errand only--to consult
how best to protect her from the spread of a cruel and preposterous
story! You--I gather--propose to make use of it in the interests of your
own Church party."

Barron straightened himself, resenting at once what seemed to him the
intrusion of the pastoral note.

"I am heartily sorry for her"--he said coldly. "Naturally it is the women
who suffer in these things. But of course you are right--though you put
the matter from your own point of view--in assuming that I regard this as
no ordinary scandal. I am not at liberty to treat it as such. The honour
concerned--is the honour of the Church. To show the intimate connection
of creed and life may be a painful--it is also an imperative duty!"

He threw back his head with a passion which, as Meynell clearly
recognized, was not without its touch of dignity.

Meynell stepped back.

"We have talked enough, I think. You will of course take the course that
seems to you best, and I shall take mine. I bid you good day."

* * * * *

From the study window Meynell watched the disappearing figure of his
adversary. The day was wet, and the funereal garden outside was dank with
rain. The half-dead trees had shed such leaves as they had been able to
put forth, and behind them was a ragged sky of scudding cloud.

In Meynell's soul there was a dull sense of catastrophe. In Barron's
presence he had borne himself as a wronged man should; but he knew very
well that a sinister thing had happened, and that for him, perhaps,
to-morrow might never be as yesterday.

What was passing in the village at that moment? His quick visualizing
power showed him the groups in the various bar parlours, discussing the
Scandal, dividing it up into succulent morsels, serving it up with every
variety of personal comment, idle or malicious; amplyfying, exaggerating,
completing. He saw the neat and plausible spinster from whose cruel hands
he had rescued a little dumb, wild-eyed child, reduced by ill-treatment
to skin and bone--he saw her gloating over the anonymous letter, putting
two and two maliciously together, whispering here, denouncing there. He
seemed to be actually present in the most disreputable public-house of
the village, a house he had all but succeeded in closing at the preceding
licensing sessions. How natural, human, inevitable, would be the coarse,
venomous talk--the inferences--the gibes!

There would be good men and true of course, his personal friends in the
village, the members of his Parish Council, who would suffer, and stand
firm. The postponed meeting of the Council, for the acceptance of the new
Liturgy, was to be held the day after his return from Paris. To them he
would speak--so far as he could; yes, to them he would speak! Then his
thought spread to the diocese. Charges of this kind spread with
extraordinary rapidity. Whoever was writing the anonymous letters had
probably not confined himself to two or three. Meynell prepared himself
for the discovery of the much wider diffusion.

He moved back to his writing-table, and took the letter from the drawer.
Its ingenuity, its knowledge of local circumstance, astonished him as he
read. He had expected something of a vulgarer and rougher type. The
handwriting was clearly disguised, and there was a certain amount of
intermittent bad spelling, which might very easily be a disguise also.
But whoever wrote it was acquainted with the Fox-Wilton family, with
their habits and his own, as well as with the terms of Sir Ralph's will,
so far as--mainly he believed through the careless talk of the elder
Fox-Wilton girls--it had become a source of gossip in the village. The
writer of it could not be far away. Was it a man or a woman? Meynell
examined the handwriting carefully. He had a vague impression that he had
seen something like it before, but could not remember where or in what
connection.

He put it back in his drawer, and as he did so his eyes fell upon his
half-written article for the _Modernist _and on the piles of
correspondence beside it. A sense of bitter helplessness overcame him, a
pang not for himself so much as for his cause. He realized the inevitable
effect of the story in the diocese, weighted, as it would be, with all
the colourable and suspicious circumstances that could undoubtedly be
adduced in support of it; its effect also beyond the diocese, through
the Movement of which he was the life and guiding spirit; through
England--where his name was rapidly becoming a battle-cry.

And what could he do to meet it? Almost nothing! The story indeed as a
whole could be sharply and categorically denied, because it involved a
fundamental falsehood. He was not the father of Hester Fox-Wilton.

