What with the squeaking and chattering of the fruit-bats eating the figs outside, the rats running over the floor of her room, and a tornado of thunder, lightning and drumming rain, the night was not a pleasant one. But when Mrs. Stott woke her with a cup of tea and she ventured outside her mosquito-curtain, things took a brighter aspect. She had from her window a glimpse of the sparkling blue bay in the level rays of the just-risen sun, a fringe of coco-nut palms, their fronds still wet with the rain, a tangle of brown shipping—Arab "daus" and Indian "baghalas"—hauled up for repairs; and the atmosphere was cleared and fresh after the tornado. She was almost cheerful by the time she had dressed and come downstairs. Mrs. Stott had advised her to put on high boots to save her ankles from mosquito bites, and to dust herself freely with Insecticide powder to discourage the fleas. As a special indulgence to a tired visitor she was let off morning prayers and only heard the nasal singing whilst completing her toilet in her room after a pleasant little breakfast in bed, over a book. John duly came with a carriage borrowed from the Sultan's stables, and Lucy—almost gay once more—set out with him to be introduced to Archdeacon Gravening—who in the absence of the Bishop (on tour) was to perform the religious marriage ceremony at the Cathedral.
Gravening was an austere-looking man but of kindly disposition. He made her feel at home, and as he knew the Reading district in old Oxford days of walking tours and reading-parties he could talk about that home-country which, as it receded in time from her contemplation, seemed a Paradise she had recklessly quitted.
The ladies of the Anglican Mission—a celibate Mission when at work in Africa, its members being supposed to leave its ranks when they married—received Lucy with some detachment of manner. They were good creatures, indeed, but they came from a social stratum one or even two degrees higher than hers, and inwardly they were less tolerant of Nonconformists, than were their men fellow-workers. Lucy, they had ascertained, was a "Church person," but she was about to marry into a Methodist Mission. However, her rather plaintive prettiness and the home-sick melancholy in her eyes enlisted their womanly sympathy. Two of them offered themselves in a bride's maid capacity, and the Sisterhood in general proposed that the honeymoon should be spent at their little country retreat of Mbweni. But John explained as to this, that he could not prolong his absence from the up-country station more than was just necessary for the prescribed residence at Unguja; and that their honeymoon must be spent on the return journey. He dilated, for Lucy's encouragement, on the picnic charms of the "Safari."[#]
[#] The accepted meaning of "Safari" is a journey with tents, and porters to carry the baggage.
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During the ten days of her pre-nuptial stay at Unguja Lucy had no talk with Brentham. Presumably he was too busy over political and Consular matters. Once indeed when walking with John through the winding streets of the African-Oriental city she had seen him out riding with Bazzard, the Vice-Consul. John had accomplished all the preliminary formalities, and on her marriage morning—early on account of the heat—Lucy went in one of the Sultan's carriages, attended by Mrs. Stott and the two ladies of the Anglican Mission, to the British Agency. John met them at the entrance; they walked slowly up the stone steps to the office for the transaction of Consular business. Bazzard, with Mrs. Bazzard—the latter assuming the airs of a Vice-reine—met them there and ranged the wedding party in order. Brentham then entered, bowed to them both, but avoided meeting Lucy's eyes. He put to them in a level business-like voice the necessary interrogatory and declared them duly married. The party then passed into one of the Agency's drawing-rooms. Champagne—and lemonade for the teetotalers—was served, together with mixed biscuits and sweetmeats. The Acting Consul-General proposed the health of the Bride, and for the first time looked Lucy full in the face. He next withdrew on to a verandah and talked for some time with the bridegroom about his mission station and the journey thither and spoke earnestly on the subject of Lucy and her welfare, instancing his interest in her home-country as well as his position as "their" Consul to explain his anxiety as to her future. Then returning to the general company he handed Lucy a small case which he said contained a trifling wedding 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.
Mrs. Stott prayed for her, apart in her own bedroom but the Divine direction of her thoughts seemed to take the line that the least said was the soonest mended, and that the young couple had better be left to their own society at Lingani to come to an understanding.