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.’
‘A blister,’ said Worple.
‘A boil and a disease,’ said Scollop, summing up.
Lancelot laughed hackingly.
‘You have described her to a nicety. She stands for everything most alien to my artist soul. She gives me a pain in the neck. I’m going to marry her.’
‘What!’ cried Scollop.
‘But you’re going to marry Gladys Bingley,’ said Worple.
‘Webster thinks not,’ said Lancelot bitterly. ‘At their first meeting he weighed Gladys in the balance and found her wanting. And the moment he saw Brenda Carberry-Pirbright he stuck his tail up at right angles, uttered a cordial gargle, and rubbed his head against her leg. Then, turning, he looked at me. I could read that glance. I knew what was in his mind. From that moment he has been doing everything in his power to arrange the match.’
‘But, Mulliner,’ said Worple, always eager to point out the bright side, ‘why should this girl want to marry a wretched, scrubby, hard-up footler like you? Have courage, Mulliner. It is simply a question of time before you repel and sicken her.’
Lancelot shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You speak like a true friend, Worple, but you do not understand,. Old Ma Carberry-Pirbright, this exhibit’s mother, who chaperons her at the sittings, discovered at an early date my relationship to my Uncle Theodore, who, as you know, has got it in gobs. She knows well enough that some day I shall be a rich man. She used to know my Uncle Theodore when he was Vicar of St Botolph’s in Knightsbridge, and from the very first she assumed towards me the repellent chumminess of an old family friend. She was always trying to lure me to her At Homes, her Sunday luncheons, her little dinners. Once she actually suggested that I should escort her and her beastly daughter to the Royal Academy.’
He laughed bitterly. The mordant witticisms of Lancelot Mulliner at the expense of the Royal Academy were quoted from Tite Street in the south to Holland Park in the north and eastward as far as Bloomsbury.
‘To all these overtures,’ resumed Lancelot, ‘I remained firmly unresponsive. My attitude was from the start one of frigid aloofness. I did not actually say in so many words that I would rather be dead in a ditch than at one of her At Homes, but my manner indicated it. And I was just beginning to think I had choked her off when in crashed Webster and upset everything. Do you know how many times I have been to that infernal house in the last week? Five. Webster seemed to wish it. I tell you, I am a lost man.’
He buried his face in his hands. Scollop touched Worple on the arm, and together the two men stole silently out.
‘Bad!’ said Worple.
‘Very bad,’ said Scollop.
‘It seems incredible.’
‘Oh, no. Cases of this kind are, alas, by no means uncommon among those who, like Mulliner, possess to a marked degree the highly-strung, ultra-sensitive artistic temperament. A friend of mine, a rhythmical interior decorator, once rashly consented to put his aunt’s parrot up at his studio while she was away visiting friends in the north of England. She was a woman of strong evangelical views, which the bird had imbibed from her. It had a way of puffing its head on one side, making a noise like some one drawing a cork from a bottle, and asking my friend if he was saved. To cut a long story short, I happened to call on him a month later and he had installed a harmonium in his studio and was singing hymns, ancient and modern, in a rich tenor, while the parrot, standing on one leg on its perch, took the bass. Avery sad affair. We were all much upset about it.’
Worple shuddered.
‘You appal me, Scollop! Is there nothing we can do?’ Rodney Scollop considered for a moment. ‘We might wire Gladys Bingley to come home at once. She might possibly reason with the unhappy man. -A woman’s gentle influence… Yes, we could do that. Look in at the post office on your way home and send Gladys a telegram. I’ll owe you for my half of it.’
In the studio they had left, Lancelot Mulliner was staring dumbly at a black shape which had just entered the room. He had the appearance of a man with his back to the wall.
‘No!’ he was crying. ‘No! I’m dashed if I do!’ Webster continued to look at him.
‘Why should I?’ demanded Lancelot weakly. Webster’s gaze did not flicker.
‘Oh, all right,’ said Lancelot sullenly.
