THE LIBRARY x 
 OF ^ 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER
 
 CHRISTOPHER
 
 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD PRYCE 
 
 There are open hours 
 
 When the God's will sallies free ..." 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 (Cftc tltocrsibc press Cambridge
 
 COPYRIGHT, I9II, BY RICHARD PRYCE 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published November /g//
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER 
 
 2041615
 
 THE FIRST BOOK OF 
 CHRISTOPHER
 
 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 BOOK THE FIRST 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 WHEN Christopher was born nothing particular happened. 
 A star may have danced, that is doubtful; that his mother 
 cried is a fact beyond all dispute. Nothing was quite ready 
 for him in a world into which he ushered himself somewhat 
 unceremoniously. He was expected in London, where 
 arrangements for his comfortable reception had been made 
 by the excited ladies who were to become his aunts 
 rooms taken in convenient, perhaps inevitable, Ebury 
 Street, a doctor warned, a crinolined nurse prepared at a 
 moment's notice to move in, and await or take up her 
 interesting duties. But an unaccountable little boy, he 
 must needs take every one by surprise in mid-ocean. He 
 had not even the excuse of a storm. The sea had never been 
 calmer. He wanted to see the world? It was a beautiful 
 world that night. There was a moon for lovers a patch 
 of gold on the sea for lovers to have followed together in 
 exquisite fancy to the golden city whither it led. Lovers 
 married lovers, maybe should have stood side by side 
 to see it, where the lonely figure stood, pathetic in its 
 weeds, and pathetic for something else which was vaguely 
 apparent in the moonlight. It was the call of the beauti- 
 ful world? Christopher all his life was to worship beauty. 
 The wide eyes looking out over the shining sea filled with 
 sudden tears the first outward expression of a rush of 
 feeling which was temporarily to prove overwhelming. 
 Pity, then? Sympathy? Understanding? Christopher's
 
 4 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 mother needed all three. I think myself that she called 
 him. 
 
 He was what his mother's maid, Trimmer, pressed by 
 untoward circumstance into all sorts of duties which were to 
 have fallen to the lot of the crinolined lady waiting in 
 London, he was what Trimmer called a " posthumious " 
 child. The word pleased and encouraged her. She spoke 
 it frequently and with unction, dwelling lingeringly, for 
 euphonious reasons, upon that syllable immediately before 
 that with which she had embellished it. Only less important 
 than Christopher himself was Trimmer that night. Trimmer 
 indeed leapt to the occasion after the first few moments of 
 natural dismay, and, discovering unsuspected deeps of 
 motherly knowledge, held Christopher in such a way as 
 satisfied not only the ship's doctor, but the stewardess, 
 many times a mother herself, and even the Anglo-Indian 
 ladies whose "experience" entitled them to emphatic if 
 kindly opinions. 
 
 "A valuable life," said Trimmer, manipulating flannels 
 in workmanlike manner: "a more than usually valuable 
 life being posthumious." 
 
 The Anglo-Indian ladies, from whom in her weeds and 
 her sorrow Christopher's mother had kept somewhat apart 
 on the voyage, nodded sympathetically. Yes, indeed. Poor 
 young thing. It was terribly sad. With the stewardess 
 they pronounced Christopher a Beautiful Baby a state- 
 ment which, as everybody knows (everybody at least who 
 has ever seen the new-born young of man), can only have 
 been relatively true. 
 
 Trimmer, however, said proudly that he had every right 
 to be. They should have seen his father. There was a 
 beautiful gentleman cut off, too, in his prime, you might 
 say, of life. It was 'eart-breaking. And look at her poor 
 mistress, his widow. There were looks for you. It would 
 have been surprising if the hero of the moment had not 
 inherited his share of good looks. 
 
 Thus it was that Christopher entered the world. Of his
 
 CHRISTOPHER 5 
 
 arrival upon the agitated scene he has naturally no know- 
 ledge at first-hand. Salt airs were the early breath of his 
 little nostrils, salt airs with which were mingled all the 
 subtle fragrances of the ship : scents of tar and rope and oil 
 and wood, of metals even, with many fainter odours. The 
 beat of the engines was in his unrecording ears, with 
 creakings, trampings, flappings, and the pulsing rush of 
 water. Trimmer, bending over him in adoration, told him a 
 dozen times a day that he was Rocked in the Cradle of the 
 Deep. His mother had whispered it to him with a pleased 
 smile, but when Trimmer's "That's just what I say, 'm," 
 told her that Trimmer had been too quick for her, she 
 frowned a little, nor was she heard to say it again. She gave 
 it freely to Trimmer without frowning, that is when 
 the repetitions of it promised to be frequent. 
 
 "Rocked," sang Trimmer in a high soprano, "rocked 
 in the cradle of the deep," and rocked him in the cradle 
 of her capable arms. She smiled to him nodding, and at 
 herself shaking her head. To think, she said to herself, 
 that she, Miss Trimmer, if you please, should have come 
 joyfully to nursing to nursing! she! after her expens- 
 ive lessons in hair-dressing, too! She knew instinctively 
 the change which Christopher's advent was to make in her 
 life. From the moment when . . . No matter! She only 
 knew that she could n't stand aside now for any one. What 
 she did n't know she would learn, and was ready for a fight 
 if need be with Christopher's mother. Her arms had been 
 the first . . . Could she surrender their burden to any 
 other under the sun? Still, in calmer moments, a 
 nurse! when in her initial advertisement she had been 
 able to proclaim herself not only an expert in hair-dressing, 
 a good packer, but even a skilful dressmaker! A waste of 
 talents if you considered! Finally, however, she always 
 comforted herself with the reflection that if she did change 
 her vocation and calling, as she intended to do, come what 
 might, at least she had not married a native to become the 
 mother of a speckled or piebald family, which was the
 
 6 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 dire fate her friends had prophesied for her, when affec- 
 tion for her young mistress induced her, against all advice, 
 to accompany that lady to India. 
 
 There was no fight. Christopher's mother, convalescent 
 in time and with her hair in two thick plaits Trimmer's 
 pride ! which hung one over each shoulder, was indeed 
 only too glad. The doctor's admiration of Trimmer had 
 been unbounded from the first. Her resource, her presence 
 of mind, her surprising efficiency! 
 
 "What do you want with nurses?" he said. "The 
 woman 's a born nurse. I never was more amazed. Her 
 chignon " 
 
 " Is n't it wonderful?" said Christopher's mother. " It's 
 all on her head, too, even the plait across the top, 
 which," she added doubtfully after a moment's pause, 
 "which I suppose I ought n't to allow her to wear." 
 
 "It hardly prepared me." 
 
 "She's a genius," said Mrs. Herrick. "I should never 
 persuade her." 
 
 "Talk to her. Tell her I know some one whom I can 
 thoroughly recommend." 
 
 "Do you? " 
 
 "Oh, there's always some one to be found. She won't 
 like the thought of parting with the young gentleman." 
 
 "I'll sound her," said Christopher's mother. 
 
 But when it came to the point it was Trimmer who 
 "sounded " Christopher's mother. 
 
 " I 'm sure I hope it won't hurt him," said Trimmer sud- 
 denly out of the silence. She was at work in Mrs. Her- 
 rick's cabin, altering something of her mistress's " alter- 
 ing back " (to be explicit) in her own significant phrase. 
 Her needle flew to and fro through black materials, and 
 her ornate head bobbed with the movements of her deft 
 fingers. 
 
 Mrs. Herrick, who was occupied with her own thoughts, 
 watched her for some moments without speaking. She was 
 considering, indeed, how best to approach the perplex-
 
 CHRISTOPHER 7 
 
 ing subject. The masterly composition of Trimmer's 
 handsome chignon to which the doctor had alluded, to say 
 nothing of the exquisite and becoming precision of her own 
 two plaits, the reflection of which she contemplated from 
 time to time in a looking-glass so placed that she could see 
 herself, as for the first time she sat up, propped and stayed 
 by many pillows, arrested again and again the words hesi- 
 tating on her lips. It was preposterous to think that Trim- 
 mer would consent, capable, thoughtful Trimmer, who 
 had thought even of the looking-glass ! Preposterous. She 
 should have a nursery maid of course, French or Ger- 
 man as the case might be in the interests of Christopher's 
 baby education, but it was not to be expected that 
 Trimmer with her gifts and qualifications would ever lis- 
 ten. She was a Superior Lady's-Maid. Lady's-Maid was 
 written all over her. 
 
 "It's said to spoil their tempers," said Trimmer. She 
 bent closer over her sewing and bit a thread. 
 
 "What spoils whose tempers?" said Mrs. Herrick. 
 
 Trimmer re-threaded her needle before answering. She 
 always sewed without making a knot at the end of her 
 cotton. The second stitch secured the first. Mrs. Herrick, 
 who, on pain of making half a dozen such stitches futile, 
 always had to make a knot, looked on interested, thoughts 
 humming none the less at the back of her brain. There 
 was something soothing in the rhythmic passage of the 
 thread. Presently she really must rouse herself to speak 
 screw herself even to the point. The doctor said she 
 was to do nothing but rest. She was n't exactly tired 
 now that she was up. It was very pleasant to lean back 
 amongst her pillows and listen to the passing of the thread 
 through the silk. There was something that Trimmer 
 paused now and then to do with the point of the needle. 
 It was to tuck in any rough edge or loose end. How skil- 
 fully she did it! 
 
 "Babies," said Trimmer shortly. "Handing them on 
 from one to another."
 
 8 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Mrs. Herrick heard the words when they were some 
 moments old. 
 
 "I expect you'll be rather anxious, *m," Trimmer pro- 
 ceeded, without looking up. "I should be, I know, if he 
 was mine. It 'd be a pity if he fretted. He's so plump." 
 
 Mrs. Herrick looked at Christopher or at where 
 Christopher lay. He himself was invisible amid the many 
 filmy things which covered him. 
 
 "Perhaps she'll be cross to him, too. You never can tell 
 when they're out of sight. I once saw a nurse shake a 
 child in Kensington Gardens, till it was blue in the face. 
 Nurses ought to have numbers like cabmen. If she 'd had 
 one, I 'd have taken it, I know. As it was, all I could do 
 was to give her a look. A look, I admit, 'm, I did give her. 
 I 've often wondered since whether the poor child died of 
 convulsions." 
 
 "Trimmer, don't," implored Mrs. Herrick. 
 
 "It'd be bound to tell in the long run tell upon the 
 poor long-suffering child, I mean. // could n't tell. And 
 a lady where I lived once " 
 
 " If it's anything dreadful, don't tell me." 
 
 "It was only a whipping she saw, 'm also in Kensing- 
 ton Gardens. A very favourite place for such things. She 
 followed the nurse home and reported her, but, would you 
 believe, 'm, got no thanks for her trouble. It passes com- 
 pre'ension." 
 
 In those days even lady's-maidsdropped an occasional h. 
 
 "You see, you never could be quite sure, could you? 
 Of course" Trimmer shook up the work in her lap and 
 looked for her scissors "of course I hope you'd be for- 
 tunate and find some one you really felt you could trust. 
 But I can quite understand how anxious it'll make you." 
 
 " I lie awake at night thinking of it," said Christopher's 
 mother. She looked at Trimmer, wondering whereto all 
 this might tend. She could n't be going to propose that 
 she, Trimmer . . . ! 
 
 "I was thinking, 'm, how would it be if I "
 
 CHRISTOPHER 9 
 
 "You!" said Mrs. Herrick. 
 
 "For for a bit, you know, 'm. Just till we could see 
 how we got along." 
 
 "But could you " began Mrs. Herrick, and did not 
 mean to question Trimmer's ability, but her willingness. A 
 deprecating "Could you bring yourself to think of such a 
 thing?" would more aptly have expressed her thought. 
 
 Trimmer prepared to bristle. "Considering the emerg- 
 ency," she said, "we have n't done so badly." 
 
 "Oh, Trimmer," said Mrs. Herrick, "you 've done beau- 
 tifully. I don't know what I should have done without you." 
 
 "Of course, I know," said Trimmer, "that the ladies 
 have probably been looking for somebody for you in Lon- 
 don." 
 
 "They won't engage any one till I Ve seen her. Trimmer, 
 could you?" said Mrs. Herrick again. This time she meant 
 "Would you?" 
 
 "I'm one of a large family," said Trimmer, mollified 
 but still misunderstanding. "It is n't as if I had n't had 
 to do with babies before this. There was always a baby 
 of some sort at home." 
 
 "I don't mean that," cried Mrs. Herrick. "I meant 
 you . . . my maid, you know." 
 
 "Oh," said Trimmer, "I could easily make time to do 
 the little I do for you. There is n't so very much, except 
 of course your hair, for you 're not like some ladies who 
 won't so much as lift a hand to help their petticoats over 
 their heads, 'm. Why, as it is, you put on your own stock- 
 ings, 'm, which indeed is not right. I 've often and often 
 asked myself, 'What am I here for?' it's not right, 'm, 
 it's not indeed." Trimmer shook her head. "So I'm sure 
 we could manage. And when I think of his going from me 
 to a stranger, and perhaps being shaken in Kensington 
 Gardens " 
 
 "Oh, Trimmer, would you . . ." said Christopher's 
 mother. 
 
 Thus Trimmer reached the parting of the ways and
 
 io CHRISTOPHER 
 
 chose the lower path, which was yet, maybe, the higher, for 
 Christopher. And thus to the making of Christopher was 
 contributed Trimmer with all that Trimmer represented. 
 Was he grateful for the. sacrifice? He knew no more of it 
 than of the salt air in his little nostrils, the sounds of the 
 ship and the sea in his little ears, or the giant cradle itself 
 in which he was said to be rocked. Many things that he 
 knew not of went, however, to his making.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BUT presently everything made for wonder. 
 
 Long before that, of course, there came the day he 
 was in Ebury Street then when he was seen and was 
 said to "take notice." The saying may or may not have 
 come before the seeing. Seraphic smiles thenceforward 
 broke over his little face, for the magical appearing of 
 which all sorts of causes were assigned by those who ob- 
 served them. Everybody at such moments knew quite 
 well, it seemed, what Christopher was thinking. He was 
 thinking that he would like your watch (to put into his 
 mouth, it was probable!) or the lamp for the same 
 purpose, perhaps or the handle of your umbrella. Or 
 it was because he knew you quite well or his guardian 
 angel had touched him ever so lightly with the tip of a 
 sheltering wing. Trimmer, causes and reasons apart, said 
 that she, bless you, could always make him smile. His 
 mother said she could. His aunts said, No, they could. It 
 became plain in time that almost any one could, for he 
 was a healthy and so a happy little boy; but there were 
 rivalries notwithstanding. None of these things mattered 
 to Christopher. He "took notice, " it is true, but he did n't 
 know that he did till many, many months were past. Then 
 things and people began to sort themselves out for him. 
 Very early recollections in after years were of the crepe 
 upon his mother's dresses, of the hard beads on the bosom 
 of a certain dress of Trimmer's, which even made a visible 
 impression upon his little flushed cheeks when he went to 
 sleep against them, and notably, though considerably later, 
 it is to be hoped, in the interests of his little digestion, of the 
 smell of his first dried fig the smell of the whole box, 
 rather, from which it was taken. The figs helped to scent
 
 12 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 the cupboard where they were kept. Other wonderful 
 things were kept there, too, each with its own mysterious 
 fragrance, such as candles, soap, sugar, tea in a canister, 
 with pictures of Chinamen in pigtails upon it, jams in 
 labelled pots, coffee-berries, spices; but whether or not the 
 pleasant smell of the figs was dominant in the medley of 
 agreeable essences which made up the atmosphere of the 
 delectable cupboard, certain it is that the smell of figs 
 thenceforward had the power of recalling all the rest to 
 him. This cupboard was known as the Storeroom at Granny 
 Oxeter's, and Granny Oxeter was known as Granny Oxeter 
 to distinguish her from Christopher's other grandmother, 
 Grandmamma Herrick with whom it would yet have 
 been impossible to confuse her, so abidingly separate were 
 these two good ladies the one from the other. Even Christ- 
 opher, an intrepid little boy in his early years, would not 
 have dared to call his paternal grandmother "Granny." 
 There was Granny Oxeter, but there was Grandmamma 
 Herrick. 
 
 "Which is most my grandmother?" was a question put 
 by Christopher much later on when in fact he was about 
 five years old. 
 
 "Darling, they're both your grandmothers. What a 
 lucky little boy to have two." 
 
 "But which is most?" persisted Christopher. "I think 
 Granny Oxeter is." 
 
 "So do I," said Christopher's mother though she 
 went back on this almost as soon as it was spoken. God 
 forbid that she should put her own mother before the boy's 
 father's. She had a tender conscience. 
 
 The scent of the first fig then at Granny Oxeter's took 
 its important place amongst Christopher's young impres- 
 sions. In after years he did not always trace fleeting sensa- 
 tions to their source, but, if he had been able to do so, he 
 would have found that at a certain dinner party some 
 thirty years later, the sudden interposition between him 
 and his partner of a pair of long earrings, such as it had been
 
 CHRISTOPHER 13 
 
 his grandmother's habit to wear, was directly attributable 
 to the presence of a fig on his plate. His mind was forming 
 itself with his body. Were the two really separate things? 
 As he went through the process of a growing which 
 marked itself outwardly in the outspanning and casting 
 of young clothes, he was storing impressions as a bee 
 stores honey. 
 
 The nursery as well as the storeroom cupboard con- 
 tributed its quota. Everything contributed ; night as well 
 as day. There were misty early things of which one was 
 the leaning over his cot of unfamiliar faces which turned, 
 upon solemn consideration, into the loving faces he knew 
 best: his mother's, Trimmer's, one and another of the serv- 
 ants', his adoring Aunt Laura's or Aunt Catherine's. Or 
 slumber compact of pleasant dreams would hold him, 
 flushing his little cheeks for those who saw when, on 
 an instant, what? The falling of something in the nursery 
 or of a star from heaven to crush him, and for a moment 
 or an eternity, terrors unspeakable, things grown mon- 
 strous confronting him, weights insupportable holding him 
 down, distances immeasurable between him and succour. 
 Help for him! Oh help, mercy, pity for a little lost boy! 
 not these words, of course, nor any words; an inarticulate 
 cry, the cry in the night. Then for him the hurried bobbing 
 of an approaching light from the day nursery, where 
 Trimmer sat reading or working, and, as often as not, his 
 mother or even one of his aunts. 
 
 "What is it, my darling?" 
 
 Tears he himself was conscious of them on the 
 flushed cheeks. 
 
 "What's the matter, my little boy? Tell Mother" 
 or Trimmer or Aunt Laura as the case might be. "Did 
 something frighten you? What was it?" 
 
 Blinking, frightened eyes, for those who saw, and a 
 puckered forehead. For himself, bewilderment, effort, al- 
 beit with comfort. 
 
 "I thought "
 
 I 4 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Strain unimaginable to express what he had thought! 
 
 "What, my precious? Can't you tell me? There, it's 
 all right, my little boy. Don't try if it bothers you." 
 
 But he had to try, while Mother or Trimmer or Aunt 
 Laura essayed to follow. 
 
 "Yes. Oh, enormous, was it? As big as as the house? 
 Bigger than the house? As the church? Like a great big 
 orange? and quite, quite near, and dreadfully far too? How 
 could that be? What is it, my darling?" 
 
 Mother or Trimmer or Aunt Laura had not understood. 
 It was quite, quite near "like when you put your nose 
 against someone else's" (Christopher's "grammar," not 
 his mother's!) "and look into their eyes" and it was far 
 off, too. And it was bigger than the church bigger than 
 anything Christopher had ever seen, only he could n't 
 think of anything bigger than the church and heavier 
 than the world or Granny Oxeter's great big Bible, which 
 only Granny Oxeter's Robert with the gold buttons could 
 lift. Why could n't Mother or Trimmer or Aunt Laura 
 understand? 
 
 But look, said the comforting voice, it was quite gone 
 now, whatever it was. He was safe in his cot with the brass 
 rails, and there were the pictures of Cinderella and Little 
 Red Riding Hood and the Three Bears. And loving arms 
 were round him and the recollection of his terrors fading 
 and his gulping sobs ceasing. Mother (it was his mother 
 on one particular occasion which stood out somehow from 
 the rest, and not Trimmer, who was perhaps at her supper 
 when her mistress had stolen up to see him, nor his Aunt 
 Laura who for the same purpose was always slipping away 
 from the room downstairs which was known as the Droing- 
 room) Mother would stay with him till he was asleep 
 again. Yes, promise! Till he was quite asleep. And she 
 would sing to him. Yes, first, "A little ship was on the sea, 
 It was a pretty sight," and then, "Lord Lovel and Lady 
 Ancebel." Yes, the whole of it even if he was asleep 
 before the last verse. .
 
 CHRISTOPHER 15 
 
 A voice singing softly singing, as it were, under its 
 breath and for Christopher alone was heard then in the 
 night nursery, chasing fears away, and spreading a gentle 
 calm that lapped him round like tiny waves of the sea. 
 
 " ' Oh that 's a long time, Lord Lovel,' she said, 
 ' To leave a fair lady alone '" 
 
 The voice faltered. Christopher felt the hand removed 
 from his head for a moment. 
 
 "Mummy." 
 
 "Yes, darling." 
 
 " I 'm not asleep quite." 
 
 The hand went back. It held something then which had 
 been fumbled for without any actual break in the singing. 
 Christopher with eyes tight closed wondered why. But 
 the handkerchief seemed like part of the hand and he felt 
 quite safe and sighed contentedly. 
 
 " ' And so it is, Lady Ancebel, 
 But I must needs be going.' " 
 
 The voic'e, threading the verses on a slender string of 
 melody, grew further and further off. Christopher heard 
 about the milk-white steed, and "Adown, adown, adown, 
 adown," and was conscious of the approach of the line 
 which to Mrs. Herrick always seemed to have too many 
 feet. At "a branch of sweet-briar," he tried, with a vague 
 intention of announcing that he was still awake, to say 
 " Mummy " once more, but the word would not come, 
 and the last verse of all mingled itself with new and happy 
 dreams. 
 
 "They grew till they grew to the top of the church, 
 
 And when they could grow no higher, 
 
 They grew into a true lover's knot, 
 
 And so they were joined together." 
 
 The singer's head sank on to the brass rail of the cot, and 
 if Christopher had not then been far away in the land of 
 happy dreams, he must have added another impression 
 to his store.
 
 16 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Morning, and the terrors of the night forgotten, the 
 sun would pour in through chinks at the nursery window. 
 A host of impressions then, a mind active beyond control. 
 Might he get up now? He was to be good and go to sleep 
 again. Now might he get up? Well, now might he? 
 
 "No, master Christopher. Not yet, there's a dear. 
 Your mamma won't be ready for you for hours." Such 
 a drowsy voice, Trimmer's in the morning! "Hours and 
 hours. Try to sleep a little longer." 
 
 Christopher would try or rather he would not try, 
 but would lie still looking at the pattern on the wall paper. 
 There were stiff flowers upon it and, at regular intervals, 
 a bird flying after a butterfly. Christopher wondered if 
 the butterfly was ever caught. It was always at exactly the 
 same distance from the bird except in one place, where 
 a join in the paper brought six butterflies quite near to 
 six birds. But even here not one butterfly was caught. 
 
 It was often "quite light" in the morning when Christ- 
 opher woke, because in what were known as furnished 
 houses curtains did not always fit the windows exactly, 
 but left gaps at each side through which the sun streamed 
 in wonderful beams, in which floated all sorts of things. 
 Christopher could not see the marvellous dance of the 
 motes from his little bed, but he had seen it and he knew 
 exactly what it was like how they turned and twisted 
 and became silver or gold for a moment as the light struck 
 them, or blue or red or green, and how they chased each 
 other or got out of each other's way, or rose or fell, and how, 
 if you watched one as you watch a snowflake, it was cer- 
 tain to roll out of the sunbeam altogether and disappear. 
 
 When would Trimmer let him get up? Out of doors 
 everything was awake. There were always nice noises to 
 be heard in the morning. The people next door kept poul- 
 try, and one or another of the hens was generally clucking. 
 That meant that she had laid an egg for somebody's break- 
 fast. She clucked so much sometimes that Christopher 
 was quite sure she must have laid two perhaps more.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 17 
 
 Perhaps he would have an egg for his breakfast himself. 
 He had a whole egg now, and either dipped long strips of 
 bread-and-butter into it, or had it broken up into a cup, 
 which was equally delicious. He could remember the time 
 when, at grown-up breakfast at Granny Oxeter's, he used 
 to be given the top of one for a treat. 
 
 "Can I have the top of your egg, Granny Oxeter?" 
 
 "Darling, s-s-h," from his mother to him; and, to his 
 grandmother, "You must n't let him bother you." 
 
 Granny Oxeter always let him bother her only she 
 said he did n't bother her. She was certainly, as he came 
 to think, more his grandmother than Grandmamma Her- 
 rick, who, even when he was quite good (and hardly fidget- 
 ing at all), used somehow by looking in his direction 
 over her spectacles, it is probable to let it be felt that 
 he did. 
 
 "Christopher," Grandmamma Herrick would say, 
 "would you like a penny?" 
 
 "Yes, please." 
 
 "Then see if you can keep perfectly still for five minutes. 
 Without opening your lips, remember. Without moving 
 your little finger." 
 
 Well, you had to find out when the five minutes were up. 
 That was why you had to say " Now is it five? " and " Now 
 is it?" at intervals. Would it ever be? And when at last 
 it really was time and you were near the bursting point, 
 from holding your breath, perhaps, in the frenzied effort 
 of keeping still, you were told you had spoken. 
 
 Oh, not really spoken, only asked ! 
 
 And you had moved. 
 
 "But not my little finger, only" you were near to 
 protestant tears then "only my foot." 
 
 A desperately hardly earned penny, you see, when you 
 got it ; so that once, greatly daring, in answer to his grand- 
 mother's question Christopher said boldly, "Not not if 
 I 've got to earn it, please," and most surprisingly got six- 
 pence ! His first lesson in the efficacy of grasping your nettle.
 
 i8 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Granny Oxeter's pennies, on the other hand, never had 
 to be worked for. They were new, moreover (" gold " !) , and 
 just given to you for nothing. They came from a little 
 knitted bag shaped like a jug, which lived in a drawer in 
 a writing-table in Granny Oxeter's room. An enchanting 
 ceremony, the unearthing of the penny! First, Granny 
 Oxeter's keys had to be found, and they lived in a little 
 basket which held letters and string. Then one particular 
 bunch had to be chosen out of several to the accompani- 
 ment of a jingling that was music to excited young ears. 
 Not that one, not that, nor that. This stay ! no, those 
 were the keys of her wardrobe. Here we were. Here we 
 were at last. Then one particular key on that particular 
 bunch. Christopher's excitement could scarcely contain 
 itself while the key was being fitted to the lock. Click! 
 Then the wonderful thing of all : the rolling up of the top 
 of the desk which, disappearing as it did, seemed to be 
 swallowed by the desk itself. This part of the proceedings 
 had always to be repeated for Christopher's benefit. 
 
 "Let me, Granny Oxeter," and Granny Oxeter always 
 "let" Christopher. 
 
 Then the opening of the little drawer which fitted so 
 closely that, when you closed it, it sent out a little puff 
 of wind. Then the knitted jug. Then in your eager little 
 hands the gold penny. Christopher could remember the 
 day when he was asked which he would rather have, a 
 shilling or the penny, and chose the penny for its size and 
 its shining. Never were such pennies as came from the 
 knitted jug at Granny Oxeter's. 
 
 Impressions ! Impressions ! Each one indelible and fit- 
 ting into its place, there to lie till this or that should call 
 for it and turn it into a memory or memories. Christopher's 
 mind was itself a desk and a storeroom. 
 
 There were wonderful walks. There were shoppings. 
 There were people called visitors, to whom, in very early 
 doings, he was told to give his right hand. At Cheltenham,
 
 CHRISTOPHER 19 
 
 where Granny Oxeter lived, and the first few years of his 
 life were spent, some of these people came in Bath-chairs. 
 There was a ritual for Bath-chairs. The Bath-chairman 
 drew the chair up to the doorstep and then turned the 
 "handle" round, to prevent the chair from running away. 
 After doing this and receiving directions he rang the bell. 
 While he was waiting for the door to be opened, the visitor 
 gave him more directions. If the answer was, "Not at Home," 
 an eager or a disappointed card-case came into requisition ; 
 and then the chairman, having turned the "handle" round 
 again and walked backwards for a few steps, would resume 
 his natural position and draw the Bath-chair out of sight. 
 If, on the other hand, his mother was at home and the 
 visitor "got in," the Bath-chairman, when the door had 
 closed behind his employer, drew a pipe from his pocket 
 and seated himself on the "floor" of the chair, there to 
 await her return. 
 
 The ritual was always the same. Christopher, an inter- 
 ested little boy, would watch all this when he could from 
 behind the curtains of the dining-room window, or any 
 other coign of vantage. 
 
 He would be sent for or not, as the case might be, to 
 give his right hand and submit perhaps to being kissed, 
 which he hated. The soft warm smell of sealskin was inti- 
 mately associated with visitors. 
 
 Life was absorbing. Everything that caught Christo- 
 pher's attention held it. 
 
 "Come along, Master Christopher," Trimmer would 
 say a dozen times in the course of any walk. 
 
 But Christopher had to see more of whatever it was that 
 enchained him the house-painter plying his flat brush, 
 or the chairs-to-mend man interlacing his strips of split 
 cane to a familiar pattern, or the knife-grinder striking 
 sparks from his wheel. Everything made for wonder. 
 Like the Bath-chairman, Christopher often walked back- 
 wards.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PRESENTLY the scene shifted from Cheltenham, from Eng- 
 land even, and at Boulogne where things were yet more 
 wonderful, though there were still Bath-chairs and Bath- 
 chairmen, house-painters and knife-grinders, Christopher 
 found himself storing French impressions for English. 
 
 The circumstances which led to the change were not at 
 the time very clear to him. They were associated in his 
 mind with a period of red eyes in the family. From the 
 morning when, out of the blue, shot his Aunt Laura with 
 white lips, a pocket handkerchief, and an open letter, to 
 blanch the face of his mother, everybody for a time had a 
 tendency to tears. People wept more readily in those days, 
 Christopher came to think, jumped to dire conclusions, 
 imagined the worst, permitted if indeed they did not en- 
 courage scenes. Granny Oxeter, however, so much he 
 gathered before he was sent out of the room, was "ruined," 
 whatever that might mean. It drew a cry from his mother, 
 who, as she clasped her hands, dropped the " Mavor's 
 Spelling " from which (at "The Cat ate the Rat") she was 
 teaching him to read, "pointing" as she did so, with one 
 of her knitting-needles. The needle travelled patiently 
 along the line as Christopher read or palpably guessed. 
 
 'You're guessing, Christopher." 
 
 'No, I'm not." 
 
 'Then what comes before D?" 
 
 'G." 
 
 'Wrong." 
 
 ' M for mouse." 
 
 'You're not attending." 
 
 Christopher upon this occasion had only reversed the 
 order of the letters once just reversed them, to the
 
 CHRISTOPHER 21 
 
 effect of making the Rat eat the Cat, which his mother, 
 with her rare but not infrequent laugh, was in the act of 
 pointing out to be impossible, when his Aunt Laura had 
 burst in unannounced. 
 
 "Laura, dear!" said his mother, alarmed as she saw her, 
 "Laura, dear . . ." 
 
 "Look at this. He's absconded disappeared. Mr. 
 Grindle. We 're poor Mamma 's ruined ! " 
 
 His mother's cry, together with the fall of the " Mavor," 
 sent Christopher's heart to his mouth, where, however, 
 in the interest and excitement of the moment, it did not 
 remain long. He observed (somehow to his satisfaction) 
 that his Aunt Laura's hat was quite on one side and that 
 she had buttoned her out-of-door jacket up "wrong" 
 the whole way up. A tidy little boy even at a crisis, he 
 pointed these things out, but neither his aunt nor his 
 mother heeded him. 
 
 "Ruined!" said his mother. 
 
 "Ruined," said his Aunt Laura. "He's bolted. No one 
 knows where. It's been going on for years, it seems. 
 They what a scoundrel! Poor Mamma. Oh " she 
 broke off. "Christopher, dear! I ought n't I my dear, 
 I did n't see you!" 
 
 She looked significantly at her sister, and applied herself 
 to her pocket handkerchief. 
 
 "Run away, darling," said Christopher's mother. 
 
 Christopher began to beg to be allowed to stay. He 
 would be quite quiet not any trouble. He did want to 
 know so much who Mr. Grindle was and why he had bolted 
 But his mother was firm, and, howsoever reluctantly, he 
 had to go. At the door he was called back at his aunt's 
 suggestion, he fancied to be told not to say anything 
 of what he had heard to anybody. So he could n't even 
 tell Trimmer. Impossible with a whirling brain to keep 
 absolute silence. He had at least to ask what the word 
 meant. 
 
 " What does it mean, Trimmer, when some one is ruined ? "
 
 22 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "Ruined?" said Trimmer. "How do you mean?" 
 
 "When somebody's ruined," said Christopher again. 
 How to express it without naming his grandmother! 
 "When when a lady is ruined." 
 
 Trimmer straightened her back. 
 
 "Good gracious, Master Christopher! I can't think 
 where you have heard such words." 
 
 That was the beginning of the time of red eyes. There 
 was a coming and a going between the two houses. There 
 were better days and worse days. Things were not as bad 
 as had been feared at first. Things were as bad as they 
 could be. There were family discussions, from which, to 
 his disgust, Christopher was rigorously excluded. He man- 
 aged to hear a word here and there all the same. However 
 careful they were to send him out of the room he heard 
 some things. He was very sharp, you see. He was also a 
 Little Pitcher. Some one, called Poor Mr. Aggot, was doing 
 all in his power to save the ship. What ship? Poor Mr. 
 Aggot, as we may guess, if Christopher could n't, was the 
 absconding Mr. Grindle's partner. He, it appeared, had 
 been left to bear the "brunt " of a Very Bad Business. 
 
 "What's Brunt?" asked Christopher, half expecting 
 (half hoping even) to hear that it too came under the head 
 of Such Words. 
 
 Trimmer of course was not long kept in ignorance of 
 what it was that had happened. She contributed willingly 
 her share of red eyes ; willingly with alacrity even. Mrs. 
 Herrick's fortunes were involved in those of her mother, 
 and in the very dark days, when least seemed likely to be 
 saved out of the wreck, Trimmer in the r61e of confidant 
 and adviser was comfort unspeakable. 
 
 "We shall all manage, 'm, you '11 see, and if it was to come 
 to one servant " 
 
 "Oh, Trimmer," said Christopher's mother. 
 
 "I would," said Trimmer, with streaming eyes, "wages 
 or no wages." 
 
 It was not, however, as bad as all that. It amounted to no
 
 CHRISTOPHER 23 
 
 more in the end than the giving up on the part of Granny 
 Oxeter of the big house at Cheltenham with its expensive 
 staff of servants, in exchange for comparative retirement, 
 and retrenchment only more or less positive, at Boulogne. 
 Brussels was mooted, Bruges discussed, Boulogne chosen. 
 Thither Mrs. Herrick followed her mother and sisters. 
 
 "Afford," none the less, was a word which, in connection 
 with a negation, took its place amongst household words in 
 the vocabularies of the two families. Christopher had not 
 so many toys or even (quite) so many pennies, and Granny 
 Oxeter had no longer any Roberts with gold buttons to 
 answer bells and to lift the big Bible. These things did not 
 matter. What "mattered" was the enchantment of the 
 new life. New sights, new sounds, and the sea! Values 
 relatively far more important in the sentimental education 
 of impressionable Christopher. 
 
 This education proceeded. It had nothing to do with 
 lessons, and was indeed unending. It took in everything 
 that happened, everything there was more than was 
 "dreamed of" in his own or any one else's "philosophy." 
 Earth and sky and sea had a part in it, nature animate and 
 inanimate, with good and evil too, various kinds of food, 
 wholesome and unwholesome, a great deal of pleasure, 
 and something, it is to be supposed, of pain. Undecipher- 
 able many of the writings upon the page so lately blank 
 
 crossed and recrossed as his Aunt Laura's economical 
 letters to England. 
 
 Enthralling, the new life! Christopher went from one 
 delight to the next. Trimmer's "Come along, Master 
 Christopher" pointed the crowded hours. A companion 
 indulgent enough in other respects, she lacked the capacity 
 to loiter. Christopher wondered at any one who could 
 even want to move on when men were mending the road 
 
 an operation he himself would have watched for ever. 
 Did n't grown-up people ever want to see how things were 
 done? Were the sight and sound of the man's soft digging 
 in the sand with a short-handled tool which was half
 
 24 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 hammer, half pickaxe, nothing to them? Look! he had 
 made the hole now and was lifting the big cube of stone 
 which in shape and size reminded Christopher of a loaf 
 of English household bread. He was tossing it now to get 
 it into position to fit squarely with its fellows had 
 thrown it deftly into the place he had prepared for it, and, 
 with the "hammer end" of his implement, was giving it 
 the ringing blows which were somehow as music in Christ- 
 opher's ears. Trimmer could withstand even this. When 
 she had started to walk to the sands or the Ramparts or 
 what the English nurses all called the Petty Zarb or the 
 Petty Zarber, she wanted to get there, though skies fell 
 (if it was not in rain that they fell !) or roads were mended 
 to distraction! She said, "Come along, Master Christo- 
 pher," even when floury half-naked men at the baker's 
 took in the long split sweet-smelling logs for the fires which 
 heated their ovens. The wood, one side of it still with its 
 bark, the other lined, splintery, and showing here and there 
 a warm brown knot in the mellow grain, was thrown length- 
 ways down through the opening of the cellar door to the 
 bare arms ready to receive it. Christopher could under- 
 stand being told to stand back, because, if he stood too 
 near the edge, he would be in danger of falling himself with 
 the wood into the yawning cellar, but not to want to 
 see! It was the same with the iron "fountains" in the 
 streets. Trimmer never wanted to see them splash. The 
 same with the enthralling French gutters, into which 
 smelly soapy water was always being emptied for his de- 
 light. He was not encouraged to watch the empty claws 
 of a crab, or bits of paper, or potato-peel, speeding on a 
 soapy flood down the Grande Rue, or the Rue des Vieillards, 
 to the first fragrant sink gaping to receive them. In after 
 years any sudden rush of water recalled to Christopher 
 the engrossing gutters of Boulogne, with the blue of the 
 racing flood, and the look of the gaping sinks. 
 
 "Faugh ! " said English Trimmer. "Come along, Master 
 Christopher."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 25 
 
 It was not till many years after that he realised the 
 truth, and even then he did not gauge it completely. Trim- 
 mer did not see what he saw; his mother did not, or saw 
 but in part; most people did not. It took all his school 
 days to teach him that. It took his early manhood to tell 
 him why. 
 
 Is the bird-shop still on the Port where the parrots 
 screeched, and the canaries sang and flew from perch to 
 wire, from wire to perch or floor or swing, while the love- 
 birds kissed and the avadavats huddled together twenty 
 in a row? Christopher made friends with a dog or two in a 
 cage and played with many imprisoned kittens. It was 
 here perhaps that Trimmer had longest to wait on the 
 daily walk to the sands. Oh, do stop a minute, Trimmer ! 
 Well, well, well! Bless the boy. What was it now? On a 
 memorableday " it "came to a head. Might he have some- 
 thing alive of his own? A puppy? Impossible. A bird, then? 
 Come along, Master Christopher. Might he? Why 
 might n't he? Might he? It chanced, for his argument, 
 that there was an empty bird-cage in the furnished house 
 which his mother had taken. Just to put into that. Why 
 might n't he? Why, after all, something in Trimmer's 
 aspect seemed suddenly to say, why, after all, might n't he? 
 He might, then! It was a comparatively early franc of his 
 treasured French money which bought him his linnet. 
 He carried it home in excitement unspeakable and of 
 all things ! a paper bag ! His heart misgiving him by 
 reason of the captive's crackly and rustling flutterings, he 
 was ineffably comforted to learn not only from Trim- 
 mer at the time, but also from his all-wise mother after- 
 wards that to have yielded to a self-sacrificing impulse, 
 which prompted him there and then to let it go, instead of 
 consigning it to the cage for which it had been bought, 
 would have availed the poor thing nothing. Why? The 
 other birds would only have pecked it to pieces. Why would 
 they? Neither Christopher's mother nor Trimmer could 
 tell him. Their answer was suspiciously like, "Because
 
 26 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 they would." But Christopher absolved was Christopher 
 satisfied. Contented Christopher, then, with a caged bird 
 and a clear conscience! Contented Trimmer, who maybe 
 thought thus to have drawn the fangs of the bird-shop. 
 If Trimmer, however, who upon her own responsibility 
 had sanctioned a purchase the trouble and care of which 
 must necessarily fall upon herself, if Trimmer, I say, 
 really had any such hope, she did not know little boys or 
 know Christopher. The bird-shop not only remained the 
 bird-shop, but became the Bird-Shop where Christopher 
 had Bought his Linnet. 
 
 The sun shone and the breezes blew and the rain fell 
 upon these early days, while everywhere, to stir the young 
 imagination, was the smell of the sea. It met you in the 
 breeze that set everything flapping. Drying nets, brown as 
 autumn leaves, held it in essence. Sou'westers in a shop- 
 window, yellow oilskin coats, sea-boots, or pulleys, ropes, 
 sail-cloth, fishing-tackle, suggested it even in the upper 
 town. Beyond the Port were mysterious regions more sea- 
 fraught still dim places comprehensively known as Back 
 Streets, never, for fear of something called Infection, to be 
 explored, seldom entered, never, except on the dullest 
 outskirts, when, in full summer, the sun on the Port made 
 the shade of them grateful to the discreet and unenter- 
 prising guardians of the young, who, else, had kept them 
 rigorously upon an Index of their own compiling. Some- 
 where in this mysterious region, and in regions more mys- 
 terious still, lived the fishing community the comely 
 men with ruddy faces and rings in their ears, the lithe and 
 buxom women, the clip-clap of whose wooden shoes upon 
 the pavement filled the whole of the lower town with un- 
 dying music. 
 
 A little boy with eyes, ears, and nostrils could not be 
 dull. Reading was still without tears, and Mrs. Herrick's 
 knitting-needle traced its appointed course daily across 
 the page of " Mavor," with occasional excursions to those of
 
 CHRISTOPHER 27 
 
 a book in a blue cover paradoxically called the His-to-ry 
 of the Rob-ins in Words of One Syl-la-ble, but the time 
 so spent was more grudged than at Cheltenham. It was 
 difficult to "attend" when he knew that while he wasted 
 the precious moments indoors, the black-funnelled London 
 boat was being unloaded in the harbour, where a crane was 
 hoisting great bales on to the quay perhaps even horses ! 
 Oh, when it was horses! No " Come along, Master Christo- 
 pher" would get Master Christopher then! Even superior 
 Trimmer had to be interested. Down dipped the chain 
 paid out from the "reel" in the little black house. The 
 great hook was ad justed, gripped . . . rattle, rattle, rattle, 
 in the little black house, and the horse-box with its terri- 
 fied occupant was rising, rising, poised : a pause then ; click- 
 click, and the little black house was turning on its oiled 
 pivot, while its freight, snorting, trembling, panic-stricken, 
 swung out in mid-air; another pause; click, rattle, rattle, 
 rattle, and horse-box and horse were ashore! Many a 
 remonstrant "You're not attending, Christopher" was 
 atrributable to the seduction of memories of such supreme 
 happenings as these. Or the cry of the shrimp-sellers would 
 be heard under the window. Was it possible to attend to 
 the Cat and the Rat when Amelie downstairs, like the Betty 
 or Molly of one of Wheatley's "Cries of London," seven 
 of which surprisingly hung in the "furnished" French 
 dining-room, was perhaps even then going to the door with 
 a dish or a bowl in one hand and money in the other to buy? 
 For amongst the shrimps would be baby fish to enchant 
 him little plaice the size of a five-franc piece, little 
 crabs the size of anything at all from a pin's head to an 
 Albert biscuit, tiny soles, and Heaven knows what else of 
 live wonder for that sal t-and- water mortuary known as 
 his Aquarium. Or perhaps it was the mackerel cry which 
 came to him from the street, gratefully to disturb him, 
 or the pleasant sing-song cry of the coal, or only maybe 
 fugitive thoughts of the sea and the sun and the quays and 
 the gutters.^
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WONDERFUL things happened at Boulogne : twice a year a 
 fair with merry-go-rounds, and fat ladies, and a cow with an 
 arm, and a child with four legs, and Tombolas, and ginger- 
 bread, and everything else of horror and delight of this 
 and of these, later ; once a year the Carnival when Christ- 
 opher himself was allowed to wear a mask to add for all 
 time (and nothing else, perhaps) the hot cardboardy smell 
 of masks to his enthralling collection of impressions ; once 
 a year the festival of Saint Nicolas, the French Santa Claus; 
 and, once for all, the War. Then for a time went everything 
 else to the wall, and Christopher was filled with martial 
 ardour. 
 
 The town was filled with excitement. Rumour danced to 
 fact. It was to be; it was not to be. Was it to be? It was; 
 and was presently war in being. The " Marseillaise " was in 
 the air. Workmen sang it, clerks, students, schoolboys. 
 Christopher sang it drumming on the panes of the nursery 
 window, and discarded his most treasured toys for soldiers. 
 
 "Aux armes, citoyens! 
 Formez vos bataillons! 
 Marchons, marchons " 
 
 "You'll break the window, Master Christopher." But 
 even Trimmer hummed it and went so far upon occasion as 
 to wrestle with the words. " Le jour de glwore est arrivay." 
 The " Marseillaise" for " Rocked in the cradle of the deep" ! 
 
 "Gloire, Trimmer, not glwore." 
 
 "Glwah," amended Trimmer. "Le jour de glwah." 
 
 "It isn't quite," said Christopher. "Can't you hear 
 the difference? Listen when I say it: gloire." 
 
 But Trimmer had seen it spelt.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 29 
 
 "Well, it is n't glwore," said Christopher, "and it is n't 
 glaw either yes, you did. You said, Le jour de glaw (it 
 isn't contradictory when you're teaching a person) 
 and, besides, ask mother." 
 
 Mrs. Herrick did not sing it much. It was a revolution- 
 ary song, she said. The song of the guillotine really. But 
 the melody held her for all that. She sang it less as time 
 went on and events took their course. Had the day of 
 glory really come for France? Had it, when presently 
 flimsy " Depeches" were yelled in the streets, and the people 
 ran out to buy news of victories which had not taken place? 
 Would Christopher's father have sung it? There were 
 French people even who shook their heads. 
 
 But it was a time for little boys to feel martial. Christ- 
 opher longed for the Carnival, that he might dress up as 
 a soldier a Zouave for choice. As he walked beside his 
 mother or Trimmer on the Ramparts he defended Boulogne 
 against the Prussians. It was the old town of course which 
 must be besieged what else use the Ramparts? and in 
 imagination (the Ramparts being there for nothing else), 
 he pushed the scaling Prussians from their walls walls on 
 which unless held firmly by his mother's or Trimmer's 
 hand he was forbidden even to think of walking. 
 
 " If you slipped you would be dashed to pieces." 
 
 "How many pieces?" 
 
 "A thousand," said Christopher's mother. 
 
 So for every Prussian he pushed from them there lay a 
 thousand pieces of Prussian on the sloping gardens below. 
 Christopher sang the " Marseillaise," but a tidy little 
 boy, as we know paused in his slaughter. 
 
 Still, ramparts were ramparts and there were "miles" 
 of them the whole of the old town within ; the Cathe- 
 dral, streets, squares. Defences and things to defend. 
 Mysterious stone stairs, with shining iron rails worn to 
 slipperiness by countless hands living and dead, led to si- 
 lent places where quite a different life was lived from that 
 of the busy town outside. A priest would pass with his
 
 30 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 book; many little old women in black. Seclusion, secrecy, 
 mystery, everywhere. What went on behind the shuttered 
 windows and the whitewashed walls? A house or two on 
 the inner side was almost built into the Ramparts them- 
 selves. There were suggestions of hidden gardens. Lilacs 
 in the spring would peep over the wall. Some one would 
 pass in or out with a key. There were monasteries here and 
 convents. Nuns with moving lips sped silently through 
 sheltered streets. There were old men with coughs and 
 snuff. A sunny day would bring strange people from strange 
 lairs. The mystery of the Haute Ville assumed an added 
 glamour for the coming of the war which (so Christ- 
 opher had settled) was to threaten if not to disturb it. He 
 was ready to fight. 
 
 More ready still when, to his excitement and delight, 
 soldiers were actually "billeted" upon his very mother, 
 in the house with the green shutters in the Rue Gil Bias 
 off the Grande Rue. 
 
 It was December then and bitterly cold. The Mobiles 
 young men of all classes, countrymen speaking the 
 patois of their department, young men from desks and 
 counters, stables, factories, workshops were drawn up 
 on the Esplanade where the fairs were held, and waited 
 their orders. In their unaccustomed surroundings they 
 looked astray, strange, alert, interested, apprehensive, in- 
 different, according to circumstance and individual tem- 
 perament; but all, as they waited in a biting wind, looked 
 chilled to the blood or the bone. They stamped their feet 
 to get warmth into them, or swung their arms, or blew on 
 their fingers; and waited. The townspeople came up to 
 see them the householders who would be called upon 
 to take them in or pay for their lodging; and they waited. 
 Officials inspected them; and they waited. Those who had 
 money bought food. Those who had not went without ; all 
 waited. Faces grew pinched, teeth chattered. There were 
 men in thin coats ; in blouses. You were cold in a thin coat 
 or a blouse that weather. It was the time of year when the
 
 CHRISTOPHER 31 
 
 heavily clad women in the market, used to all weathers, 
 sat over little pans of charcoal. 
 
 "Poor things," murmured Christopher's mother, tears 
 in her gentle eyes. 
 
 "It isn't 'ardly 'uman," Trimmer said "keeping 
 them standing about in the cold. A blazing fire and a good 
 hot cup of coffee, that 's what they want. War or no war, 
 'm, I've hardly patience." 
 
 " I wonder whether it would be safe," said Christopher's 
 mother. She had meant to pay her men off, but when, in 
 the comfort of her own sealskin, she saw them shiver, her 
 tender heart misgave her. 
 
 Christopher with glowing cheeks was running about 
 amongst them, and coming back to his mother every 
 few minutes to pull her sleeve and impart information to 
 her. 
 
 ' ' That one 's a postman , " he said , "a facteur. I asked 
 him. He comes from the country oh, a long way off, he 
 said; and that one trying to button his coat 's name is 
 Pierre Something. Oh, are n't his hands red? I know what 
 it feels like when you can't button things 'cause your fingers 
 bend the other way, and then it 's all tingling-wingling and 
 it does hurt. May Trimmer do it for him? She can al- 
 ways button mine. Oh, do lend him Trimmer." 
 
 The young man caught Mrs. Herrick's eye and smiled. 
 " II est gentil, le p'tit m'sieur." 
 
 He was a boy. The country had tanned him. The brown 
 of autumn woods was in his hair and his eyes, something 
 of the gold of cornfields in his skin. 
 
 "Where do you come from?" Mrs. Herrick asked him. 
 
 "From Adeville, madame." He named his home. "My 
 father has a farm. Madame will perceive that I drew the 
 unlucky number." 
 
 "Ah, you will go back," Christopher heard his mother 
 say with a catch in her voice, "who knows, perhaps 
 covered with glory." 
 
 " If the good God will, madame."
 
 32 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 It was not, she believed, how he would have expressed 
 himself at any other time, nor at any other would she have 
 been moved to say, as she heard herself saying: "Your 
 mother is praying for you, I know as I in her case should 
 be praying for my boy." 
 
 She put her hand on Christopher's head and Christopher, 
 looking up, saw that she was crying. 
 
 The day went on. The men hung about in groups, talk- 
 ing or silent. Now and then one or another would walk 
 away, his hands in his pockets, and stamp his feet on the 
 hard ground. He would come back to the group from which 
 he had moved, or join another, perhaps, at the outskirts. 
 Heads would be turned enquiringly. Any news ? No 
 news. Sometimes a movement would animate the whole 
 crowd as a breeze over a cornfield sways the whole of it in 
 one direction. The patience was extraordinary. Here and 
 there one more independent than the rest was heard to 
 complain, but for the most part there was a passive ac- 
 quiescence in what was happening or not happening, in 
 what the days might or might not bring forth. A la guerre 
 comme d la guerre, and no one knew precisely what the 
 fact of war entailed or implied. 
 
 The spectators came and went. Granny Oxeter in her 
 Bath-chair was there for a time with Christopher's Aunt 
 Laura ; and at one moment or another most of the English 
 community. Here were Lord and Lady Colsonstown, re- 
 trenchers from Ireland; Mr. and Lady Sophia Witson, 
 abroad pending a perpetual settlement of their affairs ; the 
 Dowager Lady Stoke-Pogis, rich at Boulogne on her joint- 
 ure; Admiral the Honourable James Briscoe, poor anywhere 
 on his pension; General Allingham ; the Dempseys, two rich 
 elderly widows, sisters-in-law, who lived together and "en- 
 tertained," and this one and that of the Things and the 
 What 's-their-names to whom Christopher had to give 
 his right hand, and whom he thought of instinctively and 
 comprehensively as Visitors. There were others also a 
 Lady Dorinda Britton who had a suite of rooms perman-
 
 CHRISTOPHER 33 
 
 ently at the big hotel in the Rue Blanche and did n't wish 
 to be called upon, and a Mrs. St. Jemison who could n't 
 be. All these went up the Esplanade to look at the Mobiles 
 who were to be billeted on the town. 
 
 Lord Colsonstown said there was mismanagement some- 
 where. 
 
 Mr. Witson, who wore late whiskers with an early eye- 
 glass, and all whose th's were f's or v's, said he should fink 
 so too. Vere was no doubt about vat. Mrs. Dempsey and 
 Mrs. Dempsey were in a little flutter of excitement. There 
 had never in their time been such a thing heard of as sol- 
 diers billeted on the English residents. One Mrs. Demp- 
 sey began to say how long that was, and was only just 
 saved from committing herself to dates by a timely nudge 
 from the other. There were penalties attached to the pride 
 of being a leader and one of the "oldest" residents. 
 
 "Well, well," said Christopher's grandmother, "it won't 
 hurt us." 
 
 "Are you going to take them in," said the Dempseys, 
 "soldiers?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Granny Oxeter. "They seem very 
 decent young fellows." 
 
 Christopher's heart leapt. 
 
 "You will, too, won't you, mummy? Oh, do say you will. 
 You will, won't you?" 
 
 Mrs. Herrick meant to take hers in. It seemed that Lord 
 Colsonstown meant to also. So did General Allingham. 
 Lady Stoke-Pogis could n't because she had nowhere to 
 put them. Neither could the Admiral unless he doubled 
 them up with "Oh, fie, fie," cried a Mrs. Dempsey. Mr. 
 Witson and Lady Sophia must fink fings over. But, one 
 after another, the English people followed Mrs. Oxeter's 
 lead, and expressed their intention of housing the men 
 apportioned to them. 
 
 The Dempseys, demurring on the ground of propriety, 
 were not the last to yield. It was n't as if they were a 
 Family, they said. Still, the wind was very cold, and the
 
 34 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 poor fellows had been waiting all day, and it did seem hu- 
 maner to take them in then and risk Heaven knew 
 what ! than pay them off to seek other lodgings. 
 
 "I shall go back now," said Mrs. Oxeter, "and see that 
 there 's something hot for them, poor creatures, whenever 
 they come. Come, Laura. Tell him the Bath-chairman. 
 Allez! Are you coming, dear? And Christopher?" 
 
 " But I hope they won't bring anything infectious," said 
 Christopher's mother. 
 
 What remained of the day was fraught with excitement 
 for martial Christopher. He helped the maids to prepare 
 the room for the coming guests, and, when there was 
 nothing more to do, awaited their arrival with impatience. 
 All his leaden soldiers were requisitioned and a review 
 held on the hearthrug in the Droing-Room. His mother 
 was kept busy answering his questions. But when did she 
 think they would come? 
 
 This, like a thread of vivid colour in the making of tapes- 
 try, came up and up again; or like a recurrent note or 
 phrase in music. Other questions were: Was it certain 
 there would be two? Which two? Would it be the post- 
 man-one and Pierre Something? Yes, but it might be, 
 might n't it? How long would they stop? Would they have 
 their dinners with the servants? Could he have his dinner 
 with the servants, too? Then could they have their tea with 
 Trimmer and himself in the nursery? 
 
 The hours passed and no one came. It was near Christo- 
 pher's bedtime. In an hour or so the Retraite would sound, 
 when even soldiers went to bed that ultimate limit of 
 indulgence ever allowed to little boys at Boulogne in the 
 seventies. With the passing of drums and bugles and the 
 distant tramp of feet, all children of Christopher's age were 
 in bed, whence they might hear it ere they went to sleep; 
 but to sit up till the soldiers were called into barracks that 
 was for party nights only. To-night, however, . . . Christ- 
 opher begged. 
 
 " Perhaps they won't come to-night at all, and if they
 
 CHRISTOPHER 35 
 
 do they'll only have their supper and go to bed. You'll 
 see them in the morning." 
 
 It might n't ever be morning, said Christopher. The end 
 of the world might come in the night. It might. It said 
 in the Bible you could n't tell when it would come. And 
 then he would never see them at all. 
 
 "You don't know how much I want to see them, 
 mother." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 Christopher did n't seem sure. 
 
 " I want to see if I want to be one," he said at last. 
 
 Trimmer was told to come back in a quarter of an hour. 
 
 "Not a minute more, then, Master Christopher." 
 
 "That '11 do" said Master Christopher impatiently. 
 
 "It'll have to," said Trimmer, smiling. "Not one half 
 demi-second more." 
 
 "It is n't that that will do," said Christopher. 
 
 But they had n't arrived when the quarter of an hour 
 was up. Christopher knew he would have to go then. 
 When Trimmer said demi-second in connection with bed- 
 time there was no appeal even to his mother. He put away 
 his leaden soldiers with rather more elaborate tidiness than 
 usual, to make the process last as long as it might, but in 
 the end, and like a wise prisoner, went quietly. 
 
 His mother came in to wish him good-night. 
 
 " If before I 'm asleep." 
 
 "You will be. They 've got to have their supper. Think, 
 dear, they've been out in the cold all day." 
 
 "They've come, then? Oh, mother, they've come!" 
 
 Mrs. Herrick acknowledged that they had. They had 
 arrived five minutes after he went up. She had seen them 
 and they were now at their supper. 
 
 "Just for a minute " Christopher's eyes were shining. 
 "I'll go to sleep at once afterwards." 
 
 Mrs. Herrick consulted Trimmer with her eyelids. Trim- 
 mer after all was a Brick. 
 
 She said, "Yes, 'm, I think so."
 
 36 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "You promise, Christopher if they come in just for a 
 minute when they 've done their supper, you '11 go to sleep 
 at once afterwards like a good boy?" 
 
 Christopher was ready to promise anything. 
 
 So it came that, treading on tiptoe in their heavy boots, 
 two young French soldiers came smiling shyly to see a 
 little English boy in bed. One of them was not the post- 
 man, but the other, by everything wonderful, was the 
 young man from Adeville, Pierre Something. 
 
 "Oh, I wanted it to be you," said Christopher for 
 which, when it had been translated to him by Christopher's 
 mother, the young soldier, first asking permission, took 
 the little boy in his arms and kissed him.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IN the night were excursions and alarms. Something woke 
 Amelie the cook, who started up in bed and straightway 
 woke Celestine. Together they sat up and listened. At 
 the top of the house in the Rue Gil Bias was a large attic 
 known as the granary. Off this on each side of the stair- 
 case were the servants' quarters. One room was occupied 
 by Amelie and Celestine, a second for the occasion (and 
 propriety!) by Miss Trimmer, the third by the recruits. It 
 was from the third room that there came the disturbing 
 sounds whisperings, movements. 
 
 Amelie and C61estine took affrighted counsel together 
 in the dark. Amelie, see you, had been sleeping like an 
 infant when of a sudden she had jumped to waking. Celes- 
 tine would know how she felt when she heard the strange 
 men astir. She had thought to expire. It was a conspiracy, 
 not a doubt of it. They would all be assassinated. She 
 had read of such things and knew. Celestine wrung her 
 hands under the bedclothes. What to do? Listen. That 
 was the dropping of a boot. Perhaps those assassins there 
 meant to brain them four defenceless women and a 
 little boy. The alarm ought to be given. Should she put 
 her head out of the window and push a cry? It might be 
 there would be a gendarme. Or the neighbours might hear. 
 There was M. Brideaux next door, but he was no good, 
 that one. Another boot! Something ought to be done. 
 There was no time to lose. Oh, why had madame ever 
 consented to take them in, those ruffians? And madame 
 herself ought to be warned, and M'sieu Christophe, the 
 innocent. If without moving they could only get at Mile. 
 Trimere. What was that? In spite of herself Celestine 
 "pushed" a cry.
 
 38 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 The striking of a match! The two young women held 
 their breath trembling. Creakings, bumpings, the sound 
 of a soft footfall. Ah! The opening of a door, a footfall, 
 then in the granary a hand on the latch of their own 
 door. It was now . . . Heaven help them ! 
 
 The door was opened cautiously, and the light of a 
 candle revealed to the affrighted women not murderers, 
 but Trimmer. She wore her waterproof cloak (with the 
 rosette in the middle of the back) over her nightgown, 
 and had thrust her feet into slippers. She was plainly dis- 
 turbed, but not to the point of the Frenchwomen's 
 panic. 
 
 "Oh, Mademoiselle Trimere! Mademoiselle Trim^re! 
 Do you think they kill us? Oh, Mademoiselle Trimere!" 
 
 "Stuff and nonsense," said Trimmer. "Still I can't 
 think what they're up to." 
 
 "They muredure us in our slip," wailed the cook. "To- 
 morrow we are no more." 
 
 That the men were moving there could be no doubt. 
 Subdued sounds, with now and then a louder, proceeded 
 from the room across the landing. Moreover, Trimmer, 
 shading her own light, had seen a light under their door. 
 
 "Perhaps I'd better speak to Mrs. Herrick," she said. 
 
 " Don't lif us. Oh, don't lif us. We come too." 
 
 "And frighten madame's life out with your silliness? 
 Stay where you are." 
 
 You could not, however, enforce compliance in whispers, 
 and it was a procession of three which tiptoed down the 
 cracking stairs to the door of Mrs. Herrick's room. Nor 
 would the shivering two stay outside the door. 
 
 Christopher's mother woke with a start to find three 
 incongruously dressed females standing by her bed. Trim- 
 mer, we know, wore her resetted waterproof with loop 
 sleeves; Amelie her outdoor coat and a very short striped 
 petticoat, and Celestine the quilt off her bed. 
 
 "Trimmer, for goodness' sake, what's the matter? Is 
 any one ill? Master Christopher "
 
 CHRISTOPHER 39 
 
 "Oh, madame, calmez-vous, je vous en prie. Escape we 
 instantly." 
 
 " No, 'm, nobody 's ill Be quiet, you two stupids, can't 
 you!" (Trimmer, terrible in the grey waterproof, turned 
 on them.) "Hold your tongues and behave like grown 
 women Nobody 's ill and nothing 's the matter that we 
 can be sure of. ..." 
 
 " Is it fire?" Mrs. Herrick sat up, sniffing the air for a 
 smell of burning. "The kitchen chimney wanted sweeping. 
 I knew it. I said so." 
 
 "No, no, 'm. It is n't fire. It's the soldiers." 
 
 "The soldiers?" 
 
 For a moment Mrs. Herrick thought Boulogne was in 
 the hands of the Germans. 
 
 Amelie said, "They assassinate us"; Celestine, "It is 
 a conspiracy a plote." 
 
 " Teyzy-vous ! Will you keep quiet ! Teyzy-vous, je vous 
 dee." She turned to her mistress. "They're moving about 
 in their room. There's a light under the door and they're 
 talking in whispers. Even I don't know what to make of 
 it. And these two ninnies are no more good than so many 
 caterpillars " her frown was annihilating "You see it 's 
 the middle of the night, a quarter past three. I don't 
 know, I'm sure " 
 
 "One of them may be ill. Oh, Trimmer, the one thing 
 I was afraid of was infection." 
 
 " It sounds more like as if they were dressing themselves 
 than infection," said Trimmer. " If it was infection or any- 
 thing of that sort, it would n't sound like this. It'd be 
 more " She broke off. 
 
 "More what, Trimmer?" 
 
 Even in the middle of the night Mrs. Herrick felt whim- 
 sically interested to learn what Trimmer thought infection 
 would "sound" like. But Trimmer had broken off, and 
 Christopher curiosity in a little nightshirt had added 
 himself to the group. 
 
 For Christopher, awakened out of sleep, impressions,
 
 40 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 indeed, to add to his store! First, voices penetrating his 
 slumbers, coming to him as across measureless distances, 
 to call him to earth. Earth suddenly then in the shape of 
 his familiar bed made unfamiliar somehow by the circum- 
 stances of the strange moment; a groping for bearings, fear 
 not far off exactly, but adequately held in check by curios- 
 ity, and by the knowledge, perhaps, under everything else, 
 of the position of his room in relation to succour ; a gradual 
 realisation of the direction whence the sound of the voices 
 proceeded ; a sitting up, to become aware not only of voices, 
 but of a light in the adjoining room, and, when he had 
 stepped to the ground and padded across the floor in his 
 bare feet, the odd sight of the odder group by his mother's 
 bed! Delicious excitements for Christopher. More de- 
 licious still when apprehension found its way into them. 
 For it must be admitted that there was a moment in Mrs. 
 Herrick's room when all held their breath, and it was not 
 only the shivering Amelie and Celestine who were fright- 
 ened. These stifled a Mon Dieu apiece, and clung to each 
 other in palpitating silence. Trimmer stiffened and turned 
 her eyes on the door, and Mrs. Herrick took Christopher's 
 hand. Every one listened. Christopher was n't exactly 
 frightened. He could n't be of the soldier who had kissed 
 him. But what he was was frightfully exciting. A stealthy 
 foot on the stairs two feet; four, to be accurate . . . 
 
 Afterwards, how they all laughed! Christopher went 
 back to bed with a biscuit and a lump of sugar with eau 
 de Cologne on it (to prevent his catching cold!). Amelie 
 and Celestine giggled on and off for the rest of the night. 
 Trimmer said Upon her Word ! And Mrs. Herrick chuckled 
 herself to sleep. Two young soldiers, without clock or 
 watch, wake up in the night and think it is time to get up, 
 and a household is thrown into panic. Well, well, well. 
 
 But it made for friendship all round. The young soldiers, 
 desolated to have alarmed madame, reaped for their 
 blundering something not unlike affection in the Rue Gil
 
 CHRISTOPHER 41 
 
 Bias. Poor shy, conscientious things, what "gentlemen" 
 they were treading softly not to disturb, and disturbing 
 everybody! It was somehow "pathetic." The incident 
 had in it that touch of nature which makes the whole 
 world kin. An Irishwoman would have said, "The crea- 
 tures!" throwing approval and pity and everything else 
 that is benign and exclamatory into an expression. Mrs. 
 Herrick said, " Poor dears! " and meant nothing less. She 
 was easily touched, perhaps. 
 
 Christopher stoutly declared that he had not been fright- 
 ened. His mother owned, with Trimmer, that she had not 
 known what to think. Trimmer added that as it just 
 showed how different everything looked by day, it would 
 be a lesson to her in the future. 
 
 "You've no need of lessons, Trimmer," Mrs. Herrick 
 said. "You were courage itself." 
 
 "Ah, but you don't know what I was like inside, *m," 
 with a deprecating shake of the head. "Though I 'd have 
 died sooner," she added, "than show anything to Am'ly 
 and Cekstine great sillies!" 
 
 "What were you like inside, Trimmer?" said Christo- 
 pher, who naturally wanted to know. "Outside you had 
 on your waterproof, and you did look funny." 
 
 "Funnier than I felt, then, Master Christopher. Which 
 is answering your question." 
 
 Amelie and Celestine, however, had happily lost nothing 
 in their own or each other's eyes by their undisguised trem- 
 ors. Christopher, who had the entree of the kitchen, found 
 them exquisitely amused, and ready to enlarge upon the 
 terrors which had assailed them. Amelie laughed till the 
 tears rolled down her cheeks, and Celestine threw her 
 apron over her head, cap and all, and rocked herself. 
 Never had there been so good a joke. Conspirators? 
 Assassins? The two innocents getting up and dressing 
 themselves in the middle of the night. And Amelie and 
 Celestine, one or other, had nearly opened the window, 
 look you, and pushed a cry. Au secours! Au secours! If
 
 42 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 any one had come! M. Brideaux for example in his horn 
 spectacles? Or M. Artois from the stables down the street? 
 Or Pere Albert the tobacconist, with his Turk's cap on his 
 head and snuff about his nostrils. The thought of these 
 persons to the rescue was too much for the young women. 
 They rocked in unison. 
 
 "Well, you needn't have been so silly," said Christo- 
 pher. 
 
 "Silly! In the middle of the night! What would you? 
 Oh, when I think of it " 
 
 And off again, and over again, and so forth and so on. 
 Trimmer could n't understand it. 
 
 "Though you can't help but smile," she conceded in- 
 dulgently. 
 
 The young soldiers, it was clear, were the heroes of an 
 adventure of which Amdlie and Celestine were the hero- 
 ines! With superior Trimmer you could not have helped 
 smiling. 
 
 The work of the house went on oiled wheels meanwhile. 
 The soldiers waited upon the maids in their spare time 
 chopped wood, drew water, carried coals. Fires were found 
 miraculously laid, boots cleaned, and windows. Pixies might 
 have had the house under their protection. The billet was 
 for three days, but Christopher's mother asked her guests 
 to stay on. Their delight was not less patent than Christ- 
 opher's, to whom this period was a time of enchantment. 
 He adored them, and they him, as they respectfully wor- 
 shipped madame his gracious mother. He rode on their 
 shoulders, his sturdy young legs round their willing necks. 
 They rigged up a swing for him from a beam in the gran- 
 ary ; swung him ; taught him gymnastics ; drilled him. They 
 were formidable rivals to the attractions of the Bird-shop 
 on the Port or even the landing of horses from the London 
 boat. Saint Nicolas came, and mysterious additions to the 
 contents of Christopher's stocking. 
 
 "Oh, they've been spending their money! They must 
 n't. Oh, Trimmer " said Mrs. Herrick,
 
 CHRISTOPHER 43 
 
 "They were so set on it, 'm. They asked me if I thought 
 you 'd mind. I was to smuggle the things in." 
 
 "Of course, I don't mind. Only " 
 
 " Yes, 'm. I know. I had n't the heart to refuse them." 
 
 A humming-top with a song like the song of a hive, and 
 a box of paints with a sliding cover, little bricks of colour in 
 wooden compartments in which they rattled, china sau- 
 cers, brushes, swelled the shifting collection of Christopher's 
 cherished toys! Nor would they be thanked. It was 
 nothing. It was Saint Nicolas, moreover, not they. Christ- 
 opher hugged them for all that. 
 
 So, for Christopher, storing impressions, the outstanding 
 features of the war were not in after years to be connected 
 with the names of Napoleon III and William of Prussia, 
 of Marshals Bazaine and MacMahon, with Gravelotte, 
 Sedan, Metz, Strasburg, Paris, for milestones by the way 
 to the ultimate cessions and indemnities, but rather with 
 a top and a box of paints which remained to him to pre- 
 sent two amiable young countrymen who nearly threw 
 a household in the middle of the night into panic. Hum- 
 ming-tops in later years sang Alsace and Lorraine to him 
 sadly for their gentle sakes, and paint-boxes shewed him 
 nursery colourings of pictures in the " Illustrated London 
 News." He was not a soldier.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THEY went as they came into the blue for out of it. 
 There were tears in the Rue Gil Bias. Christopher cried 
 frankly hanging round the neck of Pierre About, whom 
 he loved best. Jean Poulard came a near second, but Pierre 
 from Adeville was first. Had he not seen Pierre before 
 even the billets were settled? Had he not spoken to him 
 then in a way introduced him to his mother? Besides, 
 Jean Poulard was in love with Celestine (Trimmer said 
 so!), and used to look at her as he swung Christopher in 
 the swing in the granary if, as was not infrequent, she 
 was there to be looked at ; and Pierre was not in love with 
 any one, and so was free to be Christopher's friend. You 
 could not help loving one person more than another 
 whom you yet loved nearly as much. You just did, and 
 there was an end of it and no more to be said. Celestine, 
 when the swinging was in progress, pretended to be heart- 
 whole leaning against the balustrade at the top of the 
 granary stairs, and generally laughing. Pierre used to pre- 
 tend that Jean was jealous if she turned in his direction, 
 and Celestine would toss her pretty head. Jealous, indeed! 
 Jealous! "II n'y a pas d' quoi." That meant that there 
 was n't any what, if it meant anything. What was what, 
 then? Pierre seemed to know. Jean seemed to know. 
 Trimmer did know. Christopher, flying to the skylight in 
 one direction, and backwards to the sloping roof in the 
 other, was always desperately interested. But Celestine, 
 Trimmer said, was a Sad Flirt. 
 
 "Flairt?" said the innocent C61estine, "Fleurt? Qu'est 
 ce que ga veut dire?" 
 
 "Oh, you know," said Trimmer. 
 
 Sometimes it was Celestine herself who was swung
 
 CHRISTOPHER 45 
 
 a screaming Celestine making pictures L'Escarpolette, for 
 example, with its attendant hazards! and imploring, 
 through her little shrieks of laughter, for mercy. Christ- 
 opher, inciting Pierre or Jean, had none. Higher! Higher! 
 Even Trimmer, there to look after Christopher and per- 
 haps to play propriety, had to laugh. The spirit of the 
 swing was irresistible. If only her understanding young 
 mistress could have seen too! But that of course would 
 have been out of the question . . . though she might hear 
 
 and did. It was a pity, however, for the sight was ex- 
 hilarating, and C61estine's laughter infectious. How they 
 were punishing her! She would laugh herself to-the ground 
 if she did not take care. What, still higher? Higher! She 
 had brought it upon herself. 
 
 And then some one would say it was Trimmer's turn. 
 Not Trimmer ! if she knew it. Not for some one of the 
 period called Joseph ! 
 
 All over, and Pierre and Jean off to the war! No wonder 
 there were tears after so much laughter. No more gym- 
 nastics and drillings; no more enthralling accounts of life 
 on a French farm ; no more personal contact with the war 
 
 for that day, at least, Christopher, resentful, wanted it 
 gloriously or ingloriously over. C61estine, weeping for her 
 assassin, her conspirator, her peaceable Jean Poulard, was 
 not more inconsolable. 
 
 "After all," Trimmer said, "there's nothing like a man 
 in a house, 'm, is there?" 
 
 Mrs. Herrick smiled, but agreed with her. 
 
