" Yes."
Frederick said nothing. It struck him later that he should have said " Oh, Woman, Woman ! " but at the moment it did not occur to him.
" I don't see what right you have to criticise me," said Jane.
" W^ho criticised you ? "
" You did."
" When ? "
" Just then."
" I call Heaven to witness," cried Frederick Mulliner, " that not by so much as a single word have I hinted at my opinion that your conduct is the vilest and most revolting that has ever been drawn to my attention. I never so much as suggested that your revelation had shocked me to the depths of my soul."
*' Yes, you did. You sniffed."
" If Bingley-on-Sea is not open for being sniffed in at this season," said Frederick coldly; " I should have been informed earher."
PORTRAIT OF A DISCIPLINARIAN 227
" I had a perfect right to get engaged to any one I liked and as quick as I liked, after the abominable way you behaved,"
" Abominable way 1 behaved ? What do you mean ? "
" You know."
** Pardon me, I do not know. If you are alluding to my refusal to wear the tie you bought for me on my last birthday, I can but repeat my statement, made to you at the time, that, apart from being the sort of tie no upright man would be seen dead in a ditch with, its colours were those of a CycUng, Angling, and Dart-Throwing club of which I am not a member."
" I am not alluding to that. I mean the day I was going to the Ponderbys' and you promised to see me off at Paddington, and then you 'phoned and said you couldn't as you were detained by important business, and I thought, well, I think Til go by the later train after all because that will give me time to lunch quietly at the Berkeley, and I went and lunched quietly at the Berkeley, and when I was there who should I see but you at a table at the other end of the room gorging yourself in the company of a beastly
creature in a pink frock and henna'd hair. That's what I mean."
Frederick clutched at his forehead.
" Repeat that," he exclaimed.
Jane did so.
" Ye gods ! " said Frederick.
" It was Uke a blow over the head. Something seemed to snap inside me, and ..."
" I can explain all," said Frederick.
Jane's voice in the darkness was cold.
" Explain ? " she said.
" Explain," said Frederick.
" All ? "
"AU."
Jane coughed.
" Before beginning," she said, *' do not forget that I know every one of your female relatives by sight."
" I don't want to talk about my female relatives."
" I thought you were going to say that she was one of them—an aunt or something."
" Nothing of the kind. She was a revue star. You probably saw her in a piece called 'Toot-Toot.'"
" And that is your idea of an explanation ! "
PORTRAIT OF A DISCIPLINARIAN 229 |
Frederick raised his hand for silence. Reahsing that she could not see it, he lowered it again.
" Jane," he said in a low, throbbing voice, " can you cast your mind back to a morning in the spring when we walked, you and I, in Kensington Gardens ? The sun shone brightly, the sky was a limpid blue flecked with fleecy clouds, and from the west there blew a gentle breeze ..."
" If you think you can melt me with that sort of . . ."
*' Nothing of the kind. What I was leading up to was this. As we walked, you and I, there came snuffling up to us a small Pekingese dog. It left me, I admit, quite cold, but you went into ecstasies : and from that moment I had but one mission in Hfe, to discover who that Peke belonged to and buy it for you. And after the most exhaustive inquiries, I tracked the animal down. It was the property of the lady in whose company you saw me lunching— hghtly, not gorging—at the Berkeley that day. I managed to get an introduction to her, and immediately began to make offers to her for the dog. Money was no object to
me. All I wished was to put the Httle beast in your arms and see your face light up. It was to be a surprise. That morning the woman 'phoned, and said that she had practically decided to close with my latest bid, and would I take her to lunch and discuss the matter ? It was agony to have to ring you up and tell you that I could not see you off at Paddington, but it had to be done. It was anguish having to sit for two hours Hstening to that highly-coloured female telling me how the comedian had ruined her big number in her last show by standing upstage and pretending to drink ink, but that had to be done too. I bit the bullet and saw it through and 1 got the dog that afternoon. And next morning I received your letter breaking off the engagement."
