90CHAPTER VII
At the end of February the elder Astons returned to town and Marden Court was no longer mere vague locality to Christopher, but the “home” of those he loved, the centre piece of their lives, and he had a share in it himself.
Still he was very happy to find himself back at Aston House. Its many deserted rooms, the long, silent corridors and its strange spacious emptiness lent themselves to his robust imagination more easily than the living friendly warmth of the old house, brimful of actualities. He re-explored every corner of house and garden in the first days of return, interviewed the staff collectively and individually, from Warren the butler, to the new scullery boy. He rearranged his books and hunted up half-forgotten treasures, slid down the shiny banisters fifty times a day and dispelled the silent lurking shadows with a merry whistle and a laugh that woke an echo in quiet rooms. But he regretted Patricia. It would have been very pleasant to take his turn at showing her round—Patricia had only been in London once,—and there would have been plenty to show her. Lessons, however, recommenced almost at once and Christopher was left with little time for regrets. Life fell back into its old grooves with the solitary difference that those grooves seemed deeper worn and more familiar than he had imagined. The months no longer only presented possible problems; he could consult his memory as to what had previously been at such a time or in like conditions.
He was also given much greater liberty now and encouraged to go out by himself, and to do errands for Mr. Aston or Aymer. It was a proud day for91him when Aymer first sent him to The House with a letter for Mr. Aston, who was acting secretary on a Committee at the time. Christopher had had to wait and had sat outside a Committee room door and watched men go to and fro, men whose faces were dimly familiar to a student of illustrated papers, and men who were strange, but all men doing something in return for the good things the world had given them. Such at least was Christopher’s innocent belief. Aymer did not disillusion him.
He used to recount his small adventures to Cæsar in the evenings and was encouraged to form his own conclusions from what he had noticed and to confirm existing ideas from actual life. Such conclusions and ideas were naturally often childish and illogical, but Cæsar never appeared to find them laughable and would give careful and illuminating consideration to the most chaotic theories.
The everlasting problem of riches and poverty, happiness and misery often came uppermost, and on this point Christopher was assuredly, but quite unconsciously, as illuminating to Aymer as Aymer was to him. There were certain points of view, certain lines of thought with regard to the attitude of these “under-world” people, which Christopher knew without knowing how, and which, flashing out unexpectedly, would dissolve philanthropic theories wholesale. Aymer would retell them to his father afterwards, who in turn would bring them out in his quiet, unexpected way in one of those wonderfully eloquent speeches of his that made the whole list of “Societies” court him as a dinner guest and speaker, and political coteries sigh with pained surprise at his refusal to stand for Parliament.
Christopher, indeed, possessed to a full degree the power of absorbing the mental atmosphere in which he lived and of becoming a sort of visible incarnation of92it. Places and people who had thus once found expression in him could always bring to the surface again that particular phase of existence they had originally stamped on his mind. The Christopher who wandered amongst the wharfs and warehouses in that vague region across the river, remembered and was concerned over quite different matters to the happy boy who rode every morning in the Row with Mr. Aston.
There were many people to and fro to Aston House: Men who were a power in the world; men who would be so, and men who had been, as well as many of no note at all. They came to consult Charles Aston on every conceivable thing under the sun, from questions of high politics to the management of a refractory son. They did not always take his advice, nor did he always offer it, but they invariably came away with a more definite sense of their own meaning and aims, and somehow such aims were generally a little more just, a shade more honest, or a little higher than they had imagined when they started out. Charles Aston was still alluded to by men of high repute as “the man who might have been,” yet many there were who, had they considered it carefully, might have said to themselves that “might have been” was less well than “has been.” Very occasionally he entertained and Constantia came to play hostess for him. On these occasions Aymer rarely appeared at dinner, but a few privileged guests visited him afterwards and kept alive the tradition that Charles Aston’s son, that poor fellow Aymer, was an even more brilliant conversationalist and keener wit than his father. But as a rule very few from the outside penetrated as far as the Garden Wing of Aston House, and Aymer and Christopher continued to lead a peaceful and uninterrupted existence there.
Christopher continued to occupy his leisure with a93prodigious number of pets and the construction of mechanical contrivances for their convenience, in which he showed no little ingenuity. There were occasionally tragedies in connection with the pets which were turned to good account by the master of their fate even at the expense of his own feelings—and fingers—as on the occasion when he cremated a puppy-dog who had come to an untimely end. Cæsar objected to this experiment, and when the next catastrophe occurred, which was to a guinea-pig, a more commonplace funeral had to be organised.
But this tragedy became curiously enough linked with a new memory in Christopher’s mind, of more lasting importance than the demise of “Sir Joshua Reynolds” of the brown spots.
