Part 40 (1/2)

”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 m.u.f.f 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 pa.s.sion 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?” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 a.s.sistance. 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 seniors.h.i.+p; 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.”

CHAPTER XLVI.

A LETTER FOR MR. GALLOWAY.

Morning pa.s.sed into afternoon, and afternoon was drawing towards its close. Roland Yorke had contrived to struggle through it, and be still living, in spite of the amount of work which was pressed upon him. Mr. Galloway had put on his spectacles and copied out several pages himself--a thing he rarely attempted. But he had gone out now, and had carried with him some letters to post.

”Yes!” grumbled Roland. ”He can stretch his legs, but he takes good care I shall not stretch mine! Why couldn't he send me with those letters? It's my place to post them: it's not his. Write, write, write! till my fingers are cramped, and my feet have no more feeling in them than the stool has! Why, I wouldn't stop by myself in this horrid, musty, parchmented old place--Oh, it's you, is it?”

This was addressed to the postman, who came in with the afternoon delivery of letters. Two. He handed them to Roland, and departed.

Of course Roland immediately began to scrutinize them: turning them over; critically guessing at the senders; playing with them at pitch and toss--anything to while away the time, and afford him some cessation from his own work. By these means he contrived to pa.s.s five minutes rather agreeably (estimating things by comparison), when Mr. Galloway's servant entered.

”Is my master in, Mr. Roland?”

”Of course he's not,” said Roland. ”He's gone gallivanting somewhere. He has all the pleasure of it, and I have all the work.”

”Will you please to give him this letter, then?” said the man. ”The post has just left it at our house, so I brought it round.”

”What's it brought round here for?” asked Roland.

”Because he ordered it to be done. He said he expected a letter would be delivered at the house by the afternoon post, and if it came I was to bring it to him at once. Good afternoon, sir.”

This little bit of information was quite enough for Roland. He seized the letter, as he had done the others, and subjected it to the same scrutiny. The address was written in a singular hand; in large, print-looking letters. Roland satisfied his curiosity, so far as the outside of the letter could do it, and then rose from his stool and laid the three letters upon Mr. Galloway's desk in his private room.

A short time, and that gentleman entered. ”Anything by the post?” was his first question.

”Two letters, sir,” replied Roland. ”And John brought round one, which was addressed to the house. He said you expected it.”

Mr. Galloway went into his private room. He glanced casually at the addresses on the letters, and then called Roland Yorke. ”Where is the letter John brought round?” he inquired, somewhat testily.

Roland pointed it out. ”That was it, sir.”

”That!” Mr. Galloway bent on it a keener glance, which probably satisfied him that it bore his private address. ”Was this the only one he brought?” added he; and from his manner and words Roland inferred that it was not the letter he had expected.