Part 46 (1/2)
”Of course I have, sir; until”--Arthur spoke very distinctly--you shall be able to suit yourself; not longer.”
”Then take this paper round to Deering's office, and get it signed. You will have time to do it before college.”
Arthur's answer was to put on his hat, and vault away with the paper. Jenkins turned to Mr. Galloway as soon as they were alone. ”Oh, sir, keep him in your office!” he earnestly said. ”He will soon be of more value to you than I have ever been!”
”That he will not, Jenkins. Nor any one else.”
”Yes, he will, sir! He will be able to replace you in the chapter house upon any emergency, and I never could do that, you know, sir, not being a gentleman. When you have him to yourself alone, sir, you will see his value; and I shall not be missed. He is steady and thoughtful beyond his years, sir, and every day will make him older.”
You forget the charge against him, Jenkins. Until he shall be cleared of that--if he can be cleared of it--he will not be of great value to any one; certainly not to me.”
”Sir,” said Jenkins, raising his wan face, its hectic deepening, find his eye lighting, while his voice sunk to a whisper, so deep as to savour of solemnity, ”that time will come! He never did it, and he will as surely be cleared, as that I am now saying it! Sir, I have thought much about this accusation; it has troubled me in sleep; but I know that G.o.d will bring the right to light for those who trust in Him. If any one ever trusted in G.o.d, it is Mr. Arthur Channing. I lie and think of all this, sir. I seem to be so near G.o.d, now,” Jenkins went on dreamily, ”that I know the right must come to light; that it will come in G.o.d's own good time. And I believe I shall live to see it!”
”You have certainly firm faith in his innocence, Jenkins. How then do you account for his very suspicious manner?”
”It does not weigh with me, sir. I could as soon believe a good wholesome apple-tree would bring forth poison, as that Mr. Arthur would be guilty of a deliberately bad action. Sometimes I have thought, sir, when puzzling over it, that he may be screening another. There's no telling how it was. I hear, sir, that the money has been returned to you.”
”Yes. Was it he who told you?”
”It was Mr. Roland Yorke who told me, sir. Mr. Roland is another, sir, who has had firm faith in his innocence from the first.”
”Much his faith goes for!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Galloway, as he came back from his private room with a letter, which he handed to Jenkins, who was skilled in caligraphy. ”What do you make of it?” he asked. ”It is the letter which came with the returned money.”
”It is a disguised hand, sir--there's no doubt of that,” replied Jenkins, when he had surveyed it critically. ”I do not remember to have seen any person write like it.”
Mr. Galloway took it back to his room, and presently a fly drove up with Mrs. Jenkins inside it. Jenkins stood at the office door, hat in hand, his face turned upon the room. Mrs. Jenkins came up and seized his arm, to marshal him to the fly.
”I was but taking a farewell of things, sir,” he observed to Mr. Galloway. ”I shall never see the old spot again.”
Arthur arrived just as Jenkins was safely in. He put his hand over the door. ”Make yourself easy, Jenkins; it will all go on smoothly here. Good-bye, old fellow! I'll come and see you very soon.”
”How he breaks, does he not, sir?” exclaimed Arthur to Mr. Galloway.
”Ay! he's not long for this world!”
The fly proceeded on its way; Mrs. Jenkins, with her snappish manner, though really not unkind heart, lecturing Jenkins on his various shortcomings until it drew up at their own door. As Jenkins was being helped down from it, one of the college boys pa.s.sed at a great speed; a railroad was nothing to it. It was Stephen Bywater. Something, legitimate or illegitimate, had detained him, and now the college bell was going.
He caught sight of Jenkins, and, hurried as he was, much of punishment as he was bargaining for, it had such an effect upon him, that he pulled up short. Was it Jenkins, or his ghost? Bywater had never been so struck with any sight before.
The most appropriate way in which it occurred to him to give vent to his surprise, was to prop his back against the shop door, and indulge in a soft, prolonged whistle. He could not take his eyes from Jenkins's face. ”Is it you, or your shadow, Jenkins?” he asked, making room for the invalid to pa.s.s.
”It's myself, sir, thank you. I hope you are well, sir.”
”Oh, I'm always jolly,” replied Bywater, and then he began to whistle again.
