144CHAPTER XII
It was a day of expectancy—and promise—of blackthorn breaking into snowy showers, and of meadows richly green, blue sky and white cloud—and a sense of racing, headlong life joyously tremulous over the earth.
The boys had met at Paddington Station, Sam Sartin by no means abashed at his own appearance in an old suit of Christopher’s, and wearing, in deference to his friend’s outspoken wishes, a decorous dark-blue tie and unobtrusive shirt. He looked what he was—a good, solid, respectable working lad out for a holiday. Excitement, if he felt it, was well suppressed, surprise at the new world of luxury—they travelled down first—was equally carefully concealed. The code of manners in which he was reared was stringent in this particular.
Christopher, on the contrary, was in high spirits. Sam had watched him come down the platform, out of the corner of his eye, with a queer sense of proud possession. He would have liked to proclaim to the world that the young master there, who walked like a prince, was his own particular pal. Yet he pretended not to see him till Christopher clapped him on the shoulder with a warm greeting.
“I’ve got the tickets. Come on,” said the giver of the treat. “I say, what a day, Sammie—if it’s good in London what will it be in the country?”
“Cold, I shouldn’t wonder. What’s the matter with London?” said the cockney sarcastically.
“Old Bricks and Mortar,” retorted Christopher gaily. “You’ll know what’s the matter with it when you come back. It’s too jolly small.”145
“Big enough for me. But the country’s well enough to play in. I say, Mr. Christopher, I’ve been thinking, we may not find any boats. It’s early.”
“Oh, I’ve seen to that,” said Christopher with the faintest suspicion of lordliness in his voice. “I wrote to the man I know at Maidenhead to have a boat ready—a good one.”
Sam grinned. “My, what a head-piece we’ve got, to be sure.”
The other flushed a little. “It was really Cæsar who suggested it,” he owned.
Sam had never been down that line before, so Christopher pointed out the matters of interest. They found their boat ready at Maidenhead, bestowed their coats in the bow and settled themselves. Christopher insisted on Sam’s rowing stroke. Sam thought politeness obliged him to refuse, but he ultimately gave in. He retrieved the little error in manners by handling his oar in a masterly way. “Stroke shaping well,” Christopher heard the boatman say as they went off.
The wind on the river was cold enough and, in spite of the bright sun, cut through them. But half an hour’s steady pulling brought them into a glow and mood to enjoy themselves. Christopher called for a rest. Sam looked over his shoulder.
“Tired?”
“No,” responded the other, laughing, “but we didn’t come down just to row ‘eyes in boat’; I want to look at the world.”
“Nothing but green fields and trees and cows.”
“I like cows.”
“I don’t.”
Nevertheless he desisted from work, and they drifted on. Christopher was bubbling over with a great secret that was to be the crowning episode of the day. It would be fatal to divulge it too early, so146he plunged into friendly discussions and they rowed on happy in the physical exertion, the clean, fresh air and the smiling earth.
It was not till after lunch that Christopher decided the great matter must be broached, to allow time to discuss it in full detail. They had changed places and he was stroke now. He pulled with a slower swing but greater power than Sam and for some time bent to his work in silence, thinking over what he was going to say. He took a rapid mental survey of Sam’s present life and future, of what it held and more especially of what it did not hold; the limitations, the lack of opportunity, the struggle for existence that left no room for ambitions or hopes. And he, with Cæsar’s help, was going to change all that, and open the gates of the world wide for him. If the thought were exhilarating, it had also a serious side. He was not afraid, he was too young for that, but he had sense enough to know it was a big thing to uproot a life and plant it in a new spot more congenial to growth.
Mr. Aston’s words to him that morning came back with puzzling insistence. “Remember,” he had said in his kindly way, “no two people see life through the same glasses. Don’t be surprised if Sam’s make you squint.” What did he mean? It was just because he, Christopher, was not sure of Sam’s real ambition that he was to be given the choice. He amused himself while cogitating over it, tasting like an epicure the flavour of the good wine to be drunk presently. Sam complained he was a bad stroke, and they changed again. This better suited his plans. He could see the town boy’s thin sloping shoulders bend evenly before him. Sam was no athlete in build, but his passion for rowing had stood him in good stead and developed muscle and endurance.
“He’ll choose something in boats,” thought Christopher, mentally picturing Sam as captain of a great147liner and then as an alternative, as an admiral of the Fleet, and so came the crucial point.
“Sam, if you had your choice, what would you be?”
“Dunno.”
“But think. I want to know. A greengrocer like Mr. Gruner? Ho, ho!” he shouted out wholesome laughter.
Sam grinned. He was less ready to laugh. Life had taken toll of that birthright already.
“I hate vegetables. Beastly, dirty things,” he said prosaically. “No, I wouldn’t be agreen-grocer.”
“Well what? An engineer? A doctor, lawyer, parson?”
“Why not a king now?” scoffed Sam.
