CHAPTER XIX
THE RECEPTION
The reception pleased Mr. Prohack as a spectacle, and it cost him almostno trouble. He announced his decision that it must cost him no trouble,and everybody in the house, and a few people outside it, took him at hisword--which did not wholly gratify him. Indeed the family and itsconnections seemed to be conspiring to give him a life of ease.Responsibilities were lifted from him. He did not even miss hissecretary. Sissie, who returned home--by a curious coincidence--on thevery day that Mimi Winstock was transferred to Charlie's service in theGrand Babylon, performed what she called 'secretarial stunts' for herfather as and when required. On the afternoon of the reception, whichwas timed to begin at 9 p.m., he had an attack of fright, but, by aprocess well known to public executants, it passed off long before itcould develop into stage-fright; and he was quite at ease at 9 p.m.
The first arrivals came at nine thirty. He stood by Eve and greetedthem; and he had greeted about twenty individuals when he yawned (for agood reason) and Eve said to him:
"You needn't stay here, you know. Go and amuse yourself." (Thissuggestion followed the advent of Lady Massulam.)
He didn't stay. Ozzie Morfey and Sissie supplanted him. At a quarter toeleven he was in the glazed conservatory built over the monumentalportico, with Sir Paul Spinner. He could see down into the Square, whichwas filled with the splendid and numerous automobiles incident to hiswife's reception. Guests--and not the least important among them--werestill arriving. Cars rolled up to the portico, gorgeous women and plainmen jumped out on to the red cloth, of which he could just see theextremity near the kerb, and vanished under him, and the cars hidthemselves away in the depths of the Square. Looking within his home headmired the vista of brilliantly illuminated rooms, full of gilt chairs,priceless furniture, and extremely courageous toilettes. For, as thereception was 'to meet the Committee of the League of all the Arts.'(Ozzie had placed many copies of the explanatory pamphlet on varioustables), artists of all kinds and degrees abounded, and the bourgeoisworld (which chiefly owned the automobiles) thought proper to besartorially as improper as fashion would allow; and fashion allowedquite a lot. The affair might have been described as a study inshoulder-blades. It was a very great show, and Mr. Prohack appreciatedall of it, the women, the men, the lionesses, the lions, thekaleidoscope of them, the lights, the reflections in the mirrors and inthe waxed floors, the discreetly hidden music, the grandiose buffet, theefficient valetry. He soon got used to not recognising, and not beingrecognised by, the visitors to his own house. True, he could notconceive that the affair would serve any purpose but one,--namely thepurpose of affording innocent and expensive pleasure to his wife.
"You've hit on a pretty good sort of a place here," grunted Sir PaulSpinner, whose waistcoat buttons were surpassed in splendour only by hiscarbuncles.
"Well," said Mr. Prohack, "to me, living here is rather like being onthe stage all the time. It's not real."
"What the deuce do you mean, it's not real? There aren't twenty housesin London with a finer collection of genuine bibelots than you havehere."
"Yes, but they aren't mine, and I didn't choose them or arrange them."
"What does that matter? You can look at them and enjoy the sight ofthem. Nobody can do more."
"Paul, you're talking neo-conventional nonsense again. Have you ever inyour career as a city man stood outside a money-changer's and looked atthe fine collection of genuine banknotes in the window? Supposing I toldyou that you could look at them and enjoy the sight of them, and nobodycould do more?... No, my boy, to enjoy a thing properly you've got toown it. And anybody who says the contrary is probably a member of theLeague of all the Arts." He gave another enormous yawn. "Excuse myyawning, Paul, but this house is a perfect Inferno for me. The church ofSt. Nicodemus is hard by, and the church of St. Nicodemus has a strikingclock, and the clock strikes all the hours and all the quarters on ahalf cracked bell or two bells. If I am asleep every hour wakes me up,and most of the quarters. The clock strikes not only the hours and thequarters but me. I regulate my life by that clock. If I'm beginning torepose at ten minutes to the hour, I say to myself that I must wait tillthe hour before really beginning, and I do wait. It is killing me, andnobody can see that it is killing me. The clock annoys some individualsa little occasionally; they curse, and then go to sleep and stayasleep. For them the clock is a nuisance; but for me it's anassassination. However, I can't make too much fuss. Several thousands ofpeople must live within sound of the St. Nicodemus clock; yet the rectorhas not been murdered nor the church razed to the ground. Hence theclock doesn't really upset many people. And there are hundreds of suchinfernal clocks in London, and they all survive. It follows thereforethat I am peculiar. Nobody has a right to be peculiar. Hence I do notcomplain. I suffer. I've tried stuffing my ears with cotton-wool, andstuffing the windows of my bedroom with eiderdowns. No use. I've triedveronal. No use either. The only remedy would be for me to give thehouse up. Which would he absurd. My wife soothes me and says that ofcourse I shall get used to the clock. I shall never get used to it.Lately she has ceased even to mention the clock. My daughter thinks I ambecoming a grumbler in my latter years. My son smiles indifferently. Iadmit that my son's secretary is more sympathetic. Like most people whoare both idle and short of sleep, I usually look very well, spry andwideawake. My friends remark on my healthy appearance. You did. Thepopular mind cannot conceive that I am merely helplessly waiting fordeath to put me out of my misery; but so it is. There must be quite afew others in the same fix as me in London, dying because rectors andother clergymen and officials insist on telling them the time allthrough the night. But they suffer in silence as I do. As I do, they seethe uselessness of a fuss."