There was a long silence.
" Is this true ? " said Jane.
" Quite true."
" It sounds too—how shall I put it ? — too frightfully probable. Look me in the face ! "
" What's the good of looking you in the face when I can't see an inch in front of me ? "
" WeU, is it true ? "
PORTRAIT OF A DISCIPLINARIAN 231
" Certainly it is true."
" Can you produce the Peke ? "
" I have not got it on my person," said
Frederick stiffly. " But it is at my flat,
probably chewing up a valuable rug. I will
give it you for a wedding present."
" Oh, Freddie ! "
" A wedding present," repeated Frederick,
though the words stuck in his throat Uke
patent American health-cereal.
" But I'm not going to be married."
" You're—what did you say ? "
"I'm not going to be married."
" But what of DilHngwater ? "
"That's off."
" Off? "
"Off," said Jane firmly. "I only got
engaged to him out of pique. I thought I
could go through with it, buoying myself up
by thinking what a score it would be off you,
but one morning I saw him eating a peach
and I began to waver. He splashed himself
to the eyebrows. And just after that I
found that he had a trick of making a sort of
funny noise when he drank coffee. I would
sit on the other side of the breakfast table,
looking at him and saying to myself ' Now
H 2
comes the funny noise ! ' and when I thought of doing that all the rest of my life I saw that the scheme was impossible. So I broke off the engagement."
Frederick gasped.
" Jane! "
He groped out, found her, and drew her into his arms.
" Freddie ! "
" Jane! "
" Freddie ! "
" Jane ! "
" Freddie ! "
" Jane ! "
On the panel of the door there sounded an authoritative rap. Through it there spoke an authoritative voice, shghtly cracked by age but full, nevertheless, of the spirit that wil] stand no nonsense.
" Master Frederick."
" HuUo ? "
" Are you good now ?
" You bet Fm good."
" Will you give Miss Jane a nice kiss ? "
" I will do," said Frederick MulHner, enthusiasm ringing in every syllable, " just that httle thing ! "
PORTRAIT OF A DISCIPLINARIAN 233
" Then you may come out," said Nurse Wilks. " I have boiled you two more eggs."
Frederick paled, but only for an instant. What did anything matter now ? His hps were set in a firm line, and his voice, when he spoke, was calm and steady.
" Lead me to them," he said.
THE ROMANCE OF A BULB-SQUEEZER
SOMEBODY had left a copy of an illustrated weekly paper in the bar-parlour of the Anglers' Rest; and, glancing through it, I came upon the ninth full-page photograph of a celebrated musical comedy actress that I had seen since the preceding Wednesday. This one showed her looking archly over her shoulder with a rose between her
teeth, and I flung the periodical from me with a stifled cry.
" Tut, tut ! " said Mr. Mulliner, reprovingly. " You must not allov/ these things to affect you so deeply. Remember, it is not actresses' photographs that matter, but the courage which we bring to them."
He sipped his hot Scotch.
I wonder if you have ever reflected
234
THE ROMANCE OF A BULB-SQUEEZER 235
(he said gravely) what Ufe must be Uke for the men whose trade it is to make these pictures ? Statistics show that the two classes of the community which least often marry are milkmen and fashionable photographers—milkmen because they see women too early in the morning, and fashionable photographers because their days are spent in an atmosphere of feminine loveUness so monotonous that they become surfeited and morose. I know of none of the world's workers whom I pity more sincerely than the fashionable photographer ; and yet—by one of those strokes of irony which make the thoughtful man waver between sardonic laughter and sympathetic tears—it is the ambition of every youngster who enters the profession some day to become one.
At the outset of his career, you see, a young photographer is sorely oppressed by human gargoyles : and gradually this begins to prey upon his nerves.