“Not enough situations vacant. I mean it, really. What would you be if you were as free to choose as I am?”
“If I were you, you mean.”
“No, not that. If you could choose for yourself as I have.”
Sam rowed on stolidly. “Dunno that it’s much use bothering,” he said indifferently. “I’m doing all right, though it’s not what I’d choose.”
It had seemed an easy, insignificant task to break the news five minutes ago, but either Christopher had taken the wrong approach or it was a stiffer job than he had fancied. He became uneasily conscious his own part in it could not be overlooked, that he was doing something that evilly-disposed persons might even call magnanimous or philanthropic. His face grew red at the thought.
“Sam,” he said as naturally as he could, “it happens you can choose, you see. Choose anything you like. Cæsar’s given me a free hand. We are both to start life just as we like. What shall it be? I’ve told you my choice.”148
The narrow form in front never slackened its stroke, but pulled on mechanically, and at last spoke a little gruffly.
“Say. You’re kidding me, you know.”
“I’m not. Dead earnest.”
Again the boat shot on, but Christopher stopped rowing. Sam looked back over his shoulder.
“You’re lazy. Why don’t you pull?”
Christopher obeyed mechanically. He knew he could afford to be patient now.
“Easy,” said the stroke at last.
There was a smooth reach of water before them. Low meadows with reddish muddy banks lay on either side, no house or any living soul was in sight. Sam rubbed his hands on his trousers, looked back at his friend and away again.
“You mean you’ll start me in any trade I like? ’Prentice me?”
“Any trade or profession.”
“What do you do it for, anyhow?”
“Cæsar suggested it. He said I might if I liked.”
“Well, why do you do it?”
“Does it matter?”
“I want to know certain.”
Christopher looked embarrassed. “Weren’t we kids together? Besides, it seems to me every chap ought to have a chance of working on the job he likes best. It’s only fair. It’s jolly rough on a fellow to have to do just what comes along whether he’s fit for it or not.”
“Seems to me,” said Sam meditatively, “a good many jobs would want doing if everyone did what they liked.”
“Oh, science would step in and equalise that,” returned Christopher, hastily quoting from some handbook and went on to further expound his creed.
Sam concluded he had been listening to spouters in149the Park, but he was sharp enough to recognise beneath the crude boyish creed the kindly generous nature that prompted it.
“So Cæsar says you’ve just to choose. We’ll see you through.”
“He must be jolly rich.”
“Well, that’s why he’s rich, isn’t it, to be able to do things.”
“I don’t see what he gets out of it anyhow.”
“He doesn’t want anything, you silly.”
“I want to think this out,” said Sam, “there is something I’ve always wanted since I was a kiddy, but I want to think. Row on.”
This was intelligible and encouraging. Christopher’s sense of flatness gave way a little. He pulled steadily, trying to make out what had so dashed him in Sam’s reception of the great news. He had not yet learnt how exceptional is the mind that can accept a favour graciously.
After nearly ten minutes’ silence Sam spoke again. “Well, then, I’d like to be a grocer,” and straightway pulled furiously.
“What?” gasped Christopher, feeling the bottom story of his card house tottering to a fall.
“It’s like this. I don’t mind telling you—much—though I’ve never told nobody before. When I was a bit of a chap, mother, she used to take me out shopping in the evenings. We went to pokey little shops, but we used to pass a fine, big shop—four glass windows—it has six now—and great lights and mahogany counters and little rails, and balls for change, tiled floor, no sawdust. Every time I saw it I says to myself, ‘When I’m a man I’ll have a place like that.’ I tried to get a job there, but I couldn’t—they made too many family inquiries, you see,” he added bitterly; “well, if I could get ’prenticed to a place like that ... might be head man some day....” He began150whistling with forced indifference, queerly conscious that the whole of his life seemed packed in that little boat—waiting. The boat had drifted into a side eddy. Christopher sat with his head on his hands, wondering with his surface consciousness if the planks at his feet were three or four inches wide, but at last he brushed aside the last card of his demolished palace and recalled his promise to Cæsar to leave Sam as free and unbiased in choice as he had been himself.
“That would be quite easy to manage,” he said with assumed heartiness, “it’s—only too easy. Only you must be a partner or something. Oh, oh. A white apron. I’ll buy my tea and bacon of you when I’ve a house of my own!”
“All right,” grinned Sam. “I’ll have great rows of red and gold canisters and—and brass fittings everywhere—not your plated stuff for me—solid brass and marble-topped counters. But it won’t come off,” he added dejectedly, “things like that never do.”
“But it will,” persisted Christopher impatiently, “just as my going to Dusseldorf is coming off.”
“You don’t get ’prenticed for nothing,” was the faithless rejoinder.
Christopher joggled the boat and shouted: “You sinner, if you won’t take my word for it I’ll smash you.”
“All right—keep cool, I’m only having you on, Chris. Oughtn’t we to turn now?”