"You _will_ get used to it, Arthur," said Sir Paul indulgently but notunironically, at the end of Mr. Prohack's disquisition. "You're in anervous state and your judgment's warped. Now, I never even heard yourfamous clock strike ten."
"No, you wouldn't, Paul! And my judgment's warped, is it?" There wasirritation in Mr. Prohack's voice. He took out his watch. "In sixty orseventy seconds you shall hear that clock strike eleven, and you shallgive me your honest views about it. And you shall apologise to me."
Sir Paul obediently and sympathetically listened, while the murmur ofthe glowing reception and the low beat of music continued within.
"You tell me when it starts to strike," said he.
"You won't want any telling," said Mr. Prohack, who knew too well theriving, rending, smashing sound of the terrible bells.
"It's a pretty long seventy seconds," observed Sir Paul.
"My watch must be fast," said Mr. Prohack, perturbed.
But at eighteen minutes past eleven the clock had audibly struck neitherthe hour nor the quarter. Sir Paul was a man of tact. He said simply:
"I should like a drink, dear old boy."
"_The clock's not striking_," said Mr. Prohack, with solemn joy, as thewonderful truth presented itself to him. "Either it's stopped, orthey've cut off the striking attachment." And to one of the maids on thelanding he said as they passed towards the buffet: "Run out and see whattime it is by the church clock, and come back and tell me, will you?" Afew minutes later he was informed that the church clock showed half-pasteleven. The clock therefore was still going but had ceased to strike.Mr. Prohack at once drank two glasses of champagne at the buffet, whileSir Paul had the customary whiskey.
"I say, old thing, I say!" Sir Paul protested.
"_I shall sleep!_" said Mr. Prohack in a loud, gay, triumphant voice. Hewas a new man.
* * * * *
The reception now seemed to him far more superb than ever. It was almostat its apogee. All the gilt chairs were occupied; all the couches andfauteuils of the room were occupied, and certain delicious toiletteswere even spread on rugs or on the bare, reflecting floors. On everyhand could be heard artistic discussions, serious and informed and yetlightsome in tone. If it was not the real originality of jazz music thatwas
being discussed, it was the sureness of the natural untaught tasteof the denizens of the East End and South London, and if not that thenthe greatness of male revue artistes, and if not that then the need of anational theatre and of a minister of fine arts, and if not that thenthe sculptural quality of the best novels and the fictional quality ofthe best sculpture, and if not that then the influence on British lifeof the fox-trot, and if not that then the prospects of bringing modernpoets home to the largest public by means of the board schools, and ifnot that then the evil effects of the twin great London institutions forteaching music upon the individualities of the young geniuses entrustedto them, and if not that the part played by the most earnest amateurs inthe destruction of opera, and if not that the total eclipse ofBeethoven, Brahms and Wagner since the efflorescence of the RussianBallet. And always there ran like a flame through the conversations thehot breath of a passionate intention to make Britain artistic in theeyes of the civilised world.
What especially pleased Mr. Prohack about the whole affair, as he movedto and fro seeking society now instead of avoiding it, was the perfectfutility of the affair, save as it affected Eve's reputation. Heperceived the beauty of costly futility, and he was struck again, whenfrom afar he observed his wife's conquering mien, by the fact that thereception did not exist for the League, but the League for thereception. The reception was a real and a resplendent thing; nobodycould deny it. The League was a fog of gush. The League would be dear attwopence half-penny. The reception was cheap if it stood him in fivehundred pounds. Eve was an infant; Eve was pleased with gewgaws; but Evehad found herself and he was well content to pay five hundred pounds forthe look on her ingenuous face.
"And nothing of this would have happened," he thought, impressed by thewonders of life, "if in a foolish impulse of generosity I hadn't oncelent a hundred quid to that chap Angmering."
He descried Lady Massulam in converse with a tall, stout andmagnificently dressed gentleman, who bowed deeply and departed as Mr.Prohack approached.
"Who is your fat friend?" said Mr. Prohack.
