Mulliner Nights Read online

  And simultaneously from behind him he heard a gasping exclamation, and, looking in the mirror, he met Lord Brangbolton’s eyes. Always a little prominent, they were now almost prawn-like in their convexity.

  Lord Knubble of Knopp had produced a bank-note from his pocket and was pushing it along the table.

  ‘Another ace!’ he exclaimed. ‘Well I’m dashed!’

  Lord Brangbolton had risen from his chair.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said in a strange, croaking voice. ‘I just want to have a little chat with my friend, my dear old friend, Mulliner here. Might I have a word in private with you, Mr Mulliner?’

  There was silence between the two men until they had reached a corner of the terrace out of earshot of the library window. Then Lord Brangbolton cleared his throat.

  ‘Mulliner,’ he began, ‘or, rather — what is your Christian name?’

  ‘Adrian.’

  ‘Adrian, my dear fellow,’ said Lord Brangbolton, ‘my memory is not what it should be, but I seem to have a distinct recollection that, when I was in my bath before dinner, you said something about wanting to marry my daughter Millicent.’

  ‘I did,’ replied Adrian. ‘And, if your objections to me as a Suitor were mainly financial, let me assure you that, since we last spoke, I have become a wealthy man.’

  ‘I never had any objections to you, Adrian, financial or otherwise,’ said Lord Brangbolton, patting his arm affectionately. ‘I have always felt that the man my daughter married ought to be a fine, warm-hearted young fellow like you. For you, Adrian,’ he proceeded, ‘are essentially warm-hearted. You would never dream of distressing a father-in-law by mentioning any… any little… well, in short, I saw from your smile in there that you had noticed that I was introducing into that game of Blind Hooky — or, rather, Persian Monarchs — certain little — shall I say variations, designed to give it additional interest and excitement, and I feel sure that you would scorn to embarrass a father-in-law by… Well, to cut a long story short, my boy, take Millicent and with her a father’s blessing.’

  He extended his hand. Adrian clasped it warmly.

  ‘I am the happiest man in the world,’ he said, smiling.

  Lord Brangbolton winced.

  ‘Do you mind not doing that?’ he said.

  ‘I only smiled,’ said Adrian.

  ‘I know,’ said Lord Brangbolton.

  Little remains to be told. Adrian and Millicent were married three months later at a fashionable West End church. All Society was there. The presents were both numerous and costly, and the bride looked charming. The service was conducted by the Very Reverend the Dean of Bittlesham.

  It was in the vestry afterwards, as Adrian looked at Millicent and seemed to realize for the first time that all his troubles were over and that this lovely girl was indeed his, for better or worse, that a full sense of his happiness swept over the young man.

  All through the ceremony he had been grave, as befitted a man at the most serious point of his career. But now, fizzing as if with some spiritual yeast, he clasped her in his arms and over her shoulder his face broke into a quick smile.

  He found himself looking into the eyes of the Dean of Bittlesham. A moment later he felt a tap on his arm.

  ‘Might I have a word with you in private, Mr Mulliner?’ said the Dean in a low voice.

  2 THE STORY OF WEBSTER

  ‘Cats are not dogs!’

  There is only one place where you can hear good things like that thrown off quite casually in the general run of conversation, and that is the bar-parlour of the Angler’s Rest. It was there, as we sat grouped about the fire, that a thoughtful Pint of Bitter had made the statement just recorded.

  Although the talk up to this point had been dealing with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, we readily adjusted our minds to cope with the new topic. Regular attendance at the nightly sessions over which Mr Mulliner presides with such unfailing dignity and geniality tends to produce mental nimbleness. In our little circle I have known an argument on the Final Destination of the Soul to change inside forty seconds into one concerning the best method of preserving the juiciness of bacon fat.

  ‘Cats,’ proceeded the Pint of Bitter, ‘are selfish. A man waits on a cat hand and foot for weeks, humouring its lightest whim, and then it goes and leaves him flat because it has found a place down the road where the fish is more frequent.’

