The Channings Part 20

"Yes, it's off. I am not sure but it will break out again. You must take care."

"Oh, bother! let it. I should like to have polished off that Pierce senior as he deserves. A little coin of the same sort would do Galloway no harm. Were I senior of the school, and Arthur not my brother, Mr. Mark should hear a little home truth about sneaks. I'll tell it him in private, as it is; but I can't put him up for punishment, or act in it as Gaunt could."

"Arthur is our brother, therefore we feel it more pointedly than Gaunt," sensibly remarked Charley.

"I'd advise you not to spell forth that sentimental rubbish, though you are a young lady," retorted Tom. "A senior boy, if he does his duty, should make every boy's cause his own, and 'feel' for him."

"Tom," said the younger and more thoughtful of the two, "don't let us say anything of this at home."

"Why not?" asked Tom, hotly. He would have run in open-mouthed.

"It would pain mamma to hear it."

"Boy! do you suppose she would fear Arthur?"

"You seem to misconstrue all I say, Tom. Of course she would not fear him--you did not fear him; but it stung you, I know, as was proved by your knocking down Pierce."

"Well, I won't speak of it before her," conciliated Tom, somewhat won over, "or before my father, either; but catch me keeping it from the rest."

As Charles had partially foretold, they had barely entered, when Tom's face again became ornamented with crimson. Annabel shrieked out, startling Mr. Channing on his sofa. Mrs. Channing, as it happened, was not present; Constance was: Lady Augusta Yorke and her daughters were spending part of the day in the country, therefore Constance had come home at twelve.

"Look at Tom's face!" cried the child. "What has he been doing?"

"Hold your tongue, little stupid," returned Tom, hastily bringing his handkerchief into use again; which, being a white one, made the worse exhibition of the two, with its bright red stains. "It's nothing but a scratch."

But Annabel's eyes were sharp, and she had taken in full view of the hurt. "Tom, you have been fighting! I am sure of it!"

"Come to me, Tom," said Mr. Channing. "Have you been fighting?" he demanded, as Tom crossed the room in obedience, and stood close to him. "Take your handkerchief away, that I may see your face."

"It could not be called a fight, papa," said Tom, holding his cheek so that the light from the window fell full upon the hurt. "One of the boys offended me; I hit him, and he gave me this; then I knocked him down, and there it ended. It's only a scratch."

"Thomas, was this Christian conduct?"

"I don't know, papa. It was schoolboy's."

Mr. Channing could not forbear a smile. "I know it was a schoolboy's conduct; that is bad enough: and it is my son's, that is worse."

"If I had given him what he deserved, he would have had ten times as much; and perhaps I should, for my temper was up, only Gaunt put in his interference. When I am senior, my rule will be different from Gaunt's."

"Ah, Tom! your 'temper up!' It is that temper of yours which brings you harm. What was the quarrel about?"

"I would rather not tell you, papa. Not for my own sake," he added, turning his honest eyes fearlessly on his father; "but I could not tell it without betraying something about somebody, which it may be as well to keep in."

"After that lucid explanation, you had better go and get some warm water for your face," said Mr. Channing. "I will speak with you later."

Constance followed him from the room, volunteering to procure the warm water. They were standing in Tom's chamber afterwards, Tom bathing his face, and Constance looking on, when Arthur, who had then come in from Mr. Galloway's, pa.s.sed by to his own room.

"Hallo!" he called out; "what's the matter, Tom?"

"Such a row!" answered Tom. "And I wish I could have pitched into Pierce senior as I'd have liked. What do you think, Arthur? The school were taking up the notion that you--you!--had stolen old Galloway's bank-note. Pierce senior set it afloat; that is, he and Mark Galloway together. Mark said a word, and Pierce said two, and so it went on. I should have paid Pierce out, but for Gaunt."

A silence. It was filled up by the sound of Tom splashing the water on his face, and by that only. Arthur spoke presently, his tone so calm a one as almost to be unnatural.

"How did the notion arise?"

"Mark Galloway said he heard b.u.t.terby talking with his uncle; that b.u.t.terby said the theft could only have been committed by Arthur Channing. Mark Galloway's ears must have played him false; but it was a regular sneak's trick to come and repeat it to the school. I say, Constance, is my face clean now?"

