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The Case of Richard Meynell

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> The Case of Richard Meynell




"Probably," said Stephen gravely. "So shall I."

"What'll you do?"

"Become a preacher somewhere--under Meynell."

The younger brother looked with a sort of inquisitive grin at the elder.

"You're ready to put your money on him to that extent? Well, all I know
is, father's dead set against him--and I've no use for him--never had!"

"That's because you didn't know him," said Stephen briefly. "What did you
ever have against him?"

He looked sharply at his brother. The disagreeable idea crossed his mind
that his father, whose weakness for Maurice he well knew, might have told
the story to the lad.

Maurice laughed, and pulled his scanty moustache as he turned away.

"Oh! I don't know--we never hit it off. My fault, of course. Ta, ta."

As Stephen rode away he was haunted for a few minutes by some
disagreeable reminiscences of a school holiday when Maurice had been
discovered drunk in one of the public-houses of the village by the
Rector, who had firmly dug him out and walked him home. But this and
other recollections, not dissimilar, soon passed away, under the steady
assault of thoughts far more compelling....

* * * * *

He took the bridle-path through Maudeley, and was presently aware, in a
clearing of the wood, of the figure of Meynell in front of him.

The Rector was walking in haste, without his dogs. He was therefore out
on business, which indeed was implied by the energy of his whole
movement.

He looked round, frowning as Stephen overtook him.

"Is that you, Stephen? Are you going home?"

"Yes. And you?"

Meynell did not immediately reply. The autumn wood, a splendour of
gold and orange leaf overhead, of red-brown leaf below, with passages
here and there where the sun struck through the beech trees, of purest
lemon-yellow, or intensest green, breathed and murmured round them. A
light wind sang in the tree-tops, and every now and then the plain broke
in--purple through the gold; with its dim colliery chimneys, its wreaths
of smoke, and its paler patches which stood for farms and villages.

Meynell walked by the horse in silence for a while, till, suddenly wiping
a hot brow, he turned and looked at Stephen.

"I think I shall have to tell you, Stephen, where I am going, and why,"
he said, eyeing the young man with a deprecating look, almost a look of
remorse.

Stephen stared at him in silence.

"Flaxman walked home with me last night--came into the Rectory, and told
me that--yesterday--he saw Meryon and Hester together--in Hewlett's
wood--as you know, a lonely place where nobody goes. It was a great blow
to me. I had every reason to believe him safely out of the neighbourhood.
All his servants have clearly been instructed to lie--and Hester!--well,
I won't trust myself to say what I think of her conduct! I went up this
morning to see her--found the whole household in confusion! Nobody knew
where Hester was. She had gone out immediately after breakfast, with
the maid who is supposed to be always with her. Then suddenly--about an
hour later--one of the boys appeared, having seen this woman at the
station--and no Hester. The woman, taken by surprise--young Fox-Wilton
just had a few words with her as the train was moving off--confessed she
was going into Markborough to meet Hester and come back with her. She
didn't know where Miss Hester was. She had left her in the village, and
was to meet her at a shop in Markborough. After that, things began to
come out. The butler told tales. The maid is clearly an unprincipled
hussy, and has probably been in Meryon's pay all the time--"

"Where is Hester?--where are you going to?" cried Stephen in impatient
misery, slipping from his horse, as he spoke, to walk beside the Rector.

"In my belief she is at Sandford Abbey."

"At Sandford!" cried the young man under his breath. "Visit that
scoundrel in his own house!"

"It appears she has once or twice declared that, in spite of us all, she
would go and see his house and his pictures. In my belief, she has done
it this morning. It is her last chance. We go to Paris to-morrow.
However, we shall soon know."

The Rector pushed on at redoubled speed. Stephen kept up with him, his
lips twitching.

"Why did you separate us?" he broke out at last, in a low, bitter voice.

And yet he knew why--or suspected! But the inner smart was so great he
could not help the reproach.

"I tried to act for the best," said Meynell, after a moment, his eyes on
the ground.

Stephen watched his friend uncertainly. Again and again he was on the
point of crying out--

"Tell me the truth about Hester!"--on the point also of warning and
informing the man beside him. But he had promised his father. He held his
tongue with difficulty.

When they reached the spot where Stephen's path diverged from that which
led by a small bridge across the famous trout-stream to Sandford Abbey,
Stephen suddenly halted.

"Why shouldn't I come too? I'll wait at the lodge. She might like to ride
home. She can sit anything--with any saddle. I taught her."

