The Case of Richard Meynell Part 57

France faced round upon his companion in a slow, contemptuous wonder.

"I see you take your views from the anonymous letters?"

The Professor laughed awkwardly.

"Not necessarily. I understand Barron has direct evidence. Anyway, let Meynell take the usual steps. If he takes them successfully, we shall all rejoice. But his character has been made, so to speak, one of the pieces in the game. We are really not bound to accept it at his own valuation."

"I think you will have to accept it," said France.

There was a pause. The Professor wondered secretly whether France too was beginning to be tarred with the Modernist brush. No!--impossible. For that the Canon was either too indolent or too busy.

At last he said:

"Seriously, I should like to know what you really think."

"It is of no importance what I think. But what suggests itself, of course, is that there is some truth in the story, but that Meynell is not the hero. And he doesn't see his way to clear himself by dishing other people."

"I see." The obstinacy in the smooth voice rasped France. "If so, most unlucky for him! But then let him resign his living, and go quietly into obscurity. He owes it to his own side. For them the whole thing is disaster. He _must_ either clear himself or go."

"Oh, give him a little time!" said France sharply, "give him a little time." Then, with a change of tone--"The anonymous letters, of course, are the really interesting things in the case. Perhaps you have a theory about them?"

The Professor shrugged his shoulders.

"None whatever. I have seen three--including that published in the _Post_. I understand about twenty have now been traced; and that they grow increasingly dramatic and detailed. Evidently some clever fellow--who knows a great deal--with a grudge against Meynell?"

"Ye--es," said France, with hesitation.

"You suspect somebody?"

"Not at all. It is a black business."

Then with one large and powerful hand, France restrained the kitten, who was for deserting his knee, and with the other he drew toward him the folio volume on which he had been engaged when the Professor came in.

Vetch took the hint, said a rather frosty good-bye, and departed.

"A popinjay!" said France to himself when he was left alone, thinking with annoyance of the Professor's curly hair, of his elegant serge suit, and the gem from Knossos that he wore on the little finger of his left hand. Then he took up a large pipe which lay beside his books, filled it, and hung meditatively over the fire. He was angry with Vetch, and disgusted with himself.

"Why haven't I given Meynell a helping hand? Why did I talk like that to Barron when he first began this business? And why have I let him come here as he has done since--without telling him what I really thought of him?"

He fell for some minutes into an abyss of thought; thought which seemed to range not so much over the circ.u.mstances connected with Meynell as over the whole of his own past.

But he emerged from it with a long shake of the head.

"My habits are my habits!" he said to himself with a kind of bitter decision, and laying down his pipe he went back to his papers.

Almost at the same moment the Bishop was interviewing Henry Barron in the little book-lined room beyond the main library, which he kept for the business he most disliked. He never put the distinction into words, but when any member of his clergy was invited to step into the farther room, the person so invited felt depressed.

Barron's substantial presence seemed to fill the little study, as, very much on his defence, he sat _tete-a-tete_ with the Bishop. He had recognized from the beginning that nothing of what he had done was really welcome or acceptable to Bishop Craye. While he, on his side, felt himself a benefactor to the Church in general, and to the Bishop of Markborough in particular, instinctively he knew that the Bishop's taste ungratefully disapproved of him; and the knowledge contributed an extra shade of pomposity to his manner.

He had just given a sketch of the church meeting at Upcote, and of the situation in the village up to date. The Bishop sat absently patting his thin knees, and evidently very much concerned.

"A most unpleasant--a most painful scene. I confess, Mr. Barron, I think it would have been far better if you had avoided it."

Barron held himself rigidly erect.

"My lord, my one object from the beginning has been to force Meynell into the open. For his own sake--for the parish's--the situation must be brought to an end, in some way. The indecency of it at present is intolerable."

"You forget. The trial is only a few weeks off. Meynell will certainly be deprived."

"No doubt. But then there is the Privy Council Appeal. And even when he is deprived, Meynell does not mean to leave the village. He has made all his arrangements to stay and defy the judgment. We _must_ prove to him, even if we have to do it with what looks like harshness, that until he clears himself of this business this diocese at least will have none of him!"

"Why, the great majority of the people adore him!" cried the Bishop. "And meanwhile I understand the other poor things are already driven away.

They tell me the Fox-Wiltons' house is to let, and Miss Puttenham gone to Paris indefinitely."

Barron slightly shrugged his shoulders. "We are all very sorry for them, my lord. It is indeed a sad business. But we must remember at the same time that all these persons have been in a conspiracy together to impose a falsehood on their neighbours; and that for many years we have been admitting Miss Puttenham to our house and our friendship--to the companionship of our daughters--in complete ignorance of her character."

"Oh, poor thing! poor thing!" said the Bishop hastily. "The thought of her haunts me. She must know what is going on--or a great deal of it--though indeed I hope she doesn't--I hope with all my heart she doesn't! Well, now, Mr. Barron--you have written me long letters--and I trust that you will allow me a little close inquiry into some of these matters."

"The closer the better, my lord."

"You have not as yet come to any opinion whatever as to the authorship of these letters?"

Barron looked troubled.

"I am entirely at a loss," he said, emphatically. "Once or twice I have thought myself on the track. There is that man East, whose license Meynell opposed--"

"One of the 'aggrieved parishioners'," said the Bishop, raising his hands and eyebrows.

"You regret, my lord, that we should be mixed up with such a person? So do I. But with a whole parish in a conspiracy to support the law-breaking that was going on, what could we do? However, that is not now the point.

I have suspected East. I have questioned him. He showed extraordinary levity, and was--to myself personally--what I can only call insolent. But he swore to me that he had not written the letters; and indeed I am convinced that he could not have written them. He is almost an illiterate--can barely read and write. I still suspect him. But if he is in it, it is only as a tool of some one else."

"And the son--Judith Sabin's son?"

"Naturally, I have turned my mind in that direction also. But John Broad is a very simple fellow--has no enmity against Meynell, quite the contrary. He vows that he never knew why his mother went abroad with Lady Fox-Wilton, or why she went to America; and though she talked a lot of what he calls 'queer stuff' in the few hours he had with her before my visit, he couldn't make head or tail of a good deal of it, and didn't trouble his head about it. And after my visit, he found her incoherent and delirious. Moreover, he declared to me solemnly that he knew nothing about the letters; and I certainly have no means of bringing it home to him."

The Bishop's blue eyes were sharply fixed upon the speaker. But on the whole Barron's manner in these remarks had favourably impressed his companion.

"We come then"--he said gravely--"to the further question which you will, of course, see will be asked--must be asked. Can you be certain that your own conversation--of course quite unconsciously on your part--has not given hints to some person, some unscrupulous third person, an enemy of Meynell's, who has been making use of information he may have got from you to write these letters? Forgive the inquiry--but you will realize how very important it is--for Church interests--that the suit against Meynell in the Church Courts should not be in any way mixed up with this wretched and discreditable business of the anonymous letters!"

Barron flushed a little.

"I have of course spoken of the matter in my own family," he said proudly. "I have already told you, my lord, that I confided the whole thing to my son Stephen very early in the day."

The Bishop smiled.

"We may dismiss Stephen I think--the soul of honour and devoted to Meynell. Can you remember no one else?"