The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [40]
III
And Prunella was never short of male escort. As the weeks passed it became clear to the watching colony that her choice had narrowed down to two—Mr. Kentish, assistant native commissioner, and Mr. Benson, second lieutenant in the native levy; not that she was not consistently charming to everyone else—even to the shady remittance man and the repulsive Mr. Jagger—but by various little acts of preference she made it known that Kentish and Benson were her favourites. And the study of their innocent romances gave a sudden new interest to the social life of the town. Until now there had been plenty of entertaining certainly—gymkhanas and tennis tournaments, dances and dinner parties, calling and gossiping, amateur opera and church bazaars—but it had been a joyless and dutiful affair. They knew what was expected of Englishmen abroad; they had to keep up appearances before the natives and their co-protectionists; they had to have something to write home about; so they sturdily went through the recurring recreations due to their station. But with Prunella’s coming a new lightness was in the air; there were more parties and more dances and a point to everything. Mr. Brooks, who had never dined out before, found himself suddenly popular, and as his former exclusion had not worried him, he took his present vogue as a natural result of his daughter’s charm, was pleased by it and mildly embarrassed. He realized that she would soon want to get married and faced with equanimity the prospect of his inevitable return to solitude.
Meanwhile Benson and Kentish ran neck and neck through the crowded Azanian spring and no one could say with confidence which was leading—betting was slightly in favour of Benson, who had supper dances with her at the Caledonian and the Polo Club Balls—when there occurred the incident which shocked Azanian feeling to its core. Prunella Brooks was kidnapped.
The circumstances were obscure and a little shady. Prunella, who had never been known to infringe one jot or tittle of the local code, had been out riding alone in the hills. That was apparent from the first, and later, under cross-examination, her syce revealed that this had for some time been her practice, two or three times a week. The shock of her infidelity to rule was almost as great as the shock of her disappearance.
But worse was to follow. One evening at the Club, since Mr. Brooks was absent (his popularity had waned in the last few days and his presence made a painful restraint) the question of Prunella’s secret rides was being freely debated, when a slightly fuddled voice broke into the conversation.
“It’s bound to come out,” said the remittance man from Kenya, “so I may as well tell you right away. Prunella used to ride with me. She didn’t want us to get talked about, so we met on the Debra Dowa road by the Moslem Tombs. I shall miss those afternoons very much indeed,” said the remittance man, a slight, alcoholic quaver in his voice, “and I blame myself to a great extent for all that has happened. You see, I must have had a little more to drink than was good for me that morning and it was very hot, so with one thing and another, when I went to change into riding breeches I fell asleep and did not wake up until after dinnertime. And perhaps that is the last we shall ever see of her . . .” and two vast tears rolled down his cheeks.
This unmanly spectacle preserved the peace, for Benson and Kentish had already begun to advance upon the remittance man with a menacing air. But there is little satisfaction in castigating one who is already in the profound depths of self-pity and the stern tones of Major