They expended their excitement and emotion in rowing furiously, and landed again at Maidenhead in time for tea. Then Christopher broke the further news to Sam that he was to return with him to Aston House and see Cæsar. He overcame with difficulty Sam’s reiterated objections, and they walked from Paddington, Christopher keeping a strict guard over Sam lest he should escape.151
But Sam’s objections were more “code” than genuine. He was really anxious to hear the wonderful news confirmed by more responsible lips than Christopher’s—not that he disbelieved his intentions, but he still doubted his powers. He grew very silent, however, as they turned in at the beautiful iron gates of Aston House. He had never managed to really connect his old friend with this wonderful dignified residence that he knew vaguely by sight. He had had dim visions of Christopher slipping in by a side entrance avoiding the eyes of plush-breeched lords-in-waiting. But here was that young gentleman marching calmly in at the big front doors nodding cheerfully to the sober-clad man waiting in the hall who called Christopher “Sir.”
Sam successfully concealed under an expression of solid matter-of-factness the interest and curiosity that consumed him. He looked straight before him and yet saw all round. He accepted the whole calmly, but he wanted to sit down and stare.
Christopher explained that they were to have dinner together in his own sitting-room as soon as they had seen Aymer.
They went through the swing doors down the long corridor leading to Aymer’s room, and Christopher stopped for a moment near a window.
“I never come down here in this sort of light,” he said with a little catch in his voice, “without thinking of the first evening I came. How big it all seemed and how quiet.”
“It is quiet,” said Sam in a subdued whisper.
In another moment they were in Aymer’s room.
“Hullo, Cæsar. Here we are, turned up like bad pennies.”
Christopher pulled Sam across the room to the sofa. Sam would have been not a little surprised had he known that it cost Aymer Aston a great deal more152effort to see a new face than it cost him to look at this Cæsar of whom he had heard so much.
The “code” slipped from his mental horizon and left him red and embarrassed, watching Christopher furtively to see what he would do.
“Here’s Sam, Cæsar. I’ve told you all about him and he may just have heard your name mentioned—possibly—” laughed Christopher seating himself on the sofa and indicating a chair to his friend.
Aymer held out his hand.
“Yes, I’ve heard of you, Sam. Sit down, won’t you?”
Sam sat down, his hands on his knees, and tried to find a safe spot on which to focus his eyes.
“Now, isn’t it a jolly room,” began Christopher triumphantly, “didn’t I tell you?”
“It’s big,” said Sam cautiously.
“Christopher, behave yourself. Don’t mind his bad manners, Sam. It’s sheer nervousness on his part, he can’t help it.”
A newspaper was flung dexterously across his face.
“Which gives point to my remark,” continued Aymer, calmly folding it. “Well, have you enjoyed your day? Madness, I call it, the river in March!”
Christopher plunged into an account of their jaunt to which his companion listened in complete bewilderment, hardly recognising the simple pleasures of their holiday in their dress of finished detail and humour.
“Is that a true account?” asked Aymer, catching the tail of a broad grin.
“I didn’t see the water-rat dressing himself, or the girl with the red shoes,” said Sam slowly. “My, what a chap you are, Christopher, to spin a yarn. Wish I could reel it off to mother and the kids like that.”
He found himself in a few minutes discoursing with Aymer on the variety and history of his family. It153was not for some minutes or so that the great subject was approached.
“I suppose,” said Aymer at last, “I need not ask if you and Christopher have been discussing his little plan for your future. What do you think of it, Sam?”
Christopher got up and walked to the window. Minute by minute a sense of overwhelming disappointment and shame obliterated the once plausible idea. It was not only an opportunity missed, it was wasted, thrown away. What glory or distinctions, what ambitions could be fulfilled in the narrow confines of a grocer’s shop—a nightmare vision of an interminable vista of red canisters, mahogany counters, biscuit boxes and marble slabs, swam before his eyes. It was no use denying it. It was a cruel disappointment ... and what would Cæsar think?
Meanwhile Sam, in answer to Aymer’s questions, had stumbled out the statement he thought it a rattling fine thing for him and was very much obliged.
“And you know your own mind on the point?” demanded Aymer, watching him closely.
Sam coughed nervously. “Yes, I always knew what I wanted to be. I told him,” with a backward jerk of his head towards Christopher.
This was better than Aymer had expected. A boy with an ambition and a mind of his own was worth assisting.
“Well, what is it. Will you tell me too?”
Sam looked at him out of the corner of his shrewd eyes. “It’s you as is really doing it, sir?”
“What is it?”
“It’s like this,” began Sam, hesitating; “it costs money,—my top ambition; but it’s a paying thing and if anyone would be kind enough to start me on it I’d work off the money in time. I know I could.”
“I’m afraid Christopher hasn’t quite explained,” said Aymer quietly; “it’s not a question of investing154money on your industry. I don’t expect him to pay back the cost of starting him in life. You are to start on precisely the same ground.”
