The Channings Part 41

"And whose the fault? If you were truly innocent, you might have cleared yourself with a word."

Arthur knew he might. But that word he had not dared to speak. At this juncture, Roland Yorke appeared. "Here's Jenner's old clerk come in, sir," said he to his master. "He wants to see you, he says."

"He can come in," replied Mr. Galloway. "Are you getting on with that copying?" he added to Arthur, as the latter was going out.

"Yes, sir."

The gentleman, whom Roland Yorke designated as "Jenner's old clerk," was shut in with Mr. Galloway; and Roland, who appeared to be on the thorns of curiosity, arrested Arthur.

"I say, what is it that's agate? He has been going into fits, pretty near, over some letter that came, asking me five hundred questions about it. What have you to do with it? What does he want with you?"

"Some one has been sending him back the money, Roland. It came in a letter."

Roland opened his eyes. "What money?"

"The money that was lost. A twenty-pound note has come. He asked me whether it was the veritable note that was taken."

"A twenty-pound note come!" repeated puzzled Roland.

"It's quite true, Roland. It purports to be sent by the stealer of the money for the purpose of clearing me."

Roland stood for a few moments, profound surprise on his face, and then began to execute a triumphant hornpipe amidst the desks and stools of the office. "I said it would come right some time; over and over again I said it! Give us your hand, old fellow! He's not such a bad trump after all, that thief!"

"Hush, Roland! you'll be heard. It may not do me much good. Galloway seems to doubt me still."

"Doubt you still!" cried Roland, stopping short in his dance, and speaking in a very explosive tone. "Doubt you _still_! Why, what would he have?"

"I don't know;" sighed Arthur. "I have a.s.sured him I did not send it; but he fancies I may have done it to clear myself. He talks of calling in b.u.t.terby again."

"My opinion then, is, that he wants to be transported, if he is to turn up such a heathen as that!" stamped Roland. "What would he have, I ask? Another twenty, given him for interest? Arthur, dear old fellow, let's go off together to Port Natal, and leave him and his office to it! I'll find the means, if I rob his cash-box to get them!"

But Arthur was already beyond hearing, having waved his adieu to Roland Yorke and his impetuous but warm-hearted championship. Anxious to get on with the task he had undertaken, he hastened home. Constance was in the hall when he entered, having just returned from Lady Augusta Yorke's.

His confidant throughout, his gentle soother and supporter, his ever ready adviser, Arthur drew her into one of the rooms, and acquainted her with what had occurred. A look of terror rose to her face, as she listened.

"Hamish has done it!" she uttered, in a whisper. "This puts all doubt at an end. There are times--they have been times"--she burst into tears as she spoke--"when I have fondly tried to cheat myself that we were suspecting him wrongfully. Arthur! others suspect him."

Arthur's face reflected the look that was upon hers. "I trust not!"

"But they do. Ellen Huntley dropped a word inadvertently, which convinces me that he is in some way doubted there. She caught it up again in evident alarm, ere it was well spoken; and I dared not pursue the subject. It is Hamish who has sent this money."

"You speak confidently, Constance."

"Listen. I know that he has drawn money--papa's salary and his own: he mentioned it incidentally. A few days ago I asked him for money for housekeeping purposes, and he handed me a twenty-pound note, in mistake for a five-pound. He discovered the mistake before I did, and s.n.a.t.c.hed it back again in some confusion."

'I can't give you that,' he said in a laughing manner, when he recovered himself. 'That has a different destination.' Arthur! that note, rely upon it, was going to Mr. Galloway."

"When was this?" asked Arthur.

"Last week. Three or four days ago."

Trifling as the incident was, it seemed to bear out their suspicions, and Arthur could only come to the same conclusion as his sister: the thought had already crossed him, you remember.

"Do not let it pain you thus, Constance," he said, for her tears were falling fast. "He may not call in b.u.t.terby. Your grieving will do no good."

"I cannot help it," she exclaimed, with a burst of anguish. "How G.o.d is trying us!"

Ay! even as silver, which must be seven times purified, ere it be sufficiently refined.

CHAPTER XLVII.

DARK CLOUDS.

Constance Channing sat, her forehead buried in her hands. _How G.o.d was trying them!_ The sentence, wrung from her in the bitterness of her heart, but expressed the echo of surrounding things. Her own future blighted; Arthur's character gone; Tom lost the seniorship; Charley not heard of, dead or alive! There were moments, and this was one of them, when Constance felt almost beyond the pale of hope. The college school, meanwhile existed in a state of constant suspense, the sword of terror ever hanging over its head. Punishment for the present was reserved; and what the precise punishment would be when it came, none could tell. Talkative Bywater was fond of saying that it did not matter whether Miss Charley turned up or not, so far as their backs were concerned: they would be made to tingle, either way.

