The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance
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Title: The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance
Creator: Harry Johnston
Release date: April 21, 2014 [eBook #45451]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45451
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WHO DID THE RIGHT THING: A ROMANCE ***
Produced by Al Haines.
THE MAN WHO DID
THE RIGHT THING
A ROMANCE
BY
SIR HARRY JOHNSTON
Mew York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1921,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1921.
*NOVELS BY THE SAME AUTHOR*
THE GAY-DOMBEYS
MRS. WARREN'S DAUGHTER
The central idea of this book came into my mind a great many years ago,
out in Africa, and was based to some extent on what actually happened at
Unguja and elsewhere. Yet, though there is more realism than might be
supposed in my descriptions and incidents and the imagined personalities
that appear in these pages, I have endeavoured so to disturb and
re-present the facets of my truths that they shall not wound the
feelings of any one living or of the surviving friends and relations of
the good and bad people I have known in East Africa, or of those in my
own land who were entangled in East African affairs.
But although I have pondered long over telling such a story, this
Romance of East Africa was mainly projected, created and put down on
paper when my wife and I stayed in the summer-autumn of last year at the
Swiss home, in the mountains, of a dear friend. There we amused
ourselves, as we swung in hammocks slung under pine-trees and gazed over
the panorama of the Southern Alps, by arguing and discussing as to what
the creations of my imagination would say to one another, how they would
act under given circumstances within the four corners ruled by Common
Sense and Probability: two guides who will, I hope, always guard my
faltering steps in fiction-writing.
Therefore, though dedications have lost their novelty and freshness, and
are now incitements to preciosity or payments in verbiage, I, to satisfy
my own sentiments of gratitude for a most delightful holiday of rest and
refreshment, dedicate this Romance to my hostess of the Chalet Soleil,
who founded this new Abbaye de Theleme for the recuperation of tired
minds and bodies, and enforced within its walls and walks and woods but
one precept:
*FAY CE QUE VOULDRAS.*
H. H. JOHNSTON.
POLING,
March, 1921.
*CONTENTS*
CHAPTER
I The Baineses
II John and Lucy
III Sibyl at Silchester
IV Lucy Hesitates
V Roger's Dismissal
VI The Voyage Out
VII Unguja--and Up-country
VIII Letters To and Fro
IX Mission Life
X Roger Arrives
XI The Happy Valley
XII The Attack on the Station
XIII The Return to Unguja
XIV Lucy's Second Marriage
XV In England
XVI Sibyl as Siren
XVII Back to the Happy Valley
XVIII Five Years Later
XIX Trouble with Stolzenberg
XX The Boer War
XXI The Morals of the Happy Valley
XXII Eight Years Have Passed By
XXIII The End of Sibyl
XXIV All Ends in the Happy Valley
*THE MAN WHO DID
THE RIGHT THING*
*CHAPTER I*
*THE BAINESES*
It was in the last week of June, 1886, and there really were warm and
early summers in the nineteenth century.
The little chapel had been so close and hot during the morning service
that in spite of the interest Lucy Josling felt in the occasion--it was
the first appearance of her betrothed, John Baines, as a preacher in his
native place, and the delivery of his farewell sermon before starting
for Africa--she could not repress a sigh of relief as she detached
herself from the perspiring throng of worshippers and stood for a few
moments in the bright sunlight, inhaling the perfume of distant
hayfields.
"You look a trifle pale, Lucy," said Mr. Baines, senior, a stumpy
red-faced man with light sandy hair and a long upper lip. "It's
precious warm. I s'pose you'n John'll want to walk back together?
Well, don't keep dinner waiting, 'cos that always puts me out. Now
then, Sarah, come along: it's too hot to stand gossiping about. Let's
get home as quick as we can."
Mrs. Baines, a gaunt, thin woman with a long parchment-coloured face and
cold grey eyes, looked indignantly at her husband when he talked of
gossiping, but said nothing, took his arm and walked away.
Lucy put up her parasol and leant against the ugly iron railings which
interposed between the dusty chapel windows and the pavement. The
congregation had not all dispersed. Two or three awkward-looking young
men were standing in a group in the roadway, and, while pretending to
carry on a jesting conversation amongst themselves, were casting
sheepish looks at Lucy, who was deemed a beauty for ten miles round.
They evidently alluded to her in the witticisms they exchanged, so that
she had to restrict her angle of vision in case her eyes met theirs when
she wished to ignore their offensive existence. Mrs. Garrett, the
grocer's wife, who had been inquiring from Miss Simons, the little lame
dressmaker--why were village dressmakers of that period, in life and in
fiction, nearly always lame?--how her married sister progressed after a
confinement, walked up to Lucy and said:
"Well, Miss Josling, and how d'you like the idea of parting with your
young man? Ain't cher afraid of his goin' off so far, and all among
savages and wild beasts too, same as 'e was tellin' on? It's all right
and proper as how he should carry the news of the Gospel to them pore
naked blacks, but as I says to Garrett, I says, ''E don't ought to go
and engage 'isself before'and to a girl as 'e mayn't never come back to
marry, and as 'll spend the best years of 'er life a-waitin' an'
a-waitin' and cryin' 'er eyes put to no use.' However, 't ain't any
business of mine, an' I s'pose you've set your heart upon 'im now, and
won't thank me for bein' so outspoken....?
"I'm sure 'e's come back from London _quite_ the gentleman; and lor'!
'Ow proud 'is mother _did_ look while 'e was a-preachin'. An' 'e _can_
preach, too! 'Alf the words 'e used was Greek to me.... S'pose they
_was_ Greek, if it comes to that"--she laughed fatly--"Though why th'
Almighty should like Greek and Latin better'n plain English, or even
'Ebrew, is what I never could understand....
"And to think as I remember 'im, as it on'y seems the other day, comin'
in on the sly to buy a 'aporth of sugar-candy at our shop. 'Is mother
never liked 'is eatin' between meals an' 'e always 'ad to keep 'is bit
o' candy 'idden away in 'is pocket till 'e was out of 'er sight.... I'm
sure for my part I wonder _'ow_ she can bring 'erself to part with 'im,
'e bein' 'er on'y son, and she so fond of 'im too. But then she always
set 'er 'eart on 'is bein' a gentleman, and give 'im a good
eddication.... 'Ow's father and mother?..."
"Oh quite well, thank you," replied Lucy, wondering why John was
stopping so long and exposing her to this tiresome garrulity and the
hatefulness of having her private affairs discussed in a loud tone for
the benefit of the Sunday strollers of Tilehurst. "They would have come
over from Aldermaston to hear John preach, but father cannot bear to
take his eyes off the hay till it's all carried, and mother's alone now
because my sisters are away.... I just came by myself to the Baineses'
for the day....
"And, Mrs. Garrett," continued Lucy, a slight flush rising to her cheek,
"I don't think you quite understand about my engagement to John Baines.
I--I--am not at all to be pitied. You rather ought to congratulate me.
First, because I am very--er--fond of him and proud of his dedicating
his life to such a work, and, secondly, because there is no question of
my waiting years and years before I get married. John goes out this
month and I shall follow six or seven months afterwards--just to give
him time to get our home ready. We shall be married out there, at a
place called Unguja, where there is a Consulate...."
Lucy stopped short. She was going on to give other good reasons for her
engagement when a slight feeling of pride forbade her further to excuse
herself to Mrs. Garrett--a grocer's wife! And she herself a National
school-teacher! There could be no community between them. She
therefore fell silent and gazed away from Mrs. Garrett's red face and
blue bonnet across the white sandy road blazing with midday sunshine to
the house fronts of the opposite side, with their small shops closed,
the blinds drawn down and everything denoting the respectable
lifelessness of the Sabbath.... At this awkward pause John Baines
issued from the vestry door of the chapel, Mrs. Garrett nodded
good-naturedly, and went her way.
John was about four-and-twenty--Lucy's age. He was a little over the
average height but ungainly, with rather sloping shoulders, long arms,
large hands and feet; a face with not well-formed features; nose coarse,
fleshy, blunt-tipped; mouth wide, with his father's long upper lip, on
which were the beginnings of a flaxen moustache, with tame ends curling
down to meet the upward growth of the young beard. He had an under lip
that was merely a band of pink skin round the mouth, without an inward
curve to break its union with the broad chin. His teeth were strong and
white but irregular in setting, the canines being thrust out of
position. His eyes were blue-grey, and not without a pleasant twinkle.
The hair was too long for tidiness, not long enough for eccentric
saintliness. It was a yellow brown and was continued down the cheeks in
a silken beard from ear to ear, the tangled, unclipped, uncared-for
beard of a young man who has never shaved. His fresh pink-and-white
complexion was marred here and there with the pimples and blotches of
adolescence. Lucy, however, thought him good to look at; he only wanted
a little smartening up, which she promised herself to impart to him when
they were married. He looked what he was: a good-hearted,
simple-minded, unintellectual Englishman, an Anglo-Saxon, with a hearty
appetite for plain food, a love of cricket, who would with little
difficulty remain in all things chaste and sober; slow to wrath, but, if
really pushed against the wall, able to show berserker rage.
Having taken up a religious career he had acquired a certain pomposity
of manner which sat ill on his boyishness; he had to remember in
intervals of games or country dances or flirtations that he had been set
apart for the Lord's work. But he would make an excellent husband. His
class has furnished quite the best type of colonist abroad.
John gave his arm silently to Lucy, who took it with a gesture of
affection, and patted it once or twice with her kid-gloved hand, which
lover-like demonstrations John accepted rather solemnly. As they walked
up the sunny main street there was little conversation between them, but
when they turned down an old shady road running between red brick walls
overgrown with ivy and Oxford weed, behind which rose the spire of St.
Michael's and the tall trees of its churchyard, their good behaviour
relaxed and John looking down, and seeing Lucy's fresh, pretty face
looking up, and observing in a hasty glance around that nobody was in
sight, bent down and kissed her: after which he looked rather silly and
hurried on with great strides.
"Don't walk so fast, John dear; you quite drag me along. We need not be
in such a hurry. Tell me, how did you spend your last days in London?"
"Why, Wednesday I went to the outfitters to superintend the packing of
my boxes; Thursday I bid good-bye to all my friends at the Bayswater
College. In the evening there was a valedictory service at the Edgware
Road Chapel, when Thomas, Bayley, Anderson and I were designated for the
East African Mission. The next day, Friday, I went in the morning to see
my boxes put safely on board the _Godavery_ lying in the Albert Docks;
and I also chose my berth--I share a cabin with Anderson. Then in the
afternoon there was a big public meeting at Plymouth Hall. Sir Powell
Buckley was chairman, and Brentham, the African explorer, spoke, as well
as a lot of others, and it ended with prayers and hymns. The Reverend
Paul Barker, a very old African missionary, who was the first to enter
Abeokuta, delivered the Blessing. Every one shook hands with us and
bade us Godspeed.
"After this the three brethren designated for the Mission, and myself,
of course, together with Brentham the explorer, Mr. Barker and a few
others from the platform, adjourned to Sir Powell Buckley's, where we
had tea. Here we four new missionaries were introduced to old Mrs.
Doland, that lady who, under God, has so liberally contributed to the
support of the East African Mission.... And also to Captain Brentham,
who has just returned from the East coast....
"I confess I didn't like _him_ ... altogether.... In fact, I can't
_quite_ make out why he came and spoke at the meeting, for I could see
at once by the way he stared about him during the hymns he was not one
of us ... in heart. In his speech at Plymouth Hall he chiefly laid
stress on the advantages gained by civilization when a country was
opened up by missionaries, how we taught the people trades, and so on.
There was no allusion to the inestimable boon to the natives in making
known the Blessed Gospel and the promises in the Old Testament....
"In fact--am I walking too fast? But father will be angry if we are
late for dinner--in fact, I thought Brentham inclined to sneer at us.
They say he wants a Government appointment and is making up to Sir
Powell Buckley----
"Then Saturday--yesterday--I came down here and--er--well! here we are!
Are you listening?"
Lucy gave John's arm an affectionate squeeze by way of assurance, but on
this rare June day there was something in the still, hot air, thick with
hay-scent, which lulled her sensibilities and caused her to forget to be
concerned at her betrothed's departure. She had temporarily forgotten
many little things stored up to be said to him, and was vexed at her own
taciturnity. However, their walk had come to an end, and they stood in
front of John's home.
Mr. John Parker Baines, the father of the missionary-designate, was a
manufacturer of aerated drinks and cider, whose premises lay on the
western side of Tilehurst and marred the beauty of the countryside and
the straggling village with a patch of uncompromising vulgarity and
garishness. The manufactory itself was in a simple style of
architecture: a rectangular building of red brick, with two tall
smoke-blackened chimneys and a number of smaller ones. "John Baines and
Co., Manufacturers of Aerated Drinks," was painted in large letters
across the brick front.
A Sabbath stillness prevailed, intensified by the smokeless chimneys and
the closed door. Only a cur lay in the sun, and some dirty ducks
squittered the water in a dirty ditch which carried off the drainage of
the factory to a neighbouring brook.
A short distance apart from the main building stood the dwelling of the
proprietor, Mr. Baines, who had inherited the business from his wife's
father and transferred it to his own name. This home of the Baines
family, though designed by the same architect, had its aboriginal
ugliness modified by numerous superficial improvements. A rich mantle
of ivy overgrew a portion of its red brick walls and wreathed its ugly
stucco portico. The window-panes were brightly polished and gave a
vivacity to the house by their gleaming reflections of light and shade.
You could see through them the green Venetian blinds of the
sitting-rooms and the unpolished backs of looking-glasses and clean
white muslin curtains of the bedrooms. In the short strip of front
garden there were beds of scarlet geraniums which added a pleasant note
of bright colour.
At the grained front door a cat was waiting to be let in with an air
about her as if she too had returned a little late from church or
chapel. A strong, rich odour of roast beef filled the air and drowned
the scent of hayfields. This intensified the feeling of vulgar comfort
which permeated the house when the door was opened by Mr. Baines,
senior, and increased the pious satisfaction of the cat, who arched her
black body and rubbed herself coyly against her master's Sunday
trousers.
"Of course, you're late," snapped Mr. Baines. "I knew you would be.
Here's mother, as cross as two sticks."
Mrs. Baines, who had stalked into the narrow hall from the dining-room,
gave them no greeting, but merely called to Eliza to serve the dinner,
as Mr. John and Miss Josling had arrived.
For Lucy this was not a pleasant meal. Mrs. Baines was one of those
unsympathetic persons that took away her appetite. She was a thoroughly
good woman in the estimation of her neighbours, austerely devout,
rigidly honest, an able housewife and a strict mother. But her future
daughter-in-law had long since classed her as thoroughly unlovable. The
one tender feeling she evinced was her passionate though undemonstrative
devotion to her only son. Even this, though it might beautify her dull
being in the eyes of an unconcerned observer, did not always announce
itself pleasantly to her home circle. To John it had often been the
reason for a cruel smacking when a child and guilty of some small
childish sin; to her husband it was the excuse for vexatious economies,
which while they did not materially increase the funds devoted to his
son's education, had frequently interfered with his personal comfort.
Mrs. Baines's love of John was further manifested to Lucy by a jealous
criticism of her speech and actions; for, like most mothers of an only
son, she was bound to resent the bestowal of his affections on a
sweetheart, and determined to be dissatisfied with whomever he might
select for that honourable position.
So, although Lucy was pretty, relatively well-educated, earning her
living already as a National school-mistress, the daughter of a
much-respected farmer, and known by the Baines family almost since she
was a baby, Mrs. Baines found fault with her just because she had found
favour with John. Lucy was "Church" and they were "Chapel." She was
vain and worldly and quite unsuited to be the wife of a missionary. The
fascination of worldliness was not denied. The Devil knew how to bait
his traps. Through worldly influence one was led to read novels on the
Sabbath, to dispute the Biblical account of the Creation.
Lucy, it is true, had neither scoffed at Genesis, nor spoken flippantly
of Noah's Ark, nor been seen reading fiction on a Sunday; but that
didn't matter. With her pretensions to an interest in botany, her talk
about astronomy and the distances of the fixed stars and such like
rubbish, she was quite capable of sliding into infidelity. And as to
her observance of the Sabbath, it was simply disgraceful. Of course,
her father was to blame in setting her a bad example and her mother,
too, poor soul, was much too easy-going with her daughters. But then,
when you came to consider that Lucy had been so much with John, to say
nothing of the example set by John's parents, you would have thought she
might have learnt by this time how the Lord's Day should be passed.
It was this last point which strained the relations between Mrs. Baines
and Lucy on this particular Sunday. Lucy had asked John to take her for
a walk in the afternoon. It would be their last opportunity for a quiet
talk all to themselves before his departure. Although John Baines had
inherited his mother's Sabbatarian scruples he consented to Lucy's
proposal, partly because he was in love with her, partly because his
residence in London had insensibly broadened his views. For once his
mother's influence was powerless to alter his decision, and so she had
refrained from further argument. But this first check to her domination
over her son had considerably soured her feelings.
Moreover, Mrs. Baines honestly believed, according to her lights--for
like all the millions of her class and period she knew absolutely
nothing about astronomy, geology, ethnology and history--that the
Creator of the Universe preferred you should spend the Sunday afternoon
in a small, stuffy back parlour with the blinds half down, reading the
Bible or Baxter's sermons (or, if the spiritual appetite were very weak,
an illustrated edition of _Pilgrim's Progress_) and continue this
mortification of flesh and spirit until tea time (unless you taught in
the Sunday-school). You should then wind up the Day of Rest with
evening chapel, supper, more sermon-reading, and bed.
The only person disposed to be talkative during the meal was John Baines
the younger. His mother, at all times glum, was more than ever inclined
to silence. Lucy was oppressed by her frigid demeanour and vouchsafed
very few remarks, other than those called for by politeness. As to
Baines, senior, he was one of those short-necked, fleshy men who are
born guzzlers, and his attention was too much concentrated on his food
to permit of his joining in conversation during his Sunday dinner. As a
set-off against abstention from alcohol he was inordinately greedy, and
his large appetite was a constant source of suffering to him, for his
wife took a grim delight in mortifying it. Only on Sundays was he
allowed to eat his fill without her interference. Mrs. Baines always
did the carving and helped everything, even the vegetables, which were
placed in front of her, flanking the joint. The maid-of-all-work,
Eliza, waited at table and was evidently the slave of her mistress's
eye. The family dinner on Sundays was almost invariable in its main
features, as far as circumstances permitted. A well-roasted round of
beef, with baked potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, was succeeded by an
apple or a treacle pudding, and a dessert of some fruit or nuts in
season. Of one thing there was no lack and abundant
variety--effervescing, non-alcoholic drinks: Ginger Beer, Ginger Ale,
Gingerade; Lemonade, Citronade, Orangeade; Phosphozone, Hedozone,
Pyrodone, Sparkling Cider and Perry Champagne: all the beverages
compounded of carbonic acid, tartaric acid, citric acid, sugar, water,
apple and pear juice, and flavouring essences.
The Apple champagne that John gallantly poured into Lucy's glass did not
lighten her spirits or loosen her tongue. What could she find to say to
that guzzling father whose face and hands were always close to his
plate, except during the brief intervals between the courses when he
threw himself back in his chair, blew his nose, wiped his greasy lips,
and passed his fat forefinger round the corners of his gums to remove
the wedges of food which had escaped deglutition? Or to the gloomy
mother who ate her victuals with a sullen champing, and, beyond a few
directions to the submissive servant, made no attempts to sustain
conversation, only according to the garrulous descriptions of her son an
occasional snappish "Oh! indeed----," "Pretty doings, I can see----,"
"Little good can come of _that_----," and so on? At length, when John's
experiences in London had come to an end and the two dishes of cherries
had replaced the treacle pudding, whilst the servant handed round in
tumblers our own superlative Sparkling Cider, Lucy cleared her throat
and said, "I suppose John will be leaving you very early to-morrow
morning?"
"Eh?" returned Mrs. Baines, fixing her cold grey eyes on Lucy. She had
heard perfectly well, but she thought it more consistent with dignity
not to lend too ready an ear to the girl's remarks. Lucy repeated more
distinctly her question.
"You had better ask _him_ all about it," replied John's mother. "I have
other things to think about on the Lord's Day besides railway
time-tables."
"Why? Are you coming to see me off, Lucy?" asked John.
"Well, yes; that is, if Mrs. Baines doesn't mind."
"_I_ mind?" exclaimed the angry woman in a strident voice. "What have
_I_ got to do with it; I suppose railway stations are free to every
one?"
"Yes," said Lucy, with an ache at the back of her throat and almost
inclined then and there to break off her engagement. "But I thought you
might like to have John all to yourself at the last. However, if you
have no objection, I should much like to see him off, poor old
fellow"--and Lucy gave his big-knuckled hand an affectionate pat--"I
think I can manage it. Father has to come into Theale. He will drop me
at the station and pick me up again, and school doesn't begin till nine.
What time does your train go, John?"