Sam got red. “He—he belongs to you—it’s different,” he began.
“What is your ambition?”
“Grocery business. I’ve told him. Ever since I was a bit of a chap that high I’ve wanted it. I never could get a job in a shop, but if I was regularly apprenticed now—if that wasn’t too much?”
Aymer’s glance meandered thoughtfully to the distant Christopher, still staring out of the window; a shadow of a smile rose to his lips.
“Yes, that would not be difficult to manage, Sam. How old are you?”
“Over sixteen, sir. There’s money in grocery, sir. I could pay it back. I’m sure I could.”
Aymer lay still, thinking. “What sort of schooling have you had? Not much? Passed the fifth standard young?”
“But it takes a long time for a ’prentice to work up,” said Sam, watching him eagerly.
“I’m thinking of another way,” said Aymer slowly. “Christopher.”
He rejoined them, standing by the grate and kicking the logs into place. He did not look at Aymer.
“Sam has been telling me of his wishes,” said Aymer. “I think them quite excellent, but I’ve not quite decided on the best way to carry them out. Go away and get your dinner and come back to me afterwards.”
The boys departed, and once in Christopher’s den, the host turned to his guest questioningly.
“Well, what do you think of Cæsar?”
“He’s a stunner, a jolly sight more sensible than you, Chris. But I say,” he added in a grumpy, husky voice, “is he always like that?”155
“Like what?”
“On a sofa. Lying down.”
“Yes,” said Christopher shortly. He had become almost as sensitive on that point as Aymer himself.
“He must get a bit tired of it. Didn’t he ever walk?”
“Yes, of course. It was a shooting accident. Shut up, Sam, we all hate talking of it.”
The dinner that was served immediately somehow impressed Sam more than any other event of the day. He had occasionally had a meal in a restaurant with Christopher, and once had been in a dining-room at an hotel, but it all seemed different to this intimate, comfortable dinner. The white napery, the shining silver and delicate glass and china, the serving of the simple meal was a revelation of his friend’s life, for Christopher took it all as a matter of course and was unabashed by the presence of the second footman who waited on them.
There was soup, and cutlets in little paper dresses, tomatoes and potatoes that bore no resemblance to the grimy vegetables Sam dispensed daily. Then came strange bird-shaped things, about the size of sparrows which Christopher called chicken and which had no bones in them, cherry tart, with innumerable trifles with it, afterwards something that looked like a solid browny-yellow cake, which gave way to nothing when cut, and tasted of cheese. Finally there was fruit, that was a crowning point, for Sam knew what pears cost that time of year, and said so.
Christopher laughed. “These come from Marden,” he explained. “Marden’s noted for pears; they have storages of different temperatures and keep them back or ripen them as wanted. The fire’s jolly after all, isn’t it?”
He stretched out his long legs to the fender, a very contented young Sybarite for the moment.156
“I say, Chris,” said Sam abruptly, “I must tell you though you’ll think it pretty low of me. But after you came and told us you were living here with Mr. Aston I used to ask people about him. One day I came round here and ... somehow I never took it in. I knew in a way you lived here, but I didn’t know it was like this....” He stumbled over his words in an embarrassed fashion.
“Like what?” demanded Christopher shortly.
“Well, I thought you was here like a sort of servant—not with them exactly—I see now, I never took it in before—you with your own rooms and walking in at the front door and ordering dinner and them blokes in the hall saying ‘sir’ to you—oh, lor’.”
“I told you they had adopted me,” said the other, frowning and rather red.
“I ought to have taken it in, but I didn’t,” continued Sam humbly, “and then you ask me here—and are going to give me a chance—Oh, lor’,—what’s it all for, I want to know? What does it mean?”
Christopher got up and walked away. Had Sam but known it, his chance in life was in dire peril at that moment. Seldom had Christopher felt so angry and never had he felt so out of touch with his companion. Why on earth couldn’t Sam take his luck without wanting reasons. It was so preposterous, in Christopher’s eyes, to want any. In the old days Sam had been ready to share his scant pennies and toys with his small friend. The offer of a ride in a van from the warehouse where Sartin senior worked would have included both of them or neither. What was the difference? What was the use of having plenty if not to share it with a friend?
To his credit he did not allow Sam to guess his irritation, but suggested a return to Cæsar’s room.157
“Didn’t it take you an awful long time to get used to all this?” inquired Sam, as he followed him.
“I forget. No, I don’t though. I hated it rather at first, the clothes and collars and having to change and be tidy, and all that, but I soon got used to it. Here we are.”
Mr. Aston was there too now. Sam was duly introduced and behaved with great discretion. He was far less abashed by Mr. Aston than by Aymer, whose physical condition produced a shyness not inherent in the youth.
Mr. Aston talked to him in a friendly gossiping way, then looked across at Aymer with a faint nod.
