The Tribe That Lost Its Head by Nicholas Monsarrat

Author:Nicholas Monsarrat
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Tribe that Lost its Head
ISBN: 9780755129034
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2012-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

William Ewart O’Brien, editor of the Times of Pharamaul, sprightly old gentleman in a wonderful frock coat with watered silk lapels, talked to his social editress, Miss Sproule. Miss Sproule, a tall angular woman who had been his mistress for thirty years but was now (as he was) finally let out to pasture, was busy taking notes as they talked. She attended, and reported, the Garden Party every year. The Times of Pharamaul’s account hardly varied by a paragraph from decade to decade. But still she managed to write her annual version of it as if from a breathless, dewy enthusiasm.

‘Strolling on the spacious lawns,’ scribbled Miss Sproule, ‘the guests partook of the ample refreshments hospitably offered by their affable host, His Excellency Sir Elliott Vere-Toombs. The extensive grounds, as usual, were at their very best. Splendid displays of massed zinnias–’

William Ewart O’Brien was far from happy. He was almost certain that he had been directly slighted – not by the Governor, whose manners were impeccable, but by several of the guests. They had seemed to avoid his eye – even to turn away and whisper at his approach. It must be that damned article of Tulbach Browne’s. True though it had turned out to be, and backed up by independent evidence from many other sources, yet it had been a mistake to feature it so prominently in the Times of Pharamaul. At the club, they were even saying that he had come out in favour of the marriage … He turned to Miss Sproule.

‘Tilly,’ he said, unhappily.

‘Yes, Mr O’Brien?’ In public, their relationship was still rigidly formal.

‘Don’t mention the Bishop of Port Victoria.’

‘All right,’ said Miss Sproule, abstractedly.

‘Or the coloured town councillors.’

‘Good heavens!’ said Miss Sproule. ‘What do you take me for?’

‘Concentrate on the debutantes.’

Miss Sproule nodded vaguely, her pencil busy. ‘The bevy of charming young girls,’ she wrote, ‘who had the honour of being presented to His Excellency, struck all beholders with their rare grace and beauty. They seemed like a veritable bouquet of perfumed blooms. As the band played a stirring fanfare–’

‘Tilly,’ said William Ewart O’Brien again.

‘Yes?’

‘Better leave out Father Hawthorne, too.’

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