"So I see your name this morning, Stephen, on their list."
Henry Barron held up a page of the _Times_ and pointed to its first
column.
"I sent it in some time ago."
"And pray what does your parish think of it?"
"They won't support me."
"Thank God!"
Barron rose majestically to his feet, and from the rug surveyed his thin,
fair-haired son. Stephen had just ridden over from his own tiny vicarage,
twelve miles away, to settle some business connected with a family legacy
with his father. Since the outbreak of the Reform Movement there had been
frequent disputes between the father and son, if aggressive attack on the
one side and silent endurance on the other make a dispute. Barron scorned
his eldest son, as a faddist and a dreamer; while Stephen could never
remember the time when his father had not seemed to him the living
embodiment of prejudice, obstinacy, and caprice. He had always reckoned
it indeed the crowning proof of Meynell's unworldly optimism that, at the
moment of his father's accession to the White House estate, there should
have been a passing friendship between him and the Rector. Yet whenever
thoughts of this kind presented themselves explicitly to Stephen he tried
to suppress them. His life, often, was a constant struggle between a
genuine and irrepressible dislike of his father and a sore sense that no
Christian priest could permit himself such a feeling.
He made no reply to his father's interjection. But Barron knew very well
that his son's self-control was no indication of lack of will; quite the
contrary; and the father was conscious of a growing exasperation as he
watched the patient compression of the young mouth. He wanted somehow to
convict and crush Stephen; and he believed that he held the means thereto
in his hand. He had not been sure before Stephen arrived whether he
should reveal the situation or not. But the temptation was too great.
That the son's mind and soul should finally have escaped his father,
"like a bird out of the snare of the fowler," was the unforgivable
offence. What a gentle, malleable fellow he had seemed in his school and
college days!--how amenable to the father's spiritual tyranny! It was
Barron's constant excuse to himself for his own rancorous feeling--that
Meynell had robbed him of his son.
"You probably think it strange"--he resumed harshly--"that I should
rejoice in what of course is your misfortune--that your people reject
you; but there are higher interests than those of personal affection
concerned in this business. We who are defending her must think first of
the Church!"
"Naturally," said Stephen.
His father looked at him in silence for a moment, at the mild pliant
figure, the downcast eyes.
"There is, however, one thing for which I have cause--we all have
cause--to be grateful to Meynell," he said, with emphasis.
Stephen looked up.
"I understand he refused to sanction your engagement to Hester
Fox-Wilton."
The young man flushed.
"It would be better, I think, father, if we are to talk over these
matters quietly--which I understood is the reason you asked me to come
here to-day--that you should avoid a tone toward myself and my affairs
which can only make frank conversation difficult or impossible between
us."
"I have no desire to be offensive," said Barron, checking himself with
difficulty, "and I have only your good in view, though you may not
believe it. My reason for approving Meynell in the matter is that he was
aware--and you were not aware"--he fell into the slow phrasing he always
affected on important occasions--"of facts bearing vitally on your
proposal; and that in the light of them he acted as any honest man was
bound to act."
"What do you mean!" cried Stephen, springing to his feet.
"I mean"--the answer was increasingly deliberate--"that Hester
Fox-Wilton--it is very painful to have to go into these things, but it is
necessary, I regret to say--is not a Fox-Wilton at all--and has no right
whatever to her name!"
Stephen walked up to the speaker.
"Take care, father! This is a question of a _girl_--an unprotected girl!
What right have you to say such an abominable thing!"
He stood panting and white, in front of his father.
"The right of truth!" said Barron. "It happens to be true."
"Your grounds?"
"The confession of the woman who nursed her mother--who was _not_ Lady
Fox-Wilton."
Barron had now assumed the habitual attitude--thumbs in his pockets, legs
slightly apart--that Stephen had associated from his childhood with the
long bullying, secular and religious, that Barron's family owed to
Barron's temperament.
In the pause, Stephen's quick breathing could be heard.
"Who was she?"
The son's tone had caught the father's sharpness.
"Well, my dear Stephen, I am not sure that I shall tell you while you
look at me in that fashion! Believe me--it is not my fault, but my
misfortune, that I happen to be acquainted with this very disagreeable
secret. And I have one thing to say--you must give me your promise that
you will regard any communication from me as entirely confidential,
before I say another word."
Stephen walked away to the window and came back.
"Very well. I promise."
"Sit down. It is a long story."
The son obeyed mechanically, his frowning eyes fixed upon his father.
Barron at once plunged into an account of his interview with Judith
Sabin, omitting only those portions of it which connected the story with
Meynell. It was evident, presently, that Stephen--to the dawning triumph
of his father--listened with an increasingly troubled mind. And indeed,
at the first whisper of the story, there had flashed through the young
man's memory the vision of Meynell arguing and expostulating on that
July afternoon, when he, Stephen, had spoken so confidingly, so
unsuspectingly of his love for Hester. He recalled his own amazement, his
sense of shock and strangeness. What Meynell said on that occasion
seemed to have so little relation to what Meynell habitually was.
