The Case of Richard Meynell Part 62

"Hester!" he broke out, "don't let's talk about this any more--it's d.a.m.ned nonsense! Let's talk about ourselves. Hester!--darling!--I want to make you happy!--I want to carry you away. Hester, will you marry me at once? As far as the French law is concerned, I have arranged it all.

You could come with me to a certain Mairie I know, to-morrow, and we could marry without anybody having a word to say to it; and then, Hester, I'd carry you to Italy! I know a villa on the Riviera--the Italian Riviera--in a little bay all orange and lemon and blue sea. We'd honeymoon there; and when we were tired of honeymooning--though how could any one tire of honeymooning, with you, you darling!--we'd go to South America. I have an opening at Buenos Ayres which promises to make me a rich man. Come with me!--it is the most wonderful country in the world.

You would be adored there--you would have every luxury--we'd travel and ride and explore--we'd have a glorious life!"

He had caught her hands again, and stood towering over her, intoxicated with his own tinsel phrases; almost sincere; a splendid physical presence, save for the slight thickening of face and form, the looseness of the lips, the absence of all freshness in the eyes.

But Hester, after a first moment of dreamy excitement, drew herself decidedly away.

"No, no!--I can't be such a wretch--I can't! Mamma and Aunt Alice would break their hearts. I'm a selfish beast, but not quite so bad as that!

No, Philip--we can meet and amuse ourselves, can't we?--and get to know each other?--and then if we want to, we can marry--some time."

"That means you don't love me!" he said, fiercely.

"Yes, yes, I do!--or at least I--I like you. And perhaps in time--if you let me alone--if you don't tease me--I--I'll marry you. But let's do it openly. It's amusing to get one's own way, even by lies, up to a certain point. They wouldn't let me see you, or get to know you, and I was determined to know you. So I had to behave like a little cad, or give in.

But marrying's different."

He argued with her hotly, pointing out the certainty of Meynell's opposition, exaggerating the legal powers of guardians, declaring vehemently that it was now or never. Hester grew very white as they wandered on through the forest, but she did not yield. Some last scruple of conscience, perhaps--some fluttering fear, possessed her.

So that in the end Philip was pushed to the villainy that even he would have avoided.

Suddenly he turned upon her.

"Hester, you drive me to it! I don't want to--but I can't help it.

Hester, you poor little darling!--you don't know what has happened--you don't know what a position you're in. I want to save you from it. I would have done it, G.o.d knows, without telling you the truth if I could; but you drive me to it!"

"What on earth do you mean?"

She stopped beside him in a clearing of the forest. The pale afternoon sun, now dropping fast to westward, slipped through the slender oaks, on which the red leaves still danced, touched the girl's hair and shone into her beautiful eyes. She stood there so young, so unconscious; a victim, on the threshold of doom. Philip, who was no more a monster than other men who do monstrous things, felt a sharp stab of compunction; and then, rushed headlong at the crime he had practically resolved on before they met.

He told her in a few agitated words the whole--and the true--story of her birth. He described the return of Judith Sabin to Upcote Minor, and the narrative she had given to Henry Barron, without however a word of Meynell in the case, so far at least as the original events were concerned. For he was convinced that he knew better, and that there was no object in prolonging an absurd misunderstanding. His version of the affair was that Judith in a fit of excitement had revealed Hester's parentage to Henry Barron; that Barron out of enmity toward Meynell, Hester's guardian, and by way of getting a hold upon him, had not kept the matter to himself, but had either written or instigated anonymous letters which had spread such excitement in the neighbourhood that Lady Fox-Wilton had now let her house, and practically left Upcote for good.

The story had become the common talk of the Markborough district; and all that Meynell, and "your poor mother," and the Fox-Wilton family could do, was to attempt, on the one hand, to meet the rush of scandal by absence and silence; and on the other to keep the facts from Hester herself as long as possible.

The girl had listened to him with wide, startled eyes. Occasionally a sound broke from her--a gasp--an exclamation--and when he paused, pursued by almost a murderer's sense of guilt, he saw her totter. In an instant he had his arm round her, and for once there was both real pa.s.sion and real pity in the excited words he poured into her ears.

"Hester, dearest!--don't cry, don't be miserable, my own beautiful Hester! I am a beast to have told you, but it is because I am not only your lover, but your cousin--your own flesh and blood. Trust yourself to me! You'll see! Why should that preaching fellow Meynell interfere?

I'll take care of you. You come to me, and we'll show these d.a.m.ned scandal-mongers that what they say is nothing to us--that we don't care a fig for their cant--that we are the masters of our own lives--not they!"

And so on, and so on. The emotion was as near sincerity as he could push it; but it did not fail to occur, at least once, to a mind steeped in third-rate drama, what a "strong" dramatic scene might be drawn from the whole situation.

Hester heard him for a few minutes, in evident stupefaction; then with a recovery of physical equilibrium she again vehemently repulsed him.

"You are mad--you are _mad_! It is abominable to talk to me like this.

What do you mean? 'My poor mother'--who is my mother?"

