Then there was Spencer Bazzard always at hand, serviceable unto servility, ready to jot inspirations and judgments down on a writing-pad with some prehistoric form of the fountain-pen or indelible pencil, and reproduce these utterances afterwards, conveniently elaborated. Brentham, on the other hand, preferred putting in a draft of his own, which took quite an independent line and might have led H.M. Government to do something, make up their minds to some definite course....
Then again, Brentham's real destination was the German mainland.... The situation there was strained.
Mrs. Bazzard somehow amused and intrigued Sir Godfrey (Lady Dewburn had not yet arrived). He guessed her as somewhat of a demi-rep, but to him, as to me, such a person is more interesting to study than the simple village maiden, or the clergyman's daughter with her smooth hair parted in the middle....
Who precisely were the Bazzards? May I, with a novelist's omniscience, clear up the mystery?
There was a celebrated firm of solicitors in Staple Inn known as Grewgious and Bazzard. It had originated in a Mr. Hiram Grewgious, who had a valuable Norfolk connexion and had figured with some distinction and celebrity in a famous Kentish murder trial in the early 'sixties. The junior partner, Mr. Bazzard, took over the business from Mr. Grewgious, and when the latter died in 1878 still preserved the honoured style of the firm. This Mr. Bazzard led a double life, in that he was not only a particularly astute solicitor, but also a playwright of ability who produced at least two stirring melodramas under a nom de plume.
As solicitor he had lifted Mr. Bennet Molyneux once out of a considerable difficulty and delicate dilemma ... he had ascertained that the lady was travelling under an assumed name and ... in short, he had settled the affair without any fuss, and Molyneux was thoroughly grateful and asked him to dine at the Travellers, giving, of course, due notice, so that the guest-room, in those distant days with its settees thick with dust, might be got ready, and a fire be lit to take off the chill.
Over walnuts and port, Mr. Bazzard had mentioned the existence of a much-younger brother—fifteen years younger, in point of fact—rather at a loose end since he was called to the Bar—clever chap withal, steady, married now to a deuced pretty woman, but in his youth the very devil with the sex. ("Just so," would nod Mr. Molyneux comprehendingly, who, except for the most pardonable slip with Mrs. —— at Lucerne, was a blameless husband and father.) Well, then, there he was—had tried ranching in the States and buying horses in the Argentine, got done in the eye by that scoundrel, Bax Strangeways—knew a lot about the tropics—stand any climate—take on any job. In short, did Mr. Molyneux know of an opening anywhere in Africa, C.O. or F.O., for a sporting chap with a knowledge of Law?
And Bennet had put down his name for a vacancy in the East African Consular service. And having thus taken him under his wing, was prepared to stand by him through thick and thin ... even deluded himself into thinking he was a damned good sort, and his golden-haired wife—"bit of the devil in her, no doubt"—a fit person for Mrs. Molyneux to know—in the country, at any rate.
Perhaps she was. Why should one sneer at a woman for trying to improve her position and looks and wriggle into a less sordid sphere than that in which she was brought up? Emilia Standish—christened Emily, of course, but wrote her name "Emilia" from the time she was seventeen—was, as Captain Brentham ill-naturedly guessed, the daughter of a Bayswater widow who kept a Bayswater boarding-house (few districts of London have such a power for moulding human beings to its guise). Emilia Standish—or was it Stapleton?—I really forget—had tried life as a governess with ill success. She confided to her mother, and her mother only, that she might have succeeded here or there had not her pupil's father made improper advances from which she had to flee. She had studied for the stage, but like her predestined fate, Spencer Bazzard, she, at thirty-two, was somewhat at a loose end and living at home when Spencer came to lodge at her mother's boarding-house. He was down on his luck, almost in hiding, nearly cast off by his highly respectable, much older brother. He fell ill. Emilia took pity on him, nursed him, and defied her mother over the financial question. Out of gratitude he proposed. She accepted him and took stock of the situation, called on the elder brother in Staple Inn, secured his advocacy for a "colonial" appointment—and—you know the rest.
Spencer can't have been wholly bad, because though they had many a private tiff and unheard wrangle, this woman stuck by him and made a career for him. Brentham, in writing to his sister, gave too unfair a description of Spencer. He omitted to notice that though his knowledge of law was so imperfect as to throw doubt on the efficacy of the examinations which then admitted to the Bar, he had at any rate acquired some knowledge of shorthand, and certain of the qualities necessary to playing private secretary to an important personage. So that Sir Godfrey preferred greatly the retention of Bazzard as his lieutenant at Unguja, rather than the slightly gloomy and excessively well-informed Brentham.