CHAPTER XX

227CHAPTER XX

Aymer gazed out of the open window at Christopher and Peter Masters as they walked to and fro on the terrace. He knew the subject they were discussing, and he was already sure how it would end. But what were the real issues involved he could not determine, and he was impotent, by reason of his vow and will, to influence them. He could only lie still and watch, tortured by jealous fear and the physical helplessness that forbade him the one relief of movement for which his soul craved. The patience the long years had schooled him into was slipping away, and the elementary forces of his nature reigned in its stead.

Under the overmastering impulse towards action he made a futile effort to sit up that he might better follow the movements of the two outside. It was a pathetic failure, and he swore fiercely as he fell back and found his father’s arms round him.

“Aymer, if you are going to be so childish, I shall tell Christopher not to go.”

“No. I’m a fool, but I won’t have him know it. He must go if he will.”

“There is nothing to fear if he does. What is wrong with you?”

“I want to go back to town, I’m tired of this.”

“You are far better here than in town,” said his father uneasily.

“I’m well enough anywhere.”

“I shall have to tell Christopher not to go.”

“No.” The tone was sharply negative again, and after a moment’s silence Aymer said in a low, grudging voice, “You’ve always helped before; are you going to desert me now?”228

For answer his father got up and pushed the big sliding sofa away from the window.

“Very well, then behave yourself better, Aymer, and don’t ford a stream before you come to it. You’ve got to listen to Penruddock’s speech.” He folded back theTimesand began to read.

When Christopher came back a little later he saw no sign of the trouble. Perhaps he was a little too much engrossed in his own perplexities to be as observant as usual.

“Cæsar, do you think it’s a shabby thing to stay with a man you don’t like?”

“Are you going?”

“I think so. I want to see how he does it.”

“Does what?”

“Makes his money. Does it seem shabby to you?”

“You can’t know if you like him or not. You know nothing about him.”

“I shall be back at the end of the week. You don’t mind my going, Cæsar? I’d rather go before I settle down.”

“Another week’s peace,” returned Cæsar, indifferently. “The truth is, you’re in a scrape and putting off confession, young man.”

Christopher laughed at him.

They were to leave early next morning, so Peter Masters bade Aymer good-bye that night. He apologised clumsily for taking Christopher away so soon after his long absence.

“It’s the only free week I’ve got for months, and I want to study your handiwork, Aymer.”

“Christopher has points. I don’t know how many score to me,” returned his cousin with steadily forced indifference.

“Well, you’ve taken more trouble over him than most fathers would do.”

“Are you an expert?”229

Peter laughed grimly and stood looking at Aymer with his chin in his hand, a curiously characteristic attitude of doubt with him.

“You won’t be overpleased when he wants to marry, which he is sure to do just when he’s become useful to you.”

For the first time in his life Peter Masters recognised the harassed soul of a man as it leapt to sight, and saw the shadow of pain conquer a fierce will. The revelation struck him dumb, for incongruously and unreasonably there flashed before his mind a memory of this face with twenty years wiped out. He went slowly away carrying with him a vivid impression and new knowledge.

It was a new experience to him. He knew something of men’s minds, but of their emotions and the passions of their souls he was no judge. He puzzled over the meaning of what he had seen as he faced Christopher in the train next day, studying him with a disconcerting gaze. Could Aymer possibly love the boy to the verge of jealousy? It seemed so incredible and absurd. Yet what other interpretation could he place on that look he had surprised? Charles Aston’s words, which had not been without effect, paled before this self-revelation. It annoyed him greatly that the disturbing vision should intrude itself between him and the decision he was endeavouring to make, for the better termination of which he was carrying Christopher northward with him.

Christopher, on his part, was chiefly occupied in considering the distracting fact of his own yielding to the wishes of a man he disliked as sincerely as he did Mr. Aston’s cousin. Peter Masters was taking him with him in precisely the same manner he had made Christopher convey him to Marden. It was quite useless to pretend he was going of his own will; refusal had, in an unaccountable way, seemed impossible.230To save his pride he tried to believe he was influenced by a desire to get away from Marden until the first excitement over Patricia’s engagement had died away, yet in his heart he knew that though that and other considerations had joined forces with the millionaire’s mandate, yet in any case he would have had to bow to the will of the man who admitted no possibility of refusal. He had been unprepared and unready twice over: in the matter of the journey from London and in the stranger matter of this present journey. Christopher determined the third time he would be on guard, that in all events, reason should have her say in the case.

They were going direct to Stormly, which was midway between Birmingham and the Stormly mines, from which the fortunes of the family had first been dug. Stormly Park was Peter’s only permanent residence, though much of his time was spent in hotels and travelling. The house, begun by his father, had expanded with the fortunes of the son. It stood remote from town or village. It was neither a palace nor a glorified villa, but just a substantial house, with an unprepossessing exterior, and all the marvels of modern luxury within. The short private railway by which it was approaching ran through an ugly tract of country terminating beneath a high belt of trees that shut off the western sun and were flanked by granite walls.

On the platform of the minute station two porters in private uniform received them.

“I generally walk up if I’m not in a hurry,” said Peter Masters abruptly.

