‘The old boy’s been having a couple,’ was his verdict.
Gladys, a woman and therefore more spiritual, demurred.
‘It sounds to me,’ she said, ‘more as if he had gone off his onion. Why should he want you to pretend to be a lawyer?’
‘He says he will explain fully.’
And how do you pretend to be a lawyer?’
Lancelot considered.
‘Lawyers cough dryly, I know that,’ he said. And then I suppose one would put the tips of the fingers together a good deal and talk about Rex v. Biggs Ltd and torts and malfeasances and so forth. I think I could give a reasonably realistic impersonation.’
‘Well, if you’re going, you’d better start practising.’
‘Oh, I’m going all right,’ said Lancelot. ‘Uncle Theodore is evidently in trouble of some kind, and my place is by his side. If all goes well, I might be able to bite his ear before he sees Webster. About how much ought we to have in order to get married comfortably?’
At least five hundred.’
‘I will bear it in mind,’ said Lancelot, coughing dryly and putting the tips of his fingers together.
Lancelot had hoped, on arriving at Widdrington Manor, that the first person he met would be his Uncle Theodore, explaining fully. But when the butler ushered him into the drawing-room only Lady Widdrington, her mother Mrs Pulteney-Banks, and her cat Percy were present. Lady Widdrington shook hands, Mrs Pulteney-Banks bowed from the arm-chair in which she sat swathed in shawls, but when Lancelot advanced with the friendly intention of tickling the cat Percy under the right ear, he gave the young man a cold, evil look out of the corner of his eye and, backing a pace, took an inch of skin off his hand with one well-judged swipe of a steel-pronged paw.
Lady Widdrington stiffened.
‘I’m afraid Percy does not like you,’ she said in a distant voice.
‘They know, they know!’ said Mrs Pulteney-Banks darkly. She knitted and purled a moment, musing. ‘Cats are cleverer than we think,’ she added.
Lancelot’s agony was too keen to permit him even to cough dryly. He sank into a chair and surveyed the little company with watering eyes.
They looked to him a hard bunch. Of Mrs Pulteney-Banks he could see little but a cocoon of shawls, but Lady Widdrington was right out in the open, and Lancelot did not like her appearance. The chatelaine of Widdrington Manor was one of those agate-eyed, purposeful, tweed-clad women of whom rural England seems to have a monopoly. She was not unlike what he imagined Queen Elizabeth must have been in her day. A determined and vicious specimen. He marvelled that even a mutual affection for cats could have drawn his gentle uncle to such a one.
As for Percy, he was pure poison. Orange of body and inky-black of soul, he lay stretched out on the rug, exuding arrogance and hate. Lancelot, as I have said, was tolerant of toughness in cats, but there was about this animal none of Webster’s jolly, whole-hearted, swashbuckling rowdiness. Webster was the sort of cat who would charge, roaring and ranting, to dispute with some rival the possession of a decaying sardine, but there was no more vice in him than in the late John L. Sullivan. Percy, on the other hand, for all his sleek exterior, was mean and bitter. He had no music in his soul, and was fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils. One could picture him stealing milk from a sick tabby.
Gradually the pain of Lancelot’s wound began to abate, but it was succeeded by a more spiritual discomfort. It was plain to him that the recent episode had made a bad impression on the two women. They obviously regarded him with suspicion and dislike. The atmosphere was frigid, and conversation proceeded jerkily. Lancelot was glad when the dressing-gong sounded and he could escape to his room.
He was completing the tying of his tie when the door opened and the Bishop of Bongo-Bongo entered.
‘Lancelot, my boy!’ said the Bishop.
‘Uncle!’ cried Lancelot.
They clasped hands. More than four years had passed since these two had met, and Lancelot was shocked at the other’s appearance. When last he had seen him, at the dear old deanery, his Uncle Theodore had been a genial, robust man who wore his gaiters with an air. Now, in some subtle way, he seemed to have shrunk. He looked haggard and hunted. He reminded Lancelot of a rabbit with a good deal on its mind.
The Bishop had moved to the door. He opened it and glanced along the passage. Then he closed it and tip-toeing back, spoke in a cautious undertone.
‘It was good of you to come, my dear boy,’ he said.
