“So, not at all unlike a man who loses one girl and bounces to another, he tried to eat me.
“We really must talk, he said. We were driving down from your school to my hotel, and as we were rounding Queen’s Park Circle he pulled off the road into what I suppose was a private entry beside the Legislature; there was a porte-cochère and a long flight of steps. It won’t be long before this is my personal entrance to this building, he said.
“I knew what he was talking about; the appointment that would be announced next morning; he was full of it.”
“I’ll bet he was,” I said; “it was just his thing—top dog in a large area—women curtsying to him—all that. And certainly his wife wanted it, and engineered it.”
“Yes, but wait: having got it, he wasn’t so sure. If you are one of the wolfish brotherhood you sometimes find that you have no sooner achieved what you wanted than you begin to despise it. Boy’s excitement was like that of a man who thinks he has walked into a trap.”
“Well, the job isn’t all fun. What ceremonial appointment is? You drive to the Legislature in a carriage, with soldiers riding before and behind, and there is a lot of bowing, because you represent the Crown, and then you find you are reading a speech written by somebody else, announcing policies you may not like. If he didn’t want to be a State figurehead, he should have choked off Denyse when she set to work to get him the job.”
“Reason, reason, reason! Dunny, you surely know how limited a part reason plays in some of our most important decisions. He coveted the state landau and the soldiers, and he had somehow managed to preserve the silly notion that as Lieutenant-Governor he would really do some governing. But already he knew he was mistaken. He had looked over the schedule of duties for his first month in office, and been dismayed by the places he would have to go, and the things he would have to do. Presenting flags to Boy Scouts; opening a home for old people; eating a hundredweight of ceremonial dinners to raise money to fight diseases he’d rather not hear about. And he couldn’t get out of it; his secretary made it clear that there was no choice in the matter; the office demanded these things and he was expected to deliver the goods. But that wasn’t what truly got under his skin.
“Such appointments aren’t done in a few days, and he had known it was coming for several weeks. During that time he had some business in London and while he was there he had thought it a good idea to take care of the matter of his ceremonial uniform. That was how he put it, but as a fellow-wolf I knew how eager he must have been to explore the possibilities of state finery. So—off to Ede and Ravenscroft to have the job done in the best possible way and no expense spared. They happened to have a uniform of the right sort which he tried on, just to get the general effect. Even though it was obvious that the uniform was for a smaller man, the effect was catastrophic. ‘Suddenly I didn’t look like myself at all,’ he said; ‘I looked old. Not shaky old, or fat old, or grim old, but certainly old.’
“He expected me to sympathize, but wolf should never turn to wolf for sympathy. ‘You are old,’ I said to him. ‘Very handsome and well preserved, but nobody would take you for a young man.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but not old as that uniform suggested; not a figurehead. I tried putting the hat a little on one side, to see if that helped, but the man with the measuring-tape around his neck who was with me said, Oh no, sir; never like that, and put it straight again. And I understood that forever after there would always be somebody putting my hat straight, and that I would be no more than the animation of that uniform, or some version of it.’
“As one who had spent seven years as the cunning bowels of Abdullah I didn’t see that fate quite as he did. Of course, Abdullah wasn’t on the level. He was out to trounce the Rubes. A Lieutenant-Governor can’t have any fun of that kind. He is the embodiment of everything that is correct, and on the level, and unsurprising. The Rubes have got him and he must do their will.
“ ‘I have lost my freedom of choice,’ he said, and he seemed to expect me to respond with horror. But I didn’t. I was enjoying myself. Boy Staunton was an old story to you, Dunny, but he was new to me, and I was playing the wolf game, too, in my way. I had not forgotten Mrs Constantinescu, and I knew that he was ready to talk, and I was ready to hear. So I remembered old Zingara’s advice. Lull ’em. So I lulled him.
“ ‘I can see that you’re in a situation you never would have chosen with your eyes open. But there’s usually some way out. Is there no way out for you?’
“ ‘Even if I found a way, what would happen if I suddenly bowed out?’ he said.
“ ‘I suppose you’d go on living much as you do now,’ I told him. ‘There would be criticism of you because you refused an office you had accepted, under the Crown. But I dare say that’s been done before.’
“I swear I had nothing in particular in mind when I made that comment. But it galvanized him. He looked at me as if I had said something of extraordinary value. Then he said: ‘Of course it was different for him; he was younger.’
“ ‘What do you mean?’ I said.
“He looked at me very queerly. ‘The Prince of Wales,’ he said; ‘he was my friend, you know. Or rather, you don’t know. But many years ago, when he toured this country, I was his aide, and he had a profound effect on me. I learned a great deal from him. He was special, you know; he was truly a remarkable man. He showed it at the time of the Abdication. That took guts.’
“ ‘Called for guts from several of his relatives, too,’ I said. ‘Do you think he lived happily ever after?’
“ ‘I hope so,’ said he. ‘But he was younger.’
“ ‘I’ve said you were old,’ said I, ‘but I didn’t mean life had nothing for you. You are in superb condition. You can expect another fifteen years, at least, and think of all the things you can do.’
“ ‘And think of all the things I can’t do,’ he said, and in a tone that told me what I had suspected, because with all the fine surface, and bonhomie, and his careful wooing of me I had sensed something like despair in him.
“ ‘I suppose you mean sex,’ I said.
“ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Not that I’m through, you know; by no means. But it isn’t the same. Now it’s more reassurance than pleasure. And young women—they have to be younger and younger—they’re flattered because of what I am and who I am, but there’s always a look you surprise when they don’t think you’re watching: He’s-amazing-forhis-age-I-wonder-what-I’d-do-if-he-had-a-heart-attack-would-Ihave-to-drag-him-out-into-the-hall-and-leave-him-by-the-elevatorand-how-would-I-get-his-clothes-on? However well I perform—and I’m still good, you know—there’s an element of humiliation about it.’
“Humiliation was much on his mind. The humiliation of age, which you and I mustn’t underestimate, Dunny, just because we’ve grown old and made our age serve us; it’s a different matter if you’ve devoted your best efforts to setting up an image of a wondrous Boy; there comes a time when the pretty girls think of you not as a Boy but as an Old Boy. The humiliation of discovering you’ve been a mug, and that the gorgeous office you’ve been given under the Crown is in fact a tyranny of duty, like the Crown itself. And the humiliation of discovering that a man you’ve thought of as a friend—rather a humble, eccentric friend from your point of view, but nevertheless a friend—has been harbouring evidence of a mean action you did when you were ten, and still sees you, at least in part, as a mean kid.