CHAPTER XXXI. – ABROAD
A powerful steamer was cutting smoothly through the waters. A large expanse of sea lay around, dotted with its fishing-boats, which had come out with the night’s tide. A magnificent vessel, her spars glittering in the rising sun, might be observed in the distance, and the grey, misty sky, overhead, gave promise of a hot and lovely day.
Some of the passengers lay on deck, where they had stationed themselves the previous night, preferring its open air to the closeness of the cabins, in the event of rough weather. Rough weather they need not have feared. The passage had been perfectly calm; the sea smooth as a lake; not a breath of wind had helped the good ship on her course; steam had to do its full work. But for this dead calm, the fishing-craft would not be close in-shore, looking very much like a flock of sea-gulls. Had a breeze, ever so gentle, sprung up, they would have put out to more prolific waters.
A noise, a shout, a greeting! and some of the passengers, already awake, but lying lazily, sprang up to see what caused it. It was a passing steamer, bound for the great metropolis which they had left not seventeen hours ago. The respective captains exchanged salutes from their places aloft, and the fine vessels flew past each other.
“Bon voyage! bon voyage!” shouted out a little French boy to the retreating steamer.
“We have had a fine passage, captain,” observed a gentleman who was stretching himself and stamping about the deck, after his night’s repose on the hard bench.
“Middling,” responded the captain, to whom a dead calm was not quite so agreeable as it was to his passengers. “Should ha’ been in all the sooner for a breeze.”
“How long will it be, now?”
“A good time yet. Can’t go along as if we had wind at our back.”
The steamer made good progress, however, in spite of the faithless wind. It glided up the Scheldt, and, by-and-by, the spire of Antwerp Cathedral was discerned, rising against the clear sky. Mrs. Channing, who had been one of those early astir, went back to her husband. He was lying where he had been placed when the vessel left St. Katherine’s Docks.
“We shall soon be in, James. I wish you could see that beautiful spire. I have been searching for it ever so long; it is in sight, now. Hamish told me to keep a look-out for it.”
“Did he?” replied Mr. Channing. “How did Hamish know it might be seen?”
“From the guide-books, I suppose; or from hearsay. Hamish seems to know everything. What a good passage we have had!”
“Ay,” said Mr. Channing. “What I should have done in a rough sea, I cannot tell. The dread of it has been pressing on me as a nightmare since our voyage was decided upon.”
Mrs. Channing smiled. “Troubles seldom come from the quarter we anticipate them.”
Later, when Mrs. Channing was once more leaning over the side of the vessel, a man came up and put a card into her hand, jabbering away in German at the same time. The Custom House officers had come on board then.
“Oh, dear, if Constance were only here! It is for interpreting that we shall miss her,” thought Mrs. Channing. “I am sorry that I do not understand you,” she said, turning to the man.
“Madame want an hot-el? That hot-el a good one,” tapping the card with his finger, and dexterously turning the reverse side upward, where was set forth in English the advantages of a certain Antwerp inn.
“Thank you, but we make no stay at Antwerp; we go straight on at once.” And she would have handed back the card.
No, he would not receive it. “Madame might be wanting an hot-el at another time; on her return, it might be. If so, would she patronize it? it was a good hot-el; perfect!”
Mrs. Channing slipped the card into her reticule, and searched her directions to see what hotel Hamish had indicated, should they require one at Antwerp. She found it to be the Hôtel du Parc. Hamish certainly had contrived to acquire for them a great fund of information; and, as it turned out, information to be relied on.
Breakfast was to be obtained on board the steamer, and they availed themselves of it, as did a few of the other passengers. Some delay occurred in bringing the steamer to the side, after they arrived. Whether from that cause, or the captain’s grievance—want of wind—or from both, they were in later than they ought to have been. When the first passenger put his foot on land, they had been out twenty hours.
Mr. Channing was the last to be removed, as, with him, aid was required. Mrs. Channing stood on the shore at the head of the ladder, looking down anxiously, lest in any way harm should come to him, when she found a hand laid upon her shoulder, and a familiar voice saluted her.
“Mrs. Channing! Who would have thought of seeing you here! Have you dropped from the moon?”
Not only was the voice familiar, but the face also. In the surprise of being so addressed, in the confusion around her, Mrs. Channing positively did not for a moment recognize it; all she saw was, that it was a home face. “Mr. Huntley!” she exclaimed, when she had gathered her senses; and, in the rush of pleasure of meeting him, of not feeling utterly alone in that strange land, she put both her hands into his. “I may return your question by asking where you have dropped from. I thought you were in the south of France.”
