The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance
drawing-room of 6a Carlton House Terrace, clad in some anticipation of
the tea-gown. It was nine o'clock in the evening, and Roger Brentham
had been summoned to dine alone with her and her husband and talk over
his personal affairs. Lord Silchester would presently leave for the
House of Lords; meantime he was half listening to their conversation,
half absorbed in a volume of Cascionovo's _Neapolitan Society in the
Eighteenth Century_ in its French edition.
Roger, with one eye and one ear on Lord Silchester, replied "Yes. Lord
Wiltshire has definitely offered me the appointment--through Tarrington,
of course--his Private Secretary; and equally definitely I've accepted
it. But technically it's not Unguja, nothing so big. Unguja is an
Agency and Consulate-General and is still held by Sir James Eccles, who
is only at home on leave of absence. My post is a Consulate for the
mainland, for the part the German company is taking over. It is styled
'for the mainland of Zangia with residence at the port of Medina.' It
is supposed the Germans are going to style their new protectorate
'Zangia,' the old classical name of the Persians for that part of East
Africa."
Sibyl Silchester yawned slightly and concealed the yawn with her fan of
Somali ostrich plumes which Roger had given her. Lord Silchester put
down his book and turned suddenly towards Roger.
"How do you get on at the F.O.?"
"Oh, pretty well, sir," replied Roger, who still kept up his military
manners with older men in higher positions than his own. "Pretty well.
I've been working in the African Department all the autumn and I think
I've got the hang of things; I mean, how to conduct a Consulate and the
sort of policy we are to observe in East Africa. I've been down in
Kent, also, staying with Sir James Eccles and being indoctrinated by him
with the aims and ambitions he has been pursuing ever since 1866. He's
a grand man! I hope they send him back. I should be proud to serve
under him. Of course, I saw something of him at Unguja in '85-'86..."
"H'm, well, I've no business to express an opinion, but I much doubt
whether Wiltshire _will_ send him back--Wiltshire sets much value on
good terms with Germany, and Eccles is hated by the Germans...."
_Roger_: "I know.... They've told me I must try to maintain friendly
relations with our Teutonic friends, especially as I am to be, when the
Consul-General returns, 'on my own,' so to speak, in the German sphere
of influence. Meantime I am to live at Unguja and 'act' for the
Consul-General till he or some one else comes out. Awfully good of you,
sir, to get this chance for me ... it's rare good luck to be going out
to act straight away for a man like Eccles.... I'll try my utmost to do
you credit."
_Silchester_: "I don't doubt you will. But don't rely too much on my
personal influence. I'm only Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster ... a
minister without portfolio, so to speak. Cultivate the friendship of
the permanent officials. Once you're in--I mean once a Secretary of
State has given you the appointment, _they_ are the people who count. I
remember when I was in diplomacy there was rather an uppish young fellow
from the 11th Hussars who'd been somebody's A.D.C. in the Abyssinian
War. Dizzy, to oblige 'somebody,' shoved him into the Slave Trade
Commission. He took himself and his duties seriously and really did go
for the American slave-traders. An Under Secretary hauled him over the
coals for _trop de zele_. Lord Knowsley supported him. The Under
Secretary sent for him afterwards and said, 'Remember this, Bellamy;
Lord Knowsley is not _always here_. WE ARE.' And sure enough after
Knowsley left they found out something against him and 'outed' him from
the service. Moral: always keep in with the permanent officials and
you'll never fall out with the Secretary of State. Do you get on all
right with 'Lamps'?"
_Roger_: "Sir Mulberry? I scarcely ever see him. He's much too big a
pot to take an interest in me. Besides, he's keenest about the Niger
just now. No, I have mostly to do with Bennet Molyneux, who is head of
the Department; and I'm afraid I don't care overmuch for him. I like
awfully the clerks in the Department except that they don't take Africa
very seriously, think it all a joke, a joke bordering rather on boredom.
Still, they're some of the jolliest fellows I know. It's Molyneux I
can't hit it off with, and they say in the Department it's because I've
come in between some poor relation, some cousin of his he wants to push
on out there. He got him appointed a Vice-Consul a year or two back and
thought he was going to be asked to act for Eccles whilst he was on
leave. And now that Lord Wiltshire has said _I_ am to--I don't doubt at
your suggestion, sir--Molyneux has turned quite acid. Especially when
he had to draft my instructions! I think also he didn't like my setting
him right when I first came to work in the office. He wrote some
minutes about the Slave Trade and about the Germans which were the
uttermost rubbish you ever read, and he never forgave me for not backing
him up at a departmental committee they held--Sir Mulberry presided.
And the mere fact that Thrumball and Landsdell have been awfully kind to
me and had me to dine with them seems to have soured him. And when one
day Lord Wiltshire sent for me to answer some questions--Well, I thought
afterwards Molyneux would have burst with spleen. He threw official
reserve to the winds and walked up and down in his big room
raving--'_I've_ been in this office since 1869,' he said, 'and I don't
believe Lord Wiltshire knows me by sight. Yet he's ready to send for
the veriest outsider if he thinks he can get any information out of him.
The Office is going to the dogs--and so on....'"
