You _are_ a good sort, and I am awfully grateful to you. Your letters
never fail me each month as the mail comes in, and you send me just the
papers and books I like to see in my isolation.
I have been here over six months and am getting rather weary of the
office work. I don't suppose there is much chance of my being promoted
to the principal post if Sir James Eccles does not come back. It would
be too rapid a promotion and excite frightful jealousy--though I really
think I should do as well as any one else, and better than some. My
Arabic and Persian are both useful to me here, and I have worked up
Hindustani and mastered Swahili and get along very well with the Arabs
and the big colony of British Indians. But I don't feel confident about
F.O. approval. All these affairs pass through Bennet Molyneux's hands,
and he does not like me for some reason, probably because he's an
obstinate ass and hates being set right. I hoped Lord Silchester would
have pushed me more, but according to Sibyl's letters he seems really
ailing and to care about little besides his own health. Your account of
your visit to Englefield last summer amused me very much. Sibyl has a
good deal of the cat about her, but I quite understand from the very
oppositeness of your dispositions you might get on very well--your
straightforwardness and her guile. At any rate though I am a little sore
still about her throwing me over for Silchester, I am ready to forgive
her if she is nice to my one dear sister.
As to _you_, I never properly appreciated you till I came to live out
here. If I could only get a settled position I think I should ask you
to come and keep house for me. I daresay I shall never marry--the women
I have felt drawn to have always married somebody else. It would do
father good if he had to engage a housekeeper and a curate. He throws
away far too much of the money he ought to leave some day to you on
excavations at Silchester.
Well, as I say, I am getting rather tired of the office work I have to
plough through day after day. There is endless litigation between the
Hindu merchants and the Arabs. There are Slave cases every week and
frequent squabbles with the French Consulate over slaving ships flying
the French flag. And although I have a "legal" vice-consul to help me,
his decisions are sometimes awfully rotten and have to be revised.
I wasn't cut out for office work. If I were really Agent and
Consul-General it would be different; I might take more interest in the
storms of this Unguja tea-cup. And I should of course be properly in
control of the mainland Vice-Consuls who at present seem to me to waste
all their time big game shooting or ill in bed with fever due to too
much whisky. But as I am only a warming pan for Eccles or some new man
it is a very boring life. I have not been away from this little island
once since I came out in May. I am therefore impatient to go over to my
proper consular district on the mainland, and thoroughly explore it. It
reaches to the three great lakes of the interior!
This Vice-Consul at Unguja is a queer sort of person. He was called to
the bar a few years ago--unless he is personating another man! But his
knowledge of Indian law is nil and he seems to have no intuition or
perception of where the truth lies between scores of perjured witnesses.
He is unable to learn languages, so he is quite at the mercy of the
court interpreters. He drinks too much whisky, has an unpleasant
mottled complexion, a shaking hand, and an uneasy manner with me,
varying from deferential to what the French call "rogue." His wife who
travelled out with me is _by no means_ stupid. She is somewhat the
golden-haired adventuress--her hair, at least, is an impossible gold
except near the roots--her complexion is obviously, though very
skilfully, made up, and generally she has a sort of false good looks
just as she exhibits a false good nature. Every now and then one
catches a glimpse of the tigress fighting for her own hand (which means
in her case, her husband). She has probably been a governess at one
time, and rumour makes her the daughter of a navy paymaster's widow who
kept a boarding house in Bayswater, which at one time sheltered Spencer
Bazzard when he was down on his luck. He married her--I should
guess--to pay his bill for board and lodging. She then took up his
affairs with vigour and actually got him appointed Legal Vice-Consul
here. She writes letters to Bennet Molyneux--sealed with lavender wax
and a dove and serpent seal--I see them in the Mail bag--flatters him up
I expect, and I dare say deals me every now and then a stab in the back.
Her first idea when we came out was to fascinate me and take up the
position of lady of the house at the Agency. I dare say she would have
run it far better than I do and have made a very competent hostess. But
the inevitable corollary of having her detestable, blotchy-faced husband
as my commensal and letting her boss the show generally was too much for
me, and I had to ask them to live in the Vice-Consulate hard by and let
me dwell in solitude and peace in the many-roomed Agency. My
maitre-d'hotel is Sir James's admirable Swahili butler, my cook is a
Goanese--and first rate--and I have one or two excellent Arab servants.
Of course I make a point of having the Bazzards frequently to dine or
lunch, and I ask her to receive the ladies of the European colony at any
party or entertainment. Nevertheless I have made an enemy. Yet she
would be intolerable as a friend....
The poor little missionary lady you ask about has, I guess, been having
a pretty rough time of it up country. She has not written to say so: I
only gather the impression from the "on dits" which circulate here. I do
not like to show too much interest in her concerns because such interest
in this land of feverish scandal might be so easily and malevolently
misconstrued. Before she departed from Unguja for the interior I
gathered that her chief anxiety was lest her mother should think her
unhappy, and mistaken in her career as a missionary. Farleigh is not so
very far from Aldermaston (the address is "Mrs. Josling, Church Farm").
Perhaps one day you might find your way there and have a friendly talk
with Lucy Baines's mother and father, and intimate that I am--as a
Consul--keeping an eye on the welfare and safety of their daughter and
son-in-law. He--Baines--seems a good-hearted fellow, but quite
incapable of appreciating her real charm, even if he does not think it
wrong for a missionary's wife to _have_ charm. She is really a
half-educated country girl, with a fragile prettiness which will soon
disappear under the heat and malarial fever, with the mind of an
unconscious poetess, the pathetic naivete of a wild flower which wilts
under transplantation....
I mostly like the missionaries I meet out here; so you need not mind an
occasional collection of Farleigh coppers and sixpennies being taken up
on their account to the tune of From Greenland's Icy Mountains, etc. Our
religious beliefs do not tally; but I do admire their self-sacrifice,
their energy, and devotion. They are generally specialists in some one
direction--native languages, folk-lore, botany, entomology, photography,
or even, as in Mrs. Stott's case, the making of plum cakes. A very
admirable solace to the soul, or--where the natives are concerned--means
of conversion!
* * * * *
Your loving brother,
ROGER.
*CHAPTER IX*
*MISSION LIFE*
Lucy had reached her husband's station in the Ulunga country in July,
1887, at the height of the winter season, south of the Equator. The
climate then of the Ulunga Hills was delightful; dry, sparkling,
sunshiny and crisply cold at nights. Her health mended fast, nor did
she begin to flag again till the hot weather returned in October and the
height of the wet season, of the southern summer, made itself felt in
December and January by torrential rains, frightful thunderstorms,
blazing sunshine and the atmosphere of a Turkish bath. For several
months after her arrival she made renewed and spasmodic efforts to play
the part of a missionary's wife, to share her husband's enthusiasm, and
to earn her living--so to speak--by her contribution of effort. If she
had _only_ never met Brentham and if _only_ Ann Jamblin had stopped at
home! She could not but admit the change in John was remarkable. He
was less and less like either of his parents, less and less inclined to
dogmatize; he had become as unselfish as such a self-absorbed,
unobservant man could be. Intensely fond of work, especially manual
work--carpentering, building, gardening, cutting timber, and contriving
ingenious devices to secure comfort and orderliness--this backwoods life
suited him to perfection. He was the head of the station, the principal
teacher of the boys and men, the leader of the services in the chapel.