 It was Christopher's first experience of the transience 
 of things generally. His mother had learnt her lesson 
 long since, and watched him thinking of one beside whom 
 she had thought to watch him. To be sure he had not stood 
 still. There had been Cheltenham where there was now 
 Boulogne, but he had parted with no one before to whom 
 he was or he imagined himself to be attached. He wan- 
 dered about the house disconsolately, grieving, bored, 
 uninterested, and, if it must be admitted of him, rather
 
 46 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 cross. Poor Christopher, but oh, poor mother of Christ- 
 opher, who had known Christopher's father! There was 
 nothing, as Trimmer had said, and as Christopher had 
 found out for himself, like a man in the house. 
 
 After the going of the soldiers, life in the Rue Gil Bias 
 seemed rather flat to every one for a time. Boulogne was 
 not very cheerful just then, though the times themselves 
 were exciting. Dissatisfaction was rampant France 
 beginning to realise in earnest all that the surrenders 
 of the autumn had meant. News from the front was dis- 
 credited now. Disputant politicians were agreed in con- 
 demning, if in nothing else. The nation's enemy came in for 
 scarcely harder words than its former leaders. It was 
 A bas this one and that long since, and not as at first the 
 Germans only. "Monsieur" Berdenheimer (Albrecht), 
 the German book-binder of the Rue Trois Sceurs, who, 
 popular as he was, had felt all along that he could not be 
 quite sure of his position, knew still less what to make of 
 it. It was touch and go with the Latin race. Would his win- 
 dows be broken, after all? Resentment simmered, threat- 
 ening at any moment to break into a boil. The people who 
 had welcomed the Republic had looked to it to reverse the 
 reverses, and with the Emperor and Bazaine for scape- 
 goats had turned hopeful faces to the future. Napoleon 
 and his marshals remained to them for execration, but were 
 prospects improving? Business was said to be at a stand- 
 still. The women grumbled in the market. Their young 
 men had been taken, and to what good? The shopkeepers 
 grumbled behind their counters and across them. No one 
 but felt the pinch of the times had felt it since the dis- 
 asters, but seemed now to be feeling it increasingly, and 
 with the siege of Paris . . . things were at a pretty pass 
 in a world which thought itself civilised ! Depressed times, 
 my masters, strange, depressed, exciting times! 
 
 The more timid of the English community began now 
 to talk of leaving. No one landed. Mrs. Oxeter was not
 
 CHRISTOPHER 47 
 
 going to budge. The Lord bless her soul, was not God in 
 his heaven and the Folkstone boat at her very door? Mrs. 
 Herrick did not mean to move either. Christopher, living 
 keenly again after the brief reaction, and taking impres- 
 sions as a sponge sucks up water, was enjoying himself. 
 
 So life went on as before the war, only not quite as be- 
 fore, for there was always the feeling now, behind your 
 walks or your lessons or your play, that something might 
 happen a rather pleasant feeling, Christopher thought. 
 Had not something happened, indeed, in the recent billet- 
 ing of the Mobiles on the town? Something more might 
 at any moment. It was said presently that rats were be- 
 ing eaten in Paris. Rats! Think of that! Christopher, how- 
 ever, with the catholic palate of youth, thought he would 
 rather like to eat a rat. He was quite sure that he would 
 like to eat a mouse. Why, you could buy larks on a string 
 in the market or at any of the poulterers' shops (only 
 Christopher's mother never did, because it was cruel 
 well, because larks sang, then, and "it" was a "sin and a 
 shame!"), so why should n't you eat mice, which, though 
 they were smaller, even allowing for the lark's feathers, 
 would of course be equally delicious on strips of toast ? 
 The accounts, then, of the eating of dogs, cats, and rats 
 even did not horrify Christopher as they should have hor- 
 rified him. Trimmer, with her outraged mouth awry at 
 the mere thought of such things and her internal economy 
 said to be "quite turned," could hardly eat her tea that 
 day. 
 
 " I 'd like a mouse," declared Christopher stoutly. 
 
 "To be sure, they eat snails in some parts of France," 
 said Trimmer faintly. "I don't think I could sit at the 
 table with one." 
 
 She sipped delicately. 
 
 Periwinkles were different, she held. They were shell- 
 fish, like oysters, which were very expensive. Besides, she 
 was n't sure that she did like periwinkles so very much. 
 Shrimps, now
 
 48 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Shrimps ate anything, said Christopher particularly 
 corpses. 
 
 He was not to be horrified. But there were other stories 
 of starvation and sickness and cold which impressed 
 his young imagination deeply. It was "lucky," he said, 
 that Pierre and Jean were not in Paris. 
 
 He went back to the sea and the quays and the gutters. 
 There were other things in life besides the war, after all. 
 Had he only thought he was martial? His mother, watch- 
 ing him, wondered. She did not believe, somehow, that, 
 soldier's son as he was, he was going to be a soldier. Nothing 
 definitely showed yet. Movements as of straws, perhaps. 
 Did you need more, though, to tell you the wind's direc- 
 tion? Chaff would do that dust, the lighter sweepings 
 of the road. When she saw, then, that he was philosophical 
 rather than combative in the small things of every day, 
 and that while other boys for their excitement must be 
 up and doing, he for his had not to do more than use his 
 eyes and his ears and his nostrils, she drew her conclusions. 
 By degrees, moreover, she began at this time to be dimly 
 conscious of some inner life upon which her strange little 
 son seemed to draw for his eager sustenance, and which he 
 fed in turn with the harvest of these garnerings. 
 
 Oh, the sea and the quays and the gutters! 
 
 Then quite suddenly upon a day one traveller returned. 
 A ring at the back door revealed to the answering Celestine 
 not her Jean, it was true, but his comrade. The excited 
 young woman summoned Amelie and Trimmer, and the 
 three of them, rejoicing to see him again and noticing no- 
 thing at first, led him to the kitchen. His last letter had 
 miscarried, or his correspondents in the Rue Gil Bias would 
 have known that some of the Mobiles were to be quartered 
 once more in the town. Orders and counter-orders had ruled 
 their disposal, and they had seen no fighting. They were 
 not billeted this time upon householders, but, the barracks 
 being full, were sleeping (on straw) in such shelter only as 
 the Custom House afforded.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 49 
 
 Mrs. Herrick and Christopher were out when he came. 
 It was Granny Oxeter's birthday, and they were spending 
 the afternoon and evening with her at her house in the 
 Place Moliere. Christopher wore his best suit and was to 
 stay up for late dinner at which there was to be champagne, 
 a fascinating wine which in those days bubbled up like a 
 fountain from the depths of the stem of your glass. But 
 the day and the party were fixed in his memory as much 
 for that which did not happen as for that which did. For, 
 on the one by reason of the other, he missed his friend's 
 visit for which, as events turned out, his mother, at 
 least, could never be sufficiently thankful. This for he 
 was never to see the young soldier again must be counted 
 for that which did not happen. That which did happen 
 was that on this day he heard for the first time of the exist- 
 ence of Cora St. Jemison. 
 
 Pierre About, he learned afterwards, came to the Rue 
 Gil Bias at six. At that hour Christopher was saying good- 
 bye to the last of the visitors the people in bonnets who 
 had brought his grandmother flowers and knitted shawls 
 and wished her many happy returns of the day. Then his 
 grandmother and his mother and his two aunts drew their 
 chairs round the fire for one of those enthralling grown-up 
 conversations which he never tired of listening to. Experi- 
 ence had taught him not to ask questions and, the better 
 to listen, always to occupy himself at such moments with 
 a book. Questions only brought such answers as "Never 
 mind, dear," or "You would n't understand," or "You'll 
 know when you 're older, " if not, indeed, from his Aunt 
 Laura, who none the less adored him, "Little boys should 
 be seen and not heard"; the unfairest answer, surely, that 
 ever was framed for the silencing of the acquisitive young. 
 A book was covert ambush even. Granny Oxeter's 
 big Bible with the pictures and what Christopher called 
 the Hypocrapha was shelter from under which Christo- 
 pher, unperceived, assisted at many a confabulation not 
 meant for his ears. It was thus that he had heard of the
 
 50 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Mrs. St. Jemison who could n't be called upon, and thus 
 that he now heard of Cora. 
 
 In the Rue Gil Bias, meanwhile, time passed oddly. 
 Pierre sat on and on in the kitchen. He was heavy and un- 
 like himself so unlike the young soldier who a short time 
 back had helped on the one hand to scare the household 
 and on the other to make the swing of laughter and love in 
 the granary, that the servants knew not what to make of 
 him. He talked of the p'tit m'sieur, and Christopher after- 
 wards had that for his comfort. He drank coffee feverishly, 
 but could not eat. He sat with his head in his hands. It 
 was an effort to him to give what news he had to tell of 
 his comrade. Jean Poulard was here or was there, he was 
 not sure; but madame and the p'tit m'sieur, would they 
 soon be in? Should he see them? It was a parrot cry. The 
 good madame and the p'tit m'sieur and they had ex- 
 plained to him so often. 
 
 Celestine, who had welcomed him in her excitement al- 
 most as Rhoda of old the Peter of all, when in hers she 
 left him standing at the gate, exchanged anxious glances 
 with Amelie and Trimmer. The man was ill, not a doubt 
 of it. At eight o'clock Trimmer, really anxious, took action 
 and sent for a doctor. By ten poor Pierre was in hos- 
 pital. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later Mrs. Herrick and Christopher 
 got home. Christopher happily was sleepy, or he might 
 have wondered inconveniently why Trimmer opened the 
 door to them, and why there was such a smell of sulphur 
 in the house. There was something, moreover, in Trimmer's 
 aspect and demeanour which ordinarily would not have 
 escaped him. He would have seen for one thing that she 
 was wearing her best dress, if, in the sudden light of the 
 lamp after the darkness of the hired fly, he had not been 
 blinking and winking, his knuckles to his eyes; nor prob- 
 ably would he have missed a signal which she made to his 
 mother. 
 
 "You're tired out, darling," his mother said to him
 
 CHRISTOPHER 51 
 
 quickly. "Go on up and begin to undress. We shall be 
 up after you in a moment." 
 
 Christopher made for Trimmer, but she receded oddly, 
 he would have thought if he had been capable of thinking. 
 
 " Nonsense, Master Christopher, you must walk up your- 
 self." 
 
 " Do as I tell you, darling." 
 
 Christopher mounted the stairs laboriously, a step at a 
 time. 
 
 "There won't be a light," he said sulkily over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Yes, there will," said Trimmer. "I left everything 
 ready." 
 
 Christopher got as far as his room, where presently his 
 mother found him fast asleep on the bed with his clothes 
 on. 
 
 "There's nothing to be afraid of, 'm, and we've all had 
 'ot baths and I Ve changed to the skin, but I thought per- 
 haps if you '11 put him to bed for to-night I 'd better not go 
 near him, being a child Master Christopher, I mean. You 
 see the poor young man sat here the best part of two 
 hours or more, and all we could get out of him was when 
 should he see you and the young gentleman. It was lucky 
 I thought of the doctor, for I 'm sure I did n't know what 
 to do, and when he said smallpox petty verole, as they 
 call it I said sulphur and hot baths, and we've had every 
 window in the place open. Still, it 's best to be on the safe 
 side." 
 
 " His poor mother," said Christopher's. But what Christ- 
 opher, waking suddenly out of sleep, wanted to know was: 
 what was meant by "Custody of the Child." 
 
 "Custody of the Child?" said Christopher's mother. 
 "You've been dreaming, darling." 
 
 "No, I have n't." 
 
 "But Custody " 
 
 "My collar undoes first. Granny said it." 
 
 "Said what?"
 
 5 a CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "Said Mr. St. Jemison had it, and now he was ill, and if 
 he died and there was nowhere else for Cora to go, she 
 supposed Mrs. St. Jemison would have to." 
 
 "Oh!" Mrs. Herrick's forehead was puckered. "Have 
 to what?" she said after a pause. 
 
 "Have to have it." 
 
 "Never mind Mrs. St. Jemison, dear. It's getting very 
 late. Besides" even mothers, as Christopher came to 
 know when he was older, could use words inconsequently ! 
 "besides, I did n't know you were listening." 
 
 So Pierre About went out of Christopher's life (for he 
 died, poor fellow, not many weeks later), and, indirectly, 
 on the same day, Cora St. Jemison, a mere name, but a 
 name, it seemed, not to be spoken, came into it. 
 
 Christopher long remembered that particular birthday 
 of the birthdays of his grandmother.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IF there was presently one person more than another in 
 whom Christopher was interested, it was the beautiful 
 lady who could not be called upon by grown-up people 
 nor talked about before little boys. He knew her very well 
 by sight. Her chignon was different from any body else's 
 different even from his beautiful mother's, whose, in turn, 
 was, oh, so very different from his Aunt Laura's. His Aunt 
 Laura's, and most other people's, contained what Christ- 
 opher called stuffing, and Trimmer "frizettes," which gen- 
 erally showed through. No stuffing showed through his 
 mother's thick plaits nor Mrs. St. Jemison's nor Trim- 
 mer's, for that matter, which, as we know if we have not 
 forgotten, were quite beyond her station and permitted only 
 by her gentle mistress's indulgence. But while Trimmer's 
 locks were brown, and his mother's brown, too, with a cop- 
 pery tinge in the light, Mrs. St. Jemison's were of an in- 
 credible gold, more beautiful than anything Christopher 
 had ever seen. You could see Mrs. St. Jemison's tresses 
 from afar. They sauntered rather superciliously discon- 
 tentedly as often as not under a mauve parasol with a 
 folding stick down the Grande Rue, or along the Port, or 
 down the planks laid on the softness of the upper 
 "Sands." She would sit with a book in a beehive chair, or 
 in one of the tents which you could hire, and look contem- 
 platively or amusedly at the people who could not call 
 upon her. Sometimes a very good-looking young English- 
 man would be with her, but she did n't seem to know any- 
 body else. She always looked happy for the first few days 
 when he was there, and the people who could n't call, some 
 of whom knew him, turned their heads away more than 
 ever and said It was Very Sad, and Such a Promising Young
 
 54 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Fellow, and something about a Wretched Entanglement, 
 and a great deal about His Poor Father. Christopher 
 knew they said these things, for, though his mother always 
 fell into silence when Mrs. St. Jemison's name was men- 
 tioned, and, if Christopher had known it, had started at the 
 first sight of the young Englishman and turned precipi- 
 tately into a shop as if to hide, his aunts were not so reti- 
 cent, and Christopher, when he was out with either of them, 
 often found himself the listening one of a talking group. 
 But the young Englishman, who, by the way, could always 
 make Mrs. St. Jemison laugh, did n't look a bit Entangled, 
 Christopher thought, and he certainly did not look wretched. 
 He looked on the contrary very careless and light-hearted 
 and sometimes rather cross. It was Mrs. St. Jemison then 
 who looked wretched if any one did, only it was more 
 aggrieved, if Christopher had known it, than wretched, 
 and it was generally after that that the Englishman would 
 not be there, and Christopher would know from what the 
 groups said that he had Gone Back to his Relations. 
 Christopher hated the groups. 
 
 He tackled Trimmer. Why could n't ugly people call? 
 Because Mrs. St. Jemison had run away from her husband, 
 if he must know, and at the last as at the first, according 
 to Trimmer, that is, as according to any one else, Mrs. St. 
 Jemison was not a Nice Woman. This Christopher dis- 
 puted. He would pit his conviction against the opinion of 
 any group. Oh, but she was, he maintained nicer than 
 any one in Boulogne except his mother. To that Trimmer, 
 up in arms, said that he was n't to name her in the same 
 breath with his mamma. Mrs. St. Jemison had taken 
 steps that put her outside the Pale whatever that meant. 
 Christopher's "What Pale?" was overlooked in her ve- 
 hemence. Leaving her little girl, too, Trimmer had n't 
 patience. Well, anyway, said Christopher, the nice English- 
 man thought her nice, and he, Christopher, would rather 
 (if not precisely in these words) be thought nice by him 
 than by all the ugly old women put together who sat in
 
 CHRISTOPHER 55 
 
 groups on the sands, on week days, went to church in the 
 Rue de la Lampe on Sundays, and wore bonnets and 
 bugles and called on each other all day long! 
 
 "For shame, Master Christopher." 
 
 "I would," said Christopher stoutly, nor was he to be 
 dislodged from the position he had taken up as the lady's 
 champion. Trimmer, however, might be relied on to show 
 wisdom in her generation, and to cease argument at the 
 right moment. One thing would oust another, she knew 
 that ; and led Christopher from the scene of the discussion 
 the sands, where Mrs. St. Jemison, whether she was 
 there or not, might always be felt to be in evidence to 
 the Esplanade, where planks and nails and much hammer- 
 ing were insisting just then on the imminent impendence 
 of the summer fair. 
 
 "We'll see how they're getting on up there, shall we?" 
 said Trimmer. 
 
 "Up there," where the Mobiles had once shivered in the 
 cold, there was bustle and stir to divert the young mind. 
 The merry-go-rounds had not arrived yet, but many of the 
 shows were in course of erection. Gaunt frameworks, 
 presently to be covered with canvas, threw unwonted 
 shadows. Living vans stood by pegged-out claims where 
 presently a Bearded Lady or a Giant or a Fat Woman 
 would hold five-sou or three-sou court. Here dust was in 
 the air, with many conflicting odours. Farther on, where 
 the stalls would soon display their wares, the clean smell of 
 wood was predominant and met the nostrils pleasantly. 
 Here was a stall nearly finished. Packing-cases lay in it 
 and outside it, and shavings and straw littered the ground. 
 Here, again, the frame only was standing, and neat match- 
 boarding waited the carpenter's will. Shining nails lay 
 everywhere. You might pick one up at every step, and 
 Christopher soon had his pockets full. The hammering was 
 deafening in places. Every board, whether implicated or 
 not, made itself a sounding-board for ringing blows. These 
 echoed down the unfinished alleys, and, whenever they
 
 5 6 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 found three walls, there made riot. It was Take that, and 
 that, and that, through poor Trimmer's head Christ- 
 opher enjoying it all, taking all he was given and asking 
 for more! 
 
 Mingling with the scent of the wood was now and then 
 a delicious smell of cooking. Here, as everywhere else in 
 the town, or any French town, something very savoury 
 seemed to be in course of preparation not far from wherever 
 you might be, and through unfinished doors, or the alley 
 between stall and stall, a glimpse might be caught of a 
 woman stirring a saucepan or bending over a frying-pan, 
 or lifting the lid of a pot, perhaps, to taste what it covered. 
 Mrs. St. Jemison was forgotten ; the nice Englishman ; Cora. 
 
 Christopher jingled the nails in his pockets. He had 
 tenpenny nails, nails with square flat heads, brass-headed 
 nails, "brads," tacks, even. 
 
 "The 'oles I shall 'ave to mend," thought Trimmer to 
 herself, " the 'oles." 
 
 Still it was better than Mrs. St. Jemison and ten 
 minutes later it was Mrs. St. Jemison Mrs. St. Jemison 
 more than ever, Mrs. St. Jemison to some purpose. 
 
 Trimmer, it chanced, had made a conquest just then at 
 Boulogne not her only conquest, by any means, since 
 she had lived with Mrs. Herrick, either there or elsewhere. 
 But the English piano-tuner was rather an attractive young 
 man, and his "superior" position impressing Trimmer, 
 who frowned as often as not upon her conquests, she was 
 inclined to smile upon him. Meeting him now by chance 
 upon this summer's day she smiled upon him at some little 
 length, and Christopher, left to himself for the unmeasured 
 moment, wandered off to seek amusement or mischief. 
 He found both near at hand, and was soon happy upon a 
 hazardous see-saw of his own contriving. 
 
 Trimmer then might be as long as she liked with her 
 piano-tuner. A rickety trestle supported the plank upon 
 which Christopher balanced himself adventurously. He
 
 CHRISTOPHER 57 
 
 threw his weight first upon one foot and then on the other, 
 and the plank responded upon its rocking axis. A little crowd 
 of gamins, never long absent anywhere, collected presently, 
 and began to offer suggestions. Christopher, a good-tem- 
 pered little boy, was for ignoring these politely, or even 
 for explaining why he did not care to adopt them, when one 
 ragamuffin, more aggressive than the rest, laid his hand on 
 the swaying plank and pushed it. 
 
 Christopher's French was not idiomatic. 
 
 "Si vous faites c.a encore " 
 
 No sooner said than done. The plank swung suddenly 
 round. The trestle heeled over. There was a crash and 
 a cry and Christopher lay amid the wreck of his see-saw. 
 He was on his feet in a moment, ready with his little 
 fists, too ! and was vaguely conscious of being spurred 
 on by a voice which said, "Go it, young 'un. Punch their 
 bullet heads for them," when of a sudden the world, like 
 the plank, swung round, and Christopher sank to the 
 ground. He was only dimly aware then of the precipitate 
 flight of the boys as some one ran forward . . . 
 
 "It's the nice little English boy," another voice was 
 saying when he came to himself. 
 
 "Young devils, I'd like to have broken their heads for 
 them. What is it, little chap? Where does it hurt?" 
 
 "In my trousers," said Christopher. "I think it's one 
 of the nails." 
 
 "One of the nails!" 
 
 "He's bleeding. Oh, poor little fellow." 
 
 "Hush, you'll frighten him. What nails, little chap?" 
 
 "The ones I picked up. You can find any number if you 
 look, you can, really. Oh!" 
 
 He had moved a little as he spoke and the stab of pain 
 which he felt forced a cry from him. 
 
 "It's in still. It's sticking in," he said in rather a 
 weak voice for Christopher. 
 
 It was indeed. He began to cry now in spite of himself. 
 A spreading patch of blood was reddening his trousers.
 
 58 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 He was wearing a white sailor suit and the encroaching 
 stain looked dreadful upon the linen. Christopher won- 
 dered whether he was going to die. 
 
 The Englishman's fingers wrestled with buttons. Mrs. 
 St. Jemison, pulling off her gloves, and ignoring the dust, 
 was on her knees in a moment and helping him with gentle, 
 capable hands. 
 
 "Now, pull," he said to her. "Easy! There's another 
 button. No, it 's the pocket. Stop, I '11 cut it." He whipped 
 out a penknife. 
 
 "Not you, little chap, don't be frightened. Only your 
 pocket. It 's all right. We won't even spoil your beautiful 
 suit, though I think it'll have to go into the tub after this, 
 won't it? That's better. Get my handkerchief out of my 
 pocket. Inside. Yes, I shall want yours, too. Hold him 
 up a little bit, will you? Now," to Christopher, "it'll hurt 
 just for one second, old boy; you won't mind that, will you? 
 and then you'll be as right as ninepence." 
 
 Yes, it did hurt for a second. Christopher held his 
 breath. He would n't cry out. He would rather be hurt 
 by the young Englishman than any one. He did n't much 
 mind being hurt by the young Englishman. But, oh, it did 
 hurt. He had to hold his breath tight. 
 
 ' ' Where 's Master Christopher ? ' ' Trimmer said suddenly. 
 
 The nearest hammering had ceased for some reason or 
 other, and perhaps the comparative lull brought her back 
 to a sense of her surroundings. She did not want her charge 
 out of her sight for long amongst fair-folk whom she thought 
 of as gipsies. 
 
 "Where's Master Christopher?" 
 
 "Not far off, you may be sure, Miss Trimmer." 
 
 "I don't know why, then," said Trimmer, "though I'm 
 sure I hope you're right." 
 
 "No one," said the piano- tuner gallantly, "no one 
 who had the felicity to be privileged, so to speak, to be 
 near you, could wish of his own will to wander very far."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 59 
 
 "Tut, tut," said Trimmer, not ill-pleased all the same. 
 "Not Master Christopher's view of the situation, I can tell 
 you, when I have to say, 'No, you must n't,' to him, as I 
 have to nine times out of ten though a better boy never 
 ate sour apples. Where is he, though? He was here not a 
 minute ago not five, anyway." 
 
 She looked about her. The ceasing of the hammering 
 near at hand gave an unreal feeling to the moment. The 
 piano-tuner and she, having been at some pains to make 
 themselves heard, were left suddenly with raised voices. 
 It was to Trimmer as if, walking in the dark, she had felt 
 a searchlight suddenly turned on her. 
 
 The men who had been hammering jumped down from 
 an unfinished stall and made hastily for the spot where the 
 shows would be. Some women ran across the open space 
 at the end of the alley. 
 
 "There's something up," said the piano-tuner. 
 
 "If there's a crowd Master Christopher's sure to be in 
 it," said Trimmer. "I never saw such a curious boy 
 and not exactly curious either. More interested, I think. 
 Interested in everything and wanting to see it and under- 
 stand it. I 'm sure, when he was smaller, I spent my time 
 in nothing else than saying, 'Oh, do come along, Master 
 Christopher.'" 
 
 " You would n't have to say that very often to me," said 
 the piano-tuner. He had but one idea. 
 
 They began to walk towards the opening. Trimmer sud- 
 denly quickened her pace. Suppose Master Christopher 
 were not round the corner, after all ! She remembered a 
 day when he and another little boy had gone off by them- 
 selves on the rocks and terrified their respective nurses 
 out of their senses. They had been found then in their 
 homes, calmly waiting the return of their missing guard- 
 ians the tables turned to some purpose ! But the fright 
 the horrible "turn"! 
 
 "If he's not there," said Trimmer, "I'll never forgive 
 you."
 
 60 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 " Me ? " said the piano-tuner, " never forgive me ? " 
 
 "Yes, you," said Trimmer sharply, but, repenting her 
 of the evil as she saw his face fall, added, "Nor myself 
 either," for his comfort. 
 
 They reached the opening. Yes, there was a crowd sure 
 enough. Trimmer hurried forward. Christopher would 
 be in the thick of this. It did not surprise her that she 
 should not see him on the outskirts. He would have 
 wormed his sturdy litheness to the middle of it, where he 
 would be asking questions, making suggestions, answering 
 its components in their own tongue. Well, well, she knew 
 where to find him ; and approached now, nothing doubting. 
 
 To her surprise the crowd broke for her. Afterwards she 
 realised that some one, who had perhaps seen the pair 
 together, recognised her as Christopher's nurse and made 
 way for her, telling the others. To her at the time it was 
 as to the Israelites when they saw the waters of the Red 
 Sea parting before them. When she saw Christopher, pale 
 then from loss of blood, and saw who they were who were 
 ministering to him, her feelings were such as could with 
 difficulty have been put into words. 
 
 Mrs. St. Jemison and the young Englishman with 
 help from Christopher, proud of the inch and a half of 
 tenpenny nail which had been pulled out of him quickly 
 explained the situation. The wound was being bound up 
 with the two handkerchiefs. Even in that moment of fear 
 and dismay, Trimmer remembered that the handkerchiefs 
 were "compromised." 
 
 "He ought to see a doctor at once," the Englishman 
 said aside to her, when he had put the last pin (Mrs. St. 
 Jemison's pins!) in the bandage. " I don't think he's done 
 himself much harm, but he has lost a little blood, and the 
 wound ought to be seen to. Who is your mistress's doctor ? ' ' 
 
 Trimmer named him. She was trembling, but itching to 
 get Christopher to herself. 
 
 The bandaging was finished, but at least she could dress 
 him. Like Mrs. St. Jemison before her, she fell to her
 
 CHRISTOPHER 61 
 
 knees beside him, and with nimble albeit shaking fingers 
 began to adjust his clothes. The Englishman resigned him 
 to her greater experience. 
 
 " I should like to have punched those boys," said Christ- 
 opher. 
 
 "You wanted to get at 'em, did n't you, little chap?" 
 said the Englishman, smiling. "He 's a plucky little devil," 
 he added under his breath to Trimmer. 
 
 Mrs. St. Jemison stood now looking on. With the com- 
 ing of Trimmer her part seemed done. She, perhaps, could 
 see that the English nurse was chafing to get her charge 
 away from his surroundings. Trimmer's manner was per- 
 fectly respectful, but to Mrs. St. Jemison, accustomed to 
 the looks of people who could not call and to varying 
 degrees of disapproval or criticism, its significance would 
 be patent. Trimmer had turned a listening eye upon her 
 when she spoke, but had addressed herself only to her com- 
 panion. 
 
 " I'll take him home now, sir, thank you. I '11 get a fly. 
 I shall be able to manage." 
 
 She rose to her feet and shook the dust from her skirt. 
 Her face lifted as her eye fell upon the piano-tuner, who 
 stood at the edge of the crowd. 
 
 "Get me a fly," she said, and turned back to Christopher. 
 "Say good-bye, Master Christopher, and thank the gen- 
 tleman and the lady for their kindness." 
 
 "The fly's not here yet," said Christopher. 
 
 "It will be in a minute, dear," she said, controlling her 
 voice with difficulty. "We must n't trouble the gentleman 
 and the lady any further." 
 
 "He ought n't to walk, you know," said Mrs. St. Jemi- 
 son to the Englishman, doubtfully. "He oughtn't, you 
 know. It might bring on the bleeding again." 
 
 "You'd better let me carry you to the fly," said the 
 Englishman. He addressed Christopher, but in a manner 
 that did not exclude Trimmer. 
 
 "I'll carry him, sir, thank you "
 
 62 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "No you won't, Trimmer. I won't be carried. I'll 
 walk." 
 
 "No, little chap, you must n't walk." 
 
 "Trimmer shan't carry me," said Christopher. "Why 
 can't I walk?" 
 
 The reason was explained to him discreetly. 
 
 "You shall carry me," he said then. 
 
 Trimmer said nothing. The Englishman said nothing 
 either, but lifted Christopher in his arms and began to 
 walk with him in the direction of the Grande Rue. Mrs. 
 St. Jemison walked on one side of him, Trimmer on the 
 other. The crowd began to disperse or followed. The 
 workmen went back to their hammering. Such of the 
 crowd as were following were reenforced by newcomers. 
 These came from behind the half-built shows or out of 
 them, or were the casual and the passer-by. Trimmer's 
 silence was palpable. Ten to one there would n't be a fly 
 to be had for love or money, and what then? Was her mis- 
 tress's son to face half the length of the Grande Rue in his 
 present company, a growing crowd following? The thought 
 was intolerable. 
 
 "If you'll put him on the seat at the corner, sir, I'll 
 wait till the fly comes." 
 
 "You'd better do as she wishes," Mrs. St. Jemison said 
 in a low voice. 
 
 "Will you tell me something?" Christopher was saying 
 to the bronzed ear near his face. 
 
 "Anything you like, little chap." 
 
 " I want to know your name when I tell mother." 
 
 "My name, eh?" 
 
 "That's Mrs. St. Jemison, I know, and her daughter's 
 called Cora." 
 
 "Oh, you know all that, do you?" said the Englishman, 
 smiling, but an odd look came into his face and he turned 
 his head away a little. 
 
 "Yes," said Christopher. "You don't mind, do you?" 
 
 "No, little chap."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 63 
 
 "What's your name, then?" 
 
 "Oh, there is a fly," said Trimmer. "There is one." 
 Her eagerness was painful. 
 
 "My name's John Hemming, little chap. If I thought 
 it would hurt you to know it, I would n't tell you. Good- 
 bye and God bless you." 
 
 He motioned to Trimmer to get in, and deposited his 
 burden in her lap. Mrs. St. Jemison stood back. 
 
 "I I am grateful to you, sir," said Trimmer un- 
 steadily, "and and to the lady, too. My mistress would 
 wish me to thank you " 
 
 The Englishman stopped her with a gesture. 
 
 "Put him to bed," he said. "I'll see that the doctor is 
 sent to you." 
 
 It was not till then that Trimmer burst into tears.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 CHRISTOPHER'S accident was a little more serious than had 
 been supposed at first. Before the fly arrived at the green- 
 shuttered house, the bleeding had broken out afresh. The 
 ominous stain shewed itself suddenly to be spreading upon 
 what was still white of the white trousers, and Trimmer, in 
 the shaking fly, improvising an urgent tourniquet with 
 her handkerchief and trembling fingers, may have re- 
 pented her precipitancy in dismissing even damaged Sa- 
 maritans. Christopher was half fainting when she carried 
 him up the steps. 
 
 Celestine's cry on beholding him she was always ready 
 to "push" cries, as we know brought Mrs. Herrick from 
 the dining-room where she had been settling flowers. Her 
 face grew as white as Christopher's. 
 
 "Trimmer!" she said, catching her breath. 
 
 Trimmer hastened to reassure her. 
 
 "Not badly. Not badly, thank God. It's the loss of 
 blood. He slipped off some boards at the fair " 
 
 Christopher opened his eyes to say, "I did n't. They 
 pushed me," and closed them again as his mother's arms 
 slid round him, reminding him of nursery days. 
 
 Trimmer accepted the amendment. 
 
 "They pushed him," she said, "some little gamins 
 his see-saw, as I understand. And a nail ran into him. 
 He had n't been out of my sight half a minute, and you '11 
 never forgive me, for nice hands he 'd got into though 
 their kindness you would n't believe. Oh, I '11 tell you, 'm, 
 by degrees. The first thing's to get him to bed." 
 
 They got him to bed without loss of time, Mrs. Herrick 
 wasting none in useless questions or lamentations, and, for 
 something of conviction in Trimmer's tone, even accepting
 
 CHRISTOPHER 65 
 
 her assurance that the doctor would be with them as soon 
 as was humanly possible. Trimmer, shaken and upset, 
 began to recover herself. It was strange, and significant, 
 too, how complete a confidence the young Englishman had 
 inspired in her. Through all her antagonism she knew that 
 she could trust him. Oddly enough, she knew that, in this, 
 at least, she could have trusted Mrs. St. Jemison too. 
 
 " If one's out," she said to herself, "he'll find another," 
 and with her mind's eye could see Mr. Hemming scouring 
 the town. But the doctor had not been out, and Christ- 
 opher had barely been laid between the cool sheets before 
 the sound of wheels at the door told of his arrival. 
 
 From the window of Christopher's room she saw him 
 hop from the fly. Its remaining occupant, with a wave of 
 the hand to him and a word to the coachman, was driven 
 off as the doctor's ring sounded 
 
 "He has been quick," said Trimmer; but she did not 
 mean the doctor. 
 
 Bed for Christopher, then, for some days, it was probable. 
 A bad night followed his accident. A suspicion of poison 
 in the wound and a. resulting "temperature." He tossed 
 and turned and could not sleep, or slept and dreamed. He 
 was so hot. He was burning. He was sure he was on fire. 
 And he was thirsty. Oh, not barley water. Plain water. 
 Cold water. Oh, not just a little like that. A long, long 
 drink . . . 
 
 His mother was always beside him when he woke, and 
 her cool hand there to put upon his burning forehead. 
 How cool it was each time, till the burning of the forehead 
 heated it. But it was always cool again in a moment, and 
 never tired. Trimmer was in and out all night too. She 
 wanted her mistress to go to bed, but in vain. 
 
 "For an hour, 'm just for an hour." 
 
 "No, I'd rather stay." 
 
 The two sat by the shaded lamp near his bed. 
 
 Christopher, half dozing, heard scraps of whispered con-
 
 66 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 versation. Trimmer was always saying, "I'll never for- 
 give myself," and his mother, " Nonsense, Trimmer. How 
 could you help it?" or "It was n't your fault." 
 
 "What I could have wanted to stop there talking for! 
 It is n't as if and besides. Though who could have sup- 
 posed!" 
 
 "Nobody. You're not a bit to blame." 
 
 "But if I had n't, it would n't have happened." 
 
 "Oh, nonsense and stuff," his mother would say ab- 
 sently. This many times. 
 
 Then there was another sort of conversation of which 
 Christopher, waking suddenly from a longer dozing, became 
 aware, and to which I am afraid he listened, using stillness 
 for ambush, as, in its hour, he had used Granny Oxeter's 
 big Bible. 
 
 "Down on her knees in the dust, 'm, and the skirt was 
 embroidered six rows. Down in all the dust, and you know 
 what that is when they're putting up the shows. French 
 dust, too, which nobody '11 ever persuade me is n't dustier 
 than English. But there she was, and if it had been to tear 
 up her petticoat, I believe she'd have done it." 
 
 "It was wonderful. Poor, poor woman." 
 
 Christopher wanted to ask why. 
 
 "And me hardly speaking to her civilly, because I 
 could n't bear that she should touch him and ready to 
 cry too for her kindness. It was dreadful. I must have 
 seemed as hard as hard. But inside well, she could n't 
 know that. She saw. Oh, she saw. She was all for stopping 
 him and keeping out of it. Of course I hardly said anything, 
 but she 's had something to put up with, any one could 
 tell, and to have to hurt her " 
 
 "Oh, I hope you did n't." 
 
 " I don't know, 'm. I spoke to him, 'm, when I had to. 
 Oh, I did n't forget my place. Nobody could say I 
 was n't respectful. But you don't have to use words to 
 express an attitude, and one part of what I was feeling 
 she felt; that I know. The other part she did n't. She'll
 
 CHRISTOPHER 67 
 
 never know, not being able to see my inside. It was like 
 throwing stones at a wounded animal. She's not happy, 
 'm." 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Herrick. "How could she be?" 
 
 "Which makes it twenty times worse." 
 
 "Tell me about him." The voice did not sound quite 
 steady which said this. 
 
 "His gentleness I shall never forget," said Trimmer. 
 "Never. Though why I should have made choice between 
 them speaking to him, I mean, when I had to, without 
 a look if I could help it in her direction, passes my compre- 
 hension looking at things fair and square as I am now. 
 Still, there it is. It's the woman we blame when all's said. 
 If Master Christopher 'd been his own son he could n't 
 have been more tender. The handkerchiefs I '11 wash myself, 
 'm. And proud of him like as if he might have wished 
 for a boy of his own. 'Little chap' he called him." 
 
 "'Little chap'! Did he?" 
 
 "To bring the tears to your eyes, 'm." 
 
 "Oh, the poor fellow." 
 
 Why again? 
 
 "And all the while, under my 'ardness, I was thinking 
 to myself that it would have gone hard with her to resist 
 him, 'm, and we don't know what she may have gone 
 through. S-s-h, 'm." 
 
 Trimmer held up her finger. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 In a moment they were both leaning over the bed. 
 
 "He is n't asleep." 
 
 "Can't you, darling? Can't you get to sleep? Count 
 sheep going through a gate. Or shall I sing to you?" 
 
 "Oh, I'm so hot," said Christopher. 
 
 They shook up his pillows and turned them. That was 
 better, was n't it? Yes, but only for a little while, for the 
 cool pillow grew hot. It was time for his medicine then. 
 He watched his mother measure it out an Eighth Part 
 every Four Hours. He had taken two Eighth Parts now,
 
 68 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 she said to divert him. Twice eight was sixteen. He had 
 taken One Sixteenth, had n't he? which was a great 
 deal. 
 
 It was Trimmer who detected the flaw in that argument. 
 According to that, she said, the dose about to be taken 
 would make One Twenty-fourth, and just look at the 
 bottle. 
 
 "Well, three eights are twenty-four," Mrs. Herrick 
 began to say and looked at the bottle well, it was the 
 middle of the night ! Mrs. Herrick's laugh was always good 
 to hear, and Christopher laughed because she did. But 
 his great restlessness had begun again. No, the wound was 
 not hurting him. It was only only 
 
 "Only what, darling?" 
 
 He did not know, and was crying. 
 
 Then his mother sang to him as in the very early days, 
 and chose "Lord Lovel." 
 
 "I want to see him," said Christopher. 
 
 "Lord Lovel?" 
 
 "The Englishman Mr. Hemming." 
 
 That was what Mrs. Herrick had been afraid of. It was 
 what Trimmer had known was inevitable. The two ex- 
 changed glances. 
 
 In the early hours of the morning, when Christopher grew 
 easier, his mother consented at last to go to bed. Even then 
 she did not sleep, but lay listening from her own room for 
 sounds from his. At six Trimmer looked in to tell her that 
 he was sleeping comfortably, and she suffered herself to 
 close her eyes. But she did not sleep much even then. At 
 eight she was with him once more. 
 
 It was a lovely morning. The sun streamed through 
 the window on to Christopher's bed, and with it came 
 noises from the busy street. The sound of the emptying 
 of water was never long absent from such noises. Bou- 
 logne gutters must flow with soapy water, as Boulogne
 
 CHRISTOPHER 69 
 
 housewives must scour and scrub. The cry of the coal 
 came in and the cry of the shrimps ; other cries, some of 
 them ugly: Mme. Leveque, who lived over the coach- 
 house, and drank, screaming for Alphonse or Louise; a 
 carter swearing at an overladen horse; but for the most 
 part the pleasant sounds of life and a workaday world. 
 
 Christopher, awake now, washed and comfortable in 
 a clean nightshirt and a newly made bed, his rumpled 
 hair brushed and combed, lay still and received languid 
 impressions. Trimmer had "settled" him and given him 
 his breakfast, and had now left him to make her own toilet 
 and break her own fast. 
 
 A solicitous Amelie, in temporary charge of him, sur- 
 rendered him to her mistress. 
 
 "I descend now," she said, "to make mount madame's 
 tea." 
 
 His mother heightened the feeling of sunshine in the 
 room. She wore a crackling calico dressing-gown which was 
 all over little green sprigs, and her hair was in the long 
 plaits by which he used to drive her when he was smaller. 
 She drew him into her crackling arms. 
 
 "You're better, darling. You're better, thank God." 
 
 Yes, he was better. There was no doubt of that. His 
 cheeks were no longer flushed, and his eyes no longer shone 
 feverishly. The hot, dreadful night was over, and he only 
 felt tired. 
 
 "You had a nice breakfast?" 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " I was n't very hungry. I don't like dry toast very 
 much, and I'd have liked tea." 
 
 "Milk, darling, 's better for feverish little boys. We 
 want the doctor to find you much better when he comes." 
 
 "Is he coming again?" 
 
 "Yes, darling." 
 
 "Am I going to be ill long?" 
 
 "No, dearest, I hope not. I think not. Why?" 
 
 Christopher traced the pattern of one of the green sprigs
 
 70 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 with his finger. The sprigs were little bunches of myrtle 
 tied with love-knots of pink ribbon. 
 
 "Why did you keep saying 'poor' last night if you don't 
 like them?" 
 
 "Poor?" 
 
 " About them. When Trimmer was telling you. You said, 
 'Poor, poor woman,' and then you said, 'Poor fellow.' 
 And Trimmer was beastly to them at least, not beastly, 
 but I don't know. Anyway, she hates them. She won't 
 let me even say, 'There's Mrs. St. Jemison,' when we see 
 her on the Sands ; she says, ' 'Ush, Master Christopher' 
 and her dress was all over dust where she knelt on it 
 Mrs. St. Jemison, I mean and I bled on his trousers 
 where he held me. I saw the mark, and he did n't say any- 
 thing, though it was as big as half a franc." 
 
 There was a moment's pause before Mrs. Herrick spoke. 
 Christopher traced the outline of a whole sprig on the 
 starched dressing-gown. 
 
 "He seems to have been very, very kind to you," she 
 said. " I shall never forget it to him to either of them. 
 Trimmer does n't hate them really " 
 
 "Not inside, perhaps," interrupted Christopher, "but 
 you can't see inside. She said so last night. I heard her. 
 And outside she was offended all over." 
 
 Mrs. Herrick smiled in spite of herself, so aptly did 
 Christopher seem to her to have expressed Trimmer and 
 her attitude. Offended all over. She could see Trimmer 
 straightened, rigid, offended all over! 
 
 "She thanked them, dear. She did thank them. She 
 said that I should wish her to thank them." 
 
 Christopher clung to his point. 
 
 "I wouldn't let her carry me," he said. "She only 
 wanted to prevent him. She wanted to get me away all the 
 time." 
 
 Mrs. Herrick looked at her son's remonstrant face, and 
 did not answer immediately. The laughter left her eyes. 
 
 "Trimmer was in a very difficult position," she said
 
 CHRISTOPHER 71 
 
 when she spoke. " I can't explain to you. You do trust me, 
 don't you, Christopher? Well, you must just take what I am 
 going to say without understanding it. There are reasons 
 why we can't be friends with Mrs. St. Jemison and Mr. 
 Hemming. Very sad reasons. You will understand one of 
 these days, and you will know that we could n't help it. 
 The reasons make it impossible for us to know them. No 
 one realises this better than they do themselves. They 
 know, Christopher." 
 
 "But you like them or you would n't have said ' Poor.' " 
 
 " I am sorry for them both. Things might have been so 
 different. Yes, I do like them, I must, for their goodness 
 to my son." 
 
 "They'll never know," said Christopher. "It's inside 
 you're sorry. It's inside you like them. And they can't 
 see inside. Even Trimmer said that. They won't know 
 you're sorry. They'll think you hate them like Trimmer 
 even if she does n't hate them. And she knelt down in 
 all the dust, and I bled on his trousers." 
 
 Christopher, weakened by recent loss of blood and the 
 more recent fevers of the night, burst into tears. 
 
 "They'll never know," he sobbed. "They can't know 
 if we don't tell them. It's dreadful to seem horrid to 
 people when you love them, and I love him better than 
 any one except you and and Pierre, and Pierre 's 
 dead. He tried not to hurt me when he pulled the nail 
 out, and it did hurt, and I did n't cry, and he said I was 
 plucky. But it was n't that. It was because " 
 
 "Because what, dear?" 
 
 "Because I would n't have minded how much he hurt 
 me, and he'll never know. He'll never know." 
 
 Mrs. Herrick's arms closed more tightly round him. 
 His tears wet the sprigs on her dressing-gown took the 
 "starch" from the calico where they fell. She whispered 
 endearments, comfort. But he would not be comforted. In 
 her heart she was proud of him. Her boy was a gentle- 
 man.
 
 72 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "You must n't cry, Christopher. You 11 make yourself 
 ill again. He will know. If he 's what I take him to be 
 what I do believe him to be he'll understand. I know 
 what you feel and I 'm glad to think my boy does feel in 
 this way." 
 
 Christopher shook his head. 
 
 "You know because I've told you, but I have n't told 
 him." 
 
 He refused to be comforted.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IN the end it came that a strange hour found Mrs. Her- 
 rick writing a difficult letter. Christopher was not making 
 such progress towards recovery as, considering his youth 
 and the nature of his illness, he should have made, and 
 something not unlike anxiety began to threaten the green- 
 shuttered house. Mrs. Herrick would not admit that there 
 was cause, or that there was likely to be cause, for any- 
 thing so unnerving, so terrible ; but the hour came, all the 
 same, when she wrote to John Hemming. It might have 
 surprised Christopher to know that her letter, though after 
 long deliberation, began "Dear John." 
 
 She took no one into her confidence but Trimmer, who 
 was to find out where he was staying, and thither convey 
 the letter to him. In the circumstances there was no one 
 that she could consult. Her mother, to be sure, was largely 
 tolerant and, within limits, was always for living and let- 
 ting live. She had fewer of the arbitrary prejudices of her 
 time than most people, and would at least have seen that 
 there were two sides to a question. With her Mrs. Herrick 
 would gladly have talked out her intention. But of her 
 sisters, Laura and Catherine, good timid creatures, in- 
 clining, of weakness, to rigid orthodoxy and to intermin- 
 able discussions, she could not be sure. They had not 
 thought that she should even write to Mrs. St. Jemison 
 to thank her, wtfen she returned the handkerchiefs. It was 
 in deference to their'high-pitched opinion that she had so 
 far compromised as to write impersonally, in the char- 
 acter, that is, of the Mother of the Little Boy who met 
 with an Accident, and to whom the Lady and Gentleman, 
 whose Handkerchiefs she was returning, had been so very 
 Kind ; but her own inclination would have been to write in
 
 74 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 ner own name and take her chance of embarrassing conse- 
 quences. 
 
 Mrs. St. Jemison had an apartment in the Rue Racine. 
 Everybody knew that, and it was there that Trimmer had 
 taken the first letter, dropping it into the box after dark, 
 and hurrying away as fast as her virtuous legs would carry 
 her. But Mrs. St. Jemison, it seemed, if she had thrown 
 her cap over the windmill, had some regard to appearances 
 arid had no thought of throwing her two dainty shoes in its 
 wake. Mr. Hemming, so Trimmer discovered, was to be 
 found no nearer to his lady's bower than the H6tel des 
 Deux Mondes, a good quarter of a mile away, on the Port. 
 There, having run him to earth, the piano-tuner aiding 
 her, she delivered her letter. 
 
 Mademoiselle would wait the reply ? 
 
 "No, thank you," said Trimmer, with a significant look 
 at her attendant, whom nevertheless she promptly dis- 
 missed, before hurrying away on the feet of the prudent. 
 Her attitude was strictly non-committal. She neither dis- 
 approved nor approved of her mistress's action. Some- 
 thing had to be done so much was clear. Master Christ- 
 opher as the days passed was not picking up his strength, 
 and had taken an "idea" into his curly head. Master 
 Christopher mattered more than any one or anything else 
 under the sun, but . . . 
 
 Impossible for Trimmer, with her training and her 
 instinctive prejudices, to eliminate the Buts which 
 crowded upon her exercised mind. It the wisdom of the 
 move was as it might be. She could go no further than 
 that. 
 
 And so to the sum of his young impressions Christopher 
 added another. He would always remember the Wonderful 
 Visit. It was like the visit of Pierre and Jean to his bed- 
 side, on the night long ago of their arrival, when the greatly 
 desired had happened; like other things, "surprises" for
 
 CHRISTOPHER 75 
 
 the most part, but, perhaps, for the ardour with which he 
 welcomed it, like nothing else at all. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon of the day on which Trim- 
 mer had been sent on a mysterious errand about which 
 he had been vaguely curious, when the bell of the front 
 door was heard to ring. His mother in a muslin dress, also 
 with sprigs upon it, was reading to him, and something 
 in the way she broke off to listen arrested his attention. 
 It was half-past six by the clock on the mantelpiece. Only 
 intimate visits in the ceremonious seventies were paid so 
 late in the afternoon. 
 
 "Who at that hour?" his mother's expression said 
 plainly, yet with a tag which escaped him and may have 
 been the "Unless " which, in the circumstances, it 
 probably was. 
 
 His grandmother had called earlier, and his two aunts 
 his Aunt Laura in a new hat which, it had been agreed at 
 some length, did not become her, and which, as she could 
 "conscientiously" be said hardly to have worn it, she was 
 going to "take back to the shop." Unless in connection 
 with this anything had happened to make further consulta- 
 tion necessary, it was improbable that a second visit would 
 be paid that evening by any member of the family. Who, 
 then? The doctor had taken Christopher upon his morning 
 round. 
 
 Celestine could be heard answering the summons. 
 
 Christopher looked at his mother. She was sitting with 
 the book open upon her knee, listening intently. 
 
 Together they listened. 
 
 "Who do you tjiink it is?" Christopher whispered, 
 though, as his room was on the second floor, there was no 
 very urgent reason for lowering the voice. Was it some- 
 thing in the moment that asked for whispers? 
 
 Some one was being shown up to the drawing-room. 
 Celestine's foot was on the stairs. It surprised Christo- 
 pher a little that, instead of waiting till Celestine reached
 
 76 .CHRISTOPHER 
 
 the door, his mother put down the book and went to meet 
 her at the top of the stairs. He did not hear what Celes- 
 tine said, but he heard her go down. 
 
 To his surprise, and even a little to his indignation, also, 
 his mother followed her without coming back to him. He 
 heard her open and close the door of the drawing-room. 
 
 It seemed a long time before any further sounds reached 
 him from below. No one had remembered even to send 
 Trimmer to him. He lay still and looked at the ceiling. 
 And at the wall paper. And at the window. He was very 
 tired of being in bed. Who was downstairs? Not that it 
 mattered. He hated visitors. 
 
 His toys were where he could get at them, but he did not 
 turn in their direction. He felt as at the dreary time which 
 had followed the departure of the young soldiers. Nothing 
 interested him very much. A solitary fly was stationary 
 on the ceiling. It did not even walk about to amuse him. 
 The wall paper had rosebuds and ribands upon it, but no 
 birds to chase butterflies as on the Cheltenham paper to 
 which he sent a regretful thought flying. The window was 
 not near enough to see out of. 
 
 And then in five minutes everything had changed 
 nothing actually, for the fly, which was dead, remained 
 stationary, the wall paper produced no birds or butter- 
 flies, the distant window showed him no more than its 
 patch of sky but everything, everything ! There was 
 the sudden sound of the drawing-room door being opened. 
 This according to precedent should mean departure. There 
 was a sound of voices on the stairs going down? not 
 going down ; coming his way ! his mother's and another 
 voice. It was the sound of the second which raised Christo- 
 pher's head from its pillow. His heart beat wildly under 
 his little nightshirt. 
 
 "Somebody has come to see you," said his mother, 
 appearing at the door. 
 
 ,"Mr. Hemming!" said Christopher.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 77 
 
 Had the fountains of life been stayed, so that they 
 flowed sluggishly, grudgingly? the healing juices been with- 
 held? It seemed so. For it was presently manifest that 
 from the moment Christopher had unburdened his soul 
 of its debt of gratitude, unburdened it, rather, of the 
 suspicion of ingratitude under which, by reason of 
 Trimmer chiefly, it supposed itself (odd little soul !) to be 
 lying, he began to mend. It was as if the blood he had 
 spilled flowed back into his veins, permitting nature to do 
 its beneficent work. 
 
 John Hemming, sitting by the bed and hearing Christo- 
 pher's blushing incoherences about what Christopher had 
 thought he must think, understood had understood, it 
 seemed, all along. Mrs. Herrick, standing at the foot of 
 the bed in her pretty sprayed muslin, watched him as he 
 reassured her breathless little son with ' Little Chaps ' (as 
 Trimmer had said of them, to bring tears to your eyes!), 
 and a delightful smile and the pressure of the kindest hand 
 that ever showed breeding and strength. 
 
 She had not done unwisely, whatever the aunts and even 
 Trimmer might think. But oh, John Hemming, who had 
 once wanted to marry her, and oh, the pity of everything!
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 CHRISTOPHER, though John Hemming may be said indi- 
 rectly, or even directly, to have helped him to recover, 
 was not destined to add many impressions of that elusive 
 physician to his large store. Those that he did add were 
 puzzling. Why, after the intimate talk in his room, did 
 his new friend recede to an even greater distance than that 
 at which Christopher had viewed him in the days before 
 the accident, when he had been not Mr. Hemming at all, 
 but the Englishman who looked so much nicer than any 
 one else at Boulogne, and over whom, for Christopher, 
 by reason of a mysterious connection with the beautiful 
 lady who could not be called upon by the stuffy groups, 
 there shone all the glory of suspected romance? Things 
 happened or rather did not happen. For the friendly 
 pressure of his hand, he gave the little boy the barest nod 
 of recognition when Christopher waved to him across a 
 road ; and he did not stop, though he must have seen that 
 Christopher meant to elude Trimmer and run over to him. 
 This was bewildering, even when you had been warned 
 that something of the sort must happen. But worse fol- 
 lowed; meeting Christopher with his mother almost face 
 to face in the street, he did not appear to see either of 
 them looked straight before him ! 
 
 Christopher, withdrawing an outstretched hand and 
 chilled to the marrow, looked at his mother. Her eyes 
 were on shop windows. He could hardly restrain his 
 tears. Did he make his friends only to lose them? He was 
 too young for the thought to take shape. But there was 
 Pierre dead; and there had been, and there was not, 
 John Hemming. His poor little heart was very full that 
 day. No sun or open sea or quays or gutters could ease it.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 79 
 
 But life scurried on which may have been by grown-up 
 arrangement. As there had been no time to grieve for poor 
 Pierre, so now there was none to see this new emotion out. 
 Moreover, about this period, to the relief of one exercised 
 looker-on, Mrs. St. Jemison, as the group would have told 
 you, "disappeared" from Boulogne (leaving, it is prob- 
 able, in the ordinary way; though the groups having 
 plumped for disappearance would have no other word) 
 and the H6tel des Deux Mondes on the Port lost a guest. 
 Whether the departures were traceable ever so indirectly 
 to the effect of recent events upon one from whom, what- 
 ever his shortcomings, you would look somehow for nice 
 feeling, it is not for me to say. Christopher's mother may 
 have had her own opinion. She did not express it, but, 
 watching Christopher, whose blankness, we may be sure, 
 did not escape her, she decided that the time had arrived 
 to send him to his first school. 
 
 Thither he went, escorted daily to and fro by Trimmer or 
 his mother, and there, with a baker's dozen of the sons of 
 some of the English Nobility and Gentry of the French 
 town, began his young studies in earnest. 
 
 What his wise mother had hoped for happened. The 
 world widened suddenly. There were schoolboys for the 
 tidied-up children he played with at parties; strifes, ambi- 
 tions, emulations punishments even : excitements such 
 .as he had never known. He hated it all for a week, and 
 then, still hating it as, of your loyalty to boyhood generally, 
 you must hate everything that had to do with lessons, fell 
 under the spell of a fuller life. John Hemming became a 
 memory to him like, Pierre About, whom he had yet loved ; 
 Mrs. St. Jemison also; he no longer wondered about Cora. 
 
 It was then that, if he had been old enough to observe 
 his mother as she, of her love, observed him, he might have 
 remarked that something had come into her gentle life 
 to disturb it. What? She herself hardly knew. So secure 
 had she thought herself in this backwater into which fate 
 had softly floated her little barque, that it was not till
 
 8o CHRISTOPHER 
 
 some time had passed, after the waters had been troubled, 
 that she realised that any disturbance had taken place. 
 She had her memories and Christopher. There was not 
 a day that a thought did not take its flight to the grave 
 in India which held her faithful heart; not an hour that 
 Christopher himself was absent from her active thinking. 
 The sight nevertheless of John Hemming had shaken her. 
 
 Observing herself at close quarters, Mrs. Herrick, with- 
 out knowing it, learned something of herself perhaps 
 even of the incomprehensible sex to which she belonged. 
 She had loved, and she loved, her husband ; had never loved 
 any one else. Yet, because of this, was it possible? 
 John Hemming, out of the past which held both of them, 
 had the power to trouble her. He stood to her for the time 
 ' so short a time back in reality ! which had been for 
 her the time of love. A sense of defencelessness seized her. 
 Was nothing too remote, too disproportionately large or 
 small, to have its effect upon a woman's heart? Two coun- 
 tries go to war, do they, and a provincial town is wrought 
 and fraught with excitement just to cause its pulses to 
 beat faster or slower as the case may have been? The maid 
 falls in love with the soldier. Had that its part in contribut- 
 ing? the harmless young soldiers themselves as symbols 
 of vigorous life? Christopher's interest in them and theirs 
 in him? the very swing they had put up for him, in the 
 granary? Men's unfamiliar voices for women's . . . 
 Trimmer's "There's nothing after all, 'm, like a man in 
 the house . . ." ? 
 
 She could have hidden her face for shame if these 
 things had a share in disturbing her . . . 
 
 Trimmer's words may have rung in her ears, playing 
 a tune to which, at the mercy of it, her harassed thoughts 
 must dance. The sturdy footfall for the swish of skirts. 
 Downrightness uprightness, even, perhaps ! for subtle- 
 ties. The wide airs of heaven for the sheltered hearth ... 
 The man in the house, in short! It was dreadfully true. 
 There was, when all was said or sung, nothing like that.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 81 
 
 For so long she had forgotten. The time of love had 
 seemed so far behind her. She had thought herself safe. 
 She had thought herself divided by a lifetime and her 
 sorrow from the eager life of youth, when all the while it 
 needed but the sight of one who had once wanted to marry 
 her (and now belonged to another!) of one, unchanged, 
 boyish-looking still, in spite of experience which might 
 have been expected to sober him, to tell her that, at not 
 much more than thirty, she too was young. It was fright- 
 ening. 
 
 Christopher naturally saw nothing. Little boys do not 
 see. There was little, moreover, to see, so that even Trim- 
 mer saw nothing. Mr. Hemming to her was an attractive 
 stranger, that was all, of whom she knew nothing more 
 than that he was (because he must be!) something of a 
 scapegrace, by reason of which, in admitting him at all 
 to the house, a risk had assuredly been run. She did not 
 know, for Mrs. Herrick did not tell her, that he was not 
 a stranger at all. 
 
 Mrs. Oxeter may have guessed something. She had been 
 told, of course, long since, of the young man's visit, and 
 had not disapproved, though Christopher's aunts, duly 
 informed of it at the same time, after the event, as we 
 know, shook their heads. She knew more, however, than 
 they, and had the two and two in her possession which had 
 but to be put together to make visible four. She alone 
 knew, perhaps, why Christopher's mother, who had never 
 been of the kind to speak of her conquests, had fallen into 
 silence when Mrs. St. Jemison was mentioned. Oh, yes, 
 Mrs. Oxeter may have guessed. 
 
 "As likely as not she reproaches herself," she thought, 
 searching her daughter's face for what it was exactly that 
 she fancied had come into it lately, "as likely as not she 
 thinks she's to blame for his lapses." 
 
 The house seemed suddenly to have grown silent. It 
 was because Christopher was at school. It was because 
 because of a hundred things. Trimmer was sometimes sent
 
 82 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 for to bring her work to the drawing-room, or Mrs. Herrick 
 would take hers to the "nursery, " where Trimmer still sat. 
 
 "I miss him more than I can say." 
 
 "So do I, 'm." 
 
 "Even his troublesomeness." 
 
 Trimmer would not hear that Christopher was, or could 
 have been, troublesome. 
 
 It was more than ever a house of women. Much sewing 
 was done. Mrs. Herrick would help Trimmer asking 
 for work. 
 
 It was "Here, Trimmer, let me do that," or "Could n't 
 I? How can you, Trimmer! You know I can hem!" or 
 "Trimmer, if there's any darning to do I feel in the mood 
 for it." 
 
 Christopher's absences were explanation enough for 
 good Trimmer, who felt at a loose end herself. But ex- 
 planations were excuses, for all that, and Mrs. Herrick 
 knew it. Little boys at their first school do not work for 
 very many hours. Christopher's absences were not so pro- 
 tracted as really to have left the day empty. 
 
 " I think you want change," Mrs. Oxetersaid one day sud- 
 denly, out of the silence which hitherto she had preserved. 
 
 "I?" said Christopher's mother. 
 
 It was a new idea to her. Moreover, she still looked upon 
 Boulogne itself as "change," forgetting how long she had 
 been there. Change of air, understood always meant 
 in domestic parlance Sea Air; if, of course, it did not 
 mean Going Abroad and Boulogne was both. 
 
 Mrs. Oxeter watched her. 
 
 Laura and Catherine were out and her favourite daughter 
 and she were alone in the Place Moliere. How pretty she 
 was, the old woman thought rather anxiously. 
 
 "What makes you think ?" 
 
 "My dear, I'm your mother." 
 
 "But I'm not ill." 
 
 "No, dear." 
 
 "Then why?"
 
 CHRISTOPHER 83 
 
 "You're young," said Mrs. Oxeter shortly. 
 
 "Mamma!" 
 
 There was "How did you know?" in the tone. She was 
 startled scared even. Was her own discovery there in 
 her face for others to read? She looked about her a little 
 wildly. 
 
 The odd ornaments of the period filled the room. There 
 was a hanging screen a banner worked in 'Berlin wools 
 
 screwed to the mantelpiece. Upon the mantelpiece were 
 some handsome Dresden figures, but each was under a 
 glass shade. There were antimacassars on the backs of the 
 chairs; albums on the tables; beaded footstools on the 
 floor. There were things like these in the house in the Rue 
 Gil Bias. A formal period in which to make any discover- 
 ies! The sight of these familiar things did not have the 
 effect of calming her wholly. Was she already out of key 
 with them? Her mother, in her cap with the mauve rib- 
 bons, fitted perfectly into her surroundings, hallowed them 
 even, gave them point. 
 
 "Oh, I wish I were like you," she said. 
 
 "Towards the end because you find you have not passed 
 the beginning?" 
 
 She had not known that she was going to speak. 
 
 "I've got Christopher," she heard herself saying in a 
 low voice, "and I have Christopher's father, even if he's 
 dead. He is n't dead to me. I Ve never stopped thinking 
 about him. I watched Christopher growing, for both of 
 us. I 've never seen him in a new suit without thinking 
 what Kit would have thought of it. I am growing him up, 
 as it were, for his father under his father's eyes, I 've 
 sometimes thought. It has n't been duty; it's been love 
 
 live love, I tell you, mother. And now at the sight of 
 some one I have n't seen for years, and only cared for then 
 as a friend, and never loved, I find myself no stronger than 
 any silly schoolgirl." 
 
 Mrs. Oxeter did not speak. She was crocheting an anti- 
 macassar, which was what women of all ages did then
 
 84 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 for the occupation of their hands and thoughts, exchang- 
 ing patterns with one another, learning or teaching new 
 stitches, and she went on with her work, though it is 
 doubtful whether her eyes could see it. 
 
 "It's dreadful," Christopher's mother said, "dread- 
 ful!" 
 
 "It is n't even that I care now," she continued after a 
 pause, during which she strove to control herself. ' ' When I 
 knew, when I read it all in the papers, I mean, it 
 seemed so far off that it hardly concerned me; even when I 
 realized suddenly that they were here. Why, when I saw 
 them together for the first time it only gave me a little 
 shock, nothing that I could n't bear. I kept out of their 
 way, that was all, and it seems that I was able to do this 
 effectually, for he never saw me, he did n't expect to, 
 you see, and he did n't even know who Christopher was, 
 the day he was so kind to him. It was n't till I saw him 
 face to face, and talked to him, and saw him with Christo- 
 pher, you don't know what his manner is with a child! 
 no, till after I knew that he knew I was here that . . . 
 that this came to me, whatever it is. It was n't even then, 
 quite. I can't explain. Not, I think, till after they were 
 gone. It's all retrospective in a way. It's oh, how can 
 I explain when I don't understand, myself!" 
 
 She broke off, sobbing now in earnest. Mrs. Oxeter 
 pushed her work aside and it fell to the floor, there to lie 
 unheeded. She leant forward, but did not move from her 
 chair. 
 
 "I'm I'm so ashamed," Christopher's mother said. 
 
 "You've nothing to be ashamed of," Mrs. Oxeter said 
 gently. 
 
 Christopher's mother shook her head. " Kit 's being dead 
 makes no difference " 
 
 "Ah, my dear, my dear!" 
 
 "It does n't." 
 
 " I did n't mean that. Do you think you need tell me you 
 loved Christopher's father? Do you think I don't know? "
 
 CHRISTOPHER 85 
 
 Anne Herrick nodded. 
 
 "I know you know," she said brokenly. 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Oxeter, "I know that and all that you 
 could tell me. I have n't lived to my age without knowing 
 something of marriage. I 've seen marriages, and perhaps 
 one marriage and that was yours. That was yours, 
 Anne. But sooner or later we Ve all got to learn that we 're 
 human with all the human failings and limitations and 
 instincts. What you have been feeling is n't a reflection upon 
 your loyalty to any one. Never think that. God made 
 you, my dear, and be very sure that He knows." 
 
 It was the informing spirit of the formal room which 
 was speaking, but with something more than the common 
 understanding of the time. 
 
 "It isn't even exactly John Hemming," said Christ- 
 opher's mother miserably. "It could n't be." 
 
 "But somehow because of him." 
 
 "Yes other things helping." 
 
 " I know. It 's just youth, dear, as I said first. You did n't 
 know you were young." 
 
 "It's dreadful," said Christopher's mother. 
 
 "Not dreadful," said hers pityingly.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ANNE HERRICK felt better after that. Nothing happened. 
 What could? She had not a thought of John Hemming as 
 an individual. He stood to her only for the sum of the 
 things which had conspired to disturb her. That she should 
 be liable to disturbance at all was disturbing enough in 
 itself. If she was indeed young, why then she must make 
 haste to grow older. She went so far as to order an elderly 
 garment for the winter, but, to the satisfaction of her 
 dressmaker, who had protested with hands and shoulders, 
 consented at last to countermand it, before it was too late. 
 
 She played, however, with the idea of Change. An ad- 
 mission of weakness? An admission to youth, perhaps. 
 Well, if you were young . . . 
 
 It could not be yet because of Christopher, whose studies 
 must not be interfered with ; but in the Christmas holidays? 
 How would you like to go to London, Christopher? The 
 Pantomime? The Crystal Palace? She could hear her- 
 self asking him ; but did not ask yet, keeping the pleasure 
 for a rainy day. 
 
 Autumn helped her, fires, the shortening days. The even- 
 ings were snug now with a book from Merridew's to be- 
 guile you. There had been giants on the earth so recently 
 in those days, and there were still giants. Afterwards 
 Christopher was to thrill to the names he heard then not 
 for their own sake always, but for the glamour which cir- 
 cumstances and association threw over them. So little 
 earlier in the century and these had been new books by 
 Old Masters. Think of it! Not that Christopher at his age 
 was in a position to think of it, or that his mother even 
 realised it. Books were books to her, generally enthralling, 
 and, with the fire and the long evenings, a refuge. There
 
 CHRISTOPHER 87 
 
 were magazines, too, to the appearing of which people 
 with time on their hands, or even without, looked forward 
 from month to month. So early a recollection of Chris- 
 topher's was the yellow cover of " Cornhill,"and an adver- 
 tisement of Somebody's Invalid Chairs intimately con- 
 nected with it, two footmen carrying a lady upstairs, 
 that there did not seem to be a time when that period- 
 ical had not a place in his life. We may suppose Christo- 
 pher's mother, who had doubtless in their day followed the 
 Adventures of Philip on His Way through the World, 
 immersed about this period in those of Harry Richmond. 
 Wonderful days. She was not unhappy. Change? Yes, 
 later, perhaps; in the holidays. 
 
 Yet with no fear now of encountering disturbance on her 
 walks she knew that she had been unhappy. It had been 
 unnerving to know you might meet unrest at every corner. 
 If Christopher had felt dismayed at the sight of an averted 
 head, what of her who had decreed that it must be so 
 averted ! She had the double pain nay, the treble. The 
 knowledge that the coast was clear had not freed her at 
 first, but now she was free. 
 
 She took long walks with Christopher on half-holi- 
 days ; often alone ; occasionally with Trimmer, who, though 
 she was not country-bred, liked to step out. The aunts 
 were not for more than pottering. A walk to them was to 
 a shop in the town, or to the end of the Port and back, or, 
 with an effort, the top of the Grande Rue and a quarter 
 of a mile of the Petits Arbres under the Ramparts. The 
 Ramparts they thought lonely, dangerous even, as per- 
 haps indeed they were ; and the long stretch of the autumn 
 sands too windy. It was never too windy for Christopher's 
 mother. 
 
 So the time passed. If the lonely walks seemed purpose- 
 less, she called in thoughts of Christopher to help her 
 the snug evening, the lamp, the fire, the book. With glow- 
 ing cheeks and sparkling eyes she would come back to her 
 son and her fireside.
 
 88 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 How think of your troubles how have troubles when 
 there was Christopher? He was growing visibly. Every 
 day was declared to make a difference. People began to 
 say of him to her that he must be becoming a companion, 
 "quite a companion to you," the exact phrase, as if 
 he had ever been anything else ! One of these days he would 
 have to go to school in earnest, and then what then 
 for her and even Trimmer? Not for a year or two yet, but 
 some day for all that. Well, not yet. 
 
 "How would you like to go to England for Christmas?" 
 
 "England!" 
 
 Christopher, who had been lying on the rug, looking at 
 pictures, rolled himself to sitting position. 
 
 "London," said his mother. 
 
 "Mummy!" 
 
 How would he like it? He flung himself upon her, danced 
 round the room, shouted, sang. London! There was magic 
 in the word for him even then. He had spent one excited 
 night there on his way to Boulogne, in lodgings in Ebury 
 Street the lodgings, indeed, where he had stayed as a 
 baby and where he was to have been born if things had 
 not taken their wayward course in mid-ocean, and we 
 may suppose that he had registered impressions. Fog was 
 one of them. A misty basement to which he had pene- 
 trated in search of Trimmer, another. In the basement, a 
 servant in a skimpy cap, who sang, "Father, dear father, 
 come home with me now," and gave Trimmer a jug of 
 hot water, which he was permitted to see drawn from a great 
 black kettle which sat upon a glowing fire. Another mem- 
 ory was of a toy which he had been given there a wind- 
 mill which turned its sails when you turned a handle, and 
 into an upper chamber of which, from a little hut at its 
 foot, a procession of little millers (glued to a tape) made 
 an unending ascent. By an oversight this toy had been 
 left behind. No wonder he remembered London. Might he 
 run and tell Trimmer? 
 
 If he liked. Trimmer should come, too, if_they went.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 89 
 
 It was n't quite settled, but it was most likely. He scam- 
 pered off. His mother heard him bounding up the stairs, 
 calling Trimmer as he went. She heard his "Trimmer, we 're 
 going to London," and could guess at her " What, Master 
 Christopher?" by his "We are. We are really. Ask 
 mother." 
 
 Trimmer, nearly as excited as he, came down, apolo- 
 gising, to ask there and then. 
 
 "Oh, 'm, really?" she said. 
 
 Mrs. Herrick smiled. 
 
 "I think so. We're going to think about it, anyway. 
 Don't you think perhaps a little change would be good for 
 us all?" 
 
 "Yes, yes, yes," shouted Christopher. 
 
 "It would be nice, 'm," said Trimmer. "Oh, 'm, Eng- 
 lish bacon again. Only think! " 
 
 "Why, we have that here." 
 
 "And made as it were into a regular plat" (Trimmer 
 said plar), "in the cooking. No. English bacon cooked by 
 a Christian, I mean. Oh, 'm! And and a muffin! To 
 be sure, there's Gregory's, 'm, and 'owe's. But a London 
 muffin with the bell going down the street. Oh, 'm!" 
 
 "I see we shall have to go," said Mrs. Herrick. 
 
 After that, for Christopher and for Trimmer it was 
 counting the days. Plans matured rapidly enough. The 
 time was fixed for the week before Christmas. Christmas 
 itself was to be spent at Herrickswood with Christopher's 
 other grandmother, who, informed of the projected visit, 
 issued an invitation which amounted to a command. 
 Herrickswood first, then, with a night in London on the 
 way, and, then (Herrickswood appeased), an unfettered 
 fortnight of London : such were the plans which took form 
 while days were marked off a nursery calendar crossed 
 out with wetted pencil and water ran under the bridges. 
 "Christmas is Coming," sang Trimmer, as, in their several 
 hours, she had sung "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,"
 
 90 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 and the inflammatory "Marseillaise"; "Christmas will 
 be here before we know where we are." 
 
 "We are going to England, to England, to England," 
 sang Christopher; and even his mother's heart sang 
 Change. 
 
 "You'll have to be very good at Grandmamma Her- 
 rick's." 
 
 "I don't mind," said Christopher. 
 
 He was ready to promise anything. Trimmer was best 
 company now. She was going home for a few days in the 
 course of the visit, and she never tired of telling of Birm- 
 ingham, where her parents lived. 
 
 It was a fine city, she said, something like London, but 
 nearly in the heart of the Black Country. The Black 
 Country! Christopher breathed hard. Ah, he might well 
 gasp. To go through that at night, Trimmer said, in the 
 train, between Birmingham, say, and Wolverhampton, 
 that was travelling, if you liked. Every chimney 
 belched forth flame. Near and far, out of the darkness, you 
 saw the great furnaces breathing. She did n't suppose 
 there was anything like it in France. It always "reminded " 
 Trimmer of hell. Not but what it was n't very pretty, too. 
 
 "It all seems alive," she said; "like Birmingham itself. 
 Everything you can think of is made there. And all lit by 
 gas." 
 
 "The houses?" said Christopher, wide-eyed. 
 
