Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker Part 30

"You, too, think me incompetent to look after myself?"

"It is not a matter of competence either, is it? I mean, one can easily understand that Mr. Wyatt is proud of being your...." He stopped lamely.

"Finish your sentence, you tantalising boy."

"Your caretaker, then," he concluded defiantly.

"Delicious," she clapped her hands softly. "I thought you were going to say 'proprietor.'"

"It is you who are the proprietor of the caretaker, isn't it?"

"The new cadet is worthy his commission," she p.r.o.nounced with mock gravity.

"It is a great honour, especially since I am not one of the family."

He never forgot this in her presence. It was as if an overscrupulous remembrance of hard days forced him to disclaim kinship with anything so finely feminine as Constantia Wyatt; as if he found no right of way from his own world of concrete fact into that delicate gracious world of illusions in which he placed her. Such barriers did not exist for her, however, and thence it came that it was to Constantia that Christopher spoke most easily of his relationship to the Aston family.

She put aside his disclaimer now, almost indignantly.

"You belong to Aymer. How can you say you do not belong to us, when you have been so good for him?"

His main claim on them all lay in that, that he was and had been good _for_ the idolised Aymer Aston. He recognised it as she spoke and was content, for the proud generosity of his nature was built on a humility that had no underprops of petty pride.

"That was quite unpremeditated on my part," he protested whimsically; "you are all far too good to me. I can never explain it to myself, but I accept it, and realise I am a real millionaire."

Constantia Wyatt started slightly. Christopher noticed the diamonds on her hair sparkle as she leant forward.

"How did you discover that?" she asked in a low voice.

"My fortune? I was only ten when I came to Caesar, but I must have been a very dense child indeed if I had not known even then that the luck of the G.o.ds was mine--if I had not been sensible of the kindness----"

His voice was low also and he fell into his old bad habit of leaving his sentence unfinished--hardly knowing he had expressed so much.

Constantia gave a sigh of relief, and Christopher again was only aware of the twinkling diamonds, of melting lines of soft velvet and fur, a presence friendly but una.n.a.lysable. They pa.s.sed at that moment a mansion of a prince of the world of money, and she indicated it with a wave of her fan.

"Supposing, Christopher, you could realise some of your imaginary fortune for _his_?"

"Heaven forbid. Think how it was made."

"The world forgets that."

"You do not forget," he answered quickly; "besides it's much nicer to be adopted than to fight other people for fortune."

"I thought all boys liked fighting."

"Not if there's anything better to be done. A Punch and Judy show or a funeral will stop the most violent set-to. I've seen it times, when I was a boy in the street. Sam and I raised a cry one day of 'soldiers'

to stop a chum being knocked down. Then we ran."

"Oh. Christopher, Christopher, can't you forget it?"

He shook his head.

"I don't want to. It wouldn't be fair to Caesar. Also I couldn't."

"Some day you will marry, and perhaps she will rather you should forget."

"No, she won't, she is far too fond of Caesar."

He stopped abruptly. For one brief moment the great voice of the streets and the yellow glare died away; he was blinded by a bewildering white light that broke down barriers undreamed of within his soul. Then the actual comparative darkness of the carriage obscured it and he found himself again conscious of the scent of roses, the sheen of satin and soft velvet, and his heart was beating madly. He had stumbled over the unsuspected threshold, surprised the hidden temple of his own heart, and this, inopportunely, prematurely, and, to his everlasting confusion, in the presence of another.

He clanged to the gates of his inner consciousness in breathless haste and set curb on his momentary shame and amazement. The break was so short his companion had barely time to identify the image disclosed when his voice went on with quiet deliberation.

"Or will be when she appears. A case of 'if she be not fair to "he,"

what care I how fair she be.'"

Constantia with rare generosity offered no hindrance to the closing of the door and discreetly pretended she had not been aware it had opened. Yet she smiled to herself and decided it was quite a desirable image and very advantageous to Aymer. Also, she reflected with pleasure, she had predicted the result from Patricia's and Christopher's intimacy, to her father years ago.

The piece at the theatre was a modern comedy which did not greatly interest him, indeed, he was more concerned in keeping his attention from that newly-discovered temple within than in unravelling the mysteries of the rather thread-bare plot of the play. Being, however, quite unaccustomed to dealing with this dual condition of mind it is to be feared he was a little "distrait" and mechanical of speech.

Constantia allowed him the first act to play out his mood and then with charming imperiousness claimed his full attention, gained it, and with it, his grat.i.tude for timely distraction.

Half way through the play he remembered this was the theatre at which Mrs. Sartin and Jessie were employed. He mentioned the fact to Mrs.

Wyatt, who remarked gravely their names were not on the programme.

Christopher equally gravely explained quite briefly. If he found nothing surprising in his own interest in these friends of the past, he never made the error of imagining they would be of interest to newer friends. There was a certain independence in his att.i.tude towards all affairs that touched him nearly, which even at this early age made him a free citizen of the world in which he chanced to move.

This att.i.tude of mind was more in evidence to-night than he had imagined. Personally, he quite appreciated the fact he was sitting in a box with one of the loveliest women in London, and that she was everything that was charming and nice to him, but it never occurred to him that half the men in the theatre would have given a big share of their worth to be in his place; he was almost childishly unconscious of the envious glances he earned. Constantia was not: neither was she blind to his att.i.tude of personal content and impersonal oblivion. It amused her vastly, and she compiled an exceedingly entertaining letter to Aymer on the strength of it.

"He handed me over to Basil in the vestibule afterwards," she concluded, "with the most engaging air of having been allowed a special treat and fully appreciating it, and departed straightway to conduct Mrs. Sartin, dresser at the theatre, to her house in the wilds of Lambeth. He owned it in the most ingenuous way, seeing nothing whatever of pathos in it. Does he lack sense of humour?"

Aymer, ignoring the rest of the letter, refuted this query with pages of vigorous sarcasm, to the complete delight and triumph of his sister.

Christopher, having ascertained from a suspicious doorkeeper that Mrs.

Sartin would not be free for twenty minutes, cooled his heels in a dark, draughty pa.s.sage with what patience he could.

He seized on Mrs. Sartin as she came unsuspectingly down a winding stair, and bore her off breathless, remonstrating, but fluttering with pride, in a hansom.

"I'm only up for a few days," he explained. "Sam dines with me to-morrow and I want you to come out somewhere in the afternoon.

Crystal Palace, or wherever Jessie likes."

Mrs. Sartin's face and Mrs. Sartin's person had expanded in the last few years and her powers of expressing emotion seemed to have expanded with her person. Disappointment was writ large on her ample countenance.

"Well, now, if that isn't a shame and a contrariwise of purpose. I've taken a job, Mr. Christopher, for that blessed afternoon. I've promised to dress Miss Asty, who is making a debut at a matiny at the Court. Eliza Lowden, she was goin' to dress her, but she can't set a wig as I can."

"What a nuisance. But, anyhow, Jessie isn't engaged, is she?"

For an instant he had a glimpse of Mrs. Sartin's full face, dubious, questioning, even hostile, but to him it was merely the result of flickering light and conveyed nothing.

"I don't rightly know," she said slowly, "maybe she doesn't care much for gadding about."

"Rubbish," he retorted contemptuously, "if you can't come, Jessie must anyway."