The Channings. Henry Wood
is that?” asked Mrs. Channing, lifting her sad face.
“When I have glanced to the possibility of the decision being against me, I have wondered how I should pay its long and heavy costs; whether our home must not be broken up to do it, and ourselves turned out upon the world. But the costs are not to fall upon me; all are to be paid out of the estate.”
“That’s good news!” ejaculated Hamish, his face radiant, as he nodded around.
“My darling boys,” resumed Mr. Channing, “you must all work and do your best. I had thought this money would have made things easier for you; but it is not to be. Not that I would have a boy of mine cherish for a moment the sad and vain dream which some do—that of living in idleness. God has sent us all into the world to work; some with their hands, some with their heads; all according to their abilities and their station. You will not be the worse off,” Mr. Channing added with a smile, “for working a little harder than you once thought would be necessary.”
“Perhaps the money may come to us, after all, by some miracle,” suggested Charley.
“No,” replied Mr. Channing. “It has wholly gone from us. It is as much lost to us as though we had never possessed a claim to it.”
It was even so. This decision of the Lord Chancellor had taken it from the Channing family for ever.
“Never mind!” cried Tom, throwing up his trencher, which he had carelessly carried into the room with him. “As papa says, we have our hands and brains: and they often win the race against money in the long run.”
Yes. The boys had active hands and healthy brains—no despicable inheritance, when added to a firm faith in God, and an ardent wish to use, and not misuse, the talents given to them.
CHAPTER III. – CONSTANCE CHANNING
How true is the old proverb—“Man proposes but God disposes!” God’s ways are not as our ways. His dealings with us are often mysterious. Happy those, who can detect His hand in all the varied chances and changes of the world.
I am not sure that we can quite picture to ourselves the life that had been Mr. Channing’s. Of gentle birth, and reared to no profession, the inheritance which ought to have come to him was looked upon as a sufficient independence. That it would come to him, had never been doubted by himself or by others; and it was only at the very moment when he thought he was going to take possession of it, that some enemy set up a claim and threw it into Chancery. You may object to the word “enemy,” but it could certainly not be looked upon as the act of a friend. By every right, in all justice, it belonged to James Channing; but he who put in his claim, taking advantage of a quibble of law, was a rich man and a mighty one. I should not like to take possession of another’s money in such a manner. The good, old-fashioned, wholesome fear would be upon me, that it would bring no good either to me or mine.
James Channing never supposed but that the money would be his some time. Meanwhile he sought and obtained employment to occupy his days; to bring “grist to the mill,” until the patrimony should come. Hoping, hoping, hoping on; hope and disappointment, hope and disappointment—there was nothing else for years and years; and you know who has said, that “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” There have been many such cases in the world, but I question, I say, if we can quite realize them. However, the end had come—the certainty of disappointment; and Mr. Channing was already beginning to be thankful that suspense, at any rate, was over.
He was the head of an office—or it may be more correct to say the head of the Helstonleigh branch of it, for the establishment was a London one—a large, important concern, including various departments of Insurance. Hamish was in the same office; and since Mr. Channing’s rheumatism had become chronic, it was Hamish who chiefly transacted the business of the office, generally bringing home the books when he left, and going over them in the evening with his father. Thus the work was effectually transacted, and Mr. Channing retained his salary. The directors were contented that it should be so, for Mr. Channing possessed their thorough respect and esteem.
After the ill news was communicated to them, the boys left the parlour, and assembled in a group in the study, at the back of the house, to talk it over. Constance was with them, but they would not admit Annabel. A shady, pleasant, untidy room was that study, opening to a cool, shady garden. It had oil-cloth on the floor instead of carpeting, and books and playthings were strewed about it.
“What an awful shame that there should be so much injustice in the world!” spoke passionate Tom, flinging his Euripides on the table.
“But for one thing, I should be rather glad the worry’s over,” cried Hamish. “We know the worst now—that we have only ourselves to trust to.”
“Our hands and brains, as Tom said,” remarked Charley. “What is the ‘one thing’ that you mean, Hamish?”
Hamish seized Charley by the waist, lifted him up, and let him drop again. “It is what does not concern little boys to know: and I don’t see why you should be in here with us, young sir, any more than Annabel.”
“A presentiment that this would be the ending has been upon me for some time,” broke in the gentle voice of Constance. “In my own mind I have kept laying out plans for us all. You see, it is not as though we should enjoy the full income that we have hitherto had.”
“What’s that, Constance?” asked Tom hotly. “The decision does not touch papa’s salary; and you heard him say that the costs were to be paid out of the estate. A pretty thing it would be if any big-wigged Lord Chancellor could take away the money that a man works hard for!”
“Hasty, as usual, Tom,” she said with a smile. “You know—we all know—that, counting fully upon this money, papa is behindhand in his payments. They must be paid off now in the best way that may be found: and it will take so much from his income. It will make no difference to you, Tom; all you can do, is to try on heartily for the seniorship and the exhibition.”
“Oh, won’t it make a difference to me, though!” retorted Tom. “And suppose I don’t gain it, Constance?”
“Then you will have to work all the harder, Tom, in some other walk of life. Failing the exhibition, of course there will be no chance of your going up to the university; and you must give up the hope of entering the Church. The worst off—the one upon whom this disappointment must fall the hardest—will be Arthur.”
Arthur Channing—astride on the arm of the old-fashioned sofa—lifted his large deep blue eyes to Constance with a flash of intelligence: it seemed to say, that she only spoke of what he already knew. He had been silent hitherto; he was of a silent nature: a quiet, loving, tender nature: while the rest spoke, he was content to think.
“Ay, that it will!” exclaimed Hamish. “What will become of your articles now, Arthur?”
It should be explained that Arthur had entered the office of Mr. Galloway, who was a proctor, and also was steward to the Dean and Chapter. Arthur was only a subordinate in it, a clerk receiving pay—and very short pay, too; but it was intended that he should enter upon his articles as soon as this money that should be theirs enabled Mr. Channing to pay for them. Hamish might well ask what would become of his articles now!
“I can’t see a single step before me,” cried Arthur. “Except that I must stay on as I am, a paid clerk.”
“What rubbish, Arthur!” flashed Tom, who possessed a considerable share of temper when it was roused. “As if you, Arthur Channing, could remain a paid clerk at Galloway’s! Why, you’d be on a level with Jenkins—old Jenkins’s son. Roland Yorke would look down on you then; more than he does now. And that need not be!”
The sensitive crimson dyed Arthur’s fair open brow. Of all the failings that he found it most difficult to subdue in his own heart, pride bore the greatest share. From the moment the ill news had come to his father, the boy felt that he should have to do fierce battle with his pride; that there was ever-recurring mortification laid up in store for it. “But I can battle with it,” he bravely whispered to himself: “and I will do it, God helping me.”
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