by Ellen Wood
“But — Roland — you have not given up all hope?” she questioned, her clear, honest hazel eyes cast up steadily and beseechingly at his.
“Well, I don’t know. Sometimes I think he’s sure to turn up all right, and then down I go again into the depths of mud. Last night I dreamt he was alive and well, and I was helping him up some perpendicular steps from a boat moored under Waterloo Bridge. When I awoke I thought it was true; oh! I was so glad! Even after I remembered, it seemed a good omen. Don’t be down-hearted, Annabel. Once, at Port Natal, a fellow I knew was lost for a year. His name was Crow. We never supposed but what he was dead, but he came to life again with a good crop of red whiskers, and said he’d only been travelling. I say! what’s the matter with your eyes?”
The sudden question rather confused her. She answered evasively.
“You’ve been crying, Annabel. Now, you tell me what the grievance was. If Mrs. Bede Greatorex makes you unhappy — good gracious! and I can’t help you, or take you out of here! I do not know when I shall: I don’t get on at all. It’s enough to make a man swear.”
“Hush, Roland! I am very unhappy about Arthur.”
“Why, of course you are — how came I to forget it?” he rejoined, easily satisfied as a child. “And here am I, wasting the precious time that might be spent in looking after him! Have you anything to send to Helstonleigh?”
“Only my love. My dear love to them all. You will see mamma?”
Roland suddenly took both her hands in his, and so held her before him, stooping his head a little, and speaking gently.
“Annabel, I shall have to see your mamma, and tell her—”
She did not mean that at all; it had not so much as occurred to her. Naturally the cheeks became very vivid now. Without further ado, asking no leave, bold Roland kissed the shrinking face.
“Good-bye, Annabel. Wish me luck.”
Away he clattered, waiting for neither scolding nor answer, and was flying along the street below, before Annabel had at all recovered her equanimity.
To resolve to go to Helstonleigh was one thing, to get to it was another; and Roland Yorke, with his customary heedlessness, had not considered ways and means. It was only when he dashed in at his lodgings that morning (as, we have heard, was related by Mrs.
Jones to Mr. Ollivera), that the question struck him how he was to get there. He had not a coin in the world. Roland’s earnings (the result of having put his shoulder to the wheel these three or four months past) had been deposited for safety with Mrs. Jones, it may be remembered, and they amounted to two sovereigns, These had been spent in the search after Arthur. In the first commotion of his disappearance, Roland had wildly dashed about in Hansoms; for his legs, with all their length and impatience, would not carry him from pillar to post fleet enough. He made small presents to policemen, hoping to sharpen their discovering powers; he put two advertisements in the Times, offering rewards for mysterious carpet-bags. But that a fortunate oversight caused him to omit appending any address, it was quite untellable the number of old bags that might have been brought him. All this had speedily melted the gold pieces. He then got Mrs. Jones to advance him (grumblingly) two more, which went the same way, and were not yet repaid. So, there he was, without money to take him to Helstonleigh, and nobody that he knew of likely to lend him any.
“I can’t walk,” debated he, standing stock-still in his parlour, as his penniless state occurred to him. “They’d used to call it a hundred and eleven miles in the old coaching days. It would be nothing to me if I had the time, but I can’t waste that now. Hamish has set his face against my going, or I’d ask him. I wonder — I wonder whether Dick Yorke would let me have a couple of pounds?”
To “wonder,” meant to do, with Roland. Out he went again on the spur of the moment, and ran all the way to Portland Place. Sir Vincent was not at home. The man said he had been there that morning on his arrival from Sunny Mead (the little Yorke homestead in Surrey), but had gone out again directly. He might be expected in at any moment, or all moments, during the day.
Roland waited. In a fine state of restlessness, as we may be sure, for the precious time was passing. He was afraid to go to the club lest he might miss him. When one o’clock had struck, Roland thought he might do his other errand first: which was to acquaint Greatorex and Greatorex with his departure, and see Miss Channing. Therefore, he started forth again, leaving a peremptory message for Sir Vincent should he return, that he was to wait in for him.
