The God in the Car: A Novel

Unaffected, free from self-consciousness, undividedly bent on his schemes, unheeding of everything but their accomplishment, he had spent little time in considering the considerable stir which he had, in fact, created in the circle of his more intimate associates. They had proved pliable and pleasant, and these were the qualities he liked in his neighbours. They said agreeable things to him, and they did what he wanted. He had stayed not (save once, and half in jest, with Maggie Dennison) to inquire why, and the quasi-real, quasi-burlesque apprehension of him – burlesqued perhaps lest it should seem too real – which had grown up among such close observers as Adela Ferrars and Semingham, would have struck him as absurd, the outcome of that idle business of brain which weaves webs of fine fancies round the obvious, and loses the power of action in the fascination of self-created puzzles. The nuances of a woman's attraction towards a man, whether it be admiration, or interest, or pass beyond – whether it be liking and just not love – or interest running into love – or love masquerading as interest, or what-not, Willie Ruston recked little of. He was a man, and a young man. He liked women and clever women – yes, and handsome women. But to spend your time thinking of or about women, or, worse still, of or about what women thought of you, seemed poor economy of precious days – amusing to do, maybe, in spare hours, inevitable now and again – but to be driven or laughed away when there was work to be done.

Such was the colour of his floating thoughts, and the loose-hung meditation brought him to his own dwelling, in a great building which overlooked Hyde Park. He lived high up in a small, irregular, many-cornered room, sparely-furnished, dull and pictureless. The only thing hanging on the walls was a large scale map of Omofaga and the neighbouring territories; in lieu of nicnacks there stood on the mantlepiece lumps of ore, specimens from the mines of Omofaga (would not these convince the most obstinate unbeliever?), and half-smothered by ill-dusted papers, a small photograph of Ruston and a potent Omofagan chief seated on the ground with a large piece of paper before them – a treaty no doubt. A well-worn sofa, second-hand and soft, and a deep arm-chair redeemed the place from utter comfortlessness, but it was plain that beauty in his daily surroundings was not essential to Willie Ruston. He did not notice furniture.

He walked in briskly, but stopped short with his hand still on the knob of the door. Harry Dennison lay on the sofa, with his arm flung across his face. He sprang up on Ruston's entrance.

"Hullo! Been here long? I've been dining with Carlin," said Ruston, and, going to a cupboard, he brought out whisky and soda water.

Harry Dennison began to explain his presence. In the first place he had nothing to do; in the second he wanted someone to talk to; in the third – at last he blurted it out – the first, second, third and only reason for his presence.

"I don't believe I can manage alone in town," he said.

"Not manage? There's nothing to do. And Carlin's here."

"You see I've got other work besides Omofaga," pleaded Harry.

"Oh, I know Dennisons have lots of irons in the fire. But Omofaga won't trouble you. I've told Carlin to wire me if any news comes, and I can be back in a few hours."

Harry had come to suggest that the expedition to Dieppe should be abandoned for a week or two. He got no chance and sat silent.

"It's all done," continued Ruston. "The stores are all on their way. Jackson is waiting for them on the coast. Why, the train will start inland in a couple of months from now. They'll go very slow though. I shall catch them up all right."

Harry brightened a little.

"Belford said it was uncertain when you would start," he said.

"It may be uncertain to Belford, it's not to me," observed Mr. Ruston, lighting his pipe.

The speech sounded unkind; but Mr. Belford's mind dwelt in uncertainty contentedly.

"Then you think of – ?"

"My dear Dennison, I don't 'think' at all. To-day's the 12th of August. Happen what may, I sail on the 10th of November. Nothing will keep me after that – nothing."

"Belford started for the Engadine to-day."

"Well, he won't worry you then. Let it alone, my dear fellow. It's all right."

Clearly Mr. Ruston meant to go to Dieppe. That was now to Harry Dennison bad news; but he meant to go to Omofaga also, and to go soon; that was good. Harry, however, had still something that he wished to convey – a bit of diplomacy to carry out.

"I hope you'll find Maggie better," he began. "She was rather knocked up when she went."

"A few days will have put her all right," responded Ruston cheerfully.

He was never ill and treated fatigue with a cheery incredulousness. But, at least, he spoke with an utter absence of undue anxiety on the score of another man's wife.

