Something in the Bishop suddenly and sharply drew away from the man beside him. He held himself with a cold dignity.
"For myself, personally—I tell you frankly—I cannot bring myself to believe a word of this story, so far as it concerns Meynell. I believe there is a terrible mistake at the bottom of it, and I prefer to trust twenty years of noble living rather than the tale of a poor distraught creature like Judith Sabin. At the same time, of course, I recognize that you have a right to your opinions, as I have to mine. But, my dear sir"—and here the Bishop rose abruptly—"let me urge upon you one thing. Keep an open mind—not only for all that tells against Meynell, but all that tells for him! Don't—you will allow me this friendly word—don't land yourself in a great, perhaps a life-long self-reproach!"
There was a note of sternness in the speaker's voice; but the small parchment face and the eyes of china-blue shone, as though kindled from within by the pure and generous spirit of the man.
"My lord, I have said my say." Barron had also risen, and stood towering over the Bishop. "I leave it now in the hands of God."
The Bishop winced again, and was holding out a limp hand for good-bye, when Barron said suddenly:
"Perhaps you will allow me one question, my lord? Has Meynell been to see you? Has he written to you even? I may say that I urged him to do so."
The Bishop was taken aback and saw no way out.
"I have had no direct communication with him," he said, reluctantly; "no doubt because of our already strained relations."
On Barron's lips there dawned something which could hardly be called a smile—or triumphant; but the Bishop caught it. In another minute the door had closed upon his visitor.
* * * * *
Barron walked away through the Close, his mind seething with anger and resentment. He felt that he had been treated as an embarrassment rather than an ally; and he vowed to himself that the Bishop's whole attitude had been grudging and unfriendly.
As he passed on to the broad stone pavement that bordered the south transept he became aware of a man coming toward him. Raising his eyes he saw that it was Meynell.
There was no way of avoiding the encounter. As the two men passed Barron made a mechanical sign of recognition. Meynell lifted his head and looked at him full. It was a strange look, intent and piercing, charged with the personality of the man behind it.
Barron passed on, quivering. He felt that he hated Meynell. The disguise of a public motive dropped away; and he knew that he hated him personally.
At the same time the sudden slight misgiving he had been conscious of in the Bishop's presence ran through him again. He feared he knew not what; and as he walked to the station the remembrance of Meynell's expression mingled with the vague uneasiness he tried in vain to put from him.
Meynell walked home by Forkéd Pond to Maudeley. He lingered a little in the leafless woods round the cottage, now shut up, and he chose the longer path that he might actually pass the very window near which Mary had stood when she spoke those softly broken words—words from a woman's soul—which his memory had by heart. And his pulse leapt at the scarcely admitted thought that perhaps—now—in a few weeks he might be walking the dale paths with Mary. But there were stern things to be done first.
At Maudeley he found Flaxman awaiting him, and the two passed into the library, where Rose, though bubbling over with question and conjecture, self-denyingly refrained from joining them. The consultation of the two men lasted about an hour, and when Flaxman rejoined his wife, he came alone.
"Gone?" said Rose, with a disappointed look. "Oh! I did want to shake his hand!"
Flaxman's gesture was unsympathetic.
"It is not the time for that yet. This business has gone deep with him. I don't exactly know what he will do. But he has made me promise various things."
"When does he see—Torquemada?" said Rose, after a pause.
"I think—to-morrow morning."
"H'm! Good luck to him! Please let me know also precisely when I may crush Lady St. Morice."
Lady St. Morice was the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, and had at a recent dinner party, in Rose's presence, hotly asserted her belief in the charges brought against the Rector of Upcote. She possessed a private chapel adorned with pre-Raphaelite frescoes, and was the sister of one of the chief leaders of the High Orthodox party in convocation.
"She doesn't often speak to the likes of me," said Rose; "which of course is a great advantage for the likes of me. But next time I shall speak to her—which will be so good for her. My dear Hugh, don't let Meynell be too magnanimous—I can't stand it."
Flaxman laughed, but rather absently. It was evident that he was still under the strong impression of the conversation he had just passed through.
Rose stole up to him, and put her lips to his ear.
"Who—was—Hester's father?"
Flaxman looked up.
"I haven't the least idea."
"But of course we must all know some time," said Rose discontentedly."Catharine knows already."
