The question that chiefly occupied Mr. Aston’s mind during the first days of Christopher’s advent was whether Aymer had gathered in those ten long years of captivity sufficient strength of purpose to set aside once and for all the sharp emotions and memories the boy’s presence must inevitably awake.

When Aymer had first approached him on the subject of adopting a boy he had consented willingly enough, but when, coincident with this, Fate—or Providence—had pointed out to them the person of Christopher Hibbault, he, Mr. Aston, though he agreed it was impossible to disregard the amazing chance, had sighed to himself and trembled lest the carefully erected edifice of control and endurance that hedged in his son should be unequal to the strain.

But after the first evening Aymer Aston betrayed by no sign whatever that the past had any power to harm him through the medium of little Christopher, and his father grew daily more satisfied and content over the wisdom of their joint action. They stayed in town all that summer. Mr. Aston was acting as Secretary to a rather important Commission and even when it was not sitting he was employed in gathering in information which could only be obtained in London. Nothing would induce Aymer to go away without his father. He hated the publicity of a railway journey even after ten years of helplessness, and the long drive to Marden Court could not be undertaken lightly. So they stayed where they were, a proceeding which seemed less strange to Christopher than to such part of the outside world who chose to interest itself in Mr. Aston’s doings. 30

The August sun dealt gently with the beautiful garden, and not a few hardworking men, tied, like Mr. Aston, to town, congratulated themselves on his presence, when they shared its restful beauty in the hot summer evenings.

Christopher meanwhile adapted himself to his new life with amazing ease. He accepted his surroundings without question, but with quiet appreciation, and if certain customs, such as a perpetual changing of clothes and washing of hands were irksome, he took the good with the bad, and accommodated himself to the ways of his new friends resignedly. But he was haunted with the idea that the present state of things would not and could not last, and it was hardly worth while to do more than superficially conform to the regulations of the somewhat monotonous existence.

Most of the ten years of his life had been spent under the dominant influence of a devoted woman. All that he had learnt from mankind had been a cunning dishonesty that had nearly ruined his own small existence and indirectly caused his mother’s death. Women, indeed, had always been near him, and there were times when he thought regretfully of Mrs. Moss. There were none but menservants at Aston house, and the only glimpse of femininity was afforded by the flying visits of Constantia, Mr. Aston’s married daughter. She would at times invade Aymer’s room, a vision of delicate colourings and marvellous gowns. She was a tall, dark, lovely woman who carried on the traditional family beauty with no poverty of detail. She seemed to Christopher to be ever going on somewhere or returning from somewhere. He liked to sit and watch her when she flashed into the quiet room, and spent perhaps half an hour making her brother laugh with her witty accounts of people and matters strange to Christopher. She was kind to the boy, when she remembered him, lavish with her smiles and nonsense 31 and presents, but it was like entertaining a rainbow, an elusive, shadowy thing of beauty. She could not be said to denote the Woman in the House. Christopher, as he wandered about the big silent rooms and long corridors, was perforce obliged to take with him for company a more shadowy presence, an imaginary vision of another woman, also tall and dark, but without Constantia Wyatt’s irresponsible gaiety and dazzling smile. He would escort this phantom Woman through his favourite rooms, pointing out the treasures to her. He even apportioned her a room for herself, behind a closed door at the end of the wing opposite to which Aymer Aston lived. For it was here he had first discovered with what ease the image of his dead mother fitted into the surroundings he had never shared with her. It was rather an uncanny, eerie idea, and had Christopher been at all morbid or of a dreamy disposition it might have been a very injudicious fancy: but he was the personification of good health and robust spirits. His vivid imagination flitted as naturally and easily round the memory of his dead mother as it rejoiced in the adventures of the Robinson family, or thrilled over the history of John Silver. It was just a deliberate fancy that he indulged in at will, and the only really fantastical thing about it was that he invariably started his tour with the imaginary Woman from the door of the closed room. At the end of October, when he had fairly settled into the regular routine of Aston House, a tutor was procured for him. School, for more reasons than one, was out of the question. Christopher’s previous existence would hardly have stood the inquisition of the playground, and Aymer, moreover, wanted to keep him under his own eye. The boy’s education had been of a somewhat desultory nature. He could read and write, and possessed a curious store of out-of-the-way knowledge that would upset the most carefully prepared plan of 32 his puzzled tutor. That poor gentleman was alternately scandalised by the boy’s ignorance and amazed at his appetite for knowledge. He showed an astonishing aptitude for figures while he evinced a shameful contempt for history and languages. Indeed, he could only be made to struggle with Latin Grammar by Aymer’s stories of Roman heroes in the evening and the ultimate reward of reading them for himself some day.

