Mulliner Nights (26 page)

‘Yes, just
down the road,’ said Augustine. ‘It’s a. Gala Night to-night, if you cared to
look in. Fancy dress optional.’

‘I understand
that he is to be seen there almost nightly. Now, against dancing
qua
dancing,’
proceeded the Lady Bishopess, ‘I have nothing to say. Properly conducted, it is
a pleasing and innocuous pastime. In my own younger days I myself was no mean
exponent of the polka, the schottische and the Roger de Coverley. Indeed, it
was at a Dance in Aid of the ‘Distressed Daughters of Clergymen of the Church
of England Relief Fund that I first met my husband.’

‘Really?’ said
Augustine. ‘Well, cheerio!’ he said, draining his glass of port.

‘But dancing,
as the term is understood nowadays, is another matter. I have no doubt that
what you call a Gala Night would prove, on inspection, to be little less than
one of those orgies where perfect strangers of both sexes unblushingly throw
coloured celluloid balls at one another and in other ways behave in a manner
more suitable to the Cities of the Plain than to our dear England. No, Mr
Mulliner, if this young man Ronald Bracy-Gascoigne is in the habit of
frequenting places of the type of the Home from Home, he is not a fit mate for
a pure young girl like my niece Hypatia. Am I not correct, Percy?’

‘Perfectly
correct, my dear.’

‘Oh, right-ho,
then,’ said Augustine philosophically, and turned the conversation to the
forthcoming Pan-Anglican synod.’

Living in the
country had given Augustine Mulliner the excellent habit of going early to bed.
He had a sermon to compose on the morrow, and in order to be fresh and at his
best in the morning he retired shortly before eleven. And, as he had
anticipated an unbroken eight hours of refreshing sleep, it was with no little
annoyance that he became aware, towards midnight, of a hand on his shoulder,
shaking him. Opening his eyes, he found that the light had been switched on and
that the Bishop of Stortford was standing at his bedside.

‘Hullo!’ said
Augustine. Anything wrong?’

The Bishop
smiled genially, and hummed a bar or two of the hymn for those of riper years
at sea. He was plainly in excellent spirits.

‘Nothing, my
dear fellow,’ he replied. ‘In fact, very much the reverse. How are you,
Mulliner?’

‘I feel fine,
Bish.’

‘I’ll bet you
two chasubles to a hassock you don’t feel as fine as I do,’ said the Bishop. ‘It
must be something in the air of this place. I haven’t felt like this since Boat
Race Night of the year 1893. Wow!’ he continued. ‘Whoopee! How goodly are thy
tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! Numbers, 44, 5.’ And, gripping
the rail of the bed, he endeavoured to balance himself on his hands with his
feet in the air.

Augustine
looked at him with growing concern. He could not rid himself of a curious
feeling that there was something sinister behind this ebullience. Often before,
he had seen his guest in a mood of dignified animation, for the robust
cheerfulness of the other’s outlook was famous in ecclesiastical circles. But
here, surely, was something more than dignified animation.

‘Yes,’
proceeded the Bishop, completing his gymnastics and sitting down on the bed, ‘I
feel like a fighting-cock, Mulliner. I am full of beans. And the idea of
wasting the golden hours of the night in bed seemed so silly that I had to get
up and look in on you for a chat. Now, this is what I want to speak to you
about, my dear fellow. I wonder if you recollect writing to me — round about
Epiphany, it would have been — to tell me of the hit you made in the Boy Scouts
pantomime here? You played Sindbad the Sailor, if I am not mistaken?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, what I
came here to ask, my dear Mulliner, was this. Can you, by any chance, lay your
hand on that Sindbad costume? I want to borrow it, if I may.

‘What for?’

‘Never mind
what for, Mulliner. Sufficient for you to know that motives of the soundest
churchmanship render it essential for me to have that suit.’

‘Very well,
Bish. I’ll find it for you tomorrow.’

‘To-morrow
will not do. This dilatory spirit of putting things off, this sluggish attitude
of
laissez-faire
and procrastination, ‘said the Bishop, frowning, ‘are
scarcely what I expected to find in you, Mulliner. But there,’ he added, more
kindly, ‘let us say no more. Just dig up that Sindbad costume and look slippy
about it, and we will forget the whole matter. What does it look like?’

‘Just an
ordinary sailor-suit, Bish.’

‘Excellent.
Some species of head-gear goes with it, no doubt?’

