Chapter XI: Part 11

Roger had worked wonders with the estates, and before long the revenues, over which she would have control till her son's majority, would be increased by at least one-third. Her choice of him from a business point of view was amply justified. Her pulse quickened and her eyes grew brighter than their ordinary at the thought he might some day be her lover. If only that tiresome Lucy died in one of her confinements, he might even be her husband. Of course, she would most carefully avoid any foolishness which might give the least ground for scandal. If she did that, she could take life as pleasantly as Lady Ramsgate (the ridiculous one, called "Popsy"), or Lady Ann Vizor. Every one knew that Popsy Ramsgate had had a child by her farm bailiff and kept it at the farm, and no one thought the worse of her. Ramsgate was dead. Lady Ann's stockbroker was obviously her lover, but he was very gentlemanly and no one would have guessed unless they had been specially told.

Even if Roger were free, she was not sure she wanted exactly to marry him. She would then lose her title or, at any rate, her social rights as a peeress. And Roger as husband might be too masterful. She wanted to "queen it" as a rich woman with intelligence and taste might do in those days. Now her mourning was over she would commence at once to give parties at 6A, Carlton House Terrace, which should put those of Suzanne Feenix quite in the shade. She would create a salon, to which should be attracted the younger bloods, the rebels of the Conservative Party. She would revivify Lord Randolph, join hands with Mary March, who had a wonderful _flair_ for inveigling millionaires. She and a few other clever women--the Tennants, perhaps--should create a young and intellectual Conservative Party--or Unionist Party, if you liked. They would get hold of Choselwhit--perhaps Rhodes, if he came to England.

Lord Wiltshire should rue the day that he had snubbed her at a Chapelmead week-end--the last time poor Francis went out anywhere--and cut her at two Foreign Office receptions. The Brinsleys should be shown their reign was over.

Her initiates--she really founded the half-legendary "Souls"--should include the smartest writers and the most daring painters, the weirdest poets of the day. They would have their own press, if it wasn't too expensive, but Mary March's millionaires might manage that ... hadn't she been introduced at one of Mary's theatre parties to an enormously rich and humble person called Tooley? Lady Tarrington had asked him if he owned Tooley Street and the stupid creature had said: "Beg pardon, me lady?" Well, Tooley should be ensorcelled--perhaps an invitation up to Glen Sporran--and buy their newspaper for them.

And then she had an idea of starting a monthly Review which she would edit herself and which should tell the naked truth. No squeamishness.... Praed, the architect, should send them one or two of his queer storiettes....

As to mother and father, they would spoil any circles with their banalities and old-fashioned ideas ... and father's stories would never be followed to their finish by the modern young man or woman. They would devastate her circle. No. They must stop in the country. Mother seemed to be developing some internal complaint--probably indigestion or something which could be cured at Aix or Homburg--and she was becoming very strait-laced and anxious-eyed. Sibyl would take Roger's advice: buy up father's three hundred acres; it could be made a most profitable milk farm. Father should stay on as tenant at a nominal rent, with a bailiff to manage--perhaps that young Harden, the cricketer, who had married Lucy's sister.

Sibyl resolved to send mother to Aix at her expense and have Aunt Christabel to stay with her indefinitely as long as she wanted a chaperon.

As to her sisters: thank goodness, _they_ were off her hands. They had married and gone away with their husbands to those blessed colonies, Clara to New Zealand and Juliet to British Columbia. Long might they remain there! Relations--unless very distant--were like reproaches or bad replicas of one's self. They sapped all one's originality....

These were some of the musings of Sibyl when having her hair brushed by Sophie, or when undergoing Swedish massage under the firm but soothing hands of a blonde giantess; when breakfasting in bed; or undergoing a long train journey in a first-class compartment with a defective lamp.

There was no question in this year of Lucy's accompanying her husband to Glen Sporran. She was starting another baby and was firm about not wishing to go. Sibyl took this decision most amiably; said Lucy was quite wise, and further proposed that she should have Maud with her and care-take for Sibyl at Engledene House. Clitheroe was likewise to be left behind. His life in the Highlands was one long succession of dangerous colds and there wasn't enough accommodation for his retinue of nurses; especially as every one you asked nowadays must have with them a maid or a valet. Clithy had grown so absurdly fond of Lucy that Sibyl suggested jocosely they should change babies. She thought little John a perfect darling--so like Roger--why hadn't Lucy chosen her as god-mother instead of Maud? No doubt Clithy would grow up more like a normal boy when the rest of his features balanced Anne of Denmark's nose.... Meantime, it was very fortunate things were as they were. And Lucy would oblige her enormously by looking after her boy while she was entertaining all those horrid people in the North.

Not that the house-party was to be a large one. It ran away with so much money, and people were never grateful. There would just be Stacy Bream; the Honble. Victoria Masham, the Maid of Honour--old Vicky Long-i'-the-tooth, Sibyl called her behind her back, and never imagined the nickname could be repeated and counteract the expense of a month's hospitality. _Must_ have Vicky to keep in touch, you know, with what the old Queen was saying and doing--and an acolyte of Stacy's named Reggie, something in the Colonial Office--he could flirt with Vicky--and p'raps Arthur Broadmead. Then--for a day or two--that insufferable cad, Elijah Tooley--"but he's so frightfully, frightfully rich and _might_ be useful." Aunt Christabel, of course, would come, to keep order, and Aggie Freebooter and Gertie Wentworth would make up the house-party. Aggie Freebooter was that tiresome Lady Towcester's daughter--"one of six girls, my dear"--but when she was away from her mother's eye she was deliciously larky and awfully plucky, and didn't mind what you played at; while Gertie Wentworth--or the Honble. Gertrude--thirty-five, lots of money, dresses like a man, whisky and cigars, takes the bank at Roulette and loses everything but her temper.

