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Mr. Prohack, a novel by Arnold Bennett |
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Chapter 16. Transfer Of Mimi |
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_ CHAPTER XVI. TRANSFER OF MIMI I Mr. Prohack passed a very bad night--the worst for months, one of the outstanding bad nights of his whole existence. "Why didn't I have it out with Charlie before he left?" he asked himself some scores of times while listening to the tranquil regular breathing of Eve, who of course was now sure of her house and probably had quite forgotten the meaning of care. "I'm bound to have it out with him sooner or later, and if I'd done it at once I should at any rate have slept. They're all sleeping but me." He simply could not comprehend life; the confounded thing called life baffled him by its mysterious illogicalness. He was adored by his spouse, beloved by his children, respected by the world. He had heaps of money, together with the full control of it. His word, if he chose, was law. He had only to say: "I will not take the house in Manchester Square," and nobody could thwart him. He powerfully desired not to take it. There was no sensible reason why he should take it. And yet he would take it, under the inexplicable compulsion of circumstances. In those sombre hours he had a fellow-feeling for Oriental tyrants, who were absolute autocrats but also slaves of exactly the same sinister force that had gripped himself. He perceived that in practice there is no such thing as an autocrat.... Not that his defeat in regard to the house really disturbed him. He could reconcile himself to the house, despite the hateful complications which it would engender. What disturbed him horribly was the drains business, the Doy and Doy business, the Mimi business; he could see no way out of that except through the valley of humiliation. He remembered, with terrible forebodings, the remark of his daughter after she heard of the heritage: "You'll never be as happy again." When the household day began and the familiar comfortable distant noises of domestic activity announced that the solar system was behaving much as usual in infinite and inconceivable space, he decided that he was too tired to be scientifically idle that day--even though he had a trying-on appointment with Mr. Melchizidek. He decided, too, that he would not get up, would in fact take everything lying down, would refuse to descend a single step of the stairs to meet trouble. And he had a great wish to be irritated and angry. But, the place seemed to be full of angels who turned the other cheek--and the other cheek was marvellously soft and bewitching. Eve, Sissie (who had called), and Machin--they were all in a state of felicity, for the double reason that Sissie was engaged to be married, and that the household was to move into a noble mansion. Machin saw herself at the head of a troup of sub-parlourmaids and housemaids and tweenies, and foretold that she would stand no nonsense from butlers. They all treated Mr. Prohack as a formidable and worshipped tyrant, whose smile was the sun and whose frown death, and who was the fount of wisdom and authority. They knew that he wanted to be irritated, and they gave him no chance to be irritated. Their insight into his psychology was uncanny. They knew that he was beaten on the main point, and with their detestable feminine realism they exquisitely yielded on all the minor points. Eve, fresh as a rose, bent over him and bedewed him, and said that she was going out and that Sissie had gone again. When he was alone he rang the bell for Machin as though the bell had done him an injury. "What time is it?" "Eleven o'clock, sir." "Eleven o'clock! Good God! Why hasn't Miss Warburton come?" As if Machin was responsible for Miss Warburton!... No! Mr. Prohack was not behaving nicely, and it cannot be hidden that he lacked the grandeur of mind which distinguishes most of us. "Miss Warburton was here before ten o'clock, sir." "Then why hasn't she come up?" "She was waiting for orders, sir." "Send her up immediately." "Certainly, sir." Miss Warburton was the fourth angel--an angel with another spick-and-span blouse, and the light of devotion in her eyes and the sound of it in her purling voice. "Good morning," the gruff brute started. "Did I hear the telephone-bell just now?" "Yes, sir. Doy and Doy have telephoned to say that Mr. Charles Prohack has just been in to see them, and they've referred him to you, and--and--" "And what? And what? And what?" (A machine-gun.) "They said he was extremely unpleasant." Instinctively Mr. Prohack threw away shame. Mimi was his minion. He treated her as an Oriental tyrant might treat the mute guardian of the seraglio, and told her everything,--that Charlie had forestalled them in the matter of the drains of the noble mansion, that Charlie had determined to destroy Doy and Doy, that he, Mr. Prohack, was caught in a trap, that there was the devil to pay, and that the finest lies that ingenuity could invent would have to be uttered. He abandoned all pretence of honesty and uprightness. Mimi showed no surprise whatever, nor was she apparently in the least shocked. She seemed to regard the affair as a quite ordinary part of the day's routine. Her insensitive calm frightened Mr. Prohack. "Now we must think of something," said the