"I am not certain yet. Can you help me?"
He made the appeal with calculated directness, knowing his man and his aversion to evasion, but if he expected him to hesitate he was disappointed.
"No, I can do nothing. I tried for five years to bring you to some sense of your responsibility in this matter. You were not frank with me then, it seems. I can do nothing now."
"And have lost all interest in it, I suppose?"
"No. It is your interest that rises and falls with the occasion, but I decline to have anything to do with it. If--as I do not believe--Elizabeth is still alive she and your son have done without your help for twenty years and can do without it still."
"They have doubtless plenty of friends."
"Let us hope so. What was the name of the Liverpool woman?"
"Priestly. What does it matter? The question is, I must find my son somehow, for I must have an heir."
"Adopt one."
"As did Aymer?" He shot a questioning glance at him. "It"s such a risk. I might not be so lucky. Sons like Christopher are not to be had for nothing."
"No, they are not," said Charles Aston drily. "They are the result of years of love and patience, of generous tolerance, of unquenchable courage. They bring days of joy which must be paid for with hours of anxiety and nights of pain. Were you prepared to give your son this, even if you had taken him to you as a boy?"
Peter waved his big hand again. "I quite admit all that is needed to produce men of your pattern, Cousin Charles, and I have the profoundest admiration for the result; but I am not ambitious; I should be content to produce the ordinary successful man."
"I think Christopher will score a success."
"Yes, in spite of you both, by reason of his practical, determined, hard-headed nature which he probably inherits from his father, eh?"
"You are probably right. I am not in a position to say."
"You did not know his parents?"
Charles Aston pushed back his chair and looked beyond Peter to the portrait of Aymer. They must come to close quarters or he would give out, and suddenly it came to him that he must adhere to his universal rule, must give the better side of the man"s nature a chance before he openly defied him. The decision was made quite quickly. Peter only recognised a slight pause. "You seem interested in Christopher," Mr.
Aston said slowly. "I will tell you what there is to know. About eleven years ago Aymer became possessed of a pa.s.sionate desire to have a boy to bring up, since he might not have one of his own. In hunting for a suitable one I stumbled on the son of someone I had known who had fallen on very evil days." He stopped a moment. Peter took out another cigar and lit it. "On very evil days," repeated the other.
"The boy was left at a country workhouse in this county as it happened. I knew enough of his paternity to know that he was a suitable subject for Aymer to father. I have never regretted what I did. The boy has become the mainspring of Aymer"s life; he lives again in him. All that has been denied him, he finds in Christopher"s career; all he cannot give the world he has given to this boy, this son of his heart and soul. No father could love more, could suffer more. And Christopher is repaying him. He has known no father but Aymer, no authority but his, no conflicting claim. I pray G.o.d daily that neither now nor in the future shall any shadow fall between these two to cancel by one solitary item Christopher"s obligation to his adopted father. Perhaps I am selfish over it, but anyway, Aymer is my son, and I understand how it is with him."
There was a silence in the room. Peter puffed vehemently and the clouds of blue-grey smoke circling round him obscured the heavy features from his cousin when his eyes left the picture to look at him.
"Yes, yes, I see. Quite so," said a voice from the smoke at last, and slowly the strong, bland expressionless face emerged clearly from the halo, "but I am no further on my way towards my son. And who"s to have the money if I don"t find him? Will you?"
"Heaven forbid!--and Nature! Peter, I"m sixty and you are fifty-four."
"Will Nevil"s boy?"
"We have enough. We should count it a misfortune. Leave it in charities."
"And suppose he discovers some day who he is, and wanted it?"
"Hardly likely after so long."
"Quite likely. Shall I leave it to Christopher?"
It was the last thrust, and it told. There was quite a long silence.
Charles longed pa.s.sionately to refuse, but even he dared not. The issue was too great. "I cannot dictate to you in the matter," he said at length, "but I do not think Christopher would appreciate it."
"Then I must hope to find a Christopher of my own," returned Peter, rising; "let us meanwhile find Nevil."
The duel was over and apparently the result was as undetermined as ever. The only satisfaction poor Charles Aston derived was from the fact that Peter was unusually gentle and tactful to Aymer that afternoon. He seemed in no hurry to go, urged as excuse he wanted to consult Christopher about a motor, but when they sent to find that young gentleman, they discovered he and Patricia and the motor were missing.
CHAPTER XIX
It seemed to Christopher as he overhauled his long-suffering motor preparatory to the new run, that a great gap of innumerable grey days stretched between him and the moment he brought the car to a standstill before the doors of the house, that had appeared to him to be a Temple of Promise. It was in fact barely an hour and a half and the greater part of that time had been occupied with lunch and a hasty interview with Aymer. That shorter interlude in the orchard just over, had already blotted out a golden landscape with a driving mist that obscured all true proportion of time or s.p.a.ce. He longed greatly, with a sense of strange fatigue, to be sitting at Caesar"s side and to find the restless discomfort evaporate as they talked, even as his boyish troubles had melted in that companionship. That must come later: for the present Fate--or Patricia--made a demand on him to which he was bound to answer. Where a weaker nature would have said "impossible,"
he simply found an ordinary action rendered difficult by his own private view of it, therefore it behooved him to close the shutters on that outlook if he could, and ignore the difficulty.
Renata, who came out with Patricia, protested a little indignantly at the latter"s exaction.
"It is so inconsiderate of Patricia, just as you have had such a journey. Why do you give in to her, Christopher?"
"To-day is as good as any day," he answered her, "perhaps the visitor will have gone when we return."
"Oh, I hope so," said Renata fervently, and then blushed at her own inhospitality. "I mean, Caesar would rather have you to himself, I am sure."
"And I would rather have Caesar unaccompanied. So there is some use in Patricia"s fancy."
"Of course," put in that young lady, "there always is. Please do not waste precious time talking. Tell me where I am to sit, Christopher."
"I"ll take every care of her," said Christopher, looking at Renata, "we"ll be back in time for dinner. Be kind and get rid of Mr. Masters by then."
"Like a dear little angel," concluded Patricia, kissing her; "think how he bores Nevil, and don"t be hospitable."
Christopher settled her in the seat beside him, tucked her in with rugs, put up the front screen and started.
For a few short minutes the joy of having her there beside him, his sole charge for some golden hours to come, his to carry in a mad rush if he would to the ends of the earth, obliterated for a moment the bewildering mist.
He drove for some way in silence. Patricia was too much absorbed in the pleasures of swift motion to talk. Her first words, however, shut down the mists on him again.
"Geoffry must have a car," she declared. "He must get one just like this."
"I thought Geoffry was to be left behind this afternoon?"
"Oh, I suppose he was. I don"t believe you are a bit pleased about it really, Christopher."
He clutched at the truth as a plank of safety.
"Well, you can"t expect me to be glad to lose your company, can you? I shall never make a golfer now."