The Missionary's Wife

by Tim Jeal

  The Missionary’s Wife

  TIM JEAL

  To the memory of all those who died a century ago in the Ndebele and Shona Uprising of 1896, including Chief Uwini, executed by British troops; Bernard Mizeki, Christian convert, murdered by his own people; Joseph Norton, farmer, and Caroline Norton, his wife, killed by tribesmen at Porta Farm; Lieutenant Harry Bremner, 20th Hussars, Trooper C. McGeer and the other soldiers and civilians who died during the escape from Mazoe Settlement.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Preface to the 2013 Edition

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Part Two

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part Three

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part Four

  Chapter 27

  Copyright

  Preface to the 2013 Edition

  The Missionary’s Wife had its origins in the research I did for my biographies of David Livingstone and Robert Baden-Powell. Livingstone, I discovered, spent eight years as a settled missionary, making the only conversion he would ever make. His one and only convert was Sechele, the intelligent and good-natured chief of the Kwena, who found Christianity very puzzling. Why, he wondered, would an all-powerful God, who had made the world and the stars, allow his only son to be nailed to a piece of wood by bad men? Also, why would God have chosen an animal’s shed as a suitable birthplace for his only son, and why was that son white? Nor did it seem to make any sense to Sechele to reject wives whom he had married in good faith and who had done nothing wrong.

  But in the end Sechele’s deep admiration for Livingstone got the better of him. Surely no white man would have come so many miles from his own country in order to tell this strange story if it was untrue? What possible motive could Livingstone have had for inventing it? The story of God and Jesus was obviously to be relied upon. But then, a few months after his baptism, Sechele had intercourse with his favourite discarded wife and got her pregnant. The blow to Livingstone was devastating after so many years of persuasion: ‘The confession loosed all my bones. I felt as if I should sink to the earth or run away … My heart is broken.’

  When I was writing Baden-Powell’s life in the 1980s, I found that he had executed a chief called Uwini in Matabeleland. In 1896 Uwini had rebelled against the white colonial authorities in Bulawayo, claiming that he possessed the magical power to turn the soldiers’ bullets into harmless water. A number of white settlers had been murdered by Uwini’s ‘rebels’ and Baden-Powell’s job was to end the trouble. He decided he could only do this by shooting Uwini, thus demonstrating to the chief’s many followers that he could offer them no magical defence against bullets.

  In the mid-1990s it occurred to me that if I were to write a novel in which a missionary worked for many years to convert a chief, only to see him shot as a rebel by a young army officer, I would have the bones of a compelling story. But I needed a dispassionate viewpoint, and so decided to make my principal character the missionary’s wife, rather than the missionary. She had fallen in love with the evangelist when he had come to preach at her town’s non-conformist chapel during a rare visit to England, and had been overwhelmed by his bravery and his faith.

  But once in Africa as his wife, from her less partisan point of view it would rapidly become apparent both that the chief’s wives did not deserve to be discarded, and that, if they were to be cast aside, their relatives – one of whom was the tribe’s witch doctor or nganja – would be transformed into the chief’s deadliest enemies. Indeed a fight between the factions would become inevitable.

  By the time the infighting starts, the missionary’s wife has befriended one of the discarded wives, and is indignantly aware of the damage her husband has done the tribe. The chief, meanwhile, has been drawn into a wider rebellion against the white settlers, and the lives of the missionary and his wife are soon in danger. A young army officer and his troop of cavalry are sent from Bulawayo …

  Tim Jeal,

  22 July 2013

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  The staff of J. & H. Ince & Co., Sarston’s principal draper’s, had never found Clara Musson an easy customer to satisfy. As a child, she had agonized long and hard over which bright ribbons and shiny buttons she wanted to buy. The passage of time had not made her less fastidious. But having seen her grow up, the shop assistants knew Clara well enough to suffer her whims without rancour.