  ‘What I’ve got against cats,’ said a Lemon Sour, speaking feelingly, as one brooding on a private grievance, ‘is their unreliability. They lack candour and are not square shooters. You get your cat and you call him Thomas or George, as the case may be. So far, so good. Then one morning you wake up and find six kittens in the hat-box and you have to reopen the whole matter, approaching it from an entirely different angle.’

  ‘If you want to know what’s the trouble with cats,’ said a red-faced man with glassy eyes, who had been rapping on the table for his fourth whisky, ‘they’ve got no tact. That’s what’s the trouble with them. I remember a friend of mine had a cat. Made quite a pet of that cat, he did. And what occurred? What was the outcome? One night he came home rather late and was feeling for the keyhole with his corkscrew; and, believe me or not, his cat selected that precise moment to jump on the back of his neck out of a tree. No tact.’

  Mr Mulliner shook his head.

  ‘I grant you all this,’ he said, ‘but still, in my opinion, you have not got quite to the root of the matter. The real objection to the great majority of cats is their insufferable air of superiority. Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods. This makes them too prone to set themselves up as critics and censors of the frail and erring human beings whose lot they share. They stare rebukingly. They view with concern. And on a sensitive man this often has the worst effects, inducing an inferiority complex of the gravest kind. It is odd that the conversation should have taken this turn,’ said Mr Mulliner, sipping his hot Scotch and lemon, ‘for I was thinking only this afternoon of the rather strange case of my cousin Edward’s son, Lancelot.’

  ‘I knew a cat—’ began a Small Bass.

  My cousin Edward’s son, Lancelot (said Mr Mulliner) was, at the time of which I speak, a comely youth of some twenty-five summers. Orphaned at an early age, he had been brought up in the home of his Uncle Theodore, the saintly Dean of Bolsover; and it was a great shock to that good man when Lancelot, on attaining his majority, wrote from London to inform him that he had taken a studio in Bott Street, Chelsea, and proposed to remain in the metropolis and become an artist.

  The Dean’s opinion of artists was low. As a prominent member of the Bolsover Watch Committee, it had recently been his distasteful duty to be present at a private showing of the super-super-film, ‘Palettes of Passion’; and he replied to his nephew’s communication with a vibrant letter in which he emphasized the grievous pain it gave him to think that one of his flesh and blood should deliberately be embarking on a career which must inevitably lead sooner or later to the painting of Russian princesses lying on divans in the semi-nude with their arms round tame jaguars. He urged Lancelot to return and become a curate while there was yet time.

  But Lancelot was firm. He deplored the rift between himself and a relative whom he had always respected; but he was dashed if he meant to go back to an environment where his individuality had been stifled and his soul confined in chains. And for four years there was silence between uncle and nephew.

  During these years Lancelot had made progress in his chosen profession. At the time at which this story opens, his prospects seemed bright. He was painting the portrait of Brenda, only daughter of Mr and Mrs B. B. Carberry-Pirbright, of 11, Maxton Square, South Kensington, which meant thirty pounds in his sock on delivery. He had learned to cook eggs and bacon. He had practically mastered the ukulele. And, in addition, he was engaged to be married to a fearless young vers libre poetess of the name of Gladys Bingley, better known as The Sweet Singer of
Garbidge Mews, Fulham — a charming girl who looked like a pen-wiper.

  It seemed to Lancelot that life was very full and beautiful. He lived joyously in the present, giving no thought to the past.

  But how true it is that the past is inextricably mixed up with the present and that we can never tell when it may not spring some delayed bomb beneath our feet. One afternoon, as he sat making a few small alterations in the portrait of Brenda Carberry-Pirbright, his fiancée entered.

  He had been expecting her to call, for to-day she was going off for a three weeks’ holiday to the South of France, and she had promised to look in on her way to the station. He laid down his brush and gazed at her with a yearning affection, thinking for the thousandth time how he worshipped every spot of ink on her nose. Standing there in the doorway with her bobbed hair sticking out in every direction like a golliwog’s she- made a picture that seemed to speak to his very depths.