He was responsible for the finances and general policy of the Mission.
Each of the stations of this Society in East Africa was a little
self-governing republic. Once a year delegates from each East African
station met at Mvita or Lingani, or some other convenient place, and
conferred, agreed perhaps on some common policy, some general line of
conduct. But there was much individual freedom of action. John, for
example, was taking up a strong line against the Slave Trade. Since the
dissolution of the Sultan's vague rule which followed the German
invasion, the Arab slave traders had revived their slave and ivory
caravans between Tanganyika and the Zangian coast owing to the great
demand for labour in Madagascar and in the Persian Gulf. John had
obtained such influence over the head chief of Ulunga that he had
forbidden the Arabs transit through his lands, and instead of selling
his superfluous young people or his criminals to the slave traders he
sent them to the Mission to be trained in rough carpentry, reading and
writing, husbandry and so forth. The very flourishing trade that
Anderson carried on at the store made the Mission prosperous enough
occasionally to subsidize the chiefs and reward them for sending their
boys and girls to school and to be ostensibly converted to Christianity.
Some black Muslims who had started teaching boys the Koran and elements
of Muhammadanism in two of the villages were expelled, and a resolute
war was made by John on the witch doctors of the tribe, who for a time
were routed before the competition of Cockles' Pills and the other
invaluable patent medicines which were just beginning to appear in
tabloid form.
Brother Bayley's department was more especially the study of the native
language. He translated simple prayers and hymns and passages of
Scripture into the Kagulu dialect of Ulunga and rendered more
educational literature into the wider-spread Swahili. He had a small
printing-press with which he was labouring to put his translations into
permanent form; and besides this took a prominent part in the boys'
education.
His personal hobby was butterfly and beetle catching. He devoted his
small amount of leisure to collecting these insects and transmitting
them to an agent in London to sell on his behalf. In this way he made a
fluctuating fifty pounds a year, which was a pleasant addition to his
meagre salary. It provided him with a few small luxuries and enabled
him to send a present every now and then to his mother.
Then there was Ann Jamblin, of Tilehurst, a school-fellow of Lucy, a
sturdy, plump young woman of about twenty-seven, with a dead-white
complexion, a thick skin, black hair, black eyebrows and hard eyes of
pebble brown. She had actually arrived at Hangodi before Lucy herself,
though she started out from home a month later, being of that
exasperating type to whom nothing happens in the same _ratio_ as to
other people. She could never be run over, never be drowned at sea--Lucy
thought--never slip on a piece of orange peel, never be assaulted in a
railway carriage. Ann had been sent out by the Mission Board to be a
bride for Brother Anderson (on a discreet suggestion of John's, who
thought Anderson a little inclined to look amorously on comely
negresses). But she had declined to fulfil the bargain when she
arrived, denied indeed all knowledge of such an engagement, said she
didn't want to marry any one: only to do the Lord's work and help all
round. Her refusal had been taken philosophically by the person most
concerned, on account of her unattractive appearance; and was further
softened by her practical usefulness as an independent member of the
Mission. She house-kept for the little community, attended to the
poultry, goats and sheep, did much of the cooking, made the bread, the
cakes, the puddings; darned the socks, mended the linen, and taught the
native girls the simple arts of British domestic life. She dressed with
little regard to embellishment of the person, but with much attention to
neatness and mosquito bites. Her humour was rough and her tongue lashed
every one in turn. She had that unassailable independence of manner
which is imparted by the possession of a private income of one hundred
pounds a year and the knowledge that her martyrdom was voluntary and
self-sought. Hardly ever ill herself, she nursed every one that was
with almost professional ability.
Lucy secretly detested her, for she was always gibing at John's wife for
being moony and unpractical, for her "aesthetic tastes," such as liking
flowers on the table at meals; for succumbing quickly to headaches and
megrims generally, and especially for the ease with which she was
humbugged by the big girls of her school classes. Ann would also gird
at her for lack of religious zeal. Ann herself took an aggressively
hearty part in prayers and hymn-singing, and mastered the harmonium
which had proved unplayable by Lucy. Ann even tried making her own
translations of her favourite canticles into the native language and was
not deterred or discouraged because in her first attempts and through
the malice of her girl interpreters she had been misled into rendering
the most sacred phrases and symbolism by gross obscenities. The delight
of shouting out these improprieties in chapel before the blandly
unconscious missionaries, when Brother Bayley was laid aside by fever,
attracted large congregations.
If John Baines were seriously ill with a malarial attack, Ann would
brush Lucy aside as unceremoniously as she ejected her from the
harmonium stool. She would take complete charge of the sick man, reduce
the fever, and make the broths and potions which were to sustain
convalescence. When Lucy herself was ill, Ann would either diagnose the
attack as "fancy" or "hysteria," or a touch of biliousness, and cure it
so drastically that Lucy made haste to get well in order to withdraw
from her treatment.
This was an average day in Lucy's life at Hangodi in the first year of
her stay there----
6 a.m. Lucy is already awake; John still sleeping heavily. Lucy had
been dreaming she was back at Aldermaston or else voyaging down the Red
Sea with Brentham, and is still under the shock of disappointment as she
lies gazing up at the dingy cone of mosquito net suspended over their
bed from the rat-haunted roof. The bedstead is a broad structure--the
Arab "angareb"--an oblong wooden frame with interlaced strips of
ox-hide. On this foundation has been laid a lumpy cork mattress with
well-marked undulations. On that again a couple of musty blankets and a
sheet. For covering there is another sheet and a coverlet.
Lucy, hearing the awakening bell being tolled, nudges John, who is still
snoring.
_Lucy_: "_John_! The first bell has gone!"
_John_: "Wha'?" (Gurgle, gurgle, snore cut short, lips smacked, heavy
sighs.)----"Wha'? Time to ger-up? Or-right."
He tumbles out of bed in his disarranged night-gown--pajamas were not
introduced into the East Africa Mission till 1890. In doing so he tears
the mosquito curtain with his toe-nails.
A native servant is heard filling two tin baths in the adjoining
roomlet. They then proceed to take their baths in what--to Lucy--is
disgusting promiscuity. The rest of the toilet is summarily proceeded
with. (As John is fully hirsute there is no shaving to be done.) Then
to avoid remonstrance from her husband Lucy kneels with him in prayers
on a dusty mat, in fear all the time some scorpion may sting her ankles.
One did, once.
At half-past six another bell goes--how the converts love
bell-ringing!--and they hurry out to the Chapel where the other members
of the Mission staff and a posse of native boys and girls meet them.
More prayers, a psalm, and a hymn sung lustily but disharmoniously.
