Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker Part 57

"If you'd only told me, Caesar!"

"It was my one hope you should not know."

"I don't think I've earned that," he said reproachfully.

"It was myself, not you, I thought of. You've got to know the whole thing now. Go and sit there in your old place and don't look at me till I've finished."

So Aymer at last reached the moment when he must break the seals of silence--that expected moment that had hung over him like some shadowy fate as a foretaste of judgment, when he must retrace the painful footsteps of his life across the black gulf from which he had climbed.

But as he turned his face to the darkness, there was light also on the other side, and he forgot he had feared.

"Peter and I were friends, as you know. He was five years my senior, but it did not make much difference. He was a worker, just as I was a player. He had tremendous capabilities and he put all his big brain into his work and when he wanted change he came to me. I represented to him the reverse side of his strenuous life and he was oddly fond of me. Before he was thirty he had well started his fortune as he raced to wealth. I raced to ruin and found every inch of the road made easy for me. Peter came into conflict with the socialistic party. There was a certain James Hibbault, who was a great power, and Peter, who was not so heavy a power in those days, employed the wisdom of the serpent to crush him. He came up to London and offered me a chance of new amus.e.m.e.nt in abetting his plans. The Hibbaults were middle cla.s.s people without middle cla.s.s virtues. They lived a scrambling, noisy life propagating their crude ideas and sowing broadcast the seeds of a greater power than they knew. They were, however, a real force to be reckoned with, they and their party, because of certain truths hidden in their wildest creeds--truths which did not suit Peter's creed in the least. He made their acquaintance, and he introduced me to them.

They were sufficiently new to amuse me, but I should have probably have tired of them soon had it not been for your mother."

He paused a moment. "Do you remember her, Christopher?"

Christopher nodded.

"Elizabeth Hibbault," went on Aymer slowly, "was extraordinarily beautiful, with the beauty of grace rather than of feature. She was as distinct from the rest of her clamorous family as a pearl from pebbles. She was an enthusiast, a dreamer, pa.s.sionately sincere, pa.s.sionately pitiful. She recognised truth as a water diviner finds water. She was brought up in a labyrinth of theories, creeds of equality, in hatred for the rich, and out of all the jargon she gathered some eternal truths which she made her own. She did not live with her people: she had rooms of her own and she was a black-and-white artist. But she was often at the Hibbaults. Peter probably knew her accustomed days. She used to speak of her faiths. It was like one note of gold in the discordant babble. Men came and listened to her and she never knew it was not for her words but for her magnetic wonderful unknown self that they came. She might, and probably did, impress men who were dreamers or fanatics already, but those to whom all her beliefs were childish nonsense went just the same, Peter and I with them."

He stopped a moment and shot a glance at Christopher, who never moved.

"I lost my interest in Peter's schemes and he ceased to explain them to me, but I still visited Elizabeth at her own rooms when I was allowed. She was very anxious to convert Peter and myself, more especially Peter. I was not in love with her, Christopher, yet, but she fascinated me. I speculated as to how it would be with her if all the fire and devotion she brought to a mere Cause were turned into a more personal direction. She paid more attention to Peter than to myself, and she evidently considered him a more desirable convert. One evening we went together to call on her and they fell into the usual line of discussion, he answering her in a tolerant amused way as if she were a precocious child. I stayed behind when he left and she walked up and down in restless agitation, half forgetful of me. 'The personality of the man!' she cried fiercely, 'he is too strong, he is ruthless! One cannot escape him. I cannot get him out of my head.' I told her she had much better tackle me. She told me plainly that I was a negative force in the world and my cousin an active. That was enough for me. I thought she despised me and I vowed she should recognise my possibilities as well as Peter's. If any man were to turn the pa.s.sionate stream of her nature back on herself, or to love--to see the woman rise above the fanatic--it should be I, not Peter. But I said nothing of this to him. I do not think he ever knew it at all. It began in pique on my side, then jealousy, lastly pa.s.sion. Christopher, if I had loved her from the first beginning of things I should not be ashamed to meet your eyes now. Don't look round yet. I laid deliberate siege to her heart and found she possessed my mind night and day. Soon it was not Peter who was my rival, but her own soul. I was confident I should win, though Peter, it was clear, was also wooing her persistently. He at least meant her well, Christopher. He loved her in his uncomprehending way, wanting her for the woman she was _not_--except in his mind. And I--I wanted her for the outward woman she was."