‘Why, of course I came,’ replied Lancelot heartily. ‘Are you in trouble of some kind, Uncle Theodore?’
‘In the gravest trouble,’ said the Bishop, his voice a mere whisper. He paused for a moment. ‘You have met Lady Widdrington?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then when I tell you that, unless ceaseless vigilance is exercised, I shall undoubtedly propose marriage to her, you will appreciate my concern.’
Lancelot gaped.
‘But why do you want to do a potty thing like that?’
The Bishop shivered.
‘I do not want to do it, my boy,’ he said. ‘Nothing is further from my wishes. The salient point, however, is that Lady Widdrington and her mother want me to do it, and you must have seen for yourself that they are strong, determined women. I fear the worst.’
He tottered to a chair and dropped into it, shaking. Lancelot regarded him with affectionate pity.
‘When did this start?’ he asked.
‘On board ship,’ said the Bishop. ‘Have you ever made an ocean voyage, Lancelot?’
‘I’ve been to America a couple of times.’
‘That can scarcely be the same thing,’ said the Bishop, musingly. ‘The transatlantic trip is so brief, and you do not get those nights of tropic moon. But even on your voyages to America you must have noticed the peculiar attitude towards the opposite sex induced by the salt air.’
‘They all look good to you at sea,’ agreed Lancelot.
‘Precisely,’ said the Bishop. ‘And during a voyage, especially at night, one finds oneself expressing oneself with a certain warmth which even at the time one tells oneself is injudicious. I fear that on board the liner with Lady Widdrington, my dear boy, I rather let myself go.’
Lancelot began to understand.
‘You shouldn’t have come to her house,’ he said.
‘When I accepted the invitation, I was, if I may use a figure of speech, still under the influence. It was only after I had been here some ten days that I awoke to the realization of my peril.’
‘Why didn’t you leave?’
The Bishop groaned softly.
‘They would not permit me to leave. They countered every excuse. I am virtually a prisoner in this house, Lancelot. The other day I said that I had urgent business with my legal adviser and that this made it imperative that I should proceed instantly to the metropolis.’
‘That should have worked,’ said Lancelot.
‘It did not. It failed completely. They insisted that I invite my legal adviser down here where my business could be discussed in the calm atmosphere of the Hampshire countryside. I endeavoured to reason with them, but they were firm. You do not know how firm women can be,’ said the Bishop, shivering, ‘till you have placed yourself in my unhappy position. How well I appreciate now that powerful image of Shakespeare’s — the one about grappling with hoops of steel. Every time I meet Lady Widdrington, I can feel those hoops drawing me ever closer to her. And the woman repels me even as that cat of hers repels me. Tell me, my boy, to turn for an instant to a pleasanter subject, how is my dear Webster?’
Lancelot hesitated.
‘Full of beans,’ he said.
‘He is on a diet?’ asked the Bishop anxiously. ‘The doctor has ordered vegetarianism?’
‘Just an expression,’ explained Lancelot, ‘to indicate robust-ness.
‘Ah!’ said the Bishop, relieved. ‘And what disposition have you made of him in your absence? He is in good hands, I trust?’
�
�The best,’ said Lancelot. ‘His host is the ablest veterinary in London — Doctor J. C. Robinson of 9 Bott Street, Chelsea, a man not only skilled in his profession but of the highest moral tone.’
‘I knew I could rely on you to see that all was well with him,’ said the Bishop emotionally. ‘Otherwise, I should have shrunk from asking you to leave London and come here —strong shield of defence though you will be to me in my peril.’
‘But what use can I be to you?’ said Lancelot, puzzled.
‘The greatest,’ the Bishop assured him. ‘Your presence will be invaluable. You must keep the closest eye upon Lady Widdrington and myself, and whenever you observe us wandering off together — she is assiduous in her efforts to induce me to visit the rose-garden in her company, for example — you must come hurrying up and detach me with the ostensible purpose of discussing legal matters. By these means we may avert what I had come to regard as the inevitable.’
‘I understand thoroughly,’ said Lancelot. A jolly good scheme. Rely on me.
‘The ruse I have outlined,’ said the Bishop regretfully, ‘involves, as I hinted in my telegram, a certain innocent deception, but at times like this one cannot afford to be too nice in ones methods. By the way, under what name did you make your appearance here?’
‘I used my own.
