Cupid in Africa

by Percival Christopher Wren

For Major Hugh Walsingham Greene would have none of the “goings-on” that had made Dolly’s father’s bungalow the centre of life and gaiety for the subalterns and civilian youth of Hazarigurh; whilst Mr. Charles Stayne-Brooker, whom he detested as a flamboyant bounder, he cut dead. He also bade Dolly remove the gentleman’s name finally and completely from her visiting-list, and on no account be “at home” when he called. All of which Dolly quite flatly and finally refused to do.

* * * * *

Mr. Charles Stayne-Brooker (or the Herr Doktor Karl Stein-Brücker, as he was at other times and in other places) was a very popular person wherever he went—and he went to an astonishing number of places. It was wonderful how intimate he became with people, and he became intimate with an astonishing number and variety of people. He could sing, play, dance, ride and take a hand at games above the average, and talk—never was such a chatter-box—on any subject under the sun, especially on himself and his affairs. And yet, here again, it was astonishing how little he said, with all his talk and ingenious chatter. Everybody knew all about dear old Charlie—and yet, did they know anything at all when it came to the point? In most of the places in which he turned up, he seemed to be a sort of visiting manager of a business house—generally a famous house with some such old-fashioned British name as Schneider and Schmidt; Max Englebaum and Son; Plügge and Schnadhorst; Hans Wincklestein and Gartenmacher; or Grosskopf and Dümmelmann. In out-of-the-way places he seemed to be just a jolly globe-trotter with notions of writing a book on his jolly trip to India. Evidently he wanted to know something of the native of India, too, for when not in large commercial centres like Calcutta, Madras, Bombay or Colombo, he was to be found in cantonments where there were Native Troops. He loved the Native Officer and cultivated him assiduously. He also seemed to love the Bengali amateur politician, more than some people do. . . . Often a thoughtful and observant official was pleased to see an Englishman taking such a friendly interest in the natives, and trying to get to know them well at first hand—a thing far too rare. . . .

There were people, however—such as Major Walsingham Greene—who affected to detect something of a “foreign” flavour about him, and wrote him down as a flashy and bounderish outsider.

Certainly he was a great contrast to the Major, whose clipped moustache, bleak blue eye, hard bronzed face and close-cut hair were as different as possible from Mr. Stayne-Brooker’s waxed and curled moustache over the ripe red mouth; huge hypnotic and strange black eyes; pink and white puffy face, and long dark locks. And then again, as has been said, Mr. Stayne-Brooker was only happy when talking, and the Major only happy (if then) when silent.

On sight, on principle, and on all grounds, the latter gentleman detested the jabbering, affected, over-familiar, foreign-like fellow, and took great pleasure in ordering his bride, on their return from the ten-days-leave honeymoon, to cut him dead and cut him out—of her life.

And, alas, his bride seemed to take an even greater pleasure in defying her husband on this, and certain other, points; in making it clear to him that she fully and firmly intended “to live her own life” and go her own way; and in giving copious and convincing proof of the fact that she had never known “discipline” yet, and did not intend to make its acquaintance now.

Whereupon poor Major Walsingham Greene, while remaining the honourable, upright and scrupulous gentleman that he was, exhibited himself the irascible, pompous fool that he also was, and by his stupid and overbearing conduct, his “That’s enough! Those are my orders,” and his hopeless mishandling of the situation, drove her literally into the arms of Mr. Charles Stayne-Brooker, with whom the poor little fool disappeared like a beautiful dream.

* * * * *

When his kind heart got the better of his savage wrath and scourged pride, the Major divorced her, and the Herr Doktor (who particularly needed an English wife in his profession of Secret Agent especially commissioned for work in the British Empire) married her, broke her heart, dragged her down into the moral slime in which he wallowed, and, on the rare occasions of her revolt and threat to leave him, pointed out that ladies who were divorced once for leaving their husbands might conceivably have some excuse, but that the world had a very hard name for those who made a habit of it. . . . And then there was her daughter to consider, too. His daughter, alas! but also hers.