It happened this-wise. Sir Joshua having stolen a joyous but unsafe hour of liberty fell a victim to the cunning of the feline race. Christopher rescued the corpse and heaped tearful threats of vengeance on the murderess, and then tore into Cæsar’s room to find sympathy and comfort. He tumbled in at the window with Sir Joshua in his arms, and flung himself on Cæsar before he had observed the presence of a visitor—a stranger, too. He was a big, florid man, with a good-natured face and great square chin, and he was standing with his back to the fire, looking very much at home. He gave a slight start as Christopher tumbled in, and a queer little cynical smile dawned on his face as he watched the two.
“Hallo, Aymer, I didn’t know you had––”
“Go and get ready for tea, Christopher,” interrupted Aymer peremptorily, “and take out that animal. Don’t you see I have a visitor?”
Christopher, who had just perceived the stranger, hardly disguised his lack of appreciation of so inopportune a caller, and went out to see what consolation could be got out of Vespasian. When he returned,94tidy and clean, even to Vespasian’s satisfaction, he found the two men talking hard and slipped quietly into his seat behind the little tea-table hoping to be unobserved; but Cæsar called him out of it.
“Peter,” he said, “let me present my adopted son to you. Christopher, shake hands with Mr. Masters.”
The big man and the small boy looked at each other gravely, and then Christopher extended his hand. Aymer looked out of the window and apparently took no notice of them.
“How do you do, sir?”
“What’s your name besides Christopher?” demanded the visitor. He had queer, light blue, piercing eyes that were curiously unexpressive and looked through one to the back of one’s head, but, unlike Mr. Aston’s kind, steady gaze, that invited one to open one’s soul to it, the immediate impulse here was to pull down the blinds of one’s individuality in hasty self-defence, and realise, even in doing it, that it was too late.
“Aston,” said Christopher, rather hastily, escaping to the tea-table.
Peter Masters looked from him to Aymer with the same queer smile.
“Good-looking boy, Aymer,” he said carelessly. “You call him Aston?”
“We’ve given him our own name,” said Aymer steadily, “because it saves complications and explanations.”
“A very wise precaution. What are you going to do with him eventually?”
“I hardly know yet. What were you saying about the strike?”
They fell to discussing a recent labour trouble in the Midlands, and Christopher gathered a hazy notion that their visitor employed vast numbers of men who were not particularly fond of him, and for whom he95had not only no affection, but no sort of feeling whatever, except as instruments of his will.
Christopher was very glad he was not one of them; he felt rather hostile to the big, careless, opulent man who spoke to Aymer with a familiarity that Christopher resented and had already apparently forgotten his own small existence.
The forget was but apparent, however, for presently he turned sharply to the boy and asked him if he had ever been down a coal mine. Christopher, putting control on his own hot curiosity to explore the subject, answered that he had not, and gave Mr. Masters his second cup of tea without any sugar to emphasise his own indifference to the questioner, who unfortunately never noticed the omission, but drank his tea with equal satisfaction.
“Ever been over an iron foundry?” persisted Mr. Masters, with the same scrutinising gaze.
Cæsar was playing with his favourite long tortoise-shell paper-knife; he seemed unusually indifferent to Christopher’s manners, nor did he intervene to save him from the string of sharp questions that ensued.
Christopher made effort to answer the questioner with ordinary politeness, but he was not communicative, and Mr. Masters presently leant back in his chair and laughed.
“Young man, you’ll get on in the world,” he said approvingly, “for you’ve learnt the great secret of keeping your own counsel. I prophesy you’ll be a successful man some day.”
Christopher was not at all elated at the prospect. He was wondering why Aymer drank no tea, also wondering how long the visitor meant to stay. There seemed no sign of departing in him, so Christopher asked if he might go and bury the guinea-pig with Vespasian’s help. Aymer nodded permission without speaking.96
“A cute lad,” remarked Mr. Masters; “what are you going to do with him?”
“I do not know yet.”
“Put him in the iron trade. ’Prentice him to me. There’s something in him. Did you say you didn’t know who his father was?” He shot one of his quick glances at Aymer.
The tortoise-shell paper-knife snapped in two. Aymer fitted the ends together neatly.
“No, I didn’t,” he answered very deliberately. “I told you he was my adopted son. I adopted him in order to have something to do.”
“Oh, yes. Of course, of course.” A slow smile spread over his big face. “Think of Aymer Aston of all men in the world playing at being a family man!”
He leant back in his chair and laughed out his great hearty laugh whose boyish ring, coupled with the laugher’s easy careless manners, had snared so many fish into the financial net.
