CHAPTER VII
THE SYMPATHETIC QUACK
I
The next morning Mr. Prohack had a unique shock, for he was awakened byhis wife coming into the bedroom. She held a big piece of cake in herhand. Never before had Mrs. Prohack been known to rise earlier than herhusband. Also, the hour was eight-twenty, whereas never before had Mr.Prohack been known, on a working-day, to rise later than eight o'clock.He realised with horror that it would be necessary for him to hurry.Still, he did not jump up. He was not a brilliant sleeper, and he hadhad a bad night, which had only begun to be good at the time when as arule he woke finally for the day. He did not feel very well, despite thefine sensation of riches which rushed reassuringly into his arms themoment consciousness returned.
"Arthur," said Mrs. Prohack, who was in her Chinese robe, "do you knowthat girl hasn't been home all night. Her bed hasn't been slept in!"
"Neither has mine," answered Mr. Prohack. "What girl?"
"Sissie, of course."
"Ah! Sissie!" murmured Mr. Prohack as if he had temporarily forgottenthat such a girl existed. "Didn't I tell you last night she mightn't beback?"
"No, you didn't! And you know very well you didn't!"
"Honestly," said Mr. Prohack (meaning "dishonestly" as most people do insimilar circumstances), "I thought I did."
"Do you suppose I should have slept one wink if I'd thought Sissiewasn't coming _home_?"
"Yes, I do. The death of Nelson wouldn't keep you awake. And now eitherI shall be late at the office, or else I shall go without my breakfast.I think you might have wakened me."
Mrs. Prohack, munching the cake despite all her anxieties, replied in apeculiar tone:
"What does it matter if you are late for the office?"
Mr. Prohack reflected that all women were alike in a lack of consciencewhere the public welfare was concerned. He was rich: therefore he wasentitled to neglect his duty to the nation! A pleasing argument! Mr.Prohack sat up, and Mrs. Prohack had a full view of his face for thefirst time that morning.
"Arthur," she exclaimed, absolutely and in an instant forgetting bothcake and daughter. "You're ill!"
He thought how agreeable it was to have a wife who was so marvellouslyabsorbed in his being. There was something uncanny, something terrible,in it.
"Oh, no I'm not," he said. "I swear I'm not. I'm very tired, but I'm notill. Get out of my way."
"But your face is as yellow as a cheese," protested Eve, frightened.
"It may be," said Mr. Prohack.
"You won't get up."
"I shall get up."
Eve snatched her hand-mirror from the dressing-table, and gave it to himwith a menacing gesture. He admitted to himself that the appearance ofhis face was perhaps rather alarming at first sight; but really he didnot feel ill; he only felt tired.
"It's nothing. Liver." He made a move to emerge from the bed. "Exerciseis all I want."
He saw Eve's lips tremble; he saw tears hanging in her eyes; thesephenomena induced in him the sensation of having somehow committed asolecism or a murder. He withdrew the move to emerge. She was hurt anddesperate. He at once knew himself defeated. He thought how annoying itwas to have a woman in the house who was so marvellously absorbed in hisbeing. She was wrong; but her unreasoning desperation triumphed over hiscalm sagacity.
"Telephone for Dr. Veiga," said Mrs. Prohack to Machin, for whom she hadrung. "V-e-i-g-a. Bruton Street. He's in the book. And ask him to comealong as soon as he can to see Mr. Prohack."
Now Mr. Prohack had heard of, but never seen, Dr. Veiga. He had morethan once listened to the Portuguese name on Eve's lips, and the man hadbeen mentioned more than once at the club. Mr. Prohack knew that he was,if not a foreigner, of foreign descent, and hence he did not like him.Mr. Prohack took kindly to foreign singers and cooks, but not to foreigndoctors. Moreover he had doubts about the fellow's professionalqualifications. Therefore he strongly resented his wife's most singularand startling order to Machin, and as soon as Machin had gone heexpressed himself:
"Anyway," he said curtly, after several exchanges, "I shall see my owndoctor, if I see any doctor at all--which is doubtful."
Eve's response was to kiss her husband--a sisterly rather than a wifelykiss. And she said, in a sweet, noble voice:
"It's I that want Dr. Veiga's opinion about you, and I must insist onhaving it. And what's more, you know I've never cared for your friendDr. Plott. He never seems to be interested. He scarcely listens to whatyou have to say. He scarcely examines you. He just makes you think yourhealth is of no importance at all, and it doesn't really matter whetheryou're ill or well, and that you may get better or you mayn't, and thathe'll humour you by sending you a bottle of something."
"Stuff!" said Mr. Prohack. "He's a first-rate fellow. No infernalnonsense about _him!_ And what do _you_ know about Veiga? I should liketo be informed."