‘I would have preferred Polkinghorne or Gooch or Withers,’ said the Bishop pensively. ‘They sound more legal. However, that is a small matter. The essential thing is that I may rely on you to — er — to—?’
‘To stick around?’
‘Exactly. To adhere. From now on, my boy, you must be my constant shadow. And if, as I trust, our efforts are rewarded, you will not find me ungrateful. In the course of a lifetime I have contrived to accumulate no small supply of this world’s goods, and if there is any little venture or enterprise for which you require a certain amount of capital—’
‘I am glad,’ said Lancelot, ‘that you brought this up, Uncle Theodore. As it so happens, I am badly in need of five hundred pounds — and could, indeed, do with a thousand.’
The Bishop grasped his hand.
‘See me through this ordeal, my dear boy,’ he said, ‘and you shall have it. For what purpose do you require this money?’
‘I want to get married.’
‘Ugh!’ said the Bishop, shuddering strongly. ‘Well, well,’ he went on, recovering himself, ‘it is no affair of mine. No doubt you know your own mind best. I must confess, however, that the mere mention of the holy state occasions in me an indefinable sinking feeling. But then, of course, you are not proposing to marry Lady Widdrington.’
And nor,’ cried Lancelot heartily, ‘are you, uncle — not while I’m around. Tails up, Uncle Theodore, tails up!’
‘Tails up!’ repeated the Bishop dutifully, but he spoke the words without any real ring of conviction in his voice.
It was fortunate that, in the days which followed, my cousin Edward’s son Lancelot was buoyed up not only by the prospect of collecting a thousand pounds, but also by a genuine sympathy and pity for a well-loved uncle. Otherwise, he must have faltered and weakened.
To a sensitive man — and all artists are sensitive — there are few things more painful than the realization that he is an unwelcome guest. And not even if he had had the vanity of a Narcissus could Lancelot have persuaded himself that he was persona grata at Widdrington Manor.
The march of civilization has done much to curb the natural ebullience of woman. It has brought to her the power of self-restraint. In emotional crises nowadays women seldom give physical expression to their feelings; and neither Lady Widdrington nor her mother, the aged Mrs Pulteney-Banks, actually struck Lancelot or spiked him with a knitting-needle. But there were moments when they seemed only by a miracle of strong will to check themselves from such manifestations of dislike.
As the days went by, and each day the young man skilfully broke up a promising tête-à-tête, the atmosphere grew more tense and electric. Lady Widdrington spoke dreamily of the excellence of the train service between Bottleby-in-the-Vale and London, paying a particularly marked tribute to the 8.45 a.m. express. Mrs Pulteney-Banks mumbled from among her shawls of great gowks — she did not specify more exactly, courteously refraining from naming names — who spent their time idling in the country (where they were not wanted) when their true duty and interest lay in the metropolis. The cat Percy, by word and look, continued to affirm his low opinion of Lancelot.
And, to make matters worse, the young man could see that his principal’s morale was becoming steadily lowered. Despite the uniform success of their manoeuvres, it was evident that the strain was proving too severe for the Bishop. He was plainly cracking. A settled hopelessness had crept into his demeanour. More and more had he come to resemble a rabbit who, fleeing from a stoat, draws no cheer from the reflection that he is all right so far, but flings up his front paws in a gesture of despair, as if to ask what profit there can be in attempting to evade the inevitable.
And, at length, one night when Lancelot had switched off his light and composed himself for sleep, it was switched on again and he perceived his uncle standing by the bedside, with a haggard expression on his fine features.
At a glance Lancelot saw that the good old man had reached breaking-point.
‘Something the matter, uncle?’ he asked.
‘My boy,’ said the Bishop, ‘we are undone.’
‘Oh, surely not?’ said Lancelot, as cheerily as his sinking heart would permit.
‘Undone,’ repeated the Bishop hollowly. ‘To-night Lady Widdrington specifically informed me that she wishes you to leave the house.’
Lancelot drew in his breath sharply Natural optimist though he was, he could not minimize the importance of this news.
‘She has consented to allow you to remain for another two days, and then the butler has instructions to pack your belongings in time for the eight-forty-five express.’
‘H’m!’ said Lancelot.
