The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance
protract by spending the night in this noisy, discomfortable place. He
compressed his embraces of wife and children--the latter mystified and
yowling with the dim realization of bereavement--his wringing of Maud's
hands, his directions to telegraph at every opportunity till they got on
board, and hang the cost--into two hours; after which, though only two
more hours of daylight remained, he rode away, back to their camp of the
previous night: knowing that further lingering might end in his deciding
to accompany these two dear women and prattling babes all the way to the
coast and perhaps all the way to England.
And it was essential to their future welfare that he should stay where
he was and not claim a holiday till certain results had been achieved
and certain proofs of easily exploited wealth had been obtained.
But it was a melancholy Roger who, six days afterwards, rode back into
the lovely amphitheatre in the Iraku hills where he had made his home.
His Maskat donkey showed signs of having being hard ridden; his carriers
averred that Master, ordinarily so considerate of their fatigue, so
jolly on the line of march, had spurred them on remorselessly, had
seemed to pass wakeful nights and had eaten his camp meals with poor
appetite. Roger himself felt a few more partings like this would make
his earthly life unbearable. Oh that there _were_ some truth in the
silly hymn chorus that the Stotts delighted in making their pupils sing:
"Here we meet to _part no more_, _part_ no more, _part_ no more!" He
should have been firm with Lucy and bade her stay till he himself was
ready to go. And yet when _would_ he be ready to go, with Phantom
Fortune always beckoning yet never disclosing the final hoard?
There was something in Lucy's face which restrained him from insisting
that she should stay. Dr. Wiese had hinted at a growing anaemia which
should be checked. Her dominating feeling was a fear that she might
lose the precious children born to her here in the wilderness and be
forgotten by those she had left behind. He must not take the thing too
tragically. If Hildebrandt continued to get these satisfactory assays
and could trace the gold-bearing reef a sufficient distance towards the
western limit of the Concession; or if on the other hand he could find
the matrix of the diamonds, and not merely these minute brilliants in
the gravel of the mountain streams, their main doubts and difficulties
would be relieved and he could depart for a holiday at home.
The return to his house was some alleviation of his bereavement. It was
so associated with the presence of wife and sister and of his babies.
The afternoon sun was behind him; it would soon drop below the blue
mountain wall which was a rampart of protection to the site he had
chosen for his European settlement. How often he and Lucy had stood here
in blue shadow and looked towards the sun-flooded east beyond the shade
of the escarpment, towards the Happy Valley! This was just such a close
to the day as they had loved to witness three hundred days out of the
three hundred and sixty-five of the year. To the north stretched the
lake of cobalt blue, with its irregular blush-tinted rim of flamingo
hosts. South-east of the lake beyond lush swamps and green plantations,
were the Umbugwe villages and the Stotts' large station--little points,
clusters, and pencils of brown and white. The whitest speck was the
Stotts' new Chapel. He had been present at its opening ceremony a month
ago--to gratify Mrs. Stott. Beyond lake and villages were the gathering
masses of mighty mountains, ending north-eastwards in the snow-tipped
pyramid of Meru--on this clear evening--in the supernatural snowy dome
of Kibo. What a prospect! And yet he would willingly exchange for it
the view over southern Berkshire from the down of Farleigh Wallop.
He entered his house. The presence of Lucy and Maud seemed as if it
must be material, no: merely spiritual. He looked into their rooms.
They had been considerately tidied before they left, and showed little
sign of packing up and departure. Lucy was a good house-wife, he
reflected, and she probably judged that in her absence he might want to
entertain guests, colleagues come on business, Government officials. So
that her room and his sister's were ready prepared for occupation. The
nursery was a little more desolate. The toys had been given away to
Halima's children. If ever Ambrose and Sibyl came back--and how unlikely
that they would!--they would have grown far beyond the love of toys.
Maud had left most of her songs on the top of the piano. She could get
newer ones in England. The vases were filled with fresh flowers from
bush and garden. Halima had put them there, faithful to her mistress's
directions.
Halima now called him to his tea, on the verandah. The table was laid
with all the care that Lucy was wont to bestow on it. Andrade the cook
had baked a nice cake and even attempted something resembling a
muffin--a kind of compromise between a muffin and a tea cake, due to a
confounding of Maud's instructions. Roger's eyes filled with tears.
Halima, departing with a brass tray, answered with two loud sobs in her
facile grief. Yet a few years before she had been ready to abandon her
mistress in distress when she was stranded in Mr. Callaway's unsavoury
depot at Unguja. His eyes followed her portly form magnificently
swathed in red Indian cottons, with tolerant good will. There was a
good deal of the humbug about all these black people, but it was kindly
humbug. He was grateful for this comprehension of his sorrow, for this
effort to carry out his wife's instructions that the comforts and little
elegancies of their home should be continued after her absence.