‘A cap with
H.M.S.
Blotto
on the band.’

‘Admirable.
Then, my dear fellow,’ said the Bishop, beaming, ‘if you will just let me have
it, I will trouble you no further tonight. Your day’s toil in the vineyard has
earned repose. The sleep of the labouring man is sweet. Ecclesiastes, 5, 12.’

As the door
closed behind his guest, Augustine was conscious of a definite uneasiness. Only
once before had he seen his spiritual superior in quite this exalted condition.
That had been two years ago, when they had gone down to Harchester College to
unveil the statue of Lord Hemel of Hempstead. On that occasion, he recollected,
the Bishop, under the influence of an overdose of Buck-U-Uppo, had not been
content with unveiling the statue. He had gone out in the small hours of the
night and painted it pink. Augustine could still recall the surge of emotion
which had come upon him when, leaning out of the window, he had observed the prelate
climbing up the waterspout on his way back to his room. And he still remembered
the sorrowful pity with which he had listened to the other’s lame explanation
that he was a cat belonging to the cook.

‘Sleep, in the
present circumstances, was out of the question. With a pensive sigh, Augustine
slipped on a dressing-gown and went downstairs to his study. It would ease his
mind, he thought, to do a little work on that sermon of his.

Augustine’s
study was on the ground floor, looking on to the garden. It was a lovely night,
and he opened the French windows, the better to enjoy the soothing scents of
the flowers beyond. Then, seating himself at his desk, he began to work.

The task of
composing a sermon which should practically make sense and yet not be above the
heads of his rustic flock was always one that caused Augustine Mulliner to
concentrate tensely. Soon he was lost in his labour and oblivious to everything
but the problem of how to find a word of one syllable that meant
Supralapsarianism. A glaze of preoccupation had come over his eyes, and the tip
of his tongue, protruding from the left corner of his mouth, revolved in slow
circles.

From this
waking trance he emerged slowly to the-realization that somebody was speaking
his name and that he was no longer alone in the room.

Seated in his arm-chair,
her lithe young body wrapped in a green dressing-gown, was Hypatia Wace.

‘Hullo!’ said
Augustine, staring. ‘You here?’

‘Hullo,’ said
Hypatia. ‘Yes, I’m here.’

‘I thought you
had gone to the Home from Home to meet Ronald.’

Hypatia shook
her head.

‘We never made
it,’ she said. ‘Ronnie rang up to say that he had had a private tip that the
place was to be raided to-night. So we thought it wasn’t safe to start
anything.’

‘Quite right,’
said Augustine approvingly. ‘Prudence first. Whatsoever thou takest in hand,
remember the end and thou shalt never do amiss. Ecclesiastes, 7, 36.’

Hypatia dabbed
at her eyes with her handkerchief.

‘I couldn’t
sleep, and I saw the light, so I came down. I’m so miserable, Augustine.’

‘About this
Ronnie business?’

‘Yes.’

‘There, there.
Everything’s going to be hotsy-totsy.’

‘I don’t see
how you make that out. Have you heard Uncle Percy and Aunt Priscilla talk about
Ronnie? They couldn’t be more off the poor, unfortunate fish if he were the
Scarlet Woman of Babylon.’

‘I know. I
know. But, as I hinted this afternoon, I have a little plan. I have been giving
your case a good deal of thought, and I think you will agree with me that it is
your Aunt Priscilla who is the real trouble. Sweeten her, and the Bish will
follow her lead. What she thinks to-day, he always thinks to-morrow. In other
words, if we can win her over, he will give his consent in a minute. Am I wrong
or am I right?’

Hypatia
nodded.

‘Yes,’ she
said. ‘That’s right, as far as it goes. Uncle Percy always does what Aunt
Priscilla tells him to. But how are you going to sweeten her?’

‘With Mulliner’s
Buck-U-Uppo. You remember how often I have spoken to you of the properties of
that admirable tonic. It changes the whole mental outlook like magic. We have
only to slip a few drops into your Aunt Priscilla’s hot milk to-morrow night,
and you will be amazed at the results.’

‘You really
guarantee that?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Then that’s
fine,’ said the girl, brightening visibly, ‘because that’s exactly what I did
this evening. Ronnie was suggesting it when you came up this afternoon, and I
thought I might as well try it. I found the bottle in the cupboard in here, and
I put some in Aunt Priscilla’s hot milk and, in order to make a good job of it,
some in Uncle Percy’s toddy, too.’

