The Case of Richard Meynell eBook

Barron—­for it was he—­stood a moment looking after the retreating Rector.  A hunter’s eagerness gave sharpening, a grim sharpening, to the heavy face; yet there was perplexity mixed with the eagerness.  His conversation with France had not been very helpful.  The Canon’s worldly wisdom and shrewd contempt for enthusiasts had found their natural food in the story which Barron had brought him.  His comments had been witty and pungent enough.  But when it had come to the practical use of the story, France had been of little assistance.  His advice inclined too much to the Melbourne formula—­“Can’t you let it alone?” He had pointed out the risks, difficulties, and uncertainties of the matter with quite unnecessary iteration.  Of course there were risks and difficulties; but was a man of the type of Richard Meynell to be allowed to play the hypocrite, as the rapidly emerging leader of a religious movement—­a movement directed against the unity and apostolicity of the English Church—­when there were those looking on who were aware of the grave suspicions resting on his private life and past history?

CHAPTER IX

On the same afternoon which saw the last meeting of the Commission of Inquiry at Markborough, the windows of Miss Puttenham’s cottage in Upcote Minor were open to the garden, and the sun stealing into the half darkened drawing-room touched all the many signs it contained of a woman’s refinement and woman’s tastes.  The room was a little austere.  Not many books, but those clearly the friends and not the passing acquaintance of its mistress; not many pictures, and those rather slight suggestions on the dim blue walls than finished performances; a few “notes” in colour, or black and white, chosen from one or other of those moderns who can in a sensitive line or two convey the beauty or the harshness of nature.  Over the mantelpiece there was a pencil drawing by Domenichino, of the Madonna and Child; a certain ecstatic languor in the Madonna, and, in all the lines of form and drapery, an exquisite flow and roundness.

The little maidservant brought in the afternoon letters and with them a folded newspaper—­the Markborough Post.  A close observer might have detected that it had been already opened, and hurriedly refolded in the old folds.  There was much interest felt in Upcote Minor in the inquest held on John Broad’s mother; and the kitchen had taken toll before the paper reached the drawing-room.

As though the maid’s movement downstairs had been immediately perceived by a listening ear overhead, there was a quick sound of footsteps.  Miss Puttenham ran downstairs, took the letters and the newspaper from the hands of the girl, and closed the door behind her.

She opened the paper with eagerness, and read the account it gave of the Coroner’s inquiry held at the Cowroast a week before.  The newspaper dropped to the ground.  She stood a moment, leaning against the mantelpiece, every feature in her face expressing the concentration of thought which held her; then she dropped into a chair, and raising her two hands to her eyes, she pressed the shut lids close, lifting her face as though to some unseen misery, while a little sound—­infinitely piteous—­escaped her.