The Case of Richard Meynell

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

"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."