  ‘Hullo, Reptile!’ he said lovingly.

  ‘What ho, Worm!’ said Gladys, maidenly devotion shining through the monocle which she wore in her left eye. ‘I can stay just half an hour.’

  ‘Oh, well, half an hour soon passes,’ said Lancelot. ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’

  A letter, ass. What did you think it was?’

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘I found the postman outside.’

  Lancelot took the envelope from her and examined it.

  ‘Gosh!’ he said.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s from my Uncle Theodore.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had an Uncle Theodore.’

  ‘Of course I have. I’ve had him for years.’

  ‘What’s he writing to you about?’

  ‘If you’ll kindly keep quiet for two seconds, if you know how,’ said Lancelot, ‘I’ll tell you.

  And in a clear voice which, like that of all the Mulliners, however distant from the main branch, was beautifully modulated, he read as follows:

  ‘The Deanery,

  ‘Bolsover,

  ‘Wilts.

  ‘MY DEAR LANCELOT,

  ‘As you have, no doubt, already learned from your Church Times, I have been offered and have accepted the vacant Bishopric of Bongo-Bongo in West Africa. I sail immediately to take up my new duties, which I trust will be blessed.

  ‘In these circumstances, it becomes necessary for me to find a good home for my cat Webster. It is, alas, out of the question that he should accompany me, as the rigours of the climate and the lack of essential comforts might well sap a constitution which has never been robust.

  ‘I am dispatching him, therefore, to your address, my dear boy, in a straw-lined hamper, in the full confidence that you will prove a kindly and conscientious host.

  ‘With cordial good wishes,

  ‘Your affectionate uncle,

  ‘THEODORE BONGO-BONGO.’

  For some moments after he had finished reading this communication, a thoughtful silence prevailed in the studio. Finally Gladys spoke.

  ‘Of all the nerve!’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t do it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘What do you want with a cat?’

  Lancelot reflected.

  ‘It is true,’ he said, ‘that, given a free hand, I would prefer not to have my studio turned into a cattery or cat-bin. But consider the special circumstances. Relations between Uncle Theodore and self have for the last few years been a bit strained. In fact, you might say we had definitely patted brass-rags. It looks to me as if he were coming round. I should describe this letter as more or less what, you might call an olive-branch. If I lush this cat up satisfactorily, shall I not be in a position later on to make a swift touch?’

  ‘He is rich, this bean?’ said Gladys, interested.

  ‘Extremely.’

  ‘Then,’ said Gladys, ‘consider my objections withdrawn. A good stout cheque from a grateful cat-fancier would undoubtedly come in very handy. We might be able to get married this year.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Lancelot. A pretty loathsome prospect, of course, but still, as we’ve arranged to do it, the sooner we get it over, the better, what?’

  Absolutely.’

  ‘Then that’s settled. I accept custody of cat.’

  ‘It’s the only thing to do,’ said Gladys. ‘Meanwhile, can you lend me a comb? Have you such a thing in your bedroom?’

  ‘What do you want with a comb?’

  ‘I got some soup in my hair at lunch. I won’t be a minute.’

  She hurried out, and Lancelot, taking up the letter again, found that he had omitted to read a continuation of it on the back page.

  It was to the following effect:

  ‘P.S. In establishing Webster in your home, I am actuated by another motive than the simple desire to see to it that my faithful friend and companion is adequately provided for.

  ‘From both a moral and an educative standpoint, I am convinced that Webster’s society will prove of inestimable value to you. His advent, indeed, I venture to hope, will be a turning-point in your life. Thrown, as you must be, incessantly among loose and immoral Bohemians, you will find in this cat an example of upright conduct which cannot but act as an antidote to the poison cup of temptation which is, no doubt, hourly pressed to your lips.

  ‘P.P.S. Cream only at midday, and fish not more than three times a week.’

  He was reading these words for the second time, when the front door-bell rang and he found a man on the steps with a hamper. A discreet mew from within revealed its contents, and Lancelot, carrying it into the studio, cut the strings.

