THE HEAVY FATHER
I
Within a few moments of his final waking up the next morning, Mr.
Prohack beheld Eve bending over him, the image of solicitude. She was
dressed for outdoor business.
"How do you feel?" she asked, in a tender tone that demanded to know the
worst at once.
"Why?" asked Mr. Prohack, thus with one word, and a smile to match,
criticising her tone.
"You looked so dreadfully tired last night. I did feel sorry for you,
darling. Don't you think you'd better stay in bed to-day?"
"Can you seriously suggest such a thing?" he cried. "What about my daily
programme if I stay in bed? I have undertaken to be idle, and nobody can
be scientifically idle in bed. I'm late already. Where's my breakfast?
Where are my newspapers? I must begin the day without the loss of
another moment. Please give me my dressing-gown."
"I very much wonder how your blood-pressure is," Eve complained.
"And you, I suppose, are perfectly well?"
"Oh, yes, I am. I'm absolutely cured. Dr. Veiga is really very
marvellous. But I always told you he was."
"Well," said Mr. Prohack. "What's sauce for the goose has to be sauce
for the gander. If you're perfectly well, so am I. You can't have the
monopoly of good health in this marriage. What's that pamphlet you've
got in your hand, my dove?"
"Oh! It's nothing. It's only about the League of all the Arts. Mr.
Morfey gave it to me."
"I suppose it was that pamphlet you were reading last night in the
boudoir instead of coming to bed. Eve, you're hiding something from me.
Where are you going to in such a hurry?"
"I'm not hiding anything, you silly boy.... I thought I'd just run along
and have a look at that house. You see, if it isn't at all the kind of
thing to suit us, me going first will save you the trouble of going."
"_What house?_" exclaimed Mr. Prohack with terrible emphasis.
"But Charlie told me he'd told you all about it," Eve protested
innocently.
"Charlie told you no such thing," Mr. Prohack contradicted her. "If he
told you anything at all, he merely told you that he'd mentioned a house
to me in the most casual manner."
Eve proceeded blandly:
"It's in Manchester Square, very handy for the Wallace Gallery, and you
know how fond you are of pictures. It's on sale, furniture and all; but
it can be rented for a year to see how it suits us. Of course it may not
suit us a bit. I understand it has some lovely rooms. Charlie says it
would be exactly the thing for big receptions."
"_Big receptions_! I shall have nothing to do with it. Now we've lost
our children even this house is too big for us. And I know what the
houses in Manchester Square are. You've said all your life you hate
receptions."
"So I do. They're so much trouble. But one never knows what may
happen...! And with plenty of servants...!"
"You understand me. I shall have nothing to do with it. Nothing!"
"Darling, please, please don't excite yourself. The decision will rest
entirely with you. You know I shouldn't dream of influencing you. As if
I could! However, I've promised to meet Charlie there this morning. So I
suppose I'd better go. Carthew is late with the car." She tapped her
foot. "And yet I specially told him to be here prompt."
"Well, considering the hour he brought us home, he's scarcely had time
to get into bed yet. He ought to have had the morning off."
"Why? A chauffeur's a chauffeur after all. They know what they have to
do. Besides, Carthew would do anything for me."
"Yes, that's you all over. You deliberately bewitch him, and then you
shamelessly exploit him. I shall compare notes with Carthew. I can give
him a useful tip or two about you."
"Oh! Here he is!" said Eve, who had been watching out of the window. "Au
revoir, my pet. Here's Machin with your breakfast and newspapers. I
daresay I shall be back before you're up. But don't count on me."
As he raised himself against pillows for the meal, after both she and
Machin had gone, Mr. Prohack remembered what his mind had said to him a
few hours earlier about fighting against further complications of his
existence, and he set his teeth and determined to fight hard.
Scarcely had he begun his breakfast when Eve returned, in a state of
excitement.
"There's a young woman downstairs waiting for you in the dining-room.
She wouldn't give her name to Machin, it seems, but she says she's your
new secretary. Apparently she recognised my car on the way from the
garage and stopped it and got into it; and then she found out she'd
forgotten something and the car had to go back with her to where she
lives, wherever that is, and that's why Carthew was late for _me_." Eve
delivered these sentences with a tremendous air of ordinariness, as
though they related quite usual events and disturbances, and as though
no wife could possibly see in them any matter for astonishment or
reproach. Such was one of her methods of making an effect.
Mr. Prohack collected himself. On several occasions during the previous
afternoon and evening he had meditated somewhat uneasily upon the
domestic difficulties which might inhere in this impulsive engagement of
Miss Winstock as a private secretary, but since waking up the affair had
not presented itself to his mind. He had indeed completely forgotten it.
"Who told you all this?" he asked warily.
"Well, she told Machin and Machin told me."
"Let me see now," said Mr. Prohack. "Yes. It's quite true. After
ordering a pair of braces yesterday morning, I did order a secretary.
She was recommended to me."
"You didn't say anything about it yesterday."
"My dove, had I a chance to do so? Had we a single moment together? And
you know how I was when we reached home, don't you?... You see, I always
had a secretary at the Treasury, and I feel sort of lost without one. So
I--"
"But, darling, _of course_! I always believe in letting you do exactly
as you like. It's the only way.... Au revoir, my pet. Charlie will be
frightfully angry with me." And then, at the door: "If she hasn't got
anything to do she can always see to the flowers for me. Perhaps when I
come back you'll introduce us."
As soon as he had heard the bang of the front-door Mr. Prohack rang his
bell.
"Machin, I understand that my secretary is waiting in the dining-room."
"Yes, sir."
"Ask her to take her things off and then bring her up here."
"Up here, sir?"
"That's right."
In seven movements of unimaginable stealthy swiftness Machin tidied the
worst disorders of the room and departed. Mr. Prohack continued his
breakfast.
Miss Winstock appeared with a small portable typewriter in her arms and
a notebook lodged on the typewriter. She was wearing a smart black skirt
and a smart white blouse with a high collar. In her unsullied freshness
of attire she somewhat resembled a stage secretary on a first night; she
might have been mistaken for a brilliant imitation of a real secretary.
