Part 38

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.

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.