Then the whites adjourn to the house or large hut where the meals of the
community are served. The dining-table is of rough-hewn planks of
native timber, and on either side of it there are similarly rough forms
to sit on, with a native stool at either end of the table. The breakfast
consists of porridge and milk, the porridge being made of native cereals
and often a little bitter. There is coarse brown bread with a sour
taste as it is made with fermented palm wine. There are butter from a
tin--rather rancid--potted salmon, and bantams' eggs from the native
poultry, so under-boiled that they run out over the plate when opened.
John asks a blessing on the meal. They then proceed to eat it, while
the males drink with some noisiness the tea that Ann pours out. "You
don't seem to have much appetite this morning, Lucy," says Ann of malice
prepense: "Porridge burnt again? What is it?"
"Thank you. There is nothing wrong with the porridge, so far as I know.
I am simply not hungry."
"Ah! Been at those bananas again. They're very sustaining. But you'll
never be well if you eat between meals."
"_I_ eat _at_ meals and _between_ 'em," says Brother Anderson, "and I'm
glad to say loss of appetite don't never trouble _me_. This is a rare
climate to make and keep you hungry."
Anderson is voracious and somewhat lacking in table manners, defects
atoned for by his being an unremitting worker and well contented with
his lot--Eupeptic, as we learnt to say at a later date. But he keeps
his spoon in his cup and holds it steady with a black-rimmed thumb when
he drinks. He also helps himself to butter with his own knife, talks
with his mouth full, and never masticates behind closed lips but
displays the process without self-consciousness. Lucy, who is squeamish
about such things, glances at him occasionally with scarcely concealed
disgust. Brother Bayley eats more sparingly and divides his attention
between his food and a printed vocabulary of Kisagara. He has a strong
predilection for reading at meals, which ever and again comes under the
lash of Ann's tongue. She does not consider it good manners.
John himself makes a hearty breakfast, but glances occasionally at
Lucy's silent abstemiousness. At last Ann, the housekeeper, rises after
Brothers Bayley and Anderson have left the table for their work, and
says to Lucy: "Don't sit too long over your food because I want
Priscilla and Florence to clear away, wash up and then come to me...."
She goes out.
"Not well, Lucy, this morning?" says John, who is beginning to despair
about her fitting in to mission life. The conviction which he often
repels takes him now with an ache. He loves the work himself, not only
the converting these savages to a better mode of life, but the
unrealized colonization about the whole business, the planting of fruit
trees, the increase of flocks and herds, the freedom from civilization's
shackles and class distinctions....
"Oh yes! I'm quite well ... I suppose. Simply not hungry. I daresay I
shall make up for it at dinner ... provided Ann leaves me alone and
doesn't nag about eating. I think it's _such_ bad manners, observing
what people do at meal times. I don't comment on her big appetite or on
Anderson's disgusting way of eating...."
"She means very well," replies John, wishing to be fair....
"I daresay she does. She'd have made you a much better wife than I. If
I die in my next attack of fever, you ought to marry her ... _I_
shouldn't mind...."
"Now, Lucy, don't say such dreadful things. You can't think _how_ they
hurt me...."
At this moment Priscilla and Florence--pronouncing their imposed
baptismal names as "Pilisilla," and "Filorency" in a loud stage
conversation they are holding together to conceal the fact that they
have rapidly escheated a half-basin-full of sugar--come in to clear
away, and John leads Lucy with an arm round her waist back to their own
quarters.
"Cheer up, old girl! You haven't had fever now for three months and
you're getting your good looks back. And making splendid progress with
your teaching.... You're beginning to master the language...."
It is eleven o'clock in the morning and the Girls School at Hangodi,
with its mud walls of wattle and daub and its thatch of grass and palm
mid-ribs, is hot to the extent of eighty degrees Fahrenheit. Despite
the open door (for the small glass-paned windows are not made to open)
the atmosphere is close and redolent of perspiring Negroes. Lucy raises
her eyes from her desk and looks about her as though realizing the scene
from a new point of view, without illusion or kindly allowance. At the
end of the School-house, opposite to the teacher's platform and desk, is
the entrance-door of heavy planks adzed from native timber. Through the
wide-open doorway can be seen a square of sun-baked red clay which
refracts a dazzling flame-white effulgence.
When the eye got used to this brilliancy of sunlight on a surface
polished by the pattering of naked feet, it could distinguish rows of
Eucalyptus saplings, and here and there the rich green of a native
shade-tree, together with part of a red brick chapel roofed with
corrugated iron and several thatched houses of white-washed clay.
On the walls of the School were hung a map of the World on Mercator's
projection and a map of Africa; a large scroll with elementary
illustrations of Natural History--typical beasts, birds, reptiles, fish
and insects, of sizes as disproportionate as the inhabitants of a Noah's
Ark. There were also placards with arithmetical figures, letters of the
alphabet and single syllable combinations: _M a, ma; b a, ba; l e, le_,
etc. Over the wall, behind the teacher's desk and above the black-board,
was a long strip of white paper, printed in big black capitals: MWAACHE
WATOTO WANIKARIBU ("Suffer little children to come unto Me"). The words
were in the widely understood Swahili language, the medium through which
Lucy endeavoured with many difficulties and misunderstandings to impart
her knowledge to her semi-savage pupils.
A lull after her two hours' teaching had begun. A Negro woman of some
intelligence, a freed slave from Unguja and the wife of "Josaia
Birigizi" (Josiah Briggs) the interpreter, was talking in a low
sing-song voice with the little girls, practising them in the alphabet
and the syllables formed by consonant and vowel. The class, ranged upon
rows of rough forms in front of the teacher's desk, consisted of black
girls of all sizes, from little children to young, nubile women; but
they were separated by an aisle down the middle of the room and were
assorted according to height into two categories, "A-_big_-geru" and
"A-_lig_-geru," these phrases being Bantu corruptions of "Big girls,"
and "Little girls."
Although nearly if not quite naked when at home, here on the Mission
premises they were dressed in short-sleeved smocks of white calico,
loose from the neck downwards, most of them soiled and in need of
washing. The girls consequently had a frowsy look, somewhat belied by
their glossy faces and arms, their brilliant eyes, and dazzling white
teeth. The smaller children were pretty little things that any teacher
might have petted, but most of the bigger girls had an impudent look and
an ill-concealed expression of over-fed idleness tending towards
imaginings of sensuality. A critic of missionary policy in those days
would have felt inclined to put these bigger girls to good, hard, manual
labour in the mornings which should by the afternoon have taken the
sauciness out of them; and have reserved their mental education for the
afternoon, when they had returned from brick-making or field hoeing.
No sooner did Lucy relapse into silence and show signs of reverie than
they set to work to whisper of their love affairs, to push and pull one
another about with giggles and peevish complaints; or else to let slates
fall with a clatter whilst they watched with interest the flitting of
rats about the rafters.