 At Boulogne, in such modest homes as that in the Rue 
 Gil Bias, lamps were used china lamps, burning colza 
 oil, in sitting-rooms, and little benzoline lamps in the pas- 
 sages and bedrooms. It was Christopher's daily pleasure 
 to watch these being trimmed. The china lamps had to 
 be wound up like clocks (fascinating !) ; and the hand-lamps 
 had their benzoline poured in and poured out of them, as 
 much as was good for them being retained by sponges 
 under wire netting. Very engaging, the trimming of the 
 benzoline lamps! 
 
 "The houses?" said Christopher.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 91 
 
 "Many of them. The streets, anyway." 
 
 It was n't so wonderful then. 
 
 "Just like here," said Christopher. 
 
 "There's gas-works near my 'ome," said Trimmer 
 sentimentally, "and to see the moon over them on a sum- 
 mer's night oh, there's nothing like England." 
 
 "Don't you wish you were going?" said Christopher to 
 the Sons of the Nobility and Gentry at school. 
 
 All of them did; one or two were. These with Chris- 
 topher formed a little envied group, puffed up with pride. 
 
 "I expect I shall have a lot to tell you when I come 
 back," he said to his aunts. 
 
 "No doubt, darling." 
 
 "Don't you wish you " 
 
 "If it was n't so cold," his Aunt Laura said; "at any 
 other time of year," his Aunt Catherine. They, poor 
 ladies, were indifferent sailors. 
 
 The time drew nearer and near. It was the week after 
 next; it was next week; this; it was to-morrow! 
 Christopher was up with the lark the winter lark, any- 
 way. 
 
 It was very cold, and it was going to be rough. Every 
 one said so. The aunts, who came down to see the travellers 
 off, were congratulating themselves in earnest that they 
 were not going. They hoped every few moments that 
 their sister and Christopher, and Trimmer also, were well 
 wrapped up. 
 
 "Have you rugs?" said Miss Oxeter. 
 
 " Has he enough over his chest? " asked Miss Catherine. 
 
 "Plenty of rugs the woolly one and my big plaid. 
 Christopher's all right, are n't you, dear?" 
 
 They chose their places on deck. Mrs. Herrick was a fair 
 sailor more or less safe, as she said, if she had air and 
 might keep still. Christopher had yet to prove his mettle. 
 Trimmer ,who wanted a day to get her sea-legs, preferred 
 on the whole to go below.
 
 92 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "It's different from India," she explained cryptically. 
 
 Christopher in his "reefer" coat stumped about the 
 deck and made friends with the sailors. He was enormously 
 interested in everything. The Paris train came in, and the 
 packet filled up with hurrying laden folk with anxious eyes 
 on the weather. 
 
 "It's going to be very rough," Christopher assured an 
 old lady who seemed unable to get an answer to her ques- 
 tion. 
 
 "Oh, you horrid little boy!" she said, smiling. 
 
 " You '11 see," said Christopher politely. 
 
 Like Trimmer, she went below. People made for the 
 best places, held, or surrendered them. The timid and 
 the uncertain or perhaps the too certain laid them- 
 selves out and closed their eyes. In the saloon into which 
 Christopher peeped on his voyages of discovery there was 
 already the smell of brandy. It was pleasant to get back 
 into the air. Then a bell rang and his aunts made their 
 hurried adieux. The last passenger scrambled on board, 
 the gangways were drawn up, and they were off. 
 
 The piers slid by them. 
 
 It was Ho, for old England. 
 
 It was then that Christopher's mother asked herself, 
 Why? In heaven's name, now that the danger was over 
 and had there been any danger, and if so of what? in 
 heaven's name, and the name of everything else that might 
 be expected to understand the heart of woman and its 
 incalculable and unfathomable workings: Why? Why? 
 Why?
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 CHRISTOPHER, sobered at first by the very distressing 
 sights which he saw about him after the bar had been 
 crossed, had gravitated to his mother's side and there 
 ensconced himself comfortably under the large shawl 
 which was known as the "plaid," from its odd sponge-bag 
 pattern. There he stayed for some time with the wind and 
 spray playing on his chubby face. One by one people about 
 him were led below or staggered to the companion-ladder 
 in a nameless race with time. When, however, he expe- 
 rienced no feelings of discomfort himself, and could thus be 
 quite sure that he was not going to be ill, his energies took 
 him to his feet again. He went and watched the engines 
 and the water churned by the paddle-wheels, and the great 
 waves which were doing such dire work amongst the pas- 
 sengers. He would have gone below to see how Trimmer 
 was getting on, but that his mother, with some compre- 
 hension of what Trimmer's feelings might be just then, 
 had told him she thought Trimmer would rather be left 
 alone. It turned out afterwards that she had divined 
 Trimmer's state only too accurately. Mrs. Herrick her- 
 self hoped, and expected, to be able to hold out. 
 
 Christopher, rather proud of himself, paced the deck 
 with the hardy and intrepid, or stood amongst those who 
 kept a lookout, caps pulled down over their eyes and their 
 ulsters flapping round them. Beads of spray were on the 
 rough nap of his coat, and on his face, as he could see others 
 upon the clothes and faces, the beards and moustaches, of 
 those about him. His lips were salt. Little sea-born boy, 
 he felt entirely at home. The pulsing of the engines was 
 in his ears as not so long ago, though he had no knowledge 
 of this ; it had smitten on the unheeding ears of his baby-
 
 94 
 
 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 hood. Every loose thing flapped for his pleasure his 
 handkerchief when he drew that from his pocket to wipe 
 the spray from his eyes; the sailors' oilskins; a newspaper 
 caught on a rail ; a lady's veil. The very noises of the strain- 
 ing vessel were for his enjoyment. Every now and then 
 came a thud and the splash of falling water, and a funny 
 protesting sound from the funnel, which seemed, shudder- 
 ing, to fight for a moment for breath. There were creak- 
 ings and raspings, swinging sounds like the sound made by 
 the ropes of his swing at home over the beam in the gran- 
 ary. The wind whistled. It was as if he had always known 
 these sounds. 
 
 People spoke to him. Some one held him up once to see 
 the cliffs, but that was n't the least necessary, for the ship 
 herself lifted you to see whatever there might be on the 
 skyline. France had disappeared long since. 
 
 "You're a fine little sailor," said the pair of arms. 
 
 "I was n't sure if I should be," said Christopher, "but 
 I was born at sea." 
 
 The cliffs, scarcely visible a short time back, began to 
 mark themselves definitely on the horizon, the sea heaving, 
 tossing, sliding, between. A thin gleam of sunlight broke 
 through grey clouds. It made the day look colder. 
 
 Then a long time passed during which no particular 
 progress seemed to be made, and then, suddenly as it 
 seemed, gradually as it was in reality, there came a moment 
 when simultaneously the passengers and the sailors began 
 to be animated by something which spread from them 
 through the ship. Laden people with pale faces a faint 
 pink upon the cheekbones began to struggle up from 
 the cabins. The enduring on deck opened their eyes, 
 roused themselves, looked about them. Some performed 
 an impromptu toilet or collected their luggage. As if to 
 cheat sufferers of the sympathy which was their due the 
 sea now began to go down. No one on this side would know 
 or believe . . . 
 
 Christopher's mother welcomed him with triumphant
 
 CHRISTOPHER 95 
 
 eyes. She had held out, but could not pretend to have 
 enjoyed herself. 
 
 "Poor Trimmer!" she said. 
 
 The boat entered the harbour and slid to her moorings. 
 
 It was a very wan Trimmer who appeared then smil- 
 ing resolutely, however, and clasping her mistress's 
 dressing-case. 
 
 "You ought to have stopped on deck, Trimmer," 
 Christopher told her. 
 
 "Did I?" said Trimmer. But she managed to smile. 
 
 "One Woe is past, 'm," she said as she landed. "It's 
 like the Book of Revelation. And English, 'm, listen." 
 (A porter had said, "Allow me, miss," another, "'Urry up 
 with them things.") "English! Does n't it do your heart 
 good, Master Christopher? I could kiss them all. It's 
 worth Woes though, mark you, I was near wishing we'd 
 go to the bottom. And that more than once," she added. 
 
 "Poor Trimmer," said Mrs. Herrick again. 
 
 Tea in the train, with Protestant English buns (for the 
 brioches of over the water), revived her; revived Christo- 
 pher's mother; refreshed Christopher. Every one's spirits 
 rose after that. The colour came back to Trimmer's cheeks. 
 She could laugh at her sufferings. Christopher had never 
 seen his mother herself in such spirits before. The holiday 
 mood held the three of them. 
 
 After an hour of laughter and talking, they slept. 
 
 Victoria was Christopher's next conscious impression. 
 Here were most of the laden travellers; the man who had 
 lifted Christopher; the old lady to whom he had prophe- 
 sied (she had forgiven him evidently, for she nodded to 
 him and said, "Did I call you horrid? You were perfectly 
 right"); the ill, the faint-hearted, the intrepid. There was 
 some very cold waiting to the tune of goodness knows 
 what-not of noise: an engine letting off steam to take 
 every "S" out of what you shouted or said; the rattle 
 and clatter of vans, of metal on wood and on stone. Through
 
 96 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 the hiss and the clamour would sound the shrill whistle of 
 an out-going train with the loud puff! puff! puff/ of its 
 effort at starting. Stations, Christopher was to think after- 
 wards, were noisier when he and the world were younger. 
 But confusing as it all was, there was something stimulat- 
 ing in the very uproar. 
 
 "This is London," everything said; "this is London." 
 
 " Keep tight hold of my hand," said Trimmer. He could 
 hardly hear her. "That's ours, 'm. Your big box. And 
 here comes mine. Now where is the valise? Oh, this crowd 
 and the noise, 'm! But anyway you can talk to the porters 
 in your own language. Keep tight hold of my hand, Mas- 
 ter Christopher." 
 
 It is to be feared that her charge, looking this way and 
 that with fascinated eyes, strained at his leash. 
 
 Never had he seen so many top-hats. Even the station 
 police wore them. 
 
 "There's the valise, 'm. There by that green carpet- 
 bag no, to the left. Near the 'ip bath. Now, perhaps 
 we shall get along." 
 
 Gone everything of that period the way of yesterday's 
 roses and snows. Christopher, if he had come to London 
 for nothing else, was able to say that he remembered straw 
 in the four-wheelers; stone paved roads; hatchments on 
 the houses of the noble dead ; the milkmaid often elderly 
 of the sturdy legs, and the pails hanging from a yoke ; 
 many obsolete street-cries. Not all these did he see or hear 
 on the short drive from Victoria to Ebury Street, but, 
 whenever it may have been that they fixed themselves 
 upon eye or ear, they stood to him afterwards as present- 
 ing the London of these remote, delightful, and unsophis- 
 ticated days. There were still "grandeurs." Carriages 
 were "turnouts." There were hammercloths. Coachmen 
 wore wigs, footmen powder. What he chiefly noted in the 
 cab was the straw, bits of which he picked off his mother's 
 dress; and the deafening rattle of the windows which made
 
 CHRISTOPHER 97 
 
 conversation almost impossible. These things he enjoyed 
 all the same. They were London. 
 
 Never would he forget the meal which was ready for the 
 travellers very soon after their arrival. Trimmer, sharing 
 it for the occasion, said it did you good to see a chop that 
 was n't a cutlet, and a vegetable which was n't a legwme. 
 
 "A le-what?" said Christopher. 
 
 "Legwme," said Trimmer. 
 
 Christopher had to correct her accent and go into the 
 question of accuracy. If what Trimmer called legwme 
 meant vegetable, how could a vegetable help 
 
 To Trimmer it was a question of the cooking. 
 
 "Oh, you two funny people," said Christopher's mother. 
 "But I quite see what you mean," she said to Trimmer. 
 
 Trimmer need not have feared. There was nothing 
 French about the cooking. There was an apple tart after 
 the chops; cheese after that, cheddar for Gruyere, to 
 draw from Trimmer the inevitable comparison, and 
 with this meal they drank tea! No, nothing French about 
 Ebury Street. 
 
 Trimmer retired presently to unpack for the night, but 
 returned mysteriously not many minutes later. 
 
 "What do you think I've found?" 
 
 Christopher guessed breathlessly. He had hardly let 
 himself hope. 
 
 Trimmer brought what she held from behind her back. 
 
 "The landlady kept it in case you should come here 
 again. It's not even broken." 
 
 But was that it? that his cherished memory? He got 
 very red, and stood with his hands in his pockets. He had 
 never felt so shamed. It was a toy for a babylj 
 
 His mother played with it after he had gone to bed. 
 
 He had hardly recovered from his discomfiture when 
 Trimmer half an hour later came back to fetch him. After 
 the adventurous day to have suffered such humiliation! 
 He still played with toys. He would have admitted that.
 
 98 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Had he not ducks and fish of coloured tin (with a wonder- 
 ful metallic smell) which followed a magnet about in a 
 basin of water! Scarcely "older" these. He had leaden 
 soldiers; tops; a painted ball even. But there was a differ- 
 ence. If Trimmer had even not treated the thing as a 
 "surprise." "What do you think I've found, Master 
 Christopher?" He should have known better than to 
 respond to that. Trimmer should know better than to lay 
 such a trap for him should have realised. 
 
 But London came to his rescue. Unfamiliar sounds 
 reached him from the street; the song of a drunken man 
 something about Champagne Charlie; the rattle of 
 cabs and carriages; a postman's knock; the cry of a news- 
 paper-boy; the passing of many feet. London was going 
 on all round him. It was in the flicker of the firelight on 
 the walls, in the feel of the strange bed, the pleasant rest- 
 fulness of the cold, clean sheets ; the very griminess of the 
 ceiling which wanted whitewashing so badly. It was in the 
 sound of a piano being played somewhere not far off; in 
 the drip of water in a cistern at the top of the stairs ; in the 
 candles which had lighted him to bed. Above all, it was in 
 a rumble, like the roar of the waves on the sands at Bou- 
 logne, which seemed to be behind every other sound and 
 which went on all the time without 'ceasing. In the ab- 
 sorbing interest of these things he forgot his humiliation. 
 He could feel the bed going up and down now, like the 
 boat, but very pleasantly. It was rocking him gently to 
 sleep. 
 
 He woke to see his mother bending over him. 
 
 "It shows how much older and bigger I am, anyway." 
 
 "What does, darling?" 
 
 He could n't remember, and was asleep again.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 HERRICKSWOOD had been a big place in its time, and even 
 now, shorn of most of its acres by the extravagance of dead 
 and gone Herricks, was of considerable importance in its 
 own county. It was of paramount importance in the eyes 
 of its owner. There had always been Herricks of Herricks- 
 wood. It was a big square house of imposing front and the 
 many charming inconveniences incidental to its age. There 
 was tapestry and there were draughts in many of the bed- 
 rooms. The house stood in a small park, which, in the days 
 of its former glories, had been a big one. There had been 
 deer in the reign of Christopher's grandfather, but were 
 none now. There were fine trees: beech, chestnut, oak. 
 An avenue of the second led from the nearer of the two 
 lodge gates to the house. The road from the farther, by 
 which, as the more direct from the station, our travellers 
 were driven upon their arrival, ran through bracken- 
 covered slopes, past a lake, a larch plantation, a round 
 building which had been kennels and was now empty, and 
 presently a little private chapel. 
 
 Herrickswood, beautiful as it was, always oppressed 
 Christopher's mother, who knew that it was by reason of 
 its existence since everything else was equal and the 
 Oxeters as old a family as the Herricks that she had not 
 been thought a good match for Christopher's father. 
 Herrickswood was the outward and visible sign of the 
 Herricks' position. There, as Squires, Justices of the Peace, 
 Guardians of the Poor, as High Sheriffs from time to time, 
 or Lord Lieutenants of their county, they had lived, doing 
 well or ill, ill as often as not, but in the sight of all. 
 The Oxeters, on the other hand, if of a stock no less respect- 
 able, had no such sign. Granny Oxeter used to say with
 
 ioo CHRISTOPHER 
 
 a chuckle that her daughters were privileged to wear 
 cousins' mourning for half the deaths recordable in Burke 
 and Debrett, but much good might that do them! As a 
 family the Oxeters were of that large company of the well- 
 born of whom it might be said that they are perpetually 
 the collaterals of the great. Their men many the more 
 obscure of their social equals, or frankly "beneath" them; 
 their women, younger sons. Christopher's father was a 
 younger son; his mother, herself daughter of a younger 
 son of the younger son of a peer, had so far carried out the 
 traditions of her own peculiar state. 
 
 Mrs. Herrick met her daughter-in-law and her grandson 
 in the frowning hall, which, as Anne Herrick felt and had 
 always felt, need not so have frowned. A little less aus- 
 terity in the decorations, and the hall at Herrickswood 
 might have welcomed all comers smiling. If, however, the 
 hall frowned, Christopher's Herrick grandmother upon 
 this occasion did not. She gave the newcomers warm if 
 short welcome, and led them into her sitting-room. She 
 walked with a stick. 
 
 Christopher, observing her and everything else, followed 
 her solemnly in the wake of his mother, while Trimmer, 
 casting a glance after them, disappeared with the servants 
 through a large baize-covered door at the end of a passage. 
 
 There was nothing austere about the room into which 
 Mrs. Herrick ushered her guests. A bright fire burned in 
 the grate and twinkled in the glass in the frames of the 
 many pictures on the walls, and in and on the surfaces of 
 many shining things. 
 
 Mrs. Herrick pulled an armchair round to the fire for 
 her daughter-in-law. 
 
 "Now, let me look at you," she said to Christopher. 
 
 He submitted to her scrutiny with not more flinching 
 than might be. 
 
 "He's more like you than like us," his grandmother 
 said at length, without withdrawing sharp eyes from his 
 face.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 101 
 
 "We think him like his father," Christopher's mother 
 said. 
 
 "Well, perhaps." 
 
 "His eyes." 
 
 "He has your mouth. None the worse for that, eh, 
 Christopher?" 
 
 Christopher said, "No." 
 
 She did not say whether what she saw pleased her, but 
 signing him to a stool by the fire, turned to her daughter- 
 in-law and asked about her journey. 
 
 The butler and a footman appeared now with cakes and 
 wine. Christopher was bidden to eat, which he did with 
 good appetite. The butler was told to pour out half-a- 
 glass of sherry for him. He drank it, coughing a little. 
 After that he was given some Views of the Rhine to look 
 at, and by the time he had gone through them twice he 
 was ready for some other diversion. This was not imme- 
 diately forthcoming, so he wandered round the room; 
 looking at things which he wanted to touch but did not, 
 and being careful to make no noise. 
 
 "He will dine with us to-night, Anne." 
 
 "If you're good enough to let him." 
 
 "Pooh! Would you like to, Christopher?" 
 
 Christopher said, "Yes," and added "Please" for man- 
 ners. 
 
 "Well, then, now you'd like to see your rooms. Will 
 you ring that bell, Christopher?" 
 
 Very wide stone steps led from the austere hall to the 
 landing above. It seemed to Christopher that miles of 
 passage had to be passed before the room was reached in 
 which Trimmer was now unpacking. 
 
 "The young gentleman's room is next door," said the 
 butler, "the dressing-room, as it were, to yours, 'm," and 
 withdrew. 
 
 Trimmer told of the splendours below. It was all much 
 as she remembered it on an earlier visit years ago, only
 
 102 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "grander" if anything. Mrs. Herrick's maid Ollenshaw 
 was still in office, and, would you believe, wore a silk gown, 
 if you please, 'm. She was a very haughty person, but 
 -had not, it seemed, forgotten Trimmer, to whom she was 
 all that was affable "affability impersonified," Trimmer 
 said. She had a sitting-room to herself now with a piano 
 in it; at least, one of those old-fashioned tall ones, with 
 faded silk spreading in rays like, from a rosette in the 
 middle. It had yellow keys the sort, Trimmer said, 
 amongst which some were generally found to be dumb. 
 But it gave the room "a hair, as you might suppose." 
 There was a sofa, too, on which Trimmer and Ollenshaw 
 had sat while they drank their tea and ate 'ot buttered 
 toast, which was brought to them by one of the servants. 
 Trimmer shaking out dresses, patting, folding, and putting 
 away, could not, she said, help but smile as she thought 
 of it. 
 
 "There we sat, 'm, for all the world like imitation ladies. 
 It was, 'A little more tea, Miss Trimmer,' and, 'May I 
 pass you the toast?' Very nice for a change, 'm, but en- 
 erviating, I should say, in the long run." 
 
 She lifted back the tray of her mistress's box. 
 
 "Most of the old servants are still here. The old butler 
 only died last year, and the coachman who was here before, 
 he 's been pensioned off. But Mrs. Wellington is still here, 
 'm, the housekeeper, if you remember, and the cook, 
 and the head-housemaid who must be nearly sixty. 
 And they, 'm, are all agog to see Master Christopher, 'm." 
 
 Trimmer lowered her voice for what she said next. 
 
 "Mr. Stephen, it seems, has n't been seen or been heard 
 of for six months." 
 
 Christopher, looking round, saw his mother frown at 
 her. 
 
 He found his grandmother's eyes upon him more than 
 once at dinner, which was rather a solemn meal. His mother 
 did most of the talking. His grandmother carved. Chris- 
 topher, a little awed by the grave butler and the two foot-
 
 CHRISTOPHER 103 
 
 men with the wooden faces, did not have to be told that 
 boys should be seen and not heard. 
 
 He said, "Yes, please," to many excellent things, and did 
 not dispute a vicarious " No, thank you," of his mother's 
 to some tempting dish which had paused deferentially at 
 his elbow upon its second round. It was then that some- 
 thing happened the smallest thing in the world. 
 
 "H'm," said his grandmother. 
 
 That brought a "Yes?" from his mother. 
 
 "I said 'H'm,' " said his grandmother, "and meant it. 
 He's not the fighter his father was." 
 
 His mother smiled a little anxiously. 
 
 "He's on his best behaviour," she said; "aren't you, 
 Christopher?" 
 
 Christopher looked from one to the other. 
 
 "Needn't I be? Have n't I got to?" 
 
 His grandmother laughed out. 
 
 "I'd like some more, then," he said boldly. 
 
 Was it instinct or young memory which had taught 
 him how to treat her? 
 
 His grandmother said nothing, but something was re- 
 laxed. He felt it. His mother felt it. After that he talked 
 as much as he would have talked at home. Dinner lost 
 its portentous solemnity. 
 
 Long after Christopher had gone to bed his grand- 
 mother and his mother sat talking. 
 
 "Your letter telling me you were coming to England nearly 
 crossed one from me. I was on the point of writing to you." 
 
 Anne glanced up from her work. She, like Mrs. Oxeter, 
 was crocheting an antimacassar. 
 
 " It was time I saw my grandson," said Mrs. Herrick. 
 She was a fierce-looking old woman on whose face time 
 had written inscrutable things. 
 
 " I 'm so glad you should see him now. I 've wanted you 
 to see him. I was waiting, in a way. I did n't think you 
 liked children."
 
 104 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "I don't." 
 
 They were back now in the room into which the two had 
 been ushered upon their arrival. Christopher's grand- 
 mother looked at the fire, which, though it had evidently 
 just been made up, did not seem to please her. She put 
 on a loose velvet glove which hung by a loop from a nail 
 in the wall, and taking up the poker, poked, raked out, 
 and rearranged the coals. She threw another log on to them 
 from a box which stood beside the hearth. 
 
 "I don't like children," she repeated. "I never did 
 except my own and they grew up." 
 
 It may have been a little movement which her daughter- 
 in-law made which caused her to consider her words. 
 
 She took off the glove and hung it up in its place over the 
 coal-box. 
 
 "I'm alone in my old age," she said grimly. "One of 
 my sons is dead oh, I know I did n't entirely want him 
 to marry you. I admit it. But you made him a good wife, 
 and I 'm glad now that he did marry you. He's dead for 
 all that and the other might just as well be." 
 
 The old eyes blazed suddenly as they looked into the 
 fire. The fingers with the many rings as suddenly were 
 clenched, and Anne Herrick, by the flashing of the stones, 
 saw how they were trembling. 
 
 "Let him take care, though," she heard her mother-in- 
 law add under her breath. "Let him take care." 
 
 She made no comment. She could not, as Christopher's 
 mother, discuss Christopher's ne'er-do-well uncle with 
 one who not only was incensed, but had so much in her 
 power. In spite of her, her heart beat a little quicker, for 
 never before had the thought of Herrickswood in connec- 
 tion with her own son crossed her mind. That Mrs. Her- 
 rick by the foresight of her husband had the disposal of 
 it at her unfettered pleasure she had always known; but 
 that she might ever think of passing over her own son, 
 was a thought which had never so much as occurred to 
 her.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 105 
 
 "I've paid his debts for him three times," the angry 
 old woman was saying. "I've kept him out of the bank- 
 ruptcy court, and for what? To contribute to the support 
 of disreputable women, to enable him to bet and gamble 
 and drink, and for my pains to be left for months at a time 
 without so much as his address." 
 
 She paused, and a little gleam of humour shot into the 
 sharp eyes. 
 
 "That's, all the same, his one redeeming virtue the 
 one thing that keeps his name in my will at all: his in- 
 difference to my hold over him. He makes it no hold, and 
 so the strongest. He knows what I can do if I choose, and 
 he has the impudent courage to flout me. There must 
 be some wisdom in a man who can be such a fool." 
 
 "I always liked him," said Christopher's mother. 
 
 "All women do. Good women as well as bad good- 
 ness knows you're good enough, dear. That's, in a way, 
 what's the matter with you." 
 
 Christopher's mother laughed relieved that she might 
 show colour in a situation which had demanded neutrality, 
 at least, from her. 
 
 "A spice of the Devil would have done you no harm 
 a little more of the guile of the serpent. If Christopher 
 has either, he won't get it from you." 
 
 "He's not such a paragon," said his mother. She smiled 
 at the thought of this being praise. 
 
 "I hope not, but I hope more that he'll never be any- 
 thing else in essentials." 
 
 What these might be she did not say. 
 
 "What are his tastes?" she asked abruptly. 
 
 Anne Herrick felt herself nonplussed. His tastes? How 
 could she say? though she thought she knew. How ex- 
 plain to this stern old woman, who expected men to be 
 soldiers, that she believed Christopher to be many other 
 things? She did not forget the wartime when Christopher 
 had been martial with the most martial. She did not for- 
 get many a little incident in his little career which showed
 
 106 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 that he was not wanting in pluck facings of pain, the 
 dentist, perhaps, facings of what had to be faced, but 
 might have been shied at. These things did not count. 
 She did not think he was a soldier. His tastes? Every- 
 thing was his taste. A walk with Christopher would have 
 told you more than she could tell. 
 
 "I don't know," she said at last. "He's interested in 
 everything." (She was using, though she did not know it, 
 almost the words Trimmer had used to the piano-tuner, 
 when she in turn had tried to express Christopher.) 
 "There 's nothing that he does n't see. He sees pictures." 
 
 "An artist?" 
 
 Mrs. Herrick's tone was tolerant in a contemptuous 
 sort of way. 
 
 " I don't know. He's taking in all the time. Taking in 
 everything he hears and smells and sees and touches " 
 
 "And tastes, I hope. Give him a good appetite. It's 
 healthier then." 
 
 His mother nodded. 
 
 "He uses all his senses for what he is absorbing." 
 
 "Well, if the rarest of all the one we call common 
 is not left out " 
 
 Anne Herrick smiled. 
 
 " I don't think it is. He has plenty of gumption. But 
 if he sees things as they are, he also sees them as they 
 never were and never will be." 
 
 "You're drawing an artist, I misdoubt me." 
 
 " He has n't an idea of drawing. He draws, of course, 
 but only what all children draw, trains, and houses, 
 and unrecognisable horses. Not a bit better than any other 
 boy of his age. Not a painter, I think, if you mean that. I 
 don't understand these things, but it seems to me some- 
 times that with so much taking-in, one of these days there 
 will have to be some sort of giving-out." 
 
 "An artist," Christopher's grandmother said again. 
 "I did n't mean a painter." 
 
 There was a pause after that.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 107 
 
 " I suppose you know that it's putting him outside life." 
 
 "Or in the heart of it." 
 
 "So deeply in the heart of it, then, that it will keep the 
 breath from his nostrils. Well, it's all as it will be. Neither 
 you nor I will have any voice in what was settled from the 
 beginning of time. I hope you may be wrong for his 
 sake. But meanwhile I could find it in me to wish something 
 which may surprise you." 
 
 Anne Herrick looked at her, speculating as to what that 
 might be. 
 
 Mrs. Herrick the elder did not answer at once. She 
 looked at her daughter-in-law much as she had looked at 
 Christopher. Anne let her eyes fall to her work and went 
 on with it. Her crochet-hook pecked away at the rose 
 she was making. She felt the old woman's eyes on her 
 hair, on her cheeks, on her eyelids; most of all on her 
 eyelids. She was not as strong as Christopher, who had 
 hardly flinched. 
 
 "Well?" she said at last. 
 
 "It isn't because you're so pretty, and prettiness 
 shouldn't be wasted. I daresay you scarcely know how 
 pretty you are. And it is n't because you 're young, though 
 you are amazingly young when I look at you " 
 
 "Oh, please." 
 
 Anne Herrick could not stifle that little cry. 
 
 "It is n't for your sake at all," Mrs. Herrick continued 
 relentlessly. "Though it might be and might very well 
 be, it is n't. It's Christopher I 'm thinking about." 
 
 " I know what you 're going to say 
 
 "Well, then, has it ever occurred to you that a house- 
 hold of women is n't the best environment for him ? 
 We're narrow, the broadest of us, circumscribed, hemmed 
 in as much by our own ignorances as by anything else. 
 It won't always be so, perhaps. There are signs even now 
 of a breaking-down of some of the barriers. Whether that 
 will be good for us I for one am not prepared to say. The 
 fact remains that we're not called the weaker sex for
 
 io8 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 nothing. Well, there are weaknesses that I pride myself 
 upon not having, and this is one of them. Most women 
 think that their sons' widows should be widows indeed. 
 Well, I don't, and if ever " 
 
 "Ah, please " 
 
 "Nonsense, you're a young woman." 
 
 That was what Christopher's mother had so lately dis- 
 covered, and what for that very reason she did not want to 
 hear. She held her breath for the strangeness of the mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "I'm thinking of Christopher. Where there's a boy 
 there should be a man. There's nothing " 
 
 "Don't say ' like a man in the house,'" Anne implored, 
 laughing a little hysterically. 
 
 "Well, that's what I was going to say," said Chris- 
 topher's grandmother.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE next day was Christmas Eve. There had been a very 
 hard frost in the night and every puddle was frozen. 
 Christopher may be said to have spent most of the morning 
 breaking cat-ice with a sturdy boot, and canvassing for 
 votes for hard weather. He was hoping for snow, though 
 at breakfast his grandmother had said fervently, "The 
 Lord forbid!" If not snow, then a spell of frost for sliding 
 perhaps even for learning to skate. The frost, Robson, 
 the butler, and Mrs. Wellington, the housekeeper, seemed 
 disposed, though a little too indulgently, to promise him. It 
 appeared to be because boys would be boys or, more 
 aptly, young gentlemen, young gentlemen that they 
 supposed, with obliging smiles, that he must have it. His 
 mother, who, in her heart, was rather wishing too that the 
 frost might last, went down with him to look at the lake. 
 She had not skated for many years, but used to skate 
 when she was "young," as a short time back she would 
 have expressed it when she was a girl, before she mar- 
 ried, that is, as, for some reason or another, she was moved 
 to put it now. 
 
 The lake was well covered. Clean ice shimmered in clear 
 sunlight. Already, private as the park was, with only a 
 right of way across it by a distant footpath, the stone or two 
 of wantonness or active mischief lay upon the ice. But 
 what ice if the frost held out! She felt excited and again 
 a little bit alarmed. 
 
 What was this conspiracy that insisted on her youth? 
 The very sight of the ice joined it the sharp, stimulating 
 air. What, too, was this mystery of recurring phrases? 
 Words seemed to group themselves arbitrarily on the 
 tongue to disconcert her. There 's nothing like . . . Could
 
 no CHRISTOPHER 
 
 any reiteration of chance words be stranger? Were they 
 chance words at all which had it in them so to force them- 
 selves upon her? Christopher, even, Christopher, all 
 unconscious, passive, innocent of any design soever, 
 had been drawn into the disturbing argument they pressed. 
 Had she fled to England but to be confronted with them in 
 a new and strengthened guise? Something seemed to her 
 to be closing round her. 
 
 "Come here, Christopher." 
 
 He came from breaking cat-ice. A cart-road, deeply 
 rutted, skirted the lake, and the ruts were ridged as with 
 glass near where she was standing. He could break to 
 his heart's content. He held a bit of ice in each hand. His 
 cheeks were glowing. 
 
 "What, mother?" 
 
 She did not know, and made some excuse told him 
 to look at a robin which had alighted almost at her feet. 
 
 "Isn't he tame?" 
 
 She had meant to ask him questions. Some impulse, 
 which as suddenly as it came deserted her, had prompted 
 her to ask him whether he was happy. Was his life happy 
 his normal life at Boulogne with only herself and Trim- 
 mer for everyday companionship? For change and inter- 
 change of ideas outside his home, were his schoolfellows 
 enough for him? What good to ask him? Of course he 
 was happy ; and how could he know? If he were not happy, 
 even, how could he know? 
 
 The robin took flight and Christopher went back to his 
 cat-ice. 
 
 But even as she dismissed her questions came a recollec- 
 tion to answer them. Christopher bending over a rut had 
 unconsciously put himself into the first position for one of 
 the acrobatic feats which he used to perform with poor 
 Pierre About in the magic days of the billeting. Monsieur 
 Christophe was told to stoop down, lower, lower, 
 now from between his knees to give Pierre, who stood be- 
 hind him, his hands, so: then, Houp-la! Houp! had been
 
 CHRISTOPHER in 
 
 made to turn a somersault. It was Pierre, of course, who 
 did the performing. Christopher had only to have faith; 
 not to be frightened. There were other evolutions through 
 which he was put. He had stood on Pierre's shoulders one 
 day, held only (though Jean Poulard was there ready, if he 
 should fall, to catch him) held only by Pierre's hands at 
 the back of his heels. It had been Christopher's mother 
 that day who was frightened, not Christopher, though 
 he was not sorry to come down. 
 
 That was life, perhaps. That was life for a boy. Happy, 
 healthy, natural. She had only to think of Christopher as 
 he had borne himself then to realise that, full as his young 
 life might be, it had been fuller for this time than it had 
 been before or since. Yet, when all was said, how do better 
 than well? 
 
 She laughed to herself presently, her spirits rising again 
 as she raced him towards the house. 
 
 "We shall be skating in three days," she said, "and then 
 you won't beat me." 
 
 "Well, I've got to learn," he said. "Then I shall beat 
 you, all right." 
 
 "Shall you indeed, sir? And why, pray?" 
 " Oh, well," said Christopher, " I 'm well, you 're not a 
 boy, you see." 
 
 "And all boys can beat their mothers?" 
 "On their legs," said Christopher, "of course." 
 Which was all as it should be. They reached the house 
 laughing and breathless. 
 
 Mrs. Herrick the elder did not reopen the subject of 
 her talk with her daughter-in-law that day nor would, 
 perhaps, during the rest of the visit. She had said her say, 
 maybe, and would leave her words to soak in. Anne, en- 
 joying herself, in spite of misgivings and forebodings, more 
 than she had expected, and somehow no longer "oppressed " 
 by Herrickswood, gave herself up to the very simple 
 pleasures of the moment, and hoped so. She went for a
 
 112 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 drive in the afternoon and assisted Mrs. Herrick in the 
 distribution of her rather fierce Christmas doles. 
 
 "Here's a pound of tea and a pound of sugar, Jane 
 Jarman, and a Happy Christmas to you, and don't let me 
 hear of your husband being drunk again, or tell him I '11 
 look out for a new woodman." 
 
 "Yes, 'm. Yes, 'm; thank you kindly, and no, 'm, I'm 
 sure. And I'm sure I 'ope " 
 
 "Yes, Jane Jarman, I know. Well, just tell him. And 
 don't let the tea stoo. Good-day to you." 
 
 "Good-day, 'm, and I'm sure I 'ope . . ." 
 
 "The cottage by the forge, James." 
 
 Or, "Here's half-a-crown, Mrs. Holden, and what's this 
 I hear about your daughter? Let her understand once for 
 all that I won't have any scandal. If you can't control 
 your children, you Ve no right to have had any. Not a 
 word. I won't listen to any excuses. None to make for 
 her? Well, all I can say is you ought to have. There. 
 There. The usual wishes." 
 
 Sometimes the attack came first. 
 
 "Your sons are poachers and thieves, Enoch Jones. 
 They're a disgrace to the parish. I hear fine accounts of 
 them. It's not their fault, I'm told, that they're not 
 spending Christmas in prison this year. It's a pity they're 
 not, if what I hear's true, and then people's pheasants 
 might hope to spend theirs in Christian safety. Mind this, 
 though. I '11 show them no mercy if my keepers catch them. 
 You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you wicked old man. 
 What happened to Eli, eh, in the Scriptures? He fell off 
 a post, did n't he, to punish him for his sons' evil 
 courses, and so will you if you don't check yours on 
 theirs. You may well look down. How 's your little grand- 
 daughter?" 
 
 "She don't seem to get up her strength." 
 
 "Send up to the hall for some soup. Perhaps she could 
 eat a little jelly. I'll speak about it. Here's a parcel of 
 groceries for you. I should wish you a happy Christmas
 
 CHRISTOPHER 113 
 
 with more certainty of your getting it if you'd brought up 
 your sons better. Good day, Enoch Jones." 
 
 "Good day, 'm, and thank you gratefully, and a Merry 
 Christmas and many of 'em." 
 
 "Merry Christmas, indeed," snorted Christopher's 
 grandmother to his mother. "Merry with Stephen in 
 some gutter! I suppose I ought to fall off a post myself. 
 It's lucky I'm not given to sitting on anything so risky." 
 
 So they proceeded. It was, "Where's the list, my dear? 
 Have you marked those off? That's right. Good-for- 
 nothings, all of them. Who's next then?" The oddest old 
 woman! But when amongst the gifts for an old Irish 
 widow, one Biddy McFlood, without any belongings, a 
 twist of tobacco was seen to have found its thoughtful 
 place, although it was shot at her with a Faugh ! and 
 For shame to you ! Christopher's mother wondered how 
 she could ever have stood in awe of her mother-in-law. 
 
 Christopher meanwhile, who had stayed at home to 
 help to decorate the house for the morrow, was pricking 
 his fingers with holly leaves, hammering his thumbs, and 
 generally enjoying himself. A spirit of festivity was over 
 even the austere hall. It was there that, with the aid of Al- 
 bert, the other wooden-faced footman, Robson, the butler, 
 hung the branch of mistletoe which caused such a flutter 
 amongst those of the women servants who were helping. 
 The elderly head-housemaid, who had so many front teeth 
 when she smiled that Christopher wondered how her lips 
 managed to cover them when she did n't, said in answer 
 to nothing, as far as Christopher knew that James or 
 Albert had Better let Her see them Try, that was all! Ol- 
 lenshaw, making a garland of evergreens with Trimmer, 
 said, "Ah, in the old days when we used to have annual 
 servants' balls here, that was the time. Some use in mistle- 
 toe then. Some meaning, as you might say." 
 
 It was all very respectful and discreet. An apologetic 
 glance was thrown at Christopher if any one laughed at all
 
 ii 4 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 loudly, but he was not excluded from the festal jesting, 
 and took his own part in it. 
 
 "Trimmer 's young man is at Boulogne," he said. 
 
 "Now, Master Christopher!" 
 
 "He is. He's a piano-tu " 
 
 Trimmer's laughing hand covered his mouth. 
 
 There was a friendly scuffle. But the thing seemed to 
 give general pleasure. It was interpreted in some way as 
 proving Master Christopher a son of the house proud 
 (Heaven knew how!), but able and ready to descend from 
 his natural pedestal. He reminded Ollenshaw of his father, 
 of course, but of his grandfather, too, and of his great- 
 uncles. 
 
 "I hardly realised, 'm," Trimmer said afterwards to her 
 mistress. "I did n't indeed." 
 
 "Realised what?" 
 
 "What they think it, to be one a Herrick, I mean." 
 
 "He's an Oxeter, too." 
 
 "I don't forget that. But in this house, 'm the im- 
 portance ! Of course I always knew his father's son and 
 being posthumious, as I said at the time, I remember. 
 But this brings it 'ome." Trimmer lowered her voice 
 again. "He 's winning golden opinions, 'm. Ollenshaw tells 
 me his grandmamma's taken to him most extraordinary. 
 She hears, 'm, having her ear, as it were. Indeed, in the 
 housekeeper's room he's as good as looked upon as the " 
 
 But that, Christopher's mother would not hear. She 
 felt it her duty to speak rather sharply. That was not to 
 be said. Not to be thought even. The case was nothing of 
 the sort. If such an idea were put into the boy's head 
 
 "No, 'm, of course not. Who would dream?" 
 
 Trimmer was not a bit abashed. 
 
 "Don't let me hear anything more of this, or I shall be 
 very angry." 
 
 The decorations betokened no special festivities. Her- 
 rickswood was always decorated at Christmas. Festoons
 
 CHRISTOPHER 115 
 
 of evergreens decked the sombre hall every year, hanging 
 from point to point on the walls. Bunches of holly were 
 tucked behind the frames of the pictures, crowning them 
 or balancing themselves on each side of them. Mrs. Her- 
 rick might be glad enough to see these things cleared away 
 when they had served their purpose, but she would as soon 
 have thought of not having them as of absenting herself 
 without adequate reason from church, on the twenty-fifth 
 of December. Customs were habits in those days. 
 
 The work went on apace. There was a rustling and a 
 crackling of leaves. The big garland, on which the maids 
 had been employed in their spare time for the last few 
 days, was in its place between the two pilasters; and the 
 smaller ones were growing apace under Ollenshaw's and 
 Trimmer's deft fingers. Christopher alternately helped 
 and hindered. He had made friends with wooden Albert 
 now, and discovered that he was not wooden. Albert had 
 many accomplishments which you would not have dreamt 
 of attributing to him if you had only seen him waiting. 
 He could move his ears and his scalp. Very accomplished, 
 this! He could wink, and taught Christopher with, 
 however, a caution. But above all, he was a ventrilo- 
 quist. 
 
 He called, "Are you there?" into an empty cupboard 
 under the great stone stairs, and a voice came out of it, 
 saying, "Of course I am, and who's that young gentleman 
 'olding the 'oily?" 
 
 "What young gentleman?" 
 
 "Why, standing beside you, stupid!" 
 
 "He means you, Master Christopher." 
 
 After that the voice of the man in the empty cupboard, 
 who dropped his H's so thoroughly, had to be evoked for 
 Christopher from everywhere else that Christopher could 
 think of: from the gallery overhead; from the dining-room 
 and the library, and the great cold drawing-room which 
 nobody sat in. 
 
 "Can you, Robson?"
 
 n6 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Robson, smiling indulgently, had other things to do, 
 than waste his time. 
 
 "Can James?" 
 
 No, James could n't either; but it appeared that James 
 was "proficient" upon the melodeon, a sort of concertina. 
 Christopher thought the baize door shut off many delights. 
 
 The sound of the returning carriage put a stop to the 
 entertainment. The servants, who had gathered round to 
 listen, went back to their several employments; Trimmer 
 and Ollenshaw to their garlands, the maids to their snip- 
 pings and prunings ; while Robson, whipping in Albert with 
 a look, nipped down the ladder upon which he had been 
 standing, and hastened to the door. 
 
 Mrs. Herrick, pausing on her stick to look round, said, 
 "A nice mess, I must say. Have you helped, Christopher? 
 Has he, Ollenshaw?" 
 
 "Of the greatest assistance, 'm. 
 
 His grandmother smiled at him. 
 
 "Enjoyed yourself?" 
 
 Christopher had done that, too. 
 
 He followed his mother upstairs to tell her about Albert. 
 
 But his mother could hardly listen to him; for odder 
 even than the odd reiteration of disturbing words, stranger 
 than the realisation of youth which had lately been forced 
 upon her, was the news which she had just heard in the 
 carriage. 
 
 John Hemming, it seemed, was in England, nothing 
 surprising in that; was in the neighbourhood, not 
 wholly surprising, this, either, for it was in that part of 
 the world, though at the other side of the county, that she 
 had first met him ; was coming to dinner next day. 
 
 And that, to Anne Herrick, was rather more than sur- 
 prising.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 IT was representative of the difference at that time in the 
 attitude of society towards the male and the female trans- 
 gressor, that, while the tip of Mrs. St. Jemison's nose 
 would not have been allowed to show itself over the thresh- 
 old of Herrickswood, John Hemming could be asked to 
 dinner without any ado soever. It would not, indeed, have 
 occurred to Mrs. Herrick the elder that upon a point so 
 well established any tentative sounding of the guest 
 already installed, as to whether she had any objection to 
 meeting him, could be deemed necessary. 
 
 Anne, conscious of being taken aback, was conscious also 
 that this very difference of outlook marked the relative 
 worldly positions of her mother-in-law and herself. It was 
 a question of upbringing. She herself would have felt 
 bound to "ask" before asking. Town and country mouse, 
 she felt, were adumbrated : here you saw the Mrs. Herrick 
 who lived in the world, and the Mrs. Herrick who, in so 
 far as she did not see eye to eye with her in this matter, 
 plainly lived out of it. 
 
 But in truth it was not upon such points of observance 
 that she was troubled. There was more than this to dis- 
 turb her. She heard thus hardly more than a word or two 
 of what Christopher had followed her upstairs to tell. She 
 said, "Did you, darling?" and "Really!" and "You don't 
 mean it!" relevantly enough. But whether Albert was a 
 ventriloquist, a contortionist, or a Primitive Methodist 
 she could not have told afterwards or, indeed, whether 
 it was Albert at all that she had been hearing about, and 
 not Robson or the elderly housemaid or Ollenshaw. Some- 
 body had done something, she knew, and she must see or 
 must hear him or her. Christopher, however, did not 
 realise her inattention, and presently left her.
 
 ii8 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 She stood by her dressing-table in her hat and coat 
 and looked at, without seeing, herself in the glass. The fire 
 crackled and spluttered and blew out puffing jets of flame 
 and boiling "tar" in the grate behind her. The sound of it 
 was the only sound in the room. It marked the passing 
 moments with little flares of ardent gas. Anne heard them 
 and thought the noise was like the running sound of the 
 knife-grinder's wheel when he holds the blade to it at 
 intervals in its revolutions. Automatically she had lighted 
 the candles on each side of the looking-glass, and now, as 
 automatically, she put them out, and drawing back a cur- 
 tain looked out over the park. 
 
 The frozen ground looked white, almost as if the snow, 
 for which Christopher had been wishing, had come indeed. 
 The sky was very clear and, in the early winter evening, 
 full of stars. The trees were very dark in the pale light, 
 and against the sky the branches of a cedar near the house 
 looked as if they were cut out of black paper. That gleam 
 to the left ringed by darkness must be the lake. The even- 
 ing was very still. Bells suddenly rang out faintly upon 
 the stillness, or it may be that suddenly she became aware 
 of their distant ringing. They reminded her of other 
 Christmas Eves. 
 
 She opened her window to listen, and as she did so an- 
 other sound smote crisply upon her ear the sound of 
 hoofs. Presently she made out the shape of a horse and a 
 rider upon the road below. She watched its progress across 
 the park to where it disappeared from her sight at the cor- 
 ner of the house. 
 
 It was about five minutes later that a note was brought 
 to her by Trimmer. 
 
 "For me?" she said. "It is n't a telegram?" She had a 
 momentary fear that something must have happened. Her 
 mother was ill, or one of her sisters. 
 
 "No, 'm. It's a note by messenger." 
 
 Trimmer looked for the matches, found them, and lighted 
 the candles.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 119 
 
 "It must be for Mrs. Herrick," said her mistress. She 
 had taken the note and was waiting for the light to burn up. 
 
 "No, 'm. Robson said it was for you." 
 
 The flames of the candles settled to steady burning and 
 showed the name on the envelope to be Mrs. Christopher 
 Herrick. 
 
 Still Anne hesitated, persuaded that there must be some 
 mistake. She knew no one about there likely to write to 
 her. There were, of course, people whom she had met or 
 who had called upon her years ago. It was possible that 
 one of these might have written, but it was improbable. 
 She was sure the note, whatever its direction, must be for 
 her mother-in-law. 
 
 Trimmer waited. 
 
 "Robson did n't say where it was from?" 
 
 "No, 'm. He only said it was for you. I gathered some- 
 how, though he did n't say so, that the messenger had been 
 given particular instructions." 
 
 It was a good many years since Anne Herrick had seen 
 the handwriting on the envelope or she would have recog- 
 nised it, perhaps, but even as she broke the seal she did so, 
 and knew in the same moment what she should find within. 
 She held the sheet to the light, and, steadying her eyes 
 with an effort, read the few lines it contained. 
 
 "I have just heard you are at Herri ckswood. You will 
 believe that I did not know you were to be there when, 
 with my father, I accepted Mrs. Herrick's invitation to 
 dine with her on Christmas Day. I place myself in your 
 hands. I will go to-morrow evening, or send excuse, accord- 
 ing as you bid me." 
 
 There was no beginning and no end. 
 
 "Is the messenger waiting?" 
 
 "Yes, 'm." 
 
 Anne Herrick went over to a writing-table, without an 
 idea of what she was going to write. Her first impulse was 
 to say, Do not come. Yet to what good ? She was, moreover, 
 still so far in awe of her mother-in-law as to shrink from
 
 120 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 interfering in any of her arrangements. What more likely 
 than that the coming of this messenger would reach her 
 ears? In such a case, as things stood, easy enough, in view 
 of what had scandalised Boulogne so recently, to explain. 
 But if the "excuse" came first, and the hearing of the 
 note afterwards, a connection between the two would be 
 obvious, an explanation unavoidable, and Christopher's 
 grandmother would, she thought, be a difficult person to 
 whom to make admissions. She must either consult her host- 
 ess or let her hostess's guest come. She made her decision. 
 
 "I understand, "she wrote, "and am grateful. But please 
 come as you intended." 
 
 She let this stand, folded the sheet, enclosed it in an 
 envelope which she addressed, and gave it to Trimmer. 
 
 "The note was for me," she said. 
 
 Christopher was not sitting up for dinner that night. 
 It had been arranged in the interests of his bedtime that 
 he should have tea with Trimmer in the housekeeper's 
 room, and so retire at his usual hour. He came in to des- 
 sert for a few minutes and was given a fig and a tangerine 
 orange to eat there and then, and some chocolates to take 
 up with him, so he went to bed a full and happy boy. His 
 mother and his grandmother sat on for a little while after 
 he had left them, and then went as before to Mrs. Herrick's 
 sitting-room. Anne, who had been waiting all through 
 dinner for the mention of John Hemming's name, was 
 the first to speak it. She had decided that she must tell 
 Mrs. Herrick of her recent meeting with him at Boulogne. 
 As Christopher would see him at dinner the next day, 
 she had, indeed, no alternative. As well, then, speak of the 
 note and make no mysteries. 
 
 "At Boulogne, were they?" said Mrs. Herrick. "Well, 
 just the sort of place where one would expect to find them, 
 poor things. There's the wide world to choose from, and 
 they go to Boulogne! There's a fate in it. If it had n't 
 been Boulogne, it would have been Brussels or Bruges."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 121 
 
 "We thought of Brussels or Bruges ourselves," said 
 Anne Herrick smiling, "when mamma gave up Chelten- 
 ham." 
 
 Mrs. Herrick made no comment on this, but looked 
 amused. 
 
 "So they fixed on Boulogne, did they, and fluttered 
 your dovecots?" 
 
 "Well, every one knew. That was why one could n't 
 do anything even after his kindness about Christopher. 
 He came at once to see him when I wrote, and I have to 
 thank him, in a way, for Christopher's recovery." 
 
 "You'll be able to do that to-morrow." 
 
 "I shall be glad to have the opportunity. He kept out 
 of our way after his visit, and soon afterwards they went 
 away." 
 
 "Have you heard anything of him since?" 
 
 "Not till to-day not till you spoke of him this after- 
 noon and I got his note this evening." 
 
 "Do you know that they've separated?" 
 
 Anne Herrick put down the magazine the pages of which 
 she had been cutting. 
 
 "Separated!" she said. 
 
 "Well she," said Mrs. Herrick. 
 
 Anne looked her amazement. 
 
 "But aren't they going to be married?" she asked at 
 last. 
 
 The words as she spoke them showed her how completely 
 impersonal had her thoughts been. John Hemming, as 
 John Hemming, had not entered into them. In so far as she 
 had thought of him, though the sight of him had so greatly 
 disturbed her, she had thought of him as another woman's 
 husband removed, apportioned, out of any reckoning. 
 It was not of him, then, that she had been afraid, but of all 
 men by reason of him ; since it was the sight of him which 
 had revealed to her that she was young still, and a woman. 
 
 "The whole thing is extraordinary," Mrs. Herrick said. 
 "First, St. Jemison, who is a beast, though that's by
 
 122 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 the way and justifies nothing, won't divorce her. Vin- 
 dictiveness, nothing else, for he had no thought of taking 
 her back, and they are kept dangling by his perversity 
 for goodness knows how long. And then, when at length 
 he does, and the time is approaching for the decree to be 
 made absolute, off goes the lady with somebody else." 
 
 Anne could hardly take this in. She began two or three 
 sentences, all beginning with But. 
 
 "My dear, it's because you can't put yourself in her 
 position. You've been feeling, just because you could n't 
 call upon her, and because she showed something more 
 perhaps than just common humanity when Christopher 
 met with his accident, knelt in the dust and did n't 
 consider her pretty clothes and all that, that she was 
 a deeply suffering woman. You yourself in her position 
 
 if you ever could be in her position, which you could n't! 
 
 would be miserable. Therefore she was. Not a bit of it. 
 Oh, I daresay she has suffered. She can't have liked drop- 
 ping out, sidelong looks any of the penalties. I dare- 
 say she is n't at all a bad woman in her way. But she's 
 light. Women who are really capable of suffering don't 
 leave their children. I have n't any doubt that she imag- 
 ines her little girl's name is written on her heart. It is n't. 
 I won't say there is n't a heart to write on, for I quite think 
 there is, but there is n't room on that sort of heart for the 
 names of children." 
 
 "She's so pretty." 
 
 "So, I've no doubt, was Mrs. Potiphar." 
 
 "You could see people talking about her, turning their 
 
 backs" 
 
 "Just so. The penalties I spoke of." 
 
 "She looked so lonely when he was n't there." 
 
 "I can imagine Boulogne or Brussels or Bruges 
 
 very boring." 
 
 There was a silence for a few moments. 
 
 "My dear, your pity is wasted upon her. Trimmer's 
 
 was n't the wrong attitude, even if, as I can quite believe,
 
 CHRISTOPHER 123 
 
 the good woman's heart did smite her. Young Hemming is 
 well rid of her your St. Jemison. He may thank the 
 husband for his venom." 
 
 "It's all dreadful," said Anne. 
 
 " Not nearly as dreadful (the Lord forgive me and 
 her!), not nearly as dreadful as it might have been. It 
 was n't only their heels they were cooling while her hus- 
 band kept them waiting, and luckily (the Lord forgive me 
 again!) she found this out before it was too late." 
 
 " He meant to marry her " 
 
 "That's why I say luckily (for which the Lord . . .!) 
 He would have gone through with it cheerfully, whatever 
 the state of his feelings. He 's not the sort of man to back 
 out of what the situation demanded. She was a fool not 
 to recognise well, she's found her vocation. I daresay 
 I 'm shocking you, but she is light, light, light. You don't 
 know her as I do." 
 
 Anne shook her head. 
 
 " I don't know her at all." 
 
 "Well, I do or did, and I even rather liked . . . rather 
 like her. She has her points: kindnesses, generosities, ex- 
 cellent manners. She takes the trouble to make herself 
 agreeable even to old women, and not any the less if their 
 sons should happen to be her lovers. Oh, yes, Stephen 
 in his day. She knew I knew. Bless you, did n't trouble her 
 pretty head, and always was charming to me. That was 
 Cora St. Jemison. Like her? One could n't help liking her. 
 But keep your pity, Anne. Spare yourself the pain of 
 being too sorry for her." 
 
 There was a long pause after this. Mrs. Herrick put on 
 her velvet glove and mended the fire. 
 
 "And Mr. Hemming?" said Anne then. "Is one to be 
 sorry for him?" 
 
 "I think one is to take him as he is. I have my own 
 opinion as to how he came to be in that galley at all. 
 Somebody had to be scapegoat. Somebody always has. 
 He 's not a saint, I 'm not claiming that fo;: him, or indeed
 
 124 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 claiming anything except that, somehow, in spite of ap- 
 pearances, and a good deal more than appearances, too, 
 he's to be trusted." 
 
 " I always liked him," said Anne, and remembered that 
 she had said the same thing of good-for-nothing Stephen. 
 She blushed a very rosy red and was glad there was a fire, 
 and very glad that the old lady, who knew most things, 
 at least did not know that time was when John Hemming 
 had wanted to marry her. She stooped for her paper- 
 knife, which had fallen, and went on cutting the pages of 
 "All the Year Round." The sound of the cutting cut, 
 cut, cut; cut, cut, cut established itself. The rhythmical 
 sound helped the moment. When she looked up her colour 
 was normal. 
 
 They talked no more that night of John Hemming or 
 Mrs. St. Jemison. Anne read her magazine or rather, 
 did not read it, but sat with it in her lap, forgetting to turn 
 over the pages she had cut so assiduously. At half-past 
 ten, Robson and the ventriloquist appeared with their 
 candles.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ANNE HERRICK, wide awake in the great four-post bed 
 in her room, was grateful to the Waits who sang under the 
 windows of Herrickswood so late that night. Out of the 
 silence suddenly came the singing. She raised her head 
 to listen, at a loss for a moment to account for what she 
 heard. Despite the decorated hall through which she had 
 passed on her way to bed, she had forgotten the season, 
 and old customs connected with it, and she had to collect 
 her thoughts before she could be sure that, wide awake 
 as she knew herself to be, she was not dreaming. Like the 
 strains of an organ in some big and empty church, the 
 voices of men and boys swelled out in the stillness, and 
 from that stillness and the hour borrowed, it may be, a 
 glamour which under any other conditions they might 
 have lacked. There must have been some twelve voices, 
 the pick, Anne heard afterwards, of a neighbouring 
 choir, and amongst them three or four of rather more 
 than ordinary quality. She lay still, listening, wishing that 
 Christopher too might hear, but loath to wake him. 
 
 "Ay, and therefore be merry, 
 Set sorrow aside; 
 Christ Jesus the Saviour 
 Was born at this tide." 
 
 Glees, ballads, madrigals alternated with hymns. "God 
 rest you merry, gentlemen," was flanked upon the one 
 side by "When I view the Mother holding," and upon the 
 other by "Adeste Fideles." The "Mistletoe Bough" had 
 its place in their repertory. 
 
 Nothing else could have calmed Christopher's disturbed 
 mother as did this odd, unlooked-for concert in the night. 
 She grudged the passing of each simple melody as it neared
 
 126 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 an end, and feared that every one might be the last. Listen- 
 ing intently she could hear a subdued murmur of voices 
 at the conclusion of each, and could imagine the collecting 
 of the sheets of music, and the discussion which then took 
 place before those of the next were given out. There was 
 the sound of feet; of an occasional laugh under the breath, 
 or perhaps a cough. She heard the quiet opening of a win- 
 dow; little movements in the house itself. Others besides 
 her were listening. 
 
 She was not surprised when a gentle knock at the door 
 heralded Trimmer in a flannel dressing-gown. 
 
 "Oh, you're not asleep, 'm. I could n't help coming to 
 see. Is n't it beautiful? Is Master Christopher?" 
 
 " I did n't like to wake him." 
 
 "May I see?" 
 
 "If you like." 
 
 " He 'd never forgive us if we did n't. We're all listening 
 upstairs. They don't always come, these, only some- 
 times. They 're special, Ollenshaw says. It 's an experience. 
 It would be a pity if he missed it. Nothing like this, 'm, 
 at B'long, is there?" 
 
 "Well, tell him he's not to get out of bed. And never 
 mind if you don't quite wake him. Indeed, if you just 
 half-wake him he'll hear through his sleep perhaps 
 the most wonderful way of all." 
 
 So Christopher heard the Waits with the rest, but, being 
 only half-awakened at Trimmer's discretion, heard them 
 as his mother had predicted, in the most wonderful way of 
 all. The voices of celestial choirs mingled with his dreams. 
 Harps, sackbuts, psalteries, dulcimers, and all kinds of 
 music were present ever after in his conception of what 
 Waits were of what the magic word should and could 
 imply. 
 
 "Ay, and therefore be merry, 
 Set sorrow aside . . ." 
 
 So to music passed the night for sleeping Christopher, and so 
 for his mother, who had not thought to sleep, but slept.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 127 
 
 Greetings, presents, church, the post-bag all the usual 
 eager Christmas businesses filled the morning, but even 
 then, and all through the afternoon, the day seemed to be 
 hurrying towards evening. Anne saw the hours flit by 
 with mixed feelings. She still felt bewildered by the whole- 
 sale readjusting of ideas which the talk of the day before 
 with Mrs. Herrick had entailed upon her. Nothing was 
 quite as she had supposed it. She knew not whether to be 
 glad or sorry that circumstances should have made it pos- 
 sible for her to meet her friend of other days once more 
 on open ground. She was of course to have met him any- 
 way, but not as she was now to meet him. How was 
 he different, indeed? He was not different. That could 
 not help still being true. Yet somehow everything was 
 changed. 
 
 She went through the day curiously ; was out as much as 
 possible, feeling a strange need of air and space. It was 
 happily a day for walking, and she and Christopher did 
 their five or six miles after lunch. They visited the ice in 
 the course of their walk, and found it in excellent condition 
 and considerably thicker than the day before. If the frost 
 lasted she must see about getting skates in the neighbour- 
 ing town the next day, to be ready for the day after, when 
 all being well, the ice should bear. She talked of this for a 
 little, wondering all the time how best to tell Christopher 
 what he did not know yet. She had thought that he would 
 probably have heard who it was who was coming to dinner, 
 but it was evident that he had not. Trimmer, of course, 
 must have heard. She must have seen the direction, too, 
 on the note which her mistress had given to her, but however 
 much Trimmer might wonder, she was too well-bred a ser- 
 vant to make any comment upon what did not concern her. 
 It would not have been from her that Christopher would 
 have heard. 
 
 "Who do you think is coming to dinner?" 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 She told him.
 
 128 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Mr. Hemming? John Hemming? His John Hemming? 
 Christopher's John Hemming! 
 
 Was Mrs. St. Jemison coming too? 
 
 But here, from Christopher's point of view, was the diffi- 
 cult thing to understand, for he was not to speak of Mrs. 
 St. Jemison. John Hemming was coming, but Mrs. St. 
 Jemison was still the Mrs. St. Jemison who could n't be 
 called upon or asked anywhere. More than ever now, it 
 seemed, was she outside the pale that Trimmer had spoken 
 about at Boulogne. So much so, that, whatever he did, the 
 one thing he must remember at dinner, and afterwards, 
 and always, was that she must not be mentioned. Difficult, 
 as you will perceive, to understand. 
 
 John Hemming, however, was coming. That was the 
 great thing. It blotted out all else. Christopher would 
 see him again, and John Hemming, released, he gathered, 
 in some way from something, would not look aside any 
 more when they met, or look past him, or over him, or other- 
 wise show any disposition to avoid him. Things were dif- 
 ferent would be found to be different. It was Chris- 
 topher then who, like the day itself, strained towards the 
 evening. 
 
 Anne Herrick, putting the finishing touches to her dress- 
 ing, heard the wheels of General Hemming's carriage on the 
 gravel. She had relieved her mind by speaking of these 
 expected guests to Trimmer, and had found, as she ex- 
 pected, that Trimmer knew who was coming. Trimmer 
 knew, too, that Mrs. St. Jemison had taken a further step 
 in her career. Ollenshaw was a mine of information upon 
 the doings of what she called the best people, and had more 
 to tell of Mrs. St. Jemison than Trimmer had to tell her. 
 She had known some nice ones in her time. It was Ollen- 
 shaw's sex, Ollenshaw thought, which was most in gener- 
 ally to blame, and Mr. Hemming (who was very good- 
 looking) was probably less culpable than you might think 
 for. Trimmer, reflecting something of all this, and despite
 
 CHRISTOPHER 129 
 
 her recent attitude towards the pair at Boulogne, did not 
 seem surprised that Mr. Hemming should be expected. 
 Mrs. St. Jemison, it was evident, stood to her for the ban; 
 the ban removed, there remained Mr. Hemming, with no 
 visible black mark against him. Strange! Yet not very 
 different in essence her own argument, Anne thought; and 
 not so very different Mrs. Herrick's. It was agreeable, 
 however, not to have to explain. 
 
 "Your fan, 'm," said Trimmer, "and your gloves," and 
 followed her to the door, to look after her with approbation 
 down the passage. Her mistress was wearing a new dress, 
 and Trimmer thought she had never looked prettier. 
 
 Trimmer was not the only one who admired Anne that 
 night. 
 
 Anne went of habit to Mrs. Herrick's sitting-room, only 
 to find it empty, and then, guided by the sound of voices, 
 to the drawing-room. Its two fires were blazing and its 
 many candles gave the room a brilliance which became it 
 greatly. Mrs. Herrick was standing at the hearth at 
 the far end of it, talking to an old and a young man. Christ- 
 opher stood beside her. 
 
 "No party, as I warned you," she was saying as Anne 
 came in. "Just family. You remember my daughter-in- 
 law." 
 
 Anne, reaching the party, shook hands with General 
 Hemming. She turned then to the other, of whose exact 
 aspect, though she had not looked at him till she stood be- 
 side him, she had been conscious as she crossed the room. 
 She put out her hand. She heard herself greet him with- 
 out knowing what she said, and at the same moment din- 
 ner was announced. 
 
 " I ought to have beaten up a little girl for Christopher, 
 ought n't I?" said Christopher's grandmother, apportion- 
 ing his mother to John Hemming with a wave of her fan ; 
 "but little girls are not easy to get at Christmas nor 
 any one else, for that matter, which makes me the more 
 grateful to you all for coming to eat your Christmas dinner
 
 I 3 o CHRISTOPHER 
 
 with a lonely old woman. Will you go on, Mr. Hemming? 
 Christopher, don't tread on my tail, nor laugh at your 
 grandmother's back." 
 
 Christopher, who had no thought of doing either, 
 laughed happily in her face. He was n't a bit afraid of her 
 now. 
 
 Anne hoped, prayed, that the hand on John Hemming's 
 arm did not tremble. She had an idea that the arm on 
 which it rested was itself not quite steady. Would he 
 ignore Boulogne and their recent meeting? Should she? 
 It was partly of nervousness, partly to settle her nerves, 
 that she spoke of the place herself. 
 
 She saw at once that he was not going to ignore anything. 
 He accepted their common knowledge as something that 
 had to be granted. There was unhappiness behind him, 
 she perceived, but perceived also that he was not unhappy. 
 In appearance, as she saw him closely, he was hardly 
 changed from her lover of years ago. 
 
 But what she chiefly noticed, and what told her more of 
 him than he or his looks could tell, was somehow his 
 father's aspect that evening. She could guess that their 
 relations as father and son were of the sort in which not 
 much would be said. She could believe that possibly 
 neither remonstrance nor protest had passed the old man's 
 lips during the time which was now over. But the impres- 
 sion which she got now was of one from whose heart there 
 was rising a song of thanksgiving a paean of which the 
 theme was "This my Son," and the burden, "Which was 
 dead and is alive again." 
 
 It was the season, perhaps, the carols of the night, the 
 words which she had heard with her outward ears in church 
 that morning. She did not think it. 
 
 Dinner meanwhile was passing cheerfully. The presence 
 of Christopher kept the spirit of the occasion alive even for 
 his elders, who else, perhaps, for their several reasons, would 
 have been inclined rather to forget than to foster it. Under 
 the influence of it Anne felt her nervousness evaporating.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 131 
 
 "He is none the worse of his accident?" John Hemming 
 said. 
 
 "No," she answered. "You cured him." 
 
 His smile leapt to hers. 
 
 "I don't know how I did that." 
 
 "Nor I," she said, shaking her head. 
 
 They spoke under cover of a friendly argument upon 
 some local question on which Mrs. Herrick was engaged 
 with General Hemming. 
 
 "He cherishes the nail," she added. 
 
 How strange it was, she was thinking again, how strange! 
 This man might have been her husband. Would there have 
 been Mrs. St. Jemison then? But would there have been 
 Christopher? 
 
 She fell into silence for a few moments, but for long 
 enough to send a thought on its familiar way to India. So 
 well did her thoughts know their way there; to a bungalow 
 which she had once called "home"; and a little graveyard 
 in the hills! 
 
 "Can you skate?" she heard Christopher saying. "The 
 ice '11 bear to-morrow, I believe, but it'll be safe the day 
 after, and we're going to. At least, I'm going to learn. 
 Mother can." 
 
 Christopher's John Hemming skated. 
 
 "Come and skate here, then," said Christopher's grand- 
 mother. "Not that any invitation is necessary, for every 
 one knows the lake is always open when there's a frost. 
 Come to lunch." 
 
 "Oh, do," cried Christopher, excited in a moment, 
 "do. Make him come, mother." 
 
 Christopher, all unconsciously, had made it possible for 
 him to look at Christopher's mother before he answered. 
 It was the note of the night before again. She could not but 
 be pleased. 
 
 She met his look, but did not speak, and he accepted the 
 invitation. 
 
 "I'm on your side now about the frost," he said to
 
 I 3 2 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Christopher. "We must make it last somehow, mustn't 
 we?" 
 
 "It's going to," said Christopher. "Robson says so. 
 He knows by his bones." 
 
 "Sing to us, Anne," Mrs. Herrick said later. 
 
 Christopher had gone to bed, by then, but he was too 
 excited to be asleep, and from the distant drawing-room 
 the music stole to him presently as he lay awake listening. 
 He was awake an hour later when the carriage bearing the 
 departing guests rolled off, crunching the gravel. He heard 
 the trot of the horses' hoofs halfway across the park to 
 where the road turned and a little hill interposed between 
 it and the house. 
 
 "What shall I sing?" said Anne, and went over to the 
 piano. 
 
 John Hemming followed her to light the candles, and 
 stayed near when he had done so. She played a few chords 
 at random and drifted on a train of thought into the open- 
 ing bars of Adolphe Adam's "Cantique de Noel," which 
 that night she knew would be sung at the Cathedral at 
 Boulogne. It was not wholly its appropriateness to the 
 day that made her choose it not so much that, indeed, 
 as the thought that Granny Oxeter would perhaps be lis- 
 tening to it up in the old town, and that she was conscious 
 of a sudden wish to be in touch with one who understood 
 so well. 
 
 Minuit, Chretiens, c'est 1'heure solennelle 
 
 Oti 1'homme Dieu descendit jusqu' a nous, 
 
 Pour effacer la tache originelle, 
 
 Et de son pere arrlter le courroux. 
 
 Le monde entier tressaille d'esperance 
 
 A cette nuit qui lui donne un sauveur. 
 
 Peuple genoux, attends ta delivrance; 
 
 Noel, Noel, void le Redempteur! 
 
 As impossible, even without Christopher, to get away 
 from the spirit of the festival as to get away from Boulogne!
 
 CHRISTOPHER 133 
 
 Need she strive to get away from either? John Hemming, 
 sitting near the piano, and with his eyes on her face as she 
 sang, did not look to her troubled (any more than, to Christ- 
 opher, he had looked "entangled" or "wretched"); and 
 Anne herself could not deny that upon this Christmas 
 night she at any rate was quietly happy. 
 
 She sang one or two more songs after that : "The Bridge," 
 by Miss Lindsay, which was still in every amateur's reper- 
 tory then; and, with a vague notion that Christopher up- 
 stairs might be listening to her, his favourite "Ballad of 
 Lord Lovel and the Lady Ancebel." 
 
 "Lord Lovel" was a favourite with General Hemming, 
 too, it seemed. He rose from his chair by the fire and came 
 over to the piano. He stood by his son. He did not look 
 at him, but his look, as Anne knew, held him for all that. 
 Again she became conscious of that inner song. She could 
 not mistake it. It was audible to her as her own singing. 
 She had to steady her own voice as she listened. 
 
 " They grew till they grew to the top of the church, 
 And when they could grow no higher, 
 They grew into a true lover's knot, 
 And so were joined together." 
 
 As clear as this: Which was lost and is found. Which was 
 dead and is alive again. 
 
 But was he alive again? She looked at the unblemished 
 face. Had he been dead? Death even in life must leave 
 its mark. Death had not marked him. He was as the three 
 who had come up out of the furnace unscathed. Not so 
 much as the smell of fire had passed over him. Was he then 
 any more alive again than he had been dead? 
 
 She put the thought from her.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 CHRISTOPHER, sure enough, had heard "Lord Lovel and 
 Lady Ancebel," and was still awake when his mother went 
 up to bed. Trimmer had been called in that he might hear 
 what she had to tell of festivities below the salt. Yes, they 
 had naturally had turkey, too, and, for those who liked 
 them, oysters first, for that matter, just like the dining- 
 room, and of course everything else. Crackers with 
 mottoes. Trimmer had kept her caps for him. He should 
 have them in the morning. But he should have seen Ollen- 
 shaw in hers! Ollenshaw in a cocked hat with a bunch of 
 paper feathers. Ollenshaw in a Scotch bonnet with a paper 
 thistle on one side and two little paper ribbons behind! 
 Mr. Robson, too. He had worn an old lady's hood with 
 paper ruchings, and did look a droll. 
 
 "Christopher, Christopher, why aren't you asleep? 
 Trimmer, are you keeping him awake? Tell him he's to 
 go to sleep this instant." 
 
 But she had to go into his room, all the same. Did n't 
 she hope? . . . Yes, on the whole, though she was not 
 sure that she liked the cold, and his grandmother was sure 
 that she did n't. 
 
 Was n't she glad Mr. Hemming . . . ? 
 
 Selfishly, if Mr. Hemming instead of Christopher's 
 mother would hold Christopher up while he floundered. 
 Now, go to sleep. But one more thing, and one more, and 
 in one minute, and so on. 
 
 "I knew it was nonsense about not being able to know 
 him," said Christopher. 
 
 She left it at that and him also. In time, it is to be 
 supposed, he went to sleep. 
 
 The frost held. A few intrepid or foolhardy spirits ven-
 
 CHRISTOPHER 135 
 
 tured upon the ice at their own risk the next day, and a 
 youth got a ducking for his pains. All was as it should be. 
 He could be held up as an awful example to Christopher, 
 who could thus, with a reasonableness which was demon- 
 strable, be kept off till the safer morrow. Skates Boxing- 
 Day though it was were secured that afternoon in the 
 neighbouring town, where every ironmonger's shop, how- 
 soever closed, could yet be seen to have broken out into 
 skates. The word was gummed to window panes; the 
 things themselves could be seen hanging in clusters within. 
 A surreptitious business was done at a side door. It was 
 enough, Christopher's grandmother said, to set the frost 
 by the heels without further ado. 
 
