The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance
Bayley's study and once more helped him in the returning daylight with
his translations. But he was now well into Leviticus, and some passages
proved so embarrassing to both Lucy and Josiah that the former broke off
with the exclamation, "It's teatime."
And sure enough there sounded the one pleasant summons in the
twenty-four hours: the tea bell.
The rain had ceased, the darkness had lifted for a while and left the
western sky a sweet lemon yellow, out of which a tempered sunlight
twinkled. The air had become fresh and uplifting in a dying breeze.
The little party met round the tea-table in a mood to jest and to be
friendly. Ann, more good-humoured than usual, described her sousing.
She also told Lucy she had had two of Lucy's skirts mended at her sewing
lesson, to save her the trouble. Oh, it was all right; they had served
as a pattern.
A couple of armed porters arrived during teatime, their calico clothing
still adhering to their brown bodies from the rain storm through which
they had stolidly walked. They had not brought the regular "Europe"
mail from Unguja, but some parcels from Mr. Callaway and local letters.
These read aloud over the tea table spoke of the restlessness of the
coast population caused by the administration of the German Company, of
Arab gossip at Unguja, of the sombre news from Nyasaland where a
Scottish trading Company was at open war with the Arabs, in trying to
defend the population from Arab slave raids. Tiputipu was away on the
Congo looking for Stanley and had withdrawn his restraining influence
from the Tanganyika Arabs. Was a concerted Arab attack on the
interfering white man about to begin? The missionaries looked from one
to the other a little anxiously. A growing feeling of _camaraderie_
linked them. They felt themselves to be an outpost of Christianity in a
world threatened by the Moslem. They congratulated John in that he had
so completely won over the Ulunga chief, Mbogo, that the latter had
expelled the Arab traders from his hill country and made common cause
with the White man....
At dinner--or as they better styled it, supper--they were quite
cheerful. There was even a special zest in the evening service, point
and _vim_ in the shortened prayers. Ann was congratulated by Lucy on
her ground-nut soup and "pepperpot"; and the treacle pudding which
followed was declared a masterpiece.
John that night kissed his wife tenderly in mute recognition of her more
sympathetic attitude.... She did not shrink as usual from his caresses.
*CHAPTER X*
*ROGER ARRIVES*
Sir James Eccles, it was decided, was not to return to Unguja to guide
once more the destinies of East Africa. Prince Bismarck would not hear
of it. After considerable hesitation Sir Godfrey Dewburn, K.C.I.E., was
appointed to succeed him in the spring of 1888 and arrived at Unguja to
take up his position as Agent and Consul-General when Roger Brentham had
about completed a year's tenure of the post in an "acting" capacity.
Sir Godfrey Dewburn was a fortunate Irish soldier, who--because he had a
capacity for getting on well with everybody--had held a high
administrative position in India, though outside the ranks of the Indian
Civil Service. He did well over the Prince of Wales's visit in
organizing successful durbars, nautch dances and perfect shooting
picnics, in which record tigers were bagged. He did better still in an
aftermath of the Imperial visit, when the Duke of Ulster and the
Hereditary Prince of Baden came out to shoot in Dewburn's new province.
He had also married, with very wise prevision, a daughter of the
Choselwhit who was legal adviser to the Circumlocution Office. When it
was felt that Sir James Eccles must be thrown over to avoid a breach
with Germany, which threatened a Franco-Germano-Russian alliance against
us, somebody--perhaps the Duke of Ulster, who still remembered Dewburn's
champagne cup, cooled with the snows of the Himalaya and tendered just
at the psychological moment when the most splendid of the tigers had
fallen to the Royal rifle--suggested Dewburn for the post. And as he was
backed up by the India Office, who wanted to weed their Civil Service of
outsiders, and by Molyneux who thought Dewburn's dinners at the "Rag"
quite the best in London, Lord Wiltshire, tired and preoccupied over the
Parnell letters, gave way and appointed Dewburn. Lord Silchester's
suggestion of Brentham was deemed "indelicate," emphasized as it was by
Sibyl, to whom Lord Wiltshire had taken a whimsical dislike.
Dewburn, when he came out, posed as a jolly good fellow who praised
every one all round and enchanted Mrs. Bazzard by his manners and easy
cordiality. But after a bit, Brentham's efficiency got on his nerves.
It was irritating to hear his subordinate--so much better fitted than he
for the post, some might have said--prattling and swearing in Swahili
and Unguja Arabic, and rather markedly doing without an interpreter.
Dewburn spoke French well and a little bad Hindustani, but there his
linguistics ended; and his brain sutures being closed would admit no
knowledge of an African tongue.
Then there was Spencer Bazzard always at hand, serviceable unto
servility, ready to jot inspirations and judgments down on a writing-pad
with some prehistoric form of the fountain-pen or indelible pencil, and
reproduce these utterances afterwards, conveniently elaborated.
Brentham, on the other hand, preferred putting in a draft of his own,
which took quite an independent line and might have led H.M. Government
to do something, make up their minds to some definite course....
Then again, Brentham's real destination was the German mainland.... The
situation there was strained.
Mrs. Bazzard somehow amused and intrigued Sir Godfrey (Lady Dewburn had
not yet arrived). He guessed her as somewhat of a demi-rep, but to him,
as to me, such a person is more interesting to study than the simple
village maiden, or the clergyman's daughter with her smooth hair parted
in the middle....
