*chapter Ii*

*JOHN AND LUCY*

John and Lucy strode rapidly through the outskirts of the village, past the inspection of curious eyes from over the rim of window blinds, into the quiet country, which lay sleeping in veiled sunshine; for the warmth of the June sun had created a slight haze in the river valley and men and beasts seemed drowsy with the concentrated, undispersed odour of the newly-cut hay. They crossed a little stream by a wooden bridge, climbed two stiles—Lucy gaily, John bashfully, as if fearing that his new-born dignity of preacher might suffer thereby—walked about a quarter of a mile down a densely shaded lane where the high hedgerows were flecked with pale pink, yellow-stamened dogroses, and where the honeysuckle trailed its simple light green foliage and hung out its lank fists of yellow fingers: and then arrived at an open space and a broad high road. This they followed until they came to a white gate, marked in black letters “To Englefield. Private.” Without hesitation, from long-established custom, they raised the latch and entered the dense shade of a well-timbered wood with a glimpse here and there, through the tree trunks, of open water.

Lucy sighed with relief and pleasure when the white gate swung to behind her and she was walking on a turf-covered track under the shade of great beech trees. Though the scene was familiar to her she exclaimed at its beauty. John mopped his face industriously, flapped away the flies, blew his nose, and wiped the brim of his hat. “Yes, yes,” he would reply, looking to see if his boots were very dusty or whether there were any grass seeds sticking to the skirts of his frock-coat. “Canterbury bells, is that what you call them? Yes, there seem to be lots this year. Here’s a nice, clean trunk of a tree. Let’s sit down and have our talk…”

“Oh, not here, John. It’s too midgy. We will go farther on to The View: there’s a seat there.”

So they followed the broad, turfy track which commenced to ascend the flank of a down. On the right hand the great trees rose higher and higher into the sky; on the left the ground sloped away to the level of the little lake with its swans and water-lilies; and the turf near at hand was dark blue and purple-green with the bugle in flower. In the ascending woodland there were tall ranks of red-mauve foxgloves. Here the owner of the park had placed an ample wooden seat for the delectation of all who loved landscape beauty.

John threw himself down with heavy abandonment on the grey planks. Had he been alone he would certainly have taken off his boots to ease his hot and compressed feet, but some instinct told him his betrothed might not think the action seemly. Lucy stood for a few moments gazing at the view over the Kennet valley and then sat down beside him.

“How dreadfully you perspire, my poor John,” she said, looking at the wet red hand which clasped the rail of the seat.

“Yes. The least amount of walking makes me hot.”

“Well, but how will you be able to stand Africa?”

“Oh, it’s a different kind of heat there, I believe. Besides, you don’t have to go about in a black coat, a waistcoat and a starched shirt; except perhaps at service time on Sundays.”

“What a pity black clothes seem to be necessary to holiness!”—(then seeing a frown settling on his face) “I wonder whether we shall see anything so beautiful as this out there?”

“As beautiful as what? Oh! The view. Well, I s’pose so. I believe there are some high mountains and plenty of forest near the place where I am to live.”

“What is its name?”

“Hangodi, I think—something like that. Bayley says it means ‘the Place of Firewood.’”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound pretty at all; just as if there were nothing but dead sticks lying about. I hoped there would be plenty of palms and those things you see in the pictures of African travel books—with great broad leaves—plantains? Is it a village?”

“Hangodi? I believe so. I think the chief reason it has been chosen is its standing high up on a mountain and being near water.”

“Oh, John,” said Lucy after a minute’s silence, “I do look forward to joining you in Africa. I’ve always wanted to travel, ever since I won a geography prize at school. Just think what wonderful things we shall see. Elephants and lions and tigers. Will there be tigers? Of course not. I ought to have remembered they’re only found in India. But at any rate there will be beautifully spotted leopards, and lions roaring at night, and hippopotamuses in the rivers and antelopes on the plains. And ostriches? Do you think there will be any ostriches, John?”

“My dear, how do I know? Besides, we are not going out to Africa to look for ostriches and lions, Lucy,” said John, rather solemnly. “We have a great work before us, a great work. There is a mighty harvest to be gathered for the Lord.”

