Part 21

The Hangodi business is a different matter. There is little doubt in my mind that B. was a little spoony on Mrs. Baines—They had travelled out together, and it seems she comes from near his part of the world in Berkshire-Hampshire—Jolly district, near the Carnarvons and the Silchesters.—Ever go there to shoot? But Mrs. Baines had been ill from one of these confinements that Missionary ladies—married, of course—have so regularly, and her husband seems really to have wished his wife to go away with Brentham. To make it all right and proper he packed off at the same time the other woman at their station, a strong-minded female named Jamblin. (She figures very much in the dispatches I sent home last mail.) Well: according to Brentham, this Jamblin woman, when they had done a few marches and stopped at another Mission station, insisted, positively insisted on going back to Hangodi, and equally insisted on his taking Mrs. Baines to the coast. He oughtn't to have agreed. That's where he was weak. He ought to have returned to Hangodi and helped to beat off the attack—if it came, as it did—and then have refused to take the ladies away unless the men came too. Instead of that, Brentham, having found some missionaries of whom he was in search, hung about their place until the news of the attack on Hangodi and the death of Mrs. Baines's husband reached him. After that he made for the coast by the northern route, the only one open to him at that time without fighting. Even on this route they had some most extraordinary adventures and spent a devil of a time before they got back to civilization—as we call ourselves by contrast.

The general opinion among the missionaries, I know, is unfavourable to Mrs. Baines, and in consequence to Brentham. But Brentham swears to me on his honour—and I believe him—there was nothing "wrong" between them. Jennie—my wife—says he's as straight as a die; though never having seen a "die," I can't say. At any rate, Jennie, on whose judgment I always rely, has taken a great liking to Brentham. So she has also to the young party with whom he has become involved, this Mrs. John Baines. The poor girl—she doesn't look her age—26—was stranded here at their Mission Depot, and Jennie, after hearing about her, went over in her impulsive way and brought her to the Agency. This has put a stopper on local gossip, which has thus been deprived of a rare morsel that would otherwise have acted as a real tonic on a fever-stricken community. Now Jennie says that although there's never been anything between them but what was right and proper, they ought to marry as soon as six months is up from the death of the first husband—which we presume took place on October 29th, from the accounts of that masterful person who now calls herself Ann Anderson. Jennie had but to make the suggestion and they both consented, so the civil marriage—the only legal one here—is fixed for March 31. Whether Archdeacon Gravening will consent to marry them at the Cathedral in addition, I cannot say. He is thinking it over. The matter has been speeded up by your intimation that the F.O. intends to recall Brentham. If he went back and didn't marry her, things would go hardly with Mrs. Baines. (I really have taken a liking to her, and I could imagine when she gets to a good climate she might be quite pretty. She is very quiet, and in a quiet way is rather entertaining in her accounts of what they went through in their wild journey to the coast.)

Well: when the wedding is over, I propose breaking to him the F.O. instructions to return and give an account of himself. I must give him just enough time to go over to the mainland and try to settle things at his Consulate there. The Spencer Bazzards—who have a down on him—report that an utter muddle followed his departure for the interior last September, and accuse his Indian clerk of embezzling Consular funds, and, worse still, of selling the office cipher code to the Germans. This, if true, is a confounded nuisance, as it will oblige us to make changes all round. Fortunately it is only Cipher Q.

I suppose you know Captain Wissmann has arrived at Medina at the head of a force of over a thousand picked men to fight the Arabs to a finish? Other German officers have met him there with further contingents—Zulus and Makua. Wissmann's people are mainly Sudanese. I suppose we have done right in enabling him to raise this force on what is practically British territory—British or Portuguese? I like Wissmann personally. After all—as Brentham says—if we hadn't the pluck to take all East Africa for ourselves at the time we were first challenged by Bismarck, it is better that the German share should be properly controlled and not fall back into a state of anarchy and slave-raiding. But, of course, what ties our hands in all these matters is the intense desire of France to raise the Egyptian question to our disadvantage.—Therefore, don't think I am girding at the Office for irresolution. The French here make my life a burden to me with their intrigues....

Yours sincerely, GODFREY DEWBURN.

From Lucy Brentham to Mrs. Albert Josling, Church Farm, Aldermaston.

Mbweni, Unguja, April 2, 1889.

DARLING MOTHER,—

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.

So in a few more weeks darling mother you will meet again

Your own LUCY.

P.S. Love to father and the dear girls. Do see what you can do with Mrs. Baines. I feel so sorry for her, and I should so like to tell her about John. Things might have been so different if only my little baby had lived, John felt it dreadfully.

Private and Confidential. H.M. Agency and Consulate-General, Unguja, April 2.

DEAR BAZZARD,—

I take advantage of a British steamer which is crossing to-day to Medina to send you this hurried note.

Your colleague, Captain Brentham, was married on March 31 to Mrs. John Baines, the widow of the poor fellow who was killed at Hangodi. Brentham will probably be returning to England very shortly on leave of absence (I understood from you you were willing to postpone your leave for a few months). Before he goes I have asked him to co-operate with you in getting affairs at the Medina Consulate settled up satisfactorily, so that you may formally take over from him and be Acting Consul there till there are further developments. I am very grateful to you and Mrs. Bazzard for stepping into the breach caused by these confounded disturbances which have not only occurred in the German hinterland but are now beginning in ours—so we mustn't boast too soon!

Brentham had to leave, as you know, very hurriedly last September, and if the Arabs had succeeded in taking the town matters would have been ever so much worse than they are. He says if there turns out really to be any deficit in the cash due to the embezzlement of the Indian clerk—if he did embezzle—but what has become of him? Was he killed?—he is willing to make it good out of his own pocket. (Rather hard on him as he could not help leaving this man in charge; but I may come in like a benevolent arbiter if the affair is serious.) The loss or disappearance of the office cipher is a serious business—very—. I don't see what good it would be retrieving it from the Germans, as, if they have had it at all in their possession, they have probably derived from it all the information they want!

Whilst Brentham is over at Medina I want him to have an interview with the German commandant, Captain Wissmann, as he can convey to him a message from me.

I hope Mrs. Bazzard continues well? She has certainly shown she can stand the climate. But we mustn't try her too far.

Sincerely yours ... GODFREY DEWBURN.

When this letter reached Spencer Bazzard he took it promptly to his wife, who was seated before her dressing-table rubbing a little of the "hair-restorer" into the very roots of her hair, which had an exasperating way of not starting gold from the skin-level. She said, keeping her eyes fixed on the glass, "Read it aloud." He did so. "Hooray," she exclaimed, with ordered joy so as not to interfere with the delicate operation—they were going out to dine that night with a German functionary—"Hooray! That means he's scuppered. He's going home, you bet, rather off colour. They've made him marry her to placate the missionaries. But he'll never bother us again out here. Well, we'll be civil to him in the clearing up."

From Captain Roger Brentham to Lady Silchester.

Mbweni, Unguja, April 2, 1889.

DEAR SIBYL,—

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.