We all send our love and I hope with all my hart you will be happy and continu well. I shall go on being anxious about you till you come back. Praps the Primitives will give John a call after he's done his bit of missionary work and youll be able to live in England close to us. I shant be happy till this comes to pass.
Your loving mother Clara Josling
_From Mrs. Baines to her son John._
Tilehurst, _October_ 14, 1887.
MY DEAR SON,--
I suppose a mother must expect to come off _second_ best when her son marries and I ought to think myself lucky to hear from you once a year. But I confess I was put out in the summer only to get news of you through Lucy's mother. However, your letter written August 3, after Lucy had joined you at Hangodi, came to hand a few days ago. You must have had a terrible time getting her up-country. She seems so feckless and born to trouble. As though wild beasts and accidents sought her out.
I've just had a line from Ann Jamblin. _She's_ got her head screwed on the right way. She left a month after Lucy and yet reached your station nearly as soon as you did. She didn't need to hang about that place--I can't spell its name--where you got married, and, she travelled up-country, she says, in record time with a missionary lady, a Mrs. Stott. She didn't fall off her donkey or have a lion in her tent or get ant all over her or turn sick every few weeks. Nor yet have herself looked after by free-thinking captains on the voyage out. But there. You've made your bed as the saying is and you must lie on it. It's far from my wish to come between husband and wife, and I'm glad Ann's gone to your station. She'll have a steadying influence on Lucy and be a great comfort to you and your companions. I suppose by now she's married to your friend Anderson. If so he'll have got a good wife and her bit of money will be a help.
Father's as well as he's ever likely to be. He suffers from brash, a sure sign of overeating.
Sister Simpson is going to marry Brother Wilkins the sidesman of our Reading Chapel. At present she's suffering from boils, but hopes to be well enough for the marriage next month. The Bellinghams at Cross Corner, Reading, Bakers and Fancy Confectioners, are in a bad way--going bankrupt they say. There's been a sad scandal about Pastor Brown at Bewdly wanting to marry his deceased wife's sister. It's forbidden I know in Holy Writ, though at time of writing I can't remember where, but see Leviticus xviii. and xx. Emily Langhorn has gone to London to learn dressmaking. Time she did and good behaviour likewise. I never listen to scandal, otherwise I should say it was all on account of her goings on with young Gilchrist. She took it very hard when he suddenly married Priscilla Lamb of Lamb's Boot Emporium, Abbey Road, Reading. I'm very glad I wouldn't have her here to the Dorcas meetings. She'd got her eye on you, I'm pretty sure. Sam Gildersleeves and Polly Scatcherd's got married, just in time it seems, to save her good name. People was beginning to cut her. Clara Josling, your wife's sister, is engaged to young Harden, a good-for-nothing cricketer. Plays with his brother and friends on Sunday afternoons. But I suppose you won't think the worse of him for that, now you've come under Lucy's influence. But oh what wickedness is coming on the world. Well, it can't last much longer. The vials of the Almighty's wrath are about to be opened and the Last Day is at hand--I feel and hope. I've advised your father to spend no more money on repairs at the Manufactory--It will last our time.
Meanwhile may God have you in his holy keeping. Father sends love. He's taken up with this new drink Zoedone and expects to make a lot of money out of it. Money, money, money and eat, eat, eat is all he thinks about. Still, that's better than breaking the Sabbath and running after strange women, which is what most of his neighbours is doing. And as to the women, it's dress, dress, dress and play acting. Mrs. Garrett's bustle was right down shocking last Sunday. I couldn't keep my eyes off it during Chapel. They've been making so much money lately out of sanding the sugar and selling dried tea-leaves for Best Family Blend Afternoon tea that they don't know how to spend it, so Mrs. G. has begun to dress fashionable--at _her_ age too--and Mr. G. goes to St. Michael's instead of coming to Salem chapel where his parents worshipped before him. And as to this play acting, its one of the signs of the times. They've opened a theatre at Reading and have afternoon performances.--Several of our Tilehurst folk have been seen there and Pastor Mullins spoke about it in last Sunday's sermon.