The year wore on, ran out, with the glories of pantomime and various holiday joys with Mr. Aston. Christopher by this time had accepted his surroundings as permanent, with regard to Mr. Aston and Aymer, though he still, in his heart of hearts, had no belief that so far as he was concerned they might not any day vanish away and leave him again prey to a world of privations, wants and disagreeables generally.

He was forever trying to make provision against that possible day, and laid up a secret hoard of treasure he deemed might be useful on emergency. With the same idea he made really valiant attempts to put aside a portion of his ample pocket-money for the same purpose, but it generally dwindled to an inconsiderable sum by Saturday. Aymer kept him well supplied and encouraged him to spend freely. He was told again and again the money was given him to spend and not to keep, and that the day of need would not come to him. He would listen half convinced, until the vision of some street arabs racing for pennies would remind him of positive facts that had been and therefore might be again, and cold prudence had her say. But this trait was the result of experience and not of nature, for he was generous enough. Not infrequently the whole treasury went to the relief of already existing needs outside the garden railings, and he could be wildly extravagant. Aymer never questioned him. He sometimes laughed at him when he had wasted a 33 whole week’s money on some childish folly, and told him he was a silly baby, which Christopher did not like. However, he found he had to buy his own experiences, and he soon learnt that no folly however childish annoyed “CÆsar” so much as accumulated wealth for no particular object but a possible future need.

Christopher had christened Aymer “CÆsar” shortly after his introduction to the literary remains of one, Julius, from some fanciful resemblance, and the name stuck and solved a difficulty.

In the same manner he bestowed the distinctive title of St. Michael on Mr. Aston, from his likeness to a famous picture of that great saint in a stained glass window he had seen, and it also was generally adopted.

No one made any further attempt to explain his introduction into the family, or the general history of that family. He was just “grafted in,” and left to discover what he could for himself, and he certainly gathered some fragmentary disconnected facts together.

“What is a Secletary?” demanded Christopher one day from the hearth-rug, where he lay turning over old volumes of the Illustrated London News.

“A Secretary, I suppose you mean. A Secretary is a man who writes letters for someone else.”

“Who does St. Michael write letters for?”

“He used to write letters for the Queen, or rather on the Queen’s business. What book have you got there?”

Christopher explained.

“There is a picture of him. Only he hasn’t got grey hair: and underneath Perma n-e-n-t, Permanent Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs. What does it mean, CÆsar?”

CÆsar, otherwise Aymer, considered a moment. 34

“Permanent means lasting, going on. You ought to know that, Christopher.”

“But he isn’t going on.”

“He could have done so.”

“Why didn’t he? Didn’t he like it?”

“Yes, very much. He was trained for that kind of thing.”

“Did he get tired of writing letters, then?”

“No.”

Aymer was apt to become monosyllabic when a certain train of thought was forced on him. Also a short deep line of frown appeared under the white scar: but Christopher had not yet learnt to pay full heed to these signs: also he had a predilection for getting at the root of any matter he had once begun to investigate, so he began again:

“Why didn’t he go on being permanent, then?”

“He thought he had something else he ought to do.”

“Was the Queen angry?”

“I don’t know.”

“What was it?”

Aymer cut the leaves of the book he was trying to read rather viciously.

“Taking care of me,” he said shortly.

Christopher got up on his knees and stared.

“Hadn’t you got Vespasian then?”

“Good heavens, Christopher, are you a walking inquisition? My father gave up his appointment—if you must know, because of my––” he stopped, and went on doggedly, “of my accident. I wasn’t particularly happy when I found I had to stay on a sofa all the rest of my life, and he had to teach me not to make an idiot of myself. Now you know all about it and need not bother anyone else with questions.”

Christopher thought he knew very little about it, but he had learnt what he set out to know and was moreover now aware that the subject was distasteful 35 to Aymer, so he politely changed it. “Robert’s brother has got some very nice guinea-pigs,” he said thoughtfully.

“Who is Robert?”

“Robert is the under footman. I forgot you don’t know him.”

Christopher recollected with momentary embarrassment Aymer’s inaccessibility to the general domestic staff.