“They’d like to make a family man of me again—do their dear little best—but I’m not such a fool as they think me. Men with brains and ambitions don’t want a wife. You miss less than you think, old chap,” he went on with the colossal tactlessness habitual to him when his own interests were not at stake; “a wife plays the devil with one’s business. Iknow.” He nodded gloomily, the smile lost under a heavy frown.
Aymer put down very carefully the broken toy he had been playing with. Peter’s elephantine tread was so great that it had almost overstepped its victim. At all events Aymer gave no outward sign that he felt it except in his deepened colour and a faint straightening of the lips.
“What on earth do you do with yourself?” went on Peter thoughtfully; “the care of a kid like that doesn’t absorb all your brains, I know.”97
“What would you recommend me to do?” asked Aymer quietly.
“With your head for figures and your leisure you should take to the Market. Have a machine and tapes fitted up in reach, and, by Jove! in a quiet spot like this, out of the way of other men’s panics and nonsense, you could rule the world.”
“The Market, I think you said.”
“Same thing. Think of it, Aymer,” he went on eagerly and genuinely interested in his proposition, whether spontaneous or not. He began walking up and down the room, working out his idea with that grasp of detail that had made him the millionaire he was.
“You could have the instruments and a private wire fixed up along the wall there, and your sofa by them. A clerk over there: it would be a sort of companion. You’ve plenty of capital to start with, and wouldn’t have to lose your head at the first wrong deal. Of course you’d want someone the other end, a figurehead and mouthpiece, and someone to show you the lines, start you off; I’d be pleased to do it. We could make a partnership concern of it, if you liked.”
There was a quick sidelong glint in his eyes towards Aymer as he came to a stand near the sofa.
“What particular results would you expect?” inquired Aymer, knowing the only plan to keep the enthusiast at bay was to humour him.
“Why, man, you might be the greatest power in the world—you—the unseen, unknown, mysterious Brain—you would have time—you would escape the crazy influences that ruin half the men ‘on ’Change’—and you’ve got the head for it. Calculation, nerve, everything. It would be just the thing for you. You’d forget all about not being able to walk in a week. I wonder why none of us have thought of it before.”
“I’m getting used to it after twelve years,” said98Aymer, with shut teeth; “the objection to your scheme is that I do not happen to want money.”
“Power, power, man,” cried the other impatiently. “Money is just metal, its value lies in the grip it gives you over other men, and if you don’t even care for that, there’s the joy of chancing it. And you were a born gambler, Aymer, you can’t deny that,” he laughed heartily, but also again came the quick sidelong glint of his eyes. “Think of it, old fellow,” he said carelessly, dropping his enthusiastic tone, “it would be a good deal better for you than doing nothing. It’s such wicked waste.”
For the first time Aymer winced.
“I’ll think of it, and let you know if it’s likely to be entertained. I have the boy, you know; that gives me something to do.”
“Poof! Let him bring himself up if you want to make a successful man of him. The more he educates himself, the better he’ll get on. If you do it, you’ll make him soft.Iknow! Public School: University: Examinations, and £200 a year if he’s lucky. That’s your education! All very well if you are born with a golden spoon in your mouth and can afford to be a fool. If you can’t, better learn to rough-and-tumble it in the world. Education doesn’t make successful men.”
“You were not exactly uneducated, Peter,” said Aymer drily.
Peter grinned.
“Ah, but I was a genius. I couldn’t help it. It would have been the same had I been born in the gutter. No, I believe in the rough-and-tumble school to make hard-headed men.”
“Well, for all you know, Christopher may be a genius, or be born with a golden spoon in his mouth.”
The other looked up sharply.
“Nevil has a boy of his own, hasn’t he?”99
“Don’t be a fool if you can help it, Peter. Other people have golden spoons besides the gilded Aston family.”
Peter shrugged his shoulders. “It’s no business of mine, of course, but the boy looks sharp. Pity to spoil him. Ha, Ha. I don’t spoil mine.”
He got up yawning and sauntered over to the fireplace and so did not see Aymer’s rigid face go white and then red.
“I’ve got a boy—I think it’s a boy—somewhere. Daresay you’ve forgotten. You weren’t very sociable, poor old chap, when it happened. About a year after your accident. He’s about somewhere or other. Oh, I back my own theories! I don’t suppose he’s a genius, so the rough-and-tumble school forhim.”
“You know the school?”
“I can put my hand on him when I want to—that’s not yet. The world can educate him till I’m ready to step in.”
“If he’ll have you.”
Peter chuckled. “He won’t be a fool—even if he’s not a genius. Well, you think of my proposition, I’ll go halves.”
“How you have disappointed me, Peter. I thought you called from a disinterested desire to see me after all these years.”
