The Channings Part 51

Mr. Huntley went out, nodding cordially to Tom as he pa.s.sed his desk; and the master turned his eyes and his attention on Gerald Yorke.

Lady Augusta had hastened from the college school as impetuously as she had entered it. Her errand now was to the Channings. She was eager to show them her grieved astonishment, her vexation--to make herself the amende for Roland, so far as she could do so. She found both Mr. and Mrs. Channing at home. The former had purposed being in Guild Street early that morning; but so many visitors had flocked in to offer their congratulations that he had hitherto been unable to get away. Constance also was at home. Lady Augusta had insisted upon it that she should not come to the children on that, the first day after her father and mother's return. They were alone when Lady Augusta entered.

Lady Augusta's first movement was to fling herself into a chair and burst into tears. "What am I to say to you?" she exclaimed. "What apology can I urge for my unhappy boy?"

"Nay, dear Lady Augusta, do not let it thus distress you," said Mr. Channing. "You are no more to be held responsible for what Roland has done, than we were for Arthur, when he was thought guilty."

"Oh, I don't know," she sobbed. "Perhaps, if I had been more strict with him always, he would never have done it. I wish I had made a point of giving them a whipping every night, all round, from the time they were two years old!" she continued, emphatically. "Would that have made my children turn out better, do you think?"

Mrs. Channing could not forbear a smile. "It is not exactly strictness that answers with children, Lady Augusta."

"Goodness me! I don't know what does answer with them, then! I have been indulgent enough to mine, as every one else knows; and see how they are turning out! Roland to go and take a bank-note! And, as if that were not bad enough, to let the odium rest upon Arthur! You will never forgive him! I am certain that you never can or will forgive him! And you and all the town will visit it upon me!"

When Lady Augusta fell into this tearful humour of complaint, it was better to let it run its course; as Mr. and Mrs. Channing knew by past experience. They both soothed her; telling her that no irreparable wrong had been done to Arthur; nothing but what would be now made right.

"It all turns contrary together!" exclaimed my lady, drying up her tears over the first grievance, and beginning upon another. "I suppose, Constance, you and William Yorke will be making it up now."

Constance's self-conscious smile, and her drooping eyelids might have told, without words, that that was already done.

"And the next thing, of course, will be your getting married!" continued Lady Augusta. "When is it to be? I suppose you have been settling the time."

The question was a direct and pointed one, and Lady Augusta waited for an answer. Mrs. Channing came to the relief of Constance.

"It would have been very soon indeed, Lady Augusta, but for this dreadful uncertainty about Charles. In any case, it will not be delayed beyond early spring."

"Oh, to be sure! I knew that! Everything goes contrary and cross for me! What am I to do for a governess? I might pay a thousand a year and not find another like Constance. They are beginning to improve under you: they are growing more dutiful girls to me; and now it will all be undone again, and they'll just be ruined!"

Constance looked up with her pretty timid blush. "William and I have been thinking, Lady Augusta, that, if you approved of it, they had better come for a few months to Hazledon House. I should then have them constantly under my own eye, and I think I could effect some good. We used to speak of this in the summer; and last night we spoke of it again."

Lady Augusta flew into an ecstasy as great as her late grief had been. "Oh, it would be delightful!" she exclaimed. "Such a relief to me! and I know it would be the making of them. I shall thank you and William for ever, Constance; and I don't care what I pay you. I'd go without shoes to pay you liberally."

Constance laughed. "As to payment," she said, "I shall have nothing to do with that, on my own score, when once I am at Hazledon. Those things will lie in William's department, not in mine. I question if he will allow you to pay him anything, Lady Augusta. We did not think of it in that light, but in the hope that it might benefit Caroline and f.a.n.n.y."

Lady Augusta turned impulsively to Mrs. Channing. "What good children G.o.d has given you!"

Tears rushed into Mrs. Channing's eyes; she felt the remark in all its grateful truth. She was spared a reply; she did not like to contrast them with Lady Augusta's, ever so tacitly, and say they were indeed good; for Sarah entered, and said another visitor was waiting in the drawing-room.

As Mr. Channing withdrew, Lady Augusta rose to depart. She took Mrs. Channing's hand. "How dreadful for you to come home and find one of your children gone!" she uttered. "How can you bear it and be calm!"