He passed from the room with leaden feet, and, proceeding upstairs, changed into morning clothes and a top hat. Then, with a gardenia in his buttonhole, he made his way to 11, Maxton Square, where Mrs Carberry-Pirbright was giving one of her intimate little teas (‘just a few friends’) to meet Clara Throckmorton Stooge, authoress of ‘A Strong Man’s Kiss’.
Gladys Bingley was lunching at her hotel in Antibes when Worple’s telegram arrived. It occasioned her the gravest concern.
Exactly what it was all about, she was unable to gather, for emotion had made Bernard Worple rather incoherent. There were moments, reading it, when she fancied that Lancelot had met with a serious accident; others when the solution seemed to be that he had sprained his brain to such an extent that rival lunatic asylums were competing eagerly for his custom; others, again, when Worple appeared to be suggesting that he had gone into partnership with his cat to start a harem. But one fact emerged clearly. Her loved one was in serious trouble of some kind, and his best friends were agreed that only her immediate return could save him.
Gladys did not hesitate. Within half an hour of the receipt of the telegram she had packed her trunk, removed a piece of asparagus from her right eyebrow, and was negotiating for accommodation on the first train going north.
Arriving in London, her first impulse was to go straight to Lancelot. But a natural feminine curiosity urged her, before doing so, to call upon Bernard Worple and have light thrown on some of the more abstruse passages in the telegram.
Worple, in his capacity of author, may have tended towards obscurity, but, when confining himself to the spoken word, he told a plain story well and clearly. Five minutes of his society enabled Gladys to obtain a firm grasp on the salient facts, and there appeared on her face that grim, tight-lipped expression which is seen only on the faces of fiancées who have come back from a short holiday to discover that their dear one has been straying in their absence from the straight and narrow path.
‘Brenda Carberry-Pirbright, eh?’ said Gladys, with ominous calm. ‘I’ll give him Brenda Carberry-Pirbright! My gosh, if one can’t go off to Antibes for the merest breather without having one’s betrothed getting it up his nose and starting to act like a Mormon Elder, it begins
to look a pretty tough world for a girl.’
Kind-hearted Bernard Worple did his best.
‘I blame the cat,’ he said. ‘Lancelot, to my mind,, is more sinned against than sinning. I consider him to be acting under undue influence or duress.’
‘How like a man!’ said Gladys. ‘Shoving it all off on to an innocent cat!’
‘Lancelot says it has a sort of something in its eye.’
‘Well, when I meet Lancelot,’ said Gladys, ‘he’ll find that I have a sort of something in my eye.’
She went out, breathing flame quietly through her nostrils. Worple, saddened, heaved a sigh and resumed his neo-Vorticist sculpting.
It was some five minutes later that Gladys, passing through Maxton Square on her way to Bott Street, stopped suddenly in her tracks. The sight she had seen was enough to make any fiancée do so.
Along the pavement leading to Number Eleven two figures were advancing. Or three, if you counted a morose-looking dog of a semi-Dachshund nature which preceded them, attached to a leash. One of the figures was that of Lancelot Mulliner, natty in grey herring-bone tweed and a new Homburg hat. It was he who held the leash. The other Gladys recognized from the portrait which she had seen on Lancelot’s easel as that modern Du Barry, that notorious wrecker of homes and breaker-up of love-nests, Brenda Carberry-Pirbright.
The next moment they had mounted the steps of Number Eleven, and had gone in to tea, possibly with a little music.
It was perhaps an hour and a half later that Lancelot, having wrenched himself with difficulty from the lair of the Philistines, sped homeward in a swift taxi. As always after an extended tête-à-tête with Miss Carberry-Pirbright, he felt dazed and bewildered, as if he had been swimming in a sea of glue and had swallowed a good deal of it. All he could think of dearly was that he wanted a drink and that the materials for that drink were in the cupboard behind the chesterfield in his studio.
He paid the cab and charged in with his tongue rattling dryly against his front teeth. And there before him was Gladys Bingley, whom he had supposed far, far away.
‘You!’ exclaimed Lancelot.
‘Yes, me!’ said Gladys.