Part 1

Produced by Al Haines.

THE MAN WHO DID THE RIGHT THING

A ROMANCE

BY

SIR HARRY JOHNSTON

Mew York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1921

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1921.

*NOVELS BY THE SAME AUTHOR*

THE GAY-DOMBEYS MRS. WARREN'S DAUGHTER

The central idea of this book came into my mind a great many years ago, out in Africa, and was based to some extent on what actually happened at Unguja and elsewhere. Yet, though there is more realism than might be supposed in my descriptions and incidents and the imagined personalities that appear in these pages, I have endeavoured so to disturb and re-present the facets of my truths that they shall not wound the feelings of any one living or of the surviving friends and relations of the good and bad people I have known in East Africa, or of those in my own land who were entangled in East African affairs.

But although I have pondered long over telling such a story, this Romance of East Africa was mainly projected, created and put down on paper when my wife and I stayed in the summer-autumn of last year at the Swiss home, in the mountains, of a dear friend. There we amused ourselves, as we swung in hammocks slung under pine-trees and gazed over the panorama of the Southern Alps, by arguing and discussing as to what the creations of my imagination would say to one another, how they would act under given circumstances within the four corners ruled by Common Sense and Probability: two guides who will, I hope, always guard my faltering steps in fiction-writing.

Therefore, though dedications have lost their novelty and freshness, and are now incitements to preciosity or payments in verbiage, I, to satisfy my own sentiments of gratitude for a most delightful holiday of rest and refreshment, dedicate this Romance to my hostess of the Chalet Soleil, who founded this new Abbaye de Theleme for the recuperation of tired minds and bodies, and enforced within its walls and walks and woods but one precept:

*FAY CE QUE VOULDRAS.*

H. H. JOHNSTON.

POLING, March, 1921.

*CONTENTS*

CHAPTER

I The Baineses II John and Lucy III Sibyl at Silchester IV Lucy Hesitates V Roger's Dismissal VI The Voyage Out VII Unguja--and Up-country VIII Letters To and Fro IX Mission Life X Roger Arrives XI The Happy Valley XII The Attack on the Station XIII The Return to Unguja XIV Lucy's Second Marriage XV In England XVI Sibyl as Siren XVII Back to the Happy Valley XVIII Five Years Later XIX Trouble with Stolzenberg XX The Boer War XXI The Morals of the Happy Valley XXII Eight Years Have Passed By XXIII The End of Sibyl XXIV All Ends in the Happy Valley

*THE MAN WHO DID THE RIGHT THING*

*CHAPTER I*

*THE BAINESES*

It was in the last week of June, 1886, and there really were warm and early summers in the nineteenth century.

The little chapel had been so close and hot during the morning service that in spite of the interest Lucy Josling felt in the occasion--it was the first appearance of her betrothed, John Baines, as a preacher in his native place, and the delivery of his farewell sermon before starting for Africa--she could not repress a sigh of relief as she detached herself from the perspiring throng of worshippers and stood for a few moments in the bright sunlight, inhaling the perfume of distant hayfields.

"You look a trifle pale, Lucy," said Mr. Baines, senior, a stumpy red-faced man with light sandy hair and a long upper lip. "It's precious warm. I s'pose you'n John'll want to walk back together? Well, don't keep dinner waiting, 'cos that always puts me out. Now then, Sarah, come along: it's too hot to stand gossiping about. Let's get home as quick as we can."

Mrs. Baines, a gaunt, thin woman with a long parchment-coloured face and cold grey eyes, looked indignantly at her husband when he talked of gossiping, but said nothing, took his arm and walked away.

