The Channings

“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 God’s mercies as we do on His chastisement; 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 passionate 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 passion. 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, assert 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 Fanny. 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 assure 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.

Mr. Huntley was alone. Hamish threw his glance to the four corners of the room, but Ellen was not in it. The meeting was not very cordial on Mr. Huntley’s side. “What can I do for you?” he inquired, as he shook hands. Which was sufficient to imply coldly, “You must have come to my house for some particular purpose. What is it?”

But Hamish could not lose his sunny temperament, his winning manner. “I bring you great news, Mr. Huntley. We have heard from Borcette: and the improvement in my father’s health is so great, that all doubts as to the result are over.”

“I said it would be so,” replied Mr. Huntley.

They continued talking some little time, and then Hamish mentioned the matter alluded to in the postscript of the letter. “Is it correct that you will be able to help me to something,” he inquired, “when my father shall resume his own place in Guild Street?”

“It is correct that I told your father so,” answered Mr. Huntley. “I thought then that I could.”

“And is the post gone? I assume that it was a situation of some sort?”

“It is not gone. The post will not be vacant until the beginning of the year. Have you heard that there is to be a change in the joint-stock bank?”

“No,” replied Hamish, looking up with much interest.

“Mr. Bartlett leaves. He is getting in years, his health is failing, and he wishes to retire. As one of the largest shareholders in the bank, I shall possess the largest voice in the appointment of a. successor, and I had thought of you. Indeed, I have no objection to say that there is not the slightest doubt you would have been appointed; otherwise, I should not have spoken confidently to Mr. Channing.”

It was an excellent post; there was no doubt of that. The bank was not an extensive one; it was not the principal bank of Helstonleigh; but it was a firmly established, thoroughly respectable concern; and Mr. Bartlett, who had been its manager for many years, enjoyed many privileges, and a handsome salary. A far larger salary than was Mr. Channing’s. The house, a good one, attached to the bank, was used as his residence, and would be, when he left, the residence of his successor.

“I should like it of all things!” cried Hamish.

“So would many a one, young sir, who is in a better position than you,” drily answered Mr. Huntley. “I thought you might have filled it.”

“Can I not, sir?”

“No.”

Hamish did not expect the answer. He looked inquiringly at Mr. Huntley. “Why can I not?”

“Because I cannot now recommend you to it,” was the reply.

“But why not?” exclaimed Hamish.

“When I spoke of you as becoming Mr. Bartlett’s successor, I believed you would be found worthy to fulfil his duties.”

“I can fulfil them,” said Hamish.

“Possibly. But so much doubt has arisen upon that point in my own mind, that I can no longer recommend you for it. In fact, I could not sanction your appointment.”

“What have I done?” inquired Hamish.

“Ask your conscience. If that does not tell you plainly enough, I shall not.”

“My conscience accuses me of nothing that need render me unfit to fill the post, and to perform my duties in it, Mr. Huntley.”

“I think otherwise. But, to pursue the subject will be productive of no benefit, so we will let it drop. I would have secured you the appointment, could I have done so conscientiously, but I cannot; and the matter is at an end.”

“At least you can tell me why you will not?” said Hamish, speaking with some sarcasm, in the midst of his respect.

“I have already declined to do so. Ask your own conscience, Hamish.”

“The worst criminal has a right to know his accusation, Mr. Huntley. Otherwise he cannot defend himself.”

“It will be time enough for you to defend yourself when you are publicly accused. I shall say no more upon the point. I am sorry your father mentioned the thing to you, necessitating this explanation, so far; I have also been sorry for having ever mentioned it to him. My worst explanation will be with your father, for I cannot enter into cause and effect, any more than I can to you.”

“I have for some little time been conscious of a change in your manner towards me, Mr. Huntley.”

“Ay—no doubt.”

“Sir, you ought to tell me what has caused it. I might explain away any prejudice or wrong impression—”

“There, that will do,” interrupted Mr. Huntley. “It is neither prejudice nor wrong impression that I have taken up. And now I have said the last word upon the matter that I shall say.”

“But, sir—”

“No more, I say!” peremptorily interrupted Mr. Huntley. “The subject is over. Let us talk of other things. I need not ask whether you have news of poor Charley; you would have informed me of that at once. You see, I was right in advising silence to be kept towards them. All this time of suspense would have told badly on Mr. Channing.”

Hamish rose to leave. He had done little good, it appeared, by his visit; certainly, he could not wish to prolong it. “There was an unsealed scrap of paper slipped inside my father’s letter,” he said. “It was from my mother to Charley. This is it.”

It appeared to have been written hastily—perhaps from a sudden thought at the moment of Mr. Channing’s closing his letter. Mr. Huntley took it in his hand.

