The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance
"One hundred and eighty. You see a married man gets extra pay because
it is always supposed his wife will add her work to his. A married
missionary, too, has more influence with the natives."
"All the same, John, we shall sometimes make time to steal away by
ourselves and have a nice little picnic without any of those horrid
black people near us...."
"Horrid black people, Lucy, have immortal souls...."
"I daresay, but that doesn't prevent their having black bodies and
looking like monkeys. However, I daresay I shall get used to them. And
if I don't at first ... By the bye, John, I forgot to ask, but I wanted
to, so as to relieve mother's mind--are they cannibals?"
"What, the people of Hangodi? I don't know, but I scarcely think so.
And if they were, we should have all the more credit in converting
them."
"Yes; but suppose they wouldn't wait to be converted, but ate you
first?"
"The little I've read and heard shows me they would never do that.
African cannibals, it seems, are rather careful whom they eat.
Generally only their war captives or their old people. They wouldn't
eat a peaceful stranger, a white man. However, on the east side of
Africa the negroes are _not_ cannibals, any more than we are."
"Isn't it curious, John, to think what different ideas of right and
wrong prevail amongst the peoples of the world? Here, you say, there
are some tribes in Africa which eat their own relations. Well, I
daresay it is thought quite a right and proper thing to do--out
there--just as we in England think the old folk ought to be cherished
and taken care of, and kept alive as long as possible. Only fancy how
funny it would sound to us to be told that Mr. Jones showed very bad
feeling because he wouldn't join his brother and sister in eating up old
Aunt Brown! And yet I daresay that is what cannibal scandal-mongers
often say to one another. Isn't it wonderful how one lot of human
beings can think and act so differently to another lot; and yet each
party considers that nobody is right but those who believe as they do?
Supposing one day some black missionaries landed in England, dressed in
large earrings, bead necklaces, pocket handkerchiefs and nothing else,
and tried to persuade us to worship some hideous idol and leave off
wearing so many clothes. How astonished we would be ... and yet they
would think they were doing right, just as our missionaries do who go
out to teach savages the Gospel...."
"Well, I confess I don't see the resemblance. What we preach is the
Truth, the Living Truth. What _they_ believe is a lie of the Devil."
"Yes, but they don't _know_ it is. They must think it is the truth or
they wouldn't go on believing in it year after year. When I was
teaching geography the other day, I was quite _astonished_ to find in
the Manual that about _four or five hundred millions_ of people were
Buddhists. Isn't it _dreadful_ to think of their all being wrong, all
living in vain. Surely God won't punish them for it hereafter?"
"It's hard to say. If they had the means of grace offered to them and
rejected the Message I should think He would. But that is the chief
object of our Foreign Missions, to teach the heathen the true principles
of Christianity and bring the Light of the Gospel to them that sit in
darkness. When this has been done throughout the earth, no one will
then be able to say he sinned in ignorance, 'because he knew not the way
of Life.'"
"And yet, John, see here in England what different views of religion
even good people take. Father goes to Church; you go to Chapel; and
each thinks the other on the wrong road to Heaven."
"Oh no! Lucy, I wouldn't go so far as that. Of course, I believe that
our Connection has been vouchsafed a special revelation of God's Will
and Purpose among men. But all the same I feel sure that many a Church
person comes into the way of Truth though it may be after much
tribulation. Why, I wouldn't deny that even _Roman Catholics_ may be
saved, if they have led a godly life and acted up to their lights. At
the same time, those who have the Truth among them and are wilfully
blind to its teaching are incurring a heavy responsibility."
"Then you think father stands less chance of being saved than you do?"
"Well ... yes ... I do; because in his Church he does not possess the
same means of grace as are given to our Connection."
"But he is so good, so kind to every one, so fair in his dealings..."
"Good works without faith are insufficient to save a man."
"Well, for my part, I can't believe that _any_ one will be lost because
he may not follow the most correct kind of religion. I can't believe
that God will punish any one who isn't very, very wicked indeed. He is
so great; we are so little.... Just think, supposing we saw an ant
doing anything wrong should we feel obliged to hurt it or burn it?
Should we not be rather amused and pitiful? And mustn't we seem the
very tiniest of ants to God?"
"Ah, Lucy! The belief in the fierce judgments of the Almighty is a
fundamental Truth of our religion, and if your faith in _that_ is
shaken, everything will begin to go.... But the subject is too solemn
to be lightly discussed, so let's talk about something else. Have you
finished my slippers?"
"Yes, and they're perfectly _lovely_. A dark blue, with J.B.
embroidered in white silk. I shall bring them with me to the station
to-morrow.... Why, here we are at the gates of the garden! _How_ we've
walked and _how_ we've talked! And look, John,"--drawing him back from
standing too near the iron gates, "there's his lordship on the terrace,
and I do believe the young lady with him is the one he's become engaged
to!"