“Of course, John, of course,” Lucy hastened to reply, “I know what is the real object of your mission, and I mean to help you all I can, don’t I?” (pushing back a wisp of his lank brown hair that fell over his brow—for he had taken off the hot wide-awake). “But that won’t prevent me from liking to see wild beasts and other queer African things; and I don’t see the harm in it, either…”

“N—no, of course it isn’t wrong. These things are among the wonderful works of the Almighty, and it is right that we should admire them in their proper place. At the same time they are apt to become a snare in leading us from the contemplation of holy things into vain disputes about science. I know more about these spiritual dangers than you do, Lucy,” continued John, from the superior standing of his three years’ education in London, “and I warn you against the idolatry of intellect” (squeezing her little kid-gloved hand to temper his solemnity with a lover’s gesture). “I knew a very nice fellow in London once. He had studied medicine at the hospitals and he came to Bayswater College to qualify for the East African Mission; for he intended going out as a medical missionary. He was the son of a minister, too, and his father was much respected. But he was always spending his spare time at this new Natural History Museum, and he used to read Darwin and other infidel writers. Well, the result was that he took to questioning the accuracy of Genesis, and of course he had to give up all idea of joining the Mission. I don’t know what became of him, but I expect he afterwards went to the bad. For my part, I am thankful to say I never was troubled with doubts. The Bible account of Creation is good enough for me, and so it ought to be for everybody else.”

“John! John!” exclaimed Lucy, shaking his arm, “you are just as bad as your mother, who accuses me of disbelieving the Bible because I like to take a walk on a fine Sunday afternoon. How you do run on! I only said I wanted to see elephants and lions in Africa and you accuse me straight out of ‘worshipping my intellect’ or some such rubbish. Don’t you know the chief reason I promised to marry you was because I thought it was so noble of you to go to Africa to teach the poor natives? Very well, if you think African wild beasts will be a snare for my soul I won’t run the temptation, and you shall marry some black woman whose ears will come down to her shoulders, and a ring through her nose as well, and no doubts at all about anything.”

“Lucy! I think you’re very flippant.”

“John! I think you’re much too sanctimonious! You’re a great deal too good for me, and you’d better find a more serious person than I am—Miss Jamblin, for instance.”

“Ann Jamblin? And a very nice girl too. Oh! you may sneer at her. She’s not pretty, I daresay, but she comes to all the prayer meetings, so mother says; and she’s got a nice gift for sacred poetry.”

“Yes, I know her verses—flimsy things! Just hymns-and-water, I call them. She’s got a number of stock rhymes and she rings the changes on them. Any one could do that. Besides, I’ve caught her lots of times borrowing whole lines from Hymns, Ancient and Modern, which I suppose aren’t good enough for chapel people, so they must needs go and make up hymns of their own. And as to the prayer meetings, it’s just the tea and cake that attract her. Bless you! I was at school with Ann Jamblin, and I know what a pig that girl is… But if you think she’d suit you better as a wife, don’t hesitate to change your mind. Your mother would be delighted. And I’ve heard say that Ann’s uncle, who keeps the ham-and-beef shop in Reading, means to leave her all his money. You won’t find Ann Jamblin caring much for wild beasts, I can promise you! Why, I remember once when the school was out walking near Reading and we met a dancing bear coming along with its keeper, she burst out screaming and crying so loud that the youngest Miss Calthrop had to take her straight back.”

“Now, Lucy! Is it kind to quarrel with me just before I am going away?” (Lucy’s unexpected spitfire prettiness and the hint she might be willing to break off the engagement had roused John’s latent manliness and he felt now he desired intensely to marry her.)

“My dear John, I wasn’t quarrelling, I’ve nothing to quarrel about. I only suggested to you before it was too late to change your mind that Ann Jamblin would make you a more suitable wife than I should—there, there!” (fighting off a kiss and an attempt at a hug) “remember where we are and that any one might see us and carry the tale to your mother. Of course, I am partly in fun. I know it is unkind to tease you, but somehow I can’t be as serious as you are… Dear old John” (the attempt at a hug and the look of desire in John’s eyes have somehow mollified her) “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings… Did I? … I’m very sorry… Just as you’re going away, too… There, never mind… Look bright and happy… Now smile!”

John’s lips parted reluctantly and showed his pale gums and projecting eye-teeth.

