Mr. Prohack

  CHAPTER XXI

  EVE'S MARTYRDOM

  I

  After a magnificent night's sleep, so magnificent indeed that he felt asif he had never until that moment really grasped the full significanceof the word "sleep," Mr. Prohack rang the bell for his morning tea. Oflate he had given orders that he must not under any circumstances becalled, for it had been vouchsafed to him that in spite of a multitudeof trained servants there were still things that he could do for himselfbetter than anybody else could do for him, and among them was the act ofwaking up Mr. Prohack. He knew that he was in a very good humour,capable of miracles, and he therefore determined that he would seize theopportunity to find the human side of Mr. Brool and make a friend ofhim. But the tea-tray was brought in by Mrs. Prohack, who was completelyand severely dressed. She put down the tray and kissed her husband notas usual, but rather in the manner of a Roman matron, and Mr. Prohackdivined that something had happened.

  "I hope Brool hasn't dropped down dead," said he, realising thefoolishness of his facetiousness as he spoke.

  Eve seemed to be pained.

  "Have you slept better?" she asked, solicitous.

  "I have slept so well that there's probably something wrong with me,"said he. "Heavy sleep is a symptom of several dangerous diseases."

  "I'm glad you've had a good night," she began, again ignoring hismaladroit flippancy, "because I want to talk to you."

  "Darling," he responded. "Pour out my tea for me, will you? Then I shallbe equal to any strain. I trust that you also passed a fair night,madam. You look tremendously fit."

  Visions of Lady Massulam flitted through his mind, but he decided thatEve, seriously pouring out tea for him under the lamp in the morningtwilight of the pale bedroom, could not be matched by either LadyMassulam or anybody else. No, he could not conceive a Lady Massulampouring out early tea; the Lady Massulams could only pour out afternoontea--a job easier to do with grace and satisfaction.

  "I have not slept a wink all night," said Eve primly. "But I wasdetermined that nothing should induce me to disturb you."

  "Yes?" Mr. Prohack encouraged her, sipping the first glorious sip.

  "Well, will you believe me that Sissie slipped out last night afterdinner without saying a word to me or any one, and that she didn't comeback and hasn't come back? I sat up for her till three o'clock--Itelephoned to Charlie, but no! he'd seen nothing of her."

  "Did you telephone to Ozzie?"

  "Telephone to Ozzie, my poor boy! Of course I didn't. I wouldn't haveOzzie know for anything. Besides, he isn't on the telephone at hisflat."

  "That's a good reason for not telephoning, anyway," said Mr. Prohack.

  "But did you ever hear of such a thing? The truth is, you've spoilt thatchild."

  "I may have spoilt the child," Mr. Prohack admitted. "But I have heardof such a thing. I seem to remember that in the dear dead days ofdancing studios, something similar occurred to your daughter."

  "Yes, but we did know where she was."

  "You didn't. I did," Mr. Prohack corrected her.

  "Do you want me to cry?" Eve demanded suddenly.

  "Yes," said Mr. Prohack. "I love to see you cry."

  Eve pursed her lips and wrinkled her brows and gazed at the window,performing great feats of self-control under extreme provocation to loseher temper.

  "What do you propose to do?" she asked with formality.

  "Wait till the girl comes back," said Mr. Prohack.

  "Arthur! I really cannot understand how you can take a thing like thisso casually! No, I really can't!"

  "Neither can I!" Mr. Prohack admitted, quite truthfully.

  He saw that he ought to have been gravely upset by Sissie's prank and hewas merely amused. "Effect of too much sleep, no doubt," he added.

  Eve walked about the room.

  "I pretended to Machin this morning that Sissie had told me that she wassleeping out, and that I had forgotten to tell Machin. It's a good thingwe haven't engaged lady's maids yet. I can trust Machin. I know shedidn't believe me this morning, but I can trust her. You see, afterSissie's strange behaviour these last few days.... One doesn't know whatto think. And there's something else. Every morning for the last threeor four weeks Sissie's gone out somewhere, for an hour or two, quiteregularly. And where she went I've never been able to find out. Ofcourse with a girl like her it doesn't do to ask too directquestions.... Ah! I should like to have seen my mother in my place. Iknow what she'd have done!"

  "What would your mother have done? She always seemed to me to be afairly harmless creature."

  "Yes, to you!... Do you think we ought to inform the police!"

  "No!"