“So I was,” he answered, “until a few days ago, when business brought me to Antwerp. A gentleman is living here whom I wished to see. Take care, my men!” he continued to the English sailors, who were carrying up Mr. Channing. “Mind your footing.” But the ascent was accomplished in safety, and Mr. Channing was placed in a carriage.
“Do you understand their lingo?” Mr. Huntley asked, as the porters talked and chattered around.
“Not a syllable,” she answered. “I can manage a little French, but this is as a sealed book to me. Is it German or Flemish?”
“Flemish, I conclude,” he said laughingly; “but my ears will not tell me, any more than yours tell you. I should have done well to bring Ellen with me. She said, in her saucy way, ‘Papa, when you are among the French and Germans, you will be wishing for me to interpret for you.’”
“As I have been wishing for Constance,” replied Mrs. Channing. “In our young days, it was not thought more essential to learn German than it was to learn Hindustanee. French was only partially taught.”
“Quite true,” said Mr. Huntley. “I managed to rub through France after a fashion, but I don’t know what the natives thought of my French. What I did know, I have half forgotten. But, now for explanations. Of course, Mr. Channing has come to try the effect of the German springs?”
“Yes, and we have such hopes!” she answered. “There does appear to be a probability that not only relief, but a cure, may be effected; otherwise, you may be sure we should not have ventured on so much expense.”
“I always said Mr. Channing ought to try them.”
“Very true; you did so. We were only waiting, you know, for the termination of the chancery suit. It is terminated, Mr. Huntley; and against us.”
Mr. Huntley had been abroad since June, travelling in different parts of the Continent; but he had heard from home regularly, chiefly from his daughter, and this loss of the suit was duly communicated with other news.
“Never mind,” said he to Mrs. Channing. “Better luck next time.”
He was of a remarkably pleasant disposition, in temperament not unlike Hamish Channing. A man of keen intellect was Mr. Huntley; his fine face expressing it. The luggage collected, they rejoined Mr. Channing.
“I have scarcely said a word to you,” cried Mr. Huntley, taking his hand. “But I am better pleased to see you here, than I should be to see any one else living. It is the first step towards a cure. Where are you bound for?”
“For Borcette. It is—”
“I know it,” interrupted Mr. Huntley. “I was at it a year or two ago. One of the little Brunnens, near Aix-la-Chapelle. I stayed a whole week there. I have a great mind to accompany you thither, now, and settle you there.”
“Oh, do!” exclaimed Mr. Channing, his face lighting up, as the faces of invalids will light up at the anticipated companionship of a friend. “If you can spare time, do come with us!”
“My time is my own; the business that brought me here is concluded, and I was thinking of leaving to-day. Having nothing to do after my early breakfast, I strolled down to watch in the London steamer, little thinking I should see you arrive by it. That’s settled, then. I will accompany you as far as Borcette, and see you installed.”
“When do you return home?”
“Now; and glad enough I shall be to get there. Travelling is delightful for a change, but when you have had enough of it, home peeps out in the distance with all its charms.”
The train which Mr. and Mrs. Channing had intended to take was already gone, through delay in the steamer’s reaching Antwerp, and they had to wait for another. When it started, it had them safely in it, Mr. Huntley with them. Their route lay through part of the Netherlands, through Malines, and some beautiful valleys; so beautiful that it is worth going the whole distance from England to see them.
“What is this disturbance about the seniorship, and Lady Augusta Yorke?” asked Mr. Huntley, as it suddenly occurred to his recollection, in the earlier part of their journey. “Master Harry has written me a letter full of notes of exclamation and indignation, saying I ‘ought to come home and see about it.’ What is it?”
Mr. Channing explained; at least, as far as he was able to do so. “It has given rise to a good deal of dissatisfaction in the school,” he added, “but I cannot think, for my own part, that it can have any foundation. Mr. Pye would not be likely to give a promise of the kind, either to Lady Augusta, or to any other of the boys’ friends.”
“If he attempted to give one to me, I should throw it back to him with a word of a sort,” hastily rejoined Mr. Huntley, in a warm tone. “Nothing can possibly be more unjust, than to elevate one boy over another undeservedly; nothing, in my opinion, can be more pernicious. It is enough to render the boy himself unjust through life; to give him loose ideas of right and wrong. Have you not inquired into it?”
“No,” replied Mr. Channing.