Emotion rose then, and Mrs. Channing battled to keep it down. "The same G.o.d who gave me my children, has taught me how to bear," she presently said. "For the moment, yesterday, I really was overwhelmed; but it pa.s.sed away after a few hours' struggle. When I left home, I humbly committed my child to G.o.d's good care, in perfect trust; and I feel, that whether dead or alive, that care is still over him."

"I wish to goodness one could learn to feel as you do!" uttered Lady Augusta. "Troubles don't seem to touch you and Mr. Channing; you rise superior to them: but they turn me inside out. And now I must go! And I wish Roland had never been born before he had behaved so! You must try to forgive him, Mrs. Channing: you must promise to try and welcome him, should he ever come back again!"

"Oh yes," Mrs. Channing answered, with a bright smile. "The one will be as easy as the other has been. He is already forgiven, Lady Augusta."

"I have done what I could in it. I have been to the college school, and told them all, and Tom is put into his place as senior. It's true, indeed! and I hope every boy will be flogged for putting upon him; Gerald and Tod amongst the rest. And now, good-bye."

Sarah was holding the street door open for Lady Augusta. Lady Augusta, who generally gave a word of gossip to every one, even as Roland, had her head turned towards the girl as she pa.s.sed out of it, and thereby nearly fell over a boy who at the moment was seeking to enter, being led by a woman, as if he had no strength to walk alone. A tall, thin, white-faced boy, with great eyes and little hair, and a red handkerchief tied over his head, to hide the deficiency; but a beautiful boy in spite of all, for he bore a strange resemblance to Charles Channing.

Was it Charles? Or was it his shadow? My lady turned again to the hall, startling the house with her cries, that Charley's ghost had come, and bringing forth its inmates in consternation.

CHAPTER LVIII.

BYWATER'S DANCE.

Not Charley's shadow--not Charley's ghost--but Charley himself, in real flesh and blood. One knew him, if the rest did not; and that was Judith. She seized upon him with sobs and cries, and sat down on the hall bench and hugged him to her. But Charley had seen some one else, and he slipped from Judith to the arms that were held out to shelter him, his warm tears breaking forth. "Mamma! mamma!"

Mrs. Channing's tears fell fast as she received him. She strained him to her bosom, and held him there; and they had to hold _her_, for her emotion was great. It is of no use endeavouring to describe this sort of meeting. When the loved who have been thought dead, are restored to life, all description must fall short of reality, if it does not utterly fail. Charley, whom they had mourned as lost, was with them again: traces of sickness, of suffering were in his face, in his attenuated form; but still he was in life. You must imagine what it was. Mr. and Mrs. Channing, Lady Augusta, Constance, the servants, and the Bishop of Helstonleigh: for no less a personage than that distinguished prelate had been the visitor to Mr. Channing, come to congratulate him on his cure and his return.

The woman who had accompanied Charley stood apart--a hard-featured woman, in a clean cotton gown, and clean brown ap.r.o.n, whose face proclaimed that she lived much in the open air. Perhaps she lived so much in it as to disdain bonnets, for she wore none--a red cotton handkerchief, fellow to the one on Charley's head, being pinned over her white calico cap.

Many unexpected meetings take place in this life. A casual acquaintance whom we have met years ago, but whom we never expected to see again, may come across our path to-morrow. You, my reader, did not, I am sure, expect to meet that woman again, whom you saw hanging up linen in a boat, as it glided beneath the old cathedral walls, under the noses of Bywater and a few more of his tribe, the morning they were throwing away those unlucky keys, which they fondly thought were never to be fished up again. But here is that very woman before you now, come to pay these pages as unexpected a visit as the keys paid to the college boys. Not more unlooked for, and not more strange than some of our meetings in actual life.

"Mamma, I have been ill; I have been nearly dying; and she has nursed me through it, and been kind to me."

Mrs. Channing leaned forward and grasped the woman's hand, grat.i.tude shining in her wet eyes. Mr. Channing and Judith had a fight which should grasp the other. Lady Augusta laid hold of her behind, Sarah a.s.sailed her in front. There appeared to be no room left for Constance and the Bishop, or they might have a.s.sisted at the demonstration--as the French say.

