The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance
with Brentham. Presumably he was too busy over political and Consular
matters. Once indeed when walking with John through the winding streets
of the African-Oriental city she had seen him out riding with Bazzard,
the Vice-Consul. John had accomplished all the preliminary formalities,
and on her marriage morning--early on account of the heat--Lucy went in
one of the Sultan's carriages, attended by Mrs. Stott and the two ladies
of the Anglican Mission, to the British Agency. John met them at the
entrance; they walked slowly up the stone steps to the office for the
transaction of Consular business. Bazzard, with Mrs. Bazzard--the
latter assuming the airs of a Vice-reine--met them there and ranged the
wedding party in order. Brentham then entered, bowed to them both, but
avoided meeting Lucy's eyes. He put to them in a level business-like
voice the necessary interrogatory and declared them duly married. The
party then passed into one of the Agency's drawing-rooms.
Champagne--and lemonade for the teetotalers--was served, together with
mixed biscuits and sweetmeats. The Acting Consul-General proposed the
health of the Bride, and for the first time looked Lucy full in the
face. He next withdrew on to a verandah and talked for some time with
the bridegroom about his mission station and the journey thither and
spoke earnestly on the subject of Lucy and her welfare, instancing his
interest in her home-country as well as his position as "their" Consul
to explain his anxiety as to her future. Then returning to the general
company he handed Lucy a small case which he said contained a trifling
wedding present and wished her all possible happiness, promising "some
day or other" to visit her in her new home. He grasped her hand with a
brief pressure and--pleading urgent business as an excuse for not
following the party to the Cathedral--withdrew to his office. Mrs.
Bazzard introduced her husband and bestowed a condescending patronage on
Lucy and on the Mission ladies, who, never having met her before, found
themselves almost audibly wondering who on earth she was, and
where--with that slightly cockney accent--she had come from.
The religious ceremony at the Cathedral was one of considerable
ecclesiastical pomp, secretly enjoyed by John Baines; who, however,
thought on what mother would say when he told her he had nearly been
married by a Bishop and quite so by an Archdeacon, and still more how
she would have appreciated the black acolytes in their scarlet cassocks
and white dalmatics, the incense-smell in the building, and the
vestments of the clergy.
After they left the Cathedral they repaired to the Arab house of stone
and rich Persian and Kurdish carpets in which Archdeacon Gravening
lived. Here an unpretentious luncheon was given as a wedding breakfast.
Gravening hardly ever spoke about religion, which was why Mrs. Stott
despaired of his being saved, though she admitted he was compact of
quiet kindness. His one enthusiasm was language study. He was deeply
versed in the Bantu languages and translated for the Anglican Mission
most of the works they required to use in their schools and churches.
He had corresponded with John Baines, and the latter had written down
for him samples of vocabularies of the different languages heard in his
district.
Some insight into the conflict going on in the dazed mind of Lucy--who
throughout these ceremonies looked as though she were a wound-up
automaton--inspired Mrs. Stott to suggest to John that as they were due
to start in the Arab dau early the next morning in order to reach the
mainland port of Lingani before nightfall, Lucy should spend the rest of
her marriage-day and night with Mrs. Stott, and their honeymoon should
not commence till they reached the Mission house at Lingani. This they
would have to themselves for three or four days whilst their caravan for
up-country was being got ready. Accordingly poor John, when the wedding
luncheon was over and the guests had dispersed, surrendered Lucy to Mrs.
Stott and spent the rest of the day rather disconsolately making his
preparations for departure. Lucy got through much of that hot afternoon
in her nightdress--for coolness--inside the mosquito curtains of her
bed, weeping at times hysterically; tortured with homesickness one
minute and at another seized with a mad longing to call on Brentham at
the Agency and see him once more. Sometimes she felt an actual dislike
for John; at others a great pity for him, yet a shuddering at the idea
of his embraces, of any physical contact with him.
Mrs. Stott prayed for her, apart in her own bedroom but the Divine
direction of her thoughts seemed to take the line that the least said
was the soonest mended, and that the young couple had better be left to
their own society at Lingani to come to an understanding.
The next morning, however, it was a composed though rather silent Lucy
who was punctually ready to go away with John when he came to fetch her
to embark in the dau. Mrs. Stott had risen early to make coffee for
them and give them a send-off of embraces, and provisions for a nice
cold lunch on board. "My dear," she said to Lucy, "you'll have a
_delightful_ water picnic. There's going to be just wind enough to blow
you across. I wish I were coming with you, but I shan't get away for
another fortnight. However, we shall meet in the interior, I dare say,
before very long."
John had made for his bride a little nest among cushions and clean
brightly-coloured grass mats in the deck cabin of the dau (a mere
palm-thatch shelter), and for an hour or so a smile came back to Lucy's
sad face as she appreciated the pleasant freshness of the morning
breeze, the picturesqueness of the boat and the vivid blue or emerald
green of the water according as it was deep or shallow. She had quite
an appetite for the early lunch which Mrs. Stott had thoughtfully
provided. But presently an anxious look came into her face and a
restlessness of manner. "John! Can I be coming out in a rash? I feel
an intolerable itching round my neck and wrists--Oh! Horror! What is
this?" And she pointed to some flat, dark brown disks which were
scurrying out of sight up her arms and into the folds of her linen
bodice....
