Part 11

All the same, dear Roger, I do miss you—dreadfully. Francis will keep up the grand manner and won't tell me any cabinet secrets. My brothers and sisters don't interest me, mother is too anxious about father's affairs to leave him for long, and when she is here I am nervous about discussing them for fear they may want to borrow money from Francis.

I have sent Maud an invitation because she reminds me faintly of you....

SIBYL.

From Mrs. Josling to Mrs. John Baines.

Church Farm Aldermaston July 30 (1887)

My darling girl

Father and me were so releaved at getting your letter ten days ago saying you had reached Unguja safe and sound and had just been married to John Baines by the Consul and at the Cathedral. It sounded quite grand being married twice, and I only hope youll be happy.

I went over to see Mrs. Baines at Tilehurst taking your letter with me but was receaved [underscored: none too graciously]. It seems John had not written to his parents to say he was married [strikeout: or even that he] but I suppose he hadent time before being so busy over his preperations for starting up country.

Well my darling we both wishes you every happiness. Your letter dident tell us much but I suppose you were too busy having to start away on a ship the next morning. We both send our humble thanks to Captain Brentham for looking after you on the voyage. Lady Silchester has had her baby—in the middle of last June. Father and me drove over last week to pay our respecs and make inquiries. His lordship himself came out to see and was nice as he always is. He's very like his poor mother and she was always the lady and spoke as nice to her servants as to her titled friends. Well Lord Silchester rang for the nurse and baby so as we might see it. It looked to me a poor little antique thing but of course I dident say so. It's been christened James after his Lordship's father but they say as her Ladyship wanted some other name more romantic like. She came in from the garden as we were leaving and gave herself such airs I thought but Father says she's a rare piece for good looks and we all ought to be grateful to her for giving an heir to the estate to keep out the Australian cousin who might have [strikeout: revvle] revolutionary ideas about farming. She ast after you a bit sarcastic like I thought. She says I hear your daughter flirted dredfully with my cousin Captain Brentham on the way out. I couldent help saying I dident believe it. My daughter I said would never be a flirt it wasnt in your nature. I felt so put out but his Lordship tried to make it come right by saying Her Ladyship musnt judge others by herself and that he quite believed me. Weve had a good hay crop and the wheat and root crops promises well. So Father's in rare good humour and says after harvest he's going to take us all to the sea-side Bournemouth or Southsea. Clara and Mary's both well. They never ail as you kno. Young Marden of Overeaston is paying Clara some attention. Leastways he drops in to Sunday supper pretty often.

We all send our love and I hope with all my hart you will be happy and continu well. I shall go on being anxious about you till you come back. Praps the Primitives will give John a call after he's done his bit of missionary work and youll be able to live in England close to us. I shant be happy till this comes to pass.

Your loving mother Clara Josling

From Mrs. Baines to her son John.

Tilehurst, October 14, 1887.

MY DEAR SON,—

I suppose a mother must expect to come off second best when her son marries and I ought to think myself lucky to hear from you once a year. But I confess I was put out in the summer only to get news of you through Lucy's mother. However, your letter written August 3, after Lucy had joined you at Hangodi, came to hand a few days ago. You must have had a terrible time getting her up-country. She seems so feckless and born to trouble. As though wild beasts and accidents sought her out.

I've just had a line from Ann Jamblin. She's got her head screwed on the right way. She left a month after Lucy and yet reached your station nearly as soon as you did. She didn't need to hang about that place—I can't spell its name—where you got married, and, she travelled up-country, she says, in record time with a missionary lady, a Mrs. Stott. She didn't fall off her donkey or have a lion in her tent or get ant all over her or turn sick every few weeks. Nor yet have herself looked after by free-thinking captains on the voyage out. But there. You've made your bed as the saying is and you must lie on it. It's far from my wish to come between husband and wife, and I'm glad Ann's gone to your station. She'll have a steadying influence on Lucy and be a great comfort to you and your companions. I suppose by now she's married to your friend Anderson. If so he'll have got a good wife and her bit of money will be a help.

Father's as well as he's ever likely to be. He suffers from brash, a sure sign of overeating.