"Well, at any rate," said Maud, "I'm glad Willowby Patterne is not in the party, _this_ time...."

"My dear!..." said Sibyl with a scream. "I've absolutely dropped him, after that row in the City and that extraordinary case in the courts which was compromised and hushed up. He's gone out to East Africa. Haven't you heard?"

Maud had not heard and cared very little what had happened to the spendthrift baronet. But Roger had, and was a little uneasy as to his cherished Happy Valley. Willowby Patterne, mixed up once more with a very shady Company to take over and boom a new mineral water--some proposition of Bax Strangeways--and a matter of slander and a club-steps whipping, settled out of court ... and pending proceedings of his wife's for a separation; had decided abruptly to make "peau neuve" in East Africa. He had depicted the thrills of big-game shooting to one of his dupes just come of age and into possession of a pot of money. This young man would stand the racket of the expense--L5,000--and Willowby would put him up to all the dodges. And perhaps they might find minerals and get a concession....

Whilst he was up in Scotland Roger did manage, with the aid of Arthur Broadmead, to obtain an interview with Sir William MacNaughten on the subject of East African developments and the Company's future administration. But Sir William seemed vague, and much more interested and definite in regard to another question: King Solomon's Temple. Had Captain Brentham, as an Orientalist, ever given his mind to that problem, the shape and structure of the Temple, its adornment, and the hidden meaning of the Divine ordinances? No, Captain Brentham had not ... but ... er ... no doubt it was very interesting and full of meaning ... only ... East Africa?...

"Oh, East Africa--our Charter--Oh, yes! Well, come and see me about that when I'm back in London. You know my address there? Westminster Palace Hotel?"

The Glen Sporran party broke up with the rain and chill winds of the equinox; but Roger stayed on there with Sibyl and Aunt Christabel: nominally to examine the affairs of the estate and the installation of the lobster fishery; in reality because his resolves had all dissolved before her insistence, her tears, her threats to make a scene. Circe triumphed; preened herself; became once more gay and debonnaire. But her wretched lover felt indeed a pig. Aunt Christabel, the very servants seemed to guess what Sibyl thought was kept wholly secret from the rest of the world.

A month's absence in Staffordshire and London, and a shamefaced visit to Engledene Lodge did something to restore his self-respect. He called on Sir William at his hotel, resolved to broach the subject of the East Africa Governorship, but found him out. Nevertheless, to his delight there came a note to Pardew's Hotel from Sir William with these words in it: "Come to breakfast to-morrow morning at nine. I have something very interesting to discuss with you, and should value your opinion."

He arrived punctually. Lady MacNaughten was there--rather vinegary and with pursed lips. She dispensed the tea and coffee with a very strong Glasgow accent. The materials of the breakfast were--Roger thought--rather meagre for such wealthy people, who could afford to retain by the year this large suite of rooms. As no mention of East Africa was made during breakfast it was clearly more tactful to wait till the subject was introduced. Perhaps Sir William preferred not to discuss business in his wife's presence. At last, however, he finished his second cup of coffee, wiped his lips, said a grace of thanks for "our bounteous meal" in which Lady MacNaughten joined; and then asked Roger to accompany him to his sitting-room.

The folding doors were opened and shut behind them by an officious waiter; the window of the sitting-room looking out on incipient Victoria Street was also closed because the west wind was chilly. And Sir William then turned and said with great heartiness, pointing to a cardboard and _papier-mache_ contraption under a glass case:

"There! _That's_ what I wanted to discuss with you, who know the East so well: a Model of King Solomon's Temple, made to my own design!"

* * * * *

The Governorship of the Mombasa Concession was shortly after conferred on Lady MacNaughten's nephew.

*CHAPTER XVII*

*BACK TO THE HAPPY VALLEY*

Roger, ever since he returned from Scotland, resolved that a break with Sibyl should come as soon as he could see before him the re-opening of an African career. Only fortified with such a resolve could he face his wife's candid eyes and her unquestioning trust in him--or Maud's more quizzical gaze and occasional sardonic remarks.... "That old fox, MacNaughten," he said to himself, "had determined all along to evade the well-meant suggestions of candidates from the Foreign, Colonial, and India Offices, and as soon as he got his Baronetcy (which came with the New Year's honours) to take a line of his own."

However, Fate for once hastened the denouement by causing Roger's father to catch cold over the excavation of the Basilica at Silchester, to neglect his cold, and to die of double pneumonia in the week preceding Christmas, 1890. Roger could not help being profoundly grateful to his archaeological parent for dying _before_ rather than after Christmas, because this decease, with the conventions in force, and Queen Victoria behind the conventions, absolutely freed him from the obligation to attend the elaborate Christmas and New Year festivities ordained by Sibyl at Engledene. She had set aside a suite of rooms--bedroom, sitting-room and office--at 6A, Carlton House Terrace, and would no longer hear of his staying at Pardew's Hotel when in London to transact business with her. There were times when he seriously considered shooting himself--and strange to say, all through this period of episodical infidelity he had never loved Lucy better, or found her smiling silence or unimportant, unexacting conversation more soothing.