* * * * *
Meynell passed that evening in his study, after some hours spent in the Christmas business of a large parish. His mind was full of agitation, and when midnight struck, ushering in Christmas Eve, he was still undecided as to his precise course.
Among the letters of the day lying scattered beside him on the floor there was yet further evidence of the power of Barron's campaign. There were warm expressions indeed of sympathy and indignation to be found among them, but on the whole Meynell realized that his own side's belief in him was showing some signs of distress, while the attack upon him was increasing in violence. His silence even to his most intimate friends, even to his Bishop; the disappearance from England of the other persons named in the scandal; the constant elaborations and embellishments of the story as it passed from mouth to mouth—these things were telling against him steadily and disastrously.
As he hung over the fire, he anxiously reconsidered his conduct toward the Bishop, while Catharine's phrase—"He, too, has his rights!" lingered in his memory. He more than suspected that his silence had given pain; and his affection for the Bishop made the thought a sore one.
But after all what good would have been done had he even put the Bishop in possession of the whole story? The Bishop's bare denial would have been added to his; nothing more. There could have been no explanation, public or private; nothing to persuade those who did not wish to be persuaded.
His thought wandered hither and thither. From the dim regions of the past there emerged a letter….
"My dear old Meynell, the thing is to be covered up. Ralph will acknowledge the child, and all precautions are to be taken. I think what he does he will do thoroughly. Alice wishes it—and what can I do, either for her or for the child? Nothing. And for me, I see but one way out—which will be the best for her too in the end, poor darling. My wife's letter a week ago destroyed my last hope. I am going out to-night—and I shall not come back. Stand by her, Richard. I think this kind of lie on which we are all embarked is wrong (not that you had anything to do with it!) But it is society which is wrong and imposes it on us. Anyway, the choice is made, and now you must support and protect her—and the child—for my sake. For I know you love me, dear boy—little as I deserve it. It is part of your general gift of loving, which has always seemed to me so strange. However—whatever I was made for, you were made to help the unhappy. So I have the less scruple in sending you this last word. She will want your help. The child's lot in that household will not be a happy one; and Alice will have to look on. But, help her!—help her above all to keep silence, for this thing, once done, must be irrevocable. Only so can my poor Alice recover her youth—think, she is only twenty now!—and the child's future be saved. Alice, I hope, will marry. And when the child marries, you may—nay, I think you must—tell the husband. I have written this to Ralph. But for all the rest of the world, the truth is now wiped out. The child is no longer mine—Alice was never my love—and I am going to the last sleep. My sister Fanny Meryon knows something; enough to make her miserable; but no names or details. Well!—good-bye. In your company alone have I ever seemed to touch the life that might have been mine. But it is too late. The will in me—the mainspring—is diseased. This is a poor return—but forgive me!—my very dear Richard! Here comes the boat; and there is a splendid sea rising."
* * * * *
There, in a locked drawer, not far from him, lay this letter. Meynell's thought plunged back into the past; into its passionate feeling, its burning pity, its powerless affection. He recalled his young hero-worship for his brilliant kinsman; the hour when he had identified the battered form on the shore of the Donegal Lough; the sight of Alice's young anguish; and all the subsequent effort on his part, for Christ's sake, for Neville's sake, to help and shield a woman and child, effort from which his own soul had learnt so much.
Pure and sacred recollections!—mingled often with the moral or intellectual perplexities that enter into all things human.
Then—at a bound—his thoughts rushed on to the man who, without pity, without shame, had dragged all these sad things, these helpless, irreparable griefs, into the cruel light of a malicious publicity—in the name of Christ—in the name of the Church!
To-morrow! He rose, with a face set like iron, and went back to his table to finish a half-written review.
* * * * *
"Theresa—after eleven—I shall be engaged. See that I am not disturbed."
Theresa murmured assent, but when her father closed the door of her sitting-room, she did not go back immediately to her household accounts. Her good, plain face showed a disturbed mind.
Her father's growing excitability and irritation, and the bad accounts of Maurice, troubled her sorely. It was only that morning Mr. Barron had become aware that Maurice had lost his employment, and was again adrift in the world. Theresa had known it for a week or two, but had not been allowed to tell. And she tried not to remember how often of late her brother had applied to her for money.
Going back to her accounts with a sigh, she missed a necessary receipt and went into the dining-room to look for it. While she was there the front door bell rang and was answered, unheard by her. Thus it fell out that as she came back into the hall she found herself face to face with Richard Meynell.
