The Unbearable Bassington | Page 9

have been hard to say. To Sir Julian the appointment
was, doubtless, one of some importance; during the span of his
Governorship the island might possibly be visited by a member of the
Royal Family, or at the least by an earthquake, and in either case his
name would get into the papers. To the public the matter was one of
absolute indifference; "who is he and where is it?" would have

correctly epitomised the sum total of general information on the
personal and geographical aspects of the case.
Francesca, however, from the moment she had heard of the likelihood
of the appointment, had taken a deep and lively interest in Sir Julian.
As a Member of Parliament he had not filled any very pressing social
want in her life, and on the rare occasions when she took tea on the
Terrace of the House she was wont to lapse into rapt contemplation of
St. Thomas's Hospital whenever she saw him within bowing distance.
But as Governor of an island he would, of course, want a private
secretary, and as a friend and colleague of Henry Greech, to whom he
was indebted for many little acts of political support (they had once
jointly drafted an amendment which had been ruled out of order), what
was more natural and proper than that he should let his choice fall on
Henry's nephew Comus? While privately doubting whether the boy
would make the sort of secretary that any public man would esteem as a
treasure, Henry was thoroughly in agreement with Francesca as to the
excellence and desirability of an arrangement which would transplant
that troublesome' young animal from the too restricted and conspicuous
area that centres in the parish of St. James's to some misty corner of the
British dominion overseas. Brother and sister had conspired to give an
elaborate and at the same time cosy little luncheon to Sir Julian on the
very day that his appointment was officially announced, and the
question of the secretaryship had been mooted and sedulously fostered
as occasion permitted, until all that was now needed to clinch the
matter was a formal interview between His Excellency and Comus. The
boy had from the first shewn very little gratification at the prospect of
his deportation. To live on a remote shark-girt island, as he expressed it,
with the Jull family as his chief social mainstay, and Sir Julian's
conversation as a daily item of his existence, did not inspire him with
the same degree of enthusiasm as was displayed by his mother and
uncle, who, after all, were not making the experiment. Even the
necessity for an entirely new outfit did not appeal to his imagination
with the force that might have been expected. But, however lukewarm
his adhesion to the project might be, Francesca and her brother were
clearly determined that no lack of deft persistence on their part should
endanger its success. It was for the purpose of reminding Sir Julian of
his promise to meet Comus at lunch on the following day, and

definitely settle the matter of the secretaryship that Francesca was now
enduring the ordeal of a long harangue on the value of the West Indian
group as an Imperial asset. Other listeners dexterously detached
themselves one by one, but Francesca's patience outlasted even Sir
Julian's flow of commonplaces, and her devotion was duly rewarded by
a renewed acknowledgment of the lunch engagement and its purpose.
She pushed her way back through the throng of starling-voiced
chatterers fortified by a sense of well-earned victory. Dear Serena's
absurd salons served some good purpose after all.
Francesca was not an early riser and her breakfast was only just
beginning to mobilise on the breakfast-table next morning when a copy
of The Times, sent by special messenger from her brother's house, was
brought up to her room. A heavy margin of blue pencilling drew her
attention to a prominently-printed letter which bore the ironical heading:
"Julian Jull, Proconsul." The matter of the letter was a cruel
dis-interment of some fatuous and forgotten speeches made by Sir
Julian to his constituents not many years ago, in which the value of
some of our Colonial possessions, particularly certain West Indian
islands, was decried in a medley of pomposity, ignorance and
amazingly cheap humour. The extracts given sounded weak and foolish
enough, taken by themselves, but the writer of the letter had interlarded
them with comments of his own, which sparkled with an ironical
brilliance that was Cervantes-like in its polished cruelty. Remembering
her ordeal of the previous evening Francesca permitted herself a certain
feeling of amusement as she read the merciless stabs inflicted on the
newly-appointed Governor; then she came to the signature at the foot of
the letter, and the laughter died out of her eyes. "Comus