“I shall. If I find reason to suspect there may be truth in the report, I shall certainly inquire into it. Underhand work of that sort goes, with me, against the grain. I can stir in it with a better grace than you can,” Mr. Huntley added: “my son being pretty sure not to succeed to the seniorship, so long as yours is above him to take it. Tom Channing will make a good senior; a better than Harry would. Harry, in his easy indifference, would suffer the school to lapse into insubordination; Tom will keep a tight hand over it.”
A sensation of pain darted across the heart of Mr. Channing. Only the day before his leaving home, he had accidentally heard a few words spoken between Tom and Charley, which had told him that Tom’s chance of the seniorship was emperilled through the business connected with Arthur. Mr. Channing had then questioned Tom, and found that it was so. He must speak of this now to Mr. Huntley, however painful it might be to himself to do so. It were more manly to meet it openly than to bury it in silence, and let Mr. Huntley hear of it (if he had not heard of it already) as soon as he reached Helstonleigh.
“Have you heard anything in particular about Arthur lately?” inquired Mr. Channing.
“Of course I have,” was the answer. “Ellen did not fail to give me a full account of it. I congratulate you on possessing such sons.”
“Congratulate! To what do you allude?” asked Mr. Channing.
“To Arthur’s applying after Jupp’s post, as soon as he knew that the suit had failed. He’s a true Channing. I am glad he got it.”
“Not to that—I did not allude to that,” hastily rejoined Mr. Channing. And then, with downcast eyes, and a downcast heart, he related sufficient to put Mr. Huntley in possession of the facts.
Mr. Huntley heard the tale with incredulity, a smile of ridicule parting his lips. “Suspect Arthur of theft!” he exclaimed. “What next? Had I been in my place on the magistrates’ bench that day, I should have dismissed the charge at once, upon such defective evidence. Channing, what is the matter?”
Mr. Channing laid his hand upon his aching brow, and Mr. Huntley had to bend over him to catch the whispered answer. “I do fear that he may be guilty. If he is not guilty, some strange mystery altogether is attached to it.”
“But why do you fear that he is guilty?” asked Mr. Huntley, in surprise.
“Because his own conduct, relating to the charge, is so strange. He will not assert his innocence; or, if he does attempt to assert it, it is with a faint, hesitating manner and tone, that can only give one the impression of falsehood, instead of truth.”
“It is utterly absurd to suppose your son Arthur capable of the crime. He is one of those whom it is impossible to doubt; noble, true, honourable! No; I would suspect myself, before I could suspect Arthur Channing.”
“I would have suspected myself before I had suspected him,” impulsively spoke Mr. Channing. “But there are the facts, coupled with his not denying the charge. He could not deny it, even to the satisfaction of Mr. Galloway: did not attempt it; had he done so, Galloway would not have turned him from the office.”
Mr. Huntley fell into thought, revolving over the details, as they had been related to him. That Arthur was the culprit, his judgment utterly repudiated; and he came to the conclusion that he must be screening another. He glanced at Mrs. Channing, who sat in troubled silence.
“You do not believe Arthur guilty?” he said, in a low tone, suddenly bending over to her.
“I do not know what to believe; I am racked with doubt and pain,” she answered. “Arthur’s words to me in private are only compatible with entire innocence; but then, what becomes of the broad facts?—of his strange appearance of guilt before the world? God can bring his innocence to light, he says; and he is content to wait His time.”
“If there is a mystery, I’ll try to come to the bottom of it, when I reach Helstonleigh,” thought Mr. Huntley. “Arthur’s not guilty, whoever else may be.”
It was impossible to shake his firm faith in Arthur Channing. Mr. Huntley was one of the few who read character strongly and surely, and he knew Arthur was incapable of doing wrong. Had his eyes witnessed Arthur positively stealing the bank-note, his mind, his judgment would have refused credence to his eyes. You may, therefore, judge that neither then, nor afterwards, was he likely to admit the possibility of Arthur’s guilt.
“And the college school is saying that Tom shall not stand for the seniorship!” he resumed aloud. “Does my son say it?”
“Some of them are saying it; I believe the majority of the school. I do not know whether your son is amongst the number.”
“He had better not let me find him so,” cried Mr. Huntley. “But now, don’t suffer this affair to worry you,” he added, turning heartily to Mr. Channing. “If Arthur’s guilty, I’ll eat him; and I shall make it my business to look into it closely when I reach home. You are incapacitated, my old friend, and I shall act for you.”
“Did Ellen not mention this, in writing to you?”
“No; the sly puss! Catch Miss Ellen writing to me anything that might tell against the Channings.”
