Mr. Prohack by Arnold Bennett (christmas read aloud TXT) 📕

in an avuncular manner, and rose.

Whereupon Mr. Prohack also jumped up.

"I'm not worrying," she protested, with a sweet, pathetic answering smile. "Yes, I am. Yes, I am. I'm worrying because I know I'm worrying my poor husband." She went quickly to her poor husband and kissed him lavishly. Eve was an artist in kissing, and never a greater artist than at that moment. And now Mr. Prohack, though still to the physical eye a single individual, became two Mr. Prohacks. There was the Mr. Prohack who strongly deprecated this departure from the emotional reserve which is one of the leading and sublimest characteristics of the British governing-class. And there was the Mr. Prohack, all nerves and heart and humanity, who profoundly enjoyed the demonstration of a woman's affection, disordered and against the rules though the demonstration might be. The first Mr. Prohack blushed and hated himself for blushing. The second was quite simply enraptured and didn't care who knew it.

"Dr. Veiga," Eve appealed, clinging to Mr. Prohack's coat. "It is my husband who needs looking after. He is not making any progress, and it is my fault. And let me tell you that you've been neglecting him for me."

She was a dramatic figure of altruism, of the everlasting sacrificial feminine. She was quite possibly absurd, but beyond doubt she was magnificent. Mr. Prohack felt ashamed of himself, and the more ashamed because he considered that he was in quite tolerable health.

"Mother," murmured Sissie, with a sweetness of which Mr. Prohack had imagined her to be utterly incapable. "Come and sit down."

And Eve, guided by her daughter, the callous, home-deserting dancing-mistress, came and sat down.

* * * * *


II


"My dear sir," said Dr. Veiga. "There is nothing at all to cause alarm. She will gradually recover. Believe me."

He and Mr. Prohack and Sissie were conspiring together in the dining-room, the drawing-room being at that hour and on that day under the dominion of servants with brushes.

"But what's the matter with her? What is it?"

"Merely neurasthenia--traumatic neurasthenia."

"But what's that?" Mr. Prohack spoke low, just as though his wife could overhear from the boudoir above and was listening to them under the impression that they were plotting against her life.

"It's a morbid condition due to a violent shock."

"But how? You told me the other day that it was purely physical."

"Well," said Dr. Veiga. "It is, because it must be. But I assure you that if a post-mortem were to be held on Mrs. Prohack--"

"Oh, doctor, please!" Sissie stopped him resentfully.

The doctor paused and then continued: "There would be no trace of any morbid condition in any of the organs."

"Then how do you explain it?"

"We don't explain it," cried Dr. Veiga, suddenly throwing the onus on the whole medical profession. "We can't. We don't know."

"It's very, very unsatisfactory, all this ignorance."

"It certainly is. But did you suppose that medical science, alone among all sciences, had achieved finality and omniscience? We've reached the state of knowing that we don't know, and that's something. I hope I'm not flattering you by talking like this. I only do it to people whom I suspect to be intelligent. But of course if you'd prefer the omniscient bedside manner you can have it without extra charge."

Mr. Prohack thought, frightened: "I shall be making a friend of this quack soon, if I'm not careful."

"And by the way, about _your_ health," Dr. Veiga proceeded, after having given further assurances as to his other patient. "Mrs. Prohack was perfectly correct. You're not making progress. The fact is, you're bored. You haven't organised your existence, and the lack of organisation is reacting on your health."

"Something is reacting on his health," Sissie put in. "I'm not at all pleased." She was now not Mr. Prohack's daughter but his aunt.

"How can I organise my existence?" Mr. Prohack burst out crossly. "I haven't got any existence to organise. I haven't got anything to do. I thought I had too much to do, the other day. Illusion. Of course I'm bored. I feel all right, but bored I am. And it's your fault."

"It is," the doctor admitted. "It is my fault. I took you for a person of commonsense, and so I didn't tell you that two and two make four and a lot more important things of the same sort. I ought to have told you. You've taken on the new profession of being idle--it's essential for you--but you aren't treating it seriously. You have to be a _professionally_ idle man. Which means that you haven't got a moment to spare. When I advised you to try idleness, I didn't mean you to be idle idly. That's worse than useless. You've got to be idle busily. You aren't doing half enough. Do you ever have a Turkish bath?"

"No. Never could bear the idea of them."

"Well, you will kindly take two Turkish baths a week. You can be massaged at the same time. A Turkish bath is as good as a day's hunting, as far as exercise goes, but you must have more exercise. Do you dance? I see you don't. You had better begin dancing. There is no finer exercise. I absolutely prescribe it."