She stood paralyzed with astonishment. He bowed to her gravely and passed on. Something in his look seemed to her to spell calamity. She went back to her room, and sat there dumb and trembling, dreading what she might see or hear.
Meanwhile Meynell had been ushered into Barron's study by the old butler, who was no less astonished than his mistress.
Barron rose stiffly to meet his visitor. The two men stood opposite each other as the door closed.
Barron spoke first.
"You will, I trust, let me know, Mr. Meynell, without delay to what I owe this unexpected visit. I was of course quite ready to meet your desire for an interview, but your letter gave me no clue—"
"I thought it better not," said Meynell quietly. "May we sit down?"
Barron mechanically waved the speaker to a chair, and sat down himself. Meynell seemed to pause a moment, his eyes on the ground. Then suddenly he raised them.
"Mr. Barron, what I have come to say will be a shock to you. I have discovered the author of the anonymous letters which have now for nearly three months been defiling this parish and diocese."
Barron's sudden movement showed the effect of the words. But he held himself well in hand.
"I congratulate you," he said coldly. "It is what we have all been trying to discover."
"But the discovery will be painful to you. For the author of these letters, Mr. Barron—is—your son Maurice."
At these words, spoken with an indescribable intensity and firmness,Barron sprang from, his seat.
"It was not necessary, I think, sir, to come to my house in order to insult my family and myself! It would have been better to write. And you may be very sure that if you cannot punish your slanderers we can—and will!"
His attitude expressed a quivering fury. Meynell took a packet from his breast-pocket and quietly laid it on the table beside him.
"In this envelope you will find a document—a confession of a piece of wrongdoing on Maurice's part of which I believe you have never been informed. His poor sister concealed it—and paid for it. Do you remember, three years ago, the letting loose of some valuable young horses from Farmer Grange's stables—the hue and cry after them—and the difficulty there was in recapturing them on the Chase?"
Barron stared at the speaker—speechless.
"You remember that a certain young fellow was accused—James Aston—one of my Sunday school teachers—who had proposed to Grange's daughter, and had been sent about his business by the father? Aston was in fact just about to be run in by the police, when a clue came to my hands. I followed it up. Then I found out that the ringleader in the whole affair had been your son Maurice. If you remember, he was then at home, hanging about the village, and he had had a quarrel with Grange—I forget about what. He wrote an anonymous post-card accusing Aston. However, I got on the track; and finally I made him give me a written confession—to protect Aston. Heavy compensation was paid to Grange—by your daughter—and the thing was hushed up. I was always doubtful whether I ought not to have come to you. But it was not long after the death of your wife. I was very sorry for you all—and Maurice pleaded hard. I did not even tell Stephen; but I kept the confession. I came upon it a night or two ago, in the drawer where I had also placed the letter to Dawes which I got from you. Suddenly, the likeness in the handwritings struck me; and I made a very careful comparison."
He opened the packet, and took out the two papers, which he offered toBarron.
"I think, if you will compare the marked passages, you will see at least a striking resemblance."
With a shaking hand Barron refused the papers.
"I have no doubt, sir, you can manufacture any evidence you please!—butI do not intend to follow you through it. Handwriting, as we all know,can be made to prove anything. Reserve your documents for your solicitor.I shall at once instruct mine."
"But I am only at the beginning of my case," said Meynell with the same composure. "I think you had better listen … A passage in one of the recent letters gave me a hint—an idea. I went straight to East the publican, and taxed him with being the accomplice of the writer. I blustered a little—he thought I had more evidence than I had—and at last I got the whole thing out of him. The first letter was written"—the speaker raised his finger, articulating each word with slow precision, "by your son Maurice, and posted by East, the day after the cage-accident at the Victoria pit; and they have pursued the same division of labour ever since. East confesses he was induced to do it by the wish to revenge himself on me for the attack on his license; and Maurice occasionally gave him a little money. I have all the dates of the letters, and a statement of where they were posted. If necessary, East will give evidence."
A silence. Barron had resumed his seat, and was automatically lifting a small book which lay on a table near him and letting it fall, while Meynell was speaking. When Meynell paused, he said thickly—
"A plausible tale no doubt—and a very convenient one for you. But allow me to point out, it rests entirely on East's word. Very likely he wrote the letters himself, and is attempting to make Maurice the scapegoat."
"Where do you suppose he could have got his information from?" said Meynell, looking up. "There is no suggestion thathesaw Judith Sabin before her death."
