The God in the Car: A Novel
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"Oh!"
"I shouldn't wonder if you could guess."
"N – no, I don't think so."
"Well, it doesn't matter where."
"Oh, but I say, you might as well tell me. Hang it, I've learnt to hold my tongue."
"You hadn't noticed it? That's all right. I'm glad to hear it," said Evan, whose satisfaction was not conspicuous in his tone.
"I'm so little in town, you see," said Walter tactfully.
"Well – for heaven's sake, don't let it go any farther – Curzon Street."
"What! Of course! Mrs. – "
"All right, yes. But I've made up my mind. I shall drop all that. Best, isn't it?"
Walter nodded a sagacious assent.
"There was never anything in it, really," said Evan, and he was not displeased with his friend's incredulous expression. It is a great luxury to speak the truth and yet not be believed.
"Now, what you propose," continued Evan, "is most – but, I say, Val, what does she think?"
"She likes you – and you'll have all my influence," said the Head of the Family in a tone of importance.
"But how do you know she likes me?" insisted Evan, whose off-hand air gave place to a manner betraying some trepidation.
"I don't know for certain, of course. And, I say, Haselden, I believe mother's got an idea in her head about that fellow Ruston."
"The devil! That brute! Oh, hang it, Val, she can't – your sister, I mean – I tell you what, I shan't play the fool any longer."
Sir Walter cordially approved of increased activity, and the two young gentlemen, having settled one lady's future and disposed of the claims of two others to their complete satisfaction, betook themselves to recreation.
Evan was not, however, of opinion that anything in the conversation above recorded, imposed upon him the obligation of avoiding entirely Mrs. Dennison's society. On the contrary, he took an early opportunity of going to see her. His attitude towards her was one of considerably greater deference than Sir Walter understood it to be, and he had a high idea of the value of her assistance. And he did not propose to deny himself such savour of sentiment as the lady would allow; and she generally allowed a little. He intended to say nothing about Ruston, but as it happened that Mrs. Dennison's wishes set in an opposing direction, he had not been long in the drawing room at Curzon Street before he found himself again with the name of his enemy on his lips. He spoke with refreshing frankness and an engaging confidence in his hostess' sympathy. Mrs. Dennison had no difficulty in seeing that he had a special reason for his bitterness.
"Is it only because he called you Ganymede? And it's a very good name for you, Mr. Haselden."
To be compared to Ganymede in private by a lady and in public by a scoffer, are things very different. Evan smiled complacently.
"There's more than that, isn't there?" asked Mrs. Dennison.
Evan admitted that there was more, and, in obedience to some skilful guidance, he revealed what there was more – what beyond mere offended dignity – between himself and Mr. Ruston. He had to complain of no lack of interest on the part of his listener. Mrs. Dennison questioned him closely as to his grounds for anticipating Ruston's rivalry. The idea was evidently quite new to her; and Evan was glad to detect her reluctance to accept it – she must think as he did about Willie Ruston. The tangible evidence appeared on examination reassuringly small, and Evan, by a strange conversion, found himself driven to defend his apprehensions by insisting on just that power of attraction in his foe which he had begun by denying altogether. But that, Mrs. Dennison objected, only showed, even if it existed, that Marjory might like Ruston, not that Ruston would return her liking. On the whole Mrs. Dennison comforted him, and, dismissing Ruston from the discussion, said with a smile,
"So you're thinking of settling down already, are you?"
"I say, Mrs. Dennison, you've always been awfully good to me; I wonder if you'd help me in this?"
"How could I help you?"
"Oh, lots of ways. Well, for instance, old Lady Valentine doesn't ask me there often. You see, I haven't got any money."
"Poor boy! Of course you haven't. Nice young men never have any money."
"So I don't get many chances of seeing her."
"And I might arrange meetings for you? That's how I could help? Now, why should I help?"
Evan was encouraged by this last question, put in his friend's doubtfully-serious doubtfully-playful manner.
"It needn't," he said, in a tone rather more timid than young Sir Walter would have expected, "make any difference to our friendship, need it? If it meant that – "
The sentence was left in expressive incompleteness.
Mrs. Dennison wanted to laugh; but why should she hurt his feelings? He was a pleasant boy, and, in spite of his vanity, really a clever one. He had been a little spoilt; that was all. She turned her laugh in another direction.
