Mulliner Nights (5 page)

‘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.

As they
re-entered the studio, Webster was gazing with an air of quiet distaste at an
illustration from
La Vie Parisienne
which adorned one of the walls.
Lancelot tore it down hastily.

Gladys looked
at Webster in an unfriendly way.

‘So that’s the
blighter!’

‘Sh!’

‘If you want
to know what I think,’ said Gladys, ‘that cat’s been living too high. Doing
himself a dashed sight too well. You’d better cut his rations down a bit.’

In substance,
her criticism was not unjustified. Certainly, there was about Webster more than
a suspicion of
embonpoint.
He had that air of portly well-being which we
associate with those who dwell in cathedral closes. But Lancelot winced uncomfortably.
He had so hoped that Gladys would make a good impression, and here she was,
starting right off by saying the tactless thing.

He longed to
explain to Webster that it was only her way; that in the Bohemian circles of
which she was such an ornament genial chaff of a personal order was accepted
and, indeed, relished. But it was too late. The mischief had been done. Webster
turned in a pointed manner and withdrew silently behind the chesterfield.

Gladys, all
unconscious, was making preparations for departure.

‘Well,
bung-oh,’ she said, lightly. ‘See you in three weeks. I suppose you and that
cat’ll both be out on the tiles the moment my back’s turned.’

‘Please!
Please!’ moaned Lancelot. ‘Please!’

He had caught
sight of the tip of a black tail protruding from behind the chesterfield. It
was twitching slightly, and Lancelot could read it like a book. With a
sickening sense of dismay, he knew that Webster had formed a snap judgment of
his fiancée and condemned her as frivolous and unworthy.

It was some
ten days later that Bernard Worple, the neo-Vorticist sculptor, lunching at
the Puce Ptarmigan, ran into Rodney Scollop, the powerful young surrealist. And
after talking for a while of their art— ‘What’s all this I hear about Lancelot
Mulliner?’ asked Worple. ‘There’s a wild story going about that he was seen
shaved in the middle of the week. Nothing in it, I suppose?’

Scollop looked
grave. He had been on the point of mentioning Lancelot himself, for he loved
the lad and was deeply exercised about him.

‘It is
perfectly true,’ he said.

‘It sounds
incredible.’

Scollop leaned
forward. His fine face was troubled.

‘Shall I tell
you something, Worple?’

‘What?’

‘I know for an
absolute fact,’ said Scollop, ‘that Lancelot Mulliner now shaves every morning.’

Worple pushed
aside the spaghetti which he was wreathing about him and through the gap stared
at his companion.

‘Every
morning?’

‘Every single
morning. I looked in on him myself the other day, and there he was, neatly
dressed in blue serge and shaved to the core. And, what is more, I got the
distinct impression that he had used talcum powder afterwards.’

‘You don’t
mean that!’

‘I do. And
shall I tell you something else? There was a book lying open on the table. He
tried to hide it, but he wasn’t quick enough. It was one of those etiquette
books!’

‘An etiquette
book!’

‘“Polite
Behaviour”, by Constance, Lady Bodbank.’

Worple unwound
a stray tendril of spaghetti from about his left ear. He was deeply agitated.
Like Scollop, he loved Lancelot.

‘He’ll be
dressing for dinner next!’ he exclaimed.

‘I have every
reason to believe,’ said Scollop gravely, ‘that he does dress for dinner. At
any rate, a man closely resembling him was seen furtively buying three stiff
collars and a black tie at Hope Brothers in the King’s Road last Tuesday.’

Worple pushed
his chair back, and rose. His manner was determined.

‘Scollop,’ he
said, ‘we are friends of Mulliner’s, you and I. It is evident from what you
tell me that subversive influences are at work and that never has he needed our
friendship more. Shall we not go round and see him immediately?’

‘It was what I
was about to suggest myself,’ said Rodney Scollop.

Twenty minutes
later they were in Lancelot’s studio, and with a significant glance Scollop
drew his companion’s notice to their host’s appearance. Lancelot Mulliner was
neatly, even foppishly, dressed in blue serge with creases down the
trouser-legs, and his chin, Worple saw with a pang, gleamed smoothly in the
afternoon light.

At the sight
of his friends’ cigars, Lancelot exhibited unmistakable concern.

‘You don’t
mind throwing those away, I’m sure,’ he said pleadingly.

Rodney Scollop
drew himself up a little haughtily.

‘And since
when,’ he asked, ‘have the best fourpenny cigars in Chelsea not been good
enough for you?’

Lancelot
hastened to soothe him.