Barron's face worked, while Meynell watched him implacably. At last he said:
"How should I know? The same question applies to Maurice."
"Not at all. There the case is absolutely clear. Maurice got his information from you."
"A gratuitous statement, sir!—which you cannot prove."
"From you"—repeated Meynell. "And from certain spying operations that he and East undertook together. Do you deny that you told Maurice all that Judith Sabin told you—together with her identification of myself?"
The room seemed to wait for Barron's reply. He made none. He burst out instead—
"What possible motive could Maurice have had for such an action? The thing isn't even plausible!"
"Oh, Maurice had various old scores to settle with me," said Meynell, quietly. "I have come across him more than once in this parish—no need to say how. I tried to prevent him from publicly disgracing himself and you; and I did prevent him. He saw in this business an easy revenge on a sanctimonious parson who had interfered with his pleasures."
Barron had risen and was pacing the room with unsteady steps. Meynell still watched him, with the same glitter in the eye. Meynell's whole nature indeed, at the moment, had gathered itself into one avenging force; he was at once sword and smiter. The man before him seemed to him embodied cruelty and hypocrisy; he felt neither pity nor compunction. And presently he said abruptly—
"But I am afraid I have much more serious matter to lay before you than this business of the letters."
"What do you mean?"
Taking another letter from his pocket, Meynell glanced at it a moment, and then handed it to Barron. Barron was for an instant inclined to refuse it, as he had refused the others. But Meynell insisted.
"Believe me, you had better read it. It is a letter from Mr. Flaxman to myself, and it concerns a grave charge against your son. I bring you a chance of saving him from prosecution; but there is no time to be lost."
Barron took the letter, carried it to the window, and stood reading it. Meynell sat on the other side of the room watching him, still in the same impassive "possessed" state.
Suddenly, Barron put his hand over his face, and a groan he could not repress broke from him. He turned his back and stood bending over the letter.
At the same instant a shiver ran through Meynell, like the return to life of some arrested energy, some paralyzed power. The shock of that sound of suffering had found him iron; it left him flesh. The spiritual habit of a lifetime revived; for "what we do we are."
He rose slowly, and went over to the window.
"You can still save him—from the immediate consequences of this at least—if you will. I have arranged that with Flaxman. It was my seeing him enter the room alone where the coins were, the night of the party, that first led to the idea that he might have taken them. Then, as you see, certain dealers' shops were watched by a private detective. Maurice appeared—sold the Hermes coin—was traced to his lodgings and identified. So far the thing has not gone beyond private inquiry; for the dealer will do what Flaxman wants him to do. But Maurice still has the more famous of the two coins; and if he attempts to sell that, after the notices to the police, there may be an exposure any day. You must go up to London as soon as you can—"
"I will go to-night," said Barron, in a tone scarcely to be heard. He stood with his hands on his sides, staring out upon the wintry garden outside, just as a gardener's boy laden with holly and ivy for the customary Christmas decorations of the house was passing across the lawn.
There was silence a little. Meynell walked slowly up and down the room. At last Barron turned toward him; the very incapacity of the plump and ruddy face for any tragic expression made it the more tragic.
"I propose to write to the Bishop at once. Do you desire a public statement?"
"There must be a public statement," said Meynell gravely. "The thing has gone too far. Flaxman and I have drawn one up. Will you look at it?"
Barron took it, and went to his writing-table.
"Wait a moment!" said Meynell, following him, and laying his hand on the open page. "I don't want you to sign that byforce majeure. Dismiss—if you can—any thought of any hold I may have upon you, because of Maurice's misdoing. You and I, Barron, have known each other some years. We were once friends. I ask you—not under any threat—not under any compulsion—to accept my word as an honest man that I am absolutely innocent of the charge you have brought against me."
Barron, who was sitting before his writing-table, buried his face in his hands a moment, then raised it.
"I accept it," he said, almost inaudibly.
"You believe me?"
"I believe you."
Meynell drew a long breath. Then he added, with a first sign of emotion—"And I may also count upon your doing henceforth what you can to protect that poor lady, Miss Puttenham, and her kinsfolk, from the consequences of this long persecution?"
Barron made a sign of assent. Meynell left him to read and sign the public apology and retraction, which Flaxman had mainly drawn up; while the Rector himself took up a Bradshaw lying on the table, and walked to the window to consult it.
