Meet Mr Mulliner (13 page)

“No, I don’t.”

“Then who the devil are you?”

“My name is Mulliner.”

Lord Biddlecombe rang the bell furiously.

“Fotheringay!”

“Your lordship?”

“You told me this man was the feller I was
expecting from Gusset and Mainprice.”

“He certainly led me to suppose so, your
lordship.”

“Well, he isn’t. His name is Mulliner.
And—this is the point, Fotheringay. This is the core and centre of the
thing—what the blazes does he want?”

“I could not say, your lordship.”

“I came here. Lord Biddlecombe,” said
Lancelot, “to ask your consent to my immediate marriage with your daughter.”

“My daughter?”

“Your daughter.”

“Which daughter?”

“Angela.”

“My daughter Angela?”

“Yes.”

“You want to marry my daughter Angela?”

“I do.”

“Oh? Well, be that as it may,” said Lord
Biddlecombe, “can I interest you in an ingenious little combination mousetrap
and pencil-sharpener?”

Lancelot was for a moment a little taken
aback by the question. Then, remembering what Angela had said of the state of the
family finances, he recovered his poise. He thought no worse of this
Grecian-beaked old man for ekeing out a slender income by acting as agent for
the curious little object which he was now holding out to him. Many of the
aristocracy, he was aware, had been forced into similar commercial enterprises
by recent legislation of a harsh and Socialistic trend.

“I should like it above all things,” he
said, courteously. “I was thinking only this morning that it was just what I
needed.”

“Highly educational. Not a toy.
Fotheringay, book one Mouso-Penso.”

“Very good, your lordship.”

“Are you troubled at all with headaches, Mr
Mulliner?”

“Very seldom.”

“Then what you want is Clark’s Cure for
Corns. Shall we say one of the large bottles?”

“Certainly.”

“Then that—with a year’s subscription to
Our
Tots
— will come to precisely one pound three shillings and sixpence. Thank
you. Will there be anything further?”

“No, thank you. Now, touching the matter
of—”

“You wouldn’t care for a scarf-pin? Any
ties, collars, shirts? No? Then goodbye, Mr Mulliner.”

“But—”

“Fotheringay,” said Lord Biddlecombe, “throw
Mr, Mulliner out.”

As Lancelot scrambled to his feet from the
hard pavement of Berkeley Square, he was conscious of a rush of violent anger
which deprived him momentarily of speech. He stood there, glaring at the house
from which he had been ejected, his face working hideously. So absorbed was he
that it was some time before he became aware that somebody was plucking at his
coat-sleeve.

“Pardon me, sir.”

Lancelot looked round. A stout smooth-faced
man with horn-rimmed spectacles was standing beside him.

“If you could spare me a moment—”

Lancelot shook him off impatiently. He had
no desire at a time like this to chatter with strangers. The man was babbling something,
but the words made no impression upon his mind. With a savage scowl, Lancelot
snatched the fellow’s umbrella from him and, poising it for an instant, flung
it with a sure aim through Lord Biddlecombe’s study window. Then, striding
away, he made for Berkeley Street. Glancing over his shoulder as he turned the
corner, he saw that Fotheringay, the butler, had come out of the house and was
standing over the spectacled man with a certain quiet menace in his demeanour.
He was rolling up his sleeves, and his fingers were twitching a little.

Lancelot dismissed the man from his
thoughts. His whole mind now was concentrated on the coming interview with
Angela. For he had decided that the only thing to do was to seek her out at her
club, where she would doubtless be spending the afternoon, and plead with her
to follow the dictates of her heart and, abandoning parents and wealthy
suitors, come with her true mate to a life of honest poverty sweetened by love
and
vers libre
.

Arriving at the Junior Lipstick, he
inquired for her, and the hall-porter dispatched a boy in buttons to fetch her
from the billiard-room, where she was refereeing the finals of the Debutantes’
Shove-Ha’penny Tournament. And presently his heart leaped as he saw her coming
towards him, looking more like a vision of Springtime than anything human and
earthly. She was smoking a cigarette in a long holder, and as she approached
she inserted a monocle inquiringly in her right eye.

