Cupid in Africa Read online

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  CUPID IN AFRICA

  BY P. C. WREN

  AUTHOR OF “BEAU GESTE”

  * * * * *

  “_Ex Africa semper aliquid novi_”

  * * * * *

  “And the son shall take his father’s spear And he shall avenge his father” . . .

  —_Askari Song_

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  HEATH CRANTON LIMITED 6 FLEET LANE LONDON E.C.4

  _First published 1920_

  CONTENTS PART I THE MAKING OF BERTRAMCHAPTER PAGE I _Major Hugh Walsingham Green_ 7 II _Mr. Charles Stayne-Brooker (or Herr Karl 10 Stein-Brücker)_ III _Mrs. Stayne-Brooker—and Her Ex-Stepson_ 13 PART II THE BAKING OF BERTRAM BY WAR I _Bertram Becomes a Man of War_ 16 II _And is Ordered to East Africa_ 28 III _Preparations_ 40 IV _Terra Marique Jactatus_ 45 V _Mrs. Stayne-Brooker_ 59 VI _Mombasa_ 61 VII _The Mombasa Club_ 70 VIII _Military and Naval Manœuvres_ 78 IX _Bertram Invades Africa_ 97 X _M’paga_ 105 XI _Food and Feeders_ 112 XII _Reflections_ 123 XIII _Baking_ 137 XIV _The Convoy_ 146 XV _Butindi_ 154 XVI _The Bristol Bar_ 161 XVII _More Baking_ 171 XVIII _Trial_ 180 XIX _Of a Pudding_ 187 XX _Stein-Brücker Meets Bertram Greene—and 195 Death_ PART III THE BAKING OF BERTRAM BY LOVE I _Mrs. Stayne-Brooker Again_ 204 II _Love_ 208 III _Love and War_ 217 IV _Baked_ 226 V _Finis_ 236

  PART ITHE MAKING OF BERTRAM

  CHAPTER I_Major Hugh Walsingham Greene_

  There never lived a more honourable, upright, scrupulous gentleman thanMajor Hugh Walsingham Greene, and there seldom lived a duller, narrower,more pompous or more irascible one.

  Nor, when the Great War broke out, and gave him something fresh to do andto think about, were there many sadder and unhappier men. His had been aluckless and unfortunate life, what with his two wives and his one son;his excellent intentions and deplorable achievements; his kindly heartand harsh exterior; his narrow escapes of decoration, recognition andpromotion.

  At cards he was _not_ lucky—and in love he . . . well—his first wife,whom he adored, died after a year of him; and his second ran away afterthree months of his society. She ran away with Mr. CharlesStayne-Brooker (elsewhere the Herr Doktor Karl Stein-Brücker), the man ofall men, whom he particularly and peculiarly loathed. And his son, hisonly son and heir! The boy was a bitter disappointment to him, turningout badly—a poet, an artist, a musician, a wretched student and“intellectual,” a fellow who won prizes and scholarships and suchlike bythe hatful, and never carried off, or even tried for, a “pot,” in hislife. Took after his mother, poor boy, and was the first of the family,since God-knows-when, to grow up a dam’ civilian. Father fought and bledin Egypt, South Africa, Burma, China, India; grandfather in the Crimeaand Mutiny, great-grandfather in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, ancestorswith Marlborough, the Stuarts, Drake—scores of them: and this chap, _his_son, _their_ descendant, a wretched creature of whom you could no moremake a soldier than you could make a service saddle of a sow’s ear!

  It was a comfort to the Major that he only saw the nincompoop on the rareoccasions of his visits to England, when he honestly did his best to hidefrom the boy (who worshipped him) that he would sooner have seen him winone cup for boxing, than a hundred prizes for his confounded literature,art, music, classics, and study generally. To hide from the boy that thepæans of praise in his school reports were simply revolting—fit only fora feller who was going to be a wretched curate or wretchederschoolmaster; to hide his distaste for the pale, slim beauty, which wasthat of a delicate girl rather than of the son of Major Hugh WalsinghamGreene. . . . Too like his poor mother by half—and without one quarterthe pluck, nerve, and “go” of young Miranda Walsingham, his kinswoman andplaymate. . . . Too dam’ virtuous altogether. . . .