Arthur, after communicating to Constance the strange fact of the return of the money to Mr. Galloway, shut himself up in the study to pursue his copying. Tea-time arrived, and Sarah brought in the tea-things. But neither Hamish nor Tom had come in, and Constance sat alone, deep in unpleasant thoughts.

That it was Hamish who had now returned the money to Mr. Galloway, Constance could not entertain the slightest doubt. It had a very depressing effect upon her. It could not render worse what had previously happened, indeed, it rather mended it, insomuch as that it served to show some repentance, some good feeling; but it made the suspicion against Hamish a certainty; and there had been times when Constance had been beguiled into thinking it only a suspicion. And now came this new fear of Mr. b.u.t.terby again!

Hamish's own footstep in the hall. Constance roused herself. He came in, books under his arm, as usual, and his ever-gay face smiling. There were times when Constance almost despised him for his perpetual sunshine. The seriousness which had overspread Hamish at the time of Charley's disappearance had nearly worn away. In his sanguine temperament, he argued that not finding the body was a proof that Charley was yet alive, and would come forth in a mysterious manner one of these days.

"Have I kept you waiting tea, Constance?" began he. "I came home by way of Close Street, and was called into Galloway's by Roland Yorke, and then got detained further by Mr. Galloway. Where's Arthur?"

"He has undertaken some copying for Mr. Galloway, and is busy with it," replied Constance in a low tone. "Hamish!" raising her eyes to his face, as she gathered resolution to speak of the affair: "have you heard what has happened?"

"That some good fairy has forwarded a bank-note to Galloway on the wings of the telegraph? Roland Yorke would not allow me to remain in ignorance of that. Mr. Galloway did me the honour to ask whether I had sent it."

"You!" uttered Constance, regarding the avowal only from her own point of view. "He asked whether you had sent it?"

"He did."

She gazed at Hamish as if she would read his very soul. "And what did--what did you answer?"

"Told him I wished a few others would suspect me of the same, and count imaginary payments for real ones."

"Hamish!" she exclaimed, the complaint wrung from her: "how can you be so light, so cruel, when our hearts are breaking?"

Hamish, in turn, was surprised at this. "I, cruel! In what manner, Constance? My dear, I repeat to you that we shall have Charley back again. I feel sure of it; and it has done away with my fear. Some inward conviction, or presentiment--call it which you like--tells me that we shall; and I implicitly trust to it. We need not mourn for him."

"It is not for Charley: I do not speak of Charley now," she sadly reiterated. "You are straying from the point. Hamish, have you no love left for Arthur?"

"I have plenty of love for every one," said Mr. Hamish.

"Then how can you behave like this? Arthur is not guilty; you know he is not. And look what he has to bear! I believe you would laugh at the greatest calamity! Sending back this money to Mr. Galloway has--has--sadly distressed me."

Hamish turned his smiling eyes upon her, but his tone was grave. "Wait until some great calamity occurs, Constance, and then see whether I laugh. Did I laugh that dreadful night and day that succeeded to Charley's loss? Sending back the money to Mr. Galloway is not a cause for sadness. It most certainly exonerates Arthur."

"And you are gay over it!" She would have given anything to speak more plainly.

"I am particularly gay this afternoon," acknowledged Hamish, who could not be put out of temper by any amount of reproach whatever. "I have had great news by the post, Constance."

"From Germany?" she quickly cried.

"Yes, from Germany," he answered, taking a letter from his pocket, and spreading it open before Constance.

It contained the bravest news: great news, as Hamish expressed it. It was from Mr. Channing himself, and it told them of his being so far restored that there was no doubt now of his ability to resume his own place at his office. They intended to be home the first week in November. The weather at Borcette continued warm and charming, and they would prolong their stay there to the full time contemplated. It had been a fine autumn everywhere. There was a postscript added to the letter, as if an afterthought had occurred to Mr. Channing. "When you see Mr. Huntley, tell him how well I am progressing. I remember, by the way, that he hinted at being able to introduce you to something, should I no longer require you in Guild Street."

In the delight that the news brought, Constance partially lost sight of her sadness. "It is not all gloom," she whispered to herself. "If we could only dwell on G.o.d's mercies as we do on His chastis.e.m.e.nt; if we could only feel more trust, we should see the bright side of the cloud oftener than we do."

But it was dark; dark in many ways, and Constance was soon to be reminded again of it forcibly. She had taken her seat at the tea-table, when Tom came in. He looked flushed--stern; and he flung his Gradus, and one or two other books in a heap, on the side table, with more force than was necessary; and himself into a chair, ditto.

"Constance, I shall leave the school!"

Constance, in her dismay, dropped the sugar-tongs into the sugar. "What, Tom?"

