CHAPTER VIII
HIS FIRST VISIT TO CHALLIS COURT
I
"Shall you be able to help me in collating your notes of the Tikopiaobservations to-day, sir?" Lewes asked next morning. He rose from thebreakfast-table and lit a cigarette. There was no ceremony betweenChallis and his secretary.
"You forget our engagement for ten o'clock," said Challis.
"Need that distract us?"
"It need not, but doesn't it seem to you that it may furnish us withvaluable material?"
"Hardly pertinent, sir, is it?"
"What line do you think of taking up, Lewes?" asked Challis withapparent irrelevance.
"With regard to this--this phenomenon?"
"No, no. I was speaking of your own ambitions." Challis had saunteredover to the window; he stood, with his back to Lewes, looking out at theblue and white of the April sky.
Lewes frowned. He did not understand the gist of the question. "Isuppose there is a year's work on this book before me yet," he said.
"Quite, quite," replied Challis, watching a cloud shadow swarm up theslope of Deane Hill. "Yes, certainly a year's work. I was thinking ofthe future."
"I have thought of laboratory work in connection with psychology," saidLewes, still puzzled.
"I thought I remembered your saying something of the kind," murmuredChallis absently. "We are going to have more rain. It will be a latespring this year."
"Had the question any bearing on our engagement of this morning?" Leweswas a little anxious, uncertain whether this inquiry as to his futurehad not some particular significance; a hint, perhaps, that his serviceswould not be required much longer.
"Yes; I think it had," said Challis. "I saw the governess cart go up theroad a few minutes since."
"I suppose the boy will be here in a quarter of an hour?" said Lewes byway of keeping up the conversation. He was puzzled; he did not knowChallis in this mood. He did not conceive it possible that Challis couldbe nervous about the arrival of so insignificant a person as this Stottchild.
"It's all very ridiculous," broke out Challis suddenly; and he turnedaway from the window, and joined Lewes by the fire. "Don't you thinkso?"
"I'm afraid I don't follow you, sir."
Challis laughed. "I'm not surprised," he said; "I was a trifleinconsecutive. But I wish you were more interested in this child, Lewes.The thought of him engrosses me, and yet I don't want to meet him. Ishould be relieved to hear that he wasn't coming. Surely you, as astudent of psychology ..." he broke off with a lift of his heavyshoulders.
"Oh! Yes! I _am_ interested, certainly, as you say, as a student ofpsychology. We ought to take some measurements. The configuration of theskull is not abnormal otherwise than in its relation to the developmentof the rest of his body, but ..." Lewes meandered off into somewhatabstruse speculation with regard to the significance of craniology.
Challis nodded his head and murmured: "Quite, quite," occasionally. Heseemed glad that Lewes should continue to talk.
The lecture was interrupted by the appearance of the governess cart.
"By Jove, he _has_ come," ejaculated Challis in the middle of one ofLewes's periods. "You'll have to see me through this, my boy. I'm damnedif I know how to take the child."
Lewes flushed, annoyed at the interruption of his lecture. He hadbelieved that he had been interesting. "Curse the kid," was the thoughtin his mind as he followed Challis to the window.
II
Jessop, the groom deputed to fetch the Wonder from Pym, looked a littleuneasy, perhaps a little scared. When he drew up at the porch, the childpointed to the door of the cart and indicated that it was to be openedfor him. He was evidently used to being waited upon. When this commandhad been obeyed, he descended deliberately and then pointed to the frontdoor.
"Open!" he said clearly, as Jessop hesitated. The Wonder knew nothing ofbells or ceremony.
Jessop came down from the cart and rang.
The butler opened the door. He was an old servant and accustomed to hismaster's eccentricities, but he was not prepared for the vision of thatstrange little figure, with a large head in a parti-colouredcricket-cap, an apparition that immediately walked straight by him intothe hall, and pointed to the first door he came to.
"Oh, dear! Well, to be sure," gasped Heathcote. "Why, whatever----"
"Open!" commanded the Wonder, and Heathcote obeyed, weak-kneed.
The door chanced to be the right one, the door of the breakfast-room,and the Wonder walked in, still wearing his cap.
Challis came forward to meet him with a conventional greeting. "I'mglad you were able to come ..." he began, but the child took no notice;he looked rapidly round the room, and not finding what he wanted,signified his desire by a single word.
"Books," he said, and looked at Challis.
Heathcote stood at the door, hesitating between amazement anddisapproval. "I've never seen the like," was how he phrased hisastonishment later, in the servants' hall, "never in all my born days.To see that melon-'eaded himp in a cricket-cap hordering the masterabout. Well, there----"
"Jessop says he fair got the creeps drivin' 'im over," said the cook."'E says the child's not right in 'is 'ead."
Much embroidery followed in the servants' hall.