 The frost was not to be frightened. The thermometer 
 fell steadily. A clear keen night gave place to a clear keen 
 day, and after breakfast there might have been seen cross- 
 ing the park a little cavalcade consisting of Anne Herrick, 
 Christopher, and Trimmer, followed discreetly by wooden 
 Albert, the ventriloquist, with a folding-chair, a bunch of 
 skates, and a gimlet. 
 
 Ten o'clock struck from the clock over the stables as they 
 reached the lake. Early as they were, John Hemming was 
 there before them. Christopher saw him at once. Anne 
 saw him. He skated up as they approached. 
 
 For Christopher, who had only slidden on ice heretofore, 
 a whole set of impressions. These began with the putting- 
 on of the skates. He watched with fascination the boring, 
 by Albert, of the holes in the heels of his boots. It was like 
 having an operation performed upon you yourself only 
 that it did not hurt. It felt as if the gimlet was being 
 screwed into you, only that you did n't feel more than an 
 insinuating pressure. Presently surely the point must come 
 through. But it did n't. Horses must feel something like 
 this, he thought, when they were being shod. Then the 
 screwing, the whole skate being twisted in Albert's com- 
 petent red hand; the feeling of tension as the screw bit.
 
 136 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 After that, tight strapping. Discomfort enough for unac- 
 customed feet. 
 
 Then the hobbling walk to the ice; the ice itself; the 
 pride that went before a fall; the acceptance of rejected 
 aid from his mother, from John Hemming, from Trim- 
 mer, from wooden Albert. We leave him to his first floun- 
 dering. 
 
 It wanted but the feel under her feet of the blades cut- 
 ting into the elastic ice, as she swung out on to the lake, to 
 tell Anne once for all that, if much seemed to have hap- 
 pened to her, and, thus, many years to have passed over 
 her head, she was not so very much older than the eager 
 Christopher himself. Skating in that ladylike age was one 
 of the few sports open to women. It was Anne's one accom- 
 plishment. Like a good swimmer she struck out confidently, 
 sure, in spite of the lapse of time since last she had skated, 
 that she could skate. The outside edge was the limit as 
 yet of her modest attainment; but what else she could 
 do she did well, and what she had been able to do she could 
 do now. Her spirits rose. People were arriving. A carriage 
 or two drove up to the bank of the lake and in effect emptied 
 itself on to the ice. The whir of the skating rang on the 
 pleasant air. Sunshine gilded the day. 
 
 Anne recognised a few people. Here were neighbours 
 of her mother-in-law's who had called upon her when she 
 had stayed at Herrickswood as a bride. Some of them 
 recognised her. The usual civilities were exchanged. Christ- 
 opher had to be shown to one or two of these. They re- 
 minded him of the people to whom he used to be bidden 
 to give his right hand visitors, in short, which is just 
 what, so far as he was concerned, they were. He got back 
 as soon as might be to his floundering. Hemming took him 
 in hand from time to time bidding him put his feet to- 
 gether, towed him gently, or, holding him under the arms, 
 pushed him in front of him. Christopher at such moments 
 was in the seventh heaven of delight. His laughter rang
 
 CHRISTOPHER 137 
 
 out. Anne, looking at the big man and the little boy, felt 
 again the tightening at her heart which she had felt when 
 she stood at the foot of Christopher's bed months ago at 
 Boulogne. 
 
 "He'll skate in no time," Hemming said, bringing the 
 boy back to her after one such round. 
 
 "I nearly knocked him down," said Christopher glee- 
 fully. 
 
 " Don't let him tease you," said Christopher's mother. 
 
 John Hemming delivered Christopher to his floundering 
 and Trimmer. 
 
 "Mr. Hemming says I'm better every time. Where's 
 Albert?" 
 
 Albert had gone back to the house. 
 
 "Oh, well, then you'll do," said Christopher. 
 
 " Do, indeed ! " said Trimmer good-humouredly. " There, 
 give me your hand, sir." 
 
 John Hemming went back to Christopher's mother. 
 
 "Will you skate with me?" 
 
 He had not asked her to skate with him, though he had 
 skated beside her. 
 
 "Yes, John, of course." 
 
 They swung out together. 
 
 Impossible to withstand the pleasure of this exercise! 
 Anne felt her cheeks flush and her eyes sparkle, as she gave 
 herself up to it. She was a girl again, skating at Chelten- 
 ham and known as the Pretty Miss Oxeter some one 
 Christopher had never known or dreamed of; the crino- 
 lined "Belle" of a certain Bachelors' Ball; the coveted 
 partner of a season's very amateurish croquet. "Long, 
 long ago, ' ' as the song said ? Not a bit of it ! Not any time 
 at all, measured by her feelings that day. Christopher was 
 some younger brother, and she as always the youngest 
 Miss Oxeter. She sent a thought over the water to Laura 
 and Catherine, whose pet she had been before she married, 
 half wishing they could see her; and to her mother, wholly 
 wishing that she could.
 
 I 3 8 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Then she remembered that Laura and Catherine would 
 be shocked. Not at her skating, though even that might 
 surprise them, but at her company. That brought her 
 up with a jerk. 
 
 There were more people now. Mrs. Herrick came down 
 in her pony-chair at noon, and looked on for a time and 
 asked a few of her more intimate friends up to lunch. She 
 wore the inevitable sealskin of prosperity or average pros- 
 perity, and a bonnet on which there were bugles, which 
 jingled as she moved her head in talking. A groom, who 
 walked beside the chair when he drove the fat pony, stood 
 to attention as his mistress held her court. 
 
 Every one came up to speak to the old woman, but she 
 had her favourites, it was plain. Anne, like Christopher, 
 no longer afraid of her, could yet see why she had been. 
 She remembered how she had agreed with Christopher 
 that his other grandmother was "most" his grandmother, 
 and was glad now to think that she had recanted almost as 
 soon as the words were spoken. 
 
 "If the frost lasts, I think you'll have to give me a few 
 more days," Mrs. Herrick said, smiling as she watched 
 Christopher's scuttling. He was getting past the first 
 stages. "It's Sunday again to-morrow, remember, in 
 this week of Sundays, and it's plain that boy wants to 
 skate." 
 
 They were to have left on Monday. The rooms in Ebury 
 Street were engaged indeed from then. 
 
 "You tempt me," Anne said. 
 
 "Stay, dear, as long as you will as long as you can. 
 It 's a great pleasure to me to have Kit 's boy with me, and 
 Kit's boy's mother. There, think it over. I 'm going on 
 for my drive." 
 
 The groom took the reins and his place beside the chair, 
 and Mrs. Herrick was drawn from the scene. There was 
 rime on the grass, and the equipage, dark against the white, 
 and clear-cut as a silhouette, could be seen making its slow 
 round of the park as its occupant looked at her trees or her
 
 CHRISTOPHER 139 
 
 roads, her fences or her gates. Woe betide the perfunctory 
 or the careless workman on the Herrickswood estate. 
 
 Trimmer, enjoying herself quietly amid the general 
 bustle, thought suddenly what a Pair her mistress and Mr. 
 Hemming made when they skated together. The thought 
 came suddenly, but what led to it was probably gradual 
 enough. The mere sight of them with crossed hands sweep- 
 ing rhythmically across the ice would not have given her 
 the feeling of one who makes a discovery, or who sees what 
 others may be looking at, but do not see. The two were 
 not, indeed, skating together at the moment when Trim- 
 mer received her impression. On the contrary, her mistress 
 was standing at the edge of the ice talking to one of the 
 ladies who had gathered round Mrs. Herrick's pony-chair; 
 and Mr. Hemming was tracing wonderful and beautiful 
 figures with a stumpy little person, though an accom- 
 plished skater, whom Albert had pointed out to her as one 
 of the big-wigs of the neighbourhood. The unavoidable 
 contrast presented by these two, his tall shapeliness and 
 the big-wig's sturdy squatness, may have had its share in 
 throwing Trimmer's thoughts back to the last combina- 
 tion of which one of them had been part. Such a look-back 
 must of necessity have shown congruity for ill-assortment, 
 and thus have appeared to point out, to lay stress upon, 
 what was, after all, for all the world to see. But, at the 
 back of the mind of Trimmer making her trite observation, 
 lay who knows what of other, but unregistered, impres- 
 sions, preparing her for what she had none the less sup- 
 posed herself unprepared to see? A Pair. Why, what a 
 Pair! 
 
 Trimmer leant upon the handle of the broom which she 
 had been plying betweentimes to make herself useful and 
 keep herself warm. Christopher wanted less and less help 
 as the morning went on. He had ceased to shuffle and walk 
 upon his skates, and was beginning to feel his legs. He 
 would strike out and make headway till a fall brought him
 
 140 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 back to starting-point. Trimmer, leaning on her broom, 
 watched him absently. 
 
 A Pair, in truth, though such a thought might never 
 have entered, might never enter, the head of either of them. 
 They seemed picked out from the rest, for all that, if in 
 reality they were not. There were many better skaters on 
 the ice than Trimmer's mistress, one or two as good as Mr. 
 Hemming. Yet somehow you found yourself putting them 
 together, did n't you? They looked best, it was certain, 
 together. With no one else, that is, did either "match" 
 as with the other. Was it the lady's-maid in Trimmer 
 finding her out? What a Pair they made words surely 
 to be spoken from over a sewing-machine ; at the wardrobe 
 door, the arms full of skirts; across a dressing-table, the 
 head craned towards a window! Lady's-maidery, Trimmer 
 knew it. The thought, however, insisted upon expression, 
 and expression upon this phrase and no other. Such a Pair ! 
 
 "You looked so nice, 'm, skating," she permitted herself 
 that night, as she was putting her mistress to bed. 
 
 "Did I, Trimmer? I'm very glad you thought so." 
 
 " I 'm sure every one thought so. Indeed, I heard the 
 remark passed more than once. There must be some satis- 
 faction in doing a thing which when you do it grace- 
 fully, of course makes you look so much better than 
 anybody else." 
 
 Christopher's mother smiled. She knew her limitations, 
 and that she would never be anything more than an aver- 
 agely good skater. She was not of the stuff that those who 
 really excel are made of. Christopher might be. He had 
 not been wrong when he said that in good time he would 
 beat her. 
 
 "Ah, you're prejudiced, my good Trimmer. I'm not 
 bad, considering how little opportunity I 've had of prac- 
 tising. But I should never go far " 
 
 "Oh, distance," said Trimmer contemptuously. "It's 
 gracefulness I'm talking about all that matters for a 
 lady."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 141 
 
 "Well, I did n't mean distance. I can't progress. Now 
 he," she nodded in the direction of Christopher's room, 
 "really did make some progress to-day. Mrs. Herrick has 
 asked us to stay on if the frost lasts " 
 
 "I hope it will, 'm," said Trimmer. 
 
 It was accepting the imaginary situation.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 WAS it imaginary? Trimmer of course really thought so, 
 though she might Pair the suitable to infinity. She even 
 took herself to task for presuming to think at all. Anne 
 Herrick did think so, told herself so, insisted. It was, be- 
 cause it must be. She naturally took herself to task, or 
 rather continued to do so. The frost lasted. She saw him 
 every day, skated with him, talked to him; got away from 
 Herrickswood safely. 
 
 Safely? There was something, then? some sort of a 
 situation? Certainly not. Every one in the world might 
 have heard what they said to each other on the ice or else- 
 where. Certainly there was no situation. But she drew a 
 long breath in the train, and many in the lodgings in Ebury 
 Street. 
 
 She was very sorry to leave Herrickswood. She had not 
 altogether looked forward to her visit, but had, as she 
 found, greatly enjoyed it. Wholly new relations seemed to 
 have established themselves between her and her mother- 
 in-law. It was as if, somehow by reason of Christopher, 
 each had seen the other in a new light. The more she 
 thought of her visit reviewed it in detail the more she 
 knew that she had enjoyed it. It had been a time of quiet 
 well-being with an undercurrent of excitement. (The 
 excitement remained.) A thought of Herrickswood gave 
 her not the severe hall, its severity modified by evergreens 
 and red berries, not the candle-lit drawing-room of state, 
 not even her own room with the great four-post bed, not 
 the old oak or the tapestries, but a little intimate room in 
 which an old lady with a black velvet glove mended rather 
 than tended a blazing fire. Some such picture would al- 
 ways henceforth present Herrickswood to her.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 143 
 
 She drew her breath all the same. The undercurrent of 
 excitement had not made itself felt for nothing. Herricks- 
 wood stood for danger as once Boulogne for disturbance. 
 
 Another rattling four-wheeler with straw in the bottom 
 of it took the travellers to Ebury Street. Another just such 
 meal as before regaled them upon their arrival. To the 
 same sounds did Christopher fall asleep. Even the drip- 
 ping in the cistern at the top of the stairs was still to be 
 heard. After the silence of the country the wonderful 
 noises sounded a little louder, but that was all the differ- 
 ence ; and the same sense of being in the very, very heart 
 of things held him. 
 
 Christopher, with a sovereign in his pocket and the 
 world before him, did not employ time present in vainly 
 regretting time past. He had enjoyed every minute of 
 Herrickswood, and now was enjoying every minute of 
 London. All was fish that came to his net. For Robson 
 and his efficient wooden satellites, for Mrs. Wellington of 
 the housekeeper's room, for Ollenshaw and all the rest of 
 the orderly staff of well-trained servants, there were a 
 landlord in rusty black, a landlady with a perpetual smile 
 and a chenille net, and the usual Mary-Ann of all lodging- 
 houses of that day. These persons, however, jointly and 
 severally succeeded in interesting the ever-interested 
 Christopher. 
 
 If Boulogne had seemed wonderful, what of London? 
 Surely all the people in the world must be there together. 
 Some of the streets ran people as rivers run water. Not all. 
 Ebury Street was never crowded, nor were the adjacent 
 streets with the great squares in between, Eaton Square 
 where "grand" people lived (and his Grandmother Her- 
 rick used to have a house), and Belgrave Square where 
 grander. Nor was Grosvenor Place crowded, though it 
 could be, his mother said, when on a certain day in the 
 spring the balconies were filled with gentlemen and ladies 
 to watch other people coming back from the Derby. But
 
 144 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Oxford Street and Regent Street and a street called the 
 Strand ! and another street called Fleet Street, through 
 which Christopher passed when he went to St. Paul's! 
 In those the people were numberless like the sands of 
 the sea or the hairs of your head, as it said in the Bible. 
 Christopher gasped for sheer amazement and delight. This 
 was the London of his wildest dreams. Not the least part 
 of its fascination was an unacknowledged fear of it. Things 
 happened in London murders, mysterious disappear- 
 ances. Children were stolen for their clothes, "enticed" 
 down courts and alleys, dragged away, pulled in, perhaps, 
 through such doorways as he himself passed when he was 
 out, and nothing more was ever heard of them. Some one 
 called "Mrs. Tomson" (though how he had heard of her!) 
 had lately been hanged for wholesale child-murder. She 
 buried the little bodies of her victims in quicklime, and 
 was altogether a creature of horror to haunt the young 
 imagination. He looked for Mrs. Tomsons on his walks. 
 Many harmless black-clad women were Mrs. Tomsons, he 
 was sure. Then there were Pickpockets whom you were to 
 Beware of, with every other sort of rogue and knave. You 
 might be rubbing shoulders with Pickpockets without 
 knowing it. They were trained, according to his mother 
 (or so he understood), by an old Jew called Fagin, of whom 
 he was to read one day in something called " Oliver Twist." 
 Christopher suspected a Fagin in every shabby old man 
 who had a hooked nose, and a Pickpocket in every gutter- 
 snipe. Perhaps pockets really were oftener rifled in the 
 seventies. Trimmer, at any rate, had the distinction of 
 having hers picked upon this very visit to the tune, 
 happily, of no more than a few pence, however, since of 
 her forethought she was carrying the bulk of her wealth in 
 her glove. Christopher knew the thief was one of two 
 (probably innocent) persons between whom she had sat 
 in an onmibus, because one had a patch over his eye and 
 the other a hole in his elbow. 
 Trimmer could only ejaculate, "How lucky I'd emptied
 
 CHRISTOPHER 145 
 
 my purse!" adding from time to time that if they'd 
 only known it, she had been carrying half a sovereign in 
 gold at that very moment. 
 
 " But there," she said, " I never heard of any one picking 
 a glove." 
 
 Christopher and his mother agreed with her that the 
 thing was as good as a lesson. 
 
 So London answered every expectation. Christopher 
 would indeed have something to tell the stay-at-home 
 aunts when he got back to Boulogne. He had visited the 
 capital of England to good purpose. It had not denied him. 
 
 The day after the picked pocket, Trimmer started for 
 Birmingham, where, as it had been arranged, she was to 
 spend a few days with her parents, and Christopher and 
 his mother pursued their sight-seeing alone. Every morning 
 after breakfast they would start out on their excursions. 
 Sometimes they would lunch out, choosing a pastry-cook's 
 shop for their modest repast, and, in holiday mood, eating 
 with impunity many things ordinarily called unwholesome. 
 Madame Tussaud's Exhibition was visited, and there, in a 
 room known as the Chamber of Horrors. and costing an 
 extra sixpence to enter, Christopher saw an effigy of Mrs. 
 Tomson herself lately added! He thrilled, but was 
 vaguely disappointed. He had pictured her this, you see, 
 and she was notably that. He saw a respectable little 
 woman in a brown dress, with nothing sinister about her 
 but her very white face. She did not alarm him except 
 when he met her in dreams. 
 
 The Zoological Gardens were visited and, lo! they 
 were the Bird-Shop on the Port in apotheosis! For the 
 dogs in the cages, there were lions ; for the cats, tigers ; for 
 the birds, such winged things, some of them, as he had never 
 imagined. But all were friends of his already. He went an 
 ecstatic way from cage to cage, from house to house. Per- 
 haps the greatest excitement lay in wondering whither each 
 path in the gardens led, what each fresh house as it dis- 
 covered itself amongst the trees would be found to hold. On
 
 I 4 6 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 a path near the parrot-house he ran up against one of his 
 school-fellows, and that too was a great adventure. Oh, 
 London, which could yield such adventures, was wonderful! 
 
 London was all-capable, and was to yield him others. 
 
 He saw Mrs. St. Jemison one day. He was sure of it. 
 That was the day he went to the Polytechnic where the 
 diving-bell was. She was driving with a gentleman in a 
 victoria. She looked different, somehow, from Mr. Hem- 
 ming's Mrs. St. Jemison. But that it had been she who 
 flashed past behind two high-stepping horses he was quite, 
 quite sure. 
 
 "Fancy, if she'd known that we'd just seen Mr. Hem- 
 ming," he said. "She'd have " He looked at his mother 
 and broke off in what more he had been about to say. 
 
 "I thought I told you, Christopher " 
 
 "Yes, but not in London." 
 
 "Well, in London, too." 
 
 She had seen, and, if she was not mistaken, Mrs. St. 
 Jemison had seen also, and had recognised. Anne wished 
 this had not happened. 
 
 And she asked herself why. But somehow wished . . . 
 
 To Christopher it was part of the wonderfulness of Lon- 
 don where everything was wonderful. Nowhere else, 
 he was sure, would you come across people in this way. Per- 
 haps they would even see Mr. Hemming. This he ventured 
 to say aloud. His mother had to collect her thoughts before 
 she said that she thought That was very Unlikely. 
 
 "So was Mrs. well, so was Eddy Mason ! " He named 
 the schoolboy they had met in Regent's Park. 
 
 "So was he what?" 
 
 "Unlikely," said Christopher. 
 
 "We'll go and have tea," said his mother. 
 
 Every second shop then was not a tea-shop. It took 
 them some minutes to find one. 
 
 But Christopher was to be proved more correct than she. 
 Might she not have told herself that it was generally the
 
 CHRISTOPHER 147 
 
 Unlikely that did happen? more, that it was for their 
 very unlikeliness that the things which happened did hap- 
 pen? Whom should they meet the next day but John 
 Hemming? Whom else? 
 
 They came upon him face to face at Hyde Park Corner. 
 
 "I wondered," he said, "whether I should meet you 
 anywhere." 
 
 He did not say that he had spent the last few days look- 
 ing for them. A log of his peregrinations would have re- 
 corded an erratic course. He had been to Madame Tus- 
 saud's even. 
 
 " I said we should meet you at least, I said we might," 
 said Christopher breathlessly. "But mother did n't think 
 it was likely." 
 
 "Christopher met a school friend," Anne hastened to 
 say, "and argued by analogy. If he made one unexpected 
 encounter you see? " 
 
 " I see," said John Hemming. "And there was something 
 in your argument after all, was n't there, little chap?" 
 
 "Things happen for Christopher," Anne said, smiling. 
 She was beginning to think so. 
 
 "We're going to the Christy Minstrels," said Christo- 
 pher, still breathlessly. "Could n't you come, too? Could 
 n't he, mummy?" 
 
 "Christopher, don't bother people. Mr. Hemming does 
 n't want to go to Christy Minstrels. They are n't the sort 
 of thing " 
 
 "Aren't they?" said John Hemming, looking at her. 
 "Doesji'the?" 
 
 " He does," said Christopher. " I know he does, mother." 
 
 Anne looked from one to the other. 
 
 " In the daytime? On a fine afternoon like this? Chris- 
 topher and I are country cousins or exiles home again." 
 
 "May n't I be an exile? Home again, too?" 
 
 He did not mean it, or, anyway, quite mean it. But 
 Anne in a moment saw his father and heard again the silent 
 song of thanksgiving.
 
 148 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "If it really would n't bore you." 
 His answer was to smile at Christopher and to call a cab. 
 They all got in and he gave the direction. 
 
 After the Christy Minstrels, it was the Tower ; after the 
 Tower, the Pantomime at Drury Lane; after the Panto- 
 mime, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. 
 John Hemming went with them to all these. How this 
 came about Anne hardly knew. It seemed to be Christo- 
 pher who was responsible. 
 
 So slipped the days away. They hurried towards 
 Anne knew not what ! But that they hurried towards some- 
 thing, she knew only too well. Two thirds of the visit were 
 over. She began to look to Boulogne as she had once looked 
 to London. It was Boulogne now that stood for safety. 
 
 Christopher, living to a running accompaniment of pan- 
 tomime tunes, of the tunes of the Moore and Burgess Min- 
 strels, with imported airs from Offenbach behind all, saw 
 nothing of what was under his eyes. There was nothing 
 to see, in a sense, and certainly nothing to hear. It was only 
 his mother who knew and whose heart beat the faster. He, 
 if he thought at all, thought that John Hemming was there 
 because he, Christopher, was. In the supreme egoism of 
 youth, he had not come yet to realise any existence entirely 
 independent of his own. 
 
 "You're coming to-morrow, are n't you?" he said every 
 day, and Anne sometimes checked him, and sometimes did 
 not. It seemed useless to protest. As she looked to Bou- 
 logne, so she looked now to the return of Trimmer, whose 
 absence seemed in a manner to leave her without shelter. 
 Not that she wanted shelter exactly, or wanted anything. 
 She was enjoying the dangers of London as she had en- 
 joyed the dangers of Herrickswood. Her life was fuller for 
 this new element that had come into it. But ... It was 
 Trimmer's own But of an earlier occasion. 
 
 Trimmer wrote from Birmingham. She too had been 
 to a Pantomime, and had wished for Master Christopher.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 149 
 
 She wished particularly that he could have seen Cinderella's 
 Ugly Sisters, who would have made him laugh. Trimmer's 
 mother had got quite a stitch in her side, and Trimmer's 
 brother's little girl a hiccough. But both had admitted 
 that the game was worth the candle. Trimmer had been to 
 a party at her cousin's and had played games. Her cousin 
 had worn an evening dress, which Trimmer thought was 
 giving herself great airs, and which was quite out of place 
 besides being in very doubtful taste. The party itself, 
 however, had been very agreeable. She was enjoying her 
 holiday, but was counting the days till she should get back, 
 all the same. 
 
 " You can't think how I miss Master Christopher," was 
 her postscript for her mistress's private eye. "And I can't 
 bear to think, madam, of your having to do your own hair, 
 I can't, indeed." 
 
 "Dear Trimmer," Christopher's mother said to herself 
 as she read. 
 
 In the end the good creature came back a day before 
 her holiday was up. Her nostalgia a homesickness, at 
 home, for the home of her adoption would not allow her 
 to stay her time out. 
 
 Anne Herrick kissed her upon her arrival a sight which 
 gave Christopher a curious feeling of surprise mixed with 
 pleasure. He took Trimmer for granted himself, but 
 though he on his part only greeted her with "Hulloa!" and 
 barely submitted to her embrace, he was genuinely at- 
 tached to her. 
 
 Tears had sprung to Trimmer's eyes at her mistress's 
 kiss. 
 
 "'Olidays are all very well, 'm, and I'm sure I've en- 
 joyed myself tremendously, but there's nothing like get- 
 ting back, 'm, is there?" 
 
 Her mistress rallied her. 
 
 "What will you do when he goes to school?" 
 
 Trimmer shook her head. 
 
 "He need n't think it's him only," she said. "It is n't
 
 150 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 though once you've been a nurse . . . Well, there! 
 And to think I shall be brushing your hair again, 'm, this 
 very evening." 
 
 Yes, Trimmer was one of the Family no doubt about 
 that. Christopher sat up a little later to hear all her news. 
 She came back from Birmingham full of adventures. She 
 had had a proposal amongst others. At the party she had 
 met the gentleman who paid her this attention. Like the 
 piano-tuner, he was in a superior position a clurk, in 
 fact, in the Post Office. 
 
 "What did you say to him?" asked Christopher. 
 
 "That I knew when I was well off, my precious." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 "Asked me to think it over." 
 
 "And will you?" 
 
 " I said I could do that while he waited." 
 
 "Shall you tell the piano-tuner?" 
 
 "Better not," said Trimmer. " Better keep some one in 
 reserve, I think, against I want him." 
 
 So Trimmer talked. She listened, too, and heard all 
 the London doings. She heard of Mr. Hemming's presence 
 without showing surprise which may have shown that 
 there was surprise to be felt. 
 
 "In London," she said. "Fancy that, now." No more. 
 
 Shelter? How? Anne could not have told. Yet with 
 Trimmer back, assuredly she felt more secure. There was 
 only a week left now, and then she would be in sanctuary. 
 She thought of her snug drawing-room in the green shut- 
 tered house, the lamp, the " Cornhill Magazine " from Mer- 
 ridew's: an attractive picture. Even if you were young, it 
 would be possible to grow old gently, books helping 
 work, and the faithful Trimmer somewhere at hand. She 
 saw herself and Trimmer growing old together. By degrees, 
 perhaps, as the sending for her from the workroom became 
 more frequent, Trimmer would change insensibly from a 
 maid to a companion. Christopher would be out in the
 
 CHRISTOPHER 151 
 
 world, of course, though in what capacity she did not 
 know, and letters would come from him, some of which 
 she would read to Trimmer, some, keep to herself. They 
 would talk of him, she and Trimmer, and of their wonder- 
 ful memories of his childhood. And so disturbing things 
 put away they would grow old. 
 
 And then the sight of a tall figure coming down the 
 street, or the sound of a voice, or the touch of a hand, would 
 show her quite a different picture, in which growing old 
 would be put off indefinitely. In this picture, life would be 
 seen as a vigorous strenuous force carrying all before it, an 
 onward, perhaps an upward, movement; or as a business 
 in itself, absorbing, compelling, not a mere acquiescent 
 drifting with wind or tide. In this picture Trimmer did 
 not let her whole youth slip by, but married her piano- 
 tuner, or her clurk, or another! 
 
 There were presently but three more days; but two; 
 there was only to-morrow. Then it was found that Chris- 
 topher, who had been almost everywhere else, had not been 
 to the Crystal Palace. He could hardly have crammed 
 more into his holidays. But the Crystal Palace to have 
 risked missing that! There was happily still time. The 
 Crystal Palace, it was decided, should crown the visit.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE Crystal Palace for Christopher began at Victoria 
 at the Booking-Office, where, wonderfully, you asked for 
 Return Tickets with Admission, and heard something about 
 High and Low Levels. The journey in the crowded train, 
 thereafter, was part of the day's pleasure. One mitiga- 
 tion of all pleasure there was, and this lay in the fact that 
 Mr. Hemming had not known of the proposed jaunt, and 
 that his (Christopher's) mother for some reason would 
 not write to volunteer plans that chanced to have been 
 settled after Mr. Hemming's departure on the preceding 
 day. He had spent the morning with them at the Na- 
 tional Gallery, and it was not till the afternoon that this 
 excursion was mooted. He would be disappointed, Christ- 
 opher was sure, and had been inclined to argue; but his 
 mother would not write. 
 
 Inwardly she was herself somewhat exercised. She knew, 
 though nothing had been said about the morrow, that 
 Hemming would be expecting to see them as usual. For 
 the very reason that nothing had been said, she knew it, 
 and, also, that he would in truth, as Christopher argued, 
 be disappointed. Yet the evening had passed and she could 
 not bring herself to write. How could she write? It would 
 be like suggesting that he should come, too. Impossible! 
 In her heart of hearts, moreover, she was afraid of this 
 last day. In the end, in case he should call, she left a mes- 
 sage for him with the chenille-netted landlady, and made it 
 as disarming as might be. It was the most (and the least) 
 she could do, but it did not set her mind at rest. 
 
 The train bore them onward. They reached the station. 
 They alighted. 
 
 What was it that Christopher had expected? Crystal
 
 CHRISTOPHER 153 
 
 columns, translucent as barley sugar, cut glass pillars, 
 thick transparent walls? Beams, masonry, floors, stair- 
 cases, all of clearest glass? The New Jerusalem in fine old 
 paste? The Heavenly City fashioned of a single diamond? 
 A palace of carved ice? Something of all these. His first 
 impression was one of stupendous disappointment. This, 
 the Crystal Palace ! It was only a large greenhouse. Crys- 
 tal! There were panes like these in the greenhouses at 
 Herrickswood. He looked up at the vaulted roof with a 
 feeling of personal injury. 
 
 The sloping approach up the long covered way from the 
 station had been well enough. It had whetted curiosity. 
 Every moment he had expected the vision to break upon 
 him in its glory. At any bend he had thought to see the 
 crystal portico . . . 
 
 A greenhouse! 
 
 He grew red. He was too old to burst into tears. But a 
 conservatory, a greenhouse! . . . 
 
 "Don't you like it?" 
 
 His mother and Trimmer, both uncomprehending, saw. 
 
 He would not explain, and wandered about gloomily for 
 a while. They exchanged glances over his head. He 
 walked beside them, or just behind them not ahead. 
 His mother, pursuing a train of thought of her own (which 
 in point of fact pursued her!), believed him to be regretting 
 the absence of John Hemming. Trimmer fancied that 
 the excitement of the past few weeks was finding him out 
 beginning to tell upon him. But in reality he was like 
 people at some play, the title or description of which has 
 misled or mystified them. The spirit of the place had not 
 revealed itself to him. He was outside its intimacy; kept 
 outside by barriers of his own unconscious building. It was 
 quite suddenly that the barriers, like the walls of Jericho 
 at the sound of the trumpet, fell. 
 
 Did a trumpet sound? Not exactly. For it was nothing 
 more than a piano somewhere near at hand, which, breaking 
 into one of the rattling tunes of the recent pantomime and
 
 154 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 of the London streets, started him forward on eager legs 
 in its metallic direction. He was "ahead" in a moment. 
 No more acquiescent goose-step, no more lagging! The 
 piano was at a music-stall. A piece of music lay open on the 
 folding "rest," and reading from it a haughty young lady 
 with mittened fingers sat playing the song of the moment. 
 A little crowd listened. She wet her first finger at her lip 
 when she turned over the page. She left the song unfinished. 
 But Christopher had been admitted to the free-masonry 
 of the place. Almost at once he became aware of a very 
 network of sounds enclosed under the glass roof. In the 
 mesh you might distinguish the popping of a pop-gun ex- 
 ploited for the tempting of some child at some stall, the 
 boom and whir of a humming-top, the tinkle of many mu- 
 sical boxes, with the sound of other pianos in distant places. 
 There was a buzzing and a rattle of talk, from which stood 
 out, "This Way for the Performing Fleas," or the "Won- 
 ders of the Microscope," or "Smith's Panorama of the 
 Holy Land," of the side-showmen. There was a remi- 
 niscence for Christopher of the noises of the fair at Bou- 
 logne. "Take your seats for the Marvellous Grotto Fam- 
 ily, the World's Champion Slack-Line Performers." At 
 Boulogne there had been a Champion of the Slack Wire 
 with the curious name of Milly Ethel, who in addition to 
 wire- walking claimed to be magnetic, and the showman's 
 cry to the banging of the big drum had been "Entrez, 
 Messieurs, Dames! Allons voir ce phenomene artistique 
 au salon de Mees Millee Etelle! Va commencer. Prenez 
 vos places." Not so much difference in the cries. The fair 
 under a roof. Other sounds came from the refreshment 
 places, whence proceeded a continual clatter of plates, 
 knives and forks, cups and saucers, with occasional shiv- 
 ering of glasses on a tray. The sound of teaspoons rattling 
 into saucers was as recurrent as that of the drawing of 
 corks. Through all, over all, under all, like the sound of the 
 sea behind other sounds, was heard the tramp or shuffle 
 of feet on the boards. That which he received then was
 
 CHRISTOPHER 155 
 
 as good as that which he relinquished ! It was one sort of 
 palace for another, that was all ! Later from the grounds 
 he was to see that in sunlight it was not called "Crystal" 
 wholly for nothing, but he had accepted it now as it was, 
 and in turn been accepted of it. Like London, the Crystal 
 Palace, recognising her own, did not deny him. 
 
 His mother and Trimmer saw the remarkable change in 
 him, and in their turn did some accepting, without, how- 
 ever, understanding. Once infected with the zeal of the 
 house, he wanted to see everything from the Pompeiian 
 Courts to the Courts of the Performing Fleas. He gathered 
 and imparted information. Pompeii, he told Trimmer, 
 had been destroyed by Vesuvius, and the Performing 
 Fleas fed on the Man's Arm. 
 
 "Disgusting!" said Trimmer. 
 
 The morning was spent in seeing a variety of sights and 
 in running up against the great clock, the Roman letters 
 on which were so many feet high for his wonder, and the 
 hands so many feet long. In their perambulations the three 
 were always coming upon it. Christopher's mother did 
 not know whether it was as big as or bigger than the clock 
 at Westminster. It was a landmark anyway, a good place 
 to meet at, if people got separated from the rest of the 
 party. Under the Clock, it seemed, was a phrase in very 
 constant use in the building. 
 
 The event of the day was of course the pantomime. 
 Towards that the whole of the forenoon set, as sunflowers 
 turn to the sun. There was lunch to be eaten in the mean 
 time, however, and they now began to search for a res- 
 taurant which should satisfy their modest requirements. 
 They wanted a sort of tea for luncheon which was, 
 indeed, what most other people were having. 
 
 The choice made, an English waiter took their orders; 
 Anne at the last moment changing her mind in favour of 
 coffee, in the interests of the next meal, at which tea would 
 be essential, and Christopher his if he can be said to 
 have changed it ! in favour of ginger beer. Trimmer kept
 
 I 5 6 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 to tea. There was nothing like tea, she said, to pick you up 
 when you were tired. The order given, it was they who 
 waited. It was not ungrateful, however, to sit still after 
 so much walking. They watched laden trays going to other 
 tables, and only from time to time attempted to expedite 
 matters with a gentle protest. A confidential nod from 
 the distance, or a "Coming, lady, coming," or a "Yours 
 next, 'm, without fail," was all that such patient exhorta- 
 tion brought forth for a period, but at last came the tray. 
 The waiter apportioned the blame to the "bufnt." He un- 
 loaded, dealing plates like cards, and about as rapidly as if 
 delft had indeed been pasteboard. He had given his order, 
 
 so and so, and so and so, one coffee, one tea, one ginger, 
 
 they might have heard him. It was the "bufnt." 
 He was for ever hurrying them up over there. Here we 
 were, however, and he might venture to say, asking 
 pardon for the presumption, that the ginger beer was for 
 the young gentleman. So he disarmed them. They fell 
 to. 
 
 They were very hungry. Trimmer had threatenings of a 
 headache which happily the tea dispelled. Christopher 
 waited for the froth to go down in his glass, and took a 
 long drink. 
 
 "Enjoying yourself, Christopher?" 
 
 "Rather." 
 
 Outside people passed in streams continuous as the 
 stream of millers in Christopher's discarded toy. Mothers 
 and aunts dragged children by the hand. Children dragged, 
 or dragged at, mothers and aunts. An occasional man car- 
 ried a baby. 
 
 The three at their marble-topped table watched as they 
 ate. 
 
 "To think it'll be French people again to-morrow," 
 Trimmer said suddenly. 
 
 It was what Christopher remembered from time to time : 
 the holidays were nearly over. It was what his mother 
 could not forget : she had left John Hemming in the lurch.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 157 
 
 Trimmer fell to brooding; Christopher, even, for a moment; 
 his mother also. 
 
 Most deeply, Anne. She ought to have written. She 
 knew that, now. It had seemed impossible to write, but 
 she ought to have written. Anne, reproaching herself, did 
 not spare herself. She spared herself the less for knowing 
 in her heart of hearts that she could not wholly be acquitted 
 of a desire, however blind, to evade issues. The day was 
 momentous as all last things, looks, thoughts, words. If 
 the day could be tided over . . . ! It was true, then, and 
 in not writing to John Hemming, she had given him, as 
 the abominable phrase went, the slip! It was true. It 
 was partly true, anyway. She had even been relieved the 
 day before when no mention had been made of the morrow. 
 
 "Ah, well," said Trimmer. "We're very happy over 
 there, when all's said and done." 
 
 "I don't want to go back either," said Christopher, 
 answering what she had not said. 
 
 Ungrateful! Had he forgotten the sea and the quays 
 and the gutters? 
 
 "You 're quite right, Trimmer. We 're very happy there. 
 I don't think we could have been happier anywhere. When 
 I think of bits of the old town the sheltered feeling . . . 
 and the French people. Think of some of the market- 
 women. Granny Oxeter's chicken-woman, Christopher. 
 ' Comme du sucre ! ' ' Tendre comme un pigeon ! ' 
 'Pour vous, madame!' The persuasiveness! And Isabelle 
 at the Fish-Market. And the old man at the watchmaker's. 
 Heaps of people. All friends. It's not grateful." 
 
 "There's the London boat," admitted Christopher; 
 " and the water that squirts out of the lock gates." 
 
 "And Merridew's, 'm, where you can get the 'Family 
 'Erald.' " 
 
 "Everything," said Anne. 
 
 "I spoke without thinking," said Trimmer. "It was 
 only another way of saying how much I'd enjoyed the 
 holiday." .
 
 158 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "It's not over yet," said Christopher. 
 
 It was n't, nor Christopher's mother out of the wood. 
 What was the "slip" (when you became aware of it) but 
 a thing to circumvent? 
 
 One of the stream of passers-by detached himself sud- 
 denly, for two persons, from the rest. Simultaneously 
 Christopher and his mother saw him. Christopher just 
 saw him. To Anne it was as it used to be with Christopher, 
 when, waking out of the sleep, he saw strange faces turn 
 to the faces he knew best. She had been looking at a tall 
 figure in the passing crowd when under her eyes the figure 
 became first familiar, and then (with a stab at her heart) 
 John Hemming himself. 
 
 Christopher sprang from his chair. If she had had any 
 thought of restraining him she could not have done so. 
 
 Trimmer's "Where's he off to?" answered itself, as 
 Trimmer's eyes followed him. 
 
 Trimmer gave a little "Oh!" 
 
 They saw Mr. Hemming stop, stoop. He was coming 
 towards them. 
 
 "I wondered," he said, just as he had said before when 
 they came face to face with him in London, " I wondered 
 whether I should meet you." 
 
 He was smiling. Anne smiled too. 
 
 "We found suddenly," she said, a little lamely as it 
 seemed to her, "that we had forgotten all about the 
 Crystal Palace." 
 
 "And all about me." 
 
 He nodded, still smiling, to Trimmer. 
 
 "No." Anne knew that in spite of herself she was blush- 
 ing like a girl. " I did n't forget. It was the Christy Min- 
 strels over again. I did n't want to bother you." 
 
 John Hemming said, "H'm." 
 
 "Truly." 
 
 "Christopher tells me the pantomime is the next thing 
 on the programme. I like pantomimes, too, almost as 
 much as Christy Minstrels."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 159 
 
 "Then come with us," said Anne. "Have you had 
 lunch?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " There was n't time. Give me five minutes to eat a sand- 
 wich and I'm with you. Here, waiter." 
 
 He caught the waiter's eye. 
 
 Nothing was wanted now to complete the day's ecstasy 
 to Christopher. John Hemming made short work of a few 
 sandwiches and a bottle of something called Pale Ale. He 
 was ready to start off again almost as soon as the others. 
 
 The giant curtains were being drawn now which shut 
 off and shut in the space allotted to the theatre. Through 
 them, when you were within, you could hear as across a 
 great distance some of the sounds you had left outside. 
 The orchestra came in and began to tune up. People were 
 getting to their places, sidling, curvetting, begging each 
 other's pardons. The mothers and aunts were busy now. 
 There was a hum and a buzz of talk, from which scraps 
 detached themselves. Presently the scraps ceased to 
 detach themselves, and for Christopher the huge mass of 
 the talk rose and fell in waves like the sea always the 
 sea. Above the ebb and flow of it he could always hear the 
 cry of the programme-sellers Book of the Words and 
 Songs Sixpence. 
 
 It had not been possible to get four seats in a row. 
 Christopher and Trimmer sat in front of John Hemming 
 and Anne, but not directly in front. Christopher would 
 have wished to sit with John Hemming, but it was thus 
 that matters appeared to arrange themselves of themselves, 
 and it would have been difficult to change places. John 
 Hemming could talk to him, however, by leaning forward, 
 and did. 
 
 Anne knew the day to be momentous. Not all John 
 Hemming's good-humoured light-hearted ness could lull 
 the sense of something impending. Under his light-heart-
 
 160 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 edness she fancied she detected that which did not speak 
 lightness of heart. His face, with its rather boyish expres- 
 sion, had in it a look which took her back across the years 
 to another day which also in its turn had seemed to her 
 momentous. Had she really thought to escape? Now, as 
 he sat beside her, it seemed to her that all day she had 
 known that he would come. 
 
 "Were you surprised to see me?" she heard him saying. 
 
 "No. I thought it possible that you might come." 
 
 This she said almost in spite of herself. 
 
 "It was quite certain that I should come," he said. "But 
 I might have been too late, or I might have missed you." 
 
 "Christopher wanted me to write last night, but 
 well, I have some mercy on my friends, you see." 
 
 "If you count me amongst your friends I ought to be 
 satisfied." 
 
 "Of course I do." 
 
 " I still think with Christopher that I might have been 
 told. Don't you?" 
 
 " I did n't just not write," said Anne. " I thought about 
 writing and decided not to. But I would have written if 
 I had known. I 'm sorry I did n't. I 've been sorry all 
 day." 
 
 He had been a little sore, then? She was ready to make 
 any amends short of such amends as might precipitate 
 that which she knew to be inevitable, but which she so 
 ardently wished to avoid. 
 
 "You don't know how much it mattered to me," he said, 
 breathing hard. 
 
 "Oh, John, did it matter?" 
 
 Her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 "So much that you Ve got to hear. You Ve got to know 
 how much it mattered." He stooped for the programme 
 which he had dropped. " It's it's stronger than I am," 
 he said. 
 
 Neither said anything after that for some time. Anne 
 could not have spoken. She believed that he could not
 
 CHRISTOPHER 161 
 
 either. She looked at her hands which lay on her muff, 
 but saw not her hands, but his, which were crushing the 
 programme. She knew that the man beside her was in 
 pain almost physical. 
 
 The lights had been lowered. The overture, which had 
 "brought in" all Christopher's tunes, even to that which 
 had admitted him to brotherhood of the great greenhouse, 
 was over and the curtain was rising. 
 
 Demons in the Bowels of the Earth, a rocky place with 
 emerald lights, were deciding the subject of that year's 
 Pantomime. Trimmer beside Christopher was kept busy 
 explaining in whispers. There were no demons in the fairy 
 story. It had been the same at Drury Lane. Why? Why? 
 "Because it's a pantomime" was not a quotation then. 
 
 "There have to be in pantomimes?" 
 
 "There always are." 
 
 Anne knew exactly what was passing. Her eyes, raised 
 now from her lap, were on the stage, but she could still see 
 the twisted programme. It would be twisted out of all 
 legibleness. No smoothing would straighten it when the 
 hands should presently release it. Oddly, she thought she 
 would like to have it. It became for her a sentient thing. 
 It was also in some sort the symbol of the man's suffering. 
 It took for her, by reason of this, the pitiful aspect of relics 
 those inanimate things, humble, insignificant maybe 
 in themselves, but hallowed or profaned by association. 
 A relic in the making, anyway ! It was certainly no longer 
 a reputable Bill of the Play.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 ON the stage, glittering, or comically dingy, things hap- 
 pened. The scenes succeeded each other to the romp and 
 trip and swing of popular airs. Harps led you from cottage 
 interiors where the Fairy Queen, miraculously appearing, 
 sang her inappropriate song with the roulades, to fairy 
 realms where the Prima Ballerina tiptoed, twisted, and 
 postured. The blare of silver trumpets heralded the 
 entrances of King and Court. To the clash of cymbals the 
 Demon was shot through his trap. Anne saw and heard 
 automatically. 
 
 She tried to shut herself in to such seeing and hearing, 
 as the great curtains shut in the theatre itself from the rest 
 of the building. By keeping quite still, her eyes on the 
 stage, she tried to imagine herself to be shut off from obser- 
 vation, as, by those tin shades, in shape like opera-glasses, 
 which are lent to the visitor in some picture galleries, the 
 eyes are shut off from outer distraction. For a time she 
 remained so, looking neither to the right nor to the left, 
 but always at the stage straight before her. Then with a 
 little droop of her shoulders she turned towards him. 
 
 The programme was still in his hand, but it was no longer 
 being tortured. 
 
 " Don't be afraid," he whispered gently ; " I'm not going 
 to say anything now. I lost my head for a moment. That 's 
 over. I shan't again." 
 
 She nodded gratefully. 
 
 "You'll let me see you afterwards. I want to talk to 
 you." 
 
 She hesitated. 
 
 "I promise to behave myself." 
 
 She laughed under her breath. If it could but be kept 
 to laughter!
 
 CHRISTOPHER 163 
 
 "Of course I '11 see you," she said. She tried to add some- 
 thing and got as far as " But I ought ' ' when he stopped her. 
 
 "Don't say anything more now," he said quietly. " Not 
 now." 
 
 "Still " She must leave herself a loophole, she must! 
 
 "Please," he said. 
 
 More of the Fairy Queen. More of the Demon King. 
 More of the Ballerina. Christopher liked everything except 
 perhaps the Ballerina. At any other time Anne would 
 have been enjoying it all as much as he. He turned to the 
 two behind at every tune he recognised ; included them in 
 all his breathless wonders. 
 
 "Enjoying it, little chap?" 
 
 "Rather." 
 
 So was Trimmer. It did not, however, she said, beat the 
 pantomime she had seen at Birmingham. Christopher did 
 not believe her. 
 
 The First Boy won his way to the heart a gallant boy, 
 all bust and waist, and tapering legs nimble to the horn- 
 pipe, with a song for every occasion, and an eye for a petti- 
 coat. How bravely he bore himself! The Demon, for all 
 his malignity and sheath of shining scales, could neVer for 
 long get the better of him. He bore a charmed life. He 
 was here, there, and everywhere, championing Beauty in 
 Distress, cheering his old mother, chaffing the King, fight- 
 ing for the Right and the Oppressed and Old England. No 
 wonder fairies had him under their special protection. And 
 Beauty, his sweetheart, who could help loving her? And 
 the poor King who was in such dire financial straits, and 
 the Queen with the bass voice who could not get away from 
 her recollection of the days when she was Young, and all 
 the rest of the familiar crew . . . Christopher felt that his 
 "Rather" expressed but inadequately the degree of his 
 enjoyment. 
 
 To-morrow, Boulogne again; the next day, school. 
 Horrible! But he would have something to tell. Besides, 
 it was still to-day. So Christopher.
 
 164 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 To-morrow, Boulogne again. And before that, the sea! 
 So Trimmer. 
 
 To-morrow, Boulogne sanctuary. If it were not too 
 late! Christopher's mother. 
 
 To-day, to-day! If it were not to be too late, indeed! 
 So, in his turn, John Hemming. 
 
 The pantomime was nearing an end. The transforma- 
 tion scene had drawn its "Oh's" of amazed delight and 
 was over. There remained the harlequinade. Anne knew 
 now that the moment was coming towards which the whole 
 day had in reality been moving, when it had seemed only 
 to be moving towards the pantomime. That was how such 
 days of pleasuring could cheat you! Her courage began to 
 desert her. She could well believe that she did in very 
 truth look tired when John Hemming decided for her that 
 she must not sit out the harlequinade. She nodded to his 
 whisper. He leant forward and whispered to Trimmer. 
 Before Anne knew what was happening, she found herself 
 outside the great curtains. She felt a little dizzy and 
 breathed deeply. 
 
 " I said we would meet them in half an hour," he said. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "Under the Clock." 
 
 Yet not the remotest thought of any use such as this 
 for a meeting-place had been present to Anne when, earlier 
 in the day, she had spoken of the great clock. She could 
 have laughed. Christopher had called her attention to it 
 and she had said the obvious thing to the helping, as it 
 was to appear, of this forging of one more link in the chain 
 that must bind her! 
 
 "The pantomime will be over in less than that," she 
 said indistinctly. She wanted to gain time. 
 
 "Shall we walk, or sit down somewhere?" 
 
 "Oh, walk," she said, "walk." She wanted space, 
 movement. "We've been sitting so long," she added. 
 
 She looked about her and at him.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 165 
 
 From the enclosed space which they had left they could 
 still hear muffled sounds from the pantomime. These 
 mingled with the universal toy-sounds that made the 
 place a huge Lowther Arcade. 
 
 "Where are we going?" Anne said presently as they 
 walked. But she knew. 
 
 "It is n't cold," he said, "and there will be air and the 
 open sky." 
 
 It was nearly dark out of doors quite dark, it seemed, 
 as they stepped out of the lighted building, but gradually, 
 as their eyes grew accustomed to the change, what had 
 seemed darkness showed itself to be but a half-darkness, 
 in which all objects were clearly visible. The terraces were 
 deserted. 
 
 In the dusk of the winter evening the gardens looked a 
 little forlorn. But overhead were the stars. 
 
 "I don't know how to say what I have to say to you," 
 John Hemming said suddenly, when they had walked a 
 few yards along the gravel in silence. "Under whatever 
 I may be feeling, you see, I 've got the knowledge of what 
 you know of me, and of what you must think of me. Well, 
 think the worst of me (and your worst won't, perhaps, be 
 bad enough!), but just somehow know that in spite of 
 everything and through everything I Ve always loved you. 
 I did then, years ago, and I do now, and however I may 
 have lived in all the time between " 
 
 He broke off. She did not speak, but neither did she 
 make any attempt to move as he stood before her. They 
 had both stood still as he spoke. 
 
 "You don't know what these days have been to me. I 
 don't think I knew, myself, till I found this morning that 
 I might be going to lose the very last of them. If I had n't 
 met you, I believe I should have spent the night under your 
 window in Ebury Street, to make sure that you did n't 
 escape me in the morning. Oh, I can laugh, for I did meet 
 you, but it's true. What are you going to say to me? I 'm 
 not fit to come to you, but I do come to you."
 
 166 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "John, it 'snot that. I don't judge you. I never have " 
 
 "Is it the boy?" 
 
 "Yes. No. I don't know." 
 
 "You're afraid of my influence " 
 
 " I 'm not. That 's the one thing that I 'm not afraid of." 
 She spoke proudly. "If I didn't trust you . . ." Her 
 voice shook. She turned away. 
 
 The great glass house behind them hummed like a hive 
 in the silence. Out here in the grounds they seemed the 
 only living things. 
 
 "I shall never forget that to you, anyway," he said 
 so low that she hardly heard him. 
 
 A clock struck somewhere. The strokes beat upon the 
 stillness. 
 
 'Anne, knowing what you know, will you marry me?" 
 
 ' John, it 's not what I know. It 's not what you 've done. 
 
 It 
 
 s not you at all, in a way." 
 
 'Can you care for me?" 
 'Yes." 
 
 She had thought of him too much to hesitate about this. 
 She knew that she cared for him, or could care for him, 
 well enough to love him if she married him. She did not 
 love him yet, though he had the power to disturb her. 
 After this day, all the same, whether she married him or 
 not, she believed she should love him. 
 
 "What is it, then?" 
 
 "It" was so many things. How could she tell him? She 
 had thought of her life as dedicated to the dead and the 
 living Christophers. "It" was herself, then, was Christo- 
 pher's father, was Christopher. There were other people, 
 other things, involved also. Her mother! She in her own 
 person would understand. As Granny Oxeter, would she? 
 Laura and Catherine would they ever? As Christopher's 
 aunts? As her sisters, even? Boulogne was involved. The 
 peace of the sheltered drawing-room, the fire, the lamp, 
 the ' ' Cornhill Magazine ! " All these and Mrs. St. Jemison ! 
 
 " I must speak of her," Anne said presently, naming her.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 167 
 
 " I must take her into account. Oh, John " (" it 's all dread- 
 ful!" was on her tongue, but this time was not spoken), 
 "she she was so good to Christopher." 
 
 "Anne, I should n't be here if she would have married 
 me. That's all I can say in extenuation of my conduct. 
 You must think what you will of me except in this one 
 thing." 
 
 He took a few steps away from her and came back. 
 
 "But you're not doing her more than justice in saying 
 that. She was good to Christopher. She would be again. 
 She was just as truly expressing herself in that as she was 
 in leaving me. She hurt me there. I don't mind that she 
 made me ridiculous. That 's a small thing. She . . . hurt 
 me. But she 's full of kindliness for all that of goodness 
 even. I don't understand ; I don't pretend to. How should 
 I when she doesn't, herself? Our mistake was in thinking 
 that we loved each other though even there ... In a 
 way we did." 
 
 He stopped again. She could see that he was profoundly 
 moved. 
 
 "Yes, I am free," he said, after a pause. 
 
 They walked a little further and again came to a stand- 
 still. 
 
 "You're right to hesitate," he said. " It's a poor enough 
 bargain to offer you damaged goods, smirched, rejected 
 even." 
 
 "John," Anne said, "John!" 
 
 "Isn't it true?" 
 
 "It is n't." She drew a deep breath. "That's what is 
 somehow wonderful. That's what I've had to learn, and 
 have learnt. What I believe, anyway." 
 
 To her surprise she was wondering at this moment how 
 the woman she wanted to pity, and pitied, could have 
 found it in her heart to let him go ! Some words of Trim- 
 mer's came back to her. 
 
 He saw his advantage, but he refrained from following 
 it up. He did, indeed, wish her to know exactly what she
 
 168 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 would be doing if she married him. She would have some- 
 thing to face. She would need all her courage. 
 
 "I don't want you to think me worse than I am, but 
 you must on no account think me better." That was his 
 attitude. "I come to you without one plea, but not as a 
 penitent. I'm sorry enough. It is n't that I 'm not sorry! 
 But if it were all to come over again, other things being 
 equal, I 've no doubt that I should do what I 've done. I 
 can't expect you to understand. You would n't be the 
 woman you are if you could. It's to a different kind that 
 this sort of understanding is given, and I would n't have 
 you different." He did not say all this, but this is what was 
 in his mind, and in some mysterious way the substance of 
 it communicated itself to hers. It was the answer to what 
 had exercised her at Herrickswood when she had asked 
 herself whether, if he had not been "dead," he could be 
 said to be "alive again." She knew that in the conven- 
 tional sense he was not in sackcloth or ashes. But she 
 knew that she could trust him. 
 
 Yet if he asked less of her than he thought, he also asked 
 of her more than he would ever guess. Perhaps the last 
 thing that such a woman as Anne surrenders is her belief 
 that though there be in heaven neither marriage nor giving 
 in marriage, the marriage tie itself must somehow pass the 
 gate and grave of death. "It" was no longer herself, no 
 longer Christopher, maybe, or even Mrs. St. Jemison. 
 
 She looked at him, wondering whether it would avail 
 anything to speak. Of the two of them, was it she who was 
 not free? 
 
 A few people besides themselves were in the grounds 
 now. Voices sounded near the entrances to the building. 
 Couples made for the shelter of the paths, or emerged sud- 
 denly out of the darknesses. A woman's voice somewhere 
 at hand said fatuously, "This is the grounds," I suppose; 
 and a man's, "Ah, I daresay it would be, by day." A child 
 chased another into the shadow of some bushes, and a 
 guardian's voice called, "Don't you get lost now. If you
 
 CHRISTOPHER 169 
 
 do, I shall take you both home straightaway." Was there, 
 or did she imagine it, a louder humming in the great glass 
 house? The pantomime was over. 
 
 "Anne," he said gently. 
 
 " It's because I could care for you," she said desperately 
 at last. 
 
 "Because . . . ?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Because " he said again. "Because! But if you can 
 care for me . . . ! Why," he stood before her. "Why, 
 that's everything. More than I dared to think possible. 
 How can that stand in the way?" 
 
 She must have known herself yielding, for she could not 
 tell him. She could not speak of Christopher's father and 
 of what faiths and loyalties she would have to renounce 
 would be renouncing if she listened. He was dead, 
 Christopher's father; had not watched, was not waiting! 
 All her life, then, since he died was to be made nothing. 
 All that she had clung to, to become untrue, to be as 
 if it had never been. But these things could not be put 
 into words which are irrevocable. She knew the power of 
 words. Already by a putting into words something had 
 been crystallised that day. No, she could not tell him. 
 
 " How can it? " he repeated. " It can't, because it is what 
 should bring us together. Oh, we must come together in 
 the end. It can't be for nothing that I love you as I do. 
 I don't even think it was for nothing that there was a nail 
 lying about for Christopher to fall on ..." 
 
 He came nearer to her. 
 
 "Anne." 
 
 , He was so near to her, but he did not touch her so 
 near that she could hear his quickened breathing. 
 
 "All my life, anyway, is in your hands," he said. It 
 was a whisper. 
 
 She was drowning. In that moment, as the drowning are 
 said to do, she ran through her life in vivid and impas- 
 sioned review, dwelling longest on that chapter in it which
 
 170 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 had been the beginning of the First Chapter of Christo- 
 pher's. She saw again the golden path upon the waters 
 leading to or from the golden city ; heard her own cry when 
 out of the exceeding sadness of her heart she had cried to 
 what as yet was not; lived again through her terror, her 
 anguish, her lassitude, to the moment of rapture which 
 had given a man-child into her waiting arms. Oh, Christo- 
 pher, father of Christopher, Christopher, Christopher! 
 
 If in her drowning, which was her yielding, she could 
 have spoken, it must have been to say "No" to this other; 
 to say " No, lest I love you No, though I love you! No. 
 No. No." 
 
 But she could not speak, and swaying swayed towards 
 him.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 So Christopher's nail the nail which had stabbed him 
 was the first in the coffin of poor old Boulogne. Haste 
 to the wedding? Haste rather to the burial ! No real haste, 
 of course, for nearly two years were to pass before his 
 mother changed her name. A nail to the coffin, for all that. 
 Regrets? None from Christopher, straining forward. 
 None for the green shuttered house? the market? the 
 Church of St. Nicolas? Merridew's, where " Cornhill " and 
 " Punch " were bought, and the Christmas cards in their hour 
 (robins and snow in those days), and valentines (hearts, 
 arrows, Cupids on scented lace paper) in theirs? None for 
 the Grande Rue with Gregory's and Howe's and the Der- 
 vaux? the Fete Dieu, when the procession wound up to 
 the Cathedral and the eager women held out their babies 
 for blessing? For the Fair with the Four-sou Stall Voyez 
 la vente. Tout a quat' sous. Au choix. Choisissez! the 
 merry-go-rounds, the Tombolas, the shows? For the Car- 
 nival? For Pont de Briques, of the occasional drives, the 
 Colonne and the Vallee, of walks? For the galantine shop 
 with the sausages in "silver" paper? For the Petits Arbres, 
 where you kicked up the leaves as you waded through 
 them ankle-deep, and where, in the interstices of the bark 
 of the trees, the mysterious chrysalises were to be found 
 which tweaked their tails when you touched them? For 
 the Ramparts? none for the Ramparts? For the splash- 
 ing "fountains," then? the Sands? surely for the Sands? 
 Well, then, for the pier? the Port? the Bird-shop? Cap6- 
 cure, perhaps? the clang of the wooden shoon the 
 clip-clap of the wooden heels as the woollen heels above 
 them showed rounded and dark against the lamb's-wool 
 lining? a sound to go with you through life! For the
 
 172 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 cries, then? Surely a regret for the cries: the cry of the 
 coal, of the shrimp, of the mackerel? For Blancpignon, 
 where Christopher learned to beat his mother at skating? 
 For M. Delplanque's, where he learned to dance? For fried 
 potatoes with a shake of salt? For the lock gates deeply sep- 
 arating the waters of the Liane from the waters of the 
 harbour? The artificial rocks in the Aquarium? occasional 
 fireworks in theTintelleries? an occasional circus with Eng- 
 lish clowns? For M. Albrecht, the German book-binder, 
 where "Cornhill" and the "Sunday-at-Home" and the 
 " Romans Populaires " were made up into volumes (half- 
 calf, marbled edges) ? The watchmaker's, where there was 
 the tie-pin which was a fly in effigy upon an imitated lump 
 of sugar ? (Wonderful !) For Lambert's, where you bought 
 sucre de pomme and sucre d'orge and could not afford to 
 buy nougat? M. Abraham's, the chemist's (& propos!), 
 where your rare powders were concocted? For the stamped 
 affiches on the walls and hoardings? the herring barrels by 
 the boats? the men with sacks corner- wise over their heads, 
 who carried salt that looked like coffee-sugar ; the men mend- 
 ing the road; the half-naked men taking in logs at the 
 baker's? at least for the half-naked men at the baker's? 
 (Come along, Master Christopher!) For the many smells; 
 the London boat with the black funnels and the Folkestone 
 with the white and black? Surely, surely, for the sea it- 
 self and the quays and the gutters? 
 
 None at the time, with England ahead of you. None. 
 
 Christopher was not consciously heartless or ungrateful. 
 He was young, that was all, and looking forward. 
 
 The parting in any case was not yet. He did not even 
 know for a long time that there was to be any parting at 
 all, or any change in his life. This had slipped back at once 
 into the old grooves. His recent experiences at Herricks- 
 wood and in London were, as we may suppose, possessions, 
 indeed. He had something to tell to his grandmother, 
 his aunts, the servants, and his schoolfellows. 
 
 Had he any inkling that changes were looming? Were
 
 CHRISTOPHER 173 
 
 there any signs by which he might have guessed? His 
 mother got more letters and wrote more; that he did ob- 
 serve, nothing much else. He might have noticed some- 
 thing of restraint in her relations with her sisters for a little 
 while after the return from England, but naturally he did 
 not. Full of their questionings and hearings and relatings, 
 they did not either. It was his mother, actively dreading 
 the telling, who could have told of restraint! For her there 
 were days when restraint shrieked aloud. She had told 
 no one? No one as yet. There was no hurry, indeed, for 
 John Hemming, behaving beautifully, was not coming to 
 Boulogne, was content to remain at the "other end" of a 
 daily letter. Signs? Not for Christopher. Not for the 
 busy aunts. Two persons only may have guessed ! Mrs. 
 Oxeter, though Anne, with the knowledge that she was 
 ready to tell her at any moment, felt no restraint in her 
 relations with her ; Trimmer, who brought in the daily letter. 
 These she would have told without further or any ado, 
 if it had not been for Christopher's aunts. She was not 
 ready yet to tell them. In time, perhaps, she would be. 
 Meanwhile she dwelt over a volcano. 
 
 Christopher, notably older for his widened outlook, 
 invited comment. 
 
 "He's grown inches," his Aunt Laura declared, 
 "positively inches." 
 
 "He grows more and more like his father," his Aunt 
 Catherine. 
 
 Anne winced. Then smiled. She must accustom herself 
 to new conditions. She knew that the daily letter made her 
 happy. 
 
 How to tell them! She made tentative efforts, only to 
 find that they had been a little shocked as it was. At the 
 first mention of John Hemming they confessed to having 
 been surprised that Mrs. Herrick should have asked him to 
 Herrickswood to meet their sister and her son. 
 
 "It was n't as if . . . " they said which was the sort 
 of thing they always did say.
 
 I 74 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "Oh, well . . ." Anne said, also without finishing. 
 
 "My dear, after all that happened here," Laura said, 
 filling in " Boulogne, you know, where we all were! 
 What we saw ourselves walking with her as he did in 
 the open street ! and what every one said. Even if it 
 were at an end . . ." 
 
 "That was it," said Anne; "it was all at an end over 
 and done with." 
 
 "Over, but hardly done with," said Catherine, "while 
 everybody was talking. We did n't of course say anything 
 when you wrote, but as you speak of it, it did strike us as 
 regrettably lax. People in these cases oh, yes, the gentle- 
 man, to say nothing of the lady use n't to be counte- 
 nanced at all. It was not quite right of Mrs. Herrick. 
 You, her guest, her son's widow! And then Christopher, 
 a young boy!" 
 
 "If Christopher never gets more harm from any one 
 else " his mother permitted herself to say, but again 
 she did not finish her sentence. She must not allow herself 
 to be drawn into an argument must keep her arguments, 
 indeed, for the day when she must plead her lover's cause 
 and her own fight it, if need be. 
 
 But presently Christopher did become aware of something 
 something happening or impending. This dated from the 
 day when Amelie, coming in from some shopping, announced 
 that M. Saint- Roch, the owner of the green-shuttered 
 house, who had watched over his property from the end 
 of the street, was dead. 
 
 " I wonder whether this will make any difference," Chris- 
 topher's mother said, and became thoughtful. 
 
 "About what?" said Christopher. He was in truth 
 older than his years. 
 
 "The house," said his mother, but did not explain. 
 
 Well, it was to make some difference, it seemed, and it 
 was not long before Anne heard from her late landlord's 
 executors. We need not trouble ourselves with the busi- 
 ness, which was complicated. All that concerns us, since all
 
 CHRISTOPHER 175 
 
 that concerned Christopher's mother, is that Anne Her- 
 rick had to make up her mind whether she would take 
 the house on for a term of years or give it up at the end 
 of her lease. Anne would give it up but it meant that 
 the telling was precipitated. She went round to her mother's 
 with a beating heart. 
 
 Christopher, uninformed as yet of what the visit to Eng- 
 land had brought forth, fruit of the nail, in effect! 
 was reminded now of the days of Poor Mr. Aggot and the 
 Absconding Partner; of the days of the family consulta- 
 tions from which he was excluded ; even of the Red Eyes. 
 There were mysterious family consultations now; conver- 
 sations which were broken off at his entrance; significant 
 allusions to Goodness-knows-what in his presence. Some- 
 thing was exercising everybody. His mother could not 
 tell him yet, dear. Trimmer knew, he was quite sure, but 
 shook her head. His grandmother was pretty much as usual. 
 His Aunt Laura was n't, but had a tendency to look at him 
 with melancholy solicitude, rousing herself from time to 
 time to smile at him, with forced cheerfulness, as one who 
 should say, We must hope for the Best. She kissed him 
 oftener even than usual, and showed an inclination (frus- 
 trated, for the most part, let us add!) to kiss him even 
 oftener than that. His Aunt Catherine he did not see at 
 all. Presently he gathered that there was a temporary 
 estrangement between his gentle mother and this gentle 
 aunt, who, it appeared, had Said more than she Meant. 
 
 What did it all mean? 
 
 " I can't bear to be disapproved of," he heard his mother 
 say one day. 
 
 "Catherine does n't quite understand," his grandmother 
 answered. "You must make allowances." 
 
 Christopher had come in from school, and though he had 
 entered the room in the ordinary way, so absorbed were 
 they that they had not observed him. 
 
 " I do," his mother said. "I want to. I do. Imakeevery 
 allowance. I knew that was why I shrank so from telling
 
 176 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 her. I felt she would n't be able to see. But when she said 
 what she did say " 
 
 Christopher knew he ought to reveal himself. Well, 
 there he was, if they chose to look. 
 
 "You must n't mind her. She spoke without thinking 
 in the heat of the moment." 
 
 "Mother, you don't think " 
 
 "No, darling, I don't. You are doing perfectly right. 
 Don't forget what I said to you months ago." 
 
 " I don't. If it had n't been for that, indeed " 
 
 No one ever seemed to finish a sentence in these mysteri- 
 ous discussions. 
 
 "And for what Mrs. Herrick said, too," Christopher's 
 mother added. 
 
 "I must have misjudged that woman," Granny Oxe- 
 ter said, by the way. 
 
 "We all did," Anne said gratefully. "She's not frighten- 
 ing at all. She 's most lovable. Really if she could approve, 
 and she would, I do think that Laura and Catherine 
 Laura hasn't said much. But Catherine . . . Oh, 
 Christopher, is that you? How quietly you came in. I 
 did n't hear you." 
 
 He had not really come in quietly. 
 
 It was his Aunt Laura's "Oh, Christopher, I didn't 
 see you," of the poor Mr. Aggot days over again! 
 
 Afterwards the days were seen to have been even more 
 like those than he had suspected, when they also were 
 found to have portended a move. At the time, however, 
 what they portended he could not imagine. Nothing 
 unpleasant, he was sure, for, though there was some fer- 
 ment, it was plain to see that his mother was not really 
 unhappy ; and Trimmer was in excellent spirits. 
 
 His Aunt Laura, he presently gathered, was coming 
 round whatever that might mean; his Aunt Catherine 
 would in time. 
 
 It was his Aunt Catherine, if he had known it, who on 
 this occasion supplied most of the Red Eyes, though his
 
 CHRISTOPHER 177 
 
 mother, in spite of not being really unhappy, cried some- 
 times, too. She could not bear being at variance with 
 any one. 
 
 So time went on that time which was said to be neces- 
 sary to the " coming round " of his aunt. She did not come 
 to the Rue Gil Bias, nor appear in the Place Moliere when 
 Christopher's mother took him there to tea. We may 
 guess, as Christopher could not, but as his mother could 
 and did (which was why she cried) , what these absen tings 
 of herself meant to the poor lady who had said too much. 
 
 Boulogne threw off winter and clothed itself in the greens 
 of spring. The trees in the Petits Arbres and on the Es- 
 planade and in the gardens under the Ramparts came to 
 life after their long sleep. Flowers filled the market once 
 more, and birds mostly in cages, it is true sang their 
 songs of joy and love. It was again the time of young things. 
 
 Anne looked younger than ever that year. Catherine 
 saw from behind curtains and through remorseful tears, 
 but w r ould not herself be seen. Anne made overtures of 
 peace, sent messages, wrote. Catherine held out. Mystified 
 Christopher could not understand. At this time he seemed 
 only to have a grandmother and one aunt. 
 
 Then on a day he met her outside the post-office in the 
 Rue des Vieillards, whither he had been sent on an errand 
 for stamps. 
 
 He said, "Is that you, Aunt Catherine?" and, in the 
 "open street," as she would have said, she burst into tears. 
 
 "Oh, Christopher," she said, weeping over him. "Oh, 
 my poor lost lamb." 
 
 His aunts often called him Lambs and things, so he passed 
 over that, but he had to point out that he was n't lost. 
 Used long since to going about by himself, he could not 
 admit to being lost when he was n't. 
 
 "And you mustn't be," sobbed the poor lady. "You 
 mustn't be. That's all that I wanted to prevent. Oh, 
 Christopher." 
 
 "Why are you crying, Aunt Catherine?"
 
 178 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 " I have n't seen you for weeks" said his aunt. 
 
 " Because you hide when we go to see Granny. You run 
 out of the room. I know, because there was a chair that 
 was quite warm last time we went. Why don't you come 
 and see mother?" 
 
 "Oh, why!" said his Aunt Catherine. "I've offended 
 her, my angel. My foolish tongue said things. You would 
 n't understand. I did n't mean them at least, I did 
 mean them because I felt it my duty. That's why, but I 
 suppose I see that I should n't have said them." 
 
 "Well," said Christopher, drawing on his own experience, 
 "if you say you're sorry she always forgives you." 
 
 "But, good gracious " began his aunt, and, like every- 
 body else, she did not finish, or finished where she be- 
 gan. 
 
 "How are you getting on with your lessons?" she asked 
 him presently. " Here 's half-a-franc for you, to buy sweets 
 only don't make yourself ill. There, kiss me. I 'm glad 
 to have seen you." 
 
 She turned blindly into the post-office, and he scampered 
 home. 
 
 "She was blubbing," he told his mother. 
 
 His mother went to the Place Moliere that afternoon, 
 but only again to be met with what Christopher called a 
 warm chair. 
 
 " How long is this to go on? " she asked his grandmother 
 miserably. 
 
 It was not the next day, nor the next, nor the next, but 
 the day after that, that a meek ring sounded on the hall- 
 door bell of the green-shuttered house. 
 
 "Mamzelle Katrine, madame," announced Celestine. 
 
 The two ladies waited till the door had closed behind 
 her, and threw themselves into each other's arms. They 
 wept luxuriously, revelling in an orgy of tears. 
 
 "Marry any one you like. Marry every one. Marry 
 every day. Only never, never, never again let me lose sight 
 of you or of Christopher."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 179 
 
 It was complete surrender. The good creature could not 
 say enough. 
 
 " I believe mamma's really glad about it," she squeaked. 
 "Really, I mean; not just wanting to be. And Laura 
 oh, Laura will soon come round." 
 
 Anne thought that Laura had, but she did not say so. 
 
 "You'll meet him, Catherine?" 
 
 Catherine nodded. 
 
 "Receive him ? Receive him, Catherine? And me?" 
 
 "What an ogre you must think me." 
 
 "No. What you have felt was quite natural. But 
 there are 'buts.' You must believe that, dear. I can't 
 explain. You must just believe it from me as I have been 
 content to believe it from him." 
 
 "Of course," said Catherine Oxeter. "Of course." 
 
 She was ready to believe anything now, to accept any- 
 thing. It became evident that she did not repent her by 
 halves. As she had opposed, so now she was eager to wel- 
 come. 
 
 "They are said to make the best husbands," she said, 
 wiping her eyes. 
 
 Anne smiled. 
 
 "But he is n't a Reformed Rake, Catherine." 
 
 "No, no," agreed Catherine hurriedly. "Reformed, but 
 not a rake." 
 
 Anne left it at that. She knew ! Unnecessary, perhaps, 
 to make exact distinctions or exact definitions. If he was 
 not "reformed" in one sense, he was in another. And in 
 no sense was he a rake. 
 
 " I meant I was sure he would make a good husband," 
 said Catherine. 
 
 Anne knew that he would, and said so. 
 
 Catherine pressed her hand. 
 
 "And a good father," Anne added. She pressed Cather- 
 ine's. "If I hadn't known that . . . But I do. That's 
 why. It's all in that. Nothing else matters." 
 
