Sir Preston Potter, however, who now emerged from the drawing-room, clung stoutly to his opinion. He looked sneeringly at his rival.
'You been clipping your moustache, Bromborough?'
‘Of course I have not been clipping my moustache,' replied Lord Bromborough shortly. It was only too plain that there was bad blood between the two men. 'What the dooce would I clip my moustache for? What makes you think I've been clipping my moustache?'
'I thought it had shrunk,' said Sir Preston Potter. 'It looks very small to me, very small. Perhaps the moth's been at it'
Lord Bromborough quivered beneath the coarse insult, but his patrician breeding checked the hot reply which rose to his lips. He was a host. Controlling himself with a strong effort, he turned the conversation to the subject of early mangold-wurzels; and it was while he was speaking of these with eloquence and even fire that a young man with butter-coloured hair came hurrying down the stairs.
'Buck up, Edwin,' said Muriel impatiently. 'What's the idea of keeping us all waiting like this?'
'Oh, sorry,' said the young man.
'So you ought to be. Well, now you're here, I'd like to introduce you to Mr Mulliner. He's come to paint Father's portrait Mr Mulliner ... Mr Edwin Potter, my fiance’
'Dinner is served,' said Phipps the butler.
It was in a sort of trance that my nephew Brancepeth sat through the meal which followed. He toyed listlessly with his food and contributed so little to the conversation that a casual observer entering the room would have supposed him to be a deaf-mute who was on a diet. Nor can we fairly blame him for this, for he had had a severe shock. Few things are more calculated to jar an ardent lover and upset his poise than the sudden announcement by the girl he loves that she is engaged to somebody else, and Muriel's words had been like a kick in the stomach from an army mule. And in addition to suffering the keenest mental anguish, Brancepeth was completely bewildered.
It was not as if this Edwin Potter had been Clark Gable or somebody. Studying him closely, Brancepeth was unable to discern in him any of those qualities which win girls' hearts. He had an ordinary, meaningless face, disfigured by an eyeglass, and was plainly a boob of the first water. Brancepeth could make nothing of it. He resolved at the earliest possible moment to get hold of Muriel and institute a probe.
It was not until next day before luncheon that he found an opportunity of doing so. His morning had been spent in making preliminary sketches of her father. This task concluded, he came out into the garden and saw her reclining in a hammock slung between two trees at the edge of the large lawn.
He made his way towards her with quick, nervous strides. He was feeling jaded and irritated. His first impressions of Lord Bromborough had not misled him. Painting his portrait, he saw, was going to prove, as he had feared it would prove, a severe test of his courage and strength. There seemed so little about Lord Bromborough's face for an artist to get hold of. It was as if he had been commissioned to depict a client who, for reasons of his own, insisted on lying hid behind a haystack.
His emotions lent acerbity to his voice. It was with a sharp Intonation that he uttered the preliminary 'Hoy!' The girl sat up. ‘Oh, hullo,' she said.
'Oh, hullo, yourself, with knobs on,' retorted Brancepeth. "Never mind the "Oh, hullo." I want an explanation.’ 'What's puzzling you?' This engagement of yours.’ 8Oh, that?’
'Yes, that. A nice surprise that was to spring on a chap, was it not? A jolly way of saying "Welcome to Rumpling Hall," I don't think.' Brancepeth choked. 'I came here thinking that you loved me...'
'So I do.'
‘What!'
'Madly. Devotedly.'
Then why the dickens do I find you betrothed to this blighted Potter?' Muriel sighed. 'It's the old, old story.’ ‘What's the old, old story?'
This is. It's all so simple, if you'd only understand. I don't suppose any girl ever worshipped a man as I worship you, Brancepeth, but Father hasn't a bean . . . you know what it's like owning land nowadays. Between ourselves, while we're on the subject, I'd stipulate for a bit down in advance on that portrait, if I were you '
Brancepeth understood
Ts this Potter rotter rich?'