He had not spoken since they left Birmingham, where a packet of letters had been brought him, to which he gave his undivided attention. With a curt nod to the men, with whom he exchanged no word at all, he led the way from the siding across a black,231gritty road and unlocking a door in the wall ushered Christopher into Stormly Park.

The belt of trees was planted on a ridge of ground that sloped towards the road and formed a second barrier between the world without and the world within. When they had crossed the ridge and looked down on the Park itself Christopher gave a gasp of astonishment. It stretched out before him in the sunset light a wide expanse of green land, with stately clumps of trees and long vistas of avenues that led nowhere. It was like some jewel in the wide circling belt of trees. It was so strange a contrast to the sordid country without, that the effect was amazing. Christopher looked round involuntarily to see by what passage he had passed from that unpleasing world to this sunkissed land of beauty.

Peter Masters saw the effect produced and his lips twitched with a little smile of pleasure.

“My grandfather planted the place,” he said. “He understood those things. I don’t. But it’s pretty. My mother, Evelyn Aston, you know, used to always travel by night if she could, she disliked the country round so much.”

“It is rather a striking contrast,” Christopher agreed.

They passed through a clump of chestnuts just breaking into leaf.

“There is coal here,” said Peter. “It will all have to go some day. I make no additions now.”

They came suddenly on the house, which was built of grey pointed stone, its low-angle slate roof hidden behind a high balustrading. The centre part was evidently the original house and long curved wings had been extended on either side. There was no sign of life about the place, nor did it carry the placid sense of repose that haunts old houses. Stormly Park had an air of waiting; a certain grim expectation lurked232behind the over-mantled windows and closed doors. It was as if it watched for the fate foreshadowed in its owner’s words. Even the glorious sunlight pouring over it failed to give it a sense of warm living life.

It filled Christopher with curiosity and a desire to explore the grey fastness and trim level lawns beyond. Some living eyes watched, however, for the front door swung open as they approached and two footmen came out. Christopher again noted Peter Masters did not speak to them or appear to notice their presence. On the steps he paused, and stood aside.

“Go in,” he said when his visitor hesitated.

Christopher obeyed.

The interior was almost as great a contrast to the exterior as the Park was to the surrounding country. It was rich with colour and warmth and comfort.

They were met by a thin, straightened-looking individual, who murmured a greeting to which Peter Masters paid no attention.

He turned to Christopher.

“This is Mr. Dreket, my secretary. Dreket, show Mr. ––” for an imperceptible moment he paused—“Mr. Aston his room and explain the ways of the place to him. I’ve some letters to see to.”

He turned aside down a long corridor. Christopher and the secretary looked at each other.

“I shan’t be sorry for a wash and brush up,” said Christopher, smiling.

The other gave a little sigh, expressive more of relief than fatigue, and led the way upstairs. As they went up the wide marble steps Mr. Masters reappeared and stood for a moment in the shadow of an arch watching the dark, erect young head till it was out of sight, then he retraced his steps and disappeared in his own room.

Christopher did not see him again till dinner-time.233The two dined together at a small table that was an oasis in a desert of space. The room was hung with modern pictures set in unpolished wood panelling. Peter vaguely apologised for them to one accustomed to the company of the masterpieces of the dead.

“I’m no judge. I should be taken in if I bought old ones,” he said. “So I buy new, provided they are by possible men. They may be worth something, some day, eh?”

“They are very good to look at now,” Christopher answered, a little shyly, looking at a vast sea-scape which seemed to cool the room with a fresh breeze.

“You Astons would have beaten me anyhow,” pursued Peter. “I’ve got nothing old: but the new’s the best of its kind.”

Christopher found this was true. Everything in the house was modern. There was no reproduction, no imitation. It was all solidly and emphatically modern: glass, china, furniture, books, pictures, the silk hangings, the white statuary in the orangery: all modern. There was nothing poor or mean or artistically bad, but the whole gave an impression of life yet to be lived, an incompleteness that was baffling in its obscurity.

Peter Masters talked much of events, of material things, of himself, but never of mankind in general. He spoke of no friends, or neighbours: he appeared to be served by machines, to stand alone in life, unconscious of his isolation. They played billiards in the evening and the host had an easy victory, and gave Christopher a practical lesson in the one game he had found time to master.

“I’ve work to do. Breakfast to-morrow at 8 sharp. You are going to Birmingham with me.”

No question about it or pretence of asking his visitor’s wishes. Christopher did not resent that, but he resented his growing inability to resist. He flung234open the windows of his room and looked out. Eastward there was a glow in the sky over the great sleepless city: northward a still nearer glow from a foundry, he thought, but westward the parkland was silvered with moonlight and black with shadows, which under the groups of chestnuts seemed like moving shapes.

He leant out far and the cold night air shivered by. That was familiar and good to feel, but the glare northward caught his eyes again, and held him fascinated. It rose and fell, now blushing softly against a velvet sky, now flaring angrily to heaven. It seemed to quiver with voices that were harsh and threatening. It filled Christopher’s heart with unreasonable horror against which he struggled in vain, as with the dim terror of a stranger. At last he closed the window and shut it out.

“I don’t like it,” said Christopher half aloud. “It’s all right, it’s only a foundry, but I hate it.”

With that he went to bed and in the dark the dance of the fires flickered before his eyes.

