Roger (still with an angry flush): "What can I tell? I arrive at Medina and am told all in a hurry to re-organize the Consulate there. There was no one but an Indian clerk in charge. I simply take him over. I put my cipher in the safe, but I had to leave the key with the clerk when at very short notice I started for up-country to warn these confounded missionaries.... Wish to God I'd paid no heed to your instructions" ("I say, old chap, draw it mild ... and mind what you're doin' with that cigar-ash." Roger strides to the fireplace and throws away the cigar into it.) "I wish to God," he continues, "I'd left 'em alone to stand the racket if the Arabs did come. However, what I mean to say is, I only set out to do what I was told to do and couldn't foresee how long it would take. I didn't get back to my Consulate till last April. How can I tell what happened to the clerk or the cipher or the money? I paid up the deficit.... How do I know what those Bazzards were up to? Mrs. Bazzard——"
Molyneux (his manner has insensibly become stiffer and more ceremonious): "I think we'll leave the Bazzards out of it. At any rate they aren't here to defend themselves. We must refer the whole matter to Dewburn for inquiry. Meantime here you are on leave and I dare say badly wanting a rest. My advice is: go down to the country.... Your father lives in the country, doesn't he?" (Roger nods.) "Well, go down and rusticate a bit and take Mrs. Brentham with you. In a week or two the newspapers and the Nonconformist Conscience will be in full cry after something else. As to whether you should go back, we must leave that to the Old Man. He may think a change of scene advisable. Any use asking you to a bachelor dinner? My wife's out of town just now."
Roger (very unwisely, scenting in this a reluctance to ask Lucy too): "No, thank you. I think I'll take your advice and go off to the country. Ungrateful sort of country—I mean the nation—mine is! Here I've made most important discoveries I've had no time to report on, I've ... I've ..." (Feelings too much for him. Takes his hat and stick, bows to Molyneux and leaves his room.) In all this he has acted most foolishly. If he'd gone to Molyneux's—to "Good old Spavins's"—as the clerks called him in the room opposite—bachelor dinner, had told a few good stories and hunting adventures, Molyneux, who really had his kindly side like most men, would have forgotten the old grudge about his intrusive appointment, have taken a much more charitable view about the lost cipher and the hasty marriage and have written a memo for Lord Wiltshire's eye which would have suggested a year's employment at home and a fresh start in East Africa. Mrs. Molyneux would have called on Mrs. Brentham at Hankey's and Mrs. Brentham would have been pronounced by Molyneux "a dam' good-lookin' wench—don't wonder she turned his head a bit—there can't have been much to look at in East Africa"—and Brentham's difficulties were over; and the whole fate of East Africa might have been a little different. As it was, he wrote some such memo as this for the information of the Under-Secretary of State: "Saw Brentham to-day—from Zangia Consulate, East Africa. Looks rather fagged. Evidently had a rough time. But very angry when asked to explain the awkward circumstances of his very protracted journey through the interior with the lady who is now his wife. He protested with much heat against the attacks of the Press and the attitude of the Missionary Societies. I dare say he is a maligned man, but I should also say he is what we call in diplomacy 'un mauvais coucheur.' Difficult to get on with, quarrelsome with colleagues. He could throw no light on the loss of his cipher. Did not seem to realize what trouble and expense it has caused. He has six months' leave of absence due. Suggest when that is coming to an end he be offered some Consular post in Norway or Algeria."
Roger called at 6A, Carlton House Terrace, but was told by the man-servant opening the door that Lady Silchester and the little Lord Silchester were still in the country, at Engledene, and that it was improbable her Ladyship would be in town again until the autumn, being in deep mourning. Roger scribbled on his card (which would be sent on with other cards of calling and polite inquiries):
"So much want to see you. Starting to-morrow for Church Farm, Aldermaston.—ROGER."
Roger delivered his blushing wife, rather overdressed (for he had insisted on a fashionable outfit), to her parents at Aldermaston; he shook hands heartily with his father-in-law to whom he took an immediate liking, kissed his mother-in-law (to her confusion) and his sisters-in-law, and then let his father-in-law drive him over to the nearest station from which he could get a train to Basingstoke (for Farleigh), promising to return in four days after he had seen his father, sister, and brothers, one of them at Portsmouth. When he did get back to Church Farm, Lucy was in bed, ill, and his father and mother-in-law were looking grave and preoccupied. They were also—as country people are—a little tiresomely reticent. What had happened? This, as he afterwards pieced it together.
When Mrs. Baines had received Ann Anderson's letter—written, as you will remember, about November 30, but not posted from Unguja till early in January—she had a knock-down blow. It is true the Mission on the receipt of a telegram from Callaway had warned her to expect serious news from Hangodi, but she had not paid much attention, so convinced was she that God must avert all harm from a son of hers. But the letter—from Ann, too, whom she would have welcomed as a daughter-in-law—was convincing, and for the first few hours after she had read it twice through, she locked herself into their joint bedroom to Mr. Baines's great discomfiture—he might wash and sleep where he liked. She had shouted at him through the keyhole, in a hoarse, strangled voice he hardly recognized as hers, that his son John was dead, killed by the "A-rabs," no doubt with that slut of a Lucy's full approval; and left to digest this dreadful news as best he might. Eliza, touched to great pity and a sympathetic sobbing over the fate of Master John, made him up a sort of a shakedown bedroom arrangement in the "libery," where he did his accounts....
Mrs. Baines did not emerge from her fastness for a day and a half. When she did come out she was composed, but with such an awful look in her eyes that no one dared offer sympathy or proffer advice. She gave her orders in as few words as possible. She set to work to confection the deepest mourning and pulled the blinds down, and down they had to remain a full week. During that week by the aid of candle-light she wrote a good many letters—for her. Eliza, who had to post them, for Mrs. Baines shrank from encountering friends or acquaintances till the week was up, noticed that some of them bore quite grand addresses: the member for Reading, the Marquis of Wiltshire, the Editor of the Review of Reviews....
How did Mrs. Baines know so soon that Lucy and Roger had returned to England and come down to see the Joslings at Church Farm? Why, because the miller of Aldermaston saw the Brenthams arrive at Aldermaston station and witnessed the greeting of Farmer Josling—such a fine upstanding man—and his son-in-law—just such another, only rather sallow-like and thin; and the miller told old Mrs. Bunsby of the general shop at Theale; and Mrs. Bunsby, wanting badly a supply of ginger beer, for the weather was getting warm and Oxford undergraduates sometimes pushed their walking tours as far as the Kennet Valley—Mrs. Bunsby walked over to John Baines & Co. that very afternoon to give an order for four dozen and mentioned the fact of "pore Master John's widow" having come back to her home "with a noo 'usband."
The assistant who registered the order for delivery in their next round, after Mrs. Bunsby left slipped into Mr. Baines's "libery," and half-whispered the news of Lucy's return. When, soon afterwards, Mrs. Baines came into the dining-room to preside over the tea table, he—(he looked very aged—my astral body floating over the scene felt a twinge of pity for him; in his own dull way he had been fond and proud of his only son and worked to provide him with a competency—some day)—he, with some preparatory clearing of the throat, said: "Er ... Hrhm.... Er ... Lucy's back, I hear...."