'Rolling. Sir Preston was Potter's Potted Table Delicacies.'
There was a silence. 'H'm,' said Brancepeth.
'Exactly. You see now. Oh, Brancepeth,' said the girl, her voice trembling, 'why haven't you money? If you only had the merest pittance - enough for a flat in Mayfair and a little weekend place in the country somewhere and a couple of good cars and a villa in the South of France and a bit of trout fishing on some decent river, I would risk all for love. But as it is...'
Another silence fell
'What you ought to do,' said Muriel, 'is invent some good animal for the movies. That's where the money is. Look at Walt Disney.'
Brancepeth started. It was as if she had read his thoughts. Like all young artists nowadays, he had always held before him as the goal of his ambition the invention of some new comic animal for the motion pictures. What he burned to do, as Velazquez would have burned to do if he had lived today, was to think of another Mickey Mouse and then give up work and just sit back and watch the money roll in.
'It isn't so easy,' he said sadly.
'Have you tried?'
'Of course I've tried. For years I have followed the gleam. I thought I had something with Hilda the Hen and Bertie the Bandicoot, but nobody would look at them. I see now that they were lifeless, uninspired. I am a man who needs the direct inspiration.'
'Doesn't Father suggest anything to you?' Brancepeth shook his head.
'No. I have studied your father, alert for the slightest hint.. .’ ‘Walter the Walrus?'
'No. Lord Bromborough looks like a walrus, yes, but unfortunately not a funny walrus. That moustache of his is majestic rather than diverting. It arouses in the beholder a feeling of awe, such as one gets on first seeing the pyramids. One senses the terrific effort behind it. I suppose it must have taken a lifetime of incessant toil to produce a cascade like that?'
'Oh, no. Father hadn't a moustache at all a few years ago. It was only when Sir Preston began to grow one and rather flaunt it at him at District Council meetings that he buckled down to it. But why,' demanded the girl passionately, 'are we wasting time talking about moustaches? Kiss me, Brancepeth. We have just time before lunch.'
Brancepeth did as directed, and the incident closed.
I do not propose (resumed Mr Mulliner, who had broken off his narrative at this point to request Miss Postlethwaite, our able barmaid, to give him another hot Scotch and lemon) to dwell in detail on the agony of spirit endured by my nephew Brancepeth in the days that followed this poignant conversation. The spectacle of a sensitive artist soul on the rack is never a pleasant one. Suffice it to say that as each day came and went it left behind it an increased despair.
What with the brooding on his shattered romance and trying to paint Lord Bromborough's portrait and having his nerves afflicted by the incessant bickering that went on between Lord Bromborough and Sir Preston Potter and watching Edwin Potter bleating round Muriel and not being able to think of a funny animal for the movies, it is little wonder that his normally healthy complexion began to shade off to a sallow pallor and that his eyes took on a haunted look. Before the end of the first week he had become an object to excite the pity of the tender-hearted.
Phipps the butler was tender-hearted, and had been since a boy. Brancepeth excited his pity, and he yearned to do something to ameliorate the young man's lot. The method that suggested itself to him was to take a bottle of champagne to his room. It might prove a palliative rather than a cure, but he was convinced that it would, if only temporarily, bring the roses back to Brancepeth's cheeks. So he took a bottle of champagne to his room on the fifth night of my nephew's visit, and found him lying on his bed in striped pyjamas and a watered silk dressing-gown, staring at the ceiling.
The day that was now drawing to a close had been a particularly
bad one for Brancepeth. The weather was unusually warm, and this had increased his despondency, so that he had found himself chafing beneath Lord Bromborough's moustache in a spirit of sullen rebellion. Before the afternoon sitting was over, he had become conscious of a vivid feeling of hatred for the thing. He longed for the courage to get at it with a hatchet after the manner of a pioneer in some wild country hewing a clearing in the surrounding jungle. When Phipps found him, his fists were clenched and he was biting his lower lip.
