The Case of Richard Meynell

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

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 the Modernist and 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.