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
present and wished her all possible happiness, promising "some day or
other" to visit her in her new home. He grasped her hand with a brief
pressure and—pleading urgent business as an excuse for not following the
party to the Cathedral—withdrew to his office. Mrs. Bazzard introduced
her husband and bestowed a condescending patronage on Lucy and on the
Mission ladies, who, never having met her before, found themselves
almost audibly wondering who on earth she was, and where—with that
slightly cockney accent—she had come from.
The religious ceremony at the Cathedral was one of considerable
ecclesiastical pomp, secretly enjoyed by John Baines; who, however,
thought on what mother would say when he told her he had nearly been
married by a Bishop and quite so by an Archdeacon, and still more how
she would have appreciated the black acolytes in their scarlet cassocks
and white dalmatics, the incense-smell in the building, and the
vestments of the clergy.
After they left the Cathedral they repaired to the Arab house of stone
and rich Persian and Kurdish carpets in which Archdeacon Gravening
lived. Here an unpretentious luncheon was given as a wedding breakfast.
Gravening hardly ever spoke about religion, which was why Mrs. Stott
despaired of his being saved, though she admitted he was compact of
quiet kindness. His one enthusiasm was language study. He was deeply
versed in the Bantu languages and translated for the Anglican Mission
most of the works they required to use in their schools and churches.
He had corresponded with John Baines, and the latter had written down
for him samples of vocabularies of the different languages heard in his
district.
Some insight into the conflict going on in the dazed mind of Lucy—who
throughout these ceremonies looked as though she were a wound-up
automaton—inspired Mrs. Stott to suggest to John that as they were due
to start in the Arab dau early the next morning in order to reach the
mainland port of Lingani before nightfall, Lucy should spend the rest of
her marriage-day and night with Mrs. Stott, and their honeymoon should
not commence till they reached the Mission house at Lingani. This they
would have to themselves for three or four days whilst their caravan for
up-country was being got ready. Accordingly poor John, when the wedding
luncheon was over and the guests had dispersed, surrendered Lucy to Mrs.
Stott and spent the rest of the day rather disconsolately making his
preparations for departure. Lucy got through much of that hot afternoon
in her nightdress—for coolness—inside the mosquito curtains of her bed,
weeping at times hysterically; tortured with homesickness one minute and
at another seized with a mad longing to call on Brentham at the Agency
and see him once more. Sometimes she felt an actual dislike for John;
at others a great pity for him, yet a shuddering at the idea of his
embraces, of any physical contact with him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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