"Well--perhaps," said Meynell dubiously. And they went on together.

Presently Sandford Abbey emerged above the road, on a rising ground--a
melancholy, dilapidated pile; and they struck into a long and neglected
evergreen avenue leading up to it. At the end of the avenue there was an
enclosure and a lodge, with some iron gates. A man saw them, and came out
to the gate.

"Sir Philip's gone abroad, sir," he said, affably, when he saw them.
"Shall I take your card?"

"Thank you. I prefer to leave it at the house," said Meynell shortly,
motioning to him to open the gate. The man hesitated, then obeyed.
The Rector went up the drive, while Stephen turned back a little along
the road, letting his horse pasture on its grassy fringe. The lodge
keeper--sulky and puzzled--watched him a few moments and then went back
into the house.

* * * * *

The Rector paused to reconnoitre as he came in sight of the house. It was
a strange, desolate, yet most romantic spot. Although, seen from the road
and the stream, it seemed to stand on an eminence, it was really at the
bottom of a hill which encircled it on three sides, and what with its own
dilapidation, its broken fences and gates, the trees which crowded about
it, and the large green-grown pond in front of it, it produced a dank and
sinister impression. The centre of the building, which had evidently been
rebuilt about 1700, to judge from its rose-red brick, its French
classical lunettes, its pedimented doors and windows, and its fine
_perron_, was clearly the inhabited portion of the building. The two
wings of much earlier date, remains of the old Abbey, were falling into
ruin. In front of one a garage had evidently been recently made, and a
motor was standing at its door. To the left of the approaching spectator
was a small deserted church, of the same date as the central portion of
the Abbey, with twin busts of William and Mary still inhabiting a niche
above the classical entrance, and marking the triumph of the Protestant
Succession over the crumbling buildings of the earlier faith. The windows
of the church were boarded up and a few tottering tombstones surrounded
it.

No sign of human habitation appeared as the Rector walked up to the door.
A bright sunshine played on the crumbling brick, the small-paned windows,
the touches of gilding in the railings of the _perron;_ and on the slimy
pond a few ducks moved to and fro, in front of a grass-grown sun-dial.
Meynell walked up to the door, and rang.

The sound of the bell echoed through the house behind, but, for a while,
no one came. One of the lunette windows under the roof opened overhead;
and after another pause the door was slowly opened a few inches by a man
in a slovenly footman's jacket.

"Very sorry, sir, but Sir Philip is not at home."

"When did he leave?"

"The end of last week, sir," said the man, with a jaunty air.

"That, I think, is not so," said Meynell, sternly. "I shall not trouble
you to take my card."

The youth's expression changed. He stood silent and sheepish, while
Meynell considered a moment, on the steps.

Suddenly a sound of voices from a distance became audible through the
grudgingly opened door. It appeared to come from the back of the house.
The man looked behind him, his mouth twitching with repressed laughter.
Meynell ran down the steps and turned to the left, where a door led
through a curtain-wall to the garden. Meanwhile the house door was
hastily banged behind him.

* * * * *

"Uncle Richard!"

Behind the house Meynell came upon the persons he sought. In an overgrown
formal garden, full of sun, he perceived an old stone bench, under an
overhanging yew. Upon it sat Hester, bareheaded, the golden masses of her
hair shining against the blackness of the tree. Roddy mounted guard
beside her, his nose upon her lap; and on a garden chair in front of her
lounged Philip Meryon, smoking and chatting. At sight of Meynell they
both sprang to their feet. Roddy first growled, and then, as soon as he
recognized Meynell, wagged his tail. Philip, with a swaying step,
advanced toward the newcomer, cigar in hand.

"How do you do, Richard! It is not often you honour me with a visit."

For a moment Meynell looked from one to the other in silence.

And they, whether they would or no, could not but feel the power of the
rugged figure in the short clerical coat and wide-awake, and of the
searching look with which he regarded them. Hester nervously began to
put on her hat. Philip threw away his cigar, and braced himself angrily.

"Your mother has been anxious about you, Hester," said Meynell, at last.
"And I have come to bring you home."

Then turning to Meryon he said--"With you, Philip, I will reckon later
on. The lies you have instructed your servants to tell are a sufficient
indication that you are ashamed of your behaviour. This young lady is
under age. Her mother and I, who are her lawful guardians, forbid her
acquaintance with you."

"By what authority, I should like to know?" said Philip sneeringly.
"Hester is not a child--nor am I."

