AN ATTEMPT TO STOP THE WHEELS.
Miss Adela Ferrars lived in Queen's Gate, in company with her aunt, Mrs.
Topham. Mrs. Topham's husband had been the younger son of a peer of
ancient descent; and a practised observer might almost have detected the
fact in her manner, for she took her station in this life as seriously
as her position in the next, and, in virtue of it, assumed a
responsibility for the morals of her inferiors which betrayed a
considerable confidence in her own. But she was a good woman, and a
widow of the pattern most opposite to that of Mrs. Cormack. She dwelt
more truly in the grave of her husband than in Queen's Gate, and
permitted herself no recreations except such as may privily creep into
religious exercises and the ministrations of favourite clergymen; and it
is pleasant to think that she was very happy. As may be supposed,
however, Adela (who was a good woman in quite another way, and therefore
less congenial with her aunt than any mere sinner could have been) and
Mrs. Topham saw very little of one another, and would not have thought
of living together unless each had been able to supply what the other
wanted. Adela found money for the house, and Mrs. Topham lent the
shelter of her name to her niece's unprotected condition. There were
separate sitting-rooms for the two ladies, and, if rumour were true
(which, after all, it usually is not), a separate staircase for the
clergy.
Adela was in her drawing-room one afternoon when Lord Semingham was
announced. He appeared to be very warm, and he carried a bundle of
papers in his hand. Among the papers there was one of those little
smooth white volumes which epitomise so much of the joy and sorrow of
this transitory life. He gave himself a shake, as he sat down, and held
up the book.
"The car has begun to move," he observed.
"Juggernaut's?"
"Yes; and I have been to see my bankers. I take a trip to the seaside
instead of a moor this year, and have let my own pheasant shooting."
He paused and added,
"Dennison has not taken my shooting. They go to the seaside too--with
the children."
He paused again and concluded,
"The Omofaga prospectus will be out to-morrow."
Adela laughed.
"Bessie is really quite annoyed," remarked Lord Semingham. "I have
seldom seen her so perturbed--but I've sent Ruston to talk to her."
"And why did you do it?" asked Adela.
"I should like to tell you a little history," said he.
And he told her how Mrs. Dennison had sent a telegram to Frankfort. This
history was long, for Lord Semingham told it dramatically, as though he
enjoyed its quality. Yet Adela made no comment beyond asking,
"And wasn't she right?"
"Oh, for the Empire perhaps--for us, it means trips to the seaside."
He drew his chair a little nearer hers, and dropped his affectation of
comic plaintiveness.
"A most disgusting thing has happened in Curzon Street," he said. "Have
you heard?"
"No; I've seen nothing of Maggie lately. You've all been buried in
Omofaga."
"Hush! No words of ill-omen, please! Well, it's annoyed me immensely I
can't think what the foolish fellow means. Tom Loring's going."
"Tom--Loring--going?" she exclaimed with a punctuated pause between
every word. "What in the world for?"
"What is the ultimate cause of everything that happens to us now?" he
asked, sticking his glass in his eye.
Adela felt as though she were playing at some absurd game of questions
and answers, and must make her reply according to the rules.
"Oh, Mr. Ruston!" she said, with a grimace.
Her visitor nodded--as though he had been answered according to the
rules.
"Tom broke out in the most extraordinary manner. He said he couldn't
stay with Dennison, if Dennison let Ruston lead him by the nose
(_ipsissima verba_, my dear Adela), and told Ruston to his face that he
came for no good."
"Were you there?"
"Yes. The man seemed to choose the most public opportunity. Did you ever
hear such a thing?"
"He's mad about Mr. Ruston. He talked just the same way to me. What did
Harry Dennison say?"
"Harry went up to him and took his hand, and shook it, and, you know old
Harry's way, tried to smooth it all down, and get them to shake hands.
Then Ruston got up and said he'd go and leave them to settle it between
Tom and him. Oh, Ruston behaved very well. It was uncommonly awkward for
him, you know."
"Yes; and when he'd gone?"
"Harry told Tom that he must keep his engagements; but that, sooner than
lose him, he'd go no deeper. That was pretty handsome, I thought, but it
didn't suit Tom. 'I can't stay in the house while that fellow comes,' he
said."
"While he comes to the house?" cried Adela.
Lord Semingham nodded. "You've hit the point," he seemed to say, and he
went on,
"And then they both turned and looked at Maggie Dennison. She'd been
sitting there without speaking a single word the whole time. I couldn't
go--Harry wouldn't let me--so I got into a corner and looked at the
photograph book. I felt rather an ass, between ourselves, you know."
"And what did Maggie say?"
"Harry was looking as puzzled as an owl, and Tom as obstinate as a toad,
and both stared at her. She looked first at Harry, and then at Tom, and
smiled in that quiet way of hers. By the way, I never feel that I quite
understand----"
"Oh, never mind! Of course you don't. Go on."
"And then she said, 'What a fuss! I hope that after all this Omofaga
business is over Mr. Loring will come back to us.' Pretty straight for
Tom, eh? He turned crimson, and walked right out of the room, and she
sat down at the piano and began to play some infernal tune, and that
soft-hearted old baby, Harry, blew his nose, and damned the draught."
