Read Ebook: The Case of Richard Meynell by Ward Humphry Mrs

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Ebook has 3133 lines and 152173 words, and 63 pages

"So you did. But he said he must see his missus and hear how his little girl had done in her music exam."

Mrs. Wellin delivered this piece of news very fast and with evident gusto. It might have been thought she enjoyed inflicting it on her master.

The Rector laughed out.

"And this was a man sent me a week ago by the Birmingham Distress Committee--nine weeks out of work--family in the workhouse--everything up the spout. Goodness gracious, Anne, how did he get the money? Return fare, Birmingham, three-and-ten."

"Don't ask me, sir," said the woman in the sun-bonnet. "I don't go pryin' into such trash!"

"Is he coming back? Is my house to be painted?" asked the Rector helplessly.

"Thought he might," said Anne, briefly.

"How kind of him! Music exam! Lord save us! And three-and-ten thrown into the gutter on a week-end ticket--with seven children to keep--and all your possessions gone to 'my uncle.' And it isn't as though you'd been starving him, Anne!"

"I wish I hadn't dinnered him as I have been doin'!" the woman broke out. "But he'll know the difference next week! And now, sir, I suppose you'll be goin' to that place again to-night?"

Anne jerked her thumb behind her over her left shoulder.

"Suppose so, Anne. Can't afford a night-nurse, and the wife won't look after him."

"Why don't some one make her?" said Anne, frowning.

The Rector's face changed.

"Better not talk about it, Anne. When a woman's been in hell for years, you needn't expect her to come out an angel. She won't forgive him, and she won't nurse him--that's flat."

"No reason why she should shovel him off on other people as wants their night's rest. It's takin' advantage--that's what it is."

"I say, Anne, I must read my letters. And just light me a bit of fire, there's a good woman. July!--ugh!--it might be February!"

In a few minutes a bit of fire was blazing in the grate, though the windows were still wide open, and the Rector, who had had a long journey that day to take a funeral for a friend, lay back in sybaritic ease, now sipping his tea and now cutting open letters and parcels. The letter signed "F. Marcoburg" in the corner had been placed, still unopened, on the mantelpiece now facing him.

The Rector looked at it from time to time; it might have been said by a close observer that he never forgot it; but, all the same, he went on dipping into books and reviews, or puzzling--with muttered imprecations on the German tongue--over some of his letters.

As he sat there he had the aspect of a man enjoying apparently the comfort of his own fireside. Yet, now that the face was at rest, certain cavernous hollows under the eyes, and certain lines on the forehead and at the corners of the mouth, as though graven by some long fatigue, showed themselves disfiguringly. The personality, however, on which this fatigue had stamped itself was clearly one of remarkable vigour, physical and mental. A massive head covered with strong black hair, curly at the brows; eyes grayish-blue, small, with some shade of expression in them which made them arresting, commanding, even; a large nose and irregular mouth, the lips flexible and kind, the chin firm--one might have made some such catalogue of Meynell's characteristics; adding to them the strength of a broad-chested, loose-limbed frame, made rather, one would have thought, for country labours than for the vigils of the scholar. But the hands were those of a man of letters--bony and long-fingered, but refined, touching things with care and gentleness, like one accustomed to the small tools of the writer.

At last the Rector threw himself back in his chair, while some of the litter on his lap fell to the floor, temporarily dislodging one of the terriers, who sat up and looked at him with reproach.

"Now then!" he said, and reached out for the letter on the mantelpiece. He turned it over a moment in his hand and opened it.

It was long, and the reader gave it a close attention. When he had finished it he put it down and thought a while, then stretched out his hand for it again and reread the last paragraph:

"You will, I am sure, realize from all I have said, my dear Meynell, that the last thing I personally wish to do is to interfere with the parochial work of a man for whom I have so warm a respect as I have for you. I have given you all the latitude I could, but my duty is now plain. Let me have your assurance that you will refrain from such sermons as that to which I have drawn your attention, and that you will stop at once the extraordinary innovations in the services of which the parishioners have complained, and I shall know how to answer Mr. Barron and to compose this whole difficult matter. Do not, I entreat you, jeopardize the noble work you are doing for the sake of opinions and views which you hold to-day, but which you may have abandoned tomorrow. Can you possibly put what you call 'the results of criticism'--and, remember, these results differ for you, for me, and for a dozen others I could name--in comparison with that work for souls God has given you to do, and in which He has so clearly blessed you? A Christian pastor is not his own master, and cannot act with the freedom of other men. He belongs by his own act to the Church and to the flock of Christ; he must always have in view the 'little ones' whom he dare not offend. Take time for thought, my dear Meynell--and time, above all, for prayer--and then let me hear from you. You will realize how much and how anxiously I think of you.