‘H’m, indeed,’ said the Bishop. ‘This means that I shall be left alone and defenceless. And even with you sedulously watching over me it has been a very near thing once or twice. That afternoon in the summer-house!’
‘And that day in the shrubbery,’ said Lancelot. There was a heavy silence for a moment.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Lancelot.
‘I must think.., think,’ said the Bishop. ‘Well, good night, my boy.’
He left the room with bowed head, and Lancelot, after a long period of wakeful meditation, fell into a fitful slumber.
From this he was aroused some two hours later by an extraordinary commotion somewhere outside his room. The noise appeared to proceed from the hall, and, donning a dressing-gown, he hurried out.
A strange spectacle met his eyes. The entire numerical strength of Widdrington Manor seemed to have assembled in the hall. There was Lady Widdrington in a mauve nêgligê, Mrs Pulteney-Banks in a system of shawls, the butler in pyjamas, a footman or two, several maids, the odd-job man, and the boy who cleaned the shoes. They were gazing in manifest astonishment at the Bishop of Bongo-Bongo, who stood, fully clothed, near the front door, holding in one hand an umbrella, in the other a bulging suit-case.
In a corner sat the cat, Percy, swearing in a quiet undertone. As Lancelot arrived the Bishop blinked and looked dazedly about him.
‘Where am I?’ he said.
Willing voices informed him that he was at Widdrington Manor, Bottleby-in-the-Vale, Hants, the butler going so far as to add the telephone number.
‘I think,’ said the Bishop, ‘I must have been walking in my sleep.’
‘Indeed?’ said Mrs Pulteney-Banks, and Lancelot could detect the dryness in her tone.
‘I am sorry to have been the cause of robbing the household of its well-earned slumber,’ said the Bishop nervously. ‘Perhaps it would be best if I now retired to my room.’
‘Quite,’ said Mrs Pulteney-Banks, and once again her voice crackled dryly.
�
�I’ll come and tuck you up,’ said Lancelot.
‘Thank you, my boy,’ said the Bishop.
Safe from observation in his bedroom, the Bishop sank wearily on the bed, and allowed the umbrella to fall hopelessly to the floor.
‘It is Fate,’ he said. ‘Why struggle further?’
‘What happened?’ asked Lancelot.
‘I thought matters over,’ said the Bishop, ‘and decided that my best plan would be to escape quietly under cover of the night. I had intended to wire to Lady Widdrington on the morrow that urgent matters of personal importance had necessitated a sudden visit to London. And just as I was getting the front door open I trod on that cat.’
‘Percy?’
‘Percy,’ said the Bishop bitterly. ‘He was prowling about in the hall, on who knows what dark errand. It is some small satisfaction to me in my distress to recall that I must have flattened out his tail properly. I came down on it with my full weight, and I am not a slender man. Well,’ he said, sighing drearily, ‘this is the end. I give up. I yield.’
‘Oh, don’t say that, uncle.’
‘I do say that,’ replied the Bishop, with some asperity. ‘What else is there to say?’
It was a question which Lancelot found himself unable to answer. Silently he pressed the other’s hand, and walked out.
In Mrs Pulteney-Banks’s room, meanwhile, an earnest conference was taking place.
‘Walking in his sleep, indeed!’ said Mrs Pulteney-Banks.
Lady Widdrington seemed to take exception to the older woman’s tone.
‘Why shouldn’t he walk in his sleep?’ she retorted.
‘Why should he?’
‘Because he was worrying.’
‘Worrying!’ sniffed Mrs Pulteney-Banks.
‘Yes, worrying,’ said Lady Widdrington, with spirit. ‘And I know why. You don’t understand Theodore as I do.’
‘As slippery as an eel,’ grumbled Mrs Pulteney-Banks. ‘He was trying to sneak off to London.’
‘Exactly,’ said Lady Widdrington. ‘To his cat. You don’t understand what it means to Theodore to be separated from his cat. I have noticed for a long time that he was restless and ill at ease. The reason is obvious. He is pining for Webster. I know what it is myself. That time when Percy was lost for two days I nearly went off my head. Directly after breakfast to-morrow I shall wire to Doctor Robinson of Bott Street, Chelsea, in whose charge Webster now is, to send him down here by the first train. Apart from anything else, he will be nice company for Percy.’
Mulliner Nights Page 6