Part 63 (1/2)
”Oh, my dear friend, I am grateful for all you tell me of the changed situation at Markborough. But after all the thing is done--there can be no undoing it. The lies mingled with the truth have been put down.
Perhaps people are ready now to let the truth itself slip back with the lies into the darkness. But how can we--Edith and I--and Hester--ever live the old life again? The old shelter, the old peace, are gone. We are wanderers and pilgrims henceforward!
”As far as I know, Hester is still in complete ignorance of all that has happened. I have told her that Edith finds Tours so economical that she prefers to stay abroad for a couple of years, and to let the Upcote house. And I have said also that when she herself is tired of Paris, I am ready to take her to Germany, and then to Italy. She laughed, as though I had said something ridiculous! One never knows her real mind.
But at least I see no sign of any suspicion in her; and I am sure that she has seen no English newspaper that could have given her a clue. As to Philip Meryon, as I have told you before, I often feel a vague uneasiness; but watch as I will, I can find nothing to justify it. Oh!
Richard, my heart is broken for her. A little love from her, and the whole world would change for me. But even what I once possessed these last few months seem to have taken from me!”
”The thing is done!--there can be no undoing it.” That was the sore burden of all Meynell's thoughts, awakening in him, at times, the ”bitter craving to strike heavy blows” at he knew not what. What, indeed, could ever undo the indecency, the cruelty, the ugly revelations of these three months? The grossness of the common public, the weakness of friends, the solemn follies to which men are driven by hate or bigotry: these things might well have roused the angry laughter that lives in all quick and honest souls. But the satiric mood, when it appeared, soon vanished. He remembered the saying of Meredith concerning the spectacle of Bossuet over the dead body of Moliere--”at which the dark angels may, but men do not, laugh.”
This bitterness might have festered within him, but for the blessedness of Mary Elsmere's letters. She had seen the apology; she knew nothing of its causes. But she betrayed a joy that was almost too proud to know itself as joy; since what doubt could there ever have been but that right and n.o.bleness would prevail? Catharine wrote the warmest and kindest of letters. But Mary's every word was balm, just because she knew nothing, and wrote out of the fulness of her mere faith in him, ready to let her trust take any shape he would. And though she knew nothing, she seemed by some divine instinct to understand also the pain that overshadowed the triumph; to be ready to sit silent with him before the irreparable. Day by day, as he read these letters, his heart burned within him; and Rose noted the growing restlessness. But he had heavy arrears of parish business upon him, of correspondence, of literary work. He struggled on, the powers of mind and body flagging, till one night, when he had been nearly a week at Maudeley, Rose came to him one evening, and said with a smile that had in it just a touch of sweet mockery--
”My dear friend, you are doing no good here at all! Go and see Mary!”
He turned upon her, amazed.
”She has not sent for me.”
Rose laughed out.
”Did you expect her to be as modern as that?”
He murmured--
”I have been waiting for a word.”
”What right had you to wait? Go and get it out of her! Where will you stay?”
He gasped.
”There is the farm at the head of the valley.”
”Telegraph to-night.”
He thought a little--the colour flooding into his face. And then he quietly went to Rose's writing-table, and wrote his telegram.
CHAPTER XXI
But before he took the midday train from Markborough to the North, on the following day, Meynell spent half an hour with his Bishop in the episcopal library.
It was a strange meeting. When Bishop Craye first caught sight of the entering figure, he hurried forward, and as the door closed upon the footman, he seized Meynell's hand in both his own.
”I see what you have gone through,” he said, with emotion; ”and you would not let me help you!”
Meynell smiled faintly.
”I knew you wished to help me--but--”