 So it came that Christopher found his lost aunt at tea
 
 i8o CHRISTOPHER 
 
 that day in the Rue Gil Bias when he came home from 
 school. It was of course she who had been lost, and not he. 
 She kissed him in quite a different way from last time. It 
 was a different sort of kiss altogether, and quite different, 
 in turn, from the recent kisses of his Aunt Laura. He liked 
 it much better in so far as he could be said to like kisses 
 at all (which, in fact, he only tolerated). Normal relations, 
 he realised, had been established. But what, as before, did 
 it all mean? 
 
 He was not to know yet. 
 
 Time went on. All the usual things happened with just 
 something of unusualness behind them. There were no 
 longer any red eyes. His mother sang about the house; 
 caught herself singing sometimes, laughed, blushed, and 
 was singing again before five minutes were over. She 
 bought some new hats, which met with Christopher's 
 unqualified approval. They were different, somehow, from 
 the hats she generally wore. By degrees her Aunt Laura 
 left off looking at him commiseratingly or with forced 
 cheerfulness. But the consultations and talkifications did 
 not cease. 
 
 Something of unusualness somewhere ! 
 
 It was presently summer. The town prepared itself for 
 the yearly influx of visitors and announced "garnished" 
 apartments everywhere. The hotels bustled, threw them- 
 selves open, re-staffed, and began to fill up. Then strangers 
 were seen in the streets: strange sauntering family parties; 
 Monsieur, Madame, and Bebe; strange figures from the 
 provinces; odd corpulent men, odd corpulent women, 
 every example of unabashed corpulence. The English 
 arrived, parents, governesses, nurses, children, healthy- 
 looking girls, athletic young men; a sprinkling of the 
 rowdy. A few Germans. Bathing began in earnest. On 
 the sands long-suffering horses drew creaking and jolting 
 machines up or down to deep guttural urgings, the jingling 
 of harness, and the cracking of whips. A crowd with bun-
 
 CHRISTOPHER 181 
 
 dies of bathing-tackle waited its turn round a man shout- 
 ing numbers from a chair. From time to time as the tide 
 rose, the chair would be moved higher up the beach, the 
 waiting crowd following. In the sea, strange sights: cor- 
 pulence, outlined here, striped, made nakeder than naked, 
 and still good-humouredly, and even beautifully, una- 
 bashed ! 
 
 Daily now the boats were crowded. From the pier, you 
 might read by the cones on the incoming vessel the number 
 of the passengers, and then racing her to the harbour, you 
 might see the passengers land. England bound for the 
 Continent generally was emptying itself into France 
 again. No such numbers had been known since before the 
 War. 
 
 The bales of goods on the quay near the London boat 
 were always hot now to the touch, as Christopher played 
 amongst them in the sun. So were the rails of the gang- 
 ways through which he ran, or on which he see-sawed. 
 Hot the asphalt of the terrace behind the Etablissement. 
 Hot everything on which you laid your hand. It was pres- 
 ently full summer. 
 
 Came and went the holidays, the Fte Dieu, the Fair. 
 A year now since Mrs. St. Jemison, John Hemming, and 
 the Nail. Came the autumn. By then the coffin which was 
 to hold poor old Boulogne was well on in the making. 
 Came the day when he was told. He felt as if he had 
 known all along! Regrets? 
 
 It was hurrah for change, hurrah for the future, hurrah 
 (or John Hemming and England.
 
 THE SECOND BOOK OF 
 CHRISTOPHER
 
 BOOK THE SECOND 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CHRISTOPHER, some dozen years later, entered upon the 
 second period of his life, upon the day when he saw in the 
 flesh some one whose name, when at length he learned it, 
 sent his mind scurrying back across the years, with their 
 changes and chances, to the strange night when he had 
 first heard it. So much had happened since then all his 
 school-days (of which, as we go), most of his time at Ox- 
 ford. Then he had been a boy with his life before him; 
 now he was a man, if still a very boy for all that, with 
 well, still it seemed, his life before him. 
 
 In after years Christopher, looking back, was apt to 
 date changes and change itself from the days of his mother's 
 marriage. In reality, of course, there had never been any- 
 thing else. Had not his circumstances been in process of 
 changing from the day of his birth? Had not he himself, 
 his mother, his grandmother, his aunts, Trimmer, even, 
 all his little world, in common with the big one of which its 
 component parts were part? The more these riad changed, 
 it is true, the more they had remained the same thing 
 especially, as he sometimes thought, Trimmer. Changes 
 and change none the less. The law was immutable. 
 
 The change from the green-shuttered house at Boulogne 
 to the house (at Datchet) which belonged to his stepfather 
 was assuredly a good starting-point for change. There- 
 after, anyway, the changes came rapidly enough. When 
 people were singing "Tommy, make Room for your 
 Uncle," for "Champagne Charlie," and "Spring, Spring, 
 Beautiful Spring," for "Pretty Polly Perkins of Padding- 
 ton Green," belated survivals from very much earlier
 
 186 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 days, Christopher, gaining new relations, was losing old 
 ones. Granny Oxeter was the first to receive her summons. 
 She died quite happily, and as painlessly as it is possible to 
 die, in the course of the year of one of those or of kindred 
 classics. His Aunt Catherine, then, as if she had nothing 
 particular to deter or detain her, turned her face to the 
 wall, and as quietly followed her. It was two years later 
 that his Aunt Laura took every one by surprise. She did 
 not die. She made an announcement nothing less, if 
 you please, than that she was going to be married. Out 
 of the dim past had arisen, it appeared, an old admirer, to 
 renew a timid offer of twenty years earlier, when he, a 
 widower now and the rector of a large Midland parish, 
 had been a pale young curate with neither means nor pros- 
 pects, and she not wholly without this- worldly ambi- 
 tions. 
 
 "I daresay you'll all think me ridiculous," she wrote. 
 "At my time of life one ought rather to be thinking of 
 folding the hands than of striking out in new directions, 
 but James" (the rector of Misterton Sotherby's blameless 
 name) "says there is yet work for me to do, and perhaps 
 one should n't turn back from the plough." 
 
 Christopher wanted to know why his aunt should call 
 his prospective uncle a Plough. But, "I daresay," wrote 
 his mother warmly, and with gladness in her contented 
 eyes "I daresay we shall think you nothing of the sort! 
 I have not been so glad about anything for a long time, 
 and I only wish darling mother and Catherine could have 
 lived to know. I remember Mr. Bermerdan well at Chel- 
 tenham, and used to wonder in those days how you could 
 resist him." 
 
 So, as the green-shuttered house had been swept away 
 and in its place in its stead, rather was there the 
 Datchet house which in turn Christopher called "Home," 
 and to which, when he was at school, he came for his holi- 
 days, so at a stroke, or at three, to be accurate, was the 
 familiar house in the Place Moliere swept out of his exist-
 
 CHRISTOPHER 187 
 
 ence. Who sat now in his grandmother's chair by the win- 
 dow or the fire? Who came and went now through the 
 porte-cochere, under which was the hall door with the brass 
 knocker he had once known so well ? What fingers pressed 
 the yellow keys of the piano on which his Aunt Catherine 
 used to play "Hark! 'tis the Indian Drum," and "Gaily 
 the Troubadour" (for him to sing), and, on Sundays, 
 "Sun of my soul," to which his Aunt Laura could sing a 
 "second," and "Rock of Ages," his mother's favourite, 
 and "Abide with me," his grandmother's, and the almost 
 too harrowing "Thy will be done"? 
 
 If them shouldst call me to resign 
 What most I prize it ne'er was mine; 
 I only yield Thee what was thine; 
 Thy will . . . 
 
 Too harrowing. Eyes would be wet in the softer seventies. 
 Too harrowing. 
 
 Changes, changes. 
 
 Celestine was gone. She had married her Jean Poulard 
 and was the mother now of a little Jean, a little Pierre 
 called after Christopher's Pierre About, and hoped, if 
 the Good God would, yet to be the mother of a little Chris- 
 tophe, or at least of a Christophine, to mark her tender 
 and respectful sentiments towards the family she had 
 served. Amelie had come to England for a time, but, pre- 
 sently homesick, had returned tearfully to her native shores. 
 She was heart-broken to leave madame, heart-broken, 
 saddened d jamais, desolated, but oh, these Buts. 
 Blood was thicker than water. 
 
 Trimmer remained. She had steadily refused to marry 
 her piano-tuner, and as she had accompanied her mistress 
 to India, so had she accompanied her to the new life in 
 England. No, she had not definitely broken with her piano- 
 tuner. He was there, as indeed he wrote from time to time 
 to remind her, there if she wanted him. One of these days, 
 perhaps, Master Christopher. Meanwhile for the second
 
 i88 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 time in her life her arms were full. Christopher had a 
 little sister. 
 
 Never had a boy, busily climbing the years, a happier 
 home to come back to. John Hemming had made no idle 
 protestations, no vain promises or vows. Christopher had 
 not lost his mother . . . 
 
 It was difficult afterwards to determine the exact order 
 of the trivial events which made up life. At Boulogne 
 things had happened before or after the war. So near Lon- 
 don as Windsor and Eton, things happened for the most 
 part merely to the tune of what songs ruled the moment. 
 Thus the "Tommy, make Room" period was followed by 
 periods governed in turn by such gems as "The Old and 
 the Young Obadiah" ("Said the Old Obadiah to the Young 
 Obadiah, 'Obadiah, Obadiah, I am dry'"!); "Whoa, 
 Emma!" "If I were only tall enough"; "We don't want 
 to fight, But, by jingo, if we do"; "La di da" (later), and 
 the like. There was a "Nancy Lee" year, and a year of 
 the "Bric-a-Brac" Polka. "My Grandfather's Clock" 
 marked time. "True as the stars that are shining," "Sil- 
 ver threads amongst the gold," and "Molly Darling" held 
 their own. Offenbach was giving place to Lecoq and Plan- 
 quette. The Gilbert and Sullivan operas were coming 
 along. The Gaiety was contributing to the general con- 
 flict or harmony. There were plenty of popular airs to 
 grow up to, and Christopher was very busy growing. 
 
 Each of the holidays, as it came, saw come back to the 
 old Georgian house a different boy, however essentially 
 the same, or the same boy, however externally and inter- 
 nally changing. His father had been at Winchester, and it 
 was there, in deference to his grandmother's wish, that he 
 went for his schooling. His mother, living at Datchet, 
 would naturally have liked to have him near her at Eton, 
 but (and for this reason, maybe!) old Mrs. Herrick was 
 urgent went, indeed, on undefined, perhaps indefinite 
 claims, as near as might be to insisting. Anne, after a few
 
 CHRISTOPHER 189 
 
 tentative arguments, acquiesced. John Hemming was at 
 one with her mother-in-law. 
 
 A very close tie still held the boy and his stepfather. In 
 a way, it might be said that he had brought his mother and 
 her former lover together. John never forgot that to him, 
 and the two were firm friends. One of John's first doings in 
 the early days was to teach Christopher to ride. The boy 
 was found to have good hands. He delighted in this new 
 excitement, and his rides with his stepfather were amongst 
 the pleasantest of his English experiences. He learned to 
 shoot and to fish. Still . . . there were other things in life 
 beside sport: he was never, and he knew it, to lose sight of 
 that for long. Books held him, pictures, and in spite 
 of a paradoxical susceptibility to the appeal, howsoever 
 crude, of the most tuppenny tunes of the moment music! 
 Such people as his Grandmother Herrick had presently to 
 forgive him for playing the piano! He ranged, be it said, 
 from Chopin to Offenbach, from the "Moonlight Sonata" 
 to "What's the Odds as long as you're 'Appy?" What 
 were the "odds," after all? 
 
 His school -days were the tale of a series of ardent friend- 
 ships friendships, yet, in which it seemed to him some- 
 times that he gave more than he received. This might be 
 the more blessed case it was, he knew, perhaps, after- 
 wards ; it was certainly not at the time the more satisfying. 
 He asked too much, perhaps. Did no other boys love quite 
 as he loved? All that he had put into his childish passion 
 for the dead Pierre (who remained his friend because death 
 had removed him), and the living "young Englishman" 
 (who had ceased in a sense to be his possession when he 
 had become his relation), he put into his young adorations. 
 Something was always withheld, or was not there, even, 
 to be withholden. He made friends easily enough. Not 
 one, perhaps, of those to whom he was drawn realised that 
 anything lacked. He was happy when his chosen friend of 
 any particular moment had need of him. He wanted to 
 sacrifice himself in someway. "Greater love than this
 
 190 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 hath no man ..." He could, or he thought he could, 
 have given lives for his friends. 
 
 His friends? There were so many. Was there something 
 lacking in him, too, that he could so effectually replace 
 one with another? Was he fickle in his affections, change- 
 able, unstable? He ran through an incomplete list. There 
 was Redgrave, whom he had enshrined in his heart at 
 Boulogne, at his first school of all. Redgrave was a chubby 
 boy, in a black smock with a shiny belt, who was cock of 
 the walk, and to whom the other boys deferred, and whom 
 they tacitly combined to follow. These things are deter- 
 mined from the beginning of time. Redgrave had conde- 
 scended to show Christopher his favour accepted sweets 
 and marbles from him, tops and chestnuts. With him 
 Christopher had vowed eternal vows of friendship. Red- 
 grave had left the term before Christopher, but not before 
 Christopher had known that Redgrave was not all that in 
 his ardour he had thought him. Where was Redgrave now, 
 or the devotion that Christopher had poured upon him? 
 Where was Shappleton? Where Jimmy Hastings? Where 
 Nicholas Minor? Christopher was at his dame-school at 
 Windsor then, whither he went daily by train. After that, 
 at his preparatory school at Eastbourne there were Horn- 
 castle and Hopwood and Laurence Chain. None of these 
 were what Redgrave had stood for. There had really been 
 something about Redgrave that asked devotion and got it 
 for a time, but each, at the outset, had seemed potentially 
 what Redgrave was not but might have been. Then, with 
 the great change to the wonderful world of a real school, the 
 search had been in earnest. 
 
 The search? It was that, was it? Not for a long time 
 did Christopher realise that he was seeking his own 
 tasting, trying, sifting, rejecting. He would know his own 
 when, indeed, he found it, as like knows like. This, then, 
 was the answer to what he had asked himself. He was not 
 fickle in his affections, nor changeable nor unstable. What 
 looked like each of these qualities was a very earnest of his
 
 CHRISTOPHER 191 
 
 constancy. His constancy to to what? To an ideal. To 
 something outside and yet within himself. He would 
 know it him, her when at length the looked-for came. 
 Meanwhile, looking into many faces he asked, Is it you? 
 
 Is it you? said Christopher, even when he was busiest 
 mounting the years; Is it you? Sometimes the words 
 (which, of course, were never spoken) were, Is n't it you? 
 This time I am sure that it is you. Don't you think that 
 perhaps it is you? No? Are you sure? And he would look 
 again, and sooner or later would come the knowledge and 
 the disappointment. Never. Not even when he had 
 thought not when the lifting of the veil had seemed most 
 imminent. The nod; the passing on; the casual and the 
 stranger for the boon companion, for the other of the two 
 travellers who, somewhen, somehow, somewhere, must 
 surely have journeyed, or have it before them to journey, 
 side by side. 
 
 Morbid? Christopher wasn't morbid. You had only 
 to look at him, at the vigorous glow which warmed him 
 and you, at his clear eyes and fresh firm skin. If morbid 
 mean any deviation from whole-health, Christopher was 
 not morbid. 
 
 Something, all the same, marked him off from his fellows. 
 
 "What do you mean, young Herrick about playing 
 the sunset on the piano? Smith Major says you said you 
 could." 
 
 "I didn't say I could. I said it could be played. It 
 could, too." 
 
 "What rot!" 
 
 "I could play what it seems like to me." 
 
 "Paint it, you mean, you young idiot." 
 
 "Play it. If it could be painted, it could be played." 
 
 "What cheek!" 
 
 A very young incident, a long way back in the early 
 school-days, but significant. 
 
 It could be played, and what cheek! The dividing wall. 
 Christopher in his closest intimacies was to be aware of it.
 
 I 9 2 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "Herrick's listening to the inkpot." 
 
 "Herrick can smell moonlight." 
 
 " I say, Herrick, what's the taste of a nice clap of thun- 
 der?" 
 
 All very good-tempered, of course, because every one 
 liked him. There it was, however, and the worst of it was 
 that it was true. Christopher knew the sound of still ink 
 quite well, the smell of moonlight, and the taste of thun- 
 der. He could hear, in other words, the spherical song of 
 the stars. 
 
 By degrees he came to understand. The answer to his 
 question was the answer to many more. A propos, he 
 heard Trimmer's "Come along, Master Christopher." It 
 was the deferred solution of that amongst other things. 
 Trimmer had really not seen what he saw, not heard, not 
 felt. Neither had his mother. Nor did most people. Yet, 
 still a propos, if indeed he was in any way different, there 
 must be others like himself. It was his misfortune, at 
 school at any rate, not to meet them. There must be others, 
 and some day he would fall in with his own. 
 
 The years were pushed behind him. He did moderately 
 well, took a prize or two, had it in his power, and was said 
 to have it in his power, to do better. His school reports 
 were the reports of the average boy. They disappointed 
 his mother a little. His stepfather, with a better under- 
 standing, perhaps, made light of them. 
 
 " It 's only " Anne said, and, as was her way when she 
 was perplexed, did not finish. 
 
 "Only what?" 
 
 "When I think of of the promise he showed." 
 
 John did not say, "What promise?" though at that mo- 
 ment he had Christopher's wonderful stepsister (who did 
 show promise, if you like!) on his knee. He said, " That's 
 all right, and so's Christopher." 
 
 "Of course," said Anne, "of course" ; but could not help 
 adding, "Only " 
 
 "Only what? "as before.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 193 
 
 "When is he going to begin?" said Anne at last. 
 
 "Begin?" he said. Christopher's loyal stepfather 
 gathered himself up. "Bless the dear woman, must I 
 explain her own son to her? What does she expect if she 
 will be the mother of poets? Begin? He's begun. You don't 
 have to write poetry to be a poet, or paint pictures to be 
 an artist. He's living every inch of his life. That's his 
 work. Let that be enough for him, and don't bother your 
 head about schoolmasters' reports. What are they, when 
 all's said?" 
 
 "Well, some sort of an indication." 
 
 "The observations generally of men whose occupations 
 prevent their seeing beyond the ends of their noses." He 
 turned to his daughter. "She should have seen your father's 
 reports, my Fatima." 
 
 Fatima gurgled. 
 
 Anne smiled. "Oh, I should n't have been looking for 
 anything remarkable from yours, John." 
 
 John kissed his wife. 
 
 "That's where you would have been wrong, and what 
 proves my point. They were continually, and uniformly, 
 and quite remarkably, excellent." 
 
 Living every inch of his life, was he? Christopher at 
 school, and pressing forward to the time when he should 
 throw off its shackles, might have wondered. In a sense 
 he was. There were hours that few of his schoolfellows 
 lived as fully as he. There were days when he walked upon 
 air spring days quick with the sense and the assurance 
 of what was coming ; days of summer and flannels and the 
 cricket-field ; long, long, days when the daylight like Josh- 
 ua's sun, seemed miraculously stayed, and wonderful things, 
 scents, hummings, whispers, were in the air; autumn days 
 of quite other scents and sounds; blustering or crisply 
 frozen days of winter. But against these were many days 
 and hours, the very purpose and meaning of which escaped 
 him. It was then that he felt himself shut in and, shut
 
 194 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 off by and from the common informing spirit of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 He loved school and hated it left it at last as he had 
 left Boulogne, without, at the time, a regret, but after- 
 wards to suffer pangs of nostalgia and remorse. When it 
 was behind him he knew how happy he had been there, and 
 how he had loved it. 
 
 Oxford then, New; and the world once more widened. 
 He settled down into the life as ducks take to water. This 
 surely was one of the goals towards which he had been 
 urging. Now he was really happy. His first year sped ; his 
 second ; he grudged the vacations that took him from a life 
 so congenial to him in every possible way. Now he seemed 
 to have his pick of the friends that he wanted. Amongst 
 so many he could drop the search. Is it you? It was no 
 one or heaps of people. 
 
 Then it was that, having bent the knee to no particular 
 woman, he met one the sight of whom weakened him sud- 
 denly. He was conscious of a swimming of his senses, of a 
 weakness almost physical, so that for a moment the 
 strength seemed taken from his limbs. This at the sight 
 of a slip of a girl, tall, slender, lily-white, who with one 
 glance of her eyes answered the question he had ceased to 
 put, and answered it, or he thought so then, finally. Is it 
 you? You, at last? It is I, Christy Cora St. Jemison.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 NOT that he knew who she was, or was to know immedi- 
 ately. He saw her at Victoria Station, where he was seeing 
 his mother and Fatima, accompanied by the faithful 
 Trimmer, off to Herrickswood for one of the periodical 
 visits to his grandmother. His stepfather, just then, was 
 fishing in Norway, and he himself on the point of going 
 abroad with a friend. 
 
 Fatima, who, out of compliment to her mother Anne 
 and the lady of his mother's song, was really Ancebel, but 
 who still was plump enough to bear aptly her father's pet 
 name for her, was now an engaging child of ten or so, who 
 hung on to her tall brother's words (and his arm and his 
 waist, and his neck if he would let her), and worshipped 
 the grown-up ground that he walked on. She conceived, 
 on this day, an amiable hatred of all slim lily-white girls, 
 by reason of one, and that one's effect, upon the big 
 brother whom she looked upon as her special property. 
 She saw. Fatimas of ten or eleven, even, Fatimae, as 
 Christopher called such little sisters as his when he had 
 occasion to speak of them in the plural Fatimse, of ten 
 even, have eyes. Oh, Fatima saw! 
 
 The Continental train was at the opposite platform. It 
 was getting up steam. The usual busy crowd hummed 
 about it. Fatima already was jealous of it, first, because 
 a day or two later it would be bearing Christopher and his 
 friend (of whom, too, she was jealous) away on their short 
 travels, while she had to do without her brother at Her- 
 rickswood, whither he might otherwise have accompanied 
 her; and, secondly, because its air of importance threw all 
 such less adventurous trains, as that by which she and her 
 mother and Trimmer were to make their modest journey, 
 into a shade palpably as it seemed to her inglorious.
 
 196 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Christopher and she, near the door of the carriage in 
 which their mother had taken her place, with Trimmer in 
 the next, watched the animated crowd. Here were most 
 sorts and many conditions: good travellers, easy, self- 
 possessed, leisurely; bad travellers, fussy, heated, flurried. 
 Here were brides and bridegrooms the usual sprinkling 
 
 and seeming bridegrooms and brides. Here were afflu- 
 ence neatly appointed, and affluence over-appointed; 
 indigence (but not much, by the boat train, of indigence), 
 showing a fair front; something, maybe, of polite roguery. 
 Here were maiden ladies. Here were parents; families; a 
 handful of schoolboys ; some little girls, Fatimae, a 
 percentage of sunburnt Christophers; couriers, ladies- 
 maids, valets. 
 
 "I jolly well wish I was going." said Fatima. 
 "Jolly well, do you?" said Christopher. 
 "With you," said Fatima. 
 
 "Harringay," he named his prospective companion, 
 "would throw you out of the window. He hates little girls 
 
 all Fatimae and kindred species." 
 
 "Oh, does he the beast?" said Fatima elegantly. 
 "Yes, mother, in one minute, we 're not off yet [does he? " 
 She looked at her brother. "Chuck him and come down to 
 Herrickswood. Grandmother Herrick would love to have 
 you. You know you have n't seen her for a long time, and 
 you know you ought to. Besides, we'd ride every day. 
 Think of the downs. What do you want to go abroad for? 
 You've been there." 
 
 Christopher laughed. 
 
 "Oh, I've been there, have I? To 'Abroad' eh? Well, I 
 want to go there again, Fatty, so what shall I bring you? 
 Jewels or silks or just a rose? Just a rose, Beauty, shan't I, 
 and then, perhaps then, perhaps " 
 
 He broke off. She looked to see why. 
 
 The lily-white girl was coming down the platform. She 
 was all slimness and youngness and lily-whiteness. Even 
 so prejudiced a critic as Fatima could see that she was
 
 CHRISTOPHER 197 
 
 beautiful. Young as she was, there was not a harsh line, 
 not a curve that was not exquisitely rounded. 
 
 Some luggage obstructed the way. Walking beside an 
 elderly man, in the wake of servants who went on before 
 to prepare, she passed quite close to Christopher. He moved 
 a little to make room for her, and, as she acknowledged the 
 trifling courtesy on his part, their eyes met. It was as if he 
 had received a blow which left him reeling. 
 
 The two passed on to where a valet and a maid stood at 
 the door of a carriage which was evidently reserved. They 
 got in, and the servants went their ways to see to luggage 
 or find seats for themselves. Christopher tried in vain to 
 take up the thread of what he had been saying. Fatima 
 was looking at him oddly. 
 
 "Now, Ancebel, dear, you must get in. Say good-bye 
 to him and get in." 
 
 Fatima, kissing him, said, " I hate her. I hate her." 
 
 He did not even ask whom, but kissed her absently. 
 
 "Good-bye, darling." 
 
 His mother was leaning from the window. 
 
 "Enjoy yourself, and write to us often." 
 
 A whistle sounded. 
 
 "Is that us?" So his mother. 
 
 It was not. But it was the Continental train. He saw 
 it steam out, handkerchiefs and hats waving. 
 
 Well, he, too, would be travelling by it the day after 
 the next. How glad he was. "Abroad" was a big place, 
 but . . . who knew? 
 
 " Don't wait, darling. I wish you were coming with us." 
 
 "He does n't," growled Fatima over her shoulder. 
 
 Then their train, too, steamed out, and Christopher, 
 hardly knowing that he was doing so, stood blankly on the 
 empty platform looking after its disappearing tail. 
 
 He recovered himself presently came to his senses 
 and left the station. 
 
 It was a gorgeous day towards the end of July. Though 
 the Matches were over, and Henley, and there remained
 
 198 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 but Goodwood to give the season its final blow, London 
 was still full. The streets were nearly as closely thronged 
 with carriages as they had been at the beginning of the 
 month, and even the Row, where it was the custom then 
 to ride in the late afternoon, was not yet perceptibly 
 emptier. Christopher, infected theretofore with his short 
 taste of the delights of the town, had meant to ride that 
 afternoon, but now changed his mind and countermanded 
 his horse. He felt a sudden distaste for his kind. It was a 
 day for the woods and cool solitudes, for sleepy meadows 
 or breezy uplands. He was half sorry that he was not at 
 home that he might have spent a long day on the river. 
 But more he wished himself in Oxford, where, if late July 
 even did not find it deserted, he could yet have found 
 many a spot to suit his mood. And then he wanted Bou- 
 logne, bits of the old town, the silence and the mystery of 
 the Ramparts. 
 
 All his life seemed to have pressed towards this day. 
 
 He went back to his rooms in Jermyn Street, and with 
 an impulse to get away as far as possible from this life of 
 London (which he yet loved), he changed into a suit of old 
 clothes and went out again. He had no settled plan. He 
 only felt that he wanted to be alone and to think. 
 
 He did not know London well, except, perhaps, the heart 
 of it that part of it, for example, round which revolved 
 the life of the last two or three weeks so much of the 
 season as his terms at Oxford allowed him to have a share 
 in. When he thought of London it was always of such por- 
 tions of it as Piccadilly and Pall Mall and the Strand, of the 
 neighbourhoods of its picture galleries and theatres, and 
 of those particular streets and squares in which so many 
 houses at certain times of year, it seemed, were ready to 
 entertain him. But north, south, east, and west of certain 
 fairly definite boundaries, he knew nothing. 
 
 Chelsea at this time, except at its outposts, was an un- 
 known country to him. On this day of days he made its 
 discovery. It met his mood generously. Here were houses
 
 CHRISTOPHER 199 
 
 that breathed the spirit of other days. Here were walls of 
 mellow brick, gardens, haunts of ancient peace. Was there 
 a smell of flowers, or did he imagine it? Under an archway, 
 or through an open door, were glimpses to be caught of 
 green and yet more green. Ivies "mantled" many a case- 
 ment. At the end of a passage you might see a curtain of 
 Virginia creeper sway gently as it hung from a lintel. 
 There was everywhere the sense of hidden gardens. 
 
 And at the foot of all this the river. 
 
 Christopher lunched at an inn long since swept away. 
 He called, as seemed right, here, for bread-and-cheese and 
 beer. 
 
 After that he sat for a time by the river watching the 
 craft. He was reminded of "The Waterman," of "Jacob 
 Faithful," of "Wapping Old Stairs" names and some- 
 thing more than names to one who had known the enthral- 
 ments of Skelt of Swan Minories, Webb of Old Street St. 
 Lukes, and Redington of Hoxton Street, "formerly" 
 Hoxton Old Town of the toy theatre generally. For of 
 course he had known these in his boyhood. They, too, 
 seemed to have had their part in preparing him for even 
 in leading him to this strange day. The lily-white maid 
 was foreshadowed for him, perhaps, in the Lady Elvira, 
 say, of " Pizarro," in Ravina of " The Miller and His Men," 
 in Lumina of " The Silver Palace." He smiled to himself. 
 
 Barges passed him with sails red like rust, steamers, 
 pleasure boats even the amazing Maria Wood was out 
 upon this day for his benefit. The old civic barge lumbered 
 by. Her flamboyant greens and reds and yellows flamed 
 and flared in the sunlight. She was like some Dutch im- 
 propriety, some gross but good-tempered flaunting woman 
 always, for some reason, of the Netherlands! with 
 a jolly laugh and a frank shamelessness that made her 
 beautiful. She was ridiculous too. Top-hatted men were 
 dancing on her decks. 
 
 Christopher laughed out. Oh, wonderful day, that 
 mixed its delights for him! Here again was a steamer.
 
 200 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Why not adventure further in this enchanting London that 
 he was finding for himself? 
 
 No sooner thought of than done. He ran to the neigh- 
 bouring pier. He was in time. Where should he book for? 
 Where could he? The man in the little box suggested 
 Greenwich through the hole in the window. 
 
 "Greenwich, then," said Christopher. 
 
 It was " Box and Cox " now that he was reminded of. He 
 had played Box or was it Cox? in young theatricals 
 one Christmas. 
 
 "Visions of Greenwich and back" for so much and so 
 much was it not somehow thus that one line which he 
 had spoken had run? And Greenwich? He was back with 
 the toy theatre again and "Jacob Faithful." All his life 
 was bound up with this day. 
 
 He went on board and looked about for a seat to please 
 him. 
 
 Some one else was on board a steamer now at this 
 very moment. Oh, wonderful ! Unwittingly, by his chance 
 decision, he had established the semblance, at least, of 
 a connection between her and himself. From the deck 
 of this mimic steamer to the deck of the steamer which 
 bore her away, he sent out the current of his thoughts. In 
 the fervour of his imagination he joined the occultists, fore- 
 stalled the inventors; but was there ever a lover who did 
 not know? If she was not thinking of him (they had looked 
 deeply into each other's eyes), he would so batter her with 
 thoughts that she would be forced to admit them and to 
 think of him. . . . 
 
 Is it you? But it is you. I know that at last it is you. 
 You know it. Were you, too, looking . . . ? Yes, you 
 know it as I do. 
 
 Then: Who are you, Beautiful? Where did you come 
 from this wonderful morning? Wherever you came from, 
 it was to me that you were coming. I had been calling 
 you. For years I have called you . . . 
 
 Then: Where were you going to? I can see you looking
 
 CHRISTOPHER 201 
 
 out to sea. Where are you going? Not that it matters. 
 Wherever you go, sooner or later I shall find you. Now 
 that I know that you are that you exist and that I 
 have n't only imagined you I know I shall find you . . . 
 Look across the water. Look back. I am here. Look, 
 look, look . . . 
 
 The tide was at the flood. The river brimmed. High 
 rode the penny steamboat bearing the dreamer. He saw 
 the old walls of Lambeth Palace through his dream, the 
 Houses of Parliament, Westminster Bridge. 
 
 People looked at him. He was easy to look at well- 
 grown, clean-limbed, and (for a dreamer) muscular. 
 His arm was resting on the gunwale and supported his 
 head. He had taken off his hat and the breeze blew his 
 hair back from a low forehead. Seen thus in profile he had 
 looks and to spare. Nor did he disappoint you when he 
 turned his face towards you. 
 
 That day, for his unconscious sake, a shop-girl snubbed 
 her well-meaning and innocent lover was unresponsive 
 and even disagreeable to the wholly unoffending for the 
 rest of the afternoon. A young wife contrasted freshness 
 and strength and youth, as embodied upon the seat op- 
 posite to her, with the musty, beery, middle-age of the 
 spouse beside her. A romantic school-girl read a new 
 hero into her favourite novels. 
 
 So, love flowing out from him (if it was love or could 
 be !) flowed also (if this in its turn was love) towards him. 
 
 A bit of Lambeth, east of the Palace, reminded him of 
 the fishing-town at Boulogne. Nets should hang to dry 
 from such windows as those. This, too, was London; all 
 London. By an association of remote ideas he thought of 
 Ratcliffe Highway, which he had never seen, the lurid 
 glories of which had long since disappeared, and pic- 
 tured it as flanked by such houses. Some day, for the sake 
 of its name, and the feelings that name gave him, he must
 
 202 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 see what was left of it, or at least where it had been in its 
 terrible day. At the thought of it he could conjure up 
 visions of dancing-saloons; of dancing, fighting, drunken 
 sailors; dancing, fighting, garish women, with their hair 
 in oiled waves in front, and long nets at the back. All 
 London! Here presently was Charing Cross Station, 
 which did not matter, and a few moments later Cleopatra's 
 Needle, which did. The water danced in the sunshine. 
 If you looked closely at it you could see that it was not 
 clear. What should have been sediment was churned up 
 in it. You could see the mass of the mud particles turning 
 over and over in it. It was cloudy as diluted milk, and it 
 was grey where sunlight or reflections did not colour it. 
 Yet it was beautiful. Nothing could be ugly that day 
 not even the imps of children who amused themselves so 
 gracelessly upon the bridges. Here was Somerset House, 
 grey as the river; Waterloo Bridge for the suicides; Black- 
 friars, to please you, who cared for the sound of names, with 
 the sound of its own. 
 
 Presently London Bridge itself. 
 
 You had to change to another boat, it seemed. Two per- 
 sons who were not going on to Greenwich looked after 
 him. 
 
 "What are you walking backwards for?" if he could 
 have heard! 
 
 "Shall if I like!" and a petulant "What did you want 
 to settle to go up the'silly Monument for at all? All those 
 steps when we might have kept on the water?" 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know what's come to you to-day. 
 There's no pleasing you." 
 
 Any pleasing her! The poor fellow was right. There 
 was not. 
 
 Christopher, making his way to the Greenwich boat, 
 did not know, nor would he have believed that he was, 
 or he could be, responsible for the mischief. He did not 
 see the romantic school-girl's laggard steps either, nor 
 would he have understood them. He could believe in these
 
 CHRISTOPHER 203 
 
 sudden emotions himself, but that he should be able to 
 evoke them always, of course, except in the one amaz- 
 ing instance in which the miracle had to happen would 
 happily have struck him as ludicrous. 
 
 There was some little delay before the Greenwich boat 
 started; then once more Christopher was being carried 
 down the stream. The Pool of London. Big ships now 
 towering above you as you paddled under their giant 
 hulls; ocean-going vessels back from China, or the West 
 Indies, or where else you will. These, for the most part, 
 seemed resting from their labours; one, only, buzzed like 
 a hive. Here and there a man slung in a cradle plied a 
 leisurely brush. 
 
 Names and more names : Billingsgate (there was always 
 some one to tell you the difficulty to stop the telling!), 
 with Lower Thames Street behind it. He did not want to 
 know, but brightened at a mention of Seething Lane, 
 hard-by if inland and out of sight, and Crutched Friars. 
 Pickle Herring Stairs! He could forgive the officious for 
 giving him that. The Tower he could recognise for himself. 
 But Wapping Old Stairs, suddenly! Wapping Old Stairs 
 itself! And there were, it seemed, a Wapping New Stairs, 
 and a Wapping Dock Stairs. The officious had their uses in 
 a world where you must not miss anything. Christopher 
 even looked grateful. 
 
 He moved none the less to another part of the boat. It 
 was useless, however. He had to know. Elephant Stairs; 
 Rotherhithe Church, Frying- Pan Stairs. Limehouse; 
 Millwall (all amongst the docks now); Deptford Creek; 
 finally Greenwich. The voyage was over. 
 
 He landed with the rest of the passengers. Here was the 
 Ship famous once for its fish-dinners. Let be! Here were 
 odd little eating-houses which tried to tempt him into 
 shrimps and watercress and tea. Here were furtive tea- 
 gardens that had an air of being a survival from other and 
 different days. The town catered for the holiday mood.
 
 204 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 He saw barrows spread with little plates containing 
 strange shell-fish; smelled near them the pricking smell of 
 vinegar. Old women sat by baskets piled with oranges, 
 or perhaps a little stall on which were nuts and apples and 
 sweets. A dapper-looking man with a horse and cart ex- 
 tolled the merits of Sarsaparilla. Was every day there a 
 sort of fair-day in those days? With many conflicting in- 
 fluences, easily to be detected, the spirit of the place was 
 earliest Victorian, with a suggestion, perhaps, of that of 
 the Regency. Christopher half expected to hear the vy, 
 vich, and werry, the veil, vot, and wisible (or wirtuous or wi- 
 cious, or wenturesome any kindred perversion !) of the 
 days of Sam Weller. 
 
 He made for the Hospital, exchanged words with a pen- 
 sioner or two; saw the Painted Hall, the Chapel, the Mu- 
 seum. All these gave him something. Not what he wanted, 
 however, and he turned his steps towards the Park. 
 
 A few couples were rolling down the hill ! 
 
 Rowlandson, was it, who should have seen them? or 
 Gilray? or, further back still, Hogarth who would have 
 used them to point a moral? 
 
 The Maria Wood (not that he knew her name then), 
 with the top-hatted men dancing on her decks, and now 
 linked couples rolling down a hill! Was not the day 
 bountifully generous? The day gave with both hands. He 
 laughed again, hugging himself. 
 
 But neither was this what he wanted. It was not till he 
 had left this scene behind him, that the real spirit of the 
 old park revealed itself to him. 
 
 Then the ancient trees spoke to him, the gentle grassy 
 slopes, the view of the winding river. And then he re- 
 captured his vision.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HE threw himself at full length upon the ground, and 
 resting upon his elbows looked down. From his place on the 
 hill he saw the scene as a map spread before him. In it 
 there were odd lights and shades murkinesses, and lumi- 
 nous patches, smoke-wreathings, mists, hazes, milky white- 
 nesses shot with iridescent colour, which turned for him 
 what he saw, not once but again and again, into a mon- 
 strous opal. Or the sun, catching glass somewhere, or 
 gilding, or shining metal, would transform the whole land- 
 scape into a setting for isolated points of fire. 
 
 It had been breezy on the water, but here in the park 
 the air was warm and still. After the freshness of the river 
 the heat of the sun upon his back was very pleasant. He 
 stretched himself closer to the warm earth. It was a day 
 for bathing, to be in and out of the sea, to lie naked 
 on hot sands, to lie in sun-warmed streams, or on the hot 
 pebbles beside them. Life was fervent upon such a day of 
 summer. It was difficult to think that there could be any 
 pain in it, or any sorrow, any ageing, even slackening 
 of the grip, gradual cooling of young blood. His eyes rested 
 on the Hospital. He looked away and then looked back. 
 Well? The thought persisted. Well? The pensioners 
 down there, then if it would not be evaded old men 
 whose fires burned low, whose backs were bent and limbs 
 knotted, who dragged a leg or swung a useless arm, or 
 stumped on wooden props down the narrowing alley of the 
 years, had they, too, felt as he felt on this day when he had 
 seen his love? Had they, too, thrilled to the kiss of the 
 sun as he thrilled now, been conscious of life, and of the joy 
 of it, in every nerve and fibre? All of them. Not one, per- 
 haps, but could look back to some such day and say, "Then 
 I was alive."
 
 206 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 The hour would come when he too would look back. . . . 
 
 Almost unconsciously at the thought, as if to make sure 
 that the insidious change had not indeed begun, he passed 
 his hand over his body, over his chest, his side, as he half 
 turned on to the other, over the hip, and the thigh, and 
 the calf of his leg. The firm young flesh under the thin 
 flannel, the stout muscle under the firm flesh, the well-knit 
 frame of bone under all these, if he had been conscious 
 of them, or wholly conscious of his action, might have re- 
 assured him. Perhaps the sense of them under his uncon- 
 scious hand did restore him to his pride of them the 
 pride of the young man in his youth; for the mood passed. 
 Time enough ! The day, for him at least, was not far spent; 
 the night truly not at hand. The years as yet were very 
 long. 
 
 There were lovers in the park, and he felt in tune with 
 them. Only lovers see. Only lovers know. Quite ordi- 
 nary and even quite ugly couples became transfigured for 
 him. A drab pair sitting side by side on the grass below 
 him were Daphnis and Chloe. Figures on a distant seat 
 were Paolo and Francesca, or Abelard and H61oise, or 
 what others you may choose to think of so only, that 
 they be fast in the divine coils. A young artilleryman, 
 really brave and beautiful in clean outline and yellow 
 braid, and his exuberant mate (though she, to be sure, must 
 needs wear red silk gloves!) were as gods. 
 
 He looked round. What had happened to him? There 
 were many lovers if you set yourself to look as many as 
 in any sylvan painting by Fragonard or Watteau. Here 
 were glades, lawns, bowers, to people, as one or other would 
 have peopled them, with dallying figures, with figures 
 playing love's eternal game. The world was full of lovers 
 and he had only just found that out. Love was everywhere. 
 Birds kissing in the air should have hovered under droop- 
 ing trees, doves, swallows. The music of hidden min- 
 strels should have been audible; the boy-god himself have 
 been visible. The spirit of these things and beings was
 
 CHRISTOPHER 207 
 
 abroad, was to be perceived, felt. What, in truth, had 
 happened to him? What? 
 
 It was nothing more romantic than the promptings of 
 a very healthy young appetite that in the end took Christ- 
 opher from the scene of his afternoon's dreamings. By 
 that time the first cause of all of them was well on her un- 
 known way; and his mother and Fatima, it is probable, 
 sat under the cedars at Herrickswood at tea with his grand- 
 mother. 
 
 Flying thoughts went out from Christopher in both di- 
 rections. He stretched himself and went back to the town. 
 
 It took him some time to find a place at which, after 
 his exaltations, he cared to have tea, but at length he came 
 upon a baker's shop the look of which pleased him, and in 
 a spick-and-span little parlour, which he had to himself, 
 with a delicious atmosphere of hot bread, he ate a clean 
 and agreeable and very hearty meal. A matronly woman, 
 as clean and agreeable as the sweet-smelling shop over 
 which she presided, attended upon him. 
 
 He went back to London the richer for a strange day. 
 
 "And where's that boy of yours going?" Christopher's 
 grandmother was saying. 
 
 The tea-table was spread under the cedars as he had 
 supposed, and the three were grouped about it as he had 
 pictured them. 
 
 With advancing years old Mrs. Herrick had relaxed 
 none of her hold upon life. She did not, indeed, Anne was 
 thinking, look very different from the Mrs. Herrick who, 
 so long ago now, had ushered the arriving Christopher 
 and herself into the sitting-room where the velvet glove 
 hung over the coal box, there, at the tea-hour, Herricks- 
 wood being amongst the last of the old-fashioned houses 
 to abandon the tray with the glasses and decanters, to 
 regale them with cake and wine. 
 
 " I don't think he knows himself. He goes with a friend
 
 208 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 a young Harringay. I 'm to get post-cards to tell me 
 their movements." 
 
 "Well, you give him a free hand. I was always afraid 
 for you that you might want to keep an eye on him." 
 
 "Ancebel's father says give boys their heads." 
 
 "Ancebel's father knows," said Mrs. Herrick. 
 
 "But Christopher is n't a boy," said Fatima. 
 
 "Give men their heads, then," said Mrs. Herrick, smil- 
 ing. " It's precisely the same thing." 
 
 No, she was n't changed. She looked at Fatima now 
 much as she used to look at Christopher. 
 
 "You look very wise, Ancebel-Fatima, over there with 
 your tea-cup, very wise, indeed, you look," and turned 
 to Fatima's mother. "But I wonder whether if it had n't 
 been for her wise old grandmother-in-law, she'd be in 
 existence this minute to sit there and set us all right." 
 
 Fatima opened wide eyes wider. 
 
 "I wonder," Anne said, smiling. 
 
 " I always consider that I made up the match between 
 you and her father," Mrs. Herrick said. 
 
 No, she was n't changed. If any one was, Anne was 
 thinking, it was Christopher's contented mother. She 
 smiled happily. 
 
 Mrs. Herrick had not finished. 
 
 " He '11 be falling in love on his own account one of these 
 days," she said," and then you'll be by the ears, my 
 dear." 
 
 Thus the trio under the cedars at Herrickswood. 
 
 Christopher went back to London by train. He found 
 his friend Harringay waiting for him at his rooms, and him- 
 self somewhat at a loss to account for the way in which he 
 had spent his day. It had all seemed so natural at the time, 
 but how to explain? He, who generally welcomed the com- 
 panionship of his chosen friends, and was delighted to see 
 this particular one now, had for once not wanted any one 
 with him. Why? Face to face with the question, which yet
 
 CHRISTOPHER 109 
 
 was not put to him, he did not know. So, to Harringay's 
 "I'd have come with you if I'd known," he gave but a 
 lame "I did n't know I was going myself till I went." 
 
 Harringay considered this, tried it with his eyelids. 
 
 "Why Greenwich?" he said then. 
 
 "Why not?" said Christopher "since the steamers 
 went there." 
 
 But in his heart he knew then why Greenwich. 
 
 "You are a chap," said Harringay. 
 
 "It was also the only place that I could think of at the 
 moment. And yes I remember the man in the ticket- 
 office suggested it." Even to himself he seemed like one 
 who is inventing as he proceeds. Yet he was not inventing. 
 "After all," he said, "is n't this rather the spirit in which 
 we're starting off the day after to-morrow?" 
 
 Harringay could only say again, "Well, you are a chap." 
 And, "Upon my soul, you know, you are/" which may 
 or may not have meant anything. Nor could Christopher 
 help him. 
 
 "You forgot, I suppose," Harringay said at last, "that 
 we were by way of settling some sort of a scheme to- 
 day?" 
 
 Christopher beamed on him. 
 
 "We'll do that this evening. We'll dine somewhere and 
 go to something and talk it all over." 
 
 "You are!" said Harringay, but he agreed. 
 
 He went off to dress then, and by the time he came back 
 Christopher was ready and waiting for him. 
 
 Two very immaculate young Englishmen were they who 
 emerged presently from the sedate house in Jermyn Street 
 where Christopher lodged, and who stepped into the han- 
 som which was called for them. It pleased them to observe 
 the extreme smartness of its appointments, the flower in 
 the driver's coat, his deference as he stood up to lift the 
 reins over their hats as they got in. His "Where to, gentle- 
 men?" through the trap, told them pleasantly what bucks 
 they were. They felt, as if he had told them so, that such
 
 2io CHRISTOPHER 
 
 splendid young fares did him credit, and graced even the 
 last cry in hansoms. 
 
 They dined at a restaurant in the Strand, and took the 
 waiter's advice over the wine-list. 
 
 "If I might venture to suggest," he said, and pointed 
 with a respectful forefinger. 
 
 Chateau So-and-so, to be sure, was further down the 
 inverted tariff than either of the diners had intended to go. 
 
 "Rather a rook, isn't it, for claret?" said Harringay. 
 "What about Saint-Julien or Saint-Estephe?" 
 
 "I thought with the dishes you've ordered, sir " 
 
 "All right," said Christopher. 
 
 "Very weak of you," said Harringay afterwards. Aloud, 
 in a brave effort to recover something of self-respect for 
 both of them, he said, "You'll see to the temperature." 
 
 "Rely upon me, sir." 
 
 Came the wine in a cradle. On less distinguished tables 
 the Saint-Juliens and Saint-Estphes of other diners stood 
 vulgarly upright. On theirs Chateau So-and-So, like some 
 disdainful woman, lay at elegant ease, and, her mouth 
 having been wiped for her by the waiter's reverent napkin, 
 could almost be heard to give voice to the Tush of her order. 
 They were just the least little bit in awe of the recumbent 
 bottle, whose eye, they both felt, was upon them. Would 
 they lose their heads? 
 
 Harringay said, "Jolly good," but did not hold his glass 
 to his nose or the light, or otherwise behave ridiculously; 
 and Christopher managed to affect unconcern, tempered 
 (in deference to the attitude of the exacting bottle) with 
 appreciation. All was well. They rose in their own esti- 
 mation and were happy. The waiters buzzed about them, 
 waved dishes to them before carving or helping, hung on 
 their orders or anticipated them. They were grown up 
 and young, too, to some purpose. 
 
 "Another bottle," said Harringay. 
 
 "Half bottle," said Christopher. 
 
 " If you like," said Harringay, "though I think we should
 
 CHRISTOPHER 211 
 
 have been good for a bottle." He turned to the waiter. 
 "The temperature was just right." 
 "I thank you, sir." 
 
 Less than ever was the earlier part of the day to be ac- 
 counted for. Reviewing it from even the trifling distance 
 of the few intervening hours Christopher found it difficult to 
 account for, even to himself. Had he been to Greenwich 
 at all? Or, more exactly, was it really he who had been 
 there? The whole thing was more like a dream. Even the 
 lily-white maid, as he strove to recall her, was elusive and 
 misty and intangible as the recollection of a dream. And 
 "lily-white" what word was this? Where had it come 
 from? From what old forgotten ballad had it strayed? 
 Yet without once speaking it, all day long he had been 
 applying it, as if it were the most ordinary in the world, 
 and as if to feel a need of it had in itself been most natural. 
 It had sprung, indeed, to his need of what should express 
 his thought. What was she if not lily-white? And he 
 could smile what was she, what but the veriest stranger, 
 that is, if she were ! 
 
 He looked at Chateau So-and-So and smiled. 
 
 The pleasant dinner proceeded. They came at length 
 to the coffee and liqueurs. 
 
 "And where are we going?" said Harringay as he lit a 
 cigarette. It was what Christopher's grandmother had 
 been asking his mother at Herrickswood, and the ostensible 
 reason for the dinner. 
 
 Earlier in the day Christopher would have known what 
 to say: "Everywhere. From place to place. Everywhere" 
 with a mental reserve of "Till we find her." 
 
 Now he only said, "Anywhere you like, old Harringay. 
 I put myself into your hands, and at your absolute dis- 
 posal, for three weeks." 
 
 "That's all jolly fine, but we start the day after to- 
 morrow, and we've got to take tickets for somewhere."
 
 212 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "Where is there?" said Christopher. 
 
 They sent for a foreign Bradshaw, and when it had come 
 pored over it, their young heads touching; or with the "I 
 tell you what's" and "/ know's" and "Here, give it to 
 me's" of sudden inspiration, took it one from the other. 
 
 They began a process of selection by exhaustion, which 
 should have been easy, but appeared to bring them no 
 nearer to a decision. It was too hot for Italy; for Spain; 
 the South generally most of Europe could be barred out 
 at a stroke. Why, Harringay said, a circle had only to be 
 described and subjected to shrinkage. But Christopher 
 did not stick to the plan for plans. 
 
 Then it was time to pay their bill stiffer, a little, than 
 they had intended, thanks to Chateau So-and-So and 
 to proceed with their evening; and nothing was settled. 
 Christopher laughed. 
 
 Truly it was in the spirit of his afternoon's jaunt that 
 they were going on theirs.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 BUT in the night Christopher woke the fever was upon 
 him once more, the heart-hunger with the spell. It was not 
 that he had recaptured the vision, but rather that the vision 
 had recaptured him. It was now the evening which seemed 
 unreal Harringay, the restaurant, Chateau So-and-So, 
 the music-hall . . . 
 
 He lay on his back looking up into the darkness. Dark- 
 ness, somewhere, enveloped her also. He wished he could 
 know that she too was awake. He would wake her. Vague 
 memories, inconsequently as it seemed, were stirring in him. 
 
 The darkness made rings. He looked up into it strain- 
 ing. He would call a face out of it, or a voice. It would 
 open presently and show him eyes looking into his, or with 
 his outward ears he would hear his name spoken. Christ- 
 opher! But he had only spoken it or not spoken it 
 himself, and the ringed darkness was empty. 
 
 He had gone to sleep to the hum and rumble of mid- 
 night, and had wakened to the detached sounds of the 
 smaller hours. He remembered Ebury Street, the drip of 
 the lodging-house cistern, and then, quite suddenly, some 
 one unconnected with either. From this one he turned his 
 thoughts away. 
 
 Then broad awake in the silent house, and thoughts, 
 with one through all of them, pressing upon him, he seemed 
 at the mercy of sudden clear-seeing. Everything that was 
 happening in London this night appeared to make itself 
 known to him. He had to lie still and to see. Beautiful 
 and wonderful things, but horrible things also, were hap- 
 pening in the darkness: sacraments of love; crownings, 
 fulfilments, with travesties of such rites and even horrors 
 unspeakable; he knew of them all. Sleepings (He giveth
 
 214 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 his beloved sleep), and other sleepings; waitings, vigils; 
 he knew of these. He knew of fevers too, tossings, groan- 
 ings; of the shaded candle in the silent room; the click of 
 the medicine bottle against the glass; the tickings of many 
 clocks on waking ears. He knew of ugly revellings, uglier 
 laughter, tears; of sweatings, Songs of the Shirt; of 
 trampings, meaningless wanderings. He knew of lonely 
 figures slinking through by-streets, saw the broken boot 
 and the huddle of shapeless rags, heard the voice of the 
 outcast who murmurs to himself. He saw into prisons, 
 workhouses, hospitals; a murderer would hang in the 
 morning ; the hands of an old woman plucked at the coun- 
 terpane on her bed ; a boy swathed in bandages kept up a 
 low wordless moaning. He saw night-watchmen in empty 
 buildings; barges on silent canals; the river; played the 
 sunset, tasted thunder, listened to still ink and the song 
 of the stars! 
 
 And suddenly he was back at Boulogne, felt breezes 
 with the smell of seaweed in them, saw the flapping of the 
 sou 'westers and the wooden spades, and the yellow oilskin 
 coats, outside a shop which he knew as the Calefon Shop 
 on the Port, and the fluttering of a blue veil which was 
 not his mother's. The veil fluttered before him along the 
 Rue de 1'Ecu, or up the Grande Rue; or down the Pier, 
 past the little restaurant midway, where the prawns and 
 lobsters were displayed, and the lifeboat house; or along 
 the Terrace where the sand was blown into little heaps, 
 or on the Sands themselves. The veil fluttered on the Espla- 
 nade, he caught glimpses of it upon the Ramparts, it was 
 not absent from the aisles of the Cathedral or those of the 
 Church of Saint Nicolas. It eluded him, yet shewed him 
 the town. He had fifty impressions of forgotten things by 
 reason of it: sand of the floor of an estaminet sand, 
 always sand at Boulogne; the sudden sound and smell of 
 savoury frying; the pattern of a white cap; butter on a 
 cabbage leaf; the way a hand held a purse, or a hand dived 
 into the pocket of an apron heavy with copper money;
 
 CHRISTOPHER 215 
 
 sounds and sights of the fish-market: clamours of auction; 
 the pairing of soles ; the slap and flap of great flat fish upon 
 stone ; the look of gold rings in ears or on scaly fingers. 
 The veil was not his mother's. He did not know it for 
 anybody's. Boulogne was with him by reason of it none 
 the less; not it, even, by reason of Boulogne. Sometime or 
 other he must have seen such a veil . . . And then he was 
 back with lily-whiteness, back with the disturbance of his 
 senses. It was another hour before he slept. 
 
 Morning! and, as when he was a child and a child's 
 dreams had possessed him, the fatigues of the restless night 
 were forgotten in the interest of a new day. 
 
 Harringay was round at his rooms while he was yet in 
 his bath. 
 
 " I 'm going to take you to Cook's this morning." 
 
 But it was Christopher who spoke before Harringay 
 had time to do more than bang upon the door of the bath- 
 room, from behind which came the sound of the singings 
 and splashings. 
 
 "Well, that's what I came for to take you there." 
 
 Christopher was heard to chuckle. 
 
 "We'll take each other then." 
 
 "Something's got to be settled." 
 
 "Something has been, something is." 
 
 "I want to go to Trouville," said Harringay. 
 
 "We'll talk about that at breakfast." 
 
 "We talked about things at dinner." 
 
 "Tell them to do plenty of bacon," said Christopher. 
 
 Harringay went into the sitting-room and rang. 
 
 "I say," Christopher heard him say presently, "I'm 
 coming to breakfast." 
 
 "Very good, sir." 
 
 "Do plenty of bacon." 
 
 But he had his relapse. She was not at Homburg, 
 whither they went first, nor at any of the "likely" places.
 
 216 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Harringay was to remember this trip afterwards as a curi- 
 ously purposeless wandering. It was anything but purpose- 
 less if he had known it. For once, however, he was not in 
 Christopher's confidence. 
 
 "I don't know what's the matter with you," he said 
 when they left Wiesbaden for Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 "Neither do I," said Christopher. He did not even say, 
 "Nothing's the matter," with "What should be?" for a 
 rider. 
 
 Harringay turned speculative eyes upon him. This some- 
 how was a new or, at least, an unfamiliar Christopher. 
 
 "I thought Homburg all right, you know," he said, 
 rather sorely. "I liked it. And one was just getting to 
 know people, and we had n't half seen what there was to see 
 about there. And I thought you liked tennis yourself. 
 Why, it was you who suggested Homburg." 
 
 "I know," said Christopher. He laughed at himself! 
 but Harringay did not observe the direction of his laughter 
 and stuck to the point. It was all very well, he said all 
 very well. 
 
 Christopher was wishing for his stepfather. John Hem- 
 ming would have known where people did go to at that 
 time of year. Christopher could not have told him, of 
 course, could not, that is, have taken him into his lily- 
 white confidence any more than he could take Harringay. 
 But without doing this he might at least have found out 
 what he wanted so badly to know. He had never before 
 felt so ignorant of the world's doings. Where did people 
 go to in August "abroad"? 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle he drew blank. 
 
 "Where's Baden-Baden?" he said. 
 
 "These are all Cures," said Harringay "baths and 
 waters. Of course Homburg is in a way, but that 's differ- 
 ent. People go there. There used to be Tables. Why 
 Wiesbaden, for instance, and Aix? There's Heidelberg if 
 we want to see places, or Nuremberg dozens of 'em. 
 Why these Cures? You don't want a cure?"
 
 CHRISTOPHER 217 
 
 Christopher was n't so sure. What he did know was that 
 her father had looked the sort of man who would be ordered 
 Waters and Baths. 
 
 "There's Vichy and Aix-les-Bains," Harringay was 
 suggesting, "if you do." 
 
 Christopher went on a new tack. 
 
 "You said something about Trouville, did n't you?" 
 
 "That was when we were starting. One had to suggest 
 something. First, you won't start settle about starting, 
 anyway ; and then you won't stop stop still, I mean, let 
 well alone. You know. What was wrong with Homburg? 
 I liked Homburg." 
 
 "Would you care to go back there?" 
 
 After all, she might have arrived since they left. Her 
 father looked like a man who would break journeys freely. 
 With valets and maids, what were the breakings of jour- 
 neys? It was only when you had to pack for yourself, take 
 your own tickets, see to your luggage at stations, find your 
 own places in trains, that you wanted to get to your 
 journey's end. With everything made smooth for you, 
 you rested here and there, as inclination moved you. 
 
 "Yes," said Harringay, "I shouldn't at all mind. I 
 should rather like to see those girls again at the Springs, 
 filling six glasses in each hand or was it twelve? Hom- 
 burg was n't half bad. I liked Homburg." 
 
 Harringay's catch-phrase his tag for the moment, 
 his parrot-cry! 
 
 But Christopher, who had not seen Her at Homburg, 
 could not see her there. He had seen slim girls there, white 
 girls, and once, with a leap of his pulses, he had fancied 
 . . . ! There was hardly any resemblance when he came 
 near. 
 
 Harringay was it possible? was saying again, "I 
 liked Homburg." 
 
 "What about Trouville?" said Christopher. 
 
 " I don't know how one gets there from here. It would 
 mean more Bradshaw."
 
 2i8 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 'But what's it like?" 
 'There's bathing there/' 
 
 'People go?" 
 'Lord, yes." 
 
 'English people?" 
 
 'Heaps." 
 
 'We '11 go." 
 
 You could n't reason with madmen. Harringay con- 
 tented himself with repeating his warning. 
 
 "Bradshaw," he said. "Foreign Bradshaw! I leave it 
 to you." 
 
 The journey was not very difficult. The intelligent man 
 in the bureau of their hotel managed all that for them. 
 Their itinerary was neatly made out on half a sheet of 
 note-paper. 
 
 " You shange only where I mark. I make a cross, crosses, 
 shange. It is quite easy, you find." 
 
 But neither was she at Trouville. Here were plenty 
 of slim white maids to set your pulses beating for a breath- 
 less moment, but none of them was she. You had only to 
 get near enough to see. How could you have imagined even 
 for that trembling moment? How could you have fancied 
 even a superficial resemblance in this one or that to the 
 lady of your dreams? 
 
 Unlikely that she was in Italy. Unlikely that she was in 
 Spain. He had left Germany behind, and he was sure she 
 was there. At some quiet place in the Black Forest, perhaps, 
 some little hidden place. He could see her with books . . . 
 
 Of course she was n't at Trouville. Here were mon- 
 daines, demi-mondaines, actresses. He could not see her 
 amongst these, in a way, though, in a way, he could. 
 She was not of the same flesh and blood as these, but some- 
 thing that they (some of them) had, she had; or something 
 that she had, they had, in varying degrees. This was the 
 extraordinary look of exquisite workmanship, of delicacy of 
 texture, of fineness and refinement. She, with some of them, 
 seemed the last word, made flesh, of a late civilization.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 219 
 
 He was sure she was in Germany. As he could see her 
 with books, so could he now picture the sort of place in 
 which he should have sought her. Useless to have looked 
 for her in the highways. She was on the hill-tops, in the 
 woods, by the streams . . . 
 
 And then, as momentarily before, but now for an ap- 
 preciable period, he lost the vision completely. He became, 
 for Harringay's preoccupied fellow-traveller, his satisfying 
 comrade and friend. He had slipped from under a spell, 
 thrown it off when the fairy who had laid it upon him was 
 sleeping or hunting or was otherwise occupied not look- 
 ing, anyway. He regained his lightness of heart; bathed, 
 swam, made friends (in the water and out of it) ; did not 
 want to leave Trouville. This, though there had been talk 
 of Ostend, Dieppe, Bruges; of Switzerland; tentatively, 
 even, of Germany again. 
 
 "You are a chap," said Harringay. 
 
 Christopher did not dispute it. He knew that he was 
 or that he had been, at least, for the last few weeks. 
 
 "It was sea-air I wanted the sea." 
 
 He paused upon that. The sea? He thought that he al- 
 ways did want the sea. Not quite this sort of sea, perhaps, 
 with stripped or striped men and decked women bathing 
 in it, laughing, talking, splashing each other; pretending 
 to teach each other to swim. Not quite this sort of sea. 
 The real sea, not a sea in leading-strings; a frilled and 
 tuckered sea ; a sea dressed up for a party and dancing to 
 a band. The real sea that he belonged to; the sea which 
 had given him birth as actually as his own mother. That 
 sea he thought he wanted always the sea men go down 
 to in ships. 
 
 And upon this thought, too, he paused. It was allied 
 in some dangerous way to the thoughts which had been 
 disturbing him. Now that he had regained possession of 
 himself, he did not wish quickly to lose it. He turned 
 from the thought of the sea.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 BUT he had not been wrong. For weal or for woe he was to 
 meet her. Not now. Not "abroad" at all. He met her in 
 London. 
 
 Much water had run under the bridges by then. It was 
 winter. He had forgotten not all about her, for that 
 could not have been nor could ever be, but he had forgot- 
 ten the amazing sensations and emotions which the sight of 
 her had caused him, and he had certainly ceased to think 
 of her. She was in her place none the less in his mind, like 
 those vivid impressions of his childhood which no passage 
 of time could really efface, and it needed but the sudden 
 sight of her to tell him that what seemed dead had only 
 been sleeping. 
 
 He met her at a dinner-party given by a Mrs. Constaple 
 in Grosvenor Street a dinner-party to which he had not 
 particularly wanted to go. The pull was another way. 
 The rest of the family, his mother and John Hemming 
 and Ancebel-Fatima, were going to the pantomime at 
 Drury Lane that night, and he would have liked to be 
 going with them. 
 
 Fatima said, "What did you want to go and accept 
 stupid invitations to dinner for?" 
 
 That, Christopher agreed, was just It; why of his 
 own free will, if you please! must he needs so have 
 bound himself? 
 
 "Weeks and weeks beforehand, too," said Fatima. 
 
 That, said Christopher, was so much the more It 
 the point, nay, the root of his grievance. There was no- 
 thing so unfair as a long invitation. 
 
 They were staying in London Ebury Street, even! 
 for Fatima's holidays, just as his mother and he had once 
 long ago stayed in London for part of his own. They were
 
 CHRISTOPHER 221 
 
 doing much the same things. John Hemming often re- 
 membered. So did Anne. 
 
 Christopher, dressing for his dinner-party, heard the 
 cab drive off; finished dressing, and presently came down- 
 stairs. 
 
 Trimmer, helping him on with his coat, gave him a 
 motherly glance of approval. He was her young gentleman 
 as his mother was her lady. It was for his sake and hers, 
 had either of them known it (or Trimmer herself even!), 
 that a piano-tuner was unconsoled. 
 
 She went to the hall door with him to whistle for his 
 hansom. 
 
 The house where they had lodged was nearly opposite. 
 It had changed hands more than once since the days which 
 were spoken of now as the old days, and had recently been 
 painted. It showed a clean face. 
 
 "I wonder whether the cistern still drips," he said, 
 looking, not in the direction of the subject of his specula- 
 tion, but up the street for the cab which was not in sight. 
 
 Trimmer shook her head. She did not need to be told 
 what he was talking about. 
 
 "The red blinds are new too," she said. "They used to 
 be yellow at least, they had been yellow once. They 
 were London colour when we knew them. He's dead, I 
 hear, and she's married again. Settled at Buxton, I'm 
 told. Do you remember the toy you left there, sir? She'd 
 kept it for you, and you did n't like it when I brought it 
 to you. You got so red, Mr. Christopher." 
 
 "Did I?" said Christopher, smiling. "Whistle again, 
 will you?" 
 
 "But you wouldn't say anything," said Trimmer, 
 when she had whistled, - -"not you. You'd outgrown 
 it, but you'd rather have died than let any one see. I 
 don't know where all the cabs have got to. Do you know 
 something else, sir?" 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "Your mamma's got it still."
 
 222 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Christopher raised his eyebrows. 
 
 "She has n't outgrown it. It's in her wardrobe at home 
 this minute." Trimmer paused, smiling at some thought. 
 "There 's one coming now, sir. No, that 's engaged. What 's 
 he say? Oh, he'll send one. Yes, I came upon it one day 
 some years ago now. I knew it in a minute. Little millers, 
 it was, carrying sacks up into a mill. / knew. But I said, 
 'Shall I give this to Miss Ancebel?' just to see what she'd 
 say. She said, ' No, Trimmer. Put it back where it was.' " 
 Trimmer smiled again and looked at the whistle in her 
 hand. "Shall I go to the corner, sir?" 
 
 "He'll send one, all right." 
 
 He looked over at the house opposite. Trimmer looked 
 too. 
 
 "That all seems yesterday," she said, jerking her head 
 at it. 
 
 It was an open moment for Trimmer and for Christopher. 
 Both of them knew it. 
 
 "We went to pantomimes, did n't we?" 
 
 "Did we not, sir?" 
 
 He was a little boy again for her. A little boy himself, 
 it seemed also! 
 
 "This rotten dinner-party," he said. 
 
 "Oh, you'll enjoy it when you get there. Here's your 
 hansom, sir." 
 
 "I'm quite sure I shan't, old Trimmer. I never felt 
 so disinclined to go to anything." 
 
 "Then you may be quite sure you will," said Trimmer. 
 
 She watched the cab till it disappeared at the corner, and 
 then, with a brief glance up and down the street (which 
 she consciously permitted herself), and a longer look at the 
 house that raised so many memories in her, she sighed, 
 shut the door, and went back to her work. 
 
 "He'll enjoy his evening, all right," she said to herself, 
 smiling. 
 
 Experience had taught her the right attitude of mind 
 in which to set out to meet pleasure. But she sighed.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 223 
 
 Christopher was late, but not the last. His hostess, a 
 friend of his grandmother's, received him cordially, said 
 it was very cold, and that the room was too hot, but one 
 really did n't know how to manage, did one? said, 
 "Now, let me see," and consulted her husband's list, 
 pulling at the same moment at his sleeve with a "This is 
 Mr. Herri ck, dear." She then forgot all about Christopher, 
 and went off, the list in her hand, to some one the other 
 side of the room. 
 
 Christopher found himself shaking hands with an elderly 
 man with grey whiskers, who said, "Few women left like 
 your grandmother. Marvellous woman. Still gets about, 
 does she? Why, she must be but we won't go into that. 
 Eats well, does she? Keeps her faculties? Without spec- 
 tacles, you say! Can she, indeed? Wonderful." 
 
 The room had the unsettled expectancy that precedes 
 the announcement of dinner. People stood about in de- 
 sultory little groups. A sitting woman, craning her neck, 
 talked at an uncomfortable angle to a standing man. A 
 couple of dowagers sat importantly on a sofa. There was 
 a rattle and a buzz of talk, but heads were turned upon any 
 sign of movement at the door. One of the dowagers seemed 
 to be talking about a bathroom. Christopher longed to hear 
 why the water would not go down . . . 
 
 " It was hot water, too," he heard her say, and the other 
 respond that hot water she had always understood was 
 supposed to rise to the top. That, you might be Sure, 
 was the Reason. 
 
 He answered his host. Yes, he had been at Herricks- 
 wood in the autumn. His grandmother even engaged her 
 own keepers. Marvellous! But he strained to hear what 
 the plumber said. 
 
 " I had him up myself and I showed him the mark with 
 my own hands. It was all down the wall of the little room 
 off the drawing-room my room, if you remember. We'd 
 had to move the pictures, as it was, and my writing-table 
 as well. I said, ' / can't be expected to understand,' I said.
 
 224 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 ' I 'm not a plumber.' I think I had him there. ' And, what 's 
 more,' I said " 
 
 But what it was that was more, Christopher was not to 
 hear. There were further arrivals and he missed a large 
 chunk. When he could listen again his dowager was saying, 
 "And that's why I went to Aix-lay-Bang instead of 
 Scarborough." 
 
 Some one spoke to the host, who now remembered the 
 list which his wife had taken out of his hand his hands, 
 even, perhaps? and went to retrieve it. He retrieved the 
 lady herself, but did not, Christopher saw, succeed in 
 getting the list from her. As they approached, the last 
 guest, a Mr. Heccadon, was announced with Dinner 
 almost indecently tacked on to his name! and there was 
 a general movement, a relaxing of strained attitudes, an 
 easing of tension. 
 
 Mr. Heccadon, a welcome guest, it was evident, and 
 a recognised, perhaps a privileged offender, shaking hands 
 with his hostess, said that it fell to him, did n't it, to let 
 dinner loose and earn every one's gratitude. But Mrs. 
 Constaple said that she was too hungry to be angry, or 
 too angry to be hungry, she no longer knew which, and 
 that he was to hold his tongue and take Geraldine in, 
 please, and sit opposite the fire, please, and be off with him ! 
 
 She then remembered Christopher. 
 
 "Oh, I never told you, did I? And I don't suppose Jim 
 did. Let me think. Yes, of course " 
 
 The procession had started. He was led through it to the 
 other side of the big room. 
 
 "Oh, I've made a mistake," he was not surprised to 
 hear her say midway. " I 've muddled things up. You were 
 to have taken my daughter, and Reggie Heccadon was to 
 have taken but it does n't matter." 
 
 It was thus that it happened. Christopher found himself 
 bowing to Lily-whiteness. 
 
 The passage from the drawing-room, across a wide land-
 
 CHRISTOPHER 225 
 
 ing, down the gentle declivity of imposing stairs, and 
 across a stone hall to the dining-room, was made in a dream. 
 Christopher had observed these things on his arrival. He 
 had no sense of them now. They made a background only 
 to whirling thoughts. It is to be supposed that the pro- 
 gress was not made in silence, but if he talked he had no 
 knowledge of what he said. Nor was he conscious of the 
 sound of his companion's voice. Yet she, too, must have 
 spoken. 
 
 He was seated at the table watching her, with a sort 
 of inward vision, as she drew off her gloves, before he came 
 fully to a sense of what had happened to him. The first 
 thought that came to him upon that was that he did not 
 even now know her name. The scatter-brained giver of 
 the feast had not spoken it. Trust such cursoriness, such 
 mental fluffiness as hers to omit the one thing that mat- 
 tered! Let her introduce Mr. Herrick, she had said, and 
 had flown to the arm of her waiting Personage, leaving 
 Christopher to take his bearings as best he might. He was 
 conscious now of a feeling of irritation. Yet it was to the 
 very qualities which irritated him by which even the 
 name had come unwittingly to be withheld at the introduc- 
 tion that he owed his present astonishing fortune. If the 
 hostess had not been harum-scarum, he would have had 
 Geraldine, daughter of the house, to partner, and she be- 
 side whom he now sat would have been divided from him 
 by other diners and almost the length of the long table. 
 
 From his place he could see the late-comer and "Ger- 
 aldine" looking in his direction. Geraldine, he knew, was 
 pointing out to her cavalier which of her mother's guests 
 it was that he should have taken in to dinner, and which 
 of them it was who should have fallen to her. They were 
 laughing. Mr. Heccadon, looking up the table, regretted 
 the exchange, Christopher fancied jealously, and con- 
 ceived an odd dislike for him ; Geraldine, he believed (mo- 
 destly), did not. He felt grateful to Geraldine. 
 
 The gloves were off now. Christopher thought he had
 
 226 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 never seen such beautiful hands. They were young, slim, 
 white; of lovely workmanship and finish. They might have 
 "sat" for hands. Such hands had sat for hands from all 
 time. Botticelli knew them most of the early Italian 
 masters, many of the late. Yet, except that, in addition 
 to their exquisite shape, they had a character and an in- 
 dividuality which no painter of the seventeenth century 
 troubled himself to allow to the hands he painted, it was 
 to the portraits of Vandyck, or even Lely, that perhaps 
 most readily you would have gone to look for their coun- 
 terparts. But the perfect hand of the painters, the Hand 
 Beautiful of convention, lacked subtleties the presence of 
 which Christopher recognised in the hand which in the 
 trivial conduct of the moment was now lifting a spoon. 
 Thought informed it. It was a modern hand a young, 
 healthy hand, but the hand essentially of an age "sicklied 
 o'er with the pale cast of thought." The wrists, to which his 
 eyes travelled now, were exceedingly beautiful also. He 
 had not dared yet to let his eyes rest long upon the face, 
 lest they should betray him. 
 
