"It is a question to which I am surely ent.i.tled to have an answer!"
"I am not sure that I can give it you. I can tell you of course what the view of Judith Sabin was--what the facts seem to point to. But--in any case, whether I believe Judith Sabin or no, I should not have said a word to you on the subject but for the circ.u.mstance that--unfortunately--there are other people in the case."
Whereupon--watching his son carefully--Barron repeated the story that he had already given to Flaxman.
The effect upon Meynell"s young disciple and worshipper may be imagined.
He grew deadly pale, and then red; choked with indignant scorn; and could scarcely bring himself to listen at all, after he had once gathered the real gist of what his father was saying.
Yet, by this time, the story was much better worth listening to than it had been when Barron had first presented it to Flaxman. By dint of much brooding, and under the influence of an angry obstinacy which must have its prey, Barron had made it a good deal more plausible than it had been to begin with, and would no doubt make it more plausible still. He had brought in by now a variety of small local observations bearing on the relations between the three figures in the drama--Hester, Alice Puttenham, Meynell--which Stephen must and did often recognize as true and telling. It was true that there was much friction and difference between Hester and the Fox-Wilton family; that Alice Puttenham"s position and personality had always teased the curiosity of the neighbourhood; that the terms of Sir Ralph"s will were perplexing; and that Meynell was Hester"s guardian in a special sense, a fact for which there was no obvious explanation. It was true also that there emerged at times a singular likeness in Hester"s beauty--a likeness of expression and gesture--to the blunt and powerful aspect of the Rector....
And yet! Did his father believe, for a moment, the preposterous things he was saying? The young man sharpened his wits as far as possible for Hester"s and his friend"s sake, and came presently to the conclusion that it was one of those violent, intermittent half-beliefs which, in the service of hatred and party spirit, can be just as effective and dangerous as any other. And when the circ.u.mstantial argument pa.s.sed presently into the psychological--even the theological--this became the more evident.
For in order to explain to himself and others how Meynell could possibly have behaved in a fashion so villainous, Barron had invented by now a whole psychological sequence. He was prepared to show in detail how the thing had probably evolved; to trace the processes of Meynell"s mind.
The sin once sinned, what more natural than Meynell"s proceeding?
Marriage would not have mended the disgrace, or averted the practical consequences of the intrigue. He certainly could not have kept his living had the facts been known. On the one hand his poverty--his brothers to educate,--his benefice to be saved. On the other, the natural desire of the Fox-Wiltons and of Alice Puttenham to conceal everything that had occurred. The sophistries of love would come in--repentance--the desire to make a fresh start--to protect the woman he had sacrificed.
And all that might have availed him against sin and temptation--a steadfast Christian faith--was already deserting him; must have been already undermined. What was there to wonder at?--what was there incredible in the story? The human heart was corrupt and desperately wicked; and nothing stood between any man, however apparently holy, and moral catastrophe but the grace of G.o.d.
Stephen bore the long, incredible harangue, as best he could, for Meynell"s sake. He sat with his face turned away from his father, his hand closing and unclosing on his knee, his nerves quivering under the exasperation of his father"s monstrous premises, and still more monstrous deductions. At the end he faced round abruptly.
"I do not wish to offend you, father, but I had better say at once that I do not accept, for a single instant, your arguments or your conclusion. I am positive that the facts, whatever they may be, are _not_ what you suppose them to be! I say that to begin with. But now the question is, what to do. You say there are anonymous letters about. That decides it.
It is clear that you must go to Meynell at once! And if you do not, I must."
Barron"s look flashed.
"You gave me your promise"--he said imperiously--"before I told you this story--that you would not communicate it without my permission. I withhold the permission."
"Then you must go yourself," said the young man vehemently--"You must!"
"I am not altogether unwilling to go," said Barron slowly. "But I shall choose my own time."
And as he raised his cold eyes upon his son it pleased his spirit of intrigue, and of domination through intrigue, that he had already received a letter from Flaxman giving precisely opposite advice, and did not intend to tell Stephen anything about it. Stephen"s impulsive candour, however, appealed to him much more than Flaxman"s reticence. It would indeed be physically and morally impossible for him--anonymous letters or no--to lock the scandal much longer within his own breast. It had become a living and burning thing, like some wild creature straining at a leash.
