And it was then that he remembered Dora Trevis. On the eve of becoming Mrs Aubrey Rochester-Wapshott, she had notified the Morning Post that the fixture was off, and the whole trouble, Archibald recalled, had been caused by poor old Aubrey getting a bit pie-eyed at the family dinner table and insulting her father.
There was the solution. He would insult old Cammarleigh and leave the rest to Aurelia.
Not but what, felt Archibald, it was going to take some doing. This father of Aurelia’s was not one of those mild old men who make nice easy insulting. He was a tough, hardbitten retired Colonial Governor of the type which comes back to England to spend the evening of its days barking at club waiters, and until now it had been Archibald’s prudent policy to conciliate him to the utmost. With sedulous assiduity he had always bent himself to the task of giving Sir Rackstraw Cammarleigh the old oil. He had deferred to his opinions. He had smirked meekly, infusing into his manner a rather revolting reverence. Above all, he had listened raptly to his stories, caring little that a certain eccentricity of memory sometimes led the ex-proconsul to tell the same one four evenings in succession.
By these means, he had so succeeded in ingratiating himself with the old blighter that a sudden reversal of policy would have all the greater effect. One bold effort, and it seemed to Archibald that the whole subject of wedding-bells must inevitably be removed from the agenda-paper.
Pale but resolute, my nephew dressed himself with his usual care and set off to dine en famille at his loved one’s home.
I do not know if any of you gentlemen have ever watched a retired Colonial Governor at his evening meal. I have not had the experience myself, but Archibald tells me it is one fraught with interest. He begins, it seems, in a spirit rather similar to that of the lion of the jungle at feeding-time, growling fiercely over his soup, absorbing his fish to the accompaniment of a series of muffled snarls. It is only with the entrée that a softer mood starts to manifest itself. Then, and onward through the joint and sweet, one is aware of a growing geniality. The first animal hunger has abated. Repletion has done its kindly work.
With the dessert and port, the now mellow subject leans back and starts to tell stories.
It was so that it happened tonight. Bagshot, the butler, filled his employer’s glass and stepped back into the shadows: and Sir Rackstraw, grunting not unamiably, fixed Archibald with a bulging eye. Had he been a man to take notice of such phenomena, he would have seen that the young man was white and tense and wore a strung-up look. But if there was one thing in this world that did not interest Sir Rackstraw Cammarleigh it was the play of expression on the face of Archibald Mulliner. He was regarding him now purely in the light of a recipient of his story of old George Bates and the rhinoceros.
‘What you say about there being a full moon tonight,’ he began, for it was on this subject that Archibald had just hazarded a remark, ‘reminds me of a curious thing that happened to an old friend of mine out in Bongo-Bongo. Old George Bates.’
He paused to sip at his glass, and Archibald saw that Aurelia’s face had grown tired and hard. Her mother, too, a pale, worn woman, uttered a stifled little sigh. Somewhere in the background he could hear Bagshot stirring uneasily.
‘At the time of the full moon,’ resumed Sir Rackstraw, ‘it is the custom in Bongo-Bongo to hunt the rhinoceros, and this friend of mine . . . George Bates his name was . . . by the way, stop me if I’ve told you this before . . .’
‘Stop!’ said Archibald.
There was a tense silence. Sir Rackstraw was quivering as if the word had been a bullet and he the rhinoceros which in his less cordial moods he somewhat resembled.
‘What did you say?’ he rasped.
‘I said “Stop!”,’ replied Archibald. Though quaking inwardly, he preserved an outward firmness, even a sort of truculence. ‘You told me to stop you if I had heard it before, and I stopped you. I have heard that story six times before. Even if it were good, I wouldn’t like it. But it is not good. It is rotten. And I shall be extremely obliged, Cammarleigh, if you will refrain from inflicting it upon me either now or at any other time when you may feel the urge. I never wish to hear of Bates and his rhinoceros again. And I couple with the name of this rhinoceros the names of any other rhinoceri you or your friends may have encountered in your exceptionally tedious past. You understand me, Cammarleigh? Enough is enough.’