"You will catch the 1.40," he said, as Barron rose from the writing-table. "Let me advise you to get him out of the country for a time."
Barron said nothing. He came heavily toward the window, and the two men stood looking at each other, overtaken both of them by a mounting wave of consciousness. The events, passions, emotions of the preceding months pressed into memory, and beat against the silence. But it was Meynell who turned pale.
"What a pity—to spoil the fight!" he said in a low voice. "It would have been splendid—to fight it—fair."
"I shall of course withdraw my name from the Arches suit," said Barron, leaning over a chair, his eyes on the ground.
Meynell did not reply. He took up his hat; only saying as he went toward the door:
"Remember—Flaxman holds his hand entirely. The situation is with you." Then, after a moment's hesitation, he added simply, almost shyly—"God help you! Won't you consult your daughter?"
Barron made no answer. The door opened and shut.
"…. but Life ere longCame on me in the public ways and bentEyes deeper than of old; Death met I too,And saw the dawn glow through."
A mild January day on the terrace of St. Germains. After a morning of hoar-frost the sun was shining brightly on the terrace, and on the panorama it commands. A pleasant light lay on the charming houses that front the skirts of the forest, on the blue-gray windings of the Seine, on the groves of leafless poplars interwoven with its course, on the plain with its thickly sown villages, on the height of Mont Valérien, behind which lay Paris. In spite of the sunshine, however, it was winter, and there was no movement in St. Germains. The terrace and the road leading from it to the town were deserted; and it was easy to see from the aspect of the famous hotel at the corner of the terrace that, although not closed, it despaired of visitors. Only a trio of French officers in the far distance of the terrace, and a white-cappedbonnestruggling against the light wind with a basket on her arm, offered any sign of life to the observant eyes of a young man who was briskly pacing up and down that section of the terrace which abuts on the hotel.
The young man was Philip Meryon. His dark tweed suit and fur waistcoat disclosed a figure once singularly agile and slender, on which self-indulgence was now beginning to tell. Nevertheless, as thebonnepassed him she duly noted and admired his pictorial good looks, opining at the same time that he was not French. Why was he there? She decided in her own mind that he was there for an assignation, by which she meant, of course, a meeting with a married woman; and she smiled the incorrigible French smile.
Assignation or no, she would have seen, had she looked closer, that the young man in question was in no merely beatific or expectant frame of mind. Meryon's look was a look both of excitement—as of one under the influence of some news of a startling kind—and of anxiety.
Would she come? And if she came would he be able to bring and hold her to any decision, without—without doing what even he shrank from doing?
For that ill chance in a thousand which Meynell had foreseen, and hoped, as mortals do, to baffle, had come to pass. That morning, a careless letter enclosing the payment of a debt, and written by a young actor, who had formed part of one of the bohemian parties at the Abbey, during the summer, and had now been playing for a week in the Markborough theatre, had given Meryon the clue to the many vague conjectures or perplexities which had already crossed his mind with regard to Hester's origin and history.
* * * * *
"Your sanctified cousin, Richard Meynell" [wrote the young man] "seems after all to be made of the common clay. There are strange stories going the round about him here; especially in a crop of anonymous letters of which the author can't be found. I send you a local newspaper which has dared to print one of them with dashes for the names. The landlord of the inn told me how to fill them up, and you will see I have done it. The beauteous maiden herself has vanished from the scene—as no doubt you know. Indeed you probably know all about it. However, as you are abroad, and not likely to see these local rags, and as no London paper will print these things, you may perhaps be interested in what I enclose. Alack, my dear Philip, for the saints! They seem not so very different from you and me."
* * * * *
The eagerness with which Philip had read the newspaper cutting enclosed in the letter was only equalled by the eagerness with which afterward he fell to meditating upon it; pursuing and ferreting out the truth, through a maze of personal recollection and inference.
Richard!—nonsense! He laughed, from a full throat. Not for one moment was Philip misled by Judith Sabin's mistake. He was a man of great natural shrewdness, blunted no doubt by riotous living; but there was enough of it left, aided by his recent forced contacts with his cousin Richard all turning on the subject of Hester, to keep him straight. So that without any demur at all he rejected the story as it stood.
But then, what was the fact behind it? Impossible that Judith Sabin's story should be all delusion! For whom did she mistake Richard?