And now, having seen Mr. Greatorex and Annabel, he was speeding back again to Portland Place. All breathless, and in a commotion, of course; driving along as if the pavement belonged to him, and nobody else had any claim to it. Charging round a corner at full tilt, he charged against an inoffensive foot-passenger, quietly approaching it: who was no other than Mr. Butterby.
Roland brought himself up. It was an opportunity not to be missed. Seizing hold of the official buttonhole, he poured the story of Arthur Channing’s disappearance into the official ear, imploring Mr. Butterby’s good services in the cause.
“Don’t you think any more of the uncivil names I’ve called you, Butterby. You knew all the while I didn’t mean anything. I’ve said I’d pay you out when I got the chance, and so I will, but it shall be in gold. If you will only put your good services into the thing, we shall find him. Do, now! You won’t bear malice, Butterby.”
So impetuous had been the flow of eloquence, that Mr. Butterby had found no opportunity of getting a word in edgeways: he had simply looked and listened. The loss of Arthur Channing had been as inexplicable to him as to other people.
“Arthur Channing ain’t one of them sort o’ blades likely to get into a mess, through going to places where drinking and what not’s carried on,” spoke he.
“Of course he is not,” was Roland’s indignant answer. “Arthur Channing drink! he’d be as likely to turn tumbler at a dancing-booth! Look here, Butterby, you did work him harm once, but I’ll never reproach you with it again as long as I live, and I’ve known all along you had no ill-meaning in it: but now, you find him this time, and that will be tit for tat. Perhaps I may be rich some day, and I’ll buy you a silver snuffbox set with diamonds.”
“I don’t take snuff,” said Mr. Butterby.
But it was impossible to resist Roland’s pleading, in all its simple-hearted energy. And, to give Mr. Butterby his due, he would have been glad to do his best to find Arthur Channing.
“I can’t stay in London myself,” said he; “I’ve been here a week now on private business, and must go down to Helstonleigh to-morrow; but I’ll put it special into Detective Jelf’s hands. He’s as ‘cute an officer, young Mr. Yorke, as here and there one, and of more use in London than me.”
“Bless you, Butterby!” cried hearty Roland; “tell Jelf I’ll give him a snuff-box, too. And now I’m off. I won’t forget you, Butterby.”
Mr. Butterby thought the chances that Roland would ever have tin snuff-boxes to give away, let alone silver, were rather poor; but he was not a bad-natured man, and he detained Roland yet an instant to give him a friendly word of advice.
“There’s one or two folks, in the old place, that you owe a trifle to, Mr. Yorke—”
“There’s half-a-dozen,” interrupted candid Roland.
“Well, sir, I’d not show myself in the town more than I could help. They are vexed at being kept out of their money, thinking some of the family might have paid it; and they might let off a bit if you went amid ‘em: unless, indeed, you are taking down the money with you.”
“Taking the money with me! — why, Butterby, I’ve not got a sixpence in the world,” avowed Roland, opening his surprised eyes. “If Dick Yorke won’t lend me a pound or so, I don’t know how on earth to get-down, unless they let me have a free pass on the top of the engine.”
There was no time for more. Away he went to Portland Place, and thundered at the door, as if he had been a king. But his visit did not serve him.
Sir Vincent Yorke had
entered just after Roland departed. Upon receiving the peremptory message, the baronet marvelled what it could mean, and whether all the Yorke family had been blown up, save himself. Nothing else, he thought, could justify the scapegoat Roland in desiring him, Sir Vincent, to stay in. To be kept waiting at home when he very particularly wanted to be out — for Sir Vincent had come to town to meet the lady he was shortly to marry, Miss Trehern — made him frightfully cross. So that when Roland re-appeared he had an angry-tempered man to deal with.
And, in good truth, had Roland announced the calamity, so pleasantly anticipated, it would have caused Sir Vincent less surprise; certainly less vexation. When he found he had been decoyed into staying in for nothing but to be asked to lend money to take Mr. Roland careering off somewhere by rail — he was in too great a passion to understand where — Sir Vincent exploded. Roland, quietly braving the storm, prayed for “just a pound,” as if he were praying for his life. Sir Vincent finally replied that he’d not lend him a shilling if it would save him from hanging.