  "I'm so glad. The necklace and Sissie coming on top of each other! No,it would be too much!"

  "It never rains but it pours, does it?" observed Mr. Prohack.

  "But what _are_ we to do?"

  "Just what your mother would have done. Your mother would have arguedlike this: Either Sissie is staying away against her will or she isstaying away of her own accord. If the former, it means an accident, andwe are bound to hear shortly from one of the hospitals. If the latter,we can only sit tight. Your mother had a vigorous mind and that is howshe would have looked at things."

  "I never know how to take you, Arthur," said Mrs. Prohack, and went on:"And what makes it all the more incomprehensible is that yesterdayafternoon Sissie went with me to Jay's to see about the wedding-dress."

  "But why should that make it all the more incomprehensible?"

  "Don't you think it does, somehow? I do."

  "Did she giggle at Jay's?"

  "Oh, no! Except once. Yes, I think she giggled once. That was when thefitter said she hoped we should give them plenty of time, because mostcustomers rushed them so. I remember thinking how queer it was thatSissie should laugh so much at a perfectly simple remark like that. Oh!Arthur!"

  "Now, my child," said Mr. Prohack firmly. "Don't get into your head thatSissie has gone off hers. Yesterday you thought for quite half an hourthat I was suffering from incipient lunacy. Let that suffice you for thepresent. Be philosophical. The source of tranquillity is within.Remember that, and remind me of it too, because I'm apt to forget it....We can do nothing at the moment. I will now get up, and I warn you thatI shall want a large breakfast and you to pour out my coffee and readthe interesting bits out of _The Daily Picture_ to me."

  At eleven o'clock of the morning the _status quo_ was still maintainingitself within the noble mansion at Manchester Square. Mr. Prohack,washed, dressed, and amply fed, was pretending to be very busy withcorrespondence in his study, but he was in fact much more busy with Evethan with the correspondence. She came in to him every few minutes, andeach time needed more delicate handling. After one visit Mr. Prohack hadan idea. He transferred the key from the inside to the outside of thedoor. At the next visit Eve presented an ultimatum. She said that Mr.Prohack must positively do something about his daughter. Mr. Prohackreplied that he would telephone to his solicitors: a project whichhappily commended itself to Eve, though what his solicitors could doexcept charge a fee Mr. Prohack could not imagine.

  "You wait here," said he persuasively.

  He then left the room and silently locked the door on Eve. It was amonstrous act, but Mr. Prohack had slept too well and was too fullyinspired by the instinct of initiative. He hurried downstairs, ignoringBrool, who was contemplating the grandeur of the entrance hall, snatchedhis overcoat, hat, and umbrella from the seventeenth-century panelledcupboard in which these articles were kept, and slipped away into theSquare, before Brool could even open the door for him. As he fled heglanced up at the windows of his study, fearful lest Eve might havedivined his purpose to abandon her and, catching sight of him in flight,might begin making noises on the locked door. But Eve had not divinedhis purpose.

  Mr. Prohack walked straight to Bruton Street, where Oswald Morfey'sJapanese flat was situated. Mr. Prohack had never seen this flat, thoughhis wife and daughter had been invited to it for tea--and had returned
therefrom with excited accounts of its exquisite uniqueness. He haddecided that his duty was to inform Ozzie of the mysteriousdisappearance of Sissie as quickly as possible; and, as Ozzie'stheatrical day was not supposed to begin until noon, he hoped to catchhim before his departure to the beck and call of the mighty AspreyChown.

  The number in Bruton Street indicated a tall, thin house with fourbell-pushes and four narrow brass-plates on its door-jamb. The deceitfuledifice looked at a distance just like its neighbours, but, as the arrayon the door-jamb showed, it had ceased to be what it seemed, the home ofa respectable Victorian family in easy circumstances, and had become aGeorgian warren for people who could reconcile themselves to a commonstaircase provided only they might engrave a sound West End address ontheir notepaper. The front-door was open, disclosing the reassuring factthat the hall and staircase were at any rate carpeted. Mr. Prohack rangthe bell attached to Ozzie's name, waited, rang again, waited, and thenmarched upstairs. Perhaps Ozzie was shaving. Not being accustomed to theorganisation of tenements in fashionable quarters, Mr. Prohack wasunaware that during certain hours of the day he was entitled to ring thehousekeeper's bell, on the opposite door-jamb, and to summon help fromthe basement.

