I expect you got my letter written early in January after I had got back
to Unguja. The news must have come to you as an awful shock. And what
it has been to Mrs. Baines I dare not _think_. I expect I shall get
some sort of answer from you in a day or two when the mail comes in.
But as there is a steamer going to-morrow I dash off this letter to give
you other news: _good_ news this time, dearest.
I was married on March 31st last to Captain Roger Brentham, the Consul
for the Mainland. You know all about him from my letters. It is true
it is only a little more than six months since poor John died, and some
people will think it much too soon afterwards to marry again, but you
and Father will understand. Roger is shortly going home.--_Think_ of it,
darling mother! We are going--or should one say, "we are
coming"?--HOME. I put it in capitals. He has wanted to marry me ever
since we knew of John's death. We both feel sure John would think it
the wisest thing to do, even Ann Jamblin does. Well, Roger being called
back by the Foreign Office, he could hardly leave me behind here and if
he hadn't asked me to marry him I couldn't have stopped here all by
myself, unless I had joined some missionary society. And that I didn't
feel inclined to do. I don't think I'm suited for the work. But don't
think I want _to run down_ the Missionaries. Far from it, after all
I've seen. Mission work quite changed John. It made him so _good_ and
_unselfish_. And although I've many reasons for feeling sore and angry
about Ann Jamblin that was.--She isn't dead, but she's married in a sort
of a way to that Ebenezer Anderson of our Mission.--Well, even Ann is
twice the woman she was in old days at Tilehurst. They call her
here--at least, the local paper does--It's run by an Eurasian--I'll tell
you some day what Eurasian means ... they call her "The Heroine of
Hangodi." I believe somebody is going to write about her in the English
papers; and the German commander on the mainland, Captain Wissmann--has
sent her his compliments, and said he can always admire a brave woman no
matter what her nationality. Isn't it all funny when we think of what
she was like at school and how greedy she used to be at the
prayer-meetings? There is a missionary couple here--I've mentioned them
in my other letters, Mr. and Mrs. Stott. You can't _think_ how good
they've been to me. I've got lots and lots and lots to tell you when we
meet. But I must be quick and finish this letter.
Well: I was married to my darling Roger last Wednesday, and if it wasn't
every now and then that I think about poor John I should be the happiest
woman alive. Mother, I've _always_ loved him since that first morning
we met on the steamer and he pointed out the Isle of Wight, and then
took such care of me all through the voyage. And he says he fell in
love with me the same time. Isn't that _wonderful_ when you think of
all the great ladies he has seen, many of them I'm sure in love with
him. When I asked him why, he just kissed me and said it was my violet
eyes and my look of utter helplessness. But I feel it is _too sacred_
to talk or write about. I was always a true wife to poor John. People
may think and say what they like. There is a horrid old cat here on the
Mainland, who also travelled out with me. I'm sure she says and writes
horrid things about me. It's only jealousy. But even now, Mother, I
haven't told you almost the most wonderful thing of all! I did just say
in my last letter how I'd gone to stay with the wife of the
Consul-General. It happened this way. When we first landed here from
one of those dreadful Arab sailing-boats that are full of what you
_will_ call B flats but what I think--and so does Roger--it is much more
sensible to call "bugs" straight out--when we landed Roger said, "You'd
better go to Mr. Callaway and stay there first till I can find out what
it's best to do for you." So there I went, and I was just _miserable_.
I didn't like to tell you how much at the time for fear of its upsetting
you. I really felt almost like committing suicide, only I should never
do anything so wicked. But there I lay, inside my mosquito curtain in a
room like a Turkish bath, crying, _crying_ to myself about poor John and
thinking I should never see Roger again, and what Mrs. Baines would say
when I came back all alone; when in walked Lady Dewburn, the wife of the
Consul-General--"my boss"--as Roger calls him. She would have it that I
was to go away with her then and there. Mother, I'd hardly any clothes
after that dreadful journey; that was one reason I felt ashamed to go
out. Well, she put me in a lovely cool bedroom at the top of her
house.--It has a flat roof and I used so to enjoy walking out of my room
and looking at the sea and the natives down below and the ships and
palms. She had my meals sent up to me and often came up herself to
inquire, and for a week she got Indian tailors to cut out and sew
clothes for me to wear. When they were ready I had got quite well
again, and then she brought me down and introduced me to her husband,
who is the great man of this place. _He_ used rather to make fun of me,
tease me you know, but he was kind under it all. Mother, if I'd been
_their own daughter_ they couldn't have treated me kinder. She wouldn't
let me thank her, said I was a distressed British subject and it was her
duty. And after I'd been staying with them about six weeks and was
beginning to say I ought to earn my living or else go home, she said,
wouldn't you as an alternative like to marry Roger Brentham? And I
said, He'd never ask me and if he did I should only spoil his career.
And she said, _Nonsense_. And the next day, when they had both gone out
driving, Roger came to the room where I was working with Halima (who,
strange to say, has married his cook!) and asked me to be his wife. How
could I say anything but "yes"? I know now I should have died of
consumption or something if he hadn't. But of course I said--"It can't
be till poor John has been dead a year." Then that evening when I told
Lady Dewburn, she said, "Nonsense! I can see no reason why it shouldn't
be at the end of March. Then if Captain Brentham has to go home you can
return with him." So, of course, I gave in.
I'm afraid it'll make lots of people angry, especially Mrs. Baines. How
can we break it to her?
There are a _thousand_ other things I can tell you, but if I don't
finish this letter now I shan't be in time to put it in the Agency
mail-bag, which I always think is so much safer than the ordinary post,
and I don't have to stamp it.