The next few days were spent in gathering fresh impressions and disentangling bewildering experiences, and in small encounters with the unanswerable will of his host.

He was taken to the great offices in Birmingham, and the wonderful system by which each vast machine was worked was explained to him. He was even privileged to sit with the great man in the inner sanctum and copy letters for him, though he was summarily turned out to see the sights of the great city when a visitor was announced. He explored the depths of the coal mines and finally spent a long morning at the foundry whose nightly glare still haunted his dreams. It was the latter sight that Peter Masters evidently expected would interest him most, for here were employed the most marvellous and most235complicated modern machinery, colossal innovations and ingenious labour-saving inventions in vast orderly buildings; the complex whole obedient to an organisation that left no item of power incomplete or wasted. But Christopher gave but half his mind to all he was shown, the other half was on those still stranger machines, the grimy, brutal-looking workmen toiling in the hot heart of the place, the white-faced stooping forms on the outskirts. They eyed him aslant as they worked, for visitors were rare occurrences. He asked questions concerning them and received vague answers, and a new machine was offered for inspection.

Fulner, the young engineer who had been told off to show him round, understood what was expected of him and did his duty. Masters himself, though he accompanied them, apparently put himself also in Fulner’s hands; he took no particular interest in the work, but his eye followed every movement of Christopher’s and his ear strained to his questions. Christopher noticed that none but heads of departments paid any attention to the owner’s presence, and he would have thought him unknown but for a word or two he caught as he lingered for a last look at a particularly fascinating electric lathe.

“Thinks he’s master,” grinned one man, with a shrug, towards the retreating form.

“Thinks we’re part of his blasted machinery,” growled his fellow worker.

Christopher passed on and forgot the lathe.

“Where do these people live?” he asked in the comparative quiet of a store yard.

“In the—the villages round, and as near as they can,” said the engineer quietly and looked back. Mr. Masters had gone off to the store-keeper’s office and was out of hearing. Fulner looked at Christopher again and apparently came to a decision.236

“It is difficult, sometimes, this housing question,” he said swiftly, “are you really interested?”

“Yes, I want to know what contrast they get to this. It’s overpowering, this place.”

“If there was time––” began the other, and stopped, seeing Mr. Masters was approaching. He was followed by a harassed-face sub-manager, who waited uneasily a few yards off.

“Christopher, I shall have to stay here an hour or two. You had better go back. You can catch the 12.40 at the station. Fulner will see you there.”

He nodded to the engineer and strode off towards the main offices.

The sub-manager exchanged a look of consternation with Fulner before he followed.

“We’ll go this way,” said Fulner, leading Christopher to a new corner of the great enclosure, “that is, if you don’t mind walking.”

He did not speak again until they were outside the high walls that surrounded the works, then he looked quizzically at Christopher.

“You shall see where they live if you wish to,” he said, “the contrast is not striking—only there is no organisation outside.”

They went down a black cindery road between high walls and presently the guide said quietly, “Are you coming here to us, Mr. Aston?”

“No.” Christopher’s voice was fervent with thankfulness.

The other looked disappointed and stopped.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We thought you were. There were rumours”—he hesitated, “if you are not coming perhaps it is no good showing you. It makes a difference.”

“I want to see where the people live,” insisted Christopher, looking him squarely in the face.

The other nodded and they went on and came to a237narrow street of mean, two-storied houses, with cracked walls and warped door-posts, blackened with smoke, begrimed with dirt. As much of the spring sunshine as struggled through the haze overshadowing the place served but to emphasise the hideous squalor of it. Children, for the most part sturdy-limbed and well-developed, swarmed in the road, women in a more or less dishevelled condition stared out of open doors at them as they passed.

To the secret surprise of Fulner his companion made no remark, betrayed no sign of disgust or distaste. He looked at it all; his face was grave and impassive and Fulner was again disappointed.

They passed a glaring new public house, the only spot in the neighbourhood where the sun could find anything to reflect his clouded brightness.

“We wanted that corner for a club,” said Fulner bitterly, “but the brewer outbid us.”

“Who’s the landlord?” demanded Christopher sharply.

Fulner paused a moment before he answered.

“You are a cousin of Mr. Masters, aren’t you?”

“No relation at all. Is he the landlord?”

“The land here is all his. Not what is on it.”

A woman was coming down the road, a woman in a bright green dress with a dirty lace blouse fastened with a gold brooch. She had turquoise earrings in her ears and rings on her fingers.

She stopped Fulner.

“Mr. Fulner,” she said in a quavering voice, “they say the master’s at the works and that Scott’s given Jim away to save his own skin. It isn’t true, is it?”

Fulner looked at her with pity. Christopher liked him better than ever.

“I’m afraid it’s true, Mrs. Lawrie, but Scott couldn’t help himself. Mr. Masters spotted the game when we were in the big engine-room. You go down238to the main gate and wait for Jim. Perhaps you’ll get him home safe if you take him the short cut, not this way.” He nodded his head towards the public house they had passed.

“It’s a shame,” broke out the woman wildly, but her sentences were overlaid with unwomanly words, “they all does it. I ask now, how’s we to get coal at all if we don’t get the leavings. Jim only does what they all does. What’s ’arf a pail of coal to ’im? I’d like to talk to ’un, I would. Jim will go mad again, and I’ve three of ’un now to think of, the brats.” She flung up her arms with a superbly helpless gesture and stumbled off down the road.

