The Channings

“Cross-purposes, indeed!” repeated Hamish.

“Have you believed me guilty until now?”

“No,” replied Hamish. “After a few days my infatuation wore off. It was an infatuation, and nothing less, ever to have believed a Channing guilty. I then took up another notion, and that I have continued to entertain.”

“What was it?”

“That you were screening Roland Yorke.”

Arthur lifted up his eyes to Hamish.

“I did indeed. Roland’s excessive championship of you, his impetuous agitation when others brought it up against you, first aroused my suspicions that he himself must have been guilty; and I came to the conclusion that you also had discovered his guilt, and were generously screening him. I believed that you would not allow a stir be made in it to clear yourself, lest it should bring it home to him. Cross purposes again, you will say.”

“Ah, yes. Not so much as an idea of suspecting Roland Yorke ever came across me. All my fear was, that he, or any one, should suspect you.”

Hamish laughed as he placed his hands upon Arthur’s shoulders. “The best plan for the future will be, to have no secrets one from the other; otherwise, it seems hard to say what labyrinths we may not get into. What do you say, old fellow?”

“You began the secrets first, Hamish.”

“Did I? Well, let us thank Heaven that the worst are over.”

Ay, thank Heaven! Most sincerely was Arthur Channing doing that. The time to give thanks had come.

Meanwhile Mr. Huntley had proceed home. He found Miss Huntley in the stiffest and most uncompromising of moods; and no wonder, for Mr. Huntley had kept dinner waiting, I am afraid to say how long. Harry, who was to have dined with them that day, had eaten his, and flown off to the town again, to keep some appointment with the college boys. Miss Huntley now ate hers in dignified displeasure; but Mr. Huntley, sitting opposite to her, appeared to be in one of his very happiest moods. Ellen attributed it to the fact of Mr. Channing’s having returned home well. She asked a hundred questions about them—of their journey, their arrival—and Mr. Huntley never seemed tired of answering.

Barely was the cloth removed, when Miss Huntley rose. Mr. Huntley crossed the room to open the door for her, and bow her out. Although he was her brother, she would never have forgiven him, had he omitted that little mark of ceremony. Ellen was dutifully following. She could not always brave her aunt. Mr. Huntley, however, gave Ellen a touch as she was passing him, drew her back, and closed the door upon his sister.

“Ellen, I have been obliged to take Mr. Hamish into favour again.”

Ellen’s cheeks became glowing. She tried to find an answer, but none came.

“I find Hamish had nothing to do with the loss of the bank-note.”

Then she found words. “Oh, papa, no! How could you ever have imagined such a thing? You might have known the Channings better. They are above suspicion.”

“I did know them better at one time, or else you may be sure, young lady, Mr. Hamish would not have been allowed to come here as he did. However, it is cleared up; and I suppose you would like to tell me that I was just a donkey for my pains.”

Ellen shook her head and laughed. She would have liked to ask whether Mr. Hamish was to be allowed to come again on the old familiar footing, had she known how to frame the question. But it was quite beyond her courage.

“When I told him this evening that I had suspected him—”

She clasped her hands and turned to Mr. Huntley, her rich colour going and coming. “Papa, you told him?”

“Ay. And I was not the only one to suspect him, or to tell him. I can assure you that, Miss Ellen.”

“What did he say? How did he receive it?”

“Told us he was much obliged to us all. I don’t think Hamish could be put out of temper.”

“Then you do not dislike him now, papa?” she said, timidly.

“I never have disliked him. When I believed what I did of him, I could not dislike him even then, try as I would. There, you may go to your aunt now.”

And Ellen went, feeling that the earth and air around her had suddenly become as Eden.

CHAPTER LVI. – THE BROKEN PHIAL

That broken phial, you have heard of, was burning a hole in Bywater’s pocket, as Roland Yorke had said the bank-note did in his. He had been undecided about complaining to the master; strangely so for Bywater. The fact was, he had had a strong suspicion, from the very first, that the boy who did the damage to the surplice was Pierce senior. At least, his suspicions had been divided between that gentleman and Gerald Yorke. The cause of suspicion against Pierce need not be entered into, since it was misplaced. In point of fact, Mr. Pierce was, so far as that feat went, both innocent and unconscious. But Bywater could not be sure that he was, and he did not care to bring the accusation publicly against Gerald, should he be innocent.