"Twenty-five past seven. I shall get to London soon after nine. After
going to the head-quarters of the Mission and getting my final
instructions I shall drive straight down to the docks and go on board
the _Godavery_.... The first place we stop at is Algiers, then Malta,
then the Suez Canal and Aden. I expect this is just what _you'll_ have
to do, Lucy, when you come out next spring."
Lucy smiled brightly. She had gradually grown into her engagement as
she grew from girlhood to womanhood, constrained by John's bland
assumption that the damsel he selected was bound to be his wife. But
perhaps her main inducement was his fixed determination to become a
missionary and her intense longing to see "foreign parts," the wonderful
and the interesting world. She was just rallying her spirits to make
some animated reply about Algiers when Mrs. Baines intervened and said
there were limits to all things, and if they didn't wish to pass the
whole of the Lord's Day eating, drinking, and talking they had better
rise and let Eliza clear away. On hearing these words, Mr. Baines
turned the last cherries into his plate and hastily biting them off and
ejecting the stones, pushed his chair back with a sigh. Then, rising
heavily, he stumbled into the armchair near the fireplace and composed
himself for a nap. The maid began to clear away, longing to get back to
her Sunday dinner and concealed novelette. Lucy went to put on her hat;
John yawned and drummed his fingers on the window-pane; and Mrs. Baines
seated herself stiffly in the armchair opposite her satiated husband,
with a large brown Bible on her lap and two or three leaflets covered
with small-print references to Scripture.
When John heard Lucy tripping downstairs he went to meet her, feeling
instinctively that her re-appearance in the dining-room would draw some
bitter comment from his mother. He put on his felt wide-awake, took a
stout stick, and soon banged the front door on his sweetheart and
himself in a way which sent a shiver through the frame of Mrs. Baines,
who with an impatient sigh of disgust applied herself to a gloomy
portion of the Old Testament.
Probably had John remained to keep her company she would have made no
attempt to entertain him; but she would have applied herself with real
interest to Scriptural exegesis. Of her class and of her time what
little romance and intellectuality she had was put into Bible study.
She believed the British--degenerate though they might appear as to
Sabbath observance--were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes, who had
been led by the prophet Jeremiah to Ireland in an unnecessary spurt of
energy and had then returned in coracles to the more favoured Britain,
Jeremiah--age being of no moment where the Divine purpose was
concerned--having taken in marriage a daughter of the Irish king----
But ... the ingratitude of her only son, who could not give up to his
mother's society his last Sunday afternoon in England! She choked with
unshed tears and read verse after verse of the early part of Jeremiah
without understanding one word, although she was told in her leaflets
that the diatribes bore special reference to England in the latter part
of the nineteenth century.... No, the thought of John wandering about
the hayfields with Lucy--for, of course, that girl would lead him into
the hayfields, perhaps throw hay at him--constantly rose before her, and
once or twice a few hot tears dimmed her sight.... "The Lord said also
unto me in the days of Josiah the King: Hast thou seen that which
backsliding Israel hath done?..."
She had devoted all the money she could save, all the time she could
spare to the bringing-up of this boy. She had sent him to college and
made him a gentleman. She had done her duty by him as a mother, and this
was the return he made. He preferred to spend his last Sunday afternoon
frolicking about the country with a feather-headed girl to passing it
quietly by his mother's side, as he formerly used to do.... They might
even have had a word of prayer together. Mrs. Baines was not usually a
woman who encouraged outbursts of vocal piety outside the chapel, but on
such an occasion as this.... She might not see him for another five
years..
"And I said, after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me.
But she returned not."--Now was it becoming for a grown man, a
missionary who had occupied the pulpit at Salem Chapel in the morning,
to go gallivanting about the meadows with a young woman in the
afternoon? What would any of the congregation say who saw him? A nice
spectacle, to be sure!-- "And the Lord said unto me, The back-sliding
Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah..." "Let me
see," reflected Mrs. Baines, trying to give her attention to her
reading, "Judah represents the Church of England, and Israel is ...
Israel is ... Baines! For goodness _sake_ don't snore like that. You
ought to be ashamed of yourself! _How_ you can reconcile it with your
conscience to guzzle like a pig every Sunday at dinner and then pass the
rest of the afternoon snoring and snoozing instead of reading your
Bible, _I_ don't know."
Mr. Baines's bloodshot, greenish eyes regarded his wife with dazed
wonderment for a few seconds. Then their red lids dropped and a gentle
breathing announced the resumption of his slumbers. For a few moments
Mrs. Baines really devoted her attention to the third chapter of
Jeremiah; but when once more the respirations of her spouse degenerated
into raucous snores, she lost all patience with him, and put away her
Bible and pamphlets. She could not stop in the house any longer. It
was allowable to visit the sick on the Sabbath day. She would go and
see old Mrs. Gannell in Stebling's Cottages and read some tracts to her.
So she shook off imaginary crumbs from her skirts, went upstairs to put
on her Sunday bonnet, and left her husband--though he was unconscious of
the privilege--to snore and chuckle and drivel and snore unrebuked for a
couple of hours.
*CHAPTER II*
*JOHN AND LUCY*
John and Lucy strode rapidly through the outskirts of the village, past
the inspection of curious eyes from over the rim of window blinds, into
the quiet country, which lay sleeping in veiled sunshine; for the warmth
of the June sun had created a slight haze in the river valley and men
and beasts seemed drowsy with the concentrated, undispersed odour of the
newly-cut hay. They crossed a little stream by a wooden bridge, climbed
two stiles--Lucy gaily, John bashfully, as if fearing that his new-born
dignity of preacher might suffer thereby--walked about a quarter of a
mile down a densely shaded lane where the high hedgerows were flecked
with pale pink, yellow-stamened dogroses, and where the honeysuckle
trailed its simple light green foliage and hung out its lank fists of
yellow fingers: and then arrived at an open space and a broad high road.
This they followed until they came to a white gate, marked in black
letters "To Englefield. Private." Without hesitation, from
long-established custom, they raised the latch and entered the dense
shade of a well-timbered wood with a glimpse here and there, through the
tree trunks, of open water.
Lucy sighed with relief and pleasure when the white gate swung to behind
her and she was walking on a turf-covered track under the shade of great
beech trees. Though the scene was familiar to her she exclaimed at its
beauty. John mopped his face industriously, flapped away the flies,
blew his nose, and wiped the brim of his hat. "Yes, yes," he would
reply, looking to see if his boots were very dusty or whether there were
any grass seeds sticking to the skirts of his frock-coat. "Canterbury
bells, is that what you call them? Yes, there seem to be lots this year.
Here's a nice, clean trunk of a tree. Let's sit down and have our
talk...."
"Oh, not here, John. It's too midgy. We will go farther on to The
View: there's a seat there."
So they followed the broad, turfy track which commenced to ascend the
flank of a down. On the right hand the great trees rose higher and
higher into the sky; on the left the ground sloped away to the level of
the little lake with its swans and water-lilies; and the turf near at
hand was dark blue and purple-green with the bugle in flower. In the
ascending woodland there were tall ranks of red-mauve foxgloves. Here
the owner of the park had placed an ample wooden seat for the
delectation of all who loved landscape beauty.
John threw himself down with heavy abandonment on the grey planks. Had
he been alone he would certainly have taken off his boots to ease his
hot and compressed feet, but some instinct told him his betrothed might
not think the action seemly. Lucy stood for a few moments gazing at the
view over the Kennet valley and then sat down beside him.
"How dreadfully you perspire, my poor John," she said, looking at the
wet red hand which clasped the rail of the seat.
"Yes. The least amount of walking makes me hot."
"Well, but how will you be able to stand Africa?"
"Oh, it's a different kind of heat there, I believe. Besides, you don't
have to go about in a black coat, a waistcoat and a starched shirt;
except perhaps at service time on Sundays."
"What a pity black clothes seem to be necessary to holiness!"--(then
seeing a frown settling on his face) "I wonder whether we shall see
anything so beautiful as _this_ out there?"
"As beautiful as what? Oh! The view. Well, I s'pose so. I believe
there are some high mountains and plenty of forest near the place where
I am to live."
"What is its name?"
"Hangodi, I think--something like that. Bayley says it means 'the Place
of Firewood.'"
"Oh, _that_ doesn't sound pretty at all; just as if there were nothing
but dead sticks lying about. I hoped there would be plenty of palms and
those things you see in the pictures of African travel books--with great
broad leaves--plantains? Is it a village?"
"Hangodi? I believe so. I think the chief reason it has been chosen is
its standing high up on a mountain and being near water."
"Oh, John," said Lucy after a minute's silence, "I _do_ look forward to
joining you in Africa. I've always wanted to travel, ever since I won a
geography prize at school. Just think what wonderful things we shall
see. Elephants and lions and tigers. Will there be tigers? Of
_course_ not. I ought to have remembered they're only found in India.
But at any rate there will be beautifully spotted leopards, and lions
roaring at night, and hippopotamuses in the rivers and antelopes on the
plains. And ostriches? Do you think there will be any ostriches,
John?"
"My dear, how do _I_ know? Besides, we are not going out to Africa to
look for ostriches and lions, Lucy," said John, rather solemnly. "We
have a great work before us, a _great_ work. There is a mighty harvest
to be gathered for the Lord."
"Of course, John, of course," Lucy hastened to reply, "I know what is
the real object of your mission, and I mean to help you all I can, don't
I?" (pushing back a wisp of his lank brown hair that fell over his
brow--for he had taken off the hot wide-awake). "But that won't prevent
me from liking to see wild beasts and other queer African things; and I
don't see the harm in it, either...."
"N--no, of course it isn't _wrong_. These things are among the
wonderful works of the Almighty, and it is right that we should admire
them in their proper place. At the same time they are apt to become a
snare in leading us from the contemplation of holy things into vain
disputes about science. I know more about these spiritual dangers than
you do, Lucy," continued John, from the superior standing of his three
years' education in London, "and I warn you against the idolatry of
intellect" (squeezing her little kid-gloved hand to temper his solemnity
with a lover's gesture). "I knew a very nice fellow in London once. He
had studied medicine at the hospitals and he came to Bayswater College
to qualify for the East African Mission; for he intended going out as a
medical missionary. He was the son of a minister, too, and his father
was much respected. But he was always spending his spare time at this
new Natural History Museum, and he used to read Darwin and other infidel
writers. Well, the result was that he took to questioning the accuracy
of Genesis, and _of course_ he had to give up all idea of joining the
Mission. I don't know what became of him, but I expect he afterwards
went to the bad. For my part, I am thankful to say I never was troubled
with doubts. The Bible account of Creation is good enough for me, and
so it ought to be for everybody else."
"John! _John_!" exclaimed Lucy, shaking his arm, "you are just as bad
as your mother, who accuses me of disbelieving the Bible because I like
to take a walk on a fine Sunday afternoon. How you _do_ run on! I only
said I wanted to see elephants and lions in Africa and you accuse me
straight out of 'worshipping my intellect' or some such rubbish. Don't
you know the chief reason I promised to marry you was because I thought
it was so noble of you to go to Africa to teach the poor natives? Very
well, if you think African wild beasts will be a snare for my soul I
won't run the temptation, and you shall marry some black woman whose
ears will come down to her shoulders, and a ring through her nose as
well, and no doubts at all about anything."
"Lucy! I think you're very flippant."
"John! I think you're much too sanctimonious! You're a great deal too
good for me, and you'd better find a more serious person than I am--Miss
Jamblin, for instance."
"Ann Jamblin? And a very nice girl too. Oh! you may sneer at her.
She's not pretty, I daresay, but she comes to all the prayer meetings,
so mother says; and she's got a nice gift for sacred poetry."
"Yes, _I_ know her verses--flimsy things! Just hymns-and-water, _I_
call them. She's got a number of stock rhymes and she rings the changes
on them. Any one could do that. Besides, I've caught her lots of times
borrowing whole lines from Hymns, Ancient and Modern, which I suppose
aren't good enough for chapel people, so they must needs go and make up
hymns of their own. And as to the prayer meetings, it's just the tea
and cake that attract _her_. Bless you! I was at school with Ann
Jamblin, and I know what a pig that girl is.... But if you think she'd
suit you better as a wife, don't hesitate to change your mind. Your
mother would be _delighted_. And I've heard say that Ann's uncle, who
keeps the ham-and-beef shop in Reading, means to leave her all his
money. You won't find Ann Jamblin caring much for wild beasts, _I_ can
promise you! Why, I remember once when the school was out walking near
Reading and we met a dancing bear coming along with its keeper, she
burst out screaming and crying so loud that the youngest Miss Calthrop
had to take her _straight_ back."
"Now, _Lucy_! _Is_ it kind to quarrel with me just before I am going
away?" (Lucy's unexpected spitfire prettiness and the hint she might be
willing to break off the engagement had roused John's latent manliness
and he felt now he desired intensely to marry her.)
"My _dear_ John, I wasn't _quarrelling_, I've nothing to quarrel about.
I only suggested to you before it was too late to change your mind that
Ann Jamblin would make you a more suitable wife than I should--there,
there!" (fighting off a kiss and an attempt at a hug) "remember where we
are and that any one might see us and carry the tale to your mother. Of
course, I am partly in fun. I know it is unkind to tease you, but
somehow I _can't_ be as serious as you are.... Dear old John" (the
attempt at a hug and the look of desire in John's eyes have somehow
mollified her) "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.... Did I? ... I'm
very sorry.... Just as you're going away, too.... There, never mind....
Look bright and happy.... Now _smile_!"
John's lips parted reluctantly and showed his pale gums and projecting
eye-teeth.
"What do you think, John? ... Let's get up and walk on to the garden
gates, ... what do you think my Uncle Pardew is going to give us as a
wedding present? A harmonium! Won't that be nice? I shall take it out
with me, and then when you teach the people to sing hymns--only you
mustn't teach them Ann Jamblin's--I can play the accompaniments. And in
the evenings when you are tired I shall try to play something that will
soothe you. I have never tried the harmonium yet, but while you are
away I mean to practise. It's just like playing the piano, only you
have to keep working the pedals with your feet, like a sewing-machine.
Uncle Pardew would just as soon give us a piano, but I told him what you
said about the climate being bad for them. So he settled that a
harmonium would do better. I wonder what other wedding presents we
shall get? I can tell to a certainty what your mother will give us."
"What?"
"Why, a very large Bible, bound in shiny brown leather like those in the
waiting-rooms at railway stations, with a blue ribbon marker; and a
dozen silver spoons. Six large and six small. I know she doesn't
consider me worthy of the spoons, but she is bound by custom. When she
was married _her_ mother-in-law gave _her_ spoons.... And your father
will give us a dinner-service and a gross of Sparkling Cider..."
"I hope to goodness he doesn't. The cost of transporting it up-country
would be quite beyond my means. I shall tell him..."
"And _my_ father," continued Lucy, "is going to give me a gold watch and
chain. And mother, my own sweet little mother--what do you think she's
been working at, John?"
"Can't say, I'm sure."
"Why, _all_ the house linen.... Sheets, pillow-cases, tablecloths,
napkins, and such like. She has been getting them ready ever since I
was first engaged.... John! You must be _very_ kind to me in Africa."
"_Kind_ to you? Why, of course! Do you suppose I should be anything
else?"
"You don't know _how_ I feel the idea of parting with mother. I love
her better than any one in the world, better than you, John. She never
says anything, but I know she is dreadfully unhappy at the idea of my
going away so far and for so long. But then, I tell her, we can't _all_
be old maids. Father isn't rich enough to keep us all at home, and I
don't want to go on working at a National school all my life.... Oh, by
the bye, talking of mother, I had something so pleasant to tell you.
What do you think Lord Silchester has done? You know mother was maid to
old Lady Silchester? Well, when father went the other day to see Mr.
Parkins about a gate he met his lordship walking out of the agent's
office. They got into conversation and father told him I was going out
next year to marry you in Africa. And last Wednesday mother got a
letter written by Lord Silchester himself, saying he had not forgotten
her faithful care of his mother and would she give the enclosed to her
daughter, out of which she might buy a wedding present, something to
remember Lord Silchester by when she got out to Africa. And there were
four five-pound notes in the envelope. Mother was so pleased she
positively _cried_."
"Yes. That was very kind of his lordship. I must tell my mother when I
get back to-night. It may cheer her up."
"Oh, every one has been very nice about my engagement. The Miss
Calthrops, where I was at school in Reading, told me they were working
at some aesthetic mantel-borders for our house in Africa...."
"Mantel-borders! Why, we shan't have any mantel-pieces!"
"No mantel-pieces? No fireplaces?"
"Only a fire for cooking, in the kitchen, and that will be outside."
"Oh well, then, we must put them to some other use; I couldn't wound
their feelings by saying we didn't want them."
"Lucy, you mustn't imagine you are going to live in a mansion in Africa.
Our home will be only a cottage built of bamboo and mud and tree-stems
roughly trimmed, with a thatched or a corrugated-iron roof. I don't
suppose it will contain more than four rooms--a bedroom, a bathroom, a
sitting-room, a store and an outside kitchen."
"Well, but even a log-hut might be made pretty inside, with some 'art'
draperies and cushions and a few Japanese fans. I mean to make our home
as pretty as possible. Shall we have a garden?"
"Oh, I daresay--a kitchen garden, certainly. For the Mission Committee
wants to encourage the planting of vegetables and even some degree of
farming, so that we may live as much as possible on local products. We
are taking out spades and hoes and rakes in plenty, a small plough, an
incubator, and any amount of useful seeds."
"I'm sure," said Lucy, still musing, "there ought to be lovely wild
flowers in Africa and beautiful ferns, too. I mean to have a little
wild garden of my own, and I shall press the flowers and send them to
mother in my letters."
"I daresay you will be able to do that, when you have finished your
household work and done your teaching in the school."
"Teaching in the school?"
"Why, of course you will help me in that. You'll have to take the
girls' class, whilst I take the boys'."
"Oh, shall I? That's rather horrid. I didn't think I was going out to
Africa to teach, just the same as at home. The National School children
at Aldermaston are quite tiresome enough. What will little black girls
be like, I wonder?"
"I'm told they're very quick at learning.... I am sorry," continued
John, rather portentously, "that you don't quite seem to realize the
nature of the duties you are about to undertake. I love you very
dearly, Lucy"--and a tremor in his voice showed sincerity--"but that
isn't the only reason I have asked you to come out to me in Africa and
be my wife. I want a helpmeet, not a playmate; one who will aid me in
bringing these heathen to a knowledge of God's goodness; not an idle
woman who only thinks of picking wild flowers and ornamenting her house.
Don't pout, dear. I only want to save you disappointment. You are not
coming out to a life of luxury, but one of hard work. Besides, it would
be hardly fair to the Mission if you did not take certain duties on
yourself, because when I am married they will increase my pay to two
hundred and fifty pounds a year."
"What do you get when you are single?"
"One hundred and eighty. You see a married man gets extra pay because
it is always supposed his wife will add her work to his. A married
missionary, too, has more influence with the natives."
"All the same, John, we shall sometimes make time to steal away by
ourselves and have a nice little picnic without any of those horrid
black people near us...."
"Horrid black people, Lucy, have immortal souls...."
"I daresay, but that doesn't prevent their having black bodies and
looking like monkeys. However, I daresay I shall get used to them. And
if I don't at first ... By the bye, John, I forgot to ask, but I wanted
to, so as to relieve mother's mind--are they cannibals?"
"What, the people of Hangodi? I don't know, but I scarcely think so.
And if they were, we should have all the more credit in converting
them."
"Yes; but suppose they wouldn't wait to be converted, but ate you
first?"
"The little I've read and heard shows me they would never do that.
African cannibals, it seems, are rather careful whom they eat.
Generally only their war captives or their old people. They wouldn't
eat a peaceful stranger, a white man. However, on the east side of
Africa the negroes are _not_ cannibals, any more than we are."
"Isn't it curious, John, to think what different ideas of right and
wrong prevail amongst the peoples of the world? Here, you say, there
are some tribes in Africa which eat their own relations. Well, I
daresay it is thought quite a right and proper thing to do--out
there--just as we in England think the old folk ought to be cherished
and taken care of, and kept alive as long as possible. Only fancy how
funny it would sound to us to be told that Mr. Jones showed very bad
feeling because he wouldn't join his brother and sister in eating up old
Aunt Brown! And yet I daresay that is what cannibal scandal-mongers
often say to one another. Isn't it wonderful how one lot of human
beings can think and act so differently to another lot; and yet each
party considers that nobody is right but those who believe as they do?
Supposing one day some black missionaries landed in England, dressed in
large earrings, bead necklaces, pocket handkerchiefs and nothing else,
and tried to persuade us to worship some hideous idol and leave off
wearing so many clothes. How astonished we would be ... and yet they
would think they were doing right, just as our missionaries do who go
out to teach savages the Gospel...."
"Well, I confess I don't see the resemblance. What we preach is the
Truth, the Living Truth. What _they_ believe is a lie of the Devil."