Her approaching confinement and his father's death together constituted a barrier of reserve that even Sibyl was bound to respect. He therefore utilized this respite to work assiduously at his plans for flight from the enchantress. He was most anxious after he was gone that no one should say with justification that he had let Lady Silchester down, had treated her badly, got things into a muddle, and then bolted.

As far back as the preceding October he had brought his younger brother, Maurice, the barrister into the Estate Office to be his assistant. Sibyl could suggest no one else and told him he could make what arrangements he liked--if _only_--if--_only_ he would not be _cruel_ to her, not talk of going at the end of the trial year. As he had not complete confidence in Maurice becoming efficient for the head post, he had entered into a provisional arrangement for a first-class man to put over Maurice, selecting him at the Institute of Land Agents' recommendation...

So much therefore had been done to safeguard h employer's interests.

Then as to his own. The administration of his father's estate would eventually secure a total sum of L4,300 to each of the four children of the Rev. Ambrose Brentham, including the amount they had recently received by deed of gift. This with other odds and ends of savings, gave Roger a capital of L5,000 to draw on.

As soon as Lucy was well over her accouchement in January (1891), he had several long and confidential conversations with Arthur Broadmead, that friend in need to so many men who had fallen into holes of their own digging, and who sought rectification by extending the bounds of empire and making two blades of grass to grow where but one had grown before. Several great Anglo-German financiers were seen in the City. The specimens and the School of Mines' report thereon were left in their hands: with the result that a small and select Anglo-German Syndicate was formed to prospect in the northern part of German East Africa. Into this pool Captain Brentham put L2,000 and was constituted for three years head of the enterprise with a good salary and very large discretion as to means and methods of developing the Happy Valley.

To Maud he next imparted his plans, and to his surprise they were received with cordial approval.

"You're _quite_ right, Roger, I'm sure you've taken the road that will most probably lead to happiness and fortune. Lucy is certain to fall in with your scheme. She can stay on in England till her baby's weaned--it was sweet of you both to call it after me--I was so certain you were going to name it 'Sibyl'! Then she can place both the children with their grandparents at Aldermaston and come out and join you. And what is more, _I_ will come too! I should _love_ to!"

There now remained--he could not say "only remained," it was too portentous a crisis--the final scene with Sibyl. He thought it over many a night when he could not sleep, many a morning when he was going through estate business with her and she was leaning unnecessarily over his shoulder or furtively pinching the lobe of his ear. A written good-bye, and then immediate departure, would be cruel, and Sibyl might afterwards revenge herself on Lucy, left behind defenceless; or on Maurice. There were, besides, points of business he must discuss with her before leaving; at any rate give her the chance of asking questions and receiving answers.

So he summoned up courage one morning and telegraphed he wished to see her that afternoon in London. She was up for the "little season" which follows Christmas.

He was shown into her library at 6A, Carlton House Terrace. She had come in from skating at Princes, had changed into a wonderful tea-gown and was lying on a long couch over which a magnificent tiger skin had been thrown. A small inlaid Moorish table held a tea-tray.

_Sibyl_: "Have some tea? Tell him before he goes out" (referring to the retreating footman).

_Roger_: "Thanks very much, no. I have had tea and I've got a lot to tell you. So I don't want to lose time." (The door clicks to.)

_Sibyl_: "Well. You're very solemn. Draw up a chair. Come to give me a month's warning? But to do that you ought to stand...."

_Roger_: "That's exactly what I _have_ come for...."

_Sibyl_: "Roger! _Don't_ make horrid jokes. You wouldn't be so base--so--ungrateful--as that...."

_Roger_: "It isn't an act of baseness, that's certain; and as to ingratitude, I think by going away I am doing the best thing altogether, so far as _you_ are concerned. No!" (she is rising and pushing the tea-table out of her way as a preparation for drama). "You must let me explain myself--and _do_ let us discuss this _quietly_, not as though we were acting a scene on the stage. Sibyl! Really the least said, soonest mended. We are in an _impossible_ position.... I blame myself more than you...." (Sibyl: "Thank you!") "I am a cad ... an _utter_ cad. I loathe myself sometimes so much I can't look at my face in the glass or meet my wife's eyes. I am going back to Africa ... going out of your life.... You must forget all about me ... and marry some decent man." (His voice sounds strangled and he turns away to recover himself.)

_Sibyl_: "It seems to me it is you that are becoming stagey. What does all this mean? Has Lucy found out we've been lovers and made a fuss? ... Or is it money? Have you got into debt? _Do_ be explicit!"

_Roger_: "It's none of these things. I only mean I have out-stayed my year with you, my trial year, and now I claim my liberty. I am going once more to try for a career in Africa ... and..."

_Sibyl_ (white with anger): "Well, _go_ to Africa! I never wish to see you again! _Go_! _Go_! _Go_!" (She half rises as if to expel him with her hands, but he saves her the trouble, takes up his hat, gloves and stick, walks out, closes the door of the library gently and lets himself out of the house.)