“What do you think, John? … Let’s get up and walk on to the garden gates, … what do you think my Uncle Pardew is going to give us as a wedding present? A harmonium! Won’t that be nice? I shall take it out with me, and then when you teach the people to sing hymns—only you mustn’t teach them Ann Jamblin’s—I can play the accompaniments. And in the evenings when you are tired I shall try to play something that will soothe you. I have never tried the harmonium yet, but while you are away I mean to practise. It’s just like playing the piano, only you have to keep working the pedals with your feet, like a sewing-machine. Uncle Pardew would just as soon give us a piano, but I told him what you said about the climate being bad for them. So he settled that a harmonium would do better. I wonder what other wedding presents we shall get? I can tell to a certainty what your mother will give us.”

“What?”

“Why, a very large Bible, bound in shiny brown leather like those in the waiting-rooms at railway stations, with a blue ribbon marker; and a dozen silver spoons. Six large and six small. I know she doesn’t consider me worthy of the spoons, but she is bound by custom. When she was married her mother-in-law gave her spoons… And your father will give us a dinner-service and a gross of Sparkling Cider…”

“I hope to goodness he doesn’t. The cost of transporting it up-country would be quite beyond my means. I shall tell him…”

“And my father,” continued Lucy, “is going to give me a gold watch and chain. And mother, my own sweet little mother—what do you think she’s been working at, John?”

“Can’t say, I’m sure.”

“Why, all the house linen…	Sheets, pillow-cases, tablecloths,
napkins, and such like.	She has been getting them ready ever since I
was first engaged… John!	You must be very kind to me in Africa.”

“Kind to you? Why, of course! Do you suppose I should be anything else?”

“You don’t know how I feel the idea of parting with mother. I love her better than any one in the world, better than you, John. She never says anything, but I know she is dreadfully unhappy at the idea of my going away so far and for so long. But then, I tell her, we can’t all be old maids. Father isn’t rich enough to keep us all at home, and I don’t want to go on working at a National school all my life… Oh, by the bye, talking of mother, I had something so pleasant to tell you. What do you think Lord Silchester has done? You know mother was maid to old Lady Silchester? Well, when father went the other day to see Mr. Parkins about a gate he met his lordship walking out of the agent’s office. They got into conversation and father told him I was going out next year to marry you in Africa. And last Wednesday mother got a letter written by Lord Silchester himself, saying he had not forgotten her faithful care of his mother and would she give the enclosed to her daughter, out of which she might buy a wedding present, something to remember Lord Silchester by when she got out to Africa. And there were four five-pound notes in the envelope. Mother was so pleased she positively cried.”

“Yes. That was very kind of his lordship. I must tell my mother when I get back to-night. It may cheer her up.”

“Oh, every one has been very nice about my engagement. The Miss Calthrops, where I was at school in Reading, told me they were working at some aesthetic mantel-borders for our house in Africa…”

“Mantel-borders! Why, we shan’t have any mantel-pieces!”

“No mantel-pieces? No fireplaces?”

“Only a fire for cooking, in the kitchen, and that will be outside.”

“Oh well, then, we must put them to some other use; I couldn’t wound their feelings by saying we didn’t want them.”

“Lucy, you mustn’t imagine you are going to live in a mansion in Africa. Our home will be only a cottage built of bamboo and mud and tree-stems roughly trimmed, with a thatched or a corrugated-iron roof. I don’t suppose it will contain more than four rooms—a bedroom, a bathroom, a sitting-room, a store and an outside kitchen.”

“Well, but even a log-hut might be made pretty inside, with some ‘art’ draperies and cushions and a few Japanese fans. I mean to make our home as pretty as possible. Shall we have a garden?”

“Oh, I daresay—a kitchen garden, certainly. For the Mission Committee wants to encourage the planting of vegetables and even some degree of farming, so that we may live as much as possible on local products. We are taking out spades and hoes and rakes in plenty, a small plough, an incubator, and any amount of useful seeds.”

“I’m sure,” said Lucy, still musing, “there ought to be lovely wild flowers in Africa and beautiful ferns, too. I mean to have a little wild garden of my own, and I shall press the flowers and send them to mother in my letters.”

