THE PAST RETURNS
Christine had learned a great deal since her marriage. As she stood on
the platform at Euston that morning with Jimmy Challoner she felt old
enough to be the grandmother of the girl who had looked up at him with
such glad recognition less than a month ago in the theatre.
Old enough, and sad enough.
She could not bear to look at him now. It cut her to the heart to see
the listless droop of his shoulders and the haggard lines of his face.
It was not for her--his sorrow; that was the thought she kept steadily
before her eyes; it was not because he had offended and hurt her past
forgiveness; but because Cynthia Farrow was now only a name and a
memory.
The train was late in starting. Jimmy stood on the platform trying to
make conversation; he had bought a pile of magazines and a box of
chocolates which lay disregarded beside Christine on the seat; he had
ordered luncheon for her, although she protested again and again that
she should not eat anything.
He racked his brains to think if there were any other little service he
could do for her. He was full of remorse and shame as he stood there.
She had been so fond of him--she had meant to be so happy; and now she
was glad to be leaving him.
The guard blew his whistle. Jimmy turned hastily, the blood rushing to
his white face.
"If you ever want me, Christine----" She seemed not to be listening,
and he broke off, only to stumble on again: "Try and forgive me--try
not to think too hardly of me." She looked at him then; her beautiful
eyes were hard and unyielding.
The train had begun to move slowly from the platform. Jimmy was on the
footboard; he spoke to her urgently.
"Say you forgive me, Christine. If you'll just shake hands----"
She drew back, as if she found him distasteful.
The train was gathering speed. A porter made a grab at Jimmy.
"Stand back, sir."
Jimmy obeyed mechanically. Christine would not have cared had he been
killed, he told himself savagely.
But for his pig-headed foolishness, he and Christine might have been
going down to Upton House together; but for the past----
"Damn the past!" said Jimmy Challoner as he turned on his heel and
walked away.
* * * * * *
But the past was very real to Christine as she sat there alone in a
corner of the first-class carriage into which Jimmy had put her, and
stared before her with dull eyes at a row of photographs advertising
seaside places.
This was the end of all her dreams of happiness. She and Jimmy were
separated; it seemed impossible that they had ever really been
married--that she was really his wife and he her husband.
She dragged off her glove, and looked at her wedding ring; she had
never taken it off since the moment in that dingy London church when
Jimmy had slipped it on.
And yet it was such an empty symbol. He had never loved her; he had
married her because some other woman, whom he did love, was beyond his
reach.
She did not cry; she seemed to have shed all the tears in her heart.
She just sat there motionless as the train raced her back to the old
house and the old familiar scenes, where she had been happy--many years
ago--with Jimmy Challoner.
He had wired to Gladys Leighton; Gladys would be there at the station
to meet her. She wondered what she would say to her.
She thought of the uncle who had journeyed to London with such
reluctance to give her away; he would tell her that it served her
right, she was sure. Even on her wedding day he had trotted out the
old maxim of marrying in haste.
Christine smiled faintly as she thought of him; after all, she need not
see much of him--he did not live near Upton House. When the restaurant
attendant came to tell her that lunch was ready, she followed him
obediently. Jimmy had tipped him half-a-crown to make sure that
Christine went to the dining-car. She even enjoyed her meal. A man
sitting at the same table with her looked at her curiously from time to
time; he was rather a good-looking man. Once when she dropped her
gloves he stooped and picked them up for her; later on he pulled up the
window because he saw her shiver a little. "These trains are well
warmed as a rule," he said.
Christine looked at him timidly.
She liked his face; something about his eyes made her think of Jimmy.
"Are you travelling far?" he asked presently.
She told him--only to Osterway.
He smiled suddenly.
"I am going there, too. Do you happen to know a place called Upton
House?"
Christine flushed.
"It's my home," she said. "I live there."
"What a coincidence. I heard it was in the market--I am going down
with a view to purchase."
Her face saddened.
"Yes--it is to be sold. My mother died last month. . . . Everything
is to be sold."
"You are sorry to have to part with it?" he asked her sympathetically.
"Yes." Tears rose to her eyes, and she brushed them, ashamedly away.
"I've lived there all my life," she told him. "All my happiest days
have been spent there." She was thinking of Jimmy, and the days when
he rode old Judas barebacked round the paddock.
The stranger was looking at Christine interestedly; he glanced down at
her left hand, from which she had removed the glove; he was surprised
to see that she wore a wedding ring.