The next day he leaves at the door a tin despatch box and a letter containing its key. The box has amongst its contents the bunch of keys he has used on the Estate, a great bundle of accounts, notes, and suggestions for the immediate future. In the letter which accompanies this box he tells Sibyl all about the arrangement he has made in her Estate Office, advises her to keep on his brother Maurice who shows signs of uncommon ability, but for some time yet to retain as Head Agent Mr. Flower, provisionally engaged for a year, who is highly recommended by the Institute of Land Agents. Both alike are now well acquainted with the affairs of the Silchester Estate.... He asks her to be kind to Lucy who will remove as soon as she is strong enough to Aldermaston and meantime remains at the Lodge under Maud's care. Later on, when her child is old enough to be left in the grand-parents' keeping, Lucy and Maud will join him in East Africa. His address in London till he leaves for Marseilles on February 28 will be Pardew's Hotel....

He will never forget her kindness ... _never_ ... at a critical time in his life. And will not say "good-bye," because when he has "made good" in Africa he will come back on a holiday and hope to find the Estate flourishing and Silchester grown into a sturdy boy.

From what I knew of Sibyl I should say she at first took the breaking off of their relations very hardly.... "Agony, rage, despair" ... much pacing up and down the library.... Passionate letters half-written, then torn up into small fragments and thrown into the fire. Then--for she was a slave to her large household and magnificent mode of life--her maid Sophie enters the library and reminds My Lady that she is due that night to dine at the Italian Embassy. So Sibyl has to submit to be coiffed, dressed, jewelled, and driven off in a brougham--a little late, and that intrudes on her mind, because she has heard you should never be late to an Ambassador's invitation, it is a sort of _lese-majeste_. But to cope with the demands made on her, she has to force her heart-break to the back of her mind and sustain her reputation for gay beauty, daring expression, and alert wit--in French as well as English. There was a Royalty there to whom she had to curtsey and with whom she had to sustain a raillery, shot with malice, which required considerable brain-concentration; for though the retorts must call forth further bursts of laughter from the chorus that watched the duel, they must be free from the slightest impertinence.

Roger's abrupt leave-taking only remained like a dull ache behind her vivid consciousness of triumph, of celebrated men, bestarred with orders, swathed with ribbons; of women sparkling with jewels and rippling in silks; of a Prince who might "make" you with a smile or "mar" you with a frown; of many enemies concealed as friends; of wonderful music and exquisite food, for which she had no appetite. It was not until she had re-entered her dressing-room to be unrobed that she had once more the mind-space to reconsider Roger's farewell and what life would mean to her without his constant companionship. Then, foreseeing otherwise a ghastly night of turning things over and over in her thoughts, she told Sophie she had bad neuralgia; and opening a tiny little casquet with a tiny little gold key on her bangle she took from it the materials for a sleeping draught, compounded them cautiously--she was the last person in the world to commit suicide, even by mistake--swallowed the dose and half an hour afterwards slipped into oblivion.

The next morning she awoke with the inevitable headache, and the heartache returned. But there was the breakfast tray to distract her thoughts, and there were the morning letters. Among these was an invitation to meet an Oriental Potentate in very select company--an opportunity for display which she had coveted--and an invitation to dine with the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Benson, which she had sought for, as she wanted to allure the young Bensons into her circle of "souls."

She then reflected, while having her hair brushed, that it might be just as well that the breach with Roger had come before she had been in any way tarnished by the breath of scandal. People had already chaffed her about her handsome Land Agent. She would act so as to throw dust in their eyes, and certainly not play the part of _la maitresse delaissee_. Later on in the morning, therefore, she wrote to Lucy saying she had accepted Roger's resignation with the _deepest_ regret, but would not stand between him and his beloved Africa. Yet she hoped Lucy would not _think_ of leaving the Lodge until she was perfectly strong. She also told Roger's successor, Mr. Flower, she had confirmed the arrangement Captain Brentham had outlined and requested him to call on her in the following week.

In the afternoon of that day she issued the instruction "Not at home," intending to retire to her bedroom and have a good cry. But the full indulgence in this luxury was baulked by the announcement of her cousin Maud Brentham. Maud's name some while ago had been put on the short list of people to whom "Not at home" did not apply.

Maud had really been asked to call by the timorous Roger to see how Sibyl was "taking it." So Sibyl, divining this, received her affectionately; and only complained of the excessive brilliance of the ambassadorial party of the night before and the dead set made at her by the Prince having reduced her this following afternoon to the condition of a doll with the sawdust escaping from every seam. She talked quite calmly of Roger's approaching departure and the arrangement of Lucy's affairs after he had gone. "Why can't you and she transfer yourselves from the Lodge to the House at Engledene and stay there indefinitely, till you take ship for Africa and golden joys? Lucy's a god-send with poor nervous, peevish little Clithy. I _must_ leave the child there a good deal at present. He looks very peeky if he comes to London. And at Easter I shall shut up this house and go off to travel for a long time...."

"But not to East Africa, I trust...?" said Maud with some anxiety.

"Maud! You're a _toad_!"