You saw Bywater, a chapter or two back, fitting the broken pieces together in his bedroom. On the following morning—it was also the morning following the arrival of the important letter from Roland Yorke—Bywater detained Gerald Yorke when the boys tore down the schoolroom steps after early school.

“I say, Yorke, I said I’d give you a last chance, and now I am doing it,” he began. “If you’ll acknowledge the truth to me about that surplice affair, I’ll let it drop. I will, upon my honour. I’ll never say another word about it.”

Gerald flew into a rage. “Now look you here, Mr. Bywater,” was his angry retort. “You bother me again with that stale fish, and I’ll put you up for punishment. It’s—”

Gerald stopped. Tom Channing was passing close to them, and Mr. Gerald had never cared to be heard, when talking about the surplice. At that moment a group of boys, who were running out of the cloisters, the opposite road to Tom Channing, turned round and hissed him, Tod Yorke adding some complimentary remark about “stolen notes.” As usual, it was a shaft launched at Arthur. Not as usual did Tom receive it. There was nothing of fierce defiance now in his demeanour; nothing of half-subdued rage. Tom halted; took off his trencher with a smile of suavity that might have adorned Hamish, and thanked them with as much courtesy as if it had been real, especially Tod. Gerald Yorke and Bywater looked on with surprise. They little dreamt of the great secret that Tom now carried within him. He could afford to be calm.

“Why, it’s four months, good, since that surplice was damaged,” resumed Gerald, in a tone of irritation, to Bywater, as soon as they were alone again. “One would think it was of rare value, by your keeping up the ball in this way. Every now and then you break out afresh about that surplice. Was it made of gold?”

“It was made of Irish linen,” returned Bywater, who generally contrived to retain his coolness, whoever might grow heated. “I tell you that I have a fresh clue, Yorke; one I have been waiting for. I thought it would turn up some time. If you say you did it, by accident or how you like, I’ll let it drop. If you don’t, I’ll bring it before Pye after breakfast.”

“Bring it,” retorted Gerald.

“Mind you, I mean what I say. I shall bring the charge against you, and I have the proofs.”

“Bring it, I say!” fiercely repeated Gerald. “Who cares for your bringings? Mind your bones afterwards, that’s all!”

He pushed Bywater from him with a haughty gesture, and raced home to breakfast, hoping there would be something good to assuage his hunger.

But Bywater was not to be turned from his determination. Never a boy in the school less likely than he. He went home to his breakfast, and returned to school to have his name inscribed on the roll, and then went into college with the other nine choristers, and took his part in the service. And the bottle, I say, was burning a hole in his pocket. The Reverend William Yorke was chanting, and Arthur Channing sat at the organ. Would the Very Reverend the Dean of Helstonleigh, standing in his stall so serenely placid, his cap resting on the cushion beside him, ever again intimate a doubt that Arthur was not worthy to take part in the service? But the dean did not know the news yet.

Back in the school-room, Bywater lost no time. He presented himself before the master, and entered upon his complaint, schoolboy fashion.

“Please, sir, I think I have found out who inked my surplice.”

The master had allowed the occurrence to slip partially from his memory. At any rate, it was some time since he had called it up. “Oh, indeed!” said he somewhat cynically, to Bywater, after a pause given to revolving the circumstances. “Think you have found out the boy, do you?”

“Yes, sir; I am pretty sure of it. I think it was Gerald Yorke.”

“Gerald Yorke! One of the seniors!” repeated the master, casting a penetrating gaze upon Bywater.

The fact was, Mr. Pye, at the time of the occurrence, had been somewhat inclined to a secret belief that the real culprit was Bywater himself. Knowing that gentleman’s propensity to mischief, knowing that the destruction of a few surplices, more or less, would be only fun to him, he had felt an unpleasant doubt upon the point. “Did you do it yourself?” he now plainly asked of Bywater.

Bywater for once was genuinely surprised. “I had no more to do with it, sir, than this desk had,” touching the master’s. “I should not have spent many an hour since, trying to ferret it out, if I had done it.”

“Well, what have you found out?”

“On the day it happened, sir, when we were discussing it in the cloisters, little Channing suddenly started up with a word that caused me to think he had seen something connected with it, in which Gerald Yorke was mixed up. But the boy recollected himself before he had said much, and I could get no more from him. Once afterwards I heard him tell Yorke that he had kept counsel about the inked surplice.”

