Mr Mulliner Speaking (8 page)

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.'

'But – er – do you want me to?'

'Certainly.'

'I mean . . . after all I said . . .'

She stared at him in amazement.

'Haven't you been listening to what I've been telling you?' she cried.

'I'm sorry.' Ignatius stammered. 'Good deal on my mind just now. Must have missed it. What did you say?'

'I said that, if you really think I look like that, you do not love me, as I had always supposed, for my beauty, but for my intellect. And if you knew how I have always longed to be loved for my intellect!'

Ignatius put down his cigar and breathed deeply.

'Let me get this right,' he said. 'Will you marry me?'

'Of course I will. You always attracted me strangely, Ignatius, but I thought you looked upon me as a mere doll.'

He picked up his cigar, took a puff, laid it down again, took a step forward, extended his arms, and folded her in them. And for a space they stood there, clasped together, murmuring those broken words that lovers know so well. Then, gently disengaging her, he went back to the cigar and took another invigorating puff.

'Besides,' she said, 'how could a girl help but love a man who could lift my brother George right down a whole flight of stairs with a single kick?'

Ignatius' face clouded.

'George! That reminds me. Cyprian said you said I was like George.'

'Oh! I didn't mean him to repeat that.'

'Well, he did,' said Ignatius moodily. 'And the thought was agony.'

'But I only meant that you and George were both always playing the ukulele. And I hate ukuleles.'

Ignatius' face cleared.

'I will give mine to the poor this afternoon. And, touching Cyprian . . . George said you said I reminded you of him.'

She hastened to soothe him.

'It's only the way you dress. You both wear such horrid sloppy clothes.'

Ignatius folded her in his arms once more.

'You shall take me this very instant to the best tailor in London,' he said. 'Give me a minute to put on my boots, and I'll be with you. You don't mind if I just step in at my tobacconist's for a moment on the way? I have a large order for him.'

I have heard it said that the cosy peace which envelops the bar-parlour of the Angler's Rest has a tendency to promote in the regular customers a certain callousness and indifference to human suffering. I fear there is something in the charge. We who have made the place our retreat sit sheltered in a backwater far removed from the rushing stream of Life. We may be dimly aware that out in the world there are hearts that ache and bleed: but we order another gin and ginger and forget about them. Tragedy, to us, has come to mean merely the occasional flatness of a bottle of beer.

Nevertheless, this crust of selfish detachment can be cracked. And when Mr Mulliner entered on this Sunday evening and announced that Miss Postlethwaite, our gifted and popular barmaid, had severed her engagement to Alfred Lukyn, the courteous assistant at the Bon Ton Drapery Stores in the High Street, it is not too much to say that we were stunned.

'But it's only half an hour ago,' we cried, 'that she went off to meet him in her best black satin with the lovelight in her eyes. They were going to church together.'

'They never reached the sacred edifice,' said Mr Mulliner, sighing and taking a grave sip of hot Scotch and lemon. 'The estrangement occurred directly they met. The rock on which the frail craft of Love split was the fact that Alfred Lukyn was wearing yellow shoes.'

'Yellow shoes?'

'Yellow shoes,' said Mr Mulliner, 'of a singular brightness. These came under immediate discussion. Miss Postlethwaite, a girl of exquisite sensibility and devoutness, argued that to attend evensong in shoes like that was disrespectful to the Vicar. The blood of the Lukyns is hot, and Alfred, stung, retorted that he had paid sixteen shillings and eightpence for them and that the Vicar could go and boil his head. The ring then changed hands and arrangements were put in train for the return of all gifts and correspondence.'

'Just a lovers' tiff.'

'Let us hope so.'

A thoughtful silence fell upon the bar-parlour. Mr Mulliner was the first to break it.

'Strange,' he said, coming out of his reverie, 'to what diverse ends Fate will employ the same instrument. Here we have two loving hearts parted by a pair of yellow shoes. Yet in the case of my cousin Cedric it was a pair of yellow shoes that brought him a bride. These things work both ways.'

