CHAPTER XVI
THE PAST RETURNS
Christine had learned a great deal since her marriage. As she stood on the platform at Euston that morning with Jimmy Challoner she felt old enough to be the grandmother of the girl who had looked up at him with such glad recognition less than a month ago in the theatre.
Old enough, and sad enough.
She could not bear to look at him now. It cut her to the heart to see the listless droop of his shoulders and the haggard lines of his face. It was not for her—his sorrow; that was the thought she kept steadily before her eyes; it was not because he had offended and hurt her past forgiveness; but because Cynthia Farrow was now only a name and a memory.
The train was late in starting. Jimmy stood on the platform trying to make conversation; he had bought a pile of magazines and a box of chocolates which lay disregarded beside Christine on the seat; he had ordered luncheon for her, although she protested again and again that she should not eat anything.
He racked his brains to think if there were any other little service he could do for her. He was full of remorse and shame as he stood there.
She had been so fond of him—she had meant to be so happy; and now she was glad to be leaving him.
The guard blew his whistle. Jimmy turned hastily, the blood rushing to his white face.
"If you ever want me, Christine——" She seemed not to be listening, and he broke off, only to stumble on again: "Try and forgive me—try not to think too hardly of me." She looked at him then; her beautiful eyes were hard and unyielding.
The train had begun to move slowly from the platform. Jimmy was on the footboard; he spoke to her urgently.
"Say you forgive me, Christine. If you'll just shake hands——"
She drew back, as if she found him distasteful.
The train was gathering speed. A porter made a grab at Jimmy.
"Stand back, sir."
Jimmy obeyed mechanically. Christine would not have cared had he been killed, he told himself savagely.
But for his pig-headed foolishness, he and Christine might have been going down to Upton House together; but for the past——
"Damn the past!" said Jimmy Challoner as he turned on his heel and walked away.
* * * * * *
But the past was very real to Christine as she sat there alone in a corner of the first-class carriage into which Jimmy had put her, and stared before her with dull eyes at a row of photographs advertising seaside places.
This was the end of all her dreams of happiness. She and Jimmy were separated; it seemed impossible that they had ever really been married—that she was really his wife and he her husband.
She dragged off her glove, and looked at her wedding ring; she had never taken it off since the moment in that dingy London church when Jimmy had slipped it on.
And yet it was such an empty symbol. He had never loved her; he had married her because some other woman, whom he did love, was beyond his reach.
She did not cry; she seemed to have shed all the tears in her heart. She just sat there motionless as the train raced her back to the old house and the old familiar scenes, where she had been happy—many years ago—with Jimmy Challoner.
He had wired to Gladys Leighton; Gladys would be there at the station to meet her. She wondered what she would say to her.
She thought of the uncle who had journeyed to London with such reluctance to give her away; he would tell her that it served her right, she was sure. Even on her wedding day he had trotted out the old maxim of marrying in haste.
Christine smiled faintly as she thought of him; after all, she need not see much of him—he did not live near Upton House. When the restaurant attendant came to tell her that lunch was ready, she followed him obediently. Jimmy had tipped him half-a-crown to make sure that Christine went to the dining-car. She even enjoyed her meal. A man sitting at the same table with her looked at her curiously from time to time; he was rather a good-looking man. Once when she dropped her gloves he stooped and picked them up for her; later on he pulled up the window because he saw her shiver a little. "These trains are well warmed as a rule," he said.
Christine looked at him timidly.
She liked his face; something about his eyes made her think of Jimmy.
"Are you travelling far?" he asked presently.
She told him—only to Osterway.
He smiled suddenly.
"I am going there, too. Do you happen to know a place called Upton
House?"
Christine flushed.
"It's my home," she said. "I live there."
"What a coincidence. I heard it was in the market—I am going down with a view to purchase."
Her face saddened.
"Yes—it is to be sold. My mother died last month. . . . Everything is to be sold."
"You are sorry to have to part with it?" he asked her sympathetically.
"Yes." Tears rose to her eyes, and she brushed them, ashamedly away. "I've lived there all my life," she told him. "All my happiest days have been spent there." She was thinking of Jimmy, and the days when he rode old Judas barebacked round the paddock.
The stranger was looking at Christine interestedly; he glanced down at her left hand, from which she had removed the glove; he was surprised to see that she wore a wedding ring.
