Maid In Waiting (eotc-1) by John Galsworthy

Author:John Galsworthy [Galsworthy, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: prose_classic

CHAPTER 22

Bobbie Ferrar had one of those faces which look on tempests and are never shaken; in other words, he was an ideal permanent official—so permanent that one could not conceive of the Foreign Office functioning without him. Secretaries of State might come, might go, Bobbie Ferrar remained, bland, inscrutable, and with lovely teeth. Nobody knew whether there was anything in him except an incalculable number of secrets. Of an age which refused to declare itself, short and square, with a deep soft voice, he had an appearance of complete detachment. In a dark suit with a little light line, and wearing a flower, he existed in a large ante-room wherein was almost nothing except those who came to see the Foreign Minister and instead saw Bobbie Ferrar. In fact the perfect buffer. His weakness was criminology. No murder trial of importance ever took place without the appearance, if only for half-an-hour, of Bobbie Ferrar in a seat more or less kept for him. And he preserved the records of all those trials in a specially bound edition. Perhaps the greatest testimony to his character, whatever that might be, lay in the fact that no one ever threw his acquaintanceship with nearly everybody up against him. People came to Bobbie Ferrar, not he to them. Yet why? What had he ever done that he should be ‘Bobbie’ Ferrar to all and sundry? Not even ‘the honourable,’ merely the son of a courtesy lord, affable, unfathomable, always about, he was unquestionably a last word. Without him, his flower, and his faint grin, Whitehall would have been shorn of something that made it almost human. He had been there since before the war, from which he had been retrieved just in time, some said, to prevent the whole place from losing its character, just in time, too, to stand, as it were, between England and herself. She could not become the shrill edgy hurried harridan the war had tried to make her while his square, leisurely, beflowered, inscrutable figure passed daily up and down between those pale considerable buildings.

He was turning over a Bulb Catalogue, on the morning of Hubert’s wedding day, when the card of Sir Lawrence Mont was brought to him, followed by its owner, who said at once:

“You know what I’ve come about, Bobbie?”

“Completely,” said Bobbie Ferrar, his eyes round, his head thrown back, his voice deep.

“Has the Marquess seen you?”

“I had breakfast with him yesterday. Isn’t he amazing?”

“Our finest old boy,” said Sir Lawrence. “What are you going to do about it? Old Sir Conway Cherrell was the best Ambassador to Spain you ever turned out of the shop, and this is his grandson.”

“Has he really got a scar?” asked Bobbie Ferrar, through a faint grin.

“Of course he has.”

“Did he really get it over that?”

“Sceptical image! Of course he did.”

“Amazing!”

“Why?”

Bobbie Ferrar showed his teeth. “Who can prove it?”

“Hallorsen is getting evidence.”

“It’s not in our department, you know.”

“No? But you can get at the Home Secretary.”

“Um!” said Bobbie Ferrar, deeply.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.