The Channings Part 39

I don't know what you will say to me for introducing you into the privacy of Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins's bed-chamber, but it is really necessary to do so. We cannot very well get on without it.

A conjugal dispute had occurred that morning when Mrs. Jenkins got up. She was an early riser; as was Jenkins also, in a general way; but since his illness, he had barely contrived to come down in time for breakfast. On this morning--which was not the one following the application of mustard to his chest, but one about a week after that medicinal operation--Mrs. Jenkins, on preparing to descend, peremptorily ordered him to remain in bed. Nothing need be recorded of the past week, except two facts: Charles Channing had not been discovered, either in life or in death; and the Earl of Carrick had terminated his visit, and left Helstonleigh.

"I'll bring up your breakfast," said Mrs. Jenkins.

"It is of no use to say that," Jenkins ventured meekly to remonstrate. "You know I must get up."

"I say you shall not get up. Here you are, growing weaker and worse every day, and yet you won't take care of yourself! Where's the use of your taking a bottle a-day of cough-mixture--where's the use of your making the market scarce of cod-liver oil--where's the use of wasting mustard, if it's all to do you no good? Does it do you any good?"

"I am afraid it has not, as yet," confessed Jenkins.

"And never will, so long as you give your body and brains no rest. Out you go by nine o'clock, in all weathers, ill or well, and there you are at your business till evening; stooping yourself double over the writing, dancing abroad on errands, wearing out your lungs with answers to callers! There's no sense in it."

"But, my dear, the office must be attended to," said Jenkins, with much deference.

"There's no 'must' in the case, as far as you are concerned. If I say you shan't go to it, why, you shan't. What's the office, pray, in comparison with a man's life?"

"But I am not so ill as to remain away. I can still go and do my work."

"You'd be for going, if you were in your coffin!" was Mrs. Jenkins's wrathful answer. "Could you do any good then, pray?"

"But I am not in my coffin," mildly suggested Jenkins.

"Don't I say you'd go, if you were?" reiterated Mrs. Jenkins, who sometimes, in her heat, lost sight of the precise point under dispute. "You know you would! you know there's nothing in the whole world that you think of, but that office! Office--office--office, it is with you from morning till night. When you are in your coffin, through it, you'll be satisfied."

"But it is my duty to go as long as I can, my dear."

"It's my duty to do a great many things that I don't do!" was the answer; "and one of my duties which I haven't done yet, is to keep you indoors for a bit, and nurse you up. I shall begin from to-day, and see if I can't get you well, that way."

"But--"

"Hold your tongue, Jenkins. I never say a thing but you are sure to put in a 'but.' You lie in bed this morning,--do you hear?--and I'll bring up your breakfast."

Mrs. Jenkins left the room with the last order, and that ended the discussion. Had Jenkins been a free agent--free from work--he had been only too glad to obey her. In his present state of health, the duties of the office had become almost too much for him; it was with difficulty that he went to it and performed them. Even the walk, short as it was, in the early morning, was almost beyond his strength; even the early rising was beginning to tell upon him. And though he had little hope that nursing himself up indoors would prove of essential service, he felt that the rest it brought would be to him an inestimable boon.

But Jenkins was one who thought of duty before he thought of himself; and, therefore, to remain away from the office, if he could drag himself to it, appeared to him little less than a sin. He was paid for his time and services--fairly paid--liberally paid, some might have said--and they belonged to his master. But it was not so much from this point of view that Jenkins regarded the necessity of going--conscientious though he was--as at the thought of what the office would do without him; for there was no one to replace him but Roland Yorke. Jenkins knew what he was; and so do we.

To lie in bed, or remain indoors, under these circ.u.mstances, Jenkins felt to be impossible; and when his watch gave him warning that the breakfast hour was approaching, up he got. Behold him sitting on the side of the bed, trying to dress himself--trying to do it. Never had Jenkins felt weaker, or less able to battle with his increasing illness, than on this morning; and when Mrs. Jenkins dashed in--for her quick ears had caught the sounds of his stirring--he sat there still, stockings in hand, unable to help himself.

"So you were going to trick me, were you! Are you not ashamed of yourself, Jenkins?"

Jenkins gasped twice before he could reply. A giddiness seemed to be stealing over him, as it had done that other evening, under the elm trees. "My dear, it is of no use your talking; I must go to the office," he panted.

"You shan't go--if I lock you up! There!"

Jenkins was spared the trouble of a reply. The giddiness had increased to faintness, his sight left him, and he fell back on to the bed in a state of unconsciousness. Mrs. Jenkins rather looked upon it as a triumph. She put him into bed, and tucked him up.