II
"Good morning. So you're come," Mr. Prohack greeted her firmly.
"Good morning. Yes, Mr. Prohack."
"Well, put that thing down on a chair somewhere."
Machin also had entered the room. She handed a paper to Mr. Prohack.
"Mistress asked me to give you that, sir."
It was a lengthy description, typewritten, of a house in Manchester
Square.
"Pass me those matches, please," said Mr. Prohack to Mimi when they were
alone. "By the way, why wouldn't you give your name when you arrived?"
"Because I didn't know what it was."
"Didn't know what it was?"
"When I told you my Christian name yesterday you said it wouldn't do at
all, and I was never to mention it again. In the absence of definite
instructions about my surname I thought I had better pursue a cautious
policy of waiting. I've told the chauffeur that he will know my name in
due course and that until I tell him what it is he mustn't know it. I
was not sure whether you would wish the members of your household to
know that I'm the person who had a collision with your car. Mrs. Prohack
and I were both in a state of collapse after the accident, and I was
removed before she could see me. Therefore she did not recognise me this
morning. But on the other hand she has no doubt heard my name often
enough since the accident and would recognise _that_."
Mr. Prohack lit the first cigarette of the day.
"Why did you bring that typewriter?" he asked gravely.
"It's mine. I thought that if you didn't happen to have one here it
might be useful. It was the typewriter that the car had to go back for.
I'd forgotten it. I can take it away again. But if you like you can
either buy it or hire it from me."
The girl could not have guessed it from his countenance, but Mr. Prohack
was thunderstruck. She was bringing forward considerations which
positively had not presented themselves to him. That she had much
initiative was clear from her conduct of the previous day. She now
disclosed a startling capacity for intrigue. Mr. Prohack, however, was
not intimidated. The experience of an official life had taught him the
value of taciturnity, and moreover a comfortable feeling of satisfaction
stole over him as he realised that once again he had a secretary under
his thumb. He seemed to be delightfully resuming the habits which
ill-health had so ruthlessly broken.
"Mary Warburton," said he at length.
"Certainly," said she. "I'll tell your chauffeur."
"The initials will correspond--in case--"
"Yes," said she. "I'd noticed that."
"We will see what your typewriting machine is capable of, and then I'll
decide about it."
"Certainly."
"Please take down some letters."
"Mr. Carrel Quire always told me what he wanted said, and I wrote the
letters myself."
"That is very interesting," said Mr. Prohack. "Perhaps you can manage to
sit at the dressing-table. Mind that necklace there. It's supposed to be
rather valuable. Put it in the case, and put the case in the middle
drawer."
"Don't you keep it in a safe?" said Miss Warburton, obeying.
"All questions about necklaces should be addressed direct to Mrs.
Prohack."
"I prefer to take down on my knee," said Miss Warburton, opening her
notebook, "if I am to take down."
"You are. Now. 'Dear Madam. I am requested by my Lords of the Treasury
to forward to you the enclosed cheque for one hundred pounds for your
Privy Purse.' New line. 'I am also to state that no account of
expenditure will be required.' New line. 'Be good enough to acknowledge
receipt. Your obedient servant. To Miss Prohack, Grand Babylon Hotel.'
Got it? 'Dear Sir. With reference to the action instituted by your
company against Miss Mimi Winstock, and to my claim against your company
under my accident policy. I have seen the defendant. She had evidently
behaved in an extremely foolish not to say criminal way; but as the
result of a personal appeal from her I have decided to settle the matter
privately. Please therefore accept this letter as a release from all
your liabilities to me, and also as my personal undertaking to pay all
the costs of the action on both sides. Yours faithfully. Secretary,
World's Car Insurance Corporation.' Wipe your eyes, wipe your eyes, Miss
Warburton. You're wetting the notebook."
"I was only crying because you're so kind. I know I _did_ behave in a
criminal way."
"Just so, Miss Warburton. But it will be more convenient for me and for
you too if you can arrange to cry in your own time and not in mine." And
he continued to address her, in his own mind: "Don't think I haven't
noticed your aspiring nose and your ruthless little lips and your gift
for conspiracy and your wonderful weakness for tears! And don't confuse
me with Mr. Carrel Quire, because we're two quite different people!
You've got to be useful to me." And in a more remote part of his mind,
he continued still further: "You're quite a decent sort of child, only
you've been spoilt. I'll unspoil you. You've taken your first medicine
rather well. I like you, or I shall like you before I've done with you."
Miss Warburton wiped her eyes.
"You understand," Mr. Prohack proceeded aloud, "that you're engaged as
my confidential secretary. And when I say 'confidential' I mean
'confidential' in the fullest sense."
"Oh, quite," Miss Warburton concurred almost passionately.
"And you aren't anybody else's secretary but mine. You may pretend to be
everybody else's secretary, you may pretend as much as you please--it
may even be advisable to do so--but the fact must always remain that you
are mine alone. You have to protect my interests, and let me warn you
that my interests are sometimes very strange, not to say peculiar. Get
well into your head that there are not ten commandments in my service.
There is only one: to watch over my interests, to protect them against
everybody else in the whole world. In return for a living wage, you give
me the most absolute loyalty, a loyalty which sticks at nothing,
nothing, nothing."
"Oh, Mr. Prohack!" replied Mary Warburton, smiling simply. "You needn't
tell me all that. I entirely understand. It's the usual thing for
confidential secretaries, isn't it?"
"And now," Mr. Prohack went on, ignoring her. "This being made perfectly
clear, go into the boudoir--that's the room through there--and bring me
here all the parcels lying about. Our next task is to check the
accuracy of several of the leading tradesmen in the West End."
"I think there are one or two more parcels that have been delivered this
morning, in the hall," said Miss Warburton. "Perhaps I had better fetch
them."
"Perhaps you had."
In a few minutes, Miss Warburton, by dint of opening parcels, had
transformed the bedroom into a composite of the principal men's shops in
Piccadilly and Bond Street. Mr. Prohack recoiled before the chromatic
show and also before the prospect of Eve's views on the show.