A silence followed. The subject, which the words seemed to hint at, was one upon which there could be no openness between them. A warm attachment had sprung up between Hamish Channing and Ellen Huntley; but whether Mr. Huntley would sanction it, now that the suit had failed, was doubtful. He had never absolutely sanctioned it before: tacitly, in so far as that he had not interfered to prevent Ellen from meeting Hamish in society—in friendly intercourse. Probably, he had never looked upon it from a serious point of view; possibly, he had never noticed it. Hamish had not spoken, even to Ellen; but, that they did care for each other very much, was evident to those who chose to open their eyes.
“No two people in all Helstonleigh were so happy in their children as you!” exclaimed Mr. Huntley. “Or had such cause to be so.”
“None happier,” assented Mrs. Channing, tears rising to her eyes. “They were, and are good, dutiful, and loving. Would you believe that Hamish, little as he can have to spare, has been one of the chief contributors to help us here?”
Mr. Huntley lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “Hamish has! How did he accomplish it?”
“He has, indeed. I fancy he has been saving up with this in view. Dear, self-denying Hamish!”
Now, it just happened that Mr. Huntley was cognizant of Mr. Hamish’s embarrassments; so, how the “saving up” could have been effected, he was at a loss to know. “Careless Hamish may have borrowed it,” thought he to himself, “but saved it up he has not.”
“What are we approaching now?” interrupted Mr. Channing.
They were approaching the Prussian frontier; and there they had to change trains: more embarrassment for Mr. Channing. After that, they went on without interruption, and arrived safely at the terminus, almost close to Borcette, having been about four hours on the road.
“Borcette at last!” cheerily exclaimed Mr. Huntley, as he shook Mr. Channing’s hand. “Please God, it may prove to you a place of healing!”
“Amen!” was the earnestly murmured answer.
Mrs. Channing was delighted with Borcette. Poor Mr. Channing could as yet see little of it. It was a small, unpretending place, scarcely ten minutes’ distance from Aix-la-Chapelle, to which she could walk through an avenue of trees. She had never before seen a bubbling fountain of boiling water, and regarded those of Borcette with much interest. The hottest, close to the Hotel Rosenbad, where they sojourned, boasted a temperature of more than 150° Fahrenheit; it was curious to see it rising in the very middle of the street. Other things amused her, too; in fact, all she saw was strange, and bore its peculiar interest. She watched the factory people flocking to and fro at stated hours in the day—for Borcette has its factories for woollen fabrics and looking-glasses—some thousands of souls, their walk as regular and steady as that of school-girls on their daily march under the governess’s eye. The men wore blue blouses; the women, neat and clean, wore neither bonnets nor caps; but their hair was twisted round their heads, as artistically as if done by a hairdresser. Not one, women or girls, but wore enormous gold earrings, and the girls plaited their hair, and let it hang behind.
What a contrast they presented to their class in England! Mrs. Channing had, not long before, spent a few weeks in one of our large factory towns in the north. She remembered still the miserable, unwholesome, dirty, poverty-stricken appearance of the factory workers there—their almost disgraceful appearance; she remembered still the boisterous or the slouching manner with which they proceeded to their work; their language anything but what it ought to be. But these Prussians looked a respectable, well-conducted, well-to-do body of people.
Where could the great difference lie? Not in wages; for the English were better paid than the Germans. We might go abroad to learn economy, and many other desirable accompaniments of daily life. Nothing amused her more than to see the laundresses and housewives generally, washing the linen at these boiling springs; wash, wash, wash! chatter, chatter, chatter! She thought they must have no water in their own homes, for they would flock in numbers to the springs with their kettles and jugs to fill them.
It was Doctor Lamb who had recommended them to the Hotel Rosenbad; and they found the recommendation a good one. Removed from the narrow, dirty, offensive streets of the little town, it was pleasantly situated. The promenade, with its broad walks, its gay company (many of them invalids almost as helpless as Mr. Channing), and its musical bands, was in front of the hotel windows; a pleasant sight for Mr. Channing until he could get about himself. On the heights behind the hotel were two churches; and the sound of their services would be wafted down in soft, sweet strains of melody. In the neighbourhood there was a shrine, to which pilgrims flocked. Mrs. Channing regarded them with interest, some with their alpen-stocks, some in fantastic dresses, some with strings of beads, which they knelt and told; and her thoughts went back to the old times of the Crusaders. All she saw pleased her. But for her anxiety as to what would be the effect of the new treatment upon her husband, and the ever-lively trouble about Arthur, it would have been a time of real delight to Mrs. Channing.