"Yes, but they don't _know_ it is. They must think it is the truth or
they wouldn't go on believing in it year after year. When I was
teaching geography the other day, I was quite _astonished_ to find in
the Manual that about _four or five hundred millions_ of people were
Buddhists. Isn't it _dreadful_ to think of their all being wrong, all
living in vain. Surely God won't punish them for it hereafter?"
"It's hard to say. If they had the means of grace offered to them and
rejected the Message I should think He would. But that is the chief
object of our Foreign Missions, to teach the heathen the true principles
of Christianity and bring the Light of the Gospel to them that sit in
darkness. When this has been done throughout the earth, no one will
then be able to say he sinned in ignorance, 'because he knew not the way
of Life.'"
"And yet, John, see here in England what different views of religion
even good people take. Father goes to Church; you go to Chapel; and
each thinks the other on the wrong road to Heaven."
"Oh no! Lucy, I wouldn't go so far as that. Of course, I believe that
our Connection has been vouchsafed a special revelation of God's Will
and Purpose among men. But all the same I feel sure that many a Church
person comes into the way of Truth though it may be after much
tribulation. Why, I wouldn't deny that even _Roman Catholics_ may be
saved, if they have led a godly life and acted up to their lights. At
the same time, those who have the Truth among them and are wilfully
blind to its teaching are incurring a heavy responsibility."
"Then you think father stands less chance of being saved than you do?"
"Well ... yes ... I do; because in his Church he does not possess the
same means of grace as are given to our Connection."
"But he is so good, so kind to every one, so fair in his dealings..."
"Good works without faith are insufficient to save a man."
"Well, for my part, I can't believe that _any_ one will be lost because
he may not follow the most correct kind of religion. I can't believe
that God will punish any one who isn't very, very wicked indeed. He is
so great; we are so little.... Just think, supposing we saw an ant
doing anything wrong should we feel obliged to hurt it or burn it?
Should we not be rather amused and pitiful? And mustn't we seem the
very tiniest of ants to God?"
"Ah, Lucy! The belief in the fierce judgments of the Almighty is a
fundamental Truth of our religion, and if your faith in _that_ is
shaken, everything will begin to go.... But the subject is too solemn
to be lightly discussed, so let's talk about something else. Have you
finished my slippers?"
"Yes, and they're perfectly _lovely_. A dark blue, with J.B.
embroidered in white silk. I shall bring them with me to the station
to-morrow.... Why, here we are at the gates of the garden! _How_ we've
walked and _how_ we've talked! And look, John,"--drawing him back from
standing too near the iron gates, "there's his lordship on the terrace,
and I do believe the young lady with him is the one he's become engaged
to!"
John looked in the direction whither Lucy discreetly inclined her head,
beyond triumphs of carpet-bedding to the terrace which fronted the south
side of the great house. And there, foremost of several groups of
Sunday callers who were taking tea at small tables, they saw specially
prominent a party of three: a pretty girl rather showily dressed in the
height of 1886 fashion, an old lady, and an elderly man, tall, a little
inclined to stoop, dressed in dark, loose-fitting tweeds. He had a long
face with a massive jaw and rather a big nose. But though they were not
visible at a distance of fifty yards there were kindly wrinkles round
his dark grey eyes as he suddenly lifted them from the seated ladies and
glanced across the flower beds to see who was looking at him from the
outer world.
This was Lord Silchester; and John, not wishing to prolong his
indiscretion, raised his wide-awake and turned away with his betrothed.
He and Lucy then walked directly to Aldermaston, John leaving her at the
railway station, where he consummated his breach of the Sabbath by
taking an evening train back to Theale, and so returned to his home at
the Aerated Waters factory for the last night he was ever to pass there.
The next morning, punctually at seven o'clock, Lucy's father drew up his
gig before the booking-office of Theale station, and, getting a porter
to hold the horse, helped Lucy down and accompanied her on to the
station platform, where they found the Baines family already assembled:
Mrs. Baines gloomily seated on a bench, Mr. Baines reading the old
newspaper placards of the closed bookstall, and John busy seeing his
numerous boxes labelled.
"Hullo, Baines!--and ma'am--hope you're well ... a bit cast down, I
expect? But there, it's a fine career he's starting on.... Still, it's
always a wrench. John"--extending his hand--"I've just called in to wish
you good luck _and_ a prosperous voyage _and_ a happy return, by and
bye. Mind you make a comfortable home out there for my little girl! I
shall be feeling about as bad as you feel, ma'am" (Mrs. Baines kept a
perfectly impassive face during these attempts at sympathy and did not
even look at the speaker), "next--when is it to be? March?--when I come
to part with Lucy. But life's made up of partings and meetings, which
is why, some'ow, I don't like railway stations. Now I can't stop, and
if I could, I should only be in the way. Must be off to market. Leave
you Lucy. She'll walk back to school. Good-bye, John...."
And Farmer Josling hurried out of the station and his horse's hoofs
sounded in quick succession on the ascent to the main road. Lucy, left
behind actually found herself regretting that father had brought her in
such good time as to give her five-and-twenty minutes or more of
irresolute attendance on John. When she had presented him with the
slippers, had squeezed his hand two or three times, and adjured him to
write from the first stopping-place, besides sending a postcard from
London to say he was leaving "all right"; had made a few suggestions
about his luggage which, in spite of the urbanity of departure, were too
futile to be answered or adopted; and had insisted on pushing the band
of his blue tie under the shirt button at the back of his neck, so that
it might not rise up over the collar: there seemed to be nothing left to
say or do. The bookstall was not yet opened so there were no papers to
be bought.
She would have talked with Mrs. Baines, who had retired to the little
waiting-room and was pretending there to read a great roll of texts in
big print hung against one of the walls. But at her first remark she
noticed Mrs. Baines's eyelids were quivering and her under lip twitching
in a way to indicate that she was a prey to almost uncontrollable
emotion. Although she mechanically turned the leaves of the texts, her
eyes were not focussing them, and something seemed to be moving up and
down her lank throat which she could not finally swallow. She only
answered Lucy's remark by an inarticulate gurgle and waved her away.
There was something so pathetic in her dismal ugliness, in her awkwardly
restrained emotion, that Lucy was suddenly moved to pity as she returned
to the platform. Her embarrassment was cut short by the tumult
occasioned by the approaching train, heralded by the clanging of the
station bell. The train was full and John had hurriedly to pass all the
second class compartments in review to find a place not only for himself
but for the amorphous packages deemed too frail for the guard's van.
When at last he had squeezed himself and his parcels past the
obstructing knees of the established passengers; he had just time to
twist round, stretch out over his surly neighbours' laps, and squeeze
Lucy's timorously extended hand. Then the train gave a lurch forward
and a slide backwards which made him nearly bite his tongue off in an
attempt to say good-bye to his parents, and finally rolled slowly out of
the station, while the forms of father, mother, and sweetheart left
standing on the platform grouped themselves for one moment in an
attitude of mute farewell before the advance of the train cut them off
from his sight.
The retreating chain of carriages shut itself up like a telescope, and
the station began to resume its sleepy calm. Mrs. Baines's emotion now
could no longer be restrained from expression. She tottered towards the
waiting-room and sinking heavily on to a hard wooden seat she choked and
hiccupped and sobbed, and the tears rolled regularly, one after the
other, down her cavernous cheeks. Lucy took her trembling hands and
tried to soothe her; and then, Mrs. Baines, softened by this sympathy,
lost all that remained of her self-control and abandoned herself limply
on Lucy's shoulder.
"Oh!" she gasped, "I've parted with him in anger--he's gone! ... Perhaps
I shall never see him again.... My boy.... My only son. I never said a
kind word to him before he left. I thought there would be time.... I
thought John would come and make it up. I was cross because he went out
walking with you and came back late by train yesterday. You know I
always taught him to observe the Sabbath. But I'd forgive him
_anything_ if he'd only come back and give me _one_ kiss ... my boy...."
But John was well on his way to Reading, and the London express, and all
his mother's tardy plaints were fruitless to recall him. Moreover, he
was not perceptive. To him, his mother's demeanour had seemed much as
usual; and he was certainly not conscious that she had parted with him
in anger. He was fond of her in a way, but he had been used from
childhood to her being always in a huff about something or other.
Lucy restored her future mother-in-law to partial calmness, straightened
her bonnet, re-tied the bonnet strings, and walked a little of the way
back with her towards Tilehurst, while Mr. Baines followed submissively
behind. For the rest of that day he enjoyed unrebuked freedom to do as
he liked. He ate his fill and even smoked a pipe in the parlour. His
wife having regained her composure held aloof from him in silent, stony
grief.
Lucy fortunately encountered the innkeeper of Aldermaston driving
thither in a chaise and got a lift, nearly as far as her home, a
substantial farmstead on the Mortimer road, close to both church and
school. This enabled her to begin her duties punctually. She taught her
girls and boys from nine to twelve and two to four. She thought of John
with gentle melancholy during the day, and even shed a tear or two at
night when she concentrated her mind on the scenes of her betrothed's
departure, especially his mother's wild display of grief. But the next
morning as she walked from the farmstead to the school she actually
hummed a gay tune as she picked a spray of wild roses from the dewy
hedge and arranged them round her light straw hat. At the same time she
had a twinge of remorse at her forgetfulness--poor John was doubtless
now at sea watching England fade from the exile's view; and she forced
herself to assume before her scholars an aspect of restrained grief.
Nevertheless, as day after day of summer weather went by in her
surroundings of perfect beauty, she confessed to herself she had seldom
felt so happy, in spite of her sweetheart's absence.
*CHAPTER III*
*SIBYL AT SILCHESTER*
They had ridden over from opposite directions--he from Farleigh Wallop
on the downs south of Basingstoke, she from Aldermaston in the Kennet
Valley: to meet on the site of the Roman Calleva Atrebatum, the modern
Silchester. This was in the beginning of July, 1886. The Roman city of
early Christian Britain was then--and now--only marked by two-thirds of
an encircling wall of rough masonry, crowned with ivy and even trees.
There were grassy hummocks concealing a forum, a basilica and a few
houses. An occasional capital of a column or obvious blocks of ancient
hewn stone, scattered here and there among the herbage, made it clear,
apart from tradition, that the place of their rendezvous had a momentous
past. But its present was of purely agricultural interest--waving fields
of green wheat, sheep grazing on the enclosed mounds, an opulent
farmstead--unless you were a landscape painter of the Birket Foster
school: then you raved about the thatched cottages, the old church and
its churchyard.
On this July morning Captain Roger Brentham and Sibyl Grayburn had the
untilled portion of the site of Calleva Atrebatum quite to themselves.
This, no doubt, was the reason why they had decided to meet there for an
explanation which the man deemed to be due to him from the young woman.
He, of course, arrived first, but Sibyl was not long in making her
appearance from the direction of Silchester common. A groom who rode
behind her at the sight of Captain Brentham touched his hat and trotted
away.... Brentham tied up the two horses in the shade of the Roman wall.
Sibyl disposed herself gracefully on a mound which covered the site of a
Roman dwelling, arranged the long skirt of her riding habit so that the
riding trousers and other suggestions of her limbs might not be too
obvious to the male eye.
Roger was a captain in the Indian Army, about twenty-eight or
twenty-nine, strongly built, tanned in complexion, supple in figure,
good-looking, keen-eyed. Sibyl Grayburn was a decidedly pretty young
woman of twenty-five, the daughter of Colonel Grayburn who had recently
moved from Aldershot to Aldermaston and was trying to live the life of a
gentleman farmer on rather slender means. The Brenthams and Grayburns
of the younger generation were distant cousins.
_Roger_ (seating himself on the mound not too near to Sibyl, and
scanning her attentively): "Well, you're just as pretty as you were five
years ago--a little filled out perhaps.... And _this_ is how we meet.
How _utterly_ different from what I had been looking forward to! I
remember when we said good-bye at Farleigh _how_ you cried, and how for
the first four years you scarcely missed a mail.... And you can't say
_I_ didn't write--when I got a chance.... Or that I didn't work like a
nigger to get a position to afford to marry--and _now_ I hear from Maud
you're going to marry Silchester. To tell you the truth it didn't come
as a complete shock. I saw hints of it in some beastly Society paper
that some one posted to me at Aden--I suppose it was _you_! And this is
what women call _fidelity_!"
_Sibyl_ (at first keeps her eyes on the turf, but presently looks
Brentham defiantly in the face): "If women of my own age were to discuss
my case--not mere romantic school girls--they would say I had acted with
ordinary common sense, and _very_ unselfishly. I am, as you know,
twenty-five, and I'm sure you won't have enough to marry on for several
years--I should never again get such a chance ... and I really _do_ like
Lord Silchester, you don't know _how_ kind he can be--and you can't
_really_ care so very much. You reached England a fortnight ago, and
never even _wrote_ to me...."
_Roger_: "I was too much taken aback by that paragraph in the _World_
... and Maud gave me a hint in the letter she sent to my club. Besides,
I had to stop in London to see the Foreign Office and the India Office
... and ... and to attend a missionary meeting" (Sibyl ejaculates with
scorn: "_Missionary_ meeting!") "and get some clothes.... I had nothing
fit to wear when I landed...."
_Sibyl_: "Well, I'm not blaming you. I only meant that if you were so
madly in love with me as you pretend you would have dashed down to get a
sight of me before you went hobnobbing with your missionary friends ...
or bothered about clothes. I did not want my engagement to come to you
as a shock, so I _did_ post that _World_ to you and got Gerry to address
it--and I told Maud, so that she might prepare you. But _do_ let's be
calm and sensible and not waste time in needless reproaches. I _must_
get back to lunch. We've got Aunt Christabel coming--she helped to bring
it about, you know." (Roger interpolates "_Damn_ her!") "She's got
twice mother's determination.... Dear old Roger.... I _am_ sorry ... in
a way ... but you'll find _heaps_ of girls, _much_ nicer than I am,
ready to jump at the prospect of marrying you." (Here Sibyl's eyes
glanced with a little regret at his turned-away face, with the bronzed
cheek, the firm profile and the upward twist of the dark moustache.)
"And you know our 'engagement' was only boy-and-girl fun. Besides, now
I know more about things--I was so young when you went away--I don't
approve of cousins marrying.... Isn't their--I mean aren't their ...
children deaf and dumb or congenital idiots, or something
unpleasant?..." (And here Sibyl, appropriately to the period in which
she was living, blushed a deeper rose than the ride had given her at the
audacity in alluding to children as the result of marriage.)
_Roger_: "Nonsense. Heaps of cousins marry and everything turns out all
right if they come of healthy stock as we do. Besides, we're only
second cousins. But of course this is nothing but an evasion. You
thought you could do better for yourself by marrying an elderly peer,
and so you threw me over...."
_Sibyl_: "Well! I _did_ think I might, and _not_ selfishly. There's
papa--more or less in a financial tangle over his farm.... There's
mother, wearing herself ill, trying to make both ends meet ... and Clara
and Juliet to be brought out, and the boys to be educated and got into
professions..." (crying a little or pretending to do so out of
self-pity) "...I know I'm sacrificing myself for my family, but what
would you have me do? I shall soon become an old maid, and you won't be
able to marry for _ever_ so long...."
(Roger mutters: "I've five hundred a year and...")
_Sibyl_: "Yes, but what could we do on that? Poor papa could afford to
give me nothing more than my trousseau.... Even on seven hundred a
year, _if_ you get a Consulate, we couldn't manage two households, and
I'm perfectly certain I couldn't stand the African climate long, and I
should have to come home. I _don't_ like roughing it, I should
_dislike_ hot countries; and I _hate_ black people.... No, Roger ...
dear ... be sensible... If you want to carve out a great career in
Africa or India you don't want to be hampered with a wife for several
years to come; and then ... I'll--I'll find some really _nice_ girl to
marry you, somebody with a little money. And Silchester might help you
enormously. They'll probably take him into the new Government--aren't
you glad that _horrid_ old Gladstone's _gone_?--He'll be at the Colonial
Office or somewhere like that and I know he'd do anything I asked him,
once we were married. If you still want to go back to Africa he shall
get you made a Consul or a Governor or whatever it is you want...." But
Roger was not going to listen to anything so cold-blooded, even though
all the time an undercurrent of thought was glancing at the advantages
that might accrue from Sibyl's _mariage de convenance_. He'd be
_hanged_ if he'd take anything from Lord Silchester.... He was entitled
to some such appointment, anyway, after all he had done. But there, he
had lost all interest in life and if he went to the bad, Sibyl would be
to blame. All his interest in an African career had been bound up with
Sibyl's sharing it. With her at his side he felt equal to anything. He
would conquer all Equatorial Africa, strike at the Mahdi from the south,
find Emin Pasha, lay all Equatoria at the feet of Queen Victoria, and in
no time Sibyl would be Lady Brentham----
"Yes," interjected Sibyl, "and lose my complexion and be old before my
time, riding after you through the jungle, or living stupidly like a
grass widow at home...."
Yet as he jerked out his tirade rather theatrically she noted him with
an approving eye. His anger and extravagance brought out a certain
boyishness and, made him, with the freedom of the jungle about him,
still additionally attractive physically.... He certainly was
good-looking and in the prime of manhood ... she sighed ... the
remembrance of Lord Silchester's pale, somewhat flabby face, his
slightly pedantic manner, his carefulness about his health.... He
rode--yes--they had already had decorous rides together, but she
imagined before the ride his cob had had some of the freshness taken out
of him by the groom....
Sibyl tried by broken phrases, and half-uttered hints, to convey the
idea that Lord Silchester being nearly sixty--at any rate close on
fifty-six--and not of robust health, might not live for ever; though
really she wouldn't mind if _she_ died first, men were so perfectly
hateful, and so was your family--if you were a woman. You were expected
to do all you could for your family, and abused into the bargain by
others who held you bound by foolish promises made when you were a mere
girl without any knowledge of the world. Still, there was a
possibility--just a possibility--for weren't we all mortal?--that she
might find herself a widow, a lonely widow some day. Roger by then
would have made a great career, become a sort of Sir Samuel Baker; he'd
have discovered and named lakes after royalty; then they might meet
again; and who could say? Certainly, if it came to _love_, she wouldn't
deny she had never felt _quite_ the same towards any one as she had
towards Roger....
But Roger checked such philosophizings rudely, saying they were
positively indecent: at which she expressed herself as very angry. Then
leading out the horses in eye-flashing silence, Roger helped her to
mount and swung himself into the saddle. He escorted her silently to
Aldermaston main street, raised his hat, and rode off up the Mortimer
road with a set face and angry eyes on the way back to Basingstoke.
He paused however at Tadley to give his father's cob--borrowed for the
day--a feed and a rest. His ride lay through one of the loveliest parts
of England in those days, before "Dora" had commandeered timber from the
woods--to find afterwards she did not want it--before farmers had
changed tiles or thatch on barns to corrugated iron, and chars-a-bancs,
motor cycles and side-cars with golden-haired flappers, school treats
and bean feasts had made the country-side noisy, dangerous and
paper-strewn.
Insensibly his mood softened as he rode. It was more than four years
since he had been home. Though he had spent all of his youth in this
country, save for school and military college, his eyes seemed never
before to have taken in the charm of English landscapes. Here was
England at its best in the early part of July: poppies blazing in the
green corn and whitish green oats, hay still lingering--grey on
green--in the fields, ox-eyed daisies fully out, wild roses still in
bloom in the hedge-rows, blue crane's bill, blue vetch, and purple-blue
campanulas in the copse borders. The plump and placid cows, with
swinging udders, so different from the gaunt African cattle with a
scarcely visible milk-supply, the splendid cart-horses, the sheep--neat
and tidy after shearing--the cock pheasants running across the
sun-and-shadow-flecked roads, the cawing rooks, and the cooing
woodpigeons, the geese and donkeys on the commons. Here and there, off
the main road, park gates of finely wrought iron with a trim
geranium-decked lodge and a vista of some charming avenue towards an
invisible great house; side turnings, half-overgrown with turf, leading
to villages quaintly entitled. Some of the details his eye and ear and
nose took in--such as the braying of barrel organs on the fringe of an
unseen fair, on a rather burnt and blackened gipsy-befouled common; or
the smell of pig-sties in a hamlet, or placards in big print pasted
round an ancient stump or on an old oak paling--it was irrational to
call beautiful. But together they made up England at its best, with old
churches packed with the history of England, the little towns so
prosperous, the straggling villages, beautiful if insanitary, the
signposts with their agreeable Anglo-Saxon and Norman names, so pleasing
to the eye after years of untracked wilderness; the postman trudging his
round in red-and-black, the gamekeeper in velveteen, the hearty
labourers in corduroy, blue-shirted, bare-armed and hairy chested. All
this was England. "Was there a jollier country in the world?" (There
was not, in 1886.)
And as to Sibyl.... How differently he saw her now, after four years!
As pretty as paint, though rather overheated after a short ride; but
_how_ artificial! What a delusion to suppose such a woman would have
cared for a rough life in Africa. Why she even spoke slightingly of
India, a country of romance far exceeding Africa. Indeed, he had only
turned to Africa and African problems because all the great careers to
be made in India were seemingly over.... There was nothing to be done
in India without powerful backing....