Lucy put up her parasol and leant against the ugly iron railings which interposed between the dusty chapel windows and the pavement. The congregation had not all dispersed. Two or three awkward-looking young men were standing in a group in the roadway, and, while pretending to carry on a jesting conversation amongst themselves, were casting sheepish looks at Lucy, who was deemed a beauty for ten miles round. They evidently alluded to her in the witticisms they exchanged, so that she had to restrict her angle of vision in case her eyes met theirs when she wished to ignore their offensive existence. Mrs. Garrett, the grocer's wife, who had been inquiring from Miss Simons, the little lame dressmaker--why were village dressmakers of that period, in life and in fiction, nearly always lame?--how her married sister progressed after a confinement, walked up to Lucy and said:

"Well, Miss Josling, and how d'you like the idea of parting with your young man? Ain't cher afraid of his goin' off so far, and all among savages and wild beasts too, same as 'e was tellin' on? It's all right and proper as how he should carry the news of the Gospel to them pore naked blacks, but as I says to Garrett, I says, ''E don't ought to go and engage 'isself before'and to a girl as 'e mayn't never come back to marry, and as 'll spend the best years of 'er life a-waitin' an' a-waitin' and cryin' 'er eyes put to no use.' However, 't ain't any business of mine, an' I s'pose you've set your heart upon 'im now, and won't thank me for bein' so outspoken....?

"I'm sure 'e's come back from London _quite_ the gentleman; and lor'! 'Ow proud 'is mother _did_ look while 'e was a-preachin'. An' 'e _can_ preach, too! 'Alf the words 'e used was Greek to me.... S'pose they _was_ Greek, if it comes to that"--she laughed fatly--"Though why th' Almighty should like Greek and Latin better'n plain English, or even 'Ebrew, is what I never could understand....

"And to think as I remember 'im, as it on'y seems the other day, comin' in on the sly to buy a 'aporth of sugar-candy at our shop. 'Is mother never liked 'is eatin' between meals an' 'e always 'ad to keep 'is bit o' candy 'idden away in 'is pocket till 'e was out of 'er sight.... I'm sure for my part I wonder _'ow_ she can bring 'erself to part with 'im, 'e bein' 'er on'y son, and she so fond of 'im too. But then she always set 'er 'eart on 'is bein' a gentleman, and give 'im a good eddication.... 'Ow's father and mother?..."

"Oh quite well, thank you," replied Lucy, wondering why John was stopping so long and exposing her to this tiresome garrulity and the hatefulness of having her private affairs discussed in a loud tone for the benefit of the Sunday strollers of Tilehurst. "They would have come over from Aldermaston to hear John preach, but father cannot bear to take his eyes off the hay till it's all carried, and mother's alone now because my sisters are away.... I just came by myself to the Baineses' for the day....

"And, Mrs. Garrett," continued Lucy, a slight flush rising to her cheek, "I don't think you quite understand about my engagement to John Baines. I--I--am not at all to be pitied. You rather ought to congratulate me. First, because I am very--er--fond of him and proud of his dedicating his life to such a work, and, secondly, because there is no question of my waiting years and years before I get married. John goes out this month and I shall follow six or seven months afterwards--just to give him time to get our home ready. We shall be married out there, at a place called Unguja, where there is a Consulate...."

Lucy stopped short. She was going on to give other good reasons for her engagement when a slight feeling of pride forbade her further to excuse herself to Mrs. Garrett--a grocer's wife! And she herself a National school-teacher! There could be no community between them. She therefore fell silent and gazed away from Mrs. Garrett's red face and blue bonnet across the white sandy road blazing with midday sunshine to the house fronts of the opposite side, with their small shops closed, the blinds drawn down and everything denoting the respectable lifelessness of the Sabbath.... At this awkward pause John Baines issued from the vestry door of the chapel, Mrs. Garrett nodded good-naturedly, and went her way.