When two very sad women came to Victoria on an appallingly cold and foggy morning to take leave of Roger--who was departing for Paris-Marseille to join his steamer--they were joined by a third, accompanied by an aloof footman carrying wraps; and books for Roger's solace on the journey. Sibyl put her arm round Lucy's waist, as they were saying farewell; and Roger having kissed his wife--most tenderly--and his sister--hesitated for one second, and then kissed Sibyl too.

* * * * *

_From Roger Brentham to his Wife._

H.B.M. Agency,
Unguja,
_March_ 29, 1891.

[Very near the second anniversary of our happy marriage. Barely two years married and already two children. I wonder how baby Maud is getting on?]

DEAREST LUCE,--

I sent you a cable from Port Said saying "All right thus far." I hope you got it? I arrived here by the French steamer yesterday.

I enjoyed the journey to Paris and Marseilles. But after we had left that port for a very stormy Mediterranean I went through a beastly time. I would have given everything I possessed--except you--to find myself back at Engledene and with all these African plans undone. I have led such a full life within the last two years, have had the very best of England; and the flatness of existence on an old-fashioned steamer came home to me crushingly during the nine days' voyage between Marseilles and Port Said. Such a hush after the noisy whirlpool of life in London in Sibyl's circle; or even the gay doings at Engledene when we had got over the first of our mourning for the poor old Pater. There were no newspapers and no news--nine days completely out of the world. No one on board I knew and no one who had ever heard of me. It brought home to me my utter insignificance! I felt a bit better when we passed through the Suez Canal. The sound of Arabic always stimulates me to adventure. The cold weather left us in the Red Sea. I passed most of my time mugging up Swahili again and trying to revive my Arabic with some Syrians who were on board. Aden cheered me up considerably. There were the jolly laughing Somalis once again, and I engaged four bright boys to go with me as servants and gun-carriers out hunting. You could light up a dark passage with their flashing teeth! When we reached Unguja I admit I felt some uncomfortableness. It is so awkward returning as a person of no status to a place where one has been an official. But as you know, I had taken the precaution, a month before I started, of writing confidentially to Sir Godfrey Dewburn about my plans and intentions. The Dewburns _could not have been kinder_. He sent the Agency boat to meet me with one of the new Vice-Consuls in it, and here I am at the Agency, installed as their guest till I can assemble my _safari_ and get away up-country. Lady Dewburn plies me with questions about you and our children....

The Dewburns are expecting promotion to a diplomatic post--possibly Persia. They feel their work here is done, now that the Anglo-German Treaty is ratified and Unguja is a British protectorate. The treaty has had the best effect on Anglo-German relations here and incidentally on my prospects of co-operation. I am to see Wissmann as soon as I land at Medinat-al-Barkah. Eugene Schraeder, who is all-powerful in Anglo-German finance, has written out to him. I have little doubt we shall get a Concession over the Happy Valley for our syndicate.

Landing at Medina will be a little out of the direct route to Irangi, but I shall travel across the Nguru country, now quite pacified and safe, and try to take Hangodi on the way to Ugogo. What associations the sight of it will revive if I do! That halting-place below the great rise, where we had tea together in the shade when I met you in your machila with Halima, and you were so taken aback that you called me "darling"--_I_ haven't forgotten! And talking of Halima, reminds me to say that she sends you her many salaams. Andrade is cook with the Dewburns and Halima has some function as housemaid. I have arranged when the Dewburns go that Andrade is to join me; so when you come out, my darling, Halima shall be there to wait on you and on Maud.

It'll be rather horrid meeting the Bazzards again at Medina. They returned recently from a long holiday in England--an East Coast watering-place chiefly, where Bazzard, who doesn't know a yacht from a barge, got elected to the local Yachting Club. I hear that Mrs. B. looks forward confidently to her husband succeeding Dewburn when the latter is promoted; but I think there is not the slightest chance of it.

The Stotts must have got my letter by now telling them I was on my way. Of course there has been no time for a reply. But Callaway tells me the last news of them was good. I have already picked up quite a third of my Wanyamwezi "faithfuls" who were hanging about Unguja since Willowby Patterne's _safari_ was paid off. That man is a _scoundrel_! He came out here and made free use of my name, pretending even he had letters from me which he never produced. He therefore got favours and concessions and secured my original hundred men--or what was left of them. His tour through the Mvita hinterland was one long sickening path of slaughter: he and his companion--a poor youth who was often down with dysentery and whom Patterne treated brutally--must have killed about three times the amount of game they could use for food or trophies. His ravages even shocked his carnivorous porters and annoyed the natives. Do you know, I think he must have had just a glimmering about the existence of the Happy Valley--he was always following me about at Glen Sporran and cocking an eye at my correspondence. Because though ostensibly only big-game slaughtering they made straight for the _south_ side of Kilimanjaro (instead of keeping to the British Sphere); and when the _safari_ reached Arusha ya Juu he tried to get guides for "Manyara"--the porters swear he used the word. He cross-questioned some of them as to where they had been with you and me. However, fortunately he had an odd trick of getting himself hated by all the native tribes he met, as well as by his own porters, whom he used to flog atrociously. (They tell disgusting stories about these floggings which I cannot put down on paper.) When his caravan got past the slopes of Meru it fell in with "our Masai," as I call them. And then it was like one of the old fairy stories of the bad girl who tried to follow the good girl down the well into fairyland, and couldn't remember the countersign. Instead of hitting it off with the Masai he vexed them in some way and at last they turned on him and forced his _safari_ to go back to Kilimanjaro. At least the Wanyamwezi porters refused to continue the journey, which comes to the same thing. He has left for England--I am glad to say--or I might have fallen foul of him. The two of them killed enough ivory to pay the costs of the whole outfit. So he swears he is coming back again and will then take a large body of armed men with him and wipe out the Masai.