She faced him tragically, the certainty which was already dawning in her mind--prepared indeed, through years, by all the perplexities and rebellions of her girlhood--betraying itself in her quivering face, and lips. Suddenly, she dropped upon a fallen log beside the path, hiding her face in her hands, struggling again with the sheer faintness of the shock. And Philip, kneeling in the dry leaves beside her, completed his work, with the cruel mercy of the man who kills what he has wounded.

He asked her to look back into her childhood; he reminded her of the many complaints she had made to him of her sense of isolation within her supposed family; of the strange provisions of Sir Ralph's will; of the arrangement which had made her Meynell's ward in a special sense.

"Why, of course, that was so natural! You remember I suggested to you once that Richard probably judged Neville from the same Puritanical standpoint that he judged me? Well, I was a fool to talk like that. I remember now perfectly what my mother used to say. They were of different generations, but they were tremendous friends; and there was only a few years between them. I am certain it was by Neville's wish that Richard became your guardian." He laughed, in some embarra.s.sment. "He couldn't exactly foresee that another member of the family would want to cut in. I love you--I adore you! Let's give all these people the slip. Hester, my pretty, pretty darling--look at me! I'll show you what life means--what love means!"

And doubly tempted by her abas.e.m.e.nt, her bewildered pain, he tried again to take her in his arms.

But she held him at arm's length.

"If," she said, with pale lips--"if Sir Neville was my father--and Aunt Alsie"--her voice failed her--"were they--were they never married?"

He slowly and reluctantly shook his head.

"Then I'm--I'm--oh! but that's monstrous--that's absurd! I don't believe it!"

She sprang to her feet. Then, as she stood confronting his silence, the whole episode of that bygone September afternoon--the miniature--Aunt Alice's silence and tears--rushed back on memory. She trembled, and the iron entered into her soul.

"Let's go back to the station," she said, resolutely. "It's time."

They walked back through the forest paths, for some time without speaking, she refusing his aid. And all the time swiftly, inexorably, memory and inference were at work, dragging to light the deposit--obscure, or troubling, or contradictory--left in her by the facts and feelings of her childhood and youth.

She had told him with emphasis at luncheon that he was not to be allowed to accompany her home; that she would go back to Paris by herself. But when, at the St. Germains station, Meryon jumped into the empty railway carriage beside her, she said nothing to prevent him. She sat in the darkest corner of the carriage, her arms hanging beside her, her eyes fixed on objects of which she saw nothing. Her pride in herself, her ideal of herself, which is to every young creature like the protective sheath to the flower, was stricken to the core. She thought of Sarah and Lulu, whom she had all her life despised and ridiculed. But they had a right to their name and place in the world!--and she was their nameless inferior, the child taken in out of pity, accepted on sufferance. She thought of the gossip now rus.h.i.+ng like a mud-laden stream through every Upcote or Markborough drawing-room. All the persons whom she had snubbed or flouted were concerning themselves maliciously with her and her affairs--were pitying "poor Hester Fox-Wilton."

Her heart seemed to dry and harden within her. The strange thought of her real mother--her suffering, patient, devoted mother--did not move her. It was bound up with all that trampled on and humiliated her.

And, moreover, strange and piteous fact, realized by them both! this sudden sense of fall and degradation had in some mysterious way altered her whole relation to the man who had brought it upon her. His evil power over her had increased. He felt instinctively that he need not in future be so much on his guard. His manner toward her became freer. She had never yet returned him the kisses which, as on this day, she had sometimes allowed him to s.n.a.t.c.h. But before they reached Paris she had kissed him; she had sought his hands with hers; and she had promised to meet him again.

While these lamentable influences and events were thus sweeping Hester's life toward the abyss, mocking all the sacrifices and the efforts that had been made to save her, the publication of Barron's apology had opened yet another stage in "the Meynell case."

As drafted by Flaxman, it was certainly comprehensive enough. For himself, Meynell would have been content with much less; but in dealing with Barron, he was the avenger of wrongs not his own, both public and private; and when his own first pa.s.sion of requital had pa.s.sed away, killed in him by the anguish of his enemy, he still let Flaxman decide for him. And Flaxman, the mildest and most placable of men, showed himself here inexorable, and would allow no softening of terms. So that Barron "unreservedly withdrew" and "publicly apologized" "for those false and calumnious charges, which to my great regret, and on erroneous information, I have been led to bring against the character and conduct of the Rev. Richard Meynell, at various dates, and in various ways, during the six months preceding the date of this apology."

With regard to the anonymous letters--"although they were not written, nor in any way authorized, by me, I now discover to my sorrow that they were written by a member of my family on information derived from me.

I apologize for and repudiate the false and slanderous statements these letters contain, and those also included in letters I myself have written to various persons. I agree that a copy of this statement shall be sent to the Bishop of Markborough, and to each parish clergyman in the diocese of Markborough; as also that it shall be published in such newspapers as the solicitors of the Rev. Richard Meynell may determine."