"He's from _The Daily Picture_.... But isn't this rather a strange wayof greeting a guest after so long a separation? Do you know that I'm inyour house and you haven't shaken hands with me?"
There was a note of intimacy and of challenge in Lady Massulam'sdemeanour that pleased Mr. Prohack immensely, and caused him to see thatthe romance of Frinton was neither factitious nor at an end. He feltpleasantly, and even thrillingly, that they had something between them.
"Ah!" he returned, consciously exerting his charm. "I thought youdetested our English formality and horrible restraint. Further, thisisn't my house; it's my wife's."
"Your wife is wonderful!" said Lady Massulam, as though teaching him toappreciate his wife and indicating that she alone had the right thus toteach him,--the subtlest thing. "I've never seen an evening betterdone--_reussie_."
"She is rather wonderful," Mr. Prohack admitted, his tone implying thatwhile putting Lady Massulam in a class apart, he had wit enough to puthis wife too in a class apart,--the subtlest thing.
"I quite expected to meet you again in Frinton," said Lady Massulamsimply. "How abrupt you are in your methods!"
"Only when it's a case of self-preservation," Mr. Prohack responded,gazing at her with daring significance.
"I'm going to talk to Mrs. Prohack," said Lady Massulam, rising. Butbefore she left him she murmured confidentially in his ear: "Where'syour son?"
"Don't know. Why?'
"I don't think he's come yet. I'm afraid the poor boy's affairs are notvery bright."
"I shall look after him," said Mr. Prohack, grandly. A qualm did piercehim at the sound of her words, but he would not be depressed. He smiledserenely, self-confidently, and said to himself: "I could look afterforty Charleses."
He watched his wife and his friend chatting together as equals in _TheDaily Picture_. Yes, Eve was wonderful, and but for sheer hazard hewould never have known how wonderful she was capable of being.
"You've got a great show here to-night, old man," said a low, mysteriousvoice at his side. Mr. Softly Bishop was smiling down his nose andholding out his hand while looking at nothing but his nose.
"Hello, Bishop!" said Mr. Prohack, controlling a desire to add: "I'd noidea _you'd_ been invited!"
"Samples of every world--except the next," said Mr. Softly Bishop. "Andnow the theatrical contingent is arriving after its night's work."
"Do you know who that fellow is?" Mr. Prohack demanded, indicating alittle man with the aspect of a prize-fighter who was imperiallyconveying to Mrs. Prohack that Mrs. Prohack was lucky to get him to herreception.
"Why!" replied Mr. Bishop. "That's the Napoleon of the stage."
"Not Asprey Chown!"
"Asprey Chown."
"Great Scott!" And Mr. Prohack laughed.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Mere glee. This is the crown of my career as a man of the world." Hesaw Mr. Asprey Chown give a careless brusque nod to Ozzie Morfey, and helaughed again.
"It's rather comic, isn't it?" Mr. Softly Bishop acquiesced. "I wonderwhy Oswald Morfey has abandoned his famous stock for an ordinarynecktie."
"Probably because he's going to be my son-in-law," said Mr. Prohack.
"Ah!" ejaculated Mr. Softly Bishop. "I congratulate him."
Mr. Prohack looked grim in order to conceal his joy in the assurancethat he would sleep that night, and in the sensations produced by theclear fact that Lady Massulam was still interested in him. Somehow hewanted to dance, not with any woman, but by himself, a reel.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Mr. Softly Bishop. "You _are_ shining to-night.Here's Eliza Fiddle, and that's her half-sister Miss Fancy behind her."
And it was Eliza Fiddle, and the ageing artiste with her ravagedcomplexion and her defiant extra-vivacious mien created instantly animpression such as none but herself could have created. The entireassemblage stared, murmuring its excitement, at the renowned creature.Eliza loved the stare and the murmur. She was like a fish dropped intowater after a gasping spell in mere air.
"I admit I was in too much of a hurry when I spoke of having reached thezenith," said Mr. Prohack. "I'm only just getting there now. And who'sthe half-sister?"
"She's not precisely unknown on the American stage," answered Mr. SoftlyBishop. "But before we go any further I'd perhaps better tell you asecret." His voice and his gaze dropped still lower. "She's aparticularly fine girl, and it won't be my fault if I don't marry her.Not a word of course! Mum!" He turned away, while Mr. Prohack wasdevising a suitable response.
"Welcome to your old home. And do come with me to the buffet. You mustbe tired after your work," Mr. Prohack burst out in a bold, loud voiceto Eliza, taking her away from his wife, whose nearly exhausted tactalmost failed to hide her relief.
"I do hope you like the taste of my old home," Eliza answered. "My newhouse up the river is furnished throughout in real oriental red lacquer.You must come and see it."
"I should love to," said Mr. Prohack bravely.