"This comes of your attempting to disobey me!" said she, when he had come round again. "I wonder what would become of you poor, soft mortals of men, if you were let have your own way! There's no office for you to day, Jenkins."

Very peremptorily spoke she. But, lest he should attempt the same again, she determined to put it out of his power. Opening a closet, she thrust every article of his clothing into it, not leaving him so much as a waistcoat, turned the key, and put it into her pocket. Poor Jenkins watched her with despairing eyes, not venturing to remonstrate.

"There," said she, speaking amiably in her glow of satisfaction: "you can go to the office now--if you like. I'll not stop you; but you'll have to march through the streets leaving your clothes in that closet."

Under these difficulties Jenkins did not quite see his way to get there. Mrs. Jenkins went instead, catching Mr. Roland Yorke just upon his arrival.

"What's up, that Jenkins is not here?" began Roland, before she could speak.

"Jenkins is not in a fit state to get out of his bed, and I have come to tell Mr. Galloway so," replied she.

Roland Yorke's face grew to twice its usual length at the news. "I say, though, that will never do, Mrs. Jenkins. What's to become of this office?"

"The office must do the best it can without him. _He's_ not coming to it."

"I can't manage it," said Roland, in consternation. "I should go dead, if I had to do Jenkins's work, and my own as well."

"He'll go dead, unless he takes some rest in time, and gets a little good nursing. I should like to know how I am to nurse him, if he is down here all day?"

"That's not the question," returned Roland, feeling excessively blank. "The question is, how the office, and I, and Galloway are to get on without him? Couldn't he come in a sedan?"

"Yes, he can; if he likes to come without his clothes," retorted Mrs. Jenkins. "I have taken care to lock them up."

"Locked his clothes up!" repeated Roland, in wonder. "What's that for?"

"Because, as long as he has a bit of life in him, he'll use it to drag himself down here," answered Mrs. Jenkins, tartly. "That's why. He was getting up to come this morning, defying me and every word I said against it, when he fell down on the bed in a fainting fit. I thought it time to lock his things up then."

"Upon my word, I don't know what's to be done," resumed Roland, growing quite hot with dismay and perplexity, at the prospect of some extra work for himself. "Look here!" exhibiting the parchments on Jenkins's desk, all so neatly left--"here's an array! Jenkins did not intend to stay away, when he left those last night, I know."

"He intend to stay away! catch him thinking of it," retorted Mrs. Jenkins. "It is as I have just told him--that he'd come in his coffin. And it's my firm belief that if he knew a week's holiday would save him from his coffin, he'd not take it, unless I was at his back to make him. It's well he has somebody to look after him that's not quite deficient of common sense!"

"Well, this is a plague!" grumbled Roland.

"So it is--for me, I know, if for n.o.body else," was Mrs. Jenkins's reply. "But there's some plagues in the world that we must put up with, and make the best of, whether we like 'em or not; and this is one of them. You'll tell Mr. Galloway, please; it will save me waiting."

However, as Mrs. Jenkins was departing, she encountered Mr. Galloway, and told him herself. He was both vexed and grieved to hear it; grieved on Jenkins's score, vexed on his own. That Jenkins was growing very ill, he believed from his own observation, and it could not have happened at a more untoward time. Involuntarily, Mr. Galloway's thoughts turned to Arthur Channing, and he wished he had him in the office still.

"You must turn over a new leaf from this very hour, Roland Yorke," he observed to that gentleman, when he entered. "We must both of us buckle-to, if we are to get through the work."

"It's not possible, sir, that I can do Jenkins's share and mine," said Roland.

"If you only do Jenkins's, I'll do yours," replied Mr. Galloway, significantly. "Understand me, Roland: I shall expect you to show yourself equal to this emergency. Put aside frivolity and idleness, and apply yourself in earnest. Jenkins has been in the habit of taking part of your work upon himself, as I believe no clerk living would have done; and, in return, you must now take his. I hope in a few days he may be with us again. Poor fellow, we shall feel his loss!"

Mr. Galloway had to go out in the course of the morning, and Roland was left alone to the cares and work of the office. It occurred to him that, as a preliminary step, he could not do better than open the window, that the sight of people pa.s.sing (especially any of his acquaintances, with whom he might exchange greetings) should cheer him on at his hard work. Accordingly, he threw it up to its utmost extent, and went on with his writing, giving alternately one look to his task, and two to the street. Not many minutes had he been thus spurring on his industry, when he saw Arthur Channing pa.s.s.