Lucy raised her eyes likewise to the roof. Its framework was
constructed of the smooth, shiny mid-ribs of palm-fronds, descending
from a central ridge-pole below the mud walls and supporting outside a
shade over the verandah. Across the palm rafters were laid transverse
rows of more or less straight branches or sticks, and to these were
attached the round bunches of coarse grass which formed the thatch. From
rafters and beams there fell every now and again little wafts of
yellowish powder, due to the industrious drilling of the wood by
burrowing beetles. But the thatch was alive with larger things than
insects, especially where it came in contact with the top of the clay
walls. Here an occasional lizard darted in and out the rafters like a
whip, and rats poked out their long faces with quizzical, beady eyes,
watching the proceedings below with rat-like impudence.
Teaching had begun at nine, and would go on till lunch-time--twelve.
But already by eleven the teacher was weary and could not concentrate
her thoughts on the drudgery of getting elementary ideas about reading,
spelling and counting into these Palaeolithic brains. She fell silent.
Her eyes first ranged over the School-house, taking in all its details
in a mood of scornful hostility. She had never so completely realized
the hatefulness of her present existence and its bitter contrast with
her home life in England. She was sick of John's simple piety, of
Brother Anderson's sanctimoniousness and disagreeably affectionate
manner to herself ... and his way of eating, his behaviour at table, his
unctuous prayers. Mr. Bayley, whose quiet manners and politeness
appealed to her, was, nevertheless, fanatical about the letter of
Scripture--a bigot, Captain Brentham would have called him. It would
not be loyal to her husband--John, at least, was sincere and worked very
hard; otherwise what _satirical_ letters she could write about it
all!...
But the one she most disliked among her associates was Ann Jamblin. Ann
came between her and John, just as they might have hit it off, have come
to some agreement about religion or her own share in Mission work. If
Ann had never come out, things might have been more bearable.... Ann
had come here on a false pretence. She was in love with John, _that_
was certain, though John was too much of a goose to see it.
Certainly she had made herself useful, _odiously_ useful.... The men
liked her because she made them so comfortable.... That talent, of
course, was inherited from the ham and beef shop at home! She shared
Lucy's teaching work and taught the women and girls in the
afternoon--taught them sensible things--cooking, plain sewing, washing,
ironing, leaving to Lucy--as she pretended--the "fine lady" part of the
work, the instruction of their minds.
Lucy's eyes flashed in her day-dream when she realized how she had grown
to loathe the morning and evening prayers.... Brother Anderson's
contribution to the uplifting of the spirit, especially. _How_ weary
was the Sunday with its two "native" services, both conducted by John in
English, broken Swahili, and Kagulu, with the long-drawn-out
interpretation of Josiah Briggs.
She had had good health since she reached Hangodi, after that ghastly
nightmare journey from the coast. That was fortunate, because the
nearest medical help was fifty miles away. But _oh!_ the monotony of
the life! How much longer could she stand it? It was not so bad for
the men. Every Saturday they took a whole holiday and went down to the
lower country and shot game and guinea-fowl for the food of the station.
Sometimes they "itinerated" and she and Ann were left alone. John
always asserted it was not safe for white women to travel, except to and
from the coast. With much camp life he believed they became
unwomanly....
There had only been three mails since she had arrived last July.
Captain Brentham sent her books and newspapers, but Ann tossed her head
over these attentions and John once or twice confiscated the books as
being of dangerous tendencies; subversive of a simple faith. The
station itself was provided with little else to read except the Bible, a
few goody-goody books and magazines, grammars and dictionaries of native
languages.
In England she had imagined she was going to sketch and botanize,
collect butterflies, and keep all sorts of wonderful pets, besides
beholding superb scenery and meeting every now and then celebrated
explorers. That dream had soon passed away. She had no time for
sketching in the week, and it was considered wrong to do it on a Sunday.
And even if she outraged the sentiment of the community and sat down
with her sketch-block and water colours before a flowering tree or a
striking view, ants came up and bit her, midges attacked her face till
it was puffed out, or the sun was too hot or the wind too boisterous.
As to botanizing, there was certainly splendid forest--with tree-ferns
and orchids--higher up the Ulunga mountains, but it was pronounced
unsafe to botanize there except in a party. There were snakes, or
leopards, or lurking warriors of unfriendly tribes....
Her thoughts then turned to the homeland.... Presently she was back in
the scenes she had left nearly a year ago.... She saw herself walking
slowly from Aldermaston village up the road to Mortimer, her father's
farmhouse just left behind. She stopped to greet old Miss Fanning, who
inhabited the rather monastic-looking school-teacher's house by a
special concession, as Lucy--her successor--lived with her parents hard
by. The children of the village were playing games with the pupil
teacher in the large grassy yard. She could see quite distinctly the
rustic shed which surrounded two sides of the playground--like the
verandah of an African house. In her day-dream the children, blue-eyed,
flaxen-haired, seemed to greet her. They were so fond of her--How
_could_ she have left them? ... Then in imagination she was farther
along the Mortimer road, past the high brick wall of Aldermaston Park.
Lordly blue-green cedars topped the wall of mellow brick. Then when the
wall turned off to the right it was succeeded by a high bank and hedge
as the road mounted and rose above the river valley. She could see, oh!
with such detail, the soft green fern-fronds of the bank. Above the
male ferns grew a row of hart's-tongue. Above that, here and there a
foxglove, tufts of bell heather and where the hedge lowered and you
could see into spaces of the oak wood, there were brakes of French
willow herb in pink blossom....
What a series of pictures now passed before her mental vision as
instinctively she closed her eyes to Africa, to her silent, observant
class, who thought that she was dozing! White ducks on a wayside pond,
set in a crescent of duckweed; clipped and shaven yews in front of an
old brick-and-timber cottage with a steep thatched roof; an upland
hayfield, sturdy, wholesome men with frank blue eyes and brawny arms of
beefy red; long-horned cattle with a make-believe fierceness which had
never imposed on her, standing in the shade of elms and whisking flies
from off their red flanks and cream bellies; her mother's garden, gay
with phlox, sweet peas and pansies, and scented with dark red roses....
Oh, _why_ had she ever left her mother, left her pleasant tranquil work
at the National school to join John out in East Africa? It was vanity,
partly; wishing to get married; wishing to travel.... For the
evangelizing of Africa she had ceased to care since her talks with
Captain Brentham--"Roger," she called him to herself--and still more
since she had come to know Africa.... But "Roger"--Well, if she hadn't
come out to Africa she would certainly never have had the opportunity to
know _him_ ... on that steamer voyage!
Lucy's thoughts were abruptly brought back to Eastern Africa and
discipline in her school class; for a too venturesome rat, darting up a
rafter, had lost his footing and fallen plop amongst the girls--the
"Big-geru," and they, upsetting forms and throwing away slates, had
flung themselves in a struggling heap on the spot where the rat had
landed. From out of the melee one triumphant young woman rose up, with
her smock torn from top to bottom, but holding up a damaged, dying rat
by its broken tail. A loud clamour of voices disputing the fairness of
the capture and the answering shrieks of the capturer, secure in the
possession of her prize (which she would shortly eat broiled over the
ashes as a relish to her sorghum porridge), roused Lucy to a show of
anger which stilled the tumult and turned the girls' attention to their
teacher. She, standing up and trying to stammer out in Swahili words of
adequate reproof, realized still more vividly the dreariness of her
present lot, and bursting into an agony of tears, buried her head in her
arms over the desk.
