The God in the Car: A Novel

"You think me a child, so you say you don't mean it now. You do mean it, you know. You wouldn't say a thing like that for nothing. Tell me what you do mean, Adela." It was almost an order. Adela suddenly realised that she had struck down to a force and a character. "Tell me exactly what you mean," insisted Marjory; "you ought to tell me, Adela."

Adela found herself obeying.

"I don't know about him; but I'm afraid of her," she stammered, as if confessing a shameful deed of her own. A moment later she broke into entreaty. "Go away, dear. Don't get mixed up in it. Don't have anything to do with him."

"Do you go away when your friends are in trouble or in danger?"

Adela felt suddenly small – then wise – then small because her wisdom was of a small kind. Yet she gave it utterance.

"But, Marjory, think of – think of yourself. If you – ."

"I know what you're going to say. If I care for him? I don't. I hardly know him. But, if I did, I might – I might be of some use. And are you going to leave her all alone? I thought you were her friend. Are you just going to look on? Though you think – what you think!"

Adela caught hold of the girl's hands. There was a choking in her throat, and she could say nothing.

"But if he sees?" she murmured, when she found speech.

"He won't see. There's nothing to see. I shan't show it. Adela, I shall stay. Why do you think what – what you think?"

People might wonder, if they would – perhaps they did – when Adela drew Marjory towards her, and kissed her lips.

"I couldn't, my dear," she said, "but, if you can, for heaven's sake do. I may be wrong, but – I'm uneasy."

Marjory's lips quivered, but she held her head proudly up; then she sobbed a short quick-stifled sob, and then smiled.

"I daresay it's not a bit true," she said.

Adela pressed her hand again, saying,

"I'm an emotional old creature."

"Why did Mr. Loring go away?" demanded Marjory.

"I don't know. He thought it – "

"Best? Well, he was wrong."

Adela could not hear Tom attacked.

"Maggie turned him out," she said – which account of the matter was, perhaps, just a little one-sided, though containing a part of the truth. Marjory meditated on it for a moment, Adela still covertly looking at her. The discovery was very strange. Half-an-hour ago she had smiled because the girl hinted a longing after something beyond frocks, and had laughed at her simple acceptance of Semingham's joke. Now she found herself turning to her, looking to her for help in the trouble that had puzzled her. In her admiration of the girl's courage, she forgot to wonder at her intuition, her grasp of evil possibilities, the knowledge of Maggie Dennison that her resolve implied. Adda watched her, as, their farewell said, she walked, first quickly, then very slowly, towards the villa which Mrs. Dennison had hired, on the cliff-side, near the old Castle. Then, with a last sigh, she put up her parasol and sauntered back to the Hôtel de Rome. Costume number two would be on by now, and Bessie Semingham ready for luncheon.

Marjory, finally sunk into the slow gait that means either idleness or deep thought, made her way up to the villa. With every step she drew nearer, the burden she had taken up seemed heavier. It was not sorrow for the dawning dream that the storm-cloud had eclipsed that she really thought of. But the task loomed large in its true difficulty, as her first enthusiasm spent itself. If Adela were right, what could she do? If Adela were wrong, what unpardonable offence she might give. Ah, was Adela right? Strange and new as the idea was, there was an unquestioning conviction in her manner that Marjory could hardly resist. Save under the stress of a conviction, speech on such a matter would have been an impossible crime. And Marjory remembered, with a sinking heart, Maggie Dennison's smile of happy triumph when she read out the lines in which Ruston told of his coming. Yes, it was, or it might be, true. But where lay her power to help?

Coming round the elbow of the rising path, she caught sight of Maggie Dennison sitting in the garden. Mrs. Dennison wore white; her pale, clear-cut profile was towards Marjory; she rested her chin on her hand, and her elbow on her knee, and she was looking on the ground. Softly Marjory drew near. An unopened letter from Harry lay on a little table; the children had begun their mid-day meal in the room, whose open window was but a few feet behind; Mrs. Dennison's thoughts were far away. Marjory stopped short. A stronger buffet of fear, a more overwhelming sense of helplessness, smote her. She understood better why Adela had been driven to do nothing – to look on. She smiled for an instant; the idea put itself so whimsically; but she thought that, had Mrs. Dennison been walking over a precipice, it would need all one's courage to interfere with her. She would think it such an impertinence. And Ruston? Marjory saw, all in a minute, his cheerful scorn, his unshaken determination, his rapid dismissal of one more obstacle. She drew in her breath in a long inspiration, and Mrs. Dennison raised her eyes and smiled.