They could not have been better off than in the Hotel Rosenbad. Their rooms were on the second floor—a small, exquisitely pretty sitting-room, bearing a great resemblance to most continental sitting-rooms, its carpet red, its muslin curtains snowy white; from this opened a bed-room containing two beds, all as conveniently arranged as it could be. Their meals were excellent; the dinner-table especially being abundantly supplied. For all this they paid five francs a day each, and the additional accommodation of having the meals served in their room, on account of Mr. Channing, was not noted as an additional expense. Their wax-lights were charged extra, and that was all. I think English hotel-keepers might take a lesson from Borcette!
The doctor gave great hopes of Mr. Channing. His opinion was, that, had Mr. Channing come to these baths when he was first taken ill, his confinement would have been very trifling. “You will find the greatest benefit in a month,” said the doctor, in answer to the anxious question, How long the restoration might be in coming. “In two months you will walk charmingly; in three, you will be well.” Cheering news, if it could only be borne out.
“I will not have you say ‘If,’” cried Mr. Huntley, who had made one in consultation with the doctor. “You are told that it will be so, under God’s blessing, and all you have to do is to anticipate it.”
Mr. Channing smiled. They were stationed round the open window of the sitting-room, he on the most comfortable of sofas, Mrs. Channing watching the gay prospect below, and thinking she should never tire of it. “There can be no hope without fear,” said he.
“But I would not think of fear: I would bury that altogether,” said Mr. Huntley. “You have nothing to do here but to take the remedies, look forward with confidence, and be as happy as the day’s long.”
“I will if I can,” said Mr. Channing, with some approach to gaiety. “I should not have gone to the expense of coming here, but that I had great hopes of the result.”
“Expense, you call it! I call it a marvel of cheapness.”
“For your pocket. Cheap as it is, it will tell upon mine: but, if it does effect my restoration, I shall soon repay it tenfold.”
“‘If,’ again! It will effect it, I say. What shall you do with Hamish, when you resume your place at the head of your office?”
“Let me resume it first, Huntley.”
“There you go! Now, if you were only as sanguine and sure as you ought to be, I could recommend Hamish to something good to-morrow.”
“Indeed! What is it?”
“But, if you persist in saying you shall not get well, or that there’s a doubt whether you will get well, where’s the use of my doing it? So long as you are incapacitated, Hamish must be a fixture in Guild Street.”
“True.”
“So I shall say no more about it at present. But remember, my old friend, that when you are upon your legs, and have no further need of Hamish—who, I expect, will not care to drop down into a clerk again, where he has been master—I may be able to help him to something; so do not let anticipations on his score worry you. I suppose you will be losing Constance soon?”
Mr. Channing gave vent to a groan: a sharp attack of his malady pierced his frame just then. Certain reminiscences, caused by the question, may have helped its acuteness; but of that Mr. Huntley had no suspicion.
In the evening, when Mrs. Channing was sitting under the acacia trees, Mr. Huntley joined her, and she took the opportunity of alluding to the subject. “Do not mention it again in the presence of my husband,” she said: “talking of it can only bring it before his mind with more vivid force. Constance and Mr. Yorke have parted.”
Had Mrs. Channing told him the cathedral had parted, Mr. Huntley could not have felt more surprise. “Parted!” he ejaculated. “From what cause?”
“It occurred through this dreadful affair of Arthur’s. I fancy the fault was as much Constance’s as Mr. Yorke’s, but I do not know the exact particulars. He did not like it; he thought, I believe, that to marry a sister of Arthur’s would affect his own honour—or she thought it. Anyway, they parted.”
“Had William Yorke been engaged to my daughter, and given her up upon so shallow a plea, I should have been disposed to chastise him,” intemperately spoke Mr. Huntley, carried away by his strong feeling.
“But, I say I fancy that the giving up was on Constance’s side,” repeated Mrs. Channing. “She has a keen sense of honour, and she knows the pride of the Yorkes.”
“Pride, such as that, would be the better for being taken down a peg,” returned Mr. Huntley. “I am sorry for this. The accusation has indeed been productive of serious effects. Why did not Arthur go to William Yorke and avow his innocence, and tell him there was no cause for their parting? Did he not do so?”
Mrs. Channing shook her head only, by way of answer; and, as Mr. Huntley scrutinized her pale, sad countenance, he began to think there must be greater mystery about the affair than he had supposed. He said no more.
On the third day he quitted Borcette, having seen them, as he expressed it, fully installed, and pursued his route homewards, by way of Lille, Calais, and Dover. Mr. Huntley was no friend to long sea passages: people with well-filled purses seldom are so.