Meynell, for whom love, in its spiritual aspect, was the salt and
significance of life, the foundation of all wisdom--Meynell on that
occasion had seemed to make comparatively nothing of love!--to deny its
simplest rights--to put it despotically out of count. Stephen, as he had
long recognized, had been overborne and silenced by Meynell's personality
rather than by Meynell's arguments--by the disabling force mainly of his
own devotion to the man who bade him wait and renounce. But in his heart
he had never quite forgiven, or understood; and for all the subsequent
trouble about Hester, all his own jealousy and pain, he had not been able
to prevent himself from blaming Meynell. And now--now!--if this story
were true--he began to understand. Poor child--poor mother! With the
marriage of the child, must come--he felt the logic of it--the confession
of the mother. A woman like Alice Puttenham, a man like Meynell, were not
likely to give Hester to her lover without telling that lover what he had
a right to know. Small blame to them if they were not prepared to bring
about that crisis prematurely, while Hester was still so young! It must
be faced--but not, _not_ till it must!
Yes, he understood. A rush of warm and pitiful love filled his heart;
while his intelligence dismally accepted and endorsed the story his
father was telling with that heavy tragic touch which the son
instinctively hated as insincere and theatrical.
"Now then, perhaps,"--Barron wound up--"you will realize why it is I feel
Meynell has acted considerately, and as any true friend of yours was
bound to act. He knew--and you were ignorant. Such a marriage could not
have been for your happiness, and he rightly interposed."
"What difference does it make to Hester herself," cried Stephen
hotly--"supposing the thing is true? I admit--it may be true," and as he
spoke a host of small confirmations came thronging into his unwilling
mind. "But in any case--"
He walked up to his father again.
"What have you done about it, father?" he said, sharply. "I suppose you
went to Meynell at once."
Barron smiled, with a lift of the eyebrows. He knocked off the end of his
cigarette, and paused.
"Of course you have seen Meynell?" Stephen repeated.
"No, I haven't."
"I should have thought that was your first duty."
"It was not easy to decide what my duty was," said Barron, with the same
emphasis, "not at all easy."
"What do you mean, father? There seems to be something more behind. If
there is, considering my feeling for Hester, it seems to me that having
told me so much you are bound to tell me _all_ you know. Remember--this
story concerns the girl I love!"
Passion and pain spoke in the young man's voice. His father looked at him
with an involuntary sympathy.
"I know. I am very sorry for you. But it concerns other people also."
"What is known of the father?" said Stephen abruptly.
"Ah, that is the point!" said Barron, making an abstracted face.
"It is a question to which I am surely entitled to have an answer!"
"I am not sure that I can give it you. I can tell you of course what the
view of Judith Sabin was--what the facts seem to point to. But--in any
case, whether I believe Judith Sabin or no, I should not have said a word
to you on the subject but for the circumstance that--unfortunately--there
are other people in the case."
Whereupon--watching his son carefully--Barron repeated the story that he
had already given to Flaxman.
The effect upon Meynell's young disciple and worshipper may be imagined.
He grew deadly pale, and then red; choked with indignant scorn; and could
scarcely bring himself to listen at all, after he had once gathered the
real gist of what his father was saying.
Yet, by this time, the story was much better worth listening to than it
had been when Barron had first presented it to Flaxman. By dint of much
brooding, and under the influence of an angry obstinacy which must have
its prey, Barron had made it a good deal more plausible than it had been
to begin with, and would no doubt make it more plausible still. He had
brought in by now a variety of small local observations bearing on the
relations between the three figures in the drama--Hester, Alice
Puttenham, Meynell--which Stephen must and did often recognize as true
and telling. It was true that there was much friction and difference
between Hester and the Fox-Wilton family; that Alice Puttenham's
position and personality had always teased the curiosity of the
neighbourhood; that the terms of Sir Ralph's will were perplexing; and
that Meynell was Hester's guardian in a special sense, a fact for which
there was no obvious explanation. It was true also that there emerged at
times a singular likeness in Hester's beauty--a likeness of expression
and gesture--to the blunt and powerful aspect of the Rector....
And yet! Did his father believe, for a moment, the preposterous things he
was saying? The young man sharpened his wits as far as possible for
Hester's and his friend's sake, and came presently to the conclusion that
it was one of those violent, intermittent half-beliefs which, in the
service of hatred and party spirit, can be just as effective and
dangerous as any other. And when the circumstantial argument passed
presently into the psychological--even the theological--this became the
more evident.
For in order to explain to himself and others how Meynell could possibly
have behaved in a fashion so villainous, Barron had invented by now a
whole psychological sequence. He was prepared to show in detail how the
thing had probably evolved; to trace the processes of Meynell's mind.
The sin once sinned, what more natural than Meynell's proceeding?
Marriage would not have mended the disgrace, or averted the practical
consequences of the intrigue. He certainly could not have kept his living
had the facts been known. On the one hand his poverty--his brothers to
educate,--his benefice to be saved. On the other, the natural desire of
the Fox-Wiltons and of Alice Puttenham to conceal everything that had
occurred. The sophistries of love would come in--repentance--the desire
to make a fresh start--to protect the woman he had sacrificed.