iniquitous monster. "I don't see that there need be any real difficulty," Mimi replied. "_You_ didn't know anything about my plot with Doy and Doy. I got the notion--quite wrongly--that you preferred not to have the house, and I acted as I did through an excess of zeal. I must confess the plot. I alone am to blame, and I admit that what I did was quite inexcusable." "What a girl! What a girl!" thought Mr. Prohack. But there were limits to his iniquity, and he said aloud, benevolently, grandiosely: "But I did know about it. You as good as told me exactly what you meant to do, and I let you do it. I approved, and I am responsible. Nothing will induce me to let you take the responsibility. Let that be clearly understood, please." He looked squarely at the girl, and watched with apprehension her aspiring nose rise still further, her delicate ruthless mouth become still more ruthless. "Excuse me," she said. "My plan is the best. It's the obvious plan. Mr. Carrel Quire often adopted it. I'm afraid you're hesitating to trust me as I expect to be trusted. Please don't forget that you sacrificed an empire for me--I shall always remember that. And what's more, you said you expected from me absolute loyalty to your interests. I can stand anything but not being trusted--_fully_!" Mr. Prohack sank deeper into the bed, and laughed loudly, immoderately, titanically. His ill-humour vanished as a fog will vanish. Nevertheless he was appalled by the revelation of the possibilities of the girl's character. The strange scene was interrupted by the arrival of Charlie, who, thanks to his hypnotic influence over Machin, came masterfully straight upstairs, entered the bedroom without asking permission to do so, and, in perfect indifference to the alleged frailty of his father's health, proceeded to business. II "Dad," said he, after Mimi had gone through her self-ordained martyrdom and left the room. "I wonder whether you quite realise what a top-hole creature that Warburton girl is. She's perfectly astounding." "She is," Mr. Prohack admitted. "She's got ideas." "She has." "And she isn't afraid of carrying them out." "She is not." "She's much too good for you, dad." "She is." "I mean, you can't really make full use of her, can you? She's got no scope here." "She makes her own scope," said Mr. Prohack. "Now I honestly do need a good secretary," Charlie at last unmasked his attack. "I've got a temporary idiot, and I want a first-rater, preferably a woman. I wish you'd be decent and turn Miss Warburton over to me. She'd be invaluable to me, and with me she really _would_ have scope for her talents." Charlie laughed. "What are you laughing at?" "I was only thinking of her having the notion of queering the drains like that because she wanted to please you. It was simply great. It's the best thing I ever heard." He laughed again. "Now, dad, will you turn her over to me?" "You appear to think she's a slave to be bought and sold and this room the slave-market," said Mr. Prohack. "It hasn't occurred to you that _she_ might object to the transfer." "Oh! I can soon persuade _her_." said Charlie, lightly. "But you couldn't easily persuade me. And I may as well inform you at once, my poor ingenuous boy, that I won't agree. I will never agree. Miss Warburton is necessary to my existence." "All in two or three days, is she?" Charlie observed sarcastically. "Yes." "Well, father, as we're talking straight, let's talk straight. I'm going to take her from you. It's a very little help I'm asking you for, and that you should refuse is a bit thick. I shall speak to the mater." "And what shall you say?" "I shall tell her all about the plot against the new house. It was really a plot against her, because she wants the house--the house is nothing to me. I may believe that you knew nothing about the plot yourself, but I'll lay you any odds the mater won't." "Speaking as man to man, my boy, I lay you any odds you can't put your mother against me." "Oh!" cried Charlie, "she won't _say_ she believes you're guilty, but she'll believe it all the same. And it's what people think that matters, not what they say they think." "That's wisdom," Mr. Prohack agreed. "I see that I brought you up not so badly after all. But doesn't it strike you that you're trying to blackmail your father? I hope I taught you sagacity, but I never encouraged you in blackmail--unless my memory fails me." "You can call it by any name you please," said Charlie. "Very well, then, I will. I'll call it blackmail. Give me a cigarette." He lit the offered cigarette. "Anything else this morning?" Father and son smiled warily at one another. Both were amused and even affectionate, but serious in the battle. "Come along, dad. Be a sport. Anyhow, let's ask the girl." "Do you know what my answer to blackmail is?" Mr. Prohack blandly enquired. "No." "My answer is the door. Drop the subject entirely. Or sling your adventurous book." Mr. Prohack was somewhat startled to see Charlie walk straight out of the bedroom. A disturbing suspicion that there might be something incalculable in his son was rudely confirmed. He said to himself: "But this is absurd." III That morning the Prohack bedroom seemed to be transformed into a sort of public square. No sooner had Charlie so startlingly left than Machin entered again. "Dr. Veiga, sir." And Dr. Veiga came in. The friendship between Mr. Prohack and