 Suddenly the whirling in his brain which had confused 
 him ceased. He seemed at the same moment to emerge 
 from clouds which had confused and enmeshed him. Or 
 it was as if he had sailed into smooth out of troubled 
 waters. 
 
 "Tell me your name," he heard himself saying. "I 
 want to know your name." 
 
 At his words, but perhaps more aptly at the sound of his 
 voice, or a new sound in it, she lifted her eyes from her 
 plate and turned to him. 
 
 "My name?" 
 
 The eyes which were unveiled by the lifting of the curved 
 lids were blue, but very dark. 
 
 " I did n't hear it. I don't think Mrs. Constaple" he 
 looked towards their hostess "said it. In fact, I 'm sure 
 she did n't." 
 
 There was an answering smile. It collected, arranged,
 
 CHRISTOPHER 227 
 
 and docketed the lady. It was as if she had said, "She is 
 the sort of person who would n't. You could n't expect 
 it. One name is as much as she would ever remember at 
 a time." She did not say this in words. 
 
 He waited. 
 
 "I heard yours," she said. "I wondered whether you 
 were a descendant of the poet. I looked at that" she 
 nodded towards the little slip of cardboard in front of his 
 plate "to see if you spelt it the same way." 
 
 "I do, but I'm not," he said. 
 
 He wished that he could have said that he was. He had 
 often wished that, but never so much as now. What a spot 
 from which to take off! If he could have said, "The man 
 who wrote the 'Night-piece to Julia' is my great, great, 
 great ... !" 
 
 "But I should n't have hated Devonshire," he said, half 
 to himself, following out a thought of his own. 
 
 "Yes, you would," she said quietly. 
 
 He looked at her if he could be said, since the mists 
 passed, to have ceased to look at her. He believed that she 
 changed her mind about what she had meant to say or 
 changed her mind, anyway, about saying it. 
 
 "Or you would n't have been Herrick." 
 
 It was hedging. She had not meant only to say that. 
 She met his questioning eyes. 
 
 It may have been chance. It may have been her very 
 youngness. (She seemed somehow, all the same, so much 
 older than her looks.) It was a moment or two before the 
 eyes of either released the eyes of the other. Then the white 
 lids fell. 
 
 She went on eating her soup. 
 
 The look was as long and as deep as the look, months 
 ago, which, passing between them, strangers, had so 
 greatly disturbed him, which had robbed him of his peace 
 of mind, set him wandering with the disconsolate Harrin- 
 gay, ended his search and begun it. Was it possible that 
 she remembered, knew him again? Was it possible?
 
 228 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Again the clouds threatened to engulf him. The whir- 
 ring started afresh. He had a physical sensation of dizzi- 
 ness, during which for an instant, but only for an instant, 
 he caught the eye of the man called Heccadon. He must 
 control himself. People would see. She herself would 
 see. 
 
 She finished her soup. His own, scarcely tasted, he 
 pushed from him. 
 
 The party had settled down to the serious business of the 
 hour. He heard scraps of talk detached from the babel of 
 voices. The dowager with the bathroom was abusing the 
 prime minister. 
 
 "Nor am I saying to you what I have n't said to him," 
 he heard her say. "He knows what I think. I said to him 
 myself, I said, 'If you think,' I said " 
 
 A louder gust of other people's talk drowned her utter- 
 ance. But, "I think I had him there," Christopher did 
 hear. Another case of the Bathroom and the Plumber! 
 
 A woman with a weather-beaten face and a tiara, nod- 
 ding her head to whitebait, was talking stable. Christopher 
 heard something about Sore Backs. 
 
 An authoritative little man was asking for whiskey and 
 soda. 
 
 So, all eating and each engrossed with the concerns of 
 the moment, they talked, while wonderful things happened 
 to Christopher. What wonderful things! He had not 
 wanted to come to this party, he remembered, and, quickly, 
 as a rider to the thought, recalled Trimmer's prophecy. 
 
 "You have n't told me," he said. 
 
 The white lids were raised again. 
 
 "Told you?" But she remembered. "Oh, my name." 
 
 There was the briefest pause, but a pause. Then a foot- 
 man interposed between them with a dish. Christopher 
 was thus denied the satisfaction he sought for still a little 
 longer. He believed that this was because the thing was of 
 such tremendous import to him, that even such outside 
 agents as servants and dishes must contribute to keep her
 
 CHRISTOPHER 229 
 
 reply "suspended." He did not chafe at the momentary 
 delay, or resent it. 
 
 "What were we saying?" It was she this time who 
 seemed to have caught the eye which had caught Christo- 
 pher's. But with her as with him the thing was momentary, 
 and he was hardly conscious of observing it. "Oh, yes, my 
 name. We branched off at yours, did n't we? We got as far 
 as Devonshire." 
 
 Her name, which she then told him, took him, as we 
 know, not farther, not so far indeed, but in another and a 
 very different direction.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WHEN he came back from his mental journey to Boulogne 
 he thought he had always known. It was as if, behind his 
 ignorance, had lain knowledge. She was Mrs. St. Jemison's 
 daughter daughter of the Mrs. St. Jemison of long ago 
 who could not be called upon. It hardly occurred to him 
 to doubt that. There could not be two Cora St. Jemisons 
 or, as there were or had been two (for who could say 
 what one Cora St. Jemison's name might or might not be 
 by this time?), there could not be three. 
 
 Christopher inherited tolerance, perhaps, from his widely 
 different grandmothers, the tolerance of each of whom in 
 turn, arrived at in widely different ways, was sufficiently 
 unlike that with which her grandson was dowered. Granny 
 Oxeter's had been the gentle tolerance of pity and under- 
 standing; his Grandmother Herrick's was good-humoured, 
 half-contemptuous the easy indifference of one who has 
 seen the world at too close quarters to expect very much of 
 it. Christopher's had understanding in it, some gentle- 
 ness, not a little whimsical indifference. It had, however, 
 another quality which was wholly absent from that of one 
 of his good grandmothers, and only present in negligible 
 degree in that of the other: something of that bold sym- 
 pathy with the law-breakers which comes, itself, of an impa- 
 tience of restraint. Rightly or wrongly, he did not or he 
 thought he did not condemn Mrs. St. Jemison, or any 
 Mrs. St. Jemisons, out of hand. 
 
 The sudden knowledge, then, was not, for the moment 
 at any rate, at all of the nature of a shock to him. His first 
 feeling, indeed, was that, though she did not know it, 
 something had been established between them. 
 
 "Why, then "he began eagerly, but broke off.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 231 
 
 What had he been about to say? Good Lord! And by 
 how little he had escaped saying it. He held his breath. 
 It was not or not alone, anyway that he had been 
 on the point of speaking of her mother, but that, if he had 
 spoken of her, it must have been of her at the particular 
 period of her life at which he had come into touch with her. 
 He remembered, hot and cold, the groups on the sands, 
 the looks askance, all that was said, all that he had ob- 
 served but had not understood then. It had not been till 
 years afterwards that he had understood. By that time the 
 recollections, happily, were dim enough, and the fact of his 
 stepfather his affection for him, his acceptance of him, 
 the very habit of him firmly enough established to 
 divest of any power to disturb him all such misgivings as 
 fuller understanding might have occasioned him. For him- 
 self he took things and people much as he found them, and 
 as, for himself, he had accepted John Hemming to step- 
 father, so, for the girl beside him, he could accept Mrs. St. 
 Jemison to mother. Thus the knowledge, as it might have 
 been expected to influence his feelings for her, fair 
 daughter of frail mother, touched him not at all. As it 
 might affect her herself, his sensations of the last few mo- 
 ments showed him that it affected him profoundly. 
 
 He stammered, found words with which to extricate 
 himself, and played with the fish on his plate. The danger- 
 ous moment passed. 
 
 Yet even as he drew breath, he wondered whether in 
 truth the moment had been dangerous at all. Did she 
 know? what did she know, rather, how much even? 
 She had been little more than a baby when her mother was 
 amusing herself in throwing her cap over the windmill 
 in seeing, perhaps, how far it was exactly that she could 
 throw her cap over the windmill. The nine days were some 
 hundred times over now, but memories were long. She 
 could not fail to know that the St. Jemison cupboard 
 held a skeleton. She could scarcely fail to know its 
 nature.
 
 232 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Afterwards, wonderful as the evening was, it seemed to 
 him, since it passed without his learning whether or not 
 she remembered him, to have been made up of missed 
 opportunities. Half a dozen times the question was on his 
 lips. The simplest thing just to ask! But he could not. 
 Instead, he talked of everything else, and watched her 
 learning her face by heart. Whether the exercise made 
 him happy or unhappy he did not know. Certainly it 
 baffled him, as at such moments when he surprised in 
 her graveness a laugh somewhere, behind her eyes, was 
 it? or elusively about the corners of her mouth? He could 
 not tell. But the graveness and the laugh were both there. 
 The two together made him feel again how much older 
 she was than her years. They made him with a sudden 
 recollection of the recumbent Chateau So-and-So ir- 
 relevant here, surely, to the point of absurdity! feel 
 something else, too: younger as he knew her to be than 
 himself, how much older she was, somehow, than he was 
 how much older than he, perhaps, would ever be. She 
 was young as a spring leaf, and there were moments when 
 she was old as Time. 
 
 In reality, of course, she was young as the spring leaf. 
 The Cora of his dreams must be, the Cora since she was 
 Cora! who had claimed him (if she had claimed him?), 
 who had known him at once (if she had known him?), who 
 had met his outspoken "Is it you?" clearly, unfalteringly, 
 finally, with "I, Christy, I!" as who should say Once 
 and for Ever. 
 
 Had she? Had she not? Had she? 
 
 Happy? Unhappy? Both. 
 
 He looked over in her direction and saw that the man 
 with the odd name was talking to her. But even as he 
 looked there was a move and the party began to break up. 
 She came over to say good-night to her hostess, and as she 
 passed him she held out her hand. 
 
 Outside the night had changed. Christopher walked 
 back to Ebury Street on wet pavements, but also on air.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 233 
 
 The air which he trod dried the pavements, perhaps. He 
 hardly perceived that rain had been falling. Happy? .Un- 
 happy? Happier than ever before in his life. 
 
 The Hemmings were going home at the end of that week, 
 and Christopher went with them thought himself able 
 to go with them. He had lived for three days then upon 
 what the wonderful evening had given him. It seemed 
 enough for him at first that the thing should have happened ; 
 enough that he should have seen Cora St. Jemison, heard 
 her voice, touched her hand, learned her name, even if 
 her name must of necessity cause him some misgiving. So 
 back, unthinkingly, he went with the rest, and for a time 
 was content. 
 
 The old house, which was "home" to him, seemed more 
 than ever delightful after the Ebury Street lodgings. He 
 loved the broad window sills, on which in the summer he 
 would sit with a book and his legs drawn up to make room 
 for the length of them ; the old-fashioned hearths, the low 
 ceilings, the leisurely staircase. His stepfather had inher- 
 ited the house, almost as it stood, from an old uncle who 
 had lived an unhurried, orderly life in it, preserving its 
 ancient peace. Christopher loved it, had grown to it, as, 
 in the impressionable days, he had grown to the old French 
 town to which, though he had left it as we know without a 
 pang, he always looked back with such affection. Now it 
 suited his mood, as perhaps never before. He wanted to 
 think resting, as a rower on his oars. 
 
 He had something to go upon now. Though he had 
 missed his opportunities even wasted his chances, he 
 had something to go on. He might not see Cora St. Jemi- 
 son, could not, indeed, but now if need were he would 
 always be able to find her. No longer could the wide world 
 engulf her. With a name, she had also a local habitation. 
 He had only to ask to know where. He could wait, or he 
 thought he could, to see if indeed need would "be." He 
 was sure he could wait.
 
 234 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 He saw life slide back gently into its old grooves. He 
 rode with John Hemming and Fatima; walked or drove 
 with his mother; read, smoked, played the piano. Nothing 
 seemed changed. 
 
 And then everything seemed changed. 
 
 He could not stop. He must get away. She was in Lon- 
 don, and here was he twenty miles distant. How had he 
 thought he could stand it? 
 
 It was Fatima who lifted up her voice when he announced 
 his intention of going back to London. His mother, wiser 
 in her generation, said nothing. It had been a great de- 
 light to her to have him with her. Oxford absorbed so 
 much of his year, and when Oxford released him, so many 
 people wanted him. She loved to have him at home, but 
 if he wanted to go he must go ; so, to the rebellious Fatima, 
 it was "Nonsense, Ancebel. You mustn't bother him." 
 No one must bother him. It was always like that. But 
 just sometimes Anne looked back to the time when Christ- 
 opher had been a little boy and she had had him to herself. 
 At such moments, happy as she was with her husband, 
 even because she was so happy, she sent a piercing 
 thought to the lonely grave over the seas. Once Trimmer 
 caught her with tears in her eyes. But Trimmer was Trim- 
 mer, and knew. 
 
 Fatima, less considerate, must wrestle with the adver- 
 sary for the body of her beloved Christopher. This, though 
 she did not know that there was an adversary! Not long 
 did she remain ignorant. 
 
 "What do you want to go to London for?" she urged. 
 "You've been there." 
 
 It was what she had said when "Abroad" had been the 
 question. Her wits were fiendishly nimble. Her words 
 caused the one occasion to remind her of the other. The 
 adversary, thereto unsuspected, took immediate shape for 
 her. Nimble indeed the wits of Fatima! 
 
 "It's some girl you've fallen in love with." That was
 
 CHRISTOPHER 235 
 
 easy. Any one might have said that. But "It's that girl 
 at Victoria who looked at you on the platform!" 
 
 It took an Ancebel-Fatima to have seen, and, having 
 seen, to remember, and, having remembered, to say that. 
 
 Christopher was startled. 
 
 "What girl?" 
 
 "In the summer when mummy and I were going to 
 Herrickswood and you would n't that" Fatima had 
 n't done! "that white girl." 
 
 "White girl?" 
 
 It was almost uncanny. 
 
 "She was white that's how one would think of her." 
 
 It was extraordinary. Christopher for an instant showed 
 himself startled. He looked at Fatima blankly, and an 
 amazed "Good Lord!" nearly jerked itself from him. 
 
 He was packing. His room was strewn with things. 
 Clothes were piled up on the chairs, trousers, coats, 
 waistcoats; and the bed was covered with shirts. He was 
 not coming home again before he went back to Oxford. 
 
 Fatima, clearing an indignant place for herself on the 
 bed, did not fail to perceive. 
 
 "You know as well as I do. It 's months ago. But I saw. 
 You thought you looked through into each other's hearts 
 like people in books 
 
 "If little girls are going to talk nonsense " 
 
 "It's the looking that's nonsense. You don't want her 
 you only think you do. You're blinded. You thought 
 she was the one person in the world. I saw you think that 
 at Victoria. I knew at once what you were thinking. I 
 always do what every one is, I mean. Father, mother, 
 Trimmer every one. Especially Trimmer. I Ve always 
 known what she was thinking all my life. So of course 
 I knew what you were. It was" Ancebel-Fatima gathered 
 herself up "it was No Ordinary Look." 
 
 "No Ordinary Thinking," said Christopher. He laughed 
 to himself. "'No Ordinary Look!' You know, you've 
 been reading novels, my dear, and jolly bad ones at
 
 236 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 that! I shall have to warn your parents and guardians to 
 look after you a bit more, and to supervise what you fill 
 your young head with. 'Through into each other's 
 hearts' ! ' Blinded ' ! The ' One person in the world,' indeed ! 
 Penny novels, you know, Fatima. Not to be thought of. 
 Not to be thought of." 
 
 He had her by the leg now, she him by the throat. They 
 might scuffle like children, however, and they did, for a 
 quarter of an hour by the clock on the mantelpiece ! 
 nothing could alter the facts. Fatima knew. Christopher 
 knew that she knew. She even knew this. 
 
 Released by him, presently, and releasing him in turn, 
 she fastened upon the adversary sought by disparage- 
 ment to defeat her in his eyes. Who was she a girl on 
 a platform? A stranger. Some one you passed in a crowd. 
 Where did she come from? He might know now, but he had 
 not known when the "spell" (Ancebel-Fatima's actual 
 phrasing!) was "cast" upon him. Any Girl from Any 
 Where. That was who she was! And was this the sort of 
 person . . . ? 
 
 "You've been reading novels," said Christopher again, 
 "and listening to charwomen." 
 
 He might laugh, though, as he did, even to causing the 
 flushed and spluttering Fatima through all her indignation 
 to laugh too ! there was that, none the less, which was 
 not laughter in his face. He was chafing to be up and off. 
 Something stronger than little sisters had come into his 
 life. Fatima, understanding but dimly, perhaps, for all her 
 impish precocity, saw for all that. 
 
 She wrestled to the last. He left the next morning. 
 
 London again; St. James's; he went back to his old 
 rooms. 
 
 It was from his old rooms while he was staying in 
 them, that is that he had first seen her; from them that 
 he had set out upon the day's adventures which had given 
 him Chelsea, the river, and Greenwich ; from them he had
 
 CHRISTOPHER 237 
 
 set forth on his quest. Poor Harringay ! How he had tried 
 him ! He had not found him wanting, either, when all was 
 said and done. There would be no Harringay this time, 
 no any one to bother, no one but himself. 
 
 He had no settled plan. Somehow, that was all, he meant 
 to see Cora St. Jemison. He did not know yet how this was 
 to be accomplished, but he intended, come what might, 
 to accomplish it. 
 
 London was under a pall of fog. There were such fogs in 
 those days, recent though they be, as in these we have al- 
 most forgotten. Datchet had been clear, the railway lines, 
 while Christopher waited on the platform, even gleaming 
 in wintry sunshine. At Wraysbury (God help us !) the train 
 had entered a whitish mist. By Richmond the mist had 
 nothing of white in it, and thickened thenceforward. 
 Coughing, grunting passengers took their seats dismally 
 and brought dampness into the sombre carriages. By 
 Waterloo the fog was pea-soup. 
 
 He had telegraphed to Jermyn Street, and a bright fire 
 welcomed him there, doing its best to dispel the gloom of his 
 sitting-room. While his landlord, who always valeted him, 
 unpacked for him, he tried to determine what he should do. 
 London was of course dreadful to-day, but it was dreadful 
 in a big sort of way. Only London could do what London 
 was doing, only London could be what London was. He 
 did not wholly dislike the fog which had caused his fellow- 
 travellers such distress and inconvenience. There was 
 something not uncosy in the murkiness. From the hearth 
 and with a sense of pleasure he listened to the man moving 
 quietly about in the next room, opening drawers and closing 
 them, pulling out or pushing in the trays in the wardrobe, 
 opening or shutting its doors. A drawer stuck for a moment, 
 and he heard the restrained sounds of the adjustment of it 
 and then of its easy sliding home. There was no impatience, 
 no undue haste. The fog shut him in with pleasant things, 
 and his spirits, which had sunk a little in the train, began 
 to rise.
 
 238 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 What to do? Somewhere in the darkness was Cora St. 
 Jemison. She at this moment was shut into some lamp- 
 lit, fire-lit room. The fog, isolating every room, turning 
 every lighted room into a lantern swinging in the blackness, 
 brought him very near to her. 
 
 V Mr. Jellicoe." 
 
 "Sir," from the inner room. 
 
 The sounds ceased. His landlord appeared at the folding 
 doors. 
 
 "Have you such a thing in the house as a Red Book?" 
 
 Mr. Jellicoe thought so, and would see. The darkness of 
 the passage and the stairs swallowed him. Christopher went 
 to the window and looked out. Thick yellow waves rolled 
 up against the glass. He could see the movement in what 
 looked like stillness, presently could almost see the par- 
 ticles turning over and over in masses, as he had seen the 
 churned mud turn and turn in the waters of the river. 
 The fog itself was like a river, a flood, a sea! Now the 
 window was like the glass wall of a tank in an aquarium, 
 through which you look to see the strange doings of strange 
 fish. So like indeed that Christopher would not have been 
 Christopher if, while he waited, he had not conjured up 
 the shapes of scaly creatures to swim, in the yellow murki- 
 ness, close up to the glass, there with mouths and fins and 
 tails working automatically, to gaze at him for a moment 
 before whisking away, with a flash, perhaps, as of tarnished 
 silver, into the further obscurity. So engrossed was he 
 with his fancies that Mr. Jellicoe's voice startled him. 
 
 "One of my gentleman's, sir, Colonel Whipple's. My 
 own was not quite so recent. Colonel Whipple begged you 
 would keep it as long as you wished, sir." 
 
 Christopher took the book, sending a message of thanks 
 to its owner, and Mr. Jellicoe withdrew. The sounds of the 
 interrupted unpacking were continued for a minute or 
 two, and then the shutting of a door followed by silence 
 told Christopher that the thing was done. His clothes, 
 neatly folded and arranged, lay commodiously, he knew,
 
 CHRISTOPHER 239 
 
 in the drawers. His brushes and combs and shaving-tackle 
 were set out orderly on his dressing-table. Everything, 
 he would find, lay where his hand would most readily light 
 on it. 
 
 He looked at the book, which he had not yet opened. 
 As the name had been withheld from him for spaces of 
 time which had seemed protracted, so now he was with- 
 holding from himself what the red volume might have to 
 tell him. He had only to look; he knew that. Somewhere 
 in black London lived Cora St. Jemison, and the book he 
 was holding knew where. It was deliberately that up to 
 that moment he had not sought to know where she lived. 
 He had liked to know that he did not know, but could 
 know. He had dallied with this feeling for so many days 
 that he was reluctant to part with it. Why? Explain the 
 lover any lover even to himself ! 
 
 Well, now he did want to know. The need, which from 
 the beginning might be, was. He opened the book and 
 turned to the Saints. 
 
 St. Germaine, St. Germans, St. Hill, St. John, St. Leger, 
 St. Leonards, St. Oswald . . . 
 
 The name was not there. He left the Saints and turned 
 on. After Sterling and Stevens came Stock. 
 
 He went back to the Saints, doubting his eyes. But the 
 book must be wrong, the list incomplete. St. Jemison must 
 be left out in error. Between St. Hill and St. John there 
 must be names which were here unrecorded. Besides, 
 he knew that the St. Jemisons had a house in London. He 
 had heard his Grandmother Herrick, who had known them 
 years ago, speak of it. He rang, and, a servant answering 
 the bell, he sent down a message asking if he might see 
 Mr. Jellicoe's own Red Book, which, he had understood 
 Mr. Jellicoe to say, was an old one. 
 
 Mr. Jellicoe himself appeared with the volume. 
 
 " I 'm ashamed to bring it, sir. It's more than ten years 
 old, I find." 
 
 "Just what I want," said Christopher. He believed now
 
 240 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 that Mr. St. Jemison had had a house in London, and in 
 all probability had disposed of it! 
 
 St. Germans, St. Hill, St. Jemison. There it was: St. 
 Jemison, Oswald, Esq., 3 Wolf Street, Mayfair. St. Hill, 
 St. Jemison, St. John. Christopher owed the book an 
 apology. 
 
 Mr. Jellicoe, retiring, was apologising in turn for his 
 copy. 
 
 " Nearly eleven years old, sir. I'll get a new one to-day. 
 Almost a reflection, so to speak, on the house." 
 
 "Nonsense," said Christopher, a little abruptly but 
 with a smile. He rallied himself. " You 're admirably sup- 
 plied with everything: Bradshaws, A B C's, Postal Guides 
 all one can think of. How should one expect to find 
 Red Books in rooms?" 
 
 "We had rather prided ourselves, Mrs. Jellicoe and my- 
 self, upon the house being well found, sir." 
 
 Check, then ! Not so simple a matter as Christopher had 
 supposed. He went back to the tank and watched for fish. 
 But he had lost the illusion of an aquarium. It was fog that 
 he looked into now, fog pure and simple, or impure and 
 complex! from a third-story London window. What to 
 do? Walk London as he had walked the world? He went 
 to the table where the two books lay, and compared the 
 entries as he might have compared accounts. "St. Hill, 
 St. Jemison, St. John," and "St. Hill, St. John." If you 
 could but "balance" the thing: subtract St. Hill and St, 
 John from St. Hill, St. Jemison, St. John, and get St. 
 Jemison, with its "3 Wolf Street, Mayfair," as a remainder! 
 
 Actually, of course, he knew what his next move might 
 be. Mrs. Constaple, his hostess of the wonderful evening, 
 erratic as she was, must know something of the where- 
 abouts of one so recently her guest. She would know any- 
 way where Miss St. Jemison had been living or staying on 
 the night of the dinner-party. Yet how to find out suffi- 
 ciently casually? And how, for this purpose, to make sure 
 of seeing her? The second of these questions was in point
 
 CHRISTOPHER 241 
 
 of difficulty the first. He did not want to waste a visit. 
 He had still, it is true, to "call" after dining, a cere- 
 mony more punctiliously observed in those days than now, 
 but if he did call, and the good lady should be out or 
 even Not at Home, what then? What excuse would he 
 have for going again? Easy enough, perhaps, to be casual, 
 but how to compass the opportunity? 
 
 He found himself out of doors presently. Four walls 
 would not hold him. Four walls did not even seem any 
 longer to hold Cora St. Jemison. With the knowledge that 
 he could not be sure that she was in London at all, he could 
 not think of her room as a lantern pendant, somewhere in 
 the darkness, to his own. 
 
 The fog had not lifted. Rather did it seem to have 
 thickened. On the pavements, even, the going was careful. 
 People stopped each other to ask where they were, but 
 mostly with amusement. A cheerful old woman wanted 
 Knightsbridge. Her voice and a twinkle in her old eyes 
 attracted Christopher, who took her by a fat arm and piloted 
 her into Piccadilly. There, upon the south side of the street, 
 there would be a straight quarter of a mile which she might 
 pursue in comparative safety. He offered to go farther 
 with her, but this she would not allow. 
 
 She was as right as rain, she declared, once she knew her 
 direction, was a merry old body, and chuckled her thanks. 
 He regretted her when she was gone. 
 
 In the roadway the traffic moved at a snail's pace to the 
 sounds of hoarse cries. There was yet even here a feeling 
 of cheerfulness in all this discomfort. It was "'Old up, 
 there," and "Where are y' comin' to, can't y'?" with a 
 tendency to banter upon the smallest occasion or none. 
 Christopher felt his spirits rise again. He forgot his unrest 
 and surrendered himself to the influences of another sort 
 of strange day.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 HE made for Wolf Street. He would look, at least, at the 
 house where once she had lived if only as a child. That 
 it would be impossible to see it, was a small thing to one 
 who just now was less Christopher than Romeo. Fatima 
 had not been far out of her young reckoning when she 
 talked of a "spell." The white girl had assuredly used 
 enchantments. 
 
 He crossed Piccadilly, steering a hazardous course through 
 the moving mass of vehicles, and under the heads of the 
 horses. Who left the pavement, that day, cast off and 
 trusted himself to the open sea. Christopher, forced by 
 the exigencies of the moment to take an oblique direction, 
 landed, not opposite Arlington Street, where he had parted 
 with his old woman and whence he had started, but be- 
 tween Dover Street and Albemarle Street. He crossed Dover 
 Street then, and Berkeley Street, and rejecting Stratton 
 Street for a cul-de-sac, rejected Bolton Street also and 
 Clarges Street. When, a few moments after, he found he 
 had passed Half Moon Street as well, he turned up White 
 Horse Street, and lost himself in Shepherd's Market. Five 
 minutes later he found himself inexplicably back in Picca- 
 dilly! 
 
 He found Wolf Street, however, eventually, and made 
 out Number 3. He saw it better saw more of it, indeed 
 than he might have expected, for lights were burning 
 in the lower rooms and the blinds were up. Under cover of 
 the darkness he permitted himself to look in. 
 
 Strange the lover's obsession by reason of which one 
 spot should be hallowed over another, one house picked 
 out from its fellows, and for no qualities of its own made 
 separate, made wonderful!
 
 CHRISTOPHER 243 
 
 To Christopher there was something of mystery and 
 enchantment in the house before which he stood and into 
 which, like any gaping errand-boy who hangs on to area 
 railings, he gazed. Not that he, Christopher, was hanging 
 on to railings. He was standing quietly on the pavement, 
 a tall slim figure, shrouded in fog, but as deliberately and 
 unashamedly was he violating the sanctities of a stranger's 
 hearth. 
 
 What satisfaction he got from the odd exercise it would 
 be difficult to say. The room was a library, but it might 
 not always have been a library. Nothing may have been 
 as it was in the time of the St. Jemisons. Still, it seemed 
 probable that the room had not been much altered. The 
 shelves which lined the walls looked as if they had always 
 been there. The stuffed leather chairs were such chairs as 
 assuredly ought to have been there. There was a large 
 writing-table. There were branch candlesticks on the 
 mantelpiece. The red Turkey carpet looked soft. 
 
 A comfortable, well-appointed room, in which doubtless 
 some one lived a comfortable, well-appointed life. A score 
 of such rooms lay within a hundred yards of where he stood. 
 
 Then, as he looked, the door opened. Some one was 
 coming in, and so much grace had he! he moved at 
 once to move away. But even as he moved something hap- 
 pened, something so extraordinary, or at least so unex- 
 pected, that, like a veritable errand-boy, he did now 
 though for a very different reason hold on actually to 
 the spear-heads of the railings. He held on to them while 
 the world turned round. For into the room had come a girl, 
 and under his astonished eyes the girl, who at the first 
 glance was just a girl like any other, grew first vaguely 
 familiar, and then, with a suddenness which took his 
 breath away, became miraculously but indisputably Cora 
 St. Jemison herself. 
 
 How long, after this miracle, he hung to the railings he did 
 not know. It was a servant in the end who dislodged him
 
 244 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 a kitchen-maid, with a cold in her head and a scuttle 
 in her hand, stepping across the area to fetch coal. The 
 fog, away from the light of the windows, swallowed him 
 up. 
 
 When he came to himself he had walked as far as Ox- 
 ford Street. 
 
 The fog now began to lift. It was as if it had played its 
 part and might go. All this for Christopher? All this. 
 Light showed through from above. Though there was no 
 perceptible breeze, masses of dirty vapour must be rolling 
 away overhead. He thought he could see them so rolling off, 
 as, a short while back, he had seen them rolling up to his 
 window. Horses, carriages, people, began to take definite 
 shape. 
 
 Christopher's spirits now rose to boiling-point. He might 
 ask himself, What now? he might ask himself what he 
 wanted, he might puzzle himself with all the questions that 
 ever were or ever would be! nothing would thenceforth 
 persuade him that for this day at least the gods were not 
 upon his side. The fog itself had come that, out of the 
 darkness of it, he might see into a lighted room ! 
 
 He walked down Park Lane. The houses were breaking 
 through now, the railings, the trees. At every yard the day 
 grew lighter. His heart sang to the tune of the coming 
 light. He watched it creep over the town, driving the dark- 
 ness before it. 
 
 Again he could rest. He could even have found it pos- 
 sible to go back to Datchet. He understood once more how 
 and why he had been able to go home with the others 
 a thing which, less than twenty-four hours ago, had seemed 
 incomprehensible. No longer was he driven. He could 
 rest. 
 
 Quite idly he watched the happenings of the moment: 
 a wagon with sturdy horses pursuing a rumbling, leisurely 
 way; a hansom, made topheavy with a trunk, swinging 
 loopwise and ridiculously on its springs ; two omnibuses
 
 CHRISTOPHER 245 
 
 abreast, dallying with a temptation to race. Looking at 
 these he wanted them not to resist the temptation; but 
 when they did resist it, he acquiesced contentedly in what 
 was after all their better judgment. Then a girl in a tight, 
 shabby satin dress, with a milliner's cardboard box on her 
 arm, came into the scheme of things, and was stopped 
 with a touch on the shabby satin arm by a young postman. 
 Lovers! He saw lovers as he had seen lovers at Greenwich. 
 Lovers suddenly were everywhere people in couples. 
 He turned into Tilney Street that he might look at the 
 house where Mrs. Fitzherbert had lived and loved . . . 
 
 God was in His heaven. All was right with the world. 
 
 And then Christopher knew that he was hungry. 
 
 He took a hansom and drove to the Strand. The day 
 had taken him back to the other wonderful day, and it 
 seemed fitting that he should lunch where he had then 
 dined, and, above all, that he should drink Chateau So- 
 and-So. 
 
 A waiter waved him to a table, but he looked at another 
 which was occupied. Nor was he to be baulked of it for 
 the waving of napkins, howsoever persuasive. He intended 
 to sit at the table at which Harringay and he had sat. He 
 waited for it till it became vacant, which happily was al- 
 most at once, and looked on relentlessly as it was prepared 
 for him. 
 
 He ordered a modest lunch and took up the wine-list. 
 
 Chateau So-and-So was not there! 
 
 Not there! He looked again, doubting his eyes. 
 
 Chateau So-and-So was not there. It was like St. Jemi- 
 son and the Red Book. It was the Red Book and St. 
 Jemison over again. Not there? Chateau everything else. 
 But it must be. Even if it was n't, it must be. Came the 
 waiter; came the waiter who looked after the wine; came 
 the Head Waiter. Consultations. (Growth of importance 
 for Christopher!) A going to see. 
 
 But the day was not going to fail him. Return of the
 
 246 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Wine-Waiter triumphantly. There was just one half- 
 bottle left just one solitary pint. Half a moment, sir, 
 and the man withdrew. But Christopher knew what it 
 was. A cradle for the solitary pint. That was it. Chateau 
 So-and-So came back reclining, warmed a Tush on her 
 lips indolent, insolent, delicate, delicious as her mother! 
 Christopher had not been wrong. The day could not fail 
 him. 
 
 He ate, slowly enjoying, conscious of enjoying, what was 
 set before him ; thinking, but hardly conscious of thinking. 
 It was thus that, without knowing that his mind was work- 
 ing actively, he reasoned out, as he ate, an explanation 
 of the St. Jemison presence in Wolf Street. It was all 
 quite simple. After the scandal Mr. St. Jemison had let 
 the house probably for a term of years and now had 
 gone back to it. If he, Christopher, had looked up Wolf 
 Street instead of St. Jemison itself, the silent Red Book 
 would even have told him to whom. Simple, you see, as 
 ABC. But the marvel of the fog and the lighted room 
 and of the entering Cora remained. 
 
 Cora became again the most beautiful name in the world. 
 He lingered over the values of the syllables which com- 
 posed it, as he lingered over the luncheon. "Cora." It 
 expressed the Cora of his dreams and imaginings if, or 
 as, it also expressed her mother! But even at this he did 
 not frown. There was something. He could not help 
 knowing it. In his search, had it not always been in girls 
 of one type that he had seen the escaping likeness which, 
 for the instant of its duration, had set his heart thumping 
 or stopped it? There was something. But it was part of 
 the charm. 
 
 He paid his bill and went out. The crowded Strand 
 received him accepted him, as once it was the Crystal 
 Palace which had accepted him. The song of the moment 
 it may or may not have been "White Wings" then 
 was in the air, and in his ears with countless other sounds.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 247 
 
 London always hummed for him to the tune of some song. 
 Every year, since he had first become aware of such songs 
 and the part they played, added another to his collection. 
 If it was not "Get your hair cut," or "What cheer, Ria," 
 it was "Little Annie Rooney." The more the songs altered, 
 the more they were the same thing. The town which had 
 capered to "Champagne Charlie" in its day, and swayed 
 to the waltz-time of "Mother Shipton," had not learned 
 to kick up its heels yet to the jerk and thump of " Ta-ra-ra, " 
 nor mastered then the intricacies of rag-time, but when 
 these came along they would just express London like the 
 rest. Looking back, all had their part: "Comrades"; 
 "The Miner's Dream of Home" ("I sor the old howm- 
 stead, the faces I love, I sor England's valleys and 
 dells"); "Harbour Lights" ("The lights of the Yarbour, 
 the Yarbour lights"); "Hi-tidly-hi-ti"; "Daisy"; "Three 
 pots a shilling"; "It's all right in the summer-time" 
 most of these still, of course, unborn, but each in its day. 
 Let us suppose it to have been "White Wings" just then 
 "White Wings" in the streets; and the "Garden of 
 Sleep," say, for "For Ever and For Ever" in the drawing- 
 rooms. 
 
 " Night comes; I long for my " 
 
 Yes, it was "dearie," to rhyme with "weary"! 
 
 " I spread out my white wings and sail home to thee." 
 
 Well? 
 
 Well, young Christopher, if only you could, eh? If only 
 you could.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AND yet, his ardour notwithstanding, his heart-hunger, his 
 passion, the turbulence of his feelings generally, he did not 
 meet Cora St. Jemison again for considerably more than 
 two years. All that time he thought about her. She was 
 never, that is, wholly out of his thoughts. Other things 
 occupied him, engrossed him even, but she was there. He 
 did things too; took his degree; and, sent by his grand- 
 mother, went (more or less) round the world. 
 
 Many things contributed conspired even to keep 
 the two apart. In the first instance it was the fog which 
 sent her away treacherous fog that in some sort might 
 be said to have given her to him! Mr. St. Jemison, it 
 chanced, for the first time for years was spending a winter 
 in England. The fog which engulfed London on that 
 memorable morning dealt summarily with the experiment. 
 There had been other fogs. It wanted but one for the last 
 straw. The servants were set or sent packing; by the end 
 of the week father and daughter, valet and maid, were on 
 their way South; and this time Christopher could not fol- 
 low them. 
 
 The fog, then, first and foremost. After that it was 
 Oxford and his friends. Easter, then, with a couple of 
 visits ; then Oxford again, his nose to the grindstone 
 now, all sorts of agents and agencies. But who shall say 
 how it was? Neither fate nor accident threw them together. 
 They were never in London at the same moment, or if 
 they were they did not meet. And so to Christopher's 
 travels, when meeting was out of the question. The day 
 before he started on these he went round to Wolf Street 
 again as so often he had done since the day on which 
 he had seen her. The house was shut up. It seemed always
 
 CHRISTOPHER 249 
 
 to be shut up. Upon the one occasion when it was not, he 
 should, it was plain, on any pretext or none have rung the 
 bell and have gone boldly in. So he departed and so the 
 time passed. 
 
 He had only to wait. Deep down in his heart he knew 
 he had always known. He set his face towards the future. 
 
 London pulled at him, however, even from the other 
 side of the world. But for shame and perhaps Harrin- 
 gay, who was with him he would have cut short his 
 wanderings. Like the miner who dreamt, he too saw the 
 old "Howmstead," and, amongst the "faces" his 
 mother's, John Hemming's, the indignant Fatima's, his 
 grandmother's, Trimmer's, always one other face beckon- 
 ing, beckoning. With London he lumped Oxford, Datchet, 
 Boulogne: London in some odd way stood for them all, 
 with whole tracts of green country thrown in, and Cora. 
 Always and always Cora. 
 
 His mother met him at Liverpool. She could not help it. 
 She just had to. It was perhaps she who had beckoned, if 
 the truth were known she and Trimmer, who came with 
 her. 
 
 "I declare you've grown, Christopher." 
 
 "At my age?" said Christopher, laughing, stooping to 
 kiss her again. He really looked taller and had filled out, 
 but was still on the slim side. These were grounds for de- 
 claring that he had grown. 
 
 "We must show him to his grandmamma," the privi- 
 leged Trimmer said when he had kissed her, too. 
 
 "I might be six years old," said Christopher which 
 was exactly what he might have been, what in some ways 
 he was and perhaps always would be! 
 
 People looked at Mrs. Hemming as if they envied her her 
 son. She appeared hardly old enough to be his mother, so 
 gently did the happy years deal with her, but (with eyes 
 for no one but him) was so obviously nothing else. 
 
 Harringay had landed at Queenstown. The three, ridic- 
 ulously happy, travelled up to London together. At Eus-
 
 250 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 ton, where John Hemming and Fatima (grown Thinima, 
 as Christopher told her) met them, Trimmer resumed, so 
 to speak, her livery. Five contented persons slept in Ebury 
 Street that night. 
 
 The next day Christopher went to Wolf Street. The 
 house was dismantled. The board which caught his eye 
 from the end of the street announced that the lease was 
 for sale. He went down to Herrickswood then to report 
 and to show himself to his grandmother, and resigning 
 himself to further waiting, just went on with his life. 
 
 It was now that Christopher began to write. It had 
 always been inevitable that sooner or later this must be the 
 sorry fate which would overtake him. What escape was 
 there for him? None, from the day he saw Cora, little 
 enough before that. The need to express came then. The 
 thing itself was decreed decreed in the "Come along, 
 Master Christopher" days, established from the moment 
 when he saw what was n't there. It was not for nothing 
 that it had once been said of him that Herrick was listen- 
 ing to the inkpot. He may have been listening, it was 
 certainly now and through Cora St. Jemison, by reason 
 of something that she had done to him that he heard it, 
 and heard it distinctly. 
 
 He had three hundred a year of his own. He bought 
 a box of "J" nibs, and looked out for rooms in Lon- 
 don. 
 
 His grandmother was angry. The Herricks had been 
 soldiers when they had not been country gentlemen or, 
 as she might have added, spendthrifts. No Herrick had 
 ever wielded anything so unpractical as a pen. Robert 
 Herrick had not been distantly connected with the Her- 
 ricks of Herrickswood, though there had been Herricks 
 at Herrickswood then a couple of hundred years and more. 
 The pen! A thing to play with if you liked. She could 
 appreciate Belles-Lettres. But, for a profession, the sym- 
 bol of a career . . . ! Thus, to Christopher's imperturb- 
 able smiling, she raged or pretended to rage.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 251 
 
 " If I were ten years younger, not if you were, I 'd 
 have you notice! I 'd box your ears." 
 
 She allowed him to kiss her for that. 
 
 His mother, though she helped him to look for rooms, 
 was disappointed. It was John Hemming who, at this 
 juncture, understood him best. 
 
 "Let him alone," he said. "The boy '11 do. If he never 
 writes a line worth the paper it's written on, he won't 
 have missed what he's here for. He is n't meant to have 
 the sort of k career that you 've wanted for him not that 
 I know, dear woman, what it has been all along that you Ve 
 expected. What was he to have been? Nelson? Napoleon?" 
 
 "Not Napoleon," said Christopher's mother. 
 
 "Wellington, then? Pitt? Fox? Palmerston?" 
 
 Anne did n't see why Christopher should n't have a 
 career. 
 
 "I must look that word up in the dictionary," said her 
 husband. " I have an idea that it means a good deal more 
 and a good deal less than you imagine." 
 
 That he was n't going to have a Career no one knew 
 better than Christopher. He did not even wish for any- 
 thing so portentous. If he did n't quite know what he 
 could do, he knew very well indeed what he could not, and 
 if he wrote it was because he had to. There were despairs, 
 for all that. He had something to say, but only in one way 
 could it be said only, perhaps, in certain words. How 
 to find it and them? He worked hard enough for Christ- 
 opher, indolent and ease-loving, he worked hard. There 
 were wrestlings, groanings of the spirit. Often a day's 
 work showed three lines. That did not matter. It was when 
 the three were three lines still at the end of as many days 
 at the end of as many weeks . . . Had he been mistaken? 
 Had he nothing to say, in fine? He knew he had something. 
 
 And then, the way and the words mastered and all going 
 well as he thought, there would uprise of a sudden a grim 
 and impenetrable barrier, the wall unspeakably blind and 
 blank that every writer knows and dreads. On the other
 
 252 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 side of this wall things might happen. On the hither side 
 of it all roads were blocked. Useless the roads themselves, 
 useless, that is, all that went before, if this wall were the 
 final goal. 
 
 And confronted by it, cowed by it, he had to prove him- 
 self. He was disappointing his friends. Even his mother 
 was asking when he was going to Begin. He might know 
 that he had begun. With just John Hemming of all the 
 world he might know it that if he had also finished, he 
 had begun. But there must be something to show, and he 
 would come near to believing that there never would be. 
 
 Those were the horrible days. 
 
 But there were others days when his pen had wings 
 He could see them, almost: two little wings on the shaft, 
 like the wings at Mercury's ankles. Then would his pen 
 fly. Then would the hours fly with it. It was a delight to 
 add another and another page to the fattening bundle. 
 He could hear the inkpot's purr of satisfaction. For it 
 had called to him. He had not been mistaken. Christo- 
 pher! Christopher! Ridiculous, if you like, but (to Chris- 
 topher) clear in its hour as the Samuel of that call to which 
 " Lord, here am I " had been the only possible answer, with 
 "Speak, Lord," to follow naturally, "Speak, Lord, for thy 
 servant heareth." Truly there were compensations. 
 
 He had rooms in Westminster, in a house now gone the 
 way of so many of Westminster's gracious old houses. It 
 was not unlike the house at Datchet had the same broad 
 window sills, low ceilings, and leisurely stairs. He was high 
 up, near the stars, but even in this upper region the work 
 of the builder had not been scamped. The walls were 
 panelled. The sloping floors were oak. There were hand- 
 some mouldings and cornices, the beauty of which the 
 chippings and mellowings of time had done nothing to 
 impair, but seemed rather to have enhanced. The fireback 
 of the old grate in his sitting-room was a perpetual joy to 
 him. For less than he would have paid for folding-doored 
 abominations, "communicating," in South Belgravia or
 
 CHRISTOPHER 253 
 
 Bayswater or South Kensington, he had the top floor of 
 the house known as 3 Cloisters Street, Westminster, within 
 sight of the river and sound of Big Ben, to himself and his 
 ready or reluctant pen. His pen should never have been 
 reluctant in such surroundings. 
 
 Mr. Jellicoe, his landlord of Jermyn Street, had helped 
 him to his quarters. As Mr. Herrickwas looking for rooms, 
 might he venture to suggest some that he knew of? The 
 house not, he was afraid, in a fashionable neighbour- 
 hood belonged to a cousin of his wife's ; a Mrs. Rommage, 
 a very quiet, respectable person, who, he was sure, would 
 do her best to give Mr. Herrick satisfaction. Mr. Herrick, 
 who, with his mother (the Mrs. Hemming of Mrs. Jellicoe 's 
 admiration, who came sometimes to Jermyn Street), had 
 seen South Belgravia, South Kensington, and (protesting) 
 even Bayswater in his search, jumped at, and as soon as 
 possible, into, Mrs. Rommage's top floor, where we find 
 him with his frets and fevers and transports. 
 
 So much for his occupation. The act and fact of living 
 were at this period the Thing. He was, still, more inter- 
 ested, whatever he may have supposed, in the life of the 
 streets, the faces he saw, the advertisements on the hoard- 
 ings, the bill-sticker with his brush and paste-pot, the shape 
 or the sound of an odd name, the passing of a barge under 
 Westminster Bridge, the way the light struck the sails or 
 left them, than in the hours he devoted to work. The call 
 of the inkpot was insistent, nevertheless. 
 
 He would go for his wonderful and adventurous walks, 
 would gird himself and walk fast, Richmond his goal, or 
 Hampton Court or Hampstead, or he would explore Isling- 
 ton or Whitechapel or Hoxton. He made many discoveries ; 
 found the Britannia Theatre, theretofore a name to him, 
 but endeared to him for its own sake and for something 
 in the sound of that of the lady with whom it was for so 
 long associated ; assisted at more than one Festival, 
 survival of the larger days, and, near by, lighted upon 
 the last home of the toy theatre of his boyhood.
 
 C54 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Or, very carefully dressed, he would be seen in quite 
 other places. 
 
 Presently in spite of difficulties, principally difficulties 
 created by his temperament, he was making a small income ; 
 and, almost as soon as the little cheques began to come in, 
 something else happened which altered his outlook and 
 set him once more upon his love-chase. 
 
 He had been out for one of his walks and came in to find 
 Mrs. Rommage waiting for him, a telegram in each hand. 
 
 Mrs. Rommage was an excellent woman, a good cook 
 even, but she had an anxious mind. A telegram disturbed 
 her; two telegrams flustered her. 
 
 "You had n't been gone five minutes, sir, when the first 
 come. Not five minutes. And not much more than an hour 
 after, if there did n't come another! I did n't know what 
 to do. If I 'd known where to send, but I did n't. However, 
 I kept them separate. This is the first, sir, " she broke 
 off and looked doubtfully, and then apprehensively, from 
 one to the other. "No, it would be that no, this . . ." 
 She turned dismayed eyes on him. " If I have n't been and 
 mixed them. If I have n't, after keeping them separate 
 this three hours! What you'll say, sir! And what Mr. 
 Jellicoe would think! Oh, Mr. Herrick, sir. I thought to 
 meself , he '11 want to know which come first, sure to, and 
 I would n't let the servants so much as touch them. One 
 come and then the other. And now I don't know which." 
 
 Christopher comforted her. Perhaps it would say in- 
 side, he said, smiling. 
 
 She refused to be comforted. It did say inside. But she 
 shook her head, blaming herself. Like Mr. Jellicoe with 
 the ancient Red Book, she seemed to think the house 
 compromised. 
 
 " Not any the less repre'ensible upon my part, sir." 
 
 Blaming herself, and anxious but not inquisitive, she 
 withdrew. 
 
 The telegrams, sorted out into their proper order, proved 
 to be a summons to Herrickswood from his grandmother,
 
 CHRISTOPHER 255 
 
 brooking, it seemed, no delay; and a whip. She would 
 know, if he pleased, whether her message had reached him, 
 whether he was starting at once, and if not, why not. She 
 was not ill, she was thoughtful enough to inform him, but 
 the matter was urgent. 
 
 The whimsical note was present, but under it Christopher 
 thought he could detect that which was not whimsical. 
 He telegraphed, packed a bag, and caught the next train..
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 His grandmother herself met him at the station. The foot- 
 man but neither wooden Albert nor the Ventriloquist 
 now ! informed him, to his surprise, that she was in the 
 carriage, and Christopher hurried out to her. 
 
 "Your Uncle Stephen," she said when they had greeted 
 each other; adding, "Why on earth don't you get your 
 telegrams?" in impatient parenthesis. "Your Uncle 
 Stephen. Not that I could have telegraphed it. And not 
 that I might n't either, since by this time every one prob- 
 ably knows. Have they got your luggage? Blockheads. 
 How stupid they are. There 's Charles. Tell him to hurry, 
 then. That's right. Get in now." 
 
 He took his place beside her. 
 
 "You're too late, I may tell you, for what I wanted you 
 for. I wanted protection. Some one with me of my own 
 you, Christopher. Your mother would have done, oddly 
 enough. But she's timid. I could n't have asked it of her. 
 And you don't get your telegrams. What's the good of 
 you ?" 
 
 "What's the matter, Grandmother Herrick?" 
 
 He was still waiting to be told. 
 
 "Drink was the matter blazing, raving, fighting 
 drink. Now nothing 's the matter. Your Uncle Stephen 's 
 dead, Christopher, and his wretched old mother is glad." 
 
 But she was crying. Christopher's hand went out to 
 hers. It is dreadful at all times to see the old cry; doubly 
 dreadful to see an old person cry whom few, in all her long 
 life, had ever seen to cry. 
 
 "Granny," Christopher said, "Granny." 
 
 He had never called her that before. Granny was for 
 his gentler grandmother the Granny Oxeter of a thou-
 
 CHRISTOPHER 257 
 
 sand tendernesses. It was thenceforward for this grand- 
 mother too. 
 
 "He was such a pretty boy," the old woman was saying. 
 "People used to turn in the street. Make much of him. He 
 had yellow curls. I 'm talking of half a lifetime ago. I sup- 
 pose we spoilt him his father as much as I. His father 
 adored him. I remember one time when he was ill ... 
 Well, he did n't die then. I 've wished sometimes that he 
 had. He was prettier still at the age when it 's dangerous 
 for a boy to be pretty. And, good Lord, when he was nine- 
 teen or twenty ! I don't wonder they lost their heads about 
 him. I would n't have minded that if he could have kept 
 his own. But he could n't. At Oxford. Goodness! He 
 was sent down. His father minded that more than I did. 
 I 'm not squeamish. I even understood, and understand, in 
 a way. They would n't let him alone. His own class then. 
 The St. Jemison woman, though I ought n't to speak of 
 her to you, I suppose, and that sort. I 've taken their 
 part, before this the St. Jemison's often. Now I 
 think I hate her more than any of them for the mischief 
 she did. Light, light, light, as I told your mother light, 
 with one of those good hearts and no harm in her rot- 
 ten ! Your mother saved John Hemming from her, Christ- 
 opher, but there was no one to save Stephen. So he went 
 on. It was debts and women, and women and debts, till 
 it was women and debts and drink ; and drink 's the worst 
 of that three with a nature like Stephen's. For months 
 at a time I have n't known where he was except to be 
 sure that, wherever he was, he was in the gutter. Twice 
 he was in jail. I would have taken him back at any minute 
 he knew that. I speak of taking him back as if he was 
 a boy. But that was it. He was always a boy to me. It's 
 as a boy I see him still." 
 
 She broke off. Christopher said nothing, knowing well 
 that in letting herself go she was getting some of the relief 
 she needed so grievously. The brougham rolled smoothly 
 along the sleek country roads.
 
 2 5 8 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "I loved him till he broke my heart," she said presently, 
 more now to herself than to him. "And after that too," 
 she added. 
 
 "Tell me how you're getting on," she said, a few mo- 
 ments later. 
 
 He told her something of what he was doing. 
 
 "But you don't get your telegrams," she said. 
 
 They turned in at the lodge gates. 
 
 "After all, you could only have been here two or three 
 hours sooner. It was that I wanted you. My first weak- 
 ness, I believe, in what has been a fairly self-reliant life." 
 
 Weakness ! It was others in the house who told him what 
 she had been through, what all had been through, in a 
 three days' nightmare. She had been in danger of her life 
 at the hands of a madman, for two of them. There had 
 been horrors times when it had been necessary to hold 
 the patient down in the bed. Christopher heard with 
 dismay and admiration. Why had he not been sent 
 for before? Mrs. Herri ck would allow neither the doctor 
 nor the servants to send for any one. The worst was 
 over when she had sent the first telegram. It was only 
 then that the nerves, theretofore of iron, seemed to have 
 had her at their mercy. 
 
 Difficult to realise the horrors and the tragedy of the 
 last few hours. The house looked the same as ever. In 
 his grandmother's sitting-room the black velvet glove 
 hung over the coal-box, and a fire burned brightly at the 
 grate. Difficult even to realise that this was not the same 
 black velvet glove that had hung there when he was a 
 boy! Many velvet gloves must have succeeded the one 
 which he remembered. The book of the Views of the Rhine 
 was on the table where it had always stood . Nothing seemed 
 changed. 
 
 But death was in the house the strange feeling, si- 
 lences, tiptoeings. The servants were awed. They moved 
 about in couples with whisperings. In the unusual si-
 
 CHRISTOPHER 259 
 
 lence were unusual sounds. The green baize doors shut 
 off successions of visitors to the housekeeper's room to 
 the servants' quarters generally. Ollenshaw could have told 
 of head-shakings and talkifications. One would be admitted 
 or another. You might hear the quiet opening or shutting 
 of doors behind doors, the furtive commotions of death. 
 There were endless tea-drinkings. Every one needed sup- 
 port. Every one had something to say. Every one knew. 
 As Christopher's grandmother had said, she might have 
 telegraphed ! No one within twenty miles but knew what 
 Stephen Herrick had died of, and how he had died. 
 
 Outside the house the stories were flying. He had tried 
 to strangle the nurses or his mother. Some said the nurses, 
 some said his mother. He had bitten through his own gold 
 watch in his paroxysms. He had knocked out the teeth 
 of one of the grooms who had been fetched in from the 
 stables to hold him. You could n't hold him. He had been 
 bound with ropes and had burst them like Samson. That 
 sort of thing. As for what he had seen ! Bottle imps, pink 
 rats, devils. It was Save him from them. Keep them off 
 the counterpane. Snakes too. The old fly-blown, thumb- 
 marked quota of snakes. Green, I suppose, or pink per- 
 haps, like the rats. They did not even let him off those. 
 He was spared nothing, indeed, in the winged stories. All 
 that imagination could imagine, or invention invent, 
 was credited to the horrors of an end horrible enough in 
 all conscience. Gibberings, screamings, cursings, tears, he 
 was given all these, with writhings and inarticulate furies. 
 And to drink they gave him brandy and brandy and again 
 brandy, to inflame him and their own imaginations. His 
 cunningnesses and his clevernesses and his machinations! 
 Drink could not be kept from him. If the nurses so much 
 as turned their backs . . . ! Moreover, he produced 
 bottles miraculously from under the bedclothes. 
 
 So the stories flew outside the house. The delirium of 
 a Coupeau, with borrowings from the more distressing 
 symptoms of hydrophobia !
 
 260 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Poor Stephen! He at least had done with it all. Poor 
 mother of Stephen, who had not, and who knew not in- 
 deed that she cared how tongues wagged and would wag. 
 
 She sat at dinner as usual ; she and Christopher opposite 
 to each other at a little table in the big dining-room. But 
 things were not quite as usual. There were unaccustomed 
 pauses and hitches. The kitchen or the pantry was clearly 
 demoralised. Mrs. Herrick said nothing, but grunted her 
 displeasure. The butler and his paralysed satellites looked 
 unspeakable concern and apology. It was the kitchen, 
 clearly. 
 
 After dinner Christopher did not stop to smoke, but 
 followed his grandmother to her sitting-room. She did 
 not talk of Stephen now, or, rather, she did not talk of 
 him directly; but her mind, he knew, was occupied with 
 her dead son. She talked mostly to Christopher of his 
 mother, who, he knew also, had always had a pitying 
 place in her heart for the ne'er-do-well. 
 
 "I made the marriage between her and your step- 
 father," she said irrelevantly, it might have appeared 
 to Christopher. "She would never have married him but 
 for me." 
 
 Christopher may have thought that he made that 
 marriage. 
 
 " Never, if I had n't talked to her. She was always timid. 
 She had n't got over your father's death, either. In one 
 sense, I know, she never will, but, in another, deaths are 
 what the living have to get over if they are to go on 
 being the living, that is. Your stepfather has to thank me 
 for his escape." 
 
 It was not quite true. Mrs. St. Jemison had failed John 
 Hemming before John Hemming sought out Christopher's 
 mother. Christopher did not know all the facts, but if he 
 had known them would not have dreamt of setting the 
 speaker right. He was astray for a moment or two, and 
 then saw the drift of the old woman's thoughts. She was 
 saying again that there had been no one to save Stephen.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 261 
 
 At ten o'clock his grandmother rose. 
 
 "You'll find a fire in the library," she said. "Ask for 
 what you want. There's nothing to be done to-night. The 
 announcement went to the papers this morning. To- 
 morrow there '11 be letters to write, people to see, things 
 to settle, and you '11 help me." 
 
 Christopher lit a second candle. 
 
 "Don't think you've got to," she said. "Young people 
 hate death. It's natural. Yes, I'm going in to see him, 
 to say good-night to him." 
 
 " I want to come with you, if you'll let me." 
 
 "Well, there's nothing dreadful," she said, "nothing 
 dreadful though he died dreadfully," she added. 
 
 She led the way to the room which Christopher knew so 
 well. It was always his mother's room at Herrickswood. 
 Some of her associations with it were his from the days 
 of the memorable visit. He had heard the Waits from the 
 dressing-room adjoining. The Waits were a dim memory 
 to him now, but still a memory. 
 
 " It used to be his," she said, "in the old days. He liked 
 big rooms. Your father was content with something 
 smaller. Stephen loved his ease." 
 
 There was nothing about it to suggest death none of 
 death's trappings. Nothing even to tell of what had gone 
 before death. All that could suggest illness had been 
 cleared away. Wonderful rooms that keep their secrets! 
 Wonderful, and beautiful, and horrible, the secrets of the 
 old rooms, the secrets of the old houses ! Christopher, with 
 a momentary shudder, remembered a night when he had 
 seemed to know everything that could be happening in 
 London; a night made up of "open moments." What 
 such open moments would not have revealed here! 
 
 His grandmother saw him shudder. 
 
 "Nothing dreadful," she said again, and smiled. 
 
 "I know," Christopher said. 
 
 She drew down the sheet which outlined the figure in 
 the bed.
 
 262 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 No, there was nothing dreadful. The eyes which, a few 
 hours back, red-rimmed, had blazed and stared and started, 
 closed now, were as the eyes of one very gently sleeping; 
 and the features, distressed and distorted so lately, were 
 calm. Nothing dreadful. Something very tender in the 
 aspect of the resting figure, much of beauty in the worn 
 face. 
 
 The old woman and the young man, their candles held 
 high, stood beside the bed. 
 
 "It was rest he wanted rest from himself. He was 
 for ever driven, hunted. He gave himself no peace. It 
 was as if something insatiable was inside him. They talk 
 of the worm that never dies and the fire that can't be 
 quenched. Ask such as my unhappy son there, which side 
 of the grave those are found. Ask any one who lives the 
 life of the flesh. He was tormented from within. They all 
 are. It's the smoke of that sort of torment that goes up. 
 God pity us all, Christopher. God pity us all." 
 
 She was n't crying now. If any one was crying it was 
 Christopher for some one he had never known. He 
 heard himself saying, "Amen to that," rather huskily. 
 It was not the sort of thing he would have said, or could 
 have said, at any other time, but he was quite sincere as 
 he said it. 
 
 "You mustn't think I'm unhappy about him now. 
 Somehow, sometime or other, it will be all right, even for 
 Stephen. I don't know how, but I do know that. I 'm not 
 thinking of him as knocking at the door of any heaven. 
 What would he do in such a place he with the smell of 
 this world on him? It's what he must know now that con- 
 soles me if I can speak of consolation: the rottenness at 
 the core of everything that he cared for. Could I suppose 
 he had n't learned that? I make no excuses for him. We 
 create ourselves, I've no doubt in my own mind about 
 that. We blame the Almighty and every one else, but we 
 are our own makers as surely as night follows day. We 
 didn't ask to be born? I'm convinced that we did
 
 CHRISTOPHER 263 
 
 clamoured to take shape, took shape maybe by force. The 
 old know. You'll know, Christopher, when you're as 
 old as I am." 
 
 She stooped and kissed the dead face. 
 
 Christopher turned away. When he looked back she was 
 drawing up the sheet to its place. 
 
 "There, we'll leave him to his sleeping. It was sleep 
 that he needed. He'll sleep to-night without dreams." 
 
 Christopher went down to the library, from the depths 
 of which or was it from the depths of the great drawing- 
 room of ceremony? the footman Ventriloquist had once 
 called up strange voices. A friendly room. The walls 
 were lined with books which no one read, but the mellow 
 brown of old bindings, which was long since the mellow 
 colour of the room itself, gave him welcome. A leather 
 screen sheltered an armchair near the fire from unlikely 
 draughts, and invited him to the hearth. The orrery 
 standing near one of the heavily curtained windows, the 
 pair of globes near another, the wheeled ladder, the busts 
 (Julius Caesar, Nero, and Doctor Johnson), all greeted him. 
 He was young, and the young revolt, as Mrs. Herrick had 
 said, from thoughts of death. Under the spell of the cheer- 
 ful room he recovered from the gloom which had been 
 creeping over him. 
 
 Soothed by cheerful influences, lulled, "comforted" in 
 every material sense, comforted as "with apples," he 
 read for an hour, put out the lamps, and went upstairs. He 
 was pleasantly sleepy now. 
 
 Passing the death-chamber, however, on his way to his 
 room, he thought he heard a sound, and turned back. He 
 listened for a moment or two, and then, opening the door 
 very gently, he looked in. 
 
 A candle stood upon a table, and by the dim light of 
 it he saw the figure of his grandmother kneeling by the 
 bed. He withdrew himself at once, closing the door as 
 noiselessly as he had opened it. But at Christ's "Could ye
 
 264 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 not watch with me one hour?" the disciples in Gethsem- 
 ane may have felt as he felt at that moment. He went 
 on to his room, which was near by, and did not begin to 
 undress till a soft sound or two in the silent house told 
 him at length that the dauntless but stricken old woman 
 had gone to hers. He lay awake then, thinking of his grand- 
 mother and of the motionless form under the sheet. But 
 in the morning he woke thinking of Cora, who though 
 he must not think it yet was nearer to him, most surely 
 nearer to him now, than she had been.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 His grandmother sent for him. The funeral was over. The 
 few relations there were to gather had gathered and were 
 gone. His stepfather, who, though he was not a relation, 
 had attended the funeral, was gone also. There remained 
 only his mother, who was going to stay on for a few days 
 at Herrickswood, and himself, who was going back at the 
 end of the week to London and his work. 
 
 "His work!" his grandmother said. 
 
 He could always laugh at himself happily, and he 
 laughed then. 
 
 His grandmother observed, he hoped, that he did not 
 say Works. 
 
 "You '11 think of your work as your Works before you 've 
 done, for all that, I daresay," she said, and appealed to the 
 ceiling. "His work! Pens, ink, and paper! Well, well. 
 We shall see, I suppose, what you can do. Meanwhile I 
 sent for you to tell you what I suppose you know. Your 
 uncle's death will make a considerable difference to you." 
 
 "Yes, grandmother?" 
 
 "Yes, Christopher. I had thought a dozen times of 
 making you my heir in his lifetime passing him over, I 
 mean. I 've an idea that it was thought that I had not 
 by you, I know, or your mother. Ollenshaw 's an old ser- 
 vant and a good, faithful soul, but she talks, and it's known 
 that I can do as I like. They 've seen my provocation, and 
 seen too what was plain enough for every one to see : that 
 I 'm fond of you, for all your dreamings and poesies and 
 artistries " 
 
 ("Don't be so hard on me, Grandmother Herrick"; 
 interpolation by Christopher. "Hang it all, I'm not as 
 bad as that!"
 
 266 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "Every bit, and be damned to you, my dear"; counter- 
 interpolation by Christopher's grandmother.) 
 
 " Your differentnesses from all that I've been accus- 
 tomed to. You are different, I see it, if I don't under- 
 stand it, of the stuff that dreamers are made of. But 
 you're a healthy young animal, too, somehow, and you're 
 a Herrick to look at, upstanding and clean-limbed and well- 
 grown and good enough to see, and I've loved you from 
 the day you showed me you were n't afraid of me." 
 
 "W'ff," said Christopher. 
 
 He, if his grandmother was not, was a little out of breath. 
 He stood before her smiling, his colour heightened. He 
 put the backs of his hands to his hot cheeks, and waited 
 for her to proceed or to finish. 
 
 She looked at him, well pleased. There was nothing self- 
 conscious in his action or bearing or attitude. He was em- 
 barrassed she wished to embarrass him! but was 
 standing what was almost a test. He did not flinch under 
 her onslaught. 
 
 "Men ought to be fighters," she said ; "doers, not dream- 
 ers." 
 
 Christopher thought men might do something with 
 dreams. He did not say so. He just waited. 
 
 "You are 'different,' " she said, insisting as an inquisitor 
 might insist. "Are n't you? Answer me." 
 
 " I 've never written a line of poetry in my life," he said. 
 "But things are wonderful. Wonderful, if you see them." 
 
 "And you can see them think you can, anyway?" 
 
 "They are wonderful," he said, "almost everything 
 is." 
 
 She had to leave it at that; left teasing him, and went 
 back to what she had been saying. 
 
 "Where was I? Oh, yes. Thought of passing him over. 
 Goodness knows he provoked me. But somehow I never 
 did. Probably because he dared to provoke me. So, though 
 you were n't before, you're next now for Herrickswood." 
 
 Christopher's heart, with Cora in it, gave a jump. She
 
 CHRISTOPHER 267 
 
 was nearer. He had "known," of course, in a sense, but 
 this putting into words seemed to crystallise into the solid- 
 ity of fact what had been at most a conjecture, and one 
 which he could hardly allow himself to form. He did not 
 want Herrickswood, did not covet it or its rent-roll, or 
 actually anything at all that he had not, but he could not 
 hear what his grandmother had just told him without 
 experiencing excitement. The colour came more deeply 
 into his face. 
 
 He would find Cora now, he knew was to find her. 
 Perhaps he would not even have to seek her. He would 
 get news of her by miracle, if no other way. 
 
 "Thank you, Grandmother." 
 
 "Wait till I'm dead to do that." 
 
 Christopher hoped she would have to wait for her thanks 
 a long time. 
 
 "I believe you there," she said, "or I should n't have 
 told you." 
 
 She kissed him, and he left her. Her lawyers, who were 
 waiting for her, spent the rest of the day with her. Two 
 days later, when the will which was drafted then had duly 
 been drawn up and signed, she spoke of the matter again. 
 This time it was to Christopher's mother. 
 
 " I don't want any mystery about it. I shall tell people. 
 I don't want them talking and wondering, gauging chances, 
 naming this one and that, and making surmises. I don't 
 want distant relations and people who ' ve no claim upon me, 
 and on whom I Ve no claim, paying court to me. I choose 
 it to be known, Anne, that I Ve made Christopher my heir. 
 This is his home now, as often as he likes to come to it. The 
 servants will take orders from him when he 's here, as from 
 a son of the house. He can have his own rooms, and come 
 and go as he likes. The oftener it is Come the better I 
 shall be pleased. When it's Go, though I shall be wise 
 enough, I hope, not to say so, I shall always be sorry." 
 
 "You're too good to him," said Anne, but she did not 
 think so really.
 
 268 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 She was only taking the change in her son's prospects 
 sensibly with a sigh, all the same, for the days when her 
 son had been dependent on her. Trimmer may have heard 
 that sigh of hers sometimes; no one else. 
 
 "Not so much to him, when all's said, as to myself," 
 said Christopher's grandmother. "He's a good boy, or, 
 if he is n't, he's a mighty attractive one. Do you suppose 
 I should have forgiven any one else his trade? He's John 
 o' dreams, when I meant him for a soldier. An 'artist,' 
 don't they call it? when he was to have been a man. Not 
 that he is n't that too. He's strong enough, and muscular 
 enough, I grant you. Male enough, I allow. A male with- 
 out blemish, I 've no doubt you think him. But writers, 
 'artists,' seers! I had my misgivings, I remember, when 
 he was a boy. You sat there and crocheted where you 're 
 sitting now with your knitting. And I warned you." 
 
 Anne pulled gently at her wool ; unwound a yard or two 
 to go on with from the ball which lay at her feet. She was 
 knitting stockings for Christopher's stepfather or for 
 Christopher; she was not quite sure which. Their legs 
 were about the same length. 
 
 " He seems to be getting on," she said. " They 're taking 
 his things. They write to him for them. Some one told 
 John the other day that his work is well thought of. I for- 
 get who, but some one who knows about these things. 
 John thinks he'll do something. He says he's clever." 
 
 "Of course he's clever," snapped Christopher's grand- 
 mother. "Is n't that what's the matter with him? Is n't 
 that what I'm deploring?" 
 
 She whipped up an argument, set poor Anne defending 
 her son; finished by laughing at her. 
 
 "Do you think I'm not proud of him, Anne Hemming? 
 Do you think I'm not as proud of him as you are this 
 minute?" 
 
 She got up and went over to a writing-table, where she 
 opened a drawer. 
 
 "Come here."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 269 
 
 Anne put down her work and went over to her, wonder- 
 ing what she should see. 
 
 Half a dozen magazines lay before her. Anne knew them 
 well enough. Christopher's name figured in the table of 
 the contents of each of them. 
 
 " Do you think I 'm not watching? I daresay I have n't 
 all that he's written. These are what I 've managed to get 
 hold of. I've read them, too, these contributions of his, 
 though I 'm not a reader, as I need n't tell you. I don't 
 understand all of them, and I don't suppose I 'm much of 
 a judge if I did; but I '11 say this: even I can see that the 
 boy's doing what he had to do. I've been rallying him 
 on not being like the menkind I 'm used to on being 
 what I call 'different.' He is different. Very well, then, do 
 you suppose, in my heart, I'd have him different from 
 different?" 
 
 Anne said nothing for a moment. Her eyes were shin- 
 ing. She, like Christopher before her, felt a little out of 
 breath. 
 
 "You're you're " she began, and got no further. 
 
 "A wicked old woman to have made game of you? 
 You're so easy to make game of, the pair of you. There, 
 there won't be so very much for him to come into (the 
 Herrick men not his father, of course but the rest of 
 the crew, the precious stamp I've been accustomed to, 
 saw to that!) ; still, his future, such as it is, is assured him, 
 and he can follow a poor trade with a light heart. There's 
 a book on the stocks, I understand. My grandson, whom 
 only yesterday, as it appears to me, I saw sucking his 
 thumb, whom I gave pennies to for holding his tongue, 
 if he could, for five minutes! A book, if you please. A 
 novel, I suppose. We'll see what he makes of it." 
 
 "The dearest wicked old woman," said Christopher's 
 mother. 
 
 He did n't make much of it; was not ready for it, per- 
 haps; or had set himself more than he could achieve. The
 
 270 CHRISTOPHER] 
 
 time came when the precious book was finished. The time 
 came, even, when, after many disappointments, the precious 
 volume found a publisher. But there, to all intents and 
 purposes, the matter ended. The blank walls he had come 
 up against had been too much for him? He had never 
 razed them at all? Never seen over them, or made gaps 
 in them large enough to see through to the other side? 
 Who shall say? The thing halted; was like a billiard ball 
 moving in the right direction, but without " legs " enough 
 to fulfil the player's intention. Yet the book was n't bad 
 not a book anyway to be ashamed of. A review or two, 
 taking the trouble to see what the author aimed at, praised 
 it discriminatingly. The rest, praising faintly, damned it 
 effectually. It just fell flat; may have deserved to fall flat. 
 And so in this, the first round, Christopher, upon whom in 
 other ways fortune was smiling so pleasantly, saw himself 
 knocked out rather badly.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IT was late autumn when his uncle died ; winter when his 
 book came out and died, too; spring when one morning, in 
 Sloane Street, Christopher came face to face with Cora 
 St. Jemison. 
 
 It might have been expected that in the two years in 
 which he had not seen her, her hold upon him, whatever 
 its nature, would have slackened. He had only seen her 
 three times, all told; had exchanged words with her but 
 upon one of them; could hardly be said to know her; it 
 needed but the sight of her coming towards him in her 
 white dress to set him trembling. 
 
 The miracle of the foggy morning was repeated. She 
 was some thirty yards from him, when, under his startled 
 eyes, she turned, as before, from an unknown figure just 
 a girl at whom he chanced to be looking (Girl in a Street 
 now for Girl in a Room) into the girl of all girls in the 
 world, the white lady of his dreams waking and sleeping. 
 He held his breath as they approached each other. Would 
 she see him? Would she remember him? Would she know 
 him? 
 
 She saw him. His concentration alone would have 
 ensured that, and currents must have been playing upon 
 her from his eyes as from a battery. Impossible, if you 
 were even comparatively sensitive to influences, to have 
 passed anything so "electric" as was Christopher at that 
 moment, without becoming aware of its presence and activ- 
 ity. Oh, yes, she saw him. Did she remember? He be- 
 lieved she remembered. Was she going to recognise him? 
 
 He could not let her escape him. 
 
 He stopped her. 
 
 "You don't remember me," he said; wondering vaguely
 
 272 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 what he should say next, how if she did not he should 
 justify his action. His thoughts, jumping the dinner-party, 
 went back to Victoria Station. It was there rather than 
 in Mayfair that they had really met. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "Ah, you don't!" he said. 
 
