THE RETURN OF A FRIEND.
About a week later, Tom Loring sat at work in his rooms. The table was
strewn with books of blue and of less alarming colours. Tom was smoking
a short pipe, and when he paused for a fresh idea, the smoke welled out
of his mouth, aye, and out of his nose, thick and fast. For a while he
wrote busily; then a dash of his pen proclaimed a finished task, and he
lay back in the luxury of accomplishment. Presently he pushed back his
chair, knocked out his pipe, refilled it, and stretched himself on the
sofa. After the day's work came the day's dream; and the day's dream
dwelt on the coming of the evening hour, when Tom was to take tea with
Adela Ferrars at half-past five. When he had an appointment like that,
it coloured his whole day, and made his hard labour pass lightly. Also
it helped him to forget what there was in his own life and his friends'
to trouble him; and he nursed with quiet patience a love that did not
expect, that hardly hoped for, any issue. As he had been content to be
Harry Dennison's secretary, so he seemed satisfied to be an undeclared
lover; finding enough for his modesty in what most men would have felt
only a spur to urge them to press further.
He was roused by a step on the stair. A moment later, Harry Dennison
burst into the room. Tom had seen him a few days before, uneasy,
troubled, apologetic, talking of Maggie's strange indisposition--she was
terribly out of sorts, he had said, and appeared to find all company and
all talk irksome. He had spoken with a meek compassion that exasperated
Tom--an unconsciousness of any hardship laid on him. Tom sat up, glad to
console him for an hour; glad, perhaps, of any company that would trick
an hour into the past. But to-day Harry's step was light; there was a
smile on his lips, a gleam of hope in his eyes; he rushed to Tom, seized
his hand, and, before he sat down or took off his hat, blurted out,
"Tom, old boy, she wants you to come back."
Tom started.
"What?" he cried, "Mrs. Dennison wants----"
"Yes," Harry went on, "she sent for me to-day, and told me that she saw
how I missed you, and that she was sorry that she had--well--sorry for
all the trouble, you know. Then she said, 'I wonder if Tom (she called
you Tom) bears malice. Tell him Omofaga is quite gone, and I want him to
come back, and if he'll come here, I'll go on my knees to him.'"
Harry stopped, smiling joyfully at his wonderful news. Tom wore a
doubtful look.
"I can't tell you," said Harry, "what it means to me. It's not only your
coming, old chap, though, heaven knows, I'm gladder of that than I've
been of anything for months--but you see what it means, Tom? It
means--why, it means that we're to be as we were before that fellow
came. Tom, she spoke to me more as she used to-day."
His voice faltered; he spoke as an innocent loyal man might of a pardon
from some loved capricious Sovereign. He had not understood the
disfavour--he had dimly discerned inexplicable anger. Now it was past,
and the sun shone again. Tom found himself saying,
"I wish there were more fellows in the world like you, Harry."
Harry's eyes opened in momentary astonishment at the irrelevance, but he
was too full of his news and his request to stay for wonder.
"You'll come, Tom?" he asked. "You won't refuse her?" "Could anyone
refuse her anything?" was what his tone said. "We want you, Tom," he
went on. "Hang it, I've had no one to speak to lately but that Cormack
woman. I hate that woman. She's always hinting something--some lie or
other, you know."
"Don't be too hard on little Mrs. Cormack," said Tom.
He remembered certain words which had shown a soft spot in Mrs.
Cormack's heart. Harry did not know that she had grieved to hear him
pacing up and down.
"You'll come, Tom? I know, of course, that you've a right to be angry,
and to say you won't, and all that. But I know you won't do it. She's
not well, Tom; and I--I can't always understand her. You used to
understand her, Tom. She used to like your chaff, you know."
Tom would not enter on that. He pressed Harry's hand, answering,
"Of course, I'll come."
"Bring all this with you," cried Harry. "I shan't take up your time. You
must stick to your own work as much as you like. When'll you come, Tom?"
