have you ever observed a large lake on the approach of a sudden storm?—its unnatural stillness, death-like and ominous; its undercurrent of anger not yet apparent on the surface; and then the breaking forth of fury when the storm has come?
not inaptly might the cloisters of helstonleigh be compared to this, that day, when the college boys were let out of school at one o’clock. a strange rumour had been passed about amongst the desks—not reaching that at which sat the seniors—a rumour which shook the equanimity of the school to its centre; and, when one o’clock struck, the boys, instead of clattering out with all the noise of which their legs and lungs were capable, stole down the stairs quietly, and formed into groups of whisperers in the cloisters. it was the calm that precedes a storm.
so unusual a state of affairs was noticed by the senior boy.
“what’s up now?” he asked them, in the phraseology in vogue there and elsewhere. “are you all going to a funeral? i hope it’s your sins that you are about to bury!”
a heavy silence answered him. gaunt could not make it out. the other three seniors, attracted by the scene, came back, and waited with gaunt. by that time the calm was being ruffled by low murmurings, and certain distinct words came from more than one of the groups.
“what do you say?” burst forth tom channing, darting forward as the words caught his ear. “you, jackson! speak up; what is it?”
not jackson’s voice especially, but several other voices arose then; a word from one, a word from another, half sentences, disjointed hints, forming together an unmistakable whole. “the theft of old galloway’s bank-note has been traced to arthur channing.”
“who says it? who dares to say it?” flashed tom, his face flaming, and his hand clenched.
“the police say it. butterby says it.”
“i don’t care for the police; i don’t care for butterby,” cried tom, stamping his foot in his terrible indignation. “i ask, who dares to say it here?”
“i do, then! come, mr. channing, though you are a senior, and can put me up to pye for punishment upon any false plea that you choose,” answered a tall fellow, pierce senior, who was chiefly remarkable for getting into fights, and was just now unusually friendly with mark galloway, at whose desk he sat.
quick as lightning, tom channing turned and faced him. “speak out what you have to say,” cried he; “no hints.”
“whew!” retorted pierce senior, “do you think i am afraid? i say that arthur channing stole the note lost by old galloway.”
tom, in uncontrollable temper, raised his hand and struck him. one half-minute’s struggle, nothing more, and pierce senior was sprawling on the ground, while tom channing’s cheek and nose were bleeding. gaunt had stepped in between them.
“i stop this,” he said. “pierce, get up! don’t lie there like a floundering donkey. channing, what possessed you to forget yourself?”
“you would have done the same, gaunt, had the insult been offered to you. let the fellow retract his words, or prove them.”
“very good. that is how you ought to have met it at first,” said gaunt. “now, mr. pierce, can you make good your assertion?”
pierce had floundered up, and was rubbing one of his long legs, which had doubled under him in the fall, while his brother, pierce junior, was collecting an armful of scattered books, and whispering prognostications of parental vengeance in prospective; for, so surely as pierce senior fell into a fight at school, to the damage of face or clothes, so surely was it followed up by punishment at home.
“if you want proof, go to butterby at the police station, and get it from him,” sullenly replied pierce, who owned a sulky temper as well as a pugnacious one.
“look here,” interrupted mark galloway, springing to the front: “pierce was a fool to bring it out in that way, but i’ll speak up now it has come to this. i went into my uncle’s, this morning, at nine o’clock, and there was he, shut in with butterby. butterby was saying that there was no doubt the theft had been committed by arthur channing. mind, channing,” mark added, turning to tom, “i am not seconding the accusation on my own score; but, that butterby said it i’ll declare.”
“pshaw! is that all?” cried tom channing, lifting his head with a haughty gesture, and not condescending to notice the blood which trickled from his cheek. “you must have misunderstood him, boy.”
“no, i did not,” replied mark galloway. “i heard him as plainly as i hear you now.”
“it is hardly likely that butterby would say that before you, galloway,” observed gaunt.
