Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker Part 37

"It is not uninteresting."

"You've not seen Nevil yet," suggested Mr. Aston. "He is just out of a spell of work; come out in the garden and find him while you smoke."

"Well, perhaps we might, if you don't mind being left, Aymer?" Peter's voice was full of kindly interest. To him the great catastrophe was ever a new and awful thing, and Aymer an invalid to be considered and treated with such attention as he knew how.

"Not in the least," said Aymer politely, marvelling how exactly his father had gauged the limits of his endurance. When the heavy curtained door had shut out voices and footsteps and only the stillness of the room was with him the forced pa.s.sivity slipped from Aymer like a mask, and his was again the face of a fighter, of one still fighting against fearful odds.

He lay with clenched hands and rigid face, and great beads of perspiration stood on his forehead, for that pa.s.sive indifference towards what had become a matter of life and death to him was the fruit of a victory that had to be won again and again each time his perilous position was a.s.sailed by the appearance of Peter Masters.

His very existence had become so bound up in the life of the boy he had taken as his own that the smallest fraying of the cord which bound them together was a thought of new pain. The pa.s.sionate, fiercely jealous nature that had lain dormant so long had gathered strength from silence and clamoured with imperious insistence on its right, to love, to whole allegiance, to undisputed sway over Christopher.

What right could this man, Christopher's father though he were, in the flesh, show beside his, Aymer Aston's? Every instinct rose in indignant rebellion against the fiat of his own conscience.

For before his deep love was awake to confuse his judgment he had declared that if he might only be permitted to bring Elizabeth Masters's son through the perilous pa.s.sage of boyhood, he would never stand between Christopher and what, after all, was his right due, and in the eyes of the world, his wonderful fortune. Elizabeth of the brave heart and uncompromising creed had thought otherwise of this fortune, as did Charles Aston and Aymer himself. The first had imperilled her beloved child's bodily welfare to save him from what she thought an evil thing, and the Astons, father and son, had bid defiance to their hitherto straightforward policy and followed expediency instead of open dealing, but there Aymer stopped.

The decision he had made must be adhered to at all costs. It mattered nothing he had not been in a position to count the cost ten years ago.

He at least could not discount his own word. If Fate drew Christopher to the side of his unknown father, Aymer must put out no hand to intervene.

But the cost of it--the cost!--He put his shaking hands over his face, trying to consider the position reasonably.

Even if Peter Masters learnt the truth and claimed

Christopher, Christopher was of age and must act for himself, and Aymer could not doubt his action. His misery lay in no suspicion of Christopher's loyal love, but in his own unconquerable, wildly jealous desire to stand alone in the post of honour, of true fatherhood to the son of the woman he had loved to such disastrous end. And behind that lay the bitter, unquenchable resentment that, pretend as he would, Christopher was not his son, not even of unknown parentage, but in actual fact the son of the man who had unknowingly robbed him of love, and whom he had all his life alternately hated and despised.

It was some subtle knowledge of what was pa.s.sing in that still room that made Charles Aston a shade less kindly, a little more alert than usual to hidden meanings, and it was the sight of Aymer's apparent pa.s.sivity in the face of all that threatened him, that brought him to the mind to fight every inch of ground before he put into the hands of Peter Masters the tangled clue of the story that he alone knew in all its completeness.

The suspicion that had gripped Peter Masters on the journey down was slowly stiffening into a certainty, but he was still undecided in his mind as to the line of action he would take. If these people with their ultra-heroic code of honour had fooled him, and forestalled him in this matter of his son with deliberate intent to frustrate any advances he might make, it would go hard with them in the end, cousins or no cousins. Such was his first thought; but he had yet to prove they were not simply waiting for a sign to deliver back his son to him, in which case Peter was not unprepared to be grateful, for his heart--and he had one--had gone out to the plucky, determined young man who had lied so bravely. Peter determined, therefore, he would give Charles Aston a chance and see what happened. In a blindly, inarticulate way he felt it was impossible to play with Aymer, he was even conscious it was a matter of great moment to him, though he could not in any manner see why it was so.

"Nevil will survive if we put him off a little longer," said Peter as they crossed the hall, "I want to see you on a private matter, Cousin Charles."

Mr. Aston led the way without a word to his own room. He made no doubt as to what the matter was. Perhaps the shadow of the expected interview had lain too heavily on him of late to leave room for suspicion of other affairs.

