XXIII.

THE PRETENDER

In matrimony, Frank and Cynthia both proved themselves to be inveterate individualists; they would be untrue to each other several times every day, so that when, exhausted and full of champagne, they returned to their flat in the morning, they could but stare and feebly giggle at each other. Thus far their partnership was a success.

Frank, whose mind began to run on the rails of publicity, which he discovered to be an unparallelled art, sometimes, when her condition made it possible, discoursed on it before his wife. “There are,” he would say, striding about in his dressing-gown out of which he rarely emerged before dusk, “no end of ways of advertising oneself.”

“For example?” she questioned.

“For example, thanking prominent people extravagantly in the press for the least little thing they may have done for you. It’s a graceful and lucrative self-advertisement. If, for example, the Duke of Bamboo should happen to nod to you on a dark day, having mistaken you for someone else, write to _The Times_ that you have been unspeakably touched by the kind and thoughtful attitude of his Royal Highness to yourself and your works. Next day other newspapers, with the befuddled inaccuracy of the daily press, will comment on the incident under some such head lines: ‘Novelist Discovered and Helped by the Duke of Bamboo. His Royal Highness as Reader and Critic.’ Furthermore, the Duke, seeing it, might feel really flattered and demand to see the actual book, and, old and of infirm memory, might think that it’s some other book that he has seen before and--who knows?--may create a sensation by what must be, for Royalty, an unprecedented reference to a printed volume. If he but sneezes over it, all other British subjects will follow suit. And you are made.”

But his sales, despite all his philosophy, fell below his least sanguine expectations. He complained bitterly to Lord Ottercove, who indulged in some detached speculation. “You must shed,” he said, “your old personality, and assume a new individuality. I am convinced that if the public hears you have shed your old personality they will get curious about your new individuality and will begin to want to read your books.”

“I think,” said Frank, “that if I shed my clothes with my personality, they would be more curious still.”

“You would make a real impression on the public.”

“You seriously mean it?”

“They would see you were serious. The public doesn’t like to be trifled with. As a serious artist you must be prepared to suffer for your art.”

“Have I not suffered enough!”

“I will get some one to interview you on your attitude.”

“What attitude?”

“Towards nudeness. Mrs. Prologue would be the right woman for you, I daresay.” He looked at Dickin as if measuring his stature, and took up the receiver. “Send Mrs. Prologue up to me.”

“But she won’t expect me to--” Frank blushed. “She won’t I hope--”

“No, no, of course not. What the hell do you think my office is? A house of convenience? It is enough if she reports it.”

“But how will she know?”

“Well, you’ve got to tackle her yourself.”

“Mrs. Prologue, m’lord,” announced the page.

“Show her in.--This, Mrs. Prologue, is Mr. Dickin, the novelist. No, not Dickens. He is ... how shall I say?... morbid, perverse, threatens to go about--well--you are a married woman, Mrs. Prologue, and I needn’t paraphrase these things for you--naked, in a word. It’s--how shall I say?--it’s--”

“A complex,” helped out Mrs. Prologue.

“That’s right. A complex.”

He was afraid that this spectacled and earnest-looking lady might “dare” him; but she was quiet and sensible and did not insist. “Is it”--she fixed a pair of competent eyes upon him--“your conviction that we should--”

“He, not we,” corrected her employer.

“That you should go about ... in that state?”

“It’s more--it’s a belief--a sort of religion,” said Frank.

“I see. _Nacktkultur_. I’ve been reading a story recently by Paul Morand who very amusingly deals with a club up in Norway devoted to the practising of these theories--”

“That’s right! That’s right! You’ve hit on it, Mrs. Prologue. You’ll be able to write a story about Mr. Dickin. You may say, in fact, that he has, while performing the cult of this _Kultur_ or what, been surprised by a visit from ... we’ll have to think of some name ... to the roof of his house where he performs it. I leave him to you.”

Frank returned to Half-Moon-street, which Cynthia, by the way, it occurred to him, had deserted some days ago, in more buoyant spirits. He did not resent her disappearance. A man who had failed to provide his horse with a stable, the stable with a manger, the manger with fodder, would indeed be unjust and unreasonable to object to his horse’s grazing outside in the field. And in this harsh and difficult world Frank was not unreasonable. He watched, contentedly, her grazing on the greenest, most flourishing fields of London, Paris, and New York. He walked about in the flat, inspecting the shelves in the kitchen containing things in tins bought with her money; and in applying them to their uses drew on his common sense and such powers of divination as he possessed; and reflected that man’s needs were few, and woman’s less. He even attempted, with a certain misgiving, to boil himself an egg on the “Primus” stove, unable to foretell under what circumstances it might explode. How sweet it was to exist alone and owe nothing to anybody!