Aymer unfolded his scheme of carrying out Sam’s ambitions to a fruitful end. He was to go for a year to a commercial school, and after that to be put into a good firm as pupil or ’prentice with a chance of becoming a junior partner with a small capital if he did well.
“If you don’t do well, of course it’s off,” concluded Aymer, rather wearily, “the future is in your hands, not ours: we only supply an opportunity.”
Sam said stolidly he quite understood that: that he was much obliged, and he’d do his best.
“It will be a race between you,” remarked Mr. Aston, looking from one boy to the other, “as to whether you become a full-fledged grocer first or Christopher a full-fledged engineer.”
But late that night when Mr. Aston was bidding Aymer good-night, he remarked as he stood looking down at him:
“You have done a good piece of road-making to-day, old man.”
“No, I haven’t,” retorted Aymer, rather crossly. “I’ve only supplied material for someone else to use if they like.”158
“Just to please Christopher?”
But Aymer did not answer that. Mr. Aston really needed no answer, for he knew that long ago Sam’s mother had made smooth a very rough piece of road for another woman’s feet, and that woman was Christopher’s mother.
159CHAPTER XIII
A thin, sickly-looking woman in a dingy black dress sat by the roadside with a basket of bootlaces and buttons at her feet. She rested her elbows on her knees and gazed with unseeing eyes at the meadowland below.
The burst shoe, the ragged gown, and unkempt head proclaimed her a Follower of the Road, and the sordid wretchedness that reached its lowest depth in lack of desire for better things, was a sight to force Philanthropist or Socialist to sink differences in one energetic struggle to eradicate the type. If she thought at all it was in the dumb, incoherent manner of her class: at the actual moment a vision of a hat with red flowers she had seen in a shop window flickered across her mind, chased away by a hazy wonder as to how much supper threepence halfpenny would provide. That thought, too, fell away before a sudden, shrewd calculation as to the possible harvest to be gleaned from the two people just coming over the brow of the hill.
These two, a boy and a young man, were walking with the swinging step and assurance of those who have never bent before grim need.
“Young toffs,” she decided, and wondered if it were worth while getting up or not.
The young man was listening eagerly to the equally eager chatter of his companion, and they walked quickly as those who were in haste to reach a goal until they were level with the tramp woman, who watched them with speculative eyes. The boy, who was about twelve years old, was as good a specimen of a well-trained, well-nurtured boy as one might find in the country, the product of generations of careful selection and high ideals, active, brimming over with vitality160and joyousness, with clear-cut features perhaps a trifle too pronounced for his age. But the elder of the two, who was twenty-one and might by appearance have been some few years older, was a far stronger type. There was a certain steady strength in the set of his square head, in the straight look of his dark eyes. It was a face that might in time be over-stern if the kindly humorous lines of the mouth should fade. The tramp woman saw nothing of this. She only observed their absorption in each other and abandoned hope of adding to her meagre fortune.
Max Aston’s quick blue eyes saw her and were averted instantly, for she was not a pleasing object. But at sight of her the shadow of some dominant thought drove every expression from his companion’s face but pity: and the pity of the strong for the weak lies near to reverence.
He crossed the road abruptly, his hand in his pocket. Max dawdled after him. The woman looked up with awakened interest.
“It’s a long road, kind sir, and poor weather,” she began in a professional drawl, and then stopped. The young face looking down on her had something in its expression to which she was not accustomed. It was as if he checked her begging for very shame. She noticed dully, he held his cap in his hand.
He said nothing at all, but dropped a coin in her hand and went on, followed by Max, who was a little puzzled.
The woman looked after them and forgot she had not thanked him. She wished the moment would repeat itself and the young gentleman stand before her again. She had not taken it all in—takenwhatin, she hardly knew.
She looked at the coin and it gleamed yellow in her hand. It was half a sovereign. Oh, what luck, what luck! It was a mistake of course—he had thought it161was a sixpence no doubt, but he had gone, and she had it.
A vista of unlikely comforts opened before her, even the hat with red flowers was possible. It was careless of him though.
She got up suddenly and looked down the hill. The two were still in sight—the boy had stopped to tie his boot-lace.
She looked at the half-sovereign again, and then set off at a shuffling slipshod trot after them. They had resumed their walk before she reached them, but the boy looking back, saw her, and told the other, who wheeled round sharply, frowning a little.
“’Ere, please sir, I wants to see yer,” she gasped, out of breath, choking a little with unwonted exertion. Christopher went back to her and waited gravely. She opened her hand and the half-sovereign glinted again in the light.
“Expect yer made a mistake, didn’t yer, sir?” she asked in a hoarse whisper, and saw a wave of hot colour under his brown skin.
“No,” he said awkwardly, “I hadn’t anything else. It was good of you to trouble to come though. Go and get some new boots and a good supper. It’s bad going on the roads in autumn. Iknow, I’ve done it.”
