by John Buchan
D’aimer toujours, quand même,
Sans cesse,
D’une amour incertaine,
Plus noble d’être vaine,
Et j’aime la lointaine
Princesse!”
When she ceased there was silence for a little. The place and time were so strange — there among delicate furniture and all the trappings of a high civilisation, looking out over the primeval wilds. Savage beasts roamed a mile off in that untamed heart of the continent. The most sophisticated members of the company felt the glamour of the unknown around them. Lord Launceston rose quietly and walked to the window, where he gazed abstractedly at the starry sky; Lady Lucy was looking into the red glow of the fire; Marjory Haystoun and Lady Flora sat, chin on hand, in a kind of dream. Only Graham and Considine were unconscious of the spell. Months of hunting and going to bed at sundown had spoiled them for civilised hours, and they had dropped off peacefully to sleep in their chairs.
Carey broke the silence. “Here we are in Prester John’s country,” he said. “He may have had a daughter called Melissinde, and she may have been the Far-away Princess to some Portuguese adventurer who left his ship at Mombasa and wandered up into the hills. Do you realise how strange it is to be sitting here? Thirty years ago this was bush, with lions roaring in it, and the pioneers who may have camped here were three hundred miles from a white man, with hostile tribes around them, and the Lord knows what in front. I remember when I first came it was from the west. I had been trekking for months in Uganda, right across from Albert Edward and the Semliki to what is now Port Florence. I had had a bad dose of fever, and when we crawled up into the foothills I was as weak as a cat. We stayed here for a bit to recruit our strength, and, when I could stand, I went one evening, just about sunset, and looked down into the Tropics. That hour is as clear to me as if it had been yesterday. There was a fresh, clean wind blowing, which put life into my bones, and I stood on the edge and looked down thousands of feet over the little hill-tops to the great forest and on to the horizon, which was all red and gold. I knew that there was fever and heat and misery down below, but in the twilight it was transfigured, and seemed only a kind of fairyland designed for happiness. I was a poor man then, poor and ambitious, hungering for something, I did not know what. It was not wealth, for I never wanted wealth for its own sake. It was a purpose in life I sought, and in that moment I found it. For I realised that the great thing in the world is to reach the proper vantage-ground. I learned that things are not what they seem to the fighter in the midst of them; that the truth can only be known to the man on the hill-top. I realised that the heavenly landscape below me was far more the real Africa than the place of dust and fever I had left. And in that hour I saw my work, and, I think, too, the ideal of our race. If we cannot create a new heaven, we can create a new earth. ‘The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for us; the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.’”
The Duchess got up. “Maijory,” she said, “you are nodding, and as for Alastair and Sir Edward, they have been asleep for the last half-hour. I think we are all ready for bed after our long journey.”
As Hugh lit her candle at the foot of the staircase, she whispered to him confidentially, “When Francis begins to talk in blank verse, I always feel a little nervous. I think it is quite time for the women to say good-night.”
CHAPTER II.
MORNING at Musuru came as a surprise to those who remembered the hot noontide of the previous day. For the air was as bitter as an English winter, and, looking from the windows, they saw the valleys filled with cold mist and the lawns whitened with hoar - frost. The result was that all the women breakfasted in their rooms. And of the men, only Hugh, Astbury, and Mr Wakefield appeared in the dining-room, where a roaring wood-fire gave the early risers a sense of comfort to temper their consciousness of virtue. That consciousness, however, was rudely disturbed by the discovery that Graham and Considine had breakfasted at least two hours before and had gone out heroically into the chilly morning.
Mr Wakefield stood warming his back at the fire, in the attitude of a Master of Hounds before a hunt breakfast. He had arrayed himself in Harris tweeds, and his legs were clothed with new buckskin gaiters. Hugh and Astbury, who knew something of the Musuru climate, had put on thinner shooting suits.