his picturesque quack had progressed--so much so that Eve herself had begun to twit her husband with having lost his head about the doctor. Nevertheless Eve was privately very pleased with the situation, because it proved that she had been right and Mr. Prohack wrong concerning the qualities of the fat, untidy, ironic Portuguese. Mr. Prohack was delighted to see him, for an interview with Dr. Veiga always meant an unusual indulgence in the sweets of candour and realism. "This is my wife's doing, no doubt," said Mr. Prohack, limply shaking hands. "She called to see me, ostensibly about herself, but of course in fact about you. However, I thought she needed a tonic, and I'll write out the prescription while I'm here. Now what's the matter with you?" "No!" Mr. Prohack burst out, "I'm hanged if I'll tell you. I'm not going to do your work for you. Find out." Dr. Veiga examined, physically and orally, and then said: "There's nothing at all the matter with you, my friend." "That's just where you're mistaken," Mr. Prohack retorted. "There's something rather serious the matter with me. I'm suffering from grave complications. Only you can't help me. My trouble is spiritual. Neither pills nor tonics can touch it. But that doesn't make it any better." "Try me," said Dr. Veiga. "I'm admirable on the common physical ailments, and by this time I should have been universally recognised as a great man if common ailments were uncommon; because you know in my profession you never get any honour unless you make a study of diseases so rare that nobody has them. Discover a new disease, and save the life of some solitary nigger who brought it to Liverpool, and you'll be a baronet in a fortnight and a member of all the European academies in a month. But study colds, indigestion and insomnia, and change a thousand lives a year from despair to felicity, and no authority will take the slightest notice of you ... As with physical, so with mental diseases--or spiritual, if you like to call them so. You don't suspect that in the common mental diseases I'm a regular benefactor of mankind; but I am. I don't blame you for not knowing it, because you're about the last person I should have thought susceptible to any mental disease, and so you've had no chance of finding out. Now, what is it?" "Don't I tell you I'm suffering from horrible complications?" cried Mr. Prohack. "What kind of complications?" "Every kind. My aim has always been to keep my life simple, and I succeeded very well--perhaps too well--until I inherited money. I don't mind money, but I do mind complications. I don't want a large house--because it means complications. I desire Sissie's happiness, but I hate weddings. I desire to be looked after, but I hate strange servants. I can find pleasure in a motor-car, but I hate even the risk of accidents. I have no objection to an income, but I hate investments. And so on. All I ask is to live simply and sensibly, but instead of that my existence is transformed into a quadratic equation. And I can't stop it. My happiness is not increasing--it's decreasing. I spend more and more time in wondering whither I am going, what I am after, and where precisely is the point of being alive at all. That's a fact, and now you know it." Dr. Veiga rose from his chair and deliberately sat down on the side of his patient's bed. The gesture in itself was sufficiently unprofessional, but he capped it with another of which probably no doctor had ever been guilty in a British sick-room before; he pulled out a pocket-knife and became his own manicure, surveying his somewhat neglected hands with a benevolently critical gaze, smiling at them as if to say: "What funny hands you are!" And Mr. Prohack felt that the doctor was saying: "What a funny Prohack you are!" "My friend," said Dr. Veiga at length (with his voice), "my friend, I will not conceal from you that your alarm was justified. You are suffering from one of the commonest and one of the gravest mental derangements. I'm surprised, but there it is. You haven't yet discovered that it's the earth you're living on. You fancy it may be Sirius, Uranus, Aldebaran or Jupiter--let us say Jupiter. Perhaps in one of these worlds matters are ordered differently, and their truth is not our truth; but let me assure you that the name of your planet is the Earth and that on the earth one great unalterable truth prevails. Namely:--You can't do this"--here Dr. Veiga held up a pared and finished finger and wagged it to and fro with solemnity--"you can't do this without moving your finger ... You were aware of this great truth? Then why are you upset because you can't wag your finger without moving it?... Perhaps I'm being too subtle for you. Let me put the affair in another way. You've lost sight of the supreme earthly fact that everything has not merely a consequence, but innumerable consequences. You knew when you married that you were creating endless consequences, and now you want to limit the consequences. You knew when you accepted a fortune that you were creating endless consequences, and now you want to limit them too. You want to alter the rules after the game has started. You set in motion circumstances which were bound to influence the development of the members of your family, and when the inevitable new developments begin, you object, simply because you hadn't foreseen them. You knew that