The little children gazed at her grief, awe-struck. Could rich, god-like
white people have any sorrow, when they might wear cloth to any extent
and had white salt in bottles and delicious foods in tins? Propelled by
Josiah's wife they stole away wondering; and the "Big-geru" left the
school gracelessly, with loud laughs and free comments in Kagulu on the
white woman's show of emotion. The schoolroom clock ticked on, the
rats, emboldened, rushed about the thatch and dropped without mishap on
the floor, whence they scuttled out on to the verandah, then up the
posts and so into the roof again. The flame-white sunlight grew fiercer
in the square, the shadows of the trees shorter and more purple. At
last a loud bell clanged, and presently Ann Jamblin looked in and said
with a shade of insolence as she passed on: "The luncheon bell, Lucy."
Lucy affected not to hear her, but hurriedly dabbed her tear-stained
face with a handkerchief, shook her white dress tidy, smoothed her hair
with a hand-touch here and there, and took down a book from a shelf as
if to study....
Her husband stood at the doorway.
"Luncheon's ready, dear.... Have the girls been unruly this morning?"
"Thank you, I'm not hungry. Don't wait lunch for me. I dare say I
shan't want anything till tea-time.... The girls? Oh! Not worse than
usual. I have no influence with them.... It's my fault, of course. I
was never cut out for this work. Please, _please_ don't wait.... I
suppose it isn't part of one's Christian duty to eat when you aren't
hungry?..."
John Baines looked downcast ... and went out to the lunch of roast kid
or roast guinea-fowl, sweet potatoes, boiled plantains, and banana
fritters in syrup of sugar-cane, with less appetite than usual.
Lucy meantime tries to pretend she is interested in a book. It is far
too hot to walk out and botanize. And then, what is the use of pressing
these plants? The colour of the gorgeous petals soon fades to brown,
fungi and minute insects attack them and they crumble into dust; and the
Mission objects to all the blotting-paper being used up in this way....
Presently John returns; with a native servant carrying a tray on which
are tea things, slices of guinea-fowl breast, some boiled sweet
potatoes, and banana fritters. To obtain this rather tempting little
meal he has had to face the scornful opposition of Ann Jamblin, but for
once he has turned on her (to the silent dismay of Bros. Bayley and
Anderson). "Ann," he has said, "you must learn to keep your tongue and
temper under control. It is you who drive Lucy away from our meals by
your constant fault-finding. We are not all made alike; some of us are
more sensitive than others." Ann, strange to say, is silenced by his
sharp tone and makes no retort.
"Come, Lucy," he said, after the little meal has been placed on the
table by her desk; "you will only make yourself ill by this refusal to
eat. I am sorry Ann has been so teasing. I have spoken to her. Now
try to eat this little lunch whilst we are quiet in here."
Lucy looks at it and at him. In the middle of the tray is an enamelled
iron tumbler containing a small bunch of mallow flowers with large
lemon-tinted petals and a vivid mauve centre. This, from John, means so
much, as a concession to her tastes. She bursts into tears--at this
period she was very soppy!
"Oh, John! You _are_ good to me. I really _don't_ deserve such
kindness. I have been a _dreadful_ disappointment to you."
"Well; eat up the lunch and you'll make me happy," says poor John. "Why
shouldn't we _all_ be happy here, Lucy?" he goes on. "The Lord has
singularly blessed our work; the climate--for Africa--is not at all bad;
you can't say the scenery is ugly, there are beautiful flowers all
around--and--and ferns. We're getting on well with the people, much
better than I ever expected. Why, your schoolroom is already too small
for the numbers and Bayley has to teach his classes out of doors in the
'baraza.' Look at our plantations--how the lemon trees and oranges are
growing--and the coffee. It's true we get our mails rather seldom.
There seems to be something queer going on at the coast. The carriers
can't get through.... The Germans, I suspect. But we're safe and snug
enough here. As for me, I don't want to hear from home. Mother's
letters are not precisely cheering. I only ask to go on with the Lord's
work without interruption. _Do_ try to be cheerful, darling ... do you
think you--Do you think there is--er--any hope of--your----?"
"I _will_ try once more, John. But couldn't we live more by ourselves?
Ann gets on my nerves, do what I will. Couldn't we do our own
housekeeping?" continues Lucy, clasping her hands and looking at him
pleadingly.
"Well," said John, a little ruefully, "you know you _did_ try for a
month after you first came, but it was such a failure that you gave it
up. You couldn't stand the heat of the cookhouse, or manage the cook,
or do the accounts in calico for the things you bought. And--you don't
know much about cooking. Why should you? You're a first-class teacher.
And then, you know, you were so set at first on studying--studying
botany--and painting pictures. I thought, even, you might write for the
Mission Magazine, like Mrs. Lennox and Mrs. Baxter...."
_Lucy_: "But they always want you to write goody goody and bring in the
Lord at every turn and make out the black people to be quite different
from what they are--Somehow I couldn't fall in with their style, it's so
humbugging----"
_John_: "Well, then, write for other magazines, worldly ones if you
like. I'm sure you could write well--you used to make up beautiful
poetry before we were married, and you've had thrilling enough
experiences on the way up. It isn't every missionary's wife who's had a
lion trying to get into her tent----"
_Lucy_: "The thought of _that_ journey _still_ makes me sick. And yet I
used to think I should adore African travel--" (An ungrateful thought
flashed through her mind: "so I should, with--with--some people").
"Besides, if I told the true story--bugs, ants, snakes, rotting corpses,
and all--it might stop other missionary women from coming out. No. I
can't write anything. I _do_ make collections of flowers, but you won't
let me go far from the Station to botanize and you're always too busy to
come with me. As to painting, it's either too wet, or too hot, or too
something. And then you hinted once I shouldn't take a half-holiday
every day but help some one else in their work, so I give up some of my
time to Mr. Bayley.... No, I won't call him 'Brother Bayley,' it's so
silly, all this brother and sister business"--(a short pause and a
sudden impulse). "John! Couldn't you take me home next dry season--and
get them to give you work at home--? Or" (noting his look of dismay)
"send me home to Mother and join me there later on, when your leave is
due?..."
_John_: "It would just _break my heart_ either to part with you or to
throw up my missionary career...."
_Lucy_: "Well, then, could I go on an itinerary--as you call it--with
you? Not be cooped up here with that intolerable Ann when you three men
go off on a round of preaching. I'd promise not to mind
anything--snakes, ants, lions, or even the Masai. Perhaps I might get to
enjoy Africa that way without all this intolerable religion...."
_John_: "_Lucy!_..."
