CHAPTER XIXCONCLUSION
I HAVE done what I needed to do for my own satisfaction by putting in the form of a consecutive narrative the peculiar and perhaps sometimes unseemly transactions which have now been recorded.
I had only a fragmentary diary, occasional notes of conversations written while the spoken words were still fresh and vibrant in my memory, and my own recollection of events.
I dreaded lest the latter might fade as I grew older, and that loose leaves of manuscript might be lost or destroyed before I had even in my own mind a clear perspective of happenings that were often so bewildering to me while I dwelt in the midst of them.
I desire especially that Edmund’s children may some day have an opportunity of appraising the truth about their father’s youth, if it should happen that any aspersions should ever be cast upon his character. For I do believe in children knowing the truth about their parents. Filial love, without any opportunity for comparison and just criticism, seems to me but a hollow tradition, liable to collapse at the first whiff of truth.
I think no child of Edmund’s need ever be ashamed of his father. His experience, his peculiar faculties and personality, have enabled him to render very signal and special services to his country in developingthe waterways of Africa. In all his letters to me he apologises for the reputation he has gained, which he says is entirely due to the practical sagacity and knowledge of detail with which Welfare supplies him. Edmund has already been presented with a C.M.G., but Welfare’s name is unknown.
Yet I happen to know that Welfare is an exceedingly contented man. In a recent letter he tells me, “I am able to save a third of my pay, and if I don’t marry at the finish I shall have a few hundreds to leave where I shall die happy in leaving it. I have the work I am suited with, under the finest chief a man ever served. I have been baptised into the Church out here, but not until I was able to send a decent present to my father’s and my old chapel. They tell me they have cut my name on one of the stones in the wall ‘laid by Josiah Welfare.’ Well, fancy!”
I reflected that I had never known Welfare’s christian name before. But I was glad it was engraved on the old dry-salter’s place of worship.
I have had a visit from Brogden, while he was on leave. He told me that Jakoub’s disappearance from my house had become one of the mysteries not only of Egypt but of Scotland Yard. I had hard work to resist the desire to confess, but since that was impossible, I compounded by installing a motor-car on my premises during Brogden’s stay. When he had gone I sold the atrocious thing at a heavy loss. But Brogden had enjoyed himself, and the financial loss was not enough to salve my conscience completely.
On the other hand, Bates resented the temporary chauffeur, and Mrs. Rattray disliked him. Between them they inflicted on me a penance which I think straightens my moral account with Brogden.
The penance might have been excessive only that Edmund’s fiancée is the daughter of a fairly near neighbour, an ex-commissioner under whom Edmund had served. She is now constantly here awaiting Edmund’s return. Bates and Mrs. Rattray are completely subjugated by her. She settled the matter of the chauffeur and got rid of him with a minimum of friction.
She makes me desperately jealous of Edmund, but I endeavour to realise that I belong to a bygone generation, that I am become, in fact, a “dear old thing.”
Jakoub’s bones are unlikely now to be disturbed. They are honoured by having a vault as well as a grave for their repose. For the smuggler’s passage has been sealed up by solid masonry at either end. It will never be opened again in my lifetime, and I hope it is now closed for ever.
The bishop spent an evening with me recently, and I showed him parts of this manuscript.
“As far as I know the story,” he said, “you have been very accurate. When I look back upon what has happened, especially on my own part in the affair, I am reminded of a phrase of yours—‘I can look my conscience in the face.’ What a waste it would have been if your brother had become a mere hanger-on to your charity, after undergoing ‘prison discipline.’ Whenever I think of him and of what might have happened to him, I think of those words of the psalmist, ‘Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove, whose wings are covered with silver, and her feathers like gold.’”
The End.