Harry Dennison, primed by Mrs. Cormack's suggestions, went on,

"I wish you'd talk to her as little as you can about Omofaga. She's very interested in it, you know, and – and very excitable – and all that. We want her mind to get a complete rest."

"Hum. I expect, then, I mustn't talk to her at all."

The manifest impossibility of making such a request did not prevent Harry yearning after it.

"I don't ask that," he said, smiling weakly.

"It won't hurt her," said Willie Ruston. "And she likes it."

She liked it beyond question.

"It tires her," Harry persisted. "It – it gets on her nerves. It absorbs her too much."

His face was turned up to Ruston. As he spoke the last words, Ruston directed his eyes, suddenly and rapidly, upon him. Harry could not escape the encounter of eyes; hastily he averted his head, and his face flushed. Ruston continued to look at him, a slight smile on his lips.

"Absorbs her?" he repeated slowly, fingering his beard.

"Well, you know what I mean."

Another long stare showed Ruston's meditative preoccupation. Harry sat uncomfortable under it, wishing he had not let fall the word.

"Well, I'll be careful," said Ruston at last. "Anything else?"

Harry rose. Ruston carried an atmosphere of business about with him, and the visit seemed naturally to end with the business of it. Taking his hat, Harry moved towards the door. Then, pausing, he smiled in an embarrassed way, and remarked,

"You can talk to Marjory Valentine, you know."

"So I can. She's a nice girl."

Harry twirled his hat in his fingers. His brain had conceived more diplomacy.

"It'll be a fine chance for you to win her heart," he suggested with a tentative laugh.

"I might do worse," said Willie Ruston.

"You might – much worse," said Harry eagerly.

"Aren't you rather giving away your friend young Haselden?"

"Who told you, Ruston?"

"Lady Val. Who told you?"

"Semingham."

"Ah! Well, what would Haselden say to your idea?"

"Well, she won't have him – he's got no chance anyhow."

"All right. I'll think about it. Good-night."

He watched his guest depart, but did not accompany him on his way, and, left alone, sat down in the deep arm-chair. His smile was still on his lips. Poor Harry Dennison was a transparent schemer – one of those whose clumsy efforts to avert what they fear effects naught save to suggest the doing of it. Yet Willie Ruston's smile had more pity than scorn in it. True, it had more of amusement than of either. He could have taken a slate and written down all Harry's thoughts during the interview. But whence had come the change? Why had Dennison himself bidden him to Dieppe, to come now, a fortnight later, and beg him not to go? Why did he now desire his wife to hear no more of Omofaga, whose chief delight in it had been that it caught her fancy and imparted to him some of the interest she found in it? Ruston saw in the transformation the working of another mind.

"Somebody's been putting it into his head," he muttered, still half-amused, but now half-angry also.

And, with his usual rapidity of judgment, he darted unhesitatingly to a conclusion. He identified the hand in the business; he recognised whose more subtle thoughts Harry Dennison had stumbled over and mauled in his painful devices. But to none is it given to be infallible, and want of doubt does not always mean absence of error. Forgetting this commonplace truth, Willie Ruston slapped his thigh, leapt up from his chair and, standing on the rug, exclaimed,

"Loring – by Jove!"

It was clear to him. Loring was his enemy; he had displaced Loring. Loring hated him and Omofaga. Loring had stirred a husband's jealousy to further his own grudge. The same temper of mind that made his anger fade away when he had arrived at this certainty, prevented any surprise at the discovery. It was natural in man to seek revenge, to use the nearest weapon, to counter stroke with stroke, not to throw away any advantages for the sake of foibles of generosity. So, then, it was Loring who bade him not go to Dieppe, who prayed him to not to "absorb" Mrs. Dennison in Omofaga, who was ready, notwithstanding his hatred and distrust, to see him the lover of Marjory Valentine sooner than the too engrossing friend of Mrs. Dennison! What a fool they must think him! – and, with this reflection, he put the whole matter out of his head. It could wait till he was at Dieppe, and, taking hold of the great map by the roller at the bottom, he drew it to him. Then he reached and lifted the lamp from the table, and set it high on the mantlepiece. Its light shone now on his path, and with his finger he traced the red line that ran, curving and winding, inwards from the coast, till it touched the blue letters of the "Omofaga" that sprawled across the map. The line ended in a cross of red paint. The cross was Fort Imperial – was to be Fort Imperial, at least; but Willie Ruston's mind overleapt all difference of tenses. He stood and looked, pulling hard and fast at his pipe. He was there – there in Fort Imperial already – far away from London and London folk – from weak husbands and their causes of anxiety – from the pleasing recreations of fascinating society, from the covert attacks of men whose noses he had put out of joint. He forgot them all; their feelings became naught to him. What mattered their graces, their assaults, their weal or woe? He was in Omofaga, carving out of its rock a stable seat, carving on the rock face, above the seat, a name that should live.