"Take everything into the boudoir," said he, "and arrange them under the
sofa. It's important that we should not lose our heads in this crisis.
When you go out to lunch you will buy some foolscap paper and this
afternoon you will make a schedule of the goods, divided according to
the portions of the human frame which they are intended to conceal or
adorn. What are you laughing at, Miss Warburton?"
"You are so amusing, Mr. Prohack."
"I may be amusing, but I am not susceptible to the flattery of giggling.
Endeavour not to treat serious subjects lightly."
"I don't see any boots."
"Neither do I. You will telephone to the bootmaker's, and to my
tailor's; also to Sir Paul Spinner and Messrs. Smathe and Smathe. But
before that I will just dictate a few more letters."
"Certainly."
When he had finished dictating, Mr. Prohack said:
"I shall now get up. Go downstairs and ask Machin--that's the
parlourmaid--to show you the breakfast-room. The breakfast-room is
behind the dining-room, and is so called because it is never employed
for breakfast. It exists in all truly London houses, and is perfectly
useless in all of them except those occupied by dentists, who use it for
their beneficent labours in taking things from, or adding things to, the
bodies of their patients. The breakfast-room in this house will be the
secretary's room--your room if you continue to give me satisfaction.
Remove that typewriting machine from here, and arrange your room
according to your desire.... And I say, Miss Warburton."
"Yes, Mr. Prohack," eagerly responded the secretary, pausing at the
door.
"Yesterday I gave you a brief outline of your duties. But I omitted one
exceedingly important item--almost as important as not falling in love
with my son. You will have to keep on good terms with Machin. Machin is
indispensable and irreplaceable. I could get forty absolutely loyal
secretaries while my wife was unsuccessfully searching for another
Machin."
"I have an infallible way with parlourmaids," said Miss Warburton.
"What is that?"
"I listen to their grievances and to their love-affairs."
Mr. Prohack, though fatigued, felt himself to be inordinately well, and
he divined that this felicity was due to the exercise of dancing on the
previous night, following upon the Turkish bath. He had not felt so well
for many years. He laughed to himself at intervals as he performed his
toilette, and knew not quite why. His secretary was just like a new toy
to him, offering many of the advantages of official life and routine
without any of the drawbacks. At half past eleven he descended, wearing
one or two of the more discreet of his new possessions, and with the
sensation of having already transacted a good day's work, into the
breakfast-room and found Miss Warburton and Machin in converse. Machin
feverishly poked the freshly-lit fire and then, pretending to have
urgent business elsewhere, left the room.
"Here are some particulars of a house in Manchester Square," said Mr.
Prohack. "Please read them."
Miss Warburton complied.
"It seems really very nice," said she. "Very nice indeed."
"Does it? Now listen to me. That house is apparently the most practical
and the most beautiful house in London. Judging from the description, it
deserves to be put under a glass-case in a museum and labelled 'the
ideal house.' There is no fault to be found with that house, and I
should probably take it at once but for one point. I don't want it. I do
not want it. Do I make myself clear? I have no use for it whatever."
"Then you've inspected it."
"I have not. But I don't want it. Now a determined effort will shortly
be made to induce me to take that house. I will not go into details or
personalities. I say merely that a determined effort will shortly be
made to force me to act against my will and my wishes. This effort must
be circumvented. In a word, the present is a moment when I may need the
unscrupulous services of an utterly devoted confidential secretary."
"What am I to do?"
"I haven't the slightest idea. All I know is that my existence must not
on any account be complicated, and that the possession of that house
would seriously complicate it."
"Will you leave the matter to me, Mr. Prohack?"
"What shall you do?"
"Wouldn't it be better for you not to know what I should do?" Miss
Warburton glanced at him oddly. Her glance was agreeable, and yet
disconcerting. The attractiveness of the young woman seemed to be
accentuated. The institution of the confidential secretary was
magnified, in the eyes of Mr. Prohack, into one of the greatest
achievements of human society.
"Not at all," said he, in reply. "You are under-rating my capabilities,
for I can know and not know simultaneously."
"Well," said Miss Warburton. "You can't take an old house without having
the drains examined, obviously. Supposing the report on the drains was
unfavourable?"
"Do you propose to tamper with the drains?"
"Certainly not. I shouldn't dream of doing anything so disgraceful. But
I might tamper with the surveyor who made the report on the drains."
"Say no more," Mr. Prohack adjured her. "I'm going out."
And he went out, though he had by no means finished instructing Miss
Warburton in the art of being his secretary. She did not even know where
to find the essential tools of her calling, nor yet the names of
tradesmen to whom she had to telephone. He ought to have stayed in if
only to present his secretary to his wife. But he went out--to reflect
in private upon her initiative, her ready resourcefulness, her great
gift for conspiracy. He had to get away from her. The thought of her
induced in him qualms of trepidation. Could he after all manage her?
What a loss would she be to Mr. Carrel Quire! Nevertheless she was
capable of being foolish. It was her foolishness that had transferred
her from Mr. Carrel Quire to himself.
III
Mr. Prohack went out because he was drawn out, by the force of an
attraction which he would scarcely avow even to himself,--a mysterious
and horrible attraction which, if he had been a logical human being like
the rest of us, ought to have been a repulsion for him.
And as he was walking abroad in the pleasant foggy sunshine of the West
End streets, a plutocratic idler with nothing to do but yield to strange
impulses, he saw on a motor-bus the placard of a financial daily paper
bearing the line: "The Latest Oil Coup." He immediately wanted to buy
that paper. As a London citizen he held the opinion that whenever he
wanted a thing he ought to be able to buy it at the next corner. Yet now
he looked in every direction but could see no symptom of a newspaper
shop anywhere. The time was morning--for the West End it was early
morning--and there were newsboys on the pavements, but by a curious
anomaly they were selling evening and not morning newspapers. Daringly
he asked one of these infants for the financial daily; the infant
sniggered and did no more. Another directed him to a shop up an alley
off the Edgware Road. The shopman doubted the existence of any such
financial daily as Mr. Prohack indicated, apparently attaching no
importance to the fact that it was advertised on every motor-bus
travelling along the Edgware Road, but he suggested that if it did
exist, it might just conceivably be purchased at the main bookstall at
Paddington Station. Determined to obtain the paper at all costs, Mr.