A little while later Stephen found himself alone. He believed himself to have got an undertaking from his father that Meynell should be communicated with promptly--perhaps that very evening. But the terms of the promise were not very clear; and the young man"s mind was full of a seething wrath and unhappiness. If the story were true, so far as Hester and her unacknowledged mother were concerned--and, as we have seen, there was that in his long and intimate knowledge of Hester"s situation which, as he listened, had suddenly fused and flashed in a most unwilling conviction--then, what dire, what pitiful need, on their part, of protection and of help! If indeed any friendly consideration for him, Stephen, had entered into Meynell"s conduct, the young man angrily resented the fact.
He paced up and down the library for a time, divided thus between a fierce contempt for Meynell"s slanderers and a pa.s.sionate pity for Hester.
His father had gone to Markborough. Theresa was, he believed, in the garden giving orders. Presently the clock on the bookcase struck three, and Stephen awoke with a start to the engagements of the day.
He was in the act of opening the library door when he suddenly remembered--Maurice!
He blamed himself for not having remembered earlier that Maurice was at home--for not having asked his father about him. He went to look for him, could not find him in any of the sitting-rooms, and finally mounted to the second-floor bedroom which had always been his brother"s.
"Maurice!" He knocked. No answer. But there was a hurried movement inside, and something that sounded like the opening of a drawer.
He called again, and tried the door. It was locked. But after further shuffling inside, as though some one were handling papers, it was thrown open.
"Well, Maurice, I hope I haven"t disturbed you in anything very important. I thought I must come and have a look at you. Are you all right?"
"Come in, old fellow," said Maurice with affected warmth--"I was only writing a few letters. No room for anybody downstairs but the pater and Theresa, so I have to retreat up here."
"And lock yourself in?" said Stephen, laughing. "Any secrets going?" And as he took a seat on the edge of the bed, while Maurice returned to his chair, he could not prevent himself from looking with a certain keen scrutiny both at the room and his younger brother.
He and Maurice had never been friends. There was a gap of nearly ten years between them, and certain radical and profound differences of temperament. And these differences nature had expressed, with an entire absence of subtlety, in their physique--in the slender fairness and wholesomeness of Stephen, as contrasted with the sallowness, the stoop, the thin black hair, the furtive, excitable look of Maurice.
"Getting on well with your new work?" he asked, as he took unwilling note of the half-consumed brandy and soda on the table, of the saucer of cigarette ends beside it, and the general untidiness and stuffiness of the room.
"Not bad," said Maurice, resuming his cigarette.
"What is it?"
"An agency--one of these new phonographs--Yankee of course. I manage the office. A lot of cads--but I make "em sit up."
And he launched into boasting of his success in the business--the orders he had secured, the economies he had brought about in the office. Stephen found himself wondering meanwhile what kind of a business it could be that entrusted its affairs to Maurice. But he betrayed no scepticism, and the two talked in more or less brotherly fashion for a few minutes, till Stephen, with a look at his watch, declared that he must find his horse and go.
"I thought you were only coming for the week-end," he said as he moved toward the door.
"I got seedy--and took a week off. Besides, I found pater in such a stew."
Stephen hesitated.
"About the Rector?"
Maurice nodded.
"Pater is in an awful way about it. I"ve been trying to cheer him up.
Meynell will be turned out, of course."
"Probably," said Stephen gravely. "So shall I."
"What"ll you do?"
"Become a preacher somewhere--under Meynell."
The younger brother looked with a sort of inquisitive grin at the elder.
"You"re ready to put your money on him to that extent? Well, all I know is, father"s dead set against him--and I"ve no use for him--never had!"
"That"s because you didn"t know him," said Stephen briefly. "What did you ever have against him?"
He looked sharply at his brother. The disagreeable idea crossed his mind that his father, whose weakness for Maurice he well knew, might have told the story to the lad.
Maurice laughed, and pulled his scanty moustache as he turned away.
"Oh! I don"t know--we never hit it off. My fault, of course. Ta, ta."
As Stephen rode away he was haunted for a few minutes by some disagreeable reminiscences of a school holiday when Maurice had been discovered drunk in one of the public-houses of the village by the Rector, who had firmly dug him out and walked him home. But this and other recollections, not dissimilar, soon pa.s.sed away, under the steady a.s.sault of thoughts far more compelling....