Constance woke up from a reverie to look at his face. "Quite clean," she answered.

He dried it, dried his hands, gave a glance at his shirt-front in the gla.s.s, which had, however, escaped damage, brushed his hair, and went downstairs. Arthur closed the door and turned to Constance. Her eyes were seeking his, and her lips stood apart. The terrible fear which had fallen upon both the previous day had not yet been spoken out between them. It must be spoken now.

"Constance, there is tribulation before us," he whispered. "We must school ourselves to bear it, however difficult the task may prove. Whatever betide the rest of us, suspicion must be averted from him."

"What tribulation do you mean?" she murmured.

"The affair has been placed in the hands of the police; and I believe--I believe," Arthur spoke with agitation, "that they will publicly investigate it. Constance, they suspect me. The college school is right, and Tom is wrong."

Constance leaned against a chest of drawers to steady herself, and pressed her hand upon her shrinking face. "How have you learnt it?"

"I have gathered it from different trifles; one fact and another. Jenkins said b.u.t.terby was with him this morning, asking questions about me. Better that I should be suspected than Hamish. G.o.d help me to bear it!"

"But it is so unjust that you should suffer for him."

"Were it traced home to him, it might be the whole family's ruin, for my father would inevitably lose his post. He might lose it were only suspicion to stray to Hamish. There is no alternative. I must screen him. Can you be firm, Constance, when you see me accused?"

Constance leaned her head upon her hand, wondering whether she could be firm in the cause. But that she knew where to go for strength, she might have doubted it; for the love of right, the principles of justice were strong within her. "Oh, what could possess him?" she uttered, wringing her hands; "what could possess him? Arthur, is there no loophole, not the faintest loophole for hope of his innocence?"

"None that I see. No one whatever had access to the letter but Hamish and I. He must have yielded to the temptation in a moment of delirium, knowing the money would clear him from some of his pressing debts--as it has done."

"How could he brave the risk of detection?"

"I don't know. My head aches, pondering over it. I suppose he concluded that suspicion would fall upon the post-office. It would have done so, but for that seal placed on the letter afterwards. What an unfortunate thing it was, that Roland Yorke mentioned there was money inside the letter in the hearing of Hamish!"

"Did he mention it?" exclaimed Constance.

He said there was a twenty-pound note in the letter, going to the cousin Galloway, and Hamish remarked that he wished it was going into his pocket instead. "I _wish_" Arthur uttered, in a sort of frenzy, "I had locked the letter up there and then."

Constance clasped her hands in pain. "I fear he may have been going wrong for some time," she breathed. "It has come to my knowledge, through Judith, that he sits up for hours night after night, doing something to the books. Arthur," she shivered, glancing fearfully round, "I hope those accounts are right?"

The doubt thus given utterance to, blanched even the cheeks of Arthur. "Sits up at the books!" he exclaimed.

"He sits up, that is certain; and at the books, as I conclude. He takes them into his room at night. It may only be that he has not time, or does not make time, to go over them in the day. It may be so."

"I trust it is; I pray it may be. Mind you, Constance, our duty is plain: we must screen him; screen him at any sacrifice to ourselves, for the father and mother's sake."

"Sacrifice to you, you ought to say. What were our other light troubles, compared with this? Arthur, will they publicly accuse you?"

"It may come to that; I have been steeling myself all the morning to meet it."

He looked into her face as he said it. Constance could see how his brow and heart were aching. At that moment they were called to dinner, and Arthur turned to leave the room. Constance caught his hand, the tears raining from her eyes.

"Arthur," she whispered, "in the very darkest trouble, G.o.d can comfort us. Be a.s.sured He will comfort you."

Hamish did not make his appearance at dinner, and they sat down without him. This was not so very unusual as to cause surprise; he was occasionally detained at the office.

The meal was about half over, when Annabel, in her disregard of the bounds of discipline, suddenly started from her seat and flew to the window.

"Charley, there are two policemen coming here! Whatever can they want?"

"Perhaps to take you," said Mrs. Channing, jestingly. "A short sojourn at the tread-mill might be of great service to you, Annabel."