Sister Simpson is going to marry Brother Wilkins the sidesman of our Reading Chapel. At present she's suffering from boils, but hopes to be well enough for the marriage next month. The Bellinghams at Cross Corner, Reading, Bakers and Fancy Confectioners, are in a bad way—going bankrupt they say. There's been a sad scandal about Pastor Brown at Bewdly wanting to marry his deceased wife's sister. It's forbidden I know in Holy Writ, though at time of writing I can't remember where, but see Leviticus xviii. and xx. Emily Langhorn has gone to London to learn dressmaking. Time she did and good behaviour likewise. I never listen to scandal, otherwise I should say it was all on account of her goings on with young Gilchrist. She took it very hard when he suddenly married Priscilla Lamb of Lamb's Boot Emporium, Abbey Road, Reading. I'm very glad I wouldn't have her here to the Dorcas meetings. She'd got her eye on you, I'm pretty sure. Sam Gildersleeves and Polly Scatcherd's got married, just in time it seems, to save her good name. People was beginning to cut her. Clara Josling, your wife's sister, is engaged to young Harden, a good-for-nothing cricketer. Plays with his brother and friends on Sunday afternoons. But I suppose you won't think the worse of him for that, now you've come under Lucy's influence. But oh what wickedness is coming on the world. Well, it can't last much longer. The vials of the Almighty's wrath are about to be opened and the Last Day is at hand—I feel and hope. I've advised your father to spend no more money on repairs at the Manufactory—It will last our time.

Meanwhile may God have you in his holy keeping. Father sends love. He's taken up with this new drink Zoedone and expects to make a lot of money out of it. Money, money, money and eat, eat, eat is all he thinks about. Still, that's better than breaking the Sabbath and running after strange women, which is what most of his neighbours is doing. And as to the women, it's dress, dress, dress and play acting. Mrs. Garrett's bustle was right down shocking last Sunday. I couldn't keep my eyes off it during Chapel. They've been making so much money lately out of sanding the sugar and selling dried tea-leaves for Best Family Blend Afternoon tea that they don't know how to spend it, so Mrs. G. has begun to dress fashionable—at her age too—and Mr. G. goes to St. Michael's instead of coming to Salem chapel where his parents worshipped before him. And as to this play acting, its one of the signs of the times. They've opened a theatre at Reading and have afternoon performances.—Several of our Tilehurst folk have been seen there and Pastor Mullins spoke about it in last Sunday's sermon.

Your loving mother, SARAH BAINES.

From Mrs. Spencer Bazzard to Mr. Bennet Molyneux, Foreign Office.

H.B.M. Vice-Consulate, Unguja, Novr. 1, 1887.

DEAR MR. MOLYNEUX,—

When am I to address you as "Sir Bennet"?—as it ought to be, if I dare express my thoughts. We look in each Honours' list expecting it. Spencer is quite bitter on the subject, but I tell him "comparisons are odious." At any rate I won't repeat his indiscretions.

We are all wondering here when Sir James Eccles is returning. I have not yet had the privilege of seeing him and can only take Spencer's opinions for guide. In Spencer's mind he is well-nigh irreplaceable. Spencer feels it would be little less than disastrous to place the control of Ungujan affairs in the hands of any younger or less experienced man. With Sir James Eccles the Germans will try no nonsense. They might even renounce their protectorate in despair if he were to return and had the influence of his Government behind him. Whereas with a weaker man, or even with one of no authority, merely an "acting" Consul-General, they may go to any lengths. I am foolish enough about my Husband to think—if there must be a stop-gap—that he would be better than—well, than the present Acting Consul-General. Spencer thoroughly distrusts the Germans and refuses even to learn their ugly language; whereas C-p-n B. is much too friendly with them and has gone to the length of saying we must not play the dog in the manger over Africa. It seems there have been great German African explorers as well as English, and Spencer's colleague thinks it rather hard they should not have colonies as well as we. Not knowing your own views I hesitate to express mine. And I should not be so presumptuous as to ask for any guidance or any answer even to this letter. I dare say if you think Spencer is to have more responsibility and initiative in the future you will privately instruct him as to the policy of your department.

