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 vitality and
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--taken _what_ in, 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 it was 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. I _know_, 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.
"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, and 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?"
"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.
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 impatient for 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 of every 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 opportunity to
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.
"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 you helped 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.
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.