"I shall leave the school!" he repeated, his tone as fiery as his face. "I wouldn't stop in it another month, if I were bribed with gold. Things are getting too bad there."

"Oh, Tom, Tom! Is this your endurance?"

"Endurance!" he exclaimed. "That's a nice word in theory, Constance; but just you try it in practice! Who has endured, if I have not? I thought I'd go on and endure it, as you say; at any rate, until papa came home. But I can't--I can't!"

"What has happened more than usual?" inquired Hamish.

"It gets worse and worse," said Tom, turning his blazing face upon his brother. "I wouldn't wish a dog to live the life that I live in the college school. They call me a felon, and treat me as one; they send me to Coventry; they won't acknowledge me as one of their seniors. My position is unbearable."

"Live it down, Tom," said Hamish quietly.

"Haven't I been trying to live it down?" returned the boy, suppressing his emotion. "It has lasted now these two months, and I have borne it daily. At the time of Charley's loss I was treated better for a day or two, but that has worn away. It is of no use your looking at me reproachfully, Constance; I must complain. What other boy in the world has ever been put down as I? I was head of the school, next to Gaunt; looking forward to be the head; and what am I now? The seniorship taken from me in shame; Huntley exalted to my place; my chance of the exhibition gone--"

"Huntley does not take the exhibition," interrupted Constance.

"But Yorke will. I shan't be allowed to take it. Now I know it, Constance, and the school knows it. Let a fellow once go down, and he's kept down: every dog has a fling at him. The seniorship's gone, the exhibition is going. I might bear that tamely, you may say; and of course I might, for they are negative evils; but what I can't and won't bear, are the insults of every-day life. Only this afternoon they--"

Tom stopped, for his feelings were choking him; and the complaint he was about to narrate was never spoken. Before he had recovered breath and calmness, Arthur entered and took his seat at the tea-table. Poor Tom, allowing one of his unfortunate explosions of temper to get the better of him, sprang from his chair and burst forth with a pa.s.sionate reproach to Arthur, whom he regarded as the author of all the ill.

"Why did you do it? Why did you bring this disgrace upon us? But for you, I should not have lost caste in the school."

"Tom!" interposed Hamish, in a severe tone.

Mr. Tom, brave college boy that he was--manly as he coveted to be thought--actually burst into tears. Tears called forth, not by contrition, I fear; but by remembered humiliation, by vexation, by the moment's pa.s.sion. Never had Tom cast a reproach openly to Arthur; whatever he may have felt he buried it within himself; but that his opinion vacillated upon the point of Arthur's guilt, was certain. Constance went up to him and laid her hand gently and soothingly upon his shoulder.

"Tom, dear boy, your troubles are making you forget yourself. Do not be unjust to Arthur. He is innocent as you."

"Then if he is innocent, why does he not speak out like a man, and proclaim his innocence?" retorted Tom, sensibly enough, but with rather too much heat. "That's what the school cast in my teeth, more than anything again. 'Don't preach up your brother's innocence to us!' they cry; 'if he did not take it, wouldn't he say so?' Look at Arthur now"--and Tom pointed his finger at him--"he does not, even here, to me, a.s.sert that he is innocent!"

Arthur's face burnt under the reproach. He turned it upon Hamish, with a gesture almost as fiery, quite as hasty, as any that had been vouchsafed them by Tom. Plainly as look could speak, it said, "Will you suffer this injustice to be heaped upon me?" Constance saw the look, and she left Tom with a faint cry, and bent over Arthur, afraid of what truth he might give utterance to.

"Patience yet, Arthur!" she whispered. "Do not let a moment's anger undo the work of weeks. Remember how bravely you have borne."

"Ay! Heaven forgive my pride, Tom!" Arthur added, turning to him calmly. "I would clear you--or rather clear myself--in the eyes of the school, if I could: but it is impossible. However, you have less to blame me for than you may think."

Hamish advanced. He caught Tom's arm and drew him to a distant window. "Now, lad," he said, "let me hear all about this bugbear. I'll see if it can be in any way lightened for you."

Hamish's tone was kindly, his manner frank and persuasive, and Tom was won over to speak of his troubles. Hamish listened with an attentive ear. "Will you abide by my advice?" he asked him, when the catalogue of grievances had come to an end.

"Perhaps I will," replied Tom, who was growing cool after his heat.

"Then, as I said to you before, so I say now--Live it down. It is the best advice I can give you."

"Hamish, you don't know what it is!"

"Yes, I do. I can enter into your trials and annoyances as keenly as if I had to encounter them. I do not affect to disparage them to you: I know that they are real trials, real insults; but if you will only make up your mind to bear them, they will lose half their sharpness. Your interest lies in remaining in the college school; more than that, your duty lies in it. Tom, don't let it be said that a Channing shrunk from his duty because it brought him difficulties to battle with."