“Is that all?” asked the master, while the whole school sat with tingling ears, for Bywater was not making his complaint in private.

“Not quite, sir. Please to look at this.”

Bywater had whipped the broken phial out of his pocket, and was handing the smaller piece towards the master. Mr. Pye looked at it curiously.

“As I was turning over my surplice, sir, in the vestry, when I found it that day, I saw this bit of glass lying in the wet ink. I thought it belonged to a small ornamental phial, which Gerald Yorke used to keep, about that time, in his pocket, full of ink. But I couldn’t be sure. So I put the bit of glass into my pocket, thinking the phial would turn up some day, if it did belong to it. And so it has. You can put the piece into it, sir, and see whether it fits.”

Gerald Yorke left his place, and joined Bywater before the head master. He looked white and haughty. “Is it to be borne, sir, that he should tell these lies of me?”

“Are they lies?” returned Mr. Pye, who was fitting the piece into the bottle.

“I have told no lies yet,” said Bywater. “And I have not said for certain you did it. I say I think so.”

“You never found that bottle upon the surplice! I don’t believe it!” foamed Gerald.

“I found the little piece of glass. I put it into my trousers pocket, wet with ink as it was, and here are the stains of ink still,” added Bywater, turning out that receptacle for the benefit of Mr. Pye. “It was this same pair of trousers I had on that day.”

“Bywater,” said the master, “why did you not say, at the time, that you found the piece of glass?”

“Because, sir, the bit, by itself, would have told nothing. I thought I’d wait till the bottle itself turned up. Old Jenkins, the bedesman, found it a few days ago in the college burial-ground, pretty near to the college gates; just in the spot where it most likely would be, sir, if one came out of the college in a fright and dashed it over.”

“Does this belong to you, Yorke?” inquired the master, scrutinizing that gentleman’s countenance, as he had previously scrutinized Bywater’s.

Gerald Yorke took the phial in his hand and examined it. He knew perfectly well that it was his, but he was asking himself whether the school, apart from Bywater, could contradict him, if he said it was not. He feared they might.

“I had a phial very much like this, sir,” turning it over and over in his hand, apparently for the purpose of a critical inspection. “I am not sure that this is the same; I don’t think it is. I lost mine, sir: somebody stole it out of my pocket, I think.”

“When did you lose it?” demanded Mr. Pye.

“About the time that the surplice got inked, sir; a day or two before it.”

“Who is telling lies now?” cried bold Bywater. “He had the bottle that very day, sir, at his desk, here, in this schoolroom. The upper boys know he had it, and that he was using it. Channing”—turning round and catching Tom’s eye, the first he did catch—“you can bear witness that he was using it that morning.”

“Don’t call upon me,” replied Tom, stolidly. “I decline to interfere with Mr. Yorke; for, or against him.”

“It is his bottle, and he had it that morning; and I say that I think he must have broken it over the surplice,” persisted Bywater, with as much noise as he dared display in the presence of the master. “Otherwise, how should a piece out of the bottle be lying on the surplice?”

The master came to the conclusion that the facts were tolerably conclusive. He touched Yorke. “Speak the truth, boy,” he said, with a tone that seemed to imply he rather doubted Gerald’s strict adherence to truth at all times and seasons.

Gerald turned crusty. “I don’t know anything about it, sir. Won’t I pummel you for this!” he concluded, in an undertone, to Bywater.

“Besides that, sir,” went on Bywater, pushing Gerald aside with his elbow, as if he were nobody: “Charles Channing, I say, saw something that led him to suspect Gerald Yorke. I am certain he did. I think it likely that he saw him fling the bottle away, after doing the mischief. Yorke knows that I have given him more than one chance to get out of this. If he had only told me in confidence that it was he who did it, whether by accident or mischief, I’d have let it drop.”

“Yorke,” said the master, leaning his face forward and speaking in an undertone, “do you remember what I promised the boy who did this mischief? Not for the feat itself, but for braving me, when I ordered him to speak out, and he would not.”

Yorke grew angry and desperate. “Let it be proved against me, sir, if you please, before you punish. I don’t think even Bywater, rancorous as he is, can prove me guilty.”

At this moment, who should walk forward but Mr. Bill Simms, much to the astonishment of the head-master, and of the school in general. Since Mr. Simms’s confession to the master, touching the trick played on Charles Channing, he had not led the most agreeable of lives. Some of the boys treated him with silent contempt, some worried his life out of him, and all hated him. He could now enjoy a little bit of retaliation on one of them, at any rate.