Surely she could not be married—that child! He looked again at the mourning she wore; perhaps her husband was dead. He forgot for the moment that she had just told him of the death of her mother.
He questioned her interestedly about Osterway. What sort of a place was it? Were the people round about sociable? He liked plenty of friends, he said.
Christine answered eagerly that everyone was very nice. To hear her talk one would have imagined that Osterway was a little heaven on earth. The last few weeks, with their excitement and disillusionment, had made the past seem all the more roseate by contrast. She told this man that she would rather live in Osterway than anywhere else; that she only wished she were sufficiently well off to keep Upton House.
When the train ran into the station he asked diffidently if he might be allowed to drive her home.
"My car is down here," he explained. "I sent it on with my man. I am staying in the village for a few days. . . . Upton House is some way from the station, I believe?"
"Two miles. . . . I should like to drive home with you," she told him shyly. "Only I am meeting a friend here."
"Perhaps your friend will drive with us, too," he said.
Christine thought it a most excellent arrangement. She looked eagerly up and down the platform for Gladys Leighton, but there was no sign of her.
"Perhaps she never got my telegram," she said in perplexity. She asked the stationmaster if there had been a lady waiting for the train; but he had seen nobody.
The man with whom she had travelled down from London stood patiently beside her.
"Shall we drive on?" he suggested. "We may meet your friend on the road."
They went out to the big car; there was a smart man in livery to drive them. Christine and her companion sat together in the back seat. They drove slowly the first half-mile, but there was no sign of Gladys anywhere. Christine felt depressed. She had counted on Gladys; she had been so sure that she would not fail her; she began to wonder if Jimmy had sent that wire; she hated herself for the thought, but her whole belief and idea of him had got hopelessly inverted during the past days.
They seemed to reach Upton House very quickly.
"You are evidently expected," her companion said; "judging by the look of the house."
The front door stood open; the wide gate to the drive was fastened back. As the car stopped the housekeeper came to the door; she looked interestedly at Christine, and with faint amazement at her companion. For the first time Christine felt embarrassed: she wondered if perhaps she had been foolish to accept this man's offer of an escort. When they were inside the house she turned to him timidly.
"Will you tell me your name? It—it seems so funny not to know your name. Mine is Christine Wyatt—Challoner, I mean," she added with a flush of embarrassment.
"My name is Kettering—Alfred Kettering." He smiled down at her. "The name Challoner is very familiar to me," he said. "My greatest friend is a man named Challoner."
Christine caught her breath.
"Not—Jimmy?" she asked.
"No—Horace. He has a young brother named Jimmy, though—a disrespectful young scamp, who always called Horace 'the Great Horatio.' You don't happen to know them, I suppose?"
Christine had flushed scarlet.
"He is my husband," she said in a whisper.
"Your—husband!" Kettering stared at her with amazed eyes, then suddenly he held our his hand. "That makes us quite old friends, then, doesn't it?" he said with change of voice. "I have known Horace Challoner all my life; as a matter of fact, I was with him all last summer in Australia. I have been home myself only a few weeks."
Christine did not know what to say. She knew that this man must be wondering where Jimmy was; that it was more than probable that he would write to the Great Horatio and inform him of their chance meeting, and of anything else which he might discover about her mistaken marriage.
"I don't think Horace knows that his brother is married, does he?" the man said again, Christine raised her eyes.
"We've only been married ten days," she said tremulously.
"Is that so? Then I am not too late to offer you my most sincere congratulations, and to wish you every happiness." He took her hand in a kindly grip.
Christine tried to thank him, but somehow she seemed to have lost her voice. She moved on across the hall into the dining-room, where there was a cheery fire burning and tea laid.
"You will have some tea with me," she said. "And then afterwards I will show you over the house—if you really want to see it?" She looked up at him wistfully. "I should like you to have it, I think," she told him hesitatingly. "If it has got to be sold, I should like to know that somebody—nice—has bought it."
"Thank you." He stood back to the fire, watching her as she poured out the tea.
Married—this child! It seemed so absurd. She looked about seventeen.
Suddenly:
"And where is Jimmy?" he asked her abruptly. "I wonder if he would remember me! Hardly, I expect; it's a great many years since we met."