"Hist--st--st!" called out Roland, by way of attracting his attention. "Come in, old fellow, will you? Here's such a game!"

CHAPTER XLV.

A NEW SUSPICION.

Arthur Channing had been walking leisurely down Close Street. Time hung heavily on his hands. In leaving the cathedral after morning service, he had joined Mr. Harper, the lay clerk, and went with him, talking, towards the town; partly because he had nothing to do elsewhere--partly because out of doors appeared more desirable than home. In the uncertain state of suspense they were kept in, respecting Charles, the minds of all, from Hamish down to Annabel, were in a constant state of unrest. When they rose in the morning the first thought was, "Shall we hear of Charles to-day?" When they retired at bedtime, "What may not the river give up this night?" It appeared to them that they were continually expecting tidings of some sort or other; and, with this expectation, hope would sometimes mingle itself.

Hope; where could it spring from? The only faint suspicion of it, indulged at first, that Charley had been rescued in some providential manner, and conveyed to a house of shelter, had had time to die out. A few houses there were, half-concealed near the river, as there are near to most other rivers of traffic, which the police trusted just as far as they could see, and whose inmates did not boast of s.h.i.+ning reputations; but the police had overhauled these thoroughly, and found no trace of Charley. Nor was it likely that they would conceal a child. So long as Charles's positive fate remained a mystery, suspense could not cease; and with this suspense there did mingle some faint glimmer of hope. Suspense leads to exertion; inaction is intolerable to it. Hamish, Arthur, Tom, all would rather be out of doors now, than in; there might be something to be heard of, some information to be gathered, and looking after it was better than staying at home to wait for it. No wonder, then, that Arthur Channing's steps would bend unconsciously towards the town, when he left the cathedral, morning and afternoon.

It was in pa.s.sing Mr. Galloway's office, the window of which stood wide open, that Arthur had found himself called to by Roland Yorke.

"What is it?" he asked, halting at the window.

"You are the very chap I wanted to see," cried Roland. "Come in! Don't be afraid of meeting Galloway: he's off somewhere."

The prospect of meeting Mr. Galloway would not have prevented Arthur from entering. He was conscious of no wrong, and he did not shrink as though he had committed one. He went in, and Mr. Harper proceeded on his way.

"Here's a go!" was Roland's salutation. "Jenkins is laid up." It was nothing but what Arthur had expected. He, like Mr. Galloway, had observed Jenkins growing ill and more ill. "How shall you manage without him?" asked Arthur; Mr. Galloway's dilemma being the first thing that occurred to his mind.

"Who's to know?" answered Roland, who was in an explosive temper. "I don't. If Galloway thinks to put it all on my back, it's a scandalous shame! I never could do it, or the half of it. Jenkins worked like a horse when we were busy. He'd hang his head down over his desk, and never lift it for two hours at a stretch!--you know he would not. Fancy my doing that! I should get brain fever before a week was out."

Arthur smiled at this. "Is Jenkins much worse?" he inquired.

"I don't believe he's worse at all," returned Roland, tartly. "He'd have come this morning, as usual, fast enough, only she locked up his clothes."

"Who?" said Arthur, in surprise.

"She. That agreeable lady who has the felicity of owning Jenkins. She was here this morning as large as life, giving an account of her doings, without a blush. She locked up his things, she says, to keep him in bed. I'd be even with her, I know, were I Jenkins. I'd put on her flounces, but what I'd come out, if I wanted to. Rather short they'd be for him, though."

"I shall go, Roland. My being here only hinders you."

"As if that made any difference worth counting! Look here!--piles and piles of parchments! I and Galloway could never get through them, hindered or not hindered. I am not going to work over hours! I won't kill myself with hard labour. There's Port Natal, thank goodness, if the screw does get put upon me too much!"

Arthur did not reply. It made little difference to Roland: whether encouraged or not, talk he would.

"I have heard of folks being worked beyond their strength; and that will be my case, if one may judge by present appearances. It's too bad of Jenkins!"

Arthur spoke up: he did not like to hear blame, even from Roland Yorke, cast upon patient, hard-working Jenkins. "You should not say it, Roland. It is not Jenkins's fault."

"It is his fault. What does he have such a wife for? She keeps Jenkins under her thumb, just as Galloway keeps me. She locked up his clothes, and then told him he might come here without them, if he liked: my belief is, she'll be sending him so, some day. Jenkins ought to put her down. He's big enough."

"He would be sure to come here, if he were equal to it," said Arthur.