  As he mounted it the staircase grew stuffier and stuffier, but thecondition of the staircarpet improved. Mr. Prohack hated the place, andat once determined to fight powerfully against Sissie's declaredintention of starting married life in her husband's bachelor-flat, forthe sake of economy. He would force the pair, if necessary, to acceptfrom him a flat rent-free, or he would even purchase for them one ofthose bijou residences of which he had heard tell. He little dreamedthat this very house had once been described as a bijou residence. Thethird floor landing was terribly small and dark, and Mr. Prohack couldscarcely decipher the name of his future son-in-law on the shabbyname-plate.

  "This den would be dear at elevenpence three farthings a year," said heto himself, and was annoyed because for months he had been picturing theelegant Oswald as the inhabitant of something orientally and impeccablyluxurious, and he wondered that his women, as a rule so critical, hadbreathed no word of the flat's deplorable approaches.

  He rang the bell, and the bell made a violent and horrid sound, whichcould scarcely fail to be heard throughout the remainder of the house.No answer! Ozzie had gone. He descended the stairs, and on thesecond-floor landing saw an old lady putting down a mat in front of anopen door. The old lady's hair was in curl-papers.

  "I suppose," he ventured, raising his hat. "I suppose you don't happento know whether Mr. Morfey has gone out?"

  The old lady scanned him before replying.

  "He can't be gone out," she answered. "He's just been sweeping his floorenough to wake the dead."

  "Sweeping his floor!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack, shocked, thunderstruck. "Iunderstood these were service flats."

  "So they are--in a way, but the housekeeper never gets up to this floorbefore half past twelve; so it can't be the housekeeper. Besides, she'sgone out for me."

  "Thank you," said Mr. Prohack, and remounted the staircase. His bloodwas up. He would know the worst about the elegant Oswald, even if he hadto beat the door down. He was, however, saved from this extreme measure,for when he aimlessly pushed against Oswald's door it opened.

  He beheld a narrow passage, which in the matter of its decorationcertainly did present a Japanese aspect to Mr. Prohack, who, however,had never been to Japan. Two doors gave off the obscure corridor. One ofthese doors was open, and in the doorway could be seen the latter halfof a woman and the forward half of a carpet-brush. She was evidentlybrushing the carpet of a room and gradually coming out of the room andinto the passage. She wore a large blue pinafore apron, and she was soabsorbed in her business that the advent of Mr. Prohack passed quiteunnoticed by her. Mr. Prohack waited. More of the woman appeared, and atlast the whole of her. She felt, rather than saw, the presence of a manat the entrance, and she looked up, transfixed. A deep blush travelledover all her features.

  "How clever of you!" she said, with a fairly successful effort to becalm.

  "Good morning, my child," said Mr. Prohack, with a similar and equallysuccessful effort. "So you're cleaning Mr. Morfey's flat for him."

  "Yes. And not before it needed it. Do come in and shut the door." Mr.Prohack obeyed, and Sissie shed her pinafore apron. "Now we're quiteprivate. I think you'd better kiss me. I may as well tell you that I'mfearfully happy--much more so than I expected to be at first."

  Mr. Prohack again obeyed, and when he kissed his daughter he had analmost entirely new sensation. The girl was far more interesting to himthan she had ever been. Her blush thrilled him.

  "You might care to glance at that," said Sissie, with an affectation ofcarelessness, indicating a longish, narrowish piece of paper coveredwith characters in red and black, which had been affixed to the wall ofthe passage with two pins. "We put it there--at least I did--to savetrouble."

  Mr. Prohack scanned the document. It began: "This is to certify--" andit was signed by a "Registrar of births, deaths, and marriages."

  "Yesterday, eh?" he ejaculated.

  "Yes. Yesterday, at two o'clock. _Not_ at St George's and _not_ at StNicodemus's.... Well, you can say what you like, dad--"

  "I'm not aware of having said anything yet," Mr. Prohack put in.

  "You can say what you like, but what _did_ you expect me to do? It wasnecessary to bring home to some people that this is the twentiethcentury, not the nineteenth, and I think I've done it. And anyway whatare you going to do about it? Did you seriously suppose that I--_I_--wasgoing through all the orange-blossom rigmarole, voice that breathed o'erEden, fully choral, red carpet on the pavement, flowers, photographers,vicar, vestry, _Daily Picture_, reception, congratulations, rice, oldshoes, going-away dress, 'Be kind to her, Ozzie.' Not much! And I don'tthink. They say that girls love it and insist on it. Well, I don't, andI know some others who don't, too. I think it's simply barbaric, worsethan a public funeral. Why, to my mind it's Central African; and that'sall there is to it. So there!" She laughed.