"I met him at Mrs. Cunliff's. He cured her of cancer."
"You told me Mrs. Cunliff hadn't got cancer at all."
"Well, it was Dr. Veiga who found out she hadn't, and stopped theoperation just in time. She says he saved her life, and she's quiteright. He's wonderful."
Mrs. Prohack was now sitting on the bed. She gazed at her husband'sfeatures with acute apprehension and yet with persuasive grace.
"Oh! Arthur!" she murmured, "you are a worry to me!"
Mr. Prohack, not being an ordinary Englishman, knew himself beaten--forthe second time that morning. He dared not trifle with his wife in herearnest, lofty mood.
"I bet you Veiga won't come," said Mr. Prohack.
"He will come," said Mrs. Prohack blandly.
"How do you know?"
"Because he told me he'd come at once if ever I asked him. He's aperfect dear."
"Oh! I know the sort!" Mr. Prohack said sarcastically. "And you'll seethe fee he'll charge!"
"When it's a question of health money doesn't matter."
"It doesn't matter when you've got the money. You'd never have dreamedof having Veiga this time yesterday. You wouldn't even have sent for oldPlott."
Mrs. Prohack merely kissed her husband again, with a kind of ineffableresignation. Then Machin came in with her breakfast, and said that Dr.Veiga would be round shortly, and was told to telephone to the Treasurythat her master was ill in bed.
"And what about my breakfast?" the victim enquired with irony. "Give mesome of your egg."
"No, dearest, egg is the very last thing you should have with thatcolour."
"Well, if you'd like to know, I don't want any breakfast. Couldn't eatany."
"There you are!" Mrs. Prohack exclaimed triumphantly. "And yet you swearyou aren't ill! That just shows.... It will be quite the best thing foryou not to take anything until Dr. Veiga's been."
Mr. Prohack, helpless, examined the ceiling, and decided to go to theoffice in the afternoon. He tried to be unhappy but couldn't. Eve wastoo funny, too delicious, too exquisitely and ingenuously "firm," tooblissful in having him at her mercy, for him to be unhappy.... To saynothing of the hundred thousand pounds! And he knew that Eve also wassecretly revelling in the hundred thousand pounds. Dr. Veiga was herfirst bite at it.
* * * * *
II
Considering that he was well on the way to being a fashionablephysician, Dr. Veiga arrived with surprising promptitude. Mr. Prohackwondered what hold Eve had upon him and how she had acquired it. He wasprejudiced against the fellow before he came into the bedroom, simplybecause Eve, on hearing the noise of a car and a doorbell, had hurrieddownstairs, and a considerable interval had elapsed between the doctor'sentrance into the house and his appearance at the bedside. Mr. Prohackguessed easily that those two had been plotting against him. Strange howEve could be passionately loyal and basely deceitful simultaneously! Thetwo-faced creature led the doctor forward with a candid smile thatpartook equally of the smile of a guardian angel and the smile of acherub. She was an unparalleled comedian.
Dr. Veiga was fattish and rather s
habby; about sixty years of age. Hespoke perfectly correct English with a marked foreign accent. Hisdemeanour was bland, slightly familiar, philosophical and sympathetic.Dr. Plott's eyes would have said: "This is my thirteenth visit thismorning, and I've eighteen more to do, and it's all very tedious. Why_do_ you people let yourselves get ill--if it's a fact that you reallyare ill? I don't think you are, but I'll see." Dr. Veiga's eyes said:"How interesting your case is! You've had no luck this time. We mustmake the best of things; but also we must face the truth. God knows Idon't want to boast, but I expect I can put you right, with the help ofyour own strong commonsense."
Mr. Prohack, a connoisseur in human nature, noted the significances ofthe Veiga glance, but he suspected that there might also be somethinghistrionic in it. Dr. Veiga examined heart, pulse, tongue. He tapped thetorso. He asked many questions. Then he took an instrument out of aleather case which he carried, and fastened a strap round Mr. Prohack'sforearm and attached it to the instrument, and presently Mr. Prohackcould feel the strong pulsations of the blood current in his arm.
"Dear, dear!" said Dr. Veiga. "175. Blood pressure too high. Much toohigh! Must get that down."
Eve looked as though the end of the world had been announced, and evenMr. Prohack had qualms. Ten minutes earlier Mr. Prohack had been astrong, healthy man a trifle unwell in a bedroom. He was suddenlytransformed into a patient in a nursing-home.
"A little catarrh," said Dr. Veiga.
"I've got no catarrh," said Mr. Prohack, with conviction.
"Yes, yes. Catarrh of the stomach. Probably had it for years. Theduodenum is obstructed. A little accident that easily happens."
