The God in the Car: A Novel

"I've come a long way to see you."

"All right, I'll come," he said. Then he paused a moment, and looked at the Baron curiously. "And perhaps you'll tell me then," he added.

"Why I've come?"

"Yes; and why you've been buying. You were bought out. What do you want to come in again for?"

"I'll tell you all that now," said the Baron. "I've come because I thought I should like to see some more of you; and I've been buying because I fancy you'll make a success of it."

Willie Ruston pulled his beard thoughtfully.

"Don't you believe me?" asked the Baron.

"Let's wait a bit," suggested Ruston. Then, with a sudden twinkle of his eye, his holiday mood seemed to come back again. Seizing the Baron's arm, he pressed it, and said with a laugh, "I say, Baron, if you want to get control over Omofaga – "

"But, my dear friend – " protested the Baron.

"If you do – I only say 'if' – I'm not the only man you've got to fight. Well, yes, I am the only man."

"My dear young friend, I don't understand you," pleaded the Baron.

"We'll go and see Mrs. Dennison to-morrow," said Willie Ruston.

CHAPTER XIV

THE THING OR THE MAN

"Well?"

It was the morning of the next day, Mrs. Dennison sat in her place in the little garden on the cliff, and Willie Ruston stood just at the turn of the mounting path, where Marjory had paused to look at her friend.

"Well, here I am," said he.

She did not move, but held out her hand. He advanced and took it.

"I met your children down below," he went on, "but they would hardly speak to me. Why don't they like me?"

"Never mind the children."

"But I do mind. Most children like me."

"How is everything?"

"In London? Oh, first-rate. I saw your husband the – "

"I mean, how is Omofaga?"

"Capital; and here?"

"It has been atrociously dull. What could you expect?"

"Well, I didn't expect that, or I shouldn't have come."

"Are the stores started?"

"I thought it was holiday time? Well, yes, they are."

She had been looking at him ever since he came, and at last he noticed it.

"Do I look well?" he asked in joke.

"You know, it's rather a pleasure to look at you," she replied. "I've been feeling so shut in," and she pushed her hair back from her forehead, and glanced at him with a bright smile. "And it's really going well?"

"So well," he nodded, "that everything's quiet, and the preparations well ahead. In three months" (and his enthusiasm began to get hold of him) "I shall be off; in two more I hope to be actually there, and then – why, forward!"

She had listened at first with sparkling eyes; as he finished, her lips drooped, and she leant back in her chair. There was a moment's silence; then she said in a low voice,

"Three months!"

"It oughtn't to take more than two, if Jackson has arranged things properly for me."

Evidently he was thinking of his march up country; but it was the first three mouths that were in her mind. She had longed to see the thing really started, hastened by all her efforts the hour that was to set him at work, and dreamt of the day when he should set foot in Omofaga. Now all this seemed assured, imminent, almost present; yet there was no exultation in her tone.

"I meant, before you started," she said slowly.

He looked up in surprise.

"I can't manage sooner," he said, defending himself. "You know I don't waste time."

He was still off the scent; and even she herself was only now, for the first time and as yet dimly, realising her own mind.

"I have to do everything myself," he said. "Dear old Carlin can't walk a step alone, and the Board" – he paused, remembering that Harry Dennison was on the Board – "well, I find it hard to make them move as quick as I want. I had to fix a date, and I fixed the earliest I could be absolutely sure of."

"Why don't they help you more?" she burst out indignantly.

"Oh, I don't want help."

"Yes, but I helped you!" she exclaimed, leaning forward, full again of animation.

"I can't deny it," he laughed. "You did indeed."

"Yes," she said, and became again silent.

"Apropos," said he. "I want to bring someone to see you this afternoon – Baron von Geltschmidt."

"Who?"

"He was the German capitalist, you know."

"What! Why, what's he doing here?"

"He came to see me – so he says. May I bring him?"

"Why, yes. He's a great – a great man, isn't he?"

"Well, he's a great financier."

"And he came to see you?"

"So he says."

"And don't you believe him?"

"I don't know. I want your opinion," answered Ruston, with a smile.

"Are you serious?" she asked quickly. "I mean, do you really want my opinion, or are you being polite?"

"I don't think you a fool, you know," said Willie Ruston.

