arthur channing had been walking leisurely down close street. time hung heavily on his hands. in leaving the cathedral after morning service, he had joined mr. harper, the lay clerk, and went with him, talking, towards the town; partly because he had nothing to do elsewhere—partly because out of doors appeared more desirable than home. in the uncertain state of suspense they were kept in, respecting charles, the minds of all, from hamish down to annabel, were in a constant state of unrest. when they rose in the morning the first thought was, “shall we hear of charles to-day?” when they retired at bedtime, “what may not the river give up this night?” it appeared to them that they were continually expecting tidings of some sort or other; and, with this expectation, hope would sometimes mingle itself.
hope; where could it spring from? the only faint suspicion of it, indulged at first, that charley had been rescued in some providential manner, and conveyed to a house of shelter, had had time to die out. a few houses there were, half-concealed near the river, as there are near to most other rivers of traffic, which the police trusted just as far as they could see, and whose inmates did not boast of shining reputations; but the police had overhauled these thoroughly, and found no trace of charley. nor was it likely that they would conceal a child. so long as charles’s positive fate remained a mystery, suspense could not cease; and with this suspense there did mingle some faint glimmer of hope. suspense leads to exertion; inaction is intolerable to it. hamish, arthur, tom, all would rather be out of doors now, than in; there might be something to be heard of, some information to be gathered, and looking after it was better than staying at home to wait for it. no wonder, then, that arthur channing’s steps would bend unconsciously towards the town, when he left the cathedral, morning and afternoon.
it was in passing mr. galloway’s office, the window of which stood wide open, that arthur had found himself called to by roland yorke.
“what is it?” he asked, halting at the window.
“you are the very chap i wanted to see,” cried roland. “come in! don’t be afraid of meeting galloway: he’s off somewhere.”
the prospect of meeting mr. galloway would not have prevented arthur from entering. he was conscious of no wrong, and he did not shrink as though he had committed one. he went in, and mr. harper proceeded on his way.
“here’s a go!” was roland’s salutation. “jenkins is laid up.” it was nothing but what arthur had expected. he, like mr. galloway, had observed jenkins growing ill and more ill. “how shall you manage without him?” asked arthur; mr. galloway’s dilemma being the first thing that occurred to his mind.
“who’s to know?” answered roland, who was in an explosive temper. “i don’t. if galloway thinks to put it all on my back, it’s a scandalous shame! i never could do it, or the half of it. jenkins worked like a horse when we were busy. he’d hang his head down over his desk, and never lift it for two hours at a stretch!—you know he would not. fancy my doing that! i should get brain fever before a week was out.”
arthur smiled at this. “is jenkins much worse?” he inquired.
“i don’t believe he’s worse at all,” returned roland, tartly. “he’d have come this morning, as usual, fast enough, only she locked up his clothes.”
“who?” said arthur, in surprise.
“she. that agreeable lady who has the felicity of owning jenkins. she was here this morning as large as life, giving an account of her doings, without a blush. she locked up his things, she says, to keep him in bed. i’d be even with her, i know, were i jenkins. i’d put on her flounces, but what i’d come out, if i wanted to. rather short they’d be for him, though.”
“i shall go, roland. my being here only hinders you.”
“as if that made any difference worth counting! look here!—piles and piles of parchments! i and galloway could never get through them, hindered or not hindered. i am not going to work over hours! i won’t kill myself with hard labour. there’s port natal, thank goodness, if the screw does get put upon me too much!”
arthur did not reply. it made little difference to roland: whether encouraged or not, talk he would.
“i have heard of folks being worked beyond their strength; and that will be my case, if one may judge by present appearances. it’s too bad of jenkins!”
arthur spoke up: he did not like to hear blame, even from roland yorke, cast upon patient, hard-working jenkins. “you should not say it, roland. it is not jenkins’s fault.”
“it is his fault. what does he have such a wife for? she keeps jenkins under her thumb, just as galloway keeps me. she locked up his clothes, and then told him he might come here without them, if he liked: my belief is, she’ll be sending him so, some day. jenkins ought to put her down. he’s big enough.”
