There was a faint movement on the sofa. It was Mr. Aston who answered, putting his hand gently on the boy"s head.
"No, little Christopher, nothing will make you cease to belong to her; we do not wish that. But it will be more easy for you to have our name. We want Christopher Aston to have a better time than poor little Jim Hibbault. Only, Christopher, remember Aston is my name, and I am only lending it to you, and you must take very great care of it."
"Isn"t it his name too?" The child edged a little nearer his friend, and looked at Aymer.
"Yes, it"s Aymer"s name too. And, Christopher, if we were both to give you everything we possess we could not give you anything we value more than the name we lend you, so you must be very good to it. Now, Aymer, I insist on your ringing for Vespasian: the child should have been in bed hours ago. I must really buy you a book of nursery rules."
Vespasian was apparently of the same mind as Mr. Aston. Disapproval was plainly expressed on his usually impa.s.sive face when he entered.
"Is that Vespasian?" demanded Christopher.
"Yes, and you will have to do just what he tells you, Christopher, just as I have to," said Aymer severely.
Christopher regarded him doubtfully: he was not quite sure if he were serious or not. He did not look as if people would tell him to do things, yet the grave man in black did not smile.
"It"s a funny name," he said at last, not meaning to be rude.
"Vespasian was a great general," remarked Aymer, and then added hastily, seeing the boy"s bewilderment increased, "Not this one, the General"s dead, but this is a good second."
"Aymer, you are incorrigible," expostulated Mr. Aston. "Good-night, little Christopher."
He kissed him and Christopher"s eyes grew large with wonder. He did not know men did kiss little boys, and he ventured slyly to rub his cheek against the black sleeve.
"Good-night, Christopher." Aymer held out his hand, and then suddenly, half shyly, and half ashamed, kissed him also, and Vespasian bore him off to bed.
The two men sat silently smoking, avoiding for the moment the subject nearest their hearts, Aymer, because he was fighting hard to get some mastering emotion under control, and he loathed showing his feelings even to his father; Mr. Aston, because he was aware of this and wanted Aymer to have time.
All that day he had been secretly dreading to-night, shrinking like a coward from a situation which must arouse in his son memories better forgotten. He was not a man given to shirking unpleasing experiences to save his own heart a pang, but he was a veritable child in the way that he studied to preserve his eldest son from the like.
It was Aymer who first spoke in his usual matter-of-fact tone.
"Had you any difficulties?"
"None whatever," answered his father, crossing his legs and preparing to be communicative. "Stapleton had been all over the ground before and knew every point. We went first to Surbiton Workhouse, since she told Felton she stayed there. They found the entry for us. Then we went on to Hartley, which is quite a small village and off the main road. We stayed the night there, and went to the cottage where Felton had seen her. It was quite true, all he said. The old woman remembered distinctly a tramp-looking man stopping and calling to her over the gate. They sat in the garden and talked together for some time. She and the boy had been there a month, but they went the day after Felton"s visit--seemed frightened, the old lady said. Apparently they meant to go to Southampton, for she had asked the way there.
Basingstoke must have been the next stop, but we did not know where until the boy told us. They were in funds, so did not go to the House.
We got to Whitmansworth the next afternoon. Then a strange thing happened, one of those chance coincidences that put to rout all our schemes. There is a hill going into Whitmansworth with a milestone on the top. I drove slowly, as I wanted to see if it really were the place, and by the stone was a small boy. The likeness was so absurd that it might have been ..." he stopped abruptly and examined his cigar, "had I not been seeking him I should have seen it. I found out his name, and that I was right, and took him up and drove to the Union. They raised no objections--it was only a matter of form. The master and his wife seem to be good people, and to have been kind to the boy."
He came to a pause again. Aymer still waited. Mr. Aston walked to the window and looked out at the night, and then went on without turning:
"She had never left the slightest clue or given any hint whatever as to her ident.i.ty. She was going to Southampton, she said. But she was dying of exhaustion then. They could do nothing for her. She asked them to keep the boy. The Mosses took a fancy to him, and it was managed. She would not say where she came from."
