CHAPTER V
CHARLIE
I
When Mr. Prohack, in his mature but still rich velvet jacket, came downto dinner, he found his son Charlie leaning against the mantelpiece in anew dark brown suit, and studying _The Owner-Driver_. Charlie seemednever to read anything but motor-car and light-car and side-car andmotor-bicycle periodical literature; but he read it conscientiously,indefatigably, and completely--advertisements and all. He read it asthough it were an endless novel of passion and he an idle woman deprivedof the society her heart longed for. He possessed a motor-bicycle whichhe stabled in a mews behind the Square. He had possessed several suchmachines; he bought, altered, and sold them, apparently always withprofit to himself. He had no interest in non-mechanical literature or inany of the arts.
"Your mother's gone to bed with a headache," said Mr. Prohack, with afair imitation of melancholy.
"Oh!" said the young man apathetically. His face had a wearied,disillusioned expression.
"Is this the latest?" asked his father, indicating the new brown suit."My respectful congratulations. Very smart, especially at the waist."
For a youth who had nothing in the world but what remained of his woundgratuity and other trifling military emoluments, and what he made out ofcommerce in motor-bicycles, Charlie spent a lot in clothes. His motherhad advised his father to "speak to him about it." But his father haddeclined to offer any criticism, on the ground that Charlie had foughtin Mesopotamia, Italy and France. Moreover, Charlie had scotched anypossible criticism by asserting that good clothes were all that stoodbetween him and the ruin of his career. "If I dressed like the dad," hehad once grimly and gloomily remarked, "it would be the beginning of theend for me."
"Smart?" he now exclaimed, stepping forward. "Look at that." He advancedhis right leg a little. "Look at that crease. See where it falls?" Thetrouser-crease, which, as all wise men know, ought to have fallenexactly on the centre of the boot-lacing, fell about an inch to the leftthereof. "And I've tried this suit on four times! All the bally tailorsin London seem to think you've got nothing else to do but call and tryon and try on and try on. Never seems to occur to them that they don'tknow their business. It's as bad as staff work. However, if this fellowthinks I'm going to stick these trousers he'll have the surprise of hislife to-morrow morning." The youth spoke in a tone of earnest disgust.
"My boy," said Mr. Prohack, "you have my most serious sympathy. Yourlife must be terribly complicated by this search for perfection."
"Yes, that's all very well," said Charlie.
"Where's Sissie?"
"Hanged if I know!"
"I heard her playing the piano not five minutes since."
"So did I."
Machin, the house-parlourmaid, then intervened:
"Miss Sissie had a telephone call, and she's gone out, sir."
"Where to?"
"She didn't say, sir. She only said she wouldn't be in for dinner, sir.I made sure she'd told you herself, sir."
The two men, by means of their eyes, transmitted to each other aunanimous judgment upon the whole female sex, and sat down to dine alonein the stricken house. The dinner was extremely frugal, this being theopening day of Mrs. Prohack's new era of intensive economy, but theobvious pleasure of Machin in serving only men brightened up somewhatits brief course. Charlie was taciturn and curt, though not impolite.Mr. Prohack, whose private high spirits not even the amazing andinexcusable absence of his daughter could impair, pretended to a decentwoe, and chatted as he might have done to a fellow-clubman on a wetSunday night at the Club.
At the end of the meal Charlie produced the enormous widow's cruse whichhe called his cigarette-case and offered his father a cigarette.
"Doing anything to-night?" asked Mr. Prohack, puffing.
"No," answered desperately Charlie, puffing.
"Ring the bell, will you?"
While Charlie went to the mantelpiece Mr. Prohack secreted an apple forhis starving wife.
"Machin," said he to the incoming house-parlourmaid, "see if you canfind some port."
Charlie raised his fatigued eyebrows.
"Yes, sir," said the house-parlourmaid, vivaciously, and whisked awayher skirts, which seemed to remark:
"You're quite right to have port. I feel very sorry for you twoattractive gentlemen taking a poor dinner all alone."
Charlie drank his port in silence and Mr. Prohack watched him.