He paused long enough for his listener to face clearly the portrait of the worn, broken woman he remembered, the outward woman that bore no likeness to the clear knowledge of the inner soul.

Aymer continued:

"At last I felt it was time to end it. Peter had been in town some time then. I knew the senior Hibbault and he were coming to some understanding, but I guessed nothing of the nature of it. She never mentioned him to me at this time. She stood, poor girl, between the two of us like a trapped creature, and because she feared herself and neither of us, she overstepped one snare to fall into the other.

Christopher, I don't know what was in my mind when I went to her that last evening: I had not seen her for some days, but when I stood before her I knew suddenly I loved her, and then, like a flash, I saw it was neither Peter nor her that stood between us, but my own evil self. I told her all--that she was the victor and I the conquered. I was proud of my new humbleness. For once I recognised myself and my true place in the order of the world. But she knew me better than I guessed, and she was afraid to tell me the truth. She put me off with gentle words, terrified lest I should guess before I left her--Don't turn away, Christopher--At last she owned she had written me a letter and I should find it when I got back. Her att.i.tude maddened me. The better self, if it ever existed, got stamped out. I told her nothing should come between us, that nothing short of death should keep me from her, while I could move hand or foot."

The white scar on Aymer's forehead was very plain and his face had grown thin and sharp. Christopher for the first time looked up at him and away again.

"I went home at last, Christopher, wild to get this mysterious letter to which she would refer me. I went back and took seven devils with me--my pa.s.sion and love fighting for possession. Nevil and I had a room of our own on the ground floor. I think they use it for storing papers in now."

Christopher gave a slight movement: he knew that well.

"I went straight in, knowing any letter for me would be taken there.

Nevil was going upstairs as I crossed the hall and he called to me across the banisters that Wayband had sent back my revolver and he had opened it. Revolver shooting was a pa.s.sion just then and I was accounted a crack shot. I answered him savagely and went on. The letter lay on the table. She had been married to Peter two days before at a Registrar's office. I felt I must have known it from eternity, but it caught me on the crest of my fury, it overwhelmed me in a torrent of mad shame and wild jealousy. I had failed--had been beaten at my own game--beaten and fooled by some G.o.d who had used my pa.s.sion for his own ends. Those short minutes of purer love burnt my soul like fire till I raged at my folly. Christopher, I'd give all I have left to say I was mad. I wasn't. I knew what I was doing. The revolver lay there on the table and an open box of cartridges by it. It was the coward's way out of the agony, and I took it. I shot myself--the crack shot of Waybands Club missed his own life by a hair's-breadth."

Even then, after the long years, Christopher caught an echo of bitterness in the voice. He dully wondered at his own inability to move or speak or send out a thought of consolation to the man who had suffered so fiercely.

Aymer gave a little gasp and was still a moment Then he went on:

"That's all my story, Christopher. Now comes your mother's part of it.

The first result of her marriage was that the Hibbaults' name ceased to be a power for the Socialist party--became less than a power. James Hibbault severed his connection with them entirely. I think Peter gave him a place at one of his big affairs. He had bought them out, and for a time the party fell into disrepute. But Elizabeth, whom he had married, he had not bought. I think she believed she had and could influence him, that she could sway him without loss of her own being.

I know she clung to her true personality with pa.s.sionate strength. I had failed to break it down, but I think Peter failed here also. When she heard of her father's and brother's betrayal of their party--it was nothing else--she was nearly crazy with grief. It was some time before Peter could get her to acknowledge their marriage at all, and she never, I believe, spoke of her people again. But at last he got her to Stormly. I know very little of what happened there. I believe he was willing she should play Lady Bountiful to his people if it pleased her--even made her a big allowance for the purpose. But she went amongst them and she would have none of it. She would make no compromise with what she regarded as wholly evil. She found Peter had only played with her regarding her creed--that he never had the least intention of altering his plan of life to suit it. She hated it all a hundredfold more than you did, Christopher, and the thought of bringing a child into an atmosphere that was rank poison to her, became a nightmare. Perhaps she was not wholly accountable then--there was no woman to stand by her or counsel patience. Anyhow, about six weeks before you were born, we believe she just disappeared. No one knows how Peter really felt about it. In the face of the world he shrugged his shoulders and went on with his life as if wife and expected child had never been. We suppose he tried to find her at first, but he always declared there was no need--she would come back when she had had enough of the world. Eventually a letter reached him saying you had come into the world and that, rather than put you under the power of your father and all he stood for, she would bring you up among the people she loved and pitied. My father tried all he could to make Peter seriously seek for his wife. We know now he had some false clue and that he believed she and you were living in Liverpool. But either from pride or indifference he would never see for himself these two whose fortunes he watched so closely. Saunderson tells me it was the younger Hibbault who supplied him with the false clue and found it to his advantage to keep up the fraud. They can't trace either Hibbault now. They seem to have emigrated. My father once visited Peter, before Elizabeth left him. There was some dispute at the works and a certain foreman named Felton protested against his orders. My father heard the interview between them, and the man made a strong appeal to him. He did his best as go-between and failed. Peter did not quarrel about it. He was just immovable in his heavy way, but your mother was greatly troubled over the whole business and was generously good to Felton and his wife in the face of Peter's direct commands.