She gasped at him bewildered, her hand still open.
“Yer a gentleman, yer are,”—her tone hesitated as it were between the statement of a plain fact and doubt of his last words.
“Winchester is three miles on. You can get decent lodgings out by the Station Road to the left as you go under the arch. Good-bye.” He raised his hat again and turned away. The woman looked after him, gave a prolonged sniff and limped back up the hill.
Max looked at Christopher out of the corner of his eye, a little doubtfully. He had not come near, fastidiousness outweighing curiosity.162
“What did she want—and why did you take your hat off?”
Christopher grew hot again.
“Oh, she’s a woman, and my mother and I tramped, you know.”
Max did not know, and intimated that Christopher was talking rot.
Christopher decapitated a thistle and explained briefly, “Cæsar adopted me straight out of a workhouse. My mother and I were tramping from London to Southampton, and she got ill at Whitmansworth, the other side of Winchester, and died there. The Union kept me till Mr. Aston took me away. I thought everyone knew.”
Embarrassment and curiosity struggled for the mastery in the young aristocrat by his side.
“And you really did tramp?” he ventured at length.
“Yes, for a time, but we were not like that. My mother was—was a lady, educated, and all that, I think, only quite poor. She understood poor people and tramps. We used to walk with them, talk to them. They were kind.”
“And if Cæsar hadn’t adopted you?”
“I should be a workhouse porter by now, perhaps,” laughed Christopher lightly and then was silent. A picture of the possible or rather of the inevitable swam before his eyes; a picture of a hungry, needy soul compassed by wants, by fierce desires, with the dominant will to fulfil them and no means, and the world against him. He did not reason it out to a logical conclusion, but he saw it clearly.
Max concluded the subject was not to be discussed and went on with an explanation of why Christopher had not been met in state after four years’ absence.
“The motor was to come for you, but it’s gone wrong, and Aymer said you’d rather walk than drive,163and we were not quite certain of the train. Do you really hate driving, Christopher?”
“Yes, I always think the horses will run away. Aymer knows that. Is it really four years since I was here, Max?”
“Yes, at Christmas. You never came down when you were in town two years ago. It was a beastly shame of you.”
“I’d only two months and Cæsar wanted me. That was before I went to Switzerland, wasn’t it? They know something about road-making there, Max, but I’ve learnt more in France.”
“And all about motors, too?” questioned Max eagerly. “Can you really drive one?”
Christopher laughed. “I’ve won a race or two, and I’ve got a certificate. Perhaps it won’t pass in England.”
“Will you teach me to drive? I just long to: but St. Michael says no—though he doesn’t mind Geoffry Leverson teaching me to shoot. He’s home now, you know, and comes over most days, and when Patricia won’t play golf, he takes me shooting.”
“Patricia’s taken to golf then?”
“Yes. Geoffry says she’s splendid, but I expect that’s just to make her play up.”
They had turned off the highroad now and were in the fields following a path on the side of the sloping meadows. The mist that hung over the river did not reach up to them and Christopher could see the thick foliage of the woods opposite, splashed with gold and russet, heavy with moisture. The warm damp smell of autumn was in the air. He took a long breath and squared his shoulders.
“It’s good to be back. To think of its being four whole years.”
“And two since you’ve seen any of us. Are you going away again, Christopher?”164
“In the spring. There’s St. Michael.”
He was waiting by a stile leading into a wood that gave quicker access to Marden Court, and he came forward to meet them with undisguised pleasure.
Charles Aston had rendered but small homage to time. He was as erect and thin as ever, hair perhaps a little white, but the kind eyes had lost nothing of their penetrating quality.
Christopher’s welcome could not have been warmer had it been his own father. Max went ahead to find Charlotte and left the two to come on together.
“How is Cæsar?” demanded Christopher, the moment they were alone.
“Can’t you wait for his own report?”
“I want yours.” There was an urgent insistence in his voice, and Mr. Aston looked at him sharply.
“Well, he is decidedly better since he came down here, and I want him to stay, Christopher, to give up London in the end perhaps altogether.”
“He has not been well then?”
“I have not thought so: but what made you suspicious, my dear boy?”
“His letters have been over-witty and deliberately satirical. Just the sort of things he says when something is wrong.”
Mr. Aston nodded.
“Yes, I felt that. There seemed nothing physically wrong, but I felt he must have more people round him.”
“And you?”
“Oh, I stay here too, and go up and down when needs must.”
“And the Colonial Commission? How will it get on without you?”