"I don't think I can stop in it, Hamish. I'd rather stand in a pillory, and have rotten eggs shied at me."

"Yes, you can. In fact, my boy, for the present you must. Disobedience has never been a fault amongst us, and I am sure you will not be the one to inaugurate it. Your father left me in charge, in his place, with full control; and I cannot sanction any such measure as that of your leaving the school. In less than a month's time he will be home, and you can then submit the case to him, and abide by his advice."

With all Tom's faults, he was not rebellious, neither was he unreasonable; and he made up his mind, not without some grumbling, to do as Hamish desired him. He drew his chair with a jerk to the tea-table, which of course was unnecessary. I told you that the young Channings, admirably as they had been brought up, had their faults; as you have yours, and I have mine.

It was a silent meal. Annabel, who was wont to keep them alive, whatever might be their troubles, had remained to take tea at Lady Augusta Yorke's, with Caroline and f.a.n.n.y. Had Constance known that she was in the habit of thoughtlessly chattering upon any subject that came uppermost, including poor Charles's propensity to be afraid of ghosts, she had allowed her to remain with them more charily. Hamish took a book and read. Arthur only made a show of taking anything, and soon left them, to resume his work; Tom did not even make a show of it, but unequivocally rejected all good things. "How could he be hungry?" he asked, when Constance pressed him. An unsociable meal it was--almost as unpleasant as were their inward thoughts. They felt for Tom, in the midst of their graver griefs; but they were all at cross purposes together, and they knew it; therefore they could only retain an uncomfortable reticence one with another. Tom laid the blame to the share of Arthur; Arthur and Constance to the share of Hamish. To whom Hamish laid it, was only known to himself.

He, Hamish, rose as the tea-things were carried away. He was preparing for a visit to Mr. Huntley's. His visits there, as already remarked, had not been frequent of late. He had discovered that he was not welcome to Mr. Huntley. And Hamish Channing was not one to thrust his company upon any one: even the attraction of Ellen could not induce that. But it is very probable that he was glad of the excuse Mr. Channing's letter afforded him to go there now.

He found Miss Huntley alone; a tall, stiff lady, who always looked as if she were cased in whalebone. She generally regarded Hamish with some favour, which was saying a great deal for Miss Huntley.

"You are quite a stranger here," she remarked to him as he entered.

"I think I am," replied Hamish. "Mr. Huntley is still in the dining-room, I hear?"

"Mr. Huntley is," said the lady, speaking as if the fact did not give her pleasure, though Hamish could not conceive why. "My niece has chosen to remain with him," she added, in a tone which denoted dissatisfaction. "I am quite tired of talking to her! I tell her this is proper, and the other is improper, and she goes and mixes up my advice in the most extraordinary way; leaving undone what she ought to do, and doing what I tell her she ought not! Only this very morning I read her a sermon upon 'Propriety, and the fitness of things.' It took me just an hour--an hour by my watch, I a.s.sure you, Mr. Hamish Channing!--and what is the result? I retired from the dinner-table precisely ten minutes after the removal of the cloth, according to my invariable custom; and Ellen, in defiance of my warning her that it is not lady-like, stays there behind me! 'I have not finished my grapes, aunt,' she says to me. And there she stays, just to talk with her father. And he encourages her! What will become of Ellen, I cannot imagine; she will never be a lady!"

"It's very sad!" replied Hamish, coughing down a laugh, and putting on the gravest face he could call up.

"Sad!" repeated Miss Huntley, who sat perfectly upright, her hands, cased in mittens, crossed upon her lap. "It is _grievous_, Mr. Hamish Channing! She--what do you think she did only yesterday? One of our maids was going to be married, and a dispute, or some unpleasantness occurred between her and the intended husband. Would you believe that Ellen actually wrote a letter for the girl (a poor ignorant thing, who never learnt to read, let alone to write, but an excellent servant) to this man, that things might be smoothed down between them? My niece, Miss Ellen Huntley, lowering herself to write a--a--I can scarcely allow my tongue to utter the word, Mr. Hamish--a love-letter!"

Miss Huntley lifted her eyes, and her mittens. Hamish expressed himself inexpressibly shocked, inwardly wishing he could persuade Miss Ellen Huntley to write a few to him.

"And I receive no sympathy from any one!" pursued Miss Huntley. "None! I spoke to my brother, and he could not see that she had done anything wrong in writing: or pretended that he could not. Oh dear! how things have altered from what they were when I was a young girl! Then--"

"My master says, will you please to walk into the dining-room, sir?" interrupted a servant at this juncture. And Hamish rose and followed him.