Christopher looked after her with a white face.

“What does it mean?” he asked.

“The men have a way of appropriating the remains of the last measure of coal they put on before going off duty. It’s wrong of course: it’s been going on for ages. I warned Scott—he’s the foreman. They’ve been complaining about the coal supply at headquarters. Mr. Masters caught Jim Lawrie at it to-day as we left the big engine-room.”

“Is it a first offence?”

“There’s no first offence here,” returned Fulner grimly. “There’s one only. There’s the club room. We have to pay £20 a year rent for the ground and then to keep it going.”

“But surely, Mr. Masters––” began Christopher and stopped.

“Mr. Masters has nothing to do with the place outside the works. It is not part of the System. He pays 6d. a head more than any other employer and that frees him. There’s the station.”

He paused as if he would leave his companion to make his way on alone. He was obviously dissatisfied and uneasy.

“Won’t you come to the station with me?” Christopher239asked, and as they walked he began to speak slowly and hesitatingly, as one who must choose from words that were on the verge of overflowing. “I was brought up in Lambeth, Mr. Fulner. I am used to poverty and bad sights. Don’t go on thinking I don’t care. These people earn fortunes beside those I have known, but in all London I’ve never seen anything so horrible as this, nothing so hideous, sordid—” he stopped with a gasp, “the women—the children—the lost desire—the ugliness.”

They walked on silently. Presently he spoke again.

“You are a plucky man, Mr. Fulner. I couldn’t face it.”

“I’ve no choice. I don’t know why I showed you it, except I thought you were coming and I wanted your help.”

“Are there many who care?”

“No. It’s too precarious. Mr. Masters doesn’t approve of fools. Mind you, the men have no grievances inside the works. The unions have no chance now. It’s fair to remember that.”

“Is it the same everywhere?”

“The System’s the same. I know nothing about the other works but that. There’s the train: we must hurry.”

“What do you want for your club?” Christopher asked as he entered his carriage.

“A billiard table, gym fittings, books. We’ve a license. We sell beer to members,” his eyes were eager: the man’s heart was in his hopeless self-imposed work.

Christopher nodded. “I shall not forget.”

So they parted: each wondering over the other—would have wondered still more if they had known in what relationship they would stand to each other when they next met.

240CHAPTER XXI

Christopher stood for a moment inside the great hall at Stormly Park and looked round. It was quite beautiful. Peter Masters, having chosen the best man in England for his purpose, had had the sense to let him alone. There was no discordant note anywhere and Christopher was quite alive to its perfections. But coming straight from Stormly Town the contrast was too glaring and too crude. It was not that Peter Masters was rich and his people were poor. Poverty and riches have run hand in hand down the generations of men, but here, the people were poor in all things, in morals, in desire, in beauty, in all that lifted them in the scale of humanity, in order that he, Peter Masters, should be superfluously rich, outrageously so!

Christopher struggled hard to be just: he knew it was not the superfluous money that was grudged, it was the more precious time and thought saved with a greed that was worse than the hunger of a miser—for no purpose but to add to over-filled stores. He knew all Peter Masters’ arguments in defence of his System already: That he compelled no man to serve him, that none did so except on a clear understanding of the terms; that for the hours they toiled for him he paid highly, and his responsibility ceased when those hours were over. If Peter Masters was no philanthropist at least he was no humbug. He said openly he worked his System because it paid him. If he could have made more by being philanthropical he would have been so, but he would not have called it philanthropy: it would have been a financial method.

The grim selfishness of it all crushed Christopher as241an intolerable burden that was none of his, and yet, because he was here accepting a part of its results, he could not clear himself of its shadow. So, twenty-two years ago, had his mother thought until the terror of that shadow outweighed all dread of further evil, and she had fled from its shade into a world where sun and shadow were checkered and evil and good a twisted rope by which to hold.

Some dim note from that long struggle and momentous decision had its influence with her son now. Without knowing it he was hastening to the same conclusions she had reached.

He lunched alone and then to escape the persistence of his thoughts decided to explore the west wing of the house which he had hardly entered.

At the end of a long corridor a square of yellow sunlight fell across the purple carpet from an open door and he stopped to look in.

It was a pretty room with three windows opening on to a terrace and a door communicating with a room beyond. The walls were panelled with pale blue silk and the chairs and luxurious couches covered with the same. There were several pictures of great value, on a French writing table lay an open blotter, but the blotting paper was crumbling and dry and the ink in the carved brass inkstand was dry also.

In the middle of the room surrounded by a pile of Holland covers and hangings stood Mrs. Eliot, the housekeeper. Christopher had seen her once or twice and she was the only servant, except the butler, with whom he had heard Peter Masters exchange a word. “Lor’, sir, how you made me jump!” she cried at sight of him in the doorway. “It isn’t often one hears a footfall down here, they girls keep away or I’d be about ’em as they know very well.”

“May I come in?” asked Christopher. “What a pretty room.”242

The woman glanced round hesitatingly. “Well, now, you’re here. Yes. It’s pretty enough, sir.”

“Are you getting ready for visitors?”