Backing? It was perhaps silly to have flouted the suggestion of Lord
Silchester's influence.... It was difficult unless you were related to
permanent officials or members of Parliament to get a Consular
commission in East Africa. Why not gradually--gradually of course--it
wouldn't do to forgive her too quickly--become reconciled to Sibyl's
marriage and pursue instead his second desire, a great African
career?...
So it was a comparatively happy Roger Brentham who cantered up the road
to the vicarage at Farleigh Wallop in the late afternoon of that day and
sat with his sister Maud in the arbour enjoying a sound English tea.
Maud, a pleasant-faced young woman of thirty, the only sister of three
stalwart brothers, one a soldier, another a sailor and the third
intending to be a barrister; housekeeper to her father, an absent-minded
archaeologist; could not be called pretty, because she was too much like
a young man of twenty-five with almost a young man's flat figure, but
she was in every way satisfactory as a sister. Her father was out on
some archaeological ramble and she was glad of it because she thought
Roger might have come to her with a heart to mend. No doubt he felt
heart-broken over Sibyl's defection. She looked at him inquiringly
while she poured out tea, but would not of course broach the subject.
"You've been out a long time with the cob. I hope you haven't
over-ridden him? Where did you go?"
"To Silchester and back; but I baited him at Tadley and gave him an
hour's rest in Basingstoke; and another hour at Silchester. I've jogged
along very quietly, looking up old haunts--and--and I've seen Sibyl
Grayburn. She told me all about her engagement."
"Sibyl? Then--you don't mind so much? I hardly knew how to break it to
you...."
"_Mind_? Oh, well, there _was_ a boy-and-girl engagement, a flirtation
between us before I went away, as you knew. But Africa drove all that
out of my mind. Besides, how can I marry on five hundred a year? I dare
say Sibyl has done well for herself, and she's getting on. Girls can't
afford to wait and look about them like a man can. By the bye, old
girl, why doesn't some one come along and marry _you_? I don't know a
better sort of wife than _you'd_ make...."
_Maud_: "Thank you, Roger, I'm sure you mean it. But I don't suppose I
shall ever marry. My line is to look after father for the rest of his
life, and then become everybody's aunt. I'm really his curate, you
know. And his clerk and his congregation, very often. Oh, I'm quite
happy; don't pity me; I couldn't have nicer brothers ... or perhaps a
nicer life. I love Farleigh----"
_Roger_ (not noticing, man-like, the tiny, tiny sigh that accompanied
this renunciation of marriage): "Jove! How jolly all this is: you're
right. If I wasn't a man I should think like you. What could one have
better than this?" And he looked away from the arbour and the prettily
furnished tea-table to the well-kept lawn with long shadows from the
herbaceous border. Beyond that the wooded slopes of Farleigh Down and
the distant meadows of the lowland, and then the sun-gilt roofs of
Basingstoke's northern suburb, and the distant trains, three, four, five
miles away with their trails of cotton-wool smoke indicating a busy
world beyond the quietude of the vicarage garden. He could see the
slight trace of a straight Roman road athwart the northern landscape,
Winchester to Silchester; the downs of Hannington and Sydmonton and the
far-off woods of Sherborne. When he was queer with sun-fever in
Somaliland he would sometimes be tantalized by this view, like a mirage,
instead of the brown-grey sun-scorched plains ringed by low ridges of
table-topped mountains and dotted with scrubby acacias, whitened by the
drought ... and would pull himself together, sit upright in the saddle
and wonder if he would ever see home again. And here he was.... Hang
Sibyl!...
So when Sibyl Grayburn married Lord Silchester at the end of that
July--because he was fifty-six and impatient to have some summer for his
honeymoon before returning to take up the burden--a well-padded one--of
office in the Conservative Government--Captain Roger Brentham was among
the guests, the relations of the bride. And his best leopard skin,
suitably mounted, was in Sibyl's boudoir at Englefield awaiting Lady
Silchester's return from the Tyrol.
* * * * *
And in the winter of 1886, Captain Brentham received from Lord Wiltshire
the offer of a Consulate on the Last Coast of Africa and accepted it.
It was provisionally styled the Consulate for the Mainland of Zangia
where the Germans were already beginning to take up the administration,
but Brentham was instructed to reside at first at Unguja, the island
immediately opposite the temporary German capital. The British
Consul-General for the whole of Zangia had been recalled because of
heated relations with Germany. Pending his return Captain Brentham was
to act as Consul-General without, however, taking too much on himself,
as Mr. Bennet Molyneux of the African Department rather acidly told him.
Molyneux, at the Foreign Office, was not at all pleased at Brentham's
appointment: one of those things that Lord Wiltshire was wont to do
without consulting the permanent officials. Molyneux had not long been
in the new African Department (hitherto disparagingly connected with the
Slave Trade section); and as Africa had barely entered world-politics,
British Ministers of State showed themselves usually indifferent as to
how the necessary appointments were filled up, adopting generally names
suggested by Molyneux, so that he was accustomed to nominating his poor
relations--he had a reserve of wastrel nephews and cousins--or the
friends of his friends--such as Spencer Bazzard (q.v., as they say in
Encyclopaedias). If they were "rotters," the climate generally killed
them off in a few months; if they made good, they established in time a
claim on the Foreign Office regard and got transferred to Consular posts
in South America, the Mediterranean, and Western Europe.
But Lord Wiltshire was not always asleep or uninformed, as he sometimes
appeared to be. So his Private Secretary countered Bennet Molyneux's
querulous Memo on Captain Brentham's lack of qualification for such a
responsible East African post by reminding him that the gentleman in
question was well versed in Arabic through having accompanied a
Political Mission to the Persian Gulf, that he had served in Aden and
Somaliland and had conducted an expedition to the Snow Mountains of East
Africa for the Intelligence Division, had contributed papers to the
Royal Geographical Society, was a silver medallist of the Zoological
Society, and was personally vouched for by a colleague of Lord
Wiltshire's: all of which information for the African Department was
summed up by the Private Secretary to Molyneux in a few words: "See
here, Molly; take this and look pleasant. You can't have all the
African appointments in your gift. You must leave a few to the Old Man.
He generally knows what he's about." So Molyneux asked Brentham to dine
with him and apparently made the best of a bad job ... as he said with a
grin to his colleague, Sir Mulberry Hawk.
*CHAPTER IV*
*LUCY HESITATES*
When the school holidays supervened, Lucy spent her vacation quietly at
Aldermaston working at her African outfit--material and mental--in a
desultory way. She supposed she would have to leave in the following
April to join her betrothed. April seemed a long while ahead. She had
not even given notice to the school managers yet of her intention to
give up teaching. It would not be necessary to do so or to brace her
mind for the agony of separation from her home until John had announced
that all was in readiness and she had received the formal intimation of
his Missionary Society that they approved of her going out to join him
and would make the necessary arrangements for a steamer passage.
Meantime she gave herself up to the delight of reading such books about
African exploration or mission life in Africa as she could obtain from
the Reading libraries. They served to strengthen her determination to
keep faith with John; while other ties and loves were pulling the other
way. She had in her veins that imaginational longing to see strange
lands and travel which is such an English trait; yet this longing
alternated with fits of absolute horror at her foolishness in having
consented to such an engagement. Why could she not have recognized when
she was well off? Could any one in her station of life have a more
delightful home?
The farmstead stood on a slope about a hundred feet above the Kennet
Valley. The river was a mile away, though little subsidiary brooks and
channels permeated the meadows in between, and in spring, summer and
autumn produced miracles of loveliness in flower shows: purple
loosestrife, magenta-coloured willow herb, mauve-tinted valerian,
cream-coloured meadow-sweet, yellow flags, golden king-cups, yellow and
white water-lilies, water-crowsfoot and flowering rush. Lucy was an
unexpressed, undeveloped artist, with an exceptional appreciation (for a
country girl) of the beauty in colour and form of flowers and herbage of
the velvety, blue-green, black-green cedars which rose above the wall of
the Park and overshadowed the churchyard, of the superb elms, oaks,
horse-chestnuts, ashes and hawthorns studding the grassy slopes between
the house and the water meadows. She loved the rich crimson colour of
the high old brick walls of the Park and the same tint in the farm
buildings, varied with scarlet and orange and the lemon and grey of
lichen and weather-stain. The old farm-house in which she had been born
and had passed all her twenty-four years of placid life, save when she
was at boarding-school, seemed to her just perfect in its picturesque
ancientry and its stored smells of preserved good things to eat and
drink. Their garden was carelessly ordered, but from March to October
had a wealth of flowers, the spicy odours of box borders, the pungent
scent of briar and honeysuckle.
She did take much interest in the details of farming--a trifle of
self-conceit made her think herself superior in her bookishness and
feeble water-colour painting to her younger sisters, who were already
experts in poultry-tending, butter-making, and bread-baking. But she
accepted as a matter of course the delicious results (as we should think
them now) of living at a well-furnished, well-managed farm: the milk and
cream, the fresh butter and new-laid eggs, the home-cured bacon, the
occasional roast duck and chicken; the smell of the new-mown hay, the
sight of ripe wheat or wheat neatly grouped in its golden sheaves in
chessboard pattern; the September charms of the glinting stubble with
its whirring coveys of partridges, its revived flower shows--scarlet and
blue, bright yellow, dead white, lavender, russet, and mauve; the
walnuts in the autumn from their own trees; the Spanish chestnuts from
the Park; impromptu Christmas dances in the big barn; an occasional
visit to a theatre or a magic-lantern-illustrated lecture in Reading.
On one such occasion she saw for the first time Captain Roger Brentham,
the explorer, who whilst staying with Lord and Lady Silchester gave a
lecture on his recent travels and some wonderful snow mountain he had
visited in East Africa.... Why should she seek to leave such
surroundings? She could read and hear about all that was most
interesting in the world without leaving her parents and her home. Yet,
to disappoint poor John, who counted on her coming out to share his
work--and if she threw him over she might never get another offer of
marriage and grow stout and florid like Bessie Rayner, ten years older
than she was, up at the Grange farm....
But _was_ marriage after all, with its children and illnesses and house
drudgery, so _very_ attractive to a dreamer? Might she not be happier
if she passed all the rest of her life at Aldermaston, saving up her
salary as a school-mistress against old age and a possible leaving of
the farm if--ever so far ahead--dear father died? She had often
thought, with a little encouragement she might _write_ ... write
stories! ... and she thrilled at the idea. But then, what experience
had she of the world--the great world beyond southern Berkshire--which
she could set down on paper?
So far, no one had proposed to her--even John had hardly asked her
definitely to marry him. He had always taken it for granted, since he
was eighteen, that she would, and from that age herself she had tacitly
accepted the position of his fiancee. Why had she acquiesced? There
was a weakness of fibre about her and John's stronger will had impressed
itself on her smiling compliance. Her mother had rather pursed her lips
at the alliance, having her doubts as to John being good enough, and
John's mother being even bearable as a mother-in-law. This faint
opposition had made Lucy determined to persevere with the engagement.
She had a distaste for a farmer type of husband; it seemed too earthy.
And she wanted to travel. A missionary ought to make a refined spouse
and be able to show her the strange places of the earth.
There were sides of John's character she did not like. She was not
naturally pious. The easy-going Church of England and its decorous
faith were good enough for her; she loved this world--the world of the
Kennet Valley with genial, worldly Reading on one side and
not-too-disreputable, racing Newbury on the other--too well to care
overmuch for the Heavenly Home in which John was staking out claims; if
she had known the word she would have called John priggish; instead, she
said "sanctimonious." Yet withal she was conscious of a certain
manliness, a determined purpose about him....
Perhaps, however, in the summer months and the rich contentment of
September the balance of her inclination might have been tilted against
him, she might have nerved herself to writing that cruel letter which
should say she shrank from joining him in Africa; were it not that he
wrote faithfully from each stopping place, each crisis on his journey.
His letters--closely written in a facile running hand on thin foreign
paper--were stuffed with conventionally pious phrases, they contained
diatribes on his ungodly fellow-passengers who broke the Sabbath (with
an added zest from his remonstrances), played cards for money, told
shocking stories in the smoking-room, and conducted themselves on shore
in a manner which he could not describe. But then he gave very good
descriptions of Algiers, of Port Said, Suez and Aden, and made her wish
to see these places with her own eyes, smell their strange smells, and
eat their strange viands. His letter from Unguja announcing his arrival
there in August finally decided Lucy to throw in her lot with John.
There was also the further incentive that African adventure--missionary
and political--was again becoming fashionable and attracting attention.
Stanley was starting to find Emin Pasha; others had embarked or
threatened to embark on the same quest. More and more missionaries were
going out. It was rumoured that Ann Jamblin had announced her intention
to take up a missionary career. Lucy wrote a little anxiously to
inquire. Ann admitted she had toyed with the idea as she believed
herself capable of teaching and even of preaching to the savage. But if
she did go it would probably be to West Africa where the climate was
even more deadly than in the South and East, and such a sacrifice might
be more acceptable before the Heavenly Throne than the comfortable and
assured position of a missionary's wife, not expected to do more than
make a home for her husband.
John's first Unguja letter said that Thomas, Bayley, Anderson and
himself had been very kindly received there by the Commercial Agent to
the East African Mission--commercial because from the first it had been
decided that a reasonable degree of trade should go hand in hand with
fervent propaganda and Brotherhood work. The Mission must strive to
make itself self-supporting in the long run as it had no rich church
behind it. So there were to be lay agents who traded in the products of
the country and whose stores would prove an additional attraction to the
native visitor and inquirer. The Agent at their Unguja depot--Mr.
Callaway--had been a trader on the West Coast of Africa, agent there to
a great distilling firm; who had become so shocked at the effects of
cheap intoxicants on the native mind and morals that he had thrown up
his employ and enlisted under the banner of a Trading Mission, pledged
not to deal in alcohol or gunpowder. Mr. Callaway had "got religion" and
"found Christ" (in Liverpool), but in spite of that--the naive John
wrote thus unthinkingly--was a very pleasant fellow who had soon picked
up the native language and got on good terms with the Arabs of Unguja.
The latter fully approved of his teetotalism--avoidance of alcohol being
one of the few good points in their religion. John described with
unction the prayer meetings and services they held in Mr. Callaway's
sheds and go-downs on the shore of Unguja's port; though he had to admit
that his fervour had been a little modified by the rancid smell of the
copra[#] stored in these quarters and the appalling stench that arose
from the filth on the beach. But there was plenty of good Christian
fellowship at Unguja. The representatives of the great Anglican Mission
established there--with a Cathedral and a Bishop and a thoroughly popish
style of service--had shown themselves unexpectedly good fellows. One
of them, Archdeacon Gravening, had presented the four young recruits for
the East African Mission to the Arab sultan, and they had seen him
review his Baluchi and Persian troops at the head of whom was an English
ex-naval officer. Even the Fathers of the French Roman Catholic
settlement had a certain elemental Christianity he had never thought to
find in the followers of the Scarlet Woman....
[#] Dried coco-nut pulp.
The great British Balozi or Consul-General who had been the
unacknowledged ruler of Unguja had just left for home ... rumour said
because he could not get on with the aggressive Germans, who were
obtaining a hold over the country. They had paid their respects instead
to British authority in the person of a very uppish and sneering
Vice-Consul--Mr. Spencer Bazzard ... who had great doubts of the value
of Christianity so far as the negro was concerned. Mr. Bazzard, however,
was dead against the Germans and wanted as many British subjects as
possible to enter the interior behind the German coast so as to "queer
their pitch," if they attempted to put their "rotten protectorate," in
force.
Unguja, John wrote, was a wonderfully interesting island, despite its
horrible smells, its heat and mosquitoes, which never left you alone,
day or night. Such a mixture of Arabs and Persians, Indian traders,
fierce, long-haired Baluchis, plausible Goanese half-castes, Madagascar
people, Japanese and Chinese, and negroes from all parts of Africa....
He had already had a touch of fever and Bayley had broken out in boils;
Anderson had suffered from diarrhoea; but all three were overjoyed at
the prospect of leaving, soon after this letter was posted, in an Arab
"dhow" which would convey them and the porters of their expedition to
Lingani on the mainland, whence they would start on a two weeks' journey
up-country. They were taking with them Snider rifles and ammunition to
defend their caravan against wild beasts on the road and also to shoot
game for the caravan's meat supply. At Mr. Callaway's advice they had
been practising with these rifles at the shooting butts of the Sultan's
army for the past week.... Thomas had been told off for Taita....
Then ensued a long silence and Lucy, now thoroughly interested, was
getting anxious. But in January came a letter of many pages headed
"Hangodi, Ulunga, November, 1886." John wrote that he and his
companions had encountered many difficulties. On the fortnight's march
inland from Lingani their porters had several times run away in alarm,
hearing that a bloodthirsty tribe called "Wahumba" were on the march, or
that there was famine ahead. The German traders on the coast had not
been friendly, and the attitude of the Arab chiefs in the coast-belt was
surly. However, one of these Arabs, Ali bin Ferhani, was a kindlier man
than the others and had told off some of his slaves (John feared they
were, but what could you do?) to carry their loads to the Ulunga
country. They also had with them a Christian convert, a native of
Ulunga and a released slave (Josiah Briggs) who could speak English to
some extent and was very useful as an interpreter and head man....
Well, they had reached Hangodi at last and liked its surroundings. There
were mountains--quite high ones--all round. Hangodi, itself, was over
three thousand feet above sea level and quite cool at nights. Indeed
John now regretted he had spurned the idea of mantel-borders, for they
had fireplaces in the dwelling-houses, both those already built and
those they were planning. A fire at night, in fact, was often welcome
and cheerful. The Chief approved of the settlement, wanted them to teach
his people, and keep off the "Wa-dachi," as he called the Germans, whom
he did not seem to like. But the Chief's people, the Wa-lunga, were
suspicious and quarrelsome, and as he could not speak their language and
had to explain the Gospel through an interpreter, they paid him little
attention. The elders of the tribe liked to come and talk with him in
his verandah, that is to say, _they_ did the talking--punctuated by a
good deal of snuff-taking and spitting; and he gleaned what he could of
its sense from the summaries given to him by Josiah Briggs. It seemed
to consist of many questions as to how the white men became so rich and
why he could not teach this method to their young people. If he tried
to expound Sacred things to them they asked in return for a cough
medicine or to be shown how to make gunpowder and caps, and how to cure
a sick cow. Yet he felt sure their minds would be pierced ere long by a
gleam of Gospel light....
There were also some Muhammadan traders from the Coast settled for a
time with the Chief, who, he strongly suspected, was selling them
slaves, war-captives. Though the Chief seemed willing to listen to their
story of the Redeemer, he nevertheless sent out his "young men," his
warriors, on raiding expeditions against the tribes to the south, and
they sometimes returned from such forays with cattle, with men cruelly
tied with bush-rope and their necks fastened to heavy forked sticks, and
with weeping young women whom they took as wives.... The Wangwana, as
these black "Arabs" were called, were very hostile to his mission--more
so sometimes than the real Arabs. Occasionally he had met a
white-skinned Arab who reminded him most strongly of the Bible
patriarchs, and who seemed very desirous of being on friendly terms with
the white man. But these black Arabs who spoke Swahili, the language of
Unguja, though they affected outward politeness, were working hard
against the good influence of the East African Mission and trying to
persuade the Chief to reconsider his first grant of land and expel the
white people who were spies in the service of the great Balozi and the
English men-of-war, watching to intercept slave dhows....
The children of the Wa-lunga were frightened of him and his two
companions and could not be induced, even by gifts of beads, to sit on
their knees. But their mothers, on the other hand, worried the white
men incessantly for beads and calico, soap and salt, which last they ate
as though it was a sweetmeat. Yet they ran away when he sent for the
interpreter and tried to tell them about God. One woman had shouted
back at him that it was very wicked to talk about God; it would only
draw down the lightning ... much better leave God alone and then He left
you alone--this at least was how Josiah had translated her speech.
He could not see any idols about the place. He fancied the people
worshipped the spirits of the departed, which they believed to dwell in
large hollow trees. They were also terribly afraid of witch-craft....
Hangodi was, however, rather a pretty district, and Lucy would be
pleased with the site the Mission had chosen. Bayley, who had some
knowledge of surveying, made out its altitude above sea-level to be
3,500 feet, more or less. There was a clear stream of water running
through a gorge below the Mission enclosure--for they had constructed a
rough hedge. A few wild date palms might be seen in the stream valley
and there were plenty of pretty ferns and wild flowers.
As to lions; they could be heard roaring every night in the open
country, but hitherto he had not actually seen one. Then with a few
devout phrases and others expressive of his longing for her to join him
the letter came to a conclusion.
During all this time Lucy saw little of the Baines family. But a few
days after she had read this letter from Hangodi, Mr. Baines called on
Lucy at the school--it was at the beginning of February--and put into
her hands a copy of _Light to Them that Sit in Darkness_. "There's a
letter in here of John's which they've printed," said Mr. Baines with
considerable exultation, "and mother thought you might like to read it.
Mind you return the magazine to her when you've done so. Good-bye.