“Twelve years, isn’t it? Well, you look better than you did then. I didn’t think you would come through—didn’t think you meant to. I’m sorry to miss Cousin Charles. He doesn’t approve of me, but he’s too polite to say so, even in a letter. How does he wear?”
“Well, on the whole. He works too hard.”
The other spread out his hands.
“Works. And to what end? I’m glad to have seen you again. It’s like old times, if you weren’t on that beastly sofa, poor old chap.”
“Perhaps you will call again when father is in,”100said Aymer steadily, with a mute wonder if a square inch of him was left unbruised.
“To tell the truth, I’m rarely in London. I work from Birmingham and New York, and calling is an expensive amusement to a busy man.”
“Produces nothing?”
“Yes, a good deal of pleasure. It’s worth it occasionally.”
He stood over his cousin, looking down at him with quite genuine concern and liking in his eyes. His size, his aggressiveness, his blundering disregard of decency towards trouble, everything about him was on such a gigantic scale that one could not weigh him by any accepted standard. Aymer knew it, and notwithstanding Peter’s unique powers of hurting him to the soul, he made no attempt to scale him, but met him on his own ground and ignored the torture.
“What has it cost you exactly, this visit?”
Peter considered quite gravely.
“Let me see. I was to have seen Tomlands. He’s ceding his rights in the Lodal Valley Affair and his figure goes up each day.” He considered again. “Three thousand,” he answered with a wide grin.
“I am abashed at my value,” said Aymer gravely. “I daren’t ask you to come again now.”
“Oh, I’ll have an extravagant fit again, some day. Where’s the boy?” His hand was in his pocket and Aymer heard the chink of coin.
“At work, or should be. Don’t tip him, please, Peter. He has as much as he needs.”
“How do you know? A boy needs as much as he can get. Well, don’t forget my advice. Don’t educate him.”
He was gone at last. Presumably to gather in the Lodal Rights before their value further increased.
Charles Aston did not betray any particular sorrow at missing the visitor.101
“It’s rather odd his turning up again now after forgetting our existence so long,” he remarked, frowning. “Of course we’ve had correspondence—not very agreeable either.”
“I can hardly wonder at his not coming to see me, at all events. It’s nearly twelve years since we met, and I wasn’t very polite to him that time,” said Aymer wearily.
“There was a reasonable excuse for you.”
“I’m afraid I did not consider reason much in those days, sir. If he’d been a saint in disguise I should have behaved like a brute just the same.”
Charles Aston came and stood looking down with a kind, quiet, satisfied smile. The attitude was the same as Peter Masters’ and Aymer, remembering it, smiled too.
“What did he really want, Aymer? He never came for nothing.”
“To induce me to go on the Stock-Exchange in partnership with him, I think. Thought it would be less boring than lying here all day with nothing to do.”
Charles Aston opened his mouth to protest and shut it resolutely, turned and walked down the room ruffling his hair, so that when he went back to Aymer, his iron-grey thatch was more picturesque than neat.
Aymer laughed.
“Who’s lost his temper now?” he demanded.
His father looked in a glass and, perceiving the devastation, attempted to remedy it.
“I’m awfully sorry,” he said with much contrition, “but I can’t keep my temper over Peter. Has he improved?”
“Not a bit. He doesn’t hurt, father, he’s too big,” he paused a moment, “he saw Christopher.”
Mr. Aston gave Aymer a scrutinising glance.
“It was unavoidable, I suppose.”102
“I did not try to stop it.”
“And the result?”
“There was no result except he appeared impressed with his mental capacity.”
Mr. Aston ruffled his hair again in a perturbed manner.
“Didn’t he see his likeness to his mother, Aymer?”
“Apparently not. It’s not so strong as it was. He offered me advice on his upbringing.”
“Did he?” with an indignant shake of the head.
“All in good faith,” said Aymer steadily, “he said he didn’t approve of education; as a proof of his sincerity, he cited the line he was taking with his own boy.”
There was a silence.
“He said he could put his hand on him when he liked.” Aymer’s voice was quite level and inexpressive, but his father leant forward and put his hand on his, saying hastily.
“He always says that. He believes it just a matter of money. It was his one answer to all my remonstrances. When he wanted him he could find him—not before. Aymer, I wish I’d been at home. Why did you see him?”
“I could hardly refuse; it would have been churlish—unpolitic. I did not know why he came. He was evidently struck with Christopher.”
He laughed a little unsteadily, but his father smothered a sigh and watched him with curious solicitude. The unwritten law that Christopher had learnt so well had been very heavily infringed, and Charles Aston had no liking for the man who had infringed it, though he was his first cousin.
