Then there was Ann Jamblin, of Tilehurst, a school-fellow of Lucy, a sturdy, plump young woman of about twenty-seven, with a dead-white complexion, a thick skin, black hair, black eyebrows and hard eyes of pebble brown. She had actually arrived at Hangodi before Lucy herself, though she started out from home a month later, being of that exasperating type to whom nothing happens in the same ratio as to other people. She could never be run over, never be drowned at sea—Lucy thought—never slip on a piece of orange peel, never be assaulted in a railway carriage. Ann had been sent out by the Mission Board to be a bride for Brother Anderson (on a discreet suggestion of John's, who thought Anderson a little inclined to look amorously on comely negresses). But she had declined to fulfil the bargain when she arrived, denied indeed all knowledge of such an engagement, said she didn't want to marry any one: only to do the Lord's work and help all round. Her refusal had been taken philosophically by the person most concerned, on account of her unattractive appearance; and was further softened by her practical usefulness as an independent member of the Mission. She house-kept for the little community, attended to the poultry, goats and sheep, did much of the cooking, made the bread, the cakes, the puddings; darned the socks, mended the linen, and taught the native girls the simple arts of British domestic life. She dressed with little regard to embellishment of the person, but with much attention to neatness and mosquito bites. Her humour was rough and her tongue lashed every one in turn. She had that unassailable independence of manner which is imparted by the possession of a private income of one hundred pounds a year and the knowledge that her martyrdom was voluntary and self-sought. Hardly ever ill herself, she nursed every one that was with almost professional ability.
Lucy secretly detested her, for she was always gibing at John's wife for being moony and unpractical, for her "æsthetic tastes," such as liking flowers on the table at meals; for succumbing quickly to headaches and megrims generally, and especially for the ease with which she was humbugged by the big girls of her school classes. Ann would also gird at her for lack of religious zeal. Ann herself took an aggressively hearty part in prayers and hymn-singing, and mastered the harmonium which had proved unplayable by Lucy. Ann even tried making her own translations of her favourite canticles into the native language and was not deterred or discouraged because in her first attempts and through the malice of her girl interpreters she had been misled into rendering the most sacred phrases and symbolism by gross obscenities. The delight of shouting out these improprieties in chapel before the blandly unconscious missionaries, when Brother Bayley was laid aside by fever, attracted large congregations.
If John Baines were seriously ill with a malarial attack, Ann would brush Lucy aside as unceremoniously as she ejected her from the harmonium stool. She would take complete charge of the sick man, reduce the fever, and make the broths and potions which were to sustain convalescence. When Lucy herself was ill, Ann would either diagnose the attack as "fancy" or "hysteria," or a touch of biliousness, and cure it so drastically that Lucy made haste to get well in order to withdraw from her treatment.
This was an average day in Lucy's life at Hangodi in the first year of her stay there——
6 a.m. Lucy is already awake; John still sleeping heavily. Lucy had been dreaming she was back at Aldermaston or else voyaging down the Red Sea with Brentham, and is still under the shock of disappointment as she lies gazing up at the dingy cone of mosquito net suspended over their bed from the rat-haunted roof. The bedstead is a broad structure—the Arab "angareb"—an oblong wooden frame with interlaced strips of ox-hide. On this foundation has been laid a lumpy cork mattress with well-marked undulations. On that again a couple of musty blankets and a sheet. For covering there is another sheet and a coverlet.
Lucy, hearing the awakening bell being tolled, nudges John, who is still snoring.
Lucy: "John! The first bell has gone!"
John: "Wha'?" (Gurgle, gurgle, snore cut short, lips smacked, heavy sighs.)——"Wha'? Time to ger-up? Or-right."
He tumbles out of bed in his disarranged night-gown—pajamas were not introduced into the East Africa Mission till 1890. In doing so he tears the mosquito curtain with his toe-nails.
A native servant is heard filling two tin baths in the adjoining roomlet. They then proceed to take their baths in what—to Lucy—is disgusting promiscuity. The rest of the toilet is summarily proceeded with. (As John is fully hirsute there is no shaving to be done.) Then to avoid remonstrance from her husband Lucy kneels with him in prayers on a dusty mat, in fear all the time some scorpion may sting her ankles. One did, once.