He addressed himself as it were privately to Mrs. Prohack. "The duodenumis no thicker than that." He indicated the pencil with which he wasalready writing in a pocket-book. "We'll get it right."
"What is the duodenum?" Mr. Prohack wanted to cry out. But he was tooashamed to ask. It was hardly conceivable that he, so wise, so prudent,had allowed over forty years to pass in total ignorance of thisimportant item of his own body. He felt himself to be a bag full ofdisconcerting and dangerous mysteries. Or he might have expressed itthat he had been smoking in criminal nonchalance for nearly half acentury on the top of a powder magazine. He was deeply impressed by therapidity and assurance of the doctor's diagnosis. It was wonderful thatthe queer fellow could in a few minutes single out an obscure organ nobigger than a pencil and say: "There is the ill." The fellow might be aquack, but sometimes quacks were men of genius. His shame and his alarmquickly vanished under the doctor's reassuring and bland manner. So muchso that when Dr. Veiga had written out a prescription, Mr. Prohack saidlightly:
"I suppose I can get up, though."
To which Dr. Veiga amiably replied:
"I shall leave that to you. Perhaps if I tell you you'll be lucky ifyou don't have jaundice...! But I think you _will_ be lucky. I'll try tolook in again this afternoon."
These last words staggered both Mr. and Mrs. Prohack.
"I've been expecting this for years. I knew it would come." Mrs. Prohackbreathed tragically.
And even Mr. Prohack reflected aghast:
"My God! Doctor calling twice a day!"
True, "duodenum" was a terrible word.
Mrs. Prohack gazed at Dr. Veiga as at a high priest, and waited to bevouchsafed a further message.
"Anyhow, if I find it impossible to call, I'll telephone in any case,"said Dr. Veiga.
Some slight solace in this!
Mrs. Prohack, like an acolyte, personally attended the high priest asfar as the street, listening with acute attention to hisrecommendations. When she returned she had put on a carefully brightface. Evidently she had decided, or had been told, that cheerfulness wasessential to ward off jaundice.
"Now that's what I _call_ a doctor," said she. "To think of your friendPlott...! I've telephoned for a messenger boy to go to the chemist's."
"You're at liberty to call the man a doctor," answered Mr. Prohack. "AndI'm at liberty to call him a fine character actor."
"I knew the moment you sat up it was jaundice," said Mrs. Prohack.
"Well," said Mr. Prohack. "I lay you five to one I don't have jaundice.Not that you'd ever pay me if you lost."
Mrs. Prohack said:
"When I saw you were asleep at after eight o'clock this morning I knewthere must be something serious. I felt it. However, as the doctor says,if we _take_ it seriously it will soon cease to be serious."
"He's not a bad phrase-maker," said Mr. Prohack.
In the late afternoon Dr. Veiga returned like an old and familiaracquaintance, with his confident air of saying: "We can manage thisaffair between us--I am almost sure." Mr. Prohack felt worse; and theroom, lighted by one shaded lamp, had begun to look rather like a realsick-room. Mr. Prohack, though he mistrusted the foreign accent, theunprofessional appearance, and the adventurous manner, was positivelyglad to see his new doctor, and indeed felt that he had need of succour.
"Yes," said Dr. Veiga, after investigation. "My opinion is that you'llescape jaundice. In four or five days you ought to be as well as youwere before the attack. I don't say _how_ well you were before."
Mr. Prohack instantly felt better.
"It will be very awkward if I can't get back to the office early nextweek," said he.
"I'm sure it will," Dr. Veiga agreed. "And it might be still moreawkward if you went back to the office early next week, and then neverwent any more."
"What do you mean?"
Dr. Veiga smiled understandingly at Mrs. Prohack, as though he and shewere the only grown-up persons in the room.
"Look here," he addressed the patient. "I see I shall have to charge youa fee for telling you what you know as well as I do. The fact is I getmy living by doing that. How old are you?"
"Forty-six."
"Every year of the war counts double. So you're over fifty. A difficultage. You can run an engine ten hours a day for fifty years. But it'sworn; it's second-hand. And if you keep on running it ten hours a dayyou'll soon discover how worn it is. But you can run it five hours a dayfor another twenty years with reasonable safety and efficiency. That'swhat I wanted to tell you. You aren't the man you were, Mr. Prohack.You've lost the trick of getting rid of your waste products. You say youfeel tired. Why do you feel tired? Being tired simply means beingclogged. The moment you feel tired your waste products are beginning topile up. Look at those finger joints! Waste products! Friction! Whydon't you sleep well? You say the more tired you are the worse yousleep: and you seem surprised. But you're only surprised because youhaven't thought it out. Morpheus himself wouldn't sleep if his body wasa mass of friction-producing waste products from top to toe. You aren'ta body and soul, Mr. Prohack. You're an engine--I wish you'd rememberthat and treat yourself like one. The moment you feel tired, stop theengine. If you don't, it'll stop itself. It pretty nearly stoppedto-day. You need lubrication too. The best lubricant is a tumbler of hotwater four times a day. And don't take coffee, or any salt except whatyour cook puts into the dishes. Don't try to be cleverer than nature.Don't think the clock is standing still. It isn't. If you treat yourselfas well as you treat your watch, you'll bury me. If you don't, I shallbury you. All that I've told you I know by heart, because I'm saying itto men of your age every day of my life."