John was about four-and-twenty--Lucy's age. He was a little over the average height but ungainly, with rather sloping shoulders, long arms, large hands and feet; a face with not well-formed features; nose coarse, fleshy, blunt-tipped; mouth wide, with his father's long upper lip, on which were the beginnings of a flaxen moustache, with tame ends curling down to meet the upward growth of the young beard. He had an under lip that was merely a band of pink skin round the mouth, without an inward curve to break its union with the broad chin. His teeth were strong and white but irregular in setting, the canines being thrust out of position. His eyes were blue-grey, and not without a pleasant twinkle. The hair was too long for tidiness, not long enough for eccentric saintliness. It was a yellow brown and was continued down the cheeks in a silken beard from ear to ear, the tangled, unclipped, uncared-for beard of a young man who has never shaved. His fresh pink-and-white complexion was marred here and there with the pimples and blotches of adolescence. Lucy, however, thought him good to look at; he only wanted a little smartening up, which she promised herself to impart to him when they were married. He looked what he was: a good-hearted, simple-minded, unintellectual Englishman, an Anglo-Saxon, with a hearty appetite for plain food, a love of cricket, who would with little difficulty remain in all things chaste and sober; slow to wrath, but, if really pushed against the wall, able to show berserker rage.

Having taken up a religious career he had acquired a certain pomposity of manner which sat ill on his boyishness; he had to remember in intervals of games or country dances or flirtations that he had been set apart for the Lord's work. But he would make an excellent husband. His class has furnished quite the best type of colonist abroad.

John gave his arm silently to Lucy, who took it with a gesture of affection, and patted it once or twice with her kid-gloved hand, which lover-like demonstrations John accepted rather solemnly. As they walked up the sunny main street there was little conversation between them, but when they turned down an old shady road running between red brick walls overgrown with ivy and Oxford weed, behind which rose the spire of St. Michael's and the tall trees of its churchyard, their good behaviour relaxed and John looking down, and seeing Lucy's fresh, pretty face looking up, and observing in a hasty glance around that nobody was in sight, bent down and kissed her: after which he looked rather silly and hurried on with great strides.

"Don't walk so fast, John dear; you quite drag me along. We need not be in such a hurry. Tell me, how did you spend your last days in London?"

"Why, Wednesday I went to the outfitters to superintend the packing of my boxes; Thursday I bid good-bye to all my friends at the Bayswater College. In the evening there was a valedictory service at the Edgware Road Chapel, when Thomas, Bayley, Anderson and I were designated for the East African Mission. The next day, Friday, I went in the morning to see my boxes put safely on board the _Godavery_ lying in the Albert Docks; and I also chose my berth--I share a cabin with Anderson. Then in the afternoon there was a big public meeting at Plymouth Hall. Sir Powell Buckley was chairman, and Brentham, the African explorer, spoke, as well as a lot of others, and it ended with prayers and hymns. The Reverend Paul Barker, a very old African missionary, who was the first to enter Abeokuta, delivered the Blessing. Every one shook hands with us and bade us Godspeed.

"After this the three brethren designated for the Mission, and myself, of course, together with Brentham the explorer, Mr. Barker and a few others from the platform, adjourned to Sir Powell Buckley's, where we had tea. Here we four new missionaries were introduced to old Mrs. Doland, that lady who, under God, has so liberally contributed to the support of the East African Mission.... And also to Captain Brentham, who has just returned from the East coast....

"I confess I didn't like _him_ ... altogether.... In fact, I can't _quite_ make out why he came and spoke at the meeting, for I could see at once by the way he stared about him during the hymns he was not one of us ... in heart. In his speech at Plymouth Hall he chiefly laid stress on the advantages gained by civilization when a country was opened up by missionaries, how we taught the people trades, and so on. There was no allusion to the inestimable boon to the natives in making known the Blessed Gospel and the promises in the Old Testament....

"In fact--am I walking too fast? But father will be angry if we are late for dinner--in fact, I thought Brentham inclined to sneer at us. They say he wants a Government appointment and is making up to Sir Powell Buckley----

"Then Saturday--yesterday--I came down here and--er--well! here we are! Are you listening?"

Lucy gave John's arm an affectionate squeeze by way of assurance, but on this rare June day there was something in the still, hot air, thick with hay-scent, which lulled her sensibilities and caused her to forget to be concerned at her betrothed's departure. She had temporarily forgotten many little things stored up to be said to him, and was vexed at her own taciturnity. However, their walk had come to an end, and they stood in front of John's home.

