Marguerite Bryant

“ Geoffry stood biting his lip and then turned abruptly on his heel and left them—and for all his relief at his departure, Christopher felt a faint glow of contempt at his obedience.
“Is he gone?” Patricia lifted her white face and black-rimmed eyes to his.
“Yes, dear.”
“Did I hurt him?”
“Not seriously. Sorry I was not quicker, Patricia.”
“I did not even know myself,” she answered, wearily. “Christopher, why was I born? Why didn’t someone let me die?”
He gave her a little shake. “Don’t talk like a baby. But, Patricia, how is it Geoffry doesn’t know?” ”

“ Christopher’s attention was fixed on a distant speck that might be a danger-signal and he did not answer her or notice the nearer signal of danger in her white face.
She was in the grip of her old wild passion again, on fire with her need of assurance, and in a gust of anger she caught at the wheel that seemed to claim his mind. The car swerved violently, jolted up on to the turf, bumped madly along at a dangerous tilt, swerved back into the road two feet clear of a grey pile of stone. Only then did Christopher know her fingers were gripped between his hands and the steel wheel. ”

“ There was a very little knock at the door, but he did not hear it; the door opened with a breath of fresh cold air and a faint scent of violets as Renata entered.
She saw she was unobserved, saw his attitude, and her whole being seemed to melt into an expression of longing compassion. Nevil or his father would have gone away unseen in respect for his known weakness, but Renata for all her shyness had the courage of her instincts.
“May I come and warm myself, Aymer? You always have the best fire in the house.” ”

“ There was no discordant note anywhere and Christopher was quite alive to its perfections. But coming straight from Stormly Town the contrast was too glaring and too crude. It was not that Peter Masters was rich and his people were poor. Poverty and riches have run hand in hand down the generations of men, but here, the people were poor in all things, in morals, in desire, in beauty, in all that lifted them in the scale of humanity, in order that he, Peter Masters, should be superfluously rich, outrageously so! ”

“ In the quiet hours of the night Aymer Aston paced those even roads his feet had never trodden, saw them spreading far and wide across the earth, heard the echo of countless footsteps stepping down the ages, knew that life itself was made an easier road for thousands of little feet that would take their first steps on better ground than their parents had done, knew that there were less crippled, less maimed, less halt in the sum total of the world’s suffering by reason of one Roadmaker’s career. ”

“ It was the latter sight that Peter Masters evidently expected would interest him most, for here were employed the most marvellous and most 235 complicated modern machinery, colossal innovations and ingenious labour-saving inventions in vast orderly buildings; the complex whole obedient to an organisation that left no item of power incomplete or wasted. But Christopher gave but half his mind to all he was shown, the other half was on those still stranger machines, the grimy, brutal-looking workmen toiling in the hot heart of the place, the white-faced stooping forms on the outskirts. ”

“ Christopher continued his work, journeying far and wide. Sometimes she accompanied him actually, sometimes she remained in their home on the cliff edge, alone but not solitary, looking with joy for his return, but free from aching need. Quite slowly the Woman learnt to recognise her unseen, unreckoned sway over the Man, to discover how he could only rise to the full height of his manhood by strength of the inspiring love she brought him. ”

“ The man on the sofa lay quite still looking into the garden as it sunk from sight under the slowly falling veil of purple night.
He was evidently a tall man, with the head and shoulders of an athlete, and a face of such precise and unusual beauty that one’s instinct called out, “Here, then, God has planned a man.”
Aymer Aston, indeed, was not unlike his father, but far more regular in feature, more carefully hewn, and the serenity of the older face was lacking. Here was the face of a fighter, alive with the strong passions held in by a stronger will. ”

“ She could not be said to denote the Woman in the House. Christopher, as he wandered about the big silent rooms and long corridors, was perforce obliged to take with him for company a more shadowy presence, an imaginary vision of another woman, also tall and dark, but without Constantia Wyatt’s irresponsible gaiety and dazzling smile. He would escort this phantom Woman through his favourite rooms, pointing out the treasures to her. He even apportioned her a room for herself, behind a closed door at the end of the wing opposite to which Aymer Aston lived. ”

“ Christopher presently explained to her the visible mechanism of the car and on a stretch of clear road let her put her hands on the wheel beneath his own and feel the joy of fictitious control. Before the sun quenched itself in the sea they stood on the Cliff Edge and looked out across the shining waters into the great space, where a thought-laden air renews itself, reforming, cancelling and creating in the crucible of Life. ”

“ Christopher sat with his head on his hands, wondering with his surface consciousness if the planks at his feet were three or four inches wide, but at last he brushed aside the last card of his demolished palace and recalled his promise to Cæsar to leave Sam as free and unbiased in choice as he had been himself.
“That would be quite easy to manage,” he said with assumed heartiness, “it’s—only too easy. Only you must be a partner or something. Oh, oh. A white apron. I’ll buy my tea and bacon of you when I’ve a house of my own!” ”

