The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance
times, before turning in, or even while playing whist in the Captain's
cabin and thinking of anything but the game, he would _curse_ these long
steamer voyages and these episodes of love! There was that voyage out
in 1880--he had narrowly missed a breach of promise action then, and he
would be hanged if he'd set out to be more than sociable. And the last
time he had returned to England ... Mrs. Traquhair, the wife of the
chief electrician at Unguja.... Only the fact that in the Mediterranean
she had developed one of those Rose Boils which were a legacy of
Unguja's mosquitoes, and which confined her to her cabin till the Bay of
Biscay (when they were all sea-sick), had prevented the irrevocable.
And all the time he believed himself engaged to Sibyl! And afterwards,
when he had met Mrs. Traquhair and her sister--_and_ the sister! Oh my
God,--in London and had dined them at the "Cri." and taken them to see
Arthur Roberts from a box, and had scanned Mrs. T.'s profile as he had
never done before and watched her laugh at the comedian, showing all the
gold in her teeth ... he asked himself _how on earth_ he could have
kissed her so passionately as they were passing through the Suez Canal.
Yet she couldn't have been a bad sort because she had never attempted to
bother him or follow it up.... But he couldn't class Lucy with Mrs.
Traquhair or the siren of the 1880 voyage. She was utterly good and
innocent of schemes to entrap him. A sweet little thing...
As they passed into the Indian Ocean between Guardafui and Sokotra,
there was a temporary lull in the wind. It was a moonlight night; they
were sitting side by side under the open sky, for the deck-awning had
been removed on account of the monsoon. A sudden fierce longing--there
was no one on deck that he could see--seized him to take her in his arms
and kiss her. And there came a telepathic message that she was aching
to be so taken and kissed. But he resisted the impetus, with clenched
hands on the arms of his chair. Silence had set in between them. A
catch of Lucy's breath was faintly audible, and--dare I say it? A
snivel, a tiny snivel.
"_Lucy_? _Crying_? My _dear_ child! Why ... cheer up. We shall soon
be there.. You're not cold?"
"You don't understand.... I ... I ... don't _want_ to get there.... I
don't want to marry him; I _hate_ the very idea...."
"Oh, but this will never do.... This is foolishness, believe me. Lucy!
Pull yourself together."
Lucy now sobbed frantically.
Mrs. Bazzard was heard saying from quite close by, "Which is Gyuardifwee
and which is what-you-may-call-'em--Ras Hafoon? I mean, the cape where
some of the steamers run ashore in the mist, and then you have to walk
through Somaliland and get sunstroke?"
Brentham exclaimed under his breath: "_Damn_ that woman!" and audibly,
even a little insolently replied: "I'm _blessed_ if I know. You'd
better ask the Captain. He's on the bridge and dying for a gossip, and
he'll probably give you a cup of cocoa."
Mrs. Bazzard walked away--or pretended to do so.
"Lucy dear. I want to speak to you while that cat has gone out of
ear-shot. Calm yourself and listen, because I must speak in a low tone.
If you feel you would sooner die than go through with this marriage, you
shan't be forced into it. I will speak to Archdeacon Gravening ... or
the Bishop ... and they will know of some nice women of the Anglican
Mission who would take you in for a few weeks ... till there is a return
steamer.... Then on the plea of 'health' you can go back to England. I
could easily advance the money for the steamer passage ... some day your
parents could repay me. But even if they didn't, it doesn't matter. I
do so want you to be _happy_.... I blame myself awfully for the silly
things I've said to you ... about religion ... it may have made you
dislike mission work...."
But Lucy sobbed out "It hadn't ... that she was a little fool and he
mustn't take any notice ... she'd never, _never_ behave like this again
... after his extraordinary kindness too, which she would always be
grateful for. He mustn't think any more about it or ever refer to it
again...."
And before he could say anything more, or that cat, Mrs. Bazzard,
return, she slipped down to her cabin, where fortunately she was alone
and could cry her fill without attracting attention. But as she lay on
the bunk, she set her teeth and resolved, come what may, she would _not_
put thousands of miles between her and ... "Roger" ... she mentally
uttered the name. Better to live within a few hundred miles of where he
was and sometimes see and hear him. Why ... _Why_ ... did he not ask
her to marry him? Yes, and ruin his career. What would they all say at
Unguja ... and _John_? ... Poor John! what a shock it would be to him.
There was the note he had sent to greet her at Aden, to the address of
the steamer agent. She had opened it, but not read it through, so
infatuated was she with Brentham just then.... The next morning Lucy
breakfasted in the Ladies' Saloon, pleading sea-sickness. Later on, she
went to the upper-deck, but armed herself with the Swahili Grammar, a
defence against a Brentham who purposely stayed away, talking with the
Captain, and none against Mrs. Bazzard, who pestered her with inquiries
as to her "headache," expressing the quotation marks in her tone.