That will not help me much, for Spencer, where official correspondence is concerned, is as close as—I can't think of a parallel! I mean, he won't tell me anything. Not that I am inquisitive. But I do want to be a help to him, and I also believe in the education of women. I should like to know all about Africa! But I also know your views—though they shock me. If I may judge from our conversations on that never-to-be-forgotten Saturday till Monday—last Easter—when Mrs. Molyneux was good enough to ask me down to Spilsbury— You think Woman should confine herself to superintending the household and her husband's comfort, to dressing well, and should not concern herself with politics. You may be right. And yet there are moments in which I rebel against these prescriptions. It may have been my bringing-up. My dear father, an officer in the Navy, died when I was very young, and darling mother brought me up with perhaps too much modern liberality. She entertained considerably—in a modest way, of course—at our house in North Kensington, and I was accustomed therefore from girlhood to meet with many different types of men and women—some of them widely travelled—and to hear a great variety of opinions.

Here, however, when I have attended to the affairs of our household—a small one, since we no longer live in the big Consulate—and have paid an occasional visit to some other Consul's wife or the nicer among the missionary women, I give myself up to the study of Swahili, the local language. Spencer, who is strong in fifty things where I am weak or totally wanting, is not absolutely of the first quality as a linguist, while I seem to have rather a gift that way. I am much complimented on my French, and although I dislike German I force myself to speak it. I can now make myself understood in what Spence calls the "dam" lingo of the natives. And if I told you I was also grappling with Hindustani I am afraid you would class me unfavourably with your pet aversion, a "blue stocking"!

But I will defy your bad opinion. I am determined to fit myself for Spencer's promotion which must surely come in time, especially as we can both stand the climate fairly well. I have only been down once with fever since I came out, and Spence sets malaria at defiance with cocktails and an occasional stiff whisky peg. Between us before long we ought to know all that is worth knowing at Unguja. And Spence is so popular with the natives. They instinctively look up to a strong man.

As to the missionaries they simply swarm on the island and the mainland. Some of the Church of England ones are quite nice and are really gentlemen and ladies. And there are one or two adorable old priests in the French Mission who pay me pretty compliments on my French and declare I must have learnt it in Paris. But there are also some awful cranks. There is a Mrs. Stott who puts in an appearance once in a way from some very wild part of the interior and asks me with great cheerfulness if I am saved, or if I love the Lord. It is wonderful how she keeps her appearance, as she goes about without a sunshade and has been tossed several times by rhinoceroses. Her voracity for hymn singing is extraordinary. Perhaps it acts on her constitution like these new Swedish gymnastics.

Quite another type of recruit for the Nonconformist Missions came out with me from England last spring. A National School mistress, I believe, originally. She was the daughter of a farmer in Lord Silchester's country. Some thought her pretty, but it was that prettiness which soon evaporates under a tropical sun. She seemed to me thoroughly insipid and had not even that faith in mission work which at least excuses the strange proceedings of her companions. As soon as the ship started she put herself under the wing of our Acting Consul-General who was not slow to reciprocate. They carried on a flirtation during the voyage which—but I am afraid I am not very modern—was not the best preparation for marrying a Methodist missionary—a dreadful gauche-looking creature who came to claim her at Unguja. However a woman should always stand by women, so I did the best I could for her when they were married by the Acting Consul-General.

That important personage—Is he a friend of yours? If so, I will promise to see nothing but good in him—prefers to live all alone in Sir James Eccles' house, where Spencer had transferred himself after Sir James's departure. We had proposed joining households with him, and I was quite ready to have made a home for him during his brief tenure of the post. But apparently he preferred my room to my company, so of course I did not press my offer. He entertains very little on the plea that he is too much occupied with work and study.

Well! If I write much more you will dismiss me as a bore. So I must sign myself,

Yours gratefully, EMILIA BAZZARD.

P.S. I expect no answer. But if you do not order me to the contrary I shall post you from time to time a budget of gossip from Unguja in the hope that it may prove amusing.

There is no news at all of Stanley. Emin, they say, is still holding out. Each steamer brings more and more Germans, to Spencer's great disgust. E.B.

From Captain Brentham to his sister Maud.

H.B.M. Agency, Unguja, Decr. 1, 1887.

DEAR OLD MAUD,—

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....