At last he turned away, flinging his empty pipe on the table and dropping the map from his hand.

"I shall go to bed," he said. "Three months more of it!"

And to bed he went, never having thought once during the whole evening of a French lady, who liked to get amusement out of her neighbours, and had stayed in town on purpose to have some more talks with Harry Dennison. Had Willie Ruston not been quite so sure that he read Tom Loring's character aright, he might have spared a thought for Mrs. Cormack.

CHAPTER XIII

A SPASM OF PENITENCE

Tom Loring had arranged to spend the whole of the autumn in London. His Omofaga articles had gained such favourable notice that his editor had engaged him to contribute a series dealing with African questions and African companies (and the latter are in the habit of producing the former), while he was occupied, on his own account, at the British Museum, in making way with a treatise of a politico-philosophical description, which had been in his head for several years. He hailed with pleasure the prospect of getting on with it; the leisure afforded him by his departure from the Dennisons was, in its way, a consolation for the wrench involved in the parting. Could he have felt more at ease about the course of events in his absence, he would have endured his sojourn in town with equanimity.

Of course, the place was fast becoming a desert, but, at this moment, chance, which always objects to our taking things for granted, brought a carriage exactly opposite the bench on which Tom was seated, and he heard his name called in a high-pitched voice that he recognised. Looking up, he saw Mrs. Cormack leaning over the side of her victoria, smiling effusively and beckoning to him. That everyone should go save Mrs. Cormack seemed to Tom the irony of circumstance. With a mutter to himself, he rose and walked up to the carriage. He then perceived, to his surprise, that it contained, hidden behind Mrs. Cormack's sleeves – sleeves were large that year – another inmate. It was Evan Haselden, and he greeted Tom with an off-hand nod.

"The good God," cried Mrs. Cormack, "evidently kept me here to console young men! Are you left desolate like Mr. Haselden here?"

"Well, it's not very lively," responded Tom, as amiably as he could.

"No, it isn't," she agreed, with the slightest, quickest glance at Evan, who was staring moodily at the tops of the trees.

Tom laughed. The woman amused him in spite of himself. And her failures to extract entertainment from poor heart-broken Evan struck him as humorous.

"But I'm at work," he went on, "so I don't mind."

"Ah! Are you still crushing – ?"

"No," interrupted Tom quickly. "That's done."

"I should not have guessed it," said Mrs. Cormack, opening her eyes.

"I mean, I've finished the articles on that point."

"That is rather a different thing," laughed she.

"I'm afraid so," said Tom.

"I wish to heaven it wasn't!" ejaculated Evan suddenly, without shifting his gaze from the treetops.

"Oh, he is very very bad," whispered Mrs. Cormack. "Poor young man! Are you bad too?"

"Eh?"

"Oh, but I know."

"Oh, no, you don't," said Tom.

Suddenly Evan rose, opened the carriage door, got out, shut it, and lifted his hat.

"Good-bye," said Mrs. Cormack, smiling merrily.

"Good-bye. Thanks," said Evan, with unchanged melancholy, and, with another nod to Tom, he walked round to the path and strode quickly away.

"How absurd!" said she.

"Not at all. I like to see him honest about it. He's hard hit – and he's not ashamed of it."

"Oh, well," said Mrs. Cormack, shrugging the subject away in weariness of it. "And how do you stand banishment? Will you get in?"

"Yes, if you won't assume – "

"Too great familiarity, Mr. Loring?"

"Oh, I was only going to say – with my affairs. With me – I should be charmed," and Tom settled himself in the victoria.

He had, now he came to think of it, been really very much bored; and the little woman was quite a resource.

She rewarded his ironical gallantry with a look that told him she took it for what it was worth, but liked it all the same; and, after a pause, asked,

"And you see Mr. Dennison often?"

"Very seldom, on the contrary. I don't know what he does with himself."