Your loving mother, SARAH BAINES.
_From Mrs. Spencer Bazzard to Mr. Bennet Molyneux, Foreign Office._
H.B.M. Vice-Consulate, Unguja, _Novr._ 1, 1887.
DEAR MR. MOLYNEUX,--
When am I to address you as "Sir Bennet"?--as it ought to be, if I dare express my thoughts. We look in each Honours' list expecting it. Spencer is quite bitter on the subject, but I tell him "comparisons are odious." At any rate I won't repeat his indiscretions.
We are all wondering here when Sir James Eccles is returning. I have not yet had the privilege of seeing him and can only take Spencer's opinions for guide. In Spencer's mind he is well-nigh irreplaceable. Spencer feels it would be little less than disastrous to place the control of Ungujan affairs in the hands of any younger or less experienced man. With Sir James Eccles the Germans will try no nonsense. They might even renounce their protectorate in despair if he were to return and had the influence of his Government behind him. Whereas with a weaker man, or even with one of no authority, merely an "acting" Consul-General, they may go to _any_ lengths. I am foolish enough about my Husband to think--if there _must_ be a stop-gap--that he would be better than--well, than the present Acting Consul-General. Spencer thoroughly distrusts the Germans and refuses even to learn their ugly language; whereas C-p-n B. is much too friendly with them and has gone to the length of saying we must not play the dog in the manger over Africa. It seems there have been great German African explorers as well as English, and Spencer's colleague thinks it rather hard they should not have colonies as well as we. Not knowing your own views I hesitate to express mine. And I should not be so presumptuous as to ask for any guidance or any answer even to this letter. I dare say if you think Spencer is to have more responsibility and initiative in the future you will privately instruct him as to the policy of your department.
That will not help _me_ much, for Spencer, where official correspondence is concerned, is as close as--I can't think of a parallel! I mean, he won't tell me _anything_. Not that I am inquisitive. But I _do_ want to be a help to him, and I also believe in the education of women. I should like to know _all_ about Africa! But I also know your views--though they shock me. If I may judge from our conversations on that never-to-be-forgotten Saturday till Monday--last Easter--when Mrs. Molyneux was good enough to ask me down to Spilsbury---- You think Woman should confine herself to superintending the household and her husband's comfort, to dressing well, and should not concern herself with politics. You may be right. And yet there are moments in which I rebel against these prescriptions. It may have been my bringing-up. My dear father, an officer in the Navy, died when I was very young, and darling mother brought me up with perhaps too much modern liberality. She entertained considerably--in a modest way, of course--at our house in North Kensington, and I was accustomed therefore from girlhood to meet with many different types of men and women--some of them widely travelled--and to hear a great variety of opinions.
Here, however, when I have attended to the affairs of our household--a small one, since we no longer live in the big Consulate--and have paid an occasional visit to some other Consul's wife or the nicer among the missionary women, I give myself up to the study of Swahili, the local language. Spencer, who is strong in fifty things where I am weak or totally wanting, is not absolutely of the first quality as a linguist, while I seem to have rather a gift that way. I am much complimented on my French, and although I dislike German I force myself to speak it. I can now make myself understood in what Spence calls the "dam" lingo of the natives. And if I told you I was also grappling with Hindustani I am afraid you would class me unfavourably with your pet aversion, a "blue stocking"!
But I will defy your bad opinion. I am _determined_ to fit myself for Spencer's promotion which must surely come in time, especially as we can both stand the climate fairly well. I have only been down once with fever since I came out, and Spence sets malaria at defiance with cocktails and an occasional stiff whisky peg. Between us before long we ought to know all that is worth knowing at Unguja. And Spence is _so_ popular with the natives. They instinctively look up to a strong man.