The post brought him a batch of press-notices. “The author of ‘Pale Primroses,’”read a cutting, “(who, it will be remembered, turned up naked at a recent literary gathering) is greatly in vogue and is, in fact, quite the lion of the moment.”

Also he seemed to be getting more and more homage from Liverpool, whereas the city of Glasgow appeared to despise him and he conceived in his heart a warm sympathy for Liverpool, and a shy hostility towards Glasgow took shape in his mind. (But when, a month later, he had occasion to arrive in Liverpool he was ignored; whereas at Glasgow straight away he hit it off with a Scotch lassie and they stepped it to jazz music and she was more than kissed by him forthwith.) And a different notion of the relative hospitality of Liverpool and Glasgow now formed itself in his receptive mind.

Mrs. Prologue’s article bore fruit. A week later he was able to inform the Baron of Ottercove that his sales were enormous. “Enormous!”

“Good!” said the baron, thinking. “Change the title to ‘The Diary of a Naked Man.’”

“There is nothing naked in it.”

“Tell them that there will be in Part II.”

“But I’m not writing a Part II. It’s complete.”

“I guess you’ll have to,” said Lord Ottercove.

“What else? Perhaps also change my name?” Frank’s tone was ironic.

“Your name?” Lord Ottercove reflected. “Your Christian name.”

“My Christian name?”

“Couldn’t you call yourself Charles?”

“I could call myself Jesus if necessary.”

“No, not Jesus. Charles. It goes well with your surname.”

“Well, I might, of course. It might help.”

“Bound to do! I start for Nice to-morrow. But telegraph to me twice a day how you are selling. Good-bye to you. And mind the step!”

With a little training one could move, Frank felt, about the modern world with ease and felicity and face with equanimity the deadliest of situations. He would find himself making ambiguous statements to reporters who interviewed him relative to his parentage.

“Are you the son of the late Nicholas II?”

“I do not propose at this juncture of events to say anything which might render the position of certain parties and persons involved more difficult than it is already.”

“Do you claim the imperial throne?”

“I do not consider the present moment propitious for the making of any definite statement bearing on this thorny and delicate question, which, moreover, may easily be misinterpreted. I follow the development of the political situation in Russia with equanimity, firm in the belief that when the time for expressing their choice is at hand the people of Russia will not fail in their wisdom, loyalty and courage.”

In all his public utterances Frank displayed unfailing moderation and restraint in reference to the situation that had spun itself into a web around him, and when a Russian Grand Duke in the Kiss-Lick Club heckled him in the vestibule and even hit him on the ear with an immaculately folded umbrella and otherwise tried to make himself disagreeable to him, with a view to consummating the quarrel in assassination, Frank did not lose his head, but tried to avoid him so as not to be involved too early in the Russian imbroglio. When a reporter interviewed him on the regrettable incident in the Kiss-Lick Club, Frank said:

“I feel--and I say it earnestly--that we who love Russia should know how to merge our petty differences in a common devotion to a holy cause, and, awaiting the grand moment, remember the magnitude of our responsibilities and the dignity imposed by a great and noble heritage.”

The restraint and moderation of his utterances won him a following among the anglicised Russian emigrés in London, who, suspicious of the qualities of their own race, had learnt to admire British parliamentary language as reported in the newspapers. But in proportion to his success as a pretender, he became increasingly aware of being watched by Chesham House, of being followed on his daily strolls by individuals who looked suspiciously like agents of the Tcheka. He applied, on the advice of friends, to Scotland Yard, and two plain-clothed policemen were assigned to accompany him on his walks and protect him from (a) those zealous puritans who wanted to destroy him so as to put an end to what they understood from certain references to the quality of his books to be his propagation of foul literature; (b) rival claimants to the throne of Russia; and (c) the Bolshevist agents of the Tcheka who resented his imperialism. His fame reached its apotheosis when the Soviet Foreign Minister, in reply to the now hackneyed British accusation of their spreading Bolshevist propaganda in the British Empire, cited Mr. Dickin in the Soviet note to Downing-street as an active instance of the fostering of an imperialistic movement by the British and their intervention in the domestic politics of Russia, and the British Foreign Secretary in the House of Commons disclaimed, while deprecating Mr. Dickin’s activities, responsibility for his acts and dissociated what he described to be the private views of a novelist from the considered policy of the Foreign Office. By that time Frank had sold over one hundred and twenty thousand copies of _Pale Primroses_, alias _The Diary of a Naked Man_; to say nothing of American rights, film rights, dramatic rights, translation rights, and second, third, and fourth British Empire (excluding Canada) serial rights. The resulting publicity procured him a lucrative commission for a series of articles in an American magazine, a lost relative, and three offers of marriage.