So Roland was thrown on his beam ends, and went back to Mrs. Jones’s with empty pockets, revolving ways and means in his mind.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Mr. Galloway invaded.
In was night in the old cathedral town. The ten o’clock bell had rung, and Mr. Galloway, proctor and surrogate, at home in his residence in the Boundaries, was thinking he might prepare to go to rest. For several days he had been feeling very much out of sorts, and this evening the symptoms had culminated in what seemed a bad cold, attended with feverishness and pain in all his limbs. The old proctor was one of those people whose mind insensibly sways the body; and the mysterious disappearance of Arthur Channing was troubling him to sickness. He had caused a huge fire to be made up in his bed-room, and was seated by it, groaning; his slippered feet on a warm cushion, a railway rug enveloping his coat, and back, and shoulders; a white cotton night-cap with a hanging tassel ornamenting gracefully his head. One of his servants had just brought up a basinful of hot gruel, holding at least a quart, and put it on the stand by his easy chair. Mr. Galloway was groaning at the gruel as much as with pain, for he hated gruel like poison.
Thinking it might be less nauseous if disposed of at an unbroken draught, were that possible — or at least soonest over — Mr. Galloway caught up the basin and put it to his lips. With a cry and a splutter, down went the basin again. The stuff was scalding hot. And whether Mr. Galloway’s tongue, or teeth, or temper suffered most, he would have been puzzled to confess.
It was at this untoward moment — Mr. Galloway’s face turning purple, and himself choking and coughing — that a noise, as of thunder, suddenly awoke the echoes of the Boundaries. Shut up in his snug room, hearing sounds chiefly through the windows, the startled Mr. Galloway wondered what it was, and edged his white night-cap off one ear to listen. He had then the satisfaction of discovering that the noise was at his own front door. Somebody had evidently got hold of the knocker (an appendage recently made to the former naked panels), and was rapping and rattling as if never intending to leave off. And now the bell-handle was pulled in accompaniment — as a chorus accompanies a song — and the alarmed household were heard flying towards the door from all quarters.
“Is it the fire-engine?” groaned Mr. Galloway to himself. “I didn’t hear it come up.”
It appeared not to be the fire-engine. A moment or two, and Mr. Galloway was conscious of a commotion on the stairs, some visitor making his way up; his man-servant offering a feeble opposition.
“What on earth does John mean? He must be a fool — letting people come up here!” thought Mr. Galloway, apostrophising his many years’ servitor. “Hark! It can never be the Dean!”
That any other living man, whether church dignitary or ordinary mortal, would venture to invade him in his private sanctum, take him by storm in his own “chamber, was beyond belief. Mr. Galloway, all fluttered and fevered, hitched his white night-cap a little higher, turned his wondering face to the door, and sat listening.
“If he’s neither in bed nor undressed, as you say, I can see him up here just as well as below; so don’t bother, old John,” were the words that caught indistinctly the disturbed invalid’s ear: and somehow the voice seemed to strike some uncertain chord of memory. “I say, old John, you don’t get younger,” it went on; “where’s your hair gone? Is this the room? it used to be.”
Without further ado, the door was flung open; and the visitor stepped over the threshold. The two, invader and invaded, gazed at each other. The one saw an old man, who appeared to be shrunk in spite of his wraps, with a red face surmounted by a cotton nightcap, a flaxen curl or two peeping out above the amazed eyes, and a basin of steaming gruel: the other saw a tall, fine, well-dressed young fellow, whose face, like the voice, struck on the chords of memory. John spoke from behind.
“It’s Mr. Roland Yorke, sir. He’d not be stayed: he would come up in spite of me.”
“Goodness bless me!” exclaimed the proctor.
Putting down his hat and a small brown paper parcel that he carried, Roland advanced to Mr. Galloway, nearly turning over the stand and the gruel, which John had to rush forward and steady — and held out his hand.
“I don’t know whether you’ll shake it, sir, after the way we parted. I am willing.”