But simple denial was all that was open to him. He could neither explain,
nor could he challenge inquiry. His mouth was shut. He had made no formal
vow of secrecy to any one. He was free to confide in whom he would. But
all that was tender, pitiful, chivalrous in his soul stood up and
promised for him, as he stood looking out into the October rain, that for
no personal--yes!--and for no public advantage--would he trifle with what
he had regarded for eighteen years as a trust, laid upon him by the dying
words of a man he had loved, and enforced more and more sharply with time
by the constant appeal of a woman's life--its dumb pain, the paradox of
its frail strength, its shrinking courage. That life had depended upon
him during the worst crisis of its fate as its spiritual guide. He had
toward Alice Puttenham the feeling of the "director," as the saints have
understood it; and toward her story something of the responsibility of a
priest toward a confession. To reveal it in his own interest was simply
impossible. If the Movement rejected him--it must reject him.

"Not so will I fight for thee, my God!--not so!" he said to himself in
great anguish of mind.

It was true indeed that at some future time Alice Puttenham's poor secret
must be told--to a specified person, with her consent, and by the express
direction of that honest, blundering man, her brother-in-law, whose life,
sorely against his will, had been burdened with it. But the
indiscriminate admission of the truth, after the lapse of years, would,
he believed, simply bring back the old despair, and paralyze what had
always been a frail vitality. And as to Hester, the sudden divulgence of
it might easily upset the unstable balance in her of mind and nerve and
drive her at once into some madness. He _must_ protect them, if he could.

Could he? He pondered it.

At any moment one of these letters might reach Alice. What if this had
already happened? Supposing it had, he might not be able to prevent her
from doing what would place the part played toward her by himself in its
true light. She would probably insist upon his taking legal action, and
allowing her to make her statement in court.

The thought of this was so odious to him that he promptly put it from
him. He should assume that she knew nothing; though as a practical man he
was well aware that she could not long remain ignorant; certainly not if
she continued to live in Upcote. Then, it was a question probably of days
or hours. Her presence in the cottage, when once the village was in full
possession of the slander, would be a perpetual provocation. One way or
another the truth must penetrate to her.

An idea occurred to him. Paris! So far he had insisted on going himself
with Hester to Paris because of his haunting feeling of responsibility
toward the girl, and his resolve to see with his own eyes the household
in which he was placing her. But suppose he made excuses? The burden of
work upon him was excuse enough for any man. Suppose he sent Alice in his
stead, and so contrived as to keep her in or near Paris for a while? Then
Edith Fox-Wilton would of course have the forwarding of her sister's
correspondence, and might, it seemed to him, take the responsibility of
intercepting whatever might inform or alarm her.

Not much prospect of doing so indefinitely!--that he plainly saw. But to
gain time was an immense thing; to prevent her from taking at once
Quixotic steps. He knew that in health she had never been the same since
the episode of Judith's return and death. She seemed suddenly to have
faded and drooped, as though poisoned by some constant terror.

He stood lost in thought a little longer by his writing-table. Then his
hand felt slowly for a parcel in brown paper that lay there.

He drew it toward him and undid the wrappings. Inside it was a little
volume of recent poems of which he had spoken to Mary Elsmere on their
moonlit walk through the park. He had promised to lend her his copy, and
he meant to have left it at the cottage that afternoon. Now he
lingeringly removed the brown paper, and walking to the bookcase, he
replaced the volume.

He sat down to write to Alice Puttenham, and to scribble a note to Lady
Fox-Wilton asking her to see him as soon as possible. Then Anne forced
some luncheon on him, and he had barely finished it when a step outside
made itself heard. He looked up and saw Hugh Flaxman.

"Come in!" said the Rector, opening the front door himself. "You are very
welcome."

Flaxman grasped--and pressed--the proffered hand, looking at Meynell the
while with hesitating interrogation. He guessed from the Rector's face
that the errand on which he came had been anticipated.

Meynell led him into the study and shut the door.