It was a long, cheerful room, lined with books, and the furniture was solid and shabby with long service. There was an indefinite atmosphere of peace and repose about it, of leisured days haunted by no grey thoughts, very typical of the owner. The window stood open, though a fire burned clearly on the plain brick hearth, beneath a big hooded chimney-piece.

Mr. Aston indicated a big easy chair to his visitor and seated himself at his writing table, from whence he could see, behind Peter, on the far wall, a portrait of Aymer painted in the pride of his life and youth, so wonderfully like even now in its strong colour and forcible power, and so full of subtle differences and fine distinctions.

"I don't know even if you'll listen to me," began Peter, who knew very well Charles Aston would refuse to listen to no man; "fifteen years ago you told me you'd said your last word on the subject."

"I beg your pardon, Peter, it was you who said the subject was closed between us."

"Ah, yes. So I did. May I reopen it?"

"If it can serve any good purpose, but you know my opinions."

"I thought perhaps they might have altered with the changing years,"

said Peter blandly.

"Not one bit, I a.s.sure you."

"Really. It never strikes you that I was justified in attending to Elizabeth's very plainly expressed wishes, or that it might be a happy thing for the boy that I did so."

"The question between us," said his cousin gently, "was whether you were justified in abandoning them, not whether it was advantageous to them or not."

"I would point out in pa.s.sing, Cousin Charles, that Elizabeth abandoned me, but we will let that be. My reason for opening the subject at all is not a question of justification." He puffed away slowly at his cigar for a minute and then went on in an even, unemotional voice. "The fact is something rather strange has happened.

For twenty years I have believed I knew the exact whereabouts of Elizabeth and my son. I had a good reason for the belief. One man only shared this supposit.i.tious knowledge with me." His hearer seemed about to speak, but desisted and looked away from Peter out of the window.

Not a movement, a sign, a breath, escaped those hard blue eyes, and Charles Aston knew it. It did not render him nervous or even indignant, but he was a trifle more dignified, more obviously determined to be courteous at any cost.

"That boy and his mother were living at Liverpool," went on Peter calmly. "He was employed in a big s.h.i.+pping firm in a very minor capacity. He was killed in the great explosion in the dock last week."

He spoke as calmly as if he were saying his supposed son had lost his post or had gone for a holiday.

Charles Aston gave a sudden movement and turned a shocked face towards the speaker.

"Terrible!" he said, "I wonder how the shareholders in that company feel? Did you see the verdict?"

Peter waved his hand. "Yes, yes. Juries lose their heads in these cases. But to continue. I went down to Liverpool at once before the funeral, you understand." He paused. "I was naturally much disturbed and horrified, and then--well, the boy wasn't my son, after all."

"Not your son?" echoed Charles Aston slowly.

"No, not my son." There was a tinge of impatience in his voice. "I should not have known, but the mother was there. She went in as I came out."

"His mother was alive?"

"Yes. She was not Elizabeth."

His cousin turned to him, indignation blazing in his eyes. "For twenty years, Peter, you believed you knew your wife's whereabouts, you knew she was in more or less a state of poverty, and you made no attempt to see her face to face? You accepted the story of another with no attempt to personally prove the truth yourself?"

"I had good reason to believe it," returned Peter sulkily. "She would have let me know if she were in want. I had told her she could come back when she had had enough of it."

"And this poor woman, whose son was killed. What of her?"

"I don't know anything about her except she wasn't Elizabeth."

"You had believed her so for twenty years."

"I had made a mistake. She knew nothing about that. I took good care she should not. There was no doubt about her being the boy's mother, and no doubt she was not Elizabeth. She had no claim on me."

"No claim!" Charles Aston stood up and faced him, "not even the claim of the widow--her one son dead. No claim, when for all those years those two items of humanity represented in your perverse mind the two people nearest--I won't say dearest--to you. No claim!" He stopped and walked away to the window.

Peter smiled tolerantly. He enjoyed making this kind, generous man flash out with indignation. It was all very high-flown and impossible, but it suited Charles Aston. To-day, however, he was too engrossed in his own affairs to get much satisfaction from it.

"Well, well, don't let us argue about it. We don't think alike in these matters. The point I want to consult you about is not my susceptibility to sentiment, but the chances of my picking up a clue twenty years old."

"I should say they were hardly worth considering." He spoke deliberately, turning from the window to resume his place by the table. The fight had begun; they had crossed blades at last.

"There is a very good detective called Chance and a better one called Luck."

"You have secured their services?"