He stopped and helped himself to port. At the same moment, he pushed his chair back a little, prepared, should events so shape themselves as to render such a course advisable, to slide under the table and there defend himself with tooth and claw. A stoutish ex-Colonial Governor, he reasoned, would find it pretty hard to get at a fellow who had dug himself well in under a table.
It was as he reached this decision that Lady Cammarleigh spoke.
‘Thank you, Archibald,’ she said, and there were tears in her faded voice. ‘It was about time some tough bimbo came along and spoke those brave words. You have said just what I have been wanting to say for years. This would have made the hundred and twenty-seventh time I have heard the story of George Bates and the rhinoceros.’
Aurelia’s eyes were shining.
‘I’ve heard it forty-three times,’ she said.
There was a decorous cough in the shadows.
‘And I,’ said Bagshot, the butler, ‘eighty-six. May I take the liberty of adding my humble tribute of gratitude to Mr Mulliner for the firm stand he has taken. I sometimes think that gentlemen do not realize how distressing it is for a butler to have to listen to their after-dinner stories. His official position, involving, as it does, the necessity of standing with his back against the sideboard, renders escape impossible. It makes a butler’s life very wearing, very wearing. Thank you, Mr Mulliner.’
‘Not at all,’ said Archibald.
‘Thank you, Archibald,’ said Lady Cammarleigh.
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Archibald.
‘Thank you, dear,’ said Aurelia.
‘Only too pleased,’ said Archibald.
‘You see now, Father,’ said Aurelia, turning to Sir Rackstraw, ‘why you are shunned at the club.’
The proconsul started.
‘I am not shunned at the club!’
‘You are shunned at the club. It’s all over London.’
‘Well, upon my word, do you know, I believe you’re right,’ said Sir Rackstraw thoughtfully. ‘Now you mention it, fellows have shunned me at the club. I see it all now. I was degenerating into a club bore. And, thanks to the fearless candour of this fine young fellow here, my eyes have been opened. I see the light. Bagshot, charge the glasses. My dear, have you port? Aurelia, you? Then I give you my future son-in-law, Archibald Mulliner, who has rendered me a service this night which I can never sufficiently repay. And now, Aurelia, my dear, as we have finished our simple evening meal, perhaps you and our young friend here would care to take a stroll round the square. As he so justly observed a moment ago,’ chuckled Sir Rackstraw, ‘there is a full moon.’
Out in the moonlit square, Aurelia was all remorse and worshipping admiration.
‘Oh, Archibald,’ she cried, as she pressed against his arm, ‘I feel so awful. You must have noticed how cold I have been of late. It was because you were so meek and wormlike with Father. I recognized, of course, that he is a man who chews tenpenny nails and swallows broken bottles, but it revolted me to think that you should be afraid of him. You were my wonder-man, and it seemed during those awful days that I had been mistaken in you; that you had failed me. And all the while you were simply biding your time, preparatory to slipping it across him properly. I really do think, darling, that you are the most marvellous man on earth.’
Well, Archibald said, ‘No, I say, really, thanks awfully,’ but it was in a dull, toneless voice that he said it. The hideous irony of his position was weighing sorely on the young man. Here he was, adored – one might say fawned upon – by this lovely girl, and simple decency made it impossible that he should marry her. And if you could ti
e that, even in a Russian novel, he would like to know how.
‘Tomorrow,’ said Aurelia, ‘you shall take me to dine at the Savoy, and we’ll celebrate.’
‘Right ho,’ said Archibald absently.
He was wondering where the best theatrical agency was.
It was at eleven-thirty next morning that Archibald stood with reluctant feet half-way up the dark staircase that leads to the offices of Isadore McCallum, the well-known agent who has told more people that he will write and let them know if anything turns up than any other man of his profession in London. His mood was Hamlet-like – wavering, irresolute. Reason told him that this thing had got to be done: but, as he told Reason, nobody was going to make him like it.