Prohack stopped a taxi-cab and drove to Paddington, squandering
eighteenpence on the journey, and reflecting as he rolled forward upon
the primitiveness of a so-called civilisation in which you could not buy
a morning paper in the morning without spending the whole morning over
the transaction--and reflecting also upon the disturbing fact that after
one full day of its practice, his scheme of scientific idleness had gone
all to bits. He got the paper, and read therein a very exciting account
of Sir Paul Spinner's deal in oil-lands. The amount of Paul's profit was
not specified, but readers were given to understand that it was enormous
and that Paul had successfully bled the greatest Oil Combine in the
world. The article, though discreet and vague in phraseology, was well
worth a line on any placard. It had cost Mr. Prohack the price of a
complete Shakespere, but he did not call it dear. He threw the paper
away with a free optimistic gesture of delight. Yes, he had wisely put
his trust in old Paul and he was veritably a rich man--one who could
look down on mediocre fortunes of a hundred thousand pounds or so.
Civilisation was not so bad after all.
Then the original attraction which had drawn him out of the house
resumed its pull.... Why did his subconscious feet take him in the
direction of Manchester Square? True, the Wallace Collection of pictures
is to be found at Hertford House, Manchester Square, and Mr. Prohack had
always been interested in pictures! Well, if he did happen to find
himself in Manchester Square he might perhaps glance at the exterior of
the dwelling which his son desired to plant upon him and his wife
desired him to be planted with.... It was there right enough. It had not
been spirited away in the night hours. He recognised the number. An
enormous house; the largest in the Square after Hertford House. Over
its monumental portico was an enormous sign, truthfully describing it as
"this noble mansion." As no automobile stood at the front-door Mr.
Prohack concluded that his wife's visit of inspection was over.
Doubtless she was seeking him at home at that moment to the end of
persuading him by her soft, unscrupulous arts to take the noble mansion.
The front-door was ajar. Astounding carelessness on the part of the
caretaker! Mr. Prohack's subconscious legs carried him into the house.
The interior was amazing. Mr. Prohack had always been interested, not
only in pictures, but in furniture. Pictures and furniture might have
been called the weakness to which his circumstances had hitherto
compelled him to be too strong to yield. He knew a good picture, and he
knew a good piece of furniture, when he saw them. The noble mansion was
full of good pictures and good furniture. Evidently it had been the home
of somebody who had both fine tastes and the means to gratify them. And
the place was complete. Nothing had been removed, and nothing had been
protected against the grimy dust of London. The occupiers might have
walked out of it a few hours earlier. The effect of dark richness in the
half-shuttered rooms almost overwhelmed Mr. Prohack. Nobody preventing,
he climbed the beautiful Georgian staircase, which was carpeted with a
series of wondrous Persian carpets laid end to end. A woman in a black
apron appeared in the hall from the basement, gazed at Mr. Prohack's
mounting legs, and said naught. On the first-floor was the drawing-room,
a magnificent apartment exquisitely furnished in Louis Quinze. Mr.
Prohack blenched. He had expected nothing half so marvellous. Was it
possible that he could afford to take this noble mansion and live in it?
It was more than possible; it was sure.
Mr. Prohack had a foreboding of a wild, transient impulse to take it.
The impulse died ere it was born. No further complications of his
existence were to be permitted; he would fight against them to the last
drop of his blood. And the complications incident to residence in such
an abode would be enormous. Still, he thought that he might as well see
the whole house, and he proceeded upstairs, wondering how many people
there were in London who possessed the taste to make, and the money to
maintain, such a home. Even the stairs from the first to the second
floor, were beautiful, having a lovely carpet, lovely engravings on the
walls, and a delightful balustrade. On the second-floor landing were two
tables covered with objects of art, any of which Mr. Prohack might have
pocketed and nobody the wiser; the carelessness that left the place
unguarded was merely prodigious.
Mr. Prohack heard a sound; it might have been the creak of a floor-board
or the displacement of a piece of furniture. Startled, he looked through
a half-open door into a small room. He could see an old gilt mirror over
a fire-place; and in the mirror the images of the upper portions of a
young man and a young woman. The young woman was beyond question Sissie
Prohack. The young man, he decided after a moment of hesitation--for he
could distinguish only a male overcoated back in the glass--was Oswald
Morfey. The images were very close together. They did not move. Then Mr.
Prohack overheard a whisper, but did not catch its purport. Then the
image of the girl's face began to blush; it went redder and redder, and
the crimson seemed to flow downwards until the exposed neck blushed
also. A marvellous and a disconcerting spectacle. Mr. Prohack felt that
he himself was blushing. Then the two images blended, and the girl's
head and hat seemed to be agitated as by a high wind. And then both
images moved out of the field of the mirror.
The final expression on the girl's face as it vanished was one of the
most exquisite things that Mr. Prohack had ever witnessed. It brought
the tears to his eyes. Nevertheless he was shocked.
His mind ran:
"That fellow has kissed my daughter, and he has kissed her for the first
time. It is monstrous that any girl, and especially my daughter, should
be kissed for the first time. I have not been consulted, and I had not
the slightest idea that matters had gone so far. Her mother has probably
been here, with Charlie, and gone off leaving these doves together.
Culpable carelessness on her part. Talk about mothers! No father would
have been guilty of such negligence. The affair must be stopped. It
amounts to an outrage."
A peculiar person, Mr. Prohack! No normal father could have had such
thoughts. Mr. Prohack could of course have burst in upon the pair and
smashed an idyll to fragments. But instead of doing so he turned away
from the idyll and descended the stairs as stealthily as he could.
Nobody challenged his exit. In the street he breathed with relief as if
he had escaped from a house of great peril; but he did not feel safe
until he had lost himself in the populousness of Oxford Street.
