Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker Part 65

All the while, as he went through the day's particular and general business, the wild words in the rasping, incoherent voice haunted Christopher so persistently that he heard them through the enthusiastic plat.i.tudes of congratulations, the calm official statements of plain facts, behind even Patricia's healing voice of love. It was not till the following Sunday he awoke to find a stillness instead of clamour, calm instead of turmoil. He rose early while the day was still holding the hand of dawn and went out to the cliff edge, as if there in the heaving waters he might read the Eternal Meaning and Purpose of it all. He thought how every individual man is one with the great tide of humanity, advancing with it, receding with it, subject to one eternal law he could not read. How the suffering and sin of one was the burden of all: the heroic endeavours and victories of one the gain of all. The little isolated aim of the individual must subject itself to the wider meaning or be swept back to nothingness, just as the stranded pools among the rocks that for a few hours caught the sunshine and reflected the heavenly lamp, but were overswept each tide and their being mingled again with the great sea.

Christopher knew the work he had done had been good, that hundreds were the happier for his direct concern with their lives, that he indeed had made the Road of Life more possible for those who would set out thereon for far or nearer goals. It was all he aspired to do. He knew it was not his to show them the goal, or to direct them thereto; that was for themselves and others; but it was his to make the way possible, that they need not stumble on unbroken ground, or toil in blinding dust of ages, or wade in clogging mud of tradition, these children of the world who tramped with patient feet to a vague end.

What was wrong was that he had chosen his own ground, that when he had stood at the cross roads of life he held himself qualified as a G.o.d to say "that road is evil and this good," taking council only of what was most in accord with his own will, forgetting that the Great Power embraces all within itself, knowing no good or evil, but seeing only a means to fulfil the eternal purpose of creation. It is we who must be the alchemists to trans.m.u.te what we term evil into good, we, who are the servants and instruments by which that purpose must be achieved. If, seeing evil, we pa.s.s by on the other side, how shall the waste places of the earth be cleansed or the wilderness break forth into song?

The message so roughly delivered had sunk into Christopher's heart at last. Looking back at his life he saw how everything had fitted him for the task he had refused. How he was born to it, trained to its needs unconsciously by his mother and Caesar, shaped by his own experience, armed by the completion of his inner life in his marriage.

He had refused it with blindness, had closed his ears to the voice of thousands who had called to him in the unattractive voice of a conventional law. It had taken the deafening report of a madman's pistol and the sight of a dead child to teach him the lesson.

At that thought he hid his face in his arm on the short turf and lay very still.

The sea sung its endless Te Deum below him, a lark soared high to heaven with its morning hymn, and the wind, rustling along the cliff edge, breathed strength to the land. Day stood free and open upon earth and called for service from those to whom the Dominion of the earth is promised. Only by service comes lordship, only by obedience can be found command.

At the moment of renunciation, Christopher realised for the first time the greatness of the cost and knew how dear his life and surroundings were to him. The Roadmaker had been his own master; the successor of Peter Masters must be the servant of thousands. The work here would go on, there were men ready to take his place, but he found no salve in the thought. Deep in his heart he knew he feared the grim struggle that lay before him, the uprooting of the old "system," the antagonism, the necessary compromises, the slow result. His age, or rather his youth, would be a heavy weapon against him. How could he hope to make his voice heard above the dictates of a dozen committees of men intent on their personal interests? He told himself pa.s.sionately the thing was Impossible, and as quickly came the remembrance of the hoa.r.s.e cry for help that had made itself heard above the report of Plent's pistol.

Step by step through the door of humility he reached the hall of Audience and in silence surrendered himself to the eternal Purpose.

At length he again stood on the edge and looked out to sea and for the moment the simplicity instead of the complexity of life visible and invisible, was written on the face of the deep. He stood bareheaded and read the message thankfully and went back to the house with peace in his heart.

He found a new beauty in the house he had made for himself, and as Patricia came down the garden path to meet him, he was glad for the real worth of the outward things he must surrender.

She met him with a question on her lips which was not uttered in face of what she saw in his eyes. They stood for a moment with clasped hands and he looked at her smiling, and she at him gravely, and presently they walked to a corner of the garden overlooking the sea, from where each dear beauty of the place was visible.

"Will it hurt you greatly to leave it, dear?" he asked, prefacing the inevitable with question of her will to do so.

"Just as much as it will hurt you. No more or less," she answered, her head against his arm. "But I am glad it is so good to leave."

"That's my mind, too. How do you know what I mean, though?"

"I've always known it must come, Christopher."

She spoke low and looked away, weakly hoping for the moment he would leave it at that, but Christopher never left uncertain points behind him.

"You knew I should come to take this other work--this inheritance?"

She nodded. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to him.

"Why didn't you tell me so, Patricia?"

