The Channings: A Story

by Mrs. Henry Wood

CHAPTER XXV. — A MORNING CALL.

You may possibly be blaming Arthur Channing for meeting this trouble in so sad a spirit. Were such an accusation cast unjustly upon you, you would throw it off impatiently, and stand up for yourself and your innocence in the broad light of day. Even were you debarred, as he was, from speaking out the whole truth, you would never be cast down to that desponding depth, and thereby give a colouring to the doubt cast upon you. Are you thinking this? But you must remember that it was not for himself that Arthur was so weighed down. Had he possessed no conception as to how the note went, he would have met the charge very differently, bearing himself bravely, and flinging their suspicion to the winds. “You people cannot think me guilty,” he might have said; “my whole previous life is a refutation to the charge.” He would have held up his head and heart cheerfully; waiting, and looking for the time when elucidation should come.

No; his grief, his despondency were felt for Hamish. If Arthur Channing had cherished faith in one living being more than in another, it was in his elder brother. He loved him with a lasting love, he revered him as few revere a brother; and the shock was great. He would far rather have fallen down to guilt himself, than that Hamish should have fallen. Tom Channing had said, with reference to Arthur, that, if he were guilty, he should never believe in anything again; they might tell him that the cathedral was a myth, and not a cathedral, and he should not be surprised. This sort of feeling had come over Arthur. It had disturbed his faith in honour and goodness—it had almost disgusted him with the world. Arthur Channing is not the only one who has found his faith in fellow-men rudely shaken.

And yet, the first shock over, his mind was busy finding excuses for him. He knew that Hamish had not erred from any base self-gratification, but from love. You may be inclined to think this a contradiction, for all such promptings to crime must be base. Of course they are; but as the motives differ, so do the degrees. As surely as though the whole matter had been laid before him, felt Arthur, Hamish had been driven to it in his desperate need, to save his father’s position, and the family’s means of support. He felt that, had Hamish alone been in question, he would not have appropriated a pin that was not his, to save himself from arrest: what he had done he had done in love. Arthur gave him credit for another thing—that he had never cast a glance to the possibility of suspicion falling on Arthur; the post-office would receive credit for the loss. Nothing more tangible than that wide field, where they might hunt for the supposed thief until they were tired.

It was a miserable evening that followed the exposure; the precursor of many and many miserable evenings in days to come. Mr. and Mrs. Channing, Hamish, Constance, and Arthur sat in the usual sitting-room when the rest had retired—sat in ominous silence. Even Hamish, with his naturally sunny face and sunny temper, looked gloomy as the grave. Was he deliberating as to whether he should show that all principles of manly justice were not quite dead within him, by speaking up at last, and clearing his wrongfully accused brother? But then—his father’s post—his mother’s home? all might be forfeited. Who can tell whether this was the purport of Hamish’s thoughts as he sat there in abstraction, away from the light, his head upon his hand. He did not say.

Arthur rose; the silence was telling upon him. “May I say good night to you, father?”

“Have you nothing else to say?” asked Mr. Channing.

“In what way, sir?” asked Arthur, in a low tone.

“In the way of explanation. Will you leave me to go to my restless pillow without it? This is the first estrangement which has come between us.”