Teaching had begun at nine, and would go on till lunch-time--twelve. But already by eleven the teacher was weary and could not concentrate her thoughts on the drudgery of getting elementary ideas about reading, spelling and counting into these Palaeolithic brains. She fell silent. Her eyes first ranged over the School-house, taking in all its details in a mood of scornful hostility. She had never so completely realized the hatefulness of her present existence and its bitter contrast with her home life in England. She was sick of John's simple piety, of Brother Anderson's sanctimoniousness and disagreeably affectionate manner to herself ... and his way of eating, his behaviour at table, his unctuous prayers. Mr. Bayley, whose quiet manners and politeness appealed to her, was, nevertheless, fanatical about the letter of Scripture--a bigot, Captain Brentham would have called him. It would not be loyal to her husband--John, at least, was sincere and worked very hard; otherwise what _satirical_ letters she could write about it all!...
But the one she most disliked among her associates was Ann Jamblin. Ann came between her and John, just as they might have hit it off, have come to some agreement about religion or her own share in Mission work. If Ann had never come out, things might have been more bearable.... Ann had come here on a false pretence. She was in love with John, _that_ was certain, though John was too much of a goose to see it.
Certainly she had made herself useful, _odiously_ useful.... The men liked her because she made them so comfortable.... That talent, of course, was inherited from the ham and beef shop at home! She shared Lucy's teaching work and taught the women and girls in the afternoon--taught them sensible things--cooking, plain sewing, washing, ironing, leaving to Lucy--as she pretended--the "fine lady" part of the work, the instruction of their minds.
Lucy's eyes flashed in her day-dream when she realized how she had grown to loathe the morning and evening prayers.... Brother Anderson's contribution to the uplifting of the spirit, especially. _How_ weary was the Sunday with its two "native" services, both conducted by John in English, broken Swahili, and Kagulu, with the long-drawn-out interpretation of Josiah Briggs.
She had had good health since she reached Hangodi, after that ghastly nightmare journey from the coast. That was fortunate, because the nearest medical help was fifty miles away. But _oh!_ the monotony of the life! How much longer could she stand it? It was not so bad for the men. Every Saturday they took a whole holiday and went down to the lower country and shot game and guinea-fowl for the food of the station. Sometimes they "itinerated" and she and Ann were left alone. John always asserted it was not safe for white women to travel, except to and from the coast. With much camp life he believed they became unwomanly....
There had only been three mails since she had arrived last July. Captain Brentham sent her books and newspapers, but Ann tossed her head over these attentions and John once or twice confiscated the books as being of dangerous tendencies; subversive of a simple faith. The station itself was provided with little else to read except the Bible, a few goody-goody books and magazines, grammars and dictionaries of native languages.
In England she had imagined she was going to sketch and botanize, collect butterflies, and keep all sorts of wonderful pets, besides beholding superb scenery and meeting every now and then celebrated explorers. That dream had soon passed away. She had no time for sketching in the week, and it was considered wrong to do it on a Sunday. And even if she outraged the sentiment of the community and sat down with her sketch-block and water colours before a flowering tree or a striking view, ants came up and bit her, midges attacked her face till it was puffed out, or the sun was too hot or the wind too boisterous. As to botanizing, there was certainly splendid forest--with tree-ferns and orchids--higher up the Ulunga mountains, but it was pronounced unsafe to botanize there except in a party. There were snakes, or leopards, or lurking warriors of unfriendly tribes....
Her thoughts then turned to the homeland.... Presently she was back in the scenes she had left nearly a year ago.... She saw herself walking slowly from Aldermaston village up the road to Mortimer, her father's farmhouse just left behind. She stopped to greet old Miss Fanning, who inhabited the rather monastic-looking school-teacher's house by a special concession, as Lucy--her successor--lived with her parents hard by. The children of the village were playing games with the pupil teacher in the large grassy yard. She could see quite distinctly the rustic shed which surrounded two sides of the playground--like the verandah of an African house. In her day-dream the children, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, seemed to greet her. They were so fond of her--How _could_ she have left them? ... Then in imagination she was farther along the Mortimer road, past the high brick wall of Aldermaston Park. Lordly blue-green cedars topped the wall of mellow brick. Then when the wall turned off to the right it was succeeded by a high bank and hedge as the road mounted and rose above the river valley. She could see, oh! with such detail, the soft green fern-fronds of the bank. Above the male ferns grew a row of hart's-tongue. Above that, here and there a foxglove, tufts of bell heather and where the hedge lowered and you could see into spaces of the oak wood, there were brakes of French willow herb in pink blossom....
What a series of pictures now passed before her mental vision as instinctively she closed her eyes to Africa, to her silent, observant class, who thought that she was dozing! White ducks on a wayside pond, set in a crescent of duckweed; clipped and shaven yews in front of an old brick-and-timber cottage with a steep thatched roof; an upland hayfield, sturdy, wholesome men with frank blue eyes and brawny arms of beefy red; long-horned cattle with a make-believe fierceness which had never imposed on her, standing in the shade of elms and whisking flies from off their red flanks and cream bellies; her mother's garden, gay with phlox, sweet peas and pansies, and scented with dark red roses.... Oh, _why_ had she ever left her mother, left her pleasant tranquil work at the National school to join John out in East Africa? It was vanity, partly; wishing to get married; wishing to travel.... For the evangelizing of Africa she had ceased to care since her talks with Captain Brentham--"Roger," she called him to herself--and still more since she had come to know Africa.... But "Roger"--Well, if she hadn't come out to Africa she would certainly never have had the opportunity to know _him_ ... on that steamer voyage!
Lucy's thoughts were abruptly brought back to Eastern Africa and discipline in her school class; for a too venturesome rat, darting up a rafter, had lost his footing and fallen plop amongst the girls--the "Big-geru," and they, upsetting forms and throwing away slates, had flung themselves in a struggling heap on the spot where the rat had landed. From out of the melee one triumphant young woman rose up, with her smock torn from top to bottom, but holding up a damaged, dying rat by its broken tail. A loud clamour of voices disputing the fairness of the capture and the answering shrieks of the capturer, secure in the possession of her prize (which she would shortly eat broiled over the ashes as a relish to her sorghum porridge), roused Lucy to a show of anger which stilled the tumult and turned the girls' attention to their teacher. She, standing up and trying to stammer out in Swahili words of adequate reproof, realized still more vividly the dreariness of her present lot, and bursting into an agony of tears, buried her head in her arms over the desk.
The little children gazed at her grief, awe-struck. Could rich, god-like white people have any sorrow, when they might wear cloth to any extent and had white salt in bottles and delicious foods in tins? Propelled by Josiah's wife they stole away wondering; and the "Big-geru" left the school gracelessly, with loud laughs and free comments in Kagulu on the white woman's show of emotion. The schoolroom clock ticked on, the rats, emboldened, rushed about the thatch and dropped without mishap on the floor, whence they scuttled out on to the verandah, then up the posts and so into the roof again. The flame-white sunlight grew fiercer in the square, the shadows of the trees shorter and more purple. At last a loud bell clanged, and presently Ann Jamblin looked in and said with a shade of insolence as she passed on: "The luncheon bell, Lucy."
Lucy affected not to hear her, but hurriedly dabbed her tear-stained face with a handkerchief, shook her white dress tidy, smoothed her hair with a hand-touch here and there, and took down a book from a shelf as if to study....