Aymer lay very still, his face set and immovable.
"The strength of her purpose: think of it, in a woman!" said Mr. Aston a little unsteadily; "the boy should have grit in him, Aymer."
"What did they say of the boy?"
"Ah." Mr. Aston resumed his seat with a sigh.
"Well, what"s your own impression, Aymer?"
"I am satisfied."
Mr. Aston leant forward with a wealth of affection in his kind eyes, and straightened the edge of the gorgeous sofa cover. "Aymer, old chap, you are too sensible, I know, to imagine it is going to run easily and smoothly from the first. The boy will come out all right: he is young enough to shape, and worth shaping. But he has had everything against him except one thing. It means many troubles and disappointments for you, but I believe it will have its compensations.
It will help fill your life, at least."
"I understand," said Aymer, steadily. "I should like to tell you just how I feel about it, father. Putting aside entirely the question of it being--Christopher--. That was a stroke of Providence, shall we say? I had you and Nevil, and the children. Life was not altogether empty, sir. But I felt I had learnt something from life,--from myself,--mostly from you,--that might be useful to a man. Not to pa.s.s this on," the steady voice lost its main quality for a moment, "seemed a waste. I told you all this when I first spoke of adopting someone; and at that precise moment the clue which led us to Christopher was put into our hands. There was no choice then. I say this again because I want you to remember that the idea that first started my plan is still the main one. Christopher, being Christopher, does not alter it.
There is only this thing certain," he raised himself a very little on his right arm and laid down his cigarette deliberately, "I"ve taken the boy and I mean to do my best by him, but he is mine now. If the fate that--she died to save him from--comes to him, it must come. I will not stand in his way, but I will have no hand in bringing it to pa.s.s, I will raise no finger to summon it, nor will I call him from it, if it come. Until, and unless it comes, he is mine. I think even she would let me have him on those conditions." He lay back again, his flushed face still witnessing to the force of his feeling.
"On any conditions," said his father, "if she knew you now. Only you must bear the chance in mind in dealing with him. And it"s only fair to tell you the Union Master"s report on him."
"Let"s have it."
"Fairly docile, but inclined to argue the point. Truthful,--I discovered that myself--but either through lack of training or--according to the Master--through bad training in London, he is--"
Mr. Aston stumbled over a word, half laughed, and then said, "well, he has a habit of acquisitiveness, shall we call it? When you think of her history it seems at once natural and strange. They had not known him to actually take things--money, that is,--but if he found any--and he appears to have luck in finding things--he was not particular to discover the real owner. It may be a difficulty, Aymer."
"Hereditary instinct," said Aymer a little shortly.
"Well, my own theory is that acquisitiveness is generosity inverted,"
concluded Mr. Aston thoughtfully, "and that heredity is merely a danger signal, though it may mean fighting. I believe you can do it, my dear boy, but it is a big job."
"I hope so, I was a born fighter, you know."
"You have not done badly that way, son Aymer," returned his father quietly.
"You mean you have not. You are very gracious to a vanquished man, sir."
It was one of his rare confessions of his indebtedness to his father, and perhaps Mr. Aston was more embarra.s.sed at receiving it than Aymer in confessing it. For the indebtedness was undeniable. The Aymer Aston of the present day was not the Aymer Aston of the first bitter years of his imprisonment. The fight had been a long one: but whether the love, the patience, the forbearance of the elder man had regenerated the fierce nature, or whether he had only a.s.sisted the true Aymer to work out his own salvation was an open question. Certainly those dark years had left their mark on Mr. Aston, but, for a certainty they were honourable scars, and he, the richer for his spent strength. He had sacrificed much for him, but the reward reaped for his devotion was the knowledge that of their friendship was woven a curtain of infinite beauty that helped to shut away the tragedy of Aymer"s life.
CHAPTER III
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.
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 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.