Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker Part 18

"I think you're almost as nasty--when you say things like that, Caesar."

"Then retreat from my company and tell Vespasian his baby is waiting to be dressed."

Vespasian found his master in one of his rare inconsequent moods, talking nonsense with provoking persistence and exercising his wits in teasing everyone who came in his way.

Vespasian smiled indulgently and spent his leisure that day in a.s.sisting Christopher to construct a man-of-war out of empty biscuit boxes and cotton reels, for he was dimly possessed of the idea that the boy was in some way connected with his master's unusually good spirits.

CHAPTER VIII

It was not until Christopher had pa.s.sed his fourteenth birthday that he came face to face once more with the distant past. He had crossed Westminster Bridge to watch the trams on the other side, and from there, being in an adventurous mood, he had wandered out into vague regions lying beyond, regions of vast warehouses, of narrow, dirty streets and squalid houses, of sudden palaces of commerce towering over the low tide of mean roofs. Suddenly turning a corner, he had come on a block of "model dwellings," and an inrush of memories brought him to a standstill before the giant ugly pile.

There, on the topmost floor of the east corner of Block D, had lived Martha Sartin, and Marley Sartin, packer at one of the big warehouses near, also Jessie Sartin and numerous other Sartins, including Sam, who was about Christopher's age; there in the dull asphalt court Sam and Christopher had played, and up that steep stairway had climbed in obedience to husky shouts from over the iron railings of the top landing.

It was all so vivid, so unaltered, so sharply set in Christopher's mind that he had to look down at his own immaculate blue suit and unpatched boots to rea.s.sure himself he was not waiting for Martha's shrill order to "come up out of the dirt." But a.s.sured once more of his own present personality he could not resist exploring further, and went right up to the foot of the iron staircase and looked up. It was all just as sordid and dirty and unlovely as ever, though he had not known before the measure of its undesirableness. Leaning over the railing of the top landing was an untidy-looking woman in a brown skirt and half-fastened blouse. She looked over into the yard and shouted in a voice that made Christopher jump.

"Jim, come up out of the dirt, you little varmint!"

And Christopher, erstwhile Jim, leant against the wall and felt his head was whirling round. Then he inspected himself again, but at that moment a shock-headed dirty mite of four years brushed past him and began to clamber up the stairs, pus.h.i.+ng his way through the horde of small babies on each landing and squealing shrilly, "I'm coming, Mammie."

Christopher went too. He could not possibly have resisted the impulse, for a.s.suredly it was Martha's voice that called--called him back w.i.l.l.y nilly to the past that after all was not so far past except in a boy's measure of time.

A dark-eyed, decent-looking woman pa.s.sed him on the stair and looked at him curiously; further on a man, smoking a pipe, took the trouble to follow him to the next floor in a loafing fas.h.i.+on. The small Jim, out of breath and panting with the exertion of the climb, was being roughly dusted by an undoubted Martha when Christopher reached the topmost landing. She was stouter than of yore, and her hair was no longer done up in iron curlers as of old, also a baby, younger than Jim, was crawling out of the room on the right. But it was Martha Sartin, and Christopher advanced a friendly hand.

Mrs. Sartin gazed at the apparition with blank amazement. She could connect the tall, pleasant-faced boy in his spotless suit and straw hat with nothing in her memory. He did not look as if he could belong to the theatre at which she was a dresser, but it seemed the only solution.

"Are you come from Miss Va.s.sour?" she asked doubtfully.

"Don't you know me, Mrs. Sartin?"

"Know ye? No. How should I?"

"I'm Jim Hibbault."

"Garn!"

"Yes, I am really." Poor Christopher began to feel embarra.s.sed and a little disappointed.

He _was_ Jim Hibbault at that moment and he felt queerly lonely and stranded.

Martha pulled down her sleeves and went to the inner door.

"Jessie, come out 'ere," she screamed.

Christopher felt his heart go thump. He had almost forgotten Jessie, yet Jessie had been more to him than Martha in other days. It was Jessie who had taken him for walks, carried him up the steep stairs on her back, shared sweets with him, cuffed her brother Sam when they fought, and had finally taken little Jim Hibbault back to his mother when the great clock in the distance struck six,--Jessie, who at eleven had been a complete little mother and was at sixteen a tall, lanky, untidy girl who had inherited the curling pins of her mother and whose good-natured, not ill-looking face was not improved thereby.

She came to the doorway and stood looking over her mother's arm at Christopher.

"Ever seed 'im afore?" demanded Mrs. Sartin.

"Well I never, if it ain't Jimmy!" cried Jessie, beaming, and Christopher could have embraced her if it were in accordance with the custom of his years, and he felt less inclined to bolt down the stairs out of reach of his adventure.

Neither of the two women expressed any pleasure at his appearance.

Mrs. Sartin accepted her daughter's recognition of their visitor as sufficient evidence it was not a hoax, and asked Christopher in.

The room, though the window was open, smelt just as stuffy as of old, and a familiar litter of toys and odds and ends strewed the floor.

Christopher missed the big tea-tray and Britannia metal teapot, but the sofa with broken springs was still there, covered as it had ever been with the greater part of the family wardrobe.

Christopher sat in the armchair, and Mrs. Sartin, having plumped the baby into its chair, sat down by the door. The small Jimmy pulled at her ap.r.o.n. Jessie leant against the wall and giggled. No one said anything. Christopher began to wish he had not come.

"I never could remember the name of this place," he began at last, desperately. "I just came on it by accident to-day, and remembered everything all at once."

"s.h.i.+lla Buildings, that's what it's called," said Mrs. Sartin nodding her head. "Block 7, C. Door."

Silence again. A strict sense of etiquette prevented either of the feminine side of the company from uttering the question burning on their tongues.

"I did see Sam once, a long time ago," Christopher struggled on, "but I could not catch him." He got red and embarra.s.sed again.

"'Ows your Ma?" asked Mrs. Sartin at last.

"She's dead," explained Christopher very gravely, "five years ago now--more."

"Lor'. To think of it. I never thought she was one to live long. And she went back to her friends after all, I suppose."

It was not a question: it was only a statement to be confirmed or contradicted or ignored as the hearer liked.

"She died in the Union at Whitmansworth," said Christopher bluntly. "I lived there afterwards and then someone adopted me. Mr. Aymer Aston, son of Mr. Aston. Perhaps you know the name."

Mrs. Sartin appeared to consult an imaginary visiting list.

"No, I can't say as I do. Do you, Jessie?"

Jessie shook her head. She had ceased to look at their visitor; instead, she looked at his boots, and her cheeks grew red.

"I thought I would like to see if you were still here."

"Very good of you, I'm sure." It was not meant ironically, it was solely addressed to the blue suit and brown boots, but it nearly reduced the wearer of these awe-inspiring clothes to tears.

For the moment, in the clutch of the past, with a.s.sociations laying gripping hands on him and with his curious faculty of responding to the outward call, Aston House and the Astons became suddenly a faint blurred impression to Christopher, less real and tangible than these worn, sordid surroundings. Had anyone just then demanded his name he would undoubtedly have responded "Hibbault." He felt confused and wretched, alive to the fact that little Jim Hibbault had neither people nor home nor relations in the world, if these once kindly women had no welcome for him.

"I heard you call Jim," he hazarded at last, in an extremity of disconcerted shyness.

Mrs. Sartin eyed the four-year-old nestling in her ap.r.o.n and pulled him from cover.

"Yes, that be Jim. We called 'im Jim arter you. He was born arter you an' your ma went away."