Now I must bring this long letter to a close. Much love to dear old Maud, and my most respectful greetings to my cousin and late employer. I found her fame for beauty, wit, and dominance over Society had reached even to Unguja.... In fact I rather winced at turning over three-months-old illustrated papers here and seeing pictures of her in wonderful costumes or--in the magazines--as a type of English beauty.... How far away it all seems!...

Your loving
RODGE.

_From the same to the same._

German Headquarters,
Medinat-al-Barka,
_April_ 30, 1891.

DEAREST,--

You will be rather surprised that a month has gone by and I have got no nearer my goal than this! But firstly I went down with a bad go of fever--all right now--and secondly I could not hustle von Wissmann, who is Imperial Commissioner here and who has been very kind--and thirdly the rains are so appalling just now that overland travelling is well-nigh impossible till the country dries up a little. But I am not losing my time otherwise. I am getting everything fixed up with the Germans, and next shall only have to arrive at an understanding with the natives. The boundaries of our Concession (which will include the Stotts) cover the Happy Valley from the water-parting between the Bubu and the Kwou on the south to the escarpment at the north end of the lake, and on east and west include all the water-shed of Lake Manyara, Iraku and Fiome. So they have dealt with us generously.

Wissmann I like immensely. He is a great man and has the interests of the real natives thoroughly at heart. Our old friends the Stotts have impressed him favourably and they are to be woven into my schemes of development. Wissmann from the first asked me to put up at his headquarters and treated me like a colleague in the opening up of Africa. So I was saved the disagreeableness of staying at my former Consulate with the Bazzards.

Mrs. Bazzard has been sickly in her protestations of friendship, utterly insincere as you know. I fancy she is turning her pen now on Sir Godfrey, in the hope she may oust _him_. Considering how kind the Dewburns were to them it is odious to note how she tries to disparage him....

There is not much news from the interior. I hear that Ali-bin-Ferhani got rewarded by the Germans for saving Hangodi Station, and that Mbogo is still chief there in name, the real chief of the district being Ann Anderson, or Mgozimke--"The man-woman," as the natives call her.

In haste to catch the mail....

Your loving
ROGER.

_From the same to the same._

Mwada, The Happy Valley,
_July_ 28, 1891.

MY OWN DEAR WIFE,--

I reached the shores of the lake--which I now find is called Lawa ya mweri--and the end of the Happy Valley on--as near as I can reckon--June 20. (The Stotts have no almanacs and are quite indifferent to dates, times, seasons; they live under some enchantment, they tell me, since they came here, like the legends of people carried off to Fairyland.) I met Mr. Stott at Burungi, which now looks a flourishing station. The Wagogo seem to me quite recalcitrant to Christianity, but the Stotts have to keep this up as a depot for their traffic with the coast, and they are helped in this by the German Government.... Stott and I journeyed together through the Irangi country almost in state. The Stotts have become enormously popular as "medicine men." They have stopped epidemics of small-pox by vaccinating the people, have shown them how to stay the ravages of the burrowing fleas, and they are making a dead set against infanticide, having found one or two leading chiefs sufficiently intelligent to appreciate the importance of a large population. Formerly, as you may remember, there was such a prejudice against female babies that they were often exposed to the hyenas outside the tembe, and all children who came into the world by an irregular presentation, or with a tooth already through the gum, likewise all twins, were either thrown into the lake or abandoned to the carnivorous ants or prowling carnivores. (There is a curious legend here--Stott says--that sometimes these unhappy infants were picked up by female baboons of the Chakma type and nursed by them with their own offspring.)

Well: you can imagine, having lived already in these parts, what the infant death-rate amounted to. But the local chiefs having had the whole theory exposed to them have sanctioned a crusade against infanticide for any reason. The Wa-rangi have further been persuaded to abandon the custom of burning alive women suspected of adultery. I did not like to tell you at the time, but as we passed through the Irangi country in November, '88, they were actually killing unfortunate women in this manner. They believe that if a man goes out hunting and makes a bad miss in throwing his spear or assegai at an elephant it is because his wife is untrue to him at home! So when he returns from the chase his wretched spouse is trussed up and bound to the top of a great pile of brushwood.

Consequently, at several of the Irangi villages on our way up the Bubu valley the women who were the wives of sporting duffers came out in deputations to dance round the worthy Stott till they quite embarrassed him; especially as the dances were of an indelicate nature.