"I have just had Barron here," he said, turning abruptly, after he had
pushed a chair toward his guest. "He told me he had shown one of these
precious documents to you." He held up the anonymous letter.

Flaxman took it, glanced it over in silence and returned it.

"I can only forgive him for doing it when I reflect that I may
thereby--perhaps--be enabled to be of some little use to you. Barron
knows what I think of him, and of the business."

"Oh! for him it is a weapon--like any other. Though to do him justice
he might not have used it, but for the other mysterious person in the
case--the writer of these letters. You know--" he straightened himself
vehemently--"that I can say nothing--except that the story is untrue?"

"And of course I shall ask you nothing. I have spent twenty-four hours in
arguing with myself as to whether I should come to you at all. Finally I
decided you might blame me if I did not. You may not be aware of the
letter to my sister-in-law?"

Meynell's start was evident.

"To Mrs. Elsmere?"

"She brought it to us on Friday, before the party. It was, I think,
identical with this letter"--he pointed to the Dawes envelope--"except
for a few references to the part Mrs. Elsmere had played in helping the
families of those poor fellows who were killed in the cage-accident."

"And Miss Elsmere?" said Meynell in a tone that wavered in spite of
himself. He sat with his head bent and his eyes on the floor.

"Knows, of course, nothing whatever about it," said Flaxman hastily. "Now
will you give us your orders? A strong denial of the truth of the story,
and a refusal to discuss it at all--with any one--that I think is what
you wish?"

Meynell assented.

"In the village, I shall deal with it at the Reform meeting on Thursday
night." Then he rose. "Are you going to Forked Pond?"

"I was on my way there."

"I will go with you. If Mrs. Elsmere is free, I should like to have some
conversation with her."

They started together through a dripping world on which the skies had but
just ceased to rain. On his way through the park Meynell took off his hat
and walked bareheaded through the mist, evidently feeling it a physical
relief to let the chill, moist air beat freely on brow and temples.
Flaxman could not help watching him occasionally--the forehead with its
deep vertical furrow, the rugged face, stamped and lined everywhere by
travail of mind and body, and the nobility of the large grizzled head. In
the voluminous cloak--of an antiquity against which Anne protested in
vain--which was his favourite garb on wet days, he might have been a
friar of the early time, bound on a preaching tour. The spiritual,
evangelic note in the personality became--so Flaxman thought--ever more
conspicuous. And yet he walked to-day in very evident trouble, without,
however, allowing to this trouble any spoken expression whatever.

As they neared the Forked Pond enclosure, Meynell suddenly paused.

"I had forgotten--I must go first to Sandford--where indeed I am
expected."

"Sandford? I trust there is no fresh anxiety?"

"There _is_ anxiety," said Meynell briefly.

Flaxman expressed an unfeigned sympathy.

"What is Miss Hester doing to-day?"

"Packing, I hope. She goes to-morrow."

"And you--are going to interview this fellow?" asked Flaxman reluctantly.

"I have done it already--and must now do it again. This time I am going
to threaten."

"With anything to go upon?"

"Yes. I hope at last to be able to get some grip on him; though no doubt
my chances are not improved since yesterday," said Meynell, with a grim
shadow of a smile, "supposing that anybody from Upcote has been
gossipping at Sandford. It does not exactly add to one's moral influence
to be regarded as a Pharisaical humbug."

"I wish I could take the business off your shoulders!" said Flaxman,
heartily.

Meynell gave him a slight, grateful look. They walked on briskly to the
high road, Flaxman accompanying his friend so far. There they parted, and
Hugh returned slowly to the cottage by the water, Meynell promising to
join him there within an hour.

BOOK III

CATHARINE

"Such was my mother's way, learnt from Thee in the school of the heart,
where Thou art Master."