"Berthe Cormack would tell you that it would be sure to intensify it," she said. "Seriously, I shan't hate you for marrying, and I don't suppose Marjory will hate me."
"Then" (Mrs. Dennison had to smile at that little word), "you'll help me?"
"Perhaps," said Mrs. Dennison, allowing her smile to become manifest.
"You won't be against me?"
"Perhaps not."
"Good-bye," said Evan, pressing her hand.
He had enjoyed himself very much, and Mrs. Dennison was glad that she had been good-natured, and had not laughed.
"Good-bye, and I hope you'll be very happy, if you succeed. And – Evan – don't kill Mr. Ruston!"
The laugh came at last, but he was out of the door in time, and Mrs. Dennison had no leisure to enjoy it fully, for, the moment her visitor was gone, Mr. Belford and Lord Semingham were announced. They came together, seeking Harry Dennison. There was a "little hitch" of some sort in the affairs of the Omofaga Company – nothing of consequence, said Mr. Belford reassuringly. Mrs. Dennison explained that Harry Dennison had gone off to call on Mr. Ruston.
"Oh, then he knows by now," said Semingham in a tone of relief.
"And it'll be all right," added Belford contentedly.
"Mr. Belford," said Mrs. Dennison, "I'm living in an atmosphere of Omofaga. I eat it, and drink it, and wear it, and breathe it. And, what in the end, is it?"
"Ask Ruston," interposed Semingham.
"I did; but I don't think he told me."
"But surely, my dear Mrs. Dennison, your husband takes you into his confidence?" suggested Mr. Belford.
Mrs. Dennison smiled, as she replied,
"Oh, yes, I know what you're doing. But I want to know why you're doing it. I don't believe you'll ever get anything out of it, you know."
"Oh, directors always get something," protested Semingham. "Penal servitude sometimes, but always something."
"I've never had such implicit faith in any undertaking in my life," asserted Mr. Belford. "And I know that your husband shares my views. It's bound to be the greatest success of the day. Ah, here's Dennison!"
Harry came in wiping his brow. Belford rushed to him, and drew him to the window, button-holing him with decision. Lord Semingham smiled lazily and pulled his whisker.
"Don't you want to hear the news?" Mrs. Dennison asked.
"No! He's been to Ruston."
Mrs. Dennison looked at him for an instant with something rather like scorn in her eye. Lord Semingham laughed.
"I'm not quite as bad as that, really," he said.
"And the others?" she asked, leaning forward and taking care that her voice did not reach the other pair.
"He turns Belford round his fingers."
"And Mr. Carlin?"
"In his pocket."
Mrs. Dennison cast a glance towards the window.
"Don't go on," implored Semingham, half-seriously.
"And my husband?" she asked in a still lower voice.
Lord Semingham protested with a gesture against such cross-examination.
"Surely it's a good thing for me to know?" she said.
"Well – a great influence."
"Thank you."
There was a pause for an instant. Then she rose with a laugh and rang the bell for tea.
"I hope he won't ruin us all," she said.
"I've got Bessie's settlement," observed Lord Semingham; and he added after a moment's pause, "What's the matter? I thought you were a thoroughgoing believer."
"I'm a woman," she answered. "If I were a man – "
"You'd be the prophet, not the disciple, eh?"
She looked at him, and then across to the couple by the window.
"To do Belford justice," remarked Semingham, reading her glance, "he never admits that he isn't a great man – though surely he must know it."
"Is it better to know it, or not to know it?" she asked, restlessly fingering the teapot and cups which had been placed before her. "I sometimes think that if you resolutely refuse to know it, you can alter it."
Belford's name had been the only name mentioned in the conversation; yet Semingham knew that she was not thinking of Belford nor of him.
"I knew it about myself very soon," he said. "It makes a man better to know it, Mrs. Dennison."
"Oh, yes – better," she answered impatiently.
The two men came and joined them. Belford accepted a cup of tea, and, as he took it, he said to Harry, continuing their conversation,
"Of course, I know his value; but, after all, we must judge for ourselves."
"Of course," acquiesced Harry, handing him bread-and-butter.
"We are the masters," pursued Belford.