Suddenly, as he sat brooding and smoking, a vision of Hester flashed upon him as she had stood laughing and pouting, beneath the full length picture of Neville Flood, which hung in the big hall of the Abbey. He had pointed it out to her on their way through the house—where she had peremptorily refused to linger—to the old garden behind.
He could hear his own question: "There!—aren't you exactly like him? Turn and look at yourself in the glass opposite. Oh, you needn't be offended! He was the handsome man of his day."
Of course! The truth jumped to the eyes, now that one was put in the way of seeing it. And on this decisive recollection there had followed a rush of others, no less pertinent: things said by his dead mother about the brother whom she had loved and bitterly regretted. So the wronged lady whom he would have married but for his wife's obstinacy was "Aunt Alice!" Philip remembered to have once seen her from a distance in the Upcote woods. Hester had pointed her out, finger on lip, as they stood hiding in a thicket of fern; a pretty woman still. His mother had never mentioned a name; probably she had never known it; but to the love-affair she had always attributed some share in her brother's death.
From point to point he tracked it, the poor secret, till he had run it down. By degrees everything fitted in; he was confident that he had guessed the truth.
Then, abruptly, he turned to look at its bearing on his own designs and fortunes.
He supposed himself to be in love with Hester. At any rate he was violently conscious of that hawk-like instinct of pursuit which he was accustomed to call love. Hester's mad and childish imprudences, which the cooler self in Meryon was quite ready to recognize as such, had made the hawking a singularly easy task so far. Meynell, of course, had put up difficulties; with regard to this Scotch business it had been necessary to lie pretty hard, and to bribe some humble folk in order to get round him. But Hester, by the double fact that she was at once so far removed from the mereingénue, and so incredibly ready to risk herself, out of sheer ignorance of life, both challenged and tempted the man whom a disastrous fate had brought across her path, to such a point that he had long since lost control of himself, and parted with any scruples of conscience he might possess.
At the same time he was by no means sure of her. He realized his increasing power over her; he also realized the wild, independent streak in her. Some day—any day—the capricious, wilful nature might tire, might change. The prey might escape, and the hawk go empty home. No dallying too long! Let him decide what to risk—and risk it.
Meantime that confounded cousin of his was hard at work, through some very capable lawyers, and unless the instructions he—Philip—had conveyed to the woman in Scotland, who, thank goodness, was no less anxious to be rid of him than he to be rid of her, were very shrewdly and exactly carried out, facts might in the end reach Hester which would give even her recklessness pause. He knew that so far Meynell had been baffled; he knew that he carried about with him evidence that, for the present, could be brought to bear on Hester with effect; but things were by no means safe.
For his own affairs, they were desperate. As he stood there, he was nothing more in fact than the common needy adventurer, possessed, however, of greater daring, and thedèbrisof much greater pretensions, than most such persons. His financial resources were practically at an end, and he had come to look upon a clandestine marriage with Hester as the best means of replenishing them. The Fox-Wilton family passed for rich; and the notion that they must and would be ready to come forward with money, when once the thing was irrevocable, counted for much in the muddy plans of which his mind was full. His own idea was to go to South America—to Buenos Ayres, where money was to be made, and where he had some acquaintance. In that way he would shake off his creditors, and the Scotch woman together; and Meynell would know better than to interfere.
* * * * *
Suddenly a light figure came fluttering round the corner of the road leading to the château and the town. Philip turned and went to meet her. And as he approached her he was shaken afresh by the excitement of her presence, in addition to his more sordid preoccupation. Her wild, provocative beauty seemed to light up the whole wintry scene; and the few passers-by, each and all, stopped to stare at her. Hester laughed aloud when she saw Meryon; and with her usual recklessness held up her umbrella for signal. It pleased her that tworapinsin large black ties and steeple hats paid her an insolent attention as they passed her; and she stopped to pinch the cheek of a chubby child that had planted itself straight in her path.
"Am I late?" she said, as they met. "I only just caught the train. Oh! I am so hungry! Don't let's talk—let'sdéjeuner."
Philip laughed.
"Will you dare the hotel?"
And he pointed to the Pavillion Henri Quatre.
"Why not? Probably there won't be a soul."
"There are always Americans."
"Why not, again?Tant mieux! Oh, my hair!"
And she put up her two ungloved hands to try and reduce it to something like order. The loveliness of the young curving form, of the pretty hands, of the golden brown hair, struck full on Meryon's turbid sense.
