CHAPTER XVII
ROMANCE
I
The very next day Mr. Prohack had a plutocratic mood of overbearingness,which led to a sudden change in his location--the same being transferredto Frinton-on-Sea. The mood was brought about by a visit to the City, atthe summons of Paul Spinner; and the visit included conversations notonly with Paul, but with Smathe and Smathe, the solicitors, and with afirm of stockbrokers. Paul handed over to his crony saleable securities,chiefly in the shape of scrip of the greatest oil-combine and itssubsidiaries, for a vast amount, and advised Mr. Prohack to hold on tothem, as, owing to the present depression due to the imminence of agreat strike, they were likely to be "marked higher" before Mr. Prohackwas much older. Mr. Prohack declined the advice, and he also declinedthe advice of solicitors and stockbrokers, who were both full of wisdomand of devices for increasing capital values. What these firms knewabout the future, and about the consequences of causes and about "thepsychology of the markets" astounded the simple Terror of thedepartments; and it was probably unanswerable. But, being full ofriches, Mr. Prohack did not trouble to answer it; he merely swept itaway with a tyrannical and impatient gesture, which gesture somehowmysteriously established him at once as a great authority on the art ofinvestment.
"Now listen to me," said he imperiously, and the manipulators of shareslistened, recalling to themselves that Mr. Prohack had been a Treasuryofficial for over twenty years and must therefore be worthhearing--although the manipulators commonly spent many hours a week inasserting, in the press and elsewhere, that Treasury officialscomprehended naught of finance. "Now listen to me. I don't care a hangabout my capital. It may decrease or increase, and I shan't care. All Icare for is my interest. I want to be absolutely sure that my interestwill tumble automatically into my bank on fixed dates. No otherconsideration touches me. I'm not a gambler. I'm not a usurer.Industrial development leaves me cold, and if I should ever feel anydesire to knit the Empire closer together I'll try to do it withoutmaking a profit out of it. At the moment all I'm after is certain, sure,fixed interest. Hence--Government securities, British Government orColonial! Britain is of course rotten to the core, always was, alwayswill be. Still, I'll take my chances. I'm infernally insular whereinvestment is concerned. There's one thing to be said about the BritishEmpire--you do know where you are in it. And I don't mind some municipalstocks. I even want some. I can conceive the smash-up of the BritishEmpire, but I cannot conceive Manchester defaulting in its interestpayments. Can you?" And he looked round and paused for a reply, and noreply came. Nobody dared to boast himself capable of conceivingManchester's default.
Towards the end of the arduous day Mr. Prohack departed from the City,leaving behind him an immense reputation for financial sagacity, and ascheme of investment under which he could utterly count upon a modestregular income of L17,000 per annum. He was sacrificing over L5,000 perannum in order to be free from an investor's anxieties, and he reckonedthat his peace of mind was cheap at a hundred pounds a week. This detailalone shows to what an extent the man's taste for costly luxuries hadgrown.
Naturally he arrived home swollen. Now it happened that Eve also, byreason of her triumph in regard to the house in Manchester Square, hadswelled head. A conflict of individualities occurred. A trifle, even aquite pleasant trifle! Nothing that the servants might not hear withadvantage. But before you could say 'knife' Mr. Prohack had said that hewould go away for a holiday and abandon Eve to manage the removal toManchester Square how she chose, and Eve had leapt on to the challengeand it was settled that Mr. Prohack should go to Frinton-on-Sea.
Eve selected Frinton-on-Sea for him because Dr. Veiga had recommended itfor herself. She had a broad notion of marriage as a commonwealth. Sheloved to take Mr. Prohack's medicines, and she was now insisting on histaking her watering-places. Mr. Prohack said that the threatened greatstrike might prevent his journey. Pooh! She laughed at such fears. Shedrove him herself to Liverpool Street.
"You may see your friend Lady Massulam," said she, as the car enteredthe precincts of the station. (Once again he was struck by the words'your friend' prefixed to Lady Massulam; but he offered no comment onthem.)
"Why Lady Massulam?" he asked.
"Didn't you know she's got a house at Frinton?" replied Mrs. Prohack."Everybody has in these days. It's the thing."