It was soon explained. That same barge had been pa.s.sing down stream again that night, when Charley fell into the water. The man heard the splash, called to his horse to stop, leaped overboard, and saved him. A poor little boy, with a wound in his head, quite senseless, it proved to be, when they had him on board and laid him on the bench for inspection. Meanwhile the docile horse went on of its own accord, and before the knotty question was decided as to whether the man should bring-to, and get him on sh.o.r.e, and try and discover to whom he belonged, the barge was clear of the town, for the current was strong. It had been nearly clear of it when it pa.s.sed the cathedral wall, and the splash occurred. The man thought it as well that it was so; his voyage, this journey, was being made against time, and he dared not linger. Had the boat-house keeper's mother not put her head under the bed-clothes and kept it there, she might possibly have heard sounds of the rescue.

So they kept Charley on board. He had evidently struck his head against something which had caused the wound, and stunned him. It may have been, it is just possible that it may have been, against the projecting wall of the boat-house, as he turned the corner in his fright and hurry. If so, that, no doubt, caused his fall and his stumble into the water. The woman--she had children of her own: that great girl whom you saw sc.r.a.ping potatoes was one, and she had two others still younger--washed the wound, and tried to bring Charley round. But she could not awaken him to full consciousness. His mind appeared to be wandering, and ere another day had pa.s.sed he was in strong delirium. Whether it was the blow, or the terrible fright which had preceded it, or--and this was most probable--both combined, Charles Channing was attacked with brain fever. The woman nursed him through it; she applied her own simple remedies. She cut off his hair, and kept wet linen constantly to his head; and hot bricks, wrapped round with wet steaming flannels, to his feet; and she gave him a certain herb tea to drink, which, in her firm belief and experience, had never yet failed to subdue fever. Perhaps Charley did as well without a doctor as he would have done with one. By the time they reached their destination the malady was subsiding; but the young patient was so prostrated and weak that all he could do was to lie quite still, scarcely opening his eyes, scarcely moving his hands.

When he became able to talk, they were beginning to move up stream again, as the woman called it. Charley told her all about himself, about his home, his dear mamma and Judith, his papa's ill-health, and hopes of restoration, his college schoolboy life. It was delicious to lie there in the languor of returning health, and talk of these things. The kindly woman won his love and confidence; but when she asked him how he came to fall into the river, he could never remember. In the social atmosphere of companionship, in the bright sunlight, Charley could look back on the "ghost" in the cloisters, and draw his own deductions. His good sense told him it was no ghost; that it was all a trick of Bywater's and others of the college boys. The woman's opinion was, that if they did do such a thing to frighten him, they ought to be whipped; but she was inclined to view it as a delusion of Charley's imagination, a relic left by the fever.

"Your folks'll be fine and pleased to see you again, dear," she would say to him. "My master'll moor the barge to the side when we gets to the place, and I'll take ye home to 'um."

How Charley longed for it, he alone could tell; pleasant as it was, now he was better, to lie on deck, on a rude bed made of sacks, and glide peacefully along on the calm river, between the green banks, the blue sky above, the warm sun shining on him. Had Charley been placed on that barge in health, he would have thought it the nastiest place he had ever seen--confined, dirty, monotonous. But waking to it from fever, when he did not care where he lay, so that he could only lie, he grew reconciled to it. Indeed, Charley began to like the boat; but he was none the less eager for the day that would see him leave it.

That day came at last. The barge was brought-to; and here you see Charley and his protector. Charley's clothes looked a mile too small for him, he had so grown in his illness; and Charley was minus a cap, and the handkerchief did duty for one. But it was Charley, in spite of all; and I say that you must imagine the meeting. You must imagine their heartfelt thanks to the woman, and their more substantial recompense.

"Charley, darling, if you could only have written to us, what dreadful distress you would have saved!" exclaimed Constance.

"He write, miss!" interposed the woman. "He couldn't have writ to save his life! And we was a-moving up stream again before he was well enough to tell us anything about himself. My husband might have writ a word else; I ain't no hand at a pen myself. We have got quite used to the little gentleman, and shall miss him now."

"Constance, tell her. Is it not true about the ghost? I am sure you must have heard of it from the boys. She thinks I dreamt it, she says."