S'pose you are starting in a couple of months?"
Lucy found a column scored at the side with pencil, where the following
matter appeared:
BLESSED NEWS FROM EAST AFRICA
We have received the following intelligence from Brother John Baines,
who has recently joined the East African Mission:
HANGODI, NGURU,
_November_ 20, 1886.
MY DEAR MR. THOMPSON,--
We arrived here about a month ago after a pleasant stay with the
brethren at Unguja. We reached Hangodi in about two weeks of travel
from the port of Lingani, accompanied by Broth's Anderson and Bayley,
and were greeted most warmly on arrival by Brothers Boley and
Batworth--the "busy B.'s," as they are called--who feared from the
rumours afloat that we should be stopped by native disturbances on the
road. We brought with us from Unguja Josiah Briggs, a convert who was
originally a freed slave from this very district of Hangodi. He has
lived for five years at our depot in Unguja or at the Presbyterian
Mission station at Dombasi. He will be able to assist me materially as
interpreter among the Wa-lunga as Kagulu is his native tongue.
The journey from Lingani to Hangodi was rather a fatiguing one as the
donkeys we took with us to ride either fell sick poisoned by some herb,
or strayed and were eaten by lions. So we ended by having to walk. Our
Unguja porters ran away before we had got far inland, scared by rumours
of Wahumba raids or stories of the famine raging in the interior; but a
kindly Arab, who is supposed to have known Dr. Livingstone, came to our
assistance and sent a large number of his people to convey us and our
loads to Ulunga, as this district is called (the root--_lunga_--means
the "good" or the "beautiful" country, as indeed it will be, when it has
received the Blessed Gospel).
Mr. Goulburn, who is pioneering and is "spying out the land" to the
north, travelled with us as far as Gonja and then quitted us, after we
had prayed together in my tent. We turned south and continued our
journey to the Ulunga mountains with the Arab's porters and guided by
Josiah Briggs.
The country became very hilly, and as it was the beginning of the rainy
season we had occasional violent thunder-storms and the streams were
difficult to cross. Fortunately, however, the early arrival of the
rains kept us from attacks on the part of the terrible roving tribes of
Masai or "Wahumba," who only seem to exist to raid and ravage their
agricultural neighbours, but who don't like doing so in wet weather.
Moreover, they appreciate the springing up of the new green grass after
the drought and prefer taking their cattle--whom they worship--out to
graze. This new grass attracts to the district incredible herds of
antelopes and zebras and gives the lions and leopards such abundance of
food and occupation that they never deemed it worth their while to
attack our caravan, though during the dry season--the Arabs told us--you
could hardly get through the plains without losing a proportion of your
carriers from lions, leopards or hyenas. This early breaking of the
rainy season therefore seemed to us an act of special intervention on
the part of Divine Providence to ensure our safe arrival at our
destination. When we reached Hangodi we were hospitably received by the
Chief Mbogo, to whom Brother Batworth introduced us. Mbogo rules over
the district of Ulunga. He rejoiced greatly that we had come to teach
the Gospel and asked me many questions about the Christian faith. An
earnest spirit of inquiry prevails amongst all his people, who are
flocking to see us and who listen with rapt attention to my simple
exhortations delivered through the medium of Josiah. The Arab traders
at this place are very annoyed that an English missionary should settle
here and expose their wicked traffic in slaves, but I hope to be able to
frustrate their intrigues and induce the Chief to expel them. For that
reason I am working hard at the language with Josiah and with the
vocabularies I have obtained from Mr. Goulburn and Mr. Boley.
Many of the women in this place are eager to hear the blessed tidings
and bring their little ones with them while they listen spell-bound to
our teaching. I trust soon to have beside me one whose sweet duty it
will be to lead these poor sinful creatures into the way of Truth and
Life....
The building of the houses, school and chapel was commenced, as you
know, two years ago by Brothers Boley and Batworth, whom we relieved,
and who are going to Taita to perform similar work for Mr. Goulburn. In
completing the station we shall be our own architects, but Mr. Callaway
has sent us up two Swahili masons and a Goanese carpenter from Unguja.
Anderson is already doing a brisk business at our improvised store.
And now, dear Mr. Thompson, I remain in all Christian love,
Yours sincerely,
JOHN BAINES.
*CHAPTER V*
*ROGER'S DISMISSAL*
"So it is really settled, Roger, that you are to go out to that African
place with the violent name--something about 'gouging' I know," said
Lady Silchester, one evening in the winter-spring of 1887.
She believed she was _enceinte_ and treated herself--and was being
treated--with the utmost consideration. Lord Silchester was transfused
with delight at the possibility of having a direct heir and promised
himself the delicious revenge of taunting those officious friends and
advisers who had taxed him with folly in marrying a woman thirty years
younger than himself. So she was lying on a couch in the magnificent
drawing-room of 6a Carlton House Terrace, clad in some anticipation of
the tea-gown. It was nine o'clock in the evening, and Roger Brentham
had been summoned to dine alone with her and her husband and talk over
his personal affairs. Lord Silchester would presently leave for the
House of Lords; meantime he was half listening to their conversation,
half absorbed in a volume of Cascionovo's _Neapolitan Society in the
Eighteenth Century_ in its French edition.
Roger, with one eye and one ear on Lord Silchester, replied "Yes. Lord
Wiltshire has definitely offered me the appointment--through Tarrington,
of course--his Private Secretary; and equally definitely I've accepted
it. But technically it's not Unguja, nothing so big. Unguja is an
Agency and Consulate-General and is still held by Sir James Eccles, who
is only at home on leave of absence. My post is a Consulate for the
mainland, for the part the German company is taking over. It is styled
'for the mainland of Zangia with residence at the port of Medina.' It
is supposed the Germans are going to style their new protectorate
'Zangia,' the old classical name of the Persians for that part of East
Africa."
Sibyl Silchester yawned slightly and concealed the yawn with her fan of
Somali ostrich plumes which Roger had given her. Lord Silchester put
down his book and turned suddenly towards Roger.
"How do you get on at the F.O.?"
"Oh, pretty well, sir," replied Roger, who still kept up his military
manners with older men in higher positions than his own. "Pretty well.
I've been working in the African Department all the autumn and I think
I've got the hang of things; I mean, how to conduct a Consulate and the
sort of policy we are to observe in East Africa. I've been down in
Kent, also, staying with Sir James Eccles and being indoctrinated by him
with the aims and ambitions he has been pursuing ever since 1866. He's
a grand man! I hope they send him back. I should be proud to serve
under him. Of course, I saw something of him at Unguja in '85-'86..."
"H'm, well, I've no business to express an opinion, but I much doubt
whether Wiltshire _will_ send him back--Wiltshire sets much value on
good terms with Germany, and Eccles is hated by the Germans...."
_Roger_: "I know.... They've told me I must try to maintain friendly
relations with our Teutonic friends, especially as I am to be, when the
Consul-General returns, 'on my own,' so to speak, in the German sphere
of influence. Meantime I am to live at Unguja and 'act' for the
Consul-General till he or some one else comes out. Awfully good of you,
sir, to get this chance for me ... it's rare good luck to be going out
to act straight away for a man like Eccles.... I'll try my utmost to do
you credit."
_Silchester_: "I don't doubt you will. But don't rely too much on my
personal influence. I'm only Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster ... a
minister without portfolio, so to speak. Cultivate the friendship of
the permanent officials. Once you're in--I mean once a Secretary of
State has given you the appointment, _they_ are the people who count. I
remember when I was in diplomacy there was rather an uppish young fellow
from the 11th Hussars who'd been somebody's A.D.C. in the Abyssinian
War. Dizzy, to oblige 'somebody,' shoved him into the Slave Trade
Commission. He took himself and his duties seriously and really did go
for the American slave-traders. An Under Secretary hauled him over the
coals for _trop de zele_. Lord Knowsley supported him. The Under
Secretary sent for him afterwards and said, 'Remember this, Bellamy;
Lord Knowsley is not _always here_. WE ARE.' And sure enough after
Knowsley left they found out something against him and 'outed' him from
the service. Moral: always keep in with the permanent officials and
you'll never fall out with the Secretary of State. Do you get on all
right with 'Lamps'?"
_Roger_: "Sir Mulberry? I scarcely ever see him. He's much too big a
pot to take an interest in me. Besides, he's keenest about the Niger
just now. No, I have mostly to do with Bennet Molyneux, who is head of
the Department; and I'm afraid I don't care overmuch for him. I like
awfully the clerks in the Department except that they don't take Africa
very seriously, think it all a joke, a joke bordering rather on boredom.
Still, they're some of the jolliest fellows I know. It's Molyneux I
can't hit it off with, and they say in the Department it's because I've
come in between some poor relation, some cousin of his he wants to push
on out there. He got him appointed a Vice-Consul a year or two back and
thought he was going to be asked to act for Eccles whilst he was on
leave. And now that Lord Wiltshire has said _I_ am to--I don't doubt at
your suggestion, sir--Molyneux has turned quite acid. Especially when
he had to draft my instructions! I think also he didn't like my setting
him right when I first came to work in the office. He wrote some
minutes about the Slave Trade and about the Germans which were the
uttermost rubbish you ever read, and he never forgave me for not backing
him up at a departmental committee they held--Sir Mulberry presided.
And the mere fact that Thrumball and Landsdell have been awfully kind to
me and had me to dine with them seems to have soured him. And when one
day Lord Wiltshire sent for me to answer some questions--Well, I thought
afterwards Molyneux would have burst with spleen. He threw official
reserve to the winds and walked up and down in his big room
raving--'_I've_ been in this office since 1869,' he said, 'and I don't
believe Lord Wiltshire knows me by sight. Yet he's ready to send for
the veriest outsider if he thinks he can get any information out of him.
The Office is going to the dogs--and so on....'"
_Lord Silchester_: "Molyneux, Bennet Molyneux. I know him. Not a bad
fellow in some respects, but a bad enemy to make. He is a kind of
cousin of Feenix's--Colonial Office, you know. Well, your fate is in
your own hands ... you must walk warily..." (at this a servant enters
and informs his lordship that the carriage is waiting) "I must be off.
Sibyl! you _won't_ stay up late? Roger, don't talk to her for more than
an hour. Good-bye. Of course, you'll come and see us before you
actually sail?..." (goes out).
A pause.
_Sibyl_: "You may smoke now; but only a cigarette, not a cigar." (Roger
lights a cigarette.)
_Sibyl_: "What dear old Francis said was very good advice. Mind you
follow it. Get on the right side of these old permanencies. Whenever
Francis begins his instances and illustrations I feel what a perfect
book of reminiscences he will some day write. But, of course, it
wouldn't do till he's reached an age when he can no longer serve in the
Government.... I want him some day to be at the Foreign Office or at
least the India Office. I do so love the pomp of those positions, the
great parties in the season, the entertaining of delightful creatures
from the East with jewelled turbans...."
_Roger_ (a little abruptly): "Are you happy....?"
_Sibyl_ (turning her head and looking at him intently): "_Happy_? Why,
_of course_. _Perfectly_ happy. Everything has gone splendidly. And
now that I'm going to have a child.... I do hope it'll be a boy.
Francis would be so happy. You quite realize if he has no heir the
peerage and all the entailed estates go away to some perfectly horrid
second cousin out in Australia...."
_Roger_: "In view of that possibility I wonder he did not marry years
ago, when he was a young man...."
_Sibyl_: "My dear! How _could_ he? He was a younger son and in the
diplomatic service with barely enough to live on, respectably. And then
he got tangled up with another man's wife. He thinks I know nothing
about that side of him, but as a matter of fact I know everything. His
elder brother, the fifth Lord Silchester, was an awfully bad
lot--treated his wife very badly--they were separated and their only son
was brought up by his mother to be dreadfully goody-goody. Francis's
elder brother died in Paris--I daresay you have heard or read where and
how. It was one of the closing scandals of the Second Empire. But then
the goody-goody son married after he succeeded--married a sister of Lord
Towcester. She was killed in the hunting field and her rather limp
husband died of grief afterwards, or of consumption, and Francis came
into the title rather unexpectedly five years ago. Then he was
embarrassed by his Darby and Joan attachment to Mrs. Bolsover.--However,
then _she_ died--and so--at last he felt free to marry....
"I met him first at a croquet party at Aldermaston Park. I saw _at
once_ he was struck with me.... However, we won't go over the old
argument again which we talked out that day at Silchester.... D'you
remember? My ankles were so bitten by harvest-bugs after sitting on
those mounds, _I_ shan't forget!..." (meditates).... "I'm much happier
than if I had married you.... My dear, that would _never_ have done....
But that need not prevent our being the _best_ of friends, the most
attached of cousins.... It's a bore having a confinement in the Jubilee
year.... I'd meant to rival Suzanne Feenix in my entertainments.... But
if I give Silchester a boy, he will refuse me _nothing_.... And I mean,
as soon as I'm up and about again, to push him on. He's rich--those
Staffordshire mines and potteries. He's got _lots_ of ability, but he's
too fond of leisure and isn't quite ambitious enough. Complains of
being tired.... He's only 57 ... but he much prefers spending the
evening at home and reading history and memoirs. Still, if Lord
Wiltshire gets overworked at the Foreign Office, Francis simply _must_
succeed him. He knows everything about foreign policy from A to Z,
after serving so many years in Vienna and Rome.... Well, dear old boy,
this is _really_ good-bye. Make good out there, and don't make a fool
of yourself with some grass widow going out, or some fair
missionaryess.... I suppose some of them _are_ fit to look at? ... Play
up to the permanencies, and try to write some dispatch that'll interest
Lord Wiltshire. Then Silchester may get a chance of putting his oar in
and have you shifted to a better post and a more healthy one. After
that _I'll_ take a hand and marry you to some nice girl with a little
money.... I wonder whether you'll feel lonely out there? But men never
are, so long as they can move about and get some shooting ... which
reminds me I want a _lot_ more leopard skins. Don't mount them: I like
to choose my own colours----"
(Enter Lady Silchester's maid.)
_Maid_: "My lady, before his lordship went out he said I was to remind
your ladyship about going to bed early, so I ventured..."
"Quite right, Sophie.... I'll come up in one minute." (Exit maid.)
"By the bye, Roger, I ought to ask after the other cousins. How's
Maud?" (Roger intimates that good old Maud's all right.) "Maud is an
excellent creature; I've always said so, though in a sort of
tight-lipped way she's never approved of me. Because she's lost her own
complexion in field sports and parish work Maud suspects all other young
women of powdering and painting. And Geoffrey?"
"Geoffrey's ship is coming back in May and then he ought to get some
leave; and to save your time, I might mention that Maurice will probably
be called to the bar in the autumn if he satisfies the Benchers; and as
to father, he's more gone over to Rome than ever...."
"You mean Silchester?"
"Yes. The vicar there is as frantic a 'Romanist' as he is, and together
they've had a rare old quarrel with the farmer who grows corn where you
got the harvest-bug bites, and objects to excavations. I think father
forgets at times he's a nineteenth century Christian.... He is awfully
annoyed at the general opinion that Silchester only dates from Christian
times in Britain and that the Temple to Venus is really a Christian
church. That's what comes from a Classical education.... Now I shall
get into a row with your spouse for keeping you up. Besides. You don't
_really_ care for the others...."
_Sibyl_: "To be frank, I don't. You were the only one that interested
me.... I ... well, then, Roger, this is the last good-bye but one..."
(extends her hand on which he imprints a kiss). "That's quite enough
show of affection; Sophie might come back at any moment and forget we
are cousins. By the bye, it might be wise if you got some one--I dare
say Francis would--to introduce you to the Feenixes before you go. They
might serve to mitigate the hostility of Bennet Molyneux. Only don't
fall in love with Suzanne and desert _me_! She's got the Colonies, it's
true, but I'm going to have the Foreign Office before you're back....
You mark my words! Ta-ta! Coming, Sophie."
*CHAPTER VI*
*THE VOYAGE OUT*
Lucy said to herself she had never felt so miserable in her life as she
did during the first night on board the _Jeddah_, the British India
Co.'s steamer that was taking her to East Africa. She occupied one of
the upper berths in the cabins off the Ladies' Saloon, in which there
were, as far as she could reckon, five or six other occupants, including
the stewardess, who passed her time alternately snoring on a mattress in
a coign off the main entrance and waiting on such of the ladies as were
sea-sick.
The _Jeddah_ was rolling about in a choppy sea oft the Downs. Lucy felt
a horrible sensation of nausea creep over her at times, and she clenched
her teeth to repress her inclination to vomit; for she was too shy to
call upon the much-occupied stewardess for assistance. The back of her
head throbbed with pain, her eyes were burning hot with unshed tears,
and her poor throat ached with suppressed sobs. Far worse than the
physical discomfort of sea-sickness was the intensity of her mental
agony, the bitterness of her unavailing regrets. She lay motionless in
her narrow bunk, gazing up at the ceiling which seemed almost to rest on
her face, and turned over in her memory ceaselessly and with minute
detail the events of the last three days: her farewell to home and
"darling" Aldermaston; her parting with mother on the platform at
Reading ... and father ... the flying journey to London, when she had
almost forgotten her grief in the excitement of seeing the metropolis;
her two days stay with Aunt Pardew, who with her husband kept Pardew's
Family Hotel in Great Ormond Street. Then: the sight-seeing, the
shopping, the visit to the offices of the East African Mission. Here
she had received her saloon passage ticket in the _Jeddah_, and twenty
pounds in bright sovereigns for her out-of-pocket expenses by the way.
The Secretary had spoken to her so kindly and earnestly that she had
felt ashamed of her indifference to the real work of converting black
people.
The Secretary, however, had said one thing that somehow perturbed her.
He had mentioned that a sweet-natured young woman from her
neighbourhood--Sister Jamblin--might also be going to their Mission in
East Africa--by the next boat. He thought this would cheer Lucy up;
instead of which it annoyed her greatly.... Then came the early rising
on what seemed like her execution morning; the hasty breakfast,
interrupted with trickling tears and nose-blowing on Aunt Pardew's--Aunt
Ellen's--part, as well as hers.... Aunt Ellen was so like darling
mother--and yet--it wasn't mother--...
And the long rattle through dirty and dirtier streets in a four-wheel
cab with the rest of her luggage on top. The arrival on board the
steamer in the docks, where everything was noisy, hurried, and confused
with preparations for departure.... Only this morning! Only some twelve
hours since she had taken leave with despairing hugs of Aunt Ellen!
Why, it seemed at least a month ago. And only three days since she had
seen her mother!...
When she mentally uttered the word "mother," she lost control over
herself and gave vent to a convulsive choking sob..
"Would you oblige me," exclaimed a peevish voice from the berth below,
"by calling for the stewardess to bring you a basin if you have any
inclination to be sick? It would be much better than trying to keep it
back and making those disagreeable clicking noises in your throat.
Excuse me for remarking it, but it is really most distressing, and it
fidgets me so I can hardly get to sleep. You really suffer _much_ more
by endeavouring to repress sea-sickness than by giving way _at once_ and
having it over...." This the speaker added because she had just given
way herself--eruptively--and was now resting from her labours. Lucy was
so startled and overawed by this unexpected interruption to her thoughts
that she made no answer; but lay quite silent with flushing cheeks and
beating heart. "It must be the tall, thin lady," she thought to
herself, "I didn't remember she was so close."
Then her thoughts turned to her fellow-passengers. As far as she had
ascertained, there were only nine besides herself: five ladies, two
Roman Catholic priests or missionaries, and two men, one of whom was a
Captain Brentham going out to Unguja, where he was to be Consul.
So, at least, she had heard the pink-cheeked lady say, rather tossing
her head when she said it. Her aunt had timidly accosted two of the
ladies before leaving the steamer. She had asked them with a redundancy
of polite phrases to take Lucy under their protection as far as they
might be travelling together. One of them was tall and thin, with a
large bony face and cold grey eyes--a little suggestive of Mrs. Baines
(Lucy thought); the other was pretty, though the expression of her face,
even when she smiled and showed all her white teeth, was somehow rather
insincere. But she had the most lovely complexion Lucy had ever seen.
It was perfect: very pink in the middle of the cheeks and the palest
blush tint over the rest of the face and neck. Her eyes were a dark
blueish grey, with very black rims; and her hair a rich golden brown.
Lucy was so much fascinated by her appearance and stared at her with
such unconscious persistence while her aunt was talking, that at last
the pink-cheeked lady encountered her steady gaze with a look of haughty
surprise which caused Lucy to lower her eyes.
Neither lady responded very cordially to Mrs. Pardew's deferential
request. The tall thin one had said she was only going as far as
Algiers, but asked if Lucy was "a Church person" because the East
African Mission, she had heard, was run by Methodists. The pretty lady,
whose attire Lucy was again scanning with attention, because it was in
the latest fashion, had looked at her with rather more interest and
said: "Going out to marry a missionary? Well, I can't say I envy your
experiences. It must be a wretched life up-country, from all I hear.