Mr. John Parker Baines, the father of the missionary-designate, was a manufacturer of aerated drinks and cider, whose premises lay on the western side of Tilehurst and marred the beauty of the countryside and the straggling village with a patch of uncompromising vulgarity and garishness. The manufactory itself was in a simple style of architecture: a rectangular building of red brick, with two tall smoke-blackened chimneys and a number of smaller ones. "John Baines and Co., Manufacturers of Aerated Drinks," was painted in large letters across the brick front.

A Sabbath stillness prevailed, intensified by the smokeless chimneys and the closed door. Only a cur lay in the sun, and some dirty ducks squittered the water in a dirty ditch which carried off the drainage of the factory to a neighbouring brook.

A short distance apart from the main building stood the dwelling of the proprietor, Mr. Baines, who had inherited the business from his wife's father and transferred it to his own name. This home of the Baines family, though designed by the same architect, had its aboriginal ugliness modified by numerous superficial improvements. A rich mantle of ivy overgrew a portion of its red brick walls and wreathed its ugly stucco portico. The window-panes were brightly polished and gave a vivacity to the house by their gleaming reflections of light and shade. You could see through them the green Venetian blinds of the sitting-rooms and the unpolished backs of looking-glasses and clean white muslin curtains of the bedrooms. In the short strip of front garden there were beds of scarlet geraniums which added a pleasant note of bright colour.

At the grained front door a cat was waiting to be let in with an air about her as if she too had returned a little late from church or chapel. A strong, rich odour of roast beef filled the air and drowned the scent of hayfields. This intensified the feeling of vulgar comfort which permeated the house when the door was opened by Mr. Baines, senior, and increased the pious satisfaction of the cat, who arched her black body and rubbed herself coyly against her master's Sunday trousers.

"Of course, you're late," snapped Mr. Baines. "I knew you would be. Here's mother, as cross as two sticks."

Mrs. Baines, who had stalked into the narrow hall from the dining-room, gave them no greeting, but merely called to Eliza to serve the dinner, as Mr. John and Miss Josling had arrived.

For Lucy this was not a pleasant meal. Mrs. Baines was one of those unsympathetic persons that took away her appetite. She was a thoroughly good woman in the estimation of her neighbours, austerely devout, rigidly honest, an able housewife and a strict mother. But her future daughter-in-law had long since classed her as thoroughly unlovable. The one tender feeling she evinced was her passionate though undemonstrative devotion to her only son. Even this, though it might beautify her dull being in the eyes of an unconcerned observer, did not always announce itself pleasantly to her home circle. To John it had often been the reason for a cruel smacking when a child and guilty of some small childish sin; to her husband it was the excuse for vexatious economies, which while they did not materially increase the funds devoted to his son's education, had frequently interfered with his personal comfort.

Mrs. Baines's love of John was further manifested to Lucy by a jealous criticism of her speech and actions; for, like most mothers of an only son, she was bound to resent the bestowal of his affections on a sweetheart, and determined to be dissatisfied with whomever he might select for that honourable position.

So, although Lucy was pretty, relatively well-educated, earning her living already as a National school-mistress, the daughter of a much-respected farmer, and known by the Baines family almost since she was a baby, Mrs. Baines found fault with her just because she had found favour with John. Lucy was "Church" and they were "Chapel." She was vain and worldly and quite unsuited to be the wife of a missionary. The fascination of worldliness was not denied. The Devil knew how to bait his traps. Through worldly influence one was led to read novels on the Sabbath, to dispute the Biblical account of the Creation.

Lucy, it is true, had neither scoffed at Genesis, nor spoken flippantly of Noah's Ark, nor been seen reading fiction on a Sunday; but that didn't matter. With her pretensions to an interest in botany, her talk about astronomy and the distances of the fixed stars and such like rubbish, she was quite capable of sliding into infidelity. And as to her observance of the Sabbath, it was simply disgraceful. Of course, her father was to blame in setting her a bad example and her mother, too, poor soul, was much too easy-going with her daughters. But then, when you came to consider that Lucy had been so much with John, to say nothing of the example set by John's parents, you would have thought she might have learnt by this time how the Lord's Day should be passed.