Mr. Prohack felt like a reprimanded schoolboy. He feared the wrath tocome.
"Don't you think my husband ought to take a long holiday?" Eve put in.
"Well, _of course_ he ought," said Dr. Veiga, opening both mouth andeyes in protest against such a silly question.
"Six months?"
"At least."
"Where ought he to go?"
"Doesn't matter. Portugal, the Riviera, Switzerland. But it's not theseason yet for any of these places. If he wants to keep on pleasantterms with nature he'll get out his car and motor about his own countryfor a month or two. After that he might go to the Continent. But ofcourse he won't. I know these official gentlemen. If you ask them todisturb their routin
e they'll die first. They really would sooner die.Very natural of course. Routine is their drug."
"My husband will take six months holiday," said Eve quietly. "I supposeyou could give the proper certificate? You see in these Governmentdepartments...."
"I'll give you the certificate to-morrow."
Mr. Prohack was pretending to be asleep, or at least to be too fatiguedand indifferent to take notice of this remarkable conversation. But assoon as Dr. Veiga had blandly departed under the escort of Eve, heslipped out of bed and cautiously padded to the landing where there wasa bookcase.
"Duodenum. Duodenum. Must be something to do with twelve." Then he founda dictionary and brought it back into the bedroom and consulted it. "Soit's twelve inches long, is it?" he murmured. He had just time to plungeinto bed and pitch the dictionary under the bed before his wifereturned.
* * * * *
III
She was bending over him.
"Darling!"
He opened his deceiving eyes. Her face was within a foot of his.
"How do you feel now?"
"I feel," said he, "that this is the darnedest swindle that ever was.If I hadn't come into a fortune I should have been back at the officethe day after to-morrow. In about eight hours, with the help of thatPortuguese mountebank, you've changed me from a sane normal man into ablooming valetudinarian who must run all over the earth in search ofhealth. I've got to 'winter' somewhere, have I? You'll see. It'sabsolutely incredible. It's more like Maskelyne and Cook's than anythingI ever came across." He yawned. He knew that it was the disturbedduodenum that caused him to yawn, and that also gave him a dry mouth anda peculiar taste therein.
"Yes, darling," Eve smiled above him the smile of her impenetrableangelicism. "Yes, darling. You're better."
The worst was that she had beaten him on the primary point. He hadasserted that he was not ill. She had asserted that he was. She had beenright; he wrong. He could not deny, even to himself, that he was ill.Not gravely, only somewhat. But supposing that he was gravely ill!Supposing that old Plott would agree with all that Veiga had said! Itwas conceivable. Misgivings shot through him.
And Eve had him at her sweet mercy. He was helpless. She was easily thestronger. He perceived then, what many a husband dies without havingperceived, that his wife had a genuine individual existence and volitionof her own, that she was more than his complement, his companion, themother of his children.
She lowered her head further and gave him a long, fresh, damp kiss. Theywere very intimate, with an intimacy that her enigmatic quality couldnot impair. He was annoyed, aggrieved, rebellious, but extremely happyin a weak sort of way. He hated and loved her, he despised and adoredher, he reprehended and admired her--all at once. What speciallysatisfied him was that he had her to himself. The always-impingingchildren were not there. He liked this novel solitude of two.
"Darling, where is Charlie staying in Glasgow?"
"Why?"
"I want to write to him."
"Post's gone, my poor child."
"Then I shall telegraph."
"What about?"
"Never mind."
"I shan't tell you the address unless you promise to show me thetelegram. I intend to be master in my own house even if I am dying."
Thus he saw the telegram, which ran: "Father ill in bed what is thebest motor car to buy. Love. Mother." The telegram astounded Mr.Prohack.
"Have you taken leave of your senses?" he cried. Then he laughed. Whatelse was there to do? What else but the philosopher's laugh was adequateto the occasion?
While Eve with her own unrivalled hand was preparing the bedroom for thenight, Machin came in with a telegram. Without being asked to do so Eveshowed it to the sufferer: "Tell him to buck up. Eagle six cylinder.Everything fine here. Charles."
"I think he might have sent his love," said Eve.
Mr. Prohack no longer attempted to fight against the situation, whichwas like a net winding itself round him.
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