“I daresay you will be able to do that, when you have finished your household work and done your teaching in the school.”

“Teaching in the school?”

“Why, of course you will help me in that. You’ll have to take the girls’ class, whilst I take the boys’.”

“Oh, shall I? That’s rather horrid. I didn’t think I was going out to Africa to teach, just the same as at home. The National School children at Aldermaston are quite tiresome enough. What will little black girls be like, I wonder?”

“I’m told they’re very quick at learning… I am sorry,” continued John, rather portentously, “that you don’t quite seem to realize the nature of the duties you are about to undertake. I love you very dearly, Lucy”—and a tremor in his voice showed sincerity—“but that isn’t the only reason I have asked you to come out to me in Africa and be my wife. I want a helpmeet, not a playmate; one who will aid me in bringing these heathen to a knowledge of God’s goodness; not an idle woman who only thinks of picking wild flowers and ornamenting her house. Don’t pout, dear. I only want to save you disappointment. You are not coming out to a life of luxury, but one of hard work. Besides, it would be hardly fair to the Mission if you did not take certain duties on yourself, because when I am married they will increase my pay to two hundred and fifty pounds a year.”

“What do you get when you are single?”

“One hundred and eighty. You see a married man gets extra pay because it is always supposed his wife will add her work to his. A married missionary, too, has more influence with the natives.”

“All the same, John, we shall sometimes make time to steal away by ourselves and have a nice little picnic without any of those horrid black people near us…”

“Horrid black people, Lucy, have immortal souls…”

“I daresay, but that doesn’t prevent their having black bodies and looking like monkeys. However, I daresay I shall get used to them. And if I don’t at first … By the bye, John, I forgot to ask, but I wanted to, so as to relieve mother’s mind—are they cannibals?”

“What, the people of Hangodi? I don’t know, but I scarcely think so. And if they were, we should have all the more credit in converting them.”

“Yes; but suppose they wouldn’t wait to be converted, but ate you first?”

“The little I’ve read and heard shows me they would never do that. African cannibals, it seems, are rather careful whom they eat. Generally only their war captives or their old people. They wouldn’t eat a peaceful stranger, a white man. However, on the east side of Africa the negroes are not cannibals, any more than we are.”

“Isn’t it curious, John, to think what different ideas of right and wrong prevail amongst the peoples of the world? Here, you say, there are some tribes in Africa which eat their own relations. Well, I daresay it is thought quite a right and proper thing to do—out there—just as we in England think the old folk ought to be cherished and taken care of, and kept alive as long as possible. Only fancy how funny it would sound to us to be told that Mr. Jones showed very bad feeling because he wouldn’t join his brother and sister in eating up old Aunt Brown! And yet I daresay that is what cannibal scandal-mongers often say to one another. Isn’t it wonderful how one lot of human beings can think and act so differently to another lot; and yet each party considers that nobody is right but those who believe as they do? Supposing one day some black missionaries landed in England, dressed in large earrings, bead necklaces, pocket handkerchiefs and nothing else, and tried to persuade us to worship some hideous idol and leave off wearing so many clothes. How astonished we would be … and yet they would think they were doing right, just as our missionaries do who go out to teach savages the Gospel…”

“Well, I confess I don’t see the resemblance. What we preach is the Truth, the Living Truth. What they believe is a lie of the Devil.”

“Yes, but they don’t know it is. They must think it is the truth or they wouldn’t go on believing in it year after year. When I was teaching geography the other day, I was quite astonished to find in the Manual that about four or five hundred millions of people were Buddhists. Isn’t it dreadful to think of their all being wrong, all living in vain. Surely God won’t punish them for it hereafter?”

“It’s hard to say. If they had the means of grace offered to them and rejected the Message I should think He would. But that is the chief object of our Foreign Missions, to teach the heathen the true principles of Christianity and bring the Light of the Gospel to them that sit in darkness. When this has been done throughout the earth, no one will then be able to say he sinned in ignorance, ‘because he knew not the way of Life.’”

“And yet, John, see here in England what different views of religion even good people take. Father goes to Church; you go to Chapel; and each thinks the other on the wrong road to Heaven.”