The elder man helped himself to mealie-meal porridge and cream. “We had an interesting talk last night, and I hope during our visit we may reach some valuable conclusions. But I foresee trouble ahead unless we can keep Lord Appin away from Hegel and put a stop to Carey’s infernal mysticism. In my opinion, also, there are too many women for a really helpful discussion. We must, above all things, be practical. Now, I have here a kind of syllabus which Carey gave me last night — a list of the subjects we are to consider, and the order we are to take them in. To-night we are to begin with contemporary English politics and the present position of parties. Well, at any rate, that is relevant, if dull. Then we go on to the constitutional apparatus of Empire, the question of our tropical possessions, the economic and administrative problems. All these are very much to the point. But I notice at the end the sinister announcement that the concluding days are to be spent in talking about the ethical basis of Empire, and its relation to intellectual and æsthetic progress. That means, I fear, more of the unpromising mysticism of which we had a taste last night. We must keep Imperialism out of the clouds, or how on earth is it to commend itself to business men? I speak from a wide knowledge of the Colonies, and I assure you that what they want is a business proposition. We have, of course, our own ideals, but they are framed in a different language from yours, and I need hardly tell you that a common ideal, held with a difference, has proved in the past the most potent of disruptive forces. Let every man add his own poetry to the facts, but for Heaven’s sake let us get the facts agreed upon first.”
Mr Wakefield’s eloquence was checked by his appetite, and by Hugh’s warning that the word “Empire” was tabooed in the daytime. “Carey and I agreed,” said he, “that we should degenerate into a debating society and get bored to death with each other unless we placed strict limits to our enthusiasm. So our discussions will not begin till dinner-time. Before that we are at liberty to think as much as we please, but we must not talk about it. The resources of this place are limitless. We can shoot and fish and ride and walk; there is an excellent library; the finest scenery in the world is at our door. In the daytime we are flâneurs, without a thought except how to amuse ourselves. In the evening we can devote ourselves to your ‘business proposition.’”
Mr Wakefield acquiesced a little reluctantly, and, having finished breakfast, ensconced himself in the library with a box of cigars and a French novel. Astbury went off to do some writing, and Hugh devoted an hour to his neglected correspondence. Meanwhile the mist was clearing, the sun had come out and burned up the rime, and, as he looked from the window, he saw a pale blue sky, which promised heat, and all the mystery of bright colour which a tropical morning displays. So, after going to his room for a book, he found a long wicker-chair on the verandah, and, lighting a pipe, settled himself for a peaceful forenoon.
He found it hard to read, however. The wide landscape shimmering below him, the calling of strange birds, the wafts of strange scents from the garden distracted his thoughts. By-and-by a trim white figure in a large sun-hat came along, and he said good-morning to Lady Flora.
The girl refused a chair, and seated herself on the parapet of the verandah.
“I am all alone, so I must come and talk to you, Mr Somerville. Aunt Susan and Lady Amysfort and Mrs Yorke are not down yet. Charlotte Wilbraham has taken Lord Launceston for a walk, Lady Lucy and Mr Lowenstein are talking business, Malory and Mr Astbury are talking politics, and Barbara Deloraine is looking at a big botany book with pictures. I found Colonel Alastair and Sir Edward in the stables skinning beasts, and they were so covered with blood and the place smelt so horribly that I could not stay. Lady Warcliff is writing hundreds of letters abou
t some of her emigration societies. I am sure she fusses far too much about her work. She behaves always like a weary Atlas holding up a world which doesn’t in the least want to be held up. Last of all, I found Lord Appin deep in a big German book, but he told me to be a good girl and run away. So you are my only refuge. Tell me what you are reading in that little book with so many pencil markings in it.”
“Plato,” said Hugh. “I am taking advantage of my idleness to renew my acquaintance with the great masters. But it’s very hard to find the proper book for such a morning.”
“Nearly as hard as to find the proper clothes. When my maid called me she said it was ‘freezin”ard,’ so I put on my thickest tweed skirt. When I had finished dressing I saw the sun coming out, so I put on a lighter one. And when I came downstairs and went out on the verandah and saw that it was quite summery, I had to go back and change into summer things. Two changes in a morning are really enough to upset one. I feel as if I had been inconstant.” Hugh shut his book and began to refill his pipe. “I think I’ll talk to you instead of reading Plato. What would you like to talk about?”