“The way of parting was yours, Mr. Roland, not mine,” was the answer. But Mr. Galloway did shake the hand, and Roland sat down by the fire, uninvited, making himself at home, as usual.
“What’s amiss, sir?” he asked, as John went away. “Got the mumps? “Is that gruel? Horrid composition! I think it must have been invented for our sins. You must be uncommon ill, sir, to swallow that.”
“And what in the world brings you down here at this hour, frightening quiet people out of their senses?” demanded Mr. Galloway, paying no heed to Roland’s questions. “I’m sure I thought it was the parish engine.”
“The train brought me,” replied matter-of-fact Roland. “I had meant to get here by an earlier one, but things went cross and contrary.”
“That was no reason why you should knock my door down.”
Oh, it was all my impatience: my mind’s in a fright-fill worry,” penitently acknowledged Roland. “I hope you’ll forgive it, sir. I’ve come from London, Mr. Galloway, about this miserable business of Arthur Channing. We want to know where you sent him to?”
Mr. Galloway, his doubts as to fire-engines set at rest, had been getting cool; but the name turned him hot again. He had grown to like Arthur better than he would have cared to tell; the supposition flashed into his mind that a discovery might have been made of some untoward fate having overtaken him, and that Roland’s errand was to break the news.
“Is Arthur dead?” he questioned, in a low tone.
“I think so,” answered Roland. “But he has not turned up yet, dead or alive. I’m sure it’s not for the want of looking after. I’ve spent my time pretty well, since he was missing, between Waterloo Bridge and the East India docks.”
“Then you’ve not come down to say he is found?”
“No: only to ask you where you sent him that night, that he may be.”
When the explanation was complete, Roland discovered that he had had his journey for nothing, and would have done well to take the opinion of Hamish Channing. Every title of information that Mr. Galloway was able to give, he had already written to Hamish: not a thought, not a supposition, but he had imparted it in full. As to Roland’s idea, that business might have carried Arthur to dishonest neighbourhoods in London, Mr. Galloway negatived it positively.
“He had none to do for me in such places, and I’m sure he’d not of his own.”
Roland sat pulling at his whiskers, feeling very gloomy. In his sanguine temperament, he had been buoying himself with a hope that grew higher and higher all the way down: so that when he arrived at Mr. Galloway’s he had nearly persuaded himself that — if Arthur, in person, was not there, news of him would be. Hence the loud and impatien
t door-summons.
“I know he is at the bottom of the Thames! I did so hope you could throw some light on it that you might have forgotten to tell, Mr. Galloway.”
“Forgotten!” returned Mr. Galloway, slightly agitated. “If I remembered my sins, young man, as well as I remember all connected with him, I might be the better for it. His disappearance has made me ill; that’s what it has done; and I’m not sure but it will kill me. When a steady, honourable, God-fearing young man like Arthur Channing, whose heart I verily believe was as much in heaven as earth; when such a man disappears in this mysterious manner at night in London, leaving no information of his whereabouts, and who cannot be traced or found, nothing but the worst is to be apprehended. I believe Arthur Channing to have been murdered for the sake of the large sum of money he had about him.”
Mr. Galloway seized his handkerchief, and rubbed his hot face. The night-cap was pushed a little further off in the process. It was the precise view Roland had taken; and, to have it confirmed by Mr. Galloway’s, seemed to drive all hope out of him for good.
“And I never had the opportunity of atoning to him for the past, you see, Mr. Galloway! It will stick in my memory for life, like a pill in the throat. I’d rather have been murdered myself ten times over.”
“I gave my consent to his going with reluctance,” said Mr. Galloway, seeming to repeat the fact for his own benefit rather than for Roland’s. “What did it signify whether Charles was met in London, or not? if he could find his way to London from Marseilles alone, surely he might find it to Helstonleigh! Our busy time, the November audit, is approaching: but it was not that thought that swayed me against it, but an inward instinct. Arthur said he had not had a holiday for two years; he said there was business wanting the presence of one of us in London: all true, and I yielded. And this is what has come of it!”