The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance
huge consignment of their plumage to a firm he trades with in
Marseilles. And he has been going about to other lakes doing the same.
But I must stick to the point.... Where was I? Oh, yes! ... Ann, who
lives in our old station at Mwada, was awfully upset because she had
become so fond of these birds, besides being infuriated at Stolzenberg's
Ruga-ruga occasionally carrying off women. So she wrote him a letter
saying that if he showed himself in the Concession again she would take
a gun to him herself. She solemnly cursed him and called down Divine
punishment on his head. Unfortunately--for I think the whole thing was
_most_ unwise--she paid a Masai who came along to trade to deliver the
letter at Stolz's boma. The watchman at the gate made him come in and
give the letter himself, and Stolz having read it had the man's left
hand chopped off, tied it to his right, and said that was the answer to
the English Missionaries and that was how he'd treat any other
messengers sent to him.... The poor wretch arrived at Mwada a week
afterwards nearly dead with loss of blood.... Of course, the Masai have
again sworn vengeance against this monster: but what can they do? But
that is not our worst trouble. Before you went, and whilst you were
away, Ann took up the sex question. You know how set she was on the
elevation of the native women? You used to laugh about her corps of
Amazons, her 'Big-geru.' She hadn't been long with us before she began
to interest herself in the young women of Iraku.... Those of the
Wambugwe are, I must confess, _hopeless_ at present; I mean as regards
chastity. Poor things! They are corrupted and degraded from childhood.
But there is something superior--something of another race in the Iraku
and Fiome. You said once they were partly descended from some Gala
immigration of long ago?...
"Well, Ann, who is untirable, started a class of these Iraku young women
before she had been six months in the Happy Valley. The chiefs--I dare
say you remember speaking to some of them? ... _quite_ approved and sent
their young daughters. She taught them cooking and laundry work, plain
sewing, reading and writing. And now she finds, after they have been a
year or two at our schools, they go off and live with white men....!"
_Roger_: "I dare say they do, and have a much better time with them than
with their own men. But what white men? German, I suppose?..."
_Mrs. Stott_: "Ah, _there_ you touch my greatest sorrow. Yes. Every
German I know on this concession keeps a native woman, mostly from our
classes. But I fear--I fear--my nephew Phil and the clerk Stallibrass
as well--my two Australian boys--are not much more moral. Their
relations with the native women won't bear investigation. That is not
all ... and I have no right to be here as an accuser when I can't answer
for my own son, Edgar.... You remember you offered in 1897 to take him
home with you, and have him sent to an English school or college for a
year or two? I wish ... I wish ... we had consented. It was so good of
you. But we thought at the time that if children can grow up into
God-fearing men and women in Australia without leaving the back-blocks
or the bush, why not here, where the climate is good? Then there was
the question of the cost...."
_Roger_: "I suppose he has got all his education from you and his
father?"
_Mrs. Stott_: "Yes, indeed. The main thing, besides religion, was to
teach our children to read and write and do simple accounts. All they
wanted besides was to read the books we ordered out.... I'm sure you
can't say we have been indifferent to literature?"
_Roger_: "No--not of a certain kind ... but all of it, from what I have
seen, is rather old-fashioned and goody-goody...."
_Mrs. Stott_: "I don't agree. However, I won't stop to argue about it.
It matters little, since Edgar from the age of twelve or thirteen has
cared very little for reading. His passion is _sport_. And to think
how I ran down big-game shooting, when it was not vitally necessary for
our supplies! Of course, James is a good shot and a clever hunter, and
Edgar, after he was twelve, used to go out with him. He killed an
elephant to his own gun when he was only fifteen, and the tusks fetched
as much as L60! He _was_ proud. Now his one idea is to be away
shooting ... and trifling with these Iraku women. Oh!" (crying a
little). "_Can't_ you see how it _silences_ me? Ann talks about cutting
off a member that offends and says I should expel my own son from the
Mission for loose living.... I can't do that, and besides there's
nothing proved.... But I can't very well join her in her crusade against
... she _will_ use such plain words ... against fornication and unclean
living. I suppose we shall have to send Edgar away ... back to
Australia ... And then I fear much for his future. Thank goodness! He's
a total abstainer, so far.... Ought we to invite some young woman to
come out here for the mission, in the hope that he might marry her and
settle down?"
_Roger_: "Wouldn't be a bad idea, if you could insure her taking his
fancy. I haven't seen Master Edgar for months or taken much notice of
him since he came to man's estate. Struck me, he was growing up a
nice-looking lad...."
_Mrs. Stott_: "Indeed he is! It's his good looks that are his snare....
The native women run after him so...."
_Roger_: "Does he work for us or for the Mission?"
_Mrs. Stott_: "He is his father's assistant in the Carpentering school;
but he's too much given to larking with the boys, who look upon him as a
kind of hero. Of course, he speaks their language almost as if it came
natural to him. His real bent is for Natural History ... that's the
only excuse for his sport. We sell the collections he makes to the
Germans. One of your mining engineers has taught him photography. He
takes wonderful pictures of wild life. We posted some home to the
_Graphic_, and with the money they paid, Edgar sent to Unguja and bought
himself a snap-shot camera.... Am I keeping you from your work?"
