Two events wrote themselves indelibly on Christopher’s memory in connection with this first visit to Marden, while the one great matter that began there and influenced his whole after life merged itself into a general hazy sense of happiness and companionship. For it is given to few of us even when we have reached years of discretion to recognise those moments in our lives which are of real, supreme, and eternal importance: moments when the great doors of experience open slowly on silent hinges and we pass in, unconscious even that we have crossed the threshold. But all that happens to our familiar selves, that touches our well-known emotions, and rubs or eases the worn grooves of existence, is heavily underscored in our recollection, and not infrequently we take for mile-stones on the way what were but pebbles on the road.

The two events which Christopher carried in his memory were, however, not unimportant, for both bore on his relationship with the man who was moulding his life. The one episode turned Vespasian’s bald statements into real emotional facts, and the other was the first serious collision between the far-off disastrous tutelage of Marley Sartin and the new laws of existence as propounded by Aymer Aston.

Christopher’s education made vast strides during that winter. The season proved an unusually mild one. He was out the greater part of each day with Patricia, enduring with remarkable fortitude her alternate contempt and despair over his ignorance of such everyday matters as horses, guns, dogs, desert island games, and such like. When she laughed at him for not being able to ride he shut his teeth hard not to remind her he’d never possessed a shetland pony from 60 birth as she had, also he rose at an unconscionable early hour and rode in the cold winter’s dawn round and round the exercising yard with the young grooms, while Patricia was warm and fast asleep in bed. But he had his reward when Mr. Aston, who had heard of his doings from the stud-groom, took him out with him on one of his rounds of inspection to outlying farms.

“The boy’s got a good seat, and pluck, Aymer,” reported Mr. Aston. “It’s more creditable to him because he has had to learn. It’s not second nature to him.”

It took him less trouble to learn how to handle a gun, and when “off duty” to Patricia, spent a vast amount of time in the electric plant house, learning the A B C of a big dynamo.

Aymer knew all this and made no mention of lessons, for Christopher was backward in more matters than booklearning and the life on a big estate, the infinite variety of interests was all good food for the boy’s hungry brain and soul.

He grew apace. Mr. Aston declared he was a changeling and not the thin little urchin he had first encountered by the mile-stone on the Great Road. They never alluded to his life before that, though they all knew of it, and made their own private comparisons and observations.

Christopher became quite attached to the babies so long as they did not intrude on his own particular hours with CÆsar, but he did not get over a certain shy reserve towards Renata.

“She slips into empty places,” he said to CÆsar once, and CÆsar laughed at him and told Renata, who coloured and wrinkled her little forehead.

“He is a nice boy,” she said, “and I love him for being so good to Patricia. There hasn’t been a storm since he came.” 61

One day, when it was too wet for even Christopher to be out, the two children amused themselves by turning out a cupboard in a disused room. It was a perfect stronghold of treasures. Old riding whips, Badminton Magazines (marked Aymer Aston, Christopher noticed), tennis balls, cricket pads, a pair of fencing foils and mask and gloves, a host of sporting trophies from a hare’s pad to a wolf’s ear labelled “Kronigratz,” and last of all a box full of photographs.

Patricia was called away before they could investigate this last treasure trove, and Christopher, not to be alone in the glory of discovery, carried it off to CÆsar’s room and lay on the hearth-rug enjoying it till CÆsar, busy working out estate accounts for his father, was at liberty to look too. They were interesting photographs,—to a boy. Mostly of horses ridden, led, alone, jumping, horses galloping, horses trotting, and over and over again a picture of one horse, and rider, who never seemed to wear a hat and had a thick head of hair that looked as if it might be the same colour as CÆsar’s. At last he came to a bigger, more distinct photo of the same man and horse. The horse was evidently a polo-pony and was galloping and the man on it in white riding things, with his shirt open at the neck and was swinging a polo stick in his hand. There was no mistaking it this time: it was undoubtedly CÆsar. Christopher gave a little gasp. CÆsar like that, vigorous, active, panting,—Christopher could feel it so—with life and excitement. He scrambled to his knees with the picture in his hand.

“CÆsar, dear CÆsar, look what I’ve found.”

Aymer looked round, saw the scattered photographs, and held out his hand.

“Is it you really? May I have it for myself?”

CÆsar took the card and as he gave it up, Christopher knew he had made a mistake, and got scarlet. 62

“Where did you find it?” demanded Aymer sharply.

“In the cupboard in the little red room. We were turning it out.”

“Yes, it’s I. Why shouldn’t it be? I wasn’t always a cripple, you know.”

He tossed the picture back on the rug. The scar stood out white and distinct, and his face was strangely hard and set. A book slipped down on the left side and he tried to catch it with the left hand and failed, and it fell with a bang on the floor.

“May I have it?” asked Christopher meekly from the rug.