She flashed a glance of understanding, mingled with reproach, at him, and, leaning forward again, said,

"Has he come about Omofaga?"

"That you might tell me too – or will you want all Omofaga if you do so much?"

For a moment she smiled in recollection. Then her face grew sad.

"Much of Omofaga I shall have!" she said.

"Oh, I'll write," he promised carelessly.

"Write!" she repeated in low, scornful tones. "Would you like to be written to about it? It'll happen to you, and I'm to be written to!"

"Well, then, I won't write."

"Yes, do write."

Willie Ruston smiled tolerantly, but his smile was suddenly cut short, for Mrs. Dennison, not looking at him but out to sea, asked herself in a whisper, which was plainly not meant for him though he heard it,

"How shall I bear it?"

He had been tilting his chair back; he brought the front legs suddenly on to the ground again and asked,

"Bear what?"

She started to find he had heard, but attempted no evasion.

"When you've gone," she answered in simple directness.

He looked at her with raised eyebrows. There was no embarrassment in her face, and no tremble in her voice; and no passion could he detect in either.

"How flat it will all be," she added in a tone of utter weariness.

He was half-pleased, half-piqued at the way she seemed to look at him. It not only failed to satisfy him, but stirred a new dissatisfaction. It hinted much, but only, it seemed to him, to negative it. It left Omofaga still all in all, and him of interest only because he would talk of and work for Omofaga, and keep the Omofaga atmosphere about her. Now this was wrong, for Omofaga existed for him, not he for Omofaga; that was the faith of true disciples.

"You don't care about me," he said. "It's all the Company – and only the Company because it gives you something to do. Well, the Company'll go on (I hope), and you'll hear about our doings."

She turned to him with a puzzled look.

"I don't know what it is," she said with a shake of her head. Then, with a sudden air of understanding, as though she had caught the meaning that before eluded her, she cried, "I'm just like you, I believe. If I went to Omofaga, and you had to stay – "

"Oh, it would be the deuce!" he laughed.

"Yes, yes. Well, it is – the deuce," she answered, laughing in return. But in a moment she was grave again.

Her attraction for him – the old special attraction of the unknown and unconquered – came strongly upon him, and mingled more now with pleasure in her. Her silence let him think; and he began to think how wasted she was on Harry Dennison. Another thought followed, and to that he gave utterance.

"But you've lots of things you could do at home; you could have plenty to work at, and plenty of – of influence, and so on."

"Yes, but – oh, it would come to Mr. Belford! Who wants to influence Mr. Belford? Besides, I've grown to love it now, haven't you?"

"Omofaga?"

"Yes! It's so far off – and most people don't believe in it."

"No, confound them! I wish they did!"

"Do you? I'm not sure I do."

She was so absorbed that she had not heard an approaching step, and was surprised to see Ruston jump up while her last sentence was but half said.

"My dear Miss Valentine," he cried, his face lighting up with a smile of pleasure, "how pleasant to meet you again!"

There was no mistaking the sincerity of his greeting. Marjory blushed as she gave him her hand, and he fixed his eyes on her in undisguised approval.

"You're looking splendid," he said. "Is it the air or the bathing or what?"

Perhaps it was both in part, but, more than either, it was a change that worked outwards from within, and was giving to her face the expression without which mere beauty of form or colour is poor in allurement. The last traces of what Lord Semingham meant by "insipidity" had been chased away. Ruston felt the change though he could not track it.

Marjory, a bad dissembler, greeted him nervously, almost coldly; she was afraid to let her gaze rest on him or on Mrs. Dennison for long, lest it should hint her secret. Her manner betrayed such uneasiness that Ruston noticed it. Mrs. Dennison did not, for something in Ruston's face had caught her attention. She had seen many expressions in his eyes as he looked at her – of sympathy, amusement, pleasure, even (what had pleased her most) puzzle, but never what she saw now. The look now was a man's homage to beauty – it differs from every other – a lover hardly seems to have it unless his love be beautiful – and she had never yet seen it when he looked at her. She turned away towards the sea, grasping the arm of her chair with a sudden grip that streaked her fingers red and white. Marjory also saw, and a wild hope leapt up in her that her task needed not the doing. But a moment later Ruston was back in Omofaga – young Sir Walter being his bridge for yet another transit.

"How's Mr. Dennison?" asked Marjory, when he gave her an opportunity.