  Her long-dead mother had been a devout Christian, and little Clara had always been eager to please her. At the age of four, she had caused much merriment by pursuing destitute people with charitable gifts – usually dried bread and broken biscuits, which she had then thrust at them with loud demands that they eat. She had been disobeyed by bona fide beggars and by the many respectable citizens whom she had mistaken for vagrants. A deputation of angry people had dragged the young Lady Bountiful home and rebuked her parents for letting their pampered child insult them. On another occasion – and this incident had occurred in Ince’s shop – Clara, aged twelve, had consoled a recently widowed assistant with the words: ‘Don’t worry – you’ll soon be dead too.’ The woman’s shock and distress had amazed Clara. If she herself had lost a husband, Clara had known, she would have wanted to die as soon as possible in order to be with him in heaven. Or if she had led too evil a life to qualify for heaven, the fires of hell would at least prevent her missing him.

  Ten years later, on a freezing afternoon in January 1894, Miss Greaves, J. & H. Ince’s resident dressmaker, was serving Clara. She remembered the latter incident well. Even now, when she was dealing with Miss Musson, nothing could be taken for granted. Miss Greaves anticipated arguments about style and cost, and even changes of mind after ‘firm’ decisions had been made. The dress material had been safely chosen, and now the time had come to discuss how the ball gown should be trimmed. Miss Greaves suggested a border of dark-green leaves around each of the skirt’s three flounces.

  ‘See how striking it is, Miss Musson,’ she enthused, holding up the trimming against the fabric. ‘But to look really stylish, the leaves should be edged with a little red cord. That would be so tasteful.’

  ‘So expensive too, I daresay,’ muttered Clara, fixing the dressmaker with glittering eyes.

  ‘Oh, not really,’ soothed Miss Greaves. She turned to the milliner behind the counter. ‘I expect we could manage to do it for four guineas, wouldn’t you say, Miss Williams?’

  ‘I think we could just about manage that, Miss Greaves,’ agreed Miss Williams.

  ‘God almighty!’ cried Clara, the robustness of her expression contrasting strangely with her angelic appearance. In dark furs and with a black veil looped back from her face, her skin looked as pale as white hellebore petals touched with winter pink.

  Miss Greaves swore a mental oath and steeled herself for some energetic haggling. Because Clara’s father owned the town’s principal earthenware works, the young lady plainly thought that every shopkeeper was out to overcharge her. Being aware of this, Miss Greaves always pitched her price too high at the outset, so she could drop it later after a convincing show of resistance.

/>   Though Clara was unaware of it, during her childhood many tradespeople had thought her father a monster to deny his only daughter the dignity of summer silks. Instead he had made her wear cotton print dresses like a shopgirl. Only when Clara had come of age had Alfred Musson granted her a dress allowance. He was as rich as some of the county’s largest landowners and yet still lived in a town house so nondescript that most members of the local gentry refused to call there. Musson’s contempt for social ambitions and ostentation was well known, and while earning him the praise of fellow chapel-goers, it brought inevitable taunts of miserliness from shopkeepers.

  ‘If madam really wishes,’ the milliner sighed, ‘the dress could be trimmed with velvet for less money, but it would not look nearly so distingué.’

  Miss Greaves nodded gravely, impressed by her colleague’s inspired choice of word. The daughter of a tradesman, however rich, would surely clutch at the reassurance of distinguished trimmings when dancing with the gentry at a hunt ball. But Clara laughed in a most disconcerting manner.

  ‘The leaves are fine on their own, Miss Greaves, but I won’t wear something like a servant’s bell rope round my waist. The idea of it!’

  Clara smiled. Of course poor old Greavesy couldn’t be expected to know that she could appear in a sack at a county ball and still seem a perfect vision to the one person who mattered, namely the owner of Holcroft Park. Even this casual thought of Mr Charles Vyner made Clara feel pleasantly weak. His soft, low voice, his neat dark hair, his deep-brown eyes, and above all his gentlemanliness, had haunted her imagination almost from the day when he first called upon her. Being sure his feelings mirrored hers, Clara was cocooned in happiness.