“He wants to find a home for them,” he added hastily; “he doesn’t mind where, so long as it’s a happy home.”

Aymer guarded a smile. Christopher was already notorious for ingenious methods of getting what he wanted.

“It would be a pity for them to be ill-treated, of course,” he agreed gravely.

Christopher shuffled across the floor to the side of the big sofa.

“It’s rather a happy home here, you know,” he remarked suggestively, touching Aymer’s arm tentatively with one finger.

“I am glad you think so. Do you consider the atmosphere equally suitable for guinea-pigs?”

“I should like them.” He rubbed his cheek caressingly on Aymer’s hand. “May I, CÆsar?”

“Not to keep in your bedroom as you did the bantam.”

“But in the garden—or yard. Please, dear CÆsar.”

“You ridiculous baby, yes. If you make a house for them yourself.”

Christopher flew off in a transport of joy to consult with Vespasian, who, from mere tolerance of his beloved master’s last “fad,” had become the most ardent if unemotional partisan of the same “fad.”

It was Vespasian who had provided Christopher with more clothes than he deemed it possible for one 36 mortal boy to wear, who taught him how to put them on, and struggled with him figuratively and literally over the collar question. Vespasian’s taste running to a wide margin of immaculate white closely fastened, while Christopher had a predilection for a free and open expanse of neck.

“Look at Mr. Aymer,” pointed out the great general’s successor sternly. “You never see him with even a turn-down collar, and he lying on his back all the time, when most gentlemen would consider their own comfort.”

Christopher, hot, angry and uncomfortable, wondered if Vespasian had insisted on the wearing of those instruments of torture, or if CÆsar really preferred it.

But in spite of small differences of opinion, Vespasian and he were good friends, and he received much instruction from the mouth of that inestimable man. It was he who drilled him in Mr. Aymer’s little ways, warned him how he hated to be reminded of his helplessness, and could not endure anyone but Vespasian himself to move him from sofa to chair, and that only in the strictest privacy. How he disliked meeting anyone when wheeled from his own room to the dining-room for dinner, which was the only meal he took in public, and that only in company with his father or very intimate friends. How he avoided asking anyone to hand him things though he did not object to unsolicited help, which Christopher soon learnt to render as unostentatiously as Vespasian himself. Also it was Vespasian who explained to him woodenly, in answer to his direct question, that the scar on Mr. Aymer’s forehead was the result of a shooting accident. His revolver had gone off as he was cleaning it, said Vespasian, had nearly killed him, had left him paralysed on one side, so he’d never be better. He added, Mr. Aymer didn’t like it talked 37 about. All this and more did the boy learn from this discreet man, but never did Vespasian hint at those dark years when to serve poor Aymer Aston was a work for which no money could pay, when the patient father and much-tried man had secretly wondered whether that fight for mere life that had followed on the ghastly accident had indeed been worth the winning. There was no word of this in Vespasian’s revelations. He only impressed on Christopher the necessity of avoiding any expression of pity or commiseration with the paralysed man, and a warning that a somewhat casual manner towards the world, and his entirely undemonstrative way, was no true index of Mr. Aymer’s real feelings.

Christopher was himself warm-hearted and given to expressing his joyous feelings with engaging frankness. It could hardly have been otherwise, brought up as he had been by a woman of ardent nature and passionate love for him, but in contradiction to this he had learnt to be very silent over the disagreeables of life and to keep his own small troubles to himself, so that he readily entered into Aymer’s attitude towards his own misfortune, and the relationship between the two passed from admiration on Christopher’s part to passionate devotion, and from the region of experimental interest on Aymer’s part to personal uncalculated affection, and to an easing of a sharp heartache he had tried valiantly to hide from his father. Aymer never questioned him on the past, never even alluded to it. Partly because he hoped the memory of it would dwindle from the boy’s mind, and partly for his own sake. But Christopher did not forget. There were few days when he did not contrast the old times with the new, and gaze for a moment across the big gulf that separated Christopher Aston from little Jim Hibbault and the quiet woman absorbed in a struggle for existence in an unfriendly world. He occasionally 38 spoke of his mother to Mr. Aston when they were out together, but he kept his implied promise faithfully with regard to Aymer and made no mention of his former experiences, or of his mother, until one day an event occurred which recalled the black terror under whose shadow they had left London, and necessitated an elucidation of knotty points.

