The Case of Richard Meynell | Page 3

as he sat a few moments on the sofa, softly whistling to himself and staring at the floor. That he was a person extravagantly beloved by his dogs was clearly shown meanwhile by the exuberant attentions and caresses with which they were now loading him.
He shook them off at last with a friendly kick or two, that he might turn to his letters, which he sorted and turned over, much as an epicure studies his menu at the Ritz, and with an equally keen sense of pleasure to come.
A letter from Jena, and another from Berlin, addressed in small German handwriting and signed by names familiar to students throughout the world; two or three German reviews, copies of the Revue Critique and the _Revue Chr��tienne_, a book by Solomon Reinach, and three or four French letters, one of them shown by the cross preceding the signature to be the letter of a bishop; a long letter from Oxford, enclosing the proof of an article in a theological review; and, finally, a letter sealed with red wax and signed "F. Marcoburg" in a corner of the envelope, which the Rector twirled in his hands a moment without opening.
"After tea," he said at last, with the sudden breaking of a smile. And he put it on the sofa beside him.
As he spoke the door opened to admit his housekeeper with the tray, to the accompaniment of another orgie of barks. A stout woman in a sun-bonnet, with a broad face and no features to speak of, entered.
"I'll be bound you've had no dinner," she said sulkily, as she placed the tea before him on a chair cleared with difficulty from some of the student's litter that filled the room.
"All the more reason for tea," said Meynell, seizing thirstily on the teapot. "And you're quite mistaken, Anne. I had a magnificent bath-bun at the station."
"Much good you'll get out of that!" was the scornful reply. "You know what Doctor Shaw told you about that sort o' goin' on."
"Never you mind, Anne. What about that painter chap?"
"Gone home for the week-end." Mrs. Wellin retreated a foot or two and crossed her arms, bare to the elbow, in front of her.
The Rector stared.
"I thought I had taken him on by the week to paint my house," he said at last.
"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