Читать книгу Mr. Prohack - Arnold Bennett - Страница 34

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Mr. Prohack was extremely happy; and Sissie too, in so far as concerned the chat with her father, was extremely happy. They adored each other, and they adored the awful woman laid low with a headache. Sissie's hat and cloak, which she had dropped carelessly on a chair, slipped to the floor, the hat carried away by the cloak. Mr. Prohack rose and picked them up, took them out of the room, and returned.

"So now you've straightened up, and you're pleased with yourself," observed Sissie.

"So now," said he. "Perhaps I may turn on my curiosity tap."

"Don't," said Sissie. "I'm very gloomy. I'm very disappointed. I might burst into tears at any moment. … Yes, I'm not joking."

"Out with it."

"Oh, it's nothing! It's only that I saw a chance of making some money and it hasn't come off."

"But what do you want to make money for?"

"I like that. Hasn't mother been telling me off and on all day that something will have to be done?"

"Done about what?"

"About economy, naturally." Sissie spoke rather sharply.

"But you don't mean your mother has spent the day in urging you to go forth and earn money!"

"Of course she hasn't, father. How absurd you are! You know very well mother would hate the idea of me earning money. Hate it! But I mean to earn some. Surely it's much better to bring more money in than to pinch and scrape. I loathe pinching and scraping."

"It's a sound loathing."

"And I thought I'd got hold of a scheme. But it's too big. I have fifty pounds odd of my own, but what use is fifty pounds when a hundred's needed? It's all off and I'm in the last stage of depression."

She threw away the core of the second apple.

"Is that port? I'll have some."

"So that you're short of fifty pounds?" said Mr. Prohack, obediently pouring out the port—but only half a glass. "Well, I might be able to let you have fifty pounds myself, if you would deign to accept it."

Sissie cried compassionately: "But you haven't got a cent, dad!"

"Oh! Haven't I? Did your mother tell you that?"

"Well, she didn't exactly say so."

"I should hope not! And allow me to inform you, my girl, that in accusing me of not having a cent you're being guilty of the worst possible taste. Children should always assume that their fathers have mysterious stores of money, and that nothing is beyond their resources, and if they don't rise to every demand it's only because in their inscrutable wisdom they deem it better not to. Or it may be from mere cussedness."

"Yes," said Sissie. "That's what I used to think when I was young. But I've looked up your salary in Whitaker's Almanac."

"It was very improper of you. However, nothing is secret in these days, and so I don't mind telling you that I've backed a winner to-day—not to-day, but some little time since—and I can if necessary and agreeable let you have fifty pounds."

Mr. Prohack as it were shook his crest in plenary contentment. He had the same sensation of creativeness as he had had a while earlier with his son—a godlike sensation. And he was delighted with his girl. She was so young and so old. And her efforts to play the woman of the world with him were so comic and so touching. Only two or three years since she had been driving a motor-van in order to defeat the Germans. She had received twenty-eight shillings a week for six days of from twelve to fourteen hours. She would leave the house at eight and come back at eight, nine, or ten. And on her return, pale enough, she would laugh and say she had had her dinner and would go to bed. But she had not had her dinner. She was simply too tired and nervously exasperated to eat. And she would lie in bed and tremble and cry quietly from fatigue. She did not know that her parents knew these details. The cook, her confidante, had told them, much later. And Mr. Prohack had decreed that Sissie must never know that they knew. She had stuck to the task during a whole winter, skidding on glassy asphalt, slimy wood, and slithery stone-setts in the East End, and had met with but one accident, a minor affair. The experience seemed to have had no permanent effect on her, but it had had a permanent effect on her father's attitude towards her—her mother had always strongly objected to what she called the "episode," had shown only relief when it concluded, and had awarded no merit for it.

"Can you definitely promise me fifty pounds, dad?" Sissie asked quietly.

Mr. Prohack made no articulate answer. His reply was to take out his cheque-book and his fountain-pen and fill in a cheque to Miss Sissie Prohack or order. He saw no just reason for differentiating between the sexes in his offspring. He had given a cheque to Charlie; he gave one to Sissie.

"Then you aren't absolutely stone-broke," said Sissie, smiling.

"I should not so describe myself."

"It's just like mother," she murmured, the smile fading.

Mr. Prohack raised a sternly deprecating hand. "Enough."

"But don't you want to know what I want the money for?" Sissie demanded.

"No! … Ha-ha!"

"Then I shall tell you. The fact is I must tell you."