I don't think you have any realization of what I've been through lately
or you'd have written to inquire, or condole, or encourage. I've had a
regular "gaffe"--tell you more about it by and bye. And a wonderful
journey in the interior worthy of a Royal Geographical Society's
medal--tell you more about _that_ too some day--and--don't start--I've
got married!
You always predicted I should marry a "missionaryess." Well: I've done
so. Yes, you were right, true Sibyl that you are. I've married the
dear little girl--for so she seems to me--whom I escorted out to Unguja
three years ago and whom I married myself to her young missionary
husband, who was going to a station in the interior called Hangodi.
There followed a tragic time. I dare say the newspapers will have told
you all about it. She and I got locked up, so to speak, in the far
interior and I never thought she, at any rate, would get to the coast
alive.
Well: I felt after all we'd gone through together there was only one
thing--the right thing--to do, being also very much in love with her.
Lady Dewburn (you know whom I mean) thought precisely the same; and Lady
Dewburn, let me say, is about the _best_ woman I know. I shall _never_
forget what she did for my poor Lucy. Dewburn performed the civil
ceremony for us and gave a small and quiet wedding breakfast after the
"small and quiet" wedding at the Cathedral. My old friend Gravening
("the Venble. Archdeacon") was awfully nice about the whole thing ...
fully approved of my marrying Lucy, under all the sad circumstances, and
said he'd fix up the religious part. Because you know what women are.
They never think they've been properly married unless it's in a Church
or if they do, their mothers don't.
I know I've got some rough places to get over before I can settle down
to work and go full steam ahead, but I look to you and other true
friends, real pals--to pull me through. The F.O. seems to have a down
on me and a proportion of the Mission World likewise. But when they
hear the whole story they will see I was simply dogged with misfortune
and did all I could possibly have done. Unfortunately while I was away
in the interior everything went to pieces at my Consulate, and two awful
bounders--the Bazzards, more about them when we meet--are exploiting it
to the utmost.
I am going back to the mainland after a week's holiday to get things put
right at the Consulate. Hope I shan't take Bazzard by the throat, or
lose my temper with his Bayswater wife. I simply _mustn't_. Well: when
I have done all that and left the Bazzards properly installed I take the
next steamer back with Lucy. Two years, nearly, have I been out here,
and six months' leave on full pay is due to me. I am going home
nominally to report. Wonder whether they will send me back? In any
case I look to you, dear Cousin and friend, to give me a helping
hand--not so much about Consular matters--I feel there if common justice
is dealt out I can stand on my own--but as regards little Lucy. Her
father's status and that of my father are not very different, when you
come to look at it, except that Josling is probably a much more useful
member of the community. But she may want a helping hand when we come
home, if we are asked out and about. Of course, with her extraordinary
African experience behind her she will be quite as interesting to meet
as a Lady Baker, a Miss Gordon Cumming, or Isabella Bird----
I've written a short note to good old Maud and a still shorter one to
the Pater. Rather rough on a man after only two days of honeymoon to
have to sit down and compose all these epistles, even though it is in a
tropical paradise like Mbweni--but with the thermometer at ninety
something in the shade. I am sure Maud will take to Lucy; not so sure
about you. You have become so grand. As to the Pater, he'll hardly pay
much attention to us unless we could consent to be buried at Silchester
and excavated by him! Maud wrote some time ago to say his neglect of
his Church work for excavation of Roman sites was becoming such a
scandal that they'd had to engage a curate for Farleigh.
And that the curate hadn't been there two months before he had proposed
to her, been refused, and then settled down to a "filial" manner.
How is Silchester? It's getting on for a year since I had a letter from
you; but I saw in a recent newspaper he'd been down with influenza but
was "making good progress." That always reads ominously.
Look out for me sometime in May. I hope I shall be as welcome as the
flowers of that same. I'm bringing you home some leopard skins and an
African rattle for Clitheroe. So long!