The doc.u.ment appeared first on a Sat.u.r.day, in all the local papers, and was greedily read and discussed by the crowds that throng into Markborough on market day, who again carried back the news to the villages of the diocese. It was also published on the same day in the _Modernist_ and in the leading religious papers. Its effect on opinion was rapid and profound. The Bishop telegraphed--"Thank G.o.d. Come and see me." France fidgeted a whole morning among his papers, began two or three letters to Meynell, and finally decided that he could write nothing adequate that would not also be hypocritical. Dornal wrote a little note that Meynell put away among those records that are the milestones of life. From all the leading Modernists, during January, came a rush of correspondence and congratulations, in all possible notes and tones of indignant triumph; and many leaders on the other side wrote with generous emotion and relief. Only in the extreme camp of the extreme Right there was, of course, silence and chagrin. Compared to the eternal interests of the Church, what does one man's character matter?

The old Bishop of Dunchester, a kind of English Dollinger, the learned leader of a learned party, and ready in the last years of life to risk what would have tasked the nerves and courage of a man in the prime of physical and mental power, wrote:

"MY DEAR RICHARD MEYNELL: Against my better judgment, I was persuaded that you might have been imprudent. I now know that you have only been heroic. Forgive me--forgive us all. Nothing will induce me to preach the sermon of our opening day. And if you will not, who will, or can?"

Rose meanwhile descended upon the Rectory, and with Flaxman's help, though in the teeth of Anne's rather jealous opposition, she carried off Meynell to Maudeley, that she might "help him write his letters," and watch for a week or two over a man wearied and overtaxed. It was by her means also that the reaction in public opinion spread far beyond Meynell himself. It is true that even men and women of good will looked at each other in bewilderment, after the publication of the apology, and asked each other under their breaths--"Then is there no story!--and was Judith Sabin's whole narrative a delusion?" But with whatever might be true in that narrative no public interest was now bound up; and discussion grew first shamefaced, and then dropped. The tendency strengthened indeed to regard the whole matter as the invention of a half-crazy and dying woman, possessed of some grudge against the Fox-Wilton family. Many surmised that some tragic fact lay at the root of the tale, since those concerned had not chosen to bring the slanderer to account. But what had once been mere matter for malicious or idle curiosity was now handled with compunction and good feeling. People began to be very sorry for the Fox-Wiltons, very sorry for "poor Miss Puttenham." Cards were left, and friendly inquiries were made; and amid the general wave of scepticism and regret, the local society showed itself as sentimental, and as futile as usual.

Meanwhile poor Theresa had been seen driving to the station with red eyes; and her father, it was ascertained, had been absent from home since the day before the publication of the apology. It was very commonly guessed that the "member of my family" responsible for the letters was the unsatisfactory younger son; and many persons, especially in Church circles, were secretly sorry for Barron, while everybody possessed of any heart at all was sorry for his elder son Stephen.

Stephen indeed was one of Meynell's chief anxieties during these intermediate hours, when a strong man took a few days' breathing s.p.a.ce between the effort that had been, and the effort that was to be. The young man would come over, day by day, with the same crushed, patient look, now bringing news to Meynell which they talked over where none might overhear, and now craving news from Paris in return. As to Stephen's own report, Barron, it seemed, had made all arrangements to send Maurice to a firm of English merchants trading at Riga. The head of the firm was under an old financial obligation to Henry Barron, and Stephen had no doubt that his father had made it heavily worth their while to give his brother this fresh chance of an honest life. There had been, Stephen believed, some terrible scenes between the father and son, and Stephen neither felt nor professed to feel any hope for the future. Barron intended himself to accompany Maurice to Riga and settle him there. Afterward he talked of a journey to the Cape. Meanwhile the White House was shut up, and poor Theresa had come to join Stephen in the little vicarage whence the course of events in the coming year would certainly drive him out.

So much for the news he gave. As to the news he hungered for, Meynell had but crumbs to give him. To neither Stephen nor any one else could Alice Puttenham's letters be disclosed. Meynell's lips were sealed upon her story now as they had ever been; and, however shrewdly he might guess at Stephen's guesses, he said nothing, and Stephen asked nothing on the subject.

As to Hester, he was told that she was well, though often moody and excitable, that she seemed already to have tired of the lessons and occupations she had taken up with such prodigious energy at the beginning of her stay, and that she had made violent friends with a young teacher from the ecole Normale, a refined, intelligent woman, in every way fit to be her companion, with whom on holidays she sometimes made long excursions out of Paris.

But to Meynell, poor Alice Puttenham poured out all the bitterness of her heart:

"It seems to me that the little hold I had over her, and the small affection she had for me when we arrived here, are both now less than they were. During the last week especially (the letter was dated the fourteenth of January) I have been at my wits' end how to amuse or please her. She resents being watched and managed more than ever. One feels there is a tumult in her soul to which we have no access. Her teachers complain of her temper and her caprice. And yet she dazzles and fascinates as much as ever. I suspect she doesn't sleep--she has a worn look quite unnatural at her age--but it makes her furious to be asked.

Sometimes, indeed, she seems to melt toward me; the sombre look pa.s.ses away, and she is melancholy and soft, with tears in her eyes now and then, which I dare not notice.