“This place, first of all,” said the girl. “Did you ever see anything to match it? I am so glad Aunt Susan brought me. I fancied we should be living in a log cabin with Kaffir servants, and I seriously thought of leaving my maid at home, as I did last year in Norway. Instead, I find the most beautiful and comfortable house I ever dreamed of. And I like the idea of our party so much. We are going to talk high politics, and I am sure we have got some very clever men to talk them. It is such a refreshing change from the ordinary ‘cure.’ My first two seasons I went with Mother to stupid German places, where one saw the same people who had bored one in town and talked the same foolish gossip. It is a blessing to be in a place where one can talk about better things than other people’s love affairs.”
Hugh laughed. “You are growing old, Lady Flora, if that topic has ceased to amuse you. Have you had a hard Season?”
“Pretty hard, and I suppose I am growing old, for people are beginning to pall on me. Three years ago, when I first came out, I was tolerant of everything and anybody. But now I seem to have too much of it all. I want a little peace to get my mind dear and to know what I like and who are my friends. Didn’t some one say that the art of life was to make up your mind what you really and truly wanted? I am afraid I shall soon be that deplorable young woman, ‘her name was Dull.’”
“You have been reading the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ and you are afraid that you are one of the citizens of Vanity Fair?”
“I am horribly afraid. At the bottom of my heart I would really live almost anywhere else — even with the tiresome old Interpreter or the spinsters of the House Beautiful. Where do you live, Mr Somerville?”
Hugh shook his head doubtfully. “Various places up and down the Way. A good deal in the Valley of Humiliation. Now and then in Doubting Castle. But not much, I think, in Vanity Fair.”
“No,” said the girl, “I don’t seem to have seen you about so much lately. Have you grown tired of the world?”
“I have so many things to think about nowadays. As you were saying, the secret of life is to find out what one really wants, and I have discovered that a little of Society goes a long way with me. I only liked it because of the romance which it has for us all at first. When I grew up properly and the gilt was rubbed off I found it hard and stupid: so like a wise man I seek my romance elsewhere. You are growing up, too, and finding the same thing.”
Lady Flora climbed off her perch and leant over the balustrade, looking down into the infinite blue distances.
“At any rate we are both in the Delectable Mountains now,” she said, “and we have the Shepherds, too, and they may teach us something. But I wish we were going to talk about a more helpful subject. Of course I believe in Imperialism, and I canvassed a great deal for cousin Charlie at the election. He was beaten, poor boy, and he said it was largely my fault, for I always agreed with anything anybody said to me. And I am much more interested in the Empire than in England, for all the nicest people I know are in Tibet, or Nigeria, or some remote place. But at the same time I can’t help feeling that any politics are rather a far-away thing to me.”
“And yet I don’t see why they should be,” said Hugh, rising and looking over the balustrade beside the girl. “We are all citizens, — I am giving you the kind of answer an elderly paternal person would give, — and we have long got over the old foolish idea that politics were only a game for men, and for a few men at that. What we are going to talk about is the whole scheme of life which a new horizon and a new civic ideal bring with them. It affects the graces as closely as the business of life, art and literature as well as economics and administration. Suppose a small tribe lived in a cave and never saw the daylight. One day the barriers at the door fall down, and they look out on a blue sky and meadows and a river, and are free to go out to them. It wouldn’t be only the modes of tribal government that would be altered by the illumination.”
“No, I suppose not. But the whole thing is still very unfamiliar to me, and I cannot understand the language you all talk in. I’ve never been able to follow even Lord Appin’s jokes, though he’s a relation, and Mr Carey speaks like a very impressive but very obscure bishop. Perhaps Lord Launceston may be simpler. He is so kind and wearied and sad, and his face is so like a Burne-Jones knight, that some day I shall certainly kiss him, if I am not too afraid of Charlotte Wilbraham.”
“You would prefer that we should sit in conclave on the profound subject: How is a young lady of twenty or thereabouts, who is a little tired of being frivolous, to attain satisfaction in life? Upon my soul, I think that is a much more difficult question than the other.”