We shall travel together as far as Unguja, but I can't offer to act as
your chaperon. It is very likely my husband may marry you when you get
there. I mean--" (seeing Lucy's look of dismay)--"he is the 'marriage'
officer there at present, unless Captain Brentham is to deprive him of
_that_ privilege, also"--(here she had given a bitter laugh).... "If
you feel lonely at any time on the voyage you may come and chat with me
... occasionally; though I can't tell you very much about Africa as I
have never been there before."
Slowly the night wore away. Lucy as she lay awake stifled her regrets
by vowing that when the steamer called at Plymouth she would instantly
leave it and return home to her parents, and write to John telling him
she was not fitted to be a missionary's wife. He would soon get over
his disappointment as Ann Jamblin was going out by the next steamer.
_She_ would marry him like a shot....
In the small hours of the morning the sea calmed down and the ship
rolled less. The passenger who had suffered most from sea-sickness--a
poor tired-looking woman, mother of too many children--ceased to retch
and groan and sank into exhausted repose. Even Lucy at last wove her
troubled thoughts into dreams, but just as she had dreamt that _this_
was only a dream and that in reality she was embracing her mother in a
transport of happiness, she awoke with tears wet on her face and saw the
cabin lit up with garish daylight streaming through the now open
skylight. A fresh, exhilarating breeze was sweeping through the stuffy
saloon and chasing the nasty odour of sea-sickness. She sat up in her
bunk and gazed blankly round, trying to realize the difference between
dreamland and reality.
"Would ye like a bath, Miss?" said the stewardess, a coarse-looking but
kind-hearted Irishwoman, never quite free from a suspicion of spirit
drinking: "Would ye like a bath? Becase if so, ye'd betther follow Mrs.
Bazzard."
"I--I--don't know ... well, yes, I think I will," replied Lucy,
wondering who Mrs. Bazzard was ... didn't the name come into John's
letters? Just then the door leading out of the saloon towards the
bathroom opened and presumably Mrs. Bazzard entered the Ladies'
quarters, carrying towels and robed in a white lace-trimmed _peignoir_,
and with her hair roughly piled on the top of her head and a lank fringe
parted to either side. "Why, it must be the lady with the beautiful
complexion," Lucy was saying to herself, when she saw on nearer approach
that the rosy cheeks and blush tints had disappeared, and that the
incomer, though otherwise resembling her acquaintance of yesterday, yet
had a pale face, colourless and sad. "Poor thing!" thought Lucy, "_how_
she must have suffered last night." And so great was her compassion
that it overcame her shyness, and she was about to condole with the
lady, when Mrs. Bazzard swept by her abruptly without recognition.
When her toilet was finished, she felt ill-at-ease among the uncongenial
inmates of the Ladies' Saloon, and they directed towards her at times a
look of hatred as at one who was prying into the mysteries of their
clothing and bedizenment; so acting on the advice of the stewardess "to
get up a bit of appetite," she staggered along the corridor and climbed
the slippery brass-bound stairway till she reached the upper-deck. Here
she sank on to the nearest seat and derived her first pleasurable
sensation on board the steamer from inhaling the sea-scented breeze in
the sunshine of April. It was indeed a fine morning, one of the first
emphatic days of spring. The sky was a pale azure in the zenith and
along the northern horizon a thin film of pinkish mist veiled the
distant line of coast. A man cleaning the brasswork told Lucy they were
passing the Isle of Wight; yonder was Bournemouth and presently she
would see Portland Bill looming up.
A tall man, smoking a cheroot, was gazing in the direction of Portland
Bill. Presently he turned round in Lucy's direction, looked at her
rather hard then began pacing the deck. "That," she reflected, "must be
Captain Brentham, who lectured at Reading on that snow mountain....
_How_ extraordinary! And he must be the man Mrs. ... Mrs. ... Bazzard
said was to marry me to John when I arrived." She raised her eyes and
they met his. On his next turn in walking the deck he paused
irresolute, then raising his cap said: "Are you the young lady from my
part of the country who is going out to Unguja to be married? The
Captain told me about you--unless I have made some mistake and ought to
be addressing another lady."
"I think it must be me," said Lucy. "I ... I've heard you lecture once
at Reading. You're a friend of Lord Silchester's, aren't you? My
father is one of his tenants. We live at Aldermaston." Her voice
trembled a little in pronouncing the name of the place she now
loved--too late--beyond any other.
"Aldermaston--_of course_ I know it, known it from boyhood. I rode over
there several times last year to see my cousins, the Grayburns. One of
them married Lord Silchester last July, and that's why I stayed at
Englefield and gave the Reading lecture.... So you came and heard it?"
"I did; because, as I was going out to marry a missionary, I thought I
ought to learn something about East Africa. Your ... your lecture made
me want to go--awfully.... That wonderful mountain, those clumps of
palms, the river and the hippopotami--or was it a lake?"
"Well, you'll see lots of such things if you are going up-country. Whom
are you going to marry and where is he stationed?"
"Mr. John Baines, the East African Mission, Ulunga...."
"Oh" (rather depreciatively), "Nonconformist, Plymouth Brethren, or
something of the kind. Now I think of it I went to a big meeting of
theirs last year soon as I came back. Yes, _I_ remember. They're a
trading and industrial mission some distance inland, in the British as
well as the German sphere ... good sort of folk, though their mouths are
full of texts ... but they took me in once when I was half dead with
fever and nursed me back to health. And I liked the way they set to
work to make the best of the country and the people.... But it will be
awfully rough for you; you don't look cut out for what they have to go
through. I should have thought the Anglican Mission more your style,
if, indeed, you went out as a Missionary at all."
He wished to add, "You're much too pretty," but restrained himself.
Just then the breakfast gong sounded and they went down to the Dining
Saloon. Brentham rather masterfully strode to near the top of the long
table as though knowing he was the most important person on board, and
placed himself next but one to the Captain's seat and Lucy on his right,
with a wink at the same time to the Chief Steward as though to say "Fix
this arrangement."
A moment after another lady with gold hair and a dazzling complexion
glided up and nimbly took the seat on Brentham's left hand. The Captain
was absent and intimated that they needn't expect him till the _Jeddah_
was away from Plymouth and out of the Channel. The other lady
passengers were breakfasting in the Ladies' Saloon. As soon as they
were seated and porridge was being offered, the lady on Brentham's left
introduced herself as the wife of a colleague: "My husband is Spencer
Bazzard, the Vice-Consul at Unguja--I dare say you've heard about him at
the F.O.? He's a friend of that dear Bennet Molyneux's, to whom we're
both _devoted_.... _Such_ a grasp of African affairs, don't you think
so? My husband already knows Unguja through and through. I'm sure
he'll be glad to put you up to the ropes. I've never been there before.
Spencer thought he ought to go out first and make a home for me, so I've
been a forlorn grass widow for over a year. However, we shall soon be
reunited. And I understand we're to look on you as our chief till the
Consul-General returns. Spencer's been Sir James's right-hand man.
Thank you. Toast, please. No, I won't take butter: it looks so odd.
Like honey! Ugh!"
After breakfast, Brentham escorted Lucy to the upper-deck, got her a
folding chair and secured it in a sheltered corner, made her
comfortable, lent her a novel and a rug, and then resumed his pacing of
the deck or occasional study of a language book--he was trying, he told
Lucy, to master Swahili by doing Steere's exercises in that harmonious
tongue. Mrs. Bazzard commandeered a steward and a deck-chair and
established herself close to Lucy with a piece of showy embroidery,
bought at Liberty's with half the embroidery done. In a condescending
manner she set herself to pump Lucy about Brentham.... Did she know him
well? Didn't she think him good-looking? Mrs. Bazzard thought of the
two her husband was the finer-looking man. He had longer moustaches and
they were a golden brown, like Mrs. Bazzard's hair; he wasn't perhaps
_quite_ so tall; but _how_ she was looking forward to reunion with him.
He was a paragon of husbands, one of the Norfolk Bazzards. His elder
brother, a person of great legal acumen, had from time to time tendered
advice of signal value to Mr. Bennet Molyneux.... It was thus they had
got "in" with the Foreign Office, and if Mrs. Bazzard were not pledged
to inviolable secrecy (because of Spencer's career) there were things
she knew and things she could tell about Lord Wiltshire's intentions
regarding Africa--and Spencer.... However.... Did Miss--she begged
pardon--she had not caught Lucy's name.... Josselin? any connexion of
Sir Martin Josselin? Oh, _Josling_.... Did Miss Josling come from
Captain Brentham's part of the country? Not a relation? No, of course
not.... Well, did she think him clever? Some--in the Foreign
Office--regarded him as _superficial_. It was his good looks that had
got him on, and the friendship of a great lady ... but then _what_
scandal-mongers _men_ were! And _how_ jealous of one another! Mrs.
Bazzard's husband had got _his_ commission through sheer, outstanding
ability, yet at the time people said the most _horrid_ things, both of
him and her.... But Lord Wiltshire had remained unshaken, knowing
Spencer's value; and undoubtedly held him in view for a very important
post in Africa as soon as he should have inducted Captain Brentham into
his duties.
Lunch came in due course and was eaten in better appetite by most of the
passengers. It was served with coarse plenty, on a lower-middle-class
standard of selection and cuisine.
It was a sunny afternoon when the _Jeddah_ anchored in Plymouth harbour.
The passengers were informed they might spend four hours on shore, so
Captain Brentham proposed to Lucy and to Mrs. Bazzard that he should
take them under his escort and give them their last chance of eating a
decent dinner at an English hotel. Mrs. Bazzard accepted with a gush of
thanks and a determination to commence a discreet flirtation with the
acting Consul-General, who was undoubtedly a handsome man. Lucy
assented simply to the proposition. She was still a little dazed in the
dawn of her new life. But as she went off with the others in the tug
she put aside as an unreasonable absurdity any idea of flight to the
railway station and a return home. It was a great stay to her
home-sickness that there should be on board some one she knew who almost
shared her home country, who had actually met people she had met, and
who would carry this home knowledge out with him to the same region in
Africa as that she was going to. This removed the sting of her regret
and remedied her sense of utter friendlessness in the wilds. Was he not
actually to be _her_ Consul?
These reflections caused her to sit down in the Hotel Writing Room,
whilst dinner was being got ready, and Mrs. Bazzard was titivating, and
dash off a hasty letter to "dearest mother" informing her of the
brighter outlook. Her mother, overjoyed at this silver lining to the
cloud of bereavement, spread the news; and so it reached Englefield,
where Lord Silchester was spending the Easter recess. He retailed it to
Sibyl ... who stamped her foot on the library carpet and said: "_There_!
_Didn't_ I predict it? I _said_ he'd fall in love with a
missionaryess!"
"And why not, my love?" replied Lord Silchester. "What if he does?"
A little tossing on the Bay of Biscay sent Mrs. Bazzard to her cabin,
and made more scanty the public attendance at meals. But Lucy proved as
good a sailor as Brentham, and a great solace to him. For he had his
unacknowledged home-sickness too. You could not spend nine months in
the best of English country life and the most interesting aspects of
London without a revulsion of feeling when you found yourself cut off
from all communication with those scenes of beauty, splendour and
absolute comfort, and before high ambition had been once more aroused,
and the unexplored wilderness had again beckoned her future ravisher.
Lucy might be merely a farmer's daughter, a little better educated than
such usually were at that period, still an unsophisticated country chit
(as Mrs. Bazzard had already summed her up to the tall thin lady); yet
she could talk with some slight knowledge about the Silchesters--her
mother had been maid to Lord Silchester's mother, and her father was
Lord Silchester's tenant. Colonel Grayburn was--or tried to be--a
gentleman farmer within a mile of Lucy's home; she had seen Sibyl
occasionally during the three years in which the Grayburns had lived in
Aldermaston parish. Lucy had never been so far afield as Farleigh
Wallop, but she knew Reading, Mortimer, Silchester, Tadley, and even
Basingstoke. Merely to mention names like these consoled them both as
the steamer ploughed her twelve knots an hour through the "roaring
forties."
And when the _Jeddah_ turned into the Mediterranean, with a passing view
of the Rock of Gibraltar, and entered upon calm seas, blue and dazzling,
their _camaraderie_ increased under Mrs. Bazzard's baleful gaze and
interchange of eyebrow-raisings with the thin bony-nosed lady of Lucy's
cabin.
The _Jeddah_ anchored off Algiers. The thin lady, who here passes out
of the story---I think she was the wife of a British Chaplain--had
invited Mrs. Bazzard to lunch with her on shore. Mrs. Bazzard had
hastened to accept the invitation, the more willingly since Captain
Brentham seemed to have forgotten her existence; except at meal times,
when he was obliged to pass the mustard and the sugar. Brentham and
Lucy went off together into the picturesque white city, rising high into
the half-circle of the hills. They lunched at the Cafe des Anglais and
dined at an hotel near the quay. They climbed the ladder-like streets
of the Arab quarter, bought useless trifles, and had a drive out into
the country which was gay with genista in full bloom, with red-purple
irises and roses, and dignified by its hoary olives, sombre cypresses
and rigid palms.
If Lucy had never been so miserable as she was nine days previously, she
had probably never felt so happy as now. Certainly she had never looked
so pretty. Her violet eyes had a depth of colour new to them; her brown
hair a lustre and a tendency to curl in the little strands and wisps
that escaped control about her forehead. Her cheeks, ordinarily pale,
and her milk-white complexion generally were suffused with a wild rose
flush and a warmth of tint caused by the quickened circulation. The sea
air and the sunshine chased away the languor that had accompanied a
sedentary life. She had not been unobservant, and had taken several
hints in costume from Mrs. Bazzard's dress. She had tightened this,
expanded that, cut short skirts that might have flopped, diminished a
bustle, inserted a frill, and adapted herself to the warmth of the
tropics without losing grace of outline or donning headgear of repellent
aspect.
At Port Said he already called her "Lucy," and she saw nothing in it
that she mightn't accept, a permissible brotherliness due to country
associations and the position of guardian, protector that he had
assumed. He showed her those sights of Port Said that need not shock a
modest girl. They sat side by side to enjoy the thrill with which the
unsophisticated then passed through the Suez Canal. One woman passenger
had left the ship at Port Said; another at Suez. There only remained
the third one--the mother of many babies--changing at Aden into a Bombay
boat--besides Mrs. Bazzard and herself in the Ladies' Saloon. The two
missionary priests told their breviaries, gave at times a pleasant smile
to her pretty face, and concerned themselves no more with her affairs
than if she had been an uncriticizable member of the crew. They were
Belgians going out for a life's work to Tanganyika, and to them the
Protestant English and their ways were unaccountable by ordinary human
standards. The captain of the ship had known Captain Brentham in the
Persian Gulf and had the utmost confidence in his uprightness. What
more reasonable to suppose than that this girl had been placed under his
charge, inasmuch as it was he who would be the official to register her
marriage when she met her missionary betrothed at Unguja?
Nor had Brentham any but the most honourable intentions. He felt
tenderly and pitifully towards Lucy, carrying her country prettiness and
innocency into savage Africa, embarking on a life of unexpected
frightfulness, unspeakable weariness, of monotony, varied by shocks of
terror, by sights of bloodshed and obscenity that might thrill or
titillate a strong man, but must inevitably take the bloom off a woman's
mind. He even thought, once or twice, of dissuading her from completing
the contract, yet shrank from the upset this would entail. Perhaps she
really liked this missionary chap? From the description she gave he
didn't seem so bad--he was tall and strong and seemingly a man of his
hands, with a turn for carpentry, and was the Agent of a very practical
Mission. If she recoiled from this marriage, what was she going to do?
It was impossible to think of her remaining at Unguja "on her own," and
if he sent her back to England at his own expense her parents might
resent very strongly his interference. There was his own career to be
thought of ... and Sibyl.... To a woman like Lucy a marriage with most
men of her class, or below it, or immediately above it, would come with
rather a shock. She was so marriageable, so marked out as a man's prey
that she was bound to go through it some day. Then, when she was
married, she would live more or less in his Consular district, and he
could keep an eye on her without being unduly attentive. Perhaps Mrs.
Ewart Stott was still settled in the Zigula country of the German sphere
... _she_ might help her. Very likely she would be able to stick her
three years of residence which the Mission generally stipulated for and
then return to England.--What a lark if they both went home together and
compared experiences?
He might have revolutionized East African affairs in that space of
time...
He was quite unconscious that in the two-to-three weeks of their close
association on board he had won Lucy's love to such an extent that she
was growing slowly to look upon the end of the voyage and the meeting
with John as a point of blackness, the entrance to a dark tunnel....
Meantime, without assuming a forwardness of demeanour which her
upbringing discountenanced and the watchfulness of Mrs. Bazzard forbade,
she accepted all he gave her voluntarily of his society. The Red Sea
was kind to them at the end of April: clear cobalt skies, purple waves,
a cool breeze against them, no steamy mist in the atmosphere, and
occasional views of gaunt mountains or bird-whitened rocks and islands.
They sat in their chairs and talked: talked of everything that came into
Lucy's mind. She put to his superior wisdom a hundred enigmas to
answer, which her mind was now able to formulate with an aroused
imagination.
"You say you approve of missionaries, yet you seem to dislike religion;
you tried to get out of attending the Sunday service in the Saloon, and
you looked very angry when the Captain asked you to read the Lessons.
Don't you believe in _anything_ then?"
"You'll find, Lucy"--Brentham would reply--"that the word 'believe' is
very much abused. You may 'think' of such and such a thing as probable,
as possible, as desirable--often, indeed, the wish is father to the
thought. But to imagine it, is not to believe in it; in the same way in
which we are compelled by irresistible conviction to believe in some
fact or consequence or event, whether we like it or not. We can only
'believe' what can be tested by the evidence of our senses, by some
incontestable piling up of evidence or record of historical facts....
Beyond that there are probabilities and possibilities and suppositions.
I can believe the fire would burn my finger if I put it in the flame; or
that the earth goes round the sun and that the moon is more or less
240,000 miles away from the earth: because my senses or my reason
convince me of the truth of these facts. I can believe that you're a
very dear little girl seated next me in a deck-chair on a steamer going
out to East Africa: because I can put such a belief to some conclusive
test of the senses. But I can't in the same way 'believe' in most of
what are called 'religious truths,' because they are only suppositions,
guesses, tentative explanations which have lost their value ... indeed,
have lost their interest. I can't therefore waste my time on such----"
"But," Lucy stammered, "the Bible?"
"Just so: the Bible. How many of you stop to think what the Bible is?
A collection of comparatively ancient writings in Hebrew and in Greek,
very beautifully translated into Shakespeare's English, with lots of
gaps filled up by suggested words and even--as we now think--lots of
words and phrases wrongly translated. The Hebrew books may have first
been written down at any time between six hundred and one hundred years
B.C.; and the New Testament between fifty and a hundred-and-fifty years
after Christ--at any rate in the form in which we know them. The
original texts were uttered or written by men who only knew a small part
of the Mediterranean world, who thought the earth was flat and the rest
of the Universe only an arched dome over the earth. Job may have had
grander conceptions, but the early Christian writers were ignorance
embodied. They were ready to believe anything and everything to be a
miracle, and to invent the most preposterous fairy stories to account
for commonplace facts. At the same time they often overlooked the
beauty and simplicity and practical value of Christ's teaching and also
the fact that a good many of his..."
"_What_ an abstruse conversation," said Mrs. Bazzard, breaking in out of
the star-lit darkness on Roger's disquisitions. She hung about them in
the Red Sea, especially after dark, and had a tiresome way of suddenly
making her presence known. Perhaps, however, it was just as well, and,
indeed, though Roger was annoyed at the moment at having his eloquent
thinking aloud interrupted--because in such monologues we are generally
trying to convince ourselves as well as our auditory--he also felt some
relief at the excuse for dropping the argument. _Why on earth_ should
he undermine Lucy's stereotyped beliefs? What could he give her--in the
life she was going to lead, too--in place of them?
But the discussion was revived ever and again by Lucy's persistent
questions. She elicited from him in general that although he approved
of the material results of missionary work and the ethics generally of
Christianity, he mocked at creeds, thought prayer futile--especially the
fossilized prayers of Judaism, Protestant and Catholic Christianity,
because they were inapposite to our present age, bore little relation to
our complicated sorrows and needs, our new crimes, difficulties,
agonies, and temptations. He found the Psalms, all but two or three,
utterly wearisome in their tedious woes and waitings, aches and pains
probably due to too carnivorous a dietary; untempting in their
ideals--"more bullocks for the altar ... and the fat of rams...." Then
our hymns--all but three or four--were gross or childish in their
imagery, abject in their attitude to a Caesar or a Sultan of a God, who
all the time watched inflexibly the Martyrdom of Man and the ruthless
processes of Nature without lifting a finger to stay the cyclone or the
epidemic ... and so on.... His views were very much modelled on those
of Winwood Reade and on Burton's gibes at "Provvy" (Lucy shuddered at
the irreverence and expected a meteor to cleave the ship in two), and he
had brought out with him from England Cotter Morrison's "_Service of
Man_."