CHAPTER XVI

In the little drawing-room at Forked Pond Catharine and Mary Elsmere were
sitting at work. Mary was embroidering a curtain in a flowing Venetian
pattern--with a handful of withered leaves lying beside her to which she
occasionally matched her silks. Catharine was knitting. Outside the rain
was howling through the trees; the windows streamed with it. But within,
the bright wood-fire threw a pleasant glow over the simple room, and the
figures of the two ladies. Mary's trim jacket and skirt of prune-coloured
serge, with its white blouse fitting daintily to throat and wrist, seemed
by its neatness to emphasize the rebellious masses and the fare colour of
her hair. She knew that her hair was beautiful, and it gave her a
pleasure she could not help, though she belonged to that type of
Englishwoman, not yet nearly so uncommon as modern newspapers and books
would have us believe, who think as little as they can of personal
adornment and their own appearance, in the interests of some hidden ideal
that "haunts them like a passion; of which even the most innocent vanity
seems to make them unworthy."

In these feelings and instincts she was, of course, her mother's
daughter. Catharine Elsmere's black dress of some plain woollen stuff
could not have been plainer, and she wore the straight collar and cuffs,
and--on her nearly white hair--the simple cap of her widowhood. But the
spiritual beauty which had always been hers was hers still. One might
guess that she, too, knew it; that in her efforts to save persons in sin
or suffering she must have known what it was worth to her; what the gift
of lovely line and presence is worth to any human being. But if she had
been made to feel this--passingly, involuntarily--she had certainly
shrunk from feeling it.

Mary put her embroidery away, made up the fire, and sat down on a stool
at her mother's feet.

"Darling, how many socks have you knitted since we came here? Enough to
stock a shop?"

"On the contrary. I have been very idle," laughed Catharine, putting her
knitting away. "How long is it? Four months?" she sighed.

"It _has_ done you good?--yes, it has!" Mary looked at her closely.

"Then why don't you let me go back to my work?--tyrant!" said Catharine,
stroking the red-gold hair.

"Because the doctor said 'March'--and you sha'n't be allowed to put your
feet in London a day earlier," said Mary, laying her head on Catharine's
knee. "You needn't grumble. Next week you'll have your fells and your
becks--as much Westmoreland as ever you want. Only ten days more here,"
and this time it was Mary who sighed, deeply, unconsciously.

The face above her changed--unseen by Mary.

"You've liked being here?"

"Yes--very much."

"It's a dear little house, and the woods are beautiful."

"Yes. And--I've made a new friend."

"You like Miss Puttenham so much?"

"More than anybody I have seen for years," said Mary, raising herself and
speaking with energy; "but, oh dear, I wish I could do something for
her!"

Catharine moved uneasily.

"Do what?"

"Comfort her--help her--make her tell me what's the matter."

"You think she's unhappy?"

Mary propped her chin on her hand, and looked into the fire.

"I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a week's--a
day's--happiness--in her life?"

[Illustration: "'I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a
week's--a day's--happiness--in her life?'"]

She said it musingly but intensely. Catharine did not know how to answer
her. All the day long, and a good deal of the night, she had been
debating with herself what to do--toward Mary. Mary was no longer a
child. She was a woman, of nearly six and twenty, strong in character,
and accustomed of late to go with her mother into many of the dark places
of London life. The betrayal--which could not be hidden from her--of a
young servant girl in their employ, the year before, and the fierce
tenderness with which Mary had thrown herself into the saving of the girl
and her child, had brought about--Catharine knew it--a great deepening
and overshadowing of her youth. Catharine had in some ways regretted it
bitterly; for she belonged to that older generation which believed--and
were amply justified in believing--that it is well for the young to be
ignorant, so long as they can be ignorant, of the ugly and tragic things
of sex. It was not that her Mary seemed to her in the smallest degree
besmirched by the experience she had passed through; that any bloom had
been shaken from the flower. Far from it. It was rather that some touch
of careless joy was gone forever from her child's life; and how that
may hurt a mother, only those know who have wept in secret hours over the
first ebbing of youth in a young face.

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