“Hullo, laddie!” she said. “You here? What’s
on the mind besides hair? Talk quick. I’ve only got a minute.”

“Angela,” said Lancelot, “I have to report
a slight hitch in the programme which I sketched out at our last meeting. I
have just been to see my uncle and he has washed his hands of me and cut me out
of his will.”

“Nothing doing in that quarter, you mean?”
said the girl, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully.

“Nothing. But what of it? What matters it
so long as we have each other? Money is dross. Love is everything. Yes, love
indeed is light from heaven, a spark of that immortal fire with angels shared,
by Allah given to lift from earth our low desire. Give me to live with Love
alone, and let the world go dine and dress. If life’s a flower, I choose my
own. ‘Tis Love in Idleness. When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the
mind! Come, Angela, let us read together in a book more moving than the Koran,
more eloquent than Shakespeare, the book of books, the crown of all literature—
Bradshaw’s Railway Guide. We will turn up a page and you shall put your finger
down, and wherever it rests there we will go, to five for ever with our
happiness. Oh, Angela, let us—”

“Sorry,” said the girl. “Purvis wins. The
race goes by the form-book after all. There was a time when I thought you might
be going to crowd him on the rails and get your nose first under the wire with
a quick last-minute dash, but apparently it is not to be. Deepest sympathy, old
crocus, but that’s that.”

Lancelot staggered.

“You mean you intend to marry this Purvis?”

“Pop in about a month from now at St.
George’s, Hanover Square, and see for yourself.”

“You would allow this man to buy you with
his gold?”

“Don’t overlook his diamonds.”

“Does love count for nothing? Surely you
love me?”

“Of course I do, my desert king. When you
do that flat-footed Black Bottom step with the sort of wiggly twiggle at the
end, I feel as if I were eating plovers’ eggs in a new dress to the
accompaniment of heavenly music.” She sighed. “Yes, I love you, Lancelot. And
women are not like men. They do not love lightly. When a woman gives her heart,
it is for ever. The years will pass, and you will turn to another. But I shall
not forget. However, as you haven’t a bob in the world—” She beckoned to the
hall-porter. “Margerison.”

“Your ladyship?”

“Is it raining?”

“No, your ladyship.”

“Are the front steps clean?”

“Yes, your ladyship.”

“Then throw Mr Mulliner out.” Lancelot
leaned against the railings of the Junior Lipstick, and looked out through a
black mist upon a world that heaved and rocked and seemed on the point of
disintegrating into ruin and chaos. And a lot he would care, he told himself
bitterly, if it did. If Seamore Place from the west and Charles Street from the
east had taken a running jump and landed on the back of his neck, it would have
added little or nothing to the turmoil of his mind. In fact, he would rather
have preferred it.

Fury, as it had done on the pavement of
Berkeley Square, robbed him of speech. But his hands, his shoulders, his brows,
his lips, his nose, and even his eyelashes seemed to be charged with a silent
eloquence. He twitched his eyebrows in agony. He twiddled his fingers in
despair. Nothing was left now, he felt, as he shifted the lobe of his left ear
in a nor’-nor’-easterly direction, but suicide. Yes, he told himself,
tightening and relaxing the muscles of his cheeks, all that remained now was
death.

But, even as he reached this awful
decision, a kindly voice spoke in his ear.

“Oh, come now, I wouldn’t say that,” said
the kindly voice.

And Lancelot, turning, perceived the smooth-faced
man who had tried to engage him in conversation in Berkeley Square.

“Say, listen,” said the smooth-faced man,
sympathy in each lens of his horn-rimmed spectacles. “Tempests may lower and a
strong man stand face to face with his soul, but hope, like a healing herb,
will show the silver lining where beckons joy and life and happiness.”