Then the tame Crowned cranes came below the verandah to be fed with
bread and cake as Maud had encouraged them to do. His black-and-tan
English terrier, confined for safety in the cook's quarters during his
absence, had been released and now came tearing up the steps and rushing
along the verandah till it was in contact with his lowered hand,
volleying forth a long succession of eager barks of joy and whimpers of
hysterical distress and relief at Master's absence and return....
In the evening after dinner Wiese, Hildebrandt and Riemer (Plantation
Manager) came up to pay their respects to the Herr Direktor and give him
an informal report of all that had occurred during his absence. They
tactfully said little about his bereavement, though Hildebrandt heaved
some theatrical sighs at the sight of Maud's music on the piano. But
they had much to say in German and English that was interesting and
encouraging. So they sat up late into the night talking and discussing.
Andrade sent them up an impromptu supper, wine and beer were drunk in
the moderation imposed by their then rarity--owing to transport
difficulties--and when they finally departed at one in the morning,
under the firmament of blazing stars, with lemon-yellow lanterns to
light their path back to their respective quarters, the grass-widower
betook himself to his couch in a more resigned frame of mind. There
would be great doings, great strokes to hew out fortunes for all of
them, within the next few months.
A fortnight afterwards, by swift runner from Kondoa, came a telegraphic
message despatched from Saadani:
Arrived here safely. Leave for Unguja to-morrow. God bless you.--LUCY
MAUD.
Thereafter followed long day-rides of inspection, an occasional week's
absence from home studying possibilities in remote parts of the
Concession, holding conferences with the Stotts, laying cases and
possibilities of special difficulty before the German officer commanding
at Kondoa. His talks with the Stotts were directed to several ends:
urging the Stotts to get into the confidence of all the native
tribes--Bantu, Hamitic, Nilotic--of the Concession's area and find out
how far their interests might be subserved by the full exploitation of
the animal, vegetable and mineral wealth of this patch of East Africa.
"Unless we carry the natives with us," he would say, "this enterprise
must eventually fail, wither up; because, boast of the climate as we
may, the hard manual labour cannot be performed by white men: we must
fall back on the native. Now half the men-natives in these parts are
picturesque to look at, graceful figure and all that; but they shirk
hard work. They prefer to loll about in the sun or to run after women.
Can't you put some ambition into 'em? Teach them something besides
these rotten hymns and prayers that are meaningless to them?"
"But we do," said Mrs. Stott. "You haven't looked over our school for
two years, I believe. You seem to have got hymn-singing on the brain.
Our hymns translated by us are not rubbish and the natives enjoy singing
them...."
"I don't doubt they do, though I don't see what use it is. Neither they
nor the prayers prevent the Almighty from sending the flights of
locusts.... Or rather these appeals and this excessive praise do not
stimulate the Divine power to do _something_ to abate Africa's myriad
plagues. It is always poor Man--and most of all, poor _White_ man--who
has to work his brain and body to exhaustion to set right what Nature
perversely sets wrong. Here am I, trying to abate the grasshopper
plague in our tobacco plantations by encouraging the domestication of
the Crowned crane. Yet the natives won't take any interest in this
idea, though the Crowned cranes feed themselves and have charming
manners. Can't you push this matter in your schools? Couldn't you
preach a sermon on the uses of the Crowned crane?"
On another occasion he put a further difficulty before the Ewart Stotts.
"Look here! I'm going to take you again into my confidence. I want you
to find me an assistant, some one of your own kin in Australia who would
come out here at short notice on an agreement for three years--I even
want two men, one of them versed in shorthand and typewriting who could
be my secretary. I don't know any one in England who isn't either a
rotter or a potential rotter, or hasn't got a job already. There's my
brother Geoffrey, but he's a Commander now in the Navy, getting on fine,
and simply wouldn't think of chucking the service to come here. My
other brother is well suited as a land-agent. I want something
Australian, some one as like you two as possible. I don't mind a
moderate amount of religion, as long as it doesn't waste their time on
week-days, and they can't be too teetotal for my liking. No
Whisky-drinker need apply."
"Why, I believe we know of the very two, at any rate of the principal
one," said Mrs. Stott: "My nephew Phil Ewart. I haven't seen him since
he was a baby, but my brother's wife writes to me now and again and says
he's doing very well on a big sheep run in Queensland...."
"Well then, look here: let's draft a cablegram that I can send off from
the coast. I'll guarantee him a year's salary and, if he turns out
satisfactory, a three years' agreement--L500 a year. He can choose any
likely young fellow ... good character ... abstainer ... serve as clerk
... L200 a year commence ... take steamer Australia-Durban, and German
steamer Durban-Saadani, and so on, up-country. If I get 'em here by
November I can give em three months' trial before I set out for home....
_Must_ take a holiday next year and bring my wife out afterwards. Don't
like to leave this business without a Britisher in it to watch my
interests, don't you know, and advise me how things are going while I am
away."
So they arranged the matter between them. Then Mrs. Stott said: "I've a
funny proposition to make. A week ago I received a letter from Ann
Jamblin that was ... at Hangodi.... Ann Anderson she is now. She saw