"For social and family purposes," he reflected, "I have not seen that
kiss. I cannot possibly tell them, or tell anybody, that I spied upon
their embrace. To put myself right I ought to have called out a greeting
the very instant I spotted them. But I did not call out a greeting. By
failing to do so I put myself in a false position.... How shall I get
official news of that kiss? Shall I ever get news of it?"
He had important business to transact with tradesmen. He could not do
it. On leaving home he had not decided whether he would lunch
domestically or at the Grand Babylon. He now perceived that he could do
neither. He would lunch at one of his clubs. No! He could not bring
himself to lunch at either club. He could face nobody. He resembled a
man who was secretly carrying a considerable parcel of high explosive.
He wandered until he could wander no more, and then he entered a
tea-shop that was nearly full of young girls. It was a new world to him.
He saw "Mutton pie 8d" on the menu and ordered it haphazard. He
discovered to his astonishment that he was hungry. Having eaten the
mutton pie, he ordered a second one, and ate it. The second mutton pie
seemed to endow the eater with the faculty of vision--a result which
perhaps no other mutton pie had ever before in the whole annals of
eating achieved. He felt much better. He was illuminated by a large,
refreshing wisdom, which thus expressed itself in his excited brain:
"After all, I suppose it's not the first or the only instance of a girl
being kissed by a man. Similar incidents must occur quite often in the
history of the human race."
IV
When he returned home his house seemed to be pitiably small, cramped,
and lacking in rich ornament; it seemed to be no sort of a house for a
man with twenty thousand a year. But he was determined to love his house
at all costs, and never to leave it. The philosopher within himself told
him that happiness does not spring from large houses built with hands.
And his own house was bright that afternoon; he felt as soon as he
entered it that it was more bright than usual. The reason was
immediately disclosed. Sissie was inside it. She had come for some
belongings and to pay a visit to her mother.
"My word!" she greeted her father in the drawing-room, where she was
strumming while Eve leaned lovingly on the piano. "My word! We are fine
with our new private secretary!"
Not a sign on that girl's face, nor in her demeanour, that she had an
amorous secret, that something absolutely unprecedented had happened to
her only a few hours earlier! The duplicity of women astonished even the
philosopher in Mr. Prohack.
"Will she mention it or won't she?" Mr. Prohack asked himself; and then
began to equal Sissie in duplicity by demanding of his women in a tone
of raillery what they thought of the new private secretary. He reflected
that he might as well know the worst at once.
"She'll do," said Sissie gaily, and Eve said: "She seems very willing to
oblige."
"Ah!" Mr. Prohack grew alert. "She's been obliging you already, has
she?"
"Well," said Eve. "It was about the new house--"
"What new house?"
"But you know, darling. Charlie mentioned it to you last night, and I
told you that I was going to look at it this morning."
"Oh! _That_!" Mr. Prohack ejaculated disdainfully.
"I've seen it. I've been all over it, and it's simply lovely. I never
saw anything equal to it."
"Of course!"
"And so cheap!"
"Of course!"
"But it's ripping, dad, seriously."
"Seriously ripping, it is? Well, so far as I am concerned I shall let it
rip."
"I rushed back here as soon as I'd seen it," Eve proceeded, quietly
ignoring the last remark. "But you'd gone out without saying where.
Nobody knew where you'd gone. It was very awkward, because if we want
this house we've got to decide at once--at latest in three days, Charlie
says. Miss Warburton--that's her name, isn't it?--Miss Warburton had a
very bright idea. She seems to know quite a lot about property. She
thought of the drains. She said the first thing would be to have the
drains inspected, and that if there was any hurry the surveyors ought to
be instructed instantly. She knew some surveyor people, and so she's
gone out to see the agents and get permission from them for the
surveyors to inspect, and she'll see the surveyors at the same time. She
says we ought to have the report by to-morrow afternoon. She's very
enterprising."
The enterprisingness of Miss Warburton frightened Mr. Prohack. She had
acted exactly as he would have wished--only better; evidently she was
working out his plot against the house in the most efficient manner.
Yet he was frightened. So much so that he could find nothing to say
except: "Indeed!"
"You never told me she used to be with Mr. Carrel Quire and is related
to the Paulle family," observed Eve, mingling a mild reproach with
joyous vivacity, as if saying: "Why did you keep this titbit from me?"
"I must now have a little repose," said Mr. Prohack.
"We'll leave you," Eve said, eager to be agreeable. "You must be tired,
you poor dear. I'm just going out to shop with Sissie. I'm not sure if I
shall be in for tea, but I will be if you think you'll be lonely."
"Did you do much entertaining at lunch, young woman?" Mr. Prohack asked.
"Charlie had several people--men--but I really don't know who they were.
And Ozzie Morfey came. And permit me to inform you that Charlie was
simply knocked flat by my qualities as a hostess. Do you know what he
said to me afterwards? He said: 'That lunch was a bit of all right,
kid.' Enormous from Charlie, wasn't it?"
Mother and daughter went out arm in arm like two young girls. Beyond
question they were highly pleased with themselves and the world. Eve
returned after a moment.
"Are you comfortable, dear? I've told Machin you mustn't on any account
be disturbed. Charlie's borrowed the car. We shall get a taxi in the
Bayswater Road." She bent down and seemed to bury her soft lips in his
cheek. She was beginning to have other interests than himself. And since
she had nothing now to worry about, in a maternal sense, she had become
a child. She was fat--at any rate nobody could describe her as less than
plump--and over forty, but a child, an exquisite child. He magnificently
let her kiss him. However, he knew that she knew that she was his sole
passion. She whispered most intimately and persuasively into his ear:
"Shall we have a look at that house to-morrow morning, just you and I?
You'll love the furniture."
"Perhaps," he replied. What else could he reply? He very much desired to
have a talk with her about Sissie and the fellow Morfey; but he could
not broach the subject because he could not tell her in cold blood that
he had seen Sissie in Morfey's arms. To do so would have an effect like
setting fire to the home. Unless, of course, Sissie had already confided
in her mother? Was it conceivable that Eve had a secret from him? It was
certainly conceivable that he had a secret from Eve. Not only was he
hiding from her his knowledge of the startling development in the
relations between Sissie and Morfey,--he had not even told her that he
had seen the house in Manchester Square. He was leading a double
life,--consequence of riches! Was she?