‘It isn’t me,’
he exclaimed. ‘It’s Webster. My cat. I happen to know he objects to tobacco
smoke. I had to give up my pipe in deference to his views.’

Bernard Worple
snorted.

‘Are you
trying to tell us,’ he sneered, ‘that Lancelot Mulliner allows himself to be
dictated to by a blasted cat?’

‘Hush!’ cried
Lancelot, trembling. ‘If you knew how he disapproves of strong language!’

‘Where is this
cat?’ asked Rodney Scollop. ‘Is that the animal?’ he said,, pointing out of the
window to where, in the yard, a tough-looking Tom with tattered ears stood
mewing in a hard-boiled way out of the corner of its mouth.

‘Good heavens,
no!’ said Lancelot. ‘That is an alley cat which comes round here from time to
time to lunch at the dust-bin. Webster is quite different. Webster has a
natural dignity and repose of manner. Webster is a cat who prides himself on
always being well turned out and whose high principles and lofty ideals shine
from his eyes like beacon-fires….’ And then suddenly, with an abrupt change
of manner, Lancelot broke down and in a low voice added: ‘Curse him! Curse him!
Curse him! Curse him!’

Worple looked
at Scollop. Scollop looked at Worple.

‘Come, old
man,’ said Scollop, laying a gentle hand on Lancelot’s bowed shoulder. ‘We are
your friends. Confide in us.

‘Tell us all,’
said Worple. ‘What’s the matter?’

Lancelot
uttered a bitter, mirthless laugh.

‘You want to
know what’s the matter? Listen, then. I’m cat-pecked!’

‘Cat-pecked?’

‘You’ve heard
of men being hen-pecked, haven’t you?’ said Lancelot with a touch of
irritation. ‘Well, I’m cat-pecked.’

And in broken
accents he told his story. He sketched the history of his association with
Webster from the letter’s first entry into the studio. Confident now that the
animal was not within earshot, he unbosomed himself without reserve.

‘It’s
something in the beast’s eye,’ he said in a shaking voice. ‘Something hypnotic.
He casts a spell upon me. He gazes at me and disapproves. Little by little, bit
by bit, I am degenerating under his influence from a wholesome, self-respecting
artist into… well, I don’t know what you would call it. Suffice it to say
that I have given up smoking, that I have ceased to wear carpet slippers and go
about without a collar, that I never dream of sitting down to my frugal evening
meal without dressing, and’ — he choked — ‘I have sold my ukulele.’

‘Not that!’
said Worple, paling.

‘Yes,’ said
Lancelot. ‘I felt he considered it frivolous.’

There was a
long silence.

‘Mulliner,’
said Scollop, ‘this is more serious than I had supposed. We must brood upon
your case.’

‘It may be
possible,’ said Worple, ‘to find a way out.’

Lancelot shook
his head hopelessly.

‘There is no
way out. I have explored every avenue. The only thing that could possibly free
me from this intolerable bondage would, be if once —just once — I could catch
that cat unbending. If once — merely once — it would lapse in my presence from
its austere dignity for but a single instant, I feel that the spell would be
broken. But what hope is there of that?’ cried Lancelot passionately. ‘You were
pointing just now to that alley cat in the yard. There stands one who has
strained every nerve and spared no effort to break down Webster’s inhuman
self-control. I have heard that animal say things to him which you would think
no cat with red blood in its veins would suffer for an instant. And, Webster
merely looks at him like a Suffragan Bishop eyeing an erring choir-boy and
turns his head and falls into a refreshing sleep.’

He broke off
with a dry sob. Worple, always an optimist, attempted in his kindly way to
minimize the tragedy.

‘Ah, well,’ he
said. ‘It’s bad, of course, but still, I suppose there no actual harm in
shaving and dressing for dinner and so on. Many great artists… Whistler, for
example—’

‘Wait!’ cried
Lancelot. ‘You have not heard the worst.’

He rose
feverishly, and, going to the easel, disclosed the portrait of Brenda
Carberry-Pirbright.

‘Take a look
at that,’ he said, ‘and tell me what you think of her.’

His two
friends surveyed the face before them in silence. Miss Carberry-Pirbright was a
young woman of prim and glacial aspect. One sought in vain for her reasons for
wanting to have her portrait painted. It would be a most unpleasant thing to
have about any house.

Scollop broke
the silence.

‘Friend of
yours?’

‘I can’t stand
the sight of her,’ said Lancelot vehemently.

‘Then,’ said
Scollop, ‘I may speak frankly. I think she’s a pill.’