The Stotts have now quite a nice-looking station to the south-east of the main lake, on a grassy rise with the Mburu river on the south and a much smaller salt lake on the east. This looks like sparkling ice under the sun and is nearly solid--? salt--? soda. Its borders seem to be a kind of salt lick for the game which is once more swarming and singularly tame. There are no rhinos, fortunately, and the tricky tempered elephants and buffaloes prefer the wooded regions farther north and west. The lions, leopards and chitas are so glutted with food that they leave the domestic cattle and human beings alone; and the myriad zebras, antelopes, elands, bushbuck, giraffes, wart-hogs and ostriches are quite willing to live at peace with mankind. Secretary birds and saddle-billed storks are numerous and keep the snakes down; marabou storks and vultures devour all the carrion and even the filth round the native villages--so the country seems healthy. Enormous flocks of crowned cranes and bustards look after the locusts and grasshoppers. The flamingoes by the lake shore are as numerous as they were in our time....

The Stotts' station is built after the fashion of the native houses of the district: long, continuous, one-storied "tembes" forming a hollow square, inside which the cattle and sheep are kept at night....

But what I am longing to describe is the country of Iraku. I went there with Stott, you may remember, whilst we stayed waiting for news of poor John Barnes. I was immensely taken with it then. But now I have seen it more in detail I am enthusiastic. It resembles--I can't help saying--a little Abyssinia--from all I have heard and read of Abyssinia, though it is not at such great altitudes. Its natives are actually related in speech and type to those of Southern Abyssinia. I should estimate the average height at five thousand feet, with ridges, peaks and craters touching seven or eight thousand; so that the temperature is almost perfect--nights always cool, not to say cold. It is a fertile, fruitful land of ups and downs, richly forested valleys, plenty of streams, grassy uplands like the Berkshire downs: indeed a very English-looking country. Somewhere here, not far from the escarpment and the Happy Valley, we will have our home, dearest, and here you and Maud shall join me as soon as ever you can come out. How I _long_ for that coming. There are times when, in spite of the Stotts and their cheeriness, I feel sick with melancholy and loneliness. The change from that English life has been too abrupt. As soon as ever little Maud is weaned and able to be left with your mother you must pack up and come. My Agents in the City, Messrs. Troubridge, who pay you (I hope) your allowance quarterly, have all my instructions as to your passage, and Maud's, your outfit, etc. Once I can get you two out here I shall settle down contentedly enough and make a fortune--I doubt not--on which, some day, we can retire and live happily ever afterwards.

Meantime as I have written very fully, only show this letter to Maud and say as little as possible about it to Sibyl, lest she repeat my account of the Happy Valley to that scoundrel, Patterne. She says she never sees him now, and she certainly ought not to after the reputation he has left behind in East Africa; but as likely as not she will resume the acquaintance, and he is the last sort of person I wish to meet in these parts.... Mrs. Stott of course sends love to you and the kindest greetings. Her enthusiasm for her Creator is unabated, because they have so far had wonderful good fortune since they blundered into this haven of rest and beauty in October, 1888. If one or other of them did not have once in a way to go down to the coast they would enjoy--she says--perfect health....

Your loving
ROGER.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*FIVE YEARS LATER*

Roger Brentham has now lived consecutively for five years in the Happy Valley; or, to be accurate, at Magara, in a natural fortress looking down on it from the Iraku escarpment. Much of his work, however, lies in the plains below, and he has a comfortable rest-house near the Stotts' station--but not too near, for Kaya la Balalo[#]--as they have named it--is now the centre of a considerable native village, a little too noisy, dusty, and smelly for fastidious nerves and noses.

[#] "The City of God."

In these five years a great transformation has taken place in and around the Happy Valley. A land settlement has been come to with the natives and is duly laid down in a rough survey and in signed documents drawn up in German and Swahili. The native villages, plantations, pasture ground and reserves are clearly defined so that they may be placed outside the scope of white encroachment; but in coming to this agreement, some common-sense regard has been had for highly mineralized land not already inhabited and suitable for profitable exploitation (with a share of the profits going to the native community) and for the location of European settlements, farms, mission stations, laboratories and experimental plantations. In short, both parties are satisfied. There is sufficient security for the investment of much white capital in this region of undeveloped wealth; and the Negroes are reassured regarding their homes and future prospects of expansion. They have been shrewd bargainers and have had the Stotts as their advocates. The news of their fair and even generous treatment has attracted considerable native immigration, especially from the Nyamwezi countries; Brentham's Wa-nyamwezi porters have been useful recruiting agents, and the district is well off for labour. The native chiefs administer rough justice as between native and native. Brentham and three of his German colleagues, as well as Mr. Ewart Stott, hold commissions from the German Government as justices of the peace, and there is a German commandant at a central post in the Irangi country who presides over a Court of Appeal from their decisions. But as a rule, these Concessionaires having originally inspired confidence in von Wissmann's mind during his great pacification of German East Africa are left pretty free to administer the area of their large Concession and to keep order within its limits. This, with the cordial co-operation of the native chiefs they find comparatively easy, and in this the friendship between Roger and the outlying Masai tribes, who have not forgotten the blood-brotherhood of 1888 has been very useful. The Happy Valley has nothing to fear from Masai raids and has at present no outside enemies.