Judith broke out volubly before Constance could answer, testifying that it was true, and relating the ill-doings of the boys that night rather more at length than she need have done. She and the woman appeared to be in perfect accord as to the punishment merited by those gentlemen.

The bishop leaned over Charley. "You hear what a foolish trick it was," he said. "Were I you, I would be upon good terms with such ghosts in future. There are no other sorts of ghosts, my boy."

"I know there are not," answered Charles. "Indeed, my lord, I do know there are not," he repeated more earnestly. "And I knew it then; only, somehow I got frightened. I will try and learn to be as brave in the dark as in the light."

"That's my sensible boy!" said the bishop. "For my part, Charley, I rather like being in the dark. G.o.d seems all the nearer to me."

The woman was preparing to leave, declining all offers that she should rest and take refreshment. "Our turn both down and up was hurried this time," she explained, "and I mayna keep the barge and my master a-waiting. I'll make bold, when we are past the town again, to step ash.o.r.e, and see how the young gentleman gets on."

Charley clung to her. "You shall not go till you promise to stay a whole day with us!" he cried. "And you must bring the children for mamma to see. She will be glad to see them."

The woman laughed. "A whole day! a whole day's pleasure was na for the likes of them," she answered; "but she'd try and spare a bit longer to stop than she could spare now."

With many kisses to Charles, with many hand-shakes from all, she took her departure. The Bishop of Helstonleigh, high and dignified prelate that he was, and she a poor, hard-working barge-woman, took her hand into his, and shook it as heartily as the rest. Mr. Channing went out with her. He was going to say a word of grat.i.tude to the man. The bishop also went out, but he turned the other way.

As he was entering Close Street, the bishop encountered Arthur. The latter raised his hat and was pa.s.sing onwards, but the bishop arrested him.

"Channing, I have just heard some news from your father. You are at length cleared from that charge. You have been innocent all this time."

Arthur's lips parted with a smile. "Your lordship may be sure that I am thankful to be cleared at last. Though I am sorry that it should be at the expense of my friend Yorke."

"Knowing yourself innocent, you might have proclaimed it more decisively. What could have been your motive for not doing so?"

The ingenuous flush flew into Arthur's cheek. "The truth is, my lord, I suspected some one else. Not Roland Yorke," he pointedly added. "But--it was one against whom I should have been sorry to bring a charge. And so--and so--I went on bearing the blame."

"Well, Channing, I must say, and I shall say to others, that you have behaved admirably; showing a true Christian spirit. Mr. Channing may well be happy in his children. What will you give me," added the bishop, releasing Arthur's hand, which he had taken, and relapsing into his free, pleasant manner, "for some news that I can impart to you?"

Arthur wondered much. What news could the bishop have to impart which concerned him?

"The little lost wanderer has come home."

"Not Charles!" uttered Arthur, startled to emotion. "Charles! and not dead?"

"Not dead, certainly," smiled the bishop, "considering that he can talk and walk. He will want some nursing, though. Good-bye, Channing. This, take it for all in all, must be a day of congratulation for you and yours."

To leap into Mr. Galloway's with the tidings, to make but a few bounds thence home, did not take many minutes for Arthur. He found Charles in danger of being kissed to death--Mrs. Channing, Lady Augusta, Constance, and Judith, each taking her turn. I fear Arthur only made another.

"Why, Charley, you have grown out of your clothes!" he exclaimed. "How thin and white you are!"

The remarks did not please Judith. "Thin and white!" she resentfully repeated. "Did you expect him to come home as red and fat as a turkey-c.o.c.k, and him just brought to the edge of the grave with brain fever? One would think, Master Arthur, that you'd rejoice to see him, if he had come back a skeleton, when it seemed too likely you'd never see him at all. And what if he have outgrown his clothes? They can be let out, or replaced with new ones. I have hands, and there's tailors in the place, I hope."

The more delighted felt Judith, the more ready was she to take up remarks and convert them into grievances. Arthur knew her, and only laughed. A day of rejoicing, indeed, as the bishop had said. A day of praise to G.o.d.

Charley had been whispering to his mother. He wanted to go to the college schoolroom and surprise it. He was longing for a sight of his old companions. That happy moment had been pictured in his thoughts fifty times, as he lay in the boat; it was almost as much desired as the return home. Charley bore no malice, and he was prepared to laugh with them at the ghost.