money doesn't effectively exist until it's spent and that you can't spend money without causing consequences, and when your family causes consequences by bringing the money to life you complain that you're a martyr to the consequences and that you hadn't bargained for complications. My poor friend, you have made one crucial mistake in your career,--the mistake of being born. Happily the mistake is curable. I can give you several prescriptions. The first is prussic acid. If you don't care for that you can donate the whole of your fortune to the Sinking Fund for extinguishing the National Debt and you can return to the Treasury. If you don't care for that you can leave your family mysteriously and go and live in Timbuctoo by yourself. If you don't care for that you can buy a whip and forbid your wife and daughter to grow older or change in any way on pain of a hundred lashes. And if you don't like that you can acquaint yourself with the axioms that neither you nor anybody else are the centre of the universe and that what you call complications are simply another name for life itself. Worry is life, and life is worry. And the absence of worry is death. I won't say to you that you're rich and beloved and therefore you've nothing to worry about. I'll say to you, you've got a lot to worry about because you're rich and beloved.... I'll leave the other hand for to-morrow." Dr. Veiga snapped down the blade of the pocket-knife. "Platitudes!" ejaculated Mr. Prohack. "Certainly," agreed the quack. "But I've told you before that it's by telling everybody what everybody knows that I earn my living." "I'll get up," said Mr. Prohack. "And not too soon," said the quack. "Get up by all means and deal with your worries. All worries can be dealt with." "It doesn't make life any better," said Mr. Prohack. "Nothing makes life any better, except death--and there's a disgusting rumour that there is no death. Where shall I find a pencil, my dear fellow? I've forgotten mine, and I want to prescribe Mrs. Prohack's tonic." "In the boudoir there," said Mr. Prohack. "What the deuce are you smiling at?" "I'm smiling because I'm so glad to find you aren't so wise as you look." And Dr. Veiga disappeared blithely into the boudoir. Almost at the same moment Mimi knocked and entered. She entered, stared harshly at Mr. Prohack, and then the corners of her ruthless mouth twitched and loosened and she began to cry. "Doctor," called Mr. Prohack, "come here at once." The doctor came. "You say all worries can be dealt with? How should you deal with this one?" The doctor dropped a slip of paper on to the bed and walked silently out of the room, precisely as Charlie had done.
IV In regard to the effect of the sermon of Dr. Veiga on Mr. Prohack, it was as if Mr. Prohack had been a desk with many drawers and one drawer open, and the sermon had been dropped into the drawer and the drawer slammed to and nonchalantly locked. The drawer being locked, Mr. Prohack turned to the weeping figure in front of him, which suddenly ceased to weep and became quite collected and normal. "Now, my child," said Mr. Prohack, "I have just been informed that everything has a consequence. I've seen the consequence. What is the thing?" He was rather annoyed by Mimi's tears, but in his dangerous characteristic desire to please, he could not keep kindness out of his tone, and Mimi, reassured and comforted, began feebly to smile, and also Mr. Prohack remarked that her mouth was acquiring firmness again. "I ought to tell you in explanation of anything of a personal nature that I may have said to him in your presence, that the gentleman just gone is my medical adviser, and I have no secrets from him; in that respect he stands equal with you and above everybody else in the world without exception. So you must excuse my freedom in directing his attention to you." "It's I who ought to apologise," said Miss Warburton, positively. "But the fact is I hadn't the slightest idea that you weren't alone. I was just a little bit upset because I understand that you want to get rid of me." "Ah!" murmured Mr. Prohaek, "who put that notion into your absurd head?" He knew he was exercising his charm, but he could not help it. "Mr. Charles. He's just been down to my room and told me." "I hope you remembered what I said to you about your duty so far as he is concerned." "Of course, Mr. Prohack." She smiled anew; and her smile, so clever, so self-reliant, so enigmatic, a little disturbed Mr. Prohack. "What did my son say to you?" "He said that he was urgently in need of a thoroughly competent secretary at once--confidential--and that he was sure I was the very woman to suit him, and that he would give me double the salary I was getting." "Did you tell him how much you're getting?" "No." "Well, neither did I! And then?" "Then he told me all about his business, how big it was, and growing quickly, too, and how he was after a young woman who had tact and resource and could talk to any one from a bank director to a mechanic or a clergyman, and that tens of thousands of pounds might often depend on my tact, and that you wouldn't mind my being transferred from you to him." "And I suppose he asked you to go off with him immediately?" "No, at the beginning of next week." "And what did you say?" demanded Mr. Prohack, amazed and frightened at the manoeuvres of his unscrupulous son. "Naturally