_Lucy_: "I didn't mean to shock you again, but I couldn't help it. I
don't know what's come over me, but I've grown to _hate_ religion, and
still more pretending to be religious. I'm sick of the Bible ... at
least I mean of the Old Testament. It always makes me think of some
wearisome old grandmother who says the same thing over and over
again.... Who wrote it? That's what _I_ want to know. How do we know
the old Jews didn't make it up and pretend it was inspired?" (John
ejaculates a "_Lucy!_" of protest at intervals, but she is so carried
away by a desire to express her revolt that she pays no heed.) "You
know I've been trying to help Mr. Bayley in his translations by reading
slowly bits of the Bible--just now we're in Exodus. He _would_ begin at
Genesis, even though I said all the people wanted was the Gospels--I
don't think I ever studied the Bible much at home and it all comes fresh
to me as though I had never thought about it before.... Well,
Exodus.... Have you ever read those chapters where Moses fasted--or said
he fasted--for forty days and nights _without food or even water_ whilst
he was writing down God's sayings? ... How silly some of them sound....
How particular the Almighty seemed about the colours of the tabernacle
curtains--blue, purple, and scarlet--and about the snuffers and the
snuff-dishes being made of pure gold. And about the 'knops.' ... What
is a 'knop'? Poor Mr. Bayley can't find the word in any dictionary.
What can be the good of translating all this into Kagulu? It only
puzzles the natives, Josiah told me. Mr. Bayley's always losing his
temper with Josiah because he can't find the right Gulu or even Swahili
word for some of these things in Exodus. Surely all you want to teach
them is simple Christianity and how to live less like pigs and more like
decent human beings...."
_John_ (interposing at last, after he has cast his counter argument into
words): "How can you teach them about Christ without first explaining
what led up to Christ, the Fall and the Redemption? We want to give
them the whole Bible, even if we don't understand every passage
ourselves. Every word of the Bible is inspired." (Lucy makes a mute
protest.) "But oh! my Lucy ... what I feared and foretold has come to
pass. This coquetting with Science has cost you your faith. Kneel
down." (She knelt with him unwillingly on the little platform.)
"Oh Lord," prayed John, most earnestly, "visit Thine handmaid in her
sore need for Thy help! Dispel her doubts with the sunshine of--of--thy
grace. Convince her of Thine Almighty Power and Wisdom and consecrate
her to Thy service in this Heathen Land."
They rose to their feet constrainedly. John covertly flicked the dust
from his trousers, blew his nose, and wiped eyes suffused with emotion.
Lucy impatiently shook her white skirt. How she hated these impromptu
genuflections which always shortened the wearing life of the skirt and
sent it prematurely to the wash. And much washing made it shrink so.
Still, her passion was spent and she felt very, very sorry for her
husband, and a little guilty in her discontent. If she had come out
straight to him from England under no other influence, would she not
have been a fairer critic, have taken more kindly to mission work? And
was not John really cut out for a missionary, with every reason to be
proud of his station's success?
These silent musings, while John awkwardly hummed a hymn tune, were
broken in upon by the strident voice and bustling presence of Ann
Jamblin. "Well, then, young people" (being three years older than they
were she sometimes assumed a maternal air), "if you've finished
honeymooning, I'll take the tray away and get the school ready for my
sewing class." (To one without: "Pilisilla! Ring the bell three
times.")
They left the School-house without answering her, hand in hand. Lucy
felt so sorry for John that she resolved once more to try to be a
missionary's wife and helpmeet. The intense heat of the forenoon was
breeding a thunderstorm, and already the sky was overcast, and a few
puffs of cool air were blowing up from the plains. Presently these grew
into an alarming dust-storm, a hurricane which blew Bayley's proofs and
manuscript to right and left; and when Lucy rushed in to pick them up
she was blinded for a minute by the glare of lightning. Then the wind
dropped before a deluge--a grey, sweeping deluge of rain. In trying to
save this and that, Lucy and Ann were drenched to the skin and had to
change their soaking garments. The change to dry clothes, the rub down
somehow cheered them, and made them more friendly. Lucy then returned to
Bayley's study and once more helped him in the returning daylight with
his translations. But he was now well into Leviticus, and some passages
proved so embarrassing to both Lucy and Josiah that the former broke off
with the exclamation, "It's teatime."
And sure enough there sounded the one pleasant summons in the
twenty-four hours: the tea bell.
The rain had ceased, the darkness had lifted for a while and left the
western sky a sweet lemon yellow, out of which a tempered sunlight
twinkled. The air had become fresh and uplifting in a dying breeze.
The little party met round the tea-table in a mood to jest and to be
friendly. Ann, more good-humoured than usual, described her sousing.
She also told Lucy she had had two of Lucy's skirts mended at her sewing
lesson, to save her the trouble. Oh, it was all right; they had served
as a pattern.
A couple of armed porters arrived during teatime, their calico clothing
still adhering to their brown bodies from the rain storm through which
they had stolidly walked. They had not brought the regular "Europe"
mail from Unguja, but some parcels from Mr. Callaway and local letters.
These read aloud over the tea table spoke of the restlessness of the
coast population caused by the administration of the German Company, of
Arab gossip at Unguja, of the sombre news from Nyasaland where a
Scottish trading Company was at open war with the Arabs, in trying to
defend the population from Arab slave raids. Tiputipu was away on the
Congo looking for Stanley and had withdrawn his restraining influence
from the Tanganyika Arabs. Was a concerted Arab attack on the
interfering white man about to begin? The missionaries looked from one
to the other a little anxiously. A growing feeling of _camaraderie_
linked them. They felt themselves to be an outpost of Christianity in a
world threatened by the Moslem. They congratulated John in that he had
so completely won over the Ulunga chief, Mbogo, that the latter had
expelled the Arab traders from his hill country and made common cause
with the White man....
At dinner--or as they better styled it, supper--they were quite
cheerful. There was even a special zest in the evening service, point
and _vim_ in the shortened prayers. Ann was congratulated by Lucy on
her ground-nut soup and "pepperpot"; and the treacle pudding which
followed was declared a masterpiece.
John that night kissed his wife tenderly in mute recognition of her more
sympathetic attitude.... She did not shrink as usual from his caresses.
*CHAPTER X*
*ROGER ARRIVES*
Sir James Eccles, it was decided, was not to return to Unguja to guide
once more the destinies of East Africa. Prince Bismarck would not hear
of it. After considerable hesitation Sir Godfrey Dewburn, K.C.I.E., was
appointed to succeed him in the spring of 1888 and arrived at Unguja to
take up his position as Agent and Consul-General when Roger Brentham had
about completed a year's tenure of the post in an "acting" capacity.
Sir Godfrey Dewburn was a fortunate Irish soldier, who--because he had a
capacity for getting on well with everybody--had held a high
administrative position in India, though outside the ranks of the Indian
Civil Service. He did well over the Prince of Wales's visit in
organizing successful durbars, nautch dances and perfect shooting
picnics, in which record tigers were bagged. He did better still in an
aftermath of the Imperial visit, when the Duke of Ulster and the
Hereditary Prince of Baden came out to shoot in Dewburn's new province.