"Why, to-morrow," said Tom Loring.
"Not now?"
"I might, if you like," smiled Tom.
"That's right, old chap. You can send round for your things. Bring a
bag, and come to-night. Your room's there for you. I told them to keep
it ready. Damn it, Tom, I thought things would come straight some day,
and I kept it ready."
Had things come straight? Tom did not know.
"I say," pursued Harry, "I met Ruston to-day. He was very kind about my
cutting the Omofaga. I wonder if I've been unjust to him!"
Then Tom smiled.
"I shouldn't bother about that, if I were you," said he.
"Well, he's not a thin-skinned chap, is he?" asked Harry, with relief.
"I should fancy not," said Tom.
"You see, he's off in a fortnight, and I thought we ought to part
friends. So I told him--well, I said, you know, that when he came back,
we should be glad to see him."
Tom began to laugh.
"You're getting quite a diplomatist, Harry," he said.
When Harry bustled away, his high spirits raised higher still by Tom's
ready assent, Tom put on the garb of society, and took a cab to Adela
Ferrars'.
"She'll be very pleased about this," thought Tom, as he went along.
"It's good news to take her."
But whatever else Tom Loring knew, it is certain that he was not
infallible on the subject of women and their feelings. He recognised the
fact (having indeed suspected it many times before) when Adela, on the
telling of his tidings, flashed out in petulance,
"She's sent for you back?" she asked; and Tom nodded.
"And you're going?" was the next quick question.
"Well, I could hardly refuse, could I?"
"No; I suppose not--at least not if you're Maggie Dennison's dog, for
her to drive away with a stick and whistle back at her pleasure."
Tom had been drinking tea. He set down the cup, and feebly stroked his
thigh with his hand; and he glanced at Adela (who was rattling the tea
things) with deprecatory surprise.
"I hadn't thought of it like that," he ventured to remark.
"Oh, of course, you hadn't. Maggie sends you away--you go. Maggie sends
a footman (well, then, Harry) for you--and back you go. And I suppose
you'll say you're very sorry, won't you? and you'll promise you won't do
it again, won't you?"
"I don't think I shall be asked to do that," said Tom, speaking
seriously, but showing a slight offence in his manner.
"But if she tells you to?" asked Adela scornfully.
"I didn't think you'd take it like this. Why shouldn't I go back?"
"Oh, go back! Go back and fetch and carry for Maggie, and write Harry's
speeches till the end of the chapter. Oh, yes, go back."
Tom was puzzled.
"Has anything upset you to-day?" he asked.
"Has anything upset me!" echoed Adela, throwing her eyes up to the
ceiling.
Tom finished his tea in a nervous gulp.
"I don't see why I shouldn't go back," he said.
"Well, I'm telling you to go back," said Adela. "Go back till she's had
enough of you again--and then be turned out again."
Tom's face grew crimson.
"At least," he said slowly, "she has never spoken to me like that."
Adela had left the table and taken an arm-chair near the fire. Her back
was to the door and her face towards Tom; she held a fire-screen between
her and him, letting the blaze burn her face. But Tom, being
unobservant, paid no attention to the position of the fire-screen. With
a look of pain on his face, he took up his hat and rose to his feet. The
meeting had been very different from what he had hoped.
"When do you go?" she asked brusquely.
"To-night. I'm just going back to my rooms for a bag, and then I shall
go. I'm sorry you should--I'm sorry you don't think I'm doing right."
"It doesn't matter two straws what I think," said Adela behind the
screen.
"Aye, but it does to me," said Tom.
She made no answer, and he stood for a moment, looking uneasily at the
intruding fire-screen.
"Well, good-bye," he said.
"Good-bye."
"I shall see you soon, I hope."
"If Maggie will let you come."
"I don't know," said Tom, "what pleasure you find in that. It seems to
me that as a gentleman--to say nothing of my being their friend--I must
go back."
