Perhaps they did spoil Aymer Aston, these good people, who loved him
so greatly, setting so high a store upon his happiness that their own
well-being was merged therein.
While it was quite true that neither Nevil nor any other could have
worked peacefully in the electrical atmosphere of the house after
Christopher left with Peter Masters, it is also true that no temporary
personal inconvenience would have driven Nevil to undertake the long
and tiresome journey, if his brother's welfare had not been involved.
The need had been great. Aymer's restless misery increased every day
of Christopher's absence. He refused to see any of the household but
his father and Vespasian, and though at first he made desperate
efforts to control himself, in the end he gave up, and long hours of
sullen brooding silence were interposed with passionate flashes of
temper. It was the old days over again, and all those near him
realised to the full how great was the victory that had been won and
how terrible life might have been for them all without it. Therefore
they were very patient and tolerant, though Mr. Aston began to
consider seriously if he would not be justified in breaking his given
word to Aymer and summoning Christopher back at once.
He looked very worn and tired when he joined Renata at dinner on the
Thursday night.
"Nevil does not mean to be away long, does he?" he inquired
anxiously.
"No, I think not. Why, St. Michael? Does Cæsar want him?"
"He asked for him this evening."
"What a pity."
She went on with her soup, with a little rose of colour on her face,
thinking of the secret her husband had of course confided to her.
Presently observing St. Michael hardly touched his dinner and seemed
too weary to talk, she suggested nervously that she should sit with
Aymer that evening. He conjured up a kind smile of thanks, but refused
in his gentle, courteous way, saying that Aymer seemed disinclined to
talk.
When Mr. Aston went back to the West Room a little later, that
disinclination seemed to have evaporated. He heard Cæsar's furious
voice pouring a cascade of biting words on someone as he opened the
door. Vespasian was the unfortunate occasion and the unwilling victim;
Vespasian, who was older by twenty years than in the days when he
stood unmoved before continuous and worse storms. His usually
impassive face was rather red and he now and then uttered a dignified
protest and finally bent to pick up the shattered glass that lay
between them and was the original cause of the trouble. Aymer, with
renewed invective, clutched a book to hurl at the unfortunate man, but
before he could fling it, Mr. Aston leant over the head of the sofa
and seized his wrists. The left would have been powerless in a child's
grasp and the elder man's position made him master of the still strong
right arm.
At a faint sign from Mr. Aston, Vespasian vanished.
Aymer made one unavailing attempt to free himself as his father drew
his hands up level with his head. He tried not to look at the face
leaning over him.
"Aymer," said his father, with great tenderness, "do you remember what
I used to do with you when you were a little boy and lost your
temper?"
Aymer gave a short, uneasy laugh. "Tie my hands to a chair or a bed
head. It was all right then, it is taking a mean advantage now." He
ended with a choking laugh again, and Mr. Aston felt his hands tremble
under his careful grasp.
"Aymer, my dear old fellow, if you must turn on someone, then turn on
me. I understand how it is. Vespasian doesn't. That's not fair. It's
the way of a fractious invalid, not of a sane man. Where's your
pride?"
Aymer bit his lip. He was helpless and humiliated, but after all it
was his father. He looked up at him at last with a crooked smile.
"I've none--in your power like this, sir. Let me go, I'll be a good
boy."
They both laughed, and Mr. Aston released him. The colour burned on
Aymer's face. Grown man as he was, the sudden subjection to authority
so exerted was hard to bear even in the half-joking aspect with which
his father covered it.
Mr. Aston knew it. He had deliberately used the very helplessness that
was his son's best excuse for his outbreak, to check the same, and
however thankful for his success, the means were bitter to him also,
only he was not going to let Aymer see it or get off without further
word.
"I shall have to send you to school again," he said, picking up the
broken glass. "I can't have Nevil's property treated like this. He'll
be adding 'breakages' to the weekly bill."
"I'll pay," pleaded Aymer, contritely, "if you won't tell him. Where
is he?"
"Gone to London, of all the preposterous things; so Renata says. She
expects him back to-morrow, I suppose Bowden will look after him, but
I should have wired to them had I known he was going."
He seemed really a little worried, and Aymer laughed.
"What a family, St. Michael! Nevil can look after himself a good deal
better than you think. He puts it on to get more attention."
"Do you think he is jealous?"
"Not an ounce of it in him. I have the monopoly of that," he added,
with a sharp sigh, and then, without any warning, he caught his
father's arm and pulled him near.
"Father," his voice was hoarse and unsteady, "if Peter tells
Christopher, what will happen? I can't think it out steadily. I can't
face it."