Lucy and Maud joined Roger in the spring of 1892 and after four years' happy life in this curiously secluded region--so cut off as it was from African troubles, from wars between Arabs and Europeans raids of tribe upon tribe, risings against the Germans, squabbles with British pioneers--are now preparing to return to England. Lucy has had two more children one born in 1893 and the other in 1895. She is anxious to take them both home and place them in safety there; at the same time she hungers for a sight of the older two whom she has not seen for over four years. She is in fact a prey to that divided allegiance which has so often marred the happiness of the wives of men engaged in Indian or African work: a desire to be with their husbands, and yet an anxiety about the health and bringing-up of their children in a barbaric environment. The Stotts consider they have solved this question by parting with their oldest child and letting their other children run the African risks and grow up--if they survive--with only an African outlook. They are true colonists in intention. But settlers like the Brenthams always envisage an eventual retreat to the home country and an English education for their children.

They are assembled on the open ground beyond the garden of their house in Iraku, to take leave of their German associates in the Concession: Herr Treuherz Hildebrandt (whose sentimental fore-name is usually disguised under the initial T) and Dr. Wolfgang Wiese. Hildebrandt is the mining engineer who is ascertaining the mineral wealth of the mountain region bordering on the Happy Valley; Dr. Wiese, besides being in case of need the physician and surgeon of the little European community, is a very clever analytical chemist, botanist, zoologist and horticulturist, one of those all-round men that Germany so often produced before the war and so often contributed in still earlier days to the opening up of the British Empire. He has arrived in haste from his dwelling a mile distant to bid farewell to the gracious Mrs. Brentham. Wiese is spectacled and bearded, a little shy in manner with strangers, and inclined to melancholy when his thoughts turn to the young wife who accompanied him to Africa about the time that Lucy and Maud came out to join husband and brother. Less fortunate than they, she had died from an attack of coast fever. Thereafter he had found some mitigation of his loneliness in the pleasant home created by Lucy and Maud, so that he regards them with affection and thinks they must be the very best type of British women. As, however, he has work in progress at his laboratory of crucial importance, his farewells are prompt and soon concluded.

But his colleague, the mining engineer Hildebrandt, stays longer, being very loath to part with Maud Brentham. He is tall, passably handsome, soldierly, well-knit, a lint-white blond with violet-grey eyes like Lucy's. Though he comes from Saxony he is more of the Friesland type, in the contrast between his straw-yellow hair (mostly shaved to stubble, it is true) and his dark-grey eyes. He has the further attraction to which many women would succumb in being very musical (out of business hours). In those days before gramophones he was a welcome guest for the music which welled up in his brain and poured from his fingers. Roger had managed with infinite difficulty to import and carry up on an ox-cart a cottage piano of German make, and on this instrument Hildebrandt would waft his listeners to other scenes--of far away and long ago--with his waltzes, sonatas, minuets, marches, and songs without words, sometimes playing by ear with that wonderful musician's memory; sometimes, when he took things seriously, from the enormous supply of printed music which a sympathetic company had allowed him to carry up-country.

A year after their first meeting he had proposed to Maud, and had renewed this offer of marriage on two other occasions. But she had been firm in her refusal, though she appreciated his good looks and frank manliness, and almost loved him for his music. But she declared the difference in their ages--twelve years--was an insuperable objection; secondly she did not wish to marry, so that she might always live with Roger and Lucy and their children. If they failed her she would make a career of her own--become a New Woman and agitate for women's rights. "On top of all that, nothing would induce me to live in Germany, though I've no doubt you are in the right, and it's the finest country in the world. But I'm so interested in watching English developments. When we have finished with Africa and made our pile we're going to settle at home and improve our own country."

"Well then, if you'll marry me, I'll go and live in England with you...."

But Maud has remained obdurate. In spite of this they have settled down in course of time, and in battling together against the anxieties, difficulties, and dangers of African colonization, into very good comrades. Maud and Roger and even Lucy all speak German to some extent, and the Germans of the Concession have an even greater facility in English. Conversation is often a medley of both languages and much laughter at each other's mistakes. Lucy contributes to the common stock of entertainment very little in the way of talent. She is naturally fond of music: sweet melodies, deep harmonies bring the tears into her eyes; gay tunes make her want to dance; but she is no musician and no dancer. Maud has a pleasant contralto voice and is a good accompanist. Lucy's water-colour painting has long since been given up as a futility in this age of universal talent. But she makes botanical collections now with some deftness and ability under the instruction of Dr. Wiese, whom in this direction she really helps. Yet considering she has borne four healthy children in six years of marriage no one can ask much from her in the way of accomplishment in the arts; and by the time she has attended to her offspring's needs with the perfunctory help of Halima--herself saddled with two brown hybrids, bearing extravagant Portuguese names--mended their clothes and her husband's, and her own, and generally directed the housekeeping, it is felt she has done her duty to the little community. Nevertheless though she is not particularly witty, original, or wise, and has no great physical attraction for any one but her husband, and is prone at times to be silent with a gentle melancholy, she has an inherent gift for making people feel at home. She has a capacity for listening unweariedly to the longest stories, and is a sympathetic confidant to any one in trouble.

So Bergwerksingenieur Hildebrandt said good-bye to her with nearly as much sentiment as infused his voice and his hand-grip when he took leave of his liebste Kamerad, "Meess Mowd" (Maud always said that his pronunciation of her name robbed his courtship of all romance). He looks indeed so sad at parting from these two dear Englishwomen that Maud is nearly tempted to kiss him; only that he might have misconstrued her motherliness.