Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker Part 5

Christopher's previous existence would hardly have stood the inquisition of the playground, and Aymer, moreover, wanted to keep him under his own eye. The boy's education had been of a somewhat desultory nature. He could read and write, and possessed a curious store of out-of-the-way knowledge that would upset the most carefully prepared plan of his puzzled tutor. That poor gentleman was alternately scandalised by the boy's ignorance and amazed at his appet.i.te for knowledge. He showed an astonishing apt.i.tude for figures while he evinced a shameful contempt for history and languages.

Indeed, he could only be made to struggle with Latin Grammar by Aymer's stories of Roman heroes in the evening and the ultimate reward of reading them for himself some day.

The year wore on, ran out, with the glories of pantomime and various holiday joys with Mr. Aston. Christopher by this time had accepted his surroundings as permanent, with regard to Mr. Aston and Aymer, though he still, in his heart of hearts, had no belief that so far as he was concerned they might not any day vanish away and leave him again prey to a world of privations, wants and disagreeables generally.

He was forever trying to make provision against that possible day, and laid up a secret h.o.a.rd of treasure he deemed might be useful on emergency. With the same idea he made really valiant attempts to put aside a portion of his ample pocket-money for the same purpose, but it generally dwindled to an inconsiderable sum by Sat.u.r.day. Aymer kept him well supplied and encouraged him to spend freely. He was told again and again the money was given him to spend and not to keep, and that the day of need would not come to him. He would listen half convinced, until the vision of some street arabs racing for pennies would remind him of positive facts that had been and therefore might be again, and cold prudence had her say. But this trait was the result of experience and not of nature, for he was generous enough. Not infrequently the whole treasury went to the relief of already existing needs outside the garden railings, and he could be wildly extravagant.

Aymer never questioned him. He sometimes laughed at him when he had wasted a whole week's money on some childish folly, and told him he was a silly baby, which Christopher did not like. However, he found he had to buy his own experiences, and he soon learnt that no folly however childish annoyed "Caesar" so much as acc.u.mulated wealth for no particular object but a possible future need.

Christopher had christened Aymer "Caesar" shortly after his introduction to the literary remains of one, Julius, from some fanciful resemblance, and the name stuck and solved a difficulty.

In the same manner he bestowed the distinctive t.i.tle of St. Michael on Mr. Aston, from his likeness to a famous picture of that great saint in a stained gla.s.s window he had seen, and it also was generally adopted.

No one made any further attempt to explain his introduction into the family, or the general history of that family. He was just "grafted in," and left to discover what he could for himself, and he certainly gathered some fragmentary disconnected facts together.

"What is a Secletary?" demanded Christopher one day from the hearth-rug, where he lay turning over old volumes of the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_.

"A Secretary, I suppose you mean. A Secretary is a man who writes letters for someone else."

"Who does St. Michael write letters for?"

"He used to write letters for the Queen, or rather on the Queen's business. What book have you got there?"

Christopher explained.

"There is a picture of him. Only he hasn't got grey hair: and underneath Perma n-e-n-t, Permanent Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs. What does it mean, Caesar?"

Caesar, otherwise Aymer, considered a moment.

"Permanent means lasting, going on. You ought to know that, Christopher."

"But he isn't going on."

"He could have done so."

"Why didn't he? Didn't he like it?"

"Yes, very much. He was trained for that kind of thing."

"Did he get tired of writing letters, then?"

"No."

Aymer was apt to become monosyllabic when a certain train of thought was forced on him. Also a short deep line of frown appeared under the white scar: but Christopher had not yet learnt to pay full heed to these signs: also he had a predilection for getting at the root of any matter he had once begun to investigate, so he began again:

"Why didn't he go on being permanent, then?"

"He thought he had something else he ought to do."

"Was the Queen angry?"

"I don't know."

"What was it?"

Aymer cut the leaves of the book he was trying to read rather viciously.

"Taking care of me," he said shortly.

Christopher got up on his knees and stared.

"Hadn't you got Vespasian then?"

"Good heavens, Christopher, are you a walking inquisition? My father gave up his appointment--if you must know, because of my----" he stopped, and went on doggedly, "of my accident. I wasn't particularly happy when I found I had to stay on a sofa all the rest of my life, and he had to teach me not to make an idiot of myself. Now you know all about it and need not bother anyone else with questions."

Christopher thought he knew very little about it, but he had learnt what he set out to know and was moreover now aware that the subject was distasteful to Aymer, so he politely changed it. "Robert's brother has got some very nice guinea-pigs," he said thoughtfully.

"Who is Robert?"

"Robert is the under footman. I forgot you don't know him."

Christopher recollected with momentary embarra.s.sment Aymer's inaccessibility to the general domestic staff.

"He wants to find a home for them," he added hastily; "he doesn't mind where, so long as it's a happy home."

Aymer guarded a smile. Christopher was already notorious for ingenious methods of getting what he wanted.

"It would be a pity for them to be ill-treated, of course," he agreed gravely.

Christopher shuffled across the floor to the side of the big sofa.

"It's rather a happy home here, you know," he remarked suggestively, touching Aymer's arm tentatively with one finger.

"I am glad you think so. Do you consider the atmosphere equally suitable for guinea-pigs?"

"I should like them." He rubbed his cheek caressingly on Aymer's hand.

"May I, Caesar?"

"Not to keep in your bedroom as you did the bantam."

"But in the garden--or yard. _Please_, dear Caesar."

"You ridiculous baby, yes. If you make a house for them yourself."

Christopher flew off in a transport of joy to consult with Vespasian, who, from mere tolerance of his beloved master's last "fad," had become the most ardent if unemotional partisan of the same "fad."

It was Vespasian who had provided Christopher with more clothes than he deemed it possible for one mortal boy to wear, who taught him how to put them on, and struggled with him figuratively and literally over the collar question. Vespasian's taste running to a wide margin of immaculate white closely fastened, while Christopher had a predilection for a free and open expanse of neck.

"Look at Mr. Aymer," pointed out the great general's successor sternly. "You never see him with even a turn-down collar, and he lying on his back all the time, when most gentlemen would consider their own comfort."

Christopher, hot, angry and uncomfortable, wondered if Vespasian had insisted on the wearing of those instruments of torture, or if Caesar really preferred it.