"_Bugs!_" said John, shocked and apologetic, "they are sometimes found
in these Arab vessels.... I am so sorry.... Yet there was no other way
of crossing to Lingani...."
Lucy went white with disgust. From the palm mid-ribs which arched over
the cabin roof of thatch there came dropping hundreds of bugs on to the
unhappy young woman, ignoring or avoiding him who would have willingly
offered himself as sacrifice and substitute. Lucy in her dismay,
knowing she could not undress before the boatmen and porters and yet not
knowing how she could endure hours of this maddening irritation from
half-venomous bites, broke out into weeping. "What _was_ to be done?"
questioned the poor distraught bridegroom. The gentle breeze had died
away ... an intense heat prevailed; the dau scarcely moved across a
glassy sea ... the Nakhodha or bwahih captain of the dau was standing up
over the rudder and signalling with his sinewy hand, crying out in a
melodious cadence: "Njoo! Kusi-Kusi, Njoo, Kusi-Kusi!"[#] afraid his
vessel might be becalmed and prevented from reaching port in daylight.
The boat-men and porters were looking at one another with round eyes as
they heard the Bibi[#] crying convulsively in the deck cabin. John in
his desperation had a bright idea. He knew that the ordinary, vaunted
insecticides had no terror for, no deterrent effect on, either bugs or
their unrelated mimics, the poisonous ticks of Central Africa; but that
both alike fled before the smell of petroleum. There were tins of that
mineral oil on board provision for his lamps up-country. Opening one of
these cautiously, for petroleum was very precious, he filled an
enamelled iron cup and then stoppered the tin. From his medicine chest
he obtained cotton-wool. Then with wads of this, and with his
handkerchief, he dabbed the swollen wrists and the weals on Lucy's neck
and advised her to thrust the saturated wads and linen inside her
clothing.
[#] "Come south wind, come!"
[#] Lady.
The strong odour of the oil in a few minutes caused the blood-sucking
insects to withdraw and return to their lairs in the thatch and boards.
The south wind came at last in puffs, which lessened the heat, but there
set in a swell which caused the dau to roll. This movement disturbed
the bilge water below the decks, and from this was disengaged a
sulphuretted-hydrogen stench almost bad enough to drive the bugs from
Lucy's mind. But the wind grew steadier and at last blew the rotten dau
to the landing-place at the mouth of a river where they were to
disembark.
Lingani was a smaller edition of Unguja Town: flat-roofed Arab houses of
white-washed coral rock, thatched wattle-and-daub huts, groves of
coco-nut palms, a few Casuarina trees and Frangipani shrubs, pariah
dogs, wandering zebu cattle, and dwarf goats. The Mission Rest-house was
a substantial stone building in the Arab style of East Africa. It was
maintained jointly by four missionary societies for use by their members
in transit. There was a Swahili couple in charge of it, husband and
wife. The bed linen, table-cloths, napkins and cutlery were kept in
cupboards fastened with cunning padlocks, which only opened when you set
the letters of the lock to correspond with the word "open." This to
thwart inquisitive natives, with a smattering of education, was written
up for reminder in Greek letters. With this ruse John was fully
acquainted, so that he lost no time in opening the cupboards and
releasing the wherewithal for making up two beds and laying the table
for an evening meal. The black housekeepers, proffering greetings and
assurance of welcome while they worked, busied themselves in heating
water for baths, in making the beds, laying the table, and killing
chickens for soup and roast. John's activities were multifold. He had
to see the dau unloaded and its precious cargo safely stowed away in the
store below the Rest-house.
Lucy at first sat limply in the divan or main reception-room, sore all
over, eyes blistered by the glare of sun on water, and with a headache
which for crippling agony exceeded anything she had known. But she
conquered her sullenness and made feeble attempts to help. John,
however, seeing that bath and bath water were ready and that sheets,
pillows and blankets had been placed on her Arab bedstead (a wooden
frame with a lattice-work across it of ox-hide strips), advised her to
undress, soothe her bites with spongings and ointment, and rest between
the sheets. Her back ached unbearably; her head seemed half-severed at
the neck, and she was seized with violent shiverings. The mosquitoes
had given her a sharp attack of malarial fever.
Once in bed, she felt less acutely ill, but of all the nice meal that
John and the Swahili man-cook had prepared she could only swallow a cup
of tea. Her temperature was found to be up to 102 deg., so the first
and the six succeeding nights of the honeymoon were spent in dire
illness and dreary convalescence. But at the end of that time she
seemed well enough to start on their up-country journey. John had
obtained two Masai donkeys and had bought at Unguja a second-hand
side-saddle. Lucy cheered up at the prospect of donkey-riding and above
all at leaving this terribly hot coast town for the cooler nights of the
interior. Though still deeply depressed and disheartened, she was
sufficiently reasonable and well-disposed to be deeply touched by her
husband's care of her, his forethought for her comfort and distress at
the inconveniences of semi-savage Africa. Some measure of health came