"Oh, he's all right. You'd have heard, I suppose, if he hadn't been?"

It was true. Marjory recognised the inappropriateness of her question, but Mrs. Dennison came to the rescue.

"Marjory wants a personal impression," she said. "You know she and my husband are great allies!"

"Well," laughed Ruston, "he was a little cross with me because I would come to Dieppe. I should have felt the same in his place; but he's well enough, I think."

"I was going down to find Lady Semingham," said Marjory. "Are you coming down this morning, Maggie?"

"Maggie" was something new – adopted at Mrs. Dennison's request.

"I think not, dear."

"I am," said Ruston, taking up his walking stick. "I shall be up with the Baron this afternoon, Mrs. Dennison. Come along, Miss Valentine. We've been having no end of palaver about Omofaga," and as they disappeared down the cliff Mrs. Dennison heard his voice talking eagerly to Marjory.

She felt her heart beating quickly. She had to conquer a strange impulse to rise and hurry after them. She knew that she must be jealous – jealous, she said to herself, trying to laugh, that he should talk about Omofaga to other people. Nonsense! Why, he was always talking of it! There was a stronger feeling in her, less vague, of fuller force. It had come on her when he spoke of his going to Africa, but then it was hard to understand, for with all her heart she thought she was still bent on his going. It spoke more clearly now, stirred by the threat of opposition. At first it had been the thing – the scheme – the idea – that had caught her; she had taken the man for the thing's sake, because to do such a thing proved him a man after her pattern. But now, as she sat in the little garden, she dimly traced her change – she loved the scheme because it was his. She did not shrink from testing it. "Yes," she murmured, "if he gave it up now, I should go on with him to something else." Then came another step – why should he not give it up? Why should he go into banishment – he who might go near to rule England? Why should he empty her life by going? But if he went – and she could not persuade herself that she had power to stop his going – he must go from her side, it must be she who gave him the stirrup-cup, she towards whom he would look across the sea, she for whom he would store up his brief, grim tales of victory, in whose eyes he would see the reflection of his triumphs. Could she fill such a place in his life? She knew that she did not yet, but she believed in herself. "I feel large enough," she said with a smile.

Yet there was something that she had not yet touched in him – the thing which had put that look in his eyes, a thing that for the moment at least Marjory Valentine had touched. Why had she not? She answered, with a strong clinging to self-approbation, that it was because she would not. She told herself that she had asked nothing from her intercourse with him save the play of mind on mind – it was her mind and nothing else that her own home failed to satisfy. She recalled the scornful disgust with which she had listened to Semingham when he hinted to her that there was only one way to rule a man. It seemed less disgusting to her now than when he spoke. For, in the light of that look in his eyes, there stood revealed a new possibility – always obvious, never hitherto thought of – that another would take and wield the lower mighty power that she had disdained to grasp, and by the might of the lower wrest from her the higher. Was not the lower solidly based in nature, the higher a fanciful structure resting in no sound foundation? The moment this spectre took form before her – the moment she grasped that the question might lie between her and another – that it might be not what she would take but what she could keep – her heart cried out, to ears that shrank from the tumultuous reckless cry, that less than all was nothing, that, if need be, all must be paid for all. And, swift on the horror of her discovery, came the inevitable joy in it – joy that will be silenced by no reproofs, not altogether abashed by any shame, that no pangs can rob utterly of its existence – a thing to smother, to hide, to rejoice in.

Yet she would not face unflinchingly what her changing mind must mean. She tried to put it aside – to think of something, ah! of anything else, of anything that would give her foothold.

"I love my husband," she found herself saying. "I love poor old Harry and the children." She repeated it again and again, praying the shibboleth to show its saving virtue. It was part of her creed, part of her life, to be a good wife and mother – part of her traditions that women who were not that were nothing at all, and that there was nothing a woman might take in exchange for this one splendid, all-comprehending virtue. To that she must stand – it was strange to be driven to argue with herself on such a point. She mused restlessly as she sat; she listened eagerly for her children's footsteps mounting the hill; she prayed an interruption to rescue her from her thoughts. Just now she would think no more about it; it was thinking about it that did all the harm. Yet while she was alone she could not choose but surrender to the thought of it – to the thought of what a price she must pay for her traditions and her creed. The payment, she cried, would leave life an empty thing. Yet it must be paid – if it must. Was it now come to that? Was this the parting of the roads?