Lucy sometimes felt so shocked at his negations that she resolved to
speak with him no more, but to apply herself to the study of the Swahili
Grammar he had lent her. Then at the sight of him and at his morning
greeting and the kindly companionship at meals, she could not remain
aloof. At any rate, he had said that you ought to act as a Christian
even if you could not swallow Christian theology. That was a great
admission. And he seemed to have numerous friends among the
missionaries at Unguja and in the interior, which would hardly be the
case if he were a bad man.... Besides, his father was a clergyman.
Aden came as a welcome surcease to these discussions. It was concrete
and indisputable, and of remarkable interest when interpreted by a
Brentham.... Steamer Point with its crowds of Indian and British
soldiers, Jews with ringlets and tall caps selling ostrich plumes,
Somalis like Greek gods in ebony offering strange skins, skulls, and
horns for sale, and ostrich eggs; the drive--in a jingling carriage over
sandy roads, past red-black crags on one side, with an intensely
ultramarine sea on the other--to the Arab town; the vast cisterns, the
rich vegetation at the cisterns; and then, after an interval of
absolutely sterile rock-gorges (vaguely suggestive of the approach to
Aladdin's cave in the _Arabian Nights_), a sea-side ravine with an
unexpected flora of aloes, euphorbias, mesembryanths, and acacias....
Even Mrs. Bazzard, with her Bayswater mind, was momentarily impressed by
Brentham's pleasantly imparted knowledge of all these things. You never
noticed how extraordinary they were until he pointed it out. She was
for the time being conciliated by his having invited her to accompany
Lucy on the day's excursion and by the generous way in which he stood
treat and presented her, as well as Lucy, with ostrich feather fans and
amusing gewgaws made from sea-shells.
After Aden the sky clouded; metaphorically, with the coming end of this
wonderful episode in Lucy's life, materially with some tiresome
manifestations of the monsoon. I forget whether it blew behind and left
the _Jeddah_ wallowing in the trough of great indigo waves and rolling
drearily; or blew against her progress, causing her to progress like a
rocking-horse. But it imparted a storminess, a sense of exasperated
emotion to this pair of lovers--as they were, unadmittedly. Fortunately,
it also made the footing of Mrs. Bazzard's high-heeled Bayswater shoes
uncertain on the unstable deck, so she relaxed her watchful spying on
their conversations. Lucy was alternately silent and wistful and almost
noisily vivacious, with hands that shook as they passed a tea-cup. She
had begun to realize that in five or six more days the voyage would end
in her meeting John as an ardent bridegroom; that she would never belong
to Roger, she would pass out of his life as swiftly as she had entered
it, be at most a pleasant and amusing memory of a half-ignorant little
person with whom he had spent good-naturedly much of his time on a long
sea voyage.
Roger on his part, in smoking-room reflections would feel he had gone
much too far--compromised her, perhaps played a rather foolish part
himself, for a man with high ambitions. There was that bitch of a
woman, that quintessence of a Bayswater boarding-house, Mrs. Bazzard,
wife of a--rotter, probably--whose nose he had put out of joint. She
was capable--and and to conciliate her and win her over would be
degrading--of putting any construction on his flirtation. How, at such
times, before turning in, or even while playing whist in the Captain's
cabin and thinking of anything but the game, he would _curse_ these long
steamer voyages and these episodes of love! There was that voyage out
in 1880--he had narrowly missed a breach of promise action then, and he
would be hanged if he'd set out to be more than sociable. And the last
time he had returned to England ... Mrs. Traquhair, the wife of the
chief electrician at Unguja.... Only the fact that in the Mediterranean
she had developed one of those Rose Boils which were a legacy of
Unguja's mosquitoes, and which confined her to her cabin till the Bay of
Biscay (when they were all sea-sick), had prevented the irrevocable.
And all the time he believed himself engaged to Sibyl! And afterwards,
when he had met Mrs. Traquhair and her sister--_and_ the sister! Oh my
God,--in London and had dined them at the "Cri." and taken them to see
Arthur Roberts from a box, and had scanned Mrs. T.'s profile as he had
never done before and watched her laugh at the comedian, showing all the
gold in her teeth ... he asked himself _how on earth_ he could have
kissed her so passionately as they were passing through the Suez Canal.
Yet she couldn't have been a bad sort because she had never attempted to
bother him or follow it up.... But he couldn't class Lucy with Mrs.
Traquhair or the siren of the 1880 voyage. She was utterly good and
innocent of schemes to entrap him. A sweet little thing...
As they passed into the Indian Ocean between Guardafui and Sokotra,
there was a temporary lull in the wind. It was a moonlight night; they
were sitting side by side under the open sky, for the deck-awning had
been removed on account of the monsoon. A sudden fierce longing--there
was no one on deck that he could see--seized him to take her in his arms
and kiss her. And there came a telepathic message that she was aching
to be so taken and kissed. But he resisted the impetus, with clenched
hands on the arms of his chair. Silence had set in between them. A
catch of Lucy's breath was faintly audible, and--dare I say it? A
snivel, a tiny snivel.
"_Lucy_? _Crying_? My _dear_ child! Why ... cheer up. We shall soon
be there.. You're not cold?"
"You don't understand.... I ... I ... don't _want_ to get there.... I
don't want to marry him; I _hate_ the very idea...."
"Oh, but this will never do.... This is foolishness, believe me. Lucy!
Pull yourself together."
Lucy now sobbed frantically.
Mrs. Bazzard was heard saying from quite close by, "Which is Gyuardifwee
and which is what-you-may-call-'em--Ras Hafoon? I mean, the cape where
some of the steamers run ashore in the mist, and then you have to walk
through Somaliland and get sunstroke?"
Brentham exclaimed under his breath: "_Damn_ that woman!" and audibly,
even a little insolently replied: "I'm _blessed_ if I know. You'd
better ask the Captain. He's on the bridge and dying for a gossip, and
he'll probably give you a cup of cocoa."
Mrs. Bazzard walked away--or pretended to do so.
"Lucy dear. I want to speak to you while that cat has gone out of
ear-shot. Calm yourself and listen, because I must speak in a low tone.
If you feel you would sooner die than go through with this marriage, you
shan't be forced into it. I will speak to Archdeacon Gravening ... or
the Bishop ... and they will know of some nice women of the Anglican
Mission who would take you in for a few weeks ... till there is a return
steamer.... Then on the plea of 'health' you can go back to England. I
could easily advance the money for the steamer passage ... some day your
parents could repay me. But even if they didn't, it doesn't matter. I
do so want you to be _happy_.... I blame myself awfully for the silly
things I've said to you ... about religion ... it may have made you
dislike mission work...."
But Lucy sobbed out "It hadn't ... that she was a little fool and he
mustn't take any notice ... she'd never, _never_ behave like this again
... after his extraordinary kindness too, which she would always be
grateful for. He mustn't think any more about it or ever refer to it
again...."
And before he could say anything more, or that cat, Mrs. Bazzard,
return, she slipped down to her cabin, where fortunately she was alone
and could cry her fill without attracting attention. But as she lay on
the bunk, she set her teeth and resolved, come what may, she would _not_
put thousands of miles between her and ... "Roger" ... she mentally
uttered the name. Better to live within a few hundred miles of where he
was and sometimes see and hear him. Why ... _Why_ ... did he not ask
her to marry him? Yes, and ruin his career. What would they all say at
Unguja ... and _John_? ... Poor John! what a shock it would be to him.
There was the note he had sent to greet her at Aden, to the address of
the steamer agent. She had opened it, but not read it through, so
infatuated was she with Brentham just then.... The next morning Lucy
breakfasted in the Ladies' Saloon, pleading sea-sickness. Later on, she
went to the upper-deck, but armed herself with the Swahili Grammar, a
defence against a Brentham who purposely stayed away, talking with the
Captain, and none against Mrs. Bazzard, who pestered her with inquiries
as to her "headache," expressing the quotation marks in her tone.
Relations however became more normal all round the day after that. In
two more days they had anchored off Lamu. Lucy saw two low islands,
with hazy forest country on the distant mainland. Lamu island had low
sandhills projecting into the sea, and on one of them was an obelisk or
pillar which Captain Brentham said was an important historical monument
erected by the Portuguese nearly four hundred years before. The two
women were eager to land and see East Africa for the first time. They
went ashore with him in the Vice-Consul's boat; for there was a
Vice-Consul here who had been expecting Brentham's visit and was
delighted to find two English ladies invading his solitude. They saw,
when they landed, masses of vague masonry, the remains of Portuguese or
Arab forts, and a litter of human skulls and bones on the beach at which
they both shrieked in simulated horror. These might have been the
results of the last Somali raid, or of slaves who had died on the shore
unshipped, owing to the vigilance of British cruisers, or even have
dated back to the expulsion of the Portuguese by the Arabs two hundred
years before. The town of Lamu was a two miles' walk along the sandy
shore from the point, where they had landed, but the sight of the
extraordinary coloured, blue, red, and green crabs that scuttled and yet
threatened with uplifted claws, and of the natives who accompanied them
in a laughing rabble, some clothed to the heels, others practically
naked, relieved the tedium of the journey. The smells from the
precincts and the heart of Lamu town were so awful as to be interesting.
The strongest--from rancid shark's liver oil--was said to be quite
wholesome, but that from the sewage and the refuse on the shore-mud
caused them to hold handkerchiefs to noses. However, the town was very
picturesque with its Arab and Persian houses of white stone, its
Saracenic doorways, in the angles of which Persian pottery was embedded,
and its heavy doors of carved wood. The Consulate stood a little beyond
the town, in a walled garden of palms, fig trees, and trees of gorgeous
scarlet blossoms. Here they had a cup of tea, and the Consular boat,
which had been following them along the shore, took them back to the
_Jeddah_, thankful in the blazing sunshine for their pith helmets and
white umbrellas.
This excursion somehow, with its introduction to the realities and
romance of tropical Africa, braced up Lucy for the next day but one,
when in the very early morning the _Jeddah_ anchored in the roadstead of
Unguja. She was dressed by eight o'clock and sat awaiting in the stuffy
Ladies' Saloon the arrival of John, or whoever was coming to meet her.
Sat with trembling, perspiring hands in open-work cotton gloves, wishing
the suspense over. There were sounds of loud voices on deck.... Mrs.
Bazzard, exploding in connubial raptures over her husband; Bazzard, in
between her embraces, striving to assume a partly respectful, partly
comrade-like attitude with Captain Brentham, to combine a recognition
that he was greeting his official superior for the moment with the
assured standing of one who had had longer experience of official cares.
She heard him saying: "Your boat is waiting for you, Sir. I will
arrange to send a lighter for your baggage as soon as it is up out of
the hold...."
Then blundering steps down some stairway and along the passage, and John
stood before her, sun-helmet in hand, eyes blazing with hungry love,
saying, stammering rather--"My _Lucy_! C--Come at last! _Oh_, how I've
looked forward.... How..." But he crushed her to him in a rough
embrace, unmindful of her delicate cotton dress and of the fact that his
red face was covered with perspiration.... But there was something so
appealing and yet so masterful in his love, and also something so
reminiscent of the park seat at Englefield and that Sunday walk, that
Lucy in yielding to his embrace said within herself, "How _could_ I have
thought of throwing him over?"
Together they went on shore. Brentham had not even stayed to say
good-bye. Somebody saw after her luggage. She had so lost interest in
it that she did not care if anything was missing.... Then John said: "I
hope you've brought out the Harmonium that your uncle gave us," and she
replied a little listlessly: "Oh yes! it was _such_ a bother getting it
across London, but I think it's on board."
"I am taking you," said John, inconsequently, in the boat, devouring her
with his eyes all the time, "to stay with Mrs. Ewart Stott until we're
married."
*CHAPTER VII*
*UNGUJA--AND UP-COUNTRY*
Every two or three years in those days you met either Mr. _or_ Mrs.
Ewart Stott at Unguja, usually at the ramshackle residence and place of
business of Mr. Callaway, the Commercial Agent of the East African
Mission. And when Mrs. Ewart Stott was there she took command, so that
you instinctively greeted her as hostess. Mr. Callaway was quite
willing it should be so, because she accomplished wonders in setting his
untidy house in order; she gingered up his servants and routed the
cockroaches, chased away some of the smells, and generally cured a
feverish attack by quinine, chicken broth, and motherly care.
The Ewart Stotts as missionaries were independent because Mrs. Ewart
Stott had begun as Church of England and Mr. E. S. as a Presbyterian,
yet they could not quite agree with the discipline or the ideals of the
different churches or sects and preferred evangelizing East Africa on a
plan of their own. They had private means--at any rate at first; until
they had run through them in founding mission stations, whereafter they
were supported by anonymous benefactors. And as their tenets and _modus
operandi_ were nearest to those of the Methodists' East African Mission,
they worked alongside them and made use of their Agent and depot at
Unguja.
Both were of Ulster parentage, with some admixture of a more genial
stock; yet both were born in Australia. She as a Miss Ewart and he
originally a Mr. Stott. At the same moment, so to speak, they had "found
Christ," and it really seemed a logical sequel that Providence should
bring them together at some Australian religious merry-making. They
instantly fell in love, quickly married and fused their surnames. She
was twenty, he twenty-two. She was distinctly personable and he quite
good-looking. They had probably been born, both of them, perfectly
good, unconsciously sinless, so that the getting of religion did not
make them better or more likeable but only afflicted them with a mania
for quoting hymns, psalms, and Bible texts _a tout propos_ and seeing
the Lord's hand, His Divine interference in every incident, every
accident, any change for better or worse which affected themselves.
They were constantly in receipt of Divine intimations generally after
communing in prayer. And these they obeyed as promptly as possible.
For instance, only six months after they were married, and when their
eldest child was already on its way, they were inspired to evangelize
East Africa. Forthwith they sold up their home in South Australia, took
ship with an immense outfit to Aden, and thence transferred themselves
to Unguja and the Zangian mainland.
They wished to preach nothing but "Christ crucified" and the new life
which black men and white men should lead after "accepting of" this
sacrifice, this atonement for the presumed sinfulness of poor, martyred
humanity. But despite this broad, if illogical, basis of their
propaganda, they were afflicted with a bitter dislike of Science, which
they concentrated on the theory of Evolution, or on any Biblical
criticism which would weaken their faith in a very manlike God who
apparently turned his back on his own universe to concern himself solely
and very fussily, very ineffectively with one of its grains of dust, a
tiny planet circling round a fifth-rate star among a billion other
stars. For the rest, they had infinite courage, infinite love and
charity, immense powers of work, but no sense of humour.
Consul after Consul warned them as to the risks they ran in
plunging--Father, Mother and Babies--into unexplored Africa of the worst
reputation. They smilingly ignored warnings and protests, ... wild
beasts, wild peoples, wild climates, wild scenery--all seemed against
them. Mr. Stott was once tossed by a rhinoceros into a river; but the
water broke his fall and he emerged before the crocodiles woke up, and
staggered back to camp, only slightly wounded. Shortly afterwards,
hundreds of Masai warriors charged their camp, and their coast porters
fled into the bush. The naked, fat-and-ochre-anointed warriors with
their six-foot spears found Mrs. Stott sipping tea at her camp-table and
sewing clothes for her baby, while Mr. Stott with bound-up wounds was
lying on a camp-bed. Mrs. Stott, convinced that the Almighty was
somewhere in the offing, smiled on the warriors and shared her plum cake
among the foremost. They returned the smile, enlarging it into a roar
of laughter. After executing a war dance they withdrew, and later on
sent her a large gourd of fresh milk.
After some floundering, owing to the uncertain indications of the Divine
will and purpose, they had settled on the old explorer and missionary
route to the Victoria Nyanza, due west of Unguja in what was called the
Ugogo country, partly because the Wa-gogo were thought to be quite
recalcitrant to Christianity.
Lucy Josling, who had had much of this summary poured into her
half-attentive hearing by her betrothed, as they walked through the
narrow lanes between the tall stone houses of Unguja--she much more
interested by the handsomely dressed Arabs, the veiled women, the
wandering bulls and their owners, salaaming Indians--entered at last the
Arab house rented by Mr. Callaway for his Agency.
Passing through a dark entry and corridor they emerged into a courtyard
with an immense fig-tree in the middle. Round this square space there
was a broad and shady verandah. Mrs. Stott rose from her sewing-machine
and greeted Lucy with that simple cordiality which made her so many
friends among the converted and the unconvertible.
"You must feel quite dazed being on shore after so many weeks at sea.
You'd like to go to your room, I know, and perhaps be quiet there till
our midday meal. We've done the best we could for you--at short
notice--for your young man and I have only been at Unguja since
Saturday. We travelled down together, he to get married, of course, and
I to see to a large consignment of goods that has arrived for us here.
I also expected a recruit for our Mission, but he does not seem to have
caught this steamer."
Mrs. Stott then led the way to Lucy's room, and John departed to the
Customs House to clear her baggage and get it stored: a matter which
would occupy him for the rest of the daylight.
Although the upstairs bedroom that Lucy was to occupy smelt, like all
the rest of the premises, of copra, aniseed, cockroaches, dried fish,
shark's liver oil, curry-powder, rats' and bats' manure, in one badly
mingled essence, with this and that ingredient sometimes prevailing, it
seemed clean and airy, and there was some grace and refinement in the
clean bed linen, white mosquito curtain, and bunch of Frangipani flowers
in a Persian pottery vase. Instinctively she turned to Mrs. Stott with
tears in her eyes. "This is _your_ doing, I am sure! Somehow you
remind me of mother."
"Well," said Mrs. Stott, "that's just what I should like to do; though I
suppose I'm not older than an elder sister; only this African life ages
one very quickly."
The heat during the rest of the day seemed to Lucy in this low-ceilinged
room, in a low-lying part of the town, almost unbearable. She spent
much of the afternoon lying on her bed in _deshabille_, a constant prey
to home-sickness. She tried at one time playing with the little Stott
child on the landing, but it was much more interested in the large
red-black cockroaches which it caught with surprising swiftness of aim
and without any of Lucy's shuddering horror. It would hold these insects
with their little flat heads, twirling antennae, scratchy legs and fat
yellow bellies quite firmly (yet not unkindly) in its plump fingers for
grave consideration; then let them go to run over the planks. Mrs.
Stott was away to the Customs House; a pale, perspiring, half-clothed
Indian clerk was passing in and out of the house on Mr. Callaway's
business, too fever-stricken and listless to care one grain of damaged
rice about this young woman fresh from England. The fleas on the
ground-floor verandah and business premises were too numerous for any
novice to endure. Lucy's only resource was to return to her room, rid
herself of these persecutors by undressing and await with patience the
after-sunset cooler air. A visit from Mrs. Stott at half-past six
notified that the evening meal would be served at seven and that John
Baines had seen to all Lucy's luggage. Such as she wanted for the next
few days was ready to be brought up for her use; the rest would be put
in the go-down to await the departure in the "dau"[#] that would convey
them to the mainland. Lucy therefore had to rise and dress, come down
and force herself to show some affection for her betrothed and some
interest in her mass of luggage--all the while preoccupied by the
mosquitoes which bit her ankles, the fleas that attacked her with
renewed voracity, the cockroaches which scurried about her feet, and the
smells which made her sick. She enjoyed the chicken broth flavoured
with hot red chillies and the coco-nut milk served round for drinks at
the evening meal; and picked a bit of fish, fresh and flaky. Also she
appreciated the dessert of pineapples, mangoes and oranges. Instead of
coffee afterwards they had tea, with goat's milk. This was
thirst-quenching and helped to diminish the racking headache which had
been steadily reaching a climax during the evening.
[#] Decked Arab sailing-ship.
At nine o'clock all vestiges of a meal were cleared away and John, Mr.
Callaway and even Mrs. Stott assumed an air of portentousness as about
twenty-four able-bodied Negroes filed in and the two or three Negro
servants of the Stotts set out a number of hymn-books and a large Bible.
John then read prayers and a portion of scripture in Swahili while the
Christianized negroes dutifully knelt, sat, and stood to sing hymns in
unison with their white employers. The hymns being likewise in the
Swahili language, the whole ceremony--occupying about half an hour--was
without meaning to Lucy, who was driven nearly frantic by the fleas and
mosquitoes. At last, bed-time came; John unwillingly took his leave,
promising to call round for Lucy at eight in the morning to take her on
a round of visits. Lucy, in very low spirits, retired to her bedroom,
but Mrs. Stott followed. Without being asked for any explanation she
was allowed to cry for five minutes on Mrs. Stott's neck. Then the
latter undressed her, rubbed the bites with some cooling lotion,
administered five grains of quinine and put her to bed.
What with the squeaking and chattering of the fruit-bats eating the figs
outside, the rats running over the floor of her room, and a tornado of
thunder, lightning and drumming rain, the night was not a pleasant one.
