Mr. Mulliner Speaking Page 5

  And just then the door opened, and there, looking like a camel arriving at an oasis, was Cyprian.

  'Ah, my dear fellow,' said Cyprian. 'May one enter?'

  'Come right in,' said Ignatius.

  At the sight of this art-critic, who not only wore short sidewhiskers but also one of those black stocks which go twice round the neck and add from forty to fifty per cent to the loathsomeness of the wearer's appearance, a strange, febrile excitement had gripped Ignatius Mulliner. He felt like a tiger at the Zoo who sees the keeper approaching with the luncheon tray. He licked his lips slowly and gazed earnestly at the visitor. From a hook on the wall beside him there hung a richly inlaid Damascus dagger. He took it down and tested its point with the ball of his thumb.

  Cyprian had turned his back, and was examining the Academy picture through a black-rimmed monocle. He moved his head about and peered between his fingers and made funny, art-critic noises.

  'Ye-e-s,' said Cyprian. ' 'Myes. Ha! H'm. Hrrmph! The thing has rhythm, undoubted rhythm, and, to an extent, certain inevitable curves. And yet can one conscientiously say that one altogether likes it? One fears one cannot.'

  'No?' said Ignatius.

  'No,' said Cyprian. He toyed with his left whisker. He seemed to be massaging it for purposes of his own. 'One quite inevitably senses at a glance that the patine lacks vitality.'

  'Yes?' said Ignatius.

  'Yes,' said Cyprian. He toyed with the whisker again. It was too early to judge whether he was improving it at all. He shut his eyes, opened them, half closed them once more, drew back his head, fiddled with his fingers, and expelled his breath with a hissing sound, as if he were grooming a horse. 'Beyond a question one senses in the patine a lack of vitality. And vitality must never be sacrificed. The artist should use his palette as an orchestra. He should put on his colours as a great conductor uses his instruments. There must be significant form. The colour must have a flatness, a gravity, shall I say an aroma? The figure must be placed on the canvas in a manner not only harmonious but awake. Only so can a picture quite too exquisitely live. And, as regards the patine . . .'

  He broke off. He had had more to say about the patine, but he had heard immediately behind him an odd, stealthy, shuffling sound not unlike that made by a leopard of the jungle when stalking its prey. Spinning round, he saw Ignatius Mulliner advancing upon him. The artist's lips were curled back over his teeth in a hideous set smile. His eyes glittered. And poised in his right hand he held a Damascus dagger, which, Cyprian noticed, was richly inlaid.

  An art-critic who makes a habit of going round the studios of Chelsea and speaking his mind to men who are finishing their Academy pictures gets into the way of thinking swiftly. Otherwise, he would not quite too exquisitely live through a single visit. To cast a glance at the door and note that it was closed and that his host was between him and it was with Cyprian Rossiter the work of a moment; to dart behind the easel the work of another. And with the easel as a basis the two men for some tense minutes played a silent game of round-and-round-the-mulberry-bush. It was in the middle of the twelfth lap that Cyprian received a flesh wound in the upper arm.

  On another man this might have had the effect of causing him to falter, lose his head, and become an easy prey to the pursuer. But Cyprian had the advantage of having been through this sort of thing before. Only a day or two ago, one of England's leading animal-painters had chivvied him for nearly an hour in a fruitless endeavour to get at him with a short bludgeon tipped with lead.

  He kept cool. In the face of danger, his footwork, always impressive, took on a new agility. And finally, when Ignatius tripped over a loose mat, he seized his opportunity like the strategist which every art-critic has to be if he mixes with artists, and dodged nimbly into a small cupboard near the model-throne.

  Ignatius recovered his balance just too late. By the time he had disentangled himself from the mat, leaped at the cupboard door and started to tug at the handle, Cyprian was tugging at it from the other side, and, strive though he might, Ignatius could not dislodge him.

  Presently, he gave up the struggle and, moving moodily away, picked up his ukulele and played 'Ol' Man River' for awhile. He was just feeling his way cautiously through that rather tricky 'He don't say nuffin', He must know somefin' ' bit, when the door opened once more and there stood George.

  'What ho!' said George.

  'Ah!' said Ignatius.

  'What do you mean, Ah?'

  'Just ''Ah!'',' said Ignatius.

  'I've come for that money.'

  'Ah?'

  'That twenty quid or whatever it was that you very decently promised me yesterday. And, lying in bed this morning, the thought crossed my mind: Why not make it twenty-five? A nice, round sum,' argued George.

  'Ah!'