I said that I couldn't possibly leave you--unless you told me to go, and that I owed everything to you. Then he asked me what I did for you, and I said I was particularly busy at present making a schedule of all your new purchases and checking the outfitters' accounts, and so on. That reminds me, I haven't been able to get the neckties right yet." "Good heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack. "Not been able to get the neckties right! But this is very serious. The neckties are most important. Most important!" "Oh!" said Mimi. "If necessary I shall run round to Bond Street in my lunch-hour." At this point the drawer in the desk started to unlock itself and open of its own accord, and Mr. Prohack's eye caught a glimpse of a page of the sermon. Mimi continued: "We mustn't forget there'll be hundreds of things to see to about the new house." "Will there?" "Well, Mrs. Prohack told Machin, and Machin has just told me, that it's all settled about taking the house. And I know what taking a house is. Mr. Carrel Quire was always taking new houses." "But perhaps you could keep an eye on the house even if you went over to Mr. Charles?" "Then it's true," said Mimi. "You do want me to go." But she showed no sign of weeping afresh. "You must understand," Mr. Prohack said with much benevolence, "that my son is my son. Of course my clothes are also my clothes. But Charles is in a difficult position. He's at the beginning of his career, whereas I'm at the end of mine. He needs all the help he can get, and he can afford to pay more than I can. And even at the cost of having to check my own neckties I shouldn't like to stand in his way. That's how I look at it. Mind you, I have certainly not told Charlie that I'll set you free." "I quite see," said Mimi. "And naturally if you put it like that--" "You'll still be in the family." "I shall be very sorry to leave you, Mr. Prohack." "Doubtless. But you'll be even gladder to go over to Charles, though with him you'll be more like a kettle tied to the tail of a mad dog than a confidential secretary." Mimi raised the tip of her nose. "Excuse me, Mr. Prohack, I shall _not_ be gladder to go over to Mr. Charles. Any girl will tell you that she prefers to work for a man of your age than for a boy. Boys are not interesting." "Yes," murmured Mr. Prohack. "A comfortable enough theory. And I've already heard it more than once from girls. But I've never seen any confirmation of it in practice. And I don't believe it. I'll tell you something about yourself you don't know. You're delighted to go over to my son. And if I'd refused to let you go I should have had a martyr instead of a secretary. You want adventure. You want a field for your remarkable talent for conspiracy and chicane. You know by experience there's little scope for it here. But under my son your days will be breathless.... No, no! I don't wish to hear anything. Run away and get on with your work. And you can telephone my decision to Charles. I'm now going to get up and wear all my new neckties at once." Miss Warburton departed in a state of emotion. As, with all leisureliness, Mr. Prohack made himself beautiful to behold, he reflected: "I'm very impulsive. I've simply thrown that girl into the arms of that boy. Eve will have something to say about it. Still, there's one complication off my chest." Eve returned home as he was descending the stairs, and she blew him upstairs again and shut the door of the bedroom and pushed him into the privacy of the boudoir. "It's all settled," said she. "I've signed the tenancy agreement for a year. Charlie said I could, and it would save you trouble. It doesn't matter the cheque for the first half-year's rent being signed by you, only of course the house will be in my name. How handsome you are, darling!" And she kissed him and re-tied one of the new cravats. "But that's not what I wanted to tell you, darling." Her face grew grave. "Do you know I'm rather troubled about Charlie--and your friend Lady Massulam. They're off again this morning." "My friend?" "Well, you know she adores you. It would be perfectly awful if--if--well, you understand what I mean. I hear she really is a widow, so that--well, you understand what I mean! I'm convinced she's at least thirty years older than Charlie. But you see she's French, and French women are so clever.... You can never be sure with them." "Fluttering heart," said Mr. Prohack, suddenly inspired. "Don't get excited. I've thought of all that already, and I've taken measures to guard against it. I'm going to give Charlie my secretary. She'll see that Lady Massulam doesn't make any more headway, trust her!" "Arthur, how clever you are! Nobody but you would have thought of that. But isn't it a bit dangerous, too? You see--don't you?" Mr. Prohack shook his head. "I gather you've been reading the love-story in _The Daily Picture_," said he. "In _The Daily Picture_ the typist always marries the millionaire. But outside _The Daily Picture_ I doubt whether these romantic things really happen. There are sixty-five thousand girls typists in the City alone, besides about a million in Whitehall. The opportunities for espousing millionaires and ministers of state are countless. But no girl-typist has been married at St. George's, Hanover Square, since typewriters were invented." _ |
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