He followed Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins into the shop with his eyes; that is, they followed Jenkins. Bywater had heard, as a matter of necessity, of Jenkins's illness, and had given as much thought to it as he would have done if told Jenkins had a headache; but to fancy him like this had never occurred to Bywater.
Now somewhere beneath Bywater's waistcoat, there really was a little bit of heart; and, as he thus looked, a great fear began to thump against it. He followed Jenkins into the parlour. Mrs. Jenkins, after divesting Jenkins of his coat, and her boa, planted him right before the fire in his easy-chair, with a pillow at his back, and was now whisking down into the kitchen, regardless of certain customers waiting in the shop to be served.
Bywater, unasked, sat himself in a chair near to poor Jenkins and his panting breath, and indulged in another long stare. ”I say, Jenkins,” said he, ”what's the matter with you?”
Jenkins took the question literally. ”I believe it may be called a sort of decline, sir. I don't know any other name for it.”
”Shan't you get well?”
”Oh no, sir! I don't look for that, now.”
The fear thumped at Bywater's heart worse than before. A past vision of locking up old Ketch in the cloisters, through which pastime Jenkins had come to a certain fall, was uncomfortably present to Bywater just then. He had been the ringleader.
”What brought it on?” asked he.
”Well, sir, I suppose it was to come,” meekly replied Jenkins. ”I have had a bad cough, spring and autumn, for a long while now, Master Bywater. My brother went off just the same, sir, and so did my mother.”
Bywater pushed his honest, red face, forward; but it did not look quite so impudent as usual. ”Jenkins,” said he, plunging headlong into the fear, ”DID--THAT--FALL--DO--IT?”
”Fall, sir! What fall?”
”That fall down from the organ loft. Because that was my fault. I had the most to do with locking up the cloisters, that night.”
”Oh, bless you, sir, no! Never think that. Master Bywater”--lowering his voice till it was as grave as Bywater's--”that fall did me good--good, sir, instead of harm.”
”How do you make out that?” asked Bywater, drawing his breath a little easier.
”Because, sir, in the few days' quiet that I had in bed, my thoughts seemed in an unaccountable manner to be drawn to thinking of heaven. I can't rightly describe, sir, how or why it could have been. I remember his lords.h.i.+p, the bishop, talked to me a little bit in his pleasant, affable way, about the necessity of always, being prepared; and my wife's Bible lay on the drawers by my bed's head, and I used to pick up that. But I don't think it was either of those causes much; I believe, sir, that it was G.o.d Himself working in my heart. I believe He sent the fall in His mercy. After I got up, I seemed to know that I should soon go to Him; and--I hope it is not wrong to say it--I seemed to wish to go.”
Bywater felt somewhat puzzled. ”I am not speaking about your heart and religion, and all that, Jenkins. I want to know if the fall helped to bring on this illness?”
”No, sir; it had nothing to do with it. The fall hurt my head a little--nothing more; and I got well from it directly. This illness, which has been taking me off, must have been born with me.”
”Hoo--” Bywater's shout, as he tossed up his trencher, was broken in upon by Mrs. Jenkins. She had been beating up an egg with sugar and wine, and now brought it in in a tumbler.
”My dear,” said Jenkins, ”I don't feel to want it.”
”Not want it!” said Mrs. Jenkins resolutely. And in two seconds she had taken hold of him, and it was down his throat. ”I can't stop parleying here all day, with my shop full of customers.” Bywater laughed, and she retreated.
”If I could eat gold, sir, she'd get it for me,” said Jenkins; ”but my appet.i.te fails. She's a good wife, Master Bywater.”
”Stunning,” acquiesced Bywater. ”I wouldn't mind a wife myself, if she'd feed me up with eggs and wine.”
”But for her care, sir, I should not have lasted so long. She has had great experience with the sick.”
Bywater did not answer. Rising to go, his eyes had fixed themselves upon some object on the mantelpiece as pertinaciously as they had previously been fixed upon Jenkins's face. ”I say, Jenkins, where did you get this?” he exclaimed.
”That, sir? Oh, I remember. My old father brought it in yesterday. He had cut his hand with it. Where now did he say he found it? In the college burial-ground, I think, Master Bywater.”
It was part of a small broken phial, of a peculiar shape, which had once apparently contained ink; an elegant shape, it may be said, not unlike a vase. Bywater began turning it about in his fingers; he was literally feasting his eyes upon it.