" Why is it," I remember my cousin Clarence saying, after he had been about a year in the business, " that all these misfits want to be photographed ? Why do men with faces which you would have thought
they would be anxious to hush up wish to be strewn about the country on whatnots and in albums ? I started out full of ardour and enthusiasm, and my eager soul is being crushed. This morning the Mayor of Tooting East came to make an appointment. He is coming to-morrow afternoon to be taken in his cocked hat and robes of office ; and there is absolutely no excuse for a man with a face like that perpetuating his features. I wish to goodness I was one of those fellows who only take camera-portraits of beautiful women."
His dream was to come true sooner than he had imagined. Within a week the great test-case of Biggs v. Mulliner had raised my cousin Clarence from an obscure studio in West Kensington to the position of London's most famous photographer.
You possibly remember the case ? The events that led up to it were, briefly, as follows :—
Jno. Horatio Biggs, O.B.E., the newly-elected Mayor of Tooting East, alighted from a cab at the door of Clarence MulUner's studio at four-ten on the afternoon of June the seventeenth. At four-eleven he went in.
THE ROMANCE OF A BULB-SQUEEZER 237
And at four-sixteen and a half he was observed shooting out of a first-floor window, vigorously assisted by my cousin, who was prodding him in the seat of the trousers with the sharp end of a photographic tripod. Those who were in a position to see stated that Clarence's face was distorted by a fury scarcely human.
Naturally the matter could not be expected to rest there. A week later the case of Biggs V. MulUner had begun, the plaintiff claiming damages to the extent of ten thousand pounds and a new pair of trousers. And at first things looked very black for Clarence.
It was the speech of Sir Joseph Bodger, K.C., briefed for the defence, that turned the scale.
** I do not," said Sir Joseph, addressing the jury on the second day, '' propose to deny the charges which have been brought against my cUent. We freely admit that on the seventeenth inst. we did jab the defendant with our tripod in a manner calculated to cause alarm and despondency. But, gentlemen, we plead justification. The whole case turns upon one question. Is a photographer
entitled to assault—either with or, as the case may be, without a tripod—a sitter who, after being warned that his face is not up to the minimum standard requirements, insists upon remaining in the chair and moistening the lips with the tip of the tongue ? Gentlemen, I say Yes !
" Unless you decide in favour of my client, gentlemen of the jury, photographers —debarred by law from the privilege of rejecting sitters—will be at the mercy of anyone who comes along with the price of a dozen photographs in his pocket. You have seen the plaintiff. Biggs. You have noted his broad, slab-Hke face, intolerable to any man of refinement and sensibiUty. You have observed his walrus moustache, his double chin, his protruding eyes. Take another look at him, and then tell me if my cUent was not justified in chasing him with a tripod out of that sacred temple of Art and Beauty, his studio.
" Gentlemen, I have finished. I leave my client's fate in your hands with every confidence that you will return the only verdict that can conceivably issue from twelve men of your obvious intelhgence,
THE ROiMANCE OF A BULB-SQUEEZER 239
your manifest sympathy, and your superb breadth of vision."
Of course, after that there was nothing to it. The jury decided in Clarence's favour without leaving the box ; and the crowd waiting outside to hear the verdict carried him shoulder-high to his house, refusing to disperse until he had made a speech and sung Photographers never, never, never shall be slaves. And next morning every paper in England came out with a leading article commending him for having so courageously established, as it had not been estabhshed since the days of Magna Charta, the fundamental principle of the Liberty of the Subject.
The effect of this pubhcity on Clarence's fortunes was naturally stupendous. He had become in a flash the best-known photographer in the United Kingdom, and was now in a position to realise that vision which he had of taking the pictures of none but the beaming and the beautiful. Every day the lovehest ornaments of Society and the Stage flocked to his studio ; and it was with the utmost astonishment, therefore, that, caUing
upon him one morning on my return to England after an absence of two years in the East, I learned that Fame and Wealth had not brought him happiness.
I found him sitting moodily in his studio, staring with dull eyes at a camera-portrait of a well-known actress in a bathing-suit. He looked up listlessly as I entered.