 "On the contrary, I do. You took me down to dinner at 
 Mrs. Constaple's. Some one some one else was to 
 have taken me down. I remember quite well, you see. 
 Your name's Herrick, and you're not a descendant of the 
 poet." 
 
 "Did I tell you all that?" 
 
 "Not till I asked you. It was my name you wanted to 
 know." 
 
 "That's more than two years ago. I could hardly have 
 hoped you'd remember." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," she said. " I remember things that 
 happened longer ago than that." 
 
 He looked at her slowly. 
 
 " I wonder if you do," he said. 
 
 He could not tell from her face. What was in his mind, 
 what he wondered whether hers held also, brought him 
 now to a halt. There was a moment when it seemed as if 
 he would find nothing more to say. If neither spoke, they 
 would have to separate, go their several ways ; and London 
 would swallow her up. 
 
 " I 've so often wondered about you," he said, rather des- 
 perately. "Wondered where you were, I mean," he 
 seemed under the dominion of a word! "and whether I 
 should ever see you again." 
 
 It was she now who looked at him questioningly. But 
 she did not look surprised as she might have looked, nor 
 as if she resented what might if it had been differently 
 said have seemed an impertinence. It was not an 
 impertinence. 
 
 She was alone. The day had come when girls were be-
 
 CHRISTOPHER 273 
 
 ginning to be allowed to go about alone in the morning; 
 yet, looking at her, Christopher felt that her beauty was 
 of a quality which must subject it and her to attention of a 
 kind not wholly desirable. She should, he felt, have had 
 the protection of some sort of companionship. Even as 
 she talked to him he saw with a pang of jealousy that 
 glances were thrown at her to her, he could almost have 
 thought. What was it about her? Something in the won- 
 derful whiteness of her skin? In the redness of her lips? 
 Something in the shape of the eyelids, which were so often 
 lowered? 
 
 His memory had played him no tricks. She was more 
 beautiful, he saw, a sharp stab at his heart, than he 
 had thought her. Her beauty troubled him. 
 
 "We were living in London when I met you," she said. 
 "We had a house then. My father parted with it. I have 
 n't been in London for some time. I don't suppose I've 
 spent a month in London in the last couple of years." 
 
 ' ' You ' ve been abroad ? ' ' 
 
 "We're generally abroad somewhere. We've spent the 
 last two winters in Sicily. We have a villa near Palermo." 
 
 He could not ask her questions. Again a halt threatened. 
 
 "You did n't mind my speaking to you?" 
 
 "Why should I mind?" She looked at him frankly. 
 "I've even been hearing your name lately quite often 
 just lately." 
 
 He was afraid she was going to speak of his book. 
 
 "I'm staying with Mrs. Constaple. She's by way of 
 taking me out, as my father can't be bothered to go to 
 things, and and there's nobody else. Mrs. Constaple 's 
 a friend of Mrs. Herrick, and Mrs. Herrick's your grand- 
 mother, isn't she?" 
 
 Christopher's face brightened. 
 
 "Of course," he said, "of course. Mrs. Constaple 
 knows my grandmother. It was through her my grand- 
 mother, I mean that I came to be asked to that dinner- 
 party."
 
 274 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 " I believe we used to know Mrs. Herrick, too, once upon 
 a time. We've lost touch with most people." 
 
 "She would remember," said Christopher. 
 
 He did not hear what was said in answer to that. A rail- 
 way van clattering by at the moment drowned the words. 
 "She might not care to," or " might not want to," was what 
 he believed she said. He fancied also that it was not wholly 
 the noise of the van which prevented his hearing. She 
 spoke, he thought, under her breath. 
 
 "My grandmother never forgets her friends," he heard 
 himself saying. 
 
 "Oh, I was a child," she said, smiling. "It's years ago 
 an infant." 
 
 At the word "child" something stirred in Christopher's 
 mind. He had a momentary recollection of a strange even- 
 ing in which his mother and his other grandmother had 
 part, his aunts also, Laura and Catherine, the dead soldier, 
 Trimmer in her best dress and behaving oddly. Child. Some- 
 thing connected with the word. He repeated it to himself. 
 Child. A child. The child. That was nearer. The Child, 
 Habits of . . .? Something like that. Customs of? Ridi- 
 culous. Yet something of , surely. Custody of! That was it. 
 Out of the dimness the whole sentence came back to him. 
 
 " If he dies (Mr. St. Jemison), I suppose she (Mrs. St. J.) 
 will have the Custody of the Child." 
 
 Christopher was back with the moment when he had 
 first heard of Cora's existence. 
 
 So Mr. St. Jemison, who had been ill just then, had not 
 died, Christopher had wondered and forgotten to won- 
 der about that, and had kept the Custody of his 
 daughter. 
 
 Some one else looked at the girl, who appeared not to 
 see. Christopher raged inwardly. A thought which sud- 
 denly disturbed him was that just thus might he himself 
 have been supposed to look at her, on the day when the 
 long look, which had passed between them, had seemed to 
 him to end his search for ever.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 275 
 
 He could not keep her standing on the pavement any 
 longer. 
 
 "May I walk with you to the end of the street? "he said. 
 
 He thought she hesitated. 
 
 "I almost must," he said. 
 
 She glanced at a clock which she could see from where 
 she was, before, with an inclination of her eyelids rather 
 than her head, she assented. They began to walk up the 
 street. There was not far to go. At the top of it he knew 
 he must leave her. 
 
 " Please," he said, and she turned to him. Her smile met 
 his and she slackened her pace. 
 
 "You said you remembered things just now things 
 that happened longer ago than two years." 
 
 'We all do, surely." 
 
 'You were just speaking generally, then? You had no- 
 th ng in mind no particular incident." 
 
 'What sort of incident?" 
 
 'Tell me," he said, "had you ever seen me before? Be- 
 fore I met you at Mrs. Constaple's, I mean." 
 
 His eyes were on his glove, which he was buttoning 
 (and unbuttoning too), as he spoke. He looked from it to 
 the other side of the road not at her. It was as if he 
 wanted her to have a clear field. There was what seemed 
 like a long pause. 
 
 "Yes," she said. Her voice was quite steady. "I had 
 seen you before." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 He had lived too long with an idea to see the strange- 
 ness, even the possible unfairness, of what he asked. So 
 much seemed (to him at least) to depend upon her answers. 
 Again he did not look at her as he put his question. Again 
 there was a long pause measured by the tumult of emo- 
 tions it was able to contain for him. And again she answered 
 him steadily. 
 
 "I saw you at Victoria Station. I passed near you and 
 you looked at me. I was with my father. You were talking
 
 2 ;6 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 to a little girl. There was a lady in the carriage near you. 
 You did n't speak, but you seemed to say something to 
 me as I passed you." 
 
 Christopher swallowed dryly. 
 
 "What did I say? No, I didn't speak. What did I 
 appear to say?" 
 
 But she shook her head. 
 
 "I can't tell you. You see you did n't say anything. 
 How could you have said anything? You did n't know me. 
 Yet you did seem to to ask something. Could you have 
 asked me who I was? For it seemed to me it was all 
 very strange that some sort of answer was called out 
 of me. It was as if you did know me, and recognised me, and 
 were asking me if you were n't right in thinking so." 
 
 Christopher turned round and faced her. 
 
 "That's just what was happening. I thought, and I think 
 that I did recognise you." 
 
 It was she now who faced him. 
 
 "But you'd never seen me before," she said. 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 "But had you?" she asked him. 
 
 He looked at her without speaking. 
 
 "Had you?" she persisted. And he had to answer of 
 course that he had not. 
 
 "Then ... ?" Her gesture completed her question. 
 
 They had reached the top of the street. There was a 
 little crowd about the spot where the omnibuses stop. 
 People jostling each other jostled them, as one of these 
 turned the corner of Knightsbridge. Before it had pulled 
 up a cluster of human beings was hanging on to the tail 
 of it, like a dropping cluster of swarming bees. A hurrying 
 woman with children pulling at skirts reminded Chris- 
 topher of the pulled and pulling women, mothers, aunts, 
 guardians, at the Crystal Palace. 
 
 "I can't tell you here," he said. "When can I see you 
 again? You'll let me see you again. I I must see you 
 again."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 277 
 
 It was a hazardous word to use, as hazardous nearly 
 as the "almost must" of a few minutes before. But she 
 had not shown any surprise at that, and she showed none 
 now. It was surely for his wanton torment that therefore 
 the thought must needs come to him that she was used to 
 being spoken to in this way, accustomed to hearing people 
 like himself say that they must see her again, and expected 
 no less. He could have wished the word unsaid. He was 
 jealous of he knew not whom of every one who saw her, 
 he supposed. 
 
 "Mrs. Constaple is at home on Sundays," she said. 
 "She'll be very glad to see you. Will you come next 
 Sunday?" 
 
 He was ashamed of himself in a moment, and relieved 
 unspeakably also. What, then, did he want? Let him be 
 reasonable ! 
 
 "Next Sunday," he said; and she repeated "Next Sun- 
 day," as she held out her hand. 
 
 They separated. He watched her till he lost her in the 
 crowd. An impression that he carried away was that she 
 hurried a little as if to make up for lost time, and that she 
 wanted the crowd to engulf her. 
 
 Happy and unhappy, unhappy and happy: just as 
 before. Happy to have seen her; unhappy for something 
 that the sight of her did to him. Was it always to be 
 so? 
 
 He crossed Knightsbridge and turned into the park at 
 Albert Gate. He made, not for the Row, where, young as 
 the season was, people were walking and sitting watching 
 the riders, but, instead, for the paths skirting the Serpen- 
 tine. He wanted to collect himself, steady his nerves, give 
 his pulses time to get back to their normal beat. His tem- 
 ples were throbbing. 
 
 A few people were walking beside the water. An elderly 
 woman of battered appearance was making her toilet on 
 one of the seats. She had taken off her bonnet and was
 
 278 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 combing her wisps of grey hair, singing to herself in a thin, 
 cracked voice as she did so. Children with nurses in at- 
 tendance were sailing their boats, and children without 
 were wetting their feet. There was the sound of the barking 
 of many dogs. 
 
 Christopher, walking rapidly, saw and heard without 
 consciousness of seeing or hearing. He passed the space 
 marked off for the morning and evening bathers, and threw 
 a thought without knowing that he did so to those intrepid 
 ones for whom the ice was broken in the winter. One of a 
 group of little boys standing round a glass jam-pot, in which 
 little fish were swimming, or already floating, asked him 
 the time, only to be met with an uncomprehending stare. 
 He had gone on half a dozen yards when he realised that 
 some one had spoken to him. 
 
 "Yes?" he said. 
 
 "Please will you tell me the right time." 
 
 "Oh. I don't know it," he said, speaking like one who 
 has been roused out of sleep and is even yet half asleep. 
 But he did know it, or had only to look at his watch to 
 know it. He drew his watch from his pocket almost as he 
 spoke. 
 
 "Said 'e did n't know, and 'im with a gold watch and 
 chain! Wool-gatherin'. Know what 'e is? 'E's a wool- 
 gatherer." 
 
 Inwardly he was widely awake. He was living again 
 through the incident of the recent meeting, thinking of 
 what had been said and what had not been said ; marvelling, 
 now, that he had found it possible to say so much. What- 
 ever the outcome of the chance encounter if itwas chance, 
 if chance could be supposed to have anything to do with 
 a thing which seemed as if it must have been ordained since 
 the beginning of time! their knowledge of each other 
 had that day made notable strides. Neither had been re- 
 ticent. Admission had been made for admission. Impos- 
 sible that she should not have perceived what lay behind
 
 CHRISTOPHER 279 
 
 his questions. His heart leapt. That she should have re- 
 membered ! Nay, that she should have guessed at his un- 
 spoken "Is it you?" and even have supposed herself in 
 some sort to be making answer to it to whatever it was 
 that he was asking her! Here was the marvel of all, here 
 the real miracle. Here also was proof, surely, if proof were 
 needed, that in his wildest dreaming he had never been 
 astray for a moment. He would know his own when he 
 should find it, and in turn be known of it. That had been the 
 sense and the substance of all his dreams ; and it was true. 
 He was justified now of his dreaming. 
 
 He had passed under the bridge and had paused at the 
 more secluded end of the lake, where the barking of dogs 
 and the voices of the children reached him but faintly. 
 It was here that he came to himself. The first thing that 
 he perceived was that the sun, shining on the water before 
 him, had turned it from ornamental water in a London 
 park into a thing of enchantment. The second, that the 
 smell of spring was in the air, sweetening it, softening it, 
 giving it intoxicating properties for the senses of the lover. 
 The third, that leaves were unfolding, buds opening, birds 
 singing their spring song from every tree and shrub. 
 Christopher, always able to see lovers, in a moment saw 
 lovers. Saw them, as at Greenwich, under the trees, when 
 he turned from the water and made for the broad avenues 
 towards Kensington Palace; saw them walk close on the 
 paths, or wander side by side upon the grass. Once more 
 as on each indeed of the times that he had seen her the 
 white girl had done something to his eyes. He had never, 
 he thought, seen the Broad Walk look quite as it looked 
 to-day ; nor the shadows, the wide stretches of green, the 
 blue veiled distances. No wonder that on so golden a day 
 the glades should be peopled with lovers. Again he thought 
 of Watteau, Lancret, Fragonard, the painters of lovers and 
 settings for lovers. 
 
 But he wished that he had not seen the looks thrown 
 upon her by passers-by, and that he could rid himself of the
 
 280 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 impression that, hurrying, as he believed she had hurried, 
 to make up for lost time, she had welcomed the crowd, 
 which, like a cloud, had received her out of his sight 
 had wished it so to receive and to hide her.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Now began the fever in earnest. Christopher, unable to 
 work and unable to play, strained towards Sunday as 
 flowers in a dark place towards the light. He had not much 
 hope that the day would bring him any real satisfaction. 
 Mrs. Constaple's rooms would be full, he supposed, and any 
 opportunity for talk with her guest such intimate talk 
 at least as he desired would have to be snatched from 
 circumstances which could not, in the nature of things, 
 be expected to offer them freely. But on Sunday he would 
 see her, be in the same room with her, hear her voice. How 
 to bridge over the gulf from then to Sunday! 
 
 He paced the uneven floors of his rooms, while his 
 manuscript paper lay untouched upon his table, and his 
 ink-bottle was silent because there was no one to hear 
 still small voices. The wings had dropped from his pen. 
 Pens, ink, paper they were all now the poor things that 
 his grandmother at Herrickswood thought them! They 
 did not matter any more. Nothing mattered but the con- 
 suming need that possessed him. 
 
 Yet there were times when he took what he was neg- 
 lecting into his confidence, as there were times when he 
 took the very walls into his confidence, too, the deep 
 window sills, the old mouldings, the fire-back even, the 
 friendly hearth. 
 
 "Wait," he might have been saying to his deserted 
 writing table; "wait. I shall come back to you. I shall 
 come back to you with more use for you, for all this. I 've 
 failed you. It's I who am failing you, not you me, I know 
 that; but I shall come back to you." 
 
 Yes, his eyes falling on his poor book, his first-born and 
 still-born, it was he who had failed them. He had come
 
 282 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 by them too easily ; had not been ready for them ; had done 
 and was doing them grave injustice. But (again) let them 
 wait and they would see ; would see what this neglect of them 
 would have done for them ; what she the disturber of his 
 peace of mind would be found to have done for them. 
 One of these days. One of these fine days ... 
 
 Not in words, of course, any of this: just Christopher, 
 a long, broad-shouldered figure in a tweed suit, his hands in 
 his pockets and his throat rather bare, looking at things on 
 a table at which he ought to have been sitting. 
 
 To the walls and the mouldings and the deep window 
 sills the words he did not say were quite different. He 
 asked them how he was to bear it. (This, while he was 
 still "happy.") How was he to bear her beauty, and what 
 her beauty did to him? 
 
 "You," to the walls and the mouldings, "you, old 
 as you are, never saw any one like her. Oh, you 've seen 
 in your day. I know that. But you have n't seen her." 
 
 He would wake in the night to stretch out his arms to 
 her. " Cora, come to me. Come to me now." And he would 
 sit up in the darkness to listen for an answer. " Cora, can't 
 you hear me? Can't you? I should hear you if you called. 
 If you called me from the other side of the world, I should 
 hear you. Try me. Call me. Say my name. Say it ever so 
 low. I shall hear it." 
 
 But he did not hear it. He heard instead the stealthy 
 movements, or the frank scamperings of mice behind the 
 wainscot ; their gnawings ; their occasional squeakings. There 
 was a "singing" mouse amongst them, which sometimes 
 would be there, sometimes not. He had often heard it in 
 his rooms, or in other parts of the house; under floors, be- 
 hind woodwork or plaster. As a good sleeper, asleep 
 from the moment, almost literally, that his head touched 
 the pillow to that when he was called in the morning, 
 he had seldom heard its chirpings and twitterings in the 
 night itself; but, in the nights that divided him from the 
 first day of the next week, he grew familiar with the
 
 CHRISTOPHER 283 
 
 curious little sound, and would listen for it. It took 
 its place, together with noises from the street and the 
 river, the booming of Big Ben at intervals, and the 
 striking of other clocks near and far, in the patchwork 
 of night-sounds which were the accompaniment to his 
 silent callings. 
 
 Or he would get up, and, slipping on a coat or a dressing- 
 gown, go into the next room to one of the windows and 
 look out and breathe deeply. He would kneel on the 
 wide sill and rest his arms on the frame of the window, 
 the upper half of which was open, and rest his chin on his 
 wrists, and so stay motionless. Or he would open the lower 
 half, and, drawing his feet under him, coil himself up on 
 the sill, and deliver himself so to the soothing influences 
 of the night and the airs of the night. 
 
 He could see the river. Sometimes a barge would go by 
 even in the darkness a moving patch of blackness with 
 a light; or river police would be abroad upon some errand. 
 Unexpected lights would shake out their long ribands in the 
 water. The ribands from permanent lights were steadier 
 tongues licking deeply into the shining obscurity. If 
 dawn had come when he looked out, he would see the 
 gulls . . . 
 
 It was a Monday when he had met Cora St. Jemison 
 in Sloane Street. He had six nights and five days to get 
 through before the day came which should give him sight 
 of her and speech with her again. He might, of course, see 
 her before that. What more likely, now that he knew her 
 to be in London? He did, indeed, catch a glimpse of her, 
 one afternoon, driving with her hostess, and that day 
 Thursday was the red-letter day of those that made 
 up the rest of that week. The carriage passed him in 
 Bond Street; just at the corner of Bruton Street. Her face 
 was turned from him and towards Mrs. Constaple, who 
 was talking. His heart stood still for a moment. But she 
 did not see him. It was a pain, and a relief to him also,
 
 284 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 that she did not see him. He stood still, like his heart, and 
 looked after the carriage. 
 
 But this was the only time that he saw her, and, for 
 something that he could not have explained, he rather 
 avoided than frequented the parts of the town in which he 
 might have expected to come across her. Such chance 
 glimpses of her took too much out of him? He could hardly 
 say that, since he held that particular Thursday (and the 
 corner of Bruton Street!) hallowed. Discounted the plea- 
 sure of Sunday to which he was looking so ardently? Some- 
 thing of that sort. Sunday had been appointed. To Sun- 
 day then. 
 
 Presently things would change. The posts now were 
 beginning to bring him the invitations which at that time 
 of year fell to him, as to most of the other young men of 
 decent birth and respectable appearance, from as it 
 seemed the skies. His grandmother, long as it was now 
 since she had gone out or entertained in London, had never 
 lost touch with her friends. To her, in the first instance, 
 it may be guessed, was the presence of his name on the 
 lists of ball-givers ascribable. He welcomed now each 
 card as he took it from its envelope. At some of the houses 
 to which he was bidden, for functions which mostly pro- 
 claimed themselves Small or Very Small, he must meet a 
 girl whom Mrs. Constaple was taking out. There was 
 Easter to come before the season actually began, but that 
 was' less than a fortnight off now, and in a very short time 
 the gaieties would be in full swing. Then he might hope 
 to encounter her often. Then he might take to haunting 
 the spots where it was to be expected that she would be 
 found: the Park in its hours; Ranelagh and Hurlingham 
 in theirs; the opera, the ballrooms. Meanwhile to Sun- 
 day. . . . 
 
 Saturday night came. By that time sleep had returned 
 to his eyes. He slept through the whole of it. Came Sun- 
 fiay morning; came Sunday afternoon; came the moment
 
 CHRISTOPHER 285 
 
 when in the wake of the butler he crossed the stone hall, 
 ascended the wide, gentle stairs, and was shown into Mrs. 
 Constaple's drawing-room. 
 
 Mrs. Constaple, rising from her place near a tea-table, 
 and gathering up an armful of little dogs from her lap, 
 welcomed him cheerfully. 
 
 "Very glad to see you," she said, and pulled at her hus- 
 band's sleeve, just as she had pulled at it on the occasion 
 of the dinner-party. " Mr. Herrick, my dear. You remem- 
 ber Mr. Herrick. We were talking of your grandmother 
 at lunch. So sad about poor Stephen. You were with her. 
 Well, afterwards, anyway. A great comfort to her, I know. 
 Sit down by me here and let me give you some tea." 
 
 The rooms seemed to be full of people, men for the 
 most part, the usual Sunday roomful of visitors. Cora 
 St. Jemison was not amongst them, Christopher thought 
 for a moment. But, the next, he had seen her, and had 
 seen that she saw him. She was at the far side of the 
 room. She was sitting exactly where she had sat when he 
 had been hurried across to her to be introduced to her and 
 take her down to dinner. 
 
 Mr. Constaple talked of Mrs. Herrick, and said almost 
 precisely what he had said before, or repeated what had 
 been said to him. Christopher waited for "Engages her 
 own keepers, they tell me," and it came; with "Marvel- 
 lous!" to follow. 
 
 "She must be let me see But we won't go into 
 that." 
 
 He said this too. 
 
 Christopher listened to all with as much attention as he 
 could contrive. He was acutely conscious of the group at 
 the other side of the room. He was not wishing to join it, 
 but hoping that presently it might disperse. He knew, 
 without seeing, that Miss St. Jemison, having seen him, 
 did not look again in his direction. He waited now for his 
 hostess to speak of her, and she did. 
 
 "Told me she had met you," she said, when the name he
 
 286 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 was waiting for came round at length. "My own girl 
 married last year, you know, Geraldine, you remember 
 Geraldine ? " 
 
 Christopher had not heard that her daughter was mar- 
 ried. That, then, was how she came to be taking out some 
 one else's. He remembered Geraldine, whom he was to 
 have taken in to dinner. 
 
 Mrs. Constaple patted her dogs. 
 
 "Rather dears," she said, "ain't they? I meant to 
 have given myself a rest this year, but, after all, perhaps 
 it's just as well that I can't. No, this one has the best 
 head," we may suppose Christopher to have been say- 
 ing all the right things, "and look at his sweet little 
 nose. Did you ever see anything so appealing? What 
 was I telling you? Oh, to be sure. Now I shall have to 
 go to things, and I daresay if I had n't, I should only have 
 got lazy; stuck at home, you know, and worn tea-gowns 
 and lost my figure. Yes, my angels, you shall have your 
 biscuits." 
 
 It was the dogs after that for five minutes. 
 
 "Besides," she said then, as if there had been no inter- 
 ruption, "I was sorry for her." 
 
 Christopher winced. 
 
 ''And besides, that's enough, preciouses; not any 
 more, if I'm not greatly mistaken she 's going to do me 
 credit and be rather a success. You 've no idea how much 
 she seems to be admired." 
 
 Christopher, arresting a glance in her direction, feared 
 that he had. 
 
 But the moment came. Mrs. Constaple, having de- 
 cided that the dogs had had enough biscuits, must needs 
 straightway present one more to the angel with the best 
 head and the sweet little nose. The other two angels, per- 
 haps, were jealous? Be this as it may, in an instant three 
 little angels were at each other's sweet little throats, and 
 hell ("to scale") was let loose on the hearthrug. When the 
 tumult, the shrillest if the smallest imaginable, was over,
 
 CHRISTOPHER 287 
 
 and the commotion, which was wholly disproportionate, 
 had subsided, and three laps for one held the three little 
 fighters, the distribution of the people in the room was 
 changed, as the groupings of colours are changed at the 
 turning of a kaleidoscope. Christopher was then to be 
 found sitting by Cora St. Jemison, whose lap held one of 
 the little animals, upon a distant sofa. He had manoeuvred 
 for this, of course, but, with a glow for the pain at his heart, 
 he knew that, if she had not helped him, she must at least 
 have acquiesced in his endeavour. 
 
 " I want to go back to what we were talking of on Mon- 
 day," he said. 
 
 He was extraordinarily happy as he sat down beside her. 
 All that he had thought of and dreamed of seemed as if it 
 must be coming true. She did not answer him at once. 
 
 " I never want to go back," she said, then. " I want to go 
 on." 
 
 "Oh, I want to go on," Christopher said. "That's why 
 I want to go back that we may go straight on from 
 where we were then." 
 
 "Where were we then?" 
 
 "At Victoria Station." 
 
 She was wearing a black dress, which emphasised the 
 exquisite fairness of her skin. Her hands, the beautiful 
 hands which he had noticed before, lay in her lap beside 
 the little dog. 
 
 "Well? "she said gently. 
 
 " I 'm I 'm waiting for leave to go on." 
 
 They were almost isolated where they were. A grand 
 piano, cumbered with ornaments, drapery, photographs, 
 flowers, the piano of a thousand unmusical drawing- 
 rooms, divided them from the others. The backs of the 
 frames which held the photographs were towards them. 
 He knew exactly what the photographs themselves would 
 be: two or three signed likenesses of minor royalties; a 
 celebrity or so; a singer, perhaps, who had sung at Mrs. 
 Constaple's concerts ; Geraldine in her drawing-room dress ;
 
 288 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 her mother in hers; an "enlargement" on porcelain in 
 colour probably Mr. Constaple's mother. 
 
 Under what he was saying, under what he was thinking, 
 Christopher, grateful for the screen which these things 
 afforded him, was conscious of feeling that, none the less, 
 they should all have been cleared away. In imagination 
 he saw the piano standing free. 
 
 And all the time he saw the lovely quiet hands on the 
 black dress, and felt the smart which their loveliness 
 caused him. He wanted to hide his face in them. 
 
 "You don't say anything," he said at last. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I do," she said quickly. "But I don't know 
 quite what to say what you expect me or want me to 
 say. I think I have said a good deal. I did the other day. 
 If I have n't told you to say what is in your mind, I have n't 
 told you not to. Perhaps it would be better if I did tell 
 you not to." 
 
 "No," he said; "don't do that." 
 
 "Then of course I want to know. I shouldn't be a 
 woman if I did n't want to know, for instance, what you 
 meant the other day when you said, "That's just what was 
 happening.' Do you remember saying that? How could 
 you recognise me if you had never seen me before?" 
 
 " I think I have been looking for you most of my life." 
 
 "But you told me you had n't seen me till that day!" 
 
 "Looking for some one, then." 
 
 She shook her head in token that she did not understand. 
 How should she? He did not understand, himself. But 
 he knew that what he was telling her was true. 
 
 "But me?" she asked. 
 
 "You if it turned out to be you." 
 
 She looked at him contemplatively. He was leaning for- 
 ward, his hands clasped round one knee, his eyes on her 
 face. He had himself well in control. 
 
 " No. I 'm quite sure I don't understand," she said then. 
 " But I want to," she added, a moment later. " I 'm trying 
 to. I even think I could."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 289 
 
 " I'm sure you could," said Christopher. " Understand- 
 ing comes into it. I 've been looking for some one whom, 
 well, whom I should know when I met whom I 
 should recognise as the person I was looking for." 
 
 It must have sounded all rather involved an argu- 
 ment indeed in a circle. He did not even make grammar 
 of it. 
 
 "That was to be the sign your knowing?" 
 
 He did not answer her in words. He looked at her 
 steadily. 
 
 "And you thought you recognised this person in me?" 
 
 "I did recognise this person in you." 
 
 He said that so low that she hardly heard it, but she 
 did hear it. Neither said anything then for a moment or 
 two. Christopher did not shift his position. She did not 
 even move her hands. He wondered what she would think 
 if she knew how the sight of them affected him. 
 
 "Before I met you I was looking for you, and since 
 I've done nothing else. Where were you going that day 
 when I saw you starting for somewhere from Victoria?" 
 
 "Marienbad, probably. We generally go there at that 
 time of year. No. I remember. We went to Wiesbaden 
 that summer." 
 
 "I went there!" said Christopher. 
 
 So they talked. Outside were the Constaples and their 
 visitors. A door was opened, and newcomers were an- 
 nounced and came in. But they settled down. Some one 
 got up to go. But even he went. No one had come over 
 yet to disturb the two sheltered by the photographs and 
 the piano. Such luck could not last. Presently some one 
 would get up who would want to bid Miss St. Jemison 
 good-bye. Or some one who wanted to talk to her would 
 intrude himself upon them. So far she herself had shown 
 no inclination to move. 
 
 "Then you did know about Wiesbaden?" 
 
 "No. That's just it. I went to heaps of places. I did
 
 290 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 n't know where to begin. Think." He smiled gravely. 
 "The whole of Europe was before me to choose from 
 the whole world, for that matter. But there were likely 
 places. Homburg seemed one of them. Wiesbaden another. 
 I tried Trouville too." 
 
 "Do you really mean," she said, "that you really went 
 about?" 
 
 Christopher thought of the long-suffering Harringay as 
 he nodded. 
 
 But now came the interruption. Mrs. Constaple was 
 seen bearing down on them. She wanted her third little 
 angel to show to Lady Somebody, in tow, who had little 
 angels of her own; and Christopher (in parenthesis) was 
 introduced to Lady Somebody, who remembered (also in 
 parenthesis) that she had known his father and mother in 
 India, and for five minutes all was dogs and India. By the 
 time Christopher, who was given the angel with the second- 
 best head to hold, had disentangled himself, some one else 
 had taken his place on the sofa. 
 
 He waited for a minute or two on the chance of getting 
 back to it, but in vain. What he had looked forward to so 
 fervently all the week was over. 
 
 He went to say good-bye to Mrs. Constaple. 
 
 One solace was vouchsafed him. 
 
 "You must dine with us one night and do a play. Tues- 
 day?" 
 
 Her husband reminded her that she was dining out on 
 Tuesday. 
 
 "Wednesday, then. No, not Wednesday. Perhaps it 
 would be better to write. Yes, I '11 write to you. Have I 
 your address? Cloisters Street, Westminster, number 
 three. I '11 put it down." 
 
 Would she remember it? He could hardly count on her 
 memory, he told himself. Well, he would take the precau- 
 tion of leaving a card in the hall as he went out. But he 
 wished he could have seen her write down his address then 
 and there.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 291 
 
 "Good-bye, and always on Sundays, and very often 
 about tea-time any other day. Remember me to your 
 grandmother if you should be writing to her." 
 
 "And me" (cordialest Constaples!). " Greatest admira- 
 tion for your grandmother. Always had. Not many of 
 her school left." 
 
 Christopher went over to say good-bye to Miss St. 
 Jemison. She rose and came towards him a little, leaving 
 the usurper of his place on the sofa. 
 
 " I suppose I Ve said odd things to you to-day," he said 
 as he put out his hand. "I want to thank you for let- 
 ting me say them." 
 
 He did not know what to do with his evening. The sing- 
 ing mouse sang in the small hours that night, and he heard 
 it, with the telling of the hours themselves by Big Ben. '"
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 USELESS to try to work. He went back to his walking. 
 Chelsea always called to him when he was restless. And 
 he went to Chelsea three times. He would make for the 
 Embankment and pace it from end to end. Chelsea held 
 the river. Westminster held it too, but Chelsea more inti- 
 mately. He would lean upon the wall and look . . . 
 
 When the tide was low, as it was upon two of these occa- 
 sions, and the stony foreshore above the mud was to be 
 seen, with tiny waves breaking on it, he would succeed in 
 feeling he was near the sea. A boy or two, paddling, lifting 
 the larger stones even, as if little crabs might be found 
 under them, once helped the illusion. He wanted the sea. 
 
 Or he would stand and look at the old church and its 
 monuments, and, for some easily traceable association of 
 ideas connecting tombs with urns, weeping-willows, and a 
 picture worked in silk, think of Charlotte and Werther. 
 
 For the second time in his life he felt lonely; had the 
 sense of giving and of always having to give always 
 being doomed to give more than he received or would 
 ever receive. Yet he had plenty of friends, if it was com- 
 panionship that he needed; and if love, loving even as he 
 did never, that is, knowing what it was to be wholly 
 out of love at any period it is doubtful whether (in bulk 
 at any rate, if one may speak so of love !) he was not offered 
 or given more than he gave. Hearts that he never dreamed 
 of were sore for Christopher. 
 
 He saw the days slip by: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, 
 watching the posts. Each time that he came in he scanned 
 the letters that lay on the hall table, for a letter, or looked 
 to see Mrs. Rommage with a telegram in an anxious hand.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 293 
 
 His mother wanted him to go home for Easter, and Easter 
 was creeping upon him. Here was Wednesday, the middle 
 of the week, and he had not let her know whether or not 
 to expect him; Thursday; hope died within him. His ad- 
 dress, it was plain, was forgotten, or the tentative invita- 
 tion, if not he himself, and so all three. He packed his bag 
 and went down to Datchet. 
 
 Fatima, a tall girl now with soft romantic eyes and a thick 
 orderly pig-tail, met him at the station in the governess 
 cart, and with the fat pony which even her timid mother 
 could drive. She, therefore, as having the first opportunity, 
 was the first to see that something preoccupied or disturbed 
 him. Time was when she would have flung "Your White 
 Girl, I suppose" in his teeth, and waited snorting to get 
 to grips with him. Now, her outlook changing, she wanted 
 to be the Understanding Sister, the Consoler, the Unselfish 
 Confidant. " Tell me your troubles," was what she wanted 
 to say ; "pour your sorrows into my ear. / shall understand. 
 / shall sympathise. Don't be afraid. Tell me everything." 
 What she did say was, "I suppose Datchet looks very 
 small after London," with, "Still, the peacefulness of the 
 country might be a great help to one, I should think, if 
 one felt one wanted help," just to show him that she was 
 there, so to speak, if he should be disposed to open his 
 heart to her. 
 
 There was something about him: gloom, absence of 
 mind, nerves on edge. The ordinary cheerfulness of the 
 holiday-maker who comes home, of the welcomed arrival 
 even, seemed an effort to keep up. 
 
 Anne saw it next, and saw it at once. As she kissed him 
 and received his kiss she knew that his heart or his thoughts 
 were roving. His stepfather saw nothing, and said, "Non- 
 sense," later, to his wife's half-spoken question. Trimmer, 
 by Saturday, had observed to her mistress that Master 
 Christopher, or Mr. Christopher, as of course she should 
 say, did not seem quite Himself.
 
 C94 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 It was Christopher's mother then who said," Nonsense." 
 
 Well, Good Friday except, as Fatima said, for the 
 Buns is not a cheerful day. It might have been that. 
 
 The only clue was the "No more posts, I suppose," 
 which escaped him after breakfast that morning, and did 
 not, needless to say, escape his mother. 
 
 It was a letter, then. But she continued to observe him. 
 
 His appetite was poor. He played with his food rather 
 than ate it. He might have been a High Churchman fast- 
 ing. 
 
 Anne, despite her theory, could n't see that in absolute 
 silence. 
 
 "I thought you liked mutton cutlets." 
 
 This at luncheon, after seeing him eat nothing to speak 
 of at dinner the night before, and nothing to speak of at 
 breakfast. 
 
 "So I do." 
 
 ' ' Then, my dear boy And you ate no salt fish either." 
 
 Christopher said that she would not wish to see him grow 
 fat. Even Ancebel had seen the error of fatness. 
 
 "Salt fish would n't make you grow fat. Cutlets would n't 
 make you grow fat." 
 
 She made a sign that the cutlets should be handed to 
 him again. But Christopher shook his head to them. 
 
 He behaved little better at dinner, though he was care- 
 ful to make a pretence of helping himself to most of the 
 dishes which were offered to him. He had "food to eat 
 that they knew not of." Anne was dimly conscious of some 
 such conviction at one period of his boyhood. It was bitter 
 food then, and certainly it could not be nourishing. 
 
 So passed Good Friday and Saturday. With Sunday 
 came a change. If it was a letter that he wanted, Easter 
 Sunday's post must have brought it. He came down 
 looking radiant. 
 
 He had got his letter. Before he had opened it, one of 
 three which, in Mrs. Rommage's anxious scrawl, had been
 
 CHRISTOPHER 295 
 
 redirected to him from Cloisters Street, he knew that he 
 had got it at last. But more, far more than this. For (and 
 it is here that we have Christopher!) in the handwriting 
 in which, under his landlady's wavering erasures, it had 
 in the first instance been addressed, he had recognised, 
 if you please, the handwriting of one whose handwriting 
 he had never yet seen. That he had not seen what he re- 
 cognised mattered nothing, we may be sure, to Christopher, 
 who was particularly good at such recognisings ! The 
 "Christopher Herrick" which stood, and the "3 Cloisters 
 Street" which had been crossed out, were written, he de- 
 cided, could have been written! by no one but Cora 
 St. Jemison. He broke the seal confidently, and was not 
 mistaken. 
 
 He was bidden to dinner the following Wednesday. 
 Mrs. Constaple, Cora wrote, had mislaid his address. She, 
 Cora, had just found it in the little dogs' basket, chewed 
 but decipherable, and wrote, for her hostess, to explain, 
 and to hope that Wednesday would find him free. 
 
 So once more he had something to live for a day 
 towards which to press, and all was well. It was as if he had 
 been given the freedom of the house. The invitation was 
 not so much an invitation to dinner on a particular night 
 as an authority, without which he felt he could not have 
 gone there again. Without it, one invitation acting and 
 reacting upon another, the "Come agains" and "Come 
 soons" of the Constaples' farewell to him would, he felt, 
 have availed him nothing. He could not have risked the 
 appearance of wishing to remind them of something which 
 had been forgotten. Well, neither it nor he had been for- 
 gotten at all ! The scatter-brained lady unless it was 
 his card which her little dogs had chewed must even have 
 committed his address to paper. Blessings upon her; 
 blessings for cursings. And, in the end as at the beginning, 
 it was by the hand of Cora St. Jemison that this good 
 knowledge all came to him. 
 
 So, on many counts upon that Easter morning he went
 
 296 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 his way rejoicing, a letter in a pocket over his heart. All 
 through church, to which he went with the rest of his 
 family, he was conscious of its presence there. He pressed 
 it to him when he knelt, and during the sermon folded his 
 arms in such a way that he could feel it with his hand. 
 I 
 
 For the rest of his stay he was seen to be in his usual 
 health and spirits. He rode with his stepfather or Ance- 
 bel, walked or drove with his mother, found time to sit 
 sometimes in the work-room with Trimmer (making her 
 sewing smell, as she said, of smoke!), and was happy. 
 
 But Anne, confirmed in her conjectures, was vaguely 
 troubled. A sentence once spoken by Mrs. Herrick rang 
 persistently in her ears: "He'll be falling in love one of 
 these days, and then he'll have you by the " Well, 
 what the sentence rang in! Anne was not sure that "the 
 throat" would not have finished the dreadful prophecy 
 more aptly.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 HE went back to London, then, leaving his mother reas- 
 sured on the score of his health, but just a little bit uncom- 
 fortable, and just a little bit hurt too. Why she should 
 have felt hurt she would not have found it easy to say. The 
 time had come long since when, in common with every 
 mother, she had had to realise that she did not, and could 
 not, know the whole of the life of her son. He had had a 
 separate existence since the day he had thoughts to put 
 into words. It was his stepfather who had helped her, 
 somehow, to understand him. But she wished he could 
 have told her, as she was left to guess, that some one had 
 come, or seemed likely to come, into his life that she 
 could have heard from his lips no more than she had seen 
 with her eyes: no more, that is, than that if he was happy 
 he had been unhappy ; and he might have trusted her not 
 even to ask why. For her vague sense of anxiety un- 
 comfortableness she had no particular reason to give 
 herself. 
 
 Christopher left in the morning. She saw him off at the 
 station. And then, for discipline as much as exercise, 
 partly even to combat the feelings described, she walked 
 in to Windsor, where there was always some shopping to 
 be done. As she crossed the iron bridge midway, she too 
 looked at the river for solace. The water that she looked 
 at would in time flow through London, towards which 
 Christopher also at that moment was travelling. It would 
 flow through Westminster even, within sight of some of 
 the windows of Cloisters Street. 
 
 At the thought she leaned towards it. 
 
 Who is she, Christopher, who is going to take you from 
 me? Ah, you think she won't take you from me, but she
 
 298 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 will. I know her, whoever she is, and what is in her heart. 
 She'll love you, I don't doubt. Set your mind at rest about 
 that. But you '11 never be to her what you 've been to me. 
 How could you be, when you 're part of me, flesh of my 
 flesh? Your father gave you to me. Don't think I 've for- 
 gotten him. There is n't a day even now that I forget . . . 
 
 The thought trailed away. She came back to it upon 
 another. 
 
 But don't think from this that I don't love John Hem- 
 ming. You gave me John Hemming, do you know that? 
 They both understand. Your father does if he knows, 
 and he does know, I 'm sure; and John knows oh, John 
 knows, my dear good John. Your father gave me a male 
 child into my arms . . . 
 
 The pause on the bridge took meaning. She leant closer 
 to the iron, closer to the water. So may the Blessed Dam- 
 ozel have leaned upon the gold bar of Heaven. 
 
 And you love her, Christopher, whoever she may be. 
 You love her more than all of us. For her sake you'll 
 leave us all gladly. The great mystery, Christopher: "For 
 this cause shall a man leave his father and mother" . . . 
 
 Not in words was Anne's heart outpouring itself cer- 
 tainly not in these. Her spirit, like Christopher's to the 
 walls of his room, unburdened itself silently. A woman 
 stands on a bridge and looks down into the flowing stream. 
 
 Tell me. Tell me yourself. Don't let me hear it from 
 others. Tell me what you can. Tell me when you can. 
 Only tell me. 
 
 Silence, more silence. The thoughts come at intervals 
 like the sentences spoken from the Table at the Sacrament 
 of the Lord's Supper. 
 
 A cart was to be seen along the road, and a little farther 
 on, an old man afoot. Both were coming in her direction. 
 She became conscious of their approach. In another mo- 
 ment she must move.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 299 
 
 Oh, Christopher, my son, my first-born ..." 
 
 But that, if it, too, was unvoiced, was a cry; and tears 
 gathered in Anne's eyes. 
 
 The cart was quite near now. She took out her hand- 
 kerchief and dried her eyes. She turned quickly to the 
 river and addressed it once more. She was sending her 
 message : 
 
 "Tell him," she said, this time forming words with her 
 lips, and even speaking them under her breath, "tell 
 him that from my heart I wish him the wish of his heart. 
 If it's good for him, though it shall pierce mine, I wish 
 him the wish of his heart." 
 
 The impulse was satisfied. She continued her way. 
 To the cart and the old man, when they passed her, she 
 was just a lady walking to Windsor, and stopping on the 
 bridge, as she crossed it, to look at the view. 
 
 Christopher, shown into Mrs. Constaple's drawing-room 
 that evening, found it empty. He had been asked for seven, 
 as seats had been taken for a play, and had hoped by good 
 fortune to find himself the first to arrive. He had an idea 
 that Mr. Constaple would not be of the party, that 
 Mrs. Constaple could not fail to be late, and that the 
 odds were against the punctuality of any one else who 
 might be expected. In these circumstances it might 
 happen that he would have a word with Miss St. Jemison 
 alone. 
 
 Things fell out as he hoped. The door had hardly closed 
 behind the servant when it was opened again, and Cora 
 St. Jemison came in. 
 
 Even now he could not meet her without a tremor. She 
 came towards him in her white dress. 
 
 Thus beautifully did the evening begin. After sundown 
 the spring days grew chilly, and a fire was burning cheer- 
 fully in the grate. They shook hands and went towards
 
 300 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 the hearth, where they stood presently, each with an arm 
 against the mantelpiece. 
 
 She had been with her father for Easter, she told him 
 at Brighton. And he, what had he been doing with him- 
 self? He began to tell her. 
 
 As he spoke of his mother, he tried to see the two to- 
 gether, and found suddenly that he could not. One or other 
 receded in his attempt. This was strange, for he could al- 
 ways call up the image of his mother in his mind's eye 
 always! Now, looking at Cora, he could not. He looked 
 away and could see her visualise her at once; looked 
 back and she was gone. Or, looking away, he could visualise 
 the. girl in her white dress, see her to minutest detail, and 
 then (blotting out her image, however!) see his mother. 
 The two together he could not see. 
 
 Something came over the moment to cloud it. 
 
 She must have seen, for he saw her looking at him ques- 
 tioningly. 
 
 He shook his head as if she had put her question into 
 words. 
 
 "You looked as if you saw ghosts." 
 
 At the sound of her voice the cloud, if it was a cloud, dis- 
 persed. Cora St. Jemison had that in her speaking voice 
 which always made people ask if she sang. Christopher, 
 hearing it, remembered that he had wanted to ask her 
 this the first time he heard her speak, and he wanted to 
 ask it now. 
 
 " I don't see ghosts. I 'm not the kind. I I was think- 
 ing that when you were there you prevented one's seeing 
 any one." 
 
 He may have known that he could say these things with- 
 out impertinence. 
 
 "But if there was no one else to see?" she said, smiling. 
 "You were seeing ghosts, you see." 
 
 "Perhaps I was trying to," said Christopher. 
 
 She appeared to think this over for a moment, but in the 
 end dismissed it.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 301 
 
 "You were telling me what you were doing," she re- 
 minded him presently. 
 
 There was so little to tell. If he had told her what he 
 had really been doing he must have said, "Marking time. 
 Kicking my heels. Waiting for this moment." 
 
 Without many words he gave a sufficiently recognisable 
 impression of the quiet life in the Buckinghamshire village. 
 He thought her eyes softened at the picture which he cer- 
 tainly did not draw, but which she may have made for 
 herself. The house always affected him, and he may have 
 conveyed something to her of its mellow charm. 
 
 "I like the deep window sills," she said. 
 
 "I've window sills in my rooms here in London." 
 
 So they left Datchet and came up to Westminster. 
 
 "How did you manage to find them?" 
 
 He told her of Mr. Jellicoe's Mrs. Rommage. 
 
 "I'd been looking, though." 
 
 "For window sills?" 
 
 "For window sills and other things. I knew the sort 
 of rooms that I wanted. But I wasn't sure that they 
 existed." 
 
 "You knew them when you saw them?" 
 
 "Yes. One knows the outside of them in Hogarth's 
 pictures the inside, too. Oh, and in Rowlandson's, 
 later. In Cruikshank's, even. The sort of windows that 
 a jug is emptied out of on to somebody's head." 
 
 "You fling up the window sash," she said, and he saw 
 with delight that she was with him. 
 
 "And there's a beadle somewhere below, and a woman 
 with a basket of fish " 
 
 She caught the idea at once, threw it back to him. They 
 played with it like children with a ball. 
 
 "And the fish are plaice and have faces like people." 
 
 "And everything's going on at the same time. People 
 going to church, and to the Beggar's Opera ..." 
 
 "And Shows Fat Women ..." 
 
 "Some one being shaved in the street . . ."
 
 302 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "A dog stealing a bone . . ." 
 
 "A platform giving way; crashing down . . ." 
 
 "People playing cards underneath." 
 
 They paused breathless. 
 
 "I know your rooms," she said, smiling. 
 
 "That's the outside of them." 
 
 "The inside is lawyers bringing somebody something 
 to sign . . ." 
 
 "Or bailiffs taking possession ..." 
 
 "No, they are too comfortable and orderly for that 
 all except your writing-table. There 's a fine frenzy there. 
 I do know your rooms, Mr. Herrick." 
 
 "Oh," Christopher was saying inwardly, "it is You. 
 I knew it was You. I knew." 
 
 Cora herself at that moment may not have been sure 
 but that he was right. Her eyes were shining, anyway. 
 She looked even a little excited. However this may be, she 
 was thinking probably that she had accounted for his 
 " recognisings." He had "recognised" her, as he might 
 be said to have recognized his rooms when he saw them. 
 It must have been plain to her that he made pictures of 
 everything. 
 
 Mrs. Constaple's entrance now broke in upon them. 
 But Christopher felt that the fates had been generous, and 
 that, for the time being, they had given as much as he could 
 reasonably have expected or hoped. He turned cheerfully 
 to his hostess.'who came in trailing a scarf, and putting on 
 the gloves which, in another minute or two, she would have 
 to take off. 
 
 " I can only hope you'll all forgive me," she began, and 
 etopped as she saw that the room held only the pair by the 
 fire. She gave Christopher her hand and welcomed him. 
 " But the others? Really it 's too bad of Reggie. There's no 
 excuse for him. There's less still for me, I know. But I am 
 here and he is n't." She turned to Cora. "And Geraldine 
 and Charlie. Really! I said seven punctually, and it's a
 
 CHRISTOPHER 303 
 
 quarter past, and we shall have to go without our coffee, 
 which she knows I hate doing. Really! Really! Really!" 
 
 Christopher, ardent playgoer as he was, cared little if 
 they should be late for the play that night. 
 
 "My husband asked me to make his excuses did 
 Miss St. Jemison tell you? a political dinner. Don't 
 let me forget the tickets, Cora. They're on the mantel- 
 piece there." She looked at the clock. "Really! Really!" 
 
 Cora stood still, smiling; and Mrs. Constaple, after once 
 more sighing "Really! Really!" calmed down and came 
 to anchor beside her. Then the door opened once more 
 and the delinquents were announced in a bunch. 
 
 Geraldine, kissing her mother, said it was Charlie; and 
 Charlie, on the other side, said it was Geraldine. " Reggie " 
 the Mr. Heccadon, Christopher saw, of the memorable 
 dinner-party said it was the Ridiculous Hour. 
 
 "Well, don't blame me if the fish is a cinder and we miss 
 the first act. These two good patient people " she looked 
 at Cora and Christopher "have saved you your scold- 
 ings." 
 
 Christopher waited for her "Now, let me see," and it 
 came; but he was watching two people shake hands. 
 "Charlie, will you take no, that won't do. Yes, will 
 you take Miss St. Jemison. Reggie and I separate, I re- 
 member, to keep you and Geraldine apart. Mr. Herrick, 
 will you take my daughter. Come, Reggie . . ." 
 
 They made their way to the dining-room. It had been 
 too much to hope, Christopher supposed, that he should 
 find himself next Miss St. Jemison. 
 
 He sat between "Geraldine" (whose surname he now 
 discovered from the slip of paper in front of her plate was 
 Harringay!) and his hostess. Miss St. Jemison, on the 
 other side of the table, had Mr. Heccadon at right angles 
 to her on her right, and her hostess's son-in-law, Mr. Har- 
 ringay, on her left. 
 
 For Christopher the rest of the evening was a failure.
 
 304 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 His happiness, it seemed, had reached high-water mark in 
 the good quarter of an hour, which ordinarily is the bad 
 quarter of an hour, before dinner. He talked to Mrs. 
 Harringay and learned that his Harringay the Harrin- 
 gay of the wanderings and of Chateau So-and-So memory 
 
 was a distant cousin of Charlie's over there. He talked 
 to his hostess of he knew not what, and joined in the con- 
 versation when it was general. But all the time, though he 
 managed to keep his eyes from her, he was conscious of 
 no one but Cora or, more accurately (since of one other 
 at the table he was acutely conscious), of no one but in 
 relation to her. Geraldine's husband, he perceived, was 
 still too lately married, and too much in love with his wife, 
 to have eyes for any one else. The two, indeed, exchanged 
 glances of affection and mutual understanding all through 
 dinner. But the man whom Mrs. Constaple addressed and 
 spoke of as "Reggie," and whom Christopher, for some 
 reason or other, had not forgotten, kept the one girl of the 
 party engaged in a conversation which Christopher, itch- 
 ing to hear, tried vainly not to listen to. Something in his 
 manner displeased Christopher. An assumption of proprie- 
 torship? Too much to say that. Something of the sort, 
 however. If so, it was the distant cousin of his friend 
 Harringay who should have resented it, for he and not 
 Mr. Heccadon nor Christopher either, for that matter! 
 
 had taken her down to dinner. Harringay's distant 
 cousin talked contentedly to his mother-in-law, and looked 
 at his wife. 
 
 Cora St. Jemison's voice reached Christopher from time 
 to time, and her soft laugh. She seemed interested and 
 amused. He could not help knowing this. What had he, 
 then, to object to? 
 
 But he did object; he did inwardly, and presently 
 albeit still inwardly furiously object to something to 
 which Cora St. Jemison herself, it was apparent, did not. 
 He could not define what it was that he so strenuously 
 resented. It was upon her account rather than his own
 
 CHRISTOPHER 305 
 
 that he resented it whatever it might be. The feelings 
 aroused in him were akin to those which he had experienced 
 when he saw the looks which were turned upon her in the 
 street. It was as if these looks were incarnate in the man 
 at the end of the table, who leant so perpetually towards 
 her as he spoke. Need he have so leant towards her . . . ? 
 
 And Cora did not mind. She could smile into his face 
 and drop her voice when he dropped his. He had good 
 looks of a kind. He was justified, Christopher saw, in 
 being clean-shaven, and had strong-looking white teeth. 
 Christopher wondered now how he could ever have thought 
 him negligible. 
 
 Mrs. Harringay was speaking. 
 
 She was the sort of person who is always surprised to find 
 the world small, and, for the second time, as if she narrated 
 some marvellous occurrence, she was saying, 
 
 "So it was you that Charlie's cousin went abroad with." 
 
 Yes, Christopher repeated; it was he. As well talk of 
 one thing as another. 
 
 "I was doing my in-law visits when I met him. Quite 
 one of the nicest of my new relations. He must have men- 
 tioned your name, but I never thought of connecting it 
 with you. Of course I 'd only met you once, but I 'd often 
 heard of you. Did n't he tell me he'd been abroad with 
 you before? Oh, yes. It was you who rushed him round 
 Germany or somewhere, and would n't let him stay any- 
 where. He wanted to stay at Homburg." 
 
 "Who would n't let who stay at Homburg?" 
 
 It was the husband chipping in from the other side of 
 the table. 
 
 "Mr. Herrick your Cousin Philip." 
 
 "That's years ago," said Christopher. 
 
 "He remembers it still. You took him to place after 
 place and would n't let him stay in any of them." 
 
 Cora St. Jemison looked over at him. Was it possible 
 that she was not so unconscious of him as she seemed? 
 For a moment the weight lifted ; but her neighbour, who
 
 306 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 had paused in what he was saying to follow her eyes with 
 his own across the table, and had decided apparently that 
 there was nothing there to detain him, turned back to her 
 at once, and again absorbed her attention. Mrs. Con- 
 staple's excellent dinner was as ashes in the mouth of one 
 of her guests. 
 
 After dinner all was haste. The men had hardly lighted 
 their cigarettes before the carriages were at the door, and 
 the butler came in to announce them. Mrs. Constaple was 
 heard on the stairs at the same moment. 
 
 Harringay, cousin of Harringay, the decanters round 
 him, said that there was no hurry and that they would 
 finish their wine, or their cigarettes, or their coffee, as the 
 case might be, and, in the same breath, that perhaps they 
 had better be moving. The contents of a glass or a cup 
 were gulped down, and a move was made for hats and coats. 
 
 Mrs. Constaple stood at the foot of the stairs drinking 
 her coffee. She had forgotten the tickets, and a footman 
 was despatched for them. Geraldine came down putting 
 her cloak about her. Then Cora. 
 
 The Harringays had their own carriage, a coup6, and 
 were sent off in it, and may be thought of as holding hands 
 in it from Grosvenor Street to the Strand. Mr. Heccadon, 
 it seemed, had a private hansom, the conveyance just 
 then of the male idle rich, and, for Christopher, there 
 was a hideous moment in which his suggestion that he 
 should take Miss St. Jemison was allowed to be played 
 with more or less seriously. 
 
 "Do as you like," Mrs. Constaple said. " In these chang- 
 ing times I learnt this long ago from Geraldine I 'm 
 not competent to give an opinion." 
 
 Mr. Heccadon grinned, waiting. 
 
 "Still, if you ask me, my dear " 
 
 Cora may have seen Christopher's face. She shook her 
 head with a soft laugh and followed her hostess. 
 
 "Then we must be content to put up with each other," 
 said Mr. Heccadon, turning to Christopher with a smile.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 307 
 
 It was only one more ill which the horrible evening was 
 doing him. Gall and wormwood to Christopher to accept 
 anything from this man, but he had no excuse for refusing; 
 so with as good a grace as was possible in the circumstances 
 he took the offered seat. It soothed him in some sort to 
 think that the invitation, which might have been worded 
 more happily, could scarcely have been worded more 
 aptly. 
 
 "At least, we can smoke," Mr. Heccadon said, holding 
 out his cigarette-case; and Christopher had at any rate 
 the opportunity of politely refusing something. 
 
 "Worst of women, they fuss so. Why not have let us 
 finish our dinner comfortably and be late? Have n't I met 
 you before there?" 
 
 Christopher, wondering whether he remembered, said 
 that he had dined with Mrs. Constaple once before. 
 
 If there was any reserve in his tone Mr. Heccadon did 
 not appear to observe it. He smoked in ruminative silence 
 for a minute or two and then chuckled. 
 
 "That was funny, was n't it?" 
 
 "What was?" 
 
 "Oh, about the lift, you know. Coming with me, I 
 mean. Not coming, you know." 
 
 Christopher's muscles were all taut. He was as far into 
 his corner as it was possible for a person of his size to get. 
 
 "Ever seen her mother?" 
 
 He took Christopher's inarticulate answer for No. 
 
 "There was a woman, if you like is still, if you make 
 some insignificant allowances for Anno Domini ! I 'm forty. 
 I remember her well, what shall we say? well, quite 
 a good many years back, anyway. She was fair. Women 
 used to have golden hair, as it was called, in the seventies. 
 That's gone out, of course, now, and last time I saw her 
 that was a couple of years ago, in Paris hers was the 
 usual red-brown. You know the autumn colour. Most 
 appropriate, really. But, by Jove ! there was nothing else 
 of autumn about her. Nothing of the sere and yellow leaf
 
 3 o8 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 about her or the sere and yellow tooth, either, which is 
 generally what that amounts to. She has a figure like a 
 girl's and a mouth like a child's. Yes, by Jove, she was 
 and she is a pretty woman." 
 
 Christopher, his nerves ajar, prayed that this summing-up 
 might close the subject. Yet under his jarred nerves, under 
 the discomfort which the mention of Cora St. Jemison's 
 mother must inevitably cause him, he was conscious of 
 feeling a sort of romantic interest in what he was being 
 told. Even now, sometimes, he could remember her clearly 
 as she had looked when she knelt beside him in the dust of 
 the Champs de Foire at Boulogne. Chords of memory 
 had been touched at the allusion to her hair. The "pity 
 of unpitied human things" stirred in him. He remembered 
 her shining hair the golden ("as it was called") hair of 
 the chignoned seventies, and again felt that he hated the 
 man beside him. Something in the way that he spoke of 
 her seemed an in,sult even to one who had forfeited the 
 right to respect. 
 
 "Eh?" he said. 
 
 "I did n't say anything," said Christopher. 
 
 They were crossing Piccadilly Circus. The lights of 
 it, which, as Lights of London, generally gave Chris- 
 topher pleasure, struck him as hard and pitiless. For 
 radiance he saw only a glare which showed him ugly 
 things. He thought of his rooms and wished he was in 
 them. He had little hope now that the evening, which 
 had begun so happily, had anything but disappointment 
 in store for him. 
 
 One more shock he had when, in Trafalgar Square, Hec- 
 cadon said suddenly out of another of his ruminative 
 silences: "Quite another type. Quite different. One sees 
 these changings throws-back, or whatever you call them." 
 
 This time it was Christopher who said "Eh?" or 
 "What?" 
 
 "The daughter, you know. Quite different in appear- 
 ance. All women are the same inside, one knows that, but
 
 CHRISTOPHER 309 
 
 the outward unlikeness here is remarkable. She's got 
 something, too, that her mother never had, for all her 
 beauty. Something that Frenchwomen have oftener 
 than English. Have you noticed? A subtlety! A mys- 
 tery! But I can't give a name to it. Perhaps you can 
 help me." 
 
 No, Christopher had not noticed, could not help him. 
 He had difficulty in controlling the voice which said this. 
 The strain of keeping silence was nearly intolerable 
 seemed suddenly wholly intolerable. He must get out. He 
 could not sit still and hear any more. He must get out, 
 or he could not answer for what he might do. He wanted 
 to take the man by the throat, or strike him across the 
 mouth. How dare he take Miss St. Jemison's name on his 
 lips? How dare he savour her, as it were, on his tongue; 
 compare, gauge, appraise her? How dare he invite Chris- 
 topher to discuss her with him? 
 
 Almost involuntarily he raised one hand towards the trap, 
 knocking his hat against the cushion at the back as he did 
 so ; he saw the other on the door in front of him rather than 
 was conscious of placing it there. 
 
 At Christopher's movement Mr. Heccadon, who seemed 
 perfectly unaware of his offence, looked at him enquiringly. 
 
 "Anything the matter?" he said. 
 
 It gave Christopher time to recollect himself. A com- 
 mon row? Was that what he had been on the point of 
 precipitating? A vulgar quarrel? Two men start out to- 
 gether from a dinner-party for a theatre, and arrive sepa- 
 rately at the place where the others await them! Not to 
 be thought of. He brought the half-raised hand to his hat, 
 as if it had been some jolt, and not his own impulsive act, 
 which had jerked that out of place, and, as the hansom 
 swung round into the Strand, affected to steady himself 
 with the other. He was wise enough to let his action an- 
 swer for itself. 
 
 "Your man drives fast," he said. "We shan't be so very 
 late."
 
 3io CHRISTOPHER 
 
 They were bound for the Gaiety. They got there with- 
 out further incident. 
 
 This time, Christopher believed that he might have sat 
 next to Cora. He stood back and let Heccadon take the 
 vacant seat beside her. The horrible evening would drag 
 itself out to its end.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 SINCE the worst that was said of him afterwards. was that 
 he talked to you and thought of something else at the same 
 time (it was Geraldine who said this), it may be supposed 
 that he acquitted himself fairly well. He smoked a cigar- 
 ette with Harringay's distant cousin between the acts, and 
 talked of the play and of Harringay. He kept out of the 
 way of Mr. Heccadon, and of Miss St. Jemison. He put 
 Mrs. Constaple's cloak about her shoulders when all was 
 over, and picked up her fan for her, and her handkerchief, 
 and the case of her opera-glasses. He it was who went 
 out to find her footman for her, and to watch for his reap- 
 pearance with the carriage, though, the Harringays having 
 had the good luck to chance at once on their bridal coup, 
 that left Mr. Heccadon the freer to talk to Miss St. Jemi- 
 son. From the steps Christopher saw him so talking to her. 
 He was spared and he spared himself nothing. 
 
 The relief came, and the unbearable pain with it, when 
 he found himself alone. 
 
 He crossed the Strand and went down to the Embank- 
 ment. Again came relief as he left the noise and the tur- 
 moil behind him; and again, as if the cessation of them 
 gave it fuller scope, the unbearable pain. 
 
 What was this pain? What had he done to deserve it? 
 No pain that he had ever endured was like this. His heart 
 was aching as if it had been beaten. He stood still for a 
 moment or two, breathing hard. 
 
 Poor Christopher, who saw what was not there, heard the 
 unbearable, and now suffered what was not to be suffered ! 
 He had some dim inkling of how things were with him, 
 but took no comfort from such vague perception. He only 
 knew that, whereas he had been happy, he was at that
 
 3 i2 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 moment as unhappy a being as would be found in all 
 London. 
 
 It was jealousy, was it, this pain? Not wholly. Honestly, 
 not wholly. The Cora who had met him, laughed with him, 
 seen eye to eye with him, in the few minutes that she had 
 been alone with him before dinner, had receded to inacces- 
 sible distances in the hours that followed. Something which 
 had been established between them then had crumbled 
 under his eyes. She seemed two people. The Cora who had 
 said that she knew his rooms was a different being from 
 the Cora who had laughed into the eyes of her neighbour 
 at dinner, and who had dallied with his suggestion that she 
 should drive with him to the theatre. Even now Christo- 
 pher felt sick, as with a sort of retrospective apprehension, 
 at the thought of the potentialities of that drive. Could 
 she not see what this man was? Could she not read what 
 women were to him? What he thought of women? That 
 she could like him was unthinkable ; and he could see that 
 she did like him. 
 
 He went over to the other side of the road and looked 
 stupidly at the water. 
 
 "What shall I do? "he said to himself. "What am I to do?" 
 
 He became conscious of some one beside him who begged 
 from him, and he gave an impatient answer, not knowing 
 what he said. The beggar, a girl, shuffled away into the 
 darkness. A moment later he called to her. 
 
 " I 'm unhappy, too," he said to her as he gave her a coin. 
 
 "Un'appy you?" 
 
 He looked at her gravely. 
 
 "No, sir, don't laugh at me." 
 
 She had a husky voice ; a pretty little shabby face. She 
 was like a bruised flower. 
 
 "I'm not laughing at you." 
 
 She peered at him from under her dingy hat, uncertain 
 what to make of him. 
 
 "Well, I was 'appy meself once on'y I did n't know 
 I was. It's my belief we never do know."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 313 
 
 She gave a little husky laugh. She looked at the coin in 
 her palm, and saw that it was not the penny she had 
 thought it. She closed her fist upon it quickly. 
 
 "Whatch un'appy for?" 
 
 He was not going to tell her that. 
 
 The girl took a long look at him. Something that was 
 wistful, and in an odd sort of way motherly, too, came into 
 her little pinched face of the gutter. 
 
 "Look 'ere. She don't mean it," she said in her strange 
 little washed-out voice. "Not if she's any good, she don't 
 mean it. She don't know when she's well off, that's all. 
 Got you, and don't know if she wants you ; is that it? Got 
 the kind sort oh, my Gawd! and don't know what 
 that means. 'Ere." She pushed her hat back and showed 
 a scar on her forehead. "See that? And 'ere." She pulled 
 up the thin sleeve and shewed another on the thin arm. 
 "That's the other sort. I know what I'm talkin' about. 
 I Ve 'ad to know." 
 
 Christopher in turn was looking at her ; he had looked at 
 her before; really looking at her this time. 
 
 "Are you a witch?" he said. 
 
 "Witch!" She was a-spike in a moment: "who are y* 
 callin' names? Witch! 'Ow old d' y' think I am?" 
 
 ' ' Twenty- three ? ' ' 
 
 "Well, that's just what I am," she said, mollified. 
 "'Least, I'm twenty-four. What d' y' mean, witch?" 
 
 He did not explain. 
 
 She looked at the scar on her arm again and went back 
 to what had been in her mind. 
 
 "Tell her. Make her know. Make her know without 
 'avin' to know for 'erself. We're fools, girls are, all of us 
 yes, rich as well as poor. Don't know what we want, 
 any of us. Made like that, I believe. Can't 'elp ourselves. 
 So don't believe it, sir. She don't mean it. If she's any good, 
 she don't mean it." Her eyes swept over him again as they 
 had swept over him when she spoke the words before, and 
 the same look came into them. " If she does mean it.
 
 3 i4 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 don't be angry, sir, you take it from me she's no good. 
 And if she's no good, you take this from me, too, sir, 
 you go away. You clear. You" she gave a common 
 little gesture "you clear" 
 
 She moved off then with a quick shuffle, and paused. She 
 came back, holding out her palm. 
 
 "Did you know what you was givin' me?" she said 
 shamefacedly. 
 
 He had not known. Ashamed of his impatience he had 
 taken from his pocket the first coin that came to his hand. 
 He smiled without speaking. 
 
 She nodded her thanks. 
 
 "It's a bed for a week," she said; and put it to her 
 mouth but not to bite it. 
 
 He was better after that. The pain came back and came 
 back, rising always like a wave and sweeping over him, 
 engulfing him ; but it was not the unbearable pain of those 
 first few moments, and each time that it ebbed, it left him a 
 little less in reach of its fiercest onslaught. As he walked 
 homewards under the stars the peaceful influences of the 
 night began to soothe him. He could think more calmly 
 of the evening which had left him so wounded and angry 
 and sore. 
 
 Poor little drab who had comforted him! When the 
 reckoning came, who knew that this that she had done 
 would be forgotten to her? Poor little helpless thing who 
 had helped him . . . 
 
 Looking back, he felt in his need that he could even have 
 ''told" her. No suffering, he learnt in that moment, goes 
 or can go for nothing. Out of suffering grows what is best 
 in the weakest of us. 
 
 He peered into the darkness to see if she might have 
 followed him. He retraced his steps almost to where she 
 had appeared to him. But she was nowhere to be seen. He 
 had not let her know what she had done for him; had not 
 even thanked her.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 315 
 
 Big Ben was striking twelve as he turned into Cloisters 
 Street. The thick, deep notes rang out slowly. He counted 
 them to the twelfth. The day to which he had looked for- 
 ward so earnestly was over. 
 
 Cloisters Street, his end of it anyway, was never quite 
 dark, for a street-lamp stood opposite to number three. 
 Christopher looked at the gentle old house, the beautiful 
 fanlight over the door, the flat white windows. Yes, in 
 terms of Hogarth and Rowlandson one aspect of it was to 
 be expressed accurately enough. There were the sashes you 
 flung up to empty your jug (or other vessel) on to the heads 
 of roysterers below. There, in the mellow brick walls, 
 was the dignified eighteenth-century background for the 
 undignified businesses and follies of the streets. But 
 though they might lend themselves to the broad humours 
 of a coarser age, these were old walls with critical faculties, 
 predilections, prejudices, sympathies. They had accepted 
 him because he loved them, and they had seemed to have 
 accepted Cora. It was difficult just then to think of Cora 
 as understanding them, if she could tolerate could 
 tolerate . . . 
 
 It was jealousy, then! 
 
 Yes, he was sick with jealousy; made unjust with jeal- 
 ousy; made even ridiculous by jealousy. 
 
 The pain was back with him again. A very tidal wave of 
 pain, this. It submerged him; left him half-drowned; 
 choking; fighting for breath. The little drab on the Em- 
 bankment could not succour him while the waters poured 
 over his head; Cloisters Street could not; nor the message 
 of the stars. 
 
 He took his key blindly from a pocket and let himself 
 into the house. 
 
 A fortnight went by. Christopher walked it. He did, 
 and attempted to do, no work. Some day, he supposed, 
 what was in him, what he felt to have in him, would be re-
 
 316 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 leased. But this was not yet. He was offered commissions 
 which he did not accept. He offended a person or two. 
 He was said to neglect opportunities. A rumour of this 
 reached his stepfather, who did not tell his mother. He 
 came to see him, however, and actually found him. 
 
 Christopher, unlike most young men with fathers or 
 stepfathers, was never shy with the husband of his mother. 
 It was strange how the two understood each other. 
 
 John Hemming, who could not have written a line to 
 save his life, seemed to know by instinct what went to the 
 writing of lines. 
 
 "Getting on, old boy?" 
 
 "Not a bit." 
 
 " That 's all right. Wait for it." 
 
 Christopher was waiting, but was not sure that he was 
 waiting for It. 
 
 "How's mother?" 
 
 "Waiting for you. When are you coming down to us 
 again?" 
 
 "Not yet, Father John." 
 
 John Hemming settled himself more comfortably in one 
 of Christopher's comfortable chairs. 
 
 "Come down and dine one night." 
 
 "No, John. Not just now." 
 
 "What is it, old boy?" 
 
 "It is n't anything. That's what's the matter with it. 
 It is n't anything." 
 
 "And you thought it was." 
 
 Christopher nodded. 
 
 "And you can't work." 
 
 "Or play." 
 
 "Everything else hangs on it." 
 
 "Everything." 
 
 John Hemming lay back in his chair. He watched the 
 smoke which twirled upwards, a twisting riband, from his 
 cigarette. 
 
 "Nothing that I can do for you?" he said at last.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 317 
 
 "Nothing that any one can." ' ! 
 
 He went to the window and looked out. 
 
 "There's nothing to do anything about," he said pre- 
 sently, without turning. 
 
 His stepfather contemplated his back the muscular 
 slimness, the way the head was set on the shoulders. Chris- 
 topher had none of the uglinesses of the brain-worker 
 of the artist even. Even in love, as he undoubtedly was, 
 he was still a healthy young animal. John Hemming's 
 thought was not unlike that of the poor little drab when 
 she said, "Got you, and don't know if she wants you!" 
 He, too, at the thought, could have called Heaven to wit- 
 ness. 
 
 Christopher upon his part was thinking that his step- 
 father was a good sort. Who else would not have been ask- 
 ing him questions, or if not asking him questions, pointing 
 out that he was not asking or going to ask him questions? 
 He was only behaving as he always behaved, and that was 
 splendidly. 
 
 There was a long pause. 
 
 "Mind, I don't know yet," Christopher said suddenly 
 out of the silence. 
 
 It was as if the thing struck him as he gave it voice. 
 
 He did not know that he had cause for what he was feel- 
 ing. It might conceivably be, that, with the injustice 
 which he could believe himself to be doing to the man he 
 disliked, he was doing Cora an injustice also. At least 
 she was unheard. 
 
 John Hemming did not stay long. He had his train to 
 catch. He did not say a word to Christopher about what 
 it was that had sent him. He always held that Christopher, 
 whatever he did or did not do, would ultimately be all 
 right. Then what had he come for? No. Though he had 
 known that probably no more would be said than had been 
 said, he was not in any doubt as to why he had come; nor 
 was he dissatisfied with the result of his visit. He remem- 
 bered things which he had certainly not said to Christo-
 
 3 i8 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 pher's mother, and which none the less certainly had been 
 conveyed to her. He remembered things, to make which 
 clear to him she had not needed words. His marriage to her 
 had largely been the outcome of such charged silences. 
 He did not need Christopher's "You are a good sort, John, 
 upon my soul you are," to tell him that he had helped 
 him. There are moments, he knew this, when some one 
 a friend, that is has only to be "there." 
 
 He had risen and he put out his hand. 
 
 "No, if you'll wait a second while I change my coat, 
 I'll come with you to Waterloo." 
 
 Christopher dived into the next room. When he came 
 back, pulling down his sleeves and settling his collar, John 
 Hemming was standing in a patch of sunlight near one of 
 the walls, running his finger along the lines of the panelling. 
 
 'What is it about them?" 
 
 'The walls?" 
 
 'Yes." 
 
 'The Datchet house has it too." 
 
 ' I know. But I feel it even more here. It is n't only 
 the panelling, though it's that partly. A Dickensy feel- 
 ing. Sentiment. Friendliness. Rooms like these must 
 help you, Christopher. They do, don't they?" 
 
 "All the time," said Christopher. 
 
 Yes, it was wonderful what John Hemming knew. So 
 much more than you could possibly have expected from 
 any one so thoroughly normal and sane. The thought 
 that hung on this, if he had realised it, was one of won- 
 der that any one should ever have let him go! His mother 
 had wondered to amazement; wondered more and more 
 in the passing of the years. Trimmer even, humbly, 
 as knowing her place, had wondered too. 
 