They turned toward the hotel, and were presently seated in a corner of its glazed gallery, with all the wide, prospect of plain and river spread beneath them. Hester was in the highest spirits, and as she sat waiting for the firstplat, chattering, and nibbling at her roll, her black felt hat with its plume of cock feathers falling back from the brilliance of her face, she once more attracted all the attention available; from the two savants who, after a morning in the Chateau, were lunching at a farther table; from an American family of all ages reduced to silence by sheer wonder and contemplation; from the waiters, and, not least, from the hotel dog, wagging his tail mutely at her knee.
Philip felt himself an envied person. He was, indeed, vain of his companion; but certain tyrannical instincts asserted themselves once or twice. When, or if, she became his possession, he would try and moderate some of this chatter and noise.
For the present he occupied himself with playing to her lead, glancing every now and then mentally, with a secret start, at the information he had possessed about her since the morning.
She described to him, with a number of new tricks of gesture caught from her French class-mates, how she had that morning outwitted all her guardians, who supposed that she had gone to Versailles with one of the senior members of the class she was attending at the Conservatoire, a young teacher, "très sage," with whom she had been allowed once or twice to go to museums and galleries. To accomplish it had required an elaborate series of deceptions, which Hester had carried through, apparently, without a qualm. Except that at the end of her story there was a passing reference to Aunt Alice—"poor darling!"—"who would have a fit if she knew."
Philip, coffee-cup in hand, half smiling, looked at her meantime through his partially closed lids. Richard, indeed! She was Neville all through, the Neville of the picture, except for the colour of the hair, and the soft femininity. And here she sat, prattling—foolish dear!—about "mamma," and "Aunt Alice," and "my tiresome sisters!"
"Certainly you shall not pay for me!—not asou," said Hester flushing. "I have plenty of money. Take it please, at once." And she pushed her share over the table, with a peremptory gesture.
Meryon took it with a smile and a shrug, and she, throwing away the cigarette she had been defiantly smoking, rose from the table.
"Now then, what shall we do? Oh! no museums! I am being educated to death! Let us go for a walk in the forest; and then I must catch my train, or the world will go mad."
So they walked briskly into the forest, and were soon sufficiently deep among its leaf-strewn paths, to be secure from all observation. Two hours remained of wintry sunlight before they must turn back toward the station.
Hester walked along swinging a small silk bag in which she carried her handkerchief and purse. Suddenly, in a narrow path girt by some tall hollies and withered oaks, she let it fall. Both stooped for it, their hands touched, and as Hester rose she found herself in Meryon's arms.
She made a violent effort to free herself, and when it failed, she stood still and submitted to be kissed, like one who accepts an experience, with a kind of proud patience.
"You think you love me," she said at last, pushing him away. "I wonder whether you do!"
And flushed and panting, she leant against a tree, looking at him with a strange expression, in which melancholy mingled with resentment; passing slowly into something else—that soft and shaken look, that yearning of one longing and yet fearing to be loved, which had struck dismay into Meynell on the afternoon when he had pursued her to the Abbey.
Philip came close to her.
"You think I have no Roddy!" she said, with bitterness. "Don't kiss me again!"
He refrained. But catching her hand, and leaning against the trunk beside her, he poured into her ear protestations and flattery; the ordinary language of such a man at such a moment. Hester listened to it with a kind of eagerness. Sometimes, with a slight frown, as though ear and mind waited, intently, for something that did not come.
"I wonder how many people you have said the same things to before!" she said suddenly, looking searchingly into his face. "What have you got to tell me about that Scotch girl?"
"Richard's Scotch girl?"—he laughed, throwing his handsome head back against the tree—"whom Richard supposes me to have married? Well, I had a great flirtation with her, I admit, two years ago, and it is sometimes rather difficult in Scotland to know whether you are married or no. You know of course that all that's necessary is to declare yourselves man and wife before witnesses? However—perhaps you would like to see a letter from the lady herself on the subject?"
"You had it ready?" she said, doubtfully.
"Well, considering that Richard has been threatening me for months, not only with the loss of you, but with all sorts of pains and penalties besides, I have had to do something! Of course I have done a great deal. This is one of the documents in the case. It is an affidavit really, drawn up by my solicitor and signed by the lady whom Richard supposes to be my injured wife!"
He placed an envelope in her hands.
Hester opened it with a touch of scornful reluctance. It contained a categorical denial and repudiation of the supposed marriage.