It was this last point which strained the relations between Mrs. Baines and Lucy on this particular Sunday. Lucy had asked John to take her for a walk in the afternoon. It would be their last opportunity for a quiet talk all to themselves before his departure. Although John Baines had inherited his mother's Sabbatarian scruples he consented to Lucy's proposal, partly because he was in love with her, partly because his residence in London had insensibly broadened his views. For once his mother's influence was powerless to alter his decision, and so she had refrained from further argument. But this first check to her domination over her son had considerably soured her feelings.

Moreover, Mrs. Baines honestly believed, according to her lights--for like all the millions of her class and period she knew absolutely nothing about astronomy, geology, ethnology and history--that the Creator of the Universe preferred you should spend the Sunday afternoon in a small, stuffy back parlour with the blinds half down, reading the Bible or Baxter's sermons (or, if the spiritual appetite were very weak, an illustrated edition of _Pilgrim's Progress_) and continue this mortification of flesh and spirit until tea time (unless you taught in the Sunday-school). You should then wind up the Day of Rest with evening chapel, supper, more sermon-reading, and bed.

The only person disposed to be talkative during the meal was John Baines the younger. His mother, at all times glum, was more than ever inclined to silence. Lucy was oppressed by her frigid demeanour and vouchsafed very few remarks, other than those called for by politeness. As to Baines, senior, he was one of those short-necked, fleshy men who are born guzzlers, and his attention was too much concentrated on his food to permit of his joining in conversation during his Sunday dinner. As a set-off against abstention from alcohol he was inordinately greedy, and his large appetite was a constant source of suffering to him, for his wife took a grim delight in mortifying it. Only on Sundays was he allowed to eat his fill without her interference. Mrs. Baines always did the carving and helped everything, even the vegetables, which were placed in front of her, flanking the joint. The maid-of-all-work, Eliza, waited at table and was evidently the slave of her mistress's eye. The family dinner on Sundays was almost invariable in its main features, as far as circumstances permitted. A well-roasted round of beef, with baked potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, was succeeded by an apple or a treacle pudding, and a dessert of some fruit or nuts in season. Of one thing there was no lack and abundant variety--effervescing, non-alcoholic drinks: Ginger Beer, Ginger Ale, Gingerade; Lemonade, Citronade, Orangeade; Phosphozone, Hedozone, Pyrodone, Sparkling Cider and Perry Champagne: all the beverages compounded of carbonic acid, tartaric acid, citric acid, sugar, water, apple and pear juice, and flavouring essences.

The Apple champagne that John gallantly poured into Lucy's glass did not lighten her spirits or loosen her tongue. What could she find to say to that guzzling father whose face and hands were always close to his plate, except during the brief intervals between the courses when he threw himself back in his chair, blew his nose, wiped his greasy lips, and passed his fat forefinger round the corners of his gums to remove the wedges of food which had escaped deglutition? Or to the gloomy mother who ate her victuals with a sullen champing, and, beyond a few directions to the submissive servant, made no attempts to sustain conversation, only according to the garrulous descriptions of her son an occasional snappish "Oh! indeed----," "Pretty doings, I can see----," "Little good can come of _that_----," and so on? At length, when John's experiences in London had come to an end and the two dishes of cherries had replaced the treacle pudding, whilst the servant handed round in tumblers our own superlative Sparkling Cider, Lucy cleared her throat and said, "I suppose John will be leaving you very early to-morrow morning?"

"Eh?" returned Mrs. Baines, fixing her cold grey eyes on Lucy. She had heard perfectly well, but she thought it more consistent with dignity not to lend too ready an ear to the girl's remarks. Lucy repeated more distinctly her question.

"You had better ask _him_ all about it," replied John's mother. "I have other things to think about on the Lord's Day besides railway time-tables."

"Why? Are you coming to see me off, Lucy?" asked John.

"Well, yes; that is, if Mrs. Baines doesn't mind."

"_I_ mind?" exclaimed the angry woman in a strident voice. "What have _I_ got to do with it; I suppose railway stations are free to every one?"