The God in the Car: A Novel

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."