Mrs. Dennison glanced at him, and a smile so full of meaning – of meaning which it was as well Mr. Belford should not see – appeared on her face, that Lord Semingham deftly interposed his person between them, and said, with apparent seriousness,
"Oh, he mustn't think he can do just what he likes with us."
"I am entirely of your opinion," said Belford, with a weighty nod.
After tea, Lord Semingham walked slowly back to his own house. He had a trick of stopping still, when he fell into thought, and he was motionless on the pavement of Piccadilly more than once on his way home. The last time he paused for nearly three minutes, till an acquaintance, passing by, clapped him on the back, and inquired what occupied his mind.
"I was thinking," said Semingham, laying his forefinger on his friend's arm, "that if you take what a clever man really is, and add to it what a clever woman who is interested in him thinks he is, you get a most astonishing person."
The friend stared. The speculation seemed hardly pressing enough to excuse a man for blocking the pavement of Piccadilly.
"If, on the other hand," pursued Semingham, "you take what an ordinary man isn't, and add all that a clever woman thinks he isn't, you get – "
"Hadn't we better go on, old fellow?" asked the friend.
"No, I think we'd better not," said Semingham, starting to walk again.
CHAPTER V
A TELEGRAM TO FRANKFORT
The success of Lady Valentine's Saturday to Monday party at Maidenhead was spoilt by the unscrupulous, or (if the charitable view be possible) the muddle-headed conduct of certain eminent African chiefs – so small is the world, so strong the chain of gold (or shares) that binds it together. The party was marred by Willie Ruston's absence; and he was away because he had to go to Frankfort, and he had to go to Frankfort because of that little hitch in the affairs of the Omofaga. The hitch was, in truth, a somewhat grave one, and it occurred, most annoyingly, immediately after a gathering, marked by uncommon enthusiasm and composed of highly influential persons, had set the impress of approval on the scheme. On the following morning, it was asserted that the said African chiefs, from whom Ruston and his friends derived their title to Omofaga, had acted in a manner that belied the character for honesty and simplicity in commercial matters (existing side by side with intense savagery and cruelty in social and political life) that Mr. Foster Belford had attributed to them at the great meeting. They had, it was said, sold Omofaga several times over in small parcels, and twice, at least, en bloc– once to the Syndicate (from whom the Company was acquiring it) and once to an association of German capitalists. The writer of the article, who said that he knew the chiefs well, went so far as to maintain that any person provided with a few guns and a dozen or so bottles of ardent spirits could return from Omofaga with a portmanteau full of treaties, and this facility in obtaining the article could not, in accordance with the law of supply and demand, do other than gravely affect the value of it. Willie Ruston was inclined to make light of this disclosure; indeed, he attributed it to a desire – natural but unprincipled – on the part of certain persons to obtain Omofaga shares at less than their high intrinsic value; he called it a "bear dodge" and sundry other opprobrious names, and snapped his fingers at all possible treaties in the world except his own. Once let him set his foot in Omofaga, and short would be the shrift of rival claims, supposing them to exist at all! But the great house of Dennison, Sons & Company, could not go on in this happy-go-lucky fashion – so the senior partner emphatically told Harry Dennison – they were already, in his opinion, deep enough in this affair; if they were to go any deeper, this matter of the association of German capitalists must be inquired into. The house had not only its money, but its credit and reputation to look after; it could not touch any doubtful business, nor could it be left with a block of Omofagas on its hands. In effect they were trusting too much to this Mr. Ruston, for he, and he alone, was their security in the matter. Not another step would the house move till the German capitalists were dissolved into thin air. So Willie Ruston packed his portmanteau – likely enough the very one that had carried the treaties away from Omofaga – and went to Frankfort to track the German capitalists to their lair. Meanwhile, the issue of the Omofaga was postponed, and Mr. Carlin was set a-telegraphing to Africa.
Thus it also happened that, contrary to her fixed intention, Lady Valentine was left with a bedroom to spare, and with no just or producible reason whatever for refusing her son's request that Evan Haselden might occupy it. This, perhaps, should, in the view of all true lovers, be regarded as an item on the credit side of the African chiefs' account, though in the hostess' eyes it aggravated their offence. Adela Ferrars, Mr. Foster Belford and Tom Loring, who positively blessed the African chiefs, were the remaining guests.
