Fine weather jeeves, p.11
Fine Weather, Jeeves, page 11
He asked her to come with him to the Amateur Championship. She shook her head. The date, she said, clashed with her lecture to the East Dulwich Daughters of Minerva Literary and Progress Club on ‘Some Tendencies of Modern Fiction’.
All these things Egbert might have endured, for, despite the fact that she could speak so lightly of the Amateur Championship, he still loved her dearly. But at this point there suddenly floated into his life like a cloud of poison gas the sinister figure of Jno Henderson Banks.
‘Who,’ he asked, suspiciously, one day, as she was giving him ten minutes before hurrying off to address the Amalgamated Mothers of Manchester on ‘The Novel: Should It Teach?’ – ‘was that man I saw you coming down the street with?’
‘That wasn’t a man,’ replied Evangeline. ‘That was my literary agent.’
And so it proved. Jno Henderson Banks was now in control of Evangeline’s affairs. This outstanding blot on the public weal was a sort of human charlotte russe with tortoiseshell-rimmed eye-glasses and a cooing, reverential manner towards his female clients. He had a dark, romantic face, a lissom figure, one of those beastly cravat things that go twice round the neck, and a habit of beginning his remarks with the words ‘Dear lady’. The last man, in short, whom a fiancé would wish to have hanging about his betrothed. If Evangeline had to have a literary agent, the sort of literary agent Egbert would have selected for her would have been one of those stout, pie-faced literary agents who chew half-smoked cigars and wheeze as they enter the editorial sanctum.
A jealous frown flitted across his face.
‘Looked a bit of a Gawd-help-us to me,’ he said, critically.
‘Mr Banks,’ retorted Evangeline, ‘is a superb man of business.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ said Egbert, sneering visibly.
And there for a time the matter rested.
But not for long. On the following Monday morning Egbert called Evangeline up on the telephone and asked her to lunch.
‘I am sorry,’ said Evangeline. ‘I am engaged to lunch with Mr Banks.’
‘Oh?’ said Egbert.
‘Yes,’ said Evangeline.
‘Ah!’ said Egbert.
Two days later Egbert called Evangeline up on the telephone and invited her to dinner.
‘I am sorry,’ said Evangeline. ‘I am dining with Mr Banks.’
‘Ah?’ said Egbert.
‘Yes,’ said Evangeline.
‘Oh!’ said Egbert.
Three days after that Egbert arrived at Evangeline’s flat with tickets for the theatre.
‘I am sorry—’ began Evangeline.
‘Don’t say it,’ said Egbert. ‘Let me guess. You are going to the theatre with Mr Banks?’
‘Yes, I am. He has seats for the first night of Tchekov’s Six Corpses in Search of an Undertaker.’
‘He has, has he?’
‘Yes, he has.’
‘He has, eh?’
‘Yes, he has.’
Egbert took a couple of turns about the room, and for a space there was silence except for the sharp grinding of his teeth. Then he spoke.
‘Touching lightly on this gumboil Banks,’ said Egbert, ‘I am the last man to stand in the way of your having a literary agent. If you must write novels, that is a matter between you and your God. And, if you do see fit to write novels, I suppose you must have a literary agent. But – and this is where I want you to follow me very closely – I cannot see the necessity of employing a literary agent who looks like Lord Byron; a literary agent who coos in your left ear, a literary agent who not only addresses you as “Dear lady”, but appears to find it essential to the conduct of his business to lunch, dine, and go to the theatre with you daily.’
‘I—’
Egbert held up a compelling hand.
‘I have not finished,’ he said. ‘Nobody,’ he proceeded, ‘could call me a narrow-minded man. If Jno Henderson Banks looked a shade less like one of the great lovers of history, I would have nothing to say. If, when he talked business to a client, Jno Henderson Banks’s mode of vocal delivery were even slightly less reminiscent of a nightingale trilling to its mate, I would remain silent. But he doesn’t, and it isn’t. And such being the case, and taking into consideration the fact that you are engaged to me, I feel it my duty to instruct you to see this drooping flower far more infrequently. In fact, I would advocate expunging him altogether. If he wishes to discuss business with you, let him do it over the telephone. And I hope he gets the wrong number.’
