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.
"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?"
"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 he would 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 looked long 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--by _him_. That
it _was_ the 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 fist on 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 preferred a
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.
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."