'I have brought you a little champagne, sir,' said Phipps, in his kindly, silver-haired way. It occurred to me that you might be in need of a restorative.'
Brancepeth was touched. He sat up, the hard glare in his eyes softening.
'That's awfully good of you,' he said. 'You are quite right. I could do with a drop or two from the old bin. I am feeling rather fagged. The weather, I suppose.'
A gentle smile played over the butler's face as he watched the young man put away a couple, quick.
'No, sir. I do not think it is the weather. You may be quite frank with me, sir. I understand. It must be a very wearing task, painting his lordship. Several artists have had to give it up. There was a young fellow here in the spring of last year who had to be removed to the cottage hospital. His manner had been strange and moody for some days, and one night we found him on a ladder, in the nude, tearing away at the ivy on the west wall. His lordship's moustache had been too much for him.'
Brancepeth groaned and refilled his glass. He knew just how his brother brush must have felt.
'The ironical thing,' continued the butler, 'is that conditions would be just as bad, were the moustache non-existent. I have been in service at the Hall for a number of years, and I can assure you that his lordship was fully as hard on the eye when he was clean-shaven. Well, sir, when I tell you that I was actually relieved when he began to grow a moustache, you will understand.'
'Why, what was the matter with him?'
'He had a face like a fish, sir.'
'A fish?'
'Yes, sir.'
Something resembling an electric shock shot through Brancepeth, causing him to quiver in every limb. 'A funny fish?' he asked in a choking voice. 'Yes, sir. Extremely droll.'
Brancepeth was trembling like a saucepan of boiling milk at the height of its fever. A strange, wild thought had come into his mind. A funny fish ...
There had never been a funny fish on the screen. Funny mice, funny cats, funny dogs ... but not a funny fish. He stared before him with glowing eyes.
'Yes, sir, when his lordship began to grow a moustache, I was relieved. It seemed to me that it must be a change for the better. And so it was at first. But now ... you know how it is, sir.... I often find myself wishing those old, happy days were back again. We never know when we are well off, sir, do we?'
'You would be glad to see the last of Lord Bromborough's moustache?'
'Yes, sir. Very glad.'
'Right,' said Brancepeth. 'Then I’ll shave it off.'
In private life butlers relax that impassive gravity which the rules of their union compel them to maintain in public. Spring something sensational on a butler when he is chatting with you in your bedroom, and he will leap and goggle like any ordinary man. Phipps did so now.
'Shave it off, sir?' he gasped, quaveringly.
'Shave it off,' said Brancepeth, pouring out the last of the champagne.
'Shave off his lordship's moustache?'
'This very night. Leaving not a wrack behind.'
'But, sir...'
'Well?'
'The thought that crossed my mind, sir, was - how?' Brancepeth clicked his tongue impatiently.,. 'Quite easily. I suppose he likes a little something last thing at night? Whisky or what not?'
‘I always bring his lordship a glass of warm milk to the smoking-room.'
'Have you taken it to him yet?'
'Not yet, sir. I was about to do so when I left you.'
'And is there anything in the nature of a sleeping draught in the house?'
'Yes, sir. His lordship is a poor sleeper in the hot weather and
generally takes a tablet of Slumberola in his milk.'
'Then, Phipps, if you are the pal I think you are, you will slip into his milk tonight not one tablet but four tablets.'
'But, sir ...'
'I know, I know. What you are trying to say, I presume, is -What is there in it for you? I will tell you, Phipps. There is a packet in it for you. If Lord Bromborough's face in its stark fundamentals is as you describe it, I can guarantee that in less than no time I shall be bounding about the place trying to evade super-tax. In which event, rest assured that you will get your cut. You are sure of your facts? If I make a clearing in the tangled wildwood, I shall come down eventually to a face like a fish?'
'Yes, sir.'