"All that we will discuss when we meet," said the Rector. "I propose to
call upon you to-morrow."

"This time you may really find me fled," laughed Philip, insolently. But
he had turned white.

Meynell made no reply. He went to Hester, and lifting the girl's silk
cape, which had fallen off, he put it round her shoulders. He felt them
trembling. But she looked at him fiercely, put him aside, and ran to
Meryon.

"Good-bye, Philip, good-bye!--it won't be for long!" And she held out
her two hands--pleadingly. Meryon took them, and they stared at each
other--while the Rector was conscious of a flash of dismay.

What if there was now more in the business than mere mischief and
wantonness? Hester was surprisingly lovely, with this touching, tremulous
look, so new, and, to the Rector, so intolerable!

"I must ask you to come at once," he said, walking up to her, and the
girl, with compressed lips, dropped Meryon's hands and obeyed.

Meryon walked beside them to the garden door, very pale, and breathing
quick.

"You can't separate us"--he said to Meynell--"though of course you'll
try. Hester, don't believe anything he tells you--till I confirm it."

"Not I!" she said proudly.

Meynell led her through the door, and then turning peremptorily desired
Meryon not to follow them. Philip hesitated, and yielded. He stood in the
doorway, his hands in his pockets, watching them, a splendid figure, with
his melodramatic good looks and vivid colour.




CHAPTER XIV


Hester and Meynell walked down the avenue, side by side. Behind them, the
lunette window under the roof opened again, and a woman's face, framed in
black, touzled hair, looked out, grinned and disappeared.

Hester carried her head high, a scornful defiance breathing from the
flushed cheeks and tightened lips. Meynell made no attempt at
conversation, till just as they were nearing the lodge he said--"We shall
find Stephen a little farther on. He was riding, and thought you might
like his horse to give you a lift home."

"Oh, a _plot_!"--cried Hester, raising her chin still higher--"and
Stephen in it too! Well, really I shouldn't have thought it was worth
anybody's while to spy upon my very insignificant proceedings like this.
What does it matter to him, or you, or any one else what I do?"

She turned her beautiful eyes--tragically wide and haughty--upon her
companion. There was absurdity in her pose, and yet, as Meynell
uncomfortably recognized, a new touch of something passionate and real.

The Rector made no reply, for they were at the turn of the road and
behind it Stephen and his horse were to be seen waiting.

Stephen came to meet them, the bridle over his arm.

"Hester, wouldn't you like my horse? It is a long way home. I can send
for it later."

She looked proudly from one to the other. Her colour had suddenly faded,
and from the pallor, the firm, yet delicate, lines of the features
emerged with unusual emphasis.

"I think you had better accept," said Meynell gently. As he looked at
her, he wondered whether she might not faint on their hands with anger
and excitement. But she controlled herself, and as Stephen brought the
brown mare alongside, and held out his hand, she put her foot in it, and
he swung her to the saddle.

"I don't want both of you," she said, passionately. "One warder is
enough!"

"Hester!" cried Stephen, reproachfully. Then he added, trying to smile,
"I am going into Markborough. Any commission?"

Hester disdained to answer. She gathered up the reins and set the horse
in motion. Stephen's way lay with them for a hundred yards. He tried to
make a little indifferent conversation, but neither Meynell nor Hester
replied. Where the lane they had been following joined the Markborough
road, he paused to take his leave of them, and as he did so he saw his
two companions brought together, as it were, into one picture by the
overcircling shade of the autumnal trees which hung over the road; and he
suddenly perceived as he had never yet done the strange likeness between
them. Perplexity, love--despairing and jealous love--a passionate
championship of the beauty that was being outraged and insulted by the
common talk and speculation of indifferent and unfriendly mouths; an
earnest desire to know the truth, and the whole truth, that he might the
better prove his love, and protect his friend; and a dismal certainty
through it all that Hester had been finally snatched from him--these
conflicting feelings very nearly overpowered him. It was all he could do
to take a calm farewell of them. Hester's eyes under their fierce brows
followed him along the road.

Meanwhile she and Meynell turned into a bridle-path through the woods.
Hester sat erect, her slender body adjusting itself with unconscious
grace to the quiet movements of the horse, which Meynell was leading.
Overhead the October day was beginning to darken, and the yellow leaves
shaken by occasional gusts were drifting mistily down on Hester's hair
and dress, and on the glossy flanks of the mare.

At last Meynell looked up. There was intense feeling in his face--a deep
and troubled tenderness.