Who precisely were the Bazzards? May I, with a novelist's omniscience,
clear up the mystery?
There was a celebrated firm of solicitors in Staple Inn known as
Grewgious and Bazzard. It had originated in a Mr. Hiram Grewgious, who
had a valuable Norfolk connexion and had figured with some distinction
and celebrity in a famous Kentish murder trial in the early 'sixties.
The junior partner, Mr. Bazzard, took over the business from Mr.
Grewgious, and when the latter died in 1878 still preserved the honoured
style of the firm. This Mr. Bazzard led a double life, in that he was
not only a particularly astute solicitor, but also a playwright of
ability who produced at least two stirring melodramas under a _nom de
plume_.
As solicitor he had lifted Mr. Bennet Molyneux once out of a
considerable difficulty and delicate dilemma ... he had ascertained that
the lady was travelling under an assumed name and ... in short, he had
settled the affair without any fuss, and Molyneux was thoroughly
grateful and asked him to dine at the Travellers, giving, of course, due
notice, so that the guest-room, in those distant days with its settees
thick with dust, might be got ready, and a fire be lit to take off the
chill.
Over walnuts and port, Mr. Bazzard had mentioned the existence of a
much-younger brother--fifteen years younger, in point of fact--rather at
a loose end since he was called to the Bar--clever chap withal, steady,
married now to a deuced pretty woman, but in his youth the very devil
with the sex. ("Just so," would nod Mr. Molyneux comprehendingly, who,
except for the most pardonable slip with Mrs. ---- at Lucerne, was a
blameless husband and father.) Well, then, there he was--had tried
ranching in the States and buying horses in the Argentine, got done in
the eye by that scoundrel, Bax Strangeways--knew a lot about the
tropics--stand any climate--take on any job. In short, did Mr. Molyneux
know of an opening anywhere in Africa, C.O. or F.O., for a sporting chap
with a knowledge of Law?
And Bennet had put down his name for a vacancy in the East African
Consular service. And having thus taken him under his wing, was
prepared to stand by him through thick and thin ... even deluded himself
into thinking he was a damned good sort, and his golden-haired
wife--"bit of the devil in her, no doubt"--a fit person for Mrs.
Molyneux to know--in the country, at any rate.
Perhaps she was. Why should one sneer at a woman for trying to improve
her position and looks and wriggle into a less sordid sphere than that
in which she was brought up? Emilia Standish--christened Emily, of
course, but wrote her name "Emilia" from the time she was
seventeen--was, as Captain Brentham ill-naturedly guessed, the daughter
of a Bayswater widow who kept a Bayswater boarding-house (few districts
of London have such a power for moulding human beings to its guise).
Emilia Standish--or was it Stapleton?--I really forget--had tried life
as a governess with ill success. She confided to her mother, and her
mother only, that she might have succeeded here or there had not her
pupil's father made improper advances from which she had to flee. She
had studied for the stage, but like her predestined fate, Spencer
Bazzard, she, at thirty-two, was somewhat at a loose end and living at
home when Spencer came to lodge at her mother's boarding-house. He was
down on his luck, almost in hiding, nearly cast off by his highly
respectable, much older brother. He fell ill. Emilia took pity on him,
nursed him, and defied her mother over the financial question. Out of
gratitude he proposed. She accepted him and took stock of the
situation, called on the elder brother in Staple Inn, secured his
advocacy for a "colonial" appointment--and--you know the rest.
Spencer can't have been wholly bad, because though they had many a
private tiff and unheard wrangle, this woman stuck by him and made a
career for him. Brentham, in writing to his sister, gave too unfair a
description of Spencer. He omitted to notice that though his knowledge
of law was so imperfect as to throw doubt on the efficacy of the
examinations which then admitted to the Bar, he had at any rate acquired
some knowledge of shorthand, and certain of the qualities necessary to
playing private secretary to an important personage. So that Sir
Godfrey preferred greatly the retention of Bazzard as his lieutenant at
Unguja, rather than the slightly gloomy and excessively well-informed
Brentham.
There came at this time rumour after rumour that the Arabs of the
Zangian coast were preparing to rise in force not only against the
Germans but against all white men. They were concerting measures in
common with the Arabs of Mombasa, of Tanganyika, Nyasa and the Upper
Congo to expel all white men from East Africa and found a great
Slave-holding empire which might link up with the victoriously
anti-European Mahdi of the Sudan. Sir Godfrey Dewburn did not clothe
his Memorandum of instructions to Brentham in exactly these
comprehensive and grandiloquent terms, derived from a contemporaneous
essay of my own, but he said:
"Look here, dear old chap. You know you are a bit of the fifth wheel to
the coach here, on this potty little island. You've put me up to all
the ropes, I'm well in the saddle. Now suppose you cut along to your
own show? The mainland, hey? Go and round up those blasted Germans,
don't you know? Of course, steer clear of quarrels--that'd never do.
Be coldly polite, but see what they're up to and report to me--fully.
Strikes me it's blowing up for a storm...."
So Brentham shipped himself and his indispensable retinue of Goanese
cook, Swahili butler, and a nucleus of fifteen always dependable