" Clarence ! " I cried, shocked at his appearance, for there were hard hues about his mouth and wrinkles on a forehead that once had been smooth as alabaster. *' What is wrong ? "
" Everything," he rephed, "I'm fed up."
" What with ? "
" Life. Beautiful women. This beastly photography business."
I was amazed. Even in the East rumours of his success had reached me, and on my return to London I found that they had not been exaggerated. In every photographers' club in the Metropohs, from the Negative and Solution in Pall Mall to the humble pubHc-houses frequented by the men who do your pictures while you wait on the sands at seaside resorts, he was being freely spoken of as the logical successor to the
THE ROMANCE OF A BULB-SQUEEZER 241
Presidency of the Amalgamated Guild of Bulb-Squeezers.
** I can't stick it much longer," said Clarence, tearing the camera-portrait into a dozen pieces with a dry sob and burying his face in his hands. " Actresses nursing their dolls ! Countesses simpering over kittens ! Film stars among their books! In ten minutes I go to catch a train at Waterloo. I have been sent for by the Duchess of Hampshire to take some studies of Lady Monica Southboume in the castle grounds."
A shudder ran through him. I patted him on the shoulder. I understood now.
" She has the most brilhant smile in England," he whispered.
" Come, come ! "
" Coy yet roguish, they tell me."
" It may not be true."
'' And I bet she will want to be taken offering a lump of sugar to her dog, and the picture will appear in The Sketch and Tatler as ' Lady Monica Southboume and Friend.' "
*' Clarence, this is morbid."
He was silent for a moment.
** Ah, well," he said, pulUng himself
together with a visible effort, " I have made my sodium sulphite, and I must lie in it."
I saw him off in a cab. The last view I had of him was of his pale, drawn profile. He looked, I thought, like an aristocrat of the French Revolution being borne off to his doom on a tumbril. How httle he guessed that the only girl in the world lay waiting fo
r him round the corner.
No, you are wrong. Lady Monica did not turn out to be the only girl in the world. If what I said caused you to expect that, I misled you. Lady Monica proved to be all his fancy had pictured her. In fact even more. Not only was her smile coy yet roguish, but she had a sort of coquettish droop of the left eyehd of which no one had warned him. And, in addition to her two dogs, which she was portrayed in the act of feeding with two lumps of sugar, she possessed a totally unforeseen pet monkey, of which he was compelled to take no fewer than eleven studies.
No, it was not Lady Monica who captured Clarence's heart, but a girl in a taxi whom he met on his way to the station.
THE ROMANCE OF A BULB-SQUEEZER 243
It was in a traffic jam at the top of Whitehall that he first observed this girl. His cab had become becalmed in a sea of omnibuses, and, chancing to look to the right, he perceived within a few feet of him another taxi, which had been heading for Trafalgar Square. There was a face at its window. It turned towards him, and their eyes met.
To most men it would have seemed an unattractive face. To Clarence, surfeited with the coy, the beaming, and the dehcately-chiselled, it was the most wonderful thing he had ever looked at. All his life, he felt, he had been searching for something on these Unes. That snub nose—those freckles—that breadth of cheek-bone—the squareness of that chin. And not a dimple in sight. He told me afterwards that his only feeUng at first was one of incredulity. He had not believed that the world contained women hke this. And then the traffic jam loosened up and he was carried away.
It was as he was passing the Houses of Parliament that the reaUsation came to him that the strange bubbly sensation that seemed to start from just above the lower left side-pocket of his waistcoat was not, as he had
at first supposed, dyspepsia, but love. Yes, love had come at long last to Clarence MuUiner ; and for all the good it was Ukely to do him, he reflected bitterly, it might just as well have been the dyspepsia for which he had mistaken it. He loved a girl whom he would probably never see again. He did not know her name or where she hved or anything about her. All he knew was that he would cherish her image in his heart for ever, and that the thought of going on with the old dreary round of photographing lovely women with coy yet roguish smiles was almost more than he could bear.
Meet Mr. Mulliner Page 13