At this juncture Mr. Prohack was rather relieved that the sound of an unaccustomed voice in the hall drew his daughter out of the dining-room. When she had gone Dr. Veiga went on, in a more confidential tone:

"There's another point. An idle man who really knows his business will visit his tailor's, his hosier's, his bootmaker's, his barber's much oftener and much more conscientiously than you do. You've got a mind above clothes--of course. So have I. I take a wicked pleasure in being picturesquely untidy. But I'm not a patient. My life is a great lark. Yours isn't. Yours is serious. You have now a serious profession, idleness. Bring your mind down to clothes. I say this, partly because to be consistently well-dressed means much daily expenditure of time, and partly because really good clothes have a distinctly curative effect on the patient who wears them. Then again--"

Mr. Prohack was conscious of a sudden joyous uplifting of the spirit.

"Here!" said he, interrupting Dr. Veiga with a grand gesture. "Have a cigar."

"I cannot, my friend." Dr. Veiga looked at his watch.

"You must. Have a corona." Mr. Prohack moved to the cigar cabinet which he had recently purchased.

"No. My next patient is awaiting me in Hyde Park Gardens at this moment."

"Let him die!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack ruthlessly. "You've got to have a cigar with me. Look. I'll compromise. I'll make it a half-corona. You can charge me as if for another consultation."

The doctor's foreign eyes twinkled as he sat down and struck a match.

"You thought I was a quack," he said maliciously, and maliciously he seemed to intensify his foreign accent.

"I did," admitted Mr. Prohack with candour.

"So I am," said Dr. Veiga. "But I'm a fully qualified quack, and all really good doctors are quacks. They have to be. They wouldn't be worth anything if they weren't. Medicine owes a great deal to quacks."

"Tell me something about some of your cases," said Mr. Prohack imperatively. "You're one of the most interesting men I've ever met. So now you know. We want some of your blood transfused, into the English character. You've got a soul above medicine as well as clothes."

"All good doctors have," said Dr. Veiga. "My life is a romance."

"And so shall mine be," said Mr. Prohack.

* * * * *


III


When at length Mr. Prohack escorted Dr. Veiga out into the hall he saw Sissie kissing Eliza Brating with much affection on the front-door step. They made an elegant group for a moment and then Eliza Brating departed hurriedly, disappearing across the street behind Dr. Veiga's attendant car.

"Now I'll just repeat once more to both of you," resumed Dr. Veiga, embracing father and daughter in one shrewd glance. "You've nothing to worry about upstairs." He indicated the boudoir by a movement of his somewhat tousled head. "But you've got just a little to worry about here." And he indicated Mr. Prohack.

"I know," said Sissie with assurance. "But I shall look after him, doctor. You can rely on me. I understand--both cases."

"Well, there's one good thing," said Sissie, following her father into the dining-room after the doctor had gone. "I've done with that foolish Eliza. I knew it couldn't last and it hasn't. Unless I'm there all the time to keep my eye on everything--of course it all goes to pieces. That girl is the biggest noodle...!"

"But haven't I just seen you and her joined in the deepest affection?"

"Naturally I had to kiss her. But I've finished with her. And what's more, she knows what I think of her. She never liked me."

"Sissie," said Mr. Prohack, "you shock me." And indeed he was genuinely shocked, for he had always thought that Sissie was different from other girls; that she had all the feminine qualities without any of the feminine defects. Yes, he had thought that she might develop into a creature more perfect even than Marian. And here she was talking and behaving exactly as men at the club would relate of their own conventional women.

Sissie gazed firmly at her father, as it were half in pity and half in disdain. Did the innocent fellow not then understand the nature of women? Or was he too sentimental to admit it, too romantic to be a realist?

"Would you believe," said Sissie, "that although I was there last night and told her exactly what to do, she's had a quarrel this morning with the landlord of the studio? Well, she has. You know the A.R.A. on the first floor has been making a lot of silly complaints about the noise--music and so on--every night. And some other people have complained. _I_ could have talked the landlord round in ten minutes! Eliza doesn't merely not talk him round,--she quarrels with him! Of course it's all up. And as if that wasn't enough, a County Council inspector has been round asking about a music and dancing licence. We shall either have to give up business altogether or else move somewhere else. Eliza says she knows of another studio. Well, I shall write her to-night and tell her she can have my share of the fittings and furniture and go where she likes, but I shan't go with her. And if she never liked me I can honestly say I never liked her. And I don't want to run a dancing studio any more, either. Why should I, after all? We _were_ the new poor. Now we're the new rich. Well, we may as well _be_ the new rich."

Mr. Prohack was now still more shocked. Nay, he was almost frightened. And yet he wasn't either shocked or frightened, in the centre of his soul. He was rather triumphant,--not about his daughter with the feet of clay, but about himself.

"But I shan't give up teaching dancing entirely," said Sissie.