Ten years afterwards this man, tramping from Portsmouth to London in search of work, met your mother again. He was evidently a man of strong memory, and he knew her."

Christopher nodded. He remembered the little narrow paths in the tiny garden, the smell of the box edging, a pink cabbage rose that fell when the man's sleeve brushed against it. The man and his mother had talked long and the old woman had asked him if he knew the man. The next day they were on the road again and he had felt a resentment towards this man as the cause. All these recollections crowded themselves into his mind.

"Felton seems to have been a man with some strength of character. He had easily promised your mother not to betray her existence to her husband, but the memory of her face and some uneasy sense of unfitness troubled him, I suppose. He remembered Mr. Aston, who had spoken for him, and that he was something to do with these people. He turned up here one day and Nevil had the sense to send him direct to us in London. It was just at the time when I was wanting to adopt a child. I had stopped cursing fate and myself, and I wanted something of my own almost as fiercely as I wanted my freedom."

There was another long pause. This time Christopher put out his hand and laid it on Aymer's.

"There isn't any more. We followed up the clue and found you. My father made another appeal to Peter on behalf of his unknown son, and Peter declared the subject was not discussable: so I kept you. I vowed I'd never stand between your own father and you, but also that I'd never put out a hand to bring you together. That visit you paid him, Christopher, was the blackest time I've had since the day I realised what I'd done. I thought I had got over my jealousy, and I had not."

Christopher leant over him and gripped his hands.

"Caesar," he said in a breathless low voice, looking him straight in the eyes. "Caesar, there was no need of that then--there never has been, nor could be. I have no father at all if it be not you."

CHAPTER XXIX

"It does not seem to me a very great thing to ask in the face of things."

Mr. Saunderson dangled his eyegla.s.ses and regarded Christopher with a dubious air.

"I want three days to consider the matter," continued Christopher impatiently. "Where is the difficulty? You don't seem to remember you are asking me to give up my chosen life and work and take on a job that I loathe."

If Mr. Saunderson's face had been capable of expressing more than displeasure, it would have done so, but he was of no plastic build, mind or body, and "displeasure" was the nearest he could get to active anger.

"You have a singular way of regarding what most men would think overpowering good luck, Mr. Masters."

Christopher turned sharply.

"You at least cannot compel me to take that name. It has never been mine and never will be."

"Gently, gently, young man. I am willing to make every allowance for your perturbation, but really, in speaking of my late client ..." he stopped with a shake of the head.

"I was speaking of a name, not of him, Mr. Saunderson. However, I apologise. Once more, will you let the whole matter stand still for three days. I don't mean to accept the thing, you know, but I can't argue it out now. I will meet you in town on Wednesday."

"If you insist, there is nothing more to be said of course," returned Mr. Saunderson, huffily. "As to your refusing your own rights, that will be less simple than you imagine, but I shall hope you will soon view the matter in another light."

"There was no provision made in case the inheritor should refuse or not be available?"

Christopher confronted him suddenly with the question, and the poor man, who was as completely off his balance by Christopher's incomprehensible reception of his tidings, as that young man himself, was evidently confused.

"There were no instructions at all beyond the memorandum stating his wife and child were last heard of in Whitmansworth Union."

"But in the former will, which you say was destroyed?"

"I am not at liberty to divulge anything that might be contained in that doc.u.ment."

"There is nothing to prevent your acting on such instructions at your own prompting," Christopher insisted bluntly.