He had no intention of being curious, he was only thankful to find some distraction from his own thoughts, and there seemed no reason why he should not chat to the kindly portly lady in charge.

“No visitors here, sir. We don’t have much company. Just a gentleman now and then, as may be yourself.”

She pulled a light pair of steps to the window and mounted them cautiously one step at a time, dragging a long Holland curtain in her hand.

“Do you want to hang that up?” asked Christopher, watching her with idle interest. “Do let me do it, Mrs. Eliot, you’ll fall off those steps if you go higher. I can’t promise to catch you, but I can promise to hang curtains much better than you can.” Mrs. Eliot, who was already panting with exertion and the fatigue of stretching up her ample figure to unaccustomed heights, looked down at him doubtfully.

“Whatever would Mr. Masters say, sir?”

“He would be quite pleased his visitor found so harmless an amusement. You come down, Mrs. Eliot. Curtain-hanging is a passion with me, but what a shame to cover up those pretty curtains with dingy Holland!”

“They wouldn’t be pretty curtains now, sir,” said Mrs. Eliot, descending with elaborate care, “if they hadn’t been covered up these twenty years and more.”

“What a waste,” ejaculated Christopher now on the steps, “isn’t the room ever used?”

“Never since Mrs. Masters went out ofit.‘Eliot,’ says the master—I was first housemaid then—‘keep Mrs. Masters’ rooms just as they are, ready for use. She will want them again some day.’ So I did.”243

Christopher shifted the steps and hung another curtain.

“I didn’t know there had been a Mrs. Masters.”

“Most folk have forgotten it, I think, sir.”

“This was her boudoir, I suppose.”

“Yes. And I think he’s never been in here since she went, but once, and that was five years after. The boudoir bell rang and I came, all of a tremble, to hear it for the first time after so long. He was standing as it may be there. ‘That cushion’s faded, Eliot,’ he said, ‘get another made like it. You are to replace everything that gets torn or faded or worn without troubling me. Keep the rooms just as they are.’ He had a pile of photographs in his hand and a little picture, and he locked them up in that cabinet, and I don’t suppose it’s been opened since. He never made any fuss about it from the first. No, nor altered his ways either.” She drew a cover over a chair and tied the strings viciously. “It’s for all the world as if he’d never had a wife at all.”

Christopher had hung the three sets of curtains now and he sat on the top step and looked round the room curiously. It was less oppressively modern that the rest of the house and he had an idea the master of Stormly was not responsible for that. He felt a vivid interest in the late Mrs. Masters, Why had she gone and why had neither Aymer nor St. Michael mentioned her existence? He longed to override his own sense of etiquette and question Mrs. Eliot, who continued to ramble on in her own way.

“I takes off the coverings every two months, and brushes it all down myself,” she explained, “and I’ve never had anyone to help me before. If I were to let them girls in they’d break every vase in the place with their frills and their ‘didn’t see’s.’”

“Do those sheets hang over the panels?”

“I couldn’t think of troubling you! But if you244will, sir, why then, that’s the sheet for there. They are all numbered.”

Christopher covered up the dainty walls regretfully. Why had she left it? Had she and Peter quarrelled? It seemed to Christopher, in his present mood towards Mr. Masters, they might well have done so.

“Do you remember Mrs. Masters?” he was tempted to ask presently.

“Indeed I do, seeing I was here when he brought her home. Tall, thin, and like a queen the way she walked, a great lady, for all she was simple enough by birth, they say. But she went, and where she went none of us know to this day, and some say the Master doesn’t either, but I don’t think it myself.”

Christopher straightened a pen and ink sketch of a workman on the wall. It was a clever piece of work, life-like and sympathetic.

“She did that,” said Mrs. Eliot with a proprietor’s pride. “She was considered clever that way, I’ve been told. That’s another of hers on the easel over there.”

Christopher examined it and gave a gasp. It was a bold sketch of two men playing cards at a table with a lamp behind them. The expression on the players’ faces was defined and forcible, but it was not their artistic merit that startled him, but their identity. One—the tolerant winner—was Peter himself—the other—the easy loser—was Aymer Aston.

So Aymer did know of Mrs. Masters’ existence, knew her well enough for her to make this intimate likeness of him.

“Was it done here?” he asked slowly.

“No, she brought it with her. I don’t know who the other gentleman is, but it’s a beautiful picture of the master, isn’t it? so life-like.”

“Yes.”245

He looked again round the room, fighting again with his desire to search for more traces of its late owner, and then grew hot with shame at his curiosity. He left Mrs. Eliot rather abruptly and wandered out of the house, but the unknown mistress of the place haunted him, glided before him across the smooth lawns, he could almost hear the rustle of her dress on the gravel, and then recollected with relief it was only the memory of the old game he used to play at Aston House with his dead mother, transferred by some mental suggestion to Stormly Park. Presently he saw the bulky form of Peter Masters on the steps and joined him reluctantly.

“I want to see you, Christopher,” said Peter as he approached. “Come into my room. I shan’t be able to go to London this week to buy the car, so you must stay until Monday and go up with me then,” he announced, and without waiting for assent or protest plunged into his subject with calculated abruptness.

“This road business of yours, is there money in it?”

“I think so. It is not done yet.”

“How long will it take you to perfect it?”

