The Case of Richard Meynell

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

He put the letter away, conscious of a keenly smarting mind. It was now clear to him that he had made a grave misreckoning; humiliating, perhaps irreparable. He had counted, with a certain confident simplicity, on the power of his mere word, backed by his character and reputation, to put the thing down; and they were not strong enough. Barron's influence seemed to him immense and increasing. A proud and sensitive man forced himself to envisage the possibility of an eventual overthrow.

He opened a drawer in order to put away the letter. The drawer was very full, and in the difficulty of getting it out he pulled it too far and its contents fell to the floor. He stooped to pick them up—perceived first the anonymous letter that Barron had handed to him, the letter addressed to Dawes; and then, beneath it, a long envelope deep in dust—labelled "M.B.—Keep for three years." He took up both letter and envelope with no distinct intention. But he opened the anonymous letter, and once more looked searchingly at the handwriting.

Suddenly an idea struck him. With a hasty movement, he lifted the long
envelope and broke the seal. Inside was a document headed, "A
Confession." And at the foot of it appeared a signature—"Maurice
Barron."

Meynell put the two things together—the "confession" and the anonymous letter. Very soon he began to compare word with word and stroke with stroke, gradually penetrating the disguise of the later handwriting. At the end of the process he understood the vague recollection which had disturbed him when he first saw the letter.

He stood motionless a little, expressions chasing each other across his face. Then he locked up both letters, reached a hand for his pipe, called a good night to Anne, who was going upstairs to bed, and with his dogs about him fell into a long meditation, while the night wore on.

CHAPTER XIX

It was in the week before Christmas that Professor Vetch—the same Professor who had been one of the Bishop's Commission of Inquiry in Richard Meynell's case—knocked one afternoon at Canon France's door to ask for a cup of tea. He had come down to give a lecture to the Church Club which had been recently started in Markborough in opposition to the Reformers' Club; but his acceptance of the invitation had been a good deal determined by his very keen desire to probe the later extraordinary developments of the Meynell affair on the spot.

France was in his low-ceiled study, occupied as usual with drawers full of documents of various kinds; most of them mediaeval deeds and charters which he was calendaring for the Cathedral Library. His table and the floor were littered by them; a stack of the Rolls publications was on his right hand; a Dugdale's "Monasticon" lay open at a little distance; and curled upon a newspaper beside it lay a gray kitten. The kitten had that morning upset an inkstand over three sheets of the Canon's laborious handwriting. At the time he had indeed dropped her angrily by the scruff of the neck into a wastepaper basket to repent of her sins; but here she was again, and the Canon had patiently rewritten the sheets.

There were not many softnesses in the Canon's life. The kitten was one; of the other perhaps only his sister, nearly as old as himself, who lived with him, was aware. Twenty years before—just after his appointment to the canonry—he had married a young and—in the opinion of his family—flighty wife, who had lived a year and then died. She had passed like a spring flower; and after a year or two all that was remembered about her was that she had chosen the drawing-room paper, which was rather garishly pink, like her own cheeks. In the course of time the paper had become so discoloured and patchy that Miss France was ashamed of it. For years her brother turned a deaf ear to her remarks on the subject. At last he allowed her to repaper the room. But she presently discovered that close to the seat he generally occupied in the drawing-room of an evening there was a large hole in the new paper made by the rubbing and scraping of the Canon's fingers as he sat at tea. Through it the original pink reappeared. More than once Miss France caught her brother looking contentedly at his work of mischief. But she dared not speak of it to him, nor do anything to repair the damage.

As France perceived the identity of the visitor whom his old manservant was showing into the study, a slight shade of annoyance passed over his face. But he received the Professor civilly, cleared a chair of books in order that he might sit down, and gave a vigorous poke to the fire.