Relations however became more normal all round the day after that. In
two more days they had anchored off Lamu. Lucy saw two low islands,
with hazy forest country on the distant mainland. Lamu island had low
sandhills projecting into the sea, and on one of them was an obelisk or
pillar which Captain Brentham said was an important historical monument
erected by the Portuguese nearly four hundred years before. The two
women were eager to land and see East Africa for the first time. They
went ashore with him in the Vice-Consul's boat; for there was a
Vice-Consul here who had been expecting Brentham's visit and was
delighted to find two English ladies invading his solitude. They saw,
when they landed, masses of vague masonry, the remains of Portuguese or
Arab forts, and a litter of human skulls and bones on the beach at which
they both shrieked in simulated horror. These might have been the
results of the last Somali raid, or of slaves who had died on the shore
unshipped, owing to the vigilance of British cruisers, or even have
dated back to the expulsion of the Portuguese by the Arabs two hundred
years before. The town of Lamu was a two miles' walk along the sandy
shore from the point, where they had landed, but the sight of the
extraordinary coloured, blue, red, and green crabs that scuttled and yet
threatened with uplifted claws, and of the natives who accompanied them
in a laughing rabble, some clothed to the heels, others practically
naked, relieved the tedium of the journey. The smells from the
precincts and the heart of Lamu town were so awful as to be interesting.
The strongest--from rancid shark's liver oil--was said to be quite
wholesome, but that from the sewage and the refuse on the shore-mud
caused them to hold handkerchiefs to noses. However, the town was very
picturesque with its Arab and Persian houses of white stone, its
Saracenic doorways, in the angles of which Persian pottery was embedded,
and its heavy doors of carved wood. The Consulate stood a little beyond
the town, in a walled garden of palms, fig trees, and trees of gorgeous
scarlet blossoms. Here they had a cup of tea, and the Consular boat,
which had been following them along the shore, took them back to the
_Jeddah_, thankful in the blazing sunshine for their pith helmets and
white umbrellas.
This excursion somehow, with its introduction to the realities and
romance of tropical Africa, braced up Lucy for the next day but one,
when in the very early morning the _Jeddah_ anchored in the roadstead of
Unguja. She was dressed by eight o'clock and sat awaiting in the stuffy
Ladies' Saloon the arrival of John, or whoever was coming to meet her.
Sat with trembling, perspiring hands in open-work cotton gloves, wishing
the suspense over. There were sounds of loud voices on deck.... Mrs.
Bazzard, exploding in connubial raptures over her husband; Bazzard, in
between her embraces, striving to assume a partly respectful, partly
comrade-like attitude with Captain Brentham, to combine a recognition
that he was greeting his official superior for the moment with the
assured standing of one who had had longer experience of official cares.
She heard him saying: "Your boat is waiting for you, Sir. I will
arrange to send a lighter for your baggage as soon as it is up out of
the hold...."
Then blundering steps down some stairway and along the passage, and John
stood before her, sun-helmet in hand, eyes blazing with hungry love,
saying, stammering rather--"My _Lucy_! C--Come at last! _Oh_, how I've
looked forward.... How..." But he crushed her to him in a rough
embrace, unmindful of her delicate cotton dress and of the fact that his
red face was covered with perspiration.... But there was something so
appealing and yet so masterful in his love, and also something so
reminiscent of the park seat at Englefield and that Sunday walk, that
Lucy in yielding to his embrace said within herself, "How _could_ I have
thought of throwing him over?"
Together they went on shore. Brentham had not even stayed to say
good-bye. Somebody saw after her luggage. She had so lost interest in
it that she did not care if anything was missing.... Then John said: "I
hope you've brought out the Harmonium that your uncle gave us," and she
replied a little listlessly: "Oh yes! it was _such_ a bother getting it
across London, but I think it's on board."
"I am taking you," said John, inconsequently, in the boat, devouring her
with his eyes all the time, "to stay with Mrs. Ewart Stott until we're
married."
*CHAPTER VII*
*UNGUJA--AND UP-COUNTRY*
Every two or three years in those days you met either Mr. _or_ Mrs.
Ewart Stott at Unguja, usually at the ramshackle residence and place of
business of Mr. Callaway, the Commercial Agent of the East African
Mission. And when Mrs. Ewart Stott was there she took command, so that
you instinctively greeted her as hostess. Mr. Callaway was quite
willing it should be so, because she accomplished wonders in setting his
untidy house in order; she gingered up his servants and routed the
cockroaches, chased away some of the smells, and generally cured a
feverish attack by quinine, chicken broth, and motherly care.
The Ewart Stotts as missionaries were independent because Mrs. Ewart
Stott had begun as Church of England and Mr. E. S. as a Presbyterian,
yet they could not quite agree with the discipline or the ideals of the
different churches or sects and preferred evangelizing East Africa on a
plan of their own. They had private means--at any rate at first; until
they had run through them in founding mission stations, whereafter they
were supported by anonymous benefactors. And as their tenets and _modus
operandi_ were nearest to those of the Methodists' East African Mission,
they worked alongside them and made use of their Agent and depot at
Unguja.
Both were of Ulster parentage, with some admixture of a more genial
stock; yet both were born in Australia. She as a Miss Ewart and he
originally a Mr. Stott. At the same moment, so to speak, they had "found
Christ," and it really seemed a logical sequel that Providence should
bring them together at some Australian religious merry-making. They
instantly fell in love, quickly married and fused their surnames. She
was twenty, he twenty-two. She was distinctly personable and he quite