"I was so sure you would know yourself. I hated to be the one to speak," her voice shook a little. "Oh, forgive me, Christopher, dearest," she cried suddenly, "it was weak of me, for I did know always, only I wanted all this for a little time so badly. Just a taste of the beautiful good life you had planned. I thought it would not matter, just two years."

He put his arms round her and drew her close.

"We have had it, beloved. It has been beyond anything I ever dreamt.

Only--" his voice broke a little, "we must remember it had to be paid for--No, no," he cried, seeing the wave of sorrow sweep over her face, "not you. It is I who should have known and listened. My fault!"

"It is I who should have spoken," she said steadily, "we can't divide ourselves even in this, dear, but we can bear it together."

"And pay the debt together," he added and raised her face to his and kissed her. And they crossed the Threshold of the New with this understanding between them.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

In the great buildings in Princes Street, Birmingham, the days continued as of old, with the ebb and flow of business. On each floor clerks bent over their high desks and the workers of each concern sat behind their mahogany defences and toiled early and late for the treasure they desired. At stated times rows of grave gentlemen, who carried due notice of their own importance on their countenances, met in the respective committee rooms, and discussed wide interests with closed doors and a note of anxious irritation that was new since the demise of Peter Masters.

He who had concentrated the whole of the executive business of these many affairs under one roof had done so of definite purpose and with no eye to merely his own convenience. His presence there was a tangible power offering a final court of appeal that, whether they knew it or not, had as great an effect on the various committees as it had on the managers of each business themselves.

So perfect was the organisation and adjustment of the machinery of routine that after the dominant visible power had gone down to the land of shadows, the vague note of personal anxiety that lurked on each floor was the only perceptible change apparent in the great body.

But the wives of the working heads could have told of more enduring change in men who have suddenly become responsible for great issues, for laws, for a system they had had no voice in founding. Men who found themselves limited masters where unconsciously they had been tools and were selected as such--there men sooner or later bend before the strain put on them and for the most part seek salvation in blind obedience to the rules they dare not criticise. In the daily compromise between the individual character and the system which he must serve, many an excellent man was ground down in nerve and heart and health to a strange shadow of his former self, and many a woman shed secret tears over half-understood changes in one near and dear to her.

Mr. Saunderson by right of informal instructions, which no one troubled to dispute, acted as steward over the late Peter Masters'

private affairs during those two years of waiting, and his stewardship was prosperous and able, but beyond that he neither would nor could move. To the appeals of distracted secretaries he only replied, "My dear sir, act to the best of your ability. I can only a.s.sure you your responsibilities are limited to two years."

He never allowed to anyone the possibility that Peter Masters' son might even then fail to accept his place, but alone to himself he faced it often and felt his scanty hair whiten beneath the impending wreckage, if the misguided young man continued his foolish course.

"He will probably wreck the whole thing if he accepts it," sighed Mr.

Saunderson, "but at least it will be done legally, and in the regular course of things. If he'll only be sensible and see he's wanted just as a figurehead, everyone will be comfortable and prosperous."

But he sighed again as he thought it, for Christopher did not at all strike him as a man likely to make a good figurehead, or to be the mouthpiece of a system he evidently disliked. He was even more confirmed in this opinion a fortnight after the unhappy affair at the Patrimondi works, when Christopher walked into his London office and without any explanation announced himself ready to take his place as Peter Masters' son. He was sufficiently wise to conceal his own triumph and accepted the intimation without question. As they sat there in the dull London office hour after hour, Mr. Saunderson realised that the mantle of Peter Masters, millionaire, had fallen on shoulders that would wear it maybe in a very different fashion, but none the less royally.

"I am to understand then," said Christopher after long hours of instruction, "I can go there when I like, see what I like, decide what I like, at all events with regard to these mines and works which are almost private property."

"You can go to-morrow if you like," answered his Mentor, rising. "I advise you to let things run for some time as they are, till you know the ropes."

He went to a safe and unlocking it produced a key.

"That is the key of your father's room at Princes Buildings," he said, putting it on the table. "There are two locks. Clisson, the head clerk, has the key of one and this is the other. You are free to walk straight in when you like, but it would be best to send Clisson a wire you are coming and he would bring you the day's business, your private affairs that is, precisely as he used to bring it to your father."

This time, because he was looking intently at the young man, he saw his mouth tighten at that term and felt a resigned wonder thereat.

Christopher took up the key and looked at it, thinking of all the doors in the world it would unlock for him, thinking of the powers of which it was a symbol, of how it fastened the door of his freedom and opened for him the door of a great servitude of which he was already proud.

Mr. Saunderson also was silent a moment listening to his own thoughts and looking at Christopher with misgivings.

"Will you live at Stormly Park?" he asked airily.

"I expect so. It is not let, is it?"

Mr. Saunderson permitted himself a little smile of superiority as he answered.

"Everything has been kept just ready for you these two years. But it will hardly be to your taste. Perhaps you will like it done up--altered?"

Christopher shook his head. "Not yet."

"You can afford it, you know."