“ah, but he didn’t see i was there, or my uncle either,” said mark. “when he is reading his newspaper of a morning, he can’t bear a noise, and i always go into the room as quiet as mischief. he turned me out again pretty quick, i can tell you; but not till i had heard butterby say that.”
“you must have misunderstood him,” returned gaunt, carelessly taking up tom channing’s notion; “and you had no right to blurt out such a thing to the school. arthur channing is better known and trusted than you, mr. mark.”
“i didn’t accuse arthur channing to the school. i only repeated to my desk what butterby said.”
“it is that ‘only repeating’ which does three parts of the mischief in this world,” said gaunt, giving the boys a little touch of morality gratis, to their intense edification. “as to you, pierce senior, you’ll get more than you bargain for, some of these days, if you poke your ill-conditioned nose so often into other people’s business.”
tom channing had marched away towards his home, head erect, his step ringing firmly and proudly on the cloister flags. charley ran by his side. but charley’s face was white, and tom caught sight of it.
“what are you looking like that for?”
“tom! you don’t think it’s true, do you?”
tom turned his scorn upon the boy. “you little idiot! true! a channing turn thief! you may, perhaps—it’s best known to yourself—but never arthur.”
“i don’t mean that. i mean, can it be true that the police suspect him?”
“oh! that’s what your face becomes milky for? you ought to have been born a girl, miss charley. if the police do suspect him, what of that?—they’ll only have the tables turned upon themselves, butterby might come out and say he suspects me of murder! should i care? no; i’d prove my innocence, and make him eat his words.”
they were drawing near home. charley looked up at his brother. “you must wipe your face, tom.”
tom took out his handkerchief, and gave his face a rub. in his indignation, his carelessness, he would have done nothing of the sort, had he not been reminded by the boy. “is it off?”
“yes, it’s off. i am not sure but it will break out again. you must take care.”
“oh, bother! let it. i should like to have polished off that pierce senior as he deserves. a little coin of the same sort would do galloway no harm. were i senior of the school, and arthur not my brother, mr. mark should hear a little home truth about sneaks. i’ll tell it him in private, as it is; but i can’t put him up for punishment, or act in it as gaunt could.”
“arthur is our brother, therefore we feel it more pointedly than gaunt,” sensibly remarked charley.
“i’d advise you not to spell forth that sentimental rubbish, though you are a young lady,” retorted tom. “a senior boy, if he does his duty, should make every boy’s cause his own, and ‘feel’ for him.”
“tom,” said the younger and more thoughtful of the two, “don’t let us say anything of this at home.”
“why not?” asked tom, hotly. he would have run in open-mouthed.
“it would pain mamma to hear it.”
“boy! do you suppose she would fear arthur?”
“you seem to misconstrue all i say, tom. of course she would not fear him—you did not fear him; but it stung you, i know, as was proved by your knocking down pierce.”
“well, i won’t speak of it before her,” conciliated tom, somewhat won over, “or before my father, either; but catch me keeping it from the rest.”
as charles had partially foretold, they had barely entered, when tom’s face again became ornamented with crimson. annabel shrieked out, startling mr. channing on his sofa. mrs. channing, as it happened, was not present; constance was: lady augusta yorke and her daughters were spending part of the day in the country, therefore constance had come home at twelve.
“look at tom’s face!” cried the child. “what has he been doing?”
“hold your tongue, little stupid,” returned tom, hastily bringing his handkerchief into use again; which, being a white one, made the worse exhibition of the two, with its bright red stains. “it’s nothing but a scratch.”
but annabel’s eyes were sharp, and she had taken in full view of the hurt. “tom, you have been fighting! i am sure of it!”
“come to me, tom,” said mr. channing. “have you been fighting?” he demanded, as tom crossed the room in obedience, and stood close to him. “take your handkerchief away, that i may see your face.”