"This is my little sister, Miss Fancy. Fan, Mr. Prohack."
Mr. Prohack expressed his enchantment.
At the buffet Eliza did not refuse champagne, but Miss Fancy refused."Now don't put on airs, Fan," Eliza reproved her sister heartily anddrank off her glass while Mr. Prohack sipped his somewhat cautiously. Heliked Eliza's reproof. He was beginning even to like Eliza. To say thather style was coarse was to speak in moderation; but she was natural,and her individuality seemed to be sending out waves in all directions,by which all persons in the vicinity were affected whether they desiredit or not. Mr. Prohack met Eliza's glance with satisfaction. She at anyrate had nothing to learn about life that she was capable of learning.She knew everything--and was probably the only creature in the room whodid. She had succeeded. She was adored--strangely enough. And she didnot put on airs. Her original coarseness was apparently quiteunobscured, whereas that of Miss Fancy had been not very skilfullypainted over. Miss Fancy was a blonde, much youn
ger than Eliza; alsoslimmer and more finickingly and luxuriously dressed and jewelled. ButMr. Prohack cared not for her. She was always keeping her restlessinarticulate lips in order, buttoning them or sewing them up orcaressing one with the other. Further, she looked down her nose;probably this trait was the secret lien between her and Mr. SoftlyBishop. Mr. Prohack, despite a cloistral lifetime at the Treasury,recognised her type immediately. She was of the type that wheedles, butnever permits itself to be wheedled. And she was so pretty, and sosimpering, and her blue eyes were so steely. And Mr. Prohack, in hisoriginal sinfulness, was pleased that she was thus. He felt that "itwould serve Softly Bishop out." Not that Mr. Softly Bishop had done himany harm! Indeed the contrary. But he had an antipathy to Mr. SoftlyBishop, and the spectacle of Mr. Softly Bishop biting off more than hecould chew, of Mr. Softly Bishop being drawn to his doom, afforded Mr.Prohack the most genuine pleasure. Unfortunately Mr. Prohack was one ofthe rare monsters who can contemplate with satisfaction the misfortunesof a fellow being.
Mr. Softly Bishop unostentatiously joined the sisters and Mr. Prohack.
"Better have just a sip," he said to Miss Fancy, when told by Eliza thatthe girl would not be sociable. His eyes glimmered at her through hisartful spectacles. She listened obediently to his low-voiced wisdom andsipped. She was shooting a million fascinations at him. Mr. Prohackdecided that the ultimate duel between the two might be a pretty eventhing after all; but he would put his money on the lady. And he hadthought Mr. Softly Bishop so wily!
A fearful thought suddenly entered his mind: supposing the failure ofthe church-clock's striking powers should be only temporary; supposingit should recover under some verger's treatment, and strike twelve!
"Let's go into the conservatory and look at the Square," said he. "Ialways look at the Square at midnight, and it's nearly twelve now."
"You're the most peculiar man I ever met," said Eliza Fiddle, eyeing himuneasily.
"Very true," Mr. Prohack agreed.
"I'm half afraid of you."
"Very wise," said Mr. Prohack absently.
They crossed the rooms together, arousing keen interest in all beholders.And as they crossed Charlie entered the assemblage. He certainly had anextremely perturbed--or was it merely self-conscious--face. And just infront of him was Mimi Winstock, who looked as if she was escaping fromthe scene of a crime. Was Lady Massulam's warning about Charlie about tobe justified? Mr. Prohack's qualm was renewed. The very ground trembledfor a second under his feet and then was solid and moveless again. Nosooner had the quartette reached the conservatory than Eliza left it togo and discuss important affairs with Mr. Asprey Chown, who had summonedOzzie to his elbow. They might not have seen one another for many years,and they might have been settling the fate of continents.
Mr. Prohack took out his watch, which showed a minute to twelve. Heexperienced a minute's agony. The clock did not strike.
"Well," said Mr. Softly Bishop, who during the minute had beenwhispering information about the historic Square to Miss Fancy, who hungwith all her weight on his words, "Well, it's very interesting and evenamusing, we three being alone here together isn't it?... The three heirsof the late Silas Angmering! How funny life is!" And he examined hisnose with new curiosity.
All Mr. Prohack's skin tingled, and his face flushed, as he realisedthat Miss Fancy was the mysterious third beneficiary under Angmering'swill. Yes, she was in fact jewelled like a woman who had recently beenhandling a hundred thousand pounds or so. And Mr. Softly Bishop might beless fascinated by the steely blue eyes than Mr. Prohack had imagined.Mr. Softly Bishop might in fact win the duel. The question, however, hadno interest for Mr. Prohack, who was absorbed in a sense of gloomyhumiliation. He rushed away from his co-heirs. He simply had to rushaway right to bad.