She made no retort to this, and he moved a step towards the door. Then
he turned and glanced at her. She had dropped the screen and her eyes
were fixed on the fire. He sighed, frowned, shrugged his shoulders,
turned, and made for the door again. In another second he would have
been gone, but Adela cried softly,
"Mr. Loring."
"Yes," he answered, coming to a halt.
"Stay where you are a minute. Will you stay there a minute?"
"An hour if you like," said Tom.
"I just want to say that--that--You're coming nearer!--I want you to
stay just where you are."
Tom halted. He had, in fact, been coming slowly towards her.
"I suppose," said Adela, in quite an indifferent tone, "that you'll
settle down with the Dennisons again?"
"I don't know. Yes; I suppose so."
"Do you," said Adela, sinking far into the recesses of the arm-chair,
and holding up the screen again, "like being there better than anywhere
else? I suppose Maggie is very charming?"
"You know just what she is."
"I'm sure I don't. I'm a woman."
There was a long pause. Tom felt absurd, standing there in the middle of
the room. Suddenly Adela leapt to her feet.
"Oh, go away! Yes, you're right to go back. Oh, yes, you're quite right.
Good-bye, Mr. Loring."
For a moment longer Tom stood still; then he moved, not towards the
door, but towards Adela. When he spoke to her it was in a husky voice.
There were no sweet seducing tones in his voice.
"There's only one place in the world I really care to be," he said.
She did not speak.
"Harry and Mrs. Dennison are my friends," he said, "and as long as my
time's my own, I'll give it to them. But you don't suppose I go there
for happiness?"
"I don't suppose you ever did anything for happiness," said Adela, as
though she were advancing a heinous charge. "Really, nothing makes me so
impatient as an unselfish man."
Tom smiled, but his smile was still a nervous one. Nevertheless he felt
less absurd. A distant presage of triumph stole into his mind.
"Don't you want me to go?" he asked.
"You may go wherever you like," said she.
Tom came still nearer. Adela held out her hand and said "good-bye." Tom
took the hand and held it.
"You see," he said, "I didn't think I had anywhere else to go. I did
know a charming lady who was very witty and--very rich----!"
"I--I'll put some more in Omofaga and lose it. Oh, you are stupid, Tom!
I really thought I should have to ask you myself, Tom. I'd have done it
sooner than let you go."
It was not, happily, in the end necessary, and Adela said with a sigh,
"I believe that I've something to thank Mr. Ruston for, after all."
"What's that?"
"Why, he made me resolved to marry the man who of all the world was most
unlike him."
"Then I've something to thank him for too."
"Tom," she said, "I don't know what I said to you. I--I was jealous of
Maggie Dennison."
It was later by an hour when Tom Loring took his way, not to his rooms
for a bag, but straight to Curzon Street. Adela had consented not to
wait ("In one's eleventh season one does not want to wait," she said),
and Tom considered that it was now hardly worth while to move. So he
broke into Harry Dennison's study with a radiant face, crying,
"Harry, I'm not coming to you after all, old fellow."
Harry started up in dismay, but a short explanation turned his sorrow
into rejoicing. Again and again he shook Tom's hand, telling him that
the man who won a good wife won the greatest treasure earth could
offer--and (he added) "by Jove, Tom, I believe the best chance of heaven
too," and Tom gripped Harry's hand and cleared his own throat. Then they
both felt very much ashamed, and, by way of forgetting this deplorable
outburst of emotion (which Tom felt was quite un-English, and smacked
indeed of Mrs. Cormack), agreed to go upstairs and announce the news to
Maggie.
"She'll be delighted," said Harry.
Tom followed him upstairs to the drawing-room. Mrs. Dennison was sitting
by the fire, doing nothing. But she sprang up when they came in, and
advanced to meet Tom. He also felt like an ill-used subject as she gave
him her hand and said,
"How forgiving you are, Tom!"