Surely she could not be married--that child! He looked again at the
mourning she wore; perhaps her husband was dead. He forgot for the
moment that she had just told him of the death of her mother.
He questioned her interestedly about Osterway. What sort of a place
was it? Were the people round about sociable? He liked plenty of
friends, he said.
Christine answered eagerly that everyone was very nice. To hear her
talk one would have imagined that Osterway was a little heaven on
earth. The last few weeks, with their excitement and disillusionment,
had made the past seem all the more roseate by contrast. She told this
man that she would rather live in Osterway than anywhere else; that she
only wished she were sufficiently well off to keep Upton House.
When the train ran into the station he asked diffidently if he might be
allowed to drive her home.
"My car is down here," he explained. "I sent it on with my man. I am
staying in the village for a few days. . . . Upton House is some way
from the station, I believe?"
"Two miles. . . . I should like to drive home with you," she told him
shyly. "Only I am meeting a friend here."
"Perhaps your friend will drive with us, too," he said.
Christine thought it a most excellent arrangement. She looked eagerly
up and down the platform for Gladys Leighton, but there was no sign of
her.
"Perhaps she never got my telegram," she said in perplexity. She asked
the stationmaster if there had been a lady waiting for the train; but
he had seen nobody.
The man with whom she had travelled down from London stood patiently
beside her.
"Shall we drive on?" he suggested. "We may meet your friend on the
road."
They went out to the big car; there was a smart man in livery to drive
them. Christine and her companion sat together in the back seat. They
drove slowly the first half-mile, but there was no sign of Gladys
anywhere. Christine felt depressed. She had counted on Gladys; she
had been so sure that she would not fail her; she began to wonder if
Jimmy had sent that wire; she hated herself for the thought, but her
whole belief and idea of him had got hopelessly inverted during the
past days.
They seemed to reach Upton House very quickly.
"You are evidently expected," her companion said; "judging by the look
of the house."
The front door stood open; the wide gate to the drive was fastened
back. As the car stopped the housekeeper came to the door; she looked
interestedly at Christine, and with faint amazement at her companion.
For the first time Christine felt embarrassed: she wondered if perhaps
she had been foolish to accept this man's offer of an escort. When
they were inside the house she turned to him timidly.
"Will you tell me your name? It--it seems so funny not to know your
name. Mine is Christine Wyatt--Challoner, I mean," she added with a
flush of embarrassment.
"My name is Kettering--Alfred Kettering." He smiled down at her. "The
name Challoner is very familiar to me," he said. "My greatest friend
is a man named Challoner."
Christine caught her breath.
"Not--Jimmy?" she asked.
"No--Horace. He has a young brother named Jimmy, though--a
disrespectful young scamp, who always called Horace 'the Great
Horatio.' You don't happen to know them, I suppose?"
Christine had flushed scarlet.
"He is my husband," she said in a whisper.
"Your--husband!" Kettering stared at her with amazed eyes, then
suddenly he held our his hand. "That makes us quite old friends, then,
doesn't it?" he said with change of voice. "I have known Horace
Challoner all my life; as a matter of fact, I was with him all last
summer in Australia. I have been home myself only a few weeks."
Christine did not know what to say. She knew that this man must be
wondering where Jimmy was; that it was more than probable that he would
write to the Great Horatio and inform him of their chance meeting, and
of anything else which he might discover about her mistaken marriage.
"I don't think Horace knows that his brother is married, does he?" the
man said again, Christine raised her eyes.
"We've only been married ten days," she said tremulously.
"Is that so? Then I am not too late to offer you my most sincere
congratulations, and to wish you every happiness." He took her hand in
a kindly grip.
Christine tried to thank him, but somehow she seemed to have lost her
voice. She moved on across the hall into the dining-room, where there
was a cheery fire burning and tea laid.
"You will have some tea with me," she said. "And then afterwards I
will show you over the house--if you really want to see it?" She
looked up at him wistfully. "I should like you to have it, I think,"
she told him hesitatingly. "If it has got to be sold, I should like to
know that somebody--nice--has bought it."
"Thank you." He stood back to the fire, watching her as she poured out
the tea.
Married--this child! It seemed so absurd. She looked about seventeen.
Suddenly:
"And where is Jimmy?" he asked her abruptly. "I wonder if he would
remember me! Hardly, I expect; it's a great many years since we met."
