A SPASM OF PENITENCE.
Tom Loring had arranged to spend the whole of the autumn in London. His
Omofaga articles had gained such favourable notice that his editor had
engaged him to contribute a series dealing with African questions and
African companies (and the latter are in the habit of producing the
former), while he was occupied, on his own account, at the British
Museum, in making way with a treatise of a politico-philosophical
description, which had been in his head for several years. He hailed
with pleasure the prospect of getting on with it; the leisure afforded
him by his departure from the Dennisons was, in its way, a consolation
for the wrench involved in the parting. Could he have felt more at ease
about the course of events in his absence, he would have endured his
sojourn in town with equanimity.
Of course, the place was fast becoming a desert, but, at this moment,
chance, which always objects to our taking things for granted, brought a
carriage exactly opposite the bench on which Tom was seated, and he
heard his name called in a high-pitched voice that he recognised.
Looking up, he saw Mrs. Cormack leaning over the side of her victoria,
smiling effusively and beckoning to him. That everyone should go save
Mrs. Cormack seemed to Tom the irony of circumstance. With a mutter to
himself, he rose and walked up to the carriage. He then perceived, to
his surprise, that it contained, hidden behind Mrs. Cormack's
sleeves--sleeves were large that year--another inmate. It was Evan
Haselden, and he greeted Tom with an off-hand nod.
"The good God," cried Mrs. Cormack, "evidently kept me here to console
young men! Are you left desolate like Mr. Haselden here?"
"Well, it's not very lively," responded Tom, as amiably as he could.
"No, it isn't," she agreed, with the slightest, quickest glance at Evan,
who was staring moodily at the tops of the trees.
Tom laughed. The woman amused him in spite of himself. And her failures
to extract entertainment from poor heart-broken Evan struck him as
humorous.
"But I'm at work," he went on, "so I don't mind."
"Ah! Are you still crushing----?"
"No," interrupted Tom quickly. "That's done."
"I should not have guessed it," said Mrs. Cormack, opening her eyes.
"I mean, I've finished the articles on that point."
"That is rather a different thing," laughed she.
"I'm afraid so," said Tom.
"I wish to heaven it wasn't!" ejaculated Evan suddenly, without shifting
his gaze from the treetops.
"Oh, he is very very bad," whispered Mrs. Cormack. "Poor young man! Are
you bad too?"
"Eh?"
"Oh, but I know."
"Oh, no, you don't," said Tom.
Suddenly Evan rose, opened the carriage door, got out, shut it, and
lifted his hat.
"Good-bye," said Mrs. Cormack, smiling merrily.
"Good-bye. Thanks," said Evan, with unchanged melancholy, and, with
another nod to Tom, he walked round to the path and strode quickly away.
"How absurd!" said she.
"Not at all. I like to see him honest about it. He's hard hit--and he's
not ashamed of it."
"Oh, well," said Mrs. Cormack, shrugging the subject away in weariness
of it. "And how do you stand banishment? Will you get in?"
"Yes, if you won't assume----"
"Too great familiarity, Mr. Loring?"
"Oh, I was only going to say--with my affairs. With me--I should be
charmed," and Tom settled himself in the victoria.
He had, now he came to think of it, been really very much bored; and the
little woman was quite a resource.
She rewarded his ironical gallantry with a look that told him she took
it for what it was worth, but liked it all the same; and, after a pause,
asked,
"And you see Mr. Dennison often?"
"Very seldom, on the contrary. I don't know what he does with himself."
"The poor man! He walks up and down. I hear him walking up and down."
"What does he do that for?"
"Ah! what? Well, he cannot be happy, can he?"
"Can't he?" said Tom, determined to understand nothing.
"You are very discreet," she said, with a malicious smile.
"I'm obliged to be. Somebody must be."
"Mr. Loring," she said abruptly, "you don't like me, neither you nor
Miss Ferrars."
"I never answer for others. For myself----"
"Oh, I know. What does it matter? Well, anyhow, I'm sorry for that poor
man."
"Your sympathy is very ready, Mrs. Cormack."
"You mean it is too soon--premature?"
"I mean it's altogether unnecessary, to my humble thinking."
"But I'm not a fool," she protested.
Tom could not help laughing. The laugh, however, rather spoilt his
argument.
"Have it your own way," he conceded, conscious of his error, and trying
to cover it by a burlesque surrender. "He's miserable."
"Well, he is."
There was a placid certainty about her that disturbed Tom's attitude of
incredulity.
