The Whirl: A Romance of Washington Society — Themes and Context

scarcely enjoyed an hour to himself. He had found the Embassy overwhelmed with affairs, about which his uncle, Lord Baudesert, coolly refused to bother himself, but which Sir Percy, as a practical man, felt obliged to take up and carry through. That day, only, had he, by hard and systematic work, caught up what was called by Lord Baudesert, with a grin, the "unfinished business" at the British Embassy, but which really meant the neglected business of a lazy, clever old diplomatist who never did to-day what he could put off until to-morrow.

Lord Baudesert had been many years at Washington, and had a thorough knowledge not only of the affairs of the American people, but of their temper, their prejudices and their passions. In an emergency his natural abilities, and a kind of superhuman adroitness which he possessed, together with the vast fund of knowledge that he had accumulated, but rarely used, made him a valuable person to the Foreign Office. However, as soon as the emergency passed Lord Baudesert returned to his usual occupation of studying the American newspapers and anything else which could add to the already vast stock of knowledge which he possessed, but rarely condescended to use.

The Embassy was presided over by Lord Baudesert’s widowed sister, Mrs. Vereker, an amiable old sheep of the early Victorian type. Then there were three lamb-like Vereker girls, Jane, Sarah and Isabella, all likewise early Victorian, who regarded their uncle as a combination of Bluebeard and Solomon, and altogether the most important and the most terrifying person on this planet. Lord Baudesert’s favourite instrument of torture to the ladies of his family was the threat to marry an American widow with billions of money. How this would have unfavourably affected her the excellent Mrs. Vereker could not have told to save her life--but the mere hint always gave her acute misery.

The secretaries of the Embassy were very well-meaning young men, who attended to their work as well as they knew how, but as Lord Baudesert seldom took the trouble to read a document, and would not sign his name to anything which he had not read, it was difficult to get business transacted. When Sir Percy Carlyon was getting his instructions from the Prime Minister concerning his post of First Secretary at Washington the Premier had remarked:

"Your uncle, you know, is the laziest man God ever made, but he is also one of the cleverest. No living Englishman knows as much about American affairs as Lord Baudesert, or has ever made himself so acceptable to the American people, but when he isn’t doing us the greatest service in the world, he lets everything go hang. We are sending you to Washington to get some work done. I hear you can bully Lord Baudesert in every particular."

"Except one," Sir Percy had replied. "Neither I, nor anybody else, nor the devil himself, could make Lord Baudesert work when he doesn’t want to."

Sir Percy, on this December afternoon in the woods, reviewed in his own mind his whole diplomatic career up to the point of that interview. His first beginnings had been as a minor civil servant on the Indian frontier twelve years before. It is not uncommon, however, for those clever youngsters who are sent out to India to govern, negotiate, threaten and subdue a vast and deceitful people to find themselves entrusted with responsibilities which might appal older representatives of the British Empire.

Far removed from Western civilisation, and out of the field of newspapers, young Sir Percy Carlyon was in effect ruler and lord of a million people, whose united word counted less with their English masters than one sentence from this sahib of twenty-six years of age. His post was on the Afghanistan frontier, where he had to circumvent Afghans and Russians and out-general all of them. The times were difficult, and in spite of young Carlyon’s great and even splendid gifts of insight, temper and diplomacy, he would hardly have succeeded in his work but for one man. This was General Talbott, who was in military command of the district, and an admirable type of the soldier-diplomatist. He had stood by Sir Percy with a vigour and generosity, and a fatherly kindness, which no man not an utter ingrate could ever forget. They had gone together through stormy and tragic days, and when the reports had reached the Indian Office it was Sir Percy to whom General Talbott gave the largest share of the credit, and even the glory, which had resulted from their joint efforts.