He looked in her face, and found her smiling under sad eyes. And he
muttered some confused words about "all that" not mattering "tuppence."
And indeed Mrs. Dennison seemed content to take the same view, for she
smiled again and said,
"Ah, well, there's an end of it, anyhow."
Then Harry, who had been wondering why Tom delayed his tidings, burst
out with them, and Tom added lamely,
"Yes, it's true, Mrs. Dennison. So you see I can't come."
She laughed.
"I must accept your excuse," she said, and added a few kind words. "As
for Adela," she went on, "she's never been to see me lately, but for
your sake I'll be humble and go and see her to-morrow."
Harry, as though suddenly remembering, exclaimed that he must tell the
children; in fact, he had an idea that a man liked to talk about his
engagement to a woman alone, and plumed himself on getting out of the
room with some dexterity. So Tom and Maggie Dennison were left for a
little while together.
At first they talked of Adela, but it was on Tom's mind to say something
else, and at last he contrived to give it utterance.
"I can't tell you," he said, looking away from her, "how glad I was to
get your message. This--this trouble--has been horrible. I know I
behaved like a sulky fool. I was quite wrong. It's awfully good of you
to forget it."
"Don't talk like that," she said in a low, slow voice. "How do you think
Harry's looking?"
"Oh, better than I have seen him for a long time. But you're not looking
very blooming, Mrs. Dennison."
She leant forward.
"Do you think he's happy, or is he worrying? He talks to you, you know."
"I think he's happier than he's been for months."
She lay back with a sigh.
"I hope so," she said.
"And you?" he asked, timidly yet urgently.
It seemed useless to pretend complete ignorance, yet impossible to
assert any knowledge.
"Oh, why talk about me? Talk about Adela."
"I love Adela," he said gravely, "as I've never loved any other woman.
But when I was a young man and came here, you were very kind to me. And
I--no, I'll go on now--I looked up to you, and thought you the--the
grandest woman I knew; and to us young men you were a sort of queen.
Well, I haven't changed, Mrs. Dennison. I still think all that, and, if
you ever want a friend to help you, or--or a servant to serve you, why,
you can call on me."
She sat silent while he spoke, gazing at the ground in front of her. Tom
grew bolder.
"There was one thing I came to Dieppe to do, but I hadn't the courage
there. I wanted to tell you that Harry--that Harry was worthy of your
love. I thought--well, I've gone further than I thought I could. You
know; you must forgive me. If there's one thing in all the world that
makes me feel all I ever felt for you, and more, it's to see him happy
again, and you here trying to make him. Because I know that, in a way,
it's difficult."
"Do you know?" she asked.
"Yes, I know. And, because I know, I tell you that you're a wife any man
might thank God for."
Mrs. Dennison laughed; and Tom started at the jarring sound. Yet it was
not a sound of mirth.
"You had temptations most of us haven't--yes, and a nature most of us
haven't. And here you are. So,"--he rose from his chair and took her
hand that drooped beside her, and bent his head and kissed it--"though I
love Adela with all my heart, still I kiss your hand as your true and
grateful servant, as I used to be in old days."
Tom stopped; he had said his say, and his voice had grown tremulous in
the saying. Yet he had done it; he had told her what he felt; and he
prayed that it might comfort her in the trouble that had lined her
forehead and made her eyes sad.
Mrs. Dennison did not glance at him. For a moment she sat quite silent.
Then she said,
"Thanks, Tom," and pressed his hand.
Then she suddenly sat up in her chair and held her hand out before her,
and whispered to him words that he hardly heard.
"If you knew," she said, "you wouldn't kiss it; you'd spit on it."
Tom stood, silently, suddenly, wretchedly conscious that he did not know
what he ought to do. Then he blurted out,
"You'll stay with him?"
"Yes, I shall stay with him," she said, glancing up; and Tom seemed to
see in her eyes the picture of the long future that her words meant. And
he went away with his joy eclipsed.