There was in one corner of the garden far away from the house a gap in the high belt of shrubs that jealously guarded the grounds from the curious passerby. In fact the gap had once meant a gateway, but it had been disused so long that it had forgotten it was a gate and merely pretended it was part of the big railings; only it had not got a little wall to stand on. Christopher was fond of viewing life from this sequestered corner. The road that ran by was a main thoroughfare—an ever-varying picture of moving shapes. One morning as he stood there counting the omnibuses—he had nearly made a record count—his attention was attracted by a small boy about his own age or possibly older, who was dawdling along, hands in pockets, with a dejected air. He appeared to be whistling, but if he were, without doubt it was also a dejected air. His was a shabby tidiness that spoke of a Woman and little means. He had sandy hair and light eyes and—but Christopher did not know this—an uncommonly shrewd little face and a good square head, and as he passed by the boundaries of Aston House he glanced at the small fellow-citizen gazing through the railings—rather compassionately, be it said—for he knew for certain the boy inside was longing to get through the gate. That one glance carried him beyond the gate, but he suddenly spun round on his heel, collided with an indignant lady laden with parcels, and stared hard at Christopher. Christopher stared hard at him. Then the boy outside went on his way. 39

“Jolly like Jim,” he ruminated, “but a swell toff, I reckon. Poor little kid.”

Christopher, after one shout as the boy went on, tore back through the garden towards the entrance gate, meaning to intercept him there. Such at least was his laudable intention, but half way there his pace slackened; he stood irresolute, kicking a loose stone in the gravel path, and finally strolled off to the stable yard to feed his guinea-pigs.

He was preoccupied and thoughtful for the rest of that day. Mr. Aston was absent, and when evening came and Christopher was still a prey to harassing ideas he decided he must appeal to CÆsar even at the cost of disregarding Mr. Aston’s prohibition. He came to this decision as he lay in his usual position on the hearth-rug and was goaded thereto by the approach of bed time.

“CÆsar, could anyone be taken to prison for something he had done ever so long ago—I mean for—for stealing, and things like that?”

“Yes, if he had not been already tried for it. Why do you ask?”

“And if anyone met the person suddenly who had done something would they have to give him up?” persisted Christopher.

Aymer regarded him curiously. He had an unreasonable impulse to check the coming revelation, as he might the unguarded confidence of a weak man, but common-sense prevailed.

“It would depend on circumstances entirely, and the relationship of the two. Are you wanted, Christopher?” he asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

“I was,” returned Christopher slowly. “That’s why we left London, you know. It was Marley Sartin. He took me out with him. You see,” he broke off parenthetically, “I stayed with Martha, that’s Mrs. Sartin, all the day while mother took care of a gentleman’s 40 house, and sometimes Marley was there, and he taught me things.”

“What things?”

Christopher shifted his position a bit, and tossed a piece of wood into the fire.

“Oh, lots of things,” he repeated at last, “tricks, and how not to answer, and how to avoid coppers and how to get money. Mother said it was stealing.”

The scar on Aymer’s forehead was very visible. He took up a paper-knife and ran his fingers along the edge slowly.

“Well?”

The boy looked round, suddenly aware of where he was, of the beauty and comfort around him, of CÆsar’s personality, and the incongruity of his admission. However, so it was: facts were facts: it was imperative he should know his own position, even if it was an unpleasing subject. So he went on hastily. “Oh, well, one day he took me out with him for a walk. We went into a big sort of shop with lots of people buying things and he knocked up ‘accidental like’ (this was evidently a reminiscence of a phrase often used), against a lady and she dropped her parcels and purse and things, and I pretended to pick them up, and if there were only parcels or pennies I really did, but if the money spilt and it was gold I put my foot on it and picked it up for Marley when I could. We made a lot that way. Of course mother didn’t know,” he added hurriedly, “or Martha. Then one day there was a row and Marley was caught, and I ran away. You see I was pretty small, and could slip in anywhere. I got back and told Martha, and she cried and told mother, and said as how I should be sure to be took too. So we went away from London that night. I don’t know what happened to Martha, but mother said I mustn’t go back to London or I’d be taken too.”

The grim tragedy of it all, the miserable fate from 41 which the woman had fought so hard to save her child, and the same child’s dim appreciation of it struck Aymer with the sharpness of physical pain.