He had also married, with very wise prevision, a daughter of the
Choselwhit who was legal adviser to the Circumlocution Office. When it
was felt that Sir James Eccles must be thrown over to avoid a breach
with Germany, which threatened a Franco-Germano-Russian alliance against
us, somebody--perhaps the Duke of Ulster, who still remembered Dewburn's
champagne cup, cooled with the snows of the Himalaya and tendered just
at the psychological moment when the most splendid of the tigers had
fallen to the Royal rifle--suggested Dewburn for the post. And as he was
backed up by the India Office, who wanted to weed their Civil Service of
outsiders, and by Molyneux who thought Dewburn's dinners at the "Rag"
quite the best in London, Lord Wiltshire, tired and preoccupied over the
Parnell letters, gave way and appointed Dewburn. Lord Silchester's
suggestion of Brentham was deemed "indelicate," emphasized as it was by
Sibyl, to whom Lord Wiltshire had taken a whimsical dislike.
Dewburn, when he came out, posed as a jolly good fellow who praised
every one all round and enchanted Mrs. Bazzard by his manners and easy
cordiality. But after a bit, Brentham's efficiency got on his nerves.
It was irritating to hear his subordinate--so much better fitted than he
for the post, some might have said--prattling and swearing in Swahili
and Unguja Arabic, and rather markedly doing without an interpreter.
Dewburn spoke French well and a little bad Hindustani, but there his
linguistics ended; and his brain sutures being closed would admit no
knowledge of an African tongue.
Then there was Spencer Bazzard always at hand, serviceable unto
servility, ready to jot inspirations and judgments down on a writing-pad
with some prehistoric form of the fountain-pen or indelible pencil, and
reproduce these utterances afterwards, conveniently elaborated.
Brentham, on the other hand, preferred putting in a draft of his own,
which took quite an independent line and might have led H.M. Government
to do something, make up their minds to some definite course....
Then again, Brentham's real destination was the German mainland.... The
situation there was strained.
Mrs. Bazzard somehow amused and intrigued Sir Godfrey (Lady Dewburn had
not yet arrived). He guessed her as somewhat of a demi-rep, but to him,
as to me, such a person is more interesting to study than the simple
village maiden, or the clergyman's daughter with her smooth hair parted
in the middle....
Who precisely were the Bazzards? May I, with a novelist's omniscience,
clear up the mystery?
There was a celebrated firm of solicitors in Staple Inn known as
Grewgious and Bazzard. It had originated in a Mr. Hiram Grewgious, who
had a valuable Norfolk connexion and had figured with some distinction
and celebrity in a famous Kentish murder trial in the early 'sixties.
The junior partner, Mr. Bazzard, took over the business from Mr.
Grewgious, and when the latter died in 1878 still preserved the honoured
style of the firm. This Mr. Bazzard led a double life, in that he was
not only a particularly astute solicitor, but also a playwright of
ability who produced at least two stirring melodramas under a _nom de
plume_.
As solicitor he had lifted Mr. Bennet Molyneux once out of a
considerable difficulty and delicate dilemma ... he had ascertained that
the lady was travelling under an assumed name and ... in short, he had
settled the affair without any fuss, and Molyneux was thoroughly
grateful and asked him to dine at the Travellers, giving, of course, due
notice, so that the guest-room, in those distant days with its settees
thick with dust, might be got ready, and a fire be lit to take off the
chill.
Over walnuts and port, Mr. Bazzard had mentioned the existence of a
much-younger brother--fifteen years younger, in point of fact--rather at
a loose end since he was called to the Bar--clever chap withal, steady,
married now to a deuced pretty woman, but in his youth the very devil
with the sex. ("Just so," would nod Mr. Molyneux comprehendingly, who,
except for the most pardonable slip with Mrs. ---- at Lucerne, was a
blameless husband and father.) Well, then, there he was--had tried
ranching in the States and buying horses in the Argentine, got done in
the eye by that scoundrel, Bax Strangeways--knew a lot about the
tropics--stand any climate--take on any job. In short, did Mr. Molyneux
know of an opening anywhere in Africa, C.O. or F.O., for a sporting chap
with a knowledge of Law?
And Bennet had put down his name for a vacancy in the East African
Consular service. And having thus taken him under his wing, was
prepared to stand by him through thick and thin ... even deluded himself
into thinking he was a damned good sort, and his golden-haired
wife--"bit of the devil in her, no doubt"--a fit person for Mrs.
Molyneux to know--in the country, at any rate.
Perhaps she was. Why should one sneer at a woman for trying to improve
her position and looks and wriggle into a less sordid sphere than that
in which she was brought up? Emilia Standish--christened Emily, of
course, but wrote her name "Emilia" from the time she was
seventeen--was, as Captain Brentham ill-naturedly guessed, the daughter
of a Bayswater widow who kept a Bayswater boarding-house (few districts
of London have such a power for moulding human beings to its guise).
Emilia Standish--or was it Stapleton?--I really forget--had tried life
as a governess with ill success. She confided to her mother, and her
mother only, that she might have succeeded here or there had not her
pupil's father made improper advances from which she had to flee. She
had studied for the stage, but like her predestined fate, Spencer
Bazzard, she, at thirty-two, was somewhat at a loose end and living at
home when Spencer came to lodge at her mother's boarding-house. He was
down on his luck, almost in hiding, nearly cast off by his highly
respectable, much older brother. He fell ill. Emilia took pity on him,
nursed him, and defied her mother over the financial question. Out of
gratitude he proposed. She accepted him and took stock of the
situation, called on the elder brother in Staple Inn, secured his
advocacy for a "colonial" appointment--and--you know the rest.
Spencer can't have been wholly bad, because though they had many a
private tiff and unheard wrangle, this woman stuck by him and made a
career for him. Brentham, in writing to his sister, gave too unfair a
description of Spencer. He omitted to notice that though his knowledge
of law was so imperfect as to throw doubt on the efficacy of the
examinations which then admitted to the Bar, he had at any rate acquired
some knowledge of shorthand, and certain of the qualities necessary to
playing private secretary to an important personage. So that Sir
Godfrey preferred greatly the retention of Bazzard as his lieutenant at
Unguja, rather than the slightly gloomy and excessively well-informed
Brentham.
There came at this time rumour after rumour that the Arabs of the
Zangian coast were preparing to rise in force not only against the
Germans but against all white men. They were concerting measures in
common with the Arabs of Mombasa, of Tanganyika, Nyasa and the Upper
Congo to expel all white men from East Africa and found a great
Slave-holding empire which might link up with the victoriously
anti-European Mahdi of the Sudan. Sir Godfrey Dewburn did not clothe
his Memorandum of instructions to Brentham in exactly these
comprehensive and grandiloquent terms, derived from a contemporaneous
essay of my own, but he said:
"Look here, dear old chap. You know you are a bit of the fifth wheel to
the coach here, on this potty little island. You've put me up to all
the ropes, I'm well in the saddle. Now suppose you cut along to your
own show? The mainland, hey? Go and round up those blasted Germans,
don't you know? Of course, steer clear of quarrels--that'd never do.