“he would be sure to come here, if he were equal to it,” said arthur.
“he! of course he would!” angrily retorted roland. “he’d crawl here on all fours, but what he’d come; only she won’t let him. she knows it too. she said this morning that he’d come when he was in his coffin! i should like to see it arrive!”
arthur had been casting a glance at the papers. they were unusually numerous, and he began to think with roland that he and mr. galloway would not be able to get through them unaided. most certainly they would not, at roland’s present rate of work. “it is a pity you are not a quick copyist,” he said.
“i dare say it is!” sarcastically rejoined roland, beginning to play at ball with the wafer-box. “i never was made for work; and if—”
“you will have to do it, though, sir,” thundered mr. galloway, who had come up, and was enjoying a survey of affairs through the open window. mr. roland, somewhat taken to, dropped his head and the wafer-box together, and went on with his writing as meekly as poor jenkins would have done; and mr. galloway entered.
“good day,” said he to arthur, shortly enough.
“good day, sir,” was the response. mr. galloway turned to his idle clerk.
“roland yorke, you must either work or say you will not. there is no time for playing and fooling; no time, sir! do you hear? who put that window stark staring open?”
“i did, sir,” said incorrigible roland. “i thought the office might be the better for a little air, when there was so much to do in it.”
mr. galloway shut it with a bang. arthur, who would not leave without some attempt at a passing courtesy, let it be ever so slight, made a remark to mr. galloway, that he was sorry to hear jenkins was worse.
“he is so much worse,” was the response of mr. galloway, spoken sharply, for the edification of roland yorke, “that i doubt whether he will ever enter this room again. yes, sir, you may look; but it is the truth!”
roland did look, looked with considerable consternation. “how on earth will the work get done, then?” he muttered. with all his grumbling, he had not contemplated jenkins being away more than a day or two.
“i do not know how it will get done, considering that the clerk upon whom i have to depend is roland yorke,” answered mr. galloway, with severity. “one thing appears pretty evident, that jenkins will not be able to help to do it.”
mr. galloway, more perplexed at the news brought by mrs. jenkins than he had allowed to appear (for, although he chose to make a show of depending upon roland, he knew how much dependence there was in reality to be placed upon him—none knew better), had deemed it advisable to see jenkins personally, and judge for himself of his state of health. accordingly, he proceeded thither, and arrived at an inopportune moment for his hopes. jenkins was just recovering from a second fainting fit, and appeared altogether so ill, so debilitated, that mr. galloway was struck with dismay. there would be no more work from jenkins—as he believed—for him. he mentioned this now in his own office, and roland received it with blank consternation.
an impulse came to arthur, and he spoke upon it. “if i can be of any use to you, sir, in this emergency, you have only to command me.”
“what sort of use?” asked mr. galloway.
arthur pointed to the parchments. “i could draw out these deeds, and any others that may follow them. my time is my own, sir, except the two hours devoted to the cathedral, and i am at a loss how to occupy it. i have been idle ever since i left you.”
“why don’t you get into an office?” said mr. galloway.
arthur’s colour deepened. “because, sir, no one will take me.”
“ah!” said mr. galloway, drily, “a good name is easier lost than won.”
“yes, it is,” freely replied arthur. “however, sir, to return to the question. i shall be glad to help you, if you have no one better at hand. i could devote several hours a day to it, and you know that i am thoroughly to be trusted with the work. i might take some home now.”
“home!” returned mr. galloway. “did you mean that you could do it at home?”
“certainly, sir; i did not think of doing it here,” was the pointed reply of arthur. “i can do it at home just as well as i could here; perhaps better, for i should shut myself up alone, and there would be nothing to interrupt me, or to draw off my attention.”
it cannot be denied that this was a most welcome proposition to mr. galloway; indeed, his thoughts had turned to arthur from the first. arthur would be far better than a strange clerk, looked for and brought in on the spur of the moment—one who might answer well or answer badly, according to chance. yet that such must have been his resource, mr. galloway knew.