“Oh, they easily found a better man. As I explained to Cæsar, I was only asked as a compliment,” he answered simply.165
Christopher kept to himself his dissent from this, and was silent a moment, thinking how this man’s life was spent to one end; and desirable as he felt that end to be, he was of age now to feel a tinge of regret for all that had been and still was sacrificed to it. An infinitesimal sacrifice of personal feeling and convenience was demanded of him now, if he were to second St. Michael’s attempt to keep Aymer from Aston House and teach him to permanently regard Marden Court as home, for dearly as Christopher loved Marden it was only there he was awake to the apparently indisputable truth that he was not one of that dear family who had done their best to make him forget once and for all that obnoxious fact. His sense of proprietorship in Aymer and of Aymer’s in him was undeniably stronger in town than in the country, and this not entirely because Nevil was to all intents master of Marden, but rather that there Aymer himself was less isolated, merged more into the general family life, and became again part of the usages and traditions of his own race.
Mr. Aston, without actually speaking the words, had conveyed to Christopher his own dread lest some day Aymer might be left alone, stranded mentally and physically in the great silent London house that was their home by force of dear companionship. Christopher saw it in a flash, saw it so clearly that he involuntarily glanced at his companion to assure himself of the remoteness of that dread chance. Hard on this thought pressed the knowledge that neither of these two men who had done so much for him made the least claim on his life or asked ought of him but success in his chosen line—and that knowledge was both sweet and bitter to him.
“Cæsar will be far better satisfied when you are actually started at work,” Mr. Aston went on. “He lives in your future, Christopher, he is more impatient166for this training period to be over than you yourself.”
“Because I am training and have no time to think. The first real step is coming. I have a good chance, only I must tell him first.”
He quickened his steps insensibly, for the thought of Cæsar waiting was like a spur even to physical effort, and even so his mind outraced his feet, till it came full tilt against a girl coming directly from its goal and momentarily obliterating it by her very presence.
“Oh, Christopher, Christopher,” Patricia cried, holding out both hands. “How long you have been! I began to think you never would come again!”
Christopher, taking her hands, felt it was a long two years since they parted and that time had made fair road here meanwhile. His thoughts outpaced his feet no longer, but kept decent step with the light footfall beside him.
Mr. Aston, following, noted it all, and first smiled and then sighed a little. The smile was for them and the little sigh for Aymer waiting within.
He found, however, little reason to repeat his sigh during the next few weeks, for Christopher was in constant attendance on Aymer, and gave but the residue of his time to the rest of the little world. His suspicions as to Aymer’s well-being vanished away, for the latter betrayed by no outward sign the sleepless nights and long days spent in wrestling with intangible dread of impending evil and the return of almost forgotten black hours. Indeed, Christopher’s steady dependable strength and vigorous energy seemed to renew belief and confidence in the man with whom life had broken faith. He was jealously greedy of Christopher’s company, though he sought to hide this under a mask of indifference, and he made a deliberate attempt to keep him near him by the exercise of167every personal and social gift he possessed. It was not enough for him to hold his adopted son’s affection by the bond of the past, it was not enough to be loved by force of custom, his present individuality struggled for recognition and won it. Deliberately, skilfully and successfully he bound Christopher to him by force of personality, by reason of being what he was as apart from all he had done.
None of the household grudged him his triumph or resented their own dismissal from attendance in the West Room. The women-kind once more superfluous to Cæsar’s well-being, resumed their wonted routine with generous content.
Patricia’s routine appeared to consist very largely of golf in which she and Geoffry Leverson could undoubtedly give Christopher long odds. Christopher, however, was undaunted, and the few hours he did not spend in Aymer’s company, he spent toiling round the links points behind Patricia, play she never so badly. Geoffry complained bitterly to Patricia in private that she was spoiling her game, but she, indifferent to her handicap, continued to play with Christopher and to ignore promised matches with Geoffry whenever her old playmate chose to set foot on the green.
At length Geoffry could stand it no longer and protested loudly when Christopher challenged her, that it was the third time she had put off a return match. Christopher withdrew his challenge at once and declared he would infinitely rather watch a match. Patricia demurred and pouted, whereupon he sternly insisted that promises must be kept.
She played Geoffry and beat him by one point, secured by a rather vicious putt, then lightly requesting him to take her clubs back to the Club House with his, she summoned Christopher to take her home. Geoffry had not protested again. He took early opportunity168to challenge Christopher instead and reaped a small revenge of easy victories, half embittered, half enhanced by Patricia’s plainly expressed annoyance with the vanquished one. He knew she would have condoled with him had he lost.
So the weeks slipped by unnoticed and autumn merged into winter. Christmas came and went—with festivities in which both Patricia and Christopher took active part.
Christopher read and studied, but did nothing definite, and the New Year slipped along with rapid, silent foot. It was Cæsar who at length broke up the pleasant drifting interlude and he did it as deliberately as he did everything else, urged by his haunting desire to see Christopher finally committed to the future he had chosen.
“Why don’t you go and see those road experiments they are trying in Kent?” Aymer asked one day.
“Frost-proof roads? They are no good. It was tried in Germany. What I would like is to run down to Cornwall and see how the Atlantic Road stands the winter, only it’s such a beastly way down by train.”
“It would certainly interfere with golf?” returned Cæsar drily.