  "Well," said Mr. Prohaek, holding his hat in his hand. "I'm a tolerablytwo-faced person myself, but for sheer heartless duplicity I give youthe palm. You can beat me. Has it occurred to you that this dodge ofyours will cost you about fifty per cent of the wedding presents youmight otherwise have had?"

  "It has," said Sissie. "That was one reason why we tried the dodge.Nothing is more horrible than about fifty per cent of the weddingpresents that brides get in these days. And we've had the two finestpresents anybody could wish for."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes, Ozzie gave me Ozzie, and I gave him me."

  "I suppose the idea was yours?"

  "Of course. Didn't I tell you yesterday that Ozzie's only function at mywedding was to be indispensable. He was very much afraid at first when Istarted on the scheme, but he soon warmed up to it. I'll give him creditfor seeing that secrecy was the only thing. If we'd announced itbeforehand, we should have been bound to be beaten. You see thatyourself, don't you, dearest? And after all, it's our affair and nobodyelse's."

  "That's just where you're wrong," said Mr. Prohack grandly. "A marriage,even yours, is an affair of the State's. It concerns society. It is fullof reactions on society. And society has been very wise to invest itwith solemnity--and a certain grotesque quality. All solemnities are abit grotesque, and so they ought to be. All solemnities ought to produceself-consciousness in the performers. As things are, you'll be ten yearsin convincing yourself that you're really a married woman, and till theday of your death, and afterwards, society will have an instinctivefeeling that there's something fishy about you, or about Ozzie. And it'syour own fault."

  "Oh, dad! What a fraud you are!" And the girl smiled. "You knowperfectly well that if you'd been in my place, and had had thepluck--which you wouldn't have had--you'd have done the same."

  "I should," Mr. Prohack immediately admitted. "Because I always want tobe smarter than other people. It's a cheap ambition. But I should havebeen wr
ong. And I'm exceedingly angry with you and I'm suffering from asense of outrage, and I should not be at all surprised if all is overbetween us. The thing amounts to a scandal, and the worst of it is thatno satisfactory explanation of it can ever be given to the world. Ifyour Ozzie is up, produce him, and I'll talk to him as he's never beentalked to before. He's the elder, he's a man, and he's the most toblame."

  "Take your overcoat off," said Sissie laughing and kissing him again."And don't you dare to say a word to Ozzie. Besides, he isn't in. He'sgone off to business. He always goes at eleven-thirty punctually."

  There was a pause.

  "Well," said Mr. Prohack. "All I wish to state is that if you had afeather handy, you could knock me down with it."

  "I can see all over your face," Sissie retorted, "that you're so pleasedand relieved you don't know what to do with yourself."

  Mr. Prohack perfunctorily denied this, but it was true. His relief thatthe wedding lay behind instead of in front of him was immense, and hisspirits rose even higher than they had been when he first woke up. Heloathed all ceremonies, and the prospect of having to escort anorange-blossom-laden young woman in an automobile to a fashionablechurch, and up the aisle thereof, and raise his voice therein, and makea present of her to some one else, and breathe sugary nothings to athousand gapers at a starchy reception,--this prospect had increasinglybecome a nightmare to him. Often had he dwelt on it in a conditionresembling panic. And now he felt genuinely grateful to his inexcusabledaughter for her shameless effrontery. He desired greatly to dosomething very handsome indeed for her and her excellent tame husband.

  "Step in and see my home," she said.

  The home consisted of two rooms, one of them a bedroom and the other asitting-room, together with a small bathroom that was as dark and dankas a cell of the Spanish Inquisition, and another apartment which hetook for a cupboard, but which Sissie authoritatively informed him was akitchen. The two principal rooms were beyond question beautifullyJapanese in the matter of pictures, prints and cabinets--not otherwise.They showed much taste; they were unusual and stimulating and jolly andrefined; but Mr. Prohack did not fancy that he personally could havelived in them with any striking success. The lack of space, of light,and of air outweighed all considerations of charm and originality; theupper staircase alone would have ruined any flat for Mr. Prohack.

  "Isn't it lovely!" Sissie encouraged him.