“What for? You don’t know the horse and you don’t know the man. Put it in the fire.”

“No, I won’t,” exclaimed Christopher indignantly. “CÆsar, don’t be so horrid, it’s—it’s—exactly like you.”

CÆsar ignored his own command and asked another question instead. “Where did you say you found it?”

“In a cupboard in the little red room. It’s such a jolly little room. It isn’t used now and there’s hardly anything in it, but the cupboards are full of things—lovely things. Patricia and I just explored.”

“It used to be my room and the things are all mine. Why haven’t they burnt them?” he muttered.

Christopher gathered up the unlucky photographs and put them back in the box. He was dimly conscious he did not want Mr. Aston to come and see them.

“I’m sorry, CÆsar, I didn’t know we shouldn’t have done it.”

“You haven’t done any harm, I—I had no business to be cross, old fellow. Come and show me the pictures again, I’ll tell you about them.”

Christopher sat down on the sofa with the box in 63 his hand. He really did want to know about them if CÆsar wasn’t going to be angry. He took out a photo at random.

“That was my first race-horse,” said CÆsar. “Her name was Loadstar. She didn’t win much, but I thought a lot of her. And that—oh, that’s a mastiff I had: he was magnificent, but such a brute I had to kill him. He went for one of the stable boys and I hardly got him off in time. I’ve got the marks now of his claws: he never bit me. We used to wrestle together.”

“Wrestle with a dog?”

“Yes, I used to be fairly strong, you know, Christopher. It was good training throwing him—sometimes it was the other way. But he had to die, poor old Brutus.”

“How did you kill him?”

“I shot him,” said CÆsar shortly, “don’t ask for morbid particulars. Where is another picture?”

“This?”

This was a photo of a horse standing alone in a field and beneath was written, “Jessica waiting to be tamed.” Aymer offered no explanation,—if Christopher had looked he would have seen the scar show up again sharply over a frown.

The next was rather a wicked snap-shot of Aymer cover shooting, with what looked suspiciously like a dead fox curled up at his feet.

“It was a wretched little cub I had tamed,” he explained, “the little beast used to follow me everywhere. It’s really tied up to a tree, but it always lay out as if dead when it heard a gun. I took it out with me to try and get it used to the sound.”

There was a picture of Aymer and Nevil riding and coming over a big water jump side by side.

Aymer told him it was at the Central Horse Show and related the triumphs and honours of the day. 64

But when the polo photograph turned up again Aymer appeared tired of the amusement, and sent Christopher off to meet his father in the brougham at Maidley station, four miles distant. “If someone doesn’t go he’ll be reading reports and working out figures till he arrives at the door,” said Aymer. “It’s disgraceful not to know how to take a holiday properly. It’s only small boys who ought to work like that,” he added severely.

“You haven’t given me any work to do, CÆsar,” protested Christopher, but CÆsar only laughed.

When the boy had gone, however, Aymer continued to turn over the photographs. It was an extremely unwise proceeding, for each of them called him with irresistible voice back to the past from which he had sworn he would turn his eyes. It was always there with its whispering, mocking echo, but like a good fighter he had learnt to withstand its insidious temptations, and hold fast to the quiet, secure present where all he could know of joy or fulfilment was centred.

But there it was, the great gulf that lay between him and the past, in which were swallowed up the hopes, ambitions, expectations of his vigorous youth, and all the possibilities of a man’s life. He had fathomed it to its blackest depth, and seen no hope of escape or rescue. And yet he had escaped, through the devotion and courage of his father. And it was the ever-living recollection of that devotion that helped him to keep his face turned from the other side of the gulf. Only on rare occasions did his strength of purpose fail him, and by some momentary carelessness he found himself caught back into a black hour of bitterness and helpless anger.

There was no one to blame but himself, no power to accuse but his own headlong passion, and the imperious impatience that would take no gift from life 65 but that of his own choosing. There had been a woman and a tangle of events, and his passion-blinded eyes could see no way of disentangling it, and yet how trivial and easy the unravelling appeared now. The quick—not resolve—but impulse that caught him on the crest of his uncontrolled, wild temper, and prompted the shot that missed its intention by a hairs-breadth: the whole so instantaneous, so brief a hurricane of madness, succeeded by the long pulseless stillness of this life of his now.

To do, and not to be able to undo, to hunger and thirst and ache to take back only a short minute of life, to feel sick and blind before the irretrievableness of his own deed, that was still his punishment in these rare hours of darkness.

He had fought for life at first with all that virile strength of his and won this limited existence which, when he first understood its cruelly narrow horizon, he had as ardently longed and sought to lose again, but the life principle that had been so roughly handled was marvellously tenacious, and refused to be ousted from its tenement. Slowly and painfully Aymer had groped his way from desolate despair to something higher than mere placid resignation, to a brave tolerance of himself and an open heart to what life might still offer him.