As soon as she had softly closed the door he composed himself, for he
was in fact considerably exhausted. Remembering a conversation at the
club with a celebrated psycho-analyst about the possibilities of
auto-suggestion, he strove to empty his mind and then to repeat to
himself very rapidly in a low murmur: "You will sleep, you will sleep,
you will sleep, you will sleep," innumerable times. But the incantation
would not work, probably because he could not keep his mind empty. The
mysterious receptacle filled faster than he could empty it. It filled
till it flowed over with the flooding realisation of the awful
complexity of existence. He longed to maintain its simplicity, well
aware that his happiness would result from simplicity alone. But
existence flatly refused to be simple. He desired love in a cottage with
Eve. He could have bought a hundred cottages, all in ideal surroundings.
The mere fact, however, that he was in a position to buy a hundred
cottages somehow made it impossible for him to devote himself
exclusively to loving Eve in one cottage....
His imagination leaped over intervening events and he pictured the
wedding of Sissie as a nightmare of complications--no matter whom she
married. He loathed weddings. Of course a girl of Sissie's sense and
modernity ought to insist on being married in a registry office. But
would she? She would not. For a month previous to marriage all girls
cast off modernity and became Victorian. Yes, she would demand real
orange-blossom and everything that went with it.... He got as far as
wishing that Sissie might grow into an old maid, solely that he might be
spared the wearing complications incident to the ceremony of marriage as
practised by intelligent persons in the twentieth century. His character
was deteriorating, and he could not stop it from deteriorating....
Then Sissie herself came very silently into the room.
"Sit down, my dear. I want to talk to you," he said in his most
ingratiating and sympathetic tones. And in quite another tone he
addressed her silently: "It's time I taught you a thing or two, my
wench."
"Yes, father," she responded charmingly to his wily ingratiatingness,
and sat down.
"If you were the ordinary girl," he began, "I shouldn't say a word. It
would be no use. But you aren't. And I flatter myself I'm not the
ordinary father. You are in love. Or you think you are. Which is the
same thing--for the present. It's a fine thing to be in love. I'm quite
serious. I like you tremendously just for being in love. Yes, I do. Now
I know something about being in love. You've got enough imagination to
realise that, and I want you to realise it. I want you to realise that I
know a bit more about love than you do. Stands to reason, doesn't it?"
"Yes, father," said Sissie, placidly respectful.
"Love has got one drawback. It very gravely impairs the critical
faculty. You think you can judge our friend Oswald with perfect
impartiality. You think you see him as he is. But if you will exercise
your imagination you will admit that you can't. You perceive that, don't
you?"
"Quite, dad," the adorable child concurred.
"Well, do you know anything about him, really?"
"Not much, father."
"Neither do I. I've nothing whatever against him. But I shouldn't be
playing straight with you if I didn't tell you that at the club he's not
greatly admired. And a club is a very good judge of a man, the best
judge of a man. And then as regards his business. Supposing you were not
in love with him, should you like his business? You wouldn't. Naturally.
There are other things, but I won't discuss them now. All I suggest to
you is that you should go a bit slow. Exercise caution. Control
yourself. Test him a little. If you and I weren't the greatest pals I
shouldn't be such an ass as to talk in this strain to you. But I know
you won't misunderstand me. I know you know there's absolutely no
conventional nonsense about me, just as I know there's absolutely no
conventional nonsense about you. I'm perfectly aware that the old can't
teach the young, and that oftener than not the young are right and the
old wrong. But it's not a question of old and young between you and me.
It's a question of two friends--that's all."
"Dad," said she, "you're the most wonderful dad that ever was. Oh! If
everybody would talk like that!"
"Not at all! Not at all!" he deprecated, delighted with himself and her.
"I'm simply telling you what you know already. I needn't say any more.
You'll do exactly as you think best, and whatever you do will please me.
I don't want you to be happy in my way--I want you to be happy in your
own way. Possibly you'll decide to tell Mr. Morfey to wait for three
months."
"I most decidedly shall, dad," Sissie interrupted him, "and I'm most
frightfully obliged to you."
He had always held that she was a marvellous girl, and here was the
proof. He had spoken with the perfection of tact and sympathy and
wisdom, but his success astonished him. At this point he perceived that
Sissie was not really sitting in the chair at all and that the chair was
empty. So that the exhibition of sagacity had been entirely wasted.
"Anyhow I've had a sleep," said the philosopher in him.
The door opened. Machin appeared, defying her mistress's orders.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but a Mr. Morfey is on the telephone and
asks whether it would be convenient for you to see him to-night. He says
it's urgent." Mr. Prohack braced himself, but where his stomach had been
there was a void.
V
"Had an accident to your eye-glass?" asked Mr. Prohack, shaking hands
with Oswald Morfey, when the latter entered, by appointment, Mr.
Prohack's breakfast-room after dinner. Miss Warburton having gone home,
Mr. Prohack had determined to employ her official room for formal
interviews. With her woman's touch she had given it an air of business
which pleasantly reminded him of the Treasury.
Ozzie was not wearing an eye-glass, and the absence of the broad black
ribbon that usually ran like a cable-connection between his eye and his
supra-umbilical region produced the disturbing illusion that he had
forgotten an essential article of attire.
"Yes," Ozzie replied, opening his eyes with that mien of surprise that
was his response to all questions, even the simplest. "Miss Sissie has
cracked it."
"I'm very sorry my daughter should be so clumsy."
"It was not exactly clumsiness. I offered her the eye-glass to do what
she pleased with, and she pleased to break it."
"Surely an impertinence?"
"No. A favour. Miss Sissie did not care for my eye-glass."
"You must be considerably incommoded."
"No. The purpose of my eye-glass was decorative, not optical." Ozzie
smiled agreeably, though nervously.