The announcement had struck upon the ear and memory of Tom. "Policemen!" he exclaimed, standing up in his place, and stretching his neck to obtain a view of them. "Why--it never can be that--old b.u.t.terby--Arthur, what ails you?"

A sensitive, refined nature, whether implanted in man or woman, is almost sure to betray its emotions on the countenance. Such a nature was Arthur Channing's. Now that the dread had really come, every drop of blood forsook his cheeks and lips, leaving his face altogether of a deathly whiteness. He was utterly unable to control or help this, and it was this pallor which had given rise to Tom's concluding exclamation.

Mr. Channing looked at Arthur, Mrs. Channing looked at him; they all looked at him, except Constance, and she bent her head lower over her plate, to hide, as she best might, her own white face and its shrinking terror. "Are you ill, Arthur?" inquired his father.

A low brief reply came; one struggling for calmness. "No, sir."

Impetuous Tom, forgetting caution, forgetting all except the moment actually present, gave utterance to more than was prudent. "Arthur, you are never fearing what those wretched schoolboys said? The police are not come to arrest you. b.u.t.terby wouldn't be such a fool!"

But the police were in the hall, and Judith had come to the dining-room door. "Master Arthur, you are wanted, please."

"What is all this?" exclaimed Mr. Channing in astonishment, gazing from Tom to Arthur, from Arthur to the vision of the blue official dress, a glimpse of which he could catch beyond Judith. Tom took up the answer.

"It's nothing, papa. It's a trick they are playing for fun, I'll lay. They _can't_ really suspect Arthur of stealing the bank-note, you know. They'll never dare to take him up, as they take a felon."

Charley stole round to Arthur with a wailing cry, and threw his arms round him--as if their weak protection could retain him in its shelter. Arthur gently unwound them, and bent down till his lips touched the yearning face held up to him in its anguish.

"Charley, boy, I am innocent," he breathed in the boy's ear. "You won't doubt that, I know. Don't keep me. They have come for me, and I must go with them."

CHAPTER XXIII.

AN ESCORT TO THE GUILDHALL.

The group would have formed a study for a Wilkie. The disturbed dinner-table; the consternation of those a.s.sembled at it; Mr. Channing (whose sofa, wheeled to the table, took up the end opposite his wife) gazing around with a puzzled, stern expression; Mrs. Channing glancing behind her with a sense of undefined dread; the pale, conscious countenances of Arthur and Constance; Tom standing up in haughty impetuosity, defiant of every one; the lively terror of Charley's face, as he clung to Arthur; and the wide-opened eyes of Annabel expressive of nothing but surprise--for it took a great deal to alarm that careless young lady; while at the door, holding it open for Arthur, stood Judith in her mob-cap, full of curiosity; and in the background the two policemen. A scene indeed, that Wilkie, in the day of his power, would have rejoiced to paint.

Arthur, battling fiercely with his outraged pride, and breathing an inward prayer for strength to go through with his task, for patience to endure, put Charley from him, and went into the hall. He saw not what was immediately around him--the inquiring looks of his father and mother, the necessity of some explanation to them; he saw not Judith and her curious face. A scale was, as it were, before his eyes, blinding them to all outward influences, except one-the officers of justice standing there, and the purpose for which they had come. "What on earth has happened, Master Arthur?" whispered Judith, as he pa.s.sed her, terrifying the old servant with his pale, agitated face. But he neither heard nor answered; he walked straight up to the men.

"I will go with you quietly," he said to them, in an undertone. "Do not make a disturbance, to alarm my mother."

We cannot always have our senses about us, as the saying runs. Some of us, I fear, enjoy that privilege rarely, and the very best lose them on occasion. But that Arthur Channing's senses had deserted him, he would not have pursued a line of conduct, in that critical moment, which was liable to be construed into an admission, or, at least, a consciousness of guilt. In his anxiety to avert suspicion from Hamish, he lost sight of the precautions necessary to protect himself, so far as was practicable. And yet he had spent time that morning, thinking over what his manner, his bearing must be if it came to this! Had it come upon him unexpectedly he would have met it very differently; with far less outward calmness, but most probably with indignant denial. "I will go with you quietly," he said to the men.