“How can I tell? It may mean weeks, it may mean months.”

“What are you going to do when you’ve found it?”

“Get someone to take it up, I suppose.”

Christopher was answering against his will, but the swift sharp questions left him no time to fence.

“I’ll take it up now. Fit you up a laboratory and experimenting ground and give you two years to perfect it—and a partnership when it’s started.”

Christopher looked up with incredulous amazement.

“But it’s a purely scientific speculation at present.246There are just about half a dozen people on the track. We are all racing each other.”

“Well, you’ve got to win, and I’ll back you. You shall have every assistance you want—money shan’t count. You can live here and have the North Park for trials, as many men as you want and no interruption.”

“But it’s impossible. It’s not a certainty even.”

“No speculation is a certainty. If you bring it off it will mean a fortune, properly managed. I can do that for you far better than Aymer. We should share profits, of course, and I should have to risk money. It’s a fancy thing, but it pleases me.”

Christopher got up and went to the open window. The tussle between them had come. It would need all his strength to keep himself free from this man’s toils. However generous in appearance, Christopher knew they were toils for him, and must be avoided.

“Aymer’s done well enough for you so far,” pursued Peter Masters from the depths of his chair. “We will grant him all credit, but this is the affair of a business man: it requires capital: it requires business knowledge: and it requires faith. You will have to go to someone if you don’t come to me, and I’m making you a better offer than you’ll get elsewhere. I’ll do more. We’ll buy up the other men if they are dangerous. You can have their experience, too. It’s only a question of investing enough money.”

As he stood there in the window Christopher realised it all: how near his darling project lay to his heart, how great and harassing would be the difficulties of launching it on the world; how sure success would be under this man’s guidance, and yet how with all his heart and soul and unreasoning mind he hated the thought of it, and would have found life itself dear at the purchase of his freedom.247

His hands shook a little as he turned, but his voice was quiet and steady.

“It is very generous of you, sir, but I could not possibly pledge myself to you or any man.”

“I’m asking no pledge. I’m only asking you to complete your own invention, and when it’s completed I’ll help you to use it.”

“I must be free.”

“You own you can’t use any discovery by yourself, you’d have to go to someone. I come to you. The credit will be yours. I only find the means and share the return—fair interest on capital.”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what? Do you doubt my financial ability or financial soundness?”

The meshes of the net were very narrow. Christopher sat with his head on his hands. He could waste no force in inventing reasons, neither could he explain the intangible truth. It was a fight of wills solely.

“I can’t do it,” said Christopher doggedly.

“You are only a boy, but I credit you with more common-sense and a better eye for business than many young men double your age. What displeases you in my offer? Where do you want it altered?”

“I don’t want it at all, Mr. Masters. I won’t accept it. I don’t think my reason matters at all. I know I shall never do so well, but I refuse.”

“There are others who would take it. Suppose you are forestalled?”

Christopher looked him straight in the eyes.

“It’s a fair fight so far.”

“A fight is always fair to the winner,” returned Masters grimly. There was a silence. The next thrust reached the heart of the matter.

“What is your objection to dealing with me?”

Peter Masters leant forward as he spoke and put a248finger on the other’s knee; his hard, keen eyes sought the far recesses of his son’s mind, but they did not sink deep enough to read his soul. Christopher struggled with the impetuous words, the direct bare truth that sought for utterance. Truth was too pure and subtle a thing to give back here. When he answered it was in his old deliberate manner, as he had answered Fulner—as he would invariably answer when he mistrusted his own judgment.

“If I told you my objections you would not care for them or understand them. You would think them folly. I won’t defend them. I won’t offer them. It is just impossible, but I thank you.”

He rose and Masters did the same with a curious look of admiration and disappointment in his eyes.

“I thought you a better business man, Christopher. Will you refer the matter to your—guardian?”

“No. It is quite my own. Even Aymer can’t help me.”

Peter’s lips straightened ominously.

“You will come to me yet. My terms will not be so good again.”

“Then I am at least warned.”

“As you will. You are a fool, Christopher, perhaps I am well quit of you.”

“I think that is quite likely,” returned Christopher gravely, with a faint twinkle of amusement in his eyes. He went away despondently, however, and stopped at the door.

“When would you like me to go?”

“I told you: we go up to London on Monday,” said the millionaire sharply. “I engaged you to buy a car and you must buy it.”

“I am quite ready to do so.”

He left the room with an appalling sense of defeat and humiliation on him. He could hardly credit a victory that left him so bruised and spiritless. It249was in his mind to run away and avoid his engagement in London. He might even have done so but for Peter’s remark. He walked across the hall with downcast eyes and nearly fell against a tall thin form.

“Nevil!” cried Christopher.

“Yes, Nevil. Christopher, could I be had up for libel if I wrote the life of a railway train?”

250CHAPTER XXII

Christopher led the way into the nearest room and turned to Nevil with an anxious face.

“What is wrong? Is it Cæsar?” He stopped abruptly.

“There’s nothing wrong. Mayn’t anyone leave Marden but you, you young autocrat?”

Nevil deposited his lanky self in a comfortable chair and smiled in his slow way. Then he looked round the room with a critical, disapproving eye.

“Is Peter at home?” he asked, “and do you think he could put me up for a night? I suppose I ought to see him.”