Mr. Prohack was conscious of a certain surprising sympathy for this
chubby simpering young man with the peculiar vocation, whom but lately
he had scorned and whom on one occasion he had described as a perfect
ass.
"Well, shall we sit down?" suggested the elder, whom the younger's
nervousness had put into an excellent state of easy confidence.
"The fact is," said Ozzie, obeying, "the fact is that I've come to see
you about Sissie. I'm very anxious to marry her, Mr. Prohack."
"Indeed! Then you must excuse this old velvet coat. If I'd had notice of
the solemnity of your visit, my dear Morfey, I'd have met you in a
dinner jacket. May I just put one question? Have you kissed Sissie
already?"
"I--er--have."
"By force or by mutual agreement?"
"Neither."
"She made no protest?"
"No."
"The reverse rather?"
"Yes."
"Then why do you come here to me?"
"To get your consent."
"I suppose you arranged with Sissie that you should come here?"
"Yes, I did. We thought it would be best if I came alone."
"Well, all I can say is that you're a very old-fashioned pair. I'm
afraid that you must have forgotten to alter your date calendar when the
twentieth century started. Let me assure you that this is not by any
means the nineteenth. I admit that I only altered my own date calendar
this afternoon, and even then only as the result of an unusual dream."
"Yes?" said Ozzie politely, and he said nothing else, but it seemed to
Mr. Prohack that Ozzie was thinking: "This queer old stick is taking
advantage of his position to make a fool of himself in his queer old
way."
"Let us examine the circumstances," Mr. Prohack proceeded. "You want to
marry Sissie. Therefore you respect her. Therefore you would not have
invited her to marry unless you had been reasonably sure that you
possessed the brains and the material means to provide for her physical
and moral comfort not merely during the next year but till the end of
her life. It would be useless, not to say impolite, for me to question
you as to your situation and your abilities, because you are convinced
about both, and if you failed to convince me about both you would leave
here perfectly sure that the fault was mine and not yours, and you would
pursue your plans just the same. Moreover, you are a man of the
world--far more a man of the world than I am myself--and you are
unquestionably the best judge of your powers to do your duty towards a
wife. Of course some might argue that I, being appreciably older than
you, am appreciably wiser than you and that my opinion on vital matters
is worth more than yours. But you know, and perhaps I know too, that in
growing old a man does not really become wiser; he simply acquires a
different sort of wisdom--whether it is a better or a worse sort nobody
can decide. All we know is that the extremely young and the extremely
old are in practice generally foolish. Which leads you nowhere at all.
But looking at history we perceive that the ideas of the moderately
young have always triumphed against the ideas of the moderately old. And
happily so, for otherwise there could be no progress. Hence the balance
of probability is that, assuming you and I were to differ, you would be
more right than I should be."
"But I hope that we do not differ, sir," said Ozzie. And Mr. Prohack
found satisfaction in the naturalness, the freedom from pose, of Ozzie's
diffident and disconcerted demeanour. His sympathy for the young man was
increased by the young man's increasing consternation.
"Again," resumed Mr. Prohack, ignoring Ozzie's hope. "Take the case of
Sissie herself. Sissie's education was designed and superintended by
myself. The supreme aim of education should be to give sound judgment in
the great affairs of life, and moral stamina to meet the crises which
arrive when sound judgment is falsified by events. If I were to tell you
that in my opinion Sissie's judgment of you as a future husband was
unsound, it would be equivalent to admitting that my education of Sissie
had been unsound. And I could not possibly admit such a thing. Moreover,
just as you are a man of the world, so Sissie is a woman of the world.
By heredity and by natural character she is sagacious, and she has
acquainted herself with all manner of things as to which I am entirely
ignorant. Nor can I remember any instance of her yielding, from genuine
conviction, to my judgment when it was opposed to hers. From all which
it follows, my dear Morfey, that your mission to me here this evening is
a somewhat illogical, futile, and unnecessary mission, and that the
missioner must be either singularly old-fashioned and conventional--or
laughing in his sleeve at me. No!" Mr. Prohack with a nineteenth century
wave of the hand deprecated Ozzie's interrupting protest. "No! There is
a third alternative, and I accept it. You desired to show me a courtesy.
I thank you."
"But have you no questions to ask me?" demanded Ozzie.
"Yes," said Mr. Prohack. "How did you first make the acquaintance of my
daughter?"
"Do you mean to say you don't know? Hasn't Sissie ever told you?"
"Never. What is more, she has never mentioned your name in any
conversation until somebody else had mentioned it. Such is the result of
my educational system, and the influence of the time-spirit."
"Well, I'm dashed!" exclaimed Ozzie sincerely.
"I hope not, Morfey. I hope not, if by dashed you mean 'damned.'"
"But it was the most wonderful meeting, Mr. Prohack," Ozzie burst out,
and he was in such an enthusiasm that he almost forgot to lisp. "You
knew I was in M.I. in the war, after my trench fever."
"M.I., that is to say, Secret Service."
"Yes. Secret Service if you like. Well, sir, I was doing some work in
the East End, in a certain foreign community, and I had to get away
quickly, and so I jumped into a motor-van that happened to be passing.
That van was driven by Sissie!"
"An example of fact imitating fiction!" remarked Mr. Prohack, seeking,
not with complete success, to keep out of his voice the emotion
engendered in him by Ozzie's too brief recital. "Now that's one
question, and you have answered it brilliantly. My second and last
question is this: Are you in love with Sissie--"
"Please, Mr. Prohack!" Ozzie half rose out of his chair.
"Or do you love her? The two things are very different."
"I beg your pardon, sir. I hadn't quite grasped," said Ozzie
apologetically, subsiding. "I quite see what you mean. I'm both."
"You are a wonder!" Mr. Prohack murmured.
"Anyway, sir, I'm glad you don't object to our engagement."
"My dear Oswald," said Mr. Prohack in a new tone. "Do you imagine that
after my daughter had expressed her view of you by kissing you I could
fail to share that view. You have a great opinion of Sissie, but I doubt
whether your opinion of her is greater than mine. We will now have a
little whiskey together."
