The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A RomanceJohnston, Harry
General
The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance
Johnston, Harry
British -- Africa, East -- Fiction; Missions -- Tanzania -- Fiction
"I—I—don’t know ... well, yes, I think I will," replied Lucy, wondering
who Mrs. Bazzard was ... didn’t the name come into John’s letters? Just
then the door leading out of the saloon towards the bathroom opened and
presumably Mrs. Bazzard entered the Ladies’ quarters, carrying towels
and robed in a white lace-trimmed _peignoir_, and with her hair roughly
piled on the top of her head and a lank fringe parted to either side.
"Why, it must be the lady with the beautiful complexion," Lucy was
saying to herself, when she saw on nearer approach that the rosy cheeks
and blush tints had disappeared, and that the incomer, though otherwise
resembling her acquaintance of yesterday, yet had a pale face,
colourless and sad. "Poor thing!" thought Lucy, "_how_ she must have
suffered last night." And so great was her compassion that it overcame
her shyness, and she was about to condole with the lady, when Mrs.
Bazzard swept by her abruptly without recognition.
When her toilet was finished, she felt ill-at-ease among the uncongenial
inmates of the Ladies’ Saloon, and they directed towards her at times a
look of hatred as at one who was prying into the mysteries of their
clothing and bedizenment; so acting on the advice of the stewardess "to
get up a bit of appetite," she staggered along the corridor and climbed
the slippery brass-bound stairway till she reached the upper-deck. Here
she sank on to the nearest seat and derived her first pleasurable
sensation on board the steamer from inhaling the sea-scented breeze in
the sunshine of April. It was indeed a fine morning, one of the first
emphatic days of spring. The sky was a pale azure in the zenith and
along the northern horizon a thin film of pinkish mist veiled the
distant line of coast. A man cleaning the brasswork told Lucy they were
passing the Isle of Wight; yonder was Bournemouth and presently she
would see Portland Bill looming up.
A tall man, smoking a cheroot, was gazing in the direction of Portland
Bill. Presently he turned round in Lucy’s direction, looked at her
rather hard then began pacing the deck. "That," she reflected, "must be
Captain Brentham, who lectured at Reading on that snow mountain....
_How_ extraordinary! And he must be the man Mrs. ... Mrs. ... Bazzard
said was to marry me to John when I arrived." She raised her eyes and
they met his. On his next turn in walking the deck he paused
irresolute, then raising his cap said: "Are you the young lady from my
part of the country who is going out to Unguja to be married? The
Captain told me about you—unless I have made some mistake and ought to
be addressing another lady."
"I think it must be me," said Lucy. "I ... I’ve heard you lecture once
at Reading. You’re a friend of Lord Silchester’s, aren’t you? My
father is one of his tenants. We live at Aldermaston." Her voice
trembled a little in pronouncing the name of the place she now loved—too
late—beyond any other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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