Christine had been expecting the question; she kept her face averted as
she answered:
"Jimmy is in London; he saw me off this morning. He--he isn't able to
come down just yet."
There was a little silence.
"I see," said Kettering. Only ten days married, and not able to come
down. Jimmy had never done an hour's work in his life, so far as
Kettering could remember. He knew quite well that he was living on an
allowance from his brother; it seemed a curious sort of situation
altogether.
He took his tea from Christine's hands. He noticed that they trembled
a little, as if she were very nervous, he tried to put her at her ease;
he spoke no more of Jimmy.
"I wonder what has happened to your friend?" he said cheerily. "I dare
say she will turn up here directly."
"I hope she will." Christine glanced towards the window; it was
rapidly getting dusk. "I hope she will," she said again
apprehensively. "I should hate having to stay here by myself." She
shivered a little as she spoke. She turned to him suddenly.
"Are you--married?" she asked interestedly.
He laughed.
"No. . . . Why do you ask?"
"I was only wondering. I hope you don't think it rude of me to have
asked you. I was only thinking that--if you were married and had any
children, this is such a lovely house for them. When we were all
little we used to have such fine times. There is a beautiful garden
and a great big room that runs nearly the length of the house upstairs,
which we used to have for a nursery."
"You had brothers and sisters, then?"
"No--but Jimmy was always here; and Gladys--Gladys is the friend I am
expecting--she is like my own sister, really!"
"I see." His eyes watched her with an odd sort of tenderness in them.
"And so you have known Jimmy a great many years?" he asked.
"All my life."
"Then you know his brother as well?"
"I have met him--yes; but I dare say he has forgotten all about me."
"He will be very pleased with Jimmy's choice of a wife," he answered
her quickly. "He always had and idea that Jimmy would bring home a
golden-haired lady from behind the footlights, I think," he added
laughingly.
He broke off suddenly at sight of the pain in little Christine's face.
There was an awkward silence. Christine herself broke it.
"Shall we go and look over the house before it gets quite dark?"
She had taken off her coat and furs; she moved to the door.
Kettering followed silently. He was fully conscious that in some way
he had blundered by his laughing reference to a "golden-haired lady of
the footlights"; he felt instinctively that there was something wrong
with this little girl and her marriage--that she was not happy.
He tried to remember what sort of a fellow Jimmy had been in the old
days; but his memory of him was vague. He knew that Horace had often
complained bitterly of Jimmy's extravagance--knew that there had often
been angry scenes between the two Challoners; but he could not recall
having heard of anything actually to Jimmy's discredit.
And, anyway, surely no man on earth could ever treat this little girl
badly, even supposing--even supposing----
"It's not such a very big house," Christine was saying, and he woke
from his reverie to answer her. "But it's very pretty, don't you
think?" She opened a door on the left. "This used to be our nursery,"
she told him. They stood together on the threshold; the room was long
and low-ceilinged, with a window at each end.
A big rocking-horse covered over with a dust-sheet stood in one corner;
there was a doll's house and a big toy box together in another. The
whole room was painfully silent and tidy, as if it had long since
forgotten what it meant to have children playing there--as if even the
echoes of pattering feet and shrill voices had deserted it.
Kettering glanced down at Christine. Her little face was very sad; she
was looking at the big rocking-horse, and there were tears in her eyes.
She and Jimmy had so often ridden its impossible back together; this
deserted room was full of Jimmy and her mother--to her sad heart it was
peopled with ghost faces, and whispering voices that would never come
any more.
Kettering turned away.
"Shall we see the rest of the house?" he asked. He hated that look of
sadness in her face; he was surprised because he felt such a longing to
comfort her.
But they had no time to see the rest of the house, for at that moment
someone called, "Christine--Christine," from the hall below, and
Christine clasped her hands delightedly.
"That is Gladys. Oh, I am so glad--so glad."
She forgot all about Kettering; she ran away from him, and down the
stairs in childish delight. He followed slowly. He reached the hall
just in time to see her fling herself into the arms of a tall girl
standing there; just in time to hear smothered ejaculations.
"You poor darling!" and "Oh, Gladys!" and the sound of many kisses.
He stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Over Christine's
head, his eyes met those of the elder girl. She smiled.
"Christine . . . you didn't tell me you had visitors."
Christine looked up, all smiles now and apologies, as she said:
"Oh, I am so sorry--I forgot." She introduced them. "Mr.
Kettering--Miss Leighton. . . . Mr. Kettering has been looking over
the house; I hope he will buy it," she added childishly.