Evangeline had risen, and was facing him with flashing eyes.
‘Is that so?’ she said.
‘That,’ said Egbert, ‘is so.’
‘Am I a serf?’ demanded Evangeline.
‘A what?’ said Egbert.
‘A serf. A slave. A peon. A creature subservient to your lightest whim.’
Egbert considered the point.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t think so.’
‘No,’ said Evangeline, ‘I am not. And I refuse to allow you to dictate to me in the choice of my friends.’
Egbert stared blankly.
‘You mean, after all I have said, that you intend to let this blighted chrysanthemum continue to frisk round?’
‘I do.’
‘You seriously propose to continue chummy with this revolting piece of cheese?’
‘I do.’
‘You absolutely and literally decline to give this mistake of Nature the push?’
‘I do.’
‘Well!’ said Egbert.
A pleading note came into his voice.
‘But, Evangeline, it is your Egbert who speaks.’
The haughty girl laughed a hard, bitter laugh.
‘Is it?’ she said. She laughed again. ‘Do you imagine that we are still engaged?’
‘Aren’t we?’
‘We certainly aren’t. You have insulted me, outraged my finest feelings, given an exhibition of malignant tyranny which makes me thankful that I have realised in time the sort of man you are. Goodbye, Mr Mulliner!’
‘But listen—’ began Egbert.
‘Go!’ said Evangeline. ‘Here is your hat.’
She pointed imperiously to the door. A moment later she had banged it behind him.
It was a grim-faced Egbert Mulliner who entered the elevator, and a grimmer-faced Egbert Mulliner who strode down Sloane Street. His dream, he realised, was over. He laughed harshly as he contemplated the fallen ruins of the castle which he had built in the air.
Well, he still had his work.
In the offices of the Weekly Booklover it was whispered that a strange change had come over Egbert Mulliner. He seemed a stronger, tougher man. His editor, who since Egbert’s illness had behaved towards him with a touching humanity, allowing him to remain in the office and write paragraphs about Forthcoming Books while others, more robust, were sent off to interview the female novelists, now saw in him a right-hand man on whom he could lean.
When a column on ‘Myrtle Bootle Among Her Books’ was required, it was Egbert whom he sent out into the No Man’s Land of Bloomsbury. When young Eustace Johnson, a novice who ought never to have been entrusted with such a dangerous commission, was found walking round in circles and bumping his head against the railings of Regent’s Park after twenty minutes with Laura La Motte Grindlay, the great sex novelist, it was Egbert who was flung into the breach. And Egbert came through, wan but unscathed.
It was during this period that he interviewed Mabelle Grangerson and Mrs Goole-Plank on the same afternoon – a feat which is still spoken of with bated breath in the offices of the Weekly Booklover. And not only in the Booklover offices. To this day ‘Remember Mulliner!’ is the slogan with which every literary editor encourages the faint-hearted who are wincing and hanging back.
‘Was Mulliner afraid?’ they say. ‘Did Mulliner quail?’
And so it came about that when a ‘Chat with Evangeline Pembury’ was needed for the big Christmas Special Number, it was of Egbert that his editor thought first. He sent for him.
‘Ah, Mulliner!’
‘Well, chief?’
‘Stop me if you’ve heard this one before,’ said the editor, ‘but it seems there was once an Irishman, a Scotsman, and a Jew—’
Then, the formalities inseparable from an interview between editor and assistant concluded, he came down to business.
‘Mulliner,’ he said, in that kind, fatherly way of his which endeared him to all his staff, ‘I am going to begin by saying that it is in your power to do a big thing for the dear old paper. But after that I must tell you that, if you wish, you can refuse to do it. You have been through a hard time lately, and if you feel yourself unequal to this task, I shall understand. But the fact is, we have got to have a “Chat with Evangeline Pembury” for our Christmas Special.’
He saw the young man wince, and nodded sympathetically.