He was weighing in his mind what his son must have suffered in that interview, and trying to see if it could have been foreseen and prevented.
Peter and Aymer, who was only five years his103junior, had been great friends in the far-off days before the tragedy, but the former was too nearly, though half unconsciously, connected with that to be a possible intimate for Aymer now. The possibility of his turning up in this casual manner, ignoring with ruthless amiability all that had passed, had really never occurred to either father or son, and they were both unprepared for a narrowly escaped crisis. But Aymer was evidently not going to own frankly how great had been the strain and how badly he had suffered under it. He set his pride to heal his bruised feelings, however, applauding himself secretly for not betraying to his cousin the torture to which he had unintentionally put him. But he could not, having done this, altogether put it from him, and the subject of Peter Masters cropped up next morning when Christopher was sitting on the edge of Cæsar’s bed.
Aymer asked him abruptly what he thought of the visitor of the previous day.
“I don’t like him at all. I think he’s beastly,” was Master Christopher’s emphatic verdict.
“He is my second cousin, his mother was an Aston, and he is one of the richest men in England, if not quite the richest. He is thought rich even in America.”
“And horrid, too, just the same: only perhaps I oughtn’t to say so as he is your cousin,” added the boy with sudden confusion.
Aymer regarded him with an introspective air.
“He is a strange man, though many people don’t like him. We were great friends once.”
Christopher opened his eyes very wide.
“You—and Mr. Masters?”
“Yes—when I was a young man like others. We quarrelled—or rather I quarrelled—he came to see me when I was first—ill,” he jerked the word out awkwardly, but never took his eyes from Christopher’s104face. “I was perfectly brutal to him. That’s twelve years ago. Most men would never have spoken to me again, but he doesn’t bear malice.”
“He wouldn’t mind what anyone said to him,” persisted Christopher; “fancy your being friends!”
“You like me best then?”
Master Christopher caught up a pillow and hurled it at him, and then made a violent effort to smother him under it.
“I think you’re almost as nasty—when you say things like that, Cæsar.”
“Then retreat from my company and tell Vespasian his baby is waiting to be dressed.”
Vespasian found his master in one of his rare inconsequent moods, talking nonsense with provoking persistence and exercising his wits in teasing everyone who came in his way.
Vespasian smiled indulgently and spent his leisure that day in assisting Christopher to construct a man-of-war out of empty biscuit boxes and cotton reels, for he was dimly possessed of the idea that the boy was in some way connected with his master’s unusually good spirits.
105CHAPTER VIII
It was not until Christopher had passed his fourteenth birthday that he came face to face once more with the distant past. He had crossed Westminster Bridge to watch the trams on the other side, and from there, being in an adventurous mood, he had wandered out into vague regions lying beyond, regions of vast warehouses, of narrow, dirty streets and squalid houses, of sudden palaces of commerce towering over the low tide of mean roofs. Suddenly turning a corner, he had come on a block of “model dwellings,” and an inrush of memories brought him to a standstill before the giant ugly pile.
There, on the topmost floor of the east corner of Block D, had lived Martha Sartin, and Marley Sartin, packer at one of the big warehouses near, also Jessie Sartin and numerous other Sartins, including Sam, who was about Christopher’s age; there in the dull asphalt court Sam and Christopher had played, and up that steep stairway had climbed in obedience to husky shouts from over the iron railings of the top landing.
It was all so vivid, so unaltered, so sharply set in Christopher’s mind that he had to look down at his own immaculate blue suit and unpatched boots to reassure himself he was not waiting for Martha’s shrill order to “come up out of the dirt.” But assured once more of his own present personality he could not resist exploring further, and went right up to the foot of the iron staircase and looked up. It was all just as sordid and dirty and unlovely as ever, though he had not known before the measure of its undesirableness. Leaning over the railing of the top landing was106an untidy-looking woman in a brown skirt and half-fastened blouse. She looked over into the yard and shouted in a voice that made Christopher jump.
“Jim, come up out of the dirt, you little varmint!”
And Christopher, erstwhile Jim, leant against the wall and felt his head was whirling round. Then he inspected himself again, but at that moment a shock-headed dirty mite of four years brushed past him and began to clamber up the stairs, pushing his way through the horde of small babies on each landing and squealing shrilly, “I’m coming, Mammie.”
Christopher went too. He could not possibly have resisted the impulse, for assuredly it was Martha’s voice that called—called him back willy nilly to the past that after all was not so far past except in a boy’s measure of time.