Mr. Aston knelt by him and put his hand on his shoulder, concealing
his own distress at this unheard-of breakdown.
"My dear boy, it would not make the slightest difference to
Christopher. I'm seriously afraid he'd tell Peter to go to the
devil--and he'd come home by the next train. He'd never accept him."
"He'd never forget," persisted Aymer, the sleeping agony of long years
shining in his eyes. "It would not be the same, father. He would not
be--mine. I could not pretend it if he knew. Peter would be there
between us--always as he was----"
He broke off and took up the thread with a still sharper note of pain,
"Father, can't you understand. I don't mind a woman. He'll love and
marry some day: it's his right. I don't grudge that. But another
father--his real one. Oh, My God, mayn't I keep even this for myself?"
He hid his face on the cushions, all the wild jealousy of his nature
struggling with his pride.
His father put his arm round him, hardly able to credit the meaning of
the crisis. Was that white scar on his son's forehead no memorial to a
dead jealousy, but only an expression of a slumbering passion?
"Aymer, old fellow, listen. Peter isn't going to tell, I feel sure of
it. And it would make no difference. You must allow I know something
of men. I give you my word of honour, Aymer, I know it would make no
difference to Christopher. You wrong him. You will always be first
with him."
"It's not Christopher," returned Aymer, lifting hard, haggard eyes
to his father, "it's myself. Twice in my life I've wanted
something--someone for myself alone. Elizabeth--and now Christopher!
It's I who can't share."
"Jealousy, cruel as the grave." Involuntarily the words escaped Mr.
Aston.
"More cruel."
He dropped his head again. St. Michael continued to kneel by him in
silence. The elementary forces of nature are hard matters with which
to deal. Silence, sympathy, and the loan of mental strength were all
he could offer.
It came to his mind in the quiet stillness how in just such a crisis
as this, when he was not at hand to help the same cruel passion had
wrought the irrevocable havoc with his son's life. He looked at the
dark head pressed on the pillows and remembered his young wife's
half-laughing pride in her first-born's copper coloured aureole of
hair. He recollected the day he had first held him in his arms,
himself but just arrived at man's estate, and this helpless little
baby given into his power and keeping. He had done his best: God knows
how humbly he confessed that more than truthful Truth, yet even all
his love had failed to save that little red-haired baby from this ...
jealousy, cruel as the grave! Perhaps he had been too young a father
to deal with it at first. Was it his failure or were there greater
forces behind--the forces of ages of other failures for which poor
Aymer paid....
Aymer moved till his head rested against his father's arm, like a
tired child. Presently he looked up rather shamefacedly.
"It's over. What a fool I've been. Don't tell Christopher, father."
A faint reflection of what Aymer considered his own terrible monopoly,
caught poor St. Michael for a fleeting moment, a jealous pang that his
son's first thought must go to the boy. He realised suddenly he was
tired out and old, and got to his feet stiffly.
Aymer gave him a quick, penetrating glance.
"Send Vespasian back, father," he said abruptly, "and you go to bed.
What a selfish brute I've been." And when Mr. Aston had bidden him
good-night he added in the indifferent tone in which he veiled any
great effort, "If Peter should want Christopher to stay longer, you
might tell him to come back--it doesn't pay to be so proud--and I'll
apologise to Vespasian."
"He's worth it," said Mr. Aston with a smile, "he and I are getting
old, Aymer."
"Negatived by a large majority, sir," he answered quickly.
It was not of Christopher he thought in the silent hours of the night,
and Mr. Aston's brief jealousy would have found no food on which to
thrive had it survived its momentary existence.
When Mr. Aston came down in the morning the first sight that met his
astonished eyes was Christopher, seated at the breakfast table and
attacking that meal with liberal energy. He sprang up as Mr. Aston
entered.
"My dear boy, I thought you were not coming till to-morrow at the
earliest."
"Will it be inconvenient?" asked Christopher, with demure gravity.
"I'm sorry, but I was so bored."
He stumbled a little over the prevarication. St. Michael was not Peter
Masters, even excuses found no easy flow in his presence.
"I'm delighted," said Mr. Aston, and looked it.
He had breakfasted in his room, so he sat down by Christopher and
tried to find out the reason of the opportune return.
"Your letters did not sound at all bored."
"I only realised it yesterday evening," returned Christopher, with
great gravity, "so we--that is I--came down by the mail last
night--and Nevil...."
"Nevil?"
"Yes, I picked him up, you know. He was seeing a man in Leamington."
Christopher carved ham carefully, and avoided Mr. Aston's eye, smiling
to himself over his promise to Nevil not to betray him.