"Has Uncle Richard seen it?" she asked coldly, as she gave it back to him.
"Certainly he has, by now." He took another envelope from his pocket. "I won't bother you with anything more—the thing is really too absurd!—but here, if you want it, is a letter from the girl's brother. Brothers are generally supposed to keep a sharp lookout on their sisters, aren't they? Well, this brother declares that Meynell's inquiries have come to nothing, absolutely nothing, in the neighbourhood—except that they have made people very angry. He has got no evidence—simply because there is none to get! I imagine, indeed, that by now he has dropped the whole business. And certainly it is high time he did; or I shall have to be taking action on my own account before long!"
He looked down upon her, as she stood beside him, trying to make out her expression.
"Hester!" he broke out, "don't let's talk about this any more—it's damned 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, God 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 passion 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 damned 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 aremad! 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 embarrassment. "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 abasement, 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 AuntAlsie"—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 rushing 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 snatch. 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 passion of requital had passed 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 document appeared first on a Saturday, 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 theModernistand in the leading religious papers. Its effect on opinion was rapid and profound. The Bishop telegraphed—"Thank God. 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 Döllinger, 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 space 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 École 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 passes away, and she is melancholy and soft, with tears in her eyes now and then, which I dare not notice.
"Oh, my dear friend, I am grateful for all you tell me of the changed situation at Markborough. But after all the thing is done—there can be no undoing it. The lies mingled with the truth have been put down. Perhaps people are ready now to let the truth itself slip back with the lies into the darkness. But how can we—Edith and I—and Hester—ever live the old life again? The old shelter, the old peace, are gone. We are wanderers and pilgrims henceforward!
"As far as I know, Hester is still in complete ignorance of all that has happened. I have told her that Edith finds Tours so economical that she prefers to stay abroad for a couple of years, and to let the Upcote house. And I have said also that when she herself is tired of Paris, I am ready to take her to Germany, and then to Italy. She laughed, as though I had said something ridiculous! One never knows her real mind. But at least I see no sign of any suspicion in her; and I am sure that she has seen no English newspaper that could have given her a clue. As to Philip Meryon, as I have told you before, I often feel a vague uneasiness; but watch as I will, I can find nothing to justify it. Oh! Richard, my heart is broken for her. A little love from her, and the whole world would change for me. But even what I once possessed these last few months seem to have taken from me!"
"The thing is done!—there can be no undoing it." That was the sore burden of all Meynell's thoughts, awakening in him, at times, the "bitter craving to strike heavy blows" at he knew not what. What, indeed, could ever undo the indecency, the cruelty, the ugly revelations of these three months? The grossness of the common public, the weakness of friends, the solemn follies to which men are driven by hate or bigotry: these things might well have roused the angry laughter that lives in all quick and honest souls. But the satiric mood, when it appeared, soon vanished. He remembered the saying of Meredith concerning the spectacle of Bossuet over the dead body of Molière—"at which the dark angels may, but men do not, laugh."
This bitterness might have festered within him, but for the blessedness of Mary Elsmere's letters. She had seen the apology; she knew nothing of its causes. But she betrayed a joy that was almost too proud to know itself as joy; since what doubt could there ever have been but that right and nobleness would prevail? Catharine wrote the warmest and kindest of letters. But Mary's every word was balm, just because she knew nothing, and wrote out of the fulness of her mere faith in him, ready to let her trust take any shape he would. And though she knew nothing, she seemed by some divine instinct to understand also the pain that overshadowed the triumph; to be ready to sit silent with him before the irreparable. Day by day, as he read these letters, his heart burned within him; and Rose noted the growing restlessness. But he had heavy arrears of parish business upon him, of correspondence, of literary work. He struggled on, the powers of mind and body flagging, till one night, when he had been nearly a week at Maudeley, Rose came to him one evening, and said with a smile that had in it just a touch of sweet mockery—
"My dear friend, you are doing no good here at all! Go and see Mary!"
He turned upon her, amazed.
"She has not sent for me."
Rose laughed out.
"Did you expect her to be as modern as that?"
He murmured—
"I have been waiting for a word."
"What right had you to wait? Go and get it out of her! Where will you stay?"
He gasped.
"There is the farm at the head of the valley."
"Telegraph to-night."
He thought a little—the colour flooding into his face. And then he quietly went to Rose's writing-table, and wrote his telegram.