A dark-eyed, decent-looking woman passed him on the stair and looked at him curiously; further on a man, smoking a pipe, took the trouble to follow him to the next floor in a loafing fashion. The small Jim, out of breath and panting with the exertion of the climb, was being roughly dusted by an undoubted Martha when Christopher reached the topmost landing. She was stouter than of yore, and her hair was no longer done up in iron curlers as of old, also a baby, younger than Jim, was crawling out of the room on the right. But it was Martha Sartin, and Christopher advanced a friendly hand.
Mrs. Sartin gazed at the apparition with blank amazement. She could connect the tall, pleasant-faced boy in his spotless suit and straw hat with nothing in her memory. He did not look as if he could belong to the theatre at which she was a dresser, but it seemed the only solution.
“Are you come from Miss Vassour?” she asked doubtfully.
“Don’t you know me, Mrs. Sartin?”107
“Know ye? No. How should I?”
“I’m Jim Hibbault.”
“Garn!”
“Yes, I am really.” Poor Christopher began to feel embarrassed and a little disappointed.
HewasJim Hibbault at that moment and he felt queerly lonely and stranded.
Martha pulled down her sleeves and went to the inner door.
“Jessie, come out ’ere,” she screamed.
Christopher felt his heart go thump. He had almost forgotten Jessie, yet Jessie had been more to him than Martha in other days. It was Jessie who had taken him for walks, carried him up the steep stairs on her back, shared sweets with him, cuffed her brother Sam when they fought, and had finally taken little Jim Hibbault back to his mother when the great clock in the distance struck six,—Jessie, who at eleven had been a complete little mother and was at sixteen a tall, lanky, untidy girl who had inherited the curling pins of her mother and whose good-natured, not ill-looking face was not improved thereby.
She came to the doorway and stood looking over her mother’s arm at Christopher.
“Ever seed ’im afore?” demanded Mrs. Sartin.
“Well I never, if it ain’t Jimmy!” cried Jessie, beaming, and Christopher could have embraced her if it were in accordance with the custom of his years, and he felt less inclined to bolt down the stairs out of reach of his adventure.
Neither of the two women expressed any pleasure at his appearance. Mrs. Sartin accepted her daughter’s recognition of their visitor as sufficient evidence it was not a hoax, and asked Christopher in.
The room, though the window was open, smelt just as stuffy as of old, and a familiar litter of toys and odds and ends strewed the floor. Christopher missed108the big tea-tray and Britannia metal teapot, but the sofa with broken springs was still there, covered as it had ever been with the greater part of the family wardrobe.
Christopher sat in the armchair, and Mrs. Sartin, having plumped the baby into its chair, sat down by the door. The small Jimmy pulled at her apron. Jessie leant against the wall and giggled. No one said anything. Christopher began to wish he had not come.
“I never could remember the name of this place,” he began at last, desperately. “I just came on it by accident to-day, and remembered everything all at once.”
“Shilla Buildings, that’s what it’s called,” said Mrs. Sartin nodding her head. “Block 7, C. Door.”
Silence again. A strict sense of etiquette prevented either of the feminine side of the company from uttering the question burning on their tongues.
“I did see Sam once, a long time ago,” Christopher struggled on, “but I could not catch him.” He got red and embarrassed again.
“’Ows your Ma?” asked Mrs. Sartin at last.
“She’s dead,” explained Christopher very gravely, “five years ago now—more.”
“Lor’. To think of it. I never thought she was one to live long. And she went back to her friends after all, I suppose.”
It was not a question: it was only a statement to be confirmed or contradicted or ignored as the hearer liked.
“She died in the Union at Whitmansworth,” said Christopher bluntly. “I lived there afterwards and then someone adopted me. Mr. Aymer Aston, son of Mr. Aston. Perhaps you know the name.”
Mrs. Sartin appeared to consult an imaginary visiting list.
“No, I can’t say as I do. Do you, Jessie?”109
Jessie shook her head. She had ceased to look at their visitor; instead, she looked at his boots, and her cheeks grew red.
“I thought I would like to see if you were still here.”
“Very good of you, I’m sure.” It was not meant ironically, it was solely addressed to the blue suit and brown boots, but it nearly reduced the wearer of these awe-inspiring clothes to tears.
For the moment, in the clutch of the past, with associations laying gripping hands on him and with his curious faculty of responding to the outward call, Aston House and the Astons became suddenly a faint blurred impression to Christopher, less real and tangible than these worn, sordid surroundings. Had anyone just then demanded his name he would undoubtedly have responded “Hibbault.” He felt confused and wretched, alive to the fact that little Jim Hibbault had neither people nor home nor relations in the world, if these once kindly women had no welcome for him.
“I heard you call Jim,” he hazarded at last, in an extremity of disconcerted shyness.
Mrs. Sartin eyed the four-year-old nestling in her apron and pulled him from cover.