"Nevil went to London. How did--" Mr. Aston stopped suddenly,
"Christopher."
"Yes, St. Michael."
"You are not to lie to me whatever you do to others. Tell me what it
means."
Christopher regarded him doubtfully and then laughed outright.
"Nevil did not like travelling alone. He thought he would get lost, so
he asked me to look after him."
"He went from London to Leamington to get a companion to travel home
with?"
"Exactly. Isn't it like him, St. Michael?"
They again looked steadily at each other.
"And being a bit weary of fighting for the right of individual
existence," went on Christopher, "I agreed to bring him home. Mr.
Masters has been most kind, but he does like his own way."
"And what about you?"
"Oh, I like mine, too. That's why it was so boring. How's Cæsar?"
"He will be pleased to see you. Where is Nevil?"
"Gone to bed, I expect. How he hates travelling."
"Yes."
"He hates explanations still more, please St. Michael."
"He should have prepared a more plausible story."
"He thinks it quite credible. He expected me to believe--about the man
in Leamington."
"And did you?"
"Well, do you?"
They both laughed and Christopher looked at the clock.
"Do you think Vespasian will let me take in Cæsar's breakfast?"
"He would be delighted, I'm sure. Cæsar won't believe in Leamington
either, Christopher."
"But he will easily believe I was bored--which is true. I don't think
he is as fond of Mr. Masters as he pretends to be."
Whether Aymer believed or not, he asked no questions. He only remarked
that Peter was far more likely to have been bored and Christopher had
no eye to his own advantage. To which Christopher replied flippantly
that it was a question of "vantage out," and he was not going to
imperil his game with a rash service.
After that he sat on the foot of the bed and talked frankly of his
visit, and minute by minute the jealous fire in Aymer's heart died
down to extinction.
Presently, however, he said abruptly and rather reproachfully: "You
never told me Mr. Masters had married."
For a confused second the room and the occupants were lost in a fiery
mist and only Christopher's voice lived in the chaos. Then Aymer found
himself struggling to maintain hold of something in the mental
turmoil, he did not know what at first: then that it was his own
voice. It amazed him to hear it quite; steady and cool.
"Why should she interest you? Did Peter tell you?"
"No. Never mentioned it. One day I found Mrs. Eliot, the housekeeper,
in a room, a sort of boudoir, playing about with holland covers, and I
helped her. What was she like?"
"Mrs. Eliot?"
"No, you old stupid. Mrs. Peter Masters. I know you knew her, because
there's a pen-and-ink sketch of you and Mr. Masters playing cards in
the room."
"Oh, is there."
"Is she dead?"
"Yes."
"What was she like--to marry Mr. Masters?"
"Like? Like other women," returned Aymer, shortly.
Christopher looked at him sharply and realised he had committed an
indiscretion--that this was a subject that might not be handled even
with a velvet glove.
"Explicit," he retorted lightly. "However, that's not important. Now
for something of real moment."
He plunged into an account of Peter's final offer to him, and his own
refusal.
"Why on earth did you refuse? Wasn't it good enough?" demanded Aymer
curtly.
"No, not with P. M. attached. Might as well take lodgings in Wormwood
Scrubs--quite as much liberty. But, anyhow, Cæsar, you see now what
you have got to do."
"Get you apartments in Wormwood Scrubs?"
"No. Do be serious. Give me a laboratory here and some experimental
ground. Do, there's a dear good Cæsar." In reminiscence of old days he
pretended to rub his head against Cæsar's arm.
"Ah, you invented Peter's offer to wheedle me into this. I suppose."
"Exactly. Seriously, Cæsar, if you would, it would be excellent. I've
been thinking it out, I could work here safely. No one to crib my
ideas. But I must have trial ground."
"That's Nevil's affair."
"Well, I undertake to manage Nevil if you are afraid," said
Christopher, with an air of desperate resolve.
"I thought you didn't like Marden," persisted Cæsar, fighting in an
unreasoning way, against his own desires, "and this engaged couple
will wander round and get in the way."
He looked Christopher straight in the face with scrutinising eyes, but
he never flinched.
"I'll put up a notice, 'Trespassers will be blown up.'"
"Well, you'd better talk to St. Michael, but remember, I can't buy up
the other fellows. You'd better have taken Peter's offer."
"I'd much rather bore you than Mr. Masters."
"I'm not complaining."
That was the nearest approach he made to expressing to Christopher his
deep, quiet content at the arrangement that astute young man had so
skilfully suggested. St. Michael said a little more and Christopher
knew without words that he had pleased them both.