"I must, yet I cannot! I must not, yet I must." It was the old clash of powers, the old conflict of commands, the old ruthless will of nature that makes right too hard and yet fastens anguish upon sin – that makes us yearn for and hate the higher while we love and loathe the lower.

CHAPTER XV

THE WORK OF A WEEK

Much went to spoil the stay at Dieppe, but the only overt trouble was the feeble health of the Baron von Geltschmidt. The old man had rapidly made his way into the liking of his new acquaintances. Semingham found his dry, worldly-wise, perhaps world-weary, humour an admirable sauce to conversation; Adela Ferrars detected kindness in him; his gallant deference pleased Lady Semingham. They were all grieved when the cold winds laid hold of him, forced him to keep house often, and drove him to furs and a bath-chair, even when the sun shone most brightly. Although they liked him, they implored him to fly south. He would not move, finding pleasure in them, and held fast by an ever-increasing uneasy interest in Willie Ruston. Adela quarrelled with him heartily and energetically on this score. To risk health because anyone was interesting was absurd; to risk it on Ruston's account most preposterous. "I'd be ill to get away from him," she declared. The Baron was obstinate, fatalistic as to his health, infatuated in his folly; stay he would, while Ruston stayed. Yet what Ruston did, pleased him not; for the better part of the man – what led him to respond to kindness or affection, and abate something of his hardness where he met no resistance – seemed to be conspiring with his old domineering mood to lead him beyond all power of warning or recall.

A week had passed since Ruston paid his first visit to Mrs. Dennison in the cottage on the cliff. It was a bright morning. The Baron was feeling stronger; he had left his chair and walked with Adela to a seat. There they sat side by side, in the occasional talk and easy silences of established friendship. The Baron smoked his cigar; Adela looked idly at the sea; but suddenly the Baron began to speak.

"I had a talk with our friend, Lord Semingham, this morning," said he.

"About anything in particular?"

"I meant it to be, but he doesn't like talk that leads anywhere in particular."

"No, he doesn't," said Adela, with a slight smile.

The Baron sat silent for a moment, then he said,

"May I talk to you, Miss Ferrars?" and he looked at her inquiringly.

"Why, of course," she answered. "Is it about yourself, Baron? You're not worse, are you?"

He took no notice of her question, but pointed towards the cliff.

"What is happening up there?" he asked.

Adela started. She had not realised that he meant to talk on that subject.

He detected her shrinking and hastened to defend himself.

"Or are we to say nothing?" he asked. "Nothing? When we all see! Don't you see? Doesn't Miss Valentine see? Is she so sad for nothing? Oh, don't shake your head. And the other – this Mrs. Dennison? Am I to go on?"

"No," said Adela sharply; and added, a moment later, "I know."

"And what does he mean?"

"He?" cried Adela. "Oh, he's not human."

"Nay, but he's terribly human," said the old Baron.

Adela looked round at him, but then turned away.

"I know what I would say, but I may not say it," pursued the Baron. "To you I may not say it. I know him. He will take, if he is offered."

His voice sank to a whisper.

"Then God help her," murmured Adela under her breath, while her cheeks flamed red.

"Yes, he will take, and he will go. Ah, he is a man to follow and to believe in – to trust your money, your fortune, your plans, even your secrets to; but – "

He paused, flinging away his extinct cigar.

"Well?" asked Adela in a low tone, eager in spite of her hatred of the topic.

"Never your love," said he; and added, "yet I believe I, who am old enough to know better, and too old to learn better, have almost given him mine. Well, I am not a woman."

"He can't hurt you," said Adela.

"Yes, he can," said the Baron with a dreary smile.

Adela was not thinking of her companion.

"Why do you talk of it?" she asked impatiently.

"I know I was wrong."

"No, no. I mean, why do you talk of it now?"

"Because," said the Baron, "he will not. Have you seen no change in him this week? A week ago, he laughed when I talked to him. He did not mind me speaking – it was still a trifle – nonsense – a week ago; if you like, an amusement, a pastime!"

"Well, and now?"

"Now he tells me to hold my tongue. And yet I am glad for one thing. That girl will not have him for a husband."