_Lord Silchester_: "Molyneux, Bennet Molyneux. I know him. Not a bad
fellow in some respects, but a bad enemy to make. He is a kind of
cousin of Feenix's--Colonial Office, you know. Well, your fate is in
your own hands ... you must walk warily..." (at this a servant enters
and informs his lordship that the carriage is waiting) "I must be off.
Sibyl! you _won't_ stay up late? Roger, don't talk to her for more than
an hour. Good-bye. Of course, you'll come and see us before you
actually sail?..." (goes out).
A pause.
_Sibyl_: "You may smoke now; but only a cigarette, not a cigar." (Roger
lights a cigarette.)
_Sibyl_: "What dear old Francis said was very good advice. Mind you
follow it. Get on the right side of these old permanencies. Whenever
Francis begins his instances and illustrations I feel what a perfect
book of reminiscences he will some day write. But, of course, it
wouldn't do till he's reached an age when he can no longer serve in the
Government.... I want him some day to be at the Foreign Office or at
least the India Office. I do so love the pomp of those positions, the
great parties in the season, the entertaining of delightful creatures
from the East with jewelled turbans...."
_Roger_ (a little abruptly): "Are you happy....?"
_Sibyl_ (turning her head and looking at him intently): "_Happy_? Why,
_of course_. _Perfectly_ happy. Everything has gone splendidly. And
now that I'm going to have a child.... I do hope it'll be a boy.
Francis would be so happy. You quite realize if he has no heir the
peerage and all the entailed estates go away to some perfectly horrid
second cousin out in Australia...."
_Roger_: "In view of that possibility I wonder he did not marry years
ago, when he was a young man...."
_Sibyl_: "My dear! How _could_ he? He was a younger son and in the
diplomatic service with barely enough to live on, respectably. And then
he got tangled up with another man's wife. He thinks I know nothing
about that side of him, but as a matter of fact I know everything. His
elder brother, the fifth Lord Silchester, was an awfully bad
lot--treated his wife very badly--they were separated and their only son
was brought up by his mother to be dreadfully goody-goody. Francis's
elder brother died in Paris--I daresay you have heard or read where and
how. It was one of the closing scandals of the Second Empire. But then
the goody-goody son married after he succeeded--married a sister of Lord
Towcester. She was killed in the hunting field and her rather limp
husband died of grief afterwards, or of consumption, and Francis came
into the title rather unexpectedly five years ago. Then he was
embarrassed by his Darby and Joan attachment to Mrs. Bolsover.--However,
then _she_ died--and so--at last he felt free to marry....
"I met him first at a croquet party at Aldermaston Park. I saw _at
once_ he was struck with me.... However, we won't go over the old
argument again which we talked out that day at Silchester.... D'you
remember? My ankles were so bitten by harvest-bugs after sitting on
those mounds, _I_ shan't forget!..." (meditates).... "I'm much happier
than if I had married you.... My dear, that would _never_ have done....
But that need not prevent our being the _best_ of friends, the most
attached of cousins.... It's a bore having a confinement in the Jubilee
year.... I'd meant to rival Suzanne Feenix in my entertainments.... But
if I give Silchester a boy, he will refuse me _nothing_.... And I mean,
as soon as I'm up and about again, to push him on. He's rich--those
Staffordshire mines and potteries. He's got _lots_ of ability, but he's
too fond of leisure and isn't quite ambitious enough. Complains of
being tired.... He's only 57 ... but he much prefers spending the
evening at home and reading history and memoirs. Still, if Lord
Wiltshire gets overworked at the Foreign Office, Francis simply _must_
succeed him. He knows everything about foreign policy from A to Z,
after serving so many years in Vienna and Rome.... Well, dear old boy,
this is _really_ good-bye. Make good out there, and don't make a fool
of yourself with some grass widow going out, or some fair
missionaryess.... I suppose some of them _are_ fit to look at? ... Play
up to the permanencies, and try to write some dispatch that'll interest
Lord Wiltshire. Then Silchester may get a chance of putting his oar in
and have you shifted to a better post and a more healthy one. After
that _I'll_ take a hand and marry you to some nice girl with a little
money.... I wonder whether you'll feel lonely out there? But men never
are, so long as they can move about and get some shooting ... which
reminds me I want a _lot_ more leopard skins. Don't mount them: I like
to choose my own colours----"
(Enter Lady Silchester's maid.)
_Maid_: "My lady, before his lordship went out he said I was to remind
your ladyship about going to bed early, so I ventured..."
"Quite right, Sophie.... I'll come up in one minute." (Exit maid.)
"By the bye, Roger, I ought to ask after the other cousins. How's
Maud?" (Roger intimates that good old Maud's all right.) "Maud is an
excellent creature; I've always said so, though in a sort of
tight-lipped way she's never approved of me. Because she's lost her own
complexion in field sports and parish work Maud suspects all other young
women of powdering and painting. And Geoffrey?"
"Geoffrey's ship is coming back in May and then he ought to get some
leave; and to save your time, I might mention that Maurice will probably
be called to the bar in the autumn if he satisfies the Benchers; and as
to father, he's more gone over to Rome than ever...."
"You mean Silchester?"
"Yes. The vicar there is as frantic a 'Romanist' as he is, and together
they've had a rare old quarrel with the farmer who grows corn where you
got the harvest-bug bites, and objects to excavations. I think father
forgets at times he's a nineteenth century Christian.... He is awfully