“I’m beginning to play. Leverson says if I work really hard I may do something in a few years. Patricia says I shan’t even if I live to be as old as Methuselah; so I must stick to it to prove her wrong.”
“That’s highly desirable, of course. All the same she might leave you a little leisure to play round with your hobby. You mustn’t work too hard or Sam will beat you yet.”
“How is Sam?”
“He came to see me before I left town. He is doing well. They will take him in as junior partner in a year or two. I always said he’d do better than you.” He sighed profoundly.169
“What a pity you didn’t adopt him instead of me,” retorted Christopher teasingly. “Is it too late to exchange? Buy him a senior partnership and leave me a free lance.”
And because Aymer did not reply at once to his familiar nonsense, he turned quickly and surprised a strange look in the blue eyes, a fleeting, shadowy love, passionate, fierce, jealous. It lost itself almost as he caught it and Aymer drawled out in his indifferent tone:
“It really might be worth considering. For then I could go back to London and he could come home every night. Besides, Sam really appreciates me.”
But it was Christopher who had no answer ready this time.
The look he had surprised gripped his heart. It revealed something hitherto unguessed by him. He came and sat on the edge of the sofa, and though he spoke lightly as was his manner, his voice and eyes belied his words.
“On the contrary, Sam does not appreciate you at all. He regards you as an erratic philanthropist with a crank for assisting deserving boys.”
“A just estimate.”
“Not at all. It is wrong in every particular.”
“Prove it.”
“You are not erratic; you are methodical to a fault. You are not a crank; therefore not a philanthropist. And you show a lamentable disregard to the moral qualities of those to whom you extend a helping hand.”
“Jealousy.”
“Jealousy of whom, please?”
“Of Sam.”
Christopher considered thoughtfully.
“I believe you are right,” he returned at last in a tone of naïve surprise. “How stupid of me not to have guessed before. I had always tried to think you170helped him to gratify me. It was a great strain on my credulity. Now I understand.”
“It had nothing to do with you at all,” retorted Cæsar irritably, shifting his position a little, whereby a cushion fell to the ground. With a gust of petulance he pitched another after it, and then in rather a shamed way, told Christopher to ring for Vespasian to put the confounded things right.
But Christopher did no such thing. He put his strong arm round Cæsar, raised him, and rearranged the refractory cushions, talking the while to divert attention from this unheard-of proceeding.
“I shall go to London to-morrow and study Sam in order to oust him from your fickle affections,” he announced. “Seriously, Cæsar. I ought to be running round seeing things a bit.”
And Cæsar, having brought him to the conclusion he wished, signified his entire approval.
The following morning when Christopher came in to bid Cæsar good-bye, he found Mr. Aston also there, standing by the fire with a humorous smile on his face in evident appreciation of some joke.
“Christopher,” said Aymer severely, “I have something important to say to you.”
Christopher drew himself up to attention as he had learnt to do when under rebuke as a boy.
“If you are going to make a habit of running up and down to town and the ends of the earth on ridiculous business and worrying everyone’s life out with time-tables (it was notorious Christopher never consulted anyone about his comings and goings), you must understand you cannot use Renata’s carriage and pair for your station work. Max’s pony is not up to your weight, neither is the station fly. I find on inquiry my father occasionally requires his motor for his own use; anyhow, it is not supposed to get muddy. So you had better buy one for yourself.”
He held out a blank signed cheque.171
Christopher looked from one to the other. It was the dream of his life to possess a motor, but this free gift of one was overwhelming.
“Of course,” went on Cæsar hastily, “I shan’t give you a birthday present too. It’s to get out of that, you understand. You are twenty-one, aren’t you? And it’s only half mine, the other half is from St. Michael. I don’t know where your manners are, Christopher; I thought I had brought you up to be polite. Go and thank the gentleman nicely.”
Christopher turned to Mr. Aston, but he was beyond words. He could only look his overwhelming gratitude.
“It’s not I,” said that gentleman, hastily. “I only told Cæsar I’d like to go shares—the lamps or bells or something. Get a good horn with a good rich tone.”
Christopher took the cheque with shaking fingers.
“I can’t thank you, Cæsar, it’s too big. Why didn’t you let me earn it?”
“I wanted to prove to you the justice of Sam’s opinion of me. Hurry up; you’ll miss your train if there is one at this hour at all.”
“You’ve not filled up the cheque.”
“Not I. From what I know of your business methods you’ll get what you want at half the price I should. I’m not going to let St. Michael fling away good money.”
In his excitement Christopher forgot to wait for Patricia, who had promised to walk to the station with him. (Cæsar’s complaint anent the horse vehicles was even more unfounded than his grievance over the time-table.) But seeing him start, she ran after him and made some candid and sisterly remarks on his behaviour and was only mollified by a full explanation of his unwonted state of elation. The rest of the walk was spent in discussing the merits of various species of motors.