Ozzie's chubby face shone as in his agreeable agitation he searched for
the eye-glass ribbon that was not there.
"Well, sir," said he, beaming. "This interview has not been at all like
what I expected."
"Nor like what I expected either," said Mr. Prohack. "But who can
foresee the future?" And he added to himself: "Could I foresee when I
called this youth a perfect ass that in a very short time I should be
receiving him, not unpleasantly, as a prospective son-in-law? Life is
marvellous."
At the same moment Mrs. Prohack entered the room.
"Oh!" cried she, affecting to be surprised at the presence of Ozzie.
"Wife!" said Mr. Prohack, "Mr. Oswald Morfey has done you the honour to
solicit the hand of your daughter in marriage. You are staggered!
"How ridiculous you are, Arthur!" said Mrs. Prohack, and impulsively
kissed Ozzie.
VI
The wedding festivities really began the next evening with a family
dinner to celebrate Sissie's betrothal. The girl arrived magnificent
from the Grand Babylon, escorted by her lover, and found Mrs. Prohack
equally magnificent--indeed more magnificent by reason of the pearl
necklace. It seemed to Mr. Prohack that Eve had soon become quite used
to that marvellous necklace; he had already had to chide her for leaving
it about. Ozzie also was magnificent; even lacking his eye-glass and
ribbon he was magnificent. Mr. Prohack, esteeming that a quiet domestic
meal at home demanded no ceremony, had put on his old velvet, but Eve
had sharply corrected his sense of values--so shrewishly indeed that
nobody would have taken her for the recent recipient of a marvellous
necklace at his hands--and he had yielded to the extent of a
dinner-jacket. Charlie had not yet come. Since the previous afternoon he
had been out of town on mighty enterprises, but Sissie had seen him
return to the hotel before she left it, and he was momently expected.
Mr. Prohack perceived that Eve was treating Ozzie in advance as her son,
and Ozzie was responding heartily: a phenomenon which Mr. Prohack in
spite of himself found agreeable. Sissie showed more reserve than her
mother towards Ozzie; but then Sissie was a proud thing, which Eve never
was. Mr. Prohack admitted privately that he was happy--yes, he was happy
in the betrothal, and he had most solemnly announced and declared that
he would have naught to do with the wedding beyond giving a marriage
gift to his daughter and giving his daughter to Ozzie. And when Sissie
said that as neither she nor Ozzie had much use for the state of being
merely engaged the wedding would occur very soon, Mr. Prohack rejoiced
at the prospect of the upset being so quickly over. After the emotions
and complications of the wedding he would settle down to
simplicity,--luxurious possibly, but still simplicity: the plain but
perfect. And let his fortune persist in accumulating, well it must
accumulate and be hanged to it!
"But what about getting a house?" he asked his daughter.
"Oh, we shall live in Ozzie's flat," said Sissie.
"Won't it be rather small?"
"The smaller the better," said Sissie. "It will match our income."
"Oh, my dear girl," Eve protested, with a glance at Mr. Prohack to
indicate that for the asking Sissie could have all the income she
wanted. "And I'll give you an idea," Eve brightly added. "You can have
_this_ house rent free."
Sissie shook her head.
"Don't make so sure that they can have this house," said Mr. Prohack.
"But, Arthur! You've agreed to go and look at Manchester Square! And
it's all ready excepting the servants. I'm told that if you don't want
less than seven servants, including one or two menservants, there's no
difficulty about servants at all. I shall be very disappointed if we
don't have the wedding from Manchester Square."
Mr. Prohack writhed, though he knew himself safe. Seven servants; two
menservants? No! And again no! No complications!
"I shall only agree to Manchester Square," said he with firmness and
solemnity, "subject to the drains being all right. Somebody in the place
must show a little elementary sagacity and restraint."
"But the drains are bound to be all right!"
"I hope so," said the deceitful father. "And I believe they will be. But
until we're sure--nothing can be done." And he laughed satanically to
himself.
"Haven't you had the report yet?" Sissie complained. "Miss Warburton was
to try to get hold of it to-night."
A moment later Machin, in a condition of high excitement due to the
betrothal, brought in a large envelope, saying that Miss Warburton had
just left it. The envelope contained the report of Messrs. Doy and Doy
on the drains of the noble mansion. Mr. Prohack read it, frowned, and
pursed his judicial lips.
"Read it, my dear," he said to Eve.
Eve read that Messrs. Doy and Doy found themselves unable, after a
preliminary inspection, which owing to their instructions to be speedy
had not been absolutely exhaustive, to certify the drains of the noble
mansion. They feared the worst, but there was of course always a slight
hope of the best, or rather the second best. (They phrased it
differently but they meant that.) In the meantime they would await
further instructions. Mr. Prohack reflected calmly: "My new secretary is
an adept of the first conspiratorial order." Eve was shocked into
silence. (Doy and Doy used very thick and convincing note-paper.) The
entrance of Charlie loosed her tongue.
"Charlie!" she cried. "The drains are all wrong. Look at this. And
didn't you say the option expired to-morrow?"
Charlie read the report.
"Infernal rascals!" he muttered. "Whose doing is this? Who's been
worrying about drains?" He looked round accusingly.
"I have," said Mr. Prohack bravely, but he could not squarely meet the
boy's stern glance.
"Well, dad, what did you take me for? Did you suppose I should buy an
option on a house without being sure of the drains? My first act was to
have the drains surveyed by Flockers, the first firm in London, and I've
got their certificate. As for Doy and Doy, they're notorious. They want
to stop everybody else but themselves getting a commission on that
house, and this--" he slapped the report--"this is how they're setting
about it."
Eve adored her son.
"You see," she said victoriously to Mr. Prohack, who secretly trembled.
"I shall bring an action against Doy and Doy," Charlie continued. "I'll
show the whole rascally thing up."
"I hope you'll do no such thing, my boy," said Mr. Prohack, foolishly
attempting the grandiose.
"I most positively shall, dad."
Mr. Prohack realised desperately that all was lost except honour, and he
was by no means sure about even honour.