"And he's going?"
"Yes."
"But," she broke out, "how can he? He's got no money. What'll he live
on?"
"Harry offered him as much as he wanted; but he said he had some
savings, and wouldn't take a farthing. He said he'd write for papers, or
some such stuff."
"He's been with the Dennisons ever since--oh, years and years! Can't you
take him? He'd be awfully useful to you."
"My dear girl, I can't offer charity to Tom Loring," said Semingham, and
he added quickly, "No more can you, you know."
"I quarrelled with him desperately a week ago," said she mournfully.
"About Ruston?"
"Oh, yes. About Mr. Ruston, of course."
Lord Semingham whistled gently, and, after a pause, Adela leant forward
and asked,
"Do you feel quite comfortable about it?"
"Hang it, no! But I'm too deep in. I hope to heaven the public will
swallow it!"
"I didn't mean your wretched Company."
"Oh, you didn't?"
"No; I meant Curzon Street."
"It hardly lies in my mouth to blame Dennison, or his wife either. If
they've been foolish, so have I." Adela looked at him as if she thought
him profoundly unsatisfactory. He was vaguely conscious of her
depreciation, and added, "Ruston's not a rogue, you know."
"No. If I thought he was, I shouldn't be going to take shares in
Omofaga."
"You're not?"
"Oh, but I am!"
"Another spinster lady on my conscience! I shall certainly end in the
dock!" Lord Semingham took his hat and shook hands. Just as he got to
the door, he turned round, and, with an expression of deprecating
helplessness, fired a last shot. "Ruston came to see Bessie the other
day," he said. "The new mantle she's just invented is to be called--the
Omofaga: That is unless she changes it because of the moor. I suggested
the _Pis-aller_, but she didn't see it. She never does, you know.
Good-bye."
The moment he was gone, Adela put on her hat and drove to Curzon Street.
She found Mrs. Dennison alone, and opened fire at once.
"What have you done, Maggie?" she cried, flinging her gloves on the
table and facing her friend with accusing countenance.
Mrs. Dennison was smelling a rose; she smelt it a little longer, and
then replied with another question.
"Why can't men hate quietly? They must make a fuss. I can go on hating a
woman for years and never show it."
"We have the vices of servility," said Adela.
"Harry is a melancholy sight," resumed Mrs. Dennison. "He spends his
time looking for the blotting-paper; Tom Loring used to keep it, you
know."
Her tone deepened the expression of disapproval on Adela's face.
"I've never been so distressed about anything in my life," said she.
"Oh, my dear, he'll come back." As she spoke, a sudden mischievous smile
spread over her face. "You should hear Berthe Cormack on it!" she said.
"I don't want to hear Mrs. Cormack at all. I hate the woman--and I think
that I--at any rate--show it."
It surprised Adela to find her friend in such excellent spirits. The air
of listlessness, which was apt to mar her manner, and even to some
degree her appearance (for to look bored is not becoming), had entirely
vanished.
"You don't seem very sorry about poor Mr. Loring," Adela observed.
"Oh, I am; but Mr. Loring can't stop the wheels of the world. And it's
his own fault."
Adela sighed. It did not seem of consequence whose fault it was.
"I don't think I care much about the wheels of the world," she said.
"How are the children, Maggie?"
"Oh, splendid, and in great glee about the seaside"--and Mrs. Dennison
laughed.
"And about losing Tom Loring?"
"They cried at first."
"Does anyone ever do anything more than 'cry at first'?" exclaimed
Adela.
"Oh, my dear, don't be tragical, or cynical, or whatever you are being,"
said Maggie pettishly. "Mr. Loring has chosen to be very silly, and
there's an end of it. Have you seen the prospectus? Do you know Mr.
Ruston brought it to show me before it was submitted to Mr. Belford and
the others--the Board, I mean?"
"I think you see quite enough of Mr. Ruston," said Adela, putting up her
glass and examining Mrs. Dennison closely. She spoke coolly, but with a
nervous knowledge of her presumption.
Mrs. Dennison may have had a taste for diplomacy and the other arts of
government, but she was no diplomatist. She thought herself gravely
wronged by Adela's suggestion, and burst out angrily,
"Oh, you've been listening to Tom Loring!" and her heightened colour
seemed not to agree with the idea that, if Adela had listened, Tom had
talked of nothing but Omofaga. "I don't mind it from Berthe," Mrs.
Dennison continued, "but from you it's too bad. I suppose he told you
the whole thing? I declare I wasn't dreaming of anything of the kind; I
was just excited, and----"
"I haven't seen Mr. Loring," put in Adela as soon as she could.
"Then how do you know----?"
"Lord Semingham told me you quarrelled with Mr. Loring about Omofaga."
"Is that all?"
"Yes. Maggie, was there any more?"
"Do you want to quarrel with me too?"
"I believe Mr. Loring had good reasons."
"You must believe what you like," said Mrs. Dennison, tearing her rose
to pieces. "Yes, there was some more."
"What?" asked Adela, expecting to be told to mind her own business.