  'You keep saying ''Ah!'' ' said George. 'Why do you say ''Ah!''?'

  Ignatius drew himself up haughtily.

  'This is my studio, paid for with my own money, and I shall say ''Ah!'' in it just as often as I please.'

  'Of course,' agreed George hurriedly. 'Of course, my dear old chap, of course, of course. Hullo!' He looked down. 'Shoelace undone. Dangerous. Might trip a fellow. Excuse me a moment.'

  He stooped: and as Ignatius gazed at his spacious trouser-seat the thought came to him that in the special circumstances there was but one thing to be done. He waggled his right leg for a moment to limber it up, backed a pace or two and crept forward.

  Mrs Rossiter, meanwhile, accompanied by her daughter Hermione, had left Scantlebury Square and, though a trifle short in the wind, had covered the distance between it and the studio in quite good time. But the effort had told upon her, and half-way up the stairs she was compelled to halt for a short rest. It was as she stood there, puffing slightly like a seal after diving for fish, that something seemed to shoot past her in the darkness.

  'What was that?' she exclaimed.

  'I thought I saw something, too,' said Hermione.

  'Some heavy, moving object.'

  'Yes,' said Hermione. 'Perhaps we had better go up and ask Mr Mulliner if he has been dropping things downstairs.'

  They made their way to the studio. Ignatius was standing on one leg, rubbing the toes of his right foot. Your artist is proverbially a dreamy, absent-minded man, and he had realized too late that he was wearing bedroom slippers. Despite the fact, however, that he was in considerable pain, his expression was not unhappy. He had the air of a man who is conscious of having done the right thing.

  'Good morning, Mr Mulliner,' said Mrs Rossiter.

  'Good morning, Mr Mulliner,' said Hermione.

  'Good morning,' said Ignatius, looking at them with deep loathing. It amazed him that he had ever felt attracted by this girl. Until this moment, his animosity had been directed wholly against the male members of her family: but now that she stood before him he realized that the real outstanding Rossiter gumboil was this Hermione. The brief flicker of joie-de-vivre which had followed his interview with George had died away, leaving his mood blacker than ever. One scarcely likes to think what might have happened, had Hermione selected that moment to tie her shoelace.

  'Well, here we are,' said Mrs Rossiter.

  At this point, unseen by them, the cupboard door began to open noiselessly. A pale face peeped out. The next instant, there was a cloud of dust, a whirring noise, and the sound of footsteps descending the stairs three at a time.

  Mrs Rossiter put a hand to her heart and panted.

  'What was that?'

  'It was a little blurred,' said Hermione, 'but I think it was Cyprian.'

  Ignatius uttered a passionate cry and dashed to the head of the stairs.

  'Gone!'

  He came back, his face contorted, muttering to himself. Mrs Rossiter looked at him keenly. It seemed plain to her that all that was wanted here was a couple of doctors with fountain-pens to sign the necessary certificate, but she was not dismayed. After all, as she reasoned with not a little shrewd sense, a gibbering artist is just as good as a
sane artist, provided he makes no charge for painting portraits.

  'Well, Mr Mulliner,' she said cheerily, dismissing from her mind the problem, which had been puzzling her a little, of why her son Cyprian had been in this studio behaving like the Scotch Express, 'Hermione has nothing to do this morning, so, if you are free, now would be a good time for the first sitting.'

  Ignatius came out of his reverie.

  'Sitting?'

  'For the portrait.'

  'What portrait?'

  'Hermione's portrait.'

  'You wish me to paint Miss Rossiter's portrait?'

  'Why, you said you would – only last night.'

  'Did I?' Ignatius passed a hand across his forehead. 'Perhaps I did. Very well. Kindly step to the desk and write out a cheque for fifty pounds. You have your book with you?'

  'Fifty – what?'

  'Guineas,' said Ignatius. 'A hundred guineas. I always require a deposit before I start work.'

  'But last night you said you would paint her for nothing.'

  'I said I would paint her for nothing?'

  'Yes.'

  A dim recollection of having behaved in the fatuous manner described came to Ignatius.

  'Well, and suppose I did,' he said warmly. 'Can't you women ever understand when a man is kidding you? Have you no sense of humour? Must you always take every light quip literally? If you want a portrait of Miss Rossiter, you will jolly well pay for it in the usual manner. The thing that beats me is why you do want a portrait of a girl who not only has most unattractive features but is also a dull yellow in colour. Furthermore, she flickers. As I look at her, she definitely flickers round the edges. Her face is sallow and unwholesome. Her eyes have no sparkle of intelligence. Her ears stick out and her chin goes in. To sum up, her whole appearance gives me an indefinable pain in the neck: and, if you hold me to my promise, I shall charge extra for moral and intellectual damage and wear and tear caused by having to sit opposite her and look at her.'