"Glad! Why, Baron, don't you see – "

"Yes, I see. Still I am glad."

"I can't go on talking about it; but is there no hope?"

"Where is it? For the time – mind you for the time – he is under that other woman's power."

"She's under his, you mean."

"I mean both. She was a friend of yours. Yes. She is not altogether a bad woman; but she has had a bad fortune. Ah, there she is, and he with her."

As he spoke, Mrs. Dennison and Ruston came by. Mrs. Dennison flung them a glance of recognition; it was hardly more, and even for so much she seemed to grudge the interruption. Ruston's greeting was more ceremonious; he smiled, but his brows contracted a little, and he said to his companion,

"Miss Ferrars isn't pleased with me."

"That hurts?" she asked lightly.

"No," he answered, after a short pause, "I don't know that it does."

But the frown dwelt a little longer on his face.

"Sit down here," she said, and they sat down in full view of Adela and the Baron, about twenty yards off.

"She's mad," murmured Adela, and the Baron muttered assent.

It was the time of the morning when everybody was out. Presently Lord and Lady Semingham strolled by – Lady Semingham did not see Maggie Dennison, her husband did, and Adela caught the look in his eye. Then down from the hill and on to the grass came Marjory Valentine. She saw both couples, and, for a perceptible moment, stood wavering between them. She looked pale and weary. Mrs. Dennison indicated her with the slightest gesture.

"You were asking for her. There she is," she said to Willie Ruston.

"Well, I think I'll go and ask her."

"What?"

"To come for a walk."

"Now?"

"Why not?" he asked with a surprised smile.

As he spoke, Marjory's hesitation ended; she joined Adela and the Baron.

"How rude you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Dennison angrily, "you asked me to come out with you."

"So I did. By Jove, so I did! But you don't walk, do you? And I feel rather like a walk now."

"Oh, if you prefer her society – "

"Her prattle," he said, smiling, "amuses me. You and I always discuss high matters, you see."

"She doesn't prattle, and you know it."

He looked at her for a moment. He had gone so far as to rise, but he resumed his seat.

"What's the matter?" he asked tolerantly.

Maggie Dennison's lip quivered. The week that had passed had been a stormy one to her. There had been a breaking-down of barriers – barriers of honour, conscience, and pride. All she could do to gain or keep her mastery she had done. She had all but thrown herself at his feet. She hated to think of the things she had said or half-said; and she had seen Marjory's eyes look wondering horror and pitying contempt at her. Of her husband she would not think. And she had won in return – she knew not what. It hung still in the balance. Sometimes he would seem engrossed in her; but again he would turn to Marjory or another with a kind of relief, as though she wearied him. And of her struggles, of the great humiliations she suffered, of all she sacrificed to him, he seemed unconscious. Yet, cost what it might, she could not let him go now. The screen of Omofaga was dropped; she knew that it was the man whose life she was resolute to fill; whether she called it love for him or what else mattered little; it seemed rather a mere condition of existence, necessary yet not sweet, even revolting; but its alternative was death.

She had closed her eyes for a moment under the stress of her pain. When she opened them, he was looking at her. And the look she knew was at last in his eyes. She put up her hand to ward it off; it woke her horror, but it woke her delight also. She could not choose whether to banish it, or to live in it all her life. She tried to speak, but her utterance was choked.

"Why, I believe you're – jealous," said Willie Ruston. "But then they always say I'm a conceited chap."

He spoke with a laugh, but he looked at her intently. The little scene was the climax of a week's gradual betrayal. Often in all the hours they had spent together, in all the engrossing talks they had had, something of the kind had appeared and disappeared; he had wondered at her changefulness, her moods of expansion and of coldness – a rapturous greeting of him to be followed by a cold dismissal – an eager sympathy alternating with wilful indifference. She had, too, fits of prudence, when she would not go with him – and then spasms of recklessness when her manner seemed to defy all restraint and mock at the disapproval of her friends. On these puzzles – to him, preoccupied as he was and little versed in such matters, they had seemed such – the present moment shed its light. He recalled, with understanding, things that had passed meaninglessly before his eyes, that he seemed to have forgotten altogether; the ambiguous things became plain; what had been, though plain, yet strange, fell into its ordered place and became natural. The new relation between them proclaimed itself the interpretation and the work of the bygone week.