'A fish with good comedy values?'
'Oh, yes, sir. Till it began to get me down, many is the laugh I
had at the sight of it.'
'That is all I wish to know. Right. Well, Phipps, can ; I count on your co-operation? I may add, before you speak, that this means my life's happiness. Sit in, and I shall be able to marry the girl I adore. Refuse to do your bit, and I drift through the remainder of my life a soured, blighted bachelor.'
The butler was plainly moved. Always kindly and silver-haired, he looked kindlier and more silver-haired than ever be- fore.
'It's like that, is it, sir?'
'It is.'
'Well, sir, I wouldn't wish to come between a young gentleman and his life's happiness. I know what it means to love.'
'You do?'
'I do indeed, sir. It is not for me to boast, but there was a time when the girls used to call me Saucy George.'
'And so-?'
'I will do as you request, sir.'
'I knew it, Phipps,' said Brancepeth with emotion. ‘I knew that I could rely on you. All that remains, then, is for you to show me which is Lord Bromborough's room.' He paused. A disturbing thought had struck him. ‘I say! Suppose he locks his door?'
'It is quite all right, sir,' the butler reassured him. In the later summer months, when the nights are sultry, his lordship does not sleep in his room. He reposes in a hammock slung between two trees on the large lawn.'
I know the hammock,' said Brancepeth tenderly. 'Well that's fine, then. The thing's in the bag. Phipps,' said Brancepeth, grasping his hand, T don't know how to express my gratitude. If everything develops as I expect it to; if Lord Bromborough's face gives me the inspiration which I anticipate and I clean up big, you, I repeat, shall share my riches. In due season there will call at your pantry elephants laden with gold, and camels bearing precious stones and rare spices. Also apes, ivory and peacocks. And... you say your name is George?’
'Yes, sir.'
'Then my eldest child shall be christened George. Or, if female, Georgina.'
'Thank you very much, sir.'
'Not at all,' said Brancepeth. ‘A pleasure.’
Brancepeth's first impression on waking next morning was that he had had a strange and beautiful dream. It was a vivid, lovely thing, all about stealing out of the house in striped pyjamas and a watered silk dressing-gown, armed with a pair of scissors, and stooping over the hammock where Lord Bromborough lay and razing his great moustache Joyeuse to its foundations. And he was just heaving a wistful sigh and wishing it were true, when he found that it was. It all came back to him -the furtive sneak downstairs, the wary passage of the lawn, the snip-snip-snip of the scissors blending with a strong man's snores in the silent night. It was no dream. The thing had actually occurred.. His host's upper lip had became a devastated area.
It was not Brancepeth's custom, as a rule, to spring from his bed at the beginning of a new day, but he did so now. He was consumed with a burning eagerness to gaze upon his handiwork, for the first time to see Lord Bromborough steadily and see him whole. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed before he was in his clothes and on his way to the breakfast-room. The other, he knew, was
an early riser, and even so great a bereavement as he had suffered would not deter him from getting at the coffee and kippers directly he caught a whiff of them.
Only Phipps, however, was in the breakfast-room. He was lighting wicks under the hot dishes on the sideboard. Brancepeth greeted him jovially.
'Good morning, Phipps. What ho, what ho, with a hey nonny nonny and a hot cha-cha.'
The butler was looking nervous, like Macbeth interviewing ; Lady Macbeth after one of her visits to the spare room.
'Good morning, sir. Er - might I ask, sir...'
'Oh, yes,' said Brancepeth. The operation was a complete success. Everything went according to plan.'
'I am very glad to hear it, sir.'
'Not a hitch from start to finish. Tell me, Phipps,' said Brancepeth, helping himself buoyantly to a fried egg and a bit of bacon and seating himself at the table, 'what sort of a fish did Lord Bromborough look like before he had a moustache?'
The butler reflected.
'Well, sir, I don't know if you have seen Sidney the Sturgeon?'
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