To say that I ever genuinely liked my cousin Cedric (said Mr Mulliner) would be paltering with the truth. He was not a man of whom many men were fond. Even as a boy he gave evidence of being about to become what eventually he did become – one of those neat, prim, fussy, precise, middle-aged bachelors who are so numerous in the neighbourhood of St James Street. It is a type I have never liked, and Cedric, in addition to being neat, prim, fussy and precise, was also one of London's leading snobs.

For the rest, he lived in comfortable rooms at the Albany, where between the hours of nine-thirty and twelve in the morning he would sit closeted with his efficient secretary, Miss Myrtle Watling, busy on some task the nature of which remained wrapped in mystery. Some said he was writing a monumental history of Spats, others that he was engaged upon his Memoirs. My private belief is that he was not working at anything, but entertained Miss Watling during those hours simply because he lacked the nerve to dismiss her. She was one of those calm, strong young women who look steadily out upon the world through spectacles with tortoiseshell rims. Her mouth was firm, her chin resolute. Mussolini might have fired her, if at the top of his form, but I can think of nobody else capable of the feat.

So there you have my cousin Cedric. Forty-five years of age, forty-five inches round the waist, an established authority on the subject of dress, one of the six recognized bores at his club, and a man with the entrée into all the best houses in London. That the peace of such a one could ever be shattered, that anything could ever occur seriously to disturb the orderly routine of such a man's life, might seem incredible. And yet this happened. How true it is that in this world we can never tell behind what corner Fate may not be lurking with the brass knuckles.

The day which was to prove so devastating to Cedric Mulliner's bachelor calm began, ironically, on a note of bright happiness. It was a Sunday, and he was always at his best on Sundays, for that was the day on which Miss Watling did not come to the Albany. For some little time back he had been finding himself more than usually ill at ease in Miss Watling's presence. She had developed a habit of looking at him with an odd, speculative expression in her eyes. It was an expression whose meaning he could not read, but it had disturbed him. He was glad to be relieved of her society for a whole day.

Then, again, his new morning-clothes had just arrived from the tailor's and, looking at himself in the mirror, he found his appearance flawless. The tie – quiet and admirable. The trousers – perfect. The gleaming black boots – just right. In the matter of dress, he was a man with a position to keep up. Younger men looked to him for guidance. To-day, he felt, he would not fail them.

Finally, he was due at half-past one for luncheon at the house of Lord Knubble of Knopp in Grosvenor Square, and he knew that he could count on meeting there all that was best and fairest of England's aristocracy.

His anticipations were more than fulfilled. Except for a lout of a baronet who had managed to slip in somehow, there was nobody beside himself present at the luncheon table below the rank of Viscount: and, to complete his happiness, he found himself seated next to Lady Chloe Downblotton, the beautiful daughter of the seventh Earl of Choole, for whom he had long entertained a paternal and respectful fondness. And so capitally did they get on during the meal that, when the party broke up, she suggested that, if he were going in her direction, which was the Achilles statue in the Park, they might stroll together.

'The fact is,' said Lady Chloe, as they walked down Park Lane, 'I feel I must confide in somebody. I've just got engaged.'

'Engaged! Dear lady,' breathed Cedric reverently, 'I wish you every happiness. But I have seen no announcement in the
Morning Post
.'

'No. And I shouldn't think the betting is more than fifteen to four that you ever will. It all depends on how the good old seventh Earl reacts when I bring Claude home this afternoon and lay him on the mat. I love Claude,' sighed Lady Chloe, 'with a passion too intense for words, but I'm quite aware that he isn't everybody's money. You see, he's an artist and, left to himself, he dresses more like a tramp cyclist than anything else on earth. Still, I'm hoping for the best. I dragged him off to Cohen Bros yesterday and made him buy morning-clothes and a top hat. Thank goodness, he looked positively respectable, so . . .'

Her voice died away in a strangled rattle. They had entered the Park and were drawing near to the Achilles statue, and coming towards them, his top hat raised in a debonair manner, was a young man of pleasing appearance, correctly clad in morning-coat, grey tie, stiff collar, and an unimpeachable pair of sponge-bag trousers, nicely creased from north to south.

But he was, alas, not one hundred per cent correct. From neck to ankles beyond criticism, below that he went all to pieces. What had caused Lady Chloe to lose the thread of her remarks and Cedric Mulliner to utter a horrified moan was the fact that this young man was wearing bright yellow shoes.