  ‘Hi!’ he bellowed, going to the door.

  ‘What’s up?’ shrieked his betrothed from above.

  ‘The cat’s come.’

  ‘All right. I’ll be down in a jiffy.’

  Lancelot returned to the studio.

  ‘What ho, Webster!’ he said cheerily. ‘How’s the boy?’ The cat did not reply. It was sitting with bent head, performing that wash and brush up which a journey by rail renders so necessary.

  In order to facilitate these toilet operations, it had raised its left leg and was holding it rigidly in the air. And there flashed into Lancelot’s mind an old superstition handed on to him, for what it was worth, by one of the nurses of his infancy. If, this woman had said, you creep up to a cat when its leg is in the air and give it a pull, then you make a wish and your wish comes true in thirty days.

  It was a pretty fancy, and it seemed to Lancelot that the theory might as well be put to the test. He advanced warily, therefore, and was in the act of extending his fingers for the pub, when Webster, lowering the leg, turned and raised his eyes.

  He looked at Lancelot. And suddenly with sickening force, there came to Lancelot the realization of the unpardonable liberty he had been about to take.

  Until this moment, though the postscript to his uncle’s letter should have warned him, Lancelot Mulliner had had no suspicion of what manner of cat this was that he had taken into his home. Now, for the first time, he saw him steadily and saw him whole.

  Webster was very large and very black and very composed. He conveyed the impression of being a cat of deep reserves. Descendant of a long line of ecclesiastical ancestors who had conducted their decorous courtships beneath the shadow of cathedrals and on the back walls of bishops’ palaces, he had that exquisite poise which one sees in high dignitaries of the church. His eyes were clear and steady, and seemed to pierce to the very roots of the young man’s soul, filling him with a sense of guilt.

  Once, long ago, in his hot childhood, Lancelot, spending his summer holidays at the deanery, had been so far carried away by ginger-beer and original sin as to plug a senior canon in the leg with his air-gun — only to discover, on turning, that a visiting archdeacon had been a spectator of the entire incident from his immediate rear. As he had felt then, when meeting the archdeacon’s eye, so did he feel now as Webster’s gaze played silently upon him.

  Webster, it is true, had not actually
raised his eyebrows. But this, Lancelot felt, was simply because he hadn’t any.

  He backed, blushing.

  ‘Sorry!’ he muttered.

  There was a pause. Webster continued his steady scrutiny. Lancelot edged towards the door.

  ‘Er — excuse me — just a moment…’ he mumbled. And, sidling from the room, he ran distractedly upstairs.

  ‘I say,’ said Lancelot.

  ‘Now what?’ asked Gladys.

  ‘Have you finished with the mirror?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I — er — I thought,’ said Lancelot, ‘that I might as well have a shave.’

  The girl looked at him, astonished.

  ‘Shave? Why, you shaved only the day before yesterday.’

  ‘I know. But, all the same… I mean to say, it seems only respectful. That cat, I mean.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Well, he seems to expect it, somehow. Nothing actually said, don’t you know, but you could tell by his manner. I thought a quick shave and perhaps change into my blue serge suit—’

  ‘He’s probably thirsty. Why don’t you give him some milk?’

  ‘Could one, do you think?’ said Lancelot doubtfully. ‘I mean, I hardly seem to know him well enough.’ He paused. ‘I say, old girl,’ he went on, with a touch of hesitation.

  ‘Hullo?’

  ‘I know you won’t mind my mentioning it, but you’ve got a few spots of ink on your nose.’

  ‘Of course I have. I always have spots of ink on my nose.’

  ‘Well… you don’t think… a quick scrub with a bit of pumice-stone… I mean to say, you know how important first impressions are….’

  The girl stared.

  ‘Lancelot Mulliner,’ she said, ‘if you think I’m going to skin my nose to the bone just to please a mangy cat—’

  ‘Sh!’ cried Lancelot, in agony.

  ‘Here, let me go down and look at him,’ said Gladys petulantly.