"Hester!--is there no way in which I can convince you that if you go on
as you have been doing--deceiving your best friends--and letting this man
persuade you into secret meetings--you will bring disgrace on yourself,
and sorrow on us? A few more escapades like to-day, and we might not be
able to save you from disgrace."

He looked at her searchingly.

"I am going to choose for myself!" said Hester after a moment, in a low,
resolute voice; "I am not going to sacrifice my life to anybody."

"You _will_ sacrifice it if you go on flirting with this man--if you will
not believe me--who am his kinsman and have no interest whatever in
blackening his character--when I tell you that he is a bad man, corrupted
by low living and self-indulgence, with whom no girl should trust
herself. The action you have taken to-day, your deliberate defiance of us
all, make it necessary that I should speak in even plainer terms to you
than I have done yet; that I should warn you as strongly as I can that by
allowing this man to make love to you--perhaps to propose a runaway match
to you--how do I know what villainy he may have been equal to?--you are
running risks of utter disaster and disgrace."

"Perhaps. That is my affair."

The girl's voice shook with excitement.

"No!--it is not your affair only. No man liveth to himself, and no man
dieth to himself! It is the affair of all those who love you--of your
family--of your poor Aunt Alice, who cannot sleep for grieving--"

Hester raised her free hand, and angrily pushed back the masses of fair
hair that were falling about her face.

"What is the good of talking about 'love,' Uncle Richard?" She spoke with
a passionate impatience--"You know very well that _nobody_ at home loves
me. Why should we all be hypocrites? I have got, I tell you, to look
after _myself_, to plan my life for myself! My mother can't help it if
she doesn't love me. I don't complain; but I do think it a shame you
should say she does, when you know--know--_know_--she doesn't! My sisters
and brothers just dislike me--that's all there is in that! All my life
I've known it--I've felt it. Why, when I was a baby they never played
with me--they never made a pet of me--they wouldn't have me in their
games. My father positively disliked me. Whenever the nurse brought me
downstairs--he used to call to her to take me up again. Oh, how tired I
got of the nursery!--I hated it--I hated nurse--I hated all the old
toys--for I never had any new ones. Do you remember"--she turned on
him--"that day when I set fire to all the clean clothes--that were airing
before the fire?"

"Perfectly!" said the Rector, with an involuntary smile that relaxed the
pale gravity of his face.

"I did it because I hadn't been downstairs for three nights. I might
have been dead for all anybody cared. Then I was determined they should
care--and I got hold of the matches. I thought the clothes would burn
first--and then my starched frock would catch fire--and then--everybody
would be sorry for me at last. But unfortunately I got frightened, and
ran up the passage screaming--silly little fool! That might have made an
end of it--once for all--"

Meynell interrupted--

"And after it," he said, looking her in the eyes--"when the fuss was
over--I remember seeing you in Aunt Alsie's arms. Have you forgotten how
she cried over you, and defended you--and begged you off? You were ill
with terror and excitement; she took you off to the cottage, and nursed
you till you were well again, and it had all blown over; as she did again
and again afterward. Have you forgotten _that_--when you say that no one
loved you?"

He turned upon her with that bright penetrating look, with its touch of
accusing sarcasm, which had so often given him the mastery over erring
souls. For Meynell had the pastoral gift almost in perfection; the
courage, the ethical self-confidence and the instinctive tenderness
which belong to it. The certitudes of his mind were all ethical; and in
this region he might have said with Newman that "a thousand difficulties
cannot make one doubt."

Hester had often yielded, to this power of his in the past, and it was
evident that she trembled under it now. To hide it she turned upon him
with fresh anger.

"No, I haven't forgotten it!--and I'm _not_ an ungrateful fiend--though
of course you think it. But Aunt Alsie's like all the others now.
She--she's turned against me!" There was a break in the girl's voice that
she tried in vain to hide.

"It isn't true, Hester! I think you know it isn't true."

"It _is_ true! She has secrets from me, and when I ask her to trust
me--then she treats me like a child--and shakes me off as if I were just
a stranger. If she holds me at arm's-length, I am not going to tell her
all _my_ affairs!"

The rounded bosom under the little black mantle rose and fell
tumultuously, and angry tears shone in the brown eyes. Meynell had raised
his head with a sudden movement, and regarded her intently.

"What secrets?"

"I found her--one day--with a picture--she was crying over. It--it was
some one she had been in love with--I am certain it was--a handsome, dark
man. And I _begged_ her to tell me--and she just got up and went away. So
then I took my own line!"