“it will be an accommodation to me, your taking part of the work,” he frankly said. “but you had better come to the office and do it.”
“no, sir; i would rather—”
“do, channing!” cried out roland yorke, springing up as if he were electrified. “the office will be bearable if you come back again.”
“i would prefer to do it at home, sir,” continued arthur to mr. galloway, while that gentleman pointed imperiously to yorke, as a hint to him to hold his tongue and mind his own business.
“you may come back here and do it,” said mr. galloway.
“thank you, i cannot come back,” was the reply of arthur.
“of course you can’t!” said angry roland, who cared less for mr. galloway’s displeasure than he did for displaying his own feelings when they were aroused. “you won’t, you mean! i’d not show myself such a duffer as you, channing, if i were paid for it in gold!”
“you’ll get paid in something, presently, roland yorke, but it won’t be in gold!” reproved mr. galloway. “you will do a full day’s work to-day, sir, if you stop here till twelve o’clock at night.”
“oh, of course i expect to do that, sir,” retorted roland, tartly. “considering what’s before me, on this desk and on jenkins’s, there’s little prospect of my getting home on this side four in the morning. they needn’t sit up for me—i can go in with the milk. i wonder who invented writing? i wish i had the fingering of him just now!”
arthur turned to the parchments. he was almost as much at home with them as jenkins. mr. galloway selected two that were most pressing, and gave them to him, with the requisite materials for copying. “you will keep them secure, you know,” he remarked.
“perfectly so, sir; i shall sit quite alone.”
he carried them off with alacrity. mr. galloway’s face cleared as he looked after him, and he made a remark aloud, expressive of his satisfaction. “there’s some pleasure in giving out work when you know it will be done. no play—no dilatoriness—finished to the minute that it’s looked for! you should take a leaf out of his book, yorke.”
“yes, sir,” freely answered roland. “when you drove arthur channing out of this office, you parted with the best clerk you ever had. jenkins is all very well for work, but he is nothing but a muff in other things. arthur’s a gentleman, and he’d have served you well. jenkins himself says so. he is honourable, he is honest, he—”
“i know enough of your sentiments with respect to his honesty,” interrupted mr. galloway. “we need not go over that tale again.”
“i hope every one knows them,” rejoined roland. “i have never concealed my opinion that the accusation was infamous; that, of all of us in this office, from its head down to jenkins, none was less likely to finger the note than arthur channing. but of course my opinion goes for nothing.”
“you are bold, young man.”
“i fear it is my nature to be so,” cried roland. “if it should ever turn up how the note went, you’ll be sorry, no doubt, for having visited it upon arthur. mr. channing will be sorry; the precious magistrates will be sorry; that blessed dean, who wanted to turn him from the college, will be sorry. not a soul of them but believes him guilty; and i hope they’ll be brought to repentance for it, in sackcloth and ashes.”
“go on with your work,” said mr. galloway, angrily.
roland made a show of obeying. but his tongue was like a steam-engine: once set going, it couldn’t readily be stopped, and he presently looked up again.
“i am not uncharitable: at least, to individuals. i always said the post-office helped itself to the note, and i’d lay my last half-crown upon it. but there are people in the town who think it could only have gone in another way. you’d go into a passion with me, sir, perhaps, if i mentioned it.”
mr. galloway—it has been before mentioned that he possessed an unbounded amount of curiosity, and also a propensity to gossip—so far forgot the force of good example as to ask roland what he meant. roland wanted no further encouragement.
“well, sir, there are people who, weighing well all the probabilities of the case, have come to the conclusion that the note could only have been abstracted from the letter by the person to whom it was addressed. none but he broke the seal of it.”
“do you allude to my cousin, mr. robert galloway?” ejaculated mr. galloway, as soon as indignation and breath allowed him to speak.
“others do,” said roland. “i say it was the post-office.”
“how dare you repeat so insolent a suspicion to my face, roland yorke?”
“i said i should catch it!” cried roland, speaking partly to himself. “i am sure to get in for it, one way or another, do what i will. it’s not my fault, sir, if i have heard it whispered in the town.”