 They crossed Westminster Bridge and threaded their 
 way through the noisier traffic of the south side of 
 the river to the station. At the entrance Christopher
 
 CHRISTOPHER 319 
 
 said, "Shall I come down with you now and dine to- 
 night?" 
 
 "Why not?" said his stepfather. 
 
 Anne never knew what she owed the pleasure of that 
 surprise visit to. 
 
 John looked into the school-room (which had been the 
 nursery), where she was sitting with Ancebel and her gov- 
 erness, doing work for an impending bazaar. 
 
 "Brought a man back to dinner," he said. 
 
 Anne hoped there was enough fish. 
 
 " Your precious Christopher," said John Hemming, with 
 a wink at Fatima. 
 
 Well, he had n't, it seemed, come to break anything to 
 her which was Anne's first dreadful thought. All through 
 dinner, which was a very cheerful meal, she was afraid that 
 afterwards she would be told something which her husband 
 probably knew already. But the evening, like the dinner, 
 passed cheerfully and without event. 
 
 "What did he come down for?" she asked her husband 
 afterwards. 
 
 "Nothing. He just came down." 
 
 "You went to see him." 
 
 "I was at the Stbres. I just went to see him." 
 
 "All the same," she said, "he's not really himself. He 
 was n't at Easter, and he is n't now." 
 
 "Oh, yes, he is," said John Hemming. 
 
 The evening was quite a happy one to Christopher. John, 
 somehow, like the friendly rooms, had helped him. He 
 went to bed in a happier frame of mind than he had known 
 for days, and slept excellently. For the dull weight to 
 which he awoke every morning he was conscious of a feeling 
 of pleasant anticipation. Amongst his letters was a letter. 
 He grew dizzy for a moment at the sight of it, and then 
 opened it with trembling fingers. It was very short.
 
 320 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "Why don't you come and see us?" wrote Cora St. 
 Jemison. "We know you are busy" (did they?), "but think 
 you might spare time to see if we are still alive. Sundays 
 always, as you know, but this week we shall be in on Thurs- 
 day also." 
 
 "Might n't it be better that I should not?" Christopher 
 wrote after long thought. 
 
 "Come," wrote Cora, "and tell me why."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IT was now that Christopher began to be conscious of an 
 acceleration in the movement of his affairs. A certain 
 breathlessness pervaded them. Things seemed suddenly 
 to be moving towards something. It was as if, for the very 
 reason that they had stood still or appeared to stand still 
 for so long, they now moved the faster. 
 
 There were two days, when he got Cora's second letter, 
 between him and the day which she had named in her first. 
 For the wish that he had to see the sea he spent one of them 
 at Hastings, and filled his lungs with pleasant salt airs. 
 Nothing happened there. He lunched upon sandwiches 
 and fruit on the beach, and looked at the waves, and 
 breathed deeply. The tide was coming in. Little odd memo- 
 ries of other incomings of the tide stirred in him, that 
 was all. Things seen, and things only heard of or read about, 
 were indistinguishable in the vague stirring of these. But 
 as he looked he became conscious again of such stored im- 
 pressions, and of the resultant teemings of his active mind 
 of the press, too, of something waiting to be released. 
 He had not just then, as his deserted writing-table in 
 Cloisters Street could bear witness, an idea worth com- 
 mitting to paper. But everything that he had ever seen or 
 felt, with uncountable branchings and ramifications and 
 offshoots, seemed imprisoned in him and to clamour to be 
 let free. The sight and the smell of the sea intensified the 
 feeling. It would be a hand which was not his that would 
 do the releasing, and the releasing would take place soon. 
 
 Something, meanwhile, of calm had settled down upon 
 him since John Hemming's visit and the evening that he 
 had spent at home. The two together, renewing his hope, 
 seemed as if they, in some way, must have brought about
 
 322 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 the coming even of the letter which was to bring him into 
 touch once more with the house from which he had been 
 keeping away. In reality, of course, all they had done was, 
 by distracting his attention from his distemper, to enable 
 him once more to look ahead, and so forget his misgivings. 
 
 The day by the sea the day with the sea, one might 
 almost say, for the sea was his friend still further soothed 
 him. The sun was hot enough to allow him to lie on the 
 beach. He surrendered himself to the pleasant influences 
 of the peaceful afternoon. Presently he went into the town 
 and had tea, and after tea he came back. The day drew 
 to its close. He dined in the town and again he came back. 
 He saw night fall and the stars come out. He watched the 
 mysteries of the night deepen as clouds came up from the 
 south. There was no moon. There were lights in the dis- 
 tance which seemed to breathe in the darkness. The stars 
 themselves seemed to breathe . . . 
 
 He stayed till the last moment, and then, refreshed and 
 renewed, came back to London. 
 
 Mrs. Constaple was out, he was told the next day, when 
 he presented himself in Grosvenor Street; but Miss St. 
 Jemison was at home. Christopher was shown, not into 
 the great drawing-room, but into a smaller, more intimate 
 room on the ground floor. 
 
 Here he found Cora surrounded by three or four people 
 whom, if he was to see her alone, he foresaw that he would 
 have to outstay. 
 
 She it was, this time, who rose from beside the tea-table 
 to receive him. 
 
 "My little party to-day," she said. "Mrs. Constaple 
 was to have come to it, but she had to go out. Do you 
 know Mrs. Heccadon? Mr. Herrick. And Miss Pen- 
 treath?" He knew Miss Pentreath and shook hands with 
 her. "Mr. Pargitur, Mr. Herrick. M. de Parencourt." 
 
 They settled down. Christopher thought he was going 
 to hate it. But he did not hate it. Mrs. Heccadon, some
 
 CHRISTOPHER 323 
 
 connection, he supposed, of the Mr. Heccadon whom he 
 had met at dinner, was of a type, it is true, which, just then 
 establishing itself, did not appeal to him. There was a 
 challenge somehow in her odd clothes and odd appear- 
 ance, and Christopher thought to himself how sure he was 
 that he did n't admire her till the moment when she 
 went to the piano. She was transformed then from a jaded 
 rag of a woman into a thing of ardent beauty. 
 
 The people who would be singing the Indian Love Lyrics 
 when their day should come along, or "Melisande in the 
 Wood," were singing the " Creole Love-Song" then for the 
 " Garden of Sleep "; and she sang the "Creole Love Song." 
 Her voice was small but extraordinarily sweet, with a cu- 
 rious little husky quality, too, which made Christopher 
 think of the little drab on the Embankment. Cora hung 
 over her after she had sung. In spirit they all hung over 
 her. 
 
 "Now the 'Lorelei.'" 
 
 She looked at Cora, whose hand was on her shoulder, 
 and smiled. She had a curious smile. 
 
 Sentiment ruled the hour, but that seemed exactly right. 
 
 They drew round with their cigarettes. 
 
 "Ich weiss nicht was soil es bedeuten 
 Das ich so traurig bin . . . 
 
 The sweet, husky voice was heart-breaking. 
 
 It seemed exactly right. 
 
 The room was exactly right, Christopher saw, not 
 overloaded like the big drawing-room upstairs. The 
 grand piano, standing clear as an island, occupied one side 
 of it, and with a writing-table and a bookcase constituted 
 all the heavier furniture. If, as he guessed, the room had 
 been Geraldine's and had now been apportioned to Cora, 
 he was sure that for the attainment of its present sim- 
 plicity, Cora must have done considerable discarding. 
 
 "Now the 'Asra.' May we? If you are n't tired? You 
 are n't, are you?"
 
 324 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "If you're not." 
 
 Miss Pentreath, who knew no German, asked for the 
 song in English. 
 
 Mr. Pargitur objected. The words were Heine's. It was 
 Rubinstein's setting, was n't it, of Heine's poem? 
 
 Mrs. Heccadon nodded. 
 
 "All the same" said Miss Pentreath. 
 
 "Yes, all the same " said Cora. 
 
 So Mrs. Heccadon sang the song in English, which may 
 have been quite wrong, but which, like Miss St. Jemison's 
 choice of her songs, and like the room itself, seemed exactly 
 right. 
 
 Again the sweet, husky voice took up its burden. 
 
 " Daily went the wondrous lovely 
 Sultan's daughter, at the cooling 
 Hour of evening, to the fountain, 
 Where the waters white were plashing. 
 
 "Daily, at the hour of evening, 
 Stood the young slave at the fountain 
 Where the waters white were plashing. 
 Daily grew he pale and paler. 
 
 "And one evening came the princess 
 And these sudden words addressed him: 
 'Thou must tell me what thy name is, 
 And thy country and thy kindred.' 
 
 "And the slave replied, 'My name is 
 Mahomet; I came from Yemen, 
 And my race is of the Asras 
 Who, whene'er they love, must perish.' " 
 
 Yes, as she sang it, it seemed exactly right even 
 though, as Mr. Pargitur, the purist, must needs point out, 
 the "wondrous lovely Sultan's daughter" should cer- 
 tainly have read "Sultan's wondrous lovely daughter." 
 And though, when they made her sing it again, she sang 
 it, as it should be sung, in the original German, it still 
 seemed to have been exactly right in English.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 325 
 
 Silence fell on the party for a few moments after that. 
 
 Then six young people Mrs. Heccadon, despite her 
 wasted air, was young, and the others were all younger 
 discussed the song and its words. 
 
 "It was dreadful, his dying," Miss Pentreath held. "She 
 ought to have saved him." 
 
 "You forget," said Mr. Pargitur. "She was a 'Lovely 
 Sultan's daughter,' and he was a slave." 
 
 "Nothing could have saved him." 
 
 It was Cora who said this. 
 
 "But eef she lofe 'eem " 
 
 Monsieur de Parencourt. 
 
 "She did love him." 
 
 Cora again, and they all looked at her. 
 
 "Of course she loved him. That was why she spoke to 
 him. That was why she asked him his name. Above all, 
 that was why she wanted to know well, just about him. 
 Everything about him: his country and his kindred. It's 
 all in that. Of course she loved him." 
 
 (Oh, it is You, Christopher thought to himself once 
 more inwardly aglow as he heard !) 
 
 "Then eef she lofe 'eem " 
 
 "Did n't she?" 
 
 She looked round for support, and paused at Christo- 
 pher. But Christopher was n't sure. 
 
 "He had to die, of course. It was the only way of telling 
 her that he loved her. But he did that gladly, I believe. 
 So it was n't really dreadful." 
 
 It was as easy, he was thinking, to see her as the prin- 
 cess, as to see himself as her slave. 
 
 And then Mrs. Heccadon gave another rendering of the 
 story altogether. 
 
 "No, she did n't care. She was a Sultan's daughter. 
 A Lovely Sultan's daughter, as Mr. Pargitur points out. 
 She liked being a Lovely Sultan's daughter, but more, 
 even, she liked being a Sultan's Lovely Daughter. She 
 Jived deliciously, like the bad women in the Bible. She was
 
 326 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 accustomed to being loved. She made people love her. If 
 they did n't, she looked at them, and then they did. She 
 looked at them from under her sleepy eyelids, which were 
 n't really sleepy. She did n't sleep. She was too busy 
 making men love her, to sleep." 
 
 "Oh, Margot!" 
 
 The protest came from Miss Pentreath. Cora made none. 
 
 "She was. It's truth I'm telling you. All men had to 
 love her. Even slaves. She wanted the love of every man 
 in the world. She had no use for it, only a need of it, and 
 she got it got it always." 
 
 Cora was listening intently. She was smiling now. 
 
 "And he? The slave?" 
 
 "She got his too. She only went to the fountain because 
 he stood there. She was the woman whom all men do 
 love." 
 
 "And did he die?" some one asked. 
 
 "He made the poem, and that lived." 
 
 It fell to Pargitur to point out what was obvious: that 
 the poem was made of him a very different thing ; and 
 to Miss Pentreath, who said she did not understand, to 
 say further, "Besides, I thought it was Heine who made 
 the poem." 
 
 Mrs. Heccadon was not to be trammelled by such acci- 
 dentals as logic and fact. 
 
 "Nobody ever did or was anything yet who had not 
 been mortally hurt. He was a slave and she turned him 
 into a poet, or a poem, whichever you like. Heine imagined 
 him because Heine knew. Every artist who has ever lived 
 knows every artist. His race is ' of the Asras, who when- 
 e'er they love must perish.'" 
 
 Christopher looked at her curiously. This was the merest 
 drawing-room talk. In a way she was making up what she 
 said as she went along. She had sometimes seemed under 
 the dominion of one idea or set of ideas, sometimes of 
 another. She was tilting at some one, but not all through 
 at the same person. He could have believed that she had
 
 CHRISTOPHER $27 
 
 two people in mind for the Sultan's daughter, only one 
 for the slave. Still, there was a thought, however she 
 might have entangled it, running through what she said, 
 and upon this, as if she perceived its presence and saw a 
 use for it, she had seized. All artistic achievement was 
 arrived at, and only arrived at, at the cost of suffering. 
 She might safely say that, and she said it. 
 
 " I do want to know if he died," said Miss Pentreath, 
 "the slave, I mean, not Heine." 
 
 "What does it matter?" Mrs. Heccadon said. "A man 
 does n't always die the day he's killed." 
 
 She rose from the piano as she spoke, and became once 
 more a rag of a woman of rather debased type. 
 
 "How did you like her?" Cora asked Christopher when 
 the others had gone. 
 
 He had outstayed them all. The two other men had 
 showed signs of a reluctance to go, or of a reluctance to 
 leave him behind them. But he had not moved. He had 
 meant from the first to outstay them, and he did. His 
 dread now was that the door would open and Mrs. Con- 
 staple would come in. The door had opened once, but it 
 was only to admit the footmen, who had cleared away the 
 tea. They also were gone, and Cora and he were alone. 
 
 He said the patent thing: that she was wonderful when 
 she sang. 
 
 "She's wonderful always," Cora said. "But you're 
 quite right. She's an angel when she sings." 
 
 Christopher in the precious moments did n't want to 
 talk of Mrs. Heccadon. Yet he felt constrained to talk 
 of her. The strange, beautiful, husky voice seemed still 
 to linger in the room. 
 
 "She said, 'A man doesn't always die the day he's 
 killed,'" he said. "What did she mean?" 
 
 "Shall I tell you? He's a beast, and she adores him. Any 
 one would. He 's that sort. But it took him a man like 
 him and a passion like hers to make her wonderful little
 
 328 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 singing what it is. For it is wonderful. She has n't a voice 
 to speak of, and she has no particular method, and she's 
 as hoarse as a raven, and her singing in its small way is 
 divine. He's done that for her. Hopelessness has done that 
 for her. It's killed her and made her articulate." 
 
 It was Mrs. Heccadon that Christopher was angry with 
 for the things in that little speech, which, in spite of him- 
 self, made him wince. She had no right, he was thinking, 
 to speak, as it was plain that she must have spoken, to a 
 girl. 
 
 Cora was looking at the piano, as if she could still see 
 Mrs. Heccadon's long slim hands on the keys. She gave 
 an odd little soft laugh. 
 
 " If it is that, he's almost justified, is n't he?" 
 
 "Why do you hurt me like this?" Christopher broke 
 out suddenly. 
 
 "Hurt you?" 
 
 She was genuinely surprised. There was no pretence 
 about the look of enquiry which she turned on him. 
 
 "Yes, hurt me. You did, the other night, and you're 
 hurting me now. No, you don't know why you're doing 
 it now in what way, I mean. I see that. But you knew, 
 the other night, and it did n't stop you." 
 
 "Was that why you kept away?" 
 
 "Of course it was why I kept away. Do you think it 
 was easy?" 
 
 "I don't know what I think," she said, with a little 
 hesitation, "except except that you're talking very 
 strangely." 
 
 Christopher felt penitent at once. 
 
 " I suppose I am. I suppose I have from the very first. 
 I suppose " 
 
 He broke off. 
 
 She looked to see why. 
 
 " That was n't Heccadon?" he said. "That was n't her 
 husband?" 
 
 "Of course that was Mr. Heccadon. Of course that W9B
 
 CHRISTOPHER 329 
 
 her husband. Why should n't Reggie Heccadon be her 
 husband?" 
 
 There was a long pause. 
 
 "More even than I knew," he was thinking. 
 
 The oddest string of Buts was in his mind. " But I did 
 n't know he was married," alternated with "But he dines 
 out without her." "But he made love to you" a diffi- 
 cult But, this, even to put into the thought which hardly 
 needs words. "But you let him"; a more difficult still. 
 "But Mrs. Constaple asks him without her?" and "But 
 she calls him Reggie as if she liked him," were in some sort 
 variants of one thought. "But you kissed her" summed 
 up all these Buts. "But you kissed her": all these Buts 
 put together! 
 
 The pause let her see something of what he was thinking. 
 She picked out the most obvious of his protests and dealt 
 with it. 
 
 "She won't dine out with him if she can help it. Most 
 people know that now." 
 
 That did not seem to make it any better did not even 
 sound to make it better. Cora may have felt this. 
 
 "They both dine here, but they dine on separate nights. 
 It's an understood thing. People who know fall in with 
 the arrangement; people who don't just blunder. They 
 have plenty of the same friends, and plenty of different 
 ones. They go their own ways." 
 
 "And when people dine with them?" 
 
 "Oh, well, I suppose they manage to discriminate at 
 their own parties. I don't know, for I 've never been. The 
 Constaples dine with them sometimes." 
 
 Christopher's expression may have asked what he did 
 not. 
 
 "Oh," she said, answering his thought. "I don't know. 
 Perhaps she does n't mind what she does n't see." 
 
 It came back to the last of his Buts. 
 
 "She sings beautifully," he said. 
 
 There was a pause after that. He thought of the pale
 
 330 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 dissatisfied face, and the curiously beautiful husky voice. 
 He believed that she did mind what she did n't see, that 
 she knew all that she chose to ignore. 
 
 "I think she sings more beautifully than any one I 
 know," Cora said in course of time. 
 
 The tones of her voice struck him again, and he re- 
 membered irrelevantly that he had not even yet learned 
 whether she herself sang. If she did, he thought that he 
 would expect her singing voice to be not unlike Mrs. Hec- 
 cadon's. The thought pointed the scantiness of his know- 
 ledge of her. How little he knew of her! She was so infi- 
 nitely much to him, and he knew her scarcely at all. 
 
 They had got away from what they were saying. 
 
 He went back to it with the words which had broken 
 from him before. 
 
 "Why do you hurt me? Why do you want to hurt me? " 
 
 "How do I hurt you? I don't want to." 
 
 "Then why do you?" 
 
 "I don't willingly. I thought you would have sat next 
 me at the theatre the other night. I made Charlie Harrin- 
 gay move. I meant that place for you. You would n't 
 take it." 
 
 "You would have driven with that man in his hansom." 
 It was out now. He could not recall it, and he let himself go. 
 
 "You talked to him the whole evening. No, not the 
 whole evening. That was what was cruel. Before dinner 
 you well, it was wonderful. I could hardly believe my 
 good fortune. Then think think of dinner ; think of after 
 dinner. I don't know what right I have to to talk to 
 you like this. None, I suppose, unless suffering gives one 
 a right. I was in pain, I tell you. I am now. I I am 
 now." 
 
 He turned away from her, and leaning upon the piano 
 he buried his face in his hands. 
 
 " Don't speak to me," he said. "Just for a minute, don't 
 speak to me." 
 
 She could hear him breathe hard. She could see his
 
 CHRISTOPHER 331 
 
 fingers pressing against his forehead and his hair. Neither 
 spoke for some seconds. 
 
 He had not meant thus to precipitate matters. He had 
 not come, indeed, with any formed plan. He had come 
 because she had asked him because, her invitation hav- 
 ing made it possible for him to go to the house again, he 
 could not have kept away. 
 
 She did not move or speak. She was standing, he knew, 
 by the hearth, just as she had stood a fortnight ago in the 
 drawing-room, her arm against the mantelpiece. Then 
 there had been a fire; now, the spring having come in 
 earnest, there was none. She was quite still. She had the 
 gift of stillness in a very unusual degree. 
 
 He took his hands from his face and brushed back his 
 hair. He came over to her and stood, too, by the mantel- 
 piece. 
 
 "So you see how it is with me," he said.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SHE would and she would not. She was Dear Lady Dis- 
 dain of the pantomime song of thereabouts who "would n't 
 say Yes "and who "would n't say No"; and Christopher, 
 happy and unhappy, unhappy and happy, was heard and 
 unanswered. 
 
 For him something enormous had happened some- 
 thing to which his whole life, with everything that it held, 
 had been leading. For her something had happened, too, 
 but or he fancied so had happened as accidents hap- 
 pen. For him this something was from within; for her 
 and here was his deadly fear! from without? But she 
 did not repulse him. 
 
 It was difficult afterwards to know exactly how she 
 avoided if she did avoid ! committing herself in words. 
 For she heard him out. He did not attempt to touch her 
 as he spoke. Perhaps he knew that at that moment he 
 could not have trusted himself even to take her hand. 
 They stood a yard and a half apart and looked down, or 
 looked at each other from time to time, and sometimes for 
 moments together they looked into each other's eyes. 
 She never tried to evade his look. He could have believed 
 that, if she did not understand, she was trying to. She 
 had the virginal look at such times that was part of her 
 extraordinary charm. He could have thrown himself at 
 her feet as he saw it, and clasped her about the knees, 
 hiding his face in her skirt. 
 
 "You knew I loved you," he said. 
 
 "I thought you were going to." 
 
 "I've loved you ever since the day I saw you at the 
 station. Before that, I think, myself. Since that, all the 
 time. Something must have reached you from me. That
 
 CHRISTOPHER 333 
 
 day, the day I first saw you, were n't you conscious of 
 something?" 
 
 "I've told you that I was." 
 
 "But later. In the night." 
 
 She shook her head and even as -she did so arrested 
 the movement. 
 
 "In the night?" 
 
 She looked at him now as if she saw past him. 
 
 "I I do remember," she said. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I couldn't sleep. I always sleep. That's why I re- 
 member. I could n't that night. We were at Brussels. 
 I could hear the noises in the streets, but it was n't that. 
 It was as if I were not being allowed to sleep. As if I were 
 being kept awake. How odd that you should ask me about 
 that night. One of the few nuits blanches in my life." 
 
 A glow came into his face. 
 
 "I you'll think it ridiculous I believe I kept you 
 awake." 
 
 "You?" 
 
 "I believe so." 
 
 "How could you?" 
 
 "I was trying to." 
 
 "To keep me awake? In Brussels? From here, do you 
 mean? From London?" 
 
 "Fromjermyn Street, to be exact. I had rooms there, 
 then. I did n't think distance would make any difference. 
 I did n't know where you were. I did n't think that would 
 make any difference either. I wanted to get a thought 
 through to you, wherever you were. It was the only way 
 I could communicate with you if it was a way. I wanted 
 so badly to communicate with you, even then. If 'it' 
 what I told you was You, I thought I should get a 
 thought through. I believed that by battering you with 
 thoughts that 's the way I expressed it to myself, I 
 remember I might hope to, anyway." He faced her 
 steadily, and she as steadily faced him. "Did I?"
 
 334 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "I don't know. I think I may have thought of you. 
 But then, you see, I could n't sleep. It would be probable 
 that I should think of all that had happened in the day. 
 One does when one is travelling. The mind's eye is full 
 of images then. The odd thing is that I should n't have 
 slept . . ." 
 
 " ' Battering ' me with thoughts " she said after a mo- 
 ment or two. "But it was rather like that I mean 
 that I can conceive that if it were possible to be conscious 
 of such a thing " 
 
 She did not finish her sentence. 
 
 "You see," he said. 
 
 To him the proof was positive. 
 
 She was again the mysterious companion of his dreams 
 the "long-expected come at last." For the moment, in 
 the strangeness of this further discovery, he lost sight of the 
 other Cora who had the power to hurt him so grievously. He 
 forgot even that it was this other Cora who had brought 
 him back to the first. He remembered presently, and de- 
 liberately put the thought away from him. He may have 
 recognised that the other Cora was not without an appeal 
 for him. He had always known that there was something 
 in her appearance which she shared with strange types. 
 
 "What are you going to say to me?" he said at length. 
 
 "What do you want me to say to you?" 
 
 It was almost what she had said before. 
 
 "You know what I want to hear you say," he said. " If 
 you can say it! Oh, if you could! 'But what I want is n't 
 the point. It's what you feel that matters." 
 
 He came a little nearer to her, but still did not touch her. 
 
 " Do you think you could care for me, or come to care for 
 me, enough to marry me? Not at once, perhaps not for 
 some time. I 've waited so long I anyway believe myself 
 to have waited so long ! that I 'm prepared to go on wait- 
 ing. But I want to know that there is you at the end 
 of my waiting. I don't suppose you could ever know what 
 it would be to me to know that."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 335 
 
 She did not speak for a moment or two. 
 
 "You seem so sure that I am the right person," she said 
 then. 
 
 "I am sure." 
 
 "I am not sure that I am." 
 
 "Sure? or the right person?" 
 
 "Either." 
 
 Again there was a pause. 
 
 "Or," she added, "even if I should be, that you are." 
 
 Ah, Christopher felt, that was another question. It was 
 also, however, what he wanted to know. 
 
 He had to go without knowing, nevertheless. For now 
 the door did open, and Mrs. Constaple, back from her 
 drive, her arms full of little dogs, put her head in. 
 
 If she thought at all, she must have thought that Chris- 
 topher and Cora were generally to be discovered upon op- 
 posite sides of a hearth, talking or not talking, rather ear- 
 nestly. 
 
 But it was, Don't move, Mr. Herrick, for she was not 
 going to stop. She wanted to get her hat off, and was late 
 for her rest before dinner, and how had the party gone? 
 
 It had all gone, Christopher said, but himself. 
 
 Mrs. Constaple wished she could have been there. 
 
 "And Margot Heccadon? Did she sing?" 
 
 "Like an angel," Cora said. 
 
 That was just how Mrs. Heccadon did sing, was n't it, 
 Mr. Herrick? And good-bye to him. He was not to stir. 
 
 She shook up her dogs and disappeared. 
 
 But it was a break, and Christopher felt he must go. 
 
 Cora had n't answered him. He tried to get back to what 
 they had been saying before the interruption, but he could 
 not. He believed that Cora tried, too, or that, at any rate, 
 she did not try to prevent his doing so. 
 
 "When shall I see you again?" he said desperately. 
 
 "Sunday?" 
 
 " I can't wait till Sunday."
 
 336 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 She thought for a moment or two. 
 
 "We're going to parties and things most days. Are n't 
 you? Don't you go to things? Where are you going to- 
 night?" 
 
 Christopher thought of a little stack of cards on his 
 table. He had been neglecting them. 
 
 "I believe I've got a dance to-night somewhere. Yes, 
 a Lady Something in Park Street." 
 
 "Lady Reigate's. We're going there. Do come. Will 
 you?" 
 
 "Of course I will." 
 
 "We may be a little late. We're going to a concert first 
 but only round the corner in Brook Street. I '11 see that 
 Mrs. Constaple does n't stop there too long." 
 
 "Till to-night, then," said Christopher. 
 
 "Till to-night," she echoed. 
 
 He tried to say something more, but could not find 
 words. 
 
 "Till to-night," he said again. 
 
 No, she had not repulsed him. 
 
 He was in Park Street by a quarter to twelve. 
 
 Thenceforward, for a space, his life seemed to be lived to 
 the tune, and the tunes, of dance-music. Dance-music 
 never seemed to be quite out of his ears, nor the throbbing 
 of floors. He was always, so it seemed now, arriving at 
 lit-up awninged houses, and giving up his coat and hat, 
 and making the slow ascent of crowded staircases, and 
 being announced, and shaking hands with a tiara and a 
 bouquet, and two tall ivy-wreaths or rose-wreaths (the 
 reign of the tall girl was beginning), and passing on into 
 crowded rooms where the band of the moment was playing 
 the tunes which pulsed in his ears all day long. And he 
 was always looking for one face amongst the faces. He 
 made many friends, and, inevitably, a few enemies. These 
 were the days of Christopher's ball-dancing.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 337 
 
 And, as he was always arriving and pushing his way 
 through crowds, and looking round, and dancing, or not 
 dancing, and eating, and not hungry enough to eat, hot 
 quails or cutlets or devilled' chicken and expensive fruit, 
 the early peach, the forced or first strawberry, so he 
 seemed always to be going on somewhere else, to precisely 
 similar conditions and doings. It was all very delightful, 
 and he enjoyed or thought he enjoyed it. The cards came 
 tumbling in. He looked upon them as so many lottery 
 tickets, by the use of which he might draw or not draw 
 the sight of Cora. Often it was no more than the sight of 
 her, for not always could the disposal of their evenings 
 take them in the same direction ; and very often he drew 
 blanks. An evening, at this time, was an evening gained 
 or lost to him, according as it held or did not hold Cora. 
 
 She had not answered him. He could scarcely have told 
 how it came that she had not answered him. She had never 
 definitely refused to answer him, and she had never re- 
 pulsed him. She always heard him heard him gladly 
 even. She always seemed glad to see him, and she would 
 always dance with him. Whoever went without dances, 
 it was never Christopher. In his utmost jealousy he could 
 never say that she refused him what she gave to others. 
 She called him Christopher and he called her Cora. But 
 she just did not answer. 
 
 So things went on, Christopher doing no work nor at- 
 tempting to do any. His ink-bottle would lose its power 
 of speech altogether, if he were not careful. His days like 
 his nights were full. There were a hundred pleasant (yet 
 always disappointing) calls upon his time. He idled with 
 the idlest spent mornings and afternoons doing nothing. 
 Riding in the Park in the afternoon was going out then, 
 but the motor had not come yet to rout the horses all 
 who had carriages drove there in those days. You hung 
 over the railings and you took off your hat.
 
 338 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Christopher would watch for one carriage amongst the 
 carriages, which were so thick on the drive that you 
 could have crossed it walking on the backs of the horses. 
 Every now and then the procession would be held up, and 
 accumulations of people afoot would get from one side 
 of the road to the other. Or a more distinguished sort of 
 holding-up would be observed, and there would be a flut- 
 ter, and a mounted policeman would appear, heralding the 
 driving of the Queen herself, or the Princess of Wales. 
 But it was not a royal carriage which Christopher watched 
 for. 
 
 He would see it and lose it again in the throng. Some- 
 times he would be seen by one or other of its occupants, 
 and he would get a cordial nod and smile; or perhaps he 
 would be beckoned to, and would be picked up and driven, 
 too, sitting opposite to Cora, if possible, and remembering 
 always (with the knowledge hugged tight that he could 
 call her Cora!) to address her as Miss St. Jemison. Or he 
 would see the carriage draw up near the Achilles statue, and 
 Mrs. Constaple and Cora would get out, to sit for an hour 
 on green chairs in the Row, where the lawns not yet 
 discovered it was the fashion to sit then, before hurrying 
 off to dress for dinner. Here Christopher, a tall slim figure 
 in rigorous London clothes, would join them. 
 
 He lunched and dined often in Grosvenor Street. He 
 was a usefully unattached male, and Mrs. Constaple in 
 want of a man would say, "Oh, write and ask Christopher 
 Herrick," or " I'll send young Herrick a wire," or " Remind 
 me, if we see him, to ask him if he can come with us to the 
 So-and-So's on such-and-such a day. I promised to bring 
 a man." 
 
 So most days they met often more than once; and 
 Christopher still was unanswered.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 BUT though the days went by and Cora kept him marking 
 time, Christopher, to his continued surprise, did not for a 
 moment lose the feeling that things were still moving for 
 him, and even moving quickly. It was a little disturbing, 
 this feeling, for, so far as he could see, nothing was moving 
 at all except the days, which were hurrying him towards 
 Whitsuntide. It was quite suddenly, one day, that he 
 knew that it was towards this very period the time 
 dedicated by one body of people to holiday-making, and 
 by another to a commemoration of the outpouring of the 
 Spirit of God upon a handful of men in Judea, causing 
 them to speak with tongues and to prophesy that he 
 and his affairs were being hurried with the days. 
 
 Something would happen then. He was sure of it 
 knew it; but there he paused. Why he should look to 
 Whitsuntide for issues, unless that, making a break in the 
 succession of the crowded days, it might be expected to 
 break the continuity of other things also, he knew no more 
 than he knew what it was that was to happen. Some- 
 thing, however, of this he was persuaded ; and with 
 curious emotions, from which apprehension was not wholly 
 absent, he saw the approach of the few days which would 
 separate him from Cora. 
 
 To the recess itself, he had in any case been looking 
 forward with mixed feelings of relief and regret. The strain 
 of uncertainty was beginning to tell on him. He would not 
 have admitted that he was tired, but he hoped in his heart, 
 rather fervently, that it was that only just rest that he 
 wanted; and, more fervently still, he hoped that Cora 
 wanted rest. 
 
 For surely there was something strange about Cora just
 
 340 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 then. Was there any change in her? any change, how- 
 ever impalpable? He could point to none. She was always 
 delightful, always ready to talk to him, always ready to 
 dance with him; but just sometimes and most unjusti- 
 fiably he connected the man he disliked with this he 
 found himself reminded, by some little look of hers or ac- 
 tion, of the feeling which he had had when he parted with 
 her after the memorable meeting in Sloane Street the 
 feeling that for some reason or other she wished the crowd 
 to engulf her to receive her, as has been said, out of his 
 sight. Put into other words, though Christopher would not 
 have put the thought into any, he was feeling that not 
 all Cora's thinkings or doings were known to him. So, 
 harassed and perplexed, he looked to the rest of the coming 
 holiday to ease his own nerves and hers. It was nerves, of 
 course, nothing but nerves. 
 
 Mr. St. Jemison was at Harrogate, where Cora was to 
 join him. Christopher had accepted the thought of the 
 three days' separation as inevitable. No alternative had 
 suggested itself to him. But now, with the conviction that 
 Whitsuntide was to be momentous, he conceived that the 
 disposition of his own movements must be involved. From 
 that, though he was expected at Herrickswood, it was only 
 a step to the idea that perhaps it was intended by those 
 powers, whatever they were, which seemed to decide his 
 fate for him, that there should be no separation that 
 he should go to Harrogate too! 
 
 The thought sent him flying to Cora, whom he ran to 
 earth in the Park. Without much difficulty he managed 
 to detach her from Mrs. Constaple. 
 
 The thought of three days with her away from the 
 racket of the town filled him with excitement. 
 
 " Do you know I Ve never walked with you?" he began, 
 his eyes shining. If he had put his hands to his cheeks, 
 as he did sometimes, he would have found them glowing. 
 
 "You often walk with me. You're walking with me 
 now."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 341 
 
 "On a path," said Christopher. "I meant the open 
 country. Wind in your face. Perhaps rain." 
 
 All the walks that he had ever taken rose before him. 
 He had a vision of gorse and broom and heather; of up- 
 lands and woods; of mossy hollows and lonely places; of 
 twilights and nightfalls and nights ; of ploughed fields and 
 fields of corn; of straight avenues of trees, long white 
 roads, roads like white ribands winding through a valley 
 or over hills, roads like the beds of streams. 
 
 "We're going to walk," he said. 
 
 "Oh!" said Cora. 
 
 "Walk," he repeated. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "We'll find walks. Where is there that one could n't? 
 I 've found walks in the Black Country. I remember a visit 
 to a boy I was at school with, who lived in the heart of it. 
 There was a black canal, with black mud on the towing 
 paths, and tunnels such wonderful tunnels. Oh, there '11 
 be walks, right enough, where I mean. Cora, we're going 
 for such walks!" 
 
 "Where do you mean?" she said. But she caught some- 
 thing of the glow of his ardour. "I should like to walk 
 with you. I believe you 're one of the few people one could 
 walk with. Yes, I 'm quite sure I could walk with you." 
 
 " Listen then, I 'm coming to Harrogate. I can't imagine 
 why I did n't think of it before. To another hotel, of course, 
 but we'll spend long days together. It's there we're going 
 to find the walks. Why did n't I think of it? It's all as easy 
 as winking. I Ve only to write for a room somewhere, 
 and there we are with the world before us. Three whole 
 days. Think. Three whole days !" 
 
 Cora had turned startled eyes on him. 
 
 "But, Christopher, you can't," she said, as soon as she 
 could get in a word. "You can't possibly." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "It's out of the question." 
 
 "But why?"
 
 342 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "Out of the question," she repeated. One might have 
 supposed her taken aback without reasons ready. 
 
 "But, Cora, it isn't. I might have been going there 
 anyway." 
 
 "You might, but you weren't. You were going to 
 Herrickswood. Why should you change? And and 
 you forget: my father's there." 
 
 Perhaps at the back of his mind it was because her father 
 was at Harrogate that he believed he was to go there. If, 
 as he was certain, Whitsuntide was to prove "momentous," 
 is must surely be in connection with the announcing, and 
 so the confirming, of their engagement. He wanted the 
 thing sanctioned, settled. He wanted, in the character of 
 the suitor, which he was, for Cora's hand, to see Cora's 
 father, that he might see and might tell his own people; 
 his mother her message to him on the water had reached 
 him, maybe? his mother, with John Hemming, of course, 
 and his grandmother. There was always present to him 
 the knowledge that there were three persons, in different 
 parts of England, each of whom might with reason, though 
 for reasons which varied, claim the right to information 
 at first-hand. 
 
 " I know," he said. 
 
 " So, anyway, it would n't be any use. How could we go 
 for those walks? When I walked, it would be with him." 
 
 "Why not tell him? He must be told sometime. Why 
 not now?" 
 
 She knew how much he wished this. But she shook her 
 head. 
 
 He did not urge her, knowing that she knew. 
 
 He did not tell her either that he was looking confidently 
 to the happening of something looking to the happening 
 of anything. He bowed to her decision about her father, 
 as he had tacitly bowed to it or one like it all along. 
 But really believing that he was to go to Harrogate 
 he did not see at once that it was this, and just this, that 
 he was not to do.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 343 
 
 "We could even travel up together!" 
 
 "No," she said firmly, "we could n't, for you're going 
 to Herrickswood." 
 
 "Not unless you say so." 
 
 He was n't sure even yet. 
 
 " I do say so. You're going to Herrickswood." 
 
 He persisted for a few moments, impelled, now, rather 
 by the thought of what the three days would mean to him, 
 than by the idea of assisting fate in its workings. It was 
 difficult to give up the pictured walks. But Cora, for some 
 reason or other, did not wish him to go to Harrogate. 
 
 It was not to be Harrogate, then? If it was, she would 
 relent. His faith unshaken though his spirits damped, he 
 waited for a sign. 
 
 The week which ended the first half of the season was a 
 very full one, and he and Cora met twice that evening. In 
 Queen Street there was every facility for conversation, 
 every inducement even music: gold chairs in rows, and 
 a hostess going about saying S-s-sh. But here by ill-luck 
 Christopher, standing in a doorway, was divided from 
 Cora by rows and rows of the talkative musical chairs. So 
 Queen Street was drawn blank. Chesham Place, where a 
 ball was in full swing when he got there, yielded nothing 
 either. There Mrs. Constaple, knocked up by her exer- 
 tions, stayed only about a quarter of an hour, and the one 
 dance which Cora danced, she danced, not with Chris- 
 topher, but with Heccadon. That evening, then, in addi- 
 tion to giving him no sign, was one of those which to Chris- 
 topher counted for lost. 
 
 Nor was the next nor the next any better. Each of them 
 held Cora, it is true, but a Cora who gave no sign, and each 
 of them somehow held Heccadon . . . 
 
 If it was to be anywhere it was plainly to be Herricks- 
 wood ; and to Herrickswood, while Cora journeyed to Har- 
 rogate, a Christopher, whose spirits alternated curiously
 
 344 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 between depression and exaltation, took a despondent and 
 expectant way. 
 
 Nothing could have been better for him than the atmo- 
 sphere of the quiet old house. He was really tired, perhaps, 
 by the life of these last few weeks, as well as strained by 
 what he had been going through mentally and spiritually, 
 as he lived it, and in the calm of the placid rooms and the 
 sense of restfulness which pervaded it, he lost some of the 
 apprehensions which had beset him. Fatima was there, 
 moreover, and between her and his grandmother, he was 
 kept talking and listening at a time when it was the best 
 thing in the world for him to have to do both. 
 
 Would anything happen at Herrickswood? It seemed 
 unlikely. But he was glad he had come. His grandmother 
 wanted to hear of his doings, and seemed pleased to be 
 told of the life he was leading. She had plenty to say. 
 
 "Yes, I sent in your name to two or three people. A 
 word 's useful here and there, though things are all pretty 
 much changed, I fancy, since my day. Half the people 
 you speak of we 'd never heard of. The Reigate woman I 
 remember. She was plain Mrs. then, and he had as much 
 chance of a peerage as his butler. The What 's-their-names 
 Lord! is she still taking daughters out? You don't tell 
 me so ! The youngest must be an old woman. The Oaking- 
 tons have you come across them? Lady Mary I knew 
 very well at one time. She was a Cuthbridge married 
 her cousin. There was a ball at the Claverhouses, I hear. 
 Were you there? And why not, pray?" 
 
 This was a life that she knew. This was a life that came 
 into the Herrick code. You were expected to lead it. She 
 had known every one of importance in her own day, and 
 had an arrogant contempt for the new names. 
 
 She shook her head over a few of those she heard now. 
 
 " I should like, with a blue pencil, to go through a list of 
 some of the houses that my grandson, it seems, is willing 
 to go to yes, with a good fat blue pencil."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 345 
 
 "These are demi-democratic days, you see," said Ance- 
 bel-Fatima sagely, and wondered why Christopher, whom 
 she believed herself to be championing, tweaked her pig- 
 tail affectionately and smiled. 
 
 Mrs. Herrick smiled too. 
 
 "They're demi-e very thing days, my dear. You've hit 
 half your word to a nicety." 
 
 She pinched Fatima's cheek and returned to her argu- 
 ment. 
 
 "Jane Claverhouse goes to extremes and may be called 
 a snob for her pains, but, upon my word, there's some- 
 thing to be said for a woman who keeps up the traditions. 
 If more people had refused to open their doors so inde- 
 cently wide, what we used to call society, and now don't 
 call anything at all, would n't be in the poor state which 
 is the rich state, maybe ! that it 's in now. It is n't hard 
 to see how things are tending. People used to be in the 
 world or out of it. Soon there'll be so many people in it, 
 that there won't be any left to be out of it; and that will 
 be the end of everything. Go to the Claverhouses when 
 they ask you." 
 
 "They did n't ask me," said Christopher modestly. 
 
 "Oh, well, they will another time. I can promise you 
 that. Go to that sort of house, and never mind your 
 Reigates and MacGadarenes. Both houses are open to 
 you, but not quite at the same time. You'll have to 
 choose." 
 
 Christopher listened. He knew that the conditions to 
 which his grandmother's philosophy applied were passing. 
 The vision of Peter reversed, perhaps had been seen 
 anew. 
 
 " I'm not at all sure that Margaret Constaple 's the best 
 Child's Guide for you, though I don't forget that it was I 
 introduced you to her. She's too much infected with the 
 modern spirit was always ready to take what 's the 
 girl's name? Geraldine anywhere where there was a 
 candle or a cutlet, and I hear she's taking out St. Jemi-
 
 346 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 son's daughter this year. Why can't the woman sit still? 
 What's she like, by the way?" 
 
 "Miss St. Jemison?" 
 
 Now was it coming? Was this the beginning? He looked 
 up a little startled, and borrowed a phrase from Mrs. Con- 
 staple. He had not thought to hear himself asked to de- 
 scribe Cora, and was not prepared. She was very much 
 admired, he said. 
 
 "So was her mother," said the old lady grimly. 
 
 But Christopher saw that this was not to prove, or even 
 lead to, that which he awaited. There was nothing big 
 with promise or warning in the moment, and he breathed 
 again. 
 
 "Admired, is she?" said his grandmother, meanwhile. 
 "Pretty? Well, she'll need to be." 
 
 "Why?" said Fatima, who wanted to know. 
 
 "Because!" said her grandmother-in-law oracularly. 
 
 But Christopher, assured that this was in no way con- 
 nected with what he thought of to himself as "moment- 
 ous," was not to be frightened by the prospect of a poten- 
 tial tussle. He knew his grandmother, and knew that a 
 tussle of some sort must be expected. So when she went 
 back to the subject, as she did presently, Fatima not being 
 by, he did not attach too much importance to what she 
 said. She talked more of Mrs. Constaple's inability to 
 stay quietly at home than of the girl the chaperoning of 
 whom was designed to cover it. 
 
 "She'll die in harness," she said. "She rackets about 
 from pillar to post from morning till night. Always did. 
 She'd dine in the refreshment-room at a railway station, 
 I believe, rather than eat a meal at home. But she's a 
 clever woman in her silly way. She married her own girl 
 very well with nothing particular to recommend her 
 everything goes to the sons in that family and I dare- 
 say she'll marry the St. Jemison girl. He'll be a brave 
 man, for all that, Christopher, who marries her mother's 
 daughter."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 347 
 
 Christopher would have heard this with difficulty from 
 any one else, but, coming from his grandmother, it was 
 allowed to pass; as was the warning it contained, if indeed 
 it contained one. He did not even say, "But she can't be 
 responsible for her mother"; nor his grandmother the 
 "Quite true," with which she would then probably have 
 replied, "The point is, that what will always be remem- 
 bered is not so much that, as that her mother is respons- 
 ible for her." 
 
 So the matter dropped. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. Would it be then? 
 
 He woke to a sense of disappointment. Yet he had 
 known that unless Cora had written before starting (as 
 he had done), or posted a letter at some station on her 
 way North, it was impossible that anything could reach 
 him that morning. Why, then, did he look for what was 
 not there? It was some sort of solace to him to think of 
 her as receiving and reading a letter from him. 
 
 His grandmother did not go to church that morning, 
 but when he and Fatima got back from their walk to the 
 village, they found her in her pony-chair, waiting for them 
 on the drive. 
 
 " I want you, Christopher. Yes, Ancebel can come too, if 
 she cares to. Go on, Frederick " (to the groom at the pony's 
 head). "Round by the lake and the kennels. I've been 
 doing some planting, and I want to show you." 
 
 They started on a tour of inspection. 
 
 She had done considerable planting. 
 
 "And I've been looking to my fences." 
 
 She had rebuilt portions of the park wall, and was 
 repairing her gates. 
 
 "Now the new cottages." 
 
 "Very good, ! m." 
 
 "New cottages?" said Christopher. 
 
 His grandmother nodded. 
 
 "There's always been a difficulty about housing the
 
 348 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 men on the estate the labourers, woodmen, hedgers and 
 ditchers, and so forth. There are practically no cottages 
 to be had about here. We've always had bothers about 
 this even in your grandfather's time, when men thought 
 less than they do now of walking a mile or two to their 
 work. Well, I did n't see why you should." 
 "I, Grandmother?" 
 
 "Anything that's done now is done for you, my dear." 
 He believed now that it was beginning indeed. 
 
 He was sitting with her the next evening in her sitting- 
 room. Fatima and her governess had just retired for the 
 night, and the two were alone. She had folded up her work 
 and was ready to make a move, but had not moved; and 
 Christopher believed that she had something to say. 
 
 "You'll be wanting to marry one of these days," was 
 what she said when she spoke, and Christopher gave a 
 little gasp, and knew that he was to know at last what the 
 days had held for him. She was looking at the work which 
 she held on her knees, and did not see the face which he 
 turned towards her. She did not look at him, indeed, for 
 a moment or two, but continued to gaze at her worsteds, 
 prodding them absently with an ebony needle, and busy, 
 it was evident, with her thoughts. "There was a time 
 when I should have cried out at the suggestion of an early 
 marriage for any young man with his way to make. But 
 one lives and unlearns one's first wisdom. I need n't tell 
 you that I 've been thinking of Stephen. He 's never out of 
 my thoughts for very long. I've thought of all that we 
 may have done, or left undone, in his case. Well, he thought 
 himself in love when he was younger than you are, and he 
 wanted to marry. Perhaps, if his father and I had not ob- 
 jected so successfully, things might not have turned out 
 for him quite as they did. We had nothing against the girl. 
 Our objection was that he was a boy. Who knows? He 
 may have known what he needed as the dog that eats 
 I'm not likening you to him. You're very differ-
 
 CHRISTOPHER 349 
 
 ent from my poor good-for-nothing. You Ve outlets that 
 he had n't. I can understand that. But you 're flesh and 
 blood, and I 'm old enough, and have been young enough, 
 to know what those stand for, and I don't want you to 
 suffer unnecessarily." 
 
 She looked up now. 
 
 "Have you any one in your mind?" she said. 
 
 The question was shot at him. It took him unawares, 
 and so, though he did not answer it, practically the ques- 
 tion was not unanswered. 
 
 " I see. You don't choose to tell me." 
 
 "I can't, Grandmother. If I might choose, I should tell 
 you this moment. And," he smiled, "I don't know that I 
 have anything to tell." 
 
 "Well, if she's decent " 
 
 "Grandmother!" 
 
 "If she's decent I'll stick to my word, if you 
 please - 
 
 She was trying him with it, he saw. 
 
 "Well-born 
 
 He made no sign. 
 
 "Well-bred" 
 
 He managed to preserve his silence. 
 
 "The right wife for you, the wife we should wish for 
 you, the wife you should wish for yourself," she tried him 
 with each of these, "if she's all this, here's something 
 that you can bear in mind." 
 
 He leaned forward a little, wondering what was coming. 
 
 "My time now may be short or it may be not long, 
 but prolonged. Whichever it may please God to make it, 
 I don't intend my shoes to stand to you, Christopher, for 
 dead men's. You're coming into Herrickswood one day, 
 as you know. That 's no reason, as I see things, why you 
 should spend the best years of your life waiting. So, other 
 things being equal, but being equal, mind ! your mar- 
 riage need not depend on my death. If you can satisfy 
 me on certain general points, or she can, whoever she
 
 350 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 is! it shall be made possible for you to marry whenever 
 you want to. There! I don't want any thanks, dear. It's 
 the purest selfishness. I don't pretend to myself even 
 that it 's anything else. Ring that bell for me twice, 
 please, for Ollenshaw and now good-night to you." 
 
 She paused at the door. 
 
 "You're off to-morrow, I suppose?" 
 
 "But not in the morning." 
 
 "Well, I must n't keep you from her." 
 
 "You're so certain there's some one." 
 
 " If there is n't there ought to be. But quite certain, 
 Christopher. I wish I was as certain that I should like her." 
 
 "If there should be any one I 'm not free to tell you, 
 Grandmother, even if I knew you would like her. You 
 would n't be able to help liking her." 
 
 He wanted to say more, but might not; nor was he quite 
 sure that it would have been the right moment to say more. 
 
 She kissed him, was met by her elderly maid at the foot 
 of the stairs, and went up to bed. 
 
 This was one of the moments when Christopher felt 
 breathless. He lost sight of all misgiving in the joy of the 
 day's most wonderful bounty. A letter, moreover, on the 
 Whit Monday, as upon that Easter Sunday which he 
 would always remember, was in the pocket over his heart. 
 A day had withheld, it seemed, that a day might give the 
 more lavishly. 
 
 This, then, was why he had not been allowed to go to 
 Harrogate! He had come to Herri ckswood that he might 
 hear what he had just heard. Cora, unconscious agent of 
 the powers which watched over him, had sent him from 
 her that he might be brought the more surely to her. For 
 now he could go to her and ask for her answer. Now 
 nothing hindered. By that time to-morrow Cora would be 
 engaged to him. A few hours more, just a few hours 
 more .
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 HE himself was infected now with the spirit of haste by 
 which he conceived the movement of his affairs to be in- 
 spired, and, though he had spoken of an afternoon train, 
 he went back to London by a morning one. His grand- 
 mother, as in like circumstances his mother before her, 
 made no comment. She saw him go, if not unregretfully, 
 at least cheerfully, and rallied the protesting Fatima upon 
 her lack of a similar ability to take things as they came. 
 
 "It's taking things as they go, I think," said Fatima. 
 "He said after luncheon! He was to have come for a ride 
 this morning. And he goes and leaves before ten! He's 
 always going away from one always." 
 
 " Then he must always be coming to you, my dear. A per- 
 son can't go away from you if he has n't been with you." 
 
 "Oh, for two or three days like this. Can't men ever 
 be contented? Can't you ever keep them with you?" 
 
 "Only by letting them go," said Christopher's grand- 
 mother. 
 
 The subject of their discussion, meanwhile, was being 
 hurried back to London as fast as the quickest train of the 
 day could take him. He had bought an A B C at the sta- 
 tion, and this he studied when he was not sitting forward in 
 his seat as if to urge the train on, or moving restlessly in 
 his compartment, which happily held no one but himself. 
 He could not have borne, just then, the presence of other 
 travellers. He looked out of the windows. The train could 
 not go quickly enough for him. He urged it onward and 
 onward, and every time that he relaxed his muscles, he 
 came back to the study of the time-table. 
 
 He was to see Cora at the opera that evening, where he
 
 352 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 was to join Mrs. Constaple in her box, but he was impatient 
 of even so much delay, and he had determined to meet all 
 the afternoon trains in from Harrogate on the chance of 
 finding her in one of them. There was more than one route 
 open to her, but she had travelled up by the Midland line, 
 he knew, and he thought it probable that she would come 
 back the same way. Arrived at Victoria, then, he sent his 
 luggage on to Cloisters Street, and made for St. Pancras. 
 
 One train he had missed, but as this one started very 
 early it was unlikely that she had come by it. He had time 
 for some lunch before the next. He ate standing, and was 
 on the platform twenty minutes before it was due. 
 
 It came in bravely. He watched it forge its way towards 
 him to its appointed place. In a moment it had thrown 
 open its doors and was disgorging its passengers. 
 
 Christopher, peering into every carriage, walked the 
 length of it. He doubled back, raked the crowd with eager 
 eyes, inserted himself into the groups gathering about the 
 luggage vans ; saw every soul leave the train. 
 
 There was an interval of two hours before the next, but 
 that did not daunt him. He could always interest himself 
 in streets, and he explored the neighbourhood south- 
 ward as far as Clerkenwell Green, passing and pausing in 
 front of the old Sadlers Wells Theatre, whither, in the days 
 of it, all London had journeyed to see the actor of the mo- 
 ment; northward, past the Angel, into Islington; thence, 
 by Copenhagen Street and Caledonian Road, back through 
 Pentonville. 
 
 He was at the station again half an hour too soon. 
 
 He saw his second train come in. But neither was Cora 
 in this. As before, he searched from end to end, and from 
 the first opening of the doors to the moment when the 
 porters collected the newspapers. It was possible, of course, 
 that in the crowd he might have overlooked her, but he did 
 not think that he had done so, and he set himself to wait 
 for the next. The third train that he met would bring her. 
 
 He set his face towards the third train.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 353 
 
 The last of the passengers, those who had been late in 
 finding their luggage, or in securing porters, or who, for 
 what other cause that may delay the arriving traveller, 
 had been delayed, were leaving the platform. Christopher, 
 overtaking the procession of these, became aware suddenly 
 of a figure amongst them which was familiar to him. He 
 knew that strong, well-built form. For no reason that he 
 could have put into words, he wished that the man in front 
 of him had been any other in the world than Heccadon. 
 
 But he would not let the chance sight of this man affect 
 him. What was he to Heccadon, or Heccadon to him, 
 that a reminder of his existence should threaten even to 
 damp his excitement? The thing should not be! He would 
 not remember what he had put resolutely from him. With 
 Cora's letter over his heart, he would not! With what he 
 had to tell her burning within him to be told, he would not! 
 Everything was bringing him to Cora; everything bring- 
 ing Cora to him. Nothing should dash his hopes in these 
 charged and hurrying hours. 
 
 He saw Heccadon get into his waiting hansom and drive 
 off. 
 
 He drew a long breath. That was over. He pushed it 
 from him . . . 
 
 His excitement increased now. Was there a thought 
 under it, a suspicion, a deadly fear something that he 
 would not face? 
 
 How he hated this man! He did not know that he had 
 ever hated any one as he hated him. He did not know 
 that he hated any one else at all. But, again, away with 
 all thought of him! 
 
 This was the shortest of the three waits; he found it the 
 longest. Strive as he would, he could not keep the thought 
 of the man wholly out of his mind. Why, on this day of all 
 days, must Heccadon obtrude himself upon his conscious-
 
 354 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 ness? The handsome cynical face and the strong shapely 
 figure forced themselves upon his recollection. Something 
 that Cora had said of him, too, would not be forgotten. He 
 had not known at the moment who it was that she was 
 speaking of, but he had known that, even in his ignorance, 
 her words had the power to hurt him. What she had said 
 was true in its horrible way. If Christopher, who hated 
 Heccadon, could believe that it was true, it must be. 
 Heccadon was the more dangerous. 
 
 He could not fill up the interval between the trains ! He 
 walked away from the station, and, unable to trust him- 
 self out of sight of it, or to trust it out of his sight, was back 
 at its gates in half an hour. He started out afresh, and again 
 returned like the dove to the ark. He, too, could find else- 
 where no rest for the sole of his foot. So, chafing, he counted 
 the minutes. Before, he had enjoyed the suspense of the 
 waiting. Now waiting seemed intolerable. 
 
 The counted minutes dragged by. Presently he learned 
 that the train would even be late. He questioned the por- 
 ters, who began now to be aware of him, and to comment 
 upon him amongst themselves. 
 
 The train was a quarter of an hour overdue when at last 
 it came in. But it brought Cora. The carriage which held 
 her stopped almost opposite to where he was standing. 
 
 He saw her before she saw him. She was scanning the 
 prople on the platform, almost, he thought, as if she had 
 expected that there might be some one to meet her. Well, 
 there was. He slipped over to her and appeared to her 
 saw himself appear to her as she twice had appeared 
 to him, suddenly, but gradually also. 
 
 She looked for a moment as if she doubted her eyes. 
 
 "Christopher?" she said. "You?" as if she might 
 be saying, "Are you sure?" and then smiled. 
 
 "You came up out of the ground," she said. She seemed 
 to be explaining. 
 
 "I thought I'd meet you. I was sure you'd come by 
 this train."
 
 CHRISTOPHER 355 
 
 "I nearly did n't," she said, but he became conscious 
 at this moment of the presence of her maid in the carriage 
 behind her, and he did not, at the time, notice these words 
 as they fell from her. He helped her to alight and waited 
 to speak again till her maid should be gone for her luggage. 
 
 Cora, following her with her eyes, outstripped her, and 
 then looked along the platform in the other direction. This 
 he did notice, without attaching any significance to it. 
 
 " I could n't wait till to-night," he was saying. " I wanted 
 to see you so desperately, and I 've something to tell you. 
 Something 's happened . ' ' 
 
 Her eyes came back to him at that. 
 
 "Oh, nothing bad. Something that may be very good; 
 that may make a difference. Cora, are you glad to see me? 
 It's three days more than three days since we saw each 
 other. I don't know, now that I see you again, how I 've 
 got through them." 
 
 Her eyes were not wandering now. 
 
 "There hasn't been a moment in them when you've 
 been out of my thoughts." 
 
 "What have you to tell me?" she said. 
 
 "I can't tell you here. We can't talk in this crowd. I 
 forgot about your maid. I thought I'd drive you to 
 Grosvenor Street, or anyway drive with you part of the 
 way. Yes, and that 's still what I must do. I 'm going to 
 tell your maid to follow with your things." 
 
 He did not wait for permission, but was hurrying away 
 when she called him. 
 
 "Stay," she said. " I '11 speak to her." But she seemed 
 to hesitate. 
 
 "Mrs. Constaple would n't mind? You're not thinking 
 of that!" 
 
 "Oh, she would n't mind. I should probably tell her." 
 
 "What is it, then? Is it ?" he looked in the direction 
 of her maid. " Is n't she to be trusted?" 
 
 "Robson? Oh, she's all right." 
 
 "Then, tell her. I'll get a hansom."
 
 356 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 Cora looked up and down the platform again. 
 "Very well," she said, after a moment. 
 
 When she joined him, a couple of minutes later, all 
 trace of hesitation had vanished. 
 
 They got into the hansom, and he gave the driver the 
 address. 
 
 Now was his waiting rewarded! Now might time be 
 stayed ! Now might distance prolong itself ! 
 
 "Oh, Cora ! " he said, when at last he found himself alone 
 with her. "Oh, Cora . . ." 
 
 Her hand was lying in her lap. He put his hand over it. 
 She did not draw it away. 
 
 "Do you care so much?" she said. 
 
 "More than I can tell you. More than you could know 
 if I were able to tell you. I 've never been quite alone with 
 you before. I 've never been so near to you before. Have 
 you seen how I 've kept myself from you? I 've never held 
 your hand as I 'm holding it now. There have been times 
 when I could have cried out ..." 
 
 He broke off and looked from the hand which he clasped 
 in his to her face. 
 
 "I've never kissed you," he said. 
 
 There were tears in his eyes. 
 
 They drove for some yards in silence. They were out 
 of the open road now, and in the noise of streets. Here 
 every second house was a boarding-house. Through dining- 
 room windows you might see dreary tables laid for dinner. 
 Christopher saw that they were dreary and looked away 
 from them quickly. 
 
 Cora laid her other hand for one moment on his hand. 
 
 "Oh, I wish " she began, but she did not say what 
 it was that she wished. 
 
 He remembered her action and her words afterwards. 
 
 "/ wish," was what he said then. 
 
 "Yes, Christopher?" 
 
 It was so wonderful when she called him by his name.
 
 CHRISTOPHER 357 
 
 "That I could be sure of something." 
 
 "Say it." 
 
 "You've never told me that you care for me. Never 
 in words. Can you, Cora? Oh, if I could make you know." 
 
 " You do make me know. That 'sit. You make me know 
 so extraordinarily. If you were like other people I should 
 know what to say to you. I 'm half afraid of you." 
 
 "Afraid of me?" 
 
 "Because I'm not a bit what you think me." 
 
 "You don't see me as I really am," she continued after 
 a moment's pause. "You see some one that you create, 
 yourself not me at all." 
 
 "How can that be?" 
 
 "I don't know. It just is," said Cora. 
 
 A few more of the precious yards were driven in silence. 
 
 "What have you to tell me?" she asked then. 
 
 They seemed to have lost sight of what it was that had 
 brought him to meet her. 
 
 He told her of the talk with his grandmother. Words 
 tripped themselves up on his tongue in his eagerness. 
 
 "She promises me Herri ckswood," he said, "and tells 
 me that I need n't wait." 
 
 Oxford Circus! They were getting so near now. Five 
 minutes would see them at their destination. The pace 
 was dreadful. Yet it seemed of a piece with that at which 
 everything, just then, appeared to be moving for him. 
 
 "I 'm going to tell him to drive round by Park Lane," 
 Christopher said shortly. 
 
 "Robson will be home before we are." 
 
 " I can't help that. I 'm going to tell him." 
 
 "Very well," said Cora, as before. 
 
 He gave his directions through the trap. 
 
 They had ten minutes more. 
 
 As they passed the top of Bond Street, Christopher was 
 saying, "Cora, do you care for me? Once for all, do you 
 care for me?"
 
 358 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 At the corner of Wood Street, Cora was gaining time 
 with "Should I be here if I did n't?" 
 
 Then a small thing happened. 
 
 A hansom turned out of South Molton Street, and in the 
 press of the traffic was held up for a moment beside theirs. 
 Its occupant, a man, any man, a stranger, looking at 
 Christopher's companion, looked again. That was all. 
 But it was enough. The blood went with a rush to Christ- 
 opher's head. He turned on her choking with passion. 
 
 "People look at you," he said in a strangled voice. 
 "Men in the street and you let them." 
 
 "How can I prevent them?" 
 
 "You don't want to prevent them. You want them to 
 look at you. You mean them to look at you." 
 
 Something in the words as he spoke them arrested him. 
 Recently, quite, quite recently, he had heard words like 
 these. In a moment Mrs. Heccadon's rag of a face had 
 risen before him, but its eyes were burning now with ac- 
 cusing fires, and he heard, not a sweet, husky voice singing 
 love-songs, but a voice strangled like his own, made husky, 
 made dreadful with passion. 
 
 "Heccadon," he heard himself saying, "Heccadon!" 
 and saw her look at him. But he saw more than this, and 
 heard more than his own voice and the husky voice of the 
 singer. 
 
 For without warning (though presaged by who should 
 say what processes of unconscious thought, what things 
 noted and unnoted, what misgivings and apprehensions 
 and doubts?) the gates had been rolled back and there 
 was again for him one of those sudden open hours 
 such as, on the night following his first vision of Cora, 
 had laid bare to him all that was happening in monstrous 
 London one of the open hours in which, sight and hear- 
 ing miraculously cleared, he knew that he saw and heard 
 true ! Through a mist, as it were, or as in a glass darkly, he 
 now saw Cora searching the platform as he himself had 
 searched it, and saw again her look of surprise as her
 
 CHRISTOPHER 359 
 
 doubting eyes realised first his presence and then his iden- 
 tity ; perceived her hesitation ; heard the three words which, 
 falling from her, had at the time escaped his notice. And, 
 bis eyes and ears opened, that seeing he should see and 
 understand, and hearing he should hear and interpret, he 
 saw his mother and knew why he could not see Cora beside 
 her; saw his grandmother and heard, as if for the first 
 time, her proviso with her promise, even to the word 
 which she used and chose to stick to. "If she's . . ." He 
 had shut his ears to it then. "If she's . . ." And she 
 wasn't! In this most terrible of "open" moments he 
 knew that she was n't. 
 
 "Heccadon's been at Harrogate," he said, "Hecca- 
 don! That's why you would n't let me go there with you. 
 I met three trains to-day for the sight of you, and I saw 
 him at the station. You missed the one he came by or I 
 should have seen you together. Heccadon. Heccadon. 
 Heccadon." 
 
 It was Cora, now, that he could not drive with Cora 
 whom he loved, for Heccadon whom he hated! He started 
 up just as he had done before, and, the impulse as suddenly 
 leaving him, her stillness perhaps restraining him, sank 
 back as before into his seat. 
 
 She made no attempt to deny what he said , but her silence 
 was not the silence of one who disdains to answer. She ad- 
 mitted, without anger because without shame, and with- 
 out shame because he saw it now she was without 
 love for him. 
 
 "He's not worth your little finger," she said presently 
 and very gently; "not fit to black your boots for you. I 
 know that. But he 's well, he 's himself, and I 'm myself, 
 and we understand each other." 
 
 "I don't understand anything," said Christopher, "ex- 
 cept that you seem to be telling me that you 're not not 
 You" He passed over what he could not allow himself to 
 believe that she was telling him. " Is that what you mean 
 to tell me what you mean me to understand?"
 
 3 6o CHRISTOPHER 
 
 "It's better that you should understand. I'm not, 
 Christopher." Again by the use of his name she wrung 
 his heart. " I 've always known that I was n't. I 've wanted 
 to think that I was, that's all. And neither are you meant 
 for me. You 've something some odd power. You got 
 your message through to me whatever it was to 
 Brussels, so you must have. But if he called to me . . . ! 
 Don't be afraid. He won't, and I should n't lose my head 
 if he did. I was born later, you see, than poor mother. But 
 if he did ..." She closed her eyes for a moment and lay 
 back in the hansom. She said all this without shame. There 
 was something that was not ignoble in her frankness. 
 
 "Mrs. Heccadon?" he forced himself to say. 
 
 "Margot? She understands each of us. She under- 
 stands herself, too. She is one of the people who are born 
 to pay." 
 
 "As I am not," she added after a moment; and he knew 
 that she was right. 
 
 This was the end. The ten minutes by which he had ex- 
 tended the drive had done for him. He no longer wanted to 
 get out of the hansom, but he was conscious, under what he 
 said or heard, of straining towards the moment when it 
 should reach Mrs. Constaple's, and he should be alone. 
 
 They talked on in the few minutes that remained. Cora 
 spoke again of her mother. Christopher remembered how 
 he once had nearly spoken of her, and could have laughed. 
 She spoke of his stepfather. He remembered, with a mo- 
 mentary feeling of resentment against John Hemming, 
 how he himself had nearly spoken of him as a link be- 
 tween them! 
 
 "You knew?" he said under his breath. 
 
 "Christopher!" She leant forward to look at him. 
 "You didn't suppose that I didn't? You can't have 
 thought that? You can't suppose I don't know?" 
 
 "I think I hoped you mightn't know everything," he 
 said. 
 
 " Is it possible that you thought I could escape knowing?
 
 CHRISTOPHER 361 
 
 I Ve had to know. I don't blame any one particularly 
 least of all, my mother. I'm very good friends with her. 
 I 'm very good friends with her husband, who is my step- 
 father, I suppose. I 've been quite good friends with others 
 of my my stepfathers." 
 
 "But your father," said Christopher. Was there no one 
 to watch over her? 
 
 "Oh, he does n't trouble himself. I daresay he knows. 
 It 's all unfair enough, anyway. He got the custody of me." 
 
 That put a finger on Christopher's childhood! That, 
 whirling him back to the moment when he had first heard 
 of her, almost wrung a cry from him. Everything did seem 
 linked with everything else, and, as she slipped from him, 
 all his life, all the things in his life, all his thoughts and 
 hopes and ambitions, to have been, nay, to be, bound up 
 with her. 
 
 "What shall I do without you?" he said. 
 
 "Do you think I shan't miss you, Christopher?" 
 
 They were turning into Grosvenor Street now. With a 
 rush which overwhelmed him there came upon him a sense 
 of what it was that had happened. Ages seemed to have 
 passed between the beginning of this momentous drive 
 and its dreadful finish. 
 
 "Cora, I can't give you up. You're everything to me. 
 It will be like tearing out my heart if I lose you." 
 
 She was wiser than he. 
 
 "You would never have been allowed to marry me. Do 
 you think I should ever have been admitted to Herricks- 
 wood? I think what you told me to-day what Mrs. Her- 
 rick said about leaving you free to marry whom you liked 
 would have brought that home to me. You would have 
 been cut out of Herrickswood, Christopher." 
 
 He knew it, even as she spoke; and wondered that he 
 had not known it all along. 
 
 "I could have faced that," he said. 
 
 " I know. But it would have been foolish, and it would 
 have been useless. We're not for each other. If there's
 
 362 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 anything that I know at this moment, it's that. We're 
 each of us just the one person in the world who is not for 
 the other. It is n't quite all one way, either. You would n't 
 be allowed to marry me, but think this out, Christo- 
 pher! I should n't be allowed to marry you. We did n't 
 make the tangle; the tangle's there, all the same." 
 
 " I 'm the only one caught in it. I shall never be free any 
 more." 
 
 "You'll be freer than you've ever been," Cora said. " I 
 believe I 'm hundreds of years older than you, and I know. 
 All sorts of things that are in you will be free. Things 
 imprisoned but they won't be always. No one will ever 
 know, but some day it will be to me if they could know 
 it that people will owe their gratitude, for you, Christo- 
 pher." 
 
 He had thought that she was not feeling anything, but 
 he was wrong. 
 
 The house was in sight now. 
 
 " I can't go to to the opera to-night. You '11 tell Mrs. 
 Constaple." 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Nor the things next week." 
 
 "All right, Christopher. I'll tell her. I I shan't go 
 myself." 
 
 "Cora." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You were going to meet him the day you met me." 
 
 There was the briefest pause. 
 
 Then: "Yes, Christopher." 
 
 The tears were streaming down her face now, as his 
 tears were streaming down his. The hansom drew up at 
 the door. It was the very end. The boy and the girl, care- 
 less of whether they were seen or not, drew together and 
 kissed, their tears mingling. 
 
 So it came that Christopher's rooms in Cloisters Street 
 were Christopher's Gethsemane that night. To his young
 
 CHRISTOPHER 363 
 
 agony, none the less real because it was very young, it was 
 fitting that only the understanding walls and windows 
 should be witness. One person only was to guess at it. 
 This was John Hemming, who, advised by a surprising 
 letter from Cora herself, came to see his stepson at once, 
 and was stricken rather than struck by his appearance. 
 
 "Nothing that you can tell me?" 
 
 "No, John." 
 
 "Christopher, you won't hate me God forgive me, I 
 believe I 'm in this you don't hate me?" 
 
 "No, John, of course not. And you're not in it. No one 
 is but she and I. There's nothing that you could have 
 helped nothing that any one could. What I wished 
 could n't be, I see that already." 
 
 "That you should have fixed upon her! of all the girls 
 in the world!" 
 
 " Don't let my mother know," said Christopher. "Some 
 day I may tell her." 
 
 But he did n't tell her then. Nor though he knew 
 that she waited for news did he tell his grandmother. 
 She heard sooner or later from Mrs. Constaple; and it was 
 as well , perhaps, that he did not hear what she said. What 
 she said, mark, for she too loved Christopher. If Cora had 
 loved him, who knows but that he would have won Cora 
 with Herrickswood? 
 
 But Cora St. Jemison did not love Christopher, and, in 
 the scheme of his life, her mission was not to crown his 
 love. She was in the scheme of it, for all that, as love was 
 in the scheme of it, and sorrow, with rich compensations 
 for sorrow: it was love-crowned, perhaps, such love, any- 
 way, as that which had possessed or even obsessed him, 
 which was not. Her mission was not-to-love Christopher. 
 
 He had been wrong then? She was not That One to 
 whom the eternal question had been addressed not the 
 chosen companion who somewhen, as he had supposed, 
 had travelled or was to travel beside him? Climbing the 
 years from Boulogne to London he had been under
 
 364 CHRISTOPHER 
 
 a delusion? He was to know, maybe, that he had been 
 under a delusion. He was to know beyond all doubt, if so, 
 that the delusion itself had been divine. Before this con- 
 summation, some suffering, perhaps. What of that? Could 
 such knowledge come otherwise than by suffering? 
 
 Therefore let no one say that this book of him "ends 
 badly"! The book of Christopher ends happily. He was 
 to come by his voice, it is true, as the wife of Heccadon 
 had come by hers. That the dumb should speak is not 
 that to end happily? His mother, perhaps, wishing for 
 grandchildren rather than books, was to wonder ; Trimmer, 
 perhaps (childless for the sake of him !) ; no one else. 
 
 So, Cloisters Street, which in some sort was also Bou- 
 logne to him, before it went the way of all the beautiful 
 old streets in the changing town before the ruthless 
 demolishment, that is (some ten years later), of what could 
 never be replaced was to see considerably more of him 
 than his agony. It was to witness the neglected ink-bottle 
 finding its voice again, and to see Christopher, the wings 
 sprouting on his pen as he listened, able once more to hear 
 it; it was to see the releasing of all the imprisoned things 
 from the Boulogne to the London days, from even before 
 the Boulogne days, the Cheltenham days, the Ebury 
 Street days, who is to gainsay it? the days on board 
 ship, the very pre-natal days. It was to see Christopher, 
 in fine, learn at length to express himself. 
 
 Happy? Unhappy? Happy and by reason of Cora, 
 worthless Cora, daughter of the Mrs. St. Jemison who could 
 not be called upon, but also the White Girl of Christo- 
 pher's adoration, and the You, yes, when all's said, and in 
 howsoever different a sense from any contemplated by the 
 seeker, the You, the ultimate You of his conscious and un- 
 conscious seeking. 
 
 THE END
 
 s" 
 
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