Chapter 1

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?"

"Yes," said Lucy, with an ache at the back of her throat and almost
inclined then and there to break off her engagement. "But I thought you
might like to have John all to yourself at the last. However, if you
have no objection, I should much like to see him off, poor old
fellow"--and Lucy gave his big-knuckled hand an affectionate pat--"I
think I can manage it. Father has to come into Theale. He will drop me
at the station and pick me up again, and school doesn't begin till nine.
What time does your train go, John?"

"Twenty-five past seven. I shall get to London soon after nine. After
going to the head-quarters of the Mission and getting my final
instructions I shall drive straight down to the docks and go on board
the _Godavery_.... The first place we stop at is Algiers, then Malta,
then the Suez Canal and Aden. I expect this is just what _you'll_ have
to do, Lucy, when you come out next spring."

Lucy smiled brightly. She had gradually grown into her engagement as
she grew from girlhood to womanhood, constrained by John's bland
assumption that the damsel he selected was bound to be his wife. But
perhaps her main inducement was his fixed determination to become a
missionary and her intense longing to see "foreign parts," the wonderful
and the interesting world. She was just rallying her spirits to make
some animated reply about Algiers when Mrs. Baines intervened and said
there were limits to all things, and if they didn't wish to pass the
whole of the Lord's Day eating, drinking, and talking they had better
rise and let Eliza clear away. On hearing these words, Mr. Baines
turned the last cherries into his plate and hastily biting them off and
ejecting the stones, pushed his chair back with a sigh. Then, rising
heavily, he stumbled into the armchair near the fireplace and composed
himself for a nap. The maid began to clear away, longing to get back to
her Sunday dinner and concealed novelette. Lucy went to put on her hat;
John yawned and drummed his fingers on the window-pane; and Mrs. Baines
seated herself stiffly in the armchair opposite her satiated husband,
with a large brown Bible on her lap and two or three leaflets covered
with small-print references to Scripture.

When John heard Lucy tripping downstairs he went to meet her, feeling
instinctively that her re-appearance in the dining-room would draw some
bitter comment from his mother. He put on his felt wide-awake, took a
stout stick, and soon banged the front door on his sweetheart and
himself in a way which sent a shiver through the frame of Mrs. Baines,
who with an impatient sigh of disgust applied herself to a gloomy
portion of the Old Testament.

Probably had John remained to keep her company she would have made no
attempt to entertain him; but she would have applied herself with real
interest to Scriptural exegesis. Of her class and of her time what
little romance and intellectuality she had was put into Bible study.
She believed the British--degenerate though they might appear as to
Sabbath observance--were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes, who had
been led by the prophet Jeremiah to Ireland in an unnecessary spurt of
energy and had then returned in coracles to the more favoured Britain,
Jeremiah--age being of no moment where the Divine purpose was
concerned--having taken in marriage a daughter of the Irish king----

But ... the ingratitude of her only son, who could not give up to his
mother's society his last Sunday afternoon in England! She choked with
unshed tears and read verse after verse of the early part of Jeremiah
without understanding one word, although she was told in her leaflets
that the diatribes bore special reference to England in the latter part
of the nineteenth century.... No, the thought of John wandering about
the hayfields with Lucy--for, of course, that girl would lead him into
the hayfields, perhaps throw hay at him--constantly rose before her, and
once or twice a few hot tears dimmed her sight.... "The Lord said also
unto me in the days of Josiah the King: Hast thou seen that which
backsliding Israel hath done?..."

She had devoted all the money she could save, all the time she could
spare to the bringing-up of this boy. She had sent him to college and
made him a gentleman. She had done her duty by him as a mother, and this
was the return he made. He preferred to spend his last Sunday afternoon
frolicking about the country with a feather-headed girl to passing it
quietly by his mother's side, as he formerly used to do.... They might
even have had a word of prayer together. Mrs. Baines was not usually a
woman who encouraged outbursts of vocal piety outside the chapel, but on
such an occasion as this.... She might not see him for another five
years..

"And I said, after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me.
But she returned not."--Now was it becoming for a grown man, a
missionary who had occupied the pulpit at Salem Chapel in the morning,
to go gallivanting about the meadows with a young woman in the
afternoon? What would any of the congregation say who saw him? A nice
spectacle, to be sure!-- "And the Lord said unto me, The back-sliding
Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah..." "Let me
see," reflected Mrs. Baines, trying to give her attention to her
reading, "Judah represents the Church of England, and Israel is ...
Israel is ... Baines! For goodness _sake_ don't snore like that. You
ought to be ashamed of yourself! _How_ you can reconcile it with your
conscience to guzzle like a pig every Sunday at dinner and then pass the
rest of the afternoon snoring and snoozing instead of reading your
Bible, _I_ don't know."

Mr. Baines's bloodshot, greenish eyes regarded his wife with dazed
wonderment for a few seconds.