But when Mrs. Stott woke her with a cup of tea and she ventured outside
her mosquito-curtain, things took a brighter aspect. She had from her
window a glimpse of the sparkling blue bay in the level rays of the
just-risen sun, a fringe of coco-nut palms, their fronds still wet with
the rain, a tangle of brown shipping--Arab "daus" and Indian
"baghalas"--hauled up for repairs; and the atmosphere was cleared and
fresh after the tornado. She was almost cheerful by the time she had
dressed and come downstairs. Mrs. Stott had advised her to put on high
boots to save her ankles from mosquito bites, and to dust herself freely
with Insecticide powder to discourage the fleas. As a special
indulgence to a tired visitor she was let off morning prayers and only
heard the nasal singing whilst completing her toilet in her room after a
pleasant little breakfast in bed, over a book. John duly came with a
carriage borrowed from the Sultan's stables, and Lucy--almost gay once
more--set out with him to be introduced to Archdeacon Gravening--who in
the absence of the Bishop (on tour) was to perform the religious
marriage ceremony at the Cathedral.
Gravening was an austere-looking man but of kindly disposition. He made
her feel at home, and as he knew the Reading district in old Oxford days
of walking tours and reading-parties he could talk about that
home-country which, as it receded in time from her contemplation, seemed
a Paradise she had recklessly quitted.
The ladies of the Anglican Mission--a celibate Mission when at work in
Africa, its members being supposed to leave its ranks when they
married--received Lucy with some detachment of manner. They were good
creatures, indeed, but they came from a social stratum one or even two
degrees higher than hers, and inwardly they were less tolerant of
Nonconformists, than were their men fellow-workers. Lucy, they had
ascertained, was a "Church person," but she was about to marry into a
Methodist Mission. However, her rather plaintive prettiness and the
home-sick melancholy in her eyes enlisted their womanly sympathy. Two of
them offered themselves in a bride's maid capacity, and the Sisterhood
in general proposed that the honeymoon should be spent at their little
country retreat of Mbweni. But John explained as to this, that he could
not prolong his absence from the up-country station more than was just
necessary for the prescribed residence at Unguja; and that their
honeymoon must be spent on the return journey. He dilated, for Lucy's
encouragement, on the picnic charms of the "Safari."[#]
[#] The accepted meaning of "Safari" is a journey with tents, and
porters to carry the baggage.
* * * * *
During the ten days of her pre-nuptial stay at Unguja Lucy had no talk
with Brentham. Presumably he was too busy over political and Consular
matters. Once indeed when walking with John through the winding streets
of the African-Oriental city she had seen him out riding with Bazzard,
the Vice-Consul. John had accomplished all the preliminary formalities,
and on her marriage morning--early on account of the heat--Lucy went in
one of the Sultan's carriages, attended by Mrs. Stott and the two ladies
of the Anglican Mission, to the British Agency. John met them at the
entrance; they walked slowly up the stone steps to the office for the
transaction of Consular business. Bazzard, with Mrs. Bazzard--the
latter assuming the airs of a Vice-reine--met them there and ranged the
wedding party in order. Brentham then entered, bowed to them both, but
avoided meeting Lucy's eyes. He put to them in a level business-like
voice the necessary interrogatory and declared them duly married. The
party then passed into one of the Agency's drawing-rooms.
Champagne--and lemonade for the teetotalers--was served, together with
mixed biscuits and sweetmeats. The Acting Consul-General proposed the
health of the Bride, and for the first time looked Lucy full in the
face. He next withdrew on to a verandah and talked for some time with
the bridegroom about his mission station and the journey thither and
spoke earnestly on the subject of Lucy and her welfare, instancing his
interest in her home-country as well as his position as "their" Consul
to explain his anxiety as to her future. Then returning to the general
company he handed Lucy a small case which he said contained a trifling
wedding present and wished her all possible happiness, promising "some
day or other" to visit her in her new home. He grasped her hand with a
brief pressure and--pleading urgent business as an excuse for not
following the party to the Cathedral--withdrew to his office. Mrs.
Bazzard introduced her husband and bestowed a condescending patronage on
Lucy and on the Mission ladies, who, never having met her before, found
themselves almost audibly wondering who on earth she was, and
where--with that slightly cockney accent--she had come from.
The religious ceremony at the Cathedral was one of considerable
ecclesiastical pomp, secretly enjoyed by John Baines; who, however,
thought on what mother would say when he told her he had nearly been
married by a Bishop and quite so by an Archdeacon, and still more how
she would have appreciated the black acolytes in their scarlet cassocks
and white dalmatics, the incense-smell in the building, and the
vestments of the clergy.
After they left the Cathedral they repaired to the Arab house of stone
and rich Persian and Kurdish carpets in which Archdeacon Gravening
lived. Here an unpretentious luncheon was given as a wedding breakfast.
Gravening hardly ever spoke about religion, which was why Mrs. Stott
despaired of his being saved, though she admitted he was compact of
quiet kindness. His one enthusiasm was language study. He was deeply
versed in the Bantu languages and translated for the Anglican Mission
most of the works they required to use in their schools and churches.
He had corresponded with John Baines, and the latter had written down
for him samples of vocabularies of the different languages heard in his
district.
Some insight into the conflict going on in the dazed mind of Lucy--who
throughout these ceremonies looked as though she were a wound-up
automaton--inspired Mrs. Stott to suggest to John that as they were due
to start in the Arab dau early the next morning in order to reach the
mainland port of Lingani before nightfall, Lucy should spend the rest of
her marriage-day and night with Mrs. Stott, and their honeymoon should
not commence till they reached the Mission house at Lingani. This they
would have to themselves for three or four days whilst their caravan for
up-country was being got ready. Accordingly poor John, when the wedding
luncheon was over and the guests had dispersed, surrendered Lucy to Mrs.
Stott and spent the rest of the day rather disconsolately making his
preparations for departure. Lucy got through much of that hot afternoon
in her nightdress--for coolness--inside the mosquito curtains of her
bed, weeping at times hysterically; tortured with homesickness one
minute and at another seized with a mad longing to call on Brentham at
the Agency and see him once more. Sometimes she felt an actual dislike
for John; at others a great pity for him, yet a shuddering at the idea
of his embraces, of any physical contact with him.
Mrs. Stott prayed for her, apart in her own bedroom but the Divine
direction of her thoughts seemed to take the line that the least said
was the soonest mended, and that the young couple had better be left to
their own society at Lingani to come to an understanding.
The next morning, however, it was a composed though rather silent Lucy
who was punctually ready to go away with John when he came to fetch her
to embark in the dau. Mrs. Stott had risen early to make coffee for
them and give them a send-off of embraces, and provisions for a nice
cold lunch on board. "My dear," she said to Lucy, "you'll have a
_delightful_ water picnic. There's going to be just wind enough to blow
you across. I wish I were coming with you, but I shan't get away for
another fortnight. However, we shall meet in the interior, I dare say,
before very long."
John had made for his bride a little nest among cushions and clean
brightly-coloured grass mats in the deck cabin of the dau (a mere
palm-thatch shelter), and for an hour or so a smile came back to Lucy's
sad face as she appreciated the pleasant freshness of the morning
breeze, the picturesqueness of the boat and the vivid blue or emerald
green of the water according as it was deep or shallow. She had quite
an appetite for the early lunch which Mrs. Stott had thoughtfully
provided. But presently an anxious look came into her face and a
restlessness of manner. "John! Can I be coming out in a rash? I feel
an intolerable itching round my neck and wrists--Oh! Horror! What is
this?" And she pointed to some flat, dark brown disks which were
scurrying out of sight up her arms and into the folds of her linen
bodice....
"_Bugs!_" said John, shocked and apologetic, "they are sometimes found
in these Arab vessels.... I am so sorry.... Yet there was no other way
of crossing to Lingani...."
Lucy went white with disgust. From the palm mid-ribs which arched over
the cabin roof of thatch there came dropping hundreds of bugs on to the
unhappy young woman, ignoring or avoiding him who would have willingly
offered himself as sacrifice and substitute. Lucy in her dismay,
knowing she could not undress before the boatmen and porters and yet not
knowing how she could endure hours of this maddening irritation from
half-venomous bites, broke out into weeping. "What _was_ to be done?"
questioned the poor distraught bridegroom. The gentle breeze had died
away ... an intense heat prevailed; the dau scarcely moved across a
glassy sea ... the Nakhodha or bwahih captain of the dau was standing up
over the rudder and signalling with his sinewy hand, crying out in a
melodious cadence: "Njoo! Kusi-Kusi, Njoo, Kusi-Kusi!"[#] afraid his
vessel might be becalmed and prevented from reaching port in daylight.
The boat-men and porters were looking at one another with round eyes as
they heard the Bibi[#] crying convulsively in the deck cabin. John in
his desperation had a bright idea. He knew that the ordinary, vaunted
insecticides had no terror for, no deterrent effect on, either bugs or
their unrelated mimics, the poisonous ticks of Central Africa; but that
both alike fled before the smell of petroleum. There were tins of that
mineral oil on board provision for his lamps up-country. Opening one of
these cautiously, for petroleum was very precious, he filled an
enamelled iron cup and then stoppered the tin. From his medicine chest
he obtained cotton-wool. Then with wads of this, and with his
handkerchief, he dabbed the swollen wrists and the weals on Lucy's neck
and advised her to thrust the saturated wads and linen inside her
clothing.
[#] "Come south wind, come!"
[#] Lady.
The strong odour of the oil in a few minutes caused the blood-sucking
insects to withdraw and return to their lairs in the thatch and boards.
The south wind came at last in puffs, which lessened the heat, but there
set in a swell which caused the dau to roll. This movement disturbed
the bilge water below the decks, and from this was disengaged a
sulphuretted-hydrogen stench almost bad enough to drive the bugs from
Lucy's mind. But the wind grew steadier and at last blew the rotten dau
to the landing-place at the mouth of a river where they were to
disembark.
Lingani was a smaller edition of Unguja Town: flat-roofed Arab houses of
white-washed coral rock, thatched wattle-and-daub huts, groves of
coco-nut palms, a few Casuarina trees and Frangipani shrubs, pariah
dogs, wandering zebu cattle, and dwarf goats. The Mission Rest-house was
a substantial stone building in the Arab style of East Africa. It was
maintained jointly by four missionary societies for use by their members
in transit. There was a Swahili couple in charge of it, husband and
wife. The bed linen, table-cloths, napkins and cutlery were kept in
cupboards fastened with cunning padlocks, which only opened when you set
the letters of the lock to correspond with the word "open." This to
thwart inquisitive natives, with a smattering of education, was written
up for reminder in Greek letters. With this ruse John was fully
acquainted, so that he lost no time in opening the cupboards and
releasing the wherewithal for making up two beds and laying the table
for an evening meal. The black housekeepers, proffering greetings and
assurance of welcome while they worked, busied themselves in heating
water for baths, in making the beds, laying the table, and killing
chickens for soup and roast. John's activities were multifold. He had
to see the dau unloaded and its precious cargo safely stowed away in the
store below the Rest-house.
Lucy at first sat limply in the divan or main reception-room, sore all
over, eyes blistered by the glare of sun on water, and with a headache
which for crippling agony exceeded anything she had known. But she
conquered her sullenness and made feeble attempts to help. John,
however, seeing that bath and bath water were ready and that sheets,
pillows and blankets had been placed on her Arab bedstead (a wooden
frame with a lattice-work across it of ox-hide strips), advised her to
undress, soothe her bites with spongings and ointment, and rest between
the sheets. Her back ached unbearably; her head seemed half-severed at
the neck, and she was seized with violent shiverings. The mosquitoes
had given her a sharp attack of malarial fever.
Once in bed, she felt less acutely ill, but of all the nice meal that
John and the Swahili man-cook had prepared she could only swallow a cup
of tea. Her temperature was found to be up to 102 deg., so the first
and the six succeeding nights of the honeymoon were spent in dire
illness and dreary convalescence. But at the end of that time she
seemed well enough to start on their up-country journey. John had
obtained two Masai donkeys and had bought at Unguja a second-hand
side-saddle. Lucy cheered up at the prospect of donkey-riding and above
all at leaving this terribly hot coast town for the cooler nights of the
interior. Though still deeply depressed and disheartened, she was
sufficiently reasonable and well-disposed to be deeply touched by her
husband's care of her, his forethought for her comfort and distress at
the inconveniences of semi-savage Africa. Some measure of health came
back to her, and even cheerfulness, during the first easy days of camp
life, before they left the semi-civilized coast-belt, with its shady
mango-trees for the midday halt, its unfailing water supply for the
thirsty porters and the white man's meals; its comparative safety at
night from wild beasts and wild natives.
But between the mountain ranges of the interior--whither they were
bound--and this settled country of cultivation and villages more or less
governed by the Sultan of Unguja, there lay a desert tract almost devoid
of water and ravaged in recent times by a clan of the raiding Masai
known to the Bantu natives as "Wahumba." They had recently carried out
a ruthless foray across the plains. The native wells had fallen in or
their location had been forgotten since the destruction of the villages.
Lucy then knew for the first time what it was to suffer from thirst, and
to have no water for washing in the morning or evening; and when a
little water was obtained from nearly dried up rock-pools or the bed of
a run-dry stream, to be hardly able to endure the sight of it, much less
taste it when it looked like strong tea, or coffee-and-milk, when it
smelt of stable manure or was alive with grubs or wriggling worms. It
could only be drunk in the form of tea after it had been strained,
boiled, and skimmed.
John had prepared for some such contingency in crossing this desert
strip by bringing several dozen coco-nuts and a case of his father's
cider--at the mention of which Lucy's mouth watered. But his porters in
their own mad thirst had disposed of the coco-nuts and their milk, and
the carrier who bore the case of champagne cider on his head had, of
course, slipped on a slimy boulder, crossing a dry stream down had come
his precious load, and at least half the bottles had cracked and poured
forth their sparkling contents over the sand or into the porter's
protruded mouth. Still, the other six bottles were retrieved by an
indignant John who, in his rage, doffed the gentle long-suffering
missionary--which, strange to say, he had become in these few
months--witness his unselfish and patient care of his rather peevish
wife--and kicked the careless, sticky, half-drunk porter with all the
vehemence of an unregenerate Englishman. The porter took his
chastisement philosophically. He had tasted nectar. John and Lucy drank
the remainder of the cider during the second half of that day, without
care for the morrow's drought, for fear lest they be robbed of it by
some other accident....
At last they reached a running stream at the base of the foothills which
marked the beginning of a slow ascent of three thousand feet. The
verdure, and the shade this created, seemed by contrast a Paradise. They
pitched their camp under fine umbrageous trees, near the site of a
ruined village which a few months previously had been a populous centre.
Around the mounds of clay and sticks and burnt thatch were luxuriant
banana plantations with occasional bunches of ripening bananas--though
the monkeys of the adjacent thicket had not left many fit for eating.
When Lucy had quenched her thirst exuberantly from the rivulet, drinking
from cups of folded banana fronds made for her by the repentant porter
of the broken cider bottles, her sense of relief and contentment at
their surroundings was a little marred by the consciousness of an
unpleasant odour which came to them fitfully in puffs of the afternoon
breeze. She started out to explore on her own account--she wore high
boots and had a tucked-in, constricted skirt. Presently she came to an
extensive clearing where banana trunks, brown and rotten, had been
felled and lay prone in all directions, half covered with the clay
tunnels and galleries of white ants. Amongst these crumbling cylinders
lay twenty or thirty skeletons, some of them still retaining strips of
leathery flesh and patches of Negro wool on the whitened skulls. The
ground at the rustle of her approach began to swarm with a myriad of
black, biting ants, disturbed in their daily meal off this immense
supply of carrion. Lucy paid little heed to them for the moment as she
stood horror-struck at the sight of hissing snakes, gliding into the
rank weeds, probably more concerned over the swarming of the ants than
at the approach of a solitary human being. She also noted a group of
large, grey-brown vultures with lean whitish necks, which hopped heavily
before her until they obtained enough impetus to rise above the ground
and settle on the branches of a baobab-tree. Lucy, horrified by this
unsavoury Golgotha and the slithering snakes, was uttering several
squeaks of dismay, when as the terrible "siafu" ants began to nip the
skin of her limbs and body, her cries changed to shrieks of terror.
Half-blindly she floundered over disgusting obstacles back towards the
camp.
John, looking very tired and very dirty, came rushing to meet her and
upbraid her for imprudence in wandering off alone where there was danger
at every turn; but, realizing she was being mercilessly bitten by the
"siafu," he hurried her into the tent, let down the flaps of the
entrance and assisted her to undress. She had to be reduced to absolute
nudity before the ants could be removed. They had fixed their mandibles
so firmly in the skin that in pulling them off the head and jaws
remained behind, and for weeks afterwards this unhappy young woman went
about with a sore and inflamed body.
But this seeming outrage on her modesty greatly eased their intercourse.
They had been for several days husband and wife, but there was still a
certain stiffness and reserve in their relations. This disappeared
after Lucy was obliged in broad daylight to submit her tortured body to
his ministrations. In this new camaraderie she was soon laughing over
her misadventure; whilst John acted clumsily as lady's maid.
Two days afterwards they were further drawn together by a thrill of
terror. The region having been temporarily depopulated by Masai raids,
wild beasts--lions, leopards, hyenas--had been emboldened in their
attacks. John's camping places were encircled each evening by a hedge
of thorns, and the porters kept up--or were supposed to keep up--blazing
fires. But one night in the small hours the tired sentries fell asleep,
the fire in front of the tent died down, a lion sprang the hedge,
crunched the sentry's skull, and tore at their tent doorway with his
claws--attracted by the smell of the donkeys tethered behind. His
horrible snarls and growls and the outcry of the awakened men roused
John and Lucy. In their movements they knocked over camp washstand and
table and could not find the matches or the lantern. John was uncertain
where to fire even when he had found his loaded rifle. He dared not
shoot into the midst of the growls, lest the bullet should kill the
plunging donkeys or strike one of his men. They in their
desperation--and, to do them justice, in their desire to save the white
man and his wife--were tackling the lion with firebrands, yet feared to
shoot his huge body--tangled up with tent ropes and tent flaps--lest
they should shoot master or mistress. Lucy swooned across the bed with
terror when she felt the lion's body pressed against the thin canvas of
the tent wall.... The tent, even, seemed in danger of collapsing under
the lion's pressure, as he backed on to it to face the men. At last,
fear of the fire dislodged him. He stood or rather crouched against a
pile of boxes for a few minutes; then realizing that the way to the exit
was clear, he bounded towards it over the dead body of the slain porter.
But before he quitted the premises he seized adroitly one of Lucy's two
milch goats and, breaking its neck, trailed it over his shoulders and
plunged down a ravine. The men followed him with a fusillade of shots
from their Snider rifles, but probably in the darkness all went wide.
The lion remained in the ravine alternately crunching and growling--but
_such_ growling!--the English verb is feeble to express the
blood-curdling sound.
Day broke at last. John roused himself, detached gently the
hysterically-clutching hands of his wife, who alternately implored him
not to expose himself to any more danger and not to leave her to die by
herself in the wilderness, but to turn back with her that very day and
seek for some safer Mission post at the Coast or in Unguja itself. He
put his clothes into better order, knelt and prayed for a few minutes:
then tidied the tent space a little and overhauled his rifle. Next,
rummaging for ammunition and putting it handy in his side pockets, he
issued from the tent, carefully fastening the door flaps after him. He
questioned the men in broken Swahili as to the lion's whereabouts.
"Chini, Bwana, hapa karibu, ndani ya bondee ... Below, master, near
here, within the ravine," they answered; and the lion, hearing the
raised voices, gave a confirmatory growl which reached to the ears of
the shaking Lucy in the tent. She arose, her teeth chattering with
terror, and looked out through a slit in the tent door. She saw and
heard John call for the headman and guessed that he was marshalling
eight of his most courageous porters, the "gunmen" of the expedition, to
sally out with him and attack the lion. This beast, having nearly
finished the goat, had no intention of leaving the neighbourhood of the
camp. He intended to have next, one by one, the two donkeys; and after
he had eaten them, the humans. The ravine seemed a convenient place in
which to repose till he was hungry again....
The porters read the lion's mind correctly: "He will wait there, master,
till we are breaking camp and then attack the donkeys, and perhaps the
one with Bibi on his back. We shall never get him in such a favourable
position again. See! He is down there below, looking up at us. He can
scarcely rush up this side of the ravine...." John Baines grasped the
situation; he quickly placed himself in the middle of the eight braves,
who knelt on one knee in between the tree stems on the edge of the steep
descent. All at the word "Fire!" sent a converging volley (which
deafened Lucy in the tent) at the great head with its wide-open yellow
eyes ... and as the smoke cleared away the head was a shapeless mass of
blood and brains and the lion was utterly dead.
A shout of triumph arose from the elated men, and the whole force of the
caravan--thirty-two men without the poor wretch who had been killed in
the night--went tumbling down the ravine to disembowel the lion and cut
off its skin for "Bwana" who had shown himself such a man of spirit.
John betook himself to Lucy's tent, exultant. He had killed a lion! He
almost forgot to kneel down and send up a thanksgiving for the Divine
protection accorded to them. Lucy dried her eyes and at last made an
effort to dress and swallow a little breakfast. As her nerves were
shattered by the "close call" they had had in t
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