* * * * *
II
Mr. Prohack's son was, in some respects, a great mystery to him. Hecould not understand, for instance, how his own offspring could be sounresponsive to the attractions of the things of the mind, and sointerested in mere machinery and the methods of moving a living or alifeless object from one spot on the earth's surface to another. Mr.Prohack admitted the necessity of machinery, but an automobile had forhim the same status as a child's scooter and no higher. It was aningenious device for locomotion. And there for him the matter ended. Onthe other hand, Mr. Prohack sympathised with and comprehended his son'sgeneral attitude towards life. Charlie had gone to war from Cambridge atthe age of nineteen. He went a boy, and returned a grave man. He wentthoughtless and light-hearted, and returned full of magnificent andaustere ideals. Six months of England had destroyed these ideals in him.He had expected to help in the common task of making heaven in about afortnight. In the war he had learnt much about the possibilities ofhuman nature, but scarcely anything about its limitations. His fathertried to warn him, but of course failed. Charlie grew resentful, thencynical. He saw in England nothing but futility, injustice andingratitude. He refused to resume Cambridge, and was bitterly sarcasticabout the generosity of a nation which, through its War Office, wasready to pay to studious warriors anxious to make up University termslost in a holy war decidedly less than it paid to its street-sweepers.Having escaped from death, the aforesaid warriors were granted the rightto starve their bodies while improving their minds. He might have hadsure situations in vast corporations. He declined them. He spat on them.He called them "graves." What he wanted was an opportunity to fulfilhimself. He could not get it, and his father could not get it from him.While searching for it, he frequently met warriors covered with ribbonsbut lacking food and shelter not only for themselves but for their womenand children. All this, human nature being what it is, was inevitable,but his father could not convincingly tell him so. All that Mr. Prohackcould effectively do Mr. Prohack did,--namely, provide the saviour ofBritain with food and shelter. Charlie was restlessly and dangerouslywaiting for his opportunity. But he had not developed into arevolutionist, nor a communist, nor anything of the sort. Oh, no! Quitethe reverse. He meditated a different revenge on society.
Mr. Prohack knew nothing of this meditated revenge, did not suspect it.If he had suspected it, he might have felt less compassion than, on thismasculine evening with the unusual port, he did in fact feel. For he wasvery sorry for Charlie. He longed to tell him about the fortune, and toexult with him in the fortune, and to pour, as it were, the fortune intohis lap. He did not care a fig, now, about advisable precautions. He didnot feel the slightest constraint at the prospect of imparting thetremendous and gorgeous news to his son. He had no desire to reflectupon the proper method of telling. He merely and acutely wanted to tell,so that he might see the relief and the joyous anticipation on his son'senigmatic and melancholy face. But he could not tell because it had beentacitly agreed with his wife that he should not tell in her absence.True, he had given no verbal promise, but he had given something just asbinding.
"Nothing exciting to-day, I suppose," he said, when the silence hadbegun to distress him in his secret glee.
"No," Charlie replied. "I got particulars of an affair at Glasgow, butit needs money."
"What sort of an affair?"
"Oh! Rather difficult to explain. Buying and selling. Usual thing."
"What money is needed?"
"I should say three hundred or thereabouts. Might as well be threethousand so far as
I'm concerned."
"Where did you hear of it?"
"Club."
Charlie belonged to a little club in Savile Place where young warriorstold each other what they thought of the nature of society.
Mr. Prohack drew in his breath with an involuntary gasp, and then said:
"I expect I could let you have three hundred."
"_You couldn't!_"
"I expect I could." Mr. Prohack had never felt so akin to a god. Itseemed to him that he was engaged in the act of creating a future, yea,a man. Charlie's face changed. He had been dead. He was now suddenlyalive.
"When?"
"Well, any time."
"Now?"
"Why not?"
Charlie looked at his watch.
"Well, I'm much obliged," he said.
* * * * *
III
Mr. Prohack had brought a new cheque-book from the Bank. It lay in hiship-pocket. He had no alternative but to write out a cheque. Threehundred pounds would nearly exhaust his balance, but that did notmatter. He gave Charlie the cheque. Charlie offered no furtherinformation concerning the "affair" for which the money was required.And Mr. Prohack did not choose to enquire. Perhaps he was too proud toenquire. The money would probably be lost. And if it were lost no harmwould be done. Good, rather, for Charlie would have gained experience.The lad was only a child, after all.
The lad ran upstairs, and Mr. Prohack sat solitary in delightfulmeditation. After a few minutes the lad re-appeared in hat and coat. Mr.Prohack thought that he had heard a bag dumped in the hall.
"Where are you off to?" he asked.
"Glasgow. I shall catch the night-train."
He rang the bell.
"Machin, run out and get me a taxi, sharp."
"Yes, sir." Machin flew. This was the same girl of whom Mrs. Prohackdared to demand nothing. Mr. Prohack himself would have hesitated tosend her for a taxi. But Charlie ordered her about like a slave and sheseemed to like it.
"Rather sudden this, isn't it?" said Mr. Prohack, extremely startled bythe turn of events.
"Well, you've got to be sudden in this world, guv'nor," Charlie replied,and lit a fresh cigarette.
Mr. Prohack was again too proud to put questions. Still, he did ventureupon one question:
"Have you got loose money for your fare?"
The lad laughed. "Oh, don't let that worry you, guv'nor...!" He lookedat his watch once more. "I wonder whether that infernal girl ismanufacturing that taxi or only fetching it."
"What must I say to your mother?" demanded Mr. Prohack.
"Give her my respectful regards."
The taxi was heard. Machin dashed into the house, and dashed out againwith the bag. The lad clasped his father's hand with a warm vigour thatpleased and reassured Mr. Prohack in his natural bewilderment. It wasnot consistent with the paternal dignity to leave the dining-room andstand, valedictory, on the front-doorstep.
"Well, I'm dashed!" Mr. Prohack murmured to himself as the taxi droveaway. And he had every right to be dashed.
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