  With these words, Ignatius Mulliner turned and began to rummage in a drawer for his pipe. But the drawer contained no pipe.

  'What!' cried Mrs Rossiter.

  'You heard,' said Ignatius.

  'My smelling-salts!' gasped Mrs Rossiter.

  Ignatius ran his hand along the mantelpiece. He opened two cupboards and looked under the settee. But he found no pipe.

  The Mulliners are by nature a courteous family: and, seeing Mrs Rossiter sniffing and gulping there, a belated sense of having been less tactful than he might have been came to Ignatius.

  'It is possible,' he said, 'that my recent remarks may have caused you pain. If so, I am sorry. My excuse must be that they came from a full heart. I am fed to the tonsils with the human race and look on the entire Rossiter family as perhaps its darkest blots. I cannot see the Rossiter family. There seems to me to be no market for them. All I require of the Rossiters is their blood. I nearly got Cyprian with a dagger, but he was too quick for me. If he fails as a critic, there is always a future for him as a Russian dancer. However, I had decidedly better luck with George. I gave him the juiciest kick I have ever administered to human frame. If he had been shot from a gun he couldn't have gone out quicker. Probably he passed you on the stairs?'

  'So that was what passed us!' said Hermione, interested. 'I remember thinking at the time that there was a whiff of George.'

  Mrs Rossiter was staring, aghast.

  'You kicked my son!'

  'As squarely in the seat of the pants, madam,' said Ignatius with modest pride, 'as if I had been practising for weeks.'

  'My stricken child!' cried Mrs Rossiter. And, hastening from the room, she ran down the stairs in quest of the remains. A boy's best friend is his mother.

  In the studio she had left, Hermione was gazing at Ignatius, in her eyes a look he had never seen there before.

  'I had no idea you were so eloquent, Mr Mulliner,' she said, breaking the silence. 'What a vivid description that was that you gave of me. Quite a prose poem.'

  Ignatius made a deprecating gesture.

  'Oh, well,' he said.

  'Do you really think I am like that?'

  'I do.'

  'Yellow?'

  'Greeny yellow.'

  'And my eyes . . .?' She hesitated for a word.

  'They are not unlike blue oysters,' said Ignatius, prompting her, 'which have been dead some time.'

  'In fact, you don't admire my looks?'

  'Far from it.'

  She was saying something, but he had ceased to listen. Quite suddenly he had remembered that about a couple of weeks ago, at a little party which he had given in the studio, he had dropped a half-smoked cigar behind the bureau. And as no charwoman is allowed by the rules of her union to sweep under bureaux, it might – nay, must – still be there. With feverish haste he dragged the bureau out. It was.

  Ignatius Mulliner sighed an ecstatic sigh. Chewed and mangled, covered with dust and bitten by mice, this object between his fingers was nevertheless a cigar – a genuine, smokeable cigar, containing the regulation eight per cent of carbon monoxide. He struck a match and the next moment he had begun to puff.

  And, as he did so, the milk of human kindness surged back into his soul like a vast tidal wave. As swiftly as a rabbit, handled by a competent conjurer, changes into a bouquet, a bowl of goldfish or the grand old flag, Ignatius Mulliner changed into a thing of sweetness and light, with charity towards all, with malice towards none. The pyridine played about his mucous surfaces, and he welcomed it like a long-lost brother. He felt gay, happy, exhilarated.

  He looked at Hermione, standing there with her eyes sparkling and her beautiful face ashine, and he realized that he had been all wrong about her. So far from being a gumboil, she was the loveliest thing that had ever breathed the perfumed air of Kensington.

  And then, chilling his ecstasy and stopping his heart in the middle of a beat, came the recollection of what he had said about her appearance. He felt pale and boneless. If ever a man had dished himself properly, that man, he felt, was Ignatius Mulliner. And he did not mean maybe.

  She was looking at him, and the expression on her face seemed somehow to suggest that she was waiting for something.

  'Well?' she said.

  'I beg your pardon?' said Ignatius.

  She pouted.

  'Well, aren't you going to – er – ?'

  'What?'

  'Well, fold me in your arms and all that sort of thing,' said Hermione, blushing prettily.

  Ignatius tottered.

  'Who, me?'

  'Yes, you.'

  'Fold you in my arms?'

  'Yes.'