“Oh no! Lucy, I wouldn’t go so far as that. Of course, I believe that our Connection has been vouchsafed a special revelation of God’s Will and Purpose among men. But all the same I feel sure that many a Church person comes into the way of Truth though it may be after much tribulation. Why, I wouldn’t deny that even Roman Catholics may be saved, if they have led a godly life and acted up to their lights. At the same time, those who have the Truth among them and are wilfully blind to its teaching are incurring a heavy responsibility.”

“Then you think father stands less chance of being saved than you do?”

“Well … yes … I do; because in his Church he does not possess the same means of grace as are given to our Connection.”

“But he is so good, so kind to every one, so fair in his dealings…”

“Good works without faith are insufficient to save a man.”

“Well, for my part, I can’t believe that any one will be lost because he may not follow the most correct kind of religion. I can’t believe that God will punish any one who isn’t very, very wicked indeed. He is so great; we are so little… Just think, supposing we saw an ant doing anything wrong should we feel obliged to hurt it or burn it? Should we not be rather amused and pitiful? And mustn’t we seem the very tiniest of ants to God?”

“Ah, Lucy! The belief in the fierce judgments of the Almighty is a fundamental Truth of our religion, and if your faith in that is shaken, everything will begin to go… But the subject is too solemn to be lightly discussed, so let’s talk about something else. Have you finished my slippers?”

“Yes, and they’re perfectly lovely. A dark blue, with J.B. embroidered in white silk. I shall bring them with me to the station to-morrow… Why, here we are at the gates of the garden! How we’ve walked and how we’ve talked! And look, John,”—drawing him back from standing too near the iron gates, “there’s his lordship on the terrace, and I do believe the young lady with him is the one he’s become engaged to!”

John looked in the direction whither Lucy discreetly inclined her head, beyond triumphs of carpet-bedding to the terrace which fronted the south side of the great house. And there, foremost of several groups of Sunday callers who were taking tea at small tables, they saw specially prominent a party of three: a pretty girl rather showily dressed in the height of 1886 fashion, an old lady, and an elderly man, tall, a little inclined to stoop, dressed in dark, loose-fitting tweeds. He had a long face with a massive jaw and rather a big nose. But though they were not visible at a distance of fifty yards there were kindly wrinkles round his dark grey eyes as he suddenly lifted them from the seated ladies and glanced across the flower beds to see who was looking at him from the outer world.

This was Lord Silchester; and John, not wishing to prolong his indiscretion, raised his wide-awake and turned away with his betrothed. He and Lucy then walked directly to Aldermaston, John leaving her at the railway station, where he consummated his breach of the Sabbath by taking an evening train back to Theale, and so returned to his home at the Aerated Waters factory for the last night he was ever to pass there.

The next morning, punctually at seven o’clock, Lucy’s father drew up his gig before the booking-office of Theale station, and, getting a porter to hold the horse, helped Lucy down and accompanied her on to the station platform, where they found the Baines family already assembled: Mrs. Baines gloomily seated on a bench, Mr. Baines reading the old newspaper placards of the closed bookstall, and John busy seeing his numerous boxes labelled.

“Hullo, Baines!—and ma’am—hope you’re well … a bit cast down, I expect? But there, it’s a fine career he’s starting on… Still, it’s always a wrench. John”—extending his hand—“I’ve just called in to wish you good luck and a prosperous voyage and a happy return, by and bye. Mind you make a comfortable home out there for my little girl! I shall be feeling about as bad as you feel, ma’am” (Mrs. Baines kept a perfectly impassive face during these attempts at sympathy and did not even look at the speaker), “next—when is it to be? March?—when I come to part with Lucy. But life’s made up of partings and meetings, which is why, some’ow, I don’t like railway stations. Now I can’t stop, and if I could, I should only be in the way. Must be off to market. Leave you Lucy. She’ll walk back to school. Good-bye, John…”

And Farmer Josling hurried out of the station and his horse’s hoofs sounded in quick succession on the ascent to the main road. Lucy, left behind actually found herself regretting that father had brought her in such good time as to give her five-and-twenty minutes or more of irresolute attendance on John. When she had presented him with the slippers, had squeezed his hand two or three times, and adjured him to write from the first stopping-place, besides sending a postcard from London to say he was leaving “all right”; had made a few suggestions about his luggage which, in spite of the urbanity of departure, were too futile to be answered or adopted; and had insisted on pushing the band of his blue tie under the shirt button at the back of his neck, so that it might not rise up over the collar: there seemed to be nothing left to say or do. The bookstall was not yet opened so there were no papers to be bought.