“Yes, that be Jim. We called ’im Jim arter you. He was born arter you an’ your ma went away.”
He longed to ask after Marley of unhappy memory, but the possibilities were too apparent for him to venture, so silence again fell over them.
At this precise juncture of affairs a shrill whistle was heard ascending the stairway, growing momentarily louder and louder till it became earsplitting in intensity as it arrived on landing No. 6. The author of it pulled open the door and the whistle tailed off into a faint “phew” at sight of the embarrassed group. The new-comer was a thin-faced lad with light sandy110hair cropped close to his square head. He had light, undetermined eyes that were keen and lively. Christopher had beaten him in the matter of size, but there were latent possibilities in his ill-developed form.
Christopher sprang up and rushed forward, then suddenly stopped.
“Ullo, mother, didn’t know as ’ow you ’ad swell company this arternoon. I’d ’ave put on my best suit and topper,” he grinned affably as he deposited on the floor a big basket he carried.
“Oh, I say, Sam—don’t you know me either?” began poor Christopher.
He wheeled round, stared hard, and a broad smile of recognition spread over his face.
“Why, if it ain’t Jim,” he cried and seized his hand with a fervour that set Christopher aglowing and strangely enough set him free from the clinging shadow of his lost identity.Thiswas tangible flesh and blood and of the real authentic present.
“Well, I’m blowed,” ejaculated Sam, stepping back to look at his erstwhile companion, “to think of you turning up again such a toff. No need to ask what sort of luck cameyourway. My. Ain’t ’e a swell, just.”
But unlike the women, he was unabashed by externals. He demanded “tea” of his mother that very moment, “cos ’e ’adn’t no time for dinner and ’is bloke ’ad sent ’im round to get a bit o’ somethink now,” at a slack hour.
“Greengrocer business, Clare Street,” he explained. “Seven shillings a week. Not a bad old cove. What d’yer say about yourself?”
He had the whole history out of Christopher in five minutes.
The women listened and flung in “Well, I never’s,” and “Who’d ’ave thought it’s” from time to time and thawed into ordinary human beings under Sam’s convivial111example. In the end Sam offered sincere if oddly-expressed congratulations, and disappeared into the back kitchen to wash his hands. Jessie, too, vanished mysteriously, eventually returning minus the curling pins and plus a row of impossible curls and a bright blue blouse bedecked with cheap lace. Mrs. Sartin meanwhile tidied up by kicking the scattered toys under the sofa.
“Them sisters what looks arter the poor is always givin’ broken rubbish to the children,” she exclaimed. “Not but what they mean it kindly, but it makes a heap of muck to clear up.”
Christopher nodded his head comprehendingly, by no means so hurt at her ingratitude as a real Christopher Aston might have been.
The good woman bustled about, and eventually the family drew up round the tea table. The cloth might have been cleaner, the cups and saucers have borne a longer acquaintance with water, and there was a spoon short, though no one was so ill-mannered as to allude to it. Jessie unobtrusively shared hers with her mother under cover of the big tea-pot. There was bread and a yellow compound politely alluded to as butter, and a big pot of jam. The younger Sartins gorged silently on this, all unreproved by a preoccupied mother. Mrs. Sartin, indeed, became quite voluble and told Christopher how she was now first dresser at the Kings Theatre and how Jessie was just taken on in the wardrobe room.
“Which is uncertainhours,” Mrs. Sartin explained, “but it’s nice to be together in the same ’ouse, and one couldn’t want a kinder gentleman than Mr. X. to do with. I’ve been there ten years and never ’ad a cross word with ’im. And ’e was that good when Marley was took, and never turned me off as some of ’em do.” She stopped suddenly under the stress of Sam’s lowering countenance. Jessie hastily passed her112bread, “which I thanks you for, but will say what I was a-goin’ to, for all Sam’s kicks under the table,” continued the hostess, defiantly regarding her confused offspring.
The confusion spread to Christopher, who looked at his plate and got red. Sam pushed back his chair; there was a very ugly scowl on his face. His undaunted mother addressed herself to their guest.
“No woman ever ’ad a better ’usband than Marley, though I ses it, but Sam here ’s that ’ard ’e won’t let me speak of my own man if ’e can ’elp ’it. ’Is own father, too. Ah, if ’e ’ad ’ad a bad father, Sam would ’ave know what to be thankful for.”
“I’m thankful ’e’s gone,” burst out Sam, with sudden anger. “I asks you, ’ow’s a cove to get on when he’s ’itched up to a father wot’s done time? Why, old Greenum gave me a shillin’ a week less than ’e ought, cos why, ’e knew I couldn’t ’old out with a father like that,” and he eyed his mother wrathfully.