  She caught sight of herself in the big cheval glass, flanked by the two women. They wouldn’t be going dancing or riding in carriages with gentlemen. Indeed not. Their wasted lives rose up and flapped about like crows, casting black shadows over Clara’s bright mood. Thirty years in a draper’s shop, twelve hours a day, and all for twenty-five shillings a week. Long ago, Miss Greaves’s skin had absorbed the shop’s fustiness, and it was now as dull as parchment. Miss Williams’ back was bowed, and all her features were pinched and desiccated. It was merciful, thought Clara, that neither of them was likely to know about Charles Vyner’s love for her. From the very beginning, Charles had urged her to be discreet, and Clara had been glad to oblige him. Their love, he had insisted, would grow more strongly for being their private possession until they were ready to declare it to the world. So in spite of her father’s horrified objections, Clara had refused to take a chaperone when meeting Charles. In fact, practical considerations too had made discretion desirable. Charles found her father impossible to talk to and disliked calling on her at home. Since she found his mother equally uncongenial, when Clara visited Holcroft Park she usually told her coachman to approach via the stable gates instead of the carriage sweep, which was overlooked by Mrs Vyner’s windows.

  Still mindful of her good fortune, Clara tried to look less brimful of hope and vitality. Yet her glowing face cried out in spite of her: I am free and you are not. I am young and loved and you are not.

  Clara suddenly found that she had lost her enthusiasm for driving a hard bargain. She smiled engagingly and said, ‘What about three pounds ten shillings for the leaves without the rope?’

  Amazed by such a reasonable proposal at this early stage, Miss Greaves agreed with alacrity. She and Miss Williams were all smiles. They liked to gossip with their clients and lost no time in getting started now that things were settled. Clara gazed idly at the scissors and chalk on the counter’s polished surface, wondering how soon she could leave without causing offence.

  Then, as if lightning had struck from a clear blue sky, Miss Greaves said something that caught Clara with the force of a physical blow. ‘Lady Alice Hey don was in here this morning.’ The dressmaker’s voice sank lower. ‘I gather that Lady Alice is staying at Holcroft Park, as a guest of the Vyner family.’

  Too shocked to feel the full pain of her wound, Clara stared stupidly at the brass yard measure nailed along the edge of the counter. The touch of pink in her cheeks had fled, but her white lips still held her smile in place.

  Encouraged by such unexpected attentiveness from a lady whose mind often wandered, the milliner leaned across the counter confidingly. ‘Lady Alice’s maid told me that Her Ladyship means to hunt with the Ranfurley for the rest of the season. She had such a twinkle in her eye – the maid, you understand – that I don’t doubt we’ll be hearing of an engagement before long.’

  ‘Well, I never,’ murmured Clara. ‘I suppose we’ll have to wait as patiently as we can.’ Her lips ached with smiling as she buttoned her coat and put on her muff. She had meant to ask the date of the first fitting, but the dress had vanished from her mind.

  She walked past two young assistants, sewing beside the stove, and then threaded her way like a tightrope walker between the coat and the hat stands. The boy who made up the parcels opened the door for her, and she went out into the street. A casual labourer was scraping frozen snow from the pavement with a shovel. She longed to seize it from him and strike sparks from the stones.

  Clara tried to laugh, but an awful gasping groan escaped her. Tears spilled from her eyes. She saw herself broken and helpless, condemned forever to a spinster’s life. She staggered blindly past the free library, and the old men reading newspapers by lamplight. Fearing she would faint, she grasped the railings. I won’t collapse until I get home. I won’t. A horse tram clattered past. On the corner, a roast-chestnut man was warming his hands over his glowing brazier. Intent on reaching him, she stumbled on, slipping on the icy snow. I’ve lost everything, she thought. But wasn’t it worse than that? Hadn’t she just found out that she had never had anything to lose? The man she would have trusted with her life had been a rat all along.