“Please, sir, the day the surplice was inked, I saw Gerald Yorke come out of the college just before afternoon service, and chuck a broken ink-bottle over into the burial-ground.”

“You saw it!” exclaimed the master, while Gerald turned his livid face, his flashing eye on the young tell-tale.

“Yes, sir. I was in the cloisters, inside one of the niches, and saw it. Charley Channing was in the cloisters, too, but he didn’t see me, and I don’t think Mr. Yorke saw either of us.”

“Why did you not tell me this at the time?”

Mr. Bill Simms stood on his heels and stood on his toes, and pulled his lanky straw-coloured hair, and rubbed his face, ere he spoke. “I was afraid, sir. I knew Mr. Yorke would beat me.”

“Cur!” ejaculated Gerald, below his breath. The head-master turned his eyes upon him.

“Yorke, I—”

A commotion at the door, and Mr. Pye stopped. There burst in a lady with a wide extent of crinoline, but that was not the worst of the bustle. Her cheeks were flushed, her hands lifted, her eyes wild; altogether she was in a state of the utmost excitement. Gerald stared with all his might, and the head-master rose to receive her as she sailed down upon him. It was Lady Augusta Yorke.

CHAPTER LVII. – A GHOST AGAIN

Minds are differently constituted: as was exemplified in the case under our immediate notice. While one of Mr. Galloway’s first thoughts, on the receipt of Roland Yorke’s letter, was to rush round to Lady Augusta’s with the news, half in anger, half in a reproachful humour, Arthur Channing was deliberating how they could contrive to keep it from her. The one was actuated by an angry, the other by a generous spirit.

Mr. Galloway at length concluded his long-delayed dinner that evening. Then he put on his hat, and, with Roland’s letter safe in his pocket, went out again to call on Lady Augusta. It happened, however, that Lady Augusta was not at home.

She had gone to dine at Colonel Joliffe’s, a family who lived some distance from Helstonleigh—necessitating an early departure from home, if she would be in time for their six o’clock dinner-hour. It had thus occurred that when the afternoon’s post arrived, Lady Augusta was in the bustle and hurry of dressing; and Lady Augusta was one of those who are, and must be, in a bustle, even if they are only going to a friendly dinner-party.

Martha was busily assisting, and the cook brought up two letters. “Both for my lady,” she said, giving them to Martha.

“I have no time for letters now,” called out my lady. “Put them into my drawer, Martha.”

Martha did as she was bid, and Lady Augusta departed. She returned home pretty late, and the letters remained in their receptacle untouched.

Of course, to retire to rest late, necessitated, with Lady Augusta Yorke, rising late the next morning. About eleven o’clock she came down to breakfast. A letter on the breakfast-table brought to her remembrance the letters of the previous night, and she sent Martha for them. Looking at their addresses, she perceived one of them to be from Roland; the other from Lord Carrick: and she laid them by her to be opened presently.

“Mr. Galloway called last night, my lady,” observed Martha.

“Oh, did he?” said Lady Augusta.

“He said he wanted to see your ladyship particularly. But I said you were gone to Colonel Joliffe’s.”

Barely had Lady Augusta tasted her coffee, the letters still lying unopened at her side, when William Yorke entered, having just left the cathedral.

“This is a terrible blow, Lady Augusta,” he observed, as he sat down.

“What’s a blow?” returned Lady Augusta. “Will you take some coffee, William?”

“Have you not heard of it?” he replied, declining the coffee with a gesture. “I thought it probable that you would have received news from Roland.”

“A letter arrived from Roland last night,” she said, touching the letter in question. “What is the matter? Is there bad news in it? What! have you heard anything?”

Mr. Yorke had not the slightest doubt that the letter before him must contain the same confession which had been conveyed to Arthur and to Mr. Galloway. He thought it better that she should hear it from him, than read it unprepared. He bent towards her, and spoke in a low tone of compassion.

“I fear that the letter does contain bad news; very bad news, indeed. Ro—”

“Good heavens! what has happened to him?” she interrupted, falling into excitement, just as Roland himself might have done. “Is he ill? Has he got hurt? Is he killed?”

