The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance
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