‘You think it would be too much for you? I feared as much. They say she is the worst of the lot. Rather haughty and talks about uplift. Well, never mind. I must see what I can do with young Johnson. I hear he has quite recovered now, and is anxious to re-establish himself. Quite. I will send Johnson.’
Egbert Mulliner was himself again now.
‘No, chief,’ he said. ‘I will go.’
‘You will?’
‘I will.’
‘We shall need a column and a half.’
‘You shall have a column and a half.’
The editor turned away, to hide a not unmanly emotion.
‘Do it now, Mulliner,’ he said, ‘and get it over.’
A strange riot of emotion seethed in Egbert Mulliner’s soul as he pressed the familiar bell which he had thought never to press again. Since their estrangement he had seen Evangeline once or twice, but only in the distance. Now he was to meet her face to face. Was he glad or sorry? He could not say. He only knew he loved her still.
He was in the sitting room. How cosy it looked, how impregnated with her presence. There was the sofa on which he had so often sat, his arm about her waist—
A footstep behind him warned him that the time had come to don the mask. Forcing his features into an interviewer’s hard smile, he turned.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said.
She was thinner. Either she had found success wearing, or she had been on the eighteen-day diet. Her beautiful face seemed drawn, and, unless he was mistaken, careworn.
He fancied that for an instant her eyes had lit up at the sight of him, but he preserved the formal detachment of a stranger.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Pembury,’ he said. ‘I represent the Weekly Booklover. I understand that my editor has been in communication with you and that you have kindly consented to tell us a few things which may interest our readers regarding your art and aims.’
She bit her lip.
‘Will you take a seat, Mr—?’
‘Mulliner,’ said Egbert.
‘Mr Mulliner,’ said Evangeline. ‘Do sit down. Yes, I shall be glad to tell you anything you wish.’
Egbert sat down.
‘Are you fond of dogs, Miss Pembury?’ he asked.
‘I adore them,’ said Evangeline.
‘I should like, a little later, if I may,’ said Egbert, ‘to secure a snapshot of you being kind to a dog. Our readers appreciate these human touches, you understand.’
‘Oh, quite,’ said Evangeline. ‘I will send out for a dog. I love dogs – and flowers.’
‘You are happiest among your flowers, no doubt?’
‘On the whole, yes.’
‘You sometimes think they are the souls of little children who have died in their innocence?’
‘Frequently.’
‘And now,’ said Egbert, licking the tip of his pencil, ‘perhaps you would tell me something about your ideals. How are the ideals?’
Evangeline hesitated.
‘Oh, they’re fine,’ she said.
‘The novel,’ said Egbert, ‘has been described as among this age’s greatest instruments for uplift? How do you check up on that?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Of course, there are novels and novels.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Are you contemplating a successor to Parted Ways?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Would it be indiscreet, Miss Pembury, to inquire to what extent it has progressed?’
‘Oh, Egbert!’ said Evangeline.
There are some speeches before which dignity melts like ice in August, resentment takes the full count, and the milk of human kindness surges back into the aching heart as if the dam had burst. Of these, ‘Oh, Egbert!’, especially when accompanied by tears, is one of the most notable.
Evangeline’s ‘Oh, Egbert!’ had been accompanied by a Niagara of tears. She had flung herself on the sofa and was now chewing the cushion in an ecstasy of grief. She gulped like a bull-pup swallowing a chunk of steak. And, on the instant, Egbert Mulliner’s adamantine reserve collapsed as if its legs had been knocked from under it. He dived for the sofa. He clasped her hand. He stroked her hair. He squeezed her waist. He patted her shoulder. He massaged her spine.
‘Evangeline!’
‘Oh, Egbert!’
The only flaw in Egbert Mulliner’s happiness, as he knelt beside her, babbling comforting words, was the gloomy conviction that Evangeline would certainly lift the entire scene, dialogue and all, and use it in her next novel. And it was for this reason that, when he could manage it, he censored his remarks to some extent.
But, as he warmed to his work, he forgot caution altogether. She was clinging to him, whispering his name piteously. By the time he had finished, he had committed himself to about two thousand words of a nature calculated to send Mainprice and Peabody screaming with joy about their office.