"The poor man! He walks up and down. I hear him walking up and down."

"What does he do that for?"

"Ah! what? Well, he cannot be happy, can he?"

"Can't he?" said Tom, determined to understand nothing.

"You are very discreet," she said, with a malicious smile.

"I'm obliged to be. Somebody must be."

"Mr. Loring," she said abruptly, "you don't like me, neither you nor Miss Ferrars."

"I never answer for others. For myself – "

"Oh, I know. What does it matter? Well, anyhow, I'm sorry for that poor man."

"Your sympathy is very ready, Mrs. Cormack."

"You mean it is too soon – premature?"

"I mean it's altogether unnecessary, to my humble thinking."

"But I'm not a fool," she protested.

Tom could not help laughing. The laugh, however, rather spoilt his argument.

"Have it your own way," he conceded, conscious of his error, and trying to cover it by a burlesque surrender. "He's miserable."

"Well, he is."

There was a placid certainty about her that disturbed Tom's attitude of incredulity.

"Why is he?" he asked curiously.

"I have talked to him. I know," she answered, with a nod full of meaning.

"Oh, have you?"

"Yes, and he – well, do you want to hear, or will you be angry and despise me as you used?"

"I want to hear."

"What did I use to say? That the man would come? Well, he has come. Voilà tout!"

"Oh, so you say. But Harry doesn't think such – I beg pardon, I was about to say, nonsense."

"Yes, he does. At least, he is afraid of it."

"How do you know?"

"I tell you, we have talked. And I saw. He almost cried that he couldn't go to Dieppe, and that somebody else – "

Tom suddenly turned upon her.

"Who began the talk?" he demanded.

"What do you say?"

"Who began?"

"Oh, what nonsense! Who does begin to talk? How do I know? It came, Mr. Loring."

Tom said nothing.

"You look as if you didn't believe me," she remarked, pouting.

"I don't. He's the most unsuspicious fellow alive."

"Well, if you like, I began. I'm not ashamed. But I said very little. When he asked me if I thought it good that she and – the other – should be together out there and he here – well, was I to say yes?"

"I think," observed Tom, in quiet and deliberate tones, "that it's a great pity that some women can't be gagged."

"They can, but only with kisses," said Mrs. Cormack, not at all offended. "Oh, don't be frightened. I do not wish to be gagged at all. If I did – there is more than one man in the world."

Tom despised and half-hated her; but he liked her good-nature, and, in his heart, admired her for not flinching. Her shamelessness was crossed with courage.

"So you've made him miserable?"

"Well, I might say, I, a wicked Frenchwoman, that it is better to be deceived than to be wretched. But you, an Englishman – ! Oh, never, Mr. Loring!"

Tom sat silent a little while.

"I don't know what to do," he said, half in reverie.

"Who thought you would?" asked Mrs. Cormack, unkindly.

"I believe it's all a mare's nest."

"That means a mistake, a delusion?"

"It does."

"Then I don't think you do believe it. And, if you do, you are wrong. It is not all a – a mare's nest."

She pronounced the word with unfamiliar delicateness.

Tom knew that he did not believe that it was all a mare's nest. He would have given everything in the world – save one thing – and that, he thought, he had not got – to believe it.

"Then, if you believed it, why didn't you do something?" he asked rather fiercely.

"What have you all done? I, at least, warned him. Yes, since you insist, I hinted it. But you – you ran away; and your Adela Ferrars, she looks prim and pained, oh! and shocked, and doesn't come so much."

It was a queer source to learn lessons from, and Tom was no less surprised than Adela had been a day or two before at Dieppe.

"What should you do?" he asked, in new-born humility.

"I? Nothing. What is it to me?"

"What should you do, if you were me?"

"Make love to her myself," smiled Mrs. Cormack. She was having her revenge on Tom for many a scornful speech.

"If you'd held your tongue, it would all have blown over!" he exclaimed in exasperation.

"It will blow over still; but it will blow first," she said. "If that contents you, hold your tongue."

Then she turned to Tom, and laid a small fore-finger on his arm.

"Mark this," said she, "he does not care for her. He cares for himself; she is – what would you say? an incident – an accident – I do not know how to say it – to him."

"Well, if you're right there – " began Tom in some relief.

"If I'm right there, it will make no difference – at first. But, as you say, it will blow over – and sooner."