She didn't see him into the train, because she was in a hurry aboutbutlers. Mr. Prohack was cast loose in the booking-hall and had a finenovel sensation of freedom.
II
Never since marriage had he taken a holiday alone--never desired to doso. He felt himself to be on the edge of romance. Frinton, for example,presented itself as a city of romance. He knew it not, knew scarcely anyEnglish seaside, having always managed to spend his holidays abroad; butFrinton must, he was convinced, be strangely romantic. The train thitherhad an aspect which strengthened this conviction. It consisted largelyof first-class coaches, and in the window of nearly every first-classcompartment and saloon was exhibited a notice: "This compartment (orsaloon) is reserved for members of the North Essex Season-Ticket-HoldersAssociation." Mr. Prohack, being still somewhat swollen, decided that hewas a member of the North Essex Season-Ticket-Holders Association andacted accordingly. Otherwise he might never have reached Frinton.
He found himself in a sort of club, about sixty feet by six, whereeverybody knew everybody except Mr. Prohack, and where cards and othergames, tea and other drinks, tobacco and other weeds, were being playedand consumed in an atmosphere of the utmost conviviality. Mr. Prohackwas ignored, but he was not objected to. His fellow-travellers regardedhim cautiously, as a new chum. The head attendant and dispenser was veryaffable, as to a promising neophyte. Only the ticket-inspector singledhim out from all the rest by stopping in front of him.
"My last hour has come," thought Mr. Prohack as he produced hismiserable white return-ticket.
All stared; the inspector stared; but nothing happened. Mr. Prohack hada sense of reprieve, and also of having been baptised or inducted into asecret society. He listened heartily to forty conversations aboutphysical diversions and luxuries and about the malignant and fatuouswrong-headedness of men who went on strike, and about the approachingcatastrophic end of all things.
Meanwhile, at any rate in the coach, the fabric of society seemed to beholding together fairly well. Before the train was half-way to FrintonMr. Prohack judged--and rightly--that he was already there. The fact wasthat he had been there ever since entering the saloon. After two hoursthe train, greatly diminished in length, came to rest in the midst of adark flatness, and the entire population of the coach vanished out of itin the twinkling of an eye, and Mr. Prohack saw the name 'Frinton' on aflickering oil-lamp, and realised that he was at the gates of the mostfashionable resort in England, a spot where even the ozone wasexclusive. The station staff marvelled at him because he didn't knowwhere the Majestic Hotel was and because he asked without notice for ataxi, fly, omnibus or anything on wheels. All the other passengers haddisappeared. The exclusive ozone was heavy with exciting romance for Mr.Prohack as the station staff considered his unique and incomprehensiblecase. Then a tiny omnibus materialised out of the night.
"Is this the Majestic bus?" Mr. Prohack enquired of the driver.
"Well, it is if you like, sir," the driver answered.
Mr. Prohack did like....
The Majestic was large and prim, resembling a Swiss hotel in itsfurniture, the language and composition of the menu, the dialect of thewaiters; but it was about fifteen degrees colder than the highest hotelin Switzerland. The dining-room was shaded with rose-shaded lamps and itsusurrated with the polite whisperings of elegant couples and trios, andthe entremet was cabinet pudding: a fine display considering the depthof winter and of the off-season.
Mr. Prohack went off after dinner for a sharp walk in the east wind.Solitude! Blackness! Night! East wind in the bushes of gardens thatshielded the facades of large houses! Not a soul! Not a policeman! Hedescended precariously to the vast, smooth bea
ch. The sound of the sea!Romance! Mr. Prohack seemed to walk for miles, like Ozymandias, on thelone and level sands. Then he fancied he descried a moving object. Hewas not mistaken. It approached him. It became a man and a woman. Itbecame a man and a young woman arm-in-arm and soul-in-soul. And therewas nothing but the locked couple, and the sound of the invisible,immeasurable sea, and the east wind, and Mr. Prohack. Romance thrilledthrough Mr. Prohack's spine.
"So I said to him," the man was saying to the young woman as the pairpassed Mr. Prohack, "I said to him 'I could do with a pint o' that,' Isaid."