Mulliner Nights (14 page)

He lost no
time in clipping out the coupon and forwarding it with a covering cheque to the
address given in the advertisement. And two days later a bulky package
arrived, and he settled down to an intensive course of study.

By the time
Sacheverell had mastered the first six lessons, a feeling of perplexity had
begun to steal over him. He knew nothing, of course, of the methods of
Correspondence Schools and was prepared to put his trust blindly in his unseen
tutor; but it did strike him as odd that a course on Scientific Agriculture
should have absolutely no mention of Scientific Agriculture in it.

Though
admittedly a child in these matters, he had supposed that that was one of the
first topics on which the thing would have touched.

But such was
not the case. The lessons contained a great deal of advice about deep breathing
and regular exercise and cold baths and Yogis and the training of the mind, but
on the subject of Scientific Agriculture they were vague and elusive. They
simply would not come to the point. They said nothing about sheep, nothing
about manure, and from the way they avoided mangold-wurzels you might have
thought they considered these wholesome vegetables almost improper.

At first,
Sacheverell accepted this meekly, as he accepted everything in life. But
gradually, as his reading progressed, a strange sensation of annoyance began to
grip him. He found himself chafing a good deal, particularly in the mornings.
And when the seventh lesson arrived and still there was this absurd coyness on
the part of his instructors to come to grips with Scientific Agriculture, he
decided to put up with it no longer. He was enraged. These people, he
considered, were deliberately hornswoggling him. He resolved to go round and
see them and put it to them straight that he was not the sort of main to be
trifled with in this fashion.

The
headquarters of the Leave-It-To-Us Correspondence School were in a large
building off Kingsway. Sacheverell, passing through the front door like an east
wind, found himself confronted by a small boy with a cold and supercilious
eye.

‘Yes?’ said
the boy, with deep suspicion. He seemed to be a lad who distrusted his
fellow-men and attributed the worst motives to their actions.

Sacheverell
pointed curtly to a door on which was the legend ‘Jno. B. Philbrick, Mgr’.

‘I wish to see
Jno. B. Philbrick, Mgr,’ he said.

The boy’s lip
curled contemptuously. He appeared to be on the point of treating the
application with silent disdain. Then he vouchsafed a single, scornful word.

‘Can’tseeMrPhilbrickwithoutanappointment,’
he said.

A few weeks
before, a rebuff like this would have sent Sacheverell stumbling blushfully out
of the place, tripping over his feet. But now he merely brushed the child aside
like a feather, and strode to the inner office.

A bald-headed
man with a walrus moustache was seated at the desk.

‘Jno.
Philbrick?’ said Sacheverell brusquely.

‘That is my
name.

‘Then listen
to me, Philbrick,’ said Sacheverell. ‘I paid fifteen guineas in advance for a
course on Scientific Agriculture. I have here the seven lessons which you have
sent me to date, and if you can find a single word in them that has anything
even remotely to do with Scientific Agriculture, I will eat my hat — and yours,
too, Philbrick.’

The manager
had produced a pair of spectacles and through them was gazing at the mass of
literature which Sacheverell had hurled before him. He raised his eyebrows and
clicked his tongue.

‘Stop
clicking!’ said Sacheverell. ‘I came here to be explained to, not clicked at.’

‘Dear me!’
said the manager. ‘How very curious.

Sacheverell
banged the desk forcefully.

‘Philbrick,’
he shouted, ‘do not evade the issue. It is not curious. It is scandalous,
monstrous, disgraceful, and I intend to take very strong steps. I shall give
this outrage the widest and most pitiless publicity, and spare no effort to
make a complete
exposé.

The manager
held up a deprecating hand.

‘Please!’ he
begged. ‘I appreciate your indignation, Mr … Mulliner? Thank you… I
appreciate your indignation, Mr Mulliner. I sympathize with your concern. But I
can assure you that there has been no desire to deceive. Merely an unfortunate
blunder on the part of our clerical staff, who shall be severely reprimanded.
What has happened is that the wrong course has been sent to you.

Sacheverell’s
righteous wrath cooled a little.

‘Oh?’ he said,
somewhat mollified. ‘I see. The wrong course, eh?’