"All right, sir," they answered with a nod, and a conviction that he was a cool hand and a guilty one. "It's always best not to resist the law--it never does no good."

He need not have resisted, but he ought to have waited until they asked him to go. A dim perception of this had already begun to steal over him. He was taking his hat from its place in the hall, when the voice of Mr. Channing came ringing on his ear.

"Arthur, what is this? Give me an explanation."

Arthur turned back to the room, pa.s.sing through the sea of faces to get there; for all; except his helpless father, had come from their seats to gather round and about that strange mystery in the hall, to try to fathom it. Mr. Channing gave one long, keen glance at Arthur's face--which was very unlike Arthur's usual face just then; for all its candour seemed to have gone out of it. He did not speak to him; he called in one of the men.

"Will you tell me your business here?" he asked courteously.

"Don't you know it, sir?" was the reply.

"No, I do not," replied Mr. Channing.

"Well, sir, it's an unpleasant accusation that is brought against this young gentleman. But perhaps he'll be able to make it clear. I hope he will. It don't give us no pleasure when folks are convicted, especially young ones, and those we have always known to be respectable; we'd rather see 'em let off."

Tom interrupted--Tom, in his fiery indignation. "Is it of stealing that bank-note of Galloway's that you presume to accuse my brother?" he asked, speaking indistinctly in his haste and anger.

"You have said it, sir," replied the man. "That's it."

"Then I say whoever accuses him ought to be--"

"Silence, Thomas," interrupted Mr. Channing. "Allow me to deal with this. Who brings this accusation against my son?"

"We had our orders from Mr. b.u.t.terby, sir. He is acting for Mr. Galloway. He was called in there early this morning."

"Have you come for my son to go with you to Mr. Galloway's?"

"Not there, sir. We have to take him straight to the Guildhall. The magistrates are waiting to hear the case."

A dismayed pause. Even Mr. Channing's heart, with all its implicit faith in the truth and honour of his children, beat as if it would burst its bounds. Tom's beat too; but it was with a desire to "pitch into" the policemen, as he had pitched into Pierce senior in the cloisters.

Mr. Channing turned to Arthur. "You have an answer to this, my son?"

The question was not replied to. Mr. Channing spoke again, with the same calm emphasis. "Arthur, you can vouch for your innocence?"

Arthur Channing did the very worst thing that he could have done--he hesitated. Instead of replying readily and firmly "I can," which he might have done without giving rise to harm, he stopped to ask himself how far, consistently with safety to Hamish, he might defend his own cause. His mind was not collected; he had not, as I have said, his senses about him; and the unbroken silence, waiting for his answer, the expectant faces turned upon him, helped to confuse him and to drive his reason further away. The signs, which certainly did look like signs of guilt, struck a knell on the heart of his father. "Arthur!" he wailed out, in a tone of intense agony, "you are innocent?"

"Y--es," replied Arthur, gulping down his rising agitation; his rising words--impa.s.sioned words of exculpation, of innocence, of truth. They had bubbled up within him--were hovering on the verge of his burning lips. He beat them down again to repression; but he never afterwards knew how he did it.

Better that he had been still silent, than speak that dubious, indecisive "Y--es." It told terribly against him. One, conscious of his own innocence, does not proclaim it in indistinct, half-uttered words. Tom's mouth dropped with dismay, and his astonished eyes seemed as if they could not take themselves from Arthur's uncertain face. Mrs. Channing staggered against the wall, with a faint cry.

The policeman spoke up: he meant to be kindly. In all Helstonleigh there was not a family more respected than were the Channings; and the man felt a pa.s.sing sorrow for his task. "I wouldn't ask no questions, sir, if I was you. Sometimes it's best not; they tell against the accused."

"Time's up," called out the one who was in the hall, to his fellow. "We can't stop here all day."

The hint was taken at once, both by Arthur and the man. Constance had kept herself still, throughout, by main force; but Mrs. Channing could not see him go away like this. She rose and threw her arms round him, in a burst of hysterical feeling, sobbing out, "My boy! my boy!"