"Yours always sincerely in Christ,

"F. MARCOBURG."

"Good man--true bishop!" said the Rector to himself, as he again put down the letter; but even as he spoke the softness in his face passed into resolution. He sank once more into reverie.

The stillness, however, was soon broken up. A step was heard outside, and the dogs sprang up in excitement. Amid a pandemonium of noise, the Rector put his head out of window.

"Is that you, Barron? Come in, old fellow; come in!"

A slender figure in a long coat passed the window, the front door opened, and a young man entered the study. He was dressed in orthodox clerical garb, and carried a couple of books under his arm.

"I came to return these," he said, placing them beside the Rector; "and also--can you give me twenty minutes?"

"Forty, if you want them. Sit down."

The newcomer turned out various French and German books from a dilapidated armchair, and obeyed. He was a fresh-coloured, handsome youth, some fifteen years younger than Meynell, the typical public-school boy in appearance. But his expression was scarcely less harassed than the Rector's.

"I expect you have heard from my father," he said abruptly.

"I found a letter waiting for me," said Meynell, holding up the note he had taken from the hall-table on coming in. But he pursued the subject no further.

The young man fidgeted a moment.

"All one can say is"--he broke out at last--"that if it had not been my father, it would have been some one else--the Archdeacon probably. The fight was bound to come."

"Of course it was!" The Rector sprang to his feet, and, with his hands under his coat-tails and his back to the fire, faced his visitor. "That's what we're all driving at. Don't be miserable about it, dear fellow. I bear your father no grudge whatever. He is under orders, as I am. The parleying time is done. It has lasted two generations. And now comes war--honourable, necessary war!"

The speaker threw back his head with emphasis, even with passion. But almost immediately the smile, which was the only positive beauty of the face, obliterated the passion.

"And don't look so tragic over it! If your father wins--and as the law stands he can scarcely fail to win--I shall be driven out of Upcote. But there will always be a corner somewhere for me and my books, and a pulpit of some sort to prate from."

"Ah!" The Rector's voice took a dry intonation. "Yes--well!-you Liberals will have to take your part, and fire your shot some day, of course--fathers or no fathers."

"I didn't mean that. I shall fire my shot, of course. But aren't you exposing yourself prematurely--unnecessarily?" said the young man, with vivacity. "It is not a general's part to do that."

Young Barron was silent, while the Rector prepared a pipe, and began upon it; but his face showed his dissatisfaction.

"I've not said much to father yet about my own position," he resumed; "but, of course, he guesses. It will be a blow to him," he added, reluctantly.

The Rector nodded, but without showing any particular concern, though his eyes rested kindly on his companion.

A laugh--a laugh of excitement and discomfort--escaped the younger man.

"You talk as though the prospect was a pleasant one!"

"No--but it is inevitable."

"It will be a hateful business," Baron went on, impetuously. "My father has a horribly strong will. And he will think every means legitimate."

"I know. In the Roman Church, what the Curia could not do by argument they have done again and again--well, no use to inquire how! One must be prepared. All I can say is, I know of no skeletons in the cupboard at present. Anybody may have my keys!"

He laughed as he spoke, spreading his hands to the blaze, and looking round at his companion. Barron's face in response was a face of hero-worship, undisguised. Here plainly were leader and disciple; pioneering will and docile faith. But it might have been observed that Meynell did nothing to emphasize the personal relation; that, on the contrary, he shrank from it, and often tried to put it aside.

After a few more words, indeed, he resolutely closed the personal discussion. They fell into talk about certain recent developments of philosophy in England and France--talk which showed them as familiar comrades in the intellectual field, in spite of their difference of age. Barron, a Fellow of King's, had but lately left Cambridge for a small College living. Meynell--an old Balliol scholar--bore the marks of Jowett and Caird still deep upon him, except, perhaps, for a certain deliberate throwing over, here and there, of the typical Oxford tradition--its measure and reticence, its scholarly balancing of this against that. A tone as of one driven to extremities--a deep yet never personal exasperation--the poised quiet of a man turning to look a hostile host in the face--again and again these made themselves felt through his chat about new influences in the world of thought--Bergson or James, Eucken or Tyrell.

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