Hester furiously dashed away the tears she had not been able to stop.

Meynell's look changed. His voice grew strangely pitiful and soft.

"Dear Hester--if you knew--you couldn't be unkind to Aunt Alice."

"Why shouldn't I know? Why am I treated like a baby?"

"There are some things too bitter to tell,"--he said gravely--"some
griefs we have no right to meddle with. But we can heal them--or make
them worse. You"--his kind eyes scourged her again--"have been making
everything worse for Aunt Alsie for a long time past."

Hester shrugged her shoulders passionately, as though to repel the
charge, but she said nothing. They moved on in silence for a little. In
Meynell's mind there reigned a medley of feelings--tragic recollections,
moral questionings, which time had never silenced, perplexity as to the
present and the future, and with it all, the liveliest and sorest pity
for the young, childish, violent creature beside him. It was not for
those who, with whatever motives, had contributed to bring her to that
state and temper, to strike any note of harshness.

Presently, as they neared the end of the woody path, he looked up again.
He saw her sitting sullenly on the gently moving horse, a vision of
beauty at bay. The sight determined him toward frankness.

"Hester!--I have told you that if you go on flirting with Philip Meryon
you run the risk of disgrace and misery, because he has no conscience and
no scruples, and you are ignorant and inexperienced, and have no idea of
the fire you are playing with. But I think I had better go farther. I am
going to say what you force me to say to you--young as you are. My strong
belief is that Philip Meryon is either married already, or so entangled
that he has no right to ask any decent woman to marry him. I have
suspected it a long time. Now you force me to prove it."

Hester turned her head away.

"He told me I wasn't to believe what you said about him!" she said in her
most obstinate voice.

"Very well. Then I must set at once about proving it. The reasons
which make me believe it are not for your ears." Then his tone
changed--"Hester!--my child!--you can't be in love with that fellow--that
false, common fellow!--you can't!"

Hester tightened her lips and would not answer. A rush of distress came
over Meynell as he thought of her movement toward Philip in the garden.
He gently resumed:

"Any day now might bring the true lover, Hester!--the man who would
comfort you for all the past, and show you what joy really means. Be
patient, dear Hester--be patient! If you wanted to punish us for not
making you happy enough, well, you have done it! But don't plunge us all
into despair--and take a little thought for your old guardian, who seems
to have the world on his shoulders, and yet can't sleep at nights, for
worrying about his ward, who won't believe a word he says, and sets all
his wishes at defiance."

His manner expressed a playful and reproachful affection. Their eyes met.
Hester tried hard to maintain her antagonism, and he was well aware that
he was but imperfectly able to gauge the conflict of forces in her mind.
He resumed his pleading with her--tenderly--urgently. And at last she
gave way, at least apparently. She allowed him to lay a friendly hand on
hers that held the reins, and she said with a long bitter breath:

"Oh, I know I'm a little beast!"

"My old-fashioned ideas don't allow me to apply that epithet to young
women! But if you'll say 'I want to be friends, Uncle Richard, and I
won't deceive you any more,' why, then, you'll make an old fellow
happy! Will you?"

Slowly she let her cold fingers slip into his warm, protecting palm
as he smiled upon her. She yielded to the dignity and charm of
Meynell's character as she had done a thousand times before; but in the
proud, unhappy look she bent upon him there were new and disquieting
things--prophecies of the coming womanhood, not to be unravelled. Meynell
pressed her hand, and put it back upon the reins with a sigh he could not
restrain.

He began to talk with a forced cheerfulness of their coming journey--of
the French _milieu_ to which she was going. Hester answered in
monosyllables, every now and then--he thought--choking back a sob. And
again and again the discouraging thought struck through him--"Has this
fellow touched her heart?"--so strong was the impression of an emerging
soul and a developing personality.

Suddenly through the dispersing trees a light figure came hurriedly
toward them. It was Alice Puttenham.

She was pale and weary, and when she saw Hester, with Meynell beside her,
she gave a little cry. But Meynell, standing behind Hester, put his
finger on his lips, and she controlled herself. Hester greeted her
without any sign of emotion; and the three went homeward along the misty
ways of the park. The sun had been swallowed up by rising fog; all colour
had been sucked out of the leaves and the heather, even from the golden
glades of fern. Only Hester's hair, and her white dress as she passed
along, uplifted, made of her a kind of luminous wraith, and beside her,
like the supports of an altar-piece, moved the two pensive figures of
Meynell and Alice.

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