‘The wrong
course,’ said Mr Philbrick. ‘And,’ he went on, with a sly glance at his
visitor, ‘I think you will agree with me that such immediate results are a
striking testimony to the efficacy of our system.’

Sacheverell
was puzzled.

‘Results?’ he
said. ‘How do you mean, results?’

The manager
smiled genially.

‘What you have
been studying for the past few weeks, Mr Mulliner,’ he said, ‘is our course on
How to Acquire Complete Self-Confidence and an Iron Will.’

A strange
elation filled Sacheverell Mulliner’s bosom as he left the offices of the
Correspondence School. It is always a relief to have a mystery solved which has
been vexing one for any considerable time: and what Jno. Philbrick had told him
made several puzzling things clear. For quite a little while he had been aware
that a change had taken place in his relationship to the world about him. He
recalled taxi-cabmen whom he had looked in the eye and made to wilt; intrusive
pedestrians to whom he had refused to yield an inch of the pavement, where
formerly he would have stepped meekly aside. These episodes had perplexed him
at the time, but now everything was explained.

But what
principally pleased him was the thought that he was now relieved of the tedious
necessity of making a study of Scientific Agriculture, a subject from which his
artist soul had always revolted. Obviously, a man with a will as iron as his
would be merely wasting time boning up a lot of dull facts simply with the view
of pleasing Sir Redvers Branksome. Sir Redvers Branksome, felt Sacheverell,
would jolly well take him as he was, and like it.

He anticipated
no trouble from that quarter. In his mind’s eye he could see himself lolling at
the dinner-table at the Towers and informing the Colonel over a glass of port
that he proposed, at an early date, to marry his daughter. Possibly, purely out
of courtesy, he would make the graceful gesture of affecting to seek the old
buster’s approval of the match: but at the slightest sign of obduracy he would
know what to do about it.

Well pleased,
Sacheverell was walking to the Carlton Hotel, where he intended to lunch, when,
just as he entered the Hay-market, he stopped abruptly, and a dark frown came
into his resolute face.

A cab had
passed him, and in that cab was sitting his fiancée, Muriel Branksome. And
beside her, with a grin on his beastly face, was a young man in a Brigade of
Guards tie. They had the air of a couple on their way to enjoy a spot of lunch
somewhere.

That
Sacheverell should have deduced immediately that the young man was Muriel’s
cousin, Bernard, was due to the fact that, like all the Mulliners, he was
keenly intuitive. That he should have stood, fists clenched and eyes blazing,
staring after the cab, we may set down to the circumstance that the spectacle
of these two, squashed together in carefree proximity on the seat of a taxi,
had occasioned in him the utmost rancour and jealousy.

Muriel, as she
had told him, had once been engaged to her cousin, and the thought that they
were still on terms of such sickening intimacy acted like acid on Sacheverell’s
soul.

Hobnobbing in
cabs, by Jove! Revelling
tête-à-tête
at luncheon-tables, forsooth! Just
the sort of goings-On that got the Cities of the Plain so disliked. He saw
clearly that Muriel was a girl who would have to be handled firmly. There was
nothing of the possessive Victorian male about him — he flattered himself that
he was essentially modern and broadminded in his outlook — but if Muriel
supposed that he was going to stand by like a clam while she went on Babylonian
orgies all over the place with pop-eyed, smirking, toothbrush-moustached
Guardees, she was due for a rude awakening.

And
Sacheverell Mulliner did not mean maybe.

For an
instant, he toyed with the idea of hailing another cab and following them. Then
he thought better of it. He was enraged, but still master of himself. When he
ticked Muriel off, as he intended to do, he wished to tick her off alone. If
she was in London, she was, no doubt, staying with her aunt in Ennismore
Gardens. He would get a bit of food and go on there at his leisure.

The butler at
Ennismore Gardens informed Sacheverell, when he arrived, that Muriel was, as he
supposed, visiting the house, though for the moment out to lunch. Sacheverell
waited, and presently the door of the drawing-room opened and the girl came in.

She seemed
delighted to see him.

‘Hullo, old
streptococcus,’ she said. ‘Here you are, eh? I rang you up this morning to ask
you to give me a bite of lunch, but you were out, so I roped in Bernard instead
and we buzzed off to the Savoy in a taximeter.’

