“Drage greeted Bishop Toft with loud cries of delight and weird moppings and mowings and tugs at his forelock. He explained his case and the bishop rather thoughtfully agreed to baptize him. But here there was an unexpected hitch: Drage refused to be baptized in his wig; he wanted to feel the Jordan actually flowing on his cranium, so it was agreed that the baptism should take place in the privacy of the buttery where the butler could reveal all. A drill was worked out. After the ceremony Drage would replace his foliage and the bishop would then walk ahead of him, holding his crook, to the ballroom where the rest of the Embassy staff would be waiting to receive his ministrations. There were half a dozen babies to baptize that year.
“Well, Drage knelt down, and there was a tearing noise like old canvas. A large polished expanse of dome was presented to the bishop. He said afterwards that he blenched rather because Drage looked so extraordinary. Bits of dry glue were sticking to his scalp here and there. Well, the Bishop of Malta was just about to read the good news and anoint the butler when Wagstaffe opened the leather case and found that it contained the brigadier’s ‘bundook’. It was imperative to acquaint the bishop with this mishap as he could hardly walk into the crowded Embassy ballroom holding a shotgun like a hillbilly. But how to interrupt Toft who by now was in mid-peroration? Wagstaffe had always been an irresolute person. He could hardly call out: ‘Hey, look at this for an episcopal crook.’ He fitted the barrel and stock together with the vague idea of holding it up for the bishop to see. He did not look to see if it was loaded. He started working his way stealthily round the kneeling Drage to where he might catch the bishop’s eye.
“But it was the eye of the butler which first lighted on the weapon. He had always been a suspicious person and now it seemed as clear as daylight that while the bishop was holding him in thrall Wagstaffe had orders to stalk him from behind and murder him. Perhaps the shot would be a signal for the massacre of Baptists everywhere. Drage’s Welsh heritage came to the surface multiplying his suspicions. And to think that this silver-haired old cleric went about getting Baptists murdered…. A hoarse cry escaped his lips.
“The irresolute acolyte started guiltily, and as Drage scrambled to his feet, he dropped the gun on to the carpet where it went off. The brigadier had always boasted of its hair-trigger action.
“The dull boom in the buttery sounded frightfully loud to the rest of us in the ballroom across the corridor. It was followed by a spell of inarticulate shouting and then all of a sudden Drage appeared, running backwards fairly fast, pursued by the bishop with his sprinkler, making vaguely reassuring gestures and noises. Wagstaffe staggered to the door deathly pale and fainted across the two front rows of as yet unbaptized babes. They set up a dreadful concert of frightened screams.
“It was a dreadful scene as you can imagine. Drage disappeared into the garden and was only persuaded to come back and finish his baptism by the united efforts of Benbow, De Mandeville and myself. Moreover, he felt humiliated to be seen wigless by the whole Embassy. It took some time to straighten things out, specially as the mud-stained brigadier had by now arrived in a fearful temper, holding the episcopal crook between finger and thumb with an expression of the deepest distaste on his face.
“But as it happens things turned out very well. A pair of bright brown eyes had observed the downfall of Drage. To Smilija, the second housemaid, Drage’s baldness seemed a wonderful thing. She had never realized how beautiful he could be until she saw his cranium taking the sunlight. It was a revelation and love now entered where formerly indifference only was.… They are married now; the visions have stopped; his wig has been sold as a prop to the Opera Company. You occasionally see it in the chorus of Parsifal. Which illustrates another little contention of mine: namely that Everybody Is Somebody’s Cup Of Tea. Another one before we dine?”
8. “Noblesse Oblige”
“The case of Aubrey de Mandeville is rather an odd one. I often wonder what the poor fellow is doing now. He wasn’t cut out for Diplomacy — indeed it puzzles me to think how Personnel Branch could have considered him in any way the answer to a maiden’s prayer at all. It was all due to Polk-Mowbray’s folly, really.”
“I don’t remember him.”
“It was the year before you came.”
“Polk-Mowbray was Ambassador?”
“Yes. He’d just got his K.C.M.G. and was feeling extremely pleased about it. He’d invited his niece Angela to spend the summer at the Embassy and it was I think this factor which preyed on his mind. This Angela was rather a wild young creature — and as you know there was not much to do in Communist Yugoslavia in those days. I think he rather feared that she would fall in with a hard-drinking Serbian set and set the Danube on fire. His dearest wish was that she should marry into the Diplomatic, so he hit upon a brilliant scheme. He would order someone suitable through Personnel and do a bit of match-making. Scott-Peverel the Third Secretary was married. He would have him replaced by Angela’s hypothetical Intended. A dangerous game, what? I warned him when I saw the letter. He wanted, he said, a Third Secretary, Eton and Caius, aged 25 (approx.,), of breeding and some personal fortune, who could play the flute. (At this time he was mad about an Embassy Quartet which met every week to fiddle and scrape in the Residence.) He must have known that you can’t always depend on Personnel. However, despite my admonitions he sent the letter off and put the wheels in motion for Bunty Scott-Peverel’s transfer to Tokyo. That was how we got De Mandeville. On paper he seemed to fill the bill adequately, and when his Curriculum Vitae came Polk-Mowbray was rather disposed to crow over me. But I kept my own counsel. I had Doubts, old boy, Grave Doubts.
“They were unshaken even by his personal appearance ten days later, sitting bolt upright in the back of a Phantom Rolls with the De Mandeville arms stencilled on the doors. He was smoking a cheroot and reading the Racing Calendar with close attention. His chauffeur was unloosing a cataract of white pig-skin suitcases, each with a gold monogram on it. It was quite clear that he was a parvenu, old boy. Moreover the two contending odours he gave off were ill-matched — namely gin-fumes and violet-scented hair lotion of obviously Italian origin. He condescendingly waved a ringed hand at me as I introduced myself. It had been, he said, a nerve-racking journey. The Yugoslavs had been so rude at the border that poor Dennis had cried and stamped his foot. Dennis was the chauffeur. ‘Come over, darling, and be introduced to the Man,’ he cried. The chauffeur was called Dennis Purfitt-Purfitt. You can imagine my feelings, old man. I felt a pang for poor Polk-Mowbray and not less for Angela who was lying upstairs in the Blue Bedroom sleeping off a hangover. ‘Dennis is my pianist as well as my chauffeur,’ said De Mandeville as he dismounted holding what looked like a case of duelling pistols but which later turned out to be his gold-chased flute.