She would have talked with Mrs. Baines, who had retired to the little waiting-room and was pretending there to read a great roll of texts in big print hung against one of the walls. But at her first remark she noticed Mrs. Baines’s eyelids were quivering and her under lip twitching in a way to indicate that she was a prey to almost uncontrollable emotion. Although she mechanically turned the leaves of the texts, her eyes were not focussing them, and something seemed to be moving up and down her lank throat which she could not finally swallow. She only answered Lucy’s remark by an inarticulate gurgle and waved her away. There was something so pathetic in her dismal ugliness, in her awkwardly restrained emotion, that Lucy was suddenly moved to pity as she returned to the platform. Her embarrassment was cut short by the tumult occasioned by the approaching train, heralded by the clanging of the station bell. The train was full and John had hurriedly to pass all the second class compartments in review to find a place not only for himself but for the amorphous packages deemed too frail for the guard’s van. When at last he had squeezed himself and his parcels past the obstructing knees of the established passengers; he had just time to twist round, stretch out over his surly neighbours’ laps, and squeeze Lucy’s timorously extended hand. Then the train gave a lurch forward and a slide backwards which made him nearly bite his tongue off in an attempt to say good-bye to his parents, and finally rolled slowly out of the station, while the forms of father, mother, and sweetheart left standing on the platform grouped themselves for one moment in an attitude of mute farewell before the advance of the train cut them off from his sight.

The retreating chain of carriages shut itself up like a telescope, and the station began to resume its sleepy calm. Mrs. Baines’s emotion now could no longer be restrained from expression. She tottered towards the waiting-room and sinking heavily on to a hard wooden seat she choked and hiccupped and sobbed, and the tears rolled regularly, one after the other, down her cavernous cheeks. Lucy took her trembling hands and tried to soothe her; and then, Mrs. Baines, softened by this sympathy, lost all that remained of her self-control and abandoned herself limply on Lucy’s shoulder.

“Oh!” she gasped, “I’ve parted with him in anger—he’s gone! … Perhaps I shall never see him again… My boy… My only son. I never said a kind word to him before he left. I thought there would be time… I thought John would come and make it up. I was cross because he went out walking with you and came back late by train yesterday. You know I always taught him to observe the Sabbath. But I’d forgive him anything if he’d only come back and give me one kiss … my boy…”

But John was well on his way to Reading, and the London express, and all his mother’s tardy plaints were fruitless to recall him. Moreover, he was not perceptive. To him, his mother’s demeanour had seemed much as usual; and he was certainly not conscious that she had parted with him in anger. He was fond of her in a way, but he had been used from childhood to her being always in a huff about something or other.

Lucy restored her future mother-in-law to partial calmness, straightened her bonnet, re-tied the bonnet strings, and walked a little of the way back with her towards Tilehurst, while Mr. Baines followed submissively behind. For the rest of that day he enjoyed unrebuked freedom to do as he liked. He ate his fill and even smoked a pipe in the parlour. His wife having regained her composure held aloof from him in silent, stony grief.

Lucy fortunately encountered the innkeeper of Aldermaston driving thither in a chaise and got a lift, nearly as far as her home, a substantial farmstead on the Mortimer road, close to both church and school. This enabled her to begin her duties punctually. She taught her girls and boys from nine to twelve and two to four. She thought of John with gentle melancholy during the day, and even shed a tear or two at night when she concentrated her mind on the scenes of her betrothed’s departure, especially his mother’s wild display of grief. But the next morning as she walked from the farmstead to the school she actually hummed a gay tune as she picked a spray of wild roses from the dewy hedge and arranged them round her light straw hat. At the same time she had a twinge of remorse at her forgetfulness—poor John was doubtless now at sea watching England fade from the exile’s view; and she forced herself to assume before her scholars an aspect of restrained grief.

Nevertheless, as day after day of summer weather went by in her surroundings of perfect beauty, she confessed to herself she had seldom felt so happy, in spite of her sweetheart’s absence.