Tom looked at her, and thought, and looked again.

"By Jove, you're not a fool, Mrs. Cormack," said he, almost under his breath.

Then he added, louder,

"It's the wisdom of the devil."

"Oh, you surpass yourself," she smiled. "Your compliments are magnificent."

"You must have learnt it from him."

"Oh, no. From my husband," said Mrs. Cormack.

The carriage, which during their talk had moved slowly round the circle, stopped again.

Mrs. Cormack turned to Tom. He was already looking at her.

"I don't understand you," said he.

"No? Well, you'll hardly believe it, but that does not surprise me."

"I'm not sure you don't mean well, if you weren't ashamed to confess it," said Tom.

For the first time since he had known her, she blushed and looked embarrassed. Then she began, in a quick tone,

"Well, I talked. I wanted to see how he took it; and it amused me. And – well, our dear Maggie – she is so very magnificent at times. She looks down so calmly – oh! from such a height – on one. She had told me that day – well, never mind that; it was true, I daresay. I don't love truth. I don't see what right people have to say things to me, just because one may know they are true."

"So you made a little mischief?"

"Well, I hear that poor man walking up and down. I want to comfort him. I asked him to come in, and he refused. Then I offered to go in – he was very frightened. Oh, mon Dieu!" and she laughed almost hysterically.

This very indirect confession proved in the end to be all that Mrs. Cormack's penitence could drive her to, and Tom left her, feeling a little softened towards her, but hardly better equipped for action. What, indeed, could be done? Tom's sense of futility expressed itself in a long letter to Adela Ferrars. As he had no suggestions for present action, he took refuge in future promises.

"It will be very awkward for me to come, but if, as time goes on, you think I should be any good, I will come."

And Adela, when she read it, was tempted to send for him on the spot; he would have been of no use, but he would have comforted her. But then his presence would unquestionably exasperate Maggie Dennison. Adela decided to wait.

Now, by the time Tom Loring's letter reached Dieppe, young Sir Walter and Willie Ruston were on the boat, and they arrived hard on its heels. They took up their abode at a hotel a few doors from where the Seminghams were staying, and Walter at once went round to pay his respects.

Ruston stayed in to write letters. So he said; but when he was alone he stood smoking at the window and looking at the people down below. Presently, to his surprise, he saw the same old gentleman whom Adela had noticed in the Casino.

"The Baron, by Jove!" he exclaimed. "Now, what brings him here?"

The Baron was sauntering slowly by, wrapped in a cloak, and leaning heavily on a malacca cane. In a moment Willie Ruston was down the stairs and after him.

Hearing his name cried, the Baron stopped and turned round.

"What chance brings you here?" asked Willie, holding out his hand.

"Oh, hardly chance," said the Baron. "I always go to some seaside place, and I thought I might meet friends here," and he smiled significantly.

"Yes," said Ruston, after a pause; "I believe I did mention it in Threadneedle Street. I went in there the other day."

By the general term Threadneedle Street he meant to indicate the offices of the Baron's London correspondents, which were situate there.

"They keep you informed, it seems?"

"I live by being kept informed," said the Baron.

Ruston was walking by him, accommodating his pace to the old man's feeble walk.

"You mean you came to see me?" he asked.

"Well, if you'll forgive the liberty – in part."

"And why did you want me?"

"Oh, I've not lost all interest in Omofaga."

"No, you haven't," said Ruston. "On the contrary, you've been increasing your interest."

The Baron stopped and looked at him.

"Oh, you know that?"

"Certainly."

The Baron laughed.

"Then you can tell me whether I shall lose my money," he said.

"Do you ever lose your money, Baron?"

"But am I to hear about Omofaga?" asked the Baron, countering question by question.

"As much as you like," answered Ruston, with the indifference of perfect candour.

"Ah, by the way, I have heard about it already. Who are the ladies here who talk about it?"

Willie Ruston gave a careful catalogue of all the persons in Dieppe who were interested in the Omofaga Company. The Baron identified the Seminghams and Adela. Then he observed,

"And the other lady is Mrs. Dennison, is she?"

"She is. I'm going to her house to-morrow. Shall I take you?"

"I should be charmed."

"Very well. To-morrow afternoon."

"And you'll dine with me to-night?"

Ruston was about to refuse; but the Baron added, half seriously,