  Gad! If this same Miranda had only been a boy, his boy, there would havebeen another soldier to carry on the family traditions, if you like!

  But this poor Bertram of his . . .

  His mother, a Girton girl, and daughter of a Cambridge Don, had prayedthat her child might “take after” _her_ father, for whom she entertaineda feeling of absolute veneration. She had had her wish indeed—withoutliving to rejoice in the fact.

  * * * * *

  When it was known in the cantonment of Sitagur that Major WalsinghamGreene was engaged to Prudence Pym, folk were astonished, and a notuncommon comment was “Poor little girl!” in spite of the fact that theMajor was admitted by all to be a most honourable and scrupulousgentleman. Another remark which was frequently made was “Hm! Oppositesattract. What?”

  For Prudence Pym was deeply religious, like her uncle, the Commissionerof the Sitagur Division; she was something of a blue-stocking as becameher famous father’s daughter; she was a musician of parts, an artist ofmore than local note, and was known to be writing a Book. So that if“oppositeness” be desirable, there was plenty of it—since the Majorconsidered attendance at church to be part and parcel ofdrill-and-parade; religion to be a thing concerning which no gentlemanspeaks and few gentlemen think; music to be a noise to be endured in thedrawing-room after dinner for a little while; art to be the harmlessproduct of long-haired fellers with shockin’ clothes and dirtyfinger-nails; and books something to read when you were absolutelyreduced to doing it—as when travelling. . . .

  When Prudence Walsingham Greene knew that she was to have a child, shestrove to steep her soul in Beauty, Sweetness and Light, and to feed iton the pure ichor of the finest and best in scenery, music, art andliterature. . . .

  Entered to her one day—pompous, pleased, and stolid; heavy, dull, andfoolish—the worthy Major as she sat revelling in the (to her) marvellousbeauties of Rosetti’s _Ecce Ancilla Domini_. As she looked up with thesad mechanical smile of the disappointed and courageous wife, he screwedhis monocle into his eye and started the old weary laceration of herfeelings, the old weary tramplings and defilements of tastes andthoughts, as he examined the picture wherewith she was nourishing (shehoped and believed) the æsthetic side of her unborn child’s mind.

  “Picture of a Girl with Grouse, what?” grunted the Major.

  “With a . .
. ? There is no bird? I don’t . . . ?” stammered Prudencewho, like most women of her kind, was devoid of any sense of humour.

  “Looks as though she’s got a frightful grouse about somethin’, _I_ shouldsay. The young party on the bed, I mean,” continued her spouse. “‘Girlwith the Hump’ might be a better title p’r’aps—if you say she hasn’t agrouse,” he added.

  “_Hump_?”

  “Yes. Got the hump more frightfully about something or other—p’r’apsbecause the other sportsman’s shirt’s caught alight. . . . Been smokin’,and dropped his cigar. . . .”

  “It is an angel shod with fire,” moaned Prudence as she put the pictureinto its portfolio, and felt for her handkerchief. . . .

  A little incident, a straw upon the waters, but a straw showing theirsteady flow toward distaste, disillusionment, dislike, and hopelessregret. The awful and familiar tragedy of “incompatibility oftemperament,” of which law and priests in their wisdom take no count orcognizance, though counting trifles (by comparison) of infidelity andviolence as all important.

  And when her boy was born, and named Bertram after her father, Dr.Bertram Pym, F.R.S., she was happy and thankful, and happily andthankfully died.

  * * * * *

  In due course the Major recovered from his grief and sent his son home tohis place, Leighcombe Abbey, where dwelt his elderly spinster relative,Miss Walsingham, and her niece, Miranda Walsingham, daughter of GeneralWalsingham, his second cousin. Here the influence of prim, gentle, andlearned Miss Walsingham was all that his mother would have desired, andin the direction of all that his father loathed—the boy growing upbookish, thoughtful, and more like a nice girl than a human boy. HimMiranda mothered, petted, and occasionally excoriated, being an Amazonianyoung female of his own age, happier on the bare back of a horse than inthe seats of the learned.