All parties cannot be successful, and, if truth be told, this of Lady Valentine's was no conspicuous triumph. Belford and Loring quarrelled about Omofaga, for Loring feared (he used that word) that there might be a good deal in the German treaties, and Belford was loud-mouthed in declaring there could be nothing. Marjory and her brother had a "row" because Marjory, on the Saturday afternoon, would not go out in the Canadian canoe with Evan, but insisted on taking a walk with Mr. Belford and hearing all about Omofaga. Finally, Adela and Tom Loring had a rather serious dissension because – well, just because Tom was so intolerably stupid and narrow-minded and rude. That was Adela's own account of it, given in her own words, which seems pretty good authority.
The unfortunate discussion began with an expression of opinion from Tom. They were lounging very comfortably down stream in a broad-bottomed boat. It was a fine still evening and a lovely sunset. It was then most wanton of Tom – even although he couched his remark in a speciously general form – to say,
"I wonder at fellows who spend their life worming money out of other people for wild-cat schemes instead of taking to some honest trade."
There was a pause. Then Adela fitted her glasses on her nose, and observed, with a careful imitation of Tom's forms of expression,
"I wonder at fellows who drift through life in subordinate positions without the – the spunk– to try and do anything for themselves."
"Women have no idea of honesty."
"Men are such jealous creatures."
"I'm not jealous of him," Tom blurted out.
"Of who?" asked Adela.
She was keeping the cooler of the pair.
"Confound those beastly flies," said Tom, peevishly. There was a fly or two about, but Adela smiled in a superior way. "I suppose I've some right to express an opinion," continued Tom. "You know what I feel about the Dennisons, and – well, it's not only the Dennisons."
"Oh! the Valentines?"
"Blow the Valentines!" said Tom, very ungratefully, inasmuch as he sat in their boat and had eaten their bread.
He bent over his sculls, and Adela looked at him with a doubtful little smile. She thought Tom Loring, on the whole, the best man she knew, the truest and loyalest; but, these qualities are not everything, and it seemed as if he meant to be secretary to Harry Dennison all his life. Of course he had no money, there was that excuse; but to some men want of money is a reason, not for doing nothing, but for attempting everything; it had struck Willie Ruston in that light. Therefore she was at times angry with Tom – and all the more angry the more she admired him.
"You do me the honour to be anxious on my account?" she asked very stiffly.
"He asked me how much money you had the other day."
"Oh, you're insufferable; you really are. Do you always tell women that men care only for their money?"
"It's not a bad thing to tell them when it's true."
"I call this the very vulgarest dispute I was ever entrapped into."
"It's not my fault. It's – Hullo!"
His attention was arrested by Lady Valentine's footman, who stood on the bank, calling "Mr. Loring, sir," and holding up a telegram.
"Thank goodness, we're interrupted," said Adela. "Row ashore, Mr. Loring."
Loring obeyed, and took his despatch. It was from Harry Dennison, and he read it aloud.
"Can you come up? News from Frankfort."
"I must go," said Tom.
"Oh, yes. If you're not there, Mr. Ruston will do something dreadful, won't he? I should like to come too. News from Frankfort would be more interesting than views from Mr. Belford."
They parted without any approach towards a reconciliation. Tom was hopelessly sulky, Adela persistently flippant. The shadow of Omofaga lay heavy on Lady Valentine's party, and still shrouded Tom Loring on his way to town.
The important despatch from Frankfort had come in cipher, and when Tom arrived in Curzon Street, he found Mr. Carlin, who had been sent for to read it, just leaving the house. The men nodded to one another, and Carlin hastily exclaimed,
"You must reassure Dennison! You can do it!" and leapt into a hansom.
Tom smiled. If the progress of Omofaga depended on encouragement from him, Omofaga would remain in primitive barbarism, though missionaries fell thick as the leaves in autumn.
Harry Dennison was walking up and down the library; his hair was roughened and his appearance indicative of much unrest; his wife sat in an armchair, looking at him and listening to Lord Semingham, who, poising a cigarette between his fingers, was putting, or trying to put, a meaning to Ruston's message.
"Position critical. Must act at once. Will you give me a free hand? If not, wire how far I may go."
That was how it ran when faithfully interpreted by Mr. Carlin.
"You see," observed Lord Semingham, "it's clearly a matter of money."
Tom nodded.
"Of course it is," said he; "it's not likely to be a question of anything else."