“apply yourself to your work, sir, and hold your tongue. if you say another word, roland yorke, i shall feel inclined also to turn you away, as one idle and incorrigible, of whom nothing can be made.”
“wouldn’t it be a jolly excuse for port natal!” exclaimed roland, but not in the hearing of his master, who had gone into his own room in much wrath. roland laughed aloud; there was nothing he enjoyed so much as to be in opposition to mr. galloway; it had been better for the advancement of that gentleman’s work, had he habitually kept a tighter rein over his pupil. it was perfectly true, however, that the new phase of suspicion, regarding the loss of the note, had been spoken of in the town, and roland only repeated what he had heard.
apparently, mr. galloway did not like this gratuitous suggestion. he presently came back again. a paper was in his hand, and he began comparing it with one on roland’s desk. “where did you hear that unjustifiable piece of scandal?” he inquired, as he was doing it.
“the first person i heard speak of it was my mother, sir. she came home one day from calling upon people, and said she had heard it somewhere. and it was talked of at knivett’s last night. he had a bachelors’ party, and the subject was brought up. some of us ridiculed the notion; others thought it might have grounds.”
“and pray, which did you favour?” sarcastically asked mr. galloway.
“i? i said then, as i have said all along, that there was no one to thank for it but the post-office. if you ask me, sir, who first set the notion afloat in the town, i cannot satisfy you. all i know is, the rumour is circulating.”
“if i could discover the primary author of it, i would take legal proceedings against him,” warmly concluded mr. galloway.
“i’d help,” said undaunted roland. “some fun might arise out of that.”
mr. galloway carried the probate of a will to his room, and sat down to examine it. but his thoughts were elsewhere. this suspicion, mentioned by roland yorke, had laid hold of his mind most unpleasantly, in spite of his show of indignation before roland. he had no reason to think his cousin otherwise than honest; it was next to impossible to suppose he could be guilty of playing him such a trick; but somehow mr. galloway could not feel so sure upon the point as he would have wished. his cousin was a needy man—one who had made ducks and drakes of his own property, and was for ever appealing to mr. galloway for assistance. mr. galloway did not shut his eyes to the fact that if this should have been the case, robert galloway had had forty pounds from him instead of twenty—a great help to a man at his wits’ ends for money. he had forwarded a second twenty-pound note, upon receiving information of the loss of the first. what he most disliked, looking at it from this point of view, was, not the feeling that he had been cleverly deceived and laughed at, but that arthur channing should have suffered unjustly. if the lad was innocent, why, how cruel had been his own conduct towards him! but with these doubts came back the remembrance of arthur’s unsatisfactory behaviour with respect to the loss; his non-denial; his apparent guilt; his strange shrinking from investigation. busy as mr. galloway was, that day, he could not confine his thoughts to his business. he would willingly have given another twenty-pound note out of his pocket to know, beyond doubt, whether or not arthur was guilty.
arthur, meanwhile, had commenced his task. he took possession of the study, where he was secure from interruption, and applied himself diligently to it. how still the house seemed! how still it had seemed since the loss of charles! even annabel and tom were wont to hush their voices; ever listening, as it were, for tidings to be brought of him. excepting the two servants, arthur was alone in it. hamish was abroad, at his office; constance and annabel were at lady augusta’s; tom was in school; and charles was not. judith’s voice would be heard now and then, wafted from the kitchen regions, directing or reproving sarah; but there was no other sound. arthur thought of the old days when the sun had shone; when he was free and upright in the sight of men; when constance was happy in her future prospects of wedded life; when tom looked forth certainly to the seniorship; when charley’s sweet voice and sweeter face might be seen and heard; when hamish—oh, bitter thought, of all!—when hamish had not fallen from his pedestal. it had all changed—changed to darkness and to gloom; and arthur may be pardoned for feeling gloomy with it. but in the very midst of this gloom, there arose suddenly, without effort of his, certain words spoken by the sweet singer of israel; and arthur knew that he had but to trust to them:—
“for his wrath endureth but the twinkling of an eye, and in his pleasure is life; heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