“You are very tiresome, Mr Somerville,” said the girl. “You think I am only a butterfly. I may be, but I can at least look beyond my cabbage-leaf, and I am very very discontented.”
“Why not try good works?” Hugh asked.
“‘Journeys end in mothers’ meetings!’ No! I’ve tried them in an amateur way, and the works aren’t really good. You make yourself miserable, and only fuss and patronise the poor, so nobody is a penny the better.”
“Well, then, there is the intellectual life?”
“I haven’t the brains. It is all very well for Marjory, who has read everything, and finds life far too short for the things she burns to do. I don’t live at white-heat like her. More by token,” said Lady Flora, peering into the garden, “she is at this moment discoursing with Mr Astbury among the oleanders. Bareheaded too! I wonder if she knows that this is mid-day in the Tropics. She’ll be cut off in the pride of her youth and beauty.”
“There only remains falling in love and marrying,” said Hugh solemnly.
“Oh, Mr Somerville, I never expected to hear you say anything so banal. As if any short cut to happiness lay that way! If you can’t find a philosophy of life before marriage, you won’t find it after. It is shirking the question, not solving it.”
The girl swung round and revealed a laughing face and dancing eyes. “I am a better actress than I thought, and you were quite taken in. I am really blissfully happy, happier than I think I’ve ever been before. But I want to make the most of this place, so I have a scheme to offer. Why should we not have a special conference on our own account? The discussions in the evenings will be the voice of age. Let us have the voice of youth — you and me — in the mornings. I shall want to ask so many questions and have so many things explained to me. Besides, I may contribute really valuable suggestions in our tête-à-tête, which I should be much too shy to launch at the dinner-table. Shall we make it a bargain?”
As they shook hands on the compact the gong — aforetime the war-drum of a neighbouring tribe — sounded for luncheon.
Conversation at dinner was begun by a speech of some length from the Duchess of Maxton. In the afternoon she had been driven by Carey in an American buggy round a settlement of some fifty families from England. Enthusiasm was not commonly h
er rôle, but as a practical woman and a practical farmer she had been carried out of herself in admiration of the success of his experiment. She had tried the same thing on her husband’s Suffolk estate, where it maintained a precarious life, fed by frequent doles from her own purse. Her first impression, therefore, had been that this was but another of Carey’s extravagant hobbies, and she had been greatly astonished to learn that it paid him six per cent on his outlay. The vast fields of tobacco and maize, the strips of lucerne, the orchards, the plain substantial houses, the well-made roads, the schoolhouse, the buxom contentment of the women, the healthy colour of the children, and the hard well-being of the men — she did not know what the most to admire. “How do you do it?” she had inquired, and had been told simply, “Management.”
“Where did you get the people from?” she asked at dinner.
“Some from my old home in Devonshire — small farmers who could not make a living in England, young shepherds who wanted to be on their own, and a younger son or two who were not above labouring with their hands. But I wanted all sorts; so you will find South Africans and New Zealanders and Canadians in the settlement. I made a point of having none but men who had got the love of the soil in them. I don’t think of the place as an emigration experiment. I wanted my estate farmed to the best purposes, and I hunted about for the best tenants. It is true that in time all will own their own farms, but even as freeholders they will still be in a real sense my own people.”
“The danger I foresee in all such work,” said Mr Wakefield, who found Lady Flora and Lady Amysfort, his two neighbours, a little inattentive to his conversation,—”the danger is that too much depends upon the will of a single man. One man like you, Carey, is a godsend; a hundred would be a calamity. For, when all is said and done, you are feudalists and aristocrats at heart. Now I maintain that the basis of empire is a democratic one — that is to say, empire as understood in the free Colonies, which are its real support. Africa, if I may say so, has been too much monopolised by ‘men of destiny’ — Rhodes, for example, and yourself. In Canada, in New Zealand, in Australia, you are inconceivable. I appreciate your work as much as any man, but I feel that it creates a false precedent. It is a precedent, I admit, which has small chance of being followed,” he added, smiling.