“MY DEAR LITTLE CHARLEY,”

“How is it you do not write to mamma? Not a message from you now: not a letter! I am sure you are not forgetting me.”

“Poor boy!” exclaimed Mr. Huntley, handing it back to Hamish. “Poor mother!”

“I did not show it to Constance,” observed Hamish. “It would only distress her. Good night, sir. By the way,” added Hamish, turning as he reached the door: “Mr. Galloway has received that money back again.”

“What money?” cried Mr. Huntley.

“That which was lost. A twenty-pound note came to him in a letter by this afternoon’s post. The letter states that Arthur, and all others who may have been accused, are innocent.”

“Oh, indeed!” cried Mr. Huntley, with cutting sarcasm, as the conviction flashed over him that Hamish, and no other, had been the sender. “The thief has come to his senses at last, has he? So far as to render lame justice to Arthur.”

Hamish left the room. The hall had not yet been lighted, and Hamish could hardly see the outline of a form, crossing it from the staircase to the drawing-room. He knew whose it was, and he caught it to him.

“Ellen,” he whispered, “what has turned your father against me?”

Of course she could not enlighten him; she could not say to Hamish Channing, “He suspects you of being a thief.” Her whole spirit would have revolted from that, as much as it did from the accusation. The subject was a painful one; she was flurried at the sudden meeting—the stealthy meeting, it may be said; and—she burst into tears.

I am quite afraid to say what Mr. Hamish did, this being a sober story. When he left the hall, Ellen Huntley’s cheeks were glowing, and certain sweet words were ringing changes in her ears.

“Ellen! they shall never take you from me!”

CHAPTER XLVIII. – MUFFINS FOR TEA

A week or two passed by, and November was rapidly approaching. Things remained precisely as they were at the close of the last chapter: nothing fresh had occurred; no change had taken place. Tom Channing’s remark, though much cannot be said for its elegance, was indisputable in point of truth—that when a fellow was down, he was kept down, and every dog had a fling at him It was being exemplified in the case of Arthur. The money, so mysteriously conveyed to Mr. Galloway, had proved of little service towards clearing him; in fact, it had the contrary effect; and people openly expressed their opinion that it had come from himself or his friends. He was down; and it would take more than that to lift him up again.

Mr. Galloway kept his thoughts to himself, or had put them into his cash-box with the note, for he said nothing.

Roland Yorke did not imitate his example; he was almost as explosive over the present matter as he had been over the loss. It would have pleased him that Arthur should be declared innocent by public proclamation. Roland was in a most explosive frame of mind on another score, and that was the confinement to the office. In reality, he was not overworked; for Arthur managed to get through a great amount of it at home, which he took in regularly, morning after morning, to Mr. Galloway. Roland, however, thought he was, and his dissatisfaction was becoming unbearable. I do not think that Roland could have done a hard day’s work. To sit steadily to it for only a couple of hours appeared to be an absolute impossibility to his restless temperament. He must look off; he must talk; he must yawn; he must tilt his stool; he must take a slight interlude at balancing the ruler on his nose, or at other similar recreative and intellectual amusements; but, apply himself in earnest, he could not. Therefore there was little fear of Mr. Roland’s being overcome with the amount of work on hand.

But what told upon Roland was the confinement—I don’t mean upon his health, you know, but his temper. It had happened many a day since Jenkins’s absence, that Roland had never stirred from the office, except for his dinner. He must be there in good time in the morning—at the frightfully early hour of nine—and he often was not released until six. When he went to dinner at one, Mr. Galloway would say, “You must be back in half an hour, Yorke; I may have to go out.” Once or twice he had not gone to dinner until two or three o’clock, and then he was half dead with hunger. All this chafed poor Roland nearly beyond endurance.

Another cause was rendering Roland’s life not the most peaceful one. He was beginning to be seriously dunned for money. Careless in that, as he was in other things, improvident as was ever Lady Augusta, Roland rarely paid until he was compelled to do so. A very good hand was he at contracting debts, but a bad one at liquidating them. Roland did not intend to be dishonest. Were all his creditors standing around him, and a roll of bank-notes before him he would freely have paid them all; very probably, in his openheartedness, have made each creditor a present, over and above, for “his trouble.” But, failing the roll of notes, he only staved off the difficulties in the best way he could, and grew cross and ill-tempered on being applied to. His chief failing was his impulsive thoughtlessness. Often, when he had teased or worried Lady Augusta out of money, to satisfy a debt for which he was being pressed, that very money would be spent in some passing folly, arising with the impulse of the moment, before it had had time to reach the creditor. There are too many in the world like Roland Yorke.