"He! Of course he would!" angrily retorted Roland. "He'd crawl here on all fours, but what he'd come; only she won't let him. She knows it too. She said this morning that he'd come when he was in his coffin! I should like to see it arrive!"

Arthur had been casting a glance at the papers. They were unusually numerous, and he began to think with Roland that he and Mr. Galloway would not be able to get through them unaided. Most certainly they would not, at Roland's present rate of work. "It is a pity you are not a quick copyist," he said.

"I dare say it is!" sarcastically rejoined Roland, beginning to play at ball with the wafer-box. "I never was made for work; and if--"

"You will have to do it, though, sir," thundered Mr. Galloway, who had come up, and was enjoying a survey of affairs through the open window. Mr. Roland, somewhat taken to, dropped his head and the wafer-box together, and went on with his writing as meekly as poor Jenkins would have done; and Mr. Galloway entered.

"Good day," said he to Arthur, shortly enough.

"Good day, sir," was the response. Mr. Galloway turned to his idle clerk.

"Roland Yorke, you must either work or say you will not. There is no time for playing and fooling; no time, sir! do you hear? Who put that window stark staring open?"

"I did, sir," said incorrigible Roland. "I thought the office might be the better for a little air, when there was so much to do in it."

Mr. Galloway shut it with a bang. Arthur, who would not leave without some attempt at a pa.s.sing courtesy, let it be ever so slight, made a remark to Mr. Galloway, that he was sorry to hear Jenkins was worse.

"He is so much worse," was the response of Mr. Galloway, spoken sharply, for the edification of Roland Yorke, "that I doubt whether he will ever enter this room again. Yes, sir, you may look; but it is the truth!"

Roland did look, looked with considerable consternation. "How on earth will the work get done, then?" he muttered. With all his grumbling, he had not contemplated Jenkins being away more than a day or two.

"I do not know how it will get done, considering that the clerk upon whom I have to depend is Roland Yorke," answered Mr. Galloway, with severity. "One thing appears pretty evident, that Jenkins will not be able to help to do it."

Mr. Galloway, more perplexed at the news brought by Mrs. Jenkins than he had allowed to appear (for, although he chose to make a show of depending upon Roland, he knew how much dependence there was in reality to be placed upon him--none knew better), had deemed it advisable to see Jenkins personally, and judge for himself of his state of health. Accordingly, he proceeded thither, and arrived at an inopportune moment for his hopes. Jenkins was just recovering from a second fainting fit, and appeared altogether so ill, so debilitated, that Mr. Galloway was struck with dismay. There would be no more work from Jenkins--as he believed--for him. He mentioned this now in his own office, and Roland received it with blank consternation.

An impulse came to Arthur, and he spoke upon it. "If I can be of any use to you, sir, in this emergency, you have only to command me."

"What sort of use?" asked Mr. Galloway.

Arthur pointed to the parchments. "I could draw out these deeds, and any others that may follow them. My time is my own, sir, except the two hours devoted to the cathedral, and I am at a loss how to occupy it. I have been idle ever since I left you."

"Why don't you get into an office?" said Mr. Galloway.

Arthur's colour deepened. "Because, sir, no one will take me."

"Ah!" said Mr. Galloway, drily, "a good name is easier lost than won."

"Yes, it is," freely replied Arthur. "However, sir, to return to the question. I shall be glad to help you, if you have no one better at hand. I could devote several hours a day to it, and you know that I am thoroughly to be trusted with the work. I might take some home now."

"Home!" returned Mr. Galloway. "Did you mean that you could do it at home?"

"Certainly, sir; I did not think of doing it here," was the pointed reply of Arthur. "I can do it at home just as well as I could here; perhaps better, for I should shut myself up alone, and there would be nothing to interrupt me, or to draw off my attention."

It cannot be denied that this was a most welcome proposition to Mr. Galloway; indeed, his thoughts had turned to Arthur from the first. Arthur would be far better than a strange clerk, looked for and brought in on the spur of the moment--one who might answer well or answer badly, according to chance. Yet that such must have been his resource, Mr. Galloway knew.

"It will be an accommodation to me, your taking part of the work," he frankly said. "But you had better come to the office and do it."

"No, sir; I would rather--"

"Do, Charming!" cried out Roland Yorke, springing up as if he were electrified. "The office will be bearable if you come back again."

"I would prefer to do it at home, sir," continued Arthur to Mr. Galloway, while that gentleman pointed imperiously to Yorke, as a hint to him to hold his tongue and mind his own business.