Christopher did not offer to move.

“You shan’t see him till you tell me what brings you here, Nevil,” he said firmly.

The other shook his head. “That’s a bad argument, Christopher. However, I’ll pretend it’s effectual. There’s a man at Leamington who has some records he considers priceless, but which I think are frauds. I thought if I came up to-day I could travel down with you to-morrow.”

It sounded plausible—too plausible when Christopher considered the difficulty it was to rouse Nevil even to go to London. There might be a man in Leamington, but he didn’t believe Nevil had come to see him.

“You are growing very energetic, Nevil,” he said slowly, “all this trouble over some fraudulent records.”

“They might be genuine, and really important,” Nevil suggested cautiously.251

“At all events I was not returning till Saturday, and Mr. Masters wants me to stay till Monday now, and go to London with him then.”

Nevil crossed and uncrossed his long legs, gazing abstractedly at a modern picture of mediæval warfare.

“Those helmets are fifteen years too late for that battle,” he volunteered, “and the pikes are German, not French. What a rotten picture. Don’t you think you could come back with me? I hate travelling alone. I always believe I shall get mislaid and be taken to the Lost Property Office. Porters are so careless.”

He did not look round, but continued to examine the details of the offending picture.

Christopher leant over his chair and put his hands on Nevil’s shoulders.

“Nevil, I can’t stand any more. Tell me why I am to come back.”

The other looked up at him with a rueful little smile, singularly like his father’s.

“You were not always so dense, Christopher. I hoped you wouldn’t ask questions that are too difficult to answer. To begin with, neither my father nor Aymer know I’ve come. They think I’m in town. You see, Cæsar misses you, though he wouldn’t have you think so for the world, in case it added to your natural conceit, but it makes him—cross, yes, rather particularly cross and that upsets the house. I can’t write at all, so I thought you had better come back. The fact is,” he added with a burst of confidence, “I’ve promised an article on the Masterpieces of Freedom for August. I seldom promise, but I like to keep my word if I do, and it’s impossible to write now. If you’re enjoying yourself it’s horribly selfish—but you see the importance of it, don’t you?”252

“Yes,” allowed Christopher with the ghost of a smile, “it’s lamentably selfish of you, but I realise the importance. Shall we go by rail to-night?”

“But Leamington?”

“Will the man run away?”

“My father might have been interested to see the papers.”

“You dear old fraud,” said Christopher with an odd little catch in his voice, “do you suppose St. Michael won’t see through you? Is it like you to travel this distance to see doubtful records when you won’t go to London to see genuine ones? Why did not St. Michael write to me?”

“Cæsar would not let him.”

“He must be ill.”

“He is not, on my word, Christopher. He is just worried to the verge of distraction by your being here. It seems ridiculous, but so it is.”

“Why didn’t you write yourself?”

Nevil considered the question gravely.

“Why didn’t I write? Oh, I know. I only thought of it this morning and it seemed quicker to come.”

“Or wire?” persisted Christopher.

“It would have cost such a lot to explain,” he answered candidly. “I did think of that and started to send one. Then I found I had only twopence in my pocket. If I had sent anyone else to the office everyone would have known I was sending for you and Cæsar would have been more annoyed than ever.”

“I quite see. What did Mrs. Aston say?”

“I think she said you’d be sure to come.”

Christopher nodded. “Yes, I’ll go by mail to-night.” Then he shut his teeth sharply and looked out of the window with a frown, thinking of the renewed battle of wills to come, and at last said he253would go and find Mr. Masters, since no one appeared to have told him of Nevil’s arrival.

He went straight down the corridor to Peter Masters’ room. The owner was still seated as he had left him, smoking placidly.

“Changed your mind already?” he asked as his guest entered.

“No, not that, but Nevil Aston has come and I must go back with him by the mail to-night.”

“What’s up?” The big man sprang to his feet. “Is Aymer ill?”

“No, no. I don’t think so. It may be Nevil’s fancy. He thinks Aymer wants me back. Of course it sounds absurd, but Nevil, who won’t stir beyond the garden on his own account, has come all this way to fetch me to Cæsar.”

Peter Masters was half-way to the door and tossed a question over his shoulder curtly.

“Where is he?”

“In the little reception-room.”

Christopher followed him down the passage puzzling over this unexpected behaviour.

Nevil was re-exploring the inaccurate picture with patient sorrow and despair. He hardly turned as they entered.

“How do you do, Peter,” he said unenthusiastically, “why do you buy pictures like that by men who don’t even know the subject they are painting?”

“I’ll burn it to-morrow. What’s the matter with Aymer, Nevil?”

Nevil looked reproachfully at Christopher.

“Nothing is the matter, as I told Christopher, only I’d a man to see at Leamington and thought I could get a fellow victim here for the journey home.”

“I’ll meet you in London on Monday,” put in the fellow victim quietly to Mr. Masters.

Peter looked from one to the other, lastly he looked254long at Christopher and Christopher looked at him. Nothing short of the revelation Peter was as yet unprepared to make would stop Christopher from going to Aymer Aston that night he knew, and if he let the boy go back with the truth untold, it would be forever untold—byhim. That itwasthe Truth was a conviction now. There was no space left for a shadow of mistrust in his mind.