There was, however, little toleration in his heart at this hour as he lay staring at the photograph, and then suddenly looked round the room he had made so beautiful for himself. It was just as usual, every detail complete, satisfactory, balanced, redeemed too from its own beauty by its strange freedom from detail and its emptiness.

It pleased him well as a rule, but this evening that same emptiness seemed to emphasise his own isolation. He was suddenly conscious of a sense of incompleteness, of some detail left out that should be there—a 66 want he could not measure or define. It was a sort of culminating point in his own grey thoughts. In a gust of his old imperious temper he caught up the photograph and tore it in half, and flung it from him: tried to fling into the fire and failed even in that. The box of photographs fell and scattered on the floor. He turned his head sharply and hid his face in the cushions.

It was very quiet in the room, the fire burnt steadily, and outside the dusk had already fallen. There was a very little knock at the door, but he did not hear it; the door opened with a breath of fresh cold air and a faint scent of violets as Renata entered.

She saw she was unobserved, saw his attitude, and her whole being seemed to melt into an expression of longing compassion. Nevil or his father would have gone away unseen in respect for his known weakness, but Renata for all her shyness had the courage of her instincts.

“May I come and warm myself, Aymer? You always have the best fire in the house.”

He did not move for a moment.

Renata knelt by the fire with her back to him and took off her long soft gloves, her bracelets making a little jangling sound. Then she saw the torn picture and picked it up and shook her head disapprovingly. The overturned box lay nearer the sofa. She picked that up too, and began replacing its contents in a matter-of-fact way.

“You can’t possibly see things in this light,” she remarked. “It is getting quite dark. Do you want a light, Aymer?”

“No,” said Aymer abruptly, turning so that he could see her.

She sat down in a big chair the other side of the hearth and began chatting of the very serious At Home she had just attended in Winchester. 67

The black mood slipped from him, and with it the sense of need and incompleteness. It had melted as snow before a fire the moment he had heard the swish of her dress across the floor, and the breath of violets reached him. He forgot even to be ashamed of his own passing weakness as he watched her. She was all in brown with strange beautiful gold work shining here and there. She had flung back her furs and there was a big bunch of violets in her dress. He watched her little white fingers unfasten them as she talked.

“If they would not think they were amusing themselves, I could endure it,” she said, “but they solemnly pretend it’s amusement and frivolous at that. One old lady told me gravely, she hardly thought it seemly that the Dean should so lend himself to the pleasures of the world. There, the violets are not spoilt at all. The Dean gave them to me: it’s the one thing he can do—grow violets. You shall have them all to yourself.” She fetched a silver cup and began arranging them. Aymer ceased to be tired, ceased to be anything but supremely content as his eyes followed her. She went on relating her experience until she had made him laugh, and then she came and sat on a little stool near him.

“May I have the babies down?”

Aymer pretended to grumble.

“You’ll go to them if I say no,” he complained, “so I have no option.”

The bell was rung and the babies ordered to descend.

“Before they come, CÆsar, I’m going to ask you a favour,” she said coaxingly, “now you are in a good temper again.”

“Was I in a bad one?”

“Dreadful. It mustn’t reoccur. It is such a bad example for the children.” 68

“The favour, please; bother the children.”

“CÆsar, I’m ashamed of you. Bless them, you meant to say. Well, the favour. Aymer, I am going to start a crÊche in Winchester near the big clothing factory. I’ve talked to the Bishop and he quite approves. I know just the house, but I shall have to buy it, and I haven’t enough money for that. I can run it easily if I can only get the premises. What will you subscribe?”

“I haven’t any money at all,” he replied gravely. “Vespasian takes it all and I don’t think he’d approve of crÊches, not being a family man.”

“Vespasian, indeed.” She tilted her chin in the air as Aymer meant her to do, a trifle too much, and the effect was spoilt, but he was well practised in obtaining the exact tilt he admired.

“You can ask him, of course.”

“Very likely I will: in the meantime what will you give me?”

“Half a crown. No; five whole shillings, if I have it,” he said teasingly.

She considered the matter gravely. “I am not quite sure. I should not like to inconvenience you. Shall we say four and six?”

“No, I will be generous. I’ll do this. If you will take the risk of being accused of burglary by Vespasian, I happen to know there is some money in the right hand drawer of the table over there. I don’t know how much. Fivepence, perhaps, but you shall have whatever it is.”

Renata walked with great dignity across the room and opened the drawer. A little smile hovered about her lips. She picked up a handful of gold and silver and sat down by him to count it.

“It looks an awful lot,” he remarked anxiously. “Won’t you let me off? Vespasian is always complaining of my extravagance.” 69

“Sh––Sh––” she held up one finger, “ten, eleven, twelve, and two and six, that’s thirteen,—no, fourteen and sixpence.”