“it could not be called a fight, papa,” said tom, holding his cheek so that the light from the window fell full upon the hurt. “one of the boys offended me; i hit him, and he gave me this; then i knocked him down, and there it ended. it’s only a scratch.”
“thomas, was this christian conduct?”
“i don’t know, papa. it was schoolboy’s.”
mr. channing could not forbear a smile. “i know it was a schoolboy’s conduct; that is bad enough: and it is my son’s, that is worse.”
“if i had given him what he deserved, he would have had ten times as much; and perhaps i should, for my temper was up, only gaunt put in his interference. when i am senior, my rule will be different from gaunt’s.”
“ah, tom! your ‘temper up!’ it is that temper of yours which brings you harm. what was the quarrel about?”
“i would rather not tell you, papa. not for my own sake,” he added, turning his honest eyes fearlessly on his father; “but i could not tell it without betraying something about somebody, which it may be as well to keep in.”
“after that lucid explanation, you had better go and get some warm water for your face,” said mr. channing. “i will speak with you later.”
constance followed him from the room, volunteering to procure the warm water. they were standing in tom’s chamber afterwards, tom bathing his face, and constance looking on, when arthur, who had then come in from mr. galloway’s, passed by to his own room.
“hallo!” he called out; “what’s the matter, tom?”
“such a row!” answered tom. “and i wish i could have pitched into pierce senior as i’d have liked. what do you think, arthur? the school were taking up the notion that you—you!—had stolen old galloway’s bank-note. pierce senior set it afloat; that is, he and mark galloway together. mark said a word, and pierce said two, and so it went on. i should have paid pierce out, but for gaunt.”
a silence. it was filled up by the sound of tom splashing the water on his face, and by that only. arthur spoke presently, his tone so calm a one as almost to be unnatural.
“how did the notion arise?”
“mark galloway said he heard butterby talking with his uncle; that butterby said the theft could only have been committed by arthur channing. mark galloway’s ears must have played him false; but it was a regular sneak’s trick to come and repeat it to the school. i say, constance, is my face clean now?”
constance woke up from a reverie to look at his face. “quite clean,” she answered.
he dried it, dried his hands, gave a glance at his shirt-front in the glass, which had, however, escaped damage, brushed his hair, and went downstairs. arthur closed the door and turned to constance. her eyes were seeking his, and her lips stood apart. the terrible fear which had fallen upon both the previous day had not yet been spoken out between them. it must be spoken now.
“constance, there is tribulation before us,” he whispered. “we must school ourselves to bear it, however difficult the task may prove. whatever betide the rest of us, suspicion must be averted from him.”
“what tribulation do you mean?” she murmured.
“the affair has been placed in the hands of the police; and i believe—i believe,” arthur spoke with agitation, “that they will publicly investigate it. constance, they suspect me. the college school is right, and tom is wrong.”
constance leaned against a chest of drawers to steady herself, and pressed her hand upon her shrinking face. “how have you learnt it?”
“i have gathered it from different trifles; one fact and another. jenkins said butterby was with him this morning, asking questions about me. better that i should be suspected than hamish. god help me to bear it!”
“but it is so unjust that you should suffer for him.”
“were it traced home to him, it might be the whole family’s ruin, for my father would inevitably lose his post. he might lose it were only suspicion to stray to hamish. there is no alternative. i must screen him. can you be firm, constance, when you see me accused?”
constance leaned her head upon her hand, wondering whether she could be firm in the cause. but that she knew where to go for strength, she might have doubted it; for the love of right, the principles of justice were strong within her. “oh, what could possess him?” she uttered, wringing her hands; “what could possess him? arthur, is there no loophole, not the faintest loophole for hope of his innocence?”
“none that i see. no one whatever had access to the letter but hamish and i. he must have yielded to the temptation in a moment of delirium, knowing the money would clear him from some of his pressing debts—as it has done.”
“how could he brave the risk of detection?”