John looked in the direction whither Lucy discreetly inclined her head,
beyond triumphs of carpet-bedding to the terrace which fronted the south
side of the great house. And there, foremost of several groups of
Sunday callers who were taking tea at small tables, they saw specially
prominent a party of three: a pretty girl rather showily dressed in the
height of 1886 fashion, an old lady, and an elderly man, tall, a little
inclined to stoop, dressed in dark, loose-fitting tweeds. He had a long
face with a massive jaw and rather a big nose. But though they were not
visible at a distance of fifty yards there were kindly wrinkles round
his dark grey eyes as he suddenly lifted them from the seated ladies and
glanced across the flower beds to see who was looking at him from the
outer world.
This was Lord Silchester; and John, not wishing to prolong his
indiscretion, raised his wide-awake and turned away with his betrothed.
He and Lucy then walked directly to Aldermaston, John leaving her at the
railway station, where he consummated his breach of the Sabbath by
taking an evening train back to Theale, and so returned to his home at
the Aerated Waters factory for the last night he was ever to pass there.
The next morning, punctually at seven o'clock, Lucy's father drew up his
gig before the booking-office of Theale station, and, getting a porter
to hold the horse, helped Lucy down and accompanied her on to the
station platform, where they found the Baines family already assembled:
Mrs. Baines gloomily seated on a bench, Mr. Baines reading the old
newspaper placards of the closed bookstall, and John busy seeing his
numerous boxes labelled.
"Hullo, Baines!--and ma'am--hope you're well ... a bit cast down, I
expect? But there, it's a fine career he's starting on.... Still, it's
always a wrench. John"--extending his hand--"I've just called in to wish
you good luck _and_ a prosperous voyage _and_ a happy return, by and
bye. Mind you make a comfortable home out there for my little girl! I
shall be feeling about as bad as you feel, ma'am" (Mrs. Baines kept a
perfectly impassive face during these attempts at sympathy and did not
even look at the speaker), "next--when is it to be? March?--when I come
to part with Lucy. But life's made up of partings and meetings, which
is why, some'ow, I don't like railway stations. Now I can't stop, and
if I could, I should only be in the way. Must be off to market. Leave
you Lucy. She'll walk back to school. Good-bye, John...."
And Farmer Josling hurried out of the station and his horse's hoofs
sounded in quick succession on the ascent to the main road. Lucy, left
behind actually found herself regretting that father had brought her in
such good time as to give her five-and-twenty minutes or more of
irresolute attendance on John. When she had presented him with the
slippers, had squeezed his hand two or three times, and adjured him to
write from the first stopping-place, besides sending a postcard from
London to say he was leaving "all right"; had made a few suggestions
about his luggage which, in spite of the urbanity of departure, were too
futile to be answered or adopted; and had insisted on pushing the band
of his blue tie under the shirt button at the back of his neck, so that
it might not rise up over the collar: there seemed to be nothing left to
say or do. The bookstall was not yet opened so there were no papers to
be bought.
She would have talked with Mrs. Baines, who had retired to the little
waiting-room and was pretending there to read a great roll of texts in
big print hung against one of the walls. But at her first remark she
noticed Mrs. Baines's eyelids were quivering and her under lip twitching
in a way to indicate that she was a prey to almost uncontrollable
emotion. Although she mechanically turned the leaves of the texts, her
eyes were not focussing them, and something seemed to be moving up and
down her lank throat which she could not finally swallow. She only
answered Lucy's remark by an inarticulate gurgle and waved her away.
There was something so pathetic in her dismal ugliness, in her awkwardly
restrained emotion, that Lucy was suddenly moved to pity as she returned
to the platform. Her embarrassment was cut short by the tumult
occasioned by the approaching train, heralded by the clanging of the
station bell. The train was full and John had hurriedly to pass all the
second class compartments in review to find a place not only for himself
but for the amorphous packages deemed too frail for the guard's van.
When at last he had squeezed himself and his parcels past the
obstructing knees of the established passengers; he had just time to
twist round, stretch out over his surly neighbours' laps, and squeeze
Lucy's timorously extended hand. Then the train gave a lurch forward
and a slide backwards which made him nearly bite his tongue off in an
attempt to say good-bye to his parents, and finally rolled slowly out of
the station, while the forms of father, mother, and sweetheart left
standing on the platform grouped themselves for one moment in an
attitude of mute farewell before the advance of the train cut them off
from his sight.
The retreating chain of carriages shut itself up like a telescope, and
the station began to resume its sleepy calm. Mrs. Baines's emotion now
could no longer be restrained from expression. She tottered towards the
waiting-room and sinking heavily on to a hard wooden seat she choked and
hiccupped and sobbed, and the tears rolled regularly, one after the
other, down her cavernous cheeks. Lucy took her trembling hands and
tried to soothe her; and then, Mrs. Baines, softened by this sympathy,
lost all that remained of her self-control and abandoned herself limply
on Lucy's shoulder.
"Oh!" she gasped, "I've parted with him in anger--he's gone! ... Perhaps
I shall never see him again.... My boy.... My only son. I never said a
kind word to him before he left. I thought there would be time.... I
thought John would come and make it up. I was cross because he went out