“Marley told me it was only keeping what one found, but mother said it was just stealing, and that Marley was bad. He was good to me anyhow. Martha—Mrs. Sartin—you know—used often to cry about Marley’s ways. She was always very respectable; her father kept a linen-draper’s shop, and she meant to put Sam into a shop. Sam didn’t like his father. I saw Sam go by to-day—he’s bigger, but it was him and he knew me—and I asked about the being taken up because I thought it wouldn’t be safe for me to go about perhaps.”

So level and even was his voice that Aymer did not guess the agony of apprehension and fear the boy was holding back behind his almost abnormal self-control, but he did his best to reassure him.

“They would not know you, Christopher, and if they did they would not take you away from me. You were a very little boy then. I could let them know how it happened, and how it could never happen again.”

Christopher hid his face in his arms and the room became very silent. The fire crackled cheerfully and strange shadows lived uncertain lives on the ceiling. Aymer put the paper-knife down at last and looked at his charge. He was aware it was a critical moment for them both: also he was quite suddenly aware he was more fond of the child than he had previously imagined. But mostly in his mind was the sickening appreciation of what hours of torture that solitary silent woman must have endured.

“Christopher, old boy, come here,” he said quietly.

The boy got up. His face was flushed, hot with his efforts to control himself.

“Do you want the light, CÆsar?” 42

“No, I want you.”

He came unwillingly and sat down on the edge of the sofa, playing with a piece of string.

“You need not be frightened at all,” said Aymer. “It is all utterly impossible now, we both of us know that.”

“I suppose so.”

“You know it. You only did what Marley told you to do. You didn’t steal because you wanted money yourself.”

But Christopher was doggedly truthful.

“Marley used to give me some for myself, CÆsar, and I liked it and I didn’t think it was stealing. It was just keeping what one found.”

“But you knew to whom it belonged.”

“Not certain sure, Marley said.”

“What did your mother say?”

“Just that it was stealing. She said, too, lots of people in the world were thieves who didn’t know, and Marley was no worse than many rich men, who just knocked people down to get the best of them. What did she mean, CÆsar?”

“She thought it was as wrong for a rich man to take advantage of a poor man, as for a strong man to attack a weak one, or a cunning man to cheat a simpleton.”

Christopher was conscious he had heard something like this before. He nodded his small head sagely. Aymer went on.

“It really means you must never get money at someone else’s expense. If you can give them something in return, something equal, it’s all right, but it must be equal. That is what your mother believed, and I do too—now.”

Christopher regarded CÆsar thoughtfully. He was speculating what he did in return for the golden sovereigns that seemed so plentiful with him. 43

“We try to give fair exchange,” explained CÆsar, answering his thoughts. “The money comes to us out of the big world. And my father gives the world good service in return. You will know how good, some-day.”

“Does everybody do things?” sighed his listener, much perplexed.

“Everyone should. You are wondering what I do. My money comes to me before I earn it, from houses—land—I have to see the people who live in my houses have all that is fair and necessary, that the land is in order. Then sometimes we lend other people our money, and they find work for many others, and make more of it. Money is a very difficult thing to explain, Christopher. What I want you to remember now is that you must never take money from other people without giving something in return, because it’s stealing.”

Christopher, with his usual disconcerting shrewdness, found an unsatisfactory point.

“I don’t do anything for the money you give me every week, CÆsar.”

Aymer was fairly caught, and wanted desperately to laugh, only the boy’s face was so grave and concerned he did not dare. He thought for a moment to find a way out of the difficulty without upsetting the somewhat vague theories he had just crystallised into words.

“But I owe something to the world, and you are a small atom of the world, Christopher, so I choose to pay a mite of my debt that way. Besides, it is a part of your education to learn how to spend money, as much a part as Latin grammar.”

Christopher thought it a much pleasanter part and looked relieved.

“I am glad you aren’t paying me,” he said slowly; “of course it’s just my good luck that it happened to 44 be me you pay your debts to. Lots of people aren’t lucky like that.”

Which was a truth that remained very deeply indented in Christopher’s mind. Aymer ordered him to bed, but when he said good-night he kept grip of his hand.

“Why wouldn’t you like me to pay you?” he demanded, almost roughly.

The boy got red and embarrassed, but Aymer waited remorselessly.

“I can’t do anything,” he said, “and if I did I’d hate you to pay me like that. Some day I’ll have to pay you, won’t I?”

“I should hate that worse than you would,” returned Aymer shortly. “There’s no question of money between us. I get all I want out of you. Go to bed.”