And so he hesitated. And it was while he was still hesitating that there came from above the sound of a slammed door and the noise of rushing feet. A moment later, a solid body had struck him, and in its company, inextricably entwined, he fell the half-flight of stairs that ended in the street door. It was only when this frail barrier had given way before their combined weights and he was sorting himself out upon the pavement that he perceived that what had caused all this activity was a stout young woman in pink with peroxide hair.
For a few moments she stood there panting, her demeanour that of one who has recently passed through some great ordeal. Then she spoke.
‘Did I bump you, dearie? I’m sorry.’
‘Not at all,’ said Archibald courteously, straightening with his right hand a rib that seemed to have got a little bent.
‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’
‘It’s quite all right.’
‘And who would have been looking where they were going after being insulted by a worm?’ demanded the woman.
Archibald, ever sympathetic, clicked his tongue.
‘Did a worm insult you?’
‘You bet a worm insulted me.’
‘Worms will be worms,’ suggested Archibald.
This tolerant view-point seemed to give offence.
‘Not while I have my strength, they won’t,’ said the woman. ‘Listen! What do you think that man up there said to me? Said I was too stout to play heroines in the Number Two towns!’ She sniffed bitterly. ‘Why, you can’t be too stout for the Number Two towns. The thing isn’t possible. They like their heroines stout. It makes them feel they’ve had their money’s worth. “This buxom beauty” – Leicester Argus.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I was saying what the Leicester Argus said about me. My “Geraldine” in Twisted Lives.’
Archibald’s intellect, such as it was, began to assert itself. He had been a little shaken by his fall.
‘Do you play heroines in melodramas?’ he asked eagerly.
‘Do I play heroines in melodramas?’ she echoed. ‘Do I play heroines in melodramas? Do I play heroines in melodramas? Why . . .’
Archibald saw that she did.
‘I say,’ he said, ‘how about stepping up to the Bodega for a small port? I’ve a little business proposition I should like to put to you.’
She seemed suspicious. Her gaze, unlike her waist-measurement, was narrow.
‘Business?’
‘Strictly business.’
‘You don’t want to cover me with jewels?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Well, then, I don’t mind if I do,’ she said, relieved. ‘You’ve no notion how careful a girl has got to be these days,’ she added. ‘I’ve had men in places like Huddersfield offer me guilty splendour on the strength of my having accepted a Bath bun and a small cocoa at their hands.’
‘Baronets?’ asked Archibald, for he had heard that there was a good deal of moral laxness among that class.
‘I think so,’ said his companion. ‘Disguised.’
And so, chatting amiably, they passed into the fragrant coolness of the Bodega.
I have little or no acquaintance among the pure and beefy ladies who play heroines in our Number Two towns (said Mr Mulliner), so I am unable to say whether Miss Yvonne Maltravers – for such was the name on the professional card which she had handed to my nephew – was exceptionally gifted, or whether intelligence like hers is the rule or norm in those circles. Suffice it to say that she not only grasped his position, as he explained it, with lightning celerity, but seemed to find nothing unusual in a young man being in such a position. And Archibald, who had anticipated a good deal of tedious explanation, was enchanted by her quickness at the uptake.
‘Then you follow the scenario?’ he said. ‘You see what I’m driving at? You really will breeze along to the Savoy tonight and play the role of a betrayed girl?’
Miss Maltravers coughed with a touch of rebuke.
‘Not betrayed, dearie. I’ve always kept my Art clean and always shall. You don’t read the Bexhill Gazette, do you? “She is purity personified,” it said. I put it in my professional ads. for a time. That was when I was “Myrtle” in The Hand of Doom. If you will allow me to make a suggestion – we’re all working for the good of the show – I’d say let me be someone unspotted who’s bringing a breach of promise action against you.’
‘That’s just as good, you think?’
‘It’s better,’ said Miss Maltravers firmly. ‘It’s the duty of all of us in these licentious post-war days to put our hands to the plough and quench the flame of this rising tide of unwholesome suggestiveness.’
‘I’ve thought that a hundred times,’ said Archibald.
‘I’ve thought it a couple of hundred,’ said Miss Maltravers.
‘Then that’s fine,’ said Archibald, rising. ‘I’ll expect you at the Savoy Grill round about nine-fifteen. You come in—’
‘Enter,’ corrected Miss Maltravers.