"Therefore the Germans have something worth paying for," continued Semingham.
"Well," amended Tom, "something Ruston thinks it worth his while to pay for, anyhow."
"That is to say they have treaties touching, or purporting to touch, Omofaga."
"And," added Harry Dennison, who did not lack a certain business shrewdness, "probably their Government behind them to some extent."
Tom flung himself into a chair.
"The thing's monstrous," he pronounced. "Semingham and you, Dennison, are, besides himself – and he's got nothing – the only people responsible up to now. And he asks you to give him an unlimited credit without giving you a word of information! It's the coolest thing I ever heard of in all my life."
"Of course he means the Company to pay in the end," Semingham reminded the hostile critic.
"Time enough to talk of the Company when we see it," retorted Tom, with an aggressive scepticism.
"Position critical! Hum. I suppose their treaties must be worth something," pursued Semingham. "Dennison, I can't be drained dry over this job."
Harry Dennison shook his head in a puzzled fashion.
"Carlin says it's all right," he remarked.
"Of course he does!" exclaimed Tom impatiently. "Two and two make five for him if Ruston says they do."
"Well, Tom, what's your advice?" asked Semingham.
"You must tell him to do nothing till he's seen you, or at least sent you full details of the position."
The two men nodded. Mrs. Dennison rose from her chair, walked to the window, and stood looking out.
"Loring just confirms what I thought," said Semingham.
"He says he must act at once," Harry reminded them; he was still wavering, and, as he spoke, he glanced uneasily at his wife; but there was nothing to show that she even heard the conversation.
"Oh, he hates referring to anybody," said Tom. "He's to have a free hand, and you're to pay the bill. That's his programme, and a very pretty one it is – for him."
Tom's animus was apparent, and Lord Semingham laughed gently.
"Still, you're right in substance," he conceded when the laugh was ended, and as he spoke he drew a sheet of notepaper towards him and took up a pen.
"We'd better settle just what to say," he observed. "Carlin will be back in half an hour, and we promised to have it ready for him. What you suggest seems all right, Loring."
Tom nodded. Harry Dennison stood stock still for an instant and then said, with a sigh,
"I suppose so. He'll be furious – and I hope to God we shan't lose the whole thing."
Lord Semingham's pen-point was in actual touch with the paper before him, when Mrs. Dennison suddenly turned round and faced them. She rested one hand on the window-sash, and held the other up in a gesture which demanded attention.
"Are you really going to back out now?" she asked in a very quiet voice, but with an intonation of contempt that made all the three men raise their heads with the jerk of startled surprise. Lord Semingham checked the movement of his pen, and leant back in his chair, looking at her. Her face was a little flushed and she was breathing quickly.
"My dear," said Harry Dennison very apologetically, "do you think you quite understand – ?"
But Tom Loring's patience was exhausted. His interview with Adela left him little reserve of toleration; and the discovery of another and even worse case of Rustomania utterly overpowered his discretion.
"Mrs. Dennison," he said, "wants us to deliver ourselves, bound hand and foot, to this fellow."
"Well, and if I do?" she demanded, turning on him. "Can't you even follow, when you've found a man who can lead?"
And then, conscious perhaps of having been goaded to an excess of warmth by Tom's open scorn, she turned her face away.
"Lead, yes! Lead us to ruin!" exclaimed Tom.
"You won't be ruined, anyhow," she retorted quickly, facing round on him again, reckless in her anger how she might wound him.
"Tom's anxious for us, Maggie," her husband reminded her, and he laid his hand on Tom Loring's shoulder.
Tom's excitement was not to be soothed.
"Why are we all to be his instruments?" he demanded angrily.
"I should be proud to be," she said haughtily.
Her husband smiled in an uneasy effort after nonchalance, and Lord Semingham shot a quick glance at her out of his observant eyes.
"I should be proud of a friend like you if I were Ruston," he said gently, hoping to smooth matters a little.
Mrs. Dennison ignored his attempt.
"Can't you see?" she asked. "Can't you see that he's a man to – to do things? It's enough for us if we can help him."
She had forgotten her embarrassment; she spoke half in contempt, half in entreaty, wholly in an earnest urgency, that made her unconscious of any strangeness in her zeal. Harry looked uncomfortable. Semingham with a sigh blew a cloud of smoke from his cigarette.