“Now, pray calm yourself, Lady Augusta. Roland is well in health, and has sailed for Port Natal, under what he considers favourable auspices. He—”

“Then why in the world do you come terrifying me out of my wits with your tales, William Yorke?” she broke forth. “I declare you are no better than a child!”

“Nay, Lady Augusta, you terrified yourself, jumping to conclusions. Though Roland is safe and sound, there is still some very disagreeable news to be told concerning him. He has been making a confession of bad behaviour.”

“Oh,” cried Lady Augusta, in a tone which seemed to say, “Is that all?” as if bad behaviour and Roland might have some affinity for each other. William Yorke bent his head nearer, and dropped his voice lower.

“In that mysterious affair of the bank-note, when Arthur Channing was accused—”

“Well? well?” she hastily repeated—for he had made a slight pause—and a tone of dread, as a shadow of evil, might be detected in her accents.

“It was Roland who took the note.”

Lady Augusta jumped up. She would not receive it. “It is not true; it cannot be true!” she reiterated. “How dare you so asperse him, William Yorke? Thoughtless as Roland is, he would not be guilty of dishonour.”

“He has written full particulars both to Arthur Channing and to Mr. Galloway,” said Mr. Yorke, calmly. “I have no doubt that that letter to you also relates to it. He confesses that to clear Arthur was a great motive in taking him from Helstonleigh.”

Lady Augusta seized the letter and tore it open. She was too agitated to read calmly, but she saw enough to convince her that Roland, and no other, had appropriated the money. This must have been the matter he had obscurely hinted at in one of his last conversations with her. The letter was concluded very much after Roland’s own fashion.

“Now, mother, if you care that anything in the shape of honour should ever shine round me again, you’ll go off straight to the college school, and set Tom Channing right with it and with the masters. And if you don’t, and I get drowned on my voyage, I’ll not say but my ghost will come again and haunt every one who has had to do with the injustice.”

Ghosts were not agreeable topics to Lady Augusta, and she gave a shriek at the bare thought. But that was as nothing, compared with her anger. Honourable in the main—hot, hasty, impulsive, losing all judgment, all self-control when these fits of excitement came upon her—it is more than probable that her own course would have been to fly to the college school, unprompted by Roland. A sense of justice was strong within her; and in setting Tom right, she would not spare Roland, her own son though he was.

Before William Yorke knew what she was about, she had flown upstairs, and was down again with her things on. Before he could catch her up, she was across the Boundaries, entering the cloisters, and knocking at the door of the college school.

There she broke in upon that interesting investigation, touching the inked surplice.

Bywater, who seemed to think she had arrived for the sole purpose of setting at rest the question of the phial’s ownership, and not being troubled with any superfluous ideas of circumlocution, eagerly held out the pieces to her when she was yards from his desk. “Do you know this, Lady Augusta? Isn’t it Gerald’s?”

“Yes, it is Gerald’s,” replied she. “He took it out of my desk one day in the summer, though I told him not, and I never could get it back again. Have you been denying that it was yours?” she sternly added to Gerald. “Bad luck to you, then, for a false boy. You are going to take a leaf out of your brother Roland’s pattern, are you? Haven’t I had enough of you bad boys on my hands, but there must something fresh come up about one or the other of you every day that the sun rises? Mr. Pye, I have come by Roland’s wish, and by my own, to set the young Channings right with the school. You took the seniorship from Tom, believing that it was his brother Arthur who robbed Mr. Galloway. Not but that I thought some one else would have had that seniorship, you know!”

In Lady Augusta’s present mood, had any one of her sons committed a murder, she must have proclaimed it, though it had been to condemn him to punishment. She had not come to shield Roland; and she did not care, in her anger, how bad she made him out to be; or whether she did it in Irish or English. The head-master could only look at her with astonishment. He also believed her visit must have reference to the matter in hand.

“It is true, Lady Augusta. But for the suspicion cast upon his brother, Channing would not have lost the seniorship,” said the master, ignoring the hint touching himself.

“And all of ye”—turning round to face the wondering school—“have been ready to fling ye’re stones at Tom Channing, like the badly brought up boys that ye are. I have heard of it. And my two, Gerald and Tod, the worst of ye at the game. You may look, Mr. Tod, but I’ll be after giving ye a jacketing for ye’re pains. Let me tell ye all, that it was not Tom Channing’s brother took the bank-note; it was their brother—Gerald’s and Tod’s! It was my ill-doing boy, Roland, who took it.”