‘That’s right.’
‘Left. I always enter left. It shows up my best profile.’
‘And you accuse me of having trifled with your affections—’
‘In a nice way.’
‘In a perfectly nice way . . . at . . . where would you say?’
‘Middlesbrough,’ said Miss Maltravers with decision. ‘And I’ll tell you why. My affections actually were trifled with in Middlesbrough once, so it’ll help me give colour and movement to the scene. When I remember Bertram, I mean to say. That was his name – Bertram Lushington. I put him over my knee and gave him a good spanking.’
‘That won’t be necessary tonight, will it?’ asked Archibald, a little anxiously. ‘Of course, I don’t want to interfere with your conception of the role or whatever you call it—’
‘It’s how I see the part.’
‘Dress trousers are dashed thin, you know.’
‘Very well,’ said Miss Maltravers regretfully. ‘Just as you like. Cut business. Lines only.’
‘Thanks awfully.’
‘I’ll tell you one thing that’s going to be a great help,’ said Miss Maltravers, brightening. ‘The whole scene’s very like my big second-act smash in His Forgotten Bride, except that that was at the altar rails. You wouldn’t prefer to postpone production till we can get an altar-rails set?’
‘No, I think we’d better rush the thing through tonight.’
‘Just as you say. It’ll mean making a few line cuts, but most of the speeches will fit in. You won’t mind if I call you a heartless cur who should blush to think that he sullies the grand old name of Englishman?’
‘Not at all.’
‘It got a round at Eastbourne. All right, then. Nine-fifteen tonight.’
‘Nine-fifteen on the dot,’ said Archibald.
It might be supposed that, now that everything had been so satisfactorily arranged, my nephew Archibald would have felt relieved. But such was not the case. As he sat toying with his food at the Savoy that night, the reflection that he had done his duty like a Mulliner was not enough to keep him from experiencing a hideous depression and apprehension.
One paid dearly, he mused, for the traditions of his race. How simple it would have been for one who was not a Mulliner to w
rite Aurelia a letter severing their relations and then go abroad somewhere and lie low till the thing had blown over. Instead of which, here he was, faced with the prospect of disgrace and shame in a restaurant filled with his friends and acquaintances.
He had always been so proud of his reputation. He had liked to think that, as he walked about London, people pointed him out and whispered ‘That’s Mulliner, the chap who imitates hens.’ From tonight the formula would be changed. It would be, ‘Look! See that bird? Mulliner. The fellow who was mixed up in that priceless scene at the Savoy Grill.’ A bitter reflection, rendered none the more pleasant by the thought that it was quite possible that, carried away by her art, his accomplice might forget their gentleman’s agreement and spank him after all.
It was with a distrait ear, therefore, that he listened to Aurelia’s conversation. She was in lively mood, and her silvery laugh often rang out over the din and chatter. And every time it did so it seemed to go right through Archibald like an electric drill.
He looked about him, and shuddered at what he saw. Somehow, when he had first conceived this masquerade, he had visualized it as taking place in what Miss Maltravers would have described as a ‘set’ occupied only by himself and Aurelia. But tonight the whole muster-roll of his acquaintance seemed to be present. Over there sat the young Marquis of Hampshire, who did the Gossip for the Daily Tribune. Two tables beyond, he saw the young Duke of Datchet, who did the Gossip for the Daily Post. And, besides these, at least half a dozen more Earls, Barons, Viscounts, and Baronets, who did the Gossip for a half-dozen more journals. He would be sure of an extended, if not a good, Press.
And then suddenly there occurred something which seemed to him positively to put the saucepan cover on it. Through the door, accompanied by an elderly gentleman of military aspect, came his mother.
Archibald had reached the sardines-on-toast stage by this time, and he tells me that he distinctly felt those sardines turn to ashes in his mouth. He had always loved and respected his mother, even after circumstances had so arranged themselves as to convince him that she was leaky in the overhead valves, and the thought that she was to be a witness of tonight’s scene gashed him like a knife.