“Leave me the sixpence,” he urged plaintively, but she continued counting.

“Seven pounds, four shillings and sixpence. Count it yourself, Aymer.”

Aymer counted and gravely pronounced her arithmetic to be correct.

“Thank you, you are a dear.” She piled the coins up neatly in little piles on the table by her side. He told her she had better put it in her pocket.

“I haven’t one,” she sighed.

“You will be sure to forget it, and then Vespasian will get it again.”

“Is it likely I would forget seven pounds, four shillings and sixpence?”

But she did. The children arrived and rioted over Aymer. Master Max bumped his head and had to be consoled with his uncle’s watch, while Charlotte wandered off on a voyage of exploration alone, and finally sat on the floor by the window with her fat legs straight out in front of her, making a doll of one arm by wrapping it up in her dress, and singing to herself.

“She has quite an idea of time already: listen to her, Aymer.”

But Aymer only scoffed at his niece’s accomplishments, and then Nevil came in and went down on his knees to kiss his wife, who was much too occupied with her son and heir to move for him. For a moment all three heads were on a level, and it was only when the long Nevil stood up and Renata was reaching up on tip-toe to put some of the violets in his coat that Aymer’s sense of completeness vanished. Finally the children were carried off and he was alone again. 70

“It’s a lucky thing for me,” he said to himself steadily, “that Nevil married Renata: he might just as easily have married someone I couldn’t endure.”

When Christopher and Mr. Aston returned they found Aymer whistling and drawing ridiculous caricatures of the family on the back of the Times, and he was so outrageously flippant and witty that his father glanced at him suspiciously from time to time.

“Why haven’t you let Vespasian light up?” he inquired.

“I’m afraid to call Vespasian. Renata has been raiding and I shall get a lecture. She’s left her booty, as I told her she would. Christopher, when you have quite finished pretending it’s your duty to draw the curtains, you might run up with this money to her. Put it in that box.”

Christopher came forward rather slowly. He swept the money into the box indicated.

“What a lot,” he commented.

“Seven pounds, four shillings, and sixpence, and I am now penniless. I shan’t even get credit with Heaven. She’ll appropriate that.”

Christopher ran off with it and meeting Nevil on the stairs gave it into his hand. Renata had gone to dress, and Nevil sauntered in to his wife with her “spoils” at once.

“Seven pounds, four and sixpence,” she said gleefully. “For the crÊche fund. It was nice of Aymer. I had not meant to worry him to-day, but he wanted distraction.”

“I thought Vespasian kept his money. Six pounds four and sixpence, Renata,” Nevil remarked, counting the money carelessly. She came over to him, brush in hand.

“You can’t even do addition. Nothing but dates! I counted it most carefully, so did Aymer.”

“Then he’s defrauded you of a pound since.” 71

“Nonsense.”

They counted it together, but no amount of reckoning would make seven sovereigns out of six. The silver was correct.

“It must have fallen down,” said Renata at last and put it away carefully in her desk.

They were late for dinner, and Mr. Aston pretended to upbraid them and told Renata to take her soup and leave her correspondence alone, for there was a big envelope lying by her plate. It was her father-in-law’s contribution to the crÊche scheme, Aymer having forestalled her request, and joined forces with his father in a really adequate sum.

Renata got pink with pleasure as she looked at the cheque. She was, however, far too shy to express her real gratitude in words before them all. She smiled at the donor and remarked she would give him a big photograph in a beautiful frame of the first baby admitted to the crÊche, to hang in his room as a slight token of her appreciation of his gift.

“It shall take the place of Charlotte,” he assured her gravely.

Aymer looked aggrieved.

“May I ask the precise sum, Renata?” he inquired pointedly, “that earns so gracious a reward.”

“It’s three figures,” she answered, regarding the precious slip of paper affectionately before replacing it in its imposing envelope.

“Ninety-two pounds, fifteen and sixpence more,” he groaned; “it’s a lot for a photograph of a mere baby, but I can’t be left out in the cold.”

“Perhaps I can let you have one without a frame for less, only father’s must be the best.”

“Nevil,” remarked Aymer severely, “I would call your attention to the fact that your wife is beginning to weigh men’s merits by their means.”

Nevil only laughed. 72

“I hear she has raided you of all you possess. Six pounds odd.”

“Seven pounds four and sixpence,” corrected Aymer. “I should like the correct sum printed in good plain figures on your list, Renata. Being my all, it is a superior present to more pretentious donations.”

“Six pounds four and sixpence, however,” persisted Nevil.

Aymer looked up quickly.

“Did you count it?”

Nevil nodded.

“It must have dropped,” said Aymer slowly. “I’ll send it you with the interest, Renata.”

But he knew it had not been dropped.

Mr. Aston began telling them of a deputation from the Friends of the Canine Race he had received that day, and no more was said on the other matter.