"Why is he?" he asked curiously.
"I have talked to him. I know," she answered, with a nod full of
meaning.
"Oh, have you?"
"Yes, and he--well, do you want to hear, or will you be angry and
despise me as you used?"
"I want to hear."
"What did I use to say? That the man would come? Well, he has come.
_Voilà tout!_"
"Oh, so you say. But Harry doesn't think such--I beg pardon, I was about
to say, nonsense."
"Yes, he does. At least, he is afraid of it."
"How do you know?"
"I tell you, we have talked. And I saw. He almost cried that he couldn't
go to Dieppe, and that somebody else----"
Tom suddenly turned upon her.
"Who began the talk?" he demanded.
"What do you say?"
"Who began?"
"Oh, what nonsense! Who does begin to talk? How do I know? It came, Mr.
Loring."
Tom said nothing.
"You look as if you didn't believe me," she remarked, pouting.
"I don't. He's the most unsuspicious fellow alive."
"Well, if you like, I began. I'm not ashamed. But I said very little.
When he asked me if I thought it good that she and--the other--should be
together out there and he here--well, was I to say yes?"
"I think," observed Tom, in quiet and deliberate tones, "that it's a
great pity that some women can't be gagged."
"They can, but only with kisses," said Mrs. Cormack, not at all
offended. "Oh, don't be frightened. I do not wish to be gagged at all.
If I did--there is more than one man in the world."
Tom despised and half-hated her; but he liked her good-nature, and, in
his heart, admired her for not flinching. Her shamelessness was crossed
with courage.
"So you've made him miserable?"
"Well, I might say, I, a wicked Frenchwoman, that it is better to be
deceived than to be wretched. But you, an Englishman----! Oh, never, Mr.
Loring!"
Tom sat silent a little while.
"I don't know what to do," he said, half in reverie.
"Who thought you would?" asked Mrs. Cormack, unkindly.
"I believe it's all a mare's nest."
"That means a mistake, a delusion?"
"It does."
"Then I don't think you do believe it. And, if you do, you are wrong. It
is not all a--a mare's nest."
She pronounced the word with unfamiliar delicateness.
Tom knew that he did not believe that it was all a mare's nest. He would
have given everything in the world--save one thing--and that, he
thought, he had not got--to believe it.
"Then, if you believed it, why didn't you do something?" he asked rather
fiercely.
"What have you all done? I, at least, warned him. Yes, since you insist,
I hinted it. But you--you ran away; and your Adela Ferrars, she looks
prim and pained, oh! and shocked, and doesn't come so much."
It was a queer source to learn lessons from, and Tom was no less
surprised than Adela had been a day or two before at Dieppe.
"What should you do?" he asked, in new-born humility.
"I? Nothing. What is it to me?"
"What should you do, if you were me?"
"Make love to her myself," smiled Mrs. Cormack. She was having her
revenge on Tom for many a scornful speech.
"If you'd held your tongue, it would all have blown over!" he exclaimed
in exasperation.
"It will blow over still; but it will blow first," she said. "If that
contents you, hold your tongue."
Then she turned to Tom, and laid a small fore-finger on his arm.
"Mark this," said she, "he does not care for her. He cares for himself;
she is--what would you say? an incident--an accident--I do not know how
to say it--to him."
"Well, if you're right there----" began Tom in some relief.
"If I'm right there, it will make no difference--at first. But, as you
say, it will blow over--and sooner."
Tom looked at her, and thought, and looked again.
"By Jove, you're not a fool, Mrs. Cormack," said he, almost under his
breath.
Then he added, louder,
"It's the wisdom of the devil."
"Oh, you surpass yourself," she smiled. "Your compliments are
magnificent."
"You must have learnt it from him."
"Oh, no. From my husband," said Mrs. Cormack.
The carriage, which during their talk had moved slowly round the circle,
stopped again.
Mrs. Cormack turned to Tom. He was already looking at her.
"I don't understand you," said he.
"No? Well, you'll hardly believe it, but that does not surprise me."
"I'm not sure you don't mean well, if you weren't ashamed to confess
it," said Tom.
For the first time since he had known her, she blushed and looked
embarrassed. Then she began, in a quick tone,
"Well, I talked. I wanted to see how he took it; and it amused me.
And--well, our dear Maggie--she is so very magnificent at times. She
looks down so calmly--oh! from such a height--on one. She had told me
that day--well, never mind that; it was true, I daresay. I don't love
truth. I don't see what right people have to say things to me, just
because one may know they are true."