"I believe I felt you there," she said, smiling. "At least, I began to think of you."

Marjory sat near her hostess.

"Did you meet anyone?" asked Mrs. Dennison.

"Adela Ferrars and Lord Semingham."

"Well, had they anything to say?"

"No – I don't think so," she answered slowly.

"What should they have to say in this place? The children have begun. Aren't you hungry?"

"Not very."

"Well, I am," and Mrs. Dennison arose. "I forgot it, but I am."

"They didn't know Mr. Ruston was coming."

"Didn't they?" smiled Mrs. Dennison. "And has Adela forgiven you? Oh, you know, the poor boy is a friend of hers, as he is of mine."

"We didn't talk about it."

"And you don't want to? Very well, we won't. See, here's a long letter – it's very heavy, at least – from Harry. I must read it afterwards."

"Perhaps it's to say he can come sooner."

"I expect not," said Mrs. Dennison, and she opened the letter. "No; a fortnight hence at the soonest," she announced, after reading a few lines.

Marjory was both looking and listening closely, but she detected neither disappointment nor relief.

"He's seen Tom Loring! Oh, and Tom sends me his best remembrances. Poor Tom! Marjory, does Adela talk about Mr. Loring?"

"She mentioned him once."

"She thinks it was all my fault," laughed Mrs. Dennison. "A woman always thinks it's a woman's fault; at least, that's our natural tendency, though we're being taught to overcome it. Marjory, you look dull! It will be livelier for you when your brother and Mr. Ruston come."

The hardest thing about great resolves and lofty moods is their intermixture with everyday life. The intervals, the "waits," the mass of irrelevant trivialities that life inartistically mingles with its drama, flinging down pell-mell a heap of great and small – these cool courage and make discernment distrust itself. Mrs. Dennison seemed so quiet, so placid, so completely the affectionate but not anxious wife, the kind hostess, and even the human gossip, that Marjory wanted to rub her eyes, wondering if all her heroics were nonsense – a girl's romance gone wrong. There was nothing to be done but eat and drink, and talk and lounge in the sun – there was no hint of a drama, no call for a rescue, no place for a sacrifice. And Marjory had been all aglow to begin. Her face grew dull and her eyelids half-dropped as she leant her head on the back of her chair.

"Déjeuner!" cried Mrs. Dennison merrily. "And this afternoon we're all going to gamble at petits chevaux, and if we win we're going to buy more Omofagas. There's a picture of a speculator's family!"

"Mr. Dennison's not a speculator, is he?"

"Oh, it depends on what you mean. Anyhow, I am;" and Mrs. Dennison, waving her letter in the air and singing softly, almost danced in her merry walk to the house. Then, crying her last words, "Be quick!" from the door, she disappeared.

A moment later she was laughing and chattering to her children. Marjory heard her burlesque complaints over the utter disappearance of an omelette she had set her heart upon.

That afternoon they all played at petits chevaux, and the only one to win was Madge. But Madge utterly refused to invest her gains in Omofagas. She assigned no reasons, slating that her mother did not like her to declare the feeling which influenced her, and Mrs. Dennison laughed again. But Adela Ferrars would not look towards Marjory, but kept her eyes on an old gentleman who had been playing also, and playing with good fortune. He had looked round curiously when, in the course of the chaff, they had mentioned Omofaga, and Adela detected in him the wish to look again. She wondered who he was, scrutinising his faded blue eyes and the wrinkles of weariness on his brow. Willie Ruston could have told her. It was Baron von Geltschmidt of Frankfort.

CHAPTER XII

IT CAN WAIT