“A better ’usband no woman ’ad,” sobbed Mrs. Sartin. “When ’e came out ’e didn’t seem to get no chance and so....”
“Is he in London?” asked Christopher, nervously gulping down some tea.
“No—sloped,” said Sam, shortly, “cribbed some other chap’s papers I guess—went abroad—we don’t know—don’t want to, either.”
The fierce hostility and resentment in the boy’s voice made it clear to Christopher this was evidently a subject better dropped. He seized the chance of directing Jessie’s attention to Master Jim Sartin, who was brandishing the bread-knife, and plunged hastily into a description of the doings of Charlotte and Max. Mrs. Sartin accepted the diversion, but kept an anxious eye on Sam, who ate hard and seemed to recover some of his ordinary composure with each mouthful, much to Christopher’s amazement. By the time tea was113finished he was himself again. There was no lingering then. He went back to work. Christopher said he must go too, and bade the family good-bye. The farewell was as cordial as the welcome had been cold and he clattered downstairs after Sam with many promises to come again.
The two boys talked freely of the passing world as they went through the streets, in the purely impersonal way of their age, and it was with great diffidence and much hesitation Christopher managed to hint he’d like to buy something for the kiddies.
Sam grinned.
“Sweets,” he suggested. “They eat ’em up and leave no mess about.”
Christopher turned out his pockets. There was an unbroken ten shillings, three shillings and some coppers.
They walked on a while gravely and came to a stand before a confectioner’s window.
“Cake,” suggested Sam, with one eye on his companion and one on the show of food within.
“A sugar one?”
“They cost a lot,” said Sam shaking his head, but he followed Christopher inside. Christopher boldly demanded the price of a small wedding cake elaborately iced. It was five shillings.
He put down the money with a lofty air and desired them to send it without loss of time to Mrs. Sartin’s address.
The woman stared a little at the oddly assorted couple, but the money rang true and the order was booked.
As they hurried towards Clare Street, Christopher diffidently asked if there was anything Mrs. Sartin would like, and Sam’s sharp wits seized the occasion to please his mother and Christopher and serve himself at the same time.
“Come on to my place and send her some lettuce,”114he suggested. “Mother’s main fond of lettuce. We’ve got some good ’uns in this morning.”
It was strictly true; it was also true that Master Sam had outstayed his meal-time and a new customer might help to avert the probable storm awaiting him, as indeed it did.
Mr. Gruner, greengrocer, was standing at the door of his shop looking both ways down the street at once, owing to a remarkable squint, and his reception of Sam was unfriendly, but quickly checked at the sight of his companion, whose extraordinary terms of intimacy with his errand boy rendered the good man nearly speechless. The young gent, however, ordered lettuces and green peas with a free hand and earned Sam’s pardon, as anticipated by that far-sighted youth.
The two boys said good-bye and Sam made no hint as to the possibilities of a future meeting, neither did Christopher, embarrassed by the presence of the greengrocer. He also would be late and hurried off, hoping he might still be in time to give Aymer tea and relate his adventures. He had no misgivings at all as to Cæsar’s approval of his doings.
As he came out into a main thoroughfare again he passed a big cheap drapery establishment and something in the gaudy, crude colouring there displayed brought him to a standstill. Jessie was still unprovided with a present. The two had exchanged very few words, but she by no means loomed in the background of the picture. He stood staring at the window and fingering the remaining coins in his pocket. One section of the shop front was hung with gaily-coloured feather boas. He was dimly conscious he had seen Mrs. Wyatt wear something of the sort in soft grey. There was a blue one that was the colour of Jessie’s blouse, or so Christopher thought, hanging high up. He did not admire it at all, but it suggested Jessie to him and after a moment’s consideration he115boldly pushed through the swinging doors and marched up the shop.
“I want one of those feather things in the window,” he announced to the shop-walker’s assiduous attentions.
He was delivered over to the care of an amused young woman, who proceeded to show him feather boas of all descriptions and qualities. Christopher was adamant.
“I want a blue thing that’s hanging up in the window, last but one on the top row,” he insisted, disdaining to look at the fluffy abominations spread around him. He was sure they were not like the thing Constantia wore now, but it was too late to retreat.
The young woman showed him one she declared was identical.
“I want the one in the window,” he persisted doggedly.
In the end he got it, paid for it, saw it packed up and addressed, and quenching sundry misgivings in his heart, marched out of the shop and treated himself to a bus homeward.
It is perhaps not out of place to mention here that Jessie had no misgivings as to the real beauty of the present. She had sighed long for such a possession, and having never seen Mrs. Wyatt’s delicate costly wrap, was perfectly content with her own and applauded Christopher’s taste loudly.