"So you made a little mischief?"
"Well, I hear that poor man walking up and down. I want to comfort him.
I asked him to come in, and he refused. Then I offered to go in--he was
very frightened. Oh, _mon Dieu_!" and she laughed almost hysterically.
This very indirect confession proved in the end to be all that Mrs.
Cormack's penitence could drive her to, and Tom left her, feeling a
little softened towards her, but hardly better equipped for action.
What, indeed, could be done? Tom's sense of futility expressed itself in
a long letter to Adela Ferrars. As he had no suggestions for present
action, he took refuge in future promises.
"It will be very awkward for me to come, but if, as time goes on, you
think I should be any good, I will come."
And Adela, when she read it, was tempted to send for him on the spot; he
would have been of no use, but he would have comforted her. But then his
presence would unquestionably exasperate Maggie Dennison. Adela decided
to wait.
Now, by the time Tom Loring's letter reached Dieppe, young Sir Walter
and Willie Ruston were on the boat, and they arrived hard on its heels.
They took up their abode at a hotel a few doors from where the
Seminghams were staying, and Walter at once went round to pay his
respects.
Ruston stayed in to write letters. So he said; but when he was alone he
stood smoking at the window and looking at the people down below.
Presently, to his surprise, he saw the same old gentleman whom Adela had
noticed in the Casino.
"The Baron, by Jove!" he exclaimed. "Now, what brings him here?"
The Baron was sauntering slowly by, wrapped in a cloak, and leaning
heavily on a malacca cane. In a moment Willie Ruston was down the stairs
and after him.
Hearing his name cried, the Baron stopped and turned round.
"What chance brings you here?" asked Willie, holding out his hand.
"Oh, hardly chance," said the Baron. "I always go to some seaside place,
and I thought I might meet friends here," and he smiled significantly.
"Yes," said Ruston, after a pause; "I believe I did mention it in
Threadneedle Street. I went in there the other day."
By the general term Threadneedle Street he meant to indicate the offices
of the Baron's London correspondents, which were situate there.
"They keep you informed, it seems?"
"I live by being kept informed," said the Baron.
Ruston was walking by him, accommodating his pace to the old man's
feeble walk.
"You mean you came to see me?" he asked.
"Well, if you'll forgive the liberty--in part."
"And why did you want me?"
"Oh, I've not lost all interest in Omofaga."
"No, you haven't," said Ruston. "On the contrary, you've been increasing
your interest."
The Baron stopped and looked at him.
"Oh, you know that?"
"Certainly."
The Baron laughed.
"Then you can tell me whether I shall lose my money," he said.
"Do you ever lose your money, Baron?"
"But am I to hear about Omofaga?" asked the Baron, countering question
by question.
"As much as you like," answered Ruston, with the indifference of perfect
candour.
"Ah, by the way, I have heard about it already. Who are the ladies here
who talk about it?"
Willie Ruston gave a careful catalogue of all the persons in Dieppe who
were interested in the Omofaga Company. The Baron identified the
Seminghams and Adela. Then he observed,
"And the other lady is Mrs. Dennison, is she?"
"She is. I'm going to her house to-morrow. Shall I take you?"
"I should be charmed."
"Very well. To-morrow afternoon."
"And you'll dine with me to-night?"
Ruston was about to refuse; but the Baron added, half seriously,
"I've come a long way to see you."
"All right, I'll come," he said. Then he paused a moment, and looked at
the Baron curiously. "And perhaps you'll tell me then," he added.
"Why I've come?"
"Yes; and why you've been buying. You were bought out. What do you want
to come in again for?"
"I'll tell you all that now," said the Baron. "I've come because I
thought I should like to see some more of you; and I've been buying
because I fancy you'll make a success of it."
Willie Ruston pulled his beard thoughtfully.
"Don't you believe me?" asked the Baron.
"Let's wait a bit," suggested Ruston. Then, with a sudden twinkle of his
eye, his holiday mood seemed to come back again. Seizing the Baron's
arm, he pressed it, and said with a laugh, "I say, Baron, if you want to
get control over Omofaga----"
"But, my dear friend----" protested the Baron.
"If you do--I only say 'if'--I'm not the only man you've got to fight.
Well, yes, I am the only _man_."
"My dear young friend, I don't understand you," pleaded the Baron.
"We'll go and see Mrs. Dennison to-morrow," said Willie Ruston.