  "Yes, it is," he said feebly. "Got any servants yet?"

  "Oh! We can't have servants. No room for them to sleep, and I couldn'tstand charwomen. You see, it's a service flat, so there's really nothingto do."

  "So I noticed when I came in," said Mr. Prohack. "And I suppose youintend to eat at restaurants. Or do they send up meals from the cellar?"

  "We shan't go to restaurants," Sissie replied. "You may be sure of that.Too expensive for us. And I don't count much on the cookery downstairs.No! I shall do the cooking in a chaffing-dish--here it is, you see. I'vebeen taking lessons in chafing-dish cookery every day for weeks, andit's awfully amusing, it is really. And it's much better than ordinarycooking, and cheaper too. Ozzie loves it."

  Mr. Prohack was touched, and more than ever determined to "be generousin the grand manner and start the simple-minded couple in married lifeon a scale befitting the general situation.

  "You'll soon be clearing out of this place, I expect," he begancautiously.

  "Clearing out!" Sissie repeated. "Why should we? We've got all we need.We haven't the slightest intention of trying to live as you live.Ozzie's very prudent, I'm glad to say, and so am I. We're going to savehard for a few years, and then we shall see how things are."

  "But you can't possibly stay on living in a place like this!" Mr.Prohack protested, smiling diplomatically to soften the effect of hiswords.

  "Who can't?"

  "You can't."

  "But when you say me, do you mean your daughter or Ozzie's wife?Ozzie's lived here for years, and he's given lots of partieshere--tea-parties, of course."

  Mr. Prohack paused, perceiving that he had put himself in the wrong.

  "This place is perfectly respectable," Sissie continued, "and supposingyou hadn't got all that money from America or somewhere," she persisted,"would you have said that I couldn't 'possibly go on living in a placelike this?'" She actually imitated his superior fatherly tone. "You'dhave been only too pleased to see me living in a place like this."

  Mr. Prohack raised both arms on high.

  "All right," said the young spouse, absurdly proud of her position."I'll let you off with your life this time, and you can drop your armsagain. But if anybody had told me that you would come here and make anoise like a plutocrat I wouldn't have believed it. Still, I'mfrightfully fond of you and I know you'd do anything for me, and you'renearly as much of a darling as Ozzie, but you mustn't be a rich man whenyou call on me here. I couldn't bear it twice."

  "I retire in disorder, closely pursued by the victorious enemy," saidMr. Prohack. And in so saying he accurately described the situation. Hehad been more than defeated--he had been exquisitely snubbed. And yetthe singular creature was quite pleased. He looked at the young girl, nolonger his and no longer a girl either, set in the midst of a japannedand lacquered room that so resembled Ozzie in its daintiness; he saw thedecision on her brow, the charm in her eyes, and the elegance in herfigure and dress, and he came near to bursting with pride. "She's gotcharacter enough to beat even me," he reflected contentedly, thusexhibiting an ingenuousness happily rare among fathers of brilliantdaughters. And even the glimpse of the cupboard kitchen, where thewashing-up after a chafing-dish breakfast for two had obviously not yetbeen accomplished--even this touch seemed only to intensify the moraland physical splendour of his child in her bridal setting.

  "At the same time," he added to the admission of defeat, "I seem to havea sort of idea that lately you've been carrying on rather like aplutocrat's daughter."

  "That was only my last fling," she replied, quite unperturbed.

  "I see," said Mr. Prohack musingly. "Now as regards my wedding presentto you. Am I permitted to offer any gift, or is it forbidden? Of coursewith all my millions I couldn't hope to rival the gift which Ozzie gaveyou, but I might come in a pretty fair second, mightn't I?"

  "Dad," said she. "I must leave all that to your good taste. I'm surethat it won't let you make any attack on our independence."

  "Supposing that I were to find some capital for Ozzie to start inbusiness for himself as a theatrical manager? He must know a good dealabout the job by this time."

  Sissie shook her delicious head.

  "No, that would be plutocratic. And you see I've only just marriedOzzie. I don't know anything about him yet. When I do, I shall come andtalk to you. While you're waiting I wish you'd give me some crockery.One breakfast cup isn't quite enough for two people, after the firstday. I saw a set of things in a shop in Oxford Street for L1. 19. 6which I should love to have.... What's happened to the mater? Is she ina great state about me? Hadn't you better run off and put her out of hermisery?"

  He went, thoughtful.