The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance

to her, been refused, and then settled down to a "filial" manner. How is Silchester? It's getting on for a year since I had a letter from you; but I saw in a recent newspaper he'd been down with influenza but was "making good progress." That always reads ominously. Look out for me sometime in May. I hope I shall be as welcome as the flowers of that same. I'm bringing you home some leopard skins and an African rattle for Clitheroe. So long! ROGER. A week after these letters were put in the Consular mail-bag, Roger had packed up and was waiting for a gun-boat to convey him across to the mainland--where he was to have an important interview with Captain Wissmann, fresh from a great victory over the Arabs. Sir Godfrey, taking leave of him, said: "Looked at the Reuters this morning?" _Roger_: "No! What's up?" _Sir Godfrey_: "Your friend Lord Silchester is dead." "Phew!" said Roger, or as near as he could get to that conventional exclamation of surprise and speculation as to what might have been.... *CHAPTER XV* *IN ENGLAND* Captain and Mrs. Brentham arrived in London from East Africa at the end of May, 1889. You must picture Brentham with a reserve of savings of about five hundred pounds lying to his credit at Cocks's, and a salary at the rate of seven hundred a year which will go on till some time in October. After much consideration and discussion during the voyage they have taken a furnished flat on the eighth floor of Hankey's Mansions, St. James's Park, as having a better address--"being close to the Government offices and the clubs, don't you know, and of course if you have the lift going night and day it don't matter whether you're on the first or the eighth floor, to say nothing of the view." Lucy had timidly suggested Pardew's Family Hotel in Great Ormond Street as being very cheap for relations of Aunt Ellen, but Roger with that wistful snobbishness of his class decided it would be rather a come-down to hail from the West Central part of London when you were wishing to impress the Foreign Office favourably; so Hankey's it was, with lots of sunlight, superb views over the Park and the barrack ground with its military challenges and cries. Mr. Molyneux's room at the Foreign Office. "Ah, Brentham! Thought you'd soon be turning up. Dewburn's been writing to me about you.... Have a cigar? There are the matches. Well. Horrid thing to say, when a man's only just arrived, but you've stirred up a reg'lar hornet's nest among the unco' guid. This confounded Nonconformist Conscience that Stead's invented or created. There's an obvious reference to you in the last _Review of Reviews_ and Labby's put a very caustic article in last week's _Truth_, trying to get at the Government's East African policy through you. All this has mightily upset the Old Man----" Roger endeavours to give a lucid and not too lengthy account of the whole sequence of events which led up to his marriage at Unguja; expresses the most justly-felt wrath against the mosquitoes of the Press; offers to horsewhip them or have them up before a court of law.... _Molyneux_: "My _dear_ fellow, what _are_ you talking about? You'd simply do for yourself and have to quit the career. First place, horsewhipping's out of date--dam' low, in any case--in the second, there's nothing _libellous_ in what they've written--only general application, don't you know. If you took any action on it you'd just dot the _i_'s and cross the _t_'s and get laughed at. And as to what they say in Parliament, can't call them into court over _that_. No. Best leave it alone. _Most_ unfortunate. Dare say not a _bit_ your fault. Still I think you might have been a trifle more prudent, not--so to speak--have run your head into the noose. _Quite_ agree with Dewburn you've done the _right_ thing in marrying her.... "Well: so much for that. Now how about this missing cipher? Not sure _that_ don't upset us a bit more than your carryings-on with missionary ladies...." Roger: "But I _didn't_ carry on--I--I--really must protest against these assumptions----" _Molyneux_: "_All_ right. Keep your hair on.... Don't get into a wax.... I'm only talkin' for your own good.... But tell us about this cipher." _Roger_ (still with an angry flush): "What _can I_ tell? I arrive at Medina and am told all in a hurry to re-organize the Consulate there. There was no one but an Indian clerk in charge. I simply take him over. I put my cipher in the safe, but I had to leave the key with the clerk when at very short notice I started for up-country to warn these confounded missionaries.... Wish to _God_ I'd paid no heed to your instructions" ("I _say_, old chap, draw it mild ... and mind what you're doin' with that cigar-ash." Roger strides to the fireplace and throws away the cigar into it.) "I wish to God," he continues, "I'd left 'em alone to stand the racket if the Arabs _did_ come. However, what I mean to say is, I only set out to do what I was told to do and couldn't foresee how long it would take. I didn't get back to my Consulate till last April. _How_ can I tell what happened to the clerk or the cipher or the money? I paid up the deficit.... How do I know what those Bazzards were up to? Mrs. Bazzard----" _Molyneux_ (his manner has insensibly become stiffer and more ceremonious): "I think we'll leave the Bazzards out of it. At any rate they aren't here to defend themselves. We must refer the whole matter to Dewburn for inquiry. Meantime here you are on leave and I dare say badly wanting a rest. My advice is: go down to the country.... Your father lives in the country, doesn't he?" (Roger nods.) "Well, go down and rusticate a bit and take Mrs. Brentham with you. In a week or two the newspapers and the Nonconformist Conscience will be in full cry after