"It's a shame it has got to be sold," said Gladys bluntly. There was
something very taking about her, in spite of red hair and an
indifferent complexion; she had honest blue eyes and a pleasant voice.
She looked at Kettering a great deal as she spoke; perhaps she noticed
how often his eyes rested on Christine. When presently they went out
into the garden, she walked between them; she kept an arm about
Christine's little figure.
"I missed the train," she explained. "I got your husband's wire,
Christine. Oh, yes, I got it all right, and I rushed to pack the very
minute; but the cab was slow, and I just missed the train. However,
I'm here all right."
She looked at Kettering.
"Do you live near here?" she asked him.
"No; but I am hoping to soon," he said; and again she wondered if it
were only her imagination that his eyes turned once more to Christine.
When they got back to the house he bade them "good-bye." The big car
was still waiting in the drive; its headlights were lit now, and they
shone through the darkness like watchful eyes.
"Who is he, anyway?" Gladys asked Christine bluntly, when Kettering had
driven off. Christine shook her head.
"I don't know; he came down in the train with me, and we had lunch at
the same table, and he spoke. He was coming down here to look at our
house, and so--well, we came up together."
"What do you think Jimmy would say?"
"Jimmy!" There was such depths of bitterness in Christine's voice that
the elder girl stared.
"Jimmy! He wouldn't care what I did, or what became of me. I--I--I'm
never going to live with him any more."
Gladys opened her mouth to say something, and closed it again.
She had guessed that there had been something behind that urgent wire
from Jimmy, but she wisely asked no questions. They went back into the
house together.
"You'll have to know in the end, so I may as well tell you now,"
Christine said hopelessly. She sat down on the rug by the fire, a
forlorn little figure enough in her black frock.
She told the whole story from beginning to end. She blamed nobody; she
just spoke as if the whole thing had been a muddle which nobody could
have foreseen or averted.
Gladys listened silently. She was a very sensible girl; she seldom
gave an impulsive judgment on any subject; but now----
"Jimmy wants his neck wrung," she said vehemently.
Christine looked up with startled eyes.
"Oh, how can you say such a thing!"
"Because it's true." Gladys looked very angry. "He's behaved in a
rotten way; men always do, it seems to me. He married you to spite
this--this other woman, whoever she was! and then--even then he didn't
try to make it up to you, or be ordinarily decent and do his best, did
he?"
"He didn't love me, you see; and so----" Christine defended him.
"He'll never love anyone in the wide world except himself," Gladys
declared disgustedly. "I remember years ago, when we were all kiddies
together, how selfish he was, and how you always gave in to him.
Christine"--she stretched out her hand impulsively to the younger
girl--"do you love him very much?" she asked.
Christine put her head down on her arms.
"Oh, I did--I did," she said, ashamedly. "Sometimes I wonder if--if he
hadn't been quite so--so sure of me! if--if he would have cared just a
little bit more. He must have known all along that I wanted him; and
so----" She broke off desolately.
The two girls sat silent for a moment.
"And now--what's he going to do now?" Gladys demanded.
Christine sighed.
"I told him I didn't want to see him. I told him I didn't want him to
come down here for six months--and he promised. . . . He isn't to come
or even to write unless--unless I ask him to."
"And then--what happens then?"
Christine began to cry.
"Oh, I don't know--I don't know," she sobbed. "I am so miserable--I
wish I were dead."
Gladys laid a hand on her bowed head.
"You're so young, Christine," she said sadly. "Somehow I don't believe
you'll ever grow up." She had not got the heart to tell her that she
thought this six months separation could do no good at all--that it
would only tend to widen the breach already between them.
She was a pretty good judge of character; she knew quite well what sort
of a man Jimmy Challoner was. And six months--well, six months was a
long time.
"Mr. Kettering knows Jimmy's brother," Christine said presently, drying
her eyes. "So I suppose if he comes to live anywhere near here, he
will know what--what is the matter with--with me and Jimmy, and he'll
write and tell Horace."
"And then Jimmy will get his allowance stopped, and serve him right,"
said Gladys bluntly.
Christine cried out in dismay:
"Oh, but that would be dreadful! What would he do?"
"Work, like other men, of course."
But Christine would not listen.
"I shall ask Mr. Kettering not to tell Horace--if I ever see him
again," she said agitatedly.
Gladys laughed dryly.
"Oh, you'll see him again right enough," she said laconically.