Lancelot eyed him haughtily.

“I am not aware—” he began.

“Say, listen,” said the other, laying a
soothing hand on his shoulder. “I know just what has happened. Mammon has
conquered Cupid, and once more youth has had to learn the old, old lesson that
though the face be fair the heart may be cold and callous.”

“What?”

The smooth-faced man raised his hand.

“That afternoon. Her apartment. ‘No. It
can never be. I shall wed a wealthier wooer.’”

Lancelot’s fury began to dissolve into
awe. There seemed something uncanny in the way this total stranger had diagnosed
the situation. He stared at him, bewildered.

“How did you know?” he gasped.

“You told me.”

“I?”

“Your face did. I could read every word. I’ve
been watching you for the last two minutes, and, say, boy, it was a wow!”

“Who are you?” asked Lancelot.

The smooth-faced man produced from his
waistcoat pocket a fountain-pen, two cigars, a packet of chewing-gum, a small
button bearing the legend, “Boost for Hollywood,” and a visiting-card—in the
order named. Replacing the other articles, he handed the card to Lancelot.

“I’m Isadore Zinzinheimer, kid,” he said.
“I represent the Bigger, Better, and Brighter Motion-Picture Company of
Hollywood, Cal., incorporated last July for sixteen hundred million dollars.
And if you’re thinking of asking me what I want, I want you. Yes, sir! Say,
listen. A fellow that can register the way you can is needed in my business;
and, if you think money can stop me getting him, name the biggest salary you
can think of and hear me laugh. Boy, I use bank-notes for summer underclothing,
and I don’t care how bad you’ve got the gimme’s if only you’ll sign on the
dotted line. Say, listen. A bozo that with a mere twitch of the upper lip can
make it plain to one and all that he loves a haughty aristocrat and that she
has given him the air because his rich uncle, who is a pickle manufacturer
living in Putney, won’t have anything more to do with him, is required out at
Hollywood by the next boat if the movies are ever to become an educational
force in the truest and deepest sense of the words.”

Lancelot stared at him. “You want me to
come to Hollywood?”

“I want you, and I’m going to get you. And
if you think you’re going to prevent me, you’re trying to stop Niagara with a
tennis racket. Boy, you’re great! When you register, you register. Your face is
as chatty as a board of directors. Say, listen. You know the great thing we
folks in the motion-picture industry have got to contend with? The curse of the
motion-picture industry is that in every audience there are from six to seven
young women with adenoids who will insist on reading out the titles as they are
flashed on the screen, filling the rest of the customers with harsh thoughts
and dreams of murder. What we’re trying to collect is stars that can register
so well that titles won’t be needed. And, boy, you’re the king of them. I know
you’re feeling good and sore just now because that beazle in there spumed your
honest love; but forget it. Think of your Art. Think of your Public. Come now,
what shall we say to start with? Five thousand a week? Ten thousand? You call
the shots, and I’ll provide the blank contract and fountain-pen.”

Lancelot needed no further urging. Already
love had turned to hate, and he no longer wished to marry Angela. Instead, he
wanted to make her burn with anguish and vain regrets; and it seemed to him
that Fate was pointing the way. Pretty silly the future Lady Angela Purvis
would feel when she discovered that she had rejected the love of a man with a
salary of ten thousand dollars a week. And fairly foolish her old father would
feel when news reached him of the good thing he had allowed to get away. And
racking would be the remorse, when he returned to London as Civilised Girlhood’s
Sweetheart and they saw him addressing mobs from a hotel balcony, of his Uncle
Jeremiah, of Fotheringay, of Bewstridge, and of Margerison.

A light gleamed in Lancelot’s eye, and he
rolled the tip of his nose in a circular movement.

“You consent?” said Mr Zinzinheimer,
delighted. “‘At-a-boy! Here’s the pen and here’s the contract.”

“Gimme!” said Lancelot.

A benevolent glow irradiated the other’s
spectacles.