“ Renata, darling Renata, used to talk to me after and make me promise to try and be good, but she, too, was really afraid when I was bad. I suppose they had both had so bad a time with father.” She stopped, gazing out at a misty half-understood tragedy, whose very dimness woke a faint echo of terror in her heart, for she was as surely the daughter of the woman who had suffered as of the man who had caused the suffering.
“That’s all,” said Patricia, with a sudden movement, “everyone always takes it as part of me. Nevil says I’ll outgrow it. I don’t—and Renata cries.” ”

“ It had seemed an easy, insignificant task to break the news five minutes ago, but either Christopher had taken the wrong approach or it was a stiffer job than he had fancied. He became uneasily conscious his own part in it could not be overlooked, that he was doing something that evilly-disposed persons might even call magnanimous or philanthropic. His face grew red at the thought.
“Sam,” he said as naturally as he could, “it happens you can choose, you see. Choose anything you like. Cæsar’s given me a free hand. We are both to start life just as we like. ”

“ Women, indeed, had always been near him, and there were times when he thought regretfully of Mrs. Moss. There were none but menservants at Aston house, and the only glimpse of femininity was afforded by the flying visits of Constantia, Mr. Aston’s married daughter. She would at times invade Aymer’s room, a vision of delicate colourings and marvellous gowns. She was a tall, dark, lovely woman who carried on the traditional family beauty with no poverty of detail. She seemed to Christopher to be ever going on somewhere or returning from somewhere. ”

“ There could be no room for jealousy in a love that usurped no rights, but only filled its own place.
The days of doubt which Patricia had feared came and passed in the autumn weeks preceding the marriage, and Christopher had kept his word and held her firmly against the weak terrors that assailed her. Once they were married, however, she seemed to pass out of the shadow of the fear, and to break from the bondage of her race. In some wonderful way her husband’s clear, perpetual vision of her as separate 354 from the tyranny of heredity, did actually free her. ”

“ So Christopher broke his purpose to Cæsar abruptly.
“I want to be a Road Engineer.”
“A what?”
“A Roadmaker. To make high roads,—not in towns, but across countries. Roads that will be easy to travel on and will last.” Again he stopped, embarrassed, for the vision before him which he only half saw, made him hot and confused. Yet it was a good vision, perhaps that was why—a picture of countless toiling human beings travelling on his roads all down the coming ages, knowing them for good roads, and praising the maker. ”

“ The passionate, 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. ”

“ I don’t mind a woman. He’ll love and marry some day: it’s his right. I don’t grudge that. But another father—his real one. Oh, My God, mayn’t I keep even this for myself?” He hid his face on the cushions, all the wild jealousy of his nature struggling with his pride.
His father put his arm round him, hardly able to credit the meaning of the crisis. Was that white scar on his son’s forehead no memorial to a dead jealousy, but only an expression of a slumbering passion?
“Aymer, old fellow, listen. Peter isn’t going to tell, I feel sure of it. ”

“ The boy was left at a country workhouse in this county as it happened. I knew enough of his paternity to know that he was a suitable subject for Aymer to father. I have never regretted what I did. The boy has become the mainspring of Aymer’s life; he lives again in him. All that has been denied him, he finds in Christopher’s career; all he cannot give the world he has given to this boy, this son of his heart and soul. No father could love more, could suffer more. And Christopher is repaying him. He has known no father but Aymer, no authority but his, no conflicting claim. ”

“ He found, however, little reason to repeat his sigh during the next few weeks, for Christopher was in constant attendance on Aymer, and gave but the residue of his time to the rest of the little world. His suspicions as to Aymer’s well-being vanished away, for the latter betrayed by no outward sign the sleepless nights and long days spent in wrestling with intangible dread of impending evil and the return of almost forgotten black hours. Indeed, Christopher’s steady dependable strength and vigorous energy seemed to renew belief and confidence in the man with whom life had broken faith. ”

“ But on the very topmost floor of all were the offices devoted to the personal affairs of Peter Masters, and through them, shut in by a watchful guard of head clerks, was the innermost sanctum, the nest of the great spider whose intricate web stretched over so great a circumference, the central point from which radiated the vast circle of concerns, and to which they ultimately returned materialised into precious metal—the private office, in short, of Peter Masters. ”

“ At the moment of renunciation, Christopher realised for the first time the greatness of the cost and knew 366 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. ”

“ Aston, with his eye on Aymer, chafed a little and found it hard to maintain his usual serenity. Aymer, on the contrary, seemed more deliberate and placid than usual; there was a slowness in his speech, and an unusual willingness to leave the conversation in his visitor’s hands as if he mistrusted his own powers to keep it in desirable channels. He appeared to have suddenly abdicated his position on the objective positive side of life and to have become a mere passive instrument of the hour, subjective and unresisting. ”

“ 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. ”