The God in the Car

Chapter 15

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.

Her glove lay in her lap, and he touched it lightly; the gesture speaking of their sudden new familiarity.

Her reproach was no less eloquent; she rebuked not the thing, but the rashness of it.

"Don't do that. They're looking," she found voice to whisper.

He withdrew his hand, and, taking off his hat, pushed the hair back from his forehead. Presently he looked at her with an almost comical air of perplexity; she was conscious of the glance, but she would not meet it. He pursed his lips to whistle.

"Don't," she whispered sharply. "Don't whistle." A whistle brought her husband to her mind.

The checked whistle rudely reflected his mingled feelings. He wished that he had been more on his guard-against her and against himself. There had been enough to put him on his guard; if he had been put on his guard, this thing need not have happened. He called the thing in his thoughts "inconvenient." He was marvellously awake to the inconvenience of it; it was that which came uppermost in his mind as he sat by Maggie Dennison. Yet, in spite of a phrase that sounded so cold and brutal, his reflections paid her no little compliment; for he called the revelation inconvenient all the more, and most of all, because he found it of immense interest, because it satisfied suddenly and to the full a sense of interest and expectation that had been upon him, because it seemed to make an immense change in his mind and to alter the conditions of his life. Had it not done all this, its inconvenience would have been much less-to him and save in so far as he grieved for her-nay, it would have been, in reality, nothing. It was inconvenient because it twisted his purposes, set him at jar with himself, and cut across the orderly lines he had laid down-and because, though it did all this, he was not grieved nor angry at it.

He rose to his feet. Mrs. Dennison looked up quickly.

"I shall go for my walk now," he said, and he added in answer to her silent question, "Oh, yes, alone. I've got a thing or two I want to think about."

Her eyes dropped as he spoke. He had smiled, and she, in spite of herself, had smiled in answer; but she could not look at him while she smiled. He stood there for an instant, smiling still; then he grew grave, and turned to walk away. Her sigh witnessed the relaxation of the strain. But, after one step, he faced her again, and said, as though the idea had just struck him,

"I say, when does Dennison come?"

"In a week," she answered.

For just a moment again, he stood still, thoughtfully looking at her. Then he lifted his hat, wheeled round, and walked briskly off towards the jetty at the far end of the expanse of grass. Adela Ferrars, twenty yards off, marked his going with a sigh of relief.

Mrs. Dennison sat where she was a little while longer. Her agitation was quickly passing, and there followed on it a feeling of calm. She seemed to have resigned charge of herself, to have given her conduct into another's keeping. She did not know what he would do; he had uttered no word of pleasure or pain, praise or blame; and that question at the last-about her husband-was ambiguous. Did he ask it, fearing Harry's arrival, or did he think the arrival of her husband would end an awkward position and set him free? Really, she did not know. She had done what she could-and what she could not help. He must do what he liked-only, knowing him, she did not think that she had set an end to their acquaintance. And that for the moment was enough.

"A woman, Bessie," she heard a voice behind her saying, "may be anything from a cosmic force to a clothes-peg."

"I don't know what a cosmic force is," said Lady Semingham.

"A cosmic force? Why--"

"But I don't want to know, Alfred. Why, Maggie, that's a new shade of brown on your shoes. Where do you get them?"

Mrs. Dennison gave her bootmaker's address, and Lady Semingham told her husband to remember it. She never remembered that he always forgot such things.

The arrival of the Seminghams seemed to break the spell which had held Mrs. Dennison apart from the group over against her. Adela strolled across, followed by Marjory, and the Baron on Marjory's arm. The whole party gathered in a cluster; but Marjory hung loosely on the outskirts of the circle, and seemed scarcely to belong to it.

The Baron seated himself in the place Willie Ruston had left empty. The rest stood talking for a minute or two, then Semingham put his hand in his pocket and drew out a folded sheet of tracing-paper.

"We're all Omofagites here, aren't we?" he said; "even you, Baron, now. Here's a plan Carlin has just sent me. It shows our territory."

Everybody crowded round to look as he unfolded it. Mrs. Dennison was first in undisguised eagerness; and Marjory came closer, slipping her arm through Adela Ferrars'.

"What does the blue mean?" asked Adela.

"Native settlements."

"Oh! And all that brown?-it's mostly brown."

"Brown," answered Semingham, with a slight smile, "means unexplored country."

"I should have made it all brown," said Adela, and the Baron gave an appreciative chuckle.

"And what are these little red crosses?" asked Mrs. Dennison, laying the tip of her finger on one.

"Eh? What, those? Oh, let me see. Here, just hold it while I look at Carlin's letter. He explains it all," and Lord Semingham began to fumble in his breast-pocket.

"Dear me," said Bessie Semingham, in a tone of delicate pleasure, "they look like tombstones."

"Hush, hush, my dear lady," cried the old Baron; "what a bad omen!"

"Tombstones," echoed Maggie Dennison thoughtfully. "So they do-just like tombstones."

A pause fell on the group. Adela broke it.

"Well, Director, have you found your directions?" she asked briskly.

"It was a momentary lapse of memory," said Semingham with dignity. "Those-er-little--"

"No, not tombstones," interrupted the Baron earnestly.

"Little-er-signposts are, of course, the forts belonging to the Company. What else should they be?"

"Oh, forts," murmured everybody.

"They are," continued Lord Semingham apologetically, "in the nature of a prophecy at present, as I understand."

"A very bad prophecy, according to Bessie," said Mrs. Dennison.

"I hope," said the Baron, shaking his head, "that the official name is more correct than Lady Semingham's."

"So do I," said Marjory; and added, before she could think not to add, and with unlucky haste, "my brother's going out, you know."

Mrs. Dennison looked at her. Then she crossed over to her, saying to Adela,

"You never let me have a word with my own guest, except at breakfast and bedtime. Come and walk up and down with me, Marjory."

Marjory obeyed; the group began to scatter.

"But didn't they look like tombstones, Baron?" said Bessie Semingham again, as she sat down and made room for the old man beside her. When she had an idea she liked it very much. He began to be voluble in his reproof of her gloomy fancies; but she merely laughed in glee at her ingenuity.

Adela, by a gesture, brought Semingham to her side and walked a few paces off with him.

"Will you go with me to the post-office?" she said abruptly.

"By all means," he answered, feeling for his glass.

"Oh, you needn't get your glass to spy at me with."

"Dear, dear, you use one yourself!"

"I'll tell you myself why I'm going. You're going to send a telegram."

"Am I?"

"Yes; to invite someone to stay with you. Lord Semingham, when you find a woman relies on a man-on one man only-in trouble, what do you think?"

She asked the question in a level voice, looking straight before her.

"That she's fond of him."

"And does he-the man-think the same?"

"Generally. I think most men would. They're seldom backward to think it, you know."

"Then," she said steadily, "you must think, and he must think, what you like. I can't help it. I want you to wire and ask a man to come and stay with you."

He turned to her in surprise.

"Tom Loring," she said, and the moment the name left her lips Semingham hastily turned his glance away.

"Awkward-with the other fellow here," he ventured to suggest.

"Mr. Ruston doesn't choose your guests."

"But Mrs.--"

"Oh, fancy talking of awkwardness now! He used to influence her once, you know. Perhaps he might still. Do let us try," and her voice trembled in earnestness.

"We'll try. Will he come? He's very angry with her."

And Adela answered, still looking straight in front of her,

"I'm going to send him a wire, too."

"I'm very glad to hear it," said Lord Semingham.