I am glad to say this came true: and, by the time I left England, she was eating regularly and seemed contented with her lot.
To my surprise, the interview I had with my uncle passed off smoothly enough. He certainly gave me no blessing, but, beyond remarking that six months in the City of London were of more value than twice that time spent in knocking about Europe, he made little protest against the postponement of my apprenticeship. He then sat down and wrote me out a cheque for three hundred pounds, and, when I stammered my thanks, he said very gravely that that was a present for “singeing the King of Spain’s beard.” At first I could not think what he meant, but afterwards I realised that I owed both money and favour to my discomfiture of the communists, whose doctrines and practices he held in great abhorrence.
The week of inaction to which Mansel had committed Hanbury and myself passed very slowly, and there were moments when we felt almost mutinous. But, when we began to discuss the preparations which we should have been making, if Mansel had not told us to hold our hands, the wisdom of his order became immediately plain, for we were soon out of our depth and invariably quarrelled over the very vulnerable plans we laid, till the only matter upon which we were entirely agreed was the vanity of each other’s proposals.
On the last day but one, however, a note from Mansel came to salve my impatience. In this he said that he had found a man whom he thought I might like to be my servant, that the latter would call upon me at ten on the following day and that I was to examine him thoroughly from every point of view, for
, the letter concluded, although I will answer for his past, he is particularly to serve you and you will be responsible for his engagement
.
I soon found that Hanbury had received a similar note, and this real evidence of progress excited us out of all reason. At the same time we were both a little uneasy at the thought of taking a decision which, if it proved mistaken, might be the undoing of us all. Of any man who was admitted to our secret would be required a discretion and loyalty which were today uncommon and might easily be called upon to bear an extraordinary strain. To recognize these qualities in repose demanded an insight which we knew very well indeed we did not possess. To add to our concern, we did not know what Mansel had told the candidates and whether we ought to disclose that the service they were ready to enter was no ordinary one. In the end we sent him a note, asking for directions, but, though he received it, he sent no answer at all, but only, as he afterwards told us, pitched it into the fire.
We had, therefore, to use our own judgment as best we could, but that we engaged Bell and Rowley and that they turned out so well cannot be counted to our credit, for I think an idiot could have seen the stuff of which they were made.
Bell was my servant. He was a quiet, little man, very sturdily built. He was serious and well-spoken, but, though he was respectful, he had none of the manner of a servant and looked like a countryman turned clerk, which I afterwards found he was. He seemed to notice nothing, yet was exceptionally observant, and he always wore the same agreeable, but something resigned expression, as though his face were a mask. I never knew him volunteer a statement unless he thought it might be of service: he never once complained: he was most faithful, and I think he thought Mansel was a god. In this tenet he was not peculiar. Rowley and Carson, Mansel’s servant, held the same view.
I shall ever remember our dinner with Mansel, if for no other reason, because it is the solitary occasion upon which expectations which I knew it was foolish to harbour have been so startlingly exceeded.
He gave us a short dinner, which was very well cooked and served, and we drank a pink champagne, which I believe was a very rare wine though I fear that neither Hanbury nor I was old enough to appreciate its quality, but only the fact that Mansel was doing us honour. Throughout the meal our venture was not mentioned, except that he said he was glad that we liked the men he had sent, and we talked for the most part of Oxford, “which,” he said, “is the only place in the world where a man may eat his cake and have it too, for the years he wastes there are beyond measure profitable.”
It was after the cloth had been drawn and the servants had left the room that he told us quietly that all had panned out very well, and that, if we had no objection, we would start in two days’ time. Before we had recovered from our astonishment, he began to relate exactly what he had done, wasting no words and in no way pretending to authority, but, when they were not apparent, giving his reasons for his actions and speaking as though he were a staff-officer reporting to his equal or senior the measures which he had taken in accordance with orders received. The manifest excellence of his forethought apart, how he had accomplished so much was a sheer mystery to me and ever will be, for I never in my life saw him hurry or use the telephone, and he had spent the weekend in Hampshire, as he always did when living at Cleveland