An icy hand
seemed to clutch at Augustine’s heart. He began to understand the inwardness of
the recent scene in his bedroom.

‘How much?’ he
gasped.

‘Oh, not much,’
said Hypatia. ‘I didn’t want to poison the dear old things. About a
tablespoonful apiece.’

A shuddering
groan came raspingly from Augustine’s lips.

‘Are you
aware,’ he said in a low, toneless voice, ‘that the medium dose for an adult
elephant is one teaspoonful?’

‘No!’

‘Yes. The most
fearful consequences result from anything in the nature of an overdose.’ He
groaned. ‘No wonder the Bishop seemed a little strange in his manner just now.’

‘Did he seem
strange in his manner?’

Augustine
nodded dully.

‘He came into
my room and did hand-springs on the end of the bed and went away in my Sindbad
the Sailor suit.’

‘What did he
want that for?’

Augustine
shuddered.

‘I scarcely dare
to face the thought,’ he said, ‘but can he have been contemplating a visit to
the Home from Home? It is Gala Night, remember.’

‘Why, of
course,’ said Hypatia. ‘And that must have been why Aunt Priscilla came to me
about an hour ago and asked me if I could lend her my Columbine costume.’

‘She did!’
cried Augustine.

‘Certainly she
did. I couldn’t think what she wanted it for. But now, of course, I see.’

Augustine uttered
a moan that seemed to come from the depths of his soul.

‘Run up to her
room and see if she is still there,’ he said. ‘If I’m not very much mistaken,
we have sown the wind and we shall reap the whirlwind. Hosea, 8, 7.’

The girl
hurried away, and Augustine began to pace the floor feverishly. He had
completed five laps and was beginning a sixth, when there was a noise outside
the French windows and a sailorly form shot through and fell panting into the
arm-chair.

‘Bish!’ cried
Augustine.

The Bishop
waved a hand, to indicate that he would be with him as soon as he had attended
to this matter of taking in a fresh supply of breath, and continued to pant.
Augustine watched him, deeply concerned. There was a shop-soiled look about his
guest. Part of the Sindbad costume had been torn away as if by some
irresistible force, and the hat was missing. His worst fears appeared to have
been realized.

‘Bish!’ he
cried. ‘What has been happening?’

The Bishop sat
up. He was breathing more easily now, and a pleased, almost complacent, look
had come into his face.

‘Woof!’ he
said. ‘Some binge!’

‘Tell me what
happened,’ pleaded Augustine, agitated.

The Bishop
reflected, arranging his facts in chronological order.

‘Well,’ he
said, ‘when I got to the Home from Home, everybody was dancing. Nice orchestra.
Nice tune. Nice floor. So I danced, too.’

‘You danced?’

‘Certainly I
danced, Mulliner,’ replied the Bishop with a dignity that sat well upon him. A
hornpipe. I consider it the duty of the higher clergy on these occasions to set
an example. You didn’t suppose I would go to a place like the Home from Home to
play solitaire? Harmless relaxation is not forbidden, I believe?’

‘But can you
dance?’

‘Can
I
dance?’ said the Bishop. ‘Can I
dance,
Mulliner? Have you ever heard of
Nijinsky?’

‘Yes.’

‘My stage
name,’ said the Bishop.

Augustine
swallowed tensely.

‘Who did you
dance with?’ he asked.

‘At first,’
said the Bishop, ‘I danced alone. But then, most fortunately, my dear wife
arrived, looking perfectly charming in some sort of filmy material, and we
danced together.’

‘But wasn’t
she surprised to see you there?’

‘Not in the
least. Why should she be?’

‘Oh, I don’t
know.’

‘Then why did
you put the question?’

‘I wasn’t
thinking.’

‘Always think
before you speak, Mulliner,’ said the Bishop reprovingly.

The door
opened, and Hypatia hurried in.

‘She’s not—’
She stopped. ‘Uncle!’ she cried.

‘Ah, my dear,’
said the Bishop. ‘But I was telling you, Mulliner. After we had been dancing
for some time, a most annoying thing occurred. Just as we were enjoying
ourselves — everybody cutting up and having a good time — who should come in
but a lot of interfering policemen. A most brusque and unpleasant body of men.
Inquisitive, too. One of them kept asking me my name and address. But I soon
put a stop to all that sort of nonsense. I plugged him in the eye.’