Antic Hay, Aldous Huxley [whitelam books .txt] 📗

you, there’s money in it, Mr. Lydgate⁠—Mr. Lypiatt. Money!” Mr. Boldero paused a moment dramatically. “Well,” he went on, “our idea was to launch the new product with a good swingeing publicity campaign. Spend a few thousands in the papers and then get it good and strong into the Underground and on the hoardings, along with Owbridge’s and John Bull and the Golden Ballot. Now, for that, Mr. Lypiatt, we shall need, as you can well imagine, a few good striking pictures. Mr. Gumbril mentioned your name and suggested I should come and see you to find out if you would perhaps be agreeable to lending us your talent for this work. And I may add, Mr. Lypiatt,” he spoke with real warmth, “that having seen this example of your work”⁠—he pointed to the portrait of Mrs. Viveash⁠—“I feel that you would be eminently capable of.⁠ ⁠…”

He did not finish the sentence; for at this moment Lypiatt leapt up from his chair and, making a shrill, inarticulate, animal noise, rushed on the financier, seized him with both hands by the throat, shook him, threw him to the floor, then picked him up again by the coat collar and pushed him towards the door, kicking him as he went. A final kick sent Mr. Boldero tobogganing down the steep stairs. Lypiatt ran down after him; but Mr. Boldero had picked himself up, had opened the front door, slipped out, slammed it behind him, and was running up the mews before Lypiatt could get to the bottom of the stairs.

Lypiatt opened the door and looked out. Mr. Boldero was already far away, almost at the Piranesian arch. He watched him till he was out of sight, then went upstairs again and threw himself face downwards on his bed.

XX

Zoe ended the discussion by driving half an inch of penknife into Coleman’s left arm and running out of the flat, slamming the door behind her. Coleman was used to this sort of thing; this sort of thing, indeed, was what he was there for. Carefully he pulled out the penknife which had remained sticking in his arm. He looked at the blade and was relieved to see that it wasn’t so dirty as might have been expected. He found some cotton-wool, mopped up the blood as it oozed out, and dabbed the wound with iodine. Then he set himself to bandage it up. But to tie a bandage round one’s own left arm is not easy. Coleman found it impossible to keep the lint in place, impossible to get the bandage tight enough. At the end of a quarter of an hour he had only succeeded in smearing himself very copiously with blood, and the wound was still unbound. He gave up the attempt and contented himself with swabbing up the blood as it came out.

“And forthwith came there out blood and water,” he said aloud, and looked at the red stain on the cotton wool. He repeated the words again and again, and at the fiftieth repetition burst out laughing.

The bell in the kitchen suddenly buzzed. Who could it be? He went to the front door and opened it. On the landing outside stood a tall slender young woman with slanting Chinese eyes and a wide mouth, elegantly dressed in a black frock piped with white. Keeping the cotton-wool still pressed to his bleeding arm, Coleman bowed as gracefully as he could.

“Do come in,” he said. “You are just in the nick of time. I am on the point of bleeding to death. And forthwith came there out blood and water. Enter, enter,” he added, seeing the young woman still standing irresolutely on the threshold.

“But I wanted to see Mr. Coleman,” she said, stammering a little and showing her embarrassment by blushing.

“I am Mr. Coleman.” He took the cotton-wool for a moment from his arm and looked with the air of a connoisseur at the blood on it. “But I shall very soon cease to be that individual unless you come and tie up my wounds.”

“But you’re not the Mr. Coleman I thought you were,” said the young lady, still more embarrassed. “You have a beard, it is true; but.⁠ ⁠…”

“Then I must resign myself to quit this life, must I?” He made a gesture of despair, throwing out both hands, “Out, out brief Coleman. Out, damned spot,” and he made as though to close the door.

The young lady checked him. “If you really need tying up,” she said, “I’ll do it of course. I passed my First-Aid Exam, in the war.”

Coleman reopened the door. “Saved!” he said. “Come in.”

It had been Rosie’s original intention yesterday to go straight on from Mr. Mercaptan’s to Toto’s. She would see him at once, she would ask him what he meant by playing that stupid trick on her. She would give him a good talking to. She would even tell him that she would never see him again. But, of course, if he showed himself sufficiently contrite and reasonably explanatory, she would consent⁠—oh, very reluctantly⁠—to take him back into favour. In the free, unprejudiced circles in which she now moved, this sort of joke, she imagined, was a mere trifle. It would be absurd to quarrel seriously about it. But still, she was determined to give Toto a lesson.

When, however, she did finally leave Mr. Mercaptan’s delicious boudoir, it was too late to think of going all the way to Pimlico, to the address which Mr. Mercaptan had given her. She decided to put it off till the next day.

And so the next day, duly, she had set out for Pimlico⁠—to Pimlico, and to see a man called Coleman! It seemed rather dull and second-rate after Sloane Street and Mr. Mercaptan. Poor Toto!⁠—the sparkle of Mr. Mercaptan had made him look rather tarnished. That essay on the “Jus Primæ Noctis”⁠—ah! Walking through the unsavoury mazes of Pimlico, she thought of it, and, thinking of it, smiled. Poor Toto! And also, she mustn’t forget, stupid, malicious, idiotic Toto! She had made up her mind exactly what she should say to him;