Be coldly polite, but see what they're up to and report to me--fully.
Strikes me it's blowing up for a storm...."
So Brentham shipped himself and his indispensable retinue of Goanese
cook, Swahili butler, and a nucleus of fifteen always dependable
gunmen-porters of the stalwart Unyamwezi breed over to
Medinat-al-barkah--the "Town of Blessings," on the Zangian coast:
formerly the chief shipping port of slaves and now the head-quarters of
the German Chartered Company which had succeeded to the authority of the
Sultan of Unguja.
A few months afterwards, when he had organized a Consulate and an Indian
clerical staff in an adapted, cleansed, and tidied Arab house, he
received an urgent and confidential communication from Sir Godfrey:
"The F.O. is much perturbed by the reports of Arab risings against the
German Company. Mvita seems to be quiet under Mackenzie. The various
missionary societies are clamouring for information and some indication
that H.M.G. realizes the seriousness of the situation. I have been
instructed semi-officially by H. and M. that you should at once proceed
inland with a sufficiently strong caravan and visit the missionary
stations within a radius of--say--three hundred miles of Medina,
assisting the white people to repair to safe positions on the coast,
especial care being taken to bring away their women and children. You
know far better what to do than I, who am a new comer to East Africa.
So, _carte blanche_. Do your best. Good luck and chin-chin.
"Lady Dewburn, who has just come out, is dying to put her feet on a
maned lion skin when she gets out of bed. So if you've any luck
shooting, 'Then you'll remember me!'
"Yours,
"GODFREY DEWBURN."
In consequence of these instructions you can picture such events as
these occurring at the end of September, 1888.
Lucy Baines, attended by Josiah Briggs's wife Halima, was taking the air
on the outskirts of Hangodi. She had had a baby in the previous July,
and was still weak and anaemic. The confinement had been a difficult
one, as it was a little premature, owing to Lucy having been frightened
by a hyena. A medical missionary had been in hurried attendance, and
kind Mrs. Stott had come fifty miles to act as an amateur midwife. But
the child died soon after its birth, and Lucy, for the first fortnight,
had been delirious. If her child had lived her whole outlook might have
changed and brightened. As it was----
John had rigged up a kind of machila--I can't explain a second time what
a machila is--a compromise between a palanquin and a hammock--and this
could be taken out on short journeys by two strong porters. With this
and her pupil-teacher, Halima, in attendance, Lucy was wont to make
little afternoon pilgrimages along the red paths on the outskirts of the
Hangodi plateau.
At this and that shady spot she would leave her machila languidly, sit
on a camp stool and pick flowers and examine them: or she would practise
her Swahili and Kagulu with Halima and question this woman--greatly
devoted to her--on native manners and customs, or native legends. The
two porters would squat at a respectful distance, or if told they would
not be wanted for half an hour, would stroll off to the nearest native
village.
On this particular day in September they came running back in great
excitement to say a white man's _safari_ was approaching. It could be
seen in the plain below ... quite a small army of black men headed by
one white man, coming in single file over the burnt grass.
Rumour had flown ahead of it ... as it did in Africa, in pre-telegraph
days. The white man was a great English consul coming to make a treaty
with Ulunga, or coming to fight the Arabs, or to turn the Wa-dachi out
of the country and to place Nguru under the Woman chief of the English.
Mbogo the chief had already run up his English flag....
Lucy's heart stood still and she sat on her camp stool too much overcome
to remain standing. Could it ... be ... Roger?
Halima fumbled in her basket and produced a restorative. Presently Lucy
rose to her feet and said in a decisive tone:
"Take me to meet the white man...."
They met about three miles from the Mission Station. Seeing the machila
approaching, heralded by the boastful singing of its carriers, anxious
to do their mistress honour, Brentham had got off his riding donkey and
handed it to a follower carrying his sporting rifle.. He walked to meet
the unknown person swaying in the jaunty advance of the delighted
porters. The machila stopped. Lucy emerged from it, then overcome with
dizziness sank down by the wayside. Quickly he had raised her,
unthinkingly and instinctively their arms were round each other.... "My
dearest girl! You are safe then? Your station has not been attacked?"
"My darling _Roger_! you have come for me ... take, oh, _take_ me away!"
Thus they spoke instinctively in continuation of thoughts long
sanctioned by their inner consciousness, but never outwardly expressed.
There were no listeners who could understand what the avowals meant.
Nevertheless they hastened to resume a correct parlance as between old
acquaintances and nothing more.
"I think," said Lucy, "you had better send one or two spare men on ahead
with a brief note to my husband saying you will be arriving at our
station in about an hour, that you met me on the road and will bring me
on with you. This will give our people time to--to--plan where to put
you all. There won't be room for everybody inside the stockade. Then
when you've sent off the note we can rest for half an hour or so in that
piece of shade, where there are the euphorbias and the fig trees, and I
shan't feel quite so shaky. I've been rather ill--I'll tell you all
about it when you've sent off the note."
Roger scribbled the message on a leaf out of his road-book.
"There is our station," said Lucy, "about two miles off, on that great
spur that comes out from the mountain. You can see the white houses and
the red brick chapel and the glint of the corrugated iron. And away to
the--well, I s'pose it's the south--is the chief Mbogo's principal
village--all those little brown huts...."
The two impatient messengers scarcely waited for this information but
bounded off to deliver their message and find some resting-place for the
caravan, extenuated as it was with the long, hot march.
Lucy took Roger's arm--how it thrilled her, how like an impossible dream
come true!--and followed by Halima and the machila reached the patch of
blue shade made by a group of candelabra euphorbias and fig trees with
thick glossy leaves and pendent branches. The ground underneath was
absolutely clear of any cover for snakes and was whitish with the ashes
of many a cooking fire, lit here by caravans arriving at evening and
preferring to postpone their interviews with Chief Mbogo--sometimes a
rapacious gentleman over his dues--till the morning light.
Whilst Brentham's cook was preparing a cup of tea, Lucy poured forth
tumultuously her story of the chief happenings of the past six months.
Brentham said in reply that she must have gone through a beastly time;
but she might now take heart. He had come with definite instructions to
take her away to the coast and her husband too, if the men-folk agreed.
"Any other English woman at the station?" he inquired.
Lucy told him there was Ann Jamblin, but did not think the present
moment the right one in which to expatiate on the irritating side of
Ann's disposition. Moreover now that she was going back to England, why
run down Ann? If Ann stayed behind, as she was convinced she would do,
she might be a great comfort to John. "Don't think it odd of me,"
finished Lucy, "if when we reach the station I go straight to my house
and to bed. I feel really too much shaken to take part in any
discussion. I would much sooner you settled everything with John. I'm
sure he won't oppose my going."