GODFREY DEWBURN.
When this letter reached Spencer Bazzard he took it promptly to his wife, who was seated before her dressing-table rubbing a little of the "hair-restorer" into the very roots of her hair, which had an exasperating way of not starting gold from the skin-level. She said, keeping her eyes fixed on the glass, "Read it aloud." He did so. "Hooray," she exclaimed, with ordered joy so as not to interfere with the delicate operation—they were going out to dine that night with a German functionary—"Hooray! That means he's scuppered. He's going home, you bet, rather off colour. They've made him marry her to placate the missionaries. But he'll never bother us again out here. Well, we'll be civil to him in the clearing up."
From Captain Roger Brentham to Lady Silchester.
Mbweni, Unguja,
April 2, 1889.
DEAR SIBYL,—
I don't think you have any realization of what I've been through lately or you'd have written to inquire, or condole, or encourage. I've had a regular "gaffe"—tell you more about it by and bye. And a wonderful journey in the interior worthy of a Royal Geographical Society's medal—tell you more about that too some day—and—don't start—I've got married!
You always predicted I should marry a "missionaryess." Well: I've done so. Yes, you were right, true Sibyl that you are. I've married the dear little girl—for so she seems to me—whom I escorted out to Unguja three years ago and whom I married myself to her young missionary husband, who was going to a station in the interior called Hangodi. There followed a tragic time. I dare say the newspapers will have told you all about it. She and I got locked up, so to speak, in the far interior and I never thought she, at any rate, would get to the coast alive.
Well: I felt after all we'd gone through together there was only one thing—the right thing—to do, being also very much in love with her. Lady Dewburn (you know whom I mean) thought precisely the same; and Lady Dewburn, let me say, is about the best woman I know. I shall never forget what she did for my poor Lucy. Dewburn performed the civil ceremony for us and gave a small and quiet wedding breakfast after the "small and quiet" wedding at the Cathedral. My old friend Gravening ("the Venble. Archdeacon") was awfully nice about the whole thing ... fully approved of my marrying Lucy, under all the sad circumstances, and said he'd fix up the religious part. Because you know what women are. They never think they've been properly married unless it's in a Church or if they do, their mothers don't.
I know I've got some rough places to get over before I can settle down to work and go full steam ahead, but I look to you and other true friends, real pals—to pull me through. The F.O. seems to have a down on me and a proportion of the Mission World likewise. But when they hear the whole story they will see I was simply dogged with misfortune and did all I could possibly have done. Unfortunately while I was away in the interior everything went to pieces at my Consulate, and two awful bounders—the Bazzards, more about them when we meet—are exploiting it to the utmost.