And all that might have availed him against sin and temptation--a
steadfast Christian faith--was already deserting him; must have been
already undermined. What was there to wonder at?--what was there
incredible in the story? The human heart was corrupt and desperately
wicked; and nothing stood between any man, however apparently holy, and
moral catastrophe but the grace of God.
Stephen bore the long, incredible harangue, as best he could, for
Meynell's sake. He sat with his face turned away from his father, his
hand closing and unclosing on his knee, his nerves quivering under the
exasperation of his father's monstrous premises, and still more monstrous
deductions. At the end he faced round abruptly.
"I do not wish to offend you, father, but I had better say at once that I
do not accept, for a single instant, your arguments or your conclusion. I
am positive that the facts, whatever they may be, are _not_ what you
suppose them to be! I say that to begin with. But now the question is,
what to do. You say there are anonymous letters about. That decides it.
It is clear that you must go to Meynell at once! And if you do not, I
must."
Barron's look flashed.
"You gave me your promise"--he said imperiously--"before I told you this
story--that you would not communicate it without my permission. I
withhold the permission."
"Then you must go yourself," said the young man vehemently--"You must!"
"I am not altogether unwilling to go," said Barron slowly. "But I shall
choose my own time."
And as he raised his cold eyes upon his son it pleased his spirit of
intrigue, and of domination through intrigue, that he had already
received a letter from Flaxman giving precisely opposite advice, and did
not intend to tell Stephen anything about it. Stephen's impulsive
candour, however, appealed to him much more than Flaxman's reticence. It
would indeed be physically and morally impossible for him--anonymous
letters or no--to lock the scandal much longer within his own breast. It
had become a living and burning thing, like some wild creature straining
at a leash.
* * * * *
A little while later Stephen found himself alone. He believed himself to
have got an undertaking from his father that Meynell should be
communicated with promptly--perhaps that very evening. But the terms
of the promise were not very clear; and the young man's mind was full of
a seething wrath and unhappiness. If the story were true, so far as
Hester and her unacknowledged mother were concerned--and, as we have
seen, there was that in his long and intimate knowledge of Hester's
situation which, as he listened, had suddenly fused and flashed in a most
unwilling conviction--then, what dire, what pitiful need, on their part,
of protection and of help! If indeed any friendly consideration for
him, Stephen, had entered into Meynell's conduct, the young man angrily
resented the fact.
He paced up and down the library for a time, divided thus between a
fierce contempt for Meynell's slanderers and a passionate pity for
Hester.
His father had gone to Markborough. Theresa was, he believed, in the
garden giving orders. Presently the clock on the bookcase struck three,
and Stephen awoke with a start to the engagements of the day.
He was in the act of opening the library door when he suddenly
remembered--Maurice!
He blamed himself for not having remembered earlier that Maurice was at
home--for not having asked his father about him. He went to look for him,
could not find him in any of the sitting-rooms, and finally mounted to
the second-floor bedroom which had always been his brother's.
"Maurice!" He knocked. No answer. But there was a hurried movement
inside, and something that sounded like the opening of a drawer.
He called again, and tried the door. It was locked. But after further
shuffling inside, as though some one were handling papers, it was thrown
open.
"Well, Maurice, I hope I haven't disturbed you in anything very
important. I thought I must come and have a look at you. Are you all
right?"
"Come in, old fellow," said Maurice with affected warmth--"I was only
writing a few letters. No room for anybody downstairs but the pater and
Theresa, so I have to retreat up here."
"And lock yourself in?" said Stephen, laughing. "Any secrets going?" And
as he took a seat on the edge of the bed, while Maurice returned to his
chair, he could not prevent himself from looking with a certain keen
scrutiny both at the room and his younger brother.
He and Maurice had never been friends. There was a gap of nearly ten
years between them, and certain radical and profound differences of
temperament. And these differences nature had expressed, with an entire
absence of subtlety, in their physique--in the slender fairness and
wholesomeness of Stephen, as contrasted with the sallowness, the stoop,
the thin black hair, the furtive, excitable look of Maurice.
"Getting on well with your new work?" he asked, as he took unwilling note
of the half-consumed brandy and soda on the table, of the saucer of
cigarette ends beside it, and the general untidiness and stuffiness of
the room.
"Not bad," said Maurice, resuming his cigarette.
"What is it?"
"An agency--one of these new phonographs--Yankee of course. I manage the
office. A lot of cads--but I make 'em sit up."
And he launched into boasting of his success in the business--the orders
he had secured, the economies he had brought about in the office. Stephen
found himself wondering meanwhile what kind of a business it could be
that entrusted its affairs to Maurice. But he betrayed no scepticism, and
the two talked in more or less brotherly fashion for a few minutes, till
Stephen, with a look at his watch, declared that he must find his horse
and go.
"I thought you were only coming for the week-end," he said as he moved
toward the door.
"I got seedy--and took a week off. Besides, I found pater in such a
stew."
Stephen hesitated.
"About the Rector?"
Maurice nodded.
"Pater is in an awful way about it. I've been trying to cheer him up.
Meynell will be turned out, of course."
"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.