Christine had been expecting the question; she kept her face averted as she answered:
"Jimmy is in London; he saw me off this morning. He—he isn't able to come down just yet."
There was a little silence.
"I see," said Kettering. Only ten days married, and not able to come down. Jimmy had never done an hour's work in his life, so far as Kettering could remember. He knew quite well that he was living on an allowance from his brother; it seemed a curious sort of situation altogether.
He took his tea from Christine's hands. He noticed that they trembled a little, as if she were very nervous, he tried to put her at her ease; he spoke no more of Jimmy.
"I wonder what has happened to your friend?" he said cheerily. "I dare say she will turn up here directly."
"I hope she will." Christine glanced towards the window; it was rapidly getting dusk. "I hope she will," she said again apprehensively. "I should hate having to stay here by myself." She shivered a little as she spoke. She turned to him suddenly.
"Are you—married?" she asked interestedly.
He laughed.
"No. . . . Why do you ask?"
"I was only wondering. I hope you don't think it rude of me to have asked you. I was only thinking that—if you were married and had any children, this is such a lovely house for them. When we were all little we used to have such fine times. There is a beautiful garden and a great big room that runs nearly the length of the house upstairs, which we used to have for a nursery."
"You had brothers and sisters, then?"
"No—but Jimmy was always here; and Gladys—Gladys is the friend I am expecting—she is like my own sister, really!"
"I see." His eyes watched her with an odd sort of tenderness in them.
"And so you have known Jimmy a great many years?" he asked.
"All my life."
"Then you know his brother as well?"
"I have met him—yes; but I dare say he has forgotten all about me."
"He will be very pleased with Jimmy's choice of a wife," he answered her quickly. "He always had and idea that Jimmy would bring home a golden-haired lady from behind the footlights, I think," he added laughingly.
He broke off suddenly at sight of the pain in little Christine's face.
There was an awkward silence. Christine herself broke it.
"Shall we go and look over the house before it gets quite dark?"
She had taken off her coat and furs; she moved to the door.
Kettering followed silently. He was fully conscious that in some way he had blundered by his laughing reference to a "golden-haired lady of the footlights"; he felt instinctively that there was something wrong with this little girl and her marriage—that she was not happy.
He tried to remember what sort of a fellow Jimmy had been in the old days; but his memory of him was vague. He knew that Horace had often complained bitterly of Jimmy's extravagance—knew that there had often been angry scenes between the two Challoners; but he could not recall having heard of anything actually to Jimmy's discredit.
And, anyway, surely no man on earth could ever treat this little girl badly, even supposing—even supposing——
"It's not such a very big house," Christine was saying, and he woke from his reverie to answer her. "But it's very pretty, don't you think?" She opened a door on the left. "This used to be our nursery," she told him. They stood together on the threshold; the room was long and low-ceilinged, with a window at each end.
A big rocking-horse covered over with a dust-sheet stood in one corner; there was a doll's house and a big toy box together in another. The whole room was painfully silent and tidy, as if it had long since forgotten what it meant to have children playing there—as if even the echoes of pattering feet and shrill voices had deserted it.
Kettering glanced down at Christine. Her little face was very sad; she was looking at the big rocking-horse, and there were tears in her eyes.
She and Jimmy had so often ridden its impossible back together; this deserted room was full of Jimmy and her mother—to her sad heart it was peopled with ghost faces, and whispering voices that would never come any more.
Kettering turned away.
"Shall we see the rest of the house?" he asked. He hated that look of sadness in her face; he was surprised because he felt such a longing to comfort her.
But they had no time to see the rest of the house, for at that moment someone called, "Christine—Christine," from the hall below, and Christine clasped her hands delightedly.
"That is Gladys. Oh, I am so glad—so glad."
She forgot all about Kettering; she ran away from him, and down the stairs in childish delight. He followed slowly. He reached the hall just in time to see her fling herself into the arms of a tall girl standing there; just in time to hear smothered ejaculations.
"You poor darling!" and "Oh, Gladys!" and the sound of many kisses.
He stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Over Christine's head, his eyes met those of the elder girl. She smiled.
"Christine . . . you didn't tell me you had visitors."
Christine looked up, all smiles now and apologies, as she said:
"Oh, I am so sorry—I forgot." She introduced them. "Mr. Kettering—Miss Leighton. . . . Mr. Kettering has been looking over the house; I hope he will buy it," she added childishly.