_Roger_: "You are: but we don't often meet nowadays for a talk. Let's
thrash this matter out. Well?"
_Mrs. Stott_: "Well, I was going on to say, with all this Edgar's mind
is turning away from religion. We have hard work to get him to attend
our services... He even shocked his father the other day by saying he
was sick of the Bible.... I say, 'even,' because ever since my dear
James has been getting up these industrial schools you were so keen on,
he has become less and less spiritually minded, more and more interested
in the material things of this world. He only _pretends_ to care for
the Second Coming of Christ ... just to please me. He is much more
interested in his new turning lathe" ... (dabs her eyes and blows her
nose). "His prayers have become very trite. If it wasn't for my
daughters...."
_Roger_: "Let me see: you have two daughters out here--Pretty girls....
They must be growing up...."
_Mrs. Stott_: "Yes. Carrie's nearly nineteen; and Lulu is sixteen. We
called her 'Luisa,' not from the English name, but because 'Luisa' means
'darkness' in Kagulu, and when she was born she had dark hair and dark
eyes ... she's fairer now.... And the way, then, seemed dark before
us.... I was very ill at the time...."
_Roger_: "And then the eldest of all is at home, I mean in England....?"
Mrs. Stott: "Yes. Rosamund, named after me. She's a school teacher in
Ireland, and practically a stranger to us. That's one of the sorrows of
our life out here. Not that we haven't many blessings to
counter-balance it--I'm sure the way we've kept our health in the Happy
Valley--But we have either to send our children away to England or
Australia, or bring them up here, with many disadvantages, it would be a
pity to bring Rosamund away from a career where she is doing very
well...."
_Roger_: "Quite so. Well then, we have only to deal with Carrie as a
possible wife to one of our young men...."
_Mrs. Stott_: "As a matter of fact, Riemer proposed to her a few months
ago. But Carrie is very particular; and besides, she wouldn't marry a
German...."
_Roger_: "What nonsense! In what way are they inferior to Englishmen or
Australians? I'm sure Riemer..."
_Mrs. Stott_ (tightening her lips): "Not to be thought of. Riemer is an
avowed atheist..."
_Roger_: "Oh, of course, if religion is to come in the way...."
_Mrs. Stott_: "It isn't only religion, there are other things. No.
Don't let my daughters come under discussion. Why couldn't the Germans
here send home for nice German girls to come out and marry them, or get
married when they next went on leave...?"
_Roger_: "Why not, indeed? I'll talk to them. Much better they should
do so. But then, what'll happen by and by is what _you_ don't want to
happen. The Germans will marry white women, have large families and
gradually push out the Negroes and turn this into a White Man's
country--unless the climate and the germ diseases forbid.... I'm not
sure myself that I don't favour a mixture of races and that the
Americans for example are not better suited to America because of their
strong underlying element of Indian blood--I suppose you would not like
it if the Germans married their concubines?"
_Mrs. Stott_: "As an Australian I am prejudiced against the mixture of
the races..."
_Roger_: "Well, but Dame Nature isn't, in her inconsequent way. First
she prompts the original human ancestors--your Adam and Eve--to
segregate and separate and differentiate into sub-species, almost. Then
she seems sorry for it, and does all she can to bring them together
again, prompts the White man to travel all over the world and mix his
blood freely with that of the other races. She has been redeeming the
Negro from his original blackness and apishness by sending white
immigrants into Africa for thousands of years--Egyptians, Carthaginians,
Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Indians; Portuguese, Dutch, French, English; to
say nothing of all the Mediterranean peoples who pressed into Africa in
prehistoric days. They have all mingled with the Negro in their time
and rehumanized him. You own to a _penchant_ for the Iraku people.
Why? Even for the Masai. Why do you really prefer them to the
out-and-out Negro type, like the Kindiga and Wambugwe? Because they
have a strain of ancient white blood in their veins. Same thing with
the Swahili. We like them because of the Arab intermixture. And yet we
talk and write a lot of rubbish about disliking the half-caste between a
European and a Negro--By the bye, since we are talking on this subject,
did I or did I not see a half-caste child in the compound of Schnitzler,
that mining engineer who is such a friend of Edgar's?"
_Mrs. Stott_: "You did, at least Schnitzler's native woman has had a
child by him--two years ago. And if you looked all through the
settlement you could find three other half-caste infants.... They make
no secret of it...."
_Roger_: "Why _should_ they? If they must form these unions, it is
better they should be sanctified by the production of children. I must
say it redeems the whole thing in my eyes; the Germans don't ignore
their half-caste children, but have them properly brought up. It is
better than what you call 'sinning in secret' and blushing at--or
repudiating the consequences.... This _maddening_ question of sexual
irregularities, which now seems to clog the progress of all European
Colonies, and to fill up the press of the United States and of
England--are they always writing about it in Australia?"
_Mrs. Stott_: "Strange to say, we never get any Australian papers. I
don't know whether Phil does either.... I seem to belong so very much
more to England or to north Ireland, where all my relations live...."