“If you go by the mail we’d better dine at eight sharp,” he said abruptly. “I want to see you, Christopher, before you go, in my room.” He turned towards the door, adding as an afterthought, “You must look after Nevil till I am free.”

Nevil gave a gentle sigh of satisfaction as the door closed.

Christopher laughed. The relief was so unexpected, so astounding. “We’ll have some tea in the orangery,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “You may not like the statuary, but the orange trees at least offer no anachronisms.”

Peter Masters shut the door of his room with a bang and going to an ever-ready tray, helped himself to a whiskey and soda with a free hand. Then he carefully selected a cigar of a brand he kept for the Smoke of Great Decisions, and lit it. All this he did mechanically, by force of habit, but after it was done, habit found no path for itself, for Peter Masters was treading new roads, wandering in unaccustomed regions, and found no solution to his problem in the ancient ways.

Was he, who for thirty-five years of life—from full manhood till now—had never consulted any will or pleasure but his own—was he now going to make a supreme denial to himself for no better reason than the easing of a stricken man’s burden?

The man once had been his friend, but the boy was his. And he wanted him. He clenched his fist255on the thought. He was perfectly aware of his own will in this matter.

Even from the material or business point of view his need of a son and heir had grown great of late. He had never contemplated the non-existence of one, just as he had never contemplated the non-existence of Elizabeth. He had counted, it is true, on overpowering the alert senses of one who had known the pinch of poverty with superabundant evidence of the fortune that was his. He had noted the havoc wrought to great fortunes by children brought up to regard great wealth as the natural standard of life; he meant to avoid that error, and in the unnatural neglect of the boy he had believed to be his, there was less callous indifference than Charles Aston thought: it was more the outcome of a crooked reasoning which placed the ultimate good of his fortune above the immediate well-being of his child. The terrible event in Liverpool that had shattered his almost childish belief in his wife’s existence had also wiped away her fading image from his mind. The whole force of his energetic nature was focussed on the possible personality of his son. This Christopher of Aymer Aston’s upbringing, entirely different from all he had purposed to find in his heir, called to him across forgotten waters. His very obstinacy and will power were matters in which Peter rejoiced—they were qualities no Aston had implanted. He was proud of his son and his pride clamoured to possess in entirety what was his by right of man.

What could prevent him? He sat biting his fingertips and frowning into the gathering twilight without—at that persistent vision of Aymer Aston’s face.

There were plenty of men in the world who would have shrugged their shoulders over the question of Peter Masters’ honesty, some who would have accredited his lightest word and yet would have preferred256a legal buffer between them and the bargain he drove: many who considered him a model of financial honesty. It was a matter of the personal standpoint: perhaps none of them would have troubled to measure the millionaire by any measure than their own. Peter’s own measure was of primitive simplicity—he never took something for nothing, and if he placed his own value on what he bought and what he paid, he at least believed in his own scale of prices. Had he picked up a banknote in the street he would have lodged it with the police unless he considered the amount only equalised his trouble in stopping to rescue it. Had his son dragged himself up the toilsome ladder to manhood (he ignored the possibility of woman’s aid), he would have taken him as he was, good or bad, without compunction, but he recognised that Christopher was not the outcome of his own efforts only, that Aymer having expended the unpriceable capital of time, patience and love, might, with all reason, according to Peter Masters’ code of life, look for the full return of sole possession in the result. Was he, then, in the face of his own standard of honest dealing, going to rob Aymer of the fruit of his labours, to take so great a something for nothing?

Let it be to Peter’s everlasting credit that he knew his millions to be as inadequate to offer a return as any beggar’s pocket. He had no quarrel with himself over his past conduct, he repudiated nothing and regretted nothing, he merely viewed the question from the immediate standpoint of the present. Was he going to violate the one rule of his life or not? He made no pretence about it. If he claimed his son he would claim him entirely. Christopher would refuse, would resist the claim at first—of that Peter was assured. But it would be Aymer himself who would fight with time on his side and insist on Peter’s rights, he was equally assured of that. But still Christopher would refuse.257

Peter Masters got up and began to walk up and down and parcelled out bribes.

“He shall have the Foundry to play with—a garden city for them if he likes. His own affair run on his own silly lines.” So he thought, ready to sweep to oblivion rule and system for the possession of this son of his.

But there remained Aymer.

Whether he gained Christopher in the end or not the very making of the claim would make a break between Aymer and his adopted son,—a gulf over which they would stretch out hands and never meet.

Aymer loved him. Aymer of the maimed life, the shattered hopes, whose destiny filled Peter with sick pity even now, so that he stretched out his great arms and moved sharply with a dumb thankfulness to something that he could move.

He might as well rob a child—or a beggar—better: he could give them a possible equivalent.

He went slowly to the side table and had a second whiskey and soda, mechanically as he had done at first, then he rang the bell.

When Christopher sought him shortly before dinner-time he was told curtly he could go to London at his leisure and purchase a car where and how he liked, so it were a good one.

“I shall want a chauffeur with it,” he added, “English, mind. You can charge your expenses with your commission, whatever that is.”

Christopher said gravely he would consider the matter.

“You can send me word how Aymer is,” concluded Masters shortly. “I suppose he’s ill. The whole lot of you spoil him outrageously.”

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