‘I saw you,’
said Sacheverell coldly.

‘Did you? You
poor chump, why didn’t you yell?’

‘I had no
desire to meet your Cousin Bernard,’ said Sacheverell, still speaking in the
same frigid voice. And, while we are on this distasteful subject, I must
request you not to see him again.’

The girl
stared.

‘You must do
how much?’

‘I must
request you not to see him again,’ repeated Sacheverell. ‘I do not wish you to
continue your Cousin Bernard’s acquaintance. I do not like his looks, nor do I
approve of my fiancée lunching alone with young men.

Muriel seemed
bewildered.

‘You want me
to tie a can to poor old Bernard?’ she gasped.

‘I insist upon
it.’

‘But, you poor
goop, we were children together.’

Sacheverell
shrugged his shoulders.

‘If,’ he said,
‘you survived knowing Bernard as a child, why not be thankful and let it go at
that? Why deliberately come up for more punishment by seeking him out now?
Well, there it is,’ said Sacheverell crisply. ‘I have told you my wishes, and
you will respect them.’

Muriel
appeared to be experiencing a difficulty in finding words. She was bubbling
like a saucepan on the point of coming to the boil. Nor could any unprejudiced
critic have blamed her for her emotion. The last time she had seen Sacheverell,
it must be remembered, he had been the sort of man who made a shrinking violet
look like a Chicago gangster. And here he was now, staring her in the eye and
shooting off his head for all the world as if he were Mussolini informing the
Italian Civil Service of a twelve per cent cut in their weekly salary.

And now,’ said
Sacheverell, ‘there is another matter of which I wish to speak. I am anxious to
see your father as soon as possible, in order to announce our engagement to
him. It is quite time that he learned what my plans are. I shall be glad,
therefore, if you will make arrangements to put me up at the Towers this coming
week-end. Well,’ concluded Sacheverell, glancing at his watch, ‘I must be
going. I have several matters to attend to, and your luncheon with your cousin
was so prolonged that the hour is already late. Good-bye. We shall meet on
Saturday.’

Sacheverell
was feeling at the top of his form when he set out for Branksome Towers on the
following Saturday. The eighth lesson of his course on how to develop an iron
will had reached him by the morning post, and he studied it on the train. It
was a pippin. It showed you exactly how Napoleon had got that way, and there
was some technical stuff about narrowing the eyes and fixing them keenly on
people which alone was worth the money. He alighted at Market Branksome Station
in a glow of self-confidence. The only thing that troubled him was a fear lest
Sir Redvers might madly attempt anything in the nature of opposition to his
plans. He did not wish to be compelled to scorch the poor old man to a crisp at
his own dinner-table.

He was
meditating on this and resolving to remember to do his best to let the Colonel
down as lightly as possible, when a voice spoke his name.

‘Mr Mulliner?’

He turned. He
supposed he was obliged to believe his eyes.

And, if he did
believe his eyes, the man standing beside him was none other than Muriel’s
cousin Bernard.

‘They sent me
down to meet you,’ continued Bernard. ‘I’m the old boy’s nephew. Shall we
totter to the car?’

Sacheverell
was beyond speech. The thought that, after what he had said, Muriel should have
invited her cousin to the Towers had robbed him of utterance. He followed the
other to the car in silence.

In the
drawing-room of the Towers they found Muriel, already dressed for dinner,
brightly shaking up cocktails.

‘So you got
here?’ said Muriel.

At another
time her manner might have struck Sacheverell as odd. There was an unwonted
hardness in it. Her eye, though he was too preoccupied to notice it, had a
dangerous gleam.

‘Yes,’ he
replied shortly. ‘I got here.’

‘The Bish.
arrived yet?’ asked Bernard.

‘Not yet.
Father had a telegram from him. He won’t be along till late-ish. The Bishop of
Bognor is coming to confirm a bevy of the local yokels,’ said Muriel, turning
to Sacheverell.

‘Oh?’ said
Sacheverell. He was not interested in Bishops. They left him cold. He was
interested in nothing but her explanation of how her repellent cousin came to
be here to-night in defiance of his own expressed wishes.