something else. As to whether you should go back, we must leave that to the Old Man. He may think a change of scene advisable. Any use asking you to a bachelor dinner? My wife's out of town just now." Roger (_very_ unwisely, scenting in this a reluctance to ask Lucy too): "No, thank you. I think I'll take your advice and go off to the country. Ungrateful sort of country--I mean the nation--mine is! Here I've made most important discoveries I've had no time to report on, I've ... I've ..." (Feelings too much for him. Takes his hat and stick, bows to Molyneux and leaves his room.) In all this he has acted most foolishly. If he'd gone to Molyneux's--to "Good old Spavins's"--as the clerks called him in the room opposite--bachelor dinner, had told a few good stories and hunting adventures, Molyneux, who really had his kindly side like most men, would have forgotten the old grudge about his intrusive appointment, have taken a much more charitable view about the lost cipher and the hasty marriage and have written a memo for Lord Wiltshire's eye which would have suggested a year's employment at home and a fresh start in East Africa. Mrs. Molyneux would have called on Mrs. Brentham at Hankey's and Mrs. Brentham would have been pronounced by Molyneux "a dam' good-lookin' wench--don't wonder she turned his head a bit--there can't have been much to look at in East Africa"--and Brentham's difficulties were over; and the whole fate of East Africa might have been a little different. As it was, he wrote some such memo as this for the information of the Under-Secretary of State: "Saw Brentham to-day--from Zangia Consulate, East Africa. Looks rather fagged. Evidently had a rough time. But very angry when asked to explain the awkward circumstances of his very protracted journey through the interior with the lady who is now his wife. He protested with much heat against the attacks of the Press and the attitude of the Missionary Societies. I dare say he is a maligned man, but I should also say he is what we call in diplomacy 'un mauvais coucheur.' Difficult to get on with, quarrelsome with colleagues. He could throw no light on the loss of his cipher. Did not seem to realize what trouble and expense it has caused. He has six months' leave of absence due. Suggest when that is coming to an end he be offered some Consular post in Norway or Algeria." Roger called at 6A, Carlton House Terrace, but was told by the man-servant opening the door that Lady Silchester and the little Lord Silchester were still in the country, at Engledene, and that it was improbable her Ladyship would be in town again until the autumn, being in deep mourning. Roger scribbled on his card (which would be sent on with other cards of calling and polite inquiries): "So much want to see you. Starting to-morrow for Church Farm, Aldermaston.--ROGER." Roger delivered his blushing wife, rather overdressed (for he had insisted on a fashionable outfit), to her parents at Aldermaston; he shook hands heartily with his father-in-law to whom he took an immediate liking, kissed his mother-in-law (to her confusion) and his sisters-in-law, and then let his father-in-law drive him over to the nearest station from which he could get a train to Basingstoke (for Farleigh), promising to return in four days after he had seen his father, sister, and brothers, one of them at Portsmouth. When he did get back to Church Farm, Lucy was in bed, ill, and his father and mother-in-law were looking grave and preoccupied. They were also--as country people are--a little tiresomely reticent. _What had happened_? _This_, as he afterwards pieced it together. When Mrs. Baines had received Ann Anderson's letter--written, as you will remember, about November 30, but not posted from Unguja till early in January--she had a knock-down blow. It is true the Mission on the receipt of a telegram from Callaway had warned her to expect serious news from Hangodi, but she had not paid much attention, so convinced was she that God must avert all harm from a son of hers. But the letter--from Ann, too, whom she would have welcomed as a daughter-in-law--was convincing, and for the first few hours after she had read it twice through, she locked herself into their joint bedroom to Mr. Baines's great discomfiture--he might wash and sleep where he liked. She had shouted at him through the keyhole, in a hoarse, strangled voice he hardly recognized as hers, that his son John was dead, killed by the "A-rabs," no doubt with that slut of a Lucy's full approval; and left to digest this dreadful news as best he might. Eliza, touched to great pity and a sympathetic sobbing over the fate of Master John, made him up a sort of a shakedown bedroom arrangement in the "libery," where he did his accounts.... Mrs. Baines did not emerge from her fastness for a day and a half. When she did come out she was composed, but with such an awful look in her eyes that no one dared offer sympathy or proffer advice. She gave her orders in as few words as possible. She set to work to confection the deepest mourning and pulled the blinds down, and down they had to remain a full week. During that week by the aid of candle-light she wrote a good many letters--for her. Eliza, who had to post them, for Mrs. Baines shrank from encountering friends or acquaintances till the week was up, noticed that some of them bore quite grand addresses: the member for Reading, the Marquis of Wiltshire, the Editor of the _Review of Reviews_.... How did Mrs. Baines know so soon that Lucy and Roger had returned to England and come down to see the Joslings at Church Farm? Why, because the miller of Aldermaston saw the Brenthams arrive at Aldermaston station and witnessed the greeting of Farmer Josling--such a fine upstanding man--and his son-in-law--just such another, only rather