He refused to allow himself to worry about it. What of it? He had done his stuff, and if it sold a hundred thousand copies – well, let it sell a hundred thousand copies. Holding Evangeline in his arms, he did not care if he was copyrighted in every language, including the Scandinavian.
‘Oh, Egbert!’ said Evangeline.
‘My darling!’
‘Oh, Egbert, I’m in such trouble.’
‘My angel! What is it?’
Evangeline sat up and tried to dry her eyes.
‘It’s Mr Banks.’
A savage frown darkened Egbert Mulliner’s face. He told himself that he might have foreseen this. A man who wore a tie that went twice round the neck was sure, sooner or later, to inflict some hideous insult on helpless womanhood. Add tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses, and you had what practically amounted to a fiend in human shape.
‘I’ll murder him,’ he said. ‘I ought to have done it long ago, but one keeps putting these things off. What has he done? Did he force his loathsome attentions on you? Has that tortoiseshell-rimmed satyr been trying to kiss you, or something?’
‘He has been fixing me up solid.’
Egbert blinked.
‘Doing what?’
‘Fixing me up solid. With the magazines. He has arranged for me to write three serials and I don’t know how many short stories.’
‘Getting you contracts, you mean?’
Evangeline nodded tearfully.
‘Yes. He seems to have fixed me up solid with almost everybody. And they’ve been sending me cheques in advance – hundreds of them. What am I to do? Oh, what am I to do?’
‘Cash them,’ said Egbert.
‘But afterwards?’
‘Spend the money.’
‘But after that?’
Egbert reflected.
‘Well, it’s a nuisance, of course,’ he said, ‘but after that I suppose you’ll have to write the stuff.’
Evangeline sobbed like a lost soul.
‘But I can’t! I’ve been trying for weeks, and I can’t write anything. And I never shall be able to write anything. I don’t want to write anything. I hate writing. I don’t know what to write about. I wish I were dead.’
She clung to him.
‘I got a letter from him this morning. He has just fixed me up solid with two more magazines.’
Egbert kissed her tenderly. Before he had become an assistant editor, he, too, had been an author, and he understood. It is not the being paid money in advance that jars the sensitive artist: it is the having to work.
‘What shall I do?’ cried Evangeline.
‘Drop the whole thing,’ said Egbert. ‘Evangeline, do you remember your first drive at golf? I wasn’t there, but I bet it travelled about five hundred yards and you wondered what people meant when they talked about golf being a difficult game. After that, for ages, you couldn’t do anything right. And then, gradually, after years of frightful toil, you began to get the knack of it. It is just the same with writing. You’ve had your first drive, and it has been some smite. Now, if you’re going to stick to it, you’ve got to do the frightful toil. What’s the use? Drop it.’
‘And return the money?’
Egbert shook his head.
‘No,’ he said, firmly. ‘There you go too far. Stick to the money like glue. Clutch it with both hands. Bury it in the garden and mark the spot with a cross.’
‘But what about the stories? Who is going to write them?’
Egbert smiled a tender smile.
‘I am,’ he said. ‘Before I saw the light, I, too, used to write stearine bilge just like Parted Ways. When we are married, I shall say to you, if I remember the book of words correctly, “With all my worldly goods I thee endow.” They will include three novels I was never able to kid a publisher into printing, and at least twenty short stories no editor would accept. I give them to you freely. You can have the first of the novels tonight, and we will sit back and watch Mainprice and Peabody sell half a million copies.’
‘Oh, Egbert!’ said Evangeline.
‘Evangeline!’ said Egbert.
Gala Night
The bar-parlour of the Angler’s Rest was fuller than usual. Our local race meeting had been held during the afternoon, and this always means a rush of custom. In addition to the habitués, that faithful little band of listeners which sits nightly at the feet of Mr Mulliner, there were present some half a dozen strangers. One of these, a fair-haired young Stout and Mild, wore the unmistakable air of a man who has not been fortunate in his selections. He sat staring before him with dull eyes and a drooping jaw, and nothing that his companions could do seemed able to cheer him up.