  *

  Alfred Musson’s house was the last in a short Regency terrace, dwarfed by the crimson brick of the neighbouring Mechanics’ Institute. In his garden was a monkey puzzle tree, much loved by Clara, though if anyone had ever offered her father a good price for the wood, she guessed he would have felled it. During the last two decades, this older part of the town had been overwhelmed by new construction. But since her father gained more enjoyment from watching blungers, sifters, and pug mills in operation at his pottery works than in looking at Georgian buildings, recent developments had left him unmoved. He had made a modest contribution toward the creation of a municipal park but had never returned there after the opening, and so he had no idea that the keepers’ houses and the little decorative kiosks were now grimy with soot from the town’s kilns and chimneys. Pressing in around this small oasis were hundreds of huddled red-brown streets. From Clara’s room, the dark spire of the parish church and the neo-Gothic finials of the Free Trade Hall were the only structures that could be seen rising above the endless roofs.

  Alfred Musson was a tall man with thinning grey hair and thick grizzled eyebrows. When his mind was engaged, he seemed forbidding, but in repose his face looked kindly and worried. His clothes were often shabby, though on special occasions he dressed appropriately. The two passions in his life were his pottery works and his only child. When he returned one evening to find Clara sobbing, he guessed the cause before being told it. He felt such rage with Vyner that he was tempted to snatch up a stick and seek him out at once. But suppose he blacked the scoundrel’s eye – or suffered a beating himself. Would Clara’s happiness be restored? Alas, no.

  That evening, father and daughter dined together, looked down upon by Christ Walking on the Water – the largest oil painting in the house. Clara’s speech was indistinct; and most unlike herself, she spilled food on the table.

  ‘Clara, you’re drunk,’ he said quietly, appalled by his discovery.

  ‘Only a drop of medicinal brandy,’ she muttered, pushing back her chair with such force that she all but tipped it over.

  Those who knew Alfred were amazed that a man so stern wit
h his employees should be unable to cross his daughter. But ever since his wife’s death, ten years earlier, Alfred Musson had been clay in his daughter’s hands. He looked at her in alarm now. Her lovely face was contorted with indignation as well as grief.

  ‘You never wanted me to marry him – admit it, Pa. You’re pleased. So don’t pretend you’re not.’

  ‘I’m not pleased, my dear. Really I’m not,’ he soothed.

  But in many ways he was. Alfred had always mistrusted Charles Vyner. What sort of man could be content to live on his rents, and sit moping for months on end in his library, or go rooting around for old brown pictures in foreign churches? A connoisseur, according to Clara. Charles, she had told him, was extending the art collection at Holcroft Park and writing about it in learned journals. Few men, it was said, knew more about how to tell an early Titian from a Giorgione. Though why anybody should want to do so was beyond Alfred Musson.

  Clara pushed away her plate. Her lips were trembling. ‘You always loathed him.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he lied, tightening his grip on his cutlery. Tears were running down her cheeks, though she made no sound. If she were still a little girl, he could have sat her on his lap, but now there was nothing he could do to comfort her. Torn between his longings to shout abuse at the absent Vyner and to stroke his daughter’s long black hair, he did nothing, and felt all the worse for it.

  About a year before Charles Vyner started to pursue Clara, Alfred Musson had heard that he hoped to marry the Earl of Desmond’s daughter, Lady Alice Heydon. But the earl had evidently thought that Lady Alice could do better. At any rate, he had withheld his consent. So when handsome Mr Vyner started to call on Clara, Alfred suspected that his recent rebuff had made him lower his sights – as he would have seen it. Manufacturers’ daughters, it must have occurred to him, could sometimes bring in more money than peers’ daughters. If they lacked a few social graces, no matter; these could be acquired. Imputing such thoughts to Mr Vyner, Alfred Musson had soon feared that the young landowner viewed Clara as a poor substitute for her predecessor. Now that Lady Alice had reappeared and been welcomed back by the entire Vyner family – having apparently worn down her noble father – Alfred was not very much astonished. But he loved Clara too much to say I told you so.