"You do not appear strong enough to walk even so far as that," said Mrs. Channing.

"Dear mamma, let me go! I could walk it, for that, if it were twice as far."

"Yes, let him go," interposed Arthur, divining the feeling. "I will help him along."

Charley's trencher--the very trencher found on the banks--was brought forth, and he started with Arthur.

"Mind you bring him back safe this time!" called out Judy in a tone of command, as she stood at the door to watch them along the Boundaries.

"Arthur," said the boy, "were they punished for playing me that ghost trick?"

"They have not been punished yet; they are to be. The master waited to see how things would turn out."

You may remember that Diggs, the boat-house keeper, when he took news of Charles's supposed fate to the college school, entered it just in time to interrupt an important ceremony, which was about to be performed on the back of Pierce senior. In like manner--and the coincidence was somewhat remarkable--Charles himself now entered it, when that same ceremony was just brought to a conclusion, only that the back, instead of being Pierce senior's, was Gerald Yorke's. Terrible disgrace for a senior! and Gerald wished Bywater's surplice had been at the bottom of the river before he had meddled with it. He had not done it purposely. He had fallen in the vestry, ink-bottle in hand, which had broken and spilt its contents over the surplice. In an unlucky moment, Gerald had determined to deny all knowledge of the accident, never supposing it would be brought home to him.

Sullen, angry, and resentful, he was taking his seat again, and the head-master, rather red and hot with exertion, was locking up the great birch, when the door was opened, and Arthur Channing made his appearance; a boy, carrying the college cap, with him.

The school were struck dumb. The head-master paused, birch in hand. But that he was taller and thinner, and that the bright colour and auburn curls were gone, they would have said at once it was Charley Channing.

The master let fall the birch and the lid of his desk. "_Channing!_" he uttered, as the child walked up to him. "Is it really you? What has become of you all this time? Where have you been?"

"I have been a long way in a barge, sir. The barge-man saved me. And I have had brain fever."

He looked round for Tom; and Tom, in the wild exuberance of his delight, took Charley in his arms, and tears dropped from his eyes as he kissed him as warmly as Judith could have done. And then brave Tom could have eaten himself up, in mortification at having been so demonstrative in sight of the college school.

But the school were not in the humour to be fastidious just then. Some of them felt more inward relief at sight of Charles than they cared to tell; they had never experienced anything like it in their lives, and probably never would again. In the midst of the murmur of heartfelt delight that was arising, a most startling interruption occurred from Mr. Bywater. That gentleman sprang from his desk to the middle of the room, turned a somersault, and began dancing a hornpipe on his head.

"_Bywater_!" uttered the astounded master. "Are you mad?"

Bywater finished his dance, and then brought himself to his feet.

"I am so glad he has turned up all right, sir. I forgot you were in school."

"I should think you did," significantly returned the master. But Charles interrupted him.

"You will not punish them, sir, now I have come back safe?" he pleaded.

"But they deserve punishment," said the master.

"I know they have been sorry; Arthur says they have," urged Charley. "Please do not punish them now, sir; it is so pleasant to be back again!"

"Will you promise never to be frightened at their foolish tricks again?" said the master. "Not that there is much danger of their playing you any: this has been too severe a lesson. I am surprised that a boy of your age, Charles, could allow himself to be alarmed by 'ghosts.' You do not suppose there are such things, surely?"

"No, sir; but somehow, that night I got too frightened to think. You will forgive them, sir, won't you?"

"Yes! There! Go and shake hands with them," said Mr. Pye, relaxing his dignity. "It is worth something, Charley, to see you here again."

The school seemed to think so; and I wish you had heard the shout that went up from it--the real, true, if somewhat noisy delight, that greeted Charles. "Charley, we'll never dress up a ghost again! We'll never frighten you in any way!" they cried, pressing affectionately round him. "Only forgive us!"

"Why are you sitting in the senior's place, Tom?" asked Arthur.

"Because it is his own," said Harry Huntley, with a smile of satisfaction. "Lady Augusta came in and set things right for you, and Tom is made senior at last. Hurrah! Arthur cleared, Tom senior, Charley back, and Gerald flogged! Hurrah!"

"Hurrah! If Pye were worth a dump, he'd give us a holiday!" echoed bold Bywater.