“i don’t know. my head aches, pondering over it. i suppose he concluded that suspicion would fall upon the post-office. it would have done so, but for that seal placed on the letter afterwards. what an unfortunate thing it was, that roland yorke mentioned there was money inside the letter in the hearing of hamish!”
“did he mention it?” exclaimed constance.
he said there was a twenty-pound note in the letter, going to the cousin galloway, and hamish remarked that he wished it was going into his pocket instead. “i wish” arthur uttered, in a sort of frenzy, “i had locked the letter up there and then.”
constance clasped her hands in pain. “i fear he may have been going wrong for some time,” she breathed. “it has come to my knowledge, through judith, that he sits up for hours night after night, doing something to the books. arthur,” she shivered, glancing fearfully round, “i hope those accounts are right?”
the doubt thus given utterance to, blanched even the cheeks of arthur. “sits up at the books!” he exclaimed.
“he sits up, that is certain; and at the books, as i conclude. he takes them into his room at night. it may only be that he has not time, or does not make time, to go over them in the day. it may be so.”
“i trust it is; i pray it may be. mind you, constance, our duty is plain: we must screen him; screen him at any sacrifice to ourselves, for the father and mother’s sake.”
“sacrifice to you, you ought to say. what were our other light troubles, compared with this? arthur, will they publicly accuse you?”
“it may come to that; i have been steeling myself all the morning to meet it.”
he looked into her face as he said it. constance could see how his brow and heart were aching. at that moment they were called to dinner, and arthur turned to leave the room. constance caught his hand, the tears raining from her eyes.
“arthur,” she whispered, “in the very darkest trouble, god can comfort us. be assured he will comfort you.”
hamish did not make his appearance at dinner, and they sat down without him. this was not so very unusual as to cause surprise; he was occasionally detained at the office.
the meal was about half over, when annabel, in her disregard of the bounds of discipline, suddenly started from her seat and flew to the window.
“charley, there are two policemen coming here! whatever can they want?”
“perhaps to take you,” said mrs. channing, jestingly. “a short sojourn at the tread-mill might be of great service to you, annabel.”
the announcement had struck upon the ear and memory of tom. “policemen!” he exclaimed, standing up in his place, and stretching his neck to obtain a view of them. “why—it never can be that—old butterby—arthur, what ails you?”
a sensitive, refined nature, whether implanted in man or woman, is almost sure to betray its emotions on the countenance. such a nature was arthur channing’s. now that the dread had really come, every drop of blood forsook his cheeks and lips, leaving his face altogether of a deathly whiteness. he was utterly unable to control or help this, and it was this pallor which had given rise to tom’s concluding exclamation.
mr. channing looked at arthur, mrs. channing looked at him; they all looked at him, except constance, and she bent her head lower over her plate, to hide, as she best might, her own white face and its shrinking terror. “are you ill, arthur?” inquired his father.
a low brief reply came; one struggling for calmness. “no, sir.”
impetuous tom, forgetting caution, forgetting all except the moment actually present, gave utterance to more than was prudent. “arthur, you are never fearing what those wretched schoolboys said? the police are not come to arrest you. butterby wouldn’t be such a fool!”
but the police were in the hall, and judith had come to the dining-room door. “master arthur, you are wanted, please.”
“what is all this?” exclaimed mr. channing in astonishment, gazing from tom to arthur, from arthur to the vision of the blue official dress, a glimpse of which he could catch beyond judith. tom took up the answer.
“it’s nothing, papa. it’s a trick they are playing for fun, i’ll lay. they can’t really suspect arthur of stealing the bank-note, you know. they’ll never dare to take him up, as they take a felon.”
charley stole round to arthur with a wailing cry, and threw his arms round him—as if their weak protection could retain him in its shelter. arthur gently unwound them, and bent down till his lips touched the yearning face held up to him in its anguish.
“charley, boy, i am innocent,” he breathed in the boy’s ear. “you won’t doubt that, i know. don’t keep me. they have come for me, and i must go with them.”