Mrs. Dennison flung away the rose and began to laugh.
"He found me holding Willie Ruston's hand and telling him I--liked
Omofaga! That's all."
"Holding his hand!" exclaimed Adela, justifiably scandalised and
hopelessly puzzled. "What did you do that for?"
"I don't know," said Mrs. Dennison. "It happened somehow as we were
talking. We got interested, you know."
Adela's next question was also one at which it was possible to take
offence; but she was careless now whether offence were taken or not.
"Are you and the children going to the seaside soon?"
"Oh, yes," rejoined her friend, still smiling. "We shall soon be deep in
pails and spades and bathing, and buckets and paddling, and a final
charming walk with Harry in the moonlight."
As the sentence went on, the smile became more fixed and less pleasant.
"You ought to be ashamed to talk like that," said Adela.
Mrs. Dennison walked up the room and down again.
"So I am," she said, pausing to look down on Adela, and then resuming
her walk.
"I wish to goodness this Omofaga affair--yes, and Mr. Ruston too--had
never been invented. It seems to set us all wrong."
"Wrong!" cried Mrs. Dennison. "Oh, yes, if it's wrong to have something
one can take a little interest in!"
"You're hopeless to-day, Maggie. I shall go away. What did you take his
hand for?"
"Nothing. I tell you I was excited."
"Well, I think he's a man one ought to keep cool with."
"Oh, he's cool enough. He'll keep you cool."
"But he didn't----"
"Oh, don't--pray don't!" cried Mrs. Dennison.
Adela took her leave; and, as luck would have it, opened the door just
as Tom Loring was walking downstairs with an enormous load of dusty
papers in his hands. She pulled the door close behind her hastily,
exclaiming,
"Why, I thought you'd gone!"
"So you've heard? I'm just putting things shipshape. I go this evening."
"Well, I'm sorry--still, for your sake, I'm glad."
"Why?"
"You may do something on your own account now."
"I don't want to do anything," said Tom obstinately.
"Come and see me some day. I've forgiven you, you know."
"So I will."
"Mr. Loring, are you going to say good-bye to Maggie?"
"I don't know. I suppose so." Then he added, detecting Adela's
unexpressed hope, "Oh, it's not a bit of use, you know."
Adela passed on, and, later, Loring, having finished his work and being
about to go, sought out Mrs. Dennison.
"You're determined to go, are you?" she asked, with the air of one who
surrenders before an inexplicable whim.
"Yes," said Tom. "You know I must go."
"Why?"
"I'm not a saint--nor a rogue; if I were either, I might stay."
"Or even if you were a sensible man," suggested Maggie Dennison.
"Being merely an honest man, I think I'll go. I've tried to put all
Harry's things right for him, and to make it as easy for him to get
along as I can."
"Can he find his papers and blue-books and things?"
"Oh, yes; and I got abstracts ready on all the things he cares about."
"He'll miss you horribly. Ah, well!"
"I suppose a little; but, really, I think he'll learn to get along----"
Mrs. Dennison interrupted with a laugh.
"Do you know," she asked, "what we remind me of? Why, of a husband and
wife separating, and wondering whether the children will miss poor
papa--though poor papa insists in going, and mamma is sure he must."
"I never mentioned the children," said Tom angrily.
"I know you didn't."
Tom looked at her for an instant.
"For God's sake," said he, "don't let him see that!"
"Oh, how you twist things!" she cried in impatient protest.
Tom only shook his head. The charge was not sincere.
"Good-bye, Tom," she went on after a pause. "I believe, some day or
other, you'll come back--or, at any rate, come and live next
door--instead of Berthe Cormack, you know. But I don't know in what
state you'll find us."
"I'd just like to tell you one thing, if I may," said Tom, resolutely
refusing to meet the softened look in her eyes with any answering
friendliness.
"Yes?"
"You've got one of the best fellows in the world for a husband."
"Well, I know that, I suppose, at least, as well as you do."
"That's all. Good-bye."
Without more he left her. She drew the window-curtain aside and watched
him get into his cab and be driven away. The house was very still. Her
husband was in his place at Westminster, and the children had gone to a
party. She went upstairs to the nursery, hoping to find something to
criticise; then to Harry's dressing-room, where she filled his
pin-cushion with pins and put fresh water to the flowers in the vase.
She could find no other offices of wife or mother to do, and she
presently found herself looking into Tom's room, which was very bare and
desolate, stripped of the homelike growth of a five years' tenancy. Her
excitement was over; she felt terribly like a child after a tantrum; she
flung open the window of the room and stood listening to the noise of
the town. It was the noise of happy people, who had plenty to do; or of
happier still, who did not want to do anything, and thus found content.
She turned away and walked downstairs with a step as heavy as physical
weariness brings with it. It came as a curious aggravation--light
itself, but gaining weight from its surroundings--that, for once in a
way, she had no engagements that evening. All the tide seemed to be
flowing by, leaving her behind high and dry on the shore. Even the
children had their party, even Harry his toy at Westminster; and Willie
Ruston was working might and main to give a good start to Omofaga. Only
of her had the world no need--and no heed.