"It's a shame it has got to be sold," said Gladys bluntly. There was something very taking about her, in spite of red hair and an indifferent complexion; she had honest blue eyes and a pleasant voice. She looked at Kettering a great deal as she spoke; perhaps she noticed how often his eyes rested on Christine. When presently they went out into the garden, she walked between them; she kept an arm about Christine's little figure.
"I missed the train," she explained. "I got your husband's wire,
Christine. Oh, yes, I got it all right, and I rushed to pack the very
minute; but the cab was slow, and I just missed the train. However,
I'm here all right."
She looked at Kettering.
"Do you live near here?" she asked him.
"No; but I am hoping to soon," he said; and again she wondered if it were only her imagination that his eyes turned once more to Christine.
When they got back to the house he bade them "good-bye." The big car was still waiting in the drive; its headlights were lit now, and they shone through the darkness like watchful eyes.
"Who is he, anyway?" Gladys asked Christine bluntly, when Kettering had driven off. Christine shook her head.
"I don't know; he came down in the train with me, and we had lunch at the same table, and he spoke. He was coming down here to look at our house, and so—well, we came up together."
"What do you think Jimmy would say?"
"Jimmy!" There was such depths of bitterness in Christine's voice that the elder girl stared.
"Jimmy! He wouldn't care what I did, or what became of me. I—I—I'm never going to live with him any more."
Gladys opened her mouth to say something, and closed it again.
She had guessed that there had been something behind that urgent wire from Jimmy, but she wisely asked no questions. They went back into the house together.
"You'll have to know in the end, so I may as well tell you now," Christine said hopelessly. She sat down on the rug by the fire, a forlorn little figure enough in her black frock.
She told the whole story from beginning to end. She blamed nobody; she just spoke as if the whole thing had been a muddle which nobody could have foreseen or averted.
Gladys listened silently. She was a very sensible girl; she seldom gave an impulsive judgment on any subject; but now——
"Jimmy wants his neck wrung," she said vehemently.
Christine looked up with startled eyes.
"Oh, how can you say such a thing!"
"Because it's true." Gladys looked very angry. "He's behaved in a rotten way; men always do, it seems to me. He married you to spite this—this other woman, whoever she was! and then—even then he didn't try to make it up to you, or be ordinarily decent and do his best, did he?"
"He didn't love me, you see; and so——" Christine defended him.
"He'll never love anyone in the wide world except himself," Gladys declared disgustedly. "I remember years ago, when we were all kiddies together, how selfish he was, and how you always gave in to him. Christine"—she stretched out her hand impulsively to the younger girl—"do you love him very much?" she asked.
Christine put her head down on her arms.
"Oh, I did—I did," she said, ashamedly. "Sometimes I wonder if—if he hadn't been quite so—so sure of me! if—if he would have cared just a little bit more. He must have known all along that I wanted him; and so——" She broke off desolately.
The two girls sat silent for a moment.
"And now—what's he going to do now?" Gladys demanded.
Christine sighed.
"I told him I didn't want to see him. I told him I didn't want him to come down here for six months—and he promised. . . . He isn't to come or even to write unless—unless I ask him to."
"And then—what happens then?"
Christine began to cry.
"Oh, I don't know—I don't know," she sobbed. "I am so miserable—I wish I were dead."
Gladys laid a hand on her bowed head.
"You're so young, Christine," she said sadly. "Somehow I don't believe you'll ever grow up." She had not got the heart to tell her that she thought this six months separation could do no good at all—that it would only tend to widen the breach already between them.
She was a pretty good judge of character; she knew quite well what sort of a man Jimmy Challoner was. And six months—well, six months was a long time.
"Mr. Kettering knows Jimmy's brother," Christine said presently, drying her eyes. "So I suppose if he comes to live anywhere near here, he will know what—what is the matter with—with me and Jimmy, and he'll write and tell Horace."
"And then Jimmy will get his allowance stopped, and serve him right," said Gladys bluntly.
Christine cried out in dismay:
"Oh, but that would be dreadful! What would he do?"
"Work, like other men, of course."
But Christine would not listen.
"I shall ask Mr. Kettering not to tell Horace—if I ever see him again," she said agitatedly.
Gladys laughed dryly.
"Oh, you'll see him again right enough," she said laconically.