'Claude!' Lady Chloe covered her eyes with a shaking hand. 'Ye Gods!' she cried. 'The foot-joy! The banana specials! The yellow perils! Why? For what reason?'

The young man seemed taken aback.

'Don't you like them?' he said. 'I thought they were rather natty. Just what the rig-out needed, in my opinion, a touch of colour. It seemed to me to help the composition.'

'They're awful. Tell him how awful they are, Mr Mulliner.'

'Tan shoes are not worn with morning-clothes,' said Cedric in a low, grave voice. He was deeply shaken.

'Why not?'

'Never mind why not,' said Lady Chloe. 'They aren't. Look at Mr Mulliner's.'

The young man did so.

'Tame,' he said. 'Colourless. Lacking in spirit and that indefinable something. I don't like them.'

'Well, you've jolly well got to learn to like them,' said Lady Chloe, 'because you're going to change with Mr Mulliner this very minute.'

A shrill, bat-like, middle-aged bachelor squeak forced itself from Cedric's lips. He could hardly believe he had heard correctly.

'Come along, both of you,' said Lady Chloe briskly. 'You can do it over there behind those chairs. I'm sure you don't mind, Mr Mulliner, do you?'

Cedric was still shuddering strongly.

'You ask me to put on yellow shoes with morning-clothes?' he whispered, the face beneath his shining silk hat pale and drawn.

'Yes.'

'Here? In the Park? At the height of the Season?'

'Yes. Do hurry.'

'But . . .'

'Mr Mulliner! Surely? To oblige me?'

She was gazing at him with pleading eyes, and from the confused welter of Cedric's thoughts there emerged, clear and crystal-like, the recollection of the all-important fact that this girl was the daughter of an Earl and related on her mother's side not only to the Somersetshire Meophams, but to the Brashmarleys of Bucks, the Widringtons of Wilts, and the Hilsbury-Hepworths of Hants. Could he refuse any request, however monstrous, proceeding from one so extremely well-connected?

He stood palsied. All his life he had prided himself on the unassailable orthodoxy of his costume. As a young man he had never gone in for bright ties. His rigidity in the matter of turned-up trousers was a byword. And, though the fashion had been set by an Exalted Personage, he had always stood out against even such a venial lapse as the wearing of a white waistcoat with a dinner-jacket. How little this girl knew the magnitude of the thing she was asking of him. He blinked. His eyes watered and his ears twitched. Hyde Park seemed to whirl about him.

And then, like a voice from afar, something seemed to whisper in his ear that this girl's second cousin, Adelaide, had married Lord Slythe and Sayle and that among the branches of the family were the Sussex Booles and the ffrench-ffarmiloes – not the Kent ffrench-ffarmiloes but the Dorsetshire lot. It just turned the scale.

'So be it!' said Cedric Mulliner.

For a few moments after he found himself alone, my cousin Cedric had all the appearance of a man at a loss for his next move. He stood rooted to the spot, staring spellbound at the saffron horrors which had blossomed on his hitherto blameless feet. Then, pulling himself together with a strong effort, he slunk to Hyde Park Corner, stopped a passing cab, and, having directed the driver to take him to the Albany, leaped hastily in.

The relief of being under cover was at first so exquisite that his mind had no room for other thoughts. Soon, he told himself, he would be safe in his cosy apartment, with the choice of thirty-seven pairs of black boots to take the place of these ghastly objects. It was only when the cab reached the Albany that he realized the difficulties which lay in his path.

How could he walk through the lobby of the Albany looking like a ship with yellow fever on board – he, Cedric Mulliner, the man whose advice on the niceties of dress had frequently been sought by young men in the Brigade of Guards and once by the second son of a Marquis? The thing was inconceivable. All his better nature recoiled from it. Then what to do?

It is characteristic of the Mulliners as a family that, however sore the straits in which they find themselves, they never wholly lose their presence of mind. Cedric leaned out of the window and addressed the driver of the cab.

'My man,' he said, 'how much do you want for your boots?'

The driver was not one of London's lightning thinkers. For a full minute he sat, looking like a red-nosed sheep, allowing the idea to penetrate.

'My boots?' he said at length.